“The building of the Temple of Solomon is the symbolical representation of the gradual acquirement of the secret wisdom, or magic; the erection and development of the spiritual from the earthly; the manifestation of the power and splendor of the spirit in the physical world, through the wisdom and genius of the builder. The latter, when he has become an adept, is a mightier king than Solomon himself, the emblem of the sun or Light himself – the light of the real subjective world, shining in the darkness of the objective universe. This is the “Temple” which can be reared without the sound of the hammer, or any tool of iron being heard in the house while it is “in building”.
In the East, this science is called, in some places, the “seven storied”, in others, the “nine-storied” Temple; every story answers allegorically to a degree of knowledge acquired. Throughout the countries of the Orient, wherever magic and the wisdom-religion are studied, its practitioners and students are known among their craft as Builders – for they build the temple of knowledge, of secret science. Those of the adepts who are active, are styled practical or operative Builders, while the students, or neophytes are classed as speculative or theoretical. The former exemplify in works their control over the forces of inanimate as well as animate nature; the latter are but perfecting themselves in the rudiments of the sacred science. These terms were evidently borrowed at the beginning by the unknown founders of the first Masonic guilds.
In the now popular jargon, “Operative Masons” are understood to be the bricklayers and the handicraftsmen, who composed the Craft down to Sir Christopher Wren’s time; and “Speculative Masons”, all members of the Order, as now understood. The sentence attributed to Jesus, “Thou are Peter…upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, disfigured, as it is, by mistranslation and misinterpretation, plainly indicates its real meaning. We have shown the signification of Pater and Petra, with the hierophants – the interpretation traced on the tables of stone of the final initiation, was handed by the initiator to the chosen future interpreter.
Having acquainted himself with its mysterious contents, which revealed to him the mysteries of creation, the initiated became a builder himself, for he was made acquainted with the dodecahedron, or the geometrical figure on which the universe was built. To what he had learned in previous initiations of the use of the rule and of architectural principles, was added a cross, the perpendicular and horizontal lines of which were supposed to form the foundation of the spiritual temple by placing them across the junction, or central primordial point, the element of all existences, representing the first concrete idea of deity. Henceforth, he could, as a Master Builder (see 1 Corinthians 3:10), erect a temple of wisdom on that rock of Petra, for himself; and having laid a sure foundation, let “another build thereon.””
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 