Masonic Articles and Essays
The Ritual and Myth of Freemasonry
The Very Ills..... Bro... Magdalena I. Cumsille 33o
Date Published: 9/27/2018
To understand the Light of Freemasonry, one must utilize the power of imagination - for to imagine is to echo the original creation of the Universe.
Modern man tries to comprehend the Universe by translating the readings of his five senses. When perception of the world is limited to the five-sensory modality, the results are incomplete. This method allows us, only, to the understanding of a concrete world. Concrete techniques of the five senses are: analysis, calculation, measurement, etc. How can we - by analyzing, calculating, dissecting, and measuring - understand Light: the first principle of creation? Aren't Masons seekers of the Light?
Genesis states that: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit [imagination?] of God moved upon the face of the waters [desire?]. And God said, ‘Let there be Light,’ and there was Light." And Goethe stated: " The eye was created by the light for the light, so that light created an organ, which could become light itself."
Our mind is a combination of two sets of images. The first is produced by contact with the external world through the sense-organs – the Square. The Second is produced by the product of our imagination [Spirit] - the Compasses. If the manifested world is the expression of a Reality through Divine Ideation, then it is natural to suppose that the world imagined in our mind is the result of the impact of the Universal Mind upon our individual mind. Isn't “Light” what makes "Darkness" visible?
To understand Light, we have to use our imagination. Goethe stated that "... to imagine is to echo the original creation of the Universe." Our ritual and creation myths are anthropomorphic models of creation. Light is not to be found in any ritual or myth but in the actual living of the forms [acting on the Square] which these indicate.
Myth and rituals were initially found in oral tradition, passed down by word of mouth, preserved collectively, and are anonymous. They are formalized presentations of patterns inherent within human consciousness. They reveal their message to other levels of awareness than to the logical or reasoning mental processes; normally they leap these processes and convey truth. Myth or rituals are energized not only by their content or substance, but by the effect they have in the imagination of the characters involved. One of their purposes is to help man to move from the concrete world to a world of images, from ideas to ideals.
Myth and ritual are portrayed as stories embodying and proclaiming a pattern of relationship between humanity, other forms of life, and the environment. This environment is not only one of Space, Energy, and Time, but also, of Consciousness, which unifies them as one and from which all other forms are generated.
The effect of myth and ritual depends mostly upon the unspoken or hidden parts. The completion relies on the contribution of the hearer in the case of the myth and of the participant in the ritual. It arises from within our Consciousness rather than from the external form, thus expanding our awareness.
Albert Pike, in Morals and Dogma, states: "... in all histories of gods and heroes lie couched and hidden astronomical details and the history of the operations of visible nature, and those, in their turn, were also symbols of higher and profound truths."
