THE TRUE FREEMASONRY: EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC

"... the Grand Lodge above, where the world's Great Architect lives
and reigns for ever."

(Masonic Ritual).

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INTRODUCTION.

The method of treating a subject of vast magnitude necessarily varies
with the character, the knowledge and the mental attitude of those to
whom the writer addresses himself. To treat fully from all points of
view of the Esoteric Craft of Freemasonry would require many volumes,
countless references to ancient and modern books, some well-nigh
inaccessible to the ordinary student, and a profundity of scholarship
far beyond anything that we possess, probably beyond that possessed by
any human being now alive: yet the materials exist, their locality is
known, and some day, perhaps, they may be compiled.  Meantime, however,
signs are not wanting that a higher Masonic consciousness is awakening
in the Craft.  Numbers of the Order are gradually, and here and there,
becoming alive to the fact that much more than meets the eye and ear
lies beneath the surface of Masonic doctrine and symbols.  They reflect
that the phenomenal growth of the Craft is scarcely a ccountable for
upon the supposition that modern Speculative Freemasonry perpetuates
nothing more than the private associations that once existed in
connection with the operative builders' trade. Upon a little thought it
becomes pretty obvious that our Third Degree and the central legend that
forms the climax of the Craft system cannot have, and can never have
had, any direct or practical bearing upon, or connection with, the trade
of the operative mason. It may be urged that we have our great charity
system and that the social side of our proceedings is a valuable and
humanising asset. Granted, but other people and other societies are
philanthropic and social as well as we; and a secret society is not
necessary to promote such ends, which are merely supplemental to the
original purpose of the Order. The discernment of such facts as these,
then, suggests to us that the Craft has not yet entered into the full
heritage of understanding its own system and that side-matters connected
with Freemasonry which we have long emphasised so strongly, valuable in
their own way as they are, are not after all the primary and proper work
of the Order. The work of the Order, is to initiate into certain secrets
and mysteries, and obviously if the Order fails to expound its own
secrets and mysteries and thereby confer real initiations as
distinguished from passing candidates through certain formal ceremonies,
it is not fulfilling its original purpose whatever other incidental good
it may be doing.

Now as these facts are the basis upon which this lecture proceeds, let
us at the outset make our first point by stating that as the progress in
the Craft of every Brother, admitted into its rinks is by gradual,
successive stages, in like manner the understanding of the Masonic
system is also a matter of gradual development. Thus, if the idea of the
Craft, which we shall endeavour to set forth in this Paper, be, as we
believe it to be, true and supported by the most abundant authority,
then the perverse purposes to which its primary designs have been put,
the debasing of the pure ideal left by the original founders, was not
only inevitable but actually essential, a vital part of the scheme.
These abuses are "in" Freemasonry, but not "of"  Freemasonry, and if it
were possible to conceive an Order into which no such imperfections
could possibly enter, it might indeed be a glorified assemblage of
Adepts, but it would most certainly not be the Masonic Order on earth.
The elementary propositions of our subject are easy enough to state and
will probably not be disputed by students: viz. that roughly three
centuries ago a group of far seeing wise men, called (either
contemporaneously or subsequently) members of "The Invisible Society",
caused to be grafted on to the Guild and Fellowship of Operative
Masonry, a certain system of ethics and some principles of cosmogony or
theogony or whatever may be the proper word, such imported teaching
being either original or tradition, or collated, but in any case forming
a distinct system; that they founded a school or association for the
purpose of promulgating these teachings, giving the broad lines of such
association its rules, government, and ceremonies to their immediate and
most advanced followers; that these Brethren subsequently elaborated the
scheme, which as time went on consolidated and developed into a numerous
and powerful organisation, which organisation is in fact represented by
the whole body of Freemasonry as we know it today. So much is tolerably
simple and gives us a purely human and historical association, not
differing much perhaps from a big mutual-improvement society. But when
we add to this conception that the Founders of Speculative Freemasonry
were Initiates, that the society had an esoteric, as well as an exoteric
aspect, are that in this esoteric aspect the Master acknowledged by the
Founders has always occultly directed the Society in its progress and
does so still, then a perfect whirl of questions assails us. How can it
be proved? Did the first members of the Society think so? How comes it
that the mythology, the symbolism, the very name, and legend of the
Master Builder, are borrowed from every imaginable source, Kabbalistic,
Gnostic, Neo-Platonic, Buddhist, and Egyptian? If an occult guidance be
claimed for the Craft, whence all these corruptions and abuses? and so
on; there is no end to such questionings. It is no part of out purpose
to answer such questions categorically; it would be useless to attempt
it, for a new flight would emerge at once; but rather to indicate what
is the true conception of Freemasonry in such a manner as will
demonstrate that all these and similar questions are irrelevant, and
proceed from ignorance of the fundamental idea involved in the concept
of the Masonic Order. The keynote of the lines we propose to take will
be found in the Hermetic axiom, "As above, so below". And by way of
introduction to what follows in the main part of the Paper, we should
add that whether the student takes the Gnostic view, or the pure
Buddhistic, or any other great Cosmogony which is available, it is clear
that an inner, force or spirits operating through or manifesting itself
by means of the matter which is perceptible by the senses, is the true
construction and meaning of the Universe. We may take the imper ceptible
force or spirit to be anything we please for the time being, either the
final supreme "causa causans"; operating directly or by means of
intermediate Aeons, Dhyan Chohans, Elohim, Angels, Creative Spirits, or
what you will. Let us but admit that in some way or other there is a
substantial real which is the cause of the apparent. As in the Macrocosm
so in the microcosm; the Divine spark, call it Spirit, call it if you
like Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or by any name you please, is manifest in,
imprisoned in, or dwells in, a material body, phenomenal and illusory if
you will.  The body, however, whether of the Cosmos or of the
individual, is perceptible to the bodily senses of other individuals; it
has its limitations, its hereditary qualities, its Karma, which do not
affect the spirit or Higher Principles, or Higher Self, save in so far
as the latter is bound to its prison house.  And because the same law by
the Hermetic axiom must pervade all things, every association must have
its inner spirit and its outward material form.  So the Masonic Order
has its inner guiding spirit, and the outward form which, like the form
of a man, was born at a definite time with the limitations of heredity,
with Karma, all tending to obstruct and delay the union of the visible
phenomenal body of Freemasonry with the Substantial Spirit thereof, or
what we may perhaps term the finding of the Higher Self.  The relation
of this Spirit to the spirit of the Cosmos, by whatever name called, and
also to the Spirit which animated the human bodies of the Founders of
the Craft, we shall endeavour to show, with a view of indicating that
the teachings of our Order are utterly consonant with those of the
inspired seers of all ages. For the benefit of Brethren who are not
specially familiar with Oriental philosophies and modes of thought, an
appendix has been added to this Paper on the "Seven Principles of Man"
as understood by the Eastern schools, a conception which has been
largely used as an analogy.

1. THE MASONIC CRAFT: ASTRAL AND VISIBLE.

It will no doubt be of assistance to students, and also serve to bring
out clearly the position which the Masonic Order claims to occupy, if
fundamental theories are stated in the form of propositions; such
propositions being followed by explanatory and illustrative notes.  Of
course these propositions must not on any account be taken as dogmatic
statements, but merely as a convenient way of explaining a somewhat
difficult subject. Obviously the first point is with regard to the
nature of the Order, and our first proposition therefore is:

1..The Masonic Order is in itself a distinct living entity or unit,
whose visible body is composed of multitudes of entities, each having an
individuality of its own, the whole Order, like the living human being,
having its seven Principles.

The first proof of this proposition is to be found in the existence of
the Masonic Order as an Association at the present day, for it is fact
that every association is to a greater or less extent an individual
entity apart from the members comprising it.  For instance, a regiment
of soldiers has its ideal personality, its Linga Sharira (model-body,
popularly called "astral body"), so to speak, which survives from
generation to generation, and has definite character, memory, honour and
disgrace. Further, the men composing the regiment may be regarded as the
Sthula Sharira (physical body) of the regiment, while the "esprit de
corps" which holds them together corresponds to the Prana (life) of the
regiment.  Thus in every association the seven principles may be traced,
some being dormant or mere potentialities; and according to the varying
development of them, so are the associations analogous to human, animal,
vegetable, or mineral entities.

The fallacy opposed to this lies in confining the conception of a living
entity or unit to such bodies as have form and limitations perceptible
to human senses, as, for example, to men, animals, vegetables etc. It
is, howevers obvious that every cell of the human body has in a certain
sense an individuality of its own (using the term in the popular sense),
it lives, it functions, and dies, according to its own laws of growth
and development.  There are also in the human body innumerable parasites
and bacteria, having nothing in common with its life save as guests it a
house, some of them being actively hostile to the common life.
Moreover, multitudes of cells of foreign matter simply pass through, and
are never incorporated in the body; hence, to the perception of a cell
or a microscopic parasite the entire human being as an entity might well
seem a myth. Either then we must make the limit of the perception of
human senses our final limit, or conceive of an association as a living
entity; the latter is obviously "a priori" the most philosophic.

Like the ordinarily understood living entity, the Masonic Order, and
indeed every other association, has both its material and its astral
body.  The astral body is the ideal form, the internal and invisible
Order, so to speak, and of course existing before the visible and
material form. This astral Order must be as old as Humanity, and capable
of existence apart from the visible Order, and the counter proposition
is that such invisible or astral Order is the only true Order. Express
reference is made in the Order rituals to the existence of a Grand Lodge
Above, having its Grand Master and Officers.  Such reference is meant to
testify to the fact, which forms part of the long stream of esoteric
tradition throughout the ages, that a supernal Masonic Assembly not only
exists, but that it preceded, in point of time and constitution, the
Masonic Order on earth. Had it not so existed and preceded the
terrestrial Order, that Order itself would not have existed; for the
hypothesis is, as we have already stated, that the latter is the shadow
and projection upon the physical world of a corresponding hierarchical
order in the superphysical.

There is, then, an astral Masonic Order or inner community which has
been engaged from the earliest ages in building the grand Temple for the
regeneration of Humanity, by which the kingdom of God will become
manifest, as is proved by the testimony of occult science of all ages.
There is also a visible material association, now existing, which we
have suggested was considered by its original Founders to be the
material and visible body corresponding to that astral Order. The
Brethren of the 1717 Grand Lodge were the custodians of the Craft
legend, now known as the Hiramic myths and it will be necessary to show
or assume that this mystic Hiram ("our Master Hiram Abiff") was the same
as the Prototype of the ancient mysteries. It will be necessary to
return to this point, but for the present, accepting the various
Hermetic and Kabbalistic schools as connecting links, we may assume it,
although we add the qualification that the view of the 1717 Brethren was
more limited, and that they knew less of the mystic side of these great
teachings than the famous schools who preceded them.

The relations between the visible and the invisible Masonic Order are
analogous to those between the material body and the astral double of a
human being.  This must needs follow as a corollary from the
propositions for every material unit must have its astral form, and the
relationship between the two is always the same.

The various human beings composing the Association called the Craft are
analogous to the various cells composing the human body, these are
heterogeneous and none of them exactly represent the whole. There is an
individuality (again using the term in the popular sense) in every
association which is more or less definite, but which is not the
individuality of any of its members or of the sum of them, or the
average of that sum; but a distinct entity.  That this applies to the
Craft is clear from the popular speech even of the critics of
Freemasonry, who declare, "Freemasonry teaches, proclaims, instructs
etc," and although usually there is no authority for making such
statements about Freemasonry, the speakers instinctively recognise the
Craft as a distinct entity.

Every philosophic truth is faced by an opposite error, which is mostly a
misapprehension. It may therefore conduce to a better understanding of
our first proposition if we place alongside of it its
counter-proposition, viz, "Freemasonry, like every association, is
nothing more than the aggregate of the individuals at any particular
time composing it, and can, therefore, have no character or qualities of
its own". This counter proposition represents one form of ordinary
thinking, and as the philosophic "pros " and "cons" have been so
thoroughly thrashed out in the arguments of the Nominalists and the
Realists there is no need for their repetition here.

We may now predicate a few points which follow as natural corollaries
from the analogy of the body of Freemasonry to the human body:-

1.. It ought to be sufficiently organic to express in material form and
human language its constitution, rules and teaching.

2.. As the material human body is subject to sickness and imperfection
of various parts, to old age, decay and death, and to Karmic results in
general, which do not touch the higher principles, so it is in the
Craft. Imperfection in the members is not only to be expected, but is an
absolute necessity.

3.. As a man often knows inwardly in his higher knowledge truths which
he is utterly unable to express in words or in any way to communicate to
his fellows unless they are able by their own intuition to grasp his
meaning, so the amount which any man or body of men are able to gather
of the doctrine of Freemasonry must by no means be taken as the sum
total of those doctrines, but some allowance must be made for the
limitations both of expression and receptiveness incident to material
bodies,

This brings us to the second and third of our propositions, viz:-

(2).. The visible body of the Craft, like the material human body, had a
material origin at a definite epoch of time. Its organic constitution is
hereditary and is for the purpose of acting as a vehicle, or means of
communication between the invisible soul and other souls bound in
material limitations.

(3).. This organism is the constitution designed by the first Founders
of the Masonic Order acting on the express or implied directions of the
inner community whose doctrines they desired to perpetuate.

The demonstration of this follows directly from the analogy of an
association to the human body. The body of a child is derived from its
parents, and from them it inherits the organs whereby in mortal life it
communicates with its fellows, but the soul is not derived from the
parents. In like manner, if any man or body of men, desire to perpetuate
any idea, or to impress any idea on the world at large, the first and
most obvious method is to form a society thoroughly impressed and
impregnated with that idea. The second method is to write a book, adopt
a written book, or make a compilation. The deficiency in the case of the
first method is that the society may wander from their original purposes
while in the second instance written words soon lose their meaning in
the absence of a living teacher to expound them. Hence, it follows that
the Society with written records presents an exact analogy to the child
stamped with the hereditary image of its parents, and the living soul
coming into that child, the body becomes its vehicle of communication.

Adopting the conception of the Masonic Craft as a unit consisting of an
association of smaller units, held together by some common tie, and with
some common object of central will, informing and controlling the
association, it is evident that unless there is a clear and
unquestionable means whereby that will can be expressed, the Order is a
nonentity so far as the rest of the world is concerned.  This brings us
to the fourth proposition:-

(4)..The physical and visible Masonic Order, in common with every other
Association, has, as the physical man has, organic means of
communicating its will, thoughts, and teaching.

This proposition is almost self-evident from a consideration of any
Association of which we know. For instance, the smallest club begins by
appointing a secretary to answer questions and to speak in the name of
the club, and then forms a more or less efficient organisation by which
the wishes of the members as a whole can be ascertained.  Similarly, a
limited Company has its board of directors, its seal authenticating its
utterances, and its official appointed to speak and act in the name of
the Company.  Even a Nation has its House of Representatives or its
Autocrat. In every case until such an organisation is formed the
Association has no cognisable existence. The common consent of both
friends and critics assigns an organic voice to Freemasonry by speaking
either in praise or condemnation of what the Craft does, says, or
teaches.

(5).. The organic means of communicating the thought, teaching or
decision of the whole Craft is by decree of a Grand Lodge, i.e., a
General Assembly lawful, approved and received by all subordinate
Lodges.

The Masonic movement began on St. John the Baptist's Day, 24th. June,
1717, in obscure circumstances, by four old London Lodges resolving to
generate out of themselves an over-riding fifth entity designed to be
the governing authority for themselves and a few other Lodges in and
around London and which became the first Grand Lodge. From the very
first it was considered that the whole Craft, either personally or by
representation, should deliberate on what concerned the whole.  When
Freemasons grew too numerous for all to be present, they came by
representation. In an association too large for a consensus of all its
members to be possible, the result is attained by the principle of
representation.  As there may be imperfection in the representation,
there may also be doubt about the expression of will when first
promulgated, but it is to be presumed accurate, and its subsequent
acceptance by the association makes it the organic voice of that
association and binding thereon. These conditions are all fulfilled in
the decrees of a Masonic Grand Lodge. The formation of the premier Grand
Lodge in 1717 was the seed-germ of the world-wide Craft of today.

The doctrines authoritatively promulgated by the Craft may be reduced to
a very small compass.  Since the great union between the Ancient and
Modern Grand Lodges in 1813: which resulted in the formation of the
United Grand Lodge of England, the organ (so to speak) of the living
Craft whose function was to enunciate teachings in final, absolute and
crystallised form, has become temporarily inoperative, its potentiality
however retaining. The office of the teaching Craft was thenceforth
limited to the authorizations, inculcation and application of truths
already defined, or to the tentative and local promulgation of teaching
hereafter perhaps to be generally received by the whole Craft.
Occultists will, of courses be familiar with the idea of a certain
amount of teaching being given out from an  authoritative source, and
then the supply ceasing for a time, to be again renewed at the proper
season.  Materialist enquirers  must simply accept the fact that the
Craft by its constitution provided itself with an organ of speech, and
that having made sundry definite statements by means thereof, it became
silent, although the organ of speech was not destroyed.

Surveying now the ground we have gone over, we see that the Craft may be
conceived of as an entity, apart from the individuals at any particular
time composing it, and bearing a strong analogy to the human body, the
men at any given time making up the association called the Craft,
corresponding to the molecules and cells composing the body; having also
its ideal or astral counterpart, imperfectly expressed by the outward
and visible Order; and having further its common mind or thought
faculty, and an organ whereby the thoughts evolved by that faculty can
be expressed and made known. It thus appears that we have the means of
knowing the outward or exoteric Freemasonry, and that we can use such
knowledge to gain acquaintance with the esoteric Order; see how far the
outer is a true presentment of the inner, how far Karmic Law operates,
and other problems of deep interest.

II. THE LIFE PRINCIPLE OF FREEMASONRY

It has been significantly stated that every man has three distinct
personalities; the first the man as he is, the second the man he
believes himself to be, and the third the man as others see him. Of
these, the first can probably only be known to omniscience, but the
synthesis of the second and third will come as near to it as it is
possible for finite human intelligence to attain. Indeed, the man
himself can no more know the outward presentment of his personality than
others judging him can know (as he him self partially does know) the
spirit and reason of that presentment, and its real meaning.  So, by
strict analogy; it is with the Masonic Order; outsiders who are not
members of the Craft, may have a very full knowledge of its outward
aspects, but of the inward realities they have no more knowledge than
outsiders have of the true motives of a man's actions. Just as it is
valuable to a man to be told by a friend how his conduct appears to
others, but dangerous to judge a man by appearance only; so the candid
criticism of honest outsiders is of the greatest value to the Craft, and
to the seeker after truth the account of our Masonic teaching and system
as presented by an outsider, when collated with the explanation thereof
given from within by the authoritative voice of the Order itself,
affords the best possible information of what Freemasonry really is.
The writings of the modern Hermetic school are of great value in this
respect; honest enough to see clearly faults as well as virtues, mystic
enough to discern the spiritual side of Freemasonry, and able to look
dispassionately on the outward presentment, they can know and describe
the visible body of the Craft, into which the voice of the living Craft
can infuse a living soul.  We have used the expression "the living
Craft," and the question naturally arises wherein does the life consist?
Here again the analogy of the human body will assist us, for science
informs us that the life principle of the body is resident in certain
cells. In a cell-colony, the life and the power of continuance of the
species resides in the germ-plastic cells, these are surrounded and
overlaid by enormous numbers of somatic cells which are mortal, which
come and go in the processes of metabolism, not the life of the colony,
yet necessary to its life. And these germ-plastic cells are not
homogeneous, but themselves undergo molecular changes whereby they
become each, as it were, the microcosm of the whole colony, so that each
germ-plastic cell has a potentiality of reproducing the entire colony.
On this molecular differentiation seems to depend the law of heredity,
and the most reasonable conclusion appears to be that the germ-plastic
of reproductive cell is a vehicle subject to continuous chance and
differentiation, but carrying the subtle order or life principle, and
capable of imparting it. That life principle must have been originally
infused into the cell from some universal life or over-soul, or whatever
name it may be called by.  The vehicle, however; of the germ cell being
the microcosm of the cell colony, is itself imperfect and limited, and
to this extent to be distinguished from the vital principle it carries,
which, being drawn from universal life, is not subject to these
imperfections.  The Craft, as we have seen, growing together with a
common life like a cell colony, arranged its own constitution and
conditions, therefore, although outsiders may perceive that there is a
life principle somewhere, it is only from within that the nature of that
life can be stated, or the precise conditions of it.  Taking the analogy
of members of the Craft to molecules of the human body, we should expect
to find that life dependent on certain members and passed from one to
another of them, a life moreover originally infused from without.  This
accordingly brings us to the next proposition:-

(6).. The corporate life of the Masonic Order resides in the rank or
degree of Master transmitted by appointed means from the Grand Officers
of the premier Grand Lodge, into whom the essential spirit of the Order
was originally infused.

At one time, before the first Grand Lodge of 1717, there  existed among
the Speculatives a special rank or degree of Master or Installed Master,
one of great exclusiveness and reserved for Brethren who were experts in
esoteric, philosophical, and occult matters.  At the formation of our
present system this Degree was not taken over; it probably was very
little a degree in the sense of being a formulated ritual, but consisted
rather of teaching transmitted orally.  In any case, it seems to have
been treated as displaced or superseded by the introduction of our
present Third Degree, the Constitutions of 1723 enacting that our system
should henceforth consist only of our present three Craft degrees plus
the H.R. Arch; but, as to Installation, they provided that after a
Master Elect of a Lodge has submitted to the ancient charges "as Masters
have done in all ages". the Grand Master (or a deputy) shall "according
to certain significant ceremonies and ancient usages" install him. This
shows that "certain significant ceremonies", brought forward from
antiquity, were meant to be perpetuated for the future. Thus the theory
of our Order regarding its own life is, and always has been, that it is
dependent on and resides in, and is transmitted by, its Installed
Masters; in other words, the Masonic equivalent of "the doctrine of the
Apostolic Succession".  Be it carefully understood that up to now there
is nothing as to supernatural grace or personal revelation, or moral
goodness. We are dealing simply with the human side of a human
organisation which has prescribed its objects and constitution, its mode
of communication with human beings, and the ceremonial means whereby its
common life is to be carried on.  All these elements we may observe in
more or less detail in every living association; in fact we are now
looking at the four lower principles of the Association known as the
Masonic Order.

To follow out the analogy, the general mass of members of the Craft are
its Sthula Sharira (physical body), chaotic if regarded as an
unorganised mass, but differentiated from the first into somatic and
germ-plastic cells, the latter being represented by Installed Master;
through these germ-cells the Prana, called Life in the case of a human
beings, Divine Wisdom in the case of the Craft, is conveyed more or less
vigorously and efficaciously to the whole organism.

The counter-proposition to Proposition 6 is that what is known as
Apostolic succession conveys no spiritual vitality, that the inspiration
or inward persuasion or intuitive sense which prompts a man to be
teacher is the sole effectual warrant, and that any ceremony of
ordination is merely the sign that a particular body of people for the
time being accept one of their number as their leader, just as they
might accept a member of Parliament. The answer to this
counter-proposition is that it is true of the astral Craft alluded to in
the Introduction to this Paper. The personal inspiration of, and
revelation given to, prophets, seers and initiated, was, before the
formation of the visible Craft, their warrant for teaching.  That such
personal inspiration, altogether unconnected with ordination and the
rank of Installed Mastery, may still exist, is nowhere denied by the
Craft - indeed, in our Instruction Lectures it is positively asserted to
exist (see First Section, First Lecture, "To seek for a Master and from
him to gain instruction"). The Masonic Order, however, as previously
shown, was to be a "visible" Order, i.e., the already existing astral
form was to assume a material and objective existence. In the process of
this formation the material process of carrying on the life of that
material body was formulated. Thus, to recur to the human analogy, the
life (if we may call it so) of an astral form, may be independent of the
mechanism of germ-plastic cells; but so soon as the subjective form
becomes objective or material, such mechanism or vehicle for the life
principle becomes necessary. The important point to note is that the
orig inators of the Craft, intending a distinctly visible, tangible and
material body, provided that its life principle should be clearly
recognised, and the presence or absence thereof provable by ordinary
historic methods and the rules of evidence.
 

The operation of the law of Karma on the lower principles of the Craft
will be treated, in the next section of our Paper.

III. THE KARMA OF THE CRAFT.

To some minds it may seem as though the analogy of the Craft to the
material body is somewhat strained and fantastic, and is, moreover,
unscientific.  The following references to modern scientific works where
the analogy is insisted on from the opposite side, viz. of a material
body to a commodity, may therefore be useful:-

...What is the organism? A community of living cells, a little state,
well provided with all the appurtenances of upper and under officials,
servants and masters, great and small."

(Maudsley, "Physiology of Mind").

"There is evidence that the semi-independent cells which go to make up a
complex organism are not destitute of intelligence.  A complex organism
may be said to be a community of cells."

(Syme on "The Modification of Organisms"). 

It all be useful now to see what species of body it was that the early
Freemasons took is the analogy to the visible Craft, and as to this they
leave no doubt whatever. It was the body of Hiram, as described in the
Order rituals.  Here observe that no question of the historic truth of
the Craft central legend is involved; that belongs to a totally
different part of the argument.  All we need now is

(1) The Craft, being an association which had provided itself with
definite machinery for ascertaining and declaring its will and thought,
deliberately designed and adapted certain myths as its canon of
teaching.

(2) The principal myth of the Craft system is that of the death And
burial of Hiram Abiff narrated in the traditional history.

(3) According to this narrative the visible body of the alleged Master
Builder passed through certain adventures, and had certain
characteristics.

(4) This body is taken as typical of, or analogous to, the body composed
of individual members united in an association.  Though it be said that
the whole narrative is an allegory, this part of the argument is
untouched. In that body so described lay what the association chose to
adopt as the microcosmic type of its own life, and such, therefore, must
be considered to be the Craft's thought of itself. Now, one great and
prime characteristic of the body so described was suffering, and the
suffering of a physical body means disunion and disharmony of its
molecules, whether arising from some of them being only imperfectly
governed by or in active opposition to the central will or from the
presence of some foreign body either passively or actively hostile to
the common life.

(7)..Pain and suffering in the human body correspond to disunion in the
Craft, and are the result of Karmic laws.

This follows from the correspondence of individual human beings to the
molecules of an organic body.  In the healthy human being every molecule
is permeated by the corporate life, and consequently perfectly fulfils
its function. But directly any molecule is cut off wholly or partially
from these life-currents and becomes separate, its semi-independent
condition becomes a wholly independent condition, with the self strongly
accentuated, and it is consequently a foreign body.  Immediately, by the
laws of its being, there is a great effort to cast out the foreign body
and because more or less of the tissues become involved in the struggle,
inflammation and suffering result.  All the pathology of disease may
practically be reduced to the presence in the organism of molecules
which do not obey the central will, and this disease and suffering is in
strict accordance with Karmic laws. If, then, nations and associations
have their Karma as well as human individualities, the presence in an
association of members whose conduct, ideas, etc., are out of accord
with the spirit of the association and its purposes, whether these be
actually foreign bodies (so to speak) or members from whom the spirit
has departed, the result is the same, disease and suffering proceeding
from Karmic laws, though we may be unable to see where the Karma was
generated. So the spirit that has from the first animated the Craft,
finds as St. Paul found "a law in its members warring against the law of
the Spirit." The Spirit of the Craft has to be "made perfect by
suffering", and that suffering is the presence of molecules (members)
mechanically part of its organism but not polarised to the vital
currents. The cure in the human body is the strengthening of the life
principle, until it dominates and subjugates every molecule to the good
of the whole body. The cure in the case of the Association is similar by
promoting brotherhood and unity, by subjecting every individual to the
life curre nts animating the Association, by checking us from
self-assertiven ess, from vainglorious striving after power, in a word
by killing the self. In the reality perfect Order every member bows to
the authority of the Order and seeks no power or honour for himself
apart from his brethren.

We have seen that, as with a living body, so with an Association, the
spirit of life-monad manifests itself in and through material particles,
or cells or human units, gathered from and partaking the character of
its environment, and that the greater or loss adaptability of the
visible body to the needs and impulses of the monad depends on the law
of Karma. The two Aspects of this law must also be kept in view, the
Karma to which the monad is subject on entering its material body (in
the case of a human being that which was earned in a prior incarnation),
and that which it generates and reaps in the continuance of its present
material existence. It would be rash to attempt to trace the prior
history of the animating spirits of Associations - it is enough to
assume that somehow or other they come under the some Karmic law as
human beings, and have not necessarily earned in their present
incarnation (if we may use the word) all the results they reap. If the
law of Karma be true at all it must be true, exactly in so far as
applicable, to every independent or semi-independent existence, to the
cell therefore, as much as to the body which is built up of cells, and
to the Association composed of human beings as much as to the several
human beings composing it. This, which seems elementary, leads
irresistibly to the next proposition.

(8).. Provincial Grand Lodges and all Private Lodges have a
semi-independent existence, as Associations within the parent
Association, like the organs of the human body; their organisation or
government corresponding to the nerve-ganglia governing the human
organs, and like these semi-independent, capable of sustaining life; but
not of initiating action in regard to the parent Association.

This proposition with regard to Associations is the necessary corollary
of what has gone before.  Every Association, however small has a
separate existence "qua" Association, and a certain modified autonomy to
the extent of regulating its own affairs as such Association.  Each
Association is, however, a part of some greater Association, a race or
nation it may be, and finally a part of humanity itself, to whose
general laws its own autonomy is necessarily subject, and hence it is
only semi-independent. In the living human body the nerve-ganglia
governing different organs are to a considerable extent automatic, that
is to say they act without the conscious interference of the central
will, though not in opposition thereto, and they sometimes react, by a
reflex action, to external stimuli, without conveying the impression of
that stimulus to the central consciousness, yet the central
consciousness and the central will can generally, to some extent at
least, know and control their action.  Thus these ganglia are
semi-independent and the correspondence is practically complete. The
analogy holds for every association. Thus the business of a State is
carried on by Departments, each of which is semi-independent, to the
extent that in the healthy normal state it does its own work without
troubling the central authority, but the object of that work is the good
of the whole State.  Suppose what is called corruption to be present in
any department, this means that the heads of that department and
possibly all connected w ith it, are using for selfish ends and for
their own benefit the powers entrusted to them for the general good of
the State. This is separateness, and in time produces a feeling of
discomfort so widespread that the central will is compelled to strive to
cast it out. The period longer or shorter before the central will comes
into operation depends on the strength, vitality, and health of the
Association or State. What is termed mortification (or really
corruption) of a part of the human body is precisely analogous to this.
Corruption of the body politic is a most apposite term. In the Craft,
looked upon as an Association, there are Departments, Subsections and
Branches, each organised and therefore semi-independent.  By the
original constitution every private Lodge was such a Subsection, and
looking for the moment upon these Lodges as units, we get a conception
of the Craft as a homogeneous multicellular organisation.  In the
process of development, as we have already shown, the central authority
was lodged in the Grand Lodge whereat all Masters and Wardens
represented their own Lodges. Within the Lodges the organisation, as we
have demonstrated, constituted in itself an association. And thus the
whole Craft in its normal and healthy state forms an association
consisting of semi-independent organic associations with one central
will, consciousness, and power of expression (or living voice); each of
the constituent associations (Lodges) being in its turn composed of
human beings (like semi-independent cells) organised by the division of
labour into various departments fulfilling various functions.  As the
constituent elements of the Craft are drawn from its environment, so are
the constituent elements of the Lodges which form the Craft, and as
these are local and racial in their constitution, their elements
necessarily vary, and thus differentiation in the character of the
Lodge's themselves will necessarily result, and this differentiation may
be the source of dis union, which has been shown to depend on Karmic
laws. In considering the character of a friend, we recognise at once
that to blame him for a hasty word uttered in pain or sickness as though
it were a deliberate opinion, would be unjust. Far more so to blame him
for unavoidable weakness, illness, or deformity.  We know (or we feel
intuitively) that this all belongs to the lower principles, in fact to
the house our friend, by his Karma, is compelled to live in, not to
himself.  In speaking of the Craft, justice requires that the same
distinction should be ke pt in view, and therefore in the second part of
this Paper we propose to trace somewhat further the analogy in the Craft
to the Seven Principles of man, with a view of working out the more
esoteric side of the subject.

As a fitting conclusion to the first half of our Paper, let us apply to
the Craft the further analogy of an acorn - a small and exteriorly
unimpressive object, which nevertheless enshrines the life-force of the
great oak that cast it, and which contains energies capable of expanding
into another tree greater than its parent.  So with Freemasonry. It is
the humble off-spring of the great Mystery systems that once were the
only means whereby Divine Wisdom was revealed to men in this world; and
it enshrines, in compressed and simple form, the essential immutable
principles of their teaching.  The time has now come when those severely
compressed principles can be released, interpreted, and given an
infinitely wider field of usefulness than was possible in antiquity.
Which field our world-wide Order provides, for it is an organism that is
being gradually evolved, a "body prepared," for the dissemination on a
wide scale of philosophic secrets and mysteries which, in earlier states
of society, could only be imparted to the initiated few, but which can
now be comparatively broadcast.  In this Study Circle we aim at helping
on that movement, at releasing and revealing what lies compressed and
concealed within our system.

"THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN BUT SHALL BE REVEALED"