Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

61."The traditions, glyphics and ritual of Freemasonry cluster around the building of the temple; the legend of the Widow's son, Hiram-abiff, who lost ^[55] his life in the defense of his integrity, and the search for the Lost Word of the Master. As the candidate progresses, degree after degree, he is furnished with the working tools suited to his degree of knowledge and proficiency, given instructions as to their use; the lesser and greater lights are revealed and explained; and through all, each outer form, or material thing, is shown to be a symbol of a deeper mystery, a concealed potency.

62." This is, in brief, the language and the philosophy of symbolism, or the exoteric, and the esoteric garb of Truth. The method itself, outside of all details or applications, has a deeper scientific significance than most persons are aware of. This method of instruction is not fanciful or arbitrary, but conforms to the process of the Eternal Nature in building an atom or a world; a daisy or a man. Cosmos has evolved from Chaos, and yet Chaos remains the Eternal Potency; what Plato called the 'world of divine ideas.' This will be more fully explained in another part The essential form, or idea of all things; the potency or force; and the matter as we now discern it, must have existed in primordial space. Therefore, these two always exist, viz., the inner potency, and the outer act; the concealed Idea, and the outer form; the inner meaning, and the outer event. Each in its turn a symbol of the other. Hence the saying on the Smaragdine Tablet, as above so below. All outward things are, therefore, symbols, or embodiments of pre-existing Ideas, and out of this subjective ideal realm all visible things have emanated.

^[56] 63. "This doctrine of emanations is the key to the philosophy of Plato, and that of the Gnostic sects from which the early Christians derived their mysteries. This fact is mentioned here in order to show the deep foundations of the glyphics of Masonry."*

64."In the Ritual of Masonry, King Solomon's temple is taken as a symbol. The building and the restoration of the temple at Jerusalem are dramatically represented in the work of the Lodge, and in the ceremony of initiation, by a play upon words and parity of events, and applied to the candidate, with admonition, warning or encouragement, as the drama unfolds.

65."The symbolism is fitted to Ideal relations, rather than to actual existences or historical events. Sol-om-on represents the name of Deity in three languages, and the Biblical history is an allegory or myth of the Sun-god. There is no reliable history of the construction of any such temple at Jerusalem, and recent explorations and measurements have greatly altered the dimensions as heretofore given.

66."The real temple referred to from first to last in Masonry, as in all ancient initiations, is the Tabernacle of the Human Soul.