Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

"The Ritual of Freemasonry is based on this natural law, and the ceremony of initiation illustrates, at every step, this principle, and if the result attained is a possession rather than a regeneration, in the great majority of cases, the principle remains none the less true. The mere inculcation of moral principles, or lessons in ethics, and their symbolic illustration and dramatic representation, are by no means in vain. These appeal to the conscience and moral sense in every man, and no man has ever been made worse by the Lessons of the Lodge. By these ' rites and benefits,' the Freemason is, above all men, in our so-called Modern Civilization, the nearest to the Ancient Wisdom. He has possession of the territory in which lie concealed the Crown Jewels of Wisdom. He may content himself, if he will, by merely turning over the sod and gathering only a crop of husks or stubble. He may dig deeper and find not only the Keystone of the Arch, the Ark of the Covenant, the Scroll or the Law, but, using the Spirit concealed in the wings of the Cherubim, he may rise untrammeled by the rubbish of the temple, and, meeting Elohim face to face, learn also to say 'I am that I am' Does this read like a rhapsody, and are the Landmarks, traditions, and glyphics of Freemasonry nothing more?"

And again: " The Universal Science and the Sublime Philosophy, once taught in the Greater Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, and India, and among ^[8] many other nations of antiquity, is a dead letter in modern Freemasonry. The intelligent Mason, however, should be the last person in the world to deny that such Wisdom once existed, for the simple reason the whole superstructure of Masonry is built upon the traditions of its existence, and its ritual serves as its living monument. Proficiency in the preceding degree is everywhere made a reason for advancement in Masonry. This proficiency is made to consist in the ability of the candidate to repeat word for word, certain rituals and obligations already passed, the meaning and explanations of which constitute the lectures in the various degrees. The usage at this point, in the United States at least, serves rather to secure the rights and benefits of the Lodge to those entitled to them, and to withhold them from others, than to advance the candidate in real Knowledge. "

For this very reason the present work is placed before all those who would know. Mystic Masonry also has its Rituals and its laws, but it makes the Spirit of more value than the letter and will teach its candidates the Spirit as well as the letter, for in its higher degrees the man must bring out that which is in him if he desires to advance. In this way the real Initiation does not only become a possibility but a fact and none can advance unless they do the work. Besides this, Mystic Masonry does what Craft Masonry should do — it binds its men into one Universal Brotherhood in which they must treat each other as brothers if they desire to remain in the Order. This is not a dream, but a reality.

^[9] Says Dr. Buck again: "We do not know a thing because we are told so. Let the gods shout the Truth of all ages into the ears of a fool forever, and still forever the fool would be joined to his folly. Here lies the conception and the principal of all Initiations. It is knowledge unfolded by degrees in an orderly, systematic manner, step by step, as the capacity to apprehend opens in the Neophyte. The result is not a possession, but a growth, an evolution. Knowledge is not a mere sum in addition; something added to something that already exists; but rather such a progressive change or transformation of the original structure as to make it, at every step, a New Being. Real Knowledge, or the growth of Wisdom in man, is an Eternal Becoming; a progressive transformation into the likeness of the Supernal Goodness and the Supreme Power. "

In a work of this nature, not too much can be said as regard the Supreme Initiation, and those who may be truly interested I would refer to "The Rosicrucians; their Teachings," and to "The Philosophy of Fire," both of which contain Chapters on the true Initiation.