Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

Masonic Symbolism and the Ancient Mysteries All Are One

^[117] 207. "The Order known as Freemasonry appears to have been instituted as a vehicle to preserve and transmit an account of the miraculous dealings of the Most High with His people in the infancy of the world; for at that early period Freemasonry may be identified with religion.

208."The identity of the Masonic Institution with the Ancient Mysteries is obvious from the striking coincidences found to exist between them. The latter was a secret religious worship, and the depository of religion, science and art. Tradition dates the origin of the Mysteries back to the earliest period of time, and makes it coeval with the organization of Society.

209."But the order of Freemasonry goes further than did the Ancient Mysteries; while it embodies all that is valuable in the institutions of the past, it embraces within its circle all that is good and true of the present, and thus becomes a conservator as well as a depository of religion, science and art.

^[118] 210. "Without any reference to forms and modes of faith, it furnishes a series of indirect evidences, which silently operate to establish the great and general principles of religion, and points to that triumphant system which was the object of all preceding dispensations, and must ultimately be the sole religion of the human race, because it is the only religion in which the plan of salvation is clearly developed. "*

211."From age to age, through countless generations, these Rites have read their sublime lessons of wisdom and hope, and peace and warning, to the 'Sons of Light.' These same lessons, in the same language, they read to us to-day. But do we see in them what they did? Do they impress us as they did them? Or do they pass before our eyes like a panorama of some unknown land, which has no delineator to tell us what or where it is, or give us any intelligible notion regarding it? Accepting the symbol, have we lost its sense. Our Rites will be of little value to us if this is the case. It is our duty then, to make Freemasonry the object of a profound study. We must consult the past.

212."We must stand by the sarcophagus of the murdered Osiris, in Egypt; enter the caverns of Phrygia, and hold communion with the Cabiti; penetrate the 'Collegia Fabrorum' of ancient Rome, and work in the Mystic Circles of Sidon. In a word, we must pursue our researches until we find the thought that lay in the minds of those who created the ^[119] institution and founded our Mysteries. Then we shall know precisely what they mean. We shall see in them a grand series of moral and philosophical dramas, most eloquent and instructive, gleaming with sublime ideas, as the heavens glow with stars. And, finally, we shall discover that our Rites embrace all the possible circumstances of man — moral, spiritual, and social — and have a meaning high as heaven, broad as the universe, and profound as eternity."*

213."If we seek the origin and first beginning of the Masonic philosophy, we must go away back into the ages of remote antiquity, when we shall find this beginning in the bosom of kindred associations, where the same philosophy was maintained and taught. But if we confound the ceremonies of Masonry with the philosophy of Masonry, and see the origin of the institution, moulded into outward form as it is to-day, we can scarcely be required to look farther back than the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, indeed, not quite so far.

214."I contend that the philosophy of Freemasonry is engaged in the contemplation of the divine and human character; of God as one eternal, self-existent being, in contradiction to the mythology of the ancient peoples, which was burdened with a multitude of gods and goddesses, of demigods and heroes; of man as an immortal being, preparing in the present life for an eternal future, in like contradiction to the ^[120] ancient philosophy, which circumscribed the existence of man to the present life."