Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

289."Light was, in accordance with the old religious sentiment, the great object of attainment in all the Ancient Religious Mysteries. It was there, as it is now, in Masonry, made the symbol of truth and knowledge. This was always its ancient symbolism, and we must never lose sight of this emblematic meaning, when we are considering the nature and signification of Masonic light. When the candidate makes a demand for light, it is not merely for that material light which is to remove a physical darkness; that is only the outward form, which conceals the inward symbolism. He craves an intellectual illumination which will dispel the darkness of mental and moral ignorance, and bring to his view, as an eyewitness, the Sublime Truths of Religion, ^[150] Philosophy, and Science, which it is the great design of (true) Freemasonry to teach.

290."In all the Ancient systems this reverence for light, as the symbol of truth, was predominant. In the Mysteries of every nation, the candidate was made to pass, during his initiations, through scenes of utter darkness, and at length terminated his trials by an admission to the splendidly-illuminated sacellum, or sanctuary, where he was said to have attained pure and perfect light, and where he received the necessary instructions which were to invest him with that knowledge of the Divine Truth which it had been the object of all his labors to gain, and the design of the institution, into which he had been initiated, to bestow."*

291."The Rite of Intrusting supplies us with many important and interesting symbols. There is an important period in the ceremony of Masonic initiation, where the candidate is about to receive a full communication of the Mysteries through which he has passed, and to which the trials and labors which he has undergone can only entitle him. This ceremony is technically called the 'Rite of Intrusting,' because it is then that the aspirant begins to be intrusted with that for the possession of which he was seeking. It is equivalent to what, in the Ancient Mysteries, was called the 'autopsy,' or the seeing of what only the initiated were permitted to see.

^[151] 292. "This Rite of Intrusting is, of course, divided into several parts or periods; for the aporreta, or secret things of Masonry, are not to be given at once, but in gradual progression. It begins, however, with the communication of Light, which, although but a preparation for the development of the mysteries which are to follow, must be considered as one of the most important symbols in the whole science of Masonic symbolism. So important, indeed, is it, and so much does it pervade with its influence and its relations the whole Masonic system, that Freemasonry itself anciently received, among other appellations, that of Lux, or Light, to signify that it is to be regarded as the Sublime Doctrine of Divine Truth by which the path of him who has attained it is to be illuminated in his pilgrimage of life."*