DiotimosReading Desk

Rites degrees and ceremonial actions

Autopsy

autopsy

Autopsy here means the full beholding or disclosure of the mysteries, rather than a medical examination of a dead body.

From the book

Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

R. Swinburne Clymer · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordAutopsy here means the full beholding or disclosure of the mysteries, rather than a medical examination of a dead body.
  • In Ancient Mystic Oriental MasonryThe text pairs autopsy with the reception of light and the lesson of regeneration.
  • In this editionThe printed English form autopsy is retained and explained in context.
  • A place to readS.54: … “the lesson of death. The full fruition or autopsy, the reception of light, was the lesson” …

Meaning

Autopsy here means the full beholding or disclosure of the mysteries, rather than a medical examination of a dead body.

Use in the book

The text pairs autopsy with the reception of light and the lesson of regeneration. The Rite of Intrusting is then called its equivalent: after trials and labors, the candidate receives the communication for which preparation has been undertaken. The term marks a culminating act of seeing or understanding within the comparative account of initiation.

Places to read

  1. Masonic Symbolism · Block 54… “the lesson of death. The full fruition or autopsy, the reception of light, was the lesson of Regeneration or Resurrection."”
  2. Masonic Symbolism · Block 87… “what, in the Ancient Mysteries, was called the 'autopsy,' or the seeing of what only the initiated were permitted to see.”
  3. Masonic Symbolism · Block 89“293. "Turning from the scenes of woe, he (the candidate) was passed through some other dark caverns and passages, until, having successfully treaded the labyrinth, consisting of six spacious vaults, connected” …

In this edition

The printed English form autopsy is retained and explained in context. No Greek lemma or untranslated original has been invented for this English book.

Reading the argument

The modern medical sense would reverse the point of the passage. The candidate is being brought to disclosure and renewed life. Read the word with Light and Intrusting to recover its function in the argument.

autopsy

“autopsy” — 2 occurrences in 2 text blocks: S.54, 87.