Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of FreemasonryPike, Albert
Religion
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Pike, Albert
Freemasons
The pavement, alternately black and white, symbolizes, whether so
intended or not, the Good and Evil Principles of the Egyptian and
Persian creed. It is the warfare of Michael and Satan, of the Gods and
Titans, of Balder and Lok; between light and shadow, which is darkness;
Day and Night; Freedom and Despotism; Religious Liberty and the
Arbitrary Dogmas of a Church that thinks for its votaries, and whose
Pontiff claims to be infallible, and the decretals of its Councils to
constitute a gospel.
The edges of this pavement, if in lozenges, will necessarily be indented
or denticulated, toothed like a saw; and to complete and finish it a
bordering is necessary. It is completed by tassels as ornaments at the
corners. If these and the bordering have any symbolic meaning, it is
fanciful and arbitrary.
To find in the BLAZING STAR of five points an allusion to the Divine
Providence, is also fanciful; and to make it commemorative of the Star
that is said to have guided the Magi, is to give it a meaning
comparatively modern. Originally it represented SIRIUS, or the Dog-star,
the forerunner of the inundation of the Nile; the God ANUBIS, companion
of Isis in her search for the body of OSIRIS, her brother and husband.
Then it became the image of HORUS, the son of OSIRIS, himself symbolized
also by the Sun, the author of the Seasons, and the God of Time; Son of
Isis, who was the universal nature, himself the primitive matter,
inexhaustible source of Life, spark of uncreated fire, universal seed of
all beings. It was HERMES, also, the Master of Learning, whose name in
Greek is that of the God Mercury. It became the sacred and potent sign
or character of the Magi, the PENTALPHA, and is the significant emblem
of Liberty and Freedom, blazing with a steady radiance amid the
weltering elements of good and evil of Revolutions, and promising serene
skies and fertile seasons to the nations, after the storms of change and
tumult.
In the East of the Lodge, over the Master, inclosed in a triangle, is
the Hebrew letter YŌD [Hebrew] or [Hebrew]. In the English and
American Lodges the Letter G.'. is substituted for this, as the initial
of the word GOD, with as little reason as if the letter D., initial of
DIEU, were used in French Lodges instead of the proper letter. YŌD
is, in the Kabalah, the symbol of Unity, of the Supreme Deity, the first
letter of the Holy Name; and also a symbol of the Great Kabalistic
Triads. To understand its mystic meanings, you must open the pages of
the Sohar and Siphra de Zeniutha, and other kabalistic books, and ponder
deeply on their meaning. It must suffice to say, that it is the Creative
Energy of the Deity, is represented as a _point_, and that point in the
centre of the _Circle_ of immensity. It is to us in this Degree, the
symbol of that unmanifested Deity, the Absolute, who has no name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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