Numerous works have demonstrated how the symbolism of the modern fraternal
organization has grown out of alchemy, mysticism and rosicrucianism. Some
centuries ago these symbols were charged with a literal meaning. If a man,
however, in the 20th century attaches a similar significance to these
symbols he is rightly adjudged insane. For instance, no one in a modern
civilization can retain his mental balance and believe in a literal,
physical rebirth. The patient whose case we shall now briefly recite had
done this. He was observed at only one set interview because it was found
that a few questions, apparently innocent, led to the awakening of some
cruder ideas to which he reacted rather strongly with the statement that the
physician was accusing him of harboring murderous designs which were, as a
matter of fact, not even remotely suggested. The patient C. G., is a Hebrew,
married, age sixty-one. When forty he had an attack of excitement lasting a
few weeks. He was admitted to the Manhattan State Hospital in October 1899
and remained till April 14, 1900 with a similar attack. He was readmitted
in April 1901 again in an excitement and has remained there ever since. It
is claimed that these attacks were all preceded by a spree. The records of
these admissions state that he was excited for some years, apparently with
exacerbations, during which he is frequently noted as being delusional and
hallucinating. No content is noted so that we cannot give the development of
his ideas. He does not hallucinate now. All we know is that for five or six
years he was a rather intractable patient, who worked intermittently but
that of more recent years he has sufficiently adapted himself to the
hospital environment to be granted ground parole which he uses largely to do
a considerable amount of quite useful work. Any one who has once talked to
him is saluted from a distance with the words--"Pleased to meet you,
Doctor!" "Five fingers up!" or "Da liegt der schwarze Hund begraben!" All
this is followed by an elated volubility. When asked what "Pleased to meet
you!" meant, he said that was the password for entrance to the "Fellowship
Lodge" of a certain fraternal order. He produced a match box with the
insignia on it of a Grade in the Lodge. With this match box, once off
Ward's Island, he insisted that it could get him his bread all the world
over and hundreds of friends. He would never have been committed had he not
been drunk and forgotten to make use of his signs. The world belongs to the
Fellowship of Men. He spoke of his wife's ill treatment of him and then
went on to "I am married to the American flag and it will go to the grave
with me." This referred, he explained, to joining the red, white and blue
lodge. "Five fingers up!" was shaking hands, the clasped hands on his match
box. These hands, he said, were those of Moses and the Lord, for Moses was a
"Fellowman," which is like the Fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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