Ars Latomorum

Dear Unknown Friend,

Freemasonry is above all things an Initiatic Tradition, developed for the purpose of individual Illumination and dedicated to universal brotherhood.

We may append other organizations and meanings to this core nature of Freemasonry, and we may confuse ourselves, and lead society to believe a more convenient statement. None of those change the fact, that Freemasonry is an intense set of philosophical truths about the human condition, compelling us to approach the world with Faith and Reason (releasing us from Cartesian models), that we may join together as true servants of our fellowman.

It is difficult in these modern times to speak of Freemasonry as the most intense philosophic training available for a variety of reasons, but more so than any other because we, Freemasons, don’t choose to accept the simple truth of our heritage. Early generations of Masonic scholars threw open the doors of our heritage and history allowing a tide of erroneous speculation on the origin, and thus the meaning of Freemasonry, into our courts. To counter this tide of broad speculation we chose to bind ourselves to a world of facts. But we took this too far. We cost ourselves the truths of our Order [facts are always true, but truths are not necessarily facts]. We have thrown the baby out with the bath water.

History true and factual make the nature of Freemasonry self-evident. Freemasonry is an Initiatic Tradition. Like all Initiatic Traditions – excepting traditions born purely of fraternal organizations – we seek individual illumination, and universal brotherhood at the atomic level: the man. This is achieved through the transformative art of Initiation. Making good men better, is a contemporary way of saying this.

To know this, one needs only look at a Trestleboard, or Masonic altar. On it is found a square and compasses. Both of these have alchemical origins.

I must digress here, it bears stating that alchemy is a transformative art, perhaps the most perennial and thus the best exemplar, or pinnacle of transformative arts.

To reveal this Masonic-Alchemical connection, I will resort to the same trick as others and start with the Rebis. The Rebis is an alchemical image, from “Materia Prima” by Basilius Valentinus, published in Frankfurt, in 1613. It is a sort “trestleboard”, and I would draw your attention to the contents of the hands of the figure. Notice anything familiar? I thought you might.

The works of a classical alchemical provenance – pre-18th century – will readily prove the above statement. If you are interested I refer you to the works of Valentinus, Fludd, Paracelsus, Khunrath, Bohme, Maier, and the Sabians. You should find satisfactory proof contained therein. I note pre-18th century for you must come to a time when math, geometry, medicine and alchemy were all part of the same system of study. This is not to say that the 18th century is the demarcation line. I only mean to suggest that after the 18th century the distinctions came into a clearer focus. So I generalize and suggest a pre-18th century model, where symbols and tools of science, reason, alchemy and faith were not isolated to distinct disciplines as we know them today. Geometrical symbols were interchanged for alchemical ones, and vice versa.

Alchemy and Freemasonry are intermingled, and have been since the heady days of the late 18th century. They share the same goal – individual illumination and universal brotherhood through personal transformation.

Alchemy is the means of changing the gross individual into a truly spiritual being. Freemasonry shares this exact precept, and borrows alchemical symbols to demonstrate it. To students of alchemy this may seem a stretch. The Square and Compasses are not overtly alchemical, and thus the Masonic relationship seems incongruent until one asks what one draws with a square or a compass. With the square, one draws a square. With the compasses, one draws a circle. The circle and the square are alchemical symbols representing the soul (the circle) and the body (the square) of Man. All that would appear to be missing is the triangle, but any Mason surely knows where to find these in Lodge -“ and all Brothers exalted to the Royal Arch should be able to find them in abundance.

The assertion is complete. The Masonic Square and Compasses stem from alchemical notions on the composition of man, his purpose in the world, and how one achieves transformation (move from the Square to the Compasses). We have the square and compasses to because we share a philosophical and moral heritage with Alchemy.

However, the relationship extends further. The use of the Square and Compasses and the Triangle represent alchemical assumptions on the nature of man:

• Salt: body/corpus: will/wisdom, the Square.
• Sulphur: soul/animus: love/agape/caritas, the Compasses.
• Mercury: spirit/spiritus: mind, the Triangle.

The progress from the Blue Lodge (Square Work) to the Holy Royal Arch (Circular Work) is no mere coincidence, or a casual adoption of visually stimulating imagery. Freemasonry assumes three natures, or ages of the individual, progressively attained before reaching a threshold no “human” can cross – into a divine territory prepared for by a Masonic life. Alchemical philosophy and worldview shares this same ontology. The square, the circle, and the triangle are abundant in the Blue Lodge, and within the Lodge of Perfection of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, so are the associated alchemical meanings.

By this association I do not assert that Freemasonry is alchemy. Nor do I posit such notions as unbroken lineages of mystic practitioners from times immemorial in far off distant lands. I only suggest that somewhere in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, early Freemasons and late Alchemists conjoined their symbol and ontological systems to communicate truths both saw as perennial – truths common to all mankind throughout the ages: philosophia perennis.

Of those Truths, is the idea that mankind is a mutli-faceted creation, and one that over time wears against the obduracy of the material world and needs to be re-aligned. This truth persists in Freemasonry to this day as understood by the Square and Compasses. The Compasses representing our spiritual nature are subjugated by the material world (the Square). This is represented in the Initiation by the elevation of the square above the compasses. However, by the Master Mason degree the locations are reversed, emblematic of the crowning spiritual glory to which every Master Mason yearns. As the Master understands the compasses, and moves to arch and cryptic work, he finds that which is lost, a purified stone/ashlar/pure salt.

This transformation, indicative of the Initiatic Tradition of Freemasonry is our true and genuine object.

Recommended Reading

• The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590-1710 – David Stevenson
• The Art of Memory – Frances A. Yates
• The Golden Builders: Alchemists, Rosicrucians, First Freemasons – Tobias Churton
• The Great Triad – Rene Guenon

I had written this some time ago, and it has existed on some scraps of paper as an incomplete idea, I am posting it here as an incomplete idea… It was made clear to me that others read this journal, pathetic as it may be, and that has compelled me to reconsider my position that only finished works should be posited in the public view. Some ideas are to be left incomplete, for others to attach their ideas too, giving a rise to a new idea that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Dear Unknown Friend,

The Middle Pillar, known as such through the Golden Dawn, and subsequently Regardie, is the ray of Divine Light present in us all. However, it is not present in the same sense as the Pillars of Mercy and Severity. We have immediate and direct access to these Pillars, we deal with them constantly. The Middle Pillar, while always present as a potentiality, is not actualized, or manifest, except under certain circumstances. Like the fifth note, or harmonic, of the Baber Shop Quartet, which is made by the combination of the four other notes, the Middle Pillar is only accessible when the proper balance of forces is attained between the other two Pillars.

Masonically it works a little something this this…

J and B are the other two Pillars. Nothing exists between them in the Lodge, because the forces are out of balance. J & B represent poles of energy, postive/negative, or active/passive. As energy moves between them, the Middle Pillar is actualized through that movement.

This is of course an over simplification, neither Pillar is completely active, nor the other passive. Nor is the simple movement of energy between them all that is required. The process of balancing the pillars into a constancy is well beyond this mere missive. Suffice it to say, that it is attainable, and that it is necessary for the full potential of the Middle Pillar to be actualized. As one moves from the Square to the Compasses, one is said to be finding a balance between the 2 Nobles and the 2 Bases, not that one has removed the 2 Bases entirely, for such is not our position. We are endowed with both Noble and Base faculties, we must learn the wisdom of both, and balance between the 4. Balance is dynamic, all forces are made equal in motion. It is this motion, this movement that is key. Stagnation is not balance – it is death. This essential movement between opposing forces creates the third harmonic of our chord, the Middle Pillar, the glorification of the Divine Ray of Light in us all.

The Kabbalists Tree of Life is composed of Three Pillars, each pillar contain active and passive nodes, which is part of the aforementioned other missive on how this all comes together. One Pillar is generally active however, and the other passive. One Pillar is Wisdom, the other Strength, and the the Middle Pillar – Beauty^[1]; the Pillar in Ruins. This is also the Pillar of Sol, the Sun, t s o a M L!

The Winding Stair is the perception of this Pillar, partially revealed to the Aspirant like an image through heat haze. So close, yet so far. Find the Middle Pillar, and find the path to that which was Lost.

^[1] – Traditionally, the Kabbalists hold the Pillars to be Mercy, Strength, and Beauty, or other combinations. The variations of these combinations I think gave rise to Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty through the vagaries of translation, misunderstanding, and obfuscation.