Masonic Formation

Jack Courtis has an excellent article on the 12 Disciplined Actions of the Kabbala within a Rosicrucian construct. I have taken them and applied to to Freemasonry, within the construct of a Transformative Art.

What is Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a transformative art. It is an ever continuing process of spiritual, intellectual and physical change that all Masons undergo in order to “improve themselves in Masonry�. This change is outlined in many ways, but in the Blue Lodge, it consists of three steps, one pertaining to each Degree of the Blue Lodge – Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. These three steps describe the process of fitting the rough ashlar of our imperfect being into the perfect ashlar fit for the divine temple.

The Entered Apprentice

The Degree of Entered Apprentice, in addition to introducing the Brother to our Order, Traditions, Forms, Customs, and Ceremonies, focuses on our behavior as individuals. As Wilmshurst suggests in his Meaning of Masonry, the central concept is discipline. Discipline, contrary to popular misconception is not obedience, though much discipline has its roots in disciple. Discipline is foremost a choice. A choice to live rightly - not out of fear or for hope of remuneration, but because it is the right thing to do.

This acceptance and subsequent regulation of our thoughts affects our outward behavior is the first step in Freemasonry. Freemasons knows this as to circumscribe our passions. There are four inner disciplines that the Entered Apprentice must master. These disciplines are interconnected and skill in one will have an effect on the other three. All must be learned in balance.

Fasting

Our modern society is builded upon a foundation of instant self-gratification. Fasting is perhaps the least understood discipline in such a setting. For the Apprentice, so close to the old world, it is best to contrast Fasting by explaining what it is not.

Fasting is not dieting - that is about vanity and egoism.

Fasting is not a hunger strike - that is a political act because it is essentially about the exertion of personal power to force change in other people’s behavior. It is not about being anorexic.

Fasting is not a one time engagement – that is temporary and does not impart change.

Fasting is a prolonged discipline. There is more to it than food and drink. There is also the control of what we see, hear and read. The music we listen to, the humor we partake in, the news broadcasts we watch, and the papers we read. Fasting is control and regulation over all input into ourselves being it food, information, and so forth.

In the Northeast Corner of the Lodge, we are what we consume. Therefore, fasting is about self-knowledge. Fasting is difficult but once mastered, sets the scene for prayer and meditation by disciplining the body and putting into proper bounds its normal loud and distracting demands. Simply put, once a Man decides to become a Freemason, Fasting serves as the line of his compasses. A Freemason fasts against all that is outside of his compasses.

Study

Study is a specific kind of spiritual discipline. It causes ours minds to focus on reality. A Mason, like any human is composed of two elements in the mind, Faith and Reason. Study is a focus on our Reasoning. There are certain questions that Faith cannot answer, and there are certain challenges, through which Faith may sustain us, but Reason will provide for us the solution. Simply put, Faith and Reason work hand-in-hand because we are of two elements; therefore study provides the objective framework within which meditation can successfully function.

Meditation

Medication creates the emotional and spiritual space that allows inner communication, that is to say, prayer. Eastern meditation empties the mind. Western meditation overwhelms the mind. Eastern meditation leads to detachment. In Eastern prayer there is no Deity to attached, only release from personality and ego. Western meditation is precisely aimed at oneness with Deity; a different approach entirely, and predicated upon a release from the ego in our daily lives.

Western Prayer is intimidating and frightening because it so boldly calls us into the presence of Deity. Additionally it requires practice and discipline. We our earthly beings more immediately than spiritual beings and over coming those earthly garments is anything but immediate.

Prayer

Pike’s commentary on prayer is short, and direct and simple.

Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle. It is a spiritual magnetism that thus connects the human soul with the Deity. These majestic irradiations of the soul pierce through the shadow toward the light…It is but a shallow scoff to say that prayer is absurd, because it is not possible for us, by means of it, to persuade God to change His plans. He produces foreknown and foreintended effects, by the instrumentality of the forces of nature, all of which are His forces. Our own are part of these. Our free agency and our will are forces. We do not absurdly cease to make efforts to attain wealth or happiness, prolong life, and continue health, because we cannot by any effort change what is predestined. If the effort also is predestined, it is not the less our effort, made of our free will. So, likewise, we pray. Will is a force. Thought is a force. Prayer is a force. Why should it not be of the law of God, that prayer, like Faith and Love, should have its effects? Man is not to be comprehended as a starting-point, or progress as a goal, without those two great forces, Faith and Love. Prayer is sublime. Orisons that beg and clamour are pitiful. To deny the efficacy of prayer, is to deny that of Faith, Love, and Effort.

Prayer, real prayer as noted by Pike, is the key to the transformative process of Freemasonry. Prayer is the deliberate setting into motion of the hidden processes of our selves. As described by Pike, real prayer is a means of communication with Deity, through which we become aware of His thoughts and His Will. Like mediation, prayer takes training and practice, and an understanding of the limitations of which we can prayer. Simply, prayer, which occurs in a state of Mediation is the acceptance of new instruction, the integration of a new perception, through which we change.