The General Ahiman Rezon and Freemason's Guide

SECTION I.

MASONRY WAS ORIGINALLY AN OPERATIVE society, and in that form those who worked as ENTERED APPRENTICES were styled the first class; but in Speculative or Freemasonry, the degree of which we are now treating is regarded as the first of the Order. Its reception places the novitiate in possession of the Masonic alphabet, and discloses to him the fundamental principles of this time-honored institution. This section is sub-divided under three heads, viz:

1st. THE CEREMONY;

2d. ITS MORAL; and

3d. ITS NECESSITY and CONSISTENCY.

A full and perfect knowledge of this section is indispensably necessary to every Mason who would be serviceable to the institution, and would avail himself of its privileges and its enjoyments.

THE ENTRANCE.—The preparations to which the candidate must submit, before entering the Lodge, serve allegorically to teach him, as well as to remind the brethren who are present, that it is the man alone, divested of all the outward recommendations of rank, state, or of riches, which Masonry accepts, and that it is his spiritual, or moral worth alone, which can open for him the door of the temple.

As Masons, we are taught never to commence any great or important undertaking, without first invoking the blessing of Deity.

The trust of a Mason is in God, as a basis which can never fail, and a rock which can never be shaken. Nor is it a mere empty profession; for it is borne out and illustrated by our practice. We open and close our Lodges with prayer; the same formula is used at the initiation of candidates; and no business of any importance is conducted without invoking the Divine assistance on our labors; and the blessing of God cannot be expected to follow any man’s profession, unless it be verified by a good and virtuous life.

THE RITE OF INDUCTION.

WE are convinced by long and extensive observation that Masons need a truer and deeper insight into the nature of our esoteric work. We do not think our beautiful and truth-glowing ritual and our sublime symbolism are quite understood by the mass of the Brotherhood. It is true all are affected, in a certain degree, by them; it could not be otherwise: but many fail to discover the grand truths which are inculcated therein. Symbols are of no practical importance, if we have lost the sense they were intended to convey; and rites are puerile, if they do not immediately lead the mind to the consideration of tangible ideas and immortal verities. Our ceremonies are moral and philosophical lessons; and, earnestly studied and rightly understood, will be seen to be pregnant with mighty meanings.

Thus expressive and full of significance is the RITE or INDUCTION.

The induction of the Neophyte into the Order of Freemasonry, his first entrance into the sanctuary of the illuminated, is for him a step of momentous importance and solemnity. There are few candidates, we believe, who can approach the portals of the mystery-shrouded Lodge without much trepidation of heart, and a feeling of mingled awe and fear. Consequently, the induction is effected by the performance of certain appropriate symbolical ceremonies, all of which are remarkably and eloquently suggestive of the new life, duties, and obligations he is about to assume, and to which he is on the point of binding himself voluntarily, absolutely, and without reservation, for ever.

In ancient Egypt, the Neophyte was presented with a cup of water, and addressed in these words:—"Aspirant to the honor of a divine companionship! seeker after celestial truth! this is the water of forgetfulness. Drink!—drink to the oblivion of all your vices—the forgetfulness of all your imperfections; and thus be prepared for the reception of the new revelations of Truth, with which you are soon to be honored.” Although modern Freemasonry does not retain this particular ceremony, it preserves the spirit of it, by other forms, not less expressive and instructive. The candidate is directed to close his eyes on the Past—to lay aside the trappings and vestures of the outward world—the symbols of traffic and war—all that reminds one of the selfishness and discords of life—and turn his face towards the dread unknown—the mysterious Future.

The RITE OF INDUCTION, therefore, signifies the end of a profane and vicious life—the palingenesia (new birth) of corrupted human nature—the death of vice and all bad passions, and the introduction to a new life of purity and virtue. It also prepares the candidate, by prayer and meditation, for that mystic pilgrimage, where he must wander through night and darkness, before he can behold the golden splendors of the ORIENT, and stand in unfettered freedom among the Sons of Light.

The Rite is intended, still further, to represent man in his primitive condition of helplessness, ignorance, and moral blindness, seeking after that mental and moral enlightenment which alone can deliver his mind from all thralldoms, and make him master of the material world. The Neophyte, in darkness and with tremblings, knocks at the portals of the Lodge, and demands admission, instruction, and light. So man, born ignorant, and helpless, and blind, yet feeling stirring within him unappeasable longings for knowledge, knocks at the doors of the temple of science. He interrogates Nature, demands her secrets, and at length becomes the proud possessor of her mysteries.

Finally, the RITE of INDUCTION refers to the supreme hour of man’s worldly life, when, laying aside all earthly wealth, and pomp, and rank, and glory, and divested of his mortal vesture, he passes alone through the grim darkness of the tomb, to stand before the GRAND ORIENT of the immortal Land.

“Through death to life I and through this vale of tears,

And thistle-world of mortal life, ascend

To the great Banquet, in that world whose years

Of bliss unclouded, fadeless, know no end.”

PRAYER, AT THE INITIATION OF A CANDIDATE.

VOUCHSAFE thine aid, Almighty Father of the Universe, to this our present convention; and grant that this candidate for Masonry may dedicate and devote his life to thy service, and become a true and faithful brother among us. Endue him with a competency of thy divine Wisdom, that by the influence of the pure principles of our art he may be better enabled to display the beauties of holiness, to the honor of thy holy name.—Amen.

Response.—So mote it be.

THE SYMBOLIC PILGRIMAGE.

THE institution of Freemasonry—reaching backward until it loses itself among the mythological shadows of the past, its grand ritual and eloquent language of signs and symbols, originating in those distant ages—offers a field for exploration which can never be thoroughly traversed. Transmitted to us by remote generations, it is plain that, before we can, in any degree, appreciate Freemasonry, or understand the significance of its mysteries, we must go back to the Past, and question the founders of the Order. We must learn in what necessities of human nature, and for what purpose it was created. We must discover the true genesis of our rites, and become familiar with the ideas which the Fathers intended to shadow forth through them, and impress upon the mind. It is not enough for us to accept the letter of the ceremonial, and perform it blindly, interpreting its meaning in whatever way fancy or imagination or convenience may dictate. We should know what the Ancients meant to say through it: what truth each rite and each symbol represented to their minds.

From age to age, through countless generations, these Rites have read their sublime lessons of wisdom and hope, and peace and warning, to the “Sons of Light.” These same lessons, in the same language, they read to us to-day. But do we see in them what they did? Do they impress us as they impressed them? Or do they pass before our eyes like a panorama of some unknown land, which has no delineator to tell us what or where it is, or give us any intelligible notion regarding it? Accepting the symbol, have we lost its sense? Our Rites will be of little value to us if this be the case. It is our duty, then, to make Freemasonry the object of a profound study. We must consult the Past. We must stand by the sarcophagus of the murdered, but restored Osiris, in Egypt; enter the caverns of Phrygia, and hold communion with the Cabiri; penetrate the “Collegia Fabrorum” of ancient Rome, and work in the mystic circles of Sidon. In a word, we must pursue our researches until we find the THOUGHT that lay in the minds of those who created the institution and founded our mysteries. Then we shall know precisely what they mean. We shall see in them a grand series of moral and philosophical dramas, most eloquent and instructive, gleaming with sublime ideas, as the heavens glow with stars. And, finally, we shall discover that our Rites embrace all the possible circumstances of man—moral, spiritual, and social—and have a meaning high as the heavens, broad as the universe, and profound as eternity,

The Rite of the Wanderer, or the Symbolic Pilgrimage, is entirely puerile and unmeaning, unless we have learned in what ideas it originated, and what its authors intended to represent by it. Happily, this is not a difficult task. In Egypt, Greece, and among other ancient nations, Freemasonry was one of the earliest agencies employed to effect the improvement and enlightenment of man. CICERO tells us that “the establishment of these Rites among...