Skip to content

Category Archives: The Tracing Board of Walter Leslie Wilmshurst

“Under the name of Hiram, then, and beneath a veil of allegory, we see an allusion to another Master; and it is this Master, this Elder Brother who is alluded to in our lectures, whose ‘character we preserve, whether absent or present’, i.e., whether He is present to our minds or no, and in regard to whom we ‘adopt the excellent principle, silence,’ lest at any time there should be among us trained in some other than the Christian Faith, and to whom on that account the mention of the Christian Master’s name might possibly prove an offence or provoke contention.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “Under the name of Hiram, then, and beneath a veil of allegory, we see an allusion to another Master; and it is this Master, this Elder Brother who is alluded to in our lectures, whose ‘character we preserve, whether absent or [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“The name Hiram Abiff signifies in Hebrew ‘the teacher (Guru, or enlightened one) from the Father’: a fact which may help you still further to recognize the concealed purpose of the teaching.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “The name Hiram Abiff signifies in Hebrew ‘the teacher (Guru, or enlightened one) from the Father’: a fact which may help you still further to recognize the concealed purpose of the teaching.” [via]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“The three years’ ministry of the Christian Master ended with His death and, these refer to the three degrees of the Craft which also end in the mystical death of the Masonic candidate and his subsequent raising or resurrection.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “The three years’ ministry of the Christian Master ended with His death and, these refer to the three degrees of the Craft which also end in the mystical death of the Masonic candidate and his subsequent raising or resurrection.” [via]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“As that great authority and initiate of the Mysteries, St. Paul, taught, we can only attain to the Master’s resurrection by ‘being made conformable unto His death’, and we ‘must die with Him if we are to be raised like Him’ and it is in virtue of that conformity, in virtue of being individually made to imitate the Grand Master in His death, that we are made worthy of certain ‘points of fellowship’ with Him: for the ‘five points of fellowship’ of the third degree are the five wounds of Christ.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “As that great authority and initiate of the Mysteries, St. Paul, taught, we can only attain to the Master’s resurrection by ‘being made conformable unto His death’, and we ‘must die with Him if we are to be raised like Him’ [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“As every Christian is taught that in his own life he must imitate the life and death of Christ, so every Mason is ‘made to represent one of the brightest characters recorded in our annals’; but as the annals of Masonry are contained in the volume of the Sacred Law and not elsewhere, it is easy to see who the character is who is alluded to.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “As every Christian is taught that in his own life he must imitate the life and death of Christ, so every Mason is ‘made to represent one of the brightest characters recorded in our annals’; but as the annals of Masonry [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“If you examine it closely you will perceive how obvious the correspondence is between this story and the story of the death of the Christian Master related in the Gospels; and it is needless to say that the Mason who realizes the meaning of the latter will comprehend the former and the veiled allusion that is implied. In the one case the Master is crucified between the two thieves; in the other he is done to death between two villains. In the one case appear the penitent and the impenitent thief; in the other we have the conspirators who make a voluntary confession of their guilt and were pardoned, and the others who were found guilty and put to death; whilst the moral and spiritual lessons deducible from the stories correspond.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “If you examine it closely you will perceive how obvious the correspondence is between this story and the story of the death of the Christian Master related in the Gospels; and it is needless to say that the Mason who realizes [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“In Masonry that prototype is Hiram Abiff: but it must be made clear that there is no historical basis whatever for the legendary account of Hiram’s death. The entire story is symbolical and was purposely invented for the symbolical purposes of our teaching.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “In Masonry that prototype is Hiram Abiff: but it must be made clear that there is no historical basis whatever for the legendary account of Hiram’s death. The entire story is symbolical and was purposely invented for the symbolical purposes of [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“In all the schools of the Mysteries, as well as in all the great religions of the world, the attainment of the spiritual goal just described is enacted or taught under the veil of a tragic episode analogous to that of our third degree; and in each there is a Master whose death the aspirant is instructed he must imitate in his own person.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “In all the schools of the Mysteries, as well as in all the great religions of the world, the attainment of the spiritual goal just described is enacted or taught under the veil of a tragic episode analogous to that of [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“The soul must voluntarily and consciously pass through a state of utter helplessness from which no earthly hand can rescue it, and in trying to raise him from which the grip of any succouring human hand will prove but a slip: until at length Divine Help itself descends from the Throne above and, with the ‘lion’s grip’ of almighty power, raises the faithful and regenerated soul to union with itself in an embrace of reconciliation and at-one-ment.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “The soul must voluntarily and consciously pass through a state of utter helplessness from which no earthly hand can rescue it, and in trying to raise him from which the grip of any succouring human hand will prove but a slip: [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“The perfect cube must pass through the metamorphosis of the Cross.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “The perfect cube must pass through the metamorphosis of the Cross.” [via]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“What is meant is that complete self-sacrifice and self-crucifixion which, as all religions teach, are essential before the soul can be raised in glory ‘from a figurative death to a reunion with the companions of its former toils’ both here and in the unseen world.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “What is meant is that complete self-sacrifice and self-crucifixion which, as all religions teach, are essential before the soul can be raised in glory ‘from a figurative death to a reunion with the companions of its former toils’ both here and [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“No! the death to which Masonry alludes, using the analogy of bodily death and under the veil of a reference to it, is that death-in-life to a man’s own lower self which St. Paul referred to when he protested ‘I die daily’. It is over the grave, not of one’s dead body but of one’s lower self, that the aspirant must walk before attaining to the heights.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “No! the death to which Masonry alludes, using the analogy of bodily death and under the veil of a reference to it, is that death-in-life to a man’s own lower self which St. Paul referred to when he protested ‘I die [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“All that he fears is that when the time comes, he may not be free from those ‘stains of falsehood and dishonour,’ those imperfections of his own nature, that may delay his after-progress.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “All that he fears is that when the time comes, he may not be free from those ‘stains of falsehood and dishonour,’ those imperfections of his own nature, that may delay his after-progress.” [via]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“The Mason who knows his science knows that the death of the body is only a natural transition of which he need have no dread whatever; he knows also that when the due time for it arrives, that transition will be a welcome respite from the bondage of this world, from his prison-like husk of mortality, and from the daily burdens incident to existence in this lower plane of life.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “The Mason who knows his science knows that the death of the body is only a natural transition of which he need have no dread whatever; he knows also that when the due time for it arrives, that transition will be [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“I sometimes fear that the too conspicuous display of the emblems and trappings of mortality in our Lodges is apt to create the false impression that the death to which the third degree alludes is the mere physical change that awaits all men. But a far deeper meaning is intended.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “I sometimes fear that the too conspicuous display of the emblems and trappings of mortality in our Lodges is apt to create the false impression that the death to which the third degree alludes is the mere physical change that awaits [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

“All that has happened in the third degree is that he has symbolically passed through a great and striking change: a rebirth, or regeneration of his whole nature. He has been ‘sown a corruptible body’; and in virtue of the self-discipline and self-development he has undergone, there has been raised in him ‘an incorruptible body,’ and death has been swallowed up in the victory he has attained over himself.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “All that has happened in the third degree is that he has symbolically passed through a great and striking change: a rebirth, or regeneration of his whole nature. He has been ‘sown a corruptible body’; and in virtue of the self-discipline [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“For if you follow closely the raising ceremony, although distinct reference to the death of the body is made, yet such death is obviously intended to be merely symbolical of another kind of death, since the candidate is eventually restored to his former worldly circumstances and material comforts, and his earthly Masonic career is not represented as coming to a close at this stage.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “For if you follow closely the raising ceremony, although distinct reference to the death of the body is made, yet such death is obviously intended to be merely symbolical of another kind of death, since the candidate is eventually restored to [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“And so, as the sign peculiar to the degree suggests, he endeavours to examine and lay bare his heart, to cast away all impurity from it, and he stands, like Joshua, praying that the light of day may be extended to him until he has accomplished the overthrow of his own inward enemies and of every obstacle to his complete development.”

Friday, February 3, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “And so, as the sign peculiar to the degree suggests, he endeavours to examine and lay bare his heart, to cast away all impurity from it, and he stands, like Joshua, praying that the light of day may be extended to [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“He sees that difficulty, adversity and persecution serve a beneficent purpose. These are his ‘wages’: and he learns to accept them ‘without scruple and without diffidence, knowing that he is justly entitled to them, and from the confidence he has in the integrity’ of that Employer who has sent him into this far-off world to prepare the materials for building the temple of the heavenly city.”

Friday, February 3, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “He sees that difficulty, adversity and persecution serve a beneficent purpose. These are his ‘wages’: and he learns to accept them ‘without scruple and without diffidence, knowing that he is justly entitled to them, and from the confidence he has in [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“Upon self-scrutiny, too, i.e., upon entering into that ‘porchway’ of contemplation which like a winding staircase leads inward to the Holy of Holies within himself, he realizes that difficulties and obstacles placed in his way are utilised by the Eternal Wisdom as the necessary means of developing the latent and potential good in him, and that as the rough ashlar can only be squared and perfected by chipping and polishing, so he also can be made perfect only by toil and by suffering.”

Friday, February 3, 2012

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. “Upon self-scrutiny, too, i.e., upon entering into that ‘porchway’ of contemplation which like a winding staircase leads inward to the Holy of Holies within himself, he realizes that difficulties and obstacles placed in his way are utilised by the Eternal Wisdom [...]

Also filed in | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)