The Position and Possibilities of the Masonic Order from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“Carried to its fullest, that achievement would involve the revival, in a form adapted to modern conditions, of the ancient Wisdom-teaching and the practice of, those Mysteries which became proscribed fifteen centuries ago, but of which modern Masonry is the, direct and representative descendant, as will appear later in these pages.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “It is, of course, common knowledge that great secret systems of the Mysteries (referred to in, our lectures as ‘noble orders of architecture,’ i.e., of soul-building) existed in the East, in Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, amongst the Hebrews, amongst Mahommedans and amongst Christians; even among uncivilized African races they are to be found. All the great teachers of humanity, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Moses, Aristotle, Virgil, the author of the Homeric poems, and the great Greek tragedians, along with St. John, St. Paul and innumerable other great names–were initiates of the Sacred Mysteries.”
  2. “The Order is a semi-secret, semi-public institution; secret in respect of its activities intra moenia, but otherwise of full public notoriety, with its doors open to any applicant for admission who is of ordinary good character and repute. Those who enter it, as the majority do, entirely ignorant of what they will find there, usually because they have friends there or know Masonry to be an institution devoted to high ideals and benevolence and with which it may be socially desirable to be connected, may or may not be attracted and profit by what is disclosed to them, and may or may not see anything beyond the bare form of the symbol or hear anything beyond the mere letter of the word.”
  3. “What seems now needed to intensify the worth and usefulness of this great Brotherhood is to deepen its understanding of its own system, to educate its members in the deeper meaning and true purpose of its rites and its philosophy.”
  4. “Tis scarcely true that souls come naked down To take abode up in this earthly town, Or naked pass, of all they wear denied. We enter slipshod and with clothes awry, And we take with us much that by-and-by May prove no easy task to put aside. Cleanse, therefore, that which round about us clings, We pray Thee, Master, ere Thy sacred halls We enter. Strip us of redundant things, And meetly clothe us in pontificals. [Strange Houses of Sleep by A. E. Waite.]”
  5. “The full Master-Mason–the just man made perfect who has actually and not merely ceremonially travelled the entire path, endured all its tests and ordeals, and become raised into conscious union with the Author and Masonic Giver of Life and able to mediate and impart that Order life to others is at all times hard to find.”