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 our teaching.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “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.”
  2. “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.”
  3. Queen Elizabeth’s Magician – John Dee
  4. “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.”
  5. “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.”