Category Archives: The Tracing Board of Walter Leslie Wilmshurst

The “secrets” (or arcane truths) imparted in this Degree are explained as consisting of certain peculiar marks or signs, intended to distinguish all Brethren of the elementary grade of Apprentice. Outwardly, in this and in subsequent Degrees also, they are expressed by step, sign, and word. These, of course, are not the full or real secrets, but only figurative emblems of them. It is what they signify that constitutes the secrets, and that significance is left for the Candidate to meditate upon and reduce into daily personal practice. Only so will he really learn them and come to understand why they are called “secrets” and why we insist upon their use. They can never be orally communicated, except in symbolic form, but must be learned by experimental practice.

W L Wilmshurst, The Ceremony of Initiation, Part II

Hermetic quote Wilmshurst The Ceremony of Initiation secrets imparted marks signs outwardly step sign word not full real secrets figurative emblems daily personal practice learn understand experimental

In being given the formal symbolic secrets the Candidate should reflect that he is receiving a first lesson in a long course of instruction of a private and occult nature; i.e., one not taught outside the Lodge, but hidden from public knowledge and intended to help him upon the path of his personal inner life. For having but just entered upon that path, it is proper that he should now be instructed how to tread it.

W L Wilmshurst, The Ceremony of Initiation, Part II

Hermetic quote Wilmshurst The Ceremony of Initiation formal symbolic secrets first lesson long course instruction private occult hidden public knowledge path personal inner life proper instructed

Our teaching is purposely veiled in allegory and symbol and its deeper import does not appear upon the surface of the ritual itself. This is partly in correspondence with human life itself and the world we live in, which are themselves but allegories and symbols of another life and the veils of another world; and partly intentional also, so that only those who have reverent and understanding minds may penetrate into the more hidden meaning of the doctrine of the Craft. The deeper secrets in Masonry, like the deeper secrets of life, are heavily veiled; are closely hidden. They exist concealed beneath a great reservation; but whoso knows anything of them knows also that they are “many and valuable”, and that they are disclosed only to those who act upon the hint given in our lectures, “Seek and ye shall find; ask and ye shall have; knock and it shall be opened unto you”.

W L Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry, Chapter I The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry

Hermetic quote Wilmshurst The Meaning of Masonry Deeper Symbolism purposely veiled allegory symbol reverent understanding minds penetrate hidden meaning doctrine craft

The secrets of his mental nature and the principles of intellectual life became at this stage gradually unfolded to his view. You will thus perceive, Brethren, that the F.C. degree, sometimes regarded by us as a somewhat uninteresting one, typifies in reality a long course of personal development requiring the most profound knowledge of the mental and psychical side of our nature. It involves not merely the cleansing and control of the mind, but a full comprehension of our inner constitution, of the more hidden mysteries of our nature and of spiritual psychology.

W L Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry, Chapter I The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry

Hermetic quote Wilmshurst The Meaning of Masonry Deeper Symbolism secrets mental nature principles gradually unfolded long course personal development profound knowledge hidden mysteries

The depths of human nature and self knowledge, the hidden mysteries of the soul of man are not, as real initiates well know, probed into with impunity except by the “properly prepared”. The man who does so has, as it were, a cable-tow around his neck; because when once stirred by a genuine desire for the higher knowledge that real initiation is intended to confer, he can never turn back on what he learns thereof without committing moral suicide; he can never be again the same man he was before he gained a glimpse of the hidden mysteries of life. And as the Angel stood with a flaming sword at the entrance of Eden to guard the way to the Tree of Life, so will the man whose initiation is not a conventional one find himself threatened at the door of the higher knowledge by opposing invisible forces if he rashly rushes forward in a state of moral unfitness into the deep secrets of the Centre. Better remain ignorant than embark upon this unknown sea unwisely and without being properly prepared and in possession of the proper passports.

W L Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry, Chapter II Masonry as a Philosophy

Hermetic quote Wilmshurst The Meaning of Masonry as Philosophy depths human nature self knowledge hidden mysteries soul man real initiates properly prepared

Brethren, may we all come to the knowledge how to “open the Lodge upon the centre” of ourselves and so realize in our own conscious experience the finding of the “imprisoned splendour” hidden in the depths of our being, whose rising within ourselves will bring us peace and salvation.

W L Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry, Chapter II Masonry as a Philosophy

Hermetic quote Wilmshurst The Meaning of Masonry as Philosophy brethren knowledge open lodge centre ourselves realize conscious experience finding imprisoned splendour hidden within peace salvation

Not without good reason does our catechism assert that Masonry contains “many and invaluable secrets.” But these of course are not the formal and symbolic signs, tokens and words communicated ceremonially to candidates; they are rather those secrets which we instinctively keep locked up in the recesses and safe repository of our hearts; secrets of the deep and hidden things of the soul, about which we do not often talk, and which, by a natural instinct, we are not in the habit of communicating to any but such of our brethren and fellows as share with us a common and a sympathetic interest in the deeper problems and mysteries of life.

W L Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry, Chapter II Masonry as a Philosophy

Hermetic quote Wilmshurst The Meaning of Masonry as Philosophy secrets not formal symbolic signs instinctively locked safe hearts deep hidden deeper problems mysteries life

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 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.” [via]