PART II

The Masonic Legend
EVERY mystic movement has its legend, which tell^ in i^Tmbolic language its stattos in the cosmic order and the ideal which it tries to realize. From the Old Testament, containing the Atlantean Mystery teaching, we learn that mankind was created male-female, bi-sexual, and that each one was cap- able of propagating his species without the co-opera- tion of another as is the case with some plants today. Later on, we are informed, Jehovah removed one pole of the creative force from Adam, the early humanity, and that there were henceforth two sexes. The esoteric teaching supplements this information by stating that the purpose of this change was to use one pole of the creative force for the building of a brain and larynx wherewith mankind might acquire knowledge and express itself in speech. The inti- mate connection between the organs, brain, larjmx and genitals is evident to anyone upon the slightest Examination of facts. The boy's voice changing at puberty, the mental deficiency resulting from over- indulgence of the passional nature, and the inarti- culate speech of the mentally defective with many
The Masonic Legend 15
other facts which might be added prove this asser- tion.
According to the Bible, our earliest parents were forbidden to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, but Eve, seduced by the serpent, did eat and later induced the man to follow her example. Who are the perpents and what is the Tree of Knowledge may also be de- termined from certain pajSMsages in the Bible. We are told, for instance, that Christ exhorted his dis- ciples to be ^'wise as serpents and harmless as doves.** The so-called curse pronounced upon Eve after her confession declares that she must bear her children in sorrow and pain and that the race will die. It has always been a great stumbling block to Bible commentators as to what connection there could be between the eating of an apple, death, and painful parturition; but when we are acquainted with the chaste expressions of the Bible, which desig- nates the creative act by such passages as **Adam Tcnew Eve and she bore Cain,'* '*Adam knew Eve and she bore Abel,** '/How can I bear a child seeing I know not a man?** et cetera, it is very evident that the Tree of Knowledge is a symbolical expres- sion for the creative act. Then it is plain that the perpents taught Eve how to perform the creative act and that Eve instructed Adam. Therefore, Christ designated the serpents as harmful while admitting their wisdom. To get at the identity of the serpent it is necessary to invoke the esoteric teaching, which points them out as the martial Lucifer Spirits, rulers
16 Freemasonry and Catholicism
of the serpentine sign Scorpio. Their Initiates, even 60 late as the Egyptian Dynasty, wore the Uraeus or serpent symbol in the forehead as a sign of the source of their wisdom.
As a consequence of this unauthorized use of the creative force, humanity ceased to be ethereal and crystallized into the coats of skin or physical body which now hides from them the gods who dwell in the invisible realms; and gi*eat was their sorrow at this loss.
Generation had been originally established by the Angels under Jehovah. It was then performed in /great temples under propitious planetary conditions and parturition was then painless, as it is today among wild animals where the creative function is not abused for the purpose of gratifying the sense^. ^Degeneration resulted from the ignorant and un- authorized abuse inaugurated by the Lucifer Spirits,
Regeneration must be undertaken in order to re- store man to his lost estate as a spiritual being and to free him from this body of death wherein he is now encrusted. Death must be swallowed up in Im- mortality.
To attain this object, a covenant was made with humanity when it was expelled from the garden of God to wander in the wilderness of the world. Ac- cording to that plan, a Tabernacle was built after a pattern planned by the God, Jehovah, and an ark symbolical of the human spirit was placed in it. Its staves were never taken out of their place, to show
The Masonic Legend 17
that man is a pilgrim on the earth and may never rest until he reaches the goal. There wa^ within it a golden pot with '^ manna" (man) '^fallen from heaven/' together with a statement of the divine laws which man must learn in his pilgrimage through the wilderness of matter. This symbolic ark contained also a magic wand, an emblem of the spiritual pow- ers, called Aaron's rod, which are now latent in everyone on his way to the haven of rest — the mystic temple of Solomon. The Old Testament also tells how humanity was miraculously led and provided for, how after the warfare with the world it waa given peace and prosperity by the before mentioned King Solomon; in short, stripped of all embellish- ments the story relates the salient facts of man's descent from heaven, his principal metamorphoses, hi)3 transgression of the laws of the God Jehovah, how he has been led in the past and how Jehovah would wish to guide him in the future till he reaches the Kingdom of Heaven — ^the land of peace — and again docilely follows the lead of the Divine Ruler. i The Masonic legend has points of variance from as well as agreement with the Bible story. It stateis that Jehovah created Eve, that the Lucifer Spirit Samael united with her but that he was ousted by Jehovah and forced to leave her before the birth of her son Cain, who was thu^ theLSim.^ a widow. Then Jehovah created Adam, to be the husband of Eve, and from their union Abel was bom. Thus from the beginning there have been two kinds of people in the
2
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18 Freemasonbt and Catholicism
world. One, begotten by the Lucifer Spirit Samael and partaking of a semi-divine nature imbued with the dynamic martial energy inherited from this divine ancestry, is aggressive, progressive, and pos- sessed of. great initiative, but impatient of restraint or authority whether human or divine. This class is loath to take things on faith and prone to prove all things by the light of reason. These people he- lieve in works rather than faith, and by their daunt- less courage and inexhaustible energy they have transformed the trackless wilderness of the world to a garden full of life and beauty, so lovely in fact that the Sons of Cain have forgotten the garden of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, whence they were expelled by the decree of the lunar God Jehovah. Against Him they are in constant rebellion because He has tied them by the umbUiccH ^^ cable tow." They have lost their spiritual sight and are imprisoned in the forehead of the body where it is said Cain was mark- ed; they must wander as prodigal sons in the com- parative darkness of the material world, oblivious to their high and noble estate until they find the door of the temple, and ask and receive Light; then aa ^^phree messen" or children of light they are in- structed in methods of building a new temple with- out sound of hammer, and when they have learned this they may '^travel in foreign countries" to learn more of the craft. In other words, when the spirit realizes that it is far from its heavenly home, a prodi- gal, feeding upon the unsatisfactory husks of the
The Masonic Legend 19
material world, tliat apart from the Father it tei *'poor, naked and blind/' when it knocks at the door of a mystic temple like that of the Bosicrucians and asks for light, when it receives the desired instruction after due qualification by building an ethereal soul- body, a temple or house eternal in the heavens, not made with hands, and without sound of hammer, when its nakedness is clothed with that house (see Cor. 4.5,) then the neophyte receives ^Whe v}ord/' jbhe open sesame to the inner worlds and learns to travel in foreign parts in the invisible worlds. There he takes soul-flights into heavenly regions and quali- fies for higher degrees under more direct instruction from The Grand Architect of the Universe, who fash- ioned both heaven and earth.
Such is the temperament of the widow's sons in- herited from their divine progenitor Samael and given by him to their ancestor Cain. Their past history is a struggle with adverse conditions, their achievement is victory wrested from all opposing forces by in- domitable courage and persistent effort, unchecked by temporary defeat.
On the other hand while Cain, governed by divine ambition, toiled and tilled the soil to make two blades of grass grow where there were only one, Ahel, the human progeny of human parents, felt no urge or unrest, himself a creature of Jehovah through Adam and Eve; he was perfectly contented to tend the fiocks also created by Qod and to accept a livelihood from their divinely begotten increase without labor
20 Freemasonry and Catholicism
or exercising initiative. This docile attitude was most pleasing to the God Jehovah, who was extreme- ly jealous of His prerogative as Creator. Therefore He cordially accepted the offering of Abel obtained without effort or initiative, but scorned the offering of Cain because derived through his own divine crea- tive instinct akin to that of Jehovah. Cain then slew Abel, but did not thereby exterminate the docile crea- tures of Jehovah, for we are told Adam knew Eve again and she bore SetJi, Seth had the same charac- teristics as Abel and transmitted them to his descend- ants, who to this day, continue to trust to the Lord for everything, and wlio live by faith and not by work. By arduous and energetic application to the world's work the Sons of Cain have acquired worldly wisdom and temporal power. They have been cap- tains of industry and masters of statecraft, while the Sons of Seth, looking to the Lord for guidance, have become the avenue for divine and spiritual wisdom. They constitute the priestcraft. The animosity of Cain and Abel has been perpetuated from generation to generation among their respective de.scendants. Nor could it be otherwise, because one class as tem- poral rulers aim to lift humanity to physical well- being through conquest of the material world, while the Priesthood in their role as spiritual guides urge their followers to forsake the wicked world, the vale of tears, and look to God for comfort. One school aims to turn out master workmen, skilled in the use of tools wherewith they may wrest a livelihood from the
The Masonic Legend 21
earth, which was cursed by their divine adversary Jehovah. The other produces master magicians, skilled in the use of the tongue in invocation, and by the use of the tongue they gain support from the toil- ers here and pray themselves and their charges into heaven hereafter.
About the future in store for the Sonp of Cain and their followers, the temple legend is also most elo- quent. It states that from Cain descended Methus- elah, who invented writing, Tubal Cain, a cunning worker in metals, and Jubal, who originated music. In short, the Sons of Cain are tJie originators of tJie
* arts and crafts. Therefore when Jehovah chose Solo- mon, the scion of the race of Seth, to build a house for his name, the sublime spirituality of a long line of divinely guided ancestors flowered into the con- ception of the magnificent temple called Solomon's Temple, though Solomon was only the instrument to carry out the divine plan revealed by Jehovah to David. But Solomon was unable to execute the divine design in concrete form. Therefore it became necessary for him to apply to King Hiram of Tyre, the descendant of Cain, who selected Hiram Ahiff, the son of a widow, (as all Free Masons are called because of the relation of their divine progenitor
'with Eve.) Hiram Abiff then became Grand Master of the army of construction. In him the arts and crafts of all the Sons of Cain who had gone before had flowered. He was skilled beyond all others in the work of the world, without which the plan of
22 Freemasonry and Cathoucism
Jehovah must have remained forever a divine dream, and could never have become a concrete reality. The worldly acumen of the Sons of Cain was as necessary to the completion of this temple as the spiritual con- ception of the Sons of Seth, and, therefore, during the period of construction the two classes joined forces, the underlying enmity being hidden under a superficial show of amity. It was, indeed, the first attempt to unite them, and had that been accom- plished the world history from then on would have been altered in a very material manner.
The Sons of Cain, descended from the fiery Lucifer Spirits, were naturally proficient in the use of iireJ By it the metals hoarded by Solomon and his ances- tors were melted into altars, lavers and vessels of various kinds. Pillars were fashioned by workmen under the direction of Hiram Abiff, and arches to rest upon them. The great edifice was nearing com- pletion when he made ready to cast the ** molten sea," which was to be the crowning effort, his masterpiece. It was in the construction of this great work that the treachery of the Sons of Seth became manifest and frustrated the divine plan of reconciliation. They tried to quench the fire used by Hiram Abiff with their natural weapon, water, and almo^ succeeded. The incidents which led up to this catastrophe, their meaning, and the sequel will be related in the next chapter.