The Secret Power of Masonic Symbols

The Influence of Ancient Symbols on the Pivotal Moments in History and an Encyclopedia of All the Ke

Robert Lomas

• Publisher: Fair Winds Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781610581301
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

For more than 500 years, the symbology of Freemasonry has fostered a secret stream of radical ideas running just beneath the surface of popular culture today. These ideas, illuminated by public symbols hidden in full view, have influenced and shaped the society we have today. Despite this ongoing record of inspiration, no illustrated guide book to the basic ideas of Masonic Symbology has even been published and the story remains mysterious—until now.

This authoritative guide reveals how this symbology has been the backdrop to key historical events in the history of humanity from ancient times and how, in more recent times, inspired leaders have harnessed the symbols' power to bring about change in society. Renowned Freemasonry historian Dr. Robert Lomas takes you inside the Secret Order and shows you how Entered Apprentices first learn their craft, and how continual exposure to these mystical symbols can change the way you think. You'll explore the six mysterious Tracing Boards that are at the heart of every Masonic Grand Lodge, ending with the final, most mystical symbol, known as "the Centre." Let The Secret Power of Masonic Symbols be your personal guide and show you how these symbols have made their indelible mark on the past, and how they will continue to influence society in the future.

PART ONE

THE SECRET
INFLUENCE
OF SYMBOLS

FOR TWO THOUSAND YEARS, SINCE THE TIME OF the philosopher Plato, people have understood that there is a source of pure symbols existing in a spiritual realm of perfection. Plato taught that with careful training an individual could be shown how to communicate with this realm and discover the true nature of these symbols. He developed a way to investigate the truth carried by shapes that it is deeply embedded in Masonic symbology.

The first Freemasons were stoneworkers, employed to carve symbols of religious power into public places of worship. They recognized the power of symbols and realized that symbols were able to influence people’s thoughts and actions. They studied the ancient symbols and learned how they had influenced the development of human thought.

The Masonic tradition preserved and developed the ancient emotive symbols and from its practice of symbolic reasoning created an environment which influenced the advancement of society. This book shares secret knowledge that has taken five hundred years to learn.

CHAPTER 1

WHY SYMBOLS ARE MORE
POWERFUL THAN WORDS

SYMBOLS MADE US HUMAN

A symbol is a pictorial device that evokes a concept in its entirety. It bypasses the intellect and talks straight to the heart. Our intellect analyzes, but our heart synthesizes. So a symbol evokes understanding without needing to convey verbal information.

Around 120,000 years ago, a new species of primate appeared in Africa. Its scientific name is Homo sapiens, but we know this creature as the modern human. When this species appeared on the earth, there were already other similar but more widespread species of humanoid apes, such as the Neanderthals. Yet the Homo sapiens were different. They were different because they could tap into the mystic power of understanding that is inherent in symbols. Symbols have helped humans develop a unique form of consciousness that no other animal has.

All the races of humans are much more closely related than most of us realize. You might be even more surprised to know how closely we are related our primate cousins, the African apes. Our genes are about 98 percent identical to those of an ape, and we share large chunks of our DNA sequence with all other life forms on the earth, even bacteria.¹

All humans are descended from a single female that lived in Africa less than 200,000 years ago. She is popularly called “Mitochondrial Eve.”² As geneticist Bryan Sykes puts it: “‘Mitochondrial Eve’ ... lies at the root of all the maternal ancestries of every one of the six billion people in the world. We are all her direct maternal descendants.”³ Our common maternal ancestor lived only a few thousand generations ago. And her earliest descendants drew the first symbols and tapped into their power.

In the following chapters, you will learn about the power of these symbols, the history of their interaction with humans, and how humans’ differential advantage came about because they evolved a type of brain that benefits from a direct relationship with the symbols. This symbiotic relationship began during our early evolutionary history and continues to influence our development in ways most of us are often unaware of.

There is, however, a secret group of specialists who have spent the last 500 years working with these symbols. They learned how symbols can advance the human condition by enabling us to share understanding. This group is the Freemasons, and their declared purpose is to study and understand symbols.

Ask any Freemason the question What is Freemasonry? and you will get this answer: a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. For 500 years, Freemasons have used a system of allegorical ritual and exposure to the mystic power of symbols to sensitize their members to the life-changing power these symbols have. Freemasons continue to experience the deep understanding that symbols can inspire and their power to change the way humans develop.

When humans were first exposed to symbols’ mystic power, they changed from brute animals into human beings in a way we still struggle to understand. James Shreeve, a well-known anthropologist, sums up the puzzle presented by this abrupt change:

Human beings—modern humans, Homo sapiens—are behaviorally far, far away from being “just another animal.” The mystery is where, how, and why this change took place. ... An “all-important transition” did occur, but it happened so close to the present moment that we are still reeling from it. ... Something happened that turned a passably precocious animal into a human being.⁴

Anthropology records how and when this change happened but offers no explanation. It is my contention that humanity came into contact with a powerful force outside itself that has interacted with our collective mind ever since. This force is carried and communicated by symbols. In later chapters, we will discover that symbols are part of a great cosmic language that transmits deep understanding about the secrets of the universe.

In 2001, when Shreeve wrote the statement just quoted, it was thought that humanity’s relationship with symbols began only 30,000 years ago in the deep, dark caves of northern Europe. Then, much earlier evidence of the power of symbols came to light in a cave in southern Africa. The Times of London reported it:

A pair of decorated ornaments unearthed in a South African cave have been dated at more than 70,000 years old, proving that human beings could think abstractly and appreciate beauty much earlier than is generally accepted.

THIS MASONIC TEMPLE DISPLAYS THE ANCIENT LOZENGE PATTERN CARVED INTO THE ARCH ABOVE THE MASTER’S CHAIR. Copyright and reproduced by permission of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London and Painton Cowen

The engraved pieces of ochre, a type of iron ore, are by far the oldest examples of symbolic art—a standard benchmark for recognizably modern thought and behavior. The earliest similar objects, from Europe, were made less than 35,000 years ago, and subtle intelligence is usually held to have begun at this time.

The find at Blombos Cave, 180 miles from Cape Town in the Western Cape, will therefore completely revise one of the first chapters of human history.

It indicates that not only did the first human beings evolve in Africa and spread throughout the world, but that they became mentally sophisticated by the time they did so.

This helps to explain the ease with which Homo sapiens supplanted other human relatives, such as the Neanderthals in Europe, and thus the development of the modern human race.

All the anatomical features of Homo sapiens are known to have evolved in Africa between 150,000 and 130,000 years ago, but the question of when the species began to behave in modern fashion has remained more elusive.

The Blombos Cave, discovered by Professor Chris Henshilwood of the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town, resolves the debate decisively.⁵

I am a Freemason, and I have been trained in the Masonic system of symbol sensitization. When I saw the image these long dead humans had carved, I recognized it immediately.

I know them as the Masonic lozenge. It is an image I see every time I look at the floor of my Masonic lodge or at a Masonic tracing board.

SYMBOLS BEGAN IN DARK CAVES

That ancient primeval lozenge symbol is alive and well today. If you look around, you will see it built into the facades of buildings and in the logos embroidered on sports clothing and mounted on the hoods of cars. Why has it been drawn and redrawn for 70,000 years? Because simply looking at it creates emotions and insights, deep in our unconscious minds, that we enjoy. We respond to its power and feel good about it.

After this first symbol, there is a large gap in the archeological evidence of the interaction of symbols with humans. The next evidence occurred some 40,000 years later, when our ancestors starting drawing pictures on the walls of the caves of Europe. These early humans kept their relationship with symbols a secret. They did not display the symbols on their buildings, clothing, and possessions, but they crawled miles underground into distant, dark caves to experience the deep pleasure of seeing the symbols by the flickering flames of simple torches. It was not until 1879 that evidence of the symbols our ancient ancestors painted was found on rock walls. The first to be recognized were images of bison on the walls of a cave at Altamira in Spain. Then further symbols were found in caves at La Mouthe and Tuc d’Audoubert in France.

These symbols were hidden deep underground, far along narrow tunnels thousands of meters long. The symbols’ purpose could never have been public display. They were difficult to reach, and seeing them required unreliable rush lights and burning brands (the remains of which were found in the caves). The humans who drew them needed great courage to venture into those dark depths with only a flickering, feeble light to guide them. Yet they struggled through these tunnels to draw a wide range of symbols. Prehistoric art historian David Lewis-Williams describes the symbols:

[There are] animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, woolly mammoths, deer and felines. ... There are also occasional anthropomorphic figures that may or may not represent human beings. Some of these are therianthropes (part-human, part-animal figures). ... Then there is an image type that is exceptional in the ways that it is made—handprints. Finally, there is a multiplicity of signs, geometric forms such as grids, dots, and chevrons.⁶

A 30,000-YEAR-OLD IMAGE OF AN IBEX WITH MAGNIFICENT HORNS FOUND IN ORANGE SANDSTONE IN A CAVE IN BUCKSKIN GULCH IN UTAH (UNITED STATES).

It is not the drawings of beasts or people that have the most influence on humans. Rather, the symbols that really affect us are the geometric forms. They drive our emotional responses and evoke an understanding of concepts that we struggle to put into words.

It is symbols of the type that first appeared at Blombos that show the continuing interaction between the evolving human mind and the evocative shapes of the symbols.

Analytical psychologist Carl Gustav Jung confirms that symbols speak to us of “things beyond the range of human understanding.” They tap into a source of knowledge that is not normally accessible to our conscious minds. Jung defines such symbols as

a term, a name or an image that may be familiar in daily life, yet it possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional meanings. It implies something vague, unknown or hidden from us. ... Thus a word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. It has a wider “unconscious” aspect that is never precisely defined or fully explained. Nor can one hope to define or explain it. As the mind explores the symbol it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason. ... Because there are innumerable things beyond the range of human understanding, we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend.⁷

Jung goes on to expand this idea:

There are unconscious aspects of our perception of reality. ... Even when our senses react to real phenomena, sights, and sounds, they are somehow translated from the realm of reality into that of the mind. Within the mind they become psychic events, whose ultimate nature is unknowable (for the psyche cannot know its own psychical substance). Thus every experience contains an indefinite number of unknown factors, not to speak of the fact that every concrete object is always unknown in certain respects, because we cannot know the ultimate nature of matter itself.⁸

But what is this knowledge, and where does it come from? These questions have haunted the human race for at least 2,500 years. Greek philosopher Plato (427–347 BCE) thought that symbols came from a transcendental world of perfect and beautiful forms that can be reached only by the human soul. He believed that the most important hu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface: The Hidden Influence of Ancient Symbols
• Part One: The Secret Influence of Symbols
• Part Two: A Practical Introduction to Masonic Symbology
• Part Three: A Practical Introduction to the Tracing Boards
• Endnotes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index
• Copyright Page