The Cycle & Dualities of Masonic Education
In our ceremonies, we hear about the earth revolving around the sun, we hear of a peculiar system of morality, a progressive science. We also hear of light and dark, good and bad, life and death, beautiful and horrible. These are cycles and dualities that make up Freemasonry.
There are also allegories and symbolism. The Lodge when Tyled is an allegory for the building site of King Solomons Temple and the Quarries the work we do to prepare for our Regular meetings but also the improvement me make in our daily lives.
When discussing how Education on Regular Meetings is actually polluting the altar / temple the question was raised, but aren’t our ceremonies themselves Education?
In this edition of Daily Masonic Progress, let’s take a closer look at what our ceremonies are and examine the cycle and the duality of refining the rough stone into perfect then placing it on the temple.
It’s first important to start with the basics of what constitutes the system and how the cycles work by taking a look at each degree’s stage in the building of King Solomons Temple.
In the First Degree, we learn that an orindary Man embarks on the first step in his Masonic Journey. The foundation is laid for the superstructure, he receives his clothing as a Mason as well as the tools he is to use, the 24 inch Guage, Common Gavel and Chisel. Of the tools he is given, the Common Gavel and Chisel are metal tools, intended to be used in the Quarry to hewen or cut the stone for the hands of the more expert workmen. In the Second Degree, again, he’s still in the Quarry, the more expert Fellowcraft uses the Square, Level and Plumb Rule, along with the Chisel and Common Gavel to make the final refinements of the rough stone into the perfect so it can then be transported to the bulding site of King Solomons Temple for it to be put into place by Wooden mauls.
This is how the duality and the system of the two originally degrees worked. Stone is cut in the quarries, transported to the temple site to be placed on the building. Thus, we educate outselves and refine (cut and shape), then come to lodge (regular meeting) for the completed stones to be placed in the temple. Sometimes we come Lodge with just one stone, others the delivery is larger. But the process of always the same, coming to lodge is placing the stones prepared in the quarries in the temple whether that temple be our own Lodge, the Craft, or Ourselves.
What about the Third Degree and Installed Master? Well, in the Third Degree with the temple’s construction progressing the use of the Skirret, Pencil and Compasses to plan the work required for the building to continue to progress and orders the next lot of stones from the Quarry. Here in the third, this work is not done on the building site specifically, rather adjacent or appended to the site. Afterall, the Third (and Installed Master) was appended to the Craft by splitting the Seond Degree into three (Fellow of the Craft, Master of Masonry and Installed Master of Masons).
However, aren’t our ceremonies education? No. They are the laying of the stone and providing us the instruction. After laying of the stone, we receive the instruction on what we are to do next, then we can take this back to the quarry, apply the instruction to learn and grow, to cut the stone and then bring it to the regular meeting for when the lodge is then tyled, that tyling process is placing the stones. This is the cycle and it continuously repeats itself. The duality is the lodge when tyled is for placement & instruction, at home or outside is for education & refinement.