This article is taken from the August 2020 issue of Fraternal Review titled, “Justice.”

It has already been shown that the structure and appointments of the lodge are symbolic; that the lodge is a representation both of the universe and of man himself as a Microcosm of the universe in miniature; that it is an image of his own complex constitution, his heavens and his earth (his spirituality and materiality) and all that therein is.

By contemplating that image, therefore, the Mason learns to visualize himself; he is given a first lesson in that self-knowledge in the full attainment of which is promised the understanding of all things. “Know thyself” we have said, was written over the portals of the ancient temples of initiation, self-knowledge being the aim of their intention and the goal of their purpose.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Masonry perpetuates this maxim by recommending self-knowledge as “the most interesting of all human studies.” It is the tersest, wisest of instructions, yet little heeded nowadays, and it is incapable of fulfillment unless undertaken in accordance with the ancient science and with a concentration of one’s whole energies upon the task. It involves the deepest introspection into oneself and perfect discrimination between what is real and permanent, and what is unreal and evanescent in ourselves.

As aspirants to the mysteries could not learn the secrets of the temple without entering it, learning its lessons, undergoing its disciplines, and receiving its graduated initiations.

No one can attain self-knowledge save by entering into himself, distinguishing the false from the true, the unreal from the real, the base metal from the fine gold, sublimating the former into the latter, and ignoring what is negligible or superfluous.

TO GO WITHIN

The very word initiation primarily derives from the Latin inire, to go within; and thence, after learning the lessons of selfanalysis, to make a new beginning (initium) by reconstructing one’s knowledge of life and manner of living. The 43rd Psalm restates the same instruction: Introibo ad altare Dei, “I will go in to the divine altar.”

Similarly, the Masonic initiation contemplates a going within oneself, until one reaches the altar or center, the Divine Principle or ultimate hidden basis of our being.

To know the anatomy and physiology of the mortal body is not self-knowledge. The physical fabric of man is a perishing self, mere dust and shadow, projected from vitalizing forces within it, and without permanence or reality.

EMOTIONS AND DESIRES

To understand the nature and mechanism of the mind, emotions and desires, is useful and necessary, but is not selfknowledge, for they, too, are transient and, therefore, unreal aspects of the deeper real self. The personality we present to the world is not our real self.

It is but a mask, a distorting veil, behind which the true self abides hiddenly and often unknown to our unreal surface self, unless and until it be brought forward into consciousness, displacing and overriding the notions and tendencies of the natural, but benighted, superficial self. Until then its “light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5)

To bring it forward out of its veils of darkness, to “comprehend” and establish it permanently in our awareness is, and has ever been, the purpose of all initiation. But this cannot be achieved until the outer bodily and mental vestures have been purified and a voluntary dying or effacement of everything in us alien to, or conflicting with, the real self has been suffered; all which is implied by the teaching of our three degrees respectively.

THE HUMAN SPIRIT

True self-knowledge is unobstructed conscious union of the human spirit with God and the realization of their identity. In that identic union the unreal, superficial selves have become obliterated. The sense of personality is lost, merged in the impersonal and universal. The little ego is assumed into the great All, and knows as It knows.

Man realizes his own inherent ultimate divinity, and thenceforth lives and acts no longer as a separate individual, with an independent will, but in integration with the Divine Life and Will, whose instrument he becomes, whose purposes he thenceforth serves.

Written by W.L. Wilmshurst

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