The Hiramic Legend is not the Hero's Journey

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Patrick Dey

In 1949 Joseph Campbell published his seminal work Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he outlines a motif he noticed in many myths concerning heroes and heroic quests. This motif of the hero’s journey has become so prolific and disseminated so extensively that it now stands as its own archetype irrelevant to Campbell’s text, so much so that there are a surprising number of people who are totally ignorant that the hero’s journey was invented in the mid-20th century by a professor at Sarah Lawrence College.

Hero with a Thousand Faces is actually a brilliant work, and I would recommend it to anyone, though I have my disputes with Campbell. The text is a step-by-step guide through the motif of heroes and their quests by comparative method. But rather than iterate a bunch of myths in full and then point out where certain elements of the motif line up, he walks the reader through the motif, element by element, and then picks and pulls scenes from a vast variety of myths to demonstrate the motif. As the reader progresses through the text, Campbell builds more and more upon complex ideas and ideologies, so that the reader feels like they went on a quest and returned empowered by it.

However, one criticism I have of Campbell is rooted in his Jungian approach to mythology, namely taking the comparative method a little too far to an improper conclusion. Frequently where Campbell sees similarities between two things in content, he ignores the context, and concludes that they are rooted in the same unconscious archetype. Professor Elizabeth Vandiver makes a similar critique of Campbell. For instance, Vandiver points out that where Wonder Woman is an Amazonian woman, Campbell believes that the Amazonians of the DC Universe are mythologically the same as the Amazonians of ancient Greek mythos. This completely ignores the context in which the two Amazonians are being presented. The Greeks present the Amazons as wild, untamed, unruly feminine nature that needs marriage and men to calm them down and domesticate them; the DC Amazonians are just strong, powerful women of ancient heritage. They are not the same in context.

The Hiramic Legend is similar. At first glance, it does appear very similar to the hero’s journey motif, but there are some critical elements which remove Hiram Abif as any sort of hero. Firstly, and probably the most notable difference is that Hiram dies. This simply is not how the hero’s journey works. The hero must return, and not just return alive, but must bring back a boon to the world. That boon may be a physical object, such as Prometheus bringing fire to men, or it may be more of an understanding and wisdom to the benefit of others, such as Frodo and his three hobbit companions who return to save the Shire from Saruman. Hiram Abif does none of these things. He just dies and rots.

Campbell lays out a series of events that the hero will undertake during their adventure. Not all myths have these elements. The hero’s journey is not really a true mythological motif, but rather a “monomyth,” a sort of template in various myths and legends, and so it has a degree of flexibility. Campbell outlines seventeen elements that are central to the hero’s journey. Now, if the Hiramic Legend checked off the majority of these, then we might have reasonable grounds to say it is or nearly is a hero’s journey, but by my assessment, it checks off almost none of these, if any.

Firstly, there is the “call to adventure,” followed by a “refusal of the call.” Hiram does neither of these. He is accosted and harassed to give up the secrets of a Master Mason, but he refuses. However, this is not the same thing as a call and refusal to adventure. That would mean the call to adventure is to illicitly divulge the secrets of a Master Mason, which isn’t very virtuous, and in fact would defeat the entire point of the legend: the virtue of maintaining the secrets of our fraternity.

Next, the hero receives a helper. Odysseus has the aid of Athena, Luke Skywalker has Han Solo and C3PO et al (Star Wars was directly influenced by Campbell’s work), King Arthur has his knights, et cetera. But poor Hiram is alone. Then there is “the crossing of the threshold,” followed by a point of no return, or what Campbell calls “the Belly of the Whale.” Yeah… Hiram just dies and is dug up later and given a proper burial. Some have argued that Hiram’s death and the raising of his dead body from the grave is like Jesus rising from the dead, or Osiris being revived (briefly) and made king of the dead, and other gods of death and resurrection, but Hiram does not fit this motif (what is called a “vegetable god”). Hiram is not revived. He just dies and his body is exhumed. These are not the same thing.

I could keep going, but there really is no point, because we will repeatedly deal with elements of the hero’s journey that do not fit the Hiramic Legend (e.g. the “temptress woman”), and ultimately we must conclude that Hiram is not a hero in any conceivable way. He is simply a tragic character.

That said, just because the legend is not a hero’s journey, the Hiramic Drama does provide the apparatus for the candidate to experience a hero’s journey. That’s pedantic, but there is a difference between the Hiramic Legend and the Hiramic Drama. It is, first and foremost, a drama, and then later it is a legend. As a drama, it is an experience for the candidate. As a legend, it expounds upon esoteric values and interpretations a posteriori. For the candidate, the drama is a journey. You know you did not want to sit in the South. You knew something was up when you were called to the East. What a ride, and you come out the other end rectified. For me, I truly felt like a new man after the whole thing, and unlike poor Hirma, I was not dead. And you, as a newly raised Master Mason, are a boon to the Craft, because you have become another living stone for spreading Masonic light and growth of the fraternity.

It is pedantic, but it is important to distinguish between the Hiramic Legend and Drama. I personally feel that the scene of the death of Hiram Abif is far more powerful as a drama, because it is a transformative apparatus for each newly made Master Mason. As a legend, it just becomes a jumping-off point for esotery and elaborations (or confabulations) and the proliferation of new degrees. But as a drama, it stands as an experiential program. The drama may be modified, and it has changed over the decades, but the essence of the drama remains: a heroic journey of transformation for Masons.

~PD

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister). He is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.

The Theater of Cruelty of the Hiramic Drama, Part II

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Patrick Dey

In continuation of Part I, we will look at some things I think are issues with the usual manner of conducting the Hiramic Drama and how they may be remedied.

If the cast of the Third Degree did their job right, no candidate should be asleep, literally and metaphorically. Sadly, I have seen candidates actually fall asleep, and I have seen it during bad degree work. And that is a factor in Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty. Really, good theatrics and acting should be essential to all dramas, but I think that is something Masons all too often forget: they are conducting a drama, not ritual, and there is a difference. There is something ritualistic about the Hiramic Drama, but it is a drama first, then it is ritual second. The Hiramic Drama is a work of art. Seriously, it might be one of the most unique, brilliant, and powerful theatrical performances since… I don’t know when. Then Masons get wrapped up in getting the script letter perfect like they were doing the first section of the degree. Maybe get the oath down letter-perfect, because it is a quasi-legal agreement actionable under the Constitution of a jurisdiction, but the Hiramic Drama deserves better than a bunch of guys stammering through their lines trying to get every word stated perfectly in the exact order the ritual book says.

Stop that! We need to stop conducting ritual workshops for the Third Degree and bring in some high school theater nerds to give Masons a lesson or two in how to just roll with it, go with the flow, play off each other, improvise, how to intone and play with the cadence of speech, et cetera. Someone messes up the line? Role with it. Someone missed a word? There better not be a single sideliner shouting out what they were supposed to say. Mixed up the wording? Whatever. It makes this particular degree unique.

I will never forget the time I was doing a Master Mason Degree and acting as King Solomon. The brother who was supposed to act as King Hiram was running very late, but I’m punctual, so I appointed someone else who was capable to take their spot. Then halfway through the degree the original cast member shows up, and tries to swap places, but it is at a key interaction with King Hiram, and they are fiddling with swapping officer jewels and not saying their lines. I improvised and added a new line to keep things moving and make it seem like this is part of the work (the candidate doesn’t know that). Then the late brother says, “That’s not what you’re supposed to say.” So I improvised further: “I’m King Solomon and I say what I want, and I’m about to have King Hiram put to death if he doesn’t stop fiddling with his stuff and start doing his job. Now, where is Hiram Abif?!”

That may have been out of line, and I did get a finger wag afterward. However, such improvisation and going with the flow, not getting bogged down in getting the script perfectly verbatim is essential. Artaud advocates for theatrical productions to be open to doing it differently every time. He uses the example of Balinese theater to illustrate his point, with actors executing variations and nuanced differences that flow with the overall action. Theater is an art; not something to be regurgitated letter-perfect.

Maybe when a ruffian forgets his line, then another ruffian says it instead. And instead of the first ruffian saying, “Hey that was my line!” he should say, “You know, I was going to say the same thing! Let’s steal a boat!” Totally improvise it. Who cares? The candidate doesn’t know what the book says. Are we conducting this for the candidate or for the old guy sitting on the sidelines judging every word spoken?

Perhaps if King Solomon totally blanks on what he says next, the Secretary may say, “King Solomon, as your Court Advisor, perhaps we ought to do a roll call of the workmen to see if any are missing.” Give him a prompt, but work it into the drama, that way it sounds to the candidate like it’s a part of the Degree and not just hearing someone loudly whispering lines (and King Solomon loudly whispering back, “What?!”)

Artaud takes this a step further with his essay “No More Masterpieces.” Life is ever-changing. It doesn’t follow a script. Nothing happens the same way twice. Nor should the tragedy of Hiram Abif. 

To clone objects, events, and even living beings is neither natural nor conducive to life. Martin Heidegger was certainly cognizant of this when he critiques the scientist’s true purposes in testing nature: “Modern science’s way of representing pursues and entraps nature as a calculable coherence of forces… Physics, indeed already as pure theory, sets nature up to exhibit itself as a coherence of forces calculable in advance, it orders its experiments precisely for the purpose of asking whether and how nature reports itself when set up in this way.” In other words, when we shove nature into a box and inquire how a natural phenomenon will manifest itself, we will get results that are capable of being duplicated. In fact, this is one aspect of the scientific method: that results may be duplicated by others in similar conditions. Yet nature does not exist in a confined box, nor does nature ever truly duplicate its results. Nature manifests in a multitude of ways under various uncontrollable conditions. And while it is nice to know how nature behaves in a box, it is simply not natural for nature to live in a box. The same goes for life, and the same also goes for art. Art that lives in a box is dead. It is a mummy in a coffin: perfectly preserved and ugly.

Art that is fixed and replicable is dead. Masterpieces are such that live in boxes, curated and preserved as-is in museums, photographed and duplicated in the gift shop, and have no life other “than as an object on call for inspection by a tour group ordered there by the vacation industry” (to crib Heidegger again). These are dead relics and do not call us to the life we live now, but rather ask us to be amazed at a bygone era. As Artaud expresses it:

“Recognize that what has been said is not still to be said; that an expression does not have the same value twice, does not live two lives; that all words, once spoken are dead and function only at the moment when they are uttered, that a form once it has served, cannot be used again and asks only to be replaced by another, and that the theater is the only place in the world where a gesture, once made, can never be made the same way twice. If the public does not frequent our literary masterpieces, it is because those masterpieces are literary, that is to say, fixed; and fixed in forms that no longer respond to the needs of the time. Far from blaming the public, we ought to blame the formal screen we interpose between ourselves and the public, and this new form of idolatry, the idolatry of fixed masterpieces which is one of the aspects of bourgeois conformism.”

I would say that the very idolatry Artaud warns of is the written ritual, or even worse, the letter-perfect ritual. The relentless need to perfectly replicate each and every single Degree by adhering strictly to the written ritual is a detriment to, not just the drama itself, but also the Craft as an institution; and to stray from the written ritual in any conceivable way is met with utter contempt and ridicule. Don’t believe me? Switch up a word in your ritual work and see who shouts out the exact word that was written down; or who will approach you after the degree to correct you.

There are still other problems that arise from this over-emphasized worship of the written ritual. One is an issue we have all seen: that brother who is so focused on being letter-perfect that he then begins to stutter and stumble, and constantly needs to look over at the Secretary to make sure he got it right. How awful is this? It does not just ruin the experience for the candidate, it murders Hiram a second time… how boring it must be in that grave over there listening to a guy stammer through lines. Yes, the brother successfully regurgitated the written ritual word for word but absolutely butchered the ritual itself.

Now, if someone can do the degree letter perfectly and keep it fluid and fluent, then great. Do it. Nothing wrong with striving for perfection. However, for those in which conducting letter-perfect ritual is a hindrance to them doing good work, then let them switch it up, and let them improvise a bit. Since when did we start applying the charge that “no man may innovate upon the body of Masonry” to mean everything has to be perfectly executed exactly the same way each and every time? Is switching it up an innovation? Or is it just a circumstance of good dramatic degree work? Heck, most of this stuff was not even written down, much less memorized for the first decades of modern-day Freemasonry. It used to be ad hoc, it used to be interpretive, and then when it started to get written down in illicit Masonic exposures, it was then later that we took those clandestine documents to be gospel.

This need to be letter-perfect in our ritual is a symptom of decay: the fraternity is rotting like poor Hiram in his lonely grave. This is not evidence of a living tradition. Rather, Freemasons have become curators of a dead tradition. Freemasonry has become a museum, a cold box for masterpieces to live in, and no one is allowed to touch anything.

I would seriously advocate for emphasizing dramatic production over letter-perfect ritual. I’ll say it again, don’t do ritual workshops for the Third Degree, bring in stage actors to help your lodge with its dramatic performance. Such will ensure the enactment of the Hiramic Drama remains fresh and alive, not molding in a box. It will keep your candidate awake, and engaged, and hopefully, wake him up spiritually. Who knows, it may even wake up the Craft as a whole.

~PD 

 

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7, and serves as the Secretary-Recorder of all three. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister), and is a member of Gofannin Council No. 315 AMD and Kincora Council No. 8 Knight Masons. He is a facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society, is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.

The Theater of Cruelty of the Hiramic Drama, Part I

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Patrick Dey

 

 

“I employ the word ‘cruelty’ in the sense of an appetite for life, a cosmic rigor and implacable necessity, in the gnostic sense of a living whirlwind that devours the darkness.”

—Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double

In my previous essay on this blog, I admonished against interpreting the Third Degree, following the polemical essay by Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation.” Sontag was influenced by the French writer, actor, playwright, polemicist, and completely insane Antonin Artaud, who advocated for the experience of art over the interpretation of the content of the art itself. Sontag would publish a massive selection of writings by Artaud with what is by far one of the best introductions to Artaud I have ever read — one so good that it would inspire Jane Goodall (yes, that Jane Goodall) to write a large work on Artaud and Gnosticism.

For all that Artaud was absolutely insane — and he was seriously mentally ill and addicted to opium — he was brilliant nonetheless. In 1959 he would publish The Theater and Its Double. In this work he introduces a radical form of conducting theater arts: the Theater of Cruelty.

When Artaud advocates his idea of the Theater of Cruelty, he is not advocating for blood and gore, though certainly those elements may be used. When he says “cruelty” he means a theater that is “difficult and cruel.” In other words, the Theater of Life — life, which is difficult and cruel. It is meant to shock and awaken us to the truths of life, but also to put us in a sort of trance, and to let the theater be the crucible through which we transcend and transmute. The need for the theater to be a means of awakening our spirits is very much in line with the ideologies of George I. Gurdjieff, who advocated that most people spend their lives in a state of “waking sleep,” and required a spiritual awakening of their consciousness to realize their full potential. Artaud felt the only means to truly awaken a person was by shocking them, but not like “shock art,” which only serves to deliberately disturb and offend. No, Artaud advocates for shocking people awake by demonstrating the difficulties and cruelties of life.

The means to do so are multifaceted and multifarious. One instance, Artaud advocates that the Theater of Cruelty should be executed in the round: the abolition of all walls, especially the fourth wall, eliminate the distinction between the stage and the audience, let the world become the theater and allow the drama to unfold around the audience. In so many ways, this is exactly how the Hiramic Drama is conducted: in the round. The candidate begins as an active participant, an actual cast member, and then becomes an auditory spectator — or specter — as the drama unfolds all around him. At this time, the mise en scène transforms, becoming one that is auditory rather than visual. In The Theater and Its Double, the term mise en scène is untranslated, because it is difficult to translate, but is basically the props, the stage scenery, &c. In the Hiramic Drama, the mise en scène is almost totally auditory, and a bit tactile. The clanking of the rubbish of the Temple. The shoveling and chimes as something clandestine is conducted in the night. The pitter-patter of feet as characters move around. The sound of voices calling around the room. The sonorous chants of the funeral procession. These and more set the stage for the candidate in a literal audi-torium, heightening the first of the five senses: hearing.

Then there is the shock, the real cruelty: coercion, betrayal, violence, death, rot, and the most pessimistic ending in all of Masonry: no hope (“hope is lost in fruition”). The candidate, who up to this point in his Masonic journey has put absolute trust in his brothers, and then they betray him. He acts as a character in his own drama, but also as a prop: a corpse. Death, then he listens to the manhunt, trial, and execution of his betrayers, and all the while he is rotting in his lonely grave. A transformation occurs here for the candidate. Who can deny that? Then his rotten body is pulled out of his grave and given a proper burial.

I have said it before and I will say it again: of all the degrees in Masonry, the Master Mason degree is the most powerful, and by a long shot. All the other so-called “higher” degrees, go through mere pageantry meant to rival the Hiramic Drama, and add in some shocking moments such as threats of imprisonment and death, but the candidate is never in any immediate danger, and he knows it. There is a moment in the Third Degree that you actually feel endangered, that you may actually get hurt. In the “higher” degrees, all is well, and after much pomp and circumstance, the candidate is lauded, applauded, given great honors, and made a member of that degree. Yay… It is all very contrived and rather voyeuristic. The candidate is not a cast member; he is only ever a prop, a weak substance of the mise en scène of the degree; a peeping tom of a story that happens before him, but he is not really a part of. Don’t get me started on the Scottish Rite classes or York Rite festival classes.

The candidate for the Master Mason degree is absolutely a character, an essential cast member. Yes, the drama unfolds around him, but everything happens with him, to him, and for him, and emphatically so. And what is his reward? To be betrayed, murdered, left to rot, grieved for, then exhumed. Oh, and as a consequence he is now a Master Mason. The other degrees put far too much emphasis on honoring the candidate as a member of that degree, whereas the Master Mason Degree emphasizes the drama and the cruelties of life, and becoming a member of that degree is a byline.

If all this is to be realized and understood, we may fully realize the value of Artaud’s ideologies to recover the majesty of this drama.

I have only ever met one other Mason who was familiar with Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty, and he believed the Hiramic Drama was already a full embodiment of the Theater of Cruelty, whereas I would argue the Hiramic Drama has the potential to fulfill Artaud’s vision, but not quite there. That is, if one can even fully realize Artaud’s ambitions, because much of his theatrical philosophy and rhetoric is impossible. And it is the impossible, the impossible in the sense as Georges Bataille conceptualizes it in The Impossible: a journey toward and ever-receding object, like the quest for the Grail, in which the experience of truth is obtained in the failing of the quest.

In a way, this is exactly what the Hiramic Drama is: an enactment of the impossible. Hiram cannot escape. He cannot preserve his life. Nor can the secrets of a Master Mason be extorted from him. On both ends of the exchange, all fail and all die, yet there is an experience of truth, a revelation in the grave in that failure. It is shocking. It is cruel. Such is life. As much as the symbols of the Master Mason Degree focus on death, such are more so revelations of life.

If the cast of the Degree did their job right, no candidate should be asleep, literally and metaphorically. Sadly, I have seen candidates actually fall asleep, and in Part II, we will start to examine some issues I think exist in how the Hiramic Drama is usually conducted and how they might be remedied by taking cues from Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty.

~PD 

 

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7, and serves as the Secretary-Recorder of all three. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister), and is a member of Gofannin Council No. 315 AMD and Kincora Council No. 8 Knight Masons. He is a facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society, is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.

“Against Interpretation” of the Master Mason Degree

by Midnight Freemason Guest Contributor

Patrick Dey

“…interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world — in order to set up a shadow world of “meanings.” It is to turn the world into this world. (‘This world!’ As if there were any other.) The world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have.”

—Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation”

In her seminal essay “Against Interpretation” (1966) Susan Sontag argues that it is more important to experience the art and to form terms and definitions to explain our experiences of it, engage in deep discussion of our experiences, rather than interpreting the themes and elements, i.e. finding meaning, in the art. Another way of putting it is that we should not view art as a “code” to be broken, trying to interpret what X, Y, and Z means, but rather we should embrace the experience we have with the art itself.

Why we feel compelled to interpret art, or anything for that matter, Sontag argues is because we refuse to let art stand on its own; it must be justified to exist. Post-Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, in the Age of Reason, anything we do not understand or seems off-putting must be justified. Sontag gives some examples, such as the Greek Stoic philosophers arguing away the blatant adultery regularly committed by Zeus as some symbolic matter, or Philo of Alexandria arguing away scientifically inaccurate Hebrew history in the Bible as being merely spiritual paradigms. For Sontag, in the Age of Enlightenment, such bizarre and immoral narratives could no longer justify themselves on their own, but we can neither rewrite the texts nor discard them, so we must interpret them to make them “intelligible.”

This phenomenon, the imperative need to interpret and find meaning that Sontag is critical of, is equally abused with the Hiramic Drama of the Master Mason Degree. How many times have you had to sit through a lecture by a brother who works in law enforcement, who thusly interprets the Hiramic Drama through the framework of law enforcement? How many times have you read or listened to education on the interpretation of the Hiramic Drama as the alchemical process of producing the Philosopher’s Stone? Or how the Hiramic Drama is Gnostic? Or is interpreted through the framework of Kundalini yoga? Or interprets it through rabbinical and Kabbalistic writings? Or tries to shove Hiram Abif into Joseph Campbell’s motif of the “hero’s journey”? I myself have an interest in Merovingian and Carolingian chivalric legends, so I interpret the Master Mason Degree through the legends of Renauld of Montebaun (St. Reinhold). The interpretations, or rather translations, are endless. And it is a translation. It is converting the opus into some other context with its own different set of terms, definitions, and meanings, like translating a text into another language. It is just like the old adage: all translation is a sin. Each person has their own interests and biased background of knowledge, and each sees what they want to see in the Hiramic Drama.

By the very act of interpreting the Hiramic Drama, we are resigned — resigning ourselves to defeat, admitting to ourselves that the narrative of the drama cannot justify itself and thus must be interpreted to become intelligible. Something is wrong about it, so it needs to be interpreted.

For instance, the names of the Ruffians are peculiar. Their names are almost Hebrew, similar to the brothers of Tubal Cain: Jubal and Jabal. Yet, they have non-Hebrew suffixes: -a, -o, and -um. This has been interpreted as evoking the “Aum” in Hinduism, and the proliferation of interpretations from that are excessive. There is the rather antisemitic interpretation of Jewishness (Jew-bel). They can be interpreted as the Latin feminine, masculine, and neutered declensions placed upon a Hebrew name. Et al. What is wrong with just accepting the similarity of their names designates them as brothers, and the different endings to their names simply differentiates them from each other? But the names are peculiar and therefore many feel compelled to interpret their names. I myself am guilty of trying to interpret their names.

There is something nice about their names. It works. It is kind of familiar, not too strange, but definitely foreign. There is something aesthetically appealing about saying Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum. It is kind of difficult to think of any other names. Gerard de Nerval would re-envision the Hiramic Drama in his tale “The Story of the Queen of the Morning and Soliman Prince of the Genii” as found in his autobiographical novel Journey to the Orient. De Nerval was not a Mason, but he knew of the Hiramic Drama and reimagined it through his own artistic vision to suit his own narrative — we should not try to interpret de Nerval’s tale through our understanding of the Hiramic Drama, but rather contemplate it on its own merit. In de Nerval’s tale, the Ruffians are renamed Phanor, Amroti, and Methousael. Maybe I’m a little biased after having heard “Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum” for so many years, but de Nerval’s names just don’t seem right. There is something much more enjoyable about saying “Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum.” Say it aloud. It feels nice to say it.

This is exactly how some… nay, many authors will write. They are calling you to read it aloud. They want you to feel those words on your tongue, between your cheeks, and across your teeth. One of my favorite passages from Moby Dick is: “Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn…” We could waste hundreds of pages of ink and paper interpreting this mere phrase, but really we should sit back and read it aloud to appreciate the way the words come out of our mouths. It’s nice, isn’t it? “Seat — thyself — sultanically… among the moons of Saturn.” “Seat — thyself — sultanically…”

Further, interpretation leads to modifications in the ritual. We know changes been made over the centuries, such as the removal of the Broached Thurnel and replacing it with the Perfect Ashlar. Masonic critics would say that the Revivalists did not understand these things (i.e. they could not intelligibly interpret them), so they removed or replaced them. We can’t really comment on whether such is a good move or not, but we will acknowledge that changes have happened, and that is what we have inherited today, with modifications, and they will continue to change.

And this is another aspect of interpreting the content of the Degrees of Masonry: changes and additions will proliferate. It may be minor and is modified to emphasize something someone interprets in the ritual. For instance, in Colorado ritual, at the start of the enactment of the Hiramic Drama, the candidate is conducted from the East to the West in a sort of arc, then straight toward the altar, then directly South for the first encounter. This makes the letter G, and it is stated in our ritual books to do this exactly for the purpose of creating the letter G. Likely someone noticed this procession kind of looked like the letter G and decided to modify the floorwork to actualize it. We certainly do not see anything like this in the earliest Masonic exposés.

Another factor that arises from interpreting the Hiramic Drama is the perception that things are missing and need to be filled in. Obviously, the Master’s Word is lost, so that needs to be filled in, and that’s how we got the Royal Arch. Access to the Secret Vault in the Royal Arch leads to the Royal and Select Master Degrees. The opening of the Secret Vault is interpreted as the removal of the keystone, and thus the Mark Master Degree gets modified to include a lengthy pageant. The modified Mark Master only features the finding of the keystone, not the setting of it in the arch, so there is another gap that needs to be filled by the creation of the Most Excellent Master Degree. Et cetera. Et al. Et merda.

In the 19th century, there were many Masons who were critical of these new degrees and new Masonic bodies. Lawrence Greenleaf would state: “Ancient Craft Masonry and its integrity is destroyed, for the multiplication of degrees and its extension would be limitless.” And with the creation of new bodies to fill in interpretative gaps in the degrees, new bodies are created for no other purpose than creating new bodies, and Greenleaf would say once more: “…and so the craze for innovation goes merrily on. Next!” Henry P. H. Bromwell would also echo a similar sentiment, emphatically stating: “There are three degrees and no more.”

All of this is rooted in the dangers of interpreting the Hiramic Drama. You will note that I specifically call it the “Hiramic Drama,” not the “Hiramic Legend.” It is first and foremost a drama, then a legend second. As a drama, it is conducted for the experience of an audience of one: the candidate. It is meant to be experienced, not something to be nitpicked apart for inconsistencies and missing pieces to interpret and make sense of.

For all that we talk about the “initiatic experience,” we sure do spend a lot of time interpreting something that might be one of, if not the most powerful experience a man will have in his life. I stand by my conviction that the Master Mason Degree is the most powerful degree in all of Masonry. No other degree compares to it. Period. For all that the Order of the Temple is really powerful, it still does not come close to the Master Mason Degree, not by a long shot.

I still remember my raising vividly. I remember that I had a nervous smile when making the encounters. I remember the shock of the third encounter. I remember while sitting there constantly thinking to myself: “Wow, I’m symbolically dead! Like… I’m dead!” I remember how heightened my sense of sound was, being blindfolded, feeling the floor stomped upon, hearing voices calling around the room. Et cetera. It is the most intense and powerful experience I have personally been through, and I have been to six Slayer concerts.

That is what makes these so-called “higher” degrees deceptive. They present themselves as “more” Masonry, and after such a powerful experience as the Master Mason Degree, we think we will get more, even something greater than the Third Degree, and it is such a letdown. The experience of the Hiramic Drama is what makes it powerful; not the interpretation and the subsequent infilling of so-called “missing parts.” Why continue to denigrate the most powerful experience a Mason will have in their life with a plethora of experiences that always seem to come up short?

Let us do as Susan Sontag advises: let us just experience it. Let us stop trying to make sense of some things and just be present in the moment and have a heightened awareness of our own reactions to what is occurring. Not that one can no longer interpret what is happening to them during the Third Degree, what they perceive and understand about it, especially if it is contributing and even enhancing their experience of the degree. However, I would very seriously be curious to see an intensive study of the varieties of experiences Masons have had in the Masonic Degrees, similar in categorization and exploration as William James did in his Varieties of Religious Experience. Perhaps when we actually talk about “initiatic experience,” we can actually focus on our inner experiences, our ineffable and numinous experiences, rather than just using it as a springboard for interpreting the Third Degree.

~PD

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7, and serves as the Secretary-Recorder of all three. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister), and is a member of Gofannin Council No. 315 AMD and Kincora Council No. 8 Knight Masons. He is a facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society, is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.

Sub Aspects To Our Archetypes

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Randy Sanders

One of many types of guided meditations might include a conversation with a mythical person, an archetype, or possibly a conversation with yourself.  Certain orders have their members choose an archetype for an extended conversation that might last from just a few hours to a year.  Why is that?  Are we deluding ourselves into thinking we’re actually in contact with this person or thought pattern? Or is the exercise the point?  How that particular contemplative exercise works long-term is a bit out of scope for this article, but it is worth exploring on your own.

We use these thought patterns, or archetypes, as symbols in our meditation as a means to gain deeper insight into any given situation.  Consider an issue with jurisprudence within a lodge as an example.  Who better to meditate upon for wisdom in dealing with this than wise King Solomon?  You get the picture.  Many of us have already done this, some many times, some have taken the journey with an archetype for a much longer period, considering what that archetype’s response might be to any current event or situation.  North Carolina’s Middle Chamber education program takes this to a different level, and without giving away what I know of it, let’s say I’m looking forward to booking my flights when the Middle Chamber course is offered again.

Here’s an exercise to consider when you’ve passed the initial work of having that internal conversation with these archetypes.  It really is just a means of exploring ideas beyond your own initial thoughts or normal consciousness.  I would like you to consider sub-aspects to our archetypes. 

Let’s focus on Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty for the moment, although we can use any of our Masonic Archetypal references.  Within Wisdom lies both Strength and Beauty, within Strength lies Wisdom and Beauty, within Beauty lies Wisdom and Strength.  You see here two possible sub-aspects to each archetype to expand your contemplation.

When you meditate upon Wisdom, or possibly Sophia if you get my reference, then what are the aspects that Strength and Beauty bring to Wisdom?  When we meditate and focus on asking King Solomon a question about an issue within the lodge, we focus our thoughts and become more aware of any “response” from King Solomon as the wise course of action.  We may repeat that meditation a few times to fully explore the Wisdom associated with the situation.  Afterward, we might then approach the same question, or meditation, on what response or advice HKOT or H. Abiff might give King Solomon if they were to speak of such things in council.  The same applies when asking HKOT or H. Abiff a question, and considering how the conversation might play out from the other two characters, or archetypes.

Then again, maybe not.  It’s just an exercise in your own contemplation, in your own thinking.

~RS

Bro. Randy Sanders and his wife Elyana live near St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Randy earned a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry, and he works in Telecom IT management. He volunteers as a professional and personal mentor, NRA certified Chief Range Safety Officer, and enjoys competitive tactical pistol, rifle, and shotgun. He has 30 plus years teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu, Chi Kung, and healing arts. Randy served as a Logistics Section Chief on two different United States federal Disaster Medical Assistance Teams over a 12-year span.

Randy is a 32nd-degree KCCH and Knight Templar.  His Masonic bio includes past Lodge Education Officer for two symbolic lodges, Founder of the Wentzville Lodge Book Club, member of the Grand Lodge of Missouri Education Committee, Sovereign Master of the E. F. Coonrod AMD Council No. 493, Co-Librarian of the Scottish Rite Valley of St. Louis, Clerk for the Academy of Reflection through the Valley of Guthrie, and a Facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society.

Randy is a founding administrator for Refracted Light, a full contributor to Midnight Freemasons, and an international presenter on esoteric topics. Randy hosts an open ongoing weekly Masonic virtual Happy Hour on Friday evenings. Randy is an accomplished home chef, a certified barbecue judge, raises Great Pyrenees dogs, and enjoys travel and philosophy.