The greater number of writers on the antiquity of Masonry seem to agree that in its present peculiar and characteristic organization, it is the successor of the Building Corporations of the middle ages and through them of the Roman Artificers. So far the line of descent t seems to be plain, without any demand upon eredulity. It is also generally agreed that while the Temple of Solomon bears an allegorical meaning, there is some historical connection between Masonry and the Temple that can be explained by the frequent communication that at one time took place between the Jews, Greeks, and Romans.
It is related that the Emperor Julian attempted to rebuild on the site of Solomon's Temple, and there is a very curious account which confirms in a remarkable manner the rites of the Guilds of Free Masons, namely that a reed or six cubits below the floor (about 10 feet) there was found a vault which contained a pedestal with the plans and a scroll with the center diagrams (5 point system) and which is drawn upon to form the Arch Degree in modern Freemasonry, and that this center had to be discovered on the erection of the 2nd Temple. The instant the center was fixed, it is guarded by men armed with swords in one hand and building tools in the Other.
An old writer states that when the Emperors laborers were set to clear away the rubbish and report to the duly Passed Masters, who had to report to the Three Grand Masters, they came upon a vaulted chamber into which one of the workmen was let down with a rope; he returned and reported that in the center was a square pedestal [7] [8] surrounded by water, and he produce a scroll which Nicophorus relates was a verse of the Bible. The Guilds say it was the first verse of Genesis, and this verse was carved over the eastern entrance of the 1st Temple. Julian was obliged to desist from his intentions as fire broke out which destroyed his workman. An old writer Philostorgius, circa 853 A. D. has the same account. account.
Masonic writers have generally left his subject of the connection of the Temple with Masonry open for discussion, stating that there are not sufficient historical materials upon which to base a positive opinion.
Masonry teaches the lesson of eternal lite by means of a legend interpreted in a symbolical and allegorical manner. This legend was known to the Masons of the seventeenth century and the Operative Free masons had one that was in character almost perfectly similar to it, though verying somewhatin detail. Both legends were connected with the Temple of Solomon - both embody the death of the Grand Master Hiram Abif - both legends funereal in character and celebration death and the resurrection.
It is possible to trace Masonry through the Operative Architects of the tenth century, the Traveling Free-masons of Como, and the Roman Colleges of Artificers to, Numa, who gave them their dual practical and religious character. Ot os posible to go further, and by means of the legends and symbols of the Operative Masons, to assign the origin of Masonry to the Turanian race, of the three great races of mankind the white, the yellow and the black.
Robert Bennett Grant, a well known aurthority on Operative Masonry has furnished some interesting ideas [9] in this connection. Biblical history recognizes three great races and gives their origin as the sons of Shem, Ham and Japhet (the ancient Hindus; Sharma, Charma, and Jyapeti, sons of Satyavrata) and it is possible to recognize to this day the white, the yellow and the black man in the English, the Chinese and Negro races. The Hindu version of the three sons of Satyavrata-Noah gives all the regions north of the Himalayas to Jyapeti in whom we recognize the Hebrew Japhet and the Greek and Roman Japetus, and all the regions south to Sharma or the Hebrew Shem. Charma or Ham was cursed for laughing at his drunken father. As now used, the word Turanian means the great yellow race. Originally, however, it applied to a typical language spoken by many of them. Just where and when this race began is not now known. Both time and place are prior to the earliest tradition or history. The history of this great Turanian race begins when it was already a great people, established and civilized, on the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates and known as the Sumerians or Akkadians. The Hittites, Etruscans and Chinese were branches of the same people. The earliest inhabitants of Greece, the Mycenaeans and the Tyrians were also branches of it. The Chinese (1) and Japanese are Turanians, and the Malays, the inhabitants of India and the American Indians are also of Turanian parentage. The Turanians built Akkad, the cities of the Hittites, the Etruscan cities and probably some of the earliest cities of Egypt.
(1 An old word in Chinese is square and compasses. The skirret is an hieroglyphic. The altar is a cube. Aprons and emblens of office were worn among the latter, the square and plumb. The emblem of the Monarch ruler was the hammer. The Deity was "The First Builder." The Magistrates were Levelmen. Three thousand years ago the Emperor had the circle and rule as his attributes. We find a doctrine of Universal Brotherhood, and the use of the Northeast and South-west to indicate the beginning and ending of any work. In every respect this is Free Masonry without the name and the more recent Jewish legend.)
[10] These Hitties settled in Hebron near Jerusalem and in in all probability were called in to help build the great temple, in memory of which took everywhere with them the two great devices that adorned all their work-the "Lions of Judah" and the endless knot or "Solomon's Knot." This consisted of a cord or three strands in a net work or coil, and the pillars of th porch were adorned with net work.
The Turanian race spread through India to the Malay Islands, to China, Japan, and America and they were the progenitors of the Esquimaux and the Finns. They found the kingdom of the Hittites in Mesopotamia father west, where they became the ascestors of they Basques of the Pyrenees and the Neolithic people of England. (2)
(2 Philologists seem to be arriving at the view that when the whole earth was of "one language and of one speach" It was a primitive or monosyllabic or Turanian tongue. The modern discoveries of archaeologists, in the countries occupied in remote times by this once powerful proto-Aryan race, have scarecly yet had time to filter down into the ordinary Masonic channels, but they must in course of time considerably modify the views of the older writers upon one Masonic Mysteries. It may have taken tens of thousands or years for the development of the proto Aryan into the Indo-Iranic tongue. Zend, Samskrit , Pushtu, Baluchea, as as well as the Aryo-European language including Greek, Latin, Sclavonia, Latttic and Teutonic.)
While no series of rites or order of ceremonial or ritual has ever remained the same and intact through a course of centuries and over vast expanses of territory, still we find in the reverence that these Turanians held for the North Satr and Swastika, a very strong evidence of the orgin of the present Operative Ritual in a orehistoric one. The earliest mythology was associated with stars and constellations; the nest one with the moon and its cages to whic successeded the period in which the sun became the center of the myth. However the most fully perfectly devbeloped Solar Mythology shows pronounced invluences of the previous stellare and lunar muths.
[11] In Babylonia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, Asia Minor and North America there are found traces of the prehistoric cult of the Pole Star. In Egypt the hieroglyph for Ra, "a point within a circle," was originally the hieroglyph for the Pole Star. Anup, the Polar Star of Horns, had for his symbol the "Eye on the Mountain" and the "point within the circle." The Pole Star in the "Ritual of the Dead" is coffined Osiris and the "Seven Glorious Ones" that follow the coffin are the seven stars of Ursa Major. There is good authority for believing that the Pole Star as worshiped in Egypt 8,000 to 10,000 B. C. was Vega. The Chinese call the Pole Star the "Mountain of Heaven's Eye." In their zodiac the Pole Star is in the centre. The same traditions exist in Japan (3) as to the Pole Star, The Mayaux legends contain much that is common with Egypt, asia, and India. Persia has the tradition of one brother slain by another. The Hindu Ramayana represents the king of the monkey race (an inferior anoriginal tirbe) as having two sons, Bali and Sougravia, each of whom desired the same wife and Sougavia, by the aid of the divine Ramayana treacherously slew his brother Bali, being the "Mysterious Eye of Heaven." In the Rig Veda of India there are allusions to the Swastika and the seven Rishis (seven stars of the Great Bear). Both the Mexicans and the Mayas of Yucatan had legends of a Stellar and Polar cult as shown by their sculptures.
(3 The Mayas or Mayaux had their religious mysteries that are preserved by the Zuni people. Historical and religious analogies with Yucatan are to be found among the Japanese who represent the first seven gods by the same symbols as the Mayas, and the Japanese candidate represents the sun's passage through the 12 Zodiacal signs.)
In all Stellar Mythologies, the Pole Star was an enblelem of stability-a seat of that power which is the highest God. In Babylonia, Anu; in Egypt Anup or Horus; in China, TAI-YIH or TIEN-HWAN-TA-TI; in Japan, MAYAN KEN or AME-NO-FOKO-TACHIKAMI ; in India, Rig-Veda; in Mesopotamia, AVATHAR or ZIVO. The Swastika is the symbol found in all these countries where the Pole Star cult was established and [12] in full sway, and, where the Ploar Mythos has lasted to the present time, the Swastka is recognized as being associated with it, as China, Japan and India.
To the ancient would the Pole Star alone appeared stable. The sun journeyed across the heavens every day in a different track, stood still at a solstice, then turned back again. The moon changed not only in its orbit but in its shape and size and time of appearance. The whold camopy of the stars wheeled round the heaven in procession. The Pole Star alone appeared stable it alnoe was fixed at rest In connection with the Pole Star however it must not be forgotton that the axis Swings slowly, causing the North Pole of the earth to point successively towards a slightly different part of the heavens, tracing out a circle after a long period of years. This alteration or slow and gradual shifting of the earths axis causes the the procssion of the Equinoxes - completed in 25,867 years. Consequently the actual Pole Star 8,000 to 10,000 B. C was Vega; 4,000 B. C. It it was Alpha Draconis while now it is Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris). All this must be remembered in connection with Pole Star Warshiped in ancient times, and in Reaching the conclusion that the titsSwasitka means axis rotation and Is primarily a symbol of the rotation of the Great Bear around the North Pole Slar. The Guild legend of the Swastika is that people were constantly having their wooden huts blown to pieces by the windso God taught Jabal, the first architect, to use the Swastika as a talisman. The Guild charge of the 15th century mention Jabal as "the first man that ever found geometry, and he made houses, and is named in the Bible." The Operatives also teach taht that God inspired Jabal with the idea of erectiong a house of stone with four room in the form of the Swastika. By this plan the winds [13] were very strong in one quarter, the inmates could remove to the opposite quarter and so obtain safety and comfort.
The Swastika which is painted red, is, in India the symbol of Ganesa, the male principle in nature, of the sun and of life. The Swastika which is reversed and painted blue is the symbol of Kali, the female principle in nature, of darkness and of death.
The name by which the Swastika was known in England was the Fylfot Cross. The Rev. Chas. Boated in his book on "Monumental Brasses and Slabs," says that t he word is first found in a MS of the 15th century.
The Operative Mason teaches that the Pole Star is the centre of the universe and that it is the seat of the Power of God and they associate the Swastika with it.
They did not invent the Pole Star, either before or after the appearance in 1686 of the MS "written by Robert Padgett, clearke to the Worshipful Society of Uree Masons of the City of London in the second year of the Raigne of our Most Gracious Soveraigne Lord, [14] King James the Second of England." The fact that the Pole Star and Swastika bear a close relation has been advanced by a few learned writers only. Nevertheless the Operative Masons, many of them unlettered Masons, have in their Ritual today today a ceremony that goes back to pre-historic times to a period when the Turanian race was the keeper of the arts of Building and Symbolism.
All through the long ages they must have kept this esoteric teaching as to the Pole Star hidden in their breasts, communicated by word of mouth, and then only in their Lodge assemblies, safety "tvled" against and securely "heeled" from the outside and uninitiated world.(4)
(4) The statement by Dr. Churchward Hurl Ow Operative Mason's origin dates back at least 300,000 years, may or may not be true but it instead of going back 300,000 years Dr. Churchward would product some new evidence relating to 3,000 or 1,000 years, leis wolf: might might be more useful It and practial. It must be understood that Dr. Churchward position alludes to the mythic teaching and not to the form in which the teaching is clothed. The present Masonic form with the Hebrew legends can scarcely be 300,000 years old. The actual mystery teaching be as old as the civilized world however. The Operative Guilds derive their particular form, from the remote days of Nimrod about 5,000 years ago, as tar as is known present. Taking the Egyptian tradition as a guide, we find that Ptah, God and Ruler, lived about ,32,000 years ago. He was Chief of the Artiheers." "Superintendent of the Sculpture "Devine Building" etc., but the form of the Ritual of His Great Temple was Egyptian and not Hebrew."
The legends of the Operative Masons and the Pol Star and the Swastika may be followed from the Turanian to England.
Of all the races of the old world, the civilized and most advanced in the arts of building was the Etruscan, which was a breance of the Turanian that settled in Italy long before the days of the Romans. The long a people kings and armies, buildings and cities long before the days of history.
The Romans conquered the Etruscans and intermarried with them. (5) The also learned from the [15] their arts of building and government. The Romans adopted the Swastika as an emblem and used it on their altars. Later the Romans formed their Colleges for Builders with their Magistri, Fratres and Discipuli or Masters, Brethren and Apprentices. When the barbarians conquered the Romans, the Roman Builders and other learned men fled to Como where they were unmolested until the Lombards conquered northern Italy and formed a stable kingdom and government. The Lombards employed the Comacine Masters or "Magistri Comcini," to build for them.
(5) It is believed that Numa was an Initiate of the Etruscan priests, and Salverte holds that he was acquainted with electricty and used in in his rites.
Charlemagne succeeded by conquest to the Lombard kingdom and he also employed them to build and invited them to Germany and France to erect churches and palaces.
From these Comacine Builders the art of building, together with the Swastika(6) and North Star tradition, passed to the Guilds of Operative Masons which were then beginning to form in western Europe and which in the late Saxon and early Norman period spread to England and Scotland.
(6 The student will find many facts and dates bearing upon this subject concisely and instructively condensed in "A General History of Freemasonry in Europe" by Emanuel Rebold, translated by Fletcher Brennan.)
From these early Operative Guilds have arisen the Societies of Free Masons of which the "Worshipful Society of Free Masons, Rough Masons, Wallers, Slaters, Paviors, Plaisterers and Bricklayers" is the last and most important link in the chain.
So it is possible to conclude that the Ritual of the Operative Free Masons of today is directly derived from the parent Ritual of the Turanian race, who were the original Masons of pre-historic. (A)
(A In the present work it is unnecessary
to give a comprehensive history of the Swastikas appearance in
the art of all nations, but the student will find a very complete
Monograph oil the subject by Mr. Thomas Wilson, Curator of the
Unit rd States Museum in the volume of thy Stnikhsonjate Report
for the year 1894. In [16] addition to the Monograph, valuable
information will be found in "all About the Swastika."
By Dr. Thomas Carr. There are several other valuable contributions
to this study among which are John Yarker's "Arcane Schools;"
Col. C. R. Condot's "The Rise of Man;" Wm. Simpson's
"The Buddhist Praying Wheel;" Dr. H. Colley March's
"The Fylfot" and Churchsard's "Sighs and Symbols
of Primordial Man.")
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