The Misticism of the Royal Arch

The
title of this paper does not imply that mysticism is confined in Masonry to the
Royal Arch alone, and that there is none in the Craft degrees. On the contrary,
as the First Principal informs the newly exalted Royal Arch candidate, the
degree he has just taken is but a
completion of the Third degree in Craft Masonry, thus inferring that the Royal
Arch is an integral part of Craft Masonry and, therefore, the conclusion
of the latter’s mystical teaching.

As
will be seen later, there is, in my opinion, a very good reason for separating
the three Craft or blue degrees from the Royal Arch ceremony; for the blue
degrees take us through our experiences during our life on this earth and the
Royal Arch then tries to initiate us into the Grand Mystery of the Life
hereafter. And just as death on earth is not the final end of Man’s saga, so
the Third degree in the “Blue” is not the end of our Masonic teaching. In
fact, this is implied when the candidate is “raised from a figurative death”
but is left wondering in the Limbo of Unknowing, when he is told that “the
genuine secrets of a master mason were lost by the untimely death of our Master
H.A.”. To tide him over, however, the candidate is given certain
“substituted secrets”, a sort of Ariadne’s thread or guide through the
maze which mystically points out the timeless transition (through
χαίρος and not
χρόνος) between life on earth and life hereafter.
We find this same teaching in Greek mythology – Theseus in the Cretan maze
‑ and mysteries (Eleusinian), as well as in almost every other mystical
writings (the Cloud of Un­knowing,
the Dark Night of St. John of the Cross, etc.).

Now,
if the Royal Arch were not an integral part of Craft Masonry, the latter would
be an incomplete teach­ing. In fact, it would no longer be mystical but purely
allegorical, because the essence of a mystical teaching is to give man a glimpse
of what lies beyond death and to show him its intimate connection with what lies
this side of death: birth and life are otherwise as inexplicable as death.

 

BIRTH

We
begin our mystical instruction in Craft Masonry with the First degree where all
the symbolism points out our introduction to the μοίρα
to which the Grand Architect of the Universe has called us. Our state at this
moment, one of the two great mystical ones in our life, is clearly engraved in
our minds by our preparation before the ceremony and by the impressive ritual
reminder, during the ceremony, that we enter life on earth “poor and
penniless, and in a state of helpless indigence”.

 

LABOUR

The
Second degree symbolically refers to the life of toil and sweat which lies
before us at birth and behind us at death. It also points out the line of
progress we must follow during that material phase of our existence; and as our
existence is material during that interval, progress lies mainly in raising the
level of Matter, hence the importance attached to Science, which is the highest
level of Man’s labour on the material plane. Even the Almightly is referred to
in that degree as the Grand Geometrician of the Universe.

It
is unfortunate that the general run of uninitiated humanity, and alas, even many
masons fail to realise that  scientific
progress should always and only be directed towards the ultimate Pattern, or
Master Design of the Grand Geometrician of the Universe.

 

DEATH

“…and
when by means of that contemplation she has conducted you through the intricate
windings of this mortal life, she finally instructs you how to die.”

I
wonder how many realise how closely the ritual of the Third degree symbolises
the χαίρος or “moment” of death? Those who
have been at death’s door, either in sickness, or by drowning, and then
brought back to life, have all witnessed to the fact that their whole life
passed before them in review: so does the ritual recapi­tulate the whole of our
masonic teaching before taking us through the “gates of Hades”.

Then
we are raised, but left in a state of wondering bewilderment: where do we go
from there? From that stage of transition which, according to the Tibetan Book
of the Dead, lasts forty‑nine days? We are merely given a tenuous
direction, and it is not until the exaltation in the Royal Arch that the final
revelation completes our resurrection.

 

INTRODUCTION

The
Royal Arch ritual tries to convey to us a picture of the life hereafter. This is
a real life, and the certitude of its existence is ingrained in us from
tradition, from education and upbringing, as well as from a sort of sixth sense
supplementing the common sense reasoning that life on earth, with all its
tribulations, would be pointless if there were no form of life or existence
hereafter.

However,
to picture the life beyond is very difficult indeed. No one has been beyond
death, or been able to tell us what it is like: who could convey an accurate
impression of the odour of a rose to anyone who had never smelt one? So we have
to rely on the utterances of visionary mystics; and the proof that these
utterances have some foundation of reality, even if incomprehen­sible to us,
lies in the striking similarity of their state­ments: that life beyond is a
very close‑knit integration­ or communion ‑ with the Supreme Being,
whatever he may be called: יהוה, Brahmah, Allah, Іησοΰ, Christ. Every single mystic has borne
witness to this re­integration with the Source of all creation, the מלכות,
of the Kabbalah, and some of them have even been fortunate enough to see this in
a vision.

Without  
disclosing  any 
secrets  of 
the  Royal Arch, I can say
that, in my opinion, this is what this degree illustrates by its symbolism.

Its
ritual attempts to re­integrate us with the True and Living God Most High, in
the same way as the Craft rituals try to integrate us with spiritual Birth, Life
and Death respectively. This re‑integration with the Supreme Source and
Essence can only be achieved by a mystical union.

 

DEFINITION

Before
proceeding any further, I feel that the word “Mysticism” ought to be defined
so as to clarify the meaning attached to it when related to the Royal Arch, or
any other esoteric ritual. Chamber’s English dictionary defines
“Mysticism” as the “habit and tendency of religious thought and feeling of
those who seek direct communion with God or the Divine”: in other words what
the buddhists call “Nirvana” and the christians “Communion of Saints”.

I
must also caution the reader that this paper is not an authoritative
pronouncement. As with all mystical writings, whether by the Saints, the
Kabbalists or the Dervishes, or by those who merely aspire to mysticism, it is a
purely personal communication, so personal that, with some of you with different
upbringing or outlook, it may not strike the right chord to lead you through to
a similar understanding. For some of you, however, it may touch the right spot
and awaken in you that Divine spark we all have in us and enable you to hear
once more ‑ or perhaps for the very first time ‑ that “still small
voice” (1 Kings, xix, 12) which for most of us unfortunately is so very
silent, so very frequently silent.

Therefore,
this paper is not a pronouncement ex
cathedra Arcani Regalii, i.e. authoritatively from the chair of the Royal
Arch, in one chapter of which I am in at present, but de
profundis spiriti mei, in other words, out of the depths of my own feelings
and emo­tions. As such, and only as such, you must take it or leave it.

 

RITUAL

For
those readers who are but Master Masons, a brief explanation of the Royal Arch
ritual, without improper disclosure, is called for, if they are to under­stand
more clearly the import of the subsequent para­graphs of this paper. However,
it must be pointed out straightaway that a full understanding will not be
attained until the reader has not only been exalted in the Royal Arch, but also
passed through the three Principals’ Chairs: even the candidate is
ritualistically informed that the full secrets of the Royal Arch are not communi­cated
and a full understanding of the degree is not attained until he has passed those
Chairs.

As
in the Craft degrees, there is a preparation before the ceremony, although it is
more verbal than vestimen­tary. The Craft degrees’ pattern is then closely
followed with the entrusting and calling for a password leading to the degree,
after which the ceremony proper culminates in the exaltation of the candidate,
in which the actual degree is conferred with the communication of the Ineffable
Word which was lost at the traditional time in which the Third degree was
originally enacted, and sub­sequently rediscovered, again according to masonic
tradition, at the time when the Royal Arch ceremony first took place. Then
follow three lectures given to the candidate, one by each of the three
Principals, and corresponding roughly to the Charge after Initiation, the Second
Tracing Board and the Traditional History, which are given respectively in the
First, Second and Third degree of the Craft.

The
first lecture is the Historical Lecture, which retraces the history of early
masonry and of the first masons, some of whom are mentioned in Craft masonry,
e.g. King Solomon. The second lecture is the Symboli­cal Lecture and, in a way,
can be compared to the giving of the working tools in the three Craft degrees,
all rolled into one ‑ except that the tools and ornaments described are
different. The Symbolical Lecture is in fact a transposition in the life
hereafter of the lectures on the working tools of this life as given in the
Craft degrees. It therefore has a symbolism all of its own and aims, in my
opinion, to raise the candidate’s feelings to his Higher Feeling, his emotions
to his Higher Emotion (cfr. Fig. 2).

The
third lecture is actually called the Mystical Lecture and it is the apotheosis
of the degree. It was the point at which the First Principal hoped to raise the
whole of the assembly of companions, the Sanhedrim, into a mystical vision and
union with the True and Living God Most High. Thereby lies the supreme impor­tance
of the Mystical Lecture; and it is very unfortunate that, nowadays, too many
First Principals give this lecture merely as a perfunctory recitation and only
worry about getting it word perfect, even though they might render the sense of
those words meaningless by mispunctuation and lack of emphasis at the crucial
lines.

The
same applies, even if to a lesser extent, to the other two lectures which are
virtually the sole perfor­mance of the other two Principals during the ceremony
proper. Notwithstanding the small verbal part given to the Second and Third
Principals, the Royal Arch chapter is a true triumvirate, in the same way as the
Craft lodges are autocracies: the Worshipful Master rules alone in a lodge, in
the sense that he has full say and is not required to consult his wardens; the
three Principals rule together in consultation, three in one, as a trinity. This
is again symbolical of the triune essence of the Deity, as expounded in the
mystical writings of all religions, including the very strictly monotheistic
Hebrew and Muslim faiths (vide the
Zohar, a Kabbalistic work, and various Sufi writings).

In
fact, it was not so long ago that the whole ritual of the Royal Arch was
entirely done in “threes”: at the beginning of this century, only the three
Principals and as many past First Principals as could form whole groups of three
could attend the opening of the chapter; no exaltation could take place unless
there were three candidates. Nowadays, the “guide” of the candidate and his
assistant (equivalent to the deacons in Craft Masonry) act as the other two
candidates, the former having the second most important role in the perfor­mance
of the ritual. If there are two candidates at the same time, the “assistant
guide” stands down, thereby preserving the threesome. The importance attached
to the symbolism of the triune essence shows that the Royal Arch deals with our
relation to God, in the same way as Craft Masonry deals with our relation to Man
– ­this is actually stated in the ritual ‑ and we hope that the symbolism
of the Word, which is at last found in this degree, will succeed in bringing us
as close to the Ultimate TRUTH ‑ God is Truth ‑ as we can hope to
achieve while yet in this earthly life.

I
apologise to Royal Arch masons for what may seem to them a dreary preamble to my
paper proper, as read in open chapter, but they might have found in these
explanations a clarification of what, to them, should be common knowledge but is
to him, who is but a Master Mason, a yet unfolded mystery, and link up more
closely in their minds the ritual of the Supreme Degree of the life hereafter to
the three degrees of the life herein.

 

HISTORY

Most
Royal Arch masons are familiar with the ritual wording of the Mystical Lecture
in the Supreme Degree of the Royal Arch Chapter of Jerusalem, but I wonder how
many have paused to consider the implication behind the title given to this
lecture by the originators of the Royal Arch ritual? The first lecture delivered
by J., the Historical Lecture, is self explanatory: it narrates the history,
albeit allegorical, of the development of the three major phases of Traditional
Masonry. I said “Allegorical”; in fact, whether intended or not by the
authors of the ritual, it sums up the three major dis­coveries of Monotheism in
Man’s search for a true Religion – or Religious Truth:

1.
GOD, the awe inspiring Spirit, the Creator,

OMNIPOTENT

אלהים

the
ELOHIM of the First Commandment proclaimed unto Moses amid lightning and
thunder, fire and flame, which inspired our First Grand Master to exclaim:
“Thou shalt FEAR the Lord thy God!” (Deuteronomy vi, 13). This is the God of
the “Magnificat”.

2.
GOD,
the Almighty, the Ruler, the Judge,

OMNISCIENT

אלשדי

EL
SHADAI which are actually the Hebrew words for THE ALMIGHTY.

This
is the God of Wrath, the God Who punishes but likewise, the God of Wisdom Who
inspired our Second Grand Master, King Solomon, in his judgements, and again,
the FEAR of Whom is counselled in Solomon’s Proverbs, but this time with a
difference which indicates a marked theological or Spiritual progress: it is no
longer a blind fear, but a wise
fear.

3. 
GOD, the Personal, the Merciful, the Eternal, Ever Caring,

OMNIPRESENT

יהוה

the Great “I AM” and yet, the God
of Love – God the Father, the Forgiver of Sins, who brought our Third Grand
Master, Zerubbabel, out of cap­tivity to put him back on the throne of his fore­fathers,
and Who said to His beloved people, through the mouth of His prophet Haggai:
“I AM with you”. (Haggai i, 13).

 

SYMBOLISM

The
second lecture, delivered by H., ‑ the Symbolical Lecture is again self
evident. It goes through all the ornaments of the Chapter, movable and
immovable, and proceeds to expound on their symbolism. Once again, it is
interesting to note that “Mysticism”, as defined by the dictionary,
underlies the main theme of this lecture as well, since a major proportion of it
dwells on the symbolism of the Divinity. In the greater part of the text, this
subject is only glossed over: this lecture merely makes reference to “The
Sacred Word”, yet it is the forerunner of the Mystical Lecture, not only in
that it is a preface to it, but also in that it can be interpreted as pointing
to at least seven Schools of mystical revelations, spread over four different
sections of the lecture: ‑

 

1.  
The prehistoric cave mysticism (Cromagnon and others), and the Eleusinian
mysticism of Germination (i.e. the mysteries of Nature), as hinted by the Vault
and its sacred contents.

2.  
Kabbalistic mysticism, as evident in the arrange­ments of the Lights,
and the Seal of Solomon in the Jewel worn by the companions.

3.  
Pythagorean and Neo‑Platonic mysticism, both in the brief reference
to the five Platonic Bodies and in the more detailed explanation of the
triangulations of the Lights and the geometry of the Triple Tau and the Jewel.

4.  
The two famous mysticisms which in fact probably belong to one and the
same School, because they are so strikingly similar that they have the appear­ance
of being identical, i.e. the Hebraic mysticism of the Merkabah vision of Ezekiel
(Ezekiel, chapter 1); and the Christian mysticism of the Apocalyptic vision of
St. John (Revelation, chapter 4). Both have the same mystical vision of the
Shekinah Glory or Divine Immanence riding in an incandescent chariot of flames,
drawn by the same four Angelic Beasts: the Man, the Lion, the Ox and the Eagle
(Ezekiel i, 10 and Revelation iv, 7), the emblems of the Patriarchal Blessing,
which were later borne on the standards of the four leading tribes who ruled
respectively over the South, East, West and North columns in marching, camping
or fighting order, during the Exodus (Numbers, chapter 2). ‑ Cfr. Fig. 1.

 

TRADITION

It
might be appropriate to point out, at this juncture, that the whole of the Royal
Arch ceremony is the Mystical Phase, glimpsed in most religions and seen in all
the mysteries enacted throughout the ages, of the Craft ceremonies; and, as in
most religions and all mystery plays, it refers to the Resurrection, or Rebirth
or Regeneration on a higher spiritual plane after death in our present material
plane, depicted in the Third Degree of the Craft, which followed the working
life of man, represented in the Second Degree, the whole preceded by birth on
this same material plane, illustrated most forcefully by our Initiation
ceremony.

The
same sequence is found in the esoteric Book

of
Enoch, the Tibetan and the Egyptian Books of the Dead, the Mysteries of Eleusis,
the Tales of the many lives of Gautama the Buddha, both the Kabbalistic and
Hasidic versions of Jewish Mysticism, Platonism and Neo-Platonism, the Christian
liturgy (e.g. the Mass), and Sufi Mysticism of Islam (as exemplifies by the
ritual dance of the Mevlehvi or Whirling Dervishes). All this only goes to show
the fantastic unity of aim and common purpose in the main religions and esoteric
mysteries in the World, throughout the ages.

Although
it is common knowledge that the main religions in the World count their adepts
in millions, and even in hundreds of millions, it is seldom realised, in the
sceptical western hemisphere, that esoteric rituals and mysteries number
thousands of initiates in the East, from true Fakirs and Yogis to Tibetan
Buddhist monks. In the Near East, Islam has its Sufis and Dervishes, the latter
despite almost constant attempts by every govern­ment to wipe them out. In the
West, there are the little known “inner circles” of certain major Catholic
and Greek and Russian Orthodox Monastic Orders; but contrary to the East which
is still prolific in them, the only Mystery which still flourishes in the
Western Civilisation is Freemasonry, the mysticism of which has alas been
supplanted by more worldly and materia­listic virtues, instead of enhancing the
latter, and the ritual of which means less and less to more and more of its most
ardent and word perfect exponents.

If
the major religions of the World display a striking similarity of aim and
purpose, when you come to the more illuminated mystics, such as St. Theresa of
Avila, Abraham Abulafia or Ibn Arabi, to name but three well­known
representative visionaries in the three basic Monotheistic religions with a
common source; or when you read works like the Upanishads, the I Ching, the
Bagavad Gita and the Zohar, belonging to the cultures of such different types of
human beings, you are at once struck by the similarity in the Ideas about the
Deity, and even the resemblance in the imagery used to translate what can be but
a supra natural emotion into a natural sensorial representation.

That
alone should be sufficient proof of the Oneness of God. Alas, the enormous
difficulty of materialising what can only be a spiritual revelation of the
Shekinah Glory or Divine Immanence, has usually rendered both the mystics and
their sayings quite unintelligible to their fellow men, and many suffered
martyrdom because they were so misunderstood that they were actually taken to be
heretics of their own faith, the very faith in which they were trying so hard to
instil a new and more vigorous life. The kindest treatment which was dispensed
to these mystics was to deride their sayings as the ravings of the insane: It is
a tenuous line of demarcation which separates the mystic and genius from the
lunatic and simpleton.

 

MYSTICISM

When
we come to the Mystical Lecture proper, delivered by the M.E.Z., we reach the
second apotheosis of the Degree; the first one being the restoration of Light to
the candidate, which symbolically gives him a full realisation of his
resurrection by the material inter­mediary of the P.S.’s hands. The mysticism
of the First Lecture was elemental, superficial: a simple tuning‑in (to
use a scientific term in electronics) of the candidate’s inner mind to the
right wavelength. It corresponds to that part of the body of man which is
already normally attuned to the Higher Level, the Will of God, for the very
reason that man has virtually no control over it ‑ ­I am speaking of the
“Moving Instinct”, the autono­mous bodily functions such as digestion,
metabolism, blood circulation, etc.

The
mysticism of the Second Lecture is deeper, the wavelength, now tuned, is
amplified – to stick to the previous electronic terminology. Here, the mystical
dis­sertation on the Almighty is broached more deeply with an analogy to the
Merkabah and Apocalyptic visions. The aim of the symbolical lecture is to
transfer the candidate from his common emotional centre to his Higher Emotional
Centre ‑ room No. 5 in the “House of Man” ‑ by guiding him
through what Aldous Huxley called “The Doors of Perception” (He used
Mescaline and Lysergic acid for that purpose).

Finally,
the ceremony reaches its crescendo in the Mystical Lecture proper and, if our
bodies were really tuned‑in to the right wavelength, sufficiently
amplified, we would reach the Point of Resonance. For this, the three parts of
us, which we can more or less control, must be synchronised in perfect
ATTENTION: i.e. our body, our emotions and our mind. This, the Mystical Lecture
tries to achieve again for us, and it starts with the body ‑ as we all
know, the first third of this lecture deals with the mysticism of the R.A. signs
and penalties, which are both physical allegories illustrated by bodily actions
on the part of Master and Pupil (M.E.Z. and Candidate).

 

PENITENCE

The
first sign tells us to sever our head, i.e. our intellect from the process.
Normal or logical intellect ‑ room No. 3 ‑ which is the only
function Western Civilisation can control properly, is grossly misused – ­overused.
It is put to tasks which do not belong to it. This first injunction would be
quite unnecessary in the East. This was indeed the punishment of Adam: the
forbidden fruit he ate came from the Tree of Knowledge. Why did he not choose
the fruit of the Tree of Life?­ He was already endowed with its elemental
properties  – contrary to Western
popular and psychological belief, the newly born infant of man is fully
conscious, AWARE, AWAKE, but without knowledge, it cannot reap the benefit of
its consciousness. The shame of it all is that we, in the West, when we try to
instil know­ledge in our infants, albeit automatically at first, hence
unconsciously and when we are spiritually sound asleep, we send him also to
sleep and make him unconscious like ourselves: this is the visiting of the
iniquities men­tioned in the first commandment (Exodus xx, 5). It does not take
a child many years to reach our state of Being, of which the V.S.L. says: “For
they have eyes and do not see, and they have ears and do not hear”. This is
mentioned eight times in the Old Testament (six times in Isaiah) and four times
in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Paul, Acts).

Thus
the first sign forcefully councils us to sever our intellect; and the second
sign tells us that, shutting away our intellect with our left hand, we must
listen to our heart (or emotions) in the manner of the early Christian Fathers,
the mystics of the “Philokalia”. This will allow our Being to pass into room
No. 4, and the first glimpse we would get of the Shekinah, if we could really do
this, would indeed blind us, hence the necessity of copying our Grand Master
Moses’ action of shielding his eyes. This sign also implies that we should
look inwards instead of outwards as we usually do: the “Still Small Voice”
is inside us, not outside.

The
third sign implies that we have reached the point of “no return”, where the
agony of our new illumina­tion is unbearable, and we beg the Almighty to help
us through “the Doors of Perception”. Adam received his knowledge, after
eating the fruit, in such rapid and indigestible a manner that he had to beg the
Almighty to remove the pain. This could only be done by removing the