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Though each one may report in different words of his rotational experience, the experience itself is almost childishly simple, and whosoever has been there instantly recognizes other authentic reports. To have been in that eddy is a freemasonry of which the common password is a "fie" on all the operations of the simple popular understanding.
And hence, looking to this strange identity of design and form, between the initiations of the ancients and those of the modern Masons, writers have been disposed to designate these mysteries as the SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY. The Ancient Mysteries.
He must be in distress. Ours is not an insurance company, a joint stock association, in which, for a certain premium paid, an equivalent may be demanded. No Mason, or no lodge, is bound to give pecuniary or other aid to a Brother, unless he really needs. The word " benefit," as usually used in the modern friendly societies, has no place in the vocabulary of Freemasonry.
It is deeply to be regretted that Ashmole did not carry out his projected design of writing a history of Freemasonry, for which it is said that he had collected abundant materials. His History of the Order of the Garter shows what we might have expected from his treatment of the masonic institution. ASPIRANT. One who aspires to or seeks after the truth.
Daniel Sickles says, 'In Egypt, Greece, and many other ancient nations Freemasonry, that is, the Mysteries, was one of the earliest agencies employed to effect the improvement and enlightenment of man. Pierson says, 'The identity of the Masonic institutions with the ancient Mysteries is obvious, which means clearly to be seen, manifest to any and all.
That the lost secret of Freemasonry is concerned with special applications of this higher law which connect with mysticism, we, as mystics, do hold and can make evident in its proper time and place. Here, and personally, I am concerned only with a comprehensive statement.
The legend of the third degree the golden legend, the legenda aurea of Masonry was there adopted by pure Freemasonry, which before had no such legend, from spurious Freemasonry. But the legend had existed under other names and forms, in all the Mysteries, for ages before.
I mean, of course, Freemasonry, and the secret societies which, honestly and honourably disowned by Freemasonry, yet have either copied it, or actually sprung out of it. In England, Freemasonry never was, it seems, more than a liberal and respectable benefit-club; for secret societies are needless for any further purposes, amid free institutions and a free press.
In fact, the symbols of Freemasonry are Solomonic, and its religion was derived from the ancient priesthood. The infusion of the Christian element was, however, a natural result of surrounding circumstances; yet to sustain it would be fatal to the cosmopolitan character of the institution. Such interpretation is therefore modern, and does not belong to the ancient system.
No doubt the law of perjury has some effect, but it is less than is generally imagined, partly because the law is difficult to apply, and partly because there is a wide disinclination to apply it, owing to a sort of freemasonry in false witness, which is apt to be regarded as an essential part of the game of litigation.
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