The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

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Chapter 4 - Signs & Symbols
already mentioned above, employing merely the alphabet turned end for end, Z
for A, etc. Another consisted of reading a word's last letter, then the first, then
the next to the last, then the second first, and so on. A numeric code was also
used, with numerals representing whole words, such as "1" for "lodge," and
doubling meaning the plural, as "11" for "lodges." 520
An example of numerical cipher is the one invented by Rob Morris from
Kentucky in the 1860s, who made an attempt to optimize Masonic cryptography
using two separate books, neither of which is meaningful without the other, the
Mnemonics (the Masonic ritual and code) and the Spelling Book (the key to the
code). 521 For each appropriate section of the ritual, Mnemonics contained a block
of 17 columns of letters in 25 rows, and opposite to that a similar block of 17
columns of figures in 25 lines:
Cipher from Rob Morris' Mnemonics
The left block had to be read downward, starting with "T" and then finding
the correspondent number in the right block, "9." Referring to the Spelling Book,
containing all the words used in the ritual, one found out that "T 9" meant "The."
When continuing in the same way, the reader deciphered the first column in the
left block thus: "the degree of entered apprentice." However, the Grand Lodges
did not permit Morris to perpetrate his cipher on the Fraternity.
To the ordinary person the code was undecipherable but the serious
defect was that at some stage a circular had to be issued to the members
to enable even them to read Mnemonics. Of course, anyone who came
into possession of all these documents could decipher the whole [...].
Masonic codes used for ritualistic purposes in later years have usually
been mere reminders or prompters, the full text not being available in
anything written. 522
To sum up this introduction on cryptography as practiced by the Masons of
the last three centuries, it can be said that these "amusements" of cipher writing
are now obsolete; at least in Europe. North American Grand Lodges continue to
520 CME, p. 131.
521 Ibid.
522 CME, p. 568.