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

Chapter 6 - Peculiarities of Masonic Language 341
on the pink of politeness, for he keeps his hat on his head. This has been
abolished, and is one of the proofs that Masonry is a symbolical and
progressive institution. 1059
If a 19 th century writer could already comment this way, it is obvious that in
the 20 th century, Freemasonry has advanced much farther and abolished such
childish tests: "The trend in the 20 th century has been away from test questions
for the examination of visitors, because so soon as such questions become
formalized, imposters can master them as well as can the examining committee.
Impromptu test questions are sometimes resorted to but might trip a worthy
Mason as well as a pretender." 1060 The Masons of today are more pragmatic and
use other means than puerile tests or tricks to find out whether they deal with a
cowan or a worthy brother: "The best practice at the present day in examining
strangers is to skip about from one part of a degree to another or even from one
degree to another, not using trickery but asking substantial and meaningful
questions to discover the visitor's familiarity with the interior of a lodge rather
than any mere form of words." 1061
6.5 Comparisons
The symbolic richness of the Masonic language invites Masonic writers to
use comparisons. Very often, technical terms from the field of stonemasonry are
used, for example in the following comparison taken from an oration by Albert
Pike in 1858. Here, obsolete words in rituals are compared to old stones. With
this paragraph, Pike wants to illustrate why peculiar out-dated words are found in
rituals that nobody understands:
The Arab builds into his rude walls the carved blocks that once were a
part of Babylonian palaces, when Ezekiel prophesied, and when Daniel
interpreted the dreams of Kings: the stones hewd by the Old Etruscans
before Romulus slew his brother and built the first wall for Rome, may
be still seen in the works of Roman architects: and so in our Rituals,
attesting the antiquity of the Order, remain embedded words now
obsolete, their meaning long forgotten and only recently
rediscovered. 1062
However, Masonic comparisons can also be made of allusions to the profane
world like in the following example from the Masonic writer and dramatist Carl
1059 TRMC, p. 728.
1060 CME, p. 650.
1061 CME, p. 650.
1062 Albert Pike, The Meaning of Masonry, in a speech 1858; p. 7.