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

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Chapter 7 - Rituals
7. Rituals: Their Purpose and Meaning as
Embedded in Society
We may already understand this idea intellectually, but intellectual
knowledge is not enough. Ritual ceremonies, myths and symbols are
used to facilitate the shift from knowledge to experience, that is to say,
from what has been conceptualised to what has been lived out. 1251
What is so attractive about oaths and incantations, playing feudal knights,
holy pilgrims, or sacred martyrs, using as equipment coffins, skeletons, hooded
robes, crosses, swords and daggers, cauldrons and grails? Why does knowledge
have to be imparted in terrifying or strange ceremonies that are emotively
charged? As Grand Orator Joseph Robbins states in a speech before the Grand
Lodge of Illinois in 1869, an element of wonderful power in Masonry is its
mysticism: "The incorporation of this element into its body is a practical
recognition of a metaphysical fact of which all, perhaps, are conscious, but
which few feel in its full force, that a secret held between two or more persons is
a bond of sympathy between them." 1252 Mysticism brings the brethren closer
together by giving them a point of common interest. Therefore, it can be argued
that ritualism in Freemasonry is certainly a kind of survival strategy - an
observation that might be valid for other discrete societies, as well. This theory
can be backed up by the historical fact that when the original destination of
operative masonry became less important, when membership grew less
appealing for economic reasons, the Craft saved itself by changing into a
speculative and mythical institution. Thus, it is an example of the social
phenomena that adaptation facilitates survival, just as in biology:
An organization of the operatives of a certain trade it was gradually
decaying in a changed social environment in which no practical reason
for its existence remained. But it had another aspect which proved
capable of expansion and which filled a human need, and so within
recent times it has passed through the stages of survival and revival into
the widespread organization we know today. 1253
The culture of Freemasonry and other discrete or secret fraternal
organizations has a commonality. Therefore, the following sub-chapters will
consider this interesting family collectively. We will come across the
fundamental question: why do several societies use rituals? What is the
difference from simply living according to fixed rules of social behavior, like so
many clubs do, and experiencing strange ritualistic forms, as in Masonry and
1251
Béresniak, p. 22.
1252
Quoted in Myler, p. 532.
1253
Quoted from Bros. A. L. Kress and R. J. Meekren, "The Form of the Lodge," printed in The
Builder from 1926, vol. XII, p. 185.