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

Chapter 7 - Rituals 395
Red Cross of Constantine, to view one of this species also, before we shift to the
female (androgynous) orders, and hereafter to Masonic youth orders. These
chapters are not intended to be exposés of rituals (which, by the way, were
published several times before by anti-Masons and Masons alike), but shall serve
the purpose of illustrating and analyzing the rich symbolic material contained
within the ritualistic diction. This can be achieved by comparisons with Masonic
manuals and handbooks, with the help of Masonic dictionaries and
encyclopedias, and other secondary literature material. If the reader has kept in
mind the technical terminology of Chapter 5., and the peculiarities of the
Masonic language explained in Chapter 6., it will not be too difficult to
understand the "secret language" of the rituals. What mainly interests us in the
following sub-chapters is this very language, of which a Mason has said:
What a library might be thus written on the language of our Ritual! To
the etymological historian all of its words would be so many thousands
of windows, many of them of richest stained glass, opening back on
such panoramas of the past as would amaze us. The philosophies of the
eighteenth century would be there, the many colored gild life of the
Middle Ages, theorems of the Arabic mathematicians, reveries of the
kabbalists [sic], guesses of the occultists, thoughts of Greek
philosophers, visions of Hebrew prophets, the twilight mysteries of
Egypt. 1262
7.1.1 Improvement of the Individual: the
Three Degrees of Craft Masonry 1263
This section will deal with "Craft Masonry" (BE) or "Blue Masonry" (AE),
i.e. the first three degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason)
that constitute the basis of the Masonic system.
Anthony Nizzardini printed the ritual chosen for this chapter in New York,
N.Y. in 1980. The illustrations were taken from Duncan's Masonic Ritual and
Monitor from the turn of the last century, and from Standard Freemasonry
Illustrated (1921). Concerning the outer form of the ritual, each of the three
degrees consists of three parts, viz. an Opening Ceremony, a Ceremony of
Initiation (1. Advancing, 2. Passing, 3. Raising), and a Closing Ceremony.
We would like to attribute to the three degrees the maxims 1. "look inside
yourself," 1264 2. "look around yourself," and 3. "look above yourself," for in this
1262 Quoted from Bro. Elmer Mantz, New York: "A New Interpretation of History," printed in The
Builder, volume XII, from 1926, p. 19.
1263 If not otherwise noted, the quotations for this section are taken from a ritual published by
Anthony Nizzardini, New York, N.Y. in 1980.
1264 In the German ritual, the essence of the First Degree is clearly the "nosce te ipsum," i.e. "know
thyself." In the American First Degree, the self- improvement is more evident than the self-