MANUAL OF FREEMASONRY - Masonic High Council the Mother ...

iv
INTRODUCTION
that men who were never in a lodge have successfully and profitably
taught practical masonry. The higher degrees form the
subject of other volumes. They are not common; are
denominated orders of chivalry ; and but very few Masons go
beyond the Royal Arch Degree.
The great subject of Masonry is Solomon’s Temple. The two
first secret words are Boaz and Jachin, the pillars of the porch
of that temple. Through all the Masonic degrees, ancient or
modern, the subject continues to be a dark development of the
building of the temple. I am about to throw light upon it. My
historical researches have taught me that that which has been
called Solomon’s Temple never existed upon earth : that a nation
of people called Israelites never existed upon earth : and
that the supposed history of Israelites and their temple is
nothing more than an allegory relating to the mystery of
physics generally, and the moral culture of the human mind.
Hence the real secret of masonry.
The word temple is derived from the Latin word tempus,
time; and, therefore, the ancient structures called temples were
in reality intended to be records of time and archives of human
knowledge. Such institutions would have been a great benefit
to mankind ; but the veil of superstition was thrown over
them ; it was deemed politic or profitable to the few to deceive
the many ; that which should have been a simple record of
fact was worked up into an allegory : there arose an esoteric
doctrine for those initiated in the secrets of the temple, and a
deceptious exoteric doctrine for the multitude; and this was
the origin of a priesthood ; this the lamentable change from
science to priestcraft ; this the secret of Freemasonry, the key
of the mysteries of the Christian religion, and the basis of
Judaism. Judaism, Christianity, and Freemasonry, are, in
principle, one and the same, as to secret origin and mystery.
Let us endeavour to turn the stream ; to go from priestcraft to
science, from mystery to knowledge, from allegory to real
history.