The Lost Key: An Explanation of Masonic Symbols

106The Lost Keyhe is to progress, that is, how he is to apply the knowledge he receivesin the dramatic part of the rituals. It is these “Explanatory”Symbols as differentiated from the “Educational” Symbolism suchas the body, clothing, shoes, etc., which the existing books onMasonic Symbolism have elected to explain. But the explanationoffered has seldom taken into consideration the fact that thesesymbols are explanatory and ilIuminative of the progressive lessonswhich the candidate is receiving and that they must fit in with thatsymbolism.301. When this fact is realized and the Pillars and the Pavementand the Winding Stairs are considered as a part of the entireinitiation and not as merely individual and disconnected symbolsthrown in at random in order to give “good measure,” then andthen only is it possible to arrive at a definite and logical conclusionas to their meaning.302. The third part of the Masonic Symbolism is the Drama whichfollows the first Section of the Third Degree, the Drama of HiramAbif. This Drama, giving. the story of the death and resurrectionof Hiram and which we have already considered, is a sort of symbolicbird’s eye view of human development, taking up the matterfrom an entirely different angle from that employed in the first partof the Degrees. It is really a pictorial or dramatic story of humanevolution and was originally designed by those who held the beliefof Rebirth or the repeated embodiments of the spirit in physicalbodies of gradually improving powers and capacities.303. This belief of Rebirth must not be confused with thedegeneration of it met with sometimes among the ignorant andcalled “Transmigration.” Under the teaching of Rebirth there is nosuch thing as transmigration. At the death of the physical bodythe spirit exists consciously in higher realms where it absorbs andbuilds into itself the results of its experiences during physical life,when it comes back to rebirth and is born again in an infant body