The Lost Key: An Explanation of Masonic Symbols

Chapter XI. 113upon taking the Word alone as the only literal thing in it?318. What was the Word to do? It was to enable the one whoreceived it to travel in foreign countries. What was a foreigncountry? We can best answer that question by finding out firstwhat country the individual was in. The Temple was himself, thecountry his environment or the physical world about him. Howcould he leave himself and the physical world about him? Thatseems to be a hard question to answer, but it is not so. To theopen minded scholar who is really seeking for Light and who isacquainted with the initiations of the ancient Mysteries so far asthey have come down to us, it is a well known fact that the phrase“travel in foreign countries” is a technical phrase and was appliedto the belief which they held that, given a certain course ofinstruction and after living a certain kind of pure and spotless life,the initiate was able to detach his soul from the physical body andtravel in the higher realms, coming back to his body again andresuming his ordinary life.319. Remember the identity of the Ruffians and the identity of theCraftsmen. These qualities were not ready for such spiritualteaching as the Word involved. They had not yet completed theirwork on the Temple and could not receive the higher instructionwhich could be given only in the presence and hence, of course,with the knowledge, consent and approval of the three GrandMasters, all or whom are symbolic of various aspects of theindividual. Read Morals and Dogma in this connection, pages 204to 209, also pages 730 to 732, inclusive, and page 745 before youdismiss the above statements with the wave of the gloved andgauntleted hand. In discussing the meaning of the Lost Word thehonest scholar is trying to find out the ORIGINAL meaning behindit, not the meaning whic.h some modern enthusiast thinks itOUGHT to have and, to get at this original meaning, we have toconsider what the ancient philosophers believed.