The Lost Key: An Explanation of Masonic Symbols

Chapter III. 3597. In this position we must note that it is not alone the feetwhich are in the form of the oblong square but also the shoes and,remembering the meaning of the shoes, we can understand what acomprehensive statement this is on the part of the candidate. It isevidently the last vestige of some sort of examination whichapparently took place at this point in ancient times.THE RITE OF DISCALCEATION98. If the shoes are the physical body and the feet are the personalitywhat is meant by leaving off a shoe or both shoes? In theEastern countries it is customary for a worshipper or a stranger,before entering a temple, to remove the shoes and substitute a pairof slippers furnished by the temple or to enter barefooted. Thecommon explanation of this is that it is a mark of respect for theplace and this is also given as the reason why Moses wascommanded to remove his shoes at the burning bush.99. But when we come to examine this custom in the light of ourknowledge of the symbolism of the body, and we must rememberthat this same symbolic meaning of the body is carried out in theold Myths and in the ancient Scriptures, we can readily understandthat, although the removal of the shoes might be taken as a sign ofrespect, that meaning is really only a secondary meaning, aderivitive of the prime meaning.100. The feet are the personality and the shoes are the physicalbody. Now when the feet, either or both of them, are withdrawnfrom the shoes it represents a withdrawal of the personality fromthe physical body, does it not? Apparently it would represent orsymbolize the withdrawal of the invisible man from the visiblebody. Yet we know that it does not mean quite this for it is notsymbolic of death. But, if it means a withdrawal from the body andyet does not mean death, then what could it mean?