The Lost Key: An Explanation of Masonic Symbols

Chapter VII. 79237. So it should be an easy matter for you to remember thepositions of the candidate at the Altar in the First Degree and inthe Second Degree. First get this matter clear in your mind. Thenapply your knowledge of the symbolic meanings of the shoes, feet,arms and legs. Remember that to bend the knee means to submitthat side of the lower mental activities to the will of the HigherSelf. To put the knee in the form of a square means that that sideof the lower mental activities shall be ruled by the square, shallflow into action on the Square or that all incoming or outgoingmentalizations, thoughts, etc., shall be square (clean and honest).It means that nothing will be allowed to enter the mind exceptthat which is square and honest and true.238. The student will doubtless notice, in these pages, thecontinual repetition of the teaching of thought control, guarding ofthe thoughts, keeping the thoughts pure and clean which occur inthe course of the Masonic Rituals. Control of thought and controlof actions, and the control of them in accordance with theteachings of the Divine Law, these things are emphasized so oftenin the various Degrees that the Rituals seem to be one continuousseries of admonitions as to thought control. Yet, when we recallthe statements of Solomon and of Christ, who can say that theselessons are overemphasized? Is not lack of thought control what isthe matter with the world today?239. We must always keep in mind the fact that these dramaticlessons, these symbolic instructions in thought control and inmoral conduct, have come down to us from a time long antedatingthe Christian Era. They have come down from a time so ancientthat no man can point to their origin and say, “Before such andsuch a time they were not.” Also that our sole aim is to find outwhat the various items of the Rituals mean. Whether the lessonscontained in the symbolisms be of ancient or comparativelymodem origin they are nevertheless not understood by the Craft at