The Lost Keys of Freemasonry
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Manly P. Hall
Manly P. Hall (1901-1990) founded the Philosophical Research Society, an organization dedicated to the dissemination of practical knowledge in a variety of philosophical fields. He is best known for his 1928 classic, The Secret Teachings of All Ages.
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The Lost Keys of Freemasonry - Manly P. Hall
The Lost Keys of Freemasonry
by Manly P. Hall
First published in 1923
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
THE LOST KEYS OF FREEMASONRY
by MANLY P. HALL
PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD
The steady demand and increasing popularity of this volume, of
which eighteen thousand copies have been printed since it first
appeared a few years ago, have brought the present revised and
rearranged edition into being. The text can be read with profit by
both new and old Mason, for within its pages lies an interpretation
of Masonic symbolism which supplements the monitorial instruction
usually given in the lodges.
The leading Masonic scholars of all times have agreed that the
symbols of the Fraternity are susceptible of the most profound
interpretation and thus reveal to the truly initiated certain
secrets concerning the spiritual realities of life. Freemasonry is
therefore more than a mere social organization a few centuries old,
and can be regarded as a perpetuation of the philosophical
mysteries and initiations of the ancients. This is in keeping with
the inner tradition of the Craft, a heritage from pre-Revival days.
The present volume will appeal to the thoughtful Mason as an
inspiring work, for it satisfies the yearning for further light and
leads the initiate to that Sanctum Sanctorum where the mysteries
are revealed. The book is a contribution to Masonic idealism,
revealing the profounder aspects of our ancient and gentle
Fraternity - those unique and distinctive features which have
proved a constant inspiration through the centuries.
FOREWORD
By REYNOLD E. BLIGHT, 33 degree, K. T.
Reality forever eludes us. Infinity mocks our puny efforts to
imprison it in definition and dogma. Our most splendid
realizations are only adumbrations of the Light. In his endeavors,
man is but a mollusk seeking to encompass the ocean.
Yet man may not cease his struggle to find God. There is a
yearning in his soul that will not let him rest, an urge that
compels him to attempt the impossible, to attain the unattainable.
He lifts feeble hands to grasp the stars and despite a million
years of failure and millenniums of disappointment, the soul of man
springs heavenward with even greater avidity than when the race was
young.
He pursues, even though the flying ideal eternally slips from his
embrace. Even though he never clasps the goddess of his dreams, he
refuses to believe that she is a phantom. To him she is the only
reality. He reaches upward and will not be content until the sword
of Orion is in his hands, and glorious Arcturus glearns from his
breast.
Man is Parsifal searching for the Sacred Cup; Sir Launfal
adventuring for the Holy Grail. Life is a divine adventure, a
splendid quest
Language falls. Words are mere cyphers, and who can read the
riddle? These words we use, what are they but vain shadows of form
and sense? We strive to clothe our highest thought with verbal
trappings that our brother may see and understand; and when we
would describe a saint he sees a demon; and when we would present a
wise man he beholds a fool. Fie upon you,
he cries; "thou, too,
art a fool."
So wisdom drapes her truth with symbolism, and covers her insight
with allegory. Creeds, rituals, poems are parables and symbols.
The ignorant take them literally and build for themselves prison
houses of words and with bitter speech and bitterer taunt denounce
those who will not join them in the dungeon. Before the rapt
vision of the seer, dogma and ceremony, legend and trope dissolve
and fade, and he sees behind the fact the truth, behind the symbol
the Reality.
Through the shadow shines ever the Perfect Light.
What is a Mason? He is a man who in his heart has been duly and
truly prepared, has been found worthy and well qualified, has been
admitted to the fraternity of builders, been invested with certain
passwords and signs by which he may be enabled to work and receive
wages as a Master Mason, and travel in foreign lands in search of
that which was lost - The Word.
Down through the misty vistas of the ages rings a clarion
declaration and although the very heavens echo to the
reverberations, but few hear and fewer understand: "In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was
God."
Here then is the eternal paradox. The Word is lost yet it is ever
with us. The light that illumines the distant horizon shines in
our hearts. Thou wouldst not seek me hadst thou not found me.
We
travel afar only to find that which we hunger for at home.
And as Victor Hugo says: "The thirst for the Infinite proves
infinity."
That which we seek lives in our souls.
This, the unspeakable truth, the unutterable perfection, the author
has set before us in these pages. Not a Mason himself, he has read
the deeper meaning of the ritual. Not having assumed the formal
obligations, he calls upon all mankind to enter into the holy of
holies. Not initiated into the physical craft, he declares the
secret doctrine that all may hear.
With vivid allegory and profound philosophical disquisition he
expounds the sublime teachings of Freemasonry, older than all
religions, as universal as human aspiration.
It is well. Blessed are the eyes that see, and the ears that hear,
and the heart that understands.
INTRODUCTION
Freemasonry, though not a religion, is essentially religious. Most
of its legends and allegories are of a sacred nature; much of it is
woven into the structure of Christianity. We have learned to
consider our own religion as the only inspired one, and this
probably accounts for much of the misunderstanding in the world
today concerning the place occupied by Freemasonry in the spiritual
ethics of our race. A religion is a divinely inspired code of
morals. A religious person is one inspired to nobler living by
this code. He is identified by the code which is his source of
illumination. Thus we may say that a Christian is one who receives
his spiritual ideals of right and wrong from the message of the
Christ, while a Buddhist is one who molds his life into the
archetype of morality given by the great Gautama, or one of the
other Buddhas. All doctrines which seek to unfold and preserve
that invisible spark in man named Spirit, are said to be spiritual
. Those which ignore this invisible element and concent rate
entirely upon the visible are said to be material. There is in
religion a wonderful point of balance, where the materialist and
spiritist