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Mystery Teachings of the ancient world numbered architecture among the sacred arts. There were two reasons for this. First, they looked upon the Supreme Being as the Grand Architect of all creation; second, they regarded man himself as the builder and keeper of his own human temple. St. Paul, who was a mystic Mason, taught his disciples "ye are the temple of God." Paul was referring to the threefold personality wherein and whereby the divine ego unfolds its latent potentialities through experiences on the earth plane. As it releases its powers, the indwelling spirit works upon its outer vehicles, purifying and beautifying them; thus building for itself an ever more perfect instrument for manifesting its destiny.
In accordance with the Ancient Wisdom the Masonic Fraternity, which perpetuates those teachings in its wonderful and elaborate symbolism and ritualism, admonishes the brethren to study architecture and to recognize it as one of the sacred arts. In his Masonic Compedium, Morals and Dogma, Albert Pike states that the ancient Chinese had no false gods or images. It was their third emperor· who erected a Temple, probably the first to be dedicated to the Great Architect of the Universe. He also states that early Christians, in their efforts to safeguard their faith and to protect themselves from persecution, conversed together figuratively and by use of symbols; and that they were known by various appelations such as Brethren, Stewards of the Mysteries, Devotees of the Secret. One of the designations was Architects. They were indeed builders, builders of the kingdom of God on earth.
The importance of architecture in connection with Freemasonry is indicated by the designations given to the 12th, 13th and 14th Degrees of the Scottish Rite. They are, respectively, the Grand Master Architect, Master of the Ninth Arch, and Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason. The officers of these Degrees are called respectively: Master Architect, Royal Arch of Solomon, Perfect Elu. According to Albert Pike, these officers "should be selected from none but Brothers well instructed in the preceding Degrees." He also states that they should understand the deeper meaning of these Degrees and impart them to their brethren.
The architecture of any age is a true index to the state of civilization to which man has attained. It reflects the essential character and consciousness of its creators. For example, skyscrapers that dominate the architectural scene of our land are a logical expression of widespread and soaring ambition to master the material forces of nature. They are an unmistakable evidence of western civilization's materialistic trend during the last two or three centuries.
This type of architecture has found notable expression in the works of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, referred to in a recent issue of Life as a "Master Architect." In Chicago he has built two towering apartment houses with steel piers exposed at the base around a recessed lobby, giving the buildings an effect of being on stilts. Severely unembellished, they express in purest form the technological concepts of our age. They are ultra-functional. They have strength and fairly assert their mastery over physical forces. Mr. Mies attributes his arresting designs to logic. "Alone," he says, "logic will not make beauty inevitable. But with logic a building shines."
His works do shine. They do embody the very essence of our current materialistic civilization. As such they make architectural history, and on such the future builds. What the future must add to the modern architect's logic are the powers that flow from the heart, powers that will soften the sharply rigid lines of starkly functional structures and introduce flowing forms whereby a greater measure of divine grace may be imparted. This, however, will not be until the masses live, not only according to logic of the mind but also in obedience to a higher logic of the heart. When a desire for spiritual realization properly balances the ambition to acquire material possessions, architectural forms will register this shift of emphasis from the outer to the inner, from the material to the spiritual.
As the predominant architectural forms express characteristics prevailing in a given area, so new forms emerge to point out what may be expected in the future. Such are the creations of pioneer spirits who blaze the trail for the many to follow when they attain to similar vision.
The incoming Aquarian Age will feature the magic of color and rhythmic harmony. Examples of recent structures embodying these elements to an arresting degree were displayed in a magnificent exhibit of outstanding building designs recently on view at the National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. The exhibit was organized by the American Institute of Architects to celebrate its 100th anniversary, and it revealed how modern design is no longer limited mainly to skyscrapers and homes but extends to factories, airports, clinics, shopping centers, and so on. As described in Life , "their daring contours... their incorporation of art and landscaping... point the way to the architectures of coming decades."
It has been said that "architectures begin in strength, progress to rationality and refinement and end in fantasy." In their soft harmony of colors and graceful lines, landscaped so as to be reflected in adjoining pools, they appear to be veritable houses of fantasy, although serving most practical purposes.
The imagination of the architect who designed the new Technical Center of General Motors Company certainly glimpsed a vision of the New Age. This splendid building has been called a twentieth century marvel, and been compared in splendor and beauty to Versailles. It has been described as embodying "a vast consistency of spirit and of grandeur in spatial pattern," and as expressing "immense order of its space and ethereal freedom of its structure, a work of genius, mathematical and crystal clear and built of disciplined thought."
The new United States Embassy Building at New Delhi is described as making magnificent use of the principle of combining structure and decoration as inseparable elements of a building. A grill of pierced stone forms the principal element of the building's exterior, which shelters the interior from India's blazing sun while endowing the whole with "a serene and romantic splendor."
"No more perfect example of structure transfigured by ornament," writes Joseph Hudnut in Art News, April 1957, "could be imagined than the slender gold columns, which support the widely projecting roof, march against the static and textured grill. .. " Palm trees rise from a water-garden in the patio; and laid out before the building but separated from it by a terrace lies a reflecting pool dotted with lilies.
A prominent architect in New York City associates juvenile delinquency with dark, narrow hallways and unattractive, crowded schoolrooms. He desires to construct a building in that city with walls composed entirely of glass, with large and commodious rooms and wide hallways, the whole flooded with sunlight. Then he wants to study the behavior, together with their mental and moral development, of pupils attending such a school.
In the imaginative use of light, color and space in the new architecture now emerging there truly may be found seeds of a more glorious tomorrow.
A comparative study of Church Craft and Temple Craft includes more than Church and Masonry, for it involves divergencies and inharmonies basic to human character and points to instinctive differences which separate nation from nation, man from man. These differences delay realization of the universal dream of a unified world flushed with the glow of eternal peace.
There are two streams of humanity. They may be generally classified as followers of State or Temple Craft, the Path of Knowledge, and of Church Craft, the Path of Faith. Illumination comes to adherents of either when brought into balance by the other; and every individual, every organization, bears the insignia of one of these two paths.
Temple Craft centers primarily in activities of the objective world. Its followers are the creative, dynamic persons, initiators but never imitators. Statesmen and leaders in various fields, especially finance, will be found in this group-represented in Temple Craft by King Hiram of Tyre and biblically by Cain, a son of Fire. In this type of person mentality is dominant. For their enlightenment there was inaugurated a way of attainment wherein they are instructed to "journey toward the East in quest of light." This path is mystically termed Initiation by Fire, and Cain, its founder, bore upon his forehead a brand symbolic of reason unillumined by spirit. The main objective of Initiation by Fire is spiritualization of the reasoning intellect.
Followers of Church Craft are centered in the heart, so this is well called the Path of Faith. They are eager to be taught, willing to be shown, amenable to direction and suggestion. In masonic symbology they are represented by King Solomon; biblically by Seth, son of Adam and Eve. Aspirants upon this path bear upon their foreheads the sign of the cross marked in holy water. Attainment thereon is mystically known as a Initiation by Water.
The supreme mission of Christ Jesus was to bring about an amalgamation of these usually divergent paths. By His life and work He sought to demonstrate the power and glory that would be man's when a harmonious blending of the forces of head and heart had been effected, a blending that manifests outwardly as equality between man and woman. The illumined aura shown about the head of the Messiah is indicative of the Christed mind while the glory light shining from His heart signifies illumination through love. In Him head and heart (State and Church) unite to form one glorified whole. This is the meaning of the biblical statement that he is "a priest for ever after the order of Melchizidek."
Fundamentally, the teachings of the Church and of Masonry are the same, a fact not generally recognized by the followers of either Path. Their goal is one although their methods of attainment vary. High spiritual truths underlie their ceremonials, the most magnificent and elaborate in the world today. The fundamental theme of both is polarity-meaning, as previously explained, equilibrium between the masculine and feminine poles of spirit, evidenced in the objective world by equality between man and woman.
Masonry's most familiar emblem is an open Bible whereon rests a square and a compass. The square represents the feminine pole of the spirit; the compass, the masculine. The key to the Bible is MAN, and its theme is regeneration by means of polarity.
The principal symbol of the Church, a cross upon an open Bible, has the same significance, The vertical limb of the cross stands for the masculine; the horizontal limb for the feminine. The Bible is the textbook for establishing equilibrium between these two.
The famous pair of columns in every masonic lodge, Jachin and Boaz, have a like symbolism, while the decorative motif-pomegranites (fruitfulness) and lilies (purity)-points the way of attainment through the fruitfulness of service and the purity of day-by-day living. In previous pages of this series on esoteric architecture is given a similar interpretation of the twin towers characteristic of the established cathedral pattern. In man the two nervous sytems, the cerebro-spinal (masculine) and the sympathetic (feminine), are the two columns of the human body temple. An ego enters physical embodiment through the union of the two columns (father and mother), then learns to control his own physical temple by means of the two nervous systems. A masonic candidate passes between Jacin and Boaz in his quest for light. A Church aspirant kneels between two candles burning before the Holy of Holies that he may learn to "walk in the light as he is in the light."
A tesselated pavement is prominently identified with both Church and Temple Craft, and represents the forces of good and evil. The Church teaches that the earth is checkered black with man's sins and white with the mercy of heaven. The masonic Master was at work upon this pavement when attacked by the three ruffians. In other words, the forces of evil work through the three lower principles of man's nature and often temporarily subjugate the good.
A five-pointed star is equally significant in the two crafts. A cross indicates man's spirit bound to his body. When his spirit achieves liberation the cross becomes a star. The five wounds of Church Craft are located in the head, hands and feet, where are the centers that make for liberation from physical limitations. The five points of fellowship in Masonry refer to the same liberation which, in masonic terminology, is spoken of as giving ability to travel in foreign countries.
King Solomon bestowed high honors upon the twelve Fellowcraft Brothers by teaching them profound secrets of the Order and sending them forth to illumine others. Christ Jesus bestowed the same award upon His twelve Disciples and sent them forth to preach His new gospel. Twelve and one is the numerical pattern of heaven and earth. In the heavens the Sun is central to the twelve zodiacal constellations; in man the ego is central to his twelve body centers. The underlying pattern of the Old Testament is concerned with Jacob and his twelve sons, while the New Testament pattern is based upon the Lord Christ and His twelve Disciples.
Melchizedek, the Atlantean high priest, came to communicate the divine meaning of polarity to Abraham, first teacher of the Fifth Root Race, in the little town of Salem, which later became Jerusalem. Solomon and Hiram endeavored to affect polarized unity in building the molten sea. Their work was frustrated by the three ruffians (selfishness, avarice and sensuality), the very forces that still defeat its consummation in this day.
When building the Temple of Zerubbabel, Nehemiah and Ezra, representing Temple Craft and Church Craft respectively, labored toward a like amalgamation but to no avail, the forces of man's lower nature being still too strong. The final and highest work of Christ Jesus took place in the same highly magnetized city (Jerusalem) wherein occurred the work of the ancient Atlantean high priest. There it was that the Lord Christ gave His supreme teaching on polarity, concealed within the symbolism of the Last Supper. Melchizedek gave this fundamental instruction to Abraham; the Lord Christ, a high priest after the order of Melchizdek, gave the same at the close of His ministry heralding the new Aquarian Age.
Demonstration of this dual masculine-feminine power will characterize the most advanced egos following either path of development. They will be pioneers of the Sixth Root Race, which will prepare the way for the second coming of Christ.
One of the treasures of the Church is an exquisitely chased golden cup designed with a vine on one side and a sheaf of wheat on the other. It is the Grail Cup, its symbols denoting the blending of the masculine and the feminine polarities. The Grail of every medieval and modern aspirant is the same as the molten sea of ancient Masonry.
Temples are equally important in the symbology of Church and State. Masonry is built around the Temples of Solomon and Zerubababel. The Church points to the Temple of St. John, with its twelve entrance gates that are never closed and its sea of glass, the molten sea in final perfection. The white-robed figures which stand upon it are new race pioneers who have effected polarity within themselves and are thus prepared for the glory of the second coming. Knights Templar understood these truths and wished to build in Jerusalem a new temple where they could be taught to practice their way of life. Jacques de Molay, their leader, was murdered and the Order was eventually disbanded.
Rosicrucianism, which embodies many teachings of the Templars, is allied to Masonry throught the Degree of the Rose Cross. In the official organ of United States Masonry, The New Age, it was recently stated that the Rose Cross work was founded by Elias Asmole, a Hermetic scholar and kabbalist of sixteenth century England. He founded a Masonic Lodge and a Rosicrucian Order in London, and worked both of them together. A Mason avers "By the Rose upon the cross I conquer"; a churchman, "By the cross of Christ I conquer." Christ is the Rose of Sharon. In the catacombs of Rome was found a golden cross. On its right arm was engraven a rose of Sharon and the word Alpha (beginning); on its left arm, a rose of Sharon and the word Omega (end).
In masonic legends there are three Masters who find the acacia, a plant sacred to both Church and Lodge as meaning eternal life. The Ark containing the Holy of Holies was made of acacia (chittim) wood. Also, a sprig of its green is placed by brother members in the casket of every deceased Mason.
Both Masonry and the Church are founded upon ritualism originating in initiatory Rites where a candidate was "slain" and placed in a grave to rise again at sunrise of the third day. A Master Mason says: "My name is Acaaia. I have been in the grave and have triumphed over it by rising from the dead and being regenerated in the process; I have claim to life eternal."
Said the Christ, in accordance with the ancient initiatory formula, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." At dawn of the third day following His crucifixion, amid the glory of the sunrise and the halleluiahs of rejoicing Angels, He demonstrated to all the world that He was indeed "the resurrection and the life."
— Corinne Heline
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