Cryptic Masonry; A Manual of the Council Or, Monitorial Instructions in the Degrees of Royal and Select Master. with an Additional Section on the Supe (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1897. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... This, then, is the symbolism of the Royal Master's degree. HISTORICAL SUMMARY. The events recorded in the degree of Royal Master, looking at them in a legendary point of view, must have occurred at the building of the first temple, and during that brief period of time after the death of the Builder which is embraced between the discovery of his body and its "masonic interment." In all the initiations into the mysteries of the ancient world, there was, as it is well known to scholars, a legend of the violent death of some distinguished personage, to whose memory the particular mystery was consecrated; of the concealment of the body and of its subsequent discovery. That part of the initiation which referred to the concealment of the body was called the aphanism, from a Greek verb which signifies "to conceal," and that part which referred to the subsequent finding was called the "euresis," from another Greek verb, which signifies "to discover." It is impossible to avoid seeing the coincidences between this system of initiation and that practiced in the masonry of the third degree. But the ancient initiation was not terminated by the euresis or discovery. Up to that point the ceremonies had been funereal and lugubrious in their character. But now they were changed from wailing to rejoicing. Other ceremonies were performed by which the restoration of the personage to life or his apotheosis or change to immortality was represented, and then came the autopsy or illumination of the neophyte, when he was invested with a full knowledge of all the religious doctrines which it was the object and design of the ancient mysteries to teach, --when, in a word, he was instructed in Divine Truth. Now a similar course is pursued in masonry. Here also there is an illuminat...