The
Third Degree of Masonry
Whence Did It Come? What Does It Mean? An Interpretation
by Bro. W. H. Denier Van Der Gon, Holland
The Master Mason - July-August 1924
The
following article, as it stands, is really the joint work of the
editor of this journal and Brother Dr. van der Gon, with whom it
is an honor to be associated in any capacity. It has been recast
and rewritten, at his request, owing to his difficulties in
dealing with our English language, and also because brethren in
Europe write of Masonry more openly than we are accustomed to do
in America. It has been retouched here and there, additions and
subtractions made, in the hope of clarifying what we have long
held to be the true meaning of the noblest degree of Masonry.
Our ritual and lectures leave the Degree a riddle, and we have
no desire to impose the present interpretation upon the Craft;
but we do desire to help Masons to discover something of the
profound teaching in this the oldest, if not the greatest, drama
known among men. In trying to set forth the meaning of
the Third Degree it is not easy to find a starting point, unless
we go back to the rites of antiquity and the initiations of the
Middle Ages. In many ages and lands we find a system of three
steps or degrees portraying the spiritual growth of man and his
progress toward perfection. In some cases we find a larger
number of steps, but they can nearly always be reduced to
three. The first step or degree has to do with the basic
morality which underlies manhood, and upon which character
rests. The second deals with the culture of the intellect
without which man remains a child, as Cicero said, not knowing
his own past. These degrees teach nothing that may not be known
by a good profane. With the third step or degree it is
different: it has to do with the profoundest mystery of
humanity, and the most daring adventure of the soul. Such a
system we find in the ancient Mysteries and in the secret
societies of later ages, which formed a higher forum of the
general religion. Using the popular religion as "the preceding
degree," so to speak, they carried the faith of man further on
and higher up toward fulfillment. The same is true, as to its
main intent, of our ritual. So in Masonry we find three degrees,
in which nearly all the symbols of antiquity reappear. The third
step or degree is much the same as of old, though sometimes
other names were used. There is always a myth very like our own,
albeit differing in detail, but all of them, including our own,
are but forms of one universal myth of man conquering death
before he dies. We must also understand, of course, that the
word myth in ancient times had a very different meaning from
what it has with us. Indeed, it had exactly the opposite
meaning. With us a myth is a romance, a fiction, something more
than the truth, or the truth highly colored - something unreal
if not untrue. With the ancients a myth was something less than
the truth, an effort to set for a truth too great for words, and
only to be told in parable, symbol and drama - like the myths of
Plato. The whole idea of initiation, in three degrees, was to
portray the process of the making of a man, his growth from
infancy to maturity, his qualification and training for his work
in the world, and the faith and principles by which he is to be
guided in doing his work. Its object was the training of men, to
be loving and enlightened workers for good. Of course, as with
us, this object is kept in the background, since if you tell a
man that you are about to train him to be good, he will resent
it and rebel. It must be done by indirection, by the strategy of
seeming to do something else, by the psychology of
surprise. Few of the ancient rituals of initiation have
reached us. In those that have been preserved different names,
given either to the initiations or to those initiated, are used.
But these make little trouble, since then, are only different
descriptions of the same process. The Christian mystics used the
following: first degree, purification; second degree,
illumination; third degree, unification. Hippolytus used three
picturesque names, Bound, Called, Elect, in which the same
general plan, process and purpose are recognizable. The
purification in the first degree is not only moral purity, - which
is taken for granted - but, rather, a liberation from the
delusion of the senses. Without such liberation it is impossible
to climb the mountain of enlightenment; without it man remains
hoodwinked - walking in darkness. The Sufis used the beautiful
words: "Purification of the heart of all that which is not God."
Others speak of it as "discrimination," the power, the insight
to discern between the real and the unreal, without which life
is a valley of illusions. It is when man follows the unreal that
he goes wrong and falls into the pit. In the Bernard Shaw play,
Man and Superman, there is a famous scene in hell when Don Juan
cries out: "Nothing is real here: that is the horror of
damnation." The First Degree of Masonry, then, seeks to lead man
out of the unreal life of the senses into his real life as a
moral being. Turning to the Second Degree, we find in a Dutch
ritual of 1820 that the initiate has to climb "five mysterious
steps to see from there the splendor of the Blazing Star and the
mysterious Letter." It is the same process of illumination that
we find in the ancient Mysteries, when the candidate climbs the
Mountain of Enlightenment, out of earthly dimness into the
spiritual life, nearer to the Light - symbolized in the English
ritual by the staircase. In the English ritual we read these
words: "You were led, in the second degree, to contemplate
the intellectual faculty, and to trace it from its development,
through paths of heavenly science, even to the throne of God
Himself. The secrets of nature and the principles of
intellectual truth were then unveiled to your view." But
intellectual knowledge is not enough. It is valuable as far as it
goes, but it is not truth itself. In old Egypt and in modern
Masonry, it sees only at a distance through a dividing, though
almost transparent veil. If we compare it with the "direct
vision" of which Plato speaks, the "eyewitnesses" of the
Eleusinian Mysteries, or the words of St. John, "We shall see
Him as He is," we begin to see the limits of intellectual truth.
It is the difference set forth by St. Paul in his memorable
words: "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to
face;" now we know in part, but then we shall know in
full. There is, then, a higher truth to be known in a higher
way, and this is the truth symbolized in the Third
Degree. Tauler, in the fourteenth century gave clear names to
the three steps in the process: first, turning away from the
world; second, retiring into ourselves; third, returning to God.
In short, to know the highest truth we must not simply learn
something, we must become something. It is a thing of
self-experience, after we have been made ready for it. No one
can learn this highest truth for another; no one can teach it to
his fellow. Hence, as the initiate sets out upon this high
adventure, he must pray for himself, and walk a lonely and
difficult way wherein, if he proves worthy, he will learn the
truth that makes all other truth true and worth while. He must
not only master himself, but he must master the shadow that
waits for every man, before he is in fact a Master
Mason. Let us now consider this mystery. Taken in general,
the symbolism of death has two opposite meanings. There is,
first, the death of the higher self to become the smaller self,
the lower self. Second, and after a long struggle in "the grave
of the world" there is a death of the lower self, to become
again the higher and real Self, which is one with the Eternal.
Here lies the great, deep meaning of the Third Degree of
Masonry, and no higher truth can be taught or learned anywhere,
if we have eyes to see and minds to understand. It is not a
physical death, but a spiritual experience with which we have to
do, transfiguring everything when we know it. Many
brethren fail to understand the Third Degree, either because
they do not discriminate between these two opposite meanings of
the symbolism of death, or because they are thinking in terms of
physical death and miss the symbolism altogether. St. Paul can
help us here. He speaks, first, of those who are "dead in
trespasses and sins," meaning the fall into ignorance whereby a
man loses, or seems to lose, his higher self and becomes a
small, separate, limited self, living in the earthly life
selfishly. He speaks in the second place, of a "death to sin,"
the death which breaks through separation and limitation into
freedom and Eternal Life even here upon earth. In some
rituals of the Third Degree - the Dutch ritual, for example -
the initiate enters the lodge backward - that is, he moves eastward
but his face and feet are directed to the west, as if he would
turn back to the life of the world; slowly advancing, but
looking longingly toward the old life, which still has much of
its fascination. It is not so in the other degrees, and it is a
revealing touch. For, in reality, there is a profound
turning-point in our spiritual evolution as soon as we are able
to take the Third Degree in full earnest. If we are capable of
grasping its meaning, even in part, it will be of much use to us
as far as brotherly love and devotion are
concerned. Perhaps we ordinary people cannot go much further.
But we have to remember that there is nothing which lifts us up
so much as the highest ideal which our inner eyes are able a
little to see, and that we have to keep before our candidate,
and before ourselves, not a partly attainable but the highest
ideal that exists for him and us, shining in its divine purity
and beauty. Let me try to give such an approximation to the
ideal of this great Degree of Masonry as I am able to see in the
far future. To a certain degree it will have to be simplified
for the candidate, and perhaps for each of us; but I hope I do
not make a mistake in believing that I in writing, and the
reader in reading, will find in it that which will re-echo in
the depths of our hearts. There Is, indeed, a turning
point in this degree, and it brings us face to face with the
noblest truth. There is a death of the small, limited self as a
part of resurrection. The small self may be compared to the
drawing together of molecules into a drop of water. The forces
are directed inward on itself, in selfishness. But this may be
necessary so as to produce an individual and a server of men.
However, if the larger, truer self is to be revealed, the forces
which are directed inward and tie together must move onward.
Only self-forgetfulness is able to free the contracting forces.
Truly, we must lose our life in order to save it. This losing
of our life in self-forgetfulness can only follow upon
self-surrender to God and the world. Only those two together
result in the falling asunder of the lower self and the
liberation of the higher. When Odin said, "I dedicate myself to
Myself," he meant the surrender of the limited, narrow self so
that the Eternal Self may be all. As Maeterlinck exclaimed:
"When shall we become that which we are?" When we are willing to
let God bring His son to birth in us, over-coming the lower,
lesser, restless, selfish self, and making us free
indeed. One finds this truth everywhere in Christian
literature. Jesus became poor with the poor, hungry with the
hungry, childlike with the children. As Luther was wont to say:
"A Christian is lord of everything and submissive to nobody; a
Christian is a servant of everything and submissive to
everybody." It is only a Master who is the best servant. It is
only the man who knows the great secret who can render the
greatest service. When a man has conquered the small self by
surrender to the Highest Self, he is ready and eager to return
and help those who wander in a labyrinth of ills, who seek to
fly the bitter chaos and do not know how to do it. How much
we need real Master Masons in these days of discord, conflict,
and hate in which we live! How many people in all lands, weary
of strife and worn by woe, are ready to respond with all their
souls to our Fraternity if we speak the redeeming word, which
they long to hear. If we Master Masons in name were really
Masters in fact - Masters because we have died to our selfish
selves and have been resurrected to the true life of
self-forgetful service - how great would be our power to lighten
the burden of those who are heavy laden, by speaking the word of
Eternity that can heal a diseased world and give hope for man
and mankind. A Master Mason must travel in foreign countries
and work; that is, he must give to the world what he has gained
for himself. And not only that, but he must also give that which
he has become. He has become enlightened, and must go forth into
the darkness of the world. He has become free, and he must take
upon his shoulders the burden of others who are in slavery. He
must be found everywhere where the struggle is most severe,
where selfishness, ignorance, hate, doubt, and despair are at
their worst. Such men the world needs, men who, led by
compassion, leave the temple of Masonry with the holy resolution
to help the world. In such men distinction and limitation
disappear, and the Divine Life passes through them into the life
of mankind. It is the work of Masonry to make not only Brothers
and Builders, but Masters of the art of self-forgetful service
to humanity in its needs. In its Master Degree it portrays the
process by which such men are made by obedience to the law of
Heavenly Death - the death, that is, of all that is unheavenly,
and therefore unreal and unholy in us. Alas, many miss the
meaning of this Degree because they take it literally,
historically, materially. Here is an error. The candidate when
raised is not thought of as having left us and gone into the
hereafter; he is still in our midst. The ancients used the word
immortality in another sense than we use it. They held that the
corruptible must put on incorruption, and the mortal
immortality, here and now. Mortal, corruptible, inconstant -
that is what we are through separation and limitation; and the
raising gives us, symbolically, immortality, incorruption,
eternal life while we are still on earth. The old, narrow self
is taken away and buried, but the true self lives the eternal
life in time. My own view is that this discovery of heaven on
earth will make heaven after death more beautiful for us; but my
point is that the Master Degree has nothing to do with things
after death - its teaching is to bring heaven nearer on
earth. After this manner I have come to interpret the Master
Degree. In my paper, "Freemasonry in the Netherlands," THE
MASTER MASON, February, 1924, I mentioned a small book, edited
some months ago by the board of Grand Officers in Holland to
prepare a review of the ritual. Rearranging some words of that
paper, we find the Master Degree understood as follows: "The
solution of the little self, in the sense of self-surrender,
self-dedication, and self-forgetfulness, leads to the final
purpose in Masonry and all human beings - that out of multitude
Unity is born." May every initiation of a candidate give
something of what is the true meaning of this Degree, and may we
do our utmost, as far as in us lies, to restore and interpret
its meaning in our rituals. For, to my mind, nothing is so badly
needed in these times of profound darkness as good Master Masons
- Masters in truth as well as in title; and not men who are only
good profanes, who are blind leaders in a blind
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