The
Point within a Circle is an ancient and sacred
hieroglyph that has become a symbol of great importance in
speculative craft freemasonry, but the usual explanation that is
given in modern rituals differs significantly from the original
symbolism. However, this does not imply that it is a recent
invention, but rather that the symbolism has evolved over many
centuries and has taken on various interpretations. As the ancient
interpretation of this sacred hieroglyph is a fundamental tenet of
the philosophical system that forms the basis of speculative craft
freemasonry, it is important to examine the origins of the symbol.
The original symbolism reflects the most ancient beliefs in
creation, although the symbol itself appears to have been derived
from an unusual modification relating to sun worship, which was
widely prevalent among nations in antiquity. A brief examination of
ancient beliefs in Egypt, India and China will illustrate their
fundamental tenets, which will then be compared with similar beliefs
expressed in some relevant passages from the Hebrew Scriptures.
The
Egyptian Mysteries
In
the Egyptian Mysteries the sun god, Ra
or Ra Harmakhis “the ever living”, probably is one of
the best known. Ra was a symbol of the
Logos, that is the Supreme Self or the
Higher Self, who first created himself and then caused
the Universe to emanate from its state of latency in
Nu, who was regarded as the great god of truth
and reality. The Greek historian, biographer and
philosopher, Plutarch (c.46-120), tells us in his
Morals that upon the first of the new made days of the
Universe the god Osiris was born, when a voice from
heaven proclaimed: “The Lord of all things hath
appeared”. Then the goddess Isis was born.
Isis was revered as the Divine Mother
and was a symbol of the fount of spiritual life, which transcends
the highest intellect and is the source of all higher emotions and
ideal qualities that appertain to truth, love and
wisdom.
The
Greek philosopher Plato (c.428-348 BCE) was one of the most
important philosophers of all time. He says in his
Letters that the ancients signified the Holy
One by calling Isis by the name
Isia, which signifies a current and a
movement impulse of the mind that yearns for an object
and is carried onwards. The Greek historian Plutarch
(c.46-120 CE) informs us that Isis and
Osiris conceived Horus the Elder, or
Aroueris, while they were still in their mother’s
womb, whence Wisdom (in the person of
Isis) and Will (in the person of
Osiris) primordially produced Action (in
the person of Horus), which went forth as the
Second Logos, which is the Self revealed
upon the buddhic plane. The buddhic plane is the highest of the four
planes that are said to constitute the arena of life in the present
cycle. This Divine Union of the two sexes is
represented in the Egyptian pantheon by the sacred hieroglyph of the
Point within a Circle.
Hinduism
and ancient India
The
Veda, or Sastra are the sacred writings
of ancient India. They symbolise the Word of God,
which is the direct utterance of the Supreme within
the soul and the Divine Law of true life on the higher
planes. The Sastra are supported by the
Upanishads, the theosophical and philosophical
treatises that communicate the secret meanings and instructions
hidden in the Veda. All the sacred texts of ancient
India were written in Sanskrit, the ancient Indo-Germanic literary
language of India. The Upanishads tell us that in the
beginning Brahma was all “this”, by
which is meant the Infinite Self that is invisible in
time and space, which is not to be reasoned about and cannot to be
conceived. “This” is also referred to as the
Higher Self. Thus Brahma symbolised the
Supreme Spirit, the One Absolute Being
who breathed the Divine Life into time and space to
commence the cycle of life as we know it and who, at the destruction
of the universe, alone will be awake.
It
is a central concept of Hinduism that God is always identified with
the totality of creation and can never be entirely separated from
it. This concept differs significantly from the concepts held by the
Egyptians and the Hebrews, because it requires that in the beginning
God must have created out of himself, not from that which did not
previously exist. The principles expounded in the Veda
are interpreted in two great Hindu epics, the Ramayana
and the Mahabharata. In the Hindu epics
Rama is the incarnation or Avatar of
Vishnu and he personifies the incarnate Deity that
dwells in a human being’s Higher Self. Coupled with
Rama is his wife, Sita, who symbolises
the transmutation of the lower emotions into the higher emotions
that constitute the incarnate Higher Self. Thus in
Hinduism, Rama and Sita are conjoined,
together representing the dual sexuality of the Deity that is
portrayed by the Point within a Circle.
Religious
beliefs in ancient China
Tao
is the ancient religion of China that is recorded in the celebrated
Taoist work, the Tao-te Ching or Way and Moral
Principle Classic. The ancient Taoist religion is also
called The Way of Power, which is supposed to have
been written by Laocius, a shadowy and perhaps mythical figure of
the sixth century BCE, about whom virtually nothing is known. Taoism
is a fanciful philosophy. It is steeped in mysticism, but has no
static standards or conventions. The meaning of the designation
Tao is identical with the word used to translate both
the Word and the Way in the first and
fourteenth chapters of St John’s Gospel. The designation
Tao is of utmost importance in Chinese philosophy,
because it primarily signifies the way and the
road and is used symbolically to mean the Way of the
Universe. The Tao is conceived as the
universal cosmic energy behind the order of nature, which is
believed to be the first principle, or essence, that preceded even
the existence of God. The original reign of Tao is
conceived as having been that ideal state of pristine perfection and
spontaneous harmony, in which good and evil were unknown, similar to
the portrayal that is given in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Garden
of Eden before the fall of the human race.
Confucianism
is a pragmatic School or Teaching that
expresses the Taoist beliefs in a practical everyday form that the
masses can understand. A central aspect of both Taoism and
Confucianism is the ancient Chinese principle of negative and
positive polarity. This principle is represented by
Yin and Yang, wherein Yin
is the receptive female principle and Yang is the
creative male principle. Yin turns inward and
comprises interior activity, while Yang radiates
outwards in all directions like the solar flames. This ancient
concept is recorded in the traditional texts of Chou Li, which were
collated and edited by Confucius, possibly in the eleventh century
BCE. Confucius expressed the concept in the following terms:
“The
Great One separated and became Heaven and Earth. It revolved and
became the dual forces. It changed and became the four seasons. It
was distributed and became the breathing
(ch’i).”
Thus
in Taoism it is said that the rhythm of the Great
Breath produced the duality of Spirit and
Matter, while Yin and Yang
respectively represent earth and heaven and together the dual
sexuality of the Deity and all of the creation that is symbolised by
the representation of the Point within a Circle.
The
esoteric teachings of the Jewish mystics are encompassed by the
Cabala, also variously spelled Kabbalah
and Qabbalah. Traditionally it was taught that the
Cabala did not develop, but was revealed in its perfection to Adam,
so that any new revelations were only given when the original
teachings had been forgotten. Notwithstanding this tradition, there
is an alternative teaching that says the Cabala was the secret
part of the oral law given to Moses on Mount Sinai. In particular,
the Cabala is concerned with the interpretation of the
halakhah, the Jewish legal system that traditionally
is said to go back in its entirety to Moses. In any event, the
Cabala relates especially to the esoteric teachings of Judaism that
have evolved from the time of the second temple, which was
constructed by the Israelites after their release from captivity in
Babylon, which took place under the Decree of Cyrus issued in
538 BCE. The second temple was enlarged and beautified by King
Herod, who began the renovations in about 20 BCE, but the
Romans destroyed it completely in 70 CE.
Moses
ben Maimon (1135-1204), who is usually referred to as Maimonides,
was the foremost philosopher in medieval Judaism. Maimonides brought
the teachings of the Cabala into prominence through his prolific
writings, putting great emphasis on the Cabalistic conviction that
God can be perceived most clearly through contemplation and
illumination, by which the transcendence yet immanence of God can
best be perceived. When explaining their teachings, the Cabalists
place great importance on the subdivision of words and the numerical
values of their characters. An important example in the present
context relates to
the Ineffable Name,
which the
Cabalists revere and have analysed in several ways. The English
equivalents of the characters in the Ineffable Name,
or Tetragrammaton, are IHOH. When read
backwards and subdivided the Tetragrammaton forms the
Hebrew words Ho and Hi. The Cabalists
regard this to be a very important transposition, because in Hebrew
the words Ho and Hi respectively signify
He and She, which therefore mystically
denotes both the male and the female aspects of the Creator. The
Ineffable Name thus represents the Male and
Female Principle, which therefore is equivalent in its
symbolism to the Point within a Circle. The concept of
the existence of a Creator with a dual gender has permeated all of
the major religious systems since ancient times.
Ancient
beliefs in summary
A
belief in a Supreme Creator has been a central
doctrine of world religions through all ages, whence it inevitably
became a fundamental tenet in speculative freemasonry. The concept
that the Deity has a dual sexuality likewise has been recognised and
accepted from the beginning of recorded history, as narrated in the
first story of the creation given in Genesis 1:27-28 of the Hebrew
Scriptures:
“So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them and God
said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and
subdue it.”
The
dual sexuality of the Deity is again mentioned in the introduction
to the generations of Adam in Genesis 5:1-2, after the second story
of the creation:
“In
the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
male and female created he them and called their name Adam, in the
day when they were created.”
The
first of those two passages of scripture also highlights fertility,
which is a fundamental aspect and an essential tenet of each of the
religions outlined above.
The
ancient interpretation of the Point within a Circle
evolved as a result of the fundamental concept that God existed in a
state of dual sexuality and that the deity intended its creation to
“be fruitful and multiply”. The Genesis account of the
creation is not an original concept of the Israelites who wrote the
Hebrew text, but comes directly from the creation epic of the
Babylonian deity Marduk, which was known in Chaldea about 1,000
years before becoming a part of the Canaanite tradition, whence it
was adopted by the Israelites. However, the original account was of
Sumerian or even earlier origin, which the Sumerians brought into
southern Mesopotamia when they first appeared there in about
4000 BCE. The Sumerians’ place of origin is still unknown. In
his book entitled Genesis of the Grail Kings,
subtitled The Pendragon Legacy of Adam and Eve,
Laurence Gardner provides an interesting history of all that is
presently known about evolution of the story of the creation
recorded in Genesis.
In
ancient Egypt the Phallus, or male personification of
the generative principal, was a symbol of generation or fecundity,
as it was among the Asiatic races that called it the
Lingam. The symbolism of generation established in the
ancient Egyptian Mysteries, appealed to the early
Greek philosophers who visited Egypt, from whence it was adopted and
used in the religious festivals of Greece. The female
personification of the productive principal was called the
Cteis among the Greeks and the Yoni
among the Asiatic races. When the male generative principal was
conjoined with the female productive principal, the ancients revered
the icon as a sacred symbol of the Great Father and
the Great Mother, the two elements conjointly
representing the generative and creative powers of the Divine
essence. In Egypt the male generative principal seems invariably to
have been carved from stone, often several metres high. In India the
male generative principal was variously carved from stone or cast in
clay, while the female productive principal usually was a concave
elliptical stone eroded naturally by water. Many of those naturally
formed water worn stones have been found in the Indus River valley
and date from as early as 2500 BCE. In South America phallic icons
carved in marble have also been found.
In
countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, the combined symbol in a
three dimensional shape usually comprised a Cteis in
the form of a circular concave pedestal, in the centre of which a
Phallus was erected. In Asiatic countries, the
combined symbol was manifested in various ways. Often a circle of
stones, or sometimes even a square of stones, was used to represent
the Yoni, but more frequently it was a concave slab or
pedestal, from which the Lingam arose in the centre.
In ancient times the male generative principal was also considered
to be a symbol of the causal body, which provides the means of
self-manifestation, including all of the qualities and powers of the
soul. Among the ancients some regarded the Phallus or
Lingam as the equivalent of the sun, realising that
the earth is made prolific by the sun’s heat and light and that
crops are brought to full maturity by its benign influence. Thus the
union of the Phallus and Cteis, or the
Lingam and Yoni, in a single compound
figure or icon has been a revered and sacred symbol of birth and
regeneration from time immemorial, which is aptly represented by the
hieroglyphic of a Point within a Circle.
In
addition to its usage in the three dimensional form, the Point
within a Circle was also used by the ancients in carvings or
as bas-reliefs to decorate buildings and monuments. It is
significant that in plan the Point within a Circle was
an arrangement commonly used in many ancient religious monuments,
such as the stone circles erected by the Stone Age people and later
by the Druids. In ancient times the Point within a
Circle was used as a symbol to represent the sun, because of
the sun’s life sustaining aspects. The symbol is still used to
represent the sun in astronomical notation. It seems a paradox and
is to be regretted that in speculative craft freemasonry the
candidate, who symbolically has undergone a rebirth at his
initiation, is not made aware of the ancient and highly significant
symbolism of the Point within a Circle. A discerning
candidate, who hears the explanation of the Tracing Board of the
First Degree for the first time, must be at a loss to understand why
so little is said about the Point within a Circle,
when the symbol obviously must be of considerable importance to
feature on the pedestal. This is especially true having regard to
the fact that in ancient Egypt two erect parallels were used in
conjunction with the Point within a Circle.
Evolution
of the Point within a Circle
In
its decorative form on Egyptian monuments, two erect parallel
serpents of the cobra species, representing the Power
and Wisdom of the Divine Creator,
usually supported the point within a circle. Sometimes a serpent
with its tail in its mouth represented the circle, which was called
the Ananta from the Sanskrit word meaning
eternity. At the centre of the circle, on either side
of the point, the Egyptian equivalents of the Alpha
and Omega were often inscribed to represent the
omnipotence of God, symbolically surrounded by His whole creation,
which was considered to have no limits within the scope of His
boundless Power and Wisdom. In this form
of the hieroglyph, the circle also was expressive of the protection
of the collective people of the world by those two great and
parallel attributes of the Divine Creator, His boundless
Power and Wisdom. The two grand parallel
lines referred to in modern rituals of speculative craft freemasonry
are derived from this ancient symbolism.
In
modern speculative rituals very little explanation is given about
the symbolism of the point within a circle. There is only a brief
statement of geometrical fact and a short ethical exhortation to be
as conversant with the doctrines contained in the Holy Book and as
adherent thereto as were those two great parallels, Moses and King
Solomon. By way of explanation, it is also said that a freemason who
traverses this circle must necessarily touch on the Holy Book and
these two great parallels and that if he keeps himself thus
circumscribed he cannot materially err. Some understanding of the
origins and the deep symbolic import of the ancient hieroglyph
greatly enhances this meagre explanation of the Point within a
Circle. The point or Yod at the centre of a
circle also has an ancient religious meaning, signifying the
Omnificence of the deity, which is alluded to in the
following words from The New English Bible version of
Isaiah 40:22 and Proverbs 8:27 -
“Have
you not perceived . . . God sits throned on the vaulted roof of
earth, whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers? He stretches out the
skies like a curtain, he spreads them out like a tent to live in; he
reduces the great to nothing . . .”
“When
he set the heavens in their place I was there, when he girdled the
ocean with the horizon, when he fixed the canopy of clouds overhead
and set the springs of the ocean firm in their place, when he
prescribed . .
.”
Earlier
it was mentioned that the Point within a Circle was a
sacred symbol that represented the Divine Union of the
two sexes in the ancient Egyptian pantheon. It also was mentioned
that in ancient Egypt two erect parallels were made use of in
conjunction with the Point within a Circle. Those two
erect parallels could be lines or representations of columns, but
usually were representations of the cobra. The cobra or serpent
played an important role in the symbolism of ancient Egypt and also
was an emblem worn by the pharaohs as a symbol of their imperial
wisdom and power. When used in conjunction with the Point
within a Circle, the two erect cobras stand head uppermost
and appear so be supporting the circle at their mid points, one on
the left or northern side and the other on the right or southern
side. They represent the Serpent of the North, which
is Lower Egypt and the Serpent of the South, which is
Upper Egypt. The Serpent of the North is a symbol of
the lower emotions that emanate from the union of mind and desire,
which is the lower mental plane that Lower Egypt was said to typify.
By contrast, the Serpent of the South is a symbol of
the wisdom that emanates from the higher planes of existence. To the
majority of ancient Egyptians the land of Upper Egypt to the south
was regarded as an almost mystical country, which they referred to
as the “the land of the Gods”.
The
symbolism of the serpents supporting the Point within a
Circle was reflected in the crowns worn by the ancient
pharaohs. The red crown of Lower Egypt was in the form of an open
mouth with a projecting tongue that was curled up and backwards at
the tip, so as to return upon itself. Red symbolises the power of
the lower self and the shape of the crown symbolises the uttered
Word of Power, which is an expression of the
Divine Life on the lower planes that must return to
its source. The tall white crown of Upper Egypt was the crown of
Osiris who symbolises the Higher Self and refers to
the “voice” or Word that in the
beginning was “with God”. White, of course, is the
symbol of perfect purity and symbolises the power of the upper self
over the lower self. The combined crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt
after the union, the Sekhet or Peschent
Crown was an emblem of the Divine supremacy over the higher
and lower natures of the soul. Other regal emblems the Egyptians
used in conjunction with the crowns were the crook and
the flail, representing shepherding and
agriculture. They symbolised the protective care and
sustenance of the Divine Shepherd and Husbandman and
were a reminder of the mount of aspiration that every individual
must climb in order to obtain perfection.
Concluding
remarks
In
freemasonry the interpretation that is given for the point within a
circle, bounded by two erect parallel lines, clearly has its origin
in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph and its interpretation. However,
most of the original esoteric meaning has been overlooked and the
identities of the two grand parallels have been changed, presumably
in an endeavour to establish a setting that reflects the traditions
of freemasonry. Moreover, in some respects the ancient symbolism has
been reversed, insofar as the point is said to be that position
which, if occupied by the individual freemason, is one from which he
cannot err. In that context the circle represents the boundary line
of the individual’s duty to God and to his fellow man, while the two
grand parallels represent two human paragons of integrity, which is
not the same as the union of emotion and wisdom by the encircling
power of the Deity that was represented in the Egyptian hieroglyph.
As a written hieroglyph, the point within a circle signified the sun
and represented light, including the light of wisdom that comes from
above. Used with appropriate determinatives, it also expressed many
aspects of time and the seasons.
