Freemasonry in Material Culture – part 3

This is the third installment in the collection of stores about Freemasonry entering into material culture. This time it’s not Freemasonry per-se, but the Scottish Rite.

For many years the Rite would give away to raised 32nd degree masons the tome Morals and Dogma, written by the esteemed author Albert Pike (S.G.I.G.). This book, for many years, was the written embodiment of Masonic knowledge, as perceived by Br. Pike.

But, at a certain point, Morals and Dogma stopped being read by members and in some orients stopped being given out all together. Slowly, as membership receded, these books started ending up in used bookstores (where I originally bought mine) and now on EBay. I think you can pick it up from Kessler publishing too, but it loses something in the bright yellow cover.

But over the years, while Freemasons stopped reading Morals and Dogma, it has started to circulate into the creative hands of our material culture, much the same way that the ideas of Freemasonry has. One example are the many Anti-Masons who use M&D to spout rhetoric against the fraternity, but few people ever really take the time to read it and get a taste of the true esoteric values that it, and Freemasonry, represent.

So today, I run across a news story about WORKS art gallery in San Jose, California, whose owner, I presume is not a Freemason, who found resonance in a quote he pulled from Morals and Dogma. The quote is a beautiful analogy to the universe that says:

The universe should be deemed an immense being, always living, always moved and always moving in an eternal activity inherent in itself, and which, subordinate to no foreign cause, is communicated to all its parts, connects them together, and makes the world of things a complete and perfect whole."
XXVIIIth degree KNIGHT OF THE SUN, OR PRINCE ADEPT.

The quote is being used to usher in the re-opening of an art gallery that has a history of closing, moving and reopening as it takes on different incarnations. The quote, taken out of context and applied like a bible verse, really captures much of that spirit and with it, the spirit of Freemasonry. Personally, I see this as an out of context understanding of the meaning of Freemasonry, which has managed to seep into the culture.

As an artist myself, I can see the relevance of the quote and how it relates to the gallery re-opening with its past and future intricately woven into the fabric of the universe itself.

What this illustrates is that the further along the timeline that Freemasonry travels, directly or indirectly relating to civil society, the ideas of our fraternity will continue to be perpetuated and advanced under their own momentum with their own power and meaning.

I know the grand opening has passed, but I wish the best of luck to the WORKS gallery, as it continues to travel its path in our intricately connected universe.

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