Secrets and Practices of the Freemasons: Sacred Mysteries, Rituals and Symbols Revealed - Jean-Louis de Biasi 2011
Sacred Book and Lost Word
Spirit of Freemasonry
Sacred Book
Most spiritual traditions have holy or sacred books. Centuries before the birth of monotheistic traditions called “the religions of the book” (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) the Egyptian god Thoth gave his teachings to humanity.
In the biblical tradition, God reveals his word to humanity through the prophets in a process similar to what is called “channeling” today. God speaks directly to the prophet in an inner or outer way. Sentences or texts are dictated and the prophet copies God’s voice. Men and women are chosen according to criteria different for every religion. According to Christian beliefs, God’s message is only to be received and is not to be interpreted. This is not a philosophical or literary process; God’s word is definitive.
For centuries, parts of the Bible were written by this process and this belief. The ancient followers accepted all the written words as the divine truth and the manifestation of God’s will. The Bible became the absolute reference for everything (even “scientific” tpoics). The book was sacred because it was considered as the place where God’s words could be found. Freemasons came from this spiritual family and the Sacred Book (called the Volume of the Sacred Law, or VSL) became the powerful symbol of a window open to the divine world. The Lost Symbol describes the Bible as a vehicle of transmission for the mysteries of the ages, and the Freemasons recognized this fact.
It is interesting to note that the Bible was not used in the earliest rituals of Masonry. But progressively the Bible was accepted and called “a Great Light of Freemasonry.” The Bible is used as a symbol of God’s will. But we must be aware of what seems a real paradox. Freemasons consider the Bible as a sacred book. At the same time, they claim that moral values are the highest reference of the Craft. However, as Thomas Paine wrote, “The Bible is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind: and for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.” Of course, Paine was not someone who could be called a religious man, but he pointed out something important and possibly disturbing.
Many of the Founding Fathers and Freemasons said that in order to be realistic, everyone must accept the idea that all the sacred texts might not be the sole expression of God. Albert Pike wrote that the prophets used ancient stories or myths as allegories to reveal a hidden reality. It is easier today to see incoherencies, errors, and behaviors that cannot be the expression of God’s love. Undoubtedly, there are some human parts in the texts.
This is also the idea developed in Dan Brown’s novel and is the subject of many books about biblical codes and cyphers. Many initiates, believers, and other seekers have noted these contradictions and singularities in the Bible. If one is not totally convinced of the holy essence of the text, the only rational way out is to accept the idea of a symbolic text, a supernatural and holy code, which constitutes the structure of the text. The Qabalah showed the way. All the esoterists, occultists, and initiates followed. The Lost Symbol uses the same concept. The structure of the Hebrew language allowed this exercise according to precise rules defined by Hebrew and Christian Qabalists. Furthermore, some passages of the Bible said that the truth is hidden, veiled, and not accessible to the profane. In fact, it is totally possible to accept the idea that some parts of the text are symbolic and may be coded. The final theory in Dan Brown’s novel is this continuity of an ancient tradition by way of the sacred book called the Bible.
Of course there were contacts between initiates and some openminded Christians. It seems probable that teachings from the Ancient Mysteries were incorporated into the book (or stolen and adapted by the writers), so it is possible to analyze the text in order to find these permanent and immortal divine truths. But this research into a sacred text, even on an esoteric, mystic, and spiritual level, must not become an excuse to accept any declaration as true. The terrible acts, kidnappings, and many acts of violence regularly accepted by God in the sacred text must not be seen as justification for similar acts.
Of course, we can view some of the Bible stories symbolically, but we must be very prudent about considering them as literal, and allowing their use as standards. If the sacred book contain a true divine revelation, your mind—created by God—must be used to find it and select the human portions as Thomas Jefferson did. This is clearly different from the idea of a Neoplatonic god’s expression of beauty, wisdom, and strength. But the solution is not what Jefferson did in renouncing to any form of the spiritual or “supernatural” in human beings or in the world. It is clear that everyone has hidden abilities and the universe has more hidden power than it is possible to imagine. This is the esoteric dimension of all living beings. The solution is to find a good balance between excesses. In one direction, it would be an excess of the supernatural, destroying reason and accepting as complete and definitive truths scientific errors (creationism, for example) or dangerous literality. In the other direction, it would be the excess of rationalism, destroying any possibilities of investigating “paranormal” or any spiritual dimension. Freemasonry, keeping in its subconscious the Hermetic tradition, found a way to balance these temptations. The shift from no book to the Holy Bible (the holy book), to the sacred book, and from the sacred book to the sacred books, opened this door to a better understanding.
This is why sacred books can be seen as a window of a house. God is inside the house and maybe every window allows us to feel God and maybe to see his actions in a different way. Of course, God can change the presentation according to the orientation of the windows and the time of the work. As a result, it is impossible to say that one book is superior to another; rather all can be useful in understanding who did what and why. The best method would be to read and study all the sacred books in order to see what they have in common and what came from our limited perspective and fallible interpretation. To believe that only one window is able to show the truth is to limit God. Just imagining that people outside the house can fight and kill others because of looking into different windows is both amazing and frightening.
There is a wonderful illustration of this Masonic solution in the House of the Temple in Washington DC. In that temple, on the large marble altar, any visitor can see various sacred books of the different religions, and not just one. Every initiate is able to provide the book he considers as sacred. This possibility to share something sacred without religious judgment is a wonderful challenge to humanity to find unity in a place of divisiveness.