Secrets and Practices of the Freemasons: Sacred Mysteries, Rituals and Symbols Revealed - Jean-Louis de Biasi 2011

From Hiram to Osiris
The Masonic Tradition

Some years after the creation of speculative Freemasonry in the eighteenth century, there appeared a new founder story, the Hiram Abif myth.

As I said before, a myth is intended to reveal the meaning of existence and you can understand now why this is connected with the existence of the soul. The consequence of that is the question of your life on earth. As you have realized, the secret of life is hidden in death. This association was created progressively, at the same time through ritual and speech during the Freemason’s initiation. This revelation constituted the structure of the third initiation. Although Masonic rituals can be slightly different according to the story of each country, the myth of the death of Hiram remains practically identical in each of them. It was published again and again, even outside the secrecy of the lodges. Famous figures were interested in it. The French poet Gerard de Nerval is one example. The structure of this history is interesting to know and as you will see the major symbols will be connected to the Ancient Mysteries.

You saw in the first myth of this fraternity how Solomon, son of David, organized the construction of Jerusalem’s Temple devoted to the Grand Architect of the Universe. After thirteen years of uninterrupted work, the Temple was completed and Solomon hired Hiram of Tyre, son of a widowed woman of the tribe of Nephtali and of a Tyrian worker named Ur. Hiram the Wise cast bronze with a wonderful ability. His science had only his intelligence as equal. He made two bronze columns each forty-eight cubits high, and cast separately two capitals of five cubits and put them on the top of the two columns. They were raised in the atrium of the Temple: Hiram called the one to the right Boaz; the one to the left was called Jakin. Then he made a sea, or cauldron, of circular cast iron forty cubits in diameters and five cubits high. This cauldron was surrounded with support in the form of consoles, placed in groups of ten at intervals of one cubit. Finally, this cauldron was put down upon twelve oxen. Three oxen were looking north, three west, three south, and three east. All these sculptures, and many others of the same type, were created to adorn the inside of the Temple.

The workers were under the authority of Hiram and organized in three classes: Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master. The wage was shared according to the class. The apprentices gathered to be paid beside column B, the fellow-crafts by column J, and the masters in the heart of the Temple. Fifteen fellow-crafts, seeing the temple almost finished and not having obtained the initiation as Master, because their time was not accomplished, decided to extort by force the secret words, signs, and grips from Hiram. Their purpose was to be able to mask their level and obtain the wage of the Masters. Twelve of these companions thought about probable consequences of this bad deed and abandoned the project. Three persisted and decide to attack Hiram, to get the passwords and the secret signs of the Masters. These three workers knew that he came in the Temple every day at midday while the workers rested. They went to the three doors of the south, west, and east.

To leave the Temple, Hiram had to go to the eastern door. The first ruffian who was there stopped him, asking for the word of the Master. Hiram answered that he could not give it to him like that. It was necessary first that the fellow-craft should finish his training. Only then would he be able to have an increase of wage, and the secret word of the Masters could be given to him in the presence of the kings of Israel and Tyre. These two kings and Hiram had made an oath to give this word only when all three were united. Displeased by this answer, the fellow-craft stabbed the master with a ruler through his throat.

Hiram then ran away toward the door of the south, where he found the second ruffian who asked the same thing. Courageously, Hiram still refused. His adversary hit him violently with a square on his left breast.

Staggering, Hiram ran toward the western door, where he faced the third ruffian. Refusing once again to reveal the secret of the Master, the bad fellow-craft hit Hiram on his forehead with a mallet and killed him outright.

The three murderers realized they had just committed a senseless crime. They took Hiram’s corpse away and buried it on the mountain. When Hiram failed to appear on the construction site, Solomon investigated, without success. Twelve companions who suspected the truth put on white gloves and white aprons as signs of their innocence and went to inform Solomon of their misgivings.

Solomon sent the twelve companions in search of the master Hiram. Thinking that the secret word of the Master had probably been stolen before his death, they decided that the first word that was pronounced upon finding Hiram’s body would become the new Master’s word. The companions travelled for five days without discovering anything. Solomon then chose nine masters to continue the search instead of the twelve companions. Exhausted by the searching, one of them stopped to rest on a small hillock. He saw that the dirt had been recently moved. Calling the brothers, the nine started to dig. After a while, they began to see Hiram’s body. Without touching the body of the master, they closed the hole and planted a branch of wattle. Then they went back to inform King Solomon of their discovery.

Some of the masters were ordered to return to the grave and recover the corpse. Having taken away the dirt, the masters saw Hiram’s body and recoiled in terror. The murder had happened nine days before and the body was already in full decomposition. They screamed and this sound became the secret word of the Master.

Figure 4: Masonic representation of Hiram’s grave

One of them tried to raise the corpse, gripping the forefinger of the right hand while saying, “Boaz,” but it was impossible to move it. Another gripped the major finger of the right hand, saying, “Jakin.” He didn’t have any success either. A third one gripped the right wrist of the corpse and raised it by grabbing it by five different points and pronouncing the new secret word of the Masters.

When they went back, Solomon organized a splendid funeral for Hiram. He was put in a tomb under the Temple of Jerusalem and they put there a triangular gold medal, on which was engraved the ancient sacred word. After the death of the master, the brothers looked after his mother, who was widowed. She lived to a very old age in the city of Tyre.

Hiram’s myth became central in Freemasonry. Many moral and symbolic elements are attached to it. But as you were shown in the paragraph before, it is the mysteries of death and the afterlife that gives the myth its accuracy.

Let us remember that the temple is your own body. The first and essential philosophical message is to realize that your destiny is death. The existential anxiety that has been inside you since your birth can find its solution only in a deep acceptance of this inevitable fact. The message given by the myth is the existence of an eternal spiritual presence in your being. It means that the death of Hiram is not an absolute and final disappearance. It is only about the death of the physical body. After several days, the Master can be raised from death, resurrected and whole. Freemasonry considers this act as a main one. This part is short in the story of Hiram in comparison to the complete episode, but it gives its name and its nature to the 3rd Degree. This Master’s initiation received the evocative name of “Raising.”

In itself, the myth gives less information on this mystery of death and revival. If you focus on what is essential, you can see that revival is not the result of Hiram’s will. He can rise only with the help of other masters. So it’s something different than Jesus, who rose from death on his own as the Christian myth claims.

Here the symbolic act manifesting Hiram’s revival is the instant when he is raised by the masters with the help of the five mysterious points. So he goes from the horizontal position (earth and material) to the vertical (mind and spiritual). I am speaking here of a fascinating group of archetypal symbols that illustrate a timeless action. The most esoteric and spiritual aspects of Hiram’s myth were considered for a long time as secondary. But this story about the mysteries of life and death is closely linked to the Ancient Egyptian Mysteries. To go further and to be closer to the heart of Freemasonry, it is necessary to go back to the source. It is what many Freemasons did, turning their research to the black earth of Egypt. It is also what the first ancient Greek initiates did. This is very well shown in the life of the man who is known as the founder of a very important school in the history of the Western initiatic traditions: Pythagoras. This master is mentioned in the ancient texts written by the Christian Qabalists of the Renaissance and by the modern founders of Freemasonry.

In Life of Pythagoras, written by the initiate Iamblicus, you can read that Pythagoras “sailed to Sidon, being persuaded that this was his natural country, and also properly conceiving that he might easily pass from thence into Egypt. Here he conversed with the prophets who were the descendants of Mochus, the physiologist, and with others, and also with the Phoenician hierophants. He was likewise initiated in all the mysteries of Byblos and Tyre, and in the sacred operations that are performed in many parts of Syria.”[8]

It is interesting to emphasize the names of the cities in which Pythagoras was initiated because they are very important in the Masonic myth. These cities were also significant places in which Phoenician, Greek, Egyptian, and Hebrew worshipers were in contact. It was naturally from there that Pythagoras boarded to Egypt. Then, “he spent therefore two and twenty years in Egypt, in the adyta of temples, astronomizing and geometrizing, and was initiated, not in a superficial or casual manner, in all the mysteries of the Gods . . .”

All you can find to confirm this is that, as the novel The Lost Symbol claims, the birth of the Freemasons’ Tradition can be found in Egypt. But to suggest it or claim it is one thing; to demonstrate it is another. Although it is not possible today to see a direct report from this ancient civilization, you can have confirmation of it in another way: myths and symbols. The archetype of the death of the Master Mason I just described has its origin in one of the aspects of the symbolic act of the resurrection of the god Osiris. The illustrations of the raising of the pillar named Djed, symbolizing the revival of the god-king, are well known.

Figure 5: Bust of Pythagoras in

the Library of the Scottish Rite,

Washington DC

(House of the Temple, AASR-SJ, USA)

This first indication reveals a very close connection between these myths. From the reading of this story, it is clear that it was used as the foundation of Hiram’s myth. The Osiris myth was retold by the Greek writers and especially Plutarch in his book Isis and Osiris:

Ra, the creator of all things (on whom I will speak again further), becoming old, chooses the son who had to succeed him: Osiris.

The new sovereign reigned over the earth of men with his sister-wife Isis. Osiris represented the goodness of his kingdom and was the expression of this harmony.

But Set (Typhoon under his Greek name), jealous of his brother, tried regularly to kill him with different traps and tricks. But all were foiled by the vigilance of Isis.

One day Set hired seventy-two accomplices to finally reach his aims. Having secretly measured the precise length of the body of Osiris, who was a tall giant from seven to eight cubits in height (about sixteen and a half feet), Set asked for a wonderful box, remarkably decorated, and ordered that it should be brought into the middle of the feast. At the sight of this box, all guests were astonished and delighted with its beauty.

Then, laughing, Set promised he would give it to the one who, by trying it, would fit it exactly. In turn, all the guests tried it, but none of them found it to be his size. Finally Osiris laid down in it and it was the right size. Immediately, all the guests ran to close the lid. Some closed it with nails, while others sealed it with some well-blended lead. When this operation was ended, the box was thrown into the river, where it was carried away to the Mediterranean Sea.

At this news, Isis cut off part of her hair and wore a dress of mourning.

Sometime after, Isis was informed that the box was taken by the sea to the foot of a tree (a Tamarisk), which flourished near Byblos. [9]

This tree had grown to the point of including the sarcophagus of the god inside its trunk. The king of the country, amazed to see the vigor of this tree, ordered it cut to make a column to support the roof of his palace.

Isis did not find a way to obtain the body of her husband, Osiris. She was lamenting, sitting on the edge of a fountain, when she met the maidservants of the queen. She was hired to the court of the king. There she became the babysitter of the royal baby. To feed him, she put her finger in his mouth instead of her breast. During the night, she plunged him into the fire to burn away from him what was mortal and give him immortality.

But one day the queen came to see the baby at the time when Isis was purifying him in the fire. Afraid, she took the child, depriving him of immortality.

Then Isis revealed her royal nature and demanded that they extract the divine sarcophagus, which was inside of the column of wood. Then she anointed all the parts of the box with perfume and wrapped it with a fine linen cloth. The remaining fragment of the column became an object of veneration for the inhabitants of Byblos, who put it in Isis’ temple.

Going back to Egypt, Isis hid the sarcophagus and the body of the god in the marshes of the delta of the sacred river. When she was alone, she opened the sarcophagus and embraced Osiris, crying.

One night when Set was hunting under moonlight, he discovered the place where Isis had hidden the body. He recognized the body of Osiris, cut it into fourteen pieces, and dispersed them throughout valley of the Nile. Finding out about this act, Isis took a small boat made of papyrus and began to search all along the Nile.

Figure 6: Masonic representation of an Egyptian goddess with the blazing pentagram.

One of the main symbols of the Egyptian Masonic rituals.

After a long quest, Isis found all parts of the body of Osiris except his penis. In fact, immediately after cutting it off, Set had thrown it into the river and a fish had eaten it. To replace his member, Isis made a fake one (the phallus) with the aid of silt and saliva. Anubis, the god with a jackal head, who supervises the mummification of the dead, put all the pieces together and tightened them with the aid of bandages. Isis took the appearance of a milan (a bird of prey, like an eagle) and, agitating her wings above the body, she gave again the breath of life to Osiris, who was thus resurrected.

In other versions of the story, the resurrection of the god is sometimes the consequence of his mother Nut, and sometimes by the pity of Ra, who hired the god Thoth to give life to Osiris with his magical abilities. In other texts, the despairing cries of Isis and Nephthys helped Osiris to be resurrected. There are pictures of both goddesses waving their large wings above the dead god to give him the breath of life.

Isis then had sexual relations with Osiris and conceived a child, the young Horus, the god with the hawk’s head. Isis hid him in the Nile’s tidal swamps to avoid Set finding and killing him. Later, when Horus was an adult, he reclaimed the throne in his own right, and avenged the murder of his father Osiris.

You will find this myth later in this book, because it is undoubtedly the text that inspires the story of the revenge for Hiram’s death. It will be one part of the important High Degrees of Freemasonry following the 3rd Degree’s myth.

The founder myths give us precious indications of the relationship between these two traditions. It is interesting to point out that the concept of initiation finds its origin in Egypt and continues, later, in Judaea. You can see here a fusion of two elements, the master-builders and the Egyptian religion, as well as the initiations that had their origin there.

As I said at the beginning of this part, the consciousness of the men of the eighteenth century was Christian. Even if they were heirs of ancient esoteric and spiritual traditions, it was difficult for them to imagine a tradition without the words of the religious culture they had received since their birth. So this explains why a Christian education and the Bible were the filters through which the ancient tradition was seen.

[1]. You must become aware that imagination and imaginary are different things. “Imagination” is always composed of different elements that are already present in your mind. This mental combination of these elements is really very close to the ability to create. Our imagination helps us to anticipate our actions and to see the consequences of those actions. Imagination is also a rich source of illusion, including fantasies, fancy, etc. In summary, I may say that imagination is a part of your mind that is not naturally controlled. The “imaginary realm” is very different. In general terms, anything that is “imaginary” is imagined, and therefore unreal. In the common parlance, the imaginary realm is a fantasy, something that only exists in your imagination, in your mind. However, there is something beyond the popular and commonly understood notion of this term imaginary realm. Though it may be difficult to understand at first, the imaginary realm is not as fanciful and fantastic as most people believe. The imaginary realm is a real function of the mind and it is different from your personal use of imagination. The imaginary realm is a part of your mindthat is open to the higher dimensions of the universe. In order to move through these different planes, you must access this realm, this function, through the use of meditation or through ritual practice using the esoteric symbols and the myths connected to them. In other words, you use your imagination to move through the imaginary realms and to thus interact with the invisible planes.

[2]. Plotinus, Enneads, First Ennead, Book 6:9.

[3]. Ezekiel 28:11—19.

[4]. Plato, The Republic, Book 10.

[5]. Plotinus, Enneads, Second Ennead, Book 9:6.

[6]. Plotinus, Enneads, Second Ennead, Book 8:5.

[7]. Matthew 26:61.

[8]8. Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, trans. by Thomas Taylor, (Watkins, 1818), p. 7.

[9]9. This very ancient Phoenician city is today on the coast of Lebanon. It was from this city that cedar wood was sent to Egypt and it was where King Solomon obtained the wood for the Temple of Jerusalem. It is also from the Phoenician city of Tyre (south of Byblos) that the architect Hiram was sent to Jerusalem.

It is very interesting to note that, according to the writer Philon of Byblos (either Philo or Herennius, 64—141) Byblos, the city where the sarcophagus of Osiris was found, had a reputation as the most ancient city of the world. Today, this idea is still supported by many experts. Even more revealing, Byblos is the place where the god Thoth is said to have invented writing. Let us be not surprised either that this city became an important place of Osiris’ worship. As I noted, it was also there that Pythagoras came before going to Egypt.