The Workings of Freemasonry

 

The fact of the matter is that, if there are Emblems with Symbolic Significance embedded in the DC Map layout and US Great Seal, AND if you want to be able to understand the nature of that significance to the designer(s) THEN you need to learn to understand the concepts implied in the design from the point of view of the designers- and you can't do that 'from the outside', that is, at the same time as you are attacking the moral rectitude of the symbolisms involved there in.

This means that really understanding the symbology involved in the DC planning map necessarily requires an understanding of the workings of Freemasonry (especially the Scottish Rites) and the Kaballah (embraced by the Scottish Rites), as the symbols in the map and seal are both Masonic and Kaballistic; but so is Bible symbolism. Remember that Jesus is portrayed as a builder (carpenter) who traveled to Egypt and lived 33 years. David reigned as King of a united Israel for 33 years in Jerusalem, after reigning his first 7 years in Hebron.

Any study of the DC map and the Great Seal needs to look at Masonry and its symbols, and some of what is written online about symbols by Masons is quite good.

* Masonic Symbols - "Any graphical representation of Freemasonry should be viewed within the context of what Masonic ritual actually says about such a symbol rather than what others have personally attributed to it!" He contrasts personal and Masonic symbolism, while some raise the spectre of 'officially recognized' Masonic symbols vs. rogues. This, of course, just depends on who is in charge in the area at that time.

 

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Presuming that most readers are not versed in Masonic symbolism, I will review for the shortest time. While most Masons don't realize it, the Masonic ritual is derived from the Mysteries, which grew out of Greek tragedy, which began as festival dances which imitated the movements of the sun, moon and planets in the sky. These early circle dances were the origin of both social dancing and magical and religous ceremonial.

Note that this cannot be rightly called sun or star worship, because what is being imitated in the dances is the Divine Order of which the planetary movements are only one representation; Geometry is another. The goal of these imitative, sympathetic magic ceremonies is the invocation of Harmony via the imitation of the harmonious motions of the planetary spheres, and they were 'institutions truly designed to be a continuing benefit to the human race'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a short page called We're All Dancing in a Ring Around the Sun I compare the structure of the Masonic floor work to the Sufi Sema ceremony and ancient Greek Tragedy. The Masonic ceremony imitates the movements of the sun as seen from the earth, north of the equator in the first degree, where the sun moves from left to right; south of the equator in the second degree, where the sun moves from right to left; and between the tropics in the third degree. The sufi dancers moves from right to left in imitation of orbiting bodies, a helicentric image. Early Greek tragedies centered around a sacrificial ode, built around the same dialectic triad as Masonry.

"The dance consisted of three sections: strophe, antistrophe and epode. The strophe consisted of a turn, the antistrophe a counterturn, with matching rhythms and metres. Circumambulation was reversed: the movement from right to left was called the strophe and that from left to right the antistrophe. The epode was a fixed position."

 

 

In a set of pages that I am calling The Masonic Lodge Floor Explained, I intend to show how the symbolic lodge floor reflects the astronomical lines of the earth. All of that is explained in HPH Bromwell's book about Masonic Geometry. The first degree pertains to the June Solstice, the Tropic of Cancer, the northeast and the left (looking east into the sunrise.) The second to the December Solstice, the Tropic of Capricorn, the southeast and the right. The third degree pertains to the Equinoxes, the Equator, east and the center. [The cornerstone for the White House was laid in the northeast and that of the Capitol Building was laid in the southeast.]

 

 

 

The Master's Square - compares the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the New Jerusalem to the Masonic Temple, and investigates the universal, astronomically based, geometric method for Temple design and construction. This relates the patterns in the Masonic Floor to all the sacred objects in the Bible, as well as temples around the world.

 

Closely related is a page where I show how to derive the Sri Yantra from the template that is introduced in the pages above. Here is an animation that shows the first six triangles of the yantra drawn on lines on the globe. I suggest that the horizontal lines in the sri yantra are 15, 30, 45 and 60 degrees.

 

 

* My Thesis *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1646, John Greaves published a book entitled Pyramidographia that included information that he had gathered when he personally surveyed the Gizah Plateau, beginning in the 1636. You can see a copy of Greaves' illustration of the outside of the Great Pyramid on page 24 of Peter Tompkins' book Secrets of the Great Pyramid. The Greaves' exterior image of the GP has been cited as being the model for the reverse side of the US Great Seal, and I had, at one time, pointed to the interior image from Greaves' book (seen below) as one of the templates for the DC map layout.

 

I say 'at one time' because something occured to me that changed my way of thinking about that. I looked at Greaves image of the inside of the pyramid closely and noticed that the relieving stones and chambers above the King's Chamber weren't being depicted. I found that these weren't discovered until 1837. The subterranean chamber is also not depicted since it was full of debris when Greaves was there; yet when you look at the map, the relieving stones, the decsending passage, and the 'well shaft' all appear to be depicted.