Masonic Essays By Jay Halpern

Jay Halpern 2011

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Table of Contents

Masonic Essays....................................................................................................................................1 An Introduction to Albert Pikes Morals and Dogma...........................................................................3 Speculations on the Mythic Origins of the Third Degree...................................................................13 THE CENTRALITY OF MASONIC SYMBOLS IN JOYCES ULYSSES.....................................29

An Introduction to Albert Pikes Morals and Dogma

by Jay Halpern, 32 Masonic Lodge of Research (CT)

My acquaintance with Pikes work, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, was a matter of chance, although Im often reminded of the fact that, in truth, there is no such thing as a coincidence. I happened upon it in an antique center and was immediately drawn to its erudition, its scope and its willingness to portray the sort of symbolism and arcana that drew me to Freemasonry in the first place. Sitting down with its small print and its great bulk clutched warmly in my hands, I began what continues to be a great adventure in philosophical, historical, symbological and political investigation. I tentatively explored what information lurked on the Internet about Albert Pike, but soon abandoned those resources because of their evident partisanship either for or against the man and the Masons he is assumed to represent. I determined to let his words speak for themselves, and play upon my own knowledge of American and world history, philosophy and political theory to make their point. What I found, much to my delight, was how far Pikes work took me beyond the parameters of pure Masonic lore and into the realm of political and economic theory that had been trod by the greatest minds of the past, like Plato, Plutarch, and the philosophical synthesizers of all ages. I was amused by the fact that the poor, unsuspecting owner before me, one Archie Stone of Los Angeles, abandoned his well-meaning attempt to annotate the book before completing chapter I also sympathized. Somebody must have told him that Pikes book was an explication of Masonic principles and symbols, and, understandably, he left off reading out of confusion and, quite likely, disappointment. It became clear to me, in this regard, that M&D was far more than a Masonic tract. Pike

placed Freemasonry and its structure and symbols within two very broad contexts: the religious and spiritual history of the world, stretching far beyond even the building of Solomons Temple; and the human drama of vanquished peoples coping with the oppressive moral and political climate of defeat in war. For I think its impossible to understand the significance of M&D without perceiving Pikes spiritual and philosophical outcry against the predations made against the former Confederacy of the American South by the conquering armies and politicians of the United States federal government. It is obvious to me that, within the context of a Masonic guide, Albert Pike lays bear the horror he sees all around him as his nation, the Confederacy, has gone down to defeat at the hands of the North, and is now subjected to what Pike sees as the deterioration of a sovereign people at the hands of tyrants. Albert Pike was a Confederate general of high moral principles, as is evident throughout M&D. We in the North have been schooled in the history of the victor; the story of the origins of the conflict between the states would, of course, been written very differently had the fortunes of war gone differently. Having been taught the principle of loyalty to ones national government from childhood, we in the north find it difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of the Confederate rebellion as anything other than an act of betrayal of national principles, a breaking of the most sacred trust that had been forged between states by blood spilled during our mutual revolution from England. We look upon that betrayal by the South as motivated by the most reprehensible goals and objectives: the expansion of slavery, foremost, and a passionate resistance to intellectual, economic and social progress as exemplified by the industrialized, market-oriented capitalism of the North. Albert Pike, however, sees the clash of wills in a most different and interesting light, a light that illuminates aspects of Southern nationalism to this day. Pike writes in the very beginning of M&D: The nations are not bodies-politic alone, but also souls-politic; and woe to that people which, seeking the material only, forgets that it has a soul.A free people, forgetting that it has a soul to be cared for, devotes all its energies to its material advancement. If it make war, it is to subserve its commercial interests. The citizens copy after the State, and regard wealth, pomp, and luxury as the great goods of life. Such a nation creates

wealth rapidly, and distributes it badly. Thence the two extremes, of monstrous opulence and monstrous misery; all the enjoyment to a few, all the privations to the rest, that is to say, to the people; Privilege, Exception, Monopoly, Feudality, springing up from Labor itself: a false and dangerous situation, which, making Labor a blinded and chained Cyclops, in the mine, at the forge, in the workshop, at the loom, in the field, over poisonous fumes, in miasmatic cells, in unventilated factories, founds public power upon private misery, and plants the greatness of the State in the suffering of the individual. It is a greatness ill constituted, in which all the material elements are combined, and into which no moral element enters. If a people, like a star, has the right of eclipse, the light ought to return. The eclipse should not degenerate into night. In prose as powerful as anything penned by Marx or Engels or Lenin, we have here a capsule critique of Northern capitalist interests as viewed by an occupied South. To Pikes way of thinking, the Southern agrarian economy had purposefully eschewed the ways of industrialization and the market forces that had been so warmly embraced by the North. Keep in mind that M&D was completed in 1871, when the Reconstruction period in the South was in full bloom, and the excesses visited upon all occupied nations were readily apparent to the defeated people of the South. Keep in mind, as well, that Thomas Jefferson, the archetypal proponent of political liberty and democracy, always conceived of the model citizen as the yeoman farmer, the man attached to his land and his neighbors, valuing himself and others by a pact of aid and comfort derived from the harsh contingencies of eking out a life from the fruits of the land. That sort of social bond is very different from ties created by market capitalism, where there is no community except in shared profits, and no ties but of self-interest. We see these very truths alive and well today in a nation that is rapidly dividing itself between the very wealthy and the very poor, with little room for comfort in between. We see it today in a stock market that falls every time the jobless rate goes down, and rises when more people are out of work. We see it when the principles of human rights and individual liberty for which Americans fought and died, and for which we set the standard, are cast aside in our economic dealings with other nations who disregard or trample upon those rights with their own people. We see it in the persistent fallacy of supply-side economics by which the

wealthiest among accrue to themselves a right to be first in line for newly-created wealth, pushing ahead of our nations weakest and neediest. What Albert Pike saw in his own time was the forced encrustation of an agrarian, democratic dream by an imposed industrial capitalism from the North, and he saw himself as spokesman for a free people, now under tyranny, clutching to save its soul. And Pike regarded Masonry as a potential framework upon which to retain the noblest and highest ideals once held by the defeated South. Hear his words, then, written in occupation and defeat, regarding this Brotherhood: And Masonry, like History and Philosophy, has eternal duties eternal, and, at the same time, simple - to oppose Caiaphas as Bishop, Draco or Jefferies as Judge, Trimalcion as Legislator, and Tiberius as Emperor. These are the symbols of the tyranny that degrades and crushes, and the corruption that defiles and infests The people that would be Free and Independent, must possess Sagacity, Forethought, foresight, and careful

Circumspection, all which are included in the meaning of the word Prudence. It must be temperate in asserting its rights, temperate in its councils, economical in its expenses; it must be bold, brave, courageous, patient under reverses, undismayed by disasters, hopeful amid calamities, like Rome when she sold the field at which Hannibal had his camp. No Cannae or Pharsalia or Pavia or Agincourt or Waterloo must discourage her. Let her Senate sit in thei seats until the Gauls pluck them by the beard. She must, above all things, be just, not truckling to the strong and warring on or plundering the weak; she must act on the square with all nations, and the feeblest tribes; always keeping her faith, honest in her legislation, upright in all her dealings. Whenever such a Republic exists, it will be immortal: for rashness, injustice, intemperance and luxury in prosperity, and despair and disorder in adversity, are the causes of the decay and dilapidation of nations.

Tiberius in this regard, of course, means Lincoln and Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant.
And the immortal Republic whose outlines Pike portrays is that ideal yeoman state that never fully formed in the South, as he conceived it, that was never free to develop without hindrance from the co-adjutant northern economic and social system. Pike dreamed that this immortal Republic could be made whole and concrete beyond, within and behind the framework of worldly politics in the realm of Freemasonry, in a domain self-created by like-minded men who dreamed of belonging to

a nation-state of the spirit that market capitalism and industrialization had prohibited from arising in the body-politic. Albert Pike was a man of broad scholarship, comfortably familiar with the great documents of history, and familiar with the reports of human anthropology and sociology written, with varying degrees of insight and accuracy, by scholars and historians from all times and places. There isnt an Occidental or Oriental religious tradition whose works Pike doesnt know and doesnt respect. There isnt an indigenous culture, whether primitive or advanced, that Pike doesnt applaud to the degree that its native peoples adhere to the tenets of yeoman culture, of honesty and brotherhood from soul to soul. Indeed, Pike quite clearly states that Masonic ideals transcend all eras and peoples. In his chapter on the Royal Arch of Solomon, he writes, Even Blue Masonry cannot trace back its authentic history, with its present Degrees, further than the year 1700, if so far. But, by whatever name it was known in this or the other country, Masonry existed as it now exists, the same in spirit and at heart, not only when Solomon builded the temple, but centuries before - before even the first colonies emigrated into Southern India, Persia, and Egypt, from the cradle of the human race. (Italics the author) Thus, to Pike, the principles he found in Freemasonry far transcended the petty formalism of degree work and ritual. He looked into the past for role models whose lives best represented what he considered Masonic ideals, and philosophies that represented what he felt were meaningful paradigms for living the good and virtuous life. He drew from the teachers of Greek and Roman pagans, from the Hebrew Prophets, from the Christian Apostles and early fathers of the Church. His search was broad and unprejudiced and he remarked regarding the

appropriateness of holy texts as one of the Great Lights of a Lodge: The Hebrew Pentateuch in a Hebrew Lodge, and the Koran in a Mohammedan one, belong on the Altar; and one of these, and the Square and Compass, properly understood, are the Great Lights by which a Mason must walk and work. I remarked with pleasure how free of religious prejudice Pike seemed to be in his writings, and how greatly this contrasts with the religious affiliationism of certain branches of modern degrees in Masonry today. For Pike saw in this Masonic ideal the re-statement of the

Eleusinian Mysteries, and Orphism., and Pythagoreanism, and the noble, secret faiths of every ancient generation viewed in its best and most profound light. We have no other concern with your religious creed, Pike states outright, but for swearing oaths on whatever document commands ones particular heartfelt honor. Pike is drawn to the symbols of Freemasonry, drawn as they are from the most ancient occult creeds, for two reasons. The first reason derives from his status as a defeated general, a man of honor residing under what he perceives as a tyranny of occupation. Pike writes, Despots are an aid to thinkers. Speech enchained is speech terrible. The writer doubles and triples his style, when silence is imposed by a master upon the people. There springs from this silence a certain mysterious fullness, which filters and freezes into brass in his thoughts. Thus, living under the despotism of the federal U.S., Pike writes his tome compressed between blocks of symbols and arcana that disguise his ancillary intent, to write a missive that will keep the idealism of the South alive during occupation. One might, at risk of sounding presumptuous, compare Pikes effort to the efforts of the diaspora Jews in Babylon trying to keep their faith alive in captivity by writing the Talmud and delivering prophecies that keep the ancient homeland always before their minds eye, and deep within their hearts. But Pikes political parallels are not couched in terms as occult as, lets say, the Apocalypse of John; what he writes about Reconstruction shines through his circumlocutions almost proudly: He who will basely fawn on those who have office to bestow, will betray like Iscariot, and prove a miserable and pitiable failure;to adapt ones opinions to the popular humor; to defend, apologize for, and justify the popular follies; to advocate the expedient and the plausible; to caress, cajole, and flatter the elector; to beg like a spaniel for his vote, even if he be a negro three removes from barbarism; to profess friendship for a competitor and stab him by innuendo; to set on foot that which at third hand shall become a lie the result being a State ruled and ruined by ignorant and shallow mediocrity, pert self-conceit, the greenness of unripe intellect, vain of a school-boys smattering of knowledge. Pike heralds a warning to his Southern brethren that there will be a price to pay if their path is lost. History demonstrates that nations in their hour of darkest need,

turn to the worst rulers: We should naturally suppose that a nation in distress would take counsel with the wisest of its sons. But, on the contrary, great men seem never so scarce as when they are most needed, and small men never so bold to insist on infesting place, as when mediocrity and incapable pretence and sophomoric greenness, and showy and sprightly incompetency are most dangerous. The result, of course, is that revolutions begun for the purpose of empowering the people, result in new tyrannies: the rule of Cromwell, of Napoleon, of Stalin. Pike adds rather boldly, That is a sad and true allegory which represents the companions of Ulysses changed by the enchantments of Circe into swine, meaning by Ulysses, of course, Ulysses S. Grant, the new tyrant over the South. The fact that the U.S. federal government is, itself, a republic, and not a tyranny, doesnt let if off the hook, in Pikes view; the economic system of the North rules with a tyrants fist: States are chiefly avaricious of commerce and of territory. The latter leads to the violation of treaties, encroachments upon feeble neighbors, and rapacity toward their wards whose lands are coveted. Republics are, in this, as rapacious and unprincipled as Despots, never learning from history that inordinate expansion by rapine and fraud has its inevitable consequences in dismemberment or subjugation. When a Republic begins to plunder its neighbors, the words of doom are already written on its walls. There is a judgment already pronounced of God, upon whatever is unrighteous in the conduct of national affairs. When civil war tears the vitals of a Republic, let it look back and see if it has not been guilty of injustices; and if it has, let it humble itself in the dust! From Pikes perspective, it is the mercantile system of industrial politics, in contradistinction to the agrarian idealism of the South, that caused the rupture between the states and propelled the nation into civil war. The restrictions established against the expansion of slavery into the new territories of the West, for example, appeared to Southern gentry like Pike to be a serious and unmitigated infringement upon what they took to be the backbone of the Constitutional compromise, the balance between states rights and federal authority. And in back of that infringement lay industrial mercantilism, the rank capitalism that was to lead to the Gilded Age, the Age of Morgan and Astor and Gould and the rest of the Robber Barons.

Again, Pike emphasizes the inequities of capitalism as the source of spiritual and political evil: Ye cannot, said the Great Teacher, serve God and Mammon. When the thirst for wealth becomes general, it will be sought for as well dishonestly as honestly; by frauds and overreachings, by the knaveries of trade, the heartlessness of greedy speculation, by gambling in stocks and commodities that soon demoralizes a whole community. Men will speculate upon the needs of their neighbors and the distresses of their country. Bubbles that, bursting, impoverish multitudes, will be blown up by cunning knavery, with stupid credulity as its assistant and instrument. Huge bankruptcies, that startle a country like the earthquakes, and are more fatal, fraudulent assignments, engulfment of the savings of the poor, expansions and collapses of the currency, the crash of banks, the depreciation of Government securities, prey on the savings of self-denial, and trouble with their depredations the first nourishment of infancy and the last sands of life, and fill with inmates the churchyards and lunatic asylums. But the sharper and speculator thrives and fattens. If his coutry is fighting by a levy en masse for her very existence, he aids her by depreciating her paper, so that he may accumulate fabulous amounts with little outlay. If his neighbor is distressed, he buys his property for a son. If he administers upon an estate, it turns out insolvent, and the orphans are paupers. If his bank explodes, he is found to have taken care of himself in time To grasp at the lions share of commerce, has always at last proven the ruin of States, because it invariably leads to injustices that make a State detestable;

It will submit to insults that wound its honor, rather than endanger its commercial interests by
war; while, to subserve those interests, it will wage unjust war, on false or frivolous pretexts, its free people cheerfully allying themselves with despots to crush a commercial rival that has dared to exile its kings and elect its own ruler. Again, I emphasize this is a powerful indictment of capitalism, as valid today as when it was written. One cannot have lived through the depredations of the military-industrial complex during the Vietnam War without having these words ring stirringly true. One cannot read the papers today, or listen to the news without nodding in agreement. Contrast these flaming words with the writings of Masonry today, at least what is produced in the Northern Jurisdiction; there is much that

solicits for charity, much that appeals for new and aggressive membership, much that trumpets Masonic good works; but there is nothing that sounds a clarion call to Brotherhood encompassing both the political and spiritual side of man. And, of course, we are not Masons leaving in the South during Reconstruction; we are not defeated warriors living under occupation. The past is still the past, and therein lies, in my opinion, a great deal of the intellectual fascination Pikes work holds for me, as a Mason. As I read his work, I try and extrapolate just how such a man of both word and deed could be expected to make his theories manifest themselves in the world-at-large. He is charged by many with helping to found the Ku Klux Klan, an active resistance movement against the federal forces stationed throughout the South. I can well imagine Pike putting deeds to his words and, when faced with the apolitical stance of Masonry then and now, seeking to found a similar body, an offshoot with degrees and symbols and occult titles, that would more vigorously pursue a spiritual cum political transformation throughout the South. But Id find it difficult to imagine the Klansman as we know him today, ignorant, self-important, anarchistic, hateful against all religions and races other than his own, to be the kind of soldier Pike would have called to his spiritual cause. Perhaps the KKK was an experiment that failed in its infancy and went off in the wrong direction, a subterranean cell of political and spiritual theorists turned redneck racists at the starting gate. I can then imagine Pike even more disgruntled and perhaps misanthropic after his years of theorizing and propagating his philosophy.

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It is evident from the symbolic portions of M&D that Pike was too intrigued by the infinite variety of mankind, its religions, its cultures, its spiritual struggles against the forces of darkness, to be blithely classed with the racists we have come to expect from a racist culture. It is true that in some societies Pike allows for slavery; didnt, in fact, the whole Greek and Roman world, packed full of philosophers, depend upon it as an institution? Pike writes, Influence of man over man is a law of nature, whether it be by a great estate in land or in intellect. It may mean slavery, a deference to the eminent human judgment (italics mine). He writes elsewhere, The wiser a man becomes, the less will he be inclined to submit tamely to the imposition of fetters or a yoke, on his conscience or his person. For, by increase of wisdom he not only better knows his rights, but the more highly values them, and is more conscious of his worth and dignity. His pride then urges him to assert his independence. He becomes better able to assert it also; and better able to assist others or his country, when they or she stake all, even existence, upon the same assertion. But mere knowledge makes no one independent, nor fits him to be free. It often only makes him a more useful slave. Liberty is a curse to the ignorant and brutal (Italics mine). I take it, then, that the concept of slavery to Pike, if not to Southerners in general, did not contain a racial component but was the logical recognition that certain men and women, ignorant and brutal, needed to be controlled, as we control - or should control - rapists, thieves and murderers today. In Pikes day there was neither theory nor technology for social redemption. Certain forms of maladaptive behavior, certain affects of acculturation, were considered irredeemable and, at best, served as lessons to the rest of us who werent so afflicted. His unflattering remarks about the negro three removes from barbarism derived, one supposes, from what Pike knew of the African culture and tribalism which, itself, filled the holds of white mens ships with slaves, their erstwhile brothers. We see the same vicious tribalism at work today between the Hutus and the Tutsis, a tribalism which, unrestrained, has led to the butchery of thousands. Therein I would infer the source of Pikes remarks, for it is to be noted he elsewhere writes, The foulness of the slaves is a direct result of the atrocious baseness of the despot. In other words, slaves are both the victims of their masters, and, by remaining enslaved, eventually deteriorate until they are worthy of their slavery. Dont mistake, however, my attempting to understand Pikes conception of slavery - given his philosophy

and spirituality - with a justification for slavery. It is here that Pike and I part company, just as I part company with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, whose philosophic leisure depended upon a slavebased culture. I merely wish to paint as broad a portrait of the man who wrote M&D as I can, given my studies so far. I can sympathize with Archie Stones perplexity; here, in this remarkable book, side-by-side with drawings of occult symbols, Hebrew icons, Masonic forms, and all manner of diagrams and arcana, is embedded a political and social tract that is the proudly defiant outcry of one man against a nation that has overrun his own. Its easy for me to understand the veneration in which Pikes held by Masons in the Southern Jurisdiction; he represents, to them, the epitome of Southern aristocratic learning, philosophy and values. His words ring, and will always ring, alongside all other world-class philosophers who saw their societies crumbling from greed and mercantilism. It will, Im sure, surprise some that a Northern Masonic Jew, a man with ingrained Northern and urban sympathies for multiculturalism and the enlightened use of technology, could glean so much from a man like Albert Pike, a man so different. But I feel that, at bottom, the spiritual truths that have always brought true Masons together, whether in formal Lodge or by informal happenstance, with or without Masonic sanction, are truths that we both share and for whose fullness and radiance we continue to search. That part of contemporary Masonry which falls short of these truths, would, I feel, disturb Pike as much as they disturb me. I can only wish to meet and mingle with brothers who will pursue more light in Masonry with the passion, erudition and reverence that Albert Pike put into his impressive work.

Speculations on the Mythic Origins of the Third Degree

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by Jay Halpern, 32

The development of religion and myth has had an overwhelming hold upon me since my childhood. In projecting his fantasies, desires and dreams of omnipotence onto the broad canvas of his religious beliefs, man has woven complex tapestries of the mind and contrived tales of elegance and glory, of horror and darkness, of enlightened philosophy and wordless transcendance that represent the finest productions of his conscious life and encapsulate his noblest aspirations. I have looked upon Freemasonry as a living representation of those esoteric efforts engaged in by men to bind themselves to a creed for their personal enlightenment and the betterment of mankind. As such, Freemasonry is one strand of collective engagement among many; it both inspires with its symbolism and drama and disappoints with its reluctance to move beyond theatrics into a broader, more aggressive engagement with the world at large. Aspects of the 3rd degree drama highlight this dichotomy, particularly in regard to the use of transcendental symbolism: King Solomon, the high masonic word, the raising of the corpse. So much more is implied than is fulfilled; so much more is poised to be revealed than is expressed; and it is in speculations upon the nature of the mythic origins of the drama that I have found food for my own soul and fodder for my conscience far beyond what has been offered in lodge, in dramatic presentations and in Masonic ceremonies. Tonight I will share some of my speculations with my brother researchers.

First, however, allow me to share with you aspects of my Masonic experience that have deterred my involvement in the past because I will then be better able to enliven in your minds the mythic resonances that do, indeed, give meaning to my participation and inspire me to continue onward in the future. I am a product of social upheaval, of broadly pervasive social and political revolution, of a young nation thrust into maturity by a brutal world filled with seductions into darkness. From my earliest youth, having learned the lessons of the worlds devastation by the Nazis and the Axis powers that it is not enough to lay aside your conscience and acquiesce in brutality and horror because ones country wills it, or because ones leaders order you to do so, I, along with millions of my fellow citizens, actively opposed the war in Vietnam, and actively searched for truth from among the scandals and lies my government tried to foist upon me for their venal purposes. From my earliest youth, having learned the horrors that travel in the wake of racial hatred and prejudice from relatives and other fellow Jews who, in numbers unknown before in history, fell beneath the lash of that hatred and prejudice, I marched against segregation and bigotry, - sometimes alone, sometimes in great numbers - when there was a cause demanding recognition and protest; from my earliest youth I worked in poverty programs and joined protests, picket lines and boycotts to do my share in the difficult work of making this complex world slough off its carbuncular hide of evil and madness and self-delusion and brutality. And, for many years, certainly without premeditation or expectation, I worked on behalf of people with the severest forms of disabilities, trying to engage their minds and hearts in the best of life that I could carry to them, in spite of heedless bureaucrats and venal service providers and, yes, in many cases, in spite of parents, themselves, who were filled with guilt and hate and animosity. Indeed, I have walked down many roads and I continue to walk down many roads, trying to do for my own soul what King Solomon attempted to do for his in homage to his God: construct a worthy edifice that, in the last

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hour of thought and worship, in that tender moment when the soul confronts its Maker, I will be judged as having done my best with what strength, intelligence and intuition it was my grace to possess.

I know, then, the warmth of solidarity for a good cause. We in the student protest movement, while eschewing formal dress and jewels of office, had our movement handshake and our own way of knowing who we were in a crowd, in the way we dressed, in the symbols we wore around our necks and on our t-shirts and in the bumper stickers we plastered on our bikes, cars and motorcycles. Indeed, much of what I believed in then, and still believe, stands in contradistinction to some of what my fellow Masons have asked of me: I have rented and worn a tuxedo only once in my life, at a wedding that ended in a searing divorce within a year. I have no interest in wearing tuxedoes or jewels of office (and nothing short of a loaded gun pointed at my head could get me to wear a top hat!), nor do I have any interest in being in the line. Im told that everybody wants to be a PAST Master but I beg to differ: I dont. The formal ritual that seems to be the backbone and mainstay of the blue lodge is, simply put, for me a means to a higher end and not, as it seems to be for many others, an end in itself. And, while the charitable functions of my fellowship are impressive, I could, as well, devote my energies to a world of needs and tragedies with different groups. (Certainly, $400 spent for a Shriner fez could be better spent putting food in the mouths of starving children.) Having participated in the three induction rituals, having served as a cast member of one third degree, and having been an exemplar in my progress through the Scottish Rite, I also learned that my interest in Freemasonry does not extend to performance art. I deeply want to share and do and think and watch, but not in costume and not in formal, stilted language. Finally, in my travels through Masonry so far, I have met a whole range of brothers who differ radically from me in their motives for participation: I have met seekers of transcendental truths and I have met belly-Masons; I have met liberal thinkers who have used Masonry as a vehicle to embrace the diversity of the world with both arms and I have met Masons who, in spite of their vows of brotherhood, draw sharp lines between Jews and Christians and blacks and

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whites; I have met Masons who use the fellowship as a springboard for doing good works and I have met Masons who use the fellowship for business contacts and for collecting badges, buttons and baubles; indeed, the world of Freemasonry is as the world at large, both bad and good, both enlightened and plunged in darkness. And, as in the world at large, I have had to focus my personal path on those aspects of the fellowship that resonate with my soul. This, then, brings me at last to the topic of this paper, the symbolism of the 3rd degree. The climax of the ritual occurs when King Solomon, at a loss for the high Masonic word, utters his own and, using a secret grip, raises the intitiate, representing the decayed corpse of Hiram Abif, to an upright position. It is in this act of raising that the spiritual moment of the 3rd degree is attained: the initiate is raised to Master Masonhood. This moment of raising resonates in my mind with other sublime moments in religious rituals throughout mankind: the raising of the wafer and the cup of wine in transubstantiation as the body and blood of the Christ; the reading of a Torah passage as a young Jew enters into the fullness of his religious obligations as a member of his faith; the sanctification rituals of priests, rabbis, ayatollahs and Buddhist monks; the ancient initiation rituals that turned princes and princesses into kings and queens and, in the first millenium, turned squires into knights; and the mystical rites which, in Greece and Rome, initiated searching souls into the mysteries of Eleusis, Orpheus and Dionysus. It is among these latter initiations that the original Solomonic rituals can most profitably be compared. The nation of Israel, however tribal and Semitic its origins, was a Mediterranean nation, strongly influenced by the trading peoples that ringed the Mediterranean Sea. King Hiram of Tyre was, in fact, a principal trading partner with Greece and Ionia, the descendants of Greek and Phoenician merchants. The cultures of the Hellenes and Minoans and the Etruscans coalesced in thought, word and deed as the

Mediterranean gave access to trade in goods and ideas, enhanced by new technologies in ship-building, navigation and writing. Thus, it is quite likely that the prevalent form of religion among the nations of the Mediterranean world (including the Hellespont) - the Mystery cult - would provide the basic format for the fellowship King Solomon felt was needed to make concrete his nations commitment to their God: the Temple. Let us examine some of the common threads found among the mystery cults of the ancient world. Dating from the ancient days of the Egyptians and the cult of Isis and Osiris, an essential element of these cults was the death and resurrection of a god. Osiris, husband of his sister, Isis, the goddess of love and fertility, was killed and dismembered by his brother, Set, the incarnation of evil. Isis, in deep mourning, searched the world for the remnants of Osiris body, piecing it together painstakingly until the very last part, the phallus, was found hidden in a secret chest buried deep beneath the sea. With that last part, she gathered the remains together and, inventing mummification, enabled her husband-brother to rise from the dead and assume, again, his role as the god of the afterlife. Osiris was identified by the Greeks with their god of ecstacy, Dionysus, the focus of the Dionysian mysteries. Dionysus, the illegitimate son of Zeus, was plucked from his mothers womb by Zeus sister-wife, Hera, in a fit of rage and jealousy. The dead foetus was taken from Hera by Zeus and placed inside his own thigh where it came back to life and developed to maturity. Likewise, the central event of the Orphic mysteries occurs when Orpheus, the divine singer and musician, is torn apart by wild Bacchantes, female worshippers of Dionysus, and his body parts thrown into the sea. Through the influence of guardian nymphs, however, Orpheus is returned to life, a life among the immortal and the divine, a status he could not command prior to his ritual murder. Finally, the extensive armies of ancient Rome worshipped the divine Mithra, a hero from among the ancient Persians who turned into a god through his ritual murder and subsequent resurrection.

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Mithraism, in fact, was the chief rival faith to early Christianity in the ancient world and it early became apparent to those apostles who decided to proselytize among Gentiles that a religion without a resurrected God would never capture the hearts of Mithraists; thus their subsequent writings reflected this as they preached their ethical philosophy. The myths and legends that are finally, after hundreds and thousands of years, committed to the written word are the imagistic and distorted histories of actual events and cultural movements among groups of people. Tales of dead and resurrected gods reflect the racial memories of times when actual living kings lived in ideal splendor and adoration for a period of time among their people, only to be sacrificed at a time appropriate to their beliefs as a blood-offering to ensure the continuation of the natural cycles of fertility and harvest. The mystery cults were an outgrowth of this process, developed in more sophisticated times when human sacrifice had been replaced by symbolic sacrifice, and when the initiate no longer had to die to be transformed into his higher self, but could do so through esoteric ritual and initiation. If Freemasonry has any valid claim at all to direct descendance from the times of King Solomon and the building of his Temple, it would be as the continuation of a Solomonic mystery cult that sought to bring men closer to worthiness in the eyes of an abstract and all-seeing God. From what I have gleaned in my readings on Freemasonry, there is no firm evidence that a direct line of descent from the time of King Solomon to the beginning of modern Freemasonry in the 18th century actually exists. However, ancillary and

referential material harking back beyond the Knights Templar to ancient Semitic practices encourages me to find in modern ritual work the vestiges of mystery cult development that may, indeed, find its earliest threads in the religious commitment of Mediterranean merchants, technologists and philosophers to bettering themselves through participation in mysteries that transcended the various differences in their local tribal religions. Indeed, of

all the rulers of ancient Israel, only King Solomon demonstrated the cosmopolitanism to reach out to the greater world and profit thereby in terms of economics, philosophy and a nearness to God in all His manifestations. It would not be far-fetched, I feel, to see in the 3rd degree ritual of Freemasonry today a pale approximation of the true mystery cult that King Solomon developed in his time. Now, I must warn you that Im giving free reign to my imagination and that what I will share with you are speculations without possibility of concrete substantiation. But that, I feel, is the beauty of participating in this research lodge, that I may share my thoughts freely with my brothers. The 3rd degree portrays the following: First, that the majority of Temple builders were bound to their mystery cult for economic reasons, not for higher spiritual motives. Second, that King Solomon was subordinate to both Hiram of Tyre and Hiram Abif in that he did not, himself, possess the knowledge of the secret word. And third, that King Solomon utilized the most secret of handgrips and devised a new most-secret password, solely for the purpose of elevating a decaying corpse from a horizontal to a vertical position.

Given the circumstances surrounding King Solomons mission and the historical verities of the time and culture, this depiction does not satisfy, in my opinion, what was, I feel, to have been a far more profound reality. Regarding the first point, that economic motives were the predominant focal point of the Masonic brethren during the construction of the Temple, it should be acknowledged that no one could reasonably expect tens of thousands of laborers on any construction 21

project to be seekers after spiritual truths. One may presume that the vast majority of workers on the Temple project were hired laborers, both native workers from Judea and foreign artisans from Hiram Abifs homeland. Their interest would have been purely pecuniary, nor would they have needed any secret signs or passwords to further their careers in foreign lands at a later date, when their skill and experience with tools and construction would have been made manifest to any potential employer. Indeed, in the 3rd degree, all the brethren are shown to be either actively guilty of murder (the three rogues) or passive conspirators who, only under duress of conscience, repent of their initial violent designs and bring the malefactors to justice. The only 3rd degree figure of demonstrable virtue is Hiram Abif, himself, the holder of the secret signs and word. This portrayal would, I feel, accurately reflect the ancient reality that, among the throngs of those who performed construction labor on the massive projects mandated by the courts of the time, only a very few would have been at all involved in elite fellowships and higher pursuits. The Old Testament makes perfectly clear, however, that the Temple project was, in fact, an extrapolation of the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant, into a massive form usable by a nation of tribes dedicated to the worship of one true God. To this extent, it would be equally implausible if King Solomon had not developed some form of elite fellowship, almost definitely related to the Levite tribe of priests, who would, themselves, be concerned with matters of sacred usage, propitiatory rites and the orthodoxy of all aspects of the final Temple assemblage. These matters would not be of concern to Hiram of Tyre, being a foreigner and of a foreign religion, but would certainly have been matters of central concern to the foreign-born artisan and master-builder, Hiram Abif. The design and construction of the Temple would have had to be rendered in close collaboration with Hiram Abif, the Levite brethren and King Solomon, himself. Thus, a small fellowship of priestly artisans, concerned with things both spiritual

and mundane, is quite likely to have been developed by the wise King Solomon as a matter of managerial efficiency and religious sanctity. It would be among this elite that any thread of fellowship predating modern Masonry should most likely be sought. Let us now consider the second point, the leadership role of King Solomon. What is known historically about the most magnificent of Jewish kings demonstrates, I think, that he was a politically-astute ruler, a man who allowed himself to be kept in the dark about nothing, a world-class politician and international economist who knew all the fine points about developing political alliances - through marriages and otherwise - and how to maximize his own access to resources, not merely in his own kingdom, but throughout the known world. He was not a man to allow others access to spiritual knowledge that he did not possess himself and would certainly not have worked in close proximity to one such as Hiram Abif throughout the construction of the Temple without making himself privy to any and all secrets Hiram possessed, such as any grand Masonic signs or words. Any such arcana would, I submit, have been promulgated by King Solomon, himself, or accessed by the king in furtherance of his plans. The modern 3rd degree interpretation that the true Masonic word died with Hiram does, I think, a disservice to historical reality.

23

My third hypothesis is, I feel, the most intriguing and opens up avenues of thought leading to the most mystical of premises, right up to the threshold of religious heresy and apostasy. The modern portrayal of the 3rd degree utilizes the most hallowed of symbols, gestures and words for no better purpose than to elevate a rotting corpse to the vertical. I would rather contend, however, that buried deep within the modern version of the myth (a tame and bloodless version I would suggest) is the more probable fact that King Solomon, in the development of his elite corps of priestly builders, emulated aspects of the mystery cults that were flourishing throughout the Mediterranean world and attempted to acquire for himself and his priestly representatives the authority of God to raise the dead back to life.

Let us consider this in somewhat more depth. We know that among the mystery cults of the ancient world it was common practice for an enactment of the death and resurrection of a godlike figure to form the central and most sublime core of the initiation ritual. Indeed, the whole function of initiation was for the acolyte to die unto himself and be reborn as a spirit on a higher plane of authenticity. The cosmopolitan King Solomon probably knew of many such cults and probably admired the potent spiritual energies such mysteries generated among their adherents. And, as even the briefest reading of the wisdom literature written by King Solomon will reveal, he was well aware of the pitfalls that confronted those who engaged in such practices: to be innoculated by human intervention and ritual with spiritual insight that was reserved in priestly tradition to people born into a particular priestly class and graced with particular physical gifts was tantamount to heresy; to confer such grace upon others, even in the name of God, would, of course, be akin to witchcraft and punishable by death; and to envision any form of ritualistic intervention that culminated in the raising of the dead to life was completely at variance with the religious writings and traditions of the time, and would have led to the charge of apostasy and political rebellion throughout the land. But one must keep in mind that King Solomon was a new type of spiritual and intellectual ruler, the sort of man who has rarely appeared on the world stage. The legendary material about him is well known: how, when asked by God for his choice of gift, he chose wisdom above all else; how he was thereby granted immunity by God, Himself, to probe the mysteries of creation and to freely engage in practices that, for other mortals, would have been heretical and would have led to their persecution and destruction; how the whole known world and its peoples, from Hiram of Tyre to the Queen of Sheba, were figures laid out upon the canvas of his designs; and how, at the end of his life, his spirit was sullied with the malaise that besets all who overreach themselves, his reputation

25

diminished for his descent into an ethical relativism and a proclivity for luxurious living that, in some way or other seemed to be his only compensation for the rapport with God that had been lost along the way. The portrait of King Solomon in his old age that we find in the book of Lamentations could well be the portrait of a king who had crossed the boundary between the sacred and the profane in his search for closeness with God and was punished with a spiritual emptiness, an affliction of the soul that his special priestly fellowship and his construction of the Temple was meant to forestall. I would suggest, in summary, that the wise King Solomon emulated the mystery cults of his known world by establishing himself as the focus of his Gods authority and power in the matter of building the Holy Temple; that a death and resurrection myth was developed for the purpose of binding a fellowship of priestly artisans to him from various parts of the world in a pact that carried the force of moral and religious suasion transcending the local Jewish cultus while using much that was drawn from that cults symbolism; that the members of this fellowship believed that, once initiated, they died unto their former lives and were bonded together in transcendent and mystical ways for purposes that went far beyond mere economics; that this fellowship, by Solomons design, used all the trappings of other mystery cults, including secret passwords, signs and symbols; that, had knowledge of King Solomons strategy gained common currency, he would have seen his power shattered through a general uprising and rebellion among his subjects, a fate he, himself, avoided, but that was visited upon his son and heir, Rehoboam; and that the true story of this heretical mystery cult survives today, albeit in a tremendously sanitized and censored form, in the 3rd degree ritual of modern Freemasonry. The line of demarcation between life and death in the ancient Jewish faith is unbreachable. There is no instance in the Old Testament of anyone being brought back to

life from the dead; the closest approximation would be Sauls illicit use of the Witch of Endors skills to raise, not a living presence, but Samuels ghost for purposes of prophecy. And even then it is made clear that Sauls act is heretical and a symptom of the chasm that already looms between him and the God of Israel. Yet, there exists a strain of Jewish mystical philosophy that places great power in the word and that words articulating or connoting Gods Name contain limitlessly potent magic. This is clearly exemplified in the kabbalistic tales about the golem that were told among medieval Jewry. By inscribing the ineffable name of God on a figure fashioned of clay or earth, or by inscribing the Hebrew letters for TRUTH, the lifeless substance became endowed with the breath of life and rose like a super hero to avenge the wrongs committed upon the Jewish people by their enemies. Jews believe in a virtue inherent in the use of words and the Hebrew language, in particular, the language, they believe, that is spoken by God, Himself, and without which the effectiveness of prayers is sorely diminished. It is also true that the magical virtues inherent in language cannot be released unless the practicioner is, himself, virtuous, acknowledging that the spell cast is cast in the name of God and for the fulfillment of Gods Will. Thus, it is important to note that the modern high Masonic word derives from archaic Hebrew and means, simply, done for the sake of the Builder. Thus, the ritualistic death and resurrection of initiates in Solomons fellowship could never be construed as the king abrogating for himself the prerogatives of God, but that the magical act was engaged in solely to bring Gods Will to fulfillment. It is not until the New Testament and the raising of Lazarus that the wall between life and death is breached, and then, too, it occurs within the context of fulfilling Gods Will. I wish to conclude by pointing out that Freemasonry today has little in it that would provoke controversy and challenge the petty truths and prejudices of most of mankind. I note this somewhat sadly because, to my way of thinking, the sort of spiritual bonding and

27

growth that is truly meaningful cannot come without the price-tag of censure and chagrin from common thinkers living unexamined lives. Even so, there is a myth about

Freemasonry that still hints darkly of world conspiracies and collective atrocities like Satan worship and child molestation committed by inner sanctum Masons securely placed in the highest ranks of our brotherhood. Considering that modern Freemasonry, beginning in the 18th century, was synonymous with atheism, revolution against the European monarchies, and a plethora of iconoclastic leanings that made membership a serious matter and, unlike today, fraught with danger, I can well appreciate why the development of degree-work has tended toward the less controversial, the less heretical and the less challenging. But somewhere in the deepest recesses of Masonic history there abides that fellowship of daring souls willing to risk the ostracism of the tribe for the greater glory of rising more nearly and more passionately toward that essence of greatness which is God, the Grand Architect of the Universe.

THE CENTRALITY OF MASONIC SYMBOLS IN JOYCES ULYSSES

by Jay Halpern

29

It is one of the ironies of my scholars life that this research paper on the Masonic symbolism of James Joyces Ulysses partakes as much of my personal and emotional involvement as it does of pure scholarly research. I, therefore, beg the indulgence of those of

you who are more accustomed to pure scholarship in your research presentations. At the same time, however, it will become apparent

that Joyce used Masonic symbolism in as highly emotionally-charged a manner as any literary device he ever used. Ulysses, Masonic as oath will as of be its noted herein, does, in The very climax of fact, And utilize the

symbolic

cornerstone.

that several

climactic of the

presentation

symbols

resolves

artistically

personal spiritual disjunctions that plagued Joyce prior to the completion of Ulysses, particularly regarding his renunciation of Catholicism. First, however, I should, in very broad strokes, introduce James Joyce, the writer, and Ulysses, the masterpiece. James Joyce first gained notoriety in the United States back in the early 1920s as a writer of a very dirty book, Ulysses. It was

banned in the US, which only served to intrigue many non-literary American tourists in Paris who smuggled the book stateside as a curiosity, rarely bothering to read it. Indeed, it was not until

the end of 1933 (Ulysses was published in 1922) that district judge John Woolsey determined that it was more emetic than

aphrodisiac and obviated the ban. But Paris in the 20s was a magnet for artists and writers from all over the Western world. Amiricas contribution included

Gertrude Pound,

Stein,

Ernest

Hemingway, F. Scott who explored

Fitzgerald post-war

and

Ezra to

all

creative

geniuses

Europe

resolve social and artistic issues that, in turn, led to a new sophistication and cosmopolitanism in Anerican letters. It was,

therefore, quite natural that such a flowering of artists would attract a younger generation of graduate students and intellectuals who became enamored of works like Ulysses and, upon their return to professorships in America, entered upon long careers as disciples, devotees and explicators of Joyces work. This, in turn, brought

new generations of scholars into the on-going dialogue that has surrounded all of Joycess writings ever since. A famous example of this scholarly transplantation of Joycean studies to America resides in the career of Joseph Campbell, the now-famous mythologist, known to the world through audiotape presentations. his video and

Campbell began his academic career as a

proponent of Joyces work which he happened to discover in Paris in the very bookstore that published Ulysses, Shakespeare and Co. A

cursory look at the prose excited in him - as it still does to the new reader of Ulysses - a sense of wonder at the sheer audacity of Joyces literary experiment, his new way of structuring sentences, the use of interior monologue to capture the very thousghts in his characters minds without authorial intervention, and Joyces

exploration of his characters every movement during June 16, 1904 in Dublin, including time spent defecating in an outhouse, Campbell

masturbating on a beache and ruminating about oral sex.

inquired of the boodstore owners as to how he could learn to read

31

such a book and was introduced to the then-new Joyce industry, the early works written to explain what Joyce had written, books like Stuart Gilberts James Joyces Ulysses. Campbell went on to

become a mojor contributor to the Joyce industry, writing the first page-by-page exegisis of Joyces Finnegans Wake (co-authored by

Henry M. Robinson) and delivering a series of lectures on Joyce, recently issued on audiotape entitled, On Wings of Art. Another genealogy of scholarship has led directly to this

presentation.

William York Tyndall returned to Columbia University

from Paris and proceeded to write both The Readers Guide to James Joyce, an overview of the Joyce canon, and The Readers Guide to Finnegans Wake, a detailed analysis of Joyces last work. Tyndall

had a graduate student named Leonard Albert who became enamored of Joyces work, as well, went to Paris to further his studies and returned to New York to become a professor of literature at Hunter College. I was, in turn, one of his students. Visiting Dr. Alberts apartment was akin to visiting a Joycean museum. A collection of almost every edition of each of Joyces

works could be found on his shelves, several of them signed by the author. (I particularly remember a mint-condition first edition of I am proud to have personally

Finnegans Wake signed in green ink!)

contributed to that collection, having come across a mint copy of the 11th printing of the first edition of Ulysses in a second-hand bookstore on the Lower East Side which, because it was paperbound and unknown to the proprietor, was sold to me for $2.50.

What

then

was

my

amazement,

some

23

years

after

taking

my

bachelors degree and researching this very paper, to discover that the one work written about Ulysses and Freemasonry was an article by Leonard Albert, published in an obscure Greenwich Village

periodical (A.D. vol. 2 no. 3) in 1951, the year I was born. I have appended to this presentation copies of Leonard Alberts article and I will not waste time restating its analysis. Dr.

Albert makes it clear that he was not a Mason and, while certain factual minutiae regarding Masonic ritual are incorrect, the

analysis as a whole is a wonderful introduction to Joyces use of Masonic symbols and ritual for his artistic purposes. I propose,

therefore, to discuss my perception of the purpose of Freemasonry and show how it relates to the theme of Ulysses. To delve much

deeper than this by, for example, exploring Masonic symbolism in Finnegans Wake, would carry me far beyond the limits of this paper. I have grown to understand that Freemasonry is a society men of men bonding to men for the purpose of mutually encouraging their spiritual betterment. At best, that is the ideal. As the

operative masons from the days of Hiram Abif buiot the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, so, too, do the speculative Masons of today build their souls, brick by spiritual brick, in fellowship with one

another. A man of Joyces genius and predispositions could be expected to feel interminably isolated in the Dublin environs in which he was raised. Ireland was then and remains today a European backwater,

torn apart by dissensions between Catholics and Protestants and 33

between those who desired political independence from England and those who enjoyed protected status. As Joyces autobiographical

novels and stories clearly point out, he was a deeply spiritual young man who sought unitive meaning in his life, first through an

attachment to Catholicism through the Jesuit education he received and ultimately through his commitment to art. Let us explore briefly Joyces spiritual evolution that led from an early desire to join the Jesuit order to his later renunciation of Catholicism and organized religion entirely in favor of the unbounded potential inherent in the practice of his art. a great division in the Joyce family between the There was maternal

commitment to Catholicism and the paternal commitment to political independence. John Joyce, although Catholic, considered the church

an obstacle to Irish independence and a tool of the oligarchy. This led to much uneasiness between him and his wife, exacerbated by his personal inadequacies as a husband and parent. Again,

Joyces books clearly portray his father as a man of charm, jof ooquacious grace, and, as well, completely indifferent to the

poverty of his household.

John Joyce was a universal crony,

found more often singing and drinking in pubs than in providing for his nine children (James being the eldest). developed an extremely ambivalent attitude Thus, James Joyce toward his father,

portraying him warts and all in his writings, yet cherishing him throughout transporting his his adult life, symbolized most notably all by his his many

fathers

portrait

throughout

residences in Trieste, Zurich, Rome and Paris.

If his fathers politics undercut his Catholicism, his mothers weakness and servility also mitigated against his Jesuit

spirituality.

So, too, did the conflict between Joyces burgeoning He was a young

sexuality and the rigid constraints of Catholicism.

student of the Jesuits when he first explored the dark delights of Dublins red light district and, as is movingly portrayed in his book, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the church became for Joyce first of all a repressive symbol of unrelenting punishment and finally a logical absurdity from which the artist, in quest for freedom, had to escape. It is my

contention, therefore, that Joyces need for a father figure and his equally strong need for an altar at which to worship

culminated, in part, in his artistic use of Masonic symbolsand ritual as the synthesis and catharsis of his longing. Let us now consider the book, Ulysses, and how it provides an artistic framework for this catharsis. All 800 pages of it

describe the events ofa they relate to the

single day in Dublin, June 16, 1904, as peregrinations fand thoughts of three

individuals, Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife, Molly. The title rather boldly indicates that there is some symbolic

connection between the events and personages in the book and the mythic heroics of Homers epic poem, the Odyssey. Indeed, Joyce

revealed the explicit parallel structure of his book in relation to the Odyssey to Stuart Gilbert, who wrote James Joyces Ulysses at Joyces urging to clarify all the classic parallels and generally 35

explore the architecture of the work.

Suffice it to say that

Leopold Bloom, an advertising canvasser for a Dublin newspaper, is the modern Ulysses, and every encounter he has during the events of June 16 has a symbolic parallel to the Homeric epic. Stephen

Dedalus represents Telemachus, Odysseuss son, and Molly is, of course, Penelope, the faithful wife. Now keep in mind that with the writing of Ulysses and Finnegans

Wake, Joyce became one of world literatures great comic artists. While Ulysses might not on the surface seem to be a funny book, if one reads it with conscious awareness of the juxtaposition of its characters and events with those of the Odyssey, one can

immediately appreciate its delightful humor. strong, cunning and heroic, Leopold Bloom

Where Odysseus was is a mild-mannered His wife, with her

survivor of the day-to-day contingencies of his life. Molly, far from being the faithful Penelope, sleeps

business manager on that very day, not unbeknowst to her husband, who ironically conquers cuckoldry, not by opposing it as in the Homeric epic, but by accepting its inevitability and thus

transcending it. searching for

And finally, Stephen Dedalus is a young scholar meaning to his life, a man who briefly

some

encounters his wastrel father throughout the day and who is, in the end, rescued from adversity by Leopold Bloom, the transubstantial father he has always sought and through whose serendipitous

influence he can rise above his current state of artistic paralysis and become the artist that writes Ulysses. Leopold Bloom, ten years previously, had a son, Rudy, who

unfortunately died at 11 days old.

Although Leopold and Molly have

a daughter, Milly, who is 15 years old and alive and well when the action of the book takes place, it is the dead childs ghost that haunts their relationship. all the years thereafter, Indeed, following Rudys death and for Leopold and Molly have not had sex

together, although each is fully functional as the events of June 16 bear out. What Joyce portrays, therefore, is a spiritual

malaise that can only be bridged by a cathartic transubstantiation among father, son and holy spirit, a transubstantiation that occurs as the climax of Ulysses and results in the redisposition of the order of nature, enabling Leopold to return that evening in triumph to his unfaithful wifes bed. And Odysseus, instead of making

breakfast in bed for his Penelope as generally occured in the Bloom household, morning. will, himself, be served breakfast in bed the next

37

Now, just as Ulysses consists of chapter-by-chapter parallels to Homers Odyssey, it is also a symbolic compendium of human

knowledge with each chapter symbolically representing a different art or science. (I have enclosed with this paper a copy of the

chart prepared by Joyce for Stuart Gilbert to use while writing his exegesis.) The Telemachus episode uses theology as its symbolic

framework, the Nestor episode uses history, the Proteus episode philology, and so on. for each of its If the use of a separate domain of knowledge chapters reminds freemasons of the

eighteen

progression of knowledge symboized by walking the steps one by one in the taking of the Fellowcraft degree, I would venture to say the similarity is not coincidental. Let us therefore look at the chapter with the most specificallyMasonic references: chapter eight, the Lestrygonian chapter. In

Homers Odyssey, the Lestrygonians were a tribe of cannibals that Odysseus and his men encountered and from which they escaped. In

the action of the novel, the Lestrygonians are the patrons of Burtons pub who are depicted very realistically as a rather

uncouth crowd, spitting and hacking and mking of their lunches a very anuseating spectacle, so nauseating that Leopold Bloom must leave the place in spite of his hunger for the more sublime waters of Davy Byrnes moral pub. The art of art this can chapter there is be architecture. for the Now what of more

appropriate references? survey of

inclusion

Masonic

The substance of Dr. Alberts article is an in-depth the individual references to Masonic symbols, King

Solomon, chapter.

the

Temple

of

Jerusalem,

etc.,

that

occur

in

this

I will not presume to restate the material Dr. Albert so But I would like to quote the specific passage in the teachings of Freemasonry (quoted from a

fully presents. which he

relates

preface to the Masonic edition of the Bible) to the acts of Leopold Bloom portrayed in this chapter: Masonry teaches man to practice charity and benevolence, to protect chastity, to respect the ties of blood and friendship, to adopt the principles and revere ordinances of religion, to assist the feeble, guide the blind, raise up the downtrodden, shelter the orphan, guard the altar, support the government, inculcate

morality, promote learning, love man, fear God, implore His mercy and hope for happiness. It would not be necesary to find in Mr. Bloom each one of these qualities in order to conclude that, for whatever reason, he

follows precepts of a like order. activities in this episode, jwe

But if we pause to examine his find an astonishingly exact

correlation to the Masonic Teaching.

It is as though Joyce had

used the code as a blueprint on which to construct the actual movement of the chapter on its story-level. Referring to the

Teaching, phrase by phrase, we find that Mr. Bloom: Feeds the gulls Banbury cakes which he buys from a poor old applewoman; thinks protectively of a nun at the Tranquilla convent; discreetly sidesteps the advances of Mrs. Josie Powell Breen;

reflects on the ordinances and principles of religion a propos of Rev. Dr. John Alexander Dowie; considers obstetrical techniques for 39

easing

the

labor supports

of

pregnant

Mrs.

Purefoy;

guides champions

blind of Joe

stripling;

actively

thedowntrodden

Chamberlain; concerns himself about the poverty of the orphan Dilly Dedalus; reflects on the luminous crucifix and the druids

altars; supports the legal and juridical rule of Sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder; approves the moral pub of Davy Byrne;

promotes learning by seeking the meaning of parallax, a word he found in the fascinating little book of Sir Robert Ball; is recognized by Nosey Flynn as ...not too bad...He has been known to put his hand down to help a fellow.; fears a nocturnal vision of the luninous crucifix...Our Savior. and see him on the wall, hanging. Wake up in the dead of night Peppers ghost idea.; implores

mercy on the soul of the condemned prisoner, and also scans an alms-placard for Mercers Hospital; and happily hopes for The not far distant day. Home Rule sun rising up in the northwest.

Thus Joyce has Bloom demonstrate in his actions in this chapter that he lives hislife according to the principles of Masonic

authenticity. I will further follow Joyces use of Masonic symbolism to

explore, along with Dr. Albert, whether or not Leopold Bloom, the books protagonist, is, in fact, a Mason. The answer (and in this

I concur with Dr. Albert) lies in the Circe episode, chapter 15, the climax of Ulysses. First, however, I must digress from Joyces Ulysses to a work of art that is overtly Die Masonic in The theme Magic and structure: Mozart Mozarts was a

magnificent

Zauberflote,

Flute.

speculative Mason and, in The Magic Flute, portrays a young man, Tamino, who is initiated into a secret society of men that is led by the wizard-like and forbidding Sarastro, a symbol of a Masonic Lodges Worshipful Master. It is only through Taminos initiation

into the secret society that he then can enjoy their mystical support and protection. Tamino is in love with Pamina, the

daughter of the Queen of the Night, who is Sorastros sworn enemy. The Queens servant, Monastatos, demands Pamina for himself as he had been promised, but Sorastros magical intervention at the very end of the opera, amidst thunder and lightning, propels both Thus,

Monastatos and his evil Queen to the bowels of the earth.

both Tamino and Pamina are made free to love one another and live freely together. And thus by providing Tamino with his soulmate,

Sarastro completes Taminos transformation from initiate to full mastery of his soul through love. Masonic ideal of life can there What fineer expression of the be? In fact, it was my

acquaintance with The Magic Flute many years ago that first piqued my interest in Freemasonry to the extent that, at my first

opportunity just this year, I became a member of the Brotherhood. In Joyces Ulysses, following the Homeric parallel,Leopold Bloom subconsciously seeks a union with a spiritual son, since death has deprived him of his own consubstantial son. Just as Odysseus

returned to rescue his son, Telemachus, form the predations of his mothers suitors, so, too, on June 16, 1904 Leopold Bloom, through a number of serendipitous encounters, becmes the guardian of

Stephen Dedalus.

He rescues Stephen from an assault by British

41

soldiers in Dublins red light district and brings him home with him that evening for some cocoa and conversation. He even attempts

to arrange music lessons for Stephen with Molly (a professional singer) in order to encourage more visits by the young man. learn in the final she, chapter like (Mollys long, Pamina in mellifluous We

interior her

monologue)

that

Mozarts opera,

loves

husband - in spite of her recent and contemplated future liaisons more than anyone else. They are now soulmates in a profound

relationship that did not, nor could have existed at the beginning of the day. Symbolically, with then, Stephen Dedalus, the through his

transubstantiation

Leopold

Bloom,

becomes

fully-souled And Leopold

artist who is ready to go forth and write Ulysses.

Bloom is for the first time that fully-souled Father who lhas transcended strife and impermanence and is ready to rest - his beautiful wife at his side - among the stars. Now that we have rather impudently leaped to the end of Ulysses, we must return to chapter 15 and examine the use of Masonic ritual that comprises the moment of transubstantiation between Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. It is here at the very end of chapter

15 that the reader is given evidence that Leopold Bloom is, in fact, a Mason. having been Stephen is stretched out on the sidewalk, drunk, by a British soldier who was visiting

punched

Nighttown.

Bloom stands over him, watchful, not quite catching the

young mans garbled recitation of Yeatss poem, Song of Fergus: Bloom (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In

the

shady

wood.

The

deep

white

breast.

Ferguson,

think

caught.

A girl.

Some girl.

Best thing could happen to him...

(He murmurs) ...swear that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts... (He murmurs) ... in the rough sands of the sea... a cabletows length from shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows... (Silent, thoughtful, alert, he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips in the attitude of secret master...)

By reciting the Masonic Order of Secrecy, Bloom reveals- if only to the reader - that he, indeed, is a Master Mason. And it is at

this moment that he has a vision of his son, Rudy, now ten years old and holding hovering the the over same lambswool blanket This with is which the he was of and

buried, Ulysses,

Stephen of

Dedalus.

climax Bloom

moment

transubstantiation

between

Dedalus, a renounced Catholics artistic portrayal of the sublime oneness of the Father (Bloom), the Son (Dedalus) and the Holy Spirit (Rudy), replacing the Latin invocation of the Trinity, In nomine Patri, Fili et Spiritus Sancti, with the sign and oath of the Freemason.

43

Thus did James Joyce, who had renounced his nation and his religion for a life of exile and artistic creation, find in the avowal of Freemasonry the symbolism, ritual and confraternity that he had sought. While his Does this mean that Joyce was, himself, a Mason? of ritual phrasing might imply such a

knowledge

conclusion, I have given this much thought and the more I think about it, the less likely it seems. the spiritual concept underlying He certainly must have admired Freemasonry regarding the

perfectibility of the human soul through the mutual Brotherhood.

support of a

But there is no concrete evidence of his membership

either in the many biographies of Joyce or in the records of Masonic societies. Joyces willingness There is also the major question regarding to avow a belief in a Supreme Being. It

iscertain that he renounced all organized religion and his interest in the Old Testament was no more than his interest in any of the dozens of faiths from which he drew symbols, allusions and

references.

Could he have so pledged himself given the premise of

a Blakean Nobodaddy or some such transcendental voice of thunder? Again, while such an entity could play a comic role in his art, as it does in Finnegans Wake, it is not likely that he would have Finally, two letters Joyce

asserted such as a personal theism.

wrote to his friend and fellow artist, Frank Budgen, written when Ulysses was nearing completion in 1921 (in February and November, respectively), requesting cheap on Freemasonry Budgen to obtain for him any handbook and Any little handbook of British

Freemasonry, would seem to confirm the supposition that he was not a first-hand participant in the ritual and needed to explore

extraordinary measures to obtain such reference works. line, however, remains:

The bottom

James Joyce, the major literary figure of

the 20th century, utilized the symbolism of Freemasonry as the cornerstone of the greatest work of humanist fiction written to date and that, whether Joyce was a enough. Mason or not, is significant

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