Walking into the Self: A Thesis on Circumambulation

Br. Jason M. Pittman

Abstract

The role circumambulation plays in the initiation rituals of masonic degrees has been analyzed at various levels of resolution. On one hand, we hold that circumambulation is a way to inspect candidates. On the other hand, we take the act as symbolic: at once indicative of the heavenly bodies and other times revealing purification of the spirit. Yet, a unifying answer to the question of why we engage in circumambulation has eluded essayists and researchers. Thus, the purpose of this work is to advance the thesis that circumambulation is a function which reintegrates the Jungian concept of Self dispersed across nonlinear time as a means of preparing the initiate's consciousness to decode the morality embedded in our allegories and symbols.

Introduction

Brothers: I come to you with questions and to communicate my thoughts on potential answers to such questions. There have been many before me to investigate the role of circumambulation in the Craft. Understandbly, there are a variety of explanations for the tracing of a physical path across our checkered floor. What I present now is not intended to replace those explanations. Rather, my goal is to provide a unifying explaination of why circumambulation is viewed as a means of inspecting candidates, as a connection to the Divine via heavenly bodies, and a purification of the spirit. The principal means to unify such ideas becomes available to us when we consider two new concepts overlaying existing ideas about circumambulation: (a) non-linear time and (b) individuation of the Self.

I will begin with by quoting a familiar assertion: freemasonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.

This quote is the motivation for this work as it, in my opinion, states the explicit purpose of freemsonary. At face value, we are being told what freemasonry is. We can refer to this is as the content one should expect to find within masonry; morality veiled in allegorty and illustrated by symbols. However, we are left to assume the consequence of becoming a mason, of adopting this system of morality. Furthermore, and to the main point of this thesis, we are left to speculate as to the means of working with veiled allegories and illustrated symbols such that the system of morality is open to us.

As with all things in masonry, there are additional layers of meaning. With sufficient experience, all the necessary signs to render speculation into discovery become known. Let us take a few moments to establish such experience.

System

Question: what is a system in the context of masonry?

The term system is critical. We can take a system to be an interconnection of mechanisms operating in concert to produce a grander whole. Because of the interconnection between mechanisms, and the interconnection between systems (i.e., systems of systems), what we are going to explore is necessarily complex. The idea of links interlinked is important. For example, the Lodge is a system. The degrees acted out within the Lodge are systems within the Lodge as a system. Elsewhere, our bodies are systems comprised of individual cells which are themselves systems. At an opposite extreme, the Universe is a system within which all other systems exist. Fortunately, we need not be presently occupied by the nature of the mechanisms within these systems. Rather, we are interested in a singlular item driving them- a function.

You see, at the center of any system is the system's function. We must be careful with our use of the term as function can take on disparate meaning. I suggest we take guidance from the Liberal Arts and use function in the arithmetic sense. More specifically, a function relates or maps inputs to outputs. We will come back to this in more detail later. For now, we can pose another an important question: what is the input and output of the masonic system's function?

As a side note, we can consider the system in this context as the manifested Logic in the Trivium.

Morality

According to the quote motivating this work, morality is masonry. This begs the question then, what does morality mean in the context of the masonic system?

Masonic literature [Tucker][Hogan][Pike] uniformly professes that morality is living right or existing in a state of goodness. Such rightness or goodness has, in the West at least, Judeo-Christian origins and foundations. This begs an important question however: if morality is prescribed in religious texts as volumes of Sacred Law, why do we need masonry as a system of morality in addition to? The prima facie explanation is that we are not dealing with the same morality in both cases.

On one hand, we have what I believe to be the common inculcation of morality as an ethic. This is the Sacred Law interpretation and is summarized as doing, "...right if you can; if questionable do not do it; and above all do no harm." [Kumar]. These are the good habits exposed by Aristotle as the basis for moral virtue. While masonry certainly develops better Men through repeated instruction of good habits, I do not think the motivating statement we are examining uses morality only in this context.

Therefore, on the other hand, we can take the notion of living right as a reference to the state of the Self. More specifically, not just with Self but in relation or reference to Self itself. In other words, masonry as a system of morality is the embodidment of the Self in all its dimensions. In this sense, the instantiation of morality can only be fully understood through the individuation or unification of Self in the Jungian context.

Thus, masonary is a system-function which places morality as the ouput. What then is the input?

Veils and Allegories

Question: how is morality extracted from allegory by the masonic system?

Question: why is morality veiled in allegory?

Now, we must handle the input to our masonic system-function: veiling of morality through allegory. For the purposes of this work, we must take veiled as indirect and not as covered. Strictly speaking allegory is a story containing a hidden meaning. Accordingly, we can infer that the masonic system of morality is transmitted through story or narrative and thus is indirectly communicated. On that note, Strayer (1982) outlined four types of allegory: literal, typological, tropological, and anagogical. There are several layers of connections here that must be unpacked before we venture further.

First, the four types of allegory, according to medieval thinkers [Barney], correspond to the past, a connection between the past to the present, the present, and the future. This not only gives us a means to interpret time but also provides insight into how the masonic system-function interlinks input (i.e., allegory and symbol) across these times. Second, the four corners of the lodge serve as vertices adjoining the segments of the lodge floor. At least one corner is dealt with explicitly in our degrees as an origin vertex, the northeast corner. However, the other three corners are no less important. Third, the floor itself is allegorical in shape and substance. More specifically, the shape is a four-sided geometric symbol that contains four substances broken down into two colors and two lengths. Lastly, we have the four stations positioned around the rectangular path. These are a set of vertices in addition to the four corners: acting similarly but serving a different purpose.

Allegory is the Rhetoric in the Trivium.

It might be easier to think of veiling as encoding. Encoding is a computational process whereby one unit is taken to represent another unit. This begs the question: what are these units in the context of masonry?

Illustrations and Symbols

Question: why is morality encoded in illustrations and symbols?

Mackey referred to freemasonry as a "...science of symbols" (section XVI). Therefore, we can take masonry to be a system for building and organizing knowledge. More specifically, in this circumstance masonry does so through a symbol and within that symbol, employing adjacent or nested symbols. In fact, symbols are strategically placed about the Lodge. In this way, we can take circumambulation to collect or process these symbols.

Now, as with allegory, symbols have a myriad of forms. For our purposes herein, we need to distinguish between actual and representational symbols [Tucker]. The actual symbol is the thing as it is and corresponds to literal allegory. Often, such symbols are individual constructions. A beehive is one such actual symbol when taken as the home of bees. Then, we can also identify the bee as an actual symbol apart from the hive. Taken further, the symbol beehive combines the two actual symbols into a representation of industry and is aligned with tropolical allegorty (i.e., morality). Probing deeper still, the beehive representational symbol can be situated amongst other symbols and thus emerges an allegory for speculative masonry building a house not made by hands.

The operational premise is serves at the individual symbol level, therefore the semantic of any given symbol is limited. However, taken in a collective, symbols are combined to form allegory which is then processed as input to the masonic system-function. Symbols are, in several different contexts, letters or characters. We use the masonic system-function to work (assemble-disassemble) with these letters.

Masonic symbols are connected to the Grammar in the Trivium.

In this way, symbols take on discrete meaning. While debate may ensue regarding the semantic value of a given symbol, such debate is focused on finer interpretation of detail and not constructed knowledge. With that said, we can now begin to understand how such knowledge is constructed and to what end.

Segue

We have suitably defined the boundary of this work. We know what we are aiming at so to speak. That being the case, I would like to outline the two major points of my thesis: time and Self.

Non-linear Time

Question: why is time perceived to be linear in masonic ritual?

The common perception of time is discrete and linear. A past, present, and future all distinct from one another. However, recall the way the concept of allegory outlines time for us. At a literal level of analysis, allegory may appear linear. Yet, I argue that time within the ritual of circumambulation must necessarily be non-linear and that is what allegory is illustrating at the conceptual level. The rationale for my claim is as follows.

Kant argued that time is an a priori construct we use in combination with a priori knowledge of space to construct experience. On a related note, and perhaps more germane to this thesis, Heidegger suggested that we are time insofar as our existence fixes the past in a present. The implication here is that past-present is a unified time construct wherein both points and segments of time co-exist. Given the nature of allegory, we can extend the concept to include future as well. I suggest this is a strong hint as to why non-linear time is necessary in our circumambulation.

Outlined more specifically, non-linear time perception is what allows us to connect our present and future- the time in which we are circumambulating- to the past. Thus, all times are co-existing as we move in one unbroken, fully interlinked fashion. Indeed, time must be non-linear because this is what allows us to integrate allegory and symbol across vast spans of narrative as input to the circumambulation system-function.

Here it may be be helpful to imagine the path we trace during initiation not as a rectangle but as a graph. The graph consists of four major vertices (i.e., nodes) and four minor vertices. The major vertices are the cardinal directions. The minor are the four corners.

The square or rectangle is the second geometric shape possible in a simple, connected graph. Perhaps we can interpret the rectangle as being constructed thusly:

• An origin point in time and space (liberal art: astronomy)

• A concurrent tracing from the origin to two new points (divinity and earthliness)

• A simultaneous tracing back to a single point (unification of Self).

Thus drawn, we have what is a special form of graph circuit known as a cycle. The cycle concept is a symbol manifest across all four categories of allegory. Moreover, a cycle interlinks vertices-as-time across the graph or Lodge-as-World. Thus, the act of circumambulation acts as the system-function personified and non-linear time is the substrate within which the system-function is given form.

Tucker explains thusly: The ancients believed that the individual spirit incarnated (was born in the physical world), lived a life and then passed out of the physical world into a less material stage of existence where the results of the experiences here were worked and amalgamated into the spirit which then, after a period of rest, came back and was reborn again. Thus, the spirit developed or evolved, growing in character and powers and capacities as these were trained and fostered by its experiences in the physical world (pg 83).

Accrordingly, if we take non-linear as necessary, we are left with the burden of supplying a rationale underlying why we circumambulate at all.

Jungian Self

Question: why is the Self the object or aim of circumambulation?

Let us take one of the first symbols we encounter: the dot within a circle. Like the dot in the circle, the Self is central to all masonic undertakings. The great psychologist Carl Jung might explain thusly: the central dot in the circumscription is the Self. Further explained, the circumscription around the dot is the unification of all aspects of the Self.

I argue it is not coincidence that this is the pattern we trace during circumambulation. Reinforcing this idea is the instruction we receive to modulate our relationship with Man and the World as part of the same set of symbols. Yet, we are not instructed explicitly on the means to achieve this goal. This is where we must consult outside of the Craft.

Jung would suggest circumambulation is the implicit instruction. Certainly, Jung felt circumambultion was intrinsic to the process of becoming a complete or an individauted human being [Jung]. Relatedly, Johnson interpreted Jung's individuation idea as describing universal human traits amalgamated in the individual. By way of individuation, the individual becomes whole. Through circumambulation, we act out this integration process whereby all aspects of our person merge into Self. In this way, individuation works within the masonic context as anchored across the circumambulation graph are the de-individuated fragments of our Self. These are neatly placed around the lodge, illustrated in symbols and accessible through narrative allegory. Thus, we circumambulate to collect these fragments in a manner consistent with circumambulation carrying out the system-function.

Furthermore, whereas Jung argued that individuation involved combining shadow, anima, and animus, we masons seek to (re)integrate symbols and allegory into morality. What is more, Jung viewed shadow, anima, and animus as core archetypes or mental symbols. Albeit used with to express a slightly different semantic, the notion of symbols encompassing multiple levels of meaning should not be lost on us. In short, what we at first take to be a combination of symbols as allegorical narrative (i.e., Hermetic and Alchemical rhetoric) can be summarized in Jung's individuation.

We have a clue that this might be so insofar as Higgins' notion that circumambulation is tied to Mercury as both a planet orbiting the sun as well as the mythological embodiment of purifying fire. Moreover, such a notion taken in context of Waite's contextualization of alchemists' use of mercury, sulphur, and salt whereby, "...the metallic spirit and body are joined together inseparably by means of the metallic soul" seems to echo Jung's sentiments on individuation.

Conclusion

Mackey opined, "...the lodge is a symbol of the world" after considering the clockwise procession traced the movements of the sun through the sky. Additionally, Ivanyi notes that circumambulation is, "...where the real human being meets the Divine face-to-face" (pg 72). Notably, much of the existing literature gives significant treatment to the connection between circumambulation and two ancient systems: sun worship and prayer. Operationally, we use circumabulation to inspect our candidates. I add the following thought to the set of potential truths regarding circumambulation:

Circumambulation is a function (system) which reintegrates the Jungian concept of Self (morality) dispersed across nonlinear time (allegory and symbols).

What I have offered here is not entirely speculative on my part. Prior work by Lomas established the meta symbol of the Lodge as human consciousness. Lomas further noted that, masonry is the science of knowing oneself. The present work extends these ideas by integrating the depth and analytical psychology of Jung into the masonic gestalt. Further, we explored the neccisitude of non-linear time.

With those elements of this thesis behind us, let us mediate on the notion that we first experience and then learn the system of morality. I contend the system of morality must be integrated into our consciousness in precisely this manner and no other manner would do. After all, the message of art (i.e., illustrated symbols) must be experienced; it cannot be articulated. To that end, Higgins asserted Man possesses an "...infinite self-consciousness precipitated into material existence, through the labyrinth of which it is compelled to strive in ceaseless search for the Master's Word, the secret of its being and immortal destiny."

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