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aedifico42| The Masonic Myth

Posted at: 6:38 pm

  For too long, the academic snobs in our Craft have taken great pains to dispell the Masonic Myth.  This myth - that our order is directly descended from the Knights Templar - is one that has never and will never be proven.  At the same time, nobody is ever going to prove that Zeus was whacked by Hermes, that King Arthur pulled a sword out of a rock or that pizza was created by Italians.  But nobody is ever going to dis-prove these things either. 

That’s why we call them myths.

  One must wonder, then,  why so many Masonic scholars (including Arizona’s Past Grand Master himself!) would be so strong in their advocacy against the idea of a direct Templar-Mason tie?  Is it the arrogance of the intelligencia?  Is it their “I’m smarter than you and your silly-little fantasies” superiority complex?  It is probably neither.  Most Masonic scholars are dedicated to the search for Light.  They are constantly applying the scientific tools of their trade to deduct the truth from the muddled history that extends into the mists of time.  They are on their own “Grail Quest” for the Truth regarding our past, and we appreciate them for continuing to try to clarify this great question. 

  That notwithstanding, there remains no concrete proof in either direction.  We may never be able to know with any certainty whether or how Mason did or did not descend from the Knights Templar. 

  Here is where you, dear reader, must pick-up a copy of Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces and read it.  After finishing this book, you may proceed with the rest of this Blog.  If you are not willing to take the time and effort to read that book before going-on, you may still generally understand the main point, but you won’t understand it very well.  If you have already read the book, you already know where I’m going. 

  Campbell writes: “Throughout the inhabited world, in all time and under every circumstance, the myths of man have flourished; and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and mind.  It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.  Religions, pholosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.”

  We know the value of myth to the Human Species.  Myth binds and unites men under rules and understandings.  Myth gives us a common history and herritage, and helps set the shining example for us to follow.  Myths set-forth the life lessons that we are to learn from.  Myth allows us to avoid possibly horrible experiences from the lessons taught by the mythical characters playing-out their parts in these timeless dramas.  In short, myths have value to societies. 

  And while we can see the value in a thing that only WE possess - the Masonic Myth of Templar Origin - one must wonder what value there is in debunking that myth?  What do we gain by destroying that connection…by de-mystifying our past, by forsaking a noble and hallowed history? 

  This is an argument for mystery.  It is an argument, not against the “Truth” spoken-to above, but a plea to the Masonic scholars who seek it.  Don’t strip our Craft of it’s traditions and stories.  Don’t blow-out the Light of the campfire in favor of the Light of a flourescent bulb.  Please refrain from absolutist claims that there is no grand connection under any circumstances. 

  Our Craft is at the beginning of a great Masonic renaissance.  We thirst for and thrive from the power of the myths that bind us.  Ours is the reniassance of the new Mason.  He is a Man who, more synical than past generations, needs more than ever to be able to hang onto someting bigger than himself.  He needs ideas and connections to a time and a place that he cannot own, but must work to own.  We must give him, through our myth, the motivation to “fail in his quest for perfection.”

  It is only through this “hero’s journey” that the Mason can attain the spiritual connection he seeks, to his Brothers, to his Lodge and to the Supreme Architect. 

  Long live the myth!

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