Mission Impossible A Fellowcraft Paper Presentation Introduction

My Brothers,

I have now produced ten or so papers and a few poems in hopes of tilting your heads ever so slightly, to that less sure but open place. That place where you might reconsider if but for a moment, your sureties.

Recurring themes and desires seem to impregnate each of the prior said works and chief among them at least for me, is the merit of service or worth. And tho the actual merit of said papers or works to an educational end can be debated and have; the spirit in which they were conceived cannot.

Brothers, somewhere I’ve heard it said that you can’t teach a man something he already knows, or give a man something which he already possesses. In esoteric education, two thoughts come to mind.

1.) “Man, know thyself and thou shall know the universe and the gods”.1

2.) “I am, that I am”.2

These two thoughts have loomed large for me lately and have given me cause to study the Tarot as a means to unfold them, a means to travel a path of self discovery, by way of the Magician within.

While many of you may say to yourselves just now, what nonsense is this, The Magician within?

I caution you now, not to close down your minds by returning so safely to the confines of your inherited demarcations, and let pass all that is to come, by way of hard words.

I would ask that you dwell for a moment, even labor if you must, over the manifold significations of words towards the esoterical, where you might come to a realization. A realization that in the Tarot, to the Magician is ascribed the number 1, symbolizing the initiation of the creative process, the Objective Mind, the fixed center or personality from which force is able to push or radiate.

I encourage you my Brothers, to continue in these thoughts and sojourn amongst the other hard words con- tained and imagine if but for a moment, the Macrocosm through the Microcosom, by way of the Tarot.

I give you now tonights presentation of Mission Impossible, where through the breifiest of imagined mo- ments and your resistence to them, you will be both entertained and exposed my Brothers, by degree, as courage allows. Mission Impossible A Fellowcraft Paper

by Robert Gordon Kille Adobe Lodge #41

had been holding on to this topic of the Three Great Lights of Freemasonry in my mind for Isome time, with more than a few false starts at writing something of worth.

One day, I overheard Master Ron talking about pos- sibly crafting a new mission statement for our now, Traditional Observance Lodge. And, as if by Magic, this idea hits me to try my hand at it, the crafting of it, using a divining technique known as Bibliomancy.

Bibliomancy, that’s where you hold onto a thought or problem you’d like some insight into, pick up a and randomly open it with your eyes closed and then put your finger on a page. The paragraph or passage touched reveals a possible insight sought for the problem.

But instead of using a Holy Bible, I decided to use a Tarot deck. So I got out my deck of 78, shuffled and mixed, then pulled one card for each of the Three Great Lights while holding on to a pre-meditated thought or intention corrosponding to each Great Light in turn.

This process of Biblomancy or divining may be thought of as intellectual intuition and is how we as individuals in everyday life, come to some personal conclusions as to what it all means.

Creating a proper intention, or the “x” to be solved for is crucial to a successful outcome in the divining process and should be given its due weight. A proper intention, or intentions in our case, are formed by seeing in a sense, a future tense.

To speculate: to see where we are not, but wish to be, for reasons of our felicity. he intentions I used were crafted in terms of a Lodge and are therefore yours as well as mine, thus you are enjoined sideways; in an active participation of said Bibliomancy by Tarot, as courage Tallows.

Now, this bit of dirty work below, with one point being still depressed is mine and mine alone.

For it is I, with the active part, the intentional part, the fixing and picking parts, to which this divine expression starts. These intentions may have deeper meanings known only to myself, however, they will also have deeper meanings for you, of which, I myself cannot possibly know.

So, if you wish to participate in this exercise all you have to do is use some intellectual intuition and put your understandings into some meaningful framework / mission statement of your own.

The Intentions:

1.) Holy Bible: A lodge ascending by degree, with light added to the coming light, reunion is for thee.

2.) Square: By perfect points, Oh Egyptian Maid, I love ye in every way.

3.) Compasses: Bounded are, outsides in.

A little spell casting for my neophyte And the cards are... friends... Mix and shuffle, Shuffle and mix, The Holy Bible: The Sun XIX Intoxed betwixed Meanings of stitch, The Square: The Moon XVIII

Intentions for which, The Compasses: Nine Of Pentacles Cards are a picked

Now on to the Bibliomancy of sorts.

I don’t know, has it struck you yet, that I couched the intentions in terms of the Three Great Lights and the cards picked represent the three Lessor Lights in order! The Sun, The Moon & Master of the Lodge.

It may be noted here that the entire deck of 78 cards was used in this . A fleeting thought as to using just the 22 Major arcana or Trumps cards alone registered just before the shuffle, but was given no heed. shall stop here and give a brief background on the Tarot for those of you who may be Iunfamiliar with it.

The earliest mention of Tarot was in the late 1300’s and it’s exact origin and original intent is still debated to this date. However, some historians believe that the Tarot was originally only used as a gaming deck to play a game called Tarocchi.

Others believe that the Egyptian High Priests fearing their knowledge could be lost if kept contained to only a few; purposely encoded the 22 Trump cards with the magical wisdom written by Thoth, the Egyptian God of in- spired written knowledge. They then dissem- inated them to the masses as a vice (gaming), so that their knowledge would never be lost through the ages.

It is most likely that occultists of every age rec- ognized some of the universal keys and divini- tory aspects of the deck and used them in their trade, and so, the Tarot deck has always been somewhat associated with them.

Etteilla, an occultist in 1783, offered his inter- pretations of the cards and thereafter in the 19th century came the mystic Eliphas Levi Za- hed, who connected the Egyptian symbolism with the Hebrew Alphabet and the Tree Of Life of the Kabbala while also incorporating and angelology.

Adding in a bit of the renaissance magic of Henry Cornelius Agrippa to the minor arcana, the 56 lower cards, we have the esoteric Tarot of the 19th century.

Eliphas Levi saw the Tarot as a key to life, a tool that man can use to develop himself as a human being, as a way to grow so that he might find heaven on earth.

Ok, now that we have the cards picked, in what manner do we decipher their meaning?

Your first clue in this is your own intellectual intuition regarding your understandings of the intentions for each Great Light in relation to the card picked for them. It would be absurd for me to state that you must have a complete knowledge of all the symbolism and such, relating to the Tarot cards, for if that was the case we’d have no need of guidance by intellectual intuition, right? our intuition is going to lead you to a rabbit hole of thought or a Ysymbol of knowledge, and that’s where you’ll start, and where I’ll start this process now.

The first thing that jumped out at me was that The Three Great Lights were being represented in order, by the Three Lessor Lights.

After we figure out, or imagine why this might be so, we need to address how this order might relate to the craft- ing of a Lodge mission statement.

Ok, I’m sure you got something in mind like Order, Duality, Degree or possibly the Three x Three of Masonry.

Next we move on to the question of in- tentions for each Great Light and the card picked for guidance in each.

Let’s say that the Holy Bible represents the building of the temple not made by hand and the intention represents our Lodge Brothers working together to build within ourselves this temple. The card picked to give guidance in this is, The Sun.

Let’s say that the Square represents right action and the intention represents the virtues or powers re- lated to service and brotherly love. The card picked to give guidance in this is, The Moon.

Let’s say that the Compasses represents focus of thought contained and the intention represents in- ward thought regarding the self. The card picked to give guidance in this is, The Master of the Lodge.

So our duty you might say, has to do with figuring out just how these Lessor Lights effect, and their order integrate or speak to the intentions in a way that might guide us to the crafting of a mission statement for the lodge.

Wait a minute, not so fast buddy. How’d you get the 9 of Pentacles to be the same thing as Master of the Lodge? Ok, fair question. I went down the rabbit hole of Pentacles and found - The Key of Solo- mon. Was not Solomon master of his Lodge / Temple? Of Pentacles and Pentagrams oh my... What is a pentacle? Depends on who you ask, some dictionary’s have it to be the same meaning as a pentagram while others define it more specifically as a type of talisman, and others describe it as a talisman scribed with a circumscribed pentagram.

A Talisman is generally considered to be an object infused with a particular essence or quality. For the purpose of this paper a Talisman is an object made of materials reflecting one of the 7 planetary influ- ences in which a symbol, symbols or words are written/scribed under magical conditions while holding an intention of focus, an infusion of quality, for which the Talisman is to attract or repel. The general round nature of a Talisman represents the circumscription or container of focus into which the magic of the essence and scribe is to manifest.

I’m going to head down this path of the Talisman if for just a little, so that we may have a semblance of the meaning given for the intention of Compasses as relates to the 9 of pentacles. And to move things along, I’m going to give you some cliff notes to the inner meanings of the pentagram and let you do the real work inherent in the manifold signifi- cation of all things, esoterical.

Starting with a description of the Pentagram symbol from the venerable Eliphas Levi:

“The Pentagram expresses the mind’s domination over the elements and it is by this sign that we bind the demons of the air, the spirits of fire, the spectres of water, and the ghosts of earth. It is the Star of the Magi, the burning star of the Gnostic schools, the sign of intellectual omnipotence and autocracy.

It is the symbol of the Word made Flesh.... The sign of the Pentagram is called also the sign of the Microcosm, and it represents what the Cabalists of the Zohar term the Microprosopus. Its com- plete comprehension is the key of the two worlds -- it is absolute natural philosophy and natural science.

All mysteries of magic, all symbols of the gno- sis, all figures of occultism, all Cabalistic keys of , are resumed in the sign of the Penta- gram, which Paracelsus proclaims to be the great- est and most potent of all. It is indeed the sign of the absolute and universal synthesis”. Who knew the Pentagram was all that! But there’s more. If we peek inside Albert Pike’s “Lecture on Masonic Symbolism and A second Lecture on Sym- bolism: The Omkara and Other Ineffable Words”, we find again that the Pentagram is related to creation centuries before the Bible was ever written.

It might come as a complete surprise to some, but the in- tention, “bounded are, outsides in”, for the compasses can be found at the heart of the Rosicrucian Cube and Cross.

In The True And Invisible Rosicrucian Order, by Paul Case, “we find that the Hexagram in a pattern of a cube is able to unfold into a cross, and this symbol, is the great symbol of Macrocosm. On the central square of this cross which would be the bottom of the cube if the cross were folded up, is fixed a rose of five petals.

This is the symbol of the Microcosm, Man, because it is really a Pentagram. Its five petals represent the five sens- es, as do the five points of the Pentagram. As the flower of Venus it represents the desire nature and the secret force of which Venus and the metal copper are symbols.

When the rose is fastened to the fundamental and central square of the cross, the meaning is that the desire nature of man has been unified with the One Law that is the basis of all manifestation. Close up the cross so that it forms a cube, and the rose will be hidden within it. The center of the rose and the center of the foundation square are the same.”

To refresh, bounded are outsides in.

Earlier I stated that today’s esoteric Tarot is closely linked to Hebrew mysticism through the Hebrew Al- phabet and the Cabbala and, in my introduction I have stated that in my previous writings their have been recurring themes and desires, one of which is “Pregnancy and Conception”. Imagine my surprise when reading The Alef-Beit - By Rabbi Ginsburgh and finding that the Hebrew letter Tet is numerically equivalent to 9 and in his opinion, symbolizes pregnancy and conception.

The first use of the letter Tet in the Torah is in the word TOV, meaning good. It is also found in Genesis 1:4: “And God saw that the light was good”.

Rabbi Ginsburgh goes on to say that “the form of Tet is inverted, thus symbolizing the hidden goodness and the union of the groom and bride consummating with conception. The secret of the form Tet, is the power of the mother to carry her inner , concealed good - the fetus - through the period of pregnancy.” he Tet also takes the form of a serpent, which, is thought to symbolize the Ttransformation of man through the law of vibration.

I would only here care to add - a rectitude of conduct and the perfect points of entrance.....

Man’s transformation through higher thoughts, nobler deeds and greater achievements.

Clearly, more is to be had if we were to stay down this rabbit hole of the 9 of pentacles, or continue down the other rabbit holes pertain- ing too, The Sun and The Moon.

However, this paper is meant only to be a short game played to invoke your sensibilities by way of incomplete answers, and so I leave it incom- plete, to your hearts desire.

I will however give you my start to the mission statement crafted out of these three intentions representing the Three Great Lights and their guiding cards: The Sun, The Moon and the 9 of Pentacles.

For ours is the Victorious Life....

I’m going to stop here as according to Most Worshipful, I’ve already lost half my audience with the use of the word Victorious.

However, I will say that my version of the mission statement has something to do with helping members to the Victorious Life, by way of a complete understanding of the perfect law of divine expression, as cour- age allows. Reference: Mission Impossible

1. at Delphi - Introduction 2. Exodus 3:14 - Introduction 3. The Key Of Solomon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_of_Solomon