The Luck and the Extraordinary

THE LUCK AND THE EXTRAORDINARY

VICTOR MANUEL GUZMAN VILLENA

If one day we ate apples and they feed us, on the following day it would kill us; if our neighbor was an agreeable man and at the same time a maniac killer; the human life and the society would not resist it; in fact it might not have developed. But the regularity and the normality of the established order it is not all in the human kingdom.

The luck and the coincidence pops in often and mix up the mentioned regularity, provoking "without knowing how or why" events that affect in considerable form our well-being and our adversity. And it is just here where the luck enters in scene. Both the luck and the fortune are evidently vain. As says Horacio: "The happy fortune, is cruel action, and been obstinate on having played its perverse game, always changing its inconstant honors, favoring me now or some one else."

 

The luck is the antithesis of a reasonable expectation. It is evident in contra-indicated situations, events that are surprising because they are opposed to all kinds of predictable situations. Some of the fundamental examples of events that we should surprise are those that are out of our control and those which contingency is inherently eventful.

The luck grows between the probability and the reality, between what it is possible to wait reasonably (what for logic should happen) and what really happens. When both coincide, the luck disappears, the individual who obtains a foreseeable profit is fortunate, but it is not lucky. But when the good thing or the bad thing enters action in circumstances in which the reality disagrees with a reasonable expectation, of that time, the luck, already be good or bad, it is in scene.

Nevertheless, a happy or unhappy event can be a luck matter from the point of view of the recipient, even if it is a result of a strategy debated by others. (A beneficent secret that sends to us a check with an important quantity represents a blow of good luck, although it is something that he has planned for years). in such a way if someone different to the affected person is capable of predicting an unexpected event, it enters in the field of the luck for those that are implied.

THE GOOD THINGS

There are, in general, three ways to reach the good things in life as health, wealth and the success, and similar others: theoretically they can be achieved by means of the effort and the hard work (to the old style), or thanks to the fortune (for birth and heredity), or simply being lucky winning the "lottery of the life". Usually, for most of us and during most of the time, the good things are a fruit of the effort, the planning, the work and the determination.

The luck represents a way of obtaining them more easily, as if it was a question of a "gift of the gods". (And, of course, it works in two senses: what the good luck gives, the bad luck takes it). The luck comes to be a short cut that allows us to reach the good things of the life.

With good luck we obtain something for nothing, an unexpected and undeserved birth. Normally the good things that happen to us are a fruit of our skill, an our effort, while everything bad that happens to us is imputed, consequently, to our defects. But the luck provides an alternative route to us. For those that have the favors of the luck, "a blow of good luck is so good as a knowledge sack" ( says the saying). When someone admits that has good luck, the natural reaction not only is of surprise, but also of pleasing. To have a favor that to take to us as a game of circumstances when we have not asked for, is something that someone has the obligation to find agreeably.

THE EXPECTED

Since the luck implies that the things happen for good or for bad of unforeseeable form, it is deduced that it is necessary to think that the people are lucky whenever someone reaches the success beyond the reasonable level of sense of expectancy that their inherited qualities and acquired conditions would indicate. And on the contrary, those that fail beyond the reasonable level of sense of expectancy that their defects indicate, shortcomings and personal deficits, would be necessary to think that simply they have no luck. Therefore, whenever the things pass for normal and natural couses as someone hopes that should pass, the luck is not in scene.

The luck implies an alienation of the expected, and its place in the stage of the human matters insures itself for the fact that the conditions of the life are irregular, be of social, political or astrological character; the things do not always pass for normal and regular channels. Every one can have a bad day, even big champions like Tiger Woods or Michael Schumacher.

IT IS ALWAYS A GIFT

Does not matter what the good luck give to us, it is always a gift; whenever the luck is implied, it is not required to put ourselves to test our talent not even to realize any effort, and no merit it is in game. On the contrary, whatever the bad luck takes from us, it leaves our intact merits; our worth does not suffer any decrease when the luck is in game, demands neither a decrease of our talents nor a defeat of our effort.

The luck fond of our personal condition, but it does not reflect our personal worth. Alfaro, Allende, Guevara, Lincoln were murdered. Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan the Pope Juan Pablo II survived the attempts of murders. (In case of Truman he went out completely unharmed and it is possible to be said that he was lucky). In this context, no particular merit is added aside either of the dichotomy, or any special defect to other. When we say that it is as well as the luck works, we have said everything.

The coincidence is evident of more notable form when the improbable circumstances happen in fact. We are lucky especially when the things are favorable to us in spite of our inaction, or even more, in spite of the bad advices and the wrong actions. And hence, we have especially bad luck when the things gobad for us in spite of having done everything precise so that they were going out well.

The patient who recovers suddenly in spite of having taken the medicines that were not the right ones, is lucky; the one that deteriorates in spite of being take the precise medication and continue the suitable treatment, has no luck. In such cases, the logic of the common sense of the concrete situation indicates in a direction, while the dictations of the destination indicate in the opposite direction. The functioning of the luck is evident clearly in the favorable and adverse events that do not have to happen "for logic".

Between thousand shares in the stock-exchange some are destined to rise while others not, independently to that the moment is propitious or not. Numerous people have shares. Therefore, always will be losers and winners. And, given the eventful of the matter, the difference between them will generally depend only and exclusively of luck.

What does luck consist of?

WHAT DOES LUCK CONSIST OF?

Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

“If nothing stakes, nothing is gained”. “To prove luck” occasionally is something very reasonable, but “to trust in the luck” like a systematical politics to follow is simply a stupidity. What does the luck involve?

To determine that a person is lucky it is convenient to do two fundamental clarifications:

First of all, and as for the person in question, the result that takes place is completely "accidental". There has to be something eventful whenever we speak about luck. (We might not say that an individual is lucky because the mail has come to his house, unless there has happened a catastrophe in which there has lost the whole mail with important messages except that belong of some individuals and this person is one of them).

Secondly, the result in question is of big importance while it is a question of a positive or negative result, a loss or a benefit. (If X win the lottery, has been lucky; if Z is struck by a stone, has no luck; but if we consider a fortuitous event like which a person is momentarily in the shade because of a cloud, in this case it is not possible to speak about luck).

And so, the luck implies three things:

1st) a beneficiary and an affected one;

2nd) an event that turns out to be a favorable (positive) or adverse (negative) from the point of view of the interests of the affected individual, and that also,

3rd) be fortuitous (unexpected and unforeseen).

The luck (good or bad) always provided with a normative element of good or bad; someone has to be affected in a positive or negative way for an event before his execution could be a properly qualified positively or negatively. It is only and exclusively because we have interests, for what the things can affect us for good or for bad; this implies that the luck is in action.

We cannot say that a person should be lucky because finds pigeons in a square, or because sees a cloud on his head, while these phenomena do not affect to the well-being of a person. (It would be very different if he had bet on this matter).

With a normal individual, these slovenly episodes, namely the famous meeting with the windmills, for example, would be a misfortune. But for the knight errant Quixote of La Manchat with his strange madness and his eccentric way of considering the things, everything was for good like demonstration of the seriousness of his dedication to the chivalrous mission.

The suspense that is imposed in this case as for the luck or misfortune serves to support the topic of the luck in suspense: the possibility of benefit or loss is crucial for the luck. An inert element, namely, a rock or a hammer cannot be lucky. There can happen things that preserve them or that spoil them, but the absence of any element of affectivity means interests absence and therefore it discards the entry in action of the luck.

It might compare “the defeat of one negative event” with “one positive event”, and consequently, “the defeat of a positive event” with “a negative event”; the direct and indirect ways of the luck could be identified. (The above mentioned identification turns out to be commendable since, considering the equation to be mentioned above, fail of the negative - positive event, it seems completely appropriate.

Perhaps to avoid to lose is not to win, but it is, without place to doubt, something positive. In any case, the good luck is not a gain or profit of any type, but is take a risk and leaving victorious.

Rosicrucian Order

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER

To think with the heart and to love with the mind

Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena
M:.M:.

The concept Rosicrucian has a long history in Occident. It can be considered to be one of the lines of the practical esoterism of notable significance in the western tradition. Arisen in the XVIth century, although many of their followers make sure that its origins go back to the most remote antiquity, the Rose Cross Society bases its foundation on the writings of a personage, Christian Rosenkreutz, whose existence seems to be framed in the XIVth century, although his figure is diluted in the mist of the legend.

The Rose Cross used in their philosophy not only the supposed thought of his founder, but also the contents of those sciences or more substantial arts of the occultist current of Occident like the alchemy, Cabala, hermetic tradition or arcane symbolism.

Protected in these main lines, different personages of the XXth century created different schools or esoteric movements that, still having a common root, differ deeply in its doctrinal and practical expositions. Three principal schools are: Lectorium Rosicrucianum; the Brotherhood Rosicrucian and AMORC.

LECTORIUM ROSICRUCIANUM

Lectorium Rosicrucianum or International school of the Rosacruz of Gold has his Central Head office in Haarlem - Holland, being this also its origin place. In 1924 the brothers Z.W. Leene (1892 - 1938) and J. Leene (1896 - 1968)joined the Rosicrucian Society, Dutch division (that had formed a few years earlier) of Rosicrucian Fellowship founded in 1909 by Max Heindel on Oceanside, California, USA. Soon they occupied in the Rosicrucian Society a prominent place and in 1929 they were assigned for the direction of it. In the year 1930 Mrs. H. Stok - Huizer (1902 - 1990) joined the brothers Leene and together they tackled a spiritual search from which it turned out that in the year 1935 they became independent of 'Rosicrucian Fellowship' and continued their way. Z.W. Leene died in the year 1938, but Mr. J. Leene and Mrs. H. Stok - Huizer continued together the initiated work. They wrote numerous works, which were published under his pseudonymic J. van Rijckenborgh and Catharose de Petri respectively.

After the Second World war, the activities of the Society could be re-tackled (which were prohibited for the invader during the years of the war) The mentioned spiritual leaders took a new way, centring increasingly on the concept 'gnosis', the knowledge of direct God, which one is a result of a way of spiritual development: birth by the water and spirit (Jhon 3:5). This process of spiritual development is symbolized of one or another way for 'The Chymical Wedding by Christian Rose Cross.

The name Christian Rose Cross is a denomination used by the classic Rosicrucian of the century seventeen to designate to the prototype of the man reborn in Christ and this way, completely renewed. He is to the service of the humanity with all his heart and his soul, for the achievement of the real spiritual renewal.

The concept 'gnosis' in a wider sense was the denomination used for the universal touch of Christ and his brotherhood, and his eternal salvation work across the whole history, also before Christ.

In the year 1945 the Rose Cross Society took the denomination of Lectorium Rosicrucianum and presented itself to the world as 'The Gnostic Spiritual School'. Since then more and more activities were developing out of Holland and at present Lectorium Rosicrucianum has pupils in many countries of Europe, South America, North America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. From the death of Mr. J. van Rijckenborgh and Mrs. Catharose of Petri the Lectorium Rosicrucianum is directed by an International Spiritual Direction, which is assisted by national directions and groups of work.

FRATERNITY ROSICRUCIAN

It was founded by Max Heindel, who organizes a series of activities. He creates the School of Philosophy and other one of “Mystical Healers”. The school he called “Order“ is formed in accordance with a hierarchic system.

The Fraternety Rosicrucian is named to itself “Association of Christian mystics” and takes as a motto: "A balanced mind, a tender heart, a healthy body”. Formed by men and women who try to put into practice its philosophy, their leaders make emphasizes in a series of characteristics at the School, of which we highlight the following ones:

a) It is a door of access to one of seven schools of minor mysteries that exist in the world; b) It Contains secret educations of the Christian religion; that is to say, that one that Jesus was explaining privately to his disciples; c) their educations are destined principally to the western and Christian world, claiming that those who have stopped practising this religion return to the bosom of the real Christianity; d) Ensign that in the footpath of the development two temperaments exist: the mystic and the intellectual. The first one disdains the intellectual knowledge, following the dictations of the heart. The second one, on the contrary, attends exclusively on the reason leaving aside the feeling.

For the Rosacruz Fraternety the perfect man is that who possesses polarities: the positive belonging to the intellect and the reason, and the negative is that of the heart, which refers to the feeling and to the love. Naturally, the integral development of the individual includes this double slope that has to take care of it in full form, since both the mystic and the intellectual are developing from asymmetric form, to having concentrated more on one polarity than on other one; this unilateralidad constitutes an important limitation, since in a future time they will turn out to be needed of exercising another polarity. This way it is demanded by the natural laws that govern our evolution, and that have to lead us of insensitive form, but inexorable towards the perfection.

Inside the Rosicrucian Order, the heart and the intellect develops of parallel and symmetrical form; and it gives logical explanations to the religion and to the science. It is necessary to highlight that inside the order there are no irreconcilable assertions with the reason and also anyone can verify personally if takes the sufficient interest and develops his/her own potentials.

For the Rosicrucian Fraternity the “Terrestrial Period” has happened for several stadiums of evolution that names “races“, to each of these ones has given in its moment the religion most adapted for it development.

We wonder, in this point, who are in charge of transmits to the human being this legacy, the Fraternity answers that they are Top Beings who are in other planes and who ultimately are the persons in charge of our evolution.

In relation to the natural laws the Rosicrucian Fraternity grants special attention to : The law of the Renaissance that governs the evolution of the spirits in their terrestrial stage and with multiples existences the human being could be improving their spiritual quality. The law of Compensation or called Consequence law of Cause and effect, or Karma, it is the one that make that we all receive the proper effects of the causes, during our lives we put in functioning. This way we learn the opportune lessons on the natural laws and how we must observe them. The law of the Repentance is a contribution of the Christian doctrine.

Thanks to it, we are allowed to escape to the effect of the law of Compensation for the infractions that we have committed. According to this law, when we show deep repentance for any infraction of a natural law and realize the necessary repair to the harmed one, the consequences remain dissolved and excused. The Epigenesis law is a contribution of the educations of the Rosacruz Fraternity and they refer in direct form to the Compensation law. But if we ponder in it we come to the conclusion that its principles generates a completely mechanical world. Because, every cause produces an effect, which turns into following cause and in this way successively.

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER, AMORC

It is known like The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis and whose name stems from the most ancient symbol that is the cross and only one red rose. Being important to emphasize that being its symbol a cross does not have religious relation but a proper allegorical sense.

Mariano Vázquez in his work “Esoteric Schools of Occident” points out that the initials of AMORC are an abbreviation of the words “Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis”. His studies program, gather a philosophy of life that is possible to live, the metaphysical idealism and the practical sciences like: physicist, chemist, biology, physiology and Psychology. He tries with his educational system, to free the society of the slave influence from the ignorance, the fanaticism, the fear and the superstition. Being his intentions to encourage the evolution of the humanity by means of the development of the potential that every individual possesses; teaching the significance and the application of the natural and cosmic laws that are evident in the universe, inside us and around us.

Its tradition is dating back to the mystery schools of ancient Egypt. In these schools, enlightened mystics gathered on a regular basis to explore the mysteries of existence. Precisely for this reason were called "mystery schools". They were grouping all the searchers who were aspiring to a better comprehension of the natural and universal laws. Therefore, the word “mystery“ in the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations did not have the meaning that is given to it at the present. This way this Order, on having referred to its origins, there includes one of the first initiated the Pharaoh Thutmose III who grouped his followers in the unique fraternity of the one that AMORC perpetuates in our days the rules and essentials. And from this historical relation there is included a long list of names like Salomon, Pythagoras, Solon, Plotino, Charlemagne, Francis Bacón, Claude Debussy, Isaac Newton, Benjamín Franklin, René Descartes, etc.

Also indicates that the hermetic principle "The above is as below" is the slogan chosen for the school to teach that you can not understand the laws governing the metaphysical world, without knowing the basic principles that govern the physical world. To support its thesis AMORC remembered that the all great initiated the all times were well aware that the search for the invisible begins with observation and analysis of the visible.

IT RELATIONSHIP WITH MASONRY

In the long journey of the Rosicrucian, its relationship to Masonry holds an important place. For example, in the historical version provided by the most numerous and widespread of its organizations at present, AMORC, the Freemasons, would be the organization born of Solomon, a rosacrucian that did not become completely initiated"; version not accepted, obviously, by the Masons, and lacks of any historical base.

Jean Pierre Bayard in his book The secrets goals of the rosicrucian (Robin Book, Barcelona, 1991), that "The Manifestoes of the Rosicrucian, created or not by Andreae and his friends, have had a spiritual influence on many groups and, particularly, on those of England. Francis Bacon, with the Nova Atlantis, influenced and marked the Masonic lodges".

He affirms, on the other hand, that "Johann Gotthier, on having published in 1804 his book on the rosicrucian, thought that masons and rosicrucian they were not but the only group in its origin, that they separated to spread on one hand philosophical and philanthropic ideas in the Masonry and, on the other hand,the Rosicrucian, to carry out cabalistic and alchemical investigations". And, further on, he describes the intellectual ambience in which all this could take place, since "The same way we have seen that in the Century of the Lights those who felt attracted by the enlightenment that foci allowed the bloom of the freemasonry, well structured from 1717. This order only could remain vigilant to all creation of similar societies and to follow the continue evolution of the circles, always attributing to the Rosicrucian of Gold alchemical intentions". A few paragraphs that we consider, beyond anecdotes, as extremely explanatory.

It is important to note that the 18 degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, practiced in most Masonic lodges around the world, is called the Great Prince Rose Croix. At this grade diverse symbols gathered undoubtedly are Rosicrucian: the triple kiss, the pelican, the eagle and wax bars to seal.

The S.R.I.A. is composed exclusively, we saw it previously, for Masons, who conceive the "Rosicrucian route" even a more spiritual, in some aspects superior, to experienced in the proper Masonry.

In the concrete case of the Rosicrucian Order, the aprons, of Masonic appearance to simple sight, the denomination of its places, "lodges", and the references to the Big or supreme Architect of the Universe; they send us, inevitably, to the Masonry as inspirer so much formal as materially or, at least, being part of a common trunk.

Manuel Guerra, in his extraordinary encyclopedic Dictionary of the sects (BAC, Madrid, 1999,2nd edition) makes sure that "The grades of initation, the secret, etc. of the rosicrucian must be influenced of the Masonry".

When some rosicrucian organizations analyze their differences with other tentities so called the same, they denounce the biggest or minor influence exercised by the Masonry in them. It is the case of the Rosacruz Fraternity of Max Heindel that, to differ from AMORC, resorts to the Masonic inspiration of the last one, when he affirms that in it the process of the beginning covers Masonic character: it is realized in a lodge, ceremony officials help, a precise ritual follows, pass words are used, signs and secret instructions are used and on the contrary, the followers of Max Heindel would experience a personal, spiritual and intimate initation.

But where a big inspiration source can be found for some of the current orders rosicruces, particularly AMORC, there is in the cloudy masonry called Egyptian, that is to say, the follower of the rites of Menfis, Misraim and Menfis-Misraim.

AMORC, in its text rosicrucian questions and answers,affirms, also, that "In the XVIIIth century, the Order of the Rose- cross and the Freemasonry they were very related,and tells why one of the highest grades of the Freemasonry takes the name of "Knight of the Rose Croix" . These two organizations are completely independent between themselves, and therefore, their activities also are. Certainly, there are numerous persons who are at the same time rosicrucian and masons, demonstrating that incompatibilities do not exist between these two movements".

Like summary, we try to establish some resemblances and differences between both currents, already become clear that the "humus" human and intellectual were common.

Resemblances: both are orders (organizations herarchicas and structured in degrees); they are initiatic entities (to move to one degree to another superior is by means of initiation ceremoniese; there are esoteric groups (for a minority, opposite to the religions exotérics, proper of the majorities); they affirm to go back to a remote antiquity; they possess systems of signs, touches and words; they realize its works in lodges directed by venerable teachers; they use aprons; they share numerous philosophical principles.

Differences: the masonry possesses three fundamental grades (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master Mason), while the rosicucian does not have them; the education systems are different (in the masonry it is symbolic, in the rosicrucian it is realized across periodic monographs); in the rosacruz one listens to the speech of the teacher and they move back, at the Masonic, the assistants exhibit their opinions; in the rosacruz the grade ascent is automatic, while in the masonry the applicants must credit their preparation; the apron rosacruz is triangle, on the contrary, in the masonry it is square; the masonry is focused on the simbología and the philosophical and social reflection, and the rosicrucian heads for the development of the potentialities of the person, the alchemy and the astrology.

Masonry

MASONRY

The internal perfection

Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

M:.M:.

It is called Masonry the study of the sciences and the practice of the virtues; we understand for science; the reasons of why of the rules to done right in some thing, and for virtue; be under the rules of the good live and the constant practice of the good, for love to the good itself, and nothing more.

 

The Masonry is an institution of complex nature, which it does not have religion, for all exist in its bosom, and not to have it, what excludes all of them, without predominance of any; has no homeland, because would not take character from being eminently universal; lacks of race, because survives under all climates; it has no color, because then it would deny the virtue, quality capable of being in any black, yellow or white, poor or rich, big or small human being.

 

Those who affirm that the Masonry is in battle with this or that religion, are persons who ignore what is the Masonic Institution, and judge only for reference or for passion to this one or other cause. If the Masonry was attacking to some belief or religion, there would no be in its bosom individuals who are simultaneously believers and Masons, it would not have intransigent religious and convinced Masons.

 

The Masonry leaves to its members the widest faculty to think and to believe; but it rebels against any fanatical invasion at any form in which appears; since any exaggeration in the ideas or beliefs is a vice that exalts and that is fights without truce, bearing in mind for it “The man is free for everything, but to be a slave”.

The Masonry, altruistic and tolerant institution is simultaneously a school, temple, academy, that to its intellectual works adds the principles that govern in life the eternal teachings of the healthiest morality; that practises the highest virtues trying to do real “Love one another”.

As a school, an institution founded on objective bases of evident truths. In philosophy, does not give preference to any system, because sensualism ruins the spiritual principles; worships the reason, attribute of man, but gives no preference to the pure rationalism that would remove all metaphysical principles that are known and respected as fundamental principles of ideology, we see that their philosophy is eclectic, so all systems have a place with no preference in either, bearing in mind: The truth is one and the roads through which the human spirit can reach beyond are many.

The Masonry has never goner against any religion, sect, ideology, idea, belief or political faction; what it has done in any case is to fight any fanaticism and any superstition; because these vices are the most exalted form of the reason, which perverting the understanding and disturbing the criterion there have been the cause of the loss of the ideas that have led the humanity to the most serious errors; from there the cruelest wars have gone out, as there have been the religious wars, from which was born of the historical fanatics religious, the most repugnant acts that the history remembers with horror and was called “The Inquisition”; in the modern world the fratricidal war in Ireland, between Catholic and Protestant; the peoples of the Middle East to force the imposition of Islam, etc.

The Masonry has suffered patiently and with resignation all the pursuits that its cruelest and fierce enemies have done; it has seen with piety eyes its detractors;excused all those that somehow have scoffed at it; since it understands that it could not be understood by all, and in some cases by its own followers, so when there comes this fortunate epoch in which all the men know what is the Masonry, this day will be on earth the reign of the freedom, and the justice will govern all the nations and in this way the Masonry will have fulfilled its mission and its work, reason so that the Masonry stops being.

The Masonry is not a charitable institution, like many that exist with ends of mutual help; it exercises the charity under all its declarations; since the Masonry believes the humanity not only needs crusts: then, an advice on time; an opportune observation; a suitable reprimand; a scolding without asperity; a correction without shaming or any amendment to the defects or losses are also benefactions that we must use in favor of the brothers and friends. “To share the happy moments and to relieve the sorrow” there are brotherhood duties. “not only of bread the man lives”.

The Masonry worship the virtues, adores the truth, respects the reason, fights for the justice and loves the law, emanations of the Big Architect of the Universe. The Masons consider him like the eternal and existing being and is for that the human being is immortal, and is prepared in this life for eternal and future other one, in identical contrast first with the philosophy of the antiquity and then with the religious doctrines of Occident that circumscribe the human existence to the present life.

Therefore, these two doctrines: that of the unit of the Supreme Being and that of the Immortality of the Soul constitute the philosophy of the Masonry. Hence in the history of the humanity we will always find institutions and associations that were teaching these truths of an allegorical and symbolic way, in spite of developing often in an ambiance in which it was predominating over the intellectual obscurantism and the degradation of the ancient polytheistic religions and I believe to have right to support that these accusations were the excuse or cause, that is to say the predecessors of the Masonic institution, as today it exists.

MASONIC TEMPLE

As the word mason means Bricklayer and everything in the masonry is taught by allegories, the purpose of a bricklayers' society has to be related to the office that it represents. In the Masonic language always takes as an essential objective to construct or to restore a temple. Can be the temple of the nature or the internal temple, in which there must reign the freedom, the equality and the brotherhood and there is tough the virtue and the proper morality of the Order.

The Masonry is the ideal state of the human being; it is the state in which he/she finds and preserves his/her perfection and happiness. This state has been destroyed by the religion, the dogmas and the fanaticism. These have taken the human being primitive freedom, equality and destroyed his brotherhood. The Masonry fights for the return of the mankind to the perfection and original happiness, freedom, equality and natural brotherhood.

MASONIC LEGENDS

The Masonic ritual is full of legends, especially in the top grades, beginning for the Master, in whom there is the legend of Hiram's death. In these legends the allegories are involved to communicate its light between the brothers and to hide it of the profanes.

The difference between allegory and symbol is that this one has a meaning purely conventional, so that it is impossible for the one that is not in the secret to discover it; the allegory, on the other hand, “is a speech or story in which there is a literal and figurative sense, a clear sense and connected one, being the intention of the one that uses the clear sense that of indicating for analogy or comparison, the figurative or secret one”.

The interpretation of the allegory is easy, and that's why someone has said that “the allegory inhabits in a diaphanous palace”. For it all the legends of the Masonry are allegorical and has its importance in its historical truth.

THE SYMBOLS

The initiation is only the beginning of the internal work of the Masonry. Then there comes a process of instruction where the symbolism of the legends is learned.

Everything is a symbol in the Masonry. That of the first three grades is called usually symbolic Masonry, in contrast to other one, which is that of the philosophical grades. The symbol is a sensitive image used to express a secret sense, but analogical. But this symbolic image is only conventional, that is to say, that has only a conventional relation, freely agreed for those that they use it, with the important thing. Therefore it is impossible that the one that is not in the agreement realizes its sense.

It would not be possible that I was giving here the symbolic sense of everything what exists in a lodge and of all the ceremonies that are used. Would be necessary big space for it; especially since the significance of the symbols has diverse senses as the initiated one is penetrating in grades and Masonic knowledge.

As example of the above mentioned I will analyze the triangle that represents the Big Architect of the Universe, or Masonic Trinity, or, the nature with its three kingdoms, mineral, vegetable and animal. The word god begins in many languages with the letter D, letter that in Greek is a triangle. In the middle is the letter G, that means generation.

“This trino god, says Ragón, has three mysteries that symbolize also three sides of the triangle: 1st Everything is formed by the generation. 2nd The destruction follows the generation in all its works. 3rd The regeneration, under other forms, continues the effects of the destruction.

Let's analyze another symbol that is the brute stone, and the polished stone. The brute stone represents the work of the beginners who must work to polish its damages of the profane world, While the polished one is worked as it was done by the workers of the temple of Salomon, to the interior order for the construction of his temple.

The Templar

THE TEMPLAR

Their permanence in the secret

Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

M:.M:.

A lot of ink has poured on the Templar's enigma, which they were careful to encourage the mystery around them. All, in a medieval world in which the marvellous and magical thing reigned, they assumed the evidence of some origins that even they seemed to base on the supernatural thing of the numerical secrets. After the first Crusade, nine French Knights decided to found an Order, among whose intentions, and as opposed to what happened with the crusaders, was not that of fighting systematically the Muslims. Did neither they attend poor and to sick, as to happen with the Knights of Saint John (later,Knights of Malta) or with the Hospitable ones, created in 1120, neither they remain circumscribed to a territorial ambiance of action –such is the latest case of the Teutonic Knights, founded toward 1198 in the territories of the Baltic one– but that of defending the Christians that journeyed to the Holy Places.

Hugues of Payns, who was really the initial promoter and his first Big Master, Geoffroy de Saint-Omer, Geoffroy Bisol, André de Montbard, Payen de Montdidier, Archambaud de Saint-Amand, Gondemar, Rossal and Hugues de Champagne they all settled in Jerusalem and founded the Order of the Knights of the Temple in 1118. Balduino II, who was reigning then in the city, allowed them to establish their headquarters in a room of his palace, placed close to the mosque of Al-Aqsa, The Unique, in the raised area once was the ancient Temple of Salomon and of that, for the above mentioned reason, they will take the name of Templar … Hundred ninety-six years of life for a powerful just as controversial organization, twenty-two Big Masters until 1314,year in which they disappear.

An unusual order, half religious and half warrior, that in few years converted in the richest community and powerful group of the church, and in alive mirror of the saint war that Rome was praising to convert the complete world to the Christian faith.

The duality was always a characteristic that defined to the Temple, and that turns out to be reflected graphically in the white and black, the pure thing and the impure thing, of their banner, the Beaucent (name that they were invoking on having entered combat) and other symbols, like emblems and shields. The duality was done patent in their reason to be (monastic order and military), their function (to pray and to fight) and their image (the "external" of monks soldiers that fight for freeing Palestine and the "internal", of collectors and administrators of their wealth). The Order has remained magnificently symbolized in the walls of theirs constructions. To this organization many historians attribute more or less the probable paternity to the Freemasonry.

The Temple was an order; that is to say, a collective subject to the fulfilment of their own rules and formed by a handful of followers to reach aims that had to remain secret beyond the strict nucleus of their leaders in the Holy Land, where they always conserved their place. These leaders, from their foundation, established the functions and duties of all members, so that the strict fulfillment of the Rule lead to reach the power objectives that form the existence of the majority of these groups.

The Temple Rule governed the life of their monks and every hour of their day. A discipline was formed in the fulfillment of the rite where was coding their group conscience and was encouraged the conviction of being an only one cell which life did not have any more importance in itself that collaborate to the progress of the superior unit of which it was part.

The devotion of every Templar was to the protective saints of the order; their meals the one that all their brothers were following in the convents; their clothes, which were corresponding to the granted authority grade: commander, knight, sergeant; their prayers,the same for all the members, without a space to express individual devotions; the entire loyalty to their Superiors who, for nature, were simultaneously spiritual mentors and military hierarchy. And all these prescripts had to be obeyed, like a representation offered to the exterior world of which the temple was only one monolithic body without individualities.

Symbols and Templar's secrets

The Templar were big teachers in the art of the cryptography, a secret alphabet that is supposed they were using in theirs mercantile deals and confidential documents. The letters of the alphabet were consisting of angles and ends and could be read by means of a medallion that some knights were carrying. Later, the builders used a similar system. Also they practised the alchemy and they had discovered the philosopher's stone. In numerous architectural details there are symbols that indicate alchemy practices. In this sense the secret rule of the Order to the Templar they were prohibited to work certain matters by philosopher science and these would not be undertaken more than in hidden and secret places.

The Bahomet, which was used like argument for the condemnation of the Templar, but nobody knows for sure what it meant, or its origin or its ritual function. It is said of a head or bust that it would have the androgynous form, and to the one that the brothers of the Order were venerating. Possibly the symbol was alluding to the alchemy hermetecism and it would represent the union of the sulfur and the philosophical mercury, considered like the elements male and female in the attainment of the big work. For the modern Templar it would be a question of an object to favor the meditation,a kind of cosmic mandala.

The esoteric tradition teaches that the number is in the beginning of the Being on the triple divine plan, natural and human. Three, the symbol of the mystery or the Trinity, it was the Templar number, and the triangle the basic geometric figure of their constructions. Three or nine are present in his rituals of initiation and in their daily performances. The symbolic numbers are recorded in all the Templar constructions. For example in the church of the Temple of Paris, the central house of the order. The basic rotunda of the constructions was generated by two equilateral triangles of opposite senses that they form a star of six ends that is related to the seal of Salomon and that today is the star of the State of Israel.

The tradition has rescued to us the Order of the Temple big treasures, secret knowledge and other mysteries. Signs and symbols carved in the stone of the numerous constructions spread by our geography that they speak to us about the big enigma of the Christianity. The Ark of the Alliance, the Grail, wealth brought from Jerusalem and numerous relics supposedly belonging to Jesus Christ and whoever surrounded him. But the reality possibly is different. Perhaps they were the same knights those who were feeding their own legend to obtain the power that they hold. Two centuries of supremacy and a bloody end, in some cases

The Cathars

THE CATHARS

An eternity sense

Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

The Cathars appear in the West in the X century. At this time the heresies are denounced throughout of Europe. The majority of the times is described them like maniqueas. The Cathar term means pure. In 1017 they are in Orleans. After a judgement emitted by a council of bishops they were burned alive. In 1022 the fact is repeated in Toulouse. In 1030, in Italy, in the region of Asti a colony is found and suffered an equal fate. However, in spite of bonfires, the movement had extended as an oil spot, so that, in century XII it is in all Europe.

In agreement with the writer Mauricie Magre, who makes of the Buddhist initiation the main spiritual source of the Albigensian. It is possible to indicate that the Essenes like the Buddhists, professed the dualism of the world. They had three order of affiliates, with three degrees of initiation. They practised the sacred bath, like Brahmans and the Buddhists. They condemned the sacrifices, they abstained from meat and wine and practised an exemplary moral. Do not forget that the region of the Garona is an old druids part of earth, very wise men and with very height philosophy

They believed mainly in the migration of the souls and its reincarnation after the death. Reason why we know of them, is certain, in any case, that the Cathar doctrine is something more than a simple heresy. In many points it separates of the traditional Christianity and rejects all the dogmas of the catholic church.

The gnostic inspiration, which attributes to the man three natures: the body, the soul and the spirit, being the body the residence of the soul and this one the residence of the spirit, was gathered by the Albigensian. Opposite to the Roman Church, the Cathars continue and amplify the tradition maniquea, rejecting the sacraments, the cross, symbol of death and the ceremonies of the cult. At the same time they were despising the Ancient Testament, work of the Jews, they were showing and considering Jesus to be a purely spiritually being.

We can extract its great principles. Its base constitutes the dualism, that takes like text from reference the Gospel of John, considered like unique and the authentic one, which it emphasizes the eternal opposition between two principles: the good and the evil. Thus, in this world, there is an antagonism between the matter like the devil and the spirit described like God.

The Cathar's doctrine can be seen in Pythagoras, follower of the metempsychosis or reincarnation of the impure souls in men's new bodies. Also they rejected the dogmas, that is to say, Eucharist, the remission of the sins and the sacraments that seemed to them sacrileges: baptism, communion, marriage. Hostile to the impure matter, they condemned the marriage for the initiates, also they were prohibit to eat the delicacies cooked of meat.

This belief implies that the soul, to reach the perfection, must be purified of the material dirt and of the contact with the meat, as which they behaviour had an extremely hard discipline. The asceticism was for the good or perfect men, small minority of wise persons, only ones capable of receiving the lighting of the knowledge. They respected the nature in all manifestations, abstaining to kill no animal, the perfect ones always dressed black, with a tiara on its head. When their ceremonies had finished, they removed a leather roll that they kept on the chest, the gospel according to John and they read it aloud. The invested ones were abstaining from meat, eggs and from dairy products, and all animal products, practising a feeding purely vegetarian. They were professing an absolute chastity and were avoiding, therefore, any sexual commerce.

Since it is from the most ancient times, the men who wished to acquire the knowledge had to undergo the tests of the initiation; but these could not take place anywhere. They were necessary temples that were privileged places where the essence of the knowledge was concentrated into the hands of the teacher-wise people. But concerning their rites they were simple by reaction against the church that covered with gold and purple and were released of all spirit of superstition: they mainly constituted by prayers, signings and sermons, being inspired in the books of Manes and in the Gnostic's.

Cathars did not have predilection for places to practise their cult, the nature was offering them its forests and its meadows. They were practising a formula of public confession that they were calling “Apparellamentum:, but their principal rite was the famous "Consolamentum". It was given, both to a believer who wanted to join the community of the perfect ones, and to the moribund ones that wanted to reach a good death. This ceremony, very simple, was consisting of the fact that the perfect one was imposing the hands on the head of the consoled one, pronouncing certain words which content is ignored up to the actuality. It is possible to supposed that in the background of their ceremony, were secrets proceeding from the Gnostic and from the first Christians, which had as it bases the transmission of a vivifying and immense force, force that the perfect ones could try by means of the “baptism of the spirit”, of the sign of the purity made by the dyeing's. This invisible help was allowing to escape to the chain of renaissances and was allowing the access to the spiritual kingdom.

Also they had for the aid to the dying procedures that science has lost for ever. Not fearing to the death, there were occasions in which certain perfect that they were going so far as to allow themselves to die by means of the Endura: “Their doctrine that was allowing like the druids, the suicide; nevertheless, it was required that one not should finish his life for the weariness of living, for fear or for pain, but in the state of perfect indifference of the matter”, this ritual could be make by a pair, that is to say to go to another life in the most ideal friendship, continued years of effort and intensive spirituality, wanted in accordance with them in another life also the real life.

To finish to theirs days, they were choosing between five types of death: poisoning themselves, allowing to die of famine, opening the veins, being thrown to an abyss or diving in the frozen water after an ardent bath, that was provoking a pulmonary congestion that was killing them. Some indications were allowing to suppose also that the Albigensian ones were choosing sometimes the death in group. The Cathars had a model life. Before the pursuits, they taught to the masses, preaching a gospel of purification and simplicity, lashing the corrupt customs of a part of the catholic clergy. The people was following these men dressed in black, who were living like saints, leaving the bad priests. The nobility attracted by the ideal of the Cathars was adhering to the new faith. The official church was weakening, with so much facility all that that was removed from the people. The Cathars were sharing the miseries of each one, exercising the medicine, taking care of the patients and taking “the good word”.

This immense movement was evident in the Alps, in the Rhine and the Netherlands, where the civil unions were rebelling against the bishops and the primitive church. In Italy, Dante's ideal was to see the emperor of Germany, Enrique of Luxembourg overthrowing the Pope and to restore another Christianity. Dante was the big pontiff of this Cathar sect and his Divine Comedy was written to exalt his faith towards the Cathar's Church and to chase the papacy, since he could not excuse it for the provenzal hecatomb.

The year 1163 the Council of Tours, the Pope Alejandro II, to instances of the bishops of the North of France dictated a resolution that was denouncing the progress of the “Cathar heresy”. In the third Council of Toulouse several prominent men of the nobility were excommunicated and the threat was outlined against the Cathars and theirs protectors. This was the first sign against the Albigensian ones, which according to Maurice Magre was the biggest milestone of the religious history of the men.

From 1207 the pontifical legacy tries to face misters southerners against the Albigensian ones, the Cathars they wanted to insure themselves a place where they should shelter in case of attack. Montségur, is the heart of the Pyrenees and it was chosen like high spiritual place. It was a citadel that was protecting the sacred mountain of the Tabor, Parnassus of the Romance countries, it was fortified and organized. It seemed to an ark, it could still, during half a century, defy the wave of blood and of crimes that was going to break loose and sink their culture and civilization.

Until 1220 more than one million persons is spent by the edge of the sword, that is to say more than the cost of the suppression of all the other heresies. The reason of the big Albigensian slaughter, the conceals cause, but the real cause, the fact had been that the secret of the sanctums, the ancient education of the mysteries so zealously kept in all the temples of the world for all the brotherhoods, had been revealed. It had been revealed and it had been understood that what was happening in this time still had not been seen in the history.

Nevertheless Montségur, temple of the catharism, was still getting up, like a challenge to the orthodoxy, with his inviolate walls. The murder of the inquiring Dominicans of Avignonet had to decide the siege and fall of the fortitude. Thetask began in the spring 1243, but, six months later, the siege had not progressed. The Cathas were benefiting from numerous informations of all the Countries in Europe, from Italy, the Sacred Germanic Empire included Constantinople. Finally Senecal of Carcasona, Hugues de Arcis that was directing the "crusade", could end the resistance to the treachery. A guide who knew the secret way led the armed group to the summit. From there, the capitulation of the fortitude was only a question of time. On the first of March, 1244 a truce was signed and on March 16 the citadel gave up. Two hundred Cathars, between them fifty prefects, who were refusing to abjure of theirs belief, preferred to die in the bonfire erected in a field, that its remembers, for the name of the sacrifice: "The Field dels cremants”.

As for the treasures, the historian Pierre Roger says that it was consisting of beautiful objects, coins and bars of gold and silver. But the real treasure of the Cathars, were preparations of the Cathar faith: books, manuscripts, secret educations, relics, religious objects and the Holy Grail, that it is a grial with the content of Jesus's blood, according to historians specializing in this one period of the history of the man, the same one that was extracted in the moments of the truce by four men who escaped of the citadel and undoubtedly concealed in one of the next numerous caves of Montségur. Therefore the word “treasure“ seems to hide another thing, some knowledge or information that inspired big antipathy and greed to Rome.

With passing of the times their philosophy is still alive and it offers to their followers a cosmogony, a conception and explanation of the universe, both material and universal that it attracts to numerous intellectual elites to which it leaves unsatisfied the comments of the gospels. They contribute an esoteric knowledge in opposition to the vulgar one or belief of the masses. The real doctrine is and it will be revealed to a limited number of chosen that have arisen after a long peregrination.