Post by Jeffry PetersenPost by Doug FreyburgerA better question might be the significance of 12 fellowcrafts
matching the number of bells at the two different events in the
story. And how this might apply to the expression "Let me
sleep on it" when facings a difficult decision.
Now .. this is what I would love to be answered if this is
the case. Can you put me in the light my Brother ? Do
you know the answer I am looking for?
Are we representing time going by at this point and we
are in .. for the lack of a better term.. suspended time?
as if we are in fast foward while deciding what to do?
Yes, I have alot to learn yet.. I am seeking further light.
I want to turn up my knowledge of these meanings.
Possible masonic education at our next stated.
Bro Jeffry,
Post by Jeffry PetersenMasonry I have found has layers and layers of
meanings.. each one interest me to the point where
I am about to burst with the need to know factor.
Masonic degrees are based on "Hiramic legend". The
word "legend" in this context is important because of what
the word means to me - Good legend or myth or scripture
should have layer after layer of symbolic and poetic
meaning. Trying to depict good legend as a film of events
that literally happened (Masonic tradition informs us ...
actually took place ...) loses much of that symbolic
meaning. Fortunately, even though ritual is to be learned
by rote it is explicitly symbolic in its lessons. As a result
of being explicitly symbolic I can tell what it means to
me, and if it means something else to you then neither of
us is wrong because there isn't any right or wrong in
seeing meanings within symbols.
I take high twelve and low twelve as night and day not as
the stroke of noon or midnight in terms of the plot of
events. I also take it to mean day time and night time
in terms of crimes committed in broad daylight then
covered up in seclusion. That leads me to viewing the
times as public versus private, open knowledge versus
closed secrets, enlightened action leading to illumination
versus secret action leading to ignorant darkness. In
this view Solomon and the Hirams are grey characters
because they keep a secret hidden.
I take the twelve fellowcrafts on several levels.
The twelve hours of the day or night meaning take your
time when deciding on a morally difficult decision.
Wisdom, like charity, is patient.
The thousands of uninvolved fellowcrafts versus the
twelve who repented versus the three who committed
criminal acts I view as a commentary on the relative
populations of the good men, the tempted men and the
criminal men in our population. But "for evil to triumph
all that the good need to do is nothing" so in spite of
the thousands of uninvolved fellowcrafts what it really
took for the crime to happen is the tempted ones to
not report it to the authorities in advance.
The numbers three and twelve are also linguistic
shorthand for more general numbers of a small many,
a large many, a huge many to me.
With the number three there's an expression
something like "one, two, three, many" that tells me
the conspiracy did not include many at the end. It
was a private secret operation. It started with 15 but
that was too many to sustain in secret so 12 left.
With the number twelve I think about the English
words for number that suggest that the ancients
sometimes used base ten, other times used base
twelve and even twenty. One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve all get
their own names. Then there is a different pattern
that sounds like parts of a score - thirteen, fourteen,
fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eightteen, nineteen, a
score can all be thought of as switching to counting
on your toes. English has ten and a dozen both to
mean a small version of many. Modern English has
a hundred (ten tens) and a gross (dozen dozens)
to mean a medium many. Older English even had a
"long hundred" of a dozen tens that mixed the two
bases.
So to me twelve hours between the crime and the
hiding of the crime is symbolic of an inexact small
many length of time, and the twelve tempted
fellowcrafts is also symbolic of an inexact small
many. With hundreds being a medium many and
myriads/thousands being a large many. Yes,
mixing words like "small many", "medium many"
and "arge many" works very poorly in expressing
this. They are mixtures of the "one, two, three, many"
model and the vague-ness of ten versus a dozen and
of a hundred and a gross.
In a way the numbers discuss the concept of orders
of magnitude without details of number bases - How
many digits does the number have as a way of telling
how big it is. Bread box, house, village.
The uses of three, a dozen, thousands teach a Mason
to consider order of magnitude while at the same time
mixing the poetry of the strange English words for
numbers between ten and twenty to show that orders
of magnitude is a way of viewing things that does not
have to be exact to be meaningfull. This goes against
my engineer's training that everything is data and all
data has error bars. While in my engineering a bridge
joins computer networks and in civil engineering a
bridge allows trains to cross a river, this is Masonry.
Among us a bridge is man to man extending our hand
in friendship.
The numbers of the characters at the building of King
Solomon's temple teaches me about the way modern
Masonry works. One brother at a time face to face. An
investigating committee of three. A degree team of one
of two dozen. A lodge of hundreds. A grand lodge of
thousands or tens of thousands. Global Masonry of
millions. The numbers go in orders of magnitude in a
way that isn't exact but that doesn't have to be. From
Grand Master Hiram, I'm glad to meet you. To Brother
Hirma, I'm glad to meet you. Face to face for ill or for
good all of use doing what we hope to be the good, none
of us ever acheiving what really is the good. Ever
striving for better because that's what we can acheive.
That is the path the numbers lead me down when I
contemplate what they should mean to me.
Fraternal regards,
Doug Freyburger
PM 2007-8 Arlington Heights 1162 Illinois AF&AM www.ahml.org
PM 1999 Pasadena 272 California F&AM www.emasons.org