THREE SILENT BEINGS hidden in the depths of the Unknown weave: eternally the thread of human fate, three sisters known to the world as the Norns or Fates incessantly twist between their fingers a tiny cord which is one day to be woven into a living garment, the coronation robe of a king. Under many names this garment is known among the mystics and occult students of the world.
To some it is the simple yellow robe of Buddhahood, by the ancient Jews it was symbolized as the robe of the High Priest and the garment of glory unto the Lord, while to the Masonic Brother it is the Robe of Blue and Gold, the Star of Bethlehem, the wedding garment of the spirit.
From: The All-Seeing Eye, Vol 1, May 1923
Freemasonry: The Robe of Blue and Gold
The Norns (1889) by Johannes Gehrts. Wikipedia linked
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Three Fates weave this living garment and man himself is the creator of his fates. The triple thread of thought, action, and desire binds him when he enters into the sacred place or seeks admittance to the Lodge, but later this same cord is woven into the wedding garment whose purified folds shroud the sacred spark of his being.
We all like to be well dressed and robes of velvet and ermine seem to us symbols of rank and glory, but many an ermine cape has covered an empty heart while many a crown has rested on a tyrant’s brow and many a velvet cloak has gowned an empty void.
These symbols are earthly things and in the worlds of matter are too often misplaced. But the true coronation robe, the true garments of the Mason, are not of earth for his robe of glory tells of spiritual growth.
The garments of the High Priest of the Tabernacle were but symbols of the bodies of men, which purified and transmuted glorify the life within, and the little silver bells tinkled with never ending music from the fringe of his vestments, their silver note telling of a harmonious life while the breastplate reflected the gleams of Heavenly Truth from its many-sided gems.
High Priest of the Tabernacle from ‘Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us’ by Charles Foster, 1897
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There is one garment without a seam which was worn often by the Masonic Brothers of old, in the day of the Essenes when the monastery of the lowly Nazarenes rose in gloomy grandeur from the steep sides of Mount Tabor to be reflected in the silent waters of the Dead Sea.
This one-piece garment woven without a seam is the spiral thread of human life, which, when purified by right motive and right living, becomes a tiny line of golden light which weaves eternally the purified garment of regenerated bodies.
Like the white of the lambskin apron it stands for the simple, the pure, and the harmless, the requirements of the Master Mason, who must give up forever the pomp and vanity of this world and seek to weave with his own soul that simple one-piece robe which marks the Master.
We can still see the lowly Nazarene in His spotless robe of white, a garment no king could buy but worthy of a god.
This robe is woven by the daily actions of our lives, each expression weaving a thread, black or white, according to our actions and the motives which prompted them.
As the Master Mason labors in accordance with his vows, he slowly weaves this spotless robe out of the transmuted expressions of his energies.
It is this white robe which prepares and sanctifies him for the robe of glory which can only be worn over the spotless, seamless garment of his purified life.
Now comes the moment when the candidate, purified and regenerated, begins to radiate the life powers of the divine.
From him pour forth streams of light and a great aura of many colored fires surrounds him with its radiance.
This wonderful garment of which all earthly robes are but symbols, is built of the highest qualities of human nature, the noblest of ideals, the greatest of aspirations, the purification of bodies, the unselfish service to others.
All these things build into the Mason spiritual powers which radiate as a wonderful body of living fire.
This is the Robe of Glory, this is the garment of Blue and Gold, which shining out as a five-pointed star of light heralds the birth of the Christ within. Man is then, indeed, a Sun of God pouring out through the tubes of his own being the life rays which are the Light of men.
The Holy of Holies; illustration from the 1890 Holman Bible
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This spiritual ray, striking hearts that long were cold raises them from the dead: it is the living light which illuminates those still buried in the darkness of materiality; it is the power which raises by the Grip of the Lion’s Paw; it is the Great Light which seeks forever the spark within all living things and finding it awakens again dead ideals with the power of the Master’s word.
Then the Master Mason becomes, indeed, the Sun in Leo and reaching downward into the darkness of crystallization and materiality raises his murdered Builder from the dead by the grip of the Master Mason.
All-seeing eye
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As the sun awakens the seedlings in the ground, so this Son of Man, glowing with the Light divine, pours out from his own purified being the mystic spears of redeeming light which awaken the seeds of hope and truth and nobler lives in others where discouragement and suffering have too often brought down the temple and buried beneath its debris the true reason for being and the true motive for growth.
It is this robe which enfolds all things, warming them and preserving them with its light and life as the glorious robe of the sun, the symbol of all life, bathes and warms all things with its glow.
Man is a god in the making and on the potter’s wheel he is being molded as in the mystic myths of Egypt.
As his light shines out to lit and preserve all things, he accepts the triple crown of godhood and joins the throng of Master Masons who in their garments of glory, the Robes of Blue and Gold, are seeking to illuminate the darkness of night with the triple light of the Masonic Lodge.
Ceaselessly the Norns spin the thread of human fate. Age in and age out upon the loom of destiny are woven the living garments of God.
Some are rich in glorious colors and wondrous fabrics, others are broken and frayed before they leave the loom.
But all are woven by the Three Sisters, thought, action, and desire, which in the hands of the ignorant build around them walls of mud and bricks of slime, while in the hands of the pure of heart this living thread is woven into raiments celestial and garments divine.
Do what we will, we cannot stop the nimble fingers that twist the threads but we can take the thread and use it as we will. The wool may be red with the blood of others, it may be dark with the uncertainties of life, but if we will we may restore its whiteness and weave from it the seamless garment of a perfect life.
Blessed are they that know and know that they know, for they are wise; blessed are they who know not and know that they know not, for they can be instructed; cursed are those who know not and know not that they know not for they are foolish; cursed are they who know and know not that they know, for they are asleep, and who shall awaken them?
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