Masonic Rituals And Scientifically Inaccurate Theories

By: Giorgos Bousoutas Thanasoulas

This article offers yet another opportunity to examine the image of the world as presented in Masonic rituals and to compare it with the one proposed by modern science. Much has happened since 1717, and much has changed.

Freemasonry has split into lodges that describe themselves as “regular” and others that call themselves “liberal.” Our understanding of the world has also changed.

Institutions such as the family, the nation-state, and religion have developed a different relationship with society. Women are increasingly, slowly but steadily, attaining a social position equal to that of men.

Freemasonry appears largely unaffected by these changes—at least the branch that wishes to call itself “regular.” As a result, the membership of the lodges continues to decline.

Freemasonry remains faithful to a “tradition” whose true roots we do not really know, and it promotes a moral outlook strongly influenced by Protestant principles. Freemasons work continuously, elevating labor to a supreme good, and through the use of their tools they claim to understand the world, measuring everything in their lives.

However, our understanding of the world has changed since 1717. The values of life today are different. Measuring may once have been considered a method of knowledge, but today it is not.

Science may indeed have undergone a great revolution at that time, but in the previous century scientific discoveries and the theories that were formulated overturned the view we had until then about Creation.

Masonic rituals, however, present an image of Creation that is far removed from the contemporary one. In this article we will present two examples of the mistaken image of the world projected by Masonic rituals.

One concerns the microcosm and the other the macrocosm. In both cases, the influence of the Christian religion is evident.

In the Freemasonry of the Holy Royal Arch (HRA) Order, and specifically in the Aldersgate ritual, there is a particular arrangement of certain objects around the Altar. One group of these objects consists of the so-called “Platonic Solids.” These objects symbolize the four basic elements of Nature (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water) and the Sphere of the Universe (HGCMoRAoG, 2008, 57).

It is clear that this symbolism refers to a cosmology. According to it, all Creation originates from these four elements. This cosmological view is very ancient, and its earliest traces can be found in Homer’s Iliad, in the Indian Rig Veda, in Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology, as well as in the books of Hesiod.

However, the first complete statement that Creation is the result of the union of these four elements, through a specific process, is found in the work On Nature by the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles (495–435 BC).

The philosopher maintains that the world and the changes that occur within it are the product of the union or separation of four fundamental substances that constitute the “Eon” (= the possessor of being).

These substances, which he calls “rizomata” (= roots), are the four elements familiar to us. The roots do not lose their identity during this process, and their relations are governed by the influence of two cosmic forces: “Philotes” (= love, affection, friendship) and “Neikos” (= strife, discord, conflict).

The first of these is attractive, while the second is divisive and repulsive. These forces are unborn and eternal. Empedocles does not accept generation and destruction within Creation.

Plato (427 BC – 347 BC), building on Empedocles’ theory, dealt with the formation of the four elements. In his work Timaeus, he proceeded to the creation of two perfect shapes: the equilateral triangle and the square.

From these, he went on to construct four of the five “cosmic solids” (the tetrahedron, the octahedron, the icosahedron, and the cube).

Regarding the fifth, Plato writes in the aforementioned work that “God used it to embroider the constellations across the entire sky” (Timaeus 55c).

In the same book, we encounter the association of the other four solids with the elements, specifically:

• The tetrahedron is considered the lightest, with the sharpest angles, and Plato associates it with the element of Fire.
• The cube, due to its shape, is thought to express stability, and for this reason, he associates it with Earth.
• The octahedron is associated with Air. Plato explains that this shape “hangs” from its opposite vertices, with its square positioned midway between these vertices, dividing the shape into two equal parts, similar to how a sphere hangs from its poles, and it suggests movement.
• Finally, the icosahedron is associated with Water because Plato considers that the number of its faces symbolizes fluidity, which is the characteristic of Water.

His student Aristolis (384 BC – 322 BC) expresses significant objections. First of all, he does not accept the theory of the “World of Ideas” and its metaphysical approach.

He considers that the World is only the perceptible world, and it can be understood solely through Reason.

He does not accept the association of the fifth solid with the celestial sphere and the constellations, because he believes that the heavens differ fundamentally from the terrestrial world.

He observes that the celestial bodies are luminous, trace endless motions, and remain incorruptible and immutable. Consequently, their composition is different, and the element that predominates is “Etheras” (= Aether). Therefore, this is the fifth element, and he does not connect it with the divinity of the dodecahedron.

Of course, there are two other theories that refer to the basic elements of Nature. The first is that of Anaxagoras (~500 – 428 BC) and the second is that of the atomist philosophers Leucippus (5th century BC) and Democritus (~460 – 370 BC), known as the “atomic theory”.

Atomic theory holds that Nature is composed of elements that cannot be divided further, which they call “atoms” (= those that cannot be divided further).

This theory will also be relevant in the continuation of the article.

The debate over the views of these philosophers and their students subsided a few centuries later with the rise of Christianity, the closure of the philosophical schools, and the dominance of the “singular truth” proposed by the divinely inspired texts of the Bible. In this spirit, scholars approached Creation.

The change came with the Arabs, who translated the ancient texts, especially those of Aristotle. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) were the main representatives of the Western Christian Church who engaged with Aristotle’s books and sought to adapt them to Christian doctrine.

The philosophical debate over the correctness of these texts lasted two or three centuries, eventually leading to the principle of the “double truth” and the prohibitions imposed by the University of Paris.

In the 17th century, Neoplatonic currents began to prevail in philosophical thought, and the authority of the Scriptures started to be questioned.

Based on the system of Isaac Newton (1642–1727), the World could be expressed through mathematical relationships, measured, and governed by Laws of universal validity. One of the pioneers of this new science was Johannes Kepler (1571–1630). As a genuine Neoplatonic and Pythagorean philosopher, he accepted that there is a connection between the elements and the five Platonic solids proposed by the Athenian philosopher of the 4th century BC.

For him, Creation is a unity, and Nature can be described through mathematical relationships. Kepler’s thought reinforced the Platonic view that the entire solar system is governed by the union or separation of the four primary elements, as proposed by Empedocles.

He linked them to the Platonic solids and to the idea that the divine dodecahedron, which many associated with the Aristotelian Aether, is the element that predominates in the celestial sphere.

Apart from the scientific approach to the four elements, during the same period this theory was also taught by the Kabbalists and the Rosicrucians, and through them it entered Masonic practice in the degree of Royal Arch and in the degree of the Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew (Laskaris, entry “elements”).

The scientific revolution of the 17th century, however, introduced the experimental method into scientific practice. A different view of the World and the elements that compose it, using the experimental method, was presented by Newton’s collaborator, founder of the Royal Society of London, and Freemason Robert Boyle (1627–1691).

His main goal was to overturn the traditional theory of the composition of matter through the four elements. In his book The Sceptical Chymist, published in 1661, in the form of “Platonic dialogues” between Hermes Trismegistus and the philosopher Carneades, we find a full description of the modern definition of elements as “primary and simple or entirely unmixed bodies” (Vallianos, 2008, 141).

In the same book, he establishes two fundamental principles that contradict the prevailing alchemical-Neoplatonic view:

• The four elements are not, in reality, true elements.
• The number of real elements is much greater.

These principles, combined with the isolation of oxygen by Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) and the debunking of the phlogiston theory by Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794), permanently relegated the theory of the four elements and their connection with the Platonic solids to the scientific margins.

The English Freemason John Dalton (1766–1844), in his book A New System of Chemical Philosophy, expressed the view that “all bodies of perceptible size, liquid or solid, are composed of an enormous number of minute particles or atoms of matter which combine with one another through an attractive force” (Vallianos, 2008, 144), thus reformulating the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus, which we have already mentioned.

In 1868, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907), building on earlier ideas by John Newlands (1837–1898) and Julius von Mayer (1814–1878), arranged the known elements into a table, the well-known as “Periodic Table of Chemical Elements”. This table was later revised by Henry Moseley (1887–1915) in 1913.

These modern theories present us with a completely different view of the World. Creation is not the result of the union or separation of Empedocles’ four elements, but of the 144 known and unknown elements of the Periodic Table.

Let us now turn to the other example, which concerns the Macrocosm. Today, we all know that the Earth is a small planet orbiting a star, the Sun.

This star is one of many stars and is located at the edge of one of the many galaxies in the Universe.

There are even views that this Universe is not the only one in Creation. This view was not always accepted. Although it had been proposed by Aristarchus of Samos (310–230 BC), the dominant view was that of Aristotle, as refined by Claudius Ptolemy (100–170 AD).

In this view, the Earth was immobile, perhaps flat, in the center of the Universe and was surrounded by celestial spheres. This perspective remained dominant until the 15th century (Bousoutas – Thanasoulas G., 2011, 56–21).

An important factor in its dominance for such a long period, according to many researchers as well as the author, was the stance of the Christian Church.

By the 4th century AD, theologians had studied the work of Claudius Ptolemy, in which he described the World. They realized that his Euclidean universe fit very well with the description of Creation found in the Holy Scriptures, namely the Old Testament.

For this reason, Ptolemy’s geocentric system was also accepted by Christian doctrine. In this system, the Earth was at the center, along with the zones of Fire and Air. Beyond that were the orbits of the seven then-known planets: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Following these were the three zones of the zodiac. The first zone corresponded to the eighth heaven of the fixed stars.

The second to the ninth crystalline heaven, and the third to the tenth, the heaven of the “Protou Kinountos” (=Prime Mover). Beyond this heaven was the heaven in which God dwelled.

References to such a universe are frequently encountered in Masonic rituals. For example, at the opening of the work in the 3rd degree, the Worshipful Master invokes the “Heavenly Ones” as assistants in the search for the lost (GLoG, 2121, 24).

In the Initiation Ceremony, the Worshipful Master invokes the “blessing of the Heavens” for the work of the Lodge (GLoG, 2121, 40).

A similar invocation is found in the Passing Ceremony (GLoG, 2121, 78). Finally, at the closing of the Lodge in the 1st Degree, the Sun proceeds toward the West (GLoG, 2121, 33). From this system also originates the expression “Heavenly Grand Lodge”.

These are not the only unscientific views which we can found in Masonic rituals. Most of them originate from the Christian religion and the decisive role it has played in Freemasonry.

I believe that Masonic ritual should be modernized, to include contemporary examples and allegories that reflect the world of Today, not of Yesterday, and especially not of the distant past.

The role of research Lodges in modernizing Freemasonry is crucial. It is good to look to the past, but it is essential to turn our gaze toward the future. The modernization of Freemasonry should include its rituals and, in my opinion, should permanently free them from religious influences.

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