ASTROLOGY

Freemason view

A whence demanding the respect of the scholar, notwithstanding its designation as a black art, and, in a reflective sense, an occult science; a system of divination foretelling results by the relative positions of the planets and other heavenly bodies toward the earth. Men of eminence have adhered to the doctrines of astrology as a science. It is a study well considered in, and forming an important part of, the ceremonies of the Philosophus, or fourth grade of the First Order of the Society of Rosicrucians. Astrology has been deemed the twin science of astronomy, grasping knowledge from the heavenly bodies, and granting a proper understanding of many of the startling forces in nature. It is claimed that the constellations of the zodiac govern the earthly animals, and that every star has its peculiar nature, property, and function, the seal and character of which it impresses through its rays upon plants, minerals, and animal life. This science was known to the ancients as the divine art (see Magic). ASTRONOMY. The science which instructs us in the laws that govern the heavenly bodies. Its origin is lost in the mists of antiquity ; for the earliest inhabitants of the earth must have been attracted by the splendor of the glorious firmament above them, and would have sought in the motions of its luminaries for the readiest and most certain method of measuring time. With astronomy the system of Freemasonry is intimately connected. From that science many of our most significant emblems are borrowed.

The Lodge itself is a representation of the world; it is adorned with the images of the sun and moon, whose regularity and precision furnish a lesson of wisdom and prudence; its pillars of strength and establishment bave been compared to the two columns which the ancients placed at the equinoctial points as supporters of the arch of heaven; the blazing star which was among the Egyptians a symbol of Anubis, or the dog-star, which sitting foretold the overflowing of the Nile, shines in the East; while the clouded canopy is decorated with the beautiful Pleiades, a group of stars in the constellation Taurus, or the Bull, about seven of which are visible to the naked eye.

The connection between our Order and astronomy is still more manifest in the .spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, where, the pure principles of our system being lost, the symbolic instruction of the heavenly bodies gave place to the corrupt Sabean worship of the sun, and moon, and stars-a worship whose influences are seen in all the mysteries of Paganism. ASYLUM. During the session of a Commandery of Knights Templar, a part of the premises is called the asylum; the word has been adopted, by the figure in rhetoric synecdoche, in which the whole may be represented by a part, to signify the place of meeting of a Commandery.

The word astrology is not a true term because it always has been ambiguous, meaning one thing in one country or period of time, another thing in some other country or time, and one contradicting the other. The nearest to any acceptable definition is to say that there has never been astrology, there have been astrologies, these astrologies among themselves vary from a form of astromical book-keeping practiced in China for calendar purposes, to the pseudo-religion which, to judge from the newsstands, has become a flourishing and also a financially profitable cult in America. As a further complication, at one or two periods in the late Middle Ages the word astrology was a synonym for astronomy. As a generalization it may be said that any particular astrology will teach the notion that a star is not what an astronomer says it is but is something more or something other; such as, that it is a god (or goddess!), or a saint, or an angel, or a fate, or possesses magical powers, etc. and that what it is, or some attribute it possesses, has some direct influence on men.

There is nowhere any trace of evidence to show that at any time astrology has been accepted by Freemasonry, or taught by it, or is one of the elements in the Ritual. If the mere mention of the skies, or the sun, or moon, etc., were to be considered to be astrology, then each and every man is an astrologist; so is each and every astronomer, every maker of calendars, almost every poet, the majority of composers of music, and many historians. The sun and moon are conspicuous in the Ritual, but not with any astrology meanings. For five or six centuries it was a “custom ” of the Craft to work from sunrise to sunset, and usually contracts would set two lengths of work days for the year, the midpoint of one set falling on St. John the Baptist's Day when the daylight was longest, one on the Evangelist's Day when it was shortest ; and the moon represented the night; this old “custom” very probably was the origin of the two Masonic symbols of the Sun and the Moon.

Amateur Masonic occultists have attempted to connect Masonry with the zodiac, one of the conspicuous features of astrologies ; but here again there is no one zodiac, but many zodiacs throughout the world. The idea of a zodiac itself is one of the largest hoaxes with which men have ever befuddled themselves, and could never have been true to facts. The discovery of dark stars of great magnitude; that what in ancient times was taken for one star was two or more or even a whole galaxy; and the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, has made the zodiac meaningless. It is a toy of the mind. There is nothing of the zodiac in the present Masonic Ritual; there was never a mention of it in the oldest Speculative Lodges ; in Medieval times it was a heresy, and Operative Freemasons would have abhorred the thought of it.

It can safely be laid down as a law of the Fraternity that anything and everything in the Ritual is understandable and knowable by any normal man, and nothing in it calls for erudition ; it could not be otherwise where so many millions are admitted to membership. When the Candidate is told that if he finds anything puzzling he can consult well-informed Brethren it is presupposed that in any Lodge there will be such Brethren. This principle, which also is a practice, disposes at a stroke the notion that there has ever been in the Craft any form of occultism which calls for erudition, or for adepts specially trained, or for a kind of knowledge not available to the rank and file of ordinary Masons. Astrology, in its present-day American form, is self-confessedly not open to common knowledge but is understandable only by experts, who for that reason charge a fee for the use of their supposedly erudite knowledge ; and it shares that practice with the majority of other forms of occultism.