From:(Steven Cranmer)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Third Degree Word (Masonic & OTO)
Date: 11 Jul 1994 13:05:40 GMT
Hello,
First, a discaimer and a plug:
(1) Purported secrets of the Freemasons and the OTO (Ordo Templi
Orientis) will be frankly discussed herein, and I'm not a
member of either organization. Deal accordingly.
(2) For those interested in Freemasonry, check out the new (?)
newsgroup: bit.listserv.freemasonry. Somehow, I don't think
this post would be welcome there, however. :)
Okay, phew.
I've been fascinated with the allegory and symbolism in the third degree
of both Freemasonry and the OTO for some time now, and I'd like to share
some of the insights I've gained. For those not familiar, the three
degrees of Craft Masonry can be (very simply) summed up by the following:
I. Entered Apprentice Birth ("initiation" into life)
II. Fellow [of the] Craft Youth and Adulthood
III. Master Mason Death and Rebirth
Of course, there's a lot more to them than this, but there are many books
out there that can tell you more. Try anything by W. Kirk MacNulty. The
first three degrees of the OTO (Minerval excluded) are said to follow
this same basic structure.
The first two degrees set up a pattern in the initiate's mind, and (at
least in the American version) the third degree radically breaks that
pattern. The shock at the breaking of the ritual pattern can cause all
sorts of psychological changes in the candidate -- and in fact some say
that's what it is precisely designed to do.
But let's leave a lot of the ritual details for now, and concentrate on
a little piece of ephemera contained in them -- the secret words.
Historically, before there were three degrees, there were only the first
two, and their secret words were the names of the two pillars in the Old
Testament Temple of Solomon: Jachin and Boaz. The order of the two
words got switched around a few times -- today Boaz goes with the first
degree, and Jachin with the second; and I'm not yet sure which ordering
makes more sense, symbolically.
But somewhere between, say, 1650 and 1730, the Master's degree was added
to the system. Was it because there were getting to be too many Fellows
of disparate social/political strata? Was it because those ignorant
English didn't catch the fact that "fellow" and "master" in Scottish
parlance were synonyms? :) I have no idea, and I don't think the hist-
orians know either. But they needed a new word for the new degree.
The story (myth?) that evolved into the third degree ritual has to do
with the murder of a Master, who held invaluable secrets. The modern
ritual calls the Master "Hiram Abiff," after the builder of Solomon's
Temple, but some old manuscripts use Noah instead. Anyway, the Master
was killed by three impatient Fellow Crafts, who wanted to know the secret
"Master's Word," which, some say, involved the pronounciation of an in-
effable name of God.
To make a sometimes tediously long story short, the Master's body is dis-
covered by the remaining loyal Fellows, and an attempt is made to inquire
whether he gave away the secrets or not. In the current version of the
ritual, the initiate plays the (unsuspecting!) role of the murdered, and
now exhumed, Hiram. The Master of the Lodge, who plays the role of King
Solomon, attempts to "raise" the dead body by the "grips" (secret hand-
shakes) of the first two degrees, and fails -- the decaying flesh slips off
the bones. Finally, the body is successfully raised by the new third degree
grip, and everyone rejoices.
Before going any further, it's interesting to note that in many Masonic
interpretations of this rite, they always seem to dance around what seems
(to me) to be what's being enacted here: necromancy! What else would
you call trying to get information out of a dead body? Through all the
analogies to death and resurrection in the afterlife, this (probably
upsetting) interpretation has only been mentioned by non-Masons, to my
knowledge.
The third degree grip, called the "Lion's Paw" of the tribe of Judah,
contains some interesting symbolism. In one of the pictures of this
handshake I've seen (but not all), it kind of looks like the Master and
the initiate are shaking hands while doing Mr. Spock's "live long and
prosper" gesture! Admittedly, it does look kind of like a paw, though.
But I do recall reading that Leonard Nimoy took the gesture from his
boyhood memories of Jewish rabbis blessing the congregation, with his
hands in that gesture. With all the Solomonic symbolism in Masonry, who
knows? I also recall a quote in Colin Low's _Notes_on_Kabbalah_ (without
a footnoted source) from C.S. Lewis, where a lion tears off someone's
(metaphorical) layers of skin. This surprisingly pleasurable experience
seems related to the process of death-rebirth initiation being enacted
in the Masonic third degree.
Anyway, because they couldn't determine whether Hiram gave away the Master's
Word, King Solomon changed it. He made it, according to one version of
the story, the first thing said by one of the loyal Fellows when he
discovered Hiram's body. So is the "Substitute Word" something like the
Hebrew translation of "Ewww" or "Ick" or "Holy Shit?" Maybe, maybe not.
The oldest written source for this word is Scottish, and it is given as
"MAHABYN." Subsequent versions in old manuscripts were Maughbin, Match-
pin, Magboe-and-Boe, and Marrow-in-the-Bone. Today, there are two forms
in use: "MAH-HAH-BONE," and "MACBENACH."
One popular "translation" of the word is something akin to "The flesh
cleaves from the bones." I'm not sure what language this is supposed to
come from, though. Another interpretation is from the Hebrew "MH-H-BVNH,"
meaning (according to Mackey's encyclopedia) "What? The Builder!?" which
seems an appropriate first utterance. Another intriguing interpretation
is a juxtaposition of the Indian "Mahal" (meaning "palace," cf. the Taj
Mahal) and the Scottish term "Ben" (for the innermost room of a
cottage). Could this be a builder's version of the Hermetic principle
"As above, so below" -- sort of "As in the palace, so in the hovel?"
There are dozens of other interpretations, and I don't think we'll ever
really know the intent of the original.
Another twist on this word comes in Crowley's rituals of "reformed Masonry"
in the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). Instead of Hiram the builder, the
Master is now Mansur el-Hallaj, who was murdered for a blasphemous state-
ment supposedly identifying himself with God. The word by which he (and
the candidate) is raised isn't given in Francis King's _Secret_Rituals_
of_the_OTO_, but many clues are given.
King states that the word contains four letters, which sum by gematria to
93. If we can assume that the word is derived from the (Hebrew?) Mason's
word, we can note that in all versions, the consonants M, B, and N always
appear. These add to 40 + 2 + 50 = 92 (not using the N-final) in Hebrew
gematria. Adding an Aleph would bring the sum up to 93. So is the OTO
3rd Degree word "MABN" (mem-aleph-beth-nun)? If this is wrong, I'll prob-
ably be told in no uncertain terms. "AMBN" and "MBNA" might also be valid
permutations.
King's published version of the third degree OTO ritual also states that
the word is made up of the initial letters of a sentence, which in
English means "Now is the blessing of Death at hand." In a post a few
months ago, Bill Heidrick noted that a secret Latin sentence was rumored to
be illicitly circulated somewhere. Okay, my high-school Latin is pretty
rusty, but isn't "now"="nunc", "blessing"="beatus", "death"="mors"?
There's the M, B, and N. "At hand" can be taken to be various things,
but I'll bet that one could find something starting with the letter A
(or a glottal stop!!). This doesn't give us any clues about the order of
the letters, though, because Latin grammar doesn't depend on word order.
In addition to the sentence above and the other meanings of "93," this
four-letter word brings up a few other ideas. In Masonic ritual, Hiram
is called the "widow's son." In Hebrew, "son" is BN, and "mother" is
(according to Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia) is AM. Put 'em together,
and you've got something close, and with a lot of symbolism! In addition,
I can't resist recalling that I've seen some sources of Wicca refer to
the autumnal equinox as "Mabon." Is this a Celtic word? Tying this word
to the time of year when the sun is "dying" is quite provocative as well.
Oh well, there are plenty of other issues, but I'll leave them for spec-
ulation: Is there any worth in making the obvious comparision to Isis
and Osiris and the Djed column? Did the Swedish singing group "Ace of
Base" know this when they used a Djed-within-an-Ankh as "The Sign"?
*Is* life demanding without understanding? :) :)
And why so much tidoo about a word? Well, in Saint John's Lodge, I guess
the first few verses of his gospel are indeed taken to heart:
"In the beginning, there was the Word; the Word was in God's
presence, and the Word was God. It was present to God in
the beginning. Through it all things came into being, and
apart from it nothing came to be."
-- Steve Cranmer