Key Insights on Masonic Research and Initiation Conditions

to have known, even to have found something that, at a certain moment, either was lost or is no longer evident, or that is not found in direct connection with our consciousness, when the latter is in its normal waking condition. Further research could lead to better understanding the connection between the act involved in true interior research and the meaning that the word sacred receives from its Indo-European root, sac, which, not by chance, also has the meaning of separation, of enclosed place.

The necessary conditions for research in Freemasonry. However, before being able to indicate some of the directions illuminated by research in Freemasonry, it is necessary to have present in heart and mind that the indispensable condition for being able to even begin such research arises, for us, in a precise and unique instant, with the well-performed execution of the ritual of initiation to Freemasonry. Furthermore, it is silence, interior and exterior, that envelops the results of such research. In fact, one begins in silence, rises and descends from silence into silence.

We cannot even omit mentioning another essential and preliminary condition for being able to speak of research in the Freemasonry of the first degrees; namely that it is in that unique, sole, virginal instant in which a symbol unveils itself for the first time before us, that the vital and generative vibration acts, which allows contact, often only momentary, with that luminous extra-subjectivity which is fullness of life, real substance of initiatic knowledge. Fundamentally, the secret of Fraternity, in Freemasonry, is all lived in such moments of pure sharing, when among the brothers the rose blooms without why and the cross spiritually unites the extension of the Soul with the unity of the Intellect.

Research in Freemasonry: points of view supported by Freemasons. It is here appropriate to remember, briefly, what the Freemasons themselves, the only beings with whom it is possible to conduct research in Freemasonry, have expounded about the overall meaning attributable to their research. In extreme synthesis we can observe that the spiritual tastes of Freemasons emerge following two great currents, which have always accompanied, accompany and will accompany the latomistic works.

The first, that in which the great majority of Freemason brothers and almost the totality of the vertices of the Masonic institution of modern epoch seems to identify itself, leads to considering Freemasonry as the prototype of that new interclass sociality which, starting from late seventeenth-century Europe, opened its way within European society, fighting very laboriously against fanaticism, ignorance and ambitions of every kind. The ultimate end of such efforts would consist in the slow improvement of the individual, to make him suitable, also by virtue of his latomistic efforts, to contribute to the good and progress of Humanity.

The other current, much less widespread and in constant dialectical relationship with the previous one, is founded on the esoteric knowledge that springs from meditation on the symbols of Freemasonry. To be able to enter it, however, very arduous work, even theoretical, is necessary. Indeed, to activate the spiritual force necessary to accomplish such meditations with the right interior disposition, it is uncompromising not only to attend to the ritual works of a just and perfect Lodge; for those who enter this current 'being' is not 'being-in-the-word', but is realizing the reality manifested in Masonic Symbolism.

In other words, to be able to proceed along this path it is necessary that a particular form of generative imagination be activated, capable of weaving, in the most complete absence of any reward, a fine web, rich in symbols lived and made to operate in the joy of true interior purity. The ultimate end to which such work directs is the transfiguration of the initiate into a state of crystalline clarity about the limits of the mental and, in particular, of what in the being in waking state is called 'consciousness'.

Naturally both currents, which we have separated for expository convenience, operate in the heart of a Freemason who pursues his initiatic research and contribute, at minimum, to forging a typology of man very suited to the forms of an ironic, evolved sociality, respectful of others' opinions and which has not renounced confronting the great questions that life always poses to those who finalize their freedom, their intellect and their own will not only to achieving material well-being.

The Rite as a further common dimension. It is important to remember that, for one who has decided to undertake research in Freemasonry, whether he wants to contribute to improving the moral and social conditions of Humanity through exterior actions or wants to reach full interior consciousness about his own limitations, it is necessary to have realized, through initiation, a break of level...