Skip to main content

Reflections on the Chamber

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."  

Aristotle
The Chamber of Reflection is a fundamental component of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and other Masonic Rites              (although it is not part of the United Grand Lodge of England workings and Rite) and is a significant and symbolic space within the context of European Continental Freemasonry, used during the initiation process of new members. This chamber serves as a place for introspection, self-examination, and preparation for the journey ahead in Freemasonry. Its design and purpose vary across different Masonic jurisdictions, but several key elements remain consistent throughout different Masonic Rites:

The Chamber of Reflection is typically a small, dark and sombre looking room that is often adorned with symbols and objects that provoke thought and contemplation. The atmosphere is intentionally somber, designed to encourage the initiate to reflect on their life, their motivations for seeking membership in the fraternity, and the moral and ethical implications of their future commitments. The initiate may be left alone in this chamber for a period, allowing them to meditate on their intentions and the serious nature of the Masonic journey they are about to embark upon. It is here where the initiate will write his Masonic Testament and typically outline the duties he owes to the Great Architect of the Universe, to himself and to society. 
The room may contain a skull and crossbones, representing mortality and the transient nature of life, encouraging the initiate to consider their own mortality and the legacy they wish to leave behind. There is also a small table on which there is an hourglass symbolic of death and time, bread, a symbol of transformation, water representing life, and a glass containing salt, another sulphur and another mercury; in one corner, an owl symbolises wisdom and vigilance. The alchemical elements might be a reference to the removal of metal, maybe an allusion to the fact that King Solomon's Temple, a key symbol within Masonic mythology, was said to be constructed with wooden tools. The initiate must also "be divested of all metals" prior to being made a Freemason, in a spirit of equality regardless of wealth or status outside the lodge, for in the lodge all brethren are equal.
There are some symbolic drawings: a rooster symbolising protection stands atop a banner that reads “Vigilance and perseverance”, a scythe representating mortality, the word V.I.T.R.I.O L (Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem) a motto attributed to 15th Century alchemist Basilius Valentinus. All this refers to the “Work” that the person who is there intends to carry out. This work, is of course, the initiatic journey of the candidate through Masonic ritual. 


The Chamber of Reflection is a very good introduction to Freemasonry and the Masonic method of personal transformation through symbols and moral allegories. The Chamber represents the darkness of ignorance that precedes the light of Masonic knowledge and wisdom, a knowledge that is more experiential than intellectual and that is imparted through symbols as well as lectures. In some cases there is a mirror, a further invitation for the candidate to reflect and meditate on his or her life up to that point. In some European lodges, there are also admonitions written on the walls of the room of the chamber: "Know Thyself"; "If curiosity brought you here, leave now"; ",You were born to die"; "A perfect man is he who serves others." 
Despite all its seemingly convoluted rituals and practices, Freemasonry's purpose is really simple: it wants to impress upon us the importance of being, of self-knowledge and make us confront the mystery of life and the human condition through strange and often sinister looking symbols and concepts such as the Chamber of Reflection. Freemasonry wants to shake us up from our despondency and the often autopilot mode with which we stumble through life. Freemasonry points us to the obvious things that our profane lives attempt to suppress.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections on Liber MMM

"Human society as a whole is a vast brainwashing machine whose semantic rules and sex roles create a social robot." Robert Anton Wilson Six months ago, seeking a new metaphysical model, I approached the IOT ( the Illuminates of Thanateros).  The Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) is an international magical order formed in the early 1980s, officially around 1987, by Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin, key figures in the development of chaos magic. Emerging from the ideas in Carroll’s Liber Null and Sherwin’s writings in the late 1970s, the order took its name from “Thanatos” (death) and “Eros” (sex), representing the polar forces of magical energy and human experience. The IOT was created to promote chaos magic as a practical, results-oriented system stripped of dogma, emphasizing techniques such as sigil work, altered states, and belief as a tool to be adopted and discarded. Its objectives include fostering magical training and initiation within a struct...
Post a Comment
Read more

All Gods are Welcome

    He was a wise man who invented God. Plato It's not unusual for many people who are looking for a particular spiritual path to do so first by knocking on the door of mainstream, organised religion. After all, mainstream religions have achieved the impossible at least on one level: they have made the belief in the supernatural acceptable to an extent. Yes, they have sought this through unscrupulous means at times and by finding strength in numbers. The problem, of course, is that exclusive belief in one religious paradigm is at best hugely limiting. At worst, it's unadulterated fundamentalism. And fundamentalism, regardless of the particular flavour and packaging it comes in, is normally always a dangerous thing. Somehow, be it through the work of the crusaders or of  Buddhists killing Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar or ISIS and their campaign  of terror in recent times, people always end up dying.  So, the most discerning spiritual se...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aeonics and the death of God

Mainstream religions are limiting by design. Limits are probably necessary for us humans but there is an implicit problem with religions: they resist change, by design, since they purport to stand for inmutable truths. I spent a long time trying to balance my former Christian faith and the impossible challenges of living in a global, enlightened and post Christian world. I had created my own metaphysical prison.  But of course, I came to realise that it the issue goes far beyond all that. We don't live in a post- Christian world. We live in a post- Theist world. This is to say, what we thought of as God, what we described as God in such intricate detail in all our different religions across time was merely a construct, a way of creating a metaphysical superstructure that would help us hold civilization together. But a construct isn't necessarily the truth. It is important to note that rejection of the different guises that we, as humans, have chosen to present our g...
Post a Comment
Read more