Thomas B. Ball, 33°

Masonic circumambulation, like walking a labyrinth of maze, is an allegory for introspection, self-awareness, and the journey of life.

Labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral

A visiting Brother was having trouble "proving up" in the examination room. We finally asked him just to relate anything he remembered about his Degrees. He thought briefly and said, "I walked around in circles a lot!"

The rite of circumambulation is a common feature of most Masonic Degrees. Some have argued the practice developed at table Lodges simply from escorting Candidates around the table to introduce them to the officers. By such reasoning, the practice couldn't really be called a "rite" until later, more complex rituals, when banquet tables gave way to Masonic carpets. Although the Old Charges give no evidence of circumambulation in early Craft ceremonies, as a ritual practice it has a long history independent of the Craft and a significant background in operative masonry.

A clear connection to operative masonry is found in medieval cathedrals, such as at Chartres, Reims, or Amiens in France. The nave floor had, and in some cases still has, a large tile laby-rinth used, among other things, for walking a symbolic pilgrimage, performed as an act of devotion, in fulfillment of a promise, or as penance. The convoluted, winding path circles and recircles before reaching the center of the maze. Prescribed prayers or chants marked each turn of the path. Labyrinths were not trivial ornamentations, and the master mason often placed his nameplate in its center. Clearly it was an important symbol, and pregnant with meaning.

The labyrinth as a symbol has received much attention in psychological literature, partially because it recurs independently in many cultures. Jungian psychologists equate it with the unconscious mind. By such reasoning, walking a labyrinth is an allegory for introspection and self-awareness. It has also been equated with the journey of life, where the traveler cannot foresee the end or even more than a few steps in front of him. Such interpretations have also been advanced for the winding stairway of the Fellowcraft Degree.

Traditionally, cathedral labyrinths were used to represent pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Walking it on one's knees was called the "Jerusalem Mile." Pilgrimages as transforming experiences were fundamental to early Christianity. It is no surprise, then, that Gothic cathedrals should provide for a pilgrimage in petit, where the pious could imagine themselves on a sacred journey. This symbolism suggests the circumambulations of various Masonic Degrees. The Order of the Temple plainly says that the circumambulation represents a Christian's pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In many versions of the Royal Arch Degree, the circumambulation depicts the captives' return to Jerusalem from Babylon. On first hearing, the narrative seems just a long travelogue, but on further study, the journey becomes an allegory for life and the Holy City an em-blem of Divine Truth. Jerusalem, having such an important niche in western imagination, has come to represent far more than a spot on the map or even a historic locale. From the prophecies of Ezekiel to the Apocalypse of St. John, the "New Jerusalem" signifies the fulfillment of all spiritual aspirations. The pilgrimage is then an allegory for the refinement of the soul, what alchemists called the "Great Work." An instructive example is in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, which relates the author's dream about a man, Christian, who leaves his home to find the Celestial City. Christian's spiritual wanderings through the "Slough of Despond," "Vanity Fair," and other allegorical landmarks are depicted as a spiral map with the Celestial City at its center.

The labyrinth was a religious symbol in cultures as diverse as the Minoans and the Hopis. The famous line drawings on the Peruvian Nazca plain, winding into depictions of huge animals, were most likely ceremonial paths used, like the cathedral labyrinths, as settings for meditation and contemplation.

Thirty-second Degree Candidates circumambulate "the Camp," the centerpiece of the Scottish Rite, and now being used as the symbol for the Scottish Rite Research Society.

It represents a "reunion" of Masons of the several Degrees, encamped in concentric geometric figures. It bears some resemblance to the encampment of the tribes of Israel described in the second chapter of Numbers. Unfortunately, the new Scottish Rite Mason usually walks away from the Degree with only a partial idea of the Camp, thinking it a simple recapitulation of previous Degrees. He knows what it looks like, but not what it does. Earlier versions of the Degree, before Pike's revisions, tell a more involved, if slightly bewildering, story.

The Francken Manuscript of 1783, for example, relates that Frederick the Great of Prussia designed the Camp to organize a Masonic army, which was (at some unspecified future date) to gather at Naples before departing on a new crusade to recapture Jerusalem. Watchwords for each day of the week were taught to the Candidates, with signals for departure, and the route to be taken to Palestine. It is disconcerting to think that the greatest secret of the Scottish Rite might be a plan to storm the Holy Land with an army of Masons! On second reading, however, it is plain that a literal crusade was never intended. The instructions make no sense, unless as an allegorical quest for the Holy City.

Pike's last revision of the 32nd Degree ritual, written after the Civil War, presents the Camp by itself, without the "marching orders." Pike, the veteran of one heartbreaking crusade, perhaps had little wish to talk about a new one. He did, however, discuss it in the Readings XXXII, calling the idea of a literal crusade "merely absurd." He interprets it as a plan for the unified efforts of Masonry to bring democracy and free thought to all mankind, identifying Luther's reformation and the American and French Revolutions with waypoints of the campaign. If Pike stretched a bit in projecting his own political opinions on the original framers of the 32nd Degree, he probably was not far from the core of their intentions.

The symbol is, after all, still of a pilgrimage, if a somewhat militant one. Whether "Jerusalem" represents social change or personal illumination, the pilgrim now has an army at his back, in the lessons of the Degrees, and this pilgrimage only begins where the 32nd Degree ends.

Thomas B. Ball is the Degree Master in the 18° and 30°, Valley of San Antonio, Texas. A Past Master of San Juan Lodge #1173, San Juan, Texas, he is a Past Prior of the KYCH, a Past Governor and Associate Regent of the York Rite College, and a Past Sovereign of the Red Cross of Constantine. Contact: 212 West Sixth Street, San Juan, TX 78589-2612; TomasBall@aol.com.