God: for the sake of the last days of this year, we will give a word to a book found quite easily online. because? well, these boys at hand have always spoke so nicely of me
and the mason is familiar with these doctrines of philo: that the supreme being is a centre of light whose rays or emanations pervade the universe; for that is the light for which all masonic journeys are a search, and of which the sun and moon in our lodges are only emblems: that light and darkness, chief enemies from the beginning of time, dispute with each other the empire of the world; which we symbolize by the candidate wandering in darkness and being brought to light: that the world was created, not by the supreme being, but by a secondary agent, who is but his word, and by types which are but his ideas, aided by an INTELLIGENCE, or WISDOM, which gives one of his attributes; in which we see the occult meaning of the necessity of recovering 'the word'; and of our two columns of STRENGTH and WISDOM, which are also the two parallel lines that bound the circle representing the universe:
that the visible world is the image of the invisible world
that the essence of the human soul is the image of god
and it existed before the body: that the object of its terrestial life is to disengage itself of its body or its sepulchre; and that it will ascend to the heavenly regions whenever it shall be purified; in which we see the meaning, now almost forgotten in our lodges, of the mode of preparation of the candidate for apprenticeship, and his tests and purifications in the first degree, according to the ancient and accepted scottish rite
Surveillance: close to 900 pages of pure gold. no wonder plato has been around in art exhibitions and in studies regarding philology and etymology for the past week or two, for his ideas are quite respected here too, indeed. historically, the book is interesting, no matter how correct its sources, especially in regards to cultural exchange between the greeks eqyptians jews hindus and what had you, finally forming a base for gnosis. interestingly enough, some quite important pieces of the puzzle have been admitted an emergence in palestine, back in the grecian times of course
