• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • What Is Freemasonry?
  • Who Are Freemasons?
  • What Does Freemasonry Do?
  • 2B1ask1
  • Family of Freemasonry
  • Masonic Symbols

Freemason Information

Masonic Education and Analysis

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Gregory B. Stewart
    • Frederic L. Milliken
    • Tim Bryce
  • Education
    • Masonic Symbols
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Freemasonry in General
    • Family of Freemasonry
    • Famous Freemasons
    • Books
    • Masonic Poetry
    • Anti-Freemasonry
    • Masonic History
    • Freemasonry in Cinema
    • Esoteric Freemasonry
    • Grand Lodges
  • Masonic Books
    • Masonic Books A-G
    • Masonic Books H-M
    • Masonic Books N-Z
    • Masonic Books for the New Mason
  • Masonic Central Podcast
  • Special Offers
    • Art
    • Masonic Top Hats
    • Masonic Rings
    • Past Master Rings
  • Contact
    • Submit a Guest Post
You are here: Home / Featured / Death in Freemasonry | Symbols and Symbolism

Death in Freemasonry | Symbols and Symbolism

October 30, 2018 by Greg Stewart Leave a Comment

In this installment of Symbols and Symbolism we look at Albert Mackey’s entry in his Encyclopedia of Freemasonry on the subject of Death. More broad than a mere memento mori, or skull and bones. Rather, Mackey equates the sentiment ones passing as the entrance to eternal existence.

Mackey writes,

The Scandinavians, in their Edda, describing the residence of Death in Hell, where she was east by her father, Loke, say that she there possesses large apartments, strongly built, and fenced with gates of iron. Her hall is Grief; her table, Famine and Hunger, her knife; Delay, her servant; Faintness, her porch; Sickness and Pain, her bed; and her tent, Cursing and Howling. But, the Masonic idea of death, like the Christian’s, is accompanied with no gloom, because it is represented only as a sleep, from whence we awaken into another life.

Among the ancients, sleep and death were fabled as twins. The Greek sophist, Old Gorgias, when dying, said, “Sleep is about to deliver me up to his brother;’’ but the death sleep of the heathen was a sleep from which there was no awaking.

The popular belief was annihilation, and the poets and philosophers fostered the people’s ignorance, by describing death as the total and irremediable extinction of live. Thus Seneca says—and he was too philosophic not to have known better—that “after death there comes nothing,” while Vergil, who doubtless had been initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis, nevertheless calls death “an iron sleep, an eternal night,” yet the Ancient Mysteries were based upon the dogma of eternal life, and their initiations were intended to represent a resurrection. Freemasonry, deriving its system of symbolic teachings from these ancient religious associations, presents death to its neophytes as the gate or entrance to eternal existence. To teach the doctrine of immortality is the great object of the Third Degree. In its ceremonies we learn that live here is the time of labor, and that, working at the construction of a spiritual temple, we are worshiping the Grand Architect for whom we build that temple. But we learn also that, when that live is ended, it closes only to open upon a newer and higher one, where in a second temple and a purer Lodge, the Freemason will find eternal truth.

Death, therefore, in Masonic philosophy, is the symbol of initiation completed, perfected, and consummated.

Additionally, Mackey’s entry on Death in the Ancient Mysteries reads,

Each of the ancient religious Mysteries, those quasi-Masonic associations of the heathen world, was accompanied by a legend, which was always of a funereal character representing the death, by violence, of the deity to whom it was dedicated, and his subsequent resurrection or restoration to life. Hence, the first part of the ceremonies of initiation was solemn and lugubrious in character, ,while the latter part was cheerful and joyous. These ceremonies and this legend were altogether symbolical, and the great truths of the unity of God and the immortality, of the soul were by them intended to be dramatically explained.

This representation of death, which finds its analogue in the Third Degree of Freemasonry, has been technically called the Death of the Mysteries. It is sometimes more precisely defined, in reference to any special one of the Mysteries, as the Cabiric death or the Bacchic death, as indicating the death represented in the Mysteries of the Cabiri or of Dionysus.

Share this:

Related

  • Great Architect of the Universe – Symbols and Symbolism
  • September 12, 2016
  • In "Featured"
  • The Christianization of Freemasonry
  • April 13, 2015
  • In "Sojourners"
  • Time in Freemasonry
  • October 12, 2018
  • In "Featured"

Filed Under: Featured, Symbolism, Video Tagged With: death, Memento Mori

Sponsored Links

About Greg Stewart

A devoted student of the Western Mystery Traditions, Greg is a firm believer in the Masonic connections to the Hermetic traditions of antiquity, its evolution through the ages and into its present configuration as the antecedent to all contemporary esoteric and occult traditions. He is a self-called searcher for that which was lost, a Hermetic Hermit and a believer in “that which is above is so too below.” Read more about Greg Stewart.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

FOLLOW US ONLINE

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

THE FIRST DEGREE OF FREEMASONRY

The Apprentice

The Apprentice

The Apprentice is a book about becoming a Freemasons. This work explores the secrets and symbolism of becoming a Freemason.

Learn More about The Apprentice

THE SECOND DEGREE OF FREEMASONRY

Fellow of the Craft

Fellow of the Craft

Drawing from the rich collection of masonic lore, Fellow of the Craft continues the masonic path of the Apprentice through the middle chamber in becoming a Freemason.

Learn More about Fellow of the Craft

THE THIRD DEGREE OF FREEMASONRY

The Master Mason

The Master Mason

Completing the journey into the symbolic lodge The Master Mason is a formal exploration of the symbolism and allegory at work in becoming a third degree of Freemason.

Learn More about The Master Mason

Symbols and Symbolism

Carl H. Claudy

Raised to a Master Mason in 1908, at Harmony Lodge No. 17 in Washington, DC, Carl H. Claudy  served as the Master and eventually as Grand Master of Masons … [Read More...] about Carl H. Claudy

Charity in Freemasonry

In this final installment of the Faith Hope and Charity series, we consider the symbolism of charity, or perhaps better called love. It is this attribute that … [Read More...] about Charity in Freemasonry

Hope in Freemasonry

In this installment of the Symbols and Symbolism of Freemasonry, we examine the text of Albert Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry on the symbolism of … [Read More...] about Hope in Freemasonry

Faith in Freemasonry

In this installment of the Symbols and Symbolism of Freemasonry, we consider a reading of Albert Mackey's text on the subject of Faith as it pertains to … [Read More...] about Faith in Freemasonry

More Symbols and Symbolism

Footer

Family of Freemasonry

  • Allied Masonic Degrees
  • Amaranth
  • Daughters of the Nile
  • DeMolay
  • George Washington Union Freemasonry
  • Grand Lodge Freemasonry
  • Grotto
  • High Twelve
  • International Freemasonic Order DELPHI
  • Job’s Daughters
  • Le Droit Humain
  • Memphis Misraim
  • Mixed Gender Masonry
  • Order of the Eastern Star
  • Prince Hall Freemasonry
  • Rainbow for Girls
  • Royal Order of Jesters
  • Scottish Rite
  • Shriners
  • S.C.I.O.T.S.
  • Sojourners
  • S.R.I.C.F.
  • Tall Cedars
  • White Shrine of Jerusalem
  • York Rite

You Might Like

  • Masonic Books
  • Famous Freemasons in History
  • Masonic Astronauts
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Masonic Poetry
  • The Letter G
  • Masonic Top Hats

Categories

  • Featured
  • Leadership
  • Masonic Traveler
    • Masonic Central
  • Misc
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Sojourners
  • Symbolism
    • Authors
    • What is Freemasonry
  • The Bee Hive
  • The Euphrates
  • Tim Bryce
  • Video

Subscribe

Receive new posts by email

Join 23,146 other subscribers

Send Us a Message

Do you have a question, comment, or concern? Do you have a paper, a presentation or a project you would like to publish?
Email it to us at: masonictraveler@gmail.com

Copyright © 2022