Researchers mention 4 ancient Greek personalities named Pythagoras (among them a “sportsman”). The most famous one — the “mathematician”, seemingly born on the Greek island of Samos, lived between circa 580 and 500 B.C.. During a short journey to Egypt, when being a young man of 22, Thales (the reknown Greek philosopher) suggested him to study in Egypt to enlarge his knowledge. On his return to Greece, he prepared himself to travel to Tyre in Lebanon, apparently because of a commercial connection of his father. There, he was initiated for the first time into the “Ancient Mysteries” of the Phoenicians and studied for about 3 years in the temples of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. From there, he navigated to Egypt, the source of the “Ancient Mysteries”. On the road, he lingered for a while in the gulf of Haifa at a temple on Mount Carmel, Israel (after the destruction of the First Jewish Temple of Jerusalem). In Egypt, he was initiated and studied for about 22 years. Apparently, he studied for another 13 years in Babylon as well, while he was captured on his way back from Egypt to Greece.

In fact, the “Ancient Mysteries’ Magi” specialized in “science” as it was perceived in those days, with the considerable influence of their “specialization” in paganism. The sparse knowledge of the Magi and the surrounding society caused the secrecy and mysticism.

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Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher, was born on April 22, 1724. He is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and of the late Enlightenment.

Freemasonry existed in a less organized form for many hundreds of years prior to the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1721. Many have speculated that early Masonic lodges functioned more as trade guilds, rather than as repositories of philosophical and moralistic thought, as exist today. At some point, many believe, scholars sought refuge in Masonic Lodges to discuss scientific and philosophical ideas that would have been considered heretical at the time. These “free thinkers” transformed the “operative” workman lodges of the time into the “speculative” philosophical lodges that we have today.

There is also little doubt that the teachings and rituals of Freemasonry continued to evolve throughout the age of enlightenment and reason that was spreading throughout Europe in the 1700’s. To this end, one of the most influential philosophers in the latter part of the age of reason was Kant, and students of Freemasonry should acquaint themselves with his thoughts, particularly as it concerns reason and morality, should they wish to glimpse the birthing of our Masonic beliefs.

In his essay “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?,” Kant defined the Enlightenment as an age shaped by the Latin motto, Sapere aude (“Dare to Know”). Kant maintained that one ought to think autonomously, free of the dictates of external authority. His work reconciled many of the differences between the Rationalist and Empiricist traditions of the 18th century. He had a decisive impact on the Romantic and German Idealist philosophies of the 19th century. His work has also been a starting point for many 20th century philosophers.

Kant asserted that, because of the limitations of argumentation in the absence of irrefutable evidence, no one could really know whether there is a God and an afterlife or not, and, conversely, that no one could really know that there is no God and no afterlife. For the sake of society and morality, Kant asserted, people are reasonably justified in believing in them, even though they could never know for sure whether they are real or not. He explained:

“ All the preparations of reason, therefore, in what may be called pure philosophy, are in reality directed to those three problems only [God, the soul, and freedom]. However, these three elements in themselves still hold independent, proportional, objective weight individually. Moreover, in a collective relational context; namely, to know what ought to be done: if the will is free, if there is a God, and if there is a future world. As this concerns our actions with reference to the highest aims of life, we see that the ultimate intention of nature in her wise provision was really, in the constitution of our reason, directed to moral interests only. ”

The sense of an enlightened approach and the critical method required that “If one cannot prove that a thing is, he may try to prove that it is not. And if he succeeds in doing neither (as often occurs), he may still ask whether it is in his interest to accept one or the other of the alternatives hypothetically, from the theoretical or the practical point of view. Hence the question no longer is as to whether perpetual peace is a real thing or not a real thing, or as to whether we may not be deceiving ourselves when we adopt the former alternative, but we must act on the supposition of its being real.” The presupposition of God, soul, and freedom was then a practical concern, for “Morality, by itself, constitutes a system, but happiness does not, unless it is distributed in exact proportion to morality. This, however, is possible in an intelligible world only under a wise author and ruler. Reason compels us to admit such a ruler, together with life in such a world, which we must consider as future life, or else all moral laws are to be considered as idle dreams… .”

The two interconnected foundations of what Kant called his “critical philosophy” that created the “Copernican revolution” that he claimed to have wrought in philosophy were his epistemology of Transcendental Idealism and his moral philosophy of the autonomy of practical reason. These teachings placed the active, rational human subject at the center of the cognitive and moral worlds. With regard to knowledge, Kant argued that the rational order of the world as known by science could never be accounted for merely by the fortuitous accumulation of sense perceptions. It was instead the product of the rule-based activity of “synthesis.” This activity consisted of conceptual unification and integration carried out by the mind through concepts or the “categories of the understanding” operating on the perceptual manifold within space and time, which are not concepts, but are forms of sensibility that are a priori necessary conditions for any possible experience. Thus the objective order of nature and the causal necessity that operates within it are dependent upon the mind. There is wide disagreement among Kant scholars on the correct interpretation of this train of thought. The ‘two-world’ interpretation regards Kant’s position as a statement of epistemological limitation, that we are never able to transcend the bounds of our own mind, meaning that we cannot access the “thing-in-itself”. Kant, however, also speaks of the thing in itself or transcendental object as a product of the (human) understanding as it attempts to conceive of objects in abstraction from the conditions of sensibility. Following this line of thought, some interpreters have argued that the thing in itself does not represent a separate ontological domain but simply a way of considering objects by means of the understanding alone – this is known as the two-aspect view. With regard to morality, Kant argued that the source of the good lies not in anything outside the human subject, either in nature or given by God, but rather is only the good will itself. A good will is one that acts from duty in accordance with the universal moral law that the autonomous human being freely gives itself. This law obliges one to treat humanity – understood as rational agency, and represented through oneself as well as others – as an end in itself rather than (merely) as means to other ends the individual might hold.

It is in the philosophy of Kant that we find illustrated many of the themes which resonate in Masonry.

(Wikipedia – Immanuel Kant)

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Religion has in fact historically treated speculation as either negative as attempting to second guess Providence by betting on future crops or on the other hand positive.  For if Nature is the face of God then Nature is a legitimate, even obligatory, object of speculation as to where its bounty may be found and also speculative thought may also as reveal God’s nature.

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While not commonly used in Blue Lodges in California, Masonic Tracing Boards are displayed during degrees in many Masonic initiatory ceremonies throughout the world.  These Tracing Boards are rich in Masonic Symbolism, which was explained to the candidate during the degrees by the Master.

In this excellent article by W. Kirk MacNulty, a detailed explanation of the history of Tracing Boards can be found.  In addition, it gives insightful reflections on the evolution of Masonic ritual from the age of the Renaissance; and examines how Renaissance philosophy, which is a blend of Judeo-Christian monotheism and Classical thought, laid the foundation for our Fraternity.

I highly recommend this article for your consideration.

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