Are the so-called “Higher” Degrees actually Symbolic? or Sorcery? Part 2 of a series

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Patrick Dey

In the first part to this essay, we looked at what symbols are from a philosophical point of view, largely relying on Jean Baudrillard’s conception of them as a simulacrum, a distortion that conceals reality, because symbols deny that reality can ever be faithfully expressed and thus must generate a signifier that stands in owing to this absence. I personally favor Baudrillard’s conception of what symbols are, and I find his system of the four orders of simulacra to be helpful in understanding Symbolic Craft Masonry as it transitions into the so-called “higher” degrees.

As was discussed in the conclusion of Part I, we looked at how we as Free and Accepted Masons are symbolic craftsmen, symbolic stonemasons building symbolic temples, which at once conceals the reality of the stonemason guild heritage we have inherited and denies that the reality of the stonemasons of old can be fully expressed as a reflection in ourselves. But the so-called higher degrees in Masonry — Scottish Rite, York Rite, Shrine, et cetera — are a different problem. Royal Arch Masons are not a real thing. Nor are Select Masters, or the Order of the Red Cross, or the Knight of the East, or the Knight of the Sword, et cetera. These never existed. These are not real things. The only degrees of the appendant bodies that is based on something real are the Order of Malta and the Order of the Temple — the Knights Hospitallers and the Knights Templar. Sure, there are some things based on real orders, such as Saint Thomas of Acon. Then there are some weird ones, like the Masonic Rosicrucians, which did not really exist, but rather was a sort of literary fiction of millenarianism and a call for a greater reformation that the Protestant Reformation failed to achieve. Rosicrucians were believed to have been real for a long time, but today we know historically they did not actually exist.

This is no longer symbolic in the way the Blue Lodge Degrees are symbolic. In fact, they fall specifically into what Baudrillard designates as the third order of simulacra, one that “masks the absence of a profound reality.” He calls this order the “order of sorcery,” as it merely “plays being an appearance.” It conjures a reality that never actually existed.

This is exactly what these higher degrees are: they conjure something that never even existed, be it a Knight of the East and West or a Most Excellent Master, and claims we are now the symbolic manifestation of this title. The symbolic has to be based on something real, something that will yield a sign that may be utilized. A symbol has meaning — in fact, it has many meanings; it is a plethora. It is so much a plethora of meanings that it cannot claim to faithfully represent everything, and that the symbol must stand in for a reality that is inexpressible. Not so with sorcery. It makes up a reality. It conjures appearances like the sorcerer conjures spirits and shades of the dead. The sorcerer does not call upon a real person and they show up in the flesh, but rather calls up the shadowy image of someone who no longer is, or something that never existed, like a demon or an angel (note: Baudrillard is a Post Structuralist philosopher, an atheist, and in particular Nietzschean in that he follows the principle that God is dead).

This is the trap hidden within the higher degrees of Masonry: that these degrees are symbolic or based on something that actually existed, when in fact we know deep down there was never any such thing as a Perfect Master or Master of the Symbolic Lodge — I mean that Scottish Rite Degree right there fully embodies this very simulacrum: there could not have been a real Master of the Symbolic Lodge because the Symbolic Lodge is by its name symbolic of an actual real lodge, and the Master of such cannot be based on anything real. One becomes a symbolic Master of the Symbolic Lodge is simply ridiculous. It does not need a reality to pretend that it is real.

Much the same can be said about offices and titles within the Masonic bodies themselves.

I suppose since we’re here, we might as well discuss the fourth order simulacrum, in which this is something that does not even need reality, it does not care if there is a reality, it is pure simulation. It neither needs to reflect, conceal, or deny reality, it is what is now real. It is “hyperreal.” It produces without regard for reality whatsoever. The best way I can describe this is in “content creation” on social media platforms. You may have found videos on YouTube that make you start to lose your sense of direction as to what this video even accomplishes: something like a reaction video to a critique video of an analysis video of a movie that is loosely based on historical events. Sometimes you find reaction videos to reaction videos to… you get it. What is even happening here? Are we creating videos just to create videos? Looking for any excuse to upload content to generate views and reactions and comments so advertisements have a place to sell us stuff we don’t need? And what do we call these people? “Content creators.” It is not about creating something visionary or artistic or original or to explore something meaningful, but to simply create content for the sake of creating content. This dives into what Baudrillard calls “hyperreal,” “hyperproduction,” and such terms.

If I had to designate anything in Masonry that meets this hyperreality of the fourth order of simulacra, it would be the endless proliferation of more Masonic bodies, more offices, more committees, more degrees, more dues cards, more, more, more. We all know these kinds of Masons. It is not about what they can contribute to Masonry, what they get out of Masonry, or even what they enjoy about Masonry, but the accumulation of titles and offices for the sake of accumulating titles and offices. We have lost any semblance of the origins of Freemasonry, and in fact, we no longer care. We have lost any vestige of what it means to be a Mason, and what makes a man and Mason, and who we are supposed to be as Masons, and really we no longer care. The real value, the most precious meaning that underlines all of the Masonic institution, it no longer makes a difference. It is the endless accumulation of as mabt accolades as possible just so we can have them, and any regard for the real value that makes Masonry what it is, it simply is not regarded.

I am certain that if Baudrillard were alive today, he would shake his head and say “Patrick, please stop doing this to my work.” And I am probably stretching his philosophy to match some criticism I have of Masonry that he would hate me for. Yet, it is exactly what I saw myself falling into as I continued to move forward in Masonry. I originally wanted to only do esoteric research and writing when I became a Mason. I wanted to know what the Masons knew so that it may further my studies. And as the years went on, I found myself more and more concerned with being in officer lines, and accepting any invitation to a Masonic body that came my way. I found myself driving everywhere across the State of Colorado every night doing something, and none of it was fun. Most of it was boring, and furthermore, I only ever seemed to complain about everything I had to go to. Then the Covid lockdown happened and suddenly I had an opportunity to reassess why I was doing any of this anyway. Then I was married, and then I became a father, and that happened within a very short period. I realize that none of this was what I wanted to do when I became a Mason. I was so far away from what gave me joy, that I became a miserable person chasing titles and offices. That was when I started to revisit things I enjoyed: reading, writing, studying, research, philosophy, mysticism, et cetera. I revisited Baudrillard’s work, because — well, firstly, because I was doing research on Douglas Darden, and I wanted to get a better idea of how Baudrillard influenced his architectural designs — but secondly, because something about Baudrillard resonated with how I was feeling. There was something “unreal” or even “hyperreal” about chasing titles and offices.

This essay has been an attempt (essay) at describing the dangers I feel are inherent in the so-called higher degrees, and especially in the chasing of titles and offices. Is that why you became a Mason? It is not why I became a Mason, and it took becoming miserable for me to realize that. For me, it started with something symbolic.

The symbolic is not dangerous unto itself, so long as we recognize it for what it is: a concealment of a reality that cannot be fully expressed, and so it must deny reality and create an image that substitutes the reality that is not expressible. There is joy in the symbolic, because symbols are useful. That is the power of Masonic symbolism: they are useful to us, and we should always be endeavoring to further explore and utilize the power they hold. But beyond the symbolic, what value is there? Is there a value to chasing degrees that are based on nothing that ever existed? Do they even serve a purpose or have utility? Or is their only utility the obtaining of those degree titles? Is that what Masonry is about? Does that even serve the individual Mason, or does it even serve the fraternity itself?

Some of these Masons I have known, and I have asked them: “Why do you do this?” And I have heard quite a few respond with: “It is the only way I will matter.” With that, I want to hang my head and sob.

Me personally, it does not matter, and that is why I resigned from a number of officer lines, including a Grand Line, and turned down other appointments to other lines, and demitted from several bodies, and turned down invitations to other bodies. I love the symbolic. It is what brought me into Masonry, and anything beyond the symbolic is probably not for me. I suppose there are Masons who just enjoy helping and being a part of things, and so any opportunity to participate and help, they say “yes!” Don’t get me wrong, because I love the “yes! Masons.”

All I advise is to assess why you became a Mason. You do not have to keep the same goals you had when you became a Mason. Everyone grows and changes over the years, and that is wonderful. But are you being true to yourself as a Mason? The value and meaning in these things are all that matters. Truly. And if you lose sight of what is real and meaningful to you as an individual. If being a title-seeker is the only way to make your life meaningful, then something was missed along the way.

I do not want to blame Masonry for the fault of people. Masonry did not create the problem of title-seeking and abandoning many men in the desert of the real. People do that in everything, be it Masonry, YouTube videos, politics, yoga, church, bridge clubs, Google Earth photo-locations, Wikipedia entries, name it. This happens in everything. Seriously, did you know that if you upload enough photos and locate them in Google Earth, you get invited to a secret Google club? I know a former Mason who became infatuated with this. I digress. Masonry did prove to be fertile grounds for this kind of phenomenon to occur.

Without a conductor to follow and put our trust in, sometimes, many times, this Masonic journey becomes uncertain. O Mother Lodge, how far we’ve wandered. From that blindfolded interim where we had no way of conducting ourselves, uncertain of our future, we had to trust someone else, and now we are our own conductors, and I personally feel too many good men and Masons have fallen into a trap that is neither meaningful to themselves or Masonry.

To conclude, I will simply say: never lose sight of what you believe in. It is the difference between a trap into a meaningless desert and what provides you with a meaningful existence.

~PD

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister). He is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.

What Even Are Symbols? Part 1 of a series

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Patrick Dey

Throughout our Masonic journeys, we are constantly presented with symbols and symbolism. Whenever we ask what something means, the short answer is: that it’s symbolic. But what even is a symbol? We have some idea of what symbols are. We have many experiences with the symbolic, so we can muster a working conception of what a symbol is from our personal experience, but having a philosophical framework might be best to really grasp how symbols work and how they are utilized.

This is important: symbols have a utility. I think when we designate symbols as something “spiritual” or “esoteric,” it shuts down any practical use of the symbols. When, in fact, a symbol may be spiritual or profane, or both. They have a utility, they are useful, regardless if it is spiritual or profane. But to make use of symbols, we should have a firmer grasp of what even are symbols.

Firstly, symbols are part of a “sign” system. Within linguistic theory, we have signs and meanings of signs. This is what has long been called a “signified and signifier” relation (i.e. Ferdinand Saussure), and they are arbitrary in their relationship. For instance, we have the word “tree.” It is just a sound we make or just some lines on a piece of paper. The word “tree” is the signifier, the sign. It signifies the idea of what we call a tree, the signified. Plato would delineate these as thing and thingness — a particular example of a tree and the tree-ness of trees. I don’t always agree with Plato, so let’s go back to Saussure. We could, of course, arbitrarily change the signifier as we prefer, and so long as everyone is in agreement that we are changing the signifier, then we can now use a different word sign for the same idea. You see this in legal contracts, where it will state at the beginning that Mr. Joe Brown (hereafter referred to as the Defendant). Thenceforth, any time the documents say “Defendant,” we know that means Joe Brown. Or a better example: have you ever had to deal with someone so despicable that everyone referred to them as “he who must not be named”? We know who everyone is talking about, but we have adopted a new signifier for them, but it still maintains the same signification.

Symbols are a type of sign, but signs do not have to be symbols. Similarly, in geometry, a square is a type of rectangle, but a rectangle does not have to be a square. A square is a special kind of rectangle. Similarly, a symbol is a very special type of sign. Signs usually have a very limited signifier-signified relationship. For instance, if I show you a red octagon, you would interpret that to mean “stop.” Usually, it means to stop the car at this line, but we can put a red octagon in a pop-up warning on a computer, warning you that you are about to do something dangerous on the computer and to not proceed, but the red octagon has pretty much the same meaning, though it is being used in different contexts.

Symbols are what Carl Jung would call “multivalent.” That is, symbols mean a lot of different things, and they can be variously related or not. The red octagon sign really only has one meaning (in American sign systems): to stop. We could use it for something else, such as “this is a mountain,” and we could mutually agree with each other that it now means that, but that would get confusing. Symbols have a flexibility and vagueness that goes beyond a simple sign-signified relationship.

I have never found Jung’s definitions of symbols to be all that helpful. He gets very esoteric and mystical without ever really providing a clear notion of what symbols are. Jung sometimes appears to believe that symbols are so esoteric that it would be a detriment to the idea of symbols to even try to define them. Kind of a cop-out. Jean Baudrillard, on the other hand, gives a very good idea of what symbols are, namely they are simulacra for something that cannot be easily summarized, usually something so large and complex that the symbol stands in for a very broad and complicated system of ideas. In other words, the symbol represents something that cannot be completely comprehended or expressed.

Baudrillard puts symbols within his degrees of simulacra, as outlined in Simulacra and Simulation (1981). There are four orders of simulacra, according to Baudrillard, and each order distorts reality more and more to the point that we find ourselves living in the “desert of the real,” a world full of signs, but no meaning. The first order is a simple copy. Such as a head bust of a famous person. We know that the bust is not that person, but is a faithful representation of their image.

Second-order simulacra are symbols. According to Baudrillard, symbols are not any sort of representation of the likeness of another image, but rather a sign, a signifier for something that cannot be captured in any meaningful way. We will follow the example used by Baudrillard that he takes from Jorge Luis Borges, a one-paragraph short story called “On Rigor in Science” (1946). In this story, there is an empire that has advanced the science of cartography so precisely that the map the cartographers create is the exact same scale as the empire itself — a one-to-one scale, as the map covers the entire empire. For Baudrillard, this means that the physical territory itself has been replaced by the map, the thing meant to represent the empire, not supersede it. Out in the deserts on the fringes of the empire pieces of this ancient map can still be found, hence Baudrillard’s term “the desert of the real.”

Symbols do not function in this way. Rather than express the entirety of the empire at a one-to-one scale, a simple sign will be used. Rather than create a globe to map the world that is the exact same size as Earth to represent the Earth and all things upon it, we could make a simple image of, say, a circle with a cross through it, the classic symbol for Earth. Or we could draw a small, very crude image of a blue and green sphere that vaguely depicts the lands and seas of this planet. This is not just a mere abstraction, but a symbol representing something much greater than can ever be pragmatically depicted without the map replacing the territory, and the globe replacing the planet.

There is more happening on this planet, and more to what makes this “our world” than can ever be depicted: people, plants, production, destruction, birth, death, wars, truces, weather, the intricacies of the clouds, the particulars of a husband and wife arguing, the nuances of children playing… such cannot be captured, and instead of mapping them entirely, we may create a simple image that represents everything that is “the world.” This is how we generate a symbol.

The Lodge itself is like this. The Lodge is described in such a way that it represents the world: east, west, north, south, up, down, center, out, with the starry decked heavens above. A simple box that is longer than it is wide is symbolic of something much greater than can ever truly be mapped. And even the Lodge itself is symbolized in various ways: the circumpunct bounded by two lines, or a simple oblong square, et cetera. Because as much as the Lodge is a symbol of the world in all its manifold complexities, so too is the Lodge a multifaceted thing representing all the various aspects of Freemasonry.

The circumpunct symbol is a very interesting case, as it represents numerous things all at once. It represents the individual brother at the Altar, circumscribed by the boundaries of his passions, but also a representation of the circumambulation he made during his initiation. The two lines further represent the Saints John, which represent the solstices (the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer), which adds to the astrological solar image of the circumpunct itself. This symbol is a loaded image of a variety of things, from the image of initiation to the brethren of the Lodge assembled to the cosmos itself. But this symbol also has a function. Remember I said at the beginning that symbols have a utilitarian function, they are not useless nor do they reside strictly in the realm of the sacred.

For Masonic symbols, they appear to be sacred to the uninitiated, they seem like mystical contrivances of uncertain meaning or power. Yet, to the initiated, we understand these meanings, representations, and significations. The circumpunct reminds us to keep within moderation, to not let our passions and desires get the better of us. The Saints John and the solstitial tropics remind us that even the sun itself has boundaries that it will not cross: it will not go any higher nor farther north in the summer, and that it will not go lower nor farther south in the winter. So too should we set boundaries for ourselves so that we may not transgress. But also we have our brethren there to help us, those to the north of us and those to the south of us when we took our oaths. And so forth.

It feels like we could get into Baudrillard’s conception of the “hyperreal” with the circumpunct being a symbol for the Lodge and the Lodge being a symbol for the world, that a symbol is symbolic of another symbol, and it is kind of getting distorted to the point that we lose the concept of the original, the world. But I digress.

My point here is that symbols are not abstractions or a copy of something. They are a signifier of something much more complex than can be completely represented. However, do not think that Baudrillard feels the symbolic is a good thing. He regards it as “it masks and denatures a profound reality,” whereas the first order of simulacra is “the reflection of a profound reality.” The symbolic is “an evil appearance — it is of the order of maleficence.” For Baudrillard, the symbolic conceals reality, rather than being an abstract expression of it. It denies that reality can ever be fully expressed, and thus must present a signifier to stand in for this lack.

In a way, he has a point. We as Masons are “symbolic” craftsmen. We are not real stonemasons, but rather symbolic of the old stonemason guild system and those who worked within that economic system to build great cathedrals and palaces. We instead build symbolic temples. It is as if the tangible, the real temples that were built are impossible to express their grandeur and sublime nature in any abstract way, and instead must rely on symbolry to express this. But for Baudrillard, it is actually a concealment. Remember: “I hele. I conceal.”

In the second part, we will look at Baudrillard’s third order of simulacra to look at how in Masonry, especially within our so-called “higher” degree systems, this symbolic order breaks down and we begin to see that Masonry becomes something that “masks the absence of a profound reality,” in which we are claiming to be something that never actually existed.

~PD

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister). He is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.