From the Venerable Master (July 2024)
My Brethren,
I will start by saying HI, and hope that I find everyone in good Health. Our June Stated Meeting was a good success and the meal great as always.
July 9th will be the Grand Masters Visitation. This is always a great event and enjoyed by all. Dress is Business Casual. No Levi's. If you haven't already called and made your reservations , please do so. We need to support this event. In this Month's Rite Word, I would like to quote an article on the Square and Compasses. It's an article from a book called Masonry Defined.
Square and Compasses. These two symbols have been so long and so universally combined…to teach us, as says an early ritual, "to square our actions and to keep them within due bounds," they are so seldom seen apart, but are so kept together, either as two great lights, or as a jewel worn once by the Master of the Lodge, now by the Past Master…that they have come at last to be recognized as the proper badge of a Master Mason, just as the triple tau is of a Royal Arch Mason or the passion cross of the Knight Templar.
In a religious work by John Davies entitled Summa Totalis, or all in all and the Same Forever, printed in 1607, we find an allusion to the square and compasses by a profane in a really Masonic sense. The auther, who proposes to de- scribe mystically the form of the deity, says in his dedication:
The Rite Word July 2024 Volume 18 Issue 7 "Yet I this form of formeless Duty, Drive by the Square and Compasse of our Creed."
In Masonic symbolism the Square and Compasses refer to the Mason's duty to the craft and to himself; hence it is properly a symbol of brotherhood, and there significantly adopted as the badge or token of the Fraternity.
Berage, in his work on the high degress, gives an interpretation to the symbol which I have nowhere else seen. He says: "the square and the compasses represent the union of the Old and New Testaments. None of the high degrees recognize this interpretation, although their symbol- ism of the two implements differs somewhat from that of symbolic Masonry. The square is with them peculiarly appropriated to the lower degrees, as founded on the operative art; while the compasses , as an implement of higher character and uses, is attributted to the degress, which claim to have a more elevated and philosophical foundation. Thus they speak of the initate, when he passes from the blue lodge to the Lodge of Perfection, as "passing from the square to the compasses," to indicate a progressive elevation in his studies. Yet even in the high degrees, the square and compasses combined retain their primitive significance as a symbol of brotherhood and as a badge of the Order."
May you always have love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends who care. May you be blessed.
San Jose Lodge of Perfection Art Pasquinelli, 32° KCCH 2024 Venerable Master
From the Wise Master
(July 2024)
Greetings and Happy Summer.
First off, I want to say thanks to Chris Boyes for standing in for me in the East at the June Stated meeting. It is always interesting to me with all of the various bodies and groups when the inevitable conflict of dates happens and finding a way to work things out. I thank him for a job well done in conducting the meeting and hosting the dinner.
I always look forward to the 4th of July, with family time, time in my community at functions and time at my Lodge. It is another milestone in each year to stop and reflect of all the good things in my life and where I am going in life.
This summer I find myself finally getting around to one of the mini-series on Netflix that all my friends that know me said I must see. It is called Outlander and about a woman who goes back in time from 1945, two hundred years to 1745. This is the time when the Parliaments of England and Scotland have just combined after 100 years of rule after the Union of the Crowns when King James the IV becomes King James the I of the United Kingdom. It is well done and an excellent study of a period always of interest to Masons known as the Age of Enlightenment.
This the time for us as Masons when we see our craft consolidated, moving from Operative to Speculative, and in 1717 formation of the Grand Lodge of England. The series does an excellent job of showing what life is like in this period, especially the contrast between the still wild and agrarian life of the Scottish Highlanders and the blossoming civilization of London and Paris. A time when our Country was born, J.S. Bach and his music were fading, making room for the new ideas of the common man not governed by the Church, Britain becomes the first world power and Mozart was all the rage, all set under the backdrop of the Jacobite movement to bring a Scottish King back to the Throne.
This is also very early time of our Country when our Founding Fathers were crafting the foundation of our Continuation. Their actions were considered at the time sedition against Britain and the Crown. There is an excellent article in a recent masonic publication about one of these men that had to deal with this in a very personal way. Brother Benjamin Franklin, polymath, writer, statesman, inventor, our first Postmaster General and Grand Master of Pennsylvania had to deal with just that. The article does a good job in describing Brother Ben’s early life, common law marriage to Deborah Read and his out of wedlock son William. He devoted his life to raising young Franklin giving him a first-class education, understanding of people and his business before taking him to England. Upon his return, William took a post as the Royal Governor of New Jersey. Loyal to the Crown and with the onset of the Revolutionary War he found himself at odds with his father and the formation of our new Country. After supporting Britain though several groups during the revolution and loyal to the Crown, he was eventually incarcerated and after release in a prisoner exchange, he moved to England, never to return or see his father.
In my mind, these are two examples of individual opinions and beliefs are perhaps naïve in the context of the greater good, society and our place in history. Today, in a world dominated by personal interests and fragmented and polarized by interested guided by the acquisition of power and special interests, the personal development and the fraternal journey proposed by Freemasonry is increasingly topical and relevant, since it leads to a more tolerant society, characterized by humanism and universality. For this Fourth of July, I celebrate Free Masonry, the opportunity to contribute and the support of our Great Country by listening to others’ ideas and opinions and finding ways to participate in living in a world where peace and the free exchange of ideas exists.
San Jose Chapter of Rose Croix Mark Burger, 32° KCCH 2024 Wise Master
From the Commander of Kadosh (July 2024)
The 24th degree, Prince of the Tabernacle, expands on the theme begun in the 23rd degree which we looked at last month. It is the second of the so-called “Mystery de- grees” and the first to move from the Less- er Mysteries to the Greater Mysteries. The primary lesson of this degree is the useful- ness of symbols in communication. As Free- masons, we have been left in possession of a rich inheritance of symbols, which, in many ways, have become the calling-card of the fraternity. Although Masons are known to deal in symbolism, few, it turns out, actually know a great deal about it.
As the degree teaches, symbolism is capable of very rich and layered communication. The truth is, all communication happens via symbol- ism. Every word, letter, or picture is actually a symbol. Symbols, generally speaking, are of two types. The first we call conventional symbols. These include letters and numbers, and are so-called be- cause they take their meaning from public or social convention. Simply put, we all agree that a letter represents a specific sound, and so it does. There is no other reason except that we say it does. Conventional symbols are important for communication because they are not open to reinterpretation. Imagine how impossible it would be to read and write if everybody had their own interpreta- tion of letters and numbers.
Another type of symbol is called a natural or iconic symbol. This is a symbol that bears some resemblance to the object it symbolizes. Take for example a triangle. Because it has three sides, it’s a natural symbol of anything with three parts. This has made it a symbol in the west of the three-part nature of Deity and also of existence in the past, present, and future. These types of symbols are often very useful for expressing abstract ideas, however they are not always easily explained. This is because each person interprets them ac- cording to their own beliefs. This is also the reason that they are often the most personally meaningful expressions which a Mason may find.
Masonry makes great use of both types of symbols. For most of the symbols, masons are given a conventional meaning. This however, is rarely, if ever, the only meaning. The duty of the Mason is to deepen his understanding of the symbol by discovering what it means to him. For communicating with each other, Masons have adopted many conventional symbols. However, it benefits each mason, in his per- sonal quest for light, to work at interpreting the symbols for the more noble and glorious purpose of adding them to his tool box, useful for his own edification or that of his brothers.
Until Next,
San Jose Council of Kadosh Peter Cardilla, 32° 2024 Commander of Kadosh
From the Master of Kadosh (July 2024)
As previously mentioned in the June Rite Word, the Consistory trip this year to the Hiller Aviation Museum has been scheduled for Sunday July 21st. We expect to arrive (carpool if you can) at about 10:30 AM so we can enter as a group to get the discounts (the Museum opens at 10:00 AM, I will wait at the entrance until 11:00 AM), and stay until the Museum closes at 5:00 PM.
The Museum regular prices are normally $21 for Adults, $14 for Seniors (Age 65+) and $14 for Youths (5-17), but WITH the (minimum 12 person) discounts the prices are $19 for Adults, and $12 for Seniors and Youths. Children 4 and under are FREE with a paid Adult, and Active Military are also FREE. Assuming that we have at least 12 attendees, we will get the discount prices.
Look for a flyer with additional trip details at the July Stated Dinner.
Due to an issue with fonts in the June Rite Word, the “Square-Root” symbol was inadvertently replaced by an umlauted Ö character; wherever you saw that “Ö”, assume that it was the proper “Square-Root” symbol (does not exist in the font used):
√
This month, we will finish our brief discussion of ɸ (phi, or the Golden Mean) by introducing the Fibonacci series. As in previous articles, we present excerpts from the book “Sacred Geometry – Deciphering the Code”. See previous Rite-Word articles for publishing information (the page numbers noted in these articles are from the paperback edition of this book; my own comments are enclosed in italicized braces [ … ] ).
From the end of Chapter 1 of Sacred Geometry, pages 38 and 39:
<excerpt>
Fibonacci and His Miraculous Series
Although Leonardo da Vinci is world famous, it is another Leonardo who contributed one of the main discoveries that lie at the heart of sacred geometry.
In 1202 Leonardo of Pisa or Fibonacci (c.1170– c.1240) published his Liber abaci ‘The Book of Calculations’. In its 15 chapters he explained the basic operations of arithmetic, especially the theory of prime numbers, fractions and Euclid. Then, only as a minor mathematical diversion, almost an afterthought, he came up with the idea of the Fibonacci series.
Leonardo of Pisa had the reputation of bringing the mathematical arts from Arabia to Italy. In other words, translating key mathematical texts from Arabic into Latin. He collected these during his extensive travels to traditional centers of learning, including Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence. Sicily (together with Toledo) played an especially important role in the transmission of Arabic science to the West as it had been captured by the Saracens in 827, before the Norman knights drove them out be- tween 1060 and 1092. The result, in Leonardo of Pisa’s lifetime, was a good mixture of Greek, Latin and Arabic culture and knowledge.
The very root of beauty
Dan Brown works the Fibonacci series into his The Da Vinci Code right at the beginning, and the sequence is scrawled on the floor by the dying curator Sauniere, and later by using it as a code in the bank deposit box security number. Leonardo of Pisa originated it as part of a mathematical diversion designed to calculate the course of a burgeoning rabbit population, assuming certain reproductory rules, beginning with a single pair of rabbits. The resulting number of rabbits at each generation was:
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 114, …
Each term is the sum of the previous two terms, so the series effectively ‘grows’ by always referring back to its immediately previous ‘parent’ numbers. It is an ordinary-looking series until you start to examine the relationship between each number and its successor. This grows more interesting if you divide each number by its immediate predecessor (rounded to three decimal places):
3/2 = 1.500
5/3 = 1.666
8/5 = 1.600
13/8 = 1.625
21/13 = 1.615
34/21 = 1.619
55/34 = 1.617
89/55 = 1.618
Each successive division dodges around a bit, the stabilizes to become 1.6180339887… . This magic number has been expressed by the Greek letter phi , ɸ [ see the May Rite Word for the introduction to ɸ ]. This piece of arithmetic relates directly to an interesting example of geometry. Using the ratio 1 and 1.618 to form the sides of a rectangle makes it become a Golden Rectangle that is derived from the Golden Mean. It has long been recognized that the number phi , ɸ , is definitely part of the underlying structure of the universe and can therefore rightly be called ‘sacred’.
The ancient Greek and Renaissance architects very effectively used phi as a way of establishing some of the most visually pleasing ratios for the dimensions of a building, even sometimes down to the proportion of individual windows and doors. You need only to compare a building from either of those two periods with, say, a piece of modern architecture produced in Britain during the 1960s to arbitrary and ‘socially conscious’ dimensions to realize that ɸ is more than just an arithmetical concept – it is part of the very root of beauty.
</excerpt>
Now for some fun.
Here is ɸ represented to 32 decimal places:
1.6180339887498948482045868343656
The Fibonacci series and ɸ can be put to use in ways completely unrelated to Sacred Geometry. In a departure from our more se rious nature, here is a link to a YouTube video (from about 11 years ago) which shows the Fibonacci series woven into a Tartan (a special plaid pattern conveying identifying information or other meaning). Included in the video is a bagpipe (albeit synthetic) playing music based on the Fibonacci series.
You may also find this by searching YouTube
for Fibonacci Tartan and Bagpipes – Numberphile (please excuse the commercials at the beginning and end of the video).
See you at the meeting and dinner.
Enjoy!
San Jose Consistory Helmuth Litfin, 32° 2024 Venerable Master of Kadosh
From the Knights of Saint Andrew (July 2024)
The Knights of Saint Andrew 2024 Officers
First Knight | Bro. Chris Boyes 32º |
Chief Knight | Bro. Mike Lammer 32º |
Knight of the Watch | Bro. Alan Porjesz 32º |
Secretary | Bro. Tim Lynch 32º |
Monk Knight | Bro. Adrian Otero 32º |
Sentinel | Bro. Angelo Encarnacion 32º |