We had a Q & (possible)A's session last night at our lodge. One of the EA questions was about the significance of the Chain which features on the Two Pillars ( hanging under the terrestrial and celestial globes). Good question.
Having read my way through a Theosophical library over 30 years I had a good idea. Herebelow is a short version of what I was trying to say last night
The bold type is my addition... things that relate to Freemasonry, in one degree or another.
Earth Besides being our terrestrial globe, earth is a comprehensive symbol, meaning the matter or vehicular side of manifestation as well as one of the four, five, or seven elements.
It is primordial undifferentiated matter which, by the action of spirit, produces the manifested worlds of entities. The Western alchemists called this Adam's Earth; in Greek mythology it is the lower side of Rhea. The bringing forth of animate beings was due to the marriage of heaven and earth, so that our earth is an offspring of this cosmic union. Connected with this meaning are the numerous allusions to earth as the nether pole of manifestation and it is often synonymous with the nether regions, as Pluto, Yama, etc.
In the zodiac it is occasionally symbolized by Taurus, the bull which in popular astrology is the first and fixed earthy sign. As the lowest of the several elements, earth denotes physicalization, what we call physical matter being a combination of all four elements with the earth-element predominating. The pure element, however, is not physical, its characteristic property or tattva in connection with the human organs is smell, and its name in the Hindu system is prithivi-tattva; it is characterized by square or cubical forms and by fixity; the nature spirits pertaining to it were said by medieval European mystics to be the gnomes.
Our own earth is one of a system of planetary chains belonging to the solar system. The earth planetary chain consists of a coadunation or chain of seven or twelve globes, though the name earth is usually applied to the grossest globe, which alone is in direct rapport with our physical senses. The earth actually is an animate being, as are all the celestial globes.
(See also: Earth, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary ) For more dictionary entries, see » Terrestrial Poles Dictionary
I suspect that the globes and chains account was not available to the Western world until the end of the 19th century. I wonder if the Masonic decoration predates that time
1 Kings 7:20 On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Chronicles 3:15 In the front of the temple he made two pillars, which [together] were thirty-five cubits long, each with a capital on top measuring five cubits. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Chronicles 3:17 He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
To the ordinary worshipper in the temple all this rather complicated ornamentation was merely de¬corative, but to the initiate it was full of esoteric significance. First, these two pillars were an exemplification of the occult axiom, “As above, so below”, for though they were absolutely alike in every particular it was always understood that they represented respectively the terrestrial and celestial worlds. On Tat, the left-hand pillar, each link of each chain symbolized what in our Oriental studies we call a branch-race, and the links as they descended became larger and thicker to indicate a deeper descent into matter, until the fourth was reached, when the life-force begins to draw inward and upward, and so its embodiment becomes less material.
177. Each loop of seven links therefore typified a sub-race, and the seven loops which extended round the pillar, making one festoon, correspond to one of the great root-races, such as the Lemurian, the Atlantean or the Aryan. The whole set of seven festoons hanging one below the other denoted one world-period, one occupation of this planet of ours.
178. Underneath the chain-work a beautifully executed system of fine network will be seen, and this was employed by the priests of old to elucidate yet another side of the marvellous mystery of evolution. When the Holy Spirit has brooded over the face of the waters of space, and has impregnated and vivified primordial matter, the activity of the Second Aspect of the Logos begins, and innumerable streams of His divine life pour down into the field prepared for them. In a thousand ways they inter-lace and combine, and so produce the bewildering multiplicity of the life which we see around us. From their interaction result the manifold fruits of evolution which we see exemplified in our pillars by the rows of pomegranates which depend from the fringe of the network, the pomegranates being chosen for this symbolism because each fruit contains a prodigious number of separate seeds, thus illustrating the amazing fecundity of nature and the vast variety of her types.
Individual explanations for each decoration from 168 on this site..
I thought that you might have considered that the chains on the capitals related to the HPB account of globes and chains.
The pomegranates relate to Persephone who was trapped in the underworld (Tartarus). The Titans (tall gods) were chained in Tartarus en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartarus
Persephone is the daughter of Demeter/Ceres who was associated with an ear of corn. Demeter is sometimes the wife of Poseidon (Ea) and thereby near to a fall of water. Ea was the god of the underground freshwater ocean - presumably the source of the fountains of the deep
I thought that you might have considered that the chains on the capitals related to the HPB account of globes and chains.
I do, but I thought that might be pushing the readers a tad too far
For some reason most folk are more comfortable with black one end and white the other, they don't much care for the grey.
They are quite happy to philosophize, meditate, contemplate on God or the Great Spirit but will shy away completely from any discussion of what lies between the centre and the circumference.
Scientists already acknowledge multiple dimensions, galaxies, worlds so why wouldn't they not each have lives of their own? A real grey area indeed.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
