The letter G is displayed prominently in many LL. throughout the world. The significance given to this letter depends very much on the L., or local custom, or the grand jurisdiction. It seems to have appeared in American lodges between 1730 and 1768, but it is by no means universal.
Some writers simply say that the G represents God, who overlooks all the actions of the L. Using a Masonic form, it is the G. in the expression GAOTU. In another degree it is the GGOTU. It's been suggested that the word God was a ruse to hide the real word: Geometry.
The G does not appear in other workings, but the Hebrew letter Yod sometimes is put on its banners. Yod is the initial letter of the Tetragrammaton, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, which is pronounced sometimes as Jehovah, or Yaweh. In common parlance it does signify God among us.
Placed in the center of the S&C, the symbolism may mean that at the center of Freemasonry we find the motivating principle, we call God. The G embraced by S&C may suggests that that Higher Power exists both within and without our Masonry.
If Freemasonry is the invention of English-speaking Masons then use of an English G is quite understandable. In that context the G may refer to Geometry, Gnosis and God.
I understand that some Greek lodges use the Greek form of G: Gamma. This may seem to be more appropriate geometrically but the symbol hanging in the temple does not appear to me to facilitate the flows from on high.
There is an argument that the letter G is actually the Arabic Q rotated 90 degrees with the two dots removed
The letter Qaf has the numeric value of 100. There are supposed to be 99 known names of God but the 100th name is secret.
Thus Lost Word of the Freemasons is conjoined with the secret name of God.
The Q/G in the centre of the temple does provide some modest assistance to the flows from on high, since energy naturally flows in curves.
If the G is actually a Qaf, then that may support the view that the Templars returned with Sufi rituals.
If I were to transliterate the letter G, from its Masonic setting, into the Hebrew alphabet, I'd probably choose Gimel rather than Qoph, the latter usually represented in our alphabet as the letter Q. In some areas the Arabic equivalent, Kaf, is pronounced as a glottal stop and in others like the letter K, and in still others as G, while retaining its transliterated value of Q.
Gimel, on the other hand, is usually transliterated as G and has the value of 3 in gematria. This suggests a connection between the Masonic G and the Trinity in Gematria. Although the Gimel is Hebrew there seems to be no reason to believe that orthodox Judaism entertained the idea of a trinity. If there is a connection to a trinity, it was probably made through the Christian influence in Qabalah.
The root aleph-beth, meaning father, also equals 3 in gematria. Going out on a limb, this may suggest that the Masonic G refers to the generative aspect of the Godhead.
This brings me to the personal suspicion that the study of correspondences, like gematria and ritual, are not so much a search for knowledge, but a training for the mind, that opens our awareness to higher levels of consciousness.
The 19th century French writer on the esoteric sciences, Gerard Encausse, known as “Papus”, noted how “the Gnostic sects, the Arabs, Alchemists, Templars” form a chain transmitting ancient wisdom to the West. This explains why within the Ritual of Freemasonry there is the admission “we came from the East and proceeded to the West.” A Masonic author Bernard H. Springett says:
The plain fact that much of what we now look upon almost entirely as Freemasonry has been practised as part and parcel of the religions of the Middle East for many thousands of years, lies open for anyone who cares to stop and read, instead of running by. But it is frequently and scornfully rejected by the average Masonic student…2
So we find that just as Europe borrowed considerably from the learning of the Moors, European Freemasonry took its “secret wisdom” from the Muslim East.
This brings me to the personal suspicion that the study of correspondences, like gematria and ritual, are not so much a search for knowledge, but a training for the mind, that opens our awareness to higher levels of consciousness.
That is the same conclusion I have reached stepnwolf. I also think that as our awareness expands we start to experience more. This experience must be the same for everyone (consciousness is consciousness) and may explain why no matter which direction, or path, one comes from - christian, Jew, Muslim, etc we all end up meeting in the middle at one time or the other, and the ascend 'the ladder' together - brothers indeed.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
>European Freemasonry took its “secret wisdom” from the Muslim East.
So looking to the East for Light is both literal (sun rises in the East) and historic (teachings coming to Europe from the East)?
Seems so.
On a personal level, the light is in the head, so the head might be considered the East? Great ideas dawn in the mind. The mind also has the job of mastering the body.
(Idle thought ... out in the Universe which way is East )
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
The Light in the Universe flows from the being that uses the Universe as a body. That being might be named Melchizedek, who as St Paul tells us is without father and without mother.
The Light flows to the Universe from the being that uses all the Universes (that humans can find) as a body. That being may be called The Source of All, or more conventionally the GAOTU.
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