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by Jermaine Montgomery (Author)
Universal Craftsmen is thirty-one lectures that were revised explaining the various rites and symbolisms of Freemasonry and how they are to be applied in reconstructing one's moral development. Written for the initiated, but applicable to all, the men contributing to its works are students of a small study group called the Universal Order of Craftsmen. As each title progressively takes you upon a journey into greater depths of Masonic knowledge, it opens first with Secrecy to explain why the need for such and the misunderstandings that has developed from it. Why Freemasonry then goes forth to explain the specific reasons for why so many men (especially the crafters of this work) have came to devote their lives to its precepts. 133rd Psalms reveals the blessings of Brotherhood, Harmony, and Unification, whose invisible beauty lies in the symbolization of the mountains of Hermon and Zion. If perhaps this beauty doesn't come to be seen, then the explanation of why is detailed in the following lecture of Hoodwink. If still unable to be seen, then a lifeline to facilitate one's birth and developing faculties into full materialization is thereby afforded in the following lecture titled Cable Tow.
The lectures of Discalceation and Lustration outlines the conditions and approach of every initiate's internal disposition by the removal of one's shoes and the contractual consummation it signifies. Whole Stones, a term not traditionally employed in modern Freemasonry, has its correlations to the selection of candidates and the quality of their minds and moral characters. The lectures of What is a Lodge, Forms of a Lodge, and Dimensions of a Lodge, draws a comparative understanding between the macrocosmic World Temple and the microcosmic temple of Self. What inhabits them both determines their spiritual permanency or material decay. The Pillars of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty detailed in lectures 18 through 20 are a revelation of the triune being pervading all things in the operating Laws of Existence, especially within ourselves. The Square in lecture 21 shows the geometrical gauge to be used in spiritual building and how this term became to be descriptive of one's moral character. The Jewels in the following lecture explains the three aspects of Divine Consciousness which are fixed, versus the three aspects of human consciousness which are transitional, hence Immovable and Movable. What we believe to be moving really isn't, it's simply our increasing consciousness.
The lecture of Operative and Speculative in XXIII explains the differences of the two types of Masons from both a material and spiritual standpoint. The remaining lectures of the Winding Staircase, The Letter G, The Passover, and Compasses are increasing ascents into elevated planes of spirituality whose transitions slowly ushers us to the requisites of death; death of the old immoral man and the rebirth of a new resurrected one. All these lectures tell, by their respective symbolisms, a journey that we should seek to travel and effect within our moral beings, in which the famed Masonic character in the lecture Hiram symbolizes. Only by living the journey, will one truly come to understand its experiences. The final pages of Transformation of the Mind and Life Is An Art are further testaments of this and offers crystallizations of wisdoms concerning both man's perspective and negative developments. Now, with this book's rich illustrations and glossary to help the reader understand some of the terminology of the Craft, this work is sure to impart Light not only upon any Mason's travelling path towards the East, but upon anyone seeking to employ its understanding for their self-betterment.
