Wisdom of today.

Only enlightened men can sustain enlightened leadership, only the wise can recognise and reward wisdom.

The supreme human purpose is the perfection of man. This must come first, and when this end can sustain enlightened leadership; only the wise can recognise and reward wisdom.

In a democratic way of life the very survival of the state depends upon the intelligent cooperation of its people. Where men make there own laws, they must live according to the merits and demerits of the statues which they have framed.

The Greek law giver Solon declared that in the ideal State laws are few and simple, because they have been derived from certainties.

In the corrupt state, laws are many and confused, because they have been derived from uncertainties. The corrupt laws are like the web of a spider which catches small insects but permits the stronger creatures to break through and escape.

Where there are many laws there is much lawlessness, and men come to despise and ridicule the restraints that are imposed upon freedom of action. Corrupt laws, resulting from efforts to amend inadequate legislation by further inadequate legislation, reveal a general ignorance of right and wrong. Where such ignorance exists, the ideal function of democracy is impossible, and liberty degenerates into license;

The half-truth is the most dangerous form of lie, because it can be defended in part by incontestable logic.

The light of the ancient Vedas is slowly but surely illuminating the whole world.

Pryse suggests that Matthew 10:16 explains the symbolism of the snake-bird: “Behold, I send you as sheep (neophytes) into the midst of wolves (the profane); be ye therefore wise as serpents (magicians) and guileless as doves (mystics).

In some cults the neophyte was given sacred drugs to intensify his psychic faculties, as in the case of the notorious Peyote sect, or was subjected to hypnotic influence, like the followers of the ghost-shirt religion.

The androgynous human being, in whom there is a spiritual union of male and female attributes, has been widely accepted as personifying a superior type capable of a greater understanding of the Father-wisdom and Mother-love potencies of Divinity. Such symbolism existed in all great Esoteric Orders of the past.

The neophyte was tested and subjected to trials and hazards and also was presented with a sequence of visual arrangments of symbols and other paraphernalia. The purpose of the Great Medicine Society was to enlighten the human mind and soul and to bind the initiates to the service of their people.

The freethinker was neither an agnostic nor an atheist; he was a liberal, convinced that freedom included the privilege of questioning authority, both sacred and profane.

Brother Manly P. Hall, 33° freemason

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