Sun, Moon, and Star in Masonic Sacred Space

Because New York City so blatantly juxtaposes the debutante with the downtrodden, it is easy to become desensitized to the overwhelming environment. It often feels plastic and commercial, with its exorbitant prices and unabashed onslaughts of invasive ads. The flashing billboards of Times Square have come to replace the celestial luminaries which were once so prevalent in human thought. Now when we look up, airplanes outnumber visible constellations. But New Yorkers’ detachment from the lights and movements of the heavens does not imply a lack of esoteric architecture in the city; in fact, there are several sites in Manhattan alone whose designs incorporate astrological symbols. The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, on 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, is one such location; above its southern entrance and under the golden words “Masonic Hall” is the famous square and compass on top of an open Bible. The sun is to the left, and to the right are a crescent moon and seven stars.

In order to contemplate the significance of solar, lunar and stellar symbolism on the outside of the Grand Lodge of New York, it is first necessary to become familiar with the Freemasons and their organization. A worldwide secret society, Freemasonry parallels countless mystery schools, religious cults and fraternal groups of different names.[1] Its initiations and rituals follow the universal template[2] that some attribute to diffusion and others to the collective unconscious.[3] Masons perceive their membership in the order as participation in an ancient tradition; through ceremony, they connect to the founders of America, the Biblical patriarchs, and the kings of ancient Egypt.

In New York, the first mention of Freemasonry is found in a January 1739 issue of the New York Gazette.[4] But the cornerstone of the Grand Lodge on 23rd Street wasn’t laid until 1870,[5] and the building was completed in 1908.[6] In 1910 an adjacent clubhouse on 24th Street was built, and the organization’s real estate holdings grew with an annex in 1912. In 1992, the fraternity installed a prominent square and compass, gold in color, on the outside of the edifice.[7]

If the word Masonry conjures images of bricklayers and labor guilds, then the connection and distinction between speculative and operative craft should be fairly easy to conceptualize. If operative masons build with their hands, speculative Freemasons build with their minds.

While mystics released their souls from the bondage of matter by meditation and philosophers found their keenest joy in the profundities of thought, these master workmen [Dionysian predecessors to Freemasonry] achieved liberation from the Wheel of Life and Death by learning to swing their hammers with the same rhythm that moves the swirling forces of Cosmos. They venerated the Deity under the guise of a Great Architect and Master Craftsmen who was ever gouging rough ashlars from the fields of space and truing them into universes.[8]

This reflective perception of the human vocation — an action/reflection praxis — reveals the layered understanding of the universe present in both Freemasonry and astrology. Terrestrial events and personal destiny are seen to be intricately linked with what goes on beyond the clouds. The relationship between mental and physical creation is analogous to that of sky and earth; they echo each other, but each has its own unique flavor.

That the sun, moon and stars decorate the entrance to the Grand Lodge of New York is of great significance given the religious understanding of sacred space.[9] The doorway to the Hall is the threshold between the holy and the profane. Masonic ritual occurs in the eternal here that manifests when builders construct cosmos out of chaos. The masons who erected the Grand Lodge, including Napoleon Le Brun and Harry P. Knowles, were active in the creation of sacred space as they lived and worked in the context of the divine. As William D. Moore explains in his book, Masonic Temples: Freemasonry, Ritual Architecture and Masculine Archetypes, “Masonic ritual spaces were designed to allow the fraternity to enter an alternative dimension loosed from a single temporal reality. They were a physical forum for manifesting the Masons’ mythic concept of time and space in which all Freemasons throughout history existed simultaneously.”[10]

The construction of any holy building is accompanied by a depth of meaning for the people spiritually involved. But for Freemasons, there is additional significance that stems from the society’s operative elements. The first three degrees of Freemasonry, what is called the Blue Lodge, are ritually and mythically centered around the building of Solomon’s temple, also called the House of Everlasting Light. “Three lights — the stellar, the solar, and the lunar — illuminate this Cosmic Temple.”[11] Ceremonial participants take up the roles of King Solomon, King Hiram of Tyre, and Master Mason Hiram Abif, and reenact scenes from the legends surrounding the erection of this grand edifice.

“Temple building fascinated New York’s Freemasons…because the activity gave physical form to the fraternity’s ceremonial metaphors. The act of erecting temples allowed members of the fraternity, who were merely ‘speculative’ masons, to join their mythic precursors in the ranks of ‘operative’ masons. Men who routinely enacted the metaphysical act of constructing an invisible neo-platonic temple rejoiced at the opportunity to build a structure in the physical realm. […] Participants in local temple-building projects perceived themselves as fulfilling the roles for which the ritual had prepared them.”[12]

For the Masonic mind, the Grand Lodge is sacred space, a realm that is wholly different from the ordinary profane world. With sacred space comes sacred time — the eternal present, when an individual can mystically connect with the cosmogony. Viewing and experiencing the world as infinitely layered and interconnected, the Masonic Hall builders were astrologically aware; thus, sun, moon and stars adorn the entranceway.

The orientation and location of important objects and areas in the lodge are meticulously chosen in relation to direction. Many Masonic rituals involve moving around the room in a particular pattern, circumambulating certain objects.[13] Given the ancient influence on these ceremonies, it is highly likely that these rites are a form of sacred dance that imitates the celestial revolutions.[14] Furthermore, as Manly P. Hall notes, the exalted architecture of antiquity, whence the Masonic tradition comes, was built by initiated craftsmen “based upon geometrical patterns derived from the constellations.”[15]

Prominent nineteenth century Freemason Dr. Albert G. Mackey agrees, naming the sun as the most important symbol in Masonry. It is certainly expressive of the intellect, but Dr. Mackey attributes more significance to the sun’s temporal elements. This unveils much about the astrological underpinnings of Freemasonry: “But it is especially as the ruler of the day, giving to it a beginning and end, and a regular course of hours, that the Sun is presented as a Masonic Symbol.”[16] In addition, the essence of the Masonic initiation is death and resurrection, which is itself a dramatization of the sun’s apparent path across the sky. Mircea Eliade attributes this to the ancient heritage he explores in Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth.[17]

In each of the first three degrees of initiation, Freemasons are re-introduced to familiar building tools, this time accompanied by esoteric symbolic meaning. The signature square and compass — overlaid to visually convey the maxim as above, so below — is the fraternity’s primary symbol. According to renowned Freemason and scholar Manly Palmer Hall in Masonic Orders of Fraternity, the square is equivalent to the moon, and the compass to the sun.[18] This illuminates the gendered nature of the symbols as well: the v-shaped square and the moon are feminine, while the phallic compass and the sun are masculine. When the two opposite but complementary symbols are joined, the ultimate meaning is union and balance.

C.Z., a member of the Grand Lodge of New York, supports this idea of equilibrium with his own understanding of the solar and lunar symbolism on the Masonic Hall’s entrance. It is worth quoting his explanation at length:

“My personal understanding of the sun and moon as symbols is rather complex. The Sun essentially represents the male element in creation, rational intellect, consciousness and the “electric” aspect of cosmic energy. For an individual, it represents physical vitality and good circumstances. Esoterically it represents the male aspect of Deity manifest. The Moon essentially represents the female element in creation, intuition and emotional intelligence, the subconscious and dreams, and the “magnetic” aspect of cosmic energy. For an individual, it relates to mental health (good or bad) and desires (especially sexual). Esoterically it represents the female aspect of Deity manifest.

The Sun and the Moon shown together in Masonic symbolism on the most basic level represent a concept of balance, especially balanced judgment and the ability to make balanced decisions. It is like an East Asian yin yang symbol, but more concrete and less abstract. Apart from this, the Moon rarely appears in Masonic ritual symbolism. This is mainly because traditional Craft Masonry is a male initiatory tradition. References to the Sun, direct or indirect, are prominent, and the Sun and its movements in the sky in many cases represents the Self and its experience of different phases of life, both daily and within a lifespan. The Sun also represents a source of intellectual illumination.”[19]

As initiates symbolically recreate the temple’s construction in ritual, they understand through their mystical orientation that they must, to be a complete mason and person, build the inner temple of spirit, mind and character. Manly P. Hall explores the idea of the human lodge [body] as microcosm of the great universal lodge [cosmos], and reveals a jewel of esoteric wisdom that we can add to our understanding of speculative and operative masonry: “Freemasonry within a temple of stone cannot be other than speculative, but Freemasonry within the living temple of the body is operative. The third symbolic temple is the Soular House…”[20]

The star symbolizes the Master of the Lodge, “because, as the sun rules the day and the moon governs the night, so should the Worshipful Master rule and govern his Lodge with equal regularity and precision.”[21] The extension from universal to personal is seen once again as the true mason lives in the context of the sacred. Through layers of meaning and application, he becomes the master of his own microcosmic universe.

What separates astrology from astronomy is the former’s emphasis on terrestrial and human affairs. The body is the lodge, the universe in miniature, and it reflects the grand scheme of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. Everything that happens in the heavens has bearing on earthly life. For masons, solar, lunar, and stellar imagery on the threshold between profane and sacred space conveys the importance of balanced thought and actions, human agency within the context of the holy, and the connection between microcosm and the infinite universe.

[1] For example: the Osirian Mysteries of Egypt, Mormonism, the Knights of Columbus, etc.

[2] Eliade, Mircea. Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth. Woodstock, Connecticut: Spring Publications, 1958.

[3] Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. Dell Publishing, 1968.

[4] Mackey, Albert G., MD. Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences. Masonic History Co., 1927.

[5] Moore, William D. Masonic Temples: Freemasonry, Ritual Architecture, and Masculine Archetypes. University of Tennessee Press, 2006.

[6] Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York. “About Grand Lodge.” http://nymasons.org/cms/aboutgrandlodge

[7] “Brightening the Lodge: A Masonic Emblem For the Ladies’ Mile.” New York Times, May 31, 1992, www.nytimes.com/1992/05/31/realestate/postings-brightening-the-lodge-a-masonic-emblem-for-the-ladies-mile.html.

[8] Hall, Manly P. The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Penguin Books, 1928.

[9] Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Harcourt, Inc., 1957.

[10] Moore, William D. Masonic Temples: Freemasonry, Ritual Architecture and Masculine Archetypes. University of Tennessee Press, 2006.

[11] Hall, Manly P. The Secret Teachings of All Ages. New York: Penguin Books, 1928.

[12] Moore, William D. Masonic Temples: Freemasonry, Ritual Architecture, and Masculine Archetypes. University of Tennessee Press, 2006, 120.

[13] Duncan, Malcolm C. Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor. Crown Publishers.

[14] Knight, Christopher & Lomas, Robert. The Hiram Key. Fair Winds Press, 1996.

[15] Hall, Manly P. The Secret Teachings of All Ages. New York: Penguin Books, 1928, 572.

[16] Mackey, Albert G., MD. Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences. Masonic History Co., 1927.

[17] Eliade, Mircea. Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth. Woodstock, Connecticut: Spring Publications, 1958.

[18] Hall, Manly P. Masonic Orders of Fraternity. New York: Penguin Books, 1950.

[19] Interview with C.Z., Master Mason and member of the Grand Lodge of New York, October 17, 2008.

[20] Hall, Manly P. Masonic Orders of Fraternity. New York: Penguin Books, 1950.

[21] Mackey, Albert G., MD. Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences. Masonic History Co., 1927.