Tag Archives: letter

Y

An emblem of the German Grand Lodge Zur Sonne (‘to the sun’) from 1829. Possart (Die St. Andreasgrade 1877/7) explains the Y as the lewis. Elsewhere in the same book, he uses the Y as a symbol of a threefold union.

The reference to Possart makes another possible connection. His book is about the Große Landesloge degrees and it is within that ‘Grand National Lodge’ that the interesting tracing boards with strange symbols and grasshoppers appear in their Andreas degrees. On these tracing boards you also see the image below.

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Entangled S’s

Jewels of the Eklektischen Bund (a German Grand Lodge). On top in the middle, two entangled letters S.

In the 11th degree of Mirecourt (“Grand Ecossais de Montpellier”) there is a question what “the two letters S” on the tracing board mean (unfortunately there is no images), the answer is: “Sanctus Sanctorum, or Sapientia or Solomon”.

frequently reproduced image (can even be sold as poster). I have not been able from what book this is a page.

Hebrew

There is a lot of crudely written Hebrew in Freemasonry. Not only words are garbled, but the copies from copies, often from handwritten copies, by people who don’t know Hebrew, makes that on many places you see letters that hardly resemble Hebrew. What also doesn’t help is that there are variations in ritual texts. The image above is from the “ineffable” degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Some Hebrew are recognisable, others less so. From some texts that use this image, you can know what Hebrew letters are meant. The same emblem in another AASR system has Latin characters that do not correspond to the Hebrew above.

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F H C

Faith, Hope and Charity are often depicted on symbol charts, sometimes as letters like here, sometimes with female figures.

cut-out from an unknown Symbol Chart

Five Pillars

Dąbrowski has an unidentified “Masonic Symbols”, see below. The image itself says: “Templar Chart” so I suppose these are symbols from Templar degrees.

Five pillars can be seen every now and then. In the USA they are (sometimes) part of the 2nd “craft” degree. It also appears in the 12th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite sometimes. I suppose they refer to the orders of architecture.

In the image above, the pillars have the letters T, L, P and F. In this case it appears to be one of the temples portrayed on this chart (of a reference to the other two). In this case the Temple of Honor and Temperance.

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Octothorpe

Dąbrowski has an unidentified “Masonic Symbols”, see below. I don’t know in which degree this image is featured and if there are other systems or degrees with this symbol, but I did encounter it on Mark Master tracing boards, sometimes with nine dots. Perhaps it is just a (Mason’s) mark?

The # (hashtag) can often be found together with a X on Master Mason drawing boards. Thus combined (#X) it can either refer to the pigpen cipher or a way to construct cubic stones.

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G

Found between the Square and Compasses, within a star, it is a common in Freemasonry. There are a lot of explanations what the letter stands for. Needless to say that this differs per lodge. In a very Christian lodge, the G may be explained as “God”, in a secular lodge “geometry” may be preferred. There are more (possible) explanations though.