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Testing Values: A Quest For Truth

Emails and a Response to the FrmTheEast Email List:

Submitted by Patrick Bailey, Jr. Past Master, Dec. 7, 2000.

Bailey, Patrick
From: FrmTheEast@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 10:26 AM
To: FrmTheEast@aol.com
Subject: Re: A Test of Values - The Philalethes(P.Bailey)

When looking for the "Truth", I assert that the plumb line must indeed be repeatedly tested!

Tested and retested by several different independent people, and in several different circumstances, from the highest viewpoints, to ascertain what is indeed the real TRUTH.

A good example would be the case in which a group is testing a plumb line within a shack in the Knotts Berry Farm Ghost Town, where the walls and floors are purposely built at about 15 degrees to the true vertical and horizontal as measured by gravity. Thus, within these ARTIFICIAL surroundings, the "true plumb line" will look as if it is really about 15 degrees from vertical!

Let us beware of the surroundings that are made by others that may be artificial!

And, let us have the wisdom and perseverance to look upon all measurements and tests with the most all-encompassing view possible - in order to ascertain the real TRUTH - the Great Objective of Masonic Study!!! (as stated in the York Rite Royal Arch Ritual.)

Patrick Bailey
Jr. Past Master, Los Altos No. 712, CA
http://www.calodges.org/no712/

Webpage of the Dead Masonic Poets Society: www.craftlodge.org

Bailey, Patrick
From: FrmTheEast@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 9:14 PM
To: FrmTheEast@aol.com
Subject: A Test of Values - The Philalethes
A Test of Values the philalethes, Oct. 2000
The Journal of Masonic Research and Letters

The plumb-line is the test of values. Twenty-four centuries before Speculative Freemasonry was born, the shepherd Amos, who taught during the reign of Jereboam II of the Kingdom Israel, held aloft the plumb-line whose symbolic meaning was the same then, as it is today, the standard of rectitude, justice, uprightness, and true manhood. As such it is one of the most impressive symbols of Freemasonry and stand pre-eminent in the Degree of Fellow Craft; the symbol by which the value of the material interests of life must be gauged and by which the use of man's intelligence must be tried. The symbolism is so plain, that it does not need any profound philosophy lines. It stands clear, simple and profound. It matters not whether Freemasonry toils, as a day laborer, in the clay grounds between Succoth and Zeredetha, or stands as the exponent of the liberal arts and sciences. There is but one standard of King or subject, rich or poor, educated or ignorant. The plumb-line of moral rectitude must be applied to every walk in life.

Webpage of the Dead Masonic Poets Society: www.craftlodge.org

Bailey, Patrick
From: FrmTheEast@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 9:22 PM
To: FrmTheEast@aol.com
Subject: Philalethes - Its meaning
Dear Brethren,

Speaking on terminology Philalethes is for sure a Greek word. The right pronunciation is with the accent on the third syllable (on le). Philalethes (in greek) is consisted of two words

Philos = friend, companion, lover (with the meaning of patron i.e. philos of arts)

Alethea= Truth Now the terminology of the word alethea is coming from: Prefix A (that usually gives a negative meaning to the rest word) & the verb letho (litho) = forget. Thus the original meaning of Alethea was that you "never forget ones essence and nature" ,never compromise and be yourself.

According to the Greek mythology Alethea was the daughter of Zeus & Virtue and she help to grow up Apollo.

The Greek mythology is full of allegories and various meanings or translations. One of them is that Alethea (= truth) comes form God (Zeus was the father of gods and for the educated ancient Greeks something like the meaning of our G.A.O.T.U) and cannot exist without the Virtue; Alethea grows up the God Apollo e.g. Light (Apollo was the god of light and metaphorical the way that leads to God). In other words Alethea is the way to Light and to God.

In the name of brotherly love and in true Masonic form, your Greek Bro.

Kyriakos C. Andreou, MPS

* M.M . of the Lodge Phoenix #59 (Gl o Greece)
* Member of Philalethes Society
* Representative in Greece of the Global Fraternal Network
* Co - Founder of the Global Phoenix Forum (at http://www.mastermason.com/phoenix/)

Webpage of the Dead Masonic Poets Society: www.craftlodge.org
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