Sunday, November 8, 2009

Threshing Floor

Among the Hebrews, circular spots of hard ground were used, as now, for the purpose of threshing corn. After they were properly prepared for the purpose , they became permanent possessions. One of these, the property of Ornan the Jebusite, was on Mount Moriah. It was purchased by David, for a place of sacrifice, for six hundred shekels of gold, and on it the Temple was afterwords built. Hence it is sometimes used as a symbolic name for the Temple of Solomon or for a Master's Lodge. Thus it is said in the ritual that the Mason comes "from the lofty tower of Babel, where language was confounded and Masonry lost," and that he is traveling "to the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, where language was restored and Masonry found." The interpretation of this rather abstruse symbolic expression is that on his initiation the Mason comes out of the profane world, where there is ignorance and darkness, and confusion as there was at Babel, and that he is approaching the Masonic world, where, as at the Temple built on Ornan's threshing floor, there is and knowledge and light and order.



The Secret Society of empty pumpkin bobble heads searching for the light to put in their heads.