GRAND LODGE WOMEN OF GREECE

      

“…. We met to search for the Light, the Light of Proper Logos, the Light of Knowledge, of Science, of Truth. It is hidden and waiting for the approach. Search Nature and its manifestations, search the shapes and the Phenomena. To descend into the depths of your Existance, to feel the vibration, to connect with Knowledge, to allow Insight to lead you. Perhaps then you will find it and be led to the TRUTH of things… “. Unofficial translation of title.

 

Deus sive Natura – God or Nature

Spinoza had asked Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Academy in London, to brief him on his understanding of his texts.

Oldenburg asked for some further clarification of his answer and therefore Spinoza noted that his teaching is not based on the identification of God and nature, at least if “nature” is understood as synonymous with “physical matter”. However, he argues that “God is the immanent cause […] of all things and not the transitional cause…”.

 

For the Unity of Everything and the correctness of the view “Deus sive Natura”, Spinoza mentions an excerpt from the speech of the Apostle Paul to Areopagus Supreme Court (Acts 17, 28: “in ipso vivimus et movemur et sumus“) in order to defend his own view that God is the immanent cause of all things and not the transcendent cause.

“In Him we live and move and exist“

 

 The Deus sive Natura view exists not as an option but as a unit, without being considered to be quantitatively assimilated between the terms, as noted by analysts of his work.

Nature is revealed and the Supreme is understood

By observing & Studying Nature, the seeker is led to the Truth & the understanding of the Creator of the Universe.

Nature,  its observation and interpretation, are the focal points of the “Ethics” of Spinoza and Freemasonry alike.

Spinoza raises the issue: Deus sive Natura – God or Nature and with this view he challenges the Council of Elders, and is led to Excommunication with the justification “…abominable …who practiced and taught and for his abominable … acts…“.

For the everyday man of the 17^th century, Nature represented the simple alternation of the seasons and the manifestation of frightening elements, which they exorcised with ceremonies. Every lightning and thunderbolt was a threat, every wind and storm a dark and insidious force that pursued their lives. And every time they had to do an exorcism and every time, they had to do a litany.

What “Nature or God” was Spinoza talking about and what Nature did the “Lords of the ma’amad mean when they excommunicated him?

• For the people of 1656, Nature was the sky, the lightning, the stars, the Sun. Nature was every manifestation and entity that they were able to perceive through the 5 senses, as “the invisible” was deified or demonized.
• For the people of 2025, Nature is quarks, leptons, bosons, Higgs boson, photons, antiprotons, quanta, energy fields, Quantum mechanics, Multiverse, Theory of Everything, Information Physics….

• In the 21^st century “the invisible of the 17^th century” has been integrated into Nature & matter and is now a field of scientific research.
• For the people of the Future, what will we consider as Nature? – Perhaps telekinesis, teleportation, Intuitive communication, new states of matter, Information Physics or more……?

Today’s “invisible & unknown” will be the subject of a scientific and laboratory research in the future and Nature will gradually be revealed in the Light of Science and Logos.

For Spinoza, the key to interpretation and approach is Mind, Intellect, Thought, Ideas, Science, as the eternally “existing causes“

and not religious awe and devotional submission. The former lead to enlightenment, freedom, harmony and true eudaimonia (that is, peace of soul) and the latter lead only to superstitious behavior and submission.

For Freemasonry, the key to interpretation and approach is Proper Logos, as the everlasting “existing law”.

Nobel laureate Paul Dirac wrote in an article published in the May 1963 edition of Scientific American:

“It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it.

You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines?

One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it.

One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.

Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics, we can hope to understand the universe better.”

In Freemasonry, the observation of Nature, the study of its phenomena are the guides towards the Truth and the understanding of the World.

Whatever surrounds us and relates to Nature is sacred, just as Spinoza posits and requires a pious and careful approach and study, so Freemasonry dictates.

“…God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe,” Dirac said.

 

Nature functions through Geometry and Mathematics.

 

To observe Nature means to perceive the Laws, its function, the Structure of its entities. Everything leads to Mathematics and Geometry, from the snowflake to the living cells,  from the heartbeat to the rotation of a planet, from the functional rotation shape of a Galaxy to the structure of a small shell.

Spinoza’s “Nature or God” communicates with Geometry and the “Nature” of Freemasonry is revealed with Geometry.

The philosophical basis of Freemasonry is a system of applied ethics and philosophy, using Geometric symbols and allegories and a specific way of living and thinking.

Mathematical-Geometric symbols are the encryption of the Principles, Ideas, Concepts of the “Eternal & the “Authentic”. They have the inherent ability of recognition throughout “time & space”. It is a treaty of “communication of beings”, of the “now” and the “tomorrow”.

This is exactly the view put forward by Voyager’s Records

Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, carried both, small metal plates indicating their time and place of origin, to the benefit of any other spacecraft that might find them in the distant future. With this example in front of them, NASA placed a more ambitious message in Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to transmit a story of our world to aliens. Voyager’s message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper record containing sounds and images selected to depict the diversity of life and culture on Earth.

Among the images are those with Mathematical and Geometric Symbols

The “Symbols” included are “Eternally Living“.

 

“The mathematical definitions image is one of the images placed electronically on the phonograph records carried on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts”

“Scientific unit definitions image is one of the images placed electronically on the phonograph records carried on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts”

“The image of the parameters of the Solar System is one of the images placed electronically on the phonograph records carried on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts”

 

Putting geometry at the center of his interpretation, Spinoza instantly considers it to be the reliable witness of his view and “proof”.

Putting the Geometric Symbols at the center of study, Freemasonry immediately considers them as the reliable witnesses of views.

The highest respect for Nature, as he accepts the view ” Deus sive Natura”, is expressed by the Philosopher and Architect Rudolf Steiner, when he connects the evolution of an entity with Piety towards Nature and its creations.

He considers respect for the Mineral, Plant and Animal world to be a necessary condition for a person’s spiritual development.

He argues that it is impossible to conceive of higher ideas, higher realities, unless one has respected and understood the worlds beneath the human, that is, the whole of Nature.

He takes a similar position, from a different point of view and wording.

Spinoza in a new letter to Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Academy in London, 7 October 1665, speaks of the Unity of all:

“…I don’t think it right for me to mock nature, much less to lament it, when I reflect that men like everything else are only a part of nature, and that I don’t know how each part of nature agrees with the whole and coheres with the other parts….”

And Freemasonry simply & comprehensively argues:

“… the Light contained the All, towards which the All tends…”

 

Why do both Spinoza and Freemasonry choose the Geometric Method & Geometric Symbols?

 

Geometric Symbols, their Symbolism, their Meaning, their Interpretation, their Ideas, provide knowledge that has a character beyond Space & Time

Geometry is the invisible, “hidden” design condition of the Universe. It is the Great Light of its operation

For Spinoza, in his “Ethics”,  Geometric art is associated with the power of reason, productive & evidential thinking with productive & evidential action.

Each definition follows a series of steps for its rigorous proof, and there is no more complete & better model than Geometry, for its sequential proof: proposal to proposal, definition and proof, and conclusion one by one.

Geometry applied to Philosophy is, according to Spinoza, an ideal model for exposing his intuitions about reality, which is Divine reality.

With the same sanctity as far as their “sighting” is concerned, Freemasonry embraces the Geometric Symbols and is driven to the Highest Spiritual Areas with these Symbols as a guide.

For Freemasonry, Geometry as the “Art of Measurement”, leads man from one truth to another and progressively to INFINITY.

“Stephen Hawking’s Last Message”

Can you hear me?

It has been a glorious time to be alive

 and doing research into theoretical physics

Our picture of the universe has changed a lot

in the last 50 years

and I am happy if I have made

a small contribution.

Remember to look up at the stars

and not down at your feet

Be curious and however difficult life may seem,

there is always something

you can do and succeed at.

Try to make sense of what you see,

 and wonder

about what makes the universe exist.

Be curious.

 

However difficult life may seem,

there is always something

you can do and succeed at.

Thank you for listening.’

Professor

Stephen Hawking – 1942-2018