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Post by taylorsman on Nov 17, 2005 11:26:49 GMT
This is question that many Masons are asked from time to time and I feel that it is uselful to be able to give a sensible answer. Of course we know that this is only done when a Candidate in the Three Craft Degrees, at least in UGLE Freemasonry and we don't all sit in Lodge with our kecks rolled up!
However, and with gratitude to Ruff Ashlar's posting on another Forum , I reproduce his very sensible explanation below:-
The reason I suspect some Masons are slow to explain why we roll up our trouserlegs is because they just plain don't know.
The trouserleg is rolled up to simulate the appearance of one in ragged clothing, to reduce the Candidate to the same symbolic state as someone at the lowest station in life, one in those reduced circumstances we each hope never to have to face in reality. This is to encourage him to dwell upon the importance of charity, a public virtue which can make a real difference in the world.
Walk a mile in someone else's shoes, as they say...
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Post by petertaylor on Nov 17, 2005 11:33:45 GMT
Yep! I saw this on the other forum and am tempted to use this post as well!
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Nov 17, 2005 13:42:11 GMT
Repetita iuvant?
In Italy, the candidate is - or at least should be - so prepared: naked chest, right knee and left foot.
The reason is astrological.
Chest: heart, sun
Knee: sex and brain (knee has synovial liquid, which recalls both brain and sex), moon;
foot: to catch the energy of the earth.
This means that the initiate shall be able to balance mind, sex and heart (feelings); he shall look at heaven but will not loose the sense of the reality.
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Post by Jumile on Nov 17, 2005 13:49:38 GMT
I didn't know that, TM. Thanks for the education. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes, as they say... That's right! Because then you have their shoes and they're a mile away from you can't do much about it... ;D
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Post by a on Nov 17, 2005 14:03:19 GMT
This illustrates quite well, in a broad brush generalisation sort of way, one of the more noticeable differences between the UGLE-amity world and the many other branches of Freemasonry.
UGLE-amity appears to be quite down to earth, mundane, with such understandings filtered off (not really accurate I know), while non-UGLE-amity sort of expect you to have travelled sufficiently far to be aware of more esoteric understandings.
Absolutely facinating.
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Post by hollandr on Nov 17, 2005 14:41:01 GMT
I was taught that the naked bits in the EA and FC constituted 2 spirals (ida and pingala) and the MM was both as befitted an initiate
Cheers
Russell
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Nov 17, 2005 16:02:00 GMT
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staffs
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Staffs
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Post by staffs on Nov 17, 2005 18:21:55 GMT
In the words of W.Bro Roy Chandler aged 91 :
Why is the Candidates knee made bare ?
In Ancient days many oaths and obligations were made before a stone altar or a cubicle in the centre of the building and it was required in addition to touching the altar with both hands that it should also be touched by a bare part of the body.
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Nov 17, 2005 18:26:35 GMT
Sure. But if the hands were already bare, without gloves, I mean, why then the knee? And why one knee only, not both? Why the bare foot is 'alternate' in respect of the knee (right/left)? Think it over, Little Staffs!
A hint: think to the "mixer"...
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Nov 17, 2005 18:57:51 GMT
Brethren,
I am flattered, not to say stunned. To all who find it serves the purpose, I say: please, nick it and use it, by all means.
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Post by gcoudert on Nov 22, 2005 20:35:13 GMT
This may just be a coincidence, but if you draw a line from r.a. to l.k. to r.h. (1st), then another line from l.a. to r.k. to l.h. (FC), you get something not dissimilar to the S&C symbol.
What do you think?
GC
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ruffashlar
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Lodge Milncroft No. 1515 (GLoS), Govanhill Royal Arch Chapter 523 (S.G.R.A.C.S.)
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Post by ruffashlar on Nov 23, 2005 12:28:47 GMT
I'm still trying to work it out in my head.
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Post by gcoudert on Nov 23, 2005 21:05:53 GMT
Something like this (apologies for the rather poor drawing!): Gilles
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Nov 23, 2005 21:12:37 GMT
Don't apologize: the idea is quite clear. And it is a demonstration that human body is analogical in respect of the masonic temple, or vice versa.
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Post by maat on Nov 23, 2005 21:30:23 GMT
All of the above info maybe is providing clues as to how man can 'square the circle'?
Maat
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Post by rbartlett on Nov 27, 2005 8:32:34 GMT
A quote from the BBC 2 radio interview-
JOHN HAMILL:
It was to show that he was a free man in the days when there was still slavery, and if he rolled up his trouser leg and they would find the manacle, he was not a free man.
S&F
Richard
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Post by lateknightchemist on Nov 27, 2005 11:55:59 GMT
The method(s) for preparing candidates in the Craft Degree have become ritualised and are almost religious. The spiritual purpose is remind us of poverty and that we should do what we can to relieve the distresses of our brother man.
I have another mundane reason. I go back to the building of the pyramids. Huge numbers of people were involved. The skilled craftmen (FCs) worked in the quarries. Their prepared and finished stones had to be transported to the building by labourers. Each stone had to be marked to show where it was to go in the building and who crafted it - so that he could be paid. Jealous labourers who were paid in kind - food and drink - carrying metal objects (cutting tools) could easily compromise the whole by modifying the marks. They presumably would have had to show that they were not "tooled up" as it were.
Re-enactments of life in the Middle East and its environs always show labourers wearing very little. Would that have been the case? Would they not have covered up to protect themselves from the sun? They could easily conceal weapons or whatever. How would labourers evince to the overseers that they were not carrying any metal?
Rolling up trouser legs is therefore merely symbolic of a more extensive proving.
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Post by taylorsman on Nov 27, 2005 11:59:29 GMT
This is one of the questions to which there are several answers, all of which have a ring of Truth to them.
The John Hamill explanation is satisfactory as is that given by Ruff.
One answer I was given when I first came into The Craft was that this was the way to "evince to the Brethren that one had neither money not metalic substance hidden about your person" This was not that convicing to me as, unless one belongs to a Lodge which dresses its Candidiates in Pyjamas - in reality a white two piece garment rather like a Judo Suit- if only one leg and the breast is revealed such objects could still be hidden.
It is interesting that the Man in the Street always refers to the Masons Rolling up their Trouser Legs yet only the Candidate does this in the Three Craft Degrees, not the rest of the Brethren present as is often wrongly imagined and of course this is not done at all in any of the Higher Degrees.
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Post by vadro on Nov 27, 2005 13:07:11 GMT
When I was initiated, I was told that the Candidate in the ancient time, was wearing a white two piece garment, because the etymology of the word Candidate is from the latin Candidus (candid, white). This dressing was a symbol of the profane’s “purity”
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Post by taylorsman on Nov 27, 2005 13:43:37 GMT
That is of interest Bro Vadro and I had understood that this was the root of the word Candidate, amusing when you consider that many Political Candiates of all parties are far less than "pure and unsullied".
The practice of dressing Candidates for the Three Craft Degrees in white pyjamas is dying out in UK Lodges as many modern men object to having to strip off although the pyjamas do preserve their "modesty". Nowadays in most Lodges the Candidate merely rolls the appropriate leg or both legs of his trousers and arms of his shirt as required and undoes his shirt to bare his left breast, but keeps his shirt and trousers on.
If the Rolling of the Trouser Legs was ever abolished in Craft Freemasonry lots of comedians would lose their ability to raise a cheap laugh by coming on stage with their trouser leg rolled up and making extraordinary and totally inaccurate gestures with their hands while wearing some silly hat , antlers, or the like on their head.
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