n connection with the temple: the
"binding" on a carpet; an image of the curtain string in the holy of
holies in Solomon's temple. "Just as this ribbon holds and closes the
curtain, so an indissoluble bond unites and holds together all free and
accepted Masonic brothers (also those who worship therein)." This is
wisdom's key [Surveying, Geometry.] which will make our hands drop with
sweet smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock (Solomon's Song, V, 5).
When now I opened your secret gate with this key, my soul failed within me
and I had no strength in me, the sun of reason and the moon of my extended
senses were confounded and vanished. I knew nothing by myself of the
active properties of nature and the creature. "What have you seen as ...?"
"Nothing that reason can grasp."] The wheel of motion stood still and
something else was moved by a central fire, so that I felt myself turned
into a bright flame. Whereupon this word came to me: This is nothing else
than the gate of my everlasting depths; can you stay in this fiery region,
which is wisdom's dwelling and abode, in which it meets holy remote
spirits and gives them a fiery principle? For if thou canst take heed such
that thou comest hither at its order; then no secret shall be kept from
thee. So far I have been permitted to approach the entrance to your house,
where I must still stay until I hear further from you what is to be done.
(L. G. B., I, pp. 17-19.)

[As we hear it is therefore right to keep the spirit corrected and
disciplined. "Why came ye ... to subdue my passions--to subject my
will...." We see two triads. A divine three (3 great lights), and then
sun, moon and central fire, which second three can be called the lesser
lights, as the "M. v. St." appears as a central fire. If we remember that
the didactic voice proceeds, according to this symbolism, from a fire or
light (Wisdom), this light is identical with the M. v. St. in the
function, and it is determined by exactly that. The central fire is
naturally also the blazing star. This stands on the tapis between sun and
moon and it is designed to illuminate the innermost space of the temple.
From alchemy we are well acquainted with [Symbol: Sun], [Symbol: Moon] and
an intermediate and mediating light, namely [Symbol: Mercury]. This light
can be also symbolized as [Symbol: Star of David]. To the alchemistic
point of view correspond quite closely the three great lights of the
Freiburg Ritual, God, man and St.