Masonic & Occult Symbols Illustrate

closes each day as the sun rises and sets so the connection between the flower and the sun is very clear.” Hall explains: “In the Western World the Lotus has been changed to the Rose. The Roses of the Rosicrucians, the Roses of the Masonic degrees, and also those of the Order of the Garter in England ALL stand for the SAME THING: the awakening of spiritual consciousness and unfolding into full bloom the soul qualities of man. When man opens this bud within himself, he finds, like the golden pollen in the flower, this wonderful spiritual city, SHAMBALLA, in the heart of the thousand-petalled Lotus of the brain.” Pike says that the “Rose was anciently sacred to Aurora and Sun.” In another book Hall declares: “Of all symbolic flowers the lotus blossom of India and Egypt and the rose of the Rosicrucians are the most important. In their symbolism these two flowers are considered identical. The esoteric doctrines for which the Eastern lotus stands have been perpetuated in modern Europe under the form of the rose. The rose and the lotus are yonic emblems, signifying primarily the maternal creative mystery....”

Hall just said that the lotus and the rose are symbols of the female generative parts. An expanded definition is given in A Dictionary of Symbols. Another author writes: “For example, the lotus symbolizes the female vulva of the Mother Goddess, the diamond the male organ of the ancient Father God of paganism. Thus, when a New Ager speaks mysteriously of the ‘diamond entering the lotus’ during religious initiation ceremonies, he literally is referring to sexual intercourse as a New Age holy ritual.” [Emphasis in the