Definition: Freemason

But there is ^{a tenth degree} that is never mentioned. Oswald Wirth, in all his writings, does not even allude to it, nor does any Masonic dictionary! So what does an apprentice do after using the mallet and chisel? What does the Fellow Craft do after handling the new tools of his degree? What does the Master do after putting down his tools? And what do we, my brothers, do at each agape?

Quite simply, we quench our thirst, a thirst that is important to satisfy at the risk of diminishing the assurance of our hand. And since the body has needs that reason alone cannot satisfy, thirst can suddenly overcome the helpless Mason who, poor and in distress, would not have had in his possession that famous ^{10th tool}so neglected throughout the centuries, and he would find himself reduced to the rank of a human wreck.

Let us reflect. Try opening a bottle with a mallet, a square or a compass!

No, I say to you loud and clear, this injustice and danger must be stopped as soon as possible.

Therefore, breaking the privilege of the venerable one who knows of its existence, I propose to introduce a new tool, which I will commonly call the corkscrew, into the Masonic panoply, and this, at all levels. This corkscrew is currently only presented to the new Worshipful Master for the first time at the end of the secret installation ceremony, when he is asked to make immediate, more practical but limited use of it in the presence of the installed Masters alone, before the return of the Brothers who have left for the forecourt, whose attentive ears may have heard only a few distant clinks of glass.

But more symbolically, this corkscrew is represented by the inverted Tau, its point raised towards the sky in thanks to the GADLU (the Great Architect of the Universe) for the favours he has just bestowed upon us.

And so, if we recognise the Worshipful Master in the open Lodge by the fact that he carries the Square when seated, we recognise him even more immediately when he rises for the first time, by the three Tau symbols that adorn his new apron. One for red, one for white, one for rosé. Had this escaped your notice?

Corkscrew comes from the verb "to pull" and the noun "cork", which in Latin is "bucco". It is, in a way, the tool used to extract from its housing the piece of material, usually made of cork, which on one side is in contact with the liquid and on the other side is close to the person performing the pulling action.

The invention of the corkscrew is difficult to pinpoint. However, it is generally attributed to the observation of certain animals similar to pigs, whose tails resemble the spiral we are familiar with. Human ingenuity consisted of stiffening this spiral by making it metallic: this took place around the time of the Iron Age. Thus, we imperceptibly moved from the soft corkscrew to the hard corkscrew.

But long and arduous efforts were still necessary to make the instrument usable; the handle still had to be invented. No one knows whether it was invented by a Brother, but it is nevertheless curious to note that the angle formed by the vertical and the handle itself is a right angle, i.e. 90° or a quarter of a circle.

Admit that all this is very curious, and that it cannot be purely coincidental!

But there is another symbolic aspect that I would like to emphasise, which is perhaps, in my view, the most important: think back to the last bottle you opened. Do you remember how you placed the tip of the corkscrew? You placed it right in the centre. And when placed like that, it cannot fail. Then you pressed lightly and then harder and harder, rotating your wrist in the same direction as the procession in the Lodge. The screw then penetrated smoothly until you saw the small metal tip appear at the other end of the cork, signalling that you could stop your effort.

Immediately, overcome with indescribable pleasure, you pulled the corkscrew upwards sharply while your other hand held the round shape of the bottle firmly.

These are the five perfect points of the sommelier: handle in the palm, fingers bent, knees against the bottle, hand against the neck, palm facing the ground. It is in this position, and in this position alone, that a bottle can be opened smoothly.

You have just performed a gesture dating back to the dawn of time, a gesture that can be likened to the phenomenon of copulation and, by the same token, procreation, represented in the lodge by the presence of the two columns B and J, symbols of the moon and sun, feminine and masculine, but also evocative of Bordeaux and Juliénas.

But let us make no mistake, the corkscrew is under threat, both from fundamentalism and modernism, if we are not careful. Already, a clergyman of the worst kind, Dom Pérignon, with his Champagne invention, made corks pop without the aid of any instrument. Is this why we often wrongly equate Freemasonry with an anti-clerical movement, as we well know?

And then, closer to home, the capsule that only requires the use of a simple lever. Worse still, the pack that only requires a knife or a pair of scissors, or even the aluminium can that opens without any tools at all!

No, my brothers, let us be vigilant, let us defend all our tools, especially the corkscrew, without which we might not be who we are today.

Source: Jiri Pragman - Tags: humour - tool - corkscrew