The Masonic Word: Types and Functions
- Pages
- 5-16
Abstract
In the sources that guide the Masons, and in the sources that they produce themselves, the term “Word” dominates in the meaning of a “text, an idea or a communicative unit”. This determines the importance of the research. Its purpose is to identify the characteristics of the perception of the Word by the Masons, that is, to discover the typology of the unit and its functions. To achieve the goal, the methods of semantic, contextual and communicative analysis were used, allowing in their totality to propose, prove and formulate a holistic perception of a structurally complex unit. The main results of the study include the following. Firstly, the the authors established the typology of the word: the Word of God, the Lost Word, the Master’s Word, the Mason’s Word, the Poetic Word Secondly, the functions of the Word were determined: identifying, conspiratorial, magical, creative, enlightening. Thirdly, it was stated that the Word in the perception of the Freemasons became an ideal, an object and a tool. At the same time, the instrumental function, that is, one’s own practice in the framework of the real world, implied a mystical desire for an ideal, that is, the Word of God, and rational and mystical knowledge of an object, that is, the Lost Word.
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