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The Symbolism of the Ballot Box

Blake Bowden

Administrator
Staff Member
When electing men to membership, we are reminded that white balls elect, black cubes reject. These are not arbitrary shapes, or colors, but deliberate symbols. They represent the passing of the soul from one state to another.

The white ball is a sphere, a shape of perfection, with no up or down, no front or back, no edges, corners – no distinction. It represents the eternal sameness of God, who remains unchanging throughout the ages in that lofty empyrean where those perfected souls reside having wrought their good works upon the Earth. It is white because white is a color often associated with the good and the light. White is all color, just as the sphere is all shape. The white ball is thereby a symbol of completeness.

The black cube is an emblem of Earth, the lower plane, that material place where we work as craftsmen in the quarry. The cube is six-sided, alluding to the six directions – up, down, left, right, forward, back – the cube of formation on which the creation was founded, the three-dimensional world of matter and the material. And black has long been a color associated with darkness, and by extension ignorance. It is a lack of color, an absence. Thus the black cube is a symbol of the imperfect.

So it is that if a candidate for the mysteries of the craft is elected to membership, his election occurs via a symbol of perfection. If he is rejected, he is rejected via a symbol of the unrefined, the unfinished, the unready. Like the ill prepared soul approaching Heaven, if its work be not perfected, it is cast back. But if the candidate be ready to begin a new existence in goodness, he is accepted. Here, his work can begin anew.

This is just one way in which the Lodge aligns with the celestial movements, in microcosm of all creation. Only they who are ready to divest themselves of their passions, and take up the gavel and the mallet to perfect themselves in Masonry are ready to move from the crudeness of their worldly ambitions to the harmonious order of the Lodge.

By Bro. Ben Williams
 
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