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Why do we start a perambulation with our Left Foot?

Rinesh Hegde

Registered User
Wow, thanks a lot brethren. Based on all your inputs, I attempted to write a short paper on why we start our Perambulation with our Left Foot and have shared the same with some of the senior brethren here in India for their inputs. Hope I get some and enhance the paper accordingly, will share with all here as soon as I am complete it.

Hope to continue learning like this.
 
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dfreybur

Premium Member
And why would the military start on the left foot ?

Most people are right footed. I'm left handed and slightly right footed. Being left footed is so rare I was placed on the left in high school soccer.

It would be an advantage so small as to be trivial, but stepping out on the left foot give more stability in the first step.

In the degree lectures it is explained why we start on each foot. Since these details will be different by jurisdiction it can become a matter of learning details from a different version of the ritual than your own. It's a small enough detail that it has not been included in the EA proficiencies I have learned but it is mentioned in the lectures I have learned.
 

Rinesh Hegde

Registered User
Most people are right footed. I'm left handed and slightly right footed. Being left footed is so rare I was placed on the left in high school soccer.

It would be an advantage so small as to be trivial, but stepping out on the left foot give more stability in the first step.

In the degree lectures it is explained why we start on each foot. Since these details will be different by jurisdiction it can become a matter of learning details from a different version of the ritual than your own. It's a small enough detail that it has not been included in the EA proficiencies I have learned but it is mentioned in the lectures I have learned.

Brother, is it possible for you to guide me to the lecture...as you mentioned it might be different depending on jurisdiction, as in our Lodges we don't have anything that mentions the importance of the foot.

As mentioned earlier it is only to understand the allegory of the left foot that might help me in writing my paper.

I can understand if you won't be able to share but please do let me know if otherwise. Thanks a lot for your guidance.
 

CLewey44

Registered User
I would venture to say that there is likely some left hand path, right hand path, and middle path allusions with the steps. Specifically when certain sts are taught and performed. When two pillars are present they typically represent dark/light, black/white, evil/good, severity/mercy or something along those lines. By default, there definitely would have to be a middle when referring to the aforementioned. Gray areas which would also go back to the sts, specifically the final stp we are taught. Too much kindness permits evil to flourish; too much severity punishes guilty and innocent therefore we should walk the middle path or better yet, be that middle pillar between B&J.
 
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Center

Registered User
The conception of left as darkness is really pertinent at my advice. Just one can think over the right hand of God in the Bible( not of Maradona if there are English friends:)). Also the name right for "right"/proper has been matter of rivers of ink in several anthropological studies. Starting a walking with the left, in the darkness symbolizes at my advice much more. The candidate want to see the light and starts ALWAYS from the darkness, so starting the walking is a metaphor for starting the "way", the trip, the adventure of the human transformation. For instance Dante goes down to the hell, then the purgatory, in the end in the paradise. Plato starts the Republic going down to the Piraeus( here there is a really interesting military concept linked to Xenophon Anabasis), Ancient initiations were starting in the darkness, so Freemasons have to visit at the beginning of their travel interior lands( Visita Interiore Terrae). Then we could think over the trip of Ulysses and Aeneas in the Aedes. Then in the royal alchemy the process starts from the darkness, the so called nigredo, the putrefaction. Then there is the role of the Crypt in some degrees of the Freemasonry. For instance without going into the York rite, Christian Rosenkreuz according most of the myths had engraved on his crypt the word VITRIOL, doubling the meaning of the importance to travel in the darkness. Here one possibly should make some possibly essential remarks regarding the emulation ritual of FC and the number five, and how this is relate to the walking in the darkness of the EA, that as was mentioned start the perambulation from the left foot, and is blindfolded( in the darkness). Plumb and Level. Other interesting remarks that cannot do for time constraint relate to the starting from the left in the Chinese tradition. In the martial arts usually the form start always from the left side. Then should be said that in the Christian tradition people tend to locate the past on the left side, for some conditioning due to the way we write from left to right, and so we should discuss about the origin of the freemasonry, and the importance of the past in all the worldwide initiations(a concept similar to Karma). There is a beautiful movie where the concept of darkness is inspired to Heart of Darkness, a novel, is called apocalypse now and maybe is a causality, maybe not, also has some strong references to the army.
 
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