If your soul has felt the fear, don't go further. If you are capable of concealment, tremble, we will penetrate you! If you are fond of human distinctions, go out, they are not known here. The inscriptions, usually placed on the walls, are these: "If curiosity leads you here, go away if you fear to be enlightened about your faults, you will be badly off among us. Above the table are represented a Rooster and an Hourglass, and underneath these two words, VIGILANCE (on one's actions) PERSEVERANCE (in good), the hours being counted. The furnishings of this room consist of a chair and a table covered with a white carpet on which are paper, ink, powder, pen and lamp. If there were no skeleton, a skull and crossbones would be placed on the table. In the form of the skeleton that lies next to him in an open coffin symbolizing the nothingness of human vanities. The walls are painted black with funerary emblems in order to bring to meditation the recipient who will have to go through the four elements of the ancients and undergo his first ordeal, that of the EARTH in which he is supposed to be to remind him of his last resting place. It is a dark place impenetrable to the rays of the day and lit by a sepulchral lamp. In the 1860, "Rituel de l'Apprenti Maçon" from French Freemason Jean-Marie Ragon, the Chamber of reflection is thus described ". It is also used in some of the advanced degrees for a similar purpose." Mackey in his 1873 book "Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry" describes the Chamber of Reflection as ".a small room adjoining the Lodge, in which, preparatory to initiation, the candidate is enclosed for the purpose of indulging in those serious meditations which its sombre appearance and the gloomy emblems with which it is furnished are calculated to produce. The writer Oswald Wirth played a significant role in the understanding of Masonic symbolism and perpetuated, through several works, the idea of an alchemical origin. In terms of symbolic origins, the French writer and philosopher Daniel Béresniak draws a parallel between the mythological Cretan labyrinth of the Minotaur built by Daedalus and the meditation room. Finally, the meditation room has been considered by some authors and psychoanalysts as the modern form of the ancient initiatory hut or cavern. This ritual included all the evocations now present in the reflection room. The influence would have given birth, in 1750, to the "Rituel alchimique secret du grade de vrai franc-maçon académicien" in English "Secret alchemical ritual of the grade of true Freemason academician" created by Antoine-Joseph Pernety founder of the lodge Illuminés of Avignon. The assertion is further based on the stripping of the metals offered to the candidate mason and pertaining to alchemical transmutation but also on the three hermetic principles arranged in the place: salt, sulfur and mercury. The claim is further supported by the fact that the kankurang is the only place where the young person can learn the art of initiation. The reflective practice is seen by some historians as a legacy of alchemical traditions and esoteric treatises. For example, Manding tribes send the young recipient into seclusion in the forest to confront the kankurang. Isolation is an age-old practice in initiation rituals. This phase of isolation generally begins the initiation ritual that a layman experiences when he enters a Masonic course. This is facilitated by the presence of symbolic objects and evocative sentences which may differ slightly depending on the rites. It is used as a test of isolation during which the recipient is invited to perform some introspection. In Freemasonry, the chamber of reflection (also called, the room of reflection, reflection cabinet or meditation cabinet) is the place where part of the initiation process takes place. Some of the symbols used in the Masonic Chamber of Reflection.
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