In Petersburg, Pierre accepts an invitation to join the Masons. He begins the elaborate and mysterious masonic initiation ceremony.
In Petersburg, Pierre accepts an invitation to join the Masons. He begins the elaborate and mysterious masonic initiation ceremony.
Book 5, Chapter 3
In Petersburg, Pierre accepts an invitation to join the Masons. He begins the elaborate and mysterious masonic initiation ceremony.
Summary:
In St. Petersburg, Pierre is invited to join the Freemasons. He is taken to an elaborate initiation ceremony. The ceremony takes place in darkened rooms, and he is led through the long, complicated ceremony by current Freemasons, some of whom Pierre recognizes from prior acquaintance. Pierre is asked why he wants to join and told of the goals of the society. Pierre is a very willing inductee to the Freemasons. He thinks it will improve his life immensely. He was determined to submit to all that would be required of him. He has renounced his atheism. Pierre feels that his life is already changed. “He had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion.”
quote from the chapter:
The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation and handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery… which has come down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man- a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends. … not everyone can hope to attain it quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing our members as much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those who have striven to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them capable of receiving it.
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