Page 57 - Amo Amass A-muse is some of the fruit of a lifetimes love of Freemasonry - the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235

NiNE — ThE mySTiC NumBER

ORSHIPFUL MASTER AND BRETHREN of “THE NINE.”
These are the last two words of the heading to our Summons.
WIt is rather surprising that this number ‘NINE’ is not found more
frequently in the name of Lodges. There was a Nine Muses in Russia and the famous
`Neuf Soeures’ in France. Both are no more. Besides our own, I have only been able
to discover one other Lodge in existance and that the Number Nine, the Muses, but
here the Nine is the number of the Lodge and its name ‘The Muses’. There was once
‘Nine Worthies’ but they were neither the name of a Lodge or a Chapter.
It is surprising, because the number ‘NINE’ is perhaps the most significant symbolic
number in the whole of Masonry. It first played an important part in the philosophy of
Pythagoras being the Perfect or Finished number, referring to the time taken in lunar
months for the birth of a human being.
Some of our earliest Masonic Records speak of the ‘Rule of Three’ and the
knowledge of ‘Three times Three’, making nine. In our Fire, we repeat `Three times
Three’ twice. Once in our Points and again in the sound of our Fire.
As a digit, in the Arabic system, it is the highest or greatest, but it is also unique
because it has the power always to reproduce itself in multiplication. That is to say, if
the nine is multiplied by any number at all, the digits of the product always add up
to nine, or a multiple of nine if over twenty-one. For example, if we multiply nine
by seven we obtain sixty-three, the digits of which add up to nine. Hence, although
it is continually changing its form, the digit nine is never destroyed. Symbolically we
can say that being ‘Highest’ and ‘Indestructable’ it represents two attributes of the
Godhead.
Nine is the ‘Square’ of ‘Three’, and the Square is the most important emblem of
the Craft, whilst ‘Three’ is the most used number. The Square is an angle of ninety
degrees and so nine turns up again. The Circle, representing eternity, another attribute
of the Godhead, is an angle of three hundred and sixty degrees, and again the digits
add up to nine.
In the Royal Arch, this digit turns up everywhere and is the mystic number, and in
many of the side degrees it is the basis of sacred numbers.