Masonic Words: Sacred Language and Passwords in Freemasonry

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Why Words Matter in Freemasonry

Freemasonry is, at its core, a system built on language. Not written language, primarily, but spoken words: passwords whispered at the lodge door, sacred names intoned during degree ceremonies, phrases repeated in unison by the brethren. The Craft has always understood that certain words carry weight beyond their dictionary definitions.

This emphasis on sacred language has three distinct layers. First, there are the modes of recognition: the passwords, grips (handshakes), and signs (gestures) that identify a Mason's degree. These function practically, allowing Masons to verify one another. Second, there is the ritual vocabulary: terms like "cowan," "profane," "hoodwink," and "cable-tow" that have specific meanings within the lodge context. Third, and most philosophically significant, there is the concept of the Lost Word: the idea that a single word, once known, contains within it the whole of divine truth, and that this word has been lost and must be sought.

For a general glossary of Masonic terms and their definitions, see our companion guide to Masonic vocabulary. This article focuses specifically on the sacred words, their origins, and what they mean on a deeper level.

The Degree Passwords

Each of the three Blue Lodge degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master Mason) has associated passwords. These words have been published many times in various "exposures" of Masonic ritual since the 18th century, and Freemasonry continues to treat them as symbolic rather than genuinely secret. Their value lies not in their secrecy but in their meaning.

Boaz: The Entered Apprentice Word

Boaz (Hebrew: בֹּעַז) is the name of the left pillar at the entrance to King Solomon's Temple (1 Kings 7:21). The name means "in strength" or "source of strength." Albert Pike, in Morals and Dogma, provides the Hebrew etymology: "The word Boaz... means Strong, Strength, Power, Might, Refuge, Source of Strength, a Fort."

For the Entered Apprentice, Boaz represents the starting point. Strength is the foundation: the raw force and commitment needed to begin the Masonic path. Without strength, no building can stand. Without personal resolve, no initiation can take root.

Shibboleth: The Fellow Craft Password

Shibboleth (Hebrew: שִׁבֹּלֶת) means "ear of grain" or "flood." It enters Western vocabulary from Judges 12:5-6, where the Gileadites used the pronunciation of this word to identify Ephraimite refugees at the Jordan River fords. The Ephraimites could not pronounce the "sh" sound and said "Sibboleth" instead, revealing their identity.

In Masonic ritual, Shibboleth serves as a Fellow Craft password and carries a specific philosophical lesson: genuine knowledge cannot be faked. Pronunciation, in this context, is a metaphor for embodied understanding. You cannot merely recite the right answer; you must speak it from a place of real comprehension. The Fellow Craft degree emphasizes learning, the liberal arts and sciences, and the cultivation of the intellect. Shibboleth reminds the candidate that intellectual attainment must be authentic, not performed.

Tubal-Cain: The Master Mason Password

Tubal-Cain is a biblical figure from Genesis 4:22, described as "the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron." He is a descendant of Cain and, in Masonic tradition, represents the earliest master of metalcraft, a forerunner of all who work with their hands to shape the material world.

As a Master Mason password, Tubal-Cain symbolizes "worldly possessions" or, more precisely, the mastery of the material plane. Having passed through strength (Boaz) and knowledge (Shibboleth), the Master Mason now confronts the question of what to do with material power. Tubal-Cain is the builder who shapes the raw elements of the earth. The Master Mason is tasked with shaping his own character, and the world around him, with equal skill.

Jachin and Boaz: The Two Pillars

The two bronze pillars that stood at the entrance to Solomon's Temple are among the most visually prominent features of a Masonic lodge. Jachin (Hebrew: יָכִין, "he shall establish") stood on the right, and Boaz (בֹּעַז, "in strength") on the left. Together, they form a sentence: "In strength shall this [house] be established."

Pike devotes considerable attention to these pillars in Morals and Dogma: "The word Jachin, in Hebrew, was probably pronounced Ya-kayan, and meant, as a verbal noun, He that strengthens; and thence, firm, stable, upright." The pillars represent a polarity: establishment and strength, stability and power, the receptive and the active. Between them, the candidate passes into the lodge, just as the priests of Israel passed between them to enter the Temple.

In esoteric Masonic interpretation, the two pillars correspond to numerous dualities: mercy and severity on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the sun and moon, the active and receptive principles in nature. They appear in the Tarot as the pillars flanking the High Priestess. The candidate who passes between them symbolically enters the space where opposites are reconciled, the interior of the Temple, the sacred center.

The Lost Word: Freemasonry's Central Mystery

If Freemasonry has a single, defining philosophical idea, it is this: something has been lost, and we are searching for it. That something is called the Lost Word.

The narrative is embedded in the Master Mason degree. According to the Hiramic Legend, three ruffians ambush Hiram Abiff, the master architect of Solomon's Temple, at the three gates of the unfinished building. Each demands the Master's Word, the secret known only to the three Grand Masters (Solomon, Hiram King of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff). Each time, Hiram refuses. The third ruffian kills him. His body is buried hastily under a sprig of acacia, and later discovered and raised by the brethren using the Five Points of Fellowship.

With Hiram's death, the true Master's Word dies with him. King Solomon declares it lost and institutes a substitute word to be used until the genuine word is recovered. The search for the Lost Word becomes the Mason's ongoing spiritual task, not a puzzle to be solved but a condition to be lived.

Manly P. Hall, in The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, offered a more interior reading. For Hall, the Lost Word represents the divine nature latent within every human being. It is not something external to be found but something internal to be uncovered. The degrees of Freemasonry are, in Hall's interpretation, a process of progressive self-revelation: the candidate gradually strips away the accumulated ignorance and distraction that obscure his awareness of his own deeper nature.

Albert Mackey, in his Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, classified the Lost Word more simply as "the symbol of Divine Truth." The search for it is the search for truth itself, conducted not through abstract philosophy but through moral action, fraternal obligation, and the disciplined cultivation of character.

The Acacia and Immortality

The sprig of acacia placed at the head of Hiram Abiff's grave is directly linked to the Lost Word. Pike wrote: "The bush of acacia placed at the head of the grave of Khir-Om is an emblem of resurrection and immortality." The acacia was believed by the ancients to be incorruptible, a tree whose wood resisted decay. It marks the place where truth lies buried but not destroyed. The Lost Word, like Hiram, is dead but not gone. The acacia signals that what was lost can be found, that what died can be raised, that the truth buried under the rubble of the material world is waiting to be recognized.

The Substitute Word and the Royal Arch

The substitute word introduced after Hiram's death serves a practical ritual function, but it also carries a philosophical message: we operate with approximations. We live, worship, and build with the best understanding available to us, knowing that the full truth remains beyond our current grasp. In the Royal Arch degree (considered by many Masonic scholars to be the completion of the Master Mason degree), the Lost Word is symbolically recovered, and the candidate learns a sacred name that resolves the search, at least within the framework of that particular rite.

Ritual Language and Sacred Phrases

So Mote It Be

So Mote It Be is perhaps the most recognizable Masonic phrase. It translates from Anglo-Saxon as "so may it be" or "so it must be," serving the same function as "Amen" at the close of prayers and formal declarations. The word "mote" derives from the Anglo-Saxon verb motan, meaning "to be allowed" or "to be able."

The phrase appears in the Halliwell Manuscript (also called the Regius Poem), dated to approximately 1390. This is the oldest known Masonic document, predating the formation of the Grand Lodge of England by over three centuries. "So Mote It Be" is therefore one of the oldest continuously used phrases in the Masonic tradition, connecting present-day lodges to a lineage of craft practice stretching back to the late medieval period.

On the Level and On the Square

These two phrases have passed so thoroughly into common English that most people who use them do not know their Masonic origin. "On the level" means honest and straightforward, deriving from the Masonic Level, the working tool of the Fellow Craft degree that symbolizes equality: all Masons meet "on the level" regardless of social station. "On the square" means upright and morally sound, deriving from the Masonic Square, symbolizing rectitude of conduct. Both phrases encode the Masonic conviction that moral qualities can be expressed through the language of building.

Hele (Hail, Conceal)

In the Masonic obligation, the candidate pledges to "hele, conceal, and never reveal" the secrets of the degree. The word hele (pronounced "hale") is frequently confused with "hail" but is actually an Anglo-Saxon word from the verb helan, meaning to cover, hide, or conceal. Pike noted: "the word is really 'hele,' from the Anglo-Saxon verb helan, to cover, hide, or conceal. And this word is rendered by the Latin verb tegere, to cover or roof over." The building metaphor extends even to the act of keeping a secret: one "roofs over" the sacred knowledge, protecting it as a Tyler covers a building.

From the Building Site: Operative Masonry's Vocabulary

Much of the Craft's distinctive language descends from the working vocabulary of medieval stone-building guilds. Understanding these operative origins illuminates how Freemasonry transformed practical craft terminology into moral and spiritual allegory.

Cowan

A cowan is the Masonic term for an uninitiated intruder. In Scottish operative stonemasonry, a cowan was a dry-stone wall builder, a person who laid stones without mortar and without having served a proper apprenticeship. The distinction was economic and professional: a cowan undercut trained masons by doing inferior work. In speculative Freemasonry, the cowan represents anyone who seeks to access sacred knowledge without undergoing the transformative process of initiation. The Tyler, armed with a drawn sword, guards the lodge door against cowans and eavesdroppers.

Profane

Those outside the lodge are called profane, from the Latin profanus: "in front of (pro) the temple (fanum)." In Masonic usage, this carries no negative judgment. It simply designates those who stand before the temple rather than within it. The word preserves a spatial metaphor: there is an inside and an outside, and the boundary between them is meaningful.

Hoodwink and Cable-Tow

The hoodwink is the blindfold placed over the candidate's eyes during portions of the degree ceremony. It represents "mystical darkness," the state of ignorance before receiving Masonic light. Its removal is the ritual moment when darkness gives way to illumination.

The cable-tow is the rope placed around the candidate's neck during initiation. It symbolizes both voluntary submission to the lodge's guidance and the bond connecting a Mason to his brethren. Its "length" (traditionally defined as three miles for an Entered Apprentice) represents the reasonable scope of a Mason's ability to fulfill his obligations. The cable-tow binds in two directions: the Mason to the fraternity, and the fraternity to the Mason.

Ashlar: Rough and Perfect

The Rough Ashlar is an undressed stone fresh from the quarry. The Perfect Ashlar is a stone that has been cut, squared, and polished for use in building. Together, they represent the Mason's moral development: from the raw, unfinished state of the uninitiated to the refined character shaped by the Craft's teachings. This is perhaps the most direct example of how operative masonry vocabulary became spiritual allegory. The stonemason literally transforms rough stone into building material. The speculative Mason works on himself with the same patience and precision.

The Esoteric Reading: Pike, Mackey, and Hall

Three scholars in particular shaped how Masonic words are understood as vehicles for deeper philosophical meaning.

Albert Pike and the Threefold Word

Albert Pike (1809-1891), Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, devoted much of Morals and Dogma to the esoteric significance of Masonic language. He argued that words in the Craft operate on three levels simultaneously, drawing on a Pythagorean framework: "There are the word simple, the word hieroglyphical, and the word symbolic: in other terms, there are the word that expresses, the word that conceals, and the word that signifies."

For Pike, every Masonic word operates on all three levels at once. "Boaz," at the simple level, is a Hebrew name. At the hieroglyphical level, it conceals a body of teaching about strength, the pillar, and the Temple. At the symbolic level, it signifies a metaphysical principle about the nature of reality itself. The Mason who grasps only the first level has the word but not its meaning.

Pike was blunt about the layered nature of Masonic instruction: "The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them." This controversial passage suggests that the degree passwords and ritual words are deliberately designed to reveal their deeper meaning only to those who pursue the Craft beyond its initial stages.

Albert Mackey and Masonic Etymology

Albert Mackey (1807-1881), whose Encyclopedia of Freemasonry remains one of the two standard reference works of the Craft (alongside Coil's), approached Masonic words with a lexicographer's precision. Mackey traced each term to its linguistic root and historical context, insisting that accurate etymology was the foundation of accurate interpretation. His classification of the Lost Word as "the symbol of Divine Truth" became the standard moderate interpretation, neither dismissing the word as mere ritual decoration nor inflating it into occult speculation.

Manly P. Hall and the Interior Word

Manly P. Hall (1901-1990), in both The Lost Keys of Freemasonry and The Secret Teachings of All Ages, offered the most explicitly mystical interpretation. For Hall, Masonic words are echoes of the language spoken in the ancient mystery schools of Egypt, Greece, and Persia. The Lost Word, in particular, represents the divine nature latent within every human being: not a vocalized sound but a state of consciousness. The Mason who "recovers" the Lost Word has not learned a new password; he has awakened to what he has always been.