73 § The All-Seeing Eye

ONE of the symbols that are common both to Christianity and to Masonry is the triangle in which is inscribed the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, ^[1] or sometimes only a _yod_, first letter of the Tetragrammaton, which in this context may be regarded as an abbreviation, ^[2] and which in virtue of its principial significance ^[3] also constitutes in itself a divine name, and even the first of all according to certain traditions. ^[4] Sometimes, too, the _yod_ itself is replaced by an eye, generally designated as 'The All-Seeing Eye'. The likeness in shape of the _yod_ and the eye can in fact lend itself to an assimilation which has numerous significations, about which, without promising to develop them fully here, it might be of interest to give at least some particulars.

First of all, it is to be noted that the triangle in question always occupies a central position ^[5] and that, in Masonry it is expressly placed between the sun and the moon. It follows from this that the eye within this triangle must not be represented in the form of an ordinary eye, left or right, as in reality it is the sun and the moon which correspond respectively to the right eye and the left eye of 'Universal Man' insofar as he is identified with the Macrocosm. ^[6] In order that the symbolism may be entirely correct, this eye must be a 'frontal' or 'central' eye, that is, a 'third eye', the resemblance of which with the _yod_ is still more striking; and it is in fact this 'third eye' that 'sees all', in the perfect simultaneity of the eternal present.^[7] There is an inaccuracy in this respect in ordinary representations which introduce into the figure an unjustifiable asymmetry, due no doubt to the fact that the representation of the 'third eye' seems somewhat uncommon in western iconography; but anyone who understands this symbolism well can easily rectify it.

The upright triangle relates to the Principle; but when it is inverted by reflection in manifestation, the gaze of the eye which it contains appears to be directed somewhat downwards,^[8] that is, from the Principle towards manifestation itself; and besides its general meaning of 'omnipresence', it then takes on more clearly the special sense of 'Providence'. On the other hand, if this reflection is thought of as being more particularly in the human being, it must be noted that the form of the inverted triangle is the same as the geometric schema of the heart:^[9] the eye in its centre is then precisely the 'eye of the heart' (_ayn al-qalb_, of Islamic esoterism), with all the meanings that are implied in this. Let it be added that it is in virtue of the eye that the heart, according to another known expression, is 'open' (_al-qalb al-maftuh_); this opening, eye or _yod_, can be represented symbolically as a wound, and we recall in this connection the radiating heart of St Denis d'Orques of which we have already spoken,^[10] and of which one of the most remarkable particularities is precisely that the wound (or what has the outward appearance of one) takes strikingly the form of a _yod_.

This is still not all: even while representing the 'eye of the heart' as we have just said, the _yod_, according to one of its hieroglyphic meanings, also represents a seed contained in the heart, symbolically assimilated to a fruit; and this, moreover, can be understood in a macrocosmic as well as in a microcosmic sense.^[11] In its application to the human being, this last remark is to be compared to the relationship of the 'third eye' with the _luz_,^[12] of which the 'frontal eye' and the 'eye of the heart' represent two different localisations, and which is also the 'kernel' or the 'seed of immortality'.^[13] What is again