Cosmic Time and the Gates of the Sun

Date Published: 9/11/2026                        

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The symbolism of Freemasonry reaches beyond the walls of the Lodge into the ordered movements of the heavens. Cosmic Time and the Gates of the Sun explores the ancient doctrine of Cancer and Capricorn as the two solstitial gates through which the Sun turns upon its yearly course and the soul is said to descend into generation and ascend toward its divine source.

What does it mean to stand between Earth and Heaven and follow the course of the Sun?

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Freemasonry is undoubtedly an ancient science. In Universal Co-Masonry, we hold to the idea that Freemasonry, with its medieval symbolism, Biblical exegesis, and institutional flowering in the 18th century is but the latest manifestation of a prisca theologia, a perennial religion and ancient theology; the highest of man’s religious impulses and the true key to understanding the spiritual conundrum of human life.  This religion has been the companion of mankind since his emergence from the dim recesses of prehistory, from the most ancient times of barbarism and ignorance of the world around him and has slowly, century after century, been assisting him in his rediscovery of the divine nature that dwells within him. 

Its primary method in effecting this rediscovery is knowledge. By the light of learning are the shadowed places of the world illuminated, the dark spots on the map filled in, and the understanding of the world and its true nature dawns on the mind of man like the rising sun casting its virgin rays upon a mountain peak. Freemasonry leads the Neophyte both inwards and upwards, inwards into an understanding of himself and upwards to an understanding of the machinery of the Universe and the widest possible view of the operations of the natural world. They are, in essence, one and the same for as the ancient Hermetists declare, “That which is Above is like that which is Below, and that which is Within is like that which is Without.”

Thus in the Blue Lodge we find a grand mystery clothed in symbolism and allegory that, when penetrated, reveals a glorious vision of the sympathetic harmony of microcosm and macrocosm. The temples of the ancients–Stonehenge, Baalbek and the Great Pyramid of Giza to name a few–all function as physical representations of a metaphysical understanding and are all centered on the Sun. The great luminary and benefactor of humanity is the primary object of study, worship and veneration in the Mysteries. Without its life-giving rays the Earth is an inanimate rock upon which no life develops and no consciousness flowers. It is, therefore, no surprise that the foundation of the Mysteries is an explanation of its divine origins, its course throughout the day and the progress of its voyage through the vastness of the cosmos. It is further no coincidence that the Latin  templum and tempus, meaning “temple” and “season” respectively, share the same etymological root. The temple and its rites mark the seasons and this association is preserved in Freemasonry. 

But as there is nothing in Masonry that is without a connection to the individual human being that partakes in its rites, we find this allegory in the experience of the Neophyte. It is no secret that the entrance of the Lodge is flanked by two columns, one terrestrial and the other celestial. If the central object of the contemplation of the Mysteries is the Sun, and the Neophyte the center of the experience of those Mysteries, it stands to reason then that the initiate acquires, at least temporarily and in a symbolic fashion, the characteristics and essence of the Sun. Thus, at his Initiation, he stands as a figure representative of the Sun between two columns supporting the vastness of the terrestrial expanse and its myriad forms and manifestations on one side and the zodiacal projection, the arch of heaven on the other. What can we understand this symbol to mean?

For the answer, as with a great many things, we must turn to the learning of the ancients, specifically to the writings of two Neoplatonists, latter-day followers of that eminent philosopher of the Greeks, kings of worldly wisdom and learning.

Porphyry, in his On The Cave of The Nymphs relates the following:

He likewise elsewhere speaks of the gates of the Sun, signifying by these Cancer and Capricorn; for the Sun proceeds as far as these signs when he descends from the north to the south, and from there ascends again to the northern regions.
Capricorn and Cancer are situated about the galaxy, being allotted the extremities of this circle: Cancer the northern extremity and Capricorn the southern. According to Pythagoras, the people of dreams are the souls said to be collected in the galaxy. This circle is so called from the milk with which souls are nourished when they fall into generation.

This ancient doctrine is further explained by Macrobius in his Saturnalia:

The reason, moreover, that these names belong to the two signs called the Gates of the Sun, Cancer and Capricorn, is this: the crab moves backward and sideways; and in the same manner the sun, when it is in that sign, begins, as is its custom, to turn back on its oblique course. The goat, on the other hand, seems in feeding always to seek higher ground; and the sun too, when it is in Capricorn, begins to return upward from its lowest point.

Supplementing this idea, in his Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis Macrobius says:

The descent of the soul itself, by which it falls from heaven into the lower world of this life, is arranged as follows. The Milky Circle, by its oblique course, embraces the zodiac in such a way that it intersects it at the two tropical signs, Capricorn and Cancer. Natural philosophers have called these the Gates of the Sun, because at each of them the sun is checked by the solstice from proceeding farther and turns back upon the path of the zodiac, whose boundaries it never leaves.

Through these gates souls are believed to pass from heaven to earth and to return from earth to heaven. Therefore one is called the Gate of Men and the other the Gate of the Gods: Cancer is the Gate of Men, because through it is the descent to the lower regions; Capricorn is the Gate of the Gods, because through it souls return to the seat of their proper immortality and to the company of the gods.

Thus the position and destiny of the Initiate is clear. Having descended the Gate of Men, of Cancer, the soul has taken human form and is enmeshed in matter. He is upon the face of the terrestrial globe and lateral movement has thus far been the extent of his worldly experience. By the ritual of Freemasonry his attention is directed upwards upon the vertical axis demarcated by the Gate of the Gods, that of Capricorn. Freemasonry is symbolically unequivocal in the method by which the Initiate is to achieve the great feat of liberating himself from the cycle of generation and worldly life–by imitating the course of the Sun. 

The Sun behaves according to cosmic law, its radiance already perfect, its beneficence already known to all and its steady course unperturbed by the turbulence of the sublunary world. The rituals of Freemasonry teach us that by upright living and the adherence to unwavering moral exactitude we may ascend the ladder of Capricorn, climbing ever higher peaks of moral achievement until we too may return to our divine stature as a part of the Light of the World. The Initiate who enters by the Gate of Men must so orient and shape his life that he may, at long last and in triumph, enter the Gate of the Gods.