In an ancient Roman textbook on rhetoric, memory was referred to as the treasury of all ideas. As a man thinks he pulls from this treasury at will. This aspect of memory, it be a repository is masonically symbolized by the faithful breast or the heart.
As a brother develops his masonic art of memory by memorizing ritual, he builds a repository for masonic knowledge, but also he develops the skill of building intelligent databases.
This ability is useful and enhances many of the masons other craft.
Here are 7 crafts that are enhanced by the faithful breast
- Improves virtues.
- Virtues are important because they lead us to our ultimate happiness, stated Benjamin Franklin. Prudence is that virtue that sits above all. In fact Prudence is the virtue that decides if an action was a virtue or a vice. It is defined as the ability to make the morally smart decision. Prudence as a virtue was formerly known as Phronesis, and is best translated as practical wisdom. Make a prudent decision on however required a person to have built a collection of experiences from which they could call to mind. Arts of memory were used by many to create these databases, including St. Thomas Aquinas. Once organized they whispered wise counsel to the users.
- Spiritual discipline
- As noted before memory as deep esoteric and spiritual connotations for most people around the world. Creating an inner repository was an aid to discover divine truth. The things we learn are but shadows of far grander ideas, but they served as pointers to the truth.
- Better ritualist
- Right now, masons suck at performing ritual. A big reason why is that they are bad at memorizing the ritual. Having the ritual stored in a repository allows you to easily retrieve it to perform like you are saying it from memory.
- Social skills
- Fellowship and the promotion of brotherly love is one of the key aspects of Freemasonry. We all are Brothers, but true friendships are built. Skills that help us add value to situations build friendships. Filling your repository with people names, and topics that will interest them will make you a hit at any event.
- Accelerate learning
- It goes without saying that have a library of information stored in mind i s the goal of learning. However we spend 80% of our time reviewing information just so we dont forget it. A law of memory is that new information i s easier to store if you have previous related knowledge. So having a repository reduces the time needed to memorize and you speed up your learning of important things.
- Better communicator
- Arts of memory originated as part of the communication arts. Ancient man needed a way to transmit and preserve the oral traditions of their communities. Because these traditions contained all the useful knowledge of the tribe. Memory systems helped served that purpose. In ancient Rome, orators were advise thst rather then memorize their speeches word for word, they should keep a mental folder of thoughts, comments, and sayings that can be used and buy a communicator time before his next thought.
- Master influence
- As a man navigating the world, and dealing with other people, your success in many situations depends on your ability to influence others. Master influencers fill their repository with two types of information- 1) objections and obstacles to influence and 2) successful influence tips. This allows them to quickly predict the action of others and respond with the best action.
These 7 masonic crafts illustrate some of the many uses of our faithful breast and the importance of memory training.