In a 1920s-era building in Southern California, I noticed some symbols in the ceiling and I’m curious as to what they mean.
Some are clearly Christian iconography and some I suspect of having to do with freemasonry. Does anyone have any expertise they could share?
Pics here:
Reported.
Not an expert, but your closeup appears to be of an upside down 5. Not knowing anything about the geometry of the ceiling I’d assume that the images you have including that are upside down.
If it’s somewhat Christian and mystical-looking in California, I’m going to guess it’s Rosicrucian: Sign in - Google Accounts
The second one looks to be an orb and cross or globus cruciger, which a monarch typically holds in one hand while holding a scepter in the other. Or maybe it’s the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
My apologies, I should have said that the icons are not overhead or otherwise situated so their orientation would be ambiguous. The orientations are correct as shown.
But yes, that sure looks like an inverted 5 to me 
The second from bottom is the Christian chi-rho over a globe - the “G” might be for God, or “God/Geometer/Geometry” - a Christian Freemason symbol maybe?
The top one has a Cyrillic “Ya” (the backwards “R”).
So, maybe these are a combination of Russian Orthodox and Freemasonic iconography?
Yes, the chi-ro, crosses, orb, and “ya” (one of the biblical written names of God, also abbreviated, like chi-ro) undoubtedly christian. I’ll scrounge around for the “F” & “G.”
The masonry guess is out of my ken, although the calipers is the normal symbol, I believe. In addition, the Christian-Mason connection, although beloved of the anti-Mason royalty (some Royals were masons) who feared unauthorized congregations, is by definition not usual, although no doubt cropped up.
What type of building is it? Do you know its history?
Or the symbol of The Patron Saint of Chaos.
Do you have Blake’s Newton in mind, by any chance?
Nice avenue of exploration, in light of Mason/Enlightenment/Newton worship. But I do doubt it here.
No, it’s just my (possibly faulty) understanding that Freemasons use “G” to stand for God/Geometer/Geometry in their iconography, and I’m unaware of any other common usage of a capital G as a symbol. It’s normally under the caliper, as you mention, but I’d swear I’ve seen it in other contexts as a Masonic symbol.
Catholic Encyclopedia- Ecclesiastical Abbreviations comes up zilch on “F” “G.”
The “Abbreviation Website” and crawler gave “fg” as physics abbrev for “force on an object in earth [?] gravity”–Go Blake!–as most likely, and “Full Gospel,” with a single (?) cite not provided.
FWIW they have a multi-language search, and Russian and Ukranian came up empty.
Ditto Masonic abbreviations.
Well I’ll be dipped: Geometry in Freemasonry | Symbols and Symbolism
What gets me is that the “FG” appears to actually be “FXG”. But words starting with the Latin letter X are very rare. Normally I’d conclude that the X was actually a Greek Chi, but neither F nor G resembles any Greek letter.
Just my two cents but I’m not reading that as FXG. I believe there are three separate elements here–the letters, a bisected circle with two dots on top and and X/chi? below, and the cross superimposed on the circle.
I disagree. The “X” is out of line and inside the circle-and-cross-and-cross. Given the chi-rho and other crosses, I think that X is almost certainly the Greek “chi”. The “F” and “G” are almost certainly, I think, not part of the same “phrase” or abbreviation as the “X”. Still don’t know what the “F” and “G” mean, though…
After looking at them some more, my impression is that these are quite likely idiosyncratic symbols, that may only be really meaningful to the artist. They may well be undecipherable at this point, short of actually talking to the artist.
Yes. The “X” is one of the most widely used graphic devices for the Holy Name in medieval manuscripts, in Latin or any other language.
S (upside down five ) is said to be snake, but they read like fables and it means self , onself… Thats why the third degree is so important. you’ve learnt the fables off by heart and hopefully the included story and morality.
Its not preparation for treating burns victims.
The candelbra is worn by the organist. My guess as the set, its a set of symbols representing professions. wag … musician (candle holder), fisherman (sea), architect/building industry (solomons temple shape) ,clergy f x g , teacher owl , blacksmith tongs… could be totally wrong on that.But they are crude artworks not a documented symbolic language …
I believe the different lodges, even different people, have their own symbol, representing them individually. This may have come from UK tradition of having coat of arms for each family involved.
The sixth picture looks like a lyre, something which a google image search shows to have at least some link to freemasonry - see also this book title page. The crescent moon, seen in the final picture, has also used as a symbol by freemasons.
