"It is or seems to be the general notion that the symbols of Masonry are used and were appropriated or invented as explanations; as a sort of picture writing, intended to render easy the acquisition of knowledge. Hence the absurd, superficial, and common-place interpretations of them that make one wonder why they should have been used to express such trite, tame and ordinary truths or lessons.
But the real fact is that they were used to conceal the truth, as a means, not of teaching it to, but of hiding it from, the vulgar. It was never meant that they should be easily interpreted. Like the symbols of the Egyptian Hierophants, everyone is a Sphinx (half buried in the sand, moreover), that only an AEdipus can interpret. The consequence is, that the ordinary interpretations of our symbols and ceremonies are simply absurd." — Albert Pike.