what is the historical origin of the circumambulation around the lodge and how do preston and mackey explain its symbolic meaning

Circumambulation derives historically from ancient sun and fire worship, in which early man imitated the apparent movement of the sun from east to west by way of the south around altars 1. This practice descended through ancient religious traditions, including the rites of Egypt, Eleusis, and Mithras 1. Albert Mackey traces its origin to classical Roman rites of expiation and purification—where the term for purification became synonymous with walking round an object—as well as the Semitic tawaf around the Kaabah, Hindu morning prayers following the sun's course, and Druidical circuits around sacred cairns 2.

Mackey explains the symbolic meaning of the rite as an act of reverence and purification modeled on the solar course 2. By moving to the right hand in imitation of the sun, the ritual actor symbolically aligns with divine order and performs a ceremonial purification 2.

The provided passages do not contain William Preston's specific commentary on circumambulation. Arthur Edward Waite notes, however, that eighteenth-century Masonic writers broadly explained the practice as symbolizing humanity's toilsome progress from barbarism to civilization and from ignorance to enlightenment 3. Waite himself observes that while lodge movements follow the sun's course, the circumambulations performed by candidates in the Craft degrees serve practical ritual purposes rather than astronomical allegory 3.