The Mysticism of Masonry

 

 

 

 

Reuben Swinburne Clymer

Introductory

In placing this volume, which is the revised edition of the book first issued under the title, Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry, I do so without the thought of an apology, owing to the fact that the first edition was received by the earnest students of Masonry and the Occult not because it was an expose, but because it was an interpretation of Masonic symbolism as handed down to us through the ages from the Mysteries of the Ancients.

As a Masonic work, the book must stand unchallenged for the reason that the basis of its symbolism is from the highest and universally accepted Masonic writers. The interpretation is also Masonic, with an additional Mystic interpretation appearing within brackets. For this I am personally responsible, though these explanations are based on and entirely harmonious with the inculcations of the Ancient Mysteries as received by myself through my various journeys in the realm of the mystic. It is therefore entirely lawful for me to offer them to the aspiring neophyte.

There are indeed many reasons why the present volume should be generously circulated among all classes of students of the Occult and Mystic, especially the members of the Masonic bodies. Entirely too little is known to the vast majority of these brethren of the modern organizations known as Masonic. They have been given the letter, which, though beautiful in itself, does not contain the life, and because of this lack, they cannot successfully defend the expression frequently heard, that Masonry is a religion.

Initiation is not what it is generally supposed to be. All Masons are familiar with the ceremonial form of Initiation but in reality this is no more than an outward symbolization of an inner, an esoteric work, which should take place within each man seeking the Mysteries. A man may have received the degrees of the Blue Lodge and may be an honor to that lodge and yet be wholly unfamiliar with the method of procedure which would bring into manifestation the results of the personification of the life as symbolized in these three degrees. It is this outcome of which, not only Masons but the entire human race are now so very much in need. Thousands of good men and true accept the letter of Masonry for the spirit or as including the spirit. Here is where begins the first great error.

Nothing new can come to Masonry but there is a world of truth in Masonic symbolism of which the vast majority of the membership of the honored body has not even heard, to say nothing of having a comprehension of the saving truth therein contained. It is for the purpose of helping these and pointing them the way, that the present work in its new form of interpretation is presented to them, as well as to the public, it being the author’s contention that this plan cannot possibly harm Masonry but, contrariwise, will help to glorify the institution by showing that it is kept alive and moving forward by a spirit which makes for the welfare not alone of the members of the association, but of mankind generally and universally.

Masons who know and Initiates of the true Occult Brotherhoods who have had life and strength enspirited within by the knowledge of basic truths harmonious with universal (God’s) irrevocable Law, uncontradictably maintain that: INITIATION AND REGENERATION ARE SYNONYMOUS TERMS “The ritual of Freemasonry (Masonic symbolization) is based on this natural law, and the ceremony of initiation illustrates, at every step, this principle, and if the result attained is a possession (of words and symbols) rather than a regeneration (of the candidate), in the great majority of cases, the principle remains none the less true. The mere inculcation of moral principles, or lessons in ethic, and their symbolic illustration and dramatic representation, are by no means in vain. These appeal to the conscience and moral sense in every man and no man has ever been made worse by the lessons of the lodge. By these rites and benefits, the Freemason is, above all men, in our so- called modern civilization, the nearest to the Ancient Wisdom. He has possession of the territory in which lie concealed the Crown Jewels of Wisdom.

He may dig deeper and find not only the Keystone of the Arch, the Ark of the Covenant, the Scroll of the Law but, using the spirit concealed in the wings of the Cherubim, he may rise untrammeled by the rubbish of the temple and, meeting Elohim (Jehovah Adonai – the Father of Light), learn also to say “I am that I am!” Does this read like a rhapsody, and are the landmarks, traditions and glyphs of Freemasonry, nothing more? “The Universal Science and the Sublime Philosophy, once taught in the Greater Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldea, Persia and India ( and now in the Priesthood of Aeth) and among the many other nations of antiquity, is a dead letter in modern Freemasonry. The intelligent Mason, however, should be the last person in the world to deny that such a Wisdom once existed, for the simple reason that the whole superstructure of Masonry is built upon the traditions of its existence, and its ritual serves as its living monument.

Proficiency in the preceding degree is everywhere made a reason for advancement in Masonry. This proficiency is made to consist in the ability of the candidate to repeat word for word, certain rituals and obligations already passed, the meaning and explanations of which constitute the lectures in the various degrees. The usage at this point, in the United States at least, serves to secure the rights and benefits of the Lodge (the lodge is symbolic of the heavens as well as the universe) to those entitled to them, and to withhold them from others, rather than to advance the candidate in real knowledge (i.e., the bringing into existence, manifestation and personification the potencies and forces innate within this universe which would become heaven). – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

Centuries ago, a real Mysticism existed within the Symbolic Masonry and this is the legend: (All the Degrees of Ancient Mystic Masonry are in possession of the Fraternity, Sons of Osiris.)

It came to pass when the Great Temple was completed that Solomon hesitated to dedicate it for two reasons: First, on account of the death of Hiram Abiff.

Second, due to the fact that with the death of the Widow’s Son, the Master’s Word and the secret manner of using it had been lost. Therefore, Solomon in his extremity called a Secret Council at low- twelve in the secret crypt under the Sanctum Sanctorum. This Secret Council consisted of Solomon, King of Israel; Hiram, King of Tyre; Zadok, the High Priest and Benaiah, Captain of the Guards.

After Solomon had deplored the loss of Hiram Abiff and, with him, the Master’s Word and the secret manner of using it, Hiram, King of Tyre, arose and reminded King Solomon that Nathan, the Prophet, was still alive and might be able to render some assistance in the present calamity. Solomon, therefore, ordered Benaiah, Captain of the Guards, to search out and bring before him Nathan, the Prophet.

Benaiah, having ascertained that Nathan the Prophet was at the house of Abiathar, a former High Priest under King David, repaired to the palace only to find that Nathan had died of old age but a very short time previous to his arrival. He therefore set about to return and discovering a stranger wandering near the Secret Crypt, he thereupon took him into his custody and brought him before the Secret Council. The stranger proved to be Abdemon, a very wise man and a subject of Hiram, King of Tyre. Upon examination it was found that he had been initiated as an Entered Apprentice, passed to the Degree of Fellow Craft, raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason by Seisan, a Scribe, who had journeyed into the country of the Tyrians, so that the secrets of Masonry preceded Hiram, King of Tyre, into his own dominions.

Abdemon, being a Master Mason, and recognized by King Hiram as a very learned and crafty man, was at length admitted to the Secret Council after giving into the hands of King Solomon a manuscript that had been given to him in a wonderful and mysterious manner by an Egyptian during the time he was held in confinement by the Secret Council. Solomon was so pleased with the manuscript that he then and there admitted Abdemon as a member of the Secret Council which was then sitting. Abdemon, in his turn, felt himself so highly honored that he begged leave and received permission to journey into the land of Egypt that he might be initiated into the secrets of the Initiates of the Great Pyramid and, in turn, promised to journey back into the land of the Israelites and disclose to the Secret Council what he had learned. Abdemon was successful in his efforts and the following degrees were instituted to preserve the knowledge he had gained in the land of Egypt and his journey and initiation in the Great Stone Pyramid: The King’s Pioneer; Degree of Master of the Secret Cavern.

After resting for three days at the well of Beersheba, Ameni, the Singer, the Horoscopus and Abdemon, under the escort of the King’s Pioneer, journeyed by easy stages to Mount Serbal, where the parties took refuge in a natural cave and there Abdemon received his final instructions before his initiation into the Degrees of the Pyramid.

During the course of the journey, Ameni disclosed to Abdemon many hidden mysteries concerning initiation and why it was impossible to make these disclosures to the multitude in general. Among the things which Ameni communicated to Abdemon on their journey, the following is but a part: “Before appearing on earth, man (the Soul which takes up its abode in the body we call man) lived in a spiritual world, similar to the one in which he lives on leaving the earth. Each awaits his turn in this sphere to appear on earth, an appearance necessary, a life of trials none can escape.

“The life anterior, which we have all passed through, was, so to speak, a life of nothingness, of childbirth, of happiness like that which we enjoy on our exit from the earth; but this happiness cannot be comprehended, because it is not accompanied with sensations to prove its reality, therefore God deemed it fit that we should pass through these successive lives, the first, on the globes of which I speak to you – a life unknown of beatitude, devoid of sensation – the second, the one you now enjoy, a life of action, sensation – a painful life placed between the two, to demonstrate through its contrast the sweetness of the third – the life of good and evil, without which we should not be able to appreciate the happy state reserved for us (the Initiates – those who attain Regeneration while in the body of flesh and blood. Thereby coming into a Consciousness of the Soul which is a part of God).

“That the Soul is an emanation of Deity and, in its original essence, is all purity, truth and wisdom, is an axiom which the disembodied learn, when the powers of memory are sufficiently awakened to perceive the state of existence anterior to moral birth. In the Paradise of Purity and Love, Souls spring up like blossoms in the All- Father’s garden of immortal beauty. It is the tendency of the Divine nature, whose chief attributes are Love and Wisdom, Life and Light, to repeat itself eternally, and mirror forth its own perfection in scintillations from itself. These sparks of heavenly fire (parts of God) become Souls, and as the effect must share in the nature of the cause, the fire which warms into life, also illuminates into Light, hence the Soul- emanations from the Divine are all Love and Light, whilst the illumination of Light, which streams ever from the great central Sun of Being (God’s Light), irradiates all Souls (who harmonize themselves with God, or the Light) with corresponding beams of Light. Born of Love which corresponds to Divine Warmth, and Irradiated with Light, which is of Divine Wisdom and Truth, the first and most powerful Souls repeated the action of the Supreme Originator, gave off emanations from their own being, some higher, some lower, the highest tending upward into spiritual essences, the lowest forming particulate matter. The denser emanations, following out the creative law, aggregated into suns, satellites, worlds, each repeating the story of creation. Suns gave birth to Systems and every member of a system became a theatre of subordinate states of spiritual or material existence.

“Earths that have attained to the capacity to support organic life, necessarily attract it. Earths demand it, heaven supplies it. Whence? As the earths groan for the lordship of superior beings to rule over them, the spirits of distant Edens hear the whispers of the tempting Serpent (desire, longing), the animal principle, the urgent intellect, which appealing to the blest Souls in their distant paradises, fill them with indescribable longings for change, for broader vistas of knowledge, for mightier powers; they would be as the gods and know good and evil. In this urgent appeal of the earths for man, and this involuntary yearning of the Soul for intellectual knowledge, the union is effected between the two, and the spirit becomes precipitated into the realms of matter to undergo a pilgrimage through the probationary states of earth, only to regain paradise again by the fulfillment of the pilgrimage.” “The vast majority of Masons smile with derision when the term”Occult Science” is used in connection with the Mysteries but, despite this, if it had not been for the Occult Fraternities, Masonry could not have existed. The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the Ancients. Proof of its diffusion, authentic records of history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character and presence in every land, together with the teachings of all its great Adepts, exist to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternities, among which, the true Rosicrucian Fraternity, more than any other, is to be thanked for keeping the Secret and Sacred writings intact. Although individual members of this Fraternity have been persecuted in many lands during all the centuries, the Order as such, has continued without interruption.

“We do not know a thing because we are told, so. Let the gods shout the truth of all ages into the ears of a fool forever, and still forever the fool would be joined to his folly. Herein lies the conception and the principle of all Initiations. (It is the knowledge unfolded by degrees in an orderly, systematic manner, step by step, as the capacity to apprehend opens in the Neophyte. The result is Wisdom through inner, spiritual or Soul growth.) Knowledge is not a mere sum in addition; something added to something that already exists; but rather is such a progressive change or transformation of the original structure as to make it, at every step, a New Being. Real knowledge, or the growth (accumulation of wisdom through experience) of wisdom in man, is an Eternal Becoming; a progressive transformation into the likeness of the supernal Goodness and the supreme power.” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

Every Soul must “work out its own salvation (Immortality).” Salvation by Faith and the Vicarious Atonement were not taught, as now interpreted, by either Jesus or other saviors, nor are these doctrines part of the esoteric Scriptures. They are perversions of the original doctrine due to the degrading hand of Constantine. In the early Church, as in the Secret Doctrine, there was not one Christ for the whole world, but a potential Christ in every man.

Theologians first made a fetish of the impersonal, Omnipresent Divinity; then tore the Christos from the hearts of humanity in order to deify Jesus, that they might have a God made peculiarly their own and who would be as a `clearing house’ in their `traffic in Souls.’ Masonry does not teach Salvation by Faith nor the Vicarious Atonement. Go through its degrees, study the History as taught by its recognized authorities and you cannot find that it ever countenances these doctrines.

“Humanity in toto is the only personal God; the Christos is the realization or the perfection of this divine Persona, in (through) individual conscious experience. When this perfection is realized, the state is called Christos, with the Greeks, and Buddha, with the Hindus. “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect!” “We have brought the same selfishness into our religion that we indulge in regard to our other possessions, such as wife and children, houses and land and country; and the same partisan spirit as in our politics, and this more than anything else appears to justify selfishness in general, militates against the brotherhood of man and prevents the founding of the `Great Republic, composed of many Nations and all people. ‘ This idea of Universal Brotherhood, which was a cardinal doctrine in the Ancient Mysteries, as it is involved in the first postulate of the Secret Doctrine and openly declared in the third, and which is equally given the very first rank in Masonry, is the logical deduction from our idea of Divinity and of the essential nature and meaning of Christos.

“Masonry preaches no new religion; it but reiterates the Commandment announced by Jesus, which also was announced by every great reformer or religion since history began. Drop the theological barnacles from the religion of Jesus, as taught by him, and by the Essenes and Gnostics of the first centuries, and it becomes (the Mysticism of) Masonry. Masonry in its purity, derived as it is from the old Kabalah as a part of the great universal Wisdom Religion of the remotest antiquity, stands squarely for the unqualified and universal Brotherhood of man, in all times and in every age. To Christianize Masonry or to narrow it to the sectarian bonds of any creed, is not only to dwarf and belittle it but must inevitably result, as among warring sects has always resulted with religion, in setting brother against brother, and lodge against lodge.” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

The Mysticism of Masonry can recognize neither color nor creed, and in that lies its safety and through this will it gradually bring about the Universal Brotherhood of Man. Not only does Mysticism teach this but all those who would belong to the Brotherhood must practice it. Is there not a wave of the spirit of Brotherhood sweeping almost all countries? With all the wealth possessed by the rich, and the shorter working hours and greater benefits of the laborer, is either satisfied? Are not all classes, rich and poor alike, suffering constantly from an internal dissatisfaction which to the spirit is as a cancer to the flesh? This is the certain indication that the Souls of men are trying to glimpse the vista of the future; that they are awaiting the coming of the New Interpretation of the Old Laws as suited to their application to the needs of the New Age.

“So long as the mind is held in bondage by low desires, man cannot seek or discern the good or the true. He inquires, `What is good for me?’ Freed from such desire or the personal bias, he inquires after and seeks for that which is good or true in itself. When this condition is attained and habitually maintained, the square is said to be enclosed in the triangle. The lower nature is said to be at one with the Divine, or Over Soul. Man’s knowledge and power are no longer confined to or circumscribed by the lower plane, or the physical body but, transcending these by regeneration (Spiritualization) and becoming perfect in humanity, man attains Divinity. This is the meaning, aim, and consummation of human evolution. And this philosophy defines the one and only process by which it may be attained.

“The Perfect Man is Christ; and Christ is God. This is the birthright and destiny of every human Soul (that does not, by its acts, destroy itself, for God said: “The Soul that sinneth, it shall die”). It was taught in all the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity but the exoteric creeds of Christendom derived from the parables and allegories in which this doctrine was concealed from the ignorant and the profane, have accorded this Supreme Consummation to Jesus alone and made it obscure or impossible for all the rest of humanity. In place of this, the grandest doctrine ever revealed to man, theologians have set up Salvation by Faith in a man- made creed, and the authority of the church to `bind or loose on earth or in heaven.’ Law is thereby annulled, justice dethroned (not merely made blind), merit ignored, effort discouraged and sectarianism, atheism and materialism are the result.” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

All real Initiation is an internal not an external process. The outer ceremony is dead, and useful only so far as it Symbolizes, illustrates and thereby makes clear the inward changes. “To initiate” means to regenerate and this comes by effort, by trial, by self- conquest, by sorrow, disappointment, failures and a daily renewal of the conflict. It is thus that man must “work out his own salvation,” must attain Soul Consciousness and ultimate Immortality. The final consummation of the Initiation is the finding of the Christos, the Center of Light.

The problem, in the first instance, of genuine Initiation, or training in occultism, consists in placing all the operations of the body under the dominion of the Will; in freeing the personality from the dominance of its appetites, passions and lower nature. The idea is not to despise the body but to purify and transmute it; not to destroy the appetites but to elevate and control them. This, in Occult Chemistry (Alchemy) is known as transmutation.

This mastery of the lower nature does not change – destroy – the physical or carnal self but subordinates it to that of the real self, the Soul. Without such a transference of authority, the always- desiring lower nature drowns out all higher vibrations, as in an orchestra, if the bass viols and the drums only could be heard, noise rather than harmony would result. Hence the saying: “He that conquers himself is greater than he who taketh a city” and “master thyself and thou mayest be master over all things.” It is the duty of every sincere Mason who is interested in the spirit of the teachings of his Order, carefully to study the philosophy of the masters who have reconstructed the Ancient Wisdom to suit his needs, and, having done so, to guide his actions in all the affairs of life so as to be prepared for his entrance into the Great Lodge Hall where he must give an account of all his deeds and in return receive his “Mark”.

The Mysticism of Masonry

Chapter I

The mystical (therefore Oriental) side of Masonry is not alone the Key to the various religions taught to all men in all ages, from the very beginning of conscious reasoning existence up to the present, but it is, in fact, the repository of religion itself. The Ancient Mysteries of the Secret Schools are so- called because under that title was and yet is conserved all that men have believed and do now believe, all that men have been taught and have experienced through obedience to a super- life, and these Secret Schools therefore conserve the secrets of all inner (mystical or occult) Initiation.

The mysteries have now, as throughout the long ages past, for their foundation, the existence of God, as Jehovah Adonai – the Father of Light and the Immortality of the Soul, which Soul, in the language of the Initiates, is and always must be, an ever- burning Fire, a Light that must be brought into close relationship with the Father of all Light from which it originally came.

The Mysteries recognize man actually as a living temple wherein may become domiciled God, the Father of Light, which Light is life and immortality. This is the same temple concerning which we are taught in the Biblical narrative as well as in exoteric Masonry, that it was made without hands, without sound of hammer or any noise whatsoever.

These Mysteries recognized the Christos, christened the Christ (by the church when it reconstructed part of the lesser mysteries into Christianity) long centuries before the time of the Elder Brother, Jesus, as a living, actuating principle in the Soul of man without which no human may become super- human or Consciously Immortal.

These Mysteries had for their object, as they still have, the uniting of the awakened (Spiritually Initiated) men into a Universal Brotherhood in which right (true kindness of heart governed by exact justice) is might; a Brotherhood that exercises benevolence, practices virtue (without a smug complacency) and the arts, and studies coordinately the laws of both Nature and God (as they are and not as foolish man would have them be), ready to accept them as of equal importance in the life of man while on the earth plane.

Of these Mysteries Masonry was born as an outer school so that the many might be instructed in these fundamentals; through this medium the way was pointed out to them by which the sublime heights might ultimately be attained.

The cradle of the symbolism utilized in all Masonic work is placed by many authoritative writers in that country which they have reason to believe was first inhabited, i.e., the plateau of Tartary; from there the teaching was transmitted later by the sages of India, Persia, Ethiopia and Egypt to their respective countries.

It is a fact that at Memphis, Egypt, in the Pyramids, under the guidance of the King- Initiates, the Mystic Rites of what later came to be known as Oriental Masonry, were observed many thousand years ago. At that far time (to us) Egypt and the continent now known as America were one and the same.

Therefore we actually are not indebted to Egypt as we know her at present but to America, the home of the Eagle and the possessor of the Capstone which is to finish the Masonic (spiritual) structure for all time.

Though anciently the Mysteries were presided over by the Priest- Initiates or Initiate- Kings, nevertheless the Mystic Rite was open to all men who from their hearts could confess belief in the Fatherhood of One God and the Brotherhood of all men, and who were able to convince the Initiators that they were full men, men without defect, which proviso, the ancient law informs us, had no reference to the loss of hand or foot, finger or toe, but to a virile manhood capable of reproduction of the species and consequently still in possession of the Elixir Vitae through which only Spiritual Initiation and Conscious Immortalization finally may be attained. The letter still obtains in exoteric (modern) Masonry but the spirit long since has been dead.

“In America (rediscovered by Eric the Red, a Viking of the Vikings) repopulated by the white race beginning with the Seventeenth Century, was recovered (that part of) Egypt- the Promised Land or the land of the Constellation of the Eagle” – – Parsons, New Light from the Great Pyramid.

Irrespective of how numerous or complicated the wards of a lock may be, if the right Key be applied, it must open. The Great Pyramid of Ancient Egypt, studied and compared with the wondrous structure of like nature in Yucatan, proves to be the long- sought Key to the mysteries of mythology and the great world religions. Especially does it vitally concern those Americans (with interests aside from profiteering and the exploitation of the weak which is at present the universal game) to see it gradually demonstrated that the story of cosmic terrors interwoven with the very fabric of all literature, both Christian and Pagan, refers to occurrences as literally true as are the fearful and devastating earthquakes of modern times of which those of California and Japan are examples. These stupendous events were connected, first, with a great destruction and recovery of equilibrium in the solar system; secondly, with the consequent sinking of the continent of Atlantis (part of which remains as part of America) when the globe became involved in consequence of the defiance by the Atlantians of natural and Divine Law.

Atlantis then was the seat of the greatest empire ever known to man and its armies were terrorizing the rest of the inhabited globe.

A study of the American Constellations Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn reveals the immemorial antiquity of the name of America, as well as the significance of the Arms of the United States. If we once recognize the fact that it is impossible to separate the Eagle from America – the “Land shadowing with wings” of Isaiah, and over which accordingly appear two grand eagles, the red swan flying down Milky Way, and the winged steeds, Pegasus and Equelus, all the wings known to astronomy – without taking the Bear from Russia and Perseus from Persia, a flood of light is poured upon the history of mythology and where heretofore much has been vague and inscrutable, we now are able to see as men should see who are gifted with enlightened mentalities; All this is based on the prophecies of the past and on the interpretations of Biblical and profane writers. And now comes the Master Interpreter of the New Dispensation, the Prophet of the Father of Light “Jehovah Adonai” to whom is given the message: “I, the Lord thy God, Father of Light, now speak unto thee, my son Manisis, saying: “In my wisdom I have seen fit to place thee among the many of my people in the New World where I have spiritually directed many of these my people who are to see the face of the Lord, their God while they are yet in the flesh.

“In this New Age it shall be given unto thee to teach these my people the way of the Lord of light so that all who walk therein shall be made free from their infirmities and appear like unto the gods who walked the floor of the earth during the first dispensation and before man had learned to do other than live in obedience to my Laws.

“And it shall come to pass that as my children listen to thy voice and offer obedience to the Laws thou shalt teach, that they shall become strong and fearless and their creations shall be such as work for the beatitude (welfare) of all my creatures. Thus shall it come to pass that my kingdom shall be established in the New World, under the wings of the Eagle, through the Wisdom of the Serpent which is no longer crushed (degraded) by woman but is lifted up and become the Light that shall light everyone who cometh into the world. Thus shall it further come to pass that as my children lift up the Cross (the Serpent) and no longer continue guilty of crushing the immortalizer, the Serpent (casting the seed upon the ground), they shall inherit the earth and all that is good, as foretold by my prophets before thee.” “Tell my children that thus speaketh the Lord God, Jehovah Adonai- the Father of Light. – Manisis.

“When, following the course of the (prophetic) constellations, those immovably and perpetually fastened upon America are reached, it will appear that, while all that is sublime in the prehistoric past centers upon (ancient) America (Atlantis) and as the curtain which has hitherto concealed the prehistoric connection between the peoples of ancient Egypt and America is lifted, it will be known that the people of the Eagle of the Nile being descended from the original people of the Eagle of the Continent, the twain are one, and that prehistoric America was the original Egypt or Eagleland, prior to the mighty dispensation in the days of Peleg, when the earth was divided, and the great globe itself was nearly rent asunder.” – Parsons, New Light from the Great Pyramid.

Agassiz wrote: “First born among continents, America has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters (man had his beginning in that part of the Gulf Stream now known as the Sargasso Sea); hers was the first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth besides; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, America already stretched in an unbroken line from Nova Scotia to the far West.” “America (the old continent) was evidently peopled from the (still older) continent (the author no doubt having in mind Lemuria) because there were only eight (a suppositious number) persons saved at the Deluge (Lemuria); the principal part of their posterity, during the whole of the first century after that event, occupied the very center of Asia. Some (accepted authorities) say that America was peopled by the Carthaginians who possessed the Cape Verde Islands, which are only three weeks sail from that continent. Their ships, having women and children on board, might miss the intended Islands, before the invention of the compass; and if so, they inevitably would be driven by the trade winds to the coast of America. Others, judging from the similarity of some religious rites, have conjectured that America was peopled by the Ten Tribes at the dispersion of Israel. Some think it received its population from China or Japan; others, that it was colonized by some wandering tribes of Japheth, who penetrated into the trackless regions of North America by the straits of Asia. Some even have been bold enough to assert that America was not inundated at the Deluge and that, consequently, the aborigines were Antediluvians, the most ancient people on earth. Others suppose that there were a few individuals preserved on this vast continent at the Deluge, that it might be without difficulty re- peopled. We are also informed that `America was peopled after the Deluge, at the same time as it were (communibus annis) with other parts of the earth equidistant from the spot whereon the Ark is presumed to have grounded;’ for the grand division of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres through the natural effect of causes operating from the Deluge, did not take place till after half a century following that event; and thus a subject that has uniformly puzzled the most learned historians and philosophers, and given ground for the most elaborate dissertations, namely, the manner by which America was peopled, appears to be made simple and easy, as are all those questions that are submitted to the ordeal of truth, the infallible attestations of Holy Writ. Robertson supposes the Americans to have derived their original from the Asiatics and supports his conjectures by some ancient traditions among the Mexicans, which ascribe their primitive population to a horde, from a remote country to the northwest, whose gradual progress from the northern coast where they landed, to the interior provinces, is distinctly traced. And, in the infancy of Christianity, Mexico is said to have been in a more advanced state of civilization (culture) than Denmark, Sweden or Russia.

“From what people soever Americans descended, or in whatever manner the vast continent was originally furnished with human beings, it is certain that the first inhabitants brought with them (or developed) a system of Mysteries which they applied to the purpose of religious worship, and though this system, in process of time, was almost entirely lost among the scattered tribes which led an erratic life in its deepest wilds, yet many of the truths on which it was founded, were preserved in a deteriorated form, by the two great nations which had planted themselves on each side of the Isthmus of Panama.” – Oliver, History of Initiation.

While there is much truth in these various theories and suppositions, all are basically erroneous. This is due to the fact that no consideration is given to the basic and uncontradictable fact that what is now known as America was inhabited by an entirely distinct people from those found here by Eric the Red.

The Indians of Peru, were known as the Children of The Sun. Now as a fact, Lemuria was the Continent of the Sun and its coppery- skinned (foolishly termed black) inhabitants were the original Children of the Sun and were the first Sun worshipers- the first to see the Sun, a Giver of Light, symbolic of the Father of Light from whom proceeds all Light.

At the deluge- the inundation of Lemuria- some of these inhabitants found landing places (the “dry land” of the Biblical narrative) on the remnants of Lemuria, which remnants of land have been connected, so to speak, with other new land which arose from the waters as Lemuria sank beneath the waves. These Lemurians became the Sun Worshiping Indians of what is now America, as well as of the countries now forming Mexico and Peru. Mexico and America were separated by a great stretch of water- the sandy soil of Tennessee and other Southern states attest to the fact that once it had been the bottom of a sea.

Even a State as far removed as New Jersey clearly indicates by its sand and its shrubby trees that but lately, possibly ten thousand years back, the receding sea had given it up.

Climactic and other differing conditions of America and Peru caused the slight variations in the habits and religious ceremonies found existing between the American Indians and the Aztecs.

As a result of the sinking of Lemuria, a new continent arose which is known to us as Atlantis.

“The people who erected the obelisks in Egypt and covered them with hieroglyphics, who wrapped mummies, embalming them with the greatest care, knew no more about the pyramid builders than we do today. These majestic, voiceless sentinels, with their heads uncovered (the Capstone – the finishing of the Mystery – has been lost) and lifted heavenward, stood there on the broad plain, silent and dumb, with no one to explain their origin, when Egyptian civilization as history knows it, began.” – Jurden.

This statement cannot be successfully contradicted. The pyramids were erected by a people originally Atlantians, long centuries before the Egypt of history was known. The question naturally arises among sincere scholars: If Atlantians built them, why then did they do so in what is now known as Egypt, instead of in the present- day America? For the reason that Egypt was then the center of the earth, and the Sun for a certain time each year would be so directly above the Pyramid as to cast no shadow. The Atlantians, of their vast knowledge, sought this Center. The finding of the Center is the Key to all the Mysteries of past and coming Ages and for the preservation of this Key the Ancient (Greater) Mysteries first were instituted.

The conclusion that no one has known why the Pyramids were originally constructed is erroneous. The Initiates of the true Mystic Orders have long known that they were constructed as a repository for and preservation of the Secrets of the Ages. It always should be borne in mind that there are ever two opposing systems founded on the one principle of truth: The one, for the Priest- Initiates; the other, for the mass of people who will accept the written (esoteric) word but who are unwilling to delve deeply so as to unravel for themselves the Spirit of the Word. Not merely do the Ancient Mysteries preserve the Key to Supreme (interior) Initiation but likewise the secret of the foundation of religion itself as well as the combination that unlocks the doors to the mysteries of the Pyramids The shape of the Pyramid is one of deepest signification to the Initiate.

The triangular form of the Pyramid is sacredly emblematical of the Fire – the Light.

“And Jehovah Adonai – that is to say, the Father of Light – spoke unto his Messenger, Manisis, saying: “I will appear to thee in the image of Light, for did I not promise those who have gone before thee that `the Woman clothed with the Sun’ should be with them? “And I now establish a Covenant with thee and bind my Laws to a fulfillment of this Covenant, that all of my children who will obey the Laws, shall be blessed and cheered when in misfortune or sorrow, for I shall appear to them in the Fire, as an Angel of Light. – Manisis to his apostles.

The cubical form of the Pyramid symbolizes the earth visited by fire. Fire, in turn, signifies Love, which is the symbol of life and immortality, the instigator of all that is related to Fatherhood – generation, and the medium or path to Re- generation. Without heat, which is always the result of combustion – fire, life quickly would become extinct and there would remain no manifesting medium for Souls who seek to attain Conscious Immortality – Godhood. Could the Initiates of old possibly have invented a more lasting monument than these same Pyramids, to the fact that they possessed the true knowledge that they, above all men, knew God and that He acknowledged them as His sons? “The Egyptian Pyramids excite in us the feeling of the sublime, not only on account of their spatial vastness but also because of their great age. We feel ourselves dwarfed to insignificance in their presence yet revel in the pleasure of contemplating them. Before such a monument of ancient greatness.

Which has outlived the knowledge of itself, we stand as senseless and stupid as the animal in the presence of the action of man or as a man before something written in an old cipher of his own, the key to which he has forgotten. For who will believe that those who, at incalculable cost, set in action the human power of many thousands for many years in order to construct the Pyramids, could have had in view the short span of their own life, too short to let them see the finishing of the giant project or even the ostensible end which the ignorance of the many required them to allege? Clearly then, their real end was to speak to their latest descendants, to put themselves in communication with these and so to establish the unity or the consciousness of humanity.” – Schopenhauer.

“It is further certain that so much science, labor and treasure as were required for erecting so extraordinary and gigantic a structure, would not have been expended by men so skillful and ingenious as its builders were, without an end in view fully commensurate, at least in their own minds, with the magnitude of the project. Hence, if astronomy shows that the Great Pyramid was planned with reference to a relation between the Pleiades and some pole star (possibly Alpha Draconis), obviously that relation must have been of the highest importance in the cosmological systems of the builders – the veritable key to all the Wisdom of antiquity.

“To those ancient sages, the cosmos was literally uni- verse, or a revolution around one center. Their doctrine of the Unity of Nature, now confirmed by Spectrum Analysis and the Reign of Law (our system of Universal Gravitation and Cosmic Evolution) was tersely summed up in the famous axiom of the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes: `That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below.’ This basic concept they expressed in various ways, as by ascribing to their rulers celestial descent while associating their great deeds with appropriate constellations and, in Egypt, if not elsewhere, by laying out the land, dividing its districts and naming its cities in allusion to astronomy, a course which, Drummond makes appear probable from an etymological examination of Hebrew names of places and persons, the twelve tribes of Israel pursued when they entered the promised land, bearing the twelve signs of the Zodiac for tribal emblems.

“From this point of view it appeared remarkable, so far as the present writer could ascertain, that no pyramid student had surmised that possibly in the Great Pyramid we possess the connecting link between the astronomy and the geography of the ancients. Such a connecting link, if recovered, would naturally be expected to determine, incidentally, the long- lost equal- measurement boundaries of the zodiacal constellations; and, if it should further prove to be the link between the science and the religion of the ancients, then possibly something might be discovered in the line of Schelling’s brilliant hypothetical surmise: `How if, in mythology, the ruins of a superior intelligence, and even a perfect system, were found. Which would reach far beyond the horizon which the most ancient written records present to us.'” – Parsons, New Light from the Great Pyramid.

This is exactly what has been found. In the Supreme Initiation we have the Key. Not alone the Key that unlocks the mystery of the Soul in its future journeys and environments but we have likewise rediscovered the “Lost Word” which the Master Mason Degree teaches was lost.

There is no assumption in this and we make no statement which may not be verified by the sincere seeker who is willing to set aside self and obey the law which governs the Soul in its relationship to God and His Universe.

Squaring the circle was supposed and is still believed to be impossible.

Yet this is just what each Aspirant to the mysteries must accomplish. The work does not end here, for the square must also be turned into a circle, the Perfect Soul being symbolized by the Winged Globe as well as by the Pyramid with Capstone intact.

The Masters of the Greater Mysteries always promised the Aspirant that he should not merely bring the Soul into Consciousness but that he should be brought consciously face to face with his Soul so that he might have the assurance of his Immortality.

With the New Age, the Father of Man has made even stronger promises.

Speaking through his Messenger Manisis, he declares: “I, the Lord God of Hosts, covenant with thee, Manisis, my beloved Messenger ( Son ), that if thy brethren will heed thy voice and will obey my Law as thou shalt teach them, then shall they truly return to the fold and again become my children, and through thee I promise them that they shall solve the mystery of their being, they shall cause the `mortal to put on immortality’ and their Soul, which is of the Father, shall become Consciously Immortal so that they shall not see death.

“And I, the Lord God, Jehovah Adonai, who am also the Father of Light, further make covenant with thee, that if these children of my spirit (soul) shall obey the Law which thou proclaimest unto them, they shall see the Lord their God while yet in the flesh, for I promise thee that when they have need of me, I shall appear to them in the Light of their own Soul.” – Manisis.

“The round churches of the Templars were built in circular or cyclar (e.g. Gilgal) form in allusion to astronomical facts. All the round chapter- houses and choirs were so built for the same reason that the churches of the Templars were built round. In the chapter- houses and crypts, till the thirteenth century, the secret religion, perpetuating the relics of a science not `falsely so- called,’ was celebrated in safe seclusion from the profane and ignorant vulgar. The eternal ethical truths deduced by the grandest minds from the astronomical events connected with the history of the planetary fratricide, were communicated to the common people (the mass) in the nave of the church, as the ark of salvation, in allegories like that of Hagar (Gal.IV). Thus the Initiates sought always to bring within the reach of the humblest minds, the fruits of the most difficult, albeit the most sublime and the most ancient learning.

“The secret (sacred part of) religion arose from the natural and insuperable difficulty of communicating the great truths to the ignorant, and of preserving records of the great phenomena of nature. Without universal relations, no ethics but only expediency, is possible. All the mystery and allegory grew upon the necessity of using symbols and characters by which the skilled might communicate with each other but which the ignorant could not comprehend. And as the latter were infinitely in the majority, the learned found their symbols taken out of their own hands and they were not allowed to rectify the errors of general ignorance nor to explain their own meanings.” – Parsons, New Light from the Great Pyramid.

It never was the intention of the Priest- Initiates that the Mysteries should be as profoundly secret as they ultimately became. The Initiates were only too willing to accept all Aspirants who applied in sincerity. Moreover, they were willing to teach the people all of the profound truths they would accept. Then, as now, the people were more ready to place their own interpretations on the symbols and what they believed – erroneously – to be the inner teachings of these Masters, than they were to accept the actual truths from the Priests. The people, then as now, were wholly unwilling to obey the Law in the right spirit and condemned the Initiates for having other than the letter, in other words, for reaping the fruits of their (the Initiates’) obedience.

The ancient and modern accusation of the churchmen (most of whom are as ignorant of the spirit of the Law as their most ignorant adherents), that the Secret Fraternities were the universities of the devil because they refused to admit all applicants, is a clear indication of the “wisdom” possessed by these accusers. It is not the Masters, Priests and Initiates who refuse admission to the people (the mass); it is their own ignorance and unwillingness to obey which exclude them.

The Initiates have long since learned that one of their number spoke precious truth when he said: “Neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet.” All Orders are open to the true Aspirant who is ready to follow the Path but even those who are admitted must be tried and found worthy before the deeper learning is permitted them, lest they prove renegade to their solemn obligation and give these teachings to others, with an interpretation of their own, and so bring greater odium upon the Initiates and the Mysteries.

All Masonry of the past dealt largely with the ethics and symbolism of the Ancient Mysteries. If the Masons of the present age will but seek for the spirit of the symbolism upon which the degrees are based, the grandest achievements in knowledge and reconstruction will be possible and the mysteries concealed in the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity will be recovered to them.

In the strictest sense, this knowledge has never been lost; it has merely been held in the secret crypts of those who were faithful and permitted the Aspirant who proved his worthiness to their possession. The “mystery” was originally veiled in order to conceal it from the profane and for self- protection; written in a universal language of Symbolism that the wise among all nations and throughout all time might read and understand. It was written in parable and allegory, so that the unlettered and common people who were of sincere faith and willing to obey the spirit rather than the letter, might not be deprived of its wise precepts and of its force in shaping character, dissipating ignorance and inspiring hope.

This Ancient Wisdom is the foundation from which Masonry took its rise. In the main, the true science of symbolism became lost; the Temples of Initiation were allowed to fall into decay or were destroyed by priests and potentates, jealous of their influence. For many weary centuries men have been trying to recover the lost key with which to restore the Ancient Wisdom from the parables and allegories in which it has been concealed.

Due to the unwillingness of many of these seekers to forget the self and to obey those who know, progress is necessarily slow and uncertain and most of these attempts have given rise, more or less, to fantastic flights of the imagination resulting in confusion rather than enlightenment and, in many cases, ending in downright, soul- destroying frauds of the worst and most criminal type. The gross result has been to bring the whole subject under contempt and to make the term “mysticism” mean something vague and uncertain, frequently foolish and questionable, to those ignorant of what the term embraces in its true meaning.

But now the new dispensation is open; the Ancient Mysteries shall be revealed in all their glory to the millions who seek life and immortality and to conquer death. To these millions the Voice of the Messenger of the New Age will come as a benediction and they will listen and try to obey; they will begin to live in the spirit rather than to twist and gnarl the letter so that it may be made to sanction exploitation and destruction.

To these the Voice of the Father comes as a heavenly choir, saying unto them: “In the past ages I have sent my Messengers (Sons) to you to teach you the Law, which is the Way and the Life, but you offered hatred for love, you destroyed those that came to lift you, for you would not be lifted, but as swine, chose to wallow in the filth.

“And those that elected themselves to instruct you in the Law, fearfully permitted you to choose the letter and even to destroy the Word, afraid that they would be cast aside and others selected as your leaders.

“But now the time is at hand and I have chosen one, well beloved, to come before you to instruct you in the Law and to help you apply the Law in the Spirit of the Law for thus may death he overcome and misfortune cast aside.

“Woe unto you who refuse to accept the Messenger and his message, for as your fathers before you destroyed the spirit of the Law, so will the Law now destroy all those who refuse to obey the Law and only `the ninety- and- nine’ shall live to behold my face and to inherit the kingdom of heaven which my Messenger shall establish and which shall endure in peace unto the next dispensation.

“Thus spake the Lord God Jehovah Adonai – Father of Light – to all the people of the earth through his Messenger. – Manisis.

“Such a work has now become possible, because of a cycle of liberality and enlightenment, when the workers are not likely to be sacrificed to the Moloch of bigotry and superstition (as during past centuries). Granting that such Masters exist, that they are possessed of profound knowledge and that they are ready to help the world, the world must be ready and willing to receive such help, if it is to be benefitted by it, instead of destroying its agent, (italics ours). Guided, then, by a complete philosophy, armed with a key to symbolism and aided by these Grand Masters, the lost mysteries of antiquity may be restored and made to tell their hoary secrets for the benefit of the coming ages.

“Only the Perfect Master (he who has lived the life according to the Law until the Soul is brought into Consciousness) can so chip away the stone as to reveal in all its grandeur and beauty the Divine Ideal, and endow it with the breath of life (Immortality). Such is the building of character. The fable of Pygmalion and Galatea is, after all, more real than history. The thread of history is not in isolate facts, joined by conjecture and warped to the ignorant, bigoted and time- serving opinions of men. The real thread is to be sought in the theme that runs through the symphony of creation; in the lofty ideals that inspire the life of man and that lead him from the clod and the lowlands where hover the ghosts of superstition and fear, to the mountains of light where dwell forever inspiration and peace. Such ideals are the Christ (of the true church), Hiram (of the Masonic Order) and the Perfect Masters (of the Occult Fraternities).

“No genuine Mason, imbued with the spirit of liberality, will treat any religion (or religious belief, even if it has but one sincere adherent) with derision or contempt, or exclude from fellowship any Brother who believes in the existence of God, the Brotherhood of Man and the Immortality of the Soul.

This catholic Liberal and all- embracing spirit is the very foundation of Masonry and any departure from it is un- Masonic and subversive of the ancient Landmarks and Genius of Masonry. True Masonry has, for ages, held aloft the torchlight of Toleration, Equity and Fraternity. The bigoted sectarian, whoever he may be, divides the world into two classes: those who, with zeal and blind faith, accept his dogmas and those who do not.

“In its ritualism and monitorial lessons, Masonry teaches nothing in morals, in science, in religion or in any other department of human knowledge or human interest, not taught elsewhere in current forms of thought or by the sages of the past. In these directions it has no secrets of any kind. It is in the ancient symbols of Freemasonry that its real secrets lie concealed and these are as densely veiled to the Mason as to any other, unless he has studied the science of symbolism in general and Masonic symbolism in particular. In place of the term Mystic Masonry, the term Symbolic Masonry might as well have been used; but just there lies the whole secret – a profound mystery – and few Masons up to the present time have had the interest or the patience necessary to such investigation as might bring revealment.

This is a fact and not intended as either a criticism or a reproach. If, lacking a knowledge of the profound meaning of Masonic symbolism and its transcendent interest and importance, Masons have allowed the whole organization not only to fail in all real progress but to degenerate, that is indeed a reproach.

“There never was greater need than at the present time, never so great an opportunity as now, for Masonry to assume its true place among the institutions of man and to force recognition by the simple power of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth, based upon philosophy such as nowhere else exists outside of its ancient symbols. If the majority of Masons do not realize the true significance and value of their possessions, there is all the more need for those who do to speak out, even in the face of discouragement and detraction, and do their utmost to demonstrate the truth. Does any intelligent Mason imagine that the guilds of practical Masons of a century and a half ago originated the order of Freemasons? There were indeed Architects and Master builders among them but the great majority of Masons were far more ignorant, as manual servants, than the majority of such builders are today.

(“Freemasonry is modeled on the plan of the Ancient (Osirian) Mysteries, with their glyphs and allegories. This is no mere coincidence; the parallels are too closely drawn. Albert Pike came to the conclusion, after long and patient investigation, that certain Hermetic Philosophers had a hand in the construction of the organization of Free and Accepted Masons and, if they embodied in its symbolism more than appears on the surface and far deeper truths than the superficial student readily discerns, it was evidently designed that future generations should uncover and use these profounder secrets.)

“In brief, then, the real secrets of Freemasonry lie in its symbols, and the meaning of the symbols reveals a profound philosophy and a Universal Science, that have never been transcended by man.

“There is a thread of tradition connecting modern Masonry with the most ancient Mysteries of Antiquity. The ancient landmarks may be discovered in every nation and time. `Notwithstanding the connection that so evidently exists,’ says Dr. Rebold, `between the Ancient Mysteries and the Freemasonry of our day, the latter should be considered an initiation rather than a continuation of those ancient Mysteries; for initiation into them was the entering of a school, wherein were taught art, science, morals, law, philosophy, philanthropy and the wonders and worship of nature.'” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

The universal science and sublime philosophy once taught in the Greater Mysteries of Atlantis, Egypt, Chaldea, Persia and India, have undoubtedly been a dead letter in the lodges of modern Freemasonry but this science and philosophy have not been either lost or destroyed as so many, even among the scholars, seem to think. They are carefully conserved in the Archives of the older Fraternities and ever at the command of the sincere aspirant who is willing to study, to learn to live the life. Nothing of the Ancient Mysteries will be withheld from the true student if he is liberal enough and of sufficiently pure mind, to see the beauties in the grossest shell. Only man’s unworthiness can prevent him from rending the veil of the Mysteries, bringing to mind the ancient and very true maxim: “Naught from without can harm you; fear only that which is within yourself.” How well it would be if all men were to comprehend the spirit of this saying and were they to live in that spirit; what a “shelving” there would be of twentieth century reformers – those fanatics and hypocrites, who would make men good (external white- washing) by the enactment of countless legislative acts which require an army – in the parlance of the street of grafters and political hangers- on who must be maintained at the expense of an unfortunate but honest citizenry.

“It should be borne in mind that in modern Freemasonry, in the Ancient Mysteries and in all the truly great Religions, there always was an exoteric portion given out to the masses – the uninitiated, and an esoteric doctrine reserved for the initiate (who could appreciate and respect it) and revealed in the degrees, according as the candidate demonstrated his fitness to receive, conceal and rightly use the knowledge so imparted. Perhaps few professed Christians are aware that such was the case with Christianity itself during the first two or three centuries.” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

“This, in its purity, as taught by Jesus himself, was the true primitive religion, as communicated by God to the Patriarchs (and now again to His New Messenger, Manisis). It was no new religion (but the reproduction of the old, reconstructed and reinterpreted to suit the condition of the times and needs of the people) and its true and perfect morality is the morality of (the spirit of) Masonry, as it is the morality of every creed of antiquity. – Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma.

St. Augustine himself admitted that: “What is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients and was not absent from the human race until Christ (Jesus) came, from which time this religion, which existed already, began to be called `Christian.'” – Heckthorne, Secret Societies.

“In the early days of Christianity, there was an initiation like those of the Pagans. Persons were admitted on special conditions only. To arrive at a complete knowledge of the doctrine, they had to pass three degrees of instructions (and training). – Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma.

The exoteric side of the new religious inculcations which had become known as “Christian,” was communicated to all those who would listen and follow; but the esoteric – as hinted at so strongly by Jesus when he said, “Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you” – was communicated orally during the Initiation into the Mysteries and only to those who were willing not alone to listen to a discourse but ready to live as they were taught. These Christian Mysteries were originally derived, as admitted by the usurper and destroyer, Constantine, from the so- called Pagan Mysteries. The Mysteries instituted by Jesus (or Apollonious of Tyana) received at the hands of his followers a new and profoundly degenerating and, if we may coin a term, de- manhood- ing interpretation after the first Nicene Council. As the church founded by Constantine gained strength and sought domain, it lost what little of the Great Secret it formerly had and since then positively has denied that true and desirable Mysteries ever existed, doing all in its power to obliterate all records and monuments opposing this denial.

However, despite all that the cohorts of Constantine did in the early days of the church and up to the present, the Secret Doctrine and Ancient Mysteries have continued to exist. They have been taught in a direct line of succession to those earnest aspirants who have been willing to set aside all preconceived ideas and opinions of their own and to apply the instructions given them so that they might unravel the Mystery of their own Souls, reading in the Light thus revealed, all that pertains to God and their own Souls, which, in very truth, is all that ever was of the Greater Mysteries.

Just as there was a continuous succession of Initiate Teachers from the days antedating history down to the days of Constantine, so, despite the terrors instituted by the followers of this man – who did more than any other to destroy the spirit of the teachings of God’s Messenger of the first century – there has continued since then a direct line of succession in the Secret Fraternities. No power on earth, no organization that man can institute, can prevent the continuance of this succession, for there ever will be men so discreet as not to betray and so fearless as to brave death if needful, to serve God and the Soul.

“Modern Freemasonry honors among its ancient great teachers, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato and many others and, in some of its degrees, gives a brief summary of their doctrines. Masonry, in a certain sense, includes them all and has adopted their precepts. These were all initiates in the Mysteries and, fundamentally, their doctrines were identical. All taught the existence of the G. A. O. U., the Immortality of the Soul and the unqualified Brotherhood of Man; and with these primitive and fundamental truths Masonry is in full accord.” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

“The Entered Apprentice starts on his career with the triangle surmounting the square (matter has not yet become spiritualized). As he progresses, the descent takes place and we then have the triangle in the square and finally, as a Master, the ascent of the square into the triangle (the material is transmuted into the Spiritual) begins, which every Master Mason will understand. Masonry being a `progressive Science,’ the progress of the neophyte is thus made to conform to the process of evolution (more correctly – development) and the descent of spirit into matter (rather – the transmutation of the gross into the Soul Fire or Light); this is illustrated by the manner in which the candidate is taught to wear his apron in each degree in the Blue Lodge. The Entered Apprentice is not only a `hewer of wood and a drawer of water’ but a novice (an aspirant toward spiritual attainment), taking his first instruction; this is symbolized by his apron.

“The tradition of the Master’s Word (the attainment of Soul Consciousness – Illumination – or Immortalization), of the power which its possession gives to the Master; the story of its loss (the loss of the Soul’s Light through the abuse of the creative power – indicated in the fiat “the soul that sinneth it shall die,”i.e., “Cast not thy seed upon the ground”. . . “Lest it become a serpent and rend thee”) and the search for its recovery (the retention or exchange, the raising and transmutation of the seed into the Fire or Light of the Soul); the tradition of the Ineffable Name in connection with the Lost Word (finding the Soul’s Light and through the Fire being able to come face to face with the Soul’s Creator, the Father of Light, He who is Jehovah Adonai), showing that it could not or should not be pronounced, except with bated (indrawn or updrawn) breath or, as the Hindu tradition declares, `with the hand covering the mouth’ (the “mouth” being symbolic of an orifice that receives, and “hand covering the mouth” symbolizing that which overshadows); the symbol of the three greater and three lesser lights, and the play made in many places on the word Light (Fires of the Soul) itself, in conjunction with the Lost Word; all these references and uses constitute a complicated symbolism working in and towards a common center or glyph, which, taken in conjunction with the building and restoration of the Temple (regeneration of the body) constitute the secret symbolism of Masonry and illustrate the whole process of Initiation.

“What real (not ritualistic) Initiation is, already has been stated. These symbols, when correctly interpreted, serve two purposes. First, they reveal a complete philosophy of the Creation of the Universe and of man, unfolding all essences, powers and potencies, and their mutual relations and correlations.

Second, they unfold the process of Initiation as synonymous with the uninterrupted evolution of man guided by knowledge and design along the lines of least resistance. In the third degree, the candidate impersonates Hiram, who has been shown to be identical with the Christos of the Greeks, and with the Sun Gods of all nations.

“The superiority of Masonry at this point over all other exoteric religions, consists in this: All these religions take the symbol for the thing symbolized. Christ was originally like the Father. Now He is made identical with the Father . . . Here lies the true meaning of Abiff, `of or from my Father.’ Hiram – Christos and Abiff – `at one with the Father,’i. e., `of,’ or `from’ (and again returning to, or at- one- ment, with Him).

“In deifying Jesus, the whole of humanity is bereft of Christos as an eternal potency within every human Soul, a latent (or embryonic) Christ in every man. In thus deifying one man, they have orphaned the whole of humanity (and at the same time built a false and destructive scheme of salvation). On the other hand, Masonry, in making (symbolically) every candidate personify Hiram, has preserved (at least in form) the original teaching which is a Universal Glyphic. Few candidates may be aware that Hiram, whom they have represented and personify, is ideally and precisely the same as Jesus. Yet such is the case. This old philosophy shows what Christ as a glyphic means, and how the Christ- state (Soul Conscious or Soul Illuminated) results from real Initiation (the interior development combined with the raising of the Creative Forces: “For if I be raised up I will draw all men unto me”) or from the evolution of the human into the Divine.

Regeneration is thus given a meaning that is both apprehensible and attainable; both philosophical and scientific; and at once ideal and practical.

“In the Tetragrammaton or four- lettered name of Deity, the Greek followers of Pythagoras found a glyphic by which they both expressed and concealed their philosophy. It is the Hebrew tetrad, Ihvh, or `yod, he, vau, he’ that is introduced into Masonry with the Pythagorean art speech. When the devout Hebrew, in reading the sacred text, came to the tetrad, Ihvh (in the Third Degree of the true Rose Cross, the secret pronunciation of this tetrad is taught and the Initiate given permission to use it in case of life and death), he substituted the Word Adonai (Father of Light), and, if the word was written in the points of Alhim, he called it Elohim. This custom is preserved in Masonry by giving the candidate a substitute for the Master’s Word (in the Esoteric, when the Light is found then also is the Word obtained); the Hebrew tetrad, `Yod, he, vau, he,’ is produced by repeating the `he’. The root word is a triad and the quaternary is a blind. The Sacred word is found in the Mysteries as a binary, a trinary and a quaternary; with the Hindus, we have the om, and the a, u, m, indicating different methods of pronouncing the Sacred name.

“The Secret Doctrine is the complete philosophy of Masonic Symbolism. So long as this philosophy is unknown to the Masons themselves, this symbolism is to a great extent so many dead letters. Beyond its moral precepts, the work of the lodge is a dumb show, and the Genius of Masonry for the members of the Craft is largely the spirit of self- interest, mutual support and physical enjoyment or revelry, the latest embodiment of which is the `Mystic Shrine’ (instituted for a spirit, because the spirit of the Mysteries has been lost and men cannot live “on bread alone.”) But there are some among the members of the Craft – how many, time alone can determine – who believe that Masonry means far more than this and who already have discerned in its symbols and traditions something of their real meaning. Many of these have found partial clues which served to keep interest alive while searching for plainer meanings and deeper revelations. In retracing the steps by which these ancient symbols and their profound philosophy have come down to our own times, more and more obscured with every passing century, students have gathered a large number of facts, a great mass of traditions and general information, all of which have been interpreted variously by different writers on Masonry. All writers, however, agree in the conclusion that the symbols and traditions of Freemasonry come from the far East and go back to the remotest antiquity.

“After the candidate is obligated and brought to Light in the third degree, he is bantered with the statement that undoubtedly he now imagines himself a Master Mason. He is informed not only that such is not the case but that there is no certainty that he ever will become such. He subsequently starts on his journey for the discovery of the Lost Word. The method by which he undertakes to obtain it and the names of the three Fellowcrafts, have a deep significance. After many trials, he receives a substitute, which he is to conceal with great fidelity `till future generations shall discover the Lost Word.'” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry. The “bringing to Light” in the third degree is synonymous with the “finding of the Light” in the process of development taught and practiced in the true Fraternities but with this difference: in the Masonic initiation, it is symbolic or ritualistic; in the true Initiation, it is an actual growth or development within the Aspirant, and when this Light is found, he is not told of it but himself informs the Master- Teacher.

To become a Master Mason, one must pass through the ritualistic initiation of the Third Degree. This is again symbolic of the initiatory work of the Secret Fraternity, when one finally has reached the Third Degree – which is the finding of the Light of the First Degree and is known as Soul Illumination – the unraveling of the Mystery of the Serpent in the next degree, and finally the attainment of Mastership which is synonymous with becoming a Master Mason in the exoteric organization. There is this difference: when the candidate finally has become a Master Mason, he is given a substitute word for the Word but having attained the Third Degree in the Secret Fraternity, he also has found the Word.

“The method by which he – the Master Mason – receives and is ever to transmit or use the substitute, is made exact and definite, and guarded by solemn obligations. (In the Mysteries no such obligation is necessary because if the Initiate attempts to misuse the Word, which is the Light, he wastes his Soul substance and thereby destroys the Soul and his inheritance of Conscious Immortality). The meaning of both the great secrecy and the use of the Word are left entirely to conjecture, beyond the statement that it is a sacred name (a creative – physical and spiritual – power) and must never be profaned or `taken’ – used – in vain or carelessly (for mere pleasure). I venture the opinion that not one Mason among ten thousand ever has been able to discover why.

“The force of the obligation is therefore in the obligation and not in the reason. As a matter of fact, the real reason is scientific to the last analysis; scientific to a degree beyond the penetration, up to the present time, of the `radiant matter’ of the Roentgen Ray of modern science.” Every word, in fact, every letter, creates a vibration and in the vibration there is either life or death as there are but two points, the one point being life and the other death; the pendulum, which in this case, is the type or kind of vibration created by words, must swing to one side or the other.

When we assume an obligation, we call certain forces into being. These forces are held in suspension – or under control – so long as we act in harmony with them. If we betray the spirit, then all control ceases and the created vibrations held in suspension become malicious toward the creator of them and return to rend and destroy. One who is false to an obligation, thereby has loosened a destructive force which can return only to the creator of it. God does not punish man. So- called punishment is the return to himself – “chickens come home to roost” – of the forces created by himself, which, on betrayal, return to destroy. In other words, man is not punished for his deeds but by his deeds. It is for this reason that almost forty per- cent of those who enter the Secret Fraternity ultimately bring about their own destruction, entering as they do, for utterly selfish, though hidden, reasons. Then because of their inimical spirit, they are unable to secure that which they sought, betray the spirit and purpose of their obligation and so bring upon themselves swift and undefiable punishment.

“The tradition of the Ineffable Name is brought into Masonry from the Hebrew Kabalah and how it became lost is partly historical, at least, The ancient Hebrew priests evidently undertook to fit to the names of their tribal deities the symbolism and traditions of the Far East. If the Master’s Word was really a word (every Initiate knows that it is a force developed or transmuted into a spiritual potency, a possession of the Soul) at all, the Deity of the Hebrews might perhaps represent it as well as any other. It is a question of phonetics, however, rather than mere orthography. Beneath the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch lies concealed the science of the Kabalah. The anathemas threatened for him who should alter, by a single letter or `Yod,’ the outer text, had therefore a deeper meaning. The priests of many nations of antiquity were Initiates in the Mysteries and as such they were monotheists, while the ignorant masses were idolaters. The monotheism of the Jews was of a robust character, and their priests and prophets had a difficult time to preserve the people from the seductive polytheism and abominations of surrounding nations. The Ineffable Name was not only concealed but (to the mass) made `terrible as an army with banners’. Jehovah (this Jehovah was the avenging side of the Creator and is not the Jehovah Adonai – the Father of Light – of the New Age, who is also the Father of the Multitudes and the God of ,Manisis) was jealous, revengeful, vindictive, toward the evil doer (the return of the vibrations set in motion by the acts of those ignorant children but as this Law of Compensation could not be understood by them, Jehovah, the `jealous God’ was made the outer form of the expression – action – of the Law) and tolerated no rival in the broad expanse of Cosmos. In no religion of antiquity is the anthropomorphic image of Deity so strongly defined and the Creator of man and worlds made so exceedingly human (due to the fact that the mass could not and would not comprehend the Law interpreted in any other form).

“The Kabalah, on the contrary, embodying considerable of the true and ancient Secret Doctrine, held a different idea of Divinity. While carrying the tradition, therefore, of the Lost Word as the Ineffable Name of Deity, the symbolism was taken as a literal fact and the people who were commanded to `make no graven image’ ended by making a gigantic idol (when the letter of the Law is permitted to replace the spirit of the Law, there is even greater evil than where there is no law at all and Nature is permitted to govern), half Moloch and half man. Amid such contradictions, the symbolism adopted from the purer and gentler Aryans was ill at ease and far from home…The High Priests once every year, at the time of the Atonement (symbolic of becoming At- one with the Father) entered alone into the Holy of Holies and there repeated the Name (again symbolic of what must take place in every human being before Conscious Immortality, known as the true Initiation, can take place). The Name was thus withdrawn from and finally lost to the common people. The old query, `What is in a name?’ is, after all, not so easy of answer; or the answer might be, `everything or nothing,’ according as you understand it or look at it.

Before the introduction of the Masoretic points or indices of vowel sounds, the consonants were read by metrically intoning the text. The principle of the Mantram was therefore known at least to the High Priests and, therefore, the Word, the Name, that, known in all its plenitude and used with power, ’caused the whole world to shake,’ may have been used or invoked in the Holy of Holies by the Kabballistic Hierophant. Some who read this even yet may be so ignorant of the potency of sound as to smile at the credulity and gullibility that indites such a statement and yet so superstitious over the letters of a name as to believe them more sacred in one form than in another. Notwithstanding, it is the letter that killeth, and the Spirit (the breath) that maketh alive.

The consonants composing the Hebrew alphabet are about as sacred as so many wooden blocks. If one knows how to arrange the blocks and endow them with life, so that they may `bud and blossom like Aaron’s rod,’ that of course, is a very different matter.

“The traditional Lost Word of the Master is a Key to all the science of Magic (the Occult uses of Soul Forces). The knowledge of a Master is not empirical. It does not consist of a few isolated formulæby which certain startling or unusual effects can be produced. The Magician’s art is based on a science far more deep and exact than modern physical science has yet dreamed of, and back of this science lies a philosophy as boundless as Cosmos, as inexhaustible as Time and as beneficent as `the Father in Heaven.’ If the Masonic meaning of Master, Perfect and Sublime Master, Prince Adept, etc., is less than I have indicated, then it is a roaring farce or a stupendous humbug.

“The conception of Masonry is true but it has adopted or imitated the ritual and glyphics of a science, the key to which not one Mason in ten thousand possesses (because like the churchmen he is perfectly willing to accept the letter as being all and to permit the spirit, which is the life and the Light, to die so far as he is concerned) and hence the tradition of the Lost Word has a literal, no less than a symbolic meaning. The `substitute’ is given to the Neophyte – `til future generations shall find the True Word.’ (This is a mere figure of speech. Every man who takes upon himself the Masonic obligation, can, if he will, find this Lost Word. The material required in the process of transmutation is within himself as surely as a man who has his cellar filled with coal and a furnace wherein to burn it, has all that is required to start a roaring fire which will heat his house. Finding the Lost Work is an individual work. Each Soul must accomplish it or miss Immortality and this is true whether a man be a churchman or a Mason or both.)” “Hearken, Manisis, unto the Lord thy God who is Jehovah Adonai, the Father of Light, and prepare to teach the children of men, that the time is coming and now is, when they may no longer foolishly say, `this man will save me, or that man will take my sins upon himself,’but when each soul born of woman must, by Divine decree, take up `his load and follow in the path of justice and righteousness.’ “Teach them, O Manisis, that I, the Lord thy God, have placed that which is most precious, within the bosom of each child of the Mother (earth) so that when they turn away from that which is evil (destructive) and bring their faces toward the Lord (the Light) and obey my Law, the Lord (Light) shall shine upon them and within them and there shall spring up within them a well of living water and they shall see and know the Lord (the Light) who is their God.

“Say unto them, O Manisis, that henceforth no man shall come unto the Lord God (the Light) except by his own efforts and by obedience to the Law, which is my Word, and that he who disobeys my Law shall perish and be known no more.

“Say unto them, that as one who is lost in the wilderness, crieth out and findeth no one to save, so is the Soul within man – which is part of the Lord, the Father of Light – when my Laws are disobeyed and a stone (the life or practices leading to sickness and death) is offered to it instead of bread (obedience to the Laws and living the life).

“I, the Lord thy God, repeat unto thee that no man now cometh unto me except by obedience to my Laws; and my face shall not be known to any of the children of men except they find within themselves that Light which I have given to every man born of woman.” – Manisis.

“The question we propound to every `obligated,’ or Master Mason, is this: Is the present (“and I say unto you the time is coming and now is”) generation the one in which that which was lost shall be found? Each must answer for himself singly, just as he entered the Lodge, first saw the (symbolic) light and took his obligation; just as every real Master or `White Adept,’ has done since the beginning of time. There exists in Masonic literature many learned essays on the history, orthography and philosophy of the Lost Word but I am acquainted with no treatise that apprehends the nature of the real secret.

“The True Word of a Mason is to be found in the concealed and profound meaning of the Ineffable Name of Deity (God is Jehovah Adonai – the Father of Light – ) communicated by God to Moses” “And I, O Manisis, who am he that was and is and ever shall be, and whom thou knowest as Jehovah – Father and Adonai, Light – appeared to thy Elder Brother, Moses, and spake unto him through the Light which he, through obedience to my instructions, had awakened within himself and whereby he communed with me, his God, through the Voice of the Fire (Light). And unto him did I, the Lord thy God, convey many secrets and mysteries, as I now covenant with thee I shall convey unto all my children who will obey my Laws and, as did Moses before thee, seek the Fire, which is the Light, that is within them.

“And I covenant with thee, O Manisis, that to the children of men, who by obedience, seek the Light and listen to the Voice of the Fire from whence proceedeth the Light, I will reveal the mysteries of Life; the veil of death shall be rent in twain and they shall be of the promised few who shall no longer taste of the bitterness of the cup; my Life shall become their life; my Light shll lead them from the death which is of the Soul.

“This, O Manisis, is my covenant with thee, my beloved Messenger.” – Manisis.

“The meaning of the Ineffable Name of the Deity (a spiritual possession in the Soul, not a word) was lost by the very precaution taken to conceal it. The true pronunciation (method of finding it) of that Name was in truth a secret (revealed only to the worthy) in which, however, was involved the far more profound secret of its meaning.

“Thus the Ineffable Name not only embodies the great Philosophical Idea, that the Deity is the Ens, the To On, the Absolute Existence, that of which the Essence is to Exist, the Only Substance of Spinoza, the Being that never could not have existed, as contradistinguished from that which only becomes; not Nature or the Soul of Nature but that which created Nature; the idea of the Male and Female Principles, in the highest and most profound sense; to wit, that God originally comprehended to Himself all that is; that matter was not coexistent with Him or independent of Him; that He did not merely fashion and shape a preexisting chaos into a universe; but that His thought manifested itself outwardly in that universe, which so became, and before was not except as comprehended in Him; that the Generative Power or Spirit, and the Productive Matter (ever among the ancients deemed the Female), originally were in God, and that He was and is all that was and is and that shall be; in whom all else lives, moves and has its being.

“This was the Great Mystery of the Ineffable Name, and of course its true pronunciation and its meaning (the method) became lost to all except the select few to whom it was confided (who were trained in the Secret Fraternity); it being concealed from the common (the profane – those who were willing to do no more than accept the letter and would not live the life) people, because the Deity, thus metaphysically named, was not that personal and capricious and, as it were, tangible God in whom they believed (merely a faith without much of an attempt to obey the Divine Laws) and who alone was within reach of their crude capacities. This was the profound truth hidden in the ancient allegory and covered from the general view with a double veil.

This was the exoteric meaning of the generation and production of the Indian, Chaldean and Phoenician Cosmogonies; of the Active and Passive Powers; of the Male and Female principles; of Heaven and its Luminaries generating, and the earth producing; all hidden from vulgar view, as above its comprehension; the doctrine that matter is not eternal (always changeable) but that God was the only Original Existence, the Absolute, from Whom everything has proceeded and to Whom all returns. And this True Word is with entire accuracy said to have been lost, because its meaning was lost even among the Hebrews.

“The Holy Bible (repository of Divine Laws) is one of the great Lights in Masonry and has a very profound meaning when coupled with the tradition of the Ineffable Name or Lost Word. The object set before the Neophyte in his search for the Lost Word, is, that he may travel in foreign countries and receive Master’s wages, which are knowledge and power. The glyph in its outer form is taken from the guilds of practical Masons of two or three centuries ago. The laws governing the Mark of a Fellowcraft or a Master Builder were very strict, and the Mark was never bestowed unworthily and, when received, was a passport among builders over a wide domain. But in a deeper or Kabballistic sense, the Master’s Word (the Consciousness of the Soul) which entitled its possessor to Master’s wages (Illumination and Immortality) was a very different thing indeed. The wages of the real Master were in the satisfaction and the power that flow from the possession of real knowledge. Knowledge is power only when one comprehends that which he possesses and is, therefore, enabled to use it for the purpose that is nearest his heart. Albert Pike shows conclusively that the power of the Word lies in the knowledge of the Philosophy which is its perfect synthesis. This is, in part, the meaning of `knowing how to pronounce the Word’.

“As already stated, the Kabalah (unwritten instructions) of the Ancient Hebrews, which Moses derived by initiation into the Mysteries of Egypt and Persia, and which Albert Pike and many others declare was identical among the Hebrews, the Egyptians, Hindus and other nations of antiquity (the method of Soul Development leading to true Initiation recognizes neither creed, color or tongue; all who would attain the goal must follow the one exact method, there is no other way was known as the secret doctrine. The reason for the term is fully revealed in what has already been said.” – Ancient Mystic Masonry.

“The traditions, glyphs and ritual of Freemasonry cluster around the building of the temple, the legend of the Widow’s son, Hiram Abiff, who lost his life in the defense of his integrity (which every aspirant must be ready to do) and the search for the Lost Word of the Master. As the candidate progresses, degree after degree, he is furnished with the working tools suited to his degree of knowledge and proficiency, given instructions as to their use; the lesser and greater lights are revealed and explained; and, through it all, each outer form, or material thing, is shown to be a symbol of a deeper mystery, a concealed potency.

“This is, in brief, the language and the philosophy of symbolism or the exoteric and the esoteric garb of Truth. The method itself, outside of all details or applications, has a deeper scientific significance than most persons are aware. This method of instruction is not fanciful or arbitrary but conforms to the process of Eternal Nature in building an atom or a world; a daisy or a man. Cosmos remains the Eternal Potency, what Plato called the `world of divine ideas.’ This essential form or idea of all things, the potency or force, and the matter as we now discern it, must have existed in primordial space. Therefore, these two always exist, viz., the inner potency, (which must be brought out by) the process of development and the outer act; the concealed idea (the desire of the heart which is brought into materialization through the labors of man by the urge of the Soul) and the outer form; the inner meaning (the achievement of spiritualization through the process of the development) and the outer event; each in its turn a symbol of the other. Hence the saying on the Smaragdine Tablet, as above so below (as in the inner so in the outer; as appears the outer so is the inner; as below, so manifests life in the above). All outward things are, therefore, symbolic or embodiments of preexisting Ideas and out of this subjective ideal realm all visible things have emanated.

“This doctrine of emanation is the key to the philosophy of Plato and that of the Gnostic sects from which the early Christians derived their mysteries.

(It is likewise the basis of our modern Law of Vibration which proves that every degree of vibration creates a condition and that every condition is creative of a vibration of like nature).

“In the ritual of Masonry, King Solomon’s temple is taken as a symbol. (In this, Masonry is far in advance of the church which accepts the story literally instead of as the drama through which every Soul must pass if it would attain Consciousness and finally Immortality). The building and the restoration of the temple at Jerusalem are dramatically represented in the work of the Lodge and in the ceremony of Initiation, by a play upon words and parity of events, and applied to the candidate with admonition, warning or encouragement, as the drama unfolds.

“The symbolism is fitted to ideal relations, rather than to actual existences or historical events. Sol- om- on represents the name of the Deity in three languages, and the Biblical narrative is, in one sense, an allegory or myth of the Sun- God (but also the story of the life- giving heat of the Sun when the germ of life first left the waters and touched the earth, as well as the history of the inexperienced Soul as it left the Godhead – the Father of Light, who is Jehovah Adonai – and took up its abode in the physical- life- pulsating structure we know as the body of man). There is no reliable history of the construction of any such temple at Jerusalem though unquestionably many temples of that nature were constructed in ancient cities.

The real temple (and the only one worthy of consideration or of real value to humankind) referred to from first to last in Masonry, as in the Ancient Initiation, is the Tabernacle of the Human Soul.

“It is built, indeed, without the sound of hammer or any tool of iron (though it works with material substances of gross matter – the body). It is like that other, the spiritual temple, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, for the old philosophy (Kabalah) teaches that the Immortal Spirit (Soul) of man is the Artificer (rebuilder) of the body and its source of life; that it does not so much enter into as overshadow man, while the Spirit, the immediate vehicle of the Soul, inhabits the body and is dissipated at death.

The Christos is the Soul or Hiram, and becomes the Mediator between the physical man and the Universal Spirit – the Father in Heaven. The `poor, blind candidate,’that is, the man of sense, immersed in matter, would learn the Ineffable Name and obtain the Lost Word and, seeking a shortcut, `climb up some other way.’ He would have wisdom (and eternal life – Soul Consciousness) without self- conquest; power without sacrifice (the transmutation of strictly selfish interests). He will not listen to the voice of pleading: `Be patient, my brother, and when the temple is completed, if found worthy, you shall receive that for which you have so long wrought.’ No! He will have his reward now, before he performs his labor; he silences the pleading voice and, defeating only himself, flees into the deserts of remorse and calls upon the rocks to hide him from the pursuit of his accusing conscience (the while blaming everything and everyone for his condition). Hiram (Christos) is resurrected. Being immortal, man can not really die (except by the sins which affect the Soul). Realizing his error and purified by suffering, the spirit of man being again lifted up, defeat gives promise of victory and he receives a Substitute for the Lost Word. Future generations, that is, further trials and more sincere endeavor, promise greater reward. He learns to `know, to will, to dare and to keep silent.’ Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice and Mercy – all the virtues and all the Beatitudes are inculcated. – Ancient Mystic Masonry.

“The candidate is taught, not merely to tolerate another’s religion but to respect it as his own though still adhering to that into which he is born (or which he has accepted because it harmonizes best with his own ideas). To make reasonable this obligation, he is shown through the Kabalah or Secret Doctrine that, at the heart of every great religion, lie the same eternal truths, forms and observations alone differing. The Ineffable Name is spelled in many ways yet the Word is one and eternal. Masonry is not only a universal science but a worldwide religion, and owes allegiance to no one creed and can adopt no sectarian dogma, as such, without ceasing thereby to be Masonic and defying its Landmarks. Drawn from the Kabalah and taking both Jewish and Christian verbiage or symbols, it but discerns in them universal truths which it recognizes in all other religions. Many degrees have been Christianized (dogmatized) only to perish, as every degree eventually will if circumscribed by narrow creeds and dwarfed to the apprehension so as to exclude good men of any other (or of no) communion. Is Jesus (or Apollonious of Tyana) any less (become) the Christos, because centuries before one Christna or Christhna was called `the Good Shepherd’? Or because the Mexican Christ was crucified between two thieves? Or because Hiram (also) was three days in a grave before he was resurrected? Are we not just as selfish (therefore unChristian or unregenerate) in our religion as in our other possessions? Then why is man, while cherishing as his most sacred possession, the religion of his fathers, eternally seeking to degrade and destroy that of his Brother? “The Great Republic, to which Albert Pike refers, is the Ideal of the Masonic Institution, the Genius that hovers like a protecting angel over the Lodge. Make it impossible (either by ban or prejudice – one is as destructive as the other) for a Jew or Parsee, Buddhist or Brahmin, to enter any Lodge without witnessing the profanation of his sacred altars or contempt for his religion, and the angel hides her face and retreats from altars already profaned by unbrotherliness. Masonry is the Universal Religion only because and only so long as it embraces all religions. For this reason and this alone, it is universal. Neither persecution nor misrepresentation can destroy it (so long as it remains loyal to its Landmarks). It may find no place in a generation of bigots; it may retire for a century; but again comes a Master Builder with the Key to the `Shut Palace of the King,’ who throws open the blinds, lets in the light, kindles anew the fires on the sacred altar, clears away the rubbish, and behold ! the tessellated pavement is as bright as when it first came from the quarries of truth, the jewels are of pure gold and brighten at the touch and the great lights are undimmed and undecayed. `When the candidate is ready the Master appears.’ (When the aspirant has fully prepared himself through the cleansing of the heart, the purification of the body and the raising of the Fire, then the Light, which is the Illumination, comes upon him.) And yet men are so foolish and so vile (so ignorant of the Divine Law) as to imagine that they can destroy the heirloom of the ages, this heritage from the Immortals ! No age is so dark as to quench entirely the light of the Lodge; no persecution so bloody as to blot out its votaries; no anathemas of Pope so lasting as to count one second on the Dial of Time! These, one and all, serve only to keep the people (the masses who are weak and fearful) in darkness and retard the reign of Universal Brotherhood. Therefore, for humanity – the Great Orphan – the real Master laments. He smiles at the passions of Popes or Kings (the while he appears cowed and humble though laboring for the overthrow of their pitiless and inhuman rule) and pities the folly (and weakness) of man. He only waits (abides his time), indifferent as to (immediate) results, knowing these to be under eternal law, but ready and willing, whenever and wherever the instruction entering the listening ear may find lodgment in the faithful breast. For ages, Kings, Popes and Synods have done their best to kill this Secret Doctrine by anathematizing or burning its Masters (and all these have passed away, mostly forgotten, while the Secret Doctrine remains and has given a New Interpreter to humanity).

“Hiram Abiff is dramatically represented as having lost his life when the Temple was near completion (the mortal man is transmuted – gives his life – into the spiritual and as the Temple is finally completed, the mortal has become the immortal – this is Biblically illustrated) and yet it is recorded that after the completion (spiritualization or Immortalization) of the Temple, he labored for years to construct and ornament a palace for the King.

(Although transmutation has taken place and the Soul has attained Consciousness, Mastership is not yet fully attained, there is yet much to be done – ornamentation – in the final attainment to Godhead – the finishing of the place or palace of the King). Add to these facts the statement that the temple was constructed without the sound of hammer or any tool of iron, and it is thus likened still more to that other spiritual temple, `not made with hands, eternal in the heavens’ (heaven – a state of peace and harmony – which may exist anywhere), and the literal and historical features disappear, and the symbolism stands out in bold relief.” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

“Masonic Lodges are dedicated to the Sts. John, one of whom, the Evangelist, opens his Gnostic Gospel with the Greek Philosophy of the Logos, the principles of emanation already referred to; and the other, the Seer of Patmos, writes a book symbolic of ancient initiations, which many a non- initiate has tried in vain to interpret. It may thus be seen that there is a deep significance in the Dedication of Lodges to the Sts. John. Take, for example, Revelation 21:16- 17: `And the city lieth four- square, and the length is as large as the breadth; and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length, and the breadth and the height are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, an angel.’ The language is a veil, designed to conceal the real meaning from the uninitiated. As `the measure of a man,’ that is, a perfect (regenerated) man or `angel’ (Initiated), we have the cube as a symbol of perfect proportion. Hence, a square (just) man. The temple of Sol- om- on, the Cubical City, which unfolded becomes a cross (symbolic of the suffering natural to the transmutation which results in rebirth – regeneration – and consequent Salvation, Immortality, or Conscious Individuality, which is Godhood). And hence, the `measure of a man’ – all these refer, as we have stated, to the labors of regeneration or Initiation. The rebuilding of the Temple (development of the Soul in man) after the plan drawn upon the Trestle board (primary plan of the Creator when the Soul was permitted to descend and take up its abode in the body of man which was to serve as a vehicle for the necessary experience whereby Consciousness might be gained), by which it shall be like that spiritual temple not made with hands, plainly refers to initiation from which results perfect proportion and spiritual harmony.” – Ancient Mystic Masonry.

“A very limited knowledge of the history of primitive worship and the Mysteries is necessary to enable any person to recognize in the Master Mason, Hiram, the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Mithras of the Persians, the Bacchus of the Greeks, the Atys of the Phrygians, of which these people (centuries before the first century) celebrated the passion, death and resurrection, as Christians celebrate today that of Jesus. Otherwise, this is the eternal and unvarying type of all the religions which have succeeded each other (at regular intervals) upon the earth.

“In an astronomical interpretation, Hiram is the representative of the Sun, the symbol of his apparent progress, which appearing at the south gate, so to speak, is smote down and more downward as he advances toward the west, which passing, he is immediately vanquished and put to death by darkness, represented, in following the same allegory, by the spirit of evil; returning, he rises again, conqueror and resurrected.” – Reybold, History of Freemasonry.

“Khurum, improperly called (translated) Hiram, is Khurom, the same as Her- ra, Hermes, and Heracles, the personification of Light and the Sun, the Mediator, Redeemer and Savior.” – Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma.

“Modern Masonry being (a rebirth or reconstruction of) Ancient genuine Mysteries, the writer has no design of reading into it a meaning which cannot be fully verified. For the greater part, modern Masons are dealing with symbols, the Key for the real interpretation of which they never possessed or even suspected (except in rare instances) that it existed. It remains for the future to determine whether any considerable number of our Masonic Brethren really desire to possess in fuller measure the Living Truth which the dead- letter text conceals. That living truth does exist, and is as accessible to every Mason as is the dead letter or the dumb show under which it masquerades in every lodge.” – Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

The Mysticism of Masonry

Chapter II – The Fundamentals of All Masonic Institutions and the Ancient Mysteries Are One

The Order of the Architects of Africa or the African Brothers The African Master Builders was an order composed of educated and well- principled men in search of the inner secrets of the Mysteries. Their lodges continued open from about 1756 to 1786. Only one of the Grand Masters, Koeppen, the Councillor of War, a European Rosicrucian, was known.

The Society had a Masonic Form. It professed to be devoted to the discovery of truth and the cultivation of virtue. The brethren set forth that: “When the architects were by wars reduced to a very small number, they determined to travel together into Europe and there to form, together, new establishments. Many of them came into England with Prince Edward, son of Henry III and were shortly afterwards called into Scotland by Lord Stewart.

Their installation in this kingdom falls about the Masonic year 2307.” – Macoy and Oliver, History and Cyclopedia of Freemasonry.

The African Builders were frankly devoted to the unraveling of the Ancient Mysteries. To this task they devoted most of their time, the ritual of the Order being a secondary consideration. The name itself reveals this.

There were five stages of initiation into their Apprentice’s degree: 1- The Apprentice to the Egyptian Secret, Menes Musae; 2- The Initiation into the Egyptian Secret; 3- The Cosmopolite; 4- The Christian (Christic) Philosopher; 5- The Lover of Truth.

The higher degrees, of which there were three, followed these. They had Chapters whose officers were selected for life.

They called themselves the Africans because their studies began with the history of the Egyptians, in whose mysteries they found indications of the Freemasonry of the day, although they place its modern establishment much later.

Their customs were both simple and noble. They never laid stress on decorations, aprons, ribbons, jewels and the like but sought a certain luxury, and inscriptions with sublime but hidden meanings. In their assemblies they read treatises and communicated to each other the results of their researches.

Their banquets were simple, decorum always prevailed, and instructive and scientific discourses were given at them.

Admissions were given without fee the work being maintained by set donations.

The Order was established in Prussia, 1767, with the assent of Frederick II, called the Great.

Its degrees, to the number of eleven, were divided into two temples, namely- FIRST TEMPLE 1. Apprentice.

2. Companion.

3. Master.

This First Temple, under later Mystic Masonry and the Modern Masonic rite, is known as the Blue Lodge.

SECOND TEMPLE(Manes Musae) 4. Architect or Apprentice of the Egyptian Secrets.

5. Initiate of the Egyptian Secrets.

6. Cosmopolitan Brother.

7. Christian Philosopher (Bossinius).

8. Master of the Egyptian Secrets, Alethophilote (Friend of Truth) 9. Armiger.

10. Miles.

11. Eques.

Under Mystic Masonry or the Fraternity of Osiris, these Degrees became known as- SECOND TEMPLE 4. Grand Master of the Secret Manuscripts.

5 King’s Pioneer.

6. Master of the Secret Cavern.

HIGHER DEGREES The four Degrees conferred in the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid. Name never mentioned or written for the profane world to read.

In the year 1806, only one Chapter of this system remained working and from this Chapter came the authority by right of succession and Ordination of the present Order.

When Frederick II came to the throne, he found that Freemasonry had retrograded and, being fully aware of what it might be, he conceived the idea of an inner circle which might take the place of a Masonic Academy. He therefore selected a certain number of those Masons who were capable of comprehending his ideas and were possessed of the Key to the Ancient Mysteries. Among these are to be noticed, the brothers Stahl, Meyerotto and du Basc. They instituted this new organization under the name of a Society which had existed in the tenth century – The Architects of Africa – and established statutes in accordance with the views of the King, who, on his side, granted privileges. In 1768, he caused to be erected in Silesia, by his architect, Meil, a building especially designed for the Grand Chapter, endowed it with an ample fund, choice library and rich furniture, the whole being of an elegance worthy of the Order and the King.

This Order, without pretending to dominion, teaching tolerance, professing the primitive principles of Freemasonry and making a special study of its history, prospered in silence and in complete freedom. Its chief statutes were to fear God only, to honor the King (the ruler or governor of any country in which they might reside), to be discreet and to exercise universal tolerance toward all Masonic sects without affiliating itself with any. It was for this reason that they never submitted to the Act of Obedience of the Baron de Hund, notwithstanding all the entreaties that were made to them to do so. It is stated on good authority that Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick was refused because he meddled with sectarian affairs. They devoted themselves to active researches into the history of the Mysteries, the secret societies and their various branches, and cultivated the sciences, chiefly mathematics. Their works, written frequently in Latin, obtained a high tone of morality and their inculcations were unostentatious but solid.

Their library and their archives, through the protection of the king and through persons of distinction, among them the Prince von Lichtenstein, at Vienna, obtained some real treasures of manuscripts and documents such as no other Masonic branch could boast.

“Few monarchs more thoroughly protected the Mystic Schools within the Masonic body than did Frederick II of Prussia, well named `the Great.’ Not only did he protect them but he also actively sympathized with them. While still Crown Prince, he was initiated as a Mason at Brunswick, in August, 1738, and from that period was the staunch protector of the Masonic Fraternity; nor did he omit to penetrate very deeply into the early traditions of Masonry, far more so, indeed, than many who have had fewer duties to engage their time.

“Frederick the Great, however, was by no means the vague and dreamy Mystic of popular representation. His Academy and Schools were the centers of the most brilliant intellects of the period, while the choice of his friends, literary, philosophical and mystic, testifies to the breadth of his knowledge and also illustrates the manifold sympathies of his nature, as soldier, mystic, philosopher and scholar. Though not saintly, by any means, he was thoroughly appreciative of ideals that were beyond him.

“His sympathy with mystics (not the fakers and charlatans of modern times but real scholars of the Sacred Science) is evidenced by his selection of a librarian, for he gave that post at the Royal Public Library in Berlin, with the title of Academician, to Don Anroine Joseph Pernetty – or Pernty, a man who had been a Benedictine monk of the Congregation of Saint- Maur but who, having become – like many others – dissatisfied with the Order, had applied to the Pope for a dispensation from his vows. This was no obstacle in the eyes of the King, deeply interested as he was in the researches of this well- known Hermetist and Alchemist.

“A writer of the period says: `A remarkable trait in the character of this Academician was that he believed in the Philosopher’s Stone, the mysteries of the Cabala, apparitions, patagonians, witches, enchantments, the race of giants, etc. But notwithstanding this inconceivable and ridiculous weakness, he was beloved by everyone and the more so that, to his other excellent qualities, he joined that of the most perfect discretion in regard to such affairs as were at any time confided to his secrecy; never did a word from his lips give room for the smallest explanation or disagreement.'” – Mrs.

Cooper- Oakley, Hidden Sources of Masonry.

Such is the comment on this Mystic’s character by one who, although adverse to his beliefs and opinions, nevertheless renders justice to a personality which some traduced because they failed to agree with his conclusions or creed.

Don Pernetty was for some time in personal relationship with M. de St.

Germain, the Initiate- Mystic. Later on, he founded the Academie des Illumines d’Avignon, in which the last Supreme Grand Master of the Oriental Degrees of Masonry and Fraternity Sons of Osiris was once a Manes and which was essentially Hermetic in its aims and has a close connection with the Swedish system. This was a secret body but it was also under the general Masonic regulations.

The most succinct account of the opinions held by the leading Freemasons in Germany, at this juncture, is given by Findel, who, although a pronounced antagonist, shows lucidly the underlying mystic basis. It is of value to these researches to quote his testimony in full, illustrating as it unwittingly does, the hypothesis put forward, namely, that all the Societies similar to the African Brothers, the Fratres Lucis and others of like calibre, were but the outward manifestations of hidden forces which were attempting to indoctrinate the whole Masonic body with true spiritual, mental and moral Mystic knowledge because the Masonic body, as such, already had lost the Key to its own symbolism and none but the genuine Initiates held the Key.

“In the building fraternities of the middle ages, besides their art, a secret science was carried on, the substratum of which was a real Christian mystery, serving as a preparatory or elementary school and stepping stone to that and the St. John’s Masonry, which latter was not a mere system of moral philosophy but closely allied and connected with this mystery. It was conceded that the Freemasonry of our days (St. John’s) sprang from the building guilds of the middle ages but at the same time asserted that in the early ages there existed a secret society which strove to compass the perfecting of the human race precisely in the same manner and by the employment of similar means as did the Swedish system. This latter but followed in the wake of its predecessor, being concealed in the building fraternities, so that our Society did not rise from them but made itself a way through them. This mystery formed the secret of the higher degrees of the Rite, which degrees not merely were kept hidden from the rest of the confederation but also from the members of the inferior degrees of the system itself. This mystery was fully confirmed by documents which the Grand Lodge of Germany had in its keeping.” – Cooper- Oakley, Hidden Source of Masonry.

This legend is identical with that of the Carpocratians, which is, that Jesus chose some of the Apostles and confided to them a Secret Science which afterwards was transmitted to the Priests of the Order of the Knights Templars and, through them, to the building fraternities down to the present Freemasons of the Swedish Rite. The Swedish system teaches that there have been men of all nations who have worshipped God in Spirit and in Truth and, though surrounded by idolatry and superstition, yet have preserved their pure faith.

Separated from the world and unknown to it, this Wisdom has been preserved by these men and handed down as a Mystery.

In the time of the Jews these men made use of the Essenes, in which sect Jesus was brought up. With them he spent the greater part of his life. Later, having been instructed by him in a more perfect knowledge of Holy things, amidst persecution they had taught in Silence that which had been committed to their keeping. At the period of the Saracens and the Crusades, they were so greatly oppressed that they must ultimately have sought for protection from without. As fate, however, would have it, seven of them, Syriac Christians, pursued by unbelievers near Bastrum, were rescued by the Knights Templars and afterwards taken under their protection. When they had lived there for a certain time, they begged for permission to dwell with the Canons or Prebendaries of Jerusalem, as the life there led agreed better with their own inclinations and habits. This was accorded them and Andreas Montebarrensis effected a union of these Syrians with the Canons, to whom, out of gratitude, they imparted all their science. So completely did they make the priests of the order the depositories of their secrets, that they kept them and handed them over to others, under conditions.

Thus, this same secret knowledge which was being added to continually, lived on in the very heart of the Order of the original Knights Templars until its abolition. Among these Templars were many Rosicrucians who handed the secret knowledge down from Initiate to Initiate. As it has been impossible to abolish the Rosicrucian Fraternity from any country for the good reason that it is very seldom that a true Rosicrucian is known to any one but a few of the Brethren, consequently the Secret Science never has been interrupted, as has been the case with the organization of every other Order.

The Initiators (teachers and those who train Aspirants) were dispersed with the persecution that ensued but, as the secular arm did not touch them as it did the Knights, they managed to conserve their secret writings and, when the Knights sought refuge in Scotland, they founded a chapter at Aberdeen, the first Prior of which was Petrus deBononia. The Science was disseminated from this point – but very cautiously – first to Italy, then to the extreme North (Sweden and Russia) and finally to France. In Italy, Abbot Severin had been the Guardian of the True Science of the Occult or Initiate Masters.

“Although it is acknowledged by every unbiased student, that Freemasonry has a wonderful resemblance to the Eleusinian and Dionysian Mysteries, the Fraternity of Ionian Architects and the Essenian and Phythagorean Association, yet some are disposed to question the identity of these institutions merely because they had different names and because some of the usages were observed by one which were neglected by another.

“These circumstances of dissimilarity arose from those necessary changes which are superinduced upon every institution by a spirit of innovation (or necessity), by the caprice of individuals and by various revolutions within civilized society. (Frequently `civilized’ is a term covering superficial culture which is destructive at heart). Every alteration or (seeming) improvement in philosophical systems or ceremonial institutions generally produces a corresponding variation in their names this following from the nature of the improvement or from the name of the innovator.

“The different associations, for example, whose nature and tendency we have been considering, received their names from circumstances merely casual and often of trifling consideration, though all of them were established for the same purpose and derived originally from the same source. When the mysteries of the Essenes were imported by Pythagoras into Italy, without undergoing much variation, they were denominated the Mysteries of Pythagoras. In our own day, they (the exoteric portion which constitutes the ritual) are called the Secrets of Freemasonry because many of their symbols are derived from the art of building and because they are believed to have been invented by an association of architects who were anxious to preserve among themselves the knowledge which they had acquired.” – M. Lawrie.

“The Dionysia or Mysteries of Bacchus were intimately connected with those of Ceres and perhaps still more with (original) Freemasonry. The rites came from Egypt (Osirian) and there, according to Plutarch, Ceres was the Egyptian Isis and Bacchus was (none other than) Osiris.

“The Dionysian artificers or architects were an association of scientific men who were incorporated by command of the Kings of Pergamus into a corporate body, some three hundred years B. C. They had the city of Teos given to them.

The members of this association, which was intimately connected with the Dionysian mysteries, were distinguished from the uninitiated inhabitants of Teos by their Science and by words and signs by which they could recognize their Brethren of the Order. Like Freemasons, they were divided into Lodges which were characterized by different names.

“Such was the nature of that association of architects who erected those splendid edifices in Ionia, whose ruins even now afford us instruction while they excite our surprise. If it be possible to prove the identity of any two societies from the similarity of their external forms, we are authorized to conclude that the Fraternity of the Ionian architects and the Fraternity of Freemasons are exactly the same; and as the former practiced the mysteries of Bacchus and Ceres, several of which we have shown to be similar to the mysteries of Masonry, we may safely affirm that, in their internal as well as external procedure, the Society of Freemasons resembles the Dionysians of Asia Minor.

“We have already shown from authentic sources of information, that the mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus were instituted about four hundred years before the reign of Solomon. According to Playfair’s Chronology, the Temple of Solomon was begun in 1016 and finished in 1008 B. C. The Eleusinian Mysteries were introduced into Athens in 1356 B. C., a considerable time after their institution . . . and there are strong reasons for believing that even the association of the Dionysian architects existed before the building of the Temple (a place of worship and initiation known in sacred and profane writings as Solomon’s Temple).

“It was, indeed, not until about three hundred years before the birth of Jesus that they were incorporated at Teos under the Kings of Pergamos; but it is universally allowed that they arose long before their settlement in Ionia and, what is more to our present purpose, that they existed in every land in Judea.

“The difference in the ceremonial observances of these institutions may be accounted for nearly upon the same principles. From the ignorance or superior sagacity of those who presided over the ancient fraternities, some ceremonies would be insisted upon more than others, some of less moment would be exalted into consequence, while others of greater importance would be depressed into obscurity. In process of time, therefore, some trifling changes would be effected upon these ceremonies, some rites abolished and some rites introduced. The chief difference, however, between the ancient and modern Mysteries, is in those points which concern religion but this arises from the great changes which have been produced in religious observances.

“It cannot be supposed that the rites of the Egyptian, Jewish and Grecian religions should be observed by those who profess only the religion inculcated by Jesus; or that we should pour out libations to Ceres and Bacchus, who acknowledge no heavenly superior but the true and living God.” – Alexander Lawrie, The History of Freemasonry.

“The Ancient Wisdom Religion is the `thread- soul’ on which are strung all the various incarnations and encasements of the religious life, adapted to the changing conditions and development of humanity in its growth from childhood to manhood.

“Begotten by that Spiritual Hierarchy – the Great White Brotherhood – in whose guardianship is the evolution of the human race, brought forth from them, they, the guardians of the mystic tradition, give to those children of men who are strong enough for the burden, a portion of the real teachings of the Divine Science (the Science of the Soul) concerning God and man, and the wonderful relationship that exists between the two.

“With the passing of time, the old Orders changed, old forms perished and the Divine Sun that shone on the ever changing screen of time, veiled itself in new hues and gathered into new groupings the humanity of the Western races and each century which rolled by evolved a new phase of the Ancient Mystic tradition.

“Religious parties, Secret Societies, sects of every description, such is the shifting panorama of the religious life of the world during the last eighteen hundred years. And as we glance back from our present standpoint, it is difficult at times to discern the Mystic traditions, unless one has the Key, so loud is the clamor of contending sects over their formal doctrines, the outward expressions of their inward faiths.

“A word may be said here to guard against one error that might arise in regard to the Spiritual Hierarchy before mentioned, the guardians of the world’s religions. It is from this great Communion that the World Saviours have from time to time come forth and from this Center have sprung all the `Sons of God’ – for there have been many `Sons of God,’ not one alone as some firmly believe.

“The building of form – even religious form – is materializing in its tendency and thus we see that in all the centuries subsequent to the inception of Christianity, the tendency of every `reformation’ has been to throw back, if possible, to the original standard erected by the Founder.

“On careful investigation, we find, for instance, Jesus responsible for certain high and pure ideals, insistence being made on a holy obedience to the whole Law of life leading to the Divine goal.

“The doctrine and elaborations which were later introduced arose in every case from the followers who brought in their more worldly aims and transformed thereby the purity and simplicity of the early ideal into an ornate body with worldly passions and constant striving for mundane power.

“Hence we find at the end of the nineteenth century, on one side, the Catholic Church, on the other, the Protestant and between the extremes of these doctrinal communities, a fluctuating, ever- increasing body of thinkers, formed by the Mystics and Idealists of both parties, who, from century to century, have been at variance with their `orthodox’ brethren, seeking a higher truth, a purer ideal than those offered by the dogmatists.” – Cooper- Oakley, Masonry and Mysticism, “The doctrines hidden in the Secret Fraternities, no matter what the name, have been handed down in regular succession from first to last. We can see that the esoteric teachings in Atlantis, then in Egypt, in Persia and in Greece, were kept from the ears of an illiterate multitude precisely because it was known that they could not, in their uneducated and ignorant condition, understand the deeper truths of Nature and of God. Hence the secrecy with which these pearls of great price were guarded and handed on, with slight modifications, into the possession of the real, early Christians, the Gnostics (followers of the Gnosis – the Christos – who not merely believed but who lived the doctrine), the so- called heretics; then straight from the Gnostic schools of Spria and Egypt to their successors, the Manichæans, and from these through the Paulicians, Albigenses and Templars to the Hermetics, then to the Rosicrucians – the last order of great men before the era of the Manistic Age, now here – and the other less powerful Secret Fraternities, these occult traditions or rather, Occult Truths, have been bequeathed to the Mystic bodies of the present time. Persecuted by Protestants on the one side and by Catholics on the other, the history of Mysticism is a history of martyrdom.

“These principal streams of religious thought can be traced distinctly as we struggle through the labyrinth of evidence and they may not inappropriately be termed the Petrine, Pauline and Johannine doctrines, the last being the fountain- head of all the latter Mystical heresies. The Johannine doctrine caused great excitement in the fourteenth century. It must be borne in mind that the true Occultism, the real Mysticism, is essentially religious in its nature and observances. Students must not be surprised to find that some of the historical religious sects had their foundation in Occultism and Mysticism, the Occult doctrines of the Gnostics being heirlooms and sacred traditions from a very distant past and, when the early Christian era dawned, the human race long had been plunged in the darkening and materializing tendencies of the Black Ages. As form and ceremonialism took the place of the spirit of the Christic religious observances and practices, the Gnosis was rejected by the orthodox church (the church of form and dead letters) and the sacred and secret teachings of the Great Master Jesus (the Nazarene) became materialized. However, they never have been lost and traces of them can be discerned from epoch to epoch.

“The primary Masonic movement, to state it generally, was at first a broad, semi- mystic and largely moral movement worked from certain centers unknown to the refounders, and deriving its origin from the Ancient and not- generally- known basis.

“Its basis was and is unknown to all of those who do not recognize a definitely spiritual guidance in the practical, mental and moral development which from time to time changes the surface by the introduction of new factors into the evolving process of which life consists. Researches into Masonic literature must be made in many languages and countries before this view can be established firmly for the general world. To students of Mysticism who are also partial to Masonry, it becomes more and more apparent that the movement which is generally termed Masonic, had its roots in the true Mysticism which originated, as an Ideal effort, from the Spiritual Hierarchy which guides the evolution of the world and which, when the time is ripe, ever is ready to give a New Messenger and a New Interpretation to mankind. However much the branches may be separated from the root idea, there is, nevertheless, a Mystic teaching in Masonry for those who will seek below the immediate surface.

“The Ancients of Atlantis preserved not less than sixteen distinct Secret Orders, all of which constituted at the time of the advent of Poseidon to the Kingdom of Atlantis, the Great White Circle. What is now known as the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross was recognized as the very highest of these Orders, by virtue of their knowledge of the hidden forces throughout Nature.

This Order of men was given to rule the destiny of institutions and nations.

Some became renegades, as even now happens, and thus brought about the destruction of themselves and of the most glorious nation that ever existed.

“With the destruction of Atlantis, this perfection of order and organization was destroyed, and history from this event onward conveys only scattering glimpses of these various Orders, all of which, while preserving some remote impressions of their former relationship, generally have lost trace one of the other.” John A. Weiss, M. D., in his book, Obelisk and Freemasonry, says: “According to our reading of history, the Priesthoods of Belus or Baal in Assyria, of Osiris in Egypt, of Jehovah in Palestine, of Jupiter in Greece and Rome, of Ahura- Mazda in Persia, of Brahma in India and of Teutates in Britain, were primitive Secret Societies which instructed and governed the primitive families and races. It little matters whether we call the members of those priesthoods Belites, Pastophori, Levites, Magi, Brahmins or Druids – they were connected by Secret Ties and intercommunicated from the Indus to the Tiber, from the Nile to the Thames. Hence there ever has been, is and ever will be Freemasonry on our planet. Masonry was ever more or less connected with priesthoods until about the thirteenth century of our era when Masons declared themselves Freimaurer (Freemasons). Since about that period, priesthoods (governed by orthodoxical systems) ever have denounced and persecuted Freemasonry.” A thoughtful consideration of our principal ceremony, irresistibly leads us to the doctrine that was typified by the Pastos in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, and connects with the main characteristic of all the Mysteries, which embodied the highest truths then known to the Illuminated ones.

“The twelfth century witnessed an outbreak of Mystic symbolism, perhaps unparalleled in our era, which gave us the religious legends of the Holy Grail and which point to an Eastern origin. This period coincides with the greatest popularity of the Templars.

“Some portions, at least, of our symbolism may have come through a Templar source, Romanist, yet deeply tinged with Gnosticism; while at a later date, the Lollards, inheritors of Manichæism, who were but one of the many religio- political societies with which Europe was honeycombed, possibly introduced or revived some of these teachings. One thing is certain, that satisfactory rendering of our symbols can be obtained only by a study of Eastern Mysticism – Kabballistic, Hermetic, Pythagorean and Gnostic.

“Down the centuries we find enrolled the names of Philosophic teachers who veiled their doctrines in figures similar to those in vogue among the Rosicrucians and still more recent students, and often identical with the signs we blazon on the walls of our Lodges and Chapters.” – Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, London, 1890.

“About the year 200 A. D., the most noteworthy Gnostic sect was a Persian branch, the Manichees. It was divided into three classes – Auditors, Elect and Perfect. The sect was governed by twelve Apostles with a thirteenth as President. Manichcæism was always a source of trouble for the Church. St.

Augustine, between the years 374 and 383 A. D., was an `Auditor’ but was not permitted to advance and so abandoned the system. (This accounts for his bitterness toward all the Mysteries and Fraternities). The Rite had an Alchemical Gospel which taught that the basis of all religion was one. In 657, they had changed their name to Paulicians and later to Cathari (the Purified), Euchites, Bogomiles and, in still more recent times, Lollards. We could quote numberless authors of the early period of the church to prove the origin of these sects from the Eastern Magi but it is unnecessary and space forbids. They were a secret speculative society with degrees, distinguished by signs, tokens and works like Freemasonry, and the church of Rome from the fourth to the present century, has hated them with the hatred of death, butchering (St. Bartholomew’s) and burning them by tens of thousands; for the church (various denominations) under the name of Christianity, has shed more blood than any other faith. Yet the fathers often admit their purity of life but that was their sin against a corrupt priesthood and unpardonable. The (early) Templars were Gnostics, on the evidence of the Papal trials in 1313, and Hugh, G. M., 1118, is said to have received initiation from Theocletus, Patriarch of St. John the Baptist and the Codex Nazareus.” – John Yarker, Records and Documents of Freemasonry.

“The days of Constantine were the turning points in history. The period of the supreme struggle that ended in the Western world throttling the old religion in favor of the new ones, built on their bodies (and of the macerated material). From thence the vista into the far- distant past, beyond the `deluge’ and the `Garden of Eden,’ began, forcibly and relentlessly, to be closed by every fair and unfair means against the indiscreet gaze of posterity. Every issue was blocked up, every record that hands could be laid upon, destroyed.

“This same Constantine who, with his soldiers, environed the Bishops at the Council of Nice, A. D. 325, and dictated terms to their deliberations, applied for Initiation into the Mysteries and was told by the Officiating Priest that no purgation could free him from the crime of putting his wife to death or from his many perjuries and murders. Every careful and unbiased student of history knows why the Secret Doctrine has been heard of so little since the days of Constantine. An exoteric religion and belief in a personal God blotted it out for self- protection. And yet, O, irony of history! the very Pentateuch conceals it and for many present- century students of the Kabalah, the seals will be broken.” – J. D. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

“Three centuries had passed since the origin of Christianity when at this epoch of barbarism there arose in the same Persia whence so many teachings had gone forth, a philosopher who wished to lead back the confused spirit of men to the cult of the only true God. He was called Manes. Some of the uninstructed have regarded him as the originator of our (Masonic) Order and the formulator of our doctrines.

“Manes lived under the Persian King Sopares. He endeavored to recall to life in their entire purity, the Mysteries and the religion of Zoroaster, harmonizing them with the pure compassionate teachings of Jesus the Nazarene.

The teachings of Manes were liberal, whereas superstition and despotism governed Europe. It is easy to believe that those who professed demagogic principles and a religion free from all that was chimerical would be persecuted. Thus the Manichæans, from about the fourth century, were persecuted to the fullest by all the despots and by the Romish Priests. The Holy Augustine, brought up in the mysteries of Zoroaster – to a certain point – adapted to the holy teachings of Jesus, became his bitterest persecutor and the greatest enemy to the teachings of Manes which was known under the religion of the Child of the Widow.

“This hatred shown toward Manes by St. Augustine and his zeal to the Christian Trinity doctrine – after he had been refused admission to the higher degrees of the Mysteries – arose in the vexation which Augustine experienced at having been admitted only into the first degree of Manes. The Magi, who had recognized in him an ambitious and restless spirit, were thereby induced to refuse to him all further advancement and this in spite of his nine years of study which he had made in order to be raised to the higher degree. This fact is sufficiently confirmed by Fleury, Baronius and by Augustine himself, in his confessions. After the death of Manes, twelve of his pupils went forth into all parts of the earth and imparted his teachings and his mysteries to all people. They illumined, as with a lightning- flash, Asia, Africa, Bayle and others.

“Already in the lifetime of Manes, his pupil Herman had spread his teachings in Egypt, where Coptic priests and other Christians mingled it with the mysteries adopted by the Jews. It was through these same Coptic priests and the Eastern Christians, that both the mysteries of the Children of the Widow, and the cult of the great Architect came to us in consequence of apparently unforeseen events and it will be seen that it was principally by means of the Crusades that they obtained a secure footing in the West. The mysteries maintained their existence under the name of the cult of the Great Architect of the Universe, G. A. O. T. U., a name that had its origin in the allegory of Hiram, which represented, in the Mysteries, `The unknown God,’ the Eternal, the sole Creator of all things and the Regenerator of all beings.

“Bossuet, in his Historie des Variations, IV, says that in the middle ages the Christian sects, and especially the Manichæans and Gnostics, had concealed themselves as much as possible in the Orthodox church itself; the remainder of the Manichæans who had maintained themselves only too well in the East, crowded into the Latin church. Montfaucon, VII, p. 271, says, when he speaks of the religion of the Egyptians, that the heresy of the good and evil principles which had been upheld by Manichæans, at various times had brought forth in the Church great disorder, and he asserts that in the East . . .

these doctrines existed at the time of the Crusades . . . the long time that had elapsed during the wars of the Crusaders gave them the opportunity of being admitted into all the mysteries of the Children of the Widow, the teachings of the `Great Architect of the World,’ and of both principles….

The Crusaders, who had been admitted to the mysteries of the Children of the Widow and initiated therein, imparted them, on their return home, to their pupils in Europe…. During the sojourn of the Crusaders with the Mussulmans, all kinds of theological investigations were instituted. These led the Crusaders deeper into the faith of the Great Architect of the World, G. A. O.

T. W.

“In spite of the religious changes that followed upon the conquests of the Saracens in Asia and Europe; despite the persecutions introduced by them, the doctrine of the Unity of God was able to maintain itself by means of the Mysteries in Palestine, Syria and Egypt, more especially, however, in the neighborhood of Thebes, for here the Christians and Coptic priests preserved in the lap of their solitude, the teachings communicated to them by Herman, the pupil of Manes, a teaching which later passed over into Europe.” – Reghellini da Schio, Paris, 1883.

“It is proved that the Emperor Rudolph I, even in the year 1275, authorized an Order of Masons, whilst Pope Nicholas III, in the year 1278, granted to the Brotherhood of Stonemasons at Strausburg, a letter of Indulgence, which was renewed by all his successors down to Benedict XII, in 1340. The oldest order of German Masons arises in the year 1397; next follow the so- called Vienna Witnesses of 1412, 1430 and 1435; then the Strassburg Order of Lodges, 1495; that of Torgau of 1462, and finally sixteen different Orders on to 1500, and to the following centuries for Spires, Regensburg, Saxon- Altenburg, Strassburg, Vienna and the Tyrol.

“At this period the Roman church appears to have made various futile efforts to retain a hold upon these Masons but without tangible results. For the forces at the back of these movements prevented the destruction of a new free spiritual growth by the Roman power. At this period also came those great souls, burning for freedom, who worked the Reformation, such as John Tauler, the famous Dominican, who formed a Mystical Fraternity, the members of which recognized each other by secret signs. Then we have Nicholas of Basle, with his four disciples, the beginning of the `Friends of God.’ These men kept watch on all that was going on in the world, and they had special messengers who had certain secret signs, by which they recognized each other. Nicholas was burned as a heretic. Although these reforms were dwarfed of their full growth by the natural crudity and narrowness of the human mind, nevertheless the dogmatic and mind- killing power of Rome was materially thwarted, and the spirit of the teachings of the Master Jesus set free from these trammels.

“Equally important in the formation of Freemasonry were certain religious communities and brotherhoods of the Middle Ages, which for the most part aimed at a return to the pure teachings of Jesus, and at making its ethical form familiar to their adherents. One of these brotherhoods was that of the Waldenses, established by Peter Waldo in the year 1170, at Lyons. Their aim was the restitution of the original purity of the church through the adoption of voluntary poverty, and other ascetic practices. But because of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, they soon came into conflict with the Catholic church, and as early as 1134, Pope Lucias III excommunicated them, and Sextus IV, in 1477, proclaimed a Crusade against them. In spite of these attacks they have kept alive up to the present day, and have spread into several countries, namely, into Italy, France and Bohemia, and in this latter country we meet them again under the name `Bohemian Brothers.’ “Bohemia and Hungary were fertile soil for Mystic Bodies and Orders of Occult tendencies. Among them were: `Die Bruder von Reif und Hammer,’ or `Brothers of the Circle and Hammer,’ `Die Hackebrudershaft,’ or `The Brotherhood of the Hatchet,’ `Die Freunde Vom Kreuz,’ or `Friends of the Cross.’ This last society spread into the Netherlands and had its greatest success in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The `Brothers of the Cross’ were still holding their meetings in 1785; they had many members in Wallachia, and still more in Transylvania. Brabbee, in his Masonic studies, says: “It consisted principally of older men and those who were generally reputed wise, and therefore of the prominent leaders of the Brotherhood, who here in the Metropolis of the Kingdom, formed a kind of stronghold in the `Inner East.'” “This last paragraph is worthy of our notice, for it indicates how the minds of men were turning, even in Masonic circles, to the Eastern teachings.

A great moulding force was exercised at this period on the form of Freemasonry by Jan Amos Komensky (latinized Comenius), who was born at Brunn, in Bohemia, in 1592, and who became a Chaplain of the Bohemian Brothers in 1618. When the civil wars began, Komensky lost wife, child and property, and was exiled from Austria like all other non- Catholics. He escaped to Poland, turned his thoughts to educational matters and became famous in Sweden, Hungary and England.

“Komensky was actively interested in the Rosicrucian movement and joined John Valentinus Andreas, the reformer and re- founder of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, in his work in that Mystical body. In 1650, Komensky was invited to Hungary and Transylvania by the Prince Ragozcy, where he stayed four years.

It is doubtless partly owing to his influence that the Rosicrucian movement spread so widely in these countries. His philosophical and metaphysical views were so widely spread, that when Anderson wrote his book on Freemasonry, he incorporated in his work a compilation of the most essential portions of the plans of Komensky.

“It was reserved for an Austrian, a Moravian schoolmaster, the Chaplain of the Bohemian Brothers, to bestow ethical treasures upon a brotherhood in proud Albion, the home of the boldest intellects; to formulate the ideas and to point out the way for a league which – after its transformation – was destined to embrace the noblest of all nations and ordained to influence the whole of humanity.

“The spread of Mysticism in Austria and Hungary was astonishingly rapid; according to von Andree, about five per cent of the entire population belonged to the Freemasons, Rosicrucians and other allied societies.

“In a German tract, printed about 1803 and bound up with another tract called `Geschichte der Freimaurerei’ – Order of Freemasons – occur the following statements which the true Masonic student will find very valuable and which indicate, as does all literature of any value, that the Rosicrucians were the real leaven in all Masonic organizations:

1. “The Templars worked with the so- called `Magical Brethren’at an early period of their existence.

2. “A Rosicrucian manuscript states that at Cologne, with the motto, `non Omnis Moriar,’ this Magical Union was created in 1115.

3. “A manuscript of Michael Mayer’s still exists in the University Library at Leyden, which sets forth that in 1570 the society of the old Magical Brethren, or `Wise Men,’ was revived under the name of the Brethren of the Golden Rosy Cross (still in existence). “It is asserted that in 1563, the Statutes of the Brotherhood were, on the 22nd of September, at Basle, at a meeting of seventy- two Masters of Lodges, revised, set forth and printed; that the Lodges of Swabia, Hesse, Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, Thuringia and those on the Moselle, acknowledged the headship of the Grand Lodge of Strassburg. That in the eighteenth century, Lodges of Dresden and Nuremberg were fined by the Grand Master of Strassburg and that the Grand Lodge of Vienna or Hungary, and Stirrmark, the Grand Lodge of Zurich, which ruled the Swiss Lodges, referred to the Mother Lodge of Strassburg in all different and doubtful matters.” – According to the writings of Ludwig Abafi on Pre- historic Masonry.

There can be no doubt that the Magical Union above mentioned did exist as an organized Secret Society. The correspondence of Cornelius Agrippa von Nettersheim shows that he was a member of such a Society (Militia Crucifera Evangelica) and it is further asserted that when he visited London he established a branch of it in that city. Fludd, the Rosicrucian, as showing that secret societies existed in the Universities, has the passage “notwithstanding any allegiance which I may have vowed by a ceremonial Rite to Aristotle (the Gnostic principles were spread at Paris and elsewhere under the form of Aristotelian Philosophy) in my youth. These Societies used the double Triangle or Seal of Solomon, and in the ruins of one of the old temple preceptories in France was found a copper medallion with the Lamb surmounted by this Cabalistic symbol.” A valuable book in German by Frederich Gottlieb Ephraim Weisse, or Magister Pianco, called Der Rosengreutzer un siener Blosse, (Amsterdam, 1781), deals with an association of Wise men who were known as the `Unknown Heads,’ of small societies: “Whosoever wished to be admitted to the secrets and afterwards to be initiated, must be a man of honor and of true spiritual power; and he must be already of considerable learning, for only those were accepted of whom it could be hoped that they would be of great service to the Sacred Alliance.

“The Initiates wore a triangle, symbolic of the three qualities of the Demiurgos – Power, Wisdom and Love.

“The Masters of the second degree or Second Secret, were Masters in the knowledge of all nature and her forces and divisions.

“They were called Philosophers or the World Wise. Their science was called World Wisdom.

“These World Wise occupied themselves in secret. No one knew where they met or what they did.

“But they had also a secret science known only to the highest among them who was called Magos, Mage or the Wise Master, who taught the people Divine things.

“Long before the year 1118, there was a Society which, in the mysteries of the ancients, took the place of the last and youngest grade and which had the same position with the Templeherren who had adopted it with the other teachings of the Wise Ones.

They were the novices from all times. As, in the time of the Inquisition against the Templars no one knew anything about the lower and last grades and those who belonged to them had no public connection with them, they thus lived without attracting any attention and were overlooked in the cruelties of the times. One did not think of them. As the members of the Templars who escaped were few in number, the remaining members drew together to form a bond of friendship to which end they drew up certain rules. This new society appeared in different forms and under various names: Brothers of the Cross, Noaities and in later days they adopted the name of Freemasons.

“Length of time and the involved issues consequent thereon, made those initiated into the Mysteries at length perceive that they must introduce an entirely different organization into the community, in order to bring it into line with Christianity (organized churchism).

“Those associates (the `Magian Brothers,’ who followed Manes), who still remained over from the collapse of the community of Initiates and who were scattered about the world began to make fresh projects for a general union.

They took the laws of their community and those of the Christians, which are known under the term of Scriptures, into real assimilation. They began to institute a parallel between the books of Moses and the memorials of the Magi, and from all this they evolved an association provided with certain laws, which could fit in with the Christians. “In the beginning, the association was, as is always the custom with innovations, somewhat dark and involved; it was saddled with various meanings and names, which it would be useless to enumerate here but which were all of short duration, so that the first ones called it the association of Magi and its members, the Magi Brotherhood and associates. This first association was formed in the year 1115 and lasted till the year 1117, though it underwent changes from time to time. The Crusaders had given rise to many societies and orders amongst the profane, and associations had sprung up which had quite differing objects.” – Op. Cit.

Baron Hans Ecker von Eckhoffen, in his treatise on another of these associations which was known as the Asiatiche Brueder, says: “Their writings date from 1510, showing that a body of Mystics was known at that period. These Knights of Asia also called themselves the Knights of St. John and it is a curious fact to notice that one of the Masonic records which has caused an infinity of discussion and also of dissension, amongst Masons, is the celebrated `Cologne Record,’which is dated 1535 and in which an Order of St.

John is noticed. This Charter has been a veritable bone of contention between materialistic and Mystic Masons, and much polemical literature has been published on the subject. The Mystics (rightly so) hold it to be true on external and internal evidences; the materialists reject it, as they reject all such evidence.

“In the record there is the name of Philip Melanchthon – a friend and co- worker of Martin Luther – who appears as a Brother in the Order of Freemasons. This document bears witness also that a secret society was known in various parts of the world, which existed before 1440 under the name of the `Brotherhood of St. John,’ and since then and up to 1535, under the title of, the `St. John’s Order of Freemasonry,’ or `Masonic Brotherhood.’ “This Society (the present Masonic Body) was reformed and rearranged in a more materialistic form, in the year 1717 the generally accepted date of the modern and non- mystic Masonic movement. It now became more atheistic in its views and more democratic in its tendencies.

“Amongst other deeply interesting matter, the `Charter of Cologne’ contains the following passage: “`The Brotherhood, or the Order of Freemason Brothers, bound together according to St. John’s Holy rules, traces its origin neither from the Templars nor from any other spiritual or temporal Knightly Order, but it is older than all similar Orders, and has existed in Palestine and Greece, as well as in various parts of the Roman Empire. Before the Crusades or Brotherhood arose, at a time when, in consequence of the strife between the sects teaching Christian morals, a small number of the initiated (those entrusted with the true teaching of virtue and the sensible exposition of the secret teachings) separated themselves from the mass.’ “According to the record, the following reason was given for the adoption of the name: `The Masters of this confederation were called the St. John’s Brethren, as they had chosen John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Light of the World, as their original and example.’ “It is well to add here a few details concerning the Knights Templars, since they are so intimately connected with the Masonic Order, details which will serve to show the inner aspect of their traditions. Much has been written about them, and their history – from one aspect – is better known than that of almost any other Mystic organization. However, the fact of a secret teaching is not sufficiently clear. That there was such a secret doctrine among the Templars is shown by Neaf, in his `Recherches sur les Opinions religieuses des Tempelliers.’ He points out that the Knights considered that the Roman church had failed in its ideal and that when the terrible persecutions fell upon them that they divided and joined two different associations, one the body of Freemasons and the other a body named the Johannites. And the writer, Jules Loiseleur, points out the connection between the Templars and the Bogomiles who were the Manichæans of the Balkan Provinces, and the Gnostics of the early Christian period and their descendants, the Cathari of the medieval ages. Dr.

Simrock, in his work, suggests a deeply interesting idea with regard to the connection between the tradition of the Holy Grail and the secret teachings of the Templars. He considers that the Grail tradition (the search for the Soul), which is drawn (in its symbolism) from the Apocryphal Gospels, is the basis of the Secret Teachings of the Templars. Some of the early sources of the tradition are given by the author of Sarsena and also the connection between the Templars and Essenes. All of these links are of great importance if we wish to understand the close connection between the various organizations of the past and how one developed out of the other.

“Taking the rules of their Order and of the Christians in equal division, they (the Cabalists) began to draw a parallel between the books of Moses and the records of the Magi and, from this material formed a new Brotherhood into which they imported certain rules that could exist together with those of the Christians. During the Crusades there were several orders of widely different views and, among numerous others, in the year 1118, the Knights of the Temple, with whom the Magi joined themselves and to whom they imparted their principles and mysteries. The fall of the Templars and the entire demolition of the Order by the Council held in Vienna in 1311, was due to the fact that all the knowledge which was a part of the Wisdom of the ancient (original and true) Magi, and also the Natural Science, at this time had begun to be lost.

There is one section of Freemasons which finds in Freemasonry the restoration of the Order of the Knights Templars, and the systems of the Great German Lodge and that of the Swedish Brothers are certainly pre- eminently connected with the former. According to this system and in harmony with the various systems which obtain in this particular Order, Freemasonry is a Mystical conception of the principal doctrines of Christianity, the slain Master no other than the Christ! And here naturally arises the question: did the teachings of Jesus in truth contain Mysteries – unsearchable, incomprehensible doctrines, which were only to be made comprehensible to a small number of especially chosen (those who were willing to live the Law and so become fit instruments) disciples? And were not the Essenes that body among whom Jesus had been taught the Mysteries? For these Essenes (later Rosicrucians) demanded of those who should be initiated, moderation, justice, avoidance of injury, love of truth and detestation of evil. Holy water belonged to the ritual of admission to their highest grade and John said, `Repent and be baptized.’ Jesus, who led the blameless life, suffered himself to be baptized (as a symbolization of the inner baptism by the holy fire – Illumination). Does not this lead us to the almost certain conclusion that Jesus and even more so John, were initiated members of the Essenes? “The keeping of John the Baptist’s Day as a Festival by the Freemasons is adduced in confirmation of this idea that the Freemasons had for over six hundred years identified themselves with the `Johannrittern,’ and St. John the Baptist had been chosen Patron of both Orders. And as it is certain that much of the ritual of the form of Reception means something quite other than that which has been substituted latterly, it very easily may be that there is much truth in the assertion.

“Jesus, it may be said, founded no secret society, yet He gave out certain of his teaching only by degrees as regards its inner significance, for he said, `I have many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now.’ This statement remains uncontradicted. After his death, the pure doctrine was falsified by additions as well as subtractions. In the early Christian church there was a disciplina arcani, and in this manner the Mysteries were transmitted among the few. Even in the time of the Crusades, there were still living descendants of the Essenes. The Order of Knights of the Temple was founded in the year 1113 by Gottfried von St. Omar, Hugo de Paiens and seven others whose names are not known. They consecrated themselves to the service of God according to the form of the Canonicorum Regularium and took solemn vows before the Bishop of Jerusalem. Baldwin the Second, in consideration of the office of these seven servants of God, lent them a house near the Temple of Solomon. They bound themselves with certain Essenes who formed a secret society consisting of virtuous Christians and true seekers after truth in Nature, and learned also other secrets.

“That the Templars had Mysteries in their keeping is beyond contention.

The Order had secret ceremonies of admission, glorified in possessing such, and for this reason several of its members endured martyrdom. The Order of Knights Templars contained many of the best and most far- seeing minds among the parents of Freemasonry and, as is well known, there were whole branches of Freemasonry especially devoted to the restoration of the Templars. And the Johannine and other systems taught this descent, even before the `Strict Observance’ which insisted on the restoration of the Templars as the highest aim of the Mysteries became generally known.

“If we consider closely the similarity between the customs of both Orders, we shall find that the Reception and other ceremonies of the Order of Freemasonry, relate to that of the Knights of the Temple exactly in so far as to enable us to say with positiveness that the Freemasons preserve in their midst the Mysteries of the Templars and transmit them. That the Templars possessed secrets is witnessed by the evidence in their procedure: the Freemasons claim the like procedure for themselves, for from grade to grade the aspirant is told that later he shall experience yet more. More what? More Light. While, in ritualism, this is not actually the result, yet it is the goal, and originally in the Mysteries this Light was attained. We say, attained, for that is actually what the result was.

“Nine Brothers founded the Order of the Templars; the chief and hieroglyphic number of the Freemasons is three times three. The Templars held Divine Service in places which were interdicted. By the strictest observances they reserved these for themselves, they appealed to the rights of their forefathers.” “The Brother Templars,” says Roessler, “were, according to their statutes as Hospital Brothers, divided into three classes: (1,) into the class of serving, who, without distinction, nursed sick pilgrims and Knights Templars;( 2,) into that of the spiritual Brothers destined for the service of pilgrims; (3,) into that of Knights who went to war.” We find in the Instructions of the Chevalier d’Orient, where are celebrated the foundation of the Knights Templars and the spread of their teachings in Europe, the following declaration on the matter is given: “Eighty- one Masons under the leadership of Garimonts, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, went, in the year 1150, to Europe and betook themselves to the Bishop of Upsala, who received them in very friendly fashion and was consequently initiated into the Mysteries of the Copts which the Masons had brought with them. Later, he was entrusted with the deposit of the collection of those teachings, rites and mysteries. The Bishop took pains to enclose and conceal them in the subterranean vaults of the tower of the `Four Crowns,’ which at that time was the crown treasure chamber of the King of Sweden. Nine of these Masons, among them Hugo de Paganis, founded in Europe the Order of the Knights Templars; later on they received from the Bishop the dogmas, mysteries and teachings of the Coptic Priests, confided to him.

“Thus in a short time the Knights Templars became the receivers and depositors of the Mysteries, Rites and Ceremonies which had been brought over by the Masons from the East – the Levites of the true Light.

“The Knights Templars, devoted entirely to the sciences and to the dogmas brought from the Thebaid, wished, in course of time, to preserve this doctrine in solemn fashion by a token. The Scotch Templars served as a pattern in the matter, they having founded the three degrees of St. Andreas of Scotland, and adapted them to the allegorical legend to be found in the instructions referred to.

“The Scotch Templars were occupied in excavating a place in Jerusalem in order to build a temple there, precisely on the spot where the temple of Solomon, or at least that part of it called the Holy of Holies, had (or was supposed to have) stood. During their work they found three stones which were the cornerstones of the Solomonic temple itself. the monumental form of these excited their attention and this excitement became all the more intense when they found the name of Jehovah engraved in the elliptical spaces of the last of these stones – the sacred Word which, by the murder of the Master Builder, had been lost, and which, according to the legend of the first degree, Hiram had had engraved on the foundation stone of Solomon’s Temple. After such a discovery, the Scotch Knights took this valuable memorial with them and, in order eternally to preserve their esteem for it, they employed these as the three cornerstones of the first temple at Edinburgh.

“The work began on St. Andreas’s day and so the Templars who had knowledge of the secret of the three stones and of the re- discovered Word, called themselves Knights of St. Andreas. They appointed degrees of merit in order to attain, and these are present in the Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master degrees known under the titles of Little Master- Builder, the Great Master- Builder and the Scotch Master.

“By the instruction common to all Knightly Orders, the Crusaders were under obligation to make many journeys and pilgrimages where, as is said, they had to see themselves surrounded by dangers. Therefore, they founded those degrees in order to recognize each other and to assist each other in need. For these journeys they took signs, words and particular touches or grips, and imparted to all Brothers a principal sign in order to find help in case of a surprise.

“To imitate the Christians of the East and the Coptic Priests, these Knights preserved among themselves the verbal law which was never written down, and took care that it should remain concealed to those of the lesser degrees. All this is preserved with exactitude in the philosophic rite of our day, although this rite does not precisely seek to derive its origin from the Knights Templars.

“The Knights Templars united the possessions of the Old Man of the Mountains (concerning which there is more than ninety per cent of legend and calumny to ten per cent of truth) under their rule, and as they had perceived the supernatural courage of his pupils, they admitted these into their order.

Some historians have thus come to the conclusion that the Knights Templars themselves had been induced to accept the institutions of those admitted.

Gauthier von Montbar was acquainted with these teachings and transplanted them into Europe.

“All these circumstances were very detrimental to the religion of Rome. It lost many of those who had belonged to it, more especially many Crusaders who were sojourning in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, where all the forms of belief of the first Christians were preserved and tolerated by the Saracens.

Eastern Christians regarded the dogma of the Unity of God as a mystery and saw in it a Divine Manifestation. They. therefore, only imparted the knowledge thereof at initiation which they held very secret. They practiced the morality commanded by the Son of Mary but did not believe in his divinity, for all those who followed Gnostic and Kabballistic traditions, considered him to be their Elder Brother.

“The Knights of the Cross who had come to know these dogmas and mysteries of the Christians of the East, were obliged, when they had returned to Europe, to hold this initiation still more secret, for the mere suspicion of such a faith would have been sufficient to bring these new religious professors to the rack and the stake.

Relative to the link between the Knights Templars and the Gnostic teachings, one hint may be given: the Masonic “G” does not and never did stand for Geometry but for Gnosis, the Soul.

“The Order of the Temple was cosmopolitan and divided into two great classes: (1,) the Order of the East; (2,) the Order of the Temple.

“The Order of the Temple sprang from the Order of the East, of which Ancient Egypt was the cradle. The Order of the East comprised different orders or classes of adepts. The adepts of the first order were at once legislators, judges and pontiffs.

“Their policy was opposed to the propagation of metaphysical knowledge and the natural science, of which they made themselves the sole depositories; and whoever should have dared to reveal the secrets reserved for the initiates in the order of the sacerdotal hierarchy, would have been punished with most dire severity. They gave to the people only symbolic emblems constituting the exoteric theology, which was a compound of dogmas and practices tending to give ascendancy to religious forms and the consolidation of the government.

“Moses was initiated in Egypt. He was profoundly versed in the theological, physical and metaphysical mysteries of the priests. Aaron, his brother, and the other Hebrew chiefs, became the depositories of these doctrines. These chiefs or Levites, were divided into several classes, according to the custom of the Egyptian Priesthood.

“Later on, the Son of Man was born into the world. He was brought up in the Alexandrian school. Filled with a spirit of the Divine, endowed with a marvelous intelligence, he succeeded in attaining to (not merely in having conferred upon him) all the degrees of the Egyptian Initiation.

“On returning to Jerusalem, he presented himself before the Chiefs of the Synagogue and pointed out to them the numerous alterations that the Law of Moses had undergone at the hands of the Levites. He confounded them by the power of his Soul sight and the extent of his knowledge. But the Jewish priests, blinded by their passions and prejudices, persisted in their errors.

“However, the moment had come when the Messenger of the Age, directing the results of his lofty meditations and aspirations towards the universal civilization and welfare of the world, tore down the veil which hid the truth from the people, preached the love of one’s neighbor and the equality (possibility of equality) of all men. Finally, by a sacrifice worthy of a Son of God, he attempted to establish the heavenly (saving) doctrines which he had come to teach, and to establish forever on earth (by the justice of the Laws he taught) the religion (Law of Life) inscribed in the Book of God (and failed because mankind accepted the word and refused the spirit).

“Jesus conferred on his disciples the true Initiation, helped them to have the Spirit descend upon them, divided them into various orders according to their intrinsic worth and the custom of Egyptian and Hebrew Priesthood, and placed them under the authority of St. John the Beloved (the Apostle of Love), whom he made supreme Pontiff and Patriarch.

“John never gave up the East. His doctrines, always pure and lofty, were not altered by the admixture of any other inculcations.

“Peter and the other apostles carried the reconstructed teachings as formulated by Jesus the Initiate, to distant peoples but as they were often forced, in order to propagate the faith, to conform to the manners and customs of the different nations and even to admit the native rites, slight variations and changes crept into the new gospel.

“Down to 1118, the Mysteries and the hierarchical order of the Egyptian Initiation transmitted to the Jews, through Moses, and afterwards to the Christians, through Jesus the Initiate, were religiously preserved by the successors of the Apostle John. These mysteries and the initiation which conserved them, regenerated through the New Age interpretation, formed a sacred deposit which, thanks to the simplicity of primitive customs from which the brothers of the East never departed, never underwent the slightest alteration.

“The Christians of the East – persecuted by the infidels, appreciating the courage and piety of those valiant crusaders who, sword in one hand and cross in the other, flew to the defense of the holy places, doing justice, above all, to the virtues and the ardent charity of Hugh of Payens – considered it their duty to entrust to hands so pure the treasures of knowledge gained during so many centuries, and sanctified by the cross, the teachings and the ethics of (him who had become by work and obedience, not by being born so) the Man- God.

“Hugh was then invested with the patriarchal apostolic power and placed in the legitimate line of the successors of John the Apostle and Initiate.

“Such is the origin and the foundation of the Templars and of the introduction among them of the different modes of initiation of the Christians of the East designated by the name of Primitive or Johannite Christians. It is to this initiation that belong the various degrees consecrated by the rules of the Temple and which were so much called in question in the famous but terrific and ghoulish action brought against the august Order.

“Jacques de Molay, foreseeing the misfortunes that threatened the Order, appointed as his successor and with magisterial powers, Brother Jean Marc Larmenius, of Jerusalem.

“This Grand Master in turn passed on the supreme power to Brother Theobald, of Alexandria, as is evidenced by the character of transmission.

“Let us come finally to the Levitical doctrines: “God is all that exists; every part of all that exists is a part of God but is not God.

“Immutable in His essence, God is mutable in His parts, which after having existed under the laws of certain combinations more or less complex, live again under laws of fresh combinations. All is increate.

“God being supremely intelligent, every one of the parts, which compose Him is endowed with a portion of His intelligence, in virtue of its destiny, hence it follows that there is an infinite gradation of intelligence resulting from an infinity of different compounds, the union of which forms the entirety of the worlds. This entirety is the Great All, or God, who alone has the power to modify, change and govern all these orders of intelligences according to the eternal and immutable laws of an infinite justice and goodness.

“God – infinite Being – is composed of three (principal) powers: the Father, or being; the Son, or action; the Spirit, or mind, proceeding from the power of the Father. These three powers form a trinity, a power infinite, unique and individual.

“There is but one true religion, that which acknowledges one only God (and which considers man and his immortalization as the one supreme labor in the universe).

“The order (law) of nature is immutable; therefore all doctrines that any one would attempt to build up on a change of these laws would be founded only on error (which is destructive and death- dealing).

“Eternal life is the power with which every being is endowed, of living in his own life and of acquiring an infinity of modifications by combining himself unceasingly with other beings, according to what is ordained by the eternal laws of the wisdom, the justice and the infinite goodness of the supreme Intelligence (and modified by his own acts – the harmonizing of himself with the Law or a defiance of the Law).

“According to this system of the modification of matter (and of action), it is natural to conclude that all its parts have the right of thought and free- will and therefore the power of merit and demerit. However, the high Initiates do not profess to believe that all the parts of matter (organic or inorganic) possess the faculty of thought (though they do possess the power of selection through the means of harmonious attraction). It is not thus that they profess to understand their system. They certainly admit a series of intelligences from the elementary substances, the most simple molecule or the monad, up to the reunion of all these monads or their compounds, a reunion which would constitute the great All or God, which, as the Universal Intelligence, alone would have the power of comprehending Itself. But the manner of being, of feeling and of using the intelligence, would be relative to the hierarchical order in which they found themselves placed. Consequently the intelligence would differ according to the mode of organization and the hierarchical place of each body. Thus, according to this system, the intelligence of the simple molecule would be limited to seeking or rejecting union with certain other molecules (which is accomplished through the harmonious or inharmonious interaction as the result of vibrations native to each molecule of matter). Man, for example, among the intelligences which form part of the earth, alone would have that modification or organization which would give fully the `I’ consciousness, as well as the faculty of distinguishing good from evil (constructive from destructive) and consequently would possess the gift of free- will.

MYSTICISM OF MASONRY

Chapter III – THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MASONRY ARE IDENTICAL

“The Order known as Freemasonry appears to have been instituted as a vehicle to preserve and transmit an account of the miraculous dealings of the Most High with His people in the infancy of the world, for at that early period (what is now) Freemasonry may be identified with religion.

“The identity of the Masonic institution with the Ancient Mysteries is obvious from the striking coincidences (similarities) found to exist between them. The latter was a secret religious worship and the depository of religion, science and art Tradition dates the origin of the Mysteries back to the earliest period of time and makes it coeval with the organization of society.

“But the order of Freemasonry (as anciently constituted in its various forms and under different titles) goes further than did the Ancient Mysteries.

While it embodies all that is valuable (in symbolic form) in the institutions of the past, it embraces within its circle all that is good and true of the present and thus becomes a conservator as well as a depository of religion, science and art.

“Without any reference to forms and modes of faith, it furnishes a series of indirect evidences which silently operate to establish the great and general principles of religion, and points to that triumphant system which was the object of all preceding dispensations and must ultimately be the sole religion of the human race, because it is the only religion in which the plan of salvation is clearly developed.” – Pierson, Tradition of Masonry.

“From age to age, through the countless generations, these rites have read their sublime lessons of wisdom and hope, and peace and warning to the `Sons of Light.'” The Initiates of all the Ages have been known as the Sons of the Light, while those Aspirants, who took up the quest for the Light have been said to be travelling toward the East. All this is significant when we recognize the fact that Masonry and the few other genuine secret societies have continued to use the same expressions and to urge their Aspirants to continue in the search. This is still true in the beginning of the New Age and one known as Manisis – descendant of that Manassah who was promised by God, through the Voice of the prophets, that his sons and daughters (progeny in future generations) should inherit the earth and that at that period the earth would become like unto a heaven (haven of peace) – has come among man, is beginning his ministry and is addressed by the All Father in the mystic language: “I, O Manisis, who am Jehovah Adonai – the Father of Light.” Thus we who have eyes to see, must recognize that the time for the readjustment is at hand, that those who have obeyed the Law and truly become the Sons of Light, shall come into their own – their kingdom – and that henceforth, it shall be not the meek who will inherit the kingdom but the faithful – those who not merely believe in but who obey the law.

“These same lessons, in the same language, they read to us today. But do we see in them what they did? Do they impress us as they did them? Or do they pass before our eyes like a panorama of some unknown land, which has no delineator to tell us what or where it is, or give us any intelligible notion regarding it? Accepting the symbol, have we lost its sense? Our rites will be of little value to us if this is the case. It is our duty then, to make Freemasonry the object of profound study. We must consult the past.

“We must stand by the sarcophagus of the murdered Osiris in Egypt; enter the caverns of Phrygia, and hold communion with the Cabiri; penetrate the `Collegia Fabrorum’ of ancient Rome, and work in the Mystic Circle of Sidon.

In a word, we must pursue our researches until we find the thought – spirit – that law in the minds of those who created the institution and founded our Mysteries. Then we shall know precisely what they mean. We shall see in them a grand series of moral and philosophical dramas, most eloquent and instructive, gleaming with sublime ideas, as the heavens glow with stars. And finally we shall discover that our rite embraces all the possible circumstances of man – moral, spiritual and social – and has a meaning high as heaven, broad as the universe and profound as eternity.” – Sickels, Ahiman Rezon.

“If we seek the origin and first beginning of the Masonic philosophy, we must go far back into the ages of remote antiquity, when we shall find this beginning in the bosom of kindred associations, where the same philosophy was maintained and taught. But if we confound the ceremonies of Masonry with the philosophy of Masonry and see the origin of the institution moulded into outward form as it is today, we scarcely can be required to look farther back than the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, indeed, not quite so far.

“The two doctrines: the unity of God and the immortality of the Soul, constitute the philosophy of Freemasonry. When we wish to define it succinctly, we say that it is an ancient system of philosophy which teaches these two dogmas.” – Mackey, The Symbolism of Masonry.

“The fundamental law of Masonry requires only a belief in the Supreme Architect of the universe and in a future life, while it says with peculiar tolerance, that in all other matters of religious belief, Masons are expected to be of that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves. Under the shelter of this wise provision, the Christian and the Jew, the Mohammedan and the Brahmin, are permitted to unite around our common altar and Masonry becomes, in practice as well as in theory, universal. The truth is, that Masonry is undoubtedly a religious institution – its religion being of that universal kind in which all men agree and which, handed down through a long succession of ages from that ancient priesthood who first taught it, embraces the great tenets of the existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul – tenets which, by its peculiar symbolic language, it has preserved from its foundation, and still continues, in the same beautiful way, to teach. Beyond this, for its religious faith, we must not and cannot go.” – Mackey, Masonic Jurisprudence.

“Freemasonry does not profess to interfere with the religious opinions of its members. It asks only for a declaration of that simple and universal faith, in which men of all nations and all sects agree – the belief in a God and in His superintending providence. Beyond this, it does not venture but leaves the minds of its disciples, on other and sectarian points, perfectly untrammeled. This is the only religious qualification required by a candidate but this is most strictly demanded. The religion, then, of Masonry, is pure theism, on which its different members engraft their own peculiar opinions but they are not permitted to introduce them into the lodge or to connect their truths or falsehoods with the truth (fundamentals) of Masonry. – Mackey, Masonic Lexicon.

“Every Mason,” says the old Charges of 1722, “is obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law.” Now this moral law is not to be considered as confined to the decalogue of Moses, within which narrow limits these ecclesiastical writers technically restrain it but rather as alluding to what is called Lex Naturae, or the law of nature. This law of nature has been defined by an able but not recent writer on this subject, to be `The will of God, relating to human actions, grounded on the moral differences of things and, because discoverable by natural light, obligatory upon all mankind.'” – Grove, System of Moral Philosophy.

“This is the `Moral Law,’ to which the old Charge already cited refers and which it declares to be the law of Masonry. And this was wisely done, for it is evident that no law less universal could have been appropriately selected for the government of an institution whose prominent characteristic is its universality.

“The precepts of Jesus could not have been made obligatory on a Jew; a Christian would have denied the sanctions of the Koran; a Mohammedan must have rejected the laws of Moses; and a disciple of Zoroaster would have turned from all to the teachings of his Zend Avesta. The universal law of nature, which the authors of the old Charges have properly called the moral law, because it is, as Conybeare remarks, `a perfect collection of all those moral doctrines and precepts which have a foundation in the nature and reason of things,’ is therefore the only law suited in every respect to be adopted as the Masonic code.” – Webb’s Monitor of Freemasonry.

Why is this true? Because the Vishnu of the Brahminical Trinity, the Isis of the Egyptian, the Holy Ghost of the Christians and the (symbolized) Madonna of the Roman Catholic church, all represent the Mother principle of every living thing in the universe. When an individual – man or woman – has his spiritual mind awakened he has a love for everything that lives and breathes and looks on every object in Nature as the outward manifestation of the Divine Living Principle within the one. God is in all, irrespective of the particular Shrine at which we worship.

“The whole design of Freemasonry as a speculative science is the investigation of Divine Truths. To this great object everything else is subsidiary. The Mason is, from the time of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, to the time at which he receives the full fruition of Masonic light, an investigator – a laborer in the quarry and the temple – whose reward is to be truth (wisdom), and all the ceremonies and traditions of the Order tend to this ultimate design. In Speculative Freemasonry there is an advancement from a lower to a higher state – from darkness (ignorance) to light (wisdom) – from death to life – from error to truth – (from mortality into Immorality).

“The Mason living and working in the world as his lodge must seek to raise himself out of it (symbolized by the raising of Hiram from the grave) to that eminence which surmounts it, where alone he can find divine truths.” – Mackey, Manual of the Lodge.

“Every Speculative Mason is familiar with the fact that the East, as the source of material light, is a symbol of his own Order, which professes to contain within its bosom the pure light of truth. As, in the physical world, the morning of each day is ushered into existence by the reddening dawn of the Eastern sky, whence the rising sun dispenses his illuminating and prolific rays to every portion of the visible horizon, warming the whole earth with his embrace of light and giving new- born life and energy to flowers and trees, beast and man, who, at the magic touch, awake from the sleep of darkness, so in the moral world, when intellectual night was brooding over the world, in the earliest days, it was from the Ancient Priesthood living in the East that those lessons of God, of Nature and of Humanity, first emanated and, traveling Westward, revealed to man his future destiny and his dependence on a Superior Power. Thus was every new and true doctrine, coming from these `Wise Men of the East,’ as it were, a new day rising and dissipating the clouds of intellectual darkness and error. It was a universal opinion among the Ancients that the first learning came from the East. The often- quoted line of Bishop Berkeley, that `Westward the course of empire takes its way,’ is but the modern utterance of an Ancient thought, for it always was believed that the empire of truth and knowledge (Wisdom) was advancing from the East to the West.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“Freemasonry itself, anciently received among other appellations, that of Lux or Light, to signify that it is to be regarded as that sublime doctrine of Divine Truth by which the path of him who has attained it is to be illuminated in his pilgrimage through life.

“Light was, in accordance with the old religious sentiment, the great object of attainment in all the Ancient Mysteries (likewise it is today the goal toward which every true aspirant is striving and Initiation does not actually take place until the Light of the Soul within is revealed). It was then, as it is now, in Masonry, made the symbol of truth and knowledge. This was always its ancient symbolism and we must never lose sight of this emblematic meaning when we are considering the nature and significance of Masonic light.

“In all the ancient systems this reverence for light, as the symbol of truth was predominant. In the Mysteries of every nation, the candidate was made to pass, during his initiation, through scenes of utter darkness and at length terminated his trials by an admission to the splendidly illuminated sacellum or sanctuary, where he was said to have attained pure and perfect light and where he received the necessary instructions which were to invest him with that knowledge of the Divine Truth which it had been the object of all his labors and the design of the institution into which he had been initiated, to bestow.

“Light, therefore, became synonymous with truth and knowledge, and darkness with falsehood and ignorance. We find this symbolism pervading not only the institutions but the very language, of antiquity.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“It is a Landmark, that a `Book of the Law’ shall constitute an indispensable part of the furniture of every Lodge. I say advisedly, a Book of the Law, because it is not absolutely required that everywhere the Old and New Testament shall be used. The `Book of the Law’ is that volume which, by the religion of the country, is believed to contain the revealed will of the Great Architect of the Universe. Hence, in all lodges in Christian countries, the Book of the Law is composed of the Old and New Testament; in a country where Judaism was the prevailing faith, the Old Testament alone would be sufficient; and in Mohammedan countries, and among Mohammedan Masons the Koran might be substituted. Masonry does not attempt to interfere with the peculiar religious faith of its disciples, except in so far as relates to the belief in the existence of God and what necessarily results from that belief. The Book of Law is to the speculative Mason his spiritual Trestle board, without which he cannot labor. Whatever he believes to be the revealed will of the Grand Architect constitutes for him his Spiritual Trestle board and must ever be before him in his hours of speculative labor, to be the rule and guide of his conduct. The Landmark, therefore, requires that a Book of the Law, a religious code of some kind, purporting to be an exemplar of the revealed Will of God, shall form an essential part of the furniture of every Lodge.” – Mackey, Masonic Jurisprudence.

The Holy Bible is no more sacred or of greater value to the Christian than is the Koran to the Mohammedan. Each sincerely believes that his faith is the only true one. So long as each one does as he truly believes to be right and permits his brother to do likewise refraining from interfering with the right of others, both are in the right. How can the professed Christian claim that his religion alone contains the saving faith (Law)? Such a claim is foolish, based on ignorance and bigotry and is lacking in the Christian spirit. The Oath of the Mohammedan would be of no value if taken on the Bible, since he does not believe that it is a book inspired by God. True Masonry respects the religion of each and every man, knowing that the foundation of each is based on truth – otherwise it could not continue to exist.

The religious philosophy of Masonry is as old as the first religious faith, for Masonry itself is founded on the Mysteries of Antiquity, said Mysteries having been taught on lost Atlantis.

“Egypt was re- peopled after the deluge by the sons of Ham and they made rapid advances in recovering a knowledge of the arts and science partially lost by that catastrophe, until at last, Egypt came to be looked upon as the mother of science. Philosophers of all nations resorted there for instructions and initiation, and writers generally assert that her religious system was borrowed by all other nations. Here then is the reason why Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Bacchus, Gionysus, Adonis, Hu, Schiva, Brahma, Odin, Fohi, etc., were said to be merely other names for Osiris; and Venus, Astarte, Juno, Ceres, Proserpine, Cerdeiven, Frea, Rhea, Sita, etc., of Isis. The legends of every one of the different phases of the Mysteries, irrespective of country or language, had the same general character; in fact, all were identical except in the name of the individuals (characters of the Divine Drama in search of Life and Immortality – the Light of the Soul). Each legend represented the death by violence of some particular person; with some, it was a god; with others, a demi- god; with still others, a great warrior or person who had conferred signal benefits upon man in agricultural pursuits or in the arts and sciences. In consequence of such death something was lost; there was then a search (the process of raising or transmuting) for that which was lost, a finding of it or part of it (the consummation of the work and reception of the Light or Fire which resulted from the transmutation) or of something that was adopted as a substitute for it (an incompleteness of the work or the loss of the Mystery as with exoteric Masonry and the exoteric church); a beginning in sorrow and lamentation and an ending in joy and rejoicing.

Such is a brief summary of the legend that accompanied the ceremonial (the open or exoteric representations of these mysteries before the masses) of which we have an account, either historical or traditional, that has been practiced on this globe. We have presented that of the Egyptian Mysteries because it generally has been regarded as the parent of all others. More pages of the writings of the ancients that have been preserved to our times are devoted to the mysteries than to the development of empires (for the reason that these mysteries dealt with the Soul of man, that which is lasting and eternal, while empires are of the day, decay and are no more). Hence we have a better knowledge of the ceremonial and legend of many of the phases of the Mysteries than we have of the countries in which they were practiced.

“That all the Mysteries throughout the world were the same in substance, being derived from one source and celebrated in honor of the same Deities, though acknowledged under different appellations, is further evidenced from the fact that they are traced to the plains of Shinar before the dispersion of mankind. “They were introduced, so says tradition, into India by Brahma, into China and Japan by Buddha, into Egypt by Thoth, the son of Mizraim (some say by Mizraim himself), into Persia by Zeradhust, into Greece by Melampus or Cadmus, into Boetia by Promospus or Dardanus, into Messene by Caucon, into Thebes by Methopus, into Athens by Erectheus, into Etruria by Philostratus, into the city of Arene by Lycus, into Thrace by Orpheus, into Italy by the Pelasgi, into Cyprus by Cinyras, into Gaul and Britain by Gomer, or his immediate descendants, into Scandinavia by Sigge or Odin, into Mexico by Vitzliputzli, into Peru by Manco Capac and his wife, and into Judea by Hiram Abiff.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“Egypt was the cradle of all the Mysteries. At one time in possession of all the learning and religious forms to be found in the world, it extended into other nations the influence of its sacred rites and its Secret Doctrines.

The importance, therefore, of the Egyptian Mysteries will entitle them to a more diffusive explanation than has been awarded to the examination of the other rites.

“The Priesthood of Egypt constituted a sacred caste, in whom the sacerdotal functions were hereditary. They exercised also an important part in the government of the state, and the kings of Egypt were but the first subjects of the priests. They originally had organized and continued to control the ceremonies of initiation. Their doctrines were of two kinds, the exoteric or public, which were communicated to the multitude and the esoteric or secret, which were revealed only to a chosen few. To obtain them it was necessary to pass through an initiation, which, as we shall see, was characterized by the severest trials of courage and fortitude.

“The principal seat of the Mysteries was at Memphis, in the neighborhood of the great Pyramid (the finals of the initiation took place within the Pyramid and symbolized the development, growth or transmutation taking place in the mind, heart and Soul of the Aspirant). They were of two kinds, the greater and the lesser.” – Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry.

“Mysteries was the name given to those religious assemblies of the ancients, whose ceremonies were conducted in secret, whose doctrines were known only to those who had obtained the right of knowledge by previous initiation (training), and whose members were in possession of signs and tokens by which they were enabled to recognize each other. (This is an erroneous conclusion as the true Initiate has a more certain method of recognizing his fellow Initiates than by outward signs or tokens). For the origin of these Mysteries we must look to the of India, from whom they passed through Egypt (another fallacy) into Greece and Rome, and from whom likewise they were extended, in a more immediate line, to the northern part of Europe and to Britain. The most important of the Mysteries were those of Mithras, celebrated in Persia; of Osiris and Isis, celebrated in Egypt; of Eleusis, instituted in Greece; and the Scandinavian and Druidical rites, which were confined to the Gothic and Celtic tribes. In these various Mysteries, we find a singular unity of design clearly indicating a common origin (Atlantis) and a purity of doctrine as evidently proving that this common origin was not to be sought for in the popular theology of the Pagan world. The ceremonies of initiation were all funereal (representative of the death – transmutation having occurred – of the mortal – animal- physical – man) in their character.

They celebrated the death and the resurrection of some cherished being, either the object of esteem as a hero or of devotion as a god. Subordination of degrees was instituted and the candidate was subject to probations varying in their character and severity (all with the object of changing the mortal into the Immortal, which, as voiced by Jesus himself, was the sole object of his ministry and preachments). The rites were practiced in the darkness of night and often amid the gloom of impenetrable forests or subterranean caverns. (As the embryonic chick is hatched in the darkness of the shell, so is the Soul of man brought to light through the process of change or transmutation and all this must take place in the darkness of the mortal being). The full fruition of knowledge, for which so much labor was endured and so much danger incurred, was not attained until the aspirant, well tried and thoroughly purified, had reached the place of wisdom and light. (Religion with these ancients, was not a mere faith, but an attainment reached through suffering and denial – an actual spiritual possession). – Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry.

Among all the ancient people there was both a public and a secret worship.

The secret worship did not originate in Egypt but in Atlantis and from thence was carried into Egypt. This secret worship always was known as the “Mysteries” and all of these Mysteries were the same in substance or spirit, and in the religious philosophy their legends and fundamentals were identical with only a variation of characters. These Mysteries could be obtained in no other manner than by Initiation, and the members of these Priesthoods were not known by outward signs and tokens but by the color of the spiritual fire with which they were enveloped and which easily was recognized by all true Initiates. The secrecy of the Initiation was not because the Priests did not want the people to know the inner Mysteries but due to the fact that they would not receive them in the spirit in which they would be given. The mass could not comprehend the application of material and even gross substances, toward divine ends and would degrade the most sacred functions of God’s divine creation, to gross purposes. The masses never were ready to receive the Mysteries nor are they today, much as the Initiates wish to confer them upon all of God’s children.

“The qualifications for initiation (entrance as a Neophyte or Aspirant) were maturity of age and purity of conduct. A character free from suspicion, or immorality, was absolutely required in the Aspirant. Nero, on account of his lack in this respect, did not dare, when in Greece, to offer himself as a candidate for initiation. The privilege (of initiation to the Mysteries of Greece) was at first confined to natives of Greece, but was afterwards extended to foreigners. Significant symbols were used as means of instruction and words of recognition were communicated to the initiated.” – Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry.

“These Mysteries existed in every country of heathendom (falsely so- called because the time was prior to the beginning of the first century of the age just ended), in each under a different name and, to some extent, under a different form, but always and everywhere with the same design of inculcating by allegorical and symbolic teachings, (what is now) the great Masonic doctrine of the Unity of God and the Immortality of the Soul. This is an important proposition and the fact which it enunciates must never be lost sight of in an inquiry into the origin of Freemasonry; for the pagan (non- Christian) Mysteries were to the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity (something which did not exist except in the minds of modern writers who have had only an exoteric experience in the rite of initiation) precisely what the Master’s lodge is to the Freemasonry of the present day. It is needless to offer any proof of their existence (the Mysteries did exist but no spurious Freemasonry, since the lodge of Freemasons, as such, is a modern institution and a spurious body cannot exist prior to a genuine body but follows as an imitation of and without authority from the genuine) since this is admitted and continually referred to by all historians, ancient and modern; and to discuss minutely their character and organization would occupy a distinct treatise.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“The legend and traditions of `Hiram Abiff’ (for such is the rendering of the Hebrew text in Luther’s Bible), form the consummation of the connecting link between Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries and sustain beyond peradventure the theory that Freemasonry dates anterior to the Deluge and the strong probability of its divine origin.

“We do not assert that the legend of Hiram Abiff is true. We only know that it has come to us by tradition. At what time the legend of the death of Hiram Abiff took the place of the older legends in the Mysteries of Persia, India, Egypt, etc., we have no information. Nor is it important for us to know; for Masonry is a succession of allegories, the mere vehicle of great lessons in morality and philosophy.

“The Masonic legend stands by itself, unsupported by history or other than its own traditions. Yet we readily recognize Hiram Abiff, one of the Grand Masters of Freemasons, as the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Mithras of the Persians, the Bacchus of the Greeks, the Dionysius of the Fraternity of the Artificers and the Atys of the Phrygians (Fire Philosophers) , whose passion, death and resurrection were celebrated by the people respectively.

“For many ages and everywhere Masons have celebrated the death of Hiram Abiff. That event, therefore, interests the whole world and not a particular sect, order or coterie. It belongs to no particular time, religion or people.

Everywhere among the ancient nations there exists a similar allegory and all must refer to the same primitive fact.

“In the Apprentice we find reproduced the Aspirant of Thebes and Eleusis, the Soldiers of Mithras, the Christian Catechumen. In the fellow craft, the .

. . of Eleusis, the Initiate of the Second Order, the Lion of the Eastern Mysteries, the Christian Neophyte. In all the Mysteries there was a double doctrine. It was so everywhere, among the Brahmins of India as well as among the Druids of Germany and Gaul; at Memphis, Samothrace and Eleusis; in the Mysteries of the Hebrews and early Christians as well as in those of Ceres and the Good Goddess. Everywhere we see emblems presenting a physical meaning and receiving a double interpretation: one natural and, as it were, material, within the reach of ordinary intellects (the mass); the other, sublime and philosophical, which was communicated to those men of genius only, who, in the preparatory degree, had understood the concealed meaning of the allegories.

“Everywhere in the East, the cradle of religions and allegories (symbolism and double interpretation), we see in ancient times under different names the same idea reproduced; everywhere a god, a supreme being or an extraordinary man is slain to recommence afterwards a glorious life; everywhere we meet the memory of a great tragical event, a crime or transgression that plunges the people into sorrow and mourning, to which soon succeeds enthusiastic rejoicing.” – Piersons, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The Mysteries of Osiris formed the third degree or summit of the Egyptian Initiation. In these, the legend of the murder of Osiris by his brother Typhon, was represented and the god was personated by the candidate. Osiris, according to the tradition, was a wise king of Egypt, who having achieved the reform of his subjects at home, resolved to spread the blessings of civilization in other parts of the earth. This he accomplished but on his return he found his kingdom, which he had left in the care of his wife Isis, distracted by the seditions of his brother Typhon (Typhon represented the dark, evil and destructive side of every Soul which is always in conflict with the Divine part of the human). Osiris attempted, by mild remonstrances, to convince his brother of the impropriety of his conduct but he fell a sacrifice in the attempt. (Evil cannot be overcome or transmuted into good by a passive resistance or a negative attitude. It must be overcome by the might of right, by active struggle and by constant labor, otherwise good will fall a prey to that which is destructive). For Typhon murdered him in a secret apartment (nearly all great sins are committed in secret and especially is this true of sex sins or abuses) and cutting up the body, enclosed the pieces in a chest, which he committed to the waters of the Nile. Isis (representative of the Mother principle and the Soul or that part of man which seeks his spiritual good and elevation), searching for the body, found it and entrusted it to the care of the priests (those who can teach man how he may regenerate the physical or body and elevate the sex forces for the attainment of Illumination, which in the Mysteries, is termed Life or the Light), establishing at the same time the Mysteries (the plan and method for the complete Regeneration of man and his Soul) in commemoration of the foul deed.

One piece of the body, however, she could not find, the Membrum Virile (without which, or if degraded or so weakened by abuses that generation is no longer possible, Illumination or Salvation of Soul, is impossible). For this she substituted a fictitious representation (the founders of the formal church never had this secret, consequently, in place of the Word, which is the life, they substituted a doctrine of faith and vicarious atonement) which she consecrated and which, under the name of Phallus, is to be found as the emblem of fecundity in all the Ancient Mysteries (on Christian churches as steeples and in the churches as the columns, altars and the cross).

“This legend (in one sense) was purely astronomical. Osiris (then) was the sun, Isis the moon. Typhon was the symbol of winter, which destroys the fecundating and fertilizing powers of the sun, thus, as it were, depriving him of life. This was the catastrophe celebrated in the Mysteries and the aspirant (in these outer or symbolic ceremonies) was made to pass fictitiously through the sufferings and the death of Osiris.” – Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry.

“The idea of the existence of an enlightened people who lived at a remote era and came from the east, was a very prevalent notion among the ancient traditions. Ezekiel tells us (chapter 43, verse 2) that `The glory of the God Israel came from the way of the East.’ Adam Clark says: `All knowledge all religion and all arts and sciences have traveled according to the course of the sun from east to west.’ Bazot tells us in his Manuel du Franc- Macon, page 154, that `the veneration which Masons entertain for the east confirms an opinion previously announced, that the religious system of Masonry came from the east and has reference to the Primitive Religion, whose first occupation was the worship of the sun (but only as a representation of the Divine Light which is in man and which originally, was part of God, the Creator of the visible sun and visible or physical man).'” – Pierson, Tradition of Freemasonry.

“Among the Egyptians, the chief deity, Osiris, was but another name for the sun, while his arch- enemy and destroyer. Typhon, was the typification of the night or darkness (or cold – always an emblem of death – which destroys and prevents fertilization). And lastly, among the Hindu, the three manifestations of their supreme Deity, Brahma, Siva and Vishni, were symbols of the rising, meridian and setting sun.

“This early and very general prevalence of the sentiment of sun- worship (among the masses and not in the circles of Initiate- Priests) is worthy of especial attention on account of the influence that it exercised over the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity. Many, indeed nearly all of the Masonic symbols of the present day can be thoroughly understood and properly appreciated only by this reference to sun- worship.

“One thing, at least, is incapable of refutation and that is, that we are indebted to the Tyrian Masons for the introduction of the symbol of Hiram Abiff. The idea of the symbol, although modified by the Jewish Masons, is not Jewish in its inception. It was evidently borrowed from the pagan Mysteries, where Bacchus, Adonis, Proserpine, and a host of other apotheosized beings play the same role that Hiram does in the Masonic (and Jesus, in the Christian) Mysteries.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“In every country under heaven the initiations were performed in caverns, either natural or artificial, and darkness was honored with peculiar marks of veneration, by reason of its supposed priority of existence. (Without matter there can be no form, without form the Soul can find no habitation, without a vehicle it cannot experience and therefore is unable to attain Consciousness).

`And God said, let there be light and there was Light.’ Light was an emblem of Life (and is now an emblem of Life, Light and Immortality) and darkness of death; and death was a prelude to resurrection (the bringing forth of Light).

It at once will be seen, therefore, in what manner the doctrine of the resurrection was inculcated and exemplified in these remarkable institutions of the ancients (and the Priesthood of the Initiates of the present).” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“In all the ancient systems of Initiation, the candidate was shrouded in darkness (emblematical of sin and the flesh) as a preparation for the reception of light (the transmutation of the flesh and the “bringing forth – of the Spirit – the Soul Light which is Illumination). The duration varied in the different rites (and with each individual aspirant under training). In the Celtic Mysteries of Druidism, the period in which the aspirant was immersed in darkness was nine days and nights. Among the Greeks, at Eleusis, it was three times as long. And in the still severer rites of Mithras, in Persia, fifty days of darkness, solitude and fasting were imposed upon the adventurous neophyte who, by these excessive trials, was at length entitled to the full communication of the light of knowledge (of the exoteric part of the Initiation).

“Darkness, like death, is the symbol of Initiation (the resurrection, or coming into the Light). It was for this reason that all the ancient initiations were performed at night. The same custom prevails in Freemasonry and the explanation is the same. Death and Resurrection were taught in the Mysteries, as they are in Freemasonry. The Initiation was the lesson of death.

The full fruition or autopsy, the reception of light, was the lesson of Regeneration or Resurrection.

“Light is, therefore, a fundamental symbol in Freemasonry. It is, in fact, the first important symbol that is presented to the neophyte in his instructions and contains within itself the very essence of Speculative Masonry, which is nothing more than the contemplation of intellectual light or truth (in the real Initiation it is the Light of the Soul which ultimately results from the constructive application of the light of the intellect).” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“A laudable thirst after knowledge prompted the youth of all ranks to aspire to the ambition of deciphering the meaning and illustrations of those obscure symbols, which were said to have been communicated to the priests by the revelation from the celestial Deities. Initiation was the only means of acquiring this knowledge and it is therefore no wonder that initiation was so much in request.

“There was also another quality of the mind which served to recommend the Mysteries: that strange attachment to the marvelous by which every grade of human nature is swayed. To excite this sentiment in all its sublimity of horror, the initiations were performed at the dead of night. No severity of probation could deter the bold and determined aspirant from encountering terrors and actual dangers which led to the gratification of his curiosity (these statements deal exclusively with the exoteric initiation and have either no knowledge of or no reference to the Great Work of renunciation, transmutation and regeneration through which aspirants to the Priesthood had to pass); and the shades of darkness imparted vigor to the passion which looked forward to a recompense of such an exalted nature.” – Oliver, History of Initiation.

“In the old lectures it is said: `He that is truly square, well polished and uprightly fixed, is qualified to be a member of our most honorable society. He that trusteth such a person with any engagement is freed from all trouble and anxiety about the performance of it, for he is faithful to his trust; his words are the breathings of his heart and he is an utter stranger to deceit.’ “In the Mysteries of India, the aspirant was invested with a consecrated sash or girdle, which he was directed to wear next his skin. It was manufactured with many mysterious ceremonies and said to possess the power of preserving the wearer from personal danger. It consisted of a cord composed of three times three threads twisted together and fastened at the end with a knot, and was called Zennar. Hence comes our Cabletow. It was an emblem of their triune Deity, the remembrance of whom we preserve in many of our symbols.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The rite of discalceation, or uncovering the feet on approaching holy ground, is derived from the Latin word discalceare, to pluck off one’s shoes.

The usage has the prestige of antiquity and universality in its favor. (It symbolizes the great truths which all sincere aspirants should ever have in mind: The Soul coming before God – its own Light and records – cannot possibly hide under any subterfuge or covering but is naked, easily seen through, and that therefore the first essential is to throw aside all that is superficial and which can deceive, and become as “little children before the Lord.” The Holy of Holies cannot be entered so long as man is unwilling to face absolute facts, irrespective of how accusatory or seemingly shocking they may be. “Take off thy shoes,” that is, come forward without an attempt to hide anything, “aked and unashamed,” willingness to look the truth in the face and to accept the verdict.) “That it not only very generally prevailed but that its symbolic signification was well understood in the days of Moses, we learn from that passage of Exodus where the angel of the Lord, at the burning bush, exclaims to the patriarch, `Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ Clark thinks it is from this command that the Eastern nations have derived the custom of performing all their acts of religious worship with bare feet. But it is much more probable that the ceremony was in use long anterior to the circumstance of the burning bush, and that the Jewish lawgiver at once recognized it as a well- known sign of reverence (in the Great Rite, a sign of purity of motive and honest worship at the fount of life as well as a profession of true love).

“Bishop Patrick entertains this opinion and thinks that the custom was derived from the ancient patriarchs and transmitted by a general tradition to succeeding times.

“The direction of Pythagoras to his disciples was in these words: `Offer sacrifices and worship with they shoes off.’ (Do not worship, do not practice the Rite of elevation, unless it is in purity, “with shoes off” that is, uncovered, “free from lustful or ulterior or selfish motive,” for to enter the Holy of Holies, the Inner Sanctuary, the Temple where life begins and ends, without this purity of heart, is to degrade and thereby become doubly degraded).

“The Mohammedans, when about to perform their devotions, always leave their slippers at the door of the mosque (emblematical of the true worship of the Soul and of the Spirit of Creation and Re- creation). The Druids practiced the same custom whenever they celebrated their sacred rites and the ancient Peruvians are said always to have left their shoes at the porch when they entered the magnificent temple consecrated to the worship of the sun (all symbolizing exoterically the spirit of the Mysteries).

“The rite of discalceation is, therefore, a symbol of reverence (and rendered by God’s first creation to Him in recognition of the nobility and purity of the act of creation when uncontaminated by the lusts of the flesh).

It symbolizes, in the language of symbolism, that the spot which is about to be approached (or entered) in this humble and revential manner is consecrated to some holy purpose.

“Into the Master Mason’s lodge – this holy of holies of the Masonic temple where the solemn truths of death and immortality are inculcated – the aspirant, on entering, should purify the heart from every contamination and remember, with a due sense of their symbolic application, those words that once broke upon the astonished ears of the old patriarch (when entering the portals of initiation, and – though generally unknown to the externally refined and cultured but internally sex- debased, western peoples – when about to approach the nuptial couch on the wedding night) – `Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.'” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

Among all the ancient people there was both a public and a secret worship.

The secret worship did not originate in Egypt but in Atlantis and from thence was carried into Egypt. This secret worship always was known as the “Mysteries” and all of these Mysteries were the same in substance or spirit, and in the religious philosophy their legends and fundamentals were identical with only a variation of characters. These Mysteries could be obtained in no other manner than by Initiation, and the members of these Priesthoods were not known by outward signs and tokens but by the color of the spiritual fire with which they were enveloped and which easily was recognized by all true Initiates. The secrecy of the Initiation was not because the Priests did not want the people to know the inner Mysteries but due to the fact that they would not receive them in the spirit in which they would be given. The mass could not comprehend the application of material and even gross substances, toward divine ends and would degrade the most sacred functions of God’s divine creation, to gross purposes. The masses never were ready to receive the Mysteries nor are they today, much as the Initiates wish to confer them upon all of God’s children.

“The qualifications for initiation (entrance as a Neophyte or Aspirant) were maturity of age and purity of conduct. A character free from suspicion, or immorality, was absolutely required in the Aspirant. Nero, on account of his lack in this respect, did not dare, when in Greece, to offer himself as a candidate for initiation. The privilege (of initiation to the Mysteries of Greece) was at first confined to natives of Greece, but was afterwards extended to foreigners. Significant symbols were used as means of instruction and words of recognition were communicated to the initiated.” – Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry.

“These Mysteries existed in every country of heathendom (falsely so- called because the time was prior to the beginning of the first century of the age just ended), in each under a different name and, to some extent, under a different form, but always and everywhere with the same design of inculcating by allegorical and symbolic teachings, (what is now) the great Masonic doctrine of the Unity of God and the Immortality of the Soul. This is an important proposition and the fact which it enunciates must never be lost sight of in an inquiry into the origin of Freemasonry; for the pagan (non- Christian) Mysteries were to the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity (something which did not exist except in the minds of modern writers who have had only an exoteric experience in the rite of initiation) precisely what the Master’s lodge is to the Freemasonry of the present day. It is needless to offer any proof of their existence (the Mysteries did exist but no spurious Freemasonry, since the lodge of Freemasons, as such, is a modern institution and a spurious body cannot exist prior to a genuine body but follows as an imitation of and without authority from the genuine) since this is admitted and continually referred to by all historians, ancient and modern; and to discuss minutely their character and organization would occupy a distinct treatise.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“The legend and traditions of `Hiram Abiff’ (for such is the rendering of the Hebrew text in Luther’s Bible), form the consummation of the connecting link between Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries and sustain beyond peradventure the theory that Freemasonry dates anterior to the Deluge and the strong probability of its divine origin.

“We do not assert that the legend of Hiram Abiff is true. We only know that it has come to us by tradition. At what time the legend of the death of Hiram Abiff took the place of the older legends in the Mysteries of Persia, India, Egypt, etc., we have no information. Nor is it important for us to know; for Masonry is a succession of allegories, the mere vehicle of great lessons in morality and philosophy.

“The Masonic legend stands by itself, unsupported by history or other than its own traditions. Yet we readily recognize Hiram Abiff, one of the Grand Masters of Freemasons, as the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Mithras of the Persians, the Bacchus of the Greeks, the Dionysius of the Fraternity of the Artificers and the Atys of the Phrygians (Fire Philosophers) , whose passion, death and resurrection were celebrated by the people respectively.

“For many ages and everywhere Masons have celebrated the death of Hiram Abiff. That event, therefore, interests the whole world and not a particular sect, order or coterie. It belongs to no particular time, religion or people.

Everywhere among the ancient nations there exists a similar allegory and all must refer to the same primitive fact.

“In the Apprentice we find reproduced the Aspirant of Thebes and Eleusis, the Soldiers of Mithras, the Christian Catechumen. In the fellow craft, the … of Eleusis, the Initiate of the Second Order, the Lion of the Eastern Mysteries, the Christian Neophyte. In all the Mysteries there was a double doctrine. It was so everywhere, among the Brahmins of India as well as among the Druids of Germany and Gaul; at Memphis, Samothrace and Eleusis; in the Mysteries of the Hebrews and early Christians as well as in those of Ceres and the Good Goddess. Everywhere we see emblems presenting a physical meaning and receiving a double interpretation: one natural and, as it were, material, within the reach of ordinary intellects (the mass); the other, sublime and philosophical, which was communicated to those men of genius only, who, in the preparatory degree, had understood the concealed meaning of the allegories.

“Everywhere in the East, the cradle of religions and allegories (symbolism and double interpretation), we see in ancient times under different names the same idea reproduced; everywhere a god, a supreme being or an extraordinary man is slain to recommence afterwards a glorious life; everywhere we meet the memory of a great tragical event, a crime or transgression that plunges the people into sorrow and mourning, to which soon succeeds enthusiastic rejoicing.” – Piersons, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The Mysteries of Osiris formed the third degree or summit of the Egyptian Initiation. In these, the legend of the murder of Osiris by his brother Typhon, was represented and the god was personated by the candidate. Osiris, according to the tradition, was a wise king of Egypt, who having achieved the reform of his subjects at home, resolved to spread the blessings of civilization in other parts of the earth. This he accomplished but on his return he found his kingdom, which he had left in the care of his wife Isis, distracted by the seditions of his brother Typhon (Typhon represented the dark, evil and destructive side of every Soul which is always in conflict with the Divine part of the human). Osiris attempted, by mild remonstrances, to convince his brother of the impropriety of his conduct but he fell a sacrifice in the attempt. (Evil cannot be overcome or transmuted into good by a passive resistance or a negative attitude. It must be overcome by the might of right, by active struggle and by constant labor, otherwise good will fall a prey to that which is destructive). For Typhon murdered him in a secret apartment (nearly all great sins are committed in secret and especially is this true of sex sins or abuses) and cutting up the body, enclosed the pieces in a chest, which he committed to the waters of the Nile. Isis (representative of the Mother principle and the Soul or that part of man which seeks his spiritual good and elevation), searching for the body, found it and entrusted it to the care of the priests (those who can teach man how he may regenerate the physical or body and elevate the sex forces for the attainment of Illumination, which in the Mysteries, is termed Life or the Light), establishing at the same time the Mysteries (the plan and method for the complete Regeneration of man and his Soul) in commemoration of the foul deed.

One piece of the body, however, she could not find, the Membrum Virile (without which, or if degraded or so weakened by abuses that generation is no longer possible, Illumination or Salvation of Soul, is impossible). For this she substituted a fictitious representation (the founders of the formal church never had this secret, consequently, in place of the Word, which is the life, they substituted a doctrine of faith and vicarious atonement) which she consecrated and which, under the name of Phallus, is to be found as the emblem of fecundity in all the Ancient Mysteries (on Christian churches as steeples and in the churches as the columns, altars and the cross).

“This legend (in one sense) was purely astronomical. Osiris (then) was the sun, Isis the moon. Typhon was the symbol of winter, which destroys the fecundating and fertilizing powers of the sun, thus, as it were, depriving him of life. This was the catastrophe celebrated in the Mysteries and the aspirant (in these outer or symbolic ceremonies) was made to pass fictitiously through the sufferings and the death of Osiris.” – Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry.

“The idea of the existence of an enlightened people who lived at a remote era and came from the east, was a very prevalent notion among the ancient traditions. Ezekiel tells us (chapter 43, verse 2) that `The glory of the God Israel came from the way of the East.’ Adam Clark says: `All knowledge all religion and all arts and sciences have traveled according to the course of the sun from east to west.’ Bazot tells us in his Manuel du Franc- Macon, page 154, that `the veneration which Masons entertain for the east confirms an opinion previously announced, that the religious system of Masonry came from the east and has reference to the Primitive Religion, whose first occupation was the worship of the sun (but only as a representation of the Divine Light which is in man and which originally, was part of God, the Creator of the visible sun and visible or physical man).'” – Pierson, Tradition of Freemasonry.

“Among the Egyptians, the chief deity, Osiris, was but another name for the sun, while his arch- enemy and destroyer. Typhon, was the typification of the night or darkness (or cold – always an emblem of death – which destroys and prevents fertilization). And lastly, among the Hindu, the three manifestations of their supreme Deity, Brahma, Siva and Vishni, were symbols of the rising, meridian and setting sun.

“This early and very general prevalence of the sentiment of sun- worship (among the masses and not in the circles of Initiate- Priests) is worthy of especial attention on account of the influence that it exercised over the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity. Many, indeed nearly all of the Masonic symbols of the present day can be thoroughly understood and properly appreciated only by this reference to sun- worship.

“One thing, at least, is incapable of refutation and that is, that we are indebted to the Tyrian Masons for the introduction of the symbol of Hiram Abiff. The idea of the symbol, although modified by the Jewish Masons, is not Jewish in its inception. It was evidently borrowed from the pagan Mysteries, where Bacchus, Adonis, Proserpine, and a host of other apotheosized beings play the same role that Hiram does in the Masonic (and Jesus, in the Christian) Mysteries.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“In every country under heaven the initiations were performed in caverns, either natural or artificial, and darkness was honored with peculiar marks of veneration, by reason of its supposed priority of existence. (Without matter there can be no form, without form the Soul can find no habitation, without a vehicle it cannot experience and therefore is unable to attain Consciousness).

`And God said, let there be light and there was Light.’ Light was an emblem of Life (and is now an emblem of Life, Light and Immortality) and darkness of death; and death was a prelude to resurrection (the bringing forth of Light).

It at once will be seen, therefore, in what manner the doctrine of the resurrection was inculcated and exemplified in these remarkable institutions of the ancients (and the Priesthood of the Initiates of the present).” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“In all the ancient systems of Initiation, the candidate was shrouded in darkness (emblematical of sin and the flesh) as a preparation for the reception of light (the transmutation of the flesh and the “bringing forth – of the Spirit – the Soul Light which is Illumination). The duration varied in the different rites (and with each individual aspirant under training). In the Celtic Mysteries of Druidism, the period in which the aspirant was immersed in darkness was nine days and nights. Among the Greeks, at Eleusis, it was three times as long. And in the still severer rites of Mithras, in Persia, fifty days of darkness, solitude and fasting were imposed upon the adventurous neophyte who, by these excessive trials, was at length entitled to the full communication of the light of knowledge (of the exoteric part of the Initiation).

“Darkness, like death, is the symbol of Initiation (the resurrection, or coming into the Light). It was for this reason that all the ancient initiations were performed at night. The same custom prevails in Freemasonry and the explanation is the same. Death and Resurrection were taught in the Mysteries, as they are in Freemasonry. The Initiation was the lesson of death.

The full fruition or autopsy, the reception of light, was the lesson of Regeneration or Resurrection.

“Light is, therefore, a fundamental symbol in Freemasonry. It is, in fact, the first important symbol that is presented to the neophyte in his instructions and contains within itself the very essence of Speculative Masonry, which is nothing more than the contemplation of intellectual light or truth (in the real Initiation it is the Light of the Soul which ultimately results from the constructive application of the light of the intellect).” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“A laudable thirst after knowledge prompted the youth of all ranks to aspire to the ambition of deciphering the meaning and illustrations of those obscure symbols, which were said to have been communicated to the priests by the revelation from the celestial Deities. Initiation was the only means of acquiring this knowledge and it is therefore no wonder that initiation was so much in request.

“There was also another quality of the mind which served to recommend the Mysteries: that strange attachment to the marvelous by which every grade of human nature is swayed. To excite this sentiment in all its sublimity of horror, the initiations were performed at the dead of night. No severity of probation could deter the bold and determined aspirant from encountering terrors and actual dangers which led to the gratification of his curiosity (these statements deal exclusively with the exoteric initiation and have either no knowledge of or no reference to the Great Work of renunciation, transmutation and regeneration through which aspirants to the Priesthood had to pass); and the shades of darkness imparted vigor to the passion which looked forward to a recompense of such an exalted nature.” – Oliver, History of Initiation.

“In the old lectures it is said: `He that is truly square, well polished and uprightly fixed, is qualified to be a member of our most honorable society. He that trusteth such a person with any engagement is freed from all trouble and anxiety about the performance of it, for he is faithful to his trust; his words are the breathings of his heart and he is an utter stranger to deceit.’ “In the Mysteries of India, the aspirant was invested with a consecrated sash or girdle, which he was directed to wear next his skin. It was manufactured with many mysterious ceremonies and said to possess the power of preserving the wearer from personal danger. It consisted of a cord composed of three times three threads twisted together and fastened at the end with a knot, and was called Zennar. Hence comes our Cabletow. It was an emblem of their triune Deity, the remembrance of whom we preserve in many of our symbols.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The rite of discalceation, or uncovering the feet on approaching holy ground, is derived from the Latin word discalceare, to pluck off one’s shoes.

The usage has the prestige of antiquity and universality in its favor. (It symbolizes the great truths which all sincere aspirants should ever have in mind: The Soul coming before God – its own Light and records – cannot possibly hide under any subterfuge or covering but is naked, easily seen through, and that therefore the first essential is to throw aside all that is superficial and which can deceive, and become as “little children before the Lord.” The Holy of Holies cannot be entered so long as man is unwilling to face absolute facts, irrespective of how accusatory or seemingly shocking they may be. “Take off thy shoes,” that is, come forward without an attempt to hide anything, “naked and unashamed,” willingness to look the truth in the face and to accept the verdict.) “That it not only very generally prevailed but that its symbolic signification was well understood in the days of Moses, we learn from that passage of Exodus where the angel of the Lord, at the burning bush, exclaims to the patriarch, `Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ Clark thinks it is from this command that the Eastern nations have derived the custom of performing all their acts of religious worship with bare feet. But it is much more probable that the ceremony was in use long anterior to the circumstance of the burning bush, and that the Jewish lawgiver at once recognized it as a well- known sign of reverence (in the Great Rite, a sign of purity of motive and honest worship at the fount of life as well as a profession of true love).

“Bishop Patrick entertains this opinion and thinks that the custom was derived from the ancient patriarchs and transmitted by a general tradition to succeeding times.

“The direction of Pythagoras to his disciples was in these words: `Offer sacrifices and worship with they shoes off.’ (Do not worship, do not practice the Rite of elevation, unless it is in purity, “with shoes off” that is, uncovered, “free from lustful or ulterior or selfish motive,” for to enter the Holy of Holies, the Inner Sanctuary, the Temple where life begins and ends, without this purity of heart, is to degrade and thereby become doubly degraded).

“The Mohammedans, when about to perform their devotions, always leave their slippers at the door of the mosque (emblematical of the true worship of the Soul and of the Spirit of Creation and Re- creation). The Druids practiced the same custom whenever they celebrated their sacred rites and the ancient Peruvians are said always to have left their shoes at the porch when they entered the magnificent temple consecrated to the worship of the sun (all symbolizing exoterically the spirit of the Mysteries).

“The rite of discalceation is, therefore, a symbol of reverence (and rendered by God’s first creation to Him in recognition of the nobility and purity of the act of creation when uncontaminated by the lusts of the flesh).

It symbolizes, in the language of symbolism, that the spot which is about to be approached (or entered) in this humble and revential manner is consecrated to some holy purpose.

“Into the Master Mason’s lodge – this holy of holies of the Masonic temple where the solemn truths of death and immortality are inculcated – the aspirant, on entering, should purify the heart from every contamination and remember, with a due sense of their symbolic application, those words that once broke upon the astonished ears of the old patriarch (when entering the portals of initiation, and – though generally unknown to the externally refined and cultured but internally sex- debased, western peoples – when about to approach the nuptial couch on the wedding night) – `Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.'” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

Worshipping at the Altar of the Deity with bare feet was universal ages before church edifices were known to the human race; Adam Clark states that the custom of worshipping the Deity barefooted was so general among all nations of antiquity, that it is one of the thirteen proofs that the whole human race was derived from the one family. More than anything else, it is a proof of the reverence the original human family had for both God’s and man’s creative power before the serpent of lust entered the garden of creation.

“In the ancient (exoteric) initiation, the candidate never was permitted to enter on the threshold of the temple or sacred cavern in which the ceremonies were to be conducted, until, by the most solemn warnings, he had been impressed with the necessity of caution, secrecy and fortitude.” – Mackey, Manual of the Lodge.

“The probation of a candidate in ancient times embraced many important particulars but principally his fortitude and constancy were severely tried by the application of severe tests the while he was left apparently without means of defense or protection. He who was unwilling to sacrifice life, if need be, in order to gain the object sought for, was unworthy of initiation and never could hope to attain the Realm of Light, the Hope of Immortality.

“Freemasonry is a system based upon the knowledge and acknowledgment of God, who is the creator of the world and the author and giver of every good and perfect gift; the vehicle which has brought down from the antediluvian world the primitive religion of man. It must not, however, be mistaken for a religious sect, although it embraces that universal system in which all men agree, while the infidel and atheist are excluded because they prefer the dangerous alternative of disbelieving the existence.” – Pierson, Tradition of Freemasonry.

“The successful probationer (the aspirant under training), at the expiration of his novitiate (when he had attained a certain degree of illumination), was brought forth into the cavern (for external or exoteric symbolization of all that he had passed through) of initiation, where he entered on the point of a sword presented to his naked left breast, by which he was slightly wounded (symbolization of the Mystic doctrine that God does not hold the child responsible until after puberty, the age of responsibility beginning at the moment the powers of reproduction are fully developed and capable of misuse, and that wisdom, the actual knowledge of life, begins with the experience – wounding or bleeding – of the sex life), and then he was ritually prepared for the approaching ceremony. He was crowned with olive, anointed with oil of ban and armed with enchanted armor, by his guide, who was the representative of Simorgh, a monstrous griffin and an important agent in the machinery of Persian mythology, and furnished with talismans that he might be ready to encounter all the hideous monsters raised up by the Dives (passions) to impede his progress to perfection. Induced into an inner apartment he was purified with fire and water and solemnly put through the seven stages of initiation. From the precipice where he stood, he beheld a deep and dangerous vault into which a single false step might precipitate him down to the `throne of dreadful necessity,’ which was an emblem of those infernal regions through which he was about to pass. Threading the circuitous mazes of the gloomy cavern, he was soon awakened from his trance of thought, by seeing the sacred fire flash, at intervals, through its recesses to illuminate his path, sometimes bursting from beneath his feet, sometimes descending on his head in a broad sheet of white and shadowy flame. Amidst the admiration thus inspired, his terror was excited by the distant yelling of ravenous beasts, the roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the fierce and threatening bark of dogs, etc.” – Oliver, History of Initiation.

“Circumambulation among the pagan nations referred to the great doctrine of Sabaism or Sun- Worship. Freemasonry alone has preserved the primitive meaning, which was a symbolic allusion to the sun, as the source of light and the most wonderful work of the Grand Architect of the Universe. The lodge represents the world; the three principal officers represent the sun in his three principal positions – at rising, at meridian and at setting. The circumambulation, therefore, alludes to the apparent course of the solar orb, through these points around the world.” – Mackey, Manual of the Lodge “In the rite of circumambulation we find another ceremony borrowed from the Ancient ceremonies practiced in the Mysteries. In Ancient Greece, when the priests were engaged in the rite of sacrifice, they and the people always walked three times around the altar while singing a sacred hymn. In making this procession, great care was taken to move in imitation of the course of the sun. For this purpose they commenced at the east and passing on by the way of the south to the west, and thence to the north (the house of death) they arrived at the east (resurrection) again. By this means, as it will be observed, the right hand was always nearest the altar.

“Among the Romans the ceremony of circumambulation was always used in the rite of sacrifice, of expiation and of purification (both in the esoteric and exoteric rites). Thus Virgil describes Coryn’s as purifying his companions (an outer form) at the funeral of Misenus, by passing three times around them while aspersing them with the lustral waters, and to do so conveniently it was necessary that he should have moved with his right hand toward them.

“Among the Hindus the same rite of circumambulation always was practiced.

As an instance, we may cite the ceremonies which are required to be performed by a Brahmin upon first rising from bed in the morning. The priest, having first adored the sun, while directing his face to the east, then walks toward the west by the way of the south, saying at the same time `I follow the course of the sun,’which he thus explains (to the profane): `As the sun in his course moves round the world by way of the south, so do I follow that luminary, to obtain the benefit arising from a journey round the earth by way of the south (symbolizing man’s journey and experiences on earth).'” – Pierson, Tradition of Freemasonry.

“Among the Ancients, Silence and Secrecy were considered virtues of the highest order. The Egyptians worshipped (honored) Hippocrates, the god of secrecy, raised altars in his name (to the virtue in the silent tongue) and wreathed them with garlands of flowers (how well and with what honor, moderns might copy the spirit of the practice). Among the Ancient Romans these virtues were not less esteemed and a distinguished Latin poet tells us, `for faithful silence also there is a sure reward (this is certainly true in today’s School of the Mystics).'” – Sickles, Freemason’s Guide.

“An oath taken with the face toward the east (emblematic of the creative power) was deemed more solemn and binding than when taken with the face toward any other cardinal point. Oaths were variously confirmed by lifting up the hand to heaven, by placing them on the altar, or on a stone, or in the hands of the person administering the oath. A most solemn method of confirming an oath was by placing a drawn sword across the throat of the person to whom it was administered and invoking Heaven, earth and sea to witness the ratification (a comparatively late method of conferring an obligation).

“It was the custom to add a solemn imprecation to the oaths, either for the satisfaction of the person by whom the oath was imposed, or to lay a more inviolable obligation on themselves, lest they should at any time repent of their purpose and take contrary measures to what they then resolved upon. The person who took the oath in some of the mysterious rites was to be upon bare knees, with a naked sword pointed to his throat.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The right hand in all ages has been deemed an emblem of fidelity and the Ancients worshipped Deity under the name Fides (gave high honor to the virtue of fidelity and recognized it as one of the highest attributes of the Godhead and the true Occult Fraternities of today do likewise) or Fidelity, which was sometimes represented by two right hands joined and sometimes by two human figures holding each other by the right hand.” – Sickles, General Ahiman Rezon.

“Valerius Maximus tells us that the Ancients had a moral Deity whom they called Fides. Her temple was first consecrated by Numa. Fides was a Goddess of honesty and fidelity (it were well to resurrect this Goddess in these modern days when there is so great lack of that quality of mind which respects confidence as sacred and a promise as inviolable); and the writer adds, when they promised anything of old they gave the right hand to pledge it, as we do, and therefore Fides is represented as giving her hand and sometimes her two hands conjoining. Chartarius more fully describes this by observing that the proper residence of faith and fidelity was thought by the Ancients to be in the right hand. And therefore this Deity was sometimes represented by two right hands joined together; sometimes by two little images each shaking the other’s right hand, so that the right hand was by them held sacred and symbolically was made use of in a solemn manner to denote fidelity.

“In the Scriptures we find frequent references to the use of the right hand, either in confirmation of an agreement or as an emblem of truth and fidelity. Thus St. Paul says: `When James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.’ In Psalms it is said, `Their right hand is a right hand of falsehood,’that is to say, they lift up their right hand to swear to what is not true.

(Of all the modern exoteric Fraternities, Masonry is generally conceded to hold the strongest bond of fidelity between member and member but this honor seems to be hanging in the balance and with the shattering of this link which binds Mason to Mason will come the fall of the modern Fraternity, just as the betrayal of confidences by the ancient brethren brought about the ruin of the older Institutions of esotericism.)

The vow of one Mason to another should be sacred and is so held by the true Mason. The honest Mason would no more use his insignia of membership to bring about loss or dishonor to a fellow brother than would a priest of the Church of Rome betray the confidence of the confessor. Yet great shame has been brought upon Masonry in that while there is not on record an instance of any Priest committing this unforgivable offence – condemned – damned – by God and all true- hearted men, we have just witnessed the despicable performance of a high Mason – Thirty- Second and Shriner – who used the insignia of the Shrine wherewith to lure a fellow Shriner into committing an offence against the Eighteenth Amendment.

The instance cited, occurred in the city of Allentown, PA., when one Austin, later found to be a sergeant in the State Police system, by means of his Shriner insignia, ingratiated himself with a fellow member and through the friendship (God protect the term, the most sacred known, to the tongues of men!) obtained (or claimed to have obtained) alcoholic liquor from his fellow Shriner and thereupon brought about his arrest.

During the trial of the case, the defense attorney stigmatized State Policeman Austin as having used one of the most “reprehensible, despicable, and revolting methods of securing evidence ever perpetrated in that section; that in hiding his intention under the guise of a button of a Shriner, a method obnoxious to all decent people, to gain the good graces of members of that order, he exhibited a yellow brand of conduct heretofore unknown.” It is not here a question of whether the accused did commit the act with which he was charged, or whether we believe the Eighteenth Amendment to be unjust and class legislation, but it is a question of the degrading use made of a Mason’s most sacred possession – his knowledge of Masonry – to gain another member’s secret.

The action of Sergeant Austin will go down in Masonic history equally with that of Morgan, the supposed exposer of the secrets of Masonry and, unless the Masonic Fraternity universally will take action to punish (Masonically this man who has so deeply degraded all that Masonic fellowship stands for, then the beginning of the fall of the institution may be dated from the year Nineteen Hundred and Twentyfour. “This lifting up the right hand was, in fact, the universal mode adopted among both Jews and Pagans (Pagans’ a most foolish appellation for pre- Christian peoples) in taking an oath. The custom is certainly older than the days of Abraham, who said to the king of Sodom, `I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take anything that is thine.’ The mode of expression shows that the uplifting of the right hand was a familiar emblem and recognized as an evidence of truth (and of trustworthiness and confidence between those pledging a trust or making a vow).” – Pierson, Traditions of Masonry.

“The Rite of Illumination is a very Ancient ceremony and constitutes an important (esoteric) feature in all the mysteries of the early (as well as modern) ages. In the Egyptian, Cabirian, Sidonian, Eleusinian, Scandinavian and Druidical rituals it held a prominent place and in them all represented the same ideas. It marked the termination (culmination) of the mystic pilgrimage through gloom and night (suffering and sacrifice) and was emblematic of the moral and intellectual light which pours its Divine radiance on the mind after it has conquered the prejudice and passions and ignorance, with which it has so long been struggling.” – Sickles, Freemason’s Guide.

“Light was, in accordance with the old religious sentiment, the great object of attainment in all the Ancient Religious Mysteries (it was the aim and the end of the pilgrimage of the Aspirant). It was then, as it is now, in Masonry, made the symbol of truth and knowledge (with the Aspirant in the Mysteries, it was not merely a symbol, because the neophyte was forced to bring the Light of the Soul into manifestation or fail, and to fail was to lose his life). This was always its ancient symbolism and we must never lose sight of this emblematic meaning, when we are considering the nature and signification of Masonic light. When the candidate makes a demand for light, it is not merely for that material light which is to remove a physical darkness; that is only the outward form, which conceals the inner symbolism.

He craves an intellectual (Soul) illumination which will dispel the darkness of mental and moral ignorance, and bring to his view, as an eye witness, the Sublime Truths of Religion, Philosophy and Science, which it is the great design of Freemasonry (the Mysteries) to teach.

“In all the ancient systems this reverence for light, as the symbol of truth (the actuality of the Soul) was predominant. In the Mysteries of every nation, the candidate was made to pass, during his initiations, through scenes of utter darkness (representative of the material envelope, the physical gross body), and at length terminated his trials by an admission to the splendidly- illuminated sacellum or sanctuary (symbolic of the “breaking in” of the Light or Illumination of the Soul) where he was said to have attained pure and perfect light and where he received the necessary instructions which were to invest him with that knowledge of the Divine Truth which it had been the object of all his labors to gain, and the design of the institution, into which he had been initiated, to bestow.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“The Rite of Intrusting supplies us with many important and interesting symbols. There is an important period in the ceremony of Masonic initiation, where the candidate is about to receive a full communication of the Mysteries through which he has passed, and to which the trials and labors which he has undergone can only entitle him. This ceremony is technically called the `Rite of Intrusting,’ because it is then the aspirant begins to be intrusted with that for the possession of which he was seeking. It is equivalent to what, in the Ancient Mysteries, was called the `autopsy,’ or the seeing of what only the initiated were permitted to see (the opening of the Light in the Center of Life – the Illumination of the Soul – coming into Consciousness of Soul – the actual vision of the Individualized Soul. Paul attained this when he said: “I have this day seen that of which it is not lawful for me to speak”).

“This Rite of Intrusting is, of course, divided into several parts or periods; for the aporreta, or secret things of Masonry, are not to be given at once but in gradual progression. It begins, however, with the communication of Light, which, although but a preparation for the development of the Mysteries which are to follow must be considered as one of the most important symbols in the whole science of Masonic symbolism. (In the true Initiation the finding of the Center from which the Light comes is the beginning of the Path which finally ends in Mastership, Sonship or Conscious Immortality. Illumination is the birth of the child in the manger (body) – it is the birth of Manisis in the present age as it was the birth of Christos, or Christ, of the past age.

This Child must then be watched so that it will grow into manhood and between the period of childhood (Illumination) and manhood (Mastership) many mysteries will unfold or reveal themselves). So important, indeed, is it, and so much does it pervade with its influence and its relations to the whole Masonic system, that Freemasonry itself anciently received, among other appellations, that of Lux or Light, to signify that it is to be regarded as the Sublime Doctrine of Divine Truth by which the path of him who has attained it is to be illuminated in his pilgrimage of life.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“Turning from the scenes of woe, the candidate was passed through some other dark caverns and passages, until, having successfully trod the labyrinth, consisting of six spacious vaults connected by winding galleries, each opening with a narrow portal and the scene of some perilous adventure; and having, by the exercise of fortitude and perseverance, been borne triumphantly through this accumulated mass of difficulty and danger, the doors of the seventh vault, or Sacellum, were thrown open, and his darkness was changed into light. He was admitted into the spacious and lofty cavern already described, which was denominated the sacred grotto of Elysium. This consecrated place was brilliantly illuminated and sparkled with gold and precious stones. A splendid sun, and starry system emitted their dazzling radiance and moved in order to the symphonies of heavenly music. Here sat the Archimagus in the East, elevated on a throne of burnished gold, crowned with a rich diadem decorated with myrtle boughs and habited in a flowing tunic of a bright cerulean tincture. Round him were arranged in solemn order the Presules and dispensers of the Mysteries, forming altogether a reverend assembly which covered the awestruck aspirant with a profound feeling of veneration and an involuntary impulse frequently produced an act of worship. Here he was received with congratulations and after having entered into the usual engagement for keeping secret the sacred Rite of Mithras, the Sacred Words were intrusted to him, of which the Tetractys, or name of God, was the chief.” – Oliver, History of Initiation.

“The Rite of Investiture, called, in the colloquially technical language of the Order, the Ceremony of Clothing, brings us at once to the consideration of that well- known symbol of Freemasonry, the Lamb- Skin Apron.

“This Rite of Investiture or the placing upon the aspirant of some garment, as indication of his appropriate preparation for the ceremonies in which he was about to engage, prevailed in all the Ancient institutions.

“In the Levitical economy of the Israelites, the priests always wore the abnet, or linen apron, or girdle, as a part of the investiture of the priesthood. This, with the other garments, was to be worn, as the text expresses it, `for glory and for beauty,’ or, as it has been explained by a learned commentator, `as emblematical of that holiness and purity which ever characterize the Divine Nature (and characterize the neophyte after the transmutation of the gross into the finer, the mortal into the immortal), and the worship which is worthy of Him.’ “In the Persian Mysteries of Mithras, the candidate, having first received light, was invested with a girdle (symbolic always of having won control over the gross creative functions and the debasing desires native thereto in the natural man, as likewise having gained full knowledge of the transmutation of the Elixir Vitae, and the raising of the serpent on the cross), a crown or mitre (indicating a “coming into the kingdom” through the process of regeneration), purple tunic (symbolic of self- mastery, or the right to govern a kingdom), and, lastly, a white apron (indicating that only a pure or noble or elevating – uplifting – use would henceforth be made of the creative (God- Like) forces) .

“In the initiations practiced in Hindustan (India), in the ceremony of investiture was substituted the sash, or sacred zennaar, consisting of a cord, composed of nine threads twisted into a knot at the end, and hanging from the left shoulder to the right hip. This was, perhaps, the type of the Masonic Scarf, which always is or ought to be worn in the same position.

“In the Scandinavian Rites, where the military genius of the people had introduced a warlike species of initiation, instead of the apron, we find the candidate receiving a white shield, which was, however, always presented with the accompaniment of some symbolic instruction, not very dissimilar to that which is connected with the Masonic Apron.

“In the Apocalypse, a white stone (physical and spiritual regeneration establishing Immortality in mortality) was the reward promised by the Spirit to those who overcame; and in the same mystical book the apostle is instructed to say, that fine linen, clean and white, is the righteousness of the saints.

“In the early ages of the Christian church (assemblies), a white garment was placed upon the catechumen who recently had been baptized, to denote that he had been cleansed from his former sins and was thenceforth to lead a life of innocence and purity. Hence it was presented to him with this appropriate charge: `Receive the white and undefiled garment and produce it unspotted before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may obtain Immortal life.'” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“There is no one symbol of Masonry more important in its teachings or more interesting in its history, than that of the Lamb- Skin or white leather apron.

It is impressed upon the Mason’s memory as the first gift he receives, the first symbol that is explained to him, and the first tangible evidence which he possesses of his admission into the Fraternity (as purification of mind and body was the first requisite of the Aspirant upon entering the Secret Fraternities in search of Initiation).

“The apron or girdle, in ancient times, was a universally received emblem of truth and passive duty. The Israelites, when preparing to effect their escape from Egyptian captivity, were enjoined to eat the Passover (passing from one stage to the other – from the mortal (carnal) to the Regenerate) with their loins girded. (In the Scriptures the loins are representative of the `reins,’ the procreative function. Therefore the command was to pass over from the old life to the new with the passions safely under control).

“It was the firm opinion of the Essenes that internal purity and rectitude of conduct were strikingly evinced by a person’s outward appearance. The belief was probably derived from that famous precept of King Solomon, who had constantly the same emblematical reference on his lips: `Let thy garments be always white.’ “When a candidate was initiated into the ancient mysteries, he was esteemed regenerate and he was invested with a white garment and apron as a symbol of his newly attained purity.

“Among the Greeks the garment of initiation was white, because, says Cicero, `white is the color most acceptable to the gods.’ This robe was accounted sacred and a never- failing source of protection in every emergency.

“All the ancient statues of the heathen gods which have been discovered in Egypt, Greece, Persia, Hindustan or America are uniformly decorated with aprons. Hence is deducted the antiquity of this article of apparel.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry. “The emblematical foundations or supports of a Masonic Lodge are three pillars, denominated Wisdom, Strength and Beauty.

These three noble pillars give it a stability which no exertion of art or ingenuity can subvert and no force can overthrow. They were thus named in allusion to the perfection with which our system has been endowed by the Almighty Architect: because, without Wisdom to contrive, Strength to support, and Beauty to adore, no structure can be perfect.

“In the Ancient Mysteries these three pillars represented the great emblematical Triad of Deity, as with us they refer to the three principal officers of the Lodge. In the British Mysteries, the Adytum or Lodge was actually supported by three stones or pillars, which were supposed to convey a regenerating purity to the aspirant, after having endured the ceremony of initiation in all its accustomed formalities. The delivery from between them was termed a new birth. (As a matter of fact, the original representation of the three pillars was not by three stones but by two stones and one column.) “The Persians, who termed their emblematical mithraic cave or lodge the Empyrean, feigned to be supported by three intelligencies – Ormisda, Mithra and Mithras, who were usually denominated from certain characteristics which they were supposed individually to possess, Eternity, Fecundity and Authority (Immortality as the result of Virility through Strength, for the Glory of God in man is in man’s Strength).

“Similar to this were the forms of the Egyptian Deity, designed by the attributes of Wisdom, Power and Goodness, and the Sovereign Good, Intellect and Energy of the Platonists, which were also regarded as the respective properties of the Divine Triad.

“It is remarkable that every Mysterious system practiced on the habitable globe contained this Triad of the Deity, which some writers refer to as the Trinity, others as the triple offspring of Noah and others as the three sons of Adam – Abel, Cain and Seth. The oracle in Damascus asserted that `Throughout the world a Triad shines forth, which resolves itself into a Monad,’ and the uniform symbol of this three- fold Deity was an equilateral triangle, the precise form occupied by our pillars of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The three Principal Offices of a lodge are, it is needless to say, situated in the East, West and South. Now, bearing in mind that the lodge is a symbol of the world, or of the Universe, the reference to these three offices to the sun at its rising, its setting, and its meridian height, must at once suggest itself.

“In the Brahminical initiations of Hindustan, which are among the earliest that have been transmitted to us and may also be considered as the cradle of all the others of subsequent ages and various countries, the ceremonies were performed in vast caverns, the remains of some of which, at Salsette, Elephanta, and a few other places, will give the spectators but a very inadequate idea of the extent and splendor of these Ancient Indian lodges.

“The interior of the cavern of initiation was lighted by innumerable lamps and there sat, in the East, the West and the South, the principal Hierophants or explainers of the Mysteries, as representatives of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva.

Now, Brahma was the supreme Deity of the Hindus, borrowed or derived from the Sun- god of their Sabean ancestors, and Vishu and Siva were but manifestations of his attributes. We learn from the Indian Pantheon that `when the sun rises in the east, he is Brahma; when he gains his meridian in the south, he is Siva; and when he sets in the west, he is Vishnu.’ “Again, in the Zoroasteric Mysteries of Persia, the temple of initiation was circular, being made so as to represent the Universe; the sun in the east, with the surrounding zodiac, formed an indispensable part of the ceremony of the reception.

“In the Egyptian Mysteries of Osiris, the same reference to the sun is contained and Herodotus who himself was an initiate, intimates that the ceremonies consisted in the representation of a Sun- god, who had been incarnate, that is, had appeared on earth, or rose, and who was at length put to death by Typhon, the symbol of darkness, typical of the sun’s setting.

“In the great Mysteries of Eleusis, which were celebrated at Athens, we learn from St. Chrysostom, as well as other authorities, that the temple of initiation was symbolic of the Universe (also of the illuminated or Conscious Soul which is symbolized by the Winged Globe) and we know that one of the officers represented the sun. ” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“In the East, as the pillar of Wisdom, this Deity was called Brahma; in the West, as the pillar of Strength, Vishnu; and in the South, as the pillar of Beauty, Siva. Hence, in the Indian initiations the representative of Brahma was seated in the East, that of Vishnu in the West and that of Siva in the South. A very remarkable coincidence with the practice of ancient Masonry.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The lodge continues throughout the degree to be presented to the initiated as a symbol of the world, and hence its covering is figuratively supposed to be the `clouded canopy,’ on which the host of stars is represented. (Man, as the Microcosm, contains within himself a counterpart of everything the universe contains, as well as all the passions and emotions native to all men and which, through initiation, must be brought into harmonious relationship one with the other. This is the Great Work.) The Mystical ladder which is here referred to as a symbol that was widely diffused among the religions of antiquity where, as in Masonry, it was always supposed to consist of seven steps, because seven was held a Sacred number. In some of the (exoteric ceremonies of the) Ancient Mysteries, the seven steps represented the seven planets and the Sun was the topmost.” – Mackey, Manual of the Lodge.

“The lodge as a representative of the world (and in the inner and actual work of the Mystic Fraternities, of man as the Microcosm who had to be brought under a law functioning as perfectly as that under which the Macrocosm is governed), is of course, supposed to have no other roof than the heavens; and it would scarcely be necessary to enter into any discussion on the subject, were it not that another symbol – the theological ladder – is so intimately connected with it, that the one naturally suggests the other. Now, this Mystic Ladder, which connects the ground floor of the lodge with its roof or covering (man, of the earth, with heaven, which is the Soul), is another important and interesting link, which binds with one common chain, the symbolism and rites of the Ancient Initiation.

“This Mystical ladder, which in Masonry is referred to as `the theological ladder, which Jacob in his vision saw, reaching from earth to heaven,’ was widely dispersed among the religions of antiquity, where it was always supposed to consist of seven rungs or steps.” Man, since his fall from the heavenly – undefiled – state, is of the earth, earthly. His beginning toward heaven (upward) must naturally commence on or with the earth (the physical) but his desires must be ever upwards, consequently, when he enters the Mysteries he must at once raise a ladder (hopes and desires). If he is sincere, then gradually and laboriously, with many denials, sacrifices, aye, missteps, he climbs (builds) step by step, until at last the final rung, which is symbolized by the mystic number seven, is taken, and his ladder (his spiritual or Soul self) reaches to heaven, that is to say, he has attained the spiritual state termed Conscious Immortality – Illumination of the Soul – his spiritual birthright, if earned.

“There is an anomaly in giving to the Mystical ladder of Masonry only three rungs. It is an anomaly, however, with which Masonry has nothing to do. The error arose from the ignorance of those inventors who first engraved the Masonic symbols for our monitors. (This is a mistake on the part of the learned writer. Masonry, originally, had only the three degrees known as the Blue Lodge and therefore the ladder of Masonry had but three rungs. All the ancient orders represented, and rightly so, the ladder with as many rungs as they had degrees, whether this was but three or ninety- three. The last rung was naturally the completion of the work. This is correct usage.) The ladder of Masonry, like the equipollent ladder of its kindred institutions, always had seven steps, although in modern times the three principal or upper ones are alone alluded to. These rungs, beginning at the lowest, are Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice, Faith, Hope and Charity. (These are virtues. The rungs of the ladder, esoterically represent, or symbolize, degrees of development. Virtues are noble and necessary in the process of development but in the Work of development, the stage attained is far more important to the Soul than the virtue underlying the stage of development.) Charity therefore, takes the same place in the ladder of Masonic virtues as the sun does in the ladder or planets.

“If Charity is equivalent to Divine Love, and Divine Love is represented by the sun and, lastly, if Charity be the topmost rung of the Masonic ladder, then again we arrive, as the result of our researches, at the symbol so often already repeated. of the solar orb. The natural sun or the Spiritual Sun – the sun, either as the vivifying principle of animated nature, and therefore the special object of adoration, or as the most prominent instrument of the Creator’s benevolence – was ever a leading idea in the symbolism of antiquity.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“There is a tradition of St. John the Baptist which has collateral evidence to sustain it. His father and mother died during his minority and he was adopted by the Essenes (modernly known as Rosicrucians), living with them in the wilderness and, when of proper age, he was initiated in the Mysteries and finally arrived at the chief dignity of the order. His diet and manner of living were perfectly conformable to the rules of the Essenes. They lived in the country; so did he. They dwelt near the river Jordan and baptized their disciples (as a symbolization of the inner, spiritual, or Soul baptism which is the Illumination); John did the same, and thus acquired the cognomen of the Baptist. The Essenes fed on dates and other fruits, and in many other respects agree with the character of John, as we find him in his gospels.

“The fact that each, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, were eminent Essenes, is a sufficient reason why, in later times, Masons should dedicate their lodges to them without looking for or assigning any others, although doubtless our ancient brethren had other reasons.

“The Masonic Monitor says: `And since their (St. John the Baptist and St.

John the Evangelist) time, there is represented in every regular and well- governed lodge a certain point within a circle, embordered by two perpendicular parallel lines, representing St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist and upon the top rests the Holy Scriptures.'” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

Esoterically we have here one of the greatest and most important of the Mysteries and one which every aspirant must ultimately come to spiritually understand and weave into his life and action. One of the perpendicular parallel lines represents the physical man; the other is symbolic of the spiritual or Soul man. The Great Work lies between the two, establishing harmony between them and in transmuting the material into the Soulual. This work is accomplished through obedience to and the application of the Divine Law and this Divine Law is represented or symbolized by the Holy Scriptures.

Now when the two lines, or the physical and spiritual have been finally equilibrated – harmonized – by the application of the Divine Law, then results the point within a circle – the Illuminated, Conscious, Individualized Soul which is always represented as a point, a unit, self- existing, or a Circle, life without end, or the Winged Globe, life eternal and existing without the selfish self.

“The two parallel lines which in the modern lectures are said to represent St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, really allude (in the astronomical Mysteries which were exoteric in their nature) to particular periods in the sun’s annual course. At two particular points in this course the Sun is found in the Zodiacal signs, Cancer and Capricorn, which are distinguished as the summer and winter solstices. When the sun is in these points, he has reached his greatest northern or southern limits. These points, if we suppose the circle to represent the sun’s annual course, will be indicated by the points where the parallel lines touch the circle.” – Mackey, Manual of the Lodge.

“The Mysteries among the Chinese and Japanese came from India and had similar rites. The equilateral triangle was one of their symbols, and so was the mystical Y; both alluding to the Triune God, the latter being the ineffable name of Deity for which symbol the modern Masons have substituted the Forty- seventh Problem of Euclid from its similarity in shape, having lost the explanation of their original symbol. A ring supported by two serpents (the symbolization of bringing forth a perfect Soul through the medium of the Double Drill between the male and female and representative of the raising of the two serpents (sex forces of the two actors) to the plane of heaven – or spirituality) was emblematical of the world protected by the power and wisdom of the Creator; and this is (in only one sense) the origin of the two parallel lines that support the circle of our lodges.

“In the Druidical Rites, the point within the circle, and the cube, were emblems of Odin, the Supreme God, the author of everything that existed, the Eternal, the Ancient and Living and Awful Being, the searcher into concealed things, the being that never changeth.

“The point within became a universal emblem to denote the temple of the Deity and was referred to the planetary circle in the center of which was fixed the sun, as the universal god and father of nature; for the whole circle of heaven was called God. It was believed that the center of a temple was the peculiar residence of the Deity (this was symbolized by the Holy of Holies of Solomon’s Temple, which Temple of Solomon, was in turn and correctly so, a symbolization of (wo)man. Let him who is in dead earnest seek the solution of this enigma and he has the key to the riddle of the universe); the exterior decorations being merely ornamental. Mexico, Britain, Egypt, India. etc., present us many remains of temples built in circular form in the center of which still remains the point or emblems of Divinity.

“All nations recognize as an object of worship a great Supreme Deity by whom all that was, was made. Another idea was that nothing possessing life could be created without the junction of the active (male) and passive (female) powers. And as God created all life, he must necessarily possess within himself each of these powers, and hence the Phallic worship (universally misunderstood by the impure intellects of the moderns) so common among the ancient nations, the symbol of which was the emblem that we have been considering, and which is found in this connection in the monuments of antiquity everywhere.” – Pierson, Traditions of Freemasonry.

“The Point within a Circle is derived from the Ancient Sun worship and is in reality of Phallic origin. It is a symbol of the Universe, the Sun being represented by the point, while the circumference is the Universe (we must always have in mind the fact that as the universe is the Macrocosm, so is man the Microcosm – the little world and that which is lawful to the universe is likewise lawful to man).” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“The point within a circle is an interesting and important symbol in Freemasonry but it has been so debased in the interpretation of it in the modern lectures that the sooner that interpretation is forgotten by the Masonic student, the better will it be. The symbol is really a beautiful but somewhat abstruse allusion to the old Sun- worship, and introduces us for the first time to that modification of it known among the ancients as the worship of Phallus.” – Mackey, Manual of the Lodge.

“Perfectly to understand this symbol, I must refer, as a preliminary matter, to the worship of the Phallus (symbolic of God’s and Nature’s life- giving vivifying forces), a peculiar modification of sun- worship, which prevailed to a great extent among the nations of antiquity.

“The Phallus was a sculptured representation of the Membrum Virile, and the worship of it is said to have originated in Egypt, where, after the murder of Osiris by Typhon, which is symbolically to be explained as the destruction or deprivation of the sun’s light by night, Isis, his wife, or the symbol of nature, in search for his mutilated body, is said to have found all the parts except the organs of generation, which myth is simply (astrologically) symbolic of the fact, that the sun having set, its fecundating power had ceased. The Phallus, therefore, as the symbol of the male generative principle, was very universally venerated among the ancients and that religious rite (because only through the elevation (transmutation) of the seed of souls (the raising of the serpent) could Conscious Individualization – Initiation (that which the church has termed salvation) take place) without the slightest reference to any impure or lascivious application. He is supposed, by some commentators, to be the god mentioned under the name of Baal- poer, in the Book of Numbers, as having been worshipped by the indolatrous Moabites. Among the Eastern nations of India, the same symbol was prevalent under the name of `Lingam.’ But the Phallus or Lingam was a representation of the male principle only. To perfect the circle of generation it is necessary to advance one step farther. Accordingly we find in the Cteis of the Greeks, and the Yoni of the Indians, a symbol of the female generative principle, of co- extensive prevalence with the Phallus. The Cteis was a circular and concave pedestal or receptacle, on which the Phallus or column rested, and from the center of which it sprang.

“The union of the Phallus and Cteis, or the Lingam and Yoni, in one compound figure, as an object of adoration (pointing the way to a complete – Illuminated – Soul), was the most usual mode of representation. This was in strict accordance with the whole system of Ancient Mythology, which was founded upon a worship of the prolific powers of nature. All the Deities of pagan antiquity, however numerous they may be, always can be reduced to the two different forms of the generative principle – the active or male, and the passive or female. Hence the gods were always arranged in pairs, as Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus and Venus, Osiris and Isis, (Jesus and Mary).” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

A certain clique of the ancients who had lost the mystery, but believed that the procreative and productive powers of nature might be conceived to exist in the same individual, made the older of their Deities hermaphrodite, and used the term man- virgin, (an anomaly in nature and despised by God because it is an imperfection), to denote the union of the two sexes in the same Divine person.

This hermaphroditism of the Supreme Divinity was again supposed to be represented by the sun, which was the male generative energy, and by nature, or the universe, which was the female prolific principle. This doctrine of hermaphroditism and its destructiveness had its culmination in the cult of Sapphoism in Greece. It was from this real pagan idea that the early orthodox, or dogmatic, church, conceived its idea of the virgin or immaculate conception, merely reversing the male- virgin doctrine.

“So far, then, we arrive at the true interpretation of the Masonic symbolism of the point within the circle. It is the same thing, but under different form, as the Master and the Warden (circle between two perpendicular parallel lines) are symbols of the sun, the lodge of the Universe, or the world, just as the point is the symbol of the same sun, and the surrounding circle of the universe.” – Mackey, Symbolism of Freemasonry.

“A New Zealand myth says we have two primeval ancestors, a father and a mother. They are Rangi and Papa, heaven and earth. (Truest interpretation known to man; the Soul from the heavens, the body from the earth). The earth, out of which all things are produced, is our mother; the protecting and overruling heaven is our father.

“It is thus evident that the doctrine of the reciprocal principles of nature, or nature active and passive (receptive), male and female, was recognized in nearly all the primitive religious systems of the old as well as of the new world; and none more clearly than in those of Central America, thus proving not only the wide extent of the doctrine but also a separate and independent origin, springing from those innate principles which are common to human nature (when yet in its pristine purity undefiled by absolutely and absurdly false notions of what is pure and noble and what is impure and ignoble) in all climes and races. Hence the almost universal reverence paid to the images of the sexual parts (because of their absolute necessity for the entrance of Souls to the world of action, which entrance, if undefiled, makes of them divine avenues) as they were regarded as symbols and types of the generative and productive principles in nature, and of those gods and goddesses who were the representatives of the same principles. `The first doctrine to be taught man would have relation to their being (because that was the first prime necessity to the Soul which sought Immortality and the recognition of the Godhead). The existence of a creator could be illustrated by a potter at the wheel. But there was a much more expressive form familiar to them, indicative of cause and effect in the production of births in the tribe or in nature. In this was the Phallus become the exponent of creative power and, though to the (modern, which, because of an all around unnatural existence sees as `through a glass, darkly’ ) eye vulgar and indecent, bore no improper meaning to the simple (and undefiled in thought or desire) Ancient worshipper.’ (Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 257). The Phallus and the Cteis, the Lingam and the Yoni – the special parts contributing to generation and reproduction (elevated, to Regeneration and Immortalization) – becoming thus symbols of those active and passive causes, could not fail to become objects of reverence and worship. The union of the two symbolized the creative energy of all nature, for almost all primitive religion consisted (in the outer form) in the reverence and worship paid to nature and its operation.

“In those early days, all operations of nature were consecrated to some divinity from whom they were supposed to emanate; thus sowing of the seed was presided over by Ceres. `Hevia,’ writes General Forlong, `is equivalent to Zoe, life, from the Greek to live; thus what is called ‘ the fall,’ ascribed to Eva, or Hevia, the female, and Adam, the male, becomes in reality the acts connected with generation, conception and production, and the destruction of virginity. Adam `fell’ from listening to Eve, and she from the serpent (desire, both physical and maternal) tempting her – details which merely assure us that we have procreative acts in all stories regarding Hawa ( in Hondustani Lust, Wind, Air – Juno) and Chavah or Eve, or as the Arabs call it, Hayyat, life or creation. Eating forbidden fruit was simply a figurative mode of expressing the performance of the act necessary for the perpetuation of the human race (and through which man may come to know (experience) as the gods).

“This sacred festival does not astonish me,” said Dr. Goodman. “I feel persuaded that this was the first festival that man celebrated, and I do not see why we should not pray to God when we are going to procreate a being in His image, as we pray before we take our food, which serves to support our body (after it is created); working to give birth to a reasonable being, is a most (the most) noble and holy action; as thus the first Indians thought who revered the Lingam, the symbol of generation; the ancient Egyptians who carried the Phallus in procession; the Greeks who erected temples to Priapus.” “The reverence as well as worship paid to the Phallus, in early primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind. When Abraham, as mentioned in Genesis, in asking his servant to make a solemn oath, makes him lay his hand on his parts of generation (in the common (mutilated) version, `under his thigh’), it was that he required, as a token of his sincerity, his placing his hand on the most revered part of his body; as at the present day a man would place his hand on his heart in order to evince his sincerity. Jacob, when dying, makes his son Joseph perform the same act (these were all blessed of God and therefore could not perform a vulgar, indecent or impure act). A similar custom is still retained among the Arabs at the present day. An Arab, in taking a solemn oath, will place his hand on his virile member, in attestation of sincerity (and strength – for the Glory of man is in his Nobility – strength).

“The indecent ideas attached to the representation of Phallus were, though it seems paradoxical to say so, the result of a more advanced civilization (a term mostly used to designate a people who have gained knowledge through experience, much of which is refining to the exterior, but degrading to the interior) verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome and Pompeii.

“Our ideas of propriety lead us to suppose that a ceremony which appears to us infamous could only be invented by licentiousness; but it is impossible to believe that licentiousness and depravity of manners would ever have led among any people to the establishment of religious ceremonies; profligacy may have crept in in the lapse of time. The original institution was always innocent and free from it. The early agapes, love feasts, in which boys and girls kissed one another modestly on the mouth degenerated at last into secret meetings and licentiousness. It is, therefore, probable that this custom was first introduced in times of simplicity, that the first thought was to honor the Deity in the symbol of life which it has given us.

“To sum up, the Phallus, in the same manner as statues, plants, animals, objects of worship among nations, was only the outward covering, the receptacle, the vehicle of the Deity which was supposed to be contained within it, a Deity to which alone religious worship was paid. This outward covering, this receptacle, this vehicle, was varied in an infinity of modes with regard to its form, but it was neither a symbol nor an allegory.” – Holder M.

Westropp, Primitive Symbolism.

“The Mysteries formed an important feature in the system of religion practiced among the Greeks. In the institutions of Polytheism, the gods were worshiped openly by prayer and sacrifice, and to these rites the people of every rank were admitted without distinction, because they formed the beaten track of duty which mortal man was supposed to owe to the immortal Deities.

But the highest ceremonies of religion were of a nature too sublime to be exposed to public view and were, therefore, only celebrated in the presence of that distinguished portion of the community which had bound themselves by voluntary vows to preserve the solemn rites inviolably secret from the rest of the world.

“These Rites were known under the high and significant appellation of The Mysteries; and even in them a subdivision had been made, because it was thought dangerous to entrust the ineffable secrets to any but a select and chosen few, who were prepared to a new accession of knowledge by processes, at once seductive and austere, and bound to secrecy by fearful oaths, and penalties the most sanguinary. (This class of oaths is no longer necessary, due to the fact that the Occult Law is more fully understood and the aspirant quickly comes to comprehend that the Law of Compensation will return to him that which he sends forth, and a broken vow of this nature completes the circle of action by bringing the ruin or death of the one who so far forgets himself as to attempt to annul such an oath). The former were denominated the lesser and these the greater Mysteries.” – Oliver, History of Initiation.

Among the Ancients, silence and secrecy were considered virtues of the highest order. The Egyptian worshiped Hippocrates, the God of Secrecy, raised altars in his name and wreathed them with garlands of flowers. Among the ancient Romans, too, these virtues were not less esteemed and a distinguished Latin Poet tells us, “For faithful silence also there is a sure reward.” It must not be presumed that any of the Ancient Initiates really worshipped the image of the god of secrecy but as in all else of this nature, they worshipped that which the symbolization of Hippocrates represented. The one thing in which historians make their great and inexplicable mistake is to accept the symbol for the spirit. Few races, even among the heathen, have worshipped idols. They worshipped that which these idols represented. In future centuries the Christians of the present will be accused with equal justice, of worshipping pictures and images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

“We find this secrecy among all the priests of ancient people, and in order that none but really capable and worthy men should be associated with their offices and studies, they instituted forms of probation and examinations upon which followed some kind of initiation. As the oldest writers ascribe such mysteries and initiations to the Egyptian Priests, it is very probable that they already existed before the downfall of that people, for we find traces of them in equally ancient nations and perceive from the likeness of their fundamental principles and of the teachings and customs of their priests, that they must have had a common origin and that origin was on the lost Atlantis.

Among the Chaldeans, the Magi dwelt on the summit of the mountains, and among the Celtic races, the Druids lived in the quiet solitude of the forests. Among the Indians and Ethiopians, the Brahmins and Gymnosophists had localities specially dedicated to them, and among the Egyptians, the Priests had intricate dwelling- places far beneath the surface of the earth. All had their symbols and distinctive signs, and owed their fame to the secrecy of their Initiation.

“The Secrets of Antiquity had a two- fold aim. In the first case religion was chosen as the object of care; the greater the Mysteries, the more eternally secret were they to be kept from the people. The aim in the second case was to guard the Wisdom of all things. He who would be initiated must be a man of upright character and true mental power. The Sacred Mysteries fell into decay with the Roman Empire, the flourishing and spread of the Christian religion being the chief cause of this decadence. (And the main reason for the spread of the Christian religion was the luxury and licentiousness in which the rich lived and the consequent degradation of the poor who were quick to accept a religion which promised that “the meek” should “inherit the earth.”) The initiation into the Mysteries of the Wisdom was, however, of much longer duration. They changed only from time to time either the name, the inner constitution, the degrees and various kinds of knowledge bound up in these, or even the nature of the union itself. The men, who were known under the name of Magi or the Wise Masters, made one of their most important aims the true knowledge of the human heart, which lay always open before their eyes.

“To them alone was entrusted the bringing up of Kings and the great on earth, for they alone could understand science as well as art and, careless of all prejudice, taught a simple and natural theology, which based itself upon the worship of a Supreme Being.

“Because, however, their method of teaching was symbolic, many errors of which they were entirely incapable were ascribed to them on account of their numerous hieroglyphics. The Magi of Memphis and Heliopolis were held in such esteem and their renown so widespread, that the greatest heroes of war, philosophers and strangers of the highest rank, journeyed to Egypt and sought to be initiated by the Priests in order to learn the secrets of the Priesthood. From among these priests, Lycurgus and Solon drew a part of their system of philosophy. Orpheus also was initiated by them and by this means was enabled to introduce into his own land, festivals from which the Greek mythology afterwards arose. Thales also was instructed by them. Pythagoras received from the same source his doctrine of Metempsychosis. Herodotus obtained much information, and Democratus had secrets. Moses also, who was brought up by the Magi, used his knowledge of the Mysteries to free the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and lead them to the service of the true God.

It is well known that Moses prescribed certain probation for his Levites and that the secrets of the Priesthood were inaccessible to the rest of the Israelites, and this principle ruled till the time of Solomon.

“This policy of silence and secrecy has always been a wise one, for the bitter vituperations which nearly always have been showered on the heads of those who were the exoteric leaders in such Orders, have demonstrated the wisdom of the mystery or secrecy which guarded the personalities of the real leaders. This same system of secrecy obtains today and will continue as long as the mysteries may not be taught to the masses.