|
|
HOME
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- WAR ROOM -
THE GOSPEL
- BIBLE
STUDY - MORAL
ISSUES - KING
JAMES BIBLE - CULTS |
 MORALS AND DOGMA BY ALBERT PIKEThis is a very detailed discussion of Pike's doctrinal teachings in his landmark book, Morals and Dogma. This is the authoritative sacred writing of all of Freemasonry.
Is Albert Pike an authority on Masonic doctrine? Albert Pike was titled:
He was, in his day, the most powerful and influencial Pontiff and Grand Master, and this includes in France and Europe. If you have a copy of Morals and Dogma, please have it handy to confirm that the following observations are correct. PLEASE SEND MAIL FOR MORE INFORMATION.
TO THOSE IN MINISTRYI once was visiting the home of a Freemason who was very earnest in following several preachers. He seemed to be sincere in his faith in Christ. But, I soon noticed a plaque on the wall which was a tribute to his zeal as a Freemason. I later noticed a copy of Morals and Dogma on his bookshelf. I pulled the coy down, and I asked him, "If I showed you a place in this book where Albert Pike says your God is your penis, would you be worried?" The man just stared at me, and he then agreed that he would be very worried.It then turned to the place where the Masoinic teaching ot God as the male organ was made very blunt and slear. I asked the man to read it. I then asked him what he thoughts, and he said he was very upset. He said he had neveer really read Morals and Dogma through properly, so the penis god teaching shocked him. I told him that I would let him figure out what his responsibility was in the matter. And, that is exactly my advice to you-- Read here, and if you are a real Bible believing Christian, YOU decide whaat you have to do next. If you are not a Bible believing Christian, you will be enraged and hate me. That is just fine. I have shown you the truth, and you can explain your blasphemy to God one day soon. Oh, I suspect you thought I was wandering off topic for this introduction. Not at all, my pastor friend. Thousands of pastors in America are Freemasons. If you are one of them, you belong to possibly the most Satanic organization on earth. If you have men in your local church sitting on your board, deacons or elders, who are Freemasons, you have Satanic men in place. They will soion tear down your church, and the sorry thing I have watched is this-- They will not even know they are doing it. They are possessed of devils, and the do the will of their father, Satan. Ezekiel 44:23 And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. You cannot mix the profane and the holy and get away with it with God. After you study this, if you do nothing about Freemasonry in your church, God will do you great harm.
INTRODUCTION TO MORALS AND DOGMAMorals and Dogma is one of the most blasphemous books on earth. This is because Albert Like took the precious truths of the Word of God, and he gave them filthy sexual and pagan applications and definitions. When I read the Koran, or the Bagivadgita, or any other pagan writing, I find little of nothing of Christian truth in them. They offend me mildly, but I know I am reading a religious form of Mother Goose. Morals and Dogma is another issue altogether. It is a black evil attempt by Satan, through one of his most hateful servants, to slap God personally. I HATE Albert Pike posthumously more than any man before or after him. It is quite righteous to hate God's enemies. I may not hate my enemies, but King David taught me to hate on God's behalf: Psalms
139:19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody
men. If you defend and exalt Morals and Dogma, and if , after reading here, you still defend Morals and Dogma and the teachings of Freemasonry, I HATE YOU WITH PERFECT HATRED. Ther eis NO middle ground. You will either declare the teachintgs of Freemasonry as totally Satanic, or you will remain God's and my enemy henceforth. I am setting the lines of battle here. God wants your soul by your faith in Jesus Christ plus nothing. Satan wants you to stay in the Lodge and exalt Satanic hate for God. I am giving htis rather frightful introduction so that you do not think I am saying sweet words up front, only to hit you with the wretched truth on the sly. Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
LEGEND
A SPECIAL DOGMA OF ALBERT PIKE WAS ISSUED BY HIM ON JULY 14, 1889 TO THE 23RD SUPREME COUNCILS OF THE WORLD AND HAVE BEEN RECORDED BY A. C. DE LA RIVE IN LA FEMME AT LE ENFANT DANS LA FRANC-MACONNERIE UNIVERSELLE (PG. 558) FROM WHICH BOOK COMES THE FOLLOWING QUOTATION ATTRIBUTED TO PIKE:
[ "SUPERSTITION" TO PIKE MEANT UNQUESTIONING FAITH IN GOD. PIKE SETS THE STAGE HERE FOR THE FREEMASON TO MAKE HIS OWN RELIGION. ]
[ PIKE USES HUMAN REASON TO DESTROY EVERYTHING A TRUE CHRISTIAN AND BIBLE BELIEVER HOLDS DEAD. GOD IS A CRIMINAL. ]
[ SO, THE GOD OF THE BIBLE, ADONAY, JEHOVAH, IS DARKNESS, UGLY, AND BLACK. A TRUE BORN AGAIN BIBLE BELIEVER WHO IS A FREEMASON SHOULD BE TERRIFIED FIGHT HERE AT THE START OF THIS DISCUSSION. ]
[ MAKE NO MISTAKE, DEAR FREEMASON FRIEND-- PIKE IS LOWERING GOD, NOT ONLY TO BE THE WICKED ONE IN HIS DUALITY, BUT HE MAKES THE GOD OF THE BIBLE AN EQUAL FORCE TO LUCIFER. IF YOU BELIEVE YOUR BIBLE, YOU WILL SEE THAT GOD IS THE CREATOR OF SATAN, NOT HIS EQUAL. ]
[ SO, IN THIS SPECIAL COMMUNICATION WITH WORLD FREEMASONRY, PIKE MAKES SATAN THE GOOD GOD, AND HE TURNS SATAN, THE GOD OF WITCHCRAFT AND WORLD WICKEDNESS, INTO YOUR GOOD GOD. DO YOU AGREE? IF SO, YOU ARE DAMNED TO HELL. Isaiah
5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light,
and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! "WOE," SAYS JEHOVAH GOD. WOE TO YOU WHO AGREE WITH THE DOCTRINE OF ALBERT PIKE AND FREEMASONRY AT THE TOP FOUR DEGREES. DO NOT TELL ME THAT AT YOUR LOWER DEGREE YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THIS. THAT IS RUBBISH. THE COMMANDERS OF FREEMASONRY BELIEVE THE REAL DOCTRINE OF FREEMASONRY, AND YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY TO THAT TREACHERY-- TO HATE THE GOD OF THE BIBLE AND CALL HIM BLACK AND EVIL. IF YOU ARE A MINISTER IN A CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION, ESPECIALLY THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION, YET YOU RETAIN THIS VILE DOCTRINE, YOU ARE A FRAUD AND A BASTARD SON OF SATAN. Hebrews 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. ONE MUST NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT PIKE OCCUPIED SIMULTANEOUSLY THE POSITIONS OF GRAND MASTER OF THE CENTRAL DIRECTORY OF WASHINGTON, THAT OF GENERAL COMMANDER OF THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF CHARLESTON, AND THAT OF SOVEREIGN PONTIFF OF UNIVERSAL OF WORLD FREEMASONRY. ]
BEFORE CONTINUING:
REGARDING REFERENCES GIVEN HERE TO MORALS AND DOGMA At the end of every quote cited from Morals and Dogma the page of that quote is given. You can go to THIS COPY OF MORALS AND DOGMA at the Wayback Machine Archives online to find the quote in excellent readable format. Use the page find bar at the bottom of the screen, and slide the cursor to find the page you want to read. I must warn you that you have no excuse for your responsibility before God for not making the effort to do what God told you to do..... 1
Thessalonians 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
EXCERPTS FROM MORALS AND DOGMA BY ALBERT PIKE
"The Holy Bible, Square, and Compasses, are not only styled the Great Lights in Masonry, but they are also technically called the Furniture of the Lodge; and, as you have seen it is held that there is no Lodge without them. This has sometimes been made a pretext for excluding Jews from our Lodges, because they cannot regard the New Testament as a holy book. The Bible is an indispensable part of the furniture of a Christian Lodge, only because it is the sacred book of the Christian religion. The Hebrew Pentateuch in a Hebrew Lodge, and the Koran in a Mohammedan one, belong on the Alter; and one of these, and the Square and Compass, properly understood, are the Great Lights by which a Mason must walk and work." "The obligation of the candidate is always to be taken on the sacred book or books of his religion, that he may deem it more solemn and binding; and therefore it was that you were asked of what religion you were. We have no other concern with your religious creed." -Page 11. "God makes visible to men His will in events; and obscure text, written in a mysterious language. Men make their translations of it forthwith, hasty, incorrect, full of faults, omissions, and misreadings... Few minds comprehend the Divine tongue ...there are already twenty translations in the public square the most incorrect being, as of course, the most accepted and popular ...Truth, indeed, for the most part, shoots over the heads of the masses...It will not die...and the most stupid and irrational errors are the longest-lived." Pages 19 and 20. [YOUR BIBLE, NO MATTER WHAT TRANSLATION (BUT ESPECIALLY THE KJV, AS THAT WAS THE PRIMARY TRANSLATION IN USE AT THE TIME) IS FULL OF MISTAKES ACCORDING TO PIKE.]
"The first Scriptures for the human race were written by God on the Earth and Heavens. The reading of these Scriptures is Science." -Page 25. ["O TIMOTHY, KEEP THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED TO THY TRUST, AVOIDING PROFANE AND VAIN BABBLINGS, AND OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE FALSELY SO CALLED" 1 TIMOTHY 6:20.]
"The true Mason is he who labors strenuously to help his Order effect its great purposes. Not that the Order can effect them by itself; but that it, too, can help. It also is one of God's instruments. It is a Force and a Power; and shame upon it, if it did not exert itself, and if need be, sacrifice its children in the cause of humanity, as Abraham was ready to offer up Isaac on the altar of sacrifice." -Page 27. [DOES HE REALLY MEAN THIS LITERALLY? IT WOULD SEEM SO: THIS IS NOT THE ONLY PLACE WHERE HE MENTIONS IT!] "Masonry is a march and a struggle toward the Light." -Page 32. [SEE PAGE 321 HERE] "Religion is a power, and he must control that. Independent, its sanctuaries might rebel." -Page 32. [HERE, HE IS TALKING ABOUT RELIGIOUS TYRANTS, HIS PARTICULAR DESCRIPTIVE TERM FOR THE POPE OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.] "As a general thing, the Mahometan, in the Orient, is far more honest and trustworthy than the Christian. A Gospel of Love in the mouth, is an Avatar of Persecution in the heart." -Page 35. [THERE IS AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN STATEMENT IF WE EVER SAW ONE!]
"...all truths are Truths of Period, and not truths for eternity ... whether of religion, morals, government, or of whatever else, and to find place in this world, has been a truth for the time, and as good as men were capable of receiving." -Page 37. [SO ANYTHING JESUS SAID IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE TODAY?] "Catholicism was a vital truth in its earliest ages, but it became obsolete, and Protestantism arose, flourished, and deteriorated. The doctrines of Zoroaster were the best which the ancient Persians were fitted to receive; those of Confucius were fitted for the Chinese; those of Mohammed for the idolatrous Arabs of his age. Each was Truth for the time. Each was a Gospel, preached by a reformer; and if any men are so little fortunate as to remain content therewith, when others have attained a higher truth, it is their misfortune and not their fault. They are to pitied for it, and not persecuted." -Page 38. [YOU ARE TO BE PITIED FOR BEING A CHRISTIAN, AND FOR BELIEVING THE GOSPEL, FOR IT WAS A TRUTH ONLY FOR A TIME. PIKE HAS A "HIGHER TRUTH" IN FREEMASONRY.] AROERIS or HAR-oeris, the elder HORUS, is from the same old root that in the Hebrew has the form Aur, or, with the definite article prefixed, Haur, Light, or the Light, splendor, flame, the Sun and his rays. The heiroglyphic of the younger HORUS was the point in a circle; of the Elder, a pair of eyes; and the festival of the thirtieth day of the month Epiphi, when the sun and moon were supposed to be in the same right line with the earth, was called The birth-day of the eyes of Horus.; In a papyrus published by Champollion, this god is styled Har-oeri, Lord of the Solar Spirits, the beneficent eye of the Sun.; Plutarch calls him Har-pocrates;; but there is no trace of the latter part of the name in the hieroglyphic legends. He is the son of OSIRIS and ISIS; and is represented sitting on a throne supported by lions; the same word, in Egyptian, meaning Lion and Sun.; -Page 79. -- Khairum, therefore, would mean was raised up to life, or living.; So, in Arabic, hrm, an unused root, meant, was high,; made great,; exalted;; and Hirm means an ox, the symbol of the Sun in Taurus, at the Vernal Equinox. KHURUM, therefore, improperly called Hiram, is KHUR-OM, the same as Her-ra, Her-mes, and Her-acles, the Heracles Tyrius Invictus,; the personification of Light and the Son, the Mediator, Redeemer, and Saviour.; -Page 79. [PAGE 321 SHOWS US THAT LUCIFER IS THE ONE WHO IS THE PERSONIFICATION OF LIGHT; AND BEARS THE LIGHT OF FREEMASONRY. KEEPING THIS IN MIND, WE SEE THAT PIKE IS SAYING THAT KHUR-OM IS ONE WHO WAS CREATED, RAISED UP TO LIFE, (LUCIFER WAS RAISED UP TO LIFE) AND LUCIFER IS KHUR-OM. ] [HEBREW CHARACTERS], in the ancient Phoenician character, [PHOENICIAN CHARACTERS], and in the Samaritan, [SAMARITAN CHARACTERS], A B, (the two letters representing the numbers 1, 2, or Unity and Duality, means Father, and is primitive noun, common to all the Semitic languages. It also means an Ancestor, Originator, Inventor, Head, Chief or Ruler, Manager, Overseer, Master, Priest, Prophet. [HEBREW CHARACTERS] is simply Father, when it is in construction, that is, when it precedes another word, and in English the preposition of; is interposed, as [HEBREW CHARACTERS], Abi-Al, the Father of Al. Also, the final Yod [HEBREW CHARACTER] means my;; so that by itself means My father.; [HEBREW CHARACTERS], David my father, 2 Chron. Ii. 3. [HEBREW CHARACTER], (Vav) final is the possessive pronoun his;; and [HEBREW CHARACTERS], Abiu (which we read Abif;) means of my father's.; Its full meaning, as connected with the name of Khurum, no doubt is, formerly one of my father;s servants,; or slaves.; -Page 81 [If we put these together as Pike directs, we can see that Hiram Abif means, "The personification of Light and the Son, the Mediator, Redeemer, and Saviour, formerly one of my fathers servants". This sounds like it might possibly be alluding to Jesus, the Christ, the Saviour, the Messiah. But since when did Jesus ever stop being one of His Fathers servants? Doesn't the word "formerly" bring to mind the condition of one no longer being in connection with, or to, the father spoken of here? Jesus is not in a past-tense condition of his connection with the Father, therefore, this cannot mean Jesus. What "servants or slaves" does God have? Angels! When did any of Gods angels ever cease to be a servant to the Father? At the time of the rebellion in Heaven, which resulted in the eviction of Lucifer and those angels which followed him. So who is this person spoken of here as "the personification of Light and the Son", "formerly one of my fathers servants?" Pike tells us many pages later, on page 321. "Lucifer the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the [BIBLICAL] Spirit of Darkness! [YOU ARE BEING INVITED TO MOCK AT THE LITERAL USE OF THE WORD OF GOD. WILL YOU?] "Lucifer, the Son of the morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!" [SO, IF YOU STILL BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS THE "LIGHT OF THE WORLD," YOU ARE A BLIND FOOL ACCORDING TO PIKE.] REMEMBER, PIKE AUTHORED THIS DOCTRINE OF FREEMASONRY, SO IT MEANS WHATEVER HE SAYS IT MEANS! THIS IS THE HIRAM ABIF THAT EVERY MASON IMPERSONATES IN THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE BLUE LODGE: LUCIFER HIMSELF. YOU, SIR, HAVE WILLINGLY PERSONIFIED SATAN. EVERY MASON IMPERSONATES HIRAM ABIF IN THE PLAY OF THE THIRD DEGREE, KNOWN AS THE MASTER MASON DEGREE. HIRAM ABIF; MEANS, ACCORDING TO PIKE, ONE WHO WAS RAISED UP TO LIFE, FORMERLY ONE OF MY FATHER'S SERVANTS, THE PERSONIFICATION OF LIGHT AND THE SON, THE MEDIATOR, REDEEMER, SAVIOUR, PAGE 321 SHOWS US THAT THIS IS LUCIFER. THEREFORE ALL MASONS HAVE IMPERSONATED LUCIFER DURING THE PLAY OF HIRAM ABIF! ANOTHER NOTE: PIKE DID NOT BELIEVE IN THE DOCTRINE OF A FALLEN LUCIFER WHO BECAME SATAN, SO IT IS ACTUALLY IMPROPER TO CLASSIFY HIM AS A SATANIST. HE WAS A LUCIFERIAN.] "Initiation does not change: we find it again and again, and always the same, through the ages. The last disciples of Pascalis Martinez are still the children of Orpheus; but they adore the realizer of the antique philosophy, the Incarnate Word of the Christian." -Page 96. [SEE PAGE 274.]
" "I am that I am," is a wretched translation." -Page 97. "The Hebrew allegory of the Fall of Man, which is but a special variation of a universal legend, symbolizes one of the grandest and most universal allegories of science." -Page 100. "The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god, but the negation of God. The Devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry. "For the Initiate, this is not a Person, but a Force, created for good, but which may serve for evil. [SOUNDS JUST LIKE STAR WARS;-- "MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU" IT IS USEFUL HERE TO REMEMBER THAT WITCHCRAFT AND WICCA CALL THEMSELVES "THE FORCE."] It is the instrument of Liberty or Free Will. They represent this Force, which presides over the physical generation, under the mythologic and horned form of the God PAN; thence came the he-goat of the Sabbat, [THE SABBAT IS ONE OF THE HOLY; DAYS OF WICCA, OR WITCHCRAFT, AS THE SABBATH IS TO THE JEW AND THE LORD;S DAY IS TO THE CHRISTIAN] brother of the Ancient Serpent, and the Light-bearer [NOW WE SEE THAT THE ANCIENT SERPENT; IS ALSO THE LIGHT-BEARER. SEE PAGE 321] or Phosphor, of which the poets have made the false Lucifer of the legend." [AS OPPOSED TO THE CORRECT ONE, APPARENTLY.] -Page 102. "Synesius, Bishop of Ptolomais, a great Kabalist, but of doubtful orthodoxy, [WE SHOULD THINK SO!] wrote: "A Spirit," he said, "that loves wisdom and contemplates the Truth close at hand, is forced to disguise it, to induce the multitudes to accept it..... Fictions are necessary to the people, and the Truth becomes deadly to those who are not strong enough to contemplate it in all its brilliance. If the sacerdotal laws allowed the reservation of judgements and the allegory of words, I would accept the proposed dignity on condition that I might be a philosopher at home, and abroad a narrator of apologue and parables....In fact, what can there be in common between the vile multitude and sublime wisdom? The truth must be kept secret, and the masses need a teaching proportioned to their imperfect reason." -Page 103. [THOSE NOT IN THE LODGE ARE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND TRUTH, YOU SEE.] "The first Druids [ANCIENT OCCULTIC PRIESTS] were the true children of the Magi, and their initiation came from Egypt and Chaldaea, that is to say, from the pure sources of the primitive Kabalah. They adored the Trinity under the names of Isis or Hesus, the Supreme Harmony; of Belen or Bel, which in Assyrian means Lord, a name corresponding to that of ADONAI..." -Page 103. [HERE, BAAL IS EQUATED WITH THE GOD OF THE HEBREWS!] "Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, [AND WHO IS THE PURVEYER OF THIS TRUTH;? PAGE 321!] from them, and to draw them away from it. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it. So God Himself incapacitates many men, by colorblindness, to distinguish colors, and leads the masses away from the highest Truth, giving them the power to attain only so much of it as it is profitable to them to know. Every age has had a religion suited to its capacity. [READ PAGE 819.] "The Teachers, even of Christianity, are, in general, the most ignorant of the true meaning of that which they teach. There is no book of which so little is known as the Bible. To most who read it, it is as incomprehensible as the Sohar. "So Masonry jealously conceals its secrets, and intentionally leads conceited interpreters astray." -Pages 104,5.
"Secrecy is indispensable in a Mason of whatever Degree. It is the first and almost the only lesson taught to the Entered Apprentice. The obligations which we have each assumed toward every Mason that lives, requiring of us the performance of the most serious and onerous duties toward those personally unknown to us until they demand our aid, -duties that must be performed, even at the risk of life, or our solemn oaths be broken and violated, and we be branded as false Masons and faithless men, teach us how profound a folly it would be to betray our secrets to those who, bound to us by no tie of common obligation, [NOT EVEN THAT OF FAMILY OR EVEN HUMANITY?] might, by obtaining them, call on us in their extremity, when the urgency of the occasion should allow us no time for inquiry, and the peremptory mandate of our obligation compel us to do a brother's duty to a base impostor. -Page 109. [HELP ONLY YOUR MASONIC BROTHER AND THE REST CAN FEND FOR THEMSELVES.] "For obedience to the Law does not mean submission to tyranny; [THIS IS PIKES OFT USED WORD TO INDICATE ORGANIZED RELIGION, AND USUALLY SPECIFICALLY MEANS THE POPE] nor that, by a profligate sacrifice of every noble feeling, we should offer to despotism [THE SAME MEANING IS ASCRIBED HERE, AS WELL] the homage of adulation. As every new victim falls, [NEW CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY] we may lift our voice in still louder flattery. We may fall at the proud feet, we may beg, as a boon, the honor of kissing that bloody hand [HERE, PIKE IS REFERRING TO THE DEATHS OF MANY MASONS WHICH WAS ORDERED BY THE POPE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, AS THE SECRETS OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR WERE EXPOSED, AND MANY WERE ROUNDED UP. JAQUE DE MOLAY WAS THE LEADER OF A LARGE GROUP OF THESE MASONS, AND HE WAS BURNED AT THE STAKE] which has been lifted against the helpless. We may do more: we may bring the altar and the sacrifice, and implore the God [THE POPE] not to ascend too soon to Heaven. This we may do, for this we have the sad remembrance that beings of a human form and soul have done. But this is all we can do. We can constrain our tongues to be false, our features to bend themselves to the semblance of that passionate adoration which we wish to express, our knees to fall prostrate; but our heart we cannot constrain. There virtue must still have a voice which is not to be drowned by hymns and acclamations; there the crimes which we laud as virtues, are crimes still, and he whom we have made a God [THE POPE] is the most contemptible of mankind; if, indeed, we do not feel, perhaps, that we are ourselves still more contemptible." -Page 110. [MASONS SHALL GO TO CHURCH, BUT ONLY FOR THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE, OR SHOW. WE SHALL REALLY NOT MEAN ANY OF IT BUT SHALL DO IT FOR APPEARANCES SAKE ONLY. THIS IS WHAT PIKE IS TRYING TO GET ACROSS. READ IT AGAIN, AND SEE.] "Be faithful to Masonry, which is to be faithful to the best interests of mankind. Labor, by precept and example, to elevate the standard of Masonic character, to enlarge its sphere of influence, to popularize its teachings, and to make all men know it for the Great Apostle of Peace, Harmony, and Good-will on earth among men; of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." -Page 112,113. [EXCEPT TO NON-MASONS, AS YOU SHALL SEE.] "It should be objection sufficient to exclude any man from the society of Masons, that he is not disinterested [HERE IS A WORD PIKE USES FREQUENTLY TO MEAN ONE WHO DOES NOT CORRECT ANOTHER MAN'S THEOLOGY, NO MATTER HOW DANGEROUS IT ACTUALLY IS FOR THAT MAN TO BELIEVE IT. HE IS NOT TO BE INTERESTED IN ANOTHERS THEOLOGY ANY MORE THAN MASONRY IS] and generous, both in his acts, and in his opinions of men, and his constructions of their conduct. He who is selfish and grasping, or censorious and ungenerous, will not long remain within the strict limits of honesty and truth, [READ PAGE 819 AGAIN] but will shortly commit injustice. He who loves himself too much must needs love others too little; and he who habitually gives harsh judgement will not long delay to have unjust judgment." -Page 121. [IT WOULD SEEM THAT PIKE HIMSELF HAS ALREADY FALLEN INTO THIS CATEGORY.] "Nor can any man any more be a Mason than he can be a gentleman, unless he is generous, liberal, and disinterested." -Page 122. [THERE IS THAT WORD AGAIN!] "Masons carry these principles [LOVE OF GOD, AND LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOR] into the bosoms of their families and of society. While the Sectarians [CHRISTIANS] of former times enfeebled the religious spirit, Masonry, forming one great People over the whole globe, and marching under the great banner of Charity and Benevolence, preserves that religious feeling, strengthens it, extends it in its purity and simplicity, as it has always existed in the depths of the human heart, as it existed even under the dominion of the most ancient forms of worship, but where gross and debasing superstitions [PIKES CODE WORD FOR CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER ESTABLISHED RELIGIONS] forbade its recognition." -Page 138.
"Toleration, holding that every other man has the same right to his opinion and faith that we have to ours; and liberality, holding that as no human being can with certainty say, in the clash and conflict of hostile faiths and creeds, what is truth, or that he is surely in possession of it, so every one should feel that it is quite possible that another equally honest and sincere with himself, and yet holding the contrary opinion, may himself be in possession of the truth, and that whatever one firmly and conscientiously believes, is truth, to him--these are the mortal enemies of that fanaticism [READ: BIBLE BASED CHRISTIANITY] which persecutes for opinion's sake, and initiates crusades against whatever it, in its imaginary holiness, deems to be contrary to the law of God or verity of dogma. And education, instruction, and enlightenment are the most certain means by which fanaticism and intolerance can be rendered powerless. "No true Mason scoffs at honest convictions and an ardent zeal in the cause of what one believes to be truth and justice. But he does absolutely deny the right of any man to assume the prerogative of Deity, and condemn another's faith and opinions as deserving to be punished because heretical. Nor does he approve the course of those who endanger the peace and quiet of great nations, and the best interest of their own race by indulging in a chimerical and visionary philanthropy--a luxury which chiefly consists in drawing their robes around them to avoid contact with their fellows, and proclaiming themselves holier than they. "For he knows that such follies are often more calamitous than the ambition of kings; and that intolerance and bigotry have been infinitely greater curses to mankind than ignorance and error. Better any error than persecution! Better any opinion than the thumbscrew, the rack, and the stake! And he knows also how unspeakably absurd it is, for a creature to whom himself and everything around him are mysteries, to torture and slay others, because they cannot think as he does in regard to the profoundest of those mysteries, to understand which is utterly beyond the comprehension of either the persecutor or the persecuted." -Page 160,161. [SEE HOW SARCASTIC PIKE IS WHEN HE ATTACKS CHRISTIANITY? HE CONTINUES IN THIS VEIN THROUGHOUT THE BOOK.] "But Masonry teaches, and has preserved in their purity, the cardinal tenets of the old primitive faith, which underlie and are the foundation of all religions. All that ever existed have had a basis of truth; and all have overlaid that truth with errors. The primitive truths taught by the Redeemer were sooner corrupted, and intermingled and alloyed with fictions than when taught to the first of our race." -Page 161. [THE TRUTHS OF JESUS HAVE BEEN DISTORTED WITH TIME AS THEY HAVE COME DOWN TO US, MORE QUICKLY THAN THOSE TRUTHS WHICH WERE ORIGINALLY TAUGHT TO ADAM IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN. HE JUST TOLD YOU YOUR BIBLE IS UNRELIABLE!] "The old theologies, the philosophies of religion of ancient times, will not suffice us now." -Page 163. "Masonry has ever the most vivid remembrance of the terrible and artificial torments that were used to put down new forms of religion or extinguish the old. It sees with the eye of memory the ruthless extermination of all the people of all sexes and ages, because it was their misfortune not to know the God of the Hebrews, or to worship Him under the wrong name, by the savage troops of Moses and Joshua." -Page 164. [NEVER MIND THAT GOD HIMSELF ORDERED THEM TO SLAY THE PAGAN PEOPLES.] "The great distinguishing characteristic of a Mason is sympathy with his kind. He recognizes in the human race one great family, [THIS IS THE "BROTHERHOOD OF MAN" DOCTRINE] all connected with himself by those invisible links, and that mighty network of circumstance, forged and woven by God. "Feeling that sympathy, it is his first Masonic duty to serve his fellow-man. At his first entrance into the Order, he ceases to be isolated, and becomes one of a great brotherhood, ["HIS KIND" OBVIOUSLY REFERS TO FELLOW MASONS AND NOT TO THE REST OF THE HUMAN RACE, FOR HE "CEASES TO BE ISOLATED" ONCE HE ENTERS THE LODGE. READ PAGE 109.] assuming new duties toward every Mason that lives, as every Mason at the same moment assumes them toward him. "Nor are those duties on his part confined to Masons alone. He assumes many in regard to his country, and especially toward the great, suffering masses of the common people; for they too are his brethren, and God hears them, inarticulate as the moanings of their misery are. By all proper means, of persuasion and influence, and otherwise, if the occasion and emergency require, he is bound to defend them against oppression, and tyrannical and illegal exactions." -Page 176,177. [APPARENTLY, THE MASON IS NOT REQUIRED NOR EXPECTED TO DO ANY OF THIS FOR ANOTHER BEFORE BECOMING A MASON. COMPARE THESE TEACHINGS TO THOSE ABOVE FROM PAGE 109. THAT PAGE AND THIS DON'T SEEM TO BE TEACHING THE SAME THING. ONE IS A "BASE IMPOSTER" IF HE IS ONE OF THE "PROFANE" AND COMES INTO A KNOWLEDGE OF THE MASONIC METHODS OF ASKING FOR HELP, AND DOES SO. IF THE MAN WHO ASKS FOR HELP IS NOT A MASON, THEN DOES THE MASON NO LONGER HAVE TO HELP? HOW HUMANE. SUCH BROTHERLY LOVE;.] "So we live our little life; but Heaven is above and behind us; and suns and stars are silent witnesses and watchers over us. We are infolded by Infinity. Infinite Powers and Infinite spaces lie all around us. The dread arch of Mystery spreads over us, and no voice ever pierced it. Eternity is enthroned amid Heaven's myriad starry heights; and no utterance or word ever came from those far-off and silent spaces." -Page 190. [JESUS WAS THE WORD INCARNATE, AND HE CAME FROM THOSE FAR OFF AND SILENT SPACES;.] "Say that there is no God; or no way opened for hope and reformation and triumph, no heaven to come, no rest for the weary, no home in the bosom of God for the afflicted and disconsolate soul; or that God is but an ugly blind Chance that stabs in the dark; or a somewhat that is, when attempted to be defined, a no-what, emotionless, passionless, the Supreme Apathy to which all things, good and evil, are alike indifferent; or a jealous God who revengefully visits the sins of the fathers on the children, and when the fathers have eaten sour grapes, sets the children's teeth on edge; [THE DEVIL CAN QUOTE SCRIPTURE FOR HIS OWN PURPOSES] an arbitrary supreme Will, that has made it right to be virtuous, and wrong to lie and steal, because IT pleased to make it so rather than otherwise, retaining the power to reverse the law; or a fickle, vacillating, inconstant Deity, or a cruel, bloodthirsty, savage Hebrew or Puritanic one; and we are but the sport of chance and the victims of despair; hapless wanderers upon the face of a desolate, forsaken, or accursed and hated earth; surrounded by darkness, struggling with obstacles, toiling for barren results and empty purposes, distracted with doubts, and misled by false gleams of light; wanderers with no way, no prospect, no home; doomed and deserted mariners on a dark and stormy sea, without compass or course, to whom no stars appear; tossing helmless upon the weltering, angry waves, with no blessed haven in the distance whose guiding-star invites us to its welcome rest." -Pages 195,196. " "I put my trust in God," is the protest of Masonry against the belief in a cruel, angry, and revengeful God, to be feared and not reverenced by His creatures." -Page 196. [PIKE SAYS THE GOD OF THE BIBLE IS CRUEL, ANGRY, AND REVENGEFUL.] "We know that for many centuries the Hebrews have been forbidden to pronounce the Sacred Name; that wherever it occurs, they have for ages read the word Adonai instead; and that under it, when the masoretic points, which represent the vowels, came to be used, they placed those which belonged to the latter word. The possession of the true pronunciation was deemed to confer on him who had it extraordinary and supernatural powers; and the Word itself, worn upon the person, was regarded as an amulet, a protection against personal danger, sickness, and evil spirits. We know that all this was a vain superstition, natural to a rude people, [JEWS ARE A "RUDE PEOPLE"] necessarily disappearing as the intellect of man became enlightened; and wholly unworthy of a Mason." -Page 204.
"It is true, that before the masoretic points were invented (which was after the beginning of the Christian era), the pronunciation of a word in the Hebrew language could not be known form the characters in which it was written. It was, therefore, possible for that of the name of the Deity to have been forgotten and lost. It is certain that its true pronunciation is not that represented by the word Jehovah; and therefore that that is not the true name of Deity, not the Ineffable Word." -Page 205. "Thus the attempts of the ancient Israelites and of the Initiates to ascertain the True Name of the Deity, and its pronounciation, [SIC] and the loss of the True Word, are an allegory, in which are represented the general ignorance of the true nature and attributes of God, the proneness of the people of Judah and Israel to worship other deities, and their low and erroneous and dishonoring notions of the Grand Architect of the Universe". -Page 206. [THE JEWS DO NOT KNOW WHO GOD IS, PIKE SAYS. THEREFORE, THIS SHOWS THAT THE GAOTU IS NOT THE GOD OF THE BIBLE, DOESN;T IT?] "The Deity of the early Hebrews talked to Adam and Eve in the garden of delight, as he walked in it in the cool of the day; he conversed with Kayin; [CAIN; PIKE INTRODUCES MANY DIFFERENT SPELLINGS OF NAMES THROUGHOUT THE BOOK] he sat and ate with Abraham in his tent; that patriarch required a visible token, before he would believe in him, and to induce him to change his first determination in regard to Sodom; he wrestled with Jacob; he showed Moses his person, though not his face; he dictated the minutest police regulations and the dimensions of the tabernacle and its furniture, to the Israelites; he insisted on and delighted in sacrifices and burnt-offerings; he was angry, jealous, and revengeful [THERE ARE THOSE THREE WORDS AGAIN], as well as wavering and irresolute; [THIS WOULD BE THE "FICKLE, VACILLATING, INCONSTANT DEITY" OF PAGE 196 AS SEEN ABOVE.] he allowed Moses to reason him out of his fixed resolution utterly to destroy his people; he commanded the performance of the most shocking and hideous acts of cruelty and barbarity. He hardened the heart of Pharaoh; he repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto the people of Niniveh; and he did it not, to the disgust and anger of Jonah. "Such were the popular notions of the Deity; and either the priests had none better, or took little trouble to correct these notions; or the popular intellect was not enough enlarged to enable them to entertain any higher conceptions of the Almighty. "But such were not the ideas of the intellectual and enlightened few among the Hebrews." -Page 207. "The Supreme, Self-existent, Eternal, All-wise, All-powerful, Infinitely Good, Pitying, Beneficent, and Merciful Creator and Preserver of the Universe was the same, by whatever name he was called, to the intellectual and enlightened men of all nations. The name was nothing, if not a symbol and representative hieroglyph of his nature and attributes. The name AL represented his remoteness above men, his inaccessibility; BAL and BALA, his might; ALOHIM, his various potencies; IHUH, existence and the generation of things. None of his names, among the Orientals, [THE ISRAELITES ARE, INDEED, PROPERLY TERMED ORIENTALS] were the symbols of a divinely infinite love and tenderness, and all-embracing mercy. As MOLOCH or MALEK he was but an omnipotent monarch, a tremendous and irresponsible Will; as ADONAI, only an arbitrary LORD and Master; as AL Shadai, potent and a DESTROYER. "To communicate true and correct ideas in respect of the Deity was one chief object of the mysteries." -Page 208. [AGAIN, HE SAYS THE JEWS; IDEAS OF GOD WERE ALL WRONG, AND THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT EGYPT HAD IT RIGHT, AND HE ALSO STATES ON PAGE 210 THAT FREEMASONRY IS THE TRUEST FORM OF THE ANCIENT RELIGIONS OF EGYPT OF MODERN TIMES.] "The Lion that guarded the Ark and held in his mouth the key wherewith to open it, figuratively represents Solomon, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah..." -Page 210. [THE BIBLE SAYS THAT THE LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH IS JESUS!] "The legend of the columns, of granite and brass or bronze, erected by him [ENOCH], is probably symbolical. That of bronze, which survived the flood, is supposed to symbolize the mysteries, of which Masonry is the legitimate successor--from the earliest times the custodian and depository of the great philosophical and religious truths, unknown to the world at large, and handed down from age to age by an unbroken current of tradition, embodied in symbols, emblems, and allegories." -Page 210. "Masonry teaches its Initiates that the pursuits and occupations of this life, its activity, care, and ingenuity, the predestined developments of the nature given us by God, tend to promote His great design, in making the world; and are not at war with the great purpose of life. It teaches that everything is beautiful in its time, in its place, in its appointed office; that everything which man is put to do, if rightly and faithfully done, naturally helps to work out his salvation; that if he obeys the genuine principles of his calling, he will be a good man: and that it is only by neglect and nonperformance of the task set for him by Heaven, by wandering into idle dissipation, or by violating their beneficent and lofty spirit, that he becomes a bad man. The appointed action of life is the great training of Providence; and if man yields himself to it, he will need neither churches nor ordinances, except for the expression of his religious homage and gratitude." -Pages 211,212. [THIS IS SALVATION BY WORKS AND IS ANOTHER GOSPEL;.] "Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teaching are instruction in religion." -Page 213. "That Rite [SCOTTISH RITE] raises a corner of the veil, even in the Degree of Apprentice; for it there declares that Masonry is a worship." -Page 219. "It [MASONRY] is the universal, eternal, immutable religion, such as God planted it in the heart of universal humanity." -Page 219. [THERE YOU HAVE IT, FOLKS-- DESPITE WHAT MASONS TELL US TODAY, PIKE JUST TOLD YOU THAT MASONRY IS A RELIGION, AND HE IS THE ONE WHO WROTE THE RITUAL AS IT STILL EXISTS TODAY!] "The common understanding [CHRISTIANITY] has no humility. Its God is an incarnate Divinity. Imperfection imposes its own limitations on the Illimitable, and clothes the Inconceivable Spirit of the Universe in forms that come within the grasp of the senses and the intellect, and are derived from that infinite and imperfect nature which is but God's creation. [CHRISTIANS MISTAKENLY MAKE GOD COME DOWN TO EARTH AS ONE OF US - AS GOD IN HUMAN FORM.] "We are all of us, though not all equally, mistaken. The cherished dogmas of each of us are not, as we fondly suppose, the pure truth of God; but simply our own special form of error, our guesses at truth, the refracted and fragmentary rays of light that have fallen upon our own minds. Our little systems have their day, and cease to be; they are but broken light of God; and He is more than they. Perfect truth is not attainable anywhere." -Page 223. [THEN WHAT DOES MASONRY HAVE TO OFFER, IF PERFECT TRUTH IS NOT ATTAINABLE ANYWHERE;?] "God is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself." -Page 223. "And if we, of the nineteenth century after Christ, adopt the conceptions of the nineteenth century before Him; if our conceptions of God are those of the ignorant, narrow-minded, and vindictive Israelite; then we think worse of God, and have a lower, meaner, and more limited view of His nature, than the faculties which He has bestowed are capable of grasping." -Page 223. [NOW, JEWS ARE IGNORANT, NARROW-MINDED AND VINDICTIVE!] "The doctrines of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical essentials of the doctrine." -Page 224. "Whatever Hiram really was, he is the type, perhaps an imaginary type, to us, of humanity in its highest phase; an exemplar of what man may and should become [A GOD], in the course of ages, in his progress [REINCARNATION] toward the realization of his destiny; an individual gifted with a glorious intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, and a perfectly balanced moral being; an earnest of what humanity may be [GODS], and what we believe it will hereafter be in God's good time; the possibility of the race made real" [DEITY] ). -Page 225. [AS YOU READ PIKE YOU WILL COME TO SEE THAT THIS IS WHAT HE MEANS HERE.] "Masonry, around whose alters the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem, the Brahmin, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and unite in prayer to the one God who is above ALL the Baalim, [WE SEE HERE THAT THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIAN AND THE JEW IS JUST ONE OF THE BAALIM; AN IDOL OR FALSE GOD AMONG OTHER FALSE GODS!] must needs leave it to each of its Initiates to look for the foundation of his faith and hope to the written scriptures of his own religion." -Page 226. "The Mason does not pretend to dogmatic certainty, nor vainly imagine such certainty attainable. He considers that if there were no written revelation, he could safely rest the hopes that animate him and the principles that guide him, on the deductions of reason and the convictions of instinct and consciousness." -Page 226. [ONE CAN ATTAIN SALVATION BY HIS OWN WORKS WITHOUT THE BIBLE HAVING EVER BEEN NECESSARY TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN.] "The Mason...knows that man does not live by pleasure of content alone, but by the presence of the power of God." -Page 229. [AND JESUS ANSWERED HIM, SAYING, IT IS WRITTEN, THAT MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD OF GOD. LUKE 4:4] "If he does not like to live in the furnished lodgings of tradition [THE "ESTABLISHED THEOLOGY"], he must build his own house, his own system of faith and thought, for himself." -Page 229. ["THERE IS A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT UNTO A MAN, BUT SUCH IS THE WAY TO DESTRUCTION." PROVERBS 14:12.] "Masonry is engaged in her crusade,--against ignorance, intolerance, fanaticism, superstition, uncharitableness, and error." [ALL WORDS AND CATCH-PHRASES PIKE USES ESPECIALLY WHEN ADDRESSING CHRISTIANITY] -Page 237. "The religion taught by Moses, which, like the laws of Egypt, enunciated the principle of exclusion, borrowed, at every period of its existence, from all the creeds with which it came in contact. While, by the studies of the learned and wise, it enriched itself with the most admirable principles of the religions of Egypt and Asia, it was changed, in the wanderings of the People, by everything that was most impure or seductive in the pagan manners and superstitions. It was one thing in the times of Moses and Aaron, another in those of David and Solomon, and still another in those of Daniel and Philo." -Page 247. [THE RELIGION AND THE LAW OF THE JEWS WAS POLLUTED BY ALL OF THE PAGAN RELIGIONS THAT THE JEWS CAME INTO CONTACT WITH.] "His [THE SUPREME BEING] image is THE WORD, a form more brilliant than fire; that not being the pure light. This LOGOS dwells in God; for the Supreme Being makes to Himself within His Intelligence the types or ideas of everything that is to become reality in this World. The LOGOS is the vehicle by which God acts on the Universe, and may be compared to the speech of man. "The LOGOS being the World of Ideas, by means whereof God has created visible things, He is the most ancient God, in comparison with the World, which is the youngest production. The LOGOS, Chief of Intelligence, of which He is the general representative, is named Archangel, type and representative of all spirits, even those of mortals. He is also styled the man-type and primitive man, Adam Kadmon." -Page 251. [LUCIFER WAS INDEED AN ARCHANGEL.] "The Word is not only the Creator, but occupies the place of the Supreme Being. Through Him all the Powers and Attributes of God act. On the other side, as first representative of the Human Family, He is the Protector of men and their Shepherd." -Page 251. [THE LOGOS, ACCORDING TO PIKE, IS ADAM-KADMON, THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS, ARCHANGEL, OCCUPIES THE PLACE OF THE SUPREME BEING, AND IS THE FIRST OF THE HUMAN FAMILY-- ADAM. THIS SOUNDS A GREAT DEAL LIKE MORMONISM;S ADAM-GOD DOCTRINE, FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE FAMILIAR. WE NOW SEE PIKE GETTING TO HIS DOCTRINE OF LUCIFER BEING GOD. HE SAYS HE IS AN ARCHANGEL AND IS THE LOGOS, OR WORD OF GOD THROUGH WHICH ALL THE POWERS OF GOD ACT.] "God gives to man the Soul or Intelligence, which exists before the body, and which he unites with the body. The reasoning Principle comes from God through the Word, and communes with God and with the Word; but there is also in man an irrational Principle, that of the inclinations and passions which produce ministers of God. The body, taken from the Earth, and the irrational Principle that animates it concurrently with the rational Principle, are hated by God, while the rational soul which He has given it, is, as it were, captive in this prison, this coffin, that encompasses it. The present condition of man is not his primitive condition, when he was the image of the Logos. He has fallen from his first estate. But he may raise himself again, by following the directions of WISDOM and of the Angels which God has commissioned to aid him in freeing himself from the bonds of the body, and combating Evil, the existence whereof God has permitted, to furnish him the means of exercising his liberty. The souls that are purified, not by the Law but by light, rise to the Heavenly regions, to enjoy there a perfect felicity. Those that persevere in evil go from body to body, the seats of passions and evil desires." -Page 251,252. [FIRST: WE EXISTED PRIOR TO INHABITING OUR BODIES. AT THE TIME OF OUR PRE-EXISTENCE WE LIVED IN THE HEAVENS AMONG THE STARRY HOSTS. THIS IS DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO THE THEOLOGY OF THE MORMONS. SECOND: THE EVIL PERSON GOES THROUGH ENDLESS CYCLES OF BIRTH, DEATH, AND REBIRTH AS HE REINCARNATES FROM ONE LIFE TO THE NEXT. THIS IS KARMA AS TAUGHT BY THE EASTERN RELIGIONS OF INDIA.] "...that the essence of the Human Soul is the image of God, and it existed before the body; that the object of its terrestrial life is to disengage itself of its body or its sepulchre; and that it will ascend to the Heavenly regions whenever it shall be purified; in which we see the meaning, now almost forgotten in our Lodges, of the mode of preparation of the candidate for apprenticeship, and his tests and purifications in the first Degree, according to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite." -Page 252,253. "AMUN, at first the God of Lower Egypt only, where Moshah [MOSES] was reared (a word that in Hebrew means Truth), was the Supreme God. He was styled "the Celestial Lord, who sheds Light on hidden things." He was the source of that divine life, of which the crux ansata is the symbol; and the source of all power. He united all the attributes that the Ancient Oriental Theosophy assigned to the Supreme Being. He was the Pleroma, or "Fullness of things," for He comprehended in Himself everything; and the LIGHT; for he was the Sun-God. He was unchangeable in the midst of everything phenomenal in his worlds. He created nothing; but everything emanated from Him; and of Him all the other Gods were but manifestations. The Ram was His living symbol; which you see reproduced in this degree..." -Page 254. "PHRE or RE, the Sun, or Celestial Light, whose symbol was the point within a circle..." -Page 254. "The Lion was the symbol of ATHOM-RE, the Great God of Upper Egypt; the Hawk, of RA or PHRE, the Eagle, of MENDES; the Bull, of APIS; and three of these are seen under the platform on which our altar stands." -Page 254. [THESE TWO BIRDS ARE WHERE WE GET THE DOUBLE HEADED FOWL WHICH IS THE SYMBOL OF THE SCOTTISH RITE. (SEE PAGE 290,291.) THE HAWK HEAD REPRESENTS RA; THE SUN-GOD AND THE EAGLE REPRESENTS MENDES, SOMETIMES REPRESENTED AS A GOAT. BOTH ARE, OR WERE, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GODS. SCRIPTURE STATES THAT THE PAGANS WORSHIP DEMONS, AND AS THE EGYPTIANS WERE PAGANS, THESE BIRDS REPRESENT DEMON GODS. PIKE IS EQUATING THESE GODS OF EGYPT AND THE LION ALSO (SEE PAGE 79) AS THE SUN GOD, AND PAGE 321 SHOWS US THAT PIKE MEANS TO SAY THAT LUCIFER IS THAT SUN GOD. THEREFORE, WE CAN SEE LUCIFER, THE CHIEF OF DEMONS, WRITTEN BETWEEN THE LINES HERE. SEE ALSO, PAGE 278.] "The Jews of Syria and Judea were the direct precursors of Gnosticism; and in their doctrines were ample oriental elements." -Page 254. "Danayal [DANIEL] was the friend and minister of the King, and the Chief of the College of the Magi at Babylon; if we may believe the book which bears his name, and trust to the incidents related in its highly figurative and imaginative style." -Page 255. [THE BOOK OF DANIEL IS HIGHLY FIGURATIVE AND IMAGINATIVE, ACCORDING TO PIKE, AND NOT TO BE BELIEVED. FOR THIS REASON MOST FREEMASONS WHO CLAIM TO BE CHRISTIANS HAVE NO INTEREST IN BIBLE PROPHECY.] "In the 18th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read thus: " And a certain Jew, named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and, being fervent in spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John; and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue; whom, when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.; "Translating this from the symbolic and figurative language into the true ordinary sense of the Greek text, it reads thus: "And a certain Jew, named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, and of extensive learning, came to Ephesus. He had learned in the mysteries the true doctrine in regard to God; and, being a zealous enthusiast, he spoke and taught diligently the truths in regard to the Deity, having received no other baptism than that of John." He knew nothing in regard to Christianity; for he had resided in Alexandria, and had just then come to Ephesus; being, probably, a disciple of Philo, and a Therapeut." -Page 262. "That, in all times," says St. Augustine, "is the Christian religion, which to know and follow is the most sure and certain health, called according to that name, but not according to the thing itself, of which it is the name; for the thing itself, which is now called the Christian religion, really was known to the Ancients, nor was wanting at any time from the beginning of the human race, until the time when Christ came in the flesh; from whence the true religion, which had previously existed, began to be called Christian; and this in our days is the Christian religion, not as having been wanting in former times, but as having, in later times, received this name." -Page 262. [IF ST. AUGUSTINE ACTUALLY SAID THIS, HE WAS MOST LIKELY COMPARING CHRISTIANITY WITH JUDAISM BY SAYING THAT CHRISTIANITY CAME FROM JUDAISM. PIKE USES THIS QUOTE TO TRY TO SHORE UP HIS ARGUMENT THAT THE RELIGION OF FREEMASONRY IS OLDER THAN CHRISTIANITY AND IS THE TRUE RELIGION FROM ANCIENT TIMES.] "The writings of the Essenes were full of mysticism, parables, enigmas, and allegories. They believed in the esoteric and exoteric meanings of the Scriptures; and, as we have already said, they had a warrant for that in the Scriptures themselves. They found it in the Old Testament, as the Gnostics found it in the New. The Christian writers, and even Christ himself, recognized it as a truth, that all Scripture had an inner and an outer meaning. Thus we find it said as follows, in one of the Gospels: " "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but unto men that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing, they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand....And the disciples came and said unto him, "Why speakest Thou the truth in parables?"--He answered and said unto them, "Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it not given." " -Page 266. [THE SYMBOLS OF FREEMASONRY HAVE TWO MEANINGS: THE ESOTERIC, OR HIDDEN MEANING, AND THE EXOTERIC, OR PUBLIC MEANING. THE EXOTERIC IS USUALLY QUITE DIFFERENT FROM THE ESOTERIC, AND IS NOT THE DEEPER HIDDEN TRUTH OF THE SYMBOL;S MEANING. SEE PAGE 819.] "The sources of our knowledge of the Kabalistic doctrines, are the books of Jezirah and Sohar, the former drawn up in the second century, and the latter a little later; but containing materials much older than themselves. In their most characteristic elements, they go back to the time of the exile. In them, as in the teachings of Zoroaster, everything that exists emanated from a source of infinite LIGHT. Before everything, existed THE ANCIENT OF DAYS, the KING OF LIGHT; a title often given to the Creator in the Zend-Avesta and the code of the Sabaeans. With the idea so expressed is connected the pantheism of India. [THE KING OF LIGHT, THE ANCIENT, is ALL THAT IS. -Page 266. [SEE PAGE 321.] "A ray of Light, shot from the Deity, is the cause and principle of all that exists. It is at once Father and Mother of All, in the sublimest sense. It penetrates everything; and without it nothing can exist an instant. From this double FORCE, designated by the two parts of the word I.H.U.H. emanated the FIRST-BORN of God, the Universal FORM, in which are contained all beings; the Persian and Platonic Archetype of things, united with the Infinite by the primitive ray of Light. "This First-Born is the Creative Agent, Conservator, and animating Principle of the Universe. It is THE LIGHT OF LIGHT. It possesses the three Primitive Forces of the Divinity, LIGHT, SPIRIT, and LIFE. As it has received what it gives, Light and Life, it is equally considered as the generative and conceptive Principle, the Primitive Man, ADAM KADMON." -Page 267. [REMEMBER PAGE 251? SCROLL UP AND READ IT AGAIN. THEN READ PAGE 321 AGAIN AND PUT THEM TOGETHER.] "And thus our symbols appear again in the Kabalah. And again the LIGHT, the object of our labors, appears as the creative power of Deity." -Page 267. [PAGE 321!] "Philo speaks of the Word as being the same with God. So in several places he calls it "deutopos Thelos Logos," the Second Divinity; the Image of God: the Divine Word that made all things: "the substitute", of God; and the like. -Page 269. [PAGES 251,267 AND 269 SHOW THAT PIKE IS SAYING THAT LUCIFER IS THE WORD AND IS THE SUBSTITUTE OF GOD.] "The Jewish doctrine, differing in this from all the other Oriental creeds, and even from the Alohayistic legend with which the book of Genesis commences, attributed the creation to the immediate action of the Supreme Being. The Theosophists of the other Eastern Peoples interposed more than one intermediary between God and the world. To place between them but a single Being, to suppose for the production of the world but a single intermediary, was, in their eyes, to lower the Supreme Majesty. The interval between God, who is perfect Purity, and matter, which is base and foul, was too great for them to clear it at a single step. Even in the Occident, neither Plato not Philo could thus impoverish the Intellectual World. "Thus, Cerinthus of Ephesus, with most of the Gnostics, Philo, the Kabalah, the Zend-Avesta, the Puranas, and all the Orient, deemed the distance and antipathy between the Supreme Being and the material world too great, to attribute to the former the creation of the latter. Below, and emanating from, or created by, the Ancient of Days, the Central Light, the Beginning, or First Principle, one, two, or more Principles, Existences, or Intellectual Beings were imagined, to some one or more of whom (without any immediate creative act on the part of the Great Immovable, Silent Deity), the immediate creation of the material and mental universe was due." -Pages 269,270. [GOD HIMSELF DID NOT CREATE, BUT HAD A LESSER BEING DO IT, AND THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE WORD;, OR LUCIFER.] "The belief in dualism in some shape, was universal. Those who held that everything emanated from God, believed that, among those emanations were two adverse Principles, of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. This prevailed in Central Asia and in Syria; while in Egypt it assumed the form of Greek speculation. In the former, a second Intellectual Principle was admitted, active in its Empire of Darkness, audacious against the Empire of Light. So the Persians and Sabeans understood it. -Page 272. [HERE IS YOUR FIRST HINT OF PIKE'S BELIEF OF THE DUALITY OF GOD-- THAT GOD WAS BOTH GOOD AND EVIL, LIGHT AND DARKNESS.] "The Apocalypse or Revelations, by whomever written, belongs to the Orient and to extreme antiquity...The ideas and imagery are borrowed from every quarter; and allusions are found in it to the doctrines of all ages." -Page 272. "But one grand idea ever emerged and stood prominent and unchangeable over the weltering chaos of confusion. God is great, and good, and wise. Evil and pain and sorrow are temporary, and for wise and beneficent purposes. They must be consistent with God's goodness, purity, and infinite perfection; and there must be a mode of explaining them, if we could but find it out; as, in all ways we will endeavor to do. Ultimately, Good will prevail, and Evil be overthrown. God alone can do this, and He will do it, by an Emanation from Himself, assuming the Human form and redeeming the world. "Behold the object, the end, the result, of the great speculations and logomachies of antiquity; the ultimate annihilation of evil, and restoration of Man to his first estate, by a Redeemer, a Masayah, a Christos, the incarnate Word, Reason, or Power of Deity. "This Redeemer is the Word or Logos, the Ormuzd of Zoroaster, the Ain-soph of the Kabalah, the Nous of Platonism and Philonism; He that was in the Beginning with God, and was God, and by Whom everything was made. That He was looked for by all the People of the East is abundantly shown by the Gospel of John and the Letters of Paul; wherein scarcely anything seemed necessary to be said in proof that such a Redeemer was to come; but all the energies of the writers are devoted to showing that Jesus was that Christos [NOTE THE SEPARATION OF JESUS FROM THE CONCEPT OF "THE CHRISTOS" AS WELL AS THE WORD "BUT" INDICATING THAT THE WRITERS WERE WRONG-- IT WAS NOT JESUS WHO WAS COMING, BUT LUCIFER. REMEMBER, HE SHOWED EARLIER THAT HIS GOD WAS ALSO CALLED THE WORD;] whom all the nations were expecting; the "Word," the Masayah, the Anointed or Consecrated One." -Page 274. "Each of us makes such application to his own faith and creed, of the symbols and ceremonies of the Degree, as seems to him proper. With these special interpretations we have here nothing to do. Like the legend of the Master Khurum, in which some see figured the condemnation and sufferings of Christ; others those of the unfortunate Grand Master of the Templars; [THIS WOULD BE JAQUE DEMOLAY] others those of the first Charles, King of England; and others still the annual descent of the Sun at the winter Solstice to the regions of darkness, the basis of many an ancient legend; so the ceremonies of this Degree receive different explanations; each interpreting them for himself, and being offended at the interpretation of no other. "In no other way could Masonry possess its character of Universality; that character which has ever been peculiar to it from its origin; and which enables two Kings, worshippers of different Deities, to sit together as Masters, while the walls of the first temple arose; and the men of Gebal, bowing down to the Phoenician Gods, to work by the side of the Hebrews to whom those Gods were abomination; and to sit with them in the same Lodge as brethren." -Page 276. [HERE PIKE IS STATING THAT HIS BELIEF THAT FREEMASONRY EXISTED DURING THE TIME OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS.] "The primitive men met in no Temples made with human hands. "God," said Stephen, the first Martyr, "dwelleth not in Temples made with hands." In the open air, under the overarching mysterious sky, in the great World -Temple, they uttered their vows and thanksgivings, and adored the God of Light; of that Light that was to them the type of Good, as darkness was the type of Evil. "All antiquity solved the enigma of the existence of Evil, by supposing the existence of a Principle of Evil, of Demons, fallen Angels, an Ahriman, a Typhon, a Siva, a Lok, or a Satan, that, first falling themselves, and plunged in misery and darkness, tempted man to his fall, and brought sin into the world. All believed in a future life, to be attained by purification and trials; in a state or successive states of reward and punishment; and in a Mediator or Redeemer, by whom the Evil Principle was to be overcome, and the Supreme Deity reconciled to His creatures. The belief was general, that He was to be born of a Virgin, and suffer a painful death. The Indians called him Chrishna; the Chinese, Kioun-tse; the Persians, Sosiosch; the Chaldeans, Dhouvanai; the Egyptians, Har-Oeri; Plato, Love; and the Scandinavians, Baldar. [WHERE ARE THE JEWS AND THE CHRISTIANS IN THIS LIST?] "Chrishna, the Hindoo Redeemer, was cradled and educated among Shepherds. A Tyrant, at the time of his birth, ordered all the male children to be slain. He performed miracles, say his legends, even raising the dead. He washed the feet of the Brahmins, and was meek and lowly of spirit. He was born of a Virgin; descended to Hell, rose again, ascended to Heaven, charged his disciples to teach his doctrines, and gave them the gift of miracles." -Page 277. [NOTICE THE PARALLES TO JESUS? PIKE DOES THIS REGULARLY TO REMOVE HIS UNIQUENESS FROM SCRIPTURE.] "The first Masonic Legislator whose memory is preserved to us by history, was Buddha, who, about a thousand years before the Christian era, reformed the religion of Manous." -Page 277. [BUDDHA WAS THE FIRST MASONIC LEGISLATOR???] "The Phoenician Cosmogony, like all others in Asia, was the Word of God, written in astral characters, by the planetary Divinities, and communicated by the Demi-gods, as a profound mystery, to the brighter intelligences of Humanity, [MASONS] to be propagated by them among men. Their doctrines resembled the Ancient Sabeism, and being the faith of Hiram the King and his namesake the Artist, are of interest to all Masons." -Page 278. "Man had fallen, but not by the tempting of the serpent. For, with the Phoenicians, the serpent was deemed to partake of the Divine Nature, and was sacred, as he was in Egypt. He was deemed to be immortal, unless slain by violence, becoming young again in his old age, by entering into and consuming himself. Hence, the Serpent in a circle, holding his tail in his mouth, was an emblem of eternity. With the head of a hawk he was of a Divine Nature, and a symbol of the sun. Hence one Sect of the Gnostics took him for their good genius, and hence the brazen serpent reared by Moses in the Desert, on which the Israelites looked and lived." -Page 278. [AGAIN, THE SERPENT IS A SYMBOL OF PIKE'S GOD.] "In the beginning," says the extract from some older work, with which John commences his Gospel, "was the Word, and the Word was near to God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was Life, and the life was the Light of man; and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not contain it. "It is an old tradition that this passage was from an older work." -Page 280. [PIKE SEEMS ALWAYS INTENT ON TAKING AWAY FROM THE SCRIPTURES ANY HINT OR POSSIBILITY OF ORIGINALITY BY SAYING THAT THE PASSAGE IN QUESTION IS TAKEN FROM SOME OLDER, MORE ANCIENT SOURCE, LONG BEFORE CHRISTIANITY OR EVEN THE JEWS GOT HOLD OF IT. WE FEEL THIS IS TO SLOWLY WEAKEN THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN INITIATE.] "To Philo the Jew, as to the Gnostics, the Supreme Being was the Primitive Light, or Archetype of Light, --Source whence the rays emanate that illuminate Souls. He is the Soul of the World, and as such acts everywhere. He himself fills and bounds his whole existence, and his forces fill and penetrate everything. His Image is the WORD (Logos), a form more brilliant than fire, which is not pure light. This WORD dwells in God; for it is within His Intelligence that the Supreme Being frames for Himself the Types of Ideas of all that is to assume reality in the Universe. The WORD is the Vehicle by which God acts on the Universe; the World of Ideas by means whereof God has created visible things; the more Ancient God, as compared with the Material World; Chief and General Representative of all Intelligences; the Archangel, type and representative of all spirits, even those of Mortals; the type of Man; the primitive man himself. These ideas are borrowed from Plato. And this WORD is not only the Creator ("by Him was everything made that was made"), but acts in the place of God; and through him act all the Powers and Attributes of God. And also, as first representative of the human race, he is the protector of Men and their Shepherd, the "Ben H'Adam," or Son of Man." -Pages 280,281. "The Supreme Being of the Egyptians was Amun, a secret and concealed God, the Unknown Father of the Gnostics, the Source of Divine Life, and of all force, the Plenitude of all, comprehending all things in Himself, the original Light." -Page 281. [ON PAGE 254, PIKE SAYS THAT ONE OF THE HEADS OF THE DOUBLE-HEADED BIRD OF THE SCOTTISH RITE REPRESENTS AMUN. BOTH HEADS REPRESENT EGYPTIAN GODS, OR IDOLS. SEE PAGE 290.] "In opposition to the anthropopathism of the Jewish Scriptures [THE DESCRIPTIONS OF GOD IN HUMAN TERMS, SUCH AS THE EYE OF GOD; OR THE HAND OF GOD;], the Alexandrian Jews endeavored to purify the idea of God from all admixture of the Human. By the exclusion of every human passion, it was sublimated to a something devoid of all attributes, and wholly transcendental; and the mere Being, the Good, in and by itself, the Absolute of Platonism, was substituted for the personal Deity of the Old Testament. By soaring upward, beyond all created existence, the mind, disengaging itself from the Sensible, attains to the intellectual intuition of this Absolute Being; of whom, however, it can predicate nothing but existence, and sets aside all other determinations as not answering to the exalted nature of the Supreme Essence. "Thus Philo makes a distinction between those who are in the proper sense Sons of God, having by means of contemplation raised themselves to the highest Being, or attained to a knowledge of Him, in His immediate self-manifestation, and those who know God only in his mediate revelation through his operation--such as He declares Himself in creation--in the revelation still veiled in the letter of Scripture--those, in short, who attach themselves simply to the Logos, and consider this to be the Supreme God; who are the sons of the Logos, rather than of the True Being." -Page 285. "God, say the sacred writings of the Jews, appeared to Moses in a FLAME OF FIRE, in the midst of a bush, which was not consumed. He descended upon Mount Sinai, as the smoke of a FURNACE; He went before the children of Israel, by day, in a pillar of cloud, and, by night, in a pillar of FIRE, to give them LIGHT. "Call you on the name of your Gods," said Elijah the Prophet to the Priests of Baal, "and I will call upon the name of ADONAI; and the God that answereth BY FIRE, let him be God." "According to the Kabalah, as according to the doctrines of Zoroaster, everything that exists has emanated from a source of infinite light. Before all things, existed THE PRIMITIVE BEING, THE ANCIENT OF DAYS, THE ANCIENT KING OF LIGHT; a title the more remarkable, because it is frequently given to the Creator in the Zend-Avesta, and in the Code of the Sabeans, and occurs in the Jewish Scriptures." -Page 286. ["SATAN MASQUERADES AS AN ANGEL OF LIGHT", REMEMBER? NOTE THE CONSTANT COMPARISON TO FIRE, AND LIGHT. PIKE IS TRYING TO DEMONSTRATE HIS GOD;S PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES IN MASONIC TERMS THE MASON WILL UNDERSTAND, AND WHENEVER HE CAN FIND THESE TERMS IN THE BIBLE, HE APPROPRIATES THEM FOR THIS USE.] "You see, my brother, what is the meaning of Masonic "Light." You see why the EAST of the Lodge, where the initial letter of the Name of the Deity overhangs the Master, is the place of Light. Light, as contradistinguished from darkness, is Good, as contradistinguished from Evil: and it is that Light, the true knowledge of Deity, the Eternal Good, for which Masons in all ages have sought. Still Masonry marches steadily onward toward that Light that shines in the great distance, the Light of that day when Evil, overcome and vanquished, shall fade away and disappear forever, and Life and Light be the one law of the Universe, and its eternal Harmony. "The Degree of Rose [*CROIX] teaches three things;--the unity, immutability and goodness of God; the immortality of the Soul; and the ultimate defeat and extinction of evil and wrong and sorrow, by a Redeemer or Messiah, yet to come, if he has not already appeared." -Page 287. [JESUS MAY OR MAY NOT BE THE MESSIAH HE SAYS-- PERHAPS THE MESSIAH HAS NOT YET VISITED EARTH] [*THE BOOK HAS A DRAWING OF THE CROIX: DOES NOT ACTUALLY MENTION THE WORD CROIX;.] "Listen, my brother, to OUR explanation of the symbols of the Degree [ROSE CROIX], and then give them such further interpretation as you think fit. "The CROSS has been a sacred symbol from the earliest Antiquity. It is found upon all the enduring monuments of the world, in Egypt, in Assyria, in Hindostan, in Persia, and on the Buddhist towers of Ireland. Buddha was said to have died upon it. The Druids cut an oak into its shape and held it sacred, and built their temples in that form. Pointing to the four quarters of the world, it was the symbol of universal nature. It was on a cruciform tree, that Chrishna was said to have expired, pierced with arrows. It was revered in Mexico. "But its peculiar meaning in this Degree, is that given to it by the Ancient Egyptians. Thoth or Phtha is represented on the oldest monuments carrying in his hand the Crux Ansata, or Ankh, (a Tau cross, with a ring or circle over it). He is so seen on the double tablet of Shufu and Noh Shufu, builders of the greatest of the Pyramids, at Wady Meghara, in the peninsula of Sinai. It was the hieroglyphic for life, and with a triangle prefixed meant life-giving. To us therefore it is the symbol of Life--of that life that emanated from the Deity, and of that Eternal Life for which we all hope; through our faith in God's infinite goodness. "The ROSE was anciently sacred to Aurora and the Sun. It is a symbol of Dawn, of the resurrection of Light and the renewal of life, and therefore of the dawn of the first day, and more particularly of the resurrection: and the Cross and Rose together are therefore hieroglyphically to be read, the Dawn of Eternal Life which all Nations have hoped for by the advent of a Redeemer. "The Pelican feeding her young is an emblem of the large and bountiful beneficence of Nature, of the Redeemer of fallen man, and of that humanity and charity that ought to distinguish a Knight of this Degree. "The EAGLE was the living Symbol of the Egyptian God MENDES or MENTHRA, whom Sesostris-Ramses made one with AMUN-RE, the God of Thebes and Upper Egypt, and the representative of the Sun, the word RE meaning SUN or KING." -Pages 290,291. "To the word INRI, inscribed on the Crux Ansata over the Master's Seat, many meanings have been assigned. The Christian Initiate reverentially sees in it the initials of the inscription upon the cross on which Christ suffered--Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. The sages of Antiquity connected it with one of the greatest secrets of Nature, that of universal regeneration. They interpreted it thus, Igne Natura renovatur integra; (entire nature is renovated by fire): The Alchemical or Hermetic Masons framed for it this aphorism, Igne nitrum roris invenitur. And the Jesuits are charged with having applied to it this odious axiom, Justum necare reges impios. The four letters are the initials of the Hebrew words that represent the four elements--Iammim, the seas or water; Nour, fire; Rouach, the air, and Iebeschah, the dry earth. How we read it, I need not repeat to you." -Page 291. "Sadly we look around us, and read the gloomy and dreary records of the old dead and rotten ages. More than eighteen centuries have staggered away into the spectral realm of the Past, since Christ, teaching the Religion of Love, was crucified, that it might become a Religion of Hate; and His Doctrines are not yet even nominally accepted as true by a fourth of mankind. Since His death, what incalculable swarms of human beings have lived and died in total unbelief of all that we deem essential to Salvation! What multitudinous myriads of souls, since the darkness of idolatrous superstition settled down, thick and impenetrable, upon the earth, have flocked up toward the eternal Throne of God, to receive His judgment? "The Religion of Love proved to be, for seventeen long centuries, as much the Religion of Hate, and infinitely more the Religion of Persecution, than Mahometanism, its unconquerable rival." -Page 294. [JESUS TAUGHT THE RELIGION OF LOVE, AND THE CHURCH HAS TURNED IT INTO A RELIGION OF HATRED ACCORDING TO PIKE.]
"The God of nineteen-twentieths of the Christian world is only Bel, Moloch, Zeus, or at best Osiris, Mithras, or Adonai, under another name, worshipped with the old Pagan ceremonies and ritualistic formulas. It is the Statue of Olympian Jove, worshipped as the Father, in the Christian Church that was a Pagan Temple; it is the Statue of Venus, become the Virgin Mary. For the most part, men do not in their hearts believe that God is either just or merciful. They fear and shrink from His lightnings and dread His wrath. For the most part, they only think they believe that there is another life, a judgment, and a punishment for sin. Yet they will none the less persecute as Infidels and Atheists those who do not believe what they themselves imagine they believe, and which yet they do not believe, because it is incomprehensible to them in their ignorance and want of intellect. [WE ARE ALL STUPID, IN OTHER WORDS.] To the vast majority of mankind, God is but the reflected image, in infinite space, of the earthly Tyrant on his Throne, [THE POPE], only more powerful, more inscrutable, and more implacable. To curse Humanity, the Despot [THE POPE, AGAIN] need only be, what the popular mind has, in every age, imagined God." -Pages 295,296. "In the great cities, the lower strata of the populace are equally without faith and without hope. The others have, for the most part, a mere blind faith, imposed by education and circumstances, and not as productive of moral excellence or even common honesty as Mohammedanism. "Your property will be safe here," said the Moslem; "There are no Christians here." -Page 296. [HE SEEMS TO BE SAYING THAT CHRISTIANS ARE ALL THIEVES AND NOT ARE TO BE TRUSTED.] "No city is not tortured by shot and shell; and no people fail to enact the horrid blasphemy of thanking a God of Love for victories and carnage." -Page 297. "To explain to themselves the existence of Evil and Suffering, the Ancient Persians imagined that there were two Principles or Deities in the Universe, the one of Good and the other of Evil, constantly in conflict with each other in struggle for the mastery, and alternately overcoming and overcome. Over both, for the SAGES, was the One Supreme; and for them Light was in the end to prevail over Darkness, the Good over the Evil, and even Ahreman and his Demons to part with their wicked and vicious natures and share the universal Salvation. It did not occur to them that the existence of the Evil Principle, by the consent of the Omnipotent Supreme, presented the same difficulty, and left the existence of Evil as unexplained as before. The human mind is always content, if it can remove a difficulty a step further off. It cannot believe that the world rests on nothing, but is devoutly content when taught that it is borne on the back of an immense elephant, who himself stands on the back of a tortoise. Given the tortoise, Faith is always satisfied; and it has been a great source of happiness to multitudes that they could believe in a Devil who could relieve God of the odium of being the Author of Sin." -Page 300. [GOD IS THE AUTHOR OF SIN, AND HUMANS INVENTED THE CONCEPT OF SATAN.] "Exalt and magnify Faith as we will, and say that it begins where Reason ends, it must, after all, have a foundation, either in Reason, Analogy, the Consciousness, or human testimony. The worshipper of Brahma also has implicit Faith in what seems to us palpably false and absurd. His faith rests neither in Reason, Analogy, or the Consciousness, but on the testimony of his Spiritual teachers, and of the Holy Books. The Moslem also believes, on the positive testimony of the Prophet; and the Mormon also can say, "I believe this, because it is impossible." No faith, however absurd or degrading, has ever wanted these foundations, testimony, and the books. [IN OTHER WORDS, THEY HAVE ALL HAD THEM, AND NOT BEEN WANTING FOR THEM.] Miracles, proven by unimpeachable testimony have been used as a foundation for Faith, in every age; and the modern miracles are better authenticated, a hundred times, than the ancient ones." -Page 301. "The Vulgar imagined the attention of the Gods to be continually centred upon the earth and man. The Grecian Divinities inhabited Olympus, an insignificant mountain of the Earth. There was the Court of Zeus, to which Neptune came from the Sea, and Pluto and Persephone from the glooms of Tartarus in the infathomable depths of the Earth's bosom. God came down from Heaven and on Sinai dictated laws for the Hebrews to His servant Moses." -Page 302. [WE SEE AGAIN THAT THE JEWS ARE A "VULGAR" PEOPLE.] "The Universe, which is the uttered Word of God, is infinite in extent. There is no empty space beyond creation on any side. The Universe, which is the Thought of God pronounced, never was not, since God never was inert; nor WAS, without thinking and creating. The forms of creation change, the suns and worlds live and die like the leaves and the insects, but the Universe itself is infinite and eternal, because God Is, Was, and Will forever Be, and never did not think and create. [IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH.; GEN 1:1. THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT IS THAT GOD CREATED EVERYTHING IN SIX LITERAL 24 HOUR DAYS. IT DOES NOT SAY THAT HE DID IT OVER VAST EONS OF TIME AS PIKE IS SAYING IN THE LAST SENTENCE.] "Reason is fain to admit that a Supreme Intelligence, infinitely powerful and wise, must have created this boundless Universe; but it also tells us that we are as unimportant in it as the zoophytes and entozoa, or as the invisible particles of animated life that float upon the air or swarm in the water-drop. [AND GOD SAID, LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE, AFTER OUR LIKENESS: AND LET THEM HAVE DOMINION OVER THE FISH OF THE SEA, AND OVER THE FOWL OF THE AIR, AND OVER THE CATTLE, AND OVER ALL THE EARTH, AND OVER EVERY CREEPING THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH. GEN 1:26. APPARENTLY, GOD SEEMS TO THINK THAT WE ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE ZOOPHYTES AND ENTOZOA, ETC.] "The foundations of our faith, resting upon the imagined interest of God in our race, an interest easily supposable when man believed himself the only intelligent created being, and therefore eminently worthy the especial care and watchful anxiety of a God who had only this earth to look after, and its housekeeping alone to superintend, and who was content to create, in all the infinite Universe, only one single being, possessing a soul, and not a mere animal, are rudely shaken as the Universe broadens and expands for us; and the darkness of doubt and distrust settles heavy upon the Soul." -Page 303. "For the Kabalists, Light represents the Active Principle, and Darkness or Shadow is analogous to the Passive Principle. Therefore it was that they made of the Sun and Moon emblems of the two Divine Sexes and the two creative forces;..." -Page 305. [A LOT OF WHAT PIKE HAS TO SAY ALONG THIS PARALLEL IS TO ESTABLISH THE DUALISM OF GOD: LIGHT AND DARK, GOOD AND EVIL, MALE AND FEMALE.] "...He will redeem and regenerate the world, and the Principle, the Power, and the existence of Evil will then cease; that this will be brought about by such means and instruments as He chooses to employ; whether by the merits of a Redeemer that has already appeared, or a Messiah that is yet waited for, by an incarnation of Himself, or by an inspired prophet, it does not belong to us as Masons to decide. Let each judge and believe for himself. "In the mean time, we labor to hasten the coming of that day. The morals of antiquity, of the law of Moses and of Christianity, are ours. We recognize every teacher of Morality, every Reformer, as a brother in this great work." -Page 308. [ALL RELIGIOUS LEADERS ARE EQUAL IN MASONRY;S SIGHT.] "No one Mason has the right to measure for another, within the walls of a Masonic Temple, the degree of veneration which he shall feel for any Reformer, or the Founder of any Religion. We teach a belief in no particular creed, as we teach unbelief in none." -Page 308. [JESUS IS NOT TO BE DISCUSSED IN LODGE. IF THERE IS ANYWHERE YOU GO IN WHICH YOU AGREE TO LEAVE JESUS AT THE DOOR, YOU ARE NOT BORN AGAIN. JESUS IS STANDING OUTSIDE YOUR HEART KNOCKING.]
"Jesus of Nazareth, the 'Son of Man," is the expounder of the new Law of Love...The Gospel of Love He sealed with His life...Dying thus, He bequeathed His teachings to man as an inestimable inheritance...We here teach them in their purity. They are our Masonry; for to them good men of all creeds can subscribe...every true Knight of the Rose Cross will revere the memory of Him who taught it, and look indulgently even on those who assign to Him a character far above his own conceptions or belief, even to the extent of deeming Him Divine. -Page 309, 310. "We, like him, [PHILO, THE GREEK JEW] recognize all Initiates as our Brothers. We belong to no one creed or school. In all religions there is a basis of Truth; in all there is pure Morality. All that teach the cardinal tenets of Masonry we respect; all teachers and reformers of mankind we admire and revere." -Page 311. "LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!" -Page 321. [THERE IT IS!! FREEMASONRY IS ALWAYS SAID TO BE A SEARCH FOR LIGHT; AND MORE LIGHT;. LUCIFER IS THE ONE WHO BEARS THAT LIGHT! DOUBT IT NOT!;] "The conviction of all men that God is good led to a belief in a Devil, the fallen Lucifer or Light-bearer, Shaitan the Adversary, Ahriman and Tuphon, as an attempt to explain the existence of Evil, and make it consistent with the Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Benevolence of God." -Page 324. [NOTE THAT PIKE ONLY MENTIONS SATAN IN THE FALLEN STATE, AND DOES NOT ACTUALLY PERSONALLY EQUATE HIM WITH LUCIFER; ONLY THAT OTHER MEN HAVE DONE SO. PIKE DID NOT BELIEVE LUCIFER AND ADONAI WERE ABLE TO BE SEPARATED, WITH ONE GAINING THE POWER OVER THE OTHER SINCE HE BELIEVED THEY WERE ONE AND THE SAME LIKE OPPOSITE SIDES OF A COIN. LUCIFER WAS THE GOOD SIDE OF GOD, AND ADONAI WAS THE EVIL ONE; THEY TWO WERE ONE AND THE REPRESENT THE UNITY OF GOD THAT PIKE TALKS ABOUT SO MUCH.] "The true Mason is a practical Philosopher...Masonry and Philosophy, without being one and the same thing, have the same object, and propose to themselves the same end, the worship of the Grand Architect of the Universe..." -Page 325. [See Col. 2.8.] "Except as mere symbols of the moral virtues and intellectual qualities, the tools and implements of Masonry belong exclusively to the first three Degrees. They also, however, serve to remind the Mason who has advanced further, that his new rank is based upon the humble labors of the symbolic Degrees, as they are improperly termed, inasmuch as all the Degrees are symbolic." -Page 330. [SEE PAGE 819!] "In the higher Degrees those only should be received who have sufficient reading and information to discuss the great questions of philosophy. From them the Orators of the Lodges should be selected, as well as those of the Councils and Chapters. They are charged to suggest such measures as are necessary to make Masonry entirely faithful to the spirit of its institution, both as to its charitable purposes, and the diffusion of light and knowledge; such as are needed to correct abuses that have crept in, and of-fences against the rules and general spirit of the Order; and such as will tend to make it, as it was meant to be, the great Teacher of Mankind." -Page 332. "To respect all forms of worship, to tolerate all political and religious opinions; not to blame, and still less to condemn the religion of others: not to seek to make converts; but to be content if they have the religion of Socrates; a veneration for the Creator, the religion of good works, and grateful acknowledgment of God's blessings:..." -Page 333. [THE RELIGION OF GOOD WORKS; IS A FALSE GOSPEL. FOR BY GRACE ARE YE SAVED THROUGH FAITH; AND THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES: IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD: NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST.; EPHESIANS 2:8,9.] "To make this also their motto: Do that which thou oughtest to do; let the result be what it will." -Page 333. [THIS IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE OFFICIAL WICCAN WITCHCRAFT CREED: "AN IT HARM NO ONE, DO WHAT THOU WILT".] "Man perfects himself by working...Labor is life...Only by labor will man continually learn the virtues..."Work; and therein have well-being," is the oldest of the Gospels; unpreached, inarticulate, but ineradicable, and enduring forever." -Page 342. [THIS IS ONLY A SMALL EXAMPLE, BUT THE POINT FOR INCLUDING THESE EXCERPTS IS TO SHOW PIKE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD WORK. THERE ARE MANY ENTRIES WHERE HE IMPLIES MAN'S EVENTUAL SALVATION LIES IN ONES WORKS, AND NOT THROUGH THE GRACE OF JESUS CHRIST.] "Labor, wide as the Earth, has its summit in Heaven. To toil, whether with the sweat of the brow, or of the brain or heart, is worship,--the noblest thing yet discovered beneath the Stars. Let the weary cease to think that labor is a curse and doom pronounced by Deity. Without it there could be no true excellence in human nature. Without it, and pain, and sorrow, where would be the human virtues? Where Patience, Perseverance, Submission, Energy, Endurance, Fortitude, Bravery, Disinterestedness, Self-Sacrifice, the noblest excellencies of the Soul? "Let him who toils complain not, nor feel humiliated! Let him look up, and see his fellow-workmen there, in God's Eternity; they alone surviving there. Even in the weak human memory they long survive, as Saints, as Heroes, and as Gods: they ALONE survive, and people the unmeasured solitudes of Time." -Pages 342,343. [STILL DISCUSSING THE SUBJECT OF WORK, PIKE SAYS THIS:] "The answer is, that every man has a work to do in himself, greater and sublimer than any work of genius; and works upon a nobler material than wood or marble--upon his own soul and intellect, and may so attain the highest nobleness and grandeur known on earth or in Heaven; may so be the greatest of artists, and of authors, and his life, which is far more than speech, may be eloquent." -Page 349. "Masonry seeks to ennoble common life. Its work is to go down into the obscure and unsearched records of daily conduct and feeling; and to portray, not the ordinary virtue of an extraordinary life; but the more extraordinary virtue of ordinary life. What is done and borne in the shades of privacy, in the hard and beaten path of daily care and toil, full of uncelebrated sacrifices; in the suffering, and sometimes insulted suffering, that wears to the world a cheerful brow; in the long strife of the spirit, resisting pain, penury, and neglect, carried on in the inmost depths of the heart;--what is done, and borne, and wrought, and won there, is a higher glory, and shall inherit a brighter crown." -Page 350. "Among most of the Ancient Nations there was, in addition to their public worship, a private one styled the Mysteries; to which those only were admitted who had been prepared by certain ceremonies called initiations." -Page 352. "The ancients said that the Initiates would be more happy after death than other mortals; and that, while the souls of the Profane on leaving their bodies, would be plunged in the mire, and remain buried in darkness, those of the Initiates would fly to the Fortunate Isles, the abode of the Gods." -Page 352. [THE "PROFANE" PIKE MENTIONS HERE ARE ANY WHO ARE NOT INITIATED INTO THE "MYSTERIES" WHICH, YOU MAY RECALL, HE SAYS MASONRY IS THE TRUE REPRESENTATIVE TODAY. SO WHAT HE IS SAYING HERE IS: ONLY MASONS WILL MAKE IT TO HEAVEN. THOSE WHO ARE WITHOUT THE LODGE ARE GOING TO BE PLUNGED INTO DARKNESS, OR HELL. SINCE THE WIFE AND CHILDREN OF THE MASON ARE NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER THE LODGE, SHOULDN;T THIS COMMENT MAKE THE MASON WONDER ABOUT IT ALL?] "Plato said that the object of the Mysteries was to re-establish the soul in its primitive purity, and in that state of perfection which it had lost. "Proclus held that initiation elevated the soul, from a material, sensual, and purely human life, to a communion and celestial intercourse with the God's; and that a variety of things, forms, and species were shown Initiates, representing the first generation of the Gods. "Purity of morals and elevation of soul were required of the Initiates. Candidates were required to be of spotless reputation and irreproachable virtue. Nero, after murdering his mother, did not dare to be present at the celebration of the Mysteries: and Antony presented himself to be initiated, as the most infallible mode of proving his innocence of the death of Avidius Cassius. "The Initiates were regarded as the only fortunate men. "It is upon us alone," says Aristophanes, "shineth the beneficent day-star. We alone receive pleasure from the influence of his rays; we, who are initiated, and who practise toward citizen and stranger every possible act of justice and piety." And it is therefore not surprising that, in time, initiation came to be considered as necessary as baptism afterward was to the Christians; and that not to have been admitted to the Mysteries was held a dishonor." " "It seems to me," says the great orator, philosopher, and moralist, Cicero, "that Athens, among many excellent inventions, divine and very useful to the human family, has produced none comparable to the Mysteries, which for a wild and ferocious life have substituted humanity and urbanity of manners. It is with good reason they use the term INITIATION; for it is through them that we in reality have learned the first principles of live; and they not only reach us to live in a manner more consoling and agreeable, but they soften the pains of death by the hope of a better life hereafter." -Page 353. [INITIATION IS EQUATED WITH THE DESTINATION OF HEAVEN IN THE AFTERLIFE.] "The instruction now conveyed by books and letters was of old conveyed by symbols; and the priest had to invent or to perpetuate a display of rites and exhibitions, which were not only more attractive to the eye than words, but often to the mind more suggestive and pregnant with meaning." -Page 354. "The Powers revered in the Mysteries were all in reality Nature-Gods; none of whom could be consistently addressed as mere heroes, because their nature was confessedly super-heroic. The Mysteries, only in fact a more solemn expression of the religion of the ancient poetry, taught that doctrine of the Theocracia or Divine Oneness, which even poetry does not entirely conceal. They were not in any open hostility with the popular religion, but only a more solemn exhibition of its symbols; or rather a part of itself in a more impressive form. The essence of all Mysteries, as of all polytheism, consists in this, that the conception of an unapproachable Being, single, eternal, and unchanging, and that of a God of Nature, whose manifold power is immediately revealed to the senses in the incessant round of movement, life, and death, fell asunder in the treatment, and were separately symbolized." -Pages 354,355. "They attempted to reach the understanding through the eye; and the greater part of all religious teaching was conveyed through this ancient and most impressive mode of "exhibition" or demonstration. The Mysteries were a sacred drama, exhibiting some legend significant of Nature's change, of the visible Universe in which the divinity is revealed, and whose import was in many respects as open to the Pagan, as to the Christian. Beyond the current traditions or sacred recitals of the temple, few explanations were given to the spectators, who were left, as in the school of nature, to make inferences for themselves. "The method of indirect suggestion, by allegory or symbol, is a more efficacious instrument of instruction than plain didactic language;..." -Page 355. "...the shows of the Mysteries certainly contained suggestion if not lessons, which in the opinion not of one competent witness only, [WE BELIEVE HE IS REFERRING TO HIMSELF, HERE] but of many, were adapted to elevate the character of the spectators, enabling them to augur something of the purposes of existence, as well as of the means of improving it, to live better and to die happier." -Pages 355,356. "No better means could be devised to rouse a dormant intellect, than those impressive exhibitions, which addressed it through the imagination: which, instead of condemning it to a prescribed routine of creed, invited it to seek, compare, and judge. The alteration from symbol to dogma is as fatal to beauty of expression, as that from faith to dogma is to truth and wholesomeness of thought." -Page 356. "So Masonry still follows the ancient manner of teaching. Her symbols are the instruction she gives; and the lectures are but often partial and insufficient one-sided endeavors to interpret those symbols. He who would become an accomplished Mason, must not be content merely to hear or even to understand the lectures, but must, aided by them, and they having as it were marked out the way for him, study, interpret, and develop the symbols for himself." -Page 356. "The Mysteries, like the symbols of Masonry, were but an image of the eloquent analogies of Nature; both those and these revealing no new secret to such as were or are unprepared, or incapable of interpreting their significance. "Everywhere in the old Mysteries, and in all the symbolisms and ceremonial of the Hierophant was found the same mythical personage, who, like Hermes, or Zoroaster, unites Human Attributes with Divine, and is himself the God whose worship he introduced, teaching rude men the commencements of civilization through the influence of song, and connecting with the symbol of his death, emblematic of that of Nature, the most essential consolations of religion. [LIFE AFTER DEATH.] "The Mysteries embraced the three great doctrines of Ancient Theosophy. They treated of God, Man, and Nature. Dionusos, whose Mysteries Orpheus is said to have founded, was the God of Nature,... "The story of Dionusos was profoundly significant. He was not only creator of the world, but guardian, liberator, and Savior of the soul." -Page 357. "The spiritual regeneration of man was typified in the Mysteries by the second birth of Dionusos as offspring of the Highest; and the agents and symbols of that regeneration were the elements that affected Nature's periodical purification--the air, indicated by the mystic fan or winnow; the fire, signified by the torch; and the baptismal water, for water is not only cleanser of all things, but the genesis or source of all. "These notions, clothed in ritual, suggested the soul's reformation and training, the moral purity formally proclaimed at Eleusis. He only was invited to approach, who was "of clean hands and ingenuous speech, free from all pollution, and with a clear conscience." -Page 357. "The votary, elevated beyond the sphere of his ordinary faculties, and unable to account for the agitation which overpowered him, seemed to become divine in proportion as he ceased to be human; to be a daemon or god. Already, in imagination, the initiated were numbered among the beatified. They alone enjoyed the true life, the Sun's true lustre, while they hymned their God beneath the mystic groves of a mimic Elysium, and were really renovated or regenerated under the genial influence of their dances. [THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WICCA DOES TODAY ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND WHICH WAS CONDEMNED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT BY GOD.] " "They whom Proserpina guides in her mysteries," it was said, "who imbibed her instruction and spiritual nourishment, rest from their labors and know strife no more. Happy they who witness and comprehend these sacred ceremonies! They are made to know the meaning of the riddle of existence by observing its aim and termination as appointed by Zeus; they par-take a benefit more valuable and enduring than the grain bestowed by Ceres; for they are exalted in the scale of intellectual existence, and obtain sweet hopes to console them at their death." " -Page 358. "The rites of initiation became progressively more complicated. Signs and tokens were invented by which the Children of Light could with facility make themselves known to each other. Different Degrees were invented, as the number of Initiates enlarged, in order that there might be in the inner apartment of the Temple a favored few, to whom alone the more valuable secrets were entrusted, and who could wield effectually the influence and power of the Order. "Originally the Mysteries were meant to be the beginning of a new life of reason and virtue. The initiated or esoteric companions were taught the doctrine of the One Supreme God, the theory of death and eternity, the hidden mysteries of Nature, the prospect of the ultimate restoration of the soul to that state of perfection from which it had fallen, its immortality, and the states of reward and punishment after death. The uninitiated were deemed Profane, [AND THUS IS THE MASON TODAY FORCED TO THINK OF HIS OWN FAMILY; WIFE AND CHILDREN, PARENTS AND SIBLINGS WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS OF THE LODGE], unworthy of public employment or private confidence, sometimes proscribed as Atheists, and certain of everlasting punishment beyond the grave." -Page 359. "The inhabitants of India originally practised the Patriarchal religion...There perhaps the Mysteries commenced; and in them, under allegories, were taught the primitive truths. We cannot, within the limits of this lecture, detail the ceremonies of initiation; and shall use general language, except where some-thing from those old Mysteries still remains in Masonry. "The Initiate was invested with a cord of three threads, so twined as to make three times three, and called zennar. Hence comes our cable-tow. It was an emblem of their tri-une Deity, the remembrance of whom we also preserve in the three chief officers of our Lodges, presiding in the three quarters of that Universe which our Lodges represent; in our three greater and three lesser lights, our three movable and three immovable jewels, and the three pillars that support our Lodges." -Pages 360,361. "The Indian Mysteries were celebrated in subterranean caverns and grottos hewn in the solid rock; and the Initiates adored the Deity, symbolized by the solar fire. [THE SUN.] The candidate, long wandering in darkness, truly wanted Light, and the worship taught him was the worship of God, the Source of Light." -Page 361. [AS AN ENTERED APPRENTICE, YOU KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AND CLAIMED THAT YOU WERE IN DARKNESS, AND DESIROUS OF LIGHT. AT THAT POINT, AS A CHRISTIAN, YOU DENIED JESUS CHRIST WHO IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life..] "After various ceremonies, chiefly relating to the unity and trinity of the Godhead, the candidate was clothed in a linen garment without a seam, and remained under the care of a Brahmin until he was twenty years of age, constantly studying and practising the most rigid virtue. Then he underwent the severest probation for the second Degree, in which he was sanctified by the sign of the cross, which, pointing to the four quarters of the compass, was honored as a striking symbol of the Universe by many nations of antiquity, and was imitated by the Indians in the shape of their temples. "Then he was admitted to the Holy Cavern, blazing with light, where, in costly robes, sat, in the East, West, and South, the three chief Hierophants, representing the Indian tri-une Deity." -Page 361. "The candidate, thus taught the first great primitive truth, was called upon to make a formal declaration, that he would be tractable and obedient to his superiors; that he would keep his body pure; govern his tongue, and observe a passive obedience in receiving the doctrines and traditions of the Order; and the firmest secrecy in maintaining inviolable its hidden and abstruse mysteries. Then he was sprinkled with water (whence our baptism) [HARDLY!] and he was divested of his shoes, and made to go three times around the cavern. Hence our three circuits; hence we were neither barefoot nor shod: and the words were the Pass-words of that Indian Degree." -Page 362. "The Gymnosophist Priests came from the banks of the Euphrates into Ethiopia, and brought with them their sciences and their doctrines. Their principal College was Meroe, and their Mysteries were celebrated in the Temple of Amun, renowned for his oracle." -Page 362. "The wisdom of the Egyptian Initiates...excited the emulation of the most eminent men...and led them...to seek admission into the Mysteries of Osiris and Isis. "From Egypt, the Mysteries went to Phoenicia, and were celebrated at Tyre. Osiris changed his name, and became Adoni or Dionusos, still the representative of the Sun..." -Page 363. "Bar Hebraeus says: "Enoch...discovered the knowledge of the Zodiac, and the course of the planets...and appointed festivals for sacrifices to the Sun, at each of the Zodiacal Signs." " -Page 363. "Manetho extracted his history from certain pillars which he discovered in Egypt, whereon inscriptions had been made...made, it is said, by those who were skilled in ancient rites; who, foreseeing the coming of the Deluge, and fearing lest the memory of their ceremonies should be obliterated, built and contrived vaults, dug with vast labor, in several places." -Pages 363,364. "The Initiates in a particular science, having been instructed by fables, enigmas, allegories, and hieroglyphics, wrote mysteriously whenever in their works they touched the subject of the Mysteries, and continued to conceal science under a veil of fictions. "When the destruction...and the ruin of nearly all Egypt, in the year 528 before our era, dispersed most of the Priests into Greece and elsewhere, they bore with them their sciences, which they continued to teach enigmatically, that is to say, ever enveloped in the obscurities of fables and hieroglyphics; to the end that the vulgar herd [THE UNINITIATED, OR THE PROFANE, AGAIN], seeing, might see nothing, and hearing, might comprehend nothing." -Page 365. "In the Grecian Mysteries, as established by Pythagoras, there were three Degrees...In his lectures, Pythagoras taught the mathematics whereby to prove the existence of God...He taught the true method of obtaining a knowledge of the Divine laws of purifying the soul from its imperfections, of searching for truth, and of practising virtue; thus imitating the perfections of God...He taught the immortality of the soul, the Omnipotence of God, and the necessity of personal holiness to qualify a man for admission into the Society of the Gods. "Thus we owe the particular mode of instruction in the Degree of Fellow-Craft to Pythagoras; and that Degree is but an imperfect reproduction of his lectures. From him, too, we have many of our explanations of the symbols. He arranged his assemblies due East and West, because he held that Motion began in the East and proceeded to the West. Our Lodges are said to be due East and West, because the Master represents the rising Sun, and of course must be in the East. The pyramids, too, were built precisely by the four cardinal points. And our expression, that our Lodges extend upward to the Heavens, comes from the Persian and Druidic custom of having to their Temples no roofs but the sky." -Page 366. [THE BLUE; LODGES OF FREEMASONRY ARE CALLED THAT DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE CEILINGS ARE BLUE IN IMITATION OF THE HEAVENS.] "The Goths had three great festivals; the most magnificent of which commenced at the winter Solstice, and was celebrated in honor of Thor, the Prince of the Power of the Air. [THAT SHOULD SOUND FAMILIAR TO THE CHRISTIAN!] That being the longest night in the year, and the one after which the Sun comes Northward, it was commemorative of the Creation; and they termed it mother-night, as the one in which the creation of the world and light from the primitive darkness took place. This was the Yule, Juul, or Yeol feast, which afterward became Christmas. At this feast the initiations were celebrated. Thor was the Sun, the Egyptian Osiris and Kneph, the Phoenician Bel or Baal. The initiations were had in huge intricate caverns, terminating, as all the Mithriac caverns did, in a spacious vault, where the candidate WAS BROUGHT TO LIGHT." -Page 368. [THERE YOU HAVE IT: THOR WAS THE SUN, THOR WAS ALSO BAAL. PIKE REFERS TO GOD CONSTANTLY AS THE SUN AND LIGHT AND HE TOLD US THAT LUCIFER IS THE BEARER OF THAT LIGHT. NOW WE SEE THAT THIS GOD IS ALSO BAAL, THE EVIL DEMON GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR - ONE OF THE TITLES OF A DEMON - EPHESIANS 2:2.] "Joseph was undoubtedly initiated. After he had interpreted Pharaoh's dream, that Monarch made him his Prime Minister...and set him over the land of Egypt...and when he sent and brought his brethren back, and charged them with taking his cup, he said, "Know ye not that a man like me practices divination?" -Page 368. [THIS IS A MISQUOTE FROM GENESIS CHAPTER 44, VERSE 15.] "So also must Moses have been initiated: for he was not only brought up in the court of the King, as the adopted son of the King's daughter, until he was forty years of age; but he was instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians...Simplicius asserts that Moses received from the Egyptians, in the Mysteries, the doctrines which he taught to the Hebrews...And in the institution of the Hebrew Priesthood...he closely imitated the Egyptian institutions; making public the worship of that Deity whom the Egyptian Initiates worshipped in private..." -Pages 368,369. "The early Christians, taught by the founder of their Religion... received also the institution of the Mysteries... which...appear in many of our Degrees." -Page 369. [JESUS APPARENTLY TAUGHT THE DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES OF THE MYSTERIES AND FREEMASONRY!] "Socrates said, in the Phaedo of Plato: "It well appears that those who established the Mysteries, or secret assemblies of the initiated, were no contemptible personages, but men of great genius, who in the early ages strove to teach us, under enigmas, that he who shall go to the invisible regions [THOSE WHO PASS FROM THIS LIFE TO THE NEXT] without being purified, will be precipitated into the abyss; while he who arrives there, purged of the stains of this world, and accomplished in virtue, will be admitted to the dwelling-place of the Deity...The initiated are certain to attain the company of the Gods." " -Page 373. [ONCE AGAIN, BECOMING INITIATED INTO THE MYSTERIES, OR FREEMASONRY, DETERMINES YOUR ETERNAL DESTINY AS BEING HEAVEN, WHEREAS THOSE WHO ARE NOT INITIATED INTO THE LODGE [THE PROFANE AND VULGAR HERD;] ARE DESTINED TO THE ABYSS OF HELL.] "Initiation was considered to be a mystical death; a descent into the infernal regions, where every pollution, and the stains and imperfections of a corrupt and evil life were purged away by fire and water; and the perfect Epopt was then said to be regenerated, new-born, restored to a renovated existence of life, light, and purity; and placed under the Divine Protection." -Page 373. "They [THE MEMBERS OF THE EGYPTIAN PRIESTHOOD] represented them [THE MYSTERIES] as the beginning of a new life of reason and virtue: the initiated, or esoteric companions were said to entertain the most agreeable anticipations respecting death and eternity, to comprehend all the hidden mysteries of Nature, to have their souls restored to the original perfection from which man had fallen; and at their death to be borne to the celestial mansions of the Gods...Public odium was cast on those who refused to be initiated. They were considered profane, unworthy of public employment or private confidence; and held to be doomed to eternal punishment as impious." -Page 374. "Everywhere, and in all their forms, the Mysteries were funereal and celebrated the mystical death and restoration to life of some divine or heroic personage...the Legend of the Master's Degree is but another form of that of the Mysteries, reaching back, in one shape or other, to the remotest antiquity." -Pages 374, 375.
THE EGYPTIAN LEGEND"A brief summery of the Egyptian legend will serve to show the leading idea on which the Mysteries among the Hebrews were based. "Osiris, said to have been an ancient King of Egypt, was the Sun; and Isis, his wife, the Moon: and his history recounts, in poetical and figurative style, the annual journey of the Great Luminary of Heaven [THE SUN] through the different Signs of the Zodiac. "In the absence of Osiris, Typhon, his brother, filled with envy and malice, sought to usurp his throne; but his plans were frustrated by Isis. Then he resolved to kill Osiris. This he did, by persuading him to enter a coffin or sarcophagus, which he then flung into the Nile. After a long search, Isis found the body, and concealed it in the depths of a forest; but Typhon, finding it there, cut it into fourteen pieces, and scattered them hither and thither. After tedious search, Isis found thirteen pieces, the fishes having eaten the other (the privates), which she replaced of wood, and buried the body at Philae; where a temple of surpassing magnificence was erected in honor of Osiris. "Isis, aided by her son Orus, Horus or Har-oeri, warred against Typhon, slew him, reigned gloriously, and at her death was reunited to her husband, in the same tomb." -Pages 375,376. "Typhon was represented as born of the earth; the upper part of his body covered with feathers, in stature reaching the clouds, his arms and legs covered with scales, serpents darting from him on every side, and fire flashing from his mouth. Horus, who aided in slaying him, became the God of the Sun, answering to the Grecian Apollo; and Typhon is but the anagram of Python, the great serpent slain by Apollo. "The word Typhon, like Eve, signifies a serpent, and life. [SCRIPTURE SAYS: AND ADAM SAID, THIS IS NOW BONE OF MY BONES, AND FLESH OF MY FLESH: SHE SHALL BE CALLED WOMAN, BECAUSE SHE WAS TAKEN OUT OF MAN.; EVE;S NAME DOES NOT MEAN SERPENT!] By its form the serpent symbolizes life, which circulates through all nature. When, toward the end of autumn, the Woman (Virgo), in the constellations seems (upon the Chaldaean sphere) to crush with her heel the head of the serpent, this figure foretells the coming of winter, during which life seems to retire from all beings, and no longer to circulate through nature. This is why Typhon signifies also a serpent, the symbol of winter, which, in the Catholic Temples, is represented surrounding the Terrestrial Globe, which surmounts the heavenly cross, emblem of redemption. If the word Typhon is derived from Tupoul, it signifies a tree which produces apples (mala, evils), the Jewish origin of the fall of man. Typhon means also one who supplants, and signifies the human passions, which expel from our hearts the lessons of wisdom. In the Egyptian Fable, Isis wrote the sacred word for the instruction of men, and Typhon effaced it as fast as she wrote it. In morals, his name signifies Pride, Ignorance, and Falsehood. "When Isis first found the body, where it had floated ashore near Byblos, a shrub of erica or tamarisk near it had, by the virtue of the body, shot up into a tree around it, and protected it; and hence our sprig of acacia. Isis was also aided in her search by Anubis, in the shape of a dog. He was Sirius or the Dog-Star, the friend and counsellor of Osiris, and the inventor of language, grammar, astronomy, surveying, arithmetic, music, and medical science; the first maker of laws; and who taught the worship of the Gods, and the building of Temples. -Page 376. [THE DOG-STAR, SIRIUS (SIR-EE-US), HAS BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SATAN WORSHIP FOR MANY CENTURIES. EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT THIS GOES FAR BACK INTO THE OLD TESTAMENT TIMES, AND IS STILL TRUE TODAY IN MANY AREAS OF THE OCCULT.] "In the Mysteries, the nailing up of the body of Osiris in the chest or ark was termed the aphanism, or disappearance (of the Sun at the Winter Solstice, below the Tropic of Capricorn), and the recovery of the different parts of his body by Isis, the Euresis, or finding. The candidate went through a ceremony representing this, in all the Mysteries everywhere. The main facts in the fable were the same in all countries; and the prominent Deities were everywhere a male and a female. "In Egypt they were Osiris and Isis...and in every instance these Divinities represented the Sun and the Moon. "The Mysteries of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, seem to have been the model of all other ceremonies of initiation subsequently established among the different peoples of the world." -Page 377. "Osiris married his sister Isis...Typhon, his brother, slew him when the sun was in the sign of the Scorpion, that is to say, at the Autumnal Equinox. They had been rival claimants, says Synesius, for the throne of Egypt, as Light and Darkness contend ever for the empire of the world." -Pages 377,378. "Plutarch assures us that it was to represent these events and details that Isis established the Mysteries, in which they were reproduced by images, symbols, and a religious ceremonial, whereby they were imitated: and in which lessons of piety were given, and consolations under the misfortunes that afflict us here below. Those who instituted these Mysteries meant to strengthen religion and console men in their sorrows by the lofty hopes found in a religious faith, whose principles were represented to them covered by a pompous ceremonial, and under the sacred veil of allegory." -Page 378. "Diodorus speaks of the famous columns erected near Nysa, in Arabia, where, it was said, were two of the tombs of Osiris and Isis. On one was this inscription: "I am Isis..." and on the other was this: "I am Osiris the King...I am the eldest son of Saturn: I was born of the brilliant and magnificent egg, and my substance is of the same nature as that which composes light. [REMEMBER PAGE 321!] There is no place in the Universe where I have not appeared, to bestow my benefits and make known my discoveries." -Page 378. "To aid her in the search for the body of Osiris, and to nurse her infant child Horus, Isis sought out and took with her Anubis, son of Osiris, and his sister Nephte. He, as we have said, was Sirius, the brightest star in the Heavens. After finding him, she went to Byblos, and seated herself near a fountain, where she had learned that the sacred chest had stopped which contained the body of Osiris. There she sat, sad and silent, shedding a torrent of tears. Thither came the women of the Court of Queen Astarte, and she spoke to them, and dressed their hair, pouring upon it deliciously perfumed ambrosia. This known to the Queen, Isis was engaged as nurse for her child, in the palace, one of the columns of which was made of the erica or tamarisk, that had grown up over the chest containing Osiris, cut down by the King, and unknown to him, still enclosing the chest: which column Isis afterward demanded, and from it extracted the chest and the body, which, the latter wrapped in thin drapery and perfumed, she carried away with her. "Blue Masonry, ignorant of its import, [NOT TOLD THE TRUE MEANING, IN OTHER WORDS] still retains among its emblems one of a woman weeping over a broken column, holding in her hand a branch of acacia, myrtle, or tamarisk, while Time, we are told, stands behind her combing out the ringlets of her hair. We need not repeat the vapid and trivial explanation there given, of this representation of Isis, weeping at Byblos, over the column torn from the palace of the King, that contains the body of Osiris, while Horus, the God of Time, pours ambrosia on her hair. "Nothing of this recital was historical; but the whole was an allegory of sacred fable, containing a meaning known only to those who were initiated into the Mysteries. All the incidents were astronomical, with a meaning still deeper lying behind that explanation, and so hidden by a double veil [THIS IS ALL ALLEGORY PERTAINING TO ASTROLOGY]...Aristotle says they [THE MYSTERIES] were the most valuable of all religious institutions, and thus were called mysteries par excellence... "The object of all the Mysteries was to inspire men with piety, and to console them in the miseries of life. That consolation, so afforded, was the hope of a happier future, and of passing, after death, to a state of eternal felicity. "Cicero says that the Initiates not only received lessons which made life more agreeable, but drew from the ceremonies happy hopes for the moment of death. Socrates says that those who were so fortunate as to be admitted to the Mysteries, possessed, when dying, the most glorious hopes for eternity. Aristides says that they not only procure the Initiates consolations in the present life, and means of deliverance from the great weight of their evils, but also the precious advantage of passing after death to a happier state." -Pages 378,379,380. [HERE WE SEE PLENTY OF EVIDENCE TO SHOW THAT THE MYSTERIES HAS ITS OWN PLAN OF SALVATION, APART FROM THE CROSS OF JESUS. THIS IS "ANOTHER GOSPEL!"] "This great lesson, which the Hierophant impressed on the Initiates, after they had witnessed a representation of the Infernal regions, the Poet [VIRGIL] places after his description of the different punishments suffered by the wicked in Tartarus, and immediately after the description of that of Sisyphus...the crime or impiety which in them had chiefly merited this punishment, was the contempt which they had shown for the Mysteries of Eleusis ...the Priests of Eleusis, who taught the dogma of punishment in Tartarus, included among the great crimes deserving these punishments, contempt for and disregard of the Holy Mysteries..". -Page 381. [SO, ONE OF THE CHIEF SINS FOR WHICH ONE CAN MERIT ETERNAL PUNISHMENT IS TO HAVE CONTEMPT FOR THE MYSTERIES, WITH WHICH, PIKE HAS SAID EARLIER ON PAGE 23, MASONRY IS IDENTICAL. IF WE ARE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE "SO FORTUNATE AS TO BE ADMITTED TO THE MYSTERIES" THEN WE ARE GOING TO A HAPPIER PLACE ON THE MOMENT OF DEATH, AND THOSE WHO ARE NOT "SO FORTUNATE" ARE GOING TO THE INFERNAL REGIONS OF PUNISHMENT FOR THE WICKED.] "...the Holy Mysteries...to which the needs and interest of religion itself were subordinate; since the latter was but a means to lead more surely to the former; for the whole force of religious opinions being in the hands of the legislators to be wielded, they were sure of being better obeyed." -Pages 381,382. [RELIGION, PIKE SAYS, IS JUST A TOOL FOR THOSE IN POWER TO CONTROL THE MASSES.] "The great object of the Mysteries of Isis, and in general of all the Mysteries, was a great and truly politic one." -Page 382. "It is a still greater mistake to imagine that they were the inventions of charlatanism, and means of deception. They may in the lapse of time have degenerated into imposture and schools of false ideas; but they were not so at the beginning; or else the wisest and best men of antiquity have uttered the most willful falsehoods." -Page 382. "The rude representation of physical torture in Tartarus was but an image of the certain, unavoidable, eternal consequences that flow by the law of God's enactment from the sin committed and the vice indulged in. The poets and mystagogues labored to propagate these doctrines of the soul's immortality and the certain punishment of sin and vice, and to acredit them with the people, by teaching them the former in their poems, and the latter in the sanctuaries; and they clothed them with the charms, the one of poetry, and the other of spectacles and magic illusions." -Page 383. [CHURCHES TEACH MORALITY THROUGH "MAGIC ILLUSIONS"...IT SOUNDS LIKE HE IS SPEAKING OF THE MIRACLES OF THE SCRIPTURES; THIS IS HIGHLY PROBABLE CONSIDERING THE ATTITUDE PIKE HAS TOWARD THEM BOTH.]
THE PURPOSE OF THE MYSTERIES"They painted, aided by all the resources of art, the virtuous man's happy life after death, and the horrors of the frightful prisons destined to punish the vicious. In the shades of the sanctuaries, these delights and horrors were exhibited as spectacles, and the Initiates witnessed religious dramas, under the name of initiation and mysteries. Curiosity was excited by secrecy, by the difficulty experienced in obtaining admission, and by the tests to be undergone. The candidate was amused by the variety of the scenery, the pomp of the decorations, the appliances of machinery. Respect was inspired by the gravity and dignity of the actors and the majesty of the ceremonial; and fear and hope, sadness and delight, were in turns excited. "The Hierophants, men of intellect, and well understanding the disposition of the people and the art of controlling them, used every appliance to attain that object, and give importance and impressiveness to their ceremonies. As they covered those ceremonies with the veil of Secrecy, so they preferred that Night should cover them with its wings. Obscurity adds to impressiveness, and assists illusion; and they used it to produce an effect upon the astonished Initiate. The ceremonies were conducted in caverns dimly lighted: thick groves were planted around the Temples, to produce that gloom that impresses the mind with a religious awe. "The very word mystery, according to Demetrius Phalereus, was a metaphorical expression that denoted the secret awe which darkness and gloom inspired. The night was almost always the time fixed for their celebration; and they were ordinarily termed nocturnal ceremonies. Initiations into the Mysteries of Samothrace took place at night; as did those of Isis, of which Apuleius speaks." -Page 383. "Euripides makes Bacchus say, that his Mysteries were celebrated at night, because there is in night something august and imposing. "Nothing excites men's curiosity so much as Mystery, concealing things which they desire to know: and nothing so much increases curiosity as obstacles that interpose to prevent them from indulging in the gratification of their desires. Of this the Legislators and Hierophants took advantage, to attract the people to their sanctuaries, and to induce them to seek to obtain lessons from which they would perhaps have turned away with indifference, if they had been pressed upon them. In this spirit of mystery they professed to imitate the Deity, who hides Himself from our senses, and conceals from us the springs by which He moves the Universe. They admitted that they concealed the highest truths under the veil of allegory, the more to excite the curiosity of men, and to urge them to investigation. The secrecy in which they buried their Mysteries, had that end. Those to whom they were confided, bound themselves, by the most fearful oaths, never to reveal them. They were not allowed even to speak of these important secrets with any others than the initiated; and the penalty of death was pronounced against any one indiscreet enough to reveal them, or found in the Temple without being an Initiate; and any one who had betrayed those secrets, was avoided by all, as excommunicated." -Page 384. [SUCH IS EXACTLY THE CASE IN FREEMASONRY TODAY: SECRECY IS USED TO ENGAGE MEN;S CURIOSITY TO JOIN, AND TO PERSUE THE HIGHER DEGREES TO DISCOVER WHAT THE SECRETS ARE.] "Seneca, comparing Philosophy to initiation, says that the most sacred ceremonies could be known to the adepts alone: but that many of their precepts were known even to the Profane. Such was the case with the doctrine of a future life, and a state of rewards and punishments beyond the grave. The ancient legislators clothed this doctrine in the pomp of a mysterious ceremony, in mystic words and magical representations, to impress upon the mind the truths they taught, by the strong influence of such scenic displays upon the senses and imagination. "In the same way they taught the origin of the soul, its fall to the earth past the spheres and through the elements, and its final return to the place of its origin, when, during the continuance of its union with earthly matter, [WHEN THE SOUL IS IN A BODY], the sacred fire, which formed its essence, had contracted no stains [SINS], and its brightness had not been marred by foreign particles, which, denaturalizing it, weighed it down and delayed its return. [TODAY,THIS IS KNOWN AS KARMA AND REINCARNATION.] These metaphysical ideas, with difficulty comprehended by the mass of the Initiates, were represented by figures, by symbols, and by allegorical analogies... "The attraction of Secrecy was enhanced by the difficulty of obtaining admission. Obstacles and suspense redoubled curiosity. Those who aspired to the initiation of the Sun and in the Mysteries of Mithras in Persia, underwent many trials. They commenced by easy tests and arrived by degrees at those that were most cruel, in which the life of the candidate was often endangered...No one can be initiated, says Suidas, until after he has proven, by the most terrible trials, that he possesses a virtuous soul, exempt from the sway of every passion, and as it were impassible... "The trials of the Eleusinian initiations were not so terrible; but they were severe; and the suspense, above all, in which the aspirant was kept for several years (the memory of which is retained in Masonry by the ages of those of the different Degrees), or the interval between admission to the inferior and initiation in the great Mysteries, was a species of torture to the curiosity which it was desired to excite...Among the Jews, the Essenes admitted none among them, until they had passed the tests of several Degrees. "By initiation, those who before were fellow-citizens only, became brothers, connected by a closer bond than before, by means of a religious fraternity, which, bringing men nearer together, united them more strongly: and the weak and the poor could more readily appeal for assistance to the powerful and the wealthy, with whom religious association gave them a closer fellowship." -Pages 384-386. [HERE WE SEE THE REASON MANY JOIN: TO BE ABLE TO ASSOCIATE WITH THOSE WHOM THEY WOULD NOT NECESSARILY ASSOCIATE, AND INCREASE THEIR CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AND BUSINESS CONTACTS. THIS IS DENIED, OF COURSE, FOR TO ADMIT THIS AT THE INITIAL INTERVIEW WOULD MEET WITH REFUSAL TO JOIN THE LODGE.] "The Initiate was regarded as the favorite of the Gods. For him alone Heaven opened its treasures. Fortunate during life, he could, by virtue and the favor of Heaven, promise himself after death an eternal felicity." -Page 386. "...those initiated in the Mysteries there were just men, who were privileged to escape from great evils and tempests." -Page 386. "The Initiate in the Mysteries of Orpheus, after he was purified, was considered as released from the empire of evil, and transferred to a condition of life which gave him the happiest hopes. "I have emerged from evil," he was made to say, "and have attained good. Those initiated in the Mysteries of Eleusis believed that the Sun blazed with a pure splendor for them alone." -Page 386. "Initiation dissipated errors and banished misfortune: and after having filled the heart of man with joy during life, it gave him the most blissful hopes at the moment of death." -Page 386. "The benefit which we reap from these august ceremonies, says Aristides, is not only present joy, a deliverance and enfranchisement from the old ills; but also the sweet hope which we have in death of passing to a more fortunate state...participation of the Mysteries is the finest of all things, and the source of the greatest blessings. The happiness promised there was not limited to this mortal life; but it extended beyond the grave. There a new life was to commence, during which the Initiate was to enjoy a bliss without alloy and without limit. The Corybantes promised eternal life to the Initiates of the Mysteries of Cybele and Atys." -Pages 386,387. [NEED WE SAY MORE? ACCORDING TO PIKE, THE AUTHOR OF THE RITUAL, INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES (WHICH IS FREEMASONRY TODAY) GUARANTEES THE INITIATE ETERNAL LIFE IN HEAVEN AFTER HIS EARTHLY DEATH. THIS IS NOT THE PLAN OF SALVATION PUT FORTH BY THE BIBLE!]
LUCIUS"Apuleius represents Lucius, while still in the form of an ass, as addressing his prayers to Isis, whom he speaks of as the same as Ceres, Venus, Diana, and Proserpine, and as illuminating the walls of many cities simultaneously with her feminine lustre, and substituting her quivering light for the bright rays of the Sun. She appears to him in his vision as a beautiful female, "over whose divine neck her long thick hair hung in graceful ringlets." Addressing him, she says, "The parent of Universal nature attends thy call. The mistress of the Elements, initiative germ of generations, Supreme of Deities, Queen of departed Spirits, first inhabitant of Heaven, and uniform type of all the Gods and Goddesses, propitiated by thy prayers, is with thee. She governs...one Sole Divinity under many forms, worshipped by the different nations of the Earth under many titles, and with various religious rites." -Page 387. "After Lucius had, by the grace of Isis, recovered his human form, the Priest said to him, "Calamity hath no hold on those whom our Goddess hath chosen for her service, and whom her majesty hath vindicated." And the people declared that he was fortunate to be "thus after a manner born again, and at once betrothed to the service of the Holy Ministry." "When he urged the Chief Priest to initiate him, he was answered that there was not "a single one among the initiated, of a mind so depraved, of so bent on his own destruction, as, without receiving a special command from Isis, to dare to undertake her ministry rashly and sacrilegiously, and thereby commit an act certain to bring upon himself a dreadful injury." "For," continued the Chief Priest, "the gates of the shades below, and the care of our life being in the hands of the Goddess,--the ceremony of initiation into the Mysteries is, as it were, to suffer death, with the precarious chance of resuscitation...who...may through her Providence be in a manner born again, and commence the career of a new existence."-Page 388. "After night had passed, and the morning had dawned, the usual ceremonies were at an end. Then he was consecrated by twelve stoles being put upon him, clothed, crowned with palm-leaves, and exhibited to the people. The remainder of that day was celebrated as his birthday and passed in festivities; and on the third day afterward, the same religious ceremonies were repeated, including a religious breakfast, "followed by a final consummation of ceremonies." -Page 389. [THE LAST PART IS IN ITALICS; AS ALWAYS MEANING SOMETHING OF GREATER SIGNIFICANCE THAN MEETS THE EYE. NOTICE THAT THE "CRAFT" OF WICCA ALSO HAS A CONSUMMATION OF CEREMONIES WHICH IS INDEED A CONSUMMATION...A SEXUAL UNION BETWEEN THE HIGH PRIEST AND PRIESTESS OF THE COVEN. PERHAPS THIS IS WHAT IS BEING ALLUDED TO HERE.] "A year afterward, he was warned to prepare for initiation into the Mysteries of "the Great God, Supreme Parent of all the other Gods, the invincible Osiris." "For," says Apuleius, "although there is a strict connexion between the religions of both Deities, AND EVEN THE ESSENCE OF BOTH DIVINITIES IS IDENTICAL, the ceremonies of the respective initiations are considerably different. "Compare with this hint the following language of the prayer of Lucius, addressed to Isis; and we may judge what doctrines were taught in the Mysteries, in regard to the Deity: "O Holy and Perpetual Preserver of the Human Race! ever ready to cherish mortals by Thy munificence, and to afford Thy sweet maternal affection to the wretched under misfortune...the Gods in Heaven adore Thee, the Gods in the shades below do Thee homage, the stars obey Thee, the Divinities rejoice in Thee, the elements and the revolving seasons serve Thee! At Thy nod the winds breathe, clouds gather, seeds grow, buds germinate; in obedience to Thee the Earth revolves AND THE SUN GIVES US LIGHT. IT IS THOU WHO GOVERNEST THE UNIVERSE AND TREADEST TARTARUS UNDER THY FEET." -Pages 389,390. [HERE, PIKE IS ALLUDING TO HIS BELIEF THAT GOD IS BOTH MALE AND FEMALE. THIS IS COVERED IN DEPTH ON PAGE 849.]
WHAT IS REQUIRED OF THE INITIATE? "By a natural progress, it came at length to be considered that the gates of Elysium would open only for the Initiates, whose souls had been purified and regenerated in the sanctuaries. But it was never held, on the other hand, that initiation alone sufficed...it was also necessary for the soul to be purified from every stain..." -Page 390. "It was required of the Initiate that his heart and hands should be free from any stain. Porphyry says that man's soul, at death, should be enfranchised from all the passions, from hate, envy, and the others; and, in a word, be as pure as it is required to be in the Mysteries." -Page 390. "And the great moral lesson of the Mysteries...was to practice Justice and revere the Deity...The Initiate could aspire to the favors of the Gods, only because and while he respected the rights of society and those of humanity...The rewards of initiation were attached to the practice of the social virtues. [THIS IS A GOSPEL OF WORKS.] It was not enough to be initiated merely. It was necessary to be faithful to the laws of initiation, which imposed on men duties in regard to their kind." -Page 391. "Thus the Society of the Initiates was, in its principle, and according to the true purpose of its institution, a society of virtuous men, who labored to develop the germ of all the social virtues." -Page 391. "All initiation is but introductory to the great change of death. Baptism, anointing, embalming, obsequies by burial or fire, are preparatory symbols...Death is the true initiation, to which sleep is the introductory or minor mystery. It is the final rite which united the Egyptian with his God, and which opens the same promise to all who are duly prepared for it. "The body was deemed a prison for the soul; but the latter was not condemned to eternal banishment and imprisonment. The Father of the Worlds permits its chains to be broken, and has provided in the course of Nature the means of its escape. It was a doctrine of immemorial antiquity, shared alike by Egyptians, Pythagoreans, the Orphici, and by that characteristic Bacchic Sage, "the Preceptor of the Soul," Silenus, that death is far better than life; that the real death belongs to those who on earth are immersed in the Lethe of its passions and fascinations, and that the true life commences only when the soul is emancipated for its return." -Page 392. " "The great consummation of all philosophy," said Socrates, professedly quoting from traditional and mystic sources, "is Death: He who pursues philosophy aright, is studying how to die." " -Page 393. "All soul is part of the Universal Soul, whose totality is Dionusos; and it is therefore he who, as Spirit of Spirits, leads back the vagrant spirit to its home, and accompanies it through the purifying processes, both real and symbolical, of its earthly transit." -Page 393. "The human soul is itself... a God within the mind, capable through its own power of rivalling the canonization of the Hero, of making itself immortal by the practice of the good, and the contemplation of the beautiful and true...Dionusos died and...His death, typical of Nature's Death, or of her periodical decay and restoration, was one of the many symbols of the palingenesia or second birth of man." -Page 393. "Death is the inseparable antecedent of life; the seed dies in order to produce the plant, and earth itself is rent asunder and dies at the birth of Dionusos. Hence the significancy of the phallus, or of its inoffensive substitute, the obelisk, rising as an emblem of resurrection by the tomb of buried Deity at Lerna or at Sais." -Page 393. [THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT IN WASHINGTON D.C., DESIGNED AND CREATED BY MASONS, IS A PERFECT ILLUSTRATION OF AN OBELISK, WHICH YOU NOW SEE IS INTENDED TO BE A PHALLIC SYMBOL.] "For by the immutable law exemplified in the trials of Psyche, man must pass through the terrors of the under-world, before he can reach the height of Heaven." -Page 394. [ THIS IS THE HERETICAL TEACHING OF PURGATORY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. ARE YOU A BAPTIST? WHAT A TRICK ON YOU, SIR.] "The horrors and punishments of Tartarus...were represented, sometimes more and sometimes less fully, in the Mysteries; in order to impress upon the minds of the Initiates this great lesson,--that we should be ever prepared to appear before the Supreme Judge, with a heart pure and spotless; as Socrates teaches in the Gorgias. For the soul stained with crimes, he says, to descend to the Shades, is the bitterest ill. To adhere to Justice and Wisdom, Plato holds, is our duty, that we may some day take that lofty road that leads toward the heavens, and avoid most of the evils to which the soul is exposed in its subterranean journey of a thousand years. And so in the Phaedo, Socrates teaches that we should seek here below to free our soul of its passions, in order to be ready to enter our appearance, whenever Destiny summons us to the Shades. "Thus the Mysteries inculcated a great moral truth, veiled with a fable of huge proportions and the appliances of an impressive spectacle, to which, exhibited in the sanctuaries, art and natural magic lent all they had that was imposing. They sought to strengthen men against the horrors of death and the fearful idea of utter annihilation. Death...is but a passage to a happier state; but one must have lived well, to attain that most fortunate result." -Pages 395,396. "For the material horrors of Tartarus, allegorical to the Initiate, were real to the mass of the Profane; [THE UNINITIATED] not in latter times, did, perhaps many Initiates read rightly the allegory...all these sternly impressed upon the people the terrible consequences of sin and vice, and urged them to pursue the paths of honesty and virtue. "And if, in the ceremonies of the Mysteries, these material horrors were explained to the Initiates as mere symbols of the unimaginable torture, remorse, and agony that would rend the immaterial soul and rack the immortal spirit, they were feeble and insufficient in the same mode and measure only, as all material images and symbols fall short of that which is beyond the cognizance of our senses: and the grave Hierophant, the imagery, the paintings, the dramatic horrors, the funeral sacrifices, the august mysteries, the solemn silence of the sanctuaries, were none the less impressive, because they were known to be but symbols, that with material shows and images made the imagination to be the teacher of the intellect." -Page 397. "We see this truth glimmering in the doctrine, taught in the Mysteries, that though slight and ordinary offences could be expiated by penance, repentance, acts of beneficence, and prayers, grave crimes were mortal sins, beyond the reach of all such remedies." -Page 397. [THERE ARE SOME SINS THAT THE BLOOD OF JESUS IS NOT ABLE TO ERADICATE!] "The object of the ancient initiations being to ameliorate mankind and to perfect the intellectual part of man, the nature of the human soul, its origin, its destination, its relations to the body and to universal nature, all formed part of the mystic science; and to them in part the lessons given to the Initiate were directed. For it was believed that initiation tended to his perfection, and of preventing the divine part within him, overloaded with matter gross and earthy, from being plunged into gloom, and impeded in its return to the Deity. [MASONRY TEACHES THAT EACH MAN IS DEITY AND HAS WITHIN HIMSELF THE QUALITIES OF GOD.] The soul, with them, was not a mere conception or abstraction; but a reality including in itself life and thought; of, rather, of whose essence it was to live and think. "It was material; but not brute, inert, inactive, lifeless, motionless, formless, lightless matter. It was held to be active, reasoning, thinking; its natural home in the highest regions of the Universe, whence it descended to illuminate, give form and movement to, vivify, animate, and carry with itself the baser matter; [THE HUMAN BODY, AGAIN] and whither it unceasingly tends to reascend, when and as soon as it can free itself from its connection with that matter. From that substance, divine, infinitely delicate and active, essentially luminous, the souls of men were formed, and by it alone, uniting with and organizing their bodies, men lived. "This was the doctrine of Pythagoras, who learned it when he received the Egyptian Mysteries: and it was the doctrine of all who, by means of the ceremonial of initiation, thought to purify the soul...and all the expiations and lustrations used in the Mysteries were but symbols of those intellectual ones by which the soul was to be purged of its vice-spots and stains, and freed of the incumbrance of its earthly prison, so that it might rise unimpeded to the source from which it came. "Hence sprung the doctrine of the transmigration of souls..." -Page 397,398. [THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS; PIKE IS REFERRING TO HERE, IS, OF COURSE, REINCARNATION.] "It being taught in the Mysteries...as an actual reality, that the souls of the vicious dead passed into the bodies of those animals to whose nature their vices had most affinity, it was also taught that the soul could avoid these transmigrations, often successive and numerous, by the practice of virtue, which would acquit it of them, free it from the circle of successive generations, and restore it at once to its source. Hence nothing was so ardently prayed for by the Initiates, says Proclus, as this happy fortune, which, delivering them from the empire of Evil, would restore them to their true life, and conduct them to the place of final rest." -Pages 398,399. [THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE MILLIONS OF POOR LOST SOULS IN INDIA GO THROUGH DAILY-- A FEAR OF NOT DOING EXACTLY RIGHT, AND THAT THEY MAY DIE AND BE REINCARNATED INTO THE BODY OF AN ANIMAL OR INSECT BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOT BALANCED THE RIGHT/WRONG; COLUMNS OF THEIR KARMA WORKSHEET;.] "Plato says, that souls will not reach the term of their ills, until the revolutions of the world have restored them to their primitive condition, and purified them from the stains which they have contracted by the contagion of fire, earth, and air. And he held that they could not be allowed to enter Heaven, until they had distinguished themselves by the practice of virtue in some one of three several bodies. The Manicheans allowed five: Pindar, the same number as Plato; as did the Jews. [ORTHODOX JEWS NEVER BELIEVED IN REINCARNATION! IT IS OF PAGAN RELIGIOUS ORIGIN; HENCE, THEY WOULD NEVER HAVE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!] "And Cicero says, that the ancient soothsayers, and the interpreters of the will of the Gods, in their religious ceremonies and initiations, taught that we expiate here below the crimes committed in a prior life; and for that are born. It was taught in these Mysteries, that the soul passes through several states, and that the pains and sorrows of this life are an expiation of prior faults. -Page 399. "...the Disciples of Christ inquired if the man who was born blind, was not so punished for some sin that he had committed before his birth." -Page 399. [KJV JOHN 9, VERSE 1-3 SAYS: "AND AS JESUS PASSED BY, HE SAW A MAN WHICH WAS BLIND FROM HIS BIRTH. AND HIS DISCIPLES ASKED HIM, SAYING, MASTER, WHO DID SIN, THIS MAN, OR HIS PARENTS, THAT HE WAS BORN BLIND? JESUS ANSWERED, NEITHER HATH THIS MAN SINNED, NOR HIS PARENTS: BUT THAT THE WORKS OF GOD SHOULD BE MADE MANIFEST IN HIM." NOWHERE IN SCRIPTURE DO WE FIND ANY TEACHINGS THAT THE SOUL EXISTED BEFORE CONCEPTION, LET ALONE THAT ONE COULD SIN BEFORE BEING BORN. OBVIOUSLY, THIS ALSO DOES AWAY WITH THE EASTERN BELIEF OF REINCARNATION. HEBREWS 9, VERSE 27 SAYS: "AND AS IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MEN ONCE TO DIE, BUT AFTER THIS THE JUDGEMENT:"] "Virgil...enunciated the doctrine, held by most of the ancient philosophers, of the pre-existence of souls, in the eternal fire from which they emanate...and the purifications of the soul, by fire, water, and air, of which he speaks, and which three modes were employed in the Mysteries of Bacchus, were symbols of the passage of the soul into different bodies." -Page 400.
THE MYSTICAL EGG"The relations of the human soul with the rest of nature were a chief object of the science of the Mysteries. The man was there brought face to face with entire nature. The world, and the spherical envelope that surrounds it, were represented by a mystic egg, by the side of the image of the Sun-God whose Mysteries were celebrated. The famous Orphic egg was consecrated to Bacchus in his Mysteries. It was, says Plutarch, an image of the Universe, which engenders everything, and contains everything in its bosom. "Consult," says Macrobius, "the Initiates of the Mysteries of Bacchus, who honor with special veneration the sacred egg." The rounded and almost spherical form of its shell, he says, which encloses it on every side, and confines within itself the principles of life, is a symbolic image of the world; and the world is the universal principle of all things. "This symbol was borrowed from the Egyptians, who also consecrated the egg to Osiris, germ of Light, himself born, says Diodorus, from that famous egg. In Thebes, in Upper Egypt, he was represented as emitting it from his mouth, and causing to issue from it the first principle of heat and light, or the Fire-God, Vulcan, or Phtha. We find this egg even in Japan, between the horns of the famous Mithriac Bull, whose attributes Osiris, Apis, and Bacchus all borrowed. "Orpheus, author of the Grecian Mysteries, which he carried from Egypt to Greece, consecrated this symbol: and taught that matter, uncreated and informous, existed from all eternity, unorganized, as chaos; containing in itself the Principles of all Existences confused and intermingled, light with darkness, the dry with the humid, heat with cold; from which, it after long ages taking the shape of an immense egg, issued the purest matter, or first substance, and the residue was divided into the four elements, from which proceeded heaven and earth and all things else. This grand Cosmogonic idea he taught in the Mysteries; and thus the Hierophant explained the meaning of the mystic egg, seen by the Initiates in the Sanctuary. "Thus entire Nature, in her primitive organization, was presented to him whom it was wished to instruct in her secrets and initiate in her mysteries; and Clemens of Alexandria might well say that initiation was a real physiology. "So Phanes, the Light-God, [AGAIN, PIKE SEEMS TO BE ALLUDING TO WHAT WE READ ON PAGE 321] in the Mysteries of the New Orphics, emerged from the egg of chaos: and the Persians had the great egg of Ormuzd. And Sanchoniathon tells us that in the Phoenician theology, the matter of chaos took the form of an egg; and he adds: "Such are the lessons which the Son of Thabion, first Hierophant of the Phoenicians, turned into allegories, in which physics and astronomy intermingled, and which he taught to the other Hierophants, whose duty it was to preside at orgies and initiations; and who, seeking to excite the astonishment and admiration of mortals, faithfully transmitted these things to their successors and the Initiates." -Pages 400,401.
THE ACTIVE AND PASSIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE MEANING OF THE POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE [IN THIS SECTION, WE SEE PIKE;S INTERPRETATION OF THE SYMBOLS TO BE OF A SEXUAL NATURE. THERE ARE TWO PRINCIPLES AT WORK, HE SAYS; MALE AND FEMALE. HERE, WE BEGIN TO SEE THE SEXUAL MEANINGS OF MANY OF THE SYMBOLS OF FREEMASONRY.] "In the Mysteries was also taught the division of the Universal Cause into an Active and a Passive cause; of which two, Osiris and Isis,--the heavens and the earth were symbols. These two First Causes, into which it was held that the great Universal First Cause at the beginning of things divided itself, were the two great Divinities, whose worship was...inculcated upon the Initiates..."As is taught...in the initiation into the Mysteries... Heaven and Earth are regarded as the two first Divinities. They are the potent Gods worshipped in that Island, and whose names are consecrated in the books of our Augurs. One of them is male and the other female; and they bear the same relation to each other as the soul does to the body, humidity to dryness..." "These two divinities, the Active and the Passive Principles of the Universe, were commonly symbolized by the generative parts of man and woman...the Phallus [MALE SEXUAL ORGAN] and Cteis, [FEMALE SEXUAL ORGAN] emblems of generation and production, and which, as such, appeared in the Mysteries. The Indian Lingam was the union of both, as were the boat and mast, and the point within a circle: all of which expressed the same philosophical idea as to the Union of the great Causes of Nature, which concur, one actively and the other passively, in the generation of all beings: [SEXUAL UNION IS WHAT THE SYMBOLS ACTUALLY MEAN!] which were symbolized by what we now term Gemini, the Twins, at that remote period when the Sun was in that Sign at the Vernal Equinox, and when they were Male and Female; and of which the Phallus was perhaps taken from the generative organ of the Bull, when about twenty-five hundred years before our era he opened that equinox, and became to the Ancient World the symbol of the creative and generative Power." -Pages 401,402. [SEE PAGE 850 AND FORWARD.] "The Initiates at Eleusis commenced...by invoking the two great causes of nature, the Heavens and the Earth...And they deemed it their duty to do so...because they saw in them the Father and Mother of all generations. The concourse of these two agents of the Universe was termed in theological language a marriage." -Page 402. "The Christian Fathers contented themselves with reviling and ridiculing the use of these emblems. But as they in the earlier times created no indecent ideas, and were worn alike by the most innocent youths and virtuous women, it will be far wiser for us to seek to penetrate their meaning. Not only the Egyptians...but every other people that consecrate this symbol (the phallus), deem that they thereby do honor to the Active Force of the universal generation of all living things. For the same reason, as we learn from the geographer Ptolemy, it was revered among the Assyrians and Persians. Proclus remarks that in the distribution of the Zodiac among the twelve great Divinities, by ancient astrology, six signs were assigned to the male and six to the female principle. "There is another division of nature, which has in all ages struck all men, and which was not forgotten in the Mysteries; that of Light and Darkness, Day and Night, Good and Evil; which mingle with, and clash against, and pursue or are pursued by each other throughout the Universe. The Great Symbolic Egg distinctly reminded the Initiates of this great division of the world." -Page 402. "To the Initiates in the Mysteries of Eleusis was exhibited the spectacle of these two principles, in the successive scenes of Darkness and Light which passed before their eyes. To the profoundest darkness, accompanied with illusions and horrid phantoms, succeeded the most brilliant light, whose splendor blazed round the statue of the Goddess. The candidate...passed into a mysterious temple, of astonishing magnitude and beauty, where were exhibited to him many mystic scenes; where his ears were stunned with many voices; and where Darkness and Light successively passed before him...Then absolutely free, and enfranchised from the dominion of all ills, he mingles with the crowd of Initiates, and, crowned with flowers, celebrates with them the holy orgies [??? THIS SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE WICCA], in the brilliant realms of ether, [DRUG USE?] and the dwelling-place of Ormuzd." -Page 403.
THE DRAMA "In the Mysteries of Isis, the candidate first passed through the dark valley of the shadow of death; then into a place representing the elements of sublunary world, where the two principles clash and contend; and was finally admitted to a luminous region, where the sun, with his most brilliant light, put to rout the shades of night. Then he himself put on the costume of the Sun-God [SEE PAGE 506], or the Visible Source of Etherial Light, in whose Mysteries he was initiated; and passed from the empire of darkness to that of light." -Page 403, 404. [ONCE AGAIN, PAGE 321 SHOWS US WHO BEARS THAT LIGHT.] "The connection of the different initiations with the Equinoxes which separate the Empire of the Nights from that of the Days, and fix the moment when one of these principles begins to prevail over the other, shows that the Mysteries referred to the continual contest between the two principles of light and darkness, each alternately victor and vanquished. The very object proposed by them shows that their basis was the theory of the two principles and their relations with the soul...And in all the explanations given by Macrobius of the Sacred Fables in regard to the Sun, adored under the names of Osiris, Horus, Adonis, Atys, Bacchus, etc., we invariably see that they refer to the theory of the two Principles, Light and Darkness, and the triumphs gained by the light of day over the length of the nights; and the ceremonies of mourning and rejoicing had, Macrobius says, as their object, the vicissitudes of the annual administration of the world. "This brings us naturally to the tragic portion of these religious scenes, and to the allegorical history of the different adventures of the Principle, Light, victor and vanquished by turns, in the combats waged with Darkness during each annual period. Here we reach the most mysterious part of the ancient initiations, and that most interesting to the Mason who laments the death of his Grand Master Khir-Om. Over it Herodotus throws the august veil of mystery and silence. Speaking of the Temple of Minerva, or of that Isis who was styled the Mother of the Sun-God, and whose Mysteries were termed Isiac, at Sais, he speaks of a Tomb in the Temple, in the rear of the Chapel and against the wall; and says, "It is the tomb of a man, whose name respect requires me to conceal. Within the Temple were great obelisks of stone (phalli), and a circular lake paved with stones and revetted with a parapet..."In this lake the Egyptians celebrate, during the night, what they style the Mysteries, in which are represented the sufferings of the God of whom I have spoken above." This God was Osiris, put to death by Typhon, and who descended to the Shades and was restored to life; of which he had spoken before. "We are reminded, by this passage, of the Tomb of Khir-Om, his death, and his rising from the grave, symbolical of restoration of life; and also of the brazen Sea in the Temple at Jerusalem." -Pages 404,405. [SEE PAGE 79-81] "It is, however, not difficult, combining the different rays of light that emanate from the different Sanctuaries, to learn the genius and the object of these secret ceremonies. We have hints, and not details. "We know that the Egyptians worshipped the Sun, under the name of Osiris. The misfortunes and tragical death of this God were an allegory relating to the Sun. Typhon, like Ahriman, represented Darkness. The sufferings and death of Osiris in the Mysteries of the Night were a mystic image of the phenomena of Nature, and the conflict of the two great Principles which share the empire of Nature, and most influence our souls. The Sun is neither born, dies, nor is raised to life: and the recital of these events was but an allegory, veiling a higher truth. "Horus, son of Isis, and the same as Apollo or the Sun, also died and was restored again to life and to his mother; and the priests of Isis celebrated these great events by mourning and joyous festival succeeding each other. "In the Mysteries of Phoenicia, established in honor of Thammuz or Adoni, also the Sun, the spectacle of his death and resurrection was exhibited to the Initiates. As we learn from Meursius and Plutarch, a figure was exhibited representing the corpse of a young man. Flowers were strewed upon his body; the women mourned for him; a tomb was erected to him." -Page 406. [EZEKIEL 8:13-15 TELLS WHAT GOD THINKS OF TAMMUZ: "HE SAID ALSO UNTO ME, TURN THEE YET AGAIN, AND THOU SHALT SEE GREATER ABOMINATIONS THAT THEY DO. THEN HE BROUGHT ME TO THE DOOR OF THE GATE OF THE LORD'S HOUSE WHICH WAS TOWARD THE NORTH; AND, BEHOLD, THERE SAT WOMEN WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ. "THEN SAID HE UNTO ME, HAST THOU SEEN THIS, O SON OF MAN? TURN THEE YET AGAIN, AND THOU SHALT SEE GREATER ABOMINATIONS THAN THESE. AND HE BROUGHT ME INTO THE INNER COURT OF THE LORD'S HOUSE, AND, BEHOLD, AT THE DOOR OF THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD, BETWEEN THE PORCH AND THE ALTAR, WERE ABOUT FIVE AND TWENTY MEN, WITH THEIR BACKS TOWARD THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD, AND THEIR FACES TOWARD THE EAST; AND THEY WORSHIPPED THE SUN TOWARD THE EAST. "THEN HE SAID UNTO ME, HAST THOU SEEN THIS, O SON OF MAN? IS IT A LIGHT THING TO THE HOUSE OF JUDAH THAT THEY COMMIT THE ABOMINATIONS WHICH THEY COMMIT HERE? FOR THEY HAVE FILLED THE LAND WITH VIOLENCE, AND HAVE RETURNED TO PROVOKE ME TO ANGER: AND, LO, THEY PUT THE BRANCH TO THEIR NOSE. THEREFORE WILL I ALSO DEAL IN FURY: MINE EYE SHALL NOT SPARE, NEITHER WILL I HAVE PITY: AND THOUGH THEY CRY IN MINE EARS WITH A LOUD VOICE, YET WILL I NOT HEAR THEM." WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ, ACCORDING TO THE PAGAN RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE, WAS THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS OF NATURE. WEEPING FOR HIM WAS PART OF THE OBSERVANCE TO BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE AND THEREFORE, THE SEASONS WOULD BE BROUGHT BACK. SEE PAGE 419. GOD DOES NOT WANT ANY TO WORSHIP THE SUN, NOR TAKE PART IN WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ. HE IS A JEALOUS GOD WHO WANTS US TO WORSHIP ONLY HIM, THE CREATOR.] "In the Mysteries of Mithras, the Sun-God, in Asia Minor, Armenia and Persia, the death of that God was lamented, and his resurrection was celebrated with the most enthusiastic expressions of joy. A corpse, we learn from Julian Firmicus, was shown the Initiates, representing Mithras dead; and afterward his resurrection was announced; and they were then invited to rejoice that the dead God was restored to life, and had by means of his sufferings secured their salvation. Three months before, his birth had been celebrated, under the emblem of an infant, born on the 25th of December, or the eighth day before the Kalends of January. [A RATHER SIGNIFICANT DATE, DON'T YOU THINK?] "In Greece, in the Mysteries of the same God, honored under the name of Bakchos, a representation was given of his death, slain by the Titans; of his descent into hell, his subsequent resurrection, and his return toward his Principle or the pure abode whence he had descended to unite himself with matter. In the islands of Chios and Tenedos, this death was represented by the sacrifice of a man, actually immolated." -Pages 406,407.
THE ORIGIN OF THE WHITE LAMBSKIN APRON"The tomb of Apollo was at Delphi, where his body was laid, after Python, the Polar Serpent that annually heralds the coming of autumn, cold, darkness, and winter, had slain him, and over whom the God triumphs, on the 25th of March, on his return to the lamb of the Vernal Equinox. "In Crete, Jupiter Ammon, or the Sun in Aries, painted with the attributes of that equinoctial sign, the Ram or Lamb;--that Ammon who, Marianus Copella says, is the same as Osiris, Adoni, Adonis, Atys, and the other Sun-Gods,--had also a tomb, and a religious initiation; one of the principal ceremonies of which consisted in clothing the Initiate with the skin of a white lamb. And in this we see the origin of the apron of white sheep-skin, used in Masonry." -Page 407. "...all these religious tragedies, had a common basis, variously ornamented: and that basis was the fictitious death and resurrection of the Sun, Soul of the World, principle of life and movement in the Sublunary World, and source of our intelligences, which are but a portion of the Eternal Light blazing in that Star, their chief centre. "It was in the Sun that Souls, it was said, were purified: and to it they repaired...It was also held that the vicissitudes experienced by the Father of Light had on influence on the destiny of souls; which, of the same substance as he, shared his fortunes..."His death works your Salvation;" said the High Priest of Mithras. That was the great secret of this religious tragedy, and its expected fruit;--the resurrection of a God, who, repossessing Himself of His dominion over Darkness, should associate with Him in His triumph those virtuous Souls that by their purity were worthy to share His glory; and that strove not against the divine force that drew them to Him, when He had thus conquered." -Page 408. [KEEP IN MIND THAT PIKE SAID ON PAGE 321 THAT LUCIFER IS THE GOD OF LIGHT. NEVER FORGET THAT AS YOU READ.] "Josephus, in his description of the High Priest's Vestments, protesting against the charge of impiety brought against the Hebrews by other nations, for contemning the Heathen Divinities, declares it false, because, in the construction of the Tabernacle, in the vestments of the Sacrificers, and in the Sacred vessels, the whole World was in some sort represented. Of the three parts, he says, into which the Temple was divided, two represent Earth and Sea, open to all men, and the third, Heaven, God's dwelling-place, reserved for Him alone. The twelve loaves of Shew-bread signify the twelve months of the year. The Candlestick represented the twelve signs through which the Seven Planets run their courses; and the seven lights, those planets..." -Page 409. "So, Clemens says, the candlestick with seven branches represented the seven planets...The whole temple was an abridged image of the world...Imitating the famous Temple of Tyre, where were the great columns consecrated to the winds and fire, the Tyrian artist placed two columns of bronze at the entrance of the porch of the temple. The hemispherical brazen sea, supported by four groups of bells, of three each, looking to the four cardinal points of the compass, represented the bull of the Vernal Equinox, and at Tyre were consecrated to Astarte; to whom Hiram, Josephus says, had builded a temple, and who wore on her head a helmet bearing the image of a bull. And the throne of Solomon, with bulls adorning its arms, and supported on lions, like those of Horis in Egypt and of the Sun at Tyre, likewise referred to the Vernal Equinox and Summer Solstice." -Page 410. "So the Temple of Eleusis was lighted by a window in the roof. The sanctuary so lighted, Dion compares to the Universe, from which he says it differed in size alone; and in it the great lights of nature played a great part and were mystically represented. The images of the Sun, Moon, and Mercury were represented there, (the latter the same as Anubis who accompanied Isis [REMEMBER SIRIUS, THE DOG STAR WHICH IS LUCIFER? EARLIER, WE READ THAT SIRIUS TOOK THE FORM OF A DOG AND ACCOMPANIED ISIS IN THE SEARCH FOR THE BODY OF OSIRIS]); and they are still the three lights of a Masonic Lodge; except that for Mercury, the Master of the Lodge has been absurdly substituted." -Page 411. [THOSE THREE LIGHTS YOU SAW IN THE LODGE ACTUALLY REPRESENT THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE PLANET MERCURY WHICH IS LUCIFER. HERE, HE ALSO SAYS THAT THE MASTER OF THE LODGE IMPERSONATES LUCIFER.] "Then followed a chest or ark, magnificently ornamented, containing an image of the organs of generation of Osiris, or perhaps of both sexes; emblems of the original generating and producing Powers. When Typhon, said the Egyptian fable, cut up the body of Osiris into pieces, he flung his genitals into the Nile, where a fish devoured them. Atys mutilated himself, as his Priests afterward did in imitation of him; and Adonis was in that part of his body wounded by the boar: all of which represented the loss by the Sun of his vivifying and generative power, when he reached the Autumnal Equinox (the Scorpion that of old monuments bites those parts of the Vernal Bull), and descended toward the region of darkness and Winter." -Page 412. "Then, says Apuleius, came "one who carried on his bosom and object that rejoiced the heart of the bearer, a venerable effigy of the Supreme Deity, neither bearing resemblance to man, cattle, bird, beast, of any living creature:...its figure was that of a small urn of burnished gold ...on its summit an asp, curling its body into folds, and stretching upward, its wrinkled, scaly, swollen throat. "The salient basilisk, or royal ensign of the Pharaohs, often occurs on the monuments--a serpent in folds, with his head raised erect above the folds. The basilisk was the Phoenix of the serpent-tribe; and the vase or urn was probably the vessel, shaped like a cucumber, with a projecting spout, out of which, on the monuments of Egypt, the priests are represented pouring streams of the crux ansata or Tau Cross, and of scepters, over the kings." -Page 413. [THE SUPREME DEITY IS A SERPENT; THE HOUSE OF THE TEMPLE IN WASHINGTON D.C. IS DECORATED INSIDE WITH SERPENTS ON NEARLY EVERY WALL. PIKE ALSO EQUATES THE TAU CROSS WITH THE CRUX ANSATA, THE EGYPTIAN SYMBOL OF ETERNAL LIFE. THE SYMBOLISM CANNOT BE MISSED IN THIS ILLUSTRATION BY PIKE; ETERNAL LIFE IS POURED OUT FROM THE SERPENT. HENCE THE ITALICS FOR THE WORD SCEPTERS;. NOTICE THE PICTURE OF THE LION WITH A CRUX ANSATA IN ITS PAW AS A SCEPTER ON PAGE 80, UNDERNEATH OF WHICH PIKE PLACES THE CAPTION: The identity of the legends is also confirmed by this hieroglyphic picture, copied from an ancient Egyptian monument, which may also enlighten you as to the Lion;s grip and the Master;s gavel.; THE LION IN THE PICTURE IS GRIPPING THE HAND OF A CORPSE WITH ONE PAW, AND HOLDING UP A CRUX ANSATA, THE SYMBOL OF ETERNAL LIFE, IN IT;S OTHER PAW. THIS SHOWS THAT THE LION HOLDS ETERNAL LIFE, AND IS ABLE TO RAISE THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE. AS TO THE COMMENT ABOUT ENLIGHTENING THE READER AS TO THE MASTER;S GAVEL, YOU CAN SEE HERE THAT THE MASTER;S GAVEL REPRESENTS ETERNAL LIFE!] "In the Mysteries of Mithras, a sacred cave, representing the whole arrangement of the world, was used for the reception of the Initiates...The Persians...fixed the seat of that God, Father of Generation...with the Northern portion of the world on his right, and the Southern on his left." -Page 413. [THE FATHER OF GENERATION IS EXPLAINED, ONCE AGAIN, ON PAGE 321. LUCIFER IS THAT GOD, ACCORDING TO PIKE. THE MASTER OF THE LODGE ALSO PERSONIFIES LUCIFER, IN THAT HE SITS IN THE EAST JUST AS THE GOD OF GENERATION DOES IN THE PARAGRAPH ABOVE. SOMETHING FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE FILLED THAT POSITION IN THE LODGE TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT-- ] "Mithras, says Prophyry, presided over the Equinoxes...The equinoxes were the gates through which souls passed to and fro, between the hemisphere of light and that of darkness. The milky way was also represented, passing near each of these gates: and it was, in the old theology, termed the pathway of souls. It is, according to Pythagoras, vast troops of souls that form that luminous belt." -Page 413. "...the Mithraic cave not only displayed the zodiacal and other constellations, and marked gates at the four equinoctial and solstitial points of the zodiac, whereat souls enter into and escape from the world of generations; and through which they pass to and fro between the realms of light and darkness..." -Page 413,414. "...the soul of the Initiate...when it first descended through the planetary gates, and by the equinoctial and solstitial doors, along the Milky Way, to be for the first time immured in its prison-house of matter." -Page 414. [REMEMBER, THE PRISON-HOUSE OF MATTER IS THE HUMAN BODY.] "A great Soul, diffused everywhere, vivified all the members of the immense body of the Universe; and an Intelligence, equally great, directed all its movements, and maintained the eternal harmony that resulted there-from. Thus the Unity of the Universe, represented by the symbolic egg, contained in itself two unities, the Soul and the Intelligence, which pervaded all its parts: and they were to the Universe, considered as an animated and intelligent being, what intelligence and the soul of life are to the individuality of man. "The doctrine of the Unity of God, in this sense, was taught by Orpheus...The doctrine of the LOGOS (word) or the NOOS (intellect), his incarnation, death, resurrection or transfiguration; of his union with matter, his division in the visible world, which he pervades, his return to the original Unity, and the whole theory relative to the origin of the soul and its destiny, were taught in the Mysteries, of which they were the great object." -Page 415. [HERE IS THE UNITY OF GOD, AGAIN. THE BELIEF THAT THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO GOD, AND WE UNDERSTAND THAT LUCIFER IS CONSIDERED ONE PART, WHILE ADONAI IS THE OTHER PART. LUCIFER, ACCORDING TO PIKE, IS THE GOD OF LIGHT, AND ADONAI IS THE GOD OF DARKNESS, OR THE BAD SIDE OF GOD.] "And so likewise does Sallust the Philosopher, who admits in God a secondary intelligent Force, which descends into the generative matter to organize it. These mystical ideas naturally formed a part of the sacred doctrine and of the ceremonies of initiation, the object of which, Sallust remarks, was to unite man with the World and the Deity...The definition of Sallust is correct. The Mysteries were practiced as a means of perfecting the soul, of making it to know its own dignity, of reminding it of its noble origin and immortality, and consequently of its relations with the Universe and the Deity." -Page 415.
THE GENII A.K.A. ANGELS"What was meant by real beings, was invisible beings, genii, the faculties or powers of nature; everything not a part of the visible world, which was called, by way of opposition, apparent existence. The theory of Genii, or Powers of Nature, and its Forces, personified, made part of the Sacred Science of initiation, and of that religious spectacle of different beings exhibited in the Sanctuary. It resulted from that belief in the providence and superintendence of the Gods, which was one of the primary bases of initiation. The administration of the Universe by Subaltern Genii, to whom it is confided, and by whom good and evil are dispensed in the world, was a consequence of this dogma, taught in the Mysteries of Mithras, where was shown that famous egg, shared between Ormuzd and Ahriman, each of whom commissioned twenty-four Genii to dispense the good and evil found therein; they being under twelve Superior Gods, six on the side of Light and Good, and six on that of Darkness and Evil. "This doctrine of the Genii, depositaries of the Universal Providence, was intimately connected with the Ancient Mysteries, and adopted in the sacrifices and initiations both of Greeks and Barbarians. Plutarch says that the Gods, by means of Genii, who are intermediates between them and men, draw near to mortals in the ceremonies of initiation, at which the Gods charge them to assist, and to distribute punishment and blessing. Thus not the Deity, but His ministers, or a Principle and Power of Evil, were deemed the authors of vice and sin and suffering: and thus the Genii or angels differed in character like man, some being good and some evil; some Celestial Gods, Archangels, Angels, and some Infernal Gods, Demons and fallen Angels. "At the head of the latter was their Chie, Typhon, Ahriman, or Shaitan, the Evil Principle; who, having wrought disorder in nature, brought troubles on men by land and sea, and caused the greatest ills, is at last punished for his crimes. "...To this world so organized, endowed with a double force, active and passive, divided between light and darkness, moved by a living and intelligent Force, governed by Genii or Angels who preside over its different parts, and whose nature and character are more lofty or low in proportion as they possess a greater or less portion of dark matter,--to this world descends the soul, emanation of the ethereal fire, and exiled from the luminous region above the world. It enters into this dark matter, wherein the hostile Principles, each seconded by his troops of Genii, are ever in conflict, there to submit to one or more organizations in the body which is its prison, until it shall at last return to its place of origin, its true native country, from which during this life it is an exile. "But one thing remained,--to represent its return, through the constellations and planetary spheres, to its original home. The celestial fire, the philosophers said, soul of the world and of fire, an universal principle, circulating above the Heavens, in a region infinitely pure and wholly luminous, itself pure, simple, and unmixed, is above the world by its specific lightness. If any part of it (say a human soul) descends, it acts against its nature in doing so, urged by an inconsiderate desire of the intelligence, a perfidious love for matter which causes it to descend, to know what passes here below, where good and evil are in conflict. The Soul, a simple substance, when unconnected with matter, a ray or particle of the Divine Fire, whose home is in Heaven, ever turns toward that home, while united with the body, and struggles to return thither. "Teaching this, the Mysteries strove to recall man to his divine origin, and point out to him the means of returning thither..." "By doing and suffering, by virtue and piety and good deeds, the soul was enabled at length to free itself from the body, and ascend along the path of the Milky Way, by the gate of Capricorn and by the seven spheres, to the place whence by many gradations and successive lapses and enthralments it had descended. And thus the theory of the spheres, and of the signs and intelligences which preside there, and the whole system of astronomy, were connected with that of the soul and its destiny; and so were taught in the Mysteries, in which were developed the great principles of physics and metaphysics as to the origin of the soul, its condition here below, its destination, and its future fate." -Pages 415-418. "Ezekiel speaks of the festivals of Adonis under the name of those of Thammuz, an Assyrian Deity, whom every year the women mourned, seated at the doors of their dwellings [PAGE 406]. These Mysteries, like others, were celebrated in the Spring, at the Vernal Equinox, when he was restored to life; at which time, when they were instituted, the Sun (ADON, Lord, or Master) was in the Sign Taurus, the domicile of Venus. He was represented with horns, and the hymn of Orpheus in his honor styles him "the two-horned God;" as in Argos Bakchos was represented with the feet of a bull." -Page 419. [THE SCRIPTURE PIKE REFERS TO IS EZEKIEL, CHAPTER 8, VERSE 13.] "The serpent was a familiar symbol in the Mysteries of Bakhos." -Page 420. "These Mysteries also were celebrated at the Vernal Equinox; and the emblem of generation [A PHALLUS], to express the active energy and generative power of the Divinity, was a principal symbol." -Page 421. "Among the emblems used was the rod of Bakhos; which once, it was said, he cast on the ground, and it became a serpent; and at another time he struck the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes with it, and the waters receded and he passed over dry-shod. Water was obtained, during the ceremonies, by striking a rock with it." -Page 422. [NOTE THE EFFORT TO PARALLEL SCRIPTURE TO REDUCE FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES.] "The Persians...made the Sun and Fire emblems of the Deity. The Jews borrowed this from them, and represented God as appearing to Abraham in a flame of fire, and to Moses as a fire at Horeb and on Sinai." -Page 424. [ONCE AGAIN, PIKE ASSOCIATES SCRIPTURAL TRUTHS WITH "OLDER" AND MORE "ANCIENT" TRUTHS TO TAKE FAITH IN SCRIPTURE AWAY FROM THE BELIEVER.
THE MEANING OF THE DOUBLE HEADED EAGLE"Thence he passed to a higher Degree, where the Initiates were called Perses and children of the Sun. Above them were the Fathers, whose chief or Patriarch was styled Father of Fathers, or Pater Patratus. The Initiates also bore the title of Eagles and Hawks, birds consecrated to the Sun in Egypt, the former sacred to the God Mendes, and the latter the emblem of the Sun and Royalty." -Page 426. [SEE PAGE 291,584,587.] "...the Samothracian Initiates understood the object and origin of this reverence paid the Phallus, and why it was exhibited in the Mysteries ...and it appears on the monuments of Mithras; always and everywhere a symbol of the life-giving power of the Sun at the Vernal Equinox." -Page 427.
THE MEANING OF THE CIRCUITS OF THE LODGE IN RITUAL"In the Indian Mysteries, as the candidate made his three circuits, he paused each time he reached the South, and said, "I copy the example of the Sun, and follow his beneficent course." Blue Masonry has retained the Circuits, but has utterly lost the explanation; which is, that in the Mysteries the candidate invariably represented the Sun [THE MASONIC CANDIDATE REPRESENTS LUCIFER], descending Southward toward the reign of the Evil Principle, Ahriman, Siba, or Typhon (darkness and winter); there figuratively to be slain, and after a few days to rise again from the dead, and commence to ascend to the Northward.... "Then he was made to personify Vishnu, and perform his avatars, or labors. In the first two he was taught in allegories the legend of the Deluge: in the first he took three steps at right angles, representing the three huge steps taken by Vishnu in that avatar; and hence the three steps in the Master's Degree ending at right angles... "Then a new name was given him...He...was then invested with the sacred Word or Sublime Name, known only to the initiated, the Triliteral A.U.M." -Page 428. "The Mysteries among the Chinese and Japanese came from India, and were founded on the same principles and with similar rites. The word given to the new Initiate was O-MI-TO FO, in which we recognize the original name A.U.M., coupled at a much later time with that of FO, the Indian Buddha, to show that he was the Great Deity Himself. "The equilateral triangle was one of their symbols; and so was the mystical Y; both alluding to the Triune God, and the latter being the ineffable name of the Deity. A ring supported by two serpents was emblematical of the world, protected by the power and wisdom of the Creator; and that is the origin of the two parallel lines (into which time has changed the two serpents), that support the circle in our Lodges." Page 429.
DRINKING WINE FROM A HUMAN SKULL"The general features of the initiations among the Goths were the same as in all the Mysteries. A long probation, of fasting and mortification, circular processions, representing the march of the celestial bodies, many fearful tests and trials, a descent into the infernal regions, the killing of the God Balder by the Evil Principle, Lok, the placing of his body in a boat and sending it abroad upon the waters; and, in short, the Eastern Leg-end, under different names, and with some variations. "The egyptian Anubis appeared there, as the dog guarding the gates of death [LUCIFER]. The candidate was immured in the representation of a tomb; and when released, goes in search of the body of Balder, and finds him, at length, restored to life, and seated upon a throne. He was obligated upon a naked sword (as is still the custom in the Rit Moderne), and sealed his obligation by drinking mead out of a human skull." -Page 430. [THIS PRACTICE IS NOW BEING DONE IN THE MASONIC LODGES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD BY MEN WHO HAVE BEEN "INTENTIONALLY MISLED" AND WHO DRINK WINE FROM A REAL HUMAN SKULL, OR FACSIMILE IN SOME PLACES. THIS IS DONE AT THE END OF KNIGHTS TEMPLAR DEGREE, A BLASPHEMOUS DEGREE WHEREIN THE LORDS SUPPER IS MADE A MOCKERY. AFTER FOUR TOASTS FOLLOWED BY DRINKS OF WINE, A FIFTH IS PREPARED. READ NOW RICHARDSONS MONITOR OF FREEMASONRY, PAGE 119: "Candidate kneels at base of triangle. "Grand Commander-Pilgrim, the fifth libation is taken in a very solemn way. It is emblematical of the bitter cup of death, of which we must all, sooner or later, taste; and even the Saviour of the world was not exempted, notwithstanding his repeated prayers and solicitations. It is taken of pure wine, and from this cup. (Exhibiting a human skull, he pours the wine into it, and says, -To show you that we here practice no imposition, I give you this pledge. Drinks from the skull.) He then pours more wine into the skull, and presents it to the candidate, telling him that the fifth libation is called the sealed obligation, as it is to seal all his former engagements in Masonry. "The Grand Commander here also gives a short history of the degree. The substance of it is, that the object of the degree of Knight Templar was originally instituted to preserve Masonry, which had become much corrupted, &c. "Sometimes the candidate hesitates to drink out of the skull, in which case he is intimidated as follows: "Grand Commander-Attention, Sir Knights: (Knights form around the candidate:) Handle sword-draw sword-charge! "The Knights charge, as in the engraving. [THEY ALL PLACE THE POINTS OF THEIR SWORDS AT THE INITIATES THROAT.] "Grand Commander-Pilgrim, you here see the swords of your companions, all drawn, ready to defend you in the discharge of every duty we require of you. They are also drawn to avenge any violation of the rules of our Order. You promised, when you entered the chamber of reflection, that you would conform to all the ceremonies, rules, and regulations of this Encampment. We here have your promise in writing. We expect you will proceed. All Sir Knights who have taken this degree, have participated in the fifth libation; and if there is anything in it that you do not perfectly understand, it will be qualified and explained to your satisfaction. "Candidate takes the skull in his hand, and repeats after the Grand Commander as follows: This pure wine, I take from this cup, in testimony of my belief of the mortality of the body and the immortality of the soul: and as the sins of the whole world were laid upon the head of our Saviour, so may the sins of the person whose skull this once was, be heaped upon my head, in addition to my own; and may they appear in judgment against me, both here and hereafter, should I violate or transgress any obligation in Masonry, or the Orders of Knighthood which I have heretofore taken, take at this time, or may hereafter be instructed in. So help me God.; (Drinks the wine.)" [IS THERE ANYTHING MORE DAMNING THAN THIS NECESSARY TO CONVINCE YOU MASONRY IS OF SATAN? I PRAY YOU WILL LEAVE THE LODGE IMMEDIATELY IF YOU ARE INVOLVED IN THIS BLASPHEMY.] "He was marked with the sign of the cross, and a ring was given to him as a symbol of the Divine Protection; and also as an emblem of Perfection; from which comes the custom of giving a ring to the Aspirant in the 14th degree. "The point within a Circle, and the Cube, emblem of Odin, were explained to him; and lastly, the nature of the Supreme God..." -Pages 430,431. "The Initiates at Heliopolis, in Syria, says Lucian, sacrificed the sacred lamb, symbol of Aries, then the sign of the Vernal Equinox; ate his flesh, as the Israelites did at the Passover..." -Pages 431,432. "...Until they left the Galaxy, they were not deemed to have commenced to descend toward the terrestrial bodies. From that they departed, and to that they returned. Until they reached the sign Cancer, they had not left it, and were still Gods...The soul, descending from the celestial limits... assemble...in the fields of oblivion, to drink there the water of the river Ameles, which causes men to forget everything...We smile at these notions of the ancients; but...it is well for us to consider whether we ourselves have yet found out any better way of representing to ourselves the soul's origin and its advent into this body..." -Page 438. "The highest and purest portion of matter, which nourishes and constitutes divine existences, is what the poets term nectar, the beverage of the Gods. The lower, more disturbed and grosser portion, is what intoxicates souls. The ancients symbolized it as the River Lethe, dark stream of oblivion. How do we explain the soul's forgetfulness of its antecedents, or reconcile that utter absence of remembrance of its former condition, with its essential immortality? In truth, we for the most part dread and shrink form any attempt at explanation of it to ourselves." -Page 439. "This opinion of the pre-existence of souls, as pure and celestial substances, before their union with our bodies, to put on and animate which they descend from Heaven, is one of great antiquity. A modern Rabbi, Manasseh Ben Israel, says it was always the belief of the Hebrews. It was that of most philosophers who admitted the immortality of the soul: and therefore it was taught in the Mysteries; for, as Lactantius says, they could not see how it was possible that the soul should exist after the body, if it had not existed before it, and if its nature was not independent of that of the body. The same doctrine was adopted by the most learned of the Greek Fathers, and by many of the Latins: and it would probably prevail largely at the present day, if men troubled themselves to think upon this subject at all, and to inquire whether the soul's immortality involved its prior existence." -Page 440. [THIS IS VERY MUCH PART OF THE MORMON THEOLOGY, HOWEVER, IT HAS NO BASIS IN SCRIPTURE.] "Some philosophers held that the soul was incarcerated in the body, by way of punishment for sins committed by it in a prior state [REINCARNATION]. How they reconciled this with the same soul's unconsciousness of any such prior state, or of sin committed there, does not appear. Others held that God, of his mere will, sent the soul to inhabit the body. The Kabalists united the two opinions....All souls are originally in the world Aziluth, the Supreme Heaven, abode of God, and of pure and immortal spirits. Those who descend from it without fault of their own, by God's order, are gifted with a divine fire, which preserves them from the contagion of matter, and restored them to Heaven so soon as their mission is ended.... [ANGELS?] "The Gnostics made souls ascend and descend through eight Heavens, in each of which were certain Powers that opposed their return, and often drove them back to earth, when not sufficiently purified. The last of these Powers, nearest the luminous abode of souls, was a serpent or dragon." -Pages 440,441. "Man, enveloped by the thick darkness of profoundest night, when everything around him has disappeared, and he seems alone with himself and the black shades that surround him, feels his existence a blank and nothingness...LIGHT restores him to himself and to nature which seemed lost to him. Naturally, therefore, the primitive men regarded light as the principle of their real existence...It became their first Divinity..." -Page 443. "Observing that the annual return of the rising of the Nile was always accompanied by the appearance of a beautiful Star, which at that period showed itself in the direction of the sources of that river, and seemed to warn the husbandman to be careful not to be surprised by the inundation, the Ethiopian compared this act of that Star to that of the Animal which by barking gives warning of danger, and styled it the Dog (SIRIUS)."-Page 446. "From the journey of the Sun through the twelve [ASTROLOGICAL] signs [THROUGH THE COURSE OF A YEAR] came the legend of the twelve labors of Hercules, and the incarnations of Vishnu and Buddha. Hence came the legend of the murder of Khurum, representative of the Sun, by the three Fellow-crafts, symbols of the three Winter signs, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, who assailed him at the three gates of Heaven and slew him at the Winter Solstice. Hence the search for him by the nine Fellow-crafts, the other nine signs, his finding, burial, and resurrection." -Page 448. "The Celestial Vulture or Eagle, rising and setting with the Scorpion, was substituted in its place, in many cases, on account of the malign influences of the latter: and thus the four great periods of the year were marked by the Bull, the Lion, the Man (Aquarius) and the Eagle; which were upon the respective standards of Ephraim, Judah, Reuben, and Dan; and still appear on the shield of American Royal Arch Masonry." -Page 448. [AGAIN, PLEASE SEE 291,584,587.] "So, because the heliacal rising of Sirius preceded the rising of the Nile, it was deemed to cause it...The Arabian word AL-DE-BARAN, means the foremost, or leading, star: and it could only have been so named, when it did precede, or lead, all others." -Pages 450,451. "If we now look for a moment at the individual stars which composed and were near to the respective constellations, we may find something that will connect itself with the symbols of the Ancient Mysteries and of Masonry. "It is to be noticed that when the Sun is in a particular constellation, no part of that constellation will be seen, except just before sun-rise and just after sunset; and then only the edge of it: but the constellations opposite to it will be visible. When the Sun is in Taurus, for example, that is, when Taurus sets with the Sun, Scorpio sires as he sets, and continues visible throughout the night. And if Taurus rises and sets with the Sun to-day, he will, six months hence, rise at sunset and set at sunrise; for the stars thus gain on the Sun two hours a month. "Going back to the time when, watched by the Chaldean shepherds, and the husbandmen of Ethiopia and Egypt, "The milk-white Bull with golden horns "Led on the new-born year," we see in the neck of TAURUS, the Pleiades, and in his face the Hyades, "which Grecia from their showering names," and of whom the brilliant Alde-baran is the chief; while to the southwestward is that most splendid of all the constellations, Orion, with Betelgueux in his right shoulder, Bellatrix in his left shoulder, Rigel on the left foot, and in his belt the three stars known as the Three Kings, and now as the yard and Ell...When the Vernal Equinox was in Taurus, Aldebaran led up the starry host; and as he rose in the East, Aries was about 27 degrees high. "When he was close upon the meridian, the Heavens presented their most magnificent appearance. Capella was a little further from the meridian, to the north; and Orion still further from it to the southward. Procyon, Sirius, Castor and Pollux had climbed about half-way from the horizon to the meridian. Regulus had just risen upon the ecliptic. The Virgin still lingered below the horizon. Fomalhaut was half-way to the meridian in the South-west; and to the Northwest were the brilliant constellations, Perseus, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda; while the Pleiades had just passed the meridian. "ORION is visible to all the habitable world. The equinoctial line passes through the centre of it. When Asdevaran rose in the East, the Three Kings in Orion followed him; and as Taurus set, the Scorpion, by whose sting it was said Orion died, rose in the East... " South of Pollux are the brilliant Stars SIRIUS and PROCYON, the greater and lesser Dog... "Sirius is apparently the largest and brightest Star in the Heavens." -Page 454. "...Virgo was Isis; and her representation, carrying a child (Horus) in her arms, exhibited in her temple, was accompanied by this inscription: "I AM ALL THAT IS, THAT WAS, AND THAT SHALL BE; and the fruit which I brought forth is the Sun"...[ANOTHER SCRIPTURAL PARALLEL: THIS TIME OF THE NAME OF GOD AS STATED BY HIM TO MOSES WHEN HE SAID "I AM THAT I AM".] "At the moment of the Winster Solstice, the Virgin rose heliacally (with the Sun), having the Sun (Horus) in her bosom." -Page 455. "There is no more striking proof of the universal adoration paid the stars and constellations, than the arrangement of the Hebrew camp in the Desert, and the allegory in regard to the twelve Tribes of Israel, ascribed in the Hebrew legends to Jacob. The Hebrew camp was a quadrilateral, in sixteen divisions, of which the central four were occupied by images of the four elements. The four divisions at the four angles of the quadrilateral exhibited the four signs that the astrologers call fixed, and which they regard as subject to the influence of the four great Toyal Stars, Regulus in Leo, Aldebaran in Taurus, Antares in Scorpio, and Fomalhaut in the mouth of Pisces, on which falls the water poured out by Aquarius; of which constellations the Scorpion was represented in the Hebrew blazonry by the Celestial Vulture or Eagle, that rises at the same time with it and is its paranatellon. The other signs were arranged on the four faces of the quadrilateral, and in the parallel and interior divisions." -Page 460. "There is an astonishing coincidence between the characteristics assigned by Jacob to his sons, and those of the signs of the Zodiac, or the planets that have their domicile in those signs. "Reuben is compared to running water, unstable, and that cannot excel; and he answers to Aquarius, his ensign being a man... "The Lion (Leo) is the device of Judah; and Jacob compares him to that animal, whose constellation in the Heavens is the domicile of the Sun; the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; by whose grip, when that of apprentice and that of fellow-craft,--of Aquarius at the Winter Solstice and of Cancer at the Vernal Equinox,--had not succeeded in raising him, Khurum was lifted out of the grave. "Ephraim, on whose ensign appears the Celestial Bull, Jacob compares to the ox. Dan, bearing as his device a Scorpion, he compares to the Cerastes or horned Serpent, synonymous in astrological language with the vulture or pouncing eagle; and which bird was often substituted on the flag of Dan, in place of the venomous scorpion, on account of the terror which that reptile inspired, as the symbol of Typhon and his malign influences; wherefore the Eagle, as its paranatellon, that is, rising and setting at the same time with it, was naturally used in its stead. Hence the four famous figures in the sacred pictures of the Jews and Christians, and in Royal Arch Masonry, of the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle, the four creatures of the Apocalypse, copied there from Ezekiel, in whose reveries and rhapsodies they are seen revolving around blazing circles. "The Ram, domicile of Mars, chief of the Celestial Soldiery and of the twelve Signs, is the device of Gad, whom Jacob characterizes as a warrior, chief of his army. "Cancer, in which are the stars termed Aselli, or little asses, is the device of the flag of Issachar, whom Jacob compares to an ass. "Capricorn, of old represented with the tail of a fish, and called by astronomers the Son of Neptune, is the device of Zebulon, of whom Jacob says that he dwells on the shore of the sea. "Sagittarius, chasing the Celestial Wolf, is the emblem of Benjamin, whom Jacob compares to a hunter: and in that constellation the Romans placed the domicile of Diana the huntress. Virgo, the domicile of Mercury, is borne on the flag of Naphtali, whose eloquence and agility Jacob magnifies, both of which are attributes of the Courier of the Gods. And of Simeon and Levi he speaks as united, as are the two fishes that make the Constellation Pisces, which is their armorial emblem." -Pages 460-462. "The ancient Sabaeans established feasts in honor of each planet, on the day, for each, when it entered its place of exaltation, or reached the particular degree in the particular sign of the zodiac in which astrology had fixed the place of its exaltation; that is, the place in the Heavens where its influence was supposed to be greatest, and where it acted on Nature with the greatest energy. The place of exaltation of the Sun was in Aries, because, reaching that point, he awakens all Nature, and warms into life all the germs of vegetation; and therefore his most solemn feast among all nations, for many years before our Era, was fixed at the time of his entrance into that sign. In Egypt, it was called the Feast of Fire and Light. It was the Passover, when the Paschal Lamb was slain and eaten, among the Jews..." -Page 463. "The Sun was figuratively said to die and be born again at the Winter Solstice...Many peoples of Italy commenced their year, Macrobius says, at that time; and represented by the four ages of man the gradual succession of periodical increase and diminution of day, and the light of the Sun; likening him to an infant born at the Winter Solstice, a young man at the Vernal Equinox, a robust man at the Summer Solstice, and an old man at the Autumnal Equinox. "This idea was borrowed from the Egyptians, who adored the Sun at the Winter Solstice, under the figure of an infant." -Pages 464,465. [MIGHT THIS BE THE BEGINNING OF THE CONCEPT OF "FATHER TIME"?] "The Legislator of the Jews fixed the commencement of their year in the month Nisan, at the Vernal Equinox, at which season the Israelites marched out of Egypt and were relieved of their long bondage; in commemoration of which Exodus, they ate the Paschal Lamb at that Equinox." -Page 466. "...the solstitial point being that of the first rising of the Nile, was selected by the Egyptians as the beginning of a year which they called the Year of God and of the Sothiac Period, or the period of Sothis, the Dog-Star, who, rising in the morning, fixed that epoch, so important to the people of Egypt." -Page 467. "Not Sirius alone determined the period of the rising of the Nile... The Lion and the Dog, indicating, were supposed to cause the inundation, and so were worshipped." -Page 468. "The universal Soul of the World, motive power of Heaven and of the Spheres, it was held, exercises its creative energy chiefly through the medium of the Sun...The action of this Universal Soul of the World is displayed in the movements of the Spheres, and above all in that of the Sun, in the successions of the risings and settings of the Stars, and in their periodical returns. By these are explainable all the metamorphoses of that Soul, personified as Jupiter, as Bachus, as Vishnu, or as Buddha, and all the various attributes ascribed to it; and also the worship of those animals that were consecrated in the ancient Temples, representatives on earth of the Celestial Signs, and supposed to receive by transmission from them the rays and emanations which in them flow from the Universal Soul." -Page 473. "All the old Adorers of Nature...supposed that the Stars were so many animated and intelligent beings...known by the names of Gods, Angels, and Genii..." -Page 473. "And these invisible Intelligences, like the stars, are marshalled in two great divisions, under the banners of the two Principles of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness; under Ormuzd and Ahriman, Osiris and Typhon. The Evil Principle was the motive power of brute matter; and it, personified as Ahriman and Typhon, had its hosts and armies of Devs and Genii, Fallen Angels and Malevolent Spirits, who waged continual war with the Good Principle, the Principle of Empyreal Light and Splendor, Osiris, Ormuzd, Jupiter or Dionusos, with his bright hosts of Amshaspands, Izeds, Angels, and Archangels; a warfare that goes on from birth until death, in the soul of every man that lives." -Page 474. "You have learned how Typhon, his [OSIRIS'S] brother, slew him. His body was cut into pieces, all of which were collected by Isis, except his organs of generation, which had been thrown into and devoured in the waters of the river that every year fertilized Egypt. The other portions were buried by Isis, and over them she erected a tomb. Thereafter she remained single, loading her subject with blessings. She cured the sick, restored sight to the blind, made the paralytic whole, and even raised the dead." -Pages 475,476. [PIKE FREQUENTLY PARALLELS SCRIPTURE WITH LEGEND TO CAUSE THE READER TO HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT THE BIBLE. HERE, HE PARALLELS LUKE 4:18.] "Osiris was the image of generative power...That Osiris and Isis were the Sun and Moon, is attested by many ancient writers...His power was symbolized by an Eye over a Sceptre. The Sun was termed by the Greeks the Eye of Jupiter, and the Eye of the World; and his is the All-Seeing Eye in our Lodges." -Pages 476,477. "Osiris was often confounded with the Nile, and Isis with the earth; and Osiris was deemed to act on the earth, and to transmit to it his emanations, through both the Moon and the Nile; whence the fable that his generative organs were thrown into that river. Typhon, on the other hand, was the principle of aridity and barrenness; and by his mutilation of Osiris was meant that drought which caused the Nile to retire within his bed and shrink up in Autumn." -Page 477. "The body of Osiris, enclosed in a chest or coffin, was cast into the Nile...Then Isis went in search of the body." -Page 480. "She learned that Osiris had, through mistake, had connection with her sister Nephte, which she discovered by a crown of leaves of the melilot, which he had left behind him. Of this connection a child was born, whom Isis, aided by her dogs, sought for, found, reared, and attached to herself, by the name of Anubis, her faithful guardian. The third full Moon occurs in Cancer, domicile of the Moon. The paranatellons of that sign are, the crown of Ariadne or Proserpine, made of leaves of the melilot, Procyon and Canis Major, one star of which was called the Star of Isis, while Sirius himself was honored in Egypt under the name of Anubis." -Pages 480,481.
WHY TYPHON WAS CUT INTO 14 PIECES "Isis, having recovered the sacred coffer...she hid the coffer in a forest. Typhon, hunting a wild boar by moonlight, discovered it, recognized the body of his rival, and cut it into fourteen pieces, the number of days between the full and new Moon, and in everyone of which days the Moon loses a portion of the light that at the commencement filled her whole disk." -Page 481. "Not only into this legend, but into those of all the ancient nations, enter the Bull, the Lamb, the Lion, and Scorpion or the Serpent; and traces of the worship of the Sun yet linger in all religions. Everywhere, even in our Order, survive the equinoctial and solstitial feasts. Our ceilings still glitter with the greater and lesser luminaries of the Heavens, and our lights, in their number and arrangement, have astronomical references. In all churches and chapels, as in all Pagan temples and pagodas, the altar is in the East; and the ivy over the east windows of old churches is the Hedera Helix of Bacchus. Even the cross had an astronomical origin; and our Lodges are full of the ancient symbols." -Page 483.
THE BLAZING STAR, POINT WITHIN A CIRCLEAND THE THREE GREAT LIGHTS OF THE LODGENUMEROLOGY AND GEOMETRIC SHAPES"The Ancient Astronomers saw all the great Symbols of Masonry in the Stars. Sirius still glitters in our Lodges as the Blazing Star, (l'Etoile Flamboyante). The Sun is still symbolized by the point within a Circle; and, with the Moon and Mercury or Anubis, in the three Great Lights of the Lodge. Not only to these, but to the figures and numbers exhibited by the Stars, were ascribed peculiar and divine powers. The veneration paid to numbers had its source there. The three Kings in Orion are in a straight line, and equidistant from each other, the two extreme Stars being 3 degrees apart...And as the number three is peculiar to apprentices, so the straight line is the first principle of Geometry, having length but no breadth, and being but the extension of a point, and an emblem of Unity, and this of Good, as the divided or broken line is of Duality or Evil. Near these Stars are the Hyades, five in number, appropriate to the Fellow-Craft; and close to them the Pleiades, of the master's number, seven; and thus these three sacred numbers, consecrated in Masonry as they were in the Pythagorean philosophy, always appear together in the Heavens, when the Bull, emblem of fertility and production, glitters among the Stars, and Aldebaran leads the Hosts of Heaven (Tsbauth). "Algenib in Perseus and Almaach and Algol in Andromeda form a right-angled triangle, illustrate the 47th problem, and display the Grand Master's square upon the skies. Denebola in Leo, Arcturus in Bootes, and Spica in Virgo form an equilateral triangle, universal emblem of Perfection, and the Deity with His Trinity of Infinite Attributes, Wisdom, Power, and Harmony; and that other, the generative, preserving, and destroying Powers. The Three Kings form, with Rigel in Orion, two triangles included in one: and Capella and Menkalina in Auriga, with Bellatrix and Betelgueux in Orion, form two isosceles triangles with B Tauri, that is equidistant from each pair; while the first tour make a right-angled parallelogram,--the oblong square so often mentioned in our Degrees. -Pages 486,487. "We have already alluded to the relations which the twelve signs of the Zodiac bear to the legend of the Master's Degree. Some other coincidences may have sufficient interest to warrant mention. "Khir-Om was assailed at the East, West, and South Gates of the Temple... "Khir-Om laid several days in the grave; and, at the Winter Solstice, for five or six days, the length of the days did not perceptibly increase. Then, the Sun commencing again to climb Northward, as Osiris was said to arise from the dead, so Khir-Om was raised, by the powerful attraction of the Lion (Leo), who waited for him at the Summer Solstice, and drew him to himself. "The names of the three assassins may have been adopted from three Stars that we have already named. We search in vain in the Hebrew or Arabic for the names Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubelum. They embody an utter absurdity, and are capable of no explanation in those languages. Nor are the names Gibs, Gravelot, Hobhen, and the like, in the Ancient and Accepted Rite, any more plausible, or better referable to any ancient language. But when, by the precession of the Equinoxes, the Sun was in Libra at the Autumnal Equinox, he met in that sign, where the reign of Typhon commenced, three Stars forming a triangle, --Zuben-es Chamali in the West, Zuben-Hak-Rabi in the East, and Zuben-El-Gubi in the South, the latter immediately below the Tropic of Capricorn, and so within the realm of Darkness. From these names, those of the murderers have perhaps been corrupted. In Zuben-Hak-Rabi we may see the original or Jubelum Akirop; and in Zuben-El-Gubi, that of Jubelo Gibs: and time and ignorance may even have transmuted the words Es Chamali into one as little like them as Grave-lot." -Page 488. "Isis, the Moon personified, sorrowing sought for her husband. Nine or twelve Fellow-Crafts (the Rites vary as to the number), in white aprons, were sent to search for Khir-Om, in the Legend of the Master's Degree; or, in this Rite, the Nine Knights Elu. Along the path that the Moon travels are nine conspicuous Stars, by which nautical men determine their longitude at Sea; --Arietis, Aldebaran, Pollux, Regulus, Spica, Virginis, Antares, Altair, Fomalhaur, and Markab. These might well be said to accompany Isis in her search. "In the York Rite, twelve Fellow-Crafts were sent to search for the body of Khir-Om and the murderers. Their number corresponds with that of the Pleiades and Hyades in Taurus..." -Pages 488,489. "An old legend in Masonry says that a dog led the Nine Elus to the cavern where Abiram was hid...So, referring again to the time when the Sun entered the Autumnal Equinox, there are nine remarkable Stars that come to the meridian nearly at the same time, rising as Libra sets, and so seeming to chase that Constellation. They are Capella and Menkalina in the Charioteer, Aldebaran in Taurus, Bellatrix, Betelgueux, the Three Kings, and Rigel in Orion. Aldebaran passes the meridian first, indicating his right to his peculiar title of Leader. Nowhere in the heavens are there, near the same meridian, so many splendid Stars. And close behind them, but further South, follows Sirius, the Dog-Star, who showed the nine Elus the way to the murderer's cave." -Pages 489,490. "The Emperor Julian gives the same explanation, but more fully developed. He states, as a reason why the august Mysteries of Ceres and Proserpine were celebrated at the Autumnal Equinox, that at that period of the year men feared lest the impious and dark power of the Evil Principle, than commencing to conquer, should do harm to their souls. They were a precaution and means of safety, thought to be necessary at the moment when the God of Light was passing into the opposite or adverse region of the world; while at the Vernal Equinox there was less to be feared, because then that God, present in one portion of the world, recalled souls to Him, he says, and showed Himself to be their Saviour." -Page 491. [REMEMBER WHO THE GOD OF LIGHT IS, ON PAGE 321, AND NOTICE THAT HERE PIKE SAYS LUCIFER IS THE SAVIOUR OF MENS SOULS!] "Souls, the Ancients held, having emanated from the Principle of Light, partaking of its destiny here below, cannot be indifferent to nor unaffected by these revolutions of the Great Luminary, alternately victor and overcome during every Solar revolution. "This will be found to be confirmed by an examination of some of the Symbols used in the Mysteries. One of the most famous of these was THE SERPENT, the peculiar Symbol also of this Degree. The Cosmogony of the Hebrews and that of the Gnostics designated this reptile as the author of the fate of Souls. It was consecrated in the Mysteries of Bacchus and in those of Eleusis. Pluto overcame the virtue of Proserpine under the form of a serpent; and, like the Egyptian God Serapis, was always pictured seated on a serpent, or with that reptile entwined about him. It is found on the Mithriac Monuments, and supplied with attributes of Typhon to the Egyptians. The sacred basilisc, in coil, with head and neck erect, was the royal ensign of the Pharaohs. Two of them were entwined around and hung suspended from the winged Globe on the Egyptian Monuments. On a tablet in one of the tombs at Thebes, a God with a spear pierces a serpent's head. On a tablet from the Temple of Osiris at Philae is a tree, with a man on one side, and a woman on the other, and in front of the woman an erect basilisc, [PHALLIC SYMBOL] with horns on it;s head and a disk between the horns." -Page 492. "Over Libra, the sign through which souls were said to descend or fall, is found, on the Celestial Globe, the Serpent, grasped by Serpentarius, the Serpent-bearer. The head of the reptile is under Corona Boralis, the Northern Crown...As the Serpent extends over both signs, Libra and Scorpion, it has been the gate through which souls descend...And hence came the enigmatical expression, the Serpent engenders the Bull, and the Bull the Serpent; alluding to the two adverse constellations, answering to the two equinoxes, one of which rose as the other set, and which were at the two points of the heavens through which souls passed, ascending and descending. By the Serpent of Autumn, souls fell; and they were regenerated again by the Bull on which Mithras sat, and whose attributes Bacchus-Zagreus and the Egyptian Osiris assumed, in their Mysteries, wherein were represented the fall and regeneration of souls, by the Bull slain and restored to life. "Afterward the regenerating Sun assumed the attributes of Aries or the Lamb; and in the Mysteries of Ammon, souls were regenerated by passing through that sign, after having fallen through the Serpent... "So the libations to Souls, by pouring wine on the ground, and looking toward the two gates of Heaven, those of day and night, referred to the ascent and descent of Souls." -Pages 492,493. "According to Sanchoniathon, TAAUT, the interpreter of Heaven to men, attributed something divine to the nature of the dragon and serpents, in which the Phoenicians and Egyptians followed him. They have more vitality, more spiritual force, than any other creature; of a fiery nature..." -Page 494. "The Egyptian Priests fed the sacred serpents in the temple...the serpent was immortal, and reentered into himself; which...was an attribute of the Deity. And he also said that the serpent never died, unless by a violent death. "The Phoenicians called the serpent Agathodemon (the good spirit [AGATHO-DEMON? THE GOOD SPIRIT?])..The Egyptians...represented the serpent with the head of a hawk...In reality, the hawk-headed serpent, genius of light, or good genius, was the symbol of the Sun...The horned serpent was the hieroglyphic for a God...the Egyptians represented the world by a blue circle, sprinkled with flames, within which was extended a serpent with the head of a hawk. Proclus says they represented the four quarters of the world by a cross, and the soul of the world, or Kneph, by a serpent surrounding it in the form of a circle." -Pages 494,495. "We read in Anaxagoras...a serpent, with two heads, one of a lion and the other of a bull, between which was the figure of a God whose name was Hercules or Kronos: that from Hercules came the egg of the world, which produced Heaven and earth, by dividing itself into two hemispheres: and that the God Phanes, which issued from that egg, was in the shape of a serpent. "The Egyptian Goddess Ken, represented standing naked on a lion, held two serpents in her hand. She is the same as the Astarte or Ashtaroth of the Assyrians." -Page 495. "In Egypt, a Sun supported by two asps was the emblem of Horhat the good genius; and the serpent with the winged globe was placed over the doors and windows of the Temples as a tutelary God." -Page 496. "Python, the Serpent Deity, was esteemed oracular; and the tripod at Delphi was a triple-headed serpent of gold." -Page 496. "The portals of all the Egyptian Temples are decorated with the hierogram of the Circle and the Serpent...Among the Egyptians, it was a symbol of Divine Wisdom, when extended at length; and, with its tail in its mouth, of Eternity...A Serpent with an egg in his mouth was a symbol of the Universe containing within itself the germ of all things that the Sun develops." -Page 496. "NAKHUSTAN, the brazen serpent of the wilderness, became naturalized among the Hebrews as a token of healing power. "Be ye," said Christ, "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." -Page 497. "A serpent-ring was a well-known symbol of time." -Page 497. "The eclipses of the sun and moon were believed by the orientals to be caused by the assaults of a daemon in dragon-form; and they endeavored to scare away the intruder by shouts and menaces. This was the original Leviathan or Crooked Serpent of old, transfixed in the olden time by the power of Jehovah, and suspended as a glittering trophy in the sky; yet also the Power of Darkness..." -Page 498. "The Persian Ahriman was called "The old serpent, the liar from the beginning, the Prince of Darkness, and the rover up and down." The Dragon was a well-known symbol...and it was natural that by the pastoral Asiatic Tribes...should themselves by symbolized under the form of dragons; and overcome by the superior might of the Hebrew God, as monstrous Leviathans maimed and destroyed by him. Ophineus...warred against Kronos, and was over-come and cast into his proper element, the sea. There he is installed as the Sea-God Oannes or Dagon, the Leviathan of the watery half of creation, the dragon who vomited a flood of water after the persecuted woman of the Apocalypse...he corresponds with the obscure name of Rahab, whom Jehovah is said in Job to have transfixed and overcome...Jehovah is said to have "cut Rahab and wounded the dragon." The latter is not only the type of earthly desolation, the dragon of the deep waters, but also the leader of the banded conspirators of the sky, of the rebellious stars, which, according to Enoch, "came not at the right time"; and his tail drew a third part of the Host of Heaven, and cast them to the earth. Jehovah "divided the sea by his strength, and broke the heads of the Dragons in the waters." And according to the Jewish and Persian belief, the Dragon would, in the latter days, the Winter of time, enjoy a short period of licensed impunity, which would be a season of the greatest suffering to the people of the earth; but he would finally be bound or destroyed in the great battle of Messiah; or, as it seems intimated by the Rabbinical figure of being eaten by the faithful, be, like Ahriman or Vasouki, ultimately absorbed by and united with the Principle of good." -Page 499. "Near the image of Rhea, in the Temple of Bel at Babylon, were two large serpents of silver, says Diodorus, each weighing thirty talents; and in the same temple was an image of Juno, holding in her right hand the head of a serpent. The Greeks called Bel Beliar; and Hesychius interprets that word to mean a dragon or great serpent. We learn from the book of Bel and the Dragon, that in Babylon was kept a great, live serpent, which the people worshipped." -Pages 499,500. "The King of Evil Demons was called in Hindu Mythology, Naga, the King of Serpents, in which name we trace the Hebrew Nachash, serpent." -Page 500. "In Cashmere were seven hundred places where carved images of serpents were worshipped; and in Thibet [SIC] the great Chinese Dragon ornamented the Temples of the Grand Lama. In China, the dragon was the stamp and symbol of royalty, sculptured in all the Temples, blazoned on the furniture of the houses, and interwoven with the vestments of the chief nobility. The Emperor bears it as his armorial device; it is engraved on his sceptre and diadem, and on all the vases of the imperial palace. The Chinese believe that there is a dragon of extraordinary strength and sovereign power, in Heaven, in the air, on the waters, and on the mountains. The God Fohi is said to have had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake, a combination to be more fully explained to you in a subsequent Degree." -Page 500. "The British God HU was called "The Dragon--Ruler of the World," and his car was drawn by serpents. His ministers were styled adders. A Druid in a poem of Taliessin says, "I am a Druid, I am an Architect, I am a Prophet, I am a Serpent (Gnadi)." " -Page 502. [NOTE: "ADDERS" AND "ARCHITECT" ARE IN ITALICS, WHICH MEANS PIKE IS ATTACHING SPECIAL MEANING TO THESE WORDS FOR THE INITIATE TO UNDERSTAND. I BELIEVE HE IS SHOWING THAT THE "GREAT ARCHITECT OF THE UNIVERSE" IS AN ADDER, OR SERPENT, AND IS TO BE WORSHIPPED AS SUCH. SEE PAGE 413 AGAIN.] "With the serpent, in the Ancient Monuments, is very often found associated the Cross. The Serpent upon a Cross was an Egyptian Standard. It occurs repeatedly upon the Grand Staircase of the Temple of Osiris at Philae; and on the pyramid of Ghizeh are represented two kneeling figures erecting a Cross, on the top of which is a serpent erect. The Crux Ansata was a Cross with a coiled Serpent above it; and it is perhaps the most common of all emblems on the Egyptian Monuments, carried in the hand of almost every figure of a Deity or a Priest. It was, as we learn by the monuments, the form of the iron tether-pins, used for making fast to the ground the cords by which young animals were confined: and as used by shepherds, became a symbol of Royalty to the Shepherd Kings." -Page 502.
THE TAU AND TRIPLE TAU EQUATED TO THE TRINITY "The triple Tau, in the centre of a circle and a triangle, typifies the Sacred Name; and represents the Sacred Triad, the Creating, Preserving, and Destroying Powers; [THE TRINITY OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIA] as well as the three great lights of Masonry. If to the Masonic point within a Circle, and the two parallel lines, we add the single Tau Cross, we have the Ancient Egyptian Triple Tau... "With the Tau or the Triple Tau may be connected, within two circles, the double cube, or perfection; or the perfect ashlar... "As the single Tau represents the one God, so, no doubt, the Triple Tau, the origin of which cannot be traced, was meant to represent the Trinity of his attributes, the three Masonic pillars, WISDOM, STRENGTH, and HARMONY." -Page 503. "The Prophet Ezekiel, in the 4th verse of the 9th chapter, says: "And the Lord said unto him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark the letter TAU upon the foreheads of those that sigh and mourn for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.' " So the Latin Vulgate, and the probably most ancient copies of the Septuagint translate the passage. This Tau was in the form of the cross of this Degree, and it was the emblem of life and salvation." -Page 503. "In ancient times the mark Tau was set on those who had been acquitted by their judges, as a symbol of innocence. The military commanders placed it on soldiers who escaped unhurt from the field of battle, as a sign of their safety under the Divine Protection. "It was a sacred symbol among the Druids. Divesting a tree of part of its branches, they left it in the shape of a Tau Cross, preserved it carefully, and consecrated it with solemn ceremonies. On the tree they cut deeply the word THAU, by which they meant God. On the right arm of the Cross, they inscribed the word HESULS, on the left BELEN or BELENUS, and on the middle of the trunk THARAMIS. This represented the sacred Triad. "It is certain that the Indians, Egyptians, and Arabians paid veneration to the sign of the Cross, thousands of years before the coming of Christ. Everywhere it was a sacred symbol." -Page 504. "By the Tau Cross the Cabalists expressed the number 10, a perfect number, denoting Heaven, and the Pythagorean Tetractys, or incommunicable name of God." -Pages 504,505. "As the simple Tau represented Life, so, when the Circle, symbol of Eternity, was added, it represented Eternal Life. [AND THERE YOU HAVE THE ANKH, A TAU WITH A CIRCLE ADDED TO THE TOP OF IT, THE WORSHIPFUL MASTER;S; GAVEL.] "At the Initiation of a King, the Tau, as the emblem of life and key of the Mysteries, was impressed upon his lips. "In the Indian Mysteries, the Tau Cross, under the name of Tiluk, was marked upon the body of the candidate, as a sign that he was set apart for the Sacred Mysteries." -Page 505.
THE TWO PILLARS OF MASONRY "The Solstices, Cancer and Capricorn, the two Gates of Heaven, are the two pillars of Hercules, beyond which he, the Sun, never journeyed: and they still appear in our Lodges, as the two great columns, Jachin and Boaz, and also as the two parallel lines that bound the circle, with a point in the centre, emblem of the Sun, between the two tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. -Page 506.
THE STAR IN THE LODGE"The Blazing Star in our Lodges, we have already said, represents Sirius, Anubis, or Mercury, Guardian and Guide of Souls. Our Ancient English brethren also considered it an emblem of the Sun. In the old Lectures they said: "The Blazing Star or Glory in the centre refers us to that Grand Luminary the Sun, which enlightens the Earth, and by its genial influence dispenses blessings to mankind." It is also said in those lectures to be an emblem of Prudence. The word Prudentia means, in its original and fullest signification, Foresight: and accordingly the Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-Seeing Eye, which to the Ancients was the Sun. "Even the Dagger of the Elu of Nine is that used in the Mysteries of Mithras; which, with its blade black and hilt white, was an emblem of the two principles of Light and Darkness." -Page 506. [THIS BLADE AND HANDLE ARE USED IN WICCA TODAY, AND THE SYMBOLISM CAN;T BE MISSED HERE, NOR CAN THE CLOSE RESEMBLANCE.] "The cup, consecrated in the Mysteries both of Isis and Eleusis, was the Constellation Crater or the Cup. The sacred vessel of the Isiac ceremony finds its counterpart in the Heavens. The Olympic robe presented to the Initiate, a magnificent mantle, covered with figures of serpents and animals, and under which were twelve other sacred robes, wherewith he was clothed in the sanctuary, alluded to the starry Heaven and the twelve signs: while the seven preparatory immersions in the sea alluded to the seven spheres, through which the soul plunged, to arrive here below and take up its abode in a body." -Page 506. "The Prophet Amos explicitly asserts that the Israelites, in the desert, worshipped, not Jehovah, but Moloch, or a Star-God, equivalent to Saturn. The Gods El or Jehovah were not merely planetary or solar. Their symbolism, like that of every other Deity, was coextensive with nature, and with the mind of man, yet the astrological character is assigned even to Jehovah." -Page 509. "The Seven Spirits which stand before the throne, spoken of by several Jewish writers, and generally presumed to have been immediately derived from the Persian Amshaspands, were ultimately the seven planetary intelligences, the original model of the seven-branched golden candlestick exhibited to Moses on God's mountain." -Page 510. [HE NAILS EVERYTHING, DOESN'T HE?] "The fallen Angels were also fallen Stars; and the first allusion to a feud among the spiritual powers in early Hebrew Mythology..." -Page 510. [NOTE HERE THAT PIKE REFERS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT, THE HEBREW SCRIPTURESAS MYTHOLOGY.] "The Jewish and early Christian writers looked on the worship of the sun and the elements with comparative indulgence ...The advent to Christ was announced by a Star from the East; and His nativity was celebrated on the shortest day of the Julian Calendar, the day when, in the physical commemorations of Persia and Egypt, Mithras or Osiris was newly found." -Page 511. "All religious expression is symbolism...For the most abstract expression for Deity which language can supply, is but a sign or symbol for an object unknown, and no more truthful and adequate than the terms Osiris and Vishnu, except as being less sensuous and explicit. To say that He is a Spirit, is but to say that He is not matter. What spirit is, we can only define as the Ancients did, by resorting, as if in despair, to some sublimized species of matter, as Light, Fire, or Ether." -Page 513. "The primitive man [YOU WILL SOON SEE HE MAINLY MEANS THE HEBREWS] recognized the Divine Presence under a variety of appearances, without losing his faith in this unity and Supremacy. The invisible God, manifested and on one of His many sides visible, did not cease to be God to him. He recognized Him in the evening breeze of Eden, in the whirlwind of Sinai, in the Stone of Beth-El: and identified Him with the fire of thunder or the immovable rock adored in Ancient Arabia. To him the image of the Deity was reflected in all that was pre-eminent in excellence. He saw Jehovah, like Osiris and Bel, in the Sun as well as in the Stars, which were His children...He was the sacred fire of Mount Sinai, of the burning bush, of the Persians, those Puritans of Paganism. "Naturally it followed that Symbolism soon became more complicated, and all the powers of Heaven were re-produced on earth, until a web of fiction and allegory was woven, which the wit of man, with his limited means of explanation, will never unravel. Hebrew Theism itself became involved in symbolism and image-worship, to which all religions ever tend. We have already seen what was the symbolism of the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the Ark. The Hebrew establishment tolerated not only the use of emblematic vessels, vestments, and cherubs, of Sacred Pillars and Seraphim, but symbolical representations of Jehovah Himself, not even confined to poetical or illustrative language... "The incongruous and monstrous in the Oriental images came from the desire to embody the Infinite..." -Page 514. "All great Reformers have warred against this evil, deeply feeling the intellectual mischief arising out of a degraded idea of the Supreme Being: and have claimed for their own God an existence or personality distinct from the objects of ancient superstition; disowning in His name the symbols and images that had profaned His Temple... "Idolatry consists in confounding the symbol with the thing signified...and every religion and every conception of God is idolatrous..." -Page 516. "Like the belief in a Deity, the belief in the soul's immortality is rather a natural feeling... "To fortify, and as far as possible to impart this hope, was the great aim of ancient wisdom, whether expressed in forms of poetry or philosophy; as it was of the Mysteries, and as it is of Masonry." -Page 517. "If our mortal existence be the death of the spirit, our death may be the renewal of its life; as physical bodies are exalted from earth to water, from water to air, from air to fire, so the man may rise into the Hero the Hero into the God." -Page 518. [THERE YOU HAVE IT, FOLKS. MAN MAY BECOME A GOD. SHADES OF JOSEPH SMITH AND THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN.] "In the course of Nature, the soul, to recover its lost estate, must pass through a series of trials and migrations. The scene of those trials is the Grand Sanctuary of Initiations, the world: their primary agents are the elements; and Dionusos, as Sovereign of Nature, or the sensuous world personified, is official Arbiter of the Mysteries, and guide of the soul, which he introduces into the body and dismisses from it. He is the Sun... "He was not only Creator of the World, but guardian, liberator, and Saviour of the Soul...His symbolism was...the Zodiac: he was the Vernal Bull, the Lion, the Ram, the Autumnal Goat, the Serpent: in short, the varied Deity... "He mediates and intercedes for man, and reconciles the Universal Unseen Mind with the individualized spirit of which he is emphatically the Perfecter..." -Page 519. "The effect of initiation was meant to be the same as that of philosophy, to purify the soul of its passions, to weaken the empire of the body over the divine portion of man, and to give him here below a happiness anticipatory of the felicity to be one day enjoyed by him, and of the future vision by him of the Divine Beings. And therefore Proclus and the other Platonists taught "that the Mysteries and initiations withdrew souls from this mortal and material life, to re-unite them to the gods; and dissipated for the adepts the shades of ignorance by the splendors of the Deity." Such were the precious fruits of the last Degree of the Mystic Science,--to see Nature in her springs and sources, and to become familiar with the causes of things and with real existences." -Pages 520,521.
"Cicero says that the soul must exercise itself in the practice of the virtues, if it would speedily return to its place of origin. [THIS IS ANOTHER GOSPEL: THE GOSPEL OF WORKS.] It should, while imprisoned in the body, free itself therefrom by the contemplation of superior beings, and in some sort be divorced from the body and the senses. Those who remain enslaved, subjugated by their passions and violating the sacred laws of religion and society, will re-ascend to Heaven, only after they shall have been purified through a long succession of ages. "The Initiate was required to emancipate himself from his passions, and to free himself from the hindrances of the senses and of matter, in order that he might rise to the contemplation of the Deity, or of that incorporeal and unchanging light in which live and subsist the causes of created natures. "We must," says Porphyry, "flee from everything sensual, that the soul may with ease re-unite itself with God, and live happily with Him." "This is the great work of initiation," says Hierocles,--"to recall the soul to what is truly good and beautiful, and make it familiar therewith, and they its own; to deliver it from the pains and ills it endures here below, enchained in matter as in a dark prison; to facilitate its return to the celestial splendors, and to establish it in the Fortunate Isles, by restoring it to its first estate. Thereby, when the hour of death arrives, the soul, freed of its mortal garmenting, which it leaves behind it as a legacy to earth, will rise buoyantly to its home among the Stars, there to re-take its ancient condition, and approach toward the Divine nature as far as man may do." -Page 521. [WE THINK THIS IS MORE THAN SUFFICIENT TO SHOW THAT FREEMASONRY HAS A PLAN OF SALVATION, AND IT IS THAT OF WORKS. REMEMBER, THE BIBLE SAYS THAT WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE, AND NOT BY WORKS.] "Plutarch compares Isis to knowledge, and Typhon to ignorance, obscuring the light of the sacred doctrine whose blaze lights the soul of the Initiate. No gift of the gods, he holds, is so precious as the knowledge of the Truth, and that of the Nature of the gods, so far as our limited capacities allow us to rise toward them. The Valentinians termed initiation LIGHT. The Initiate, says Psellus, becomes an Epopt, when admitted to see THE DIVINE LIGHTS. Clemens of Alexandria, imitating the language of an Initiate in the Mysteries of Bacchus, and inviting this Initiate, whom he terms blind like Tiresias, to come to see Christ [TO PIKE, THE CHRIST IS NOT THE SAME AS JESUS. THE CHRIST IS THE UNIVERSAL LIGHT, AND NOT THE MAN JESUS], Who will blaze upon his eyes with greater glory than the Sun, exclaims: "Oh Mysteries most truly holy! Oh pure Light! When the torch of the Dadoukos gleams, Heaven and the Deity are displayed to my eyes! I am initiated, and become holy!" This was the true object of initiation; to be sanctified, and TO SEE, that is, to have just and faithful conceptions of the Deity, the knowledge of Whom was THE LIGHT of the Mysteries. It was promised the Initiate at Samothrace, that he should become pure and just. Clemens says that by baptism, souls are illuminated, and led to the pure light with which mingles no darkness, nor anything material. The Initiate, become an Epopt, was called A SEER. "HAIL, NEW-BORN LIGHT!" the Initiates cried in the Mysteries of Bacchus. "Such was held to be the effect of complete initiation. It lighted up the soul with rays from the Divinity, and became for it, as it were, the eye with which, according to the Pythagoreans, it contemplates the field of Truth; in its mystical abstractions, wherein it rises superior to the body, whose action on it, it annuls for the time, to re-enter into itself, so as entirely to occupy itself with the view of the Divinity, and the means of coming to resemble Him. "Thus enfeebling the dominion of the senses and the passions over the soul, and as it were freeing the latter from a sordid slavery, and by the steady practice of all the virtues, active and contemplative, our ancient brethren strove to fit themselves to return to the bosom of the Deity. Let not our objects as Masons fall below theirs. We use the symbols which they used; and teach the same great cardinal doctrines that they taught, of the existence of an intellectual God, and the immortality of the soul of man. If the details of their doctrines as to the soul seem to us to verge on absurdity, let us compare them with the common notions of our own day, and be silent. If it seems to us that they regarded the symbol in some cases as the thing symbolized, and worshipped the sign as if it were itself Deity, let us reflect how insufficient are our own ideas of Deity, and how we worship those ideas and images formed and fashioned in our own minds, and not the Deity Himself: and if we are inclined to smile at the importance they attached to lustrations and fasts, let us pause and inquire whether the same weakness of human nature does not exist to-day, causing rites and ceremonies to be regarded as actively efficient for the salvation of souls. "And let us ever remember the words of an old writer, with which we conclude this lecture: "It is a pleasure to stand on the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and see a battle and the adventures thereof: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing on the vantage-ground of TRUTH (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings, and mists and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is Heaven upon Earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, AND RETURN UPON THE POLES OF TRUTH." -Pages 521-523. [CHRISTIANS ARE TO BE PITIED, FOR THEY WORSHIP THE SIGN (JESUS) AS IF IT/HE WERE DEITY, AND MASONS ARE NOT TO BE FILLED WITH FALSE PRIDE BY KNOWING THE "TRUTH". SEE PAGE 38, 813. "To every Mason, WISDOM or INTELLIGENCE, FORCE or STRENGTH, and HARMONY, or FITNESS and BEAUTY, are the Trinity of the attributes of God...Nor is it within its Province to determine how the ultimate triumph of Light and Truth and Good, over Darkness and Error and Evil, is to be achieved; not whether the Redeemer, looked and longed for by all nations, hath appeared in Judea, or is yet to come. "It reverences all the great reformers. It sees in Moses, the Lawgiver of the Jews, in Confucius and Zoroaster, in Jesus of Nazareth, and in the Arabian Iconoclast, Great Teachers of Morality, and Eminent Reformers, if no more: and allows every brother of the Order to assign to each such higher and even Divine Character as his Creed and Truth require. "Thus Masonry disbelieves no truth, and teaches unbelief in no creed, except so far as such creed may lower its lofty estimate of the Deity, degrade Him to the level of the passions of humanity, deny the high destiny of man, impugn the goodness and benevolence of the Supreme God, strike at those great columns of Masonry, Faith, Hope, and Charity, or inculcate immorality, and disregard of the active duties of the Order." -Page 525. "Masonry is a worship..." -Page 526.
INSTRUCTION Sen. W. Brother Warden, are you a Prince of Mercy? Jun. W. I have seen the Delta [A TRIANGLE] and the Holy NAMES upon it, and am an AMETH like yourself, in the TRIPLE COVENANT, of which we bear the mark. Qu. What is the first Word upon the Delta? Ans. The Ineffable Name of Deity, the true mystery of which is known to the Ameth alone. Qu. What do the three sides of the Delta denote to us? Ans. To us, and to all Masons, the three Great Attributes or Developments of the Essence of the Deity;...WISDOM, which thought the plan; STRENGTH, which created: HARMONY, which upholds and preserves:-- the Masonic Trinity, three Powers and one Essence: the three columns which support the Universe, Physical Intellectual, and Spiritual, of which every Masonic Lodge is a type and symbol:--while to the Christian Mason, they represent the Three that bear record in Heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY SPIRIT, which three are ONE..." [WE SEE HERE WHAT THE MASONIC TRINITY IS, AND THAT IT IS NOT THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. PIKE COMPARES HIS TRINITY TO THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY- THEREBY IMPLYING THAT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.] "Qu. What is the first of the THREE COVENANTS, of which we bear the mark? Ans. That which God made with Noah... Qu. what is the second of the Three Covenants? Ans. That which God made with Abraham... Qu. What is the third Covenant? Ans. That which God made with all men by His prophets... Qu. What is the symbol of the Triple Covenant? Ans. The Triple Triangle. Qu. Of what else is it the symbol to us? Ans. Of the Trinity of Attributes of the Deity; and of the triple essence of Man, the Principle of Life, the Intellectual Power, and the Soul or Immortal Emanation from the Deity. Qu. What is the first great Truth of the Sacred Mysteries? Ans. No man hath seen God at any time... Qu. What is the second great Truth of the Sacred Mysteries? Ans. The Soul of Man is Immortal...a living spirit, a spark of the Great Central Light, that hath entered into and dwells in the body; to be separated therefrom at death, and return to God who gave it...as it existed in God, before it was enveloped in the body. Qu. What is the third great Truth in Masonry? Ans. The impulse which directs to right conduct and deters from crime... Qu. What is the fourth great Truth of Masonry? Ans. The moral truths are as absolute as the metaphysical truths... Qu. What is the fifth great Truth in Masonry? Ans. There is an essential distinction between Good and Evil... Qu. What is the sixth great Truth of Masonry? Ans. The necessity of practicing the moral truths, is obligation. Qu. What is the seventh great Truth in Masonry? Ans. The immutable law of God requires, that besides respecting the absolute rights of others, and being merely just, we should do good, be charitable, and obey the dictates of the generous and noble sentiments of the soul. Qu. What is the eighth great Truth in Masonry? Ans. That the laws which control and regulate the Universe of God, are those of motion and harmony. Qu. What is the ninth great Truth in Masonry? Ans. The great leading doctrine of this Degree;-- that the JUSTICE, the WISDOM, and the MERCY of God are alike infinite, alike perfect, and yet do not in the least jar nor conflict one with the other; but form a Great Perfect Trinity of Attributes, three and yet one... Qu. What, then, is the one great lesson taught to us, as Masons, in this Degree? [PRINCE OF MERCY, OR SCOTTISH TRINITARIAN] Ans. That to that state and realm of Light and Truth and Perfection, which is absolutely certain, all the good men on earth are tending... Qu. What are the symbols of the purification necessary to make us perfect Masons? Ans. Lavation with pure water, or baptism...anointing with oil...and robes of white... Qu. What is to us the chief symbol of man's ultimate redemption and regeneration? Ans. The fraternal supper, of bread...and of wine...that many thousands who have died before us might claim to be joint owners with ourselves of the particles that compose our mortal bodies...And thus, in the bread we eat, and in the wine we drink to-night, may enter into and form part of us the identical particles of matter that once formed parts of the material bodies called Moses, Confucius, Plato, Socrates, or Jesus of Nazareth. In the truest sense, we eat and drink the bodies of the dead... To our Jewish Brethren, this supper is symbolical of the Passover; to the Christian Mason, of that eaten by Christ and His Disciples, when, celebrating the Passover, He broke bread and gave it to them, saying, "Take! eat! this is My body:" and giving them the cup, He said, "Drink ye all of it! for this is My blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins..." -Pages 531-540. "The history of Masonry is the history of Philosophy. Masons do not pretend to set themselves up for instructors of the human race...Masonry has...itself become a science." -Page 540. "This, in its purity, as taught by Christ Himself [NOTE HE DID NOT SAY JESUS. REMEMBER, PIKE MAKES A DISTINCTION BETWEEN JESUS AND CHRIST AS SEPARATE BEINGS; SEE PAGE 813] it was the true primitive religion, as communicated by God to the Patriarchs. It was no new religion, but the reproduction of the oldest of all; and its true and perfect morality of every creed of antiquity." -Page 541. "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 instruction. The Initiates were consequently divided into three classes; the first, Auditors, the second, Catechumens, and the third, the Faithful. The Auditors were a sort on novices, who were prepared by certain ceremonies and certain instruction to receive the dogmas of Christianity. A portion of these dogmas was made known to the Catechumens; who after particular purifications, received baptism, or the initiation of the theogenesis (divine generation); but in the grand mysteries of that religion, the incarnation, nativity, passion, and resurrection of Christ, none were initiated but the Faithful. These doctrines, and the celebration of the Holy Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, were kept with profound secrecy. These Mysteries were divided into two parts; the first styled the Mass of the Catechumens; the second, the Mass of the Faithful. The celebration of the Mysteries of Mithras was also styled a mass; and the ceremonies used were the same. There were found all the sacraments of the Catholic Church, even the breath of confirmation. The Priest of Mithras promised the Initiates deliverance from sin, by means of confession and baptism, and a future life of happiness or misery. He celebrated the oblation of bread, image of the resurrection. The baptism of newly-born children, extreme unction, confession of sins,--all belonged to the Mithriac rites. The candidate was purified by a species of baptism, a mark was impressed upon his forehead, he offered bread and water, pronouncing certain mysterious words. "During the persecutions in the early ages of Christianity, the Christians took refuge n the vast catacombs which stretched for miles in every direction under the city of Rome, and are supposed to have been of Etruscan origin. There, amid labyrinthine windings, deep caverns, hidden chambers, chapels, and tombs, the persecuted fugitives found refuge, and there they performed the ceremonies of the Mysteries." -Pages 541,542. "The Basilideans, a sect of Christians that arose soon after the time of the Apostles, practiced the Mysteries...and wore crystals bearing these emblems...upon which were also a brilliant star and the serpent." -Page 542. "...all the Gnostic sects had Mysteries and an initiation. They all claimed to possess a secret doctrine, coming to them directly from Jesus Christ, different from that of the Gospels and Epistles, and superior to those communications....We know the name of only the highest class of their Initiates. They were styled Elect...They had at least three Degrees..." -Page 542. " "Baptism was one of their most important ceremonies; and the Basilideans celebrated the 10th of January, as the anniversary of the day on which Christ was baptized in Jordan. "They had the ceremony of laying on of hands, by way of purification... "The discipline of the secret was the concealment (occultatio) of certain tenets and ceremonies. So says Clemens of Alexandria. "To avoid persecution, the early Christians were compelled to use great precaution, and to hold meetings of the Faithful (of the Household of Faith) in private places, under concealment by darkness. They assembled in the night, and they guarded against the intrusion of false brethren and profane persons, spies who might cause their arrest. They conversed together figuratively, and by the use of symbols, lest cowans and eavesdroppers might overhear: and there existed among them a favored class, or Order, who were initiated into certain Mysteries which they were bound by solemn promise not to disclose, or even converse about, except with such as had received them under the same sanction. They were called Brethren, the Faithful, Stewards of the Mysteries, Superintendents, Devotees of the Secret, and ARCHITECTS." -Page 543.
[PIKE NOW QUOTES SOME EARLY CHURCH LEADERS TO TRY TO MAKE HIS CASE THAT THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH WAS A PARTICIPANT IN THE MYSTERIES, AND THEREFORE THIS RELIGION IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF THE MYSTERIES. WE DO NOT REPRODUCE THE FULL QUOTES HERE; JUST THE IMPORTANT PARTS TO SAVE TIME AND SPACE. AS ALWAYS, THEY ARE FOOTNOTED WITH THE PAGE NUMBER FOR YOUR REFERENCE.] "...St. Dionysius the Areopagite, the first Bishop of Athens, the tradition of the sacrament is said to have been divided into three Degrees..." -Page 543. "The Apostolic Constitutions, attributed to Clemens, Bishop of Rome, describe the early church and say: "These regulations must on no account be communicated to all sorts of persons, because of the Mysteries contained in them...The Mysteries were open to the Fideles or Faithful only; and no spectators were allowed at the communion." -Page 543. "Tertullian...says...None are admitted to the religious Mysteries without an oath of secrecy...Far hence, ye Profane! is the prohibition from all holy Mysteries." -Page 544. "Clemens, Bishop of Alexandria, born about A.D. 191, says ...he cannot explain the Mysteries..." -Page 544. "Origen, born A.D. 134 or 135, answering Celsus, who had objected that the Christians had a concealed doctrine said: "Inasmuch as the essential and important doctrines and principles of Christianity are openly taught, it is foolish to object that there are other things that are recondite; for this is common to Christian discipline with that of those philosophers in whose teaching some things were exoteric and some esoteric: and it is enough to say that it was so with some of the disciples of Pythagoras." " -Page 544. "Archelaus, Bishop of Cascara in Mesopotamia, who, in the year 278...said: "These Mysteries the church now communicates to him who has passed through the introductory Degree. They are not explained to the Gentiles at all..." -Page 544. "Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, was born in the year 315, and died in 386...says:...The splendor of glory is for those who are early enlightened: obscurity and darkness are the portion of the unbelievers and ignorant. Just so the church discovers its Mysteries to those who have advanced beyond the class of Catechumens: we employ obscure terms with others." -Page 545. "St. Basil, the Great Bishop of Caesarea born in the year 326, and dying in the year 376, says: "several things have been handed to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dogmas, should lose a due respect for them..." -Page 545. "St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople, A.D. 379, says: "...Our Mysteries are not to be made known to strangers." -Page 545. "St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan...died in 393, says...All the Mystery should be kept concealed, guarded by faithful silence lest it should be inconsiderately divulged to the ears of the Profane...Every Mystery ought to be kept secret...lest it should rashly be divulged to the ears of the Profane. Take heed that you do not incautiously reveal the Mysteries!" " -Pages 545,546. "St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo...died in 430, says... "Having dismissed the Catechumens, we have retained you only to be our hearers; because, besides those things which belong to all Christians in common, we are now to discourse to you of sublime Mysteries, which none are qualified to hear, but those who, by the Master's favor, are made partakers of them...To have taught them openly, would have been to betray them..." -Page 546. "St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine speak of initiation more than fifty times. St. Ambrose writes to those who are initiated; and initiation was not merely baptism, or admission into the church, but it referred to initiation into the Mysteries. To the baptized and initiated the Mysteries of religion were unveiled; they were kept secret from the Catechumens; who were permitted to hear the Scriptures read and the ordinary discourses delivered, in which the Mysteries, reserved for the Faithful, were never treated of. When the services and prayers were ended, the Catechumens and spectators all withdrew." -Page 546. "Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, was born in 354, and died in 417. He says: "I wish to speak openly: but I dare not, on account of those who are not initiated. I shall therefore avail myself of disguised terms, discoursing in a shadowy manner .....Where the holy Mysteries are celebrated, we drive away all uninitiated persons, and then close the doors..." " -Page 546. "St. Cyril of Alexandria, who was made Bishop in 412... says..."These Mysteries are so profound and so exalted, that they can be comprehended by those only who are enlightened..." " -Page 546. "Theodoret, Bishop of Cyropolis in Syria...393...: "Answer me, if you please, in mystical or obscure terms: for perhaps there are some persons present who are not initiated into the Mysteries...These Mysteries are so august, that we ought to keep them with the greatest caution." " -Page 547. "Minucius Felix, an eminent lawyer of Rome, who lived in 212, and wrote a defence of Christianity, says: "Many of them (the Christians) know each other by tokens and signs..." " -Page 547.
THREES "There are three Degrees in Blue Masonry; and in addition to the two words of two syllables each, embodying the binary, three, of three syllables each. There were three Grand Masters, the two Kings, and Khir-Om the Artificer. The candidate gains admission by three raps, and three raps call up the Brethren. There are three principal officers of the Lodge, three lights at the Altar, three gates of the Temple, all in the East, West, and South. The three lights represent the Sun, the Moon, and Mercury; Osiris, Isis, and Horus; the Father, the Mother, and the Child; Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty; Hadamah, Binah, and Daath; Gedulah, Geburah, and Tepareth. The candidate makes three circuits of the Lodge: there were three assassins of Khir-Om, and he was slain by three blows while seeking to escape by the three gates of the Temple. The ejaculation at his grave was repeated three times. There are three divisions of the Temple, and three, five, and seven Steps. A Master works with Chalk, Charcoal, and a vessel of Clay; there are three movable and three immovable jewels. The Triangle appears among the Symbols: the two parallel lines enclosing the circle are connected at top, as are the Columns Jachin and Boaz, symbolizing the equilibrium which explains the great Mysteries of Nature. "This continual reproduction of the number three is not accidental, nor without a profound meaning: and we shall find the same repeated in all the Ancient philosophies. "The Egyptian Gods formed Triads, the third member in each proceeding from the other two. Thus we have the Triad of Thebes, Amun, Maut, and Kharso; that of Philae, Osiris, Isis, and Horus; that of Elephantine and the Cataracts, Neph, Sate, and Anouke. "Sometimes this Triad was regarded as SPIRIT, or the active Principle or Generative Power; MATTER, or the PASSIVE Principle or Productive Capacity; and the Universe, which proceeds from the two Principles." -Page 548. "For the Egyptians had but three Seasons, the three gates of the Temple; and on account of the different effects of the Sun on those three Seasons, the Deity appears in these three forms." -Page 549. [AT THIS POINT, PIKE GOES INTO A LONG DISCUSSION OF THE MANY DIFFERENT TRIADS INVENTED BY MANY NATIONS, AND NAMES THEM. WE NOW PASS THIS AND GET TO THE MORE IMPORTANT COMMENTS.]
THE ORIGIN OF THE TRINITY "In the KABALAH, or the Hebrew traditional philosophy, the Infinite Deity, beyond the reach of the Human Intellect, and without Name, Form, or Limitation, was represented as developing Himself, in order to create, and my self-limitation, in ten emanations or outflowings, called SEPHIROTH, or rays. The first of these...was KETHER, or the Crown, by which we understand the Divine Will or Potency. Next came, as a pair, HAKEMAH and BAINAH, ordinarily translated "Wisdom" and "Intelligence," the former termed the FATHER, and the latter the MOTHER. HAKEMAH is the active Power or Energy of Deity, by which He produces within Himself Intellection or Thinking: and BAINAH, the passive Capacity, from which, acted on by the Power, the Intellection flows. This Intellection is called DAATH: and it is the "WORD" of Plato and the Gnostics; the unuttered word, within the Deity. Here is the origin of the Trinity of the Father, the Mother or Holy Spirit, and the Son or Word." -Page 552. " "Everything," says the SOHAR, "proceeds according to the Mystery of the Balance" --that is, by the equilibrium of Opposites: and thus from the Infinite Mercy and the Infinite Justice, in equilibrium, flows the perfect Harmony of the Universe." -Page 552. [THE BALANCE REFERRED TO HERE IS OBVIOUSLY THE BALANCE; OF LUCIFER AND ADONAY SPOKEN OF EARLIER.] "Bardesanes, whose doctrines the Syrian Christians long embraced, taught that the unknown Father, happy in the Plenitude of His Life and Perfections, first produced a Companion for Himself...whom He placed in the Celestial Paradise and who became, by Him, the Mother of CHRISTOS, Son of the Living God: i.e. (laying aside the allegory), that the Eternal conceived, in the silence of His decrees, the Thought of revealing Himself by a Being who should be His image or His Son: that to the Son succeeded his Sister and Spouse, the Holy Spirit, and they produced four Spirits of the elements, male and female...while the Holy Spirit...being both the Holy Intelligence and the Soul of the physical world, went from the Pleroma into that material world and there mourned her degradation, until CHRISTOS, her former spouse, coming to her with his Divine Light and Love, guided her in the way to purification, and she again united herself with him as his primitive Companion." -Page 553. "Basilides, the Christian Gnostic, taught that there were seven emanations from the Supreme Being...of which the Thought (or Intellect...Nous) united itself, by baptism in the river Jordan, with the man Jesus, servant...of the human race; but did not suffer with Him; and the disciples of Basilides taught that the Nous put on the appearance only of humanity, and that Simon of Cyrene was crucified in His stead and ascended into Heaven." -Pages 553, 554. "In one respect all the Gnostics agreed: they all held, that there was a world purely emanating out of the vital development of God, a creation evolved directly out of the Divine Essence, far exalted above any outward creation produced by God's plastic power, and conditioned by pre-existing matter. They agreed in holding that the framer of this lower world was not the Father of that higher world of emanation; but the Demi-urge...a being of a kindred nature with the Universe framed and governed by him, and far inferior to that higher system and the Father of it. "But some, setting out from ideas which had long prevailed among certain Jews of Alexandria, supposed that the Supreme God created and governed the world by His ministering spirits, by the angels. At the head of these angels stood one who had the direction and control of all; therefore called the Artificer and Governor of the World...This angel is a representative of the Supreme God, on the lower stage of existence: he does not act independently, but merely according to the ideas inspired in him by the Supreme God...But these ideas transcend his limited essence; he cannot understand them; he is merely their unconscious organ; and therefore is unable himself to comprehend the whole scope and meaning of the work which he performs. As an organ under the guidance of a higher inspiration, he reveals higher truths than he himself can comprehend. The mass of the Jews, they held, recognized not the angel, by whom, in all the Theophanies of the Old Testament, God revealed Himself; they knew not the Demiurge in his true relation to the hidden Supreme God, who never reveals Himself in the sensible world. They confounded the type and the archetype, the symbol and the idea. They rose no higher than the Demiurge; they took him to be the Supreme God Himself. But the spiritual men among them, on the contrary, clearly perceived, or at least divined, the ideas veiled under Judaism; they rose beyond the Demiurge, to a knowledge of the Supreme God; and are therefore properly His worshippers..." -Pages 557,558. [BY NOW YOU SHOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH PIKES METHOD OF WRITING, AND HAVE REALIZED THAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT JESUS. HE SAYS JESUS WAS JUST AN ANGEL, AND NOTHING MORE; HE DOES NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT HE IS DOING, THAT HE IS JUST DOING WHAT HE IS TOLD TO DO. LEST THERE BE ANY CONFUSION ON THIS POINT, NOTICE THE CONTEXT IN WHICH HE PLACES THE ANGEL...IN THE TIME PERIOD OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. HE SAYS THAT "THE MASS OF THE JEWS, THEY HELD, RECOGNIZED NOT THE ANGEL BY WHOM, IN ALL OF THE THEOPHANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, GOD REVEALED HIMSELF". THE DEMEANING ATTITUDE PIKE HAS TOWARDS JESUS IS QUITE EVIDENT HERE. ALSO, ALL THROUGH THESE QUOTATIONS OF PIKE, YOU ARE READING THAT THE MEN WHO CLING TO FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST ARE FOOLS AND DEMENTED. THAT IS YOU, SIR. YOU ARE ALBERT PIKE'S JACK ASS.] "Other Gnostics, who had not been followers of the Mosaic religion, but who had, at an earlier period, framed to themselves an oriental Gnosis, regarded the Demiurge as a being absolutely hostile to the Supreme God. He and his angels, notwithstanding their finite nature, wish to establish their independence: they will tolerate no foreign rule within their realm. Whatever of a higher nature descends into their kingdom, they seek to hold imprisoned there, lest it should raise itself above their narrow precincts. Probably, in this system, the kingdom of the Demiurgic Angels corresponded, for the most part, with that of the deceitful Star-Spirits, who seek to rob man of his freedom, to beguile him by various arts of deception, and who exercise a tyrannical sway over the things of this world. Accordingly, in the system of these Sabaeans, the seven Planet-Spirits, and the twelve Star-Spirits of the zodiac, who sprang from an irregular connection between the cheated Fetahil and the Spirit of Darkness, play an important part in everything that is bad. The Demiurge is a limited and limiting being, proud, jealous, and revengeful; and this his character betrays itself in the Old Testament, which, the Gnostics held, came from him. They transferred to the Demiurge himself, whatever in the idea of God, as presented by the Old Testament, appeared to them defective. Against his will and rule the...was continually rebelling, revolting without control against the dominion which he, the fashioner, would exercise over it, casting off the yoke imposed on it, and destroying the work he had begun. The same jealous being, limited in his power, ruling with despotic sway, they imagined they saw in nature. He strives to check the germination of the divine seeds of life which the Supreme God of Holiness and Love, who has no connection whatever with the sensible world, has scattered among men. That perfect God was at most known and worshipped in [THE] Mysteries by a few spiritual men." -Pages 558,559. [KNOWING WHO ALBERT PIKES;GOD WAS, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE THROUGH THIS PARAGRAPH TO RECOGNIZE WHO HE IS TALKING ABOUT. THE "PROUD, JEALOUS AND REVENGEFUL" " DESPOT" HE REFERS TO IN HIS CHARACTERISTIC SARCASTIC WAY IS NONE OTHER THAN JEHOVAH, THE TRUE GOD OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.] "In the doctrine of Valentinus, reared a Christian at Alexandria, [PIKE PREFACES THIS TO ESTABLISH SOME KIND OF SCRIPTURAL/CHRISTIAN AUTHORITY FOR HIS COMMENTS FOLLOWING] God was a perfect being...After having passed infinite ages in repose and silence, He manifested Himself by His Thought, source of all His manifestations, and which received from Him the germ of His creations... Its first manifestation was...the Intelligence, first of the Eons, commencement of all things, first revelation of the Divinity, the...Only Begotten: next, Truth...his companion. Their manifestations were the Word...and Life...and theirs, Man and the Church...The harmony of the Eons, struggling to know and be united to the Primitive God, was disturbed, and to redeem and restore them, the Intelligence...produced Christ and the Holy Spirit His companion; who restored them to their first estate of happiness and harmony; and thereupon they formed the Eon Jesus, born of a Virgin, to whom the Chistos united himself in baptism, and who, with his Companion Sophia-Achamoth, saved and redeemed the world." -Page 560. [THERE YOU SEE AGAIN HOW PIKE DIFFERENTIATES BETWEEN JESUS AND CHRIST.] "The Ophites commenced their system with a Supreme Being, long unknown to the Human race, and still so to the greater number of men; the...Buthos, or Progundity, Source of Light, and of Adam-Kadmon, the Primitive Man, made by the Demiourgos, but perfected by the Supreme God by the communication to him of the Spirit...Pneuma. The first emanation was the Thought of the Supreme Deity the...Ennoia, the conception of the Universe in the Thought of God. "This Thought, called also Silence...Sige, produced the Spirit...Pneuma, Mother of the Living, and Wisdom of God. Together with this Primitive Existence, Matter existed also (the Waters, Darkness, Abyss, and Chaos, eternal like the Spiritual Principle. Buthos and His Thought, uniting with Wisdom, made her fruitful by the Divine Light, and she produced a perfect and an imperfect being, Christos, and a Second and inferior wisdom, Sophia-Achamoth, who falling into chaos remained entangled there, became enfeebled, and lost all knowledge of the Superior Wisdom that gave her birth. Communicating movement to Chaos, she produced Ialdabaoth, the Demiourgos, Agent of Material Creation, and then ascended toward her first place in the scale of creation. Ialdabaoth produced an angel that was his image, and this a second, and so on in succession to the sixth after the Demi-ourgos: the seven being reflections one of the other, yet different and inhabiting seven distinct regions. The names of the six this produced were IAO, SABAOTH, ADONAI, ELOI, ORAI, and ASTAPHAI. Ialdabaoth, to become independent of his mother, and to pass for the Supreme Being, made the world, and man, in his own image; and his mother caused the Spiritual principle to pass from him into man so made; and henceforward the contest between the Demiourgos and his mother, between light and darkness, good and evil, was concentrated in man; and the image of Ialdabaoth, reflected upon matter, became the Serpent-Spirit, Satan, the Evil Intelligence. [HERE, PIKE SHOWS HIS REAL INTENT: TO PLANT THE SEED OF DOUBT IN THE CHRISTIAN INITIATES MIND, AND SHOW THAT THAT BEING WE THINK OF AS GOD WHO CREATED THE WORLD AND MAN IS REALLY SATAN, THE EVIL INTELLIGENCE.] Eve, created by Ialdabaoth, had by his Sons children that were angels like themselves. [EVE PRACTICED POLYGAMY WITH ANGELS, AND GAVE BIRTH TO ANGELIC, OR SATANIC, OFFSPRING! THIS IS AIDED AND ABETTED BY THE MODERN PROPHECY DOCTRINE THAT ANGELS AND HUMAN WOMEN COHABITATED AND PRODUCED DEMON/HUMAN HYBRIDS WHICH WILL COME BACK SOON AND INHABIT THE EARTH.] The Spiritual light was withdrawn from man by Sophia, and the world surrendered to the influence of evil; until the Spirit, urged by the entreaties of Wisdom, induced the Supreme Being to send Christos to redeem it. Compelled, despite himself, by his Mother, Ialdabaoth caused the man Jesus to be born of a Virgin, and the Celestial Saviour, uniting with his Sister, Wisdom, descended through the regions of the seven angels, appeared in each under the form of its chief, concealed his own, and entered with his sister into the man Jesus at the baptism in Jordan. Ialdabaoth, finding that Jesus was destroying his empire and abolishing his worship, caused the Jews to hate and crucify Him; before which happened, Christos and Wisdom had ascended to the celestial regions. They restored Jesus to life and gave Him an ethereal body, [SOUNDS LIKE THE JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES] in which He remained eighteen months on earth, and receiving from Wisdom the perfect knowledge...Gnosis, communicated it to a small number of His apostles, and then arose to the intermediate region inhabited by Ialdabaoth, where, unknown to him, He sits at his right hand, taking from him the Souls of Light purified by Christos. When nothing of the Spiritual world shall remain subject to Ialdabaoth, the redemption will be accomplished, and the end of the world, the completion of the return of Light into the Plenitude, will occur." -Pages 562-564. [CREATED BY SATAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO CREATE HIM. JESUS WAS UNITED AT BAPTISM WITH THE CHRISTOS, WHICH DESERTED HIM AT HIS GREATEST HOUR OF NEED; HIS CRUCIFIXION. THEN, UPON RISING FROM THE GRAVE IN AN "ETHEREAL" OR GHOSTLY BODY, HE TAUGHT GNOSTICISM TO HIS APOSTLES, AND THEN ROSE TO THE HEAVENS TO SIT HIDDEN AT SATAN;S RIGHT HAND AND STEAL THE REDEEMED SOULS FROM HIM UNTIL THE TIME COMES WHEN NO MORE WILL BE SAVED, AND THEN HE TAKES THEM TO THE ETERNAL SOURCE OF LIGHT. REMEMBER, PIKE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN SATAN AS SCRIPTURE REVEALS HIM. HE BELIEVES IN THE EXISTENCE OF THE "BALANCE" OR THE DUALITY OF THE NATURE OF GOD REVEALED IN LUCIFER (THE GOOD GUY) AND ADONAY, WHO HE SAYS HERE IN THIS ALLEGORY IS SATAN. PIKE USES ANY MEANS NECESSARY TO WEAVE HIS MYTHS AND TO PLANT HIS IDEAS IN THE READERS MIND, ESPECIALLY QUOTING (OR CLAIMING TO QUOTE) SOMEONE ELSE, (THE OPHITES IN THIS OCCASION).] "The opinion of the Doketes as to the human nature of Jesus Christ, was that most generally received among the Gnostics. They deemed the intelligences of the Superior World too pure and too much the antagonists of matter, to be willing to unite with it: and held that Christ, an Intelligence of the first rank, in appearing upon the earth, did not become confounded with matter, but took upon Himself only the appearance of a body, or at the most used it only as an envelope." -Page 564. "Paul of Samosata taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of Joseph and Mary; but that the Word, Wisdom, or Intelligence of God, the...Nous of the Gnostics, had united itself with Him, so that He might be said to be at once the Son of God, and God Himself." -Page 564. "Arius called the Saviour the first of creatures, non-emanated from God, but really created, by the direct will of God, before time and the ages. According to the Church, Christ was of the same nature as God; according to some dissenters, of the same nature as man. Arius adopted the theory of a nature analogous to both. When God resolved to create the Human race, He made a Being which He called THE WORD, THE SON, WISDOM...Logos, Uios, Sophia, to the end that He might give existence to men. This WORD is the Ormuzd of Zoroaster, the Ensoph of the Kabalah, the ...Nous of Platonism and Philonism, and the...Sophia or Demi-ourgos of the Gnostics. He distinguished the inferior Wisdom, or the daughter, from the Superior Wisdom; the latter being in God, inherent in His nature, and incapable of communication to any creature: the second, by which the Son was made, communicated itself to Him, and therefore He Himself was entitled to be called the Word and the Son." -Pages 564,565. "The Son of Man or Soul of the World, enters into the Darkness, becomes its captive, to end by tempering and softening its savage nature. The Divine Spirit, after having brought back the Primitive Man to the Empire of Light, raises above the world that part of the Celestial Soul that remained unaffected by being mingled with the Empire of Darkness. Placed in the region of the Sun and Moon, this pure soul, the Son of Man, the Redeemer or Christ, labors to deliver and attract to Himself that part of the Light or of the Soul of the First Man diffused through matter; which done, the world will cease to exist. To retain the rays of Light still remaining among his Eons, and ever tending to escape and return, by concentrating them, the Prince of Darkness, with their consent, made Adam, whose soul was of the Divine Light, contributed by the Eons, and his body of matter, so that he belonged to both Empires, that of Light and that of Darkness. To prevent the light from escaping at once, the demons forbade Adam to eat the fruit of "knowledge of good and evil," by which he would have known the Empire of Light and that of Darkness. He obeyed; an Angel of Light induced him to transgress, and gave him the means of victory; but the Demons created Eve, who seduced him into an act of Sensualism, that enfeebled him, and bound him anew in the bonds of matter. This is repeated in the case of every man that lives." -Pages 566,567. [ONCE AGAIN, WE SEE PIKE SHOWING THAT ADONAY, THE GOD OF CHRISTIANITY, IS SATAN, THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS WHO, WITH THE DEMONS, MADE ADAM AND EVE, AND AN ANGEL OF LIGHT, WHICH IS PIKE;S GOD LUCIFER, INDUCED HIM TO TRANSGRESS, AND GAVE HIM THE MEANS OF VICTORY; BUT THE DEMONS CREATED EVE WHO TEMPTED HIM BACK INTO BONDAGE OF THE FLESH, AND THIS IS REPEATED IN THE CASE OF EVERY MAN THAT LIVES;. PIKE SEEMS TO BE SAYING THAT WOMEN ALWAYS TEMPT MEN INTO SENSUALITY WITHOUT WHICH THEY MIGHT ATTAIN A HIGHER LEVEL;. HE IS SAYING THAT CHRISTIANS ARE ACTUALLY WORSHIPPING SATAN, UNKNOWINGLY!] "To deliver the soul, captive in darkness, the Principle of Light, or Genius of the Sun, charged to redeem the Intellectual World, of which he is the type, came to manifest Himself among men. Light appeared in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; according to the words of St. John. The Light could not unite with the darkness. It but put on the appearance of a human body, and took the name of Christ in the Messiah, only to accommodate itself to the language of the Jews. The Light did its work, turning the Jews from the worship of Demons. But the Chief of the Empire of Darkness caused Him to be crucified by the Jews. Still He suffered in appearance only, and His death gave to all souls the symbol of their enfranchisement. The person of Jesus having disappeared, there was seen in His place a cross of Light, over which a celestial voice pronounced these words: "The cross of Light is called The Word, Christ, The Gate, Joy, The Bread, The Sun, The Resurrection, Jesus, The Father, The Spirit, Life, Truth, and Grace." -Page 567. "With the Priscillianists there were two principles, one the Divinity, the other, Primitive Matter and Darkness; each eternal. Satan is the son and lord of matter; and the secondary angels and demons, children of matter. Satan created and governs the visible world. But the soul of man emanated from God, and is of the same substance with God. [IS PIKE TRYING TO SAY THAT THE HUMAN SOUL IS OF THE SAME SUBSTANCE AS LUCIFER?] Seduced by the evil spirits, it passes through various bodies, until, purified and reformed, it rises to God and is strengthened by His light. These powers of evil hold mankind in pledge; and to redeem this pledge, the Saviour, Christ the Redeemer, came and died upon the cross of expiation, this discharging the written obligation. He, like all souls, was of the same substance with God, [AND CHRIST, TOO?] a manifestation of the Divinity, not forming a second person; unborn, like the Divinity, and nothing else than the Divinity under another form. "It is useless to trace these vagaries further... "Such were some of the ancient notions concerning the Deity; and taken in connection with what has been detailed in the preceding Degrees, this Lecture affords you a true picture of the ancient speculations."-Pages 567,568. "This is the real idea of the Ancient Nations: GOD, the Almighty Father, and source of All; His THOUGHT, conceiving the whole Universe, and willing its creation: His WORD, uttering that THOUGHT, and thus becoming the Creator or Demiourgos, in whom was Life and Light, and that Light the Life of the Universe." -Page 575.
"God, the unknown FATHER...known to us only by His attributes; the ABSOLUTE I AM:..The THOUGHT of God...and the WORD Manifestation and expression of the Thought;....Behold THE TRUE MASONIC TRINITY; the UNIVERSAL SOUL, the THOUGHT in the Soul, the WORD, or Thought expressed; the THREE IN ONE, of a Trinitarian Ecossais. "Here Masonry pauses, and leaves its Initiates to carry out and develop these great Truths in such manner as to each may seem most accordant with reason, philosophy, truth, and his religious faith. It declines to act as Arbiter between them. It looks calmly on, while each multiplies the intermediates between the Deity and Matter, and the personifications of God's manifestations and attributes, to whatever extent his reason, his conviction, or his fancy dictates." -Pages 575,576. "You have heretofore, in some of the Degrees through which you have passed, heard much of the ancient worship of the Sun, the Moon, and the other bright luminaries of Heaven, and of the Elements and Powers of Universal Nature... "Perhaps you have supposed that we, like many who have written on these subjects, have intended to represent this worship to you as the most ancient and original worship of the first men that lived. To undeceive you, if such was your conclusion, we have caused the Personifications of the Great Luminary of Heaven, under the names by which he was known to the most ancient nations, to proclaim the old primitive truths that were known to the Fathers of our race, before men came to worship the visible manifestations of the Supreme Power and Magnificence and the Supposed Attributes of the Universal Deity in the Elements and in the glittering armies that Night regularly marshals and arrays upon the blue field of the firmament. "We ask now your attention to a still further development of these truths, after we shall have added something to what we have already said in regard to the Chief Luminary of Heaven, in explanation of the names and characteristics of the several imaginary Deities that represented him among the ancient races of men." -Pages 583,584.
GOD BY MANY NAMES [PIKE NOW DESCRIBES "GOD" BY THE MANY NAMES AND THE NATIONS WHICH ADORED HIM, ALL PAGAN. BURIED AMONGST THESE MANY COMMENTS IS THE FOLLOWING ENLIGHTENING BIT OF INFORMATION.] "MITHRAS was the Sun-God of the Persians...His feasts were celebrated at that period, at the moment when the sun commenced to return Northward, and to increase the length of the days. This was the great Feast of the Magian religion. The Roman Calendar...fixed his feast-day on the 25th of December...To him, gold, incense, and myrrh were consecrated." -Page 587. "BAL, representative or personification of the sun, was one of the Great Gods of Syria, Assyria, and Chaldea, and his name is found upon the monuments of Nimraud, and frequently occurs in the Hebrew writings. He was the Great Nature-God of Babylonia, the Power of heat, life, and generation. His symbol was the Sun, and he was figured seated on a bull. All the accessories of his great temple at Babylon, described by Herodotus, are repeated with singular fidelity, but on a smaller scale, in the Hebrew tabernacle and temple. The golden statue alone is wanted to complete the resemblance. The word Bal or Baal, like the word Adon, signifies Lord and Master." -Pages 590,591. "As the Sun bent Southward toward that void, they shuddered with dread: and when, at the Winter Solstice, he again commenced his Northward march, they rejoiced and feasted; as they did at the Summer Solstice, when most he appeared to smile upon them in his pride of place. These days have been celebrated by all civilized nations ever since. The Christian has made them feast-days of the church, and appropriated them to the two Saints John; and Masonry has done the same." -Page 595. "God made man in His own likeness...The...real essence of the primitive man, and his true nature...consisted in his likeness to God. HE stamped HIS own image upon man's soul...and the impress...every reflecting mind may discover in its own interior." -Page 598. [DISCOVER THE DIVINITY WITHIN ONESELF. ] "Deva, God, is derived from the root div, to shine." -Page 601. [HE SAYS THIS TO EQUATE DEVA WITH LIGHT.] "Let us adore the supremacy of that Divine Sun, the Godhead who illuminates all..." -Page 606. [REMEMBER PAGE 321?] "The Sun...was worshipped among other symbols by the name of MITHRAS..." -Page 612. "Mithras is not only light, but intelligence...Mithras is the present exemplification of the Primal Unity from which all things arose, and into which, through his mediation, all contrarieties will ultimately be absorbed. His annual sacrifice is the passover of the Magi, a symbolical atonement or pledge of moral and physical regeneration." -Page 613. [MITHRA WAS THE GODDESS OF BABYLON WHOM THE UPANISHADS AND VEDAS OF INDIA FIRST CHOSE AS THEIR GODDESS LONG AGO. FROM THIS BEGINNING ALL THE DEITIES OF INDIA EVOLVED. THESE BE YOUR GODS, MY FREEMASON FRIEND.] "Much of the primitive Truth was taught to Pythagoras by Zoroaster, who himself received it from the Indians. His disciples...smiled at the folly of those nations who imagined that the Deity sprang from or had any affinity with human nature." -Page 617. "The Druids...practised the strictest morality, having particularly the most sacred regard for that peculiarly Masonic virtue, Truth." -Pages 618,619. [SEE PAGE 819, AND TELL US ALL ABOUT THAT PECULIARLY MASONIC VIRTUE. TRUTH APPEARS TO BE RELATIVE. 819 IS ALSO SITUATIONAL ETHICS - TELL THE TRUTH WHEN NEEDED: LIE WHEN THE TRUTH WILL NOT DO.] "And the Peleides of Dodona said, "Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus will be; O great Zeus!" -Page 619. [PIKE IS ALWAYS INTRODUCING ITEMS PARALLEL TO CHRISTIANITY, TO TRY TO ATTACH GREAT ANTIQUITY TO ALL CHRISTIAN ACTS, SYMBOLS AND STORIES, SO AS TO THEN CREATE DOUBT IN THE MIND OF THE INITIATE AS TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE TRUE BIBLICAL AND HISTORIC ORIGINS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, THEREBY WEAKENING HIS FAITH IN JESUS; IN THIS CASE, THE TRINITY. THUS, THE BIBLE IN THE MASONIC LODGE IS A JOKE AND CONSIDERED NO MORE SIGNIFICANT THAT A COPY OF MOTHER GOOSE.] "The Tetragrammaton, or some other word covered by it, was forbidden to be pronounced. But that its pronunciation might not be lost among the Levites, the High-Priest uttered it in the Temple once a year, on the 10th day of the Month Tisri, the day of the great feast of expiation. During this ceremony, the people were directed to make a great noise, that the Sacred Word might not be heard by any who had not a right to it; for every other, said the Jews, would be incontinently stricken dead. "The Great Egyptian Initiates, before the time of the Jews, did the same thing in regard to the word Isis; which they regarded as sacred and incommunicable." -Page 620. [SEE WHAT WE MEAN?] "The Jews feared that the Heathen would get possession of the Name: and therefore, in their copies of the Scriptures, they wrote it in the Samaritan character, instead of the Hebrew or Chaldaic, that the adversary might not make an improper use of it: for they believed it capable of working miracles: and held that the wonders in Egypt were performed by Moses, in virtue of this name being engraved on his rod: and that any person who knew the true pronunciation would be able to do as much as he did." -Page 621. [HERE, PIKE REDUCES THE MIRACLES OF GOD TO A MAGIC WAND AND INCANTATION THAT ANYONE COULD USE AND DUPLICATE.] "Vishnu is to judge the world at the last day. It is to be consumed by fire: The Sun and Moon are to lose their light; the Stars to fall; and a New Heaven and Earth to be created." -Page 623. [PARALLEL TO THE BOOK OF REVELATION.]
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MODERN MASONRY EQUAL"In the Mysteries, wherever they were practiced, was taught that truth of the primitive revelation, the existence of One Great Being, Infinite and pervading the Universe, Who was there worshipped without superstition...the Mysteries were carried into every country...those who were capable of understanding them, and maintaining the true doctrine incorrupt; which the people, prone to superstition and idolatry, have in no age been able to do; nor, as many strange aberrations and superstitions of the present day prove, any more now than heretofore. For we need but point to the doctrines of so many sects that degrade the Creator to the rank, and assign to Him the passions of humanity...Though Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries, it is so in this qualified sense; that it presents but an imperfect image of their brilliancy; the ruins only of their grandeur...Upon leaving Egypt, the Mysteries were modified by the habits of the different nations among whom they were introduced...among the Hebrews, they partook of the rites and ceremonies of a religion which placed all the powers of government, and all the knowledge, in the hands of the Priests and Levites...Each people, at all informed, had its Mysteries. After a time the Temples of Greece and the School of Pythagoras lost their reputation, and Freemasonry took their place. "Masonry, when properly expounded, is at once the interpretation of the great book of nature... "The Kabalistic doctrine was long the religion of the Sage and the Savant; because, like Freemasonry, it incessantly tends toward spiritual perfection, and the fusion of the creeds and Nationalities of Mankind." -Pages 624, 625. [THAT SOUNDS LIKE "ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT" AND PARALLELS THE EFFORTS OF OTHER CHRIST HATERS AS THEY UNITE THE WORLD IN PREPARATION FOR ANTICHRIST.] "The Kabalah is the key of the occult sciences; and the Gnostics were born of the Kabalists." -Page 626. [KABALAHLISM WAS A SYSTEM OF BELIEF HATCHED IN BABYLON BY JEWS WHO REFUSED TO RETURN TO JERUSALEM WITH NEHEMIAH. THEY WROTE THE TALMUD AND THE KABALAH WHICH TEACHES THAT GOD HAS A WIFE. KABALAH ALSO TEACHES THAT GOD ABANDOND HIS WIFE SHAKINAH TO SHCAK UP WITH LILITH, THE WIFE OF SATAN. THIS IS SAID TO HAVE HAPPENED WHEN THE JEWS WENT INTO CAPTIVITY. KABALAHIST ZIONIST JEWS PRAY TO GOD, BEGGING HIM TO RETURN TO HIS WIFE SHAKINAH. THEY BELIEVE WHEN GOD DOES THIS, THE MESSIANIC KINGDOM WILL COME IN. MORE ON SHEKINAH HERE]
THE USE OF THE TRIANGLE TO DENOTE THE TRINITYAND THE USE OF THE LETTER "G""It is to be noted that the name of God in Latin and French (Deus, Dieu), has for its initial the Delta or Greek Triangle. Such is the reason, among ancients and moderns, for the consecration of the Triangle, whose three sides are emblems of the three Kingdoms, or Nature, or God. In the centre is the Hebrew JOD...the Animating Spirit of Fire, the generative principle, represented by the letter G., initial of the name of Deity in the languages of the North, and the meaning whereof is Generation. The first side of the Triangle, offered to the study of the Apprentice, is the mineral kingdom, symbolized by Tub-- [THE THREE DOTS ARE ACTUALLY IN THE SHAPE OF A TRIANGLE: THE MASONIC SYMBOL FOR AN ABBREVIATION. THIS ABBREVIATION MEANS TUBELCAIN;, ONE OF THE SECRET PASSWORDS IN THE FIRST THREE DEGREES.] The second side, the subject of the meditations of the Fellow Craft, is the vegetable kingdom, symbolized by Schib-- [AGAIN, AN ABBREVIATION, THIS ONE MEANS SCHIBOLETH; (VARIOUS SPELLINGS), ANOTHER SECRET PASSWORD] (an ear of corn). In this reign begins the Generation of bodies; and this is why the letter G., in its radiance, is presented to the eyes of the adept.; The third side, the study whereof is devoted to the animal kingdom, and completes the instruction of the Master, is symbolized by Mach-- -Page 631,632. [THIS ONE MEANS MAH-HAH-BONE (VARIOUS SPELLINGS).] "The Ingenious and mystical idea which caused the Triangle to be venerated, was applied to the figure 4 (4). It was said that it expressed a living being, I, bearer of the Triangle, [THIS FOLLOWED BY THE EMBLEM OF A TRIANGLE] the emblem of God; i.e., man bearing with himself a Divine principle." -Page 633.
THE NUBER FIVE "It is the Pentalpha of Pythaforas, or Pentangle of Solomon; has five lines and five angles; and is, among Masons, the outline or origin of the five-pointed Star, and an emblem of Fellowship." -Page 634. "The number 10...was, among the Sages, a sign of concord, love, and peace. To Masons it is a sign of union and good faith; because it is expressed by joining two hands, or the Masters grip, when the number of fingers gives 10: and it was represented by the Tetractys of Pythagoras." -Page 638. [WE SHALL SEE MORE ABOUT THE TETRACTYS LATER. SUFFICE IT TO SAY AT THIS POINT, THAT THE NUMBER 10 REPRESENTS GOD, AND PIKES THEORY OF THE UNION OF GOD: GOOD AND EVIL IN ONE.] "...geometry, connected as the latter is with God Himself in the mind of a Mason, because the same letter, suspended in the East, represents both..." -Page 640. "The candidate, after passing through the first part of the ceremony, imagines himself a Master; and is surprised to be informed that as yet he is not, and that it is uncertain whether he ever will be. He is told of a difficult and dangerous path yet to be travelled, and is advised that upon that journey it depends whether he will become a Master. This is symbolical of that which our Saviour said to Nicodemus, that, notwithstanding his morals might be beyond reproach, he could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he were born again; symbolically dying, and again entering the world regenerate, like a spotless infant." -Page 640. [AGAIN, SEE PAGE 819.] "The murder of Hiram, his burial, and his being raised again by the Master, are symbols, both of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Redeemer; and of the death and burial in sins of the natural man, and his being raised again to a new life, or born again, by the direct action of the Redeemer; after Morality (symbolized by the Entered Apprentice's grip), and Philosophy (symbolized by the grip of the Fellow-Craft), had failed to raise him. That of the Lion of the House of Judah is the strong grip, never to be broken, with which Christ, of the royal line of that House, has clasped to Himself the whole human race, and embraces them in His wide arms as closely and affectionately as brethren embrace each other on the five points of fellowship." -Pages 640,641. "The two columns, Jachin and Boaz, are the symbols of that profound faith and implicit trust in God and the Redeemer [NOTE THAT GOD AND THE REDEEMER ARE NOT MENTIONED AS THE SAME THING, BUT AS SEPARATE] that are the Christian's strength; and of those good works by which alone that faith can be established and made operative and effectual to salvation. "The three pillars that support the Lodge are symbols of a Christian's HOPE in a future state of happiness; FAITH in the promises and the divine character and mission of the Redeemer; and CHARITABLE JUDGEMENT of other men. "The three murderers of Khir-Om symbolize Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas the High-Priest, and Judas Iscariot: and the three blows given him are the betrayal by the last, the refusal of Roman protection by Pilate, and the condemnation by the High-Priest. They also symbolize the blow on the ear, the scourging, and the crown of thorns. The twelve fellow-crafts sent in search of the body are the twelve disciples, in doubt whether to believe that the Redeemer would rise from the dead. "The Master's word, supposed to be lost, symbolizes the Christian faith and religion, supposed to have been crushed and destroyed when the Saviour was crucified, after Iscariot had betrayed Him, and Peter deserted Him, and when the other disciples doubted whether He would arise from the dead; but which rose from His tomb and flowed rapidly over the civilized world; and so that which was supposed to be lost was found. It symbolizes also the Saviour Himself; the WORD that was in the beginning--that was with God, and that was God; the Word of life, that was made flesh and dwelt among us, and was supposed to be lost, while He lay in the tomb, for three days and His disciples "as yet knew not the scripture that He must rise again from the dead," and doubted when they heard of it, and were amazed and frightened and still doubted when He appeared among them. "The bush of acacia placed at the head of the grave of Khir-Om is an emblem of resurrection and immortality. "Such are the explanations of our Christian brethren; entitled, like those of all other Masons, to a respectful consideration." [NOTE THAT HE DID NOT SAY "SUCH ARE MY EXPLANATIONS". PIKE ENTERS THESE EXPLANATIONS OF OUR CHRISTIAN BRETHREN; SIMPLY AS ANOTHER TAKE ON THE SYMBOLS. THIS IS MEANT TO APPEASE THEM, AND TO CONTINUE TO HIDE FROM VEIW THE TRUE MEANINGS OF THE SYMBOLS.] -Pages 641,642. "It will ever make a vast difference in the conduct of a people in war or peace, whether they believe the Supreme God to be a cruel Deity, delighting in sacrifice and blood, or a God of Love..." -Page 643. "The popular Theology, which at first is only an abstract idea in the heads of philosophers..." -Page 643. "As the world grows in its development, it necessarily outgrows its ancient ideas of God, which were only temporary and provisional. A man who has a higher conception of God than those about him, and who denies that their conception is God, is very likely to be called an Atheist by men who are really far less believers in a God than he." -Page 643. "He [MAN] in every case makes God after his own image; for do what we will, the highest efforts of human thought can conceive nothing higher than the supremacy of intellect; and so he ever comes back to some familiar type of exalted humanity. He at first deifies nature, and afterward himself." -Page 652. "The Brahmins of India expressed the same cosmogonic idea by a statue, representative of the Universe, uniting in itself both sexes. The male sex offered an image of the sun, centre of the active principle, and the female sex that of the moon, at the sphere whereof, proceeding downward, the passive portion of nature begins. The Lingam, unto the present day revered in the Indian temples, being but the conjunction of the organs of generation of the two sexes, was an emblem of the same. The Hindus have ever had the greatest veneration for this symbol of ever-reproductive nature. The Greeks consecrated the same symbols of universal fruitfulness in their Mysteries; and they were exhibited in the sanctuaries of Eleusis. They appear among the sculptured ornaments of all the Indian temples. Tertullian accuses the Valentinians of having adopted the custom of venerating them; a custom, he says, introduced by Melampus from Egypt into Greece. The Egyptians consecrated the Phallus in the Mysteries of Osiris and Isis, as we learn from Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus; and the latter assures us that these emblems were not consecrated by the Egyptians alone, but by every people. They certainly were so among the Persians and Assyrians; and they were regarded everywhere as symbolic of the generative and productive powers of all animated beings. In those early ages, the works of Nature and all her agents were sacred like herself. "For the union of Nature with herself is a chaste marriage, of which the union of man and woman was a natural image, and their organs were an expressive emblem of the double energy which manifests itself in Heaven and Earth uniting together to produce all beings." -Page 656. "Everywhere the sacred body of Nature was covered with the veil of allegory, which concealed it from the profane, and allowed it to be seen only by the sage who thought it worthy to be the object of his study and investigation. She showed herself to those only who loved her in spirit and in truth..." -Page 659. [NOTE THE PARALLEL TO SCRIPTURE, WHERE JESUS SAID THAT WE MUST WORSHIP GOD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.] "The energy of mind is life, and God is that energy in its purity and perfection. He is therefore life itself, eternal and perfect; and this sums up all that is meant by the term "God." -Page 681. "God alone is all-powerful; but the human soul has in all ages asserted its claim to be considered as part of the Divine." -Page 684. "Many of the Ancients thought it absurd to imagine one Supreme Being...They therefore substituted...the doctrine of two distinct and eternal principles...and fancifully invented an Evil Principle... "The simpler, and probably the older, notion, treated the one only God as the Author of all things. "I form the light," says Jehovah, "and create darkness; I cause prosperity and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things."... "The Deity of the Old Testatment [SIC] is everywhere represented as the direct author of Evil, commissioning evil and lying spirits to men, hardening the heart of Pharaoh, and visiting the iniquity of the individual sinner on the whole people. The rude conception of sternness predominating over mercy in the Deity, can alone account for the human sacrifices, purposed, if not executed, by Abraham and Jephthah. It has not been uncommon, in any age or country of the world, for men to recognize the existence of one God, without forming any becoming estimate of His dignity. The causes of both good and ill are referred to a mysterious centre, to which each assigns such attributes as correspond with his own intellect and advance in civilization. Hence the assignment to the Deity of the feelings of envy and jealousy ...This Divine Envy still exists in a modified form, and varies according to circumstances. In Hesiod it appears in the lowest type of human malignity. In the God of Moses, it is jealousy of the infringement of the autocratic power, the check to political treason; and even the penalties denounced for worshipping other gods often seem dictated rather by a jealous regard for His own greatness in Deity, than by the immorality and degraded nature of the worship itself." -Pages 687,688. "To account for moral evil, it became necessary to devise some new expedient suited both to the piety and self-complacency of the inventor, such as the perversity of woman, or an agent distinct from God, a Typhon or Ahriman, obtained either by dividing the Gods into two classes, or by dethroning the Ancient Divinity, and changing him into a Dev or Daemon...the Hebrew transferred to Satan everything illegal and immoral...-Page 690. And at last reaching the highest truth, Pindar, Hesiod, AEschylus, AEsop, and Horace said, ..."It was a blessing to man, not a curse, to be sentenced to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow..." -Page 691. "In order that it might exercise its proper influence over religion and philosophy, it was necessary that the God of Nature should cease to be a God of terrors, a personification of mere Power or arbitrary Will, a pure and stern Intelligence, an inflictor of evil, and an unrelenting Judge." -Page 692.
PIKES DESCRIPTION OF HIS GOD, LUCIFER "Man is capable of a higher Love, [THIS IS ONE OF PIKES TERMS FOR HIS GOD, REVEALED IN HIS LECTURE OF THE PREVIOUS PAGES] which, marrying mind with mind and with the Universe, brings forth all that is noblest in his faculties, and lifts him beyond himself. This higher love is neither mortal nor immortal, but a power intermediate between the human and the Divine, filling up the mighty interval, and binding the Universe together. He is chief of those celestial emissaries who carry to the gods the prayers of men, and bring down to men the gifts of the gods. "He is forever poor, and far from being beautiful as mankind imagine, for he is squalid and withered; he flies low along the ground, is homeless and unsandalled; sleeping without covering before the doors and in the unsheltered streets, and possessing so far his mother's nature as being ever the companion of want. Yet, sharing also that of his father, he is forever scheming to obtain things good and beautiful; he is fearless, vehement, and strong; always devising some new contrivance; strictly cautious and full of inventive resource; a philosopher through his whole existence, a powerful enchanter, and a subtle sophist." " -Page 692. "...the new and wonderful Force or Substance we call Electricity, apparently a link between Matter and Spirit..." -Page 697. "Where, then, amid all these conflicting opinions, is the True Word of a Mason? "My Brother, most of the questions which have thus tortured men's minds, it is not within the reach and grasp of the Human Intellect to understand; but without understanding, as we have explained to you heretofore, we may and must believe. "The True Word of a Mason is to be found in the concealed and profound meaning of the Ineffable Name of Deity, communicated by God to Moses; and which meaning was long lost by the very precautions taken to conceal it. The true pronunciation of that name was in truth a secret, in which, however, was involved the far more profound secret of its meaning. In that meaning is included all the truth that can be known by us, in regard to the nature of God. "Long known as AL, AL ACHADAI, ALOHAYIM, and ADONAI; as the Chief or Commander of the Heavenly Armies; as the aggregate of the Forces (ALOHAYIM) of Nature; as the Mighty, the Victorious, the Rival of Bal and Osiris; as the Soul of Nature, Nature itself, a God that was but Man personified, a God with human passions, the God of the Heathen [REMEMBER, HE USUALLY MEANS "JEWS" WHEN HE SAYS "HEATHEN"] with but a mere change of name, He assumes, in His communications to Moses, the name...(IHUH), and says to Him...(AHIH ASHR AHIH), I AM WHAT I AM. Let us examine the esoteric or inner meaning of this Ineffable Name." -Page 697. [WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND TO OUR READERS THAT YOU READ THE ACTUAL PAGES OF 697 AND 698, AS PIKE USES AND DISCUSSES HEBREW LETTERS A LOT. AS WE DON'T HAVE THE CAPABILITIES TO TYPE HEBREW CHARACTERS HERE, WE WERE FORCED TO USE (...) IN THEIR STEAD. WE WILL ONLY ENTER SOME OF THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR EDIFICATION, BUT AS WE SAY, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ THE ACTUAL PAGES YOURSELF FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE LECTURE.] "Now...(HUA and HIA) are the Personal Pronoun (Masculine and Feminine), HE, SHE. Thus in Gen. iv. 20 we have the phrase, (HUA HIH), HE WAS: and in Lev xxi. 9,...(ATH ABIH HIA), HER Father... "So...(HUA-HIA), He-She, could properly be written...(HU-HI); or by transposition of the letters, common with the Talmudists...(IH-UH), which is the Tetragrammaton or Ineffable Name. "In Gen. 1. 27, it is said, "So the ALHIM created man in His image: {in the image} of ALHIM created He him: MALE and FEMALE created He them." -Page 698. "Sometimes the word was thus expressed; triangularly: [WE WILL SUBSTITUTE LETTERS FOR THE HEBREW LETTERS IN THE FOLLOWING FORMAT, JUST TO COPY PIKES ILLUSTRATION] H H U H I H H U H I "And we learn that this designation of the Ineffable Name was, among the Hebrews, a symbol of Creation. The mysterious union of God with His creatures was in the letter [THE LETTER "H" WHICH WE SUBSTITUTED FOR THE HEBREW CHARACTER PIKE USED.] which they considered to be the Agent of Almighty Power; and to enable the possessor of the Name to work miracles. "The Personal Pronoun...(HUA), HE, is often used by itself, to express the Deity...It means in such cases the Male, Generative, or Creative Principle or Power. "It was a common practice with the Talmudists to conceal secret meanings and sounds of words by transposing the letters. "The reversal of the letters of words was, indeed, anciently common everywhere." -Pages 698,699. "In Coptic we have Chlom, a crown. Reversed, we have in Hebrew, Molech, or Malec, a King, or he who wears a crown." -Page 699. [NOTE THAT THE TWO-HEADED BIRD ON THE COVER OF EVERY COPY OF MORALS AND DOGMA WHICH REPRESENTS THE SCOTTISH RITE IS ALSO REPRESENTING LUCIFER. SCRIPTURE TELLS US THAT WHEN AN IDOL OR FALSE RELIGION IS WORSHIPPED, AS MOLOCH WAS, IT IS NOT GOD, BUT A DEMON WHICH IS BEING WORSHIPPED. SATAN IS THEIR LEADER, AND HE IS WEARING A CROWN AS THE TWO-HEADED BIRD AS A KING.] "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; but also the idea of the Male and Female Principles, in its highest and most profound sense; to wit, that God originally comprehended in Himself all that is: that matter was not coexistent with Him, or independent of Him; that He did not merely fashion and shape a pre-existing 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 productive Matter, ever among the ancients deemed the Female, originally were in God; and that He Was and Is all that Was, that 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 this true arrangement of its letters, and of course its true pronunciation and its meaning, soon became lost to all except the select few to whom it was confided; it being concealed from the common people, because the Deity thus metaphysically named was not that personal and capricious, and as it were tangible God in whom they believed, and who alone was within the reach of their rude capacities." -Page 700. [WE BELIEVE WE ALL SEE HERE PIKES ADMISSION AS TO WHY MASONS ARE TO KEEP SECRET THE WORSHIP OF "THE DEITY" THAT GOES ON IN FREEMASONRY. IT IS BECAUSE IT IS NOT THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIANS NOR THE JEWS. IF IT WERE REVEALED AND KNOWN ON A LARGE SCALE, PIKE FEARED THE OUTCRY AND SWIFT RETRIBUTION WHICH WOULD BE SURE TO FOLLOW IN HIS DAY. UNFORTUNATELY FOR TODAY, THIS IS APPARENTLY NO LONGER TRUE. OUR CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES HAVE COMPROMISED WITH MASONRY TOO MUCH FOR THAT TO HAPPEN.] "Macrobius says that it was an admitted axiom among the Heathen, [REMEMBER THIS IS PIKES WORD FOR THE JEWISH NATION] that the triliteral IA [OMEGA IS THE NEXT LETTER TO FORM THIS THREE-LETTER WORD] was the sacred name of the Supreme God. And the Clarion oracle said: "Learn thou that IA [AND OMEGA] is the great God Supreme, that ruleth over all." The letter I signified Unity. A and [OMEGA] are the first and last letters of the Greek Alphabet. "Hence the frequent expression: " I am the First, and I am the Last; and besides Me there is no other God. I am A. and [OMEGA], the First and the Last. I am A. and [OMEGA], the Beginning and the Ending, which Is, and Was, and Is to come: the Omnipotent." For in this we see shadowed forth the same great truth; that God is all in all--the Cause and the Effect--the beginning, or Impulse, or Generative Power: and the Ending, or Result, or that which is produced..." -Page 701. "And thus the meaning of the expression, ALOHAYIM, a plural noun, used, in the account of the Creation with which Genesis commences, with a singular verb, and of the name or title IHUH-ALHIM, used for the first time in the 4th verse of the 2d chapter of the same book, becomes clear. The ALHIM is the aggregate unity of the manifested Creative Forces or Powers of Deity, His Emanations; and IHUH-ALHIM is the ABSOLUTE Existence, or essence of these Powers and Forces, of which they are Active Manifestations and Emanations. "This was the profound truth hidden in the ancient allegory and covered from the general view with a double veil. This was the esoteric meaning of the generation and production...the Active and Passive Powers, of the Male and Female Principles; of Heaven and its Luminaries generating, and the Earth producing; all hiding from vulgar view, as above its comprehension, the doctrine that matter is not eternal, but that God was the only original Existence, the ABSOLUTE, from Whom everything has proceeded, and to Whom all returns: and that all moral law springs not from the relation of things, but from His Wisdom and Essential Justice, as the Omnipotent Legislator. And this TRUE WORD is with entire accuracy said to have been lost; because its meaning was lost, even among the Hebrews, although we still find the name (its real meaning unsuspected), in the HU of the Druids and the FO-HI of the Chinese." -Pages 701,702. "As all beautiful and all true things refer themselves, these to a Unity which is absolute TRUTH, and those to a Unity which is absolute BEAUTY, so all the moral principles centre in a single principle, which is THE GOOD. Thus we arrive at the conception of THE GOOD in itself, the ABSOLUTE Good, superior to all particular duties, and determinate in those duties. This Absolute Good must necessarily be an attribute of the Absolute BEING. There cannot be several Absolute Beings; the one in whom are realized Absolute Truth and Absolute Beauty being different from the one in whom is realized Absolute Good. The Absolute necessarily implies absolute Unity. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good are not three distinct essences: but they are one and the same essence, considered in its fundamental attributes: the different phases which, in our eyes, the Absolute and Infinite Perfection assumes. Manifested in the world of the Finite and Relative, these three attributes separate from each other, and are distinguished by our minds, which can comprehend nothing except by division. But in the Being from Whom they emanate, they are indivisibly united; and this Being, at once triple and one, Who sums up in Himself perfect Beauty, perfect Truth, and the perfect Good is GOD." -Pages 702,703. "If man be free, God must be so. It would be strange if, while the creature has that marvellous power of disposing of himself, of choosing and willing freely, the Being that has made him should be subject to a necessary development, the cause of which, though in Himself, is a sort of abstract, mechanical, or metaphysical power, inferior to the personal, voluntary cause which we are, and of which we have the clearest consciousness." -Pages 703,704. [DOES HE MEAN THAT AS WE CAN "MARVELOUSLY" COMMIT SUICIDE FREELY AND BY CHOICE, THEN GOD, AS CREATOR, MUST BE ABLE TO DO THE SAME, AND KILL HIMSELF? IS HE REFERRING TO THE CHRIST LEAVING JESUS UPON THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE MAN?] "Plato well understood that love of God, and expressed it in these great words: "Let us speak of the cause which led the Supreme Arranger of the Universe to produce and regulate that Universe. He was good; and he who is good has no kind of ill-will. Exempt from that, He willed that created things should be, as far as possible, like Himself." And Christianity in its turn said, "God has so loved men that He has given them His only Son." "It is not correct to affirm, as is often done, that Christianity has in some sort discovered this noble sentiment. We must not lower human nature, to raise Christianity." -Page 704. "God, therefore, in the Masonic creed, is INFINITE TRUTH, INFINITE BEAUTY, INFINITE GOODNESS. He is the Holy of Holies, as Author of the Moral Law, as the PRINCIPLE of Liberty, of Justice, and of Charity, Dispenser of Reward and Punishment. Such a God is not an abstract God; but an intelligent and free person, Who has made us in His image, from Whom we receive the law that presides over our destiny, and Whose judgment we await. It is His love that inspires us in our acts of charity: it is His justice that governs our justice, and that of society and the laws." -Pages 706,707. "Thus, from every direction,--from metaphysics, aesthetics, and morality above all, we rise to the same Principle, the common centre, and ultimate foundation of all truth, all beauty, all good. The True, the Beautiful, the Good, are but diverse revelations of one and the same Being. Thus we reach the threshold of religion; and are in communion with the great philosophies which all proclaim a God; and at the same time with the religions which cover the earth, and all repose on the sacred foundation of natural religion; of that religion which reveals to us the natural light given to all men, without the aid of a particular revelation." -Page 708.
MASONRY AND RELIGION[THE FOLLOWING LECTURE IS VERY INTERESTING AND CAN BE UNDERSTOOD WHEN WE RECALL THAT PIKE DIFFERENTIATES BETWEEN JESUS AND CHRIST.] "Masonry propagates no creed except its own most simple and Sublime One; that universal religion, taught by Nature and by Reason. Its Lodges are neither Jewish, Moslem, nor Christian Temples. It reiterates the precepts of morality of all religions. It venerates the character and commends the teachings of the great and good of all ages and of all countries. It extracts the good and not the evil, the truth, and not the error, from all creeds; and acknowledges that there is much which is good and true in all. "Above all the other great teachers of morality and virtue, it reveres the character of the Great Master Who, submissive to the will of His and our Father, died upon the Cross. All must admit, that if the world were filled with beings like Him, the great ills of society would be at once relieved... "If every man were a perfect imitator of that Great, Wise, Good Teacher, clothed with all His faith and all His virtues, how the circle of Life's ills and trials would be narrowed!...Every man would feel that the whole human race were his brothers.... "However the Mason may believe as to creeds, and churches, and miracles, and missions from Heaven, he must admit that the Life and character of Him who taught in Galilee, and fragments of Whose teachings have come down to us, are worthy of all imitation. That Life is an undenied and undeniable Gospel. Its teachings cannot be passed by and discarded. All must admit that it would be happiness to follow and perfection to imitate Him. None ever felt for Him a sincere emotion of contempt, nor in anger accused Him of sophistry, nor saw immorality lurking in His doctrines; however they may judge of those who succeeded Him, and claimed to be His apostles. Divine or human, inspired or only a reforming Essene, it must be agreed that His teachings are far nobler, far purer, far less alloyed with error and imperfection, far less of the earth earthly, than those of Socrates, Plato, Seneca, or Mahomet, or any other of the great moralists and Reformers of the world." -Pages 718,719. [HERE PIKE PRAISES JESUS ONLY IN THE SENSE THAT WE SHOULD MIMIC HIM IN OUR ACTIONS, WHICH DOVETAILS NICELY WITH THE TEACHINGS OF MASONRY TO EARN OUR SALVATION THROUGH OUR GOOD WORKS. FOR THOSE WHO HAVE ANY DOUBTS AT THIS TIME AS TO PIKES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN JESUS AND CHRIST, PLEASE SEE PAGE 813.] "The Kabalistic book of the Apocalypse is represented as closed with Seven Seals. In it we find the Seven Genii of the Ancient Mythologies; and the doctrine concealed under its emblems is the pure Kabala, already lost by the Pharisees at the advent of the Saviour." -Page 727. "The Cherub, or symbolic bull, which Moses places at the gate of the Edenic world, holding a blazing sword, is a Sphinx, with the body of a bull and a human head; the old Assyrian Sphinx whereof the combat and victory of Mithras were the hieroglyphic analysis. This armed Sphinx represents the law of the Mystery, which keeps watch at the door of initiation, to repulse the Profane." -Page 728.
SCIENCE, A.K.A. MAGIC, WICCA OR WITCHCRAFT AND ALCHEMY "Through the veil of all the hieratic and mystic allegories of the ancient dogmas, under the seal of all the sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the worn stones of the ancient temples, and on the blackened face of the sphinx of Assyria or Egypt, in the monstrous or marvellous pictures which the sacred pages of the Vedas translate for the believers of India, in the strange emblems of our old books of alchemy, in the ceremonies of reception practised by all the mysterious Societies, we find the traces of a doctrine, everywhere the same, and everywhere carefully concealed. The occult philosophy seems to have been the nurse or the godmother of all religions, the secret lever of all the intellectual forces, the key of all divine obscurities, and the absolute Queen of Society, in the ages when it was exclusively reserved for the education of the Priests and Kings. "It had reigned in Persia with the Magi, who perished one day, as the masters of the world had perished, for having abused their power. It had endowed India with the most marvellous traditions, and an incredible luxury of poetry, grace, and terror in its emblems: it had civilized Greece by the sounds of the lyre of Orpheus: it hid the principles of all the sciences, and of the whole progression of the human spirit, in the audacious calculations of Pythagoras: fable teemed with its miracles; and history, when it undertook to judge of this unknown power, confounded itself with fable: it shook or enfeebled empires by its oracles; made tyrants turn pale on their thrones, and ruled over all minds by means of curiosity or fear. To this science, said the crowd, nothing is impossible; it commands the elements, knows the language of the planets, and controls the movements of the stars; the moon, at its voice, falls reeking with blood, from Heaven; the dead rise upright on their graves, and shape into fatal words the wind that breathes through their skulls. Controller of Love or Hate, this science can at pleasure confer on human hearts Paradise or Hell: it disposes at will of all forms, and distributes beauty or deformity as it pleases: it changes in turn, with the rod of Circe, [A MAGIC WAND?] men into brutes and animals into men: it even disposes of Life or of Death, and can bestow on its adepts riches by the transmutation of metals, and immortality by its quintessence and elixir, compounded of gold and light. "This is what magic had been, from Zoroaster to Manes, from Orpheus to Apollonius Thyaneus; when positive Christianity, triumphing over the splendid dreams and gigantic aspirations of the school of Alexandria, publicly crushed this philosophy with its anathemas, and compelled it to became more occult and more mysterious than ever. "At the bottom of magic, nevertheless, was science, as at the bottom of Christianity there was love; and in the Evangelic Symbols we see the incarnate WORD adored in its infancy by three magi whom a star guides (the ternary and the sign of the microcosm), and receiving from them gold, frankincense, and myrrh; another mysterious ternary, under the emblem whereof are allegorically contained the highest secrets of the Kabala. "Christianity should not have hated magic; but human ignorance always fears the unknown. [YOU, DEAR FREEMASON, AND IF YOU ARE A BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN, NEED TO KNOW THAT THE MEN IN THE HIGHEST DEGREES CONSIDER YOU AN IGNORANT FOOL. AS TO MAGIC, GOD COMMANDED MOSES, Exodus 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. THOUGH GOD HAS NOT REQUIRED US TO KILL WITCHES IN THE CHURCH AGE, YOU ARE A FOOL IF YOU BELIEVE MAGIC (NOT SLIGHT OF HAND BUT SPIRITUAL MAGIC) SHOULD BE TOLERATED BY BIBLE BELIEVERS.] Science was obliged to conceal itself, to avoid the impassioned aggressions of a blind love. It enveloped itself in new hieroglyphs, concealed its efforts, disguised its hopes. Then was created the jargon of alchemy, a continual deception for the vulgar herd, greedy of gold, and a living language for the true disciples of Hermes alone. "Resorting to Masonry, the alchemists there invented Degrees, and partly unveiled their doctrine to their Initiates; not by the language of their receptions, but by oral instruction afterward; for their rituals, to one who has not the key, are but incomprehensible and absurd jargon. "Among the sacred books of the Christians are two works which the infallible church [NOTE THE SARCASM] does not pretend to understand, and never attempts to explain,--the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse; two cabalistic clavicules, reserved, no doubt, in Heaven, for the exposition of the Magian kings; closed with Seven seals for all faithful believers; and perfectly clear to the unbeliever initiated in the occult sciences. "For Christians, and in their opinion, the scientific and magical clavicules of Solomon are lost. Nevertheless, it is certain that, in the domain of intelligence governed by the WORD, nothing that is written is lost. Only those things which men cease to understand no longer exist for them, at least as WORD; then they enter into the domain of enigmas and mystery. "The mysterious founder of the Christian Church was saluted in His cradle by the three Magi, that is to say by the hieratic ambassadors from the three parts of the known world, and from the three analogical worlds of the occult philosophy. "In the school of Alexandria, Magic and Christianity almost take each other by the hand under the auspices of Ammonius Saccos and Plato. The dogma of Hermes is found almost entire in the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. Sunesius traces the plan of a treatise on dreams, which was subsequently to be commented on by Cardan, and composes hymns which might serve for the liturgy of the Church of Swedenborg, [ANOTHER CULT STARTED BY ANOTHER CULTIST] if a church of illuminati could have a liturgy. "To this epoch of ardent abstractions and impassioned logomachies belongs the philosophical reign of Julian, an illuminatus and Initiate of the first order, who believed in the unity of God and the universal Dogma of the Trinity, and regretted the loss of nothing of the old world but its magnificent symbols and too graceful images. He was no Pagan, but a Gnostic, infected with the allegories of Grecian polytheism, and whose misfortune it was to find the name of Jesus Christ less sonorous than that of Orpheus. "We may be sure that so soon as Religion and Philosophy become distinct departments, the mental activity of the age is in advance of its Faith; and that, though habit may sustain the latter for a time, its vitality is gone. "The dunces who led primitive Christianity astray, by substituting faith for science, reverie for experience, the fantastic for the reality; and the inquisitors who for so many ages waged against Magism a war of extermination, [ANY DOUBTS NOW THAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT WITCHCRAFT?] have succeeded in shrouding in darkness the ancient discoveries of the human mind; so that we now grope in the dark to find again the key of the phenomena of nature. But all natural phenomena depend on a single and immutable law, represented by the philosophical stone and its symbolic form, which is that of a cube. This law, expressed in the Kabala by the number 4, furnished the Hebrews with all the mysteries of their divine Tetragram. "Everything is contained in that word of four letters...The Initiates ought to understand this, and, lest the profane should overhear, Masonry never says too much. "When Science had been overcome in Alexandria by the fanaticism of the murderers of Hypatia, it became Christian, or, rather, it concealed itself under Christian disguises...Then it was necessary to win the pardon of miracles by the appearance of superstition, [THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF MAGISM COULD HAVE BEEN SEEN BY THE "PROFANE" AND BEEN DEEMED EXTRAORDINARY, AND SO MAGISM (AND FREEMASONRY) HID UNDERNEATH A VENEER OF CHRISTIANITY AND CALLED THEM MIRACLES OF GOD] and of science by a language unintelligible. Hieroglyphic writing was revived, and pentacles and characters were invented, that summed up a whole doctrine in a sign, a whole series of tendencies and revelations in a word. What was the object of the aspirants to know-ledge? They sought for the secret of the great work, or the Philosophical Stone, or the perpetual motion, or the squaring of the circle, or the universal medicine; formulas which often saved them from persecution and general ill-will, by exposing them to the charge of folly; and each of which expressed one of the forces of the grand magical secret. This lasted until the time of the Roman de la Rose, which also expresses the mysterious and magical meaning of the poem of Dante, borrowed form the High kabalah, that immense and concealed source of the universal philosophy."-Pages 729-733. [THE PHILOSOPHICAL STONE REFERS IN PART TO THE ULTIMATE PLAN OF EACH MAN BECOMING "PERFECT" THROUGH HIS GOOD WORKS, AND OF FULLY RECOGNIZING HIS OWN DIVINITY.]
THE MOST POTENT FORCE OF NATURE IS LUCIFER "There is in nature one most potent force, by means whereof a single man, who could possess himself of it, and should know how to direct it, could revolutionize and change the face of the world. "This force was known to the ancients. It is a universal agent, whose Supreme law is equilibrium; and whereby, if science can but learn how to control it, it will be possible to change the order of the Seasons, to pro-duce in night the phenomena of day, to send a thought in an instant round the world, to heal or slay at a distance, to give our words universal success, and make them reverberate everywhere. "This agent, partially revealed by the blind guesses of the disciples of Mesmer, is precisely what the Adepts of the middle ages called the elementary matter of the great work. The Gnostics held that it composed the igneous body of the Holy Spirit; and it was adored in the secret rites of the Sabbat or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or the hermaphroditic goat of Mendes. [WICCA AND WITCHCRAFT] "There is a Life-Principle of the world, a universal agent, wherein are two natures and a double current, of love and wrath. This ambient fluid penetrates everything. It is a ray detached from the glory of the Sun, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the central attraction. It is the body of the Holy Spirit, the universal Agent, the Serpent devouring his own tail. With this electromagnetic ether, this vital and luminous caloric, the ancients and the alchemists were familiar. [ALCHEMISTS AND WITCHCRAFT ARE THE SAME] Of this agent, that phase of modern ignorance termed physical science talks incoherently, knowing naught of it save its effects; and theology might apply to it all its pretended definitions of spirit. Quiescent, it is appreciable by no human sense; disturbed of in movement, none can explain its mode of action; and to term in a "fluid," and speak of its "currents," is but to veil a profound ignorance under a cloud of words." -Page 734. "Miracles are the natural effects of exceptional causes." -Page 735. "In the heaven of human conceptions, it is humanity that creates God; and men think that God has made them in His image, because they make Him in theirs." -Page 736. "Saint Thomas said, "A thing is not just because God wills it, BUT GOD WILLS IT BECAUSE IT IS JUST." If he had deduced all the consequences of this fine thought, he would have discovered the true Philosopher's Stone; the magical elixir, to convert all the trials of the world into golden mercies..." -Page 737. [AGAIN, PIKE IS IMPLYING THAT ETHICS, JUSTICE, AND NATURAL LAW EXISTED BEFORE GOD EXISTED.] "NECESSITY, LIBERTY, and REASON! Behold the great and Supreme Triangle of the Kabalists! "FATALITY, WILL, and POWER! Such is the magical ternary which, in human things, corresponds with the Divine Triangle." -Page 738. "Masonry is a search after Light. [REMEMBER PAGE 321.] That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines; and may in time come to understand the Hermetic philosophers, the Alchemists, all the Antipapal Thinkers of the Middle Ages, and Emanuel Swedenborg." -Page 741. "In the beginning," says a Sanscrit hymn, "arose the Source of golden light. He was the only born Lord of all that is. He established the earth and the sky. Who is the God to Whom we shall offer our sacrifice?" -Page 741. [AGAIN, PAGE 321.] "All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah and return to it: everything scientific and grand in the religious dreams of all the illuminati, Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, and others, is borrowed from the Kabalah; all the Masonic associations owe to it their Secrets and their Symbols. "The Kabalah alone consecrates the alliance of the Universal Reason and the Divine Word; it establishes, by the counterpoises of two forces apparently opposite, the eternal balance of being; it alone reconciles Reason with Faith, Power with Liberty, Science with Mystery; it has the keys of the Present, the Past, and the Future. "The Bible, with all the allegories it contains, expresses, in an incomplete and veiled manner only, the religious science of the Hebrews. The doctrine of Moses and the Prophets, identical at bottom with that of the ancient Egyptians, also had its outward meaning and its veils. The Hebrew books were written only to recall to memory the traditions: and they were written in Symbols unintelligible to the Profane. The Pentateuch and the prophetic poems were merely elementary books of doctrine, morals, or liturgy; and the true secret and traditional philosophy was only written afterward, under veils still less transparent. Thus was a second Bible born, unknown to, or rather uncomprehended by, the Christians; a collection, {they} say, of monstrous absurdities: a monument, the adept says, wherein is everything that the genius of philosophy and that of religion have ever formed or imagined of the sublime; a treasure surrounded by thorns; a diamond concealed in a rough dark stone. "One is filled with admiration, on penetrating into the Sanctuary of the Kabalah, at seeing a doctrine so logical, so simple, and at the same time so absolute. The necessary union of ideas and signs, the consecration of the most fundamental realities by the primitive characters; the Trinity of Words, Letters, and Numbers; a philosophy simple as the alpha-bet, profound and infinite as the Word; theorems more complete and luminous than those of Pythagoras; a theology summed up by counting on one's fingers; an Infinite which can be held in the hollow of an infant's hand; ten ciphers and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a circle,--these are all the elements of the Kabalah. These are the elementary principles of the written Word, reflection of that spoken Word that created the world! "This is the doctrine of the Kabalah, with which you will no doubt seek to make yourself acquainted, as to the Creation." -Pages 744,745. "Before that anything was, says the Emech Hammelech, He, of His mere will, proposed to Himself to make worlds...[HIS DOTS] but at that time there was no vacant space for worlds; but all space was filled with the light of His Substance, which He had with fixed limits placed in the centre of Himself, and of the parts whereof, and wherein, He was thereafter to effect a folding together. "What then did the Lord of the Will, that most perfectly free Agent, do? By His own estimation, He measured off within His own Substance the width and length of a circular space to be made vacant, and wherein might be posited the worlds aforesaid; and of that Light which was included with-in the circle so measured, He compressed and folded over a certain portion ...[HIS DOTS] and that Light He lifted higher up, and so a place was left unoccupied by the Primal Light. "But yet was not this space left altogether empty of that Light; for the vestiges of the Primal Light still remained in the place where Itself had been; and they did not recede therefrom. "Before the Emanations out-flowed, and created things were created, the Supreme Light was infinitely extended, and filled the whole Where: nothing was, except that extended light, called AOR H'AINSOPH, the Light of the non-finite. "When it came into the mind of the Extended to will to make worlds, and by forth-flowing to utter Emanations, and to emit as attributes, which was the impelling cause of the creation of worlds; then that Light, in some measure compressed, receded in every direction from a particular central point, and on all sides of it drew back, and so a certain vacuum was lift, called void space, its circumference everywhere equidistant from that point which was exactly in the centre of the space...[HIS DOTS] a certain void place and space left in Mid-Infinite: a certain WHERE was thereby constituted wherein Emanations might BE, and the Created, the Fashioned and the Fabricated. "This world of the garmenting,--this circular vacant space, with the vestiges of the withdrawn light of the Infinite yet remaining, is the inmost garment, nearest to His substance; and to it belongs the name AOR PENAI-AL, Light of the Countenance of God. "An interspace surrounds this great circle, established between the light of the very substance, surrounding the circle on its outside, and the substance contained within the circle. This is called SPLENDOR EXCELSUS, in contradistinction to Simple Splendor. "This light "of the vestige of the garment," is said to be, relatively to that of the vestige of the substance, like a point in the centre of a circle. This light, a point in the centre of the Great Light, is called Auir, Ether, or Space. "This Ether is somewhat more gross than the Light--not so Subtle--though not perceptible by the Senses--is termed the Primal Ether--extends everywhere; Philosophers call it the Soul of the World. "The Light so forth-shown from the Deity, cannot be said to be severed or diverse from Him. "It is flashed forth from Him, and yet all continues to be perfect unity...[HIS DOTS] The Sephiroth, sometimes called the Persons of the Deity, are His rays, by which He is enabled most perfectly to manifest Himself. "The Introduction to the Book SOHAR says: "The first compression was effected, on order that the Primal Light might be upraised, and a space become vacant. The second compression occurred when the vestiges of the removed Light remaining were compressed into points; and that compression was effected by means of the emotion of joy; the Deity rejoicing, it had already been said, on account of His Holy People, there-after to come into being; and that joy being vehement, and a com-motion and exhilaration in the Deity being caused by it, so that He flowed forth in His delight; and of this commotion an abstract power of judgment being generated, which is a collection of the letters generated by the points of the vestiges of Light left within the circle. For He writes the finite expressions, or limited manifestations of Himself upon the Book, in single letters. "Like as when water or fire, it had been said, is blown upon by the wind, it is wont to be greatly moved, and with flashes like lightning to smite the eyes, and gleam and coruscate hither and thither, even so The Infinite was moved within Himself, and shone and coruscated in that circle, from the centre outward and again to the centre: and that commotion we term exhilaration; and from that exhilaration, variously divided within Himself, was generated the potency of determining the fashioning of the letters. "Of that exhilaration, it had also been said, was generated the determination of forms, by which determination the Infinite determined them within Himself, as if by saying: "Let this Sphere be the appointed place, wherein let all worlds be created!" "He, by radiating and coruscating, effected the points, so that their sparkling should smite the eyes like lightning. Then He combined diversely the single points, until letters were fashioned thereof, in the similitude and image of those wherewith THE BLESSED had set forth the decrees of His Wisdom. "It is not possible to attain to an understanding of the creation of man, except by the mystery of letters; and in these worlds of The Infinite is nothing, except the letters of the alphabet and their combinations. All the worlds are Letters and Names; but He Who is the Author of all, has no name. "This world of the covering (or garment--vestimenti), (that is, the circular vacant space, with the vestiges of the removed Light of The Infinite still remaining after the first contraction and compression), is the inmost covering, nearest to His substance; and to this covering belongs the general name AUR PENIAL, Light of the Countenance of God: by which we are to understand the Light of The Substance. "And after this covering was effected, He contracted it, so as to lift up the lower moiety;...[HIS DOTS] and this is the third contraction; and in this manner He made vacant a space for the worlds, which had not the capacity to use the great Light of the covering, the end whereof was lucid and excellent as its beginning. And so (by drawing up the lower half and half the letters), are made the Male and Female, that is, the anterior and posterior adhering mutually to one another. "The vacant space effected by this retraction is called AUIR KADMON, the PRIMAL SPACE: for it was the first of all Spaces; nor was it allowable to call it covering, which is AUR PENI-BAL, the Light of the Countenance of God. "The vestiges of the Light of the Garment still remained there. And this world of the garment has a name that includes all things, which is the name IHUH. Before the world of the vacant space was created, HE was, and His Name, and they alone: that is, AINSOPH and His garmenting. "The EMECH HAMMELECH says again: "The lower half of the garment (by the third retraction), was left empty of the light of the garment. But the vestiges of that light remained in the place so vacated... [HIS DOTS] and this garment is called SHEKINAH, God in-dwelling; that is, the place where... Yod He, of the anterior (or male), and...Vav He, of the posterior (or female), combinations of letters dwelt. "This vacant space was square, and is called the Primal Space: and in Kabalah it is called Auira Kadmah, or Rasimu Ailah, The Primal Space, or The Sublime Vestige. It is the vestige of the Light of the Garment, with which is intermingled somewhat of the vestige of the Very Substance. It is called {Primal Ether,} but not void Space...[HIS DOTS] The Light of the Vestige still remains in the place it occupied, and adheres there, like somewhat spiritual, of extreme tenuity. "In this Ether are two Lights; that is, the Light of the SUBSTANCE, which was taken away, and that of the Garment. There is a vast difference between the two; for that of the Vestige of the Garment is, relatively to that of the Vestige of the Substance, like a point in the centre of a circle. And as the only appropriate name for the Light of the Vestige of Ainsoph is AUR, Light, therefore the Light of the Vestige of the Garment could not be called by that name; and so we term it a point, that is Yod...which is that point in the centre of Light... [HIS DOTS] and this Light, a point in the centre of the Great Light, is called Auir, Ether, or Space. "This Ether is somewhat more gross then The Light....[HIS DOTS] not so subtle, though not perceptible by the senses...[HIS DOTS] is termed the Primal Ether...[HIS DOTS] extends everywhere; whence the philosophers call it The Soul of the World...[HIS DOTS] Light is visible, though not perceptible, This Ether is neither perceptible not visible. "The Introduction to the Book Sohar continues, in the Section of the Letter Yod, etc.: "Worlds could not be framed in this Primal Ether, on account of its extreme tenuity and the excess of Light; and also because in it remained the vital Spirit of the Vestige of the Light Ainsoph, and that of the Vestige of the Light of the Garment; whereby such manifestation was prevented. "Wherefore HE directed the letter Yod, since it was not so brilliant as the Primal Ether, and return above, with that Vestige which so impeded the manifestation; which Yod did. "It descended below five times, to remove the vital Spirit of the Vestige of the Light Ainsoph; and the Vestige of the Light and vital Spirit of the Garment from the Sphere of Splendor, so as to make of it ADAM, called KADMON. And by its return, manifestation is effected in the space below, and a Vestige of the Sublime termed in the Sohar simply Tehiru, that is, Splendor; and it is styled The First Matter....[HIS DOTS] it being, as it were, vapor, and, as it were, smoke. And as smoke is formless, not comprehended under any fixed definite form, so this Sphere is a formless somewhat, since it seems to be somewhat that is spherical, and yet is not limited. "The letter Yod, while adhering to the Shekinah, had adhering to himself the Light of the Shekinah, thought his light was not so great as that of the Shekinah. But when he descended, he left that light of his own be-low, and the Splendor consisted of it. After which there was left in Yod only a vestige of that light, inasmuch as he could not reascend to the Shekinah and adhere to it. Wherefore The Holy and Blessed directed the letter He (...,the female letter), to communicate to Yod of her Light; and sent him forth, to descend and share with that light in the Splendor, he diffused abroad in it the Light communicated to him by the letter He. "And when he again ascended he left behind him the productive light of the letter He, and thereof was constituted another Sphere, within the Sphere of Splendor; which lesser Sphere is termed in the Sohar KETHER AILAH, CORONA SUMMA, The Supreme Crown, and also ATIKA DE ATIKIM, Antiquus Antiquum, The Ancient of Ancients, and even AILIT H' AILIT, Causa Causarum, the Cause of Causes. But the Crown is very far smaller than the Sphere of Splendor, so that within the latter an immense unoccupied place and space is still left. "The BETH ALOHIM says: "Before the Infinite God, the Supreme and First Good, formed objectively within Himself an particular conception, definite, limited, and the object of intellection, and gave form and shape to an intellectual conception and image, HE was alone, companionless, without form or similitude, utterly without Ideal or Figure...[HIS DOTS] It is forbidden to make of Him any figure whatever, by any image in the world, neither by the letter He nor by the letter Yod, nor by any other letter or point in the world. "But after He had formed this Idea, the particular conception, limited and intelligible, which the Ten Numerations are, of the medium descended, and may, through that Idea, be called by the name IHUH, and so created things have cognizance of Him, by means of His proper likeness." -Pages 747-752. "Woe unto him who makes God to be like unto any mode or attribute whatever, even were it to one of His own; and still more if he make Him like unto the Sons of Men, whose elements are earthly, and so are consumed and perish!" Page 752. "The Cause of Causes made ten Numerations, and called the Source of Spring KETHER, Corona, the Crown, in which the idea of circularity is involved, for there is no end to the out-flow of Light; and therefore He called this, like Himself, endless; for this also, like Him, has no similitude or configuration, nor hath it any vessel or receptacle wherein it may be contained, or by means whereof any possible cognizance can be had of it. "After thus forming the Crown, He constituted a certain smaller receptacle, the letter Yod, and filled it from that source; and this is called "The Fountain gushing with Wisdom," and, manifested in this, He called Himself WISE, and the vessel He called HAKEMAH, Wisdom, Sapientia. "Then He also constituted a great reservoir, which He called the Ocean; and to it He gave the name of BINAH, Understanding, Intelligentia. In this He characterized Himself as Intelligent or Conceiver. HE is indeed the Absolutely Wise and Intelligent, but Hakemah is not Absolute Wisdom of itself, but is wise by means of Binah, who fills Himself from it, and if this supply were taken from it, would be dry and unintelligent. "And thereupon seven precious vessels become, to which are given the following names: GEDULAH, Magnificence or Benignity (or KHASED, Mercy); GEBURAH, Austerity, Rigor or Severity; TEPHARETH, Beauty NETSAKH, Victory; HOD, Glory; YESOD, Foundation or Power. And in GEDULAH he took the character of Great and Benignant; in GEBURAH, of Severe; in TEPHARETH, of Beautiful; in NETSAKH, of Overcoming; in HOD, of OUR GLORIOUS AUTHOR; in YESOD, of Just, by Yesod all vessels and worlds being upheld; and in MALAKOTH He applied to Himself the title of King. "These numerations or Sephiroth are held in the Kabala to have been originally contained in each other; that is, Kether contained the nine others, Hakemah contained Binah, and Binah contained the last seven. -Pages 752,753. "Three points first emanated, one under the other; Kether, Hakemah, and Binah; and, so far, there was no copulation. But afterward the positions of Hakemah and Binah changed, so that they were side by side, Kether remaining above them; and then conjunction of the Male and Female, ABA and IMMA, Father and Mother, as points. "HE, from Whom all emanated, created Adam Kadmon, consisting of all the worlds, so that in him should be somewhat from those above, and somewhat from those below. Hence in Him was NEPHESCH (PSYCHE, anima infima, the lowest spiritual part of man, Soul, from the world ASIAH, which is one letter He of the Tetragrammaton; RUACH (SPIRITUS, anima media, the next higher spiritual part, or Spirit, from the world YEZIRAH, which is the Vav of the Tetragrammaton; NESHAMAH (the highest spiritual part, mens or anima superior, from the world BRIAH, which is the other letter He; and NESCHAMAH LENESCHAMAH, from the world ATSILUTH, which is the YOD of the Tetragrammaton. "And these letters (the Sephiroth) were changed from the spherical form into the form of a person, the symbol of which person is the BALANCE, it being Male and Female... [HIS DOTS] Hakemah on one side, Binah on the other, and Kether over them: and so Gedulah on one side, Geburah on the other, and Tephareth under them." -Page 757. "To Adam Kadmon, the Idea of the Universe, the Kabalah assigns a human form. In this, Kether is the cranium. Hakemah and Binah the two lobes of the brain, Gedulah and Geburah the two arms, Tephareth the trunk, Netsach and Hod the thighs, Yesod the male organ, and Malkuth the female organ, of generation. "Yod is Hakemah, and He Binah; Vav is Tephareth, and the last He, Malkuth." -Pages 757,758. "As man (the unit of Humanity) is a microcosm, so Adam Kadmon is a macrocosm, containing all the Causates of the First Cause.....as the Material Man is the end and completion of all creation, so in the Divine Man is the beginning thereof. As the inferior Adam receives all things from all, so the superior Adam supplies all things to all. As the former is the principle of reflected light, so the latter is of Direct Light. The former is the terminus of the Light, descending; the latter its terminus, ascending. As the Inferior man ascends from the lowest matter even to the First Cause, so the Superior Adam descends from the Simple and Infinite Act, even to the lowest and most attenuated Potence. "The Ternary is the bringing back of duality to unity. "The Ternary is the Principle of Number, because, bringing back the binary to unity, it restores to it the same quantity whereby it had departed from unity. It is the first odd number, containing in itself the first even number and the unit, which are the Father and Mother of all Numbers; and it has in itself the beginning, middle, and end. "Now, Adam Kadmon emanated from the Absolute Unity, and so is himself a unit; but he also descends and flows downward into his own Nature, and so is duality. Again, he returns to the Unity, which he hath in himself, and to The Highest, and so is the Ternary and Quaternary. "And this is why the Essential Name has four letters,--three different ones, and one of them once repeated; since the first He is the wife of the Yod, and the second He is the wife of the Vav." -Pages 760,761. "The Supreme Crown, which is the Ancient Most Holy, the most Hidden of the Hidden, is fashioned, within the occult Wisdom, of both sexes, Male and Female." -Page 762. "There is no left (female), says the Idra Rabba, in the Ancient and Hidden one; but His totality is Right (male). The totality of things is HUA, HE, and HE is hidden on every side. "Macroprosopos (Adam Kadmon) is not so near unto us as to speak to us in the first person; but is designated in the third person, HUA, HE. "Of the letters it says: "Yod is male, He is female, Vav is both. "In Yod (') are three Yods, the upper and lower apex, and Vav in the middle. By the upper apex is denoted the Supreme Kether; by Bab in the middle, Hakemah; and by the lower apex, Binah. "The IDRA SUTA says: "The Universe was out-formed in the form of Male and Female. Wisdom, pregnant with all that is, when it flowed and shone forth, shone altogether under the form of male and female. Hakemah is the Father, and Binah is the Mother; and so the two are in equilibrium as male and female, and for this reason, all things whatsoever are constituted in the form of male and female; {and if it were not} so {they would not exist.}" "This Principle, Hakemah, is the Generator of all things; and He and Binah conjoin, and she shines within Him. When they thus conjoin, she conceives, and the out-flow is Truth. "Yod impregnates the letter He and begets a son; and she, thus pregnant, brings forth. The Principle called Father (the Male or Generative Principle) is comprehended in Yod, which itself flows downward from the energy of the Absolute Holy One. "Yod is the beginning and the end of all things that are. The stream that flows forth is the Universe of things, which always becomes, having no cessation. And this becoming world is created by Yod: for Yod includes two letters. All things are included in Yod; wherefore it is called the Father of all." -Page 763. "Obtuse commentators have said that the Kabalah assigns sexual characteristics to the very Deity. There is no warrant for such an assertion, anywhere in the Sohar or in any commentary upon it. On the contrary, the whole doctrine of the Kabalah is based on the fundamental proposition, that the Very Deity is Infinity, everywhere extended, without limitation or determination, and therefore without any conformation whatever. In order to commence the process of creation, it was necessary for Him, first of all, to effect a vacant space within Himself. To this end the Deity, whose Natures is approximately expressed by describing Him as Light filling all space, formless, limit-less, contracts Himself on all sides from a point within Himself, and thus effects a quasi-vacant space, in which only a vestige of His Light remains; and into this circular or spherical space He immits [SIC] His Emanations, portions of His Light or Nature; and to some of these, sexual characteristics are symbolically assigned. "The Infinite first limits Himself by flowing forth in the shape of {Will}, of determination to act. This Will of the Deity, or the Deity as will, is Kether, or the Crown, the first Sephirah. In it are included all other Emanations. This is a philosophical necessity." -Pages 765,766. "...for Paul had studied the Kabalah at the feet of Gamaliel the Rabbi." -Page 769. [NO, HE DID NOT! THIS IS INSANE. THE KABALAH WAS CREATED BY PAGAN JEWS IN BABYLON. THESE JEWS NEVER RETURNED TO ISRAEL. THEY MIGRATED TO RUSSIA AND EUROPE. PAUL'S JUDAISM EVOLVED FROM THE JEWS WHO OBEYED GOD AND RETURNED FROM BABYLON CIRCA 500 BC WITH EZRA AND NEHEMIAH. THIS SHOWS HOW PIKE MAKES UP THE STORY AS HE GOES ALONG TO TRASH THE BIBLE AND REAL HISTORY. REVISIONIST HISTORY SHOULD MAKE A THINKING MAN VERY FEARFUL OF THE SOURCE. ARE YOU?] "The binary is the generator of Society and the law. It is also the number of the gnosis, a word adopted in lieu of Science, and expressing only the idea of cognizance by intuition. It is Unity, multiplying itself by itself to create; and therefore it is that the Sacred Symbols make Eve issue from the very chest of Adam. "Adam is the human Tetragram, which is summed up in the mysterious Yod of the Kabalah, image of the Kabalistic Phallus. Add to this Yod ('), the ternary name of Eve, and you form the name of Jehova, the Divine Tetra-gram, the transcendent Kabalistic and magical word:...[Yod, He, Vav, He]. -Page 771. "SANCTA SANCTIS, we repeat again; the Holy things to the Holy, and to him who is so, the mysteries of the Kabalah will be holy. Seek and ye shall find, say the Scriptures: knock and it shall be opened unto you. If you desire to find and to gain admission the Sanctuary, we have said enough to show you the way. If you do not, it is useless for us to say more, as it has been useless to say so much." -Page 772. "The Hermetic Art is, therefore, at the same time a religion, a philosophy, and a natural science. As a religion, it is that of the Ancient Magi and the Initiates of all ages; as a philosophy, we may find its principles in the school of Alexandria and the theories of Pythagoras; as a science, we must inquire for its processes of Paraclesus, Nocholas Falmel, and Raymond Lulle. "The Science is a real one only for those who admit and understand the philosophy and the religion; and its process will succeed only for the Adept who has attained the sovereignty of will, and so become the King of the elementary world: for the grand agent of the operation of the Sun, is that force described in the Symbol of Hermes, of the table of emerald; it is the universal magical power; the spiritual, fiery, motive power..." -Page 774. "The Great Work of Hermes is, therefore, an operation essentially magical, and the highest of all, for it supposes the Absolute in Science and in Will." -Page 775. "...So we ought to separate our certainties from our beliefs, and make perfectly distinct the respective domains of science and faith; and to comprehend that we do not know the things of Science. Whence we shall conclude, that Science rests on reason and experience, and Faith has for its bases sentiment and reason." -Page 776. "Hieroglyphically to express this law of prudence, they gave their Mercury, personified in Egypt as Hermanubis, a dog's head; and to their Sulphur, represented by the Baphomet of the Temple, that goat's head which brought into such disrepute the occult Mediaeval associations." -Page 779. "The Ritual of the Degree of Kabalistic and Hermetic Rose [CROIX, AS IN ROSECRUCIANS], has these passages: "The true Philosophy, known and practiced by Solomon, is the basis on which Masonry is founded. "Our Ancient Masons have concealed from us the most important point of this Divine Art, under hieroglyphical character, which are but enigmas and parables, to all the Senseless, the Wicked, and the Ambitious. "He will be supremely fortunate, who shall, by arduous labor, discover this sacred place of deposite, wherein all naked the sublime Truth is hidden; for he may be assured that he has found the True Light, the True Felicity, the True Heavenly Good. Then may it truly be said that he is one of the True Elect; for it is the only real and most Sublime Science of all those to which a mortal can aspire: his days will be prolonged, and his soul freed of all vices and corruption; into which" (it is added, to mislead, as if from fear too much would be disclosed), "the human race is often led by indigence." -Page 785.
THE SYMBOL OF THE PENTAGRAM " "Another Jewel is necessary for you, and in certain undertakings cannot be dispensed with. It is what is termed the Kabalistic pantacle... This carries with it the power of commanding the spirits of the elements. It is necessary for you to know how to use it, and that you will learn by perseverance if you are a lover of the science [READ: WITCHCRAFT] of our predecessors the Sages." -Page 787. " "Few are capable of engaging in this great work. Only the true Free-Masons may of right aspire to it; and even of them very few are worthy to attain it, because most of them are ignorant of the Clavicules and their contents, and of the Pantacle of Solomon, which teaches how to labor at the great work." -Pages 788,789. "When the Masters in Alchemy say that it needs but little time and expense to accomplish the works of Science, when they affirm, above all, that but a single vessel is necessary, when they speak of the Great and Single furnace, which all can use, which is within the reach of all the world, and which men possess without knowing it, they allude to the philosophical and moral Alchemy. In fact, a strong and determined will can, in a little while, attain complete independence; and we all possess that chemical instrument, the great and single athanor or furnace, which serves to separate the subtile from the gross, and the fixed from the volatile. This instrument, complete as the world, and accurate as the mathematics themselves, is designated by the Sages under the emblem of the Pentagram or Star with five points, the absolute sign of human intelligence." -Page 790. "The double triangle of Solomon is explained by Saint John in a remarkable manner: There are, he says, three witnesses in Heaven,--the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and three witnesses on earth,--the breath, water, and blood. He thus agrees [ ! ] with the Masters of the Hermetic Philosophy, who give to their Sulphur the name of Ether, to their Mercury the name of philosophical water, to their Salt that of blood of the dragon, or menstruum of the earth. The blood, or Salt, corresponds by opposition with the Father; the Azothic, or Mercurial water, with the Word, or Logos; and the breath, with the Holy Spirit. But the things of High Symbolism can be well understood only by the true children of Science." ["SCIENCE" IS PIKES WORD TO HIDE THE TRUE MEANING, WHICH IS WITCHCRAFT] -Page 792. "God, says the Idra Suta, formed all things in the form of male and female, since otherwise the continuance of things was impossible. The All-embracing Wisdom, issuing and shining from the Most Holy Ancient, shines not otherwise then as male and female. Wisdom as the Father, Intelligence the Mother, are in equilibrium as male and female, and they are conjoined, and one shines in the other. Then they generate, and are expanded in the Truth. Then the two are the Perfection of all things, when they are coupled; and when the Son is in them, the summary of all things is in one." -Page 800. "These things are intrusted [SIC] only to the Holy Superiors, who have entered and gone out and known the ways of the Most Holy God, so as not to err in them, to the right hand or to the left. For these things are hid-den; and the lofty Holinesses shine in them, as light flows from the splendor of a lamp. "These things are committed only to those who have entered and not withdrawn; for he who has not done so had better never have been born." Page 800. [PIKE BREATHS OUT DAMNATIONS AND THREATS AGAINST ANYONE WHO TRIES TO UNDERSTAND HIS DOCTRINE WHO IS NOT A FREEMASON. THIS IS THE VIOLENCE OF A SATANIC MNURDERER. THIS IS THE MIND OF PIKE, THE CIVIL WAR GENERAL, WHO HAD A UNIT OF INDIANS FIGHTING UNDER HIM AND ENCOURAGED THEM TO SCALP ANY UNION SOLDIERS THEY KILLED.]
UNDER
THE HEADING OF |