Sep.26, 2018 | by Melinda
I am not unaware that in this corrupt world we live in, everything
has been corrupted – including the Templars, Freemasons, Rosicrucians
and all our religions. However, I have chosen to focus on the original
intent and purpose of these institutions, so that – if it is intended,
we can recover that which was lost and re-connect with the truth they
have sought to bring us.
Templars
The book Bloodline of the Holy Grail relates the fascinating
story of our people at the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of
Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Just before the invasion, the high priest Hilkiah
instructed the prophet Jeremiah to have the temple treasures hidden
deep beneath the Temple built by King Solomon – the son of King David.
Underneath the Temple there lay a vast stable complex which could house
two thousand horses. A huge amount of gold, silver and precious objects
of art and sacrament were hidden and remained there until the year 1096
when the first Crusade was undertaken to retake the Holy Land from the
Moslems.
The story behind the efforts of these first Crusaders begins with a
Catholic priest by the name of St. Bernard who – evidently unknowingly
to the Catholics, was one of our family members. The story goes that
when Bernard first made our family aware of his plans to become a
Catholic priest, they were incredulous – that is, until he revealed his
ingenious plan to them. That plan was none other than to use the power
and organizational ability of the Catholic Church to retake the Holy
Land from the Muslims and retrieve the ancient treasure that was hidden
by Jeremiah and the Temple guard. The Knights Templar were well aware
that the treasure still remained there and most likely knew every item
of its contents. The later discovery of the Essene’s Dead Sea Scrolls
included a copper scroll which contained an inventory of the items.
Listed were an enormous amount of ancient manuscripts, as well as the
Ark of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments and the Tables of Testimony –
in addition to material treasure.
Laurence Gardner describes the Tables of Testimony as having the
cosmic equation and the divine law of number, measure and weight, and
wrote that, “The mystical art of reading the inscriptions was achieved
by the cryptic system of the Qabala.” As you can see, there is more than
one way to spell Kaballah. The tablets themselves were said to be made
of either sapphire or lapis lazuli. Gardner wrote that; “In addition to
the Jerusalem bullion, the Templars also found a wealth of ancient
manuscripts in Hebrew and Syriac, providing firsthand accounts that had
not been edited by any ecclesiastical authority. In the light of these,
it was widely accepted that the Knights possessed an insight which
eclipsed orthodox Christianity – an insight which permitted them the
certainty that the Church had misinterpreted both the Virgin Birth and
the Resurrection.” The Knights Templar’s goals during the Crusades were
first of all, to retake the Holy Lands that they believed were given
them by God and secondly, to recover the treasures and artifacts hidden
under the Temple mount in 70 C.E. when Jerusalem was laid waste by the
Romans. Gardner reveals that our family genealogies were written on the
walls underneath the Temple. Legend relates that the Ark of the Covenant
was, for a time, hidden in the Chartres Cathedral in France.
The Templars religion was Johannite Christianity – the beliefs passed
down by John the Baptist to Jesus and then to St. John the Divine and
Mary Magdalene. The personal symbol of St. John was a Holy Grail chalice
entwined within the coils of the Kundalini serpent. The Knights Templar
transferred the Kundalini power to others via a kiss. This is possibly
done with a kiss to each area in the body where the chakras are located.
Since one of these is at the area of sexuality or generation, it’s
quite possible that this rite would seem alarming to outsiders who
didn’t understand the reason behind the practice – if they did in fact,
kiss in such places, as has been claimed.
Another so-called alarming aspect of the Templars is the depiction of
Baphomet which is symbolic of the dark aspect of the Goddess. The
depiction by Eliphas Levi in the mid 1800’s is certainly disturbing, but
whether it is the same one used by the Templars – I couldn’t say. He
claimed that he modeled it on the gargoyles on the cathedrals of
Europe. The Templars called the Holy Spirit power the Master Builder
and the Freemasons know it as the Great Architect. Both refer to the
physiological changes in the human body that the Holy Spirit makes in
cleaning toxins from food, water and air from our bodies and also the
toxicity of our unresolved emotional trauma and ‘illusory belief
systems’. The author of Guardians of the Holy Grail describes the transformation;
“The ancient ‘Serpent on the Tree’, the first teacher of Gnostic
wisdom, would then enter the Holy of Holies, the skull of the Knight and
activate the Ajna Chakra or Third Eye of intuition, along with the
remaining two-thirds of his brain power, to bring forth the timeless
Gnostic revelation of “Be still and know that I AM God.” After the
Kundalini serpent had completed its ascension to the top of the ‘tree’,
the Templar Knight would be full of its Holy Spirit power and a true
Human Holy Grail. Then, with his abundant Serpent Power a Templar Knight
could heal himself and others, and he could also transmit some of his
own power into a new Knight through the vehicle of touch and or the
Templar kiss, thus initiating a brother’s process of alchemical
development.”
Victoria LePage relates that the Templar-built cathedrals of Europe
were covered in symbolical carvings that represent a coded prophecy
preserved in stone for future generations, as a countdown to the
Aquarian Age – the Age we are in now. She wrote;
“Following on the early Celtic and medieval prophecies, the
Rosicrucian’s of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries reiterated
their message in more universal terms. The Rose Cross movement
electrified the Western scholarly world by prophesying a day of cultural
rebirth approaching that would see the renewal of the unitive hopes and
values of the first Christians. The Rosicrucian’s cherished what they
believed to be a more creative vision of the religion Jesus Christ had
founded, one that conformed more truly to the holy principles he had
laid down while on Earth: “to gather all mankind under a universal
religion of Peace.” It was to be a spiritual revolution in the fullest
and most positive sense, an overturning of everything that had gone
before – aiming, it would seem, at the uniting of the three Semitic
religions under the combined leadership of Qabalist’s, Gnostics and
Sufis.”
It appears to me that by the time of the Crusades, 1095–1291 CE, our
ancestors had lost much of their spiritual heritage. There was a
resurgence of gnostic practices after the Crusaders returned to Western
Europe. In the Holy Lands, the Templars met up with Sufi’s, Mandeans,
remnants of the Essenes, Kabbalists and the first Jewish Christian
congregations and were reacquainted with gnostic practices. You will
read a lot of slander towards the Templars and Freemasons. There is no
doubt that some of their Orders have become corrupted. Just remember
that underneath it all, they had only one goal – which was to reunite
with God and further that goal among all humans. As with all other
things in this world, there are dark and light versions of most
everything.
The Templars Oath of Honor;
“We the Knights of Christ and of the Temple follow the destiny that
prepares us to die for Christ. We have the wish to give this rule of
living, of work and of honor to the constructors of churches so that
Christianity can spread throughout the Earth not so that our name should
be remembered, Oh Lord, but that Your Name should live.”
Among other things, the Templars were said to worship the Devil. The author of The Truth Behind the Christ Myth gives some insight into this;
“The fall of the Templar Order transpired when the Christian
Inquisition found the Templars worshipping grotesque images of Rex
Mundi, whom they naturally assumed was the Devil. They were half right.
Rex Mundi was Lucifer, the Lord of Time and Destruction, but like the
spiritually advanced members of other mystery schools, the Templars
worshipped Baphomet’s (Rex Mundi/Lucifer/Devil) transformative
influence, the Kundalini power, which was a concept Christian
fundamentalists were never able to fully grasp. Through invoking the
destructive power of Rex Mundi and Baphomet’s wisdom, the Templars
sought to spiritually evolve and precipitate a golden age of
enlightenment.”
From the author of Roslyn Guardian of the Secrets of The Holy Grail we learn this about Mary Magdalene;
“In ancient Egyptian symbolism, the color black indicates wisdom. In
the cult of the Black Madonna the Templars were venerating the Mother of
Wisdom, the ancient goddess Sophia embodied in the form of the goddess
Isis with the Horus child. This pagan concept was disguised as the
Christian Madonna and Child. When drawing up the rule for the Templars
in 1128, St. Bernard of Clairvaux laid down a specific requirement on
all the Knights to make ‘obedience to Bethany and the house of Mary and
Martha.’ Many scholars now believe that the great Notre-Dame cathedrals
built by the Templars and Cistercians were dedicated not to Mary the
mother of Jesus as the church teaches, but to “our Lady’ Mary Magdalene
and the son of Jesus instead. In esoteric tradition, Mary Magdalene is
described as ‘the symbol of divine wisdom.’ According to the Nazorean
tradition, the Magdalene was to be depicted garbed in black like the
priestesses of Isis, surmounted by Sophia’s crown of stars. Her infant
child wears the golden crown of royalty.”
The downfall of the Templars was due to a conspiracy between King
Philippe IV Le Bel of France and the then current Pope. King Philippe
was from the Valois dynasty of France, who were Rex Deus. King Philippe
however, had been denied membership in the Templars and also owed them a
great deal of money so he had a great resentment towards them. Also,
his father had been kidnapped and held for ransom and the Templars had
refused to pay the ransom. French forces raided the Templars
headquarters and properties only to find that the majority of the
Templar’s property and valuables had already been removed, as they were
forewarned. They arrested as many Templars as they could find and
subjected them to the Office of the Inquisition with their usual racks,
whips, stakes, chains, cold, dark, dungeons and all the other torture
devices they were so good at making and using. This caused the Templars
to go underground and form new secret societies such as the Knights of
St. John and Freemasons. After this sad episode the foremost goal of the
European Serpents of Wisdom was to remove the Catholic hierarchy and
all self-serving monarchies from power – even if they were our own
family members. Their goal was to transform Europe into a Dragon Empire
ruled over by benevolent Serpents.
I will finish the subject of the Templars with the following from The Guardians of the Holy Grail;
Within your Johannite logo is a cup with a snake curled around it. I
have seen this symbol associated with John the Apostle. Is this the
ancient symbol of the Johannites? ‘Yes. The cup with the snake curled
around it is synonymous with a flame emerging from the cup.’ What do the
cup and flame represent? ‘The cup is representative of both the Holy
Grail and the human vehicle which possesses the sacred flame within.’
Freemasons
“Freemasonry considers itself to be a peculiar system of morality
based on brotherly love, relief, and truth. Freemasonry is not a
religion in the same way that the concept of ma ’at (truth and justice)
was not an integral part of some theological structure or legend. Both
are pragmatic realizations that the continuance of civilization and
social progress rests with the individual’s ability to “do unto others
as you would have done to you.” The Hiram Key – Pharaoh’s, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
From what little I have studied the Freemasons thirty-three degrees
of initiation, I can tell there is a lot of Biblical and family history
contained in the rites. The author of The Knights of the Holy Grail relates the following about one of their degrees;
“The Dead Sea Scrolls record that the Sons of Zadok were the
descendants of the high priests of the Temple who were known as the
Righteous Seed and the Sons of Dawn. This ritual commemorates James the
Just, who succeeded Jesus in the position of the Zadok, or Teacher of
Righteousness and is obviously a celebration of the ancient Jewish
tradition of the hereditary transmission of holiness preserved by the
Rex Deus families. Freemasonic rituals claim that the Craft arose at the
time of Hiram Abif, who was killed by a blow to the temple for his
refusal to betray a secret, and this is an allegorical reference to the
death of James the Just. Hiram was killed immediately prior to the
completion of Solomon’s Temple and, almost 1,000 years later, when work
on the Herodian Temple was nearing completion, building was brought to a
temporary standstill as a mark of respect for James, the brother of
Jesus, who had just been ritually murdered. Thus, when Freemasons
celebrate the ritual death of Hiram Abif, they are commemorating one of
the founders of Rex Deus.”
The Freemason’s myth’s main character is Hiram Abif. In the story
Hiram is the head craftsman building the temple of Solomon. The story
goes that three apprentice masons accosted him in order to make him
divulge the secrets of his building skills which, I believe, represent
the secrets of the Freemasons and the ancient Mystery schools. Hiram
refused, so they killed him. According to the Encyclopedia of
Freemasonry, Hiram Abif is; “a type-figure of all the saviors of
humanity who sacrificed themselves for the salvation of mankind, a
direct human representative of its prototype among the divinities, such
as Odin and Visvakarman, the builder and artificer of the gods. Hiram
Abif is also the type-figure of the individual’s inner god, crucified
upon the cross of material existence.”
The author of The Knights of the Holy Grail relates
that the 29th degree describes the destruction of the second Temple in
70 C.E. It tells of the grief experienced by the brethren and how they
had to flee their homeland. He states that it was their intent to erect a
third Temple, but this one was to be a “spiritual rather than physical
edifice,” which, according to the author, is “a direct reference to the
spiritual obligations of the Rex Deus families for whom the creation of
this new ‘Temple of God on Earth’ is a sacred duty.” He goes on to say;
“Enshrining Rex Deus secrets in a variety of degrees within the
complex symbolism of Freemasonry is akin to a man on the run seeking
refuge in a large and crowded city. It is similar to the device used by
Earl William in randomly hiding a plethora of Templar and Rex Deus
symbolism amongst the crowded and apparently confused collection of
carvings in Roslyn Chapel. Despite the vigorous attempts of the
Hanoverian censors, the rituals used in these degrees have been recorded
for posterity and may well still be in use in France and America. The
spiritual inspiration of Freemasonry gave the world the gift of the
American Constitution and made a significant contribution to the
establishment of the principles of liberte’, egalite’ and fraternite’
that inspired the French Revolution and, ultimately, the transformation
of despotism into democracy.
…. Pope Pius openly acknowledged that the Freemasons were the authors
of his debasement and fulminated furiously against them in a series of
encyclicals, papal bulls, and allocutions. Unlike many Masonic
historians within the craft today, this aged pope was under no illusions
as to the origins of the organization that had stripped him of all
earthly power. For him, Freemasonry derived directly from the heretical
Order of the Knights Templar whom he describes as being Gnostic from
their inception and followers of the Johannite Heresy. Nor was Pius
under any illusions as to the true purpose of the Masonic fraternity,
for according to him, their aim was to destroy Holy Mother the Church.
For him there was little difference between the true aim of the Rex Deus
families, that of reforming the Church by bringing back the true
teachings of Jesus, and the destruction of the Church that had propelled
him to the dizzy heights of the papacy. Can we honestly doubt his
views? It was Pius IX who first promulgated the doctrine of Papal
Infallibility.”
From Fragments of a Faith Forgotten;
“Not only were many of the founders of the United States Government
Masons, but they received aid from a secret and august body existing in
Europe, which helped them to establish this country for a peculiar and
particular purpose known only to the initiated few. The Great Seal is
the signature of this exalted body – unseen and for the most part
unknown – and the unfinished pyramid upon its reverse side is a trestle
board setting forth symbolically the task to the accomplishment of which
the United States government was dedicated from the day of its
inception.”
I am sure that exalted body he refers to, are the Rosicrucians.
Manly Hall, the author of The Secret Teachings of All Ages
was considered a master scholar of the Freemasons and the ancient
Wisdom religion. His books are in the public domain, so I will use quite
a bit of his material in this post. I will be using snippets of his
material and so the following is not continuous. In the following he
speaks about Freemasonic symbols;
“The apron shown above contains a wealth of symbolism: the beehive,
emblematic of the Masonic lodge itself, the trowel, the mallet, and the
trestle board; the rough and trued ashlars; the pyramids and hills of
Lebanon; the pillars, the Temple, and checkerboard floor; and the
blazing star and tools of the Craft. The center of the apron is occupied
by the compass and square, representative of the Macrocosm and the
microcosm, and the alternately black and white serpent of astral light.
Below is an acacia branch with seven sprigs, signifying the life Centers
of the superior and the inferior man. The skull and cross bones are a
continual reminder that the spiritual nature attains liberation only
after the philosophical death of man’s sensuous personality. To the
initiated Builder the name Chiram Abif signifies “My Father, the
Universal Spirit one in essence, three in aspect.” Thus the murdered
Master is a type of the Cosmic Martyr – the crucified Spirit of Good,
the dying god – whose Mystery is celebrated throughout the world. To
interpret the Hiramic legend requires familiarity with both the
Pythagorean and Qabbalistic systems of numbers and letters, and also the
philosophic and astronomic cycles of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and
Brahmins.
It is generally admitted by modem Masonic scholars that the story of
the martyred Chiram is based upon the Egyptian rites of Osiris, whose
death and resurrection figuratively portrayed the spiritual death of man
and his regeneration through initiation into the Mysteries. Chiram is
also identified with Hermes through the inscription on the Emerald
Tablet. From these associations it is evident that Chiram is to be
considered as a prototype of humanity; in fact he is Plato’s Idea
(archetype) of man. Thus the building of Solomon’s Temple represents the
consummation of the magnum opus, which cannot be realized without the
assistance of Chiram, the Universal Agent. The Masonic Mysteries teach
the initiate how to prepare within his own soul a miraculous powder of
projection by which it is possible for him to transmute the base lump of
human ignorance, perversion, and discord into an ingot of spiritual
and philosophic gold.
Sufficient similarity exists between the Masonic Chiram and the
Kundalini of Hindu mysticism to warrant the assumption that Chiram may
be considered a symbol also of the Spirit Fire moving through the sixth
ventricle of the spinal column. The exact science of human regeneration
is the Lost Key of Masonry, for when the Spirit Fire is lifted up
through the thirty-three degrees, or segments of the spinal column, and
enters into the domed chamber of the human skull, it finally passes into
the pituitary body (Isis), where it invokes Ra (the pineal gland) and
demands the Sacred Name. Operative Masonry, in the fullest meaning of
that term, signifies the process by which the Eye of Horus is opened.
Little is known concerning the function of the pineal body, which
Descartes suggested (more wisely than he knew) might be the abode of the
Spirit of man. As its name signifies, the pineal gland is the sacred
pine cone in man – the eye single, which cannot be opened until Chiram
(the Spirit Fire) is raised through the sacred seals which are called
the Seven Churches in Asia.”
This brings us to the point of the secret meaning of the Book of
Revelation in the Bible. There are many references to sevens of
different things in the book. The seven churches in Asia are none other
than the chakras! No doubt the churches are in Asia because that’s where
the doctrine originated from. This was something confirmed by Edgar
Cayce. I am including this information regarding the Freemasons degrees
to reinforce the fact that when it comes down to it our ancestors have
always been trying to preserve and perpetuate the way for humans to
reunite with God via our built-in power centers.
Next, the author describes the actual physical, i.e. ‘alchemical’ action that takes place within the body of the initiate;
“Chiram is the mysterious fiery, airy water which must be raised
through the three grand centers symbolized by the ladder with three
rungs and the sunburst flowers mentioned in the description of the Hindu
painting. It must also pass upward by means of the ladder of seven
rungs – the seven plexuses proximate to the spine. The nine segments of
the sacrum and coccyx are pierced by ten foramina, through which pass
the roots of the Tree of Life. Nine is the sacred number of man, and in
the symbolism of the sacrum and coccyx a great mystery is concealed.
That part of the body from the kidneys downward was termed by the early
Qabalist’s the Land of Egypt into which the children of Israel were
taken during the captivity. Out of Egypt, Moses (the illuminated mind,
as his name implies) led the tribes of Israel (the twelve faculties) by
raising the brazen serpent in the wilderness upon the symbol of the Tau
cross. Not only Chiram but the god-men of nearly every pagan Mystery
ritual are personifications of the Spirit Fire in the human spinal
cord.”
This Spirit Fire is said to flow downwards into generation, and to
reverse the flow and turn it upwards, is to spiritualize the fluid.
This is also known as turning back the Jordan or the waters of the Red
Sea. Which brings us back to the question; are there real people and
events in the Bible? Our Semitic ancestors with their distinctive
clothing style who lived in the Land of Goshen can still be seen
depicted on the walls of Egyptian ruins. Most certainly archeology,
literature and tradition tell us they were real people, places and
events. However – the lines between real, archetype and allegory are
very blurred.
“The beehive is found in Masonry as a reminder that in diligence and
labor for a common good true happiness and prosperity are found. The bee
is a symbol of wisdom, for as this tiny insect collects pollen from the
flowers, so men may extract wisdom from the experiences of daily life.
The bee is sacred to the goddess Venus and, according to mystics it is
one of several forms of life which came to the Earth from the planet
Venus millions of years ago. Wheat and bananas are said to be of similar
origin. This is the reason why the origin of these three forms of life
cannot be traced. The fact that bees are ruled by queens is one reason
why this insect is considered a sacred feminine symbol.”
“According to Freemasonic symbolism, Enoch, fearing that all
knowledge of the sacred Mysteries would be lost at the time of the
Deluge, erected the two columns mentioned in the quotation. Upon the
metal column in appropriate allegorical symbols he engraved the secret
teaching and upon the marble column placed an inscription stating that a
short distance away a priceless treasure would be discovered in a
subterranean vault. After having thus faithfully completed his labors,
Enoch was translated from the brow of Mount Moriah. In time the location
of the secret vaults was lost, but after the lapse of ages there came
another builder – an initiate after the order of Enoch – and he, while
laying the foundations for another temple to the Great Architect of the
Universe, discovered the long-lost vaults and the secrets contained
within.”
“The sanctum sanctorum of Freemasonry is ornamented with the gnostic
jewels of a thousand ages; its rituals ring with the divinely inspired
words of seers and sages. A hundred religions have brought their gifts
of wisdom to its altar; arts and sciences unnumbered have contributed to
its symbolism. Freemasonry is a world-wide university, teaching the
liberal arts and sciences of the soul to all who will hearken to its
words. Its chairs are seats of learning and its pillars uphold an arch
of universal education. Its trestle boards are inscribed with the
eternal verities of all ages and upon those who comprehend its sacred
depths has dawned the realization that within the Freemasonic Mysteries
lie hidden the long-lost arcana sought by all peoples since the genesis
of human reason. The philosophic power of Freemasonry lies in its
symbols – its priceless heritage from the Mystery schools of antiquity.”
“The lambskin apron worn by the Freemasons over that part of the body
symbolized by Typhon or Judas represents that purification of the
generative processes which is a prerequisite to true spirituality.”
The author of the book Return of the Serpents of Wisdom relates that;
“The Legend of Hiram Abif, within which Chiram was personified as
Hiram Abif, the Master Builder of Solomon’s Temple. At the outset of his
legend Chiram as Hiram Abif is murdered and buried by jealous masons as
he attempts to leave the grounds of Solomon’s Temple thus symbolizing
the Kundalini’s death and entombment at the base of the human spine.
Eventually, however, Hiram is rescued by King Solomon who reaches down
into the Master Builder’s grave and pulls him out with the strong grip
of a lion’s paw. This last episode of Hiram’s drama represents the last
stage of spiritual practice in which the Solar Spirit (whose
representative animal is a lion) located in the crown chakra uses the
attracting force of its positive polarity to pull Chiram, the negatively
charged Serpent Fire, up to its seat at the top of the head.”
In his book World Gnosis Mark Pinkham tells us that the
legends passed down through the secret societies relate that the regions
of Sirius, Orion and the Pleiades are the home of the celestial
Serpents of Wisdom and that the first Gnostic teacher of humanity was
Karttikeya also known as the archangel, St. Michael. He says that the
Great White Brotherhood was originally started on Sirius – “the great
white lodge in the cosmos”. The channel Alice Bailey said that Masonry
originated under “direct Sirian influence, and was modeled after certain
Sirian institutions.” The Sirian influence on the secret societies is
ongoing to this day. Mark Pinkham has this to say about the Sirians and
their Masonic influence;
“The Sirian’s eternal support of Freemasonry is currently honored in
many Masonic lodges by their prominently featured five pointed Blazing
Star, which according to the late Freemason Grand Master Albert Pike, is
the definitive Masonic symbol of Sirius. The Sirian support began on
the Motherlands of Lemuria and Atlantis where the extra-terrestrials
began using the Knighted Orders as their vehicles to evolve humanity to a
point where it could accept a one-world government and a one-world
spiritual tradition. Through the Freemasons, the Sirians apparently had a
hand in founding the nation of the U.S., which they have always
intended to use as one of their primary vehicles to precipitate the
coming one world civilization. While working in tandem with the Sirian
agenda, the Masonic Founding Fathers were inspired to choose July 4,
1776 as the birthday of the new nation, thus placing the destiny of the
U.S. directly in the hands of the Sirians. This special date corresponds
to the annual transit of the Sun moving into a direct alignment with
Sirius, thus making the astrological birth chart and destiny of the U.S.
forever aligned with the Sirian agenda.”
The authors of The Hiram Key – Pharaoh’s, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
say that; “Freemason’s carry the seed of the mind of the Nazoreans and
most particularly Jesus. The legend and drama of the Master Mason’s
degree constitutes an indisputable link between Freemasonry and the
ancient Mysteries, and few have fathomed the esoteric significance of
this degree and of the legend of Hiram Abif.”
Robert McCoy in his book The General history of Freemasonry wrote;
“It appears that all the perfection of civilization and all the
achievements made in philosophy, science and art among the ancients are
due to these institutions which, under the veil of mystery sought to
illustrate the sublimest truths about religion, morality and virtue and
impose them in the hearts of their disciples. Their chief object was to
teach the doctrine of One God, the resurrection of man to eternal life,
the dignity of the human soul and to lead the people to see the shadow
of the Deity in the beauty, magnificence and splendor of the universe.”
Freemasonry is an organization that worked behind the scenes to
change society for the betterment of the people. They were behind the
rebellion against King John of England which led to the Magna Carta and
the House of Commons, which was considered the first democratic type of
government. They were behind the French and American Revolutions. They
are still behind the scenes working to spread democracy on Earth. They
have fought tyranny wherever they found it – be it in a royal house, a
government or a church. The Christian Reformation was brought about by
the Serpents of Wisdom. The author of Return of the Serpents of Wisdom speaks about their contribution to the establishment of America;
“While the Serpent Protestant Confederacy was busy solidifying a
democratic Europe, many leading Serpents of Wisdom on the continent were
quietly drawing up plans for what was to be a model democratic nation
across the western sea. Referred to within closed circles of initiates
as the New Atlantis and the New land of the Phoenix, this proposed
civilization was to be an ideal democratic republic. It was to allow
freedom of speech and belief while being governed by Serpents of Wisdom
elected by the people and for the people. ….Starting in the late 1600s
members of the European Order of Serpents began leaving their
comfortable lives behind in order to undertake the long, arduous journey
across the Atlantic Ocean to become citizens of the New Land of the
Phoenix. Once in North America they proceeded to organize a cohesive
network of Rosicrucian and Freemasonic Lodges within a nation of
thirteen colonies, the ancient number of the Phoenix Dragon.
In 1694 a Rosicrucian colony was established in Pennsylvania and by
the early 1700’s Freemasonic Lodges were literally sweeping across the
new land. By the beginning of the Revolutionary period there were a
multitude of common lodges and seven Grand Provincial Lodges scattered
evenly throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Within these various lodges the
Serpents could meet and discuss strategies for the founding of an
independent nation unshackled by British rule. In order to throw off the
yoke of the British Crown, the Freemasonic Lodges proceeded to found
subversive organizations, such as the Sons of Liberty, which were
calculated to intimidate British officials and promote the boycott of
all British imports. The Masons also attempted to stir up anti-British
sentiment among the colonial masses by presiding over pep rallies in
taverns and other public meeting places.
…When the war with Britain was finally at hand, the North American
Freemasons pooled their resources in order to organize a formidable
resistance against their oppressive rulers. They chose the Rosicrucian
and Master Mason George Washington to supervise the building of an army,
and brought over from Germany the Freemason Baron Von Steuben to
instruct the virgin troops in the art of battle.
In its final form, the Colonial Army was a Military Lodge and a Who’s
Who of American Colonial Freemasonry. Over 2000 of its officers were
Freemasons and out of these at least 100 were also Freemasonic
Grandmasters. Included in this elite list was Washington, Paul Revere
and Joseph Warren, the Grandmaster of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge who
became famous for sacrificing his life while leading a battalion up
Bunker Hill.”
According to a New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry;
In the tense times before the American Revolution, the secrecy of the
Masonic Lodges offered the colonial patriots the opportunity to meet
and plan their strategy. The Boston Tea Party was entirely Masonic,
carried out by members of St. John’s Lodge during an adjourned meeting.
Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, only one
was known not to be a Freemason, asserted Masonic writer Manley P. Hall,
who in ‘The Secret Teachings of all Ages’ also told of a most
mysterious incident at the time of the signing of this historic
document. As the debate over their future reached a crescendo and many
hesitated to sign the declaration realizing they would be putting their
life on the line, suddenly a tall stranger with a pale face spoke out.
No one knew who he was or where he came from, but the force of his
oration was transfixing. His stirring words ended with the cry, “God has
given America to be free!” Amid cheers filled with emotion, every man
rushed forward to sign the declaration except the stranger. “He had
disappeared”, wrote Hall, “nor was he ever seen again or his identity
established.” Hall said this episode paralleled similar incidents in
world history, when strange unknown men suddenly appeared just in time
for the creation of some new nation. “Are they coincidences,” he asked,
“or do they demonstrate that the divine wisdom of the Ancient Mysteries
is still present in the world, serving mankind as it did of old?”
St. Germain is the mysterious gentleman who gave the rousing speech and then disappeared!
Mark Pinkham relates this fascinating information;
“The (U.S.) Constitution was modeled after the unwritten constitution
of the Five Nations of the Iroquois, the native Serpents of North
America. Much of the content of this document was acquired by Ben
Franklin and other leading Freemasons who attended treaty councils of
the Iroquois and learned firsthand the tenets of their ancient
constitution. By incorporating these native precepts into the United
States new Constitution, the Founding Father’s indirectly composed their
own Serpent Constitution.”
The tie in with the Freemasons and Egyptian symbolism has always been
a mystery to most people. The simple truth is that Egypt has played a
huge role in the history of our family as is illustrated in these posts.
In the book The Genesis of the Grail Kings, the author wrote
that in the hermetic lore of the Egyptians spiritual regeneration took
place through the thirty three vertebrae of the spinal column until
reaching the pituitary gland which invoked the pineal body. He says this
is the reason the Freemasons have thirty three degrees of initiation.
The book Morals and Dogma by Grand Mason Albert Pike is
considered one of the authoritative volumes for insights into
Freemasonry. It has been said that Albert Pike was corrupted by an agent
of the Rothschild’s by the name of Mizzoni. I don’t know if this is
true or not. Somewhere I read that the cabal used their first clone on
Earth in the 1800’s. My mind immediately went to Albert Pike. Albert
Pike was a genius and the leader of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. If
the cabal wanted to corrupt American Freemasonry, Pike would have been
their most likely target. However, what I have read of his works, I
agree with. Whether he was corrupted afterwards and was the instigator
of the plans leading into the twentieth century regarding the World
Wars, I couldn’t say.
The following are just snippets from Morals and Dogma and are not continuous. I will intersperse with my comments;
“Our northern ancestors worshipped this tri-une Deity; Odin, the
Almighty Father; Frea, his wife, emblem of universal matter; and Thor,
his son, the mediator. But above all these was the Supreme God, “the
author of everything that existed, the Eternal, the Ancient, the Living
and Awful Being, the Searcher into concealed things, the Being that
never changes.”
“The pavement, alternately black and white, symbolizes, whether so
intended or not, the good and evil Principles of the Egyptian and
Persian creed. It is the warfare of Michael and Satan, of the Gods and
Titans, of Balder and Lok; between light and shadow, which is darkness;
day and night; Two, or the duad, is the symbol of antagonism; of good
and evil, light and darkness. It is Cain and Abel, Eve and Lilith,
Jachin and Boaz, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Osiris and Typhon.”
There is no doubt that there is within Gnosticism this dualism, this
clash of antagonists. However, Yeshua sees this differently now and this
is reflected in his philosophy of turning the other cheek and loving
your enemy. He says that he no longer believes we should strive to
transcend dualism, but not fight it at all. Just accept it. See it for
what it is. Don’t judge it as one being bad and the other good, just
look at it dispassionately. As one author stated in an earlier post,
Jesus did away with the flail of the Egyptian Pharaoh used to smite
one’s enemy. Yeshua’s Way is the Way of the Heart. He says we are to
overcome Satan – with love.
“In the ancient Orient, all religion was more or less a mystery and
there was no divorce from it of philosophy. The popular theology, taking
the multitude of allegories and symbols for realities, degenerated into
a worship of the celestial luminaries, of imaginary deities with human
feelings, passions, appetites, and lusts, of idols, stones, animals,
reptiles. Though Masonry is identical with the ancient Mysteries, it is
so only in this qualified sense: that it presents but an imperfect image
of their brilliancy, the ruins only of their grandeur, and a system
that has experienced progressive alterations, Masonry is a march and a
struggle toward the Light.”
“It is not strange that, thousands of years ago, men worshipped the
Sun, and that today that worship continues among the Parsees. Originally
they looked beyond the orb to the invisible God, of whom the sun’s
light, seemingly identical with generation and life, was the
manifestation and outflowing….. They personified him as Brahma, Amun,
Osiris, Bel, Adonis, Malkarth, Mithras, and Apollo.”
“The Holy Kabalah, or tradition of the children of Seth, was carried
from Chaldæa by Abraham, taught to the Egyptian priesthood by Joseph,
recovered and purified by Moses, concealed under symbols in the Bible,
revealed by the Savior to Saint John, and contained, entire, under
hieratic figures analogous to those of all antiquity, in the Apocalypse
of that Apostle.”
“The true name of Satan, the Kabbalists say, is that of Yahweh
reversed; for Satan is not a black god, but the negation of God. The
Devil is the personification of atheism or idolatry. For the Initiates,
this is not a person, but a Force, created for good, but which may serve
for evil. It is the instrument of liberty or free will. They represent
this force, which presides over the physical generation, under the
mythological and horned form of the God Pan; thence came the he-goat of
the Sabbat, brother of the ancient Serpent, and the Light-bearer or
Phosphor, of which the poets have made the false Lucifer of the legend.”
“The first Druids were the true children of the Magi, and their
initiation came from Egypt and Chaldæa, 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; and of
Camul or Camaël, a name that in the Kabalah personifies the Divine
Justice.”
“There can be no interference with, or remittance of, or protection
from, the natural effects of our wrongful acts. God will not interpose
between the cause and its consequence; and in that sense there can be no
forgiveness of sins. The act which has debased our soul may be repented
of, may be turned from; but the injury is done. The debasement may be
redeemed by after-efforts, the stain obliterated by bitterer struggles
and severer sufferings; but the efforts and the endurance which might
have raised the soul to the loftiest heights are now exhausted in merely
regaining what it has lost. There must always be a wide difference
between him who only ceases to do evil, and him who has always done
well. He will certainly be a far more scrupulous watcher over his
conduct, and far more careful of his deeds, who believes that those
deeds will inevitably bear their natural consequences, exempt from after
intervention, than he who believes that penitence and pardon will at
any time unlink the chain of sequences. Surely we shall do less wrong
and injustice, if the conviction is fixed and embedded in our souls that
everything done is done irrevocably, that even the omnipotence of God
cannot uncommit a deed, cannot make that undone which has been done;
that every act of ours must bear its allotted fruit, according to the
everlasting laws, must remain forever ineffaceably inscribed on the
tablets of Universal Nature.”
“Masonry does not occupy itself with crying down this world, with its
splendid beauty, it’s thrilling interests, its glorious works, its
noble and holy affections; nor exhort us to detach our hearts from this
earthly life, as empty, fleeting, and unworthy, and fix them upon
Heaven, as the only sphere deserving the love of the loving or the
meditation of the wise. It teaches that man has high duties to perform,
and a high destiny to fulfill, on this Earth; that this world is not
merely the portal to another; and that this life, though not our only
one, is an integral one, and the particular one with which we are here
meant to be concerned; that the present is our scene of action, and the
future for speculation and for trust; that man was sent upon the Earth
to live in it, to enjoy it, to study it, to love it, to embellish it, to
make the most of it. He is sent into this world, not to be constantly
hankering after, dreaming of, preparing for another; but to do his duty
and fulfill his destiny on this Earth; to do all that lies in his power
to improve it, to render it a scene of elevated happiness to himself, to
those around him, to those who are to come after him. His life here is
part of his immortality; and this world, also, is among the stars. A
belief in the one true God, and a moral and virtuous life, constitute
the only religious requisites needed to enable a man to be a Mason.”
“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. It sees
the thumb-screws and the racks, the whip, the gallows, and the stake,
the victims of Diocletian and Alva, the miserable Covenanters, the
Non-Conformists, Servetus burned, and the unoffending Quaker hung. It
sees Cranmer hold his arm, now no longer erring, in the flame until the
hand drops off in the consuming heat. It sees the persecutions of Peter
and Paul, the martyrdom of Stephen, the trials of Ignatius, Polycarp,
Justin, and Irenæus; and then in turn the sufferings of the wretched
Pagans under the Christian emperors, as of the Papists in Ireland and
under Elizabeth and the bloated Henry.
The Roman Virgin naked before the hungry lions; young Margaret Graham
tied to a stake at low-water mark, and there left to drown, singing
hymns to God until the savage waters broke over her head; and all that
in all ages have suffered by hunger and nakedness, peril and prison, the
rack, the stake, and the sword, – it sees them all, and shudders at the
long roll of human atrocities. And it sees also the oppression still
practiced in the name of religion – men shot in a Christian jail in
Christian Italy for reading the Christian Bible; in almost every
Christian State, laws forbidding freedom of speech on matters relating
to Christianity; and the gallows reaching its arm over the pulpit. The
fires of Moloch in Syria, the harsh mutilations in the name of Astarte,
Cybele, Jehovah; the barbarities of imperial Pagan torturers; the still
grosser torments which Roman-Gothic Christians in Italy and Spain heaped
on their brother-men; the fiendish cruelties to which Switzerland,
France, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, America, have been
witnesses, are none too powerful to warn man of the unspeakable evils
which follow from mistakes and errors in the matter of religion, and
especially from investing the God of love with the cruel and vindictive
passions of erring humanity, and making blood to have a sweet savor in
his nostrils, and groans of agony to be delicious to his ears.
Man never had the right to usurp the unexercised prerogative of God,
and condemn and punish another for his belief. Born in a Protestant
land, we are of that faith. If we had opened our eyes to the light under
the shadows of St. Peter’s at Rome, we should have been devout
Catholics; born in the Jewish quarter of Aleppo, we should have
contemned Christ as an imposter; in Constantinople, we should have cried
“Allah il Allah, God is great and Mahomet is his prophet!” Birth,
place, and education give us our faith. Few believe in any religion
because they have examined the evidences of its authenticity, and made
up a formal judgment, upon weighing the testimony.
The Mason’s creed goes further than that. No man, it holds, has any
right in any way to interfere with the religious belief of another. It
holds that each man is absolutely sovereign as to his own belief, and
that belief is a matter absolutely foreign to all who do not entertain
the same belief; and that, if there were any right of persecution at
all, it would in all cases be a mutual right; because one party has the
same right as the other to sit as judge in his own case; and God is the
only magistrate that can rightfully decide between them. Among all the
ancient nations there was one faith and one idea of Deity for the
enlightened, intelligent, and educated, and another for the common
people. To this rule the Hebrew’s were no exception. Yehovah, to the
mass of the people, was like the gods of the nations around them, except
that he was the peculiar God, first of the family of Abraham, of that
of Isaac, and of that of Jacob, and afterward the national God; and, as
they believed, more powerful than the other gods of the same nature
worshipped by their neighbors – “Who among the Baalim is like unto thee,
O Yehovah?” – expressed their whole creed.
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; he sat and ate with Abraham in his tent; that patriarch required
a visible token, before he would believe in his positive promise; he
permitted Abraham to expostulate with 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, as well as
wavering and irresolute; 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 Nineveh; and he did it not, to the
disgust and anger of Jonah.
But such were not the ideas of the intellectual and enlightened few
among the Hebrews. It is certain that they possessed a knowledge of the
true nature and attributes of God; as the same class of men did among
the other nations – Zoroaster, Menu, Confucius, Socrates, and Plato. But
their doctrines on this subject were esoteric; they did not communicate
them to the people at large, but only to a favored few; and as they
were communicated in Egypt and India, in Persia and Phœnicia, in Greece
and Samothrace, in the greater mysteries, to the Initiates. It
(Freemasonry) is philosophical, because it teaches the great Truths
concerning the nature and existence of one supreme Deity, and the
existence and immortality of the soul. It revives the Academy of Plato,
and the wise teachings of Socrates. It reiterates the maxims of
Pythagoras, Confucius, and Zoroaster, and reverentially enforces the
sublime lessons of him who died upon the cross.
The ancients thought that universal humanity acted under the
influence of two opposing principles, the good and the evil: of which
the good urged men toward truth, independence, and devotedness; and the
evil toward falsehood, servility, and selfishness. Masonry represents
the good principle and constantly wars against the evil one. It is the
Hercules, the Osiris, the Apollo, the Mithras, and the Ormuzd, at
everlasting and deadly feud with the demons of ignorance, brutality,
baseness, falsehood, slavishness of soul, intolerance, superstition,
tyranny, meanness, the insolence of wealth, and bigotry.
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 lights of God; and He is more than they. Perfect truth is not
attainable anywhere. We style this degree that of Perfection; and yet
what it teaches is imperfect and defective. Yet we are not to relax in
the pursuit of truth, nor contentedly acquiesce in error. It is our duty
always to press forward in the search; for though absolute truth is
unattainable, yet the amount of error in our views is capable of
progressive and perpetual diminution; and thus Masonry is a continual
struggle toward the light.
Masonry, around whose altars 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,
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.
For itself it finds those truths definite enough, which are written by
the finger of God upon the heart of man and on the pages of the book of
nature.
The true Mason, sincerely holding that a supreme God created and
governs this world, believes also that He governs it by laws, which,
though wise, just, and beneficent, are yet steady, unwavering,
inexorable. He believes that his agonies and sorrows are ordained for
his chastening, his strengthening, his elaboration and development;
because they are the necessary results of the operation of laws, the
best that could be devised for the happiness and purification of the
species, and to give occasion and opportunity for the practice of all
the virtues, from the homeliest and most common, to the noblest and most
sublime; or perhaps not even that, but the best adapted to work out the
vast, awful, glorious, eternal designs of the Great Spirit of the
Universe.
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.
Emanation from the Deity of all spiritual beings, progressive
degeneration of these beings from emanation to emanation, redemption and
return of all to the purity of the Creator; and, after the
re-establishment of the primitive harmony of all, a fortunate and truly
divine condition of all, in the bosom of God; such were the fundamental
teachings of Gnosticism.
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. 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 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 disorder, emanating from inferior spirits who
fill the air as 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.”
“Amun, at first the God of Lower Egypt only, where Moshah 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.
Moshah himself was an initiate in the mysteries of Egypt, as he was
compelled to be, as the adopted son of the daughter of Pharaoh,
Thouoris, daughter of Sesostris-Ramses; who, as her tomb and monuments
show, was, in the right of her infant husband, Regent of Lower Egypt or
the delta at the time of the Hebrew Prophet’s birth, reigning at
Heliopolis. She was also, as the reliefs on her tomb show, a Priestess
of Hathor and Neith, the two great primeval goddesses. As her adopted
son, living in her palace and presence forty years, and during that time
scarcely acquainted with his brethren the Jews, the law of Egypt
compelled his initiation: and we find in many of his enactments the
intention of preserving, between the common people and the initiates,
the line of separation which he found in Egypt. Moshah and Aharun his
brother, the whole series of High-Priests, the Council of the seventy
Elders, Salomon and the entire succession of prophets, were in
possession of a higher science; and of that science Masonry is, at
least, the lineal descendant. It was familiarly known as The Knowledge
of the Word.”
“He, the first Hermes, was the Intelligence or Word of God. Moved
with compassion for a race living without law, and wishing to teach them
that they sprang from his bosom, and to point out to them the way that
they should go [the books which the first Hermes, the same with Enoch,
had written on the mysteries of divine science, in the sacred
characters, being unknown to those who lived after the flood], God sent
to man Osiris and Isis, accompanied by Thoth, the incarnation or
terrestrial repetition of the first Hermes; who taught men the arts,
science, and the ceremonies of religion; and then ascended to Heaven or
the Moon. Osiris was the Principle of Good. Typhon, like Ahriman, was
the principle and source of all that is evil in the moral and physical
order. Like the Satan of Gnosticism, he was confounded with Matter.”
“The Jews of Syria and Judea were the direct precursors of
Gnosticism; and in their doctrines were ample Oriental elements. These
Jews had had with the Orient, at two different periods, intimate
relations, familiarizing them with the doctrines of Asia, and especially
of Chaldea and Persia; their forced residence in central Asia under the
Assyrians and Persians; and their voluntary dispersion over the whole
East, when subjects of the Seleucids and the Romans. Living near
two-thirds of a century, and many of them long afterward, in
Mesopotamia, the cradle of their race; speaking the same language, and
their children reared with those of the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Medes, and
Persians, and receiving from them their names as the case of Danayal,
who was called Bæltasatsar, proves, they necessarily adopted many of the
doctrines of their conquerors. Their descendants, as Azra and Nahamaiah
show us, hardly desired to leave Persia, when they were allowed to do
so. They had a special jurisdiction and governors and judges taken from
their own people; many of them held high office, and their children were
educated with those of the highest nobles. Danayal 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.
Mordecai, too, occupied a high station, no less than that of Prime
Minister, and Esther or Astar, his cousin, was the Monarch’s wife.”
“It is a significant fact, that while Christ spoke often of the
Pharisees and Sadducees, He never once mentioned the Essenes, between
whose doctrines and His there was so great a resemblance, and, in many
points, so perfect an identity. Indeed, they are not named, nor even
distinctly alluded to, anywhere in the New Testament. This faith, taught
by John, and so nearly Christianity, could have been nothing but the
doctrine of the Essenes; and there can be no doubt that John belonged to
that sect. The place where he preached, his macerations and frugal
diet, the doctrines he taught, all prove it conclusively. There was no
other sect to which he could have belonged; certainly none so numerous
as his, except the Essenes.
The forms and ceremonies of the Essenes were symbolical. They had,
according to Philo the Jew, four degrees; the members being divided into
two orders, the Practici and Therapeutici; the latter being the
contemplative and medical brethren; and the former the active,
practical, business men. They were Jews by birth; and had a greater
affection for each other than the members of any other sect. Their
brotherly love was intense. They fulfilled the Christian law, “Love one
another.” They despised riches. No one was to be found among them,
having more than another. The possessions of one were intermingled with
those of the others; so that they all had but one patrimony, and were
brethren.
Eusebius broadly admits “that the ancient Therapeutæ were Christians;
and that their ancient writings were our Gospels and Epistles.” The
Essenes were of the eclectic sect of philosophers, and held Plato in the
highest esteem; they believed that true philosophy, the greatest and
most salutary gift of God to mortals, was scattered, in various
portions, through all the different sects; and that it was,
consequently, the duty of every wise man to gather it from the several
quarters where it lay dispersed, and to employ it, thus reunited, in
destroying the dominion of impiety and vice.
The great festivals of the Solstices were observed in a distinguished
manner by the Essenes; as would naturally be supposed, from the fact
that they reverenced the Sun, not as a god, but as a symbol of light and
fire; the fountain of which, the Orientals supposed God to be. The Word
appears in all these creeds. It is the Ormuzd of Zoroaster, the Ainsoph
of the Kabalah, the Nous of Platonism and Philonism, and the Sophia or
Demiourgos of the Gnostics. And all these creeds, while admitting these
different manifestations of the Supreme Being, held that His identity
was immutable. The belief in dualism in some shape was universal. Those
who held that everything emanated from God, aspired to God, and
re-entered into God, believed that, among those emanations were two
adverse Principles, of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. …It resists
the influences that would spiritualize it. That resisting power is
Satan, the rebellious matter, matter that does not partake of God.”
“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 Ainsoph 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 whom all the nations were expecting; the ‘Word,’ the
Masayah, the Anointed or Consecrated One.”
“These old controversies have died away, and the old faiths have
faded into oblivion. But Masonry still survives, vigorous and strong, as
when philosophy was taught in the schools of Alexandria and under the
portico; teaching the same old truths as the Essenes taught by the
shores of the Dead Sea, and as John the Baptist preached in the desert;
truths imperishable as the Deity, and undeniable as Light. Those truths
were gathered by the Essenes from the doctrines of the Orient and the
Occident, from the Zend-Avesta and the Vedas, from Plato and Pythagoras,
from India, Persia, Phœnicia, and Syria, from Greece and Egypt, and
from the Holy Books of the Jews. Hence we are called Knights of the East
and West, because their doctrines came from both. And these doctrines,
the wheat sifted from the chaff, the truth separated from error, Masonry
has garnered up in her heart of hearts, and through the fires of
persecution, and the storms of calamity, has brought them and delivered
them unto us. That God is One, immutable, unchangeable, infinitely just
and good; that Light will finally overcome darkness – good conquer evil,
and truth be victor over error; – these, rejecting all the wild and
useless speculations of the Zend-Avesta, the Kabalah, the Gnostics, and
the Schools, are the religion and Philosophy of Masonry.”
“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, Balder.”
“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. He called to the Priesthood all
men, without distinction of caste, who felt themselves inspired by God
to instruct men. Those who so associated themselves, formed a society of
prophets under the name of Samaneans. They recognized the existence of a
single uncreated God, in whose bosom everything grows, is developed and
transformed. Man had fallen, but not by the tempting of the serpent.
For, with the Phœnicians, 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.”
“Jesus of Nazareth, the ‘Son of Man’ is the expounder of the new Law
of Love. He calls to him the humble, the poor, the pariahs of the world.
The first sentence that he pronounces blesses the world, and announces
the new gospel: “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be
comforted.” He pours the oil of consolation and peace upon every crushed
and bleeding heart. Every sufferer is his proselyte. He shares their
sorrows, and sympathizes with all their afflictions. He raises up the
sinner and the Samaritan woman, and teaches them to hope for
forgiveness. He pardons the woman taken in adultery. He selects his
disciples not among the Pharisees or the philosophers, but among the low
and humble, even of the fishermen of Galilee. He heals the sick and
feeds the poor. He lives among the destitute and the friendless. “Suffer
little children,” he said, “to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom
of Heaven! Blessed are the humble-minded, for theirs is the kingdom of
Heaven; the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth; the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy; the pure in heart, for they shall see God; the
peace-maker, for they shall be called the children of God.
First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift
at the altar. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would
borrow of thee turn not away! Love your enemies; bless them that curse
you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you! All things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye also unto them; for this is the Law and the
Prophets! He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not
worthy of me. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one
another: as I have loved you, that ye also love one another: by this
shall all know that ye are my disciples. Greater love hath no man than
this that a man lay down his life for his friend.
The Gospel of Love he sealed with his life. The cruelty of the Jewish
priesthood, the ignorant ferocity of the mob, and the Roman
indifference to barbarian blood, nailed him to the cross, and he expired
uttering blessings upon humanity. Dying thus, he bequeathed his
teachings to man as an inestimable inheritance. Perverted and corrupted,
they have served as a basis for many creeds, and been even made the
warrant for intolerance and persecution. We here teach them in their
purity. They are our Masonry; for to them good men of all creeds can
subscribe.
That God is good and merciful, and loves and sympathizes with the
creatures He has made; that His finger is visible in all the movements
of the moral, intellectual, and material universe; that we are His
children, the objects of His paternal care and regard; that all men are
our brothers, whose wants we are to supply, their errors to pardon,
their opinions to tolerate, their injuries to forgive; that man has an
immortal soul, a free will, a right to freedom of thought and action;
that all men are equal in God’s sight; that we best serve God by
humility, meekness, gentleness, kindness, and the other virtues which
the lowly can practice as well as the lofty; this is “the new Law,” the
“Word,” for which the world had waited and pined so long; and every true
Knight of the Rose ✠ 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.”
“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.”
“From the bosom of Egypt sprang a man of consummate wisdom, initiated
in the secret knowledge of India, of Persia, and of Ethiopia, named
Thoth or Phtha by his compatriots, Taut by the Phœnicians, Hermes
Trismegistus by the Greeks, and Adris by the Rabbins. Nature seemed to
have chosen him for her favorite, and to have lavished on him all the
qualities necessary to enable him to study her and to know her
thoroughly. The Deity had, so to say, infused into him the sciences and
the arts, in order that he might instruct the whole world. He invented
many things necessary for the uses of life, and gave them suitable
names; he taught men how to write down their thoughts and arrange their
speech; he instituted the ceremonies to be observed in the worship of
each of the Gods; he observed the course of the stars; he invented
music, the different bodily exercises, arithmetic, medicine, the art of
working in metals, the lyre with three strings; he regulated the three
tones of the voice, the sharp, taken from autumn, the grave from winter,
and the middle from spring, there being then but three seasons. It was
he who taught the Greeks the mode of interpreting terms and things,
whence they gave him the name of Ἑρμης [Hermes], which signifies
Interpreter. In Egypt he instituted hieroglyphics: he selected a certain
number of persons whom he judged fitted to be the depositaries of his
secrets, of such only as were capable of attaining the throne and the
first offices in the Mysteries; he united them in a body, created them
Priests of the Living God, instructed them in the sciences and arts, and
explained to them the symbols by which they were veiled. Egypt, 1500
years before the time of Moses, revered in the Mysteries One Supreme
God, called the Only Uncreated. Under Him it paid homage to seven
principal deities.
It is to Hermes, who lived at that period, that we must attribute the
concealment or veiling [velation] of the Indian worship, which Moses
unveiled or revealed, changing nothing of the laws of Hermes, except the
plurality of his mystic Gods. The Egyptian Priests related that Hermes,
dying, said: “Hitherto I have lived an exile from my true country: now I
return thither. Do not weep for me: I return to that celestial country
whither each goes in his turn. There is God. This life is but a death.”
This is precisely the creed of the old Buddhists of Samaneans, who
believed that from time to time God sent Buddhas on Earth, to reform
men, to wean them from their vices, and lead them back into the paths of
virtue.”
“The Druidical ceremonies undoubtedly came from India; and the Druids
were originally Buddhists. The word Druid, like the word Magi,
signifies wise or learned men; and they were at once philosophers,
magistrates, and divines. There was a surprising uniformity in the
temples, priests, doctrines, and worship of the Persian Magi and British
Druids. The Gods of Britain were the same as the Cabiri of Samothrace.
Osiris and Isis appeared in their Mysteries, under the names of Hu and
Ceridwen; and like those of the primitive Persians, their temples were
enclosures of huge unhewn stones, some of which still remain, and are
regarded by the common people with fear and veneration. They were
generally either circular or oval. Some were in the shape of a circle to
which a vast serpent was attached. The circle was an Eastern symbol of
the Universe, governed by an Omnipotent Deity whose center is
everywhere, and his circumference nowhere: and the egg was a universal
symbol of the world. The Gothic Mysteries were carried Northward from
the East, by Odin; who, being a great warrior, modeled and varied them
to suit his purposes and the genius of his people. He placed over their
celebration twelve Hierophants, who were alike Priests, Counsellors of
State, and Judges from whose decision there was no appeal.”
“Joseph was undoubtedly initiated. After he had interpreted Pharaoh’s
dream, that Monarch made him his Prime Minister, let him ride in his
second chariot, while they proclaimed before him, Abrech! and set him
over the land of Egypt. In addition to this, the King gave him a new
name, Tsapanat-Paänakh, and married him to Asanat, daughter of Potai
Parang, a Priest of An or Hieropolis, where was the temple of Athom-Re,
the great God of Egypt; thus completely naturalizing him. He could not
have contracted this marriage, nor have exercised that high dignity,
without being first initiated in the Mysteries. When his brethren came
to Egypt the second time, the Egyptians of his court could not eat with
them, as that would have been abomination, though they ate with Joseph;
who was therefore regarded not as a foreigner, but as one of themselves:
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?” Thus assuming the Egyptian of high rank initiated into the
Mysteries, and as such, conversant with the occult sciences.
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, and married afterward the daughter of Yethru,
a Priest of An likewise. Strabo and Diodorus both assert that he was
himself a Priest of Heliopolis. Before he went into the desert, there
were intimate relations between him and the priesthood; and he had
successfully commanded, Josephus informs us, an army sent by the king
against the Ethiopians. Simplicius asserts that Moses received from the
Egyptians, in the Mysteries, the doctrines which he taught to the
Hebrews: and Clement of Alexandria and Philo say that he was a
theologian and prophet, and interpreter of the Sacred Laws. Manetho,
cited by Josephus, says he was a Priest of Heliopolis, and that his true
and original (Egyptian) name was Asersaph or Osarsiph. And in the
institution of the Hebrew priesthood, in the powers and privileges, as
well as the immunities and sanctity which he conferred upon them, he
closely imitated the Egyptian institutions; making public the worship of
that Deity whom the Egyptian initiates worshipped in private; and
strenuously endeavoring to keep the people from relapsing into their old
mixture of Chaldaic and Egyptian superstition and idol-worship, as they
were ever ready and inclined to do; even Aharun, upon their first
clamorous discontent, restoring the worship of Apis; as an image of
which Egyptian God he made the golden calf.”
“The Egyptian Priests taught in their great Mysteries, that there was
one God, supreme and unapproachable, who had conceived the universe by
His Intelligence, before He created it by His Power and Will. They were
no materialists, nor pantheists; but taught that matter was not eternal
or co-existent with the great First Cause, but created by Him. The early
Christians, taught by the founder of their religion, but in greater
perfection, those primitive truths that from the Egyptians had passed to
the Jews, and been preserved among the latter by the Essenes, received
also the institution of the Mysteries; adopting as their object the
building of the symbolic Temple, preserving the old scriptures of the
Jews as their sacred book, and as the fundamental law, which furnished
the new veil of initiation with the Hebraic words and formulas, that,
corrupted and disfigured by time and ignorance, appear in many of our
degrees.”
“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: and the details of the legend and the mode of the
death varied in the different countries where the Mysteries were
practiced. Nothing of this recital (story of Isis, Osiris and Horus) was
historical; but the whole was an allegory or 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. The Mysteries
strove to recall man to his divine origin, and point out to him the
means of returning thither. The great science acquired in the Mysteries
was knowledge of man’s self, of the nobleness of his origin, the
grandeur of his destiny, and his superiority over the animals, which can
never acquire this knowledge, and whom he resembles so long as he does
not reflect upon his existence and sound the depths of his own nature.
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 enthrallments 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.”
Rosicrucians
From Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma;
Secret teachings prominent among Rosicrucian apologists was John
Heydon, who inscribes himself “A servant of God, and a secretary of
nature.” In his curious work, The Rosie Cross Uncovered, he gives an
enigmatic but valuable description of the Fraternity of R.C. in the
following language: “Now there are a kind of men, as they themselves
report, named Rosie Crucians, a divine fraternity that inhabit the
suburbs of heaven, and these are the officers of the Generalissimo of
the World, that are as the eyes and ears of the great King, seeing and
hearing all things: they say these Rosie Crucians are seraphically
illuminated, as Moses was, according to this order of the elements,
earth refined to water, water to air, air to fire.”
…..He further declares that these mysterious Brethren possessed
polymorphous powers, appearing in any desired form at will. In the
preface of the same work, he enumerates the strange powers of the
Rosicrucian adepts: “I shall here tell you what Rosie Crucians are, and
that Moses was their Father, and he was Θεοῦ παῖς; some say they were of
the order of Elias, some say the disciples of Ezekiel; (…) For it
should seem Rosie Crucians were not only initiated into the Mosaical
Theory, but have arrived also to the power of working miracles, as
Moses, Elias, Ezekiel, and the succeeding Prophets did, as being
transported where they please, as Habakkuk was from Jewry to Babylon.”
“The Fraternity of R.C. is an august and sovereign body, arbitrarily
manipulating the symbols of alchemy, Qabbalism, astrology, and magic to
the attainment of its own peculiar purposes, but entirely independent of
the cults whose terminology it employs. One of three major objects of
the Fraternity is:
The abolition of all monarchical forms of government and the
substitution therefore of the ruler ship of the philosophic Elect. The
present democracies are the direct outgrowth of Rosicrucian efforts to
liberate the maws from the domination of despotism. In the early part of
the eighteenth century the Rosicrucian’s turned their attention to the
new American Colonies, then forming the nucleus of a great nation in the
New World. The American War of Independence represents their first
great political experiment and resulted in the establishment of a
national government founded upon the fundamental principles of divine
and natural law. As an imperishable reminder of their sub rosa
activities, the Rosicrucian’s left the Great Seal of the United States.
The Rosicrucian’s were also the instigators of the French Revolution,
but in this instance were not wholly successful, owing to the fact that
the fanaticism of the revolutionists could not be controlled and the
Reign of Terror ensued.
The Rosicrucian’s declared that the material arts and sciences were
but shadows of the divine wisdom, and that only by penetrating the
innermost recesses of Nature could man attain to reality and
understanding. Though calling themselves Christians, the Rosicrucian’s
were evidently Platonists and also profoundly versed in the deepest
mysteries of early Hebrew and Hindu theology. There is undeniable
evidence that the Rosicrucian’s desired to reestablish the institutions
of the ancient Mysteries as the foremost method of instructing humanity
in the secret and eternal doctrine. Indeed, being in all probability the
perpetuators of the ancient Mysteries, the Rosicrucian’s were able to
maintain themselves against the obliterating forces of dogmatic
Christianity only by absolute secrecy and the subtlety of their
subterfuges. They so carefully guarded and preserved the Supreme Mystery
– the identity and interrelationship of the Three Selves – that no one
to whom they did not of their own accord reveal themselves has ever
secured any satisfactory information regarding either the existence or
the purpose of the Order. The Fraternity of R.C., through its outer
organization, is gradually creating an environment or body in which the
Illustrious Brother C.R.C. may ultimately incarnate and consummate for
humanity the vast spiritual and material labors of the Fraternity.”
“The perfect Rosicrucian medicine was for the healing of nations,
races, and individuals. In an early unpublished manuscript, an unknown
philosopher declares alchemy, Qabbalism, astrology, and magic to have
been divine sciences originally, but that through perversion they had
become false doctrines, leading seekers after wisdom ever farther from
their goal. The same author gives a valuable key to esoteric
Rosicrucianism by dividing the path of spiritual attainment into three
steps, or schools, which he calls mountains. The first and lowest of
these mountains is Mount Sophia; the second, Mount Qabbalah; and the
third, Mount Magia. These three mountains are sequential stages of
spiritual growth. The unknown author then states:
“By philosophy is to be understood the knowledge of the workings of
Nature, by which knowledge man learns to climb to those higher mountains
above the limitations of sense. By Qabbalism is to be understood the
language of the angelic or celestial beings, and he who masters it is
able to converse with the messengers of God. On the highest of the
mountains is the School of Magia (Divine Magic, which is the language of
God) wherein man is taught the true nature of all things by God
Himself.”
And that, my friends – is Gnosis.