Chapter VIII (3)

“That bastard foundling of Freemasonry, the ‘Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite,’ which is unrecognized by the Blue
Lodges was the enunciation, primarily, of the brain of the
Jesuit Chevalier Ramsay. It was brought by him to England
in 1736-38, to aid the cause of the Catholic Stuarts.
The rite in its present form of thirty-three degrees
was reorganized at the end of the eighteenth century by
some half dozen Masonic adventurers at Charleston, South
Carolina. Two of these, Pirlet a tailor, and a dancing
master named Lacorne, were fitting predecessors for a
later resuscitation by a gentleman of the name of Gourgas,
employed in the aristocratic occupation of a ship’s
clerk, on a boat trading between New York and Liverpool.
Dr. Crucefix, _alias_ Goss, the _inventor_ of certain
patent medicines of an objectionable character, ran the
institution in England. The powers under which these
worthies acted was a document claimed to have been signed
by Frederick the Great at Berlin, on May 1st, 1786, and by
which were revised the Masonic Constitution and Status of
the High Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Rite. This
paper was an impudent forgery and necessitated the issuing
of a protocol by the Grand Lodges of the Three Globes of
Berlin, which conclusively proved the whole arrangement to
be false in every particular. On claims supported by this
supposititious document, the Ancient and Accepted Rite
have swindled their confiding brothers in the Americas
and Europe out of thousands of dollars, to the shame and
discredit of humanity.

“The modern Templars, whom you refer to in your letter,
are but mere magpies in peacock’s plumes. The aim of
the Masonic Templars is the sectarianization, or rather
the Christianizing of Masonry, a fraternity which is
supposed to admit the Jew, Parsee, Mahometan, Buddhist,
in fact every religionist within its portals who accepts
the doctrine of a personal god, and spirit-immortality.
According to the belief of a section, if not all the
Israelites, belonging to the Craft in America--Templarism
is Jesuitism.

“It seems strange, now that the belief in a personal God
is becoming extinct, and that even the theologian has
transformed his deity into an indescribable nondescript,
that there are those who stand in the way of the general
acceptation of the sublime pantheism of the primeval
Orientals, of Jacob Boehme, of Spinoza. Often in the
Grand Lodge and subordinate lodges of this and other
jurisdictions, the old doxology is sung, with its ‘Praise
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ to the disgust of Israelites
and free-thinking brethren, who are thus unnecessarily
insulted. This could never occur in India, where the great
light in a lodge may be the _Koran_, the _Zend-Avesta_,
or one of the _Vedas_. The sectarian Christian spirit
in Masonry must be put down. To-day there are German
Grand Lodges which will not allow Jews to be initiated,
or Israelites from foreign countries to be accepted as
brethren within their jurisdiction. The French Masons
have, however, revolted against this tyranny, and the
Grand Orient of France does now permit the atheist and
materialist to fellowship in the Craft. A standing rebuke
upon the claimed universality of Masonry is the fact that
the French brethren are now repudiated.

“Notwithstanding its many faults--and speculative
Masonry is but human, and therefore fallible--there is
no institution that has done so much, and is yet capable
of such great undertakings in the future, for human,
religious, and political improvement. In the last century
the Illuminati taught, ‘peace with the cottage, war with
the palace,’ throughout the length and breadth of Europe.
In the last century the United States was freed from the
tyranny of the mother country by the action of the Secret
Societies more than is commonly imagined. Washington,
Lafayette, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, were Masons. And
in the nineteenth century it was Grand Master Garibaldi,
33, who unified Italy, working in accordance with the
spirit of the faithful brotherhood, as the Masonic, or
rather carbonari, principles of ‘liberty, equality,
humanity, independence, unity,’ taught for years by brother
Joseph Mazzini.

“Speculative Masonry has much, too, within its ranks to
do. One is to accept woman as a co-worker of man in the
struggle of life, as the Hungarian Masons have done lately
by initiating the Countess Haideck. Another important
thing is also to recognize practically the brotherhood of
all humanity by refusing none on account of color, race,
position, or creed. The dark-skinned should not be only
theoretically the brother of the light. The colored Masons
who have been duly and regularly raised stand at every
lodge-door in America craving admission, and they are
refused. And there is South America to be conquered to a
participation in the duties of humanity.

“If Masonry be, as claimed, a progressive science and a
school of pure religion, it should ever be found in the
advance guard of civilization, not in the rear. If it
be but an empirical effort, a crude attempt of humanity
to solve some of the deepest problems of the race, and
no more, then it must give place to fitter successors,
perchance one of those that you and I know of, one that may
have acted the prompter at the side of the chiefs of the
Order, during its greatest triumphs, whispering to them as
the dæmon did in the ear of Socrates.

“Yours most Sincerely,
“CHARLES SOTHERAN.”

Thus falls to ruins the grand epic poem of Masons, sung by so many mysterious Knights as another revealed gospel. As we see, the Temple of Solomon is being undermined and brought to the ground by its own chief “Master Masons,” of this century. But if, following the ingenious exoteric description of the _Bible_, there are yet Masons who persist in regarding it as once an actual structure, who, of the students of the esoteric doctrine will ever consider this mythic temple otherwise than an allegory, embodying the secret science? Whether or not there ever was a real temple of that name, we may well leave to archæologists to decide; but that the detailed description thereof in _1 Kings_ is purely allegorical, no serious scholar, proficient in the ancient as well as mediæval jargon of the kabalists and alchemists, can doubt. The building of the Temple of Solomon is the symbolical representation of the gradual acquirement of the _secret_ wisdom, or magic; the erection and development of the spiritual from the earthly; the manifestation of the power and splendor of the spirit in the physical world, through the wisdom and genius of the builder. The latter, when he has become an adept, is a mightier king than Solomon himself, the emblem of the sun or _Light_ himself--the light of the real subjective world, shining in the darkness of the objective universe. This is the “Temple” which can be reared _without the sound of the hammer, or any tool of iron being heard in the house while it is “in building.”_

In the East, this science is called, in some places, the “seven-storied,” in others, the “nine-storied” Temple; every story answers allegorically to a degree of knowledge acquired. Throughout the countries of the Orient, wherever magic and the wisdom-religion are studied, its practitioners and students are known among their craft as Builders--for they build the temple of knowledge, of secret science. Those of the adepts who are active, are styled practical or _operative_ Builders, while the students, or neophytes are classed as _speculative_ or theoretical. The former exemplify in works their control over the forces of inanimate as well as animate nature; the latter are but perfecting themselves in the rudiments of the sacred science. These terms were evidently borrowed at the beginning by the unknown founders of the first Masonic guilds.

In the now popular jargon, “Operative Masons” are understood to be the bricklayers and the handicraftsmen, who composed the Craft down to Sir Christopher Wren’s time; and “Speculative Masons,” all members of the Order, as now understood. The sentence attributed to Jesus, “Thou art Peter ... upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” disfigured, as it is, by mistranslation and misinterpretation, plainly indicates its real meaning. We have shown the signification of _Pater_ and _Petra_, with the hierophants--the interpretation traced on the tables of stone of the final initiation, was handed by the initiator to the chosen future interpreter. Having acquainted himself with its mysterious contents, which revealed to him the mysteries of creation, the initiated became a _builder_ himself, for he was made acquainted with the _dodecahedron_, or the geometrical figure on which the universe was built. To what he had learned in previous initiations of the use of the rule and of architectural principles, was added a cross, the perpendicular and horizontal lines of which were supposed to form the foundation of the spiritual temple, by placing them across the junction, or central primordial point, the element of all existences,[800] representing the first concrete idea of deity. Henceforth he could, as a Master builder (see _1 Corinthians_, iii. 10), erect a temple of wisdom on that rock of _Petra_, for himself; and having laid a sure foundation, let “another build thereon.”

The Egyptian hierophant was given a square head-dress, which he had to wear always, and a square (see Mason’s marks), without which he could never go abroad. The perfect _Tau_ formed of the perpendicular (descending male ray, or spirit) a horizontal line (or matter, female ray), and the mundane circle was an attribute of Isis, and, it is but at his death that the Egyptian cross was laid on the breast of his mummy. These square hats are worn unto this day by the Armenian priests. The claim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol introduced after our era, is strange indeed, when we find Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the men of Judah, who feared the Lord (_Ezekiel_ ix. 4), with the _signa Thau_, as it is translated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this sign was formed thus but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as a perfect Christian cross . In the _Revelation_, also, the “Alpha and Omega” (spirit and matter), the first and the last, stamps the name of his Father in the foreheads of the _elect_.

And if our statements are wrong, if Jesus was not an initiate, a Master-builder, or Master-Mason as it is now called, how comes it, that on the most ancient cathedrals we find his figure with Mason’s marks about his person? In the Cathedral of Santa Croce, Florence, over the main portal can be seen the figure of Christ holding a perfect square in his hand.

The surviving “Master-builders” of the _operative_ craft of the true Temple, may go literally _half-naked_ and wander _slipshod_ for ever--now not for the sake of a puerile ceremony, but because, like the “Son of man,” they have not where to lay their heads--and yet be the only surviving possessors of the “Word.” Their “cable-tow” is the sacred triple cord of certain Brahman-Sannyâsi, or the string on which certain lamas hang their _yu-stone_; but with these apparently valueless talismans, not one of them would part for all the wealth of Solomon and Sheba. The seven-knotted bamboo stick of the fakir can become as powerful as the rod of Moses “which was created between the evenings, and on which was engraven and set forth the great and glorious NAME, with which he was to do the wonders in Mizraim.”

But these “operative workmen” have no fear that their secrets will be disclosed by treacherous ex-high priests of chapters, though their generation may have received them through others than “Moses, Solomon, and Zerubbabel.” Had Moses Michael Hayes, the Israelite Brother who introduced Royal Arch Masonry into this country (in December. 1778),[801] had a prophetic presentiment of future treasons, he might have instituted more efficacious obligations than he has.

Truly, the grand omnific Royal Arch word, “_long lost but now found_,” has fulfilled its prophetic promise. The password of that degree is no more “I AM THAT I AM.” It is now simply “I was but am no more!”

That we may not be accused of vain boasting, we shall give the keys to several of the secret ciphers of the most exclusive and important of the so-called higher Masonic degrees. If we mistake not, these have never before been revealed to the outside world (except that of the Royal Arch Masons, in 1830), but have been most jealously guarded within the various Orders. We are under neither promise, obligation, nor oath, and therefore violate no confidence. Our purpose is not to gratify an idle curiosity; we wish merely to show Masons and the affiliates of all other Western societies--the Company of Jesus included--that it is impossible for them to be secure in the possession of any secrets that it is worth an Eastern Brotherhood’s while to discover. Inferentially, it may also show them that if the latter can lift the masks of European societies, they are nevertheless successful in wearing their own visors; for, if any one thing is universally acknowledged, it is that the real secrets of not a single surviving ancient brotherhood are in possession of the profane.

Some of these ciphers were used by the Jesuits in their secret correspondence at the time of the Jacobin conspiracy, and when Masonry (the alleged successor to the Temple) was employed by the Church for political purposes.

Findel says (see his _History of Freemasonry_, p. 253) that in the eighteenth century, “besides the modern Knights Templar, we see the Jesuits ... disfiguring the fair face of Freemasonry. Many Masonic authors, who were fully cognizant of the period, and knew exactly all the incidents occurring, positively assert that then and still later the Jesuits exercised a pernicious influence, or at least endeavored to do so, upon the fraternity.” Of the Rosicrucian Order he remarks, upon the authority of Prof. Woog, that its “aim at first ... was nothing less than the support and advancement of Catholicism. _When this religion manifested a determination entirely to repress liberty of thought_ ... the Rosicrucians enlarged their designs likewise to check, if possible, the progress of this widely-spreading enlightenment.”

In the _Sincerus Renatus_ (the truly converted) of S. Richter, of Berlin (1714), we note that laws were communicated for the government of the “Golden Rosicrucians,” which “bear unmistakable evidences of Jesuitical intervention.”

We will begin with the cryptographs of the “Sovereign Princes Rose Croix,” also styled _Knights of St. Andrew, Knights of the Eagle and Pelican, Heredom, Rosæ Crucis, Rosy Cross, Triple Cross, Perfect Brother, Prince Mason, and so on_. The “Heredom Rosy Cross” also claims a Templar origin, in 1314.[802]

CIPHER OF THE
S ∴ P ∴ R ∴ C ∴

a b c d e f g h ij k l m n

o p q r s t uv x y z &.

CIPHER OF THE KNIGHT ROSE CROIX OF HEREDOM
(of Kilwining).

_0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17_
a b c d e f g h i j ba (or) k kb kc kd ke kf kg kh

_600 700 800 900 1000_
gl hl il jl m

CIPHER OF THE KNIGHTS KADOSH.
(Also White and Black Eagle and Grand Elected Knight Templar.)

_70 2 3 12 15 20 30 33 38 9 10 40_
a b c d e f g h i k l m

_60 80 81 82 83 48 85 86 90 91 94 95_
n o p q r s t u v x y z

The Knights Kadosh have another cipher--or rather hieroglyph--which, in this case, is taken from the Hebrew, possibly to be the more in keeping with the _Bible_ Kadeshim of the Temple.[803]

As for the Royal Arch cipher, it has been exposed before now, but we may well present it slightly amplified.

The cipher consists of certain combinations of right angles, with or without points or dots. Following is the basis of its

Now, the alphabet consists of twenty-six letters, and these two signs being dissected, form thirteen distinct characters, thus:

A point placed within each gives thirteen more, thus:

Making a total of twenty-six, equal to the number of letters in the English alphabet.

There are two ways, at least, of combining and using these characters for the purposes of secret correspondence. One method is to call the first sign, [In-line illustration] a; the same, with a point, ⟓ b, etc. Another is to apply them, in their regular course, to the first half of the alphabet, [In-line illustration] a, ⊓ b, and so on, to m; after which, repeat them with a dot, beginning with ⟓ n, [In-line illustration] o, etc., to ⋖ z.

The alphabet, according to the first method, stands thus:

a b c d e f g h i j k l m

n o p q r s t u v w x y z

According to the second method, thus:

a b c d e f g h i j k l m

n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Besides these signs, the French Masons, evidently under the tuition of their accomplished masters--the Jesuits, have perfected this cipher in all its details. So they have signs even for commas, diphthongs, accents, dots, etc., and these are

&c æ œ w ç ´ ` ^ - . , ; : ∴ ?

Let this suffice. We might, if we chose, give the cipher alphabets with their keys, of another method of the Royal Arch Masons, strongly resembling a certain Hindu character; of the G ∴ El ∴ of the Mystic City; of a well-known form of the Devanagari script of the (French) Sages of the Pyramids; and of the Sublime Master of the Great Work, and others. But we refrain; only, be it understood, for the reason that some of these alone of all the side branches of the original Blue Lodge Freemasonry, contain the promise of a useful future. As for the rest, they may and will go to the ash-heap of time. High Masons will understand what we mean.

We must now give some proofs of what we have stated, and demonstrate that the word Jehovah, if Masonry adheres to it, will ever remain as a substitute, never be identical with the lost mirific name. This is so well known to the kabalists, that in their careful etymology of the יהוה they show it beyond doubt to be only one of the many substitutes for the real name, and composed of the two-fold name of the first androgyne--Adam and Eve, Jod (or Yodh), Vau and He-Va--the female serpent as a symbol of Divine Intelligence proceeding from the ONE-Generative or _Creative_ Spirit.[804] Thus, Jehovah is not the sacred name at all. Had Moses given to Pharaoh the _true_ “name,” the latter would not have answered as he did, for the Egyptian King-Initiates knew it as well as Moses, who had learned it with them. _The_ “name” was at that time the common property of the adepts of all the nations in the world, and Pharaoh knew certainly the “name” of the Highest God mentioned in the _Book of the Dead_. But instead of that, Moses (if we accept the allegory of _Exodus_ literally), gives Pharaoh the name of _Yeva_, the expression or form of the Divine name used by all the _Targums_ as passed by Moses. Hence Pharaoh’s reply: “And who is that _Yeva_[805] that I should obey his voice?”

“Jehovah” dates only from the Masoretic innovation. When the Rabbis, for fear that they should lose the keys to their own doctrines, then written exclusively in consonants, began to insert their vowel-points in their manuscripts, they were utterly ignorant of the true pronunciation of the NAME. Hence, they gave it the sound of _Adonah_, and made it read _Ja-ho-vah_. Thus the latter is simply a fancy, a perversion of the Holy Name. And how could they know it? Alone, out of all their nation the high priests had it in their possession, and respectively passed it to their successors, as the Hindu Brahmaâtma does before his death. Once a year only, on the day of atonement, the high priest was allowed to pronounce it in a whisper. Passing behind the veil into the inner chamber of the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, with trembling lips and downcast eyes he called upon the dreaded NAME. The bitter persecution of the kabalists, who received the precious syllables after deserving the favor by a whole life of sanctity, was due to a suspicion that they misused it. At the opening of this chapter we have told the story of Simeon Ben-Iochaï, one of the victims to this priceless knowledge, and see how little he deserved his cruel treatment.

The _Book of Jasher_, a work--as we are told by a very learned Hebrew divine, of New York--composed in Spain in the twelfth century as “a popular tale,” and that had not “the sanction of the Rabbinical College of Venice,” is full of kabalistical, alchemical, and magical allegories. Admitting so much, it must still be said that there are few popular tales but are based on historical truths. The _Norsemen in Iceland_, by Dr. G. W. Dasent, is also a collection of popular tales, but they contain the key to the primitive religious worship of that people. So with the _Book of Jasher_. It contains the whole of the _Old Testament_ in a condensed form, and as the Samaritans held, _i.e._, the five _Books of Moses_, without the Prophets. Although rejected by the orthodox Rabbis, we cannot help thinking that, as in the case of the apocryphal _Gospels_, which were written earlier than the canonical ones, the _Book of Jasher_ is the true original from which the subsequent _Bible_ was in part composed. Both the apocryphal _Gospels_ and _Jasher_, are a series of religious tales, in which miracle is heaped upon miracle, and which narrate the popular legends as they first originated, without any regard to either chronology or dogma. Still both are corner-stones of the Mosaic and Christian religions. That there was a _Book of Jasher_ prior to the Mosaic _Pentateuch_ is clear, for it is mentioned in _Joshua_, _Isaiah_, and _2 Samuel_.

Nowhere is the difference between the Elohists and Jehovists so clearly shown as in _Jasher_. Jehovah is here spoken of as the Ophites held him to be, a Son of Ilda-Baoth, or Saturn. In this Book, the Egyptian Magi, when asked by Pharaoh “Who is he, of whom Moses speaks as the _I am_?” reply that the God of Moses “we have learned, is the Son of the Wise, the Son of ancient kings” (ch. lxxix. 45).[806] Now, those who assert that _Jasher_ is a forgery of the twelfth century--and we readily believe it--should nevertheless explain the curious fact that, while the above text is _not_ to be found in the _Bible_, the answer to it _is_, and is, moreover, couched in unequivocal terms. At _Isaiah_ xix. 11, the “Lord God” complains of it very wrathfully to the prophet, and says: “Surely the princes of Zoan _are fools_, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish; how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the Son of the Wise, the Son of ancient kings?” which is evidently a reply to the above. At _Joshua_ x. 13, _Jasher_ is referred to in corroboration of the outrageous assertion that the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves. “Is not this written in the _Book of Jasher_?” says the text. And at 2 _Samuel_, i. 19, the same book is again quoted. “Behold,” it says, “it is written in the _Book of Jasher_.” Clearly, _Jasher_ must have existed; it must have been regarded as authority; must have been older than Joshua; and, since the verse in _Isaiah_ unerringly points to the passage above quoted, we have at least as much reason to accept the current edition of _Jasher_ as a transcription, excerpt, or compilation of the original work, as we have to revere the Septuagint _Pentateuch_, as the primitive Hebraic sacred records.

At all events, Jehovah is not the ancient of the ancient, or “aged of the aged,” of the _Sohar_; for we find him, in this book, counselling with God the Father as to the creation of the world. “The work-master spoke to the Lord. Let us make man after our image” (_Sohar_ i., fol. 25). Jehovah is but the Metatron, and perhaps, not even the highest, but only one of the Æons; for he whom Onkelos calls _Memro_, the “Word,” is not the _exoteric_ Jehovah of the _Bible_, nor is he Jahve יַהְוֶה the Existing One.

It was the secresy of the early kabalists, who were anxious to screen the real Mystery name of the “Eternal” from profanation, and later the prudence which the mediæval alchemists and occultists were compelled to adopt to save their lives, that caused the inextricable confusion of divine names. This is what led the people to accept the Jehovah of the _Bible_ as the name of the “One living God.” Every Jewish elder, prophet, and other man of any importance knew the difference; but as the difference lay in the vocalization of the “name,” and its right pronunciation led to death, the common people were ignorant of it, for no initiate would risk his life by teaching it to them. Thus the Sinaitic deity came gradually to be regarded as identical with “Him whose name is known but to the wise.” When Capellus translates: “Whosoever shall pronounce the name of Jehovah, shall suffer death,” he makes two mistakes. The first is in adding the final letter _h_ to the name, if he wants this deity to be considered either male or androgynous, for the letter makes the name feminine, as it really should be, considering it is one of the names of Binah, the third emanation; his second error is in asserting that the word _nokeb_ means only to pronounce _distinctly_. It means to pronounce _correctly_. Therefore, the biblical name Jehovah may be considered simply a _substitute_, which, as belonging to one of the “powers” got to be viewed as that of the “Eternal.” There is an evident mistake (one of the very many), in one of the texts in _Leviticus_, which has been corrected by Cahen, and which proves that the interdiction did not at all concern the name of the exoteric Jehovah, whose numerous other names could also be pronounced without any penalty being incurred.[807] In the vicious English version, the translation runs thus: “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall surely be put to death,” _Levit._ xxiv. 16. Cahen renders it far more correctly, thus: “And he that blasphemeth the name of the _Eternal_ shall die,” etc. The “Eternal” being something higher than the exoteric and personal “Lord.”[808]

As with the Gentile nations, the symbols of the Israelites were ever bearing, directly or indirectly, upon sun-worship. The exoteric Jehovah of the _Bible_ is a _dual_ god, like all the other gods; and the fact that David--who is entirely ignorant of Moses--praises his “Lord,” and assures him that the “Lord _is_ a great God, and a great King above all gods,” may be of a very great importance to the descendants of Jacob and David, but their national God concerns us in no wise. We are quite ready to show the “Lord God” of Israel the same respect as we do to Brahma, Zeus, or any other secondary deity. But we decline, most emphatically, to recognize in him either the Deity worshipped by Moses, or the “Father” of Jesus, or yet the “Ineffable Name” of the kabalists. Jehovah is, perhaps, one of the _Elohim_, who was concerned in the _formation_ (which is not creation) of the universe, one of the architects who built from pre-existing matter, but he never was the “Unknowable” Cause that created “bara,” in the night of the Eternity. These Elohim first form and bless; then they _curse_ and _destroy_; as one of these Powers, Jehovah is therefore by turns beneficent and malevolent; at one moment he punishes and then repents. He is the antitype of several of the patriarchs--of Esau and of Jacob, the allegorical twins, emblems of the ever manifest dual principle in nature. So Jacob, who is Israel, is the left pillar--the feminine principle of Esau, who is the right pillar and the male principle. When he wrestles with Malach-Iho, the Lord, it is the latter who becomes the _right_ pillar, and Jacob-Israel names God; although the _Bible_-interpreters have endeavored to transform him into a mere “angel of the Lord” (_Genesis_ xxxii.), Jacob conquers him--as matter will but too often conquer spirit--but his _thigh_ is put out of joint in the fight.

The name of Israel has its derivation from Isaral or Asar, the Sun-God, who is known as Suryal, Surya, and Sur. Isra-el means “striving with God.” The “sun rising upon Jacob-Israel,” is the _Sun_-God Isaral, fecundating _matter_ or earth, represented by the _female_-Jacob. As usual, the allegory has more than one hidden meaning in the _Kabala_. Esau, Æsaou, Asu, is also the sun. Like the “Lord,” Esau fights with Jacob and prevails not. The God-_Sun_ first strives against, and then rises on him in covenant.

“And as he passed over Penuel, _the sun rose upon him_, and he (Jacob) _halted upon his thigh_” (Genesis xxxii. 31). _Israel_ Jacob, opposed by his brother Esau, is _Samael_, and “the names of Samael are Azazel and _Satan_” (the opposer).

If it will be argued that Moses was unacquainted with the Hindu philosophy and, therefore, could not have taken Siva, the regenerator and the destroyer, as his model for Jehovah, then we must admit that there was some miraculous international intuition which prompted every nation to choose for its exoteric national deity the dual type we find in the “Lord God” of Israel. All these fables speak for themselves. Siva, Jehovah, Osiris, are all the symbols of the active principle in nature _par excellence_. They are the forces which preside at the formation or _regeneration_ of matter and its destruction. They are the types of Life and Death, ever fecundating and decomposing under the never-ceasing influx of the _anima mundi_, the Universal intellectual Soul, the invisible but ever-present spirit which is behind the correlation of the blind forces. This spirit alone is immutable, and therefore the forces of the universe, cause and effect, are ever in perfect harmony with this one great Immutable Law. Spiritual Life is the one primordial principle _above_; Physical Life is the primordial principle _below_, but they are one under their dual aspect. When the Spirit is completely untrammelled from the fetters of correlation, and its essence has become so purified as to be re-united with its CAUSE, it may--and yet who can tell whether it really will--have a glimpse of the Eternal Truth. Till then, let us not build ourselves idols in our own image, and accept the shadows for the Eternal Light.

The greatest mistake of the age was to attempt a comparison of the relative merits of all the ancient religions, and scoff at the doctrines of the _Kabala_ and other superstitions.

But truth is stranger than fiction; and this world-old adage finds its application in the case in hand. The “wisdom” of the archaic ages or the “secret doctrine” embodied in the _Oriental Kabala_, of which, as we have said, the Rabbinical is but an abridgment, did not die out with the Philoletheans of the last Eclectic school. The _Gnosis_ lingers still on earth, and its votaries are many, albeit unknown. Such secret brotherhoods have been mentioned before Mackenzie’s time, by more than one great author. If they have been regarded as mere fictions of the novelist, that fact has only helped the “brother-adepts” to keep their incognito the more easily. We have personally known several of them who, to their great merriment had had the story of their lodges, the communities in which they lived, and the wondrous powers which they had exercised for many long years, laughed at and denied by unsuspecting skeptics to their very faces. Some of these brothers belong to the small groups of “travellers.” Until the close of the happy Louis-Philippian reign, they were pompously termed by the Parisian garçon and trader, the _nobles étrangers_, and as innocently believed to be “Boyards,” Valachian “Gospodars,” Indian “Nabobs,” and Hungarian “Margraves,” who had gathered at the capital of the civilized world to admire its monuments and partake of its dissipations. There are, however, some _insane_ enough to connect the presence of certain of these mysterious guests in Paris with the great political events that subsequently took place. Such recall at least as very remarkable coincidences, the breaking out of the Revolution of ‘93, and the earlier explosion of the South Sea Bubble, soon after the appearance of “noble foreigners,” who had convulsed all Paris for more or less longer periods, by either their mystical doctrines or “supernatural gifts.” The St. Germains and Cagliostros of this century, having learned bitter lessons from the vilifications and persecutions of the past, pursue different tactics now-a-days.

But there are numbers of these mystic brotherhoods which have naught to do with “civilized” countries; and it is in their unknown communities that are concealed the skeletons of the past. These “adepts” could, if they chose, lay claim to strange ancestry, and exhibit verifiable documents that would explain many a mysterious page in both sacred and profane history. Had the keys to the hieratic writings and the secret of Egyptian and Hindu symbolism been known to the Christian Fathers, they would not have allowed a single monument of old to stand unmutilated. And yet, if we are well informed--and we think we are--there was not one such in all Egypt, but the secret records of its hieroglyphics were carefully registered by the sacerdotal caste. These records still exist, though “not extant” for the general public, though perhaps the monuments may have passed away for ever out of human sight.

Of forty-seven tombs of the kings, near Gornore, recorded by the Egyptian priests on their sacred registers, only seventeen were known to the public, according to Diodorus Siculus, who visited the place about sixty years B.C. Notwithstanding this _historical_ evidence, we assert that the whole number exist to this day, and the royal tomb discovered by Belzoni among the sandstone mountains of Biban el-Melook (Melech?) is but a feeble specimen of the rest. We will add, furthermore, that the Arab-Christians, the monks, scattered around in their poor, desolate convents on the borderland of the great Lybian Desert, know of the existence of such unbetrayed relics. But they are Copts, sole remnants of the true Egyptian race, and the Copt predominating over the Christian monk in their natures, they keep silent; for what reason it is not for us to tell. There are some who believe that their monkish attire is but a blind, and that they have chosen these desolate homes among arid deserts and surrounded by Mahometan tribes, for some ulterior purposes of their own. Be it as it may, they are held in great esteem by the Greek monks of Palestine; and there is a rumor current among the Christian pilgrims of Jerusalem, who throng the Holy Sepulchre at every Easter, that the holy fire from heaven will never descend so _miraculously_ as when these monks of the desert are present to draw it down by their prayers.[809]

“The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” Many are the candidates at the doors of those who are supposed to know the path that leads to the secret brotherhoods. The great majority are refused admittance, and these turn away interpreting the refusal as an evidence of the non-existence of any such secret society. Of the minority accepted, more than two-thirds fail upon trial. The seventh rule of the ancient Rosicrucian brotherhoods, which is universal among all true secret societies: “the Rosy-Crux becomes and is not _made_,” is more than the generality of men can bear to have applied to them. But let no one suppose that of the candidates who fail, any will divulge to the world even the trifle they may have learned, as some Masons do. None know better than themselves how unlikely it is that a neophyte should ever talk of what was imparted to him. Thus these societies will go on and hear themselves denied without uttering a word until the day shall come for them to throw off their reserve and show how completely they are masters of the situation.