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diff --git a/75871-0.txt b/75871-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4355970 --- /dev/null +++ b/75871-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,44595 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75871 *** + + + + + ISIS UNVEILED: + + A MASTER-KEY + + TO THE + + MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN + + SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. + + BY + + H. P. BLAVATSKY, + CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. + + “Cecy est un livre de bonne Foy.”--MONTAIGNE. + + VOL. II.--_THEOLOGY._ + + FOURTH EDITION. + + NEW YORK: + J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY. + LONDON: BERNARD QUARITCH. + 1878. + + + + + COPYRIGHT, BY + J. W. BOUTON. + 1877. + + + TROW’S + PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO., + PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS, + _205-213 East 12th St._, + NEW YORK. + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + PREFACE iv + Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson and Baroness Burdett-Coutts. + + + Volume Second. + + _THE “INFALLIBILITY” OF RELIGION._ + + + CHAPTER I. + + THE CHURCH: WHERE IS IT? + + Church statistics 1 + Catholic “miracles” and spiritualistic “phenomena” 4 + Christian and Pagan beliefs compared 10 + Magic and sorcery practised by Christian clergy 20 + Comparative theology a new science 25 + Eastern traditions as to Alexandrian Library 27 + Roman pontiffs imitators of the Hindu Brahm-âtma 30 + Christian dogmas derived from heathen philosophy 33 + Doctrine of the Trinity of Pagan origin 45 + Disputes between Gnostics and Church Fathers 51 + Bloody records of Christianity 53 + + + CHAPTER II. + + CHRISTIAN CRIMES AND HEATHEN VIRTUES. + + Sorceries of Catherine of Medicis 55 + Occult arts practised by the clergy 59 + Witch-burnings and auto-da-fé of little children 62 + Lying Catholic saints 74 + Pretensions of missionaries in India and China 79 + Sacrilegious tricks of Catholic clergy 82 + Paul a kabalist 91 + Peter not the founder of Roman church 91 + Strict lives of Pagan hierophants 98 + High character of ancient “mysteries” 101 + Jacolliot’s account of Hindu fakirs 103 + Christian symbolism derived from Phallic worship 109 + Hindu doctrine of the Pitris 114 + Brahminic spirit-communion 115 + Dangers of _untrained_ mediumship 117 + + + CHAPTER III. + + DIVISIONS AMONGST THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. + + Resemblance between early Christianity and Buddhism 123 + Peter never in Rome 124 + Meanings of “Nazar” and “Nazarene” 129 + Baptism a derived right 134 + Is Zoroaster a generic name? 141 + Pythagorean teachings of Jesus 147 + The Apocalypse kabalistic 147 + Jesus considered an adept by some Pagan philosophers + and early Christians 150 + Doctrine of permutation 152 + The meaning of God-Incarnate 153 + Dogmas of the Gnostics 155 + Ideas of Marcion, the “heresiarch” 159 + Precepts of Manu 163 + Jehovah identical with Bacchus 165 + + + CHAPTER IV. + + ORIENTAL COSMOGONIES AND BIBLE RECORDS. + + Discrepancies in the Pentateuch 167 + Indian, Chaldean and Ophite systems compared 170 + Who were the first Christians? 178 + Christos and Sophia-Achamoth 183 + Secret doctrine taught by Jesus 191 + Jesus never claimed to be God 193 + New Testament narratives and Hindu legends 199 + Antiquity of the “Logos” and “Christ” 205 + Comparative Virgin-worship 209 + + + CHAPTER V. + + MYSTERIES OF THE KABALA. + + En-Soph and the Sephiroth 212 + The primitive wisdom-religion 216 + The book of Genesis a compilation of Old World legends 217 + The Trinity of the Kabala 222 + Gnostic and Nazarene systems contrasted with Hindu myths 225 + Kabalism in the book of Ezekiel 232 + Story of the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter found + in the history of Christna 241 + Untrustworthy teachings of the early Fathers 248 + Their persecuting spirit 249 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + ESOTERIC DOCTRINES OF BUDDHISM PARODIED IN CHRISTIANITY. + + Decisions of Nicean Council, how arrived at 251 + Murder of Hypatia 252 + Origin of the fish-symbol of Vishnu 256 + Kabalistic doctrine of the Cosmogony 264 + Diagrams of Hindu and Chaldeo-Jewish systems 265 + Ten mythical Avatars of Vishnu 274 + Trinity of man taught by Paul 281 + Socrates and Plato on soul and spirit 283 + True Buddhism, what it is 288 + + + CHAPTER VII. + + EARLY CHRISTIAN HERESIES AND SECRET SOCIETIES. + + Nazareans, Ophites, and modern Druzes 291 + Etymology of IAO 298 + “Hermetic Brothers” of Egypt 307 + True meaning of Nirvana 319 + The Jaïna sect 321 + Christians and Chrestians 323 + The Gnostics and their detractors 325 + Buddha, Jesus, and Apollonius of Tyana 341 + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + JESUITRY AND MASONRY. + + The _Sohar_ and Rabbi Simeon 348 + The Order of Jesuits and its relation to some of the + Masonic orders 352 + Crimes permitted to its members 355 + Principles of Jesuitry compared with those of Pagan + moralists 364 + Trinity of man in Egyptian _Book of the Dead_ 367 + Freemasonry no longer esoteric 372 + Persecution of Templars by the Church 381 + Secret Masonic ciphers 395 + Jehovah not the “Ineffable Name” 398 + + + CHAPTER IX. + + THE VEDAS AND THE BIBLE. + + Nearly every myth based on some great truth 405 + Whence the Christian Sabbath 406 + Antiquity of the Vedas 410 + Pythagorean doctrine of the potentialities of numbers 417 + “Days” of _Genesis_ and “Days” of Brahma 422 + Fall of man and the Deluge in the Hindu books 425 + Antiquity of the Mahâbhârata 429 + Were the ancient Egyptians of the Aryan race? 434 + Samuel, David, and Solomon mythical personages 439 + Symbolism of Noah’s Ark 447 + The Patriarchs identical with zodiacal signs 459 + All Bible legends belong to universal history 469 + + + CHAPTER X. + + THE DEVIL-MYTH. + + The devil officially recognized by the Church 477 + Satan the mainstay of sacerdotalism 480 + Identity of Satan with the Egyptian Typhon 483 + His relation to serpent-worship 489 + The Book of Job and the Book of the Dead 493 + The Hindu devil a metaphysical abstraction 501 + Satan and the Prince of Hell in the Gospel of Nicodemus 515 + + + CHAPTER XI. + + COMPARATIVE RESULTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. + + The age of philosophy produced no atheists 530 + The legends of three Saviours 537 + Christian doctrine of the Atonement illogical 542 + Cause of the failure of missionaries to convert + Buddhists and Brahmanists 553 + Neither Buddha nor Jesus left written records 559 + The grandest mysteries of religion in the Bagaved-gita 562 + The meaning of regeneration explained in the + Satapa-Brâhmana 565 + The sacrifice of blood interpreted 566 + Demoralization of British India by Christian + missionaries 573 + The Bible less authenticated than any other sacred book 577 + Knowledge of chemistry and physics displayed by Indian + jugglers 583 + + + CHAPTER XII. + + CONCLUSIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. + + Recapitulation of fundamental propositions 587 + Seership of the soul and of the spirit 590 + The phenomenon of the so-called spirit-hand 594 + Difference between mediums and adepts 595 + Interview of an English ambassador with a reïncarnated + Buddha 598 + Flight of a lama’s astral body related by Abbé Huc 604 + Schools of magic in Buddhist lamaseries 609 + The unknown race of Hindu Todas 613 + Will-power of fakirs and yogis 617 + Taming of wild beasts by fakirs 622 + Evocation of a living spirit by a Shaman, witnessed + by the writer 626 + Sorcery by the breath of a Jesuit Father 633 + Why the study of magic is almost impracticable in + Europe 635 + Conclusion 635 + + + + + PREFACE TO PART II. + + +Were it possible, we would keep this work out of the hands of many +Christians whom its perusal would not benefit, and for whom it was not +written. We allude to those whose faith in their respective churches +is pure and sincere, and those whose sinless lives reflect the +glorious example of that Prophet of Nazareth, by whose mouth the +spirit of truth spake loudly to humanity. Such there have been at all +times. History preserves the names of many as heroes, philosophers, +philanthropists, martyrs, and holy men and women; but how many more +have lived and died, unknown but to their intimate acquaintance, +unblessed but by their humble beneficiaries! These have ennobled +Christianity, but would have shed the same lustre upon any other faith +they might have professed--for they were higher than their creed. The +benevolence of Peter Cooper and Elizabeth Thompson, of America, who +are not orthodox Christians, is no less Christ-like than that of the +Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, of England, who is one. And yet, in +comparison with the millions who have been accounted Christians, such +have always formed a small minority. They are to be found at this day, +in pulpit and pew, in palace and cottage; but the increasing +materialism, worldliness and hypocrisy are fast diminishing their +proportionate number. Their charity, and simple, child-like faith in +the infallibility of their Bible, their dogmas, and their clergy, +bring into full activity all the virtues that are implanted in our +common nature. We have personally known such God-fearing priests and +clergymen, and we have always avoided debate with them, lest we might +be guilty of the cruelty of hurting their feelings; nor would we rob a +single layman of his blind confidence, if it alone made possible for +him holy living and serene dying. + +An analysis of religious beliefs in general, this volume is in +particular directed against theological Christianity, the chief +opponent of free thought. It contains not one word against the pure +teachings of Jesus, but unsparingly denounces their debasement into +pernicious ecclesiastical systems that are ruinous to man’s faith in +his immortality and his God, and subversive of all moral restraint. + +We cast our gauntlet at the dogmatic theologians who would enslave +both history and science; and especially at the Vatican, whose +despotic pretensions have become hateful to the greater portion of +enlightened Christendom. The clergy apart, none but the logician, the +investigator, the dauntless explorer should meddle with books like +this. Such delvers after truth have the courage of their opinions. + + + + + ISIS UNVEILED. + + _PART TWO.--RELIGION._ + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + “Yea, the time cometh, that whomsoever killeth you, will + think that he doeth God service.”--_Gospel according to + John_, xvi., 2. + + “Let him be ANATHEMA ... who shall say that human Sciences + ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one + may be allowed to hold as true their assertions even when + opposed to revealed doctrines.”--_Œcumenical Council of + 1870._ + + “GLOUC.--The Church! Where is it?”--_King Henry VI._, Act + i., Sc. 1. + + +In the United States of America, sixty thousand (60,428) men are +paid salaries to teach the Science of God and His relations to His +creatures. + +These men contract to impart to us the knowledge which treats of the +existence, character, and attributes of our Creator; His laws and +government; the doctrines we are to believe and the duties we are +to practice. Five thousand (5,141) of them,[1] with the prospect of +1273 theological students to help them in time, teach this science +according to a formula prescribed by the Bishop of Rome, to five +million people. Fifty-five thousand (55,287) local and travelling +ministers, representing fifteen different denominations,[2] each +contradicting the other upon more or less vital theological +questions, instruct, in their respective doctrines, thirty-three +million (33,500,000) other persons. Many of these teach according +to the canons of the cis-Atlantic branch of an establishment which +acknowledges a daughter of the late Duke of Kent as its spiritual +head. There are many hundred thousand Jews; some thousands of +Orientals of all kinds; and a very few who belong to the Greek +Church. A man at Salt Lake City, with nineteen wives and more than +one hundred children and grandchildren, is the supreme spiritual +ruler over ninety thousand people, who believe that he is in frequent +intercourse with the gods--for the Mormons are Polytheists as well as +Polygamists, and their chief god is represented as living in a planet +they call Colob. + +The God of the Unitarians is a bachelor; the Deity of the +Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and the other orthodox +Protestant sects a spouseless Father with one Son, who is identical +with Himself. In the attempt to outvie each other in the erection +of their sixty-two thousand and odd churches, prayer-houses, and +meeting-halls, in which to teach these conflicting theological +doctrines, $354,485,581 have been spent. The value of the Protestant +parsonages alone, in which are sheltered the disputants and their +families, is roughly calculated to approximate $54,115,297. Sixteen +million (16,179,387) dollars, are, morever, contributed every year +for current expenses of the Protestant denominations only. One +Presbyterian church in New York cost a round million; a Catholic +altar alone, one-fourth as much! + +We will not mention the multitude of smaller sects, communities, and +extravagantly original little heresies in this country which spring +up one year to die out the next, like so many spores of fungi after a +rainy day. We will not even stop to consider the alleged millions of +Spiritualists; for the majority lack the courage to break away from +their respective religious denominations. These are the back-door +Nicodemuses. + +And now, with Pilate, let us inquire, What is truth? Where is it to +be searched for amid this multitude of warring sects? Each claims to +be based upon divine revelation, and each to have the keys of the +celestial gates. Is either in possession of this rare truth? Or, must +we exclaim with the Buddhist philosopher, “There is but one truth on +earth, and it is unchangeable: and this is--that there is _no_ truth +on it!” + +Though we have no disposition whatever to trench upon the ground that +has been so exhaustively gleaned by those learned scholars who have +shown that every Christian dogma has its origin in a heathen rite, +still the facts which they have exhumed, since the enfranchisement +of science, will lose nothing by repetition. Besides, we propose to +examine these facts from a different and perhaps rather novel point +of view: that of the old philosophies as esoterically understood. +These we have barely glanced at in our first volume. We will use them +as the standard by which to compare Christian dogmas and miracles +with the doctrines and phenomena of ancient magic, and the modern +“New Dispensation,” as Spiritualism is called by its votaries. Since +the materialists deny the phenomena without investigation, and since +the theologians in admitting them offer us the poor choice of two +palpable absurdities--the Devil and miracles--we can lose little by +applying to the theurgists, and they may actually help us to throw a +great light upon a very dark subject. + +Professor A. Butlerof, of the Imperial University of St. Petersburg, +remarks in a recent pamphlet, entitled _Mediumistic Manifestations_, +as follows: “Let the facts (of modern spiritualism) belong if you +will to the number of those which were more or less known by the +ancients; let them be identical with those which in the dark ages +gave importance to the office of Egyptian priest or Roman augur; let +them even furnish the basis of the sorcery of our Siberian Shaman; +... let them be all these, and, if they are _real facts_, it is +no business of ours. All the facts in nature _belong to science_, +and every addition to the store of science enriches instead of +impoverishing her. If humanity has once admitted a truth, and then in +the blindness of self-conceit denied it, to return to its realization +is a step forward and not backward.” + +Since the day that modern science gave what may be considered the +death-blow to dogmatic theology, by assuming the ground that religion +was full of mystery, and mystery is unscientific, the mental state +of the educated class has presented a curious aspect. Society seems +from that time to have been ever balancing itself upon one leg, on +an unseen tight-rope stretched from our visible universe into the +invisible one; uncertain whether the end hooked on faith in the +latter might not suddenly break, and hurl it into final annihilation. + +The great body of nominal Christians may be divided into three +unequal portions: materialists, spiritualists, and Christians proper. +The materialists and spiritualists make common cause against the +hierarchical pretensions of the clergy; who, in retaliation, denounce +both with equal acerbity. The materialists are as little in harmony +as the Christian sects themselves--the Comtists, or, as they call +themselves, the positivists, being despised and hated to the last +degree by the schools of thinkers, one of which Maudsley honorably +represents in England. Positivism, be it remembered, is that +“religion” of the future about whose founder even Huxley has made +himself wrathful in his famous lecture, _The Physical Basis of Life_; +and Maudsley felt obliged, in behalf of, to express himself thus: “It +is no wonder that scientific men should be anxious to disclaim Comte +as their law-giver, and to protest against such a king being set up +to reign over them. Not conscious of any personal obligation to his +writings--conscious how much, in some respects, he has misrepresented +the spirit and pretensions of science--they repudiate the allegiance +which his enthusiastic disciples would force upon them, and which +popular opinion is fast coming to think a natural one. They do +well in thus making a timely assertion of independence; for if it +be not done soon, it will soon be too late to be done well.”[3] +When a materialistic doctrine is repudiated so strongly by two such +materialists as Huxley and Maudsley, then we must think indeed that +it is absurdity itself. + +Among Christians there is nothing but dissension. Their various +churches represent every degree of religious belief, from the +omnivorous credulity of blind faith to a condescending and high-toned +deference to the Deity which thinly masks an evident conviction of +their own deific wisdom. All these sects believe more or less in the +immortality of the soul. Some admit the intercourse between the two +worlds as a fact; some entertain the opinion as a sentiment; some +positively deny it; and only a few maintain an attitude of attention +and expectancy. + +Impatient of restraint, longing for the return of the dark ages, +the Romish Church frowns at the _diabolical_ manifestations, and +indicates what she would do to their champions had she but the power +of old. Were it not for the self-evident fact that she herself is +placed by science on trial, and that she is handcuffed, she would +be ready at a moment’s notice to repeat in the nineteenth century +the revolting scenes of former days. As to the Protestant clergy, so +furious is their common hatred toward spiritualism, that as a secular +paper very truly remarks: “They seem willing to undermine the public +faith in all the spiritual phenomena of the past, as recorded in the +_Bible_, if they can only see the pestilent modern heresy stabbed to +the heart.”[4] + +Summoning back the long-forgotten memories of the Mosaic laws, the +Romish Church claims the monopoly of miracles, and of the right +to sit in judgment over them, as being the sole heir thereto by +direct inheritance. The _Old Testament_, exiled by Colenso, his +predecessors and contemporaries, is recalled from its banishment. The +prophets, whom his Holiness the Pope condescends at last to place, +if not on the same level with himself, at least at a less respectful +distance,[5] are dusted and cleaned. The memory of all the diabolical +abracadabra is evoked anew. The blasphemous _horrors_ perpetrated +by Paganism, its phallic worship, thaumaturgical wonders wrought +by Satan, human sacrifices, incantations, witchcraft, magic, and +sorcery are recalled and DEMONISM is confronted with _spiritualism_ +for mutual recognition and identification. Our modern demonologists +conveniently overlook a few insignificant details, among which is the +undeniable presence of heathen phallism in the Christian symbols. A +strong spiritual element of this worship may be easily demonstrated +in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of +God; and a physical element equally proved in the fetish-worship of +the holy _limbs_ of Sts. Cosmo and Damiano, at Isernia, near Naples; +a successful traffic in which _ex-voto_ in wax was carried on by the +clergy, annually, until barely a half century ago.[6] + +We find it rather unwise on the part of Catholic writers to +pour out their vials of wrath in such sentences as these: “In a +multitude of pagodas, the phallic stone, ever and always assuming, +like the Grecian _batylos_, the brutally indecent form of the +_lingham_ ... the Maha Deva.”[7] Before casting slurs on a symbol +whose profound metaphysical meaning is too much for the modern +champions of that religion of sensualism _par excellence_, Roman +Catholicism, to grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their +oldest churches, and change the form of the cupolas of their own +temples. The Mahody of Elephanta, the Round Tower of Bhangulpore, +the minarets of Islam--either rounded or pointed--are the originals +of the _Campanile_ column of San Marco, at Venice, of the Rochester +Cathedral, and of the modern Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples, +turrets, domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of the +primitive idea of the _lithos_, the upright phallus. “The western +tower of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London,” says the author of _The +Rosicrucians_, “is one of the double _lithoi_ placed always in +front of every temple, Christian as well as heathen.”[8] Moreover, +in all Christian Churches, “particularly in Protestant churches, +where they figure most conspicuously, the two tables of stone of the +Mosaic Dispensation are placed over the altar, side by side, as a +united stone, the tops of which are rounded.... The right stone is +_masculine_, the left _feminine_.” Therefore neither Catholics nor +Protestants have a right to talk of the “indecent forms” of heathen +monuments so long as they ornament their own churches with the +symbols of the Lingham and Yoni, and even write the laws of their God +upon them. + +Another detail not redounding very particularly to the honor of the +Christian clergy might be recalled in the word Inquisition. The +torrents of human blood shed by this _Christian_ institution, and +the number of its human sacrifices, are unparalleled in the annals of +Paganism. Another still more prominent feature in which the clergy +surpassed their masters, the “heathen,” is _sorcery_. Certainly in +no Pagan temple was black magic, in its real and true sense, more +practiced than in the Vatican. While strongly supporting exorcism as +an important source of revenue, they neglected magic as little as +the ancient heathen. It is easy to prove that the _sortilegium_, or +sorcery, was widely practiced among the clergy and monks so late as +the last century, and is practiced occasionally even now. + +Anathematizing every manifestation of occult nature outside the +precincts of the Church, the clergy--notwithstanding proofs to the +contrary--call it “the work of Satan,” “the snares of the fallen +angels,” who “rush in and out from the bottomless pit,” mentioned by +John in his kabalistic _Revelation_, “from whence arises a smoke as +the smoke of a great furnace.” “_Intoxicated by its fumes, around +this pit are daily gathering millions of Spiritualists, to worship at +“the Abyss of Baal._”[9] + +More than ever arrogant, stubborn, and despotic, now that she has +been nearly upset by modern research, not daring to interfere with +the powerful champions of science, the Latin Church revenges herself +upon the unpopular phenomena. A despot without a victim, is a word +void of sense; a power which neglects to assert itself through +outward, well-calculated effects, risks being doubted in the end. +The Church has no intention to fall into the oblivion of the ancient +myths, or to suffer her authority to be too closely questioned. Hence +she pursues, as well as the times permit, her traditional policy. +Lamenting the enforced extinction of her ally, the Holy Inquisition, +she makes a virtue of necessity. The only victims now within reach +are the Spiritists of France. Recent events have shown that the meek +spouse of Christ never disdains to retaliate on helpless victims. + +Having successfully performed her part of _Deus-ex-Machina_ from +behind the French Bench, which has not scrupled to disgrace itself +for her, the Church of Rome sets to work and shows in the year +1876 what she can do. From the whirling tables and dancing pencils +of profane Spiritualism, the Christian world is warned to turn to +the divine “miracles” of Lourdes. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical +authorities utilize their time in arranging for other more easy +triumphs, calculated to scare the superstitious out of their senses. +So, acting under orders, the clergy hurl dramatic, if not very +impressive anathemas from every Catholic diocese; threaten right +and left; excommunicate and curse. Perceiving, finally, that her +thunderbolts directed even against crowned heads fall about as +harmlessly as the Jupiterean lightnings of Offenbach’s _Calchas_, +Rome turns about in powerless fury against the victimized _protégés_ +of the Emperor of Russia--the unfortunate Bulgarians and Servians. +Undisturbed by evidence and sarcasm, unbaffled by proof, “the +lamb of the Vatican” impartially divides his wrath between the +liberals of Italy, “the impious whose breath has the stench of the +sepulchre,”[10] the “schismatic Russian _Sarmates_,” and the heretics +and spiritualists, “who worship at the bottomless pit where the great +Dragon lies in wait.” + +Mr. Gladstone went to the trouble of making a catalogue of what he +terms the “flowers of speech,” disseminated through these Papal +discourses. Let us cull a few of the chosen terms used by this +vicegerent of Him who said that, “whosoever shall say _Thou fool_, +shall be in danger of hell-fire.” They are selected from authentic +discourses. Those who oppose the Pope are “wolves, Pharisees, +thieves, liars, hypocrites, dropsical children of Satan, sons of +perdition, of sin, and corruption, satellites of Satan in human +flesh, monsters of hell, demons incarnate, stinking corpses, men +issued from the pits of hell, traitors and Judases led by the spirit +of hell; children of the deepest pits of hell,” etc., etc.; the +whole piously collected and published by Don Pasquale di Franciscis, +whom Gladstone has, with perfect propriety, termed, “an accomplished +professor of _flunkeyism_ in things spiritual.”[11] + +Since his Holiness the Pope has such a rich vocabulary of +invectives at his command, why wonder that the Bishop of Toulouse +did not scruple to utter the most undignified falsehoods about the +Protestants and Spiritualists of America--people doubly odious to a +Catholic--in his address to his diocese: “Nothing,” he remarks, “is +more common in an era of unbelief than to see a _false revelation +substitute itself for the true one_, and minds neglect the teachings +of the Holy Church, to devote themselves to the study of divination +and the occult sciences.” With a fine episcopal contempt for +statistics, and strangely confounding in his memory the audiences +of the revivalists, Moody and Sankey, and the patrons of darkened +seance-rooms, he utters the unwarranted and fallacious assertion +that “it has been proven that Spiritualism, in the United States, +has caused one-sixth of all the cases of suicide and insanity.” +He says that it is not possible that the spirits “teach either an +exact science, because they are lying demons, or a useful science, +because the character of the word of Satan, like Satan himself, is +sterile.” He warns his dear _collaborateurs_, that “the writings in +favor of Spiritualism are under the ban;” and he advises them to let +it be known that “to frequent spiritual circles with the intention +of accepting the doctrine, is to apostatize from the Holy Church, +and assume the risk of excommunication;” finally, says he, “Publish +the fact that the teaching of no spirit should prevail against that +of the pulpit of Peter, which is the teaching of the Spirit of God +Himself!!” + +Aware of the many false teachings attributed by the Roman Church to +the Creator, we prefer disbelieving the latter assertion. The famous +Catholic theologian, Tillemont, assures us in his work that “all the +illustrious Pagans are condemned to the eternal torments of hell, +_because_ they lived before the time of Jesus, and, therefore, could +not be benefited by the redemption!!” He also assures us that the +Virgin Mary personally testified to this truth over her own signature +in a letter to a saint. Therefore, this is also a revelation--“the +Spirit of God Himself” teaching such charitable doctrines. + +We have also read with great advantage the topographical descriptions +of _Hell and Purgatory_ in the celebrated treatise under that name +by a Jesuit, the Cardinal Bellarmin. A critic found that the author, +who gives the description from a _divine_ vision with which he was +favored, “appears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer” +about the secret tracts and formidable divisions of the “bottomless +pit.” Justin Martyr having actually committed to paper the heretical +thought that after all Socrates might not be altogether fixed in +hell, his Benedictine editor criticises this too benevolent father +very severely. Whoever doubts the Christian charity of the Church +of Rome in this direction is invited to peruse the _Censure_ of +the Sorbonne, on Marmontel’s _Belisarius_. The _odium theologicum_ +blazes in it on the dark sky of orthodox theology like an aurora +borealis--the precursor of God’s wrath, according to the teaching of +certain mediæval divines. + +We have attempted in the first part of this work to show, by +historical examples, how completely men of science have deserved +the stinging sarcasm of the late Professor de Morgan, who remarked +of them that “they wear the priest’s cast-off garb, dyed to escape +detection.” The Christian clergy are, in like manner, attired in the +cast-off garb of the _heathen_ priesthood; acting diametrically in +opposition to their _God’s_ moral precepts, but nevertheless, sitting +in judgment over the whole world. + +When dying on the cross, the martyred Man of Sorrows forgave his +enemies. His last words were a prayer in their behalf. He taught his +disciples to curse not, but to bless, even their foes. But the heirs +of St. Peter, the self constituted representatives on earth of that +same meek Jesus, unhesitatingly curse whoever resists their despotic +will. Besides, was not the “Son” long since crowded by them into the +background? They make their obeisance only to the Dowager Mother, +for--according to their teaching--again through “the direct Spirit +of God,” she alone acts as a mediatrix. The Œcumenical Council of +1870 embodied the teaching into a dogma, to disbelieve which is to +be doomed forever to the ‘bottomless pit.’ The work of Don Pasquale +di Franciscis is positive on that point; for he tells us that, as +the Queen of Heaven owes to the present Pope “the finest gem in her +coronet,” since he has conferred on her the unexpected honor of +becoming suddenly immaculate, there is nothing she cannot obtain from +her Son for “her Church.”[12] + +Some years ago, certain travellers saw in Barri, Italy, a statue +of the Madonna, arrayed in a flounced pink skirt over a swelling +_crinoline_! Pious pilgrims who may be anxious to examine the +regulation wardrobe of their God’s mother may do so by going to +Southern Italy, Spain, and Catholic North and South America. The +Madonna of Barri must still be there--between two vineyards and a +_locanda_ (gin-shop). When last seen, a half-successful attempt had +been made to clothe the infant Jesus; they had covered his legs with +a pair of dirty, scollop-edged pantaloons. An English traveller +having presented the “Mediatrix” with a green silk parasol, the +grateful population of the _contadini_, accompanied by the village +priest, went in procession to the spot. They managed to stick the +sunshade, opened, between the infant’s back and the arm of the +Virgin which embraced him. The scene and ceremony were both solemn +and highly refreshing to our religious feelings. For there stood +the image of the goddess in its niche, surrounded with a row of +ever-burning lamps, the flames of which, flickering in the breeze, +infect God’s pure air with an offensive smell of olive oil. The +Mother and Son truly represent the two most conspicuous idols of +_Monotheistic_ Christianity! + +For a companion to the idol of the poor _contadini_ of Barri, go +to the rich city of Rio Janeiro. In the Church of the Duomo del +Candelaria, in a long hall running along one side of the church, +there might be seen, a few years ago, another Madonna. Along the +walls of the hall there is a line of saints, each standing on a +contribution-box, which thus forms a fit pedestal. In the centre +of this line, under a gorgeously rich canopy of blue silk, is +exhibited the Virgin Mary leaning on the arm of Christ. “Our Lady” is +arrayed in a very _décolleté_ blue satin dress with short sleeves, +showing, to great advantage, a snow-white, exquisitely-moulded +neck, shoulders, and arms. The skirt equally of blue satin with +an overskirt of rich lace and gauze puffs, is as short as that of +a ballet-dancer; hardly reaching the knee, it exhibits a pair of +finely-shaped legs covered with flesh colored silk tights, and blue +satin French boots with very high red heels! The blonde hair of this +“Mother of God” is arranged in the latest fashion, with a voluminous +_chignon_ and curls. As she leans on her Son’s arm, her face is +lovingly turned toward her Only-Begotten, whose dress and attitude +are equally worthy of admiration. Christ wears an evening dress-coat, +with swallow-tail, black trousers, and low cut white vest; varnished +boots, and white kid gloves, _over one of which_ sparkles a rich +diamond ring, worth many thousands we must suppose--a precious +Brazilian jewel. Above this body of a modern Portuguese dandy, is a +head with the hair parted in the middle; a sad and solemn face, and +eyes whose patient look seems to reflect all the bitterness of this +last insult flung at the majesty of the Crucified.[13] + +The Egyptian Isis was also represented as a Virgin Mother by her +devotees, and as holding her infant son, Horus, in her arms. In some +statues and _basso-relievos_, when she appears alone she is either +completely nude or veiled from head to foot. But in the Mysteries, +in common with nearly every other goddess, she is entirely veiled +from head to foot, as a symbol of a mother’s chastity. It would +not do us any harm were we to borrow from the ancients some of the +poetic sentiment in their religions, and the innate veneration they +entertained for _their_ symbols. + +It is but fair to say at once that the last of the _true_ Christians +died with the last of the direct apostles. Max Müller forcibly asks: +“How can a missionary in such circumstances meet the surprise and +questions of his pupils, unless he may point to that seed,[14] and +tell them what Christianity was meant to be? unless he may show that, +like all other religions, Christianity too, has had its history; that +the Christianity of the nineteenth century is not the Christianity +of the middle ages, and that the Christianity of the middle ages was +not that of the early Councils; that the Christianity of the early +Councils was not that of the Apostles, and that what has been said by +Christ, that alone was well said?”[15] + +Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between +modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the +former in a personal devil and in hell. “The Aryan nations had no +devil,” says Max Müller. “Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a +very respectable personage; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a +mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too, +like Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans +were indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth, +Satan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way.” + +The same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a different place +from our region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an +intermediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian +_Hel_ or Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment; +for when Frigga, the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white +god, who died and found himself in the dark abodes of the shadows +(Hades) sent Hermod, a son of Thor, in quest of her beloved child, +the messenger found him in the inexorable region--alas! but still +comfortably seated on a rock, and reading a book.[16] The Norse +kingdom of the dead is moreover situated in the higher latitudes of +the Polar regions; it is a cold and cheerless abode, and neither the +gelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur present the least +similitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the miserable +“damned” sinners with which the Church so generously peoples it. +No more is it the Egyptian Amenthes, the region of judgment and +purification; nor the Onderâh--the abyss of darkness of the Hindus; +for even the fallen angels hurled into it by Siva, are allowed +by Parabrahma to consider it as an intermediate state, in which +an opportunity is afforded them to prepare for higher degrees of +purification and redemption from their wretched condition. The +Gehenna of the _New Testament_ was a locality outside the walls of +Jerusalem; and in mentioning it, Jesus used but an ordinary metaphor. +Whence then came the dreary dogma of hell, that Archimedean lever +of Christian theology, with which they have succeeded to hold in +subjection the numberless millions of Christians for nineteen +centuries? Assuredly not from the Jewish Scriptures, and we appeal +for corroboration to any well-informed Hebrew scholar. + +The only designation of something approaching hell in the _Bible_ +is _Gehenna_ or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem, where was situated +Tophet, a place where a fire was perpetually kept for sanitary +purposes. The prophet Jeremiah informs us that the Israelites used +to sacrifice their children to Moloch-Hercules on that spot; and +later we find Christians quietly replacing this divinity by their +god of _mercy_, whose wrath will not be appeased, unless the Church +sacrifices to him her unbaptized children and sinning sons on the +altar of “eternal damnation!” + +Whence then did the divine learn so well the conditions of hell, as +to actually divide its torments into two kinds, the _pæna damni_ and +pænæ sensus, the former being the privation of the beatific vision; +the latter the _eternal_ pains _in a lake of fire and brimstone_? +If they answer us that it is in the _Apocalypse_ (xx. 10), we are +prepared to demonstrate whence the theologist John himself derived +the idea, “And _the devil_ that deceived them was cast into the lake +of fire and brimstone, where _the beast_ and the false prophet are +and shall be tormented for ever and ever,” he says. Laying aside the +esoteric interpretation that the “devil” or tempting demon meant +our own earthly body, which after death will surely dissolve in the +_fiery_ or ethereal elements,[17] the word “eternal” by which our +theologians interpret the words “for ever and ever” does not exist in +the Hebrew language, either as a word or meaning. There is no Hebrew +word which properly expresses _eternity_; עולם _oulam_, according to +Le Clerc, only imports a time whose beginning or end is not known. +While showing that this word does not mean _infinite_ duration, and +that in the _Old Testament_ the word _forever_ only signifies a long +time, Archbishop Tillotson has completely perverted its sense with +respect to the idea of hell-torments. According to his doctrine, when +Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be suffering “eternal fire,” we must +understand it only in the sense of that fire not being extinguished +till both cities were entirely consumed. But, as to hell-fire the +words must be understood in the strictest sense of infinite duration. +Such is the decree of the learned divine. For the duration of the +punishment of the wicked must be proportionate to the eternal +happiness of the righteous. So he says, “These (speaking of the +wicked) “shall go away εις κόλασιν αιῶνιον into _eternal_ punishment; +but the righteous εις ζωην αιωνιον into life eternal.” + +The Reverend T. Surnden,[18] commenting on the speculations of his +predecessors, fills a whole volume with unanswerable arguments, +tending to show that the locality _of Hell is in the sun_. We suspect +that the reverend speculator had read the _Apocalypse_ in bed, +and had the nightmare in consequence. There are two verses in the +_Revelation of John_ reading thus: “And the fourth angel poured out +his vial upon the sun, and power was given him to scorch men with +fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name +of God.”[19] This is simply Pythagorean and kabalistic allegory. The +idea is new neither with the above-mentioned author nor with John. +Pythagoras placed the “sphere of purification in the sun,” which +sun, with its sphere, he moreover locates in the middle of the +universe,[20] the allegory having a double meaning: 1. Symbolically, +the central, spiritual sun, the Supreme Deity. Arrived at this region +every soul becomes purified of its sins, and unites itself forever +with its spirit, having previously suffered throughout all the lower +spheres. 2. By placing the sphere of _visible_ fire in the middle +of the universe, he simply taught the heliocentric system which +appertained to the Mysteries, and was imparted only in the higher +degree of initiation. John gives to his Word a purely kabalistic +significance, which no “Fathers,” except those who had belonged to +the Neo-platonic school, were able to comprehend. Origen understood +it well, having been a pupil of Ammonius Saccas; therefore we see him +bravely denying the perpetuity of hell-torments. He maintains that +not only men, but even devils (by which term he meant disembodied +human sinners), after a certain duration of punishment shall be +pardoned and finally restored to heaven.[21] In consequence of this +and other such heresies Origen was, as a matter of course, exiled. + +Many have been the learned and truly-inspired speculations as to the +locality of hell. The most popular were those which placed it in the +centre of the earth. At a certain time, however, skeptical doubts +which disturbed the placidity of faith in this highly-refreshing +doctrine arose in consequence of the meddling scientists of those +days. As a Mr. Swinden in our own century observes, the theory was +inadmissible because of two objections: 1st, that a fund of fuel +or sulphur sufficient to maintain so furious and constant a fire +could not be there supposed; and, 2d, that it must want the nitrous +particles in the air to sustain and keep it alive. “And how,” says +he, “can a fire be eternal, when, by degrees, the whole substance of +the earth must be consumed thereby?”[22] + +The skeptical gentleman had evidently forgotten that centuries ago +St. Augustine solved the difficulty. Have we not the word of this +learned divine that hell, nevertheless, _is_ in the centre of the +earth, for “God supplies the central fire with air _by a miracle_?” +The argument is unanswerable, and so we will not seek to upset it. + +The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma +of the Church. And once that she had established it, she had to +struggle for over 1,700 years for the repression of a mysterious +force which it was her policy to make appear of diabolical origin. +Unfortunately, in manifesting itself, this force invariably tends +to upset such a belief by the ridiculous discrepancy it presents +between the alleged cause and the effects. If the clergy have not +over-estimated the real power of the “Arch-Enemy of God,” it must be +confessed that he takes mighty precautions against being recognized +as the “Prince of Darkness” who aims at our souls. If modern +“spirits” are devils at all, as preached by the clergy, then they can +only be those “poor” or “stupid devils” whom Max Müller describes as +appearing so often in the German and Norwegian tales. + +Notwithstanding this, the clergy fear above all to be forced to +relinquish this hold on humanity. They are not willing to let us +judge of the tree by its fruits, for that might sometimes force +them into dangerous dilemmas. They refuse, likewise, to admit, +with unprejudiced people, that the phenomena of Spiritualism has +unquestionably spiritualized and reclaimed from evil courses many an +indomitable atheist and skeptic. But, as they confess themselves, +what is the use in a Pope, if there is no Devil? + +And so Rome sends her ablest advocates and preachers to the rescue +of those perishing in “the bottomless pit.” Rome employs her +cleverest writers for this purpose--albeit they all indignantly +deny the accusation--and in the preface to every book put forth by +the prolific des Mousseaux, the French Tertullian of our century, +we find undeniable proofs of the fact. Among other certificates of +ecclesiastical approval, every volume is ornamented with the text +of a certain original letter addressed to the very pious author by +the world-known Father Ventura de Raulica, of Rome. Few are those +who have not heard this famous name. It is the name of one of the +chief pillars of the Latin Church, the ex-General of the Order of the +Theatins, Consultor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Examiner of +Bishops, and of the Roman Clergy, etc., etc., etc. This strikingly +characteristic document will remain to astonish future generations by +its spirit of unsophisticated demonolatry and unblushing sincerity. +We translate a fragment verbatim, and by thus helping its circulation +hope to merit the blessings of Mother Church:[23] + + “MONSIEUR AND EXCELLENT FRIEND: + + “The greatest victory of Satan was gained on that day when + he succeeded in making himself denied. + + “To demonstrate the existence of Satan, is to reëstablish + _one of the fundamental dogmas of the Church_, which serve + as a basis for Christianity, and, without which, Satan would + be but a name.... + + “Magic, mesmerism, magnetism, somnambulism, spiritualism, + spiritism, hypnotism ... are only other names for SATANISM. + + “To bring out such a truth and show it in its proper light, + is to unmask the enemy; it is to unveil the immense danger + of certain practices, _reputed innocent_; it is to deserve + well in the eyes of humanity and of religion. + + “FATHER VENTURA DE RAULICA.” + +A-men! + +This is an unexpected honor indeed, for our American “controls” in +general, and the innocent “Indian guides” in particular. To be thus +introduced in Rome as princes of the Empire of Eblis, is more than +they could ever hope for in other lands. + +Without in the least suspecting that she was working for the future +welfare of her enemies--the spiritualists and spiritists--the Church, +some twenty years since, in tolerating des Mousseaux and de Mirville +as the biographers of the Devil, and giving her approbation thereto, +tacitly confessed the literary copartnership. + +M. the Chevalier Gougenot des Mousseaux, and his friend and +collaborateur, the Marquis Eudes de Mirville, to judge by their long +titles, must be aristocrats _pur sang_, and they are, moreover, +writers of no small erudition and talent. Were they to show +themselves a little more parsimonious of double points of exclamation +following every vituperation, and invective against Satan and his +worshippers, their style would be faultless. As it is, the crusade +against the enemy of mankind was fierce, and lasted for over twenty +years. + +What with the Catholics piling up their psychological phenomena to +prove the existence of a personal devil, and the Count de Gasparin, +an ancient minister of Louis Philippe, collecting volumes of other +facts to prove the contrary, the spiritists of France have contracted +an everlasting debt of gratitude toward the disputants. The existence +of an unseen spiritual universe peopled with invisible beings has now +been demonstrated beyond question. Ransacking the oldest libraries, +they have distilled from the historical records the quintessence +of evidence. All epochs, from the Homeric ages down to the present +day, have supplied their choicest materials to these indefatigable +authors. In trying to prove the authenticity of the miracles wrought +by Satan in the days preceding the Christian era, as well as +throughout the middle ages, they have simply laid a firm foundation +for a study of the phenomena in our modern times. + +Though an ardent, uncompromising enthusiast, des Mousseaux unwittingly +transforms himself into the tempting demon, or--as he is fond of +calling the Devil--the “serpent of _Genesis_.” In his desire to +demonstrate in every manifestation the presence of the Evil One, he +only succeeds in demonstrating that Spiritualism and magic are no new +things in the world, but very ancient twin-brothers, whose origin must +be sought for in the earliest infancy of ancient India, Chaldea, +Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and Greece. + +He proves the existence of “spirits,” whether these be angels or +devils, with such a clearness of argument and logic, and such +an amount of evidence, historical, irrefutable, and strictly +authenticated, that little is left for spiritualist authors who may +come after him. How unfortunate that the scientists, who believe +neither in devil nor spirit, are more than likely to ridicule M. des +Mousseaux’s books without reading them, for they really contain so +many facts of profound scientific interest! + +But what can we expect in our own age of unbelief, when we find +Plato, over twenty-two centuries ago, complaining of the same? “Me, +too,” says he, in his _Euthyphron_, “when I say anything in the +public assembly concerning divine things, _and predict to them_ what +is going to happen, they ridicule as mad; and although _nothing that +I have predicted has proved untrue_, yet they envy all such men as we +are. However, we ought not to heed, but pursue our own way.” + +The literary resources of the Vatican and other Catholic repositories +of learning must have been freely placed at the disposal of these +modern authors. When one has such treasures at hand--original +manuscripts, papyri, and books pillaged from the richest heathen +libraries; old treatises on magic and alchemy; and records of all the +trials for witchcraft, and sentences for the same to rack, stake, and +torture, it is mighty easy to write volumes of accusations against +the Devil. We affirm on good grounds that there are hundreds of the +most valuable works on the occult sciences, which are sentenced to +eternal concealment from the public, but are attentively read and +studied by the privileged who have access to the Vatican Library. +The laws of nature are the same for heathen sorcerer as for Catholic +saint; and a “miracle” may be produced as well by one as by the +other, without the slightest intervention of God or devil. + +Hardly had the manifestations begun to attract attention in Europe, +than the clergy commenced their outcry that their traditional enemy +had reappeared under another name, and “divine miracles” also began +to be heard of in isolated instances. First they were confined to +humble individuals, some of whom claimed to have them produced +through the intervention of the Virgin Mary, saints and angels; +others--according to the clergy--began to suffer from _obsession_ +and _possession_; for the Devil must have his share of fame as +well as the Deity. Finding that, notwithstanding the warning, the +_independent_, or so-called spiritual phenomena went on increasing +and multiplying, and that these manifestations threatened to +upset the carefully-constructed dogmas of the Church, the world +was suddenly startled by extraordinary intelligence. In 1864, a +whole community became possessed of the Devil. Morzine, and the +awful stories of its demoniacs; Valleyres, and the narratives of +its well-authenticated exhibitions of sorcery; and those of the +Presbytere de Cideville curdled the blood in Catholic veins. + +Strange to say, the question has been asked over and over again, +why the “divine” miracles and most of the obsessions are so strictly +confined to Roman Catholic dioceses and countries? Why is it that +since the Reformation there has been scarcely one single divine +“miracle” in a Protestant land? Of course, the answer we must expect +from Catholics is, that the latter are peopled by _heretics_, and +abandoned by God. Then why are there no more Church-miracles in +Russia, a country whose religion differs from the Roman Catholic +faith but in external forms of rites, its fundamental dogmas being +identically the same, except as to the emanation of the Holy +Ghost? Russia has her accepted saints and thaumaturgical relics, +and miracle-working images. The St. Mitrophaniy of Voroneg is an +authenticated miracle-worker, but his miracles are limited to +healing; and though hundreds upon hundreds have been healed _through +faith_, and though the old cathedral is full of magnetic effluvia, +and whole generations will go on _believing_ in his power, and some +persons will always be healed, still no such miracles are heard of +in Russia as the Madonna-walking, and Madonna letter-writing, and +statue-talking of Catholic countries. Why is this so? Simply because +the emperors have strictly forbidden that sort of thing. The Czar, +Peter the Great, stopped every spurious “divine” miracle with one +frown of his mighty brow. He declared he would have _no false_ +miracles played by the holy _icones_ (images of saints), and they +disappeared forever.[24] + +There are cases on record of isolated and independent phenomena +exhibited by certain images in the last century; the latest was the +bleeding of the cheek of an image of the Virgin, when a soldier of +Napoleon cut her face in two. This miracle, alleged to have happened +in 1812, in the days of the invasion by the “grand army,” was the +final farewell.[25] But since then, although the three successive +emperors have been pious men, their will has been respected, and +the images and saints have remained quiet, and hardly been spoken +of except as connected with religious worship. In Poland, a land of +furious ultramontanism, there were, at different times, desperate +attempts at miracle-doing. They died at birth, however, for the +argus-eyed police were there; a Catholic miracle in Poland, made +public by the priests, generally meaning political revolution, +bloodshed, and war. + +Is it then, not permissible to at least suspect that if, in one +country divine miracles may be arrested by civil and military law, +and in another they _never occur_, we must search for the explanation +of the two facts in some natural cause, instead of attributing them +to either god or devil? In our opinion--if it is worth anything--the +whole secret may be accounted for as follows. In Russia, the clergy +know better than to bewilder their parishes, whose piety is sincere +and faith strong without miracles; they know that nothing is better +calculated than the latter to sow seeds of distrust, doubt, and +finally of skepticism which leads directly to atheism. Moreover +the climate is less propitious, and the magnetism of the average +population too positive, _too healthy_, to call forth _independent_ +phenomena; and fraud would not answer. On the other hand, neither in +Protestant Germany, nor England, nor yet in America, since the days +of the Reformation, has the clergy had access to any of the Vatican +secret libraries. Hence they are all but poor hands at the magic of +Albertus Magnus. + +As for America being overflowed with sensitives and mediums, the +reason for it is partially attributable to climatic influence +and especially to the physiological condition of the population. +Since the days of the Salem witchcraft, 200 years ago, when the +comparatively few settlers had pure and unadulterated blood in their +veins, nothing much had been heard of “spirits” or “mediums” until +1840.[26] The phenomena then first appeared among the ascetic and +exalted Shakers, whose religious aspirations, peculiar mode of life, +moral purity, and physical chastity all led to the production of +independent phenomena of a psychological as well as physical nature. +Hundreds of thousands, and even millions of men from various climates +and of different constitutions and habits, have, since 1692, invaded +North America, and by intermarrying have substantially changed the +physical type of the inhabitants. Of what country in the world do the +women’s constitutions bear comparison with the delicate, nervous, and +sensitive constitutions of the feminine portion of the population of +the United States? We were struck on our arrival in the country with +the semi-transparent delicacy of skin of the natives of both sexes. +Compare a hard-working Irish factory girl or boy, with one from a +genuine American family. Look at their hands. One works as hard as +the other; they are of equal age, and both seemingly healthy; and +still, while the hands of the one, after an hour’s soaping, will show +a skin little softer than that of a young alligator, those of the +other, notwithstanding constant use, will allow you to observe the +circulation of the blood under the thin and delicate epidermis. No +wonder, then, that while America is the conservatory of sensitives +the majority of its clergy, unable to produce divine or any other +miracles, stoutly deny the possibility of any phenomena except those +produced by tricks and juggling. And no wonder also that the Catholic +priesthood, who are practically aware of the existence of magic +and spiritual phenomena, and believe in them while dreading their +consequences, try to attribute the whole to the agency of the Devil. + +Let us adduce one more argument, if only for the sake of +circumstantial evidence. In what countries have “divine miracles” +flourished most, been most frequent and most stupendous? Catholic +Spain, and Pontifical Italy, beyond question. And which more than +these two, has had access to ancient literature? Spain was famous for +her libraries; the Moors were celebrated for their profound learning +in alchemy and other sciences. The Vatican is the storehouse of an +immense number of ancient manuscripts. During the long interval of +nearly 1,500 years they have been accumulating, from trial after +trial, books and manuscripts confiscated from their sentenced +victims, to their own profit. The Catholics may plead that the books +were generally committed to the flames; that the treatises of famous +sorcerers and enchanters perished with their accursed authors. But +the Vatican, if it could speak, could tell a different story. It +knows too well of the existence of certain closets and rooms, access +to which is had but by the very few. It knows that the entrances to +these secret hiding-places are so cleverly concealed from sight in +the carved frame-work and under the profuse ornamentation of the +library-walls, that there have even been Popes who lived and died +within the precincts of the palace without ever suspecting their +existence. But these Popes were neither Sylvester II., Benedict IX., +John XX., nor the VIth and VIIth Gregory; nor yet the famous Borgia +of toxicological memory. Neither were those who remained ignorant of +the hidden lore friends of the sons of Loyola. + +Where, in the records of European Magic, can we find cleverer +enchanters than in the mysterious solitudes of the cloister? Albert +Magnus, the famous Bishop and conjurer of Ratisbon, was never +surpassed in his art. Roger Bacon was a monk, and Thomas Aquinas one +of the most learned pupils of Albertus. Trithemius, Abbot of the +Spanheim Benedictines, was the teacher, friend, and confidant of +Cornelius Agrippa; and while the confederations of the Theosophists +were scattered broadcast about Germany, where they first originated, +assisting one another, and struggling for years for the acquirement +of esoteric knowledge, any person who knew how to become the favored +pupil of certain monks, might very soon be proficient in all the +important branches of occult learning. + +This is all in history and cannot be easily denied. Magic, in all its +aspects, was widely and nearly openly practiced by the clergy till +the Reformation. And even he who was once called the “Father of the +Reformation,” the famous John Reuchlin,[27] author of the _Mirific +Word_ and friend of Pico di Mirandola, the teacher and instructor of +Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, was a kabalist and occultist. + +The ancient _Sortilegium_, or divination by means of _Sortes_ +or lots--an art and practice now decried by the clergy as an +abomination, designated by _Stat. 10 Jac._ as felony,[28] and by +_Stat. 12 Carolus II._ excepted out of the general pardons, on the +ground of being _sorcery_--was widely practiced by the clergy and +monks. Nay, it was sanctioned by St. Augustine himself, who does +not “disapprove of this method of learning futurity, provided it be +not used for worldly purposes.” More than that, he confesses having +practiced it himself.[29] + +Aye; but the clergy called it _Sortes Sanctorum_, when it was +they who practiced it; while the _Sortes Prænestinæ_, succeeded +by the _Sortes Homericæ_ and _Sortes Virgilianæ_, were abominable +_heathenism_, the worship of the Devil, when used by any one else. + +Gregory de Tours informs us that when the clergy resorted to the +_Sortes_ their custom was to lay the _Bible_ on the altar, and to +pray the Lord that He would discover His will, and disclose to them +futurity in one of the verses of the book. Gilbert de Nogent writes +that in his days (about the twelfth century) the custom was, at +the consecration of bishops, to consult the _Sortes Sanctorum_, to +thereby learn the success and fate of the episcopate. On the other +hand, we are told that the _Sortes Sanctorum_ were condemned by the +Council of Agda, in 506. In this case again we are left to inquire, +in which instance has the infallibility of the Church failed? Was it +when she prohibited that which was practiced by her greatest saint +and patron, Augustine, or in the twelfth century, when it was openly +and with the sanction of the same Church practiced by the clergy for +the benefit of the bishop’s elections? Or, must we still believe that +in both of these contradictory cases the Vatican was inspired by the +direct “spirit of God?” + +If any doubt that Gregory of Tours approved of a practice that +prevails to this day, more or less, even among strict Protestants, +let them read this: “Lendastus, Earl of Tours, who was for ruining +me with Queen Fredegonde, coming to Tours, big with evil designs +against me, I withdrew to my oratory under a deep concern, where I +took the _Psalms_.... My heart revived within me when I cast my eyes +on this of the seventy-seventh _Psalm_: ‘He caused them to go on with +confidence, whilst the sea swallowed up their enemies.’ Accordingly, +the count spoke not a word to my prejudice; and leaving Tours that +very day, the boat in which he was, sunk in a storm, but his skill in +swimming saved him.” + +The sainted bishop simply confesses here to having practiced a bit of +sorcery. _Every mesmerizer knows the power of will during an intense +desire bent on any particular subject._ Whether in consequence of +“co-incidents” or otherwise, the opened verse suggested to his mind +revenge by drowning. Passing the remainder of the day in “deep +concern,” and possessed by this all-absorbing thought, the saint--it +may be unconsciously--exercises his will on the subject; and thus +while imagining in the accident the hand of God, he simply becomes +a sorcerer exercising his magnetic will which reacts on the person +feared; and the count barely escapes with his life. Were the accident +decreed by God, the culprit would have been drowned; for a simple +bath could not have altered his malevolent resolution against St. +Gregory had he been very intent on it. + +Furthermore, we find anathemas fulminated against this lottery of +fate, at the council of Varres, which forbids “all ecclesiastics, +under pain of excommunication, to perform that kind of divination, +or to pry into futurity, by looking into any book, or writing, +whatsoever.” The same prohibition is pronounced at the councils of +Agda in 506, of Orleans, in 511, of Auxerre in 595, and finally at +the council of Aenham in 1110; the latter condemning “sorcerers, +witches, diviners, such as occasioned death by magical operations, +and who practiced fortune-telling by the holy-book lots;” and the +complaint of the joint clergy against de Garlande, their bishop at +Orleans, and addressed to Pope Alexander III., concludes in this +manner: “Let your apostolical hands put on strength to _strip naked_ +the iniquity of this man, that the curse prognosticated on the day of +his consecration may overtake him; for the gospels being opened on +the altar _according to custom_, the first words were: _and the young +man, leaving his linen cloth, fled from them naked_.”[30] + +Why then roast the lay-magicians and consulters of books, and +canonize the ecclesiastics? Simply because the mediæval as well as +the modern phenomena, manifested through laymen, whether produced +through occult knowledge or happening independently, upset the claims +of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches to divine miracles. +In the face of reiterated and unimpeachable evidence it became +impossible for the former to maintain successfully the assertion +that seemingly miraculous manifestations by the “good angels” and +God’s direct intervention could be produced exclusively by her chosen +ministers and holy saints. Neither could the Protestant well maintain +on the same ground that miracles had ended with the apostolic ages. +For, whether of the same nature or not, the modern phenomena claimed +close kinship with the biblical ones. The magnetists and healers of +our century came into direct and open competition with the apostles. +The Zouave Jacob, of France, had outrivalled the prophet Elijah in +recalling to life persons who were seemingly dead; and Alexis, the +somnambulist, mentioned by Mr. Wallace in his work,[31] was, by his +lucidity, putting to shame apostles, prophets, and the Sibyls of old. +Since the burning of the last witch, the great Revolution of France, +so elaborately prepared by the league of the secret societies and +their clever emissaries, had blown over Europe and awakened terror +in the bosom of the clergy. It had, like a destroying hurricane, +swept away in its course those best allies of the Church, the Roman +Catholic aristocracy. A sure foundation was now laid for the right of +individual opinion. The world was freed from ecclesiastical tyranny +by opening an unobstructed path to Napoleon the Great, who had given +the deathblow to the Inquisition. This great slaughter-house of the +Christian Church--wherein she butchered, in the name of the Lamb, all +the sheep arbitrarily declared scurvy--was in ruins, and she found +herself left to her own responsibility and resources. + +So long as the phenomena had appeared only sporadically, she had +always felt herself powerful enough to repress the consequences. +Superstition and belief in the Devil were as strong as ever, and +Science had not yet dared to publicly measure her forces with those +of supernatural Religion. Meanwhile the enemy had slowly but surely +gained ground. All at once it broke out with an unexpected violence. +“Miracles” began to appear in full daylight, and passed from their +mystic seclusion into the domain of natural law, where the profane +hand of Science was ready to strip off their sacerdotal mask. Still, +for a time, the Church held her position, and with the powerful help +of superstitious fear checked the progress of the intruding force. +But, when in succession appeared mesmerists and somnambulists, +reproducing the physical and mental phenomenon of ecstasy, hitherto +believed to be the special gift of saints; when the passion for +the turning tables had reached in France and elsewhere its climax +of fury; when the psychography--alleged spiritual--from a simple +curiosity had developed itself and settled into an unabated interest, +and finally ebbed into religious mysticism; when the echoes aroused +by the first raps of Rochester, crossing the oceans, spread until +they were re-percussed from nearly every corner of the world--then, +and only then, the Latin Church was fully awakened to a sense of +danger. Wonder after wonder was reported to have occurred in the +spiritual circles and the lecture-rooms of the mesmerists; the sick +were healed, the blind made to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to +hear. J. R. Newton in America, and Du Potet in France, were healing +the multitude without the slightest claim to divine intervention. The +great discovery of Mesmer, which reveals to the earnest inquirer the +mechanism of nature, mastered, as if by magical power, organic and +inorganic bodies. + +But this was not the worst. A more direful calamity for the Church +occurred in the evocation from the upper and nether worlds of a +multitude of “spirits,” whose private bearing and conversation gave +the direct lie to the most cherished and profitable dogmas of the +Church. These “spirits” claimed to be the identical entities, in a +disembodied state, of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, friends +and acquaintances of the persons viewing the weird phenomena. The +Devil seemed to have no objective existence, and this struck at the +very foundation upon which the chair of St. Peter rested.[32] Not a +spirit except the mocking mannikins of Planchette would confess to +the most distant relationship with the Satanic majesty, or accredit +him with the governorship of a single inch of territory. The clergy +felt their prestige growing weaker every day, as they saw the people +impatiently shaking off, in the broad daylight of truth, the dark +veils with which they had been blindfolded for so many centuries. +Then finally, fortune, which previously had been on their side in the +long-waged conflict between theology and science, deserted to their +adversary. The help of the latter to the study of the occult side of +nature was truly precious and timely, and science has unwittingly +widened the once narrow path of the phenomena into a broad highway. +Had not this conflict culminated at the nick of time, we might have +seen, reproduced on a miniature scale the disgraceful scenes of the +episodes of Salem witchcraft and the Nuns of Loudun. As it was, the +clergy were muzzled. + +But if science has unintentionally helped the progress of the occult +phenomena, the latter have reciprocally aided science herself. Until +the days when newly-reincarnated philosophy boldly claimed its place +in the world, there had been but few scholars who had undertaken +the difficult task of studying comparative theology. This science +occupies a domain heretofore penetrated by few explorers. The +necessity which it involved of being well acquainted with the dead +languages, necessarily limited the number of students. Besides, there +was less popular need for it so long as people could not replace the +Christian orthodoxy by something more tangible. It is one of the most +undeniable facts of psychology, that the average man can as little +exist out of a religious element of some kind, as a fish out of the +water. The voice of truth, “a voice stronger than the voice of the +mightiest thunder,” speaks to the inner man in the nineteenth century +of the Christian era, as it spoke in the corresponding century B.C. +It is a useless and unprofitable task to offer to humanity the +choice between a future life and annihilation. The only chance that +remains for those friends of human progress who seek to establish +for the good of mankind a faith, henceforth stripped entirely of +superstition and dogmatic fetters is to address them in the words +of Joshua: “Choose ye this day whom you will serve; whether the gods +which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, +or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell.”[33] + +“The science of religion,” wrote Max Müller in 1860, “is only just +beginning.... During the last fifty years the authentic documents +of the most important religions in the world _have been recovered +in a most unexpected and almost miraculous manner_.[34] We have now +before us the Canonical books of Buddhism; the _Zend-Avesta_ of +Zoroaster is no longer a sealed book; and the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_ +have revealed a state of religions anterior to the first beginnings +of that mythology which in Homer and Hesiod stands before us as a +mouldering ruin.”[35] + +In their insatiable desire to extend the dominion of blind faith, the +early architects of Christian theology had been forced to conceal, as +much as it was possible, the true sources of the same. To this end +they are said to have burned or otherwise destroyed all the original +manuscripts on the _Kabala_, magic, and occult sciences upon which +they could lay their hands. They ignorantly supposed that the most +dangerous writings of this class had perished with the last Gnostic; +but some day they may discover their mistake. Other authentic and as +important documents will perhaps reäppear in a “most unexpected and +almost miraculous manner.” + +There are strange traditions current in various parts of the East--on +Mount Athos and in the Desert of Nitria, for instance--among certain +monks, and with learned Rabbis in Palestine, who pass their lives in +commenting upon the _Talmud_. They say that not all the rolls and +manuscripts, reported in history to have been burned by Cæsar, by +the Christian mob, in 389, and by the Arab General Amru, perished as +it is commonly believed; and the story they tell is the following: +At the time of the contest for the throne, in 51 B.C., between +Cleopatra and her brother Dionysius Ptolemy, the Bruckion, which +contained over seven hundred thousand rolls, all bound in wood and +_fire-proof_ parchment, was undergoing repairs, and a great portion +of the original manuscripts, considered among the most precious, +and which were not duplicated, were stored away in the house of one +of the librarians. As the fire which consumed the rest was but the +result of accident, no precautions had been taken at the time. But +they add, that several hours passed between the burning of the fleet, +set on fire by Cæsar’s order, and the moment when the first buildings +situated near the harbor caught fire in their turn; and that all the +librarians, aided by several hundred slaves attached to the museum, +succeeded in saving the most precious of the rolls. So perfect and +solid was the fabric of the parchment, that while in some rolls the +inner pages and the wood-binding were reduced to ashes, of others +the parchment binding remained unscorched. These particulars were +all written out in Greek, Latin, and the Chaldeo-Syriac dialect, by +a learned youth named Theodas, one of the scribes employed in the +museum. One of these manuscripts is alleged to be preserved till +now in a Greek convent; and the person who narrated the tradition +to us had seen it himself. He said that many more will see it +and learn where to look for important documents, when a certain +prophecy will be fulfilled; adding, that most of these works could +be found in Tartary and India.[36] The monk showed us a copy of the +original, which, of course, we could read but poorly, as we claim +but little erudition in the matter of dead languages. But we were +so particularly struck by the vivid and picturesque translation of +the holy father, that we perfectly remember some curious paragraphs, +which run, as far as we can recall them, as follows:--“When the Queen +of the Sun (Cleopatra) was brought back to the half-ruined city, +after the fire had devoured the _Glory of the World_; and when she +saw the mountains of books--or rolls--covering the half-consumed +steps of the _estrada_; and when she perceived that the inside was +gone and the indestructible covers alone remained, she wept in rage +and fury, and cursed the meanness of her fathers who had grudged the +cost of the real Pergamos for the inside as well as the outside of +the precious rolls.” Further, our author, Theodas, indulges in a joke +at the expense of the queen for believing that nearly all the library +was burned; when, in fact, hundreds and thousands of the choicest +books were safely stored in his own house and those of other scribes, +librarians, students, and philosophers. + +No more do sundry very learned Copts scattered all over the East in +Asia Minor, Egypt, and Palestine believe in the total destruction +of the subsequent libraries. For instance, they say that out of +the library of Attalus III. of Pergamus, presented by Antony to +Cleopatra, not a volume was destroyed. At that time, according to +their assertions, from the moment that the Christians began to +gain power in Alexandria--about the end of the fourth century--and +Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, began to insult the national gods, the +Pagan philosophers and learned theurgists adopted effective measures +to preserve the repositories of their sacred learning. Theophilus, +a bishop, who left behind him the reputation of a most rascally and +mercenary villain, was accused by one named Antoninus, a famous +theurgist and eminent scholar of occult science of Alexandria, with +bribing the slaves of the Serapion to steal books which he sold to +foreigners at great prices. History tells us how Theophilus had +the best of the philosophers, in A.D. 389; and how his successor +and nephew, the no less infamous Cyril, butchered Hypatia. Suidas +gives us some details about Antoninus, whom he calls Antonius, and +his eloquent friend Olympus, the defender of the Serapion. But +history is far from being complete in the miserable remnants of +books, which, crossing so many ages, have reached our own learned +century; it fails to give the facts relating to the first five +centuries of Christianity which are preserved in the numerous +traditions current in the East. Unauthenticated as these may appear, +there is unquestionably in the heap of chaff much good grain. That +these traditions are not oftener communicated to Europeans is not +strange, when we consider how apt our travellers are to render +themselves antagonistic to the natives by their skeptical bearing +and, occasionally, dogmatic intolerance. When exceptional men like +some archæologists, who knew how to win the confidence and even +friendship of certain Arabs, are favored with precious documents, +it is declared simply a “coincidence.” And yet there are widespread +traditions of the existence of certain subterranean, and immense +galleries, in the neighborhood of Ishmonia--the “petrified City,” +in which are stored numberless manuscripts and rolls. For no amount +of money would the Arabs go near it. At night, they say, from the +crevices of the desolate ruins, sunk deep in the unwatered sands of +the desert, stream the rays from lights carried to and fro in the +galleries by no human hands. The Afrites study the literature of the +antediluvian ages, according to their belief, and the Djin learns +from the magic rolls the lesson of the following day. + +The _Encyclopedia Britannica_, in its article on Alexandria, says: +“When the temple of Serapis was demolished ... the valuable library +was _pillaged_ or destroyed; and _twenty_ years afterwards[37] the +_empty shelves_ excited the regret ... etc.” But it does not state +the subsequent fate of the _pillaged_ books. + +In rivalry of the fierce Mary-worshippers of the fourth century, +the modern clerical persecutors of liberalism and “heresy” would +willingly shut up all the heretics and their books in some modern +Serapion and burn them alive.[38] The cause of this hatred is +natural. Modern research has more than ever unveiled the secret. “Is +not the worship of saints and angels now,” said Bishop Newton, years +ago, “in all respects the same that the worship of demons was in +former times? The name only is different, the thing is identically +the same ... the very same temples, the very same images, which were +once consecrated to Jupiter and the other demons, are now consecrated +to the Virgin Mary and other saints ... the whole of Paganism is +converted and applied _to Popery_.” + +Why not be impartial and add that “a good portion of it was adopted +by Protestant religions also?” + +The very apostolic designation _Peter_ is from the Mysteries. The +hierophant or supreme pontiff bore the Chaldean title פתר, _peter_, +or interpreter. The names Phtah, Peth’r, the residence of Balaam, +Patara, and Patras, the names of oracle-cities, _pateres_ or +_pateras_ and, perhaps, Buddha,[39] all come from the same root. +Jesus says: “Upon this _petra_ I will build my Church, and the +gates, or rulers of Hades, shall not prevail against it;” meaning by +_petra_ the rock-temple, and by metaphor, the Christian Mysteries; +the adversaries to which were the old mystery-gods of the underworld, +who were worshipped in the rites of Isis, Adonis, Atys, Sabazius, +Dionysus, and the Eleusinia. No _apostle_ Peter was ever at Rome; but +the Pope, seizing the sceptre of the _Pontifex Maximus_, the keys of +Janus and Kubelé, and adorning his Christian head with the cap of +the _Magna Mater_, copied from that of the tiara of Brahmâtma, the +Supreme Pontiff of the Initiates of old India, became the successor +of the Pagan high priest, the real Peter-Roma, or _Petroma_.[40] + +The Roman Catholic Church has two far mightier enemies than the +“heretics” and the “infidels;” and these are--Comparative Mythology +and Philology. When such eminent divines as the Rev. James Freeman +Clarke go so much out of their way to prove to their readers that +“Critical Theology from the time of Origen and Jerome ... and the +Controversial Theology during fifteen centuries, has not consisted in +accepting on authority the opinions of other people,” but has shown, +on the contrary, much “acute and comprehensive reasoning,” we can but +regret that so much scholarship should have been wasted in attempting +to prove that which a fair survey of the history of theology upsets +at every step. In these “controversies” and critical treatment of the +doctrines of the Church one can certainly find any amount of “acute +reasoning,” but far more of a still acuter sophistry. + +Recently the mass of cumulative evidence has been re-inforced to an +extent which leaves little, if any, room for further controversy. A +conclusive opinion is furnished by too many scholars to doubt the +fact that India was the _Alma-Mater_, not only of the civilization, +arts, and sciences, but also of all the great religions of antiquity; +Judaism, and hence Christianity, included. Herder places the cradle +of humanity in India, and shows Moses as a clever and relatively +_modern_ compiler of the ancient Brahmanical traditions: “The river +which encircles the country (India) is the sacred Ganges, which +all Asia considers as the paradisaical river. There, also, is the +biblical Gihon, which is none else but the Indus. The Arabs call it +so unto this day, and the names of the countries watered by it are +yet existing among the Hindus.” Jacolliot claims to have translated +every ancient palm-leaf manuscript which he had the fortune of +being allowed by the Brahmans of the pagodas to see. In one of his +translations, we found passages which reveal to us the _undoubted +origin of the keys_ of St. Peter, and account for the subsequent +adoption of the symbol by their Holinesses, the Popes of Rome. + +He shows us, on the testimony of the _Agrouchada Parikshai_, which he +freely translates as “the _Book of Spirits_” (Pitris), that centuries +before our era the _initiates_ of the temple chose a Superior +Council, presided over by the Brahm-âtma or supreme chief of all +these _Initiates_. That this pontificate, which could be exercised +only by a Brahman who had reached the age of eighty years;[41] that +the Brahm-âtma was sole guardian of the mystic formula, _résumé_ of +every science, contained in the three mysterious letters, + + =A= + + =U= =M= + +which signify _creation_, _conservation_, and _transformation_. He +alone could expound its meaning in the presence of the initiates +of the third and supreme degree. Whomsoever among these initiates +revealed to a profane a single one of the truths, even the smallest +of the secrets entrusted to his care, was put to death. He who +received the confidence had to share his fate. + +“Finally, to crown this able system,” says Jacolliot, “there existed +a word still more superior to the mysterious monosyllable--A U M, and +which rendered him who came into the possession of its key nearly the +equal of Brahma himself. The Brahm-âtma alone possessed this key, and +transmitted it in a sealed casket to his successor. + +“This unknown word, of which no human power could, even to-day, when +the Brahmanical authority has been crushed under the Mongolian and +European invasions, to-day, when each pagoda has its Brahm-âtma,[42] +_force the disclosure_, was engraved in a golden triangle and +preserved in a sanctuary of the temple of Asgartha, whose Brahm-âtma +alone held the keys. He also bore upon his tiara _two crossed keys_ +supported by two kneeling Brahmans, symbol of the precious deposit +of which he had the keeping.... This word and this triangle were +engraved upon the tablet of the ring that this religious chief wore +as one of the signs of his dignity; it was also framed in a golden +sun on the altar, where every morning the Supreme Pontiff offered +the sacrifice of the sarvameda, or sacrifice to all the forces of +nature.”[43] + +Is this clear enough? And will the Catholics still maintain that it +was the Brahmans of 4,000 years ago who copied the ritual, symbols, +and dress of the Roman Pontiffs? We would not feel in the least +surprised. + +Without going very far back into antiquity for comparisons, if we +only stop at the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, and contrast +the so-called “heathenism” of the third Neo-platonic Eclectic School +with the growing Christianity, the result may not be favorable to +the latter. Even at that early period, when the new religion had +hardly outlined its contradictory dogmas; when the champions of the +bloodthirsty Cyril knew not themselves whether Mary was to become +“the Mother of God,” or rank as a “demon” in company with Isis; when +the memory of the meek and lowly Jesus still lingered lovingly in +every Christian heart, and his words of mercy and charity vibrated +still in the air, even then the Christians were outdoing the Pagans +in every kind of ferocity and religious intolerance. + +And if we look still farther back, and seek for examples of true +_Christism_, in ages when Buddhism had hardly superseded Brahmanism +in India, and the name of Jesus was only to be pronounced three +centuries later, what do we find? Which of the holy pillars of the +Church has ever elevated himself to the level of religious tolerance +and noble simplicity of character of some heathen? Compare, for +instance, the Hindu Asoka, who lived 300 B.C., and the Carthaginian +St. Augustine, who flourished three centuries after Christ. According +to Max Müller, this is what is found engraved on the rocks of Girnar, +Dhauli, and Kapurdigiri: + +“Piyadasi, the king beloved of the gods, desires that the ascetics +_of all creeds_ might reside in all places. All these ascetics +profess alike the command which people should exercise over +themselves, and the purity of the soul. _But people have different +opinions and different inclinations._” + +And here is what Augustine wrote after his baptism: “Wondrous depth +of thy words! whose surface, behold! is before us, inviting to +little ones; yet are they a wondrous depth, O my God, a wondrous +depth! It is awful to look therein; yes ... an awfulness of honor, +and a trembling of love. Thy enemies [read Pagans] thereof I _hate_ +vehemently; Oh, _that thou wouldst slay them_ with thy two-edged +sword, that they might no longer be enemies to it; for _so do I love +to have them slain_.”[44] + +Wonderful spirit of Christianity; and that from a Manichean converted +to the religion of one who even on his cross prayed for his enemies! + +Who the enemies of the “Lord” were, according to the Christians, is +not difficult to surmise; the few inside the Augustinian fold were +His new children and favorites, who had supplanted in His affections +the sons of Israel, His “chosen people.” The rest of mankind were +His natural foes. The teeming multitudes of heathendom were proper +food for the flames of hell; the handful within the Church communion, +“heirs of salvation.” + +But if such a proscriptive policy was just, and its enforcement was +“sweet savor” in the nostrils of the “Lord,” why not scorn also +the Pagan rites and philosophy? Why draw so deep from the wells of +wisdom, dug and filled up to brim by the same heathen? Or did the +fathers, in their desire to imitate the chosen people whose time-worn +shoes they were trying to fit upon their feet, contemplate the +reënaction of the spoliation-scene of the _Exodus_? Did they propose, +in fleeing from heathendom as the Jews did from Egypt, to carry off +the valuables of its religious allegories, as the “chosen ones” did +the gold and silver ornaments? + +It certainly does seem as if the events of the first centuries of +Christianity were but the reflection of the images thrown upon +the mirror of the future at the time of the Exodus. During the +stormy days of Irenæus, the Platonic philosophy, with its mystical +submersion into Deity, was not so obnoxious after all to the new +doctrine as to prevent the Christians from helping themselves to its +abstruse metaphysics in every way and manner. Allying themselves with +the ascetical theurapeutæ--forefathers and models of the Christian +monks and hermits, it was in Alexandria, let it be remembered, that +they laid the first foundations of the purely Platonic trinitarian +doctrine. It became the Plato-Philonean doctrine later, and such as +we find it now. Plato considered the divine nature under a three-fold +modification of the _First Cause_, the reason or _Logos_, and the +soul or spirit of the universe. “The three archial or original +principles,” says Gibbon,[45] “were represented in the Platonic +system as three gods, united with each other by a mysterious and +ineffable generation.” Blending this transcendental idea with the +more hypostatic figure of the _Logos_ of Philo, whose doctrine was +that of the oldest Kabala, and who viewed the King Messiah, as the +metatron, or “the angel of the Lord,” the _Legatus_ descended in +flesh, but not the _Ancient of Days_ Himself;[46] the Christians +clothed with this mythical representation of the Mediator for the +fallen race of Adam, Jesus, the son of Mary. Under this unexpected +garb his personality was all but lost. In the modern Jesus of the +Christian Church, we find the ideal of the imaginative Irenæus, not +the adept of the Essenes, the obscure reformer from Galilee. We see +him under the disfigured Plato-Philonean mask, not as the disciples +heard him on the mount. + +So far then the heathen philosophy had helped them in the building +of the principal dogma. But when the theurgists of the third +Neo-platonic school, deprived of their ancient Mysteries, strove +to blend the doctrines of Plato with those of Aristotle, and by +combining the two philosophies added to their theosophy the primeval +doctrines of the Oriental _Kabala_, then the Christians from rivals +became persecutors. Once that the metaphysical allegories of Plato +were being prepared to be discussed in public in the form of Grecian +dialectics, all the elaborate system of the Christian trinity would +be unravelled and the divine prestige completely upset. The eclectic +school, reversing the order, had adopted the inductive method; and +this method became its death-knell. Of all things on earth, logic and +reasonable explanations were the most hateful to the new religion of +mystery; for they threatened to unveil the whole ground-work of the +trinitarian conception; to apprise the multitude of the doctrine of +emanations, and thus destroy the unity of the whole. It could not be +permitted, and it was not. History records the _Christ_-like means +that were resorted to. + +The universal doctrine of emanations, adopted from time immemorial +by the greatest schools which taught the kabalistic, Alexandrian, +and Oriental philosophers, gives the key to that panic among the +Christian fathers. That spirit of Jesuitism and clerical craft, which +prompted Parkhurst, many centuries later, to suppress in his _Hebrew +Lexicon_ the true meaning of the first word of _Genesis_, originated +in those days of war against the expiring Neo-platonic and eclectic +school. The fathers had decided to pervert the meaning of the word +“_daimon_,”[47] and they dreaded above all to have the esoteric and +true meaning of the word _Rasit_ unveiled to the multitudes; for if +once the true sense of this sentence, as well as that of the Hebrew +word _asdt_ (translated in the Septuagint “_angels_,” while it +means emanations),[48] were understood rightly, the mystery of the +Christian trinity would have crumbled, carrying in its downfall the +new religion into the same heap of ruins with the ancient Mysteries. +This is the true reason why dialecticians, as well as Aristotle +himself, the “prying philosopher,” were ever obnoxious to Christian +theology. Even Luther, while on his work of reform, feeling the +ground insecure under his feet, notwithstanding that the dogmas had +been reduced by him to their simplest expression, gave full vent to +his fear and hatred for Aristotle. The amount of abuse he heaped +upon the memory of the great logician can only be equalled--never +surpassed--by the Pope’s anathemas and invectives against the +liberals of the Italian government. Compiled together, they might +easily fill a copy of a new encyclopædia with models for monkish +diatribes. + +Of course the Christian clergy can never get reconciled with a +doctrine based on the application of strict logic to discursive +reasoning. The number of those who have abandoned theology on this +account has never been made known. They have asked questions and +been forbidden to ask them; hence, separation, disgust, and often a +despairing plunge into the abyss of atheism. The Orphean views of +ether as chief _medium between_ God and created matter were likewise +denounced. The Orphic Æther recalled too vividly the _Archeus_, +the Soul of the World, and the latter was in its metaphysical +sense as closely related to the emanations, being the first +manifestation--Sephira, or Divine Light. And when could the latter be +more feared than at that critical moment? + +Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, and Maimonides, +on the authority of the _Targum_ of Jerusalem, the orthodox and +greatest authority of the Jews, held that the first two words in +the book of _Genesis_--B-RASIT, mean _Wisdom_, or the _Principle_. +And that the idea of these words meaning “_in the beginning_” was +never shared but by the profane, who were not allowed to penetrate +any deeper into the esoteric sense of the sentence. Beausobre, +and after him Godfrey Higgins, have demonstrated the fact. “All +things,” says the _Kabala_, “are derived from one great Principle, +and this principle is the _unknown_ and _invisible_ God. From Him a +substantial power immediately proceeds, which is the _image of God_, +and the source of all subsequent emanations. This second principle +sends forth, by the _energy_ (or _will_ and _force_) of emanation, +other natures, which are more or less perfect, according to their +different degrees of distance, in the scale of emanation, from the +First Source of existence, and which constitute different worlds, +or orders of being, all united to the eternal power from which they +proceed. _Matter is nothing more than the most remote effect of the +emanative energy_ of the Deity. The material world receives its form +from the immediate agency of powers far beneath the First Source of +Being[49].... Beausobre[50] makes St. Augustine the Manichean say +thus: ‘And if by _Rasit_ we understand the _active Principle_ of the +creation, instead of its _beginning_, in such a case we will clearly +perceive that Moses never meant to say that heaven and earth were +the first works of God. He only said that God created heaven and +earth _through the Principle_, who is His Son. It is not the _time_ +he points to, but to the immediate author of the creation.’ Angels, +according to Augustine, were created _before_ the firmament, and +according to the esoteric interpretation, the heaven and earth were +created after that, evolving from the _second_ Principle or the +Logos--the creative Deity. “The word _principle_,” says Beausobre, +“does not mean that the heaven and earth were created before +anything else, for, to begin with, the _angels_ were created before +that; but that God did everything through His Wisdom, which is His +_Verbum_, and which the Christian _Bible_ named the _Beginning_,” +thus adopting the exoteric meaning of the word abandoned to the +multitudes. The _Kabala_--the Oriental as well as the Jewish--shows +that a number of _emanations_ (the Jewish Sephiroth) issued from the +_First_ Principle, the chief of which was _Wisdom_. This Wisdom is +the Logos of Philo, and Michael, the chief of the Gnostic Eons; it +is the Ormazd of the Persians; _Minerva_, goddess of wisdom, of the +Greeks, who emanated from the head of Jupiter; and the second Person +of the Christian Trinity. The early Fathers of the Church had not +much to exert their imagination; they found a ready-made doctrine +that had existed in every theogony for thousands of years before +the Christian era. Their trinity is but the trio of Sephiroth, the +first three kabalistic _lights_ of which Moses Nachmanides says, that +“_they have never been seen by any one_; there is not any defect in +them, nor any disunion.” The first eternal number is the Father, or +the Chaldean primeval, invisible, and incomprehensible _chaos_, out +of which proceeded the _Intelligible_ one. The Egyptian Phtah, or +“the _Principle of Light_--not the light itself, and the Principle +of Life, though himself _no_ life.” The _Wisdom_ by which the Father +created the heavens is the _Son_, or the kabalistic androgynous +Adam Kadmon. The Son is at once the male _Ra_, or Light of Wisdom, +Prudence or _Intelligence_, Sephira, the female part of Himself; +while from this dual being proceeds the third emanation, the Binah or +Reason, the second Intelligence--the Holy Ghost of the Christians. +Therefore, strictly speaking, there is a TETRAKTIS or quaternary, +consisting of the Unintelligible First monad, and its triple +emanation, which properly constitute our Trinity. + +How then avoid perceiving at once, that had not the Christians +purposely disfigured in their interpretation and translation the +Mosaic _Genesis_ to fit their own views, their religion, with its +present dogmas, would have been impossible? The word Rasit, once +taught in its new sense of the _Principle_ and not the _Beginning_, +and the anathematized doctrine of emanations accepted, the position +of the second trinitarian personage becomes untenable. For, if the +angels are the _first_ divine emanations from the Divine Substance, +and were in existence _before_ the Second Principle, then the +anthropomorphized _Son_ is at best an emanation like themselves, +and cannot be God _hypostatically_ any more than our visible works +are ourselves. That these metaphysical subtleties never entered +into the head of the honest-minded, sincere Paul, is evident; as +it is furthermore evident, that like all learned Jews he was well +acquainted with the doctrine of emanations and never thought of +corrupting it. How can any one imagine that Paul identified the _Son_ +with the _Father_, when he tells us that God made Jesus “a _little +lower_ than the angels” (_Hebrews_ ii. 9), and a _little higher_ than +Moses! “For this MAN was counted worthy of more glory than Moses” +(_Hebrews_ iii. 3). Of whatever, or how many forgeries, interlined +later in the _Acts_, the Fathers are guilty we know not; but that +Paul never considered Christ more than a man “full of the Spirit of +God” is but too evident: “In the _arche_ was the _Logos_, and the +Logos was adnate to the Theos.” + +_Wisdom_, the first emanation of En-Soph; the Protogonos, the +Hypostasis; the Adam Kadmon of the kabalist, the Brahma of the Hindu; +the Logos of Plato, and the “_Beginning_” of St. John--is the +Rasit--ראשית, of the _Book of Genesis_. If rightly interpreted it +overturns, as we have remarked, the whole elaborate system of +Christian theology, for it proves that behind the _creative_ Deity, +there was a HIGHER god; a planner, an architect; and that the former +was but His executive agent--a simple POWER! + +They persecuted the Gnostics, murdered the philosophers, and +burned the kabalists and the masons; and when the day of the great +reckoning arrives, and the light shines in darkness, what will they +have to offer in the place of the departed, expired religion? What +will they answer, these pretended monotheists, these worshippers +and _pseudo_-servants of the one living God, to their Creator? How +will they account for this long persecution of them who were the +true followers of the grand Megalistor, the supreme great master +of the Rosicrucians, the FIRST of masons. “For he is the Builder +and Architect of the Temple of the universe; He is the _Verbum +Sapienti_.”[51] + +“Every one knows,” wrote the great Manichean of the third century, +Fauste, “that the Evangeliums were written neither by Jesus Christ, +nor his apostles, but long after their time by some unknown persons, +who, judging well that they would hardly be believed when telling of +things they had not seen themselves, headed their narratives with +the names of the apostles or of disciples contemporaneous with the +latter.” + +Commenting upon the subject, A. Franck, the learned Hebrew scholar +of the Institute and translator of the _Kabala_, expresses the same +idea. “Are we not authorized,” he asks, “to view the _Kabala_ as +a precious remnant of religious philosophy of the Orient, which, +transported into Alexandria, got mixed to the doctrine of Plato, and +under the usurped name of Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens, +converted and consecrated by St. Paul, was thus enabled to penetrate +into the mysticism of the mediæval ages?”[52] + +Says Jacolliot: “What is then this religious philosophy of +the Orient, which has penetrated into the mystic symbolism of +Christianity? We answer: This philosophy, the traces of which we find +among the Magians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Hebrew kabalists +and the Christians, is none other than that of the Hindu Brahmans, +the sectarians of the _pitris_, or the spirits of the invisible +worlds which surround us.”[53] + +But if the Gnostics were destroyed, the _Gnosis_, based on the +secret science of sciences, still lives. It is the earth which +helps the woman, and which is destined to open her mouth to swallow +up mediæval Christianity, the usurper and assassin of the great +master’s doctrine. The ancient _Kabala_, the Gnosis, or traditional +_secret_ knowledge, was never without its representatives in any age +or country. The trinities of initiates, whether passed into history +or concealed under the impenetrable veil of mystery, are preserved +and impressed throughout the ages. They are known as Moses, Aholiab, +and Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, as Plato, Philo, and +Pythagoras, etc. At the Transfiguration we see them as Jesus, Moses, +and Elias, the three Trismegisti; and three kabalists, Peter, James, +and John--whose _revelation_ is the key to all wisdom. We found them +in the twilight of Jewish history as Zoroaster, Abraham, and Terah, +and later as Henoch, Ezekiel, and Daniel. + +Who, of those who ever studied the ancient philosophies, who +understand intuitionally the grandeur of their conceptions, the +boundless sublimity of their views of the Unknown Deity, can hesitate +for a moment to give the preference to their doctrines over the +incomprehensible dogmatic and contradictory theology of the hundreds +of Christian sects? Who that ever read Plato and fathomed his Το Ὀν, +“_whom no person has seen except the Son_,” can doubt that Jesus was a +disciple of the same secret doctrine which had instructed the great +philosopher? For, as we have shown before now, Plato never claimed to +be the inventor of all that he wrote, but gave credit for it to +Pythagoras, who, in his turn, pointed to the remote East as the source +whence he derived his information and his philosophy. Colebrooke shows +that Plato confesses it in his epistles, and says that he has taken +his teachings from ancient and sacred doctrines![54] Moreover, it is +undeniable that the theologies of all the great nations dovetail +together and show that each is a part of “one stupendous whole.” Like +the rest of the initiates we see Plato taking great pains to conceal +the true meaning of his allegories. Every time the subject touches the +greater secrets of the Oriental _Kabala_, secret of the true cosmogony +of the universe and of the _ideal_, preëxisting world, Plato shrouds +his philosophy in the profoundest darkness. His _Timæus_ is so +confused that no one but an _initiate_ can understand the secret +meaning. And Mosheim thinks that Philo has filled his works with +passages directly contradicting each other for the sole purpose of +concealing the true doctrine. For once we see a critic on the right +track. + +And this very trinitarian idea, as well as the so bitterly denounced +doctrine of emanations, whence their remotest origin? The answer is +easy, and every proof is now at hand. In the sublime and profoundest +of all philosophies, that of the universal “Wisdom-Religion,” the +first traces of which, historical research now finds in the old +pre-Vedic religion of India. As the much-abused Jacolliot well +remarks, “It is not in the religious works of antiquity, such as the +_Vedas_, the _Zend Avesta_, the _Bible_, that we have to search for +the exact expression of the ennobling and sublime beliefs of those +epochs.”[55] + +“The holy primitive syllable, composed of the three letters A--U--M., +in which is contained the Vedic Trimurti (Trinity), must be kept +secret, like another triple Veda,” says Manu, in book xi., sloka 265. + +Swayambhouva is the unrevealed Deity; it is the Being existent +through and of itself; he is the central and immortal germ of +all that exists in the universe. Three trinities emanate and are +confounded in him, forming a Supreme _unity_. These trinities, or the +triple _Trimurti_, are: the Nara, Nari, and Viradyi--the _initial_ +triad; the Agni, Vaya, and Sourya--the _manifested_ triad; Brahma, +Vishnu, and Siva, the _creative_ triad. Each of these triads becomes +less metaphysical and more adapted to the vulgar intelligence as +it descends. Thus the last becomes but the symbol in its concrete +expression; the necessarianism of a purely metaphysical conception. +Together with Swayambhouva, they are the ten _Sephiroth_ of the +Hebrew kabalists, the ten Hindu Pragâpatis--the En-Soph of the +former, answering to the great _Unknown_, expressed by the mystic A U +M of the latter. + +Says Franck, the translator of the _Kabala_: + +“The ten Sephiroth are divided into _three classes_, each of them +presenting to us the divinity _under a different aspect_, the whole +still remaining an _indivisible Trinity_. + +“The first three Sephiroth are purely intellectual in metaphysics, +they express the absolute identity of existence and thought, and form +what the modern kabalists called the intelligible world--which is the +first manifestation of God. + +“The three that follow, make us conceive God in one of their aspects, +as the identity of goodness and wisdom; in the other they show to us, +in the Supreme good, the origin of beauty and magnificence (in the +creation). Therefore, they are named the _virtues_, or the _sensible +world_. + +“Finally, we learn, by the last three Sephiroth, that the Universal +Providence, that the Supreme artist is also _absolute Force_, the +all-powerful cause, and that, at the same time, this cause _is the +generative element of all that is_. It is these last Sephiroth that +constitute the _natural world_, or nature in its essence and in its +_active_ principle, _Natura naturans._”[56] + +This kabalistic conception is thus proved identical with that of the +Hindu philosophy. Whoever reads Plato and his _Dialogue_ Timæus, will +find these ideas as faithfully re-echoed by the Greek philosopher. +Moreover, the injunction of secrecy was as strict with the kabalists, +as with the initiates of the Adyta and the Hindu Yogis. + +“Close thy mouth, lest thou shouldst speak of _this_ (the mystery), +and thy heart, lest thou shouldst think aloud; and if thy heart has +escaped thee, bring it back to its place, for such is the object of +our alliance” (_Sepher Jezireh_, _Book of Creation_). + +“This is a secret which gives death: close thy mouth lest thou +shouldst reveal to the vulgar; compress thy brain lest something +should escape from it and fall outside” (_Agrouchada-Parikshai_). + +Truly the fate of many a future generation hung on a gossamer +thread, in the days of the third and fourth centuries. Had not the +Emperor sent in 389 to Alexandria a rescript--which was forced from +him by the Christians--for the destruction of every idol, our own +century would never have had a Christian mythological Pantheon of +its own. Never did the Neo-platonic school reach such a height of +philosophy as when nearest its end. Uniting the mystic theosophy +of old Egypt with the refined philosophy of the Greeks; nearer to +the ancient Mysteries of Thebes and Memphis than they had been for +centuries; versed in the science of soothsaying and divination, +as in the art of the Therapeutists; friendly with the acutest men +of the Jewish nation, who were deeply imbued with the Zoroastrian +ideas, the Neo-platonists tended to amalgamate the old wisdom of the +Oriental _Kabala_ with the more refined conceptions of the Occidental +Theosophists. Notwithstanding the treason of the Christians, who +saw fit, for political reasons, after the days of Constantine, to +repudiate their tutors, the influence of the new Platonic philosophy +is conspicuous in the subsequent adoption of dogmas, the origin +of which can be traced but too easily to that remarkable school. +Though mutilated and disfigured, they still preserve a strong family +likeness, which nothing can obliterate. + +But, if the knowledge of the occult powers of nature opens the +spiritual sight of man, enlarges his intellectual faculties, and +leads him unerringly to a profounder veneration for the Creator, +on the other hand ignorance, dogmatic narrow-mindedness, and a +childish fear of looking to the bottom of things, invariably leads to +fetish-worship and superstition. + +When Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, had openly embraced the cause +of Isis, the Egyptian goddess, and had anthropomorphized her into +Mary, the mother of God; and the trinitarian controversy had taken +place; from that moment the Egyptian doctrine of the emanation of +the creative God out of Emepht began to be tortured in a thousand +ways, until the Councils had agreed upon the adoption of it as it +now stands--the disfigured Ternary of the kabalistic Solomon and +Philo! But as its origin was yet too evident, the _Word_ was no +longer called the “Heavenly man,” the _primal_ Adam Kadmon, but +became the Logos--Christ, and was made as old as the “Ancient of the +Ancient,” his father. The _concealed_ WISDOM became identical with +its emanation, the DIVINE THOUGHT, and made to be regarded coëqual +and coëternal with its first manifestation. + +If we now stop to consider another of the fundamental dogmas of +Christianity, the doctrine of atonement, we may trace it as easily +back to heathendom. This corner-stone of a Church which had believed +herself built on a firm rock for long centuries, is now excavated +by science and proved to come from the Gnostics. Professor Draper +shows it as hardly known in the days of Tertullian, and as having +“_originated_ among the Gnostic heretics.”[57] We will not permit +ourselves to contradict such a learned authority, farther than to +state that it _originated_ among them no more than their “anointed” +Christos and Sophia. The former they modelled on the original of +the “King Messiah,” the male principle of wisdom, and the latter on +the third Sephiroth, from the Chaldean _Kabala_,[58] and even from +the Hindu Brahma and Sara-âsvati,[59] and the Pagan Dionysus and +Demeter. And here we are on firm ground, if it were only because it +is now proved that the _New Testament_ never appeared in its complete +form, such as we find it now, till 300 years after the period of +apostles,[60] and the _Sohar_ and other kabalistic books are found to +belong to the first century before our era, if not to be far older +still. + +The Gnostics entertained many of the Essenean ideas; and the +Essenes had their “greater” and “minor” Mysteries at least two +centuries before our era. They were the _Isarim_ or _Initiates_, +the descendants of the Egyptian hierophants, in whose country they +had been settled for several centuries before they were converted +to Buddhistic monasticism by the missionaries of King Asoka, and +amalgamated later with the earliest Christians; and they existed, +probably, before the old Egyptian temples were desecrated and ruined +in the incessant invasions of Persians, Greeks, and other conquering +hordes. The hierophants had their _atonement_ enacted in the Mystery +of Initiation ages before the Gnostics, or even the Essenes, had +appeared. It was known among hierophants as the BAPTISM OF BLOOD, and +was considered not as an atonement for the “fall of man” in Eden, +but simply as an expiation for the past, present, and future sins of +ignorant but nevertheless polluted mankind. The hierophant had the +option of either offering his pure and sinless life as a sacrifice +for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin, or an animal +victim. The former depended entirely on their own will. At the last +moment of the solemn “new birth,” the initiator passed “the word” to +the initiated, and immediately after that the latter had a weapon +placed in his right hand, and was ordered _to strike_.[61] This is +the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement. + +Verily the “Christs” of the pre-Christian ages were many. But they +died unknown to the world, and disappeared as silently and as +mysteriously from the sight of man as Moses from the top of Pisgah, +the mountain of Nebo (oracular wisdom), after he had laid his hands +upon Joshua, who thus became “full of the spirit of wisdom” (_i.e._, +_initiated_). + +Nor does the Mystery of the Eucharist pertain to Christians alone. +Godfrey Higgins proves that it was instituted many hundreds of +years before the “Paschal Supper,” and says that “the sacrifice of +bread and wine was common to many ancient nations.”[62] Cicero +mentions it in his works, and wonders at the strangeness of the rite. +There had been an esoteric meaning attached to it from the first +establishment of the Mysteries, and the Eucharistia is one of the +oldest rites of antiquity. With the hierophants it had nearly the +same significance as with the Christians. Ceres was _bread_, and +Bacchus was _wine_; the former meaning regeneration of life from the +seed, and the latter--the grape--the emblem of wisdom and knowledge; +the accumulation of the spirit of things, and the fermentation +and subsequent strength of that esoteric knowledge being justly +symbolized by wine. The mystery related to the drama of Eden; it is +said to have been first taught by Janus, who was also the first to +introduce in the temples the sacrifices of “bread” and “wine” in +commemoration of the “fall into generation” as the symbol of the +“seed.” “I am the vine, and my Father is the husbandman,” says Jesus, +alluding to the secret knowledge that could be imparted by him. “I +will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I +drink it new in the kingdom of God.” + +The festival of the Eleusinian Mysteries began in the month of +Boëdromion, which corresponds with the month of September, the time +of grape-gathering, and lasted from the 15th to the 22d of the month, +_seven_ days.[63] The Hebrew festival of the Feast of Tabernacles +began on the 15th and ended on the 22d of the month of Ethanim, which +Dunlap shows as derived from Adonim, Adonia, Attenim, Ethanim;[64] +and this feast is named in _Exodus_ (xxiii. 16) the feast of +_ingatherings_. “All the men of Israel assembled unto King Solomon at +the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the _seventh_.”[65] + +Plutarch thinks the feast of the booths to be the Bacchic rites, not +the Eleusinian. Thus “Bacchus was directly called upon,” he says. +The _Sabazian_ worship was _Sabbatic_; the names Evius, or Hevius, +and Luaios are identical with _Hivite_ and _Levite_. The French name +Louis is the Hebrew _Levi_; Iacchus again is Iao or Jehovah; and Baal +or Adon, like Bacchus, was a phallic god. “Who shall ascend into the +hill (the high place) of the Lord?” asks the holy king David, “who +shall stand in the place of his _Kadushu_ קדשו”? (_Psalms_ xxiv. 3). +Kadesh may mean in one sense to _devote, hallow, sanctify_, and even +to initiate or to set apart; but it also means the ministers of +lascivious rites (the Venus-worship) and the true interpretation of +the word Kadesh is bluntly rendered in _Deuteronomy_ xxiii. 17; +_Hosea_ iv. 14; and _Genesis_ xxxviii., from verses 15 to 22. The +“holy” Kadeshuth of the _Bible_ were identical as to the duties of +their office with the Nautch-girls of the later Hindu pagodas. The +Hebrew _Kadeshim_ or galli lived “by the house of the Lord, where the +women wove hangings for the grove,” or bust of Venus-Astartè, says +verse the seventh in the twenty-third chapter of 2 Kings. + +The dance performed by David round the ark was the “circle-dance” +said to have been prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries. Such +was the dance of the daughters of Shiloh (_Judges_ xxi. 21, 23 _et +passim_), and the leaping of the prophets of Baal (_1 Kings_ xviii. +26). It was simply a characteristic of the Sabean worship, for it +denoted the motion of the planets round the sun. That the dance was a +Bacchic frenzy is apparent. Sistra were used on the occasion, and the +taunt of Michael and the king’s reply are very expressive. “The king +of Israel uncovered himself before his maid-servants as one of the +_vain_ (or debauched) fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself.” And he +retorts: “I will play (act wantonly) before יהוה, and I will be yet +more vile than this, and I will be base in my own sight.” When we +remember that David had sojourned among the Tyrians and Philistines, +where their rites were common; and that indeed he had conquered that +land away from the house of Saul, by the aid of mercenaries from their +country, the countenancing and even, perhaps, the introduction of such +a Pagan-like worship by the weak “psalmist” seems very natural. David +knew nothing of Moses, it seems, and if he introduced the +Jehovah-worship it was not in its monotheistic character, but simply +as that of one of the many gods of the neighboring nations--a tutelary +deity to whom he had given the preference, and chosen among “all other +gods.” + +Following the Christian dogmas seriatim, if we concentrate our +attention upon one which provoked the fiercest battles until its +recognition, that of the Trinity, what do we find? We meet it, as +we have shown, northeast of the Indus; and tracing it to Asia Minor +and Europe, recognize it among every people who had anything like +an established religion. It was taught in the oldest Chaldean, +Egyptian, and Mithraïtic schools. The Chaldean Sun-god, Mithra, was +called “Triple,” and the trinitarian idea of the Chaldeans was a +doctrine of the Akkadians, who, themselves, belonged to a race which +was the first to conceive a metaphysical trinity. The Chaldeans +are a tribe of the Akkadians, according to Rawlinson, who lived in +Babylonia from the earliest times. They were Turanians, according +to others, and instructed the Babylonians into the first notions of +religion. But these same Akkadians, who were they? Those scientists +who would ascribe to them a Turanian origin, make of them the +inventors of the cuneiform characters; others call them Sumerians; +others again, respectively, make their language, of which (for +very good reasons) no traces whatever remain--Kasdean, Chaldaic, +Proto-Chaldean, Kasdo-Scythic, and so on. The only tradition worthy +of credence is that these Akkadians instructed the Babylonians in +the Mysteries, and taught them the sacerdotal or _Mystery_-language. +These Akkadians were then simply a tribe of the Hindu-Brahmans, now +called Aryans--their vernacular language, the Sanscrit[66] of the +Vedas; and the sacred or Mystery-language, that which, even in our +own age, is used by the Hindu fakirs and initiated Brahmans in their +magical evocations.[67] It has been, from time immemorial, and still +is employed by the initiates of all countries, and the Thibetan lamas +claim that it is in this tongue that appear the mysterious characters +on the leaves and bark of the sacred Koumboum. + +Jacolliot, who took such pains to penetrate the mysteries of the +Brahmanical initiation in translating and commenting upon the +_Agrouchada-Parikshai_, confesses the following: + +“It is pretended also, without our being able to verify the +assertion, that the magical evocations were pronounced in a +particular language, and that it was forbidden, under pain of death, +to translate them into vulgar dialects. The rare expressions that +we have been able to catch like--_L’rhom_, _h’hom_, _sh’hrum_, +_sho’rhim_, are in fact most curious, and do not seem to belong to +any known idiom.”[68] + +Those who have seen a fakir or a lama reciting his mantras and +conjurations, know that he never pronounces the words audibly when +preparing for a phenomenon. His lips move, and none will ever hear +the terrible formula pronounced, except in the interior of the +temples, and then in a cautious whisper. This, then, was the language +now respectively baptized by every scientist, and, according to his +imaginative and philological propensities, Kasdeo-Semitic, Scythic, +Proto-Chaldean, and the like. + +Scarcely two of even the most learned Sanscrit philologists are +agreed as to the true interpretation of Vedic words. Let one put +forth an essay, a lecture, a treatise, a translation, a dictionary, +and straightway all the others fall to quarrelling with each other +and with him as to his sins of omission and commission. Professor +Whitney, greatest of American Orientalists, says that Professor +Müller’s notes on the _Rig Veda Sânhita_ “are far from showing that +sound and thoughtful judgment, that moderation and economy which +are among the most precious qualities of an exegete.” Professor +Müller angrily retorts upon his critics that “not only is the joy +embittered which is the inherent reward of all _bona fide_ work, but +selfishness, malignity, aye, _even untruthfulness_, gain the upper +hand, and the healthy growth of science is stunted.” He differs “in +many cases from the explanations of Vedic words given by Professor +Roth” in his _Sanscrit Dictionary_, and Professor Whitney shampooes +both their heads by saying that there are, unquestionably, words and +phrases “as to which both alike will hereafter be set right.” + +In volume i. of his _Chips_, Professor Müller stigmatizes all +the _Vedas_ except the _Rik_, the _Atharva-Veda_ included, as +“theological twaddle,” while Professor Whitney regards the latter +as “the most comprehensive and valuable of the four collections, +next after the _Rik_.” To return to the case of Jacolliot. Professor +Whitney brands him as a “bungler and a humbug,” and, as we remarked +above, this is the very general verdict. But when the _Bible dans +l’Inde_ appeared, the Société Académique de Saint Quentin requested +M. Textor de Ravisi, a learned Indianist, ten years Governor of +Karikal, India, to report upon its merits. He was an ardent Catholic, +and bitterly opposed Jacolliot’s conclusions where they discredited +the Mosaic and Catholic revelations; but he was forced to say: +“Written with good faith, in an easy, vigorous, and passionate style, +of an easy and varied argumentation, the work of M. Jacolliot is +of absorbing interest ... a learned work on known facts and with +familiar arguments.” + +Enough. Let Jacolliot have the benefit of the doubt when such very +imposing authorities are doing their best to show up each other as +incompetents and literary journeymen. We quite agree with Professor +Whitney that “the truism, that [for European critics?] it is far +easier to pull to pieces than to build up, is nowhere truer than in +matters affecting the archæology and history of India.”[69] + +Babylonia happened to be situated on the way of the great stream +of the earliest Hindu emigration, and the Babylonians were one of +the first peoples benefited thereby.[70] These Khaldi were the +worshippers of the Moon-god, Deus Lunus, from which fact we may +infer that the Akkadians--if such must be their name--belonged to +the race of the Kings of the Moon, whom tradition shows as having +reigned in Pruyay--now Allahabad. With them the trinity of Deus Lunus +was manifested in the three lunar phases, completing the quaternary +with the fourth, and typifying the death of the Moon-god in its +gradual waning and final disappearance. This death was allegorized +by them, and attributed to the triumph of the genius of evil over +the light-giving deity; as the later nations allegorized the death +of their Sun-gods, Osiris and Apollo, at the hands of Typhon and the +great Dragon Python, when the sun entered the winter solstice. Babel, +Arach, and Akkad are names of the sun. The _Zoroastrian Oracles_ are +full and explicit upon the subject of the Divine Triad. “A triad of +Deity shines forth throughout the whole world, of which a Monad is +the head,” admits the Reverend Dr. Maurice. + +“For from this Triad, in the bosoms, are all things governed,” says +a Chaldean oracle. The Phos, Pur, and Phlox, of Sanchoniathon,[71] +are Light, Fire, and Flame, three manifestations of the Sun who is +_one_. Bel-Saturn, Jupiter-Bel, and Bel or Baal-Chom are the Chaldean +trinity;[72] The Babylonian Bel was regarded in the Triune aspect +of Belitan, Zeus-Belus (the mediator) and Baal-Chom who is Apollo +Chomæus. This was the Triune aspect of the ‘Highest God,’ who is, +according to Berosus, either El (the Hebrew), Bel, Belitan, Mithra, +or Zervana, and has the name πατηρ, “the Father.”[73] The Brahma, +Vishnu, and Siva,[74] corresponding to Power, Wisdom, and Justice, +which answer in their turn to Spirit, Matter, Time, and the Past, +Present, and Future, can be found in the temple of Gharipuri; +thousands of dogmatic Brahmans worship these attributes of the Vedic +Deity, while the severe monks and nuns of Buddhistic Thibet recognize +but the sacred trinity of the three cardinal virtues: _Poverty_, +_Chastity_, and _Obedience_, professed by the Christians, practiced by +the Buddhists and some Hindus alone. + +The Persian triplicate Deity also consists of three persons, Ormazd, +Mithra, and Ahriman. “That is that principle,” says Porphyry,[75] +“which the author of the _Chaldaic Summary_ saith, ‘_They conceive +there is one principle of all things, and declare that is one and +good._’” The Chinese idol Sanpao, consists of three equal in all +respects;[76] and the Peruvians “supposed their Tanga-tanga to be one +in three, and three in one,” says Faber.[77] The Egyptians have their +Emepht, Eicton, and Phta; and the triple god seated on the Lotos can +be seen in the St. Petersburg Museum, on a medal of the Northern +Tartars. + +Among the Church dogmas which have most seriously suffered of late +at the hands of the Orientalists, the last in question stands +conspicuous. The reputation of each of the three personages of the +anthropomorphic godhead as an original revelation to the Christians +through Divine will, has been badly compromised by inquiry into its +predecessors and origin. Orientalists have published more about the +similarity between Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Christianity than was +strictly agreeable to the Vatican. Draper’s assertion that “Paganism +was modified by Christianity, Christianity by Paganism,”[78] is being +daily verified. “Olympus was restored but the divinities passed under +other names,” he says, treating of the Constantine period. “The more +powerful provinces insisted on the adoption of their time-honored +conceptions. Views of the trinity in accordance with the Egyptian +traditions were established. Not only was the adoration of Isis under +a new name restored, but even her image, standing on the crescent +moon, reappeared. The well-known effigy of that goddess with the +infant Horus in her arms has descended to our days, in the beautiful +artistic creations of the Madonna and child.” + +But a still earlier origin than the Egyptian and Chaldean can be +assigned to the Virgin “Mother of God,” Queen of Heaven. Though Isis +is also by right the Queen of Heaven, and is generally represented +carrying in her hand the Crux Ansata composed of the mundane cross, +and of the Stauros of the Gnostics, she is a great deal younger +than the celestial virgin, Neith. In one of the tombs of the +Pharaohs--Rhameses, in the valley of Biban-el-Molouk, in Thebes, +Champollion, Junior, discovered a picture, according to his opinion +the most ancient ever yet found. It represents the heavens symbolized +by the figure of a woman bedecked with stars. The birth of the Sun is +figured by the form of a little child, issuing from the bosom of its +“Divine Mother.” + +In the _Book of Hermes_, “Pimander” is enunciated in distinct and +unequivocal sentences, the whole trinitarian dogma accepted by the +Christians. “The light is me,” says Pimander, the DIVINE THOUGHT. “I +am the _nous_ or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older +than the human principle which escapes from the shadow. I am the +germ of thought, the resplendent WORD, the SON of God. Think that +what thus sees and hears in thee, is the _Verbum_ of the Master, it +is the Thought, which is God the Father.... The celestial ocean, the +ÆTHER, which flows from east to west, is the Breath of the Father, +the life-giving Principle, the HOLY GHOST!” “For they are not at all +separated and their union is LIFE.” + +Ancient as may be the origin of Hermes, lost in the unknown days of +Egyptian colonization, there is yet a far older prophecy, directly +relating to the Hindu Christna, according to the Brahmans. It is, +to say the least, strange that the Christians claim to base their +religion upon a prophecy of the _Bible_, which exists nowhere in +that book. In what chapter or verse does Jehovah, the “Lord God,” +promise Adam and Eve to send them a Redeemer who will save humanity? +“I will put enmity between thee and the woman,” says the Lord God to +the serpent, “and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy +head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” + +In these words there is not the slightest allusion to a Redeemer, +and the subtilest of intellects could not extract from them, as they +stand in the third chapter of _Genesis_, anything like that which +the Christians have contrived to find. On the other hand, in the +traditions and _Manu_, Brahma promises directly to the first couple +to send them a Saviour who will teach them the way to salvation. + +“It is from the lips of a messenger of Brahma, who will be born +in Kuroukshetra, Matsya, and the land of Pantchola, also called +Kanya-Cubja (mountain of the Virgin), that all men on earth will +learn their duty,” says _Manu_ (book ii., slokas 19 and 20). + +The Mexicans call the Father of their Trinity Yzona, the Son Bacab, +and the Holy Ghost Echvah, “and say they received it (the doctrine) +from their ancestors.”[79] Among the Semitic nations we can trace the +trinity to the prehistorical days of the fabled Sesostris, who is +identified by more than one critic with Nimrod, “the mighty hunter.” +Manetho makes the oracle rebuke the king, when the latter asks, “Tell +me, O thou strong in fire, who before me could subjugate all things? +and who shall after me?” And the oracle saith thus: “First God, then +the Word, and then ‘the Spirit.’”[80] + +In the foregoing lies the foundation of the fierce hatred of the +Christians toward the “Pagans” and the theurgists. Too much had +been _borrowed_; the ancient religions and the Neo-platonists +had been laid by them under contribution sufficiently to perplex +the world for several thousand years. Had not the ancient creeds +been speedily obliterated, it would have been found impossible to +preach the Christian religion as a New Dispensation, or the direct +Revelation from God the Father, through God the Son, and under the +influence of God the Holy Ghost. As a political exigence the Fathers +had--to gratify the wishes of their rich converts--instituted even +the festivals of Pan. They went so far as to accept the ceremonies +hitherto celebrated by the Pagan world in honor of the _God of the +gardens_, in all their primitive _sincerity_.[81] It was time to +sever the connection. Either the Pagan worship and the Neo-platonic +theurgy, with all ceremonial of magic, must be crushed out forever, +or the Christians become Neo-platonists. + +The fierce polemics and single-handed battles between Irenæus and the +Gnostics are too well known to need repetition. They were carried on +for over two centuries after the unscrupulous Bishop of Lyons had +uttered his last religious paradox. Celsus, the Neo-platonist, and a +disciple of the school of Ammonius Saccas, had thrown the Christians +into perturbation, and even had arrested for a time the progress of +proselytism by successfully proving that the original and purer forms +of the most important dogmas of Christianity were to be found only in +the teachings of Plato. Celsus accused them of accepting the worst +superstitions of Paganism, and of interpolating passages from the +books of the Sybils, without rightly understanding their meaning. The +accusations were so plausible, and the facts so patent, that for a +long time no Christian writer had ventured to answer the challenge. +Origen, at the fervent request of his friend, Ambrosius, was the +first to take the defense in hand, for, having belonged to the same +Platonic school of Ammonius, he was considered the most competent +man to refute the well-founded charges. But his eloquence failed, +and the only remedy that could be found was to destroy the writings +of Celsus themselves.[82] This could be achieved only in the fifth +century, when copies had been taken from this work, and many were +those who had read and studied them. If no copy of it has descended +to our present generation of scientists, it is not because there is +none extant at present, but for the simple reason that the monks of a +certain Oriental church on Mount Athos will neither show nor confess +they have one in their possession.[83] Perhaps they do not even know +themselves the value of the contents of their manuscripts, on account +of their great ignorance. + +The dispersion of the Eclectic school had become the fondest hope of +the Christians. It had been looked for and contemplated with intense +anxiety. It was finally achieved. The members were scattered by the +hand of the monsters Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, and his nephew +Cyril--the murderer of the young, the learned, and the innocent +Hypatia![84] + +With the death of the martyred daughter of Theon, the mathematician, +there remained no possibility for the Neo-platonists to continue +their school at Alexandria. During the life-time of the youthful +Hypatia her friendship and influence with Orestes, the governor +of the city, had assured the philosophers security and protection +against their murderous enemies. With her death they had lost their +strongest friend. How much she was revered by all who knew her for +her erudition, noble virtues, and character, we can infer from the +letters addressed to her by Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, fragments +of which have reached us. “My heart yearns for the presence of your +divine spirit,” he wrote in 413 A. D., “which more than anything else +could alleviate the bitterness of my fortunes.” At another time he +says: “Oh, my mother, my sister, my teacher, my benefactor! My soul +is very sad. The recollection of my children I have lost is killing +me.... When I have news of you and learn, as I hope, that you are +more fortunate than myself, I am at least only half-unhappy.” + +What would have been the feelings of this most noble and worthy +of Christian bishops, who had surrendered family and children and +happiness for the faith into which he had been attracted, had a +prophetic vision disclosed to him that the only friend that had been +left to him, his “mother, sister, benefactor,” would soon become an +unrecognizable mass of flesh and blood, pounded to jelly under the +blows of the club of Peter the Reader--that her youthful, innocent +body would be cut to pieces, “the flesh scraped from the bones,” by +oyster-shells and the rest of her cast into the fire, by order of the +same Bishop Cyril he knew so well--Cyril, the CANONIZED Saint!![85] + +There has never been a religion in the annals of the world with +such a bloody record as Christianity. All the rest, including the +traditional fierce fights of the “chosen people” with their next +of kin, the idolatrous tribes of Israel, pale before the murderous +fanaticism of the alleged followers of Christ! Even the rapid +spread of Mahometanism before the conquering sword of the Islam +prophet, is a direct consequence of the bloody riots and fights +among Christians. It was the intestine war between the Nestorians +and Cyrilians that engendered Islamism; and it is in the convent of +Bozrah that the prolific seed was first sown by Bahira, the Nestorian +monk. Freely watered by rivers of blood, the tree of Mecca has grown +till we find it in the present century overshadowing nearly two +hundred millions of people. The recent Bulgarian atrocities are but +the natural outgrowth of the triumph of Cyril and the Mariolaters. + +The cruel, crafty politician, the plotting monk, glorified by +ecclesiastical history with the aureole of a martyred saint. The +despoiled philosophers, the Neo-platonists, and the Gnostics, +daily anathematized by the Church all over the world for long and +dreary centuries. The curse of the unconcerned Deity hourly invoked +on the magian rites and theurgic practice, and the Christian +clergy themselves using _sorcery_ for ages. Hypatia, the glorious +maiden-philosopher, torn to pieces by the Christian mob. And such +as Catherine de Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Joanna of Naples, and the +Isabellas of Spain, presented to the world as the faithful daughters +of the Church--some even decorated by the Pope with the order of the +“Immaculate Rose,” the highest emblem of womanly purity and virtue, +a symbol sacred to the Virgin-mother of God! Such are the examples +of human justice! How far less blasphemous appears a total rejection +of Mary as an immaculate goddess, than an idolatrous worship of her, +accompanied by such practices. + +In the next chapter we will present a few illustrations of sorcery, +as practiced under the patronage of the Roman Church. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + “They undertake by scales of miles to tell + The bounds, dimensions, and extent of hell; + * * * * * + Where bloated souls in smoky durance hung + Like a Westphalia gammon or neat’s tongue, + To be redeemed with masses and a song.” + --OLDHAM: _Satires upon the Jesuits_. + + + “_York._--But you are more inhuman, more inexorable-- + O, ten times more--than tigers of Hyrcania.” + --_King Henry VI._, Part Third, Act i., Scene iv. + + + “_War._--And hark ye, Sirs; because she is a maid + Spare for no faggots, let there be enough; + Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake.” + --_King Henry VI._, Part First, Act v., Scene iv. + + +In that famous work of Bodin, on sorcery,[86] a frightful story is +told about Catherine of Medicis. The author was a learned publicist, +who, during twenty years of his life, collected authentic documents +from the archives of nearly every important city of France, to make +up a complete work on sorcery, magic, and the power of various +“demons.” To use an expression of Eliphas Levi, his book offers a +most remarkable collection of “bloody and hideous facts; acts of +revolting superstition, arrests, and executions of stupid ferocity.” +“Burn every body!” the Inquisition seemed to say--God will easily +sort out His own! Poor fools, hysterical women, and idiots were +roasted alive, without mercy, for the crime of “magic.” But, “at the +same time, how many great culprits escaped this unjust and sanguinary +_justice_! This is what Bodin makes us fully appreciate.” + +Catherine, the pious Christian--who has so well deserved in the eyes +of the Church of Christ for the atrocious and never-to-be-forgotten +massacre of St. Bartholomew--the Queen Catherine, kept in her +service an apostate Jacobin priest. Well versed in the “black art,” +so fully patronized by the Medici family, he had won the gratitude +and protection of his pious mistress, by his unparalleled skill in +killing people at a distance, by torturing with various incantations +their wax simulacra. The process has been described over and over +again, and we scarcely need repeat it. + +Charles was lying sick of an incurable disease. The queen-mother who +had everything to lose in case of his death, resorted to necromancy, +and consulted the oracle of the “bleeding head.” This infernal +operation required the decapitation of a child who must be possessed +of great beauty and purity. He had been prepared in secret for his +first communion, by _the chaplain_ of the palace, who was apprised +of the plot, and at midnight of the appointed day, in the chamber +of the sick man, and in presence only of Catherine and a few of her +confederates, the “devil’s mass” was celebrated. Let us give the +rest of the story as we find it in one of Levi’s works: “At this +mass, celebrated before the image of the demon, having under his feet +a reversed cross, the sorcerer consecrated two wafers, one black +and one white. The white was given to the child, whom they brought +clothed as for baptism, and who was murdered upon the very steps of +the altar, immediately after his communion. His head, separated from +the trunk by a single blow, was placed, all palpitating, upon the +great black wafer which covered the bottom of the paten, then placed +upon a table where some mysterious lamps were burning. The exorcism +then began, and the demon was charged to pronounce an oracle, and +reply by the mouth of this head to a secret question that the king +dared not speak aloud, and that had been confided to no one. Then a +feeble voice, a strange voice, which had nothing of human character +about it, made itself audible in this poor little martyr’s head.” The +sorcery availed nothing; the king died, and--Catherine remained the +faithful daughter of Rome! + +How strange, that des Mousseaux, who makes such free use of +Bodin’s materials to construct his formidable indictment against +Spiritualists and other sorcerers, should have overlooked this +interesting episode! + +It is a well-attested fact that Pope Sylvester II. was publicly +accused by Cardinal Benno with being a sorcerer and an enchanter. +The brazen “oracular head” made by his Holiness was of the same kind +as the one fabricated by Albertus Magnus. The latter was smashed to +pieces by Thomas Aquinas, not because it was the work of or inhabited +by a “demon,” but because the spook who was fixed inside, by mesmeric +power, talked incessantly, and his verbiage prevented the eloquent +saint from working out his mathematical problems. These heads and +other talking statues, trophies of the magical skill of monks and +bishops, were fac-similes of the “animated” gods of the ancient +temples. The accusation against the Pope was proved at the time. It +was also demonstrated that he was constantly attended by “demons” +or spirits. In the preceding chapter we have mentioned Benedict +IX., John XX., and the VIth and VIIth Gregory, who were all known +as magicians. The latter Pope, moreover, was the famous Hildebrand, +who was said to have been so expert at “shaking lightning out of +his sleeve.” An expression which makes the venerable spiritualistic +writer, Mr. Howitt, think that “it was the origin of the celebrated +thunder of the Vatican.” + +The magical achievements of the Bishop of Ratisbon and those of +the “angelic doctor,” Thomas Aquinas, are too well known to need +repetition; but we may explain farther how the “illusions” of the +former were produced. If the Catholic bishop was so clever in making +people believe on a bitter winter night that they were enjoying the +delights of a splendid summer day, and cause the icicles hanging from +the boughs of the trees in the garden to seem like so many tropical +fruits, the Hindu magicians also practice such biological powers unto +this very day, and claim the assistance of neither god nor devil. +Such “miracles” are all produced by the same human power that is +inherent in every man, if he only knew how to develop it. + +About the time of the Reformation, the study of alchemy and magic +had become so prevalent among the clergy as to produce great +scandal. Cardinal Wolsey was openly accused before the court and the +privy-council of confederacy with a man named Wood, a sorcerer, who +said that “_My Lord Cardinale had suche a rynge that whatsomevere he +askyd of the Kynges grace that he hadd yt_;” adding that “_Master +Cromwell, when he ... was servaunt in my lord cardynales housse ... +rede many bokes and specyally the boke of Salamon ... and studied +mettells and what vertues they had after the canon of Salamon_.” This +case, with several others equally curious, is to be found among the +Cromwell papers in the Record Office of the Rolls House. + +A priest named William Stapleton was arrested as a conjurer, during +the reign of Henry VIII., and an account of his adventures is still +preserved in the Rolls House records. The Sicilian priest whom +Benvenuto Cellini calls a necromancer, became famous through his +successful conjurations, and was never molested. The remarkable +adventure of Cellini with him in the Colosseum, where the priest +conjured up a whole host of devils, is well known to the reading +public. The subsequent meeting of Cellini with his mistress, as +predicted and brought about by the conjurer, at the precise time +fixed by him, is to be considered, as a matter of course, a “curious +coincidence.” In the latter part of the sixteenth century there +was hardly a parish to be found in which the priests did not study +magic and alchemy. The practice of exorcism to cast out devils “in +imitation of Christ,” who by the way never used exorcism at all, +led the clergy to devote themselves openly to “sacred” magic in +contradistinction to black art, of which latter crime were accused +all those who were neither priests nor monks. + +The occult knowledge gleaned by the Roman Church from the once fat +fields of theurgy she sedulously guarded for her own use, and sent to +the stake only those practitioners who “poached” on her lands of the +_Scientia Scientiarum_, and those whose sins could not be concealed +by the friar’s frock. The proof of it lies in the records of history. +“In the course only of fifteen years, between 1580 to 1595, and only +in the single province of Lorraine, the President Remigius burned +900 witches,” says Thomas Wright, in his _Sorcery and Magic_. It was +during these days, prolific in ecclesiastical murder and unrivalled +for cruelty and ferocity, that Jean Bodin wrote. + +While the orthodox clergy called forth whole legions of “demons” +through magical incantations, unmolested by the authorities, provided +they held fast to the established dogmas and taught no heresy, on the +other hand, acts of unparalleled atrocity were perpetrated on poor, +unfortunate fools. Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of eighty, was burnt +by these evangelical Jack Ketches in 1761. In the Amsterdam library +there is a copy of the report of his famous trial, translated from +the Lisbon edition. He was accused of sorcery and illicit intercourse +with the Devil, who had “disclosed to him _futurity_.” (?) The +prophecy imparted by the Arch-Enemy to the poor visionary Jesuit is +reported in the following terms: “The culprit hath confessed that the +demon, under the form of the blessed Virgin, having commanded him to +write the life of Antichrist (?), told him that he, Malagrida, was +a second John, but more clear than John the Evangelist; that there +were to be three Antichrists, and that the last should be born at +Milan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920; that he would marry +Proserpine, one of the infernal furies,” etc. + +The prophecy is to be verified forty-three years hence. Even were +all the children born of monks and nuns really to become antichrists +if allowed to grow up to maturity, the fact would seem far less +deplorable than the discoveries made in so many convents when the +foundations have been removed for some reason. If the assertion of +Luther is to be disbelieved on account of his hatred for popery, then +we may name discoveries of the same character made quite recently in +Austrian and Russian Poland. Luther speaks of a fish-pond at Rome, +situated near a convent of nuns, which, having been cleared out by +order of Pope Gregory, disclosed, at the bottom, over six thousand +infant skulls; and of a nunnery at Neinburg, in Austria, whose +foundations, when searched, disclosed the same relics of celibacy and +chastity! + +“_Ecclesia non novit Sanguinem!_” meekly repeated the scarlet-robed +cardinals. And to avoid the spilling of blood which horrified them, +they instituted the Holy Inquisition. If, as the occultists maintain, +and science half confirms, our most trifling acts and thoughts are +indelibly impressed upon the eternal mirror of the astral ether, +there must be somewhere, in the boundless realm of the unseen +universe, the imprint of a curious picture. It is that of a gorgeous +standard waving in the heavenly breeze at the foot of the great +“white throne” of the Almighty. On its crimson damask face a cross, +symbol of “the Son of God who died for mankind,” with an _olive_ +branch on one side, and a sword, stained to the hilt with human +gore, on the other. A legend selected from the _Psalms_ emblazoned +in golden letters, reading thus: “_Exurge, Domine, et judica causam +meam._” For such appears the standard of the Inquisition, on a +photograph in our possession, from an original procured at the +Escurial of Madrid. + +Under this Christian standard, in the brief space of fourteen years, +Tomas de Torquemada, the confessor of Queen Isabella, burned over +ten thousand persons, and sentenced to the torture eighty thousand +more. Orobio, the well-known writer, who was detained so long in +prison, and who hardly escaped the flames of the Inquisition, +immortalized this institution in his works when once at liberty in +Holland. He found no better argument against the Holy Church than to +embrace the Judaic faith and submit even to circumcision. “In the +cathedral of Saragossa,” says a writer on the Inquisition, “is the +tomb of a famous inquisitor. Six pillars surround the tomb; _to each +is chained a Moor_, as preparatory to being burned.” On this St. +Foix ingenuously observes: “If ever the Jack Ketch of any country +should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this might serve as +an excellent model!” To make it complete, however, the builders of +the tomb ought not to have omitted a bas-relief of the famous horse +which was burnt for sorcery and witchcraft. Granger tells the story, +describing it as having occurred in his time. The poor animal “had +been taught to tell the spots upon cards, and the hour of the day by +the watch. Horse and owner were both indicted by the sacred office +for dealing with the Devil, and both were burned, with a great +ceremony of _auto-da-fé_, at Lisbon, in 1601, as wizards!” + +This immortal institution of Christianity did not remain without +its Dante to sing its praise. “Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit,” says +the author of _Demonologia_, “has discovered the origin of the +Inquisition, in the terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege that +God was the first who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain +and the workmen of Babel!” + +Nowhere, during the middle ages, were the arts of magic and sorcery +more practiced by the clergy than in Spain and Portugal. The Moors +were profoundly versed in the occult sciences, and at Toledo, +Seville, and Salamanca, were, once upon a time, the great schools +of magic. The kabalists of the latter town were skilled in all the +abstruse sciences; they knew the virtues of precious stones and +other minerals, and had extracted from alchemy its most profound +secrets. + +The authentic documents pertaining to the great trial of the +Marechale d’Ancre, during the regency of Marie de Medicis, disclose +that the unfortunate woman perished through the fault of the +priests with whom, like a true Italian, she surrounded herself. +She was accused by the people of Paris of sorcery, because it had +been asserted that she had used, after the ceremony of exorcism, +newly-killed white cocks. Believing herself constantly bewitched, +and being in very delicate health, the Marechale had the ceremony of +exorcism publicly applied to herself in the Church of the Augustins; +as to the birds, she used them as an application to the forehead on +account of dreadful pains in the head, and had been advised to do so +by Montalto, the Jew physician of the queen, and the Italian priests. + +In the sixteenth century, the Curé de Barjota, of the diocese of +Callahora, Spain, became the world’s wonder for his magical powers. +His most extraordinary feat consisted, it was said, in transporting +himself to any distant country, witnessing political and other +events, and then returning home to predict them in his own country. +He had a familiar demon, who served him faithfully for long years, +says the _Chronicle_, but the curé turned ungrateful and cheated him. +Having been apprised by his demon of a conspiracy against the Pope’s +life, in consequence of an intrigue of the latter with a fair lady, +the curé transported himself to Rome (in his double, of course) and +thus saved his Holiness’ life. After which he repented, confessed his +sins to the gallant Pope, and _got absolution_. “On his return he was +delivered, as a matter of form, into the custody of the inquisitors +of Logroño, but was acquitted and restored to his liberty very soon.” + +Friar Pietro, a Dominican monk of the fourteenth century--the +magician who presented the famous Dr. Eugenio Torralva, a physician +attached to the house of the admiral of Castile, with a _demon_ named +Zequiel--won his fame through the subsequent trial of Torralva. The +procedure and circumstances attendant upon the extraordinary trial +are described in the original papers preserved in the Archives of +the Inquisition. The Cardinal of Volterra, and the Cardinal of Santa +Cruz, both saw and communicated with Zequiel, who proved, during the +whole of Torralva’s life, to be a pure, kind, elemental spirit, doing +many beneficent actions, and remaining faithful to the physician to +the last hour of his life. Even the Inquisition acquitted Torralva, +on that account; and, although an immortality of fame was insured +to him by the satire of Cervantes, neither Torralva nor the monk +Pietro are fictitious heroes, but historical personages, recorded in +ecclesiastical documents of Rome and Cuença, in which town the trial +of the physician took place, January the 29th 1530. + +The book of Dr. W. G. Soldan, of Stuttgart, has become as famous in +Germany, as Bodin’s book on _Demonomania_ in France. It is the most +complete German treatise on witchcraft of the sixteenth century. One +interested to learn the secret machinery underlying these thousands +of legal murders, perpetrated by a clergy who pretended to believe +in the Devil, and succeeded in making others believe in him, will +find it divulged in the above-mentioned work.[87] The true origin of +the daily accusations and death-sentences for sorcery are cleverly +traced to personal and political enmities, and, above all, to the +hatred of the Catholics toward the Protestants. The crafty work of +the Jesuits is seen at every page of the bloody tragedies; and it +is in Bamberg and Würzburg, where these worthy sons of Loyola were +most powerful at that time, that the cases of witchcraft were most +numerous. On the next page we give a curious list of some victims, +many of whom were children between the ages of seven and eight +years, and Protestants. “Of the multitudes of persons who perished +at the stake in Germany during the first half of the seventeenth +century for sorcery, the crime of many was their attachment to the +religion of Luther,” says T. Wright, “... and the petty princes +were not unwilling to seize upon any pretense to fill their coffers +... the persons most persecuted being those whose property was a +matter of consideration.... At Bamberg, as well as at Würzburg, the +bishop was a sovereign prince in his dominions. The Prince-Bishop, +John George II., who ruled Bamberg ... after several unsuccessful +attempts to root out Lutheranism, distinguished his reign by a +series of sanguinary witch-trials, which disgrace the annals of that +city.... We may form some notion of the proceedings of his worthy +agent,[88] from the statement of the most authentic historians, that +between 1625 and 1630, not less than 900 trials took place in the +two courts of Bamberg and Zeil; and a pamphlet published at Bamberg +by authority, in 1659, states the number of persons whom Bishop John +George had caused to be burned for sorcery, to have been 600.”[89] + +Regretting that space should prevent our giving one of the most +curious lists in the world of burned witches, we will nevertheless +make a few extracts from the original record as printed in Hauber’s +_Bibliotheca Magica_. One glance at this horrible catalogue of +murders in Christ’s name, is sufficient to discover that out of +162 persons burned, more than one-half of them are designated as +_strangers_ (_i.e._, Protestants) in this hospitable town; and of +the other half we find _thirty-four children_, the oldest of whom +was fourteen, the youngest _an infant_ child of Dr. Schütz. To make +the catalogue shorter we will present of each of the twenty-nine +_burnings_, but the most remarkable.[90] + + + IN THE FIRST BURNING, FOUR PERSONS. + + Old Ancker’s widow. + The wife of Liebler. + The wife of Gutbrodt. + The wife of Höcker. + + + IN THE SECOND BURNING, FOUR PERSONS. + + Two strange women (names unknown). + The old wife of Beutler. + + + IN THE THIRD BURNING, FIVE PERSONS. + + Tungersleber, a minstrel. + Four wives of citizens. + + + IN THE FOURTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS. + + A strange man. + + + IN THE FIFTH BURNING, NINE PERSONS. + + Lutz, an eminent shop-keeper. + The wife of Baunach, a senator. + + + IN THE SIXTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + The fat tailor’s wife. + A strange man. + A strange woman. + + + IN THE SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS. + + A strange girl of twelve years old. + A strange man, a strange woman. + A strange bailiff (Schultheiss). + Three strange women. + + + IN THE EIGHTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS. + + Baunach, a senator, the fattest citizen in Würzburg. + A strange man. + Two strange women. + + + IN THE NINTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS. + + A strange man. + A mother and daughter. + + + IN THE TENTH BURNING, THREE PERSONS. + + Steinacher, a very rich man. + A strange man, a strange woman. + + + IN THE ELEVENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS. + + Two women and two men. + + + IN THE TWELFTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS. + + Two strange women. + + + IN THE THIRTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS. + + A little girl nine or ten years old. + A younger girl, her little sister. + + + IN THE FOURTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS. + + The mother of the two little girls before mentioned. + A girl twenty-four years old. + + + IN THE FIFTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS. + + A boy twelve years of age, in the first school. + A woman. + + + IN THE SIXTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + A boy of ten years of age. + + + IN THE SEVENTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS. + + A boy eleven years old. + A mother and daughter. + + + IN THE EIGHTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + Two boys, twelve years old. + The daughter of Dr. Junge. + A girl of fifteen years of age. + A strange woman. + + + IN THE NINETEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + A boy of ten years of age. + Another boy, twelve years old. + + + IN THE TWENTIETH BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + Göbel’s child, the most beautiful girl in Würzburg. + Two boys, each twelve years old. + Stepper’s little daughter. + + + IN THE TWENTY-FIRST BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + A boy fourteen years old. + The little son of Senator Stolzenberger. + Two alumni. + + + IN THE TWENTY-SECOND BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + Stürman, a rich cooper. + A strange boy. + + + IN THE TWENTY-THIRD BURNING, NINE PERSONS. + + David Croten’s boy, nine years old. + The two sons of the prince’s cook, one fourteen, the other ten + years old. + + + IN THE TWENTY-FOURTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS. + + Two boys in the hospital. + A rich cooper. + + + IN THE TWENTY-FIFTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + A strange boy. + + + IN THE TWENTY-SIXTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS. + + Weydenbush, a senator. + The little daughter of Valkenberger. + The little son of the town council bailiff. + + + IN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS. + + A strange boy. + A strange woman. + Another boy. + + + IN THE TWENTY-EIGHTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS. + + The infant daughter of Dr. Schütz. + A blind girl. + + + IN THE TWENTY-NINTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS. + + The fat noble lady (Edelfrau). + A doctor of divinity. + + + _Item._ + + ⎧ “Strange” men and women, _i.e._, + ⎪ _Protestants_, 28 + ⎪ Citizens, apparently all WEALTHY people, 100 + _Summary_: ⎨ Boys, girls, and little children, 34 + ⎪ --- + ⎩ In nineteen months, 162 persons. + +“There were,” says Wright, “little girls of from seven to ten years +of age among the witches, and _seven and twenty_ of them were +convicted and burnt,” at some of the other _brände_, or burnings. +“The numbers brought to trial in these terrible proceedings were so +great, and they were treated with so little consideration, that it +was usual not even to take the trouble of setting down their names, +but they were cited as the accused No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and so +on.[91] The Jesuits took their confessions in private.” + +What room is there in a theology which exacts such holocausts +as these to appease the bloody appetites of its priests for the +following gentle words: + +“Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for +of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” “Even so it is not the will of +your Father ... that one of these little ones should perish.” “But +whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it +_were better for him that a millstone were hanged_ about his neck and +that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.” + +We sincerely hope that the above words have proved no vain threat to +these child-burners. + +Did this butchery in the name of their Moloch-god prevent these +treasure-hunters from resorting to the black art themselves? Not in +the least; for in no class were such consulters of “familiar” spirits +more numerous than among the clergy during the fifteenth, sixteenth, +and seventeenth centuries. True, there were some Catholic priests +among the victims, but though these were generally accused of having +“been led into practices too dreadful to be described,” it was not +so. In the twenty-nine burnings above catalogued we find the names of +_twelve vicars_, _four_ canons, and two doctors of divinity _burnt +alive_. But we have only to turn to such works as were published at +the time to assure ourselves that each popish priest executed was +accused of “damnable heresy,” _i.e._, a tendency to reformation--a +crime more heinous far than sorcery. + +We refer those who would learn how the Catholic clergy united +duty with pleasure in the matter of exorcisms, revenge, and +treasure-hunting, to volume II., chapter i., of W. Howitt’s _History +of the Supernatural_. “In the book called _Pneumatologia Occulta et +Vera_, all the forms of adjuration and conjuration were laid down,” +says this veteran writer. He then proceeds to give a long description +of the favorite _modus operandi_. The _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute +Magie_ of the late Eliphas Levi, treated with so much abuse and +contempt by des Mousseaux, tells nothing of the weird ceremonies +and practices but what was practiced legally and with the tacit if +not open consent of the Church, by the priests of the middle ages. +The exorcist-priest entered a circle at midnight; he was clad in +a new surplice, and had a consecrated band hanging from the neck, +covered with sacred characters. He wore on the head a tall pointed +cap, on the front of which was written in Hebrew the holy word, +Tetragrammaton--the ineffable name. It was written with a new pen +dipped in the blood of a white dove. What the exorcists most yearned +after, was to release miserable spirits _which haunt spots where +hidden treasures lie_. The exorcist sprinkles the circle with the +blood of a black lamb and a white pigeon. The priest had to adjure +the evil spirits of hell--Acheront, Magoth, Asmodei, Beelzebub, +Belial, and all the damned souls, in the mighty names of Jehovah, +Adonay, Elohah, and Sabaioth, which latter was the God of Abraham, +Isaac, and Jacob, who dwelt in the Urim and Thummim. When the damned +souls flung in the face of the exorcist that he was a sinner, and +could not get the treasure from them, the priest-sorcerer had to +reply that “all his sins were washed out in the blood of Christ,[92] +and he bid them depart as cursed ghosts and damned flies.” When the +exorcist dislodged them at last, the poor soul was “comforted in the +name of the Saviour, and _consigned to the care of good angels_,” +who were less powerful, we must think, than the exorcising Catholic +worthies, “and the rescued treasure, of course, was secured for the +Church.” + +“Certain days,” adds Howitt, “are laid down in the calendar of the +Church as most favorable for the practice of exorcism; and, if the +devils are difficult to drive, a fume of sulphur, assafœtida, bear’s +gall, and rue is recommended, which, it was presumed, would outstench +even devils.” + +This is the Church, and this the priesthood, which, in the nineteenth +century, pays 5,000 priests to teach the people of the United States +the infidelity of science and the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome! + +We have already noticed the confession of an eminent prelate that the +elimination of Satan from theology would be fatal to the perpetuity +of the Church. But this is only partially true. The Prince of Sin +would be gone, but sin itself would survive. If the Devil were +annihilated, the _Articles of Faith_ and the _Bible_ would remain. +In short there would still be a pretended divine revelation, and the +necessity for self-assumed inspired interpreters. We must, therefore, +consider the authenticity of the _Bible_ itself. We must study its +pages, and see if they, indeed, contain the commands of the Deity, +or but a compendium of ancient traditions and hoary myths. We must +try to interpret them for ourselves--if possible. As to its pretended +interpreters, the only possible assimilation we can find for them in +the _Bible_ is to compare them with the man described by the wise +King Solomon in his _Proverbs_, with the perpetrator of these “six +things ... yea _seven_ ... which doth the Lord hate,” and which are +an abomination unto Him, to wit: “A _proud_ look, a _lying_ tongue, +and hands that shed _innocent blood_; an heart _that deviseth wicked +imaginations_, feet that be swift in running to mischief; a _false +witness_ that speaketh lies, and _he that soweth discord among +brethren_” (_Proverbs_ vi. 16, 17, 18, 19). + +Of which of these accusations are the long line of men who have left +the imprint of their feet in the Vatican guiltless? + +“When the demons,” says Augustine, “_insinuate_ themselves in the +creatures, they begin by conforming themselves _to the will of every +one_.... In order to attract men, they begin by seducing them, by +simulating obedience.... _How could one know, had he not been taught +by the demons themselves_, what they like or what they hate; _the +name which attracts, or that which forces them into obedience_; +all this art, in short, of _magic_, the whole science of the +magicians?”[93] + +To this impressive dissertation of the “saint,” we will add that +no magician has ever denied that he had learned the _art_ from +“spirits,” whether, being a medium, they acted independently on him, +or he had been initiated into the science of “evocation” by his +fathers who knew it before himself. But who was it then that taught +the exorcist? The priest who clothes himself with an authority not +only over the magician, but even over all these “spirits,” whom he +calls demons and _devils_ as soon as he finds them obeying any one +but himself? He must have learned somewhere from some one that power +which he pretends to possess. For, “... _how could one know had he +not been taught by the demons themselves ... the name which attracts, +or that which forces them into obedience?_” asks Augustine. + +Useless to remark that we know the answer beforehand: “Revelation +... _divine_ gift ... the Son of God; nay, God Himself, through His +direct Spirit, who descended on the apostles as the Pentecostal fire, +and who is now alleged to overshadow every priest who sees fit to +exorcise for either glory or a gift. Are we then to believe that +the recent scandal of public exorcism, performed about the 14th of +October, 1876, by the senior priest of the Church of the Holy Spirit, +at Barcelona, Spain, was also done under the direct superintendence +of the Holy Ghost?[94] It will be urged that the “bishop was not +cognizant of this freak of the clergy;” but even if he were, how +could he have protested against a rite considered since the days of +the apostles, one of the most holy prerogatives of the Church of +Rome? So late as in 1852, only twenty-five years ago, these rites +received a public and solemn sanction from the Vatican, and a new +_Ritual of Exorcism_ was published in Rome, Paris, and other Catholic +capitals. Des Mousseaux, writing under the immediate patronage of +Father Ventura, the General of the Theatines of Rome, even favors +us with lengthy extracts from this famous ritual, and explains the +reason _why_ it was enforced again. It was in consequence of the +revival of Magic under the name of Modern Spiritualism. The bull of +Pope Innocent VIII. is exhumed, and translated for the benefit of +des Mousseaux’s readers. “We have heard,” exclaims the Sovereign +Pontiff, “that a great number of persons of both sexes have feared +not to enter into relations with the spirits of hell; and that, by +their practice of sorcery ... they strike with sterility the conjugal +bed, destroy the germs of humanity in the bosom of the mother, and +throw spells on them, and set a barrier to the multiplication of +animals ... etc., etc.;” then follow curses and anathemas against the +practice. + +This belief of the Sovereign Pontiffs of an enlightened Christian +country is a direct inheritance by the most ignorant multitudes +from the southern Hindu rabble--the “heathen.” The diabolical arts +of certain kangalins (witches) and jadūgar (sorcerers) are firmly +believed in by these people. The following are among their most +dreaded powers: to inspire love and hatred at will; to send a devil +to take possession of a person and torture him; to expel him; to +cause sudden death or an incurable disease; to either strike cattle +with or protect them from epidemics; to compose philtres that will +either strike with sterility or provoke unbounded passions in men and +women, etc., etc. The sight alone of a man said to be such a sorcerer +excites in a Hindu profound terror. + +And now we will quote in this connection the truthful remark of +a writer who passed years in India in the study of the origin of +such superstitions: “Vulgar magic in India, like a degenerated +infiltration, goes hand-in-hand with the most ennobling beliefs +of the sectarians of the _Pitris_. It was the _work of the lowest +clergy_, and designed to hold the populace in a perpetual state of +fear. It is thus that in all ages and under every latitude, side by +side with philosophical speculations of the highest character, one +always finds _the religion of the rabble_.”[95] In India it was the +work of the _lowest clergy_; in Rome, that of the _highest Pontiffs_. +But then, have they not as authority their greatest saint, Augustine, +who declares that “whoever believes not in the evil spirits, refuses +to believe in Holy Writ?”[96] + +Therefore, in the second half of the nineteenth century, we find the +counsel for the Sacred Congregation of Rites (exorcism of demons +included), Father Ventura de Raulica, writing thus, in a letter +published by des Mousseaux, in 1865: + + “We are in full magic! and under false names; the Spirit + of lies and impudicity goes on perpetrating his horrible + deprecations.... The most grievous feature in this is that + among the most serious persons they do not attach the + importance to the strange phenomena which they deserve, + these manifestations that we witness, and which become with + every day more weird, striking, as well as most fatal. + + “I cannot sufficiently admire and praise, from this + standpoint, the zeal and courage displayed by you in your + work. The facts which you have collected are calculated to + throw light and conviction into the most skeptical minds; + and after reading this remarkable work, written with so + much learnedness and consciousness, blindness is no longer + possible. + + “If anything could surprise us, it would be the + indifference with which these phenomena have been treated + by _false_ Science, endeavoring, as she has, to turn into + ridicule so grave a subject; the childish simplicity + exhibited by her in the desire to explain the facts by + absurd and contradictory hypotheses....[97] + + [Signed] “_The Father Ventura de Raulica_, etc., etc.” + +Thus encouraged by the greatest authorities of the Church of Rome, +ancient and modern, the Chevalier argues the necessity and the +efficacy of exorcism by the priests. He tries to demonstrate--_on +faith_, as usual-- that the power of the spirits of hell is closely +related to certain rites, words, and formal signs. “In the diabolical +Catholicism,” he says “as well as in the _divine_ Catholicism, +potential grace is _bound_ (_liée_) to certain signs.” While the +power of the Catholic priest proceeds from God, that of the Pagan +priest proceeds from the Devil. The Devil, he adds, “is forced to +submission” before the holy minister of God--“_he dares not_ LIE.”[98] + +We beg the reader to note well the underlined sentence, as we mean +to test its truth impartially. We are prepared to adduce proofs, +undeniable and undenied even by the Popish Church--forced, as she +was, into the confession--proofs of hundreds of cases in relation +to the most solemn of her dogmas, wherein the “spirits” lied from +beginning to end. How about certain holy relics authenticated by +visions of the blessed Virgin, and a host of saints? We have at hand +a treatise by a pious Catholic, Jilbert de Nogen, on the relics of +saints. With honest despair he acknowledges the “great number of +false relics, as well as false legends,” and severely censures the +inventors of these lying miracles. “It was on the occasion _of one +of our Saviour’s teeth_,” writes the author of _Demonologia_, “that +de Nogen took up his pen on this subject, by which the monks of St. +Medard de Soissons pretended to work miracles; a pretension which he +asserted to be as chimerical as that of several persons who believed +they possessed the navel, and other parts less comely, of the body of +Christ.”[99] + +“A monk of St. Antony,” says Stephens,[100] “having been at +Jerusalem, saw there several relics, among which was a bit of _the +finger of the Holy Ghost_, as sound and entire as it had ever been; +the snout of the seraph that appeared to St. Francis; one of the +nails of a cherub; one of the ribs of the _Verbum caro factum_ (the +Word made flesh); some rays of the star that appeared to the three +kings of the East; a phial of St. Michael’s sweat, that exuded when +he was fighting against the Devil, etc. ‘All which things,’ observes +the monkish treasurer of relics, ‘I have brought with me home very +devoutly.’” + +And if the foregoing is set aside as the invention of a Protestant +enemy, may we not be allowed to refer the reader to the History +of England and authentic documents which state the existence of a +relic not less extraordinary than the best of the others? Henry III. +received from the Grand Master of the Templars a phial containing +a small portion of the sacred blood of Christ which he had shed +upon the cross. It was attested to be genuine by the seals of the +Patriarch of Jerusalem, and others. The procession bearing the +sacred phial from St. Paul’s to Westminster Abbey is described by the +historian: “Two monks received the phial, and deposited it in the +Abbey ... which made all England shine with glory, dedicating it to +God and St. Edward.” + +The story of the Prince Radzivil is well known. It was the undeniable +deception of the monks and nuns surrounding him and his own confessor +which made the Polish nobleman become a Lutheran. He felt at first so +indignant at the “heresy” of the Reformation spreading in Lithuania, +that he travelled all the way to Rome to pay his homage of sympathy +and veneration to the Pope. The latter presented him with a precious +box of relics. On his return home, his confessor saw the Virgin, who +descended from her glorious abode for the sole purpose of blessing +these relics and authenticating them. The superior of the neighboring +convent and the mother-abbess of a nunnery both saw the same vision, +with a reënforcement of several saints and martyrs; they prophesied +and “felt the Holy Ghost” ascending from the box of relics and +overshadowing the prince. A demoniac provided for the purpose by the +clergy was exorcised in full ceremony, and upon being touched by the +box immediately recovered, and rendered thanks on the spot to the +Pope and the Holy Ghost. After the ceremony was over the guardian +of the treasury in which the relics were kept, threw himself at the +feet of the prince, and confessed that on their way back from Rome he +had lost the box of relics. Dreading the wrath of his master, he had +procured a similar box, “which he had filled with the small bones of +dogs and cats;” but seeing how the prince was deceived, he preferred +confessing his guilt to such blasphemous tricks. The prince said +nothing, but continued for some time testing--not the relics, but his +confessor and the vision-seers. Their mock raptures made him discover +so thoroughly the gross impositions of the monks and nuns that he +joined the Reformed Church. + +This is history. Bayle shows that when the Roman Church is no longer +able to deny that there have been false relics, she resorts to +sophistry, and replies that if false relics have wrought miracles +it is “because of the good intentions of the believers, who thus +obtained from God a reward of their good faith!” The same Bayle +shows, by numerous instances, that whenever it was proved that +several bodies of the same saint, or three heads of him, or three +arms (as in the case of Augustine) were said to exist in different +places, and that they could not well be all authentic, the cool and +invariable answer of the Church was that they were all genuine; +for “God had multiplied and miraculously reproduced them for the +greater glory of His Holy Church!” In other words they would have +the faithful believe that the body of a deceased saint may, through +divine miracle, acquire the physiological peculiarities of a +crawfish! + +We fancy that it would be hard to demonstrate to satisfaction that +the visions of Catholic saints, are, in any one particular instance, +better or more trustworthy than the average visions and prophecies of +our modern “mediums.” The visions of Andrew Jackson Davis--however +our critics may sneer at them--are by long odds more philosophical +and more compatible with modern science than the Augustinian +speculations. Whenever the visions of Swedenborg, the greatest among +the modern seers, run astray from philosophy and scientific truth, it +is when they most run parallel with theology. Nor are these visions +any more useless to either science or humanity than those of the +great orthodox saints. In the life of St. Bernard it is narrated +that as he was once in church, upon a Christmas eve, he prayed that +the very hour in which Christ was born might be revealed to him; and +when the “true and correct hour came, he saw the divine babe appear +in his manger.” What a pity that the divine babe did not embrace +so favorable an opportunity to fix the correct day and year of his +death, and thereby reconcile the controversies of his putative +historians. The Tischendorfs, Lardners, and Colensos, as well as +many a Catholic divine, who have vainly squeezed the marrow out of +historical records and their own brains, in the useless search, would +at least have had something for which to thank the saint. + +As it is, we are hopelessly left to infer that most of the beatific +and divine visions of the _Golden Legend_, and those to be found in +the more complete biographies of the most important “saints,” as well +as most of the visions of our own persecuted seers and seeresses, +were produced by ignorant and undeveloped “spirits” passionately +fond of personating great historical characters. We are quite ready +to agree with the Chevalier des Mousseaux, and other unrelenting +persecutors of magic and spiritualism in the name of the Church, that +modern spirits are often “lying spirits;” that they are ever on hand +to humor the respective hobbies of the persons who communicate with +them at “circles;” that they _deceive_ them and, therefore, are not +_always_ good “spirits.” + +But, having conceded so much, we will now ask of any impartial +person: is it possible to believe at the same time that the _power_ +given to the exorcist-priest, that supreme and _divine_ power of +which he boasts, has been given to him by God for the purpose of +deceiving people? That the prayer pronounced by him _in the name of +Christ_, and which, forcing the _demon_ into submission, makes him +reveal himself, is calculated at the same time to make the devil +confess _not the truth_, but that only which it is the _interest of +the church to which the exorcist belongs_, should _pass for truth_? +And this is what invariably happens. Compare, for instance, the +responses given by the demon to Luther, with those obtained from the +devils by St. Dominick. The one argues against the private mass, +and upbraids Luther with placing the Virgin Mary and saints before +Christ, and thus dishonoring the Son of God;[101] while the demons +exorcised by St. Dominick, upon seeing the Virgin whom the holy +father had also evoked to help him, roar out: “Oh! our enemy! oh! +our damner! ... why didst thou descend from heaven to torment us? +Why art thou so powerful an intercessor for sinners! Oh! _thou most +certain and secure way to heaven_ ... thou commandest us _and we are +forced to confess_ that nobody is damned who only perseveres in thy +holy worship, etc., etc.”[102] Luther’s “Saint Satan” assures him +that while believing in the transubstantiation of Christ’s body and +blood he had been worshipping merely bread and wine; and the _devils_ +of all the Catholic saints promise _eternal damnation_ to whomsoever +disbelieves or even so much as doubts the dogma! + +Before leaving the subject, let us give one or two more instances +from the _Chronicles of the Lives of the Saints_, selected from such +narratives as are fully accepted by the Church. We might fill volumes +with proofs of undeniable confederacy between the exorcisers and the +demons. Their very nature betrays them. Instead of being independent, +crafty entities, bent on the destruction of men’s souls and spirits, +the majority of them are simply the elementals of the kabalists; +creatures with no intellect of their own, but faithful mirrors of +the WILL which evokes, controls, and guides them. We will not waste +our time in drawing the reader’s attention to doubtful or obscure +thaumaturgists and exorcisers, but take as our standard one of the +greatest saints of Catholicism, and select a bouquet from that same +prolific conservatory of pious lies, _The Golden Legend_, of James de +Veragine.[103] + +St. Dominick, the founder of the famous order of that name, is one of +the mightiest saints on the calendar. His order was the first that +received a solemn confirmation from the Pope,[104] and he is well +known in history as the associate and counsellor of the infamous +Simon de Montford, the papal general, whom he helped to butcher the +unfortunate Albigenses in and near Toulouse. The story goes that +this saint and the Church after him, claim that he received from the +Virgin, _in propriâ personâ_, a rosary, whose virtues produced such +stupendous miracles that they throw entirely into the shade those of +the apostles, and even of Jesus himself. A man, says the biographer, +an abandoned sinner, was bold enough to doubt the virtue of the +Dominican rosary; and for this unparalleled blasphemy was punished +on the spot by having 15,000 devils take possession of him. Seeing +the great suffering of the tortured demoniac, St. Dominick forgot the +insult and called the devils to account. + +Following is the colloquy between the “blessed exorcist” and the +demons: + +_Question._--How did you take possession of this man, and how many +are you? + +_Answer of the Devils._--We came into him for having spoken +disrespectfully of the rosary. We are 15,000. + +_Question._--Why did so many as 15,000 enter him? + +_Answer._--Because there are fifteen decades in the rosary which he +derided, etc. + +_Dominick._--Is not all true I have said of the virtues of the rosary? + +_Devils._--Yes! Yes! (_they emit flames through the nostrils of the +demoniac_). Know all ye Christians that Dominick never said one word +concerning the rosary that is not most true; and know ye further, +that if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you. + +_Dominick._--Who is the man in the world the Devil hates the most? + +_Devils._--(_In chorus._) Thou art the very man (_here follow verbose +compliments_). + +_Dominick._--Of which state of Christians are there the most damned? + +_Devils._--In hell we have merchants, pawnbrokers, fraudulent +bankers, grocers, Jews, apothecaries, etc., etc. + +_Dominick._--Are there any priests or monks in hell? + +_Devils._--There are a great number of priests, but _no monks_, with +the exception of such as have transgressed the rule of their order. + +_Dominick._--Have you any Dominicans? + +_Devils._--Alas! alas! we have not one yet, but we expect a great +number of them after their devotion is a little cooled. + +We do not pretend to give the questions and answers literally, for +they occupy twenty-three pages; but the substance is here, as may +be seen by any one who cares to read the _Golden Legend_. The full +description of the hideous bellowings of the demons, their enforced +glorification of the saint, and so on, is too long for this chapter. +Suffice it to say that as we read the numerous questions offered by +Dominick and the answers of the demons, we become fully convinced +that they corroborate in every detail the unwarranted assertions and +support the interests of the Church. The narrative is suggestive. +The legend graphically describes the battle of the exorcist with the +legion from the bottomless pit. The sulphurous flames which burst +forth from the nose, mouth, eyes, and ears, of the demoniac; the +sudden appearance of over a hundred angels, clad in golden armor; +and, finally, the descent of the blessed Virgin herself, in person, +bearing a golden rod, with which she administers a sound thrashing +to the demoniac, to force the devils to confess that of herself +which we scarcely need repeat. The whole catalogue of theological +truths uttered by Dominick’s devils were embodied in so many articles +of faith by his Holiness, the present Pope, in 1870, at the last +Œcumenical Council. + +From the foregoing it is easy to see that the only substantial +difference between infidel “mediums” and orthodox saints lies in the +relative usefulness of the _demons_, if demons we must call them. +While the Devil faithfully supports the Christian exorcist in his +_orthodox_ (?) views, the modern spook generally leaves his medium +in the lurch. For, by lying, he acts _against_ his or her interests +rather than otherwise, and thereby too often casts foul suspicion on +the genuineness of the mediumship. Were modern “spirits” _devils_, +they would evidently display a little more discrimination and cunning +than they do. They would act as the _demons_ of the saint which, +compelled by the ecclesiastical magician and by the power of “the +name ... which forces them into submission,” _lie in accordance with +the direct interest_ of the exorcist and his church. The moral of the +parallel we leave to the sagacity of the reader. + +“Observe well,” exclaims des Mousseaux, “that there are _demons_ +which sometimes will speak the truth.” “The exorcist,” he adds, +quoting the _Ritual_, “must command the demon to tell him whether he +is detained in the body of the demoniac through some magic art, or by +_signs_, or any objects which usually serve for this evil practice. +In case the exorcised person has swallowed the latter, he must vomit +them back; and if they are not in his body, the demon must indicate +the proper place where they are to be found; and having found them +they must be burned.”[105] Thus some demons reveal the existence of +the bewitchment, tell who is its author, and indicate the means to +destroy the _malefice_. But beware to ever resort, in such a case, +to magicians, sorcerers, or mediums. You must call to help you but +the minister of your Church! “The Church believes in magic, as you +well see,” he adds, “since she expresses it so formally. And those +who _disbelieve in magic_, can they still hope to share the faith of +their own Church? And who can teach them better? To whom did Christ +say: ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ... and lo, I am with +you always, even to the end of the world?’”[106] + +Are we to believe that he said this but to those who wear these +black or scarlet liveries of Rome? Must we then credit the story +that this power was given by Christ to Simon Stylites, the saint who +sanctified himself by perching on a pillar (_stylos_) sixty feet +high, for thirty-six years of his life, without ever descending +from it, in order that, among other miracles stated in the _Golden +Legend_, he might cure a _dragon_ of a sore eye? “Near Simon’s pillar +was the dwelling of a dragon, so very venomous that the stench was +spread for miles round his cave.” This ophidian-hermit met with an +accident; he got a thorn in his eye, and, becoming blind, crept to +the saint’s pillar, and pressed his eye against it for three days, +without touching any one. Then the blessed saint, from his aërial +seat, “_three feet in diameter_,” ordered earth and water to be +placed on the dragon’s eye, out of which suddenly emerged a thorn +(or stake), a cubit in length; when the people saw the “miracle” +they glorified the Creator. As to the grateful dragon, he arose and, +“having adored God for two hours, returned to his cave”[107]--a +half-converted ophidian, we must suppose. + +And what are we to think of that other narrative, to disbelieve +in which is “_to risk one’s salvation_,” as we were informed by a +Pope’s missionary, of the Order of the Franciscans? When St. Francis +preached a sermon in the wilderness, the birds assembled from the +four cardinal points of the world. They warbled and applauded every +sentence; they sang a holy mass in chorus; finally they dispersed +to carry the glad tidings all over the universe. A grasshopper, +profiting by the absence of the Holy Virgin, who generally kept +company with the saint, remained perched on the head of the “blessed +one” for a whole week. Attacked by a ferocious wolf, the saint, who +had no other weapon but the sign of the cross which he made upon +himself, instead of running away from his rabid assailant, began +arguing with the beast. Having imparted to him the benefit to be +derived from the holy religion, St. Francis never ceased talking +until the wolf became as meek as a lamb, and even shed tears of +repentance over his past sins. Finally, he “stretched his paws in the +hands of the saint, followed him like a dog through all the towns +in which he preached, and became half a Christian!”[108] Wonders +of zoölogy! a horse turned sorcerer, a wolf and a dragon turned +Christians! + +These two anecdotes, chosen at random from among hundreds, if +rivalled are not surpassed by the wildest romances of the Pagan +thaumaturgists, magicians, and spiritualists! And yet, when +Pythagoras is said to have subdued animals, even wild beasts, merely +through a powerful mesmeric influence, he is pronounced by one-half +of the Catholics a bare-faced impostor, and by the rest a sorcerer, +who worked magic in confederacy with the Devil! Neither the she-bear, +nor the eagle, nor yet the bull that Pythagoras is said to have +persuaded to give up eating beans, were alleged to have answered with +human voices; while St. Benedict’s “black raven,” whom he called +“brother,” argues with him, and croaks his answers like a born +casuist. When the saint offers him one-half of a poisoned loaf, the +raven grows indignant and reproaches him in Latin as though he had +just graduated at the Propaganda! + +If it be objected that the _Golden Legend_ is now but half supported +by the Church; and that it is known to have been compiled by the +writer from a collection of the lives of the saints, for the most +part unauthenticated, we can show that, at least in one instance, +the biography is no legendary compilation, but the history of one +man, by another one who was his contemporary. Jortin and Gibbons +demonstrated years ago, that the early fathers used to select +narratives, wherewith to ornament the lives of their apocryphal +saints, from Ovid, Homer, Livy, and even from the unwritten popular +legends of Pagan nations. But such is not the case in the above +instances. St. Bernard lived in the twelfth century, and St. Dominick +was nearly contemporaneous with the author of the _Golden Legend_. +De Veragine died in 1298, and Dominick, whose exorcisms and life he +describes so minutely, instituted his order in the first quarter +of the thirteenth century. Moreover, de Veragine was Vicar-General +of the Dominicans himself, in the middle of the same century, and +therefore described the miracles wrought by his hero and patron but a +few years after they were alleged to have happened. He wrote them in +the same convent; and while narrating these wonders he had probably +fifty persons at hand who had been eye-witnesses to the saint’s mode +of living. What must we think, in such a case, of a biographer who +seriously describes the following: One day, as the blessed saint was +occupied in his study, the Devil began pestering him, in the shape of +a flea. He frisked and jumped about the pages of his book until the +harassed saint, unwilling as he was to act unkindly, even toward a +devil, felt compelled to punish him by fixing the troublesome devil +on the very sentence on which he stopped, by clasping the book. At +another time the same devil appeared under the shape of a monkey. +He grinned so horribly that Dominick, in order to get rid of him, +ordered the devil-monkey to take the candle and hold it for him +until he had done reading. The poor imp did so, and held it until it +was consumed to the very end of the wick; and, notwithstanding his +pitiful cries for mercy, the saint compelled him to hold it till his +fingers were burned to the bones! + +Enough! The approbation with which this book was received by the +Church, and the peculiar sanctity attributed to it, is sufficient to +show the estimation in which veracity was held by its patrons. We +may add, in conclusion, that the finest quintessence of Boccaccio’s +_Decameron_ appears prudery itself by comparison with the filthy +realism of the _Golden Legend_. + +We cannot regard with too much astonishment the pretensions of +the Catholic Church in seeking to convert Hindus and Buddhists to +Christianity. While the “heathen” keeps to the faith of his fathers, +he has at least the one redeeming quality--that of not having +apostatized for the mere pleasure of exchanging one set of idols +for another. There may be for him some novelty in his embracing +Protestantism; for in that he gains the advantage, at least, of +limiting his religious views to their simplest expression. But when +a Buddhist has been enticed into exchanging his Shoe Dagoon for the +Slipper of the Vatican, or the eight hairs from the head of Gautama +and Buddha’s tooth, which work miracles, for the locks of a Christian +saint, and a tooth of Jesus, which work far less clever miracles, he +has no cause to boast of his choice. In his address to the Literary +Society of Java, Sir T. S. Raffles is said to have narrated the +following characteristic anecdote: “On visiting the great temple +on the hills of Nangasaki, the English commissioner was received +with marked regard and respect by the venerable patriarch of the +northern provinces, a man eighty years of age, who entertained him +most sumptuously. On showing him round the courts of the temple, one +of the English officers present heedlessly exclaimed, in surprise, +‘Jesus Christus!’ The patriarch turning half round, with a placid +smile, bowed significantly, with the expression: ‘We know your Jasus +Christus! Well, don’t obtrude him upon us in our temples, and we +remain friends.’ And so, with a hearty shake of the hands, these two +opposites parted.”[109] + +There is scarcely a report sent by the missionaries from India, +Thibet, and China, but laments the diabolical “obscenity” of the +heathen rites, their lamentable impudicity; all of which “are so +strongly suggestive of devil-worship,” as des Mousseaux tells us. We +can scarcely be assured that the morality of the Pagans would be in +the least improved were they allowed a free inquiry into the life +of say the psalmist-king, the author of those sweet _Psalms_ which +are so rapturously repeated by Christians. The difference between +David performing a phallic dance before the holy ark--emblem of the +female principle--and a Hindu Vishnavite bearing the same emblem on +his forehead, favors the former only in the eyes of those who have +studied neither the ancient faith nor their own. When a religion +which compelled David to cut off and deliver two hundred foreskins of +his enemies before he could become the king’s son-in-law (_1 Sam._ +xviii.) is accepted as a standard by Christians, they would do well +not to cast into the teeth of heathen the impudicities of their +faiths. Remembering the suggestive parable of Jesus, they ought to +cast the beam out of their own eye before plucking at the mote in +their neighbor’s. The sexual element is as marked in Christianity +as in any one of the “heathen religions.” Certainly, nowhere in +the _Vedas_ can be found the coarseness and downright immodesty of +language, that Hebraists now discover throughout the Mosaic _Bible_. + +It would profit little were we to dwell much upon subjects which +have been disposed of in such a masterly way by an anonymous author +whose work electrified England and Germany last year;[110] while as +regards the particular topic under notice, we cannot do better than +recommend the scholarly writings of Dr. Inman. Albeit one-sided, and +in many instances unjust to the ancient heathen, Pagan, and Jewish +religions, the _facts_ treated in the _Ancient and Pagan Christian +Symbolism_, are unimpeachable. Neither can we agree with some English +critics who charge him with an intent to destroy Christianity. If +by _Christianity_ is meant the external religious forms of worship, +then he certainly seeks to destroy it, for in his eyes, as well as in +those of every truly religious man, who has studied ancient exoteric +faiths, and their symbology, Christianity is pure heathenism, and +Catholicism, with its fetish-worshipping, is far worse and more +pernicious than Hinduism in its most idolatrous aspect. But while +denouncing the exoteric forms and unmasking the symbols, it is not +the religion of Christ that the author attacks, but the artificial +system of theology. We will allow him to illustrate the position in +his own language, and quote from his preface: + +“When vampires were discovered by the acumen of any observer,” he +says, “they were, we are told, ignominiously killed, by a stake being +driven through the body; but experience showed them to have such +tenacity of life that they rose, again and again, notwithstanding +renewed impalement, and were not ultimately laid to rest till wholly +burned. In like manner, the regenerated heathendom, which dominates +over the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, has risen again and again, +after being transfixed. Still cherished by the many, it is denounced +by the few. Amongst other accusers, I raise my voice against the +Paganism which exists so extensively in ecclesiastical Christianity, +and will do my utmost to expose the imposture.... In a vampire story +told in _Thalaba_, by Southey, the resuscitated being takes the form +of a dearly-beloved maiden, and the hero is obliged to kill her with +his own hand. He does so; but, whilst he strikes the form of the +loved one, he feels sure that he slays only a demon. In like manner, +when I endeavor to destroy the current heathenism, which has assumed +the garb of Christianity, _I do not attack real religion_.[111] Few +would accuse a workman of malignancy, who cleanses from filth the +surface of a noble statue. There may be some who are too nice to +touch a nasty subject, yet even they will rejoice when some one else +removes the dirt. Such a scavenger is wanted.”[112] + +But is it merely Pagans and heathen that the Catholics persecute, +and about whom, like Augustine, they cry to the Deity, “Oh, my God! +_so do I wish Thy enemies to be slain?_” Oh, no! their aspirations +are more Mosaic and Cain-like than that. It is against their next of +kin in faith, against their schismatic brothers that they are now +intriguing within the walls which sheltered the murderous Borgias. +The _larvæ_ of the infanticidal, parricidal, and fratricidal Popes +have proved themselves fit counsellors for the Cains of Castelfidardo +and Mentana. It is now the turn of the Slavonian Christians, the +Oriental Schismatics--the Philistines of the Greek Church! + +His Holiness the Pope, after exhausting, in a metaphor of +self-laudation, every point of assimilation between the great +biblical prophets and himself, has finally and truly compared himself +with the Patriarch Jacob “wrestling against his God.” He now crowns +the edifice of Catholic piety by openly sympathizing with the Turks! +The vicegerent of God inaugurates his infallibility by encouraging, +in a true Christian spirit, the acts of that Moslem David, the +modern Bashi Bazuk; and it seems as if nothing would more please his +Holiness than to be presented by the latter with several thousands of +the Bulgarian or Servian “foreskins.” True to her policy to be all +things to all men to promote her own interests, the Romish Church +is, at this writing (1876), benevolently viewing the Bulgarian and +Servian atrocities, and, probably, manœuvring with Turkey against +Russia. Better Islam, and the hitherto-hated Crescent over the +sepulchre of the Christian god, than the Greek Church established +at Constantinople and Jerusalem as the state religion. Like a +decrepit and toothless ex-tyrant in exile, the Vatican is eager for +any alliance that promises, if not a restoration of its own power, +at least the weakening of its rival. The axe its inquisitors once +swung, it now toys with in secret, feeling its edge, and waiting, +and hoping against hope. In her time, the Popish Church has lain with +strange bedfellows, but never before now sunk to the degradation of +giving her moral support to those who for over 1200 years spat in her +face, called her adherents “infidel dogs,” repudiated her teachings, +and denied godhood to her God! + +The press of even Catholic France is fairly aroused at this +indignity, and openly accuses the Ultramontane portion of the +Catholic Church and the Vatican of siding, during the present Eastern +struggle, with the Mahometan against the Christian. “When the +Minister of Foreign Affairs in the French Legislature spoke some mild +words in favor of the Greek Christians, he was only applauded by the +liberal Catholics, and received coldly by the Ultramontane party,” +says the French correspondent of a New York paper. + +“So pronounced was this, that M. Lemoinne, the well-known editor of +the great liberal Catholic journal, the _Débats_, was moved to say +that the Roman Church felt more sympathy for the Moslem than the +schismatic, just as they preferred an infidel to the Protestant. +‘There is at bottom,’ says this writer, ‘a great affinity between +the _Syllabus_ and the _Koran_, and between the two heads of the +faithful. The two systems are of the same nature, and are united on +the common ground of a one and unchangeable theory.’ In Italy, in +like manner, the King and Liberal Catholics are in warm sympathy with +the unfortunate Christians, while the Pope and Ultramontane faction +are believed to be inclining to the Mahometans.” + +The civilized world may yet expect the apparition of the materialized +Virgin Mary within the walls of the Vatican. The so often-repeated +“miracle” of the Immaculate Visitor in the mediæval ages has recently +been enacted at Lourdes, and why not once more, as a _coup de grâce_ +to all heretics, schismatics, and infidels? The miraculous wax taper +is yet seen at Arras, the chief city of Artois; and at every new +calamity threatening her beloved Church, the “Blessed Lady” appears +personally, and lights it with her own fair hands, in view of a whole +“biologized” congregation. This sort of “miracle,” says E. Worsley, +wrought by the Roman Catholic Church, “being most certain, and never +doubted of by any.”[113] Neither has the private correspondence with +which the most “Gracious Lady” honors her friends been doubted. There +are two precious missives from her in the archives of the Church. The +first purports to be a letter in answer to one addressed to her by +Ignatius. She confirms all things learned by her correspondent from +“her friend”--meaning the Apostle John. She bids him hold fast to +his vows, and adds as an inducement: “_I and John will come together +and pay you a visit._”[114] + +Nothing was known of this unblushing fraud till the letters were +published at Paris, in 1495. By a curious accident it appeared +at a time when threatening inquiries began to be made as to the +genuineness of the fourth Synoptic. Who could doubt, after such +a confirmation from headquarters! But the climax of effrontery +was capped in 1534, when another letter was received from the +“Mediatrix,” which sounds more like the report of a lobby-agent to a +brother-politician. It was written in excellent Latin, and was found +in the Cathedral of Messina, together with the image to which it +alludes. Its contents run as follows: + + “Mary Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer of the world, to the + Bishop, Clergy, and the other faithful of Messina, sendeth + health and benediction from _herself_ and son:[115] + + “Whereas ye have been mindful of establishing the worship + of me; now this is to let you know that by so doing ye + have found great favor in my sight. I have a long time + reflected with pain upon your city, which is exposed to + much danger from its contiguity to the fire of Etna, and I + have often had words about it with my son, for he was vexed + with you because of your guilty neglect of my worship, + so that he would not care a pin about my intercession. + Now, however, that you have come to your senses, and have + happily begun to worship me, he has conferred upon me the + right to become your everlasting protectress; but, at the + same time, I warn you to mind what you are about, and give + me no cause of repenting of my kindness to you. The prayers + and festivals instituted in my honor please me tremendously + (_vehementer_), and if you faithfully persevere in these + things, and provided you oppose to the utmost of your + power, the heretics which now-a-days are spreading through + the world, by which both my worship and that of the other + saints, male and female, are so endangered, you shall enjoy + my perpetual protection. + + “In sign of this compact, I send you down from Heaven the + image of myself, cast by celestial hands, and if ye hold + it in the honor to which it is entitled, it will be an + evidence to me of your obedience and your faith. Farewell. + Dated in Heaven, whilst sitting near the throne of my son, + in the month of December, of the 1534th year from his + incarnation. + + “MARY VIRGIN.” + +The reader should understand that this document is no anti-Catholic +forgery. The author from whom it is taken,[116] says that the +authenticity of the missive “is attested by the Bishop himself, his +Vicar-General, Secretary, and six Canons of the Cathedral Church of +Messina, all of whom have signed that attestation with their names, +and confirmed it upon oath. + +“Both the epistle and image were found upon the high altar, where +they had been placed by angels from heaven.” + +A Church must have reached the last stages of degradation, when such +sacrilegious trickery as this could be resorted to by its clergy, and +accepted with or without question by the people. + +No! far from the man who feels the workings of an immortal spirit +within him, be such a religion! There never was nor ever will be +a truly philosophical mind, whether of Pagan, heathen, Jew, or +Christian, but has followed the same path of thought. Gautama-Buddha +is mirrored in the precepts of Christ; Paul and Philo Judæus are +faithful echoes of Plato; and Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus won their +immortal fame by combining the teachings of all these grand masters +of true philosophy. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good,” +ought to be the motto of all brothers on earth. Not so is it with +the interpreters of the _Bible_. The seed of the Reformation was +sown on the day that the second chapter of _The Catholic Epistle of +James_, jostled the eleventh chapter of the _Epistle to the Hebrews_ +in the same _New Testament_. One who believes in Paul cannot believe +in James, Peter, and John. The Paulists, to remain Christians with +their apostle, must withstand Peter “to the face;” and if Peter +“was to be blamed” and _was wrong_, then he was not infallible. +How then can his successor (?) boast of his infallibility? Every +kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every +house divided against itself must fall. A plurality of masters has +proved as fatal in religions as in politics. What Paul preached, was +preached by every other mystic philosopher. “Stand _fast therefore +in the liberty_ wherewith Christ hath made us free, and _be not +entangled again with the yoke of bondage_!” exclaims the honest +apostle-philosopher; and adds, as if prophetically inspired: “But if +ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one +of another.” + +That the Neo-platonists were not always despised or accused of +demonolatry is evidenced in the adoption by the Roman Church of their +very rites and theurgy. The identical evocations and incantations +of the Pagan and Jewish Kabalist, are now repeated by the Christian +exorcist, and the theurgy of Iamblichus was adopted word for word. +“Distinct as were the Platonists and Pauline Christians of the +earlier centuries,” writes Professor A. Wilder, “many of the more +distinguished teachers of the new faith were deeply tinctured with +the philosophical leaven. Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene, was +the disciple of Hypatia. _St. Anthony reiterated the theurgy of +Iamblichus._ The _Logos_, or word of the _Gospel according to John_, +was a Gnostic personification. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and +others of the fathers drank deeply from the fountains of philosophy. +The ascetic idea which carried away the Church was like that which +was practiced by Plotinus ... all through the middle ages there rose +up men who accepted the interior doctrines which were promulgated by +the renowned teacher of the Academy.”[117] + +To substantiate our accusation that the Latin Church first despoiled +the kabalists and theurgists of their magical rites and ceremonies, +before hurling anathemas upon their devoted heads, we will now +translate for the reader fragments from the forms of _exorcism_ +employed by kabalists and Christians. The identity in phraseology, +may, perhaps, disclose one of the reasons why the Romish Church has +always desired to keep the faithful in ignorance of the meaning of +her Latin prayers and ritual. Only those directly interested in +the deception have had the opportunity to compare the rituals of +the Church and the magicians. The best Latin scholars were, until +a comparatively recent date, either churchmen, or dependent upon +the Church. Common people could not read Latin, and even if they +could, the reading of the books on magic was prohibited, under +the penalty of anathema and excommunication. The cunning device +of the confessional made it almost impossible to consult, even +surreptitiously, what the priests call a _grimoire_ (a devil’s +scrawl), or _Ritual of Magic_. To make assurance doubly sure, the +Church began destroying or concealing everything of the kind she +could lay her hands upon. + +The following are translated from the _Kabalistic Ritual_, and that +generally known as the _Roman Ritual_. The latter was promulgated in +1851 and 1852, under the sanction of Cardinal Engelbert, Archbishop +of Malines, and of the Archbishop of Paris. Speaking of it, the +demonologist des Mousseaux says: “It is the ritual of Paul V., +revised by the most learned of modern Popes, by the contemporary of +Voltaire, Benedict XIV.”[118] + + KABALISTIC. ROMAN CATHOLIC. + (Jewish and Pagan.) + + _Exorcism of Salt._ _Exorcism of Salt._[119] + + The Priest-Magician blesses The Priest blesses the + the Salt, and says: _Salt_ and says: “_Creature + “_Creature of Salt_,[120] in of Salt_, I exorcise thee in + thee may remain the the name of the living God + <sc>WISDOM</sc> (of God); ... _become the health of + and may it preserve from all the soul and of the body_! + corruption _our minds and_ Everywhere where thou art + _bodies_. Through Hochmael (חכמאל thrown _may the unclean + God of wisdom), and the spirit be put to flight_.... + power of _Ruach_ Hochmael _Amen._” + (Spirit of the Holy Ghost) + may the Spirits of matter + (bad spirits) before it + recede.... _Amen._” + + _Exorcism of Water Exorcism of Water._ + (and Ashes)._ + + “Creature of the Water, I “Creature of the water, in + exorcise thee ... by _the the name of the Almighty + three names_ which are God, the Father, the Son, + Netsah, Hod, and Jerod and the Holy Ghost ... _be + (kabalistic trinity), in the exorcised_.... I adjure thee + beginning and in the end, by in the name of the Lamb ... + Alpha and Omega, which are (the magician says _bull_ or + in the Spirit Azoth (Holy ox--_per alas Tauri_) of the + Ghost, or the ‘_Universal Lamb that trod upon the + Soul_’), I exorcise and basilisk and the aspic, and + adjure thee.... Wandering who crushes under his foot + eagle, may the Lord command the lion and the dragon.” + thee by the _wings of the + bull and his flaming + sword_.” (The cherub placed + at the east gate of Eden.) + + _Exorcism of an _Exorcism of the Devil._ + Elemental Spirit._ + + “Serpent, in the name of the * * * * * + Tetragrammaton, the Lord; He “O Lord, let him who carries + commands thee, by the angel along with him the terror, + and the lion. flee, struck in his turn by + terror and defeated. O thou, + “Angel of darkness, obey, who art the Ancient Serpent + and run away with this holy ... tremble before the hand + (exorcised) water. Eagle in of him who, having triumphed + chains, obey this sign, and of the tortures of hell (?) + retreat before the breath. _devictis gemitibus and + Moving serpent, crawl at my inferni_, recalled the souls + feet, or be tortured by to light.... The more whilst + _this sacred fire_, thou decay, the more + evaporate before this holy terrible will be thy torture + incense. Let water return to ... by Him who reigns over + water (the elemental spirit the living and the dead ... + of water); let the fire and who will judge the + burn, and the air circulate; century by fire, _sæculum + let the earth return to per ignem_, etc. In the name + earth by the virtue of the of the Father, Son, and the + Pentagram, which is the Holy Ghost. _Amen._”[121] + Morning Star, and in the + name of the tetragrammaton + which is traced in the + centre of _the Cross of + Light_. _Amen._” + + +It is unnecessary to try the patience of the reader any longer, +although we might multiply examples. It must not be forgotten that we +have quoted from the latest revision of the _Ritual_, that of 1851-2. +If we were to go back to the former one we would find a far more +striking identity, not merely of phraseology but of ceremonial form. +For the purpose of comparison we have not even availed ourselves +of the ritual of ceremonial magic of the _Christian_ kabalists of +the middle ages, wherein the language modelled upon a belief in the +divinity of Christ is, with the exception of a stray expression here +and there, identical with the Catholic Ritual.[122] The latter, +however, makes one improvement, for the originality of which the +Church should be allowed all credit. Certainly nothing so fantastical +could be found in a ritual of magic. “Give place,” apostrophizing +the “Demon,” it says, “give place to Jesus Christ ... thou _filthy, +stinking, and ferocious beast_ ... dost thou rebel? Listen and +tremble, Satan; enemy of the faith, enemy of the human race, +introducer of death ... root of all evil, promoter of vice, soul +of envy, origin of avarice, cause of discord, prince of homicide, +whom God curses; author of incest and sacrilege, inventor of all +obscenity, _professor_ of the most detestable actions, _and Grand +Master of Heretics_ (_!!_) (_Doctor Hæreticorum!_) What! ... dost +thou still stand? Dost dare to resist, and thou knowest that Christ, +our Lord, is coming?... Give place to Jesus Christ, give place to +the Holy Ghost, which, by His blessed Apostle Peter, has flung thee +down before the public, in the person of Simon the Magician” (_te +manifeste stravit in Simone mago_).[123] + +After such a shower of abuse, no devil having the slightest feeling +of self-respect could remain in such company; unless, indeed, he +should chance to be an Italian Liberal, or King Victor Emmanuel +himself; both of whom, thanks to Pius IX., have become anathema-proof. + +It really seems too bad to strip Rome of all her symbols at once; +but justice must be done to the despoiled hierophants. Long before +the sign of the Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was +employed as a secret sign of recognition among neophytes and adepts. +Says Levi: “The sign of the Cross adopted by the Christians does not +belong exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the +oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by +the occult verse of the _Pater_, to which we have called attention +in another work, that there were originally two ways of making it, +or, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning--one +reserved for priests and initiates; the other given to neophytes +and the profane. Thus, for example, the _initiate_, carrying his +hand to his forehead, said: _To thee_; then he added, _belong_; and +continued, while carrying his hand to the breast--_the kingdom_; +then, to the left shoulder--_justice_; to the right shoulder--_and +mercy_. Then he joined the two hands, adding: _throughout the +generating cycles: ‘Tibi sunt Malchut, et Geburah et Chassed per +Æonas’_--a sign of the Cross, _absolutely_ and magnificently +kabalistic, which the profanations of Gnosticism made the militant +and official Church completely _lose_.”[124] + +How fantastical, therefore, is the assertion of Father Ventura, +that, while Augustine was a Manichean, a philosopher, ignorant of +and refusing to humble himself before the sublimity of the “grand +Christian revelation,” he knew nothing, understood naught of God, +man, or universe; “... he remained poor, small, obscure, sterile, +and wrote nothing, did nothing really grand or useful.” But, hardly +had he become a Christian “... when his reasoning powers and +intellect, enlightened at the _luminary of faith_, elevated him to +the most sublime heights of philosophy and theology.” And his other +proposition that Augustine’s genius, as a consequence, “developed +itself in all its grandeur and prodigious fecundity ... his intellect +radiated with that immense splendor which, reflecting itself in his +immortal writings, has never ceased for one moment during fourteen +centuries to illuminate the Church and the world!”[125] + +Whatever Augustine was as a Manichean, we leave Father Ventura to +discover; but that his accession to Christianity established an +everlasting enmity between theology and science is beyond doubt. +While forced to confess that “the Gentiles had possibly something +_divine_ and true in their doctrines,” he, nevertheless, declared +that for their superstition, idolatry, and pride, they had “to +be detested, and, unless they improved, to be punished by divine +judgment.” This furnishes the clew to the subsequent policy of the +Christian Church, even to our day. If the Gentiles did not choose +to come into the Church, all that was divine in their philosophy +should go for naught, and the divine wrath of God should be visited +upon their heads. What effect this produced is succinctly stated +by Draper: “No one did more than this Father to bring science and +religion into antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the _Bible_ +from its true office--a guide to purity of life--and placed it in +the perilous position of being the arbiter of human knowledge, an +audacious tyranny over the mind of man. The example once set, there +was no want of followers; the works of the Greek philosophers were +stigmatized as profane; the transcendently glorious achievements +of the Museum of Alexandria were hidden from sight by a cloud of +ignorance, mysticism, and unintelligible jargon, out of which there +too often flashed the destroying lightnings of ecclesiastical +vengeance.”[126] + +Augustine and Cyprian[127] admit that Hermes and Hostanes believed in +one true god; the first two maintaining, as well as the two Pagans, +that he is invisible and incomprehensible, except spiritually. +Moreover we invite any man of intelligence--provided he be not a +religious fanatic--after reading fragments chosen at random from the +works of Hermes and Augustine on the Deity, to decide which of the +two gives a more philosophical definition of the “unseen Father.” We +have at least one writer of fame who is of our opinion. Draper calls +the Augustinian productions a “rhapsodical conversation” with God; an +“incoherent dream.”[128] + +Father Ventura depicts the saint as attitudinizing before an +astonished world upon “the most sublime heights of philosophy.” But +here steps in again the same unprejudiced critic, who passes the +following remarks on this colossus of Patristic philosophy. “Was it +for this preposterous scheme,” he asks, “this product of ignorance +and audacity, that the works of the Greek philosophers were to be +given up? It was none too soon that the great critics who appeared +at the Reformation, by comparing the works of these writers with one +another, brought them to their proper level, and taught us to look +upon them all with contempt.”[129] + +For such men as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Apollonius, and even +Simon Magus, to be accused of having formed a pact with the Devil, +whether the latter personage exist or not, is so absurd as to need +but little refutation. If Simon Magus--the most problematical of all +in an historical sense--ever existed otherwise than in the overheated +fancy of Peter and the other apostles, he was evidently no worse than +any of his adversaries. A difference in religious views, however +great, is insufficient _per se_ to send one person to heaven and the +other to hell. Such uncharitable and peremptory doctrines might have +been taught in the middle ages; but it is too late now for even the +Church to put forward this traditional scarecrow. Research begins to +suggest that which, if ever verified, will bring eternal disgrace on +the Church of the Apostle Peter, whose very imposition of herself +upon that disciple must be regarded as the most unverified and +unverifiable of the assumptions of the Catholic clergy. + +The erudite author of _Supernatural Religion_ assiduously endeavors +to prove that by _Simon Magus_ we must understand the apostle Paul, +whose Epistles were secretly as well as openly calumniated by Peter, +and charged with containing “_dysnoëtic_ learning.” The Apostle of +the Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and very learned; the +Apostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious, _insincere_, and very +ignorant. That Paul had been, partially, at least, if not completely, +initiated into the theurgic mysteries, admits of little doubt. His +language, the phraseology so peculiar to the Greek philosophers, +certain expressions used but by the initiates, are so many sure +ear-marks to that supposition. Our suspicion has been strengthened by +an able article in one of the New York periodicals, entitled _Paul +and Plato_,[130] in which the author puts forward one remarkable +and, for us, very precious observation. In his _Epistles to the +Corinthians_ he shows Paul abounding with “expressions suggested +by the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis, and the lectures +of the (Greek) philosophers. He (Paul) designates himself an +_idiotes_--a person unskilful in the Word, but not in the _gnosis_ +or philosophical learning. ‘We speak wisdom among the perfect or +initiated,’ he writes; ‘not the wisdom of this world, nor of the +archons of this world, but divine wisdom in a mystery, secret--which +_none of the Archons of this world knew_.’”[131] + +What else can the apostle mean by these unequivocal words, but +that he himself, as belonging to the _mystæ_ (initiated), spoke of +things shown and explained only in the Mysteries? The “divine wisdom +in a mystery which none of the _archons of this world knew_,” has +evidently some direct reference to the _basileus_ of the Eleusinian +initiation who _did know_. The _basileus_ belonged to the staff of +the great hierophant, and was an _archon_ of Athens; and as such was +one of the chief _mystæ_, belonging to the _interior_ Mysteries, to +which a very select and small number obtained an entrance.[132] The +magistrates supervising the Eleusinians were called archons. + +Another proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the “Initiates” +lies in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at +Cenchrea (where Lucius, _Apuleius_, was initiated) because “he +had a vow.” The _nazars_--or set apart--as we see in the Jewish +Scriptures, had to cut their hair which they wore long, and which “no +razor touched” at any other time, and sacrifice it on the altar of +initiation. And the nazars were a class of Chaldean theurgists. We +will show further that Jesus belonged to this class. + +Paul declares that: “According to the grace of God which is given +unto me, as a wise _master-builder_, I have laid the foundation.”[133] + +This expression, master-builder, used only _once_ in the whole +_Bible_, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In the +Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called _Epopteia_, +or revelation, reception into the secrets. In substance it means that +stage of divine clairvoyance when everything pertaining to this earth +disappears, and earthly sight is paralyzed, and the soul is united +free and pure with its Spirit, or God. But the real significance of +the word is “overseeing,” from οπτομαι--_I see myself_. In Sanscrit +the word _evâpto_ has the same meaning, as well as _to obtain_.[134] +The word _epopteia_ is a compound one, from Επι--upon, and οπτομαι--to +look, or an overseer, an inspector--also used for a master-builder. +The title of master-mason, in Freemasonry, is derived from this, in +the sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when Paul entitles himself +a “master-builder,” he is using a word pre-eminently kabalistic, +theurgic, and masonic, and one which no other apostle uses. He thus +declares himself an _adept_, having the right to _initiate_ others. + +If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the Grecian +Mysteries and the _Kabala_, before us, it will be easy to find the +secret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated by Peter, John, +and James. The author of the _Revelation_ was a Jewish kabalist _pur +sang_, with all the hatred inherited by him from his forefathers +toward the Mysteries.[135] His jealousy during the life of Jesus +extended even to Peter; and it is but after the death of their +common master that we see the two apostles--the former of whom +wore the Mitre and the Petaloon of the Jewish Rabbis--preach so +zealously the rite of circumcision. In the eyes of Peter, Paul, who +had humiliated him, and whom he felt so much his superior in “Greek +learning” and philosophy, must have naturally appeared as a magician, +a man polluted with the “_Gnosis_,” with the “wisdom” of the Greek +Mysteries--hence, perhaps, “Simon[136] the Magician.” + +As to Peter, biblical criticism has shown before now that he had +probably no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at +Rome, than to furnish the pretext so readily seized upon by the +cunning Irenæus to benefit this Church with the new name of the +apostle--_Petra_ or _Kiffa_, a name which allowed so readily, by an +easy play upon words, to connect it with _Petroma_, the double set +of stone tablets used by the hierophant at the initiations, during +the final Mystery. In this, perhaps, lies concealed the whole secret +of the claims of the Vatican. As Professor Wilder happily suggests: +“In the Oriental countries the designation פתר, Peter (in Phœnician +and Chaldaic, an interpreter) appears to have been the title of this +personage (the hierophant).... There is in these facts some reminder +of the peculiar circumstances of the Mosaic Law ... and also of the +claim of the Pope to be the successor of Peter, the hierophant or +interpreter of the Christian religion.”[137] + +As such, we must concede to him, to some extent, the right to be such +an interpreter. The Latin Church has faithfully preserved in symbols, +rites, ceremonies, architecture, and even in the very dress of her +clergy, the tradition of the Pagan worship--of the public or exoteric +ceremonies, we should add; otherwise her dogmas would embody more +sense and contain less blasphemy against the majesty of the Supreme +and Invisible God. + +An inscription found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept, of the +eleventh dynasty (2250 B.C.), now proved to have been transcribed +from the seventeenth chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ (dating not +later than 4500 B.C.), is more than suggestive. This monumental text +contains a group of hieroglyphics, which, when interpreted, read thus: + + =PTR.= =RF.= =SU.= + Peter- ref- su. + +Baron Bunsen shows this sacred formulary mixed up with a whole +series of glosses and various interpretations on a monument forty +centuries old. “This is identical with saying that the record (the +true interpretation) was at that time no longer intelligible.... We +beg our readers to understand,” he adds, “that a sacred text, a hymn, +containing the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a state +about 4,000 years ago ... as to be all but unintelligible to royal +scribes.”[138] + +That it was unintelligible to the uninitiated among the latter is as +well proved by the confused and contradictory glossaries, as that it +was a “mystery”-word, known to the hierophants of the sanctuaries, +and, moreover, a word chosen by Jesus, to designate the office +assigned by him to one of his apostles. This word, PTR, was partially +interpreted, owing to another word similarly written in another group +of hieroglyphics, on a stele, the sign used for it being an opened +eye.[139] Bunsen mentions as another explanation of PTR--“to show.” +“It appears to me,” he remarks, “that our PTR is literally the old +Aramaic and Hebrew ‘Patar’, which occurs in the history of Joseph as +the specific word for _interpreting_; whence also _Pitrum_ is the +term for interpretation of a text, a dream.”[140] In a manuscript of +the first century, a combination of the Demotic and Greek texts,[141] +and most probably one of the few which miraculously escaped the +Christian vandalism of the second and third centuries, when all such +precious manuscripts were burned as magical, we find occurring in +several places a phrase, which, perhaps, may throw some light upon +this question. One of the principal heroes of the manuscript, who +is constantly referred to as “the Judean Illuminator” or Initiate, +Τελειωτὴς, is made to communicate but with his _Patar_; the latter +being written in Chaldaic characters. Once the latter word is coupled +with the name _Shimeon_. Several times, the “Illuminator,” who rarely +breaks his contemplative solitude, is shown inhabiting a Κρύπτη +(cave), and teaching the multitudes of eager scholars standing +outside, not orally, but through this _Patar_. The latter receives the +words of wisdom by applying his ear to a circular hole in a partition +which conceals the teacher from the listeners, and then conveys them, +with explanations and glossaries, to the crowd. This, with a slight +change, was the method used by Pythagoras, who, as we know, never +allowed his neophytes to see him during the years of probation, but +instructed them from behind a curtain in his cave. + +But, whether the “Illuminator” of the Græco-Demotic manuscript is +identical with Jesus or not, the fact remains, that we find him +selecting a “mystery”-appellation for one who is made to appear later +by the Catholic Church as the janitor of the Kingdom of Heaven and +the interpreter of Christ’s will. The word Patar or Peter locates +both master and disciple in the circle of initiation, and connects +them with the “Secret Doctrine.” The great hierophant of the ancient +Mysteries never allowed the candidates to see or hear him personally. +He was the Deus-ex-Machina, the presiding but invisible Deity, +uttering his will and instructions through a second party; and +2,000 years later, we discover that the Dalaï-Lamas of Thibet had +been following for centuries the same traditional programme during +the most important religious mysteries of lamaism. If Jesus knew +the secret meaning of the title bestowed by him on Simon, then he +must have been initiated; otherwise he could not have learned it; +and if he was an initiate of either the Pythagorean Essenes, the +Chaldean Magi, or the Egyptian Priests, then the doctrine taught by +him was but a portion of the “Secret Doctrine” taught by the Pagan +hierophants to the few select adepts admitted within the sacred adyta. + +But we will discuss this question further on. For the present we +will endeavor to briefly indicate the extraordinary similarity--or +rather identity, we should say--of rites and ceremonial dress of +the Christian clergy with that of the old Babylonians, Assyrians, +Phœnicians, Egyptians, and other Pagans of the hoary antiquity. + +If we would find the model of the Papal tiara, we must search the +annals of the ancient Assyrian tablets. We invite the reader to give +his attention to Dr. Inman’s illustrated work, _Ancient Pagan and +Modern Christian Symbolism_. On page sixty-four, he will readily +recognize the head-gear of the successor of St. Peter in the coiffure +worn by gods or angels in ancient Assyria, “where it appears crowned +by an emblem of the _male_ trinity” (the Christian Cross). “We may +mention, in passing,” adds Dr. Inman, “that, as the Romanists adopted +the mitre and the tiara from ‘the cursed brood of Ham,’ so they +adopted the Episcopalian crook from the augurs of Etruria, and the +artistic form with which they clothe their angels from the painters +and urn-makers of Magna Grecia and Central Italy.” + +Would we push our inquiries farther, and seek to ascertain as much +in relation to the nimbus and the tonsure of the Catholic priest +and monk?[142] We shall find undeniable proofs that they are solar +emblems. Knight, in his _Old England Pictorially Illustrated_, gives +a drawing by St. Augustine, representing an ancient Christian bishop, +in a dress probably identical with that worn by the great “saint” +himself. The _pallium_, or the ancient stole of the bishop, is the +feminine sign when worn by a priest in worship. On St. Augustine’s +picture it is bedecked with Buddhistic crosses, and in its whole +appearance it is a representation of the Egyptian =T= (tau), assuming +slightly the figure of the letter =Y=. “Its lower end is the mark of +the masculine triad,” says Inman; “the right hand (of the figure) has +the forefinger extended, like the Assyrian priests while doing homage +_to the grove_.... When a male dons the pallium in worship, he becomes +the representative of the trinity in the unity, the _arba_, or mystic +four.”[143] + +“Immaculate is our Lady Isis,” is the legend around an engraving +of Serapis and Isis, described by King, in _The Gnostics and their +Remains_, Ἡ ΚΥΡΙΑ ΙϹΙϹ ΑΓΝΗ “... the very terms applied afterwards to +that personage (the Virgin Mary) who succeeded to her form, titles, +symbols, rites, and ceremonies.... Thus, her devotees carried into the +new priesthood the former badges of their profession, the obligation +to celibacy, the tonsure, and the surplice, omitting, unfortunately, +the frequent ablutions prescribed by the ancient creed.” “The ‘Black +Virgins,’ so highly reverenced in certain French cathedrals ... +proved, when at last critically examined, basalt figures of +Isis!”[144] + +Before the shrine of Jupiter Ammon were suspended tinkling bells, +from the sound of whose chiming the priests gathered the auguries; “A +golden bell and a pomegranate ... round about the hem of the robe,” +was the result with the Mosaic Jews. But in the Buddhistic system, +during the religious services, the gods of the Deva Loka are always +invoked, and invited to descend upon the altars by the ringing of +bells suspended in the pagodas. The bell of the sacred table of Siva +at Kuhama is described in Kailasa, and every Buddhist vihara and +lamasery has its bells. + +We thus see that the bells used by Christians come to them directly +from the Buddhist Thibetans and Chinese. The beads and rosaries +have the same origin, and have been used by Buddhist monks for over +2,300 years. The _Linghams_ in the Hindu temples are ornamented upon +certain days with large berries, from a tree sacred to Mahadeva, +which are strung into rosaries. The title of “nun” is an Egyptian +word, and had with them the actual meaning; the Christians did not +even take the trouble of translating the word _Nonna_. The aureole +of the saints was used by the antediluvian artists of Babylonia, +whenever they desired to honor or deify a mortal’s head. In a +celebrated picture in Moore’s _Hindoo Pantheon_, entitled, “Christna +nursed by Devaki, from a highly-finished picture,” the Hindu Virgin +is represented as seated on a lounge and nursing Christna. The hair +brushed back, the long veil, and the golden aureole around the +Virgin’s head, as well as around that of the Hindu Saviour, are +striking. No Catholic, well versed as he might be in the mysterious +symbolism of iconology, would hesitate for a moment to worship at +that shrine the Virgin Mary, the mother of his God![145] In Indur +Subba, the south entrance of the Caves of Ellora, may be seen to this +day the figure of Indra’s wife, Indranee, sitting with her infant +son-god, pointing the finger to heaven with the same gesture as the +Italian Madonna and child. In _Pagan and Christian Symbolism_, the +author gives a figure from a mediæval woodcut--the like of which we +have seen by dozens in old psalters--in which the Virgin Mary, with +her infant, is represented as the Queen of Heaven, on the crescent +moon, emblem of virginity. “Being before the sun, she almost eclipses +its light. Than this, nothing could more completely identify the +Christian mother and child with Isis and Horus, Ishtar, Venus, Juno, +and a host of other Pagan goddesses, who have been called ‘Queen of +Heaven,’ ‘Queen of the Universe,’ ‘Mother of God,’ ‘Spouse of God,’ +‘the Celestial Virgin,’ ‘the Heavenly Peace-Maker,’ etc.”[146] + +Such pictures are not purely astronomical. They represent the male +god and the female goddess, as the sun and moon in conjunction, “the +union of the triad with the unit.” The horns of the cow on the head +of Isis have the same significance. + +And so above, below, outside, and inside, the Christian Church, in +the priestly garments, and the religious rites, we recognize the +stamp of exoteric heathenism. On no subject within the wide range of +human knowledge, has the world been more blinded or deceived with +such persistent misrepresentation as on that of antiquity. Its hoary +past and its religious faiths have been misrepresented and trampled +under the feet of its successors. Its hierophants and prophets, mystæ +and epoptæ,[147] of the once sacred adyta of the temple shown as +demoniacs and devil-worshippers. Donned in the despoiled garments +of the victim, the Christian priest now anathematizes the latter +with rites and ceremonies which he has learned from the theurgists +themselves. The Mosaic _Bible_ is used as a weapon against the people +who furnished it. The heathen philosopher is cursed under the very +roof which has witnessed his initiation; and the “monkey of God” +(_i.e._, the devil of Tertullian), “the originator and founder of +magical theurgy, the science of illusions and lies, whose father +and author is the demon,” is exorcised with holy water by the hand +which holds the identical _lituus_[148] with which the ancient +augur, after a solemn prayer, used to determine the regions of +heaven, and evoke, in the name of the HIGHEST, the minor god (now +termed the Devil), who unveiled to his eyes futurity, and enabled +him to prophesy! On the part of the Christians and the clergy it is +nothing but shameful ignorance, prejudice, and that contemptible +pride so boldly denounced by one of their own reverend ministers, T. +Gross,[149] which rails against all investigation “as a useless or +a criminal labor, when it must be feared that they will result in +the overthrow of preëstablished systems of faith.” On the part of +the scholars it is the same apprehension of the possible necessity +of having to modify some of their erroneously-established theories +of science. “Nothing but such pitiable prejudice,” says Gross, +“can have thus misrepresented the theology of heathenism, and +distorted--nay, caricatured--its forms of religious worship. It is +time that posterity should raise its voice in vindication of violated +truth, and that the present age should learn a little of that common +sense of which it boasts with as much self-complacency as if the +prerogative of reason was the birthright only of modern times.” + +All this gives a sure clew to the real cause of the hatred felt by the +early and mediæval Christian toward his Pagan brother and dangerous +rival. We hate but what we fear. The Christian thaumaturgist once +having broken all association with the Mysteries of the temples and +with “these schools so renowned for magic,” described by St. +Hilarion,[150] could certainly expect but little to rival the Pagan +wonder-workers. No apostle, with the exception perhaps of healing by +mesmeric power, has ever equalled Apollonius of Tyana; and the scandal +created among the apostles by the miracle-doing Simon Magus, is too +notorious to be repeated here again. “How is it,” asks Justin Martyr, +in evident dismay, “how is it that the talismans of Apollonius (the +τελεσματα) have power in certain members of creation, for they +prevent, _as we see_, the fury of the waves, and the violence of the +winds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst our Lord’s miracles +are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius _are most +numerous_, and actually manifested in present facts, so as to lead +astray all beholders?”[151] This perplexed martyr solves the problem +by attributing very correctly the efficacy and potency of the charms +used by Apollonius to his profound knowledge of the sympathies and +antipathies (or repugnances) of nature. + +Unable to deny the evident superiority of their enemies’ powers, the +fathers had recourse to the old but ever successful method--that +of slander. They honored the theurgists with the same insinuating +calumny that had been resorted to by the Pharisees against Jesus. +“Thou hast a dæmon,” the elders of the Jewish Synagogue had said to +him. “Thou hast the Devil,” repeated the cunning fathers, with equal +truth, addressing the Pagan thaumaturgist; and the widely-bruited +charge, erected later into an article of faith, won the day. + +But the modern heirs of these ecclesiastical falsifiers, who charge +magic, spiritualism, and even magnetism with being produced by a +demon, forget or perhaps never read the classics. None of our bigots +has ever looked with more scorn on the _abuses_ of magic than did the +true initiate of old. No modern or even mediæval law could be more +severe than that of the hierophant. True, he had more discrimination, +charity, and justice, than the Christian clergy; for while banishing +the “unconscious” sorcerer, the person troubled with a demon, from +within the sacred precincts of the adyta, the priests, instead of +mercilessly burning him, took care of the unfortunate “possessed +one.” Having hospitals expressly for that purpose in the neighborhood +of temples, the ancient “medium,” if obsessed, was taken care of and +restored to health. But with one who had, by conscious _witchcraft_, +acquired powers dangerous to his fellow-creatures, the priests of +old were as severe as justice herself. “Any person _accidentally_ +guilty of homicide, or of any crime, or convicted of _witchcraft_, +was excluded from the Eleusinian Mysteries.”[152] And so were they +from all others. This law, mentioned by all writers on the ancient +initiation, speaks for itself. The claim of Augustine, that all the +explanations given by the Neo-platonists were invented by themselves +is absurd. For nearly every ceremony in their true and successive +order is given by Plato himself, in a more or less covered way. +The Mysteries are as old as the world, and one well versed in the +esoteric mythologies of various nations can trace them back to the +days of the ante-Vedic period in India. A condition of the strictest +virtue and purity is required from the _Vatou_, or candidate in India +before he can become an initiate, whether he aims to be a simple +fakir, a _Purohita_ (public priest) or a _Sannyâsi_, a saint of the +second degree of initiation, the most holy as the most revered of +them all. After having conquered, in the terrible trials preliminary +to admittance to the inner temple in the subterranean crypts of his +pagoda, the sannyâsi passes the rest of his life in the temple, +practicing the eighty-four rules and ten virtues prescribed to the +Yogis. + +“No one who has not practiced, during his whole life, the ten virtues +which the divine Manu makes incumbent as a duty, can be initiated +into the Mysteries of the council,” say the Hindu books of initiation. + +These virtues are: “Resignation; the act of rendering good for +evil; temperance; probity; purity; chastity; repression of the +physical senses; the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; that of +the _Superior_ soul (spirit); worship of truth; abstinence from +anger.” These virtues must alone direct the life of a true Yogi. “No +unworthy adept ought to defile the ranks of the holy initiates by +his presence for twenty-four hours.” The adept becomes guilty after +having once broken any one of these vows. Surely the exercise of such +virtues is inconsistent with the idea one has of _devil_-worship and +lasciviousness of purpose! + +And now we will try to give a clear insight into one of the chief +objects of this work. What we desire to prove is, that underlying +every ancient popular religion was the same ancient wisdom-doctrine, +one and identical, professed and practiced by the initiates of every +country, who alone were aware of its existence and importance. To +ascertain its origin, and the precise age in which it was matured, is +now beyond human possibility. A single glance, however, is enough to +assure one that it could not have attained the marvellous perfection +in which we find it pictured to us in the relics of the various +esoteric systems, except after a succession of ages. A philosophy +so profound, a moral code so ennobling, and practical results so +conclusive and so uniformly demonstrable is not the growth of a +generation, or even a single epoch. Fact must have been piled upon +fact, deduction upon deduction, science have begotten science, and +myriads of the brightest human intellects have reflected upon the +laws of nature, before this ancient doctrine had taken concrete +shape. The proofs of this identity of fundamental doctrine in the +old religions are found in the prevalence of a system of initiation; +in the secret sacerdotal castes who had the guardianship of mystical +words of power, and a public display of a phenomenal control over +natural forces, indicating association with preterhuman beings. Every +approach to the Mysteries of all these nations was guarded with the +same jealous care, and in all, the penalty of death was inflicted +upon initiates of any degree who divulged the secrets entrusted +to them. We have seen that such was the case in the Eleusinian +and Bacchic Mysteries, among the Chaldean Magi, and the Egyptian +hierophants; while with the Hindus, from whom they were all derived, +the same rule has prevailed from time immemorial. We are left in no +doubt upon this point; for the _Agrushada Parikshai_ says explicitly, +“Every initiate, to whatever degree he may belong, who reveals the +great sacred formula, must be put to death.” + +Naturally enough, this same extreme penalty was prescribed in all the +multifarious sects and brotherhoods which at different periods have +sprung from the ancient stock. We find it with the early Essenes, +Gnostics, theurgic Neo-platonists, and mediæval philosophers; +and in our day, even the Masons perpetuate the memory of the old +obligations in the penalties of throat-cutting, dismemberment, +and disemboweling, with which the candidate is threatened. As the +Masonic “master’s word” is communicated only at “low breath,” so the +selfsame precaution is prescribed in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_ +and the Jewish _Mercaba_. When initiated, the neophyte was led by +an _ancient_ to a secluded spot, and there the latter whispered _in +his ear_ the great secret.[153] The Mason swears, under the most +frightful penalties, that he will not communicate the secrets of any +degree “to a brother of an _inferior degree_;” and the _Agrushada +Parikshai_ says: “Any initiate of the third degree who reveals before +the prescribed time, to the initiates of the second degree, the +superior truths, must be put to death.” Again, the Masonic apprentice +consents to have his “tongue torn out by the roots” if he divulge +anything to a profane; and in the Hindu books of initiation, the same +_Agrushada Parikshai_, we find that any initiate of the first degree +(the lowest) who betrays the secrets of his initiation, to members of +other castes, for whom the science should be a closed book, must have +“his _tongue cut out_,” and suffer other mutilations. + +As we proceed, we will point out the evidences of this identity of +vows, formulas, rites, and doctrines, between the ancient faiths. +We will also show that not only their memory is still preserved in +India, but also that the Secret Association is still alive and as +active as ever. That, after reading what we have to say, it may be +inferred that the chief pontiff and hierophant, the _Brahmâtma_, is +still accessible to those “who know,” though perhaps recognized by +another name; and that the ramifications of his influence extend +throughout the world. But we will now return again to the early +Christian period. + +As though he were not aware that there was any esoteric significance +to the exoteric symbols, and that the Mysteries themselves were +composed of two parts, the lesser at Agræ, and the higher ones at +Eleusinia, Clemens Alexandrinus, with a rancorous bigotry that +one might expect from a renegade Neo-platonist, but is astonished +to find in this generally honest and learned Father, stigmatized +the Mysteries as indecent and diabolical. Whatever were the rites +enacted among the neophytes before they passed to a higher form of +instruction; however misunderstood were the trials of _Katharsis_ +or purification, during which they were submitted to every kind of +probation; and however much the immaterial or physical aspect might +have led to calumny, it is but wicked prejudice which can compel a +person to say that under this external meaning there was not a far +deeper and spiritual significance. + +It is positively absurd to judge the ancients from our own standpoint +of propriety and virtue. And most assuredly it is not for the +Church--which now stands accused by all the modern symbologists of +having adopted precisely these same emblems in their coarsest aspect, +and feels herself powerless to refute the accusations--to throw the +stone at those who were her models. When men like Pythagoras, Plato, +and Iamblichus, renowned for their severe morality, took part in the +Mysteries, and spoke of them with veneration, it ill behooves our +modern critics to judge them so rashly upon their merely external +aspect. Iamblichus explains the worst; and his explanation, for an +unprejudiced mind, ought to be perfectly plausible. “Exhibitions of +this kind,” he says, “in the Mysteries were designed to free us from +licentious passions, by gratifying the sight, and at the same time +vanquishing all evil thought, through _the awful sanctity_ with which +these rites were accompanied.”[154] “The wisest and best men in the +Pagan world,” adds Dr. Warburton, “are unanimous in this, that the +Mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest ends by the +worthiest means.”[155] + +In these celebrated rites, although persons of both sexes and all +classes were allowed to take a part, and a participation in them +was even obligatory, very few indeed attained the higher and final +initiation. The gradation of the Mysteries is given us by Proclus +in the fourth book of his _Theology of Plato_. “The perfective rite +τελετη, precedes in order the initiation--_Muesis_--and the initiation, +_Epopteia_, or the final apocalypse (revelation).” Theon of Smyrna, in +_Mathematica_, also divides the mystic rites into five parts: “the +first of which is the previous purification; for _neither are the +Mysteries communicated to all_ who are willing to receive them; ... +there are certain persons who are prevented by the voice of the crier +(κηρυξ) ... since it is necessary that such as are not expelled from +the Mysteries should first be refined by certain purifications which +the reception of the sacred rites succeeds. The third part is +denominated _epopteia_ or reception. And the fourth, which is the end +and design of the revelation, is _the binding of the head and fixing +of the crowns_[156] ... whether after this he (the initiated person) +becomes ... an hierophant or sustains some other part of the +sacerdotal office. But the fifth, which is produced from all these, +_is friendship and interior communion with God_.” And this was the +last and most awful of all the Mysteries. + +There are writers who have often wondered at the meaning of this +claim to a “friendship and interior communion with God.” Christian +authors have denied the pretensions of the “Pagans” to such +“communion,” affirming that only Christian saints were and are +capable of enjoying it; materialistic skeptics have altogether +scoffed at the idea of both. After long ages of religious materialism +and spiritual stagnation, it has most certainly become difficult +if not altogether impossible to substantiate the claims of either +party. The old Greeks, who had once crowded around the Agora of +Athens, with its altar to the “Unknown God,” are no more; and their +descendants firmly believe that they have found the “Unknown” in the +Jewish Jehova. The divine ecstasies of the early Christians have made +room for visions of a more modern character, in perfect keeping with +progress and civilization. The “Son of man” appearing to the rapt +vision of the ancient Christian as coming from the seventh heaven, in +a cloud of glory, and surrounded with angels and winged seraphim, has +made room for a more prosaic and at the same time more business-like +Jesus. The latter is now shown as making morning calls upon Mary and +Martha in Bethany; as seating himself on “the _ottoman_” with the +younger sister, a lover of “ethics,” while Martha goes off to the +kitchen to cook. Anon the heated fancy of a blasphemous Brooklyn +preacher and harlequin, the Reverend Dr. Talmage, makes us see her +rushing back “with besweated brow, a pitcher in one hand and the +tongs in the other ... into the presence of Christ,” and blowing him +up for not caring that her sister hath left her “to serve alone.”[157] + +From the birth of the solemn and majestic conception of the +unrevealed Deity of the ancient adepts to such caricatured +descriptions of him who died on the Cross for his philanthropic +devotion to humanity, long centuries have intervened, and their +heavy tread seems to have almost entirely obliterated all sense of +a spiritual religion from the hearts of his professed followers. No +wonder then, that the sentence of Proclus is no longer understood by +the Christians, and is rejected as a “vagary” by the materialists, +who, in their negation, are less blasphemous and atheistical than +many of the reverends and members of the churches. But, although the +Greek _epoptai_ are no more, we have now, in our own age, a people +far more ancient than the oldest Hellenes, who practice the so-called +“preterhuman” gifts to the same extent as did their ancestors far +earlier than the days of Troy. It is to this people that we draw the +attention of the psychologist and philosopher. + +One need not go very deep into the literature of the Orientalists to +become convinced that in most cases they do not even suspect that +in the arcane philosophy of India there are depths which they have +not sounded, and _cannot_ sound, for they pass on without perceiving +them. There is a pervading tone of conscious superiority, a ring +of contempt in the treatment of Hindu metaphysics, as though the +European mind is alone enlightened enough to polish the rough diamond +of the old Sanscrit writers, and separate right from wrong for the +benefit of their descendants. We see them disputing over the external +forms of expression without a conception of the great vital truths +these hide from the profane view. + +“As a rule, the Brahmans,” says Jacolliot, “rarely go beyond the +class of _grihesta_ [priests of the vulgar castes] and _purohita_ +[exorcisers, divines, prophets, and evocators of spirits]. And +yet, we shall see ... once that we have touched upon the question +and study of manifestations and phenomena, that these initiates +of the _first_ degree (the lowest) attribute to themselves, and +in appearance possess faculties developed to a degree which has +never been equalled in Europe. As to the initiates of the second +and especially of the third category, they pretend to be enabled to +ignore time, space, and to command life and death.”[158] + +Such initiates as these M. Jacolliot _did not meet_; for, as he says +himself, they only appear on the most solemn occasions, and when the +faith of the multitudes has to be strengthened by phenomena of a +superior order. “They are never seen, either in the neighborhood of, +or even inside the temples, except at the grand quinquennial festival +of the fire. On that occasion, they appear about the middle of the +night, on a platform erected in the centre of the sacred lake, like +so many phantoms, and by their conjurations they illumine the space. +A fiery column of light ascends from around them, rushing from earth +to heaven. Unfamiliar sounds vibrate through the air, and five or +six hundred thousand Hindus, gathered from every part of India to +contemplate these demigods, throw themselves with their faces buried +in the dust, invoking the souls of their ancestors.”[159] + +Let any impartial person read the _Spiritisme dans le Monde_, and +he cannot believe that this “implacable rationalist,” as Jacolliot +takes pride in terming himself, said one word more than is warranted +by what he had seen. His statements support and are corroborated by +those of other skeptics. As a rule, the missionaries, even after +passing half a lifetime in the country of “devil-worship,” as they +call India, either disingenuously _deny_ altogether what they cannot +help knowing to be true, or ridiculously attribute phenomena to this +power of the Devil, that outrival the “miracles” of the apostolic +ages. And what do we see this French author, notwithstanding his +incorrigible rationalism, forced to admit, after having narrated the +greatest wonders? Watch the fakirs as he would, he is compelled to +bear the strongest testimony to their perfect honesty in the matter +of their miraculous phenomena. “Never,” he says, “have we succeeded +in detecting a single one in the act of deceit.” One fact should be +noted by all who, without having been in India, still fancy they +are clever enough to expose the fraud of _pretended_ magicians. +This skilled and cool observer, this redoubtable materialist, after +his long sojourn in India, affirms, “We unhesitatingly avow that we +have not met, either in India or in Ceylon, a single European, even +among the oldest residents, who has been able to indicate the means +employed by these devotees for the production of these phenomena!” + +And how should they? Does not this zealous Orientalist confess to us +that even he, who had every available means at hand to learn many +of their rites and doctrines at first hand, failed in his attempts +to make the Brahmans explain to him their secrets. “All that our +most diligent inquiries of the Pourohitas could elicit from them +respecting the acts of their superiors (the invisible initiates of +the temples), amounts to very little.” And again, speaking of one of +the books, he confesses that, while purporting to reveal all that +is desirable to know, it “falls back into mysterious formulas, in +combinations of magical and occult letters, the secret of which it +has been impossible for us to penetrate,” etc. + +The fakirs, although they can never reach beyond the first degree of +initiation, are, notwithstanding, the only agents between the living +world and the “silent brothers,” or those initiates who never cross +the thresholds of their sacred dwellings. The Fūkara-Yogis belong +to the temples, and who knows but these cenobites of the sanctuary +have far more to do with the psychological phenomena which attend the +fakirs, and have been so graphically described by Jacolliot, than the +_Pitris_ themselves? Who can tell but that the fluidic spectre of the +ancient Brahman seen by Jacolliot was the Scin-lecca, the spiritual +_double_, of one of these mysterious sannyâsi? + +Although the story has been translated and commented upon by +Professor Perty, of Geneva, still we will venture to give it in +Jacolliot’s own words: “A moment after the disappearance of the +hands, the fakir continuing his evocations (_mantras_) more earnestly +than ever, a cloud like the first, but more opalescent and more +opaque, began to hover near the small brasier, which, by request of +the Hindu, I had constantly fed with live coals. Little by little it +assumed a form entire human, and I distinguished the spectre--for I +cannot call it otherwise--of an old Brahman sacrificator, kneeling +near the little brasier. + +“He bore on his forehead the signs sacred to Vishnu, and around his +body the triple cord, sign of the initiates of the priestly caste. He +joined his hands above his head, as during the sacrifices, and his +lips moved as if they were reciting prayers. At a given moment, he +took a pinch of perfumed powder, and threw it upon the coals; it must +have been a strong compound, for a thick smoke arose on the instant, +and filled the two chambers. + +“When it was dissipated, I perceived the spectre, which, two steps +from me, was extending to me its fleshless hand; I took it in mine, +making a salutation, and I was astonished to find it, although bony +and hard, warm and living. + +“‘Art thou, indeed,’ said I at this moment, in a loud voice, ‘an +ancient inhabitant of the earth?’ + +“I had not finished the question, when the word AM (yes) appeared +and then disappeared in letters of fire, on the breast of the old +Brahman, with an effect much like that which the word would produce +if written in the dark with a stick of phosphorus. + +“‘Will you leave me nothing in token of your visit?’ I continued. + +“The spirit broke the triple cord, composed of three strands of +cotton, which begirt his loins, gave it to me, and vanished at my +feet.”[160] + +“Oh Brahma! what is this mystery which takes place every night?... +When lying on the matting, with eyes closed, the body is lost +sight of, and the soul escapes to enter into conversation with the +Pitris.... Watch over it, O Brahma, when, forsaking the resting body, +it goes away to hover over the waters, to wander in the immensity +of heaven, and penetrate into the dark and mysterious nooks of the +valleys and grand forests of the Hymavat!” (_Agroushada Parikshai._) + +The fakirs, when belonging to some particular temple, never act but +under orders. Not one of them, unless he has reached a degree of +extraordinary sanctity, is freed from the influence and guidance of +his guru, his teacher, who first initiated and instructed him in +the mysteries of the _occult_ sciences. Like the _subject_ of the +European mesmerizer, the average fakir can never rid himself entirely +of the psychological influence exercised on him by his guru. Having +passed two or three hours in the silence and solitude of the inner +temple in prayer and meditation, the fakir, when he emerges thence, +is mesmerically strengthened and prepared; he produces wonders far +more varied and powerful than before he entered. The “master” has +_laid his hands upon him_, and the fakir feels strong. + +It may be shown, on the authority of many Brahmanical and Buddhist +sacred books, that there has ever existed a great difference between +adepts of the higher order, and purely psychological subjects--like +many of these fakirs, who are mediums in a certain qualified sense. +True, the fakir is ever talking of Pitris, and this is natural; for +they are his protecting deities. But are the Pitris _disembodied +human beings of our race_? This is the question, and we will discuss +it in a moment. + +We say that the fakir may be regarded in a degree as a medium; for he +is--what is not generally known--under the direct mesmeric influence +of a living adept, his sannyâsi or guru. When the latter dies, the +power of the former, unless he has received the last transfer of +spiritual forces, wanes and often even disappears. Why, if it were +otherwise, should the fakirs have been excluded from the right of +advancing to the second and third degree? The lives of many of them +exemplify a degree of self-sacrifice and sanctity unknown and utterly +incomprehensible to Europeans, who shudder at the bare thought of +such self-inflicted tortures. But however shielded from control by +vulgar and earth-bound spirits, however wide the chasm between a +debasing influence and their self-controlled souls; and however well +protected by the seven-knotted magical bamboo rod which he receives +from the guru, still the fakir lives in the outer world of sin and +matter, and it is possible that his soul may be tainted, perchance, +by the magnetic emanations from profane objects and persons, and +thereby open an access to strange spirits and _gods_. To admit one +so situated, one not under any and all circumstances sure of the +mastery over himself, to a knowledge of the awful mysteries and +priceless secrets of initiation, would be impracticable. It would +not only imperil the security of that which must, at all hazards, +be guarded from profanation, but it would be consenting to admit +behind the veil a fellow being, whose mediumistic irresponsibility +might at any moment cause him to lose his life through an involuntary +indiscretion. The same law which prevailed in the Eleusinian +Mysteries before our era, holds good now in India. + +Not only must the adept have mastery over himself, but he must +be able to control the inferior grades of spiritual beings, +nature-spirits, and earthbound souls, in short the very ones by whom, +if by any, the fakir is liable to be affected. + +For the objector to affirm that the Brahman-adepts and the fakirs +admit that of themselves they are powerless, and can only act with +the help of disembodied human spirits, is to state that these Hindus +are unacquainted with the laws of their sacred books and even the +meaning of the word _Pitris_. The _Laws of Manu_, the _Atharva-Veda_, +and other books, prove what we now say. “All that exists,” says the +_Atharva-Veda_, “is in the power of the gods. The gods are under the +power of magical conjurations. The magical conjurations are under +the control of the Brahmans. Hence the gods are in the power of the +Brahmans.” This is logical, albeit seemingly paradoxical, and it is +the fact. And this fact will explain to those who have not hitherto +had the clew (among whom Jacolliot must be numbered, as will appear +on reading his works), why the fakir should be confined to the first, +or lowest degree of that course of initiation whose highest adepts, +or hierophants, are the _sannyâsis_, or members of the ancient +Supreme Council of Seventy. + +Moreover, in Book I., of the Hindu _Genesis_, or _Book of Creation_ +of _Manu_, the _Pitris_ are called the _lunar_ ancestors of the human +race. They belong to a race of beings different from ourselves, and +cannot properly be called “human spirits” in the sense in which the +spiritualists use this term. This is what is said of them: + +“Then they (the gods) created the Jackshas, the Rakshasas, the +Pisatshas,[161] the Gandarbas[162] and the Apsaras, and the Asuras, +the Nagas, the Sarpas and the Suparnas,[163] and the Pitris--_lunar +ancestors of the human race_” (See _Institutes of Manu_, Book I., +sloka 37, where the Pitris are termed “progenitors of mankind”). + +The Pitris are a distinct race of spirits belonging to the +mythological hierarchy or rather to the kabalistical nomenclature, +and must be included with the good genii, the dæmons of the Greeks, +or the inferior gods of the invisible world; and when a fakir +attributes his phenomena to the Pitris, he means only what the +ancient philosophers and theurgists meant when they maintained +that all the “miracles” were obtained through the intervention of +the gods, or the good and bad dæmons, who control the powers of +nature, the _elementals_, who are subordinate to the power of him +“who knows.” A ghost or human phantom would be termed by a fakir +_palīt_, or _chutnā_, as that of a female human spirit _pichhalpāi_, +not _pitris_. True, _pitara_ means (plural) fathers, ancestors; and +pitrā-i is a kinsman; but these words are used in quite a different +sense from that of the Pitris invoked in the mantras. + +To maintain before a devout Brahman or a fakir that any one can +converse with the spirits of the dead, would be to shock him with +what would appear to him blasphemy. Does not the concluding verse of +the _Bagavat_ state that this supreme felicity is alone reserved to +the holy sannyâsis, the gurus, and yogis? + +“Long before they finally rid themselves of their mortal envelopes, +the souls who have practiced only good, such as those of the +sannyâsis and the vanaprasthas, acquire the faculty of conversing +with the souls which preceded them to the swarga.” + +In this case the Pitris instead of genii are the spirits, or rather +souls, of the departed ones. But they will freely communicate only +with those whose atmosphere is as pure as their own, and to whose +prayerful _kalassa_ (invocation) they can respond without the risk of +defiling their own celestial purity. When the soul of the invocator +has reached the _Sayadyam_, or perfect identity of essence with the +Universal Soul, when matter is utterly conquered, then the adept +can freely enter into daily and hourly communion with those who, +though unburdened with their corporeal forms, are still themselves +progressing through the endless series of transformations included in +the gradual approach to the Paramâtma, or the grand Universal Soul. + +Bearing in mind that the Christian fathers have always claimed for +themselves and their saints the name of “friends of God,” and knowing +that they borrowed this expression, with many others, from the +technology of the Pagan temples, it is but natural to expect them +to show an evil temper whenever alluding to these rites. Ignorant, +as a rule, and having had biographers as ignorant as themselves, we +could not well expect them to find in the accounts of their beatific +visions a descriptive beauty such as we find in the Pagan classics. +Whether the visions and objective phenomena claimed by both the +fathers of the desert and the hierophants of the sanctuary are to +be discredited, or accepted as facts, the splendid imagery employed +by Proclus and Apuleius in narrating the small portion of the final +initiation that they dared reveal, throws completely into the shade +the plagiaristic tales of the Christian ascetics, faithful _copies_ +though they were intended to be. The story of the temptation of St. +Anthony in the desert by the female demon, is a parody upon the +preliminary trials of the neophyte during the _Mikra_, or minor +Mysteries of Agræ--those rites at the thought of which Clemens railed +so bitterly, and which represented the bereaved Demeter in search of +her child, and her good-natured hostess Baubo.[164] + +Without entering again into a demonstration that in Christian, and +especially Irish Roman Catholic, churches[165] the same apparently +indecent customs as the above prevailed until the end of the last +century, we will recur to the untiring labors of that honest and +brave defender of the ancient faith, Thomas Taylor, and his works. +However much dogmatic Greek scholarship may have found to say +against his “mistranslations,” his memory must be dear to every +true Platonist, who seeks rather to learn the inner thought of the +great philosopher than enjoy the mere external mechanism of his +writings. Better classical translators may have rendered us, in more +correct phraseology, Plato’s _words_, but Taylor shows us Plato’s +_meaning_, and this is more than can be said of Zeller, Jowett, and +their predecessors. Yet, as writes Professor A. Wilder, “Taylor’s +works have met with favor at the hands of men capable of profound +and recondite thinking; and it must be conceded that he was endowed +with a superior qualification--that of an intuitive perception of the +interior meaning of the subjects which he considered. Others may have +known more Greek, but he knew more Plato.”[166] + +Taylor devoted his whole useful life to the search after such +old manuscripts as would enable him to have his own speculations +concerning several obscure rites in the Mysteries corroborated by +writers who had been initiated themselves. It is with full confidence +in the assertions of various classical writers that we say that +ridiculous, perhaps licentious in some cases, as may appear ancient +worship to the modern critic, it ought not to have so appeared to the +Christians. During the mediæval ages, and even later, they accepted +pretty nearly the same without understanding the secret import of +its rites, and quite satisfied with the obscure and rather fantastic +interpretations of their clergy, who accepted the exterior form +and distorted the inner meaning. We are ready to concede, in full +justice, that centuries have passed since the great majority of the +Christian clergy, who _are not allowed to pry into God’s mysteries +nor seek to explain_ that which the Church has once accepted and +established, have had the remotest idea of their symbolism, whether +in its exoteric or esoteric meaning. Not so with the head of the +Church and its highest dignitaries. And if we fully agree with +Inman that it is “difficult to believe that the ecclesiastics who +sanctioned the publication of such prints[167] could have been as +ignorant as modern ritualists,” we are not at all prepared to believe +with the same author “that the latter, if they knew the real meaning +of the symbols commonly used by the Roman Church, would _not_ have +adopted them.” + +To eliminate what is plainly derived from the sex and nature worship +of the ancient heathens, would be equivalent to pulling down the +whole Roman Catholic image-worship--the _Madonna_ element--and +reforming the faith to Protestantism. The enforcement of the late +dogma of the Immaculation was prompted by this very secret reason. +The science of symbology was making too rapid progress. Blind +faith in the Pope’s infallibility and in the immaculate nature +of the Virgin and _of her ancestral female lineage to a certain +remove_ could alone save the Church from the indiscreet revelations +of science. It was a clever stroke of policy on the part of the +vicegerent of God. What matters it if, by “conferring upon her such +an honor,” as Don Pascale de Franciscis naïvely expresses it, he has +made a goddess of the Virgin Mary, an Olympian Deity, who, having +been by her very nature placed in the impossibility of sinning, +can claim no virtue, no personal merit for her purity, precisely +for which, as we were taught to believe in our younger days, she +was chosen among all other women. If his Holiness has deprived her +of this, perhaps, on the other hand, he thinks that he has endowed +her with at least one physical attribute not shared by the other +virgin-goddesses. But even this new dogma, which, in company with the +new claim to _infallibility_, has quasi-revolutionized the Christian +world, is not original with the Church of Rome. It is but a return to +a hardly-remembered _heresy_ of the early Christian ages, that of the +Collyridians, so called from their _sacrificing cakes_ to the Virgin, +whom they claimed to _be Virgin-born_.[168] The new sentence, “O, +Virgin Mary, _conceived without sin_,” is simply a tardy acceptance +of that which was at first deemed a “_blasphemous heresie_” by the +orthodox fathers. + +To think for one moment that any of the popes, cardinals, or other +high dignitaries “were not aware” from the first to the last of the +external meanings of their symbols, is to do injustice to their +great learning and their spirit of Machiavellism. It is to forget +that the emissaries of Rome will never be stopped by any difficulty +which can be skirted by the employment of Jesuitical artifice. +The policy of complaisant conformity was never carried to greater +lengths than by the missionaries in Ceylon, who, according to the +Abbé Dubois--certainly a learned and competent authority--“conducted +the images of the Virgin and Saviour on triumphal cars, imitated +from the orgies of Juggernauth, and introduced the dancers from the +Brahminical rites into the ceremonial of the church.”[169] Let us at +least thank these black-frocked politicians for their consistency in +employing the car of Juggernauth, upon which the “wicked heathen” +convey the _lingham_ of Siva. To have used _this_ car to carry in its +turn the Romish representative of the female principle in nature, +is to show discrimination and a thorough knowledge of the oldest +mythological conceptions. They have blended the two deities, and thus +represented, in a Christian procession, the “heathen” Brahma, or Nara +(the father), Nari (the mother), and Viradj (the son). + +Says Manu: “The Sovereign Master who exists through himself, divides +his body into two halves, male and female, and from the union of +these two principles is born Viradj, the Son.”[170] + +There was not a Christian Father who could have been ignorant of +these symbols in their physical meaning; for it is in this latter +aspect that they were abandoned to the ignorant rabble. Moreover, +they all had as good reasons to suspect the occult symbolism +contained in these images; although as none of them--Paul excepted, +perhaps--had been initiated they could know nothing whatever about +the nature of the final rites. Any person revealing these mysteries +was put to death, regardless of sex, nationality, or creed. A +Christian father would no more be proof against _an accident_ than a +Pagan _Mysta_ or the Μύστης. + +If during the _Aporreta_ or preliminary arcanes, there were some +practices which might have shocked the pudicity of a Christian +convert--though we doubt the sincerity of such statements--their +mystical symbolism was all sufficient to relieve the performance +of any charge of licentiousness. Even the episode of the Matron +Baubo--whose rather eccentric method of consolation was immortalized +in the minor Mysteries--is explained by impartial mystagogues quite +naturally. Ceres-Demeter and her earthly wanderings in search of +her daughter are the euhemerized descriptions of one of the most +metaphysico-psychological subjects ever treated of by human mind. +It is a mask for the transcendent narrative of the initiated seers; +the celestial vision of the freed soul of the initiate of the last +hour describing the process by which the soul that has not yet been +incarnated descends for the first time into matter, “Blessed is he +who hath seen those _common concerns_ of the underworld; he knows +both the end of life and its divine origin from Jupiter,” says +Pindar. Taylor shows, on the authority of more than one initiate, +that the “dramatic performances of the Lesser Mysteries were +designed by their founders, to signify _occultly_ the condition of +the unpurified soul invested with an earthly body, and enveloped +in a material and physical nature ... that the soul, indeed, till +purified by philosophy, suffers death through its union with the +body.” + +The body is the sepulchre, the prison of the soul, and many Christian +Fathers held with Plato that the soul is _punished_ through its union +with the body. Such is the fundamental doctrine of the Buddhists and +of many Brahmanists too. When Plotinus remarks that “when the soul +has descended into generation (from its _half_-divine condition) +she partakes of evil, and is carried a great way into a state the +opposite of her first purity and integrity, to be entirely merged +in which is nothing more than to fall into dark mire;”[171] he only +repeats the teachings of Gautama-Buddha. If we have to believe the +ancient initiates at all, we must accept their interpretation of the +symbols. And if, moreover, we find them perfectly coinciding with +the teachings of the greatest philosophers and that which we know +symbolizes the same meaning in the modern Mysteries in the East, we +must believe them to be right. + +If Demeter was considered the intellectual soul, or rather the +_Astral_ soul, half emanation from the spirit and half tainted with +matter through a succession of spiritual evolutions--we may readily +understand what is meant by the Matron Baubo, the Enchantress, who +before she succeeds in reconciling the soul--Demeter, to its new +position, finds herself obliged to assume the sexual forms of an +infant. Baubo is _matter_, the physical body; and the intellectual, +as yet pure astral soul can be ensnared into its new terrestrial +prison but by the display of innocent babyhood. Until then, doomed to +her fate, Demeter, or _Magna-mater_, the Soul, wonders and hesitates +and suffers; but once having partaken of the magic potion prepared +by Baubo, she forgets her sorrows; for a certain time she parts with +that consciousness of higher intellect that she was possessed of +before entering the body of a child. Thenceforth she must seek to +rejoin it again; and when the age of reason arrives for the child, +the struggle--forgotten for a few years of infancy--begins again. The +astral soul is placed between matter (body) and the highest intellect +(its immortal spirit or _nous_). Which of those two will conquer? The +result of the battle of life lies between the triad. It is a question +of a few years of physical enjoyment on earth and--if it has begotten +abuse--of the dissolution of the earthly body being followed by death +of the astral body, which thus is prevented from being united with +the highest spirit of the triad, which alone confers on us individual +immortality; or, on the other hand, of becoming immortal mystæ; +initiated before death of the body into the divine truths of the +after life. Demi-gods below, and GODS above. + +Such was the chief object of the Mysteries represented as diabolical +by theology, and ridiculed by modern symbologists. To disbelieve that +there exist in man certain arcane powers, which, by psychological +study he can develop in himself to the highest degree, become an +hierophant and then impart to others under the same conditions of +earthly discipline, is to cast an imputation of falsehood and lunacy +upon a number of the best, purest, and most learned men of antiquity +and of the middle ages. What the hierophant was allowed to see at the +last hour is hardly hinted at by them. And yet Pythagoras, Plato, +Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, and many others knew and affirmed +their reality. + +Whether in the “inner temple,” or through the study of theurgy +carried on privately, or by the sole exertion of a whole life of +spiritual labor, they all obtained the practical proof of such divine +possibilities for man fighting his battle with life on earth to win a +life in the eternity. What the last _epopteia_ was is alluded to by +Plato in _Phædrus_ (64); “... being initiated in those _Mysteries_, +which it is lawful to call the most blessed of all mysteries ... we +were freed from the molestations of evils which otherwise await us +in a future period of time. Likewise, in consequence of this divine +_initiation_, we became _spectators_ of entire, simple, immovable, +and _blessed visions_, resident in a pure light.” This sentence shows +that they saw _visions_, gods, spirits. As Taylor correctly observes, +from all such passages in the works of the initiates it may be +inferred, “that the most sublime part of the _epopteia_ ... consisted +in beholding the gods themselves invested with a resplendent light,” +or highest planetary spirits. The statement of Proclus upon this +subject is unequivocal: “In all the initiations and mysteries, the +gods exhibit many forms of themselves, and appear in _a variety of +shapes_, and sometimes, indeed, a formless light of themselves is +held forth to the view; sometimes this light is according _to a human +form_, and sometimes it proceeds into a different shape.”[172] + +“Whatever is _on earth is the resemblance and_ SHADOW _of something +that is in the sphere_, while that resplendent thing (the prototype +of the soul-spirit) remaineth in _unchangeable_ condition, it is well +also with its shadow. But when the _resplendent one_ removeth far +from its shadow life removeth from the latter to a distance. And yet, +that very light is the shadow of something still more resplendent +than itself.” Thus speaks _Desatir_, the Persian _Book of Shet_,[173] +thereby showing its identity of esoteric doctrines with those of the +Greek philosophers. + +The second statement of Plato confirms our belief that the Mysteries +of the ancients were identical with the Initiations, as practiced +now among the Buddhists and the Hindu adepts. The highest visions, +the most _truthful_, are produced, not through _natural_ ecstatics +or “mediums,” as it is sometimes erroneously asserted, but through +a regular discipline of gradual initiations and development of +psychical powers. The Mystæ were brought into close union with +those whom Proclus calls “mystical natures,” “resplendent gods,” +because, as Plato says, “we were ourselves pure and immaculate, being +liberated from this _surrounding vestment_, which we denominate body, +and to which we are now bound like an oyster to its shell.”[174] + +So the doctrine of planetary and terrestrial Pitris was revealed +_entirely_ in ancient India, as well as now, only at the last moment +of initiation, and to the adepts of superior degrees. Many are the +fakirs, who, though pure, and honest, and self-devoted, have yet +never seen the astral form of a purely _human pitar_ (an ancestor or +father), otherwise than at the solemn moment of their first and last +initiation. It is in the presence of his instructor, the guru, and +just before the _vatou_-fakir is dispatched into the world of the +living, with his seven-knotted bamboo wand for all protection, that +he is suddenly placed face to face with the unknown PRESENCE. He sees +it, and falls prostrate at the feet of the evanescent form, but is +not entrusted with the great secret of its evocation; for it is the +supreme mystery of the holy syllable. The AUM contains the evocation +of the Vedic triad, the _Trimurti_ Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, say the +Orientalists;[175] it contains the evocation of _something more real +and objective than this triune abstraction_--we say, respectfully +contradicting the eminent scientists. It is the trinity of man +himself, on his way to become immortal through the solemn union of +his inner triune SELF--the exterior, gross body, the husk not even +being taken in consideration in this human trinity.[176] It is, +when this trinity, in anticipation of the final triumphant reunion +beyond the gates of corporeal death became for a few seconds a UNITY, +that the candidate is allowed, at the moment of the initiation, to +behold his future self. Thus we read in the Persian _Desatir_, of +the “Resplendent one;” in the Greek philosopher-initiates, of the +Augoeides--the self-shining “blessed vision resident in the pure +light;” in Porphyry, that Plotinus was united to his “god” six times +during his lifetime; and so on. + +“In ancient India, the mystery of the triad, known but to the +initiates, could not, under the penalty of death, be revealed to the +vulgar,” says Vrihaspati. + +Neither could it in the ancient Grecian and Samothracian Mysteries. +_Nor can it be now._ It is in the hands of the adepts, and must +remain a mystery to the world so long as the materialistic savant +regards it as an undemonstrated fallacy, an insane hallucination, and +the dogmatic theologian, a snare of the Evil One. + +_Subjective_ communication with the human, god-like spirits of those +who have preceded us to the silent land of bliss, is in India divided +into three categories. Under the spiritual training of a guru or +sannyâsi, the vatou (disciple or neophyte) begins _to feel_ them. +Were he not under the immediate guidance of an adept, he would be +controlled by the invisibles, and utterly at their mercy, for among +these subjective influences he is unable to discern the good from the +bad. Happy the sensitive who is sure of the purity of his spiritual +atmosphere! + +To this subjective consciousness, which is the _first_ degree, is, +after a time, added that of clairaudience. This is the _second_ +degree or stage of development. The sensitive--when not naturally +made so by psychological training--now audibly hears, but is still +unable to discern; and is incapable of verifying his impressions, and +one who is unprotected the tricky powers of the air but too often +delude with semblances of voices and speech. But the guru’s influence +is there; it is the most powerful shield against the intrusion of the +_bhutná_ into the atmosphere of the vatou, consecrated to the pure, +human, and celestial Pitris. + +The _third_ degree is that when the fakir or any other candidate +both feels, hears, and sees; and when he can at will produce the +_reflections_ of the Pitris on the mirror of astral light. All +depends upon his psychological and mesmeric powers, which are always +proportionate to the intensity of his _will_. But the fakir will +never control the Akasa, the spiritual life-principle, the omnipotent +agent of every phenomenon, in the same degree as an adept of the +third and highest initiation. And the phenomena produced by the +will of the latter do not generally run the market-places for the +satisfaction of open-mouthed investigators. + +The unity of God, the immortality of the spirit, belief in salvation +only through our works, merit and demerit; such are the principal +articles of faith of the Wisdom-religion, and the ground work of +Vedaism, Buddhism, Parsism, and such we find to have been even that +of the ancient Osirism, when we, after abandoning the popular sun-god +to the materialism of the rabble, confine our attention to the _Books +of Hermes_, the thrice-great. + +“The THOUGHT concealed as yet the world in silence and darkness.... +Then the Lord who exists through Himself, and _who is not to be +divulged to the external senses of man_; dissipated darkness, and +manifested the perceptible world.” + +“He that can be perceived only by the spirit, that escapes the +organs of sense, who is without visible parts, eternal, the soul of +all beings, that none can comprehend, displayed His own splendor” +(_Manu_, book i., slokas, 6-7). + +Such is the ideal of the Supreme in the mind of every Hindu +philosopher. + +“Of all the duties, the principal one is to acquire the knowledge of +the supreme soul (the spirit); it is the first of all sciences, _for +it alone confers on man immortality_” (_Manu_, book xii., sloka 85). + +And our scientists talk of the Nirvana of Buddha and the Moksha of +Brahma as of a complete annihilation! It is thus that the following +verse is interpreted by some materialists. + +“The man who recognizes the _Supreme Soul_, in his own soul, as well +as in that of all creatures, and who is equally just to all (whether +man or animals) obtains the happiest of all fates, that to be finally +_absorbed_ in the bosom of Brahma” (_Manu_, book xii., sloka 125). + +The doctrine of the Moksha and the Nirvana, as understood by the +school of Max Müller, can never bear confronting with numerous +texts that can be found, if required, as a final refutation. There +are sculptures in many pagodas which contradict, point-blank, the +imputation. Ask a Brahman to explain Moksha, address yourself to +an educated Buddhist and pray him to define for you the meaning of +Nirvana. Both will answer you that in every one of these religions +Nirvana represents the dogma of the spirit’s immortality. That, +to reach the Nirvana means absorption into the great universal +soul, the latter representing a _state_, not an individual being +or an anthropomorphic god, as some understand the great EXISTENCE. +That a spirit reaching such a state becomes a _part_ of the +integral _whole_, but never loses its individuality for all that. +Henceforth, the spirit lives spiritually, without any fear of further +modifications of form; for form pertains to matter, and the state of +_Nirvana_ implies a complete purification or a final riddance from +even the most sublimated particle of matter. + +This word, _absorbed_, when it is proved that the Hindus and +Buddhists believe in the _immortality_ of the spirit, must +necessarily mean intimate union, not annihilation. Let Christians +call them idolaters, if they still dare do so, in the face of science +and the latest translations of the sacred Sanscrit books; they have +no right to present the speculative philosophy of ancient sages as +an inconsistency and the philosophers themselves as illogical fools. +With far better reason we can accuse the ancient Jews of utter +_nihilism_. There is not a word contained in the Books of Moses--or +the prophets either--which, taken literally, implies the spirit’s +immortality. Yet every devout Jew hopes as well to be “gathered into +the bosom of A-Braham.” + +The hierophants and some Brahmans are accused of having administered +to their epoptai strong drinks or anæsthetics to produce visions +which shall be taken by the latter as realities. They did and do use +sacred beverages which, like the Soma-drink, possess the faculty +of freeing the astral form from the bonds of matter; but in those +visions there is as little to be attributed to hallucination as +in the glimpses which the scientist, by the help of his optical +instrument, gets into the microscopic world. A man cannot perceive, +touch, and converse with pure spirit through any of his bodily +senses. Only spirit alone can talk to and see spirit; and even our +astral soul, the _Doppelganger_, is too gross, too much tainted +yet with earthly matter to trust entirely to its perceptions and +insinuations. + +How dangerous may often become _untrained_ mediumship, and how +thoroughly it was understood and provided against by the ancient +sages, is perfectly exemplified in the case of Socrates. The old +Grecian philosopher was a “medium;” hence, he had never been +initiated into the Mysteries; for such was the rigorous law. But he +had his “familiar spirit” as they call it, his _daimonion_; and this +invisible counsellor became the cause of his death. It is generally +believed that if he was not initiated into the Mysteries it was +because he himself neglected to become so. But the _Secret Records_ +teach us that it was because he could not be admitted to participate +in the sacred rites, and precisely, as we state, on account of his +mediumship. There was a law against the admission not only of such +as were convicted of deliberate _witchcraft_[177] but even of those +who were known to have “a familiar spirit.” The law was just and +logical, because a genuine medium is more or less irresponsible; +and the eccentricities of Socrates are thus accounted for in some +degree. A medium must be _passive_; and if a firm believer in his +“spirit-guide” he will allow himself to be ruled by the latter, +not by the rules of the sanctuary. A _medium_ of olden times, like +the modern “medium” was subject to be _entranced_ at the will and +pleasure of the “power” which _controlled_ him; therefore, he could +not well have been entrusted with the awful secrets of the final +initiation, “never to be revealed under the penalty of death.” The +old sage, in unguarded moments of “spiritual inspiration,” revealed +that which he had never learned; and was therefore put to death as an +atheist. + +How then, with such an instance as that of Socrates, in relation +to the visions and spiritual wonders at the epoptai, of the Inner +Temple, can any one assert that these seers, theurgists, and +thaumaturgists were all “spirit-mediums?” Neither Pythagoras, +Plato, nor any of the later more important Neo-platonists; neither +Iamblichus, Longinus, Proclus, nor Apollonius of Tyana, were ever +mediums; for in such case they would not have been admitted to +the Mysteries at all. As Taylor proves--“This assertion of divine +visions in the Mysteries is clearly confirmed by Plotinus. And in +short, that magical evocation formed a part of the sacerdotal office +in them, and that this was universally believed by all antiquity +long before the era of the later Platonists,” shows that apart from +natural “mediumship,” there has existed, from the beginning of time, +a mysterious science, discussed by many, but known only to a few. + +The use of it is a longing toward our only true and real home--the +after-life, and a desire to cling more closely to our parent spirit; +abuse of it is sorcery, witchcraft, _black_ magic. Between the two is +placed natural “mediumship;” a soul clothed with imperfect matter, a +ready agent for either the one or the other, and utterly dependent +on its surroundings of life, constitutional heredity--physical as +well as mental--and on the nature of the “spirits” it attracts around +itself. A blessing or a curse, as fate will have it, unless the +medium is purified of earthly dross. + +The reason why in every age so little has been generally known of +the mysteries of initiation, is twofold. The first has already been +explained by more than one author, and lies in the terrible penalty +following the least indiscretion. The second, is the superhuman +difficulties and even dangers which the daring candidate of old +had to encounter, and either conquer, or die in the attempt, when, +what is still worse, he did not lose his reason. There was no real +danger to him whose mind had become thoroughly spiritualized, and +so prepared for every terrific sight. He who fully recognized the +power of his immortal spirit, and never doubted for one moment its +omnipotent protection, had naught to fear. But woe to the candidate +in whom the slightest physical fear--sickly child of matter--made +him lose sight and faith in his own invulnerability. He who was not +wholly confident of his moral fitness to accept the burden of these +tremendous secrets was doomed. + +The _Talmud_ gives the story of the four Tanaïm, who are made, in +allegorical terms, to enter into _the garden of delights_; _i.e._, to +be initiated into the occult and final science. + +“According to the teaching of our holy masters the names of the four +who entered the garden of delight, are: Ben Asai, Ben Zoma, Acher, +and Rabbi Akiba.... + +“Ben Asai looked and--lost his sight. + +“Ben Zoma looked and--lost his reason. + +“Acher made depredations in the plantation” (mixed up the whole and +failed). “But Akiba, who had entered in peace, came out of it in +peace, for the saint whose name be blessed had said, ‘This old man is +worthy of serving us with glory.’” + +“The learned commentators of the _Talmud_, the Rabbis of the +synagogue, explain that the _garden of delight_, in which those +four personages are made to enter, is but that mysterious science, +the most terrible of sciences _for weak intellects, which it leads +directly to insanity_,” says A. Franck, in his _Kabbala_. It is not +the pure at heart and he who studies but with a view to perfecting +himself and so more easily acquiring the promised immortality, +who need have any fear; but rather he who makes of the science of +sciences a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who should tremble. +_The latter will never withstand the kabalistic evocations of the +supreme initiation._ + +The licentious performances of the thousand and one early Christian +sects, may be criticised by partial commentators as well as the +ancient Eleusinian and other rites. But why should they incur the +blame of the theologians, the Christians, when their own “Mysteries” +of “the divine incarnation with Joseph, Mary, and the angel” in +a sacred _trilogue_ used to be enacted in more than one country, +and were famous at one time in Spain and Southern France? Later, +they fell like many other once secret rites into the hands of the +populace. It is but a few years since, during every Christmas week, +Punch-and-Judy-boxes, containing the above named personages, an +additional display of the infant Jesus in his manger, were carried +about the country in Poland and Southern Russia. They were called +_Kaliadovki_, a word the correct etymology of which we are unable +to give unless it is from the verb _Kaliadovât_, a word that we as +willingly abandon to learned philologists. We have seen this show in +our days of childhood. We remember the three king-Magi represented +by three dolls in powdered wigs and colored tights; and it is from +recollecting the simple, profound veneration depicted on the faces +of the pious audience, that we can the more readily appreciate the +honest and just remark by the editor, in the introduction to the +_Eleusinian Mysteries_, who says: “It is ignorance which leads to +profanation. Men ridicule what they do not properly understand.... +The undercurrent of this world is set toward one goal; and inside of +human credulity--call it human weakness, if you please--is a power +almost infinite, a holy faith capable of apprehending the supremest +truths of all existence.” + +If that abstract sentiment called _Christian charity_ prevailed in +the Church, we would be well content to leave all this unsaid. We +have no quarrel with Christians whose faith is sincere and whose +practice coincides with their profession. But with an arrogant, +dogmatic, and dishonest clergy, we have nothing to do except to see +the ancient philosophy--antagonized by modern theology in its puny +offspring--Spiritualism--defended and righted so far as we are able, +so that its grandeur and sufficiency may be thoroughly displayed. It +is not alone for the esoteric philosophy that we fight; nor for any +modern system of moral philosophy, but for the inalienable right of +private judgment, and especially for the ennobling idea of a future +life of activity and accountability. + +We eagerly applaud such commentators as Godfrey Higgins, Inman, Payne +Knight, King, Dunlap, and Dr. Newton, however much they disagree +with our own mystical views, for their diligence is constantly being +rewarded by fresh discoveries of the Pagan paternity of Christian +symbols. But otherwise, all these learned works are useless. Their +researches only cover half the ground. Lacking the true key of +interpretation they see the symbols only in a physical aspect. They +have no password to cause the gates of mystery to swing open; and +ancient spiritual philosophy is to them a closed book. Diametrically +opposed though they be to the clergy in their ideas respecting it, in +the way of interpretation they do little more than their opponents +for a questioning public. Their labors tend to strengthen materialism +as those of the clergy, especially the Romish clergy, do to cultivate +belief in diabolism. + +If the study of Hermetic philosophy held out no other hope of reward, +it would be more than enough to know that by it we may learn with +what perfection of justice the world is governed. A sermon upon this +text is preached by every page of history. Among all there is not +one that conveys a deeper moral than the case of the Roman Church. +The divine law of compensation was never more strikingly exemplified +than in the fact that by her own act she has deprived herself of +the only possible key to her own religious mysteries. The assumption +of Godfrey Higgins that there are two doctrines maintained in the +Roman Church, one for the masses and the other--the esoteric--for the +“perfect,” or the initiates, as in the ancient Mysteries, appears +to us unwarranted and rather fantastic. They have lost the key, we +repeat; otherwise no terrestrial power could have prostrated her, and +except a superficial knowledge of the means of producing “miracles,” +her clergy can in no way be compared in their wisdom with the +hierophants of old. + +In burning the works of the theurgists; in proscribing those who +affect their study; in affixing the stigma of demonolatry to magic +in general, Rome has left her exoteric worship and _Bible_ to be +helplessly riddled by every free-thinker, her sexual emblems to be +identified with coarseness, and her priests to unwittingly turn +magicians and even sorcerers in their exorcisms, which are but +necromantic evocations. Thus retribution, by the exquisite adjustment +of divine law, is made to overtake this scheme of cruelty, injustice, +and bigotry, through her own suicidal acts. + +True philosophy and divine truth are convertible terms. A religion +which dreads the light cannot be a religion based on either truth +or philosophy--hence, it must be false. The ancient Mysteries were +mysteries to the profane only, whom the hierophant never sought nor +would accept as proselytes; to the initiates the Mysteries became +explained as soon as the final veil was withdrawn. No mind like +that of Pythagoras or Plato would have contented itself with an +unfathomable and incomprehensible mystery, like that of the Christian +dogma. There can be but one truth, for two small truths on the same +subject can but constitute one great error. Among thousands of +exoteric or popular conflicting religions which have been propagated +since the days when the first men were enabled to interchange their +ideas, not a nation, not a people, nor the most abject tribe, but +after their own fashion has believed in an Unseen God, the First +Cause of unerring and immutable laws, and in the immortality of our +spirit. No creed, no false philosophy, no religious exaggerations, +could ever destroy that feeling. It must, therefore, be based upon +an absolute truth. On the other hand, every one of the numberless +religions and religious sects views the Deity after its own fashion; +and, fathering on the unknown its own speculations, it enforces these +purely human outgrowths of overheated imagination on the ignorant +masses, and calls them “revelation.” As the dogmas of every religion +and sect often differ radically, they cannot be _true_. And if +untrue, what are they? + +“The greatest curse to a nation,” remarks Dr. Inman, “is not _a bad +religion_, but a form of faith which prevents manly inquiry. I know +of no nation of old that was priest-ridden which did not fall under +the swords of those who did not care for hierarchs.... The greatest +danger is to be feared from those ecclesiastics who wink at vice, +and encourage it as a means whereby they can gain power over their +votaries. So long as every man does to other men as he would that +they should do to him, and _allows no one to interfere between him +and his Maker_, all will go well with the world.”[178] + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + “KING.--Let us from point to point this story know.” + --_All’s Well That Ends Well._--Act v., Scene 3. + + + “He is the One, self-proceeding; and from Him all things proceed. + And in them He Himself exerts His activity; no mortal + BEHOLDS HIM, but HE beholds all!”--_Orphic Hymn._ + + + “And Athens, O Athena, is thy own! + Great Goddess hear! and on my darkened mind + Pour thy pure light in measure unconfined; + That sacred light, O all-proceeding Queen, + Which beams eternal from thy face serene. + My soul, while wand’ring on the earth, inspire + With thy own blessed and impulsive fire!” + --PROCLUS; TAYLOR: _To Minerva_. + + “Now _faith_ is the substance of things.... By faith the harlot + Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had + _received the spies in peace_.”--_Hebrews_ xi. 1, 31. + + “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man hath faith, and have + not works? _Can_ FAITH _save him_?... Likewise also was not Rahab + the harlot _justified by works_, when she had received the + messengers, and had sent them out another way?”--_James_ ii. 14, 25. + + +Clement describes Basilides, the Gnostic, as “a philosopher devoted +to the contemplation of divine things.” This very appropriate +expression may be applied to many of the founders of the more +important sects which later were all engulfed in one--that stupendous +compound of unintelligible dogmas enforced by Irenæus, Tertullian, +and others, which is now termed Christianity. _If these must be +called heresies, then early Christianity itself must be included +in the number._ Basilides and Valentinus preceded Irenæus and +Tertullian; and the two latter Fathers had less facts than the +two former Gnostics to show that their _heresy_ was plausible. +Neither divine right nor truth brought about the triumph of their +Christianity; fate alone was propitious. We can assert, with entire +plausibility, that there is not one of all these sects--Kabalism, +Judaism, and our present Christianity included--but sprung from +the two main branches of that one mother-trunk, the once universal +religion, which antedated the Vedaic ages--we speak of that +prehistoric Buddhism which merged later into Brahmanism. + +The religion which the primitive teaching of the early few apostles +most resembled--a religion preached by Jesus himself--is the elder of +these two, Buddhism. The latter as taught in its primitive purity, +and carried to perfection by the last of the Buddhas, Gautama, based +its moral ethics on three fundamental principles. It alleged that +1, every thing existing, exists from natural causes; 2, that virtue +brings its own reward, and vice and sin their own punishment; and, +3, that the state of man in this world is probationary. We might +add that on these three principles rested the universal foundation +of every religious creed; God, and individual immortality for +every man--if he could but win it. However puzzling the subsequent +theological tenets; however seemingly incomprehensible the +metaphysical abstractions which have convulsed the theology of every +one of the great religions of mankind as soon as it was placed on a +sure footing, the above is found to be the essence of every religious +philosophy, with the exception of later Christianity. It was that +of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of Plato, of Jesus, and even of Moses, +albeit the teachings of the Jewish law-giver have been so piously +tampered with. + +We will devote the present chapter mainly to a brief survey of the +numerous sects which have recognized themselves as Christians; that +is to say, that have believed in a _Christos_, or an ANOINTED ONE. +We will also endeavor to explain the latter appellation from the +kabalistic standpoint, and show it reappearing in every religious +system. It might be profitable, at the same time, to see how much the +earliest apostles--Paul and Peter, agreed in their preaching of the +new Dispensation. We will begin with Peter. + +We must once more return to that greatest of all the Patristic +frauds; the one which has undeniably helped the Roman Catholic Church +to its unmerited supremacy, viz.: the barefaced assertion, in the +teeth of historical evidence, that Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome. +It is but too natural that the Latin clergy should cling to it, for, +with the exposure of the fraudulent nature of this pretext, the dogma +of apostolic succession must fall to the ground. + +There have been many able works of late, in refutation of this +preposterous claim. Among others we note Mr. G. Reber’s, _The Christ +of Paul_, which overthrows it quite ingeniously. The author proves, +1, that there was no church established at Rome, until the reign +of Antoninus Pius; 2, that as Eusebius and Irenæus both agree that +Linus was the second Bishop of Rome, into whose hands “the blessed +apostles” Peter and Paul committed the church after building it, +it could not have been at any other time than between A.D. 64 and +68; 3, that this interval of years happens during the reign of +Nero, for Eusebius states that Linus held this office twelve years +(_Ecclesiastical History_, book iii., c. 13), entering upon it A.D. +69, one year after the death of Nero, and dying himself in 81. After +that the author maintains, on very solid grounds, that Peter could +not be in Rome A.D. 64, for he was then in Babylon; wherefrom he +wrote his first Epistle, the date of which is fixed by Dr. Lardner +and other critics at precisely this year. But we believe that his +best argument is in proving that it was not in the character of the +cowardly Peter to risk himself in such close neighborhood with Nero, +who “was feeding the wild beasts of the Amphitheatre with the flesh +and bones of Christians”[179] at that time. + +Perhaps the Church of Rome was but consistent in choosing as her +titular founder the apostle who thrice denied his master at the +moment of danger; and the only one, moreover, except Judas, who +provoked Christ in such a way as to be addressed as the “Enemy.” +“Get thee behind me, SATAN!” exclaims Jesus, rebuking the taunting +apostle.[180] + +There is a tradition in the Greek Church which has never found favor +at the Vatican. The former traces its origin to one of the Gnostic +leaders--Basilides, perhaps, who lived under Trajan and Adrian, at +the end of the first and the beginning of the second century. With +regard to this particular tradition, if the Gnostic is Basilides, +then he must be accepted as a sufficient authority, having claimed +to have been a disciple of the Apostle Matthew, and to have had for +master Glaucias, a disciple of St. Peter himself. Were the narrative +attributed to him authenticated, the London Committee for the +Revision of the Bible would have to add a new verse to _Matthew_, +_Mark_, and _John_, who tell the story of Peter’s denial of Christ. + +This tradition, then, of which we have been speaking, affirms that, +when frightened at the accusation of the servant of the high priest, +the apostle had thrice denied his master, and the cock had crowed, +Jesus, who was then passing through the hall in custody of the +soldiers, turned, and, looking at Peter, said: “Verily, I say unto +thee, Peter, thou shalt deny me throughout the coming ages, and never +stop until thou shalt be old, and shalt stretch forth thy hands, and +another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.” The +latter part of this sentence, say the Greeks, relates to the Church +of Rome, and prophesies her constant apostasy from Christ, under the +mask of false religion. Later, it was inserted in the twenty-first +chapter of _John_, but the whole of this chapter had been pronounced +a forgery, even before it was found that this _Gospel_ was never +written by John the Apostle at all. + +The anonymous author of _Supernatural Religion_, a work which in +two years passed through several editions, and which is alleged to +have been written by an eminent theologian, proves conclusively +the spuriousness of the four gospels, or at least their complete +transformation in the hands of the too-zealous Irenæus and his +champions. The fourth gospel is completely upset by this able author; +the extraordinary forgeries of the Fathers of the early centuries +are plainly demonstrated, and the relative value of the synoptics +is discussed with an unprecedented power of logic. The work carries +conviction in its every line. From it we quote the following: “We +gain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in the +reality of Divine Revelation. Whilst we retain, pure and unimpaired, +the treasure of Christian morality, we relinquish nothing but the +debasing elements added to it by human superstition. We are no +longer bound to believe a theology which outrages reason and moral +sense. We are freed from base anthropomorphic views of God and His +government of the Universe, and from Jewish Mythology we rise to +higher conceptions of an infinitely wise and beneficent Being, hidden +from our finite minds, it is true, in the impenetrable glory of +Divinity, but whose laws of wondrous comprehensiveness and perfection +we ever perceive in operation around us.... The argument so often +employed by theologians, that Divine revelation is necessary for man, +and that certain views contained in that revelation are required for +our moral consciousness, is purely imaginary, and derived from the +revelation which it seeks to maintain. The only thing absolutely +necessary for man is TRUTH, and to that, and that alone, must our +moral consciousness adapt itself.”[181] + +We will consider farther in what light was regarded the Divine +revelation of the Jewish _Bible_ by the Gnostics, who yet believed +in Christ in their own way, a far better and less blasphemous one +than the Roman Catholic. The Fathers have forced on the believers +in Christ a _Bible_, the laws prescribed in which he was the first +to break; the teachings of which he utterly rejected; and for which +crimes he was finally crucified. Of whatever else the Christian world +can boast, it can hardly claim logic and consistency as its chief +virtues. + +The fact alone that Peter remained to the last an “apostle of the +circumcision,” speaks for itself. _Whosoever else might have built +the Church of Rome it was not Peter._ If such were the case, the +successors of this apostle would have to submit themselves to +circumcision, if it were but for the sake of consistency, and to +show that the claims of the popes are not utterly groundless, Dr. +Inman asserts that report says that “in our Christian times popes +have to be privately perfect,”[182] but we do not know whether it is +carried to the extent of the Levitical Jewish law. The first fifteen +Christian bishops of Jerusalem, commencing with James and including +Judas, were all circumcised Jews.[183] + +In the _Sepher Toldos Jeshu_,[184] a Hebrew manuscript of great +antiquity, the version about Peter is different. Simon Peter, it +says, was one of their own brethren, though he had somewhat departed +from the laws, and the Jewish hatred and persecution of the apostle +seems to have existed but in the fecund imagination of the fathers. +The author speaks of him with great respect and fairness, calling +him “a faithful servant of the living God,” who passed his life in +austerity and meditation, “living in Babylon at the summit of a +tower,” composing hymns, and preaching charity. He adds that Peter +always recommended to the Christians not to molest the Jews, but +as soon as he was dead, behold another preacher went to Rome and +pretended that Simon Peter had altered the teachings of his master. +He invented a burning hell and threatened every one with it; promised +miracles, but worked none. + +How much there is in the above of fiction and how much of truth, it +is for others to decide; but it certainly bears more the evidence +of sincerity and fact on its face, than the fables concocted by the +fathers to answer their end. + +We may the more readily credit this friendship between Peter and +his late co-religionists as we find in _Theodoret_ the following +assertion: “The Nazarenes are Jews, honoring the ANOINTED (Jesus) as +a _just man_ and using the _Evangel_ according to Peter.”[185] Peter +was a Nazarene, according to the _Talmud_. He belonged to the sect of +the later Nazarenes, which dissented from the followers of John the +Baptist, and became a rival sect; and which--as tradition goes--was +instituted by Jesus himself. + +History finds the first Christian sects to have been either Nazarenes +like John the Baptist; or Ebionites, among whom were many of the +relatives of Jesus; or Essenes (Iessaens) the Therapeutæ, healers, +of which the Nazaria were a branch. All these sects, which only in +the days of Irenæus began to be considered heretical, were more or +less kabalistic. They believed in the expulsion of demons by magical +incantations, and practiced this method; Jervis terms the Nabatheans +and other such sects “wandering Jewish exorcists,”[186] the Arabic +word _Nabæ_, meaning to wander, and the Hebrew נבא naba, to +prophesy. The _Talmud_ indiscriminately calls all the Christians +_Nozari_.[187] All the Gnostic sects equally believed in magic. +Irenæus, in describing the followers of Basilides, says, “They use +images, invocations, incantations, and all other things pertaining +unto magic.” Dunlap, on the authority of Lightfoot, shows that Jesus +was called _Nazaraios_, in reference to his humble and mean external +condition; “for Nazaraios means separation, alienation from other +men.”[188] + +The real meaning of the word nazar נזר signifies to vow or consecrate +one’s self to the service of God. As a noun it is a _diadem_ or emblem +of such consecration, a head so consecrated.[189] Joseph was styled a +_nazar_.[190] “The head of Joseph, the vertex of the nazar among his +brethren.” Samson and Samuel (שמו־אל שצשון Semes-on and Semva-el) are +described alike as _nazars_. Porphyry, treating of Pythagoras, says +that he was purified and initiated at Babylon by Zar-adas, the head of +the sacred college. May it not be surmised, therefore, that the +Zoro-Aster was the _nazar_ of Ishtar, Zar-adas or Na-Zar-Ad,[191] +being the same with change of idiom? Ezra, or עזרא, was a priest and +scribe, a hierophant; and the first Hebrew colonizer of Judea +was זרובבל Zeru-Babel or the Zoro or nazar of Babylon. + +The Jewish Scriptures indicate two distinct worships and religions +among the Israelites; that of Bacchus-worship under the mask of +Jehovah, and that of the Chaldean initiates to whom belonged some +of the _nazars_, the theurgists, and a few of the prophets. The +headquarters of these were always at Babylon and Chaldea, where two +rival schools of Magians can be distinctly shown. Those who would +doubt the statement will have in such a case to account for the +discrepancy between history and Plato, who of all men of his day +was certainly one of the best informed. Speaking of the Magians, he +shows them as instructing the Persian kings of Zoroaster, as the +son or priest of Oromasdes; and yet Darius, in the inscription at +Bihistun, boasts of having restored the cultus of Ormazd and put down +the Magian rites! Evidently there were two distinct and antagonistic +Magian schools. The oldest and the most esoteric of the two being +that which, satisfied with its unassailable knowledge and secret +power, was content to apparently relinquish her exoteric popularity, +and concede her supremacy into the hands of the reforming Darius. +The later Gnostics showed the same prudent policy by accommodating +themselves in every country to the prevailing religious forms, still +secretly adhering to their own essential doctrines. + +There is another hypothesis possible, which is that Zero-Ishtar +was the high priest of the Chaldean worship, or Magian hierophant. +When the Aryans of Persia, under Darius Hystaspes, overthrew the +Magian Gomates, and _restored_ the Masdean worship, there ensued an +amalgamation by which the Magian Zoro-astar became the Zara-tushra +of the _Vendidad_. This was not acceptable to the other Aryans, who +adopted the Vedic religion as distinguished from that of _Avesta_. +But this is but an hypothesis. + +And whatever Moses is now believed to have been, we will demonstrate +that he was an initiate. The Mosaic religion was at best a +sun-and-serpent worship, diluted, perhaps, with some slight +monotheistic notions before the latter were forcibly crammed into the +so-called “inspired Scriptures” by Ezra, at the time he was alleged to +have _re_written the Mosaic books. At all events the _Book of Numbers_ +was a later book; and there the sun-and-serpent worship is as plainly +traceable as in any Pagan story. The tale of the fiery serpents is an +allegory in more than one sense. The “serpents” were the _Levites_ or +_Ophites_, who were Moses’ bodyguard (see _Exodus_ xxxii. 26); and the +command of the “Lord” to Moses to hang the heads of the people “before +the Lord against the sun,” which is the emblem of this Lord, is +unequivocal. + +The nazars or prophets, as well as the Nazarenes, were an +anti-Bacchus caste, in so far that, in common with all the initiated +prophets, they held to the spirit of the symbolical religions and +offered a strong opposition to the idolatrous and exoteric practices +of the dead letter. Hence, the frequent stoning of the prophets by +the populace and under the leadership of those priests who made a +profitable living out of the popular superstitions. Otfried Müller +shows how much the Orphic Mysteries differed from the _popular_ +rites of Bacchus,[192] although the _Orphikoi_ are known to have +followed the worship of Bacchus. The system of the purest morality +and of a severe asceticism promulgated in the teachings of Orpheus, +and so strictly adhered to by his votaries, are incompatible with +the lasciviousness and gross immorality of the popular rites. The +fable of Aristæus pursuing Eurydiké into the woods where a serpent +occasions her death, is a very plain allegory, which was in part +explained at the earliest times. Aristæus is _brutal power_, pursuing +Eurydiké, the esoteric doctrine, into the woods where the serpent +(emblem of every sun-god, and worshipped under its grosser aspect +even by the Jews) kills her; _i.e._, forces truth to become still +more esoteric, and seek shelter in the Underworld, which is not +the hell of our theologians. Moreover, the fate of Orpheus, torn +to pieces by the Bacchantes, is another allegory to show that the +gross and popular rites are always more welcome than divine but +simple truth, and proves the great difference that must have existed +between the esoteric and the popular worship. As the poems of both +Orpheus and Musæus were said to have been lost since the earliest +ages, so that neither Plato nor Aristotle recognized anything +authentic in the poems extant in their time, it is difficult to say +with precision what constituted their peculiar rites. Still we have +the oral tradition, and every inference to draw therefrom; and this +tradition points to Orpheus as having brought his doctrines from +India. As one whose religion was that of the oldest Magians--hence, +that to which belonged the initiates of all countries, beginning with +Moses, the “sons of the Prophets,” and the ascetic _nazars_ (who +must not be confounded with those against whom thundered Hosea and +other prophets) to the Essenes. This latter sect were Pythagoreans +before they rather degenerated, than became perfected in their +system by the Buddhist missionaries, whom Pliny tells us established +themselves on the shores of the Dead Sea, ages before his time, “_per +sæculorum millia_.” But if, on the one hand, these Buddhist monks +were the first to establish monastic communities and inculcate the +strict observance of dogmatic conventual rule, on the other they +were also the first to enforce and popularize those stern virtues so +exemplified by Sakya-muni, and which were previously exercised only +in isolated cases of well-known philosophers and their followers; +virtues preached two or three centuries later by Jesus, practiced by +a few Christian ascetics, and gradually abandoned, and even entirely +forgotten by the Christian Church. + +The _initiated_ nazars had ever held to this rule, which had to be +followed before them by the adepts of every age; and the disciples +of John were but a dissenting branch of the Essenes. Therefore, +we cannot well confound them with all the nazars spoken of in the +_Old Testament_, and who are accused by Hosea with having separated +or consecrated themselves to _Bosheth_ בשת (see Hebrew text); which +implied the greatest possible abomination. To infer, as some critics +and theologians do, that it means to separate one’s self to _chastity_ +or continence, is either to advisedly pervert the true meaning, or to +be totally ignorant of the Hebrew language. The eleventh verse of the +first chapter of Micah half explains the word in its veiled +translation: “Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, etc.,” and in +the original text the word is _Bosheth_. Certainly neither Baal, nor +Iahoh Kadosh, with his _Kadeshim_, was a god of ascetic virtue, albeit +the _Septuaginta_ terms them, as well as the _galli_--the perfected +priests--τετελεσμένους, the _initiated_ and the _consecrated_.[193] +The great _Sod_ of the _Kadeshim_, translated in _Psalm_ lxxxix. 7, by +“assembly of the saints,” was anything but a mystery of the +“_sanctified_” in the sense given to the latter word by Webster. + +The Nazireate sect existed long before the laws of Moses, and +originated among people most inimical to the “chosen” ones of +Israel, viz., the people of Galilee, the ancient _olla-podrida_ of +idolatrous nations, where was built Nazara, the present Nazareth. +It is in Nazara that the ancient Nazorïa or Nazireates held their +“Mysteries of Life” or “assemblies,” as the word now stands in +the translation,[194] which were but the secret mysteries of +initiation,[195] utterly distinct in their practical form from the +popular Mysteries which were held at Byblus in honor of Adonis. While +the true _initiates_ of the ostracised Galilee were worshipping the +true God and enjoying transcendent visions, what were the “chosen” +ones about? Ezekiel tells it to us (chap. viii) when, in describing +what he saw, he says that the _form_ of a hand took him by a lock of +his head and transported him from Chaldea unto Jerusalem. “And there +stood seventy men of the senators of the house of Israel.... ‘Son of +man, hast thou seen what the ancients ... do in the dark?’” inquires +the “Lord.” “At the door of the house of the Lord ... behold there +sat women weeping for Tammuz” (Adonis). We really cannot suppose +that the Pagans have ever surpassed the “chosen” people in certain +shameful _abominations_ of which their own prophets accuse them so +profusely. To admit this truth, one hardly needs even to be a Hebrew +scholar; let him read the _Bible_ in English and meditate over the +language of the “holy” prophets. + +This accounts for the hatred of the later Nazarenes for the orthodox +Jews--followers of the _exoteric_ Mosaic Law--who are ever taunted +by this sect with being the worshippers of Iurbo-Adunai, or Lord +Bacchus. Passing under the disguise of _Adoni-Iachoh_ (original +text, _Isaiah_ lxi. 1), Iahoh and Lord Sabaoth, the Baal-Adonis, or +Bacchus, worshipped in the groves and _public sods_ or Mysteries, +under the polishing hand of Ezra becomes finally the later-vowelled +Adonai of the Massorah--the One and Supreme God of the Christians! + +“Thou shalt not worship the Sun who is named Adunai, says the _Codex_ +of the Nazarenes; whose name is also _Kadush_[196] and El-El. This +Adunai will elect to himself a nation and congregate _in crowds_ (his +worship will be exoteric) ... Jerusalem will become the refuge and +city of the _Abortive_, who shall perfect themselves (circumcise) +with a sword ... and shall adore Adunai.”[197] + +The oldest Nazarenes, who were the descendants of the Scripture +_nazars_, and whose last prominent leader was John the Baptist, +although never very orthodox in the sight of the scribes and +Pharisees of Jerusalem were, nevertheless, respected and left +unmolested. Even Herod “feared the multitude” because they regarded +John as a prophet (_Matthew_ xiv. 5). But the followers of Jesus +evidently adhered to a sect which became a still more exasperating +thorn in their side. It appeared as a heresy _within_ another +heresy; for while the nazars of the olden times, the “Sons of the +Prophets,” were Chaldean kabalists, the adepts of the new dissenting +sect showed themselves reformers and innovators from the first. +The great similitude traced by some critics between the rites and +observances of the earliest Christians and those of the Essenes may +be accounted for without the slightest difficulty. The Essenes, as we +remarked just now, were the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had +overrun Egypt, Greece, and even Judea at one time, since the reign +of Asoka the zealous propagandist; and while it is evidently to the +Essenes that belongs the honor of having had the Nazarene reformer, +Jesus, as a pupil, still the latter is found disagreeing with his +early teachers on several questions of formal observance. He cannot +strictly be called an Essene, for reasons which we will indicate +further on, neither was he a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect. +What Jesus _was_, may be found in the _Codex Nazaræus_, in the unjust +accusations of the Bardesanian Gnostics. + +“Jesu is _Nebu_, the false Messiah, the destroyer of the old orthodox +religion,” says the _Codex_.[198] He is the founder of the sect of +the new nazars, and, as the words clearly imply, a follower of the +Buddhist doctrine. In Hebrew the word _naba_ נבא means to speak of +inspiration; and נבו is _nebo_, a god of wisdom. But Nebo is also +_Mercury_, and _Mercury is Buddha_ in the Hindu monogram of planets. +Moreover, we find the Talmudists holding that Jesus was inspired by +the genius of Mercury.[199] + +The Nazarene reformer had undoubtedly belonged to one of these +sects; though, perhaps, it would be next to impossible to decide +absolutely which. But what is self-evident is that he preached the +philosophy of Buddha-Sakyamûni. Denounced by the later prophets, +cursed by the Sanhedrim, the nazars--they were confounded with others +of that name “who separated themselves unto that shame,”[200] they +were secretly, if not openly persecuted by the orthodox synagogue. +It becomes clear why Jesus was treated with such contempt from +the first, and deprecatingly called “the Galilean.” Nathaniel +inquires--“Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (_John_ +i. 46) at the very beginning of his career; and merely because he +knows him to be a _nazar_. Does not this clearly hint, that even the +older nazars were not really Hebrew religionists, but rather a class +of Chaldean theurgists? Besides, as the _New Testament_ is noted +for its mistranslations and transparent falsifications of texts, +we may justly suspect that the word Nazareth was substituted for +that of _nasaria_, or nozari. That it originally read “Can any good +thing come from a nozari, or Nazarene;” a follower of St. John the +Baptist, with whom we see him associating from his first appearance +on the stage of action, after having been lost sight of for a period +of nearly twenty years. The blunders of the _Old Testament_ are as +nothing to those of the _gospels_. Nothing shows better than these +self-evident contradictions the system of pious fraud upon which +the superstructure of the Messiahship rests. “This _is Elias_ which +was for to come,” says Matthew of John the Baptist, thus forcing an +ancient kabalistic tradition into the frame of evidence (xi. 14). But +when addressing the Baptist himself, they ask him (_John_ i. 16), +“Art thou Elias?” “And he saith _I am not_!” Which knew best--John or +his biographer? And which is divine revelation? + +The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, to +benefit humanity at large by producing a religious reform which +should give it a religion of pure ethics; the true knowledge of God +and nature having remained until then solely in the hands of the +esoteric sects, and their adepts. As Jesus used _oil_ and the Essenes +never used aught but pure water,[201] he cannot be called a strict +Essene. On the other hand, the Essenes were also “set apart;” they +were healers (_assaya_) and dwelt in the desert as all ascetics did. + +But although he did not abstain from wine he could have remained a +Nazarene all the same. For in chapter vi. of _Numbers_, we see that +after the priest has waved a part of the hair of a Nazorite for a +wave-offering before the Lord, “after that a Nazarene may drink +wine” (v. 20). The bitter denunciation by the reformer of the people +who would be satisfied with nothing is worded in the following +exclamation: “John came neither eating nor drinking and they say: ‘He +hath a devil.’... The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they +say: ‘Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber.’” And yet he was +an Essene and Nazarene, for we not only find him sending a message +to Herod, to say that he was one of those who cast out demons, and +who performed cures, but actually calling himself a prophet and +declaring himself equal to the other prophets.[202] + +The author of _Sod_ shows Matthew trying to connect the appellation +of Nazarene with a prophecy,[203] and inquires “Why then does +Matthew state that the prophet said he should be called _Nazaria_?” +Simply “because he belonged to that sect, and a prophecy would +confirm his claims to the Messiahship.... Now it does not appear +that the prophets anywhere state that the Messiah will be called a +_Nazarene_.”[204] The fact alone that Matthew tries in the last verse +of chapter ii. to strengthen his claim that Jesus dwelt in Nazareth +_merely to fulfil a prophecy_, does more than weaken the argument, it +upsets it entirely; for the first two chapters have sufficiently been +proved later forgeries. + +Baptism is one of the oldest rites and was practiced by all the +nations in their Mysteries, as sacred ablutions. Dunlap seems to +derive the name of the _nazars_ from nazah, sprinkling; Bahak-Zivo +is the genius who called the world into existence[205] out of +the “dark water,” say the Nazarenes; and Richardson’s _Persian, +Arabic, and English Lexicon_ asserts that the word _Bahak_ means +“raining.” But the Bahak-Zivo of the Nazarenes cannot be traced +so easily to Bacchus, who “was the rain-god,” for the nazars were +the greatest opponents of Bacchus-worship. “Bacchus is brought up +by the Hyades, the rain-nymphs,” says Preller;[206] who shows, +furthermore, that[207] at the conclusion of the religious Mysteries, +the priests baptized (washed) their monuments and anointed them +with oil. All this is but a very indirect proof. The Jordan baptism +need not be shown a substitution for the _exoteric_ Bacchic rites +and the libations in honor of Adonis or Adoni--whom the Nazarenes +abhorred--in order to prove it to have been a sect sprung from the +“Mysteries” of the “Secret Doctrine;” and their rites can by no means +be confounded with those of the Pagan populace, who had simply fallen +into the idolatrous and unreasoning faith of all plebeian multitudes. +John was the prophet of these Nazarenes, and in Galilee he was termed +“the Saviour,” but he was not the founder of that sect which derived +its tradition from the remotest Chaldeo-Akkadian theurgy. + +“The early plebeian Israelites were Canaanites and Phœnicians, +with the same worship of the Phallic gods--Bacchus, Baal or Adon, +Iacchos--Iao or Jehovah;” but even among them there had always +been a class of _initiated_ adepts. Later, the character of this +plebe was modified by Assyrian conquests; and, finally, the Persian +colonizations superimposed the Pharisean and Eastern ideas and +usages, from which the _Old Testament_ and the Mosaic institutes +were derived. The Asmonean priest-kings promulgated the canon of the +_Old Testament_ in contradistinction to the _Apocrypha_ or Secret +Books of the Alexandrian Jews--kabalists.[208] Till John Hyrcanus +they were Asideans (Chasidim) and Pharisees (Parsees), but then +they became Sadducees or Zadokites--asserters of sacerdotal rule as +contradistinguished from rabbinical. The Pharisees were lenient and +intellectual, the Sadducees, bigoted and cruel. + +Says the _Codex_: “John, son of the Aba-Saba-Zacharia, conceived +by his mother _Anasabet_ in her hundredth year, had baptized for +_forty-two years_[209] when Jesu Messias came to the Jordan to +be baptized with John’s baptism.... But he will _pervert John’s +doctrine_, changing the baptism of the Jordan, and perverting the +sayings of justice.”[210] + +The baptism was changed from _water_ to that of the Holy Ghost, +undoubtedly in consequence of the ever-dominant idea of the Fathers +to institute a reform, and make the Christians distinct from St. +John’s Nazarenes, the Nabatheans and Ebionites, in order to make +room for new dogmas. Not only do the Synoptics tell us that Jesus +was baptizing the same as John, but John’s own disciples complained +of it, though surely Jesus cannot be accused of following a purely +Bacchic rite. The parenthesis in verse 2d of John iv., “... though +Jesus himself baptized not,” is so clumsy as to show upon its face +that it is an interpolation. Matthew makes John say that he that +should come after him would not baptize them with water “but with +_the Holy Ghost_ and fire.” Mark, Luke, and John corroborate these +words. Water, fire, and spirit, or Holy Ghost, have all their origin +in India, as we will show. + +Now there is one very strange peculiarity about this sentence. It +is flatly denied in _Acts_ xix. 2-5. Apollos, a Jew of Alexandria, +belonged to the sect of St. John’s disciples; he had been baptized, +and instructed others in the doctrines of the Baptist. And yet when +Paul, cleverly profiting by his absence at Corinth, finds certain +disciples of Apollos’ at Ephesus, and asks them whether they received +_the Holy Ghost_, he is naïvely answered, “We have not so much as +heard whether there be any Holy Ghost!” “Unto what then were you +baptized?” he inquires. “_Unto John’s baptism_,” they say. Then Paul +is made to repeat the words attributed to John by the Synoptics; and +these men “were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,” exhibiting, +moreover, at the same instant, the usual polyglot gift which +accompanies the descent of the Holy Ghost. + +How then? St. John the Baptist, who is called the “precursor,” that +“the prophecy might be fulfilled,” the great prophet and martyr, +whose words ought to have had such an importance in the eyes of his +disciples, announces the “Holy Ghost” to his listeners; causes crowds +to assemble on the shores of the Jordan, where, at the great ceremony +of Christ’s baptism, the promised “Holy Ghost” appears within the +opened heavens, and the multitude hears the voice, and yet there are +disciples of St. John who have “never so much as _heard_ whether +there be any Holy Ghost!” + +Verily the disciples who wrote the _Codex Nazaræus_ were right. +Only it is not Jesus himself, but those who came after him, and who +concocted the _Bible_ to suit themselves, that “_perverted_ John’s +doctrine, _changed_ the baptism of the Jordan, and perverted the +sayings of justice.” + +It is useless to object that the present _Codex_ was written +centuries after the direct apostles of John preached. So were our +_Gospels_. When this astounding interview of Paul with the “Baptists” +took place, Bardesanes had not yet appeared among them, and the sect +was not considered a “heresy.” Moreover, we are enabled to judge how +little St. John’s promise of the “Holy Ghost,” and the appearance of +the “Ghost” himself, had affected his disciples, by the displeasure +shown by them toward the disciples of Jesus, and the kind of rivalry +manifested from the first. Nay, so little is John himself sure of the +identity of Jesus with the expected Messiah, that after the famous +scene of the baptism at the Jordan, and the oral assurance by the +_Holy Ghost_ Himself that “_This is my beloved Son_” (_Matthew_ iii. +17), we find “the Precursor,” in _Matthew_ xi., sending two of his +disciples from his prison to inquire of Jesus: “Art thou _he_ that +should come, or do we look _for another_!!” + +This flagrant contradiction alone ought to have long ago satisfied +reasonable minds as to the putative divine inspiration of the _New +Testament_. But we may offer another question: If baptism is the +sign of regeneration, and an ordinance instituted by Jesus, why do +not Christians now baptize as Jesus is here represented as doing, +“with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” instead of following the custom +of the Nazarenes? In making these palpable interpolations, what +possible motive could Irenæus have had except to cause people to +believe that the appellation of Nazarene, which Jesus bore, came only +from his father’s residence at Nazareth, and not from his affiliation +with the sect of _Nazaria_, the healers? + +This expedient of Irenæus was a most unfortunate one, for from time +immemorial the prophets of old had been thundering against the +baptism of fire as practiced by their neighbors, which imparted the +“spirit of prophecy,” or the Holy Ghost. But the case was desperate; +the Christians were universally called Nazoræns and Iessaens +(according to Epiphanius), and Christ simply ranked as a Jewish +prophet and healer--so self-styled, so accepted by his own disciples, +and so regarded by their followers. In such a state of things there +was no room for either a new hierarchy or a new God-head; and since +Irenæus had undertaken the business of manufacturing both, he had to +put together such materials as were available, and fill the gaps with +his own fertile inventions. + +To assure ourselves that Jesus was a true Nazarene--albeit with ideas +of a new reform--we must not search for the proof in the translated +_Gospels_, but in such original versions as are accessible. +Tischendorf, in his translation from the Greek of _Luke_ iv. 34, +has it “Iesou Nazarene;” and in the Syriac it reads “Iasoua, thou +_Nazaria_.” Thus, if we take in account all that is puzzling and +incomprehensible in the four _Gospels_, revised and corrected as they +now stand, we shall easily see for ourselves that the true, original +Christianity, such as was preached by Jesus, is to be found only in +the so-called Syrian heresies. Only from them can we extract any +clear notions about what was primitive Christianity. Such was the +faith of Paul, when Tertullus the orator accused the apostle before +the governor Felix. What he complained of was that they had found +“that man a mover of sedition ... a ringleader of _the sect of the +Nazarenes_;”[211] and, while Paul denies every other accusation, he +confesses that “after the way which they call heresy, _so worship I +the God of my fathers_.”[212] This confession is a whole revelation. +It shows: 1, that Paul admitted belonging to the sect of the +Nazarenes; 2, that he worshipped the _God of his fathers_, not the +trinitarian Christian God, of whom he knows nothing, and who was not +invented until after his death; and, 3, that this unlucky confession +satisfactorily explains why the treatise, _Acts of the Apostles_, +together with John’s _Revelation_, which at one period was utterly +rejected, were kept out of the canon of the _New Testament_ for such +a length of time. + +At Byblos, the neophytes as well as the hierophants were, after +participating in the Mysteries, obliged to fast and remain in +solitude for some time. There was strict fasting and preparation +before as well as after the Bacchic, Adonian, and Eleusinian orgies; +and Herodotus hints, with fear and veneration about the LAKE of +Bacchus, in which “they (the priests) made at night exhibitions of +his life and sufferings.”[213] In the Mithraic sacrifices, during +the initiation, a preliminary scene of death was simulated by the +neophyte, and it preceded the scene showing him himself “being born +again by the rite _of baptism_.” A portion of this ceremony is still +enacted in the present day by the Masons, when the neophyte, as the +Grand Master Hiram Abiff, lies dead, and is raised by the strong grip +of the lion’s paw. + +The priests were circumcised. The neophyte could not be initiated +without having been present at the solemn Mysteries of the LAKE. The +Nazarenes were baptized in the Jordan; and could not be baptized +elsewhere; they were also circumcised, and had to fast before as well +as after the purification by baptism. Jesus is said to have fasted +in the wilderness for forty days, immediately after his baptism. To +the present day, there is outside every temple in India, a lake, +stream, or a reservoir full of holy water, in which the Brahmans and +the Hindu devotees bathe daily. Such places of consecrated water are +necessary to every temple. The bathing festivals, or _baptismal_ +rites, occur twice every year; in October and April. Each lasts ten +days; and, as in ancient Egypt and Greece, the statues of their +gods, goddesses, and idols are immersed in water by the priests; the +object of the ceremony being to wash away from them the sins of their +worshippers which they have taken upon themselves, and which pollute +them, until washed off by holy water. During the Arâtty, the bathing +ceremony, the principal god of every temple is carried in solemn +procession to be baptized in the sea. The Brahman priests, carrying +the sacred images, are followed generally by the Maharajah--barefoot, +and nearly naked. _Three times_ the priests enter the sea; the third +time they carry with them the whole of the images. Holding them up +with prayers repeated by the whole congregation, the Chief Priest +plunges the statues of the gods _thrice_ in the name of the _mystic +trinity_, into the water; after which they are purified.[214] The +Orphic hymn calls _water_ the greatest purifier of men and gods. + +Our Nazarene sect is known to have existed some 150 years B.C., and +to have lived on the banks of the Jordan, and on the eastern shore +of the Dead Sea, according to Pliny and Josephus.[215] But in King’s +_Gnostics_, we find quoted another statement by Josephus from verse +13, which says that the Essenes had been established on the shores of +the Dead Sea “for thousands of ages” before Pliny’s time.[216] + +According to Munk the term “Galilean” is nearly synonymous with that +of “Nazarene;” furthermore, he shows the relations of the former with +the Gentiles as very intimate. The populace had probably gradually +adopted, in their constant intercourse, certain rites and modes +of worship of the Pagans; and the scorn with which the Galileans +were regarded by the orthodox Jews is attributed by him to the same +cause. Their friendly relations had certainly led them, at a later +period, to adopt the “Adonia,” or the sacred rites over the body +of the lamented Adonis, as we find Jerome fairly lamenting this +circumstance. “Over Bethlehem,” he says, “the grove of Thammuz, +that is of Adonis, was casting its shadow! And in the GROTTO where +formerly the infant Jesus cried, the lover of Venus was being +mourned.”[217] + +It was after the rebellion of Bar Cochba, that the Roman Emperor +established the Mysteries of Adonis at the Sacred Cave in Bethlehem; +and who knows but this was the _petra_ or rock-temple on which the +church was built? The Boar of Adonis was placed above the gate of +Jerusalem which looked toward Bethlehem. + +Munk says that the “Nazireate was an institution established before +the laws of Musah.”[218] This is evident; as we find this sect not +only mentioned but minutely described in _Numbers_ (chap. vi.). In +the commandment given in this chapter to Moses by the “Lord,” it is +easy to recognize the rites and laws of the Priests of Adonis.[219] +The abstinence and purity strictly prescribed in both sects are +identical. Both allowed their hair _to grow long_[220] as the Hindu +cœnobites and fakirs do to this day, while other castes shave their +hair and abstain on certain days from wine. The prophet Elijah, a +Nazarene, is described in _2 Kings_, and by Josephus as “a hairy man +girt with a girdle of leather.”[221] And John the Baptist and Jesus +are both represented as wearing very long hair.[222] John is “clothed +with camel’s hair” and wearing a girdle of hide, and Jesus in a long +garment “without any seams” ... “and very white, like snow,” says +Mark; the very dress worn by the Nazarene Priests and the Pythagorean +and Buddhist Essenes, as described by Josephus. + +If we carefully trace the terms _nazar_, and _nazaret_, throughout +the best known works of ancient writers, we will meet them in +connection with “Pagan” as well as Jewish adepts. Thus, Alexander +Polyhistor says of Pythagoras that he was a disciple of the Assyrian +_Nazaret_, whom some suppose to be Ezekiel. Diogenes Laërtius states +most positively that Pythagoras, after being initiated into all +the Mysteries of the Greeks and barbarians, “went into Egypt and +afterward visited the Chaldeans and Magi;” and Apuleius maintains +that it was Zoroaster who instructed Pythagoras. + +Were we to suggest that the Hebrew _nazars_, the railing prophets of +the “Lord,” had been initiated into the so-called Pagan mysteries, +and belonged (or at least a majority of them) to the same Lodge +or circle of adepts as those who were considered idolaters; that +their “circle of prophets” was but a collateral branch of a secret +association, which we may well term “international,” what a +visitation of Christian wrath would we not incur! And still, the case +looks strangely suspicious. + +Let us first recall to our mind that which Ammianus Marcellinus, and +other historians relate of Darius Hystaspes. The latter, penetrating +into Upper India (Bactriana), learned pure rites, and stellar and +cosmical sciences from Brachmans, and communicated them to the +Magi. Now Hystaspes is shown in history to have crushed the Magi; +and introduced--or rather forced upon them--the pure religion of +Zoroaster, that of Ormazd. How is it, then, that an inscription +is found on the tomb of Darius, stating that he was “teacher and +hierophant of magic, or magianism?” Evidently there must be some +historical mistake, and history confesses it. In this imbroglio of +names, Zoroaster, the teacher and instructor of Pythagoras, can be +neither the Zoroaster nor Zarathustra who instituted sun-worship +among the Parsees; nor he who appeared at the court of Gushtasp +(Hystaspes) the alleged father of Darius; nor, again, the Zoroaster +who placed his magi above the kings themselves. The oldest +Zoroastrian scripture--the _Avesta_--does not betray the slightest +traces of the reformer having ever been acquainted with any of the +nations that subsequently adopted his mode of worship. He seems +utterly ignorant of the neighbors of Western Iran, the Medes, the +Assyrians, the Persians, and others. If we had no other evidences of +the great antiquity of the Zoroastrian religion than the discovery +of the blunder committed by some scholars in our own century, who +regarded King Vistaspa (Gushtasp) as identical with the father of +Darius, whereas the Persian tradition points directly to Vistaspa as +to the last of the line of Kaianian princes who ruled in Bactriana, +it ought to be enough, for the Assyrian conquest of Bactriana took +place 1,200 years B.C.[223] + +Therefore, it is but natural that we should see in the appellation +of Zoroaster not a name but a generic term, whose significance must +be left to philologists to agree upon. _Guru_, in Sanscrit, is a +spiritual teacher; and as Zuruastara means in the same language he +who worships the sun, why is it impossible, that by some natural +change of language, due to the great number of different nations +which were converted to the sun worship, the word _guru-astara_, the +spiritual teacher of sun-worship, so closely resembling the name of +the founder of this religion, became gradually transformed in its +primal form of Zuryastara or Zoroaster? The opinion of the kabalists +is that there was but one Zarathustra and many _guruastars_ or +spiritual teachers, and that one such _guru_, or rather _huru_aster, +as he is called in the old manuscripts, was the instructor of +Pythagoras. To philology and our readers we leave the explanation +for what it is worth. Personally we believe in it, as we credit on +this subject kabalistic tradition far more than the explanation of +scientists, no two of whom have been able to agree up to the present +year. + +Aristotle states that Zoroaster lived 6,000 years before Christ; +Hermippus of Alexandria, who is said to have read the genuine books +of the Zoroastrians, although Alexander the Great is accused of +having destroyed them, shows Zoroaster as the pupil of Azonak +(Azon-ach, or the Azon-God) and as having lived 5,000 years before +the fall of Troy. Er or Eros, whose vision is related by Plato in the +_Republic_, is declared by Clement to have been Zordusth. While the +Magus who dethroned Cambyses was a Mede, and Darius proclaims that he +put down the Magian rites to establish those of Ormazd, Xanthus of +Lydia declares Zoroaster to have been the chief of the Magi! + +Which of them is wrong? or are they all right, and only the modern +interpreters fail to explain the difference between the Reformer +and his apostles and followers? This blundering of our commentators +reminds us of that of Suetonius, who mistook the Christians for one +Christos, or _Crestos_, as he spells it, and assured his readers that +Claudius banished him for the disturbance he made among the Jews. + +Finally, and to return again to the _nazars_, Zaratus is mentioned +by Pliny in the following words: “He was Zoroaster and _Nazaret_.” +As Zoroaster is called _princeps_ of the Magi, and _nazar_ signifies +separated or consecrated, is it not a Hebrew rendering of _mag_? +Volney believes so. The Persian word _Na-zaruan_ means millions of +years, and refers to the Chaldean “Ancient of Days.” Hence the name +of the Nazars or Nazarenes, who were consecrated to the service of +the Supreme one God, the kabalistic En-Soph, or the Ancient of Days, +the “Aged of the aged.” + +But the word _nazar_ may also be found in India. In Hindustani +_nazar_ is sight, internal or _supernatural_ vision; _nazar band-ī_ +means fascination, a mesmeric or magical spell; and _nazarān_ is the +word for sightseeing or vision. + +Professor Wilder thinks that as the word _Zeruana_ is nowhere to +be found in the _Avesta_, but only in the later Parsi books, it +came from the Magians, who composed the Persian sacred caste in +the Sassan period, but were originally Assyrians. “Turan, of the +poets,” he says, “I consider to be Aturia, or Assyria; and that Zohak +(Az-dahaka, Dei-okes, or Astyages), the Serpent-king, was Assyrian, +Median, and Babylonian--when those countries were united.” + +This opinion does not, however, in the least implicate our statement +that the secret doctrines of the Magi, of the pre-Vedic Buddhists, of +the hierophants of the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes, and of the adepts +of whatever age and nationality, including the Chaldean kabalists +and the Jewish _nazars_, were _identical_ from the beginning. When +we use the term _Buddhists_, we do not mean to imply by it either +the exoteric Buddhism instituted by the followers of Gautama-Buddha, +nor the modern Buddhistic religion, but the secret philosophy of +Sakyamuni, which in its essence is certainly identical with the +ancient wisdom-religion of the sanctuary, the pre-Vedic Brahmanism. +The “schism” of Zoroaster, as it is called, is a direct proof +of it. For it was no _schism_, strictly speaking, but merely a +partially-public exposition of strictly monotheistic religious +truths, hitherto taught only in the sanctuaries, and that he had +learned from the Brahmans. Zoroaster, the primeval institutor of +sun-worship, cannot be called the founder of the dualistic system; +neither was he the first to teach the unity of God, for he taught but +what he had learned himself with the Brahmans. And that Zarathustra +and his followers, the Zoroastrians, “had been settled in India +before they immigrated into Persia,” is also proved by Max Müller. +“That the Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India,” he +says, “during the Vaidik period, can be proved as distinctly as that +the inhabitants of Massilia started from Greece.... Many of the gods +of the Zoroastrians come out ... as mere reflections and deflections +of the primitive and authentic gods of the _Veda_.”[224] + +If, now, we can prove--and we can do so on the evidence of the +_Kabala_ and the oldest traditions of the wisdom-religion, the +philosophy of the old sanctuaries--that all these gods, whether of +the Zoroastrians or of the _Veda_, are but so many personated _occult +powers_ of nature, the faithful servants of the adepts of secret +wisdom--Magic--we are on secure ground. + +Thus, whether we say that Kabalism and Gnosticism proceeded from +Masdeanism or Zoroastrianism, it is all the same, unless we meant +the _exoteric_ worship--which we do not. Likewise, and in this +sense, we may echo King, the author of the _Gnostics_, and several +other archæologists, and maintain that both the former proceeded +from _Buddhism_, at once the simplest and most satisfying of +philosophies, and which resulted in one of the purest religions of +the world. It is only a matter of chronology to decide which of these +religions, differing but in external form, is the oldest, therefore +the least adulterated. But even this bears but very indirectly, if +at all, on the subject we treat of. Already some time before our +era, the adepts, except in India, had ceased to congregate in large +communities; but whether among the Essenes, or the Neo-platonists, +or, again, among the innumerable struggling sects born but to die, +the same doctrines, identical in substance and spirit, if not always +in form, are encountered. By _Buddhism_, therefore, we mean that +religion signifying literally the doctrine of wisdom, and which +by many ages antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddhârtha +Sakyamuni. + +After nineteen centuries of enforced eliminations from the canonical +books of every sentence which might put the investigator on the true +path, it has become very difficult to show, to the satisfaction +of exact science, that the “Pagan” worshippers of Adonis, their +neighbors, the Nazarenes, and the Pythagorean Essenes, the healing +Therapeutes,[225] the Ebionites, and other sects, were all, with very +slight differences, followers of the ancient theurgic Mysteries. And +yet by analogy and a close study of the _hidden_ sense of their rites +and customs, we can trace their kinship. + +It was given to a contemporary of Jesus to become the means of +pointing out to posterity, by his interpretation of the oldest +literature of Israel, how deeply the kabalistic philosophy agreed +in its esoterism with that of the profoundest Greek thinkers. This +contemporary, an ardent disciple of Plato and Aristotle, was Philo +Judæus. While explaining the Mosaic books according to a purely +kabalistic method, he is the famous Hebrew writer whom Kingsley calls +the Father of New Platonism. + +It is evident that Philo’s Therapeutes are a branch of the Essenes. +Their name indicates it--Ἐσσαῖοι, _Asaya_, physician. Hence, the +contradictions, forgeries, and other desperate expedients to reconcile +the prophecies of the Jewish canon with the Galilean nativity and +godship. + +Luke, who was a physician, is designated in the Syriac texts as +_Asaia_, the Essaian or Essene. Josephus and Philo Judæus have +sufficiently described this sect to leave no doubt in our mind that +the Nazarene Reformer, after having received his education in their +dwellings in the desert, and been duly initiated in the Mysteries, +preferred the free and independent life of a wandering _Nazaria_, and +so separated or _inazarenized_ himself from them, thus becoming a +travelling Therapeute, a Nazaria, a healer. Every Therapeute, before +quitting his community, had to do the same. Both Jesus and St. John +the Baptist preached the end of the Age;[226] which proves their +knowledge of the secret computation of the priests and kabalists, who +with the chiefs of the Essene communities alone had the secret of the +duration of the cycles. The latter were kabalists and theurgists; +“they had their _mystic_ books, and predicted future events,” says +Munk.[227] + +Dunlap, whose personal researches seem to have been quite successful +in that direction, traces the Essenes, Nazarenes, Dositheans, and +some other sects as having all existed before Christ: “They rejected +pleasures, _despised riches_, _loved one another_, and more than +other sects, neglected wedlock, deeming the conquest of the passions +to be virtuous,”[228] he says. + +These are all virtues preached by Jesus; and if we are to take the +gospels as a standard of truth, Christ was a metempsychosist “or +_re-incarnationist_--again like these same Essenes, whom we see were +Pythagoreans in all their doctrines and habits. Iamblichus asserts +that the Samian philosopher spent a certain time at Carmel with +them.[229] In his discourses and sermons, Jesus always spoke in +parables and used metaphors with his audience. This habit was again +that of the Essenians and the Nazarenes; the Galileans who dwelt +in cities and villages were never known to use such allegorical +language. Indeed, some of his disciples being Galileans as well as +himself, felt even surprised to find him using with the people such a +form of expression. “Why speakest thou unto them in parables?”[230] +they often inquired. “Because, it is given unto you to know the +Mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given,” +was the reply, which was that of an initiate. “Therefore, I speak +unto them in parables; because, they seeing, see not, and hearing, +they hear not, neither do they understand.” Moreover, we find Jesus +expressing his thoughts still clearer--and in sentences which are +purely Pythagorean--when, during the _Sermon on the Mount_, he says: + + “Give ye not that which is sacred to the dogs, + Neither cast ye your pearls before swine; + For the swine will tread them under their feet + And the dogs will turn and rend you.” + +Professor A. Wilder, the editor of Taylor’s _Eleusinian Mysteries_, +observes “a like disposition on the part of Jesus and Paul to +classify their doctrines as esoteric and exoteric, the Mysteries +of the Kingdom of God ‘for the apostles,’ and ‘parables’ for the +multitude. ‘We speak wisdom,’ says Paul, ‘among them that _are +perfect_’ (or initiated).”[231] + +In the Eleusinian and other Mysteries the participants were always +divided into two classes, the _neophytes_ and the _perfect_. The +former were sometimes admitted to the preliminary initiation: the +dramatic performance of Ceres, or the soul, descending to Hades.[232] +But it was given only to the “_perfect_” to enjoy and learn the +Mysteries of the divine _Elysium_, the celestial abode of the +blessed; this Elysium being unquestionably the same as the “Kingdom +of Heaven.” To contradict or reject the above, would be merely to +shut one’s eyes to the truth. + +The narrative of the Apostle Paul, in his second _Epistle to +the Corinthians_ (xii. 3, 4), has struck several scholars, well +versed in the descriptions of the mystical rites of the initiation +given by some classics, as alluding most undoubtedly to the final +_Epopteia_.[233] “I knew a certain man--_whether in body or outside +of body_, I know not: God knoweth--who was rapt into Paradise, and +heard things ineffable αρρητα ρηματα, _which it is not lawful for a +man to repeat_.” These words have rarely, so far as we know, been +regarded by commentators as an allusion to the beatific visions of an +“_initiated_” seer. But the phraseology is unequivocal. These things +“_which it is not lawful to repeat_,” are hinted at in the same words, +and the reason for it assigned, is the same as that which we find +repeatedly expressed by Plato, Proclus, Iamblichus, Herodotus, and +other classics. “We speak WISDOM only among them who are PERFECT,” +says Paul; the plain and undeniable translation of the sentence being: +“We speak of the profounder (or final) esoteric doctrines of the +Mysteries (which were denominated _wisdom_) only among them who are +_initiated_.”[234] So in relation to the “man who was rapt into +Paradise”--and who was evidently Paul himself[235]--the Christian word +Paradise having replaced that of Elysium. To complete the proof, we +might recall the words of Plato, given elsewhere, which show that +before an initiate could see the gods in their purest light, he had to +become _liberated_ from his body; _i.e._, to separate his astral soul +from it.[236] Apuleius also describes his initiation into the +Mysteries in the same way: “I approached the confines of death; and, +having trodden on the threshold of Proserpina, returned, having been +carried through all the elements. In the depths of midnight I saw the +sun glittering with a splendid light, together with _the infernal and +supernal gods_, and to these divinities approaching, I paid the +tribute of devout adoration.”[237] + +Thus, in common with Pythagoras and other hierophant reformers, +Jesus divided his teachings into exoteric and esoteric. Following +faithfully the Pythagoreo-Essenean ways, he never sat at a meal +without saying “grace.” “The priest prays before his meal,” says +Josephus, describing the Essenes. Jesus also divided his followers +into “neophytes,” “brethren,” and the “perfect,” if we may judge by +the difference he made between them. But his career at least as a +public Rabbi, was of a too short duration to allow him to establish +a regular school of his own; and with the exception, perhaps, of +John, it does not seem that he had initiated any other apostle. +The Gnostic amulets and talismans are mostly the emblems of the +apocalyptic allegories. The “seven vowels” are closely related to +the “seven seals;” and the mystic title Abraxas, partakes as much of +the compositian of _Shem Hamphirosh_, “the holy word” or ineffable +name, as the name called: The word of God, that “_no man knew but he +himself_,”[238] as John expresses it. + +It would be difficult to escape from the well-adduced proofs that the +_Apocalypse_ is the production of an initiated kabalist, when this +_Revelation_ presents whole passages taken from the _Books of Enoch_ +and _Daniel_, which latter is in itself an abridged imitation of the +former; and when, furthermore, we ascertain that the Ophite Gnostics +who rejected the _Old Testament_ entirely, as “emanating from an +inferior being (Jehovah),” accepted the most ancient prophets, such +as Enoch, and deduced the strongest support from this book for +their religious tenets, the demonstration becomes evident. We will +show further how closely related are all these doctrines. Besides, +there is the history of Domitian’s persecutions of magicians and +philosophers, which affords as good a proof as any that John was +generally considered a kabalist. As the apostle was included among +the number, and, moreover, conspicuous, the imperial edict banished +him not only from Rome, but even from the continent. It was not the +Christians whom--confounding them with the Jews, as some historians +will have it--the emperor persecuted, but the astrologers and +kabalists.[239] + +The accusations against Jesus of practicing the magic of Egypt were +numerous, and at one time universal, in the towns where he was known. +The Pharisees, as claimed in the _Bible_, had been the first to +fling it in his face, although Rabbi Wise considers Jesus himself a +Pharisee. The _Talmud_ certainly points to James the Just as one of +that sect.[240] But these partisans are known to have always stoned +every prophet who denounced their evil ways, and it is not on this +fact that we base our assertion. These accused him of sorcery, and of +driving out devils by Beelzebub, their prince, with as much justice +as later the Catholic clergy had to accuse of the same more than one +innocent martyr. But Justin Martyr states on better authority that +the men of his time _who were not Jews_ asserted that the miracles +of Jesus were performed by magical art--μαγικὴ φαντασία--the very +expression used by the skeptics of those days to designate the feats +of thaumaturgy accomplished in the Pagan temples. “They even ventured +to call him a magician and a deceiver of the people,” complains the +martyr.[241] In the _Gospel of Nicodemus_ (the _Acta Pilate_), the +Jews bring the same accusation before Pilate. “Did we not tell thee he +was a magician?”[242] Celsus speaks of the same charge, and as a +Neo-platonist believes in it.[243] The Talmudic literature is full of +the most minute particulars, and their greatest accusation is that +“Jesus could fly as easily in the air as others could walk.”[244] St. +Austin asserted that it was generally believed that he had been +initiated in Egypt, and that he wrote books concerning magic, which he +delivered to John.[245] There was a work called _Magia Jesu Christi_, +which was attributed to Jesus[246] himself. In the _Clementine +Recognitions_ the charge is brought against Jesus that he did not +perform his miracles as a Jewish prophet, but as a magician, _i.e._, +an initiate of the “heathen” temples.[247] + +It was usual then, as it is now, among the intolerant clergy of +opposing religions, as well as among the lower classes of society, +and even among those patricians who, for various reasons had been +excluded from any participation of the Mysteries, to accuse, +sometimes, the highest hierophants and adepts of sorcery and black +magic. So Apuleius, who had been initiated, was likewise accused of +witchcraft, and of carrying about him the figure of a skeleton--a +potent agent, as it is asserted, in the operations of the black art. +But one of the best and most unquestionable proofs of our assertion +may be found in the so-called _Museo Gregoriano_. On the sarcophagus, +which is panelled with bas-reliefs representing the miracles of +Christ,[248] may be seen the full figure of Jesus, who, in the +resurrection of Lazarus, appears beardless “and equipped with a wand +in the received guise of a _necromancer_ (_?_) whilst the corpse of +Lazarus is swathed in bandages exactly as an Egyptian mummy.” + +Had posterity been enabled to have several such representations +executed during the first century when the figure, dress, and +every-day habits of the Reformer were still fresh in the memory +of his contemporaries, perhaps the Christian world would be more +Christ-like; the dozens of contradictory, groundless, and utterly +meaningless speculations about the “Son of Man” would have been +impossible; and humanity would now have but one religion and one +God. It is this absence of all proof, the lack of the least positive +clew about him whom Christianity has deified, that has caused the +present state of perplexity. No pictures of Christ were possible +until after the days of Constantine, when the Jewish element was +nearly eliminated among the followers of the new religion. The Jews, +apostles, and disciples, whom the Zoroastrians and the Parsees had +inoculated with a holy horror of any form of images, would have +considered it a sacrilegious blasphemy to represent in any way or +shape their master. The only authorized image of Jesus, even in the +days of Tertullian, was an allegorical representation of the “Good +Shepherd,”[249] which was no portrait, but the figure of a man with a +jackal-head, like Anubis.[250] On this gem, as seen in the collection +of Gnostic amulets, the Good Shepherd bears upon his shoulders the +lost lamb. He seems to have a human head upon his neck; but, as King +correctly observes, “it only _seems so_ to the uninitiated eye.” On +closer inspection, he becomes the double-headed Anubis, having one +head human, the other a jackal’s, whilst his girdle assumes the form +of a serpent rearing aloft its crested head. “This figure,” adds the +author of the _Gnostics_, etc., “had two meanings--one obvious for +the vulgar; the other mystical, and recognizable by the _initiated +alone_. It was perhaps the signet of some chief teacher or +apostle.”[251] This affords a fresh proof that the Gnostics and early +_orthodox_ (?) Christians were not so wide apart in their _secret +doctrine_. King deduces from a quotation from _Epiphanius_, that even +as late as 400 A.D. it was considered an atrocious sin to attempt to +represent the bodily appearance of Christ. Epiphanius[252] brings it +as an idolatrous charge against the Carpocratians that “they kept +painted portraits, and _even gold and silver images_, and _in other +materials_, which they pretended to be portraits of Jesus, and made +by Pilate after the likeness of Christ.... These they keep in secret, +along with Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and setting them all +up together, they worship and offer sacrifices unto them _after the +Gentiles’ fashion_.” + +What would the pious Epiphanius say were he to resuscitate and +step into St. Peter’s Cathedral at Rome! Ambrosius seems also very +desperate at the idea--that some persons fully credited the statement +of Lampridius that Alexander Severus had in his private chapel an +image of Christ among other great philosophers. “That the Pagans +should have preserved the likeness of Christ,” he exclaims, “but the +disciples have neglected to do so, is a notion the mind shudders to +entertain, much less to believe.” + +All this points undeniably to the fact, that except a handful +of self-styled Christians who subsequently won the day, all the +civilized portion of the Pagans who knew of Jesus honored him as +a philosopher, an _adept_ whom they placed on the same level with +Pythagoras and Apollonius. Whence such a veneration on their part +for a man, were he simply, as represented by the Synoptics, a poor, +unknown Jewish carpenter from Nazareth? As an incarnated God there +is no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the +critical examination of science; as one of the greatest reformers, +an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor +of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, +Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the +panorama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding +farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; +and his theology--based on human fancy and supported by untenable +dogmas may, nay, must with every day lose more of its unmerited +prestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral +reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century +more pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and +universal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but +one father--the UNKNOWN ONE above--and one brother--the whole of +mankind below. + +In a pretended letter of Lentulus, a senator and a distinguished +historian, to the Roman senate, there is a description of the +personal appearance of Jesus. The letter itself, written in horrid +Latin, is pronounced a bare-faced forgery; but we find therein an +expression which suggests many thoughts. Albeit a forgery it is +evident that whosoever invented it has nevertheless tried to follow +tradition as closely as possible. The hair of Jesus is represented +in it as “wavy and curling ... flowing down upon his shoulders,” and +as “_having a parting in the middle of the head after the fashion of +the Nazarenes_.” This last sentence shows: 1. That there was such a +tradition, based on the biblical description of John the Baptist, +the _Nazaria_, and the custom of this sect. 2. Had Lentulus been +the author of this letter, it is difficult to believe that Paul +should never have heard of it; and had he known its contents, he +would never have pronounced it a _shame_ for men to wear their hair +long,[253] thus shaming his Lord and Christ-God. 3. If Jesus did +wear his hair long and parted in the middle of the forehead, after +the fashion of the Nazarenes (as well as John, the only one of his +apostles who followed it), then we have one good reason more to say +that Jesus must have belonged to the sect of the Nazarenes, and been +called NASARIA for this reason and not because he was an inhabitant +of Nazareth; for they never wore their hair long. The Nazarite, who +_separated_ himself unto the Lord, allowed “no razor to come upon his +head.” “He shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his +head grow,” says _Numbers_ (vi. 5). Samson was a Nazarite, _i.e._, +vowed to the service of God, and in his hair was his strength. +“No razor shall come upon his head; the child shall be a Nazarite +unto God from the womb” (_Judges_ xiii. 5). But the final and most +reasonable conclusion to be inferred from this is that Jesus, who was +so opposed to all the orthodox Jewish practices, would _not_ have +allowed his hair to grow had he not belonged to this sect, which +in the days of John the Baptist had already become a heresy in the +eyes of the Sanhedrim. The _Talmud_, speaking of the Nazaria, or the +Nazarenes (who had abandoned the world like Hindu yogis or hermits) +calls them a sect of physicians, of wandering exorcists; as also does +Jervis. “They went about the country, living on alms and performing +cures.”[254] Epiphanius says that the Nazarenes come next in heresy +to the Corinthians whether having existed “before them or after them, +nevertheless _synchronous_,” and then adds that “all Christians at +that time were equally called _Nazarenes_!”[255] + +In the very first remark made by Jesus about John the Baptist, we +find him stating that he is “Elias, which was for to come.” This +assertion, if it is not a later interpolation for the sake of having +a prophecy fulfilled, means again that Jesus was a kabalist; unless +indeed we have to adopt the doctrine of the French spiritists and +suspect him of believing in reïncarnation. Except the kabalistic +sects of the Essenes, the Nazarenes, the disciples of Simeon Ben +Iochaï, and Hillel, neither the orthodox Jews, nor the Galileans, +believed or knew anything about the doctrine of _permutation_. And +the Sadducees rejected even that of the resurrection. + +“But the author of this _restitutionis_ was Mosah, our master, upon +whom be peace! Who was the _revolutio_ (transmigration) of Seth and +Hebel, that he might cover the nudity of his Father Adam--_Primus_,” +says the _Kabala_.[256] Thus, Jesus hinting that John was the +_revolutio_, or transmigration of Elias, seems to prove beyond any +doubt the school to which he belonged. + +Until the present day uninitiated Kabalists and Masons believe +permutation to be synonymous with transmigration and metempsychosis. +But they are as much mistaken in regard to the doctrine of the true +Kabalists as to that of the Buddhists. True, the _Sohar_ says in one +place, “All souls are subject to transmigration ... men do not know +the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He; they do not know that they +are brought before the tribunal, both before they enter this world +and after they quit it,” and the Pharisees also held this doctrine, +as Josephus shows (_Antiquities_, xviii. 13). Also the doctrine of +Gilgul, held to the strange theory of the “Whirling of the Soul,” +which taught that the bodies of Jews buried far away from the Holy +Land, still preserve a particle of soul which can neither rest nor +quit them, until it reaches the soil of the “Promised Land.” And this +“whirling” process was thought to be accomplished by the soul being +conveyed back through an actual evolution of species; transmigrating +from the minutest insect up to the largest animal. But this was an +_exoteric_ doctrine. We refer the reader to the _Kabbala Denudata_ +of Henry Khunrath; his language, however obscure, may yet throw some +light upon the subject. + +But this doctrine of permutation, or _revolutio_, must not be +understood as a belief in reïncarnation. That Moses was considered +the transmigration of Abel and Seth, does not imply that the +kabalists--those who were _initiated_ at least--believed that +the identical spirit of either of Adam’s sons reappeared under +the corporeal form of Moses. It only shows what was the mode of +expression they used when hinting at one of the profoundest mysteries +of the Oriental Gnosis, one of the most majestic articles of faith +of the Secret Wisdom. It was purposely veiled so as to half conceal +and half reveal the truth. It implied that Moses, like certain +other god-like men, was believed to have reached the highest of all +states on earth:--the rarest of all psychological phenomena, the +perfect union of the immortal spirit with the terrestrial _duad_ had +occurred. The trinity was complete. A _god_ was incarnate. But how +rare such incarnations! + +That expression, “Ye are gods,” which, to our biblical students, +is a mere abstraction, has for the kabalists a vital significance. +Each immortal spirit that sheds its radiance upon a human being is +a god--the Microcosmos of the Macrocosmos, part and parcel of the +Unknown God, the First Cause of which it is a direct emanation. It +is possessed of all the attributes of its parent source. Among these +attributes are omniscience and omnipotence. Endowed with these, +but yet unable to fully manifest them while in the body, during +which time they are obscured, veiled, limited by the capabilities +of physical nature, the thus divinely-inhabited man may tower far +above his kind, evince a god-like wisdom, and display deific powers; +for while the rest of mortals around him are but _overshadowed_ by +their divine SELF, with every chance given to them to become immortal +hereafter, but no other security than their personal efforts to +win the kingdom of heaven, the so chosen man has already become an +immortal while yet on earth. His prize is secured. Henceforth he will +live forever in eternal life. Not only he may have “dominion”[257] +over all the works of creation by employing the “excellence” of the +NAME (the ineffable one) but be higher in this life, not, as Paul is +made to say, “a little lower than the angels.”[258] + +The ancients never entertained the sacrilegious thought that such +perfected entities were incarnations of the One Supreme and for ever +invisible God. No such profanation of the awful Majesty entered into +their conceptions. Moses and his antitypes and types were to them +but complete men, gods on earth, for their _gods_ (divine spirits) +had entered unto their hallowed tabernacles, the purified physical +bodies. The disembodied spirits of the heroes and sages were termed +gods by the ancients. Hence, the accusation of polytheism and +idolatry on the part of those who were the first to anthropomorphize +the holiest and purest abstractions of their forefathers. + +The real and hidden sense of this doctrine was known to all the +initiates. The Tanaïm imparted it to their elect ones, the Isarim, in +the solemn solitudes of crypts and deserted places. It was one of the +most esoteric and jealously guarded, for human nature was the same +then as it is now, and the sacerdotal caste as confident as now in +the supremacy of its knowledge, and ambitious of ascendency over the +weaker masses; with the difference perhaps that its hierophants could +prove the legitimacy of their claims and the plausibility of their +doctrines, whereas now, _believers_ must be content with blind faith. + +While the kabalists called this mysterious and rare occurrence of the +union of spirit with the mortal charge entrusted to its care, the +“descent of the Angel Gabriel” (the latter being a kind of generic +name for it), the _Messenger of Life_, and the angel Metatron; and +while the Nazarenes termed the same Abel-Zivo,[259] the _Delegatus_ +sent by the Lord of Celsitude, it was universally known as the +“Anointed Spirit.” + +Thus it is the acceptation of this doctrine which caused the Gnostics +to maintain that Jesus was a man overshadowed by the Christos or +Messenger of Life, and that his despairing cry from the cross “Eloi, +Eloi, Lama Sabachthani,” was wrung from him at the instant when he +felt that this inspiring Presence had finally abandoned him, for--as +some affirmed--his faith _had_ also abandoned him when on the cross. + +The early Nazarenes, who must be numbered among the Gnostic sects, +believing that Jesus was a prophet, held, nevertheless, in relation +to him the same doctrine of the divine “overshadowing,” of certain +“men of God,” sent for the salvation of nations, and to recall them +to the path of righteousness. “The Divine mind is eternal,” says the +_Codex_,[260] “And it is pure light, and poured out through splendid +_and immense space_ (pleroma). It is Genetrix of the Æons. But one +of them went to matter (chaos) stirring up confused (turbulentos) +movements; and by a certain portion of _heavenly_ light fashioned +it, properly constituted for use and appearance, but the beginning +of every evil. The Demiurg (of matter) claimed divine honor.[261] +Therefore Christus (“the anointed”), the prince of the Æons (powers), +was sent (expeditus), who _taking on the person_ of a most devout +Jew, Iesu, _was to conquer him_; but who having _laid it_ (the body) +_aside_, departed on high.” We will explain further on the full +significance of the name Christos and its mystic meaning. + +And now, in order to make such passages as the above more +intelligible, we will endeavor to define, as briefly as possible, +the dogmas in which, with very trifling differences, nearly all the +Gnostic sects believed. It is in Ephesus that flourished in those +days the greatest college, wherein the abstruse Oriental speculations +and the Platonic philosophy were taught in conjunction. It was a +focus of the universal “secret” doctrines; the weird laboratory +whence, fashioned in elegant Grecian phraseology, sprang the +quintessence of Buddhistic, Zoroastrian, and Chaldean philosophy. +Artemis, the gigantic concrete symbol of theosophico-pantheistic +abstractions, the great mother Multimamma, androgyne and patroness +of the “Ephesian writings,” was conquered by Paul; but although the +zealous converts of the apostles pretended to burn all their books on +“curious arts,” τα περιεργα, enough of these remained for them to +study when their first zeal had cooled off. It is from Ephesus that +spread nearly all the _Gnosis_ which antagonized so fiercely with the +Irenæan dogmas; and still it was Ephesus, with her numerous collateral +branches of the great college of the Essenes, which proved to be the +hot-bed of all the kabalistic speculations brought by the Tanaïm from +the captivity. “In Ephesus,” says Matter, “the notions of the +Jewish-Egyptian school, and the semi-Persian speculations of the +kabalists had then recently come to swell the vast conflux of Grecian +and Asiatic doctrines, so there is no wonder that teachers should have +sprung up there who strove to combine the religion newly preached by +the apostle with the ideas there so long established.” + +Had not the Christians burdened themselves with the _Revelations_ +of a little nation, and accepted the Jehovah of Moses, the Gnostic +ideas would never have been termed _heresies_; once relieved of their +dogmatic exaggerations the world would have had a religious system +based on pure Platonic philosophy, and surely something would then +have been gained. + +Now let us see what are the greatest _heresies_ of the Gnostics. We +will select Basilides as the standard for our comparisons, for all +the founders of other Gnostic sects group round him, like a cluster +of stars borrowing light from their sun. + +Basilides maintained that he had had all his doctrines from the +Apostle Matthew, and from Peter through Glaucus, the disciple of the +latter.[262] According to Eusebius,[263] he published twenty-four +volumes of _Interpretations upon the Gospels_,[264] all of which +were burned, a fact which makes us suppose that they contained +more truthful matter than the school of Irenæus was prepared to +deny. He asserted that the unknown, eternal, and uncreated Father +having first brought forth _Nous_, or Mind, the latter emanated +from itself--the _Logos_. The Logos (the Word of John) emanated +in its turn _Phronesis_, or the Intelligences (Divine-human +spirits). From Phronesis sprung _Sophia_, or feminine wisdom, and +_Dynamis_--strength. These were the personified attributes of the +Mysterious godhead, the Gnostic quinternion, typifying the five +spiritual, but intelligible substances, personal virtues or beings +external to the unknown godhead. This is preëminently a kabalistic +idea. It is still more Buddhistic. The earliest system of the +Buddhistic philosophy--which preceded by far Gautama-Buddha--is based +upon the uncreated substance of the “Unknown,” the A’di Buddha.[265] +This eternal, infinite Monad possesses, as proper to his own essence, +five acts of wisdom. From these it, by five separate acts of Dhyân, +emitted five Dhyani Buddhas; these, like A’di Buddha, are quiescent +in their system (passive). Neither A’di, nor either of the five +Dhyani Buddhas, were ever incarnated, but seven of their emanations +became Avatars, _i.e._, were incarnated on this earth. + +Describing the Basilidean system, Irenæus, quoting the Gnostics, +declares as follows: + +“When the uncreated, _unnamed_ Father saw the corruption of mankind, +he sent his first-born _Nous_, into the world, in the form of Christ, +for the redemption of all who believe in him, out of the power of +those who fabricated the world (the Demiurgus, and his six sons, the +planetary genii). He appeared amongst men as the man, Jesus, and +wrought miracles. This Christ did _not die_ in person, but Simon +the Cyrenian suffered in his stead, _to whom he lent his bodily +form_; for the Divine Power, the Nous of the Eternal Father, _is not +corporeal_, and _cannot die_. Whoso, therefore, maintains that Christ +has died, is still the bondsman of ignorance; whoso denies the same, +he is free, and hath understood the purpose of the Father.”[266] + +So far, and taken in its abstract sense, we do not see anything +blasphemous in this system. It may be a _heresy_ against the theology +of Irenæus and Tertullian,[267] but there is certainly nothing +sacrilegious against the religious idea itself, and it will seem to +every impartial thinker far more consistent with divine reverence +than the anthropomorphism of actual Christianity. The Gnostics were +called by the orthodox Christians, _Docetæ_, or Illusionists, for +believing that Christ did not, nor could, suffer death actually--in +physical body. The later Brahmanical books contain, likewise, +much that is repugnant to the reverential feeling and idea of the +Divinity; and as well as the Gnostics, the Brahmans explain such +legends as may shock the divine dignity of the Spiritual beings +called gods by attributing them to _Maya_ or illusion. + +A people brought up and nurtured for countless ages among all the +psychological phenomena of which the civilized (!) nations read, +but reject as incredible and worthless, cannot well expect to have +its religious system even understood--let alone appreciated. The +profoundest and most transcendental speculations of the ancient +metaphysicians of India and other countries, are all based on that +great Buddhistic and Brahmanical principle underlying the whole of +their religious metaphysics--_illusion_ of the senses. Everything +that is finite is illusion, all that which is eternal and infinite is +reality. Form, color, that which we hear and feel, or see with our +mortal eyes, exists only so far as it can be conveyed to each of us +through our senses. The universe for a man born blind does not exist +in either form or color, but it exists in its _privation_ (in the +Aristotelean sense), and is a reality for the spiritual senses of +the blind man. We all live under the powerful dominion of phantasy. +Alone the highest and invisible _originals_ emanated from the thought +of the Unknown are real and permanent beings, forms, and ideas; on +earth, we see but their reflections; more or less correct, and ever +dependent on the physical and mental organization of the person who +beholds them. + +Ages untold before our era, the Hindu Mystic Kapila, who is +considered by many scientists as a skeptic, because they judge him +with their habitual superficiality, magnificently expressed this idea +in the following terms: + +“Man (physical man) counts for so little, that hardly anything can +demonstrate to him his proper existence and that of nature. Perhaps, +that which we regard as the universe, and the divers beings which +seem to compose it, have nothing real, and are but the product of +continued illusion--_maya_--of our senses.” + +And the modern Schopenhauer, repeating this philosophical idea, +10,000 years old now, says: “Nature is non-existent, _per se_.... +Nature is the infinite illusion of our senses.” Kant, Schelling, and +other metaphysicians have said the same, and their school maintains +the idea. The objects of sense being ever delusive and fluctuating, +cannot be a reality. Spirit alone is unchangeable, hence--alone +is no illusion. This is pure Buddhist doctrine. The religion of +the _Gnosis_ (knowledge), the most evident offshoot of Buddhism, +was utterly based on this metaphysical tenet. Christos suffered +_spiritually_ for us, and far more acutely than did the illusionary +Jesus while his body was being tortured on the Cross. + +In the ideas of the Christians, Christ is but another name for Jesus. +The philosophy of the Gnostics, the initiates, and hierophants +understood it otherwise. The word Christos, Χριστος, like all Greek +words, must be sought in its philological origin--the Sanscrit. In +this latter language _Kris_ means sacred,[268] and the Hindu deity was +named Chris-na (the pure or the sacred) from that. On the other hand, +the Greek _Christos_ bears several meanings, as anointed (pure oil, +_chrism_) and others. In all languages, though the synonym of the word +means pure or sacred essence, it is the first emanation of the +invisible Godhead, manifesting itself tangibly in spirit. The Greek +Logos, the Hebrew Messiah, the Latin Verbum, and the Hindu Viradj (the +son) are identically the same; they represent an idea of collective +entities--of flames detached from the one eternal centre of light. + +“The man who accomplishes pious but interested acts (with the sole +object of his salvation) may reach the ranks of the _devas_ +(saints);[269] but he who accomplishes, disinterestedly, the same +pious acts, finds himself ridden forever of the five elements” (of +matter). “Perceiving the Supreme Soul in all beings and all beings in +the Supreme Soul, in offering his own soul in sacrifice, he identifies +himself with the Being who shines in his own splendor” (_Manu_, book +xii., slokas 90, 91). + +Thus, Christos, as a unity, is but an abstraction: a general idea +representing the collective aggregation of the numberless +spirit-entities, which are the direct emanations of the infinite, +invisible, incomprehensible FIRST CAUSE--the individual spirits of +men, erroneously called the souls. They are the divine sons of God, of +which some only overshadow mortal men--but this the majority--some +remain forever planetary spirits, and some--the smaller and rare +minority--unite themselves during life with some men. Such God-like +beings as Gautama-Buddha, Jesus, Tissoo, Christna, and a few others +had united themselves with their spirits permanently--hence, they +became gods on earth. Others, such as Moses, Pythagoras, Apollonius, +Plotinus, Confucius, Plato, Iamblichus, and some Christian saints, +having at intervals been so united, have taken rank in history as +demi-gods and leaders of mankind. When unburthened of their +terrestrial tabernacles, their freed souls, henceforth united forever +with their spirits, rejoin the whole shining host, which is bound +together in one spiritual solidarity of thought and deed, and called +“the anointed.” Hence, the meaning of the Gnostics, who, by saying +that “Christos” suffered spiritually for humanity, implied that his +Divine Spirit suffered mostly. + +Such, and far more elevating were the ideas of Marcion, the great +“Heresiarch” of the second century, as he is termed by his opponents. +He came to Rome toward the latter part of the half-century, from A.D. +139-142, according to Tertullian, Irenæus, Clemens, and most of his +modern commentators, such as Bunsen, Tischendorf, Westcott, and many +others. Credner and Schleiermacher[270] agree as to his high and +irreproachable personal character, his pure religious aspirations and +elevated views. His influence must have been powerful, as we find +Epiphanius writing more than two centuries later that in his time the +followers of Marcion were to be found throughout the whole world.[271] + +The danger must have been pressing and great indeed, if we are to +judge it to have been proportioned with the opprobrious epithets +and vituperation heaped upon Marcion by the “Great African,” that +Patristic Cerberus, whom we find ever barking at the door of the +Irenæan dogmas.[272] We have but to open his celebrated refutation of +Marcion’s _Antitheses_, to acquaint ourselves with the _fine-fleur_ +of monkish abuse of the Christian school; an abuse so faithfully +carried through the middle ages, to be renewed again in our present +day--at the Vatican. “Now, then, ye hounds, yelping at the God of +Truth, whom the apostles cast out, to all your questions. These are +the bones of contention which ye gnaw,” etc.[273] “The poverty of +the Great African’s arguments keeps pace with his abuse,” remarks +the author of _Supernatural Religion_.[274] “Their (the Father’s) +religious controversy bristles with misstatements, and is turbid with +pious abuse. Tertullian was a master of his style, and the vehement +vituperation with which he opens and often interlards his work +against ‘the impious and sacrilegious Marcion,’ offers anything but a +guarantee of fair and legitimate criticism.” + +How firm these two Fathers--Tertullian and Epiphanius--were on their +theological ground, may be inferred from the curious fact that they +intemperately both vehemently reproach “the beast” (Marcion) “with +erasing passages from the _Gospel of Luke_ which never were in _Luke_ +at all.”[275] “The lightness and inaccuracy,” adds the critic, “with +which Tertullian proceeds, are all the better illustrated by the +fact that not only does he accuse Marcion falsely, but _he actually +defines the motives_ for which he expunged a passage _which never +existed_; in the same chapter he also similarly accuses Marcion of +erasing (from _Luke_) the saying that Christ had not come to destroy +the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, and he actually +repeats the charge on two other occasions.[276] Epiphanius also +commits the mistake of reproaching Marcion with omitting from _Luke_ +what is only found in _Matthew_.”[277] + +Having so far shown the amount of reliance to be placed in the +Patristic literature, and it being unanimously conceded by the +great majority of biblical critics that what the Fathers fought +for was not _truth_, but their own interpretations and unwarranted +assertions,[278] we will now proceed to state what were the views +of Marcion, whom Tertullian desired to annihilate as the most +dangerous _heretic_ of his day. If we are to believe Hilgenfeld, one +of the greatest German biblical critics, then “From the critical +standing-point one must ... consider the statements of the Fathers +of the Church only as expressions of their _subjective view_, which +itself requires proof.”[279] + +We can do no better nor make a more correct statement of facts +concerning Marcion than by quoting what our space permits from +_Supernatural Religion_, the author of which bases his assertions +on the evidence of the greatest critics, as well as on his own +researches. He shows in the days of Marcion “two broad parties in the +primitive Church”--one considering Christianity “a mere continuation +of the law, and dwarfing it into an Israelitish institution, a narrow +sect of Judaism;” the other representing the glad tidings “as the +introduction of a new system, applicable to all, and supplanting the +Mosaic dispensation of the law by a universal dispensation of grace.” +These two parties, he adds, “were popularly represented in the early +Church, by the two apostles Peter and Paul, and their antagonism is +faintly revealed in the _Epistle to the Galatians_.”[280] + +Marcion, who recognized no other _Gospels_ than a few _Epistles +of Paul_, who rejected totally the anthropomorphism of the _Old +Testament_, and drew a distinct line of demarcation between the old +Judaism and Christianity, viewed Jesus neither as a King, Messiah +of the Jews, nor the son of David, who was in any way connected +with the law or prophets, “but a divine being sent to reveal to man +a spiritual religion, wholly new, and a God of goodness and grace +hitherto unknown.” The “Lord God” of the Jews in his eyes, the +Creator (Demiurgos), was totally different and distinct from the +Deity who sent Jesus to reveal the divine truth and preach the glad +tidings, to bring reconciliation and salvation to all. The mission of +Jesus--according to Marcion--was to abrogate the Jewish “Lord,” who +“was opposed to the God and Father of Jesus Christ as _matter is to +spirit, impurity to purity_.” + +Was Marcion so far wrong? Was it blasphemy, or was it intuition, +divine inspiration in him to express that which every honest heart +yearning for truth, more or less feels and acknowledges? If in his +sincere desire to establish a purely spiritual religion, a universal +faith based on unadulterated truth, he found it necessary to make +of Christianity an entirely new and separate system from that of +Judaism, did not Marcion have the very words of Christ for his +authority? “No man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old garment +... for the rent is made worse.... Neither do men put new wine into +old bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and +the bottles perish; but _they put new wine into new bottles_, and +both are preserved.” In what particular does the jealous, wrathful, +revengeful God of Israel resemble the unknown deity, the God of mercy +preached by Jesus;--_his_ Father who is in Heaven, and the Father +of all humanity? This Father alone is the God of spirit and purity, +and, to compare Him with the subordinate and capricious Sinaitic +Deity is an error. Did Jesus ever pronounce the name of Jehovah? Did +he ever place _his_ Father in contrast with this severe and cruel +Judge; his God of mercy, love, and justice, with the Jewish genius +of retaliation? Never! From that memorable day when he preached his +Sermon on the Mount, an immeasurable void opened between his God +and that other deity who fulminated his commands from that other +mount--Sinai. The language of Jesus is unequivocal; it implies not +only rebellion but defiance of the Mosaic “Lord God.” “Ye have +heard,” he tells us, “that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and +a tooth for a tooth: but _I say_ unto you, That ye resist not evil: +but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the +other also. Ye have heard that it hath been said [by the same “Lord +God” on Sinai]: Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. +But _I say_ unto you; 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” (_Matthew_ v.). + +And now, open _Manu_ and read: + +“Resignation, _the action of rendering good for evil_, temperance, +probity, purity, repression of the senses, the knowledge of the +_Sastras_ (the holy books), that of the supreme soul, truthfulness +and abstinence from anger, such are the ten virtues in which consists +duty.... Those who study these ten precepts of duty, and after +having studied them conform their lives thereto, will reach to the +supreme condition” (_Manu_, book vi., sloka 92). + +If _Manu_ did not trace these words many thousands of years before +the era of Christianity, at least no voice in the whole world will +dare deny them a less antiquity than several centuries B.C. The same +in the case of the precepts of Buddhism. + +If we turn to the _Prâtimoksha Sûtra_ and other religious tracts of +the Buddhists, we read the ten following commandments: + + 1. Thou shalt not kill any living creature. + 2. Thou shalt not steal. + 3. Thou shalt not break thy vow of chastity. + 4. Thou shalt not lie. + 5. Thou shalt not betray the secrets of others. + 6. Thou shalt not wish for the death of thy enemies. + 7. Thou shalt not desire the wealth of others. + 8. Thou shalt not pronounce injurious and foul words. + 9. Thou shalt not indulge in luxury (sleep on soft beds or be lazy). + 10. Thou shalt not accept gold or silver.[281] + +“Good master, what shall I do that I may have eternal life?” asks a +man of Jesus. “Keep the commandments.” “Which?” “Thou shalt do no +murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou +shalt not bear false witness,”[282] is the answer. + +“What shall I do to obtain possession of Bhodi? (knowledge of eternal +truth)” asks a disciple of his Buddhist master. “What way is there to +become an Upasaka?” “Keep the commandments.” “What are they?” “Thou +shalt abstain all thy life from murder, theft, adultery, and lying,” +answers the master.[283] + +Identical injunctions are they not? Divine injunctions, the living up +to which would purify and exalt humanity. But are they more divine +when uttered through one mouth than another? If it is god-like to +return good for evil, does the enunciation of the precept by a +Nazarene give it any greater force than its enunciation by an Indian, +or Thibetan philosopher? We see that the Golden Rule was not original +with Jesus; that its birth-place was India. Do what we may, we cannot +deny Sakya-Muni Buddha a less remote antiquity than several centuries +before the birth of Jesus. In seeking a model for his system of +ethics why should Jesus have gone to the foot of the Himalayas rather +than to the foot of Sinai, but that the doctrines of Manu and +Gautama harmonized exactly with his own philosophy, while those of +Jehovah were to him abhorrent and terrifying? The Hindus taught to +return _good for evil_, but the Jehovistic command was: “An eye for +an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth.” + +Would Christians still maintain the identity of the “Father” of +Jesus and Jehovah, if evidence sufficiently clear could be adduced +that the “Lord God” was no other than the Pagan Bacchus, Dionysos? +Well, this identity of the Jehovah at Mount Sinai with the god +Bacchus is hardly disputable. The name יהוה is Yava or Iao, +according to Theodoret, which is the _secret_ name of the Phœnician +Mystery-god;[284] and it was actually adopted from the Chaldeans with +whom it also was the secret name of the creator. Wherever Bacchus +was worshipped there was a tradition of Nysa and a cave where he was +reared. Beth-San or Scythopolis in Palestine had that designation; +so had a spot on Mount Parnassus. But Diodorus declares that Nysa +was between Phœnicia and Egypt; Euripides states that Dionysos came +to Greece from India; and Diodorus adds his testimony: “Osiris was +brought up in Nysa, in Arabia the Happy; he was the son of Zeus, and +was named from his father (nominative Zeus, genitive _Dios_) and the +place Dio-Nysos”--the Zeus or Jove of Nysa. This identity of name +or title is very significant. In Greece Dionysos was second only to +Zeus, and Pindar says: + + “So Father Zeus governs all things, and Bacchus he governs also.” + +But outside of Greece Bacchus was the all-powerful “Zagreus, the +highest of gods.” Moses seems to have worshipped him personally +and together with the populace at Mount Sinai; unless we admit +that he was an _initiated_ priest, an adept, who knew how to lift +the veil which hangs behind all such exoteric worship, but kept +the secret. “_And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it +Jehovah_-NISSI!” or _Iao-Nisi_. What better evidence is required to +show that the Sinaitic god was indifferently Bacchus, Osiris, and +Jehovah? Mr. Sharpe appends also his testimony that the place where +Osiris was born “was Mount Sinai, called by the Egyptians Mount +Nissa.” The Brazen Serpent was a _nis_, נחש, and the month of +the Jewish Passover _nisan_. + +If the Mosaic “Lord God” was the only living God, and Jesus His only +Son, how account for the rebellious language of the latter? Without +hesitation or qualification he sweeps away the Jewish _lex talionis_ +and substitutes for it the law of charity and self-denial. If the +_Old Testament_ is a divine revelation, how can the _New Testament_ +be? Are we required to believe and worship a Deity who contradicts +himself every few hundred years? Was Moses inspired, or was Jesus +_not_ the son of God? This is a dilemma from which the theologians +are bound to rescue us. It is from this very dilemma that the +Gnostics endeavored to snatch the budding Christianity. + +Justice has been waiting nineteen centuries for intelligent +commentators to appreciate this difference between the orthodox +Tertullian and the Gnostic Marcion. The brutal violence, unfairness, +and bigotry of the “great African” repulse all who accept his +Christianity. “How can a god,” inquired Marcion, “break his own +commandments? How could he consistently prohibit idolatry and +image-worship, and still cause Moses to set up the brazen serpent? +How command: Thou shalt not steal, and then order the Israelites to +_spoil_ the Egyptians of their gold and silver?” Anticipating the +results of modern criticism, Marcion denies the applicability to +Jesus of the so-called Messianic prophecies. Writes the author of +_Supernatural Religion_:[285] “The Emmanuel of Isaiah is not Christ; +the ‘Virgin,’ his mother, is simply a ‘young woman,’ an alma of the +temple; and the sufferings of the servant of God (_Isaiah_ lii. +13-liii. 3) are not predictions of the death of Jesus.”[286] + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + “Nothing better than those MYSTERIES, by which, from a + rough and fierce life, we are polished to gentleness + (humanity, kindness), and softened.”--CICERO: _de Legibus_, + ii., 14. + + + “Descend, O Soma, with that stream with which thou lightest + up the Sun.... Soma, a Life Ocean spread through All, thou + fillest creative the Sun with beams.”--_Rig-Veda_, ii., 143. + + + “... the beautiful Virgin ascends, with long hair, and + she holds two ears in her hand, and sits on a seat and + feeds a BOY as yet little, and suckles him and gives him + food.”--AVENAR. + + +It is alleged that the _Pentateuch_ was written by Moses, and yet +it contains the account of his own death (_Deuteronomy_ xxxiv. 6); +and in _Genesis_ (xiv. 14), the name Dan is given to a city, which +_Judges_ (xviii. 29), tells us was only called by that name at that +late day, it having previously been known as Laish. Well might Josiah +have rent his clothes when he had heard the words of the Book of the +Law; for there was no more of Moses in it than there is of Jesus in +the _Gospel according to John_. + +We have one fair alternative to offer our theologians, leaving them +to choose for themselves, and promising to abide by their decision. +Only they will have to admit, either that Moses was an impostor, +or that his books are forgeries, written at different times and +by different persons; or, again, that they are full of fraudulent +interpolations. In either case the work loses all claims to be +considered divine _Revelation_. Here is the problem, which we quote +from the _Bible_--the word of the God of Truth: + +“And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name +of God Almighty, but by my name of JEHOVAH was I not known to them” +(_Exodus_ vi. 3), spake God unto Moses. + +A very startling bit of information that, when, before arriving +at the book of _Exodus_, we are told in _Genesis_ (xxii. 14) that +“Abraham called the name of that place”--where the patriarch +had been preparing to cut the throat of his only-begotten +son--“JEHOVAH-jireh!” (Jehovah sees.) Which is the inspired +text?--both cannot be--which the forgery? + +Now, if both Abraham and Moses had not belonged to the same holy +group, we might, perhaps, help theologians by suggesting to them +a convenient means of escape out of this dilemma. They ought to +call the reverend Jesuit Fathers--especially those who have been +missionaries in India--to their rescue. The latter would not be for +a moment disconcerted. They would coolly tell us that beyond doubt +Abraham had heard the name of Jehovah and _borrowed_ it from Moses. +Do they not maintain that it was they who invented the _Sanscrit_, +edited _Manu_, and composed the greater portion of the _Vedas?_ + +Marcion maintained, with the other Gnostics, the fallaciousness of +the idea of an incarnate God, and therefore denied the corporeal +reality of the living body of Christ. His entity was a mere +_illusion_; it was not made of human flesh and blood, neither was it +born of a human mother, for his divine nature could not be polluted +with any contact with sinful flesh.[287] He accepted Paul as the +only apostle preaching the pure gospel of truth, and accused the +other disciples of “depraving the pure form of the gospel doctrines +delivered to them by Jesus, mixing up matters of the Law with the +words of the Saviour.”[288] + +Finally we may add that modern biblical criticism, which +unfortunately became really active and serious only toward the end +of the last century, now generally admits that Marcion’s text of the +only gospel he knew anything about--that of Luke, is far superior and +by far more correct than that of our present Synoptics. We find in +_Supernatural Religion_ the following (for every Christian) startling +sentence: “We are, therefore, _indebted to Marcion for the correct +version even of ‘the Lords Prayer_.’”[289] + +If, leaving for the present the prominent founders of Christian +sects, we now turn to that of the Ophites, which assumed a definite +form about the time of Marcion and the Basilideans, we may find +in it the reason for the _heresies_ of all others. Like all other +Gnostics, they rejected the Mosaic _Bible_ entirely. Nevertheless, +their philosophy, apart from some deductions original with several +of the most important founders of the various branches of Gnosticism +was not new. Passing through the Chaldean kabalistic tradition, +it gathered its materials in the Hermetic books, and pursuing its +flight still farther back for its metaphysical speculations, we +find it floundering among the tenets of Manu, and the earliest +Hindu ante-sacerdotal genesis. Many of our eminent antiquarians +trace the Gnostic philosophies right back to Buddhism, which does +not impair in the least either their or our arguments. We repeat +again, _Buddhism is but the primitive source of Brahmanism_. It +is not against the primitive _Vedas_ that Gautama protests. It is +against the sacerdotal and official state religion of his country; +and the Brahmans, who in order to make room for and give authority +to the castes, at a later period crammed the ancient manuscripts +with interpolated slokas, intended to prove that the castes were +predetermined by the Creator by the very fact that each class of men +was issued from a more or less noble limb of Brahma. Gautama-Buddha’s +philosophy was that taught from the beginning of time in the +impenetrable secresy of the inner sanctuaries of the pagodas. We need +not be surprised, therefore, to find again, in all the fundamental +dogmas of the Gnostics, the metaphysical tenets of both Brahmanism +and Buddhism. They held that the _Old Testament_ was the revelation +of an inferior being, a subordinate divinity, and did not contain a +single sentence of their _Sophia_, the Divine Wisdom. As to the _New +Testament_, it had lost its purity when the compilers became guilty +of interpolations. The revelation of divine truth was sacrificed by +them to promote selfish ends and maintain quarrels. The accusation +does not seem so very improbable to one who is well aware of the +constant strife between the champions of circumcision and the “Law,” +and the apostles who had given up Judaism. + +The Gnostic Ophites taught the doctrine of Emanations, so hateful +to the defenders of the unity in the trinity, and _vice versa_. The +Unknown Deity with them had _no name_; but his first female emanation +was called Bythos or Depth.[290] It answered to the Shekinah of the +kabalists, the “Veil” which conceals the “Wisdom” in the _cranium_ +of the highest of the _three_ heads. As the Pythagorean Monad, this +_nameless_ Wisdom was the _Source_ of Light, and _Ennoia_ or Mind, +is Light itself. The latter was also called the “Primitive Man,” +like the Adam Kadmon, or ancient Adam of the _Kabala_. Indeed, if +man was created after his likeness and in the image of God, then +this God was like his creature in shape and figure--hence, he is the +“Primitive man.” The first Manu, the one evolved from Swayambhuva, +“he who exists unrevealed in his own glory,” is also, in one sense, +the primitive man, with the Hindus. + +Thus the “nameless and the unrevealed,” Bythos, his female +reflection, and Ennoia, the revealed Mind proceeding from both, or +their Son are the counterparts of the Chaldean first triad as well as +those of the Brahmanic Trimurti. We will compare: in all the three +systems we see + +THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE as the ONE, the primordial germ, the unrevealed +and grand ALL, existing through himself. In the + + INDIAN PANTHEON. + Brahma-Zyaus. + + THE CHALDEAN. + Ilu, Kabalistic En-Soph. + + IN THE OPHITE. + The Nameless, or Secret Name. + +Whenever the Eternal awakes from its slumber and desires to manifest +itself, it divides itself into male and female. It then becomes in +every system + + THE DOUBLE-SEXED DEITY, The universal Father and Mother. + + IN INDIA. + Brahma. + Nara (male), Nari (female). + + IN CHALDEA. + Eikon or En-Soph. + Anu (male), Anata (female). + + IN THE OPHITE SYSTEM. + Nameless Spirit. + Abrasax (male), Bythos (female). + +From the union of the two emanates a third, or creative Principle--the +SON, or the manifested Logos, the product of the Divine Mind. + + IN INDIA. + Viradj, the Son. + + IN CHALDEA. + Bel, the Son. + + OPHITE SYSTEM. + Ophis (another name for Ennoia), the Son. + +Moreover, each of these systems has a triple male trinity, each +proceeding separately through itself from one female Deity. So, for +instance: + + IN INDIA. + The Trinity--Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, are blended into ONE, who + is _Brahmä_, (neuter gender), creating and being created + through the Virgin Nari (the mother of perpetual fecundity). + + IN CHALDEA. + The trinity--Anu, Bel, Hoa (or Sin, Samas, Bin), blend into + ONE who is Anu (double-sexed) through the Virgin Mylitta. + + IN THE OPHITE SYSTEM. + The trinity consisted of the Mystery named Sigè, Bythos, + Ennoia. These become ONE who is _Abrasax_, from the Virgin + _Sophia_ (or _Pneuma_), who herself is an emanation of Bythos + and the Mystery-god and emanates through them, Christos. + +To place it still clearer, the Babylonian System recognizes first--the +ONE (Ad, or Ad-ad), who is never named, but only acknowledged in +thought as the Hindu Swayambhuva. From this he becomes manifest as Anu +or Ana--the one above all--Monas. Next comes the Demiurge called Bel +or Elu, who is the active power of the Godhead. The third is the +principle of Wisdom, Hea or Hoa, who also rules the sea and the +underworld. Each of these has his divine consort, giving us Anata, +Belta, and Davkina. These, however, are only like the _Saktis_, and +not especially remarked by theologists. But the female principle is +denoted by Mylitta, the Great Mother, called also Ishtar. So with the +three male gods, we have the Triad or Trimurti, and with Mylitta +added, the _Arba_ or Four (Tetraktys of Pythagoras), which perfects +and potentializes all. Hence, the above-given modes of expression. The +following Chaldean diagram may serve as an illustration for all +others: + + ⎧ Anu, ⎫ Mylitta--Arba-il, + Triad ⎨ Bel, ⎬ or + ⎩ Hoa, ⎭ Four-fold God, + +become, with the Christians, + + ⎧God the Father, ⎫ Mary, or mother of these three Gods + Trinity ⎨God the Son, ⎬ since they are one, + ⎩God the Holy Ghost,⎭ or, the Christian Heavenly Tetraktys. + +Hence, Hebron, the city of the Kabeiri was called Kirjath-Arba, city +of the Four. The Kabeiri were Axieros--the noble Eros, Axiokersos, +the worthy horned one, Axiokersa, Demeter and Kadmiel, Hoa, etc. + +The Pythagorean ten denoted the Arba-Il or Divine Four, emblematized +by the Hindu Lingham: Anu, 1; Bel, 2; Hoa, 3, which makes 6. The +triad and Mylitta as 4 make the ten. + +Though he is termed the “Primitive Man,” Ennoia, who is like the +Egyptian Pimander, the “Power of the Thought Divine,” the first +intelligible manifestation of the Divine Spirit in material form, +he is like the “Only-Begotten” Son of the “Unknown Father,” of all +other nations. He is the emblem of the first appearance of the divine +Presence in his own works of creation, tangible and visible, and +therefore comprehensible. The mystery-God, or the ever-unrevealed +Deity fecundates through His will Bythos, the unfathomable and +infinite depth that exists in silence (Sigè) and darkness (for our +intellect), and that represents the abstract idea of all nature, the +ever-producing Cosmos. As neither the male nor female principle, +blended into the idea of a double-sexed Deity in ancient conceptions, +could be comprehended by an ordinary human intellect, the theology of +every people had to create for its religion a Logos, or manifested +word, in some shape or other. With the Ophites and other Gnostics +who took their models direct from more ancient originals, the +unrevealed Bythos and her male counterpart produce Ennoia, and +the three in their turn produce Sophia,[291] thus completing the +Tetraktys, which will emanate Christos, the very essence of the +Father Spirit. As the unrevealed One, or concealed Logos in its +latent state, he has existed from all eternity in the Arba-Il, the +metaphysical abstraction; therefore, he is ONE with all others as a +unity, the latter (including all) being indifferently termed Ennoia, +Sigè (silence), Bythos, etc. As the revealed one, he is Androgyne, +Christos, and Sophia (Divine Wisdom), who descend into the man Jesus. +Both Father and Son are shown by Irenæus to have loved the beauty +(_formam_) of the primitive woman,[292] who is Bythos--Depth--as +well as Sophia, and as having produced conjointly Ophis and Sophia +(double-sexed unity again), male and female wisdom, one being +considered as the unrevealed Holy Spirit, or elder Sophia--the +_Pneuma_--the intellectual “Mother of all things;” the other the +revealed one, or _Ophis_, typifying divine wisdom fallen into matter, +or God-man--Jesus, whom the Gnostic Ophites represented by the +serpent (Ophis). + +Fecundated by the Divine Light of the Father and Son, the highest +spirit and Ennoia, Sophia produces in her turn two other emanations-- +one perfect Christos, the second imperfect Sophia-Achamoth,[293] +from חכמות hakhamoth (simple wisdom), who becomes the mediatrix +between the intellectual and material worlds. + +Christos was the mediator and guide between God (the Higher), and +everything spiritual in man; Achamoth--the younger Sophia--held the +same duty between the “Primitive man,” Ennoia and matter. What was +mysteriously meant by the general term, _Christos_, we have just +explained. + +Delivering a sermon on the “Month of Mary,” we find the Rev. +Dr. Preston, of New York City, expressing the Christian idea +of the female principle of the trinity better and more clearly +than we could, and substantially in the spirit of an ancient +“heathen” philosopher. He says that the “plan of the redemption +made it necessary that a mother should be found, and Mary stands +pre-eminently alone as the only instance when a creature was +necessary to the consummation of God’s work.” We will beg the right +to contradict the reverend gentleman. As shown above, thousands of +years before our era it was found necessary by all the “heathen” +theogonies to find a female principle, a “mother” for the triune +male principle. Hence, Christianity does not present the “only +instance” of such a consummation of God’s work--albeit, as this +work shows, there was more philosophy and less materialism, or +rather anthropomorphism, in it. But hear the reverend Doctor express +“heathen” thought in Christian ideas. “He” (God), he says, “prepared +her (Mary’s) virginal and celestial purity, for a mother defiled +could not become the mother of the Most High. The holy virgin, +even in her childhood, was more pleasing than all the Cherubim and +Seraphim, and from infancy to the maturing maidenhood and womanhood +she grew more and more pure. By her very sanctity she reigned over +the heart of God. _When the hour came, the whole court of heaven was +hushed, and the trinity listened for the answer of Mary, for without +her consent the world could not have been redeemed._” + +Does it not seem as if we were reading Irenæus explaining the Gnostic +“_Heresy_, which taught that the Father and Son loved the beauty +(_formam_) of the celestial Virgin?” or the Egyptian system, of +Isis being both wife, sister, and mother of Osiris--Horus? With the +Gnostic philosophy there were but _two_, but the Christians have +improved and perfected the system by making it completely “heathen,” +for it is the Chaldean Anu--Bel--Hoa, merging into Mylitta. “Then +while this month (of Mary),” adds Dr. Preston, “begins in the +paschal season--the month when nature decks herself with fruits and +flowers, the harbingers of a bright harvest--let us, too, begin for +a golden harvest. In this month the dead comes up out of the earth, +figuring the resurrection; so, when we are kneeling before the altar +of the holy and immaculate Mary, let us remember that there should +come forth from us the bud of promise, the flower of hope, and the +imperishable fruit of sanctity.” + +This is precisely the substratum of the Pagan thought, which, among +other meanings, emblematized by the rites of the resurrection +of Osiris, Adonis, Bacchus, and other slaughtered sun-gods, the +resurrection of all nature in spring, the germination of seeds that +had been dead and sleeping during winter, and so were allegorically +said to be kept in the underworld (Hades). They are typified by the +three days passed in hell before his resurrection by Hercules, by +Christ, and others. + +This derivation, or rather _heresy_, as it is called in Christianity, +is simply the Brahmanic doctrine in all its archaic purity. Vishnu, +the second personage of the Hindu trinity, is also the Logos, for +he is made subsequently to incarnate himself in Christna. And +Lakmy (or Lakshmy) who, as in the case of Osiris, and Isis, of +En-Soph and Sephira, and of Bythos and Ennoia, is both his wife, +sister, and daughter, through this endless correlation of male +and female creative powers in the abstruse metaphysics of the +ancient philosophies--is Sophia-Achamoth. Christna is the mediator +promised by Brahma to mankind, and represents the same idea as +the Gnostic Christos. And Lakmy, Vishnu’s spiritual half, is the +emblem of physical nature, the universal mother of all the material +and revealed forms; the mediatrix and protector of nature, like +Sophia-Achamoth, who is made by the Gnostics the mediatrix between +the Great Cause and Matter, as Christos is the mediator between him +and spiritual humanity. + +This Brahmano-Gnostic tenet is more logical, and more consistent with +the allegory of _Genesis_ and the fall of man. When God curses the +first couple, He is made to curse also the earth and everything that +is on it. The _New Testament_ gives us a Redeemer for the first sin +of mankind, which was punished for having sinned; but there is not a +word said about a Saviour who would take off the unmerited curse from +the earth and the animals, which had never sinned at all. Thus the +Gnostic allegory shows a greater sense of both justice and logic than +the Christian. + +In the Ophite system, Sophia, the Androgyne Wisdom, is also the +female spirit, or the Hindu female Nari (Narayana), moving on the +face of the waters--chaos, or future matter. She vivifies it from +afar, but not touching the abyss of darkness. She is unable to do +so, for Wisdom is purely intellectual, and cannot act directly on +matter. Therefore, Sophia is obliged to address herself to her +Supreme Parent; but although life proceeds primally from the Unseen +Cause, and his Ennoia, neither of them can, any more than herself, +have anything to do with the lower chaos in which matter assumes its +definite shape. Thus, Sophia is obliged to employ on the task her +_imperfect_ emanation, Sophia-Achamoth, the latter being of a mixed +nature, half spiritual and half material. + +The only difference between the Ophite cosmogony and that of +the St. John Nazarenes is a change of names. We find equally an +identical system in the _Kabala_, the _Book of Mystery_ (_Liber +Mysterii_).[294] All the three systems, especially that of the +kabalists and the Nazarenes, which were the _models_ for the Ophite +Cosmogony, belong to the pure Oriental Gnosticism. The _Codex +Nazaræus_ opens with: “The Supreme King of Light, Mano, the great +first one,”[295] etc., the latter being the emanation of Ferho--the +unknown, formless LIFE. He is the chief of the Æons, from whom +proceed (or shoot forth) five refulgent rays of Divine light. Mano is +_Rex Lucis_, the Bythos-Ennoia of the Ophites. “_Unus est Rex Lucis +in suo regno, nec ullus qui eo altior, nullus qui ejus similitudinem +retulerit, nullus qui sublatis oculis, viderit Coronam quæ in ejus +capite est._” He is the Manifested Light around the highest of the +three kabalistic heads, the concealed wisdom; from him emanate +the three _Lives_. Æbel Zivo is the revealed Logos, Christos the +“Apostle Gabriel,” and the first Legate or messenger of light. If +Bythos and Ennoia are the Nazarene Mano, then the dual-natured, the +semi-spiritual, semi-material Achamoth must be Fetahil when viewed +from her spiritual aspect; and if regarded in her grosser nature, she +is the Nazarene “Spiritus.” + +Fetahil,[296] who is the reflection of his father, Lord Abatur, the +_third_ life--as the elder Sophia is also the third emanation--is +the “newest-man.” Perceiving his fruitless attempts to create a +perfect material world, the “Spiritus” calls to one of her progeny, +the Karabtanos--Ilda-Baoth--who is without sense or judgment (“blind +matter”), to unite himself with her to create something definite out +of this confused (_turbulentos_) matter, which task she is enabled to +achieve only after having produced from this union with Karabtanos +the seven stellars. Like the six sons or genii of the Gnostic +Ilda-Baoth, they then frame the material world. The same story is +repeated over again in Sophia-Achamoth. Delegated by her purely +spiritual parent, the elder Sophia, to create the world of _visible +forms_, she descended into chaos, and, overpowered by the emanation +of matter, lost her way. Still ambitious to create a world of matter +of her own, she busied herself hovering to and fro about the dark +abyss, and imparted life and motion to the inert elements, until she +became so hopelessly entangled in matter that, like Fetahil, she is +represented sitting immersed in mud, and unable to extricate herself +from it; until, by the contact of matter itself, she produces the +_Creator_ of the material world. He is the Demiurgus, called by the +Ophites Ilda-Baoth, and, as we will directly show, the parent of the +Jewish God in the opinion of some sects, and held by others to be the +“Lord God” Himself. It is at this point of the kabalistic-gnostic +cosmogony that begins the Mosaic _Bible_. Having accepted the Jewish +_Old Testament_ as their standard, no wonder that the Christians were +forced by the exceptional position in which they were placed through +their own ignorance, to make the best of it. + +The first groups of Christians, whom Renan shows numbering but from +seven to twelve men in _each church_, belonged unquestionably to the +poorest and most ignorant classes. They had and could have no idea of +the highly philosophical doctrines of the Platonists and Gnostics, +and evidently knew as little about their own newly-made-up religion. +To these, who if Jews, had been crushed under the tyrannical dominion +of the “law,” as enforced by the elders of the synagogues, and if +Pagans had been always excluded, as the lower castes are until now +in India, from the religious mysteries, the God of the Jews and +the “Father” preached by Jesus were all one. The contention which +reigned from the first years following the death of Jesus, between +the two parties, the Pauline and the Petrine--were deplorable. What +one did, the other deemed a sacred duty to undo. If the _Homilies_ +are considered apocryphal, and cannot very well be accepted as an +infallible standard by which to measure the animosity which raged +between the two apostles, we have the _Bible_, and the proofs +afforded therein are plentiful. + +So hopelessly entangled seems Irenæus in his fruitless endeavors to +describe, to all outward appearance at least, the true doctrines of +the many Gnostic sects of which he treats and to present them at the +same time as abominable “heresies,” that he either deliberately, +or through ignorance, confounds all of them in such a way that +few metaphysicians would be able to disentangle them, without the +_Kabala_ and the _Codex_ as the true keys. Thus, for instance, he +cannot even tell the difference between the Sethianites and the +Ophites, and tells us that they called the “God of all,” “_Hominem_,” +a MAN, and his mind the SECOND man, or the “_Son of man_.” So does +Theodoret, who lived more than two centuries after Irenæus, and who +makes a sad mess of the chronological order in which the various +sects succeeded each other.[297] Neither the Sethianites, (a branch +of the Jewish Nazarenes) nor the Ophites, a purely Greek sect, have +ever held anything of the kind. Irenæus contradicts his own words by +describing in another place the doctrines of Cerinthus, the direct +disciple of Simon Magus. He says that Cerinthus taught that the world +was not created by the FIRST GOD, but by a virtue (virtus) or power, +an Æon so distant from the First Cause that he was even ignorant of +HIM who _is above all things_. This Æon subjected Jesus, he begot him +physically through Joseph from one who was not a virgin, but simply +the wife of that Joseph, and Jesus was born like all other men. +Viewed from this physical aspect of his nature, Jesus was called the +“son of man.” It is only after his _baptism_, that _Christos_, the +anointed, descended from the Princeliness of above, in the figure of +a dove, and then announced the UNKNOWN Father through Jesus.[298] + +If, therefore, Jesus was physically considered as a son of man, and +spiritually as the Christos, who overshadowed him, how then could +the “GOD OF ALL,” the “_Unknown_ Father,” be called by the Gnostics +_Homo_, a MAN, and his Mind, Ennoia, the SECOND man, or _Son of +man_? Neither in the Oriental _Kabala_, nor in Gnosticism, was the +“God of all” ever anthropomorphized. It is but the first, or rather +the second emanations, for Shekinah, Sephira, Depth, and other +first-manifested female virtues are also emanations, that are termed +“primitive men.” Thus Adam Kadmon, Ennoia (or Sigè), the _logoi_ in +short, are the “only-begotten” ones but not the _Sons_ of man, which +appellation properly belongs to Christos the son of Sophia (the +elder) and of the primitive man who produces him through his own +vivifying light, which emanates from the source or _cause_ of all, +hence the _cause_ of his light also, the “Unknown Father.” There +is a great difference made in the Gnostic metaphysics between the +first unrevealed Logos and the “anointed,” who is Christos. Ennoia +may be termed, as Philo understands it, the _Second_ God, but he +alone is the “Primitive and First man,” and by no means the Second +one, as Theodoret and Irenæus have it. It is but the inveterate +desire of the latter to connect Jesus in every possible way, even in +the _Hæresies_, with the _Highest_ God, that led him into so many +falsifications. + +Such an identification with the _Unknown_ God, even of Christos, +the anointed--the Æon who overshadowed him--let alone of the man +Jesus, never entered the head of the Gnostics nor even of the direct +apostles and of Paul, whatever later forgeries may have added. + +How daring and desperate were many such deliberate falsifications was +shown in the first attempts to compare the original manuscripts with +later ones. In Bishop Horseley’s edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s works, +several manuscripts on theological subjects were cautiously withheld +from publication. The article known as _Christ’s Descent into Hell_, +which is found in the later Apostles’ Creed, is not to be found in +the manuscripts of either the fourth or sixth centuries. It was an +evident interpolation copied from the fables of Bacchus and Hercules +and enforced upon Christendom as an article of faith. Concerning it +the author of the preface to the _Catalogue of the Manuscripts of +the King’s Library_ (preface, p. xxi.) remarks: “I wish that the +insertion of the article of _Christ’s Descent into Hell_ into the +Apostles’ Creed could be as well accounted for as the _insertion_ of +the _said_ verse” (_First Epistle of John_, v. 7).[299] + +Now, this verse reads: “For there are three that bear record in +Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost; and these three are +one.” This verse, which has been “appointed to be read in churches,” +is now known to be spurious. It is not to be found in any Greek +manuscript, save one at Berlin, which was transcribed from some +interpolated paraphrase between the lines. In the first and second +editions of Erasmus, printed in 1516 and 1519, this allusion to +these three heavenly witnesses is _omitted_; and the text is not +contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the +fifteenth century.[300] It was not mentioned by either of the Greek +ecclesiastical writers nor by the early Latin fathers, so anxious to +get at every proof in support of their trinity; and it was omitted +by Luther in his German version. Edward Gibbon was early in pointing +out its spurious character. Archbishop Newcome rejected it, and the +Bishop of Lincoln expresses his conviction that it is spurious.[301] +There are twenty-eight Greek authors--Irenæus, Clemens, and +Athanasius included, who neither quote nor mention it; and seventeen +Latin writers, numbering among them Augustine, Jerome, Ambrosius, +Cyprian, and Pope Eusebius, who appear utterly ignorant of it. “It +is evident that if the text of the heavenly witnesses had been known +from the beginning of Christianity the ancients would have eagerly +seized it, inserted it in their creeds, quoted it repeatedly against +the heretics, and selected it for the brightest ornament of every +book that they wrote upon the subject of the Trinity.”[302] + +Thus falls to the ground the strongest trinitarian pillar. Another +not less obvious forgery is quoted from Sir Isaac Newton’s words by +the editor of the _Apocryphal New Testament_. Newton observes “that +what the Latins have done to this text (_First Epistle of John_, v.), +the Greeks have done to that of St. Paul (_Timothy_ iii. 16).” For, +by changing ΟΣ into ΘΣ, the abbreviation of Θεος (God), in the +Alexandrian manuscript, from which their subsequent copies were made, +they now read, “_Great is the mystery of godliness_, GOD _manifested +in the flesh_;” whereas all the churches, for the first four or five +centuries, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome, as +well as the rest, read: “Great is the mystery of godliness WHICH WAS +_manifested in the flesh_.” Newton adds, that now that the disputes +over this forgery are over, they that read GOD made manifest in the +flesh, instead of the _godliness which was_ manifested in the flesh, +think this passage “one of the most obvious and pertinent texts for +the business.” + +And now we ask again the question: Who were the first Christians? +Those who were readily converted by the eloquent simplicity of Paul, +who promised them, with the name of Jesus, _freedom_ from the narrow +bonds of ecclesiasticism. They understood but one thing; they were +the “children of promise” (_Galatians_ iv. 28). The “allegory” of +the Mosaic _Bible_ was unveiled to them; the covenant “from the +Mount Sinai which gendereth _to bondage_” was Agar (Ibid., 24), the +old Jewish synagogue, and she was “in bondage with her children” +to Jerusalem, the new and the free, “the mother of us all.” On the +one hand the synagogue and the law which persecuted every one who +dared to step across the narrow path of bigotry and dogmatism; +on the other, Paganism[303] with its grand philosophical truths +concealed from sight; unveiling itself but to the few, and leaving +the masses hopelessly seeking to discover who was _the_ god, among +this overcrowded pantheon of deities and sub-deities. To others, +the apostle of circumcision, supported by all his followers, was +promising, if they obeyed the “law,” a life hereafter, and a +resurrection of which they had no previous idea. At the same time +he never lost an occasion to contradict Paul without naming him, +but indicating him so clearly that it is next to impossible to +doubt whom Peter meant. While he may have converted some men, who +whether they had believed in the Mosaic resurrection promised by +the Pharisees, or had fallen into the nihilistic doctrines of the +Sadducees, or had belonged to the polytheistic heathenism of the +Pagan rabble, had no future after death, nothing but a mournful +blank, we do not think that the work of contradiction, carried on +so systematically by the two apostles, had helped much their work +of proselytism. With the educated thinking classes they succeeded +very little, as ecclesiastical history clearly shows. Where was +the truth; where the inspired word of God? On the one hand, as we +have seen, they heard the apostle Paul explaining that of the two +covenants, “which things are an allegory,” the old one from Mount +Sinai, “which gendereth unto bondage,” was _Agar_ the bondwoman; and +Mount Sinai itself answered to “Jerusalem,” which now is “in bondage” +with her circumcised children; and the new covenant meant Jesus +Christ--the “Jerusalem which is above and free;” and on the other +Peter, who was contradicting and even abusing him. Paul vehemently +exclaims, “Cast out the bondwoman and her son” (the old _law_ and the +synagogue). “The son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son +of the freewoman.” “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith +Christ hath made us free; be not entangled again with the yoke of +bondage.... Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, +Christ shall profit you nothing!” (_Gal._ v. 2). What do we find +Peter writing? Whom does he mean by saying, “These who speak great +swelling words of vanity.... While they promise them _liberty_, they +themselves are servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, +of the same is he brought in bondage.... For if _they have escaped_ +the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and +Saviour, they are again entangled therein, and overcome ... it had +_been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness_, +than after they have known it to turn from the holy _commandment +delivered unto them_” (_Second Epistle_). + +Peter certainly cannot have meant the Gnostics, for they had never +seen “the holy commandment delivered unto them;” Paul had. They +never promised any one “liberty” from bondage, but Paul had done so +repeatedly. Moreover the latter rejects the “old covenant,” Agar the +bondwoman; and Peter holds fast to it. Paul warns the people against +the _powers_ and _dignities_ (the lower angels of the kabalists); and +Peter, as will be shown further, respects them and _denounces those +who do not_. Peter preaches circumcision, and Paul forbids it. + +Later, when all these extraordinary blunders, contradictions, +dissensions and inventions were forcibly crammed into a frame +elaborately executed by the episcopal caste of the new religion, +and called Christianity; and the chaotic picture itself cunningly +preserved from too close scrutiny by a whole array of formidable +Church penances and anathemas, which kept the curious back under the +false pretense of sacrilege and profanation of divine mysteries; +and millions of people had been butchered in the name of the God of +mercy--then came the Reformation. It certainly deserves its name in +its fullest paradoxical sense. It abandoned Peter and alleges to +have chosen Paul for its only leader. And the apostle who thundered +against the old law of bondage; who left full liberty to Christians +to either observe the Sabbath or set it aside; who rejects everything +anterior to John the Baptist, is now the professed standard-bearer +of Protestantism, which holds to the _old_ law more than the Jews, +imprisons those who view the Sabbath as Jesus and Paul did, and +outvies the synagogue of the first century in dogmatic intolerance! + +But who then _were_ the first Christians, may still be asked? +Doubtless the Ebionites; and in this we follow the authority of +the best critics. “There can be little doubt that the author (of +the _Clementine Homilies_) was a representative of Ebionitic +Gnosticism, which _had once been the purest form of primitive +Christianity_....”[304] And who were the Ebionites? The pupils +and followers of the early Nazarenes, the kabalistic Gnostics. In +the preface to the _Codex Nazaræus_, the translator says: “That +also the Nazarenes did not reject ... the Æons is natural. For of +the Ebionites who acknowledged them (the Æons), these were the +instructors.”[305] + +We find, moreover, Epiphanius, the Christian Homer of _The Heresies_, +telling us that “Ebion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form +of the Cerinthians (who fable that the world was put together by +angels), and the appellation of Christians.”[306] An appellation +certainly more correctly applied to them than to the orthodox +(so-called) Christians of the school of Irenæus and the later +Vatican. Renan shows the Ebionites numbering among their sect all +the surviving relatives of Jesus. John the Baptist, his cousin and +_precursor_, was the accepted Saviour of the Nazarenes, and their +prophet. His disciples dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and +the scene of the baptism of the Jordan is clearly and beyond any +question proved by the author of _Sod, the Son of the Man_, to have +been the site of the Adonis-worship.[307] “Over the Jordan and beyond +the lake dwelt the Nazarenes, a sect said to have existed already at +the birth of Jesus, and to have counted him among its number. They +must have extended along the east of the Jordan, and southeasterly +among the Arabians (_Galat._ i. 17, 21; ii. 11), and Sabæans in the +direction of Bosra; and again, they must have gone far north over the +Lebanon to Antioch, also to the northeast to the Nazarian settlement +in Berœa, where St. Jerome found them. In the desert the Mysteries +of Adonis may have still prevailed; in the mountains Aiai Adonai was +still a cry.”[308] + +“Having been united (conjunctus) to the Nazarenes, each (Ebionite) +imparted to the other out of his own wickedness, and decided that +Christ _was of the seed of a man_,” writes Epiphanius. + +And if they did, we must suppose they knew more about their +contemporary prophet than Epiphanius 400 years later. Theodoret, +as shown elsewhere, describes the Nazarenes as Jews who “honor the +Anointed as a just man,” and use the _evangel_ called “_According to +Peter_.” Jerome finds the authentic and original _evangel_, written +in Hebrew, by Matthew the apostle-publican, in the library collected +at Cæsarea, by the martyr Pamphilius. “_I received permission from +the Nazaræans_, who at Berœa of Syria used this (gospel) to translate +it,” he writes toward the end of the fourth century.[309] “In the +_evangel_ which the _Nazarenes_ and _Ebionites_ use,” adds Jerome, +“which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek,[310] and which +is called by most persons the _genuine Gospel of Matthew_,” etc. + +That the apostles had received a “secret doctrine” from Jesus, and +that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of +Jerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the +Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, he complains that “a difficult +work is enjoined, since this translation has been commanded me +by your Felicities, which _St. Matthew himself, the Apostle and +Evangelist_, DID NOT WISH TO BE OPENLY WRITTEN. For if it had not +been SECRET, he (Matthew) would have added to the _evangel_ that +which he gave forth was his; but he made up this book sealed up in +the Hebrew characters, which he put forth _even in such a way_ that +the book, written in Hebrew letters and _by the hand of himself_, +might be possessed _by the men most religious_, who also, in the +course of time, received it from those who preceded them. But this +very book they never gave to any one to be transcribed, and its +_text_ they related some one way and some another.”[311] And he adds +further on the same page: “And it happened that this book, having +been published by a disciple of Manichæus, named Seleucus, who also +wrote falsely _The Acts of the Apostles_, exhibited matter not for +edification, but for destruction; and that this book was approved +in a synod which the ears of the Church properly refused to listen +to.”[312] + +He admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as being +written “_by the hand of Matthew_;” a book which, notwithstanding +that he translated it twice, was nearly unintelligible to him, for +it was arcane or _a secret_. Nevertheless, Jerome coolly sets down +every commentary upon it, except his own, as _heretical_. More than +that, Jerome knew that this _original Gospel of Matthew_ was the +expounder of the only true doctrine of Christ; and that it was the +work of an evangelist who had been the friend and companion of Jesus. +He knew that if of the two _Gospels_, the Hebrew in question and the +Greek belonging to our present Scripture, one was spurious, hence +heretical, it was not that of the Nazarenes; and yet, knowing all +this, Jerome becomes more zealous than ever in his persecutions of +the “Hæretics.” Why? Because to accept it was equivalent to reading +the death-sentence of the established Church. The _Gospel according +to the Hebrews_ was but too well known to have been the only one +accepted for four centuries by the Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes +and the Ebionites. And neither of the latter accepted the _divinity_ +of Christ. + +If the commentaries of Jerome on the Prophets, his famous _Vulgate_, +and numerous polemical treatises are all as trustworthy as this +version of the _Gospel according to Matthew_, then we have a divine +revelation indeed. + +Why wonder at the unfathomable mysteries of the Christian religion, +since it is perfectly _human_? Have we not a letter written by one +of the most respected Fathers of the Church to this same Jerome, +which shows better than whole volumes their traditionary policy? +This is what _Saint_ Gregory of Nazianzen wrote to his friend and +confidant _Saint_ Jerome: “Nothing can impose better on a people +than _verbiage_; the less they understand the more they admire. Our +fathers and doctors have often said, not what they thought, but what +circumstances and necessity forced them to.” + +But to return to our Sophia-Achamoth and the belief of the genuine, +primitive Christians. + +After having produced Ilda-Baoth, Ilda from ילד, a child, and Baoth +from בויץ, the egg, or בהות, _Baoth_, a waste, a desolation, +Sophia-Achamoth suffered so much from the contact with matter, +that after extraordinary struggles she escapes at last out of the +muddy chaos. Although unacquainted with the pleroma, the region +of her mother, she reached the middle space and succeeded in +shaking off the material parts which have stuck to her spiritual +nature; after which she immediately built a strong barrier +between the world of intelligences (spirits) and the world of +matter. Ilda-Baoth, is thus the “son of darkness,” the creator of +our sinful world (the physical portion of it). He follows the +example of Bythos and produces from himself six stellar spirits +(sons). They are all in his own image, and reflections one of the +other, which become darker as they successively recede from their +father. With the latter, they all inhabit seven regions disposed +like a ladder, beginning under the middle space, the region of +their mother, Sophia-Achamoth, and ending with our earth, the +_seventh_ region. Thus they are the genii of the seven planetary +spheres of which the lowest is the region of our earth (the +sphere which surrounds it, our æther). The respective names of +these genii of the spheres are _Iòve_ (Jehovah), _Sabaoth_, +_Adonai_, _Eloi_, _Ouraios_, _Astaphaios_.[313] The first four, +as every one knows, are the mystic names of the Jewish “Lord +God,”[314] he being, as C. W. King expresses it, “thus degraded +by the Ophites into the appellations of the subordinates of the +Creator; “the two last names are those of the genii of fire and +water.” + +Ilda-Baoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses, was +not a pure spirit; he was ambitious and proud, and rejecting the +spiritual light of the middle space offered him by his mother +Sophia-Achamoth, he set himself to create a world of his own. Aided +by his sons, the six planetary genii, he fabricated man, but this one +proved a failure. It was a monster; soulless, ignorant, and crawling +on all fours on the ground like a material beast. Ilda-Baoth was +forced to implore the help of his spiritual mother. She communicated +to him a ray of her divine light, and so animated man and endowed him +with a soul. And now began the animosity of Ilda-Baoth toward his +own creature. Following the impulse of the divine light, man soared +higher and higher in his aspirations; very soon he began presenting +not the image of his Creator Ilda-Baoth but rather that of the +Supreme Being, the “primitive man,” Ennoia. Then the Demiurgus was +filled with rage and envy; and fixing his jealous eye on the abyss of +matter, his looks envenomed with passion were suddenly reflected in +it as in a mirror; the reflection became animate, and there arose out +of the abyss Satan, serpent, Ophiomorphos--“the embodiment of envy +and of cunning. He is the union of all that is most base in matter, +with the hate, envy, and craft of a spiritual intelligence.”[315] + +After that, always in spite at the perfection of man, Ilda-Baoth +created the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable, +and animal, with all evil instincts and properties. Impotent to +annihilate the Tree of Knowledge, which grows in his sphere as in +every one of the planetary regions, but bent upon detaching “man” +from his spiritual protectress, Ilda-Baoth forbade him to eat of its +fruit, for fear it should reveal to mankind the mysteries of the +superior world. But Sophia-Achamoth, who loved and protected the man +whom she had animated, sent her own genius Ophis, in the form of a +serpent to induce man to transgress the selfish and unjust command. +And “man” suddenly became capable of comprehending the mysteries of +creation. + +Ilda-Baoth revenged himself by punishing the first pair, for man, +through his _knowledge_, had already provided for himself a companion +out of his spiritual and material half. He imprisoned man and woman +in a dungeon of matter, in the body so unworthy of his nature, +wherein man is still enthralled. But Achamoth protected him still. +She established between her celestial region and “man,” a current of +divine light, and kept constantly supplying him with this _spiritual_ +illumination. + +Then follow allegories embodying the idea of dualism, or the +struggle between good and evil, spirit and matter, which is found in +every cosmogony, and the source of which is again to be sought in +India. The types and antitypes represent the heroes of this Gnostic +Pantheon, borrowed from the most ancient mythopœic ages. But, in +these personages, Ophis and Ophiomorphos, Sophia and Sophia-Achamoth, +Adam-Kadmon, and Adam, the planetary genii and the divine Æons, we +can also recognize very easily the models of our biblical copies--the +euhemerized patriarchs. The archangels, angels, virtues and powers, +are all found, under other names, in the _Vedas_ and the Buddhistic +system. The Avestic Supreme Being, Zero-ana, or “Boundless Time,” is +the type of all these Gnostic and kabalistic “Depths,” “Crowns,” and +even of the Chaldean En-Soph. The six Amshaspands, created through +the “Word” of Ormazd, the “First-Born,” have their reflections in +Bythos and his emanations, and the antitype of Ormazd--Ahriman and +his devs also enter into the composition of Ilda-Baoth and his six +_material_, though not wholly evil, planetary genii. + +Achamoth, afflicted with the evils which befall humanity, +notwithstanding her protection, beseeches the celestial mother +Sophia--her antitype--to prevail on the unknown DEPTH to send down +Christos (the son and emanation of the “Celestial Virgin”) to the +help of perishing humanity. Ilda-Baoth and his six sons of matter +are shutting out the divine light from mankind. Man must be saved. +Ilda-Baoth had already sent his own agent, John the Baptist, from the +race of Seth, whom he protects--as a prophet to his people; but only +a small portion listened to him--the Nazarenes, the opponents of the +Jews, on account of their worshipping Iurbo-Adunai.[316] Achamoth +had assured her son, Ilda-Baoth, that the reign of Christos would +be only temporal, and thus induced him to send the forerunner, or +precursor. Besides that, she made _him cause_ the birth of the _man_ +Jesus from the Virgin Mary, her own type on earth, “for the creation +of a material personage could only be the work of the Demiurgus, not +falling within the province of a higher power. As soon as Jesus was +born, Christos, the perfect, uniting himself with Sophia (wisdom +and spirituality), descended through the seven planetary regions, +assuming in each an analogous form, and concealing his true nature +from their genii, while he attracted into himself the sparks of +divine light which they retained in their essence. Thus, Christos +entered into the _man_ Jesus at the moment of his baptism in the +Jordan. From that time Jesus began to work miracles; before that, he +had been completely ignorant of his mission.”[317] + +Ilda-Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his own +kingdom of matter, stirred up the Jews against him, and Jesus was put +to death.[318] When on the Cross, Christos and Sophia left his body +and returned to their own sphere. The material body of the man Jesus +was abandoned to the earth, but he himself was given a body made +up of _æther_ (astral soul). “Thenceforward he consisted of merely +_soul_ and _spirit_,” which was the reason why the disciples did not +recognize him after the resurrection. In this spiritual state of a +_simulacrum_, Jesus remained on earth for eighteen months after he +had risen. During this last sojourn, “he received from Sophia that +perfect knowledge, that true Gnosis, _which he communicated to the +very few among the apostles_ who were capable of receiving the same.” + +“Thence, ascending up into the middle space, he sits on the right +hand of Ilda-Baoth, but unperceived by him, and there collects all +the souls which shall have been purified by the knowledge of Christ. +When he has collected all the spiritual light that exists in matter, +out of Ilda-Baoth’s empire, the redemption will be accomplished and +the world will be destroyed. Such is the meaning of the re-absorption +of all the spiritual light into the pleroma or fulness, whence it +originally descended.” + +The foregoing is from the description given by Theodoret and adopted +by King in his _Gnostics_, with additions from Epiphanius and +Irenæus. But the former gives a very imperfect version, concocted +partly from the descriptions of Irenæus, and partly from his own +knowledge of the later Ophites, who, toward the end of the third +century, had blended already with several other sects. Irenæus also +confounds them very frequently, and the real theogony of the Ophites +is given by none of them correctly. With the exception of a change +in names, the above-given theogony is that of all the Gnostics, and +also of the Nazarenes. Ophis is but the successor of the Egyptian +_Chnuphis_, the Good Serpent with a lion’s radiating head, and was +held from days of the highest antiquity as an emblem of wisdom, or +Thauth, the instructor and Saviour of humanity, the “Son of God.” “Oh +men, live soberly ... win your immortality!” exclaims Hermes, the +thrice-great Trismegistus. “Instructor and guide of humanity, I will +lead you on to salvation.” Thus the oldest sectarians regarded Ophis, +the Agathodæmon, as identical with Christos; the serpent being the +emblem of celestial wisdom and eternity, and, in the present case, +the antitype of the Egyptian Chnuphis-serpent. These Gnostics, the +earliest of our Christian era, held: “That the supreme Æon, having +emitted other Æons out of himself, one of them, a female, _Prunnikos_ +(concupiscence), descended into the chaos, whence, unable to escape, +she remained suspended in the mid-space, being too clogged by matter +to return above, and not falling lower where there was nothing in +affinity with her nature. She then produced her son Ilda-Baoth, +the God of the Jews, who, in his turn, produced seven Æons, or +angels,[319] who created the seven heavens.” + +In this plurality of heavens the Christians believed from the first, +for we find Paul teaching of their existence, and speaking of a man +“caught up to the _third_ heaven” (_2 Corin._, xiii.). From these +seven angels Ilda-Baoth shut up all that was above him, lest they +should know of anything superior to himself.[320] They then created +man in the image of their Father,[321] but prone and crawling on +the earth like a worm. But the heavenly mother, Prunnikos, wishing +to deprive Ilda-Baoth of the power with which she had unwittingly +endowed him, infused into man a celestial spark--the spirit. +Immediately man rose upon his feet, soared in mind beyond the limits +of the seven spheres, and glorified the Supreme Father, _Him that is +above Ilda-Baoth_. Hence, the latter, full of jealousy, cast down +his eyes upon the lowest stratum of matter, and begot a potency in +the form of a serpent, whom they (the Ophites) call his son. Eve, +obeying him as the son of God, was persuaded to eat of the Tree of +Knowledge.[322] + +It is a self-evident fact that the serpent of the _Genesis_, who +appears suddenly and without any preliminary introduction, must +have been the antitype of the Persian Arch-Devs, whose head is +Ash-Mogh, the “two-footed serpent of lies.” If the _Bible_-serpent +had been deprived of his limbs before he had tempted woman unto sin, +why should God specify as a punishment that he should go “upon his +belly?” Nobody supposes that he walked upon the extremity of his tail. + +This controversy about the supremacy of Jehovah, between the +Presbyters and Fathers on the one hand, and the Gnostics, the +Nazarenes, and all the sects declared heterodox, as a last resort, on +the other, lasted till the days of Constantine, and later. That the +peculiar ideas of the Gnostics about the _genealogy_ of Jehovah, or +the proper place that had to be assigned, in the Christian-Gnostic +Pantheon, to the God of the Jews, were at first deemed neither +blasphemous nor heterodox is evident in the difference of opinions +held on this question by Clemens of Alexandria, for instance, and +Tertullian. The former, who seems to have known of Basilides better +than anybody else, saw nothing heterodox or blamable in the mystical +and transcendental views of the new Reformer. “In his eyes,” remarks +the author of _The Gnostics_, speaking of Clemens, “Basilides was +not a heretic, _i.e._, an innovator as regards the doctrines of the +Christian Church, but a mere theosophic philosopher, who sought to +express _ancient truths_ under new forms, and perhaps to combine +them with the new faith, the truth of which he could admit without +necessarily renouncing the old, exactly as is the case with the +learned Hindus of our day.”[323] + +Not so with Irenæus and Tertullian.[324] The principal works of the +latter _against the Heretics_, were written after his separation +from the Catholic Church, when he had ranged himself among the +zealous followers of Montanus; and teem with unfairness and bigoted +prejudice.[325] He has exaggerated every Gnostic opinion to a +monstrous absurdity, and his arguments are not based on coercive +reasoning but simply on the blind stubbornness of a partisan fanatic. +Discussing Basilides, the “pious, god-like, theosophic philosopher,” +as Clemens of Alexandria thought him, Tertullian exclaims: “After +this, Basilides, the _heretic_, broke loose.[326] He asserted that +there is a Supreme God, by name Abraxas, by whom Mind was created, +whom the Greeks call _Nous_. From her emanated the Word; from the +Word, Providence; from Providence, Virtue and Wisdom; from these +two again, Virtues, _Principalities,[327] and Powers_ were made; +thence infinite productions and emissions of angels. Among the lowest +angels, indeed, and those that made this world, he sets _last of all_ +the god of the Jews, whom he denies to be God himself, affirming that +he is but one of the angels.”[328] + +It would be equally useless to refer to the direct apostles of +Christ, and show them as holding in their controversies that Jesus +never made any difference between his “Father” and the “Lord-God” of +Moses. For the _Clementine Homilies_, in which occur the greatest +argumentations upon the subject, as shown in the disputations alleged +to have taken place between Peter and Simon the Magician, are now +also proved to have been falsely attributed to Clement the Roman. +This work, if written by an Ebionite--as the author of _Supernatural +Religion_ declares in common with some other commentators[329]--must +have been written either far later than the Pauline period, +generally assigned to it, or the dispute about the identity of +Jehovah with God, the “Father of Jesus,” have been distorted by +later interpolations. This disputation is in its very essence +antagonistic to the early doctrines of the Ebionites. The latter, as +demonstrated by Epiphanius and Theodoret, were the direct followers +of the Nazarene sect[330] (the Sabians), the “Disciples of John.” +He says, unequivocally, that the Ebionites believed in the _Æons_ +(emanations), that the Nazarenes were _their instructors_, and that +“each imparted to the other out of his own wickedness.” Therefore, +holding the same beliefs as the Nazarenes did, an Ebionite would not +have given even so much chance to the doctrine supported by Peter in +the _Homilies_. The old Nazarenes, as well as the later ones, whose +views are embodied in the _Codex Nazaræus_, never called Jehovah +otherwise than _Adonai_, _Iurbo_, the God of the _Abortive_[331] +(the orthodox Jews). They kept their beliefs and religious tenets +so _secret_ that even Epiphanius, writing as early as the end of +the fourth century,[332] confesses his ignorance as to their real +doctrine. “Dropping the name of Jesus,” says the Bishop of Salamis, +“they neither call themselves _Iessaens_, nor continue to hold the +name of the Jews, nor name themselves Christians, but _Nazarenes_.... +The resurrection of the dead is confessed by them ... but concerning +Christ, _I cannot say_ whether they think him a _mere man_, or as the +_truth is_, confess that he was born through the _Holy Pneuma_ from +the Virgin.”[333] + +While Simon Magus argues in the _Homilies_ from the standpoint of +every Gnostic (Nazarenes and Ebionites included), Peter, as a true +apostle of circumcision, holds to the old Law and, as a matter of +course, seeks to blend his belief in the divinity of Christ with his +old Faith in the “Lord God” and ex-protector of the “chosen people.” +As the author of _Supernatural Religion_ shows, the Epitome,[334] +“a blending of the other two, probably intended to purge them from +heretical doctrine”[335] and, together with a great majority of +critics, assigns to the _Homilies_, a date not earlier than the end +of the third century, we may well infer that they must differ widely +with their original, if there ever was one. Simon the Magician proves +throughout the whole work that the Demiurgus, the Architect of the +World, is not the highest Deity; and he bases his assertions upon +the words of Jesus himself, who states repeatedly that “no man knew +the Father.” Peter is made in the _Homilies_ to repudiate, with a +great show of indignation, the assertion that the Patriarchs were +not deemed worthy to know the Father; to which Simon objects again +by quoting the words of Jesus, who thanks the “Lord of Heaven and +earth that what was concealed from the wise” he has “revealed to +babes,” proving very logically that according to these very words the +Patriarchs could not have known the “Father.” Then Peter argues, in +his turn, that the expression, “what is _concealed_ from the wise,” +etc., referred to the concealed _mysteries_ of the creation.[336] + +This argumentation of Peter, therefore, had it even emanated from +the apostle himself, instead of being a “religious romance,” as the +author of _Supernatural Religion_ calls it, would prove nothing +whatever in favor of the identity of the God of the Jews, with the +“Father” of Jesus. At best it would only demonstrate that Peter had +remained from first to last “an apostle of circumcision,” a Jew +faithful to his old law, and a defender of the _Old Testament_. This +conversation proves, moreover, the weakness of the cause he defends, +for we see in the apostle a man who, although in most intimate +relations with Jesus, can furnish us nothing in the way of direct +proof that he ever thought of teaching that the all-wise and all-good +Paternity he preached was the morose and revengeful thunderer of +Mount Sinai. But what the _Homilies_ do prove, is again our assertion +that there was a secret doctrine preached by Jesus to the few who +were deemed worthy to become its recipients and custodians. “And +Peter said: ‘We remember that our Lord and teacher, as commanding, +said to us, guard the mysteries for me, and the sons of my house. +Wherefore also he explained to his disciples, _privately_, the +_mysteries of the kingdoms of the heavens_.’”[337] + +If we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the +“Pagans” consisted of the απορῥήτα, _aporrheta_, or secret discourses; +that the secret _Logia_ or discourses of Jesus contained in the +original _Gospel according to Matthew_, the meaning and interpretation +of which St. Jerome confessed to be “a difficult task” for him to +achieve, were of the same nature; and if we remember, further, that to +some of the interior or final Mysteries only a very select few were +admitted; and that finally it was from the number of the latter that +were taken all the ministers of the holy “Pagan” rites, we will then +clearly understand this expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: “Guard +_the Mysteries for me and the sons of my house_,” _i.e._, of my +doctrine. And, if we understand it rightly, we cannot avoid thinking +that this “secret” doctrine of Jesus, even the technical expressions +of which are but so many duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic +mystic phraseology--that this doctrine, we say, was based on the same +transcendental philosophy of Oriental _Gnosis_ as the rest of the +religions of those and earliest days. That none of the later Christian +sects, despite their boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident +from the contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the +mistakes of every preceding century by the discoveries of the +succeeding one. These mistakes, in a number of manuscripts claimed to +be authentic, are sometimes so ridiculous as to bear on their face the +evidence of being pious forgeries. Thus, for instance, the utter +ignorance of some patristic champions of the very gospels they claimed +to defend. We have mentioned the accusation against Marcion by +Tertullian and Epiphanius of mutilating the _Gospel_ ascribed to Luke, +and erasing from it that which is now proved to have never been in +that Gospel at all. Finally, the method adopted by Jesus of speaking +in parables, in which he only followed the example of his sect, is +attributed in the _Homilies_ to a prophecy of _Isaiah_! Peter is made +to remark: “For Isaiah said: ‘I will open my mouth in parables, and I +will utter things that have been kept secret from the foundation of +the world.’” This erroneous reference to Isaiah of a sentence given in +_Psalms_ lxxviii. 2, is found not only in the apocryphal _Homilies_, +but also in the Sinaitic _Codex_. Commenting on the fact in the +_Supernatural Religion_, the author states that “Porphyry, in the +third century, twitted Christians with this erroneous ascription by +their inspired evangelist to Isaiah of a passage from a _Psalm_, and +reduced the Fathers to great straits.”[338] Eusebius and Jerome tried +to get out of the difficulty by ascribing the mistake to an “ignorant +scribe;” and Jerome even went to the length of asserting that the name +of Isaiah never stood after the above sentence in any of the old +codices, but that the name of Asaph was found in its place, only +“_ignorant_ men had removed it.”[339] To this, the author again +observes that “the fact is that the reading ‘Asaph’ for ‘Isaiah’ is +not found in any manuscript extant; and, although ‘Isaiah’ has +_disappeared_ from all but a few obscure codices, it cannot be denied +that the name anciently stood in the text. In the Sinaitic _Codex_, +which is probably the earliest manuscript extant ... and which is +assigned to the fourth century,” he adds, “the prophet _Isaiah_ stands +in the text by the first hand, _but is erased_ by the second.”[340] + +It is a most suggestive fact that there is not a word in the so-called +sacred _Scriptures_ to show that Jesus was actually regarded as a God +by his disciples. Neither before nor after his death did they pay him +divine honors. Their relation to him was only that of disciples and +“master;” by which name they addressed him, as the followers of +Pythagoras and Plato addressed their respective masters before them. +Whatever words may have been put into the mouths of Jesus, Peter, +John, Paul, and others, there is not a single act of adoration +recorded on their part, nor did Jesus himself ever declare his +identity with _his Father_. He accused the Pharisees of _stoning_ +their prophets, not of deicide. He termed himself the son of God, but +took care to assert repeatedly that they were all the children of God, +who was the Heavenly Father of all. In preaching this, he but repeated +a doctrine taught ages earlier by Hermes, Plato, and other +philosophers. Strange contradiction! Jesus, whom we are asked to +worship as the one living God, is found, immediately after his +Resurrection, saying to Mary Magdalene: “I am not yet ascended _to my +Father_; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto _my +Father_ and _your_ Father, and to _my_ God and _your_ God!” (_John_ +xx. 17.) + +Does this look like identifying himself with his Father? “_My_ +Father and _your_ Father, _my_ God and _your_ God,” implies, on +his part, a desire to be considered on a perfect equality with his +brethren--nothing more. Theodoret writes: “The hæretics agree with +us respecting the beginning of all things.... But they say there is +not one Christ (God), but one above, and the other below. And this +last _formerly dwelt in many_; but _the Jesus_, they at one time say +is _from_ God, at another they call him a SPIRIT.”[341] This spirit +is the Christos, the _messenger_ of life, who is sometimes called +the Angel _Gabriel_ (in Hebrew, the mighty one of God), and who took +with the Gnostics the place of the Logos, while the Holy Spirit was +considered _Life_.[342] With the sect of the Nazarenes, though, +the Spiritus, or Holy Ghost, had less honor. While nearly every +Gnostic sect considered it a Female Power, whether they called it + _Binah_, נינה, _Sophia_, the Divine Intellect, with the Nazarene sect +it was the _Female Spiritus_, the astral light, the genetrix of all +things of _matter_, the chaos in its evil aspect, made _turbido_ by +the Demiurge. At the creation of man, “it was light on the side of +the FATHER, and it was light (material light) on the side of the +MOTHER. And this is the ‘_two-fold_ man,’”[343] says the _Sohar_. +“That day (the last one) will perish the seven badly-disposed +stellars, also the sons of man, who have confessed the _Spiritus_, +the Messias (false), the Deus, and the MOTHER of the SPIRITUS shall +perish.”[344] + +Jesus enforced and illustrated his doctrines with signs and +wonders; and if we lay aside the claims advanced on his behalf by +his deifiers, he did but what other kabalists did; and only _they_ +at that epoch, when, for two centuries the sources of prophecy +had been completely dried up, and from this stagnation of public +“miracles” had originated the skepticism of the unbelieving sect of +the Sadducees. Describing the “heresies” of those days, Theodoret, +who has no idea of the hidden meaning of the word Christos, the +_anointed_ messenger, complains that they (the Gnostics) assert +_that this Messenger or Delegatus changes his body from time to +time_, “_and goes into other bodies, and at each time is differently +manifested_. And these (the overshadowed prophets) use incantations +and invocations of various demons and baptisms in the confession +of their principles.... They embrace astrology and magic, and the +mathematical error,” (?) he says.[345] + +This “mathematical error,” of which the pious writer complains, +led subsequently to the rediscovery of the heliocentric system, +erroneous as it may still be, and forgotten since the days of +another “magician” who taught it--Pythagoras. Thus, the wonders of +healing and the thaums of Jesus, which he imparted to his followers, +show that they were learning, in their daily communication with +him, the theory and practice of the new ethics, day by day, and in +the familiar intercourse of intimate friendship. Their faith was +progressively developed, like that of all neophytes, simultaneously +with the increase of knowledge. We must bear in mind that Josephus, +who certainly must have been well informed on the subject, calls +the skill of expelling demons “a science.” This growth of faith is +conspicuously shown in the case of Peter, who, from having lacked +enough faith to support him while he could walk on the water from the +boat to his Master, at last became so expert a thaumaturgist, that +Simon Magus is said to have offered him money to teach him the secret +of healing, and other wonders. And Philip is shown to have become an +Æthrobat as good as Abaris of Pythagorean memory, but less expert +than Simon Magus. + +Neither in the _Homilies_ nor any other early work of the apostles, +is there anything to show that either of his friends and followers +regarded Jesus as anything more than a prophet. The idea is as +clearly established in the _Clementines_. Except that too much room +is afforded to Peter to establish the identity of the Mosaic God +with the Father of Jesus, the whole work is devoted to Monotheism. +The author seems as bitter against Polytheism as against the claim +to the divinity of Christ.[346] He seems to be utterly ignorant of +the Logos, and his speculation is confined to Sophia, the Gnostic +wisdom. There is no trace in it of a hypostatic trinity, but the +same overshadowing of the Gnostic “wisdom (Christos and Sophia) is +attributed in the case of Jesus as it is in those of Adam, Enoch, +Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses.[347] These personages are +all placed on one level, and called ‘true prophets,’ and the seven +pillars of the world.” More than that, Peter vehemently denies the +fall of Adam, and with him, the doctrine of atonement, as taught by +Christian theology, utterly falls to the ground, _for he combats it +as a blasphemy_.[348] Peter’s theory of sin is that of the Jewish +kabalists, and even, in a certain way, Platonic. Adam not only never +sinned, but, “as a true prophet, possessed of the Spirit of God, +which afterwards was in Jesus, _could not_ sin.”[349] In short, the +whole of the work exhibits the belief of the author in the kabalistic +doctrine of permutation. The _Kabala_ teaches the doctrine of +transmigration of the spirit.[350] “Mosah is the _revolutio_ of Seth +and Hebel.”[351] + +“Tell me who it is who brings about the _re-birth_ (the revolutio)?” +is asked of the wise Hermes. “God’s Son, the _only man_, through the +will of God,” is the answer of the “heathen.”[352] + +“God’s son” is the immortal spirit assigned to every human being. It +is this divine entity which is the “_only man_,” for the casket which +contains our soul, and the soul itself, are but half-entities, and +without its overshadowing both body and astral soul, the two are but +an animal _duad_. It requires a trinity to form the complete “man,” +and allow him to remain immortal at every “re-birth,” or _revolutio_, +throughout the subsequent and ascending spheres, every one of which +brings him nearer to the refulgent realm of eternal and _absolute_ +light. + +“God’s FIRST-BORN, who is the ‘holy Veil,’ the ‘Light of Lights,’ it +is he who sends the revolutio of the Delegatus, for he is the _First +Power_,” says the kabalist.[353] + +“The pneuma (spirit) and the dunamis (power), which is from the God, +it is right to consider nothing else than the _Logos_, who is _also_ +(?) First-begotten to the God,” argues a Christian.[354] + +“Angels and powers are in heaven!” says Justin, thus bringing forth +a purely kabalistic doctrine. The Christians adopted it from the +_Sohar_ and the hæretical sects, and if Jesus mentioned them, it +was not in the official synagogues that he learned the theory, +but directly in the kabalistic teachings. In the Mosaic books, +very little mention is made of them, and Moses, who holds direct +communications with the “Lord God,” troubles himself very little +about them. The doctrine was a secret one, and deemed by the orthodox +synagogue heretical. Josephus calls the Essenes heretics, saying: +“Those admitted among the Essenes must swear to communicate their +doctrines to no one any otherwise _than as he received them himself_, +and equally to preserve the books _belonging to their sect_, and the +_names of the angels_.”[355] The Sadducees did not believe in angels, +neither did the uninitiated Gentiles, who limited their Olympus to +gods and demi-gods, or “spirits.” Alone, the kabalists and theurgists +hold to that doctrine from time immemorial, and, as a consequence, +Plato, and Philo Judæus after him, followed first by the Gnostics, +and then by the Christians. + +Thus, if Josephus never wrote the famous interpolation forged by +Eusebius, concerning Jesus, on the other hand, he has described in +the Essenes all the principal features that we find prominent in +the Nazarene. When praying, they sought solitude.[356] “When thou +prayest, enter into thy closet ... and pray to thy Father which is in +secret” (_Matthew_ vi. 6). “Everything spoken by them (Essenes) is +stronger than an oath. Swearing is shunned by them” (_Josephus_ II., +viii., 6). “But I say unto you, swear not at all ... but let your +communication be yea, yea; nay, nay” (_Matthew_ v. 34-37). + +The Nazarenes, as well as the Essenes and the Therapeutæ, believed +more in their own interpretations of the “hidden sense” of the more +ancient Scriptures, than in the later laws of Moses. Jesus, as we +have shown before, felt but little veneration for the commandments of +his predecessor, with whom Irenæus is so anxious to connect him. + +The Essenes “enter into the houses of _those whom they never saw +previously_, as if they were their intimate friends” (_Josephus_ II., +viii., 4). Such was undeniably the custom of Jesus and his disciples. + +Epiphanius, who places the Ebionite “heresy” on one level with that +of the Nazarenes, also remarks that the Nazaraioi come next to the +Cerinthians,[357] so much vituperated against by Irenæus.[358] + +Munk, in his work on _Palestine_, affirms that there were 4,000 +Essenes living in the desert; that they had their mystical books, +and predicted the future.[359] The Nabatheans, with very little +difference indeed, adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and +the Sabeans, and all of them honored John the Baptist more than +his successor Jesus. The Persian Iezidi say that they originally +came to Syria from Busrah. They use baptism, and believe in seven +archangels, though paying at the same time reverence to Satan. Their +prophet Iezed, who flourished long prior to Mahomet,[360] taught that +God will send a messenger, and that the latter would reveal to him +a book which is already written in heaven from the eternity.[361] +The Nabatheans inhabited the Lebanon, as their descendants do to +the present day, and their religion was from its origin purely +kabalistic. Maimonides speaks of them as if he identified them with +the Sabeans. “I will mention to thee the writings ... respecting +the belief and institutions of the _Sabeans_,” he says. “The most +famous is the book _The Agriculture of the Nabathæans_, which has +been translated by Ibn Wahohijah. This book is full of heathenish +foolishness.... It speaks of the preparations of TALISMANS, the +drawing down of the powers of the SPIRITS, MAGIC, DEMONS, and ghouls, +which make their abode in the desert.”[362] + +There are traditions among the tribes living scattered about _beyond_ +the Jordan, as there are many such also among the descendants of the +Samaritans at Damascus, Gaza, and at Naplosa (the ancient Shechem). +Many of these tribes have, notwithstanding the persecutions of +eighteen centuries, retained the faith of their fathers in its +primitive simplicity. It is there that we have to go for traditions +based on _historical_ truths, however disfigured by exaggeration +and inaccuracy, and compare them with the religious legends of the +Fathers, which they call revelation. Eusebius states that before +the siege of Jerusalem the small Christian community--comprising +members of whom many, if not all, knew Jesus and his apostles +personally--took refuge in the little town of Pella, on the opposite +shore of the Jordan. Surely these simple people, separated for +centuries from the rest of the world, ought to have preserved their +traditions fresher than any other nations! It is in Palestine that +we have to search for the _clearest_ waters of Christianity, let +alone its source. The first Christians, after the death of Jesus, all +joined together for a time, whether they were Ebionites, Nazarenes, +Gnostics, or others. They had no Christian dogmas in those days, and +their Christianity consisted in believing Jesus to be a prophet, +this belief varying from seeing in him simply a “just man,”[363] or +a holy, inspired prophet, a vehicle used by Christos and Sophia to +manifest themselves through. These all united together in opposition +to the synagogue and the tyrannical technicalities of the Pharisees, +until the primitive group separated in two distinct branches--which, +we may correctly term the Christian kabalists of the Jewish Tanaïm +school, and the Christian kabalists of the Platonic Gnosis.[364] The +former were represented by the party composed of the followers of +Peter, and John, the author of the _Apocalypse_; the latter ranged +with the Pauline Christianity, blending itself, at the end of the +second century, with the Platonic philosophy, and engulfing, still +later, the Gnostic sects, whose symbols and misunderstood mysticism +overflowed the Church of Rome. + +Amid this jumble of contradictions, what Christian is secure in +confessing himself such? In the old Syriac _Gospel according to Luke_ +(iii. 22), the Holy Spirit is said to have descended in the likeness +of a dove. “Jesua, full of the sacred Spirit, returned from Jordan, +and the Spirit led him into the desert” (old Syriac, _Luke_ iv. 1, +_Tremellius_). “The difficulty,” says Dunlap, “was that the Gospels +declared that John the Baptist saw the Spirit (the Power of God) +descend upon Jesus after he had reached manhood, and if the Spirit +then first descended upon him, there was some ground for the opinion +of the Ebionites and Nazarenes who denied his _preceding_ existence, +and refused him the attributes of the LOGOS. The Gnostics, on the +other hand, objected to the flesh, but conceded the Logos.”[365] + +John’s _Apocalypsis_, and the explanations of sincere Christian +bishops, like Synesius, who, to the last, adhered to the Platonic +doctrines, make us think that the wisest and safest way is to hold +to that sincere primitive faith which seems to have actuated the +above-named bishop. This best, sincerest, and most unfortunate of +Christians, addressing the “Unknown,” exclaims: “Oh Father of the +Worlds ... Father of the Æons ... _Artificer of the Gods_, it is holy +to praise!” But Synesius had Hypatia for instructor, and this is why +we find him confessing in all sincerity his opinions and profession +of faith. “The rabble desires nothing better than to be deceived.... +As regards myself, therefore, _I will always be a philosopher with +myself_, but I _must be priest_ with the people.” + +“Holy is God the Father of all being, holy is God, whose wisdom is +carried out into execution by his own Powers!... Holy art Thou, who +through the Word had created all! Therefore, I believe in Thee, and +bear testimony, and go into the LIFE and LIGHT.”[366] Thus speaks +Hermes Trismegistus, the heathen divine. What Christian bishop could +have said better than that? + +The apparent discrepancy of the four gospels as a whole, does not +prevent every narrative given in the _New Testament_--however much +disfigured--having a ground-work of truth. To this, are cunningly +adapted details made to fit the later exigencies of the Church. So, +propped up partially by indirect evidence, still more by blind faith, +they have become, with time, articles of faith. Even the fictitious +massacre of the “Innocents” by King Herod has a certain foundation +to it, in its allegorical sense. Apart from the now-discovered fact +that the whole story of such a massacre of the Innocents is bodily +taken from the Hindu _Bagaved-gitta_, and Brahmanical traditions, the +legend refers, moreover, allegorically, to an historical fact. King +Herod is the type of Kansa, the tyrant of Madura, the maternal uncle +of Christna, to whom astrologers predicted that a son of his niece +Devaki would deprive him of his throne. Therefore he gives orders to +kill the male child that is born to her; but Christna escapes his +fury through the protection of Mahadeva (the great God) who causes +the child to be carried away to another city, out of Kansa’s reach. +After that, in order to be sure and kill the right boy, on whom he +failed to lay his murderous hands, Kansa has all the male newborn +infants within his kingdom killed. Christna is also worshipped by the +gopas (the shepherds) of the land. + +Though this ancient Indian legend bears a very suspicious resemblance +to the more modern biblical romance, Gaffarel and others attribute +the origin of the latter to the persecutions during the Herodian +reign of the kabalists and the _Wise men_, who had not remained +strictly orthodox. The latter, as well as the prophets, were +nicknamed the “Innocents,” and the “Babes,” on account of their +holiness. As in the case of certain degrees of modern Masonry, the +adepts reckoned their grade of initiation by a _symbolic_ age. Thus +Saul who, when chosen king, was “a choice and goodly man,” and “from +his shoulders upward was higher than any of the people,” is described +in Catholic versions, as “child of _one year_ when he began to +reign,” which, in its literal sense, is a palpable absurdity. But in +_1 Samuel_ x., his anointing by Samuel and initiation are described; +and at verse 6th, Samuel uses this significant language: “... the +Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee and thou shalt prophesy with +them, _and shalt be turned into another man_.” The phrase above +quoted is thus made plain--he had received one degree of initiation +and was symbolically described as “a child one year old.” The +Catholic _Bible_, from which the text is quoted, with charming candor +says in a foot-note: “It is extremely difficult to explain” (meaning +that Saul was a child of one year). But undaunted by any difficulty +the Editor, nevertheless, does take upon himself to explain it, and +adds: “_A child of one year._ That is, _he was good and like an +innocent child_.” An interpretation as ingenious as it is pious; and +which if it does no good can certainly do no harm.[367] + +If the explanation of the kabalists is rejected, then the whole +subject falls into confusion; worse still--for it becomes a direct +plagiarism from the Hindu legend. All the commentators have agreed +that a litteral massacre of young children is nowhere mentioned in +history; and that, moreover, an occurrence like that would have made +such a bloody page in Roman annals that the record of it would have +been preserved for us by every author of the day. Herod himself was +subject to the Roman law; and undoubtedly he would have paid the +penalty of such a monstrous crime, with his own life. But if, on the +one hand, we have not the slightest trace of this fable in history, +on the other, we find in the official complaints of the Synagogue +abundant evidence of the persecution of the initiates. The _Talmud_ +also corroborates it. + +The Jewish version of the birth of Jesus is recorded in the +_Sepher-Toldos Jeshu_ in the following words: + +“Mary having become the mother of a Son, named Jehosuah, and the boy +growing up, she entrusted him to the care of the Rabbi Elhanan, and +the child progressed in knowledge, for he was well gifted with spirit +and understanding. + +“Rabbi Jehosuah, son of Perachiah, continued the education of +Jehosuah (Jesus) after Elhanan, and _initiated_ him in the _secret_ +knowledge;” but the King, Janneus, having given orders to slay all +the initiates, Jehosuah Ben Perachiah, fled to Alexandria, in Egypt, +taking the boy with him. + +While in Alexandria, continues the story, they were received in the +house of a rich and learned lady (personified Egypt). Young Jesus +found her beautiful, notwithstanding “_a defect in her eyes_,” and +declared so to his master. Upon hearing this, the latter became so +angry that his pupil should find in the land of bondage anything +good, that “he cursed him and drove the young man from his presence.” +Then follow a series of adventures told in allegorical language, +which show that Jesus supplemented his initiation in the Jewish +_Kabala_ with an additional acquisition of the secret wisdom of +Egypt. When the persecution ceased, they both returned to Judea.[368] + +The real grievances against Jesus are stated by the learned author of +_Tela Ignea Satanæ_ (the fiery darts of Satan) to be two in number: +1st, that he had discovered the great Mysteries of their Temple, by +having been initiated in Egypt; and 2d, that he had profaned them by +exposing them to the vulgar, who misunderstood and disfigured them. +This is what they say:[369] + +“There exists, in the sanctuary of the living God, a cubical stone, +on which are sculptured the holy characters, the combination of +which gives the explanation of the attributes and powers of the +incommunicable name. This explanation is the secret key of all the +occult sciences and forces in nature. It is what the Hebrews call the +_Scham hamphorash_. This stone is watched by two lions of gold, who +roar as soon as it is approached.[370] The gates of the temple were +never lost sight of, and the door of the sanctuary opened but once +a year, to admit the High Priest alone. But Jesus, who had learned +in Egypt the ‘great secrets’ at the initiation, forged for himself +invisible keys, and thus was enabled to penetrate into the sanctuary +unseen.... He copied the characters on the cubical stone, and hid +them in his thigh;[371] after which, emerging from the temple, he +went abroad and began astounding people with his miracles. The dead +were raised at his command, the leprous and the obsessed were healed. +He forced the stones which lay buried for ages at the bottom of +the sea to rise to the surface until they formed a mountain, from +the top of which he preached.” The _Sepher Toldos_ states further +that, _unable to displace_ the cubical stone of the sanctuary, Jesus +fabricated one of clay, which he showed to the nations and passed it +off for the true cubical stone of Israel. + +This allegory, like the rest of them in such books, is written +“_inside and outside_”--it has its secret meaning, and ought to be +read two ways. The kabalistic books explain its mystical meaning. +Further, the same Talmudist says, in substance, the following: Jesus +was thrown in prison,[372] and kept there forty days; then flogged +as a seditious rebel; then stoned as a blasphemer in a place called +Lud, and finally allowed to expire upon a cross. “All this,” explains +Levi, “because he revealed to the people the truths which they +(the Pharisees) wished to bury for their own use. He had divined +the occult theology of Israel, had compared it with the wisdom +of Egypt, and found thereby the reason for a universal religious +synthesis.”[373] + +However cautious one ought to be in accepting anything about Jesus +from Jewish sources, it must be confessed that in some things they +seem to be more correct in their statements (whenever their direct +interest in stating facts is not concerned) than our good but too +jealous Fathers. One thing is certain, James, the “Brother of the +Lord,” is silent about the _resurrection_. He terms Jesus nowhere +“Son of God,” nor even Christ-God. Once only, speaking of Jesus, he +calls him the “Lord of Glory,” but so do the Nazarenes when writing +about their prophet _Iohanan bar Zacharia_, or John, son of Zacharias +(St. John Baptist). Their favorite expressions about their prophet +are the same as those used by James when speaking of Jesus. A man “of +the seed of a man,” “Messenger of Life,” of light, “my Lord Apostle,” +“King sprung of Light,” and so on. “Have not the faith of our _Lord_ +JESUS Christ, _the Lord of Glory_” etc., says James in his epistle +(ii. 1), presumably addressing Christ as GOD. “Peace to thee, my +_Lord_, JOHN Abo Sabo, Lord of Glory!” says the _Codex Nazaræus_ +(ii., 19), known to address but a prophet. “Ye have condemned and +killed the _Just_,” says James (v. 6). “Iohanan (John) is the _Just_ +one, he comes in the way of _justice_,” says Matthew (xxi. 32, Syriac +text). + +James does not even call Jesus _Messiah_, in the sense given to +the title by the Christians, but alludes to the kabalistic “King +Messiah,” who is Lord of Sabaoth[374] (v. 4), and repeats several +times that the “Lord” will come, but identifies the latter nowhere +with Jesus. “Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the +Lord ... be patient, for the coming of the Lord _draweth nigh_” (v. +7, 8). And he adds: “Take, my brethren, the prophet (Jesus) _who +has spoken in the name of the Lord_ for an example of suffering, +affliction, and of patience.” Though in the present version the +word “prophet” stands in the plural, yet this is a deliberate +falsification of the original, the purpose of which is too evident. +James, immediately after having cited the “prophets” as an example, +adds: “Behold ... ye have _heard_ of the patience of Job, and _have +seen the end_ of the Lord”--thus combining the examples of these two +admirable characters, and placing them on a perfect equality. But we +have more to adduce in support of our argument. Did not Jesus himself +glorify the prophet of the Jordan? “What went ye out for to see? A +prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.... Verily, +I say unto you, among them that are born _of women_ there hath not +risen a greater than John the Baptist.” + +And of whom was he who spoke thus born? It is but the Roman Catholics +who have changed Mary, the mother of Jesus, into a _goddess_. In the +eyes of all other Christians she was a woman, whether his own birth +was immaculate or otherwise. According to strict logic, then, Jesus +confessed John _greater_ than himself. Note how completely this +matter is disposed of by the language employed by the Angel Gabriel +when addressing Mary: “Blessed art thou among _women_.” These words +are unequivocal. He does not adore her as the Mother of God, nor does +he call her _goddess_; he does not even address her as “Virgin,” but +he calls her _woman_, and only distinguishes her above other women as +having had better fortune, through her purity. + +The Nazarenes were known as Baptists, Sabians, and John’s Christians. +Their belief was that the Messiah was not the Son of God, but simply +a prophet who would follow John. “Johanan, the Son of the Abo +Sabo Zachariah, shall say to himself, ‘Whoever will believe in my +_justice_ and my BAPTISM shall be joined to my association; he shall +share with me the seat which is the abode of life, of the supreme +Mano, and of living fire” (_Codex Nazaræus_, ii., p. 115). Origen +remarks “there are some who said of John (the Baptist) that he was +the _anointed_ (Christus).[375] The Angel Rasiel of the kabalists +is the Angel _Gabriel_ of the Nazarenes, and it is the latter who +is chosen of all the celestial hierarchy by the Christians to +become the messenger of the ‘annunciation.’ The genius sent by the +‘Lord of Celsitude’ is Æbel Zivo, whose name is also called GABRIEL +Legatus.”[376] Paul must have had the sect of the Nazarenes in mind +when he said: “And last of all he (Jesus) was seen of me also, as _of +one born out of due time_” (_1 Corinth._, xv. 8), thus reminding his +listeners of the expression usual to the Nazarenes, who termed the +Jews “the abortions, or born out of time.” Paul prides himself of +belonging to a hæresy.[377] + +When the metaphysical conceptions of the Gnostics, who saw in Jesus +the Logos and the anointed, began to gain ground, the earliest +Christians separated from the Nazarenes, who accused Jesus of +perverting the doctrines of John, and changing the baptism of the +Jordan.[378] “Directly,” says Milman, “as it (the Gospel) got +_beyond_ the borders of Palestine, and the name of ‘Christ’ had +acquired sanctity and veneration in the Eastern cities, he became +a kind of _metaphysical impersonation_, while the religion lost +its purely moral cast and assumed the character of a _speculative +theogony_.”[379] The only half-original document that has reached us +from the primitive apostolic days, is the _Logia_ of Matthew. The +real, genuine doctrine has remained in the hands of the Nazarenes, +in this _Gospel of Matthew_ containing the “secret doctrine,” the +“Sayings of Jesus,” mentioned by Papias. These sayings were, no +doubt, of the same nature as the small manuscripts placed in the +hands of the neophytes, who were candidates for the Initiations into +the Mysteries, and which contained the _Aporrheta_, the revelations +of some important rites and symbols. For why should Matthew take such +precautions to make them “_secret_” were it otherwise? + +Primitive Christianity had its grip, pass-words, and degrees of +initiation. The innumerable Gnostic gems and amulets are weighty +proofs of it. It is a whole symbolical science. The kabalists were +the first to embellish the universal Logos,[380] with such terms +as “Light of Light,” the Messenger of LIFE and LIGHT,[381] and we +find these expressions adopted _in toto_ by the Christians, with the +addition of nearly all the Gnostic terms such as Pleroma (fulness), +Archons, Æons, etc. As to the “First-Born,” the First, and the +“Only-Begotten,” these are as old as the world. Origen shows the +word “Logos” as existing among the Brachmanes. “The _Brachmanes_ say +that the God is _Light_, not such as one sees, nor such as the sun +and fire; but they have the _God_ LOGOS, not the articulate, the +Logos of the Gnosis, through whom the highest MYSTERIES of the Gnosis +are seen by the wise.”[382] The _Acts_ and the fourth _Gospel_ teem +with Gnostic expressions. The kabalistic: “God’s first-born emanated +from the Most High,” together with _that which is the “Spirit of +the Anointing;”_ and again “they called him the anointed of the +Highest,”[383] are reproduced in Spirit and substance by the author +of the _Gospel according to John_. “That was _the true light_,” and +“the light shineth in darkness.” “And the WORD _was made flesh_.” +“And his _fulness_ (pleroma) have all we received,” etc. (_John_ i. +et seq.). + +The “Christ,” then, and the “Logos” existed ages before Christianity; +the Oriental Gnosis was studied long before the days of Moses, and we +have to seek for the origin of all these in the archaic periods of +the primeval Asiatic philosophy. Peter’s second _Epistle_ and Jude’s +fragment, preserved in the _New Testament_, show by their phraseology +that they belong to the kabalistic Oriental Gnosis, for they use +the same expressions as did the Christian Gnostics who built a part +of their system from the Oriental _Kabala_. “Presumptuous are they +(the Ophites), self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of +DIGNITIES,” says Peter (2d Epistle ii. 10), the original model for +the later abusive Tertullian and Irenæus.[384] “Likewise (even as +Sodom and Gomorrah) also these _filthy_ dreamers defile the flesh, +despise DOMINION and speak evil of DIGNITIES,” says Jude, repeating +the very words of Peter, and thereby expressions consecrated in the +_Kabala_. _Dominion_ is the “Empire,” the _tenth_ of the kabalistic +sephiroth.[385] The _Powers_ and Dignities are the subordinate genii +of the Archangels and Angels of the _Sohar_.[386] These emanations +are the very life and soul of the _Kabala_ and Zoroastranism; and +the _Talmud_ itself, in its present state, is all borrowed from the +_Zend-avesta_. Therefore, by adopting the views of Peter, Jude, and +other Jewish apostles, the Christians have become but a dissenting +sect of the Persians, for they do not even interpret the meaning +of all such _Powers_ as the true kabalists do. Paul’s warning his +converts against the worshipping of angels, shows how well he +appreciated, even so early as his period, the dangers of borrowing +from a metaphysical doctrine the philosophy of which could be rightly +interpreted but by its well-learned adherents, the Magi and the +Jewish Tanaïm. “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary +humility and _worshipping of angels_, intruding into those things +which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,”[387] +is a sentence laid right at the door of Peter and his champions. In +the _Talmud_, Michael is Prince of Water, who has _seven_ inferior +spirits subordinate to him. He is the patron, the guardian angel of +the Jews, as Daniel informs us (v. 21), and the Greek Ophites, who +identified him with their Ophiomorphos, the personified creation +of the envy and malice of Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurgus (Creator of +the _material_ world), and undertook to prove that he was also +Samuel, the Hebrew prince of the evil spirits, or Persian devs, were +naturally regarded by the Jews as blasphemers. But did Jesus ever +sanction this belief in angels except in so far as hinting that they +were the messengers and subordinates of God? And here the origin of +the later splits between Christian beliefs is directly traceable to +these two early contradictory views. + +Paul, believing in all such occult powers in the world “unseen,” +but ever “present,” says: “Ye walked according to the ÆON of this +world, according to the _Archon_ (Ilda-Baoth, the _Demiurg_) that +has the domination of the air,” and “We wrestle not against flesh +and blood, but against the _dominations_, the _powers_; the lords of +darkness, the mischievousness of spirits in the upper regions.” This +sentence, “Ye were dead in sin and error,” for “ye walked according +to the _Archon_,” or Ilda-Baoth, the God and creator of matter of +the Ophites, shows unequivocally that: 1st, Paul, notwithstanding +some dissensions with the more important doctrines of the Gnostics, +shared more or less their cosmogonical views on the emanations; and +2d, that he was fully aware that this Demiurge, whose Jewish name +was Jehovah, was _not_ the God preached by Jesus. And now, if we +compare the doctrine of Paul with the religious views of Peter and +Jude, we find that, not only did they worship Michael, the Archangel, +but that also they _reverenced_ SATAN, because the latter was also, +before his fall, an angel! This they do quite openly, and abuse +the Gnostics[388] for speaking “evil” of him. No one can deny the +following: Peter, when denouncing those who are not afraid to speak +evil of “_dignities_,” adds immediately, “Whereas angels, which +are greater in power and might, _bring not railing accusations_ +against them (the dignities) before the Lord” (ii. 11). Who are the +dignities? Jude, in his general epistle, makes the word as clear as +day. The _dignities_ are the DEVILS!! Complaining of the disrespect +shown by the Gnostics to the _powers_ and _dominions_, Jude argues +in the very words of Peter: “And yet, Michael, the Archangel, when +contending _with the devil_, he disputed about the body of Moses, +_durst not bring against him a railing accusation_, but said, The +Lord rebuke thee” (i. 9). Is this plain enough? If not, then we have +the _Kabala_ to prove who were the _dignities_. + +Considering that _Deuteronomy_ tells us that the “_Lord_” Himself +buried Moses in a valley of Moab (xxxiv. 6), “and no man knoweth of +his sepulchre unto this day,” this biblical _lapsus linguæ_ of Jude +gives a strong coloring to the assertions of some of the Gnostics. +They claimed but what was secretly taught by the Jewish kabalists +themselves; to wit: that the highest supreme God was unknown and +invisible; “the King of Light is a closed eye;” that Ilda-Baoth, the +Jewish second Adam, was the real Demiurge; and that Iao, Adonai, +Sabaoth, and Eloi were the quaternary emanation which formed the +unity of the God of the Hebrews--Jehovah. Moreover, the latter was +also called Michael and Samael by them, and regarded but as an angel, +several removes from the Godhead. In holding to such a belief, the +Gnostics countenanced the teachings of the greatest of the Jewish +doctors, Hillel, and other Babylonian divines. Josephus shows the +great deference of the official Synagogue in Jerusalem to the wisdom +of the schools of Central Asia. The colleges of Sora, Pumbiditha, and +Nahaidea were considered the headquarters of esoteric and theological +learning by all the schools of Palestine. The Chaldean version of +the _Pentateuch_, made by the well-known Babylonian divine, Onkelos, +was regarded as the most authoritative of all; and it is according +to this learned Rabbi that Hillel and other Tanaïm after him held +that the Being who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, on Mount +Sinai, and who finally buried him, was the _angel_ of the Lord, +Memro, and not the Lord Himself; and that he whom the Hebrews of +the _Old Testament_ mistook for _Iahoh_ was but His messenger, one +of His sons, or emanations. All this establishes but one logical +conclusion--namely, that the Gnostics were by far the superiors +of the disciples, in point of education and general information; +even in a knowledge of the religious tenets of the Jews themselves. +While they were perfectly well-versed in the Chaldean wisdom, the +well-meaning, pious, but fanatical as well as ignorant disciples, +unable to fully understand or grasp the religious spirit of their own +system, were driven in their disputations to such convincing logic +as the use of “brute beasts,” “sows,” “dogs,” and other epithets so +freely bestowed by Peter. + +Since then, the epidemic has reached the apex of the sacerdotal +hierarchy. From the day when the founder of Christianity uttered the +warning, that he who shall say to his brother, “Thou fool, shall +be in danger of hell-fire,” all who have passed as its leaders, +beginning with the ragged fishermen of Galilee, and ending with +the jewelled pontiffs, have seemed to vie with each other in the +invention of opprobrious epithets for their opponents. So we find +Luther passing a final sentence on the Catholics, and exclaiming +that “The Papists are all asses, put them in whatever form you like; +whether they are boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, hashed, +they will be always the same asses.” Calvin called the victims he +persecuted, and occasionally burned, “malicious barking dogs, full of +bestiality and insolence, base corrupters of the sacred writings,” +etc. Dr. Warburton terms the Popish religion “an impious farce,” and +Monseigneur Dupanloup asserts that the Protestant Sabbath service is +the “Devil’s mass,” and all clergymen are “thieves and ministers of +the Devil.” + +The same spirit of incomplete inquiry and ignorance has led the +Christian Church to bestow on its most holy apostles, titles assumed +by their most desperate opponents, the “Hæretics” and Gnostics. +So we find, for instance, Paul termed the vase of election “_Vas +Electionis_,” a title chosen by _Manes_,[389] the greatest heretic of +his day in the eyes of the Church, Manes meaning, in the Babylonian +language, the chosen vessel or receptacle.[390] + +So with the Virgin Mary. They were so little gifted with originality, +that they copied from the Egyptian and Hindu religions their several +apostrophes to their respective Virgin-mothers. The juxtaposition of +a few examples will make this clear. + + HINDU. + _Litany of our Lady Nari: Virgin._ (_Also Devanaki._) + + 1. Holy Nari--Mariāma, Mother of perpetual fecundity. + 2. Mother of an incarnated God--Vishnu (Devanaki). + 3. Mother of Christna. + 4. Eternal Virginity--Kanyabâva. + 5. Mother--Pure Essence, Akasa. + 6. Virgin most chaste--Kanya. + 7. Mother Taumatra, of the _five_ virtues or elements. + 8. Virgin Trigana (of the three elements, power or richness, + love, and mercy). + 9. Mirror of Supreme Conscience--Ahancara. + 10. Wise Mother--Saraswati. + 11. Virgin of the white Lotos, Pedma or Kamala. + 12. Womb of Gold--Hyrania. + 13. Celestial Light--Lakshmi. + 14. Ditto. + 15. Queen of Heaven, and of the universe--Sakti. + 16. Mother soul of all beings--Paramatma. + 17. Devanaki is conceived without sin, and immaculate + herself. (According to the Brahmanic fancy.) + + EGYPTIAN. + _Litany of our Lady Isis: Virgin._ + + 1. Holy Isis, universal mother--Muth. + 2. Mother of Gods--Athyr. + 3. Mother of Horus. + 4. Virgo generatrix--Neith. + 5. Mother-soul of the universe--Anouké. + 6. Virgin sacred earth--Isis. + 7. Mother of all the virtues--Thmei, with the same + qualities. + 8. Illustrious Isis, most powerful, merciful, just. (_Book + of the Dead._) + 9. Mirror of Justice and Truth--Thmei. + 10. Mysterious mother of the world--_Buto_ (secret wisdom). + 11. Sacred Lotos. + 12. Sistrum of Gold. + 13. Astarté (Syrian), Astaroth (Jewish). + 14. Argua of the Moon. + 15. Queen of Heaven, and of the universe--Sati. + 16. Model of all mothers--Athor. + 17. Isis is a Virgin Mother. + + ROMAN CATHOLIC. + _Litany of our Lady of Loretto: Virgin._ + + 1. Holy Mary, mother of divine grace. + 2. Mother of God. + 3. Mother of Christ. + 4. Virgin of Virgins. + 5. Mother of Divine Grace. + 6. Virgin most chaste. + 7. Mother most pure. + Mother undefiled. + Mother inviolate. + Mother most amiable. + Mother most admirable. + 8. Virgin most powerful. + Virgin most merciful. + Virgin most faithful. + 9. Mirror of Justice. + 10. Seat of Wisdom. + 11. Mystical Rose. + 12. House of Gold. + 13. Morning Star. + 14. Ark of the Covenant. + 15. Queen of Heaven. + 16. Mater Dolorosa. + 17. Mary conceived without sin. (In accordance with later + orders.) + +If the Virgin Mary has her nuns, who are consecrated to her and bound +to live in chastity, so had Isis her nuns in Egypt, as Vesta had hers +at Rome, and the Hindu Nari, “mother of the world hers.” The virgins +consecrated to her cultus--the Devadasi of the temples, who were the +nuns of the days of old--lived in great chastity, and were objects of +the most extraordinary veneration, as the holy women of the goddess. +Would the missionaries and some travellers reproachfully point to the +modern Devadasis, or Nautch-girls? For all response, we would beg +them to consult the official reports of the last quarter century, +cited in chapter II., as to certain discoveries made at the razing +of convents, in Austria and Italy. Thousands of infants’ skulls were +exhumed from ponds, subterranean vaults, and gardens of convents. +Nothing to match _this_ was ever found in heathen lands. + +Christian theology, getting the doctrine of the archangels and angels +directly from the Oriental _Kabala_, of which the Mosaic _Bible_ is +but an allegorical screen, ought at least to remember the hierarchy +invented by the former for these personified emanations. The hosts of +the Cherubim and Seraphim, with which we generally see the Catholic +Madonnas surrounded in their pictures, belong, together with the +Elohim and Beni Elohim of the Hebrews, to the _third_ kabalistic +world, _Jezirah_. This world is but one remove higher than _Asiah_, +the fourth and lowest world, in which dwell the grossest and most +material beings--the _klippoth_, who delight in evil and mischief, +and whose chief is _Belial_! + +Explaining, in his way, of course, the various “heresies” of the +first two centuries, Irenæus says: “Our Hæretics hold ... that +PROPATOR is known but to the _only-begotten_ son, that is to the +_mind_” (the nous). It was the Valentinians, the followers of the +“profoundest doctor of the Gnosis,” Valentinus, who held that “there +was a perfect AIÔN, who existed before Bythos, or Buthon (the Depth), +called Propator.” This is again kabalistic, for in the _Sohar_ of +Simon Ben Iochaï, we read the following: “_Senior occultatus est +et absconditus; Microprosopus manifestus est, et non manifestus_” +(Rosenroth: _The Sohar Liber Mysteries_, iv., 1). + +In the religious metaphysics of the Hebrews, the Highest One is an +abstraction; he is “without form or being,” “with no likeness with +anything else.”[391] And even Philo calls the Creator, the _Logos_ +who stands next God, “the SECOND God.” “The _second_ God who is his +WISDOM.”[392] God is NOTHING, he is nameless, and therefore called +_Ain-Soph_--the word _Ain_ meaning _nothing_.[393] But if, according +to the older Jews, Jehovah is _the_ God, and He manifested Himself +several times to Moses and the prophets, and the Christian Church +anathematized the Gnostics who denied the fact--how comes it, then, +that we read in the fourth gospel that “_No man hath seen God_ AT ANY +TIME, but the _only-begotten_ Son ... he hath declared him?” The very +words of the Gnostics, in spirit and substance. This sentence of St. +John--or rather whoever wrote the gospel now bearing his name--floors +all the Petrine arguments against Simon Magus, without appeal. The +words are repeated and emphasized in chapter vi.: “_Not that any +man hath seen the Father_, save he which is of God, he (Jesus) hath +seen the Father” (46)--the very objection brought forward by Simon +in the _Homilies_. These words prove that either the author of the +fourth evangel had no idea of the existence of the _Homilies_, or +that he was _not_ John, the friend and companion of Peter, whom he +contradicts point-blank with this emphatic assertion. Be it as it +may, this sentence, like many more that might be profitably cited, +blends Christianity completely with the Oriental Gnosis, and hence +with the KABALA. + +While the doctrines, ethical code, and observances of the Christian +religion were all appropriated from Brahmanism and Buddhism, its +ceremonials, vestments, and pageantry were taken bodily from Lamaism. +The Romish monastery and nunnery are almost servile copies of similar +religious houses in Thibet and Mongolia, and interested explorers +of Buddhist lands, when obliged to mention the unwelcome fact, +have had no other alternative left them but, with an anachronism +unsurpassed in recklessness, to charge the offense of plagiarism upon +the religious system their own mother Church had despoiled. This +makeshift has served its purpose and had its day. The time has at +last come when this page of history must be written. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + “Learn to know all, but keep thyself unknown.”--GNOSTIC MAXIM. + + + “There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals, + Whose form is not like unto man’s, and as unlike his nature; + But vain mortals imagine that gods _like themselves are begotten_ + With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members.” + --XENOPHANES: _Clem. Al. Strom._, v. 14, § 110. + + “TYCHIADES.--Can you tell me the reason, Philocles, why most + men desire to lye, and delight not only to speak fictions + themselves, but give busie attention to others who do? + “PHILOCLES.--There be many reasons, Tychiades, which compell + some to speak lyes, because they see ’tis profitable.”--_A + Dialogue of Lucian._ + + + “SPARTAN.--Is it to thee, or to God, that I must confess? + “PRIEST.--To God. + “SPARTAN.--Then, MAN, stand back!”--PLUTARCH: _Remarkable + Lacedemonian Sayings_. + + +We will now give attention to some of the most important Mysteries of +the _Kabala_, and trace their relations to the philosophical myths of +various nations. + +In the oldest Oriental _Kabala_, the Deity is represented as three +circles in one, shrouded in a certain smoke or chaotic exhalation. +In the preface to the _Sohar_, which transforms the three primordial +circles into THREE HEADS, over these is described an exhalation or +smoke, neither black nor white, but colorless, and circumscribed +within a circle. This is the unknown Essence.[394] The origin of +the Jewish image may, perhaps, be traced to Hermes’ _Pimander_, the +Egyptian _Logos_, who appears within a cloud of a humid nature, with +a smoke escaping from it.[395] In the _Sohar_ the highest God is, as +we have shown in the preceding chapter, and as in the case of the +Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, a pure abstraction, whose objective +existence is denied by the latter. It is Hakama, the “SUPREME WISDOM, +that cannot be understood by reflection,” and that lies within and +without the CRANIUM of LONG FACE[396] (Sephira), the uppermost of the +three “Heads.” It is the “boundless and the infinite En-Soph,” the +No-Thing. + +The “three Heads,” superposed above each other, are evidently taken +from the three mystic triangles of the Hindus, which also superpose +each other. The highest “head” contains the _Trinity in Chaos_, out +of which springs the manifested trinity. En-Soph, the unrevealed +forever, who is boundless and unconditioned, cannot create, and +therefore it seems to us a great error to attribute to him a +“creative thought,” as is commonly done by the interpreters. In every +cosmogony this supreme Essence is _passive_; if boundless, infinite, +and unconditioned, it can have no _thought_ nor _idea_. It acts not +as the result of volition, but in obedience to its own nature, +and _according to the fatality of the law of which it is itself +the embodiment_. Thus, with the Hebrew kabalists, En-Soph is +non-existent עַיִן, for it is incomprehensible to our finite intellects, +and therefore cannot exist to our minds. Its first emanation was +Sephira, the crown כתר. When the time for an active period had +come, then was produced a natural expansion of this Divine +essence from within outwardly, obedient to eternal and immutable +law; and from this eternal and infinite light (which to us is +darkness) was emitted a spiritual substance.[397] This was the +First Sephiroth, containing in herself the other nine ספירות Sephiroth, +or intelligences. In their totality and unity they represent the +archetypal man, Adam Kadmon, the πρωτόγονος, who in his individuality +or unity is yet dual, or bisexual, the Greek _Didumos_, for he is the +prototype of all humanity. Thus we obtain three trinities, each +contained in a “head.” In the first head, or face (the three-faced +Hindu Trimurti), we find _Sephira_, the first androgyne, at the apex +of the upper triangle, emitting _Hackama_, or Wisdom, a masculine and +active potency--also called Jah, יה--and _Binah_, בינה, or Intelligence, +a female and passive potency, also represented by the name Jehovah יהוה. +These three form the first trinity or “face” of the Sephiroth. This +triad emanated _Hesed_, חסד, or Mercy, a masculine active potency, +also called _El_, from which emanated _Geburah_ דין, or Justice, also +called Eloha, a feminine passive potency; from the union of these +two was produced Tiphereth תפארת, Beauty, Clemency, the Spiritual +Sun, known by the divine name _Elohim_; and the second triad, “face,” +or “head,” was formed. These emanating, in their turn, the masculine +potency _Netzah_, נצח, Firmness, or Jehovah Sabaoth, who issued the +feminine passive potency _Hod_, הוד, Splendor, or Elohim Sabaoth; the +two produced _Jesod_, יסוד, Foundation, who is the mighty living one +_El-Chai_, thus yielding the third trinity or “head.” The tenth +Sephiroth is rather a duad, and is represented on the diagrams as the +lowest circle. It is Malchuth or Kingdom, מלכות, and Shekinah שכינה, +also called Adonai, and _Cherubim_ among the angelic hosts. The first +“Head” is called the Intellectual world; the second “Head” is the +Sensuous, or the world of Perception, and the third is the Material or +Physical world. + +“Before he gave any shape to the universe,” says the _Kabala_, +“before he produced any form, he was alone without any form and +resemblance to anything else. Who, then, can comprehend him, how +he was before the creation, since he was formless? Hence, it is +forbidden to represent him by any form, similitude, or even by his +sacred name, by a single letter, or a single point.... The Aged of +the Aged, the Unknown of the Unknown, has a form, and yet no form. He +has a form whereby the universe is preserved, and yet has no form, +because he cannot be comprehended. When he first assumed a form (in +Sephira, his first emanation), he caused nine splendid lights to +emanate from it.”[398] + +And now we will turn to the Hindu esoteric Cosmogony and definition +of “Him who is, and yet is not.” + +“From him who is,[399] from this immortal Principle which exists in +our minds but cannot be perceived by the senses, is born Purusha, the +Divine male and female, who became _Narayana_, or the Divine Spirit +moving on the water.” + +Swayambhuva, the unknown essence of the Brahmans, is identical with +En-Soph, the unknown essence of the kabalists. As with the latter, +the ineffable name could not be pronounced by the Hindus, under the +penalty of death. In the ancient primitive trinity of India, that +which may be certainly considered as pre-Vedic, the _germ_ which +fecundates the _mother-principle_, the mundane egg, or the universal +womb, is called _Nara_, the Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, which +emanates from the primordial essence. It is like Sephira, the oldest +emanation, called the _primordial point_, and the _White Head_, for +it is the point of divine light appearing from within the fathomless +and boundless darkness. In _Manu_ it is “NARA, or the Spirit of God, +which moves on Ayana (Chaos, or place of motion), and is called +NARAYANA, or moving on the waters.”[400] In Hermes, the Egyptian, we +read: “In the beginning of the time there was naught in the chaos.” +But when the “_verbum_,” issuing from the void like a “colorless +smoke,” makes its appearance, then “this verbum moved on the humid +principle.”[401] And in _Genesis_ we find: “And darkness was upon +the face of the deep (chaos). And the Spirit of God moved upon the +face of the waters.” In the _Kabala_, the emanation of the primordial +passive principle (Sephira), by dividing itself into two parts, +active and passive, emits Chochma-Wisdom and Binah-Jehovah, and in +conjunction with these two acolytes, which complete the trinity, +becomes the Creator of the abstract Universe; the physical world +being the production of later and still more material powers.[402] In +the Hindu Cosmogony, Swayambhuva emits Nara and Nari, its bisexual +emanation, and dividing its parts into two halves, male and female, +these fecundate the mundane egg, within which develops Brahma, or +rather Viradj, the Creator. “The starting-point of the Egyptian +mythology,” says Champollion, “is a triad ... namely, Kneph, Neith, +and Phtah; and Ammon, the male, the father; Muth, the female and +mother; and Khons, the son.” + +The ten Sephiroth are copies taken from the ten Prâdjapatis created +by Viradj, called the “Lords of all beings,” and answering to the +biblical Patriarchs. + +Justin Martyr explains some of the “heresies” of the day, but in a +very unsatisfactory manner. _He shows, however, the identity of all +the world-religions at their starting-points._ The first _beginning_ +opens invariably with the _unknown_ and passive deity, producing +from himself a certain active power or virtue, “Rational,” which is +sometimes called WISDOM, sometimes the SON, very often God, Angel, +Lord, and LOGOS.[403] The latter is sometimes applied to the very +first emanation, but in several systems it proceeds from the first +androgyne or double ray produced at the beginning by the unseen. +Philo depicts this wisdom as male and female. But though its first +manifestation had a beginning, for it proceeded from _Oulom_[404] +(Aiôn, time), the highest of the Æons, when emitted from the Fathers, +it had remained with him _before all creations_, for it is part of +him.[405] Therefore, Philo Judæus calls Adam Kadmon “_mind_” (the +Ennoia of _Bythos_ in the Gnostic system). “The mind, let it be named +Adam.”[406] + +Strictly speaking, it is difficult to view the Jewish _Book of +Genesis_ otherwise than as a chip from the trunk of the mundane tree +of universal Cosmogony, rendered in Oriental allegories. As cycle +succeeded cycle, and one nation after another came upon the world’s +stage to play its brief part in the majestic drama of human life, +each new people evolved from ancestral traditions its own religion, +giving it a local color, and stamping it with its individual +characteristics. While each of these religions had its distinguishing +traits, by which, were there no other archaic vestiges, the physical +and psychological status of its creators could be estimated, all +preserved a common likeness to one prototype. This parent cult was +none other than the primitive “wisdom-religion.” The Israelitish +_Scriptures_ are no exception. Their national history--if they can +claim any autonomy before the return from Babylon, and were anything +more than migratory septs of Hindu pariahs, cannot be carried back +a day beyond Moses; and if this ex-Egyptian priest must, from +theological necessity, be transformed into a Hebrew patriarch, we +must insist that the Jewish nation was lifted with that smiling +infant out of the bulrushes of Lake Moeris. Abraham, their alleged +father, belongs to the universal mythology. Most likely he is but one +of the numerous aliases of _Zeruan_ (Saturn), the king of the golden +age, who is also called the old man (emblem of time).[407] + +It is now demonstrated by Assyriologists that in the old Chaldean +books Abraham is called Zeru-an, or Zerb-an--meaning one very rich in +gold and silver, and a mighty prince.[408] He is also called Zarouan +and Zarman--a decrepit old man.[409] + +The ancient Babylonian legend is that Xisuthrus (Hasisadra of the +Tablets, or Xisuthrus) sailed with his ark to Armenia, and his son +Sim became supreme king. Pliny says that Sim was called Zeruan; and +Sim is Shem. In Hebrew, his name writes שם, _Shem_--a sign. Assyria +is held by the ethnologists to be the land of Shem, and Egypt called +that of Ham. Shem, in the tenth chapter of _Genesis_ is made the +father of all the children of Eber, of Elam (Oulam or Eilam), and +Ashur (Assur or Assyria). The “_nephelim_,” or fallen men, _Gebers_, +mighty men spoken of in _Genesis_ (vi. 4), come from _Oulam_, “men of +_Shem_.” Even Ophir, which is evidently to be sought for in the India +of the days of Hiram, is made a descendant of Shem. The records are +purposely mixed up to make them fit into the frame of the Mosaic +_Bible_. But _Genesis_, from its first verse down to the last, has +naught to do with the “chosen people;” it belongs to the world’s +history. Its appropriation by the Jewish authors in the days of the +so-called _restoration_ of the destroyed books of the Israelites, by +Ezra, proves nothing, and, until now, has been self-propped on an +alleged divine revelation. It is simply a compilation of the universal +legends of the universal humanity. Bunsen says that in the “Chaldean +tribe immediately connected with Abraham, we find reminiscences of +dates disfigured and misunderstood, as genealogies of single men, or +indications of epochs. The Abrahamic recollections go back at least +three millenia beyond the grandfather of Jacob.”[410] + +Alexander Polyhistor says that Abraham was born at Kamarina or +_Uria_, a city of soothsayers, and _invented astronomy_. Josephus +claims the same for Terah, Abraham’s father. The tower of Babel was +built as much by the direct descendants of Shem as by those of the +“accursed” Ham and Canaan, for the people in those days were “one,” +and the “whole earth was of one language;” and Babel was simply an +astrological tower, and its builders were astrologers and adepts +of the primitive Wisdom-Religion, or, again, what we term Secret +Doctrine. + +The Berosian Sybil says: Before the Tower, Zeru-an, Titan, and +Yapetosthe governed the earth, Zeru-an wished to be supreme, but his +two brothers resisted, when their sister, Astlik, intervened and +appeased them. It was agreed that Zeru-an should rule, but his male +children should be put to death; and strong Titans were appointed to +carry this into effect. + +Sar (circle, saros) is the Babylonian god of the sky. He is also +Assaros or Asshur (the son of Shem), and Zero--Zero-ana, the +chakkra, or wheel, boundless time. Hence, as the first step taken by +Zoroaster, while founding his new religion, was to change the most +sacred deities of the Sanscrit _Veda_ into names of evil spirits, in +his Zend _Scriptures_, and even to reject a number of them, we find +no traces in the _Avesta_ of Chakkra--the symbolic circle of the sky. + +Elam, another of the sons of Shem, is _Oulam_ עולם, and refers to an +order or cycle of events. In _Ecclesiastes_ iii. 11, it is termed +“world.” In _Ezekiel_ xxvi. 20, “of old time.” In _Genesis_ iii. 22, +the word stands as “forever;” and in chapter ix. 16, “eternal.” +Finally, the term is completely defined in _Genesis_ vi. 4, in the +following words: “There were _nephelim_ (giants, fallen men, or +Titans) on the earth.” The word is synonymous with Æon, αιων. In +_Proverbs_ viii. 23, it reads: “I was effused from _Oulam_, from +_Ras_” (wisdom). By this sentence, the wise king-kabalist refers to +one of the mysteries of the human spirit--the immortal crown of the +man-trinity. While it ought to read as above, and be interpreted +kabalistically to mean that the _I_ (or my eternal, immortal _Ego_), +the spiritual entity, was effused from the boundless and nameless +eternity, through the creative wisdom of the unknown God, it reads in +the canonical translation: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of +his way, before his works of old!” which is unintelligible nonsense, +without the kabalistic interpretation. When Solomon is made to say +that _I_ was “from the beginning ... while, as yet, he (the Supreme +Deity) had not made the earth nor the highest part of the dust of the +world ... I was there,” and “when he appointed the foundations of the +earth ... then I was by him, _as one brought up with him_,” what can +the kabalist mean by the “_I_,” but his own divine spirit, a drop +effused from that eternal fountain of light and wisdom--the universal +spirit of the Deity? + +The thread of glory emitted by En-Soph from the highest of the +three kabalistic heads, through which “all things shine with +light,” the thread which makes its exit through Adam _Primus_, is +the individual spirit of every man. “I was daily his (En-Soph’s) +delight, rejoicing always before him ... and my delights were +_with the sons of men_,” adds Solomon, in the same chapter of the +_Proverbs_. The immortal spirit delights in the _sons of men_, who, +without this spirit, are but dualities (physical body and astral +soul, or that _life-principle_ which animates even the lowest of the +animal kingdom). But, we have seen that the doctrine teaches that +this spirit cannot unite itself with that man in whom matter and the +grossest propensities of his animal soul will be ever crowding it +out. Therefore, Solomon, who is made to speak under the inspiration +of his own spirit, that possesses him for the time being, utters +the following words of wisdom: “Hearken unto me, my son” (the dual +man), “blessed are they who keep my ways.... Blessed is the man that +heareth me, watching daily at my gates.... For whoso _findeth me, +findeth life_, and shall obtain favor of the Lord.... But he that +sinneth _against me_ wrongeth his _own soul_ ... and loves _death_” +(_Proverbs_ vii. 1-36). + +This chapter, as interpreted, is made by some theologians, like +everything else, to apply to Christ, the “Son of God,” who states +repeatedly, that he who follows him obtains eternal life, and +conquers death. But even in its distorted translation it can be +demonstrated that it referred to anything but to the alleged Saviour. +Were we to accept it in this sense, then, the Christian theology +would have to return, _nolens volens_, to Averroism and Buddhism; +to the doctrine of emanation, in short; for Solomon says: “I was +effused” from Oulam and Rasit, both of which are a part of the +Deity; and thus Christ would not be as their doctrine claims, God +himself, but only an _emanation_ of Him, like the Christos of the +Gnostics. Hence, the meaning of the personified Gnostic Æon, the word +signifying cycles or determined periods in the eternity and at the +same time, representing a hierarchy of celestial beings--spirits. +Thus Christ is sometimes termed the “Eternal Æon.” But the word +“eternal” is erroneous in relation to the Æons. Eternal is that which +has neither beginning nor end; but the “Emanations” or Æons, although +having lived as absorbed in the divine essence from the eternity, +when once individually emanated, must be said to have a beginning. +They may be therefore _endless_ in this spiritual life, never eternal. + +These endless emanations of the one First Cause, all of which were +gradually transformed by the popular fancy into distinct gods, +spirits, angels, and demons, were so little considered immortal, +that all were assigned a limited existence. And this belief, common +to all the peoples of antiquity, to the Chaldean Magi as well as +to the Egyptians, and even in our day held by the Brahmanists +and Buddhists, most triumphantly evidences the monotheism of the +ancient religious systems. This doctrine calls the life-period of +all the inferior divinities, “one day of Parabrahma.” After a cycle +of fourteen milliards, three hundred and twenty-millions of human +years--the tradition says--the trinity itself, with all the lesser +divinities, will be annihilated, together with the universe, and +cease to exist. Then another universe will gradually emerge from the +pralaya (dissolution), and men on earth will be enabled to comprehend +SWAYAMBHUVA as he is. Alone, this primal cause will exist forever, in +all his glory, filling the infinite space. What better proof could +be adduced of the deep reverential feeling with which the “heathen” +regard the one Supreme eternal cause of all things visible and +invisible. + +This is again the source from which the ancient kabalists derived +identical doctrines. If the Christians understood _Genesis_ in +their own way, and, if accepting the texts literally, they enforced +upon the uneducated masses the belief in a creation of our world +out of nothing; and moreover assigned to it a _beginning_, it is +surely not the Tanaïm, the sole expounders of the hidden meaning +contained in the _Bible_, who are to be blamed. No more than any +other philosophers had they ever believed either in spontaneous, +limited, or _ex nihilo_ creations. The _Kabala_ has survived to +show that their philosophy was precisely that of the modern Nepäl +Buddhists, the Svâbhâvikas. They believed _in the eternity and the +indestructibility of matter_, and hence in many prior creations and +destructions of worlds, before our own. “There were old worlds which +perished.”[411] “From this we see that the Holy One, blessed be His +name, had successively created and destroyed sundry worlds, before +he created the present world; and when he created this world he +said: ‘This pleases me; the previous ones did not please me.’”[412] +Moreover, they believed, again like the Svâbhâvikas, now termed +Atheists, that every thing proceeds (is created) from its own nature +and that once that the first impulse is given by that Creative Force +inherent in the “Self-created substance,” or Sephira, everything +evolves out of itself, following its pattern, the more spiritual +prototype which precedes it in the scale of infinite creation. “The +indivisible point which has no limit, and cannot be comprehended +(for it is absolute), expanded from within, and formed a brightness +which served as a garment (a veil) to the indivisible points.... +It, too, expanded from within.... Thus, _everything originated +through_ a constant upheaving agitation, and thus finally the world +originated.”[413] + +In the later Zoroastrian books, after that Darius had restored both +the worship of Ormazd and added to it the purer magianism of the +primitive _Secret Wisdom_--חכמות־נסתרה, of which, as the inscription +tells us, he was himself a hierophant, we see again reappearing the +Zeru-ana, or boundless time, represented by the Brahmans in the +_chakkra_, or a circle; that we see figuring on the uplifted finger of +the principal deities. Further on, we will show the relation in which +it stands to the Pythagorean, mystical numbers--the first and the +last--which is a _zero_ (0), and to the greatest of the Mystery-Gods +IAO. The identity of this symbol alone, in all the old religions, is +sufficient to show their common descent from one primitive Faith.[414] +This term of “boundless time,” which can be applied but to the ONE who +has neither beginning nor end, is called by the Zoroastrians +Zeruana-Akarene, because he has always existed. “His glory,” they say, +is too exalted, his light too resplendent for either human intellect +or mortal eyes to grasp and see. His primal emanation is eternal light +which, from having been previously concealed in darkness, was called +out to manifest itself, and thus was formed Ormazd, “the King of +Life.” He is the first-born of boundless time, but like his own +antitype, or preëxisting spiritual idea, has lived within primitive +darkness from all eternity. His _Logos_ created the pure intellectual +world. After the lapse of three grand cycles[415] he created the +material world in six periods. The six Amshaspands, or _primitive_ +spiritual men, whom Ormazd created in his own image, are the mediators +between this world and himself. Mithras is an emanation of the Logos +and the chief of the twenty-eight _izeds_, who are the tutelary angels +over the spiritual portion of mankind--the souls of men. The +_Ferouers_ are infinite in number. They are the ideas or rather the +ideal conceptions of things which formed themselves in the mind of +Ormazd or Ahuramazda before he willed them to assume a concrete form. +They are what Aristotle terms “privations” of forms and substances. +The religion of Zarathustra, as he is always called in the _Avesta_, +is one from which the ancient Jews have the most borrowed. In one of +the Yashts, Ahuramazda, the Supreme, gives to the seer as one of his +sacred names, _Ahmi_, “I am;” and in another place, _ahmi yat ahmi_, +“I am that I am,” as Jehovah is alleged to have given it to Moses. + +This Cosmogony, adopted with a change of names in the Rabbinical +_Kabala_, found its way, later, with some additional speculations +of Manes, the half-Magus, half-Platonist, into the great body of +Gnosticism. The real doctrines of the Basilideans, Valentinians, and +the Marcionites cannot be correctly ascertained in the prejudiced +and calumnious writings of the Fathers of the Church; but rather +in what remains of the works of the Bardesanesians, known as the +Nazarenes. It is next to impossible, now that all their manuscripts +and books are destroyed, to assign to any of these sects its due part +in dissenting views. But there are a few men still living who have +preserved books and direct traditions about the Ophites, although +they care little to impart them to the world. Among the unknown sects +of Mount Lebanon and Palestine the truth has been concealed for more +than a thousand years. And their _diagram_ of the Ophite scheme +differs with the description of it given by Origen and hence with the +_diagram_ of Matter.[416] + +The kabalistic trinity is one of the models of the Christian one. +“The ANCIENT whose name be sanctified, is with three heads, but +which make only one.”[417] _Tria capita exsculpa sunt, unum intra +alterum, et alterum supra alterum._ Three heads are inserted in one +another, and one over the other. The first head is the Concealed +Wisdom (_Sapientia Abscondita_). Under this head is the ANCIENT +(Pythagorean _Monad_), the most hidden of mysteries; a head which is +no head (_caput quod non est caput_); no one can know what that is +in this head. No intellect is able to comprehend this wisdom.[418] +This _Senior Sanctissimus_ is surrounded by the three heads. He is +the eternal LIGHT of the wisdom; and the wisdom is the source from +which all the manifestations have begun. These three heads, included +in ONE HEAD (which is no head); and these three are bent down +(overshadow) SHORT-FACE (the son) and through them all things shine +with light.[419] “En-Soph emits a thread from El or _Al_ (the highest +God of the Trinity), and the light follows the thread and enters, and +passing through makes its exit through Adam _Primus_ (Kadmon), who is +_concealed_ until the plan for arranging (_statum dispositionis_) is +ready; it threads through him from his head to his feet; and in him +(in the concealed Adam) is the figure of A MAN.”[420] + +“Whoso wishes to have an insight into the sacred unity, let him +consider a flame rising from a burning coal or a burning lamp. He +will see first a two-fold light--a bright white, and a black or blue +light; the white light is _above_, and ascends in a direct light, +while the blue, or dark light, is _below_, and seems as the chair of +the former, yet both are so intimately connected together that they +constitute only one flame. The seat, however, formed by the blue +or dark light, is again connected with the burning matter which is +_under_ it again. The white light never changes its color, it always +remains white; but various shades are observed in the lower light, +whilst the lowest light, moreover, takes two directions; _above_, +it is connected with the white light, and _below_ with the burning +matter. Now, this is constantly consuming itself, and perpetually +ascends to the upper light, and thus everything merges into a single +unity.”[421] + +Such were the ancient ideas of the trinity in the unity, as an +abstraction. Man, who is the microcosmos of the macrocosmos, or of +the archetypal heavenly man, Adam Kadmon, is likewise a trinity; for +he is _body_, _soul_, and _spirit_. + +“All that is created by the ‘Ancient of the Ancients’ can live +and exist only by a male and a female,” says the Sohar.[422] He +alone, to whom no one can say, “Thou,” for he is the spirit of the +WHITE-HEAD in whom the “THREE HEADS” are united, is uncreated. +Out of the subtile fire, on one side of the White Head, and of +the “subtile air,” on the other, emanates Shekinah, his veil (the +femininized Holy Ghost). “This air,” says Idra Rabba, “is the most +occult (occultissimus) attribute of the Ancient of the Days.[423] The +Ancienter of the Ancienter is the _Concealed_ of the Concealed.[424] +All things are Himself, and Himself is concealed on every way.[425] +The _cranium_ of the WHITE-HEAD has no beginning, but its end has a +shining reflection and a _roundness_ which is our universe.” + +“They regard,” says Klenker, “the first-born as man and wife, in +so far as his light includes in itself all other lights, and in so +far as his spirit of life or breath of life includes all other life +spirits in itself.”[426] The kabalistic Shekinah answers to the +Ophite Sophia. Properly speaking, Adam Kadmon is the Bythos, but in +this emanation-system, where everything is calculated to perplex +and place an obstacle to inquiry, he is the _Source_ of Light, the +first “primitive man,” and at the same time _Ennoia_, the Thought of +Bythos, the Depth, for he is Pimander. + +The Gnostics, as well as the Nazarenes, allegorizing on the +personification, said that the _First_ and _Second_ man loved the +beauty of Sophia, (Sephira) the first woman, and thus the Father +and the Son fecundated the heavenly “Woman” and, from primal +darkness procreated the visible light (Sephira is the Invisible, or +Spiritual Light), “whom they called the ANOINTED CHRISTUM, or King +Messiah.”[427] This Christus is the _Adam of Dust_ before his fall, +with the spirit of the Adonai, his Father, and Shekinah Adonai, +his mother, upon him; for Adam Primus is Adon, Adonai, or Adonis. +The primal existence manifests itself by its wisdom, and produces +the _Intelligible_ LOGOS (all visible creation). This wisdom was +venerated by the Ophites under the form of a serpent. So far we see +that the first and second life are the two Adams, or the first and +the second man. In the former lies _Eva_, or the yet unborn spiritual +Eve, and she is within Adam _Primus_, for she is a part of himself, +who is androgyne. The Eva of dust, she who will be called in +_Genesis_ “the mother of all that live,” is _within_ Adam the Second. +And now, from the moment of its first manifestation, the LORD MANO, +the Unintelligible Wisdom, disappears from the scene of action. It +will manifest itself only as Shekinah, the GRACE; for the CORONA is +“the innermost Light of all Lights,” and hence it is darkness’s own +substance.[428] + +In the _Kabala_, Shekinah is the ninth emanation of Sephira, which +contains the whole of the ten Sephiroth within herself. She belongs +to the third triad and is produced together with _Malchuth_ or +“Kingdom,” of which she is the female counterpart. Otherwise she is +held to be higher than any of these; for she is the “Divine Glory,” +the “veil,” or “garment,” of En-Soph. The Jews, whenever she is +mentioned in the _Targum_, say that she is the glory of Jehovah, +which dwelt in the tabernacle, manifesting herself like a visible +cloud; the “Glory” rested over the Mercy-Seat in the _Sanctum +Sanctorum_. + +In the Nazarene or Bardesanian System, which may be termed the Kabala +within the Kabala, the Ancient of Days--_Antiquus Altus_, who is the +Father of the Demiurgus of the universe, is called the _Third_ Life, +or _Abatur_; and he is the Father of Fetahil, who is the architect +of the visible universe, which he calls into existence by the powers +of his genii, at the order of the “Greatest;” the Abatur answering +to the “Father” of Jesus in the later Christian theology. These two +superior _Lives_ then, are the crown within which dwells the greatest +_Ferho_. “Before any creature came into existence the Lord Ferho +existed.”[429] This one is the First Life, formless and invisible; +in whom the living Spirit of LIFE exists, the Highest GRACE. The two +are ONE from eternity, for they are the Light and the CAUSE of the +Light. Therefore, they answer to the kabalistic concealed _wisdom_, +and to the concealed Shekinah--the Holy Ghost. “This light, which +is manifested, is the garment of the Heavenly Concealed,” says Idra +Suta. And the “heavenly man” is the superior Adam. “No one knows his +paths except _Macroprosopus_” (Long-face)--the Superior _active_ +god.[430] “Not as I am _written_ will I be read; in this world my +name will be written Jehovah and read Adonai,”[431] say the Rabbins, +very correctly. Adonai is the Adam Kadmon; he is FATHER and MOTHER +both. By this double mediatorship the Spirit of the “Ancient of the +Ancient” descends upon the _Microprosopus_ (Short-face) or the Adam +of Eden. And the “Lord God breathes into his nostrils the breath of +life.” + +When the woman separates herself from her androgyne, and becomes a +distinct individuality, the first story is repeated over again. Both +the Father and Son, the two Adams, love her beauty; and then follows +the allegory of the temptation and fall. It is in the _Kabala_, as +in the Ophite system, in which both the Ophis and the Ophiomorphos +are emanations emblematized as serpents, the former representing +Eternity, Wisdom, and Spirit (as in the Chaldean Magism of +Aspic-worship and Wisdom-Doctrine in the olden times), and the latter +Cunning, Envy, and Matter. Both spirit and matter are serpents; and +Adam Kadmon becomes the Ophis who tempts himself--man and woman--to +taste of the “Tree of Good and Evil,” in order to teach them the +mysteries of spiritual wisdom. Light tempts Darkness, and Darkness +attracts Light, for Darkness is _matter_, and “the _Highest_ Light +shines not in its _Tenebræ_.” With knowledge comes the temptation +of the Ophiomorphos, and he prevails. The dualism of every existing +religion is shown forth by the fall. “I have gotten a man from _the +Lord_,” exclaims Eve, when the Dualism, Cain and Abel--evil and +good--is born. “And the Adam knew Hua, his woman (_astu_), and she +became pregnant and bore _Kin_, and she said: קינתי איש את־יהוה: _Kiniti +ais_ Yava.--I have gained or obtained a husband, even _Yava_--Is, +Ais--man.” “_Cum arbore peccati Deus creavit seculum._” + +And now we will compare this system with that of the Jewish +Gnostics--the Nazarenes, as well as with other philosophies. + +The ISH AMON, the pleroma, or the boundless circle within which lie +“all forms,” is the THOUGHT of the power divine; it works in SILENCE, +and suddenly light is begotten by darkness; it is called the SECOND +life; and this one produces, or generates the THIRD. This third light +is “the FATHER of all things that live,” as EUA is the “mother of +all that live.” He is the Creator who calls inert matter into life, +through his vivifying spirit, and, therefore, is called the ancient +of the world. Abatur is the Father who creates the first Adam, who +creates in his turn the second. Abatur opens a gate and walks to the +dark water (chaos), and looking down into it, the darkness reflects +the image of Himself ... and lo! a SON is formed--the Logos or +Demiurge; Fetahil, who is the builder of the _material_ world, is +called into existence. According to the Gnostic dogma, this was the +_Metatron_, the Archangel Gabriel, or messenger of life; or, as the +biblical allegory has it, the androgynous Adam-Kadmon again, the SON, +who, with his Father’s spirit, produces the ANOINTED, or Adam before +his fall. + +When Swayambhuva, the “Lord who exists through himself,” feels +impelled to manifest himself, he is thus described in the Hindu +sacred books. + +Having been impelled to produce various beings from his own divine +substance, he first manifested the waters which developed within +themselves a productive seed. + +The seed became a germ bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with +a thousand beams; and in that egg he was born himself, in the form +of BRAHMA, the great principle of all the beings (_Manu_, book i., +slokas 8, 9). + +The Egyptian Kneph, or Chnuphis, Divine Wisdom, represented by a +serpent, produces an egg from his mouth, from which issues Phtha. In +this case Phtha represents the universal germ, as well as Brahmä, +who is of the neuter gender, when the final _a_ has a diaresis on +it;[432] otherwise it becomes simply one of the names of the Deity. +The former was the model of the THREE LIVES of the Nazarenes, as +that of the kabalistic “Faces,” PHARAZUPHA, which, in its turn, +furnished the model for the Christian Trinity of Irenæus and his +followers. The egg was the primitive matter which served as a +material for the building of the visible universe; it contained, +as well as the Gnostic Pleroma, the kabalistic Shekinah, the man +and wife, the spirit and life, “whose light includes all other +lights” or life-spirits. This first manifestation was symbolized +by a serpent, which is at first _divine_ wisdom, but, _falling +into generation_, becomes polluted. Phtha is the heavenly man, the +Egyptian Adam-Kadmon, or Christ, who, in conjunction with the female +Holy Ghost, the ZOE, produces the five elements, air, water, fire, +earth, and ether; the latter being a servile copy from the Buddhist +A’d, and his five Dhyana Buddhas, as we have shown in the preceding +chapter. The Hindu Swayambhuva-Nara, develops from himself the +_mother-principle_, enclosed within his own divine essence--Nari, +the immortal Virgin, who, when impregnated by his spirit, becomes +Taumâtra, the mother of the five elements--air, water, fire, earth, +and ether. Thus may be shown how from the Hindu cosmogony all others +proceed. + +Knorr von Rosenroth, busying himself with the interpretation of the +_Kabala_, argues that, “In this first state (of secret wisdom), +the infinite God Himself can be understood as ‘Father’ (of the new +covenant). But the _Light_ being let down by the Infinite through +a canal into the ‘primal Adam,’ or _Messiah_, and joined with him, +can be applied to the name SON. And the influx emitted down from +him (the Son) to the lower parts (of the universe), can be applied +to the character of the Holy Ghost.”[433] Sophia-Achamoth, the +half-spiritual, half-material LIFE, which vivifies the inert matter +in the depths of chaos, is the Holy Ghost of the Gnostics, and the +_Spiritus_ (female) of the Nazarenes. She is--be it remembered--the +_sister_ of _Christos_, the perfect emanation, and both are children +or emanations of Sophia, the purely spiritual and intellectual +daughter of Bythos, the Depth. For the elder Sophia is Shekinah, the +Face of God, “God’s Shekinah, which is his image.”[434] + +“The _Son_ Zeus-Belus, or Sol-Mithra is an image of the Father, an +emanation from the _Supreme Light_,” says Movers. “He passed for +Creator.”[435] + +“Philosophers say the first air is _anima mundi_. But the garment +(Shekinah) is higher than the first air, since it is joined closer +to the En-Soph, the Boundless.”[436] Thus _Sophia_ is Shekinah, and +Sophia-Achamoth the _anima mundi_, the astral light of the kabalists, +which contains the spiritual and material germs of all _that is_. For +the Sophia-Achamoth, like _Eve_, of whom she is the prototype, is +“the mother of all that live.” + +There are three trinities in the Nazarene system as well as in the +Hindu philosophy of the ante and early Vedic period. While we see +the few translators of the _Kabala_, the Nazarene _Codex_, and other +abstruse works, hopelessly floundering amid the interminable pantheon +of names, unable to agree as to a system in which to classify them, +for the one hypothesis contradicts and overturns the other, we can +but wonder at all this trouble, which could be so easily overcome. +But even now, when the translation, and even the perusal of the +ancient Sanscrit has become so easy as a point of comparison, +they would never think it possible that every philosophy--whether +Semitic, Hamitic, or Turanian, as they call it, has its key in the +Hindu sacred works. Still facts are there, and facts are not easily +destroyed. Thus, while we find the Hindu trimurti triply manifested as + + Nara (or Para-Pouroucha), Agni, Brahma, the Father, + Nari (Mariama), Vaya, Vishnu, the Mother, + Viradj (Brahmä), Surya, Siva, the Son, + +and the Egyptian trinity as follows: + + Kneph (or Amon), Osiris, Ra (Horus), the Father, + Maut (or Mut), Isis, Isis, the Mother, + Khons, Horus, Malouli, the Son;[437] + +the Nazarene System runs, + + Ferho (Ish-Amon), Mano, Abatur, the Father, + Chaos (dark water), Spiritus (female), Netubto, the Mother, + Fetahil, Ledhaio, Lord Jordan, the Son. + +The first is the concealed or non-manifested trinity--a pure +abstraction. The other the active or the one revealed in the results +of creation, proceeding out of the former--its spiritual prototype. +The third is the mutilated image of both the others, crystallized in +the form of human dogmas, which vary according to the exuberance of +the national materialistic fancy. + +The Supreme Lord of splendor and of light, luminous and refulgent, +before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord +Ferho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity; +and Lord Jordan--the spirit, the living water of grace.[438] He is +the one through whom alone we can be saved; and thus he answers +to the Shekinah, the spiritual garment of En-Soph, or the Holy +Ghost. These three constitute the trinity in _abscondito_. The +second trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the +similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth; +and the second Ferho is the King of Light--MANO (_Rex Lucis_). He +is the heavenly life and light, and older than the Architect of +heaven and earth.[439] The second life is _Ish Amon_ (Pleroma), the +vase of election, containing the visible thought of the _Iordanus +Maximus_--the _type_ (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype +of the living water, who is the “spiritual Jordan.”[440] Third life, +which is produced by the other two, is ABATUR (_Ab_, the Parent or +Father). This is the mysterious and decrepit “Aged of the Aged,” the +“Ancient _Senem sui obtegentem et grandævum mundi_.” This latter +third Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of +the world, whom the Ophites call Ilda-Baoth,[441] though Fetahil is +the _only-begotten one_, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who +begets him by looking into the “dark water;”[442] but the Lord Mano, +“the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii,” is higher than the +Father, in this kabalistic _Codex_--one is purely spiritual, the +other material. So, for instance, while Abatur’s “only begotten” one +is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano, +the “Lord of Celsitude,” who is the son of Him, who is “the Father +of all who preach the Gospel,” produces also an “only-begotten” one, +the Lord Lehdaio, “a just Lord.” He is the Christos, the anointed, +who pours out the “grace” of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the +_Highest Crown_. + +In the Arcanum, “in the assembly of splendor, lighted by MANO, to +whom the scintillas of splendor owe their origin,” the genii who +live in light “rose, they went to the visible Jordan, and flowing +water ... they assembled for a counsel ... and called forth the +Only-Begotten Son of an imperishable image, and who cannot be +conceived by reflection, Lehdaio, the just Lord, and sprung from +Lehdaio, the just lord, whom the life had produced by his word.”[443] + +Mano is the chief of the seven Æons, who are Mano (_Rex Lucis_) +Aiar Zivo, Ignis Vivus, Lux, Vita, Aqua Viva (the living water of +baptism, the genius of the Jordan), and Ipsa Vita, the chief of the +six genii, which form with him the mystic _seven_. The Nazarene Mano +is simply the copy of the Hindu first Manu--the emanation of Manu +Swayambhuva--from whom evolve in succession the six other Manus, +types of the subsequent races of men. We find them all represented by +the apostle-kabalist John in the “seven lamps of fire” burning before +the throne, which are the seven spirits of God,[444] and in the seven +angels bearing the seven vials. Again in Fetahil we recognize the +original of the Christian doctrine. + +In the _Revelation_ of Joannes Theologos it is said: “I turned and +saw in the midst of the _seven_ candlesticks one like unto the Son +of man ... his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as +snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire ... and his feet like unto +fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace” (i. 13, 14, 15). _John_ +here repeats, as is well known, the words of Daniel and Ezekiel. +“The Ancient of Days ... whose hair was white as pure wool ... etc.” +And “the appearance of a _man_ ... above the throne ... and the +appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.”[445] The +fire being “the glory of the Lord.” Fetahil is son of the man, the +Third Life, and his upper part is represented as white as snow, while +standing near the throne of the living fire he has the appearance of +a flame. + +All these “apocalyptic” visions are based on the description of +the “white head” of the Sohar, in whom the kabalistic trinity is +united. The white head, “which conceals in its cranium the spirit,” +and which is environed by subtile fire. The “appearance of a man” +is that of Adam Kadmon, through which passes the thread of light +represented by the fire. Fetahil is the _Vir Novissimis_ (the newest +man), the son of Abatur,[446] the latter being the “man,” or the +_third_ life,[447] now the third personage of the trinity. _John_ +sees “one like unto the son of man,” holding in his right hand seven +stars, and standing between “seven golden candlesticks” (_Revelation_ +i.). Fetahil takes his “stand on high,” according to the will of +his father, “the highest Æon who has seven sceptres,” and seven +genii, who astronomically represent the seven planets or stars. He +stands “shining in the garment of the Lord’s, resplendent by the +agency of the genii.”[448] He is the Son of his Father, Life, and +his mother, Spirit, or Light.[449] The Logos is represented in the +_Gospel according to John_ as one in whom was “_Life_, and the life +was the _light_ of men” (i. 4). Fetahil is the Demiurge, and his +father created the visible universe of matter through him.[450] In +the _Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians_ (iii. 9), God is said to have +“_created all things_ by Jesus.” In the _Codex_ the Parent-LIFE says: +“Arise, go, our son first-begotten, ordained for all creatures.”[451] +“As the living father hath sent me,” says Christ, “God sent his +only-begotten son that we might live.”[452] Finally, having +performed his work on earth, Fetahil reascends to his father Abatur. +“_Et qui, relicto quem procreavit mundo, ad Abatur suum patrem +contendit._”[453] “My father sent me ... I go to the Father,” repeats +Jesus. + +Laying aside the theological disputes of Christianity which try to +blend together the Jewish Creator of the first chapter of _Genesis_ +with the “Father” of the _New Testament_, Jesus states repeatedly +of his Father that “He is _in secret_.” Surely he would not have so +termed the ever-present “Lord God” of the Mosaic books, who showed +Himself to Moses and the Patriarchs, and finally allowed all the +elders of Israel to look on Himself.[454] When Jesus is made to +speak of the temple at Jerusalem as of his “Father’s house,” he does +not mean the physical building, which he maintains he can destroy +and then again rebuild in three days, but of the temple of Solomon; +the wise kabalist, who indicates in his _Proverbs_ that every man +is the temple of God, or of his own divine spirit. This term of the +“Father who is in secret,” we find used as much in the _Kabala_ as +in the _Codex Nazaræus_, and elsewhere. No one has ever seen the +wisdom concealed in the “Cranium,” and no one has beheld the “Depth” +(Bythos). Simon, the _Magician_, preached “one Father unknown to +all.”[455] + +We can trace this appellation of a “secret” God still farther back. +In the _Kabala_ the “Son” of the _concealed_ Father who dwells in +light and glory, is the “Anointed,” the _Seir-Anpin_, who unites in +himself all the Sephiroth, he is Christos, or the Heavenly man. It +is through Christ that the Pneuma, or the Holy Ghost, creates “all +things” (_Ephesians_ iii. 9), and produces the four elements, air, +water, fire, and earth. This assertion is unquestionable, for we find +Irenæus basing on this fact his best argument for the necessity of +there being four gospels. There can be neither more nor fewer than +four--he argues. “For as there are four quarters of the world, and +four general winds (καθολικὰ πνεύματα) ... it is right that she (the +Church) should have four pillars. From which it is manifest that the +Word, _the maker of all_, he _who sitteth upon the Cherubim_ ... as +David says, supplicating his advent, ‘Thou that sittest between the +Cherubim, shine forth!’ For the Cherubim also are _four-faced_ and +their faces are symbols of the working of the Son of God.”[456] + +We will not stop to discuss at length the special holiness of the +four-faced Cherubim, although we might, perhaps, show their origin +in all the ancient pagodas of India, in the _vehans_ (or vehicles) +of their chief gods; as likewise we might easily attribute the +respect paid to them to the kabalistic wisdom, which, nevertheless, +the Church rejects with great horror. But, we cannot resist the +temptation to remind the reader that he may easily ascertain the +several significances attributed to these Cherubs by reading the +_Kabala_. “When the souls are to leave their abode,” says the +_Sohar_, holding to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls in the +world of emanations, “each soul separately appears before the Holy +King, dressed in a sublime form, with the features in which it is to +appear in this world. It is from this sublime form that the image +proceeds” (_Sohar_, iii., p. 104 ab). Then it goes on to say that the +types or forms of these faces are four in number--those of the angel +or man, of the lion, the bull, and the eagle. Furthermore, we may +well express our wonder that Irenæus should not have re-enforced his +argument for the four gospels--by citing the whole Pantheon of the +four-armed Hindu gods? + +Ezekiel in representing his four animals, now called Cherubim, +as types of the four symbolical beings, which, in his visions +support the throne of Jehovah, had not far to go for his models. +The Chaldeo-Babylonian protecting genii were familiar to him; the +Sed, Alap or _Kirub_ (Cherubim), the bull, with the human face; the +Nirgal, human-headed lion; Oustour the Sphinx-man; and the Nathga, +with its eagle’s head. The religion of the masters--the idolatrous +Babylonians and Assyrians--was transferred almost bodily into the +revealed Scripture of the Captives, and from thence came into +Christianity. + +Already, we find Ezekiel addressed by the likeness of the glory of +the Lord, “as Son of man.” This peculiar title is used repeatedly +throughout the whole book of this prophet, which is as kabalistic +as the “roll of a book” which the “Glory” causes him to eat. It is +written _within_ and _without_; and its real meaning is identical +with that of the _Apocalypse_. It appears strange that so much stress +should be laid on this peculiar appellation, said to have been +applied by Jesus to himself, when, in the symbolical or kabalistic +language, a prophet is so addressed. It is as extraordinary to +see Irenæus indulging in such graphic descriptions of Jesus as +to show him, “the maker of all, sitting upon a Cherubim,” unless +he identifies him with Shekinah, whose usual place was among the +Charoubs of the Mercy Seat. We also know that the Cherubim and +Seraphim are titles of the “Old Serpent” (the orthodox Devil) the +Seraphs being the burning or fiery serpents, in kabalistic symbolism. +The ten emanations of Adam Kadmon, called the Sephiroth, have all +emblems and titles corresponding to each. So, for instance, the last +two are Victory, or Jehovah-Sabaoth, whose symbol is the right column +of Solomon, the Pillar _Jachin_; while GLORY is the left Pillar, +or Boaz, and its name is “the Old Serpent,” and also “Seraphim and +Cherubim.”[457] + +The “Son of man” is an appellation which could not be assumed +by any one but a kabalist. Except, as shown above, in the _Old +Testament_, it is used but by one prophet--Ezekiel, the kabalist. +In their mysterious and mutual relations, the Æons or Sephiroth +are represented in the _Kabala_ by a great number of circles, and +sometimes by the figure of a MAN, which is symbolically formed out of +such circles. This man is Seir-Anpin, and the 243 numbers of which +his figure consists relate to the different orders of the celestial +hierarchy. The original idea of this figure, or rather the model, +may have been taken from the Hindu Brahma, and the various castes +typified by the several parts of his body, as King suggests in his +_Gnostics_. In one of the grandest and most beautiful cave-temples +at Ellora, Nasak, dedicated to Vishvakarma, son of Brahma, is a +representation of this God and his attributes. To one acquainted with +Ezekiel’s description of the “likeness of four living creatures,” +every one of which had four faces and the hands of a man under +its wings, etc.,[458] this figure at Ellora must certainly appear +absolutely _biblical_. Brahma is called the father of “man,” as well +as Jupiter and other highest gods. + +It is in the Buddhistic representations of Mount Meru, called by +the Burmese _Myé-nmo_, and by the Siamese _Sineru_, that we find +one of the originals of the Adam Kadmon, Seir-Anpin, the “heavenly +man,” and of all the Æons, Sephiroth, Powers, Dominions, Thrones, +Virtues, and Dignities of the _Kabala_. Between two pillars, which +are connected by an arch, the key-stone of the latter is represented +by a _crescent_. This is the domain in which dwells the Supreme +Wisdom of A’di Buddha, the Supreme and invisible Deity. Beneath this +highest central point comes the circle of the direct emanation of +the Unknown--the circle of Brahma with some Hindus, of the first +_avatar_ of Buddha, according to others. This answers to Adam Kadmon +and the ten Sephiroth. Nine of the emanations are encircled by the +tenth, and occasionally represented by pagodas, each of which bears +a name which expresses one of the chief attributes of the manifested +Deity. Then below come the seven stages, or heavenly spheres, each +sphere being encircled by a sea. These are the celestial mansions +of the _devatas_, or gods, each losing somewhat in holiness and +purity as it approaches the earth. Then comes Meru itself, formed of +numberless circles within three large ones, typifying the trinity of +man; and for one acquainted with the numerical value of the letters +in biblical names, like that of the “Great Beast,” or that of Mithra +μειθρας αβραξας, and others, it is an easy matter to establish the +identity of the Meru-gods with the emanations or Sephiroth of the +kabalists. Also the genii of the Nazarenes, with their special +missions, are all found on this most ancient mythos, a most perfect +representation of the symbolism of the “secret doctrine,” as taught in +archaic ages. + +King gives a few hints--though doubtless too insufficient to teach +anything important, for they are based upon the calculations of +Bishop Newton[459]--as to this mode of finding out mysteries in the +value of letters. However, we find this great archæologist, who +has devoted so much time and labor to the study of Gnostic gems, +corroborating our assertion. He shows that the entire theory is +Hindu, and points out that the durga, or female counterpart of each +Asiatic god, is what the kabalists term active _Virtue_[460] in the +celestial hierarchy, a term which the Christian Fathers adopted and +repeated, without fully appreciating, and the meaning of which the +later theology has utterly disfigured. But to return to Meru. + +The whole is surrounded by the Maha Samut, or the great sea--the +astral light and ether of the kabalists and scientists; and within +the central circles appears “the likeness of a man.” He is the +Achadoth of the Nazarenes, the twofold unity, or the androgyne man; +the heavenly incarnation, and a perfect representation of Seir-Anpin +(short-face), the son of _Arich Anpin_ (long-face).[461] This +likeness is now represented in many lamaseries by Gautama-Buddha, +the last of the incarnated avatars. Still lower, under the Meru, +is the dwelling of the great Naga, who is called _Rajah Naga_, the +king-serpent--the serpent of _Genesis_, the Gnostic Ophis--and the +goddess of the earth, Bhumây Nari, or Yâma, who waits upon the great +dragon, for she is Eve, “the mother of all that live.” Still lower +is the eighth sphere, the infernal regions. The uppermost regions +of Brahma are surrounded by the sun, moon, and planets, the seven +stellars of the Nazarenes, and just as they are described in the +_Codex_. + +“The seven impostor-Dæmons who deceive the sons of Adam. The name of +one is _Sol_; of another _Spiritus Venereus_, Astro; of the third +_Nebu_, Mercurius _a false Messiah_; ... the name of a fourth is +Sin _Luna_; the fifth is _Kiun_, Saturnus; the sixth, Bel-Zeus; +the seventh, Nerig-_Mars_.”[462] Then there are “_Seven Lives_ +procreated,” seven good Stellars, “which are from Cabar Zio, and +are those bright ones who shine in their own form and splendor +that pours from on high.... At the gate of the HOUSE OF LIFE the +throne is fitly placed for the Lord of Splendor, and there are THREE +habitations.”[463] The habitations of the _Trimurti_, the Hindu +trinity, are placed beneath the key-stone--the golden crescent, in +the representation of Meru. “And there was under his feet (of the God +of Israel) as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone” (_Exodus_ +xxiv. 10). Under the crescent is the heaven of Brahma, all paved with +sapphires. The paradise of Indra is resplendent with a thousand suns; +that of Siva (Saturn), is in the northeast; his throne is formed of +lapis-lazuli and the floor of heaven is of fervid gold. “When he sits +on the throne he blazes with fire up to _the loins_.” At Hurdwar, +during the fair, in which he is more than ever Mahadeva, the highest +god, the attributes and emblems sacred to the Jewish “Lord God,” may +be recognized one by one in those of Siva. The Binlang stone,[464] +sacred to this Hindu deity, is an unhewn stone like the Beth-el, +consecrated by the Patriarch Jacob, and set up by him “for a pillar,” +and like the latter Binlang is _anointed_. We need hardly remind the +student that the _linga_, the emblem sacred to Siva and whose temples +are modelled after this form, is identical in shape, meaning, and +purpose with the “pillars” set up by the several patriarchs to mark +their adoration of the Lord God. In fact, one of these patriarchal +lithoï might even now be carried in the Sivaitic processions of +Calcutta, without its Hebrew derivation being suspected. The four +arms of Siva are often represented with appendages like wings; he has +_three_ eyes and a _fourth_ in the crescent, obtained by him at the +churning of the ocean, as Pâncha Mukhti Siva has four heads. + +In this god we recognize the description given by Ezekiel, in the +first chapter of his book, of his vision, in which he beholds the +“likeness of a man” in the four living creatures, who had “four +faces, four wings,” who had one pair of “straight feet ... which +sparkled like the color _of burnished_ brass ... and their rings were +full of eyes round about them four.” It is the throne and heaven of +Siva that the prophet describes in saying “... and there was the +likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone ... and +I saw as the color of amber (gold) as the appearance of fire around +about ... from his loins even upward, and from the appearance of +his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire” +(_Ezekiel_ i. 27). “And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they +burned in a furnace” (_Revelation_ i. 15). “As for their faces ... +one had the face of a cherub, and the face of a lion ... they also +had the face of _an ox_ and the face of an eagle” (_Ezekiel_ i. +10, x. 14). This _fourfold_ appearance which we find in the two +_cherubims_ of gold on the two ends of the ark; these symbolic four +_faces_ being adopted, moreover, later, one by each evangelist, as +may be easily ascertained from the pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, +and John,[465] prefixed to their respective gospels in the Roman +Vulgate and Greek _Bibles_. + +“Taaut, the great god of the Phœnicians,” says Sanchoniathon, “to +express the character of Saturn or Kronos, made his image having four +eyes ... two before, two behind, open and closed, and four wings, two +expanded, two folded. The eyes denote that the god sees in sleep, and +sleeps in waking; the position of the wings that he flies in rest, +and rests in flying.” + +The identity of Saturn with Siva is corroborated still more when +we consider the emblem of the latter, the _damara_, which is an +hour-glass, to show the progress of time, represented by this god in +his capacity of a destroyer. The bull Nardi, the _vehan_ of Siva and +the most sacred emblem of this god, is reproduced in the Egyptian +Apis; and in the bull created by Ormazd and killed by Ahriman. The +religion of Zoroaster, all based upon the “secret doctrine,” is found +held by the people of Eritene; it was the religion of the Persians +when they conquered the Assyrians. From thence it is easy to trace +the introduction of this emblem of LIFE represented by the Bull, in +every religious system. The college of the Magians had accepted it +with the change of dynasty;[466] Daniel is described as a Rabbi, the +chief of the Babylonian astrologers and Magi;[467] therefore we see +the Assyrian little bulls and the attributes of Siva reappearing +under a hardly modified form in the cherubs of the Talmudistic Jews, +as we have traced the bull Apis in the sphinxes or cherubs of the +Mosaic Ark; and as we find it several thousand years later in the +company of one of the Christian evangelists, Luke. + +Whoever has lived in India long enough to acquaint himself even +superficially with the native deities, must detect the similarity +between Jehovah and other gods besides Siva. As Saturn, the latter +was always held in great respect by the Talmudists. He was held in +reverence by the Alexandrian kabalists as the direct inspirer of the +law and the prophets; one of the names of Saturn was Israel, and we +will show, in time, his identity in a certain way with Abram, which +Movers and others hinted at long since. Thus it cannot be wondered at +if Valentinus, Basilides, and the Ophite Gnostics placed the dwelling +of their Ilda-Baoth, also a destroyer as well as a creator, in the +planet Saturn; for it was he who gave the law in the wilderness and +spoke through the prophets. If more proof should be required we +will show it in the testimony of the canonical _Bible_ itself. In +_Amos_ the “Lord” pours vials of wrath upon the people of Israel. He +rejects their burnt-offerings and will not listen to their prayers, +but inquires of Amos, “have ye offered unto _me_ sacrifices and +offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?” “But ye +have borne the tabernacles of your Moloch and _Chiun_ your images, +the _star of your god_” (v. 25, 26). Who are Moloch and _Chiun_ but +Baal--Saturn--Siva, and _Chiun_, Kivan, the same Saturn whose star +the Israelites had made to themselves? There seems no escape in this +case; all these deities are identical. + +The same in the case of the numerous Logoï. While the Zoroastrian +Sosiosh is framed on that of the tenth Brahmanical Avatar, and +the fifth Buddha of the followers of Gautama; and we find the +former, after having passed part and parcel into the kabalistic +system of king Messiah, reflected in the Apostle Gabriel of the +Nazarenes, and Æbel-Zivo, the Legatus, sent on earth by the Lord of +Celsitude and Light; all of these--Hindu and Persian, Buddhist and +Jewish, the Christos of the Gnostics and the Philonean Logos--are +found combined in “the Word made flesh” of the fourth _Gospel_. +Christianity includes all these systems, patched and arranged to meet +the occasion. Do we take up the _Avesta_--we find there the dual +system so prevalent in the Christian scheme. The struggle between +Ahriman,[468] Darkness, and Ormazd, Light, has been going on in the +world continually since the beginning of time. When the worst arrives +and Ahriman will seem to have conquered the world and corrupted all +mankind, _then will appear the Saviour_ of mankind, Sosiosh. He +will come seated upon a white horse and followed by an army of good +genii equally mounted on milk-white steeds.[469] And this we find +faithfully copied in the _Revelation_: “I saw heaven opened, and +beheld a _white horse_; and he that sat upon him was called faithful +and true.... And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon +white horses” (_Revelation_ xix. 11, 14). Sosiosh himself is but a +later Persian _permutation_ of the Hindu Vishnu. The figure of this +god may be found unto this day representing him as the Saviour, the +“Preserver” (the preserving spirit of God), in the temple of Rama. +The picture shows him in his tenth incarnation--the _Kalki avatar_, +which is yet to come--as an armed warrior mounted upon a white +horse. Waving over his head the sword destruction, he holds in his +other hand a discus, made up of rings encircled in one another, an +emblem of the revolving cycles or great ages,[470] for Vishnu will +thus appear but at the end of the _Kaliyug_, answering to the end of +the world expected by our Adventists. “And out of his mouth goeth +a sharp sword ... on his head were many crowns” (_Revelation_ xix. +12). Vishnu is often represented with several crowns superposed on +his head. “And I saw an angel standing on the Sun” (17). The _white +horse is the horse of the Sun_.[471] Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, is +also born of a virgin,[472] and at the end of days he will come as +a Redeemer to regenerate the world, but he will be preceded by two +prophets, who will come to announce him.[473] Hence the Jews who had +Moses and Elias, are now waiting for the Messiah. “Then comes the +general _resurrection_, when the good will immediately enter into +this happy abode--the regenerated earth; and Ahriman and his angels +(the devils),[474] and the wicked, be purified by immersion in a +lake of molten metal.... Henceforward, all will enjoy unchangeable +happiness, and, headed by Sosiosh, ever sing the praises of the +Eternal One.”[475] The above is a perfect repetition of Vishnu +in his tenth avatar, for he will then throw the wicked into the +infernal abodes in which, after purifying themselves, they will be +pardoned--even those devils which rebelled against Brahma, and were +hurled into the bottomless pit by Siva,[476] as also the “blessed +ones” will go to dwell with the gods, over the Mount Meru. + +Having thus traced the similarity of views respecting the Logos, +Metatron, and Mediator, as found in the _Kabala_ and the _Codex_ +of the Christian Nazarenes and Gnostics, the reader is prepared to +appreciate the audacity of the Patristic scheme to reduce a purely +metaphysical figure into concrete form, and make it appear as if +the finger of prophecy had from time immemorial been pointing down +the vista of ages to Jesus as the coming Messiah. A theomythos +intended to symbolize the coming day, near the close of the great +cycle, when the “glad tidings” from heaven should proclaim the +universal brotherhood and common faith of humanity, the day of +regeneration--was violently distorted into an accomplished fact. + +“Why callest thou me good? there is none good but _one, that is +God_,” says Jesus. Is this the language of a God? of the second +person in the Trinity, who is identical with the First? And if this +Messiah, or Holy Ghost of the Gnostic and Pagan Trinities, had come +in his person, what did he mean by distinguishing between himself +the “Son of man,” and the Holy Ghost? “And whosoever shall speak a +word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him +that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven,” +he says.[477] And how account for the marvellous identity of this +very language, with the precepts enunciated, centuries before, by +the Kabalists and the “Pagan” initiates? The following are a few +instances out of many. + +“No one of the gods, no man or Lord, can be good, but _only God +alone_,” says Hermes.[478] + +“To be a good man is impossible, God alone possesses this privilege,” +repeats Plato, with a slight variation.[479] + +Six centuries before Christ, the Chinese philosopher Confucius said +that his doctrine was simple and easy to comprehend (_Lûn-yù_, chap. +5, § 15). To which one of his disciples added: “The doctrine of our +Master consists in having an invariable correctness of heart, and in +doing toward others as we would that they should do to us.”[480] + +“Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles,”[481] +exclaims Peter, long after the scene of Calvary. “There was a _man_ +sent from God, whose name was John,”[482] says the fourth _Gospel_, +thus placing the Baptist on an equality with Jesus. John the Baptist, +in one of the most solemn acts of his life, that of baptizing Christ, +thinks not that he is going to baptize _a God_, but uses the word man. +“This is he of whom I said, after me cometh _a man_.”[483] Speaking of +himself, Jesus says, “You seek to kill _me, a man_ that hath told you +the truth, which _I have heard of God_.”[484] Even the blind man of +Jerusalem, healed by the great thaumaturgist, full of gratitude and +admiration for his benefactor, in narrating the miracle does not call +Jesus God, but simply says, “... _a man_ that is called Jesus, made +clay.”[485] + +We do not close the list for lack of other instances and proofs, but +simply because what we now say has been repeated and demonstrated by +others, many times before us. But there is no more incurable evil +than blind and unreasoning fanaticism. Few are the men who, like Dr. +Priestley, have the courage to write, “We find nothing like divinity +ascribed to Christ before Justin Martyr (A.D. 141), who, from being a +philosopher, became a Christian.”[486] + +Mahomet appeared nearly six hundred years[487] after the presumed +deicide. The Græco-Roman world was still convulsed with religious +dissensions, withstanding all the past imperial edicts and forcible +Christianization. While the Council of Trent was disputing about the +_Vulgate_, the unity of God quietly superseded the trinity, and soon +the Mahometans outnumbered the Christians. Why? Because their prophet +never sought to identify himself with Allah. Otherwise, it is safe to +say, he would not have lived to see his religion flourish. Till the +present day Mahometanism has made and is now making more proselytes +than Christianity. Buddha Siddhârtha came as a simple mortal, +centuries before Christ. The religious ethics of this faith are now +found to far exceed in moral beauty anything ever dreamed of by the +Tertullians and Augustines. + +The true spirit of Christianity can alone be fully found in Buddhism; +partially, it shows itself in other “heathen” religions. Buddha +never made of himself a god, nor was he deified by his followers. +The Buddhists are now known to far outnumber Christians; they are +enumerated at nearly 500,000,000. While cases of conversion among +Buddhists, Brahmanists, Mahometans, and Jews become so rare as to +show how sterile are the attempts of our missionaries, atheism and +materialism spread their gangrenous ulcers and gnaw every day deeper +at the very heart of Christianity. There are no atheists among +heathen populations, and those few among the Buddhists and Brahmans +who have become infected with materialism may always be found to +belong to large cities densely thronged with Europeans, and only +among educated classes. Truly says Bishop Kidder: “Were a wise man to +choose his religion from those who profess it, perhaps Christianity +would be the last religion he would choose!” + +In an able little pamphlet from the pen of the popular lecturer, J. +M. Peebles, M.D., the author quotes, from the London _Athenæum_, an +article in which are described the welfare and civilization of the +inhabitants of Yarkand and Kashgar, “who seem virtuous and happy.” +“Gracious Heavens!” fervently exclaims the honest author, who +himself was once a Universalist clergyman, “Grant to keep Christian +missionaries _away_ from ‘happy’ and heathen Tartary!”[488] + +From the earliest days of Christianity, when Paul upbraided the +_Church_ of Corinth for a crime “as is not so much as named among +the Gentiles--that one should have his father’s wife;” and for their +making a pretext of the “Lord’s Supper” for _debauch_ and drunkenness +(_1 Corinthians_, v. 1), the profession of the name of Christ has +ever been more a pretext than the evidence of holy feeling. However, +a correct form of this verse is: “Everywhere the lewd practice among +you is heard about, such a lewd practice as is nowhere among the +heathen nations--even the having or marrying of the father’s wife.” +The Persian influence would seem to be indicated in this language. +The practice existed “nowhere among the nations,” except in Persia, +where it was esteemed especially meritorious. Hence, too, the Jewish +stories of Abraham marrying his sister, Nahor, his niece, Amram his +father’s sister, and Judah his son’s widow, whose children appear to +have been legitimate. The Aryan tribes esteemed endogamic marriages, +while the Tartars and all barbarous nations required all alliances to +be exagamous. + +There was but one apostle of Jesus worthy of that name, and that was +Paul. However disfigured were his _Epistles_ by dogmatic hands before +being admitted into the Canon, his conception of the great and divine +figure of the philosopher who died for his idea can still be traced +in his addresses to the various Gentile nations. Only, he who would +understand him better yet must study the Philonean _Logos_ reflecting +now and then the Hindu _Sabda_ (logos) of the Mimansa school. + +As to the other apostles, those whose names are prefixed to the +_Gospels_--we cannot well believe in their veracity when we find them +attributing to their Master miracles surrounded by circumstances, +recorded, if not in the oldest books of India, at least in such +as antedated Christianity, and in the very phraseology of the +traditions. Who, in his days of simple and blind credulity, but +marvelled at the touching narrative given in the _Gospels according +to Mark_ and _Luke_ of the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus? +Who has ever doubted its originality? And yet the story is copied +entirely from the _Hari-Purana_, and is recorded among the miracles +attributed to Christna. We translate it from the French version: + +“The King Angashuna caused the betrothal of his daughter, the +beautiful Kalavatti, with the young son of Vamadeva, the powerful +King of Antarvédi, named Govinda, to be celebrated with great pomp. + +“But as Kalavatti was amusing herself in the groves with her +companions, she was stung by a serpent and died. Angashuna tore his +clothes, covered himself with ashes, and cursed the day when he was +born. + +“Suddenly, a great rumor spread through the palace, and the following +cries were heard, a thousand times repeated: ‘_Pacya pitaram; pacya +gurum!_’ ‘The Father, the Master!’ Then Christna approached, smiling, +leaning on the arm of Ardjuna.... ‘Master!’ cried Angashuna, casting +himself at his feet, and sprinkling them with his tears, ‘See my poor +daughter!’ and he showed him the body of Kalavatti, stretched upon a +mat.... + +“‘Why do you weep?’ replied Christna, in a gentle voice. ‘_Do you not +see that she is sleeping?_ Listen to the sound of her breathing, like +the sigh of the night wind which rustles the leaves of the trees. +See, her cheeks resuming their color, her eyes, whose lids tremble as +if they were about to open; her lips quiver as if about to speak; she +is sleeping, I tell you; and hold! see, she moves, _Kalavatti! Rise +and walk!_’ + +“Hardly had Christna spoken, when the breathing, warmth, movement, +and life returned little by little, into the corpse, and the young +girl, obeying the injunction of the demi-god, rose from her couch +and rejoined her companions. But the crowd marvelled and cried out: +‘This is a god, since death is no more for him than sleep?’”[489] + +All such parables are enforced upon Christians, with the addition of +dogmas which, in their extraordinary character, leave far behind them +the wildest conceptions of heathenism. The Christians, in order to +believe in a Deity, have found it necessary to kill their God, that +they themselves should live! + +And now, the Supreme, unknown one, the Father of grace and mercy, +and his celestial hierarchy are managed by the Church as though they +were so many theatrical stars and supernumeraries under salary! Six +centuries before the Christian era, Xenophones had disposed of such +anthropomorphism by an immortal satire, recorded and preserved by +Clement of Alexandria: + + “There is one God Supreme ... + Whose form is not like unto man’s, and as unlike his nature; + But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten + With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members; + So if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man’s fashion, + And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead + Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, + Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing.”[490] + +And hear Vyasa--the poet-pantheist of India, who, for all the +scientists can prove, may have lived, as Jacolliot has it, some +fifteen thousand years ago--discoursing on Maya, the illusion of the +senses: + +“All religious dogmas only serve to obscure the intelligence of +man.... Worship of divinities, under the allegories of which is +hidden respect for natural laws, drives away truth to the profit of +the basest superstitions” (_Vyasa Maya_). + +It was given to Christianity to paint us God Almighty after the +model of the kabalistic abstraction of the “Ancient of Days.” From +old frescos on cathedral ceilings; Catholic missals, and other icons +and images, we now find him depicted by the poetic brush of Gustave +Doré. The awful, unknown majesty of Him, whom no “heathen” dared to +reproduce in concrete form, is figuring in our own century in _Doré’s +Illustrated Bible_. Treading upon clouds that float in mid-air, +darkness and chaos behind him and the world beneath his feet, a +majestic old man stands, his left hand gathering his flowing robes +about him, and his right raised in the gesture of command. He has +spoken the Word, and from his towering person streams an effulgence +of Light--the Shekinah. As a poetic conception, the composition does +honor to the artist, but does it honor God? Better, the chaos behind +Him, than the figure itself; for there, at least, we have a solemn +mystery. For our part, we prefer the silence of the ancient heathens. +With such a gross, anthropomorphic, and, as we conceive, blasphemous +representation of the First Cause, who can feel surprised at any +iconographic extravagance in the representation of the Christian +Christ, the apostles, and the putative Saints? With the Catholics St. +Peter becomes quite naturally the janitor of Heaven, and sits at the +door of the celestial kingdom--a ticket-taker to the Trinity! + +In a religious disturbance which recently occurred in one of the +Spanish-American provinces, there were found upon the bodies of some +of the killed, passports signed by the Bishop of the Diocese and +addressed to St. Peter; bidding him “_admit the bearer as a true son +of the Church_.” It was subsequently ascertained that these unique +documents were issued by the Catholic prelate just before his deluded +parishioners went into the fight at the instigation of their priests. + +In their immoderate desire to find evidence for the authenticity of +the _New Testament_, the best men, the most erudite scholars even +among Protestant divines, but too often fall into deplorable traps. +We cannot believe that such a learned commentator as Canon Westcott +could have left himself in ignorance as to Talmudistic and purely +kabalistic writings. How then is it that we find him quoting, with +such serene assurance as presenting “striking analogies to the +_Gospel of St. John_,” passages from the work of _The Pastor of +Hermas_, which are complete sentences from the kabalistic literature? +“The view which Hermas gives of Christ’s nature and work is no less +harmonious with apostolic doctrine, and it offers striking analogies +to the _Gospel of St. John_.... He (Jesus) is a rock higher than the +mountains, able to hold the whole world, ancient, and yet having a +new gate!... He is older than creation, so that he took counsel with +the Father about the creation which he made.... No one shall enter in +unto him otherwise than by his Son.”[491] + +Now while--as the author of _Supernatural Religion_ well +proves--there is nothing in this which looks like a corroboration +of the doctrine taught in the fourth gospel, he omits to state that +nearly everything expressed by the pseudo-Hermas in relation to his +parabolic conversation with the “Lord” is a plain quotation, with +repeated variations, from the _Sohar_ and other kabalistic books. We +may as well compare, so as to leave the reader in no difficulty to +judge for himself. + +“God,” says Hermas, “planted the vineyard, that is, He created the +people and gave them to His Son; and the Son ... himself cleansed +their sins, etc.;” _i.e._, the Son washed them in his blood, in +commemoration of which Christians drink wine at the communion. In the +_Kabala_ it is shown that the Aged of the Aged, or “_Long-Face_,” +plants a vineyard, the latter typifying mankind; and a vine, meaning +Life. The Spirit of “_King_ Messiah” is, therefore, shown as washing +his garments in _the wine_ from above, from the creation of the +world.[492] Adam, or A-Dam is “blood.” The life of the flesh is in +the blood (nephesh--soul), _Leviticus_ xvii. And Adam-Kadmon is +the Only-Begotten. Noah also plants a vineyard--the allegorical +hot-bed of future humanity. As a consequence of the adoption of the +same allegory, we find it reproduced in the Nazarene _Codex_. Seven +vines are procreated, which spring from Iukabar Ziva, and Ferho (or +Parcha) Raba waters them.[493] When the blessed will ascend among the +creatures of Light, they shall see Iavar-Zivo, _Lord of_ LIFE, and +the First VINE![494] These kabalistic metaphora are thus naturally +repeated in the _Gospel according to John_ (xv. 1): “I am the true +vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” In _Genesis_ (xlix.), the +dying Jacob is made to say, “The sceptre shall not depart from +Judah (the lion’s whelp), nor a lawgiver from between his feet, +until Shiloh (Siloh) comes.... Binding his colt unto _the vine_, +and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments _in +wine_, and his clothes _in the blood of grapes_.” Shiloh is “King +Messiah,” as well as the Shiloh in Ephraim, which was to be made the +capital and the place of the sanctuary. In _The Targum of Onkelos_, +the Babylonian, the words of Jacob read: “Until the _King Messiah_ +shall come.” The prophecy has failed in the Christian as well as in +the kabalistico-Jewish sense. The sceptre has departed from Judah, +whether the Messiah has already or will come, unless we believe, with +the kabalists, that Moses was the first Messiah, who transferred his +soul to Joshua--Jesus.[495] + +Says Hermas: “And, in the middle of the plain, he showed me a great +_white_ rock, which had risen out of the plain, and the rock was +higher than the mountains, rectangular, so as to be able to hold +the whole world; but that rock was old, having a gate hewn out of +it, and the hewing out of the gate seemed to me to be recent.” In +the _Sohar_, we find: “To 40,000 superior worlds the _white_ of the +skull of His Head (of the most Sacred Ancient _in absconditus_) is +extended.[496]... When _Seir_ (the first reflection and image of +his Father, the Ancient of the Ancient) will, through the mystery +of the seventy names of Metatron, descend into Iezirah (the third +world), he will open a new gate.... The Spiritus Decisorius will cut +and divide the garment (Shekinah) into two parts.[497]... At the +coming of King Messiah, from the sacred cubical stone of the Temple +a _white light_ will be arising during forty days. This will expand, +until _it encloses the whole world_.... At that time King Messiah +will allow himself to be revealed, and will be seen coming out of +the gate of the garden of Odan (Eden). ‘He will be revealed in the +land Galil.’[498]... When ‘he has made satisfaction for the sins of +Israel, he will lead them on through a _new gate_ to the seat of +judgment.’[499] At the _Gate of the House of Life_, the throne is +prepared for the Lord of Splendor.”[500] + +Further on, the commentator introduces the following quotation: +“This _rock_ and this _gate_ are the Son of God. ‘How, Lord,’ I +said, ‘is the rock old and the gate new?’ ‘Listen,’ He said, ‘and +understand, thou ignorant man. The _Son of God is older than all of +his creation_, so that he was a Councillor with the Father in His +works of creation; and for this is he old.’”[501] + +Now, these two assertions are not only purely kabalistic, without +even so much as a change of expression, but Brahmanical and Pagan +likewise. “_Vidi virum excellentem cœli terræque conditore natu +majorem._... I have seen the most excellent (superior) MAN, who +is older by birth than the maker of heaven and earth,” says the +kabalistic _Codex_.[502] The Eleusinian Dionysus, whose particular +name was _Iacchos_ (Iaccho, Iahoh)[503]--the God from whom the +liberation of souls was expected--was considered older than the +Demiurge. At the mysteries of the Anthesteria at the lakes (the +Limnæ), after the usual baptism by purification of water, the +_Mystæ_ were made to pass through to another door (gate), and +one particularly for that purpose, which was called “the gate of +Dionysus,” and that of “the _purified_.” + +In the _Sohar_, the kabalists are told that the work-master, the +Demiurge, said to the Lord: “Let us make man after our image.”[504] +In the original texts of the first chapter of _Genesis_, it stands: +“And the _Elohim_ (translated as the Supreme God), who are the +highest gods or powers, said: Let us make man in _our_ (?) image, +after _our_ likeness.” In the _Vedas_, Brahma holds counsel with +Parabrahma, as to the best mode to proceed to create the world. + +Canon Westcott, quoting Hermas, shows him asking: “And why is the +gate _new_, Lord? I said. ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘he was manifested +at the last of the days of the dispensation; for this cause the gate +was made new, in order that they who shall be saved might enter by it +into the Kingdom of God.’”[505] There are two peculiarities worthy +of note in this passage. To begin with, it attributes to “the Lord” +a false statement of the same character as that so emphasized by the +Apostle John; and which brought, at a later period, the whole of +the orthodox Christians, who accepted the apostolic allegories as +literal, to such inconvenient straits. Jesus, as Messiah, was _not_ +manifested at the last of the days; for the latter are yet to come, +notwithstanding a number of divinely-inspired prophecies, followed +by disappointed hopes, as a result, to testify to his immediate +coming. The belief that the “last times” had come, was natural, when +once the coming of King Messiah had been acknowledged. The second +peculiarity is found in the fact that the _prophecy_ could have been +accepted at all, when even its approximate determination is a direct +contradiction of Mark, who makes Jesus distinctly state that neither +the angels, nor the Son himself, know of that day or that hour.[506] +We might add that, as the belief undeniably originated with the +_Apocalypse_, it ought to be a self-evident proof that it belonged to +the calculations peculiar to the kabalists and the Pagan sanctuaries. +It was the secret computation of a cycle, which, according to their +reckoning, was ending toward the latter part of the first century. It +may also be held as a corroborative proof, that the _Gospel according +to Mark_, as well as that ascribed to _John_, and the _Apocalypse_, +were written by men, of whom neither was sufficiently acquainted +with the other. The Logos was first definitely called _petra_ (rock) +by Philo; the word, moreover, as we have shown elsewhere, means, +in Chaldaic and Phœnician, “interpreter.” Justin Martyr calls him, +throughout his works, “angel,” and makes a clear distinction between +the Logos and God the Creator. “The Word of God is His Son ... +and he is also called Angel and Apostle, for he declares whatever +we ought to know (interprets), and is sent to declare whatever is +disclosed.”[507] + +“Adan Inferior is distributed into its own paths, into thirty-two +sides of paths, yet it is not known to any one but _Seir_. But no one +knows the SUPERIOR ADAN nor His paths, except that Long Face”--the +Supreme God.[508] Seir is the Nazarene “genius,” who is called Æbel +Zivo; and Gabriel Legatus--also “Apostle Gabriel.”[509] The Nazarenes +held with the kabalists that even the Messiah who was to come did +not know the “_Superior_ Adan,” the concealed Deity; no one except +the _Supreme_ God; thus showing that above the Supreme Intelligible +Deity, there is one still more secret and unrevealed. Seir-Anpin +is the third God, while “Logos,” according to Philo Judæus, is +the second one.[510] This is distinctly shown in the _Codex_. The +false Messiah shall say: “I am Deus, son of Deus; my Father sent me +here.... I am the first _Legate_, I am Æbel Zivo, I am come from on +high! But distrust him; for he will not be Æbel Zivo. Æbel Zivo will +not permit himself to be seen in this age.”[511] Hence the belief +of some Gnostics that it was not Æbel Zivo (Archangel Gabriel) who +“_overshadowed_” Mary, but Ilda-Baoth, who formed the _material body_ +of Jesus; _Christos_ uniting himself with him only at the moment of +baptism in the Jordan. + +Can we doubt Nork’s assertion that “the Bereshith Rabba, the oldest +part of the Midrash Rabboth, _was known to the Church Fathers in a +Greek translation_?”[512] + +But if, on the one hand, they were sufficiently acquainted with the +different religious systems of their neighbors to have enabled them +to build a new religion alleged to be distinct from all others, +their ignorance of the _Old Testament_ itself, let alone the more +complicated questions of Grecian metaphysics, is now found to have +been deplorable. “So, for instance, in _Matthew_ xxvii. 9 f., the +passage from _Zechariah_ xi. 12, 13, is attributed to Jeremiah,” says +the author of _Supernatural Religion_. “In _Mark_ i. 2, a quotation +from _Malachi_ iii. 1, is ascribed to Isaiah. In _1 Corinthians_, +ii. 9, a passage is quoted as _Holy Scripture_, which is not found in +the _Old Testament_ at all, but which is taken, as Origen and Jerome +state, from an apocryphal work, _The Revelation of Elias_ (Origen: +_Tract._ xxxv.), and the passage is similarly quoted by the so-called +_Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians_ (xxxiv.)”. How reliable are +the pious Fathers in their explanations of divers heresies may be +illustrated in the case of Epiphanius, who mistook the Pythagorean +sacred Tetrad, called in the Valentinian _Gnosis_, Kol-Arbas, for +a _heretic leader_.[513] What with the involuntary blunders, and +deliberate falsifications of the teachings of those who differed in +views with them; the canonization of the mythological Aura Placida +(gentle breeze), into a pair of Christian martyrs--St. Aura and St. +Placida;[514] the deification of a _spear_ and a _cloak_, under +the names of SS. Longimus and Amphibolus;[515] and the Patristic +quotations from prophets, of what was never in those prophets at all; +one may well ask in blank amazement whether the so-called religion of +Christ has ever been other than an incoherent dream, since the death +of the Great Master. + +So malicious do we find the holy Fathers in their unrelenting +persecution of pretended “_hæresies_,”[516] that we see them telling, +without hesitation the most preposterous untruths, and inventing +entire narratives, the better to impress their own otherwise +unsupported arguments upon ignorance. If the mistake in relation to +the tetrad had at first originated as a simple consequence of an +unpremeditated blunder of Hippolytus, the explanations of Epiphanius +and others who fell into the same absurd error[517] have a less +innocent look. When Hippolytus gravely denounces the great heresy of +the Tetrad, Kol-Arbas, and states that the imaginary Gnostic leader +is, “Kalorbasus, who endeavors to explain religion by measures +and numbers,”[518] we may simply smile. But when Epiphanius, with +abundant indignation, elaborates upon the theme, “which is Heresy +XV.,” and pretending to be thoroughly acquainted with the subject, +adds: “A certain Heracleon follows after Colorbasus, which is Heresy +XVI.,”[519] then he lays himself open to the charge of deliberate +falsification. + +If this zealous _Christian_ can boast so unblushingly of having +caused “_by his information_ seventy women, even of rank, to be +sent into exile, _through the seductions of some_ in whose number +he had himself been drawn into joining their sect,” he has left us +a fair standard by which to judge him. C. W. King remarks, very +aptly, on this point, that “it may reasonably be suspected that this +worthy renegade had in this case saved himself from the fate of his +fellow-religionists by turning evidence against them, on the opening +of the persecution.”[520] + +And thus, one by one, perished the Gnostics, the only heirs to whose +share had fallen a few stray crumbs of the unadulterated truth of +primitive Christianity. All was confusion and turmoil during these +first centuries, till the moment when all these contradictory dogmas +were finally forced upon the Christian world, and examination was +forbidden. For long ages it was made a sacrilege, punishable with +severe penalties, often death, to seek to comprehend that which the +Church had so conveniently elevated to the rank of _divine_ mystery. +But since biblical critics have taken upon themselves to “set the +house in order,” the cases have become reversed. Pagan creditors now +come from every part of the globe to claim their own, and Christian +theology begins to be suspected of complete bankruptcy. Such is the +sad result of the fanaticism of the “orthodox” sects, who, to borrow +an expression of the author of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman +Empire,” never were, like the Gnostics, “the most polite, the most +learned, and most wealthy of the Christian name.” And, if not all +of them “smelt garlic,” as Renan will have it, on the other hand, +none of these Christian saints have ever shrunk from spilling their +neighbor’s blood, if the views of the latter did not agree with their +own. + +And so all our philosophers were swept away by the ignorant and +superstitious masses. The Philaletheians, the lovers of truth, +and their eclectic school, perished; and there, where the young +Hypatia had taught the highest philosophical doctrines; and where +Ammonius Saccas had explained that “the _whole which Christ had in +view_ was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the +wisdom of the ancients--to reduce within bounds the universally +prevailing dominion of superstition ... and to exterminate the +various errors that had found their way into the different popular +religions”[521]--there, we say, freely raved the οι πολλοι of +Christianity. No more precepts from the mouth of the “God-taught +philosopher,” but others expounded by the incarnation of a most cruel, +fiendish superstition. + +“If thy father,” wrote St. Jerome, “lies down across thy threshold, +if thy mother uncovers to thine eyes the bosom which suckled thee, +trample on thy father’s lifeless body, trample on thy mother’s bosom, +and, with eyes unmoistened and dry, fly to the Lord who calleth +thee!!” + +This sentence is equalled, if not outrivalled, by this other, +pronounced in a like spirit. It emanates from another father of +the early Church, the eloquent Tertullian, who hopes to see all +the “philosophers” in the gehenna fire of Hell. “What shall be the +magnitude of that scene!... How shall I laugh! How shall I rejoice! +How shall I triumph when I see so many illustrious kings who were +said to have mounted into heaven, groaning with Jupiter, their god, +in the lowest darkness of hell! Then shall the soldiers who have +persecuted the name of Christ burn in more cruel fire than any they +had kindled for the saints!”[522] + +These murderous expressions illustrate the spirit of Christianity +till this day. But do they illustrate the teachings of Christ? By +no means. As Eliphas Levi says, “The God in the name of whom we +would trample on our mother’s bosom we must see in the hereafter, a +hell gaping widely at his feet, and an exterminating sword in his +hand.... Moloch burned children but a few seconds; it was reserved +to the disciples of a god who is alleged to have died to redeem +humanity on the cross, to create a new Moloch whose burning stake is +eternal!”[523] + +That this spirit of true Christian love has safely crossed nineteen +centuries and rages now in America, is fully instanced in the case +of the rabid Moody, the revivalist, who exclaims: “I have a son, and +no one but God knows how I love him; but I would see those beautiful +eyes dug out of his head to-night, rather than see him grow up to +manhood and go down to the grave without Christ and without hope!!” + +To this an American paper, of Chicago, very justly responds: “This is +the spirit of the inquisition, which we are told is dead. If Moody +in his zeal would ‘dig out’ the eyes of his darling son, to what +lengths may he not go with the sons of others, whom he may love less? +It is the spirit of Loyola, gibbering in the nineteenth century, +and prevented from lighting the fagot flame and heating red-hot the +instruments of torture only by the arm of law.” + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + “The curtains of Yesterday drop down, the curtains of + To-morrow roll up; but Yesterday and To-morrow both + _are_.”--_Sartor Resartus_: Natural Supernaturalism. + + + “May we not then be permitted to examine the authenticity + of the Bible? which since the second century has been put + forth as the criterion of scientific truth? To maintain + itself in a position so exalted, it must challenge human + criticism.”--_Conflict between Religion and Science._ + + + “One kiss of Nara upon the lips of Nari and all Nature + wakes.”--VINA SNATI (A Hindu Poet). + + +We must not forget that the Christian Church owes its present +canonical _Gospels_, and hence its whole religious dogmatism, to +the _Sortes Sanctorum_. Unable to agree as to which were the most +divinely-inspired of the numerous gospels extant in its time, the +mysterious Council of Nicea concluded to leave the decision of the +puzzling question to miraculous intervention. This Nicean Council +may well be called mysterious. There was a mystery, first, in the +mystical number of its 318 bishops, on which Barnabas (viii. 11, +12, 13) lays such a stress; added to this, there is no agreement +among ancient writers as to the time and place of its assembly, +nor even as to the bishop who presided. Notwithstanding the +grandiloquent eulogium of Constantine,[524] Sabinus, the Bishop +of Heraclea, affirms that “except Constantine, the emperor, and +Eusebius Pamphilus, these bishops were a set of _illiterate, +simple_ creatures, that understood nothing;” which is equivalent +to saying that they were a set of fools. Such was apparently the +opinion entertained of them by Pappus, who tells us of the bit of +magic resorted to to decide which were the _true_ gospels. In his +_Synodicon_ to that Council Pappus says, having “promiscuously put +all the books that were referred to the Council for determination +under a communion-table in a church, they (the bishops) besought the +Lord that the _inspired_ writings might get upon the table, while the +spurious ones remained underneath, and _it happened accordingly_.” +But we are not told who kept the keys of the council chamber over +night! + +On the authority of ecclesiastical eye-witnesses, therefore, we +are at liberty to say that the Christian world owes its “Word of +God” to a method of divination, for resorting to which the Church +subsequently condemned unfortunate victims as conjurers, enchanters, +magicians, witches, and vaticinators, and burnt them by thousands! +In treating of this truly divine phenomenon of the self-sorting +manuscripts, the Fathers of the Church say that God himself presides +over the _Sortes_. As we have shown elsewhere, Augustine confesses +that he himself used this sort of divination. But opinions, like +revealed religions, are liable to change. That which for nearly +fifteen hundred years was imposed on Christendom as a book, of which +every word was written under the direct supervision of the Holy +Ghost; of which not a syllable, nor a comma could be changed without +sacrilege, is now being retranslated, revised, corrected, and clipped +of whole verses, in some cases of entire chapters. And yet, as soon +as the new edition is out, its doctors would have us accept it as +a new “Revelation” of the nineteenth century, with the alternative +of being held as an infidel. Thus, we see that, no more _within_ +than _without_ its precincts, is the infallible Church to be trusted +more than would be reasonably convenient. The forefathers of our +modern divines found authority for the _Sortes_ in the verse where +it is said: “The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing +thereof is of the Lord;”[525] and now, their direct heirs hold +that “the whole disposing thereof is of the Devil.” Perhaps, they +are unconsciously beginning to endorse the doctrine of the Syrian +Bardesanes, that the actions of God, as well as of man, _are subject +to necessity_? + +It was no doubt, also, according to strict “necessity” that the +Neo-platonists were so summarily dealt with by the Christian mob. In +those days, the doctrines of the Hindu naturalists and antediluvian +Pyrrhonists were forgotten, if they ever had been known at all, +to any but a few philosophers; and Mr. Darwin, with his modern +_discoveries_, had not even been mentioned in the prophecies. In +this case the law of the survival of the fittest was reversed; the +_Neo-platonists were doomed to destruction from the day when they +openly sided with Aristotle_. + +At the beginning of the fourth century crowds began gathering at +the door of the academy where the learned and unfortunate Hypatia +expounded the doctrines of the divine Plato and Plotinus, and thereby +impeded the progress of Christian proselytism. She too successfully +dispelled the mist hanging over the religious “mysteries” invented by +the Fathers, not to be considered dangerous. This alone would have +been sufficient to imperil both herself and her followers. It was +precisely the teachings of this Pagan philosopher, which had been so +freely borrowed by the Christians to give a finishing touch to their +otherwise incomprehensible scheme, that had seduced so many into +joining the new religion; and now the Platonic light began shining +so inconveniently bright upon the pious patchwork, as to allow every +one to see whence the “revealed” doctrines were derived. But there +was a still greater peril. Hypatia had studied under Plutarch, the +head of the Athenian school, and had learned all the secrets of +theurgy. While she lived to instruct the multitude, no _divine_ +miracles could be produced before one who could divulge the natural +causes by which they took place. Her doom was sealed by Cyril, whose +eloquence she eclipsed, and whose authority, built on degrading +superstitions, had to yield before hers, which was erected on the +rock of immutable natural law. It is more than curious that Cave, the +author of the _Lives of the Fathers_, should find it incredible that +Cyril sanctioned her murder on account of his “general character.” A +saint who will sell the gold and silver vessels of his church, and +then, after spending the money, lie at his trial, as he did, may +well be suspected of anything. Besides, in this case, the Church +had to fight for her life, to say nothing of her future supremacy. +Alone, the hated and erudite Pagan scholars, and the no less learned +Gnostics, held in their doctrines the hitherto concealed wires of all +these theological marionettes. Once the curtain should be lifted, +the connection between the old Pagan and the new Christian religions +would be exposed; and then, what would have become of the Mysteries +into which it is sin and blasphemy to pry? With such a coincidence +of the astronomical allegories of various Pagan myths with the +dates adopted by Christianity for the nativity, crucifixion, and +resurrection, and such an identity of rites and ceremonies, what +would have been the fate of the new religion, had not the Church, +under the pretext of serving Christ, got rid of the too-well-informed +philosophers? To guess what, if the _coup d’état_ had then failed, +might have been the prevailing religion in our own century would +indeed, be a hard task. But, in all probability, the state of things +which made of the middle ages a period of intellectual darkness, +which degraded the nations of the Occident, and lowered the European +of those days almost to the level of a Papuan savage--could not have +occurred. + +The fears of the Christians were but too well founded, and their +pious zeal and prophetic insight was rewarded from the very first. +In the demolition of the Serapeum, after the bloody riot between +the Christian mob and the Pagan worshippers had ended with the +interference of the emperor, a Latin cross, of a perfect Christian +shape, was discovered hewn upon the granite slabs of the adytum. +This was a lucky discovery, indeed; and the monks did not fail to +claim that the cross had been hallowed by the Pagans in a “spirit +of prophecy.” At least, Sozomen, with an air of triumph, records +the fact.[526] But, archæology and symbolism, those tireless and +implacable enemies of clerical false pretences, have found in the +hieroglyphics of the legend running around the design, at least a +partial interpretation of its meaning. + +According to King and other numismatists and archæologists, the +cross was placed there as the symbol of eternal life. Such a Tau, or +Egyptian cross, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries. +Symbol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon the breast of +the initiate, after his “new birth” was accomplished, and the Mystæ +had returned from their baptism in the sea. It was a mystic sign +that his spiritual birth had regenerated and united his astral soul +with his divine spirit, and that he was ready to ascend in spirit +to the blessed abodes of light and glory--the Eleusinia. The Tau +was a magic talisman at the same time as a religious emblem. It +was adopted by the Christians through the Gnostics and kabalists, +who used it largely, as their numerous gems testify, and who had +the Tau (or handled cross) from the Egyptians, and the Latin cross +from the Buddhist missionaries, who brought it from India, where it +can be found until now, two or three centuries B.C. The Assyrians, +Egyptians, ancient Americans, Hindus, and Romans had it in various, +but very slight modifications of shape. Till very late in the +mediæval ages, it was considered a potent spell against epilepsy and +demoniacal possession; and the “signet of the living God,” brought +down in St. John’s vision by the angel ascending from the east to +“seal the servants of our God in their foreheads,” was but the same +mystic Tau--the Egyptian cross. In the painted glass of St. Dionysus +(France), this angel is represented as stamping this sign on the +forehead of the elect; the legend reads, SIGNVM ΤΑΥ. In King’s +_Gnostics_, the author reminds us that “this mark is commonly born +by St. Anthony, an _Egyptian_ recluse.”[527] What the real meaning +of the Tau was, is explained to us by the Christian St. John, the +Egyptian Hermes, and the Hindu Brahmans. It is but too evident +that, with the apostle, at least, it meant the “Ineffable Name,” as +he calls this “signet of the living God,” a few chapters further +on,[528] the “_Father’s name written in their foreheads_.” + +The Brahmâtma, the chief of the Hindu initiates, had on his head-gear +two keys, symbol of the revealed mystery of life and death, placed +cross-like; and, in some Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and Mongolia, +the entrance of a chamber within the temple, generally containing the +staircase which leads to the inner daghôba,[529] and the porticos +of some _Prachida_[530] are ornamented with a cross formed of two +fishes, and as found on some of the zodiacs of the Buddhists. We +should not wonder at all at learning that the sacred device in the +tombs in the Catacombs, at Rome, the “Vesica piscis,” was derived +from the said Buddhist zodiacal sign. How general must have been +that geometrical figure in the world-symbols, may be inferred from +the fact that there is a Masonic tradition that Solomon’s temple +was built on three foundations, forming the “triple Tau,” or three +crosses. + +In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as +an emblem, to the realization by the earliest philosophy of an +androgynous dualism of every manifestation in nature, which proceeds +from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity, while +the Christian emblem is simply due to chance. Had the Mosaic law +prevailed, Jesus should have been lapidated.[531] The crucifix was +an instrument of torture, and utterly common among Romans as it was +unknown among Semitic nations. It was called the “Tree of Infamy.” It +is but later that it was adopted as a Christian symbol; but, during +the first two decades, the apostles looked upon it with horror.[532] +It is certainly not the Christian Cross that John had in mind when +speaking of the “signet of the living God,” but the _mystic_ Tau--the +Tetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on the most ancient kabalistic +talismans, was represented by the four Hebrew letters composing the +Holy Word. + +The famous Lady Ellenborough, known among the Arabs of Damascus, and +in the desert, after her last marriage, as _Hanoum Medjouyé_, had a +talisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druze from Mount +Lebanon. It was recognized by a certain sign on its left corner, +to belong to that class of gems which is known in Palestine as a +“_Messianic_” amulet, of the second or third century, B.C. It is a +green stone of a pentagonal form; at the bottom is engraved a fish; +higher, Solomon’s seal;[533] and still higher, the four Chaldaic +letters----Jod, He, Vau, He, IAHO, which form the name of the Deity. +These are arranged in quite an unusual way, running from below +upward, in reversed order, and forming the Egyptian Tau. Around these +there is a legend which, as the gem is not our property, we are not +at liberty to give. The Tau, in its mystical sense, as well as the +_crux ansata_, is the _Tree of Life_. + +[Illustration] + +It is well known, that the earliest Christian emblems--before it was +ever attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus--were +the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and _the Fish_. The origin of the +latter emblem, which has so puzzled the archæologists, thus becomes +comprehensible. The whole secret lies in the easily-ascertained +fact that, while in the _Kabala_, the King Messiah is called +“Interpreter,” or Revealer of the mystery, and shown to be the +_fifth_ emanation, in the _Talmud_--for reasons we will now +explain--the Messiah is very often designated as “DAG,” or the +Fish. This is an inheritance from the Chaldees, and relates--as the +very name indicates--to the Babylonian Dagon, the man-fish, who was +the instructor and interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared. +Abarbanel explains the name, by stating that the sign of his +(Messiah’s) coming “is the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the +sign _Pisces_.”[534] Therefore, as the Christians were intent upon +identifying their Christos with the Messiah of the _Old Testament_, +they adopted it so readily as to forget that its true origin might +be traced still farther back than the Babylonian Dagon. How eagerly +and closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by the early Christians, +with every imaginable kabalistic and Pagan tenet, may be inferred +from the language of Clemens, of Alexandria, addressed to his brother +co-religionists. + +When they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate +symbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the following +words: “Let the engraving upon the gem of your ring be either _a +dove_, or _a ship running before the wind_ (the Argha), or _a fish_.” +Was the good father, when writing this sentence, laboring under the +recollection of Joshua, son of Nun (called _Jesus_ in the Greek and +Slavonian versions); or had he forgotten the real interpretation of +these Pagan symbols? Joshua, son of Nun, or Nave (_Navis_), could +have with perfect propriety adopted the image of a _ship_, or even +of a fish, for Joshua means Jesus, son of the fish-god; but it was +really too hazardous to connect the emblems of Venus, Astarte, and +all the Hindu goddesses--the _argha_, _dove_, and _fish_--with the +“immaculate” birth of their god! This looks very much as if in the +early days of Christianity but little difference was made between +Christ, Bacchus, Apollo, and the Hindu Christna, the incarnation of +Vishnu, with whose first avatar this symbol of the fish originated. + +In the _Hari-purana_, in the _Bagaved-gitta_, as well as in several +other books, the god Vishnu is shown as having assumed the form of a +fish with a human head, in order to reclaim the _Vedas_ lost during +the deluge. Having enabled Visvamitra to escape with all his tribe +in the ark, Vishnu, pitying weak and ignorant humanity, remained +with them for some time. It was this god who taught them to build +houses, cultivate the land, and to thank the unknown Deity whom he +represented, by building temples and instituting a regular worship; +and, as he remained half-fish, half-man, all the time, at every +sunset he used to return to the ocean, wherein he passed the night. + +“It is he,” says the sacred book, “who taught men, after the +diluvium, all that was necessary for their happiness. + +“One day he plunged into the water and returned no more, for the +earth had covered itself again with vegetation, fruit, and cattle. + +“But he had taught the Brahmas the secret of all things” +(_Hari-purana_). + +So far, we see in this narrative the _double_ of the story given by +the Babylonian Berosus about Oannes, the fish-man, who is no other +than Vishnu--unless, indeed, we have to believe that it was Chaldea +which civilized India! + +We say again, we desire to give nothing on our sole authority. +Therefore we cite Jacolliot, who, however criticised and contradicted +on other points, and however loose he may be in the matter of +chronology (though even in this he is nearer right than those +scientists who would have all Hindu books written since the Council +of Nicea), at least cannot be denied the reputation of a good +Sanscrit scholar. And he says, while analyzing the word _Oan_, +or Oannes, that _O_ in Sanscrit is an interjection expressing an +invocation, as O, Swayambhuva! O, God! etc; and _An_ is a radical, +signifying in Sanscrit a spirit, a being; and, we presume, what the +Greeks meant by the word _Dæmon_, a semi-god. + +“What an extraordinary antiquity,” he remarks, “this fable of Vishnu, +disguised as a fish, gives to the sacred books of the Hindus; +especially in presence of the fact that the _Vedas_ and _Manu_ reckon +more _than twenty-five thousand years of existence_, as proved by the +most serious as the most authentic documents. Few peoples, says the +learned Halhed, have their annals more authentic or serious than the +Hindus.”[535] + +We may, perhaps, throw additional light upon the puzzling question of +the fish-symbol by reminding the reader that according to _Genesis_ +the first created of living beings, the first type of animal life, +was the fish. “And the Elohim said: ‘Let the waters bring forth +abundantly the moving creature that _hath life_’ ... and God created +great whales ... and the morning and the evening were the _fifth +day_.” Jonah is swallowed by a big fish, and is cast out again three +days later. This the Christians regard as a premonition of the three +days’ sepulture of Jesus which preceded his resurrection--though +the statement of the three days is as fanciful as much of the rest, +and adopted to fit the well-known threat to destroy the temple and +rebuild it again in _three_ days. Between his burial and alleged +resurrection there intervened but _one day_--the Jewish Sabbath--as +he was buried on Friday evening and rose to life at dawn on Sunday. +However, whatever other circumstance may be regarded as a prophecy, +the story of Jonah cannot be made to answer the purpose. + +“Big Fish” is Cetus, the latinized form of Keto-κητω and keto is +Dagon, Poseidon, the female gender of it being Keton Atar-gatis--the +Syrian goddess, and Venus, of Askalon. The figure or bust of Der-Keto +or Astarte was generally represented on the prow of the ships. Jonah +(the Greek Iona, or _dove_ sacred to Venus) fled to Jaffa, where the +god Dagon, the man-fish, was worshipped, and dared not go to Níneveh, +_where the dove was revered_. Hence, some commentators believe that +when Jonah was thrown overboard and was swallowed by a fish, we +must understand that he was picked up by one of these vessels, on +the prow of which was the figure of _Keto_. But the kabalists have +another legend, to this effect: They say that Jonah was a run-away +priest from the temple of the goddess where the dove was worshipped, +and desired to abolish idolatry and institute monotheistic worship. +That, caught near Jaffa, he was held prisoner by the devotees of +Dagon in one of the prison-cells of the temple, and that it is the +strange form of the cell which gave rise to the allegory. In the +collection of Mose de Garcia, a Portuguese kabalist, there is a +drawing representing the interior of the temple of Dagon. In the +middle stands an immense idol, the upper portion of whose body is +human, and the lower fish-like. Between the belly and the tail is an +aperture which can be closed like the door of a closet. In it the +transgressors against the local deity were shut up until further +disposal. The drawing in question was made from an old tablet covered +with curious drawings and inscriptions in old Phœnician characters, +describing this Venetian _oubliette_ of biblical days. The tablet +itself was found in an excavation a few miles from Jaffa. Considering +the extraordinary tendency of Oriental nations for puns and +allegories, is it not barely possible that the “big fish” by which +Jonah was swallowed was simply the cell within the belly of Dagon? + +It is significant that this double appellation of “Messiah” and +“Dag” (fish), of the Talmudists, should so well apply to the Hindu +Vishnu, the “Preserving” Spirit, and the second personage of the +Brahmanic trinity. This deity, having already manifested itself, is +still regarded as the future Saviour of humanity, and is the selected +Redeemer, who will appear at its tenth incarnation or _avatar_, like +the Messiah of the Jews, to lead the blessed onward, and restore to +them the primitive _Vedas_. At his first avatar, Vishnu is alleged +to have appeared to humanity, in form like a fish. In the temple of +Rama, there is a representation of this god which answers perfectly +to that of Dagon, as given by Berosus. He has the body of a man +issuing from the mouth of a fish, and holds in his hands the lost +_Veda_. Vishnu, moreover, is the water-god, in one sense, the Logos +of the Parabrahm, for as the three persons of the manifested god-head +constantly interchange their attributes, we see him in the same +temple represented as reclining on the seven-headed serpent, Ananta +(eternity), and moving, like the _Spirit_ of God, on the face of the +primeval waters. + +Vishnu is evidently the Adam Kadmon of the kabalists, for Adam is the +Logos or the first Anointed, as Adam Second is the King Messiah. + +Lakmy, or Lakshmi, the passive or feminine counterpart of Vishnu, +the creator and the preserver, is also called Ada Maya. She is the +“Mother of the World,” Damatri, the Venus Aphrodite of the Greeks; +also Isis and Eve. While Venus is born from the sea-foam, Lakmy +springs out from the water at the churning of the sea; when born, she +is so beautiful that all the gods fall in love with her. The Jews, +borrowing their types wherever they could get them, made their first +woman after the pattern of Lakmy. It is curious that Viracocha, the +Supreme Being in Peru, means, literally translated, “foam of the sea.” + +Eugene Burnouf, the great authority of the French school, announces +his opinion in the same spirit: “We must learn one day,” he observes, +“that all ancient traditions disfigured by emigration and legend, +belong to the history of India.” Such is the opinion of Colebrooke, +Inman, King, Jacolliot, and many other Orientalists. + +We have said above, that, according to the secret computation +peculiar to the students of the hidden science, Messiah is the +fifth emanation, or potency. In the Jewish _Kabala_, where the ten +Sephiroth emanate from Adam Kadmon (placed below the crown), he comes +fifth. So in the Gnostic system; so in the Buddhistic, in which the +fifth Buddha--Maitree, will appear at his last advent to save mankind +before the final destruction of the world. If Vishnu is represented +in his forthcoming and last appearance as the _tenth_ avatar or +incarnation, it is only because every unit held as an androgyne +manifests itself doubly. The Buddhists who reject this dual-sexed +incarnation reckon but five. Thus, while Vishnu is to make his last +appearance in his tenth, Buddha is said to do the same in his fifth +incarnation.[536] + +The better to illustrate the idea, and show how completely the real +meaning of the avatars, known only to the students of the secret +doctrine was misunderstood by the ignorant masses, we elsewhere +give the diagrams of the Hindu and Chaldeo-Kabalistic avatars and +emanations.[537] This basic and true fundamental stone of the +secret cycles, shows on its very face, that far from taking their +revealed _Vedas_ and _Bible_ literally, the Brahman-pundits, and +the Tanaïm--the scientists and philosophers of the pre-Christian +epochs--speculated on the creation and development of the world quite +in a Darwinian way, both anticipating him and his school in the +natural selection of species, gradual development, and transformation. + +We advise every one tempted to enter an indignant protest against +this affirmation to read more carefully the books of Manu, even in +the incomplete translation of Sir William Jones, and the more or less +careless one of Jacolliot. If we compare the Sanchoniathon Phœnician +Cosmogony, and the record of Berosus with the _Bhagavatta_ and +_Manu_, we will find enunciated exactly the same principles as those +now offered as the latest developments of modern science. We have +quoted from the Chaldean and Phœnician records in our first volume; +we will now glance at the Hindu books. + +“When this world had issued out of darkness, the subtile elementary +principles produced the vegetal seed which animated first the plants; +from the plants, life passed into fastastical bodies which were born +_in the ilus of the waters_; then, through a series of forms and +various animals, it reached MAN.”[538] + +“He (man, before becoming such) will pass successively through +plants, worms, insects, fish, serpents, tortoises, cattle, and wild +animals; such is the inferior degree.” + +“Such, from Brahma down to the vegetables, are declared the +transmigrations which take place in this world.”[539] + +In the Sanchoniathonian Cosmogony, men are also evolved out of the +ilus of the chaos,[540] and the same evolution and transformation of +species are shown. + +And now we will leave the rostrum to Mr. Darwin: “I believe +that animals have descended from at most only four or five +progenitors.”[541] + +Again: “I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic +beings which have ever lived on this earth, have descended from +some one primordial form.[542]... I view all beings, not as special +creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which +lived long _before the first bed of the Silurian system was +deposited_.”[543] + +In short, they lived in the Sanchoniathonian chaos, and in the _ilus_ +of Manu. Vyasa and Kapila go still farther than Darwin and Manu. +“They see in Brahma but the name of the universal germ; _they deny +the existence of a First Cause_; and pretend that everything in +nature found itself developed only in consequence of material and +fatal forces,” says Jacolliot.[544] + +Correct as may be this latter quotation from Kapila, it demands a +few words of explanation. Jacolliot repeatedly compares Kapila and +Veda Vyasa with Pyrrho and Littré. We have nothing against such a +comparison with the Greek philosopher, but we must decidedly object +to any with the French Comtist; we find it an unmerited fling at +the memory of the great Aryan sage. Nowhere does this prolific +writer state the repudiation by either ancient or modern Brahmans of +God--the “unknown,” universal Spirit; nor does any other Orientalist +accuse the Hindus of the same, however perverted the general +deductions of our savants about Buddhistic atheism. On the contrary, +Jacolliot states more than once that the learned Pundits and educated +Brahmans have never shared the popular superstitions; and affirms +their unshaken belief in the unity of God and the soul’s immortality, +although most assuredly neither Kapila, nor the initiated Brahmans, +nor the followers of the Vedanta school would ever admit the +existence of an anthropomorphic creator, a “First Cause” in the +Christian sense. Jacolliot, in his _Indo-European and African +Traditions_, is the first to make an onslaught on Professor Müller, +for remarking that the Hindu gods were “masks without actors ... +names without being, and not beings without names.”[545] Quoting, in +support of his argument, numerous verses from the sacred Hindu books, +he adds: “Is it possible to refuse to the author of these stanzas a +definite and clear conception of the divine force, of the Unique +Being, master and Sovereign of the Universe?... Were the altars then +built to a metaphor?”[546] + +The latter argument is perfectly just, so far as Max Müller’s +negation is concerned. But we doubt whether the French rationalist +understands Kapila’s and Vyasa’s philosophy better than the German +philologist does the “theological twaddle,” as the latter terms the +_Atharva-Veda_. Professor Müller and Jacolliot may have ever so great +claims to erudition, and be ever so familiar with Sanscrit and other +ancient Oriental languages, but both lack the key to the thousand +and one mysteries of the old secret doctrine and its philosophy. +Only, while the German philologist does not even take the trouble to +look into this magical and “theological twaddle,” we find the French +Indianist never losing an opportunity to investigate. Moreover, +he honestly admits his incompetency to ever fathom this ocean of +mystical learning. In its existence he not only firmly believes, but +throughout his works he incessantly calls the attention of science +to its unmistakable traces at every step in India. Still, though the +learned Pundits and Brahmans--his “revered masters” of the pagodas +of Villenoor and Chélambrum in the Carnatic,[547] as it seems, +positively refused to reveal to him the mysteries of the magical part +of the _Agrouchada-Parikshaï_,[548] and of Brahmâtma’s triangle,[549] +he persists in the honest declaration that everything is possible in +Hindu metaphysics, even to the Kapila and Vyasa systems having been +hitherto misunderstood. + +M. Jacolliot weakens his assertion immediately afterward with the +following contradiction: + +“We were one day inquiring of a Brahman of the pagoda of Chélambrum, +who belonged to the _skeptical school of the naturalists of Vyasa_, +whether he believed in the existence of God. He answered us, smiling: +‘_Aham eva param Brahma_’--I am myself a god. + +“‘What do you mean by that?’ + +“‘I mean that every being on earth, however humble, is an immortal +portion of the immortal matter.’”[550] + +The answer is one which would suggest itself to every ancient +philosopher, Kabalist and Gnostic, of the early days. It contains the +very spirit of the delphic and kabalistic commandment, for esoteric +philosophy solved, ages ago, the problem of what man was, is, and +will be. If persons believing the _Bible_ verse which teaches that +the “Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed +into his nostrils the breath of life,” reject at the same time the +idea that every atom of this dust, as every particle of this “living +soul,” contains “God” within itself, then we pity the logic of that +Christian. He forgets the verses which precede the one in question. +God blesses equally every beast of the field and every living +creature, in the water as in the air, and He endows them all with +_life_, which is a breath of His own Spirit, and the _soul_ of the +animal. Humanity is the Adam Kadmon of the “Unknown,” His microcosm, +and His only representative on earth, and every man is a god on earth. + +We would ask this French scholar, who seems so familiar with every +sloka of the books of Manu, and other Vedic writers, the meaning of +this sentence so well known to him: + +“Plants and vegetation reveal a multitude of forms because of +their precedent actions; they are surrounded by darkness, but are +nevertheless endowed with an interior soul, and feel equally pleasure +and pain” (_Manu_, book i.). + +If the Hindu philosophy teach the presence of a degree of _soul_ in +the lowest forms of vegetable life, and even in every atom in space, +how is it possible that it should deny the same immortal principle +to man? And if it once admit the immortal spirit in man, how can it +logically deny the existence of the parent source--I will not say the +first, but the eternal Cause? Neither rationalists nor sensualists, +who do not comprehend Indian metaphysics, should estimate the +ignorance of Hindu metaphysicians by their own. + +The grand cycle, as we have heretofore remarked, includes the +progress of mankind from its germ in the primordial man of spiritual +form to the deepest depth of degradation he can reach--each +successive step in the descent being accompanied by a greater +strength and grossness of the physical form than its precursor--and +ends with the Flood. But while the grand cycle, or age, is running +its course, seven minor cycles are passed, each marking the evolution +of a new race out of the preceding one, on a new world. And each of +these races, or grand types of humanity, breaks up into subdivisions +of families, and they again into nations and tribes, as we see the +earth’s inhabitants subdivided to-day into Mongols, Caucasians, +Indians, etc. + +Before proceeding to show by diagrams the close resemblance +between the esoteric philosophies of all the ancient peoples, +however geographically remote from each other, it will be useful +to briefly explain the real ideas which underlie all those symbols +and allegorical representations and have hitherto so puzzled the +uninitiated commentators. Better than anything, it may show that +religion and science were closer knit than twins in days of old; +that they were one in two and two in one from the very moment of +their conception. With mutually convertible attributes, science +was spiritual and religion was scientific. Like the androgyne man +of the first chapter of _Genesis_--“male and female,” passive and +active; created in the image of the Elohim. Omniscience developed +omnipotency, the latter called for the exercise of the former, and +thus the giant had dominion given him over all the four kingdoms of +the world. But, like the second Adam, these androgynes were doomed to +“fall and lose their powers” as soon as the two halves of the duality +separated. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge gives death without the +fruit of the Tree of Life. Man must know _himself_ before he can hope +to know the ultimate genesis even of beings and powers less developed +in their inner nature than himself. So with religion and science; +united two in one they were infallible, for the spiritual intuition +was there to supply the limitations of physical senses. Separated, +exact science rejects the help of the inner voice, while religion +becomes merely dogmatic theology--each is but a corpse without a +soul. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The esoteric doctrine, then, teaches, like Buddhism and Brahmanism, +and even the persecuted _Kabala_, that the one infinite and unknown +Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious +successions is either passive or active. In the poetical phraseology +of Manu these conditions are called the “day” and the “night” of +Brahma. The latter is either “awake” or “asleep.” The Svâbhâvikas, or +philosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in +Nepaul), speculate but upon the active condition of this “Essence,” +which they call Svabhâvât, and deem it foolish to theorize upon the +abstract and “unknowable” power in its passive condition. Hence they +are called atheists by both Christian theology and modern scientists; +for neither of the two are able to understand the profound logic of +their philosophy. The former will allow of no other God than the +personified _secondary_ powers which have blindly worked out the +visible universe, and which became with them the anthropomorphic God +of the Christians--the Jehovah, roaring amid thunder and lightning. +In its turn, rationalistic science greets the Buddhists and the +Svâbhâvikas as the “positivists” of the archaic ages. If we take a +one-sided view of the philosophy of the latter, our materialists +may be right in their own way. The Buddhists maintain that there +is _no_ Creator but an infinitude of _creative powers_, which +collectively form the one eternal substance, the _essence_ of which +is inscrutable--hence not a subject for speculation for any true +philosopher. Socrates invariably refused to argue upon the mystery +of universal being, yet no one would ever have thought of charging +him with atheism, except those who were bent upon his destruction. +Upon inaugurating an active period, says the _Secret Doctrine_, an +expansion of this Divine essence, _from within outwardly_, occurs +in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phenomenal or +visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of cosmical +forces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when the +passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence +takes place, and the previous work of creation is gradually and +progressively undone. The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its +material dispersed; and “darkness,” solitary and alone, broods once +more over the face of the “deep.” To use a metaphor which will convey +the idea still more clearly, an outbreathing of the “unknown essence” +produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. _This +process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe +is but one of an infinite series which had no beginning and will have +no end._ + +Thus we are enabled to build our theories solely on the visible +manifestations of the Deity, on its objective natural phenomena. +To apply to these creative principles the term God is puerile and +absurd. One might as well call by the name of Benvenuto Cellini the +fire which fuses the metal, or the air that cools it when it is run +in the mould. If the inner and ever-concealed spiritual, and to our +minds abstract, Essence within these forces can ever be connected +with the creation of the physical universe, it is but in the sense +given to it by Plato. IT may be termed, at best, the framer of the +abstract universe which developed gradually in the Divine Thought +within which it had lain dormant. + +In Chapter VIII. we will attempt to show the esoteric meaning of +_Genesis_, and its complete agreement with the ideas of other +nations. The six days of creation will be found to have a meaning +little suspected by the multitude of commentators, who have exercised +their abilities to the full extent in attempting to reconcile them by +turns with Christian theology and un-Christian geology. Disfigured as +the _Old Testament_ is, yet in its symbolism are preserved enough of +the original in its principal features to show the family likeness to +the cosmogonies of older nations than the Jews. + +We here give the diagrams of the Hindu and the Chaldeo-Jewish +cosmogonies. The antiquity of the diagram of the former may be +inferred from the fact that many of the Brahmanical pagodas are +designed and built on this figure, called the “Sri-Iantara.”[551] +And yet we find the highest honors paid to it by the Jewish and +mediæval kabalists, who call it “Solomon’s seal.” It will be quite an +easy matter to trace it to its origin, once we are reminded of the +history of the king-kabalist and his transactions with King Hiram and +Ophir--the country of peacocks, gold, and ivory--for which land we +have to search in old India. + + + EXPLANATION OF THE TWO DIAGRAMS + + REPRESENTING THE + + CHAOTIC AND THE FORMATIVE PERIODS, BEFORE AND AFTER + OUR UNIVERSE BEGAN TO BE EVOLVED. + + FROM THE ESOTERIC BRAHMANICAL, BUDDHISTIC, AND CHALDEAN + STANDPOINTS, WHICH AGREE IN EVERY RESPECT WITH THE EVOLUTIONARY + THEORY OF MODERN SCIENCE. + + THE HINDU DOCTRINE. THE CHALDEAN DOCTRINE. + _The Upper Triangle_ _The Upper Triangle_ + + Contains the Ineffable Name. Contains the Ineffable Name. + It is the AUM--to be It is En-Soph, the + pronounced only mentally, Boundless, the Infinite, + under penalty of death. The whose name is known to no + Unrevealed Para-Brahma, the one but the initiated, and + Passive-Principle; absolute could not be pronounced + and unconditioned “mukta,” aloud under the penalty of + which cannot enter into the death. + condition of a Creator, as + the latter, in order to No more than Para-Brahma can + _think_, _will_, and _plan_, En-Soph create, for he is in + must be bound and the same condition of + conditioned (baddha); hence, non-being as the former; he + in one sense, be a finite is עין non-existent so long + being. “THIS (Para-Brahma) as he lies in his latent or + was absorbed in the passive state within _Oulom_ + non-being, imperceptible, (the boundless and termless + without any distinct time); as such he is not the + attribute, non-existent for Creator of the visible + our senses. He was absorbed universe, neither is he the + in his (to us) eternal (to _Aur_ (Light). He will + himself) periodical, sleep,” become the latter when the + for it was one of the period of creation shall + “Nights of Brahma.” have compelled him to expand + Therefore he is not the the Force within himself, + _First_ but the Eternal according to the Law of + Cause. He is the Soul of which he is the embodiment + Souls, whom no being can and essence. + comprehend in this state. + But “he who studies the “Whosoever acquaints himself + secret Mantras and with ה״ד the Mercaba and the + comprehends the _Vâch_” (the _lahgash_ (secret speech or + Spirit or hidden voice of incantation),[552] will + the Mantras, the active learn the secret of + manifestation of the latent secrets.” + Force) will learn to + understand him in his + “revealed” aspect. + +Both “THIS” and En-Soph, in their first manifestation of Light, +emerging from within Darkness, may be summarized in the Svabhâvât, +the Eternal and the uncreated Self-existing Substance which produces +all; while everything which is of its essence produces itself out of +its own nature. + + _The Space Around the _The Space Around the + Upper Triangle._ Upper Triangle._ + + When the “Night of Brahma” When the active period had + was ended, and the time came arrived, En-Soph sent forth + for the Self-Existent to from within his own eternal + manifest _Itself_ by essence, Sephira, the active + revelation, it made its Power, called the Primordial + glory visible by sending Point, and the Crown, + forth from its Essence an _Keter_. It is only through + active Power, which, female her that the “Un-bounded + at first, subsequently Wisdom” could give a + becomes androgyne. It is concrete form to his + Aditi, the “Infinite,”[553] abstract Thought. Two sides + the Boundless, or rather the of the upper triangle, the + “Un-bounded.” Aditi is the right side and the base, are + “mother” of all the gods, composed of unbroken lines; + and Aditi is the Father and the third, the left side, is + the Son.[554] “Who will give dotted. It is through the + us back to the great Aditi, latter that emerges Sephira. + that I may see father and Spreading in every + mother?”[555] It is in direction, she finally + conjunction with the latter encompasses the whole + female, Force, that the triangle. In this emanation + Divine but latent Thought of the female active + produces the great principle from the left side + “Deep”--water. “Water is of the mystic triangle, is + born from a transformation foreshadowed the creation of + of light ... and from a Eve from Adam’s left rib. + _modification_ of the water Adam is the Microcosm of the + is born the earth,” says Macrocosm, and is created in + Manu (book i.). the image of the Elohim. In + the Tree of Life עצחיום the + “Ye are born of Aditi from triple triad is disposed in + the water, you who are born such a manner that the three + of the earth, hear ye all my male Sephiroth are on the + call.”[556] right, the three female on + the left, and the four + In this water (or primeval uniting principles in the + chaos) the “Infinite” centre. From the Invisible + androgyne, which, with the Dew falling from the Higher + Eternal Cause, forms the “Head” Sephira creates + first abstract Triad, primeval water, or chaos + rendered by AUM, deposited taking shape. It is the + the germ of universal life. first step toward the + It is the Mundane Egg, in solidification of Spirit, + which took place the which through various + gestation of Pūrūsha, or the modifications will produce + manifested Brahma. The germ earth.[557] “_It requires + which fecundated the earth and water to make a + _Mother_ Principle (the living soul_,” says Moses. + water) is called Nara, the + Divine Spirit or Holy When Sephira emerges like an + Ghost,[558] and the waters active power from within the + themselves, are an emanation latent Deity, she is female; + of the former, Nari, while when she assumes the office + the Spirit which brooded of a creator, she becomes a + over it is called male; hence, she is + Narayana.[559] androgyne. She is the + “Father and Mother Aditi,” + “In that egg, the great of the Hindu Cosmogony. + Power sat inactive a whole After brooding over the + _year of the Creator_, at “Deep,” the “Spirit of God” + the close of which, by his produces its own image in + thought alone, he caused the the water, the Universal + egg to divide itself.”[560] Womb, symbolized in _Manu_ + The upper half became by the Golden Egg. In the + heaven, the lower, the earth kabalistic Cosmogony, Heaven + (both yet in their ideal, and Earth are personified by + not their manifested form). Adam Kadmon and the second + Adam. The first Ineffable + Thus, this second triad, Triad, contained in the + only another name for the abstract idea of the “Three + first one (never pronounced Heads,” was a “mystery + aloud), and which is the name.” It was composed of + real pre-Vedic and En-Soph, Sephira, and Adam + primordial _secret_ Kadmon, the Protogonos, the + Trimurti, consisted of latter being identical with + the former, when + Nara, Father-Heaven, bisexual.[561] In every + Nari, Mother-Earth, triad there is a male, a + Viradj, the Son--or Universe. female, and an androgyne. + Adam-Sephira is the Crown + The Trimurti, comprising (Keter). It sets itself to + Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the work of creation, by + the Preserver, and Siva, the first producing Chochmah, + Destroyer and Regenerator, Male Wisdom, a masculine + belongs to a later period. active potency, represented + It is an anthropomorphic by חה, jah, or the Wheels of + afterthought, invented for Creation, אפּוַים, from which + the more popular proceeds Binah, Intelligence, + comprehension of the female and passive potency, + uninitiated masses. The which is _Jehovah_, יהוה, + _Dikshita_, the initiate, whom we find in the _Bible_ + knew better. Thus, also, the figuring as the Supreme. But + profound allegory under the this Jehovah is not the + colors of a ridiculous kabalistic Jodcheva. The + fable, given in the _binary_ is the fundamental + _Aytareya Brahmana_,[562] corner-stone of _Gnosis_. As + which resulted in the the binary is the Unity + representations in some multiplying itself and + temples of Brahm-Nara, self-creating, the kabalists + assuming the form of a bull, show the “Unknown” passive + and his daughter, En-Soph, as emanating from + Aditi-Nari, that of a himself, Sephira, which, + heifer, contains the same becoming visible light, is + metaphysical idea as the said to produce Adam Kadmon. + “fall of man,” or that of But, in the hidden sense, + the Spirit into Sephira and Adam are one and + generation--matter. The the same light, only latent + All-pervading Divine Spirit and active, invisible and + embodied under the symbols visible. The second Adam, as + of Heaven, the Sun, and Heat the human tetragram, + (fire)--the correlation of produces in his turn Eve, + cosmic forces--fecundates out of his side. It is this + Matter or Nature, the second triad, with which the + daughter of Spirit. And kabalists have hitherto + Para-Brahma himself has to dealt, hardly hinting at the + submit to and bear the Supreme and Ineffable One, + penance of the curses of the and never committing + other gods (Elohim) for such anything to writing. All + an incest. (See knowledge concerning the + corresponding column.) latter was imparted orally. + According to the immutable, It is the _second_ Adam, + and, therefore, fatal law, then, who is the unity + both Nara and Nari are represented by _Jod_, emblem + mutually Father and Mother, of the kabalistic male + as well as Father and principle, and, at the same + Daughter.[563] Matter, time, he is Chochmah, + through infinite _Wisdom_, while _Binah_ or + transformation, is the Jehovah is Eve; the first + gradual product of Spirit. Chochmah issuing from Keter, + The unification of one or the androgyne, Adam + Eternal Supreme Cause Kadmon, and the second, + required such a correlation; Binah, from Chochmah. If we + and if nature be the product combine with _Jod_ the three + or effect of that Cause, in letters which form the name + its turn it has to be of Eve, we will have the + fecundated by the same divine tetragram pronounced + divine Ray which produced IEVO-HEVAH, Adam and Eve, יחוה, + nature itself. The most Jehovah, male and female, or + absurd cosmogonical the idealization of humanity + allegories, if analyzed embodied in the first man. + without prejudice, will be Thus is it that we can prove + found built on strict and that, while the Jewish + logical necessarianism. kabalists, in common with + their initiated masters, the + “Being was born from Chaldeans and the Hindus, + not-being,” says a verse in adored the Supreme and + the _Rig-Veda_.[564] The Unknown God, in the sacred + first being had to become silence of their + androgyne and finite, by the sanctuaries, the ignorant + very fact of its creation as masses of every nation were + a being. And thus even the left to adore something + sacred Trimurti, containing which was certainly less + Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva than the Eternal Substance + will have an end when the of the Buddhists, the + “night” of Para-Brahma so-called Atheists. As + succeeds the present “day,” Brahma, the deity manifested + or period of universal in the mythical _Manu_, or + activity. the first man (born of + Swayambhuva, or the + The second, or rather the Self-existent), is finite, + first, triad---as the so Jehovah, embodied in Adam + highest one is a pure and Eve, is but a _human_ + abstraction--is the god. He is the symbol of + intellectual world. The Vâch humanity, a mixture of good + which surrounds it is a more with a portion of + definite transformation of unavoidable evil; of spirit + Aditi. Besides its occult fallen into matter. In + significance in the secret worshipping Jehovah, we + Mantrâm, Vâch is personified simply worship nature, as + as the active power of embodied in man, + Brahma proceeding from him. half-spiritual and + In the _Vedas_ she is made half-material, at best: we + to speak of herself as the are Pantheists, when not + supreme and universal soul. fetich worshippers, like the + “I bore the Father on the idolatrous Jews, who + head of the universal mind, sacrificed on high places, + and _my origin is in the in groves, to the + midst of the ocean_; and personified male and female + therefore do I pervade all principle, ignorant of IAO, + beings.... Originating all the Supreme “Secret Name” of + beings, I pass like the the Mysteries. + breeze (Holy Ghost). I am + above this heaven, beyond Shekinah is the Hindu Vâch, + this earth; and _what is the and praised in the same + Great One that am I_.”[565] terms as the latter. Though + Literally, Vâch is speech, shown in the kabalistic Tree + the power of awakening, of Life as proceeding from + through the metrical the ninth Sephiroth, yet + arrangement contained in Shekinah is the “veil” of + the number and syllables En-Soph, and the “garment” + of the Mantras,[566] of Jehovah. The “veil,” for + corresponding powers in it succeeded for long ages + the invisible world. In in concealing the real + the sacrificial Mysteries supreme God, the universal + Vâch stirs up the Brahma Spirit, and masking Jehovah, + (_Brahma jinvati_), or the exoteric deity, made the + the power lying latent at Christians accept him as the + the bottom of every magical “father” of the initiated + operation. It existed from Jesus. Yet the kabalists, + eternity as the Yajna (its as well as the Hindu + latent form), lying dormant _Dikshita_, know the power + in Brahma from of the Shekinah or Vâch, + “no-beginning,” and and call it the “secret + proceeded forth from him as wisdom,” חכמח־נסהדח. + Vâch (the active power). It + is the key to the The triangle played a + “Traividyâ,” the thrice prominent part in the + sacred science which teaches religious symbolism of every + the Yajus (the sacrificial great nation; for everywhere + Mysteries).[567] it represented the three + great principles--spirit, + Having done with the force, and matter; or the + unrevealed triad, and the active (male), passive + first triad of the (female), and the dual or + Sephiroth, called the correlative principle which + “intellectual world,” little partakes of both and binds + remains to be said. In the the two together. It was the + great geometrical figure _Arba_ or mystic “four,”[568] + which has the double the mystery-gods, the Kabeiri, + triangle in it, the central summarized in the unity of + circle represents the world one supreme Deity. It is + within the universe. The found in the Egyptian + double triangle belongs to pyramids, whose equal sides + one of the most important, tower up until lost in one + if it is not in itself the crowning point. In the + most important, of the kabalistic diagram the + mystic figures in India. It central circle of the + is the emblem of the Brahmanical figure is + Trimurti three in one. The replaced by the cross; the + triangle with its apex celestial perpendicular and + upward indicates the male the terrestrial horizontal + principle, downward the base line.[569] But the idea + female; the two typifying, is the same: Adam Kadmon is + at the same time, spirit and the type of humanity as a + matter. This world within collective totality within + the infinite universe is the the unity of the creative + microcosm within the God and the universal + macrocosm, as in the Jewish spirit. + _Kabala_. It is the symbol + of the womb of the universe, “Of him who is formless, the + the terrestrial egg, whose non-existent (also the + archetype is the golden eternal, but _not_ First + mundane egg. It is from Cause), is born the heavenly + within this spiritual bosom man.” But after he created + of mother nature that the form of the heavenly + proceed all the great man אדמעלאה, he “used it as + saviours of the a vehicle wherein to + universe--the avatars of the descend,” says the _Kabala_. + invisible Deity. Thus Adam Kadmon is the + avatar of the concealed + “Of him who is and yet is power. After that the + not, from the not-being, heavenly Adam creates or + Eternal Cause, is born the engenders by the combined + being Pouroucha,” says Manu, power of the Sephiroth, the + the legislator. Pouroucha is earthly Adam. The work of + the “divine male,” the creation is also begun by + _second_ god, and the Sephira in the creation of + avatar, or the Logos of the ten Sephiroth (who are + Para-Brahma and his divine the Pradjapatis of the + son, who in his turn _Kabala_, for they are + produced Viradj, the son, or likewise the Lords of all + the ideal type of the beings). + universe. “Viradj begins the + work of creation by The _Sohar_ asserts the + producing the ten same. According to the + Pradjapati, ‘the lords of kabalistic doctrine there + all beings.’” were old worlds (see Idra + Suta: _Sohar_, iii., p. 292 + According to the doctrine of b). Everything will return + Manu, the universe is some day to that from which + subjected to a periodical it first proceeded. “All + and never-ending succession things of which this world + of creations and consists, spirit as well as + dissolutions, which periods body, will return to their + of creation are named principal, and the roots + Manvântara. from which they proceeded” + (_Sohar_, ii., 218 b). The + “It is the germ (which the kabalists also maintain the + Divine Spirit produced from indestructibility of matter, + its own substance) which albeit their doctrine is + never perishes in the being, shrouded still more + for it becomes the soul of carefully than that of the + Being, and at the period of Hindus. The creation is + _pralaya_ (dissolution) it eternal, and the universe is + returns to absorb itself the “garment,” or “the veil + again _into the Divine_ of God”--Shekinah; and the + Spirit, _which itself_ rests latter is immortal and + from all eternity within eternal as Him within whom + Swayambhuva, the it has ever existed. Every + ‘Self-Existent’” world is made after the + (_Institutes of Manu_, pattern of its predecessor, + book i.). and each more gross and + material than the preceding + As we have shown, neither one. In the _Kabala_ all + the Svâbhâvikas, Buddhist were called sparks. Finally, + philosophers--nor the our present grossly + Brahmans believe in a materialistic world was + creation of the universe _ex formed. + nihilo_, but both believe in + the _Prakriti_, the In the Chaldean account of + indestructibility of matter. the period which preceded + the Genesis of our world, + The evolution of species, Berosus speaks of a time + and the successive when there existed nothing + appearance of various new but darkness, and an abyss + types is very distinctly of waters, filled with + shown in _Manu_. hideous monsters, “produced + of a two-fold principle .... + “From earth, heat, and These were creatures in + water, are born all which were combined the + creatures, whether animate limbs of every species of + or inanimate, produced by animals. In addition to + the germ which the Divine these fishes, reptiles, + Spirit drew from its own serpents, with other + substance. Thus has Brahma monstrous animals, which + established the series of assumed each other’s shape + transformations from the and countenance.”[571] + plant up to man, and from + man up to the primordial + essence.... Among them each + succeeding being (or + element) acquires the + quality of the preceding; + and in as many degrees as + each of them is advanced, + with so many properties is + it said to be endowed” + (_Manu_, book i., sloka + 20).[570] + + This, we believe, is the + veritable theory of the + modern evolutionists. + +In the first book of Manu, we read: “Know that the sum of 1,000 +divine ages, composes the totality of one day of Brahma; and that one +night is equal to that day.” One thousand divine ages is equal to +4,320,000,000 of human years, in the Brahmanical calculations. + +“At the expiration of each night, Brahma, who has been asleep, +awakes, and through the sole energy of the motion causes to emanate +from himself the spirit, which in its essence _is_, and yet is not.” + +“Prompted by the desire to create, the Spirit (first of the +emanations) operates the creation and gives birth to ether, which the +sages consider as having the faculty of transmitting sound. + +“Ether begets air whose property is tangible, and which is necessary +to life. + +“Through a transformation of the air, light is produced. + +“From air and light, which begets heat, water is formed, and the +water is the womb of all the living germs.” + +Throughout the whole immense period of progressive creation, +covering 4,320,000,000 years, ether, air, water and fire (heat), are +constantly forming matter under the never-ceasing impulse of the +Spirit, or the _unrevealed_ God who fills up the whole creation, +for he is in all, and all is in him. This computation, which was +secret and which is hardly hinted at even now, led Higgins into the +error of dividing every ten ages into 6,000 years. Had he added a +few more ciphers to his sums he might have come nearer to a correct +explanation of the neroses, or secret cycles.[572] + +In the _Sepher Jezireh_, the kabalistic Book of Creation, the author +has evidently repeated the words of Manu. In it, the Divine Substance +is represented as having alone existed from the eternity, boundless +and absolute; and emitted from itself the Spirit. “One is the Spirit +of the living God, blessed be His Name, who liveth for ever! Voice, +Spirit, and Word, this is the Holy Spirit;”[573] and this is the +kabalistic abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously anthropomorphized +by the Fathers. From this triple ONE emanated the whole Cosmos. +First from ONE emanated number TWO, or Air, the creative element; +and then number THREE, _Water_, proceeded from the air; _Ether_ +or _Fire_ complete the mystic four, the Arba-il.[574] “When the +Concealed of the Concealed wanted to reveal Himself, he first made a +point (primordial point, or the first Sephira, air or Holy Ghost), +shaped it into a sacred form (the ten Sephiroth, or the Heavenly +man), and covered it with a rich and splendid garment, _that is the +world_.”[575] “He maketh the wind His messengers, flaming Fire his +servants,” says the _Jezireh_, showing the cosmical character of the +later euhemerized angels,[576] and that the Spirit permeates every +minutest atom of the Cosmos.[577] + +When the cycle of creation is run down, the energy of the manifested +word is weakening. He alone, the Unconceivable, is unchangeable (ever +latent), but the Creative Force, though also eternal, as it has been +in the former from “no beginning,” yet must be subject to periodical +cycles of activity and rest; as it had a _beginning_ in one of its +aspects, when it first emanated, therefore must also have an end. +Thus, the evening succeeds the day, and the night of the deity +approaches. Brahma is gradually falling asleep. In one of the books +of _Sohar_, we read the following: + +“As Moses was keeping a vigil on Mount Sinai, in company with the +Deity, who was concealed from his sight by a cloud, he felt a great +fear overcome him and suddenly asked: ‘Lord, where art Thou ... +sleepest thou, O Lord?’ And the _Spirit_ answered him: ‘I never +sleep; were I to fall asleep for a moment _before my time_, all +the Creation would crumble into dissolution in one instant.’” And +Vamadeva-Modēly describes the “Night of Brahma,” or the second period +of the Divine Unknown existence, thus: + +“Strange noises are heard, proceeding from every point.... These are +the precursors of the Night of Brahma; _dusk rises at the horizon_ +and the Sun passes away behind the thirtieth degree of Macara (sign +of the zodiac), and will reach no more the sign of the _Minas_ +(zodiacal _pisces_, or fish). The gurus of the pagodas appointed +to watch the rās-chakr (Zodiac), may now break their circle and +instruments, for they are henceforth useless. + +“Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabitable spots multiply +on the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs of +waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the ocean +shows its sandy bottom, and plants die. Men and animals decrease in +size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets can hardly +gravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one, like a lamp +which the hand of the chokra (servant) neglects to replenish. Sourya +(the Sun) flickers and goes out, matter falls into dissolution +(pralaya), and Brahma merges back into Dyäus, the Unrevealed God, and +his task being accomplished, he falls asleep. Another day is passed, +night sets in and continues until the future dawn. + +“And now again re-enter into the golden egg of His Thought, the germs +of all that exist, as the divine Manu tells us. During His peaceful +rest, the animated beings, endowed with the principles of action, +cease their functions, and all feeling (manas) becomes dormant. When +they are all absorbed in the SUPREME SOUL, this Soul of all the +beings sleeps in complete repose, till the day when it resumes its +form, and awakes again from its primitive darkness.”[578] + +If we now examine the ten mythical avatars of Vishnu, we find them +recorded in the following progression: + +1. Matsya-Avatar: as a fish. It will also be his tenth and last +avatar, at the end of the Kali-yug. + +2. Kurm-Avatar: as a tortoise. + +3. Varaha: as a boar. + +4. Nara-Sing: as a _man-lion_; last animal stage. + +5. Vamuna: as a dwarf; first step toward the human form. + +6. Parasu-Rama: as a hero, but yet an imperfect man. + +7. Rama-Chandra: as the hero of Ramayâna. Physically a perfect man; +his next of kin, friend and ally Hanoumā, the monkey-god. _The monkey +endowed with speech._[579] + +8. Christna-Avatar: the Son of the Virgin Devanaguy (or Devaki) one +formed by God, or rather by the manifested Deity Vishnu, who is +identical with Adam Kadmon.[580] Christna is also called Kaneya, the +Son of the Virgin. + +9. Gautama-Buddha, Siddhârtha, or Sakya-muni. (The Buddhists reject +this doctrine of their Buddha being an incarnation of Vishnu.) + +10. This avatar has not yet occurred. It is expected in the future, +like the Christian Advent, the idea of which was undoubtedly copied +from the Hindu. When Vishnu appears for the last time he will come +as a “Saviour.” According to the opinion of some Brahmans he will +appear himself under the form of the horse Kalki. Others maintain +that he will be mounting it. This horse is the envelope of the +spirit of evil, and Vishnu will mount it, invisible to all, till he +has conquered it for the last time. The “Kalki-Avataram,” or the +last incarnation, divides Brahmanism into two sects. That of the +Vaïhnâva refuses to recognize the incarnations of their god Vishnu in +animal forms literally. They claim that these must be understood as +allegorical. + +In this diagram of avatars we see traced the gradual evolution and +transformation of all species out of the ante-Silurian mud of Darwin +and the _ilus_ of Sanchoniathon and Berosus. Beginning with the +Azoic time, corresponding to the _ilus_ in which Brahma implants +the creative germ, we pass through the Palæozoic and Mesozoic +times, covered by the first and second incarnations as the fish and +tortoise; and the Cenozoic, which is embraced by the incarnations +in the animal and semi-human forms of the boar and man-lion; and we +come to the fifth and crowning geological period, designated as the +“era of mind, or age of man,” whose symbol in the Hindu mythology is +the dwarf--the first attempt of nature at the creation of man. In +this diagram we should follow the main-idea, not judge the degree of +knowledge of the ancient philosophers by the literal acceptance of +the popular form in which it is presented to us in the grand epical +poem of _Maha-Bharata_ and its chapter the _Bagaved-gitta_. + +Even the four ages of the Hindu chronology contain a far more +philosophical idea than appears on the surface. It defines them +according to both the psychological or mental and the physical states +of man during their period. Crita-yug, the golden age, the “age of +joy,” or spiritual innocence of man; Treta-yug, the age of silver, +or that of fire--the period of supremacy of man and of giants and of +the sons of God; Dwapara-yug, the age of bronze--a mixture already +of purity and impurity (spirit and matter), the age of doubt; and at +last our own, the Kali-yug, or age of iron, of darkness, misery, and +sorrow. In this age, Vishnu had to incarnate himself in Christna, +in order to save humanity from the goddess Kali, consort of Siva, +the all-annihilating--the goddess of death, destruction, and human +misery. Kali is the best emblem to represent the “fall of man;” +the falling of spirit into the degradation of matter, with all its +terrific results. We have to rid ourselves of Kali before we can ever +reach “Moksha,” or Nirvana, the abode of blessed Peace and Spirit. + +With the Buddhists the last incarnation is the fifth. When +Maitree-Buddha comes, then our present world will be destroyed; and +a new and a better one will replace it. The four arms of every Hindu +Deity are the emblems of the four preceding manifestations of our +earth from its invisible state, while its head typifies the fifth and +last _Kalki_-Avatar, when this would be destroyed, and the power of +Budh--Wisdom (with the Hindus, of Brahma), will be again called into +requisition to manifest itself--as a _Logos_--to create the future +world. + +In this diagram, the male gods typify Spirit in its deific +attributes, while their female counterparts--the _Sakti_, represent +the active energies of these attributes. The _Durga_ (active virtue), +is a subtile, invisible force, which answers to Shekinah--the garment +of En-Soph. She is the Sakti through which the passive “Eternal” +calls forth the visible universe from its first ideal conception. +Every one of the three personages of the exoteric Trimurti are shown +as using their _Sakti_ as a _Vehan_ (vehicle). Each of them is for +the time being the form which sits upon the mysterious wagon of +Ezekiel. + +Nor do we see less clearly carried out in this succession of avatars, +the truly philosophical idea of a simultaneous spiritual and physical +evolution of creatures and man. From a fish the progress of this dual +transformation carries on the physical form through the shape of a +tortoise, a boar, and a man-lion; and then, appearing in the dwarf of +humanity, it shows Parasu Rama physically, a perfect, spiritually, +an undeveloped entity, until it carries mankind personified by one +god-like man, to the apex of physical and spiritual perfection--a god +on earth. In Christna and the other Saviours of the world we see the +philosophical idea of the progressive dual development understood +and as clearly expressed in the _Sohar_. The “Heavenly man,” who is +the Protogonos, Tikkun, the first-born of God, or the universal Form +and Idea, engenders Adam. Hence the latter is god-born in humanity, +and endowed with the attributes of all the ten Sephiroth. These are: +Wisdom, Intelligence, Justice, Love, Beauty, Splendor, Firmness, +etc. They make him the Foundation or basis, “_the mighty living +one_,” אלחי, and the crown of creation, thus placing him as the +Alpha and Omega to reign over the “kingdom”--Malchuth. “Man is both +the import and the highest degree of creation,” says the _Sohar_. “As +soon as man was created, everything was complete, including the upper +and nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He unites in +himself all forms” (iii., p. 48 a). + +But this does not relate to our degenerated mankind; it is only +occasionally that men are born who are the types of what man should +be, and yet is not. The first races of men were spiritual, and their +protoplastic bodies were not composed of the gross and material +substances of which we see them composed now-a-day. The first men +were created with all the faculties of the Deity, and powers far +transcending those of the angelic host; for they were the direct +emanations of Adam Kadmon, the primitive man, the Macrocosm; while +the present humanity is several degrees removed even from the earthly +Adam, who was the Microcosm, or “the little world.” Seir Anpin, +the mystical figure of the Man, consists of 243 numbers, and we +see in the circles which follow each other that it is the angels +which emanated from the “Primitive Man,” not the Sephiroth from +angels. Hence, man was intended from the first to be a being of +both a progressive and retrogressive nature. Beginning at the apex +of the divine cycle, he gradually began receding from the centre of +Light, acquiring at every new and lower sphere of being (worlds each +inhabited by a different race of human beings) a more solid physical +form and losing a portion of his _divine_ faculties. + +In the “fall of Adam” we must see, not the personal transgression of +man, but simply the law of the dual evolution. Adam, or “Man,” begins +his career of existences by dwelling in the garden of Eden “dressed +in the celestial garment, which _is a garment of heavenly light_” +(_Sohar_, ii., 229 b); but when expelled he is “clothed” by God, or +the eternal law of Evolution or necessarianism, with coats of skin. +But even on this earth of material degradation--in which the divine +spark (Soul, a corruscation of the Spirit) was to begin its physical +progression in a series of imprisonments from a stone up to a man’s +body--if he but exercise his WILL and call his deity to his help, man +can transcend the powers of the angel. “Know ye not that we shall +judge angels?” asks Paul (_1 Corinthians_, vi. 3). The real man is +the Soul (Spirit), teaches the _Sohar_. “The mystery of the earthly +man is after the mystery of the heavenly man ... the wise can read +the mysteries in the human face” (ii., 76 a). + +This is still another of the many sentences by which Paul must be +recognized as an initiate. For reasons fully explained, we give far +more credit for genuineness to certain Epistles of the apostles, now +dismissed as apocryphal, than to many suspicious portions of the +_Acts_. And we find corroboration of this view in the _Epistle of +Paul to Seneca_. In this message Paul styles Seneca “my respected +master,” while Seneca terms the apostle simply “brother.” + +No more than the true religion of Judaic philosophy can be judged +by the absurdities of the exoteric _Bible_, have we any right to +form an opinion of Brahmanism and Buddhism by their nonsensical and +sometimes disgusting popular forms. If we only search for the true +essence of the philosophy of both _Manu_ and the _Kabala_, we will +find that Vishnu is, as well as Adam Kadmon, the expression of the +universe itself; and that his incarnations are but concrete and +various embodiments of the manifestations of this “Stupendous Whole.” +“I am the Soul, O, Arjuna. I am the Soul which exists in the heart of +all beings; and I am the beginning and the middle, and also the end +of existing things,” says Vishnu to his disciple, in _Bagaved-gitta_ +(ch. x., p. 71). + +“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.... I am the first +and the last,” says Jesus to John (_Rev._ i. 6, 17). + +Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are a trinity in a unity, and, like the +Christian trinity, they are mutually convertible. In the esoteric +doctrine they are one and the same manifestation of him “whose name +is too sacred to be pronounced, and whose power is too majestic and +infinite to be imagined.” Thus by describing the avatars of one, all +others are included in the allegory, with a change of form but not of +substance. It is out of such manifestations that emanated the many +worlds that were, and that will emanate the one--which is to come. + +Coleman, followed in it by other Orientalists, presents the seventh +avatar of Vishnu in the most caricatured way.[581] Apart from the +fact that the _Ramayana_ is one of the grandest epic poems in the +world--the source and origin of Homer’s inspiration--this avatar +conceals one of the most scientific problems of our modern day. +The learned Brahmans of India never understood the allegory of the +famous war between men, giants, and monkeys, otherwise than in the +light of the transformation of species. It is our firm belief that +were European academicians to seek for information from some learned +native Brahmans, instead of unanimously and incontinently rejecting +their authority, and were they, like Jacolliot--against whom they +have nearly all arrayed themselves--to seek for light in the oldest +documents scattered about the country in pagodas, they might +learn strange but not useless lessons. Let any one inquire of an +_educated_ Brahman the reason for the respect shown to monkeys--the +origin of which feeling is indicated in the story of the valorous +feats of Hanoumā, the generalissimo and faithful ally of the hero +of Ramayana,[582] and he would soon be disabused of the erroneous +idea that the Hindus accord deific honors to a monkey-_god_. He +would, perhaps, learn--were the Brahman to judge him worthy of an +explanation--that the Hindu sees in the ape but what Manu desired he +should: the transformation of species most directly connected with +that of the human family--a bastard branch engrafted on their own +stock before the final perfection of the latter.[583] He might learn, +further, that in the eyes of the educated “heathen” the spiritual +or _inner_ man is one thing, and his terrestrial, physical casket +another. That _physical_ nature, the great combination of physical +correlations of forces ever creeping on toward perfection, has to +avail herself of the material at hand; she models and remodels as she +proceeds, and finishing her crowning work in man, presents him alone +as a fit tabernacle for the overshadowing of the Divine spirit. But +the latter circumstance does not give man the right of life and death +over the animals lower than himself in the scale of _nature_, or +the right to torture them. Quite the reverse. Besides being endowed +with a soul--of which every animal, and even plant, is more or less +possessed--man has his immortal _rational_ soul, or _nous_, which +ought to make him at least equal in magnanimity to the elephant, +who treads so carefully, lest he should crush weaker creatures than +himself. It is this feeling which prompts Brahman and Buddhist alike +to construct hospitals for sick animals, and even insects, and to +prepare refuges wherein they may finish their days. It is this same +feeling, again, which causes the Jaïn sectarian to sacrifice one-half +of his life-time to brushing away from his path the helpless, +crawling insects, rather than recklessly deprive the smallest of +life; and it is again from this sense of highest benevolence and +charity toward the weaker, however abject the creature may be, +that they honor one of the natural modifications of their own dual +nature, and that later the popular belief in metempsychosis arose. +No trace of the latter is to be found in the _Vedas_; and the true +interpretation of the doctrine, discussed at length in _Manu_ and +the Buddhistic sacred books, having been confined from the first to +the learned sacerdotal castes, the false and foolish popular ideas +concerning it need occasion no surprise. + +Upon those who, in the remains of antiquity, see evidence that modern +times can lay small claim to originality, it is common to charge a +disposition to exaggerate and distort facts. But the candid reader +will scarcely aver that the above is an example in point. There were +evolutionists before the day when the mythical Noah is made, in the +_Bible_, to float in his ark; and the ancient scientists were better +informed, and had their theories more logically defined than the +modern evolutionists. + +Plato, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, the Eleatic schools of Greece, as well +as the old Chaldean sacerdotal colleges, all taught the doctrine of +the dual evolution; the doctrine of the transmigration of souls +referring only to the progress of man from world to world, after +death here. Every philosophy worthy of the name, taught that the +_spirit_ of man, if not the _soul_, was preëxistent. “The Essenes,” +says Josephus, “believed that the souls were immortal, and that they +descended from the ethereal spaces to be chained to bodies.”[584] In +his turn, Philo Judæus says, the “air is full of them (of souls); +those which are nearest the earth, descending to be tied to mortal +bodies, παλινδρομοῦσι αὖθις, return to other bodies, being desirous to +live in them.”[585] In the _Sohar_, the soul is made to plead her +freedom before God: “Lord of the Universe! I am happy in this world, +and do not wish to go into another world, where I shall be a handmaid, +and be exposed to all kinds of pollutions.”[586] The doctrine of fatal +necessity, the everlasting immutable Law, is asserted in the answer of +the Deity: “Against thy will thou becomest an embryo, and against thy +will thou art born.”[587] Light would be incomprehensible without +darkness, to make it manifest by contrast; good would be no good +without evil, to show the priceless nature of the boon; and so, +personal virtue could claim no merit, unless it had passed through the +furnace of temptation. Nothing is eternal and unchangeable, save the +Concealed Deity. Nothing that is finite--whether because it had a +beginning, or must have an end--can remain stationary. It must either +progress or recede; and a soul which thirsts after a reünion with its +spirit, which alone confers upon it immortality, must purify itself +through cyclic transmigrations, onward toward the only Land of Bliss and +Eternal Rest, called in the _Sohar_, “The Palace of Love,” היבל אהבת; +in the Hindu religion, “Moksha;” among the Gnostics, the “Pleroma of +eternal Light;” and by the Buddhists, Nirvana. The Christian calls it +the “Kingdom of Heaven,” and claims to have alone found the truth, +whereas he has but invented a new name for a doctrine which is coëval +with man. + +The proof that the transmigration of the soul does not relate to +man’s condition on this earth _after_ death, is found in the _Sohar_, +notwithstanding the many incorrect renderings of its translators. +“All souls which have alienated themselves in heaven from the Holy +One--blessed be His Name--have thrown themselves into an abyss at +their very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are +to descend on earth.[588]... Come and see when the soul reaches +the abode of Love.... The soul could not bear this light, but for +the luminous mantle which she puts on. For, just as the soul, when +sent to this earth, puts on an earthly garment to preserve herself +here, so she receives above a shining garment, in order to be able +to look without injury into the mirror, whose light proceeds from +the Lord of Light.”[589] Moreover, the _Sohar_ teaches that the soul +cannot reach the abode of bliss, unless she has received the “holy +kiss,” or the re-union of the soul _with the substance from which +she emanated_--spirit. All souls are dual, and, while the latter +is a feminine principle, the spirit is masculine. While imprisoned +in body, man is a trinity, unless his pollution is such as to have +caused his divorce from the spirit. “Woe to the soul which prefers to +her divine husband (spirit), the earthly wedlock with her terrestrial +body,” records a text of the _Book of the Keys_.[590] + +These ideas on the transmigrations and the trinity of man, were +held by many of the early Christian Fathers. It is the jumble made +by the translators of the _New Testament_ and ancient philosophical +treatises between soul and spirit, that has occasioned the many +misunderstandings. It is also one of the many reasons why Buddha, +Plotinus, and so many other initiates are now accused of having +longed for the total extinction of their souls--“absorption unto the +Deity,” or “reunion with the universal soul,” meaning, according +to modern ideas, annihilation. The animal soul must, of course, be +disintegrated of its particles, before it is able to link its purer +essence forever with the immortal spirit. But the translators of +both the _Acts_ and the _Epistles_, who laid the foundation of the +_Kingdom of Heaven_, and the modern commentators on the Buddhist +_Sutra of the Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness_, have +muddled the sense of the great apostle of Christianity, as of the +great reformer of India. The former have smothered the word φυχικος, +so that no reader imagines it to have any relation with _soul_; and +with this confusion of _soul_ and _spirit_ together, _Bible_ readers +get only a perverted sense of anything on the subject; and the +interpreters of the latter have failed to understand the meaning and +object of the Buddhist four degrees of Dhyâna. + +In the writings of Paul, the entity of man is divided into a +trine--flesh, psychical existence or _soul_, and the overshadowing +and at the same time interior entity or SPIRIT. His phraseology is +very definite, when he teaches the _anastasis_, or the continuation +of life of those who have died. He maintains that there is a +_psychical_ body which is sown in the corruptible, and a spiritual +body that is raised in incorruptible substance. “The first man is +of the earth earthy, the second man from heaven.” Even James (iii. +15) identifies the soul by saying that its “wisdom descendeth not +from the above but is terrestrial, _psychical_, _demoniacal_” (see +Greek text). Plato, speaking of the Soul (_psuché_), observes that +“when she allies herself to the _nous_ (divine substance, a god, as +psuché is a goddess), she does everything aright and felicitously; +but the case is otherwise when she attaches herself to _Annoia_.” +What Plato calls _nous_, Paul terms the _Spirit_; and Jesus makes +the _heart_ what Paul says of the _flesh_. The natural condition of +mankind was called in Greek αποστασια; the new condition αναστασις. In +Adam came the former (death), in Christ the latter (resurrection), for +it is he who first publicly taught mankind the “Noble Path” to Eternal +life, as Gautama pointed the same Path to Nirvana. To accomplish both +ends there was but one way, according to the teachings of both. +“Poverty, chastity, contemplation or inner prayer; contempt for wealth +and the illusive joys of this world.” + +“Enter on this Path and put an end to sorrow; verily the Path has +been preached by me, who have found out how to quench the darts of +grief. You yourselves must make the effort; _the Buddhas are only +preachers_. The thoughtful who enter the Path are freed from the +bondage of the Deceiver (Marâ).[591] + +“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad +is the way that leadeth to destruction.... Follow me.... Every one +that heareth these sayings and doeth them not, shall be likened +unto a foolish man” (_Matthew_ vii. and viii.). “_I can of mine own +self do nothing_” (_John_ v. 30). “The care of this world, and the +deceitfulness of riches, choke the word” (_Matthew_ xiii. 22), say +the Christians; and it is only by shaking off all delusions that the +Buddhist enters on the “Path” which will lead him “away from the +restless tossing waves of the ocean of life,” and take him “to the +calm City of Peace, to the real joy and rest of Nirvana.” + +The Greek philosophers are alike made misty instead of mystic by their +too learned translators. The Egyptians revered the Divine Spirit, the +One-Only One, as NOUT. It is most evident that it is from that word +that Anaxagoras borrowed his denominative _nous_, or, as he calls it, +Νοῦς αυτοκρατης--the Mind or Spirit self-potent, the αρχητης κινησεως. +“All things,” says he, “were in chaos; then came Νοῦς and introduced +order.” He also denominated this Νοῦς the One that ruled the many. In +his idea Νοῦς was God; and the _Logos_ was man, the emanation of the +former. The external powers perceived _phenomena_; the _nous_ alone +recognized _noumena_ or subjective things. This is purely Buddhistic +and esoteric. + +Here Socrates took his clew and followed it, and Plato after +him, with the whole world of interior knowledge. Where the old +Ionico-Italian world culminated in Anaxagoras, the new world began +with Socrates and Plato. Pythagoras made the _Soul_ a self-moving +unit, with three elements, the _nous_, the _phren_ and the _thumos_; +the latter two, shared with the brutes; the former only, being his +essential _self_. So the charge that he taught transmigration is +refuted; he taught no more than Gautama-Buddha ever did, whatever the +popular superstition of the Hindu rabble made of it after his death. +Whether Pythagoras borrowed from Buddha, or Buddha from somebody +else, matters not; the esoteric doctrine is the same. + +The Platonic School is even more distinct in enunciating all this. + +The real selfhood was at the basis of all. Socrates therefore taught +that he had a δαιμόνιον (_daimonion_), a spiritual something which put +him in the road to wisdom. He himself knew nothing, but this put him +in the way to learn all. + +Plato followed him with a full investigation of the principles of +being. There was an _Agathon_, Supreme God, who produced in his own +mind a _paradeigma_ of all things. + +He taught that in man was “the immortal principle of the soul,” a +mortal body, and a “separate mortal kind of soul,” which was placed +in a separate receptacle of the body from the other; the immortal +part was in the head (_Timæus_ xix., xx.) the other in the trunk +(xliv.). + +Nothing is plainer than that Plato regarded the interior man as +constituted of two parts--one always the same, formed of the same +entity as Deity, and one mortal and corruptible. + +“Plato and Pythagoras,” says Plutarch, “distribute the soul into two +parts, the rational (noëtic) and irrational (_agnoia_); that that +part of the soul of man which is rational, is eternal; for though it +be not God, yet it is the product of an eternal deity, but that part +of the soul which is divested of reason (_agnoia_) dies.” + +“Man,” says Plutarch, “is compound; and they are mistaken who think +him to be compounded of two parts only. For they imagine that the +understanding is a part of the soul, but they err in this no less +than those who make the soul to be a part of the body, for the +understanding (_nous_) as far exceeds the soul, as the soul is better +and diviner than the body. Now this composition of the soul (φυχη) +with the understanding (νοῦς) makes reason; and with the body, +passion; of which the one is the beginning or principle of pleasure +and pain, and the other of virtue and vice. Of these three parts +conjoined and compacted together, the earth has given the body, the +moon the soul, and the sun the understanding to the generation of man. + +“Now of the deaths we die, _the one makes man two of three_, and the +other, _one_ of (out of) two. The former is in the region and +jurisdiction of Demeter, whence the name given to the Mysteries τελειν +resembled that given to death, τελευταν. The Athenians also heretofore +called the deceased sacred to Demeter. As for the _other death_ it is +in the moon or region of Persophoné. And as with the one the +terrestrial, so with the other the celestial Hermes doth dwell. This +suddenly and with violence plucks the soul from the body; but +Proserpina mildly and in a long time disjoins the understanding from +the soul. For this reason she is called _Monogenes_, _only-begotten_, +or rather _begetting one alone_; for the better part of man becomes +alone when it is separated by her. Now both the one and the other +happens thus according to nature. It is ordained by Faith that every +soul, whether with or without understanding (νοῦς), when gone out of +the body, should wander for a time, though not all for the same, in +the region lying between the earth and moon. For those that have been +unjust and dissolute suffer there the punishment due to their +offences; but the good and virtuous are there detained till they are +purified, and have, by expiation, purged out of them all the +infections they might have contracted from the contagion of the body, +as if from foul health, living in the mildest part of the air, called +the Meadows of Hades, where they must remain for a certain prefixed +and appointed time. And then, as if they were returning from a +wandering pilgrimage or long exile into their country, they have a +taste of joy, such as they principally receive who are initiated into +Sacred Mysteries, mixed with trouble, admiration, and each one’s +proper and peculiar hope.” + +The _dæmonium_ of Socrates was this νοῦς, mind, spirit, or +understanding of the divine in it. “The νοῦς of Socrates,” says +Plutarch, “was pure and mixed itself with the body no more than +necessity required.... Every soul hath some portion of νοῦς, reason, a +man cannot be a man without it; but as much of each soul as is mixed +with flesh and appetite is changed and through pain or pleasure +becomes irrational. Every soul doth not mix herself after one sort; +some plunge themselves into the body, and so, in this life their whole +frame is corrupted by appetite and passion; others are mixed as to +some part, but the purer part [nous] still remains _without the body_. +It is not drawn down into the body, but it swims above and touches +(overshadows) the extremest part of the man’s head; it is like a cord +to hold up and direct the subsiding part of the soul, as long as it +proves obedient and is not overcome by the appetites of the flesh. The +part that is plunged into the body is called _soul_. But the +incorruptible part is called the _nous_ and _the vulgar think it is +within them_, as they likewise imagine the image reflected from a +glass to be in that glass. But the more intelligent, who know it to be +without, call it a Daëmon” (a god, a spirit). + +“The soul, like to a dream, flies quick away, which it does not +immediately, as soon as it is separated from the body, but afterward, +when it is alone and divided from the understanding (_nous_).... +The soul being moulded and formed by the understanding (_nous_), +and itself moulding and forming the body, by embracing it on every +side, receives from it an impression and form; so that although it be +separated both from the understanding and the body, it nevertheless +so retains still its figure and resemblance for a long time, that it +may, with good right, be called its image. + +“And of these souls the moon is the element, because souls resolve +into her, as the bodies of the deceased do into earth. Those, indeed, +who have been virtuous and honest, living a quiet and philosophical +life, without embroiling themselves in troublesome affairs, are +quickly resolved; because, being left by the nous, understanding, and +no longer using the corporeal passions, they incontinently vanish +away.” + +We find even Irenæus, that untiring and mortal enemy of every Grecian +and “heathen” heresy, explain his belief in the trinity of man. The +perfect man, according to his views, consists of _flesh_, _soul_, +and _spirit_. “... carne, anima, spiritu, altero quidem figurante, +spiritu, altero quod formatur, carne. Id vero quod inter haec est +duo, est anima, quae aliquando subsequens spiritum elevatur ab eo, +aliquando autem consentient carni in terrenas concupiscentias” +(_Irenæus_ v., 1). + +And Origen, in his _Sixth Epistle to the Romans_, says: “There is a +threefold partition of man, the body or flesh, the lowest part of our +nature, on which the old serpent by original sin inscribed the law +of sin, and by which we are tempted to vile things, and as oft as we +are overcome by temptations are joined fast to the Devil; the spirit, +in or by which we express the likeness of the divine nature in which +the very Best Creator, from the archetype of his own mind, engraved +with his finger (that is, his spirit), the eternal law of honesty; by +this we are joined (conglutinated) to God and made one with God. In +the third, the soul mediates between these, which, as in a factious +republic, cannot but join with one party or the other, is solicited +this way and that and is at liberty to choose the side to which it +will adhere. If, renouncing the flesh, it betakes itself to the party +of the spirit it will itself become spiritual, but if it cast itself +down to the cupidities of the flesh it will degenerate itself into +body.” + +Plato (in _Laws_ x.) defines _soul_ as “the motion that is able +to move itself.” “Soul is the most ancient of all things, and the +commencement of motion.” “Soul was generated prior to body, and body +is posterior and secondary, as being, according to nature, ruled over +by the ruling soul.” “The soul which administers all things that are +moved in every way, administers likewise the heavens.” + +“Soul then leads everything in heaven, and on earth, and in the sea, +by its movements--the names of which are, to will, to consider, to +take care of, to consult, to form opinions true and false, to be in +a state of joy, sorrow, confidence, fear, hate, love, together with +all such primary movements as are allied to these ... being a goddess +herself, she ever takes as an ally NOUS, a god, and disciplines all +things correctly and happily; but when with _Annoia_--not _nous_--it +works out everything the contrary.” + +In this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is treated +as essential existence. _Annihilation_ comes under a similar +exegesis. The positive state, is essential being but no manifestation +as such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance, entered _nirvana_, +it lost objective existence but retained subjective. To objective +minds this is becoming absolute nothing; to subjective, NO-thing, +nothing to be displayed to sense. + +These rather lengthy quotations are necessary for our purpose. +Better than anything else, they show the agreement between the +oldest “Pagan” philosophies--not “assisted by the light of divine +revelation,” to use the curious expression of Laboulaye in relation +to Buddha--and the early Christianity of some Fathers. Both Pagan +philosophy and Christianity, however, owe their elevated ideas on +the soul and spirit of man and the unknown Deity to Buddhism and the +Hindu Manu. No wonder that the Manicheans maintained that Jesus was +a permutation of Gautama; that Buddha, Christ, and Mani were one +and the same person,[592] for the teachings of the former two were +identical. It was the doctrine of old India that Jesus held to when +preaching the complete renunciation of the world and its vanities in +order to reach the kingdom of Heaven, Nirvana, where “men neither +marry nor are given in marriage, but live like the angels.” + +It is the philosophy of Siddhârtha-Buddha again that Pythagoras +expounded, when asserting that the _ego_ (νοῦς) was eternal with God, +and that the soul only passed through various stages (Hindu +_Rupa-locas_) to arrive at the divine excellence; meanwhile the +_thumos_ returned to the earth, and even the _phren_ was eliminated. +Thus the _metempsychosis_ was only a succession of disciplines through +refuge-heavens (called by the Buddhists _Zion_),[593] to work off the +exterior mind, to rid the _nous_ of the _phren_, or soul, the Buddhist +“Winyanaskandaya,” _that principle that lives_ from _Karma_ and the +Skandhas (groups). It is the latter, the metaphysical personations of +the “deeds” of man, whether good or bad, which, after the death of his +body, incarnate themselves, so to say, and form their many invisible +but never-dying compounds into a new body, or rather into an ethereal +being, the _double_ of what man was _morally_. It is the astral body +of the kabalist and the “incarnated deeds” which form the new sentient +self as his _Ahancara_ (the ego, self-consciousness), given to him by +the sovereign Master (the breath of God) can never perish, for it is +immortal _per se_ as a spirit; hence the sufferings of the newly-born +_self_ till he rids himself of every earthly thought, desire, and +passion. + +We now see that the “four mysteries” of the Buddhist doctrine have +been as little understood and appreciated as the “wisdom” hinted at +by Paul, and spoken “among them that are _perfect_” (initiated), +the “mystery-wisdom” which “none of the _Archons_ of this world +knew.”[594] The fourth degree of the Buddhist Dhyâna, the fruit of +Samâdhi, which leads to the utmost perfection, to _Viconddham_, a +term correctly rendered by Burnouf in the verb “_perfected_,”[595] is +wholly misunderstood by others, as well as in himself. Defining the +condition of Dhyâna, St. Hilaire argues thus: + +“Finally, having attained the fourth degree, the ascetic possesses +no more this feeling of beatitude, however obscure it may be ... +he has also lost all memory ... he has reached impassibility, as +near a neighbor of Nirvana as can be.... However, this absolute +impassibility does not hinder the ascetic from acquiring, at +this very moment, _omniscience and the magical power; a flagrant +contradiction, about which the Buddhists_ no more disturb themselves +than about so many others.”[596] + +And why should they, when these contradictions are, in fact, no +contradictions at all? It ill behooves us to speak of contradictions +in other peoples’ religions, when those of our own have bred, besides +the three great conflicting bodies of Romanism, Protestantism, and +the Eastern Church, a thousand and one most curious smaller sects. +However it may be, we have here a term applied to one and the same +thing by the Buddhist holy “mendicants” and Paul, the Apostle. When +the latter says: “If so be that I might attain the _resurrection_ +from among the dead [the Nirvana], not as though I had already +attained, or were already _perfect_” (initiated),[597] he uses an +expression common among the initiated Buddhists. When a Buddhist +ascetic has reached the “fourth degree,” he is considered a rahat. +He produces every kind of phenomena by the sole power of his freed +spirit. A _rahat_, say the Buddhists, is one who has acquired the +power of flying in the air, becoming invisible, commanding the +elements, and working all manner of wonders, commonly, and as +erroneously, called _meipo_ (miracles). He is a _perfect_ man, a +demi-god. A god he will become when he reaches Nirvana; for, like the +initiates of both Testaments, the worshippers of Buddha know that +they “are gods.” + +“Genuine Buddhism, overleaping the barrier between finite and +infinite mind, urges its followers to aspire, _by their own efforts_, +to that divine perfectibility of which it teaches that man is +capable, and by attaining which man becomes _a god_,” says Brian +Houghton Hodgson.[598] + +Dreary and sad were the ways, and blood-covered the tortuous paths by +which the world of the Christians was driven to embrace the Irenæan +and Eusebian Christianity. And yet, unless we accept the views of +the ancient Pagans, what claim has our generation to having solved +any of the mysteries of the “kingdom of heaven?” What more does the +most pious and learned of Christians know of the future destiny and +progress of our immortal spirits than the heathen philosopher of old, +or the modern “Pagan” beyond the Himalaya? Can he even boast that +he knows as much, although he works in the full blaze of “divine” +revelation? We have seen a Buddhist holding to the religion of his +fathers, both in theory and practice; and, however blind may be +his faith, however absurd his notions on some particular doctrinal +points, later engraftings of an ambitious clergy, yet in practical +works his Buddhism is far more Christ-like in deed and spirit than +the average life of our Christian priests and ministers. The fact +alone that his religion commands him to “honor his own faith, but +never slander that of other people,”[599] is sufficient. It places +the Buddhist lama immeasurably higher than any priest or clergyman +who deems it his sacred duty to curse the “heathen” to his face, and +sentence him and his religion to “eternal damnation.” Christianity +becomes every day more a religion of pure emotionalism. The doctrine +of Buddha is entirely based on practical works. A general love of all +beings, human and animal, is its nucleus. A man who knows that unless +he toils for himself he has to starve, and understands that he has +no scapegoat to carry the burden of his iniquities for him, is ten +times as likely to become a better man than one who is taught that +murder, theft, and profligacy can be washed in one instant as white +as snow, if he but believes in a God who, to borrow an expression of +Volney, “once took food upon earth, and is now himself the food of +his people.” + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + “Of the tenets of the Druzes, nothing authentic has ever + come to light; the popular belief amongst their neighbors + is, that they adore an idol in the form of a calf.”--KING: + _The Gnostics and their Remains_. + + + “O ye Lords of Truth without fault, who are forever cycling + for eternity ... save me from the annihilation of this + Region of the _Two Truths_.”--_Egyptian Ritual of the Dead._ + + + “Pythagoras correctly regarded the “Ineffable Name” + of God ... as the Key to the Mysteries of the + universe.”--PANCOAST: _Blue and Red Light_. + + +In the next two chapters we shall notice the most important of the +Christian secret sects--the so-called “Heresies” which sprang into +existence between the first and fourth centuries of our era. + +Glancing rapidly at the Ophites and Nazareans, we shall pass to their +scions which yet exist in Syria and Palestine, under the name of +Druzes of Mount Lebanon; and near Basra or Bassorah, in Persia, under +that of Mendæans, or Disciples of St. John. All these sects have an +immediate connection with our subject, for they are of kabalistic +parentage and have once held to the secret “Wisdom Religion,” +recognizing as the One Supreme, the Mystery-God of the _Ineffable +Name_. Noticing these numerous secret societies of the past, we +will bring them into direct comparison with several of the modern. +We will conclude with a brief survey of the Jesuits, and of that +venerable nightmare of the Roman Catholic Church--modern Freemasonry. +All of these modern as well as ancient fraternities--present +Freemasonry excepted--were and are more or less connected with +magic--practically, as well as theoretically; and, every one of +them--Freemasonry _not_ excepted--was and still is accused of +demonolatry, blasphemy, and licentiousness. + +Our object is not to write the history of either of them; but only +to compare these sorely-abused communities with the Christian sects, +past and present, and then, taking historical facts for our guidance, +to defend the secret science as well as the men who are its students +and champions against any unjust imputation. + +One by one the tide of time engulfed the sects of the early +centuries, until of the whole number only one survived in its +primitive integrity. That one still exists, still teaches the +doctrine of its founder, still exemplifies its faith in works of +power. The quicksands which swallowed up every other outgrowth of +the religious agitation of the times of Jesus, with its records, +relics, and traditions, proved firm ground for this. Driven from +their native land, its members found refuge in Persia, and to day the +anxious traveller may converse with the direct descendants of the +“Disciples of John,” who listened, on the Jordan’s shore, to the “man +sent from God,” and were baptized and believed. This curious people, +numbering 30,000 or more, are miscalled “Christians of St. John,” but +in fact should be known by their old name of Nazareans, or their new +one of Mendæans. + +To term them Christians, is wholly unwarranted. They neither believe +in Jesus as Christ, nor accept his atonement, nor adhere to his +Church, nor revere its “Holy Scriptures.” Neither do they worship +the Jehovah-God of the Jews and Christians, a circumstance which of +course proves that their founder, John the Baptist, did not worship +him either. And if not, what right has he to a place in the _Bible_, +or in the portrait-gallery of Christian saints? Still further, if +Ferho was his God, and he was “a man sent by God,” he must have been +sent by Lord Ferho, and in his name baptized and preached? Now, if +Jesus was baptized by John, the inference is that he was baptized +according to his own faith; therefore, Jesus too, was a believer in +Ferho, or Faho, as they call him; a conclusion that seems the more +warranted by his silence as to the name of his “Father.” And why +should the hypothesis that _Faho_ is but one of the many corruptions +of Fho or Fo, as the Thibetans and Chinese call Buddha, appear +ridiculous? In the North of Nepaul, Buddha is more often called _Fo_ +than _Buddha_. The Book of _Mahawānsa_ shows how early the work of +Buddhistic proselytism began in Nepaul; and history teaches that +Buddhist monks crowded into Syria[600] and Babylon in the century +preceding our era, and that Buddhasp (Bodhisatva) the alleged +Chaldean, was the founder of Sabism or _baptism_.[601] + +What the actual Baptists, _el-Mogtasila_, or Nazareans, do believe, +is fully set forth in other places, for they are the very Nazarenes +of whom we have spoken so much, and from whose _Codex_ we have +quoted. Persecuted and threatened with annihilation, they took refuge +in the Nestorian body, and so allowed themselves to be arbitrarily +classed as Christians, but as soon as opportunity offered, they +separated, and now, for several centuries have not even nominally +deserved the appellation. That they are, nevertheless, so called by +ecclesiastical writers, is perhaps not very difficult to comprehend. +They know too much of early Christianity to be left outside the +pale, to bear witness against it with their traditions, without the +stigma of heresy and backsliding being fastened upon them to weaken +confidence in what they might say. + +But where else can science find so good a field for biblical research +as among this too neglected people? No doubt of their inheritance of +the Baptist’s doctrine; their traditions are without a break. What +they teach now, their forefathers taught at every epoch where they +appear in history. They are the disciples of that John who is said +to have foretold the advent of Jesus, baptized him, and declared +that the latchet of his shoe he (John) was not worthy to unloose. As +they two--the Messenger and the Messiah--stood in the Jordan, and +the elder was consecrating the younger--his own cousin, too, humanly +speaking--the heavens opened and God Himself, in the shape of a dove, +descended in a glory upon his “Beloved Son!” How then, if this tale +be true, can we account for the strange infidelity which we find +among these surviving Nazareans? So far from believing Jesus the Only +Begotten Son of God, they actually told the Persian missionaries, +who, in the seventeenth century, first discovered them to Europeans, +that the Christ of the _New Testament_ was “a false teacher,” and +that the Jewish system, as well as that of Jesus (?), came from +the realm of darkness! Who knows better than they? Where can more +competent living witnesses be found? Christian ecclesiastics would +force upon us an anointed Saviour heralded by John, and the disciples +of this very Baptist, from the earliest centuries, have stigmatized +this ideal personage as an impostor, and his putative Father, +Jehovah, “a spurious God,” the Ilda-Baoth of the Ophites! Unlucky +for Christianity will be the day when some fearless and honest +scholar shall persuade their elders to let him translate the contents +of their secret books and compile their hoary traditions! It is a +strange delusion that makes some writers think that the Nazareans +have no other sacred literature, no other literary relics than four +doctrinal works, and that curious volume full of astrology and magic +which they are bound to peruse at the sunset hour, on every Sol’s day +(Sunday). + +This search after truth leads us, indeed, into devious ways. Many +are the obstacles that ecclesiastical cunning has placed in the way +of our finding the primal source of religious ideas. Christianity is +on trial, and has been, ever since science felt strong enough to act +as Public Prosecutor. A portion of the case we are drafting in this +book. What of truth is there in this Theology? Through what sects has +it been transmitted? _Whence was it primarily derived?_ To answer, +we must trace the history of the World Religion, alike through the +secret Christian sects as through those of other great religious +subdivisions of the race; _for the Secret Doctrine is the Truth_, +and that religion is nearest divine that has contained it with least +adulteration. + +Our search takes us hither and thither, but never aimlessly do we +bring sects widely separated in chronological order, into critical +juxtaposition. There is one purpose in our work to be kept constantly +in view--the analysis of religious beliefs, and the definition of +their descent from the past to the present. What has most blocked the +way is Roman Catholicism; and not until the secret principles of this +religion are uncovered can we comprehend the iron staff upon which it +leans to steady its now tottering steps. + +We will begin with the Ophites, Nazareans, and the modern Druzes. +The personal views of the author, as they will be presented in the +diagrams, will be most decidedly at variance with the prejudiced +speculations of Irenæus, Theodoret, and Epiphanius (the sainted +renegade, who sold his brethren), inasmuch as they will reflect the +ideas of certain kabalists in close relations with the mysterious +Druzes of Mount Lebanon. The Syrian _okhals_, or Spiritualists, as +they are sometimes termed, are in possession of a great many ancient +manuscripts and gems, bearing upon our present subject. + +The first _scheme_--that of the Ophites--from the very start, as +we have shown, varies from the description given by the Fathers, +inasmuch as it makes Bythos or depth, a female emanation, and assigns +her a place answering to that of Pleroma, only in a far superior +region; whereas, the Fathers assure us that the Gnostics gave the +name of Bythos to the First Cause. As in the kabalistic system, it +represents the boundless and infinite void within which is concealed +in darkness the Unknown Primal motor of all. It envelops HIM like +a veil: in short we recognize again the “Shekinah” of the En-Soph. +Alone, the name of ΙΑΩ, Iao, marks the upper centre, or rather the +presumed spot where the Unknown One may be supposed to dwell. Around +the Iao, runs the legend, ϹΕΜΕϹ ΕΙΛΑΜ ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ. “The eternal +Sun-Abrasax” (the Central Spiritual Sun of all the kabalists, +represented in some diagrams of the latter by the circle of +Tiphereth). + +From this region of unfathomable Depth, issues forth a circle formed +of spirals; which, in the language of symbolism, means a grand cycle, +κυκλος, composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as to follow the +spirals, lies the serpent--emblem of wisdom and eternity--the Dual +Androgyne: the cycle representing _Ennoia_ or the Divine mind, and the +Serpent--the Agathodaimon, Ophis--the Shadow of the Light. Both were +the Logoï of the Ophites; or the unity as Logos manifesting itself as +a double principle of good and evil; for, according to their views, +these two principles are immutable, and existed from all eternity, as +they will ever continue to exist. + +This symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent, +as the Saviour, coiled either around the Sacramental loaf or a Tau. +As a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos; when separated, one +is the Tree of Life (Spiritual); the other, the Tree of Knowledge +of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human +couple--the material production of Ilda-Baoth, but which owed its +spiritual principle to Sophia-Achamoth--to eat of the forbidden +fruit, although Ophis represents Divine Wisdom. + +The Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree +of Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India. The +Arasa-Maram, the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindus, since +Vishnu, during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty +shade, and there taught humanity philosophy and sciences, is called +the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protective +umbrage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils +their first lessons on immortality and initiate them in the mysteries +of life and death. The _Java_-ALEIM of the Sacerdotal College are +said, in the Chaldean tradition, to have taught the sons of men +to become like one of them. To the present day Foh-tchou,[602] +who lives in his Foh-Maëyu, or temple of Buddha, on the top of +“Kouin-long-sang,”[603] the great mountain, produces his greatest +religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese Sung-Ming-Shŭ, or +the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, for ignorance is death, +and knowledge alone gives immortality. This marvellous display +takes place every three years, when an immense concourse of Chinese +Buddhists assemble in pilgrimage at the holy place. + +Ilda-Baoth, the “Son of Darkness,” and the creator of the material +world, was made to inhabit the planet Saturn, which identifies him +still more with the Jewish Jehovah, who was Saturn himself, according +to the Ophites, and is by them denied his Sinaitic name. From +Ilda-Baoth emanate six spirits, who respectively dwell with their +father in the seven planets. These are Saba--or Mars; Adonai--Sol, +or the Sun;[604] Ievo--the Moon; Eloi--Jupiter; Astaphoi--Mercury +(spirit of water); and Ouraïos--Venus, spirit of fire.[605] + +In their functions and description as given, these seven planets +are identical with the Hindu _Sapta-Loca_, the seven places or +spheres, or the superior and inferior worlds; for they represent the +kabalistic seven spheres. With the Ophites, they belong to the lower +spheres. The monograms of these Gnostic planets are also Buddhistic, +the latter differing, albeit slightly, from those of the usual +astrological “houses.” In the explanatory notes which accompany the +diagram, the names of Cirenthius (the disciple of Simon Magus), of +Menander, and of certain other Gnostics, whose names are not to be +met with in the Patristic writings, are often mentioned; such as +Parcha (Ferho), for instance.[606] + +The author of the diagram claims, moreover, for his sect, the +greatest antiquity, bringing forward, as a proof, that their +“forefathers” were the builders of all the “Dracontia” temples, +even of those beyond “the great waters.” He asserts that the “Just +One,” who was the mouthpiece of the Eternal Æon (Christos), himself +sent his disciples into the world, placing them under the double +protection of Sige (Silence, the Logos), and Ophis, the Agathodæmon. +The author alludes, no doubt, to the favorite expression of Jesus, +“be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” On the diagram, Ophis +is represented as the Egyptian Cnuphis or Kneph, called Dracontiæ. He +appears as a serpent standing erect on its tail, with a lion’s head, +crowned and radiated, and bearing on the point of each ray one of +the seven Greek vowels--symbol of the seven celestial spheres. This +figure is quite familiar to those who are acquainted with the Gnostic +gems,[607] and is borrowed from the Egyptian _Hermetic books_. The +description given in the _Revelation_, of one “like unto the Son of +Man,” with his seven stars, and who is the Logos, is another form of +Ophis. + +The Nazarene diagram, except in a change of names, is identical +with that of the Gnostics, who evidently borrowed their ideas from +it, adding a few appellations from the Basiledean and Valentinian +systems. To avoid repetition, we will now simply present the two in +parallel. + +Thus, we find that, in the Nazarene Cosmogony, the names of their +powers and genii stand in the following relations to those of the +Gnostics: + + NAZARENE. GNOSTIC-OPHITE. + + _First Trinity._ _First Unity in a Trinity._ + + Lord FERHO--the Life which IAO--the Ineffable Name of + is no Life--the Supreme God. the Unknown Deity--Abraxas, + The _Cause_ which produces and the “Eternal Spiritual + the Light, or the Logos _in Sun.” Unity enclosed within + abscondito_. The water of the Depth, Bythos, feminine + Jordanus Maximus--the water principle--the boundless + of Life, or Ajar, the circle, within which lie all + feminine principle. Unity in ideal forms. From this Unity + a Trinity, enclosed within emanates + the ISH AMON. + + _Second Trinity._ _Second Trinity._ + + (The manifestation (Idem.) + of the first.) + + 1. Lord MANO--the King of 1. Ennoia--mind. + Life and Light--_Rex Lucis_. + First LIFE, or the primitive + man. + + 2. Lord Jordan--manifestation 2. Ophis, the Agathodæmon. + or emanation of Jordan + Maximus--the waters of + grace. Second LIFE. + + 3. The Superior Father-- 3. Sophia Androgyne--wisdom; + Abatur. Third LIFE. who, in her turn--fecundated + with the Divine Light--produces + + This Trinity produces also a Christos and Sophia-Achamoth + duad--Lord Ledhoio, and (one perfect, the other + Fetahil, the genius (the imperfect), as an emanation. + former, a perfect emanation, + the latter, imperfect). + + Lord Jordan--“the Lord of Sophia-Achamoth emanates + all Jordans,” manifests Ilda-Baoth--the Demiurge, + NETUBTO (Faith _without_ who produces material and + Works).[608] soulless creation. “Works + _without_ Faith” (or + grace).[608] + +Moreover, the Ophite seven planetary genii, who emanated one from the +other, are found again in the Nazarene religion, under the name of +the “seven impostor-dæmons,” or stellars, who “will deceive all the +sons of Adam.” These are _Sol_; _Spiritus Venereus_ (Holy Spirit, in +her material aspect),[609] the mother of the “seven badly-disposed +stellars,” answering to the Gnostic Achamoth; _Nebu_, or Mercury, “a +false Messiah, who will deprave the ancient worship of God;”[610] SIN +(or Luna, or Shuril); KIUN (Kivan, or Saturn); Bel-Jupiter; and the +seventh, _Nerig_, Mars (_Codex Nazaræus_, p. 57). + +The Christos of the Gnostics is the chief of the seven Æons, +St. John’s seven spirits of God; the Nazarenes have also their +seven genii or good Æons, whose chief is _Rex Lucis_, MANO, their +Christos. The _Sapta Rishis_, the seven sages of India, inhabit the +_Sapta-Poura_, or the seven celestial cities. + +What less or more do we find in the Universal Ecclesia, until the +days of the Reformation, and in the Roman Popish Church after +the separation? We have compared the relative value of the Hindu +Cosmogony; the Chaldeo, Zoroastrian, Jewish _Kabala_; and that of +the so-termed Hæretics. A correct diagram of the Judaico-CHRISTIAN +religion, to enforce which on the heathen who have furnished it, +are expended such great sums every year, would still better prove +the identity of the two; but we lack space and are also spared the +necessity of proving what is already thoroughly demonstrated. + +In the Ophite gems of King (_Gnostics_), we find the name of Iao +repeated, and often confounded with that of Ievo, while the latter +simply represents one of the genii antagonistic to Abraxas. In order +that these names may not be taken as identical with the name of +the Jewish Jehovah we will at once explain this word. It seems to +us surpassingly strange that so many learned archæologists should +have so little insisted that there was more than one Jehovah, and +disclaimed that the name originated with Moses. Iao is certainly a +title of the Supreme Being, and belongs _partially_ to the Ineffable +Name; but it neither originated with nor was it the sole property of +the Jews. Even if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the +tutelar “Spirit,” the alleged protector and national deity of the +“Chosen people of Israel,” there is yet no possible reason why other +nationalities should receive Him as the Highest and One-living God. +But we deny the assumption altogether. Besides, there is the fact that +Yaho or Iao was a “mystery name” from the beginning, יהוה and יה never +came into use before King David. Anterior to his time, few or no +proper names were compounded with _iah_ or jah. It looks rather as +though David, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines +(_2 Samuel_), brought thence the name of Jehovah. He made Zadok +high-priest, from whom came the Zadokites or Sadducees. He lived and +ruled first at Hebron חברון, Habir-on or Kabeir-town, where the rites +of the four (mystery-gods) were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon +recognized either Moses or the law of Moses. They aspired to build a +temple to יהוה, like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and +Venus, Adon and Astarte. + +Says Fürst: “The very ancient name of God, Yâho, written in the Greek +Ιαω, appears, apart _from its derivation_, to have been an old mystic +name of the Supreme deity of the Shemites. (Hence it was told to Moses +when initiated at HOR-EB--the _cave_, under the direction of Jethro, +the Kenite or Cainite priest of Midian.) In an old religion of the +Chaldeans, whose remains are to be found amongst the Neo-platonists, +the highest divinity enthroned above the seven heavens, representing +the Spiritual Light-Principle (_nous_)[611] and also conceived as +Demiurgus,[612] was called Ιαω יחד, who was, like the Hebrew Yâho, +mysterious and unmentionable, and whose name was communicated to +the initiated. The Phœnicians had a Supreme God whose name was +trilateral and _secret_, and he was Ιαω.”[613] + +But while Fürst insists that the name has a Semitic origin, there +are other scholars who trace it farther than he does, and look back +beyond the classification of the Caucasians. + +In Sanscrit we have Jah and Jaya, or Jaa and Ja-ga, and this throws +light on the origin of the famous festival of the car of Jaga-nath, +commonly called Jaggernâth. Javhe means “he who is,” and Dr. Spiegel +traces even the Persian name of God, “Ahura,” to the root _ah_,[614] +which in Sanscrit is pronounced _as_, to breathe, and _asu_, +became, therefore, in time, synonymous with “Spirit.”[615] Rawlinson +strongly supports the opinion of an Aryan or Vedic influence on the +early Babylonian mythology. We have given, a few pages back, the +strongest possible proofs of the identity of Vishnu with Dag-on. +The same may be adduced for the title of Ιαω, and its Sanscrit root +traced in every country. JU or _Jovis_ is the oldest Latin name for +God. “As male he is Ju-_piter_, or _Ju_, the father, pitär being +Sanscrit for father; as feminine, Ju-_no_ or Ju, the comforter--דוח +being the Phœnician word for rest and comfort.”[616] Professor Max +Müller shows that although “Dyaus,” sky, does not occur as a masculine +in the ordinary Sanscrit, yet it does occur in the _Veda_, “and thus +bears witness to the early Aryan worship of Dyaus, the Greek Zeus” +(_The Veda_). + +To grasp the real and primitive sense of the term ΙΑΩ, and the reason +of its becoming the designation for the most mysterious of all +deities, we must search for its origin in the figurative phraseology +of all the primitive people. We must first of all go to the most +ancient sources for our information. In one of the _Books of Hermes_, +for instance, we find him saying that the number TEN is the mother of +the soul, and that the _life_ and _light_ are therein united. For “the +number 1 (one) is born from the spirit, and the number 10 (ten) from +matter;”[617] “the unity has made the TEN, the TEN the unity.”[618] + +The kabalistic _gemantria_--one of the methods for extracting the +hidden meaning from letters, words, and sentences--is arithmetical. +It consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they bear +as numbers, in _outward_ shape as well as in their individual sense. +Moreover, by the _Themura_ (another method used by the kabalists) any +word could be made to yield its mystery out of its anagram. Thus, +we find the author of _Sepher Jezira_ saying, one or two centuries +before our era:[619] “ONE, the spirit of the _Alahim_ of Lives.”[620] +So again, in the oldest kabalistic diagrams, the _ten_ Sephiroth are +represented as wheels or circles, and Adam Kadmon, the primitive man, +as an _upright_ pillar. “Wheels and seraphim and the holy creatures” +(chioth), says Rabbi Akiba.[621] In another system of the same branch +of the symbolical _Kabala_, called Athbach--which arranges the +letters of the alphabet by pairs in three rows--all the couples in +the first row bear the numerical value _ten_; and in the system of +Simeon Ben-Shetah,[622] the uppermost couple--the most sacred of all, +is preceded by the Pythagorean cipher, one and a nought, or zero--10. + +If we can once appreciate the fact that, among all the peoples of the +highest antiquity, the most natural conception of the First Cause +manifesting itself in its creatures, and that to this they could not +but ascribe the creation of all, was that of an androgyne deity; that +the male principle was considered the vivifying invisible spirit, +and the female, mother nature; we shall be enabled to understand +how that mysterious cause came at first to be represented (in the +picture-writings, perhaps) as the combination of the Alpha and Omega +of numbers, a decimal, then as IAO, a trilateral name, containing in +itself a deep allegory. + +_IAO_, in such a case, would--etymologically considered--mean the +“Breath of Life,” generated or springing forth between an upright +male and an egg-shaped female principle of nature; for, in Sanscrit, +_as_ means “to be,” “to live or exist;” and originally it meant “to +breathe.” “From it,” says Max Müller, “in its original sense of +breathing, the Hindus formed ‘asu,’ breath, and ‘asura,’ the name of +God, whether it meant the breathing one or the giver of breath.”[623] +It certainly meant the latter. In Hebrew, “Ah” and “Iah” mean life. +Cornelius Agrippa, in his treatise on the _Preëminence of Woman_, +shows that “the word Eve suggests comparison with the mystic symbols +of the kabalists, the name of the woman having affinity with the +ineffable Tetragrammaton, the most sacred name of the divinity.” +Ancient names were always consonant with the things they represented. +In relation to the mysterious name of the Deity in question, the +hitherto inexplicable hint of the kabalists as to the efficacy of the +letter H, “which Abram took away from his wife Sarah” and “put _into +the middle of his own name_,” becomes clear. + +It may perhaps be argued, by way of objection, that it is not +ascertained as yet at what period of antiquity the _nought_ occurs +for the first time in Indian manuscripts or inscriptions. Be +that as it may, the case presents circumstantial evidence of too +strong a character not to carry a conviction of probability with +it. According to Max Müller “the two words ‘cipher’ and ‘zero,’ +which are in reality but one ... are sufficient to prove that our +figures are borrowed from the Arabs.”[624] Cipher is the Arabic +“cifron,” and means _empty_, a translation of the Sanscrit name +of the nought “synya,” he says. The Arabs had their figures from +Hindustan, and never claimed the discovery for themselves.[625] As +to the Pythagoreans, we need but turn to the ancient manuscripts +of Boëthius’s _Geometry_, composed in the sixth century, to find +in the Pythagorean numerals[626] the 1 and the _nought_, as +the first and final cipher. And Porphyry, who quotes from the +Pythagorean _Moderatus_,[627] says that the numerals of Pythagoras +were “hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained ideas +concerning the nature of things.” + +Now, if the most ancient Indian manuscripts show as yet no trace of +decimal notation in them, Max Müller states very clearly that until +now he has found but nine letters (the initials of the Sanscrit +numerals) in them--on the other hand we have records as ancient to +supply the wanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the sacred +imagery in the most ancient temples of the far East. Pythagoras +derived his knowledge from India; and we find Professor Max Müller +corroborating this statement, at least so far as allowing the +_Neo_-Pythagoreans to have been the first teachers of “ciphering” +among the Greeks and Romans; that “they, at Alexandria, or in Syria, +became acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted them to the +Pythagorean abacus” (our figures). This cautious allowance implies +that Pythagoras himself was acquainted with but _nine_ figures. So +that we might reasonably answer that although we possess no certain +proof that the decimal notation was known to Pythagoras, who lived +on the very close of the archaic ages,[628] we yet have sufficient +evidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Boëthius, were +known to the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was built.[629] +This evidence we find in Aristotle, who says that “some philosophers +hold that ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to +TEN in all.”[630] This, we believe, will be sufficient to show that +the decimal notation was known among them at least as early as four +centuries B.C., for Aristotle does not seem to treat the question as +an innovation of the “Neo-Pythagoreans.” + +Besides, as we have remarked above, the representations of the +archaic deities, on the walls of the temples, are of themselves quite +suggestive enough. So, for instance, Vishnu is represented in the +Kurmavatara (his second avatar) as a tortoise sustaining a circular +pillar, on which the semblance of himself (Maya, or the illusion) +sits with all his attributes. While one hand holds a flower, another +a club, the third a shell, the fourth, generally the upper one, or +at the right--holds on his forefinger, extended as the cipher 1, +the _chakra_, or discus, which resembles a ring, or a wheel, and +might be taken for the nought. In his first avatar, the Matsyavatam, +when emerging from the fish’s mouth, he is represented in the same +position.[631] The ten-armed Durga of Bengal; the ten-headed Ravana, +the giant; Parvati--as Durga, Indra, and Indrani, are found with this +attribute, which is a perfect representation of the May-pole.[632] + +The holiest of the temples among the Hindus, are those of Jaggarnâth. +This deity is worshipped equally by all the sects of India, and +_Jagg_arnâth is named “The Lord of the World.” He is the god of the +Mysteries, and his temples, which are most numerous in Bengal, are +all of a pyramidal form. + +There is no other deity which affords such a variety of etymologies +as Iaho, nor a name which can be so variously pronounced. It is only +by associating it with the Masoretic points that the later Rabbins +succeeded in making Jehovah read “Adonaï”--or Lord. Philo Byblus +spells it in Greek letters ΙΕΥΩ--IEOV. Theodoret says that the +Samaritans pronounced it _Iabè_ (_Yahva_) and the Jews Yaho; which +would make it as we have shown I-ah-O. Diodorus states that “among the +Jews they relate that Moses called the God Ιαω.” It is on the +authority of the _Bible_ itself, therefore, that we maintain that +before his initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses had never +known the word Iaho. The future Deity of the sons of Israel calls out +from the burning bush and gives His name as “I am that I am,” and +specifies carefully that He is the “Lord God of the Hebrews” (_Exod._ +iii. 18), not of the other nations. Judging him by his own acts, +throughout the Jewish records, we doubt whether Christ himself, had he +appeared in the days of the _Exodus_, would have been welcomed by the +irascible Sinaitic Deity. However, “The Lord God,” who becomes, on His +own confession, Jehovah only in the 6th chapter of _Exodus_ (verse 3) +finds his veracity put to a startling test in _Genesis_ xxii. 14, in +which _revealed_ passage Abraham builds an altar to _Jehovah-jireh_. + +It would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between +the mystery-God Ιαω, adopted from the highest antiquity by all who +participated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests, and his +phonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so little reverence +by the Ophites and other Gnostics. Once having burdened themselves +like the Azazel of the wilderness with the sins and iniquities of the +Jewish nation, it now appears hard for the Christians to have to +confess that those whom they thought fit to consider the “chosen +people” of God--their sole predecessors in monotheism--were, till a +very late period, as idolatrous and polytheistic as their neighbors. +The shrewd Talmudists have escaped the accusation for long centuries +by screening themselves behind the Masoretic invention. But, as in +everything else, truth was at last brought to light. We know now that +Ihoh יהוה must be read Iahoh and Iah, not Jehovah. Iah of the Hebrews +is plainly the Iacchos (Bacchus) of the Mysteries; the God “from whom +the liberation of souls was expected--Dionysus, Iacchos, Iahoh, +Iah.”[633] Aristotle then was right when he said: “Jon יהוה was +Oromasdes and Ahriman Pluto, for the God of heaven, Ahura-mazda, rides +on a chariot which the _Horse of the Sun_ follows.”[634] And Dunlap +quotes _Psalm_ lxviii. 4, which reads: + + “Praise him by his name Iach (יה), + Who rides upon the heavens, as on a horse,” + +and then shows that “the Arabs represented Iauk (Iach) by a horse. +The Horse of the Sun (Dionysus).”[635] Iah is a softening of Iach, +“he explains.” ח _ch_ and ה _h_ interchange; so _s_ softens to _h_. +The Hebrews express the idea of LIFE both by a _ch_ and an _h_; as +chiach, to be, hiah, to be; Iach, God of Life, Iah, “I _am_.”[636] +Well then may we repeat these lines of Ausonius: + + “Ogugiâ calls me Bacchus; Egypt thinks me Osiris; + The Musians name me Ph’anax; the Indi consider me Dionysus; + The Roman Mysteries call me Liber; the Arabian race Adonis!” + +And the chosen people Adoni and Jehovah--we may add. + +How little the philosophy of the old secret doctrine was understood, +is illustrated in the atrocious persecutions of the Templars by the +Church, and in the accusation of their worshipping the Devil under +the shape of the goat--Baphomet! Without going into the old Masonic +mysteries, there is not a Mason--of those we mean who _do know +something_--but has an idea of the true relation that Baphomet bore +to Azâzêl, the scapegoat of the wilderness,[637] whose character +and meaning are entirely perverted in the Christian translations. +“This terrible and venerable name of God,” says Lanci,[638] librarian +to the Vatican, “through the pen of biblical glossers, has been a +_devil_, a mountain, a _wilderness_, and a _he-goat_.” In Mackenzie’s +_Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, the author very correctly remarks that +“this word should be divided into Azaz and El,” for “it signifies +God of Victory, but is here used in the sense of _author of Death_, +in contrast to Jehovah, the _author of Life_; the latter received +a dead goat as an offering.”[639] The Hindu Trinity is composed of +three personages, which are convertible into one. The _Trimurti_ +is one, and in its abstraction indivisible, and yet we see a +metaphysical division taking place from the first, and while Brahma, +though collectively representing the three, remains behind the +scenes, Vishnu is the Life-Giver, the Creator, and the Preserver, +and Siva is the _Destroyer_, and the _Death-giving_ deity. “Death +to the _Life-Giver_, life to the _Death-dealer_. The symbolical +antithesis is grand and beautiful,” says Gliddon.[640] “_Deus est +Dæmon inversus_” of the kabalists now becomes clear. It is but the +intense and cruel desire to crush out the last vestige of the old +philosophies by perverting their meaning, for fear that their own +dogmas should not be rightly fathered on them, which impels the +Catholic Church to carry on such a systematic persecution in regard +to Gnostics, Kabalists, and even the comparatively innocent Masons. + +Alas, alas! How little has the divine seed, scattered broadcast by +the hand of the meek Judean philosopher, thrived or brought forth +fruit. He, who himself had shunned hypocrisy, warned against public +prayer, showing such contempt for any useless exhibition of the same, +could he but cast his sorrowful glance on the earth, from the regions +of eternal bliss, would see that this seed fell neither on sterile +rock nor by the way-side. Nay, it took deep root in the most prolific +soil; one enriched even to plethora with lies and human gore! + +“For, if the truth of God hath more abounded, _through my lie_ unto +his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” naïvely inquires +Paul, the best and sincerest of all the apostles. And he then adds: +“_Let us do evil_, that good may come!” (_Romans_ iii. 7, 8). This +is a confession which we are asked to believe as having been a +direct inspiration from God! It explains, if it does not excuse, the +maxim adopted later by the Church that “it is an act of virtue to +deceive and lie, when by such means the interests of _the Church_ +might be promoted.”[641] A maxim applied in its fullest sense by +that accomplished professor in forgery, the Armenian Eusebius; or +yet, that innocent-looking bible-kaleidoscopist--Irenæus. And these +men were followed by a whole army of pious assassins, who, in the +meanwhile, had improved upon the system of deceit, by proclaiming +that it was lawful even to kill, when by murder they could enforce +the new religion. Theophilus, “that perpetual enemy of peace and +virtue,” as the famous bishop was called; Cyril, Athanasius, the +murderer of Arius, and a host of other canonized “Saints,” were all +but too worthy successors of _Saint_ Constantine, who drowned his +wife in boiling water; butchered his little nephew; murdered, with +his own pious hand, two of his brothers-in-law; killed his own son +Crispus, bled to death several men and women, and smothered in a well +an old monk. However, we are told by Eusebius that this Christian +Emperor was rewarded by a _vision_ of Christ himself, bearing his +cross, who instructed him to march to other triumphs, inasmuch as he +would always protect him! + +It is under the shade of the Imperial standard, with its famous sign, +“_In hoc signo vinces_,” that “_visionary_” Christianity, which +had crept on since the days of Irenæus, arrogantly proclaimed its +rights in the full blaze of the sun. The Labarum had most probably +furnished the model for the _true_ cross, which was “miraculously,” +and agreeably to the Imperial will, found a few years later. Nothing +short of such a remarkable vision, impiously doubted by some severe +critics--Dr. Lardner for one--and a fresh miracle to match, could +have resulted in the finding of a cross where there had never +before been one. Still, we have either to believe the phenomenon +or dispute it at the risk of being treated as infidels; and this, +notwithstanding that upon a careful computation we would find that +the fragments of the “true Cross” had multiplied themselves even +more miraculously than the five loaves in the invisible bakery, and +the two fishes. In all cases like this, where miracles can be so +conveniently called in, there is no room for dull fact. History must +step out that fiction may step in. + +If the alleged founder of the Christian religion is now, after the +lapse of nineteen centuries, preached--more or less unsuccessfully +however--in every corner of the globe, we are at liberty to think +that the doctrines attributed to him would astonish and dismay him +more than any one else. A system of deliberate falsification was +adopted from the first. How determined Irenæus was to crush truth +and build up a Church of his own on the mangled remains of the seven +primitive churches mentioned in the _Revelation_, may be inferred +from his quarrel with Ptolemæus. And this is again a case of evidence +against which no blind faith can prevail. Ecclesiastical history +assures us that Christ’s ministry was but of three years’ duration. +There is a decided discrepancy on this point between the first three +synoptics and the fourth gospel; but it was left for Irenæus to show +to Christian posterity that so early as A.D. 180--the probable time +when this Father wrote his works against heresies--even such pillars +of the Church as himself either knew nothing certain about it, or +deliberately lied and falsified dates to support their own views. +So anxious was the worthy Father to meet every possible objection +against his plans, that no falsehood, no sophistry, was too much for +him. How are we to understand the following; and who is the falsifier +in this case? The argument of Ptolemæus was that Jesus was too young +to have taught anything of much importance; adding that “Christ +preached for _one year only_, and then suffered in the twelfth +month.” In this Ptolemæus was very little at variance with the +gospels. But Irenæus, carried by his object far beyond the limits of +prudence, from a mere discrepancy between one and three years, makes +it _ten_ and even twenty years! “Destroying his (Christ’s) whole +work, and _robbing him of that age_ which is _both necessary_ and +more honorable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during +which also, as a teacher, he excelled all others.” And then, having +no certain data to furnish, he throws himself back on _tradition_, +and claims that Christ had preached for over TEN years! (book ii., c. +22, pp. 4, 5). In another place he makes Jesus fifty years old. + +But we must proceed in our work of showing the various origins of +Christianity, as also the sources from which Jesus derived his own +ideas of God and humanity. + +The Koinobi lived in Egypt, where Jesus passed his early youth. They +were usually confounded with the Therapeutæ, who were a branch of +this widely-spread society. Such is the opinion of Godfrey Higgins +and De Rebold. After the downfall of the principal sanctuaries, +which had already begun in the days of Plato, the many different +sects, such as the Gymnosophists and the Magi--from whom Clearchus +very erroneously derives the former--the Pythagoreans, the Sufis, +and the Reshees of Kashmere, instituted a kind of international +and universal Freemasonry, among their esoteric societies. “These +Rashees,” says Higgins, “are the Essenians, Carmelites, or Nazarites +of the temple.”[642] “That occult science known by ancient priests +under the name of _regenerating fire_,” says father Rebold, “... a +science that for more than 3,000 years was the peculiar possession of +the Indian and Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge of which Moses +was initiated at Heliopolis, where he was educated; and Jesus among +the Essenian priests of Egypt or Judea; and by which these two great +reformers, _particularly the latter_, wrought many of the miracles +mentioned in the _Scriptures_.”[643] + +Plato states that the mystic Magian religion, known under the name +of _Machagistia_, is the most uncorrupted form of worship in things +divine. Later, the Mysteries of the Chaldean sanctuaries were added +to it by one of the Zoroasters and Darius Hystaspes. The latter +completed and perfected it still more with the help of the knowledge +obtained by him from the learned ascetics of India, whose rites were +identical with those of the initiated Magi.[644] Ammian, in his +history of Julian’s Persian expedition, gives the story by stating +that one day Hystaspes, as he was boldly penetrating into the unknown +regions of Upper India, had come upon a certain wooded solitude, the +tranquil recesses of which were “occupied by those exalted sages, +the Brachmanes (or Shamans). Instructed by their teaching in the +science of _the motions of the_ world and of the heavenly bodies, +and in _pure religious rites_ ... he transfused them into the creed +of the Magi. The latter, coupling these doctrines with their _own +peculiar science of foretelling the future_, have handed down the +whole through their descendants to succeeding ages.”[645] It is from +these descendants that the Sufis, chiefly composed of Persians and +Syrians, acquired their proficient knowledge in astrology, medicine, +and the esoteric doctrine of the ages. “The Sufi doctrine,” says C. +W. King, “involved the grand idea of one universal creed which could +be secretly held under any profession of an outward faith; and, in +fact, took virtually the same view of religious systems as that in +which the ancient philosophers had regarded such matters.”[646] +The mysterious Druzes of Mount Lebanon are the descendants of all +these. Solitary Copts, earnest students scattered hither and thither +throughout the sandy solitudes of Egypt, Arabia Petræa, Palestine, +and the impenetrable forests of Abyssinia, though rarely met with, +may sometimes be seen. Many and various are the nationalities to +which belong the disciples of that mysterious school, and many the +side-shoots of that one primitive stock. The secresy preserved by +these sub-lodges, as well as by the one and supreme great lodge, has +ever been proportionate to the activity of religious persecutions; +and now, in the face of the growing materialism, their very existence +is becoming a mystery.[647] + +But it must not be inferred, on that account, that such a mysterious +brotherhood is but a fiction, not even _a name_, though it remains +unknown to this day. Whether its affiliates are called by an +Egyptian, Hindu, or Persian name, it matters not. Persons belonging +to one of these sub-brotherhoods have been met by trustworthy, and +not unknown persons, besides the present writer, who states a few +facts concerning them, by the special permission of one _who has +a right to give it_. In a recent and very valuable work on secret +societies, K. R. H. Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, we find +the learned author himself, an honorary member of the Canongate +Kilwinning Lodge, No. 2 (Scotland), and a Mason not likely to be +imposed upon, stating the following, under the head, _Hermetic +Brothers of Egypt_: + +“An occult fraternity, which has endured from very ancient times, +having a hierarchy of officers, secret signs, and passwords, +and a peculiar method of instruction in science, religion, and +philosophy.... If we may believe those who, at the present time, +profess to belong to it, _the philosopher’s stone_, _the elixir of +life_, _the art of invisibility_, and the power of communication +directly with the ultramundane life, are parts of the inheritance +they possess. The writer has met with only three persons who +maintained the actual existence of this body of religious +philosophers, and who hinted that they themselves were actually +members. There was no reason to doubt the good faith of these +individuals--apparently unknown to each other, and men of moderate +competence, blameless lives, austere manners, and almost ascetic in +their habits. They all appeared to be men of forty to forty-five +years of age, and evidently of vast erudition ... their knowledge of +languages not to be doubted.... They never remained long in any one +country, but passed away without creating notice.”[648] + +Another of such sub-brotherhoods is the sect of the Pitris, in +India. Known by name, now that Jacolliot has brought it into public +notice, it yet is more arcane, perhaps, than the brotherhood that Mr. +Mackenzie names the “Hermetic Brothers.” What Jacolliot learned of +it, was from fragmentary manuscripts delivered to him by Brahmans, +who had their reasons for doing so, we must believe. The _Agrouchada +Parikshai_ gives certain details about the association, as it was +in days of old, and, when explaining mystic rites and magical +incantations, explains nothing at all, so that the mystic L’om, +L’Rhum, Sh’hrum, and Sho-rim Ramaya-Namaha, remain, for the mystified +writer, as much a puzzle as ever. To do him justice, though, he fully +admits the fact, and does not enter upon useless speculations. + +Whoever desires to assure himself that there now exists a religion +which has baffled, for centuries, the impudent inquisitiveness +of missionaries, and the persevering inquiry of science, let him +violate, if he can, the seclusion of the Syrian Druzes. He will find +them numbering over 80,000 warriors, scattered from the plain east +of Damascus to the western coast. They covet no proselytes, shun +notoriety, keep friendly--as far as possible--with both Christians +and Mahometans, respect the religion of every other sect or people, +but will never disclose their own secrets. Vainly do the missionaries +stigmatize them as infidels, idolaters, brigands, and thieves. +Neither threat, bribe, nor any other consideration will induce a +Druze to become a convert to dogmatic Christianity. We have heard of +two in fifty years, and both have finished their careers in prison, +for drunkenness and theft. They proved to be “real _Druzes_,”[649] +said one of their chiefs, in discussing the subject. There never +was a case of an _initiated_ Druze becoming a Christian. As to the +uninitiated, they are never allowed to even see the sacred writings, +and none of them have the remotest idea where these are kept. There +are missionaries in Syria who boast of having in their possession +a few copies. The volumes alleged to be the correct expositions +from these secret books (such as the translation by Petis de la +Croix, in 1701, from the works presented by Nasr-Allah to the French +king), are nothing more than a compilation of “secrets,” known more +or less to every inhabitant of the southern ranges of Lebanon and +Anti-Libanus. They were the work of an apostate Dervish, who was +expelled from the sect Hanafi, for improper conduct--the embezzlement +of the money of widows and orphans. The _Exposé de la Religion des +Druzes_, in two volumes, by Sylvestre de Sacy (1828), is another +net-work of hypotheses. A copy of this work was to be found, in 1870, +on the window-sill of one of their principal _Holowey_, or place +of religious meeting. To the inquisitive question of an English +traveller, as to their rites, the _Okhal_,[650] a venerable old man, +who spoke English as well as French, opened the volume of de Sacy, +and, offering it to his interlocutor, remarked, with a benevolent +smile: “Read this instructive and truthful book; I could explain to +you neither better nor more correctly the secrets of God and our +blessed Hamsa, than it does.” The traveller understood the hint. + +Mackenzie says they settled at Lebanon about the tenth century, and +“seem to be a mixture of Kurds, Mardi-Arabs, and other semi-civilized +tribes. Their religion is compounded of Judaism, Christianity, and +Mahometanism. They have a regular order of priesthood and _a kind of +hierarchy_ ... there is a regular system of passwords and signs.... +Twelve month’s probation, to which either sex is admitted, preceded +initiation.” + +We quote the above only to show how little even persons as +trustworthy as Mr. Mackenzie really know of these mystics. + +Mosheim, who knows as much, or we should rather say as little, as any +others, is entitled to the merit of candidly admitting that “their +religion is peculiar to themselves, and is involved in some mystery.” +We should say it was--rather! + +That their religion exhibits traces of Magianism and Gnosticism is +natural, as the whole of the Ophite esoteric philosophy is at the +bottom of it. But the characteristic dogma of the Druzes is the +absolute unity of God. He is the essence of life, and although +incomprehensible and invisible, is to be known through _occasional +manifestations in human form_.[651] Like the Hindus they hold that +he was incarnated more than once on earth. Hamsa was the _precursor_ +of the last manifestation to be (the tenth _avatar_)[652] not the +inheritor of Hakem, who is yet to come. Hamsa was the personification +of the “Universal Wisdom.” Boha-eddin in his writings calls him +Messiah. The whole number of his disciples, or those who at +different ages of the world have imparted wisdom to mankind, which +the latter as invariably have forgotten and rejected in course of +time, is one hundred and sixty-four (164, the kabalistic _s d k_). +Therefore, their stages or degrees of promotion after initiation +are five; the first three degrees are typified by the “three feet +of the candlestick of the inner Sanctuary, which holds the light of +the _five_ elements;” the last two degrees, the most important and +terrifying in their solemn grandeur belonging to the highest orders; +and the whole five degrees emblematically represent the said five +mystic Elements. The “three feet are the holy _Application_, the +_Opening_, and the _Phantom_,” says one of their books; on man’s +inner and outer soul, and his body, a phantom, a passing shadow. The +body, or matter, is also called the “Rival,” for “he is the minister +of sin, the Devil ever creating dissensions between the Heavenly +Intelligence (spirit) and the soul, which he tempts incessantly.” +Their ideas on transmigration are Pythagorean and kabalistic. The +spirit, or Temeami (the divine soul), was in Elijah and John the +Baptist; and the soul of Jesus was that of H’amsa; that is to say, +of the same degree of purity and sanctity. Until their resurrection, +by which they understand the day when the spiritual bodies of men +will be absorbed into God’s own essence and being (the Nirvana of the +Hindus), the souls of men will keep their astral forms, except the +few chosen ones who, from the moment of their separation from their +bodies, begin to exist as pure spirits. The life of man they divide +into soul, body, and intelligence, or mind. It is the latter which +imparts and communicates to the soul the divine spark from its H’amsa +(Christos). + +They have seven great commandments which are imparted equally to all +the uninitiated; and yet, even these well-known articles of faith +have been so mixed up in the accounts of outside writers, that, in +one of the best Cyclopædias of America (Appleton’s), they are garbled +after the fashion that may be seen in the comparative tabulation +below; the spurious and the true order parallel: + + CORRECT VERSION OF THE GARBLED VERSION + COMMANDMENTS AS IMPARTED REPORTED BY THE + ORALLY BY THE CHRISTIAN + TEACHERS.[653] MISSIONARIES AND + given in Pretended + Expositions.[654] + + 1. _The unity of God_, or the 1. (2) “‘Truth in words,’ + infinite oneness of Deity. meaning in practice, + _only truth to the + religion and to the + initiated; it is lawful + to act and to speak + falsehood to men of + another creed_.”[655] + + 2. _The essential excellence 2. (7) “Mutual help, + of Truth._ watchfulness, and + protection.” + + 3. Toleration; right given to 3. (?) “To renounce all + all men and women to freely other religions.”[656] + express their opinions on + religious matters, and make + the latter subservient to + reason. + + 4. Respect to all men and 4. (?) “To be separate from + women according to their infidels of every kind, + character and conduct. not externally but only + in heart.”[657] + + 5. Entire submission to God’s 5. (1) “Recognize God’s + decrees. eternal unity.” + + 6. Chastity of body, mind, and 6. (5) “Satisfied with God’s + soul. acts.” + + 7. Mutual help under all 7. (5) “Resigned to God’s + conditions. will.” + +As will be seen, the only exposé in the above is that of the great +ignorance, perhaps malice, of the writers who, like Sylvestre de +Sacy, undertake to enlighten the world upon matters concerning which +they know nothing. + +“Chastity, honesty, meekness, and mercy,” are thus the four +theological virtues of all Druzes, besides several others demanded +from the initiates: “murder, theft, cruelty, covetousness, slander,” +the five sins, to which several other sins are added in the sacred +tablets, but which we must abstain from giving. The morality of +the Druzes is strict and uncompromising. Nothing can tempt one of +these Lebanon Unitarians to go astray from what he is taught to +consider his duty. _Their ritual being unknown to outsiders_, their +would-be historians have hitherto denied them one. Their “Thursday +meetings” are open to all, but no interloper has ever participated +in the rites of initiation which take place occasionally on Fridays +in the greatest secresy. Women are admitted to them as well as men, +and they play a part of great importance at the initiation of men. +The probation, unless some extraordinary exception is made, is long +and severe. Once, in a certain period of time, a solemn ceremony +takes place, during which all the elders and the initiates of the +highest two degrees start out for a pilgrimage of several days to a +certain place in the mountains. They meet within the safe precincts +of a monastery said to have been erected during the earliest times +of the Christian era. Outwardly one sees but old ruins of a once +grand edifice, used, says the legend, by some Gnostic sects as +a place of worship during the religious persecutions. The ruins +above ground, however, are but a convenient mask; the subterranean +chapel, halls, and cells, covering an area of ground far greater +than the upper building; while the richness of ornamentation, the +beauty of the ancient sculptures, and the gold and silver vessels +in this sacred resort, appear like “a dream of glory,” according to +the expression of an initiate. As the lamaseries of Mongolia and +Thibet are visited upon grand occasions by the holy shadow of “Lord +Buddha,” so here, during the ceremonial, appears the resplendent +ethereal form of Hamsa, the Blessed, which instructs the faithful. +The most extraordinary feats of what would be termed magic take place +during the several nights that the convocation lasts; and one of the +greatest mysteries--faithful copy of the past--is accomplished within +the discreet bosom of our mother earth; not an echo, nor the faintest +sound, not a glimmer of light betrays without the grand secret of the +initiates. + +Hamsa, like Jesus, was a mortal man, and yet “Hamsa” and “Christos” +are synonymous terms as to their inner and hidden meaning. Both are +symbols of the _Nous_, the divine and higher soul of man--his spirit. +The doctrine taught by the Druzes on that particular question of the +duality of spiritual man, consisting of one soul mortal, and another +immortal, is identical with that of the Gnostics, the older Greek +philosophers, and other initiates. + +Outside the East we have met one initiate (and only one), who, +for some reasons best known to himself, does not make a secret of +his initiation into the Brotherhood of Lebanon. It is the learned +traveller and artist, Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York City. This +gentleman has passed many years in the East, four times visited +Palestine, and has travelled to Mecca. It is safe to say that he +has a priceless store of facts about the beginnings of the Christian +Church, which none but one who had had free access to repositories +closed against the ordinary traveller could have collected. Professor +Rawson, with the true devotion of a man of science, noted down +every important discovery he made in the Palestinian libraries, +and every precious fact orally communicated to him by the mystics +he encountered, and some day they will see the light. He has most +obligingly sent us the following communication, which, as the reader +will perceive, fully corroborates what is above written from our +personal experience about the strange fraternity incorrectly styled +the Druzes: + + “34 BOND ST., NEW YORK, June 6, 1877. + + “... Your note, asking me to give you an account of my + initiation into a secret order among the people commonly + known as Druzes, in Mount Lebanon, was received this + morning. I took, as you are fully aware, an obligation at + that time to conceal within my own memory the greater part + of the ‘mysteries,’ with the most interesting parts of the + ‘instructions;’ so that what is left may not be of any + service to the public. Such information as I can rightfully + give, you are welcome to have and use as you may have + occasion. + + “The probation in my case was, by _special dispensation_, + made one month, during which time I was ‘shadowed’ by a + priest, who served as my cook, guide, interpreter, and + general servant, that he might be able to testify to the + fact of my having strictly conformed to the rules in diet, + ablutions, and other matters. He was also my instructor + in the text of the ritual, which we recited from time to + time for practice, in dialogue or in song, as it may have + been. Whenever we happened to be near a Druze village, on + a Thursday, we attended the ‘open’ meetings, where men + and women assembled for instruction and worship, and to + expose to the world generally their religious practices. + I was never present at a Friday ‘close’ meeting before my + initiation, nor do I believe any one else, man or woman, + ever was, except by collusion with a priest, and that is + not probable, for a false priest forfeits his life. The + practical jokers among them sometimes ‘fool’ a too curious + ‘Frank’ by a sham initiation, especially if such a one is + suspected of having some connection with the missionaries + at Beirut or elsewhere. + + “The initiates include both women and men, and the + ceremonies are of so peculiar a nature that both sexes + are required to assist in the ritual and ‘work.’ + The ‘furniture’ of the ‘prayer-house’ and of the + ‘vision-chamber’ is simple, and except for convenience may + consist of but a strip of carpet. In the ‘Gray Hall’ (the + place is never named, and is underground, _not far_ from + Bayt-ed-Deen) there are some rich decorations and valuable + pieces of ancient furniture, the work of Arab silversmiths + five or six centuries ago, inscribed and dated. The day of + initiation must be a continual fast from daylight to sunset + in winter, or six o’clock in summer, and the ceremony is + from beginning to end a series of trials and temptations, + calculated to test the endurance of the candidate under + physical and mental pressure. It is seldom that any but the + young man or woman succeeds in ‘winning’ all the ‘prizes,’ + since _nature will sometimes exert itself_ in spite of the + most stubborn will, and the neophyte fail of passing some + of the tests. In such a case the probation is extended + another year, when another trial is had. + + “Among other tests of the neophyte’s self-control are the + following: Choice pieces of cooked meat, savory soup, + pilau, and other appetizing dishes, with sherbet, coffee, + wine, and water, are set, as if accidentally, in his way, + and he is left alone for a time with the tempting things. + To a hungry and fainting soul the trial is severe. But a + more difficult ordeal is when the seven priestesses retire, + all but one, the youngest and prettiest, and the door + is closed and barred on the outside, after warning the + candidate that he will be left to his ‘reflections,’ for + half an hour. Wearied by the long-continued ceremonial, + weak with hunger, parched with thirst, and a sweet + reaction coming after the tremendous strain to keep his + animal nature in subjection, this moment of privacy and of + temptation is brimful of peril. The beautiful young vestal, + timidly approaching, and with glances which lend a double + magnetic allurement to her words, begs him in low tones to + ‘bless her.’ Woe to him if he does! A hundred eyes see him + from secret peep-holes, and only to the ignorant neophyte + is there the appearance of concealment and opportunity. + + “There is no infidelity, idolatry, or other really bad + feature in the system. They have the relics of what was + once a grand form of nature-worship, which has been + contracted under a despotism into a secret order, hidden + from the light of day, and exposed only in the smoky glare + of a few burning lamps, in some damp cave or chapel under + ground. The chief tenets of their religious teachings are + comprised in seven ‘tablets,’ which are these, to state + them in general terms: + + “1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of deity. + + “2. The essential excellence of truth. + + “3. The law of toleration as to all men and women in + opinion. + + “4. Respect for all men and women as to character and + conduct. + + “5. Entire submission to God’s decrees as to fate. + + “6. Chastity of body and mind and soul. + + “7. Mutual help under all conditions. + + “These tenets are not printed or written. Another set is + printed or written to mislead the unwary, but with these we + are not concerned. + + “The chief results of the initiation seemed to be a kind + of mental illusion or sleep-waking, in which the neophyte + saw, or thought he saw, the images of people who were + known to be absent, and in some cases thousands of miles + away. I thought (or perhaps it was my mind at work) I saw + friends and relatives that I knew at the time were in New + York State, while I was then in Lebanon. How these results + were produced I cannot say. They appeared in a dark room, + when the ‘guide’ was talking, the ‘company’ singing in + the next ‘chamber,’ and near the close of the day, when + I was tired out with fasting, walking, talking, singing, + robing, unrobing, seeing a great many people in various + conditions as to dress and undress, and with great mental + strain in resisting certain physical manifestations that + result from the appetites when they overcome the will, and + in paying close attention to the passing scenes, hoping + to remember them--so that I may have been unfit to judge + of any new and surprising phenomena, and more especially + of those apparently magical appearances which have always + excited my suspicion and distrust. I know the various + uses of the magic-lantern, and other apparatus, and took + care to examine the room where the ‘visions’ appeared to + me the same evening, and the next day, and several times + afterwards, and knew that, in my case, there was no use + made of any machinery or other means besides the voice of + the ‘guide and instructor.’ On several occasions afterward, + when at a great distance from the ‘chamber,’ the same + or similar visions were produced, as, for instance, in + Hornstein’s Hotel at Jerusalem. A daughter-in-law of a + well-known Jewish merchant in Jerusalem is an initiated + ‘sister,’ and can produce the visions almost at will on any + one who will live strictly according to the rules of the + Order for a few weeks, more or less, according to their + nature, as gross or refined, etc. + + “I am quite safe in saying that the initiation is so + peculiar that it could not be printed so as to instruct + one who had not been ‘worked’ through the ‘chamber.’ So it + would be even more impossible to make an exposé of them + than of the Freemasons. The real secrets are acted and not + spoken, and require several initiated persons to assist in + the work. + + “It is not necessary for me to say how some of the notions + of that people seem to perpetuate certain beliefs of the + ancient Greeks--as, for instance, the idea that a man has + two souls, and many others--for you probably were made + familiar with them in your passage through the ‘upper’ + and ‘lower chamber.’ If I am mistaken in supposing you an + ‘initiate,’ please excuse me. I am aware that the closest + friends often conceal that ‘sacred secret’ from each other; + and even husband and wife may live--as I was informed + in Dayr-el-Kamar was the fact in one family there--for + twenty years together and yet neither know anything of + the initiation of the other. You, undoubtedly, have good + reasons for keeping your own counsel. + + “Yours truly, + “A. L. RAWSON.” + +Before we close the subject we may add that if a stranger ask for +admission to a “Thursday” meeting he will never be refused. Only, if +he is a Christian, the _okhal_ will open a _Bible_ and read from it; +and if a Mahometan, he will hear a few chapters of the _Koran_, and +the ceremony will end with this. They will wait until he is gone, and +then, shutting well the doors of their convent, take to their own +rites and books, passing for this purpose into their subterranean +sanctuaries. “The Druzes remain, even more than the Jews, a peculiar +people,” says Colonel Churchill,[658] one of the few fair and +strictly impartial writers. “They marry within their own race; they +are rarely if ever converted; they adhere tenaciously to their +traditions, and they baffle all efforts to discover their cherished +secrets.... The bad name of that caliph whom they claim as their +founder is fairly compensated by the pure lives of many whom they +honor as saints, and by the heroism of their feudal leaders.” + +And yet the Druzes may be said to belong to one of the least esoteric +of secret societies. There are others far more powerful and learned, +the existence of which is not even suspected in Europe. There are +many branches belonging to the great “Mother Lodge” which, mixed +up with certain communities, may be termed secret sects within +other sects. One of them is the sect commonly known as that of +Laghana-Sastra. It reckons several thousand adepts who are scattered +about in small groups in the south of the Dekkan, India. In the +popular superstition, this sect is dreaded on account of its great +reputation for magic and sorcery. The Brahmans accuse its members of +atheism and sacrilege, for none of them will consent to recognize +the authority of either the _Vedas_ or _Manu_, except so far as +they conform to the versions in their possession, and which they +maintain are professedly the only original texts; the Laghana-Sastra +have neither temples nor priests, but, twice a month, every member +of the community has to absent himself from home for three days. +Popular rumor, originated among their women, ascribes such absences +to pilgrimages performed to their places of fortnightly resort. In +some secluded mountainous spots, unknown and inaccessible to other +sects, hidden far from sight among the luxurious vegetation of +India, they keep their bungalows, which look like small fortresses, +encircled as they are by lofty and thick walls. These, in their turn, +are surrounded by the sacred trees called _assonata_, and in Tamül +_arassa maram_. These are the “sacred groves,” the originals of those +of Egypt and Greece, whose initiates also built their temples within +such “groves” inaccessible to the profane.[659] + +It will not be found without interest to see what Mr. John +Yarker, Jr., has to say on some modern secret societies among the +Orientals. “The nearest resemblance to the Brahmanical Mysteries, +is probably found in the very ancient ‘_Paths_’ of the Dervishes, +which are usually governed by twelve officers, the oldest ‘Court’ +superintending the others by right of seniority. Here the master of +the ‘Court’ is called ‘_Sheik_,’ and has his deputies, ‘Caliphs,’ +or successors, of which there may be many (as, for instance, in +the brevet degree of a Master Mason). The order is divided into at +least four columns, pillars, or degrees. The first step is that +of ‘Humanity,’ which supposes attention to the written law, and +‘annihilation in the _Sheik_.’ The second is that of the ‘Path,’ +in which the ‘_Murid_,’ or disciple, attains spiritual powers and +‘self-annihilation’ into the ‘Peer’ or founder of the ‘Path.’ The +third stage is called ‘Knowledge,’ and the ‘_Murid_’ is supposed +to become inspired, called ‘annihilation into the Prophet.’ The +fourth stage leads him even to God, when he becomes a part of the +Deity and sees Him in all things. The first and second stages have +received modern subdivisions, as ‘Integrity,’ ‘Virtue,’ ‘Temperance,’ +‘Benevolence.’ After this the Sheik confers upon him the grade of +‘Caliph,’ or Honorary Master, for in their mystical language, ‘the +man must die before the saint can be born.’ It will be seen that this +kind of mysticism is applicable to Christ as founder of a ‘Path.’” + +To this statement, the author adds the following on the Bektash +Dervishes, who “often initiated the Janizaries. They wear _a small +marble cube spotted with blood_. Their ceremony is as follows: Before +reception a year’s probation is required, during which false secrets +are given to test the candidate; he has two godfathers _and is +divested of all metals and even clothing_; from the wool of a sheep a +cord is made for his neck, and a girdle for his loins; he is led into +the centre of a square room, presented as a slave, and seated upon +a large stone with twelve escallops; his arms are crossed upon his +breast, his body inclined forward, his right toes extended over his +left foot; after various prayers he is placed in a particular manner, +with his hand in a peculiar way in that of the Sheik, who repeats a +verse from the _Koran_: ‘Those who on giving thee their hand swear +to thee an oath, swear it to God, the hand of God is placed in +their hand; whoever violates this oath, will do so to his hurt, and +to whoever remains faithful God will give a magnificent reward.’ +Placing the hand below the chin is their sign, perhaps in memory of +their vow. All use the double triangles. The Brahmans inscribe the +angles with their trinity, and they possess also the Masonic sign of +distress as used in France.”[660] + +From the very day when the first mystic found the means of +communication between this world and the worlds of the invisible +host, between the sphere of matter and that of pure spirit, he +concluded that to abandon this mysterious science to the profanation +of the rabble was to lose it. An abuse of it might lead mankind to +speedy destruction; it was like surrounding a group of children with +explosive batteries, and furnishing them with matches. The first +self-made adept initiated but a select few, and kept silence with the +multitudes. He recognized his God and felt the great Being within +himself. The “Âtman,” the Self,[661] the mighty Lord and Protector, +once that man knew him as the “_I am_,” the “_Ego Sum_” the “_Ahmi_,” +showed his full power to him who could recognize the “_still small +voice_.” From the days of the primitive man described by the first +Vedic poet, down to our modern age, there has not been a philosopher +worthy of that name, who did not carry in the silent sanctuary of +his heart the grand and mysterious truth. If initiated, he learnt +it as a sacred science; if otherwise, then, like Socrates repeating +to himself, as well as to his fellow-men, the noble injunction, +“O man, know thyself,” he succeeded in recognizing his God within +himself. “Ye are gods,” the king-psalmist tells us, and we find +Jesus reminding the scribes that the expression, “Ye are gods,” +was addressed to other mortal men, claiming for himself the same +privilege without any blasphemy.[662] And, as a faithful echo, Paul, +while asserting that we are all “the temple of the living God,”[663] +cautiously adds, that after all these things are only for the “wise,” +and it is “unlawful” to speak of them. + +Therefore, we must accept the reminder, and simply remark that even +in the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the _Codex Nazaræus_, +we detect throughout the same idea. Like an undercurrent, rapid and +clear, it runs without mixing its crystalline purity with the muddy +and heavy waves of dogmatism. We find it in the _Codex_, as well +as in the _Vedas_, in the _Avesta_, as in the _Abhidharma_, and in +_Kapila’s Sânkhya Sûtras_ not less than in the _Fourth Gospel_. We +cannot attain the “Kingdom of Heaven,” unless we unite ourselves +indissolubly with our _Rex Lucis_, the Lord of Splendor and of +Light, our Immortal God. We must first conquer immortality and +“take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence,” offered to our material +selves. “The first man is of the earth earthy; the _second_ man _is +from heaven_.... Behold, I show you a _mystery_,” says Paul (_1 +Corinthians_, xv. 47). In the religion of Sakya-Mum, which learned +commentators have delighted so much of late to set down as purely +_nihilistic_, the doctrine of immortality is very clearly defined, +notwithstanding the European or rather Christian ideas about Nirvana. +In the sacred Jaïna books, of Patuna, the dying Gautama-Buddha is +thus addressed: “Arise into _Nirvi_ (Nirvana) from this decrepit +body into which thou hast been sent. Ascend into _thy former abode_, +O blessed Avatar!” This seems to us the very opposite of Nihilism. +If Gautama is invited to reäscend into his “former abode,” and this +abode is Nirvana, then it is incontestable that Buddhistic philosophy +does _not_ teach final annihilation. As Jesus is alleged to have +appeared to his disciples after death, so to the present day is +Gautama believed to descend from Nirvana. And if he has an existence +there, then this state cannot be a synonym for _annihilation_. + +Gautama, no less than all other great reformers, had a doctrine for +his “elect” and another for the outside masses, though the main +object of his reform consisted in initiating all, so far as it was +permissible and prudent to do, without distinction of castes or +wealth, to the great truths hitherto kept so secret by the selfish +Brahmanical class. Gautama-Buddha it was whom we see the first in +the world’s history, moved by that generous feeling which locks the +whole humanity within one embrace, inviting the “poor,” the “lame,” +and the “blind” to the King’s festival table, from which he excluded +those who had hitherto sat alone, in haughty seclusion. It was he, +who, with a bold hand, first opened the door of the sanctuary to the +pariah, the fallen one, and all those “afflicted by men” clothed in +gold and purple, often far less worthy than the outcast to whom their +finger was scornfully pointing. All this did Siddhârtha six centuries +before another reformer, as noble and as loving, though less favored +by opportunity, in another land. If both, aware of the great danger +of furnishing an uncultivated populace with the double-edged weapon +of _knowledge which gives power_, left the innermost corner of the +sanctuary in the profoundest shade, who, that is acquainted with +human nature, can blame them for it? But while one was actuated by +prudence, the other was forced into such a course. Gautama left +the esoteric and most dangerous portion of the “secret knowledge” +untouched, and lived to the ripe old age of eighty, with the +certainty of having taught the essential truths, and having converted +to them one-third of the world; Jesus promised his disciples the +knowledge which confers upon man the power _of producing far greater +miracles than he ever did himself_, and he died, leaving but a few +faithful men, only half way to knowledge, to struggle with the world +to which they could impart but what they _half_-knew themselves. +Later, their followers disfigured truth still more than they +themselves had done. + +It is not true that Gautama never taught anything concerning a +future life, or that he denied the immortality of the soul. Ask any +intelligent Buddhist his ideas on Nirvana, and he will unquestionably +express himself, as the well-known Wong-Chin-Fu, the Chinese orator, +now travelling in this country, did in a recent conversation with +us about _Niepang_ (Nirvana). “This condition,” he remarked, “we all +understand to mean a final reünion with God, coïncident with the +perfection of the human spirit by its ultimate disembarrassment of +matter. It is the very opposite of personal annihilation.” + +Nirvana means the certitude of personal immortality in _Spirit_, not +in _Soul_, which, as a finite emanation, must certainly disintegrate +its particles a compound of human sensations, passions, and yearning +for some objective kind of existence, before the immortal spirit +of the _Ego_ is quite freed, and henceforth secure against further +transmigration in any form. And how can man ever reach this state so +long as the _Upadāna_, that state of longing for _life_, more life, +does not disappear from the sentient being, from the _Ahancara_ +clothed, however, in a sublimated body? It is the “Upādana” or the +intense desire which produces WILL, and it is _will_ which develops +_force_, and the latter generates _matter_, or an object having +form. Thus the disembodied _Ego_, through this sole undying desire +in him, unconsciously furnishes the conditions of his successive +self-procreations in various forms, which depend on his mental state +and _Karma_, the good or bad deeds of his preceding existence, +commonly called “merit and demerit.” This is why the “Master” +recommended to his mendicants the cultivation of the four degrees of +Dhȳana, the noble “Path of the Four Truths,” _i.e._, that gradual +acquirement of stoical indifference for either life or death; that +state of spiritual self-contemplation during which man utterly loses +sight of his physical and dual individuality, composed of soul and +body; and uniting himself with his third and higher immortal self the +_real and heavenly man_ merges, so to say, into the divine Essence, +whence his own spirit proceeded like a spark from the common hearth. +Thus the Arhat, the holy mendicant, can reach Nirvana while yet +on earth; and his spirit, totally freed from the trammels of the +“psychical, terrestrial, _devilish_ wisdom,” as James calls it, and +being in its own nature omniscient and omnipotent, can on earth, +through the sole power of his _thought_, produce the greatest of +phenomena. + +“It is the missionaries in China and India, who first started this +falsehood about Niepang, or Nïepana (Nirvana),” says Wong-Chin-Fu. +Who can deny the truth of this accusation after reading the works of +the Abbé Dubois, for instance? A missionary who passes forty years +of his life in India, and then writes that the “Buddhists admit +of no other God but the body of man, and have no other object but +the satisfaction of their senses,” utters an untruth which can be +proved on the testimony of the laws of the Talapoins of Siam and +Birmah; laws, which prevail unto this very day and which sentence a +sahân, or _punghi_ (a learned man; from the Sanscrit _pundit_), as +well as a simple Talapoin, to death by decapitation, for the crime +of unchastity. No foreigner can be admitted into their _Kyums_, or +Viharas (monasteries); and yet there are French writers, otherwise +impartial and fair, who, speaking of the great severity of the rules +to which the Buddhist monks are subjected in these communities, and +without possessing one single fact to corroborate their skepticism, +bluntly say, that “notwithstanding the great laudations bestowed upon +them (Talapoins) by certain travellers, merely on the _strength of +appearances_, I do not believe at all in their chastity.”[664] + +Fortunately for the Buddhist talapoins, lamas, sahâns, upasampadas,[665] +and even samenaïras,[666] they have popular records and facts for +themselves, which are weightier than the unsupported personal opinion +of a Frenchman, born in Catholic lands, whom we can hardly blame for +having lost all faith in clerical virtue. When a Buddhist monk becomes +guilty (which does not happen once in a century, perhaps) of criminal +conversation, he has neither a congregation of tender-hearted members, +whom he can move to tears by an eloquent confession of his guilt, nor +a Jesus, on whose overburdened, long-suffering bosom are flung, as in +a common Christian dust-box, all the impurities of the race. No +Buddhist transgressor can comfort himself with visions of a Vatican, +within whose sin-encompassing walls black is turned into white, +murderers into sinless saints, and golden or silvery lotions can be +bought at the confessional to cleanse the tardy penitent of greater or +lesser offenses against God and man. + +Except a few impartial archæologists, who trace a direct Buddhistic +element in Gnosticism, as in all those early short-lived sects +we know of very few authors, who, in writing upon primitive +Christianity, have accorded to the question its due importance. Have +we not facts enough to, at least, suggest some interest in that +direction? Do we not learn that, as early as in the days of Plato, +there were “Brachmans”--read Buddhist, Samaneans, Saman, or Shaman +missionaries--in Greece, and that, at one time, they had overflowed +the country? Does not Pliny show them established on the shores of +the Dead Sea, for “thousands of ages?” After making every necessary +allowance for the exaggeration, we still have several centuries B.C. +left as a margin. And is it possible that their influence should +not have left deeper traces in all these sects than is generally +thought? We know that the Jaïna sect claims Buddhism as derived +from its tenets--that Buddhism existed before Siddhârtha, better +known as Gautama-Buddha. The Hindu Brahmans who, by the European +Orientalists, are denied the right of knowing anything about their +own country, or understanding their own language and records better +than those who have never been in India, on the same principle as +the Jews are forbidden, by the Christian theologians, to interpret +their own Scriptures--the Brahmans, we say, have authentic records. +And these show the incarnation from the Virgin Avany of the first +Buddha--_divine light_--as having taken place more than some +thousands of years B.C., on the island of Ceylon. The Brahmans +reject the claim that it was an avatar of Vishnu, but admit the +appearance of a reformer of Brahmanism at that time. The story of +the Virgin Avany and her divine son, Sâkya-muni, is recorded in one +of the sacred books of the Cinghalese Buddhists--the _Nirdhasa_; and +the Brahmanic chronology fixes the great Buddhistic revolution and +religious war, and the subsequent spread of Sâkya-muni’s doctrine in +Thibet, China, Japan, and other places at 4,620 years B.C.[667] + +It is clear that Gautama-Buddha, the son of the King of Kapilavastu, +and the descendant of the first Sakya, through his father, who was +of the Kshatriya, or warrior-caste, did not invent his philosophy. +Philanthropist by nature, his ideas were developed and matured while +under the tuition of Tir-thankara, the famous guru of the Jaïna sect. +The latter claim the present Buddhism as a diverging branch of their +own philosophy, and themselves, as the only followers of the first +Buddha who were allowed to remain in India, after the expulsion of +all other Buddhists, probably because they had made a compromise, +and admitted some of the Brahmanic notions. It is, to say the +least, curious, that three dissenting and inimical religions, like +Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jaïnism, should agree so perfectly in their +traditions and chronology, as to Buddhism, and that our scientists +should give a hearing but to their own unwarranted speculations and +hypotheses. If the birth of Gautama may, with some show of reason, be +placed at about 600 B.C., then the preceding Buddhas ought to have +some place allowed them in chronology. The Buddhas are not gods, +but simply individuals overshadowed by the spirit of Buddha--the +divine ray. Or is it because, unable to extricate themselves from the +difficulty by the help of their own researches only, our Orientalists +prefer to obliterate and deny the whole, rather than accord to the +Hindus the right of knowing something of their own religion and +history? Strange way of discovering truths! + +The common argument adduced against the Jaïna claim, of having +been the source of the restoration of ancient Buddhism, that the +principal tenet of the latter religion is opposed to the belief of +the Jaïnas, is not a sound one. Buddhists, say our Orientalists, +deny the existence of a Supreme Being; the Jaïnas admit one, but +protest against the assumption that the “He” can ever interfere +in the regulation of the universe. We have shown in the preceding +chapter that the Buddhists do not deny any such thing. But if any +disinterested scholar could study carefully the Jaïna literature, +in their thousands of books preserved--or shall we say hidden--in +Rajpootana, Jusselmere, at Patun, and other places;[668] and +especially if he could but gain access to the oldest of their sacred +volumes, he would find a perfect identity of philosophical thought, +if not of popular rites, between the Jaïnas and the Buddhists. The +Adi-Buddha and Adinâtha (or Adiswara) are identical in essence and +purpose. And now, if we trace the Jaïnas back, with their claims to +the ownership of the oldest cave-temples (those superb specimens +of Indian architecture and sculpture), and their records of an +almost incredible antiquity, we can hardly refuse to view them in +the light which they claim for themselves. We must admit, that in +all probability they are the only true descendants of the primitive +owners of old India, dispossessed by those conquering and mysterious +hordes of white-skinned Brahmans whom, in the twilight of history, we +see appearing at the first as wanderers in the valleys of Jumna and +Ganges. The books of the Srawacs--the only descendants of the Arhâtas +or earliest Jaïnas, the naked forest-hermits of the days of old, +might throw some light, perhaps, on many a puzzling question. But +will our European scholars, so long as they pursue their own policy, +ever have access to the _right_ volumes? We have our doubts about +this. Ask any trustworthy Hindu how the missionaries have dealt with +those manuscripts which unluckily fell into their hands, and then see +if we can blame the natives for trying to save from desecration the +“gods of their fathers.” + +To maintain their ground Irenæus and his school had to fight hard +with the Gnostics. Such, also, was the lot of Eusebius, who found +himself hopelessly perplexed to know how the Essenes should be +disposed of. The ways and customs of Jesus and his apostles exhibited +too close a resemblance to this sect to allow the fact to pass +unexplained. Eusebius tried to make people believe that the Essenes +were the first Christians. His efforts were thwarted by Philo Judæus, +who wrote his historical account of the Essenes and described them +with the minutest care, long before there had appeared a single +Christian in Palestine. But, if there were no _Christians_, there +were Chr_e_stians long before the era of Christianity; and the +Essenes belonged to the latter as well as to all other initiated +brotherhoods, without even mentioning the Christnites of India. +Lepsius shows that the word _Nofre_ means Chrēstos, “good,” and that +one of the titles of Osiris, “Onnofre,” must be translated “the +goodness of God made manifest.”[669] “The worship of Christ was +not universal at this early date,” explains Mackenzie, “by which I +mean that Christolatry had not been introduced; but the worship of +_Chrēstos_--the Good Principle--had preceded it by many centuries, +and even survived the general adoption of Christianity, as shown on +monuments still in existence.” ... Again, we have an inscription +which is pre-Christian on an epitaphial tablet (Spon. _Misc. Erud._, +Ant., x. xviii. 2). Υακινθε Λαρισαιων Δημοσιε Ηρως Χρηστε Χαιρε, and +de Rossi (_Roma Sotteranea_, tome i., tav. xxi.) gives us another +example from the catacombs--“Ælia Chreste, in Pace.”[670] And, _Kris_, +as Jacolliot shows, means in Sanscrit “sacred.” + +The meritorious stratagems of the trustworthy Eusebius thus proved +lost labor. He was triumphantly detected by Basnage, who, says +Gibbon, “examined with the utmost critical accuracy the curious +treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutæ,” and found that +“by proving it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, he has +demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius and a crowd of modern Catholics, +that the Therapeutæ were neither Christians nor monks.” + +As a last word, the _Christian_ Gnostics sprang into existence +toward the beginning of the second century, and just at the time +when the Essenes most mysteriously faded away, which indicated that +they were the identical Essenes, and moreover pure _Christists_, +viz.: they believed and were those who best understood what one of +their own brethren had preached. In insisting that the letter Iota, +mentioned by Jesus in _Matthew_ (v. 18), indicated a secret doctrine +in relation to the ten æons, it is sufficient to demonstrate to a +kabalist that Jesus belonged to the Freemasonry of those days; for +Ι, which is Iota in Greek, has other names in other languages; and is, +as it was among the Gnostics of those days, a pass-word, meaning the +SCEPTRE of the FATHER, in Eastern brotherhoods which exist to this +very day. + +But in the early centuries these facts, if known, were purposely +ignored, and not only withheld from public notice as much as +possible, but vehemently denied whenever the question was forced upon +discussion. The denunciations of the Fathers were rendered bitter in +proportion to the truth of the claim which they endeavored to refute. + +“It comes to this,” writes Irenæus, complaining of the Gnostics, +“they neither consent to Scripture nor tradition.”[671] And why +should we wonder at that, when even the commentators of the +nineteenth century, with nothing but fragments of the Gnostic +manuscripts to compare with the voluminous writings of their +calumniators, have been enabled to detect fraud on nearly every +page? How much more must the polished and learned Gnostics, with all +their advantages of personal observation and knowledge of fact, have +realized the stupendous scheme of fraud that was being consummated +before their very eyes! Why should they accuse Celsus of maintaining +that their religion was all based on the speculations of Plato, with +the difference that his doctrines were far more pure and rational +than theirs, when we find Sprengel, seventeen centuries later, +writing the following?--“Not only did they (the Christians) think to +discover the dogmas of Plato in the books of Moses, but, moreover, +they fancied that, by introducing Platonism into Christianity, they +would _elevate the dignity of this religion and make it more popular +among the nations_.”[672] + +They introduced it so well, that not only was the Platonic philosophy +selected as a basis for the trinity, but even the legends and +mythical stories which had been current among the admirers of the +great philosopher--as a time-honored custom required in the eyes +of his posterity such an allegorical homage to every hero worthy +of deification--were revamped and used by the Christians. Without +going so far as India, did they not have a ready model for the +“miraculous conception,” in the legend about Periktionè, Plato’s +mother? In her case it was also maintained by popular tradition that +she had immaculately conceived him, and that the god Apollo was his +father. Even the annunciation by an angel to Joseph “in a dream,” the +Christians copied from the message of Apollo to Ariston, Periktionè’s +husband, that the child to be born from her was the offspring of that +god. So, too, Romulus was said to be the son of Mars, by the virgin +Rhea Sylvia. + +It is generally held by all the symbolical writers that the Ophites +were found guilty of practicing the most licentious rites during +their religious meetings. The same accusation was brought against the +Manichæans, the Carpocratians, the Paulicians, the Albigenses--in +short, against every Gnostic sect which had the temerity to claim +the right to think for itself. In our modern days, the 160 American +sects and the 125 sects of England are not so often troubled with +such accusations; times are changed, and even the once all-powerful +clergy have to either bridle their tongues or prove their slanderous +accusations. + +We have carefully looked over the works of such authors as Payne +Knight, C. W. King, and Olshausen, which treat of our subject; we +have reviewed the bulky volumes of Irenæus, Tertullian, Sozomen, +Theodoret; and in none but those of Epiphanius have we found any +accusation based upon direct evidence of an eye-witness. “They say;” +“_Some_ say;” “We have heard”--such are the general and indefinite +terms used by the patristic accusers. Alone Epiphanius, whose works +are invariably referred to in all such cases, seems to chuckle with +delight whenever he couches a lance. We do not mean to take upon +ourselves to defend the sects which inundated Europe at the eleventh +century, and which brought to light the most wonderful creeds; we +limit our defense merely to those Christian sects whose theories +were usually grouped under the generic name of _Gnosticism_. These +are those which appeared immediately after the alleged crucifixion, +and lasted till they were nearly exterminated under the rigorous +execution of the Constantinian law. The greatest guilt of these were +their syncretistic views, for at no other period of the world’s +history had truth a poorer prospect of triumph than in those days of +forgery, lying, and deliberate falsification of facts. + +But before we are forced to believe the accusations, may we not +be permitted to inquire into the historical characters of their +accusers? Let us begin by asking, upon what ground does the Church +of Rome build her claim of supremacy for her doctrines over those +of the Gnostics? Apostolic succession, undoubtedly. The succession +_traditionally_ instituted by the direct Apostle Peter. But what if +this prove a fiction? Clearly, the whole superstructure supported +upon this one imaginary stilt would fall in a tremendous crash. +And when we do inquire carefully, we find that we must take the +word of Irenæus _alone_ for it--of Irenæus, who did not furnish one +single valid proof of the claim which he so audaciously advanced, +and who resorted for that to endless forgeries. He gives authority +neither for his dates nor his assertions. This Smyrniote worthy +has not even the brutal but sincere faith of Tertullian, for he +contradicts himself at every step, and supports his claims solely on +acute sophistry. Though he was undoubtedly a man of the shrewdest +intellect and great learning, he fears not, in some of his assertions +and arguments, to even appear an idiot in the eyes of posterity, so +long as he can “carry the situation.” Twitted and cornered at every +step by his not less acute and learned adversaries, the Gnostics, he +boldly shields himself behind blind faith, and in answer to their +merciless logic falls upon imaginary tradition invented by himself. +Reber wittily remarks: “As we read his misapplications of words and +sentences, we would conclude that he was a lunatic if we did not know +that he was something else.”[673] + +So boldly mendacious does this “holy Father” prove himself in many +instances, that he is even contradicted by Eusebius, more cautious +if not more truthful than himself. He is driven to that necessity +in the face of unimpeachable evidence. So, for instance, Irenæus +asserts that Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, was a direct hearer of +St. John;[674] and Eusebius is compelled to show that Papias never +pretended to such a claim, but simply stated that he had received his +_doctrine from those who had known John_.[675] + +In one point, the Gnostics had the best of Irenæus. They drove +him, through mere fear of inconsistency, to the recognition of +their kabalistic doctrine of atonement; unable to grasp it in its +allegorical meaning, Irenæus presented, with Christian theology as +we find it in its present state of “original sin _versus_ Adam,” a +doctrine which would have filled Peter with pious horror if he had +been still alive. + +The next champion for the propagation of Apostolic Succession, is +Eusebius himself. Is the word of this Armenian Father any better than +that of Irenæus? Let us see what the most competent critics say of +him. And before we turn to modern critics at all, we might remind +the reader of the scurrilous terms in which Eusebius is attacked +by George Syncellus, the Vice-Patriarch of Constantinople (eighth +century), for his audacious falsification of the Egyptian Chronology. +The opinion of Socrates, an historian of the fifth century, is no +more flattering. He fearlessly charges Eusebius with perverting +historical dates, in order to please the Emperor Constantine. In his +chronographic work, before proceeding to falsify the synchronistic +tables _himself_, in order to impart to Scriptural chronology a more +trustworthy appearance, Syncellus covers Eusebius with the choicest +of monkish Billingsgate. _Baron Bunsen has verified the justness +if not justified the politeness of this abusive reprehension._ His +elaborate researches in the rectification of the _Egyptian List of +Chronology_, by Manetho, led him to confess that throughout his work, +the Bishop of Cæsarea “had undertaken, in a very _unscrupulous_ and +arbitrary spirit, to mutilate history.” “Eusebius,” he says, “is the +originator of that systematic theory of synchronisms which has so +often subsequently maimed and mutilated history in its procrustean +bed.”[676] To this the author of the _Intellectual Development of +Europe_ adds: “Among those who have been the most guilty of this +offense, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop of Cæsarea +... should be designated!”[677] + +It will not be amiss to remind the reader that it is the same +Eusebius who is charged with the interpolation of the famous +paragraph concerning Jesus,[678] which was so miraculously found, +in his time, in the writings of Josephus, the sentence in question +having till that time remained perfectly unknown. Renan, in his _Life +of Jesus_, expresses a contrary opinion. “I believe,” says he, “the +passage respecting Jesus to be authentic. _It is perfectly in the +style of Josephus_; and, _if_ this historian had made mention of +Jesus, it is _thus_ that he must have spoken of him.” + +Begging this eminent scholar’s pardon, we must again contradict him. +Laying aside his cautious “_if_,” we will merely show that though +the short paragraph may possibly be genuine, and “perfectly in the +style of Josephus,” its several parentheses are most palpably later +forgeries; and “_if_” Josephus had made any mention of Christ at +all, it is _not_ thus that he would “have spoken of him.” The whole +paragraph consists of but a few lines, and reads: “At this time was +_Iasous_, a ‘WISE MAN,’[679] if, at least, _it is right to call him a +man_! (ἄνδρα) for he was a doer of surprising works, and a teacher of +such men as receive “the truths” with pleasure.... _This was the_ +ANOINTED (!!). And, on an accusation by the first men among us, having +been condemned by Pilate to the cross, they did not stop loving him +who loved them. For _he appeared to them on the third day alive_, and +the divine prophets having said these and many other wonderful things +concerning him.” + +This paragraph (of sixteen lines in the original) has two unequivocal +assertions and one qualification. The latter is expressed in the +following sentence: “If, at least, it is right to call him a +man.” The unequivocal assertions are contained in “This is the +ANOINTED,” and in that Jesus “appeared to them _on the third day +alive_.” History shows us Josephus as a thorough, uncompromising, +stiff-necked, orthodox Jew, though he wrote for “the Pagans.” It is +well to observe the false position in which these sentences would +have placed a true-born Jew, if they had really emanated from him. +Their “Messiah” was then and is still expected. The Messiah is the +_Anointed_, and _vice versa_. And Josephus is made to admit that the +“first men” among them have accused and crucified _their_ Messiah and +Anointed!! No need to comment any further upon such a preposterous +incongruity,[680] even though supported by so ripe a scholar as Renan. + +As to that patristic fire-brand, Tertullian, whom des Mousseaux +apotheosizes in company with his other demi-gods, he is regarded +by Reuss, Baur, and Schweigler, in quite a different light. The +untrustworthiness of statement and inaccuracy of Tertullian, says +the author of _Supernatural Religion_, are often apparent. Reuss +characterizes his Christianism as “_âpre_, _insolent_, _brutal_, +_ferrailleur_.” It is without unction and without charity, sometimes +even _without loyalty_, when he finds himself confronted with +opposition. “If,” remarks this author, “in the second century all +parties except certain Gnostics were intolerant, Tertullian was the +most intolerant of all!” + +The work begun by the early Fathers was achieved by the sophomorical +Augustine. His supra-transcendental speculations on the Trinity; his +imaginary dialogues with the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and +the _disclosures_ and covert allusions about his ex-brethren, the +Manicheans, have led the world to load Gnosticism with opprobrium, +and have thrown into a deep shadow the insulted majesty of the one +God, worshipped in reverential silence by every “heathen.” + +_And thus is it that the whole pyramid of Roman Catholic dogmas rests +not upon proof, but upon assumption._ The Gnostics had cornered +the Fathers too cleverly, and _the only salvation of the latter +was a resort to forgery_. For nearly four centuries, the great +historians nearly cotemporary with Jesus had not taken the slightest +notice either of his life or death. Christians wondered at such an +unaccountable omission of what the Church considered the greatest +events in the world’s history. Eusebius saved the battle of the day. +Such are the men who have slandered the Gnostics. + +The first and most unimportant sect we hear of is that of the +_Nicolaïtans_, of whom John, in the _Apocalypse_, makes the +voice in his vision say that he hates their doctrine.[681] These +Nicolaïtans were the followers, however, of Nicolas of Antioch, one +of the “seven” chosen by the “twelve” to make distribution from the +common fund to the proselytes at Jerusalem (_Acts_ ii. 44, 45, vi. +1-5), hardly more than a few weeks, or perhaps months, after the +Crucifixion;[682] and a man “of honest report, _full of the Holy +Ghost and wisdom_” (verse 3). Thus it would appear that the “Holy +Ghost and wisdom” from on high, were no more a shield against the +accusation of “hæresy” than though they had never overshadowed the +“chosen ones” of the apostles. + +It would be but too easy to detect what kind of heresy it was +that offended, even had we not other and more authentic sources +of information in the kabalistic writings. The accusation and +the precise nature of the “abomination” are stated in the second +chapter of the book of _Revelation_, verses 14, 15. The sin was +merely--_marriage_. John was a “virgin;” several of the Fathers +assert the fact on the authority of tradition. Even Paul, the most +liberal and high-minded of them all, finds it difficult to reconcile +the position of a married man with that of a faithful servant of God. +There is also “a difference between a wife and a virgin.”[683] The +latter cares “for the things of the Lord,” and the former only for +“how she may please her husband.” “If any man think that he behaveth +uncomely towards his virgin ... let them marry. Nevertheless, he that +standeth steadfast in his heart, and hath power over his own will, +and hath so decreed ... that he will keep _his virgin_, doeth well.” +So that he who marries “doeth well ... but he that giveth her not in +marriage _doeth better_.” “Art thou loosed from a wife?” he asks, +“seek not a wife” (27). And remarking that according to his judgment, +both will be happier if they do not marry, he adds, as a weighty +conclusion: “And I think also that I have the spirit of God” (40). +Far from this spirit of tolerance are the words of John. According to +his vision there are “but the hundred and forty and four thousand, +which were _redeemed_ from the earth,” and “these are they which +were not defiled with women; for _they were virgins_.”[684] This +seems conclusive; for except Paul there is not one of these primitive +_Nazari_, there “set apart” and vowed to God, who seemed to make +a great difference between “sin” within the relationship of legal +marriage, and the “abomination” of adultery. + +With such views and such narrow-mindedness, it was but natural that +these fanatics should have begun by casting this _iniquity_ as a +slur in the faces of brethren, and then “bearing on progressively” +with their accusations. As we have already shown, it is only +Epiphanius whom we find giving such minute details as to the +Masonic “grips” and other signs of recognition among the Gnostics. +He had once belonged to their number, and therefore it was easy +for him to furnish particulars. Only how far the worthy Bishop is +to be relied upon is a very grave question. One need fathom human +nature but very superficially to find that there seldom was yet a +traitor, a renegade, who, in a moment of danger turned “State’s +evidence,” who would not lie as remorselessly as he betrayed. Men +never forgive or relent toward those whom they injure. We hate our +victims in proportion to the harm we do them. This is a truth as +old as the world. On the other hand, it is preposterous to believe +that such persons as the Gnostics, who, according to Gibbon, were +the wealthiest, proudest, most polite, as well as the most learned +“of the Christian name,” were guilty of the disgusting, libidinous +actions of which Epiphanius delights to accuse them. Were they even +like that “set of tatterdemalions, almost naked, with fierce looks,” +that Lucian describes as Paul’s followers,[685] we would hesitate to +believe such an infamous story. How much less probable then that men +who were Platonists, as well as Christians, should have ever been +guilty of such preposterous rites. + +Payne Knight seems never to suspect the testimony of Epiphanius. +He argues that “if we make allowance for the willing exaggerations +of religious hatred, and consequent popular prejudice, the general +conviction that these sectarians had rites and practices of a +licentious character appears too strong to be entirely disregarded.” +If he draws an honest line of demarcation between the Gnostics of +the first three centuries and those mediæval sects whose doctrines +“rather closely resembled modern communism,” we have nothing to say. +Only, we would beg every critic to remember that if the Templars were +accused of that most “abominable crime” of applying the “holy kiss” +to the root of Baphomet’s tail,[686] St. Augustine is also suspected, +and on very good grounds, too, of having allowed his community to go +somewhat astray from the primitive way of administering the “holy +kiss” at the feast of the Eucharist. The holy Bishop seems quite too +anxious as to certain details of the ladies’ toilet for the “kiss” to +be of a strictly orthodox nature.[687] Wherever there lurks a true +and sincere religious feeling, there is no room for worldly details. + +Considering the extraordinary dislike exhibited from the first by +Christians to all manner of cleanliness, we cannot enough wonder at +such a strange solicitude on the part of the holy Bishop for his +female parishioners, unless, indeed, we have to excuse it on the +ground of a lingering reminiscence of Manichean rites! + +It would be hard, indeed, to blame any writer for entertaining such +suspicions of immorality as those above noticed, when the records +of many historians are at hand to help us to make an impartial +investigation. “Hæretics” are accused of crimes in which the Church +has more or less openly indulged even down to the beginning of our +century. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX. issued two bulls against the +Stedingers “for various _heathen_ and magical practices,”[688] +and the latter, as a matter of course, were exterminated in the +name of Christ and his Holy Mother. In 1282 a parish priest of +Inverkeithing, named John, performed rites on Easter day by far +worse than “magical.” Collecting a crowd of young girls, he forced +them to enter into “divine ecstasies” and Bacchanalian fury, dancing +the old Amazonian circle-dance around the figure of the heathen +“god of the gardens.” Notwithstanding that upon the complaint of +some of his parishioners he was cited before his bishop, he retained +his benefice because he proved that _such was the common usage of +the country_.[689] The Waldenses, those “earliest Protestants,” +were accused of the most unnatural horrors; burned, butchered, and +exterminated for calumnies heaped upon them by their accusers. +Meanwhile the latter, in open triumph, forming their heathen +processions of “Corpus Christi,” with emblems modelled on those of +Baal-Peor and “Osiris,” and every city in Southern France carrying, +in yearly processions on Easter days, loaves and cakes fashioned like +the so-much-decried emblems of the Hindu Sivites and Vishnites, as +late as 1825![690] + +Deprived of their old means for slandering Christian sects whose +religious views differ from their own, it is now the turn of the +“heathen,” Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese, to share with the ancient +religions the honor of having cast in their teeth denunciations of +their “libidinous religions.” + +Without going far for proofs of equal if not surpassing immorality, +we would remind Roman Catholic writers of certain _bas-reliefs_ on +the doors of St. Peter’s Cathedral. They are as brazen-faced as the +door itself; but less so than any author, who, knowing all this, +feigns to ignore historical facts. A long succession of Popes have +reposed their pastoral eyes upon these brazen pictures of the vilest +obscenity, through those many centuries, without ever finding the +slightest necessity for removing them. Quite the contrary; for we +might name certain Popes and Cardinals who made it a life-long study +to copy these heathen suggestions of “nature-gods,” in practice as +well as in theory. + +In Polish Podolia there was some years ago, in a Roman Catholic +Church, a statue of Christ, in black marble. It was reputed to +perform miracles on certain days, such as having its hair and beard +grow in the sight of the public, and indulging in other _less_ +innocent wonders. This show was finally prohibited by the Russian +Government. When in 1585 the Protestants took Embrun (Department of +the Upper Alps), they found in the churches of this town relics of +such a character, that, as the Chronicle expresses it, “old Huguenot +soldiers were seen to blush, several weeks after, at the bare +mention of the discovery.” In a corner of the Church of St. Fiacre, +near Monceaux, in France, there was--and it still is there, if we +mistake not--a seat called “the chair of St. Fiacre,” which had the +reputation of conferring fecundity upon barren women. A rock in the +vicinity of Athens, not far from the so-called “Tomb of Socrates,” +is said to be possessed of the same virtue. When, some twenty years +since, the Queen Amelia, perhaps in a merry moment, was said to +have tried the experiment, there was no end of most insulting abuse +heaped upon her, by a Catholic Padre, on his way through Syra to some +mission. The Queen, he declared, was a “superstitious heretic!” “an +abominable witch!” “Jezebel using magic arts.” Much more the zealous +missionary would doubtless have added, had he not found himself, +right in the middle of his vituperations, landed in a pool of mud, +outside the window. The virtuous elocutionist was forced to this +unusual transit by the strong arm of a Greek officer, who happened to +enter the room at the right moment. + +There never was a great religious reform that was not pure at the +beginning. The first followers of Buddha, as well as the disciples +of Jesus, were all men of the highest morality. The aversion felt by +the reformers of all ages to vice under any shape, is proved in the +cases of Sâkya-muni, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, St. Paul, Ammonius +Sakkas. The great Gnostic leaders--if less successful--were not less +virtuous in practice nor less morally pure. Marcion, Basilides,[691] +Valentinus, were renowned for their ascetic lives. The Nicolaïtans, +who, if they did not belong to the great body of the Ophites, +were numbered among the small sects which were absorbed in it at +the beginning of the second century, owe their origin, as we have +shown, to Nicolas of Antioch, “a man of honest report, full of the +Holy Ghost and wisdom.” How absurd the idea that such men would +have instituted “libidinous rites.” As well accuse Jesus of having +promoted the similar rites which we find practiced so extensively +by the mediæval _orthodox_ Christians behind the secure shelter of +monastic walls. + +If, however, we are asked to credit such an accusation against the +Gnostics, an accusation transferred with tenfold acrimony, centuries +later, to the unfortunate heads of the Templars, why should we not +believe the same of the orthodox Christians? Minucius Felix states +that “the first Christians were accused by the world of inducing, +during the ceremony of the “Perfect Passover,” each neophyte, on his +admission, to plunge a knife into an infant concealed under a heap of +flour; the body then serving for a banquet to the whole congregation. +After they had become the dominant party, they (the Christians) +transferred this charge to their own dissenters.”[692] + +The real crime of heterodoxy is plainly stated by John in his +_Epistles_ and _Gospel_. “He that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is +come in the flesh ... is a deceiver and _an antichrist_” (2 _Epistle_ +7). In his previous _Epistle_, he teaches his flock that there are +_two_ trinities (7, 8)--in short, the Nazarene system. + +The inference to be drawn from all this is, that the made-up and +dogmatic Christianity of the Constantinian period is simply an +offspring of the numerous conflicting sects, half-castes themselves, +born of Pagan parents. Each of these could claim representatives +converted to the so-called _orthodox_ body of Christians. And, as +every newly-born dogma had to be carried out by the majority of +votes, every sect colored the main substance with its own hue, till +the moment when the emperor enforced this _revealed_ olla-podrida, +of which he evidently did not himself understand a word, upon an +unwilling world as the _religion of Christ_. Wearied in the vain +attempt to sound this fathomless bog of international speculations, +unable to appreciate a religion based on the pure spirituality of +an ideal conception, Christendom gave itself up to the adoration of +brutal force as represented by a Church backed up by Constantine. +Since then, among the thousand rites, dogmas, and ceremonies copied +from Paganism, the Church can claim but one invention as thoroughly +original with her--namely, the doctrine of eternal damnation, and one +custom, that of the anathema. The Pagans rejected both with horror. +“An execration is a fearful and grievous thing,” says Plutarch. +“Wherefore, the priestess at Athens was commended for refusing to +curse Alkibiades (for desecration of the Mysteries) when the people +required her to do it; _for_, she said, _that she was a priestess of +prayers and not of curses_.”[693] + +“Deep researches would show,” says Renan, “that nearly everything +in Christianity is mere baggage brought from the Pagan Mysteries. +The primitive Christian worship is nothing but a mystery. The whole +interior police of the Church, the degrees of initiation, the command +of silence, and a crowd of phrases in the ecclesiastical language, +have no other origin.... The revolution which overthrew Paganism +_seems_ at first glance ... an absolute rupture with the past ... but +_the popular faith saved its most familiar symbols from shipwreck_. +Christianity introduced, at first, so little change into the habits +of private and social life, that with great numbers in the fourth +and fifth centuries it remains uncertain whether they were Pagans +or Christians; many seem even to have pursued an irresolute course +between the two worships.” Speaking further of _Art_, which formed +an essential part of the ancient religion, he says that “_it had +to break with scarce one of its traditions_. Primitive Christian +art is really nothing but Pagan art in its decay, or in its lower +departments. The Good Shepherd of the catacombs in Rome is a copy +from the Aristeus, or from the Apollo Nornius, which figure in the +same posture on the Pagan sarcophagi, and still carries the flute of +Pan in the midst of the four half-naked seasons. On the Christian +tombs of the Cemetery of St. Calixtus, Orpheus charms the animals. +Elsewhere, the Christ as Jupiter-Pluto, and Mary as Proserpina, +receive the souls that Mercury, wearing the broad-brimmed hat and +carrying in his hand the rod of the soul-guide (_psychopompos_), +brings to them, in presence of the three fates. Pegasus, the symbol +of the apotheosis; Psyche, the symbol of the immortal soul; Heaven, +personified by an old man, the river Jordan; and Victory, figure on a +host of Christian monuments.” + +As we have elsewhere shown, the primitive Christian community +was composed of small groups scattered about and organized in +secret societies, with passwords, grips, and signs. To avoid the +relentless persecutions of their enemies, they were obliged to seek +safety and hold meetings in deserted catacombs, the fastnesses of +mountains, and other safe retreats. Like disabilities were naturally +encountered by each religious reform at its inception. From the +very first appearance of Jesus and his twelve disciples, we see +them congregating apart, having secure refuges in the wilderness, +and among friends in Bethany, and elsewhere. Were Christianity not +composed of “_secret communities_,” from the start, history would +have more _facts_ to record of its founder and disciples than it has. + +How little Jesus had impressed his personality upon his own century, +is calculated to astound the inquirer. Renan shows that Philo, who +died toward the year 50, and who was born many years earlier than +Jesus, living all the while in Palestine while the “glad tidings” +were being preached all over the country, according to the _Gospels_, +had never heard of him! Josephus, the historian, who was born three +or four years after the death of Jesus, mentions his execution +in a short sentence, and even those few words were altered “by a +_Christian hand_,” says the author of the _Life of Jesus_. Writing at +the close of the first century, when Paul, the learned propagandist, +is said to have founded so many churches, and Peter is alleged to +have established the apostolic succession, which the Irenæo-Eusebian +chronology shows to have already included three bishops of Rome,[694] +Josephus, the painstaking enumerator and careful historian of even +the most unimportant sects, entirely ignores the existence of a +Christian sect. Suetonius, secretary of Adrian, writing in the first +quarter of the second century, knows so little of Jesus or his +history as to say that the Emperor Claudius “banished all the Jews, +who were continually making disturbances, at the instigation of one +_Crestus_,” meaning Christ, we must suppose.[695] The Emperor Adrian +himself, writing still later, was so little impressed with the tenets +or importance of the new sect, that in a letter to Servianus he shows +that he believes the Christians to be worshippers of Serapis.[696] +“In the second century,” says C. W. King, “the syncretistic sects +that had sprung up in Alexandria, the very hot-bed of Gnosticism, +found out in Serapis a prophetic type of Christ as the Lord and +Creator of all, and Judge of the living and the dead.”[697] Thus, +while the “Pagan” philosophers had never viewed Serapis, or rather +the abstract idea which was embodied in him, as otherwise than a +representation of the Anima Mundi, the Christians anthropomorphized +the “Son of God” and his “Father,” finding no better model for him +than the idol of a Pagan myth! “There can be no doubt,” remarks the +same author, “that the head of Serapis, marked, as the face is, +by a grave and pensive majesty, supplied the first idea for the +conventional portraits of the Saviour.”[698] + +In the notes taken by a traveller--whose episode with the monks +on Mount Athos we have mentioned elsewhere--we find that, during +his early life, Jesus had frequent intercourse with the Essenes +belonging to the Pythagorean school, and known as the Koinobi. +We believe it rather hazardous on the part of Renan to assert so +dogmatically, as he does, that Jesus “ignored the very name of +Buddha, of Zoroaster, of Plato;” that he had never read a Greek nor +a Buddhistic book, “although he had more than one element in him, +which, unawares to himself, proceeded from Buddhism, Parsism, and the +Greek wisdom.”[699] This is conceding half a miracle, and allowing +as much to chance and coincidence. It is an abuse of privilege, +when an author, who claims to write historical facts, draws +convenient deductions from hypothetical premises, and then calls +it a biography--a _Life_ of Jesus. No more than any other compiler +of legends concerning the problematical history of the Nazarene +prophet, has Renan one inch of secure foothold upon which to maintain +himself; nor can any one else assert a claim to the contrary, +except on inferential evidence. And yet, while Renan has not one +solitary fact to show that Jesus had never studied the metaphysical +tenets of Buddhism and Parsism, or heard of the philosophy of +Plato, his opponents have the best reasons in the world to suspect +the contrary. When they find that--1, all his sayings are in a +Pythagorean spirit, when not _verbatim_ repetitions; 2, his code of +ethics is purely Buddhistic; 3, his mode of action and walk in life, +Essenean; and 4, his mystical mode of expression, his parables, and +his ways, those of an initiate, whether Grecian, Chaldean, or Magian +(for the “Perfect,” who spoke the _hidden_ wisdom, were of the same +school of archaic learning the world over), it is difficult to escape +from the logical conclusion that he belonged to that same body of +initiates. It is a poor compliment paid the Supreme, this forcing +upon Him four gospels, in which, contradictory as they often are, +there is not a single narrative, sentence, or peculiar expression, +whose parallel may not be found in some older doctrine or philosophy. +Surely, the Almighty--were it but to spare future generations their +present perplexity--might have brought down with Him, at His _first +and only_ incarnation on earth, something original--something +that would trace a distinct line of demarcation between Himself +and the score or so of incarnate Pagan gods, who had been born of +virgins, had all been saviours, and were either killed, or otherwise +sacrificed themselves for humanity. + +Too much has already been conceded to the emotional side of the +story. What the world needs is a less exalted, but more faithful +view of a personage, in whose favor nearly half of Christendom has +dethroned the Almighty. It is not the erudite, world-famous scholar, +whom we question for what we find in his _Vie de Jesus_, nor is +it one of his _historical_ statements. We simply challenge a few +unwarranted and untenable assertions that have found their way past +the emotional narrator, into the otherwise beautiful pages of the +work--a life built altogether on mere probabilities, and yet that +of one who, if accepted as an historical personage, has far greater +claims upon our love and veneration, fallible as he is with all his +greatness, than if we figure him as an omnipotent God. It is but in +the latter character that Jesus must be regarded by every reverential +mind as a failure. + +Notwithstanding the paucity of old philosophical works now extant, +we could find no end of instances of perfect identity between +Pythagorean, Hindu, and _New Testament_ sayings. There is no lack +of proofs upon this point. What is needed is a Christian public +that will examine what will be offered, and show common honesty in +rendering its verdict. Bigotry has had its day, and done its worst. +“We need not be frightened,” says Professor Müller, “if we discover +traces of truth, traces even of Christian truth, among the sages and +lawgivers of other nations.” + +After reading the following philosophical aphorisms, who can +believe that Jesus and Paul had never read the Grecian and Indian +philosophers? + + + SENTENCES FROM SEXTUS, THE VERSES FROM THE + PYTHAGOREAN, and other NEW TESTAMENT.[700] + Heathen. + + 1. “Possess not treasures, but 1. “Lay not up for yourselves + those things which no one treasures upon earth. + can take from you.” where moth and rust doth + corrupt, and where + thieves break through and + steal” (_Matthew_ vi. 19). + + 2. “It is better for a part of 2. “And if thy hand offend + the body which contains thee, cut it off; it is + purulent matter, and better for thee to enter + threatens to infect the _unto life_ maimed, than go + whole, _to be burnt_, to hell,” etc. (_Mark_ ix. + than to continue so in 43). + _another state_ (life).” + + 3. “You have in yourself 3. “Know ye not ye are _the + something _similar to temple of God_, and that the + God_, and therefore use Spirit of God dwelleth in + yourself _as the temple you?” (_1 Corinthians_, iii. + of God_.” 16). + + 4. “The greatest honor which 4. “That ye may be the children + can be paid to God, is to of your Father, which is + know and imitate his in Heaven, be ye perfect + _perfection_.” even as your _Father is + perfect_” (_Matthew_ v. + 45-48). + + 5. “What I do not wish men to 5. “Do ye unto others as ye + do to me, I also wish not would that others should do + to do to men” (_Analects to you.” + of Confucius_, p. 76; see + Max Müller’s _The Works + of Confucius_). + + 6. “The moon shines even in 6. “He maketh his sun to rise + the house of the wicked” on the evil and on the good, + (_Manu_). and sendeth rain on the just + and on the unjust” (_Matthew_ + v. 45). + + 7. “They who give, have things 7. “Whosoever hath, to him + given to them; those who shall be given ... but + withhold, have things whosoever hath not, from him + taken from them” (Ibid.). shall be taken away” + (_Matthew_ xiii. 12). + + 8. “Purity of mind alone sees 8. “Blessed are the pure in + God” (Ibid.)--still a heart, for they shall see + popular saying in India. God” (_Matthew_ v. 8). + +Plato did not conceal the fact that he derived his best philosophical +doctrines from Pythagoras, and that himself was merely the first to +reduce them to systematic order, occasionally interweaving with them +metaphysical speculations of his own. But Pythagoras himself got his +recondite doctrines, first from the descendants of Mochus, and later, +from the Brahmans of India. He was also initiated into the Mysteries +among the hierophants of Thebes, the Persian and Chaldean Magi. Thus, +step by step do we trace the origin of most of our Christian doctrines +to Middle Asia. Drop out from Christianity the personality of Jesus, +so sublime, because of its unparalleled simplicity, and what remains? +History and comparative theology echo back the melancholy answer, “A +crumbling skeleton formed of the oldest Pagan myths!” + +While the mythical birth and life of Jesus are a faithful copy of +those of the Brahmanical Christna, his historical character of a +religious reformer in Palestine is the true type of Buddha in India. +In more than one respect their great resemblance in philanthropic and +spiritual aspirations, as well as external circumstances is truly +striking. Though the son of a king, while Jesus was but a carpenter, +Buddha was not of the high Brahmanical caste by birth. Like Jesus, he +felt dissatisfied with the dogmatic spirit of the religion of his +country, the intolerance and hypocrisy of the priesthood, their +outward show of devotion, and their useless ceremonials and prayers. +As Buddha broke violently through the traditional laws and rules of +the Brahmans, so did Jesus declare war against the Pharisees, and the +proud Sadducees. What the Nazarene did as a consequence of his humble +birth and position, Buddha did as a voluntary penance. He travelled +about as a beggar; and--again like Jesus--later in life he sought by +preference the companionship of publicans and sinners. Each aimed at a +social as well as at a religious reform; and giving a death-blow to +the old religions of his countries, each became the founder of a new +one. + +“The reform of Buddha,” says Max Müller, “had originally much more of +a social than of a religious character. The most important element of +Buddhist reform has always been its social and moral code, not its +metaphysical theories. _That moral code is one of the most perfect +which the world has ever known_ ... and he whose meditations had been +how to deliver the soul of man from misery and the fear of death, had +delivered the people of India from a degrading thraldom and from +priestly tyranny.” Further, the lecturer adds that were it otherwise, +“Buddha might have taught whatever philosophy he pleased, and we +should hardly have heard his name. The people would not have minded +him, and his system would only have been a drop in the ocean of +philosophic speculation by which India was deluged at all times.”[701] + +The same with Jesus. While Philo, whom Renan calls Jesus’s elder +brother, Hillel, Shammai, and Gamaliel, are hardly mentioned--Jesus +has become a God! And still, pure and divine as was the moral code +taught by Christ, it never could have borne comparison with that of +Buddha, but for the tragedy of Calvary. That which helped forward the +deification of Jesus was his dramatic death, the voluntary sacrifice +of his life, alleged to have been made for the sake of mankind, and +the later convenient dogma of the atonement, invented by the +Christians. In India, where life is valued as of no account, the +crucifixion would have produced little effect, if any. In a country +where--as all the Indianists are well aware--religious fanatics set +themselves to dying by inches, in penances lasting for years; where +the most fearful macerations are self-inflicted by fakirs; where young +and delicate widows, in a spirit of bravado against the government, as +much as out of religious fanaticism, mount the funeral pile with a +smile on their face; where, to quote the words of the great lecturer, +“Men in the prime of life throw themselves under the car of +Juggernâth, to be crushed to death by the idol they believe in, where +the plaintiff who cannot get redress starves himself to death at the +door of his judge; where the philosopher who thinks he has learned all +which this world can teach him, and who longs for absorption into the +Deity, quietly steps into the Ganges, in order to arrive at the other +shore of existence,”[702] in such a country even a voluntary +crucifixion would have passed unnoticed. In Judea, and even among +braver nations than the Jews--the Romans and the Greeks--where every +one clung more or less to life, and most people would have fought for +it with desperation, the tragical end of the great Reformer was +calculated to produce a profound impression. The names of even such +minor heroes as Mutius Scævola, Horatius Cocles, the mother of the +Gracchi, and others, have descended to posterity; and, during our +school-days, as well as later in life, their histories have awakened +our sympathy and commanded a reverential admiration. But, can we ever +forget the scornful smile of certain Hindus, at Benares, when an +English lady, the wife of a clergyman, tried to impress them with the +greatness of the sacrifice of Jesus, in giving _his_ life for us? +Then, for the first time the idea struck us how much the pathos of the +great drama of Calvary had to do with subsequent events in the +foundation of Christianity. Even the imaginative Renan was moved by +this feeling to write in the last chapter of his _Vie de Jesus_, a few +pages of singular and sympathetic beauty.[703] + +Apollonius, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, was, like him, an +enthusiastic founder of a new spiritual school. Perhaps less +metaphysical and more practical than Jesus, less tender and perfect in +his nature, he nevertheless inculcated the same quintessence of +spirituality, and the same high moral truths. His great mistake was to +confine them too closely to the higher classes of society. While to +the poor and the humble Jesus preached “Peace on earth and good will +to men,” Apollonius was the friend of kings, and moved with the +aristocracy. He was born among the latter, and himself a man of +wealth, while the “Son of man,” representing the people, “had not +where to lay his head;” nevertheless, the two “miracle-workers” +exhibited striking similarity of purpose. Still earlier than +Apollonius had appeared Simon Magus, called “the great Power of God.” +His “miracles” are both more wonderful, more varied, and better +attested than those either of the apostles or of the Galilean +philosopher himself. Materialism denies the fact in both cases, but +history affirms. Apollonius followed both; and how great and renowned +were his miraculous works in comparison with those of the alleged +founder of Christianity as the kabalists claim, we have history again, +and Justin Martyr, to corroborate.[704] + +Like Buddha and Jesus, Apollonius was the uncompromising enemy +of all outward show of piety, all display of useless religious +ceremonies and hypocrisy. If, like the Christian Saviour, the sage of +Tyana had by preference sought the companionship of the poor and +humble; and if instead of dying comfortably, at over one hundred years +of age, he had been a voluntary martyr, proclaiming divine Truth from +a cross,[705] his blood might have proved as efficacious for the +subsequent dissemination of spiritual doctrines as that of the +Christian Messiah. + +The calumnies set afloat against Apollonius, were as numerous as +they were false. So late as eighteen centuries after his death he was +defamed by Bishop Douglas in his work against miracles. In this the +Right Reverend bishop crushed himself against historical facts. If we +study the question with a dispassionate mind, we will soon perceive that +the ethics of Gautama-Buddha, Plato, Apollonius, Jesus, Ammonius Sakkas, +and his disciples, were all based on the same mystic philosophy. +That all worshipped one God, whether they considered Him as the +“Father” of humanity, who lives in man as man lives in Him, or as the +Incomprehensible Creative Principle; all led God-like lives. Ammonius, +speaking of his philosophy, taught that their school dated from the days +of Hermes, who brought his wisdom from India. It was the same mystical +contemplation throughout, as that of the Yogin: the communion of the +Brahman with his own luminous Self--the “Atman.” And this Hindu +term is again kabalistic, _par excellence_. Who is “Self?” is asked in +the _Rig-Veda_; “Self is the Lord of all things ... all things are +contained in this Self; all selves are contained in this Self. Brahmân +itself is but Self,”[706] is the answer. Says Idra Rabba: “All things +are Himself, and Himself is _concealed_ on every side.”[707] The “Adam +Kadmon of the kabalists contains in himself all the souls of the +Israelites, and he is himself in every soul,” says the _Sohar_.[708] +The groundwork of the Eclectic School was thus identical with the +doctrines of the Yogin, the Hindu mystics, and the earlier Buddhism of +the disciples of Gautama. And when Jesus assured his disciples that +“the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because _it seeth +Him not_, neither knoweth Him,” dwells _with_ and _in_ them, who “are +in Him and He in them,”[709] he but expounded the same tenet that we +find running through every philosophy worthy of that name. + +Laboulaye, the learned and skeptical French savant, does not believe +a word of the miraculous portion of Buddha’s life; nevertheless, he has +the candor to speak of Gautama as being _only second to_ Christ in the +great purity of his ethics and personal morality. For both of these +opinions he is respectfully rebuked by des Mousseaux. Vexed at this +scientific contradiction of his accusations of demonolatry against +Gautama-Buddha, he assures his readers that “ce savant distingué n’a +point etudié cette question.”[710] + +“I do not hesitate to say,” remarks in his turn Barthelemy St. Hilaire, +“that, except Christ alone, there is not among the founders of +religions, a figure either more pure or more touching than that of +Buddha. His life is spotless. His constant heroism equals his +convictions.... He is the perfect model of all the virtues he +preaches; his abnegation, his charity, his unalterable sweetness of +disposition, do not fail him for one instant. He abandoned, at the age +of twenty-nine, his father’s court to become a monk and a beggar ... +and when he dies in the arms of his disciples, it is with the serenity +of a sage who practiced virtue all his life, and who dies convinced of +having found the truth.”[711] This deserved panegyric is no stronger +than the one which Laboulaye himself pronounced, and which occasioned +des Mousseaux’s wrath. “It is more than difficult,” adds the former, +“to understand how men not assisted by revelation could have soared so +high and approached so near the truth.”[712] Curious that there should +be so many lofty souls “not assisted by revelation!” + +And why should any one feel surprised that Gautama could die with +philosophical serenity? As the kabalists justly say, “Death does not +exist, and man never steps outside of universal life. Those whom we +think dead live still in us, as we live in them.... The more one lives +for his kind, the less need he fear to die.”[713] And, we might add, +that he who _lives_ for humanity does even more than him who dies for +it. + +The _Ineffable name_, in the search for which so many kabalists-- +unacquainted with any Oriental or even European adept--vainly consume +their knowledge and lives, dwells latent in the heart of every man. +This mirific name which, according to the most ancient oracles, +“rushes into the infinite worlds ακοιμητω στροφαλιγγι,” can be +obtained in a twofold way: by regular initiation, and through the +“small voice” which Elijah heard in the cave of Horeb, the mount of +God. And “when Elijah heard it he wrapped his _face in his mantle_ and +stood in the entering of the cave. And behold there came _the_ voice.” + +When Apollonius of Tyana desired to hear the “small voice,” he used +to wrap himself up entirely in a mantle of fine wool, on which he placed +both his feet, after having performed certain magnetic passes, and +pronounced not the “name” but an invocation well known to every adept. +Then he drew the mantle over his head and face, and his translucid or +astral spirit was free. On ordinary occasions he wore wool no more than +the priests of the temples. The possession of the secret combination of +the “name” gave the hierophant supreme power over every being, human +or otherwise, inferior to himself in soul-strength. Hence, when Max +Müller tells us of the Quichè “Hidden majesty which was never to be +opened by human hands,” the kabalist perfectly understands what was +meant by the expression, and is not at all surprised to hear even this +most erudite philologist exclaim: “What it was we do not know!” + +We cannot too often repeat that it is only through the doctrines of +the more ancient philosophies that the religion preached by Jesus may +be understood. It is through Pythagoras, Confucius, and Plato, that we +can comprehend the idea which underlies the term “Father” in the _New +Testament_. Plato’s ideal of the Deity, whom he terms the one +everlasting, invisible God, the Fashioner and Father of all +things,[714] is rather the “Father” of Jesus. It is this Divine Being +of whom the Grecian sage says that He can neither be envious nor the +originator of evil, for He can produce nothing but what is good and +just,[715] is certainly not the Mosaic Jehovah, the “_jealous_ God,” +but the God of Jesus, who “alone is good.” He extols His all-embracing, +divine power,[716] and His omnipotence, but at the same time intimates +that, as He is unchangeable, He can never desire to change his laws, +_i.e._, to extirpate evil from the world through a miracle.[717] He is +omniscient, and nothing escapes His watchful eye.[718] His justice, +which we find embodied in the law of compensation and retribution, +will leave no crime without punishment, no virtue without its +reward;[719] and therefore he declares that the only way to honor God +is to cultivate moral purity. He utterly rejects not only the +anthropomorphic idea that God could have a material body,[720] but +“rejects with disgust those fables which ascribe passions, quarrels, +and crimes of all sorts to the minor gods.”[721] He indignantly denies +that God allows Himself to be propitiated, or rather bribed, by +prayers and sacrifices.[722] + +The _Phædrus_ of Plato displays all that man once was, and that which +he may yet become again. “Before man’s spirit sank into sensuality and +was embodied with it through the loss of his wings, he lived among the +gods in the airy [spiritual] world where everything is true and pure.” +In the _Timæus_ he says that “there was a time when mankind did not +perpetuate itself, but lived as pure spirits.” In the future world, +says Jesus, “they neither marry nor are given in marriage,” but “live +as the angels of God in Heaven.” + +The researches of Laboulaye, Anquetil Duperron, Colebrooke, Barthelemy +St. Hilaire, Max Müller, Spiegel, Burnouf, Wilson, and so many +other linguists, have brought some of the truth to light. And now that +the difficulties of the Sanscrit, the Thibetan, the Singhalese, the +Zend, the Pehlevi, the Chinese, and even of the Burmese, are partially +conquered, and the _Vedas_, and the _Zend-Avesta_, the Buddhist texts, +and even Kapila’s _Sûtras_ are translated, a door is thrown wide open, +which, once passed, must close forever behind any speculative or +ignorant calumniators of the old religions. Even till the present +time, the clergy have, to use the words of Max Müller--“generally +appealed to the deviltries and orgies of heathen worship ... but they +have seldom, if ever, endeavored to discover the true and original +character of the strange forms of faith and worship which they call +the work of the devil.”[723] When we read the true history of Buddha +and Buddhism, by Müller, and the enthusiastic opinions of both +expressed by Barthelemy St. Hilaire, and Laboulaye; and when, finally, +a Popish missionary, an eye-witness, and one who least of all can be +accused of partiality to the Buddhists--the Abbé Huc, we mean--finds +occasion for nothing but admiration for the high individual character +of these “devil-worshippers;” we must consider Sakyâ-muni’s philosophy +as something more than the religion of fetishism and atheism, which +the Catholics would have us believe it. Huc was a missionary and it +was his first duty to regard Buddhism as no better than an outgrowth +of the worship of Satan. The poor Abbé was struck off the list of +missionaries at Rome,[724] after his book of travels was published. +This illustrates how little we may expect to learn the truth about the +religions of other people, through missionaries, when their accounts +are first revised by the superior ecclesiastical authorities, and the +former severely punished for telling the truth. + +When these men who have been and still are often termed “the obscene +ascetics,” the devotees of different sects of India in short, generally +termed “Yogi,” were asked by Marco Polo, “how it comes that they +are not ashamed to go stark naked as they do?” they answered the +inquirer of the thirteenth century as a missionary of the nineteenth was +answered. “We go naked,” they say, “because naked we came into +the world, and we desire to have nothing about us that is of this world. +Moreover, we have no sin of the flesh to be conscious of, and therefore, +we are not ashamed of our nakedness any more than you are to show +your hand or your face. You who are conscious of the sins of the flesh, +do well to have shame, and to cover your nakedness.”[725] + +One could make a curious list of the excuses and explanations of +the clergy to account for similarities daily discovered between Romanism +and heathen religions. Yet the summary would invariably lead to one +sweeping claim: The doctrines of Christianity were plagiarized by the +Pagans the world over! Plato and his older Academy stole the ideas +from the Christian revelation--said the Alexandrian Fathers!! The +Brahmans and Manu borrowed from the Jesuit missionaries, and the +_Bhagaved-gita_ was the production of Father Calmet, who transformed +Christ and John into Christna and Arjuna to fit the Hindu mind!! The +trifling fact that Buddhism and Platonism both antedated Christianity, +and the _Vedas_ had already degenerated into Brahmanism before the days +of Moses, makes no difference. The same with regard to Apollonius +of Tyana. Although his thaumaturgical powers could not be denied in the +face of the testimony of emperors, their courts, and the populations of +several cities; and although few of these had ever heard of the Nazarene +prophet whose “miracles” had been witnessed by a few apostles only, +whose very individualities remain to this day a problem in history, yet +Apollonius has to be accepted as the “monkey of Christ.” + +If of really pious, good, and honest men, many are yet found among +the Catholic, Greek, and Protestant clergy, whose sincere faith has +the best of their reasoning powers, and who having never been among +heathen populations, are unjust only through ignorance, it is not so +with the missionaries. The invariable subterfuge of the latter is to +attribute to demonolatry the really Christ-like life of the Hindu and +Buddhist ascetics and many of the lamas. Years of sojourn among +“heathen” nations, in China, Tartary, Thibet, and Hindustan have +furnished them with ample evidence how unjustly the so-called +idolators have been slandered. The missionaries have not even the +excuse of sincere faith to give the world that they mislead; and, with +very few exceptions, one may boldly paraphrase the remark made by +Garibaldi, and say that: “_A priest knows himself to be an impostor, +unless he be a fool, or have been taught to lie from boyhood_.” + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + “Christian and Catholic sons may accuse their fathers of the + crime of heresy ... although they may know that their + parents will be burnt with fire and put to death for it.... + And not only may they refuse them food, _if they attempt to + turn them from the Catholic faith_, BUT THEY MAY ALSO JUSTLY + KILL THEM.”--_Jesuit Precept_ (F. STEPHEN FAGUNDEZ, in + _Præcepta Decalogi_. Lugduni, 1640). + + “_Most Wise._--What hour is it? + + “_Respect. K. S. Warden._--It is the first hour of the day, + the time when the veil of the temple was rent asunder, when + darkness and consternation were spread over the earth--when + the light was darkened--when the implements of Masonry were + broken--when the flaming star disappeared--when the cubic + stone was broken--when the ‘WORD’ was lost.”-- + + _Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit._ + + [Inline Illustration:]--JAH-BUH-LUN. + + +The greatest of the kabalistic works of the Hebrews--the _Sohar_ זהר--was +compiled by Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iochaï. According to some critics, this +was done years before the Christian era; according to others only +after the destruction of the temple. However, it was completed only by +the son of Simeon, Rabbi Eleazar, and his secretary, Rabbi Abba; for +the work is so immense and the subjects treated so abstruse that even +the whole life of this Rabbi, called the Prince of kabalists, did not +suffice for the task. On account of its being known that he was in +possession of this knowledge, and of the _Mercaba_, which insured the +reception of the “Word,” his very life was endangered, and he had to +fly to the wilderness, where he lived in a cave for twelve years, +surrounded by faithful disciples, and finally died there amid signs +and wonders.[726] + +But voluminous as is the work, and containing as it does the main +points of the secret and oral tradition, it still does not embrace it +all. It is well known that this venerable kabalist never imparted +the most important points of his doctrine otherwise than orally, and +to a very limited number of friends and disciples, including his only +son. Therefore, without the final initiation into the _Mercaba_ the +study of the _Kabala_ will be ever incomplete, and the _Mercaba_ can +be taught only in “darkness, in a deserted place, and after many and +terrific trials.” Since the death of Simeon Ben-Iochai this hidden +doctrine has remained an inviolate secret for the outside world. +Delivered _only as a mystery_, it was communicated to the candidate +orally, “_face to face and mouth to ear_.” + +This Masonic commandment, “mouth to ear, and the word at low breath,” +is an inheritance from the Tanaïm and the old Pagan Mysteries. Its +modern use must certainly be due to the indiscretion of some renegade +kabalist, though the “word” itself is but a “substitute” for the +“lost word,” and is a comparatively modern invention, as we will +further show. The real sentence has remained forever in the sole +possession of the adepts of various countries of the Eastern and +Western hemispheres. Only a limited number among the chiefs of the +Templars, and some Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century, always in +close relations with Arabian alchemists and initiates, could really +boast of its possession. From the seventh to the fifteenth centuries +there was no one who could claim it in Europe; and although there +had been alchemists before the days of Paracelsus, he was the first +who had passed through the true initiation, that last ceremony which +conferred on the adept the power of travelling toward the “burning +bush” over the holy ground, and to “burn the golden calf in the fire, +grind it to powder, and strow it upon the water.” Verily, then, +this magic _water_, and the “lost word,” resuscitated more than one +of the pre-Mosaic Adonirams, Gedaliahs, and Hiram Abiffs. The real +word now substituted by _Mac Benac_ and Mah was used ages before +its pseudo-magical effect was tried on the “widow’s sons” of the +last two centuries. Who was, in fact, the first operative Mason of +any consequence? Elias Ashmole, _the last of the Rosicrucians and +alchemists_. Admitted to the freedom of the Operative Masons’ Company +in London, in 1646, he died in 1692. At that time Masonry was not +what it became later; it was neither a political nor a Christian +institution, but a true secret organization, which admitted into the +ties of fellowship all men anxious to obtain the priceless boon of +liberty of conscience, and avoid clerical persecution.[727] Not until +about thirty years after his death did what is now termed modern +Freemasonry see the light. It was born on the 24th day of June, 1717, +in the Apple-tree Tavern, Charles Street, Covent Garden, London. And +it was then, as we are told in Anderson’s _Constitutions_, that the +only four lodges in the south of England elected Anthony Sayer first +Grand Master of Masons. Notwithstanding its great youth, this grand +lodge has ever claimed the acknowledgment of its supremacy by the +whole body of the fraternity throughout the whole world, as the Latin +inscription on the plate put beneath the corner-stone of Freemasons’ +Hall, London, in 1775, would tell to those who could see it. But of +this more anon. + +In _Die Kabbala_, by Franck, the author, following its “esoteric +ravings,” as he expresses it, gives us, in addition to the +translations, his commentaries. Speaking of his predecessors, he says +that Simeon Ben-Iochai mentions repeatedly what the “companions” have +taught in the older works. And the author cites one “Ieba, the _old_, +and Hamnuna, the _old_.”[728] But what the two “old” ones mean, or +who they were, in fact, he tells us not, for he does not know himself. + +Among the venerable sect of the Tanaïm, or rather the Tananim, the +wise men, there were those who taught the secrets practically and +initiated some disciples into the grand and final Mystery. But the +_Mishna Hagiga_, 2d section, say that the table of contents of +the _Mercaba_ “must only be delivered to wise old ones.”[729] The +_Gemara_ is still more dogmatic. “The more important secrets of the +Mysteries were not even revealed to all priests. Alone the initiates +had them divulged.” And so we find the same great secresy prevalent +in every ancient religion. + +But, as we see, neither the _Sohar_ nor any other kabalistic volume +contains merely Jewish wisdom. The doctrine itself being the result +of whole millenniums of thought, is therefore the joint property +of adepts of every nation under the sun. Nevertheless, the _Sohar_ +teaches practical occultism more than any other work on that +subject; not as it is translated though, and commented upon by its +various critics, but with the secret signs on its margins. These +signs contain the hidden instructions, apart from the metaphysical +interpretations and apparent absurdities so fully credited by +Josephus, who was never initiated, and gave out the _dead letter_ as +he had received it.[730] + +The real practical magic contained in the _Sohar_ and other +kabalistic works, is only of use to those who read it _within_. The +Christian apostles--at least, those who are said to have produced +“miracles” _at will_[731]--had to be acquainted with this science. +It ill-behooves a Christian to look with horror or derision upon +“magic” gems, amulets, and other talismans against the “evil eye,” +which serve as charms to exercise a mysterious influence, either on +the possessor, or the person whom the magician desires to control. +There are still extant a number of such charmed amulets in public and +private collections of antiquities. Illustrations of convex gems, +with mysterious legends--the meaning of which baffles all scientific +inquiry--are given by many collectors. King shows several such in +his _Gnostics_, and he describes a white carnelian (chalcedony), +covered on both sides with interminable legends, to interpret which +would ever prove a failure; yes, in every case, perhaps, but that +of a Hermetic student or an adept. But we refer the reader to his +interesting work, and the talismans described in his plates, to +show that even the “Seer of Patmos” himself was well-versed in this +kabalistic science of talismans and gems. St. John clearly alludes +to the potent “white carnelian”--a gem well-known among adepts, +as the “_alba petra_,” or the stone of initiation, on which the +word “_prize_” is generally found engraved, as it was given to the +candidate who had successfully passed through all the preliminary +trials of a neophyte. The fact is, that no less than the _Book of +Job_, the whole _Revelation_, is simply an allegorical narrative of +the Mysteries and initiation therein of a candidate, who is John +himself. No high Mason, well versed in the different degrees, can +fail to see it. The numbers _seven_, _twelve_, and others are all +so many lights thrown over the obscurity of the work. Paracelsus +maintained the same some centuries ago. And when we find the “one +like unto the Son of man” saying (chap. ii. 17): “_To him that +overcometh_, will I give to eat of the _hidden manna_, and will +give him a WHITE STONE, and in the stone a new name written”--the +word--which _no man knoweth_ saving _he that receiveth it_, what +Master Mason can doubt but it refers to the last head-line of this +chapter? + +In the pre-Christian Mithraïc Mysteries, the candidate who +fearlessly overcame the “_twelve_ Tortures,” which preceded the +final initiation, received a small round cake or wafer of unleavened +bread, symbolizing, _in one of its meanings_, the solar disk and +known as the heavenly bread or “manna,” and having figures traced +on it. A _lamb_, or a _bull_ was killed, and with the blood the +candidate had to be sprinkled, as in the case of the Emperor Julian’s +initiation. The _seven_ rules or mysteries were then delivered to +the “newly-born” that are represented in the _Revelation_ as the +seven seals which are opened “in order” (see chap. v. and vi.). There +can be no doubt that the Seer of Patmos referred to this ceremony. + +The origin of the Roman Catholic amulets and “relics” blessed by +the Pope, is the same as that of the “Ephesian Spell,” or magical +characters engraved either on a stone or drawn on a piece of +parchment; the Jewish amulets with verses out of the Law, and called +_phylacteria_, φυλακτηρια and the Mahometan charms with verses of the +_Koran_. All these were used as protective magic spells; and worn by +the believers on their persons. Epiphanius, the worthy ex-Marcosian, +who speaks of these charms when used by the Manicheans as amulets, +that is to say, things worn round the neck (Periapta), and +“incantations and _such-like trickery_,” cannot well throw a slur upon +the “_trickery_” of the Pagans and Gnostics, without including the +Roman Catholic and Popish amulets. + +But consistency is a virtue which we fear is losing, under Jesuit +influence, the slight hold it may ever have had on the Church. That +crafty, learned, conscienceless, terrible soul of Jesuitism, within +the body of Romanism, is slowly but surely possessing itself of the +whole prestige and spiritual power that clings to it. For the better +exemplification of our theme it will be necessary to contrast the +moral principles of the ancient Tanaïm and Theurgists with those +professed by the modern Jesuits, who practically control Romanism +to-day, and are the hidden enemy that would-be reformers must +encounter and overcome. Throughout the whole of antiquity, where, +in what land, can we find anything like this Order or anything even +approaching it? We owe a place to the Jesuits in this chapter on +secret societies, for more than any other they are a secret body, +and have a far closer connection with actual Masonry--in France and +Germany at least--than people are generally aware of. The cry of an +outraged public morality was raised against this Order from its very +birth.[732] Barely fifteen years had elapsed after the bull approving +its constitution was promulgated, when its members began to be driven +away from one place to the other. Portugal and the Low Countries got +rid of them, in 1578; France in 1594; Venice in 1606; Naples in 1622. +From St. Petersburg they were expelled in 1815, and from all Russia +in 1820. + +It was a promising child from its very teens. What it grew up to be +every one knows well. The Jesuits have done more moral harm in this +world than all the fiendish armies of the mythical Satan. Whatever +extravagance may seem to be involved in this remark, will disappear +when our readers in America, who now know little about them, are +made acquainted with their principles (principio) and rules as +they appear in various works written by the Jesuits themselves. We +beg leave to remind the public that every one of the statements +which follow in quotation marks are extracted from authenticated +manuscripts, or folios printed by this distinguished body. Many +are copied from the large Quarto[733] published by the authority +of, and verified and collated by the Commissioners of the French +Parliament. The statements therein were collected and presented to +the King, in order that, as the “Arrest du Parlement du 5 Mars, +1762,” expresses it, “the elder son of the Church might be made aware +of the perversity of this doctrine.... A doctrine authorizing Theft, +Lying, Perjury, Impurity, every Passion and Crime, teaching Homicide, +Parricide, and Regicide, overthrowing religion in order to substitute +for it superstition, by favoring _Sorcery_, Blasphemy, Irreligion, +and Idolatry ... etc.” Let us then examine the ideas on _magic_ of +the Jesuits. Writing on this subject in his secret instructions, +Anthony Escobar[734] says: + +“It is lawful ... to make use of the science acquired _through the +assistance of the Devil_, provided the preservation and use of that +knowledge do not depend upon the Devil, _for the knowledge is good +in itself, and the sin by which it was acquired has gone by_.”[735] +Hence, why should not a Jesuit cheat the Devil as well as he cheats +every layman? + +“_Astrologers and soothsayers are either bound, or are not bound, to +restore the reward of their divination, if the event does not come to +pass._ I own,” remarks the _good_ Father Escobar, “that the former +opinion does not at all please me, because, when the astrologer or +diviner has exerted all the diligence _in the diabolic art_ which is +essential to his purpose, he has fulfilled his duty, whatever may +be the result. As the physician ... is not bound to restore his fee +... if his patient should die; so neither is the astrologer bound to +restore his charge ... except where he has used no effort, or was +ignorant of his diabolic art; because, when he has used his endeavors +he has not deceived.”[736] + +Further, we find the following on astrology: “If any one affirms, +through conjecture founded upon the influence of the stars and the +character, disposition of a man, that he will be a soldier, an +ecclesiastic, or a bishop, _this divination may be devoid of all +sin_; because the stars and the disposition of the man may have the +power of inclining the human will to a certain lot or rank, but not +of constraining it.”[737] + +Busembaum and Lacroix, in _Theologia Moralis_,[738] say, “Palmistry +may be considered lawful, if from the lines and divisions of the +hands it can ascertain the disposition of the body, and conjecture, +with probability, the propensities and affections of the soul.”[739] + +This noble fraternity, which many preachers have of late so +vehemently denied to have ever been a _secret_ one, has been +sufficiently proved as such. Their constitutions were translated +into Latin by the Jesuit Polancus, and printed in the college of +the Society at Rome, in 1558. “They were jealously kept secret, the +greater part of the Jesuits themselves knowing only extracts from +them.[740] _They were never produced to the light until 1761, when +they were published by order of the French Parliament_ in 1761, +1762, in the famous process of Father Lavalette.” The degrees of the +Order are: I. Novices; II. Lay Brothers, or temporal Coadjutors; +III. Scholastics; IV. Spiritual Coadjutors; V. Professed of Three +Vows; VI. Professed of Five Vows. “There is also a secret class, +known only to the General and a few faithful Jesuits, which, perhaps +more than any other, contributed to the dreaded and mysterious power +of the Order,” says Niccolini. The Jesuits reckon it among the +greatest achievements of their Order that Loyola supported, by a +special memorial to the Pope, a petition for the reörganization of +that abominable and abhorred instrument of wholesale butchery--the +infamous tribunal of the Inquisition. + +This Order of Jesuits is now all-powerful in Rome. They have been +reinstalled in the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical +Affairs, in the Department of the Secretary of State, and in the +Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Pontifical Government was for +years previous to Victor Emanuel’s occupation of Rome entirely in +their hands. The Society now numbers 8,584 members. But we must +see what are their chief rules. By what is seen above, in becoming +acquainted with their mode of action, we may ascertain what the whole +Catholic body is likely to be. Says Mackenzie: “The Order has secret +signs and passwords, according to the degrees to which the members +belong, and as they wear no particular dress, it is very difficult +to recognize them, unless they reveal themselves as members of the +Order; for they may appear as Protestants or Catholics, democrats or +aristocrats, infidels or bigots, according to the special mission +with which they are entrusted. Their spies are everywhere, of all +apparent ranks of society, and they may appear learned and wise, or +simple or foolish, as their instructions run. There are Jesuits of +both sexes, and all ages, and it is a well-known fact that members of +the Order, of high family and delicate nurture, are acting as menial +servants in Protestant families, and doing other things of a similar +nature in aid of the Society’s purposes. We cannot be too much on our +guard, for the whole Society, being founded on a law of unhesitating +obedience, can bring its force on any given point with unerring and +fatal accuracy.”[741] + +The Jesuits maintain that “the Society of Jesus is not of human +invention, _but it proceeded from him whose name it bears_. For Jesus +himself described that rule of life which the Society follows, _first +by his example_, and afterwards by his words.”[742] + +Let, then, all pious Christians listen and acquaint themselves with +this alleged “rule of life” and precepts of their God, as exemplified +by the Jesuits. Peter Alagona (_St. Thomæ Aquinatis Summæ Theologiæ +Compendium_) says: “By the command of God it is lawful to kill an +innocent person, to steal, or commit ... (_Ex mandato Dei licet +occidere innocentem, furari, fornicari_); because he is the Lord of +life and death, and all things, _and it is due to him thus to fulfil +his command_” (Ex primâ secundæ, Quæst., 94). + +“A man of a religious order, who for a short time lays aside his +habit _for a sinful purpose_, is free from heinous sin, and does not +incur the penalty of excommunication” (Lib. iii., sec. 2., Probl. 44, +n. 212).[743] + +John Baptist Taberna (_Synopsis Theologiæ Practicæ_), propounds the +following question: “Is a judge bound to restore the bribe which he +has received for passing sentence?” _Answer: “If he has received the +bribe for passing an unjust sentence, it is probable that he may +keep it.... This opinion is maintained and defended by fifty-eight +doctors”_[744] (Jesuits). + +We must abstain at present from proceeding further. So disgustingly +licentious, hypocritical, and demoralizing are nearly all of these +precepts, that it was found impossible to put many of them in print, +except in the Latin language.[745] We will return to some of the more +decent as we proceed, for the sake of comparison. But what are we to +think of the future of the Catholic world, if it is to be controlled +in word and deed by this villainous society? And that it is to be so, +we can hardly doubt, as we find the Cardinal Archbishop of Cambrai +loudly proclaiming the same to all the faithful? His pastoral has +made a certain noise in France; and yet, as two centuries have +rolled away since the _exposé_ of these infamous principles, the +Jesuits have had ample time to lie so successfully in denying the +just charges, that most Catholics will never believe such a thing. +The _infallible_ Pope, Clement XIV. (Ganganelli), suppressed them on +the 23d of July, 1773, and yet they came to life again; and another +equally infallible Pope, Pius VII., reëstablished them on the 7th of +August, 1814. + +But we will hear what Monseigneur of Cambrai is swift to proclaim in +1876. We quote from a secular paper: + +“Among other things, he maintains that _Clericalism, Ultramontanism, +and Jesuitism are one and the same thing--that is to say, +Catholicism_--and that the distinctions between them have been +created by the enemies of religion. There was a time, he says, when +a certain theological opinion was commonly professed in France +concerning the authority of the Pope. It was restricted to our +nation, and was of recent origin. The civil power during a century +and a half imposed official instruction. Those who profess these +opinions were called Gallicans, and those who protested were called +Ultramontanes, because they had their doctrinal centre beyond the +Alps, at Rome. To-day the distinction between the two schools is no +longer admissible. Theological Gallicanism can no longer exist, since +this opinion has ceased to be tolerated by the Church. _It has been +solemnly condemned, past all return, by the Œcumenical Council of the +Vatican. One cannot now be Catholic without being Ultramontane--and +Jesuit._”[746] + +This settles the question. We leave inferences for the present, and +proceed to compare some of the practices and precepts of the Jesuits, +with those of individual mystics and organized castes and societies +of the ancient time. Thus the fair-minded reader may be placed in a +position to judge between them as to the tendency of their doctrines +to benefit or degrade humanity. + +Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared +that he had performed “miracles” by means of the _Book of Sepher +Jezireh_, and challenged every skeptic.[747] Franck, quoting from the +Babylonian _Talmud_, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina +and Oshoi.[748] + +Simon Magus was doubtless a pupil of the Tanaïm of Samaria, the +reputation which he left behind, together with the title given to +him of “the Great Power of God,” testifies strongly in favor of the +ability of his teachers. The calumnies so zealously disseminated +against him by the unknown authors and compilers of the _Acts_ and +other writings, could not cripple the truth to such an extent as to +conceal the fact that no Christian could rival him in thaumaturgic +deeds. The story told about his falling during an aërial flight, +breaking both his legs, and then committing suicide, is ridiculous. +Instead of praying mentally that it should so happen, why did not +the apostles pray rather that they should be allowed to outdo Simon +in wonders and miracles, for then they might have proved their +case far more easily than they did, and so converted thousands to +Christianity. Posterity has heard but one side of the story. Were the +disciples of Simon to have a chance, we might find, perhaps, that it +was Peter who broke both his legs, had we not known that this apostle +was too prudent ever to venture himself in Rome. On the confession +of several ecclesiastical writers, no apostle ever performed such +“supernatural wonders.” Of course pious people will say this only the +more proves that it was the “Devil” who worked through Simon. + +Simon was accused of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, because he +introduced it as the “Holy Spiritus, the _Mens_ (Intelligence), or +the mother of all.” But we find the same expression used in the _Book +of Enoch_, in which, in contradistinction to the “Son of Man,” he +says “Son of the Woman.” In the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes, and in +the _Sohar_, as well in the _Books of Hermes_, the expression is +usual; and even in the apocryphal _Evangelium_ of the Hebrews we read +that Jesus himself admitted the sex of the Holy Ghost by using the +expression, “_My mother, the Holy Pneuma_.” + +But what is the heresy of Simon, or what the blasphemies of all the +heretics, in comparison with that of the same Jesuits who have now +so completely mastered the Pope, ecclesiastical Rome, and the entire +Catholic world? Listen again to their profession of faith. + +“Do what your conscience tells you to be good and commanded: if, +through invincible error, you believe lying or blasphemy to be +commanded by God, _blaspheme_.”[749] + +“Omit to do what your conscience tells you is forbidden: omit the +worship of God, if you invincibly believe it to be prohibited by +God.”[750] + +“There is an implied law ... obey an invincibly erroneous dictate +of conscience. As often as you believe invincibly that a lie is +commanded--_lie_.”[751] + +“Let us suppose a Catholic to believe invincibly that the worship of +images is forbidden: in such a case our Lord Jesus Christ will be +obliged to say to him, “_Depart from me thou cursed ... because thou +hast worshipped mine image_.” So, neither, is there any absurdity in +supposing that Christ may say, “_Come thou blessed ... because thou +hast lied, believing invincibly, that in such a case I commanded the +lie_.”[752] + +Does not this--but no! words fail to do justice to the emotions that +these astonishing precepts must awaken in the breast of every honest +person. Let silence, resulting from _invincible_ disgust, be our only +adequate tribute to such unparalleled moral obliquity. + +The popular feeling in Venice (1606), when the Jesuits were driven +out from that city, expressed itself most forcibly. Great crowds +had accompanied the exiles to the sea-shore, and the farewell cry +which resounded after them over the waves, was, “_Ande in malora!_” +(Get away! and woe be to you.) “That cry was echoed throughout the +two following centuries;” says Michelet, who gives this statement, +“in Bohemia in 1618 ... in India in 1623 ... and throughout all +Christendom in 1773.” + +In what particular was then Simon Magus a blasphemer, if he only did +that which his conscience invincibly told him was true? And in what +particular were ever the “Heretics,” or even _infidels_ of the worst +kind more reprehensible than the Jesuits--those of Caen,[753] for +instance--who say the following: + +“The Christian religion is ... _evidently_ credible, but not +_evidently true_. It is evidently credible; for it is evident that +whoever embraces it is prudent. _It is not evidently true_; for it +either teaches obscurely, or the things which it teaches are obscure. +And they who affirm that the Christian religion is evidently true, +are obliged to confess that it is evidently false.” + +“Infer from hence-- + +“1. That it is _not_ evident that there is now any true religion in +the world. + +“2. That it is _not_ evident that of all religions existing upon +the earth, the Christian religion is the most true; for have you +travelled over all countries of the world, or do you know that others +have?... + + * * * * * + +“4. That it is _not_ evident that the predictions of the prophets +were given by inspiration of God; for what refutation will you bring +against me, if I deny that they were true prophecies, or assert that +they were only conjectures? + +“5. That it is _not_ evident that the miracles were real, which +are recorded to have been wrought by Christ; although no one can +prudently deny them (Position 6). + +“Neither is an avowed belief in Jesus Christ, in the Trinity, in all +the articles of Faith, and in the Decalogue, necessary to Christians. +The only explicit belief which was necessary to the former (Jews) +and is necessary to the latter (Christians) is 1, of God; 2, of a +rewarding God” (Position 8). + +Hence, it is also more than “evident” that there are moments in the +life of the greatest liar when he may utter some truths. It is in +this case so perfectly exemplified by the “good Fathers,” that we can +see more clearly than ever whence proceeded the solemn condemnations +at the Œcumenical Council of 1870, of certain “heresies,” and the +enforcement of other articles of faith in which none believed less +than those who inspired the Pope to issue them. History has yet +perhaps to learn that the octogenarian Pope, intoxicated with the +fumes of his newly-enforced infallibility, was but the faithful echo +of the Jesuits. “An old man is raised trembling upon the _pavois_ +of the Vatican;” says Michelet, “every thing becomes absorbed and +confined in him.... For fifteen centuries Christendom had submitted +to the spiritual yoke of the Church.... But that yoke was not +sufficient for them; they wanted the whole world to bend under the +hand of one master. Here my own words are too weak; I shall borrow +those of others. They (the Jesuits) wanted (this is the accusation +flung in their faces by the Bishop of Paris in the full Council of +Trent) _faire de l’épouse de Jesus Christ une prostituée aux volontés +d’un homme_.”[754] + +They have succeeded. The Church is henceforth an inert tool, and +the Pope a poor weak instrument in the hands of this Order. But for +how long? Until the end comes, well may sincere Christians remember +the prophetic lamentations of the thrice-great Trismegistus over +his own country: “Alas, alas, my son, a day will come when the +sacred hieroglyphics will become but idols. _The world will mistake +the emblems of science for gods_, and accuse grand Egypt of having +worshipped hell-monsters. But those who will calumniate us thus, will +themselves worship Death instead of Life, folly in place of wisdom; +they will denounce love and fecundity, fill their temples with dead +men’s bones, as relics, and waste their youth in solitude and tears. +Their _virgins will be widows (nuns) before being wives_, and consume +themselves in grief; because men will have despised and profaned the +sacred mysteries of Isis.”[755] + +How correct this prophecy has proved we find in the following Jesuit +precept, which again we extract from the Report of the Commissioners +to the Parliament of Paris: + +“The more true opinion is, _that all inanimate and irrational things +may be legitimately worshipped_,” says Father Gabriel Vasquez, +treating of Idolatry. “If the doctrine which we have established +be rightly understood, not only may a painted image and every holy +thing, set forth by public authority for the worship of God, be +properly adored with God as the image of Himself, but also any other +thing of this world, whether it be inanimate and irrational, or in +its nature rational.”[756] + +“Why may we not adore and worship with God, apart from danger, +anything whatsoever of this world; for God is in it according to +His essence ... [This is precisely what the Pantheist and Hindu +philosophy maintains.] and preserves it continually by His power; +and when we bow down ourselves before it and impress it with a kiss, +we present ourselves before God, the author of it, with the whole +soul, as unto the prototype of the image [follow instances of relics, +etc.].... To this we may add that, since everything of this world is +the work of God, and God is always abiding and working in it, we may +more readily conceive Him to be in it than a saint in the vesture +which belonged to him. And, therefore, _without regarding in any way +the dignity of the thing created, to direct our thoughts to God, +while we give to the creature the sign and mark of submission by a +kiss or prostration, is neither vain nor superstitious, but an act of +the purest religion_.”[757] + +A precept this, which, whether or not doing honor to the Christian +Church, may at least be profitably quoted by any Hindu, Japanese, or +other heathen when rebuked for his worship of idols. We purposely +quote it for the benefit of our respected “heathen” friends who will +see these lines. + +The prophecy of Hermes is less equivocal than either of the alleged +prophecies of Isaiah, which have furnished a pretext for saying that +the gods of all the nations were demons. Only, facts are stronger, +sometimes, than the strongest faith. All that the Jews learned, they +had from older nations than themselves. The Chaldean Magi were their +masters in the secret doctrine, and it was during the Babylonian +captivity that they learned its metaphysical as well as practical +tenets. Pliny mentions three schools of Magi: one that he shows to +have been founded at an unknown antiquity; the other established +by Osthanes and Zoroaster; the third by Moses and Jambres. And all +the knowledge possessed by these different schools, whether Magian, +Egyptian, or Jewish, was derived from India, or rather from both +sides of the Himalayas. Many a lost secret lies buried under wastes +of sand, in the Gobi Desert of Eastern Turkestan, and the wise men of +Khotan have preserved strange traditions and knowledge of alchemy. + +Baron Bunsen shows that the origin of the ancient prayers and hymns +of the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_ is _anterior_ to Menes, and +belongs, probably, to the pre-Menite Dynasty of Abydos, between 3100 +and 4500 B.C. The learned Egyptologist makes the era of Menes, or +National Empire, as not later than 3059 B.C., and demonstrates that +“the system of Osirian worship and mythology was already formed”[758] +before this era of Menes. + +We find in the hymns of this scientifically-established pre-Edenic +epoch (for Bunsen carries us back several centuries _beyond_ the +year of the creation of the world, 4004 B.C., as fixed by biblical +chronology) precise lessons of morality, identical in substance, and +nearly so in form of expression, with those preached by Jesus in +his Sermon on the Mount. We give the authority of the most eminent +Egyptologists and hierologists for our statement. “The inscriptions +of the twelfth Dynasty are filled with ritualistic formulæ,” says +Bunsen. Extracts from the Hermetic books are found on monuments +of the earliest dynasties, and “on those of the twelfth (dynasty) +portions of an _earlier_ ritual are by no means uncommon.... _To feed +the_ hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, bury the +_dead_ ... _formed the first duty of a pious man_.... The doctrine of +the immortality of the soul is as old as this period” (Tablet, _Brit. +Mus._, 562).[759] + +And far older, perhaps. It dates from the time when the soul was an +_objective_ being, hence when it could hardly be denied by _itself_; +when humanity was a spiritual race and death existed not. Toward the +decline of the cycle of life, the ethereal _man-spirit_ then fell +into the sweet slumber of temporary unconsciousness in one sphere, +only to find himself awakening in the still brighter light of a +higher one. But while the spiritual man is ever striving to ascend +higher and higher toward its source of being, passing through the +cycles and spheres of individual life, physical man had to descend +with the great cycle of universal creation until it found itself +clothed with the terrestrial garments. Thenceforth the soul was too +deeply buried under physical clothing to reässert its existence, +except in the cases of those more spiritual natures, which, with +every cycle, became more rare. And yet none of the pre-historical +nations ever thought of denying either the existence or the +immortality of the inner man, the real “self.” Only, we must bear +in mind the teachings of the old philosophies: the spirit alone is +immortal--the soul, _per se_, is neither eternal nor divine. When +linked too closely with the physical brain of its terrestrial casket, +it gradually becomes a _finite_ mind, a simple animal and sentient +life-principle, the _nephesh_ of the Hebrew _Bible_.[760] + +The doctrine of man’s _triune_ nature is as clearly defined in +the Hermetic books as it is in Plato’s system, or again in that +of the Buddhist and Brahmanical philosophies. And this is one of +the most important as well as least understood of the doctrines of +Hermetic science. The Egyptian Mysteries, so imperfectly known by +the world, and only through the few brief allusions to them in +the _Metamorphosis of Apuleius_, taught the greatest virtues. They +unveiled to the aspirant in the “higher” mysteries of initiation that +which many of our modern Hermetic students vainly search for in the +kabalistic books, and which no obscure teachings of the Church, under +the guidance of the Order of Jesuits, will ever be able to unveil. +To compare, then, the ancient secret societies of the hierophants +with the artificially-produced hallucinations of those few followers +of Loyola, who were, perchance, sincere at the beginning of their +career, is to insult the former. And yet, in justice to them, we are +compelled to do so. + +One of the most unconquerable obstacles to initiation, with the +Egyptians as with the Greeks, was any degree of murder. One of the +greatest titles to admission in the Order of Jesuits is a _murder_ +in defence of Jesuitism. “_Children may kill their parents if they +compel them to abandon the Catholic faith._” + +“Christian and Catholic sons,” says Stephen Fagundez, “may accuse +their fathers of the crime of heresy if they wish to turn them from +the faith, although they may know that their parents will be burned +with fire, and put to death for it, as Tolet teaches.... And not +only may they refuse them food ... _but they may also justly kill +them_.”[761] + +It is well known that Nero, the Emperor, _had never dared_ seek +initiation into the Mysteries on account of the murder of Agrippina! + +Under Section XIV. of the _Principles of the Jesuits_, we find on +_Homicide_ the following Christian principles inculcated by Father +Henry Henriquez, in _Summæ Theologiæ Moralis_. Tomus 1, Venetiis, +1600 (Ed. Coll. Sion): “If an adulterer, even though he should be an +ecclesiastic ... being attacked by the husband, kills his aggressor +... _he is not considered irregular_: _non ridetur irregularis_ (Lib. +XIV., _de Irregularitatæ_, c. 10, § 3). + +“If a father were obnoxious to the State (being in banishment), and +to the society at large, and there were no other means of averting +such an injury, then I should approve of this” (for a son to kill his +father), says Sec. XV., _on Parricide and Homicide_.[762] + +“It will be lawful for an ecclesiastic, or one of the religious +order, _to kill a calumniator_ who threatens to spread atrocious +accusations against himself or his religion,”[763] is the rule set +forth by the Jesuit Francis Amicus. + +So far, good. We are informed by the highest authorities what a man +in the Catholic communion may do that the common law and public +morality stamp as criminal, and still continue in the odor of +Jesuitical sanctity. Now suppose we again turn the medal and see what +principles were inculcated by Pagan Egyptian moralists before the +world was blessed with these modern improvements in ethics. + +In Egypt every city of importance was separated from its burial place +by a sacred lake. The same ceremony of judgment which the _Book of +the Dead_ describes as taking place in the world of Spirit, took +place on earth during the burial of the mummy. Forty-two judges or +assessors assembled on the shore and judged the departed “soul” +according to its actions when in the body, and it was only upon a +unanimous approval of this _post-mortem_ jury that the boatman, who +represented the Spirit of Death, could convey the justified defunct’s +body to its last resting-place. After that the priests returned +within the sacred precincts and instructed the neophytes upon the +probable solemn drama which was then taking place in the invisible +realm whither the soul had fled. The immortality of the spirit was +strongly inculcated by the Al-om-jah.[764] In the _Crata Nepoa_[765] +the following is described as the _seven_ degrees of the initiation. + +After a preliminary trial at Thebes, where the neophyte had to pass +through many trials, called the “Twelve Tortures,” he was commanded +to govern his passions and never lose for a moment the idea of his +God. Then as a symbol of the wanderings of the unpurified soul, +he had to ascend several ladders and wander in darkness in a cave +with many doors, all of which were locked. When he had overcome +the dreadful trials, he received the degree of _Pastophoris_, the +second and third degrees being called the _Neocoris_, and the +_Melanephoris_. Brought into a vast subterranean chamber thickly +furnished with mummies lying in state, he was placed in presence +of the coffin which contained the mutilated body of Osiris covered +with blood. This was the hall called “Gates of Death,” and it is +most certainly to this mystery that the passages in the _Book of +Job_ (xxxviii. 17) and other portions of the _Bible_ allude when +these gates are spoken of.[766] In chapter x., we give the esoteric +interpretation of the “Book of Job,” which is the poem of initiation +_par excellence_. + + “Have the gates of death been opened to thee? + Hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?” + +asks the “Lord”--_i.e._, the Al-om-jah, the Initiator--of Job, +alluding to this third degree of initiation. + +When the neophyte had conquered the terrors of this trial, he was +conducted to the “Hall of Spirits,” to be judged by them. Among +the rules in which he was instructed, he was commanded “_never to +either desire or seek revenge; to be always ready to help a brother +in danger, even unto the risk of his own life; to bury every dead +body; to honor his parents above all_; respect old age and protect +those weaker than himself; and finally, to ever bear in mind the +hour of death, and that of resurrection, in a new and imperishable +body.”[767] Purity and chastity were highly recommended, and +_adultery threatened with death_. + +Then the Egyptian neophyte was made a _Kristophores_. In this degree +the mystery-name of IAO was communicated to him. The fifth degree +was that of _Balahala_, and he was instructed by Horus, in alchemy, +the “word” being _chemia_. In the sixth, the priestly dance in the +circle was taught him, in which he was instructed in astronomy, for +it represented the course of the planets. In the seventh degree, he +was initiated into the final Mysteries. After a final probation in a +building set apart for it, the _Astronomus_, as he was now called, +emerged from these sacred apartments called _Manneras_, and received +a cross--the _Tau_, which, at death, had to be laid upon his breast. +He was a hierophant. + +We have read above the rules of these holy initiates of the +_Christian_ Society of Jesus. Compare them with those enforced upon +the Pagan postulant, and Christian (!) morality with that inculcated +in those mysteries of the Pagans upon which all the thunders of an +avenging Deity are invoked by the Church. Had the latter no mysteries +of its own? Or were they in any wise purer, nobler, or more inciting +to a holy, virtuous life? Let us hear what Niccolini has to say, in +his able _History of the Jesuits_, of the _modern_ mysteries of the +Christian cloister.[768] + +“In most monasteries, and more particularly in those of the Capuchins +and reformed (reformati), there begins at Christmas a series of +feasts, which continues till Lent. All sorts of games are played, +the most splendid banquets are given, and in the small towns, above +all, the refectory of the convent is the best place of amusement for +the greater number of the inhabitants. At carnivals, two or three +very magnificent entertainments take place; the board so profusely +spread that one might imagine that Copia had here poured forth +the whole contents of her horn. It must be remembered that these +two orders live by alms.[769] The sombre silence of the cloister +is replaced by a confused sound of merrymaking, and its gloomy +vaults now echo with other songs than those of the psalmist. A ball +enlivens and terminates the feast; and, to render it still more +animated, and perhaps to show _how completely their vow of chastity +has eradicated all their carnal appetite_, some of the young monks +appear coquettishly dressed in the garb of the fair sex, and begin +the dance, along with others, transformed into gay cavaliers. _To +describe the scandalous scene which ensues would be but to disgust my +readers._ I will only say that I have myself often been a spectator +at such saturnalia.” + +The cycle is moving down, and, as it descends, the physical and +bestial nature of man develops more and more at the expense of the +Spiritual Self.[770] With what disgust may we not turn from this +religious farce called modern Christianity, to the noble faiths of +old! + +In the Egyptian _Funeral Ritual_ found among the hymns of the +_Book of the Dead_, and which is termed by Bunsen “that precious +and mysterious book,” we read an address of the deceased, in the +character of Horus, detailing all that he has done for his father +Osiris. Among other things the deity says: + + “30. I have given thee thy _Spirit_. + 31. I have given thee thy _Soul_. + 32. I have given thee thy force (body),” etc. + +In another place the entity, addressed as “Father” by the disembodied +soul, is shown to mean the “spirit” of man; for the verse says: +“I have made my soul come and speak with _his Father_,” its +_Spirit_.[771] + +The Egyptians regarded their _Ritual_ as essentially a Divine +inspiration; in short, as modern Hindus do the _Vedas_, and modern +Jews their Mosaic books. Bunsen and Lepsius show that the term +_Hermetic_ means inspired; for it is Thoth, the Deity itself, that +speaks and reveals to his elect among men the will of God and the +arcana of divine things. Portions of them are expressly stated “to +have been written by the very finger of Thoth himself;” to have been +the work and composition of the great God.[772] “At a later period +their Hermetic character is still more distinctly recognized, and +on a coffin of the 26th Dynasty, Horus announces to the deceased +that Thoth himself has brought him the books of his divine words, or +Hermetic writings.”[773] + +Since we are aware that Moses was an Egyptian priest, or at least +that he was learned in all their _wisdom_, we need not be astonished +that he should write in _Deuteronomy_ (ix. 10), “And the _Lord_ +delivered unto me two tables of stones written with the finger of +GOD;” or to find in _Exodus_ xxxi., “And he (the Lord) gave unto +Moses ... two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the +finger of God.” + +In the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other faiths founded on +philosophy, man was not merely, as with the Christians, a union of +soul and body; he was a trinity when spirit was added to it. Besides, +that doctrine made him consist of _kha_--body; _khaba_--astral form, +or shadow; _ka_--animal soul or life-principle; _ba_--the higher +soul; and _akh_--terrestrial intelligence. They had also a sixth +principle named _Sah_--or mummy; but the functions of this one +commenced only after the death of the body. After due purification, +during which the soul, separated from its body, continued to revisit +the latter in its mummified condition, this astral soul “became +a God,” for it was finally absorbed into “the Soul of the world.” +It became transformed into one of the creative deities, “the god +of Phtah,”[774] the Demiurgos, a generic name for the creators of +the world, rendered in the _Bible_ as the Elohim. In the _Ritual_ +the good or purified _soul_, “in conjunction with its higher or +_uncreated_ spirit, is more or less the victim of the dark influence +of the dragon Apophis. If it has attained the final knowledge of the +heavenly and the infernal mysteries--the _gnosis_, _i.e._, complete +reünion with the spirit, it will triumph over its enemies; if not +the soul could not escape its _second death_. It is ‘the lake that +burneth with fire and brimstone’ (elements), into which those that +are cast undergo a ‘second death’”[775] (_Apocalypse_). This death is +the gradual dissolution of the astral form into its primal elements, +alluded to several times already in the course of this work. But +this awful fate can be avoided by the knowledge of the “Mysterious +Name”--the “Word,”[776] say the kabalists. + +And what then was the penalty attached to the neglect of it? When a +man leads a naturally pure, virtuous life, there is none whatever; +except a delay in the world of spirits, until he finds himself +sufficiently purified to receive it from his Spiritual “Lord,” one +of the mighty Host. But if otherwise, the “soul,” as a half animal +principle, becomes paralyzed, and grows unconscious of its subjective +half--the Lord--and in proportion to the sensuous development of +the brain and nerves, sooner or later, it finally loses sight of +its divine mission on earth. Like the _Vourdalak_, or Vampire, of +the Servian tale, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength +and power at the expense of its spiritual parent. Then the already +half-unconscious soul, now fully intoxicated by the fumes of earthly +life, becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It is powerless +to discern the splendor of its higher spirit, to hear the warning +voice of its “guardian Angel,” and its “God.” It aims but at the +development and fuller comprehension of natural, earthly life; and +thus, can discover but the mysteries of physical nature. Its grief +and fear, hope and joy, are all closely blended with its terrestrial +existence. It ignores all that cannot be demonstrated by either its +organs of action, or sensation. It begins by becoming virtually dead; +it dies at last completely. It is _annihilated_. Such a catastrophe +may often happen long years before the final separation of the +_life_-principle from the body. When death arrives, its iron and +clammy grasp finds work with _life_ as usual; but there is no more a +soul to liberate. The whole essence of the latter has been already +absorbed by the vital system of the physical man. Grim death frees +but a spiritual corpse; at best an idiot. Unable either to soar +higher or awaken from lethargy, it is soon dissolved in the elements +of the terrestrial atmosphere. + +Seers, righteous men, who had attained to the highest science of the +inner man and the knowledge of truth, have, like Marcus Antoninus, +received instructions “from the gods,” in sleep and otherwise. +Helped by the purer spirits, those that dwell in “regions of eternal +bliss,” they have watched the process and warned mankind repeatedly. +Skepticism may sneer; _faith_, based on _knowledge_ and spiritual +science, believes and affirms. + +Our present cycle is preëminently one of such soul-deaths. We elbow +soulless men and women at every step in life. Neither can we wonder, +in the present state of things, at the gigantic failure of Hegel’s +and Schelling’s last efforts at some metaphysical construction of +a system. When facts, palpable and tangible facts of phenomenal +Spiritualism happen daily and hourly, and yet are denied by the +majority of “civilized” nations, little chance is there for the +acceptance of purely abstract metaphysics by the ever-growing crowd +of materialists. + +In the book called by Champollion _Le Manifestation à la Lumière_, +there is a chapter on the _Ritual_ which is full of mysterious +dialogues, with addresses to various “Powers” by the soul. Among +these dialogues there is one which is more than expressive of the +potentiality of the “Word.” The scene is laid in the “Hall of the Two +Truths.” The “Door,” the “Hall of Truth,” and even the various parts +of the gate, address the soul which presents itself for admission. +They all forbid it entrance unless it tells them their mystery, +or mystic names. What student of the Secret Doctrines can fail to +recognize in these names an identity of meaning and purpose with +those to be met with in the _Vedas_, the later works of the Brahmans, +and the _Kabala_? + +Magicians, Kabalists, Mystics, Neo-platonists and Theurgists of +Alexandria, who so surpassed the Christians in their achievements +in the secret science; Brahmans or Samaneans (Shamans) of old; and +modern Brahmans, Buddhists, and Lamaists, have all claimed that a +certain power attaches to these various names, pertaining to one +ineffable Word. We have shown from personal experience how deeply +the belief is rooted to this day in the popular mind all over +Russia,[777] that the Word works “miracles” and is at the bottom of +every magical feat. Kabalists mysteriously connect _Faith_ with it. +So did the apostles, basing their assertions on the words of Jesus, +who is made to say: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed +... nothing shall be impossible unto you,” and Paul, repeating the +words of Moses, tells that “the WORD is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, +and in thy heart; that is, the _word of faith_” (_Romans_ x. 8). +But who, except the initiates, can boast of comprehending its full +significance? + +In our days it is as it was in olden times, to believe in the +biblical “miracles” requires _faith_; but to be enabled to produce +them one’s self demands a knowledge of the esoteric meaning of the +“word.” “If Christ,” say Dr. Farrar and Canon Westcott, “wrought no +miracles, then the _gospels_ are untrustworthy.” But even supposing +that he did work them, would that prove that gospels written by +others than himself are any more trustworthy? And if not, to what +purpose is the argument? Besides, such a line of reasoning would +warrant the analogy that miracles performed by other religionists +than Christians ought to make _their_ gospels trustworthy. Does not +this imply at least an equality between the Christian Scriptures and +the Buddhist sacred books? For these equally abound with phenomena +of the most astounding character. Moreover, the Christians have +no longer _genuine_ miracles produced through their priests, for +they have _lost the Word_. But many a Buddhist Lama or Siamese +Talapoin--unless all travellers have conspired to lie--has been and +now is able to duplicate every phenomenon described in the _New +Testament_, and even do more, without any pretence of suspension of +natural law or divine intervention either. In fact, Christianity +proves that it is as dead in faith as it is dead in works, while +Buddhism is full of vitality and supported by practical proofs. + +The best argument in favor of the genuineness of Buddhist “miracles” +lies in the fact that Catholic missionaries, instead of denying them +or treating them as simple jugglery--as some Protestant missionaries +do have often found themselves in such straits as to be forced to +adopt the forlorn alternative of laying the whole on the back of +the Devil. And so belittled do the Jesuits feel themselves in the +presence of these genuine servants of God, that with an unparalleled +cunning, they concluded to act in the case of the Talapoins and +Buddhists as Mahomet is said to have acted with the mountain. “And +seeing that it would not move toward him, the Prophet moved himself +toward the mountain.” Finding that they could not catch the Siamese +with the birdlime of their pernicious doctrines in Christian garb, +they disguised themselves, and for centuries appeared among the poor, +ignorant people as Talapoins, until exposed. They have even voted and +adopted a resolution forthwith, which has now all the force of an +ancient article of faith. “Naaman, the Syrian,” say the Jesuits of +Caen, “did not dissemble his faith when he bowed the knee with the +king in the house of Rimmon; _neither do the Fathers of the Society +of Jesus dissemble, when they adopt the institute and the habit of +the Talapoins of Siam_” (nec dissimulant Patres S. J. Talapoinorum +Siamensium institutum vestemque affectantes.--_Position_ 9, 30 Jan., +1693). + +The potency contained in the _Mantras_ and the _Vâch_ of the Brahmans +is as much believed in at this day as it was in the early Vedic +period. The “Ineffable Name” of every country and religion relates +to that which the Masons affirm to be the mysterious characters +emblematic of the nine names or attributes by which the Deity was +known to the initiates. The Omnific Word traced by Enoch on the two +deltas of purest gold, on which he engraved two of the mysterious +characters, is perhaps better known to the poor, uneducated “heathen” +than to the highly accomplished Grand High Priests and Grand Z.’s of +the Supreme Chapters of Europe and America. Only why the companions +of the Royal Arch should so bitterly and constantly lament its loss, +is more than we can understand. This word of M. M. is, as they will +tell themselves, entirely composed of consonants. Hence, we doubt +whether any of them could ever have mastered its pronunciation, had +it even been “brought to light from the secret vault,” instead of its +several corruptions. However, it is to the land of Mizraim that the +grandson of Ham is credited with having carried the sacred delta of +the Patriarch Enoch. Therefore, it is in Egypt, and in the East alone +that the mysterious “Word” must be sought. + +But now that so many of the most important secrets of Masonry have +been divulged by friend and foe, may we not say, without suspicion +of malice or ill-feeling, that since the sad catastrophe of the +Templars, no “Lodge” in Europe, still less in America, has ever known +anything worth concealing. Reluctant to be misunderstood, we say _no_ +Lodge, leaving a few _chosen_ brethren entirely out of question. The +frantic denunciations of the Craft by Catholic and Protestant writers +appear simply ridiculous, as also the affirmation of the Abbé Barruel +that everything “betrays our Freemasons as the descendants of those +proscribed Knights” Templars of 1314. The _Memoirs of Jacobinism_ by +this Abbé, an eye-witness to the horrors of the first Revolution, +is devoted in great measure to the Rosicrucians and other Masonic +fraternities. The fact alone that he traces the modern Masons to +the Templars, and points them out as secret assassins, trained to +political murder, shows how little he knew of them, but how ardently +he desired, at the same time, to find in these societies convenient +scape-goats for the crimes and sins of another secret society which, +since its existence, has harbored more than one dangerous political +assassin--the Society of Jesus. + +The accusations against Masons have been mostly half guess-work, +half-unquenchable malice and predetermined vilification. Nothing +conclusive and certain of a criminal character has been directly +proven against them. Even their abduction of Morgan has remained a +matter of conjecture. The case was used at the time as a political +convenience by huckstering politicians. When an unrecognizable corpse +was found in Niagara River, one of the chiefs of this unscrupulous +class, being informed that the identity was exceedingly questionable, +unguardedly exposed the whole plot by saying: “Well, no matter, _he’s +a good enough Morgan until after the election_!” On the other hand, +we find the Order of the Jesuits not only permitting, in certain +cases, but actually _teaching and inciting to “High treason and +Regicide.”_[778] + +A series of _Lectures_ upon Freemasonry and its dangers, as delivered +in 1862, by James Burton Robertson, Professor of Modern History in +the Dublin University, are lying before us. In them the lecturer +quotes profusely as his authorities the said Abbé (Barruel, a natural +enemy of the Masons, _who cannot be caught at the confessional_), +and Robison, a well-known apostate-Mason of 1798. As usual with +every party, whether belonging to the Masonic or anti-Masonic side, +the traitor from the opposing camp is welcomed with praise and +encouragement, and great care is taken to whitewash him. However +convenient for certain political reasons the celebrated Committee +of the Anti-Masonic Convention of 1830 (U. S. of America) may have +found it to adopt this most Jesuitical proposition of Puffendorf that +“oaths oblige not when they are absurd and impertinent,” and that +other which teaches that “an oath obliges not if God does not accept +it,”[779] yet no truly honest man would accept such sophistry. We +sincerely believe that the better portion of humanity will ever bear +in mind that there exists a moral code of honor far more binding than +an oath, whether on the _Bible_, _Koran_, or _Veda_. The Essenes +never swore on anything at all, but their “ayes” and “nays” were as +good and far better than an oath. Besides, it seems surpassingly +strange to find nations that call themselves Christian instituting +customs in civil and ecclesiastical courts diametrically opposed to +the command of their God,[780] who distinctly forbids any swearing at +all, “neither by heaven ... nor by the earth ... nor by the head.” +It seems to us that to maintain that “an oath obliges not if God does +not accept it,” besides being an absurdity--as no man living, whether +he be fallible or infallible, can learn anything of God’s secret +thoughts--is _anti-Christian_ in the full sense of the word.[781] The +argument is brought forward only because it is convenient and answers +the object. Oaths will never be binding till each man will fully +understand that humanity is the highest manifestation on earth of the +Unseen Supreme Deity, and each man an incarnation of his God; and +when the sense of _personal_ responsibility will be so developed in +him that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to +himself, as well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken +by one who, without any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple +promise of honor. Therefore, to bring forward as authorities such +men as Barruel or Robison is simply obtaining the public confidence +under false pretenses. It is not the “spirit of _Masonic malice_ +whose heart coins slanders like a mint,” but far more that of the +Catholic clergy and their champions; and a man who would reconcile +the two ideas of honor and perjury, in any case whatever, is not to +be trusted himself. + +Loud is the claim of the nineteenth century to preëminence in +civilization over the ancients, and still more clamorous that of +the churches and their sycophants that Christianity has redeemed +the world from barbarism and idolatry. How little both are +warranted, we have tried to prove in these two volumes. The light +of Christianity has only served to show how much more hypocrisy and +vice its teachings have begotten in the world since its advent, and +how immensely superior were the ancients over us in every point of +honor.[782] The clergy, by teaching the helplessness of man, his +utter dependence on Providence, and the doctrine of atonement, have +crushed in their faithful followers every atom of self-reliance and +self-respect. So true is this, that it is becoming an axiom that the +most honorable men are to be found among atheists and the so-called +“infidels.” We hear from Hipparchus that in the days of _heathenism_ +“the shame and disgrace that justly attended the violation of his +oath threw the poor wretch into a fit of madness and despair, so +that he cut his throat and perished by his own hands, and his memory +was so abhorred after his death that his body lay upon the shore of +the island of Samos, and had no other burial than the sands of the +sea.”[783] But in our own century we find ninety-six delegates to +the United States Anti-Masonic Convention, every one doubtless a +member of some Protestant Church, and claiming the respect due to +men of honor and gentlemen, offering the most Jesuitical arguments +against the validity of a Masonic oath. The Committee, pretending +to quote the authority of “the most distinguished guides in the +philosophy of morals, and claiming the most ample support of _the +inspired_[784] ... who wrote before Freemasonry existed,” resolved +that, as an oath was “a transaction between man on one part and the +Almighty Judge on the other,” and the Masons were all infidels and +“unfit for civil trust,” therefore their oaths had to be considered +illegal and not binding.[785] + +But we will return to these _Lectures_ of Robertson and his charges +against Masonry. The greatest accusation brought against the latter +is that Masons reject a _personal_ God (this on the authority of +Barruel and Robison), and that they claim to be in possession of a +“secret to make men better and happier than Christ, his apostles and +his Church have made them.” Were the latter accusation but half true, +it might yet allow the consoling hope that they had really found +that secret by breaking off entirely from the mythical Christ of the +Church and the official Jehovah. But both the accusations are simply +as malicious as they are absurd and untrue; as we shall presently see. + +Let it not be imagined that we are influenced by personal feeling +in any of our reflections upon Masonry. So far from this being the +case we unhesitatingly proclaim our highest respect for the original +purposes of the Order and some of our most valued friends are within +its membership. We say naught against Masonry as it should be, but +denounce it as, thanks to the intriguing clergy, both Catholic and +Protestant, it now begins to be. Professedly the most absolute of +democracies, it is practically the appanage of aristocracy, wealth, +and personal ambition. Professedly the teacher of true ethics, it is +debased into a propaganda of anthropomorphic theology. The half-naked +apprentice, brought before the master during the initiation of the +first degree, is taught that at the door of the lodge every social +distinction is laid aside, and the poorest brother is the peer of +every other, though a reigning sovereign or an imperial prince. In +practice, the Craft turns lickspittle in every monarchical country, +to any regal scion who may deign, for the sake of using it as a +political tool, to put on the once symbolical lambskin. + +How far gone is the Masonic Fraternity in this direction, we can +judge from the words of one of its highest authorities. John Yarker, +Junior, of England; Past Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Greece; +Grand Master of the Rite of Swedenborg; also Grand Master of the +Ancient and Primitive Rite of Masonry, and Heaven only knows what +else,[786] says that Masonry could lose nothing by “the adoption of +a higher (not pecuniary) standard of membership and morality, with +exclusion from the ‘purple’ of all who _inculcate frauds, sham, +historical degrees, and other immoral abuses_” (page 158). And again, +on page 157: “As the Masonic Fraternity is now governed, the Craft is +fast becoming the paradise of the _bon vivant_; of the ‘charitable’ +hypocrite, who forgets the version of St. Paul, and decorates his +breast with the ‘charity jewel’ (having by this judicious expenditure +obtained the ‘purple’ he metes out judgment to other brethren of +greater ability and morality but less means); the manufacturer +of paltry Masonic tinsel; the rascally merchant who swindles in +hundreds, and even thousands, by appealing to the tender consciences +of those few who do regard their O. B.’s; and the Masonic ‘Emperors’ +and other charlatans who make power or money out of the aristocratic +pretensions which they have tacked on to our institution--_ad +captandum vulgus_.” + +We have no wish to make a pretence of exposing secrets long since +hawked about the world by perjured Masons. Everything vital, whether +in symbolical representations, rites, or passwords, as used in modern +Freemasonry, is known in the Eastern fraternities; though there +seems to be no intercourse or connection between them. If Medea is +described by Ovid as having “arm, breast, and knee made bare, left +foot slipshod;” and Virgil, speaking of Dido, shows this “Queen +herself ... now resolute on death, having one foot bare, etc.,”[787] +why doubt that there are in the East _real_ “Patriarchs of the +sacred Vedas,” explaining the esotericism of pure Hindu theology and +Brahmanism quite as thoroughly as European “Patriarchs?” + +But, if there are a few Masons who, from study of kabalistic +and other rare works, and coming in personal communication with +“Brothers” from the far-away East, have learned something of +_esoteric_ Masonry, it is not the case with the hundreds of +American Lodges. While engaged on this chapter, we have received +most unexpectedly, through the kindness of a friend, a copy of Mr. +Yarker’s volume, from which passages are quoted above. It is brimful +of learning and, what is more, of _knowledge_, as it seems to us. It +is especially valuable at this moment, since it corroborates, in many +particulars, what we have said in this work. Thus, we read in it the +following: + +“We think we have sufficiently established the fact of the connection +of Freemasonry with other speculative rites of antiquity, as well as +the antiquity and purity of the old English Templar-Rite of _seven +degrees_, and the spurious derivation of many of the other rites +therefrom.”[788] + +Such high Masons need not be told, though Craftsmen in general +do, that the time has come to remodel Masonry, and restore those +ancient landmarks, borrowed from the early sodalities, which the +eighteenth century founders of speculative Freemasonry meant to have +incorporated in the fraternity. There are no longer any secrets left +unpublished; the Order is degenerating into a convenience for selfish +men to use, and bad men to debase. + +It is but recently that a majority of the Supreme Councils of the +Ancient and Accepted Rite assembled at Lausanne, justly revolting +against such a blasphemous belief as that in a personal Deity, +invested with all human attributes, pronounced the following words: +“Freemasonry proclaims, as it has proclaimed from its origin, the +existence of a _creative principle_, under the name of the great +Architect of the universe.” Against this, a small minority has +protested, urging that “belief in a _creative principle_ is not _the +belief in God, which Freemasonry requires of every candidate_ before +he can pass its very threshold.” + +This confession does not sound like the rejection of a personal God. +Could we have had the slightest doubt upon the subject, it would +be thoroughly dispelled by the words of General Albert Pike,[789] +perhaps the greatest authority of the day, among American Masons, who +raises himself most violently against this innovation. We cannot do +better than quote his words: + +“This _Principe Createur_ is no new phrase--it is but an old term +revived. _Our adversaries, numerous and formidable_, will say, and +will have the right to say, that our _Principe Createur_ is identical +with the _Principe Generateur_ of the Indians and Egyptians, and +may fitly be symbolized as it was symbolized anciently, by the +Lingæ.... To accept this, in lieu of a personal God, is TO ABANDON +CHRISTIANITY, and _the worship of Jehovah_, and return to wallow in +the styes of Paganism.” + +And are those of _Jesuitism_, then, so much cleaner? “Our +adversaries, numerous and formidable.” That sentence says all. Who +these so formidable enemies are, is useless to inquire. They are the +Roman Catholics, and some of the Reformed Presbyterians. To read what +the two factions respectively write, we may well ask which adversary +is the more afraid of the other. But, what shall it profit any one +to organize against a fraternity that does not even dare to have +a belief of its own for fear of giving offense? And pray, how, if +Masonic oaths mean anything, and Masonic penalties are regarded as +more than burlesque, can any adversaries, numerous or few, feeble +or strong, know what goes on inside the lodge, or penetrate beyond +that “brother terrible, or the tiler, who guards, with a drawn sword, +the portals of the lodge?” Is, then, this “brother terrible” no more +formidable than Offenbach’s _General Boum_, with his smoking pistol, +jingling spurs, and towering _panache_? Of what use the millions +of men that make up this great fraternity, the world over, if they +cannot be so cemented together as to bid defiance to all adversaries? +Can it be that the “mystic tie” is but a rope of sand, and Masonry +but a toy to feed the vanity of a few leaders who rejoice in ribbons +and regalia? Is its authority as false as its antiquity? It seems so, +indeed; and yet, as “even the fleas have smaller fleas to bite ’em,” +there are Catholic alarmists, even here, who pretend to fear Masonry! + +And yet, these same Catholics, in all the serenity of their +traditional impudence, publicly threaten America, with its 500,000 +Masons, and 34,000,000 Protestants, with a union of Church and +State under the direction of Rome! The danger which threatens the +free institutions of this republic, we are told, will come from +“the principles of Protestantism logically developed.” The present +Secretary of the Navy--the Hon. R. W. Thompson, of Indiana, having +actually dared, in his own free Protestant country, to publish a book +recently on _Papacy and the Civil Power_, in which his language is as +moderate as it is gentlemanly and fair, a Roman Catholic priest, at +Washington, D. C.--the very seat of Government--denounces him with +violence. What is better, a representative member of the Society +of Jesus, Father F. X. Weninger, D.D., pours upon his devoted head +a vial of wrath that seems to have been brought direct from the +Vatican cellars. “The assertions,” he says, “which Mr. Thompson +makes on the necessary antagonism between the Catholic Church and +free institutions, are characterized by pitiful ignorance and blind +audacity. He is reckless of logic, of history, of common sense, +of charity; and presents himself before the loyal American people +as a narrow-minded bigot. No scholar would venture to repeat the +stale calumnies which have so often been refuted.... In answer to +his accusations against the Church as the enemy of liberty, I tell +him that, if ever this country should become a Catholic country, +that is, if Catholics should ever be in the majority, and _have the +control of political power_, then he would see the principles of our +Constitution carried out to the fullest extent; he would see that +these States would be in very deed _United_. He would behold a people +living in peace and harmony; joined in the bonds of one faith, their +hearts beating in unison with love of their fatherland, with charity +and forbearance toward all, and respecting the rights and consciences +even of their slanderers.” + +In behalf of this “Society of Jesus,” he advises Mr. Thompson to +send his book to the Czar, Alexander II., and to Frederick William, +Emperor of Germany. He may expect from them, as a token of their +sympathy, the orders of St. Andrew and of the Black Eagle. “From +clear-minded, self-thinking, patriotic Americans, he cannot expect +anything but the _decoration_ of their contempt. As long as American +hearts _will_ beat in American bosoms, and the blood of their fathers +_shall_ flow in their veins, such efforts as Thompson’s _shall_ not +succeed. True, genuine Americans will protect the Catholic Church in +this country and _will finally join it_.” After that, having thus, +as he seems to think, left the corpse of his impious antagonist +upon the field, he marches off emptying the dregs of his exhausted +bottle after the following fashion: “We leave the volume, whose +argument we have killed, as a carcass to be devoured by those Texan +buzzards--those stinking birds--we mean that kind of men who love to +feed on corruption, calumnies, and lies, and are attracted by the +stench of them.” + +This last sentence is worthy to be added as an appendix to the +_Discorsi del Somma Pontifice Pio IX._, by Don Pasquale di +Franciscis, immortalized in the contempt of Mr. Gladstone.--_Tel +maître tel Valet!_ + +Moral: This will teach fair-minded, sober, and gentlemanly writers +that even so well-bred an antagonist as Mr. Thompson has shown +himself in his book, cannot hope to escape the only available weapon +in the Catholic armory--Billingsgate. The whole argument of the +author shows that while forcible, he intends to be fair; but he +might as well have attacked with a Tertullianistic violence, for his +treatment would not have been worse. It will doubtless afford him +some consolation to be placed in the same category with schismatic +and infidel emperors and kings. + +While Americans, including Masons, are now warned to prepare +themselves to join the Holy Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church, +we are glad to know that there are some as loyal and respected as +any in Masonry who support our views. Conspicuous among them is our +venerable friend, Mr. Leon Hyneman, P. M., and a member of the Grand +Lodge of Pennsylvania. For eight or nine years he was editor of +the _Masonic Mirror and Keystone_, and is an author of repute. He +assures us personally that for over thirty years he has combated the +design to erect into a Masonic dogma, belief in a _personal_ God. In +his work, _Ancient York and London Grand Lodges_, he says (p. 169): +“Masonry, instead of unfolding professionally with the intellectual +advancement of scientific knowledge and general intelligence, has +departed from the original aims of the fraternity, and is apparently +inclining towards a sectarian society. That is plainly to be seen +... in the persistent determination not to expunge the sectarian +innovations interpolated in the Ritual.... It would appear that the +Masonic fraternity of this country are as indifferent to ancient +landmarks and usages of Masonry, as the Masons of the past century, +under the London Grand Lodge were.” It was this conviction which +prompted him, in 1856, when Jacques Etienne Marconis de Nègre, Grand +Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis, came to America and tendered +him the Grand Mastership of the Rite in the United States, and the +Ancient and Accepted Rite offered him an Honorary 33d--to refuse both. + +The Temple was the last European secret organization which, as a +body, had in its possession some of the mysteries of the East. True, +there were in the past century (and perhaps still are) isolated +“Brothers” faithfully and secretly working under the direction of +Eastern Brotherhoods. But these, when they did belong to European +societies, invariably joined them for objects unknown to the +Fraternity, though at the same time for the benefit of the latter. It +is through them that modern Masons have all they know of importance; +and the similarity now found between the Speculative Rites of +antiquity, the mysteries of the Essenes, Gnostics, and the Hindus, +and the highest and oldest of the Masonic degrees well prove the +fact. If these mysterious brothers became possessed of the secrets of +the societies, they could never reciprocate the confidence, though in +their hands these secrets were safer, perhaps, than in the keeping +of European Masons. When certain of the latter were found worthy of +becoming affiliates of the Orient, they were secretly instructed and +initiated, but the others were none the wiser for that. + +No one could ever lay hands on the Rosicrucians, and notwithstanding +the alleged discoveries of “secret chambers,” _vellums_ called +“T,” and of fossil knights with ever-burning lamps, this ancient +association and its true aims are to this day a mystery. Pretended +Templars and sham Rose-Croix, with a few genuine kabalists, were +occasionally burned, and some unlucky Theosophists and alchemists +sought and put to the torture; delusive confessions even were wrung +from them by the most ferocious means, but yet, the true Society +remains to-day as it has ever been, unknown to all, especially to its +cruelest enemy--the Church. + +As to the modern Knights Templar and those Masonic Lodges which now +claim a direct descent from the ancient Templars, their persecution +by the Church was a farce from the beginning. They have not, nor +have they ever had any secrets, dangerous to the Church. Quite the +contrary; for we find J. G. Findel saying that the Scottish degrees, +or the Templar system, only dates from 1735-1740, and “_following its +Catholic tendency, took up its chief residence in the Jesuit College +of Clermont, in Paris_, and hence was called the Clermont system.” +The present Swedish system has also something of the Templar element +in it, but free from Jesuits and interference with politics; however, +it asserts that it has Molay’s Testament in the original, for a +Count Beaujeu, a nephew of Molay, _never heard of elsewhere_--says +Findel--transplanted Templarism into Freemasonry, and thus procured +for his uncle’s ashes a mysterious sepulchre. It is sufficient to +prove this a Masonic fable that on this pretended monument the day +of Molay’s funeral is represented as March 11, 1313, while the day +of his death was March 19, 1313. This spurious production, which is +neither genuine Templarism, nor genuine Freemasonry, has never taken +firm root in Germany. But the case is otherwise in France. + +Writing upon this subject, we must hear what Wilcke has to say of +these pretensions: + +“The present Knight Templars of Paris will have it, that they are +direct descendants from the ancient Knights, and endeavor to prove +this by documents, interior regulations, and secret doctrines. +Foraisse says the Fraternity of Freemasons was founded in Egypt, +Moses communicating the secret teaching to the Israelites, Jesus to +the Apostles, and thence it found its way to the Knight Templars. +Such inventions are necessary ... to the assertion that the +Parisian Templars are the offspring of the ancient order. All these +asseverations, unsupported by history, were fabricated _in the +High Chapter of Clermont_ (Jesuits), and preserved by the Parisian +Templars as a legacy left them by those political revolutionists, the +Stuarts and the Jesuits.” Hence we find the Bishops Gregoire[790] and +Münter[791] supporting them. + +Connecting the modern with the ancient Templars, we can at best, +therefore, allow them an adoption of certain rites and ceremonies +of purely _ecclesiastical_ character after they had been cunningly +inoculated into that grand and antique Order by the clergy. Since +this desecration, it gradually lost its primitive and simple +character, and went fast to its final ruin. Founded in 1118 by the +Knights Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Omer, nominally for the +protection of the pilgrims, its true aim was the restoration of the +primitive secret worship. The true version of the history of Jesus, +and the early Christianity was imparted to Hugh de Payens, by the +Grand-Pontiff of the Order of the Temple (of the Nazarene or Johanite +sect), one named Theocletes, after which it was learned by some +Knights in Palestine, from the higher and more intellectual members +of the St. John sect, who were initiated into its mysteries.[792] +Freedom of intellectual thought and the restoration of one and +universal religion was their secret object. Sworn to the vow of +obedience, poverty, and chastity, they were at first the true Knights +of John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness and living on wild +honey and locusts. Such is the tradition and the true kabalistic +version. + +It is a mistake to state that the Order became only later +anti-Catholic. It was so from the beginning, and the red cross on the +white mantle, the vestment of the Order, had the same significance +as with the initiates in every other country. It pointed to the four +quarters of the compass, and was the emblem of the universe.[793] +When, later, the Brotherhood was transformed into a Lodge, the +Templars had, in order to avoid persecution, to perform their own +ceremonies in the greatest secresy, generally in the hall of the +chapter, more frequently in isolated caves or country houses built +amidst woods, while the ecclesiastical form of worship was carried on +publicly in the chapels belonging to the Order. + +Though of the accusations brought against them by order of Philip +IV., many were infamously false, the main charges were certainly +correct, from the stand-point of what is considered by the Church, +_heresy_. The present-day Templars, adhering strictly as they do to +the _Bible_, can hardly claim descent from those who did not believe +in Christ, as God-man, or as the Saviour of the world; who rejected +the miracle of his birth, and those performed by himself; who did not +believe in transubstantiation, the saints, holy relics, purgatory, +etc. The Christ Jesus was, in their opinion, a false prophet, but +the man Jesus a Brother. They regarded John the Baptist as their +patron, but never viewed him in the light in which he is presented in +the _Bible_. They reverenced the doctrines of alchemy, astrology, +magic, kabalistic talismans, and adhered to the secret teachings of +their chiefs in the East. “In the last century,” says Findel, “when +Freemasonry erroneously supposed herself the daughter of Templarism, +great pains were taken to regard the Order of Knights-Templars +as innocent.... For this purpose not only legends and unrecorded +events were fabricated, but pains were taken to repress the truth. +The Masonic admirers of the Knights-Templars bought up the whole of +the documents of the lawsuit published by Moldenwaher, because they +proved the culpability of the Order.”[794] + +This culpability consisted in their “heresy” against the Roman +Catholic Church. While the real “Brothers” died an ignominious death, +the spurious Order which tried to step into their shoes became +exclusively a branch of the Jesuits under the immediate tutelage of +the latter. True-hearted, honest Masons, ought to reject with horror +any connection, let alone descent from these. + +“The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,” writes Commander +Gourdin,[795] “sometimes called the Knights Hospitallers, and the +Knights of Malta, were not Freemasons. On the contrary, they seem +to have been inimical to Freemasonry, for in 1740, the Grand Master +of the Order of Malta caused the Bull of Pope Clement XII. to be +published in that island, and forbade the meetings of the Freemasons. +On this occasion several Knights and many citizens left the island; +and in 1741, the Inquisition persecuted the Freemasons at Malta. The +Grand Master proscribed their assemblies under severe penalties, and +six Knights were banished from the island in perpetuity for having +assisted at a meeting. In fact, unlike the Templars, they had not +even a secret form of reception. Reghellini says that he was unable +to procure a copy of the secret Ritual of the Knights of Malta. The +reason is obvious--there was none!” + +And yet American Templarism comprises three degrees. 1, Knight of +the Red Cross; 2, Knight Templar; and 3, Knight of Malta. It was +introduced from France into the United States, in 1808, and the first +_Grand Encampment General_ was organized on June 20, 1816, with +Governor De Witt Clinton, of New York, as Grand Master. + +This inheritance of the Jesuits should hardly be boasted of. If the +Knights Templar desire to make good their claims, they must choose +between a descent from the “heretical,” anti-Christian, kabalistic, +primitive Templars, or connect themselves with the Jesuits, +and nail their tesselated carpets directly on the platform of +ultra-Catholicism! Otherwise, their claims become a mere pretense. + +So impossible does it become for the originators of the _ecclesiastical_ +pseudo-order of Templars, invented, according to Dupuy, in France, by +the adherents of the Stuarts, to avoid being considered a branch of +the Order of the Jesuits, that we are not surprised to see an +anonymous author, rightly suspected of belonging to the Jesuit Chapter +at Clermont, publishing a work in 1751, in Brussels, on the lawsuit of +the Knights Templar. In this volume, in sundry mutilated notes, +additions, and commentaries, he represents the _innocence_ of the +Templars of the accusation of “heresy,” thus robbing them of the +greatest title to respect and admiration that these early +free-thinkers and martyrs have won! + +This last pseudo-order was constituted at Paris, on the 4th of +November, 1804, by virtue of a _forged Constitution_, and ever +since it has “contaminated genuine Freemasonry,” as the highest +Masons themselves tell us. _La Charte de transmission_ (tabula aurea +Larmenii) presents the outward appearance of such extreme antiquity +“that Gregoire confesses that if all the other relics of the Parisian +treasury of the Order had not silenced his doubts as to their ancient +descent, the sight of this charter would at the very first glance +have persuaded him.”[796] The first Grand Master of this spurious +Order was a physician of Paris, Dr. Fahre-Palaprat, who assumed the +name of Bernard Raymond. + +Count Ramsay, a Jesuit, was the first to start the idea of the +Templars being joined to the Knights of Malta. Therefore, we read +from his pen the following: + +“Our forefathers (!!!), the Crusaders, assembled in the Holy Land +from all Christendom, wished to unite in a fraternity embracing +all nations, that when bound together, heart and soul, for mutual +improvement, they might, in the course of time, represent one single +intellectual people.” + +This is why the Templars are made to join the St. John’s Knights, and +the latter got into the craft of Masonry known as St. John’s Masons. + +In the _Sceau Rompu_, in 1745, we find, therefore, the following most +impudent falsehood, worthy of the Sons of Loyola: “The lodges were +dedicated to St. John, because _the Knights_-Masons had in the holy +wars in Palestine joined the Knights of St. John.” + +In 1743, the Kadosh degree was invented at Lyons (so writes Thory, +at least), and “it represents the _revenge of the Templars_.” And +here we find Findel saying that “the Order of Knights Templars had +been abolished in 1311, and to that epoch they were obliged to have +recourse when, after the banishment of several Knights from Malta, +in 1740, because they were Freemasons, it was no longer possible to +keep up a connection with the Order of St. John, or Knights of Malta, +then in the plenitude of their power _under the sovereignty of the +Pope_.” + +Turning to Clavel, one of the best Masonic authorities, we read: +“It is clear that the erection of the French Order of the Knight +Templars is not more ancient than the year 1804, and that it cannot +lay any legitimate claim to being the continuation of the so-called +society of ‘la petite Resurrection des Templiers,’ nor this latter, +either, extend back to the ancient Order of the Knights Templars.” +Therefore, we see these pseudo-Templars, under the guidance of the +worthy Father Jesuits, forging in Paris, 1806, the famous charter of +Larmenius. Twenty years later, this nefast and subterranean body, +guiding the hand of assassins, directed it toward one of the best and +greatest princes in Europe, whose mysterious death, unfortunately for +the interests of truth and justice, has never been--for political +reasons--investigated and proclaimed to the world as it ought to +have been. It is this prince, a Freemason himself, who was the last +depository of the secrets of the true Knights Templar. For long +centuries these had remained unknown and unsuspected. Holding their +meetings once every _thirteen_ years, at Malta, and their Grand +Master advising the European brothers of the place of _rendezvous_ +but a few hours in advance, these representatives of the once +mightiest and most glorious body of Knights assembled on the fixed +day, from various points of the earth. _Thirteen_ in number, in +commemoration of the year of the death of Jacques Molay (1313), the +now Eastern brothers, among whom were crowned heads, planned together +the future religious and political fate of the nations; while the +Popish Knights, their murderous and bastard successors, slept soundly +in their beds, without a dream disturbing their guilty consciences. + +“And yet,” says Rebold, “notwithstanding the confusion they had +created (1736-72), the Jesuits had accomplished but one of their +designs, viz.: _denaturalyzing and bringing into disrepute the +Masonic Institution_. Having succeeded, as they believed, in +destroying it in one form, they were determined to use it in another. +With this determination, they arranged the systems styled ‘Clerkship +of the Templars,’ an amalgamation of the different histories, events, +and characteristics of the crusades mixed with the reveries of the +alchemists. _In this combination Catholicism governed all, and the +whole fabrication moved upon wheels, representing the great object +for which the Society of Jesus was organized._”[797] + +Hence, the rites and symbols of Masonry which though “Pagan” in +origin, are all applied to and all flavor of Christianity. A Mason +has to declare his belief in a _personal_ God, Jehovah, and in the +Encampment degrees also in Christ, before he can be accepted in +the Lodge, while the Johanite Templars believed in the unknown and +invisible Principle, whence proceeded the Creative Powers misnamed +_gods_, and held to the Nazarene version of Ben-Panther being the +sinful father of Jesus, who thus proclaimed himself “the son of god +and of humanity.”[798] This also accounts for the fearful oaths of +the Masons taken _on the Bible_, and for their lectures servilely +agreeing with the Patriarcho-Biblical Chronology. In the American +Order of Rose Croix, for instance, when the neophyte approaches +the altar, the “Sir Knights are called to order, and the captain +of the guard makes his proclamation.” “To the glory of the sublime +architect of the universe (Jehovah-Binah?), under the auspices of the +Sovereign Sanctuary of _Ancient_ and _Primitive_ Freemasonry,” etc., +etc. Then the Knight Orator strikes 1 and tells the neophyte that +the antique legends of Masonry date back FORTY centuries; claiming +no greater antiquity for the oldest of them than 622 A.M., at which +time he says Noah was born. Under the circumstances this will be +regarded as a liberal concession to chronological preferences. After +that Masons[799] are apprised that it was about the year 2188 B.C., +that Mizraim led colonies into Egypt, and laid the foundation of the +Kingdom of Egypt, which kingdom lasted 1,663 years (!!!). Strange +chronology, which, if it piously conforms with that of the _Bible_, +disagrees entirely with that of history. The mythical nine names of +the Deity, imported into Egypt, according to the Masons, only in the +twenty-second century B.C., are found on monuments reckoned twice as +old by the best Egyptologists. Nevertheless we must take at the same +time into consideration, that the Masons are themselves ignorant of +these names. + +The simple truth is that modern Masonry is a sadly different thing +from what the once universal secret fraternity was in the days when +the Brahma-worshippers of the AUM, exchanged grips and passwords with +the devotees of TUM, and the adepts of every country under the sun +were “Brothers.” + +What was then that mysterious name, that mighty “word” through whose +potency the Hindu as well as the Chaldean and Egyptian initiate +performed his wonders? In chapter cxv. of the Egyptian _Funeral +Ritual_, entitled “The chapter of coming out to the Heaven ... and +of knowing the Spirits of An” (Heliopolis), Horus says: “I knew the +Spirits of An. The greatly glorious does not pass over it ... unless +the gods give me the WORD.” In another hymn the soul, transformed, +exclaims: “Make road for me to Rusta. I am the Great One, dressed +as the Great One. I have come! I have come! Delicious to me are the +kings of Osiris. I am creating the water (through the power of the +_Word_).... Have I not seen the hidden secrets ... I have given truth +to the Sun. I am clear. I am adored for my purity” (cxvii.-cxix. The +chapters of the going into and coming out from the Rusta). In another +place the mummy’s roll expresses the following: “I am the Great God +(spirit) existing of myself, the creator of _His Name_.... I know the +name of this Great God that is there.” + +Jesus is accused by his enemies of having wrought miracles, and shown +by his own apostles to have expelled _demons_ by the power of the +INEFFABLE NAME. The former firmly believed that he had stolen it +in the Sanctuary. “And he cast the spirits with his _word_ ... and +healed all that were sick” (_Matthew_ xviii. 16). When the Jewish +rulers ask Peter (_Acts_ iv. 7): “By what power, or by what _name_, +have ye done this?” Peter replies, “By the NAME of Jesus Christ of +Nazareth.” But does this mean the name of Christ, as the interpreters +would make us believe; or does it signify, “by the NAME which was +in the possession of Jesus of Nazareth,” the initiate, who was +accused by the Jews to have learned it but who had it really through +initiation? Besides, he states repeatedly that all that he does he +does in “_His Father’s Name_,” not in his own. + +But who of the modern Masons has ever heard it pronounced? In their +own _Ritual_, they confess that they never have. The “Sir Orator” +tells the “Sir Knight,” that the passwords which he received in +the preceding degrees are all “so many corruptions” of the true +name of God engraved on the triangle; and that therefore they have +adopted a “substitute” for it. Such also is the case in the Blue +Lodge, where the Master, representing King Solomon, agrees with King +Hiram that the Word * * * “shall be used as a _substitute_ for the +Master’s word, until wiser ages shall discover the true one. What +Senior Deacon, of all the thousands who have assisted in bringing +candidates from darkness to light; or what Master who has whispered +this mystic “word” into the ears of supposititious Hiram Abiffs, +while holding them on the five points of fellowship, has suspected +the real meaning of even this substitute, which they impart “at low +breath?” How few new-made Master Masons but go away imagining that +it has some occult connection with the “marrow in the bone.” What +do they know of that mystical personage known to some adepts as the +“venerable MAH,” or of the mysterious Eastern Brothers who obey him, +whose name is abbreviated in the first syllable of the three which +compose the Masonic substitute--The MAH, who lives at this very day +in a spot unknown to all but initiates, and the approaches to which +are through trackless wildernesses, untrodden by Jesuit or missionary +foot, for it is beset by dangers fit to appall the most courageous +explorers? And yet, for generations this meaningless jingle of vowels +and consonants has been repeated in noviciate ears, as though it +possessed even so much potency as would deflect from its course a +thistle-down floating in the air! Like Christianity, Freemasonry is a +corpse from which the spirit long ago fled. + +In this connection, place may well be given to a letter from Mr. +Charles Sotheran, Corresponding Secretary of the New York Liberal +Club, which was received by us on the day after the date it bears. +Mr. Sotheran is known as a writer and lecturer on antiquarian, +mystical, and other subjects. In Masonry, he has taken so many of the +degrees as to be a competent authority as regards the Craft. He is 32 +∴ A. and P. R., 94 ∴ Memphis, K. R✠, K. Kadosh, M. M. 104, Eng., etc. +He is also an initiate of the modern English Brotherhood of the Rosie +Cross and other secret societies, and Masonic editor of the _New York +Advocate_. Following is the letter, which we place before the Masons +as we desire that they should see what one of their own number has to +say: + + + “NEW YORK PRESS CLUB, January 11th, 1877. + + “In response to your letter, I willingly furnish the + information desired with respect to the antiquity and + present condition of Freemasonry. This I do the more + cheerfully since we belong to the same secret societies, + and you can thus better appreciate the necessity for the + reserve which at times I shall be obliged to exhibit. You + rightly refer to the fact that Freemasonry, no less than + the effete theologies of the day, has its fabulous history + to narrate. Clogged up as the Order has been by the rubbish + and drift of absurd biblical legends, it is no wonder + that its usefulness has been impaired and its work as a + civilizer hampered. Fortunately the great anti-Masonic + excitement that raged in the United States during a portion + of this century, forced a considerable band of workers to + delve into the true origin of the Craft, and bring about + a healthier state of things. The agitation in America + also spread to Europe and the literary efforts of Masonic + authors on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Rebold, + Findel, Hyneman, Mitchell, Mackenzie, Hughan, Yarker and + others well-known to the fraternity, is now a matter of + history. One effect of their labors has been, in a great + measure, to bring the history of Masonry into an open + daylight, where even its teachings, jurisprudence, and + ritual are no longer secret from those of the ‘profane,’ + who have the wit to read as they run. + + “You are correct in saying that the _Bible_ is the ‘great + light’ of European and American Masonry. In consequence + of this the theistic conception of God and the biblical + cosmogony have been ever considered two of its great + corner-stones. Its chronology seems also to have been based + upon the same pseudo-revelation. Thus Dr. Dalcho, in one of + his treatises asserts that the principles of the Masonic + Order were presented at and coëval with the creation. It + is therefore not astonishing that such a pundit should + go on to state that God was the first Grand Master, Adam + the second, and the last named initiated Eve into the + Great Mystery, as I suppose many a Priestess of Cybelè + and ‘Lady’ Kadosh were afterward. The Rev. Dr. Oliver, + another Masonic authority, gravely records what may be + termed the minutes of a Lodge where Moses presided as Grand + Master, Joshua as Deputy Grand Master, and Aholiab and + Bezaleel as Grand Wardens! The temple at Jerusalem, which + recent archæologists have shown to be a structure with + nothing like the pretended antiquity of its erection, and + incorrectly called after a monarch whose name proves his + mystical character, Sol-Om-On (the name of the sun in three + languages), plays, as you correctly observe, a considerable + share in Masonic mystery. Such fables as these, and the + traditional Masonic colonization of ancient Egypt, have + given the Craft the credit of an illustrious origin to + which it has no right, and before whose forty centuries + of legendary history, the mythologies of Greece and Rome + fade into insignificance. The Egyptian, Chaldean, and other + theories necessary to each fabricator of ‘high degrees’ + have also each had their short period of prominence. The + last ‘axe to grind’ has consecutively been the fruitful + mother of unproductiveness. + + “We both agree that all the ancient priesthoods had their + esoteric doctrines and secret ceremonies. From the Essenic + brotherhood, an evolution of the Hindu Gymnosophists, + doubtless proceeded the Solidarities of Greece and Rome as + described by so-called ‘Pagan’ writers. Founded on these + and copying them in the matter of ritual, signs, grips, + passwords, etc., were developed the mediæval guilds. + Like the present livery companies of London, the relics + of the English trade-guilds, the operative Masons were + but a guild of workmen with higher pretensions. From the + French name ‘Maçon,’ derived from ‘Mas,’ an old Norman + noun meaning ‘a house,’ comes our English ‘Mason,’ a house + builder. As the London companies alluded to present now + and again the Freedom of the ‘_Liveries_’ to outsiders, so + we find the trade-guilds of Masons doing the same. Thus + the founder of the Ashmolean Museum was made free of the + Masons at Warrington, in Lancashire, England, on the 16th + October, 1646. The entrance of such men as Elias Ashmole + into the Operative Fraternity paved the way for the great + ‘Masonic Revolution of 1717,’ when SPECULATIVE Masonry + came into existence. The Constitutions of 1723 and 1738, + by the Masonic impostor Anderson, were written up for the + newly-fledged and first Grand Lodge of ‘Free and Accepted + Masons’ of England, from which body all others over the + world hail to-day. + + “These bogus constitutions, written by Anderson, were + compiled about then, and in order to palm off his miserable + rubbish yclept history, on the Craft, he had the audacity + to state that nearly all the documents relating to Masonry + in England had been destroyed by the 1717 reformers. + Happily, in the British Museum, Bodleian Library, and + other public institutions, Rebold, Hughan and others + have discovered sufficient evidence in the shape of old + Operative Masonic charges to disprove this statement. + + “The same writers, I think, have conclusively upset the + tenability of two other documents palmed upon Masonry, + namely, the spurious charter of Cologne of 1535, and + the forged questions, supposed to have been written by + Leylande, the antiquary, from a MS. of King Henry VI. of + England. In the last named, Pythagoras is referred to as + having--‘formed a great lodge, at Crotona, and made many + Masons, some of whom travelled into France, and there made + many, from whence, in process of time, the art passed + into England.’ Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. + Paul’s Cathedral, London, often called the ‘Grand Master + of Freemasons,’ was simply the Master or President of the + London Operative Masons Company. If such a tissue of fable + could interweave itself into the history of the Grand + Lodges which now have charge of the first three symbolical + degrees, it is hardly astonishing that the same fate + should befall nearly all of the High Masonic Degrees which + have been aptly termed ‘an incoherent medley of opposite + principles.’ + + “It is curious to note too that most of the bodies which + work these, such as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, + the Rite of Avignon, the Order of the Temple, Fessler’s + Rite, the ‘Grand Council of the Emperors of the East and + West--Sovereign Prince Masons,’ etc., etc., are nearly all + the offspring of the sons of Ignatius Loyola. The Baron + Hundt, Chevalier Ramsay, Tschoudy, Zinnendorf, and numerous + others who founded the grades in these rites, worked under + instructions from the General of the Jesuits. The nest + where these high degrees were hatched, and no Masonic rite + is free from their baleful influence more or less, was the + Jesuit College of Clermont at Paris. + + “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 [Illustration] but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as a +perfect Christian cross [Illustration]. 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!” + +[Illustration] + +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 ∴ + [Illustration] + a b c d e f g h ij k l m n + [Illustration] + 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] + +[Illustration: HIEROGLYPH OF THE K ∴ KAD ∴] + +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 + +[Illustration: _Formation._] + +Now, the alphabet consists of twenty-six letters, and these two signs +being dissected, form thirteen distinct characters, thus: + + [Illustration: + _1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13_] + +A point placed within each gives thirteen more, thus: + + [Illustration: + _1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13_] + +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: + + [Illustration:] + a b c d e f g h i j k l m + + [Illustration:] + n o p q r s t u v w x y z + +According to the second method, thus: + + [Illustration:] + a b c d e f g h i j k l m + + [Illustration:] + 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 + + [Illustration:] + &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. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + “All things are governed in the bosom of this triad.”--LYDUS: + _De Mensibus_, 20. + + + “Thrice let the heaven be turned on its perpetual axis.”-- + OVID: _Fast_ iv. + + + “And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here _seven_ altars, + and prepare me here _seven_ oxen and _seven_ rams.”-- + _Numbers_ xxiii. 1, 2. + + + “In _seven_ days all creatures who have offended me shall + be destroyed by a deluge, but thou shalt be secured in a + vessel miraculously formed; take, therefore ... and with + _seven_ holy men, your respective wives, and pairs of + all animals, enter the ark without fear; then shalt thou + know God face to face, and all thy questions shall be + answered.”--_Bagavedgitta._ + + + “And the Lord said, I will destroy man ... from the face + of the earth.... But with thee will I establish my + covenant.... Come thou and all thy house into the ark.... + For yet _seven_ days and I will cause it to rain upon the + earth.”--_Genesis_ vi., vii. + + + “The Tetraktys was not only principally honored because all + symphonies are found to exist within it, but also because + it appears to contain the nature of all things.”--THEOS. OF + SMYRNA: _Mathem._, p. 147. + + +Our task will have been ill-performed if the preceding chapters have +not demonstrated that Judaism, earlier and later Gnosticism, +Christianity, and even Christian Masonry, have all been erected upon +identical cosmical myths, symbols, and allegories, whose full +comprehension is possible only to those who have inherited the key +from their inventors. + +In the following pages we will endeavor to show how much these have +been misinterpreted by the widely-different, yet intimately-related +systems enumerated above, in fitting them to their individual needs. +Thus not only will a benefit be conferred upon the student, but a +long-deferred, and now much-needed act of justice will be done to +those earlier generations whose genius has laid the whole human race +under obligation. Let us begin by once more comparing the myths of the +_Bible_ with those of the sacred books of other nations, to see which +is the original, which copies. + +There are but two methods which, correctly explained, can help us to +this result. They are--the _Vedas_, Brahmanical literature and the +Jewish _Kabala_. The former has, in a most philosophical spirit, +conceived these grandiose myths; the latter borrowing them from the +Chaldeans and Persians, shaped them into a history of the Jewish +nation, in which their spirit of philosophy was buried beyond the +recognition of all but the elect, and under a far more absurd form +than the Aryan had given them. The _Bible_ of the Christian Church is +the latest receptacle of this scheme of disfigured allegories which +have been erected into an edifice of superstition, such as never +entered into the conceptions of those from whom the Church obtained +her knowledge. The abstract fictions of antiquity, which for ages had +filled the popular fancy with but flickering shadows and uncertain +images, have in Christianity assumed the shapes of real personages, +and become accomplished facts. Allegory, metamorphosed, becomes sacred +history, and Pagan myth is taught to the people as a revealed +narrative of God’s intercourse with His chosen people. + +“The myths,” says Horace in his _Ars Poetica_, “have been invented by +wise men to strengthen the laws and teach moral truths.” While Horace +endeavored to make clear the very spirit and essence of the ancient +myths, Euhemerus pretended, on the contrary, that “myths were the +legendary history of kings and heroes, transformed into gods by the +admiration of the nations.” It is the latter method which was +inferentially followed by Christians when they agreed upon the +acceptation of euhemerized patriarchs, and mistook them for men who +had really lived. + +But, in opposition to this pernicious theory, which has brought forth +such bitter fruit, we have a long series of the greatest philosophers +the world has produced: Plato, Epicharmus, Socrates, Empedocles, +Plotinus, and Porphyry, Proclus, Damascenus, Origen, and even +Aristotle. The latter plainly stated this verity, by saying that a +tradition of the highest antiquity, transmitted to posterity under the +form of various myths, teaches us that the first principles of nature +may be considered as “gods,” for the _divine_ permeates all nature. +All the rest, details and personages, were added later for the clearer +comprehension of the vulgar, and but too often with the object of +supporting laws invented in the common interest. + +Fairy tales do not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind--except +those few who in all ages have comprehended their hidden meaning and +tried to open the eyes of the superstitious--have listened to such +tales in one shape or the other and, after transforming them into +sacred symbols, called the product RELIGION! + +We will try to systematize our subject as much as the ever-recurring +necessity to draw parallels between the conflicting opinions that have +been based on the same myths will permit. We will begin by the book of +_Genesis_, and seek for its hidden meaning in the Brahmanical +traditions and the Chaldeo-Judaïc _Kabala_. + +The first Scripture lesson taught us in our infancy is that God +created the world in six days, and rested on the _seventh_. Hence, a +peculiar solenmity is supposed to attach to the seventh day, and the +Christians, adopting the rigid observances of the Jewish sabbath, have +enforced it upon us with the substitution of the first, instead of the +seventh day of the week. + +All systems of religious mysticism are based on numerals. With +Pythagoras, the Monas or unity, emanating the duad, and thus forming +the trinity, and the quaternary or Arba-il (the mystic _four_), +compose the number seven. The sacredness of numbers begins with the +great First--the ONE, and ends only with the nought or zero--symbol of +the infinite and boundless circle which represents the universe. All +the intervening figures, in whatever combination, or however +multiplied, represent philosophical ideas, from vague outlines down to +a definitely-established scientific axiom, relating either to a moral +or a physical fact in nature. They are a key to the ancient views on +cosmogony, in its broad sense, including man and beings, and the +evolution of the human race, spiritually as well as physically. + +The number _seven_ is the most sacred of all, and is, undoubtedly, of +Hindu origin. Everything of importance was calculated by and fitted +into this number by the Aryan philosophers--ideas as well as +localities. Thus they have the + +_Sapta-Rishi_, or seven sages, typifying the seven diluvian primitive +races (post-diluvian as some say). + +_Sapta-Loka_, the seven inferior and superior worlds, whence each of +these Rishis proceeded, and whither he returned in glory before +reaching the final bliss of Moksha.[810] + +_Sapta-Kula_, or seven castes--the Brahmans assuming to represent the +direct descendants of the highest of them.[811] + +Then, again, the Sapta-Pura (seven holy cities); Sapta-Duipa (seven +holy islands); Sapta-Samudra (the seven holy seas); Sapta-Parvata (the +seven holy mountains); Sapta-Arania (the seven deserts); Sapta-Vruksha +(the seven sacred trees); and so on. + +In the Chaldeo-Babylonian incantation, this number reappears again as +prominently as among the Hindus. The number is _dual_ in its +attributes, _i.e._, holy in one of its aspects it becomes nefast under +other conditions. Thus the following incantation we find traced on the +Assyrian tablets, now so correctly interpreted. + +“The evening of evil omen, the region of the sky, which produces +misfortune.... + +“Message of pest. + +“Deprecators of Nin-Ki-gal. + +“The seven gods of the vast sky. + +“The seven gods of the vast earth. + +“The seven gods of blazing spheres. + +“The seven gods of celestial legion. + +“The seven gods maleficent. + +“The seven phantoms--bad. + +“The seven phantoms of maleficent flames.... + +“Bad demon, bad _alal_, bad _gigim_, bad _telal_ ... bad god, bad +_maskim_. + +“Spirit of seven heavens remember.... Spirit of seven earths remember +... etc.” + +This number reappears likewise on almost every page of _Genesis_, +and throughout the Mosaic books, and we find it conspicuous (see +following chapter) in the _Book of Job_ and the Oriental _Kabala_. +If the Hebrew Semitics adopted it so readily, we must infer that it +was not blindly, but with a thorough knowledge of its secret meaning; +hence, that they must have adopted the doctrines of their “heathen” +neighbors as well. It is but natural, therefore, that we should seek +in _heathen_ philosophy for the interpretation of this number, which +again reappeared in Christianity with its _seven_ sacraments, _seven_ +churches in Asia Minor, _seven_ capital sins, _seven_ virtues (four +cardinal and three theological), etc. + +Have the _seven_ prismatic colors of the rainbow seen by Noah no +other meaning than that of a covenant between God and man to refresh +the memory of the former? To the kabalist, at least, they have a +significance inseparable from the seven labors of magic, the seven +upper spheres, the seven notes of the musical scale, the seven +numerals of Pythagoras, the seven wonders of the world, the seven +ages, and even the seven steps of the Masons, which lead to the Holy +of Holies, after passing the flights of _three_ and _five_. + +Whence the identity then of these enigmatical, ever-recurring +numerals that are found in every page of the Jewish Scriptures, as +in every ola and sloka of Buddhistic and Brahmanical books? Whence +these numerals that are the soul of the Pythagorean and Platonic +thought, and that no unilluminated Orientalist nor biblical student +has ever been able to fathom? And yet they have a key ready in +their hand, did they but know how to use it. Nowhere is the mystical +value of human language and its effects on human action so perfectly +understood as in India, nor any better explained than by the authors +of the oldest _Brahmanas_. Ancient as their epoch is now found to +be, they only try to express, in a more concrete form, the abstract +metaphysical speculations of their own ancestors. + +Such is the respect of the Brahmans for the sacrificial mysteries, +that they hold that the world itself sprang into creation as a +consequence of a “sacrificial word” pronounced by the First Cause. +This word is the “Ineffable name” of the kabalists, fully discussed +in the last chapter. + +The secret of the _Vedas_, “Sacred Knowledge” though they may be, is +impenetrable without the help of the _Brahmanas_. Properly speaking, +the _Vedas_ (which are written in verse and comprised in four books) +constitute that portion called the _Mantra_, or magical prayer, and +the _Brahmanas_ (which are in prose) contain their key. While the +Mantra part is alone holy, the Brahmana portion contains all the +theological exegesis, and the speculations and explanations of the +sacerdotal. Our Orientalists, we repeat, will make no substantial +progress toward a comprehension of Vedic literature until they place +a proper valuation upon works now despised by them; as, for instance, +the _Aitareya_ and _Kaushîtaki Brâhmanas_, which belong to the +_Rig-Veda_. + +Zoroaster was called a _Manthran_, or speaker of Mantras, and, +according to Haug, one of the earliest names for the Sacred +Scriptures of the Parsis was _Mânthra-speñta_. The power and +significance of the Brahman who acts as the Hotri-priest at the +Soma-Sacrifice, consists in his possession and full knowledge of the +uses of the sacred word or speech--_Vâch_. The latter is personified +in Sara-isvati, the wife of Brahma, who is the goddess of the sacred +or “Secret Knowledge.” She is usually depicted as riding upon a +peacock with its tail all spread. The eyes upon the feathers of the +bird’s tail, symbolize the sleepless eyes that see all things. To one +who has the ambition of becoming an adept of the “Secret doctrines,” +they are a reminder that he must have the hundred eyes of Argus to +see and comprehend all things. + +And this is why we say that it is not possible to solve fully the +deep problems underlying the Brahmanical and Buddhistic sacred books +without having a perfect comprehension of the esoteric meaning of +the Pythagorean numerals. The greatest power of this Vâch, or Sacred +Speech, is developed according to the form which is given to the +Mantra by the officiating Hotri, and this form consists wholly in +the numbers and syllables of the sacred metre. If pronounced slowly +and in a certain rhythm, one effect is produced; if quickly and with +another rhythm, there is a different result. “Each metre,” says Haug, +“is the invisible master of something visible in this world; it is, +as it were, its exponent and ideal. This great significance of the +metrical speech is derived from the number of syllables of which it +consists, for each thing has (just as in the Pythagorean system) a +certain numerical proportion. All these things, metres (chhandas), +stomas, and prishthas, are liable to be as eternal and divine as the +words themselves they contain. The earliest Hindu divines did not +only believe in a primitive revelation of the words of the sacred +texts, but even in that of the various forms. These forms, along with +their contents, the everlasting _Veda_-words, are symbols expressive +of things of the invisible world, and in several respects comparable +to the Platonic ideas.” + +_This testimony from an unwilling witness shows again the identity +between the ancient religions as to their secret doctrine._ The +Gâyatri metre, for example, consists of _thrice eight_ syllables, and +is considered the most sacred of metres. It is the metre of Agni, +the fire-god, and becomes at times the emblem of Brahma himself, +the chief creator, and “fashioner of man” in his own image. Now +Pythagoras says that “The number eight, or the Octad, is the first +cube, that is to say, squared in all senses, as a die, proceeding +from its base two, or even number; _so is man four-square or +perfect_.” Of course few, except the Pythagoreans and kabalists, +can fully comprehend this idea; but the illustration will assist +in pointing out the close kinship of the numerals with the Vedic +_Mantras_. The chief problems of every theology lie concealed +beneath this imagery of fire and the varying rhythm of its flames. +The burning bush of the _Bible_, the Zoroastrian and other sacred +fires, Plato’s universal soul, and the Rosicrucian doctrines of both +soul and body of man being evolved out of fire, the reasoning and +immortal element which permeates all things, and which, according to +Herakleitus, Hippocrates, and Parmenides, is God, have all the same +meaning. + +Each metre in the _Brahmanas_ corresponds to a number, and as shown +by Haug, as it stands in the sacred volumes, is a prototype of some +visible form on earth, and its effects are either good or evil. The +“sacred speech” can save, but it can kill as well; its many meanings +and faculties are well known but to the _Dikshita_ (the adept), who +has been initiated into many mysteries, and whose “spiritual birth” +is completely achieved; the Vâch of the _mantra_ is a spoken power, +which awakes another corresponding and still more occult power, each +allegorically personified by some god in the world of spirits, and, +according as it is used, responded to either by the gods or the +_Rakshasas_ (bad spirits). In the Brahmanical and Buddhist ideas, +a curse, a blessing, a vow, a desire, an idle thought, can each +assume a visible shape and so manifest itself _objectively_ to the +eyes of its author, or to him that it concerns. Every sin becomes +incarnated, so to say, and like an avenging fiend persecutes its +perpetrator. + +There are words which have a destructive quality in their very +syllables, as though objective things; for every sound awakens +a corresponding one in the invisible world of spirit, and the +repercussion produces either a good or bad effect. Harmonious rhythm, +a melody vibrating softly in the atmosphere, creates a beneficent and +sweet influence around, and acts most powerfully on the psychological +as well as physical natures of every living thing on earth; it reacts +even on inanimate objects, for matter is still spirit in its essence, +invisible as it may seem to our grosser senses. + +So with the numerals. Turn wherever we will, from the Prophets to the +Apocalypse, and we will see the biblical writers constantly using the +numbers _three_, _four_, _seven_, and _twelve_. + +And yet we have known some partisans of the _Bible_ who maintained +that the _Vedas_ were copied from the Mosaic books![812] The _Vedas_, +which are written in Sanscrit, a language whose grammatical rules and +forms, as Max Müller and other scholars confess, were _completely +established_ long before the days when the great wave of emigration +bore it from Asia all over the Occident, are there to proclaim their +parentage of every philosophy, and every religious institution +developed later among Semitic peoples. And which of the numerals +most frequently occur in the Sanscrit chants, those sublime hymns to +creation, to the unity of God, and the countless manifestations of +His power? ONE, THREE, and SEVEN. Read the hymn by Dirghatamas. + +“TO HIM WHO REPRESENTS ALL THE GODS.” + +“The _God_ here present, our blessed patron, our sacrificer, has +a brother who spreads himself in mid-air. There exists a _third_ +Brother whom we sprinkle with our libations.... It is he whom I have +seen master of men and armed with _seven_ rays.”[813] + +And again: + +“_Seven_ Bridles aid in guiding a car which has but ONE wheel, and +which is drawn by a single horse that shines with _seven_ rays. The +wheel has _three_ limbs, an immortal wheel, never-wearying, whence +hang all the worlds.” + +“Sometimes _seven_ horses drag a car of _seven_ wheels, and _seven_ +personages mount it, accompanied by _seven_ fecund nymphs of the +water.” + +And the following again, in honor of the fire-god--_Agni_, who is so +clearly shown but a spirit subordinate to the ONE God. + +“Ever ONE, although having _three_ forms of double nature +(androgynous)--he rises! and the priests offer to _God_, in the act +of sacrifice, their prayers which reach the heavens, borne aloft by +Agni.” + +Is this a coincidence, or, rather, as reason tells us, the result +of the derivation of many national cults from one primitive, +universal religion? A _mystery_ for the uninitiated, the _unveiling_ +of the most sublime (because correct and true) psychological and +physiological problems for the initiate. Revelations of the personal +spirit of man which is divine because that spirit is not only the +emanation of the ONE Supreme God, but is the only God man is able, +in his weakness and helplessness, to comprehend--to feel _within_ +himself. This truth the Vedic poet clearly confesses, when saying: + +“The Lord, Master of the universe and full of wisdom, has entered +with me (into me)--weak and ignorant--and has formed me of +_himself_ in that place[814] where the spirits obtain, by the help +of _Science_, the peaceful enjoyment of the _fruit_, as sweet as +ambrosia.” + +Whether we call this fruit “an apple” from the Tree of Knowledge, or +the _pippala_ of the Hindu poet, it matters not. It is the fruit of +esoteric wisdom. Our object is to show the existence of a religious +system in India for many thousands of years before the exoteric +fables of the Garden of Eden and the Deluge had been invented. Hence +the identity of doctrines. Instructed in them, each of the initiates +of other countries became, in his turn, the founder of some great +school of philosophy in the West. + +Who of our Sanscrit scholars has ever felt interested in discovering +the real sense of the following hymns, palpable as it is: “_Pippala_, +the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come _spirits_ who love the +_science_ (?) and where _the gods produce all marvels_. This is a +mystery for him _who knows not the Father_ of the world.” + +Or this one again: + +“These stanzas bear at their head a title which announces that +they are consecrated to the _Viswadévas_ (that is to say, to all +the gods). He who knows not the Being whom I sing _in all his +manifestations_, will comprehend nothing of my verses; those who do +know HIM are not strangers to this reünion.” + +This refers to the reünion and parting of the immortal and mortal +parts of man. “The immortal Being,” says the preceding stanza, “is in +the cradle of the mortal Being. The two eternal spirits go and come +everywhere; only some men know the one without knowing the other” +(_Dirghatamas_). + +Who can give a correct idea of Him of whom the _Rig-Veda_ says: +“That which is One the wise call it in divers manners.” That One is +sung by the Vedic poets in all its manifestations in nature; and the +books considered “childish and foolish” teach how at will to call the +beings of wisdom for our instruction. They teach, as Porphyry says: +“a liberation from all terrene concerns ... a flight of the _alone_ +to the ALONE.” + +Professor Max Müller, whose every word is accepted by his school +as philological gospel, is undoubtedly right in one sense when in +determining the nature of the Hindu gods, he calls them “masks +without an actor ... names without being, not beings without +names.”[815] For he but proves thereby the monotheism of the ancient +Vedic religion. But it seems to us more than dubious whether he or +any scientist of his school needed hope to fathom the old Aryan[816] +thought, without an accurate study of those very “masks.” To the +materialist, as to the scientist, who for various reasons endeavors +to work out the difficult problem of compelling facts to agree with +either their own hobbies or those of the _Bible_, they may seem +but the empty shells of phantoms. Yet such authorities will ever +be, as in the past, the unsafest of guides, except in matters of +exact science. The _Bible_ patriarchs are as much “masks without +actors,” as the pragâpatis, and yet, if the living personage behind +these masks is but an abstract shadow there is an idea embodied in +every one of them which belongs to the philosophical and scientific +theories of ancient wisdom.[817] And who can render better service in +this work than the native Brahmans themselves, or the kabalists? + +To deny, point-blank, any sound philosophy in the later Brahmanical +speculations upon the _Rig-Veda_, is equivalent to refusing to +ever correctly understand the mother-religion itself, which gave +rise to them, and which is the expression of the inner thought of +the direct ancestors of these later authors of the _Brahmanas_. If +learned Europeans can so readily show that all the Vedic gods are +but empty masks, they must also be ready to demonstrate that the +Brahmanical authors were as incapable as themselves to discover these +“actors” anywhere. This done, not only the three other sacred books +which Max Müller says “do not deserve the name of _Vedas_,” but the +_Rig-Veda_ itself becomes a meaningless jumble of words; for what +the world-renowned and subtile intellect of the ancient Hindu sages +failed to understand, no modern scientist, however learned, can hope +to fathom. Poor Thomas Taylor was right in saying that “philology is +not philosophy.” + +It is, to say the least, illogical to admit that there is a hidden +thought in the literary work of a race perhaps ethnologically +different from our own; and then, because it is utterly unintelligible +to us whose spiritual development during the several thousand +intervening years has bifurcated into quite a contrary direction--deny +that it has any sense in it at all. But this is precisely what, with +all due respect for erudition, Professor Max Müller and his school do +in this instance, at least. First of all, we are told that, albeit +cautiously and with some effort, yet we may still walk in the +footsteps of these authors of the _Vedas_. “We shall feel that we are +brought face to face and mind to mind with men yet intelligible to us +_after we have freed ourselves from our modern conceits_. We shall not +succeed always; words, verses, nay whole hymns in the _Rig-Veda_, will +and must remain to us a dead letter.... For, with a few exceptions ... +the whole world of the Vedic ideas is so entirely beyond our own +intellectual horizon, that instead of translating, we can as yet only +guess and combine.”[818] + +And yet, to leave us in no possible doubt as to the true value of +his words, the learned scholar, in another passage, expresses his +opinion on these same Vedas (with one exception) thus: “The only +important, the only real Veda, is the _Rig-Veda_--the other so-called +_Vedas_ deserve the name of _Veda_ no more than the _Talmud_ deserves +the name of _Bible_. Professor Müller rejects them as unworthy of +the attention of any one, and, as we understand it, on the ground +that they contain chiefly “sacrificial formulas, charms, and +incantations.”[819] + +And now, a very natural question: Are any of our scholars prepared +to demonstrate that, so far, they are intimately acquainted with the +hidden sense of these perfectly absurd “sacrificial formulas, charms, +and incantations” and magic nonsense of _Atharva-Veda_? We believe +not, and our doubt is based on the confession of Professor Müller +himself, just quoted. If “the whole world of the Vedic ideas [the +_Rig-Veda_ cannot be included alone in this _world_, we suppose] is +so entirely beyond our own [the scientists’] intellectual horizon +that, instead of translating, we can as yet only guess and combine;” +and the _Yagur-Veda_, _Sama-Veda_, and _Atharva-Veda_ are “childish +and foolish;”[820] and the _Brahmanas_, the _Sûtras Yâska_, and +_Sâyana_, “though _nearest in time_ to the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_, +indulge in the most frivolous and ill-judged interpretations,” how +can either himself or any other scholar form any adequate opinion +of either of them? If, again, the authors of the _Brahmanas_, the +nearest in time to the Vedic hymns, were already incompetent to offer +anything better than “ill-judged interpretations,” then at what +period of history, where, and by whom, were written these grandiose +poems, whose mystical sense has died with their generations? Are +we, then, so wrong in affirming that if sacred texts are found in +Egypt to have become--even to the priestly scribes of 4,000 years +ago--wholly unintelligible,[821] and the _Brahmanas_ offer but +“childish and foolish” interpretations of the _Rig-Veda_, at least as +far back as that, then, 1st, both the Egyptian and Hindu religious +philosophies are of an untold antiquity, far antedating ages +cautiously assigned them by our students of comparative mythology; +and, 2d, the claims of ancient priests of Egypt and modern Brahmans, +as to their age, are, after all, correct. + +We can never admit that the three other _Vedas_ are less worthy of +their name than the Rig-hymns, or that the _Talmud_ and the _Kabala_ +are so inferior to the _Bible_. The very name of the _Vedas_ (the +literal meaning of which is _knowledge_ or _wisdom_) shows them +to belong to the literature of those men who, in every country, +language, and age, have been spoken of as “those who know.” In +Sanscrit the third person singular is _véda_ (he knows), and the +plural is _vidá_ (they know). This word is synonymous with the Greek +θεοσέβεια which Plato uses when speaking of the _wise_--the magicians; +and with the Hebrew Hakamin, חכמים (wise men). Reject the +_Talmud_ and its old predecessor the _Kabala_, and it will be simply +impossible ever to render correctly one word of that _Bible_ so much +extolled at their expense. But then it is, perhaps, just what its +partisans are working for. To banish the _Brahmanas_ is to fling away +the key that unlocks the door of the _Rig-Veda_. The _literal_ +interpretation of the _Bible_ has already borne its fruits; with the +_Vedas_ and the Sanscrit sacred books in general it will be just the +same, with this difference, that the absurd interpretation of the +_Bible_ has received a time-honored right of eminent domain in the +department of the ridiculous; and will find its supporters, against +light and against proof. As to the “heathen” literature, after a few +more years of unsuccessful attempts at interpretation, its religious +meaning will be relegated to the limbo of exploded superstitions, and +people will hear no more of it. + +We beg to be clearly understood before we are blamed and criticised +for the above remarks. The vast learning of the celebrated Oxford +professor can hardly be questioned by his very enemies, yet we +have a right to regret his precipitancy to condemn that which he +himself confesses “entirely beyond our own intellectual horizon.” +Even in what he considers a ridiculous blunder on the part of the +author of the _Brahmanas_, other more spiritually-disposed persons +may see quite the reverse. “_Who_ is the greatest of the gods? Who +shall first be praised by our songs?” says an ancient Rishi of the +_Rig-Veda_; mistaking (as Prof. M. imagines) the interrogative +pronoun “Who” for some divine name. Says the Professor: “A place +is allotted in the sacrificial invocations to a god ‘Who,’ and +hymns addressed to him are called ‘Whoish hymns.’” And is a god +“Who” less natural as a term than a god “I am?” or “Whoish” hymns +less reverential than “I-amish” psalms? And who can prove that +this is really a blunder, and not a premeditated expression? Is it +so impossible to believe that the strange term was precisely due +to a reverential awe which made the poet hesitate before giving a +name, as form to that which is justly considered as the highest +abstraction of metaphysical ideals--God? Or that the same feeling +made the commentator who came after him to pause and so leave the +work of anthropomorphizing the “Unknown,” the “WHO,” to future human +conception? “These early poets thought more for themselves--than +for others,” remarks Max Müller himself. “They sought rather, in +their language, to be true to their own thought than to please +the imagination of their hearers.”[822] Unfortunately it is this +very thought which awakes no responsive echo in the minds of our +philologists. + +Farther, we read the sound advice to students of the _Rig-Veda_ +hymns, to collect, collate, sift, and reject. “Let him study the +commentaries, the _Sûtras_, the _Brahmanas_, and even later works, +in order to exhaust all the sources from which information can be +derived. He [the scholar] _must not despise the traditions of the +Brahmans_, even where their misconceptions ... are palpable.... Not +a corner in the _Brahmanas_, the _Sûtras_, _Yâska_, and _Sâyana_, +should be left unexplored _before we propose a rendering of our +own_.... When the scholar has done his work, the poet and philosopher +must take it up and finish it.”[823] + +Poor chance for a “philosopher” to step into the shoes of a learned +philologist and presume to correct _his_ errors! We would like to +see what sort of a reception the most learned Hindu scholar in India +would have from the educated public of Europe and America, if he +should undertake to correct a savant, after he had sifted, accepted, +rejected, explained, and declared what was good, and what “absurd and +childish” in the sacred books of his forefathers. That which would +finally be declared “Brahmanic misconceptions,” by the conclave of +European and especially German savants, would be as little likely to +be reconsidered at the appeal of the most erudite pundit of Benares +or Ceylon, as the interpretation of Jewish Scripture by Maimonides +and Philo-Judæus, by Christians after the Councils of the Church +had accepted the mistranslations and explanations of Irenæus and +Eusebius. What pundit, or native philosopher of India should know his +ancestral language, religion, or philosophy as well as an Englishman +or a German? Or why should a Hindu be more suffered to expound +Brahmanism, than a Rabbinical scholar to interpret Judaism or the +Isaïan prophecies? Safer, and far more trustworthy translators can be +had nearer home. Nevertheless, let us still hope that we may find at +last, even though it be in the dim future, a European philosopher to +sift the sacred books of the wisdom-religion, and not be contradicted +by every other of his class. + +Meanwhile, unmindful of any alleged authorities, let us try to sift +for ourselves a few of these myths of old. We will search for an +explanation within the popular interpretation, and feel our way +with the help of the magic lamp of Trismegistus--the mysterious +number _seven_. There must have been some reason why this figure was +universally accepted as a mystic calculation. With every ancient +people, the Creator, or Demiurge, was placed over the seventh heaven. +“And were I to touch upon the initiation into our sacred Mysteries,” +says Emperor Julian, the kabalist, “which the Chaldean bacchised +respecting the _seven-rayed God, lifting up the souls through Him_, I +should say things unknown, and _very unknown to the rabble_, but well +known to the _blessed Theurgists_.”[824] In _Lydus_ it is said that +“The Chaldeans call the God IAO, and SABAOTH he is often called, _as +He_ who is over the seven orbits (heavens, or spheres), that is the +Demiurge.”[825] + +One must consult the Pythagoreans and Kabalists to learn the +potentiality of this number. Exoterically the seven rays of the solar +spectrum are represented concretely in the seven-rayed god Heptaktis. +These seven rays epitomized into THREE primary rays, namely, the red, +blue, and yellow, form the solar trinity, and typify respectively +spirit-matter and spirit-essence. Science has also reduced of +late the seven rays to three primary ones, thus corroborating the +scientific conception of the ancients of at least one of the visible +manifestations of the invisible deity, and the seven divided into a +quaternary and a trinity. + +The Pythagoreans called the number seven the vehicle of life, as it +contained body and soul. They explained it by saying, that the human +body consisted of four principal elements, and that the soul is +triple, comprising reason, passion, and desire. The ineffable WORD +was considered the _Seventh_ and highest of all, for there are six +minor substitutes, each belonging to a degree of initiation. The Jews +borrowed their Sabbath from the ancients, who called it _Saturn’s_ +day and deemed it unlucky, and not the latter from the Israelites +when Christianized. The people of India, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt +observed weeks of seven days; and the Romans learned the hebdomadal +method from these foreign countries when they became subject to the +Empire. Still it was not until the fourth century that the Roman +kalends, nones, and ides were abandoned, and weeks substituted in +their place; and the astronomical names of the days, such as _dies +Solis_ (day of the Sun), _dies Lunæ_ (day of the Moon), _dies Martis_ +(day of Mars); _dies Mercurii_ (day of Mercury), _dies Jovis_ (day of +Jupiter), _dies Veneris_ (day of Venus), and _dies Saturni_ (day of +Saturn), prove that it was not from the Jews that the week of seven +days was adopted. Before we examine this number kabalistically, we +propose to analyse it from the standpoint of the Judaico-Christian +Sabbath. + +When Moses instituted the _yom shaba_, or _Shebang_ (Shabbath), the +allegory of the Lord God resting from his work of creation on the +seventh day was but a _cloak_, or, as the _Sohar_ expresses it, a +screen, to hide the true meaning. + +The Jews reckoned then, as they do now, their days by number, as, day +the _first_; day the second; and so on; _yom ahad_; _yom sheni_; _yom +shelisho_; _yom rebis_; _yom shamishi_; _yom shishehi_; yom SHABA. + +“The Hebrew _seven_ שבע, consisting of three letters, S. B. O., has +more than one meaning. First of all, it means _age_ or cycle, +Shab-ang; Sabbath שבע can be translated _old age_, as well as _rest_, +and in the old Coptic, _Sabe_ means _wisdom_, learning. Modern +archæologists have found that as in Hebrew _Sab_ שב also means +_gray-headed_, and that therefore the _Saba_-day was the day on which +the “gray-headed men, or ‘aged fathers’ of a tribe, were in the habit +of assembling for councils or sacrifices.”[826] + +“Thus, the week of six days and the seventh, the _Saba_ or +_Sapta_-day period, is of the highest antiquity. The observance of +the lunar festivals in India, shows that that nation held hebdomadal +meetings as well. With every new quarter the moon brings changes in +the atmosphere, hence certain changes are also produced throughout +the whole of our universe, of which the meteorological ones are the +most insignificant. On this day of the _seventh_ and most powerful +of the prismatic days, the adepts of the “Secret Science” meet as +they met thousands of years ago, to become the agents of the occult +powers of nature (emanations of the working God), and commune with +the invisible worlds. It is in this observance of the seventh day +by the old sages--not as the resting day of the Deity, but because +they had penetrated into its occult power, that lies the profound +veneration of all the heathen philosophers for the number _seven_ +which they term the “venerable,” the sacred number. The Pythagorean +_Tetraktis_, revered by the Platonists, was the _square_ placed below +the _triangle_; the latter, or the Trinity embodying the invisible +_Monad_--the unity, and deemed too sacred to be pronounced except +within the walls of a Sanctuary. + +The ascetic observance of the Christian Sabbath by Protestants is +pure religious tyranny, and does more harm, we fear, than good. It +really dates only from the enactment (in 1678) of the 29th of Charles +II., which prohibited any “tradesman, artificer, workman, laborer, +or other person,” to “do or exercise any worldly labor, etc., etc., +upon the Lord’s day.” The Puritans carried this thing to extremes, +apparently to mark their hatred of Catholicism, both Roman and +Episcopal. That it was no part of the plan of Jesus that such a day +should be set apart, is evident not only from his words but acts. It +was not observed by the early Christians. + +When Trypho, _the Jew_, reproached the Christians _for not having a +Sabbath_, what does the martyr answer him? “The new law will have +you keep a perpetual Sabbath. You, when _you have passed a day in +idleness, think you are religious_. The Lord is not pleased with +such things as these. If any be guilty of _perjury or fraud_, let +him reform; _if he be an adulterer_, let him repent; and _he will +then have kept the kind of Sabbath truly pleasing to God_.... The +elements are never idle, and keep no Sabbath. There was no need of +the observance of Sabbaths before Moses, neither now is there any +need of them after Jesus Christ.” + +The _Heptaktis_ is not the Supreme Cause, but simply an emanation +from _Him_--the first visible manifestation of the Unrevealed Power. +“His Divine _Breath_, which, violently breaking forth, condensed +itself, shining with radiance until it evolved into Light, and so +became cognizant to external sense,” says John Reuchlin.[827] This +is the emanation of the Highest, the Demiurge, a multiplicity in a +_unity_, the _Elohim_, whom we see _creating_ our world, or rather +fashioning it, in six days, and resting on the _seventh_. And who are +these _Elohim_ but the euhemerized powers of nature, the faithful +manifested servants, the laws of Him who is immutable law and harmony +Himself? + +They remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it +is they who, according to the kabalists, formed in succession the +six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that preceded +our own, which, they say, is the _seventh_. If, in laying aside the +metaphysico-spiritual conception, we give our attention but to the +religio-scientific problem of creation in “six days,” over which +our best biblical scholars have vainly pondered so long, we might, +perchance, be on the way to the true idea underlying the allegory. +The ancients were philosophers, consistent in all things. Hence, +they taught that each of these departed worlds, having performed its +physical evolution, and reached--through birth, growth, maturity, old +age, and death--the end of its cycle, had returned to its primitive +subjective form of a _spiritual_ earth. Thereafter it had to serve +through all eternity as the dwelling of those who had lived on it +as men, and even animals, but were now spirits. This idea, were it +even as incapable of exact demonstration as that of our theologians +relating to Paradise, is, at least, a trifle more philosophical. + +As well as man, and every other living thing upon it, our planet has +had its spiritual and physical evolution. From an impalpable ideal +_thought_ under the creative Will of Him of whom we know nothing, +and but dimly conceive in imagination, this globe became fluidic and +_semi_-spiritual, then condensed itself more and more, until its +physical development--matter, the tempting demon--compelled it to try +its own creative faculty. _Matter_ defied SPIRIT, and the earth, too, +had its “Fall.” The allegorical curse under which it labors, is that +it only _procreates_, it does not _create_. Our physical planet is +but the handmaiden, or rather the maid-of-all-work, of the spirit, +its master. “Cursed be the ground ... thorns and thistles shall it +bring,” the Elohim are made to say. “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth +children.” The Elohim say this both to the ground and the woman. And +this curse will last until the minutest particle of matter on earth +shall have outlived its days, until every grain of dust has, by +gradual transformation through evolution, become a constituent part +of a “living soul,” and, until the latter shall reascend the cyclic +arc, and finally stand--its own _Metatron_, or Redeeming Spirit--at +the foot of the upper step of the spiritual worlds, as at the first +hour of its emanation. Beyond that lies the great “Deep”--A MYSTERY! + +It must be remembered that every cosmogony has a _trinity_ of workers +at its head--Father, spirit; Mother, nature, or matter; and the +manifested universe, the Son or result of the two. The universe, +also, as well as each planet which it comprehends, passes through +_four_ ages, like man himself. All have their infancy, youth, +maturity, and old age, and these four added to the other three make +the sacred seven again. + +The introductory chapters of _Genesis_ were never meant to present +even a remote allegory of the creation of _our_ earth. They embrace +(chapter i.) a metaphysical conception of some indefinite period in +the eternity, when successive attempts were being made by the law of +evolution at the formation of universes. This idea is plainly stated +in the _Sohar_: “There were old worlds, which perished as soon as +they came into existence, were formless, and were called _sparks_. +Thus, the smith, when hammering the iron, lets the sparks fly in all +directions. The sparks are the primordial worlds which could not +continue, because the _Sacred Aged_ (Sephira) had not as yet assumed +its form (of androgyne or opposite sexes) of king and queen (Sephira +and Kadmon) and the Master was not yet at his work.”[828] + +The six periods or “days” of _Genesis_ refer to the same metaphysical +belief. Five such ineffectual attempts were made by the _Elohim_, but +the sixth resulted in worlds like our own (_i.e._, all the planets +and most of the stars are worlds, and inhabited, though not like our +earth). Having formed this world at last in the sixth period, the +Elohim rested in the _seventh_. Thus the “Holy One,” when he created +the present world, said: “This pleases me; the previous ones did not +please me.”[829] And the Elohim “saw everything that he had made, and +behold _it was_ very good. And the evening and the morning were the +sixth _day_.”--_Genesis_ i. + +The reader will remember that in Chapter IV. an explanation was +given of the “day” and “night” of Brahma. The former represents a +certain period of cosmical activity, the latter an equal one of +cosmical repose. In the one, worlds are being evolved, and passing +through their allotted four ages of existence; in the latter the +“inbreathing” of Brahma reverses the tendency of the natural forces; +everything visible becomes gradually dispersed; chaos comes; and +a long night of repose reinvigorates the cosmos for its next term +of evolution. In the morning of one of these “days” the formative +processes are gradually reaching their climax of activity; in the +evening imperceptibly diminishing the same until the _pralaya_ +arrives, and with it “_night_.” One such morning and evening do, in +fact, constitute a cosmic day; and it was a “day of Brahma” that the +kabalistic author of _Genesis_ had in mind each time when he said: +“And the evening and the morning were the first (or fifth or sixth, +or any other) _day_.” Six days of gradual evolution, one of repose, +and then--evening! Since the first appearance of man on _our_ earth +there has been an eternal Sabbath or rest for the Demiurge. + +The cosmogonical speculations of the first six chapters of _Genesis_ +are shown in the races of “sons of God,” “giants,” etc., of chapter +vi. Properly speaking, the story of the formation of our earth, or +“creation,” as it is very improperly called, begins with the rescue +of Noah from the deluge. The Chaldeo-Babylonian tablets recently +translated by George Smith leave no doubt of that in the minds of +those who read the inscriptions esoterically. Ishtar, the great +goddess, speaks in column iii. of the destruction of the _sixth_ +world and the appearance of the seventh, thus: + +“SIX _days_ and _nights_ the wind, deluge, and storm overwhelmed. + +“On the _seventh_ day, in its course was calmed the storm, and all +the deluge, + +“which had destroyed like an earthquake,[830] + +“quieted. The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended.... + +“I perceived the shore at the boundary of the sea.... + +“to the country of Nizir went the ship (argha, or the moon). + +“the mountain of Nizir stopped the ship.... + +“the _first_ day, and the _second_ day, the mountain of Nizir the +same. + +“the _fifth_ and the _sixth_, the mountain of Nizir the same. + +“on the _seventh_ day, in the course of it + +“I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and ... +the raven went ... and did not return. + +“I built an altar on the peak of the mountain. + +“by _seven_ herbs I cut, at the bottom of them I placed reeds, pines, +and simgar.... + +“the gods like flies over the sacrifice gathered. + +“from of old _also the great God_ in his course. + +“the great brightness (the sun) of Anu had created.[831] When the +glory of those gods the charm round my neck would not repel,” etc. + +All this has a purely astronomical, magical, and esoteric relation. +One who reads these tablets will recognize at a glance the biblical +account; and judge, at the same time, how disfigured is the great +Babylonian poem by euhemeric personages--degraded from their exalted +positions of gods into simple patriarchs. Space prevents our entering +fully into this biblical travesty of the Chaldean allegories. We +shall therefore but remind the reader that by the confession of the +most unwilling witnesses--such as Lenormant, first the inventor and +then champion of the Akkadians--the Chaldeo-Babylonian triad placed +under Ilon, the _unrevealed_ deity, is composed of Anu, Nuah, and +Bel. Anu is the primordial chaos, the god time and world at once, +χρόνος and κόσμος, the uncreated matter issued from the one and +fundamental principle of all things. As to _Nuah_, he is, according to +the same Orientalist: + +“... the intelligence, we will willingly say the _verbum_, which +animates and fecundates matter, which penetrates the universe, +directs and makes it live; and at the same time Nuah is the king of +the _humid principle; the Spirit moving on the waters_.” + +Is not this evident? Nuah is Noah, _floating on the waters_, in his +ark; the latter being the emblem of the argha, or moon, the feminine +principle; Noah is the “spirit” falling into matter. We find him as +soon as he descends upon the earth, planting a vineyard, drinking of +the wine, and getting drunk on it; _i.e._, the pure spirit becoming +intoxicated as soon as it is finally imprisoned in matter. The +seventh chapter of _Genesis_ is but another version of the first. +Thus, while the latter reads: “... and darkness was upon the face of +the deep. And the spirit (of God) moved upon the face of the waters,” +in chapter seventh, it is said: “... and the waters prevailed ... and +the ark went (with Noah--the spirit) upon the face of the waters.” +Thus Noah, if the Chaldean Nuah, is the spirit vivifying _matter_, +chaos represented by the deep or waters of the flood. In the +Babylonian legend it is Istar (Astoreth, the moon) which is shut up +in the ark, and sends out a dove (emblem of Venus and other lunar +goddesses) in search of dry land. And whereas in the Semitic tablets +it is Xisuthrus or Hasisadra who is “translated to the company of the +gods for his piety,” in the _Bible_ it is Enoch who walks with, and +being taken up by God, “was no more.” + +The successive existence of an incalculable number of worlds before +the subsequent evolution of our own, was believed and taught by all +the ancient peoples. The punishment of the Christians for despoiling +the Jews of their records and refusing the true key to them began +from the earliest centuries. And thus is it that we find the holy +Fathers of the Church laboring through an impossible chronology and +the absurdities of literal interpretation, while the learned rabbis +were perfectly aware of the real significance of their allegories. +So not only in the _Sohar_, but also in other kabalistic works +accepted by Talmudists, such as _Midrash Berasheth_, or the universal +_Genesis_, which, with the _Merkaba_ (the chariot of Ezekiel), +composes the _Kabala_, may be found the doctrine of a whole series of +worlds evolving out of the chaos, and being destroyed in succession. + +The Hindu doctrines teach of two _Pralayas_ or dissolutions; one +universal, the Maha-Pralaya, the other partial, or the minor Pralaya. +This does not relate to the universal dissolution which occurs at the +end of every “Day of Brahma,” but to the geological cataclysms at the +end of every minor cycle of our globe. This historical and purely +local deluge of Central Asia, the traditions of which can be traced +in every country, and which, according to Bunsen, happened about the +year 10,000 B.C., had naught to do with the mythical Noah, or Nuah. +A partial cataclysm occurs at the close of every “age” of the world, +they say, which does not destroy the latter, but only changes its +general appearance. New races of men and animals and a new flora +evolve from the dissolution of the precedent ones. + +The allegories of the “fall of man” and the “deluge,” are the two +most important features of the _Pentateuch_. They are, so to say, +the Alpha and Omega, the highest and the lowest keys of the scale +of harmony on which resounds the majestic hymns of the creation +of mankind; for they discover to him who questions the _Zura_ +(figurative _Gemantria_), the process of man’s evolution from the +highest spiritual entity unto the lowest physical--the post-diluvian +man, as in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, every sign of the picture +writing which cannot be made to fit within a certain circumscribed +geometrical figure may be rejected as only intended by the sacred +hierogrammatist for a premeditated blind--so many of the details in +the _Bible_ must be treated on the same principle, that portion only +being accepted which answers to the numerical methods taught in the +_Kabala_. + +The deluge appears in the Hindu books only as a tradition. It claims +no sacred character, and we find it but in the _Mahâbhârata_, the +_Puranas_, and still earlier in the _Satapatha_, one of the latest +_Brahmanas_. It is more than probable that Moses, or whoever wrote +for him, used these accounts as the basis of his own purposely +disfigured allegory, adding to it moreover the Chaldean Berosian +narrative. In _Mahâbhârata_, we recognize Nimrod under the name of +_King Daytha_. The origin of the Grecian fable of the Titans scaling +Olympus, and the other of the builders of the Tower of Babel who +seek to reach heaven, is shown in the impious _Daytha_, who sends +imprecations against heaven’s thunder, and threatens to conquer +heaven itself with his mighty warriors, thereby bringing upon +humanity the wrath of Brahma. “The Lord then resolved,” says the +text, “to chastise his creatures with a terrible punishment which +should serve as a warning to survivors, and to their descendants.” + +_Vaivasvata_ (who in the _Bible_ becomes Noah) saves a little fish, +which turns out to be an _avatar_ of Vishnu. The fish warns that just +man that the globe is about to be submerged, that all that inhabit it +must perish, and orders him to construct a vessel in which he shall +embark, with all his family. When the ship is ready, and _Vaivasvata_ +has shut up in it with his family _the seeds of plants and pairs of +all animals_, and the rain begins to fall, a gigantic fish, armed +with a horn, places itself at the head of the ark. The holy man, +following its orders, attaches a cable to this horn, and the fish +guides the ship safely through the raging elements. In the Hindu +tradition the number of days during which the deluge lasted _agrees +exactly with that of the Mosaic account_. When the elements were +calmed, the fish landed the ark on the summit of the Himalayas. + +This fable is considered by many orthodox commentators to have been +borrowed from the Mosaic _Scriptures_.[832] But surely if such a +_universal_ cataclysm had ever taken place within man’s memory, +some of the monuments of the Egyptians, of which many are of such a +tremendous antiquity, would have recorded that occurrence, coupled +with that of the disgrace of Ham, Canaan, and Mizraim, their +alleged ancestors. But, till now, there has not been found the +remotest allusion to such a calamity, although Mizraim certainly +belongs to the first generation after the deluge, if not actually +an antediluvian himself. On the other hand the Chaldeans preserved +the tradition, as we find Berosus testifying to it, and the ancient +Hindus possess the legend as given above. Now, there is but one +explanation of the extraordinary fact that of two contemporary +and civilized nations like Egypt and Chaldea, one has preserved +no tradition of it whatever, although it was the most directly +interested in the occurrence--if we credit the _Bible_--and the other +has. The deluge noticed in the _Bible_, in one of the _Brahmanas_, +and in the Berosus _Fragment_, relates to the partial flood which, +about 10,000 years B.C., according to Bunsen, and according to the +Brahmanical computations of the Zodiac also changed the whole face +of Central Asia.[833] Thus the Babylonians and the Chaldeans might +have learned of it from their mysterious guests, christened by some +Assyriologists Akkadians, or what is still more probable they, +themselves, perhaps, were the descendants of those who had dwelt +in the submerged localities. The Jews had the tale from the latter +as they had everything else; the Brahmans may have recorded the +traditions of the lands which they first invaded, and had perhaps +inhabited before they possessed themselves of the Punjâb. But the +Egyptians, whose first settlers had evidently come from Southern +India, had less reason to record the cataclysm, since it had perhaps +never affected them except indirectly, as the flood was limited to +Central Asia. + +Burnouf, noticing the fact that the story of the deluge is found only +in one of the most modern _Brahmanas_, also thinks that it might +have been borrowed by the Hindus from the Semitic nations. Against +such an assumption are ranged all the traditions and customs of the +Hindus. The Aryans, and especially the Brahmans, never borrowed +anything at all from the Semitists, and here we are corroborated by +one of those “unwilling witnesses,” as Higgins calls the partisans of +Jehovah and _Bible_. “I have never seen anything in the history of +the Egyptians and Jews,” writes Abbé Dubois, forty years a resident +of India, “that would induce me to believe that either of these +nations, or any other on the face of the earth, have been established +earlier than the Hindus, and particularly the Brahmans; so I cannot +be induced to believe that the latter have drawn their rites from +foreign nations. On the contrary, I infer that they have drawn them +from an original source of their own. Whoever knows anything of the +spirit and character of the Brahmans, their stateliness, their pride, +and extreme vanity, their distance, and sovereign contempt for +everything that is foreign, and of which they cannot boast to have +been the inventors, will agree with me that such a people cannot have +consented to draw their customs and rules of conduct from an alien +country.”[834] + +This fable which mentions the earliest avatar--the Matsya--relates +to another yuga than our own, that of the first appearance of animal +life; perchance, who knows, to the Devonian age of our geologists? It +certainly answers better to the latter than the year 2348 B.C.! Apart +from this, the very absence of all mention of the deluge from the +oldest books of the Hindus suggests a powerful argument when we are +left utterly to inferences as in this case. “The _Vedas_ and _Manu_,” +says Jacolliot, “those monuments of the old Asiatic thought, existed +far earlier than the diluvian period; _this is an incontrovertible +fact, having all the value of an historical truth_, for, besides the +tradition which shows Vishnu himself as saving the _Vedas_ from the +deluge--a tradition which, notwithstanding its legendary form, must +certainly rest upon a real fact--it has been remarked that neither +of these sacred books mention the cataclysm, while the _Pûranas_ +and the _Mahâbhârata_, and a great number of other more recent +works, describe it with the minutest detail, _which is a proof of +the priority of the former_. The _Vedas_ certainly would never have +failed to contain a few hymns on the terrible disaster which, of all +other natural manifestations, must have struck the imagination of the +people who witnessed it.” + +“Neither would Manu, who gives us a complete narrative of the +creation, with a chronology from the divine and heroical ages, down +to the appearance of man on earth--have passed in silence an event +of such importance.” _Manu_ (book i., sloka 35), gives the names +of ten eminent saints whom he calls pradjâpatis (more correctly +_pragâpatis_), in whom the Brahman theologians see prophets, +ancestors of the human race, and the Pundits simply consider as ten +powerful kings who lived in the Krita-yug, or the age of good (the +golden age of the Greeks). + +The last of these pragâpatis is Brighou. + +“Enumerating the succession of these eminent beings who, according to +Manu, have governed the world, the old Brahmanical legislator names +as descending from Brighou: Swârotchica, Ottami, Tamasa, Raivata, the +glorious Tchâkchoucha, and the son of Vivasvat, every one of the six +having made himself worthy of the title of Manu (divine legislator), +a title which had equally belonged to the Pradjâpatis, and every +great personage of primitive India. The genealogy stops at this name. + +“Now, according to the _Pûranas_ and the _Mahâbhârata_ it was under a +descendant of this son of Vivaswata, named Vaivaswata that occurred +the great cataclysm, the remembrance of which, as will be seen, has +passed into a tradition, and been carried by emigration into all +the countries of the East and West which India has colonized since +then.... + +“The genealogy given by Manu stopping, as we have seen, at Vivaswata, +it follows that this work (of Manu) knew nothing either of Vivaswata +or the deluge.”[835] + +The argument is unanswerable; and we commend it to those official +scientists, who, to please the clergy, dispute every fact proving the +tremendous antiquity of the _Vedas_ and _Manu_. Colonel Vans Kennedy +has long since declared that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat +of _Sanscrit_ literature and Brahman learning. And how or why should +the Brahmans have penetrated there, unless it was as the result of +intestine wars and emigration from India? The fullest account of the +deluge is found in the _Mahâbhârata_ of Vedavyasa, a poem in honor +of the astrological allegories on the wars between the Solar and the +Lunar races. One of the versions states that Vivaswata became the +father of all the nations of the earth through his own progeny, and +this is the form adopted for the Noachian story; the other states +that--like Deukalion and Pyrrha--he had but to throw pebbles into the +ilus left by the retiring waves of the flood, to produce men at will. +These two versions--one Hebrew, the other Greek--allow us no choice. +We must either believe that the Hindus borrowed from pagan Greeks as +well as from monotheistic Jews, or--what is far more probable--that +the versions of both of these nations are derived from the Vedic +literature through the Babylonians. + +History tells us of the stream of immigration across the Indus, and +later of its overflowing the Occident; and of populations of Hindu +origin passing from Asia Minor to colonize Greece. But history says +not a single word of the “chosen people,” or of Greek colonies having +penetrated India earlier than the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., when +we first find vague traditions that make some of the problematical +_lost_ tribes of Israel, take from Babylon the route to India. But +even were the story of the ten tribes to find credence, and the +tribes themselves be proved to have existed in profane as well as in +sacred history, this does not help the solution at all. Colebrooke, +Wilson, and other eminent Indianists show the _Mahâbhârata_, if not +the _Satapatha_-brâhmana, in which the story is also given, as by +far antedating the age of Cyrus, hence, the possible time of the +appearance of any of the tribes of Israel in India.[836] + +Orientalists accord the _Mahâbhârata_ an antiquity of between twelve +and fifteen hundred years B.C.; as to the Greek version it bears as +little evidence as the other, and the attempts of the Hellenists in +this direction have as signally failed. The story of the conquering +army of Alexander penetrating into Northern India, itself becomes +more doubted every day. No Hindu national record, not the slightest +historical memento, throughout the length and breadth of India offers +the slightest trace of such an invasion. + +If even such _historical facts_ are now found to have been all the +while fictions, what are we to think of narratives which bear on +their very face the stamp of invention? We cannot help sympathizing +at heart with Professor Müller when he remarks that it seems +“blasphemy to consider these fables of the heathen world as corrupted +and misinterpreted fragments of _divine_ Revelation once granted to +the whole race of mankind.” Only, can this scholar be held perfectly +impartial and fair to both parties, unless he includes in the number +of these fables those of the _Bible_? And is the language of the _Old +Testament_ more _pure_ or _moral_ than the books of the Brahmans? Or +any fables of the _heathen_ world more blasphemous and ridiculous +than Jehovah’s interview with Moses (_Exodus_ xxxiii. 23)? Are any of +the Pagan gods made to appear more fiendish than the same Jehovah in +a score of passages? If the feelings of a pious Christian are shocked +at the absurdities of Father Kronos eating his children and maiming +Uranos; or of Jupiter throwing Vulcan down from heaven and breaking +his leg; on the other hand he cannot feel hurt if a _non_-Christian +laughs at the idea of Jacob boxing with the Creator, who “when he saw +that _he prevailed not_ against him,” dislocated Jacob’s thigh, the +patriarch still holding fast to God and not allowing Him to go His +way, notwithstanding His pleading. + +Why should the story of Deukalion and Pyrrha, throwing stones behind +them, and thus creating the human race, be deemed more ridiculous +than that of Lot’s wife being changed into a pillar of salt, or of +the Almighty creating men _of clay_ and then breathing the breath of +life into them? The choice between the latter mode of creation and +that of the Egyptian ram-horned god fabricating man on a potter’s +wheel is hardly perceptible. The story of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, +ushered into existence after a certain period of gestation in her +father’s brain, is at least suggestive and poetical, as an allegory. +No ancient Greek was ever burned for not accepting it literally; and, +at all events, “heathen” fables in general are far less preposterous +and blasphemous than those imposed upon Christians, ever since the +Church accepted the _Old Testament_, and the Roman Catholic Church +opened its register of thaumaturgical saints. + +“Many of the natives of India,” continues Professor Müller, “confess +that their feelings revolt against the impurities attributed to +the gods by what they call their sacred writings; yet there are +honest Brahmans who will maintain that _these stories have a deeper +meaning_; that immorality being incompatible with a divine being, +_a mystery_ must be supposed to be concealed in these time-hallowed +fables, a mystery which an inquiring and reverent mind may hope to +fathom.” + +This is precisely what the Christian clergy maintain in attempting +to explain the indecencies and incongruities of the _Old Testament_. +Only, instead of allowing the interpretation to those who have the +key to these seeming incongruities, they have assumed to themselves +the office and right, by _divine_ proxy, to interpret these in their +own way. They have not only done that but have gradually deprived the +Hebrew clergy of the means to interpret their Scriptures as their +fathers did; so that to find among the Rabbis in the present century +a well-versed kabalist, is quite rare. The Jews have themselves +forgotten the key! How could they help it? Where are the original +manuscripts? The oldest Hebrew manuscript in existence is said to be +the _Bodleian Codex_, which is not older than between eight and nine +hundred years.[837] The break between Ezra and this _Codex_ is thus +fifteen centuries. In 1490 the Inquisition _caused all the Hebrew +Bibles to be burned_; and Torquemada alone destroyed 6,000 volumes +at Salamanca. Except a few manuscripts of the _Tora Ketubim_ and +_Nebiim_, used in the synagogues, and which are of quite a recent +date, we do not think there is one old manuscript in existence which +is not punctuated, hence--completely misinterpreted and altered by +the Masorets. Were it not for this timely invention of the _Masorah_, +no copy of the _Old Testament_ could possibly be tolerated in our +century. It is well known that the Masorets while transcribing the +oldest manuscripts put themselves to task to take out, except in a +few places which they have probably overlooked, all the _immodest_ +words and put in places sentences of their own, often changing +completely the sense of the verse. “It is clear,” says Donaldson, +“that the Masoretic school at Tiberias were engaged in settling +or unsettling the Hebrew text until the final publication of the +_Masorah_ itself.” Therefore, had we but the original texts--judging +by the present copies of the _Bible_ in our possession--it would +be really edifying to compare the _Old Testament_ with the _Vedas_ +and even with the Brahmanical books. We verily believe that no +faith, however blind, could stand before such an avalanche of crude +impurities and fables. If the latter are not only accepted but +enforced upon millions of civilized persons who find it respectable +and edifying to believe in them as _divine revelation_, why should we +wonder that Brahmans believe their books to be equally a _Sruti_, a +revelation? + +Let us thank the Masorets by all means, but let us study at the same +time both sides of the medal. + +Legends, myths, allegories, symbols, if they but belong to the Hindu, +Chaldean, or Egyptian tradition, are thrown into the same heap of +fiction. Hardly are they honored with a superficial search into +their possible relations to astronomy or sexual emblems. The same +myths--when and because mutilated--are accepted as Sacred Scriptures, +more--the Word of God! Is this impartial history? Is this justice to +either the past, the present, or the future? “Ye cannot serve God and +Mammon,” said the Reformer, nineteen centuries ago. “Ye cannot serve +truth and public prejudice,” would be more applicable to our own age. +Yet our authorities pretend they serve the former. + +There are few myths in any religious system but have an historical +as well as a scientific foundation. Myths, as Pococke ably +expresses it, “are now proved to be fables, just in proportion as +we _misunderstand_ them; truths, in proportion as they were once +_understood_. Our ignorance it is which has made a myth of history; +and our ignorance is an Hellenic inheritance, much of it the result +of Hellenic vanity.”[838] + +Bunsen and Champollion have already shown that the Egyptian sacred +books are by far older than the oldest parts of the _Book of +Genesis_. And now a more careful research seems to warrant the +suspicion--which with us amounts to a certainty, that the laws +of Moses are copies from the code of the Brahmanic _Manu_. Thus, +according to every probability, Egypt owes her civilization, her +civil institutions, and her arts, to India. But against the latter +assumption we have a whole army of “authorities” arrayed, and what +matters if the latter do deny the fact at present? Sooner or later +they will have to accept it, whether they belong to the German or +French school. Among, but not of those who so readily compromise +between interest and conscience, there are some fearless scholars, +who may bring out to light incontrovertible facts. Some twenty +years since, Max Müller, in a letter to the Editor of the London +_Times_, April, 1857, maintained most vehemently that Nirvana meant +_annihilation_, in the fullest sense of the word. (See _Chips_, +etc., vol. i., p. 287, on the meaning of Nirvana.) But in 1869, in +a lecture before the general meeting of the Association of German +Philologists at Kiel, “he distinctly declares his belief that the +nihilism attributed to Buddha’s teaching forms no part of his +doctrine, and that it is wholly wrong to suppose that Nirvana means +annihilation.” (Trübner’s _American and Oriental Literary Record_, +Oct. 16, 1869; also Inman’s _Ancient Faiths and Modern_, p. 128.) Yet +if we mistake not, Professor Müller was as much of an authority in +1857 as in 1869. + +“It will be difficult to settle,” says (now) this great scholar, +“whether the _Vedas_ is the oldest of books, and whether some of the +portions of the _Old Testament_ may not be traced back to the same +or even an earlier date than the oldest hymns of the _Veda_.”[839] +But his retraction about the Nirvana allows us a hope that he may yet +change his opinion on the question of _Genesis_ likewise, so that the +public may have simultaneously the benefit of truth, and the sanction +of one of Europe’s greatest authorities. + +It is well known how little the Orientalists have come to anything +like an agreement about the age of Zoroaster, and until this question +is settled, it would be safer perhaps to trust implicitly in the +Brahmanical calculations by the Zodiac, than to the opinions of +scientists. Leaving the profane horde of unrecognized scholars, those +we mean who yet wait their turn to be chosen for public worship +as idols symbolical of scientific leadership, where can we find, +among the sanctioned authorities of the day, two that agree as to +this age? There’s Bunsen, who places Zoroaster at Baktra, and the +emigration of Baktrians to the Indus at 3784 B.C.,[840] and the +birth of Moses at 1392.[841] Now it is rather difficult to place +Zoroaster anterior to the _Vedas_, considering that the whole of +his doctrine is that of the earlier _Vedas_. True, he remained in +Afghanistan for a period more or less problematical before crossing +into the Punjâb; but the _Vedas_ were begun in the latter country. +They indicate the progress of the Hindus, as the _Avesta_ that +of the Iranians. And there is Haug who assigns to the _Aitareya +Brahmanam_--a Brahmanical speculation and commentary upon the +_Rig-Veda_ of a far later date than the _Veda_ itself--between 1400 +and 1200 B.C., while the _Vedas_ are placed by him between 2,000 and +2,400 years B.C. Max Müller cautiously suggests certain difficulties +in this chronological computation, but still does not altogether +deny it.[842] Let it, however, be as it may, and supposing that the +_Pentateuch_ was written by Moses himself--notwithstanding that he +would thereby be made to twice record his own death--still, if Moses +was born, as Bunsen finds, in 1392 B.C., the _Pentateuch_ could not +have been written, _before the Vedas_. Especially if Zoroaster was +born 3784 B.C. If, as Dr. Haug[843] tells us, some of the hymns of +the _Rig-Veda_ were written before Zoroaster accomplished his schism, +something like thirty-seven centuries B.C., and Max Müller says +himself that “the Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India +during the Vaidic period,” how can some of the portions of the _Old +Testament_ be traced back to the same or even “an earlier date than +the oldest hymns of the _Veda_?” + +It has generally been agreed among Orientalists that the Aryans, +3,000 years B.C., were still in the steppes east of the Caspian, +and united. Rawlinson _conjectures_ that they “flowed east” from +Armenia as a common centre; while two kindred streams began to flow, +one northward over the Caucasus, and the other westward over Asia +Minor and Europe. He finds the Aryans, at a period anterior to the +fifteenth century before our era, “settled in the territory watered +by the Upper Indus.” Thence Vedic Aryans migrated to the Punjâb, and +Zendic Aryans westward, establishing the historical countries. But +this, like the rest, is a hypothesis, and only given as such. + +Again, Rawlinson, evidently following Max Müller, says: “The early +history of the Aryans is for many ages an absolute blank.” But many +learned Brahmans, however, have declared that they found trace of +the existence of the _Vedas_ as early as 2100 B.C.; and Sir William +Jones, taking for his guide the astronomical data, places the +_Yagur-Veda_ 1580 B.C. This would be still “before Moses.” + +It is upon the supposition that the Aryans did not leave Afghanistan +for the Punjâb prior to 1500 B.C. that Max Müller and other Oxford +savants have supposed that portions of the _Old Testament_ may be +traced back to the same or even an earlier date than the oldest +hymns of the _Veda_. Therefore, until the Orientalists can show us +the correct date at which Zoroaster flourished, no authority can be +regarded as better for the ages of the _Vedas_ than the Brahmans +themselves. + +As it is a recognized fact that the Jews borrowed most of their laws +from the Egyptians, let us examine who were the Egyptians. In our +opinion--which is but a poor authority, of course--they were the +ancient Indians, and in our first volume we have quoted passages from +the historian Collouca-Batta that support such a theory. What we mean +by ancient India is the following: + +No region on the map--except it be the ancient Scythia--is more +uncertainly defined than that which bore the designation of India. +Æthiopia is perhaps the only parallel. It was the home of the Cushite +or Hamitic races, and lay to the east of Babylonia. It was once the +name of Hindustan, when the dark races, worshippers of Bala-Mahadeva +and Bhavani-Mahidevi, were supreme in that country. The India of +the early sages appears to have been the region at the sources of +the Oxus and Jaxartes. Apollonius of Tyana crossed the Caucasus, or +Hindu Kush, where he met with a king who directed him to the abode of +the sages--perhaps the descendants of those whom Ammianus terms the +“Brahmans of Upper India,” and whom Hystaspes, the father of Darius +(or more probably Darius Hystaspes himself) visited; and, having +been instructed by them, infused their rites and ideas into the +Magian observances. This narrative about Apollonius seems to indicate +Kashmere as the country which he visited, and the _Nagas_--after +their conversion to Buddhism--as his teachers. At this time Aryan +India did not extend beyond the Punjâb. + +To our notion, the most baffling impediment in the way of +ethnological progress has always been the triple progeny of Noah. +In the attempt to reconcile postdiluvian races with a genealogical +descent from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the Christianesque Orientalists +have set themselves a task impossible of accomplishment. The biblical +Noachian ark has been a Procrustean bed to which they had to make +everything fit. Attention has therefore been diverted from veritable +sources of information as to the origin of man, and a purely local +allegory mistaken for a historical record emanating from an inspired +source. Strange and unfortunate choice! Out of all the sacred +writings of all the branch nations, sprung from the primitive stock +of mankind, Christianity must choose for its guidance the national +records and scriptures of a people perhaps the least spiritual of +the human family--the Semitic. A branch that has never been able to +develop out of its numerous tongues a language capable of embodying +ideas of a moral and intellectual world; whose form of expression +and drift of thought could never soar higher than the purely sensual +and terrestrial figures of speech; whose literature has left nothing +original, nothing that was not borrowed from the Aryan thought; and +whose science and philosophy are utterly wanting in those noble +features which characterize the highly spiritual and metaphysical +systems of the Indo-European (Japetic) races. + +Bunsen shows Khamism (the language of Egypt) as a very ancient +deposit from Western Asia, containing _the germs_ of the Semitic, and +thus bearing “witness to the primitive cognate unity of the Semitic +and Aryan races.” We must remember, in this connection, that the +peoples of Southwestern and Western Asia, including the Medes, were +all Aryans. It is yet far from being proved who were the original and +primitive masters of India. That this period is now beyond the reach +of documentary history, does not preclude the probability of our +theory that it was the mighty race of builders, whether we call them +Eastern Æthiopians, or dark-skinned Aryans (the word meaning simply +“noble warrior,” a “brave”). They ruled supreme at one time over the +whole of ancient India, enumerated later by Manu as the possession of +those whom our scientists term the Sanscrit-speaking people. + +These Hindus are _supposed_ to have entered the country from the +northwest; they are _conjectured_ by some to have brought with them +the Brahmanical religion, and the language of the conquerors was +_probably_ the Sanscrit. On these three meagre data our philologists +have worked ever since the Hindustani and its immense Sanscrit +literature was forcibly brought into notice by Sir William Jones--all +the time with the three sons of Noah clinging around their necks. +This is _exact_ science, free from religious prejudices! Verily, +ethnology would have been the gainer if this Noachian trio had been +washed overboard and drowned before the ark reached land! + +The Æthiopians are generally classed in the Semitic group; but we +have to see how far they have a claim to such a classification. +We will also consider how much they might have had to do with the +Egyptian civilization, which, as a writer expresses it, seems +referable in the same perfection to the earliest dates, and not to +have had a rise and progress, as was the case with that of other +peoples. For reasons that we will now adduce, we are prepared +to maintain that Egypt owes her civilization, commonwealth and +arts--especially the art of building, to pre-Vedic India, and that +it was a colony of the dark-skinned Aryans, or those whom Homer and +Herodotus term the eastern Æthiopians, _i.e._, the inhabitants of +Southern India, who brought to it their ready-made civilization in +the ante-chronological ages, of what Bunsen calls the pre-Menite, but +nevertheless epochal history. + +In Pococke’s _India in Greece_, we find the following suggestive +paragraph: “The plain account of the wars carried on between +the solar chiefs, Oosras (Osiris) the prince of the Guelas, and +‘TU-PHOO’ is the simple historical fact of the wars of the Apians, +or Sun-tribes of Oude, with the people of ‘TU-PHOO’ or THIBET, who +were, in fact, the lunar race, mostly Buddhists[844] and opposed +by Rama and the ‘AITYO-PIAS’ or people of Oude, subsequently the +AITH-IO-PIANS of Africa.”[845] + +We would remind the reader in this connection, that Ravan, the +giant, who, in the _Ramayana_, wages such a war with Rama Chandra, +is shown as King of Lanka, which was the ancient name for Ceylon; +and that Ceylon, in those days, perhaps formed part of the main-land +of Southern India, and was peopled by the “Eastern Æthiopians.” +Conquered by Rama, the son of Dasarata, the Solar King of ancient +Oude, a colony of these emigrated to Northern Africa. If, as many +suspect, Homer’s _Iliad_ and much of his account of the Trojan war +is plagiarized from the _Ramayana_, then the traditions which served +as a basis for the latter must date from a tremendous antiquity. +Ample margin is thus left in pre-chronological history for a period, +during which the “Eastern Æthiopians” might have established the +hypothetical Mizraic colony, with their high Indian civilization and +arts. + +Science is still in the dark about cuneiform inscriptions. Until +these are completely deciphered, especially those cut in rocks found +in such abundance within the boundaries of the old Iran, who can tell +the secrets they may yet reveal? There are no Sanscrit monumental +inscriptions older than Chandragupta (315 B.C.), and the Persepolitan +inscriptions are found 220 years older. There are even now some +manuscripts in characters utterly unknown to philologists and +palæographists, and one of them is, or was, some time since in the +library of Cambridge, England. Linguistic writers class the Semitic +with the Indo-European language, generally including the Æthiopian +and the ancient Egyptian in the classification. But if some of the +dialects of the modern Northern Africa, and even the modern Gheez or +Æthiopian, are now so degenerated and corrupted as to admit of false +conclusions as to the genetical relationship between them and the +other Semitic tongues, we are not at all sure that the latter have +any claim to such a classification, except in the case of the old +Coptic and the ancient Gheez. + +That there is more consanguinity between the Æthiopians and the +Aryan, dark-skinned races, and between the latter and the Egyptians, +is something which yet may be proved. It has been lately found that +the ancient Egyptians were of the Caucasian type of mankind, and +the shape of their skulls is purely Asiatic.[846] If they were less +copper-colored than the Æthiopians of our modern day, the Æthiopians +themselves might have had a lighter complexion in days of old. The +fact that, with the Æthiopian kings, the order of succession gave the +crown to the nephew of the king, the _son of his sister_, and not +to his own son, is extremely suggestive. It is an old custom which +prevails until now in Southern India. The Rajah is not succeeded by +his own sons, but by _his sister’s sons_.[847] + +Of all the dialects and tongues alleged to be Semitic, the Æthiopian +alone is written from left to right like the Sanscrit and the +Indo-Aryan people.[848] + +Thus, against the origin of the Egyptians being attributed to an +ancient Indian colony, there is no graver impediment than Noah’s +disrespectful son--Ham--himself a myth. But the earliest form of +Egyptian religious worship and government, theocratic and sacerdotal, +and her habits and customs all bespeak an Indian origin. + +The earliest legends of the history of India mention two dynasties +now lost in the night of time; the first was the dynasty of kings, +of “the race of the sun,” who reigned in Ayodhia (now Oude); the +second that of the “race of the moon,” who reigned in Pruyag +(Allahabad). Let him who desires information on the religious +worship of these early kings read the _Book of the Dead_, of the +Egyptians, and all the peculiarities attending this sun-worship and +the sun-gods. Neither Osiris nor Horus are ever mentioned without +being connected with the sun. They are the “Sons of the _Sun_;” “the +Lord and Adorer of the Sun” is his name. “The sun is the creator of +the body, the engenderer of the gods who are _the successors of the +Son_.” Pococke, in his most ingenious work, strongly advocates the +same idea, and endeavors to establish still more firmly the identity +of the Egyptian, Greek, and Indian mythology. He shows the head +of the Rajpoot Solar race--in fact the great Cuclo-pos (Cyclop or +builder)--called “The great sun,” in the earliest Hindu tradition. +This Gok-la Prince, the patriarch of the vast bands of Inachienses, +he says, “this _Great Sun_ was deified at his death, and according +to the Indian doctrine of the metempsychosis, his Soul was supposed +to have transmigrated into the bull ‘Apis,’ the Sera-pis of the +Greeks, and the SOORA-PAS, or ‘Sun-Chief’ of the Egyptians.... +_Osiris_, properly Oosras, signifies both a ‘a bull,’ and ‘a ray of +light.’ _Soora-pas_ (Serapis) the sun chief,” for the Sun in Sanscrit +is Sûrya. Champollion’s _Manifestation to the Light_, reminds in +every chapter of the two Dynasties of the Kings of the Sun and the +Moon. Later, these kings became all deified and transformed after +death into solar and lunar deities. Their worship was the earliest +corruption of the great primitive faith which justly considered the +sun and its fiery life-giving rays as the most appropriate symbol to +remind us of the universal invisible presence of Him who is master of +Life and Death. And now it can be traced all around the globe. It was +the religion of the earliest Vedic Brahmans, who call, in the oldest +hymns of the _Rig-Veda_, Sûrya (the sun) and Agni (fire) “the ruler +of the universe,” “the lord of men,” and the “wise king.” It was the +worship of the Magians, the Zoroastrians, the Egyptians and Greeks, +whether they called him Mithra, or Ahura-Mazda, or Osiris, or Zeus, +keeping in honor of his next of kin, Vesta, the pure celestial fire. +And this religion is found again in the Peruvian solar-worship; in +the Sabianism and heliolatry of the Chaldees, in the Mosaic “burning +bush,” the hanging of the heads or chiefs of the people toward the +Lord, the “Sun,” and even in the Abrahamic building of fire-altars +and the sacrifices of the monotheistic Jews, to Astarté the Queen of +Heaven. + +To the present moment, with all the controversies and researches, +History and Science remain as much as ever in the dark as to the +origin of the Jews. They may as well be the exiled Tchandalas, or +Pariahs, of old India, the “bricklayers” mentioned by Vina-Svati, +Veda-Vyasa and Manu, as the Phœnicians of Herodotus, or the Hyk-sos +of Josephus, or descendants of Pali shepherds, or a mixture of all +these. The _Bible_ names the Tyrians as a kindred people, and claims +dominion over them.[849] + +There is more than one important character in the _Bible_, whose +biography proves him a mythical hero. Samuel is indicated as the +personage of the Hebrew Commonwealth. He is the _doppel_ of Samson, +of the _Book of Judges_, as will be seen--being the son of Anna and +EL-KAINA, as Samson was of Manua or Manoah. Both were fictitious +characters, as now represented in the revealed book; one was the +Hebrew Hercules, and the other Ganesa. Samuel is credited with +establishing the republic, as putting down the Canaanite worship +of Baal and Astarté, or Adonis and Venus, and setting up that of +Jehovah. Then the people demanded a king, and he anointed Saul, and +after him David of Bethlehem. + +David is the Israelitish King Arthur. He did great achievements +and established a government in all Syria and Idumea. His dominion +extended from Armenia and Assyria on the north and northeast, the +Syrian Desert and Persian Gulf on the East, Arabia on the south, and +Egypt and the Levant on the west. Only Phœnicia was excepted. + +His friendship with Hiram seems to indicate that he made his first +expedition from that country into Judea; and his long residence at +Hebron, the city of the Kabeiri (_Arba_ or four), would seem likewise +to imply that he established a new religion in the country. + +After David came Solomon, powerful and luxurious, who sought to +consolidate the dominion which David had won. As David was a +Jehovah-worshipper, a temple of Jehovah (Tukt Suleima) was built in +Jerusalem, while shrines of Moloch-Hercules, Khemosh, and Astarté +were erected on Mount Olivet. These shrines remained till Josiah. + +There were conspiracies formed. Revolts took place in Idumea and +Damascus; and Ahijah the prophet led the popular movement which +resulted in deposing the house of David and making Jeroboam king. +Ever after the prophets dominated in Israel, where the calf-worship +prevailed; the priests ruled over the weak dynasty of David, and the +lascivious local worship existed over the whole country. After the +destruction of the house of Ahab, and the failure of Jehu and his +descendants to unite the country under one head, the endeavor was +made in Judah. Isaiah had terminated the direct line in the person +of Ahaz (_Isaiah_ vii. 9), and placed on the throne a prince from +Bethlehem (_Micah_ v. 2, 5). This was Hezekiah. On ascending the +throne, he invited the chiefs of Israel to unite in alliance with him +against Assyria (_2 Chronicles_, xxx. 1, 21; xxxi. 1, 5; _2 Kings_, +xviii. 7). He seems to have established a sacred college (_Proverbs_ +xxv. 1), and to have utterly changed the worship. Aye, even unto +breaking into pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. + +This makes the story of Samuel and David and Solomon mythical. Most +of the prophets who were literate seem to have begun about this time +to write. + +The country was finally overthrown by the Assyrians, who found the +same people and institutions as in the Phœnician and other countries. + +Hezekiah was not the lineal, but the titular son of Ahaz. Isaiah, the +prophet, belonged to the royal family, and Hezekiah was reputed his +son-in-law. Ahaz refused to ally himself with the prophet and his +party, saying: “I will not _tempt_ (depend on) the Lord” (_Isaiah_ +vii. 12). The prophet had declared: “If you will not believe, surely +you shall not be established”--foreshadowing the deposition of +his direct language. “Ye weary my God,” replied the prophet, and +predicted the birth of a child by an _alma_, or temple-woman, and +that before it should attain full age (_Hebrews_ v. 14; _Isaiah_ vii. +16; viii. 4), the king of Assyria should overcome Syria and Israel. +This is the prophecy which Irenæus took such pains to connect with +Mary and Jesus, and made the reason why the mother of the Nazarene +prophet is represented as belonging to the temple, and consecrated to +God from her infancy. + +In a second song, Isaiah celebrated the new chief, to sit on the +throne of David (ix. 6, 7; xi. 1), who should restore to their homes +the Jews whom the confederacy had led captive (_Isaiah_ viii. 2-12; +_Joel_ iii. 1-7; _Obadiah_ 7, 11, 14). Micah--his contemporary--also +announced the same event (iv. 7-13; v. 1-7). The Redeemer was to come +out of Bethlehem; in other words, was of the house of David; and +was to resist Assyria to whom Ahaz had sworn allegiance, and also +to reform religion (_2 Kings_, xviii. 4-8). This Hezekiah did. He +was grandson of Zechariah the seer (_2 Chronicles_, xxix. 1; xxvi. +5), the counsellor of Uzziah; and as soon as he ascended the throne +he restored the religion of David, and destroyed the last vestiges +of that of Moses, _i.e._, the _esoteric_ doctrine, declaring “our +fathers have trespassed” (_2 Chron._, xxix. 6-9). He next attempted +a reunion with the northern monarchy, there being an interregnum in +Israel (_2 Chron._, xxx. 1, 2, 6; xxxi. 1, 6, 7). It was successful, +but resulted in an invasion by the king of Assyria. But it was a new +_régime_; and all this shows the course of two parallel streams in +the religious worship of the Israelites; one belonging to the state +religion and adopted to fit political exigencies; the other pure +idolatry, resulting from ignorance of the true esoteric doctrine +preached by Moses. For the first time since Solomon built them “the +high places were taken away.” + +It was Hezekiah who was the expected Messiah of the exoteric +state-religion. He was the scion from the stem of Jesse, who should +recall the Jews from a deplorable captivity, about which the Hebrew +historians seem to be very silent, carefully avoiding all mention of +this particular fact, but which the irascible prophets imprudently +disclose. If Hezekiah crushed the exoteric Baal-worship, he also +tore violently away the people of Israel from the religion of their +fathers, and the secret rites instituted by Moses. + +It was Darius Hystaspes who was the first to establish a Persian +colony in Judea, Zoro-Babel was perhaps the leader. “The name +_Zoro-babel_ means ‘the seed or son of Babylon’--as Zoro-aster צרו־אשתר +is the seed, son, or prince of Ishtar.”[850] The new colonists were +doubtless _Judæi_. This is a designation from the East. Even Siam is +called Judia, and there was an Ayodia in India. The temples of _Solom_ +or Peace were numerous. Throughout Persia and Afghanistan the names of +Saul and David are very common. The “Law” is ascribed in turn to +Hezekiah, Ezra, Simon the Just, and the Asmonean period. Nothing +definite; everywhere contradictions. When the Asmonean period began, +the chief supporters of the Law were called Asideans or Khasdim +(Chaldeans), and afterward Pharisees or Pharsi (Parsis). This +indicates that Persian colonies were established in Judea and ruled +the country; while all the people that are mentioned in the books of +_Genesis_ and _Joshua_ lived there as a commonalty (see _Ezra_ ix. 1). + +There is no real history in the _Old Testament_, and the little +historical information one can glean is only found in the indiscreet +revelations of the prophets. The book, as a whole, must have been +written at various times, or rather invented as an authorization +of some subsequent worship, the origin of which may be very easily +traced partially to the Orphic Mysteries, and partially to the +ancient Egyptian rites in familiarity with which Moses was brought up +from his infancy. + +Since the last century the Church has been gradually forced into +concessions of usurped biblical territory to those to whom it of +right belonged. Inch by inch has been yielded, and one personage +after another been proved mythical and Pagan. But now, after the +recent discovery of George Smith, the much-regretted Assyriologist, +one of the securest props of the _Bible_ has been pulled down. Sargon +and his tablets are about demonstrated to be older than Moses. Like +the account of _Exodus_, the birth and story of the lawgiver seem to +have been “borrowed” from the Assyrians, as the “jewels of gold and +jewels of silver” were said to be from the Egyptians. + +On page 224 of _Assyrian Discoveries_, Mr. George Smith says: “In +the palace of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, I found another fragment of +the curious history of Sargon, a translation of which I published in +the _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, vol. i., +part i., page 46. This text relates that Sargon, an early Babylonian +monarch, was born of royal parents, but concealed by his mother, who +placed him on the Euphrates in an ark of rushes, coated with bitumen, +like that in which the mother of Moses hid her child (see _Exodus_ +ii.). Sargon was discovered by a man named Akki, a water-carrier, who +adopted him as his son; and he afterward became King of Babylonia. +The capital of Sargon was the great city of Agadi--called by the +Semites Akkad--mentioned in _Genesis_ as a capital of Nimrod +(_Genesis_ x. 10), and here he reigned _for forty five years_.[851] +Akkad lay near the city of _Sippara_,[852] on the Euphrates and north +of Babylon. “The date of Sargon, who may be termed the Babylonian +Moses, was in the sixteenth century and perhaps earlier.” + +G. Smith adds in his _Chaldean Account_ that Sargon I. was a +Babylonian monarch who reigned in the city of Akkad about 1600 B.C. +The name of Sargon signifies the right, true, or legitimate king. +This curious story is found on fragments of tablets from Kouyunjik, +and reads as follows: + +1. Sargona, the powerful king, the king of Akkad am I. + +2. My mother was a princess, my father I did not know, a brother of +my father ruled over the country. + +3. In the city of Azupirana, which is by the side of the river +Euphrates, + +4. My mother, the princess, conceived me; in difficulty she brought +me forth. + +5. She placed me in an ark of rushes, with bitumen my exit she sealed +up. + +6. She launched me in the river which did not drown me. + +7. The river carried me to Akki, the water-carrier it brought me. + +8. Akki, the water-carrier, in tenderness of bowels, lifted me, etc., +etc. + +And now _Exodus_ (ii.): “And when she (Moses’ mother) could not +longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it +with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it +in the flags by the river’s brink.” + +The story, says Mr. G. Smith, “is supposed to have happened about +1600 B.C., rather earlier than the supposed age of Moses[853] as we +know that the fame of Sargon reached Egypt, it is quite likely that +this account had a connection with the event related in _Exodus_ ii., +for every action, when once performed, has a tendency to be repeated.” + +The “ages” of the Hindus differ but little from those of the Greeks, +Romans, and even the Jews. We include the Mosaic computation +advisedly, and with intent to prove our position. The chronology +which separates Moses from the creation of the world by _only four +generations_ seems ridiculous, merely because the Christian clergy +would enforce it upon the world literally.[854] The kabalists know +that these generations stand for ages of the world. The allegories +which, in the Hindu calculations, embrace the whole stupendous sweep +of the four ages, are cunningly made in the Mosaic books, through the +obliging help of the _Masorah_, to cram into the small period of two +millenniums and a half (2513)! + +The exoteric plan of the _Bible_ was made to answer also to four +ages. Thus, they reckon the Golden Age from Adam to Abraham; the +silver, from Abraham to David; copper, from David to the Captivity; +thenceforward, the iron. But the secret computation is quite +different, and does not vary at all from the zodiacal calculations of +the Brahmans. We are in the Iron Age, or Kali-Yug, but it began with +Noah, the mythical ancestor of our race. + +Noah, or Nuah, like all the euhemerized manifestations of the +Unrevealed One--Swayambhuva (or Swayambhu), was androgyne. Thus, +in some instances, he belonged to the purely feminine triad of the +Chaldeans, known as “Nuah, the universal Mother.” We have shown, in +another chapter, that every male triad had its feminine counterpart, +one in three, like the former. It was the passive complement of the +active principle, its _reflection_. In India, the male trimurty is +reproduced in the Sakti-trimurti, the feminine; and in Chaldea, Ana, +Belita and Davkina answered to Anu, Bel, Nuah. The former three +resumed in one--Belita, were called: + +“Sovereign goddess, lady of the nether abyss, mother of gods, queen +of the earth, queen of fecundity.” + +As the primordial humidity, whence proceeded _all_, Belita is +Tamti, or the sea, the mother of _the city of Erech_ (the great +Chaldean necropolis), therefore, an infernal goddess. In the world +of stars and planets she is known as Istar or Astoreth. Hence, she +is identical with Venus, and every other queen of heaven, to whom +cakes and buns were offered in sacrifice,[855] and, as all the +archæologists know, with _Eve_, the mother of all that live, and with +Mary. + +The Ark, in which are preserved the germs of all living things +necessary to repeople the earth, represents the survival of life, +and the supremacy of spirit over matter, through the conflict of +the opposing powers of nature. In the Astro-Theosophic chart of the +Western Rite, the Ark corresponds with the navel, and is placed at +the sinister side, the side of the woman (the moon), one of whose +symbols is the left pillar of Solomon’s temple--Boaz. The umbilicus +is connected with the receptacle in which are fructified the germs of +the race.[856] The Ark is the sacred _Argha_ of the Hindus, and thus, +the relation in which it stands to Noah’s ark may be easily inferred, +when we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel, used by the high +priests as a sacrificial chalice in the worship of Isis, Astartè, and +Venus-Aphroditè, all of whom were goddesses of the generative powers +of nature, or of matter--hence, representing symbolically the Ark +containing the germs of all living things. + +We admit that Pagans had and now have--as in India--strange symbols, +which, to the eyes of the hypocrite and Puritan, seem scandalously +immoral. But did not the ancient Jews copy most of these symbols? We +have described elsewhere the identity of the lingham with Jacob’s +pillar, and we could give a number of instances from the present +Christian rites, bearing the same origin, did but space permit, and +were not all these noticed fully by Inman and others (See Inman’s +_Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names_). + +Describing the worship of the Egyptians, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child +says: “This reverence for the production of life, introduced into +the worship of Osiris, the sexual emblems so common in Hindustan. +A colossal image of this kind was presented to his temple in +Alexandria, by King Ptolemy Philadelphus.... Reverence for the +mystery of organized life led to the recognition of a masculine +and feminine principle in all things, spiritual or material.... +The sexual emblems, everywhere conspicuous in the sculptures of +their temples, would seem impure in description, but _no clean and +thoughtful mind_ could so regard them while witnessing the obvious +simplicity and solemnity with which the subject is treated.”[857] + +Thus speaks this respected lady and admirable writer, and no truly +pure man or woman would ever think of blaming her for it. But such a +perversion of the ancient thought is but natural in an age of cant +and prudery like our own. + +The water of the flood when standing in the allegory for the symbolic +“sea,” Tamti, typifies the turbulent chaos, or matter, called “the +great dragon.” According to the Gnostic and Rosicrucian mediæval +doctrine, the creation of woman was not originally intended. She +is the offspring of man’s own impure fancy, and, as the Hermetists +say, “an obtrusion.” Created by an unclean thought she sprang into +existence at the _evil_ “seventh hour,” when the “supernatural” real +worlds had passed away and the “natural” or _delusive_ worlds began +evolving along the “descending Microcosmos,” or the arc of the great +cycle, in plainer phraseology. First “Virgo,” the Celestial Virgin of +the Zodiac, she became “Virgo-Scorpio.” But in evolving his second +companion, man had unwittingly endowed her with his own share of +Spirituality; and the new being whom his “imagination” had called +into life became his “Saviour” from the snares of Eve-Lilith, the +first Eve, who had a greater share of matter in her composition than +the primitive “spiritual” man.[858] + +Thus woman stands in the cosmogony in relation to “matter” or the +_great deep_, as the “Virgin of the Sea,” who crushes the “Dragon” +under her foot. The “Flood” is also very often shown, in symbolical +phraseology, as the “great Dragon.” For one acquainted with these +tenets it becomes more than suggestive to learn that with the +Catholics the Virgin Mary is not only the accepted patroness of +Christian sailors, but also the “Virgin of the Sea.” So was Dido the +patroness of the Phœnician mariners;[859] and together with Venus +and other lunar goddesses--the moon having such a strong influence +over the tides--was the “Virgin of the Sea.” _Mar_, the Sea, is the +root of the name Mary. The blue color, which was with the ancients +symbolical of the “Great Deep” or the material world, hence--of evil, +is made sacred to our “Blessed Lady.” It is the color of “Notre Dame +de Paris.” On account of its relation to the symbolical serpent this +color is held in the deepest aversion by the ex-Nazarenes, disciples +of John the Baptist, now the Mendæans of Basra. + +Among the beautiful plates of Maurice, there is one representing +Christna crushing the head of the Serpent. A three-peaked mitre is +on his head (typifying the trinity), and the body and tail of the +conquered serpent encircles the figure of the Hindu god. This plate +shows whence proceeded the inspiration for the “make up” of a later +story extracted from an alleged prophecy. “I will put enmity between +thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall +bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his _heel_.” + +The Egyptian Orante is also shown with his arms extended as on a +crucifix, and treading upon the “Serpent;” and Horus (the Logos) is +represented piercing the head of the dragon, Typhon or Aphophis. All +this gives us a clew to the biblical allegory of Cain and Abel. Cain +was held as the ancestor of the Hivites, the Serpents, and the twins +of Adam are an evident copy from the fable of Osiris and Typhon. +Apart from the external form of the allegory, however, it embodied +the philosophical conception of the eternal struggle of good and evil. + +But how strangely elastic, how adaptable to any and every thing this +mystical philosophy proved after the Christian era! When were ever +facts, irrefutable, irrefragable, and beyond denial, less potential +for the reëstablishment of truth than in our century of casuistry +and Christian cunning? Is Christna proved to have been known as the +“Good Shepherd” ages before the year A.D. 1, to have crushed the +Serpent Kalinaga, and to have been crucified--all this was but a +prophetic foreshadowing of the future! Are the Scandinavian Thor, who +bruised the head of the Serpent with his cruciform mace, and Apollo, +who killed Python, likewise shown to present the most striking +similarities with the heroes of the Christian fables; they become +but original conceptions of “heathen” minds, “working upon the old +Patriarchal prophecies respecting the Christ, as they were contained +in the one universal and primeval Revelation!”[860] + +The flood, then, is the “Old Serpent” or the great deep of matter, +Isaiah’s “dragon in the sea” (xxvii. 1), over which the ark safely +crosses on its way to the mount of Salvation. But, if we have heard +of the ark and Noah, and the _Bible_ at all, it is because the +mythology of the Egyptians was ready at hand for Moses (if Moses ever +wrote any of the _Bible_), and that he was acquainted with the story +of Horus, standing on his boat of a serpentine form, and killing the +Serpent with his spear; and with the hidden meaning of these fables, +and their real origin. This is also why we find in _Leviticus_, and +other parts of his books, whole pages of laws identical with those of +_Manu_. + +The animals shut up in the ark are the human passions. They typify +certain ordeals of initiation, and the mysteries which were +instituted among many nations in commemoration of this allegory. +Noah’s ark rested on the seventeenth of the _seventh_ month. Here we +have again the number; as also in the “clean beasts” that he took by +_sevens_ into the ark. Speaking of the water-mysteries of Byblos, +Lucian says: “On the top of one of the two pillars which Bacchus set +up, a man remains _seven_ days.”[861] He supposes this was done to +honor Deukalion. Elijah, when praying on the top of Mount Carmel, +sends his servant to look for a cloud toward the sea, and repeats, +“go again _seven_ times. And it came to pass at the _seventh_ time, +behold there arose a little cloud out of the sea like a man’s +hand.”[862] + +“_Noah_ is a _revolutio_ of Adam, as Moses is a revolutio of Abel +and Seth,” says the _Kabala_; that is to say, a repetition or +another version of the same story. The greatest proof of it is +the distribution of the characters in the _Bible_. For instance, +beginning with Cain, the first murderer, every _fifth_ man in his +line of descent is a murderer. Thus there come Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, +Methuselah, and the _fifth_ is _Lamech_, the second murderer, and he +is Noah’s father. By drawing the five-pointed star of Lucifer (which +has its crown-point downward) and writing the name of Cain beneath +the lowest point, and those of his descendants successively at each +of the other points, it will be found that each fifth name--which +would be written beneath that of Cain--is that of a murderer. In the +_Talmud_ this genealogy is given complete, and thirteen murderers +range themselves in line below the name of Cain. This is _no_ +coincidence. Siva is the Destroyer, but he is also the _Regenerator_. +Cain is a murderer, but he is also the creator of nations, and an +inventor. This star of Lucifer is the same one that John sees falling +down to earth in his _Apocalypse_. + +In Thebes, or Theba, which means ark--TH-ABA being synonymous with +Kartha or Tyre, Astu or Athens and Urbs or Rome, and meaning also +the city--are found the same foliations as described on the pillars +of the temple of Solomon. The bi-colored leaf of the olive, the +three-lobed fig-leaf, and the lanceolate-shaped laurel-leaf, had all +esoteric as well as popular or vulgar meanings with the ancients. + +The researches of Egyptologists present another corroboration of the +identity of the _Bible_-allegories with those of the lands of the +Pharaohs and Chaldeans. The dynastic chronology of the Egyptians, +recorded by Herodotus, Manetho, Eratosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, and +accepted by our antiquarians, divided the period of Egyptian history +under four general heads: the dominion of gods, demi-gods, heroes, +and mortal men. By combining the demi-gods and heroes into one class, +Bunsen reduces the periods to three: the ruling gods, the demi-gods +or heroes--sons of gods, but born of mortal mothers--and the Manes, +who were the ancestors of individual tribes. These subdivisions, as +any one may perceive, correspond perfectly with the biblical Elohim, +sons of God, giants, and mortal Noachian men. + +Diodorus of Sicily and Berosus give us the names of the twelve great +gods who presided over the twelve months of the year and the twelve +signs of the zodiac. These names, which include Nuah,[863] are too +well known to require repetition. The double-faced Janus was also +at the head of twelve gods, and in his representations of him he is +made to hold the keys to the celestial domains. All these having +served as models for the biblical patriarchs, have done still further +service--especially Janus--by furnishing copy to St. Peter and his +twelve apostles, the former also double-faced in his denial, and +also represented as holding the keys of Paradise. + +This statement that the story of Noah is but another version in its +hidden meaning of the story of Adam and his three sons, gathers +proof on every page of the book of _Genesis_. Adam is the prototype +of Noah. Adam _falls_ because he eats of the forbidden fruit of +_celestial_ knowledge; Noah, because he tastes of the _terrestrial_ +fruit: the juice of the grape representing the abuse of knowledge in +an unbalanced mind. Adam gets stripped of his spiritual envelope; +Noah of his terrestrial clothing; and the _nakedness_ of both makes +them feel ashamed. The wickedness of Cain is repeated in Ham. But the +descendants of both are shown as the wisest of races on earth; and +they are called on this account “snakes,” and the “sons of snakes,” +meaning the _sons of wisdom_, and not of Satan, as some divines +would be pleased to have the world understand the term. Enmity has +been placed between the “snake” and the “woman” only in this mortal +phenomenal “world of man” as “born of woman.” Before the carnal fall, +the “snake” was _Ophis_, the divine wisdom, which needed no matter +to procreate men, humanity being utterly spiritual. Hence the war +between the snake and the woman, or between spirit and matter. If, +in its material aspect, the “old serpent” is matter, and represents +Ophiomorphos, in its spiritual meaning it becomes Ophis-Christos. In +the magic of the old Syro-Chaldeans both are conjoint in the zodiacal +sign of the androgyne of Virgo-Scorpio, and may be _divided_ or +separated whenever needed. Thus as the origin of “good and evil,” the +meaning of the S.S. and Z.Z. has always been interchangeable; and if +upon some occasions the S.S. on sigils and talismans are suggestive +of serpentine evil influence and denote a design of _black_ magic +upon others, the double S.S. are found on the sacramental cups of the +Church and mean the presence of the Holy Ghost, or pure wisdom. + +The Midianites were known as the _wise_ men, or sons of snakes, +as well as Canaanites and Hamites; and such was the renown of the +Midianites, that we find Moses, _the prophet, led on, and inspired +by “the Lord,”_ humbling himself before Hobab, the son of Raguel, +the _Midianite_, and beseeching him to remain with the people of +Israel: “Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch _as thou knowest how +we are to encamp_ IN THE WILDERNESS, _thou mayest be to us instead +of eyes_.”[864] Further, when Moses sends spies to search out the +land of Canaan, they bring as a proof of the wisdom (kabalistically +speaking) and goodness of the land, a branch with _one_ cluster of +_grapes_, which they are compelled to bear between two men on a +staff. Moreover, they add: “we saw the children of ANAK there.” +They are the _giants_, the sons of Anak, “_which come of the +giants_,”[865] and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so +we were in their sight.”[866] + +Anak is Enoch, the patriarch, who _dies not_, and who is the first +possessor of the “mirific name,” according to the _Kabala_, and the +ritual of Freemasonry. + +Comparing the biblical patriarchs with the descendants of +Vaiswasvata, the Hindu Noah, and the old Sanscrit traditions about +the deluge in the Brahmanical _Mahâbhârata_, we find them mirrored in +the Vaidic patriarchs who are the primitive types upon which all the +others were modelled. But before comparison is possible, the Hindu +myths must be comprehended in their true significance. Each of these +mythical personages bears, besides an astronomical significance, a +spiritual or moral, and an anthropological or physical meaning. The +patriarchs are not only euhemerized gods--the prediluvian answering +to the _twelve_ great gods of Berosus, and to the _ten_ Pradjâpati, +and the postdiluvian to the seven gods of the famous tablet in the +Ninivian Library, but they stand also as the symbols of the Greek +Æons, the kabalistic Sephiroth, and the zodiacal signs, as types of +a series of human races.[867] This variation from _ten_ to _twelve_ +will be accounted for presently, and proved on the very authority +of the _Bible_. Only, they are not the first gods described by +Cicero,[868] which belong to a hierarchy of higher powers, the +Elohim--but appertain rather to the second class of the “twelve +gods,” the _Dii minores_, and who are the terrestrial reflections +of the first, among whom Herodotus places Hercules.[869] Alone, +out of the group of twelve, Noah, by reason of his position at the +transitional point, belongs to the highest Babylonian triad, Noah, +the spirit of the waters. The rest are identical with the inferior +gods of Assyria and Babylonia, who represented the lower order of +emanations, introduced around Bel, the Demiurge, and help him in his +work, as the patriarchs are shown to assist Jehovah--the “Lord God.” + +Besides these, many of which were _local_ gods, the protecting +deities of rivers and cities, there were the four classes of genius, +we see Ezekiel making them support the throne of Jehovah in his +vision. A fact which, if it identifies the Jewish “Lord God” with one +of the Babylonian trinity, connects, at the same time, the present +Christian God with the same triad, inasmuch as it is these four +cherubs, if the reader will remember, on which Irenæus makes Jesus +ride, and which are shown as the companions of the evangelists. + +The Hindu kabalistic derivation of the books of _Ezekiel_ and +_Revelation_ are shown in nothing more plainly than in this +description of the four beasts, which typify the four elementary +kingdoms--earth, air, fire, and water. As is well known, they are the +Assyrian sphinxes, but these figures are also carved on the walls of +nearly every Hindu pagoda. + +The author of the _Revelation_ copies faithfully in his text (see +chap. iv., verse 17) the Pythagorean pentacle, of which Levi’s +admirable sketch is reproduced on page 452. + +The Hindu goddess Adanari (or as it might be more properly written, +Adonari, since the second a is pronounced almost like the English o) +is represented as surrounded by the same figures. It fits exactly +Ezekiel’s “wheel of the Adonai,” known as “the Cherub of Jeheskiel,” +and indicates, beyond question, the source from which the Hebrew seer +drew his allegories. For convenience of comparison we have placed the +figure in the pentacle. (See page 453.) + +Above these beasts were the angels or spirits, divided in two groups: +the Igili, or celestial beings, and the Am-anaki, or terrestrial +spirits, the giants, children of Anak, of whom the spies complained +to Moses. + +[Illustration: ADONAI] + +The _Kabbala Denudata_ gives to the kabalists a very clear, to the +profane a very muddled account of permutations or substitutions +of one person for another. So, for instance, it says, that “the +scintilla” (spiritual spark or soul) of Abraham was taken from +Michael, the chief of the Æons, and highest emanation of the Deity; +so high indeed that in the eyes of the Gnostics, Michael was +identical with Christ. And yet Michael and Enoch are one and the same +person. Both occupy the junction-point of the cross of the Zodiac +as “man.” The scintilla of Isaac was that of Gabriel, the chief of +the angelic host, and the scintilla of Jacob was taken from Uriel, +named “the fire of God;” the sharpest sighted spirit in all Heaven. +Adam is not the Kadmon but Adam _Primus_, the _Microprosopus_. In one +of his aspects the latter is Enoch, the terrestrial patriarch and +father of Methuselah. He that “walked with God” and “did not die” is +the spiritual Enoch, who typified humanity, eternal in spirit and as +eternal in flesh, though the latter does _die_. Death is but a new +birth, and spirit is immortal; thus humanity can never die, for the +_Destroyer_ has become the _Creator_, Enoch is the type of the dual +man, spiritual and terrestrial. Hence his place in the centre of the +astronomical cross. + +[Illustration: ADANARI] + +But was this idea original with the Hebrews? We think not. Every +nation which had an astronomical system, and especially India, held +the cross in the highest reverence, for it was the geometrical basis +of the religious symbolism of their _avatars_; the manifestation of +the Deity, or of the Creator in his creature MAN; of God in humanity +and humanity in God, as spirits. The oldest monuments of Chaldea, +Persia, and India disclose the double or eight-pointed cross. This +symbol, which very naturally is found, like every other geometrical +figure in nature, in plants as well as in the snowflakes, has led +Dr. Lundy, in his super-Christian mysticism, to name such cruciform +flowers as form an eight-pointed star by the junction of the two +crosses--“the _Prophetic Star of the Incarnation_, which joined +heaven and earth, God and man together.”[870] The latter sentence +is perfectly expressed; only, the old kabalist axiom, “as above, so +below,” answers still better, as it discloses to us the same God for +all humanity, not alone for the handful of Christians. It is the +_Mundane_ cross of Heaven repeated on earth by plants and dual man: +the physical man superseding the “spiritual,” at the junction-point +of which stands the mythical Libra-Hermes-Enoch. The gesture of one +hand pointing to Heaven, is balanced by the other pointing down to +the earth; boundless generations below, boundless regenerations +above; the visible but the manifestation of the invisible; the man of +dust abandoned to dust, the man of spirit reborn in spirit; thus it +is finite humanity which is the Son of the Infinite God. Abba--the +Father; Amona--the Mother; the Son, the Universe. This primitive +triad is repeated in all the theogonies. Adam Kadmon, Hermes, Enoch, +Osiris, Christna, Ormazd, or Christos are all one. They stand as +_Metatrons_ between body and soul--eternal spirits which redeem flesh +by the regeneration of flesh _below_, and soul by the regeneration +_above_, where humanity walks once more with God. + +We have shown elsewhere that the symbol of the cross or Egyptian +_Tau_, =T=, was by many ages earlier than the period assigned to +Abraham, the alleged forefather of the Israelites, for otherwise +Moses could not have learned it of the priests. And that the Tau was +held as sacred by the Jews as by other “Pagan” nations is proved +by a fact admitted now by Christian divines as well as by infidel +archæologists. Moses, in _Exodus_ xii. 22, orders his people to +mark their _door-posts and lintels_ with blood, lest the “Lord God” +should make a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead +of the doomed Egyptians.[871] And this mark is a tau! The identical +Egyptian handled _cross_, with the half of which talisman Horus +raised the dead, as is shown on a sculptured ruin at Philœ.[872] How +gratuitous is the idea that all such crosses and symbols were so many +unconscious prophecies of Christ, is fully exemplified in the case of +the Jews upon whose accusation Jesus was put to death. For instance, +the same learned author remarks in _Monumental Christianity_ that +“the Jews themselves acknowledged this sign of salvation until they +rejected Christ;” and in another place he asserts that the rod of +Moses, used in his miracles before Pharaoh, “was, no doubt, this +_crux ansata_, or something like it, _also used by the Egyptian +priests_.”[873] Thus the logical inference would be, that 1, if the +Jews worshipped the same symbols as the Pagans, then they were no +better than they; and 2, if, being so well versed as they were in the +hidden symbolism of the cross, in the face of their having waited +for centuries for the Messiah, they yet rejected both the Christian +Messiah and Christian Cross, then there must have been something +wrong about both. + +Those who “rejected” Jesus as the “Son of God,” were neither the +people ignorant of religious symbols, nor the handful of atheistical +Sadducees who put him to death; but the very men who were instructed +in the secret wisdom, who knew the origin as well as the meaning of +the cruciform symbol, and who put aside both the Christian emblem and +the Saviour suspended from it, because they could not be parties to +such a blasphemous imposition upon the common people. + +Nearly all the prophecies about Christ are credited to the patriarchs +and prophets. If a few of the latter may have existed as real +personages, every one of the former is a myth. We will endeavor +to prove it by the hidden interpretation of the Zodiac, and the +relations of its signs to these antediluvian men. + +If the reader will keep in mind the Hindu ideas of cosmogony, +as given in chapter vi., he will better understand the relation +between the biblical antediluvian patriarchs, and that puzzle of +commentators--“Ezekiel’s wheel.” Thus, be it remembered 1, that +the universe is not a spontaneous creation, but an evolution from +pre-existent matter; 2, that it is only one of an endless series of +universes; 3, that eternity is pointed off into grand cycles, in +each of which twelve transformations of our world occur, following +its partial destruction by fire and water, alternately. So that +when a new minor period sets in, the earth is so changed, even +geologically, as to be practically a new world; 4, that of these +twelve transformations, the earth after each of the first six is +grosser, and everything on it--man included--more material, than +after the preceding one: while after each of the remaining six the +contrary is true, both earth and man growing more and more refined +and spiritual with each terrestrial change; 5, that when the apex +of the cycle is reached, a gradual dissolution takes place, and +every living and objective form is destroyed. But when that point is +reached, humanity has become fitted to live subjectively as well as +objectively. And not humanity alone, but also animals, plants, and +every atom. After a time of rest, say the Buddhists, when a new world +becomes self-formed, the astral souls of animals and of all beings, +except such as have reached the highest Nirvana, will return on earth +again to end their cycles of transformations, and become men in their +turn. + +This stupendous conception, the ancients synthesized for the +instruction of the common people, into a single pictorial design--the +Zodiac, or celestial belt. Instead of the twelve signs now used, +there were originally but ten known to the general public, viz.: +Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo-Scorpio, Sagittarius, +Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces.[874] These were exoteric. But +in addition there were two mystical signs inserted, which none but +initiates comprehended, viz.: at the middle or junction-point where +now stands _Libra_, and at the sign now called Scorpio, which follows +Virgo. When it was found necessary to make them exoteric, these two +secret signs were added under their present appellations as blinds +to conceal the true names which gave the key to the whole secret of +creation, and divulged the origin of “good and evil.” + +The true Sabean astrological doctrine secretly taught that within +this double sign was hidden the explanation of the gradual +transformation of the world, from its spiritual and subjective, into +the “two-sexed” sublunary state. The twelve signs were therefore +divided into two groups. The first six were called the ascending, +or the line of Macrocosm (the great spiritual world); the last +six, the descending line, or the Microcosm (the little secondary +world)--the mere reflection of the former, so to say. This division +was called Ezekiel’s wheel, and was completed in the following way: +First came the ascending five signs (euphemerized into patriarchs), +Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and the group concluded with +Virgo-Scorpio. Then came the turning-point, _Libra_. After which, the +first half of the sign Virgo-Scorpio, was duplicated and transferred +to lead the lower, or descending group of Microcosm which ran +down to _Pisces_, or Noah (deluge). To make it clearer, the sign +Virgo-Scorpio, which appeared originally thus ♍︎, became simply +_Virgo_, and the duplication, ♏︎, or Scorpio, was placed between +Libra, the _seventh_ sign (which is Enoch, or the angel Metatron, +or _Mediator_ between spirit and matter, or God and man). It now +became Scorpio (or Cain), which sign or patriarch led _mankind to +destruction_, according to exoteric theology; but, according to the +true doctrine of the wisdom-religion, it indicated _the degradation +of the whole universe in its course of evolution downward from the +subjective to the objective_. + +The sign of _Libra_ is credited as a later invention by the Greeks, +but it is not generally stated that those among them who were +initiated had only made a change of names conveying the same idea as +the secret name to those “who knew,” leaving the masses as unwise +as ever. Yet it was a beautiful idea of theirs, this Libra, or +the balance, expressing as much as could possibly be done without +unveiling the whole and ultimate truth. They intended it to imply +that when the course of evolution had taken the worlds to the +lowest point of grossness, where the earths and their products were +coarsest, and their inhabitants most brutish, the turning-point had +been reached--the forces were at an even balance. At the lowest +point, the still lingering divine spark of spirit within began +to convey the upward impulse. The scales typified that eternal +equilibrium which is the necessity of a universe of harmony, of +exact justice, of the balance of centripetal and centrifugal forces, +darkness and light, spirit and matter. + +_These additional signs of the Zodiac warrant us in saying that the +Book of Genesis as we now find it, must be of later date than the +invention of Libra by the Greeks_; for we find the chapters of the +genealogies remodelled to fit the new Zodiac, instead of the latter +being made to correspond with the list of patriarchs. And it is this +addition and the necessity of concealing the true key, that led the +Rabbinical compilers to repeat the names of Enoch and Lamech twice, +as we see them now in the Kenite table. Alone, among all the books of +the _Bible_, _Genesis_ belongs to an immense antiquity. The others +are all later additions, the earliest of which appeared with Hilkiah, +who evidently concocted it with the help of Huldah, the prophetess. + +As there is more than one meaning attached to the stories of the +creation and deluge, we say, therefore, that the biblical account +cannot be comprehended apart from the Babylonian story of the same; +while neither will be thoroughly clear without the Brahmanical +esoteric interpretation of the deluge, as found in the _Mahâbhârata_ +and the _Satapatha-Brahmâna_. It is the Babylonians who were taught +the “mysteries,” the sacerdotal language, and their religion by +the problematical Akkadians who--according to Rawlinson came from +Armenia--not the former who emigrated to India. Here the evidence +becomes clear. The Babylonian Xisuthrus is shown by Movers to have +represented the “sun” in the Zodiac, in the sign of Aquarius, and +_Oannes_, the man-fish, the semi-demon, is Vishnu in his first +avatar; thus giving the key to the double source of the biblical +revelation. + +Oannes is the emblem of priestly, esoteric wisdom; he comes out from +the sea, because the “great deep,” the water, typifies, as we have +shown, the secret doctrine. For this same reason Egyptians deified +the Nile, apart from its being regarded, in consequence of its +periodical overflows, as the “Saviour” of the country. They even held +the crocodiles as sacred, from having their abode in the “deep.” The +“Hamites,” so called, have always preferred to settle near rivers and +oceans. Water was the first-created element, according to some old +cosmogonies. This name of Oannes is held in the greatest reverence, +in the Chaldean records. The Chaldean priests wore a head-gear like +a fish’s head, and a shadbelly coat, representing the body of a +fish.[875] + +“Thales,” says Cicero, “assures that _water_ is the principle of all +things; and that God is that Mind which shaped and created all things +from water.”[876] + + “In the Beginning, SPIRIT within strengthens Heaven and Earth, + The watery fields, and the lucid globe of Luna, and then-- + Titan stars; and mind infused through the limbs + Agitates the whole mass, and mixes itself with GREAT MATTER.”[877] + +Thus water represents the duality of both the Macrocosmos and the +Microcosmos, in conjunction with the vivifying SPIRIT, and the +evolution of the little world from the universal cosmos. The deluge +then, in this sense, points to that final struggle between the +conflicting elements, which brought the first great cycle of our +planet to a close. These periods gradually merged into each other, +order being brought out of chaos, or disorder, and the successive +types of organism being evolved only as the physical conditions of +nature were prepared for their appearance; for our present race could +not have breathed on earth, during that intermediate period, not +having as yet the allegorical coats of skin.[878] + +In chapters iv. and v. of _Genesis_, we find the so-called +generations of Cain and Seth. Let us glance at them in the order in +which they stand: + + LINES OF GENERATIONS. + + _Sethite._ _Kenite._ + 1. Adam. ⎫ ⎧ 1. Adam. + 2. Seth. ⎪ ⎪ 2. Cain. + 3. Enos. ⎪ ⎪ 3. Enoch. + 4. Cainan. ⎪ ⎪ 4. Irad. + 5. Mahalaleel. ⎬ Good Principle. Evil Principle. ⎨ 5. Mehujael. + 6. Jared. ⎪ ⎪ 6. Methusael. + 7. Enoch. ⎪ ⎪ 7. Lamech. + 8. Methuselah. ⎪ ⎪ 8. Jubal. ⎫ + 9. Lamech. ⎪ ⎪ 9. Jabal. ⎬ + 10. Noah. ⎭ ⎩ 10. Tubal Cain. ⎭ + +The above are the ten biblical patriarchs, identical with Hindu +Pragâpatis (Pradjâpatis), and the Sephiroth of the _Kabala_. We say +_ten_ patriarchs, not _twenty_, for the Kenite line was devised +for no other purpose than, 1, to carry out the idea of dualism, +on which is founded the philosophy of every religion; for these +two genealogical tables represent simply the opposing powers or +principles of good and evil; and 2, as a blind for the uninitiated +masses. Suppose we restore them to their primitive form, by erasing +these premeditated blinds. These are so transparent as to require but +a small amount of perspicacity to select, even though one should use +only his unaided judgment, and were not, as we are, enabled to apply +the test of the secret doctrine. + +By ridding ourselves, therefore, of the Kenite names that are mere +duplications of the Sethite, or of each other, we get rid of Adam; +of Enoch--who, in one genealogy, is shown the father of Irad, and in +the other, the son of Jared; of Lamech, son of Methusael, whereas +he, Lamech, is son of Methuselah in the Sethite line; of Irad +(Jared),[879] Jubal and Jabal, who, with Tubal-Cain, form a trinity +in one, and that one the double of Cain; of Mehujael (who is but +Mahalaleel differently spelled), and Methusael (Methuselah). This +leaves us in the Kenite genealogy of chapter iv., one only, Cain, +who--the first murderer and fratricide--is made to stand in his +line as father of Enoch, the most virtuous of men, who does not die, +but is translated alive. Turn we now to the Sethite table, and we +find that Enos, or Enoch, comes _second_ from Adam, and is father to +Cain (an). This is no accident. There was an evident reason for this +inversion of paternity; a palpable design--that of creating confusion +and baffling inquiry. + +We say, then, that the patriarchs are simply the signs of the Zodiac, +emblems, in their manifold aspects, of the spiritual and physical +evolution of human races, of ages, and of divisions of time. In +astrology, the first four of the “Houses,” in the diagrams of the +“Twelve Houses of Heaven”--namely, the first, tenth, seventh, and +fourth, or the second inner square placed with its angles upward and +downward, are termed _angles_, as being of the greatest strength +and power. They answer to Adam, Noah, Cain-an, and Enoch, Alpha, +Omega, evil and good, leading the whole. Furthermore, when divided +(including the two secret names) into four _trigons_ or triads, viz.: +fiery, airy, earthy, and watery, we find the latter corresponding to +Noah. + +Enoch and Lamech were doubled in the table of Cain, to fill out the +required number ten in both “generations” in the _Bible_, instead of +employing the “Secret Name;” and, in order that the patriarchs should +correspond with the ten kabalistic Sephiroth, and fit at the same +time the ten, and, subsequently, _twelve_ signs of the Zodiac, in a +manner comprehensible only to the kabalists. + +And now, Abel having disappeared out of that line of descent, he +is replaced by Seth, who was clearly an afterthought suggested by +the necessity of not having the human race descend entirely from a +murderer. This dilemma being apparently first noticed when the Kenite +table had been completed, Adam is made (after all the generations +had appeared) to beget this son, Seth. It is a suggestive fact that, +whereas the double-sexed Adam of chapter v. is made in the likeness +of the Elohim (see _Genesis_ chapter i. 27 and v. 1 of the same), +Seth (v. 3) is begotten in Adam’s “own likeness,” thus signifying +that there were men of different races. Also, it is most noticeable +that neither the age nor a single other particular respecting the +patriarchs in the Kenite table is given, whereas the reverse is the +case with those in the Sethite line. + +Most assuredly, no one could expect to find, in a work open to the +public, the final mysteries of that which was preserved for countless +ages as the grandest secret of the sanctuary. But, without divulging +the key to the profane, or being taxed with undue indiscretion, +we may be allowed to lift a corner of the veil which shrouds the +majestic doctrines of old. Let us then write down the patriarchs as +they ought to stand in their relation to the Zodiac, and see how they +correspond with the signs. + +The following diagram represents Ezekiel’s Wheel, as given in many +works, among others, in Hargrave Jenning’s _Rosicrucians_: + + [Illustration: EZEKIEL’S WHEEL (exoteric). + + MACROCOSMOS + (ascending). + + MICROCOSMOS + (descending).] + +These signs are (follow numbers): + + 1, Aries; 2, Taurus; 3, Gemini; 4, Cancer; 5, Leo; 6, + Virgo, or the _ascending_ line of the grand cycle of + creation. After this comes 7, _Libra_--“man,” which, though + it is found right in the middle, or the intersection point, + leads down the numbers: + + 8, Scorpio; 9, Sagittarius; 10, Capricornus; 11, Aquarius; + and 12, Pisces. + +While discussing the double sign of Virgo-Scorpio and Libra, Hargrave +Jennings observes (p. 65): + +“All this is incomprehensible, except in the strange mysticism of +the Gnostics and the kabalists; and the whole theory requires a +key of explanation to render it intelligible; which key is only +darkly referred to as possible, but refused absolutely, by these +extraordinary men, as not permissible to be disclosed.” + +The said key must be turned _seven_ times before the whole system +is divulged. We will give it but _one_ turn, and thereby allow the +profane one glimpse into the mystery. Happy he, who understands the +whole! + + [Illustration: EZEKIEL’S WHEEL (esoteric).] + +To explain the presence of Jodheva (or Yodheva), or what is generally +termed the tetragram יהוה, and of Adam and Eve, it will suffice to +remind the reader of the following verses in _Genesis_, with their +right meaning inserted in brackets. + + 1. “And God [Elohim] created man in his [their] own image + ... male and female created he them [him]”--(ch. i. 27). + + 2. “Male and female created he them [him] ... and called + _their_ [his] name ADAM”--(v. 2). + +When the ternary is taken in the beginning of the tetragram, it +expresses the divine creation _spiritually_, _i.e._, without any +carnal sin: taken at its opposite end it expresses the latter; it +is feminine. The name of Eve is composed of three letters, that of +the primitive or heavenly Adam, is written with one letter, Jod or +Yodh; therefore it must not be read Jehova but _Ieva_, or Eve. The +Adam of the first chapter is the spiritual, therefore pure androgyne, +Adam Kadmon. When woman issues from the left rib of the second +Adam (of dust), the pure _Virgo_ is separated, and falling “into +generation,” or the downward cycle, becomes _Scorpio_,[880] emblem +of sin and matter. While the ascending cycle points at the purely +spiritual races, or the ten prediluvian patriarchs (the Pradjâpatis, +and Sephiroth)[881] are led on by the creative Deity itself, who is +Adam Kadmon or Yodcheva, the lower one is that of the terrestrial +races, led on by Enoch or _Libra_, the _seventh_; who, because he +is half-divine, half-terrestrial, is said to have been taken by +God alive. Enoch, or Hermes, or Libra are one. All are the scales +of universal harmony; justice and equilibrium are placed at the +central point of the Zodiac. The grand circle of the heavens, so well +discoursed upon by Plato, in his _Timæus_, symbolizes the unknown +as a unity; and the smaller circles which form the cross, by their +division on the plane of the Zodiacal ring--typify, at the point of +their intersection, life. The centripetal and centrifugal forces, +as symbols of Good and Evil, Spirit and Matter, Life and Death, are +also those of the Creator and the Destroyer,--Adam and Eve, or God +and the Devil, as they say in common parlance. In the subjective, +as well as in the objective worlds, they are the two powers, which +through their eternal conflict keep the universe of spirit and +matter in harmony. They force the planets to pursue their paths, and +keep them in their elliptical orbits, thus tracing the astronomical +cross in their revolution through the Zodiac. In their conflict the +centripetal force, were it to prevail, would drive the planets and +living souls into the sun, type of the invisible Spiritual Sun, the +Paraâtma or great universal Soul, their parent; while the centrifugal +force would chase both planets and _souls_ into the dreary space, far +from the luminary of the objective universe, away from the spiritual +realm of salvation and eternal life, and into the chaos of final +cosmic destruction, and individual annihilation. But the _balance_ +is there, ever sensitive at the intersection point. It regulates +the action of the two combatants, and the combined effort of both, +causes planets and “living souls” to pursue a double diagonal line +in their revolution through Zodiac and Life; and thus preserving +strict harmony, in visible and invisible heaven and earth, the forced +unity of the two reconciles spirit and matter, and Enoch is said to +stand a “Metatron” before God. Reckoning from him down to Noah and +his three sons, each of these represent a new “world,” _i.e._, our +earth, which is the seventh[882] after every period of geological +transformation, gives birth to another and distinct race of men and +beings. + +Cain leads the ascending line, or Macrocosm, for he is the Son of the +“Lord,” not of Adam (_Genesis_ iv. 1). The “Lord” is Adam Kadmon, +Cain, the Son of sinful thought, not the progeny of flesh and blood, +Seth on the other hand is the leader of the races of earth, for he is +the Son of Adam, and begotten “in his own likeness, after his image” +(_Genesis_ v. 3). Cain is _Kenu_, Assyrian, and means eldest, while +the Hebrew word קין means a smith, an artificer. + +Our science shows that the globe has passed through five distinct +geological phases, each characterized by a different stratum, +and these are in reverse order, beginning with the last: 1. The +Quaternary period, in which man appears as a certainty; 2. The +Tertiary period, in which he _may have_ appeared; 3. Secondary +period, that of gigantic saurians, the megalosaurus, icthyosaurus, +and plesiosaurus--_no vestige of man_; 4. The Palæozoic period, that +of gigantic crustacea; 5 (or first). The Azoic period, during which +science asserts organic life had not yet appeared. + +And is there no possibility that there was a period, and +several periods, when man _existed_, and yet was not an organic +being--therefore could not have left any vestige of himself for exact +science? _Spirit_ leaves no skeletons or fossils behind, and yet few +are the men on earth who doubt that man can live both objectively +and subjectively. At all events, the theology of the Brahmans, hoary +with antiquity, and which divides the formative periods of the earth +into four ages, and places between each of these a lapse of 1,728,000 +years, far more agrees with official science and modern discovery +than the absurd chronological notions promulgated by the Councils of +Nice and Trent. + +The names of the patriarchs were not Hebrew, though they may have +been Hebraized later; they are evidently of Assyrian or Aryan origin. + +Thus _Adam_, for instance, stands in the explained _Kabala_ as a +convertible term, and applies nearly to every other patriarch, as +every Sephiroth to each Sephira, and _vice versa_. Adam, Cain, +and Abel form the first _triad_ of the twelve. They correspond in +the Sephiral tree to the Crown, Wisdom, and Intelligence; and in +astrology to the three trigons--the fiery, the earthy, and the airy; +which fact, were we allowed to devote more space than we have to +its elucidation, would perhaps show that astrology deserves the +name of science as well as any other. Adam (Kadmon) or Aries (ram) +is identical with the Egyptian ram-headed god Amun, fabricating +man on the potter’s wheel. His duplication, therefore--or the Adam +of dust--is also Aries, Amon, when standing at the head of his +generations, for he fabricates mortals also in “his own likeness.” +In astrology the planet Jupiter is connected with the “first house” +(Aries). The color of Jupiter, as seen in the “stages of the seven +spheres,” on the tower of Borsippa, or Birs Nimrud, was _red_;[883] +and in Hebrew Adam means אדם “red” as well as “man.” The Hindu god +Agni, who presides at the sign of Pisces, next to that of Aries in +their relation to the twelve months (February and March),[884] is +painted of a deep red color, with _two_ faces (male and female), +_three_ legs, and _seven_ arms; the whole forming the number twelve. +So, also, Noah (Pisces), who appears in the generations as the twelfth +patriarch, counting Cain and Abel, is Adam again under another name, +for he is the forefather of a new race of mankind; and with his “three +sons,” one bad, one good, and one partaking of both qualities, is the +terrestrial reflection of the super-terrestrial Adam and his three +sons. Agni is represented mounted on a ram, with a tiara surmounted by +a cross.[885] + +Kain, presiding over the Taurus (Bull) of the Zodiac, is also very +suggestive. Taurus belongs to the earthy trigon, and in connection +with this sign it will not be amiss to remind the student of an +allegory from the Persian _Avesta_. The story goes that Ormazd +produced a being--source and type of all the universal beings--called +LIFE, or Bull in the _Zend_. Ahriman (Cain) kills this being (Abel), +from the seed of which (Seth) new beings are produced. Abel, in +Assyrian, means _son_, but in Hebrew הבל it means something ephemeral, +not long-lived, _valueless_, and also a “Pagan idol,”[886] as Kain +means a _Hermaic statue_ (a pillar, the symbol of generation). +Likewise, Abel is the female counterpart of Cain (male), for they are +twins and probably androgynous; the latter answering to Wisdom, the +former to Intelligence. + +So with all other patriarchs. Enos, אנוש, is _Homo_ again--a +man, or the same Adam, and Enoch in the bargain; and קיון _Kain-an_ +is identical with Cain. Seth, שת, is Teth, or Thoth, or Hermes; and +this is the reason, no doubt, why Josephus, in his first book (ch. 3) +shows Seth so proficient in astrology, geometry, and other occult +sciences. Foreseeing the flood, he says, he engraved the fundamental +principles of his art on two pillars of brick and stone, the latter of +which “he saw himself [Josephus] _to remain in Syria in his own +time_.” Thus is it that Seth is identified also with Enoch, to whom +kabalists and Masons attribute the same feat; and, at the same time, +with Hermes, or Kadmus again, for Enoch is identical with the +former; הנוך, He-NOCH means a teacher, an initiator, or an initiate; +in Grecian mythology, Inachus. We have seen the part he is made to +play in the Zodiac. + +Mahalaleel, if we divide the word and write מהלה, _m_a-_h_a-_l_a, +means tender, merciful; and therefore is he made to correspond with +the fourth Sephira, _Love_ or _Mercy_, emanated from the first +triad.[887] _Ir_a_d_, ירד, or _I_a_r_e_d_, is (minus the +vowels) precisely the same. If from the verb ירד, it means +_descent;_ if from ארד, _ar_a_d_, it means offspring, and +thus corresponds perfectly with the kabalistic emanations. + +_L_a_m_e_ch_, למך, is not Hebrew, but Greek. Lam-ach means +Lam--the father, and Ou-Lom-Ach is the father of the age; or the +father of him (Noah) who inaugurates a new era or period of creation +after the _pralaya_ of the deluge; Noah being the symbol of a new +world, the Kingdom (Malchuth) of the Sephiroth; hence his father, +corresponding to the ninth Sephiroth, is the Foundation.[888] +Furthermore, both father and son answer to Aquarius and Pisces in the +Zodiac; and thus the former belonging to the airy and the latter to +the _watery_ trigons, they close the list of the biblical myths. + +But if, as we see, every patriarch represents, in one sense, like +each of the Pradjâpatis, a new race of antediluvian human beings; +and if, as it may as easily be proved, they are the copies of the +Babylonian _Saros_, or ages, the latter themselves copies of the +Hindu ten dynasties of the “Lords of beings,”[889] yet, however we +may regard them, they are among the profoundest allegories ever +conceived by philosophical minds. + +In the _Nuctemeron_,[890] the evolution of the universe and +its successive periods of formation, together with the gradual +development of the human races, are illustrated as fully as possible +in the twelve “hours” into which the allegory is divided. Each “hour” +typifies the evolution of a new man, and in its turn is divided +into four quarters or ages. This work shows how thoroughly was the +ancient philosophy imbued with the doctrines of the early Aryans, +who were the first to divide the life on our planet into four ages. +If one would trace this doctrine from its source in the night of +the traditional period down to the Seer of Patmos, he need not go +astray among the religious systems of all nations. The Babylonians he +would find teaching that in four different periods four Oannes (or +suns) appeared; the Hindus asserting their four Yuga; the Greeks, +Romans, and others firmly believing in the golden, silver, brazen, +and iron ages, each of the epochs being heralded by the appearance of +a saviour. The four Buddhas of the Hindus and the three prophets of +the Zoroastrians--Oshedar-Cami, Oshedar-mah, and Sosiosh--preceded by +Zarotushtra, are the types of these ages. + +In the _Bible_, the very opening tells us that _before the sons of God +saw the daughters of men_, the latter lived from 365 to 969 years. +But when the “Lord God” saw the iniquities of mankind, He concluded +to allow them at most 120 years of life (_Genesis_ vi. 3). To +account for such a violent oscillation in the human mortality-table +is only possible by tracing this decision of the “Lord God” to its +origin. Such incongruities as we meet at every step in the _Bible_ +can be only attributed to the facts that the book of _Genesis_ and +the other books of _Moses_ were tampered with and remodelled by +more than one author; and, that in their original state they were, +with the exception of the external form of the allegories, faithful +copies from the Hindu sacred books. In _Manu_, book i., we find the +following: + +“In the first age, neither sickness nor suffering were known. Men +lived four centuries.” + +This was in the Krita or Satya yug. + +“The Krita-yug is the type of justice. The _bull_ which stands firm +on its four legs is its image; man adheres to truth, and evil does +not as yet direct his actions.”[891] But in each of the following +ages primitive human life loses one-fourth of its duration, that +is to say, in Treta-yug man lives 300, in Dwapara-yug 200, and in +Kali-yug, or our own age, but 100 years generally, at the most. Noah, +son of Lamech--Oulom-_Ach_, or father of the age--is the distorted +copy of Manu, son of Swayambhu, and the six Manus or Rishis issued +from the Hindu “first man” are the originals of Terah, Abraham, +Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, the Hebrew sages, who beginning +with Terah were all alleged to have been astrologers, alchemists, +inspired prophets, and soothsayers; or in a more profane but plainer +language--magicians. + +If we consult the Talmudistic _Mishna_ we find therein the first +emanated divine couple, the androgyne Demiurge Chochmah (or Hachma +Achamoth) and Binah building themselves a house with _seven_ pillars. +They are the architects of God--Wisdom and Intelligence--and His +“compass and square.” The seven columns are the future _seven_ +worlds, or the typical _seven_ primordial “days” of creation. + +“Chochmah immolates her victims.” These victims are the numberless +forces of nature which must “die” (expend themselves) _in order that +they should live_; when one force dies out, it is but to give birth +to another force, its progeny. It dies but lives in its children, and +resuscitates at every _seventh_ generation. The servants of Chochmah, +or wisdom, are the souls of H-Adam, for in him are all the souls of +Israel. + +There are _twelve_ hours in the day, says the _Mishna_, and it is +during these hours that is accomplished the creation of man. Would +this be comprehensible, unless we had Manu to teach us that this +“day” embraces the four ages of the world and has a duration of +_twelve_ thousand divine years of the Devas? + +“The Creators (Elohim) outline in the second” hour “the shape of a +more corporeal form of man. They separate it into two and prepare the +sexes to become distinct from each other. Such is the way the Elohim +proceeded in reference to every created thing.”[892] “Every fish, +fowl, plant, beast and man was androgyne at the first hour.” + +Says the commentator, the great Rabbi Simeon: + +“O, companions, companions, man as emanation was both man and woman; +as well on the side of the FATHER as on the side of the MOTHER. And +this is the sense of the words, and Elohim spoke, Let there be Light +and it was Light!... And this is the ‘two-fold man!’”[893] + +A spiritual woman was necessary as a contrast for the spiritual +man. Harmony is the universal law. In Taylor’s translation, Plato’s +discourse upon creation is rendered so as to make him say of this +universe that “He caused it to move with circular motion.... When, +therefore, that God who is a perpetually reasoning Divinity, +cogitated about that God (man) _who was destined to subsist at some +certain period of time_, He produced his body smooth and even, and +every way even and whole from the centre, and made it perfect. This +perfect circle of the created God, _He decussated in the form of the +letter_ X.” + +The italics of both these sentences from _Timæus_ belong to Dr. +Lundy, the author of that remarkable work mentioned once before, +_Monumental Christianity_; and attention is drawn to the words of +the Greek philosopher, with the evident purpose of giving them the +prophetic character which Justin Martyr applied to the same, when +accusing Plato of having borrowed his “physiological discussion +in the _Timæus_ ... concerning the Son of God placed crosswise in +the universe,” from Moses and his serpent of brass. The learned +author seems to fully accord an unpremeditated prophecy to these +words; although he does not tell us whether he believes that like +Plato’s created god, Jesus was originally a sphere “smooth and +even, and every way even and whole from the centre.” Even if Justin +Martyr were excusable for his perversion of Plato, Dr. Lundy ought +to know that the day for that sort of casuistry is long gone by. +What the philosopher meant was _man_, who before being encased in +matter had no use for limbs, but was a pure spiritual entity. Hence +if the Deity, and his universe, and the stellar bodies are to be +conceived as spheroidal, this shape would be archetypal man’s. As +his enveloping shell grew heavier, there came the necessity for +limbs, and the limbs sprouted. If we fancy a man with arms and legs +naturally extended at the same angle, by backing him against the +circle that symbolizes his prior shape as a spirit, we would have the +very figure described by Plato--the X cross within the circle. + +All the legends of the creation, the fall of man, and the resultant +deluge, belong to universal history, and are no more the property +of the Israelites than that of any other nation. What specially +belongs to them (kabalists excepted) are the disfigured details +of every tradition. The _Genesis_ of Enoch is by far anterior to +the books of Moses,[894] and Guillaume Postel has presented it to +the world, explaining the allegories as far as he dared; but the +ground-work is still unexposed. For the Jews, the _Book of Enoch_ +is as canonical as the Mosaic books; and if the Christians accepted +the latter as an authority, we do not see why they should reject the +former as an apocrypha. No more can the age of one than that of the +other be determined with anything like certainty. At the time of +the separation, the Samaritans recognized only the books of Moses +and that of Joshua, says Dr. Jost.[895] In 168 B.C., Jerusalem had +its temple plundered, and all the sacred books were destroyed;[896] +therefore, the few MSS. that remained were to be found only among the +“teachers of tradition.” The kabalistic Tanaïm, and their initiates +and prophets had always practised its teachings in common with +the Canaanites, the Hamites, Midianites, Chaldeans, and all other +nations. The story of Daniel is a proof of it. + +There was a sort of Brotherhood, or Freemasonry among the kabalists +scattered all over the world, since the memory of man; and, like some +societies of the mediæval Masonry of Europe, they called themselves +_Companions_[897] and _Innocents_.[898] It is a belief (founded on +knowledge) among the kabalists, that no more than the Hermetic rolls +are the genuine sacred books of the seventy-two elders--books which +contained the “_Ancient Word_”--lost, but that they have all been +preserved from the remotest times among secret communities. Emanuel +Swedenborg says as much, and his words are based, he says, on the +information he had from certain _spirits_, who assured him that “they +performed their worship according to this Ancient Word.” “Seek for +it in China,” adds the great seer, “peradventure you may find it in +Great Tartary!” Other students of occult sciences have had more than +the word of “certain spirits” to rely upon in this special case--they +have seen the books. + +We must choose therefore perforce between two methods--either to +accept the _Bible_ exoterically or esoterically. Against the former +we have the following facts: That, after the first copy of the _Book +of God_ has been edited and launched on the world by Hilkiah, this +copy disappears, and Ezra has to make a _new Bible_, which Judas +Maccabeus finishes; that when it was copied from the horned letters +into square letters, it was corrupted beyond recognition; that the +_Masorah_ completed the work of destruction; that, finally, we have a +text, not 900 years old, abounding with omissions, interpolations, +and premeditated perversions; and that, consequently, as this +Masoretic Hebrew text has fossilized its mistakes, and the key +to the “Word of God” is lost, no one has a right to enforce upon +so-called “Christians” the divagations of a series of hallucinated +and, perhaps, spurious prophets, under the unwarranted and untenable +assumption that the author of it was the “Holy Ghost” in _propria +personæ_. + +Hence, we reject this pretended monotheistic Scripture, made up +just when the priests of Jerusalem found their political profit in +violently breaking off all connection with the Gentiles. It is at +this moment only that we find them persecuting kabalists, and banning +the “old wisdom” of both Pagans and Jews. _The real Hebrew Bible +was a secret volume, unknown to the masses_, and even the Samaritan +_Pentateuch_ is far more ancient than the _Septuagint_. As for the +former, the Fathers of the Church never even heard of it. We prefer +decidedly to take the word of Swedenborg that the “Ancient Word” +is _somewhere in China or the Great Tartary_. The more so, as the +Swedish seer is declared, at least by one clergymen, namely, the +Reverend Dr. R. L. Tafel, of London, to have been in a state of +“inspiration from God,” while writing his theological works. He is +given even the superiority over the penmen of the _Bible_, for, while +the latter had the words spoken to them in their ears, Swedenborg was +made to understand them rationally and was, therefore, _internally_ +and not externally illuminated. “When,” says the reverend author, “a +conscientious member of the New Church hears any charges made against +the divinity and the infallibility of either the soul or the body of +the doctrines of the New Jerusalem, he must at once place himself on +the unequivocal declaration made in those doctrines, that the Lord +has effected His second coming in and by means of those writings +which were published by Emanuel Swedenborg, as His servant, and that, +therefore, those charges are not and cannot be true.” And if it is +“the Lord” that spoke through Swedenborg, then there is a hope for +us that at least one divine will corroborate our assertions, that +the ancient “word of God” is nowhere but in the heathen countries, +especially _Buddhistic Tartary, Thibet, and China_! + +“The primitive history of Greece is the primitive history of India,” +exclaims Pococke in his _India in Greece_. In view of subsequent +fruits of critical research, we may paraphrase the sentence and say: +“The primitive history of Judea is a distortion of Indian fable +engrafted on that of Egypt. Many scientists, encountering stubborn +facts, and being reluctant to contrast the narratives of the “divine” +revelation with those of the Brahmanical books, merely present them +to the reading public. Meanwhile they limit their conclusions to +criticisms and contradictions of each other. So Max Müller opposes +the theories of Spiegel, and some one else; and Professor Whitney +those of the Oxford Orientalist; and Dr. Haug made onslaughts on +Spiegel, while Dr. Spiegel chose some other victim; and now even the +time-honored Akkadians and Turanians have had their day of glory. +The _Proto-Kasdeans_, _Kasdeo-Scyths_, _Sumirians_, and what not, +have to make room for some other fictions. Alas! for the Akkads, +Halevy, the Assyriologist attacks the Akkado-Sumirian language of old +Babylon, and Chabas, the Egyptologist, not content with dethroning +the Turanian speech, which has rendered such eminent services to +Orientalists when perplexed, calls the venerable parent of the +Akkadians--François Lenormant--himself, a charlatan. Profiting by the +learned turmoil, the Christian clergy take heart for their fantastic +theology on the ground that when the jury disagree there is a gain +of time at least for the indicted party. And thus is overlooked +the vital question whether Christendom would not be the better for +adopting Christism in place of Christianity, with its _Bible_, its +vicarious atonement and its Devil. But to so important a personage as +the latter, we could not do less than devote a special chapter. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + “Get thee behind me, SATAN” (Jesus to Peter).--_Matt._ xvi. 23. + + “Such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff + As puts me from my faith. I tell you what-- + He held me, last night, at least nine hours + In reckoning up the several devils’ names.”-- + _King Henry IV._, Part i., Act iii. + + “La force terrible et juste qui tue eternellement les + avortons a été nommée par les Égyptiens Typhon, par les + Hébreux Samaël; par les orientaux Satan; et par les Latins + Lucifer. Le Lucifer de la Cabale n’est pas un ange maudit + et foudroyé; c’est l’ange qui éclaire et qui _régénère_ en + tombant.”--ELIPHAS LEVI: _Dogme et Rituel_. + + “Bad as he is, the Devil may be abus’d, + Be falsely charg’d, and causelessly accus’d, + When Men, unwilling to be blam’d alone, + Shift off those Crimes on Him which are their Own.”--_Defoe_, 1726. + + +Several years ago, a distinguished writer and persecuted kabalist +suggested a creed for the Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies, which +may be thus formulated: + + _Protevangelium._ + + “I believe in the Devil, the Father Almighty of Evil, the Destroyer + of all things, Perturbator of Heaven and Earth; + And in Anti-Christ, his only Son, our Persecutor, + Who was conceived of the Evil Spirit; + Born of a sacrilegious, foolish Virgin; + Was glorified by mankind, reigned over them, + And ascended to the throne of Almighty God, + From which he crowds Him aside, and from which he insults the + living and the dead; + I believe in the Spirit of Evil; + The Synagogue of Satan; + The coalition of the wicked; + The perdition of the body; + And the Death and Hell everlasting. _Amen._” + +Does this offend? Does it seem extravagant, cruel, blasphemous? +Listen. In the city of New York, on the ninth day of April, +1877--that is to say, in the last quarter of what is proudly styled +the century of discovery and the age of illumination--the following +scandalous ideas were broached. We quote from the report in the _Sun_ +of the following morning: + +“The Baptist preachers met yesterday in the Mariners’ Chapel, in +Oliver Street. Several foreign missionaries were present. The Rev. +John W. Sarles, of Brooklyn, read an essay, in which he maintained +the proposition _that all adult heathen, dying without the knowledge +of the Gospel, are damned eternally_. Otherwise, the reverend +essayist argued, the Gospel is a curse instead of a blessing, the men +who crucified Christ served him right, and the whole structure of +revealed religion tumbles to the ground. + +“Brother Stoddard, a missionary from India, indorsed the views of the +Brooklyn pastor. The Hindus were great sinners. One day, after he had +preached in the market place, a Brahman got up and said: ‘We Hindus +beat the world in lying, but this man beats us. How can he say that +God loves us? Look at the poisonous serpents, tigers, lions, and all +kinds of dangerous animals around us. If God loves us, why doesn’t He +take them away?’ + +“The Rev. Mr. Pixley, of Hamilton, N. Y., heartily subscribed to the +doctrine of Brother Sarles’s essay, and asked for $5,000 to fit out +young men for the ministry.” + +And these men--we will not say teach the doctrine of Jesus, for that +would be to insult his memory, but--are _paid_ to teach his doctrine! +Can we wonder that intelligent persons prefer annihilation to a +faith encumbered by such a monstrous doctrine? We doubt whether any +respectable Brahman would have confessed to the vice of lying--an +art cultivated only in those portions of British India where the +most Christians are found[899] But we challenge any honest man in +the wide world to say whether he thinks the Brahman was far from the +truth in saying of the missionary Stoddard, “this man beats us all” +in lying. What else would he say, if the latter preached to them the +doctrine of _eternal damnation_, because, indeed, they had passed +their lives without reading a Jewish book of which they never heard, +or asked salvation of a Christ whose existence they never suspected! +But Baptist clergymen who need a few thousand dollars must devise +terrifying sensations to fire the congregational heart. + +We abstain, as a rule, from giving our own experience when we can +call acceptable witnesses, and so, upon reading missionary Stoddard’s +outrageous remarks, we requested our acquaintance, Mr. William L. +D. O’Grady,[901] to give a fair opinion upon the missionaries. This +gentleman’s father and grandfather were British army officers, and +he himself was born in India, and enjoyed life-long opportunities +to learn what the general opinion among the English is of these +religious propagandists. Following is his communication in reply to +our letter: + + “You ask me for my opinion of the Christian missionaries + in India. In all the years I spent there, I never spoke to + a single missionary. They were not in society, and, from + what I heard of their proceedings and could see for myself, + I don’t wonder at it. _Their influence on the natives is + bad._ Their converts are worthless, and, as a rule, of + the lowest class; _nor do they improve by conversion_. No + respectable family will employ Christian servants. They + lie, they steal, they are unclean--and dirt is certainly + not a Hindu vice; they drink--and no decent native of any + other belief ever touches intoxicating liquor; they are + outcasts from their own people and utterly despicable. + Their new teachers set them a poor example of consistency. + While holding forth to the Pariah that God makes no + distinction of persons, they boast intolerably over the + stray Brahmans, who, very much “off color,” occasionally, + at long intervals, fall into the clutches of these + hypocrites. + + “The missionaries get very small salaries, as publicly + stated in the proceedings of the societies that employ + them, but, in some unaccountable way, manage to live as + well as officials with ten times their income. When they + come home to recover their health, shattered, as they say, + by their arduous labors--which they seem to be able to + afford to do quite frequently, when supposed richer people + cannot--they tell childish stories on platforms, exhibit + idols as procured with infinite difficulty, which is quite + absurd, and give an account of their imaginary hardships + which is perfectly harrowing but untrue from beginning + to end. I lived some years in India myself, and nearly + all my blood-relations have passed or will pass the best + years of their lives there. I know hundreds of British + officials, and I never heard from one of them a single word + in favor of the missionaries. Natives of any position look + on them with the supremest contempt, although suffering + chronic exasperation from their arrogant aggressiveness; + and the British Government, which continues endowments to + Pagodas, granted by the East India Company, and which + supports unsectarian education, gives them no countenance + whatever. Protected from personal violence, they yelp and + bark at natives and Europeans alike, after the fashion of + ill-conditioned curs. Often recruited from the poorest + specimens of theological fanaticism, they are regarded on + all sides as mischievous. Their rabid, reckless, vulgar, + and offensive propagandism caused the great Mutiny of 1857. + They are noisome humbugs. + “WM. L. D. O’GRADY. + “NEW YORK, June 12, 1877.” + +The new creed therefore, with which we opened this chapter, coarse as +it may sound, embodies the very essence of the belief of the Church +as inculcated by her missionaries. It is regarded as less impious, +less infidel, to doubt the personal existence of the Holy Ghost, or +the equal Godhead of Jesus, than to question the personality of the +Devil. But a summary of Koheleth is well-nigh forgotten.[902] Who +ever quotes the golden words of the prophet Micah,[903] or seems to +care for the exposition of the Law, as given by Jesus himself?[904] +The “bull’s eye” in the target of Modern Christianity is in the +simple phrase to “fear the Devil.” + +The Catholic clergy and some of the lay champions of the Roman Church +fight still more for the existence of Satan and his imps. If Des +Mousseaux maintains the objective reality of spiritual phenomena with +such an unrelenting ardor, it is because, in his opinion, the latter +are the most direct evidence of the Devil at work. The Chevalier +is more Catholic than the Pope; and his logic and deductions from +never-to-be and non-established premises are unique, and prove once +more that the creed offered by us is the one which expresses the +Catholic belief most eloquently. + +“If magic and spiritualism,” he says, “were both but chimeras, +we would have to bid an eternal farewell to all the rebellious +angels, now troubling the world; for thus, we would have _no more +demons down here_.... And _if we lost our demons, we would_ LOSE +OUR SAVIOUR likewise. For, from whom did that Saviour come to save +us? And then, there would be no more Redeemer; for from whom or +what could that Redeemer redeem us? Hence, _there would be no more +Christianity_!!”[905] + +Oh, Holy Father of Evil; Sainted Satan! We pray thee do not abandon +such pious Christians as the Chevalier des Mousseaux and some Baptist +clergymen!! + +For our part, we would rather remember the wise words of J. C. +Colquhoun,[906] who says that “those persons who, in modern times, +adopt the doctrine of the Devil in its strictly literal and personal +application, do not appear to be aware that they are in reality +polytheists, heathens, idolaters.” + +Seeking supremacy in everything over the ancient creeds, the +Christians claim the discovery of the Devil officially recognized +by the Church. Jesus was the first to use the word “legion” when +speaking of them; and it is on this ground that M. des Mousseaux thus +defends his position in one of his demonological works. “Later,” +he says, “when the synagogue _expired_, depositing its inheritance +in the hands of Christ, were born into the world and _shone_, the +Fathers of the Church, who have been accused by certain persons of a +rare and precious ignorance, of having borrowed their ideas as to the +spirits of darkness from the theurgists.” + +Three deliberate, palpable, and easily-refuted errors--not to use +a harsher word--occur in these few lines. In the first place, the +synagogue, far from having _expired_, is flourishing at the present +day in nearly every town of Europe, America, and Asia; and of all +churches in Christian cities, it is the most firmly established, +as well as the best behaved. Further--while no one will deny that +many Christian Fathers were born into the world (always, of course, +excepting the twelve fictitious Bishops of Rome, who were never +born at all), every person who will take the trouble to read the +works of the Platonists of the old Academy, who were theurgists +before Iamblichus, will recognize therein the origin of Christian +Demonology as well as the Angelology, the allegorical meaning +of which was completely distorted by the Fathers. Then it could +hardly be admitted that the said Fathers ever _shone_, except, +perhaps, in the refulgence of their extreme ignorance. The Reverend +Dr. Shuckford, who passed the better part of his life trying to +reconcile their contradictions and absurdities, was finally driven to +abandon the whole thing in despair. The ignorance of the champions +of Plato must indeed appear rare and precious by comparison with +the fathomless profundity of Augustine, “the giant of learning and +erudition,” who scouted the sphericity of the earth, for, if true, +it would prevent the antipodes from seeing the Lord Christ when he +descended from heaven at the second advent; or, of Lactantius, who +rejects with pious horror Pliny’s identical theory, on the remarkable +ground that it would make the trees at the other side of the earth +grow and the men walk with their heads downward; or, again, of +Cosmas-Indicopleustes, whose orthodox system of geography is embalmed +in his “Christian topography;” or, finally, of Bede, who assured +the world that the heaven “is tempered with glacial waters, lest it +should be set on fire”[907]--a benign dispensation of Providence, +most likely to prevent the radiance of their learning from setting +the sky ablaze! + +Be this as it may, these resplendent Fathers certainly did borrow +their notions of the “spirits of darkness” from the Jewish kabalists +and Pagan theurgists, with the difference, however, that they +disfigured and outdid in absurdity all that the wildest fancy of the +Hindu, Greek, and Roman rabble had ever created. There is not a dev +in the Persian Pandaimonion half so preposterous, as a conception, as +des Mousseaux’s _Incubus_ revamped from Augustine. Typhon, symbolized +as an _ass_, appears a philosopher in comparison with the devil +caught by the Normandy peasant in a key-hole; and it is certainly not +Ahriman or the Hindu Vritra who would run away in rage and dismay, +when addressed as _St. Satan_, by a native Luther. + +The Devil is the patron genius of theological Christianity. So “holy +and reverend is his name” in modern conception, that it may not, +except occasionally from the pulpit, be uttered in ears polite. In +like manner, anciently, it was not lawful to speak the sacred names +or repeat the jargon of the Mysteries, except in the sacred cloister. +We hardly know the names of the Samothracian gods, but cannot tell +precisely the number of the Kabeiri. The Egyptians considered it +blasphemous to utter the title of the gods of their secret rites. +Even now, the Brahman only pronounces the syllable _Om_ in silent +thought, and the Rabbi, the Ineffable Name, יהוה. Hence, we who +exercise no such veneration, have been led into the blunders of +miscalling the names of HISIRIS and YAVA by the mispronunciations, +Osiris and Jehovah. A similar glamour bids fair, it will be perceived, +to gather round the designation of the dark personage of whom we are +treating; and in the familiar handling, we shall be very likely to +shock the peculiar sensibilities of many who will consider a free +mentioning of the Devil’s names as blasphemy--the sin of sins, that +“hath never forgiveness.”[908] + +Several years ago an acquaintance of the author wrote a newspaper +article to demonstrate that the _diabolos_ or Satan of the _New +Testament_ denoted the personification of an abstract idea, and not +a personal being. He was answered by a clergyman, who concluded the +reply with the deprecatory expression, “I fear that he has denied +his Saviour.” In his rejoinder he pleaded, “Oh, no! we only denied +the Devil.” But the clergyman failed to perceive the difference. In +his conception of the matter, the denying of the personal objective +existence of the Devil was itself “the sin against the Holy Ghost.” + +This necessary Evil, dignified by the epithet of “Father of Lies,” +was, according to the clergy, the founder of all the world-religions +of ancient time, and of the heresies, or rather heterodoxies, +of later periods, as well as the _Deus ex Machina_ of modern +Spiritualism. In the exceptions which we take to this notion, we +protest that we do not attack true religion or sincere piety. We +are only carrying on a controversy with human dogmas. Perhaps in +doing this we resemble Don Quixote, because these things are only +windmills. Nevertheless, let it be remembered that they have been +the occasion and pretext for the slaughtering of more than fifty +millions of human beings since the words were proclaimed: “LOVE YOUR +ENEMIES.”[909] + +It is a late day for us to expect the Christian clergy to undo and +amend their work. They have too much at stake. If the Christian +Church should abandon or even modify the dogma of an anthropomorphic +devil, it would be like pulling the bottom card from under a castle +of cards. The structure would fall. The clergymen to whom we have +alluded perceived that upon the relinquishing of Satan as a personal +devil, the dogma of Jesus Christ as the second deity in their trinity +must go over in the same catastrophe. Incredible, or even horrifying, +as it may seem, the Roman Church bases its doctrine of the godhood of +Christ entirely upon the satanism of the fallen archangel. We have +the testimony of Father Ventura, who proclaims the vital importance +of this dogma to the Catholics. + +The Reverend Father Ventura, the illustrious ex-general of the +Theatins, certifies that the Chevalier des Mousseaux, by his +treatise, _Mœurs et Pratiques des Démons_, has deserved well of +mankind, and still more of the most Holy Catholic and Apostolic +Church. With this voucher, the noble Chevalier, it will be perceived, +“speaks as one having authority.” He asserts explicitly, that _to the +Devil and his angels we are absolutely indebted for our Saviour_; and +that but for them _we would have no Redeemer, no Christianity_. + +Many zealous and earnest souls have revolted at the monstrous dogma +of John Calvin, the popekin of Geneva, that _sin is the necessary +cause of the greatest good_. It was bolstered up, nevertheless, +by logic like that of des Mousseaux, and illustrated by the same +dogmas. The execution of Jesus, the god-man, on the cross, was the +most prodigious crime in the universe, yet it was necessary that +mankind--those predestinated to everlasting life--might be saved. +D’Aubigné cites the quotation by Martin Luther from the canon, and +makes him exclaim, in ecstatic rapture: “_O beata culpa, qui talem +meruisti redemptorem_!” O blessed sin, which didst merit such a +Redeemer. We now perceive that the dogma which had appeared so +monstrous is, after all, the doctrine of Pope, Calvin, and Luther +alike--that the three are one. + +Mahomet and his disciples, who held Jesus in great respect as a +prophet, remarks Eliphas Levi, used to utter, when speaking of +Christians, the following remarkable words: “Jesus of Nazareth was +verily a true prophet of Allah and a grand man; but lo! his disciples +all went insane one day, and made a god of him.” + +Max Müller kindly adds: “It was a mistake of the early Fathers to +treat the heathen gods as demons or evil spirits, and we must take +care not to commit the same error with regard to the Hindu gods.”[910] + +But we have Satan presented to us as the prop and mainstay of +sacerdotism--an Atlas, holding the Christian heaven and cosmos upon +his shoulders. If he falls, then, in their conception, all is lost, +and chaos must come again. + +This dogma of the Devil and redemption seems to be based upon two +passages in the _New Testament_: “For this purpose the Son of God +was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil.”[911] +“And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against +the Dragon; and the Dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed +not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great +Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, +which deceiveth the whole world.” Let us, then, explore the ancient +Theogonies, in order to ascertain what was meant by these remarkable +expressions. + +The first inquiry is whether the term _Devil_, as here used, actually +represents the malignant Deity of the Christians, or an antagonistic, +blind force--the dark side of nature. By the latter we are not to +understand the manifestation of any evil principle that is _malum +in se_, but only the shadow of the Light, so to say. The theories +of the kabalists treat of it as a force which is antagonistic, but +at the same time essential to the vitality, evolving, and vigor of +the good principle. Plants would perish in their first stage of +existence, if they were kept exposed to a constant sunlight; the +night alternating with the day is essential to their healthy growth +and development. Goodness, likewise, would speedily cease to be such, +were it not alternated by its opposite. In human nature, evil denotes +the antagonism of matter to the spiritual, and each is accordingly +purified thereby. In the cosmos, the equilibrium must be preserved; +the operation of the two contraries produce harmony, like the +centripetal and centrifugal forces, and are necessary to each other. +If one is arrested, the action of the other will immediately become +destructive. + +This personification, denominated _Satan_, is to be contemplated +from three different planes: the _Old Testament_, the Christian +Fathers, and the ancient Gentile altitude. He is supposed to have +been represented by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; nevertheless, +the epithet of Satan is nowhere in the Hebrew sacred writings applied +to that or any other variety of ophidian. The Brazen Serpent of +Moses was worshipped by the Israelites as a god;[912] being the +symbol of Esmun-Asklepius the Phœnician Iao. Indeed, the character +of Satan himself is introduced in the 1st book of _Chronicles_ in +the act of instigating King David to number the Israelitish people, +an act elsewhere declared specifically to have been moved by Jehovah +himself.[913] The inference is unavoidable that the two, Satan and +Jehovah, were regarded as identical. + +Another mention of Satan is found in the _prophecies of Zechariah_. +This book was written at a period subsequent to the Jewish +colonization of Palestine, and hence, the Asideans may fairly be +supposed to have brought the personification thither from the East. +It is well known that this body of sectaries were deeply imbued with +the Mazdean notions; and that they represented Ahriman or Anra-manyas +by the god-names of Syria. Set or Sat-an, the god of the Hittites and +Hyk-sos, and Beel-Zebub the oracle-god, afterward the Grecian Apollo. +The prophet began his labors in Judea in the second year of Darius +Hystaspes, the restorer of the Mazdean worship. He thus describes the +encounter with Satan: “He showed me Joshua the high-priest standing +before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand +to be his adversary. And the Lord said unto Satan: ‘The Lord rebuke +thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: +is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’”[914] + +We apprehend that this passage which we have quoted is symbolical. +There are two allusions in the _New Testament_ that indicate that it +was so regarded. The _Catholic Epistle of Jude_ refers to it in this +peculiar language: “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with +the Devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, did not venture to +utter to him a reviling judgment κρῑσιν ἐπενεγκεῖν βλασφημίας, but +said, ‘The Lord rebuke thee.’”[915] The archangel Michael is thus +mentioned as identical with the יהוה Lord, or angel of the Lord, of +the preceding quotation, and thus is shown that the Hebrew Jehovah had +a twofold character, the secret and that manifested as the angel of +the Lord, or Michael the archangel. A comparison between these two +passages renders it plain that “the body of Moses” over which they +contended was Palestine, which as “the land of the Hittites”[916] was +the peculiar domain of Seth, their tutelar god.[917] Michael, as the +champion of the Jehovah-worship, contended with the Devil or +Adversary, but left judgment to his superior. + +Belial is not entitled to the distinction of either god or devil. +The term בליעל, BELIAL, is defined in the Hebrew lexicons to mean +a destroying, waste, uselessness; or the phrase איש־בליעל AIS-BELIAL +or Belial-man signifies a wasteful, useless man. If Belial must be +personified to please our religious friends, we would be obliged to +make him perfectly distinct from Satan, and to consider him as a sort +of spiritual “Diakka.” The demonographers, however, who enumerate nine +distinct orders of _daimonia_, make him chief of the third class--a +set of hobgoblins, mischievous and good-for-nothing. + +Asmodeus is no Jewish spirit at all, his origin being purely Persian. +Bréal, the author of _Hercule et Cacus_, shows that he is the Parsi +Eshem-Dev, or Aéshma-dev, the evil spirit of concupiscence, whom Max +Müller tells us “is mentioned several times in the _Avesta_ as one of +the Devs,[918] originally gods, who became evil spirits.” + +Samael is Satan; but Bryan and a good many other authorities show it +to be the name of the “Simoun”--the wind of the desert,[919] and the +Simoun is called Atabul-os or Diabolos. + +Plutarch remarks that by Typhon was understood anything violent, +unruly, and disorderly. The overflowing of the Nile was called by +the Egyptians Typhon. Lower Egypt is very flat, and any mounds built +along the river to prevent the frequent inundations, were called +Typhonian or _Taphos_; hence, the origin of Typhon. Plutarch, who +was a rigid, orthodox Greek, and never known to much compliment the +Egyptians, testifies in his _Isis and Osiris_, to the fact that, +far from worshipping the Devil (of which Christians accused them), +they despised more than they dreaded Typhon. In his symbol of the +opposing, obstinate power of nature, they believed him to be a poor, +struggling, half-dead divinity. Thus, even at that remote age, we +see the ancients already _too enlightened to believe in a personal +devil_. As Typhon was represented in one of his symbols under the +figure of an ass at the festival of the sun’s sacrifices, the +Egyptian priests exhorted the faithful worshippers not to carry gold +ornaments upon their bodies for fear of giving food to the _ass_![920] + +Three and a half centuries before Christ, Plato expressed his opinion +of evil by saying that “there is in matter a blind, refractory force, +which resists the will of the Great Artificer.” This blind force, +under Christian influx, was made to see and become responsible; it +was transformed into Satan! + +His identity with Typhon can scarcely be doubted upon reading the +account in _Job_ of his appearance with the sons of God, before the +Lord. He accuses Job of a readiness to curse the Lord to his face +upon sufficient provocation. So Typhon, in the Egyptian _Book of +the Dead_, figures as the accuser. The resemblance extends even to +the names, for one of Typhon’s appellations was _Seth_, or _Seph_; +as Sâtân, in Hebrew, means an adversary. In Arabic the word is +_Shâtana_--to be adverse, to persecute, and Manetho says he had +treacherously murdered Osiris and allied himself with the Shemites +(the Israelites). This may possibly have originated the fable told +by Plutarch, that, from the fight between Horus and Typhon, Typhon, +overcome with fright at the mischief he had caused, “fled seven days +on an ass, and escaping, begat the boys Ierosolumos and Ioudaios +(Jerusalem and Judea).” + +Referring to an invocation of Typhon-Seth, Professor Reuvens says +that the Egyptians worshipped Typhon under the form of an ass; and +according to him Seth “appears gradually among the Semites as the +background of their religious consciousness.”[921] The name of +the ass in Coptic, AO, is a phonetic of IAO, and hence the animal +became a pun-symbol. Thus Satan is a later creation, sprung from +the overheated fancy of the Fathers of the Church. By some reverse +of fortune, to which the gods are subjected in common with mortals, +Typhon-Seth tumbled down from the eminence of the deified son of +Adam Kadmon, to the degrading position of a subaltern spirit, a +mythical demon--ass. Religious schisms are as little free from the +frail pettiness and spiteful feelings of humanity as the partisan +quarrels of laymen. We find a strong instance of the above in the +case of the Zoroastrian reform, when Magianism separated from the +old faith of the Brahmans. The bright Devas of the _Veda_ became, +under the religious reform of Zoroaster, daêvas, or evil spirits, +of the _Avesta_. Even Indra, the luminous god, was thrust far back +into the dark shadow[922] in order to show off, in a brighter light, +Ahura-mazda, the Wise and Supreme Deity. + +The strange veneration in which the Ophites held the serpent which +represented Christos may become less perplexing if the students would +but remember that at all ages the serpent was the symbol of divine +wisdom, which kills in order to resurrect, destroys but to rebuild +the better. Moses is made a descendant of Levi, a serpent-tribe. +Gautama-Buddha is of a serpent-lineage, through the Naga (serpent) +race of kings who reigned in Magadha. Hermes, or the god Taaut +(Thoth), in his snake-symbol is Têt; and, according to the Ophite +legends, Jesus or Christos is born from a snake (divine wisdom, or +Holy Ghost), _i.e._, he became a Son of God through his initiation +into the “Serpent Science.” Vishnu, identical with the Egyptian +Kneph, rests on the heavenly _seven_-headed serpent. + +The red or fiery dragon of the ancient time was the military ensign +of the Assyrians. Cyrus adopted it from them when Persia became +dominant. The Romans and Byzantines next assumed it; and so the +“great red dragon,” from being the symbol of Babylon and Nineveh, +became that of Rome.[923] + +The temptation, or probation,[924] of Jesus is, however, the most +dramatic occasion in which Satan appears. As if to prove the +designation of Apollo, Æsculapius, and Bacchus, _Diobolos_, or son +of Zeus, he is also styled _Diabolos_, or accuser. The scene of the +probation was the wilderness. In the desert about the Jordan and +Dead Sea were the abodes of the “sons of the prophets,” and the +Essenes.[925] These ascetics used to subject their neophytes to +probations, analogous to the _tortures_ of the Mithraic rites; and +the temptation of Jesus was evidently a scene of this character. +Hence, in the _Gospel according to Luke_, it is stated that “the +Diabolos, having completed the probation, left him for a specific +time, αχρι καιροῦ; and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into +Galilee.” But the διαβολος, or Devil, in this instance is evidently no +malignant principle, but one exercising discipline. In this sense the +terms Devil and Satan are repeatedly employed.[926] Thus, when Paul +was liable to undue elation by reason of the abundance of revelations +or epoptic disclosures, there was given him “a thorn in the flesh, an +angel of Satanas,” to check him.[927] + +The story of Satan in the _Book of Job_ is of a similar character. He +is introduced among the “Sons of God,” presenting themselves before +the Lord, as in a Mystic initiation. Micaiah the prophet describes a +similar scene, where he “saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all +the host of Heaven standing by Him,” with whom He took counsel, which +resulted in putting “a lying spirit into the mouth of the prophets +of Ahab.”[928] The Lord counsels with Satan, and gives him _carte +blanche_ to test the fidelity of Job. He is stripped of his wealth +and family, and smitten with a loathsome disease. In his extremity, +his wife doubts his integrity, and exhorts him to worship God, as +he is about to die. His friends all beset him with accusations, and +finally the Lord, the chief hierophant Himself, taxes him with the +uttering of words in which there is no wisdom, and with contending +with the Almighty. To this rebuke Job yielded, making this appeal: +“I will demand of thee, and thou shalt declare unto me: wherefore +do I abhor myself and mourn in dust and ashes?” Immediately he was +vindicated. “The Lord said unto Eliphaz ... ye have not spoken of +me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.” His integrity +had been asserted, and his prediction verified: “I know that my +Champion liveth, and that he will stand up for me at a later time on +the earth; and though after my skin my body itself be corroded away, +yet even then without my flesh shall I see God.” The prediction was +accomplished: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but +now mine eye seeth thee.... And the Lord turned the captivity of Job.” + +In all these scenes there is manifested no such malignant diabolism +as is supposed to characterize “the adversary of souls.” + +It is an opinion of certain writers of merit and learning, that +the Satan of the book of _Job_ is a Jewish myth, containing the +Mazdean doctrine of the Evil Principle. Dr. Haug remarks that “the +Zoroastrian religion exhibits a close affinity, or rather identity +with the Mosaic religion and Christianity, such as the personality +and attributes of the Devil, and the resurrection of the dead.”[929] +The war of the _Apocalypse_ between Michael and the Dragon, can be +traced with equal facility to one of the oldest myths of the Aryans. +In the _Avesta_ we read of war between Thrætaona and Azhi-Dahaka, the +destroying serpent. Burnouf has endeavored to show that the Vedic +myth of Ahi, or the serpent, fighting against the gods, has been +gradually euhemerized into “the battle of a pious man against the +power of evil,” in the Mazdean religion. By these interpretations +Satan would be made identical with Zohak or Azhi-Dahaka, who is a +three-headed serpent, with one of the heads a human one.[930] + +Beel-Zebub is generally distinguished from Satan. He seems, in the +_Apocryphal New Testament_, to be regarded as the potentate of the +underworld. The name is usually rendered “Baal of the Flies,” which +may be a designation of the Scarabæi or sacred beetles.[931] More +correctly it shall be read, as it is always given in the Greek text +of the _Gospels_, Beelzebul, or lord of the household, as is indeed +intimated in _Matthew_ x. 25: “If they have called the master of +the house Beelzebul, how much more shall they call them of his +household.” He was also styled the prince or archon of dæmons. + +Typhon figures in the _Book of the Dead_, as the Accuser of souls +when they appear for judgment, as Satan stood up to accuse Joshua, +the high-priest, before the angel, and as the Devil came to Jesus to +tempt or test him during his great fast in the wilderness. He was +also the deity denominated Baal-Tsephon, or god of the crypt, in the +book of _Exodus_, and _Seth_, or the pillar. During this period, the +ancient or archaic worship was more or less under the ban of the +government; in figurative language, Osiris had been treacherously +slain and cut in fourteen (twice _seven_) pieces, and coffined by his +brother Typhon, and Isis had gone to Byblos in quest of his body. + +We must not forget in this relation that Saba or Sabazios, of Phrygia +and Greece, was torn by the Titans into _seven_ pieces, and that he +was, like Heptaktis of the Chaldeans, the _seven_-rayed god. Siva, +the Hindu, is represented crowned with seven serpents, and he is the +god of war and destruction. The Hebrew Jehovah the Sabaoth is also +called the Lord of hosts, Seba or Saba, Bacchus or Dionysus Sabazios; +so that all these may easily be proved identical. + +Finally the princes of the older _régime_, the gods who had, on the +assault of the giants, taken the forms of animals and hidden in +Æthiopia, returned and expelled the shepherds. + +According to Josephus, the Hyk-sos were the ancestors of the +Israelites.[932] This is doubtless substantially true. The Hebrew +_Scriptures_, which tell a somewhat different story, were written +at a later period, and underwent several revisions, before they +were promulgated with any degree of publicity. Typhon became odious +in Egypt, and shepherds “an abomination.” “In the course of the +twentieth dynasty he was suddenly treated as an evil demon, insomuch +that his effigies and name are obliterated on all the monuments and +inscriptions that could be reached.”[933] + +In all ages the gods have been liable to be euhemerized into men. +There are tombs of Zeus, Apollo, Hercules, and Bacchus, which are +often mentioned to show that originally they were only mortals. Shem, +Ham, and Japhet, are traced in the divinities Shamas of Assyria, +Kham of Egypt, and Iapetos the Titan. Seth was god of the Hyk-sos, +Enoch, or Inachus, of the Argives; and Abraham, Isaac, and Judah have +been compared with Brahma, Ikshwaka, and Yadu of the Hindu pantheon. +Typhon tumbled down from godhead to devilship, both in his own +character as brother of Osiris, and as the Seth, or Satan of Asia. +Apollo, the god of day, became, in his older Phœnician garb, no more +Baal Zebul, the Oracle-god, but prince of demons, and finally the +lord of the underworld. The separation of Mazdeanism from Vedism, +transformed the _devas_ or gods into evil potencies. Indra, also, in +the _Vendidad_ is set forth as the subaltern of Ahriman,[934] created +by him out of the materials of darkness,[935] together with Siva +(Surya) and the two Aswins. Even Jahi is the demon of Lust--probably +identical with Indra. + +The several tribes and nations had their tutelar gods, and vilified +those of inimical peoples. The transformation of Typhon, Satan and +Beelzebub are of this character. Indeed, Tertullian speaks of Mithra, +the god of the Mysteries, as a devil. + +In the twelfth chapter of the _Apocalypse_, Michael and his angels +overcame the Dragon and his angels: “and the Great Dragon was cast +out, that Archaic Ophis, called Diabolos and Satan, that deceiveth +the whole world.” It is added: “They overcame him by the blood of the +Lamb.” The Lamb, or Christ, had to descend himself to hell, the world +of the dead, and remain there three days before he subjugated the +enemy, according to the myth. + +Michael was denominated by the kabalists and the Gnostics, “the +Saviour,” the angel of the Sun, and angel of Light. (מיכאל, probably, +from יכח to manifest and אל God.) He was the first of the Æons, and +was well-known to antiquarians as the “unknown angel” represented on +the Gnostic amulets. + +The writer of the _Apocalypse_, if not a kabalist, must have been +a Gnostic. Michael was not a personage originally exhibited to +him in his vision (epopteia) but the Saviour and Dragon-slayer. +Archæological explorations have indicated him as identical with +Anubis, whose effigy was lately discovered upon an Egyptian monument, +with a cuirass and holding a spear, like St. Michael and St. George. +He is also represented as slaying a Dragon, that has the head and +tail of a serpent.[936] + +The student of Lepsius, Champollion, and other Egyptologists will +quickly recognize Isis as the “woman with child,” “clothed with the +Sun and with the Moon under her feet,” whom the “great fiery Dragon” +persecuted, and to whom “were given two wings of the Great Eagle that +she might fly into the wilderness.” Typhon was red-skinned.[937] + +The Two Brothers, the Good and Evil Principles, appear in the Myths +of the _Bible_ as well as those of the Gentiles, and Cain and Abel, +Typhon and Osiris, Esau and Jacob, Apollo and Python, etc., Esau +or Osu, is represented, when born, as “red all over like as hairy +garment.” He is the Typhon or Satan, opposing his brother. + +From the remotest antiquity the serpent was held by every people +in the greatest veneration, as the embodiment of Divine wisdom and +the symbol of spirit, and we know from Sanchoniathon that it was +Hermes or Thoth who was the first to regard the serpent as “the +most spirit-like of all the reptiles;” and the Gnostic serpent +with the seven vowels over the head is but the copy of Ananta, the +seven-headed serpent on which rests the god Vishnu. + +We have experienced no little surprise to find upon reading the +latest European treatises upon serpent-worship, that the writers +confess that the public is “still almost in the dark as to the origin +of the superstition in question.” Mr. C. Staniland Wake, M.A.I., from +whom we now quote, says: “The student of mythology knows that certain +ideas were associated by the peoples of antiquity with the serpent, +and that it was the favorite symbol of particular deities; but why +that animal rather than any other was chosen for the purpose is yet +uncertain.”[938] + +Mr. James Fergusson, F.R.S., who has gathered together such an +abundance of material upon this ancient cult, seems to have no more +suspicion of the truth than the rest.[939] + +Our explanation of the myth may be of little value to students +of symbology, and yet we believe that the interpretation of the +primitive serpent-worship as given by the initiates is the correct +one. In Vol. i., p. 10, we quote from the serpent Mantra, in the +_Aytareya-Brahmana_, a passage which speaks of the earth as the +_Sarpa Râjni_, the Queen of the Serpents, and “the mother of all +that moves.” These expressions refer to the fact that before our +globe had become egg-shaped or round it was a long trail of cosmic +dust or fire-mist, moving and writhing like a serpent. This, say the +explanations, was the Spirit of God moving on the chaos until its +breath had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular +shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth--emblem of eternity +in its spiritual and of our world in its physical sense. According +to the notions of the oldest philosophers, as we have shown in the +preceding chapter, the earth, serpent-like, casts off its skin and +appears after every minor pralaya in a rejuvenated state, and after +the great pralaya resurrects or evolves again from its subjective +into objective existence. Like the serpent, it not only “puts off its +old age,” says Sanchoniathon, “but increases in size and strength.” +This is why not only Serapis, and later, Jesus, were represented by a +great serpent, but even why, in our own century, big snakes are kept +with sacred care in Moslem mosques; for instance, in that of Cairo. +In Upper Egypt a famous saint is said to appear under the form of +a large serpent; and in India in some children’s cradles a pair of +serpents, male and female, are reared with the infant, and snakes +are often kept in houses, as they are thought to bring (a magnetic +aura of) wisdom, health, and good luck. They are the progeny of Sarpa +Râjni, the earth, and endowed with all her virtues. + +In the Hindu mythology Vasaki, the Great Dragon, pours forth upon +Durga, from his mouth, a poisonous fluid which overspreads the +ground, but her consort Siva caused the earth to open her mouth and +swallow it. + +Thus the mystic drama of the celestial virgin pursued by the +dragon seeking to devour her child, was not only depicted in the +constellations of heaven, as has been mentioned, but was represented +in the secret worship of the temples. It was the mystery of the +god Sol, and inscribed on a black image of Isis.[940] The Divine +Boy was chased by the cruel Typhon.[941] In an Egyptian legend the +Dragon is said to pursue Thuesis (Isis) while she is endeavoring +to protect her son.[942] Ovid describes Dioné (the consort of the +original Pelasgian Zeus, and mother of Venus) as flying from Typhon +to the Euphrates,[943] thus identifying the myth as belonging to all +the countries where the Mysteries were celebrated. Virgil sings the +victory: + + “Hail, dear child of gods, great son of Jove! + Receive the honors great; the time is at hand; + The Serpent will die!”[944] + +Albertus Magnus, himself an alchemist and student of occult science, +as well as a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, in his enthusiasm +for astrology, declared that the zodiacal sign of the celestial +virgin rises above the horizon on the twenty-fifth of December, at +the moment assigned by the Church for the birth of the Saviour.[945] + +The sign and myth of the mother and child were known thousands of +years before the Christian era. The drama of the Mysteries of Demeter +represents Persephoneia, her daughter, as carried away by Pluto +or Hades into the world of the dead; and when the mother finally +discovers her there, she has been installed as queen of the realm of +Darkness. This myth was transcribed by the Church into the legend +of St. Anna[946] going in quest of her daughter Mary, who has been +conveyed by Joseph into Egypt. Persephoné is depicted with two +ears of wheat in her hand; so is Mary in the old pictures; so was +the Celestial Virgin of the constellation. Albumazar the Arabian +indicates the identity of the several myths as follows: + +“In the first decan of the Virgin rises a maid, called in Arabic +Aderenosa [Adha-nari?], that is, pure immaculate virgin,[947] +graceful in person, charming in countenance, modest in habit, with +loosened hair, holding in her hands two ears of wheat, sitting upon +an embroidered throne, nursing a boy, and rightly feeding him in the +place called Hebræa; a boy, I say, named Iessus by certain nations, +which signifies Issa, whom they also call Christ in Greek.”[948] + +At this time Grecian, Asiatic, and Egyptian ideas had undergone a +remarkable transformation. The Mysteries of Dionysus-Sabazius had +been replaced by the rites of Mithras, whose “caves” superseded +the crypts of the former god, from Babylon to Britain. Serapis, or +Sri-Apa, from Pontus, had usurped the place of Osiris. The king of +Eastern Hindustan, Asoka, had embraced the religion of Siddhârtha, +and sent missionaries clear to Greece, Asia, Syria, and Egypt, +to promulgate the evangel of wisdom. The Essenes of Judea and +Arabia, the Therapeutists[949] of Egypt, and the Pythagorists[950] +of Greece and Magna Græcia, were evidently religionists of the +new faith. The legends of Gautama superseded the myths of Horus, +Anubis, Adonis, Atys, and Bacchus. These were wrought anew into the +Mysteries and Gospels, and to them we owe the literature known as +the _Evangelists_ and the _Apocryphal New Testament_. They were kept +by the Ebionites, Nazarenes, and other sects as sacred books, which +they might “show only to the wise;” and were so preserved till the +overshadowing influence of the Roman ecclesiastical polity was able +to wrest them from those who kept them. + +At the time that the high-priest Hilkiah is said to have found the +_Book of the Law_, the Hindu _Puranas_ (Scriptures) were known to +the Assyrians. These last had for many centuries held dominion from +the Hellespont to the Indus, and probably crowded the Aryans out of +Bactriana into the Punjâb. The _Book of the Law_ seems to have been +a _purana_. “The learned Brahmans,” says Sir William Jones, “pretend +that five conditions are requisite to constitute a real _purana_: + +“1. To treat of the creation of matter in general. + +“2. To treat of _the creation or production of secondary material and +spiritual beings_. + +“3. To give a chronological abridgment of the great periods of time. + +“4. To give a genealogical abridgment of the principal families that +reigned over the country. + +“5. Lastly, to give the history of some great man in particular.” + +It is pretty certain that whoever wrote the _Pentateuch_ had this +plan before him, as well as those who wrote the _New Testament_ +had become thoroughly well acquainted with Buddhistic ritualistic +worship, legends and doctrines, through the Buddhist missionaries who +were many in those days in Palestine and Greece. + +But “no Devil, no Christ.” This is the basic dogma of the Church. We +must hunt the two together. There is a mysterious connection between +the two, more close than perhaps is suspected, amounting to identity. +If we collect together the mythical sons of God, all of whom were +regarded as “first-begotten,” they will be found dovetailing together +and blending in this dual character. Adam Kadmon bifurcates from the +spiritual conceptive wisdom into the creative one, which evolves +_matter_. The Adam made from dust is both son of God and Satan; and +the latter is also a son of God,[951] according to Job. + +Hercules was likewise “the First-Begotten.” He is also Bel, Baal, +and Bal, and therefore Siva, the Destroyer. Bacchus was styled by +Euripides, “Bacchus, the Son of God.” As a child, Bacchus, like +the Jesus of the _Apocryphal Gospels_, was greatly dreaded. He is +described as benevolent to mankind; nevertheless he was merciless +in punishing whomever failed of respect to his worship. Pentheus, +the son of Cadmus and Hermioné, was, like the son of Rabbi Hannon, +destroyed for his want of piety. + +The allegory of Job, which has been already cited, if correctly +understood, will give the key to this whole matter of the Devil, his +nature and office; and will substantiate our declarations. Let no +pious individual take exception to this designation of allegory. Myth +was the favorite and universal method of teaching in archaic times. +Paul, writing to the Corinthians, declared that the entire story of +Moses and the Israelites was typical;[952] and in his _Epistle to the +Galatians_, asserted that the whole story of Abraham, his two wives, +and their sons was an allegory.[953] Indeed, it is a theory amounting +to certitude, that the historical books of the _Old Testament_ were +of the same character. We take no extraordinary liberty with the +_Book of Job_ when we give it the same designation which Paul gave +the stories of Abraham and Moses. + +But we ought, perhaps, to explain the ancient use of allegory and +symbology. The truth in the former was left to be deduced; the symbol +expressed some abstract quality of the Deity, which the laity could +easily apprehend. Its higher sense terminated there; and it was +employed by the multitude thenceforth as an image to be employed +in idolatrous rites. But the allegory was reserved for the inner +sanctuary, when only the elect were admitted. Hence the rejoinder of +Jesus when his disciples interrogated him because he spoke to the +multitude in parables. “To you,” said he, “it is given to know the +mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given. +For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more +abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even +that he hath.” In the minor Mysteries a sow was washed to typify the +purification of the neophyte; as her return to the mire indicated the +superficial nature of the work that had been accomplished. + +“The Mythus is the undisclosed thought of the soul. The characteristic +trait of the myth is to convert reflection into history (a historical +form). As in the epos, so in the myth, the historical element +predominates. Facts (external events) often constitute the basis of +the myth, and with these, religious ideas are interwoven.” + +The whole allegory of Job is an open book to him who understands +the picture-language of Egypt as it is recorded in _the Book of the +Dead_. In the Scene of Judgment, Osiris is represented sitting on +his throne, holding in one hand the symbol of life, “the hook of +attraction,” and in the other the mystic Bacchic fan. Before him +are the sons of God, the forty-two assessors of the dead. An altar +is immediately before the throne, covered with gifts and surmounted +with the sacred lotus-flower, upon which stand four spirits. By the +entrance stands the soul about to be judged, whom Thmei, the genius +of Truth, is welcoming to this conclusion of the probation. Thoth +holding a reed, makes a record of the proceedings in the Book of +Life. Horus and Anubis, standing by the scales, inspect the weight +which determines whether the heart of the deceased balances the +symbol of truth, or the latter preponderates. On a pedestal sits a +bitch--the symbol of the Accuser. + +Initiation into the Mysteries, as every intelligent person knows, was +a dramatic representation of scenes in the underworld. Such was the +allegory of Job. + +Several critics have attributed the authorship of this book to Moses. +But it is older than the _Pentateuch_. Jehovah is not mentioned in +the poem itself; and if the name occurs in the prologue, the fact +must be attributed to either an error of the translators, or the +premeditation exacted by the later necessity to transform polytheism +into a monotheistic religion. The plan adopted was the very simple +one of attributing the many names of the Elohim (gods) to a single +god. So in one of the oldest Hebrew texts of Job (in chapter xii. +9) there stands the name of Jehovah, whereas all other manuscripts +have “Adonai.” But in the original poem Jehovah is absent. In place +of this name we find _Al_, _Aleim_, _Ale_, _Shaddai_, _Adonai_, etc. +Therefore, we must conclude that either the prologue and epilogue +were added at a later period, which is inadmissible for many reasons, +or that it has been tampered with like the rest of the manuscripts. +Then, we find in this archaic poem no mention whatever of the +Sabbatical Institution; but a great many references to the sacred +number seven, of which we will speak further, and a direct discussion +upon Sabeanism, the worship of the heavenly bodies prevailing in +those days in Arabia. Satan is called in it a “Son of God,” one of +the council which presents itself before God, and he leads him into +tempting Job’s fidelity. In this poem, clearer and plainer than +anywhere else, do we find the meaning of the appellation, Satan. It +is a term for the office or character of _public accuser_. Satan is +the Typhon of the Egyptians, barking his accusations in Amenthi; an +office quite as respectable as that of the public prosecutor, in our +own age; and if, through the ignorance of the first Christians, he +became later identical with the Devil, it is through no connivance of +his own. + +The _Book of Job_ is a complete representation of ancient initiation, +and the trials which generally precede this grandest of all +ceremonies. The neophyte perceives himself deprived of everything +he valued, and afflicted with foul disease. His wife appeals to +him to adore God and die; there was no more hope for him. Three +friends appear on the scene by mutual appointment: Eliphaz, the +learned Temanite, full of the knowledge “which wise men have told +from their fathers--to whom alone the earth was given;” Bildad, the +conservative, taking matters as they come, and judging Job to have +done wickedly, because he was afflicted; and Zophar, intelligent +and skilful with “generalities” but not interiorly wise. Job boldly +responds: “If I have erred, it is a matter with myself. You magnify +yourselves and plead against me in my reproach; but it is God who has +overthrown me. Why do you persecute me and are not satisfied with +my flesh thus wasted away? But I know that my Champion lives, and +that at a coming day he will stand for me in the earth; and though, +together with my skin, all this beneath it shall be destroyed, yet +without my flesh I shall see God.... Ye shall say: ‘Why do we molest +him?’ for the root of the matter is found in me!” + +This passage, like all others in which the faintest allusions +could be found to a “Champion,” “Deliverer,” or “Vindicator,” was +interpreted into a direct reference to the Messiah; but apart from +the fact that in the Septuagint this verse is translated: + + “For I know that He is eternal + Who is about to deliver me on earth, + To restore this skin of mine which endures these things,” etc. + +In King James’s version, as it stands translated, it has no +resemblance whatever to the original.[954] The crafty translators +have rendered it, “I know that _my Redeemer liveth_,” etc. And +yet _Septuagint_, _Vulgate_, and Hebrew original, have all to +be considered as an inspired Word of God. Job refers to his own +_immortal_ spirit which is eternal, and which, when death comes, +will deliver him from his putrid earthly body and clothe him with +a new spiritual envelope. In the _Mysteries of Eleusinia_, in +the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, and all other works treating on +matters of initiation, this “eternal being” has a name. With the +Neo-platonists it was the _Nous_, the _Augoeides_; with the Buddhists +it is _Aggra_; and with the Persians, _Ferwer_. All of these are +called the “Deliverers,” the “Champions,” the “Metatrons,” etc. In +the Mithraic sculptures of Persia, the _ferwer_ is represented by a +winged figure hovering in the air above its “object” or body.[955] It +is the luminous Self--the Âtman of the Hindus, our immortal spirit, +who alone can redeem our soul; and will, if we follow him instead of +being dragged down by our body. Therefore, in the Chaldean texts, +the above reads, “My _deliverer_, my _restorer_,” _i.e._, the Spirit +who will restore the decayed body of man, and transform it into a +clothing of ether. And it is this _Nous_, _Augoeides_, _Ferwer_, +_Aggra_, Spirit of himself, that the triumphant Job shall see without +his flesh--_i.e._, when he has escaped from his bodily prison, and +that the translators call “God.” + +Not only is there not the slightest allusion in the poem of Job +to Christ, but it is now well proved that all those versions by +different translators, which agree with that of king James, were +written on the authority of Jerome, who has taken strange liberties +in his _Vulgate_. He was the first to cram into the text this verse +of his own fabrication: + + “_I know that my Redeemer lives_, + And at the last day _I shall arise from the earth_, + And again shall be surrounded with my skin, + And in my flesh I shall see my God.” + +All of which might have been a good reason for himself to believe +in it since _he knew it_, but for others who did _not_, and who +moreover found in the text a quite different idea, it only proves +that Jerome had decided, by one more interpolation, to enforce the +dogma of a resurrection “at the last day,” and in the identical skin +and bones which we had used on earth. This is an agreeable prospect +of “restoration” indeed. Why not the linen also, in which the body +happens to die? + +And how could the author of the _Book of Job_ know anything of the +_New Testament_, when evidently he was utterly ignorant even of +the _Old_ one? There is a total absence of allusion to any of the +patriarchs; and so evidently is it the work of an _Initiate_, that +one of the three daughters of Job is even called by a decidedly +“Pagan” mythological name. The name of _Kerenhappuch_ is rendered +in various ways by the many translators. The _Vulgate_ has “horn +of antimony;” and the LXX has the “horn of Amalthea,” the nurse +of Jupiter, and one of the constellations, emblem of the “horn of +plenty.” The presence in the _Septuagint_ of this heroine of Pagan +fable, shows the ignorance of the transcribers of its meaning as well +as the esoteric origin of the _Book of Job_. + +Instead of offering consolations, the three friends of the suffering +Job seek to make him believe that his misfortune must have come +in punishment of some extraordinary transgressions on his part. +Hurling back upon them all their imputations, Job swears that while +his breath is in him he will maintain his cause. He takes in view +the period of his prosperity “when the secret of God was upon his +tabernacles,” and he was a judge “who sat chief, and dwelt as a king +in the army, or one that comforteth the mourners,” and compares with +it the present time--when vagrant Bedouins held him in derision, +men “viler than the earth,” when he was prostrated by misfortune +and foul disease. Then he asserts his sympathy for the unfortunate, +his chastity, his integrity, his probity, his strict justice, +his charities, his moderation, his freedom from the prevalent +sun-worship, his tenderness to enemies, his hospitality to strangers, +his openness of heart, his boldness for the right, though he +encountered the multitude and the contempt of families; and invokes +the Almighty to answer him, and his adversary to write down of what +he had been guilty. + +To this there was not, and could not be, any answer. The three had +sought to crush Job by pleadings and general arguments, and he had +demanded consideration for his specific acts. Then appeared the +fourth; Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of +Ram.[956] + +Elihu is the hierophant; he begins with a rebuke, and the sophisms +of Job’s false friends are swept away like the loose sand before the +west wind. + +“And Elihu, the son of Barachel, spoke and said: ‘Great men are +not always wise ... there _is_ a spirit in man; the _spirit within +me_ constraineth me.... God speaketh once, yea twice, _yet man_ +perceiveth it not. In a dream; in a vision of the night, when deep +sleep falleth upon man, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth +the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction. O Job, hearken unto +me; hold thy peace, and I shall teach thee WISDOM.’” + +And Job, who to the dogmatic fallacies of his three friends in the +bitterness of his heart had exclaimed: “No doubt but ye are _the_ +people, and wisdom shall die with you.... Miserable comforters are ye +all.... Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason +with God. But _ye_ are forgers of lies, _ye_ are physicians of no +value!” The sore-eaten, visited Job, who in the face of the official +clergy--offering for all hope the necessarianism of damnation, had +in his despair nearly wavered in his patient faith, answered: “What +_ye_ know, _the same_ do I know also; I am not inferior unto you.... +Man cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a +shadow, _and continueth not_.... Man dieth, and wasteth away, yea, +man giveth up the ghost, and _where is he?_... If a man die shall +he _live_ again?... When a few years are come then I shall go the +way _whence_ I shall not return.... O that one might plead for a man +with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbor!” Job finds one who +answers to his cry of agony. He listens to the wisdom of Elihu, the +hierophant, the perfected teacher, the inspired philosopher. From his +stern lips comes the just rebuke for his impiety in charging upon the +SUPREME Being the evils of humanity. “God,” says Elihu, “is excellent +in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice; HE _will not +afflict_.” + +So long as the neophyte was satisfied with his own worldly wisdom and +irreverent estimate of the Deity and His purposes; so long as he gave +ear to the pernicious sophistries of his advisers, the hierophant +kept silent. But, when this anxious mind was ready for counsel and +instruction, his voice is heard, and he speaks with the authority of +the Spirit of God that “constraineth” him: “Surely God will not hear +_vanity_, neither will the Almighty regard it.... He respecteth not +any that are wise at heart.” + +What better commentary than this upon the fashionable preacher, who +“_multiplieth_ words without knowledge!” This magnificent _prophetic_ +satire might have been written to prefigure the spirit that prevails +in all the denominations of Christians. + +Job hearkens to the words of wisdom, and then the “Lord” answers Job +“out of the whirlwind” of nature, God’s first visible manifestation: +“Stand still, O Job, stand still! and consider the wondrous works of +God; for _by them alone_ thou canst know God. ‘Behold, God is great, +and _we know him not_,’ Him who ‘maketh small the drops of water; +_but they_ pour down rain _according to the vapor thereof_;’”[957] +not according to the divine whim, but to the once established and +immutable laws. Which law “removeth the mountains and they know not; +which shaketh the earth; which commandeth the sun, and _it riseth +not_; and sealeth up the stars; ... which doeth great things _past +finding out_; yea, and _wonders without number_.... Lo, _He goeth by +me_, and I see _him not_; he passeth on also, but _I perceive him +not_!”[958] + +Then, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without +knowledge?”[959] speaks the voice of God through His mouthpiece-- +nature. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? +declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures +thereof, _if thou knowest_? When the morning stars sang together, and +all the sons of God shouted for joy?... Wast thou present when I said +to the seas, ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall +thy proud waves be stayed?’... Knowest thou who hath caused it to rain +on the earth, _where no man is_; on the wilderness, wherein _there is +no man_.... Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose +the bands of Orion?... Canst thou _send lightnings_, that they may go, +and say unto thee, ‘Here we are?’”[960] + +“Then Job answered the Lord.” He understood His ways, and his eyes +were opened for the first time. The Supreme Wisdom descended upon +him; and if the reader remain puzzled before this final PETROMA of +initiation, at least Job, or the man “afflicted” in his blindness, +then realized the impossibility of catching “Leviathan by putting a +hook into his nose.” The Leviathan is OCCULT SCIENCE, on which one +can lay his hand, but “_do no more_,”[961] whose power and “comely +proportion” God wishes not to conceal. + +“Who can discover the face of his garment, or who can come to him +with his _double bridle_? Who can open the doors of his face, ‘of +him whose _scales_ are his pride, shut up together as _with a closed +seal_?’ Through whose ‘neesings a light doth shine,’ and whose eyes +are like the lids of the morning.” Who “maketh a light to _shine_ +after him,” for those who have the fearlessness to approach him. And +then they, like him, will behold “all _high_ things, for he is king +only over all the children of pride.”[962] + +Job, now in modest confidence, responded: + + “I know that thou canst do everything, + And that no thought of thine can be resisted. + Who is he that maketh a show of arcane wisdom, + Of which he knoweth nothing? + Thus have I uttered what I did not comprehend-- + Things far above me, which I did not know. + Hear! I beseech thee, and I will speak; + I will demand of thee, and do thou answer me: + I have heard thee with my ears, + And now I see thee with my eyes, + Wherefore am I loathsome, + And mourn in dust and ashes?” + +He recognized his “champion,” and was assured that the time for his +vindication had come. Immediately the Lord (“the priests and the +judges,” _Deuteronomy_ xix. 17) saith to his friends: “My wrath is +kindled against thee and against thy two friends; for ye have not +spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.” So +“the Lord turned the captivity of Job,” and “blessed the latter end +of Job more than his beginning.” + +Then in the judgment the deceased invokes four spirits who preside +over the Lake of Fire, and is purified by them. He then is conducted +to his celestial house, and is received by Athar and Isis, and +stands before _Atum_,[963] the essential God. He is now _Turu_, the +essential man, a pure spirit, and henceforth On-ati, the eye of fire, +and an associate of the gods. + +This grandiose poem of Job was well understood by the kabalists. +While many of the mediæval Hermetists were profoundly religious +men, they were, in their innermost hearts--like kabalists of every +age--the deadliest enemies of the clergy. How true the words +of Paracelsus when worried by fierce persecution and slander, +misunderstood by friends and foes, abused by clergy and laity, he +exclaimed: + +“O ye of Paris, Padua, Montpellier, Salerno, Vienna, and Leipzig! +Ye are not teachers of the truth, but confessors of lies. Your +philosophy is a lie. Would you know _what_ MAGIC _really is_, then +seek it in St. John’s _Revelation_.... As you cannot yourselves prove +your teachings from the _Bible_ and the _Revelation_, then let your +farces have an end. The _Bible is the true key and interpreter_. +John, not less than Moses, Elias, Enoch, David, Solomon, Daniel, +Jeremiah, and the rest of the prophets, was a _magician_, kabalist, +and diviner. If now, all, or even any of those I have named, were yet +living, I do not doubt that you would make an example of them in your +miserable slaughter-house, and would annihilate them there on the +spot, and _if_ it were possible, the Creator of all things too!” + +That Paracelsus had learned some mysterious and useful things out of +_Revelation_ and other _Bible_ books, as well as from the _Kabala_, +was proved by him practically; so much so, that he is called by +many the “father of magic and founder of the occult physics of the +_Kabala_ and magnetism.”[964] + +So firm was the popular belief in the supernatural powers of +Paracelsus, that to this day the tradition survives among the +simple-minded Alsatians that he is not dead, but “sleepeth in his +grave” at Strasburg.[965] And they often whisper among themselves +that the green sod heaves with every respiration of that weary +breast, and that deep groans are heard as the great fire-philosopher +awakes to the remembrance of the cruel wrongs he suffered at the +hands of his cruel slanderers for the sake of the great truth! + +It will be perceived from these extended illustrations that the Satan +of the _Old Testament_, the Diabolos or Devil of the _Gospels_ and +_Apostolic Epistles_, were but the antagonistic principle in matter, +necessarily incident to it, and not wicked in the moral sense of the +term. The Jews, coming from the Persian country, brought with them +the doctrine of _two principles_. They could not bring the _Avesta_, +for it was not written. But they--we mean the _Astdians_ and +_Pharsi_--invested Ormazd with the secret name of יהוה, and +Ahriman with the name of the gods of the land, Satan of the Hittites, +and _Diabolos_, or rather Diobolos, of the Greeks. The early Church, +at least the Pauline part of it, the Gnostics and their successors, +further refined upon their ideas; and the Catholic Church adopted and +adapted them, meanwhile putting their promulgators to the sword. + +The Protestant is a reaction from the Roman Catholic Church. It is +necessarily not coherent in its parts, but a prodigious host of +fragments beating their way round a common centre, attracting and +repelling each other. Parts are centripetally impelled towards old +Rome, or the system which enabled old Rome to exist; part still +recoil under the centrifugal impulse, and seek to rush into the broad +ethereal region beyond Roman, or even Christian influence. + +The modern Devil is their principal heritage from the Roman Cybelè, +“Babylon, the Great Mother of the idolatrous and abominable religions +of the earth.” + +But it may be argued, perhaps, that Hindu theology, both Brahmanical +and Buddhistic, is as strongly impregnated with belief in objective +devils as Christianity itself. There is a slight difference. This +very _subtlety_ of the Hindu mind is a sufficient warrant that the +well-educated people, the learned portion, at least, of the Brahman +and Buddhist divines, consider the Devil in another light. With them +the Devil is a metaphysical abstraction, an allegory of necessary +_evil_; while _with Christians the myth has become a historical +entity, the fundamental stone on which Christianity, with its dogma +of redemption, is built_. He is as necessary--as Des Mousseaux has +shown--to the Church as the beast of the seventeenth chapter of the +_Apocalypse_ was to his rider. The English-speaking Protestants, not +finding the _Bible_ explicit enough, have adopted the _Diabology_ of +Milton’s celebrated poem, _Paradise Lost_, embellishing it somewhat +from Goethe’s celebrated drama of _Faust_. John Milton, first a +Puritan and finally a Quietist and Unitarian, never put forth his +great production except as a work of fiction, but it thoroughly +dovetailed together the different parts of Scripture. The Ilda-Baoth +of the Ophites was transformed into an angel of light, and the +morning star, and made the Devil in the first act of the _Diabolic +Drama_. Then the twelfth chapter of the _Apocalypse_ was brought in +for the second act. The great red Dragon was adopted as the same +illustrious personage as _Lucifer_, and the last scene is his fall, +like that of Vulcan-Hephaistos, from Heaven into the island of +Lemnos; the fugitive hosts and their leader “coming to hard bottom” +in Pandemonium. The third act is the Garden of Eden. Satan holds a +council in a hall erected by him for his new empire, and determines +to go forth on an exploring expedition in quest of the new world. The +next acts relate to the fall of man, his career on earth, the advent +of the Logos, or Son of God, and his redemption of mankind, or the +elect portion of them, as the case may be. + +This drama of _Paradise Lost_ comprises the unformulated belief of +English-speaking “evangelical Protestant Christians.” Disbelief of +its main features is equivalent, in their view, to “denying Christ” +and “blaspheming against the Holy Ghost.” If John Milton had supposed +that his poem, instead of being regarded as a companion of Dante’s +_Divine Comedy_, would have been considered as another _Apocalypse_ +to supplement the _Bible_, and complete its demonology, it is more +than probable that he would have borne his poverty more resolutely, +and withheld it from the press. A later poet, Robert Pollok, taking +his cue from this work, wrote another, _The Course of Time_, which +bade fair for a season to take the rank of a later _Scripture_; +but the nineteenth century has fortunately received a different +inspiration, and the Scotch poet is falling into oblivion. + +We ought, perhaps, to make a brief notice of the European Devil. He +is the genius who deals in sorcery, witchcraft, and other mischief. +The Fathers taking the idea from the Jewish Pharisees, made devils of +the Pagan gods, Mithras, Serapis, and the others. The Roman Catholic +Church followed by denouncing the former worship as commerce with +the powers of darkness. The _malefecii_ and witches of the middle +ages were thus but the votaries of the proscribed worship. Magic in +all ancient times had been considered as divine science, wisdom, and +the knowledge of God. The healing art in the temples of Æsculapius, +and at the shrines of Egypt and the East, had always been magical. +Even Darius Hystaspes, who had exterminated the Median Magi, and +even driven out the Chaldean theurgists from Babylon into Asia +Minor, had also been instructed by the Brahmans of Upper Asia, and, +finally, while establishing the worship of Ormazd, was also himself +denominated the instituter of magism. All was now changed. Ignorance +was enthroned as the mother of devotion. Learning was denounced, and +savants prosecuted the sciences in peril of their lives. They were +compelled to employ a jargon to conceal their ideas from all but +their own adepts, and to accept opprobrium, calumny, and poverty. + +The votaries of the ancient worship were persecuted and put to +death on charges of witchcraft. The Albigenses, descendants of the +Gnostics, and the Waldenses, precursors of the Protestants, were +hunted and massacred under like accusations. Martin Luther himself +was accused of companionship with Satan in proper person. The whole +Protestant world still lies under the same imputation. There is no +distinction in the judgments of the Church between dissent, heresy, +and witchcraft. And except where civil authority protects, they are +alike capital offences. Religious liberty the Church regards as +intolerance. + +But the reformers were nursed with the milk of their mother. Luther +was as bloodthirsty as the Pope; Calvin more intolerant than Leo or +Urban. Thirty years of war depopulated whole districts of Germany, +Protestants and Catholics cruel alike. The new faith too opened its +batteries against witchcraft. The statute books became crimsoned +with bloody legislation in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Great +Britain, and the North American Commonwealth. Whosoever was more +liberal, more intelligent, more free-speaking than his fellows was +liable to arrest and death. The fires that were extinguished at +Smithfield were kindled anew for magicians; it was safer to rebel +against a throne than to pursue abstruse knowledge outside the +orthodox dead-line. + +In the seventeenth century Satan made a sortie in New England, New +Jersey, New York, and several of the Southern colonies of North +America, and Cotton Mather gives us the principal chronicles of +his manifestation. A few years later he visited the Parsonage of +Mora, in Sweden, and _Life in Dalecarlia_ was diversified with the +burning alive of young children, and the whipping of others at +the church-doors on Sabbath-days. The skepticism of modern times +has, however, pretty much driven the belief in witchcraft into +Coventry; and the Devil in personal anthropomorphic form, with his +Bacchus-foot, and his Pan-like goat’s horns, holds place only in +the _Encyclical Letters_, and other effusions of the Roman Catholic +Church. Protestant respectability does not allow him to be named at +all except with bated breath in a pulpit-enclosure. + +Having now set forth the biography of the Devil from his first advent +in India and Persia, his progress through Jewish, and both early +and later Christian _Theo_logy down to the latest phases of his +manifestation, we now turn back to review certain of the opinions +extant in the earlier Christian centuries. + +Avatars or incarnations were common to the old religions. India had +them reduced to a system. The Persians expected Sosiosh, and the +Jewish writers looked for a deliverer. Tacitus and Suetonius relate +that the East was full of expectation of the Great Personage about +the time of Octavius. “Thus doctrines obvious to Christians were the +highest arcana of Paganism.”[966] The Maneros of Plutarch was a child +of Palestine,[967] his mediator Mithras, the Saviour Osiris is the +Messiah. In our present “_Canonical Scriptures_” are to be traced the +vestigia of the ancient worships; and in the rites and ceremonies +of the Roman Catholic Church we find the forms of the Buddhistical +worship, its ceremonies and hierarchy. The first _Gospels_, once as +canonical as any of the present four, contain pages taken almost +entire from Buddhistical narratives, as we are prepared to show. +After the evidence furnished by Burnouf, Asoma, Korosi, Beal, Hardy, +Schmidt, and translations from the _Tripitaka_, it is impossible to +doubt that the whole Christian scheme emanated from the other. The +“Miraculous Conception” miracles and other incidents are found in +full in Hardy’s _Manual of Buddhism_. We can readily realize why the +Roman Catholic Church is anxious to keep the common people in utter +ignorance of the Hebrew _Bible_ and the Greek literature. Philology +and comparative Theology are her deadliest enemies. The deliberate +falsifications of Irenæus, Epiphanius, Eusebius and Tertullian had +become a necessity. + +The _Sibylline Books_ at that period seem to have been regarded with +extraordinary favor. One can easily perceive that they were inspired +from the same source as those of the Gentile nations. + +Here is a leaf from Gallæus: + + “New Light has arisen: + Coming from Heaven, it assumed a mortal form.... + ----Virgin, receive God in thy pure bosom-- + And the Word flew into her womb: + Becoming incarnate in Time, and animated by her body, + It was found in a mortal image, and a Boy was created + By a Virgin.... The new God-sent Star was adored by the Magi, + The infant swathed was shown in a manger.... + And Bethlehem was called “God-called country of the Word.”[968] + +This looks at first-sight like a prophecy of Jesus. But could it +not mean as well some other creative God? We have like utterances +concerning Bacchus and Mithras. + +“I, son of Deus, am come to the land of the Thebans--Bacchus, whom +formerly Semelé (the virgin), the daughter of Kadmus (the man from +the East) brings forth--being delivered by the lightning-bearing +flame; and having taken a mortal form instead of God’s, I have +arrived.”[969] + +The _Dionysiacs_, written in the fifth century, serve to render this +matter very clear, and even to show its close connection with the +Christian legend of the birth of Jesus: + + “Korè-Persephoneia[970] ... you were wived as the Dragon’s spouse, + When Zeus, very coiled, his form and countenance changed, + A Dragon-Bridegroom, coiled in love-inspiring fold.... + Glided to dark Korè’s maiden couch.... + Thus, by the alliance with the Dragon of Æther, + The womb of Persephonè became alive with fruit, + Bearing Zagreus,[971] the Horned Child.”[972] + +Here we have the secret of the Ophite worship, and the origin of +the Christian later-_revised_ fable of the immaculate conception. +The Gnostics were the earliest Christians with anything like a +regular theological system, and it is only too evident that it was +Jesus who was made to fit their theology as Christos, and not their +theology that was developed out of his sayings and doings. Their +ancestors had maintained, before the Christian era, that the Great +Serpent--Jupiter, the Dragon of Life, the Father and “Good Divinity,” +had glided into the couch of Semelé, and now, the post-Christian +Gnostics, with a very trifling change, applied the same fable to +the man Jesus, and asserted that the same “Good Divinity,” Saturn +(Ilda-Baoth), had, in the shape of the Dragon of Life, glided over +the cradle of the infant Mary.[973] In their eyes the Serpent was the +Logos--Christos, the incarnation of Divine Wisdom, through his Father +Ennoïa and Mother Sophia. + +“Now my mother, the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost) took me,” Jesus is made +to say in the _Gospel of the Hebrews_,[974] thus entering upon his +part of Christos--the Son of Sophia, the Holy Spirit.[975] + +“The _Holy Ghost shall come upon thee_, and the POWER of the Highest +shall overshadow thee; therefore, that holy thing which shall be born +of thee shall be called Son of God,” says the angel (_Luke_ i. 35). + +“God ... hath at the last of these days spoken to us by a Son, whom +he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the Æons” +(Paul: _Heb._ i.).[976] + +All such expressions are so many Christian quotations from the +_Nonnus_ verse “... through the Ætherial Draconteum,” for Ether +is the Holy Ghost or third person of the Trinity--the Hawk-headed +Serpent, the Egyptian Kneph, emblem of the Divine Mind,[977] and +Plato’s universal soul. + +“I, Wisdom, came out of the mouth of the Most High, and _covered the +earth as a cloud_.”[978] + +Pimander, the Logos, issues from the Infinite Darkness, and covers +the earth with clouds which, serpentine-like, spread all over the +earth (See Champollion’s _Egypte_). The Logos is the _oldest_ image +of God, and he is the _active_ Logos, says Philo.[979] The Father is +the _Latent Thought_. + +This idea being universal, we find an identical phraseology +to express it, among Pagans, Jews, and early Christians. The +Chaldeo-Persian _Logos_ is the Only-Begotten of the Father in the +Babylonian cosmogony of Eudemus. “Hymn now, ELI, child of Deus,” +begins a Homeric hymn to the sun.[980] Sol-Mithra is an “image of the +Father,” as the kabalistic Seir-Anpin. + +That of all the various nations of antiquity, there never was one +which believed in a personal devil more than liberal Christians in +the nineteenth century, seems hardly credible, and yet such is the +sorrowful fact. Neither the Egyptians, whom Porphyry terms “the +most learned nation of the world,”[981] nor Greece, its faithful +copyist, were ever guilty of such a crowning absurdity. We may add +at once that none of them, not even the ancient Jews, believed in +hell or an eternal damnation any more than in the Devil, although our +Christian churches are so liberal in dealing it out to the heathen. +Wherever the word “hell” occurs in the translations of the Hebrew +sacred texts, it is unfortunate. The Hebrews were ignorant of such +an idea; but yet the gospels contain frequent examples of the same +misunderstanding. So, when Jesus is made to say (_Matthew_ xvi. 18) +“... and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” in the +original text it stands “the gates of _death_.” Never is the word +“hell”--as applied to the state of _damnation_, either temporary or +eternal--used in any passage of the _Old Testament_, all hellists to +the contrary, notwithstanding. “Tophet,” or “the Valley of Hinnom” +(_Isaiah_ lxvi. 24) bears no such interpretation. The Greek term +“Gehenna” has also quite a different meaning, as it has been proved +conclusively by more than one competent writer, that “Gehenna” is +identical with the Homeric Tartarus. + +In fact, we have Peter himself as authority for it. In his second +_Epistle_ (ii. 2) the Apostle, in the original text, is made to say +of the sinning angels that God “cast them down into _Tartarus_.” This +expression too inconveniently recalling the war of Jupiter and the +Titans, was altered, and now it reads, in King James’s version: “cast +them down to _hell_.” + +In the _Old Testament_ the expressions “gates of death,” and the +“chambers of death,” simply allude to the “gates of the grave,” which +are specifically mentioned in the _Psalms_ and _Proverbs_. Hell and +its sovereign are both inventions of Christianity, coëval with its +accession to power and resort to tyranny. They were hallucinations +born of the nightmares of the SS. Anthonys in the desert. Before our +era the ancient sages knew the “Father of Evil,” and treated him no +better than an ass, the chosen symbol of Typhon, “the Devil.”[982] +Sad degeneration of human brains! + +As Typhon was the dark shadow of his brother Osiris, so Python is +the evil side of Apollo, the bright god of visions, the seer and +the soothsayer. He is killed by Python, but kills him in his turn, +thus redeeming humanity from sin. It was in memory of this deed +that the priestesses of the sun-god enveloped themselves in the +snake-skin, typical of the fabulous monster. Under its exhilarating +influence--the serpent’s skin being considered magnetic--the +priestesses fell into magnetic trances, and “receiving their voice +from Apollo,” they became prophetic and delivered oracles. + +Again Apollo and Python are one and morally androgynous. The sun-god +ideas are all dual, without exception. The beneficent warmth of the +sun calls the germ into existence, but excessive heat kills the +plant. While playing on his seven-stringed planetary lyre, Apollo +produces harmony; but, as well as other sun-gods, under his dark +aspect he becomes the destroyer, Python. + +St. John is known to have travelled in Asia, a country governed by +Magi and imbued with Zoroastrian ideas, and in those days full of +Buddhist missionaries. Had he never visited those places and come +in contact with Buddhists, it is doubtful whether the _Revelation_ +would have been written. Besides his ideas of the dragon, he gives +prophetic narratives entirely unknown to the other apostles, and +which, relating to the second advent, make of Christ a faithful copy +of Vishnu. + +Thus Ophios and Ophiomorphos, Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon, +Christos and the Serpent, are all convertible terms. They are all +Logoi, and one is unintelligible without the other, as day could not +be known had we no night. All are regenerators and saviours, one in +a spiritual, the other in a physical sense. One insures immortality +for the Divine Spirit; the other gives it through regeneration of +the seed. The Saviour of mankind has to die, because he unveils +to humanity the great secret of the immortal ego; the serpent of +_Genesis_ is cursed because he said to _matter_, “Ye shall not die.” +In the world of Paganism the counterpart of the “serpent” is the +second Hermes, the reïncarnation of Hermes Trismegistus. + +Hermes is the constant companion and instructor of Osiris and Isis. +He is the personified wisdom; so is Cain, the son of the “Lord.” Both +build cities, civilize and instruct mankind in the arts. + +It has been repeatedly stated by the Christian missionaries in +Ceylon and India that the people are steeped in demonolatry; that +they are devil-worshippers, in the full sense of the word. Without +any exaggeration we say that they are no more so than the masses of +uneducated Christians. But even were they worshippers of (which is +more than believers in) the Devil, yet there is a great difference +between the teachings of their clergy on the subject of a personal +devil and the dogmas of Catholic preachers and many Protestant +ministers also. The Christian priests are bound to teach and impress +upon the minds of their flock the existence of the Devil, and the +opening pages of the present chapter show the reason why. But not +only will the Cingalese Oepasampala, who belong to the highest +priesthood, not confess to belief in a personal demon but even the +Samenaira, the candidates and novices, would laugh at the idea. +Everything in the external worship of the Buddhists is allegorical +and is never otherwise accepted or taught by the educated _pungis_ +(pundits). The accusation that they allow, and tacitly agree to leave +the poor people steeped in the most degrading superstitions, is not +without foundation; but that they enforce such superstitions, we +most vehemently deny. And in this they appear to advantage beside +our Christian clergy, who (at least those who have not allowed their +fanaticism to interfere with their brains), without believing a word +of it, yet preach the existence of the Devil, as the personal enemy +of a personal God, and the evil genius of mankind. + +St. George’s Dragon, which figures so promiscuously in the grandest +cathedrals of the Christians, is not a whit handsomer than the King +of Snakes, the Buddhist Nammadānam-nāraya, the great Dragon. If the +planetary Demon Rawho, is believed, in the popular superstition of +the Cingalese, to endeavor to destroy the moon by swallowing it; and +if in China and Tartary the rabble is allowed, without rebuke, to +beat gongs and make fearful noises to drive the monster away from its +prey during the eclipses, why should the Catholic clergy find fault, +or call this superstition? Do not the country clergy in Southern +France do the same, occasionally, at the appearance of comets, +eclipses, and other celestial phenomena? In 1456, when Halley’s comet +made its appearance, “so tremendous was its apparition,” writes +Draper, “that it was necessary for the Pope himself to interfere. +He exorcised and expelled it from the skies. It slunk away into the +abysses of space, terror-stricken by the maledictions of Calixtus +III., and did not venture back for seventy-five years!”[983] + +We never heard of any Christian clergyman or Pope trying to disabuse +ignorant minds of the belief that the Devil had anything to do with +eclipses and comets; but we do find a Buddhist chief priest saying to +an official who twitted him with this superstition: “Our Cingalese +religious books teach that the eclipses of the sun and moon denote an +attack of Rahu[984] (one of the nine planets) _not by a devil_.”[985] + +The origin of the “Dragon” myth so prominent in the _Apocalypse_ and +_Golden Legend_, and of the fable about Simeon Stylites converting +the Dragon, is undeniably Buddhistic and even pre-Buddhistic. It was +Gautama’s pure doctrines which reclaimed to Buddhism the Cashmerians +whose primitive worship was the Ophite or Serpent worship. +Frankincense and flowers replaced the human sacrifices and belief +in personal demons. It became the turn of Christianity to inherit +the degrading superstition about devils invested with pestilential +and murderous powers. The _Mahâvansa_, oldest of the Ceylonese +books, relates the story of King Covercapal (cobra-de-capello), the +snake-god, who was converted to Buddhism by a holy Rahat;[986] and +it is earlier, by all odds, than the _Golden Legend_ which tells the +same of Simeon the Stylite and his Dragon. + +The Logos triumphs once more over the great Dragon; Michael, the +luminous archangel, chief of the Æons, conquers Satan.[987] + +It is a fact worthy of remark, that so long as the initiate kept +silent “on what he knew,” he was perfectly safe. So was it in days +of old, and so it is now. As soon as the Christian God, emanating +forth from _Silence_, manifested himself as the _Word_ or Logos, the +latter became the cause of his death. The serpent is the symbol of +wisdom and eloquence, but it is likewise the symbol of destruction. +“To dare, to know, to will, _and be silent_,” are the cardinal axioms +of the kabalist. Like Apollo and other gods, Jesus is killed by his +_Logos_;[988] he rises again, kills him in his turn, and becomes +his master. Can it be that this old symbol has, like the rest of +ancient philosophical conceptions, more than one allegorical and +never-suspected meaning? The coincidences are too strange to be +results of mere chance. + +And now that we have shown this identity between Michael and Satan, +and the Saviours and Dragons of other people, what can be more +clear than that all these philosophical fables originated in India, +that universal hot-bed of metaphysical mysticism? “The world,” says +Ramatsariar, in his comments upon the _Vedas_, “commenced with a +contest between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, and so +must end. After the destruction of matter evil can no longer exist, +it must return to naught.”[989] + +In the _Apologia_, Tertullian falsifies most palpably every doctrine +and belief of the Pagans as to the oracles and gods. He calls them, +indifferently, demons and devils, accusing the latter of taking +possession of even the birds of the air! What Christian would now +dare doubt such an authority? Did not the Psalmist exclaim: “All +the gods of the nations are _idols_;” and the Angel of the School, +Thomas Aquinas, explains, on his own _kabalistic_ authority, the +word _idols_ by _devils_? “They come to men,” he says, “and offer +themselves to their adoration by operating certain things which seem +miraculous.”[990] + +The Fathers were prudent as they were wise in their inventions. To +be impartial, after having created a Devil, they set to creating +apocryphal saints. We have named several in preceding chapters; +but we must not forget Baronius, who having read in a work of +Chrysostom about the holy _Xenoris_, the word meaning a _pair_, a +couple, mistook it for the name of a saint, and proceeded forthwith +to create of it a _martyr_ of Antioch, and went on to give a most +detailed and authentic biography of the “blessed martyr.” Other +theologians made of Apollyon--or rather _Apolouôn_--the anti-Christ. +Apolouôn is Plato’s “washer,” the god _who purifies_, who washes off, +and _releases_ us from sin, but he was thus transformed into him +“whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue +hath his name Apollyon”--Devil! + +Max Müller says that the serpent in Paradise is a conception which +might have sprung up among the Jews, and “seems hardly to invite +comparison with the much grander conceptions of the terrible power of +Vritra and Ahriman in the _Veda_ and _Avesta_.” With the kabalists +the Devil was always a myth--God or good reversed. That modern Magus, +Eliphas Levi, calls the Devil _l’ivresse astrale_. It is a blind +force like electricity, he says; and, speaking allegorically, as he +always did, Jesus remarked that he “beheld Satan like lightning fall +from Heaven.” + +The clergy insist that God has sent the Devil to tempt mankind; +which would be rather a singular way of showing his boundless love +to humanity! If the Supreme One is really guilty of such unfatherly +treachery, he is worthy, certainly, of the adoration only of a Church +capable of singing the _Te Deum_ over a massacre of St. Bartholomew, +and of blessing Mussulman swords drawn to slaughter Greek Christians! + +This is at once sound logic and good sound law, for is it not a maxim +of jurisprudence: “_Qui facit per alium, facit per se?_” + +The great dissimilarity which exists between the various conceptions +of the Devil is really often ludicrous. While bigots will invariably +endow him with horns, tail, and every conceivable repulsive feature, +even including an offensive _human_ smell,[991] Milton, Byron, +Goethe, Lermontoff,[992] and a host of French novelists have sung +his praise in flowing verse and thrilling prose. Milton’s Satan, +and even Goethe’s Mephistopheles, are certainly far more commanding +figures than some of the angels, as represented in the prose of +ecstatic bigots. We have but to compare two descriptions. Let us +first award the floor to the incomparably sensational des Mousseaux. +He gives us a thrilling account of an incubus, in the words of the +penitent herself: “Once,” she tells us, “during the space of a +whole half-hour, she saw _distinctly_ near her an individual with a +black, dreadful, horrid body, and whose hands, of an enormous size, +exhibited _clawed_ fingers strangely hooked. The senses of sight, +feeling, and _smell_ were confirmed by that of hearing!!”[993] + +And yet, for the space of several years, the damsel suffered herself +to be led astray by such a hero! How far above this odoriferous +gallant is the majestic figure of the Miltonic Satan! + +Let the reader then fancy, if he can, this superb chimera, this ideal +of the rebellious angel become incarnate Pride, crawling into the +skin of the most disgusting of all animals! Notwithstanding that +the Christian catechism teaches us that Satan in _propria persona_ +tempted our first mother, Eve, in a real paradise, and that in the +shape of a serpent, which of all animals was the most insinuating +and fascinating! God orders him, as a punishment, to crawl eternally +on his belly, and bite the dust. “A sentence,” remarks Levi, “which +resembles in nothing the traditional flames of hell.” The more so, +that the real zoölogical serpent, which was created before Adam and +Eve, crawled on his belly, and bit the dust likewise, before there +was any original sin. + +Apart from this, was not Ophion the Daimon, or Devil, like God +called _Dominus_?[994] The word _God_ (deity) is derived from the +Sanscrit word _Deva_, and Devil from the Persian _daëva_, which words +are substantially alike. Hercules, son of Jove and Alcmena, one of +the highest sun-gods and also Logos manifested, is nevertheless +represented under a double nature, as all others.[995] + +The Agathodæmon, the beneficent dæmon,[996] the same which we find +later among the Ophites under the appellation of the Logos, or divine +wisdom, was represented by a serpent standing erect on a _pole_, in +the Bacchanalian Mysteries. The hawk-headed serpent is among the +oldest of the Egyptian emblems, and represents the divine mind, says +Deane.[997] + +Azazel is Moloch and Samael, says Movers,[998] and we find Aaron, +the brother of the great law-giver Moses, making equal sacrifices to +Jehovah and Azazel. + +“And Aaron shall cast lots _upon the two goats_; one lot for the Lord +(_Ihoh_ in the original) and one lot for the scape-goat” (_Azazel_). + +In the _Old Testament_ Jehovah exhibits all the attributes of old +Saturn,[999] notwithstanding his metamorphoses from Adoni into Eloi, +and God of Gods, Lord of Lords.[1000] + +Jesus is tempted on the mountain by the Devil, who promises to +him kingdoms and glory if he will only fall down and worship him +(_Matthew_ iv. 8, 9). Buddha is tempted by the Demon Wasawarthi Mara, +who says to him as he is leaving his father’s palace: “Be entreated +to stay that you may possess the honors that are within your +reach; go not, go not!” And upon the refusal of Gautama to accept +his offers, gnashes his teeth with rage, and threatens him with +vengeance. Like Christ, Buddha triumphs over the Devil.[1001] + +In the Bacchic Mysteries a _consecrated cup_ was handed around after +supper, called the cup of the Agathodæmon.[1002] The Ophite rite of +the same description is evidently borrowed from these Mysteries. The +communion consisting of bread and wine was used in the worship of +nearly every important deity.[1003] + +In connection with the semi-Mithraic sacrament adopted by the +Marcosians, another Gnostic sect, utterly kabalistic and _theurgic_, +there is a strange story given by Epiphanius as an illustration of +the cleverness of the Devil. In the celebration of their Eucharist, +three large vases of the finest and clearest crystal were brought +among the congregation and filled with white wine. While the +ceremony was going on, in full view of everybody, this wine was +instantaneously changed into a blood-red, a purple, and then into an +azure-blue color. “Then the magus,” says Epiphanius, “hands one of +these vases to a woman in the congregation, and asks her to bless +it. When it is done, the magus pours out of it into another vase +of much greater capacity with the prayer: “May the grace of God, +which is above all, inconceivable, inexplicable, fill thy inner +man, and augment the knowledge of Him within thee, sowing the grain +of mustard-seed in good ground.[1004] Whereupon the liquor in the +larger vase swells and swells until it runs over the brim.”[1005] + +In connection with several of the Pagan deities which are made after +death, and before their resurrection to descend into Hell, it will +be found useful to compare the pre-Christian with the post-Christian +narratives. Orpheus made the journey,[1006] and Christ was the last +of these subterranean travellers. In the _Credo_ of the Apostles, +which is divided in twelve sentences or _articles_, each particular +article having been inserted by each particular apostle, according +to St. Austin[1007] the sentence “He descended into hell, the third +day he rose again from the dead,” is assigned to Thomas; perhaps, +as an atonement for his unbelief. Be it as it may, the sentence is +declared a forgery, and there is no evidence “that this creed was +either framed by the apostles, or indeed, that it existed as a creed +in their time.”[1008] + +It is the most important addition in the Apostle’s Creed, and dates +since the year of Christ 600.[1009] It was not known in the days of +Eusebius. Bishop Parsons says that it was not in the ancient creeds +or rules of faith.[1010] Irenæus, Origen, and Tertullian exhibit +no knowledge of this sentence.[1011] It is not mentioned in any of +the Councils before the seventh century. Theodoret, Epiphanius, and +Socrates are silent about it. It differs from the _creed_ in St. +Augustine.[1012] Ruffinus affirms that in his time it was neither in +the Roman nor in the Oriental creeds (_Exposit. in Symbol. Apost._ +§ 10). But the problem is solved when we learn that ages ago Hermes +spoke thus to Prometheus, chained on the arid rocks of the Caucasian +mount: + +“To such labors look thou for no termination, UNTIL SOME GOD SHALL +APPEAR AS A SUBSTITUTE IN THY PANGS, AND SHALL BE WILLING TO GO BOTH +TO GLOOMY HADES AND TO THE MURKY DEPTHS AROUND TARTARUS!” (ÆSCHYLUS: +_Prometheus_, 1027, ff.). + +This god was Herakles, the “Only-Begotten One,” and the Saviour. +And it is he who was chosen as a model by the ingenious Fathers. +Hercules--called Alexicacos--for he brought round the wicked and +converted them to virtue; _Soter_, or Saviour, also called Neulos +Eumelos--the _Good Shepherd_; Astrochiton, the star-clothed, and +the Lord of Fire. “He sought not to subject nations by force but +by _divine wisdom_ and persuasion,” says Lucian. “Herakles spread +cultivation and a mild religion, and destroyed the _doctrine of +eternal punishment_ by dragging Kerberus (the Pagan Devil) from the +nether world.” And, as we see, it was Herakles again who liberated +Prometheus (the Adam of the pagans), by putting an end to the +torture inflicted on him for his transgressions, by descending to +the Hades, and going round the Tartarus. Like Christ he appeared +as a _substitute for the pangs of humanity_, by offering himself +in a self-sacrifice on a funereal-burning pile. “His voluntary +immolation,” says Bart, “betokened the ethereal new birth of men.... +Through the release of Prometheus, and the erection of altars, +we behold in him the mediator between the old and new faiths.... +He abolished human sacrifice wherever he found it practiced. He +descended into the sombre realm of Pluto, as a shade ... he _ascended +as a spirit to his father Zeus in Olympus_.” + +So much was antiquity impressed by the Heraklean legend, that even +the _monotheistic_ (?) Jews of those days, not to be outdone by their +contemporaries, put him to use in their manufacture of original +fables. Herakles is accused in his mythobiography of an attempted +theft of the Delphian oracle. In _Sepher Toldos Jeschu_, the Rabbins +accuse Jesus of stealing from their Sanctuary the Incommunicable Name! + +Therefore it is but natural to find his numerous adventures, worldly +and religious, mirrored so faithfully in the _Descent into Hell_. For +extraordinary daring of mendacity, and unblushing plagiarism, the +_Gospel of Nicodemus_, only _now_ proclaimed apocryphal, surpasses +anything we have read. Let the reader judge. + +At the beginning of chapter xvi., Satan and the “Prince of Hell” are +described as peacefully conversing together. All of a sudden, both +are startled by “a voice as of thunder” and the rushing of winds, +which bids them to lift up their gates for “_the King of Glory_ +shall come in.” Whereupon the Prince of Hell hearing this “begins +quarrelling with Satan for minding his duty so poorly, as not to have +taken the necessary precautions against such a visit.” The quarrel +ends with the prince casting Satan “forth from his hell,” ordering, +at the same time, his impious officers “to shut the brass gates of +cruelty, make them fast with iron bars, and fight courageously lest +we be taken captives.” + +But “when all the company of the saints ... (in Hell?) heard this, +they spoke with a loud voice of anger to the Prince of Darkness, +‘Open thy gates, that the King of Glory may come in,’” thereby +proving that the prince needed spokesmen. + +“And the _divine_ (?) prophet David cried out, saying: ‘Did not I, +when on earth, truly prophesy?’” After this, another prophet, namely +holy Isaiah spake in like manner, “Did not I rightly prophesy?” etc. +Then the company of the saints and prophets, after boasting for +the length of a chapter, and comparing notes of their prophecies, +begin a riot, which makes the Prince of Hell remark that, “the dead +never durst before behave themselves so insolently towards us” (the +devils, xviii. 6); feigning the while to be ignorant _who_ it was +claiming admission. He then innocently asks again: “But who is the +King of Glory?” Then David tells him that he knows the voice well, +and understands its words, “because,” he adds, “I spake them by his +Spirit.” Perceiving finally that the Prince of Hell would not open +the “brass doors of iniquity,” notwithstanding the king-psalmist’s +voucher for the visitor, he, David, concludes to treat the enemy +“as a Philistine, and begins shouting: ‘And now, thou _filthy_ and +_stinking_ prince of hell, open thy gates.... I tell thee that the +King of Glory comes ... let him enter in.’” + +While he was yet quarrelling the “mighty Lord appeared in the form of +a _man_” (?) upon which “impious _Death_ and her cruel officers are +seized with fear.” Then they tremblingly begin to address Christ with +various flatteries and compliments in the shape of questions, each of +which _is an article of creed_. For instance: “And who art thou, so +powerful and so great who dost release the captives that were _held +in chains by original sin_?” asks one devil. “Perhaps, thou art that +Jesus,” submissively says another, “of whom Satan just now spoke, +that by the _death of the Cross thou wert about to receive the power +over death_?” etc. Instead of answering, the King of Glory “tramples +upon Death, seizes the Prince of Hell, and deprives him of his power.” + +Then begins a turmoil in Hell which has been graphically described +by Homer, Hesiod, and their interpreter Preller, in his account of +the Astronomical Hercules _Invictus_, and his festivals at Tyre, +Tarsus, and Sardis. Having been initiated in the Attic Eleusinia, the +Pagan god descends into Hades and “when he entered the nether world +he spread such terror among the dead that all of them fled!”[1013] +The same words are repeated in _Nicodemus_. Follows a scene of +confusion, horror, and lamenting. Perceiving that the battle is lost, +the Prince of Hell turns tail and prudently chooses to side with +the strongest. He against whom, according to Jude and Peter, even +the Archangel Michael “durst not bring a railing accusation before +the Lord,” is now shamefully treated by his ex-ally and friend, +the “Prince of Hell.” Poor Satan is abused and reviled for all his +crimes both by devils and saints; while the _Prince_ is openly +rewarded for his treachery. Addressing him, the King of Glory says +thus: “Beelzebub, the Prince of Hell, Satan the Prince shall now +be subject to thy dominion _forever, in the room of Adam_ and his +righteous sons, who are mine ... Come to me, all ye my saints, who +were _created in my image_, who _were condemned by the tree of the +forbidden fruit_, and _by the Devil and death_. Live now _by the wood +of my cross_; the Devil, the prince of this world is overcome (?) and +_Death is conquered_.” Then the Lord takes hold of Adam by his right +hand, of David by the left, and “_ascends_ from Hell, followed by all +the saints,” Enoch and Elias, and by the “_holy_ thief.”[1014] + +The pious author, perhaps through an oversight, omits to complete the +cavalcade, by bringing up the rear with the penitent dragon of Simon +Stylites and the converted wolf of St. Francis, wagging their tails +and shedding tears of joy! + +In the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes it is _Tobo_ who is “the _liberator +of the soul of Adam_,” to bear it from Orcus (Hades) to the place of +LIFE. Tobo is Tob-Adonijah, one of the twelve disciples (Levites) +sent by Jehosaphat to preach to the cities of Judah the _Book of the +Law_ (_2 Chron._ xvii.). In the kabalistic books these were “wise +men,” Magi. They drew down the rays of the sun to enlighten the +sheol (Hades) Orcus, and thus show the way out of the _Tenebræ_, +the darkness of ignorance, to the soul of Adam, which represents +collectively all the “souls of mankind.” Adam (Athamas) is Tamuz +or Adonis, and Adonis is the sun Helios. In the _Book of the Dead_ +(vi. 231) Osiris is made to say: “I shine like the sun in the +star-house at the feast of the sun.” Christ is called the “Sun of +Righteousness,” “Helios of Justice” (Euseb.: _Demons. Ev._, v. 29), +simply a revamping of the old heathen allegories; nevertheless, to +have made it serve for such a use is no less blasphemous on the +part of men who pretended to be describing a true episode of the +earth-pilgrimage of their God! + + “Herakles, who _has gone out from the chambers of earth_, + Leaving the nether house of Plouton!”[1015] + + “At THEE the Stygian lakes trembled; Thee the janitor of Orcus + Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened.... + Hail _true_ SON _of_ JOVE, GLORY added to the gods!”[1016] + +More than four centuries before the birth of Jesus, Aristophanes +had written his immortal parody on the _Descent into Hell_, by +Herakles.[1017] The chorus of the “blessed ones,” the initiated, the +Elysian Fields, the arrival of Bacchus (who is Iacchos--Iaho--and +_Sabaoth_) with Herakles, their reception with lighted torches, +emblems of _new life_ and RESURRECTION from darkness, death unto +light, eternal LIFE; nothing that is found in the _Gospel of +Nicodemus_ is wanting in this poem:[1018] + + “Wake, burning torches ... for thou comest + Shaking them in thy hand, Iacche, + Phosphoric star of the nightly rite!”[1019] + +But the Christians accept these _post-mortem_ adventures of their +god, concocted from those of his Pagan predecessors, and derided +by Aristophanes four centuries before our era, _literally_! The +absurdities of _Nicodemus_ were read in the churches, as well as +those of the _Shepherd of Hermas_. Irenæus quotes the latter under +the name of _Scripture_, a divinely-inspired “revelation;” Jerome and +Eusebius both insist upon its being publicly read in the churches; +and Athanasius observes that the Fathers “appointed it to be read +in _confirmation of faith and piety_.” But then comes the reverse +of this bright medal, to show once more how stable and trustworthy +were the opinions of the strongest pillars of an _infallible_ Church. +Jerome, who applauds the book in his catalogue of ecclesiastical +writers, in his later comments terms it “apocryphal and foolish!” +Tertullian, who could not find praise enough for the _Shepherd of +Hermas_ when a Catholic, “began abusing it when a Montanist.”[1020] + +Chapter xiii. begins with the narrative given by the two resuscitated +ghosts of Charinus and Lenthius, the sons of that Simeon who, +in the _Gospel according to Luke_ (ii. 25-32), takes the infant +Jesus in his arms and blesses God, saying: “Lord, now lettest +thou thy servant depart in peace ... for mine eyes have seen thy +salvation.”[1021] These two ghosts have arisen from their cold +tombs on purpose to declare “the mysteries” which they saw after +death in hell. They are enabled to do so only at the importunate +prayer of Annas and Caïaphas, Nicodemus (the author), Joseph (of +Arimathæa), and Gamaliel, who beseech them to reveal to them the +great secrets. Annas and Caïaphas, however, who bring the _ghosts_ +to the synagogue at Jerusalem, take the precaution to make the two +resuscitated men, who had been dead and buried for years, to swear +on the _Book of the Law_ “by God Adonai, and the God of Israel,” to +tell them only the truth. Therefore, after making the _sign of the +cross_ on their tongues,[1022] they ask for some paper to write their +confessions (xii. 21-25). They state how, when “in the depth of hell, +in the blackness of darkness,” they suddenly saw “a substantial, +purple-colored light illuminating the place.” Adam, with the +patriarchs and prophets, began thereupon to rejoice, and Isaiah also +immediately boasted that he had _predicted all that_. While this was +going on, Simeon, their father, arrived, declaring that “the infant +he took in his arms in the temple was now coming to liberate them.” + +After Simeon had delivered his message to the distinguished company +in hell, “there came forth one like a little hermit (?), who proved +to be John the Baptist.” The idea is suggestive and shows that even +the “Precursor” and “the Prophet of the Most High,” had not been +exempted from drying up in hell to the most diminutive proportions, +and that to the extent of affecting his brains and memory. Forgetting +that (_Matthew_ xi.) he had manifested the most evident doubts as to +the Messiahship of Jesus, the Baptist also claims his right to be +recognized as a prophet. “And I, John,” he says, “when I saw Jesus +coming to me, being moved by the Holy Ghost, I said: ‘Behold the Lamb +of God, who takes away the sins of the world’ ... And I baptized him +... and I saw the Holy Ghost descending upon him, and saying, ‘This +is my Beloved Son,’ etc.” And to think, that his descendants and +followers, like the Mandeans of Basra, utterly reject these words! + +Then Adam, who acts as though his own veracity might be questioned +in this “impious company,” calls his son Seth, and desires him to +declare to his sons, the patriarchs and prophets, what the Archangel +Michael had told him at the gate of Paradise, when he, Adam, sent +Seth “to entreat God that he would anoint” his head when Adam was +sick (xiv. 2). And Seth tells them that when he was praying at the +gates of Paradise, Michael advised him not to entreat God for “the +oil of the tree of mercy wherewith to anoint father Adam for his +_headache_; because thou canst not by any means obtain it till the +LAST DAY and times, namely _till 5,500 years be past_.” + +This little bit of private gossip between Michael and Seth was +evidently introduced in the interests of Patristic Chronology; and +for the purpose of connecting Messiahship still closer with Jesus, +on the authority of a recognized and divinely-inspired Gospel. The +Fathers of the early centuries committed an inextricable mistake in +destroying fragile images and mortal Pagans, in preference to the +monuments of Egyptian antiquity. These have become the more precious +to archæology and modern science since it is found they prove that +King Menes and his architects flourished between four and five +thousand years before “Father Adam” and the universe, according to +the biblical chronology, were created “out of nothing.”[1023] + +“While all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and +captain of death,” says to the Prince of Hell: “Prepare to receive +Jesus of Nazareth himself, who boasted that he was the Son of God, +and yet was a man afraid of death, and said: ‘My soul is sorrowful +even to death’” (xv. 1, 2). + +There is a tradition among the Greek ecclesiastical writers that the +“Hæretics” (perhaps Celsus) had sorely twitted the Christians on this +delicate point. They held that if Jesus were not a simple mortal, +who was often forsaken by the Spirit of Christos, he could not have +complained in such expressions as are attributed to him; neither +would he have cried out with a loud voice: “My _god_, My _god_! why +hast thou forsaken me?” This objection is very cleverly answered in +the _Gospel of Nicodemus_, and it is the “Prince of Hell” who settles +the difficulty. + +He begins by arguing with Satan like a true metaphysician. “Who is +that so powerful prince,” he sneeringly inquires, “who is he so +powerful, and yet a man who is afraid of death?... I affirm to thee +that when, therefore, he said he was afraid of death, _he designed to +ensnare thee_, and unhappy it will be to thee for everlasting ages!” + +It is quite refreshing to see how closely the author of this _Gospel_ +sticks to his _New Testament_ text, and especially to the fourth +evangelist. How cleverly he prepares the way for seemingly “innocent” +questions and answers, corroborating the most dubious passages of +the four gospels, passages more questioned and cross-examined in +those days of subtile sophistry of the learned Gnostics than they +are now; a weighty reason why the Fathers should have been even more +anxious to burn the documents of their antagonists than to destroy +their heresy. The following is a good instance. The dialogue is still +proceeding between Satan and the metaphysical _half-converted_ Prince +of the under world. + +“Who, then, is that Jesus of Nazareth,” naïvely inquires the prince, +“that by his word hath taken away the dead from me, without prayers +to God?” (xv. 16). + +“Perhaps,” replies Satan, with the innocence of a Jesuit, “_it is the +same who took away from me_ LAZARUS, _after he had been four days +dead_, and did both stink and was rotten?... It is the very same +person, Jesus of Nazareth.... I adjure thee, by the powers which +belong to thee and me, that thou bring him not to me!” exclaims the +prince. “For when I heard of the power of his word, I trembled for +fear, and all my _impious_ company were disturbed. And we were not +able to detain Lazarus, but he gave himself _a shake_, and _with all +the signs of malice_, he immediately went away from us; and the very +earth, in which the dead body of Lazarus was lodged, presently turned +him alive.” “Yes,” thoughtfully adds the Prince of Hell, “I know +now _that he is Almighty God_, who is mighty in his dominion, and +mighty _in his human nature_, who is the Saviour of mankind. Bring +not therefore this person hither, for he will set at liberty all +those I held in prison under unbelief, and ... _will conduct them to +everlasting life_” (xv. 20). + +Here ends the _post-mortem_ evidence of the two ghosts. Charinus +(ghost No. 1) gives what he wrote to Annas, Caïaphas, and Gamaliel, +and Lenthius (ghost No. 2) his to Joseph and Nicodemus, having done +which, both change into “exceedingly white forms and were seen no +more.” + +To show furthermore that the “ghosts” had been all the time under +the strictest “test conditions,” as the modern spiritualists would +express it, the author of the _Gospel_ adds: “But what they had wrote +was _found perfectly to agree_, the one not containing one letter +more or less than the other.” + +This news spread in all the synagogues, the Gospel goes on to state, +that Pilate went to the temple as advised by Nicodemus, and assembled +the Jews together. At this historical interview, Caïaphas and Annas +are made to declare that their Scriptures testify “_that He (Jesus) +is the Son of God and the Lord and King of Israel_” (!) and close the +confession with the following memorable words: + +“And so it appears _that Jesus, whom we crucified, is Jesus Christ, +the Son of God, and true and Almighty God_. Amen.” (!) + +Notwithstanding such a crushing confession for themselves, and the +recognition of Jesus as the Almighty God himself, the “Lord God of +Israel,” neither the high priest, nor his father-in-law, nor any of +the elders, nor Pilate, who wrote those accounts, nor any of the Jews +of Jerusalem, who were at all prominent, became Christians. + +Comments are unnecessary. This _Gospel_ closes with the words: +“In the name of _the Holy Trinity_ [of which Nicodemus could know +nothing yet] _thus ends the Acts of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which +the emperor Theodosius the Great found at Jerusalem, in the hall of +Pontius Pilate among the public records_;” and which history purports +to have been written in Hebrew by Nicodemus, “_the things being acted +in the nineteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, emperor of the Romans, and +in the seventeenth year of the government of Herod, the son of Herod, +king of Galilee, on the eighth before the calends of April_, etc., +etc.” It is the most barefaced imposture that was perpetrated after +the era of pious forgeries opened with the first bishop of Rome, +whoever he may have been. The clumsy forger seems to have neither +known nor heard that the dogma of the Trinity was not propounded +until 325 years later than this pretended date. Neither the _Old_ +nor the _New Testament_ contains the word Trinity, nor anything that +affords the slightest pretext for this doctrine (see page 177 of this +volume, “Christ’s descent into Hell”). No explanation can palliate +the putting forth of this spurious gospel as a divine revelation, +for it was known from the first as a premeditated imposture. If the +gospel itself has been declared apocryphal, nevertheless every one +of the dogmas contained in it was and is still enforced upon the +Christian world. And even the fact that itself is now repudiated, is +no merit, _for the Church was shamed and forced into it_. + +And so we are perfectly warranted in repeating the amended _Credo_ of +Robert Taylor, which is substantially that of the Christians. + + I believe in Zeus, the Father Almighty, + And in his son, Iasios Christ our Lord, + Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, + Born of the Virgin Elektra, + Smitten with a thunderbolt, + Dead and buried, + He descended into Hell, + Rose again and ascended up on high, + And will return to judge the living and the dead. + I believe in the Holy Nous, + In the Holy circle of Great Gods, + In the Community of Divinities, + In the expiation of sins, + The immortality of the Soul + And the Life Everlasting. + +The Israelites have been proved to have worshipped Baal, the Syrian +Bacchus, offered incense to the Sabazian or Æsculapian serpent, and +performed the Dionysian Mysteries. And how could it be otherwise +if Typhon was called Typhon Set,[1024] and Seth, the son of Adam, +is identical with Satan or Sat-an; and Seth was worshipped by the +Hittites? Less than two centuries B.C., we find the Jews either +reverencing or simply worshipping the “golden head of an ass” in +their temple; according to Apion, Antiochus Epiphanes carried it off +with him. And Zacharias is struck dumb by the apparition of the deity +under the shape of an ass in the temple![1025] + +El, the Sun-God of the Syrians, the Egyptians, and the Semites, is +declared by Pleytè to be no other than Set or Seth, and El is the +primeval Saturn--Israel.[1026] Siva is an Æthiopian God, the same +as the Chaldean Baal--Bel; thus he is also Saturn. Saturn, El, Seth +and Kiyun, or the biblical Chiun of Amos, are all one and the same +deity, and may be all regarded in their worst aspect as Typhon the +Destroyer. When the religious Pantheon assumed a more definite +expression, Typhon was separated from his androgyne--the _good_ +deity, and fell into degradation as a brutal _unintellectual_ power. + +Such reactions in the religious feelings of a nation were not +unfrequent. The Jews had worshipped Baal or Moloch, the Sun-God +Hercules,[1027] in their early days--if they had any days at all +earlier than the Persians or Maccabees--and then made their prophets +denounce them. On the other hand, the characteristics of the Mosaic +Jehovah exhibit more of the moral disposition of Siva than of a +benevolent, “long-suffering” God. Besides, to be identified with Siva +is no small compliment, for the latter is God of wisdom. Wilkinson +depicts him as the most intellectual of the Hindu gods. He is +_three-eyed_, and, like Jehovah, terrible in his resistless revenge +and wrath. And, although the Destroyer, “yet he is the re-creator +of all things in perfect wisdom.”[1028] He is the type of St. +Augustine’s God who “prepares _hell_ for pryers into his mysteries,” +and insists on trying human reason as well as common sense by forcing +mankind to view with equal reverence his good and evil acts. + +Notwithstanding the numerous proofs that the Israelites worshipped +a variety of gods, and even offered human sacrifices until a far +later period than their Pagan neighbors, they have contrived to blind +posterity in regard to truth. They sacrificed human life as late as +169 B.C.,[1029] and the _Bible_ contains a number of such records. At +a time when the Pagans had long abandoned the abominable practice, +and had replaced the sacrificial man by the animal,[1030] Jephthah +is represented sacrificing his own daughter to the “Lord” for a +burnt-offering. + +The denunciations of their own prophets are the best proofs against +them. Their worship in high places is the same as that of the +“idolaters.” Their prophetesses are counterparts of the Pythiæ and +Bacchantes. Pausanias speaks of women-colleges which superintend the +worship of Bacchus, and of the sixteen matrons of Elis.[1031] The +_Bible_ says that “Deborah, a prophetess ... judged Israel at that +time;”[1032] and speaks of Huldah, another prophetess, who “dwelt +in Jerusalem, _in the college_;”[1033] and _2 Samuel_ mentions +“_wise_ women” several times,[1034] notwithstanding the injunction +of Moses not to use either divination or augury. As to the final and +conclusive identification of the “Lord God” of Israel with Moloch, +we find a very suspicious evidence of the case in the last chapter +of _Leviticus_, concerning _things devoted not to be redeemed_.... +A man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, _both of man_ +and beast.... None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be +redeemed, _but shall surely be put to death_ ... for it is _most holy +unto the Lord_.”[1035] + +The duality, if not the plurality of the gods of Israel may be +inferred from the very fact of such bitter denunciations. Their +prophets _never approved of sacrificial worship_. Samuel denied +that the Lord had any delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices (_1 +Samuel_, xv. 22). Jeremiah asserted, unequivocally, that the Lord, +Yava Sabaoth Elohe Israel, never commanded anything of the sort, but +contrariwise (vii. 21-24). + +But these prophets who opposed themselves to human sacrifices were +all _nazars_ and _initiates_. These prophets led a party in the +nation against the priests, as later the Gnostics contended against +the Christian Fathers. Hence, when the monarchy was divided, we +find the priests at Jerusalem and the prophets in the country of +Israel. Even Ahab and his sons, who introduced the Tyrian worship +of Baal-Hercules and the Syrian goddess into Israel, were aided and +encouraged by Elijah and Elisha. Few prophets appeared in Judea till +Isaiah, after the northern monarchy had been overthrown. Elisha +anointed Jehu on purpose that he should destroy the royal families of +both countries, and so unite the people into one civil polity. For +the Temple of Solomon, desecrated by the priests, no Hebrew prophet +or initiate cared a straw. Elijah never went to it, nor Elisha, +Jonah, Nahum, Amos, or any other Israelite. While the initiates were +holding to the “secret doctrine” of Moses, the people, led by their +priests, were steeped in idolatry exactly the same as that of the +Pagans. It is the popular views and interpretations of Jehovah that +the Christians have adopted. + +The question is likely to be asked: “In the view of so much evidence +to show that Christian theology is only a _pot-pourri_ of Pagan +mythologies, how can it be connected with the religion of Moses?” +The early Christians, Paul and his disciples, the Gnostics and +their successors generally, regarded Christianity and Judaism as +essentially distinct. The latter, in their view, was an antagonistic +system, and from a lower origin. “Ye received the law,” said Stephen, +“from the ministration of angels,” or æons, and not from the Most +High Himself. The Gnostics, as we have seen, taught that Jehovah, the +Deity of the Jews, was Ilda-Baoth, the son of the ancient _Bohu_, or +Chaos, the adversary of Divine Wisdom. + +The question may be more than easily answered. The _law of Moses, +and the so-called monotheism of the Jews, can hardly be said to have +been more than two or three centuries older than Christianity_. The +_Pentateuch_ itself, we are able to show, was written and revised +upon this “new departure,” at a period subsequent to the colonization +of Judea under the authority of the kings of Persia. The Christian +Fathers, in their eagerness to make their new system dovetail with +Judaism, and so avoid Paganism, unconsciously shunned Scylla only +to be caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis. Under the monotheistic +stucco of Judaism was unearthed the same familiar mythology of +Paganism. But we should not regard the Israelites with less favor for +having had a Moloch and being like the natives. Nor should we compel +the Jews to do penance for their fathers. They had their prophets and +their law, and were satisfied with them. How faithfully and nobly +they have stood by their ancestral faith under the most diabolical +persecutions, the present remains of a once-glorious people bear +witness. The Christian world has been in a state of convulsion from +the first to the present century; it has been cleft into thousands +of sects; but the Jews remain substantially united. Even their +differences of opinion do not destroy their unity. + +The Christian virtues inculcated by Jesus in the sermon on the mount +are nowhere exemplified in the Christian world. The Buddhist ascetics +and Indian fakirs seem almost the only ones that inculcate and +practice them. Meanwhile the vices which coarse-mouthed slanderers +have attributed to Paganism, are current everywhere among Christian +Fathers and Christian Churches. + +The boasted wide gap between Christianity and Judaism, that is +claimed on the authority of Paul, exists but in the imagination +of the pious. We are nought but the inheritors of the intolerant +Israelites of ancient days; not the Hebrews of the time of Herod +and the Roman dominion, who, with all their faults, kept strictly +orthodox and monotheistic, but the Jews who, under the name of +Jehovah-Nissi, worshipped Bacchus-Osiris, Dio-Nysos, the multiform +Jove of Nyssa, the Sinai of Moses. The kabalistic demons--allegories +of the profoundest meaning--were adopted as objective entities, and a +Satanic hierarchy carefully drawn by the orthodox demonologists. + +The Rosicrucian motto, “_Igne natura renovatur integra_,” which +the alchemists interpret as nature renovated by fire, or matter by +spirit, is made to be accepted to this day as _Iesus Nazarenus rex +Iudæorum_. The mocking satire of Pilate is accepted literally, and +the Jews made to unwittingly confess thereby the royalty of Christ; +whereas, if the inscription is not a forgery of the Constantinian +period, it yet is the action of Pilate, against which the Jews were +first to violently protest. I. H. S. is interpreted _Iesus Hominum +Salvator_, and _In hoc signo_, whereas ΙΗΣ is one of the most ancient +names of Bacchus. And more than ever do we begin to find out, by the +bright light of comparative theology, that the great object of Jesus, +the initiate of the inner sanctuary, was to open the eyes of the +fanatical multitude to the difference between the highest +Divinity--the mysterious and never-mentioned ΙΑΟ of the ancient +Chaldean and later Neo-platonic initiates--and the Hebrew Yahuh, or +Yaho (Jehovah). The modern Rosicrucians, so violently denounced by the +Catholics, now find brought against them, as the most important +charge, the fact that they accuse Christ of having destroyed the +worship of Jehovah. Would to Heaven he could have been allowed the +time to do so, for the world would not have found itself still +bewildered, after nineteen centuries of mutual massacres, among 300 +quarrelling sects, and with a personal Devil reigning over a +terrorized Christendom! + +True to the exclamation of David, paraphrased in _King James’ +Version_ as “all the gods of the nations are idols,” _i.e._, devils, +Bacchus or the “first-born” or the Orphic theogony, the Monogenes, or +“only-begotten” of Father Zeus and Koré, was transformed, with the +rest of the ancient myths, into a devil. By such a degradation, the +Fathers, whose pious zeal could only be surpassed by their ignorance, +have unwittingly furnished evidence against themselves. They have, +with their own hands, paved the way for many a future solution, and +greatly helped modern students of the science of religions. + +It was in the Bacchus-myth that lay concealed for long and dreary +centuries both the future vindication of the reviled “gods of the +nations,” and the last clew to the enigma of Jehovah. The strange +duality of Divine and mortal characteristics, so conspicuous in the +Sinaitic Deity, begins to yield its mystery before the untiring +inquiry of the age. One of the latest contributions we find in a +short but highly-important paper in the _Evolution_, a periodical of +New York, the closing paragraph of which throws a flood of light on +Bacchus, the Jove of Nysa, who was worshipped by the Israelites as +Jehovah of Sinai. + +“Such was the Jove of Nysa to his worshippers,” concludes the author. +“He represented to them alike the world of nature and the world +of thought. He was the ‘Sun of righteousness, with healing on his +wings,’ and he not only brought joy to mortals, but opened to them +hope beyond mortality of immortal life. Born of a human mother, +he raised her from the world of death to the supernal air, to be +revered and worshipped. At once lord of all worlds, he was in them +all alike the Saviour. + +“Such was Bacchus, the prophet-god. A change of cultus, decreed by +the Murderer-Imperial, the Emperor Theodosius, at the instance of +Ghostly-Father Ambrosius, of Milan, has changed his title to Father +of Lies. His worship, before universal, was denominated Pagan or +_local_, and his rites stigmatized as witchcraft. His orgies received +the name of _Witches’ Sabbath_, and his favorite symbolical form +with the bovine foot became the modern representative of the Devil +with the cloven hoof. The master of the house having been called +Beelzebub, they of his household were alike denounced as having +commerce with the powers of darkness. Crusades were undertaken; whole +peoples massacred. Knowledge and the higher learning were denounced +as magic and sorcery. Ignorance became the mother of devotion--such +as was then cherished. Galileo languished long years in prison for +teaching that the sun was in the centre of the solar universe. +Bruno was burned alive at Rome in 1600 for reviving the ancient +philosophy; yet, queerly enough, the Liberalia have become a festival +of the Church,[1036] Bacchus is a saint in the calendar four times +repeated, and at many a shrine he may be seen reposing in the arms +of his deified mother. The names are changed; the ideas remain as +before.”[1037] + +And now that we have shown that we must indeed “bid an eternal +farewell to all the rebellious angels,” we naturally pass to an +examination of the God Jesus, who was manufactured out of the man +Jesus to redeem us from these very mythical devils, as Father +Ventura shows us. This labor will of course necessitate once more a +comparative inquiry into the history of Gautama-Buddha, his doctrines +and his “miracles,” and those of Jesus and the predecessor of +both--Christna. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + “Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one’s + mind, that is the teaching of the Awakened.... + + “Better than Sovereignty over the earth, better than going + to heaven, better than lordship over all the worlds is + the reward of the first step in holiness.”--_Dhammapada_, + verses 178-183. + + + Creator, where are these tribunals, where do these courts + proceed, where do these courts assemble, where do the + tribunals meet to which the man of the embodied world gives + an account for his soul?--_Persian Vendidad_, xix. 89. + + + Hail to thee O Man, who art come from the transitory place + to the imperishable!--_Vendidad_, farg. vii., 136. + + + To the true believer, truth, wherever it appears, is + welcome, nor will any doctrine seem the less true or the + less precious, because it was seen not only by Moses or + Christ, but likewise by Buddha or Lao-tse.--MAX MÜLLER. + + +Unluckily for those who would have been glad to render justice to +the ancient and modern religious philosophies of the Orient, a fair +opportunity has hardly ever been given to them. Of late there has +been a touching accord between philologists holding high official +positions, and missionaries from heathen lands. Prudence before +truth when the latter endangers our sinecures! Besides, how easy to +compromise with conscience. A State religion is a prop of government; +all State religions are “exploded humbugs”; therefore, since one is +as good, or rather as bad, as another, _the_ State religion may as +well be supported. Such is the diplomacy of official science. + +Grote in his _History of Greece_, assimilates the Pythagoreans to +the Jesuits, and sees in their Brotherhood but an ably-disguised +object to acquire political ascendancy. On the loose testimony of +Herakleitus and some other writers, who accused Pythagoras of craft, +and described him as a man “of extensive research... but artful +for mischief and destitute of sound judgment,” some historical +biographers hastened to present him to posterity in such a character. + +How then if they must accept the Pythagoras painted by the satirical +Timon: “a juggler of solemn speech engaged in fishing for men,” can +they avoid judging of Jesus from the sketch that Celsus has embalmed +in his satire? Historical impartiality has nought to do with creeds +and personal beliefs, and exacts as much of posterity for one as +for the other. The life and doings of Jesus are far less attested +than those of Pythagoras, if, indeed, we can say that they are +attested at all by any _historical_ proof. For assuredly no one +will gainsay that as a real personage Celsus has the advantage as +regards the credibility of his testimony over Matthew, or Mark, or +Luke, or John, who never wrote a line of the _Gospels_ attributed to +them respectively. Withal Celsus is at least as good a witness as +Herakleitus. He was known as a scholar and a Neo-platonist to some +of the Fathers; whereas the very existence of the four Apostles must +be taken on blind faith. If Timon regarded the sublime Samian as “a +juggler,” so did Celsus hold Jesus, or rather those who made all the +pretenses for him. In his famous work, addressing the Nazarene, he +says: “Let us grant that the wonders were performed by you ... but +are they not common with those who have been taught by the Egyptians +to perform in the middle of the forum for a few oboli.” And we know, +on the authority of the _Gospel according to Matthew_, that the +Galilean prophet was also a man of solemn speech, and that he called +himself and offered to make his disciples “fishers of men.” + +Let it not be imagined that we bring this reproach to any who revere +Jesus as God. Whatever the faith, if the worshipper be but sincere, +it should be respected in his presence. If we do not accept Jesus as +God, we revere _him as a man_. Such a feeling honors him more than +if we were to attribute to him the powers and personality of the +Supreme, and credit him at the same time with having played a useless +comedy with mankind, as, after all, his mission proves scarcely less +than a complete failure; 2,000 years have passed, and Christians do +not reckon one-fifth part of the population of the globe, nor is +Christianity likely to progress any better in the future. No, we aim +but at strict justice, leaving all personality aside. We question +those who, adoring neither Jesus, Pythagoras, nor Apollonius, yet +recite the idle gossip of their contemporaries; those who in their +books either maintain a prudent silence, or speak of “our Saviour” +and “our Lord,” as though they believed any more in the made-up +theological Christ, than in the fabulous Fo of China. + +_There were no Atheists in those days of old; no disbelievers or +materialists, in the modern sense of the word, as there were no +bigoted detractors._ He who judges the ancient philosophies by their +external phraseology, and quotes from ancient writings sentences +_seemingly_ atheistical, is unfit to be trusted as a critic, for he +is unable to penetrate into the inner sense of their metaphysics. +The views of Pyrrho, whose rationalism has become proverbial, can be +interpreted only by the light of the oldest Hindu philosophy. From +Manu down to the latest Swâbhâvika, its leading metaphysical feature +ever was to proclaim the reality and supremacy of spirit, with a +vehemence proportionate to the denial of the objective existence of +our material world--passing phantom of temporary forms and beings. +The numerous schools begotten by Kapila, reflect his philosophy no +clearer than the doctrines left as a legacy to thinkers by Timon, +Pyrrho’s “Prophet,” as Sextus Empiricus calls him. His views on the +divine repose of the soul, his proud indifference to the opinion +of his fellow men, his contempt for sophistry, reflect in an equal +degree stray beams of the self-contemplation of the Gymnosophists +and of the Buddhist _Vaibhâshika_. Notwithstanding that he and +his followers are termed, from their state of constant suspense, +“skeptics,” “doubters,” inquirers, and ephectics, only because they +postponed their final judgment on dilemmas, with which our modern +philosophers prefer dealing, Alexander-like, by cutting the Gordian +knot, and then declaring the dilemma a superstition, such men as +Pyrrho cannot be pronounced atheists. No more can Kapila, or Giordano +Bruno, or again Spinoza, who were also treated as atheists; nor yet, +the great Hindu poet, philosopher, and dialectician, Veda-Vyasa, +whose principle that all is illusion--save the Great Unknown and His +direct essence--Pyrrho has adopted in full. + +These philosophical beliefs extended like a net-work over the +whole pre-Christian world; and, surviving persecution and +misrepresentations, form the corner-stone of every now existing +religion outside Christianity. + +Comparative theology is a two-edged weapon, and has so proved itself. +But the Christian advocates, unabashed by evidence, force comparison +in the serenest way; Christian legends and dogmas, they say, do +somewhat resemble the heathen, it is true; but see, while the one +teaches us the existence, powers, and attributes of an all-wise, +all-good Father-God, Brahmanism gives us a multitude of minor gods, +and Buddhism none whatever; one is fetishism and polytheism, the +other bald atheism. Jehovah is the one true God, and the Pope and +Martin Luther are His prophets! This is one edge of the sword, and +this the other: Despite missions, despite armies, despite enforced +commercial intercourse, the “heathen” find nothing in the teachings +of Jesus--sublime though some are--that Christna and Gautama had not +taught them before. And so, to gain over any new converts, and keep +the few already won by centuries of cunning, the Christians give +the “heathen” dogmas more absurd than their own, and cheat them by +adopting the habit of their native priests, and practicing the very +“idolatry and fetishism” which they so disparage in the “heathens.” +Comparative theology works both ways. + +In Siam and Burmah, Catholic missionaries have become perfect +Talapoins to all external appearance, _i.e._, minus their virtues; +and throughout India, especially in the south, they were denounced +by their own colleague, the Abbé Dubois.[1038] This was afterward +vehemently denied. But now we have living witnesses to the +correctness of the charge. Among others, Captain O’Grady, already +quoted, a native of Madras, writes the following on this systematic +method of deception:[1039] “The hypocritical beggars profess +total abstinence and horror of flesh to conciliate converts from +Hinduism.... I got one father, or rather, he got himself gloriously +drunk in my house, time and again, and the way he pitched into +roast beef was a caution.” Further, the author has pretty stories +to tell of “black-faced Christs,” “Virgins on wheels,” and of +Catholic processions in general. We have seen such solemn ceremonies +accompanied by the most infernal cacophony of a Cingalese orchestra, +tam-tam and gongs included, followed by a like Brahmanic procession, +which, for its picturesque coloring and _mise en scène_, looked far +more solemn and imposing than the Christian saturnalias. Speaking +of one of these, the same author remarks: “It was more devilish +than religious.... The bishops walked off Romeward,[1040] with a +mighty pile of Peter’s pence gathered in the minutest sums, with +gold ornaments, nose-rings, anklets, elbow bangles, etc., etc., in +profusion, recklessly thrown in heaps at the feet of the grotesque +copper-colored image of the Saviour, with its Dutch metal halo and +gaudily-striped cummerbund and--shade of Raphael!--blue turban.”[1041] + +As every one can see, such voluntary contributions make it quite +profitable to mimic the native Brahmans and bonzes. Between the +worshippers of Christna and Christ, or Avany and the Virgin Mary, +there is less substantial difference, in fact, than between the two +native sects, the Vishnavites and the Sivites. For the _converted_ +Hindus, Christ is a slightly modified Christna, that is all. +Missionaries carry away rich donations and Rome is satisfied. Then +comes a year of famine; but the nose-rings and gold elbow-bangles are +gone and people starve by thousands. What matters it? They die in +Christ, and Rome scatters her blessings over their corpses, of which +thousands float yearly down the sacred rivers to the ocean.[1042] So +servile are the Catholics in their imitation, and so careful not to +give offense to their parishioners, that if they happen to have a few +higher caste converts in a Church, no pariah nor any man of the lower +castes, however good a Christian he may be, can be admitted into the +same Church with them. And yet they dare call themselves the servants +of Him who sought in preference the society of the publicans and +sinners; and whose appeal--“Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, +and I will give you rest” has opened to him the hearts of millions of +the suffering and the oppressed! + +Few writers are as bold and outspoken as the late lamented Dr. Thomas +Inman, of Liverpool, England. But however small their number, these +men all agree unanimously, that the philosophy of both Buddhism +and Brahmanism must rank higher than Christian theology, and teach +neither atheism or fetishism. “To my own mind,” says Inman, “the +assertion that Sakya did not believe in God is wholly unsupported. +Nay, his whole scheme is built upon the belief that there are powers +above which are capable of punishing mankind for their sins. It is +true that these gods were not called Elohim, nor Jah, nor Jehovah, +nor Jahveh, nor Adonai, nor Ehieh, nor Baalim, nor Ashtoreth--yet, +for the son of Suddhadana, there was a Supreme Being.”[1043] + +There are four schools of Buddhist theology, in Ceylon, Thibet, and +India. One is rather pantheistical than atheistical, but the other +three are purely _theistical_. + +On the first the speculations of our philologists are based. As to +the second, third, and the fourth, their teachings vary but in the +external mode of expression. We have fully explained the spirit of it +elsewhere. + +As to practical, not theoretical views on the Nirvana, this is what +a rationalist and a skeptic says: “I have questioned at the very +doors of their temples several hundreds of Buddhists, and have not +found one but strove, fasted, and gave himself up to every kind of +austerity, to perfect himself and acquire immortality; not to attain +final annihilation. + +“There are over 300,000,000 of Buddhists who fast, pray, and toil.... +Why make of these 300,000,000 of men idiots and fools, macerating +their bodies and imposing upon themselves most fearful privations +of every nature, in order to reach a fatal annihilation which must +overtake them anyhow?”[1044] + +As well as this author we have questioned Buddhists and Brahmanists +and studied their philosophy. _Apavarg_ has wholly a different +meaning from annihilation. It is but to become more and more +like Him, of whom he is one of the refulgent sparks, that is the +aspiration of every Hindu philosopher and the hope of the most +ignorant is _never to yield up his distinct individuality_. “Else,” +as once remarked an esteemed correspondent of the author, “mundane +and separate existence would look like God’s comedy and our tragedy; +sport to Him that we work and suffer, death to us to suffer it.” + +The same with the doctrine of metempsychosis, so distorted by +European scholars. But as the work of translation and analysis +progresses, fresh religious beauties will be discovered in the old +faiths. + +Professor Whitney has in his translation of the _Vedas_ passages in +which he says, the assumed importance of the body to its old tenant +is brought out in the strongest light. These are portions of hymns +read at the funeral services, over the body of the departed one. We +quote them from Mr. Whitney’s scholarly work: + + “Start onward! bring together all thy members; + let not thy limbs be left, nor yet thy body; + Thy spirit gone before, now follow after; + Wherever it delights thee, go thou thither.” + * * * * * + Collect thy body; with its every member; + thy limbs with help of rites I fashion for thee. + * * * * * + If some one limb was left behind by Agni, + When to thy Fathers’ world he hence conveyed you, + That very one I now again supply you; + rejoice in heaven with all your limbs, ye Fathers![1045] + +The “body” here referred to is not the physical, but the _astral_ +one--a very great distinction, as may be seen. + +Again, belief in the individual existence of the immortal spirit +of man is shown in the following verses of the Hindu ceremonial of +incremation and burial. + + “They who within the sphere of earth are stationed, + or who are settled now in realms of pleasure, + The Fathers who have the earth--the atmosphere--the heaven for + their seat, + The “fore-heaven” the third heaven is styled, + and where the Fathers have their seat.”--(_Rig-Veda_, x.) + +With such majestic views as these people held of God and the +immortality of man’s spirit, it is not surprising that a comparison +between the Vedic hymns and the narrow, unspiritual Mosaic books +should result to the advantage of the former in the mind of every +unprejudiced scholar. Even the ethical code of _Manu_ is incomparably +higher than that of the _Pentateuch_ of Moses, in the literal meaning +of which all the uninitiated scholars of two worlds cannot find a +single proof that the ancient Jews believed either in a future life +or an immortal spirit in man, or that Moses himself ever taught it. +Yet, we have eminent Orientalists who begin to suspect that the “dead +letter” conceals something not apparent at first sight. So Professor +Whitney tells us that “as we look yet further into the forms of +the modern Hindu ceremonial we discover not a little of the same +discordance between creed and observance; the one is not explained by +the other,” says this great American scholar. He adds: “We are forced +to the conclusion either that India derived its system of rites from +some foreign source, and practiced them blindly, careless of their +true import, or _else that those rites are the production of another +doctrine of older date_, and have maintained themselves in popular +usage after the decay of the creed of which they were the original +expression.”[1046] + +This creed has not decayed, and its hidden philosophy, as understood +now by the initiated Hindus, is just as it was 10,000 years ago. But +can our scholars seriously hope to have it delivered unto them upon +their first demand? Or do they still expect to fathom the mysteries +of the World-Religion in its popular exoteric rites? + +No orthodox Brahmans and Buddhists would deny the Christian +incarnation; only, they understand it in their own philosophical +way, and how could they deny it? The very corner-stone of their +religious system is periodical incarnations of the Deity. Whenever +humanity is about merging into materialism and moral degradation, a +Supreme Spirit incarnates himself in his creature selected for the +purpose. The “Messenger of the Highest” links itself with the duality +of matter and soul, and the triad being thus completed by the union +of its Crown, a saviour is born, who helps restore humanity to the +path of truth and virtue. The early Christian Church, all imbued +with Asiatic philosophy, evidently shared the same belief--otherwise +_it would have neither erected into an article of faith the second +advent, nor cunningly invented the fable of Anti-Christ as a +precaution against possible future incarnations_. Neither could they +have imagined that Melchisedek was an avatar of Christ. They had only +to turn to the _Bagavedgitta_ to find Christna or Bhagaved saying to +Arjuna: “He who follows me is saved by wisdom and even by works.... +_As often as virtue declines in the world, I make myself manifest to +save it._” + +Indeed, it is more than difficult to avoid sharing this doctrine +of periodical incarnations. Has not the world witnessed, at rare +intervals, the advent of such grand characters as Christna, +Sakya-muni, and Jesus? Like the two latter personages, Christna +seems to have been a real being, deified by his school at some +time in the twilight of history, and made to fit into the frame of +the time-honored religious programme. Compare the two Redeemers, +the Hindu and the Christian, the one preceding the other by some +thousands of years; place between them Siddhârtha Buddha, reflecting +Christna and projecting into the night of the future his own luminous +shadow, out of whose collected rays were shaped the outlines of the +mythical Jesus, and from whose teachings were drawn those of the +historical Christos; and we find that under one identical garment +of poetical legend lived and breathed three real human figures. The +individual merit of each of them is rather brought out in stronger +relief than otherwise by this same mythical coloring; for no unworthy +character could have been selected for deification by the popular +instinct, so unerring and just when left untrammeled. _Vox populi, +vox Dei_ was once true, however erroneous when applied to the present +priest-ridden mob. + +Kapila, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Basilides, Marcian, Ammonius +and Plotinus, founded schools and sowed the germs of many a noble +thought, and disappearing left behind them the refulgence of +demi-gods. But the three personalities of Christna, Gautama, and +Jesus appeared like true gods, each in his epoch, and bequeathed to +humanity three religions built on the imperishable rock of ages. +That all three, especially the Christian faith, have in time become +adulterated, and the latter almost unrecognizable, is no fault +of either of the noble Reformers. It is the priestly self-styled +husbandmen of the “vine of the Lord” who must be held to account by +future generations. Purify the three systems of the dross of human +dogmas, the pure essence remaining will be found identical. Even +Paul, the great, the honest apostle, in the glow of his enthusiasm +either unwittingly perverted the doctrines of Jesus, or else his +writings are disfigured beyond recognition. The _Talmud_, the record +of a people who, notwithstanding his apostasy from Judaism, yet +feel compelled to acknowledge Paul’s greatness as a philosopher and +religionist, says of Aher (Paul),[1047] in the _Yerushalmi_, that +“he corrupted the work of that man”--meaning Jesus.[1048] + +Meanwhile, before this smelting is completed by honest science and +future generations, let us glance at the present aspect of the +legendary three religions. + + + THE LEGENDS OF THREE SAVIOURS. + + CHRISTNA. + + _Epoch_: Uncertain. European science fears to commit itself. + But the Brahmanical calculations fix it at about 6,877 + years ago. + + Christna descends of a royal family, but is brought up by + shepherds; is called the _Shepherd God_. His birth and + divine descent are kept secret from Kansa. + + An incarnation of Vishnu, the second person of the Trimurti + (Trinity), Christna was worshipped at Mathura, on the + river Jumna (See _Strabo_ and _Arrian_ and _Bampton + Lectures_, pp. 98-100. + + Christna is persecuted by Kansa, Tyrant of Madura, but + miraculously escapes. In the hope of destroying the child, + the king has thousands of male innocents slaughtered. + + Christna’s mother was Devaki, or Devanagui, an immaculate + virgin (but had given birth to eight sons before Christna). + + Christna is endowed with beauty, omniscience, and + omnipotence from birth. Produces miracles, cures the lame + and blind, and casts out demons. Washes the feet of the + Brahmans, and descending to the lowest regions (hell), + liberates the dead, and returns to _Vaicontha_--the + paradise of Vishnu. Christna was the God Vishnu himself in + human form. + + Christna creates boys out of calves, and _vice versa_ + (Maurice’s _Indian Antiquities_, vol. ii., p. 332). He + crushes the Serpent’s head. (Ibid.) + + Christna is Unitarian. He persecutes the clergy, charges + them with ambition and hypocrisy to their faces, divulges + the great secrets of the Sanctuary--the Unity of God and + immortality of our spirit. Tradition says he fell a victim + to their vengeance. His favorite disciple, Arjuna, never + deserts him to the last. There are credible traditions + that he died on the cross (a tree), nailed to it by an + arrow. The best scholars agree that the Irish Cross at + Tuam, erected long before the Christian era, is Asiatic. + (See _Round Towers_, p. 296, _et seq._, by O’Brien; also + _Religions de l’Antiquité_; Creuzer’s _Symbolik_, vol. i., + p. 208; and engraving in Dr. Lundy’s _Monumental + Christianity_, p. 160. + + Christna ascends to Swarga and becomes Nirguna. + + + GAUTAMA-BUDDHA. + + _Epoch_: According to European science and the Ceylonese + calculations, 2,540 years ago. + + Gautama is the son of a king. His first disciples are + shepherds and mendicants. + + According to some, an incarnation of Vishnu; according to + others, an incarnation of one of the Buddhas, and even of + Ad’Buddha, the Highest Wisdom. + + Buddhist legends are free from this plagiarism, but the + Catholic legend that makes of him St. Josaphat, shows his + father, king of Kapilavastu, slaying innocent young + _Christians (!!)_. (See _Golden Legend_.) + + Buddha’s mother was Maya, or Mayadeva; married to her + husband (yet an immaculate virgin). + + Buddha is endowed with the same powers and qualities, and + performs similar wonders. Passes his life with mendicants. + It is claimed for Gautama that he was distinct from all + other Avatars, having the entire spirit of Buddha in him, + while all others had but a part (ansa) of the divinity in + them. + + Gautama crushes the Serpent’s head, _i.e._, abolishes the + Naga worship as fetishism; but, like Jesus, makes the + Serpent the emblem of divine wisdom. + + Buddha abolishes idolatry; divulges the Mysteries of the + Unity of God and the Nirvana, the true meaning of which + was previously known only to the priests. Persecuted and + driven out of the country, he escapes death by gathering + about him some hundreds of thousands of believers in his + Buddhaship. Finally, dies, surrounded by a host of + disciples, with Ananda, his beloved disciple and cousin, + chief among them all. O’Brien believes that the Irish + Cross at Tuam is meant for Buddha’s, but Gautama was never + crucified. He is represented in many temples, as sitting + under a cruciform tree, which is the “Tree of Life.” In + another image he is sitting on Naga the Raja of Serpents + with a cross on his breast.[1049] + + Buddha ascends to Nirvana. + + + JESUS OF NAZARETH. + + _Epoch_: Supposed to be 1877 years ago. His birth and royal + descent are concealed from Herod the tyrant. + + Descends of the Royal family of David. Is worshipped by + shepherds at his birth, and is called the “Good Shepherd”. + (See _Gospel according to John_). + + An incarnation of the Holy Ghost, then the second person of + the Trinity, now the third. But the Trinity was not invented + until 325 years after his birth. Went to Mathura or Matarea, + Egypt, and produced his first miracles there. (See _Gospel + of Infancy_). + + Jesus is persecuted by Herod, King of Judæa, but escapes + into Egypt under conduct of an angel. To assure his + slaughter, Herod orders a massacre of innocents, and 40,000 + were slain. + + Jesus’ mother was Mariam, or Miriam; married to her husband, + yet an immaculate virgin, but had several children besides + Jesus. (See _Matthew_ xiii. 55, 56.) + + Jesus is similarly endowed. (See _Gospels and the Apocryphal + Testament_.) Passes his life with sinners and publicans. + Casts out demons likewise. The only notable difference + between the three is that Jesus is charged with casting out + devils by the power of Beelzebub, which the others were not. + Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, dies, descends to + hell, and ascends to heaven, after liberating the dead. + + Jesus is said to have crushed the Serpent’s head, agreeably + to original revelation in _Genesis_. He also transforms boys + into kids, and kids into boys. (_Gospel of Infancy_.) + + Jesus rebels against the old Jewish law; denounces the + Scribes, and Pharisees, and the synagogue for hypocrisy and + dogmatic intolerance. Breaks the Sabbath, and defies the + Law. Is accused by the Jews of divulging the secrets of the + Sanctuary. Is put to death on a cross (a tree). Of the + little handful of disciples whom he had converted, one + betrays him, one denies him, and the others desert him at + the last, except John--the disciple _he loved_. Jesus, + Christna, and Buddha, all three Saviours, die either on or + under _trees_, and are connected with crosses which are + symbolical of the three-fold powers of creation. + + Jesus ascends to Paradise. + + + RESULT. + +About the middle of the present century, the followers of these three +religions were reckoned as follows:[1050] + + OF CHRISTNA. + Brahmans, 60,000,000. + + OF BUDDHA. + Buddhists, 450,000,000. + + OF JESUS. + Christians, 260,000,000. + +Such is the present aspect of these three great religions, of which +each is in turn reflected in its successor. Had the Christian +dogmatizers stopped there, the results would not have been so +disastrous, for it would be hard, indeed, to make a bad creed out of +the lofty teachings of Gautama, or Christna, as _Bhagaved_. But they +went farther, and added to pure primitive Christianity the fables of +Hercules, Orpheus, and Bacchus. As Mussulmans will not admit that +their _Koran_ is built on the substratum of the Jewish _Bible_, so +the Christians will not confess that they owe next to everything +to the Hindu religions. But the Hindus have chronology to prove it +to them. We see the best and most learned of our writers uselessly +striving to show that the extraordinary similarities--amounting +to identity--between Christna and Christ are due to the spurious +_Gospels of the Infancy_ and of _St. Thomas_ having “probably +circulated on the coast of Malabar, and giving color to the story +of Christna.”[1051] Why not accept truth in all sincerity, and +reversing matters, admit that St. Thomas, faithful to that policy of +proselytism which marked the earliest Christians, when he found in +Malabar the original of the mythical Christ in Christna, tried to +blend the two; and, adopting in his gospel (from which all others +were copied) the most important details of the story of the Hindu +Avatar, engrafted the Christian heresy on the primitive religion of +Christna. For any one acquainted with the spirit of Brahmanism, the +idea of Brahmans accepting anything from a stranger, especially from +a foreigner, is simply ridiculous. That they, the most fanatic people +in religious matters, who, during centuries, cannot be compelled to +adopt the most simple of European usages, should be suspected of +having introduced into their sacred books unverified legends about +a foreign God, is something so preposterously illogical, that it is +really waste of time to contradict the idea! + +We will not stop to examine the too well-known resemblances between +the external form of Buddhistic worship--especially Lamaism--and +Roman Catholicism, for noticing which poor Huc paid dear--but proceed +to compare the most vital points. Of all the original manuscripts +that have been translated from the various languages in which +Buddhism is expounded, the most extraordinary and interesting are +_Buddha’s Dhammapada_, or _Path of Virtue_, translated from the Pâli +by Colonel Rogers,[1052] and the _Wheel of the Law_, containing the +views of a Siamese Minister of State on his own and other religions, +and translated by Henry Alabaster.[1053] The reading of these two +books, and the discovery in them of similarities of thought and +doctrine often amounting to identity, prompted Dr. Inman to write +the many profoundly true passages embodied in one of his last works, +_Ancient Faith and Modern_.[1054] “I speak with sober earnestness,” +writes this kind-hearted, sincere scholar, “when I say that after +forty years’ experience among those who profess Christianity, and +those who proclaim ... more or less quietly their disagreement with +it, I have noticed more sterling virtue and morality amongst the +last than the first.... I know personally many pious, good Christian +people, whom I honor, admire, and, perhaps, would be glad to emulate +or to equal; but they deserve the eulogy thus passed on them, in +consequence of their good sense, having ignored the doctrine of +faith to a great degree, and having cultivated the practice of good +works.... In my judgment the most praiseworthy Christians whom I know +are _modified Buddhists_, though probably, not one of them ever heard +of Siddârtha.”[1055] + +Between the Lamaico-Buddhistic and Roman Catholic articles of faith +and ceremonies, there are fifty-one points presenting a perfect and +striking similarity; and four diametrically antagonistic. + +As it would be useless to enumerate the “similarities,” for the +reader may find them carefully noted in Inman’s work on _Ancient +Faith and Modern_, pp. 237-240, we will quote but the four +dissimilarities, and leave every one to draw his own deductions +therefrom: + + 1. “The Buddhists hold that 1. “The Christians will + nothing which is contradicted accept any nonsense, if + by sound reason can be a promulgated by the Church as + true doctrine of Buddha.” a matter of faith.”[1056] + + 2. “The Buddhists do not 2. “The Romanists adore the + adore the mother of Sakya,” mother of Jesus, and prayer + though they honor her as a is made to her for aid and + holy and saint-like woman, intercession.” The worship + chosen to be his mother of the Virgin has weakened + through her great virtue. that of Christ and thrown + entirely into the shadow + that of the Almighty. + + 3. “The Buddhists have no 3. “The papal followers have + sacraments.” seven.” + + 4. The Buddhists do not 4. The Christians are + believe in any pardon for promised that if they only + their sins, except after an believe in the “precious + adequate punishment for each blood of Christ,” this blood + evil deed, and a offered by Him for the + proportionate compensation expiation of the sins of the + to the parties injured. whole of mankind (read + Christians) will atone for + every mortal sin. + +Which of these theologies most commends itself to the sincere +inquirer, is a question that may safely be left to the sound judgment +of the reader. One offers light, the other darkness. + +The _Wheel of the Law_ has the following: + +“Buddhists believe that every act, word, or thought has its +consequence, which will appear sooner or later in the present or in +the future state. Evil acts will produce evil consequences,[1057] +good acts will produce good consequences: prosperity in this world, +or birth in heaven ... in some future state.”[1058] + +This is strict and impartial justice. This is the idea of a Supreme +Power which cannot fail, and therefore, can have neither wrath nor +mercy, but leaves every cause, great or small, to work out its +inevitable effects. “With what measure you mete, it shall be measured +to you again”[1059] neither by expression nor implication points to +any hope of future mercy or salvation by proxy. Cruelty and mercy +are finite feelings. The Supreme Deity is infinite, hence it can +only be JUST, and Justice must be blind. The ancient Pagans held on +this question far more philosophical views than modern Christians, +for they represented their Themis blindfold. And the Siamese author +of the work under notice, has again a more reverent conception of +the Deity than the Christians have, when he thus gives vent to his +thought: “A Buddhist might believe in the existence of a God, sublime +above all human qualities and attributes--a perfect God, above +love, and hatred, and jealousy, calmly resting in a quiet happiness +that nothing could disturb; and of such a God he would speak no +disparagement, not from a desire to please Him, or fear to offend +Him, but from natural veneration. But he cannot understand a God with +the attributes and qualities of men, a God who loves and hates, and +shows anger; a Deity, who, whether described to him by Christian +missionaries, or by Mahometans, or Brahmans, or Jews, falls below his +standard of even an ordinary good man.”[1060] + +We have often wondered at the extraordinary ideas of God and His +justice that seem to be honestly held by those Christians who blindly +rely upon the clergy for their religion, and never upon their own +reason. How strangely illogical is this doctrine of the Atonement. +We propose to discuss it with the Christians from the Buddhistic +stand-point, and show at once by what a series of sophistries, +directed toward the one object of tightening the ecclesiastical yoke +upon the popular neck, its acceptance as a divine command has been +finally effected; also, that it has proved one of the most pernicious +and demoralizing of doctrines. + +The clergy say: no matter how enormous our crimes against the laws +of God and of man, we have but to believe in the self-sacrifice of +Jesus for the salvation of mankind, and His blood will wash out every +stain. God’s mercy is boundless and unfathomable. It is impossible +to conceive of a human sin so damnable that the price paid in +advance for the redemption of the sinner would not wipe it out if a +thousandfold worse. And, furthermore, it is never too late to repent. +Though the offender wait until the last minute of the last hour of +the last day of his mortal life, before his blanched lips utter the +confession of faith, he may go to Paradise; the dying thief did it, +and so may all others as vile. These are the assumptions of the +Church. + +But if we step outside the little circle of creed and consider +the universe as a whole balanced by the exquisite adjustment of +parts, how all sound logic, how the faintest glimmering sense of +Justice revolts against this Vicarious Atonement! If the criminal +sinned only against himself, and wronged no one but himself; if by +sincere repentance he could cause the obliteration of past events, +not only from the memory of man, but also from that imperishable +record, which no deity--not even the Supremest of the Supreme--can +cause to disappear, then this dogma might not be incomprehensible. +But to maintain that one may wrong his fellow-man, kill, disturb +the equilibrium of society, and the natural order of things, and +then--through cowardice, hope, or compulsion, matters not--be +forgiven by believing that the spilling of one blood washes out the +other blood spilt--this is preposterous! Can the _results_ of a crime +be obliterated even though the crime itself should be pardoned? +The effects of a cause are never limited to the boundaries of the +cause, nor can the results of crime be confined to the offender +and his victim. Every good as well as evil action has its effects, +as palpably as the stone flung into a calm water. The simile is +trite, but it is the best ever conceived, so let us use it. The +eddying circles are greater and swifter, as the disturbing object +is greater or smaller, but the smallest pebble, nay, the tiniest +speck, makes its ripples. And this disturbance is not alone visible +and on the surface. Below, unseen, in every direction--outward and +downward--drop pushes drop until the sides and bottom are touched +by the force. More, the air above the water is agitated, and this +disturbance passes, as the physicists tell us, from stratum to +stratum out into space forever and ever; an impulse has been given to +matter, and that is never lost, can never be recalled!... + +So with crime, and so with its opposite. The action may be +instantaneous, the effects are eternal. When, after the stone is once +flung into the pond, we can recall it to the hand, roll back the +ripples, obliterate the force expended, restore the etheric waves to +their previous state of non-being, and wipe out every trace of the +act of throwing the missile, so that Time’s record shall not show +that it ever happened, then, _then_ we may patiently hear Christians +argue for the efficacy of this Atonement. + +The Chicago _Times_ recently printed the hangman’s record of the +first half of the present year (1877)--a long and ghastly record of +murders and hangings. Nearly every one of these murderers received +religious consolation, and many announced that they had received +God’s forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, and were going that +day to Heaven! _Their conversion was effected in prison._ See how +this ledger-balance of Christian Justice (!) stands: These red-handed +murderers, urged on by the demons of lust, revenge, cupidity, +fanaticism, or mere brutal thirst for blood, slew their victims, in +most cases, without giving them time to repent, or call on Jesus to +wash them clean with his blood. They, perhaps, died sinful, and, of +course,--consistently with theological logic--met the reward of their +greater or lesser offenses. But the murderer, overtaken by human +justice, is imprisoned, wept over by sentimentalists, prayed with +and at, pronounces the charmed words of conversion, and goes to the +scaffold a redeemed child of Jesus! Except for the murder, he would +not have been prayed with, redeemed, pardoned. Clearly this man did +well to murder, for thus he gained eternal happiness? And how about +the victim, and his or her family, relatives, dependants, social +relations--has Justice no recompense for them? Must they suffer in +this world and the next, while he who wronged them sits beside the +“holy thief” of Calvary and is forever blessed? On this question the +clergy keep a prudent silence. + +Steve Anderson was one of these American criminals--convicted of +double murder, arson, and robbery. Before the hour of his death +he was “converted,” but, the record tells us that “_his clerical +attendants objected to his reprieve, on the ground that they felt +sure of his salvation should he die then, but could not answer for +it if his execution was postponed_.” We address these ministers, +and ask them to tell us on what grounds they felt sure of such a +monstrous thing. How they could feel _sure_, with the dark future +before them, and the endless results of this double murder, arson, +and robbery? They could be sure of nothing, but that their abominable +doctrine is the cause of three-fourths of the crimes of so-called +Christians; that these terrific causes must produce like monstrous +effects, which in their turn will beget other results, and so roll on +throughout eternity to an accomplishment that no man can calculate. + +Or take another crime, one of the most selfish, cruel, and heartless, +and yet the most frequent, the seduction of a young girl. Society, by +an instinct of self-preservation, pitilessly judges the victim, and +ostracizes her. She may be driven to infanticide, or self-murder, or +if too averse to die, live to plunge into a career of vice and crime. +She may become the mother of criminals, who, as in the now celebrated +Jukes, of whose appalling details Mr. Dugdale has published the +particulars, breed other generations of felons to the number of +hundreds, in fifty or sixty years. All this social disaster came +through one man’s selfish passion; shall he be forgiven by Divine +Justice until his offense is expiated, and punishment fall only upon +the wretched human scorpions begotten of his lust? + +An outcry has just been made in England over the discovery that +Anglican priests are largely introducing auricular confession and +granting absolution after enforcing penances. Inquiry shows the +same thing prevailing more or less in the United States. Put to the +ordeal of cross-examination, the clergy quote triumphantly from the +English _Book of Common Prayer_ the rubrics which clearly give them +the absolving authority, through the power of “God, the Holy Ghost,” +committed unto them by the bishop by imposition of hands at their +ordination. The bishop, questioned, points to _Matthew_ xvi., 19, for +the source of his authority to bind and loose on earth those who are +to be blessed or damned in heaven; and to the apostolic succession +for proof of its transmission from Simon Barjona to himself. The +present volumes have been written to small purpose if they have +not shown, 1, that Jesus, the Christ-God, is a myth concocted two +centuries after the real Hebrew Jesus died; 2, that, therefore, he +never had any authority to give Peter, or any one else, plenary +power; 3, that even if he had given such authority, the word Petra +(rock) referred to the revealed truths of the Petroma, not to him who +thrice denied him; and that besides, the apostolic succession is a +gross and palpable fraud; 4, that the _Gospel according to Matthew_ +is a fabrication based upon a wholly different manuscript. The whole +thing, therefore, is an imposition alike upon priest and penitent. +But putting all these points aside for the moment, it suffices to ask +these pretended agents of the three gods of the Trinity, how they +reconcile it with the most rudimental notions of equity, that if the +power to pardon sinners for sinning has been given them, _they did +not also receive the ability by miracle to obliterate the wrongs done +against person or property_. Let them restore life to the murdered; +honor to the dishonored; property to those who have been wronged, +and force the scales of human and divine justice to recover their +equilibrium. Then we may talk of their divine commission to bind and +loose. Let them say, if they can do this. Hitherto the world has +received nothing but sophistry--believed on _blind_ faith; we ask +palpable, tangible evidence of their God’s justice and mercy. But all +are silent; no answer, no reply, and still the inexorable unerring +Law of Compensation proceeds on its unswerving path. If we but +watch its progress, we will find that it ignores all creeds, shows +no preferences, but its sunlight and its thunderbolts fall alike +on heathen and Christian. No absolution can shield the latter when +guilty, no anathema hurt the former when innocent. + +Away from us such an insulting conception of divine justice as +that preached by priests on their own authority. It is fit only +for cowards and criminals! If they are backed by a whole array of +Fathers and Churchmen, we are supported by the greatest of all +authorities, an instinctive and reverential sense of the everlasting +and everpresent law of harmony and justice. + +But, besides that of reason, we have other evidence to show that such +a construction is wholly unwarranted. The _Gospels_ being “Divine +revelation,” doubtless Christians will regard their testimony as +conclusive. Do they affirm that Jesus gave himself as a voluntary +sacrifice? On the contrary, there is not a word to sustain the idea. +They make it clear that he would rather have lived to continue +what he considered his mission, and that _he died because he could +not help it, and only when betrayed_. Before, when threatened with +violence, _he had made himself invisible_ by employing the mesmeric +power over the bystanders, claimed by every Eastern adept, and +escaped. When, finally, he saw that his time had come, he succumbed +to the inevitable. But see him in the garden, on the Mount of Olives, +writhing in agony until “his sweat was, as it were, great drops +of blood,” praying with fervid supplication that the cup might be +removed from him; exhausted by his struggle to such a degree that +an angel from heaven had to come and strengthen him; and say if the +picture is that of a self-immolating hostage and martyr. To crown +all, and leave no lingering doubt in our minds, we have his own +despairing words, “NOT MY WILL, _but thine_, be done!” (_Luke_ xxii. +42, 43.) + +Again, in the _Puranas_ it may be found that Christna was nailed +to a tree by the arrow of a hunter, who, begging the dying god to +forgive him, receives the following answer: “Go, hunter, through +my favor, to Heaven, the abode of the gods.... Then the illustrious +Christna, having united himself with his own pure, spiritual, +inexhaustible, inconceivable, unborn, undecaying, imperishable, and +universal Spirit, which is one with Vasudeva, abandoned his mortal +body, and ... he became Nirguna” (Wilson’s _Vishnu Purana_, p. 612). +Is not this the original of the story of Christ forgiving the thief +on the cross, and promising him a place in Heaven? Such examples +“challenge inquiry as to their origin and meaning _so long anterior +to Christianity_,” says Dr. Lundy in _Monumental Christianity_, and +yet to all this he adds: “The idea of Krishna as a shepherd, I take +to be older than either (the _Gospel of Infancy_ and that of _St. +John_), _and prophetic of Christ_” (p. 156). + +Facts like these, perchance, furnished later a plausible pretext +for declaring apocryphal all such works as the _Homilies_, which +proved but too clearly the utter want of any early authority for +the doctrine of atonement. The _Homilies_ clash but little with the +_Gospels_; they disagree entirely with the dogmas of the Church. +Peter knew nothing of the atonement; and his reverence for the +mythical father Adam would never have allowed him to admit that this +patriarch had sinned and was accursed. Neither do the Alexandrian +theological schools appear to have been cognizant of this doctrine, +nor Tertullian; nor was it discussed by any of the earlier Fathers. +Philo represents the story of the _Fall_ as symbolical, and Origen +regarded it the same way as Paul, as an allegory.[1061] + +Whether they will or not, the Christians have to credit the foolish +story of Eve’s temptation by a serpent. Besides, Augustine has +formally pronounced upon the subject. “God, by His arbitrary will,” +he says, “has selected beforehand certain persons, _without regard +to foreseen faith or good actions, and has irretrievably ordained +to bestow upon them eternal happiness; while He has condemned +others in the same way to eternal reprobation_!!” (_De dono +perseverantiæ_).[1062] + +Calvin promulgated views of Divine partiality and bloodthirstiness +equally abhorrent. “The human race, corrupted radically in the fall +with Adam, has upon it the guilt and impotence of original sin; +its redemption can be achieved only through an incarnation and a +propitiation; of this redemption only electing grace can make the +soul a participant, and such grace, once given, is never lost; _this +election can come only from God, and it includes only a part of the +race, the rest being left to perdition_; election and perdition (the +_horribile decretum_) are both predestinated in the Divine plan; that +plan is a decree, and this decree is eternal and unchangeable ... +justification is by _faith alone_, and _faith is the gift of God_.” + +O Divine Justice, how blasphemed has been thy name! Unfortunately for +all such speculations, belief in the propitiatory efficacy of blood +can be traced to the oldest rites. Hardly a nation remained ignorant +of it. Every people offered animal and even human sacrifices to the +gods, in the hope of averting thereby public calamity, by pacifying +the wrath of some avenging deity. There are instances of Greek and +Roman generals offering their lives simply for the success of their +army. Cæsar complains of it, and calls it a superstition of the +Gauls. “They devote themselves to death ... believing that unless +life is rendered for life the immortal gods cannot be appeased,” +he writes. “If any evil is about to befall either those who now +sacrifice, or Egypt, may it be averted on this head,” was pronounced +by the Egyptian priests when sacrificing one of their sacred animals. +And imprecations were uttered over the head of the expiatory victim, +around whose horns a piece of byblus was rolled.[1064] The animal +was generally led to some barren region, sacred to Typhon, in those +primitive ages when this fatal deity was yet held in a certain +consideration by the Egyptians. It is in this custom that lies the +origin of the “scape-goat” of the Jews, who, when the rufous ass-god +was rejected by the Egyptians, began sacrificing to another deity the +“red heifer.” + +“Let all sins that have been committed in this world fall on me that +the world may be delivered,” exclaimed Gautama, the Hindu Saviour, +centuries before our era. + +No one will pretend to assert in our own age that it was the +Egyptians who borrowed anything from the Israelites, as they now +accuse the Hindus of doing. Bunsen, Lepsius, Champollion, have long +since established the precedence of Egypt over the Israelites in age +as well as in all the religious rites that we now recognize among the +“chosen people.” Even the _New Testament_ teems with quotations and +repetitions from the _Book of the Dead_, and Jesus, if everything +attributed to him by his four biographers is true--must have been +acquainted with the Egyptian Funereal Hymns.[1065] In the Gospel +according to _Matthew_ we find whole sentences from the ancient and +sacred _Ritual_ which preceded our era by more than 4,000 years. We +will again compare.[1066] + +The “soul” under trial is brought before Osiris, the “Lord of Truth,” +who sits decorated with the Egyptian cross, emblem of eternal life, +and holding in his right hand the _Vannus_ or the flagellum of +justice.[1067] The spirit begins, in the “Hall of the Two Truths,” +an earnest appeal, and enumerates its good deeds, supported by the +responses of the forty-two assessors--_its incarnated deeds and +accusers_. If justified, it is addressed as Osiris, thus assuming the +appellation of the Deity whence its divine essence proceeded, and the +following words, full of majesty and justice, are pronounced! “Let +the _Osiris_ go; ye see he is without fault.... He lived on truth, he +has fed on truth.... _The god has welcomed him_ as he desired. _He +has given food to my hungry, drink to my thirsty ones, clothes to my +naked_.... He has made the sacred food of the gods the meat of the +spirits.” + +In the parable of _the Kingdom of Heaven_ (_Matthew_ xxv.), the _Son +of Man_ (Osiris is also called the Son) sits upon the throne of his +glory, judging the nations, and says to the justified, “Come ye +blessed of my Father (_the_ God) inherit the kingdom.... For _I was +an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink_ +... _naked and ye clothed me_.”[1068] To complete the resemblance +(_Matthew_ iii. 12): John is made to describe Christ as Osiris, +“whose _fan_ (winnow or _vannus_) is in his hand, and who will “purge +his floor and gather his wheat into the garner.” + +The same in relation to Buddhist legends. In _Matthew_ iv. 19, Jesus +is made to say: “Follow me and I will make you _fishers_ of men,” +the whole adapted to a conversation between him and Simon Peter and +Andrew his brother. + +In Schmidt’s “_Der Weise und der Thor_,[1069] a work full of +anecdotes about Buddha and his disciples, the whole from original +texts, it is said of a new convert to the faith, that “he had been +caught by the hook of the doctrine, just as a fish, who has caught +at the bait and line is securely pulled out.” In the temples of Siam +the image of the expected Buddha, the Messiah Maitree, is represented +with a fisherman’s net in the hand, while in Thibet he holds a kind +of a trap. The explanation of it reads as follows: “He (Buddha) +disseminates upon the Ocean of birth and decay the Lotus-flower of +the excellent law as _a bait_; with the loop of devotion, never +cast out in vain, he brings living beings up like fishes, and +carries them to the other side of the river, where there is true +understanding.”[1070] + +Had the erudite Archbishop Cave, Grabe, and Dr. Parker, who so +zealously contended in their time for the admission of the _Epistles +of Jesus Christ and Abgarus, King of Edessa_, into the Canon of +the _Scripture_, lived in our days of Max Müller and Sanscrit +scholarship, we doubt whether they would have acted as they did. +The first mention of these Epistles ever made, was by the famous +Eusebius. This pious bishop seems to have been self-appointed to +furnish Christianity with the most unexpected proofs to corroborate +its wildest fancies. Whether among the many accomplishments of the +Bishop of Cæsarea, we must include a knowledge of the Cingalese, +Pehlevi, Thibetan, and other languages, we know not; but he surely +transcribed the letters of Jesus and Abgarus, and the story of the +miraculous portrait of Christ taken on a piece of cloth, by the +simple wiping of his face, from the Buddhistical Canon. To be sure, +the bishop declared that he found the letter himself written in +Syriac, preserved among the registers and records of the city of +Edessa, where Abgarus reigned.[1071] We recall the words of Babrias: +“Myth, O son of King Alexander, is an ancient human invention of +Syrians, who lived in old time under Ninus and Belus.” Edessa was +one of the ancient “holy cities.” The Arabs venerate it to this day; +and the purest Arabic is there spoken. They call it still by its +ancient name Orfa, once the city _Arpha-Kasda_ (Arphaxad) the seat of +a College of Chaldeans and Magi; whose missionary, called Orpheus, +brought thence the Bacchic Mysteries to Thrace. Very naturally, +Eusebius found there the tales which he wrought over into the story +of Abgarus, and the sacred picture taken on a cloth; as that of +Bhagavat, or the blessed Tathagâta (Buddha)[1072] was obtained by +King Binsbisara.[1073] The King having brought it, Bhagavat projected +his shadow on it.[1074] This bit of “miraculous stuff,” with its +shadow, is still preserved, say the Buddhists; “only the shadow +itself is rarely seen.” + +In like manner, the Gnostic author of _the Gospel according to +John_, copied and metamorphosed the legend of Ananda who asked drink +of a Matangha woman--the antitype of the woman met by Jesus at the +well,[1075] and was reminded by her that she belongs to a low +caste, and may have nothing to do with a holy monk. “I do not ask +thee, my sister,” answers Ananda to the woman, “either thy caste or +thy family, I only ask thee for water, if thou canst give me some.” +This Matangha woman, charmed and moved to tears, repents, joins the +monastic Order of Gautama, and becomes a saint, rescued from a life +of unchastity by Sakya-muni. Many of her subsequent actions were used +by Christian forgers, to endow Mary Magdalen and other female saints +and martyrs. + +“And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a +cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto +you, he shall in no wise lose his reward,” says the Gospel (_Matthew_ +x. 42). “Whosoever, with a purely believing heart, offers nothing but +a handful of water, or presents so much to the spiritual assembly, +or gives drink therewith to the poor and needy, or to a beast of +the field; this meritorious action will not be exhausted in many +ages,”[1076] says the Buddhist _Canon_. + +At the hour of Gautama-Buddha’s birth there were 32,000 wonders +performed. The clouds stopped immovable in the sky, the waters of +the rivers ceased to flow; the flowers ceased unbudding; the birds +remained silent and full of wonder; all nature remained suspended in +her course, and was full of expectation. “There was a preternatural +light spread all over the world; animals suspended their eating; the +blind saw; and the lame and dumb were cured,” etc.[1077] + +We now quote from the _Protevangelion_: + +“At the hour of the Nativity, as Joseph looked up into the air, ‘I +saw,’ he says, ‘_the clouds astonished_, and the fowls of the air +stopping in the midst of their flight.... And I beheld the sheep +dispersed ... and _yet the sheep stood still_; and I looked into a +river, and saw the kids _with their mouths close to the water, and +touching it, but they did not drink_. + +“_Then a bright cloud overshadowed the cave._ But on a sudden +the cloud became _a great light_ in the cave, so that their eyes +could not bear it.... The hand of Salomé, which was withered, +was straightway cured.... The blind saw; the lame and dumb were +cured.”[1078] + +When sent to school, the young Gautama, without having ever studied, +completely worsted all his competitors; not only in writing, but in +arithmetic, mathematics, metaphysics, wrestling, archery, astronomy, +geometry, and finally vanquishes his own professors by giving the +definition of sixty-four kinds of writings, which were unknown to the +masters themselves.[1079] + +And this is what is said again in the _Gospel of the Infancy_: “And +when he (Jesus) was twelve years old ... a certain principal Rabbi +asked him, ‘Hast thou read books?’ and a certain astronomer asked +the Lord Jesus whether he had studied astronomy. And Lord Jesus +explained to him ... about the spheres ... about the physics and +metaphysics. Also things that reason of man had never discovered.... +The constitutions of the body, how the soul operated upon the body, +... etc. And at this the master was so surprised that he said: “I +believe this boy was born before Noah ... he is more learned than any +master.’”[1080] + +The precepts of Hillel, who died forty years B.C., appear rather as +quotations than original expressions in the Sermon on the Mount. +Jesus taught the world nothing that had not been taught as earnestly +before by other masters. He begins his sermon with certain purely +Buddhistic precepts that had found acceptance among the Essenes, and +were generally practiced by the _Orphikoi_, and the Neo-platonists. +There were the Philhellenes, who, like Apollonius, had devoted their +lives to moral and physical purity, and who practiced asceticism. He +tries to imbue the hearts of his audience with a scorn for worldly +wealth; a fakir-like unconcern for the morrow; love for humanity, +poverty, and chastity. He blesses the poor in spirit, the meek, the +hungering and the thirsting after righteousness, the merciful and +the peace-makers, and, Buddha-like, leaves but a poor chance for +the proud castes to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Every word +of his sermon is an echo of the essential principles of monastic +Buddhism. The ten commandments of Buddha, as found in an appendix to +the _Prâtimoksha Sûtra_ (Pali-Burman text), are elaborated to their +full extent in _Matthew_. If we desire to acquaint ourselves with the +historical Jesus we have to set the mythical Christ entirely aside, +and learn all we can of the man in the first Gospel. His doctrines, +religious views, and grandest aspirations will be found concentrated +in his sermon. + +This is the principal cause of the failure of missionaries to convert +Brahmanists and Buddhists. These see that the little of really good +that is offered in the new religion is paraded only in theory, +while their own faith demands that those identical rules shall be +applied in practice. Notwithstanding the impossibility for Christian +missionaries to understand clearly the spirit of a religion wholly +based on that doctrine of emanation which is so inimical to their +own theology, the reasoning powers of some simple Buddhistical +preachers are so high, that we see a scholar like Gutzlaff,[1081] +utterly silenced and put to great straits by Buddhists. Judson, the +famous Baptist missionary in Burmah, confesses, in his _Journal_, +the difficulties to which he was often driven by them. Speaking of +a certain Ooyan, he remarks that his strong mind was capable of +grasping the most difficult subjects. “His words,” he remarks, “are +as smooth as oil, as sweet as honey, and as sharp as razors; his mode +of reasoning is soft, insinuating, and acute; and so adroitly does +he act his part, that _I with the strength of truth_, was scarcely +able to keep him down.” It appears though, that at a later period +of his mission, Mr. Judson found that he had utterly mistaken the +doctrine. “I begin to find,” he says, “that the semi-atheism, which +I had sometimes mentioned, is nothing but a refined Buddhism, having +its foundation in the Buddhistic Scriptures.” Thus he discovered +at last that while there is in Buddhism “a generic term of most +exalted perfection actually applied to numerous individuals, a Buddha +superior to the whole host of subordinate deities,” there are also +lurking in the system “the glimmerings of an _anima mundi_ anterior +to, and even superior to, Buddha.”[1082] + +This is a happy discovery, indeed! + +Even the so-slandered Chinese believe in _One_, Highest God. “The +Supreme Ruler of Heavens.” Yuh-Hwang-Shang-ti, has his name inscribed +only on the golden tablet before the altar of heaven at the great +temple at Pekin, T’Iantan. “This worship,” says Colonel Yule, “is +mentioned by the Mahometan narrator of Shah Rukh’s embassy (A.D. +1421): ‘Every year there are some days on which the emperor eats no +animal food.... He spends his time in an apartment which contains _no +idol_, and says that _he is worshipping the God of Heaven_.”[1083] + +Speaking of Shahrastani, the great Arabian scholar, Chwolsohn says +that for him Sabaeism was not astrolatry, as many are inclined to +think. He thought “that God is too sublime and too great to occupy +Himself with the immediate management of this world; that He has, +therefore, transferred the government thereof to the gods, and +retained only the most important affairs for Himself; that further, +man is too weak to be able to apply immediately to the Highest; +that he must, therefore, address his prayers and sacrifices to the +intermediate divinities, to whom the management of the world has +been entrusted by the Highest.” Chwolsohn argues that this idea is +as old as the world, and that “in the heathen world this view was +universally shared by the cultivated.”[1084] + +Father Boori, a Portuguese missionary, who was sent to convert the +“poor heathen” of Cochin-China, as early as the sixteenth century, +“protests in despair, in his narrative, that there is not a dress, +office, or ceremony in the Church of Rome, to which the Devil has +not here provided some counterpart. Even when the Father began +inveighing against the idols, he was answered that these were the +images of departed great men, whom they worshipped exactly on the +same principle, and in the same manner, as the Catholics did the +images of the apostles and martyrs.”[1085] Moreover, these idols +have importance but in the eyes of the ignorant multitudes. The +_philosophy_ of Buddhism ignores images and fetishes. Its strongest +vitality lies in its psychological conceptions of man’s _inner_ +self. The road to the supreme state of felicity, called the Ford +of Nirvana, winds its invisible paths through the spiritual, +not physical life of a person while on this earth. The sacred +Buddhistical literature points the way by stimulating man to follow +_practically_ the example of Gautama. Therefore, the Buddhistical +writings lay a particular stress on the spiritual privileges of man, +advising him to cultivate his powers for the production of _Meipo_ +(phenomena) during life, and for the attainment of Nirvana in the +hereafter. + +But turning again from the historical to the mythical narratives, +invented alike about Christna, Buddha, and Christ, we find the +following: + +Setting a model for the Christian avatar and the archangel Gabriel +to follow, the luminous San-tusita (Bodhisat) appeared to Maha-maya +‘like a cloud in the moonlight, coming from the north, and in his +hand holding a white lotus.’ He announced to her the birth of her +son, and circumambulating the queen’s couch thrice ... passed away +from the dewa-loka and was conceived _in the world of men_.[1086] +The resemblance will be found still more perfect upon examining the +illustrations in mediæval psalters,[1087] and the panel-paintings +of the sixteenth century (in the Church of Jouy, for instance, in +which the Virgin is represented kneeling, with her hands uplifted +toward the Holy Ghost, and the unborn child is miraculously seen +through her body), and then finding the same subject treated in +the identical way in the sculptures in certain convents in Thibet. +In the Pali-Buddhistic annals, and other religious records, it +is stated that Maha-devi and all her attendants were constantly +gratified with the sight of the infant Bodhisatva quietly developing +within his mother’s bosom, and beaming already, from his place of +gestation, upon humanity “the resplendent moonshine of his future +benevolence.”[1088] + +Ananda, the cousin and future disciple of Sakya-muni, is represented +as having been born at the same time. He appears to have been the +original for the old legends about John the Baptist. For example, the +Pali narrative relates that Maha-maya, while pregnant with the sage, +paid a visit to his mother, as Mary did to the mother of the Baptist. +Immediately, as she entered the apartment, the unborn Ananda greeted +the unborn Buddha-Siddhârtha, who also returned the salutation; and +in like manner the babe, afterward John the Baptist, leaped in the +womb of Elizabeth when Mary came in.[1089] More even than that; for +Didron describes a scene of salutation, painted on shutters at Lyons, +between Elizabeth and Mary, in which the two unborn infants, both +pictured as outside their mothers, are also saluting each other.[1090] + +If we turn now to Christna and attentively compare the prophecies +respecting him, as collected in the Ramatsariarian traditions of the +_Atharva_, the _Vedangas_, and the Vedantas,[1091] with passages in +the _Bible_ and apocryphal Gospels, of which it is pretended that +some presage the coming of Christ, we shall find very curious facts. +Following are examples: + + FROM THE HINDU BOOKS. FROM THE CHRISTIAN BOOKS. + + 1st. “He (the Redeemer) 1st. “The people of Galilee + shall come, _crowned with of the Gentiles which sat in + lights_, the pure fluid darkness saw great light” + issuing from the great soul (_Matthew_ iv. from _Isaiah_ + ... dispersing darkness” ix. 1, 2). + (_Atharva_). + + 2d. “In the _early part_ of 2d. “Behold, a virgin shall + the Kali-Yuga shall be born conceive and bear a son” + the son of the Virgin” (_Isaiah_ vii. quoted in + (_Vedanta_). _Matthew_ i. 23). + + 3d. “The Redeemer shall 3d. “Behold, now, Jesus of + come, and the accursed Nazareth, with the + _Rakhasas_ shall fly for brightness of his glorious + refuge to the deepest hell” divinity, put to flight all + (_Atharva_). the horrid powers of + darkness” (_Nicodemus_). + + 4th. “He shall come, and 4th. “And I give unto them + life will defy death ... and eternal life, and they shall + he shall revivify the blood never perish” (_John_ x. 28). + of all beings, shall + regenerate all bodies, and + purify all souls.” + + 5th. “He shall come, and all 5th. “Rejoice greatly, O + animated beings, all the daughter of Zion! shout, O + flowers, plants, men, women, daughter of Jerusalem! + the infants, the slaves ... behold, thy King cometh unto + shall together intone the thee ... he is just ... for + chant of joy, for he is the how great is his goodness, + Lord of all creatures ... he and how great is his beauty! + is infinite, for he is Corn shall make the young + power, for he is wisdom, for men cheerful, and new wine + he is beauty, for he is all the maids” (_Zechariah_ ix.). + and in all.” + + 6th. “He shall come, more 6th. “Behold the lamb of + sweet than honey and God” (_John_ i. 36). “He was + ambrosia, more pure than brought as a lamb to the + _the lamb_ without spot” slaughter” (_Isaiah_ 53). + (Ibid.). + + 7th. “Happy the blest womb 7th. “Blessed art thou among + that shall bear him” women, and blessed is the + (Ibid.). fruit of thy womb” (_Luke_ + i.); “Blessed is the womb + that bare thee” (xi. 27). + + 8th. “And God shall manifest 8th. “God manifested forth + His glory, and make His His glory” (_John_, 1st Ep.). + power resound, and shall + reconcile Himself with His “God was in Christ, + creatures” (Ibid.). reconciling the world unto + himself” (_2 Corinth._ v.). + + 9th. “It is in the bosom of 9th. “Being an unparalleled + a woman that the ray of the instance, without any + Divine splendor will receive pollution or defilement, and + human form, and she shall a virgin shall bring forth a + bring forth, being a virgin, son, and a maid shall bring + for no impure contact shall forth the Lord” (_Gospel of + have defiled her” Mary_, iii.). + (_Vedangas_). + +Let there be exaggeration or not in attributing to the _Atharva-Veda_ +and the other books such a great antiquity, the fact remains that +_these prophecies and their realization preceded Christianity_, and +Christna preceded Christ. That is all we need care to inquire. + +One is completely overwhelmed with astonishment upon reading Dr. +Lundy’s _Monumental Christianity_. It would be difficult to say +whether an admiration for the author’s erudition, or amazement at +his serene and unparalleled sophistry is stronger. He has gathered +a world of facts which prove that the religions, far more ancient +than Christianity, of Christna, Buddha, and Osiris had anticipated +even its minutest symbols. His materials come from no forged +papyri, no interpolated Gospels, but from sculptures on the walls +of ancient temples, from monuments, inscriptions, and other archaic +relics, only mutilated by the hammers of iconoclasts, the cannon +of fanatics, and the effects of time. He shows us Christna and +Apollo as good shepherds; Christna holding the cruciform _chank_ +and the _chakra_, and Christna “crucified in space,” as he calls it +(_Monumental Christianity_, fig. 72). Of this figure--borrowed by Dr. +Lundy from Moor’s _Hindu Pantheon_--it may be truly said that it is +calculated to petrify a Christian with astonishment, for it is the +crucified Christ of Romish art to the last degree of resemblance. +Not a feature is lacking; and, the author says of it himself: “This +representation I believe to be anterior to Christianity.... It looks +like a Christian crucifix in many respects.... The drawing, the +attitude, the nail-marks in hands and feet, indicate a Christian +origin, while the Parthian coronet of seven points, the absence of +the wood, and of the usual inscription, and the rays of glory above, +would seem to point to some other than a Christian origin. Can it be +the victim-man, or the priest and victim both in one, of the Hindu +Mythology, who offered himself a sacrifice before the worlds were? +Can it be Plato’s Second God who impressed himself on the universe in +the form of the cross? Or is it his divine man who would be scourged, +tormented, fettered; have his eyes burnt out; and lastly ... _would +be crucified_?” (_Republic_, c. ii., p. 52, _Spens. Trans._). It is +all that and much more; _Archaic Religious Philosophy_ was universal. + +As it is, Dr. Lundy contradicts Moor, and maintains that this figure +is that of _Wittoba_, one of the avatars of Vishnu, hence Christna, +and _anterior to Christianity_, which is a fact not very easily to be +put down. And yet although he finds it prophetic of Christianity, he +thinks it has no relation whatever to Christ! His only reason is that +“in a Christian crucifix the glory always comes from the sacred head; +here it is from above and beyond.... The Pundit’s Wittoba then, given +to Moor, would seem to be the crucified _Krishna_, the shepherd-god +of Mathura ... a _Saviour--the Lord of the Covenant, as well as Lord +of Heaven and earth--pure and impure, light and dark, good and bad, +peaceful and war like, amiable and wrathful, mild and turbulent, +forgiving and vindictive, God and a strange mixture of man_, but not +the Christ of the Gospels.” + +Now all these qualities must pertain to Jesus as well as to Christna. +The very fact that Jesus was a man upon the mother’s side--even +though he were a _God_, implies as much. His behavior toward the +fig-tree, and his self-contradictions, in _Matthew_, where at one +time he promises peace on earth, and at another the sword, etc., are +proofs in this direction. Undoubtedly this cut was never intended to +represent Jesus of Nazareth. It was Wittoba, as Moor was told, and as +moreover the Hindu _Sacred Scriptures_ state, Brahma, the sacrificer +who is “at once both sacrificer and victim;” it is “Brahma, victim +in His Son Christna, who came to die on earth for our salvation, who +Himself accomplishes the solemn sacrifice (of the Sarvameda).” And +yet, it is the man Jesus as well as the man Christna, for both were +united to their _Chrestos_. + +Thus we have either to admit periodical “incarnations,” or let +Christianity go as the greatest imposture and plagiarism of the ages! + +As to the Jewish _Scriptures_, only such men as the Jesuit de +Carrière, a convenient representative of the majority of the Catholic +clergy, can still command their followers to accept only the +chronology established by the Holy Ghost. It is on the authority of +the latter that we learn that Jacob went, with a family of seventy +persons, all told, to settle in Egypt in A.M. 2298, and that in +A.M. 2513--just 215 years afterward--these seventy persons had so +increased that they left Egypt 600,000 fighting men strong, “without +counting women and children,” which, according to the science of +statistics, should represent a total population of between two +and three millions!! Natural history affords no parallel to such +fecundity, except in red herrings. After this let the Christian +missionaries laugh, if they can, at Hindu chronology and computations. + +“Happy are those persons, but not to be envied,” exclaims Bunsen, +“who have no misgivings about making Moses march out with more than +two millions of people at the end of a popular conspiracy and rising, +in the sunny days of the eighteenth dynasty; who make the Israelites +conquer Kanaan under Joshua, during and previous to the most +formidable campaigns of conquering Pharaohs in that same country. The +Egyptian and Assyrian annals, combined with the historical criticism +of the _Bible_, prove that the exodus could only have taken place +under Menephthah, so that Joshua could not have crossed the Jordan +before Easter 1280, the last campaign of Ramses III. in Palestine +being in 1281.”[1092] + +But we must resume the thread of our narrative with Buddha. + +Neither he nor Jesus ever wrote one word of their doctrines. We +have to take the teachings of the masters on the testimony of the +disciples, and therefore it is but fair that we should be allowed +to judge both doctrines on their intrinsic value. Where the logical +preponderance lies, may be seen in the results of frequent encounters +between Christian missionaries and Buddhist theologians (_pungui_). +The latter usually, if not invariably, have the better of their +opponents. On the other hand, the “Lama of Jehovah” rarely fails +to lose his temper, to the great delight of the Lama of Buddha, +and practically demonstrates his religion of patience, mercy, and +charity, by abusing his disputant in the most uncanonical language. +This we have witnessed repeatedly. + +Despite the notable similarity of the direct teachings of Gautama +and Jesus, we yet find their respective followers starting from +two diametrically opposite points. The Buddhist divine, following +literally the ethical doctrine of his master, remains thus true to +the legacy of Gautama; while the Christian minister, distorting +the precepts recorded by the four _Gospels_ beyond recognition, +teaches, not that which Jesus taught, but the absurd, too often +pernicious, interpretations of fallible men--Popes, Luthers, and +Calvins included. The following are two instances selected from +both religions, and brought into contrast. Let the reader judge for +himself: + +“Do not believe in anything because it is rumored and spoken of by +many,” says Buddha; “do not think that is a proof of its truth. + +“Do not believe merely because the written statement of some old sage +is produced; do not be sure that the writing has ever been revised by +the said sage, or can be relied on. Do not believe in what you have +fancied, thinking that, _because an idea is extraordinary, it must +have been implanted by a Deva, or some wonderful being_. + +“Do not believe in guesses, that is, assuming something at hap-hazard +as a starting-point, and then drawing conclusions from it--reckoning +your two and your three and your four _before you have fixed your +number one_. + +“_Do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and +masters_, or believe and practice merely _because they believe and +practice_. + +“I [Buddha] tell you all, you must of yourselves know that this is +evil, this is punishable, this is censured by wise men; belief in +this will bring no advantage to any one, but will cause sorrow; and +when you know this, then eschew it.”[1093] + +It is impossible to avoid contrasting with these benevolent and +human sentiments, the fulminations of the Œcumenical Council and the +Pope, against the employment of reason, and the pursuit of science +when it clashes with revelation. The atrocious Papal benediction +of Moslem arms and cursing of the Russian and Bulgarian Christians +have roused the indignation of some of the most devoted Catholic +communities. The Catholic Czechs of Prague on the day of the recent +semi-centennial jubilee of Pius IX., and again on the 6th of July, +the day sacred to the memory of John Huss, the burned martyr, to mark +their horror of the Ultramontane policy in this respect, gathered by +thousands upon the neighboring Mount Zhishko, and with great ceremony +and denunciations, burned the Pope’s portrait, his Syllabus, and +last allocution against the Russian Czar, saying that they were good +Catholics, but better Slavs. Evidently, the memory of John Huss is +more sacred to them than the Vatican Popes. + +“The worship of words is more pernicious than the worship of images,” +remarks Robert Dale Owen. “Grammatolatry is the worst species of +idolatry. We have arrived at an era in which literalism is destroying +faith.... The letter killeth.”[1094] + +There is not a dogma in the Church to which these words can be better +applied than to the doctrine of _transubstantiation_.[1095] “Whoso +eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life,” Christ +is made to say. “This is a hard saying,” repeated his dismayed +listeners. The answer _was that of an initiate_. “Doth this offend +you? It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. +The words (_remata_, or arcane utterances) that I speak unto you, +they are Spirit and they are Life.” + +During the Mysteries wine represented Bacchus, and bread +Ceres.[1096] The hierophant-initiator presented symbolically before +the final _revelation_ wine and bread to the candidate who had to eat +and drink of both in token that the spirit was to quicken matter, +_i.e._, the divine wisdom was to enter into his body through what was +to be revealed to him. Jesus, in his Oriental phraseology, constantly +assimilated himself to the true vine (_John_ xv. 1). Furthermore, +the hierophant, the discloser of the Petroma, was called “Father.” +When Jesus says, “Drink ... this is my blood,” what else was meant, +it was simply a metaphorical assimilation of himself to the vine, +which bears the grape, whose juice is its blood--wine. It was a hint +that as he had himself been initiated by the “Father,” so he desired +to initiate others. His “Father” was the husbandman, himself the +vine, his disciples the branches. His followers being ignorant of +the terminology of the Mysteries, wondered; they even took it as an +offense, which is not surprising, considering the Mosaic injunction +against blood. + +There is quite enough in the four gospels to show what was the +secret and most fervent hope of Jesus; the hope in which he began to +teach, and in which he died. In his immense and unselfish love for +humanity, he considers it unjust to deprive the many of the results +of the knowledge acquired by the few. This result he accordingly +preaches--the unity of a spiritual God, whose temple is within +each of us, and in whom we live as He lives in us--in spirit. This +knowledge was in the hands of the Jewish adepts of the school of +Hillel and the kabalists. But the “scribes,” or lawyers, having +gradually merged into the dogmatism of the dead letter, had long +since separated themselves from the Tanaïm, the true spiritual +teachers; and the practical kabalists were more or less persecuted +by the Synagogue. Hence, we find Jesus exclaiming: “Woe unto you +lawyers! _For ye have taken away the key of knowledge_ [the Gnosis]: +ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering ye +prevented” (_Luke_ xi. 52). The meaning here is clear. They did take +the key away, and could not even profit by it themselves, for the +_Masorah_ (tradition) had become a closed book to themselves as well +as to others. + +Neither Renan nor Strauss, nor the more modern Viscount Amberley +seem to have had the remotest suspicion of the real meaning of many +of the parables of Jesus, or even of the character of the great +Galilean philosopher. Renan, as we have seen, presented him to us +as a Gallicized Rabbi, “_le plus charmant de tous_,” still but a +Rabbi; and one, moreover, who does not even come out of the school +of Hillel, or any school either, albeit he terms him repeatedly +“the charming doctor.”[1097] He shows him as a sentimental young +enthusiast, sprung out of the plebeian classes of Galilee, who +imagines the ideal kings of his parables the empurpled and jewelled +beings of whom one reads in nursery tales.[1098] + +Lord Amberley’s Jesus, on the other hand, is an “iconoclastic +idealist,” far inferior in subtilty and logic to his critics. Renan +looks over at Jesus with the one-sidedness of a Semitomaniac; +Viscount Amberley looks down upon him from the social plane of an +English lord. _Apropos_ of this marriage-feast parable, which he +considers as embodying “a curious theory of social intercourse,” +the Viscount says: “Nobody can object to charitable individuals +asking poor people or invalids _without rank_ at their houses.... +But we cannot admit that this kind action ought to be rendered +obligatory ... it is eminently desirable that we should do exactly +what Christ would forbid us doing--namely, invite our neighbors +and be invited by them as circumstances may require. The fear that +we may receive a recompense for the dinner-parties we may give, is +surely chimerical.... Jesus, in fact, overlooks entirely the more +intellectual side of society.”[1099] All of which unquestionably +shows that the “Son of God” was no master of social etiquette, nor +fit for “society;” but it is also a fair example of the prevalent +misconception of even his most suggestive parables. + +The theory of Anquetil du Perron that the _Bagaved-gita_ is an +independent work, as it is absent from several manuscripts of the +_Mahâ-Bhârata_, may be as much a plea for a still greater antiquity +as the reverse. The work is purely metaphysical and ethical, and in +a certain sense it is _anti-Vedic_; so far, at least, that it is in +opposition with many of the later Brahmanical interpretations of the +_Vedas_. How comes it, then, that instead of destroying the work, +or, at least, of sentencing it as uncanonical--an expedient to which +the Christian Church would never have failed to resort--the Brahmans +show it the greatest reverence? Perfectly _unitarian_ in its aim, it +clashes with the popular idol-worship. Still, the only precaution +taken by the Brahmans to keep its tenets from becoming too well +known, is to preserve it more secretly than any other religious book +from every caste except the sacerdotal; and, to impose upon that +even, in many cases, certain restrictions. The grandest mysteries of +the Brahmanical religion are embraced within this magnificent poem; +and even the Buddhists recognize it, explaining certain dogmatic +difficulties in their own way. “Be unselfish, subdue your senses and +passions, which obscure reason and lead to deceit,” says Christna to +his disciple Arjuna, thus enunciating a purely Buddhistic principle. +“Low men follow examples, great men give them.... The soul ought to +free itself from the bonds of action, and act absolutely according to +its divine origin. _There is but one God_, and all other devotas are +inferior, and mere forms (powers) of Brahma or of myself. _Worship by +deeds predominates over that of contemplation._”[1100] + +This doctrine coincides perfectly with that of Jesus himself.[1101] +Faith alone, unaccompanied by “works,” is reduced to naught in the +_Bagaved-gita_. As to the _Atharva-Veda_, it was and is preserved in +such secrecy by the Brahmans, that it is a matter of doubt whether +the Orientalists have a _complete_ copy of it. One who has read what +Abbé Dubois says may well doubt the fact. “Of the last species--the +Atharva--there are very few,” he says, writing of the _Vedas_, “and +many people suppose they no longer exist. But the truth is, they do +exist, though they conceal themselves with more caution than the +others, from the fear of being suspected to be initiated in the magic +mysteries and other dreaded mysteries which the work is believed to +teach.”[1102] + +There were even those among the highest _epoptæ_ of the greater +_Mysteries_ who knew nothing of their last and dreaded rite--the +voluntary transfer of life from hierophant to candidate. In +_Ghost-Land_[1103] this mystical operation of the adept’s transfer +of his spiritual entity, after the death of his body, into the +youth he loves with all the ardent love of a spiritual parent, is +superbly described. As in the case of the reïncarnation of the lamas +of Thibet, an adept of the highest order may live indefinitely. His +mortal casket wears out notwithstanding certain alchemical secrets +for prolonging the youthful vigor far beyond the usual limits, yet +the body can rarely be kept alive beyond ten or twelve score of +years. The old garment is then worn out, and the spiritual Ego forced +to leave it, selects for its habitation a new body, fresh and full of +healthy vital principle. In case the reader should feel inclined to +ridicule this assertion of the possible prolongation of human life, +we may as well refer him to the statistics of several countries. The +author of an able article in the _Westminster Review_, for October, +1850, is responsible for the statement that in England, they have +the authentic instances of one Thomas Jenkins dying at the age of +169, and “Old Parr” at 152; and that in Russia some of the peasants +are “known to have reached 242 years.”[1104] There are also cases +of centenarianism reported among the Peruvian Indians. We are aware +that many able writers have recently discredited these claims to an +extreme longevity, but we nevertheless affirm our belief in their +truth. + +True or false there are “superstitions” among the Eastern people such +as have never been dreamed even by an Edgar Poe or a Hoffmann. And +these beliefs run in the very blood of the nations with which they +originated. Carefully stripped of exaggeration they will be found +to embody an universal belief in those restless, wandering, astral +souls, which are called ghouls and vampires. An Armenian Bishop of +the fifth century, named Yeznik, gives a number of such narratives in +a manuscript work (Book i., §§ 20, 30), preserved some thirty years +ago in the library of the Monastery of Etchmeadzine.[1105] Among +others, there is a tradition dating from the days of heathendom, +that whenever a hero whose life is needed yet on earth falls on +the battle-field, the Aralez, the popular gods of ancient Armenia, +empowered to bring back to life those slaughtered in battle, lick +the bleeding wounds of the victim, and breathe on them until they +have imparted a new and vigorous life. After that the warrior rises, +washes off all traces of his wounds, and resumes his place in the +fray. But his immortal spirit has fled; and for the remainder of his +days he lives--a deserted temple. + +Once that an adept was initiated into the last and most solemn +mystery of the life-transfer, the awful _seventh_ rite of the great +sacerdotal operation, which is the highest theurgy, he belonged no +more to this world. His soul was free thereafter, and the _seven_ +mortal sins lying in wait to devour his heart, as the soul, liberated +by death, would be crossing the _seven_ halls and _seven_ staircases, +could hurt him no more alive or dead; he has passed the “twice seven +trials,” the _twelve_ labors of the final hour.[1106] + +The High Hierophant alone knew how to perform this solemn operation +by infusing his own vital life and astral soul into the adept, chosen +by him for his successor, who thus became endowed with a double +life.[1107] + +“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man _be born again_, +he cannot see the kingdom of God” (_John_ iii. 3). Jesus tells +Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which +is born of the spirit is spirit.” + +This allusion, so unintelligible in itself, is explained in the +_Satapa-Brâhmana_. It teaches that a man striving after spiritual +perfection must have _three_ births: 1st. Physical from his mortal +parents; 2d. _Spiritual_, through religious sacrifice (initiation); +3d. His final birth into the world of spirit--at death. Though +it may seem strange that we should have to go to the old land of +the Punjâb and the banks of the sacred Ganges, for an interpreter +of words spoken in Jerusalem and expounded on the banks of the +Jordan, the fact is evident. This second birth, or regeneration +of spirit, after the natural birth of that which is born of the +flesh, might have astonished a Jewish ruler. Nevertheless, it had +been taught 3,000 years before the appearance of the great Galilean +prophet, not only in old India but to all the _epoptæ_ of the Pagan +initiation, who were instructed in the great mysteries of LIFE and +DEATH. This secret of secrets, that _soul_ is not knit to flesh, +was practically demonstrated in the instance of the Yogis, the +followers of Kapila. Having emancipated their souls from the fetters +of _Prakriti_, or _Mahat_ (the physical perception of the senses and +mind--in one sense, creation), they so developed their soul-power +and _will-force_, as to have actually enabled themselves, while on +earth, to communicate with the supernal worlds, and perform what is +bunglingly termed “miracles.”[1108] Men whose astral spirits have +attained on earth the _nehreyasa_, or the _mukti_, are half-gods; +disembodied spirits, they reach Moksha or _Nirvana_, and this is +their _second_ spiritual birth. + +Buddha teaches the doctrine of a new birth as plainly as Jesus +does. Desiring to break with the ancient Mysteries, to which it was +impossible to admit the ignorant masses, the Hindu reformer, though +generally silent upon more than one secret dogma, clearly states his +thought in several passages. Thus, he says: “_Some people are born +again_; evil-doers go to Hell; righteous people go to Heaven; those +who are free from all worldly desires enter Nirvana” (_Precepts of +the Dhammapada_, v., 126). Elsewhere Buddha states that “it is better +to believe in a future life, in which happiness or misery can be +felt; for if the heart believes therein, it will abandon sin and act +virtuously; and even if there is no resurrection, such a life will +bring a good name and the regard of men. _But those who believe in +extinction at death will not fail to commit any sin_ that they may +choose, because of their disbelief in a future.”[1109] + +The _Epistle to the Hebrews_ treats of the sacrifice of blood. “Where +a testament is,” says the writer, “there must be of necessity _the +death_ of the testator.... Without the shedding _of blood_ is no +remission.” Then again: “Christ glorified not himself to _be made +High Priest_; but He that said unto him: Thou art my son; TO-DAY HAVE +I BEGOTTEN THEE” (_Heb._ v. 5). This is a very clear inference, that, +1, Jesus was considered only in the light of a high priest, like +Melchisedek--another _avatar_, or incarnation of Christ, according to +the Fathers; and, 2, that the writer thought that Jesus had become a +“Son of God” only at the moment of his initiation by water; hence, +that he was not born a god, neither was he begotten physically by +Him. Every initiate of the “last hour” became, by the very fact of +his initiation, a son of God. When Maxime, the Ephesian, initiated +the Emperor Julian into the Mithraïc Mysteries, he pronounced as the +usual formula of the rite, the following: “By this blood, I wash thee +from thy sins. The Word of the Highest has entered unto thee, and His +Spirit henceforth will rest upon the NEWLY-BORN, _the now_-begotten +of the Highest God.... Thou art the son of Mithra.” “Thou art the +‘_Son of God_,’” repeated the disciples after Christ’s baptism. +When Paul shook off the viper into the fire without further injury +to himself, the people of Melita said “that he was _a god_” (_Acts_ +xxviii.). “He is the son of God, the Beautiful!” was the term used by +the disciples of Simon Magus, for they thought they recognized the +“great power of God” in him. + +A man can have no god that is not bounded by his own human +conceptions. The wider the sweep of his spiritual vision, the +mightier will be his deity. But where can we find a better +demonstration of Him than in man himself; in the spiritual and divine +powers lying dormant in every human being? “The very capacity to +imagine the possibility of thaumaturgical powers, is itself evidence +that they exist,” says the author of _Prophecy_. “The critic, as well +as the skeptic, is generally inferior to the person or subject that +he is reviewing, and, therefore, is hardly a competent witness. _If +there are counterfeits, somewhere there must have been a genuine_ +original.”[1110] + +Blood begets phantoms, and its emanations furnish certain spirits +with the materials required to fashion their temporary appearances. +“Blood,” says Levi, “is the first incarnation of the universal +fluid; it is the materialized _vital light_. Its birth is the most +marvellous of all nature’s marvels; it lives only by perpetually +transforming itself, for it is the universal Proteus. The blood +issues from principles where there was none of it before, and it +becomes flesh, bones, hair, nails ... tears, and perspiration. It +can be allied neither to corruption nor death; when life is gone, it +begins decomposing; if you know how to reänimate it, to infuse into +it life by a new magnetization of its globules, life will return to +it again. The universal substance, with its double motion, is the +great arcanum of being; blood is the great arcanum of life.” + +“Blood,” says the Hindu Ramatsariar, “contains all the mysterious +secrets of existence, no living being can exist without. It is +profaning the great work of the Creator to eat blood.” + +In his turn Moses, following the universal and traditional law, +forbids eating blood. + +Paracelsus writes that with the fumes of blood one is enabled to call +forth any spirit we desire to see; for with its emanations it will +build itself an appearance, a _visible_ body--only this is sorcery. +The hierophants of Baal made deep incisions all over their bodies and +produced apparitions, objective and tangible, with their own blood. +The followers of a certain sect in Persia, many of whom may be found +around the Russian settlements in Temerchan-Shoura, and Derbent, +have their religious mysteries in which they form a large ring, and +whirl round in a frantic dance. Their temples are ruined, and they +worship in large temporary buildings, securely enclosed, and with +the earthen floor deeply strewn with sand. They are all dressed in +long white robes, and their heads are bare and closely shaved. Armed +with knives, they soon reach a point of furious exaltation, and wound +themselves and others until their garments and the sand on the floor +are soaked with blood. Before the end of the “Mystery” _every man +has a companion_, who whirls round with him. Sometimes the spectral +dancers have _hair on their heads_, which makes them quite distinct +from their unconscious creators. As we have solemnly promised never +to divulge the principal details of this terrible ceremony (which we +were allowed to witness but once), we must leave the subject.[1111] + +In the days of antiquity the sorceresses of Thessaly added sometimes +to the blood of a black lamb that of an infant, and by this means +evoked the shadows. The priests were taught the art of calling up the +spirits of the dead, as well as those of the elements, but their mode +was certainly not that of Thessalian sorceresses. + +Among the Yakuts of Siberia there is a tribe dwelling on the very +confines of the Transbaïkal regions near the river Vitema (eastern +Siberia) which practices sorcery as known in the days of the +Thessalian witches. Their religious beliefs are curious as a mixture +of philosophy and superstition. They have a chief or supreme god +Aij-Taïon, who did not create, they say, but only _presides_ over +the creation of all the worlds. He lives on the _ninth_ heaven, +and it is but from the _seventh_ that the other minor gods--his +servants--can manifest themselves to their creatures. This ninth +heaven, according to the revelation of the minor deities (spirits, +we suppose), has three suns and three moons, and the ground of this +abode is formed of four lakes (the four cardinal points) of “soft +air” (ether), instead of water. While they offer no sacrifices to +the Supreme Deity, for he needs none, they do try to propitiate both +the good and bad deities, which they respectively term the “white” +and the “black” gods. They do it, because neither of the two classes +are good or bad through personal merit or demerit. As they are all +subject to the Supreme Aij-Taïon, and each has to carry on the duty +assigned to him from eternity, they are not responsible for either +the good or evil they produce in this world. The reason given by the +Yakuts for such sacrifices is very curious. Sacrifices, they say, +help each class of gods to perform their mission the better, and so +please the Supreme; and every mortal that helps either of them in +performing his duty must, therefore, please the Supreme as well, +for he will have helped justice to take place. As the “black” gods +are appointed to bring diseases, evils, and all kinds of calamities +to mankind, each of which is a punishment for some transgression, +the Yakuts offer to them “bloody” sacrifices of animals; while to +the “white” they make pure offerings, consisting generally of an +animal consecrated to some special god and taken care of with great +ceremony, as having become sacred. According to their ideas the souls +of the dead become “shadows,” and are doomed to wander on earth, till +a certain change takes place either for the better or worse, which +the Yakuts do not pretend to explain. The _light_ shadows, _i.e._, +those of good people, become the guardians and protectors of those +they loved on earth; the “dark” shadows (the wicked) always seek, on +the contrary, to hurt those they knew, by inciting them to crimes, +wicked acts, and otherwise injuring mortals. Besides these, like the +ancient Chaldees, they reckon seven divine _Sheitans_ (dæmons) or +minor gods. It is during the sacrifices of blood, which take place +at night, that the Yakuts call forth the wicked or _dark_ shadows, +to inquire of them what they can do to arrest their mischief; hence, +_blood is necessary_, for without its fumes the ghosts could not make +themselves clearly visible, and would become, according to their +ideas, but the more dangerous, for they would suck it from living +persons by their perspiration.[1112] As to the good, _light_ shadows, +they need not be called out; besides that, such an act disturbs +them; they can make their presence felt, when needed, without any +preparation and ceremonies. + +The blood-evocation is also practiced, although with a different +purpose, in several parts of Bulgaria and Moldavia, especially in +districts in the vicinity of Mussulmans. The fearful oppressions and +slavery to which these unfortunate Christians have been subjected +for centuries has rendered them a thousand-fold more impressible, +and at the same time more superstitious, than those who live in +civilized countries. On every seventh of May the inhabitants of every +Moldavo-Valachian and Bulgarian city or village, have what they term +the “feast of the dead.” After sunset, immense crowds of women and +men, each with a lighted wax taper in hand, resort to the burial +places, and pray on the tombs of their departed friends. This ancient +and solemn ceremony, called _Trizna_, is everywhere a reminiscence +of primitive Christian rites, but far more solemn yet, while in +Mussulman slavery. Every tomb is furnished with a kind of cupboard, +about half a yard high, built of four stones, and with hinged +double-doors. These closets contain what is termed the household +of the defunct: namely, a few wax tapers, some oil and an earthen +lamp, which is lighted on that day, and burns for twenty-four hours. +Wealthy people have silver lamps richly chiselled, and bejewelled +images, which are secure from thieves, for in the burial ground the +closets are even left open. Such is the dread of the population +(Mussulman and Christian) of the revenge of the dead that a thief +bold enough to commit any murder, would never dare touch the property +of a dead person. The Bulgarians have a belief that every Saturday, +and especially the eve of Easter Sunday, and until Trinity day +(about seven weeks) the souls of the dead descend on earth, some to +beg forgiveness from those living whom they had wronged; others to +protect and commune with their loved ones. Faithfully following the +traditional rites of their forefathers, the natives on each Saturday +of these seven weeks keep either lamps or tapers lighted. In addition +to that, on the _seventh_ of May they drench the tombs with grape +wine, and burn incense around them from sunset to sunrise. With +the inhabitants of towns, the ceremony is limited to these simple +observances. With some of the rustics though, the rite assumes the +proportions of a theurgic evocation. On the eve of Ascension Day, +Bulgarian women light a quantity of tapers and lamps; the pots are +placed upon tripods, and incense perfumes the atmosphere for miles +around; while thick white clouds of smoke envelope each tomb, as +though a veil had separated it from the others. During the evening, +and until a little before midnight, in memory of the deceased, +acquaintances and a certain number of mendicants are fed and treated +with wine and _raki_ (grape-whiskey), and money is distributed among +the poor according to the means of the surviving relatives. When the +feast is ended, the guests approaching the tomb and addressing the +defunct by name, thank him or her for the bounties received. When all +but the nearest relatives are gone, a woman, usually the most aged, +remains alone with the dead, and--some say--resorts to the ceremony +of invocation. + +After fervent prayers, repeated face downward on the grave-mound, +more or less drops of blood are drawn from near the left bosom, +and allowed to trickle upon the tomb. This gives strength to the +invisible spirit which hovers around, to assume for a few instants +a visible form, and whisper his instructions to the Christian +theurgist--if he has any to offer, or simply to “bless the mourner” +and then disappear again till the following year. So firmly rooted +is this belief that we have heard, in a case of family difficulty, a +Moldavian woman appeal to her sister to put off every decision till +Ascension-night, when their dead father _would be able to tell them +of his will and pleasure in person_; to which the sister consented as +simply as though their parent were in the next room. + +That there are fearful secrets in nature may well be believed +when, as we have seen in the case of the Russian _Znachar_, the +sorcerer _cannot_ die until he has passed the word to another, and +the hierophants of White Magic rarely do. It seems as if the dread +power of the “Word” could only be entrusted to one man of a certain +district or body of people at a time. When the Brahmâtma was about +to lay aside the burden of physical existence, he imparted his +secret to his successor, either orally, or by a writing placed in a +securely-fastened casket which went into the latter’s hands alone. +Moses “lays his hands” upon his neophyte, Joshua, in the solitudes of +Nebo and passes away forever. Aaron initiates Eleazar on Mount Hor, +and dies. Siddhârtha-Buddha promises his mendicants before his death +to live in him who shall deserve it, embraces his favorite disciple, +whispers in his ear, and dies; and as John’s head lies upon the bosom +of Jesus, he is told that he shall “tarry” until he shall come. Like +signal-fires of the olden times, which, lighted and extinguished by +turns upon one hill-top after another, conveyed intelligence along +a whole stretch of country, so we see a long line of “wise” men +from the beginning of history down to our own times communicating +the word of wisdom to their direct successors. Passing from seer +to seer, the “Word” flashes out like lightning, and while carrying +off the initiator from human sight forever, brings the new initiate +into view. Meanwhile, whole nations murder each other in the name of +another “Word,” an empty substitute accepted literally by each, and +misinterpreted by all! + +We have met few sects which truly practice sorcery. One such is +the Yezidis, considered by some a branch of the Koords, though we +believe erroneously. These inhabit chiefly the mountainous and +desolate regions of Asiatic Turkey, about Mosul, Armenia, and are +found even in Syria,[1113] and Mesopotamia. They are called and known +everywhere as devil-worshippers; and most certainly it is not either +through ignorance or mental obscuration that they have set up the +worship and a regular intercommunication with the lowest and the +most malicious of both elementals and elementaries. They recognize +the present wickedness of the chief of the “black powers;” but at +the same time they dread his power, and so try to conciliate to +themselves his favors. He is in an open quarrel with Allah, they +say, but a reconciliation can take place between the two at any day; +and those who have shown marks of their disrespect to the “black +one” now, may suffer for it at some future time, and thus have both +God and Devil against them. This is simply a cunning policy that +seeks to propitiate his Satanic majesty, who is no other than the +great _Tcherno-bog_ (the black god) of the Variagi-Russ, the ancient +idolatrous Russians before the days of Vladimir. + +Like Wierus, the famous demonographer of the sixteenth century (who +in his _Pseudomonarchia Dæmonum_ describes and enumerates a regular +infernal court, which has its dignitaries, princes, dukes, nobles, +and officers), the Yezidis have a whole pantheon of devils, and use +the Jakshas, aërial spirits, to convey their prayers and respects +to Satan their master, and the Afrites of the Desert. During their +prayer-meetings, they join hands, and form immense rings, with +their Sheik, or an officiating priest in the middle who claps his +hands, and intones every verse in honor of Sheitan (Satan). Then +they whirl and leap in the air. When the frenzy is at its climax, +they often wound and cut themselves with their daggers, occasionally +rendering the same service to their next neighbors. But their wounds +do not heal and cicatrize as easily as in the case of lamas and holy +men; for but too often they fall victims to these self-inflicted +wounds. While dancing and flourishing high their daggers without +unclasping hands--for this would be considered a sacrilege, and the +spell instantly broken, they coax and praise Sheitan, and entreat +him to manifest himself in his works by “miracles.” As their rites +are chiefly accomplished during night, they do not fail to obtain +manifestations of various character, the least of which are enormous +globes of fire which take the shapes of the most uncouth animals. + +Lady Hester Stanhope, whose name was for many years a power among +the masonic fraternities of the East, is said to have witnessed, +personally, several of these Yezidean ceremonies. We were told by +an _Ockhal_, of the sect of Druses, that after having been present +at one of the Yezidis’ “Devil’s masses,” as they are called, this +extraordinary lady, so noted for personal courage and daring +bravery, fainted, and notwithstanding her usual Emir’s male attire, +was recalled to life and health with the greatest difficulty. +Personally, we regret to say, all our efforts to witness one of these +performances failed. + +A recent article in a Catholic journal on Nagualism and Voodooism +charges Hayti with being the centre of secret societies, with +terrible forms of initiation and bloody rites, where _human infants +are sacrificed and devoured by the adepts_(!!) Piron, a French +traveller, is quoted at length, describing a most fearful scene +witnessed by him in Cuba, in the house of a lady whom he never +would have suspected of any connection with so monstrous a sect. “A +naked white girl acted as a voodoo priestess, wrought up to frenzy +by dances and incantations that followed the sacrifice of a white +and a black hen. A serpent, trained to its part, and acted on by the +music, coiled round the limbs of the girl, its motions studied by the +votaries dancing around or standing to watch its contortions. The +spectator fled at last in horror when the poor girl fell writhing in +an epileptic fit.” + +While deploring such a state of things in Christian countries, the +Catholic article in question explains this tenacity for ancestral +religious rites as evidence of the _natural depravity of the human +heart_, and makes a loud call for greater zeal on the part of +Catholics. Besides repeating the absurd fiction about devouring +children, the writer seems wholly insensible to the fact that a +devotion to one’s faith that centuries of the most cruel and bloody +persecution cannot quench, makes heroes and martyrs of a people, +whereas their conversion to any other faith would turn them simply +into renegades. A compulsory religion can never breed anything but +deceit. The answer received by the missionary Margil from some +Indians supports the above truism. The question being: “How is it +that you are so heathenish after having been Christians so long?” +The answer was: “What would you do, father, if enemies of your +faith entered your land? Would you not take all your books and +vestments and signs of religion and retire to the most secret caves +and mountains? This is just what our priests, and prophets, and +soothsayers, and nagualists have done to this time and are still +doing.” + +Such an answer from a Roman Catholic, questioned by a missionary of +either Greek or Protestant Church, would earn for him the crown of a +saint in the Popish martyrology. Better a “heathen” religion that can +extort from a Francis Xavier such a tribute as he pays the Japanese, +in saying that “in virtue and probity they surpassed all the nations +he had ever seen;” than a Christianity whose advance over the face +of the earth sweeps aboriginal nations out of existence as with a +hurricane of fire.[1114] Disease, drunkenness, and demoralization are +the immediate results of apostasy from the faith of their fathers, +and conversion into a religion of mere forms. + +What Christianity is doing for British India, we need go to +no inimical sources to inquire. Captain O’Grady, the British +ex-official, says: “The British government is doing a shameful +thing in turning the natives of India from a sober race to a nation +of drunkards. And for pure _greed_. Drinking is forbidden by the +religion alike of Hindus and Mussulmans. But ... drinking is daily +becoming more and more prevalent.... What the accursed opium traffic, +forced on China by British greed, has been to that unhappy country, +the government sale of liquor is likely to become to India. For it is +a government monopoly, based on almost precisely the same model as +the government monopoly of tobacco in Spain.... The outside domestics +in European families usually get to be terrible drunkards.... The +indoor servants usually detest drinking, and are a good deal more +respectable in this particular than their masters and mistresses +... everybody drinks ... bishops, chaplains, freshly-imported +boarding-school girls, and all.” + +Yes, these are the “blessings” that the modern Christian religion +brings with its _Bibles_ and _Catechisms_ to the “poor heathen.” Rum +and bastardy to Hindustan; opium to China; rum and foul disorders +to Tahiti; and, worst of all, the example of hypocrisy in religion, +and a practical skepticism and atheism, which, since it seems to +be good enough for _civilized_ people, may well in time be thought +good enough for those whom theology has too often been holding +under a very heavy yoke. On the other hand, everything that is +noble, spiritual, elevating, in the old religion is denied, and even +deliberately falsified. + +Take Paul, read the little of original that is left of him in the +writings attributed to this brave, honest, sincere man, and see +whether any one can find a word therein to show that Paul meant by +the word Christ anything more than the abstract ideal of the personal +divinity indwelling in man. For Paul, Christ is not a person, but an +embodied idea. “If any man is in Christ he is a new creation,” _he +is reborn_, as after initiation, for the Lord is spirit--the spirit +of man. Paul was the only one of the apostles who had understood +the secret ideas underlying the teachings of Jesus, although he had +never met him. But Paul had been initiated himself; and, bent upon +inaugurating a new and broad reform, one embracing the whole of +humanity, he sincerely set his own doctrines far above the wisdom +of the ages, above the ancient Mysteries and final revelation to +the epoptæ. As Professor A. Wilder well proves in a series of able +articles, it _was not Jesus, but Paul who was the real founder +of Christianity_. “The disciples were called Christians first in +Antioch,” say the _Acts of the Apostles_. “Such men as Irenæus, +Epiphanius, and Eusebius have transmitted to posterity a reputation +for untruth and dishonest practices; and the heart sickens at the +story of the crimes of that period,” writes this author, in a recent +article.[1115] “It will be remembered,” he adds, “that when the +Moslems overran Syria and Asia Minor for the first time, they were +welcomed by the Christians of those regions as deliverers from the +intolerable oppression of the ruling authorities of the Church.” + +Mahomet never was, neither is he now, considered a god; yet under the +stimulus of his name millions of Moslems have served their God with +an ardor that can never be paralleled by Christian sectarianism. That +they have sadly degenerated since the days of their prophet, does +not alter the case in hand, but only proves the more the prevalence +of matter over spirit all over the world. Besides, they have never +degenerated more from primitive faith than Christians themselves. +Why, then, should not Jesus of Nazareth, a thousandfold higher, +nobler, and morally grander than Mahomet, be as well revered by +Christians and followed in practice, instead of being blindly adored +in fruitless faith as a god, and at the same time worshipped much +after the fashion of certain Buddhists, who turn their wheel of +prayers. That this faith has become sterile, and is no more worthy +the name of Christianity than the fetishism of Calmucks that of the +philosophy preached by Buddha, is doubted by none. “We would not be +supposed to entertain the opinion,” says Dr. Wilder, “that modern +Christianity is in any degree identical with the religion preached +by Paul. It lacks his breadth of view, his earnestness, his keen +spiritual perception. Bearing the impress of the nations by which it +is professed, it exhibits as many forms as there are races. It is +one thing in Italy and Spain, but widely differs in France, Germany, +Holland, Sweden, Great Britain, Russia, Armenia, Kurdistan, and +Abyssinia. As compared with the preceding worships, the change seems +to be more in name than in genius. Men had gone to bed Pagans and +awoke Christians. As for the _Sermon on the Mount_, its conspicuous +doctrines are more or less repudiated by every Christian community +of any considerable dimensions. Barbarism, oppression, cruel +punishments, are as common now as in the days of Paganism. + +“The Christianity of Peter exists no more; that of Paul supplanted +it, and was in its turn amalgamated with the other world religions. +When mankind are enlightened, or the barbarous races and families +are supplanted by those of nobler nature and instincts, the ideal +excellencies may become realities. + +“The ‘Christ of Paul’ has constituted an enigma which evoked the most +strenuous endeavor to solve. He was something else than the Jesus of +the _Gospels_. Paul disregarded utterly their ‘endless genealogies.’ +The author of the fourth _Gospel_, himself an Alexandrian Gnostic, +describes Jesus as what would now be termed a ‘materialized’ divine +spirit. He was the Logos, or First Emanation--the Metathron.... +The ‘mother of Jesus,’ like the Princess Maya, Danaé, or perhaps +Periktioné, had given birth, not to a love-child, but to a divine +offspring. No Jew of whatever sect, no apostle, no early believer, +ever promulgated such an idea. Paul treats of Christ as a personage +rather than as a person. The sacred lessons of the secret assemblies +often personified the divine good and the divine truth in a human +form, assailed by the passions and appetites of mankind, but superior +to them; and this doctrine, emerging from the crypt, was apprehended +by churchlings and gross-minded men as that of immaculate conception +and divine incarnation.” + +In the old book, published in 1693 and written by the Sieur de la +Loubère, French Ambassador to the King of Siam, are related many +interesting facts of the Siamese religion. The remarks of the +satirical Frenchman are so pointed that we will quote his words about +the Siamese Saviour--Sommona-Cadom. + +“How marvellous soever they pretend the birth of their Saviour has +been, they cease not to give _him a father and a mother_.[1116] His +mother, whose name is found in some of their _Balie_ (Pali?) books, +was called, as they say, _Maha_ MARIA, which seems to signify the +great Mary, for Maha signifies great. However it be, this ceases not +to give attention to the missionaries, and has perhaps given occasion +to the Siamese to believe that Jesus being the son of _Mary_, was +brother to Sommona-Cadom, and that, having been crucified, he was +that _wicked_ brother whom they give to Sommona-Cadom, under the +name of Thevetat, and whom they report to be punished in Hell, with +a punishment which participates something of a cross.... The Siamese +expect another Sommona-Cadom, I mean, another miraculous man like +him, whom they already named _Pronarote_, and whom they say was +foretold by Sommona. He made all sorts of miracles.... He had two +disciples, both standing on each hand of his idol; one on the right +hand, and the other on the left ... the first is named Pra-Magla, +and the second _Pra Scaribout_.... The father of Sommona-Cadom was, +according to this same _Balie_ Book, a King of Teve Lanca, that is +to say, a King of Ceylon. But _the Balie Books being without date +and without the author’s name, have no more authority than all the +traditions, whose origin is unknown_.”[1117] + +This last argument is as ill-considered as it is naïvely expressed. +We do not know of any book in the whole world less authenticated as +to date, authors’ names, or tradition, than our Christian _Bible_. +Under these circumstances the Siamese have as much reason to believe +in their miraculous Sommona-Cadom as the Christians in their +miraculously-born Saviour. Moreover, they have no better right to +force their religion upon the Siamese, or any other people, against +their will, and in their own country, where they go unasked, than the +so-called heathen “to compel France or England to accept Buddhism at +the point of the sword.” A Buddhist missionary, even in free-thinking +America, would daily risk being mobbed, but this does not at all +prevent missionaries from abusing the religion of the Brahmans, +Lamas, and Bonzes, publicly to their teeth; and the latter are not +always at liberty to answer them. This is termed diffusing the +beneficent light of Christianity and civilization upon the darkness +of heathenism! + +And yet we find that these pretensions--which might appear ludicrous +were they not so fatal to millions of our fellow-men, who only ask to +be left alone--were fully appreciated as early as in the seventeenth +century. We find the same witty Monsieur de la Loubère, under a +pretext of pious sympathy, giving some truly curious instructions to +the ecclesiastical authorities at home,[1118] which embody the very +soul of Jesuitism. + +“From what I have said concerning the opinions of the Orientals,” he +remarks, “it is easy to comprehend how difficult an enterprise it is +to bring them over to the Christian religion; and of what consequence +it is that the missionaries, which preach the Gospel in the East, +do perfectly understand the manners and belief of these people. +For as the apostles and first Christians, when God supported their +preaching by so many wonders, did not on a sudden discover to the +heathens all the mysteries which we adore, but a long time concealed +from them, and the Catechumens themselves, the knowledge of those +which might scandalize them; it seems very rational to me that the +missionaries, who have not the gift of miracles, ought not presently +to discover to the Orientals all the mysteries nor all the practices +of Christianity. + +“’Twould be convenient, for example, if I am not mistaken, not +to preach unto them, _without great caution_, the worshipping of +saints; and as to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, I think it would +be necessary to manage it with them, if I may so say, and _not +to speak to them of the mystery of the Incarnation_, till after +having convinced them of the existence of a God Creator. For what +probability is there, to begin with, of persuading the Siamese to +remove Sommona-Cadom, Pra Mogla, and Pra Scaribout from the altars, +to set up Jesus Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul, in their stead? +’Twould, perhaps, be more proper not to preach unto them Jesus +Christ crucified, till they have first comprehended that one may be +_unfortunate_ and _innocent_; and that by the rule received, even +amongst them, which is, that the innocent might load himself with +the crimes of the guilty, it was necessary _that a god should become +man_, to the end that this man-God should, by a laborious life, and +a shameful but voluntary death, satisfy for all the sins of men; but +before all things it would be necessary to give them the true idea of +a God Creator, and justly provoked against men. The Eucharist, after +this, will not scandalize the Siamese, as it formerly scandalized +the Pagans of Europe; forasmuch as the Siamese do not believe +Sommona-Cadom could give his wife and children to the Talapoins to +eat. + +“On the contrary, as the Chinese are respectful toward their parents +even to a scruple, I doubt not that if the Gospel should be presently +put into their hands, they would be scandalized at that place, where, +when some told Jesus Christ that his mother and his brethren asked +after him, he answered in such a manner, that he seems so little to +regard them, that he affected not to know them. They would _not be +less offended_ at those other mysterious words, which our divine +Saviour spoke to the young man, who desired time to go and bury his +parents: “Let the dead,” said he, “bury the dead.” Every one knows +the trouble which the Japanese expressed to St. Francis Xavier _upon +the eternity of damnation_, not being able to believe that their +dead parents should fall into so horrible a misfortune for _want of +having embraced Christianity, which they had never heard of_.... It +seems necessary, therefore, to prevent and mollify this thought, +by the means which that great apostle of the Indies used, in first +establishing the idea of an omnipotent, all-wise, and most just God, +the author of all good, to whom only everything is due, and by whose +will we owe unto kings, bishops, magistrates and to our parents the +respects which we owe them. + +“These examples are sufficient to show with what precautions it is +necessary to prepare the minds of the Orientals to think like us, +and _not to be offended with most_ of the articles of the Christian +faith.”[1119] + +And what, we ask, is left to preach? With no Saviour, no atonement, +no crucifixion for human sin, no Gospel, no eternal damnation to tell +them of, and no miracles to display, what remained for the Jesuits to +spread among the Siamese but the dust of the Pagan sanctuaries with +which to blind their eyes? The sarcasm is biting indeed. The morality +to which these poor heathen are made to adhere by their ancestral +faith is so pure, that Christianity has to be stripped of every +distinguishing mark before its priests can venture to offer it for +their examination. A religion that cannot be trusted to the scrutiny +of an unsophisticated people who are patterns of filial piety, of +honest dealing, of deep reverence for God and an instinctive horror +of profaning His majesty, must indeed be founded upon error. That it +is so, our century is discovering little by little. + +In the general spoliation of Buddhism to make up the new Christian +religion, it was not to be expected that so peerless a character as +Gautama-Buddha would be left unappropriated. It was but natural that +after taking his legendary history to fill out the blanks left in the +fictitious story of Jesus, after using what they could of Christna’s, +they should take the man Sakya-muni and put him in their calendar +under an _alias_. This they actually did, and the Hindu Saviour in +due time appeared on the list of saints as Josaphat, to keep company +with those martyrs of religion, SS. Aura and Placida, Longinus and +Amphibolus. + +In Palermo there is even a church dedicated to _Divo Josaphat_. Among +the vain attempts of subsequent ecclesiastical writers to fix the +genealogy of this mysterious saint, the most original was the making +him Joshua, the son of Nun. But these trifling difficulties being +at last surmounted, we find the history of Gautama copied _word for +word_ from Buddhist sacred books, into the _Golden Legend_. Names of +individuals are changed, the place of action, India, remains the +same--in the Christian as in the Buddhist Legends. It can be also +found in the _Speculum Historiale_ of Vincent of Beauvais, which was +written in the thirteenth century. The first discovery is due to +the historian de Couto, although Professor Müller credits the first +recognition of the identity of the two stories to M. Laboulaye, in +1859. Colonel Yule tells us that[1120] these stories of Barlaam and +Josaphat, are recognized by Baronius, and are to be found at p. 348, +of _The Roman Martyrology_, set forth by command of Pope Gregory +XIII., and revised by the authority of Pope Urban VIII., translated +out of Latin into English by G. K. of the Society of Jesus.[1121] + +To repeat even a small portion of this ecclesiastical nonsense would +be tedious and useless. Let him who doubts and who would learn the +story read it as given by Colonel Yule. Some[1122] of the Christian +and ecclesiastical speculations seem to have embarrassed even Dominie +Valentyn. “There be some, who hold this Budhum for a fugitive Syrian +Jew,” he writes; “others who hold him for a disciple of the Apostle +Thomas; but how in that case he could have been born 622 years before +Christ I leave them to explain. Diego de Couto stands by the belief +that he was certainly _Joshua_, which is still more absurd!” + +“The religious romance called _The History of Barlaam and Josaphat_ +was, for several centuries, one of the most popular works in +Christendom,” says Col. Yule. “It was translated into all the chief +European languages, including Scandinavian and Sclavonic tongues.... +This story first appears among the works of St. John of Damascus, +a theologian of the early part of the eighth century.”[1123] Here +then lies the secret of its origin, for this St. John, before he +became a divine, held a high office at the court of the Khalif Abu +Jáfar Almansur, where he probably learned the story, and afterwards +adapted it to the new orthodox necessities of the Buddha turned into +a Christian saint. + +Having repeated the plagiarized story, Diego de Couto, who seems to +yield up with reluctance his curious notion that Gautama was Joshua, +says: “To this name (Budâo) the Gentiles throughout all India have +dedicated great and superb pagodas. With reference to this story, +we have been diligent in inquiring if the ancient Gentiles of those +parts had in their writings any knowledge of St. Josaphat who was +converted by Balaam, and who in his legend is represented as the son +of a great king of India, and who had just the same up-bringing, with +all the same particulars that we have recounted of the life of the +Budâo. And as I was travelling in the Isle of Salsette, and went to +see that rare and admirable pagoda, which we call the Canará Pagoda +(Kànhari Caves) made in a mountain, with many halls cut out of one +solid rock, and inquiring of an old man about the work, what he +thought as to who had made it, he told us that without doubt the work +was made by order of the father of St. Josaphat to bring him up in +seclusion, as the story tells. And as it informs us that he was the +son of a great king in India, it may well be, as we have just said, +that _he_ was the Budâo, of whom they relate such marvels.”[1124] + +The Christian legend is taken, moreover, in most of its details, +from the Ceylonese tradition. It is on this island that originated +the story of young Gautama rejecting his father’s throne, and the +king’s erecting a superb palace for him, in which he kept him half +prisoner, surrounded by all the temptations of life and wealth. Marco +Polo told it as he had it from the Ceylonese, and his version is now +found to be a faithful repetition of what is given in the various +Buddhist books. As Marco naïvely expresses it, Buddha led a life of +such hardship and sanctity, and kept such great abstinence, “_just as +if he had been a Christian_. Indeed,” he adds, “had he but been so, +he would have been a great saint of our Lord Jesus Christ, so good +and pure was the life he led.” To which pious apothegm his editor +very pertinently remarks that “Marco is not the only eminent person +who has expressed this view of Sakya-muni’s life in such words.” And +in his turn Prof. Max Müller says: “And whatever we may think of +the sanctity of saints, let those who doubt the right of Buddha to +a place among them, read the story of his life as it is told in the +Buddhistical canon. If he lived the life which is there described, +few saints have a better claim to the title than Buddha; and no one +either in the Greek or the Roman Church need be ashamed of having +paid to his memory the honor that was intended for St. Josaphat, the +prince, the hermit, and the saint.” + +The Roman Catholic Church has never had so good a chance to +Christianize all China, Thibet, and Tartary, as in the thirteenth +century, during the reign of Kublai-Khan. It seems strange that they +did not embrace the opportunity when Kublai was hesitating at one +time between the four religions of the world, and, perhaps through +the eloquence of Marco Polo, favored Christianity more than either +Mahometanism, Judaism, or Buddhism. Marco Polo and Ramusio, one of +his interpreters, tell us why. It seems that, unfortunately for Rome, +the embassy of Marco’s father and uncle failed, because Clement IV. +happened to die just at that very time. There was no Pope for several +months to receive the friendly overtures of Kublai-Khan; and thus +the one hundred Christian missionaries invited by him could not be +sent to Thibet and Tartary. To those who believe that there is an +intelligent Deity above who takes a certain concern in the welfare of +our miserable little world, this _contretemps_ must in itself seem a +pretty good proof that Buddhism should have the best of Christianity. +Perhaps--who knows--Pope Clement fell sick so as to save the +Buddhists from sinking into the idolatry of Roman Catholicism? + +From pure Buddhism, the religion of these districts has degenerated +into lamaism; but the latter, with all its blemishes--purely +formalistic and impairing but little the doctrine itself--is yet +far above Catholicism. The poor Abbé Huc very soon found it out +for himself. As he moved on with his caravan, he writes--“every +one repeated to us that, as we advanced toward the west, we should +find the doctrines growing more luminous and sublime. Lha-Ssa was +the great focus of light, the rays from which became weakened as +they were diffused.” One day he gave to a Thibetan lama “a brief +summary of Christian doctrine, which appeared by no means unfamiliar +to him [we do not wonder at that], and he even maintained that it +[Catholicism] did not differ much from the faith of the grand lamas +of Thibet.... These words of the Thibetan lama astonished us not a +little,” writes the missionary; “the unity of God, the mystery of the +Incarnation, the dogma of the real presence, appeared to us in his +belief.... The new light thrown on the religion of Buddha induced us +really to believe that we should find among the lamas of Thibet a +more purified system.”[1125] It is these words of praise to lamaism, +with which Huc’s book abounds, that caused his work to be placed on +the Index at Rome, and himself to be unfrocked. + +When questioned why, since he held the Christian faith to be the best +of the religions protected by him, he did not attach himself to it, +the answer given by Kublai-Khan is as suggestive as it is curious: + +“How would you have me to become a Christian? There are four prophets +worshipped and revered by all the world. The Christians say their +God is Jesus Christ; the Saracens, Mahomet; the Jews, Moses; the +idolaters, Sogomon Borkan (Sakva-muni Burkham, or Buddha), who was +the first god among the idols; and I worship and pay respect to all +four, and pray that he among them who is greatest in heaven in very +truth may aid me.” + +We may ridicule the Khan’s prudence; we cannot blame him for +trustingly leaving the decision of the puzzling dilemma to +Providence itself. One of his most unsurmountable objections to +embrace Christianity he thus specifies to Marco: “You see that the +Christians of these parts are so ignorant that they achieve nothing +and can achieve nothing, whilst you see the idolaters can do anything +they please, insomuch that when I sit at table, the cups from the +middle of the hall come to me full of wine or other liquor, without +being touched by anybody, and I drink from them. They control storms, +causing them to pass in whatever direction they please, and do many +other marvels; whilst, as you know, their idols speak, and give them +predictions on whatever subjects they choose. But if I were to turn +to the faith of Christ and become a Christian, then my barons and +others who are not converted, would say: ‘What has moved you to be +baptized?... What powers or miracles have you witnessed on the part +of Christ? You know the idolaters here say that their wonders are +performed by the sanctity and power of their idols.’ Well, I should +not know what answer to make, so they would only be confirmed in +their errors, and the idolaters, who are adepts in such surprising +arts, would easily compass my death. But now you shall go to your +Pope, and pray him on my part to send hither an hundred men skilled +in your law; and if they are capable of rebuking the practices of +idolaters to their faces, and of proving to them _that they too know +how to do such things, but will not_, because they are done by the +help of the Devil and other evil spirits; and if they so control the +idolaters that these shall have no power to perform such things in +their presence, _and when we shall witness this_, we will denounce +the idolaters and their religion, and then I will receive baptism, +and then all my barons and chiefs shall be baptized also, and thus, +in the end, there will be more Christians here than exist in your +part of the world.”[1126] + +The proposition was fair. Why did not the Christians avail themselves +of it? Moses is said to have faced such an ordeal before Pharaoh, and +come off triumphant. + +To our mind, the logic of this uneducated Mongol was unanswerable, +his intuition faultless. He saw good results in all religions, and +felt that, whether a man be Buddhist, Christian, Mahometan, or Jew, +his spiritual powers might equally be developed, his faith equally +lead him to the highest truth. All he asked before making choice of a +creed for his people, was the evidence upon which to base faith. + +To judge alone by its jugglers, India must certainly be better +acquainted with alchemy, chemistry, and physics than any European +academy. The psychological wonders produced by some fakirs of +Southern Hindustan, and by the shaberons and hobilhans of Thibet and +Mongolia, alike prove our case. The science of psychology has there +reached an acme of perfection never attained elsewhere in the annals +of the marvellous. That such powers are not alone due to study, but +are natural to every human being, is now proved in Europe and America +by the phenomena of mesmerism and what is termed “spiritualism.” If +the majority of foreign travellers, and residents in British India, +are disposed to regard the whole as clever jugglery, not so with a +few Europeans who have had the rare luck to be admitted _behind the +veil_ in the pagodas. Surely these will not deride the rites, nor +undervalue the phenomena produced in the secret lodges of India. The +_mahadthêvassthanam_ of the pagodas (usually termed _goparam_, from +the sacred pyramidal gateway by which the buildings are entered) has +been known to Europeans before now, though to a mere handful in all. + +We do not know whether the prolific Jacolliot[1127] was ever admitted +into one of these lodges. It is extremely doubtful, we should say, +if we may judge from his many fantastic tales of the immoralities of +the mystical rites among the Brahmans, the fakirs of the pagodas, +and even the Buddhists (!!) at all of which he makes himself figure +as a Joseph. Anyhow, it is evident that the Brahmans taught him no +secrets, for speaking of the fakirs and their wonders, he remarks, +“under the direction of initiated Brahmans they practice in the +seclusion of the pagodas, the _occult sciences_.... And let no one +be surprised at this word, which seems to open the door of the +supernatural; while there are in the sciences which the Brahmans call +occult, phenomena so extraordinary as to baffle all investigation, +there is not one which cannot be explained, and which is not subject +to natural law.” + +Unquestionably, any initiated Brahman could, if he would, explain +every phenomenon. But _he will not_. Meanwhile, we have yet to see an +explanation by the best of our physicists of even the most trivial +occult phenomenon produced by a fakir-pupil of a pagoda. + +Jacolliot says that it will be quite impracticable to give an account +of the marvellous facts witnessed by himself. But adds, with entire +truthfulness, “let it suffice to say, that in regard to magnetism +and spiritism, Europe has yet to stammer over the first letters +of the alphabet, and that the Brahmans have reached, in these two +departments of learning, results in the way of phenomena that are +truly stupefying. When one sees these strange manifestations, whose +power one cannot deny, without grasping the laws that the Brahmans +_keep so carefully concealed_, the mind is overwhelmed with wonder, +and one feels that he must run away and break the charm that holds +him.” + +“The only explanation that we have been able to obtain on the subject +from a learned Brahman, with whom we were on terms of the closest +intimacy, was this: ‘You have studied physical nature, and you have +obtained, through the laws of nature, marvellous results--steam, +electricity, etc.; _for twenty thousand years or more, we have +studied_ the _intellectual_ forces, we have discovered their laws, +and _we obtain, by making them act alone or in concert with matter, +phenomena still more astonishing than your own_.’” + +Jacolliot must indeed have been stupefied by wonders, for he says: +“We have seen things such as one does not describe for fear of making +his readers doubt his intelligence ... but still we have seen them. +And truly one comprehends how, in presence of such facts, the ancient +world believed ... in possessions of the Devil and in exorcism.”[1128] + +But yet this uncompromising enemy of priestcraft, monastic orders, +and the clergy of every religion and every land--including +Brahmans, lamas, and fakirs--is so struck with the contrast between +the fact-supported cults of India, and the empty pretences of +Catholicism, that after describing the terrible self-tortures of the +fakirs, in a burst of honest indignation, he thus gives vent to his +feelings: “Nevertheless, these fakirs, these mendicant Brahmans, have +still something grand about them: when they flagellate themselves, +when during the self-inflicted martyrdom the flesh is torn out by +bits, the blood pours upon the ground. But you (Catholic mendicants), +what do you do to-day? You, Gray Friars, Capuchins, Franciscans, +who play at fakirs, with your knotted cords, your flints, your hair +shirts, and your rose-water flagellations, your bare feet and your +comical mortifications--fanatics without faith, martyrs without +tortures? Has not one the right to ask you, if it is to obey the +law of God that you shut yourselves in behind thick walls, and thus +escape the law of labor which weighs so heavily upon all other +men?... Away, you are only beggars!” + +Let them pass on--we have devoted too much space to them and their +conglomerate theology, already. We have weighed both in the balance +of history, of logic, of truth, and found them wanting. Their +system breeds atheism, nihilism, despair, and crime; its priests and +preachers are unable to prove by works their reception of divine +power. If both Church and priest could but pass out of the sight of +the world as easily as their names do now from the eye of our reader, +it would be a happy day for humanity. New York and London might then +soon become as moral as a heathen city unoccupied by Christians; +Paris be cleaner than the ancient Sodom. When Catholic and Protestant +would be as fully satisfied as a Buddhist or Brahman that their every +crime would be punished, and every good deed rewarded, they might +spend upon their own _heathen_ what now goes to give missionaries +long picnics, and to make the name of Christian hated and despised by +every nation outside the boundaries of Christendom. + + * * * * * + +As occasion required, we have reinforced our argument with +descriptions of a few of the innumerable phenomena witnessed by us +in different parts of the world. The remaining space at our disposal +will be devoted to like subjects. Having laid a foundation by +elucidating the philosophy of occult phenomena, it seems opportune +to illustrate the theme with facts that have occurred under our own +eye, and that may be verified by any traveller. Primitive peoples +have disappeared, but primitive wisdom survives, and is attainable by +those who “will,” “dare,” and can “keep silent.” + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + “My vast and noble capital, my Daïtu, my splendidly-adorned; + And thou, my cool and delicious summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung. + * * * * * + Alas, for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World! + Alas, for my Daïtu, seat of sanctity, glorious work of the + immortal Kublaī! + All, all is rent from me!”--COL. YULE, in _Marco Polo_. + + “As for what thou hearest others say, who persuade the many + that the soul, when once freed from the body, neither + suffers ... evil nor is conscious, I know that thou art + better grounded in the doctrines received by us from our + ancestors, and in the sacred orgies of Dionysus, than to + believe them; _for the mystic symbols are well known to us + who belong to the ‘Brotherhood.’_”--PLUTARCH. + + + “The problem of life is _man_. MAGIC, or rather Wisdom, is + the evolved knowledge of the potencies of man’s interior + being; which forces are Divine emanations, as intuition is + the perception of their origin, and initiation our induction + into that knowledge.... We begin with instinct; the end is + OMNISCIENCE.”--A. WILDER. + + “Power belongs to him WHO KNOWS.”--_Brahmanical Book of + Evocation._ + + +It would argue small discernment on our part were we to suppose +that we had been followed thus far through this work by any but +meta-physicians, or mystics of some sort. Were it otherwise, we +should certainly advise such to spare themselves the trouble of +reading this chapter; for, although nothing is said that is not +strictly true, they would not fail to regard the least wonderful of +the narratives as absolutely false, however substantiated. + +To comprehend the principles of natural law involved in the several +phenomena hereinafter described, the reader must keep in mind the +fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy which we have +successively elucidated. Let us recapitulate very briefly: + +1st. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result +of law--eternal, immutable, ever active. Apparent miracle is but +the operation of forces antagonistic to what Dr. W. B. Carpenter, +F.R.S.--a man of great learning but little knowledge--calls “the +well-ascertained laws of nature.” Like many of his class, Dr. +Carpenter ignores the fact that there may be laws once “known,” now +unknown to science. + +2d. Nature is triune: there is a visible, objective nature; an +invisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the +other, and its vital principle; and, above these two, _spirit_, +source of all forces, alone eternal, and indestructible. The lower +two constantly change; the higher third does not. + +3d. Man is also triune: he has his objective, physical body; his +vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are +brooded over and illuminated by the third--the sovereign, the +immortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with +the latter, he becomes an immortal entity. + +4th. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and +of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and +its control over nature’s forces may be acquired by the individual +while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this +knowledge in practice. + +5th. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficently used, true +magic or wisdom. + +6th. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the +passive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls +himself and all inferior potencies. + +7th. All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having +their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, +the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know +all that has been known or can be known. + +8th. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or +any other external quality; among some peoples seership naturally +prevails, among others mediumship. Some are addicted to sorcery, and +transmit its secret rules of practice from generation to generation, +with a range of psychical phenomena, more or less wide, as the result. + +9th. One phase of magical skill is the voluntary and conscious +withdrawal of the inner man (astral form) from the outer man +(physical body). In the cases of some mediums withdrawal occurs, but +it is unconscious and involuntary. With the latter the body is more +or less cataleptic at such times; but with the adept the absence +of the astral form would not be noticed, for the physical senses +are alert, and the individual appears only as though in a fit of +abstraction--“a brown study,” as some call it. + +To the movements of the wandering astral form neither time nor space +offer obstacles. The thaumaturgist, thoroughly skilled in occult +science, can cause himself (that is, his physical body) to _seem_ to +disappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he may choose. +He may make his astral form visible, or he may give it protean +appearances. In both cases these results will be achieved by a +mesmeric hallucination of the senses of all witnesses, simultaneously +brought on. This hallucination is so perfect that the subject of it +would stake his life that he saw a reality, when it is but a picture +in his own mind, impressed upon his consciousness by the irresistible +will of the mesmerizer. + +But, while the astral form can go anywhere, penetrate any obstacle, +and be seen at any distance from the physical body, the latter +is dependent upon ordinary methods of transportation. It may be +levitated under prescribed magnetic conditions, but not pass from one +locality to another except in the usual way. Hence we discredit all +stories of the aërial flight of mediums in body, for such would be +miracle, and miracle we repudiate. Inert matter may be, in certain +cases and under certain conditions, disintegrated, passed through +walls, and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot. + +Swedenborgians believe and arcane science teaches that the +abandonment of the living body by the soul frequently occurs, and +that we encounter every day, in every condition of life, such living +corpses. Various causes, among them overpowering fright, grief, +despair, a violent attack of sickness, or excessive sensuality may +bring this about. The vacant carcass may be entered and inhabited +by the astral form of an adept sorcerer, or an elementary (an +earth-bound disembodied human soul), or, very rarely, an elemental. +Of course, an adept of white magic has the same power, but unless +some very exceptional and great object is to be accomplished, he +will never consent to pollute himself by occupying the body of an +impure person. In insanity, the patient’s astral being is either +semi-paralyzed, bewildered, and subject to the influence of every +passing spirit of any sort, or it has departed forever, and the +body is taken possession of by some vampirish entity near its own +disintegration, and clinging desperately to earth, whose sensual +pleasures it may enjoy for a brief season longer by this expedient. + +10th. The corner-stone of MAGIC is an intimate practical knowledge +of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and +potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects +in and upon the animal kingdom and man. There are occult properties +in many other minerals, equally strange with that in the lodestone, +which all practitioners of magic _must_ know, and of which so-called +exact science is wholly ignorant. Plants also have like mystical +properties in a most wonderful degree, and the secrets of the herbs +of dreams and enchantments are only lost to European science, and +useless to say, too, are unknown to it, except in a few marked +instances, such as opium and hashish. Yet, the psychical effects of +even these few upon the human system are regarded as evidences of +a temporary mental disorder. The women of Thessaly and Epirus, the +female hierophants of the rites of Sabazius, did not carry their +secrets away with the downfall of their sanctuaries. They are still +preserved, and those who are aware of the nature of Soma, know the +properties of other plants as well. + +To sum up all in a few words, MAGIC is spiritual WISDOM; nature, +the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician. One common +vital principle pervades all things, and this is controllable by the +perfected human will. The adept can stimulate the movements of the +natural forces in plants and animals in a preternatural degree. Such +experiments are not obstructions of nature, but quickenings; the +conditions of intenser vital action are given. + +The adept can control the sensations and alter the conditions of +the physical and astral bodies of other persons not adepts; he can +also govern and employ, as he chooses, the spirits of the elements. +He cannot control the immortal spirit of any human being, living or +dead, for all such spirits are alike sparks of the Divine Essence, +and not subject to any foreign domination. + +There are two kinds of seership--that of the soul and that of the +spirit. The seership of the ancient Pythoness, or of the modern +mesmerized subject, vary but in the artificial modes adopted to +induce the state of clairvoyance. But, as the visions of both depend +upon the greater or less acuteness of the senses of the astral body, +they differ very widely from the perfect, omniscient spiritual state; +for, at best, the subject can get but glimpses of truth, through +the veil which physical nature interposes. The astral principle, or +mind, called by the Hindu Yogin _fav-atma_, is the sentient soul, +inseparable from our physical brain, which it holds in subjection, +and is in its turn equally trammelled by it. This is the _ego_, the +intellectual life-principle of man, his conscious entity. While it +is yet _within_ the material body, the clearness and correctness of +its spiritual visions depend on its more or less intimate relation +with its higher Principle. When this relation is such as to allow the +most ethereal portions of the soul-essence to act independently of +its grosser particles and of the brain, it can unerringly comprehend +what it sees; then only is it the pure, rational, _super_sentient +soul. That state is known in India as the _Samâddi_; it is the +highest condition of spirituality possible to man on earth. Fakirs +try to obtain such a condition by holding their breath for hours +together during their religious exercises, and call this practice +_dam-sādhna_. The Hindu terms _Pranayama_, _Pratyahara_, and +_Dharana_, all relate to different psychological states, and show +how much more the Sanscrit, and even the modern Hindu language +are adapted to the clear elucidation of the phenomena that are +encountered by those who study this branch of psychological science, +than the tongues of modern peoples, whose experiences have not yet +necessitated the invention of such descriptive terms. + +When the body is in the state of _dharana_--a total catalepsy of the +physical frame--the soul of the clairvoyant may liberate itself, and +perceive things subjectively. And yet, as the sentient principle of +the brain is alive and active, these pictures of the past, present, +and future will be tinctured with the terrestrial perceptions of the +objective world; the physical _memory_ and _fancy_ will be in the +way of clear vision. But the seer-adept knows how to suspend the +mechanical action of the brain. His visions will be as clear as truth +itself, uncolored and undistorted, whereas, the clairvoyant, unable +to control the vibrations of the astral waves, will perceive but more +or less broken images through the medium of the brain. The seer can +never take flickering shadows for realities, for his memory being as +completely subjected to his will as the rest of the body, he receives +impressions directly from his spirit. Between his subjective and +objective selves there are no obstructive mediums. This is the real +spiritual seership, in which, according to an expression of Plato, +soul is raised above all inferior good. When we reach “that which +is supreme, which is _simple, pure, and unchangeable, without form, +color, or human qualities_: the God--_our Nous_.” + +This is the state which such seers as Plotinus and Apollonius +termed the “Union to the Deity;” which the ancient Yogins called +_Isvara_,[1129] and the modern call “Samâddi;” but this state is +as far above modern clairvoyance as the stars above glow-worms. +Plotinus, as is well known, was a clairvoyant-seer during his whole +and daily life; and yet, _he had been united to his God_ but six +times during the sixty-six years of his existence, as he himself +confessed to Porphyry. + +Ammonius Sakkas, the “God-taught,” asserts that the only power +which is directly opposed to soothsaying and looking into +futurity is _memory_; and Olympiodorus calls it _phantasy_. “The +phantasy,” he says (in _Platonis Phæd._), is an impediment to our +intellectual conceptions; and hence, when we are agitated by the +inspiring influence of the Divinity, if the phantasy intervenes, +the enthusiastic energy ceases; for enthusiasm and the ecstasy are +contrary to each other. Should it be asked whether the soul is able +to energize without the phantasy, we reply, that its perception of +universals proves that it is able. It has perceptions, therefore, +independent of the phantasy; at the same time, however, the phantasy +attends it in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on +the sea.” + +A medium, moreover, needs either a foreign intelligence--whether it +be spirit or living mesmerizer--to overpower his physical and mental +parts, or some factitious means to induce trance. An adept, and even +a simple fakir requires but a few minutes of “self-contemplation.” +The brazen columns of Solomon’s temple; the golden bells and +pomegranates of Aaron; the Jupiter Capitolinus of Augustus, hung +around with harmonious bells;[1130] and the brazen bowls of the +Mysteries when the Kora was called,[1131] were all intended for such +artificial helps.[1132] So were the brazen bowls of Solomon hung +round with a double row of 200 pomegranates, which served as clappers +within the hollow columns. The priestesses of Northern Germany, under +the guidance of hierophants, could never prophesy but amidst the +roar of the tumultuous waters. Regarding fixedly the eddies formed +on the rapid course of the river they _hypnotized_ themselves. So +we read of Joseph, Jacob’s son, who sought for divine inspiration +with his silver divining-cup, which must have had a very bright +bottom to it. The priestesses of Dodona placed themselves under +the ancient oak of Zeus (the Pelasgian, not the Olympian god), and +listened intently to the rustling of the sacred leaves, while others +concentrated their attention on the soft murmur of the cold spring +gushing from underneath its roots.[1133] But the adept has no need of +any such extraneous aids--the simple exertion of his _will_-power is +all-sufficient. + +The _Atharva-Veda_ teaches that the exercise of such will-power is +the highest form of prayer and its instantaneous response. To desire +is to realize in proportion to the intensity of the aspiration; and +that, in its turn, is measured by inward purity. + +Some of these nobler Vedantic precepts on the soul and man’s mystic +powers, have recently been contributed to an English periodical +by a Hindu scholar. “The _Sankhya_,” he writes, “inculcates that +the soul (_i.e._, astral body) has the following powers: shrinking +into a minute bulk to which everything is pervious; enlarging to a +gigantic body; assuming levity (rising along a sunbeam to the solar +orb); possessing an unlimited reach of organs, as touching the moon +with the tip of a finger; irresistible will (for instance, sinking +into the earth as easily as in water); dominion over all things, +animate or inanimate; faculty of changing the course of nature; +ability to accomplish every desire.” Further, he gives their various +appellations: + +“The powers are called: 1, _Anima_; 2, _Mahima_; 3, _Laghima_; 4, +_Garima_; 5, _Prapti_; 6, _Prakamya_; 7, _Vasitwa_; 8, _Isitwa_, or +divine power. The fifth, predicting future events, understanding +unknown languages, curing diseases, divining unexpressed thoughts, +understanding the language of the heart. The sixth is the power +of converting old age into youth. The seventh is the power of +mesmerizing human beings and beasts, and making them obedient; it is +the power of restraining passions and emotions. The eighth power is +the spiritual state, and presupposes the absence of the above seven +powers, as in this state the Yogi is full of God.” + +“No writings,” he adds, “revealed or sacred, were allowed to be so +authoritative and final _as the teaching of the soul_. Some of the +Rishis appear to have laid the greatest stress on this supersensuous +source of knowledge.”[1134] + +From the remotest antiquity _mankind_ as a whole _have always been +convinced of the existence of a personal spiritual entity within the +personal physical man_. This inner entity was more or less divine, +according to its proximity to the _crown_--Chrestos. The closer the +union the more serene man’s destiny, the less dangerous the external +conditions. This belief is neither bigotry nor superstition, only +an ever-present, instinctive feeling of the proximity of another +spiritual and invisible world, which, though it be subjective to the +senses of the outward man, is perfectly objective to the inner ego. +Furthermore, they believed that _there are external and internal +conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our +actions_. They rejected fatalism, for fatalism implies a blind course +of some still blinder power. But they believed in _destiny_, which +from birth to death every man is weaving thread by thread around +himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided +either by that presence termed by some the guardian angel, or our +more intimate astral inner man, who is but too often the evil genius +of the man of flesh. Both these lead on the outward man, but one +of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible +affray the stern and implacable _law of compensation_ steps in and +takes its course, following faithfully the fluctuations. When the +last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the net-work +of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire +of this _self-made_ destiny. It then either fixes him like the inert +shell against the immovable rock, or like a feather carries him away +in a whirlwind raised by his own actions. + +The greatest philosophers of antiquity found it neither unreasonable +nor strange that “souls should come to souls, and impart to them +conceptions of future things, occasionally by letters, or by a mere +touch, or by a glance reveal to them past events or announce future +ones,” as Ammonius tells us. Moreover, Lamprias and others held +that if the _unembodied_ spirits or souls could descend on earth +and become guardians of mortal men, “we should not seek to deprive +_those souls which are still in the body_ of that power by which +the former know future events and are able to announce them. It is +not probable,” adds Lamprias, “that the soul gains a new power of +prophecy after separation from the body, and which before it did not +possess. We may rather conclude _that it possessed all these powers +during its union with the body, although in a lesser perfection_.... +For as the sun does not shine only when it passes from among the +clouds, but has always been radiant and has only appeared dim and +obscured by vapors, the soul does not only receive the power of +looking into futurity when it passes from the body as from a cloud, +but _has possessed it always_, though dimmed by connection with the +earthly.” + +A familiar example of one phase of the power of the soul or astral +body to manifest itself, is the phenomenon of the so-called +spirit-hand. In the presence of certain mediums these seemingly +detached members will gradually develop from a luminous nebula, pick +up a pencil, write messages, and then dissolve before the eyes of the +witnesses. Many such cases are recorded by perfectly competent and +trustworthy persons. These phenomena are real, and require serious +consideration. But false “phantom-hands” have sometimes been taken +for the genuine. At Dresden we once saw a hand and arm, made for the +purpose of deception, with an ingenious arrangement of springs that +would cause the machine to imitate to perfection the movements of the +natural member; while exteriorly it would require close inspection to +detect its artificial character. In using this, the dishonest medium +slips his natural arm out of his sleeve, and replaces it with the +mechanical substitute; both hands may then be made to seem resting +upon the table, while in fact one is touching the sitters, showing +itself, knocking the furniture, and making other phenomena. + +The mediums for real manifestations are least able, as a rule, +to comprehend or explain them. Among those who have written most +intelligently upon the subject of these luminous hands, may be +reckoned Dr. Francis Gerry Fairfield, author of _Ten Years among +the Mediums_, an article from whose pen appears in the _Library +Table_ for July 19, 1877. A medium himself, he is yet a strong +opponent of the spiritualistic theory. Discussing the subject of the +“phantom-hand,” he testifies that “this the writer has personally +witnessed, under conditions of test provided by himself, in his own +room, in full daylight, with the medium seated upon a sofa from six +to eight feet from the table hovering upon which the apparition (the +hand) appeared. The application of the poles of a horse-shoe magnet +to the hand caused it to waver perceptibly, and threw the medium +into violent convulsions--pretty positive evidence that _the force +concerned in the phenomenon was generated in his own nervous system_.” + +Dr. Fairfield’s deduction that the fluttering phantom-hand is an +emanation from the medium is logical, and it is correct. The test +of the horse-shoe magnet proves in a scientific way what every +kabalist would affirm upon the authority of experience, no less than +philosophy. The “force concerned in the phenomenon” is the will of +the medium, exercised unconsciously to the outer man, which for the +time is semi-paralyzed and cataleptic; the phantom-hand an extrusion +of the man’s inner or astral member. This is that real self whose +limbs the surgeon cannot amputate, but remain behind after the outer +casing is cut off, and (all theories of exposed or compressed nerve +termini to the contrary, notwithstanding) have all the sensations the +physical parts formerly experienced. This is that spiritual (astral) +body which “is raised in incorruption.” It is useless to argue that +these are _spirit_-hands; for, admitting even that at every seance +human spirits of many kinds are attracted to the medium, and that +they do guide and produce some manifestations, yet to make hands or +faces objective they are compelled to use either the astral limbs of +the medium, or the materials furnished them by the elementals, or yet +the combined aural emanations of all persons present. _Pure_ spirits +will not and _cannot_ show themselves objectively; those that do are +not pure spirits, but elementary and impure. Woe to the medium who +falls a prey to such! + +The same principle involved in the unconscious extrusion of a +phantom limb by the cataleptic medium, applies to the projection +of his entire “double” or astral body. This may be withdrawn by +the will of the medium’s own inner self, without his retaining in +his physical brain any recollection of such an intent--that is one +phase of man’s dual capacity. It may also be effected by elementary +and elemental spirits, to whom he may stand in the relation of +mesmeric subject. Dr. Fairfield is right in one position taken in +his book, viz.: mediums are usually diseased, and in many if not +most cases the children or near connections of mediums. But he +is wholly wrong in attributing all psychical phenomena to morbid +physiological conditions. The adepts of Eastern magic are uniformly +in perfect mental and bodily health, and in fact the voluntary and +independent production of phenomena is impossible to any others. We +have known many, and never a sick man among them. The adept retains +perfect consciousness; shows no change of bodily temperature, or +other sign of morbidity; requires no “conditions,” but will do his +feats anywhere and everywhere; and instead of being passive and in +subjection to a foreign influence, rules the forces with iron will. +But we have elsewhere shown that the medium and the adept are as +opposed as the poles. We will only add here that the body, soul, and +spirit of the adept are all conscious and working in harmony, and the +body of the medium is an inert clod, and even his soul may be away in +a dream while its habitation is occupied by another. + +An adept can not only project and make visible a hand, a foot, or +any other portion of his body, but the whole of it. We have seen one +do this, in full day, while his hands and feet were being held by a +skeptical friend whom he wished to surprise.[1135] Little by little +the whole astral body oozed out like a vapory cloud, until before us +stood two forms, of which the second was an exact duplicate of the +first, only slightly more shadowy. + +The medium need not exercise any _will-power_. It suffices that +she or he shall know what is expected by the investigators. The +medium’s “spiritual” entity, when not obsessed by other spirits, +will act outside the will or consciousness of the physical being, as +surely as it acts when within the body during a fit of somnambulism. +Its perceptions, external and internal, will be acuter and far +more developed, precisely as they are in the sleep-walker. And +this is why “the materialized form sometimes knows more than the +medium,”[1136] for the intellectual perception of the astral entity +is proportionately as much higher than the corporeal intelligence +of the medium in its normal state, as the spirit entity is finer +than itself. Generally the medium will be found cold, the pulse will +have visibly changed, and a state of nervous prostration succeeds +the phenomena, bunglingly and without discrimination attributed to +disembodied spirits; whereas, but one-third of them may be produced +by the latter, another third by elementals, and the rest by the +astral double of the medium himself. + +But, while it is our firm belief that most of the physical +manifestations, _i.e._, those which neither need nor show +intelligence nor great discrimination, are produced mechanically +by the _scin-lecca_ (double) of the medium, as a person in sound +sleep will when apparently awake do things of which he will retain +no remembrance. The purely subjective phenomena are but in a very +small proportion of cases due to the action of the personal astral +body. They are mostly, and according to the moral, intellectual, and +physical purity of the medium, the work of either the elementary, or +sometimes very pure human spirits. Elementals have naught to do with +subjective manifestations. In rare cases it is the _divine_ spirit of +the medium himself that guides and produces them. + +As Baboo Peary Chand Mittra says, in a letter[1137] to the President +of the National Association of Spiritualists, Mr. Alexander +Calder,[1138] “a spirit is an essence or power, and has no form.... +The very idea of form implies ‘materialism.’ The spirits [astral +souls, we should say] ... can assume forms for a time, but form is +not their permanent state. The more material is our soul, the more +material is our conception of spirits.” + +Epimenides, the Orphikos, was renowned for his “sacred and marvellous +nature,” and for the faculty his soul possessed of quitting its body +“_as long and as often as it pleased_.” The ancient philosophers who +have testified to this ability may be reckoned by dozens. Apollonius +left his body at a moment’s notice, but it must be remembered +Apollonius was an adept--a “magician.” Had he been simply a medium, +he could not have performed such feats _at will_. Empedocles of +Agrigentum, the Pythagorean thaumaturgist, required no _conditions_ +to arrest a waterspout which had broken over the city. Neither did +he need any to recall a woman to life, as he did. Apollonius used no +_darkened_ room in which to perform his æthrobatic feats. Vanishing +suddenly in the air before the eyes of Domitian and a whole crowd of +witnesses (many thousands), he appeared an hour after in the grotto +of Puteoli. But investigation would have shown that his physical +body having become invisible by the concentration of akâsa about +it, he could walk off unperceived to some secure retreat in the +neighborhood, and an hour after his astral form appear at Puteoli to +his friends, and seem to be the man himself. + +No more did Simon Magus wait to be entranced to fly off in the +air before the apostles and crowds of witnesses. “It requires no +conjuration and ceremonies; circle-making and incensing are mere +nonsense and juggling,” says Paracelsus. The human spirit “is so +great a thing that no man can express it; as God Himself is eternal +and unchangeable, so also is the mind of man. If we rightly +understood its powers, nothing would be impossible to us on earth. +The imagination is strengthened and developed through _faith in our +will_. Faith must confirm the imagination, for faith establishes the +will.” + +A singular account of the personal interview of an English ambassador +in 1783, with a reïncarnated Buddha--barely mentioned in volume +i.--an infant of eighteen months old at that time, is given in the +_Asiatic Journal_ from the narrative of an eye-witness himself, +Mr. Turner, the author of _The Embassy to Thibet_. The cautious +phraseology of a skeptic dreading public ridicule ill conceals +the amazement of the witness, who, at the same time, desires to +give facts as truthfully as possible. The infant lama received the +ambassador and his suite with a dignity and decorum so natural +and unconstrained that they remained in a perfect maze of wonder. +The behavior of this infant, says the author, was that of an old +philosopher, grave and sedate and exceedingly courteous. He contrived +to make the young pontiff understand the inconsolable grief into +which the Governor-General of Galagata (Calcutta) the City of Palaces +and the people of India were plunged when he died, and the general +rapture when they found that he had resurrected in a young and fresh +body again; at which compliment the young lama regarded him and his +suite with looks of singular complacency, and courteously treated +them to confectionery from a golden cup. “The ambassador continued to +express the Governor-General’s hope that the lama might long continue +to illumine the world with his presence, and that the friendship +which had heretofore subsisted between them might be yet more +strongly cemented, for the benefit and advantage of the intelligent +votaries of the lama ... all which made the little creature look +steadfastly at the speaker, and graciously bow and nod--and bow +and nod--as _if he_ understood and approved of every word that was +uttered.”[1139] + +As _if_ he understood! _If_ the infant behaved in the most natural +and dignified way during the reception, and “when their cups were +empty of tea became uneasy and throwing back his head and contracting +the skin of his brow, continued making a noise till they were filled +again,” why could he not understand as well what was said to him? + +Years ago, a small party of travellers were painfully journeying +from Kashmir to Leh, a city of Ladâhk (Central Thibet). Among +our guides we had a Tartar Shaman, a very mysterious personage, +who spoke Russian a little and English not at all, and yet who +managed, nevertheless, to converse with us, and proved of great +service. Having learned that some of our party were Russians, he had +imagined that our protection was all-powerful, and might enable +him to safely find his way back to his Siberian home, from which, +for reasons unknown, some twenty years before, he had fled, as he +told us, via Kiachta and the great Gobi Desert, to the land of the +Tcha-gars.[1140] With such an interested object in view, we believed +ourselves safe under his guard. To explain the situation briefly: +Our companions had formed the unwise plan of penetrating into Thibet +under various disguises, none of them speaking the language, although +one, a Mr. K----, had picked up some Kasan Tartar, and thought he +did. As we mention this only incidentally, we may as well say at once +that two of them, the brothers N----, were very politely brought back +to the frontier before they had walked sixteen miles into the weird +land of Eastern Bod; and Mr. K----, an ex-Lutheran minister, could +not even attempt to leave his miserable village near Leh, as from +the first days he found himself prostrated with fever, and had to +return to Lahore via Kashmere. But one sight seen by him was as good +as if he had witnessed the reïncarnation of Buddha itself. Having +heard of this “miracle” from some old Russian missionary in whom +he thought he could have more faith than in Abbé Huc, it had been +for years his desire to expose the “great heathen” jugglery, as he +expressed it. K---- was a positivist, and rather prided himself on +this anti-philosophical neologism. But his positivism was doomed to +receive a death-blow. + +About four days journey from Islamabad, at an insignificant mud +village, whose only redeeming feature was its magnificent lake, +we stopped for a few days’ rest. Our companions had temporarily +separated from us, and the village was to be our place of meeting. +It was there that we were apprised by our Shaman that a large party +of Lamaïc “Saints,” on pilgrimage to various shrines, had taken up +their abode in an old cave-temple and established a temporary Vihara +therein. He added that, as the “Three Honorable Ones”[1141] were said +to travel along with them, the holy Bikshu (monks) were capable of +producing the greatest miracles. Mr. K----, fired with the prospect +of exposing this humbug of the ages, proceeded at once to pay them +a visit, and from that moment the most friendly relations were +established between the two camps. + +The Vihar was in a secluded and most romantic spot secured against +all intrusion. Despite the effusive attentions, presents, and +protestations of Mr. K----, the Chief, who was Pase-Budhu (an ascetic +of great sanctity), declined to exhibit the phenomenon of the +“incarnation” until a certain talisman in possession of the writer +was exhibited.[1142] Upon seeing this, however, preparations were at +once made, and an infant of three or four months was procured from +its mother, a poor woman of the neighborhood. An oath was first of +all exacted of Mr. K----, that he would not divulge what he might +see or hear, for the space of seven years. The talisman is a simple +agate or carnelian known among the Thibetans and others as _A-yu_, +and naturally possessed, or had been endowed with very mysterious +properties. It has a triangle engraved upon it, within which are +contained a few mystical words.[1143] + +Several days passed before everything was ready; nothing of a +mysterious character occurring, meanwhile, except that, at the +bidding of a Bikshu, ghastly faces were made to peep at us out of +the glassy bosom of the lake, as we sat at the door of the Vihar, +upon its bank. One of these was the countenance of Mr. K----’s +sister, whom he had left well and happy at home, but who, as we +subsequently learned, had died some time before he had set out on +the present journey. The sight affected him at first, but he called +his skepticism to his aid, and quieted himself with theories of +cloud-shadows, reflections of tree-branches, etc., such as people of +his kind fall back upon. + +On the appointed afternoon, the baby being brought to the Vihara, +was left in the vestibule or reception-room, as K---- could go no +further into the temporary sanctuary. The child was then placed on a +bit of carpet in the middle of the floor, and every one not belonging +to the party being sent away, two “mendicants” were placed at the +entrance to keep out intruders. Then all the lamas seated themselves +on the floor, with their backs against the granite walls, so that +each was separated from the child by a space, at least, of ten feet. +The chief, having had a square piece of leather spread for him by +the _desservant_, seated himself at the farthest corner. Alone, Mr. +K---- placed himself close by the infant, and watched every movement +with intense interest. The only condition exacted of us was that +we should preserve a strict silence, and patiently await further +developments. A bright sunlight streamed through the open door. +Gradually the “Superior” fell into what seemed a state of profound +meditation, while the others, after a _sotto voce_ short invocation, +became suddenly silent, and looked as if they had been completely +petrified. It was oppressively still, and the crowing of the child +was the only sound to be heard. After we had sat there a few moments, +the movements of the infant’s limbs suddenly ceased, and his body +appeared to become rigid. K---- watched intently every motion, and +both of us, by a rapid glance, became satisfied that all present +were sitting motionless. The superior, with his gaze fixed upon the +ground, did not even look at the infant; but, pale and motionless, he +seemed rather like a bronze statue of a Talapoin in meditation than a +living being. Suddenly, to our great consternation, we saw the child, +not raise itself, but, as it were, violently jerked into a sitting +posture! A few more jerks, and then, like an automaton set in motion +by concealed wires, the four months’ baby stood upon his feet! Fancy +our consternation, and, in Mr. K----’s case, horror. Not a hand had +been outstretched, not a motion made, nor a word spoken; and yet, +here was a baby-in-arms standing erect and firm as a man! + +The rest of the story we will quote from a copy of notes written on +this subject by Mr. K----, the same evening, and given to us, in case +it should not reach its place of destination, or the writer fail to +see anything more. + +“After a minute or two of hesitation,” writes K----, “the baby turned +his head and looked at me with an expression of intelligence that +was simply awful! It sent a chill through me. I pinched my hands +and bit my lips till the blood almost came, to make sure that I did +not dream. But this was only the beginning. The miraculous creature, +making, _as I fancied_, two steps toward me, resumed his sitting +posture, and, without removing his eyes from mine, repeated, sentence +by sentence, in what I supposed to be Thibetan language, the very +words, which I had been told in advance, are commonly spoken at the +incarnations of Buddha, beginning with ‘I am Buddha; I am the old +Lama; I am his spirit in a new body,’ etc. I felt a real terror; my +hair rose upon my head, and my blood ran cold. For my life I could +not have spoken a word. There was no trickery here, no ventriloquism. +The infant lips moved, and the eyes seemed to search my very soul +with an expression that _made me think it was the face of the +Superior himself_, his eyes, his very look that I was gazing upon. It +was _as if his spirit had entered the little body, and was looking at +me through the transparent mask of the baby’s face_. I felt my brain +growing dizzy. The infant reached toward me, and laid his little hand +upon mine. I started as if I had been touched by a hot coal; and, +unable to bear the scene any longer, covered my face with my hands. +It was but for an instant; but when I removed them, the little actor +had become a crowing baby again, and a moment after, lying upon his +back, set up a fretful cry. The superior had resumed his normal +condition, and conversation ensued. + +“It was only after a series of similar experiments, extending over +ten days, that I realized the fact that I had seen the incredible, +astounding phenomenon described by certain travellers, but always +by me denounced as an imposture. Among a multitude of questions +unanswered, despite my cross-examination, the Superior let drop one +piece of information, which must be regarded as highly significant. +‘What would have happened,’ I inquired, through the shaman, ‘if, +while the infant was speaking, in a moment of insane fright, at the +thought of its being the “Devil,” I had killed it?’ He replied that, +if the blow had not been instantly fatal, the child _alone_ would +have been killed.’ ‘But,’ I continued, ‘suppose that it had been as +swift as a lightning-flash?’ ‘In such case,’ was the answer, ‘_you +would have killed me also_.’” + +In Japan and Siam there are two orders of priests, of which +one are public, and deal with the people, the other strictly +private. The latter are never seen; their existence is known but +to very few natives, never to foreigners. Their powers are never +displayed in public, nor ever at all except on rare occasions of +the utmost importance, at which times the ceremonies are performed +in subterranean or otherwise inaccessible temples, and in the +presence of a chosen few whose heads answer for their secrecy. Among +such occasions are deaths in the Royal family, or those of high +dignitaries affiliated with the Order. One of the most weird and +impressive exhibitions of the power of these magicians is that of +the withdrawal of the astral soul from the cremated remains of human +beings, a ceremony practiced likewise in some of the most important +lamaseries of Thibet and Mongolia. + +In Siam, Japan, and Great Tartary, it is the custom to make +medallions, statuettes, and idols out of the ashes of cremated +persons;[1144] they are mixed with water into a paste, and after +being moulded into the desired shape, are baked and then gilded. The +Lamasery of Ou-Tay, in the province of Chan-Si, Mongolia, is the +most famous for that work, and rich persons send the bones of their +defunct relatives to be ground and fashioned there. When the adept +in magic proposes to facilitate the withdrawal of the astral soul +of the deceased, which otherwise they think might remain stupefied +for an indefinite period _within_ the ashes, the following process +is resorted to: The sacred dust is placed in a heap upon a metallic +plate, strongly magnetized, of the size of a man’s body. The adept +then slowly and gently fans it with the _Talapat Nang_,[1145] a fan +of a peculiar shape and inscribed with certain signs, muttering, +at the same time, a form of invocation. The ashes soon become, as +it were, imbued with life, and gently spread themselves out into a +thin layer which assumes the outline of the body before cremation. +Then there gradually arises a sort of whitish vapor which after a +time forms into an erect column, and compacting itself, is finally +transformed into the “double,” or ethereal, astral counterpart of the +dead, which in its turn dissolves away into thin air, and disappears +from mortal sight.[1146] + +The “Magicians” of Kashmir, Thibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary are +too well known to need comments. If _jugglers_ they be, we invite the +most expert jugglers of Europe and America to match them if they can. + +If our scientists are unable to imitate the mummy-embalming of the +Egyptians, how much greater would be their surprise to see, as we +have, dead bodies preserved by alchemical art, so that after the +lapse of centuries, they seem as though the individuals were but +sleeping. The complexions were as fresh, the skin as elastic, the +eyes as natural and sparkling as though they were in the full flush +of health, and the wheels of life had been stopped but the instant +before. The bodies of certain very eminent personages are laid upon +catafalques, in rich mausoleums, sometimes overlaid with gilding or +even with plates of real gold; their favorite arms, trinkets, and +articles of daily use gathered about them, and a suite of attendants, +blooming young boys and girls, but still corpses, preserved like +their masters, stand as if ready to serve when called. In the convent +of Great Kouren, and in one situated upon the Holy Mountain (Bohté +Oula) there are said to be several such sepulchres, which have been +respected by all the conquering hordes that have swept through those +countries. Abbé Huc heard that such exist, but did not see one, +strangers of all kinds being excluded, and missionaries and European +travellers not furnished with the requisite protection, being the +last of all persons who would be permitted to approach the sacred +places. Huc’s statement that the tombs of Tartar sovereigns are +surrounded with children “who were compelled to swallow mercury until +they were suffocated,” by which means “the color and freshness of the +victims is preserved so well that they appear alive,” is one of these +idle missionary fables which impose only upon the most ignorant who +accept on hearsay. Buddhists have never immolated victims, whether +human or animal. It is utterly against the principles of their +religion, and no Lamaist was ever accused of it. When a rich man +desired to be interred in _company_, messengers were sent throughout +the country with the Lama-embalmers, and children just dead in the +natural way were selected for the purpose. Poor parents were but too +glad to preserve their departed children in this poetic way, instead +of abandoning them to decay and wild beasts. + +At the time when Abbé Huc was living in Paris, after his return +from Thibet, he related, among other unpublished wonders, to a Mr. +Arsenieff, a Russian gentleman, the following curious fact that he +had witnessed during his long sojourn at the lamasery of Kounboum. +One day while conversing with one of the lamas, the latter suddenly +stopped speaking, and assumed the attentive attitude of one who is +listening to a message being delivered to him, although he (Huc) +heard never a word. “Then, I must go;” suddenly broke forth the lama, +as if in response to the message. + +“Go where?” inquired the astonished “lama of Jehovah” (Huc). “And +with whom are you talking?” + +“To the lamasery of * * *,” was the quiet answer. “The Shaberon wants +me; it was he who summoned me.” + +Now this lamasery was many days’ journey from that of Kounboum, in +which the conversation was taking place. But what seemed to astonish +Huc the most was, that, instead of setting off on his journey, the +lama simply walked to a sort of cupola-room on the roof of the house +in which they lived, and another lama, after exchanging a few words, +followed them to the terrace by means of the ladder, and passing +between them, locked and barred his companion in. Then turning to Huc +after a few seconds of meditation, he smiled and informed the guest +that “he had gone.” + +“But how could he? Why you have locked him in, and the room has no +issue?” insisted the missionary. + +“And what good would a door be to him?” answered the custodian. “_It +is he himself who went away; his body is not needed, and so he left +it in my charge._” + +Notwithstanding the wonders which Huc had witnessed during his +perilous journey, his opinion was that both of the lamas had +mystified him. But three days later, not having seen his habitual +friend and entertainer, he inquired after him, and was informed that +he would be back in the evening. At sunset, and just as the “other +lamas” were preparing to retire, Huc heard his absent friend’s voice +calling as if from the clouds, to his companion to open the door +for him. Looking upward, he perceived the “traveller’s” outline +behind the lattice of the room where he had been locked in. When +he descended he went straight to the Grand Lama of Kounboum, and +delivered to him certain messages and “orders,” from the place which +he “pretended” he had just left. Huc could get no more information +from him as to his _aërial_ voyage. But he always thought, he +said, that this “farce” had something to do with the immediate and +extraordinary preparations for the polite expulsion of both the +missionaries, himself and Father Gabet, to Chogor-tan, a place +belonging to the Kounboum. The suspicion of the daring missionary +may have been correct, in view of his impudent inquisitiveness and +indiscretion. + +If the Abbé had been versed in Eastern philosophy, he would have +found no great difficulty in comprehending both the flight of the +lama’s astral body to the distant lamasery while his physical frame +remained behind, or the carrying on of a conversation with the +Shaberon that was inaudible to himself. The recent experiments with +the telephone in America, to which allusion was made in Chapter V. +of our first volume, but which have been greatly perfected since +those pages went to press, prove that the human voice and the +sounds of instrumental music may be conveyed along a telegraphic +wire to a great distance. The Hermetic philosophers taught, as we +have seen, that the disappearance from sight of a flame does not +imply its actual extinction. It has only passed from the visible +to the invisible world, and may be perceived by the inner sense +of vision, which is adapted to the things of that other and more +real universe. The same rule applies to sound. As the physical ear +discerns the vibrations of the atmosphere up to a certain point, +not yet definitely fixed, but varying with the individual, so the +adept whose interior hearing has been developed, can take the sound +at this vanishing-point, and hear its vibrations in the astral light +indefinitely. He needs no wires, helices, or sounding-boards; his +will-power is all-sufficient. Hearing with the spirit, time and +distance offer no impediments, and so he may converse with another +adept at the antipodes with as great ease as though they were in the +same room. + +Fortunately, we can produce numerous witnesses to corroborate our +statement, who, without being adepts at all, have, nevertheless, +heard the sound of aërial music and of the human voice, when neither +instrument nor speaker were within thousands of miles of the place +where we sat. In their case they actually heard interiorly, though +they supposed their physical organs of hearing alone were employed. +The adept had, by a simple effort of will-power, given them for the +brief moment the same perception of the spirit of sound as he himself +constantly enjoys. + +If our men of science could only be induced to test instead of +deriding the ancient philosophy of the trinity of all the natural +forces, they would go by leaps toward the dazzling truth, instead +of creeping, snail-like, as at present. Prof. Tyndall’s experiments +off the South Foreland, at Dover, in 1875, fairly upset all previous +theories of the transmission of sound, and those he has made with +sensitive flames[1147] bring him to the very threshold of arcane +science. One step further, and he would comprehend how adepts can +converse at great distances. But that step will _not_ be taken. Of +his sensitive--in truth, magical--flame, he says: “The slightest tap +on a distant anvil causes it to fall to seven inches. When a bunch +of keys is shaken, the flame is violently agitated, and emits a loud +roar. The dropping of a sixpence into a hand already containing coin, +knocks the flame down. The creaking of boots sets it in violent +commotion. The crumpling or tearing of a bit of paper, or the rustle +of a silk dress does the same. Responsive to every tick of a watch +held near it, it falls and explodes. The winding up of a watch +produces tumult. From a distance of thirty yards we may chirrup to +this flame, and cause it to fall and roar. Repeating a passage from +the _Faërie Queene_, the flame sifts and selects the manifold sounds +of my voice, noticing some by a slight nod, others by a deeper bow, +while to others it responds by violent agitation.” + +Such are the wonders of modern physical science; but at what cost of +apparatus, and carbonic acid and coal gas; of American and Canadian +whistles, trumpets, gongs, and bells! The poor heathen have none such +_impedimenta_, but--will European science believe it--nevertheless, +produce the very same phenomena. Upon one occasion, when, in a case +of exceptional importance, an “oracle” was required, we saw the +possibility of what we had previously vehemently denied--namely, a +simple mendicant cause a sensitive flame to give responsive flashes +without a particle of apparatus. A fire was kindled of branches of +the _Beal_-tree, and some sacrificial herbs were sprinkled upon it. +The mendicant sat near by, motionless, absorbed in contemplation. +During the intervals between the questions the fire burned low and +seemed ready to go out, but when the interrogatories were propounded, +the flames leaped, roaring, skyward, flickered, bowed, and sent fiery +tongues flaring toward the east, west, north, or south; each motion +having its distinct meaning in a code of signals well understood. +Between whiles it would sink to the ground, and the tongues of flame +would lick the sod in every direction, and suddenly disappear, +leaving only a bed of glowing embers. When the interview with the +flame-spirits was at an end, the Bikshu (mendicant) turned toward the +jungle where he abode, keeping up a wailing, monotonous chant, to the +rhythm of which the sensitive flame kept time, not merely like Prof. +Tyndall’s, when he read the _Faërie Queene_, by simple motions, but +by a marvellous modulation of hissing and roaring until he was out of +sight. Then, as if its very life were extinguished, it vanished, and +left a bed of ashes before the astonished spectators. + +Both in Western and Eastern Thibet, as in every other place where +Buddhism predominates, there are two distinct religions, the same +as it is in Brahmanism--the secret philosophy and the popular +religion. The former is that of the followers of the doctrine of the +sect of the Sutrântika.[1148] They closely adhere to the spirit of +Buddha’s original teachings which show the necessity of _intuitional_ +perception, and all deductions therefrom. These do not proclaim their +views, nor allow them to be made public. + +“All _compounds_ are perishable,” were the last words uttered by the +lips of the dying Gautama, when preparing under the Sâl-tree to enter +into Nirvana. “Spirit is the sole, elementary, and primordial unity, +and each of its rays is immortal, infinite, and indestructible. +Beware of the illusions of matter.” Buddhism was spread far and wide +over Asia, and even farther, by Dharm-Asôka. He was the grandson of +the miracle-worker Chandragupta, the illustrious king who rescued the +Punjâb from the Macedonians--if they ever were at Punjâb at all--and +received Megasthenes at his court in Pataliputra. Dharm-Asôka was +the greatest King of the Maûrya dynasty. From a reckless profligate +and atheist, he had become Pryâdasi, the “beloved of the gods,” and +never was the purity of his philanthropic views surpassed by any +earthly ruler. His memory has lived for ages in the hearts of the +Buddhists, and has been perpetuated in the humane edicts engraved +in several popular dialects on the columns and rocks of Allahabad, +Delhi, Guzerat, Peshawur, Orissa, and other places.[1149] His famous +grandfather had united all India under his powerful sceptre. When +the Nâgas, or serpent-worshippers of Kashmere had been converted +through the efforts of the apostles sent out by the Sthaviras of +the third councils, the religion of Gautama spread like wild-fire. +Gândhara, Cabul, and even many of the Satrapies of Alexander the +Great, accepted the new philosophy. The Buddhism of Nepâl being the +one which may be said to have diverged less than any other from the +primeval ancient faith, the Lamaism of Tartary, Mongolia, and Thibet, +which is a direct offshoot of this country, may be thus shown to be +the purest Buddhism; for we say it again, Lamaism properly is but an +external form of rites. + +The Upâsakas and Upâsakis, or male and female semi-monastics and +semi-laymen, have equally with the lama-monks themselves, to strictly +abstain from violating any of Buddha’s rules, and must study _Meipo_ +and every psychological phenomenon as much. Those who become guilty +of any of the “five sins” lose all right to congregate with the pious +community. The most important of these is _not to curse upon any +consideration, for the curse returns upon the one that utters it, and +often upon his innocent relatives who breathe the same atmosphere +with him_. To love each other, and even our bitterest enemies; to +offer our lives even for animals, to the extent of abstaining from +defensive arms; to gain the greatest of victories by conquering +one’s self; to avoid all vices; to practice all virtues, especially +humility and mildness; to be obedient to superiors, to cherish and +respect parents, old age, learning, virtuous and holy men; to provide +food, shelter, and comfort for men and animals; to plant trees on +the roads and dig wells for the comfort of travellers; such are the +moral duties of Buddhists. Every Ani or Bikshuni (nun) is subjected +to these laws. + +Numerous are the Buddhist and Lamaic saints who have been renowned +for the unsurpassed sanctity of their lives and their “miracles.” So +Tissu, the Emperor’s spiritual teacher, who consecrated Kublaï-Khan, +the Nadir Shah, was known far and wide as much for the extreme +holiness of his life as for the many wonders he wrought. But he +did not stop at fruitless miracles, but did better than that. Tissu +purified completely his religion; and from one single province +of Southern Mongolia is said to have forced Kublai to expel from +convents 500,000 monkish impostors, who made a pretext of their +profession, to live in vice and idleness. Then the Lamaists had +their great reformer, the Shaberon Son-Ka-po, who is claimed to +have been immaculately conceived by his mother, a virgin from +Koko-nor (fourteenth century), who is another wonder-worker. The +sacred tree of Kounboum, the tree of the 10,000 images, which, in +consequence of the degeneration of the true faith had ceased budding +for several centuries, now shot forth new sprouts and bloomed more +vigorously than ever from the hair of this avatar of Buddha, says the +legend. The same tradition makes him (Son-Ka-po) ascend to heaven +in 1419. Contrary to the prevailing idea, few of these saints are +_Khubilhans_, or Shaberons--reïncarnations. + +Many of the lamaseries contain schools of magic, but the most +celebrated is the collegiate monastery of the Shu-tukt, where there +are over 30,000 monks attached to it, the lamasery forming quite a +little city. Some of the female nuns possess marvellous psychological +powers. We have met some of these women on their way from Lha-Ssa +to Candi, the Rome of Buddhism, with its miraculous shrines and +Gautama’s relics. To avoid encounters with Mussulmans and other sects +they travel by night alone, unarmed, and without the least fear of +wild animals, _for these will not touch them_. At the first glimpses +of dawn, they take refuge in caves and viharas prepared for them by +their co-religionists at calculated distances; for notwithstanding +the fact that Buddhism has taken refuge in Ceylon, and nominally +there are but few of the denomination in British India, yet the +secret Byauds (Brotherhoods) and Buddhist viharas are numerous, and +every Jain feels himself obliged to help, indiscriminately, Buddhist +or Lamaist. + +Ever on the lookout for occult phenomena, hungering after sights, +one of the most interesting that we have seen was produced by one of +these poor travelling Bikshu. It was years ago, and at a time when +all such manifestations were new to the writer. We were taken to +visit the pilgrims by a Buddhist friend, a mystical gentleman born at +Kashmir, of Katchi parents, but a Buddha-Lamaist by conversion, and +who generally resides at Lha-Ssa. + +“Why carry about this bunch of dead plants?” inquired one of the +Bikshuni, an emaciated, tall and elderly woman, pointing to a large +nosegay of beautiful, fresh, and fragrant flowers in the writer’s +hands. + +“Dead?” we asked, inquiringly. “Why they just have been gathered in +the garden?” + +“And yet, they are dead,” she gravely answered. “To be born in this +world, is this not death? See, how these herbs look when alive in the +world of eternal light, in the gardens of our blessed Foh?” + +Without moving from the place where she was sitting on the ground, +the Ani took a flower from the bunch, laid it in her lap, and began +to draw together, by large handfuls as it were, invisible material +from the surrounding atmosphere. Presently a very, very faint nodule +of vapor was seen, and this slowly took shape and color, until, +poised in mid-air, appeared a copy of the bloom we had given her. +Faithful to the last tint and the last petal it was, and lying on its +side like the original, but a thousand-fold more gorgeous in hue and +exquisite in beauty, as the glorified human spirit is more beauteous +than its physical capsule. Flower after flower to the minutest herb +was thus reproduced and made to vanish, reappearing at our desire, +nay, at our simple thought. Having selected a full-blown rose we +held it at arm’s length, and in a few minutes our arm, hand, and the +flower, perfect in every detail, appeared reflected in the vacant +space, about two yards from where we sat. But while the flower seemed +immeasurably beautified and as ethereal as the other spirit flowers, +the arm and hand appeared like a mere reflection in a looking-glass, +even to a large spot on the fore arm, left on it by a piece of damp +earth which had stuck to one of the roots. Later we learned the +reason why. + +A great truth was uttered some fifty years ago by Dr. Francis Victor +Broussais, when he said: “If magnetism were true, medicine would be +an absurdity.” Magnetism _is_ true, and so we shall not contradict +the learned Frenchman as to the rest. Magnetism, as we have shown, +is the alphabet of magic. It is idle for any one to attempt to +understand either the theory or the practice of the latter until +the fundamental principle of magnetic attractions and repulsions +throughout nature is recognized. + +Many so-called popular superstitions are but evidences of an +instinctive perception of this law. An untutored people are taught +by the experience of many generations that certain phenomena occur +under fixed conditions; they give these conditions and obtain the +expected results. Ignorant of the laws, they explain the fact by +supernaturalism, for experience has been their sole teacher. + +In India, as well as in Russia and some other countries, there is an +instinctive repugnance to stepping across a man’s shadow, especially +if he have red hair; and in the former country, natives are extremely +reluctant to shake hands with persons of another race. These are +not idle fancies. Every person emits a magnetic exhalation or aura, +and a man may be in perfect physical health, but at the same time +his exhalation may have a morbific character for others, sensitive +to such subtile influences. Dr. Esdaile and other mesmerists long +since taught us that Oriental people, especially Hindus, are more +susceptible than the white-skinned races. Baron Reichenbach’s +experiments--and, in fact, the world’s entire experience--prove that +these magnetic exhalations are most intense from the extremities. +Therapeutic manipulations show this; hand-shaking is, therefore, most +calculated to communicate antipathetic magnetic conditions, and the +Hindus do wisely in keeping their ancient “superstition”--derived +from Manu--constantly in mind. + +The magnetism of a red-haired man, we have found, in almost every +nation, is instinctively dreaded. We might quote proverbs from the +Russian, Persian, Georgian, Hindustani, French, Turkish, and even +German, to show that treachery and other vices are popularly supposed +to accompany the rufous complexion. When a man stands exposed to +the sun, the magnetism of that luminary causes his emanations to +be projected toward the shadow, and the increased molecular action +develops more electricity. Hence, an individual to whom he is +antipathetic--though neither might be sensible of the fact--would +act prudently in not passing through the shadow. Careful physicians +wash their hands upon leaving each patient; why, then, should they +not be charged with superstition, as well as the Hindus? The sporules +of disease are invisible, but no less real, as European experience +demonstrates. Well, _Oriental experience for a hundred centuries has +shown that the germs of moral contagion linger about localities, and +impure magnetism can be communicated by the touch_. + +Another prevalent belief in some parts of Russia, particularly +Georgia (Caucasus), and in India, is that in case the body of a +drowned person cannot be otherwise found, if a garment of his be +thrown into the water it will float until directly over the spot, and +then sink. We have even seen the experiment successfully tried with +the sacred cord of a Brahman. It floated hither and thither, circling +about as though in search of something, until suddenly darting in a +straight line for about fifty yards, it sank, and at that exact spot +the divers brought up the body. We find this “superstition” even +in America. A Pittsburg paper, of very recent date, describes the +finding of the body of a young boy, named Reed, in the Monongahela, +by a like method. All other means having failed, it says, “a curious +superstition was employed. One of the boy’s shirts was thrown into +the river where he had gone down, and, it is said, floated on the +surface for a time, and finally settled to the bottom at a certain +place, which proved to be the resting-place of the body, and which +was then drawn out. The belief that the shirt of a drowned person +when thrown into the water will follow the body is well-spread, +absurd as it appears.” + +This phenomenon is explained by the law of the powerful attraction +existing between the human body and objects that have been long worn +upon it. The oldest garment is most effective for the experiment; a +new one is useless. + +From time immemorial, in Russia, in the month of May, on Trinity +Day, maidens from city and village have been in the habit of casting +upon the river wreaths of green leaves--which each girl has to form +for herself--and consulting their oracles. If the wreath sinks, it +is a sign that the girl will die unmarried within a short time; if +it floats, she will be married, the time depending upon the number +of verses she can repeat during the experiment. We positively affirm +that we have personal knowledge of several cases, two of them our +intimate friends, where the augury of death proved true, and the +girls _died_ within twelve months. Tried on any other day than +Trinity, the result would doubtless be the same. The sinking of the +wreath is attributable to its being impregnated with the unhealthy +magnetism of a system which contains the germs of early death; such +magnetisms having an attraction for the earth at the bottom of the +stream. As for the rest, we are willing to abandon it to the friends +of coincidence. + +The same general remark as to superstition having a scientific basis +applies to the phenomena produced by fakirs and jugglers, which +skeptics heap into the common category of trickery. And yet, to a +close observer, even to the uninitiated, an enormous difference is +presented between the _kîmiya_ (phenomenon) of a fakir, and the +_batte-bâzi_ (jugglery) of a trickster, and the necromancy of a +_jâdûgar_, or _sâhir_, so dreaded and despised by the natives. This +difference, imperceptible--nay incomprehensible--to the skeptical +European, is instinctively appreciated by every Hindu, whether of +high or low caste, educated or ignorant. The _kangâlin_, or witch, +who uses her terrible _abhi-châr_ (mesmeric powers) with intent to +injure, may expect death at any moment, for every Hindu finds it +lawful to kill her; a _bukka-baz_, or juggler, serves to amuse. A +serpent-charmer, with his _bâ-îni_ full of venomous snakes, is less +dreaded, for his powers of fascination extend but to animals and +reptiles; he is unable to charm human beings, to perform that which +is called by the natives _mantar phûnknâ_, to throw spells on men +by magic. But with the yogi, the sannyâsi, the holy men who acquire +enormous psychological powers by mental and physical training, the +question is totally different. Some of these men are regarded by the +Hindus as demi-gods. Europeans cannot judge of these powers but in +rare and exceptional cases. + +The British resident who has encountered in the _maidans_ and public +places what he regards as frightful and loathsome human beings, +sitting motionless in the self-inflicted torture of the _ûrddwa +bahu_, with arms raised above the head for months, and even years, +need not suppose they are the wonder-working fakirs. The phenomenon +of the latter are visible only through the friendly protection of +a Brahman, or under peculiarly fortuitous circumstances. Such men +are as little accessible as the real Nautch girls, of whom every +traveller talks, but very few have actually seen, since they belong +exclusively to the pagodas. + +It is surpassingly strange, that with the thousands of travellers +and the millions of European residents who have been in India, and +have traversed it in every direction, so little is yet known of that +country and the lands which surround it. It may be that some readers +will feel inclined not merely to doubt the correctness but even +openly contradict our statement? Doubtless, we will be answered that +all that it is desirable to know about India is already known? In +fact this very reply was once made to us personally. That resident +Anglo-Indians should not busy themselves with inquiries is not +strange; for, as a British officer remarked to us upon one occasion, +“society does not consider it well-bred to care about Hindus or +their affairs, or even show astonishment or desire information upon +anything they may see extraordinary in that country.” But it really +surprises us that at least travellers should not have explored +more than they have this interesting realm. Hardly fifty years +ago, in penetrating the jungles of the Blue or Neilgherry Hills in +Southern Hindustan, a strange race, perfectly distinct in appearance +and language from any other Hindu people, was discovered by two +courageous British officers who were tiger-hunting. Many surmises, +more or less absurd, were set on foot, and the missionaries, always +on the watch to connect every mortal thing with the _Bible_, even +went so far as to suggest that this people was one of the lost +tribes of Israel, supporting their ridiculous hypothesis upon their +very fair complexions and “strongly-marked Jewish features.” The +latter is perfectly erroneous, the Todas, as they are called, not +bearing the remotest likeness to the Jewish type; either in feature, +form, action, or language. They closely resemble each other, and, +as a friend of ours expresses himself, the handsomest of the Todas +resemble the statue of the Grecian Zeus in majesty and beauty of form +more than anything he had yet seen among men. + +Fifty years have passed since the discovery; but though since that +time towns have been built on these hills and the country has been +invaded by Europeans, no more has been learned of the Todas than +at the first. Among the foolish rumors current about this people, +the most erroneous are those in relation to their numbers and to +their practicing polyandry. The general opinion about them is that +on account of the latter custom their number has dwindled to a +few hundred families, and the race is fast dying out. We had the +best means of learning much about them, and therefore state most +positively that the Todas neither practice polyandry nor are they +as few in number as supposed. We are ready to show that no one +has ever seen children belonging to them. Those that may have been +seen in their company have belonged to the Badagas, a Hindu tribe +totally distinct from the Todas, in race, color, and language, and +which includes the most direct “worshippers” of this extraordinary +people. We say _worshippers_, for the Badagas clothe, feed, serve, +and positively look upon every Toda as a divinity. They are giants +in stature, white as Europeans, with tremendously long and generally +brown, wavy hair and beard, which no razor ever touched from birth. +Handsome as a statue of Pheidias or Praxiteles, the Toda sits the +whole day inactive, as some travellers who have had a glance at them +affirm. From the many conflicting opinions and statements we have +heard from the very residents of Ootakamund and other little new +places of civilization scattered about the Neilgherry Hills, we cull +the following: + +“They never use water; they are wonderfully handsome and noble +looking, but extremely unclean; unlike all other natives they despise +jewelry, and never wear anything but a large black drapery or blanket +of some woollen stuff, with a colored stripe at the bottom; they +never drink anything but pure milk; they have herds of cattle but +neither eat their flesh, nor do they make their beasts of labor +plough or work; they neither sell nor buy; the Badagas feed and +clothe them; they never use nor carry weapons, not even a simple +stick; the Todas can’t read and won’t learn. They are the despair of +the missionaries and apparently have no sort of religion, beyond the +worship of themselves as the Lords of Creation.”[1150] + +We will try to correct a few of these opinions, as far as we have +learned from a very holy personage, a Brahmanam-guru, who has our +great respect. + +Nobody has ever seen more than five or six of them at one time; they +will not talk with foreigners, nor was any traveller ever inside +their peculiar long and flat huts, which apparently are without +either windows or chimney and have but one door; nobody ever saw +the funeral of a Toda, nor very old men among them; nor are they +taken sick with cholera, while thousands die around them during such +periodical epidemics; finally, though the country all around swarms +with tigers and other wild beasts, neither tiger, serpent, nor any +other animal so ferocious in those parts, was ever known to touch +either a Toda or one of their cattle, though, as said above, they +never use even a stick. + +Furthermore the Todas do not marry at all. They seem few in number, +for no one has or ever will have a chance of numbering them; as soon +as their solitude was profaned by the avalanche of civilization--which +was, perchance, due to their own carelessness--the Todas began moving +away to other parts as unknown and more inaccessible than the +Neilgherry hills had formerly been; they are not born of Toda mothers, +nor of Toda parentage; they are the children of a certain very select +sect, and are set apart from their infancy for special religious +purposes. Recognized by a peculiarity of complexion, and certain other +signs, such a child is known as what is vulgarly termed a Toda, from +birth. Every third year, each of them must repair to a certain place +for a certain period of time, where each of them must meet; their +“dirt” is but a mask, such as a sannyâsi puts on in public in +obedience to his vow; their cattle are, for the most part, devoted to +sacred uses; and, though their places of worship have never been +trodden by a profane foot, they nevertheless exist, and perhaps rival +the most splendid pagodas--_goparams_--known to Europeans. The Badagas +are their special vassals, and--as has been truly remarked--worship +them as half-deities; for their birth and mysterious powers entitle +them to such a distinction. + +The reader may rest assured that any statements concerning them, that +clash with the little that is above given, are false. No missionary +will ever catch one with his bait, nor any Badaga betray them, though +he were cut to pieces. They are a people who fulfill a certain high +purpose, and whose secrets are inviolable. + +Furthermore, the Todas are not the only such mysterious tribe in +India. We have named several in a preceding chapter, but how many are +there besides these, that will remain unnamed, unrecognized, and yet +ever present! + +What is now generally known of Shamanism is very little; and that has +been perverted, like the rest of the non-Christian religions. It is +called the “heathenism” of Mongolia, and wholly without reason, for +it is one of the oldest religions of India. It is spirit-worship, or +belief in the immortality of the souls, and that the latter are still +the same men they were on earth, though their bodies have lost their +objective form, and man has exchanged his physical for a spiritual +nature. In its present shape, it is an offshoot of primitive theurgy, +and a practical blending of the visible with the invisible world. +Whenever a denizen of earth desires to enter into communication with +his invisible brethren, he has to assimilate himself to their nature, +_i.e._, he meets these beings half-way, and, furnished by them with a +supply of spiritual essence, endows them, in his turn, with a portion +of his physical nature, thus enabling them sometimes to appear in a +semi-objective form. It is a temporary exchange of natures, called +theurgy. Shamans are called sorcerers, because they are said to +evoke the “spirits” of the dead for purposes of necromancy. The +true Shamanism--striking features of which prevailed in India in +the days of Megasthenes (300 B.C.)--can no more be judged by its +degenerated scions among the Shamans of Siberia, than the religion +of Gautama-Buddha can be interpreted by the fetishism of some of +his followers in Siam and Burmah. It is in the chief lamaseries of +Mongolia and Thibet that it has taken refuge; and there Shamanism, if +so we must call it, is practiced to the utmost limits of intercourse +allowed between man and “spirit.” The religion of the lamas has +faithfully preserved the primitive science of _magic_, and produces +as great feats now as it did in the days of Kublaï-Khan and his +barons. The ancient mystic formula of the King Srong-ch-Tsans-Gampo, +the “Aum mani padmé houm,”[1151] effects its wonders now as well +as in the seventh century. Avalokitesvara, highest of the three +Boddhisattvas, and patron saint of Thibet, projects his shadow, full +in the view of the faithful, at the lamasery of Dga-G’Dan, founded +by him; and the luminous form of Son-Ka-pa, under the shape of a +fiery cloudlet, that separates itself from the dancing beams of +the sunlight, holds converse with a great congregation of lamas, +numbering thousands; the voice descending from above, like the +whisper of the breeze through foliage. Anon, say the Thibetans, the +beautiful appearance vanishes in the shadows of the sacred trees in +the park of the lamasery. + +At Garma-Khian (the mother-cloister) it is rumored that bad and +unprogressed spirits are made to appear on certain days, and _forced_ +to give an account of their evil deeds; they are compelled by the +lamaic adepts to redress the wrongs done by them to mortals. This +is what Huc naïvely terms “personating evil spirits,” _i.e._, +devils. Were the skeptics of various European countries permitted to +consult the accounts printed daily[1152] at Moru, and in the “City +of Spirits,” of the business-like intercourse which takes place +between the lamas and the invisible world, they would certainly feel +more interest in the phenomena described so triumphantly in the +spiritualistic journals. At Buddha-lla, or rather Foht-lla (Buddha’s +Mount), in the most important of the many thousand lamaseries of that +country, the sceptre of the Boddhisgat is seen floating, unsupported, +in the air, and its motions regulate the actions of the community. +Whenever a lama is called to account in the presence of the Superior +of the monastery, he knows beforehand it is useless for him to +tell an untruth; the “regulator of justice” (the sceptre) is there, +and its waving motion, either approbatory or otherwise, decides +instantaneously and unerringly the question of his guilt. We do not +pretend to have witnessed all this personally--we wish to make no +pretensions of any kind. Suffice it, with respect to any of these +phenomena, that what we have not seen with our own eyes has been so +substantiated to us that we indorse its genuineness. + +A number of lamas in Sikkin produce _meipo_--“miracle”--by magical +powers. The late Patriarch of Mongolia, Gegen Chutuktu, who resided +at Urga, a veritable paradise, was the sixteenth incarnation +of Gautama, therefore a Boddhisattva. He had the reputation of +possessing powers that were phenomenal, even among the thaumaturgists +of the land of miracles _par excellence_. Let no one suppose that +these powers are developed without cost. The lives of most of these +holy men, miscalled idle vagrants, cheating beggars, who are supposed +to pass their existence in preying upon the easy credulity of their +victims, are miracles in themselves. Miracles, because they show what +a determined will and perfect purity of life and purpose are able to +accomplish, and to what degree of preternatural ascetism a human body +can be subjected and yet live and reach a ripe old age. No Christian +hermit has ever dreamed of such refinement of monastic discipline; +and the aërial habitation of a Simon Stylite would appear child’s +play before the fakir’s and the Buddhist’s inventions of will-tests. +But the theoretical study of magic is one thing; the possibility +of practicing it quite another. At _Brâs-ss-Pungs_, the Mongolian +college where over three hundred magicians (_sorciers_, as the +French missionaries call them) teach about twice as many pupils from +twelve to twenty, the latter have many years to wait for their final +initiation. Not one in a hundred reaches the highest goal; and out of +the many thousand lamas occupying nearly an entire city of detached +buildings clustering around it, not more than two per cent. become +wonder-workers. One may learn by heart every line of the 108 volumes +of _Kadjur_,[1153] and still make but a poor practical magician. +There is but one thing which leads surely to it, and this particular +study is hinted at by more than one Hermetic writer. One, the Arabian +alchemist Abipili, speaks thus: “I admonish thee, whosoever thou art +that desirest to dive into the inmost parts of nature; if that thou +seekest thou findest not _within thee_, thou wilt _never find it +without thee_. If thou knowest not the excellency of thine own house, +why dost thou seek after the excellency of other things?... O MAN, +KNOW THYSELF! IN THEE IS HID THE TREASURE OF TREASURERS.” + +In another alchemic tract, _De manna Benedicto_, the author expresses +his ideas of the philosopher’s stone, in the following terms: “My +intent is for certain reasons not to prate too much of the matter, +which yet is but one only thing, already too plainly described; for +it shows and sets down such magical and natural uses of it [the +stone] as many that have had it never knew nor heard of; and such as, +when I beheld them, _made my knees to tremble and my heart to shake, +and I to stand amazed at the sight of them_!” + +Every neophyte has experienced more or less such a feeling; but once +that it is overcome, the man is an ADEPT. + +Within the cloisters of Dshashi-Lumbo and Si-Dzang, these powers, +inherent in every man, called out by so few, are cultivated to their +utmost perfection. Who, in India, has not heard of the Banda-Chan +Ramboutchi, the _Houtouktou_ of the capital of Higher Thibet? His +brotherhood of Khe-lan was famous throughout the land; and one of +the most famous “brothers” was a _Peh-ling_ (an Englishman) who had +arrived one day during the early part of this century, from the West, +a thorough Buddhist, and after a month’s preparation was admitted +among the Khe-lans. He spoke every language, including the Thibetan, +and knew every art and science, says the tradition. His sanctity and +the phenomena produced by him caused him to be proclaimed a shaberon +after a residence of but a few years. His memory lives to the present +day among the Thibetans, but his real name is a secret with the +shaberons alone. + +The greatest of the _meipo_--said to be the object of the ambition of +every Buddhist devotee--was, and yet is, the faculty of walking in +the air. The famous King of Siam, Pia Metak, the Chinese, was noted +for his devotion and learning. But he attained this “supernatural +gift” only after having placed himself under the direct tuition of +a priest of Gautama-Buddha. Crawfurd and Finlayson, during their +residence at Siam, followed with great interest the endeavors of some +Siamese nobles to acquire this faculty.[1154] + +Numerous and varied are the sects in China, Siam, Tartary, +Thibet, Kashmir, and British India, which devote their lives to +the cultivation of “supernatural powers,” so called. Discussing +one of such sects, the _Taossé_, Semedo says: “They pretend that +by means of certain exercises and meditations one shall regain +his youth, and others will attain to be _Shien-sien_, _i.e._, +‘Terrestrial Beati,’ in whose state every desire is gratified, +whilst they have the power to transport themselves from one place +to another, _however distant_, with speed and facility.”[1155] This +faculty relates but to the _projection_ of the _astral entity_, +in a more or less corporealized form, and certainly not to bodily +transportation. This phenomenon is no more a miracle than one’s +reflection in a looking-glass. No one can detect in such an image a +particle of matter, and still there stands our double, faithfully +representing, even to each single hair on our heads. If, by this +simple law of reflection, our double can be seen in a mirror, how +much more striking a proof of its existence is afforded in the +art of photography! _It is no reason, because our physicists have +not yet found the means of taking photographs, except at a short +distance, that the acquirement should be impossible to those who +have found these means in the power of the human will itself, +freed from terrestrial concern._[1156] Our thoughts are _matter_, +says science; every energy produces more or less of a disturbance +in the atmospheric waves. Therefore, as every man--in common with +every other living, and even inert object--has an _aura_ of his own +emanations surrounding him; and, moreover, is enabled, by a trifling +effort, to transport himself in _imagination_ wherever he likes, +why is it scientifically impossible that his thought, regulated, +intensified, and guided by that powerful magician, the educated will, +may become corporealized for the time being, and appear to whom it +likes, a faithful double of the original? Is the proposition, in the +present state of science, any more unthinkable than the photograph or +telegraph were less than forty years ago, or the telephone less than +fourteen months ago? + +If the sensitized plate can so accurately seize upon the _shadow_ of +our faces, then this shadow or reflection, although we are unable to +perceive it, must be something substantial. And, if we can, with the +help of optical instruments, project our _semblances_ upon a white +wall, at several hundred feet distance, sometimes, then there is no +reason why the adepts, the alchemists, the savants of the secret art, +should not have already found out that which scientists deny to-day, +but may discover true to-morrow, _i.e._, how to project electrically +their astral bodies, in an instant, through thousands of miles of +space, leaving their material shells with a certain amount of animal +vital principle to keep the physical life going, and acting within +their spiritual, ethereal bodies as safely and intelligently as +when clothed with the covering of flesh? There is a higher form of +electricity than the physical one known to experimenters; a thousand +correlations of the latter are as yet veiled to the eye of the modern +physicist, and none can tell where end its possibilities. + +Schott explains that by _Sian_ or _Shin-Sian_ are understood in the +old Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao +(Taossé) sect, “persons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life +of anchorites, and who have attained, either through their ascetic +observances or by the power of charms and elixirs, to the possession +of miraculous gifts and of terrestrial _immortality_”[1157](?) This +is exaggerated if not altogether erroneous. What they claim, is +merely their ability to prolong human life; and they can do so, if +we have to believe human testimony. What Marco Polo testifies to in +the thirteenth century is corroborated in our own days. “There are +another class of people called _Chughi_” (Yogi), he says, “who are +indeed properly called _Abraiamans_ (Brahmans?) who are extremely +long-lived, every man of them living to 150 or 200 years. They eat +very little, rice and milk chiefly. And these people make use of a +very strange beverage, a potion of sulphur and quicksilver mixed +together, and this they drink twice every month.... This, they say, +gives them long life; and it is a potion they are used to take from +their childhood.”[1158] Burnier shows, says Colonel Yule, the Yogis +very skilful in preparing mercury “so admirably that one or two +grains taken every morning restored the body to perfect health;” +and adds that the _mercurius vitæ_ of Paracelsus was a compound in +which entered antimony and quicksilver.[1159] This is a very careless +statement, to say the least, and we will explain what we know of it. + +The longevity of some lamas and Talapoins is proverbial; and it is +generally known that they use some compound which “renews the old +blood,” as they call it. And it was equally a recognized fact with +alchemists that a judicious administration, “of _aura of silver_ does +restore health and prolongs life itself to a wonderful extent.” But +we are fully prepared to oppose the statements of both Bernier and +Col. Yule who quotes him, that it is _mercury_ or quicksilver which +the Yogis and the alchemists used. The Yogis, in the days of Marco +Polo, as well as in our modern times, _do use that which may appear +to be quicksilver, but is not_. Paracelsus, the alchemists, and other +mystics, meant by _mercurius vitæ_, the living spirit of silver, the +_aura_ of silver, not the _argent vive_; and this _aura_ is certainly +not the mercury known to our physicians and druggists. There can be +no doubt that the imputation that Paracelsus introduced mercury into +medical practice is utterly incorrect. No mercury, whether prepared +by a mediæval fire-philosopher or a modern self-styled physician, can +or ever did restore the body to perfect health. Only an unmitigated +charlatan ever will use such a drug. And it is the opinion of many +that it is just with the wicked intention of presenting Paracelsus in +the eyes of posterity as a _quack_, that his enemies have invented +such a preposterous lie. + +The Yogis of the olden times, as well as modern lamas and Talapoins, +use a certain ingredient with a minimum of sulphur, and a milky juice +which they extract from a medicinal plant. They must certainly be +possessed of some wonderful secrets, as we have seen them healing the +most rebellious wounds in a few days; restoring broken bones to good +use in as many hours as it would take days to do by means of common +surgery. A fearful fever contracted by the writer near Rangoon, after +a flood of the Irrawaddy River, was cured in a few hours by the juice +of a plant called, if we mistake not, Kukushan, though there may be +thousands of natives ignorant of its virtues who are left to die of +fever. This was in return for a trifling kindness we had done to +a _simple mendicant_; a service which can interest the reader but +little. + +We have heard of a certain water, also, called _âb-i-hayât_, which +the popular superstition thinks hidden from every mortal eye, except +that of the holy sannyâsi; the fountain itself being known as the +âb-i-haiwân-î. It is more than probable though, that the Talapoins +will decline to deliver up their secrets, even to academicians and +missionaries; as these remedies must be used for the benefit of +humanity, never for money.[1160] + +At the great festivals of Hindu pagodas, at the marriage feasts +of rich high-castes, everywhere where large crowds are gathered, +Europeans find gunî--or serpent-charmers, fakirs-mesmerizers, +thaum-working sannyâsi, and so-called “jugglers.” To deride is +easy--to explain, rather more troublesome--to science impossible. +The British residents of India and the travellers prefer the first +expedient. But let any one ask one of these Thomases how the +following results--which they cannot and do not deny--are produced? +When crowds of gunî and fakirs appear with their bodies encircled +with cobras-de-capello, their arms ornamented with bracelets of +_corallilos_--diminutive snakes inflicting certain death in a few +seconds--and their shoulders with necklaces of trigonocephali, the +most terrible enemy of naked Hindu feet, whose bite kills like a +flash of lightning, the sceptic witness smiles and gravely proceeds +to explain how these reptiles, having been thrown in cataleptic +torpor, were all deprived by the gunî of their fangs. “They are +harmless and it is ridiculous to fear them.” “Will the Saëb caress +one of my nâg?” asked once a gunî approaching our interlocutor, +who had been thus humbling his listeners with his herpetological +achievements for a full half hour. Rapidly jumping back--the brave +warrior’s feet proving no less nimble than his tongue--Captain +B----’s angry answer could hardly be immortalized by us in print. +Only the gunî’s terrible body-guard saved him from an unceremonious +thrashing. Besides, say a word, and for a half-roupee any +professional serpent-charmer will begin creeping about and summon +around in a few moments numbers of untamed serpents of the most +poisonous species, and will handle them and encircle his body with +them. On two occasions in the neighborhood of Trinkemal a serpent was +ready to strike at the writer, who had once nearly sat on its tail, +but both times, at a rapid whistle of the gunî whom we had hired to +accompany us, it stopped--hardly a few inches from our body, as if +arrested by lightning and slowly sinking its menacing head to the +ground, remained stiff and motionless as a dead branch, under the +charm of the _kīlnā_.[1161] + +Will any European juggler, tamer, or even mesmerizer, risk repeating +just once an experiment that may be daily witnessed in India, if +you know where to go to see it? There is nothing in the world more +ferocious than a royal Bengal tiger. Once the whole population of +a small village, not far from Dakka, situated on the confines of a +jungle, was thrown into a panic at the appearance of an enormous +tigress, at the dawn of the day. These wild beasts never leave their +dens but at night, when they go searching for prey and for water. +But this unusual circumstance was due to the fact that the beast was +a mother, and she had been deprived of her two cubs, which had been +carried away by a daring hunter, and she was in search of them. Two +men and a child had already become her victims, when an aged fakir, +bent on his daily round, emerging from the gate of the pagoda, saw +the situation and understood it at a glance. Chanting a mantrâm he +went straight to the beast, which with flaming eye and foaming mouth +crouched near a tree ready for a new victim. When at about ten feet +from the tigress, without interrupting his modulated prayer, the +words of which no layman comprehends, he began a regular process of +mesmerization, as we understood it; he made _passes_. A terrific +howl which struck a chill into the heart of every human being in the +place, was then heard. This long, ferocious, drawling howl gradually +subsided into a series of plaintive broken sobs, as if the bereaved +mother was uttering her complaints, and then, to the terror of the +crowd which had taken refuge on trees and in the houses, the beast +made a tremendous leap--on the holy man as they thought. They were +mistaken, she was at his feet, rolling in the dust, and writhing. A +few moments more and she remained motionless, with her enormous head +laid on her fore-paws, and her bloodshot but now mild eye riveted on +the face of the fakir. Then the holy man of prayers sat beside the +tigress and tenderly smoothed her striped skin, and patted her back, +until her groans became fainter and fainter, and half an hour later +all the village was standing around this group; the fakir’s head +lying on the tigress’s back as on a pillow, his right hand on her +head, and his left thrown on the sod under the terrible mouth, from +which the long red protruding tongue was gently licking it. + +This is the way the fakirs tame the wildest beasts in India. Can +European tamers, with their white-hot iron rods, do as much? Of +course every fakir is not endowed with such a power; comparatively +very few are. And yet the actual number is large. How they are +_trained_ to these requirements in the pagodas will remain an +eternal secret, to all except the Brahmans and the adepts in occult +mysteries. The stories, hitherto considered fables, of Christna and +Orpheus charming the wild beasts, thus receives its corroboration +in our day. There is one fact which remains undeniable. _There is +not a single European_ in India who could have, or has ever boasted +of having, penetrated into the enclosed sanctuary _within_ the +pagodas. Neither authority nor money has ever induced a Brahman to +allow an uninitiated foreigner to pass the threshold of the reserved +precinct. To use authority in such a case would be equivalent to +throwing a lighted taper into a powder magazine. The Hindus, mild, +patient, long-suffering, whose very apathy saved the British from +being driven out of the country in 1857, would raise their hundred +millions of devotees as one man, at such a profanation; regardless +of sects or castes, they would exterminate every Christian. The +East India Company knew this well and built her stronghold on the +friendship of the Brahmans, and by paying subsidy to the pagodas; +and the British Government is as prudent as its predecessor. It is +the castes, and non-interference with the prevailing religions, that +secure its comparative authority in India. But we must once more +recur to Shamanism, that strange and most despised of all surviving +religions--“Spirit-worship.” + +Its followers have neither altars nor idols, and it is upon the +authority of a Shaman priest that we state that their true rites, +which they are bound to perform only once a year, on the shortest +day of winter, cannot take place before any stranger to their faith. +Therefore, we are confident that all descriptions hitherto given in +the _Asiatic Journal_ and other European works, are but guess-work. +The Russians, who, from constant intercourse with the Shamans in +Siberia and Tartary, would be the most competent of all persons +to judge of their religion, have learned nothing except of the +personal proficiency of these men in what they are half inclined to +believe clever jugglery. Many Russian residents, though, in Siberia, +are firmly convinced of the “supernatural” powers of the Shamans. +Whenever they assemble to worship, it is always in an open space, or +a high hill, or in the hidden depths of a forest--in this reminding +us of the old Druidical rites. Their ceremonies upon the occasions +of births, deaths, and marriages are but trifling parts of their +worship. They comprise offerings, the sprinkling of the fire with +spirits and milk, and weird hymns, or rather, magical incantations, +intoned by the officiating Shaman, and concluding with a chorus of +the persons present. + +The numerous small bells of brass and iron worn by them on the +priestly robe of deerskin,[1162] or the pelt of some other animal +reputed magnetic, are used to drive away the malevolent spirits +of the air, a _superstition_ shared by all the nations of old, +including Romans, and even the Jews, whose golden bells tell the +story. They have iron staves also covered with bells, for the same +reason. When, after certain ceremonies, the desired crisis is +reached, and “the spirit has spoken,” and the priest (who may be +either male or female) feels its overpowering influence, the hand of +the Shaman is drawn by some occult power toward the top of the staff, +which is commonly covered with hieroglyphics. With his palm pressing +upon it, he is then raised to a considerable height in the air, where +he remains for some time. Sometimes he leaps to an extraordinary +height, and, according to the control--for he is often but an +irresponsible medium--pours out prophecies and describes future +events. Thus, it was that, in 1847, a Shaman in a distant part of +Siberia prophesied and accurately detailed the issue of the Crimean +war. The particulars of the prognostication being carefully noted by +those present at the time, were all verified six years after this +occurrence. Although usually ignorant of even the name of astronomy, +let alone having studied this science, they often prophesy eclipses +and other astronomical phenomena. When consulted about thefts and +murders, they invariably point out the guilty parties. + +The Shamans of Siberia are all ignorant and illiterate. Those of +Tartary and Thibet--few in number--are mostly learned men in their +own way, and will not allow themselves to fall under the control of +spirits of any kind. The former are _mediums_ in the full sense of +the word; the latter, “magicians.” It is not surprising that pious +and superstitious persons, after seeing one of such crises, should +declare the Shaman to be under demoniacal possession. As in the +instances of Corybantic and Bacchantic fury among the ancient Greeks, +the “spiritual” crisis of the Shaman exhibits itself in violent +dancing and wild gestures. Little by little the lookers-on feel the +spirit of imitation aroused in them; seized with an irresistible +impulse, they dance, and become, in their turn, ecstatics; and he who +begins by joining the chorus, gradually and unconsciously takes part +in the gesticulations, until he sinks to the ground exhausted, and +often dying. + +“O, young girl, a god possesses thee! it is either Pan, or Hekaté, or +the venerable Corybantes, or Cybelé that agitates thee!” the chorus +says, addressing Phœdra, in Euripides. This form of psychological +epidemic has been too well known from the time of the middle ages +to cite instances from it. The _Chorœa sancti Viti_ is an historical +fact, and spread throughout Germany. Paracelsus cured quite a number +of persons possessed of such a spirit of imitation. But he was a +kabalist, and therefore accused, by his enemies, of having cast out +the devils by the power of a stronger demon, which he was believed to +carry about with him in the hilt of his sword. The Christian judges +of those days of horror found a better and a surer remedy. Voltaire +states that, in the district of Jura, between 1598 and 1600, over 600 +lycanthropes were put to death by a pious judge. + +But, while the illiterate Shaman is a victim, and during his crisis +sometimes sees the persons present, under the shape of various +animals, and often makes them share his hallucination, his brother +Shaman, learned in the mysteries of the priestly colleges of Thibet, +_expels_ the elementary creature, which can produce the hallucination +as well as a living mesmerizer, not through the help of a stronger +demon, but simply through his knowledge of the nature of the +invisible enemy. Where academicians have failed, as in the cases of +the Cevennois, a Shaman or a lama would have soon put an end to the +epidemic. + +We have mentioned a kind of carnelian stone in our possession, +which had such an unexpected and favorable effect upon the Shaman’s +decision. Every Shaman has such a talisman, which he wears attached +to a string, and carries under his left arm. + +“Of what use is it to you, and what are its virtues?” was the +question we often offered to our guide. To this he never answered +directly, but evaded all explanation, promising that as soon as an +opportunity was offered, and we were alone, he would ask the stone +_to answer for himself_. With this very indefinite hope, we were left +to the resources of our own imagination. + +But the day on which the stone “spoke” came very soon. It was during +the most critical hours of our life; at a time when the vagabond +nature of a traveller had carried the writer to far-off lands, where +neither civilization is known, nor security can be guaranteed for one +hour. One afternoon, as every man and woman had left the _yourta_ +(Tartar tent), that had been our home for over two months, to witness +the ceremony of the Lamaïc exorcism of a Tshoutgour,[1163] accused +of breaking and spiriting away every bit of the poor furniture and +earthenware of a family living about two miles distant, the Shaman, +who had become our only protector in those dreary deserts, was +reminded of his promise. He sighed and hesitated; but, after a short +silence, left his place on the sheepskin, and, going outside, placed +a dried-up goat’s head with its prominent horns over a wooden peg, +and then dropping down the felt curtain of the tent, remarked that +now no living person would venture in, for the goat’s head was a sign +that he was “at work.” + +After that, placing his hand in his bosom, he drew out the little +stone, about the size of a walnut, and, carefully unwrapping it, +proceeded, as it appeared, to swallow it. In a few moments his limbs +stiffened, his body became rigid, and he fell, cold and motionless as +a corpse. But for a slight twitching of his lips at every question +asked, the scene would have been embarrassing, nay--dreadful. The +sun was setting, and were it not that dying embers flickered at the +centre of the tent, complete darkness would have been added to the +oppressive silence which reigned. We have lived in the prairies +of the West, and in the boundless steppes of Southern Russia; but +nothing can be compared with the silence at sunset on the sandy +deserts of Mongolia; not even the barren solitudes of the deserts of +Africa, though the former are partially inhabited, and the latter +utterly void of life. Yet, there was the writer alone with what +looked no better than a corpse lying on the ground. Fortunately, this +state did not last long. + +“Mahandū!” uttered a voice, which seemed to come from the bowels of +the earth, on which the Shaman was prostrated. “Peace be with you ... +what would you have me do for you?” + +Startling as the fact seemed, we were quite prepared for it, for we +had seen other Shamans pass through similar performances. “Whoever +you are,” we pronounced mentally, “go to K----, and try to bring that +person’s _thought_ here. See what that other party does, and tell * * +* what we are doing and how situated.” + +“I am there;” answered the same voice. “The old lady (kokona)[1164] +is sitting in the garden ... she is putting on her spectacles and +reading a letter.” + +“The contents of it, and hasten,” was the hurried order while +preparing note-book and pencil. The contents were given slowly, as +if, while dictating, the invisible presence desired to afford us time +to put down the words phonetically, for we recognized the Valachian +language of which we know nothing beyond the ability to recognize it. +In such a way a whole page was filled. + +“Look west ... toward the third pole of the yourta,” pronounced the +Tartar in his natural voice, though it sounded hollow, and as if +coming from afar. “Her _thought_ is here.” + +Then with a convulsive jerk, the upper portion of the Shaman’s body +seemed raised, and his head fell heavily on the writer’s feet, which +he clutched with both his hands. The position was becoming less and +less attractive, but curiosity proved a good ally to courage. In +the west corner was standing, life-like but flickering, unsteady +and mist-like, the form of a dear old friend, a Roumanian lady of +Valachia, a mystic by disposition, but a thorough disbeliever in this +kind of occult phenomena. + +“Her thought is here, but her body is lying unconscious. We could not +bring her here otherwise,” said the voice. + +We addressed and supplicated the apparition to answer, but all in +vain. The features moved, and the form gesticulated as if in fear +and agony, but no sound broke forth from the shadowy lips; only +we imagined--perchance it was a fancy--hearing as if from a long +distance the Roumanian words, “_Non se póte_” (it cannot be done). + +For over two hours, the most substantial, unequivocal proofs that the +Shaman’s astral soul was travelling at the bidding of our unspoken +wish, were given us. Ten months later, we received a letter from our +Valachian friend in response to ours, in which we had enclosed the +page from the note-book, inquiring of her what she had been doing +on that day, and describing the scene in full. She was sitting--she +wrote--in the garden on that morning[1165] prosaically occupied in +boiling some conserves; the letter sent to her was word for word the +copy of the one received by her from her brother; all at once--in +consequence of the heat, she thought--she fainted, and remembered +distinctly _dreaming_ she saw the writer in a desert place which she +accurately described, and sitting under a “gypsy’s tent,” as she +expressed it. “Henceforth,” she added, “I can doubt no longer!” + +But our experiment was proved still better. We had directed the +Shaman’s inner _ego_ to the same friend heretofore mentioned in this +chapter, the Kutchi of Lha-Ssa, who travels constantly to British +India and back. _We know_ that he was apprised of our critical +situation in the desert; for a few hours later came help, and we were +rescued by a party of twenty-five horsemen who had been directed by +their chief to find us at the place where we were, which no living +man endowed with common powers could have known. The chief of this +escort was a Shaberon, an “adept” whom we had never seen before, nor +did we after that, for he never left his _soumay_ (lamasery), and +we could have no access to it. But _he was a personal friend of the +Kutchi_. + +The above will of course provoke naught but incredulity in the +general reader. But we write for those who will believe; who, +like the writer, understand and know the illimitable powers and +possibilities of the human astral soul. In this case we willingly +believe, nay, we know, that the “spiritual double” of the Shaman did +not act alone, for he was no adept, but simply a medium. According to +a favorite expression of his, as soon as he placed the stone in his +mouth, his “father appeared, dragged him out of his skin, and took +him wherever he wanted,” and at his bidding. + +One who has only witnessed the chemical, optical, mechanical, and +sleight-of-hand performances of European prestidigitateurs, is +not prepared to see, without amazement, the open-air and off-hand +exhibitions of Hindu jugglers, to say nothing of fakirs. Of the +mere displays of deceptive dexterity we make no account, for Houdin +and others far excel them in that respect; nor do we dwell upon +feats that permit of confederacy, whether resorted to or not. It is +unquestionably true that non-expert travellers, especially if of an +imaginative turn of mind, exaggerate inordinately. But our remark is +based upon a class of phenomena not to be accounted for upon any of +the familiar hypotheses. “I have seen,” says a gentleman who resided +in India, “a man throw up into the air a number of balls numbered +in succession from one upwards. As each went up--and there was no +deception about their going up--the ball was seen clearly in the +air, getting smaller and smaller, till it disappeared altogether out +of sight. When they were all up, twenty or more, the operator would +politely ask which ball you wanted to see, and then would shout out, +‘No. 1,’ ‘No. 15,’ and so on, as instructed by the spectators, when +the ball demanded would bound to his feet violently from some remote +distance.... These fellows have very scanty clothing, and apparently +no apparatus whatever. Then, I have seen them swallow three different +colored powders, and then, throwing back the head, wash them down +with water, drunk, in the native fashion, in a continuous stream from +a _lotah_, or brass-pot, held at arm’s length from the lips, and keep +on drinking till the swollen body could not hold another drop, and +water overflowed from the lips. Then, these fellows, after squirting +out the water in their mouths, have spat out the three powders on a +clean piece of paper, dry and unmixed.”[1166] + +In the eastern portion of Turkey and Persia, have dwelt, from time +immemorial, the warlike tribes of the Koordistan. This people +of purely Indo-European origin, and without a drop of Semitic +blood in them (though some ethnologists seem to think otherwise), +notwithstanding their brigand-like disposition, unite in themselves +the mysticism of the Hindu and the practices of the Assyrio-Chaldean +magians, vast portions of whose territory they have helped themselves +to, and will not give up, to please either Turkey or even all +Europe.[1167] Nominally, Mahometans of the sect of Omar, their +rites and doctrines are purely magical and magian. Even those who +are Christian Nestorians, are Christians but in name. The Kaldany, +numbering nearly 100,000 men, and with their two Patriarchs, are +undeniably rather Manicheans than Nestorians. Many of them are Yezids. + +One of these tribes is noted for its fire-worshipping predilections. +At sunrise and sunset, the horsemen alight and, turning towards the +sun, mutter a prayer; while at every new moon they perform mysterious +rites throughout the whole night. They have a tent set apart for +the purpose, and its thick, black, woolen fabric is decorated with +weird signs, worked in bright red and yellow. In the centre is +placed a kind of altar, encircled by three brass bands, to which +are suspended numerous rings by ropes of camel’s hair, which every +worshipper holds with his right hand during the ceremony. On the +altar burns a curious, old-fashioned silver lamp, a relic found +possibly among the ruins of Persepolis.[1168] This lamp, with three +wicks, is an oblong cup with a handle to it, and is evidently of the +class of Egyptian sepulchral lamps, once found in such profusion in +the subterranean caves of Memphis, if we may believe Kircher.[1169] +It widened from its end toward the middle, and its upper part was of +the shape of a heart; the apertures for the wicks forming a triangle, +and its centre being covered by an inverted heliotrope attached to a +gracefully-curved stalk proceeding from the handle of the lamp. This +ornament clearly bespoke its origin. It was one of the sacred vessels +used in sun-worship. The Greeks gave the _heliotrope_ its name from +its strange propensity to ever incline towards the sun. The ancient +Magi used it in their worship; and who knows but Darius had performed +the mysterious rites with its triple light illuminating the face of +the king-hierophant! + +If we mention the lamp at all, it is because there happened to be a +strange story in connection with it. What the Koords do, during their +nocturnal rites of lunar-worship, we know but from hearsay; for they +conceal it carefully, and no stranger could be admitted to witness +the ceremony. But every tribe has one old man, sometimes several, +regarded as “holy beings,” who know the past, and can divulge the +secrets of the future. These are greatly honored, and generally +resorted to for information in cases of theft, murders, or danger. + +Travelling from one tribe to the other, we passed some time in +company with these Koords. As our object is not autobiographical, +we omit all details that have no immediate bearing upon some occult +fact, and even of these, have room but for a few. We will then simply +state that a very expensive saddle, a carpet, and two Circassian +daggers, richly mounted and chiselled in gold, had been stolen from +the tent, and that the Koords, with the chief of the tribe at the +head, had come, taking Allah for their witness that the culprit could +not belong to their tribe. We believed it, for it would have been +unprecedented among these nomadic tribes of Asia, as famed for the +sacredness in which they hold their guests, as for the ease with +which they plunder and occasionally murder them, when once they have +passed the boundaries of their _aoûl_. + +A suggestion was then made by a Georgian belonging to our caravan to +have resort to the light of the _koodian_ (sorcerer) of their tribe. +This was arranged in great secrecy and solemnity, and the interview +appointed to take place at midnight, when the moon would be at its +full. At the stated hour we were conducted to the above-described +tent. + +A large hole, or square aperture, was managed in the arched roof of +the tent, and through it poured in vertically the radiant moonbeams, +mingling with the vacillating triple flame of the little lamp. +After several minutes of incantations, addressed, as it seemed to +us, to the moon, the conjurer, an old man of tremendous stature, +whose pyramidal turban touched the top of the tent, produced a +round looking-glass, of the kind known as “Persian mirrors.” Having +unscrewed its cover, he then proceeded to breathe on it, for over ten +minutes, and wipe off the moisture from the surface with a package +of herbs, muttering incantations the while _sotto voce_. After every +wiping the glass became more and more brilliant, till its crystal +seemed to radiate refulgent phosphoric rays in every direction. At +last the operation was ended; the old man, with the mirror in his +hand, remained as motionless as if he had been a statue. “Look, +Hanoum ... look steadily,” he whispered, hardly moving his lips. +Shadows and dark spots began gathering, where one moment before +nothing was reflected but the radiant face of the full moon. A few +more seconds, and there appeared the well-known saddle, carpet, and +daggers, which seemed to be rising as from a deep, clear water, and +becoming with every instant more definitely outlined. Then a still +darker shadow appeared hovering over these objects, which gradually +condensed itself, and then came out, as visibly as at the small end +of a telescope, the full figure of a man crouching over them. + +“I know him!” exclaimed the writer. “It is the Tartar who came to us +last night, offering to sell his mule!” + +The image disappeared, as if by enchantment. The old man nodded +assent, but remained motionless. Then he muttered again some +strange words, and suddenly began a song. The tune was slow and +monotonous, but after he had sung a few stanzas in the same unknown +tongue, without changing either rhythm or tune, he pronounced, +_recitative_-like, the following words, in his broken Russian: + +“Now, Hanoum, look well, whether we will catch him--the fate of the +robber--we will learn this night,” etc. + +The same shadows began gathering, and then, almost without +transition, we saw the man lying on his back, in a pool of blood, +across the saddle, and two other men galloping off at a distance. +Horror-stricken, and sick at the sight of this picture, we desired to +see no more. The old man, leaving the tent, called some of the Koords +standing outside, and seemed to give them instructions. Two minutes +later, a dozen of horsemen were galloping off at full speed down the +side of the mountain on which we were encamped. + +Early in the morning they returned with the lost objects. The saddle +was all covered with coagulated blood, and of course abandoned to +them. The story they told was, that upon coming in sight of the +fugitive, they saw disappearing over the crest of a distant hill two +horsemen, and upon riding up, the Tartar thief was found dead upon +the stolen property, exactly as we had seen him in the magical glass. +He had been murdered by the two banditti, whose evident design to rob +him was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the party sent by the +old Koodian. + +The most remarkable results are produced by the Eastern “wise men,” +by the simple act of breathing upon a person, whether with good or +evil intent. This is pure mesmerism; and among the Persian dervishes +who practice it the animal magnetism is often reinforced by that of +the elements. If a person happens to stand facing a certain wind, +there is always danger, they think; and many of the “learned ones” +in occult matters can never be prevailed upon to go at sunset in +a certain direction from whence blows the wind. We have known an +old Persian from Baku,[1170] on the Caspian Sea, who had the most +unenviable reputation for _throwing spells_ through the timely help +of this wind, which blows but too often at that town, as its Persian +name itself shows.[1171] If a victim, against whom the wrath of the +old fiend was kindled, happened to be facing this wind, he would +appear, as if by enchantment, cross the road rapidly, and breathe in +his face. From that moment, the latter would find himself afflicted +with every evil--he was under the spell of the “evil eye.” + +The employment of the human breath by the sorcerer as an adjunct +for the accomplishment of his nefarious purpose, is strikingly +illustrated in several terrible cases recorded in the French +annals--notably those of several Catholic priests. In fact, this +species of sorcery was known from the oldest times. The Emperor +Constantine (in Statute iv., _Code de Malef._, etc.) prescribed +the severest penalties against such as should employ sorcery to do +violence to chastity and excite unlawful passion. Augustine (_Cité +de Dieu_) warns against it; Jerome, Gregory, Nazianzen and many +other ecclesiastical authorities, lend their denunciation of a crime +not uncommon among the clergy. Baffet (book v., tit. 19, chap. 6) +relates the case of the curé of Peifane, who accomplished the ruin of +a highly-respected and virtuous lady parishioner, the Dame du Lieu, +by resort to sorcery, and was burned alive for it by the Parliament +of Grenoble. In 1611, a priest named Gaufridy was burned by the +Parliament of Provence for seducing a penitent at the confessional, +named Magdelaine de la Palud, _by breathing upon her_, and thus +throwing her into a delirium of sinful love for him. + +The above cases are cited in the official report of the famous case +of Father Girard, a Jesuit priest of very great influence, who, +in 1731, was tried before the Parliament of Aix, France, for the +seduction of his parishioner, Mlle. Catherine Cadière, of Toulon, +and certain revolting crimes in connection with the same. The +indictment charged that the offence was brought about by resort +to sorcery. Mlle. Cadière was a young lady noted for her beauty, +piety, and exemplary virtues. Her attention to her religious +duties was exceptionally rigorous, and that was the cause of her +perdition. Father Girard’s eye fell upon her, and he began to +manœuvre for her ruin. Gaining the confidence of the girl and her +family by his apparent great sanctity, he one day made a pretext +to blow his breath upon her. The girl became instantly affected +with a violent passion for him. She also had ecstatic visions of a +religious character, stigmata, or blood-marks of the “Passion,” and +hysterical convulsions. The long-sought opportunity of seclusion +with his penitent finally offering, the Jesuit breathed upon her +again, and before the poor girl recovered her senses, his object had +been accomplished. By sophistry and the excitation of her religious +fervor, he kept up this illicit relation for months, without her +suspecting that she had done anything wrong. Finally, however, her +eyes were opened, her parents informed, and the priest was arraigned. +Judgment was rendered October 12th, 1731. Of twenty-five judges, +twelve voted to send him to the stake. The criminal priest was +defended by all the power of the Society of Jesus, and it is said +that a million francs were spent in trying to suppress the evidence +produced at the trial. The facts, however, were printed in a work +(in 5 vols., 16mo), now rare, entitled _Recueil Général des Pièces +contenues au Procez du Père Jean-Baptiste Girard, Jesuite_, etc., +etc.[1172] + +We have noted the circumstance that, while under the sorcerous +influence of Father Girard, and in illicit relations with him, Mlle. +Cadière’s body was marked with the _stigmata_ of the _Passion_, +viz.: the bleeding wounds of thorns on her brow, of nails in her +hands and feet, and of a lance-cut in her side. It should be added +that the same marks were seen upon the bodies of six other penitents +of this priest, viz.: Mesdames Guyol, Laugier, Grodier, Allemande, +Batarelle, and Reboul. In fact, it became commonly remarked that +Father Girard’s handsome parishioners were strangely given to +ecstasies and _stigmata_! Add this to the fact that, in the case +of Father Gaufridy, above noted, the same thing was proved, upon +surgical testimony, to have happened to Mlle. de Palud, and we have +something worth the attention of all (especially spiritualists) who +imagine these _stigmata_ are produced by pure spirits. Barring the +agency of the Devil, whom we have quietly put to rest in another +chapter, Catholics would be puzzled, we fancy, despite all their +infallibility, to distinguish between the stigmata of the sorcerers +and those produced through the intervention of the Holy Ghost or the +angels. The Church records abound in instances of alleged diabolical +imitations of these signs of saintship, but, as we have remarked, the +Devil is out of court. + +By those who have followed us thus far, it will naturally be asked, +to what practical issue this book tends; much has been said about +magic and its potentiality, much of the immense antiquity of its +practice. Do we wish to affirm that the occult sciences ought to be +studied and practiced throughout the world? Would we replace modern +spiritualism with the ancient magic? Neither; the substitution could +not be made, nor the study universally prosecuted, without incurring +the risk of enormous public dangers. At this moment, a well-known +spiritualist and lecturer on mesmerism is imprisoned on the charge +of raping a subject whom he had hypnotized. A sorcerer is a public +enemy, and mesmerism may most readily be turned into the worst of +sorceries. + +We would have neither scientists, theologians, nor spiritualists turn +practical magicians, but all to realize that there was true science, +profound religion, and genuine phenomena before this modern era. We +would that all who have a voice in the education of the masses should +first know and then _teach_ that the safest guides to human happiness +and enlightenment are those writings which have descended to us from +the remotest antiquity; and that nobler spiritual aspirations and a +higher average morality prevail in the countries where the people +take their precepts as the rule of their lives. We would have all to +realize that magical, _i.e._, spiritual powers exist in every man, +and those few to practice them who feel called to teach, and are +ready to pay the price of discipline and self-conquest which their +development exacts. + +Many men have arisen who had glimpses of the truth, and fancied +they had it all. Such have failed to achieve the good they might +have done and sought to do, because vanity has made them thrust +their personality into such undue prominence as to interpose it +between their believers and the _whole_ truth that lay behind. The +world needs no sectarian church, whether of Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, +Swedenborg, Calvin, or any other. There being but ONE Truth, man +requires but one church--the Temple of God within us, walled in by +matter but penetrable by any one who can find the way; _the pure in +heart see God_. + +_The trinity of nature is the lock of magic, the trinity of man the +key that fits it._ Within the solemn precincts of the sanctuary the +SUPREME had and has no name. It is unthinkable and unpronounceable; +and yet every man finds in himself his god. “Who art thou, O fair +being?” inquires the disembodied soul, in the _Khordah-Avesta_, at +the gates of Paradise. “I am, O Soul, _thy good and pure thoughts_, +thy works and thy _good law_ ... thy angel ... and thy god.” Then +man, or the soul, is reunited with ITSELF, for this “Son of God” is +one with him; it is his own mediator, the _god_ of his human soul and +his “Justifier.” “_God not revealing himself immediately to man, the +spirit is his interpreter_,” says Plato in the _Banquet_. + +Besides, there are many good reasons why the study of magic, except +in its broad philosophy, is nearly impracticable in Europe and +America. Magic being what it is, the most difficult of all sciences +to learn experimentally--its acquisition is practically beyond the +reach of the majority of white-skinned people; and that, whether +their effort is made at home or in the East. Probably not more than +one man in a million of European blood is fitted--either physically, +morally, or psychologically--to become a practical magician, and +not one in ten millions would be found endowed with all these three +qualifications as required for the work. Civilized nations lack +the phenomenal powers of endurance, both mental and physical, of +the Easterns; the favoring temperamental idiosyncrasies of the +Orientals are utterly wanting in them. In the Hindu, the Arabian, +the Thibetan, an intuitive perception of the possibilities of occult +natural forces in subjection to human will, comes by inheritance; +and in them, the physical senses as well as the spiritual are far +more finely developed than in the Western races. Notwithstanding the +notable difference of thickness between the skulls of a European and +a Southern Hindu, this difference, being a purely climatic result, +due to the intensity of the sun’s rays, involves no psychological +principles. Furthermore, there would be tremendous difficulties in +the way of _training_, if we can so express it. Contaminated by +centuries of dogmatic superstition, by an ineradicable--though quite +unwarranted--sense of superiority over those whom the English term +so contemptuously “niggers,” the white European would hardly submit +himself to the practical tuition of either Kopt, Brahman, or Lama. +To become a neophyte, one must be ready to devote himself heart and +soul to the study of mystic sciences. Magic--most imperative of +mistresses--brooks no rival. Unlike other sciences, a theoretical +knowledge of formulæ without mental capacities or soul powers, is +utterly useless in magic. The spirit must hold in complete subjection +the combativeness of what is loosely termed educated reason, until +facts have vanquished cold human sophistry. + +Those best prepared to appreciate occultism are the spiritualists, +although, through prejudice, until now they have been the bitterest +opponents to its introduction to public notice. Despite all foolish +negations and denunciations, their phenomena are real. Despite, also, +their own assertions they are wholly misunderstood by themselves. The +totally insufficient theory of the constant agency of disembodied +human spirits in their production has been the bane of the _Cause_. +A thousand mortifying rebuffs have failed to open their reason +or intuition to the truth. Ignoring the teachings of the past, +they have discovered no substitute. We offer them philosophical +deduction instead of unverifiable hypothesis, scientific analysis and +demonstration instead of undiscriminating faith. Occult philosophy +gives them the means of meeting the reasonable requirements of +science, and frees them from the humiliating necessity to accept the +oracular teachings of “intelligences,” which as a rule have less +intelligence than a child at school. So based and so strengthened, +modern phenomena would be in a position to command the attention +and enforce the respect of those who carry with them public +opinion. Without invoking such help, spiritualism must continue to +vegetate, equally repulsed--not without cause--both by scientists +and theologians. In its modern aspect, it is neither a science, a +religion, nor a philosophy. + +Are we unjust; does any intelligent spiritualist complain that we +have misstated the case? To what can he point us but to a confusion +of theories, a tangle of hypotheses mutually contradictory? Can he +affirm that spiritualism, even with its thirty years of phenomena, +has any defensible philosophy; nay, that there is anything like an +established method that is generally accepted and followed by its +recognized representatives? + +And yet, there are many thoughtful, scholarly, earnest writers among +the spiritualists, scattered the world over. There are men who, in +addition to a scientific mental training and a reasoned faith in +the phenomena _per se_, possess all the requisites of leaders of +the movement. How is it then, that, except throwing off an isolated +volume or so, or occasional contributions to journalism, they all +refrain from taking any active part in the formation of a system of +philosophy? This is from no lack of moral courage, as their writings +well show. Nor because of indifference, for enthusiasm abounds, +and they are sure of their facts. Nor is it from lack of capacity, +because many are men of mark, the peers of our best minds. It is +simply for the reason that, almost without exception, they are +bewildered by the contradictions they encounter, and wait for their +tentative hypotheses to be verified by further experience. Doubtless +this is the part of wisdom. It is that adopted by Newton, who, with +the heroism of an honest, unselfish heart, withheld for seventeen +years the promulgation of his theory of gravitation, only because he +had not verified it to his own satisfaction. + +Spiritualism, whose aspect is rather that of aggression than of +defense, has tended toward iconoclasm, and so far has done well. +But, in pulling down, it does not rebuild. Every really substantial +truth it erects is soon buried under an avalanche of chimeras, until +all are in one confused ruin. At every step of advance, at the +acquisition of every new vantage-ground of FACT, some cataclysm, +either in the shape of fraud and exposure, or of premeditated +treachery, occurs, and throws the spiritualists back powerless +because they _cannot_ and their invisible friends _will_ not (or +perchance can, less than themselves) make good their claims. +Their fatal weakness is that they have but _one_ theory to offer +in explanation of their challenged facts--the agency of _human +disembodied spirits_, and the medium’s complete subjection to them. +They will attack those who differ in views with them with a vehemence +only warranted by a better cause; they will regard every argument +contradicting their theory as an imputation upon their common sense +and powers of observation; and they will positively refuse even to +argue the question. + +How, then, can spiritualism be ever elevated to the distinction of a +science? This, as Professor Tyndall shows, includes three absolutely +necessary elements: observation of facts; induction of laws from +these facts; and verification of those laws by constant practical +experience. What experienced observer will maintain that spiritualism +presents either one of these three elements? The medium is not +uniformly surrounded by such test conditions that we may be sure of +the facts; the inductions from the supposed facts are unwarranted +in the absence of such verification; and, as a corollary, there has +been no sufficient verification of those hypotheses by experience. In +short, the prime element of accuracy has, as a rule, been lacking. + +That we may not be charged with desire to misrepresent the position +of spiritualism, at the date of this present writing, or accused +of withholding credit for advances actually made, we will cite a +few passages from the London _Spiritualist_ of March 2, 1877. At +the fortnightly meeting, held February 19, a debate occurred upon +the subject of “Ancient Thought and Modern Spiritualism.” Some of +the most intelligent Spiritualists of England participated. Among +these was Mr. W. Stainton Moses, M.A., who has recently given some +attention to the relation between ancient and modern phenomena. He +said: “Popular spiritualism is not scientific; it does very little in +the way of scientific verification. Moreover, exoteric spiritualism +is, to a large extent, devoted to presumed communion with personal +friends, or to the gratification of curiosity, or the mere evolution +of marvels.... The truly esoteric science of spiritualism is very +rare, and not more rare than valuable. To it we must look to the +origination of knowledge which may be developed exoterically.... +We proceed too much on the lines of the physicists; our tests are +crude, and often illusory; we know too little of the Protean power +of spirit. Here the ancients were far ahead of us, and can teach us +much. We have not introduced any certainty into the conditions--a +necessary prerequisite for true scientific experiment. This is +largely owing to the fact that our circles are constructed on no +principle.... We have not even mastered the elementary truths which +the ancients knew and acted on, _e.g._, the isolation of mediums. +We have been so occupied with wonder-hunting that we have hardly +tabulated the phenomena, or propounded one theory to account for +the production of the simplest of them.... We have never faced the +question: What is the intelligence? This is the great blot, the most +frequent source of error, and here we might learn with advantage +from the ancients. There is the strongest disinclination among +spiritualists to admit the possibility of the truth of occultism. +In this respect they are as hard to convince as is the outer world +of spiritualism. Spiritualists start with a fallacy, viz.: that all +phenomena are caused by the action of departed human spirits; _they +have not looked into the powers of the human spirit_; they do not +know the extent to which spirit acts, how far it reaches, what it +underlies.” + +Our position could not be better defined. If Spiritualism has a +future; it is in the keeping of such men as Mr. Stainton Moses. + +Our work is done--would that it were better done! But, despite our +inexperience in the art of book-making, and the serious difficulty of +writing in a foreign tongue, we hope we have succeeded in saying some +things that will remain in the minds of the thoughtful. The enemies +of truth have been all counted, and all passed in review. Modern +science, powerless to satisfy the aspirations of the race, makes the +future a void, and bereaves man of hope. In one sense, it is like the +Baital Pachisi, the Hindu vampire of popular fancy, which lives in +dead bodies, and feeds but on the rottenness of matter. The theology +of Christendom has been rubbed threadbare by the most serious minds +of the day. It is found to be, on the whole, subversive, rather than +promotive of spirituality and good morals. Instead of expounding the +rules of divine law and justice, it teaches but _itself_. In place +of an ever-living Deity, it preaches the Evil One, and makes him +indistinguishable from God Himself! “Lead us not into temptation” +is the aspiration of Christians. Who, then, is the tempter? Satan? +No; the prayer is not addressed to him. It is that tutelar genius +who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, put an evil spirit into Saul, +sent lying messengers to the prophets, and tempted David to sin; it +is--the _Bible_-God of Israel! + +Our examination of the multitudinous religious faiths that mankind, +early and late, have professed, most assuredly indicates that they +have all been derived from one primitive source. It would seem as +if they were all but different modes of expressing the yearning of +the imprisoned human soul for intercourse with supernal spheres. As +the white ray of light is decomposed by the prism into the various +colors of the solar spectrum, so the beam of divine truth, in passing +through the _three-sided_ prism of man’s nature, has been broken +up into vari-colored fragments called RELIGIONS. And, as the rays +of the spectrum, by imperceptible shadings, merge into each other, +so the great theologies that have appeared at different degrees of +divergence from the original source, have been connected by minor +schisms, schools, and off-shoots from the one side or the other. +Combined, their aggregate represents one eternal truth; separate, +they are but shades of human error and the signs of imperfection. The +worship of the Vedic _pitris_ is fast becoming the worship of the +spiritual portion of mankind. It but needs the right perception of +things objective to finally discover that the only world of reality +is the subjective. + +What has been contemptuously termed Paganism, was ancient wisdom +replete with Deity; and Judaism and its offspring, Christianity and +Islamism, derived whatever of inspiration they contained from this +ethnic parent. Pre-Vedic Brahmanism and Buddhism are the double +source from which all religions sprung; Nirvana is the ocean to which +all tend. For the purposes of a philosophical analysis, we need not +take account of the enormities which have blackened the record of +many of the world’s religions. True faith is the embodiment of divine +charity; those who minister at its altars, are but human. As we turn +the bloodstained pages of ecclesiastical history, we find that, +whoever may have been the hero, and whatever costumes the actors may +have worn, the plot of the tragedy has ever been the same. But the +Eternal Night was in and behind all, and we pass from what we see to +that which is invisible to the eye of sense. Our fervent wish has +been to show true souls how they may lift aside the curtain, and, in +the brightness of that Night made Day, look with undazzled gaze upon +the UNVEILED TRUTH. + + + THE END. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] These figures are copied from the “Religious Statistics + of the United States for the year 1871.” + + [2] These are: The _Baptists_, _Congregationalists_, + _Episcopalians_, Northern _Methodists_, Southern + _Methodists_, Methodists _various_, Northern + _Presbyterians_, Southern _Presbyterians_, _United + Presbyterians_, _United Brethren_, _Brethren in + Christ_, _Reformed Dutch_, _Reformed German_, _Reformed + Presbyterians_, _Cumberland Presbyterians_. + + [3] H. Maudsley: “Body and Mind.” + + [4] “Boston Sunday Herald,” November 5, 1876. + + [5] See the self-glorification of the present Pope in the + work entitled, “Speeches of Pope Pius IX.” by Don + Pascale de Franciscis; and the famous pamphlet of that + name by the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone. The latter quotes + from the work named the following sentence pronounced + by the Pope: “My wish is that all governments should + know that I am speaking in this strain.... And I have + _the right_ to speak, _even more than Nathan the + prophet_ to David the king, _and a great deal more than + St. Ambrose had to Theodosius_!!” + + [6] See King’s “Gnostics,” and other works. + + [7] Des Mousseaux: “La Magie au XIXme Siècle,” chap. i. + + [8] Hargrave Jennings: “The Rosicrucians,” pp. 228-241. + + [9] Des Mousseaux: “Hauts Phénomenes de la Magie.” + + [10] Don Pasquale di Franciscis: “Discorsi del Sommo + Pontefice Pio IX.,” Part i., p. 340. + + [11] “Speeches of Pius IX.,” p. 14. Am. Edition. + + [12] Vide “Speeches of Pope Pius IX.,” by Don Pasq. di + Franciscis; Gladstone’s pamphlet on this book; Draper’s + “Conflict between Religion and Science,” and others. + + [13] The fact is given to us by an eye-witness who has visited + the church several times; a Roman Catholic, who felt + perfectly _horrified_, as he expressed it. + + [14] Referring to the seed planted by Jesus and his Apostles. + + [15] “Chips,” vol. i., p. 26, Preface. + + [16] Mallet: “Northern Antiquities.” + + [17] Ether is both _pure_ and _impure_ fire. The composition + of the latter comprises all its visible forms, such as + the “correlation of forces”--heat, flame, electricity, + etc. The former is the _Spirit_ of Fire. The difference + is purely alchemical. + + [18] See “Inquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell,” by + Rev. T. Surnden. + + [19] Revelation xvi. 8-9. + + [20] Aristotle mentions Pythagoreans who placed the sphere of + fire in the sun, and named it _Jupiter’s Prison_. See + “De Cœlo,” lib. ii. + + [21] “De Civit. Dei,” 1, xxi., c. 17. + + [22] “Demonologia and Hell,” p. 289. + + [23] “Les Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie,” p. v., Preface. + + [24] Dr. Stanley: “Lectures on the Eastern Church,” p. 407. + + [25] In the government of Tambov, a gentleman, a rich landed + proprietor, had a curious case happen in his family + during the Hungarian campaign of 1848. His only and + much-beloved nephew, whom, having no children, he had + adopted as a son, was in the Russian army. The elderly + couple had a portrait of his--a water-color painting-- + constantly, during the meals, placed on the table in + front of the young man’s usual seat. One evening as the + family, with some friends, were at their early tea, the + glass over the portrait, without any one touching it, + was shattered to atoms with a loud explosion. As the + aunt of the young soldier caught the picture in her hand + she saw the forehead and head besmeared with blood. The + guests, in order to quiet her, attributed the blood to + her having cut her fingers with the broken glass. But, + examine as they would, they could not find the vestige + of a cut on her fingers, and no one had touched the + picture but herself. Alarmed at her state of excitement + the husband, pretending to examine the portrait more + closely, cut his finger on purpose, and then tried to + assure her that it was his blood and that, in the first + excitement, he had touched the frame without any one + remarking it. All was in vain, the old lady felt sure + that Dimitry was killed. She began to have masses said + for him daily at the village church, and arrayed the + whole household in deep mourning. Several weeks later, + an official communication was received from the colonel + of the regiment, stating that their nephew was killed by + a fragment of a shell which had carried off the upper + part of his head. + + [26] Executions for witchcraft took place, not much later than + a century ago, in other of the American provinces. + Notoriously there were negroes executed in New Jersey by + burning at the stake--the penalty denounced in several + States. Even in South Carolina, in 1865, when the State + government was “reconstructed,” after the civil war, the + statutes inflicting death for witchcraft were found to + be still unrepealed. It is not a hundred years since + they have been enforced to the murderous letter of their + text. + + [27] _Vide_ the title-page on the English translation of + Mayerhoff’s “Reuchlin und Seine Zeit,” Berlin, 1830. + “The Life and Times of John Reuchlin, or Capnion, the + Father of the German Reformation,” by F. Barham, London, + 1843. + + [28] Lord Coke: 3 “Institutes,” fol. 44. + + [29] _Vide_ “The Life of St. Gregory of Tours.” + + [30] Translated from the original document in the Archives of + Orleans, France; also see “Sortes and Sortilegium;” + “Life of Peter de Blois.” + + [31] “Miracles and Modern Spiritualism.” + + [32] There were two chairs of the titular apostle at Rome. The + clergy, frightened at the uninterrupted evidence + furnished by scientific research, at last decided to + confront the enemy, and we find the “Chronique des Arts” + giving the cleverest, and at the same time most + _Jesuitical_, explanation of the fact. According to + their story, “The _increase_ in the number of the + faithful decided Peter upon making Rome henceforth the + centre of his action. The cemetery of Ostrianum was too + distant and would _not suffice for the reünions of the + Christians_. The motive which had induced the Apostle to + confer on _Linus and Cletus_ successively the episcopal + character, in order to render them capable of sharing + the solicitudes of a church whose extent was to be + without limits, led naturally to a multiplication of the + places of meeting. The particular residence of Peter was + therefore fixed at Viminal; and there was established + that mysterious Chair, the symbol of power and truth. + The august seat which was venerated at the Ostrian + Catacombs was not, however, removed. Peter still visited + this cradle of the Roman Church, and often, without + doubt, exercised his holy functions there. A _second_ + Chair, expressing the same mystery as the first, was set + up at Cornelia, and it is this which has come down to us + through the ages.” + + Now, so far from it being possible that there ever were + two genuine chairs of this kind, the majority of critics + show that Peter never was at Rome at all; the reasons + are many and unanswerable. Perhaps we had best begin by + pointing to the works of Justin Martyr. This great + champion of Christianity, writing in the early part of + the second century _in Rome_, where he fixed his abode, + eager to get hold of the least proof in favor of the + truth for which he suffered, seems _perfectly unconscious + of St. Peter’s existence_!! + + Neither does any other writer of any consequence mention + him in connection with the Church of Rome, earlier than + the days of Irenæus, when the latter set himself to + invent a new religion, drawn from the depths of his + imagination. We refer the reader anxious to learn more + to the able work of Mr. George Reber, entitled “The + Christ of Paul.” The arguments of this author are + conclusive. The above article in the “Chronique des + Arts,” speaks of the _increase_ of the faithful to such + an extent that Ostrianum could not contain the number of + Christians. Now, if Peter was at Rome at all--runs Mr. + Reber’s argument--it must have been between the years A. + D. 64 and 69; for at 64 he was at Babylon, from whence + he wrote epistles and letters to Rome, and at some time + between 64 and 68 (the reign of Nero) he either died a + martyr or in his bed, for Irenæus makes him deliver the + Church of Rome, together with Paul (!?) (whom he + persecuted and quarrelled with all his life), into the + hands of _Linus_, who became bishop in 69 (see Reber’s + “Christ of Paul,” p. 122). We will treat of it more + fully in chapter iii. + + Now, we ask, in the name of common sense, how could the + _faithful_ of Peter’s Church _increase_ at such a rate, + when Nero trapped and killed them like so many mice + during his reign? History shows the few Christians + fleeing from Rome, wherever they could, to avoid the + persecution of the emperor, and the “Chronique des Arts” + makes them increase and multiply! “Christ,” the article + goes on to say, “willed that this visible sign of the + doctrinal authority of his vicar should also have its + portion of immortality; one can follow it from age to + age in the documents of the Roman Church.” Tertullian + formally attests its existence in his book “De + Præscriptionibus.” Eager to learn everything concerning + so interesting a subject, we would like to be shown when + did _Christ_ WILL anything of the kind? However: + “Ornaments of ivory have been fitted to the front and + back of the chair, but only on those parts repaired with + acacia-wood. Those which cover the panel in front are + divided into three superimposed rows, each containing + six plaques of ivory, on which are engraved various + subjects, among others the ‘Labors of Hercules.’ Several + of the plaques were wrongly placed, and seemed to have + been affixed to the chair at a time when the remains of + antiquity were employed as ornaments, without much + regard to fitness.” This is the point. The article was + written simply as a clever answer to several facts + published during the present century. Bower, in his + “History of the Popes” (vol. ii., p. 7), narrates that + in the year 1662, while cleaning one of the chairs, “the + ‘Twelve Labors of Hercules’ unluckily appeared engraved + upon it,” after which the chair was removed and another + substituted. But in 1795, when Bonaparte’s troops + occupied Rome, the chair was again examined. This time + there was found the Mahometan confession of faith, in + Arabic letters: “There is no Deity but Allah, and + Mahomet is his Apostle.” (See appendix to “Ancient + Symbol-Worship,” by H. M. Westropp and C. Staniland + Wake.) In the appendix Prof. Alexander Wilder very + justly remarks as follows: “We presume that the Apostle + of the Circumcision, as Paul, his great rival, styles + him, was never at the Imperial City, nor had a successor + there, not even in the ghetto. The ‘Chair of Peter,’ + therefore, is _sacred_ rather than apostolical. Its + sanctity proceeded, however, from the esoteric religion + of the former times of Rome. The hierophant of the + Mysteries probably occupied it on the day of initiations, + when exhibiting to the candidates the _Petroma_ (stone + tablet containing the last revelation made by the + hierophant to the neophyte for initiation).” + + [33] Joshua xxiv. 15. + + [34] One of the most surprising facts that have come under our + observation, is that students of profound research + should not couple the frequent recurrence of these + “unexpected and almost miraculous” discoveries of + important documents, at the most opportune moments, with + a premeditated design. Is it so strange that the + custodians of “Pagan” lore, seeing that the proper + moment had arrived, should cause the needed document, + book, or relic to fall as if by accident in the right + man’s way? Geological surveyors and explorers even as + competent as Humboldt and Tschuddi, have not discovered + the hidden mines from which the Peruvian Incas dug their + treasure, although the latter confesses that the present + degenerate Indians have the secret. In 1839, Perring, + the archæologist, proposed to the sheik of an Arab + village two purses of gold, if he helped him to discover + the entrance to the hidden passage leading to the + sepulchral chambers in the North Pyramid of Doshoor. But + though his men were out of employment and half-starved, + the sheik proudly refused to “sell the secret of the + dead,” promising to show it _gratis_, when _the time + would come for it_. Is it, then, impossible that in some + other regions of the earth are guarded the remains of + that glorious literature of the past, which was the + fruit of its majestic civilization? What is there so + surprising in the idea? Who knows but that as the + Christian Church has unconsciously begotten free thought + by reaction against her own cruelty, rapacity, and + dogmatism, the public mind may be glad to follow the + lead of the Orientalists, away from Jerusalem and + towards Ellora; and that then much more will be + discovered that is now hidden? + + [35] “Chips from a German Workshop,” vol. i., p. 373; Semitic + Monotheism. + + [36] An after-thought has made us fancy that we can understand + what is meant by the following sentences of _Moses of + Chorenè_: “The ancient Asiatics,” says he, “five + centuries before our era--and especially the Hindus, the + Persians, and the Chaldeans, had in their possession a + quantity of historical and scientific books. These works + were partially borrowed, partially translated in the + Greek language, mostly since the Ptolemies had established + the Alexandrian library and encouraged the writers by + their liberalities, so that the Greek language became + the deposit of all the sciences” (“History of Armenia”). + Therefore, the greater part of the literature included + in the 700,000 volumes of the Alexandrian Library was + due to India, and her next neighbors. + + [37] Bonamy says in “Le Bibliotheque d’Alexandrie,” quoting, + we suppose, the Presbyter Orosius, who was an + eye-witness, “_thirty_ years later.” + + [38] Since the above was written, the spirit here described + has been beautifully exemplified at Barcelona, Spain, + where the Bishop Fray Joachim invited the local + spiritualists to witness a formal burning of spiritual + books. We find the account in a paper called “The + Revelation,” published at Alicante, which sensibly adds + that the performance was “a caricature of the memorable + epoch of the Inquisition.” + + [39] E. Pococke gives the variations of the name Buddha as: + Bud’ha, Buddha, Booddha, Butta, Pout, Pote, Pto, Pte, + Phte, Phtha, Phut, etc., etc. See “India in Greece,” + Note, Appendix, 397. + + [40] The tiara of the Pope is also a perfect copy of that of + the Dalaï-Lama of Thibet. + + [41] It is the traditional policy of the College of Cardinals + to elect, whenever practicable, the new Pope among the + oldest valetudinarians. The hierophant of the Eleusinia + was likewise always an old man, and unmarried. + + [42] This is not correct. + + [43] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 28. + + [44] Translated by Prof. Draper for “Conflict between Religion + and Science;” book xii. + + [45] “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” + + [46] “Sohar Comment.,” Gen. xl. 10; “Kabbal. Denud.,” i., 528. + + [47] “The beings which the philosophers of other peoples + distinguish by the name ‘Dæmons,’ Moses names ‘Angels,’” + says Philo Judæus.--“De Gigant,” i. 253. + + [48] Deuteronomy xxxiii. 2., אשדת is translated “fiery + law” in the English Bible. + + [49] See Rees’s “Encyclopædia,” art. Kabala. + + [50] “Histor. Manich.,” Liv. vi., ch. i., p. 291. + + [51] “The altogether mystical coloring of Christianity + harmonized with the Essene rules of life and opinions, + and it is not improbable that Jesus and John the Baptist + were initiated into the Essene Mysteries, to which + Christianity may be indebted for many a form of + expression; as indeed the community of Therapeutæ, an + offspring of the Essene order, soon belonged wholly to + Christianity” (“Yost,” i., 411--quoted by the author of + “Sod, the Son of the Man”). + + [52] A. Franck: “Die Kabbala.” + + [53] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde.” + + [54] “Asiàt. Trans.,” i., p. 579. + + [55] Louis Jacolliot: “The Initiates of the Ancient Temples.” + + [56] Franck: “Die Kabbala.” + + [57] See “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 224. + + [58] See “Sohar;” “Kab. Den.;” “The Book of Mystery,” the + oldest book of the kabalists; and Milman: “History of + Christianity,” pp. 212, 213-215. + + [59] Milman: “History of Christianity,” p. 280. The _Kurios_ + and _Kora_ are mentioned repeatedly in “Justin Martyr.” + See p. 97. + + [60] See Olshausen: “Biblischer Commentar über sammtliche + Schriften des Neuen Testaments,” ii. + + [61] There is a wide-spread _superstition_ (?), especially + among the Slavonians and Russians, that the _magician_ + or wizard cannot die before he has passed the “word” to + a successor. So deeply is it rooted among the popular + beliefs, that we do not imagine there is a person in + Russia who has not heard of it. It is but too easy to + trace the origin of this superstition to the old + Mysteries which had been for ages spread all over the + globe. The ancient _Variago-Rouss_ had his Mysteries in + the North as well as in the South of Russia; and there + are many relics of the by-gone faith scattered in the + lands watered by the sacred Dnieper, the baptismal + Jordan of all Russia. No _Znâchar_ (the knowing one) or + _Koldoun_ (sorcerer), male or female, can die in fact + before he has passed the mysterious word to some one. + The popular belief is that unless he does that he will + linger and suffer for weeks and months, and were he even + finally to get liberated, it would be only to wander on + earth, unable to quit its region unless he finds a + successor even after death. How far the belief may be + verified by others, we do not know, but we have seen a + case which, for its tragical and mysterious _dénoument_, + deserves to be given here as an illustration of the + subject in hand. An old man, of over one hundred years + of age, a peasant-serf in the government of S----, + having a wide reputation as a sorcerer and healer, was + said to be dying for several days, and still unable to + die. The report spread like lightning, and the poor old + fellow was shunned by even the members of his own + family, as the latter were afraid of receiving the + unwelcome inheritance. At last the public rumor in the + village was that he had sent a message to a colleague + less versed than himself in the art, and who, although + he lived in a distant district, was nevertheless coming + at the call, and would be on hand early on the following + morning. There was at that time on a visit to the + proprietor of the village a young physician who, + belonging to the famous school of _Nihilism_ of that + day, laughed outrageously at the idea. The master of the + house, being a very pious man, and but half inclined to + make so cheap of the “superstition,” smiled--as the + saying goes--but with one corner of his mouth. Meanwhile + the young skeptic, to gratify his curiosity, had made a + visit to the dying man, had found that he could not live + twenty-four hours longer, and, determined to prove the + absurdity of the “superstition,” had taken means to + detain the coming “successor” at a neighboring village. + + Early in the morning a company of four persons, + comprising the physician, the master of the place, his + daughter, and the writer of the present lines, went to + the hut in which was to be achieved the triumph of + skepticism. The dying man was expecting his liberator + every moment, and his agony at the delay became extreme. + We tried to persuade the physician to humor the patient, + were it for humanity’s sake. He only laughed. Getting + hold with one hand of the old wizard’s pulse, he took + out his watch with the other, and remarking in French + that all would be over in a few moments, remained + absorbed in his professional experiment. The scene was + solemn and appalling. Suddenly the door opened, and a + young boy entered with the intelligence, addressed to + the doctor, that the _koum_ was lying dead drunk at a + neighboring village, and, according to _his orders_, + could not be with “grandfather” till the next day. The + young doctor felt confused, and was just going to + address the old man, when, as quick as lightning, the + Znâchar snatched his hand from his grasp and raised + himself in bed. His deep-sunken eyes flashed; his + yellow-white beard and hair streaming round his livid + face made him a dreadful sight. One instant more, and + his long, sinewy arms were clasped round the physician’s + neck, as with a supernatural force he drew the doctor’s + head closer and closer to his own face, where he held + him as in a vise, while _whispering_ words inaudible to + us in his ear. The skeptic struggled to free himself, + but before he had time to make one effective motion the + work had evidently been done; the hands relaxed their + grasp, and the old sorcerer fell on his back--a corpse! + A strange and ghostly smile had settled on the stony + lips--a smile of fiendish triumph and satisfied revenge; + but the doctor looked paler and more ghastly than the + dead man himself. He stared round with an expression of + terror difficult to describe, and without answering our + inquiries rushed out wildly from the hut, in the + direction of the woods. Messengers were sent after him, + but he was nowhere to be found. About sunset a report + was heard in the forest. An hour later his body was + brought home, with a bullet through his head, for the + skeptic had blown out his brains! + + What made him commit suicide? What magic spell of + sorcery had the “word” of the dying wizard left on his + mind? Who can tell? + + [62] “Anacalypsis;” also Tertullian. + + [63] “Anthon,” art. Eleusinia. + + [64] Dunlap: “Musah, His Mysteries,” p. 71. + + [65] 1 Kings, viii. 2. + + [66] Let us remember in this connection that Col. Van Kennedy + has long ago declared his opinion that Babylonia was + once the seat of the Sanscrit language and of + Brahmanical influence. + + [67] “‘The Agrouchada-Parikshai,’ which discloses, to a certain + extent, the order of initiation, does not give the + formula of evocation,” says Jacolliot, and he adds that, + according to some Brahmans, “these formula were never + written, they were and still are imparted in a whisper + in the ear of the adepts” (“_mouth to ear, and the word + at low breath_,” say the Masons).--“Le Spiritisme dans + le Monde,” p. 108. + + [68] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 108. + + [69] W. D. Whitney: “Oriental and Linguistic Studies, The + Veda, etc.” + + [70] Jacolliot seems to have very logically demonstrated the + absurd contradictions of some philologists, anthropologists, + and Orientalists, in regard to their _Akkado and Semito_ + mania. “There is not, perhaps, much of good faith in + their negations,” he writes. “The scientists who invent + Turanian peoples know very well that in _Manu_ alone, + there is more of veritable science and philosophy than + in all that this pretended Semitism has hitherto + furnished us with; but they are the slaves of a path + which some of them are following the last fifteen, + twenty, or even thirty years.... We expect, therefore, + nothing of the present. India will owe its + reconstitution to the scientists of the next generation” + (“Le Genèse de l’Humanité,” pp. 60-61). + + [71] Cory: “Anc. Frag.” + + [72] Movers: “Phoinizer,” 263. + + [73] Dunlap: “Sp. Hist. of Man,” p. 281. + + [74] Siva is not a god of the _Vedas_, strictly speaking. When + the _Vedas_ were written, he held the rank of Maha-Deva + or Bel among the gods of aboriginal India. + + [75] “De Antro Nympharum.” + + [76] “Navarette,” book ii., c. x. + + [77] “On the Origin of Heathen Idolatry.” + + [78] Isis and Osiris are said, in the Egyptian sacred books, + to have appeared (_i.e._, been worshipped), on earth, + later than Thot, the _first_ Hermes, called Trismegistus, + who wrote all their sacred books according to the + command of God or by “divine revelation.” The companion + and instructor of Isis and Osiris was Thot, or Hermes + II., who was an incarnation of the celestial Hermes. + + [79] Lord Kingsborough: “Ant. Mex.,” p. 165. + + [80] “Ap. Malal.,” lib. i., cap. iv. + + [81] Payne Knight: “Phallic Worship.” + + [82] The Celsus above mentioned, who lived between the second + and third centuries, is not Celsus the Epicurean. The + latter wrote several works against Magic, and lived + earlier, during the reign of Hadrian. + + [83] We have the facts from a trustworthy witness, having no + interest to invent such a story. Having injured his leg + in a fall from the steamer into the boat in which he was + to land at the Mount, he was taken care of by these + monks, and during his convalescence, through gifts of + money and presents, became their greatest friend, and + finally won their entire confidence. Having asked for + the loan of some books, he was taken by the Superior to + a large cellar in which they keep their sacred vessels + and other property. Opening a great trunk, full of old + musty manuscripts and rolls, he was invited by the + Superior to “_amuse_ himself.” The gentleman was a + scholar, and well versed in Greek and Latin text. “I was + amazed,” he says, in a private letter, “and had my + breath taken away, on finding among these old parchments, + so unceremoniously treated, some of the most valuable + relics of the first centuries, hitherto believed to have + been lost.” Among others he found a half-destroyed + manuscript, which he is perfectly sure must be a copy of + the “True Doctrine,” the Λόγος ἀληθής of Celsus, out of + which Origen quoted whole pages. The traveller took as + many notes as he could on that day, but when he came to + offer to the Superior to purchase some of these writings + he found, to his great surprise, that no amount of money + would tempt the monks. They did not know what the + manuscripts contained, nor “did they care,” they said. + But the “heap of writing,” they added, was transmitted + to them from one generation to another, and there was a + tradition among them that these papers would one day + become the means of crushing the “Great Beast of the + Apocalypse,” their hereditary enemy, the Church of Rome. + They were constantly quarrelling and fighting with the + Catholic monks, and among the whole “heap” they _knew_ + that there was a “holy” relic which protected them. They + did not know _which_, and so in their doubt abstained. + It appears that the Superior, a shrewd Greek, understood + his _bevue_ and repented of his kindness, for first of + all he made the traveller give him his most sacred word + of honor, strengthened by an oath he made him take on + the image of the Holy Patroness of the Island, never to + betray their secret, and never mention, at least, the + name of their convent. And finally, when the anxious + student who had passed a fortnight in reading all sorts + of antiquated trash before he happened to stumble over + some precious manuscript, expressed the desire to have + the key, to “amuse himself” with the writings once more, + he was very _naïvely_ informed that the “key had been + lost,” and that they did not know where to look for it. + And thus he was left to the few notes he had taken. + + [84] See the historical romance of Canon Kingsley, “Hypatia,” + for a highly picturesque account of the tragical fate of + this young martyr. + + [85] We beg the reader to bear in mind that it is the same + Cyril who was accused and proved guilty of having sold + the gold and silver ornaments of his church, and spent + the money. He pleaded guilty, but tried to excuse + himself on the ground that he had used the money for the + poor, but could not give evidence of it. His duplicity + with Arius and his party is well known. Thus one of the + first Christian saints, and the founder of the Trinity, + appears on the pages of history as a murderer and a + thief! + + [86] “La Démonomanie, ou traité des Sorciers.” Paris, 1587. + + [87] Dr. W. G. Soldan: “Geschichte der Hexen processe, aus den + Quellen dargestellt.” Stuttgart, 1843. + + [88] Frederick Forner, Suffragan of Bamberg, author of a + treatise against heretics and sorcerers, under the title + of “Panoplia Armaturæ Dei.” + + [89] “Sorcery and Magic,” by T. Wright, M.A., F.S.A., etc., + Corresponding Member of the National Institute of + France, vol. ii., p. 185. + + [90] Besides these burnings in Germany, which amount to many + thousands, we find some very interesting statements in + Prof. Draper’s “Conflict between Religion and Science.” + On page 146, he says: “The families of the convicted + were plunged into irretrievable ruin. Llorente, the + historian of the Inquisition, computes that Torquemada + and his collaborators, in the course of eighteen years, + burned at the stake 10,220 persons, 6,860 in effigy, and + otherwise punished 97,321!... With unutterable disgust + and indignation, we learn that the papal government + realized much money by selling to the rich, dispensations + to secure them from the Inquisition.” + + [91] “Sorcery and Magic;” “The Burnings at Würtzburg,” p. 186. + + [92] And retinted in the blood of the millions murdered in his + name--in the no less innocent blood than his own, of the + little child-_witches_! + + [93] St. Augustine: “City of God,” I, xxi., ch. vi.; des + Mousseaux: “Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons.” + + [94] A correspondent of the London “Times” describes the + Catalonian exorcist in the following lines: + + “About the 14th of October it was privately announced + that a young woman of seventeen or eighteen years of + age, of the lower class, having long been afflicted with + ‘a hatred of holy things,’ the senior priest of the + Church of the Holy Spirit would cure her of her disease. + The exhibition was to be held in a church frequented by + the best part of the community. The church was dark, but + a sickly light was shed by wax lights on the sable forms + of some eighty or a hundred persons who clustered round + the _presbyterio_, or sanctuary, in front of the altar. + Within the little enclosure or sanctuary, separated from + the crowd by a light railing, lay, on a common bench, + with a little pillow for her head to recline upon, a + poorly-clad girl, probably of the peasant or artisan + class; her brother or husband stood at her feet to + restrain her (at times) frantic kicking by holding her + legs. The door of the vestry opened; the exhibitor--I + mean the priest--came in. The poor girl, not without + just reason, ‘had an aversion to holy things,’ or, at + least, the 400 devils within her distorted body had such + an aversion, and in the confusion of the moment, + thinking that the father was ‘a holy thing,’ she doubled + up her legs, screamed out with twitching mouth, her + whole body writhing, and threw herself nearly off the + bench. The male attendant seized her legs, the women + supported her head and swept out her dishevelled hair. + The priest advanced and, mingling familiarly with the + shuddering and horror-struck crowd, said, pointing at + the suffering child, now sobbing and twitching on the + bench, ‘Promise me, my children, that you will be + prudent (_prudentes_), and of a truth, sons and + daughters mine, you shall see marvels.’ The promise was + given. The exhibitor went to procure stole and short + surplice (_estola y roquete_), and returned in a moment, + taking his stand at the side of the ‘possessed with the + devils,’ with his face toward the group of students. The + order of the day’s proceedings was a lecture to the + bystanders, and the operation of exorcising the devils. + ‘You know,’ said the priest, ‘that so great is this + girl’s aversion to holy things, myself included, that + she goes into convulsions, kicks, screams, and distorts + her body the moment she arrives at the corner of this + street, and her convulsive struggles reach their climax + when she enters the sacred house of the Most High.’ + Turning to the prostrate, shuddering, most unhappy + object of his attack, the priest commenced: ‘In the name + of God, of the saints, of the blessed Host, of every + holy sacrament of our Church, I adjure thee, Rusbel, + come out of her.’ (N. B. ‘Rusbel’ is the name of a + devil, the devil having 257 names in Catalonia.) Thus + adjured, the girl threw herself--in an agony of + convulsion, till her distorted face, foam-bespattered + lips and writhing limbs grew well-nigh stiff--at full + length upon the floor, and, in language semi-obscene, + semi-violent, screamed out, ‘I don’t choose to come out, + you thieves, scamps, robbers.’ At last, from the + quivering lips of the girl, came the words, ‘I will;’ + but the devil added, with traditional perversity, ‘I + will cast the 100 out, but by the mouth of the girl.’ + The priest objected. The exit, he said, of 100 devils + out of the small Spanish mouth of the woman would ‘leave + her suffocated.’ Then the maddened girl said she must + undress herself for the devils to escape. This petition + the holy father refused. ‘Then I will come out through + the right foot, but first’--the girl had on a hempen + sandal, she was obviously of the poorest class--‘you + must take off her sandal.’ The sandal was untied; the + foot gave a convulsive plunge; the devil and his + myrmidons (so the _cura_ said, looking round triumphantly) + had gone to their own place. And, assured of this, the + wretched dupe of a girl lay quite still. The bishop was + not cognizant of this freak of the clergy, and the + moment it came to the ears of the civil authorities, the + sharpest means were taken to prevent a repetition of the + scandal.” + + [95] Louis Jacolliot: “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 162. + + [96] St. Augustine: “City of God.” + + [97] “Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons,” p. ii. + + [98] Des Mousseaux: “Table des Matières.” + + [99] “Demonologia;” London, 1827, J. Bumpus, 23 Skinner Street. + + [100] “Traité Preparatif à l’Apologie pour Herodote,” c. 39. + + [101] De Missa Privatâ et Unctione Sacerdotum. + + [102] See the “Life of St. Dominick” and the story about + the miraculous Rosary; also the “Golden Legend.” + + [103] James de Varasse, known by the Latin name of James + de Veragine, was Vicar General of the Dominicans and + Bishop of Genoa in 1290. + + [104] Thirteenth century. + + [105] “Rituale Romanum,” pp. 475-478. Parisiis, 1852. + + [106] “Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons,” p. 177. + + [107] See the narrative selected from the “Golden Legend,” + by Alban Butler. + + [108] See the “Golden Legend;” “Life of St. Francis;” + “Demonologia.” + + [109] “The Mythology of the Hindus,” by Charles Coleman. + Japan. + + [110] “Supernatural Religion.” + + [111] Neither do we, if by _true religion_ the world shall + at last understand the adoration of one Supreme, + Invisible, and Unknown Deity, by works and acts, not by + the profession of vain human dogmas. But our intention + is to go farther. We desire to demonstrate that if we + exclude ceremonial and fetish worship from being + regarded as essential parts of religion, then the true + Christ-like principles have been exemplified, and true + Christianity practiced since the days of the apostles, + exclusively among Buddhists and “heathen.” + + [112] “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. xvi. + + [113] “Discourses of Miracles wrought in the Roman Catholic + Church; or a full Refutation of Dr. Stillingfleet’s + unjust Exceptions against Miracles.” Octavo, 1676, p. 64. + + [114] After this, why should the Roman Catholics object to + the claims of the Spiritualists? If, without proof, they + believe in the “materialization” of Mary and John, for + Ignatius, how can they logically deny the + materialization of Katie and John (King), when it is + attested by the careful experiments of Mr. Crookes, the + English chemist, and the cumulative testimony of a large + number of witnesses? + + [115] The “Mother of God” takes precedence therefore of God? + + [116] See the “New Era” for July, 1875. N. Y. + + [117] “Paul and Plato.” + + [118] See “La Magie au XIXme Siècle,” p. 168. + + [119] “Rom. Rit.,” edit. of 1851, pp. 291-296, etc., etc. + + [120] _Creature_ of salt, air, water, or of any object to + be _enchanted_ or _blessed_, is a technical word in + magic, adopted by the Christian clergy. + + [121] “Rom. Rit.,” pp. 421-435. + + [122] See “Art-Magic,” art. Peter d’Abano. + + [123] “Ritual,” pp. 429-433; see “La Magie au XIXme Siècle,” + pp. 171, 172. + + [124] “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. ii., p. 88. + + [125] “Conferences,” by Le Père Ventura, vol. ii., part i., + p. lvi., Preface. + + [126] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 62. + + [127] “De Baptismo Contra Donatistas,” lib. vi., ch. xliv. + + [128] “Conflict, etc.,” p. 37. + + [129] Ibid. + + [130] “Paul and Plato,” by A. Wilder, editor of “The + Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries,” of Thomas Taylor. + + [131] “Paul and Plato.” + + [132] See Taylor’s “Eleus. and Bacchic Myst.” + + [133] 1 Corin., iii. 10. + + [134] In its most extensive meaning, the Sanscrit word has + the same literal sense as the Greek term; both imply + “revelation,” by no human agent, but through the + “receiving of the sacred drink.” In India the initiated + received the “Soma,” sacred drink, which helped to + liberate his soul from the body; and in the Eleusinian + Mysteries it was the sacred drink offered at the + Epopteia. The Grecian Mysteries are wholly derived from + the Brahmanical Vedic rites, and the latter from the + ante-vedic religious Mysteries--primitive Buddhist + philosophy. + + [135] It is needless to state that _the Gospel according to + John_ was not written by John but by a Platonist or a + Gnostic belonging to the Neo-platonic school. + + [136] The fact that Peter persecuted the “Apostle to the + Gentiles,” under that name, does not necessarily imply + that there was no Simon Magus individually distinct from + Paul. It may have become a generic name of abuse. + Theodoret and Chrysostom, the earliest and most prolific + commentators on the Gnosticism of those days, seem + actually to make of Simon a rival of Paul, and to state + that between them passed frequent messages. The former, + as a diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the + “antitheses of the Gnosis” (1st Epistle to Timothy), + must have been a sore thorn in the side of the apostle. + There are sufficient proofs of the actual existence of + Simon Magus. + + [137] “Introd. to Eleus. and Bacchic Mysteries,” p. x. Had + we not trustworthy kabalistic tradition to rely upon, we + might be, perhaps, forced to question whether the + authorship of the Revelation is to be ascribed to the + apostle of that name. He seems to be termed John the + Theologist. + + [138] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., + p. 90. + + [139] See de Rougé: “Stele,” p. 44; PTAR (videus) is interpreted + on it “to appear,” with a sign of interrogation after + it--the usual mark of scientific perplexity. In Bunsen’s + fifth volume of “Egypte,” the interpretation following + is “Illuminator,” which is more correct. + + [140] Bunsen’s “Egypt,” vol. v., p. 90. + + [141] It is the property of a mystic whom we met in Syria. + + [142] The Priests of Isis were tonsured. + + [143] See “Ancient Faiths,” vol. ii., pp. 915-918. + + [144] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 71. + + [145] See illustration in Inman’s “Ancient Pagan and Modern + Christian Symbolism,” p. 27. + + [146] Ibid., p. 76. + + [147] Initiates and seers. + + [148] The augur’s, and now bishop’s, pastoral crook. + + [149] “The Heathen Religion.” + + [150] “Pères du Desert d’Orient,” vol. ii., p. 283. + + [151] Justin Martyr: “Quæst.,” xxiv. + + [152] See Taylor’s “Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries;” + Porphyry and others. + + [153] Franck: “Die Kabbala.” + + [154] “Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians.” + + [155] “Divine Legation of Moses;” The “Eleusinian Mysteries” + as quoted by Thos. Taylor. + + [156] This expression must not be understood literally; + for as in the initiation of certain Brotherhoods it has + a secret meaning, hinted at by Pythagoras, when he + describes his feelings after the initiation and tells + that he was crowned by the gods in whose presence he had + drunk “the waters of life”--in Hindu, _â-bi-hayât_, + fount of life. + + [157] This original and very long sermon was preached in a + church at Brooklyn, N. Y., on the 15th day of April, + 1877. On the following morning, the reverend orator was + called in the “Sun” a gibbering charlatan; but this + deserved epithet will not prevent other reverend + buffoons doing the same and even worse. And this is the + religion of Christ! Far better disbelieve in him + altogether than caricature one’s God in such a manner. + We heartily applaud the “Sun” for the following views: + “And then when Talmage makes Christ say to Martha in the + tantrums: ‘Don’t worry, but sit down on this ottoman,’ + he adds the climax to a scene that the inspired writers + had nothing to say about. Talmage’s buffoonery is going + too far. If he were the worst heretic in the land, + instead of being straight in his orthodoxy, he would not + do so much evil to religion as he does by his familiar + blasphemies.” + + [158] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 68. + + [159] Ibid., pp. 78, 79. + + [160] Louis Jacolliot: “Phénomenes et Manifestations.” + + [161] Pisatshas, dæmons of the race of the gnomes, the + giants and the vampires. + + [162] Gandarbas, good dæmons, celestial seraphs, singers. + + [163] Asuras and Nagas are the Titanic spirits and the + dragon or serpent-headed spirits. + + [164] See Arnolius: “Op. Cit.,” pp. 249, 250. + + [165] See Inman’s “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian + Symbolism.” + + [166] Introduction to Taylor’s “Eleusinian and Bacchic + Mysteries,” published by J. W. Bouton. + + [167] Illustrated figures “from an ancient Rosary of the + blessed Virgin Mary, printed at Venice, 1524, with a + license from the Inquisition.” In the illustrations + given by Dr. Inman the Virgin is represented in an + Assyrian “grove,” the _abomination in the eyes of the + Lord_, according to the Bible prophets. “The book in + question,” says the author, “contains numerous figures, + all resembling closely the Mesopotamian emblem of + _Ishtar_. The presence of the woman _therein_ identifies + the two as symbolic of Isis, or _la nature_; and a man + bowing down in adoration thereof shows the same idea as + is depicted in Assyrian sculptures, where males offer to + the goddess _symbols_ of _themselves_” (See “Ancient + Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. 91. Second + edition. J. W. Bouton, publisher, New York). + + [168] See King’s “Gnostics,” pp. 91, 92; “The Genealogy of + the Blessed Virgin Mary,” by Faustus, Bishop of Riez. + + [169] Prinseps quotes Dubois, “Edinburgh Review,” April, 1851, + p. 411. + + [170] “Manu,” book I., sloka 32: Sir W. Jones, translating + from the Northern “Manu,” renders this _sloka_ as + follows: “Having divided his own substance, the mighty + Power became half male, half female, or _nature active + and passive_; and from that female he produced VIRAJ.” + + [171] “Enead,” i., book viii. + + [172] “Commentary upon the Republic of Plato,” p. 380. + + [173] Verses 33-41. + + [174] “Phædrus,” p. 64. + + [175] The Supreme Buddha is invoked with two of his + acolytes of the theistic triad, Dharma and Sanga. This + triad is addressed in Sanscrit in the following terms: + + _Namo Buddhâya, + Namo Dharmâya, + Namo Sangâya, + Aum!_ + + while the Thibetan Buddhists pronounce their invocations + as follows: + + _Nan-won Fo-tho-ye, + Nan-won Tha-ma-ye, + Nan-won Seng-kia-ye, + Aan!_ + + See also “Journal Asiatique,” tome vii., p. 286. + + [176] The body of man--his coat of skin--is an inert mass of + matter, _per se_; it is but the _sentient_ living body + within the man that is considered as the man’s body + proper, and it is that which, together with the fontal + soul or purely astral body, directly connected with the + immortal spirit, constitutes the trinity of man. + + [177] We really think that the word “witchcraft” ought, once + for all, to be understood in the sense which properly + belongs to it. Witchcraft may be either conscious or + unconscious. Certain wicked and dangerous results may be + obtained through the mesmeric powers of a so-called + sorcerer, who misuses his potential fluid; or again they + may be achieved through an easy access of malicious + tricky “spirits” (so much the worse if human) to the + atmosphere surrounding a medium. How many thousands of + such irresponsible innocent victims have met infamous + deaths through the tricks of those Elementaries! + + [178] “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” preface, + p. 34. + + [179] “The Christ of Paul,” p. 123. + + [180] Gospel according to Mark, viii. 33. + + [181] “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 489. + + [182] “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. 28. + + [183] See Eusebius, “Ex. H.,” bk. iv., ch. v.; “Sulpicius + Severus,” vol. ii., p. 31. + + [184] It appears that the Jews attribute a very high antiquity + to “Sepher Toldos Jeshu.” It was mentioned for the first + time by Martin, about the beginning of the thirteenth + century, for the Talmudists took great care to conceal + it from the Christians. Levi says that Porchetus + Salvaticus published some portions of it, which were + used by Luther (see vol. viii., Jena Ed.). The Hebrew + text, which was missing, was at last found by Münster + and Buxtorf, and published in 1681, by Christopher + Wagenseilius, in Nuremberg, and in Frankfort, in a + collection entitled “Tela Ignea Satanæ,” or The Burning + Darts of Satan (“See Levi’s Science des Esprits”). + + [185] Theodoret: “Hæretic. Fab.,” lib. ii., 11. + + [186] Jervis W. Jervis: “Genesis,” p. 324. + + [187] “Lightfoot,” 501. + + [188] Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. x. + + [189] Jeremiah vii. 29: “Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, + and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high + places.” + + [190] Genesis xlix. 26. + + [191] Nazareth? + + [192] Otfried Müller: “Historical Greek Literature,” pp. + 230-240. + + [193] See “Movers,” p. 683. + + [194] “Codex Nazaræus,” ii., 305. + + [195] See Lucian: “De Syria Dea.” + + [196] See Psalm lxxxix. 18. + + [197] “Codex Nazaræus,” i. 47. + + [198] Ibid.; Norberg: “Onomasticon,” 74. + + [199] Alph. de Spire: “Fortalicium Fidei,” ii., 2. + + [200] Hosea ix. 10. + + [201] “The Essenes considered oil as a defilement,” says + Josephus: “Wars,” ii., p. 7. + + [202] Luke xiii. 32. + + [203] Matthew ii. We must bear in mind that the Gospel + according to Matthew in the New Testament is not the + original Gospel of the apostle of that name. The + authentic Evangel was for centuries in the possession of + the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, as we show further on + the admission of St. Jerome himself, who confesses that + he had to _ask permission_ of the Nazarenes to translate + it. + + [204] Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man.” + + [205] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 233. + + [206] Preller: vol. i., p. 415. + + [207] Ibid., vol. i., p. 490. + + [208] The word Apocrypha was very erroneously adopted as + doubtful and spurious. The word means _hidden_ and + _secret_; but that which is secret may be often more + true than that which is revealed. + + [209] The statement, if reliable, would show that Jesus was + between fifty and sixty years old when baptized; for the + Gospels make him but a few months younger than John. The + kabalists say that Jesus was over forty years old when + first appearing at the gates of Jerusalem. The present + copy of the “Codex Nazaræus” is dated in the year 1042, + but Dunlap finds in Irenæus (2d century) quotations from + and ample references to this book. “The basis of the + material common to Irenæus and the “Codex Nazaræus” must + be at least as early as the first century,” says the + author in his preface to “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. i. + + [210] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 109; Dunlap: Ibid., xxiv. + + [211] Acts xxiv. 5. + + [212] Ibid., 14. + + [213] “Herodotus,” ii., p. 170. + + [214] The Hindu High Pontiff--the Chief of the Namburis, who + lives in the Cochin Land, is generally present during + these festivals of “Holy Water” immersions. He travels + sometimes to very great distances to preside over the + ceremony. + + [215] “Ant. Jud.,” xiii., p. 9; xv., p. 10. + + [216] King thinks it a great exaggeration and is inclined to + believe that these Essenes, who were most undoubtedly + Buddhist monks, were “merely a continuation of the + associations known as Sons of the Prophets.” “The + Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 22. + + [217] St. Jerome: “Epistles,” p. 49 (ad. Poulmam); see + Dunlap’s “Spirit-History,” p. 218. + + [218] “Munk,” p. 169. + + [219] Bacchus and Ceres--or the mystical _Wine_ and _Bread_, + used during the Mysteries, become, in the “Adonia,” + Adonis and Venus. Movers shows that “_Iao_ is Bacchus,” + p. 550; and his authority is _Lydus de Mens_ (38-74); + “Spir. Hist.,” p. 195. _Iao_ is a Sun-god and the Jewish + Jehovah; the intellectual or Central Sun of the + kabalists. See _Julian_ in _Proclus_. But this “Iao” is + not the Mystery-god. + + [220] Josephus: “Ant. Jud.,” iv., p. 4. + + [221] Ibid., ix.; 2 Kings, i. 8. + + [222] In relation to the well-known fact of Jesus wearing his + hair long, and being always so represented, it becomes + quite startling to find how little the unknown Editor of + the “Acts” knew about the Apostle Paul, since he makes + him say in 1 Corinthians xi. 14, “Doth not Nature itself + teach you, that if a _man have long hair, it is a shame + unto him_?” Certainly Paul could never have said such a + thing! Therefore, if the passage is genuine, Paul knew + nothing of the prophet whose doctrines he had embraced + and for which he died; and if false--how much more + reliable is what remains? + + [223] Max Müller has sufficiently proved the case in his + lecture on the “Zend-Avesta.” He calls Gushtasp “the + mythical pupil of Zoroaster.” Mythical, perhaps, only + because the period in which he lived and learned with + Zoroaster is too remote to allow our modern science to + speculate upon it with any certainty. + + [224] Max Müller: “Zend Avesta,” 83. + + [225] Philo: “De Vita. Contemp.” + + [226] The real meaning of the division into _ages_ is esoteric + and Buddhistic. So little did the uninitiated Christians + understand it that they accepted the words of Jesus + _literally_ and firmly believed that he meant the end of + the world. There had been many prophecies about the + forthcoming age. Virgil, in the fourth Eclogue, mentions + the Metatron--a new offspring, with whom the _iron age_ + shall end and a _golden one_ arise. + + [227] “Palestine,” p. 525, et seq. + + [228] “Sod,” vol. ii., Preface, p. xi. + + [229] “Vit. Pythag.” Munk derives the name of the _Iessæns_ + or Essenes from the Syriac _Asaya_--the healers, or + physicians, thus showing their identity with the + Egyptian Therapeutæ. “Palestine,” p. 515. + + [230] Matthew xiii. 10. + + [231] “Eleusinian Mysteries,” p. 15. + + [232] This descent to Hades signified the inevitable fate of + each soul to be united for a time with a terrestrial + body. This union, or dark prospect for the soul to find + itself imprisoned within the dark tenement of a body, + was considered by all the ancient philosophers and is + even by the modern Buddhists, as a punishment. + + [233] “Eleusinian Mysteries,” p. 49, foot-note. + + [234] “The profound or esoteric doctrines of the ancients were + denominated _wisdom_, and afterward _philosophy_, and + also the _gnosis_, or knowledge. They related to the + human soul, its divine parentage, its supposed + degradation from its high estate by becoming connected + with “generation” or the physical world, its onward + progress and restoration to God by regenerations or ... + transmigrations.” Ibid, p. 2, foot-note. + + [235] Cyril of Jerusalem asserts it. See vi. 10. + + [236] “Phædrus,” 64. + + [237] “The Golden Ass,” xi. + + [238] “Apocalypse,” xix. 12. + + [239] See Suet. in “Vita. Eutrop.,” 7. It is neither cruelty, + nor an insane indulgence in it, which shows this emperor + in history as passing his time in catching flies and + transpiercing them with a golden bodkin, but religious + superstition. The Jewish astrologers had predicted to + him that he had provoked the wrath of Beelzebub, the + “Lord of the flies,” and would perish miserably through + the revenge of the dark god of Ekron, and die like King + Ahaziah, because he persecuted the Jews. + + [240] We believe that it was the Sadducees and not the Pharisees + who crucified Jesus. They were Zadokites--partisans of + the house of Zadok, or the sacerdotal family. In the + “Acts” the apostles were said to be persecuted by the + Sadducees, but never by the Pharisees. In fact, the + latter never persecuted any one. They had the scribes, + rabbis, and learned men in their numbers, and were not, + like the Sadducees, jealous of their order. + + [241] “Dial.,” p. 69. + + [242] Fabricius: “Cod. Apoc., N. T.,” i., 243; Tischendorf: + “Evang. Ap.,” p. 214. + + [243] Origen: “Cont. Cels.,” 11. + + [244] Rabbi Iochan: “Mag.,” 51. + + [245] “Origen,” 11. + + [246] Cf. “August de Consans. Evang.,” i., 9; Fabric.: “Cod. + Ap. N. T.,” i., p. 305, ff. + + [247] “Recog.,” i. 58; cf., p. 40. + + [248] King’s “Gnostics,” p. 145; the author places this + sarcophagus among the earliest productions of that art + which inundated later the world with mosaics and + engravings, representing the events and personages of + the “New Testament.” + + [249] “De Pudicitia.” See “The Gnostics and their Remains,” + p. 144. + + [250] Ibid., plate i., p. 200. + + [251] This gem is in the collection of the author of “The + Gnostics and their Remains.” See p. 201. + + [252] “Hæresies,” xxvii. + + [253] 1 Cor. xi. 14. + + [254] See the “Israelite Indeed,” vol. ii., p. 238; “Treatise + Nazir.” + + [255] “Epiph. ed. Petar,” vol. i., p 117. + + [256] “Kabbala Denudata,” ii., 155; “Vallis Regia,” Paris + edition. + + [257] Psalms viii. + + [258] This contradiction, which is attributed to Paul in + Hebrews, by making him say of Jesus in chapter i., 4: + “Being made _so much better_ than the angels,” and then + immediately stating in chapter ii. 9, “But we see Jesus, + who was made _a little lower_ than the angels,” shows + how unscrupulously the writings of the apostles, if they + ever wrote any, were tampered with. + + [259]“Codex Nazaræus,” i. 23. + + [260] Ibid., preface, p. v., translated from Norberg. + + [261] “According to the Nazarenes and Gnostics, the Demiurg, + the creator of the material world, is not the highest + God.” (See Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man.”) + + [262] Clemens: “Al. Strom.” vii., 7, § 106. + + [263] H. E., iv. 7. + + [264] The gospels interpreted by Basilides were not our + present gospels, which, as it is proved by the greatest + authorities, were not in his days in existence. See + “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., chap. Basilides. + + [265] The five make mystically ten. They are androgynes. + “Having divided his body in two parts, the Supreme + Wisdom became male and female” (“Manu,” book i., sloka + 32). There are many early Buddhistic ideas to be found + in Brahmanism. + + The prevalent idea that the last of the Buddhas, Gautama, + is the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, or the _ninth_ + Avatar, is disclaimed partially by the Brahmans, and + wholly rejected by the learned Buddhist theologians. The + latter insist that the worship of Buddha possesses a far + higher claim to antiquity than any of the Brahmanical + deities of the _Vedas_, which they call secular + literature. The Brahmans, they show, came from other + countries, and established their heresy on the already + accepted popular _deities_. They conquered the land by + the sword, and succeeded in burying truth, by building a + theology of their own on the ruins of the more ancient + one of Buddha, which had prevailed for ages. They admit + the divinity and spiritual existence of some of the + Vedantic gods; but as in the case of the Christian + angel-hierarchy they believe that all these deities are + greatly subordinate, even to the incarnated Buddhas. + They do not even acknowledge the creation of the + physical universe. Spiritually and _invisibly_ it has + existed from all eternity, and thus it was made merely + visible to the human senses. When it first appeared it + was called forth from the realm of the invisible into + the visible by the impulse of A’di Buddha--the “Essence.” + They reckon twenty-two such visible appearances of the + universe governed by Buddhas, and as many destructions + of it, by fire and water in regular successions. After + the last destruction by the flood, at the end of the + precedent cycle--(the exact calculation, embracing + several millions of years, is a secret cycle) the world, + during the present age of the Kali Yug--Maha Bhadda + Calpa--has been ruled successively by four Buddhas, the + last of whom was Gautama, the “Holy One.” The fifth, + Maitree-Buddha, is yet to come. This latter is the + expected kabalistic King Messiah, the Messenger of + Light, and Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, who will come + on a _white_ horse. It is also the Christian Second + Advent. See “Apocalypse” of St. John. + + [266] “Irenæus,” i. 23. + + [267] Tertullian reversed the table himself by rejecting, + later in life, the doctrines for which he fought with + such an acerbity and by becoming a Montanist. + + [268] In his debate with Jacolliot upon the right spelling + of the Hindu Christna, Mr. Textor de Ravisi, an + ultramontane Catholic, tries to prove that the name of + Christna ought to be written Krishna, for, as the latter + means black, and the statues of this deity are generally + black, the word is derived from the color. We refer the + reader to Jacolliot’s answer in his recent work, + “Christna et le Christ,” for the conclusive evidence + that the name is not derived from the color. + + [269] There is no equivalent for the word “miracle,” in the + Christian sense, among the Brahmans or Buddhists. The + only correct translation would be _meipo_, a wonder, + something remarkable; but not a violation of natural + law. The “saints” only produce _meipo_. + + [270] “Beiträge,” vol. i., p. 40; Schleiermacher: “Sämmtl. + Werke,” viii.; “Einl., N. T.,” p. 64. + + [271] “Epiph. Hæra.,” xlii., p. 1. + + [272] Tertullian: “Adv. Marc.,” ii. 5; cf. 9. + + [273] Ibid., ii. 5. + + [274] vol. ii., p. 105. + + [275] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 100. + + [276] “Adv. Marc.,” iv., 9, 36. + + [277] “Supernatural Religion,” p. 101; Matthew v. 17. + + [278] This author, vol. ii., p. 103, remarks with great + justice of the “Heresiarch” Marcion, “whose high + personal character exerted so powerful an influence upon + his own time,” that “it was the misfortune of Marcion to + live in an age when Christianity had passed out of the + pure morality of its infancy; when, untroubled by + complicated questions of dogma, simple faith and pious + enthusiasm had been the one great bond of Christian + brotherhood, into a phase of ecclesiastical development + in which religion was fast degenerating into theology, + and complicated doctrines were rapidly assuming the + rampant attitude which led to so much bitterness, + persecution, and schism. In later times Marcion might + have been honored as a reformer, in his own he was + denounced as a heretic. Austere and ascetic in his + opinions, he aimed at superhuman purity, and, although + his clerical adversaries might scoff at his impracticable + doctrines regarding marriage and the subjugation of the + flesh, they have had their parallels amongst those whom + the Church has since most delighted to honor, and, at + least, the whole tendency of his system was markedly + towards the side of virtue.” These statements are based + upon Credner’s “Beiträge,” i., p. 40; cf. Neander: + “Allg. K. G.,” ii., p. 792, f.; Schleiermacher, Milman, + etc., etc. + + [279] Justin’s “Die Evv.,” p. 446, sup. B. + + [280] But, on the other hand, this antagonism is very _strongly_ + marked in the “Clementine Homilies,” in which Peter + unequivocally denies that Paul, whom he calls Simon the + Magician, has ever had a _vision_ of Christ, and calls + him “an enemy.” Canon Westcott says: “There can be no + doubt that St. Paul is referred to as ‘the enemy’” (“On + the Canon,” p. 252, note 2; “Supernatural Religion,” + vol. ii., p 35). But this antagonism, which rages unto + the present day, we find even in St. Paul’s “Epistles.” + What can be more energetic than such like sentences: + “Such are _false_ apostles, deceitful workers, + transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.... + I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest + apostle” (2 Corinthians, xi.). “Paul, an apostle _not of + men_, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ _and_ God the + Father, who raised him from the dead ... but there be + some that trouble you, and _would pervert_ the Gospel of + Christ ... _false brethren_.... When Peter came to + Antioch I withstood him to his face, because he was to + be blamed. For before that certain came from James, _he + did eat_ with the Gentiles, but when they were come he + withdrew, fearing them which were of the circumcision. + And the other Jews dissembled ... insomuch that Barnabas + also was carried away with their _dissimulation_,” etc., + etc. (Galat. i. and ii.). On the other hand, we find + Peter in the “Homilies,” indulging in various complaints + which, although alleged to be addressed to Simon Magus, + are evidently all direct answers to the above-quoted + sentences from the Pauline Epistles, and _cannot_ have + anything to do with Simon. So, for instance, Peter said: + “For some among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful + preaching, and accepted certain _lawless_ and _foolish_ + teaching of the hostile men (enemy)”--Epist. of Peter to + James, § 2. He says further: “Simon (Paul) ... who came + before me to the Gentiles ... and I have followed him as + light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as + health upon disease” (“Homil.,” ii. 17). Still further, + he calls him _Death_ and a _deceiver_ (Ibid., ii. 18). + He warns the Gentiles that “our Lord and _Prophet_ (_?_) + (_Jesus_) announced that he would send from among his + followers, apostles to _deceive_. “Therefore, above + all, remember to avoid every apostle, or teacher, or + prophet, who first does not accurately compare his + teaching with that of James, called the brother of our + Lord” (see the difference between Paul and James on + _faith_, Epist. to Hebrews, xi., xii., and Epist. of + James, ii.). “Lest the Evil One should send a false + preacher ... as he has sent to us Simon (?) preaching a + counterfeit of truth in the name of our Lord, and + disseminating error” (“Hom.” xi., 35; see above + quotation from Gal. 1, 5). He then denies Paul’s + assertion, in the following words: “If, therefore, our + Jesus indeed appeared in a vision to you, it was only as + an irritated adversary.... But how can any one through + visions become wise in teaching? And if you say, ‘it is + possible,’ then I ask, wherefore did the Teacher remain + for a whole year and discourse to those who were + attentive? And how can _we believe your story that he + appeared to you_? And in what manner did he appear to + you, when you hold opinions contrary to his teaching?... + For you now set yourself up against me, who am a _firm + rock, the foundation of the Church_. If you were not an + opponent, you would not calumniate me, you would not + revile my teaching ... (circumcision?) in order that, in + declaring what I have myself heard from the Lord, I may + not be believed, as though _I were condemned_.... But if + you say that I am condemned, you blame God who revealed + Christ to me.” “This last phrase,” observes the author + of “Supernatural Religion,” “‘if you say that I am + condemned,’ is an evident allusion to Galat. ii, 11, ‘I + withstood him to the face, because he was condemned’” + (“Supernatural Religion,” p. 37). “There cannot be a + doubt,” adds the just-quoted author, “that the Apostle + Paul is attacked in this religious romance as the great + enemy of the true faith, under the hated name of Simon + the Magician, whom Peter follows everywhere for the + purpose of unmasking and confuting him” (p. 34). And if + so, then we must believe that it was St. Paul who broke + both his legs in Rome when flying in the air. + + [281] “Prâtimoksha Sûtra,” Pali Burmese copy; see also “Lotus + de la Bonne Loi,” translated by Burnouf, p. 444. + + [282] Matthew xix. 16-18. + + [283] “Pittakatayan,” book iii., Pali Version. + + [284] See Judges xiii. 18, “And the angel of the Lord said + unto him: Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is + SECRET?” + + [285] Vol. ii., p. 106. + + [286] Emmanuel was doubtless the son of the prophet himself, as + described in the sixth chapter; what was predicted, can + only be interpreted on that hypothesis. The prophet had + also announced to Ahaz the extinction of his line. “If + ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.” + Next comes the prediction of the placing of a new prince + on the throne--Hezekiah of Bethlehem, said to have been + Isaiah’s son-in-law, under whom the captives should + return from the uttermost parts of the earth. Assyria + should be humbled, and peace overspread the Israelitish + country, compare Isaiah vii. 14-16; viii. 3, 4; ix. 6, + 7; x. 12, 20, 21; xi.; Micah v., 2-7. The popular party, + the party of the prophets, always opposed to the + Zadokite priesthood, had resolved to set aside Ahaz and + his time-serving policy, which had let in Assyria upon + Palestine, and to set up Hezekiah, a man of their own, + who should rebel against Assyria and overthrow the + Assur-worship and Baalim (2 Kings xv. 11). Though only + the prophets hint this, it being cut out from the + historical books, it is noticeable that Ahaz offered his + own child to Moloch, also that he died at the age of + thirty-six, and Hezekiah took the throne at twenty-five, + in full adult age. + + [287] Tertullian: “Adv. Marci,” iii. 8 ff. + + [288] “Sup. Rel.,” vol. ii., p. 107; “Adv. Marci,” iii. 2, § 2; + cf. iii. 12, § 12. + + [289] “Sup. Relig.,” vol. ii., p. 126. + + [290] We give the systems according to an old diagram + preserved among some Kopts and the Druses of Mount + Lebanon. Irenæus had perhaps some good reasons to + disfigure their doctrines. + + [291] Sophia is the highest prototype of woman--the first + _spiritual_ Eve. In the Bible the system is reversed and + the intervening emanation being omitted, Eve is degraded + to simple humanity. + + [292] See “Irenæus,” book i., chap. 31-33. + + [293] In King’s “Gnostics,” we find the system a little + incorrect. The author tells us that he followed + Bellermann’s “Drei Programmen über die Abraxas gemmen.” + + [294] See “Idra Magna.” + + [295] “Codex Nazaræns,” part i., p. 9. + + [296] See “Codex Nazaræns,” i., 181. Fetahil, sent to frame + the world, finds himself immersed in the abyss of mud, + and soliloquizes in dismay until the _Spiritus_ + (Sophia-Achamoth) unites herself completely with matter, + and so creates the material world. + + [297] “Irenæus,” 37, and Theodoret, quoted in the same page. + + [298] Ibid., i. xxv. + + [299] See preface to the “Apocryphal New Testament,” London, + printed for W. Hone, Ludgate Hill, 1820. + + [300] “It is first cited by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin + writer of no credit, in the latter end of the fifth + century, and by him it is suspected to have been + forged.” + + [301] “Elements of Theology,” vol. ii., p. 90, note. + + [302] Parson’s “Letters to Travis,” 8vo., p. 402. + + [303] The term “Paganism” is properly used by many modern + writers with hesitation. Professor Alexander Wilder, in + his edition of Payne Knight’s “Symbolical Language of + Ancient Art and Mythology,” says: “It (‘Paganism’) has + degenerated into slang, and is generally employed with + more or less of an opprobrious meaning. The correcter + expression would have been ‘the ancient ethnical + worships,’ but it would be hardly understood in its true + sense, and we accordingly have adopted the term in + popular use, but not disrespectfully. A religion which + can develop a Plato, an Epictetus, and an Anaxagoras, is + not gross, superficial, or totally unworthy of candid + attention. Besides, many of the rites and doctrines + included in the Christian as well as in the Jewish + Institute, appeared first in the other systems. + Zoroastrianism anticipated far more than has been + imagined. The cross, the priestly robes and symbols, the + sacraments, the Sabbath, the festivals and anniversaries, + are all anterior to the Christian era by thousands of + years. The ancient worship, after it had been excluded + from its former shrines, and from the metropolitan + towns, was maintained for a long time by the inhabitants + of humble localities. To this fact it owes its later + designation. From being kept up in the _Pagi_, or rural + districts, its votaries were denominated _Pagans_, or + provincials.” + + [304] “Super. Relig.,” vol. ii., p. 5. + + [305] Norberg: Preface to “Cod. Naz.,” p. v. + + [306] Epiph.: “Contra Ebionitas.” + + [307] See preface, from page 1 to 34. + + [308] Ibid., p. 7, preface. + + [309] Hieronymus: “De Virus.,” illust., cap. 3. “It is + remarkable that, while all church fathers say that + Matthew wrote in _Hebrew_, the whole of them use the + Greek text as the genuine apostolic writing, without + mentioning what relation the _Hebrew_ Matthew has to our + Greek one! It had many _peculiar additions_ which are + wanting in our evangel.” (Olshausen: “Nachweis der + Echtheit der sämmtlichen Schriften des Neuen Test.,” p. + 32; Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 44.) + + [310] Hieronymus: “Commen. to Matthew,” book ii., ch. xii., + 13. Jerome adds that it was written in the Chaldaic + language, but with Hebrew letters. + + [311] “St. Jerome,” v., 445; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 46. + + [312] This accounts also for the rejection of the works of + Justin Martyr, who used only this “Gospel according to + the Hebrews,” as also did most probably Titian, his + disciple. At what late period was fully established the + _divinity_ of Christ we can judge by the mere fact that + even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce + this book as spurious, but only classed it with such as + the Apocalypse of John; and Credner (“Zur Gesch. Des + Kan.,” p. 120) shows Nicephorus inserting it, together + with the Revelation, in his “Stichometry,” among the + Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the _genuine_ primitive + Christians, rejecting the rest of the apostolic + writings, made use only of this Gospel (“Adv. Hær.” i., + 26), and the Ebionites, as Epiphanius declares, firmly + believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man + “of the seed of a man.” + + [313] See King’s “Gnostics,” p. 31. + + [314] This Iove, Iao, or Jehovah is quite distinct from the + God of the Mysteries, IAO, held sacred by all the + nations of antiquity. We will show the difference + presently. + + [315] King’s “Gnostics.” + + [316] Iurbo and Adunai, according to the Ophites, are names + of Iao-Jehovah, one of the emanations of Ilda-Baoth. + “Iurbo is called by the Abortions (the Jews) Adunai” + (“Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 73). + + [317] King: “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 31. + + [318] In the “Gospel of Nicodemus,” Ilda-Baoth is called + _Satan_ by the pious and anonymous author;--evidently, + one of the final flings at the half-crushed enemy. “As + for me,” says Satan, excusing himself to the prince of + hell, “I tempted him (Jesus), and stirred up my old + people, the Jews, against him” (chap. xv. 9). Of all + examples of Christian ingratitude this seems almost the + most conspicuous. The poor Jews are first robbed of + their sacred books, and then, in a spurious “Gospel,” + are insulted by the representation of Satan claiming + them as his “old people.” If they were his people, and + at the same time are “God’s chosen people,” then the + name of this God must be written Satan and not Jehovah. + This is logic, but we doubt if it can be regarded as + complimentary to the “Lord God of Israel.” + + [319] This is the Nazarene system; the Spiritus, after uniting + herself with Karabtanos (_matter_, turbulent and + senseless), brings forth _seven badly-disposed stellars_, + in the Orcus; “Seven Figures,” which she bore “witless” + (“Codex Nazaræus,” i., p. 118). Justin Martyr evidently + adopts this idea, for he tells us of “the sacred + prophets, who say that one and the same _spirit_ is + divided into _seven_ spirits (pneumata). “Justin ad + Græcos;” “Sod,” vol. ii., p. 52. In the Apocalypse the + Holy Spirit is subdivided into “_seven_ spirits before + the throne,” from the Persian Mithraic mode of + classifying. + + [320] This certainly looks like the “_jealous_ God” of the + Jews. + + [321] It is the _Elohim_ (plural) who create Adam, and do not + wish man to become “as one of US.” + + [322] Theodoret: “Hæret.;” King’s “Gnostics.” + + [323] “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 78. + + [324] Some persons hold that he was Bishop of Rome; others, + of Carthage. + + [325] His polemical work addressed against the so-called + orthodox Church--the Catholic--notwithstanding its + bitterness and usual style of vituperation, is far more + fair, considering that the “great African” is said to + have been expelled from the Church of Rome. If we + believe St. Jerome, it is but the envy and the unmerited + calumnies of the early Roman clergy against Tertullian + which forced him to renounce the Catholic Church and + become a Montanist. However, were the unlimited + admiration of St. Cyprian, who terms Tertullian “The + Master,” and his estimate of him merited, we would see + less error and paganism in the Church of Rome. The + expression of Vincent of Lerius, “that every word of + Tertullian was a sentence, and every sentence a triumph + _over error_,” does not seem very happy when we think of + the respect paid to Tertullian by the Church of Rome, + notwithstanding his partial apostasy and the _errors_ in + which the latter still abides and has even enforced upon + the world as _infallible_ dogmas. + + [326] Were not the views of the Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also + deemed a HERESY by the Church of Rome? It is quite + extraordinary to see how easily the Vatican encourages + the abuse of one _heretic_ Tertullian, against another + _heretic_ Basilides, when the abuse happens to further + her own object. + + [327] Does not Paul himself speak of “_Principalities_ and + _Powers_ in heavenly places” (Ephesians iii. 10; i. 21), + and confess that there be _gods_ many and _Lords_ many + (Kurioi)? And angels, powers (Dunameis), and + _Principalities_? (See 1 Corinthians, viii. 5; and + Epistle to Romans, viii. 38.) + + [328] Tertullian: “Præscript.” + + [329] Baur; Credner; Hilgenfeld; Kirchhofer; Lechler; Nicolas; + Ritschl; Schwegler; Westcott, and Zeller; see + “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 2. + + [330] See Epiphanius: “Contra Ebionitas.” + + [331] The Ophites, for instance, made of Adonai the third son + of Ilda-Baoth, a malignant genius, and, like his other + five brothers, a constant enemy and adversary of man, + whose divine and immortal spirit gave man the means of + becoming the rival of these genii. + + [332] The Bishop of Salamis died A.D. 403. + + [333] “Epiphanius,” i., 122, 123. + + [334] The “Clementines” are composed of three parts--to wit: + the Homilies, the Recognitions, and an Epitome. + + [335] “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 2. + + [336] “Homilies,” xviii., 1-15. + + [337] “Clementine Homilies;” “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii. + + [338] “Supernatural Religion,” p. 11. + + [339] Hieron.: “Opp.,” vii., p. 270, ff.; “Supernatural + Religion,” p. 11. + + [340] Ibid. + + [341] Theodoret: “Hæret. Fab.,” ii., vii. + + [342] See “Irenæus,” I., xii., p. 86. + + [343] “Auszüge aus dem Sohar,” p. 12. + + [344] “Cod. Naz.,” vol. ii., p. 149. + + [345] Theodoret: “Hæret. Fab.,” ii., vii. + + [346] “Homilies,” xvi., 15 ff.; ii., 12; iii., 57-59; x., 19. + Schliemann: “Die Clementinem,” p. 134 ff., “Supernatural + Religion,” vol. ii., p. 349. + + [347] “Homilies,” iii., 20 f; ii., 16-18, etc. + + [348] Ibid., iii., 20 ff. + + [349] Schliemann: “Die Clementinem,” pp. 130-176; quoted also + in “Supernatural Religion,” p. 342. + + [350] We will speak of this doctrine further on. + + [351] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 155; “Vallis Regia.” + + [352] “Hermes,” X., iv., 21-23. + + [353] Idra Magna: “Kabbala Denudata.” + + [354] Justin Martyr: “Apol.,” vol. ii., p. 74. + + [355] Josephus: “Wars,” II., chap. 8. sec. 7. + + [356] See Josephus; Philo; Munk (35). Eusebius mentions their + semneion, where they perform the mysteries of a retired + life (“Ecclesiastic History,” lib. ii., ch. 17). + + [357] “Epiphanius,” ed. Petau, i., p. 117. + + [358] Cerinthus is the same Gnostic--a contemporary of John + the Evangelist--of whom Irenæus invented the following + anecdote: “There are those who heard him (Polycarp) say + that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at + Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed forth + from the bath-house ... crying out, ‘Let us fly, lest + the bath-house fall down, Cerinthus, the enemy of the + truth, being within it’” (Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iii., 3, + § 4). + + [359] Munk: “Palestine,” p. 525; “Sod, the Son of the Man.” + + [360] “Haxthausen,” p. 229. + + [361] “Shahrastâni;” Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier und der + Ssabismus,” ii., p. 625. + + [362] Maimonides, quoted in Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier + und der Ssabismus,” ii., p. 458. + + [363] “Ye have condemned and killed the just,” says James + in his epistle to the twelve tribes. + + [364] Porphyry makes a distinction between what he calls + “the _Antique_ or _Oriental philosophy_,” and the + properly Grecian system, that of the Neo-platonists. + King says that all these religions and systems are + branches of one antique and common religion, the Asiatic + or Buddhistic (“Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 1). + + [365] “Sod, the Son of the Man.” + + [366] “Hermes Trismegistus,” pp. 86, 87, 90. + + [367] It is the correct interpretation of the Bible allegories + that makes the Catholic clergy so wrathful with the + Protestants who freely scrutinize the Bible. How bitter + this feeling has become, we can judge by the following + words of the Reverend Father Parker of Hyde Park, New + York, who, lecturing in St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, on + the 10th of December, 1876, said: “To whom does the + Protestant Church owe its possession of the Bible, + _which they wish to place in the hands of every ignorant + person and child_? To monkish hands, that laboriously + transcribed it before the age of printing. Protestantism + has produced dissension in Church, rebellions and + outbreaks in State, unsoundness in social life, and will + never be satisfied short of the downfall of the Bible! + Protestants must admit that the Roman Church has done + more to scatter Christianity and extirpate idolatry than + all their sects. From one pulpit it is said that there + is no hell, and from another that there is immediate and + unmitigated damnation. One says that Jesus Christ was + only a man; another that you must be plunged bodily into + water to be baptized, and refuses the rites to infants. + Most of them have no prescribed form of worship, no + sacred vestments, and their doctrines are as undefined + as their service is informal. The founder of Protestantism, + Martin Luther, was the worst man in Europe. The advent + of the Reformation was the signal for civil war, and + from that time to this the world has been in a restless + state, uneasy in regard to Governments, and every day + becoming more skeptical. The ultimate tendency of + Protestantism is clearly nothing less than the + destruction of all respect for the Bible, and the + disruption of government and society.” Very plain talk + this. The Protestants might easily return the + compliment. + + [368] Eliphas Levi ascribes this narrative to the Talmudist + authors of “Sota” and “Sanhedrin,” p. 19, book of + “Jechiel.” + + [369] This fragment is translated from the original Hebrew + by Eliphas Levi in his “La Science des Esprits.” + + [370] Those who know anything of the rites of the Hebrews + must recognize in these lions the gigantic figures of + the Cherubim, whose symbolical monstrosity was well + calculated to frighten and put to flight the profane. + + [371] Arnobius tells the same story of Jesus, and narrates + how he was accused of having robbed the sanctuary of the + secret names of the Holy One, by means of which + knowledge he performed all the miracles. + + [372] This is a translation of Eliphas Levi. + + [373] “La Science des Esprits,” p. 37. + + [374] “Israelite Indeed,” vol. iii., p. 61. + + [375] “Origen,” vol. ii., p. 150. + + [376] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23. + + [377] “In the way these call heresy I worship” (Acts xxiv. 14). + + [378] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109. + + [379] “Milman,” p. 200. + + [380] Dunlap says in “Sod, the Son of the Man:” “Mr. Hall, of + India, informs us that he has seen Sanscrit philosophical + treatises in which the _Logos_ continually occur,” + p. 39, foot-note. + + [381] See John i. + + [382] Origen: “Philosophumena,” xxiv. + + [383] Kleuker: “Natur und Ursprung der Emanationslehre bei + den Kabbalisten,” pp. 10, 11; see “Libri Mysterii.” + + [384] “These as natural _brute beasts_.” “The dog has turned + to its own vomit again; and _the sow_ that was washed to + her wallowing in the mire” (22). + + [385] The types of the creation, or the attributes of the + Supreme Being, are through the emanations of Adam + Kadmon; these are: “The _Crown_, _Wisdom_, _Prudence_, + _Magnificence_, _Severity_, _Beauty_, _Victory_, + _Glory_, _Foundation_, _Empire_. Wisdom is called _Jeh_; + Prudence, _Jehovah_; Severity, _Elohim_; Magnificence, + _El_; Victory and Glory, SABAOTH; Empire or Dominion, + ADONAI.” Thus when the Nazarenes and other Gnostics of + the more Platonic tendency twitted the Jews as + “abortions who worship their god Iurbo, _Adunai_,” we + need not wonder at the wrath of those who had accepted + the old Mosaic system, but at that of Peter and Jude who + claim to be followers of Jesus and dissent from the + views of him who was also a Nazarene. + + [386] According to the “Kabala,” _Empire_ or _Dominion_ is + “the consuming fire, and his wife is the Temple or + the Church.” + + [387] Colossians ii. 18. + + [388] It is more likely that both abused Paul, who preached + against this belief; and that the Gnostics were only + a pretext. (See Peter’s second Epistle.) + + [389] The true name of Manes--who was a Persian by birth--was + _Cubricus_. (See Epiph. “Life of Manes,” Hæret. lxv.) He + was flayed alive at the instance of the Magi, by the + Persian King Varanes I. Plutarch says that Manes or + Manis means Masses or ANOINTED. The vessel, or vase of + election, is, therefore, the vessel full of that light + of God, which he pours on one he has selected for his + interpreter. + + [390] See King’s “Gnostics,” p. 38. + + [391] Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 126. + + [392] Philo: “Quæst. et Solut.” + + [393] See Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 153 ff. + + [394] “Kabbala Denudata;” preface to the “Sohar,” ii., p. 242. + + [395] See Champollion’s “Egypte.” + + [396] “Idra Rabba,” vi., p. 58. + + [397] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” ii. + + [398] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288 a. + + [399] _Ego sum qui sum_ (see “Bible”). + + [400] See “Institutes of Manu,” translated by Sir William + Jones. + + [401] Champollion. + + [402] We are fully aware that some Christian kabalists term + En-Soph the “Crown,” identify him with Sephira; call + En-Soph “an emanation from God,” and make the ten + Sephiroth comprise “En-Soph” as a unity. They also very + erroneously reverse the first two emanations of + Sephira--Chochma and Binah. The greatest kabalists have + always held Chochma (Wisdom) as a male and active + intelligence, Jah יה, and placed it under the No. 2 on + the right side of the triangle, whose apex is the crown, + while Binah (Intelligence) or בינה, is under No. 3 on + the left hand. But the latter, being represented by its + divine name as Jehovah יהוה, very naturally showed + the God of Israel as only a third emanation, as well as + a feminine, passive principle. Hence when the time came + for the Talmudists to transform their multifarious + deities into one living God, they resorted to their + Masoretic points and combined to transform Jehovah into + Adonai, “the Lord.” This, under the persecution of the + Mediæval kabalists by the Church, also forced some of + the former to change their female Sephiroth into male, + and _vice versa_, so as to avoid being accused of + disrespect and blasphemy to Jehovah; whose name, + moreover, by mutual and secret agreement they accepted + as a _substitute_ for Jah, or the mystery name IAO. + Alone the _initiated_ knew of it, but later it gave rise + to a great confusion among the _uninitiated_. It would + be worth while--were it not for lack of space--to quote + a few of the many passages in the oldest Jewish + authorities, such as Rabbi Akiba, and the “Sohar,” which + corroborate our assertion. Chochma-Wisdom is a male + principle everywhere, and Binah-Jehovah, a female + potency. The writings of Irenæus, Theodoret, and + Epiphanius, teeming with accusations against the + Gnostics and “Hæresies,” repeatedly show Simon Magus and + Cerenthus making of Binah the feminine divine Spirit + which inspired Simon. Binah is Sophia, and the Sophia of + the Gnostics is surely not a male potency, but simply + the feminine Wisdom, or Intelligence. (See any ancient + “Arbor Kabbalistica,” or Tree of the Sephiroth.) Eliphas + Levi, in the “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i., pp. + 223 and 231, places Chochma as No. 2 and as a male + Sephiroth on the right hand of the Tree. In the “Kabala” + the three male Sephiroth--Chochma, Chesed, Netsah--are + known as the Pillar of Mercy; and the three feminine on + the left, namely, Binah, Geburah, Hod, are named the + Pillar of Judgment; while the four Sephiroth of the + centre--Kether, Tiphereth, Jesod, and Malchuth--are + called the Middle Pillar. And, as Mackenzie, in the + “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” shows, “there is an analogy + in these three pillars to the three Pillars of Wisdom, + Strength, and Beauty in a Craft Lodge of Masonry, while + the En-Soph forms the mysterious blazing star, or mystic + light of the East.” (p. 407). + + [403] Justin: “Cum. Trypho,” p. 284. + + [404] A division indicative of time. + + [405] Sanchoniathon calls time the oldest Æon, _Protogonos_, + the “_first-born_.” + + [406] Philo Judæus: “Cain and his Birth,” p. xvii. + + [407] Azrael, angel of death, is also Israel. _Ab-ram_ means + father of elevation, high placed father, for Saturn is + the highest or outmost planet. + + [408] See Genesis xiii. 2. + + [409] Saturn is generally represented as a very old man, with + a sickle in his hand. + + [410] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., + p. 85. + + [411] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 292 b. + + [412] Bereshith Rabba: “Parsha,” ix. + + [413] “Sohar,” i., p. 20 a. + + [414] “The Sanscrit _s_,” says Max Müller, “is represented by + the _z_ and _h_. Thus the geographical name ‘hapta + hendu,’ which occurs in the ‘Avesta,’ becomes + intelligible, if we retranslate the _z_ and _h_ into the + Sanscrit _s_. For ‘Sapta Sindhu,’ or the seven rivers, + is the old Vaidic name for India itself” (“Chips,” vol. + i., p. 81). The “Avesta” is the spirit of the + “Vedas”--the esoteric meaning made partially known. + + [415] What is generally understood in the “Avesta” system as a + _thousand_ years, means, in the esoteric doctrine, a + cycle of a duration known but to the initiates and which + has an allegorical sense. + + [416] Matter: “Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme,” pl. x. + + [417] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288. + + [418] Ibid., sect. ii. + + [419] Ibid., vii. + + [420] Jam vero quoniam hoc in loco recondita est illa plane + non utuntur, et tantum de parte lucis ejus particepant + quæ demittitur et ingreditur intra filum Ain Soph + protensum e Persona אל (_Al_-God) deorsum: intratque et + perrumpit et transit per Adam primum occultum usque in statum + dispositionis transitque per eum a capite usque ad pedes + ejus: _et in eo est figura hominis_ (“Kabbala Denudata,” + ii., p. 246). + + [421] “Sohar,” i., p. 51 a. + + [422] Book iii., p. 290. + + [423] “Idra Rabba,” §§ 541, 542. + + [424] Ibid., iii., p. 36. + + [425] Ibid., p. 171. + + [426] “Nat. und Urspr. d. Emanationslehre b. d. Kabbalisten,” + p. ii. + + [427] “Irenæus,” p. 637. + + [428] “Idra Suta,” ix.; “Kabbala Denudata;” see Pythagoras: + “Monad.” + + [429] “Codex Nazaræus,” i., p. 145. + + [430] “Idra Rabba,” viii., pp. 107-109. + + [431] “Auszüge aus dem Sohar,” p. 11. + + [432] He is the universal and spiritual _germ_ of all things. + + [433] “Ad. Kabb. Chr.,” p. 6. + + [434] “Sohar,” p. 93. + + [435] “Movers,” p. 265. + + [436] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 236. + + [437] Champollion, Junior: “Lettres.” + + [438] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., pp. 47-57. + + [439] Ibid., vol. i., p. 145. + + [440] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 211. + + [441] Ibid., vol. i., p. 308. + + [442] Sophia-Achamoth also begets her son Ilda-Baoth, the + _Demiurge_, by looking into chaos or matter, and by + coming in contact with it. + + [443] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109. See “Sod, the Son + of the Man,” for translation. + + [444] Revelation iv. 5. + + [445] Ezekiel. + + [446] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 127. + + [447] The first androgyne duad being considered a _unit_ in + all the secret computations, is, therefore, the Holy + Ghost. + + [448] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 59. + + [449] Ibid., vol. i., p. 285. + + [450] Ibid., vol. i., p. 309. + + [451] Ibid., vol. i., p. 287. See “Sod, the Son of the Man,” + p. 101. + + [452] John iv. 9. + + [453] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 123. + + [454] “Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and + seventy of the elders of Israel. _And they saw the God + of Israel_,” Exodus xxiv. 9, 10. + + [455] Irenæus: “Clementine Homilies,” I., xxii., p. 118. + + [456] “Adv. Hæs.,” III., ii., 18. + + [457] See King’s “Gnostics.” + + [458] Ezekiel i.-ii. + + [459] “Gnostics and their Remains.” + + [460] “Although this science is commonly supposed to be + peculiar to the Jewish Talmudists, there is no doubt + that they borrowed the idea from a foreign source, and + that from the Chaldeans, the _founders of magic art_,” + says King, in the “Gnostics.” The titles _Iao_ and + _Abraxas_, etc., instead of being recent Gnostic + figments, were indeed holy names, borrowed from the most + ancient formulæ of the East. Pliny must allude to them + when he mentions the virtues ascribed by the Magi to + amethysts engraved with the names of the sun and moon, + names not expressed in either the Greek or Latin + tongues. In the “_Eternal Sun_,” the “_Abraxas_,” the + “_Adonai_,” of these gems, we recognize the very amulets + ridiculed by the philosophic Pliny (“Gnostics,” pp. 79, + 80); _Virtutes_ (miracles) as employed by Irenæus. + + [461] So called to distinguish the short-face, who _is + exterior_, “from the venerable sacred ancient” (the + “Idra Rabba,” iii., 36; v. 54). Seir-Anpin is the “image + of the Father.” “He that hath seen me hath seen my + Father” (John xiv. 9). + + [462] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 57. + + [463] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 61. + + [464] This stone, of a sponge-like surface, is found in + Narmada and seldom to be seen in other places. + + [465] John has an eagle near him; Luke, a bull; Mark, a lion; + and Matthew, an angel--the kabalistic quaternary of the + Egyptian Tarot. + + [466] See Matter, upon the subject. + + [467] Consult Book of Daniel, iv., v. + + [468] Ahriman, the production of Zoroaster, is so called in + hatred of the Arias or Aryas, the Brahmans against whose + dominion the Zoroastrians had revolted. Although an Arya + (a noble, a sage) himself, Zoroaster, as in the case of + the Devas whom he disgraced from gods to the position of + _devils_, hesitated not to designate this type of the + spirit of evil under the name of his enemies, the + Brahman-Aryas. The whole struggle of Ahura-mazd and + Ahriman is but the allegory of the great religious and + political war between Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism. + + [469] “Nork,” ii., 146. + + [470] Rev. Mr. Maurice takes it also to mean the cycles. + + [471] “Duncker,” ii., 363; Spiegel’s “Avesta,” i., 32, 34. + + [472] See the “Book of Dehesh,” 47. + + [473] See King’s translation of the “Zend Avesta,” in his + “Gnostics,” p. 9. + + [474] The dævas or devils of the Iranians contrast with the + devas or deities of India. + + [475] “Nork,” ii., 146. + + [476] The Bishop of Ephesus, 218 A.D.; Eusebius: “H. E.” iii., + 31. Origen stoutly maintained the doctrine of eternal + punishment to be erroneous. He held that at the second + advent of Christ even the devils among the damned would + be forgiven. The eternal damnation is a later + _Christian_ thought. + + [477] Luke xii. 10. + + [478] “Hermes Trismegistus,” vi. 55. + + [479] Plato Protogoras; “Cory,” p. 274. + + [480] Panthier: “La Chine,” ii., 375; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” + p. 97. + + [481] Acts ii. 22. + + [482] John i. 6. + + [483] Ibid., 30. + + [484] John viii. 40. + + [485] Ibid., ix. 11. + + [486] Priestley: “History of Early Christianity,” p. 2, + sect. 2. + + [487] Mahomet was born in 571 A.D. + + [488] J. M. Peebles: “Jesus--Man, Myth, or God?” + + [489] Translated from the “Hari-Purana,” by Jacolliot: + “Christna, et le Christ.” + + [490] Clement: “Al. Strom.,” v. 14, § 110; translation + given in “Supernatural Religion,” vol. i, p. 77. + + [491] This work, “The Pastor of Hermas,” is no longer extant, + but appears only in the “Stichometry” of Nicephorus; it + is now considered an apocrypha. But, in the days of + Irenæus, it was quoted as Holy Scripture (see “Sup. + Religion,” vol. i., p. 257) by the Fathers, held to be + divinely inspired, and publicly read in the churches + (Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iv., 20). When Tertullian became + a Montanist he rejected it, after having _asserted_ its + divinity (Tertullian: “De Orat.,” p. 12). + + [492] “Sohar,” xl., p. 10. + + [493] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., pp. 60, 61. + + [494] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 281; vol. iii., p. 59. + + [495] We must remind the reader, in this connection, that + Joshua and Jesus are one and the same name. In the + Slavonian Bibles Joshua reads--_Iessus_ (or Jesus), + _Navin_. + + [496] “Idra Rabba,” vol. iii., § 41; the “Sohar.” + + [497] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 230; the “Book of the + Babylonian Companions,” p. 35. + + [498] “Sohar Ex.,” p. 11. + + [499] “Midrash Hashirim;” “Rabbi Akaba;” “Midrash Koheleth,” + vol. ii., p. 45. + + [500] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 60. + + [501] “On the Canon,” p. 178 ff. + + [502] Vol. ii., p. 57; Norberg’s “Onomasticon;” “Sod, the + Son of the Man,” p. 103. + + [503] “Preller,” vol. i., p. 484; K. O. Muller: “History of + Greek Literature,” p. 238; “Movers,” p. 553. + + [504] “Sohar,” vol. i., fol. 25. + + [505] “Simil.,” vol. ix., p. 12; “Supernatural Religion,” + vol. i., p. 257. + + [506] Mark xiii. 32. + + [507] “Apolog.,” vol. i., p. 63. + + [508] “Idra Rabba,” x., p. 177. + + [509] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23. + + [510] Philo says that the _Logos_ is the _interpreter_ of the + highest God, and argues, “that he must be the God of us + imperfect beings” (“Leg. Alleg.,” iii., § 73). According + to his opinion man was not made in the likeness of the + _most High_ God, the Father of all, but in that of the + _second_ God who is his word--Logos” (Philo: “Fragments,” + 1; ex. Euseb. “Præpar. Evang.,” vii., 13). + + [511] “Codex Nazaræus,” p. 57; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 59. + + [512] “Hundert und ein Frage,” p. xvii.; Dunlap: “Sod, the + Son of the Man,” p. 87; the author, who quotes Nork, + says that parts of the “Midrashim” and the “Targum” of + Onkelos, antedate the “New Testament.” + + [513] Writing upon Ptolemæus and Heracleon, the author of + “Supernatural Religion” (vol. ii., p. 217) says that + “the inaccuracy of the Fathers keeps pace with their + want of critical judgment,” and then proceeds to + illustrate this particularly ridiculous blunder + committed by Epiphanius, in common with Hippolytus, + Tertullian, and Philostrius. “Mistaking a passage of + Irenæus, ‘Adv. Hær.,’ i., p. 14, regarding the Sacred + Tetrad (Kol-Arbas), Hippolytus supposes Irenæus to refer + to another heretic leader.” He at once treats the Tetrad + as such a leader named “Colarbasus,” and after dealing + (vi., 4) with the doctrines of Secundus, and Ptolemæus, + and Heracleon, he proposes, § 5, to show, “what are the + opinions held by Marcus and _Colarbasus_,” these two + being, according to him, the successors of the school of + Valentinus (cf. Bunsen: “Hippolytus, U. S. Zeit.,” p. 54 + f.; “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13). + + [514] See Godf. Higgins: “Anacalypsis.” + + [515] Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” + p. 84. + + [516] Meaning--holding up of _different views_. + + [517] “This absurd mistake,” remarks the author of “Supernatural + Religion,” vol. ii., p. 218, “shows how little these + writers knew of the Gnostics of whom they wrote, and how + the one ignorantly follows the other.” + + [518] “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13. + + [519] Epiph.: “Hær.,” xxxvi., § 1, p. 262 (quoted in “Supernatural + Religion”). See Volkmar’s “Die Colorabasus-gnosis” in + Niedner’s “Zeitschr. Hist. Theol.” + + [520] “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 182 f., note 3. + + [521] Mosheim. + + [522] Tertullian: “Despectæ,” ch. xxx. + + [523] Mosheim: “Eccles. Hist.,” c. v., § 5. + + [524] Socrates: “Scol. Eccl. Hist.,” b. I., c. ix. + + [525] “Proverbs,” chap. xvi., p. 33. In ancient Egypt and + Greece, and among Israelites, small sticks and balls + called the “sacred divining lots” were used for this + kind of oracle in the temples. According to the figures + which were formed by the accidental juxtaposition of the + latter, the priest interpreted the will of the gods. + + [526] Another untrustworthy, untruthful, and ignorant writer, + and ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His + alleged history of the strife between the Pagans, + Neo-platonics, and the Christians of Alexandria and + Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to 439, + dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of + deliberate falsifications. Edition of “Reading,” Cantab, + 1720, fol. Translated. Plon frères, Paris. + + [527] “Gems of the Orthodox Christians,” vol. i., p. 135. + + [528] Revelation xiv. 1. + + [529] Daghôba is a small temple of globular form, in which + are preserved the relics of Gautama. + + [530] Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like + our mausoleums, and are sacred to votive offerings to + the dead. + + [531] The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been + hung, he was lapidated and buried under the water at the + junction of two streams. “Mishna Sanhedrin,” vol. vi., + p. 4; “Talmud,” of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a. + + [532] “Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion,” MSS. xi. + + [533] The engraving represents the talisman as of twice the + natural size. We are at a loss to understand why King, + in his “Gnostic Gems,” represents Solomon’s seal as a + five-pointed star, whereas it is six-pointed, and is the + signet of Vishnu, in India. + + [534] King (“Gnostics”) gives the figure of a Christian + symbol, very common during the middle ages, of three + fishes interlaced into a triangle, and having the FIVE + letters (a most sacred Pythagorean number) Ι. Χ. ΘΥΣ + engraved on it. The number five relates to the same + kabalistic computation. + + [535] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 9. + + [536] The kabalistic Sephiroth are also ten in number, or + five pairs. + + [537] An avatar is a descent from on high upon earth of the + Deity in some manifest shape. + + [538] “Bhagavatta.” + + [539] “Manu,” books i. and xii. + + [540] See Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.” + + [541] “Origin of Species,” first edition, p. 484. + + [542] Ibid., p. 484. + + [543] Ibid., pp. 488, 489. + + [544] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339. + + [545] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” p. 291. + + [546] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” pp. 294, + 295. + + [547] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 32. + + [548] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 78 and others. + + [549] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 272. While not at all astonished + that Brahmans should have refused to satisfy M. + Jacolliot’s curiosity, we must add that the meaning of + this sign is known to the superiors of every Buddhist + lamasery, not alone to the Brahmans. + + [550] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339. + + [551] See “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” vol. xiii., + p. 79. + + [552] _Lahgash_ is nearly identical in meaning with _Vâch_, + the hidden power of the Mantras. + + [553] In “Rig-Veda Sanhita” the meaning is given by Max + Müller as the Absolute, “for it is derived from + ‘_diti_,’ bond, and the negative particle _A_.” + + [554] “Hymns to the Maruts” I., 89, 10. + + [555] Ibid., I., 24, 1. + + [556] Ibid., X., 63, 2. + + [557] George Smith gives the first verses of the Akkadian + _Genesis_ as found in the Cuneiform Texts on the + “Lateres Coctiles.” There, also, we find _Anu_, the + passive deity or En-Soph, _Bel_, the Creator, the Spirit + of God (Sephira) moving on the face of the waters, hence + water itself, and _Hea_ the Universal Soul or wisdom of + the three combined. + + The first eight verses read thus: + + 1. When above, were not raised the heavens; + 2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up. + 3. The abyss had not broken its boundaries. + 4. The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the + producing mother of the whole of them. (This is the + Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.) + 5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained but + 6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded. + 7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them; + 8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist. + + This was the chaotic or ante-genesis period. + + [558] Thus is it that we find in all the philosophical + theogonies, the Holy Ghost female. The numerous sects of + the Gnostics had Sophia; the Jewish kabalists and + Talmudists, Shekinah (the garment of the Highest), which + descended between the two cherubim upon the Mercy Seat; + and we find even Jesus made to say, in an old text, “My + _Mother_, the Holy Ghost, took me.” + + “The waters are called _nara_, because they were the + production of Nara, the Spirit of God” (“Institutes + of Manu.” i. 10). + + [559] Narayana, or that which moves on the waters. + + [560] “Manu,” sloka 12. + + [561] When a female power, she is Sephira; when male, he is + Adam Kadmon, for, as the former contains in herself the + other nine Sephiroth, so, in their totality, the latter, + including Sephira, is embodied in the Archetypal Kadmon, + the πρωτογονος. + + [562] See Haug’s “Aytareya Brahmanam,” of the Rig-Veda. + + [563] The same transformations are found in the cosmogony of + every important nation. Thus, we see in the Egyptian + mythology, Isis and Osiris, sister and brother, man and + wife; and Horus, the Son of both, becoming the husband + of his mother, Isis, and producing a son, _Malouli_. + + [564] Mandala I., Sûkta 166, Max Müller. + + [565] “Asiatic Researches,” vol. viii., pp. 402, 403; + Colebrooke’s translation. + + [566] As in the Pythagorean numerical system every number on + earth, or the world of the effects, corresponds to its + invisible prototype in the world of causes. + + [567] See initial chap., vol. i., word Yajna. + + [568] Eve is the trinity of nature, and Adam the unity of + spirit; the former the created material principle, the + latter the ideal organ of the creative principle, or, in + other words, this androgyne is both the principle and + the Logos, for א is the male, and ב the female; and, as + Levi expresses it, this first letter of the holy + language, Aleph, represents a man pointing with one hand + toward the sky, and with the other toward the ground. It + is the macrocosm and the microcosm at the same time, and + explains the double triangle of the Masons and the + five-pointed star. While the male is active the female + principle is passive, for it is SPIRIT and MATTER, the + latter word meaning _mother_ in nearly every language. + The columns of Solomon’s temple, Jachin and Boaz, are + the emblems of the androgyne; they are also respectively + male and female, white and black, square and round; the + male a unity, the female a binary. In the later + kabalistic treatises, the active principle is pictured + by the sword זכר, the passive by the sheath נקבה. See + “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i. + + [569] The vertical line being the male principle, and the + horizontal the female, out of the union of the two at + the intersection point is formed the CROSS; the oldest + symbol in the Egyptian history of gods. It is the key of + Heaven in the rosy fingers of Neith, the celestial + virgin, who opens the gate at dawn for the exit of her + first-begotten, the radiant sun. It is the Stauros of + the Gnostics, and the philosophical cross of the + high-grade Masons. We find this symbol ornamenting the + _tee_ of the umbrella-shaped oldest pagodas in Thibet, + China, and India, as we find it in the hand of Isis, in + the shape of the “handled cross.” In one of the Chaitya + caves, at Ajunta, it surmounts the three umbrellas in + stone, and forms the centre of the vault. + + [570] “When this world had emerged from obscurity, the subtile + elementary principles produced the vegetable germ which + at first animated the plants; from the plants, life + passed through the fantastic organisms which were born + in the ilus (_boue_) of the waters; then through a + series of forms and different animals, it at length + reached man” (“Manu,” book i.; and “Bhagavatta”). + + Manu is a convertible type, which can by no means be + explained as a personage. Manu means sometimes humanity, + sometimes man. The Manu who emanated from the uncreated + Swayambhuva is, without doubt, the type of Adam Kadmon. + The Manu who is progenitor of the other six Manus is + evidently identical with the Rishis, or seven primeval + sages who are the forefathers of the post-diluvian + races. He is--as we shall show in Chapter VIII.--Noah, + and his six sons, or subsequent generations are the + originals of the post-diluvian and mythical patriarchs + of the Bible. + + [571] Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.” + + [572] See Vol. I., chap. i., pp. 33, 34, of this work. + + [573] “Sepher Jezireh,” chap. i., Mishna ixth. + + [574] Ibid. + + [575] “Sohar,” i., 2 a. + + [576] “Sepher Jezireh,” Mishna ix., 10. + + [577] It is interesting to recall Hebrews i. 7, in connection + with this passage. “Who maketh his angels (messengers) + spirits, and his ministers (servants, those who + minister) a flame of fire.” The resemblance is too + striking for us to avoid the conclusion that the author + of “Hebrews” was as familiar with the “Kabala” as adepts + usually are. + + [578] “The Sons of God;” “The India of the Brahmans,” p. 230. + + [579] May it not be that Hanoumā is the representative of that + link of beings half-man, half-monkeys, which, according + to the theories of Messrs. Hovelacque and Schleicher, + were arrested in their development, and fell, so to say, + into a retrogressive evolution? + + [580] The Primal or Ultimate Essence has _no name_ in India. It + is indicated sometimes as “That” and “This.” “This + (universe) was not originally anything. There was + neither heaven, nor earth, nor atmosphere. That being + non-existent resolved ‘Let me be.’” (Original Sanscrit + Text.) Dr. Muir, vol. v., p. 366. + + [581] Coleman’s “Hindu Mythology.” + + [582] The siege and subsequent surrender of Lanca (Isle of + Ceylon) to Rama is placed by the Hindu chronology--based + upon the Zodiac--at 7,500 to 8,000 years B.C., and the + following or eighth incarnation of Vishnu at 4,800 B.C. + (from the book of the Historical Zodiacs of the + Brahmans). + + [583] A Hanoverian scientist has recently published a work + entitled _Ueber die Auflösung der Arten dinck Natürliche + Jucht Wahl_, in which he shows, with great ingenuity, + that Darwin was wholly mistaken in tracing man back to + the ape. On the contrary, he maintains that it is the + ape which has evolved from man. That, in the beginning, + mankind were, morally and physically, the types and + prototypes of our present race and of human dignity, by + their beauty of form, regularity of feature, cranial + development, nobility of sentiments, heroic impulses, + and grandeur of ideal conceptions. This is a purely + Brahmanic, Buddhistic, and kabalistic philosophy. His + book is copiously illustrated with diagrams, tables, + etc. He says that the gradual debasement and degradation + of man, morally and physically, can be readily traced + throughout the ethnological transformations down to our + times. And, as one portion has already degenerated into + apes, so the civilized man of the present day will at + last, under the action of the inevitable law of + necessity, be also succeeded by like descendants. If we + may judge of the future by the actual present, it + certainly does seem possible that so unspiritual and + materialistic a body as our physical scientists should + end as _simia_ rather than as seraphs. + + [584] “De Bel. Jud.,” vol. ii., p. 12. + + [585] “De Somniio,” p. 455 d. + + [586] “Sohar,” vol. ii., p. 96. + + [587] “Mishna;” “Aboth,” vol. iv., p. 29; Mackenzie’s “Royal + Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 413. + + [588] “Sohar,” vol. iii, p. 61 b. + + [589] Ibid., vol. i., p. 65 b. + + [590] Hermetic work. + + [591] “Dhamma-pada,” slokas 276 et seq. + + [592] Neander: “History of the Church,” vol. i., p. 817. + + [593] It is from the highest _Zion_ that Maitree-Buddha, the + Saviour to come, will descend on earth; and it is also + from Zion that comes the Christian Deliverer (see Romans + xi. 26). + + [594] 1 Corinth. ii. 6, 7, 8. + + [595] “Lotus de la Bonne Loi,” p. 806. + + [596] “Du Bouddhisme,” 95. + + [597] Philippians iii. 11-14. + + [598] “The Mahâvansa,” vol. i., Introduction. + + [599] The Five Articles of Faith. + + [600] Not only did the Buddhist missionaries make their way + to the Mesopotamian Valley, but they even went so far + west as Ireland. The Rev. Dr. Lundy, in his work on + “Monumental Christianity,” referring to an Irish Round + Tower, observes: “Henry O’Brien explains this Round + Tower Crucifixion as that of Buddha; the animals as the + elephant and the bull, sacred to Buddha, and into which + his soul entered after death; the two figures standing + beside the cross as Buddha’s virgin mother, and Kama his + favorite disciple. The whole picture bears a close + likeness to the Crucifixion, in the cemetery of Pope + Julius, except the animals, which are conclusive proof + that it cannot be Christian. It came ultimately from the + far East to Ireland, with the Phœnician colonists, who + erected the Round Towers as symbols of the life-giving + and preserving power of man and nature, and how that + universal life is produced through suffering and death.” + + When a Protestant clergyman is thus forced to confess + the pre-Christian existence of the crucifix in Ireland, + its Buddhistic character, and the penetration of the + missionaries of that faith even to that then remote + portion of the earth, we need not wonder that in the + minds of the Nazarean contemporaries of Jesus and their + descendants, he should not have been associated with + that universally known emblem in the character of a + Redeemer. + + In noticing this admission of Dr. Lundy, Mr. Charles + Sotheran remarked, in a lecture before the American + Philological Society, that both legends and + archæological remains unite in proving beyond question + “that Ireland, like every other nation, once listened to + the propagandists of Siddhârtha-Buddha.” + + [601] “The religion of multiplied baptisms, the scion of the + still existent sect named the ‘Christians of St. John,’ + or Mendæans, whom the Arabs call _el-Mogtasila_ and + Baptists. The Aramean verb _seba_, origin of the name + _Sabian_, is a synonym of βαπτιζω” (Renan: “Vie de + Jesus”). + + [602] Foh-Tchou, literally, in Chinese, meaning Buddha’s lord, + or the teacher of the doctrines of Buddha--Foh. + + [603] This mountain is situated southwest of China, almost + between China and Thibet. + + [604] SOL, being situated, on the diagram, exactly in the + centre of the solar system (of which the Ophites appear + to have been cognizant)--hence, under the direct + vertical ray of the Higher Spiritual Sun--showers his + brightness on all other planets. + + [605] Speaking of Venus, Placidus, the astrologer, always + maintained that “her bluish lustre denotes heat.” As to + Mercury, it was a strange fancy of the Ophites to + represent him as a spirit of water, when astrologically + considered he is as “a cold, dry, earthy, and melancholy + star.” + + [606] The name which Norberg translates, in his Onomasticon + to the “Codex Nazaræus,” as Ferho, stands, in the + original, _Parcha Rabba_. In the “Life of Manes,” given + by Epiphanius, in his “Hær.,” lxvi., is mentioned a + certain priest of Mithras, a friend of the great + Hæresiarch Manes, named Parchus. + + [607] Its description is found in one of the magic books of + the Egyptian King Nechepsos, and its use prescribed on + green jasper stones, as a potent amulet. Galen mentions + it in his work, “De Simp. Med.,” c. ix. + + [608] Consider those two diametrically-opposed doctrines--the + Catholic and the Protestant; the one preached by Paul, + the semi-Platonist, and the other by James, the orthodox + Talmudist. + + [609] The material, bad side of Sophia-Achamoth, who emanates + from herself Ilda-Baoth and his six sons. + + [610] See Norberg’s translation of “Codex Nazaræus,” Preface. + This proves once more the identification of Jesus with + Gautama-Buddha, in the minds of the Nazarene Gnostics, + as _Nebu_ or Mercury is the planet sacred to the + Buddhas. + + [611] Nous, the designation given by Anaxagoras to the + Supreme Deity, was taken from Egypt, where he was + styled NOUT. + + [612] By very few though, for the creators of the material + universe were always considered as subordinate + deities to the Most High God. + + [613] Lydus, 1. c., Ledrenus, 1. c. + + [614] “Erân das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris.” + + [615] _Asi_ means, moreover, “Thou art,” in Sanscrit, and + also “sword,” “_Asi_,” without the accent on the + first vowel. + + [616] Professor A. Wilder. + + [617] These sacred anagrams were called “Zeruph.” + + [618] “Book of Numbers, or Book of the Keys.” + + [619] The “Jezira,” or book of the creation, was written by + Rabbi Akiba, who was the teacher and instructor of + Simeon Ben Iochai, who was called the prince of the + kabalists, and wrote the “Sohar.” Franck asserts that + “Jezira” was written one century B.C. (“Die Kabbala,” + 65), but other and as competent judges make it far + older. At all events, it is now proved that Simeon Ben + Iochai lived _before_ the second destruction of the + temple. + + [620] “Jezira,” p. 8. + + [621] Ibid. See the constancy with which Ezekiel sticks in + his vision to the “_wheels_” of the “living creatures” + (ch. 1., passim). + + [622] He was an Alexandrian Neo-platonic under the first of + the Ptolemies. + + [623] “Chips,” vol. i. + + [624] See Max Müller’s “Our Figures.” + + [625] Ibid. + + [626] See King’s “Gnostics and their Remains,” plate xiii. + + [627] “Vita Pythagor.” + + [628] 608 B.C. + + [629] This city was built 332 B.C. + + [630] “Metaph.,” vii. F. + + [631] See drawings from the Temple of Rama, Coleman’s “Mythology + of the Hindus.” New York: J. W. Bouton, Publisher. + + [632] See Hargrave Jennings: “Rosicrucians,” p. 252. + + [633] K. O. Müller: “History of Greek Literature,” p. 283; + “Movers,” pp. 547-553; Dunlap: “Sod, the Mysteries of + Adoni,” p. 21. + + [634] See “Universal History,” vol. v., p. 301. + + [635] “Spirit. Hist.,” pp. 64, 67, 78. + + [636] “Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni,” p. 21. + + [637] See Leviticus xvi. 8, 10, and other verses relating to + the biblical goat in the original texts. + + [638] “Sagra Scrittura,” and “Paralipomeni.” + + [639] Article “Goat,” p. 257. + + [640] “Types of Mankind,” p. 600; “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia.” + + [641] “Ecclesiastical History,” vol. i., pp. 381, 382. Read + the whole quotations to appreciate the doctrine in full. + + [642] “Anacalypsis.” + + [643] Quoted in the “Seers of the Ages,” by J. M. Peebles. + + [644] We hold to the idea--which becomes self-evident when the + Zoroastrian imbroglio is considered--that there were, + even in the days of Darius, two distinct sacerdotal + castes of Magi: the initiated and those who were allowed + to officiate in the popular rites only. We see the same + in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Belonging to every temple + there were attached the “hierophants” of the _inner_ + sanctuary, and the secular clergy who were not even + instructed in the Mysteries. It is against the + absurdities and superstitions of the latter that Darius + revolted, and “crushed them,” for the inscription of his + tomb shows that he was a “hierophant” and a Magian + himself. It is also but the exoteric rites of this class + of Magi which descended to posterity, for the great + secresy in which were preserved the “Mysteries” of the + true Chaldean Magi was never violated, however much + guess-work may have been expended on them. + + [645] xxiii., 6. + + [646] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 185. + + [647] These are truths which cannot fail to impress themselves + upon the minds of earnest thinkers. While the Ebionites, + Nazarites, Hemerobaptists, Lampseans, Sabians, and the + many other earliest sects which wavered later between + the varying dogmatisms suggested to them by the + _esoteric_ and misunderstood parables of the Nazarene + teacher, whom they justly regarded as a prophet, there + were men, for whose names we would vainly search + history, who preserved the secret doctrines of Jesus as + pure and unadulterated as they had been received. And + still, even all these above-mentioned and conflicting + sects were far more orthodox in their Christianity, or + rather Christism, than the Churches of Constantine and + Rome. “It was a strange fate that befell these + unfortunate people” (the Ebionites), says Lord Amberley, + “when, overwhelmed by the flood of heathenism that had + swept into the Church, they were condemned as heretics. + Yet, there is no evidence that they had ever swerved + from the doctrines of Jesus, or of the disciples who + knew him in his lifetime.... Jesus himself was + circumcised ... reverenced the temple at Jerusalem as ‘a + house of prayer for all nations.’... But the torrent of + progress swept past the Ebionites, and left them + stranded on the shore” (“An Analysis of Religious + Beliefs,” by Viscount Amberley, vol. i., p. 446). + + [648] What will, perhaps, still more astonish American readers, + is the fact that, in the United States, a mystical + fraternity now exists, which claims an intimate + relationship with one of the oldest and most powerful of + Eastern Brotherhoods. It is known as the Brotherhood of + Luxor, and its faithful members have the custody of very + important secrets of science. Its ramifications extend + widely throughout the great Republic of the West. Though + this brotherhood has been long and hard at work, the + secret of its existence has been jealously guarded. + Mackenzie describes it as having “a Rosicrucian basis, + and numbering many members” (“Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” + p. 461). But, in this, the author is mistaken; it has no + Rosicrucian basis. The name Luxor is primarily derived + from the ancient Beloochistan city of Looksur, which + lies between Bela and Kedgee, and also gave its name to + the Egyptian city. + + [649] These people do not accept the name of Druzes, but + regard the appellation as an insult. They call themselves + the “disciples of Hamsa,” their Messiah, who came to + them, in the tenth century, from the “Land of the Word + of God,” and, together with his disciple, Mochtana + Boha-eddin, committed this _Word_ to writing, and + entrusted it to the care of a few initiates, with the + injunction of the greatest secresy. They are usually + called Unitarians. + + [650] The Okhal (from the Arabic _akl_--intelligence or wisdom) + are the initiated, or wise men of this sect. They hold, + in their mysteries, the same position as the hierophant + of old, in the Eleusinian and others. + + [651] This is the doctrine of the Gnostics who held Christos + to be the personal immortal Spirit of man. + + [652] The ten Messiahs or avatars remind again of the five + Buddhistic and ten Brahmanical avatars of Buddha and + Christna. + + [653] See, farther on, a letter from an “Initiate.” + + [654] In this column the first numbers are those given in the + article on the _Druzes_ in the “New American Cyclopædia” + (Appleton’s), vol. vi., p. 631. The numbers in + parentheses show the sequence in which the commandments + would stand were they given correctly. + + [655] This pernicious doctrine belongs to the old policy of + the Catholic Church, but is certainly false as regards + the Druzes. They maintain that it is right and lawful to + _withhold the truth_ about their own tenets, no one + outside their own sect having a right to pry into their + religion. The _okhals_ never countenance deliberate + falsehood in any form, although the laymen have many a + time got rid of the spies sent by the Christians to + discover their secrets, by deceiving them with sham + initiations. (See the letter of Prof. Rawson to the + author, p. 313.) + + [656] This commandment does not exist in the Lebanon teaching. + + [657] There is no such commandment, but the practice thereof + exists by mutual agreement, as in the days of the + Gnostic persecution. + + [658] “Mount Lebanon,” vol. 3. London, 1853. + + [659] Every temple in India is surrounded by such belts of + sacred trees. And like the Koum-boum of Kansu (Mongolia) + no one but an initiate has a right to approach them. + + [660] John Yarker, Jr.: “Notes on the Scientific and + Religious Mysteries of Antiquity,” etc. + + [661] This “Self,” which the Greek philosophers called + _Augœides_, the “Shining One,” is impressively and + beautifully described in Max Müller’s “Veda.” Showing + the “Veda” to be the first book of the Aryan nations, + the professor adds that “we have in it a period of the + intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel + in any other part of the world. In the hymns of the + “Veda” we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of + this world.... He invokes the gods around him, he + praises, he worships them. But still with all these gods + ... beneath him, and above him, the early poet seems ill + at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast, + he has discovered a power that is never mute when he + prays, never absent when he fears and trembles. It seems + to inspire his prayers, and yet to listen to them; it + seems to live in him, and yet to support him and all + around him. The only name he can find for this + mysterious power is ‘Brahman;’ for _brahman_ meant + originally force, will, wish, and the propulsive power + of creation. But this impersonal brahman, too, as soon + as it is named, grows into something strange and divine. + It ends by being one of many gods, one of the great + triad, worshipped to the present day. And still the + thought within him has no real name; that power which is + nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the + heavens, and every living being, floats before his mind, + conceived but not expressed. At last he calls it + ‘Âtman,’ for Âtman, originally breath or spirit, comes + to mean Self, and Self alone; _Self_, whether Divine or + human; Self, whether creating or suffering; Self, + whether one or all; but always Self, independent and + free. ‘Who has seen the first-born,’ says the poet, when + he who had no bones (_i.e._, form) bore him that had + bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the + world? Who went to ask this from any one who knew it?” + (“Rig-Veda,” i., 164, 4). This idea of a divine Self, + once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its + supremacy; “_Self_ is the Lord of all things, Self is + the King of all things. As all the spokes of a wheel are + contained in the nave and the circumference, all things + are contained in this Self; all Selves are contained in + this Self. Brahman itself is but Self” (Ibid., p. 478; + “Khândogya-upanishad,” viii., 3, 3, 4); “Chips from a + German Workshop,” vol. i., p. 69. + + [662] John x. 34, 35. + + [663] 2 Corinthians, vi. 16. + + [664] Jacolliot: “Voyage au Pays des Éléphants.” + + [665] Buddhist chief priests at Ceylon. + + [666] Samenaïra is one who studies to obtain the high office + of a _Oepasampala_. He is a disciple and is looked upon + as a son by the chief priest. We suspect that the + Catholic seminarist must look to the Buddhists for the + parentage of his title. + + [667] Jacolliot declares, in his “Fils de Dieu,” that he + copied these dates from the “Book of the Historical + Zodiacs,” preserved in the pagoda of Vilenur. + + [668] We were told that there were nearly 20,000 of such books. + + [669] Lepsius: “Königsbuch,” b. ii, _tal. i. dyn._ 5, h. p. + In 1 Peter ii. 3, Jesus is called “the Lord Crestos.” + + [670] Mackenzie: “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 207. + + [671] “Adv. Hær.,” iii., 2, § 2. + + [672] Sprengel: “Histoire de la Médecine.” + + [673] “Christ of Paul,” p. 188. + + [674] “Adv. Hær.,” v. 33, § 4. + + [675] Eusebius: “Hist. Eccles.,” iii., p. 39. + + [676] Bunsen: “Egypt,” vol. i, p. 200. + + [677] “Internal Development of Europe,” p. 147. + + [678] “Antiquities,” lib. xviii., cap. 3. + + [679] Wise man always meant with the ancients a kabalist. It + means astrologer and magician. “Israelite Indeed,” + vol. iii., p. 206. Hakim is a physician. + + [680] Dr. Lardner rejects it as spurious, and gives _nine_ + reasons for rejecting it. + + [681] Revelation i. and ii. + + [682] Philip, the first martyr, was one of the seven, and + he was stoned about the year A.D. 34. + + [683] 1 Corinthians, vii. 34. + + [684] Revelation xiv. 3, 4. + + [685] Philopatris, in Taylor’s “Diegesis,” p. 376. + + [686] King’s “Gnostics and their Remains.” + + [687] “Aug. Serm.,” clii. See Payne Knight’s “Mystic Theology + of the Ancients,” p. 107. + + [688] Baronius: “Annales Ecclesiastici,” t. xxi., p. 89. + + [689] “Chron. de Lanercost,” ed. Stevenson, p. 109. + + [690] Dulaure: “Histoire Abregée des Différens Cultes,” + vol. ii., p. 285; Martezzi “Pagani é Christiani,” p. 78. + + [691] Basilides is termed by Tertullian a Platonist. + + [692] C. W. King: “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 197, + foot-note 1. + + [693] Plutarch: “Roman Questions,” p. 44. + + [694] Linus, Anacletus, and Clement. + + [695] “Life of Claudius,” sect. 25. + + [696] “Vita Saturnini Vopiscus.” + + [697] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 68. + + [698] In Payne Knight’s “Ancient Art and Mythology,” Serapis + is represented as wearing his hair long, “formally + turned back and disposed in ringlets falling down upon + his breast and shoulders like that of women. His whole + person, too, is always enveloped in drapery reaching to + his feet.” (§ cxlv.). This is the conventional picture + of Christ. + + [699] “Vie de Jesus,” p. 405. + + [700] See “Pirke Aboth;” a Collection of Proverbs and + Sentences of the old Jewish Teachers, in which many + New Testament sayings are found. + + [701] “Buddhism,” p. 217. + + [702] Max Müller: “Christ and other Masters;” “Chips,” vol. i. + + [703] The “Life of Jesus” by Strauss, which Renan calls “_un + livre, commode, exact, spirituel et consciencieux_” (a + handy, exact, witty, and conscientious book), rude and + iconoclastic as it is, is nevertheless in many ways + preferable to the “Vie de Jesus,” of the French author. + Laying aside the intrinsic and historical value of the + two works--with which we have nothing to do, we now + simply point to Renan’s distorted outline-sketch of + Jesus. We cannot think what led Renan into such an + erroneous delineation of character. Few of those who, + while rejecting the divinity of the Nazarene prophet, + still believe that he is no myth, can read the work + without experiencing an uneasy, and even angry feeling + at such a psychological mutilation. He makes of Jesus a + sort of sentimental ninny, a theatrical simpleton, + enamored of his own poetical divagations and speeches, + wanting every one to adore him, and finally caught in + the snares of his enemies. Such was not Jesus, the + Jewish philanthropist, the adept and mystic of a school + now forgotten by the Christians and the Church--if it + ever was known to her; the hero, who preferred even to + risk death, rather than withhold some truths which he + believed would benefit humanity. We prefer Strauss who + openly names him an impostor and a pretender, + occasionally calling in doubt his very existence; but + who at least spares him that ridiculous color of + sentimentalism in which Renan paints him. + + [704] See Chap. iii., p. 97. + + [705] In a recent work, called the “World’s Sixteen Crucified + Saviors” (by Mr. Kersey Graves) which attracted our + notice by its title, we were indeed startled as we were + forewarned on the title-page we should be by _historical_ + evidences to be found neither in history nor tradition. + Apollonius, who is represented in it as one of these + sixteen “saviours,” is shown by the author as finally + “_crucified_ ... having risen from the dead ... + appearing to his disciples after his resurrection, + and”--like Christ again--“convincing a _Tommy_(?) + Didymus” by getting him to feel the print of the nails + on his hands and feet (see note, p. 268). To begin with, + neither Philostratus, the biographer of Apollonius, nor + history says any such thing. Though the precise time of + his death is unknown, no disciple of Apollonius ever + said that he was either crucified, or appeared to them. + So much for one “Saviour.” After that we are told that + Gautama-Buddha, whose life and death have been so + minutely described by several authorities, Barthelemy + St. Hilaire included--was also “_crucified_ by his + enemies near the foot of the Nepäl mountains” (see p. + 107); while the Buddhist books, history, and scientific + research tell us, through the lips of Max Müller and a + host of Orientalists, that “Gautama-Buddha (Sâkya-muni) + died near the Ganges.... He had nearly reached the city + of Kusinâgara, when his vital strength began to fail. He + halted in a forest, and while sitting under a sâl tree + he gave up the ghost” (Max Müller: “Chips from a German + Workshop,” vol. i., p. 213). The references of Mr. + Graves to Higgins and Sir W. Jones, in some of his + hazardous speculations, prove nothing. Max Müller shows + some antiquated authorities writing elaborate books “... + in order to prove that Buddha had been in reality the + Thoth of the Egyptians; that he was Mercury, or Wodan, + or Zoroaster, or Pythagoras.... Even Sir W. Jones ... + identified Buddha first with Odin and afterwards with + Shishak.” We are in the nineteenth century, not in the + eighteenth; and though to write books on the authority + of the earliest Orientalists may in one sense be viewed + as a mark of respect for old age, it is not always safe + to try the experiment in our times. Hence this highly + instructive volume lacks one important feature which + would have made it still more interesting. The author + should have added after Prometheus the “Roman,” and + Alcides the _Egyptian god_ (p. 266) a seventeenth + “crucified Saviour” to the list, “Venus, god of the + war,” introduced to an admiring world by Mr. Artemus + Ward the “showman!” + + [706] “Khandogya-upanishad,” viii., 3, 4; Max Müller: “Veda.” + + [707] “Idra Rabba,” x., 117. + + [708] Introd. in “Sohar,” pp. 305-312. + + [709] John xiv. + + [710] “Les Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie,” p. 74. + + [711] Barthelemy St. Hilaire: “Le Buddha et sa Religion,” + Paris, 1860. + + [712] “Journal des Débats,” Avril, 1853. + + [713] “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.” + + [714] “Timæus;” “Polit.,” 269, E. + + [715] “Timæus,” 29; “Phædrus,” 182, 247; “Repub.,” ii., 379, B. + + [716] “Laws,” iv., 715, E.; x., 901, C. + + [717] “Repub.,” ii., 381; “Thæt.,” 176, A. + + [718] “Laws,” x., 901, D. + + [719] “Laws,” iv., 716, A.; “Repub.,” x., 613, A. + + [720] “Phædrus,” 246, C. + + [721] E. Zeller: “Plato and the Old Academy.” + + [722] “Laws,” x., 905, D. + + [723] Max Müller: “Buddhism,” April, 1862. + + [724] Of the Abbé Huc, Max Müller thus wrote in his “Chips + from a German Workshop,” vol. i., p. 187: “The late Abbé + Huc pointed out the similarities between the Buddhist + and Roman Catholic ceremonials with such a _naïveté_, + that, to his surprise, he found his delightful ‘Travels + in Thibet’ placed on the ‘Index.’ ‘One cannot fail being + struck,’ he writes, ‘with their great resemblance with + the Catholicism. The bishop’s crosier, the mitre, the + dalmatic, the round hat that the great lamas wear in + travel ... the mass, the double choir, the psalmody, the + exorcisms, the censer with five chains to it, opening + and shutting at will, the blessings of the lamas, who + extend their right hands over the head of the faithful + ones, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, the + penances and retreats, the cultus of the Saints, the + fasting, the processions, the litanies, the holy water; + such are the similarities of the Buddhists with + ourselves. He might have added tonsure, relics, and the + confessional.” + + [725] “Crawford’s Mission to Siam,” p. 182. + + [726] Many are the marvels recorded as having taken place at + his death, or we should rather say his translation; for + he did not die as others do, but having suddenly + disappeared, while a dazzling light filled the cavern + with glory, his body was again seen upon its subsidence. + When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual + semi-darkness of the gloomy cave--then only, says + Ginsburg, “the disciples of Israel perceived that the + lamp of Israel was extinguished.” His biographers tell + us that there were voices heard from Heaven during the + preparation for his funeral and at his interment. When + the coffin was lowered down into the deep cave excavated + for it, a flame broke out from it, and a voice mighty + and majestic pronounced these words in the air: “This is + he who caused the earth to quake, and the kingdoms to + shake!” + + [727] Plot: “Natural History of Staffordshire.” Published in 1666. + + [728] “Die Kabbala,” 75; “Sod,” vol. ii. + + [729] “Die Kabbala,” 47. + + [730] He relates how Rabbi Eleazar, in the presence of Vespasian + and his officers, expelled demons from several men by + merely applying to the nose of the demoniac one of the + number of roots recommended by King Solomon! The + distinguished historian assures us that the Rabbi drew + out the devils through the nostrils of the patients in + the name of Solomon and by the power of the incantations + composed by the king-kabalist. Josephus: “Antiquities,” + VIII., ii., 5. + + [731] There are _unconscious_ miracles produced sometimes, + which, like the phenomena now called “Spiritual,” are + caused through natural cosmic powers, mesmerism, + electricity, and the invisible beings who are always at + work around us, whether they be human or elementary + spirits. + + [732] It dates from 1540; and in 1555 a general outcry was + raised against them in some parts of Portugal, Spain, + and other countries. + + [733] Extracts from this “Arrêt” were compiled into a work in + 4 vols., 12mo., which appeared at Paris, in 1762, and + was known as “Extraits des Assertions, etc.” In a work + entitled “Réponse aux Assertions,” an attempt was made + by the Jesuits to throw discredit upon the facts + collected by the Commissioners of the French Parliament + in 1762, as for the most part malicious fabrications. + “To ascertain the validity of this impeachment,” says + the author of “The Principles of the Jesuits,” “the + libraries of the two universities of the British Museum + and of Sion College have been searched for the authors + cited; and in every instance where the volume was found, + the correctness of the citation established.” + + [734] “Theologiæ Moralis,” Tomus iv., Lugduni, 1663. + + [735] Tom. iv., lib. xxviii., sect. 1, de Præcept I., c. 20, + n. 184. + + [736] Ibid., sect. 2, de Præcept I., Probl. 113, n. 586. + + [737] Richard Arsdekin, “Theologia Tripartita,” Coloniæ, + 1744, Tom. ii., Pars. ii., Tr. 5, c. 1, § 2, n. 4. + + [738] “Theologia Moralis nunc pluribus partibus aucta, à R. + P. Claudio Lacroix, Societatis Jesu.” Coloniæ, 1757 + (Ed. Mus. Brit.). + + [739] Tom. ii., lib. iii., Pars. 1, Fr. 1, c. 1, dub. 2, + resol. viii. What a pity that the counsel for the + defense had not bethought them to cite this orthodox + legalization of “cheating by palmistry or otherwise,” at + the recent religio-scientific prosecution of the medium + Slade, in London. + + [740] Niccolini: “History of the Jesuits.” + + [741] “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 369. + + [742] Imago: “Primi Sæculi Societatis Jesu,” lib. 1., c. 3., + p. 64. + + [743] Anthony Escobar: “Universæ Theologiæ Moralis receptiore, + absque lite sententiæ,” etc., Tomus i., Lugduni, 1652 + (Ed. Bibl. Acad. Cant.). “Idem sentio, e breve illud + tempus ad unius horæ spatium traho. Religiosus itaque + habitum demittens assignato hoc temporis interstitio, + non incurrit excommunicationem, _etiamsi dimittat non + solùm ex causâ, turpi, scilicet fornicandi, aut clàm + aliquid abripiendi, set etiam ut incognitus ineat + lupanar_.” Probl. 44, n. 213. + + [744] Pars. 11, Tra. 2, c. 31. + + [745] See “The Principles of the Jesuits, Developed in a + Collection of Extracts from their own Authors.” London, + 1839. + + [746] From the Pastoral of the Archbishop of Cambrai. + + [747] See “Jerusalem Talmud, Synhedrin,” c. 7, etc. + + [748] “Franck,” pp. 55, 56. + + [749] Charles Antony Casnedi: “Crisis Theologica,” + Ulyssipone, 1711. Tome i., Disp. 6, Sect. 2, § 1, n. 59. + + [750] Ibid. + + [751] Ibid., § 2, n. 78. + + [752] Ibid., Sect. 5, § 1, n. 165. + + [753] “Thesis propugnata in regio Soc. Jes. Collegio + celeberrimæ Academiæ Cadomensis, die Veneris, 30 Jan., + 1693.” Cadomi, 1693. + + [754] Michelet and Quinet of the College of France: “The + Jesuits.” + + [755] Champollion: “Hermes Trismegistus,” xxvii. + + [756] “De Cultu Adorationis Libri Tres.,” Lib. iii., Disp. i., + c. 2. + + [757] Ibid. + + [758] “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 94. + + [759] Ibid., vol. v., p. 129. + + [760] “And God created ... every _nephesh_ (life) that + moveth” (Gen. i. 21), meaning animals; and (Genesis ii. + 7) it is said: “And man became a _nephesh_” (living + soul); which shows that the word _nephesh_ was + indifferently applied to _immortal_ man and to _mortal_ + beast. “And surely your blood of your _nepheshim_ + (lives) will I require; at the hand of every beast will + I require it, and at the hand of man” (Gen. ix. 5). + “Escape for _nepheshe_” (escape for thy _life_ is + translated) (Gen. xix. 17). “Let us not kill him,” reads + the English version (Gen. xxxvii. 21). “Let us not kill + his _nephesh_,” is the Hebrew text. “_Nephesh_ for + _nephesh_,” says Leviticus (xvii. 8). “He that killeth + any man shall surely be put to death.” “He that smiteth + the _nephesh_ of a man” (Levit. xxiv. 17); and from + verse 18 and following it reads: “And he that killeth a + beast (nephesh) shall make it good.... Beast for beast,” + whereas the original text has it “nephesh for nephesh.” + + 1 Kings i. 12; ii. 23; iii. 11; xix. 2, 3, all have + _nephesh_ for life and soul. “Then shall thy _nepheshah_ + for (his) _nepheshu_,” explains the prophet in 1 Kings + xx. 39. + + Truly, unless we read the “Old Testament” kabalistically + and comprehend the hidden meaning thereof, it is very + little we can learn from it as regards the soul’s + immortality. The common people among Hebrews had not the + slighest idea of soul and spirit, and made no difference + between _life_, _blood_, and _soul_, calling the latter + the “breath of life.” And King James’s translators have + made such a jumble of it that _no one but a kabalist can + restore the Bible to its original form_. + + [761] In “Præcepta Decaloga” (Edit. of Sion Library), Tom. i., + lib. iv., c. 2, n. 7, 8. + + [762] Opinion of John de Dicastille, Sect. xv., “De Justitia + et Jure,” etc., cens. pp. 319, 320. + + [763] “Cursûs Theologici,” Tomus v., Duaci, 1642, Disp. 36, + Sect. 5, n. 118. + + [764] Name of the highest Egyptian hierophants. + + [765] “Crata Nepoa, or the Mysteries of the Ancient Egyptian + Priests.” + + [766] See Matthew xvi. 18, where it is mistranslated “the + gates of Hell.” + + [767] Humberto Malhandrini: “Ritual of Initiations,” p. 105. + Venice, 1657. + + [768] Pages 43, 44, note f. Niccolini of Rome, author of + “The History of the Pontificate of Pius IX.;” “The Life + of Father Gavazzi,” etc. + + [769] And begged in the name of _Him_ who had nowhere to lay + his head! + + [770] In “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” Bunsen + gives the cycle of 21,000 years, which he adopts to + facilitate the chronological calculations for the + reconstruction of the universal history of mankind. He + shows that this cycle “for the nutation of the + ecliptic,” arrived at its apex in the year 1240 of our + era. He says: + + “The cycle divides itself into two halves of 10,500 (or + twice 5,250) years each. + + “The beginning of the first half: + + The highest point will be 19,760 B.C. + The lowest 9,260 + Consequently the middle of the descending + line (beginning of second quarter) will + be 14,510 + The middle of the ascending line + (beginning of fourth quarter) 4,010 + + “The new cycle, which began in 1240 of our era, will come + to the end of its first quarter in 4010 A.D.” + + The Baron explains that “in round numbers, the most + favorable epochs for our hemisphere since the great + catastrophe in Middle Asia (Deluge 10,000 years B.C.) + are: the 4,000 years before, and the 4,000 years after + Christ; and the beginning of the first epoch, _of which + alone we can judge_, as it alone is complete before us, + coincides exactly with the beginnings of national + history, or (what is identical) with the beginning of + _our consciousness_ of continuous existence” (“Egypt’s + Place in Universal History,” Key, p. 102). + + “Our consciousness” must mean, we suppose, the + consciousness _of scientists_, who accept nothing _on + faith_, but much on unverified hypotheses. We do not say + this with reference to the above-quoted author, earnest + scholar and noble champion that he is, of freedom in the + Christian Church, but generally. Baron Bunsen has well + found for himself that a man cannot remain an honest + scientist and please the clerical party. Even the little + concessions he made in favor of the antiquity of + mankind, brought on him, in 1859, the most insolent + denunciations, such as “We lose all faith in the + author’s judgment ... he has yet to learn the very first + principles of historical criticisms ... extravagant and + _unscientific_ exaggeration,” and so on--the pious + vituperator closing his learned denunciations by + assuring the public that Baron Bunsen “_cannot even + construct a Greek sentence_” (“Quarterly Review,” 1859; + see also “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” chap. on + Egyptological Works and English Reviews). But we do + regret that Baron Bunsen had no better opportunity to + examine the “Kabala” and the Brahmanical books of the + Zodiacs. + + [771] “The Funeral Ritual of the Deeds of Horus.” + + [772] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., + p. 133. + + [773] Lepsius: “Abth.,” iii.; Bl., 276; Bunsen, 134. + + [774] In the eighty-first chapter of the “Ritual” the soul is + called _the germ of lights_ and in the seventy-ninth the + Demiurgos, or one of the creators. + + [775] “Ritual,” vi., 44; Champollion: “Manifestations to the + Light;” Lepsius: “Book of the Dead;” Bunsen: “Egypt’s + Place in Universal History.” + + [776] We cannot help quoting a remark by Baron Bunsen in + relation to the “Word” being identical with the + “Ineffable Name” of the Masons and the kabalists. While + explaining the “Ritual,” some of the details of which + “resemble rather the _enchantments of a magician than + solemn rites_, although a hidden and mystical meaning + must have been attached to them” (the honest admission + of this much, at least, is worth something), the author + observes: “The mystery of names, the knowledge of which + was a sovereign virtue, and which, at a later period, + degenerated into the _rank heresy_ (?) of the Gnostics + and the magic of enchanters, appears to have _existed + not only in Egypt but elsewhere_. Traces of it are found + in the ‘Cabala’ ... it prevailed in the Greek and + Asiatic mythology” (“Egypt’s Place, etc.,” p. 147). + + We then see the representatives of Science agreeing upon + this one point, at least. The initiates of all countries + had the same “mystery name.” And now it remains with the + scholars to prove that every adept, hierophant, + magician, or enchanter (Moses and Aaron included) as + well as every kabalist, from the institution of the + Mysteries down to the present age, has been either a + knave or a fool, for believing in the efficacy of this + name. + + [777] See Chap. I., pp. 42, 43, note, of this volume. + + [778] See “The Principles of the Jesuits, Developed in a + Collection of Extracts from their own Authors,” London: + J. G. and F. Rivington, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and + Waterloo Place, Pall Mall; H. Wix, 41 New Bridge Street, + Blackfriars; J. Leslie, Queen Street, etc., 1839. + Section xvii., “High Treason and Regicide,” containing + thirty-four extracts from the same number of authorities + (of the Society of Jesus) upon the question, among + others the opinion thereof of the famous _Robert + Bellarmine_. So Emmanuel Sa says: “The rebellion of an + ecclesiastic against a king, _is not a crime of high + treason, because he is not subject to the king_” + (“Confessarium Aphorismi Verbo Clericus,” Ed. Coloniæ, + 1615, Ed. Coll. Sion). “_The people_,” says John + Bridgewater, “_are not only permitted, but they are + required and their duty demands_, that at the mandate of + the Vicar of Christ, _who is the sovereign pastor over + all nations of the earth_, the faith which they had + previously made with such princes should not be kept” + (“Concertatio Ecclesiæ Catholicæ in Angliâ adversus + Calvino Papistas,” Resp. fol. 348). + + In “De Rege et Regis Institutione, Libri Tres,” 1640 + (Edit. Mus. Brit.), John Mariana goes even farther: “If + the circumstances will permit,” he says, “it will be + lawful to destroy with the sword the prince who is + declared a public enemy.... _I shall never consider that + man to have done wrong, who, favouring the public + wishes, should attempt to kill him_,” and “_to put them + to death is not only lawful, but a laudble and glorious + action_.” Est tamen salutaris cogitatio, ut sit + principibus persuasum si rempublicam oppresserint, si + vitiis et fæditate intolerandi erunt, _eâ conditione + vivere, ut non jure tantum, sed cum laude et gloriâ + perimi possint_” (Lib. i., c. 6, p. 61). + + But the most delicate piece of Christian teaching is + found in the precept of this Jesuit when he argues upon + the best and surest way of killing kings and statesmen. + “In my own opinion,” he says, “deleterious drugs should + not be given to an enemy, neither should a deadly poison + be mixed with his food or in his cup.... Yet _it will + indeed be lawful to use this method_ in the case in + question (that _he who should kill the tyrant would be + highly esteemed, both in favor and in praise_,” for “_it + is a glorious thing to exterminate this pestilent and + mischievous race from the community of men_), not to + constrain the person who is to be killed to take of + himself the poison which, inwardly received, would + deprive him of life, _but to cause it to be outwardly + applied by another_ without his intervention; as, when + there is so much strength in the poison, that if spread + upon a seat or on the clothes it would be sufficiently + powerful to cause death” (Ibid., lib. i., c. f., p. 67). + “It was thus that Squire attempted the life of Queen + Elizabeth, at the instigation of the Jesuit Walpole.”-- + Pasquier: “Catéchisme des Jésuites” (1677, p. 350, + etc.), and “Rapin” (fol., Lond., 1733, vol. ii., book + xvii., p. 148). + + [779] Puffendorf: “Droit de la Nat.,” book iv., ch. 1. + + [780] “Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of + old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself.... But I say + unto you, swear not at all,” etc. “But let your + communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is + more than these cometh of evil” (Matthew v. 33, 34, + 37). + + [781] Barbeyrac, in his notes on Puffendorf, shows that the + Peruvians used no oath, but a simple averment before + the Inca, and were never found perjuring themselves. + + [782] We beg the reader to remember that we do not mean by + Christianity the _teachings of Christ_, but those of + his alleged servants--the clergy. + + [783] Dr. Anderson’s “Defence,” quoted by John Yarker in his + “Notes on the Scientific and Religious Mysteries of + Antiquity.” + + [784] Epiphanius included, we must think, after that, in + violation of his oath, he had sent over seventy persons + into exile, who belonged to the secret society he + betrayed. + + [785] United States Anti-Masonic Convention: “Obligation of + Masonic Oaths,” speech delivered by Mr. Hopkins, of + New York. + + [786] John Yarker, Junr.: “Notes on the Scientific and Religious + Mysteries of Antiquity; the Gnosis and Secret Schools of + the Middle Ages; Modern Rosicrucianism; and the various + Rites and Degrees of Free and Accepted Masonry.” London, + 1872. + + [787] Ibid., p. 151. + + [788] John Yarker: “Notes, etc.,” p. 150. + + [789] “Proceedings of the Supreme Council of Sovereign Grand + Inspectors-General of the Thirty-third and Last Degree, + etc., etc. Held at the city of New York, August 15, + 1876,” pp. 54, 55. + + [790] “Histoire des sectes religieuses,” vol. ii., pp. 392-428. + + [791] “Notitia codicis græci evangelium Johannis variatum + continentis,” Havaniæ, 1828. + + [792] This is the reason why unto this day the fanatical and + kabalistic members of the Nazarenes of Basra (Persia), + have a tradition of the glory, wealth, and power of + their “Brothers,” agents, or _messengers_ as they term + them in Malta and Europe. There are some few remaining + yet, they say, who will sooner or later restore the + doctrine of their Prophet Iohanan (St. John), the son of + Lord Jordan, and eliminate from the hearts of humanity + every other false teaching. + + [793] The two great pagodas of Madura and Benares, are built + in the form of a cross, each wing being equal in extent + (See Mauri: “Indian Antiquities,” vol. iii., pp. + 360-376). + + [794] Findel: “History of Freemasonry,” Appendix. + + [795] “A Sketch of the Knight Templars and the Knights of + St. John of Jerusalem,” by Richard Woof, F.S.A., + Commander of the Order of Masonic Knight Templars. + + [796] Findel: “History of Freemasonry,” Appendix. + + [797] “General History of Freemasonry,” p. 218. + + [798] See Gaffarel’s version; Eliphas Levi’s “La Science des + Esprits;” Mackenzie’s “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia;” + “Sepher Toldos Jeshu;” and other kabalistical and + Rabbinical works. The story given is this. A virgin + named Mariam, betrothed to a young man of the name of + Iohanan, was outraged by another man named Ben Panther + or Joseph Panther, says “Sepher Toldos Jeshu.” “Her + betrothed, learning of her misfortune, left her, at the + same time forgiving her. The child born was Jesus, named + Joshua. Adopted by his uncle Rabbi Jehosuah, he was + initiated into the secret doctrine by Rabbi Elhanan, a + kabalist, and then by the Egyptian priests, who + consecrated him High Pontiff of the Universal Secret + Doctrine, on account of his great mystic qualities. Upon + his return into Judea his learning and powers excited + the jealousy of the Rabbis, and they publicly reproached + him with his origin and insulted his mother. Hence the + words attributed to Jesus at Cana: ‘Woman, what have I + to do with thee?’ (See John ii. 4.) His disciples having + rebuked him with his unkindness to his mother, Jesus + repented, and having learned from them the particulars + of the sad story, he declared that “My mother has not + sinned, she has not lost her innocence; she is immaculate + and yet she is a mother.... As for myself I have no + father, in this world, I am the Son of God and of + humanity!” Sublime words of confidence and trust in the + unseen Power, but how fatal to the millions upon + millions of men murdered because of these very words + being so thoroughly misunderstood! + + [799] We speak of the American Chapter of Rose Croix. + + [800] Pythagoras. + + [801] The first _Grand Chapter_ was instituted at Philadelphia, + in 1797. + + [802] See Yarker’s “Notes on the Mysteries of Antiquity,” + p. 153 + + [803] See 2 Kings, xxiii. 7, Hebrew text, and English, the + former especially. In the degree of Kadosh, a lecture is + given upon the descent of Masonry through Moses, + Solomon, the Essenes, and the Templars. Christian K. + K.’s may get some light as to the kind of “Temple” their + ancestors would, in such a genealogical descent, have + been attached to, by consulting verse 13 of the same + chapter as above quoted. + + [804] See Eliphas Levi’s “Dogme et Rituel,” vol. i. + + [805] Yeva is _Heva_, the feminine counterpart of Jehovah-Binah. + + [806] We find a very suggestive point in connection with + this appellation of Jehovah, “Son of ancient Kings,” in + the Jaïna sect of Hindustan, known as the Sauryas. They + admit that Brahma is a Devatâ, but deny his creative + power, and call him the “Son of a King.” See “Asiatic + Researches,” vol. ix., p. 279. + + [807] As, for instance, Shaddai, Elohim, Sabaoth, etc. + + [808] Cahen’s “Hebrew Bible,” iii., p. 117. + + [809] The Greek monks have this “miracle” performed for the + “faithful” every year on Easter night. Thousands of + pilgrims are there waiting with their tapers to light + them at this sacred fire, which at the precise hour and + when needed, descends from the chapel-vault and hovers + about the sepulchre in tongues of fire until every one + of the thousand pilgrims has lighted his wax taper at + it. + + [810] The _Rishi_ are identical with _Manu_. The ten Pragâpati, + sons of Viradj, called Maritchi, Atri, Angira, Pôlastya, + Poulaha, Kratu, Pratcheta, Vasishta, Brighu, and Narada, + are euhemerized _Powers_, the Hindu Sephiroth. These + emanate the seven Rishi, or Manus, the chief of whom + issued himself from the “uncreated.” He is the Adam of + earth, and signifies man. His “sons,” the following six + Manus, represent each a new race of men, and in the + total they are _humanity_ passing gradually through the + primitive seven stages of evolution. + + [811] In days of old, when the Brahmans studied more than they + do now the hidden sense of their philosophy, they + explained that each of these six distinct races which + preceded ours had disappeared. But now they pretend that + a specimen was preserved which was not destroyed with + the rest, but reached the present _seventh_ stage. Thus + they, the Brahmans are the specimens of the heavenly + Manu, and issued from the mouth of Brahma; while the + Sudra was created from his foot. + + [812] To avoid discussion we adopt the palæographical conclusions + arrived at by Martin Haug and some other cautious + scholars. Personally we credit the statements of the + Brahmans and those of Halhed, the translator of the + “Sastras.” + + [813] The god Heptaktis. + + [814] The sanctuary of the initiation. + + [815] “Comparative Mythology.” + + [816] While having no intention to enter at present upon a + discussion as to the nomadic races of the “Rhematic + period,” we reserve the right to question the full + propriety of terming that portion of the primitive + people from whose traditions the “Vedas” sprang into + existence, Aryans. Some scientists find the existence of + these Aryans not only unproved by science, but the + traditions of Hindustan protesting against such an + assumption. + + [817] Without the esoteric explanation, the “Old Testament” + becomes an absurd jumble of meaningless tales--nay, + worse than that, it must rank high with _immoral_ books. + It is curious that Professor Max Müller, such a profound + scholar in Comparative Mythology, should be found saying + of the pragâpatis and Hindu gods that they are masks + _without actors_; and of Abraham and other mythical + patriarchs that they were real living men; of Abraham + especially, we are told (see “Semitic Monotheism”) that + he “stands before us as a figure second only to one in + the whole history of the world.” + + [818] The italics are our own. “The Vedas,” lecture by Max + Müller, p. 75. + + [819] “Chips,” vol. i., p. 8. + + [820] We believe that we have elsewhere given the contrary + opinion, on the subject of “Atharva-Veda,” of Prof. + Whitney, of Yale College. + + [821] See Baron Bunsen’s “Egypt,” vol. v. + + [822] “Chips,” vol. i.; “The Vedas.” + + [823] Max Müller: Lecture on “The Vedas.” + + [824] Julian: “In Matrem,” p. 173; Julian: “Oratio,” v., 172. + + [825] Lyd.: “De Mensibus,” iv., 38-74; “Movers,” p. 550; + Dunlap: “Saba,” p. 3. + + [826] “Westminster Review:” Septenary Institutions; “Stone + Him to Death.” + + [827] “Di Verbo Mirifico.” + + [828] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” book iii., p. 292 b. The Supreme + consulting with the Architect of the world--his + Logos--about creation. + + [829] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., 135 b. If the chapters of + Genesis and the other Mosaic books, as well as the + subjects, are muddled up, the fault is the compiler’s-- + not that of oral tradition. Hilkiah and Josiah had to + commune with Huldah, the prophetess, hence resort to + _magic_ to understand the word of the “Lord God of + Israel,” most conveniently found by Hilkiah (2 Kings, + xxiii.); and that it has passed still later through more + than one revision and remodelling is but too well proved + by its frequent incongruities, repetitions, and + contradictions. + + [830] This assimilation of the deluge to an earthquake on the + Assyrian tablets would go to prove that the antediluvian + nations were well acquainted with other geological + cataclysms besides the deluge, which is represented in + the Bible as the _first_ calamity which befel humanity, + and a punishment. + + [831] George Smith notes in the tablets, first the creation + of the moon, and then of the sun: “Its beauty and + perfection are extolled, and the regularity of its + orbit, which led to its being considered the type of a + judge and the regulator of the world.” Did this story of + the deluge relate simply to a cosmogonical + cataclysm--even were it universal--why should the + goddess Ishtara or Astoreth (the moon) speak of the + _creation of the sun_ after the deluge? The waters might + have reached as high as the mountain of _Nizir_ + (Chaldean version), or Jebel-Djudi (the deluge-mountains + of the Arabian legends), or yet Ararat (of the biblical + narrative), and even Himalaya of the Hindu tradition, + and yet not reach the sun--even the Bible itself stopped + short of such a miracle. It is evident that the deluge + of the people who first recorded it had another meaning, + less problematical and far more philosophical than that + of a _universal_ deluge, of which there are no + geological traces whatever. + + [832] The “dead letter that killeth,” is magnificently + illustrated in the case of the Jesuit de Carrière, + quoted in the “Bible dans l’Inde.” The following + dissertation represents the spirit of the whole Catholic + world: “So that the creation of the world,” writes this + faithful son of Loyola, explaining the biblical + chronology of Moses, “and all that is recorded in + Genesis, might have become known to Moses through + _recitals personally made to him by his fathers_. + Perhaps, even, the memories yet existed among the + Israelites, and from those recollections he may have + recorded the dates of births and deaths of the + patriarchs, the numbering of their children, and the + names of the different countries in which each became + established under the guidance _of the holy spirit, + which we must always regard as the chief author of the + sacred books_”!!! + + [833] See chapter xv. and last of Part I. + + [834] “Description, etc., of the People of India,” by the + Abbé J. A. Dubois, missionary in Mysore, vol. i., p. 186. + + [835] “Fétichisme, Polythéisme, Monothéisme,” pp. 170, 171. + + [836] Against the latter assumption derived solely from the + accounts of the Bible we have every historical fact. + 1st. There are no proofs of these twelve tribes having + ever existed; that of Levi was a priestly caste and all + the others imaginary. 2d. Herodotus, the most accurate + of historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished, + never mentions the Israelites at all? Herodotus was born + in 484 B.C. + + [837] Dr. Kennicot himself, and Bruns, under his direction, + about 1780, collated 692 manuscripts of the Hebrew + “Bible.” Of all these, only _two_ were credited to the + tenth century, and three to a period as early as the + eleventh and twelfth. The others ranged between the + thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. + + In his “Introduzione alla Sacra Scrittura,” pp. 34-47, + De Rossi, of Parma, mentions 1,418 MSS. collated, and + 374 editions. The oldest manuscript “Codex,” he + asserts--that of Vienna--dates A.D. 1019; the next, + Reuchlin’s, of Carlsruhe, 1038. “There is,” he declares, + “nothing in the manuscripts of the Hebrew ‘Old + Testament’ extant of an earlier date than the eleventh + century after Christ.” + + [838] “India in Greece,” Preface, ix. + + [839] “Chips,” vol. i. + + [840] “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 77. + + [841] Ibid., p. 78. + + [842] “Chips;” “Aitareya Brahmanam.” + + [843] Dr. M. Haug, Superintendent of the Sanscrit studies in + the Poona College, Bombay. + + [844] Pococke belongs to that class of Orientalists who + believe that Buddhism preceded Brahmanism, and was the + religion of the earliest Vedas, Gautama having been but + the restorer of it in its purest form, which after him + degenerated again into dogmatism. + + [845] “India in Greece,” p. 200. + + [846] The Asiatic origin of the first dwellers in the Nilotic + Valley is clearly demonstrated by concurrent and + independent testimony. Cuvier and Blumenbach affirm that + all the skulls of mummies which they had the opportunity + of examining, presented the Caucasian type. A recent + American physiologist (Dr. Morton) has also argued for + the same conclusion (“Crania Ægyptiaca.” Philadelphia, + 1844). + + [847] The late Rajah of Travancore was succeeded by the elder + son of his sister now reigning, the Maharajah _Rama + Vurmah_. The next heirs are the sons of his deceased + sister. In case the female line is interrupted by death, + the royal family is obliged to adopt the daughter of + some other Rajah, and unless daughters are born to this + Rana another girl is adopted, and so on. + + [848] There are some Orientalists who believe that this + custom was introduced only after the early Christian + settlements in Æthiopia; but as under the Romans the + population of this country was nearly all changed, the + element becoming wholly Arabic, we may, without doubting + the statement, believe that it was the predominating + Arab influence which had altered the earliest mode of + writing. Their present method is even more analogous to + the Devanāgarï, and other more ancient Indian Alphabets, + which read from left to right; and their letters show no + resemblance to the Phœnician characters. Moreover, all + the ancient authorities corroborate our assertion still + more. Philostratus makes the Brahmin Iarchus say (V. A., + iii., 6) that the Æthiopians were originally _an Indian + race_, compelled to emigrate from the mother-land for + sacrilege and regicide (see Pococke’s “India,” etc., + ii., p. 206). An Egyptian is made to remark, that he had + heard from his father, that the Indians were the wisest + of men, and that the Æthiopians, a colony of the + Indians, preserved the wisdom and usages of their + fathers, and acknowledged their ancient origin. Julius + Africanus (in Eusebius and Syncellus), makes the same + statement. And Eusebius writes: “The Æthiopians, + emigrating from the river Indus, settled in the vicinity + of Egypt” (Lemp., Barker’s edition, “Meroë”). + + [849] They might have been also, as Pococke thinks, simply the + tribes of the “Oxus,” a name derived from the “Ookshas,” + those people whose wealth lay in the “Ox,” for he shows + _Ookshan_ to be a crude form of _Ooksha_, an ox (in + Sanscrit _ox_ is as in English). He believes that it was + they, “the lords of the Oxus,” who gave their name to + the sea around which they ruled in many a country, the + _Euxine_ or Ooksh-ine. _Pali_ means a shepherd, and + _s’than_ is a land. “The warlike tribes of the Oxus + penetrated into Egypt, then swept onward to Palestine + (PALI-STAN), the land of the Palis or shepherds, and + there effected more permanent settlements” (“India in + Greece”). Yet, if even so, it would only the more + confirm our opinion that the Jews are a hybrid race, for + the “Bible” shows them freely intermarrying, not alone + with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race + they come in contact with. + + [850] Prof. A. Wilder: “Notes.” + + [851] Moses reigned over the people of Israel in the + wilderness for over _forty_ years. + + [852] The name of the wife of Moses was Zipporah (Exodus ii.). + + [853] About 1040, the Jewish doctors removed their schools + from Babylonia to Spain, and of the four great rabbis + that flourished during the next four centuries, their + works all show different readings, and abound with + mistakes in the manuscripts. The “Masorah” made things + still worse. Many things that then existed in the + manuscripts are there no longer, and their works teem + with interpolations as well as with _lacunæ_. The oldest + Hebrew manuscript belongs to this period. Such is the + divine revelation we are to credit. + + [854] No chronology was accepted by the rabbis as authoritative + till the twelfth century. The 40 and 1,000 are not exact + numbers, but have been crammed in to answer monotheism + and the exigencies of a religion calculated to appear + different from that of the Pagans. (“Chron. Orth.,” p. + 238). One finds in the “Pentateuch” only events + occurring about two years before the fabled “Exodus” and + the last year. The rest of the chronology is nowhere, + and can be followed only through kabalistic + computations, with a key to them in the hand. + + [855] The Gnostics, called Collyridians, had transferred + from Astoreth their worship to Mary, also Queen of + Heaven. They were persecuted and put to death by the + orthodox Christians as heretics. But if these Gnostics + had established her worship by offering her sacrifices + of cakes, cracknels, or fine wafers, it was because they + imagined her to have been born of an immaculate virgin, + as Christ is alleged to have been born of his mother. + And now, the Pope’s _infallibility_ having been + recognized and accepted, its first practical + manifestation is the revival of the Collyridian belief + as an article of faith (See “Apocryphal New Testament;” + Hone: “The Gospel of Mary attributed to Matthew”). + + [856] Hargrave Jennings: “Rosicrucians.” + + [857] “Progress of Religious Ideas.” + + [858] Lilith was Adam’s _first_ wife “before he _married_ + Eve,” of whom “he begat nothing but devils;” which + strikes us as a very novel, if pious, way of explaining + a very philosophical allegory: Burton’s “Anatomy of + Melancholy.” + + [859] It is in commemoration of the Ark of the Deluge that + the Phœnicians, those bold explorers of the “deep,” + carried, fixed on the prow of their ships, the image of + the goddess Astartè, who is Elissa, Venus Erycina of + Sicily, and Dido, whose name is the feminine of David. + + [860] Dr. Lundy: “Monumental Christianity.” + + [861] Lucian, iv. 276. + + [862] 1 Kings xviii. All this is allegorical, and, what is + more, purely magical. For Elijah is bent upon an + incantation. + + [863] The Talmud books say that Noah was himself the _dove_ + (spirit), thus identifying him still more with the + Chaldean Nouah. Baal is represented with the wings of a + dove, and the Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim the + image of a dove. “Talmud, Tract. Chalin.,” fol. 6, col. 1. + + [864] Numbers x. 29, 31. + + [865] The Bible contradicts itself as well as the Chaldean + account, for in chapter vii. of Genesis it shows + “every one of them” perishing in the deluge. + + [866] Numbers xiii. + + [867] We do not see why the clergy--especially the Catholic-- + should object to our statement that the patriarchs are + all signs of the zodiac, and the old gods of the + “heathen” as well. There was a time, and that less than + two centuries ago, when they themselves exhibited the + most fervent desire to relapse into sun and star + worship. This pious and curious attempt was denounced + but a few months since by Camille Flammarion, the French + astronomer. He shows two Augsburgian Jesuits, Schiller + and Bayer, who felt quite anxious to change the names of + the whole Sabean host of the starry heaven, and worship + them again under Christian names! Having anathematized + the idolatrous sun-worshippers for over fifteen + centuries, the Church now seriously proposed to continue + heliolatry--_to the letter_ this time--as their idea was + to substitute for Pagan myths biblical and (in their + ideas) real personages. They would have called the sun, + Christ; the moon, Virgin Mary; Saturn, Adam; Jupiter, + Moses (!); Mars, Joshua; Venus, John the Baptist; and + Mercury, Elias. And very proper substitutes too, showing + the great familiarity of the Catholic Church with + ancient Pagan and kabalistic learning, and its + readiness, perhaps, to at last confess the source whence + came their own myths. For is not king Messiah the sun, + the Demiurge of the heliolaters, under various names? Is + he not the Egyptian Osiris and the Grecian Apollo? And + what more appropriate name than Virgin Mary for the + Pagan Diana-Astarté, “the Queen of Heaven,” against + which Jeremiah exhausted a whole vocabulary of + imprecations? Such an adoption would have been + historically as well as religiously correct. Two large + plates were prepared, says Flammarion, in a recent + number of “La Nature,” and represented the heavens with + Christian constellations instead of Pagan. Apostles, + popes, saints, martyrs, and personages of the Old and + New Testament completed this Christian Sabeanism. “The + disciples of Loyola used every exertion to make this + plan succeed.” It is curious to find in India among the + Mussulmans the name of Terah, Abraham’s father, Azar or + Azarh, and Azur, which also means fire, and is, at the + same time, the name of the Hindu third solar month (from + June to July), during which the sun is in _Gemini_, and + the full moon near _Sagittarius_. + + [868] Cicero: “De Nat. Deo.,” i., 13. + + [869] “Herodotus,” ii., 145. + + [870] “Monumental Christianity,” p. 3. + + [871] Who but the authors of the “Pentateuch” could have invented + a Supreme God or his angel so thoroughly human as to + require a smear of blood upon the door-post to prevent + his killing one person for another! For gross + materialism this exceeds any theistical conception that + we have noticed in Pagan literature. + + [872] Denon: “Egypt,” ii., pl. 40, No. 8, p. 54. + + [873] Pages 13 and 402. + + [874] In Volney’s “Ruins of Empires” p. 360, it is remarked + that as _Aries_ was in its fifteenth degree 1447 B.C., + it follows that the first degree of “Libra” could not + have coincided with the Vernal equinox more lately than + 15,194 years B.C., to which, if you add 1790 years since + Christ, it appears that 16,984 years have elapsed since + the origin of the _Zodiac_. + + [875] See cuts in Inman’s “Ancient Faiths.” + + [876] Cicero: “De Nat. Deorum,” i., 10. + + [877] Virgil: “Æneid,” vi., 724 ff. + + [878] The term “coats of skin,” is the more suggestive when + we learn that the Hebrew word “skin” used in the + original text, means _human_ skin. The text says: “And + _Java Aleim_ made for Adam and his wife כתנות עור CHITONUT + OUR. The first Hebrew word is the same as the Greek + χιτων--chiton--coat. Parkhurst defines it as _the skin + of men_ or animals ער עור and ערה, OUR, OR, or ORA. + The same word is used at Exodus xxxiv. 30, 35, when the + _skin_ of Moses “shone” (A. Wilder). + + [879] Here, again, the “Masorah,” by converting one name + into another, has helped to falsify the little that was + left original in the primitive Scriptures. + + De Rossi, of Parma, says of the Massoretes, in his + “Compendis,” vol. iv., p. 7: “It is known with what + carefulness Esdras, the most excellent critic they have + had, had _reformed_ [the text] and _corrected_ it, and + restored it to its primary splendor. Of the many + revisions undertaken after him, none are more celebrated + than that of the Massoretes, who came after the sixth + century ... and all the most zealous adorers and + defenders of the “Masorah,” Christians and Jews ... + ingenuously accord and confess that it, such as it + exists, is _deficient_, _imperfect_, _interpolated_, + _full of errors_, and _a most unsafe guide_.” The square + letter was not invented till after the third century. + + [880] Scorpio is the astrological sign of the organs of + reproduction. + + [881] The patriarchs are all convertible in their numbers as + well as interchangeable. According to what they relate, + they become ten, five, seven, twelve, and even fourteen. + The whole system is so complicated that it is an utter + impossibility in a work like this to do more than hint + at certain matters. + + [882] See vol. I. of the present work, p. 32. Alone, the Hindu + calculation by the Zodiac, can give a key to the Hebrew + chronologies and the ages of the patriarchs. If we bear + in mind that, according to the former astronomical and + chronological calculations, out of the fourteen + manwantara (or divine ages), each of which composed of + _twelve_ thousand years of the devas, multiplied by + seventy-one, forms _one period_ of creation--not quite + _seven_ are yet passed, the Hebrew calculation will + become more clear. To help, as much as possible, those + who will be sure to get a good deal bewildered in this + calculation, we will remind the reader that the Zodiac + is divided into 360 degrees, and every sign into thirty + degrees; that in the Samaritan _Bible the age of Enoch + is fixed at 360 years_; that in “Manu,” the divisions of + time are given thus: “The day and the night are composed + of thirty _Mouhourta_. A mouhourta contains thirty + _kalâs_. A month of the mortals is of thirty days, but + it is but _one_ day of the pitris.... A year of the + mortals is one day of the Devas.” + + [883] See Rawlinson’s “Diagrams.” + + [884] In the Brahmanical Zodiac the signs are all presided + over by and dedicated to one of the twelve great gods. + So, 1. Mecha (Aries) is dedicated to Varuna; 2. Vricha + (Taurus), to Yama; 3. Mithuna (Gemini), to Pavana; 4. + Karcataca (Cancer), to Sûrya; 5. Sinha (Leo), to Soma; + 6. Kanya (Virgo), to Kartikeia; 7. Toulha (Libra), to + Kouvera; 8. Vristchica (Scorpio), to Kama; 9. Dhanous + (Sagittarius), to Ganesa; 10. Makara (Capricornus), to + Poulhar; 11. Kumbha (Aquarius), to Indra; and, 12, Minas + (Pisces), to Agni. + + [885] Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,” pp. 295-302. + + [886] Apollo was also _Abelius_, or Bel. + + [887] Halal is a name of Apollo. The name of Ma_halal_-Eliel + would then be the autumnal sun, of July, and this + patriarch presides over _Leo_ (July) the zodiacal sign. + + [888] See description of the Sephiroth, in chapter iv. + + [889] How servile was this Chaldean _copy_ may be seen in + comparing the Hindu chronology with that of the + Babylonians. According to Manu, the antediluvian + dynasties of the Pradjâpatis reigned 4,320,000 human + years, a whole divine age of the devas in short, or that + length of time which invariably occurs between life on + earth and the dissolution of that life, or pralaya. The + Chaldeans, in their turn, give precisely the same + figures, minus _one_ cipher, to wit: they make their 120 + saros yield a total of 432,000 years. + + [890] Eliphas Levi gives it both in the Greek and Hebrew + versions, but so condensed and arbitrarily that it is + impossible for one who knows less than himself to + understand him. + + [891] See Rabbi Simeon’s dissertation on the primitive Man-Bull + and the horns, “Sohar.” + + [892] “The Nuctameron of the Hebrews;” see Eliphas Levi, + vol. i. + + [893] “Anszuge aus dem Sohar,” p. 13, 15. + + [894] Such is the opinion of the erudite Dr. Jost and + Donaldson. “The Old Testament Books, as we now find + them, seem to have been concluded about 150 years + B.C.... The Jews now sought the other books, which had + been dispersed during the wars, and brought them into + one collection” (Ghillany: “Menschenopfer der Hebraër,” + p. 1). “Sod, the Son of the Man.” Appendix. + + [895] “Jost,” vol. i., p. 51. + + [896] Burder’s “Josephus,” vol. ii., pp. 331-335. + + [897] “Die Kabbala,” p. 95. + + [898] Gaffarel: Introduction to “Book of Enoch.” + + [899] So firmly established seems to have been the reputation + of the Brahmans and Buddhists for the highest morality, + and that since time immemorial, that we find Colonel + Henry Yule, in his admirable edition of “Marco Polo,” + giving the following testimony: “The high virtues + ascribed to the Brahman and Indian merchants were, + perhaps, in part, matter of tradition ... but the eulogy + is so constant among mediæval travellers _that it must + have had a solid foundation_. In fact, it would not be + difficult to trace a chain of similar testimony from + ancient times down to our own. Arrian says no Indian was + ever accused of falsehood. Hwen T’sang ascribes to the + people of India eminent uprightness, honesty, and + disinterestedness. Friar Jordanus (_circa_ 1330) says + the people of Lesser India (Sindh and Western India) + were true in speech and eminent in justice; and we may + also refer to the high character given to the Hindus by + Abul Fazl. But _after 150 years of European trade, + indeed, we find a sad deterioration_.... Yet Pallas, in + the last century, noticing the Bamyan colony at + Astrakhan, says its members were notable for an upright + dealing that made them greatly preferable to Armenians. + And that wise and admirable public servant, the late Sir + William Sleeman, in our own time, has said that he knew + no class of men in the world more strictly honorable + than the mercantile classes of India.”[900] + + The sad examples of the rapid demoralization of _savage_ + American Indians, as soon as they are made to live in a + close proximity with _Christian_ officials and + missionaries, are familiar in our modern days. + + [900] The “Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian,” translated + by Colonel Henry Yule, vol. ii., p. 354. + + [901] At the present moment Mr. O’Grady is Editor of the + “American Builder,” of New York, and is well known for + his interesting letters, “Indian Sketches--Life in the + East,” which he contributed under the pseudonym of + _Hadji Nicka Bauker Khan_, to the Boston “Commercial + Bulletin.” + + [902] Ecclesiastes xii. 13; see Tayler Lewis’s “Metrical + Translation.” + + “The great conclusion here; + Fear God and His commandments keep, for this is all of man.” + + [903] See Micah vi., 6-8, “Noyes’s Translation.” + + [904] Matthew xvii., 37-40. + + [905] “Les Hauts Phénomenes de la Magie,” p. 12, preface. + + [906] “History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism.” + + [907] See Draper’s “Conflict between Religion and Science.” + + [908] Gospel according to Mark, iii. 29: “He that shall + blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, hath never + forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation” + (αμαρτηματος, error). + + [909] Gospel according to Matthew, v. 44. + + [910] “Comparative Mythology,” April, 1856. + + [911] 1st Epistle of John, iii. 8. + + [912] 2 Kings, xviii. 4. It is probable that the fiery serpents + or _Seraphim_ mentioned in the twenty-first chapter of + the book of Numbers were the same as the Levites, or + Ophite tribe. Compare Exodus xxxii. 26-29 with Numbers + xxi. 5-9. The names Heva, חוה, _Hivi_ or Hivite, הוי, and + Levi לוי, all signify a serpent; and it is a curious fact + that the Hivites, or serpent-tribe of Palestine, like + the Levites or Ophites of Israel, were ministers to the + temples. The Gibeonites, whom Joshua assigned to the + service of the sanctuary, were Hivites. + + [913] 1 Chronicles, xxi. 1: “And Satan stood up against Israel + and moved David to number Israel.” 2d Samuel, xxiv. 1: + “And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against + Israel, and he moved David against them to say: ‘Go, + number Israel and Judah.’” + + [914] Zechariah iii. 1, 2. A pun or play on words is noticeable; + “adversary” is associated with “Satan,” as if from שטן, to + oppose. + + [915] Jude 9. + + [916] In the “Assyrian Tablets,” Palestine is called “the land + of the Hittites;” and the Egyptian Papyri, declaring the + same thing, also make Seth, the “pillar-god,” their + tutelar deity. + + [917] _Seth_, _Suteh_, or Sat-an, was the god of the aboriginal + nations of Syria. Plutarch makes him the same as Typhon. + Hence he was god of Goshen and Palestine, the countries + occupied by the Israelites. + + [918] “Vendidad,” fargard x., 23: “I combat the dæva Æshma, the + very evil.” “The Yaçnas,” x. 18, speaks likewise of + Æshma-Dæva, or Khasm: “All other sciences depend upon + Æshma, the cunning.” “Serv.,” lvi. 12: “To smite the + wicked Auramanyas (Ahriman, the evil power), to smite + Æshma with the terrible weapon, to smite the Mazanian + dævas, to smite all devas.” + + In the same fargard of the “Vendidad” the Brahman + divinities are involved in the same denunciation with + Æshma-dæva: “I combat India, I combat Sauru, I combat + the Dæva Naonhaiti.” The annotator explains them to be + the Vedic gods, Indus, Gaurea, or Siva, and the two + Aswins. There must be some mistake, however, for Siva, + at the time the “Vedas” were completed, was an + aboriginal or Æthiopian God, the Bala or Bel of Western + Asia. He was not an Aryan or Vedic deity. Perhaps Sûrya + was the divinity intended. + + [919] Jacob Bryant: “Analysis of Ancient Mythology.” + + [920] Plutarch: “de Iside,” xxx., xxxi. + + [921] Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians,” p. 434. + + [922] See “Vendidad,” fargand x. + + [923] Salverte: “Des Sciences Occultes,” appendix, note A. + + [924] The term πειρασμος signifies a trial, or probation. + + [925] 2 Samuel, ii. 5, 15; vi. 1-4. Pliny. + + [926] See 1 Corinthians, v. 5; 2 Corinthians, xi. 14; + 1 Timothy, i. 20. + + [927] 2d Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, xii. In + Numbers xxii. 22 the angel of the Lord is described + as acting the part of a Satan to Balaam. + + [928] 1 Kings, xxii. 19-23. + + [929] Haug: “Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and + Religion of the Parsees.” + + [930] The “Avesta” describes the serpent Dahaka, as of the + region of Bauri or Babylonia. In the Median history are + two kings of the name Deiokes or Dahaka, and Astyages or + Az-dahaka. There were children of Zohak seated on + various Eastern thrones, after Feridun. It is apparent, + therefore, that by Zohak is meant the Assyrian dynasty, + whose symbol was the _purpureum signum draconis_--the + purple sign of the Dragon. From a very remote antiquity + (Genesis xiv.) this dynasty ruled Asia, Armenia, Syria, + Arabia, Babylonia, Media, Persia, Bactria, and + Afghanistan. It was finally overthrown by Cyrus and + Darius Hystaspes, after “1,000 years’” rule. Yima and + Thrætaona, or Jemshid and Feridun, are doubtless + personifications. Zohak probably imposed the Assyrian or + Magian worship of fire upon the Persians. Darius was the + vicegerent of Ahura-Mazda. + + [931] The name in the Gospels is βεελζεβουλ, or Baal of the + Dwelling. It is pretty certain that Apollo, the Delphian + God, was not Hellenian originally, but Phœnician. He was + the Paian or physician, as well as the god of oracles. + It is no great stretch of imagination to identify him + with Baal-_Zebul_, the god of Ekron, or Acheron, + doubtless changed to _Zebub_, or flies, by the Jews in + derision. + + [932] “Against Apion,” i. 25. “The Egyptians took many + occasions to hate and envy us: in the first place + because our ancestors (the Hyk-sos, or shepherds) had + had the dominion over their country, and when they were + delivered from them and gone to their own country, they + lived there in prosperity.” + + [933] Bunsen. The name _Seth_ with the syllable _an_ from the + Chaldean _ana_ or Heaven, makes the term _Satan_. The + punners seem now to have pounced upon it, as was their + wont, and so made it _Satan_ from the verb שטן _Sitan_, + to oppose. + + [934] “Vendidad,” fargard x. The name _Vendidad_ is a + contraction of _Vidæva-data_, ordinances against the + Dævas. + + [935] _Bundahest_, “Ahriman created out of the materials of + darkness Akuman and Ander, then Sauru and Nakit.” + + [936] See Lenoir’s “Du Dragon de Metz,” in “Mémoires de + l’Académie Celtique,” i., 11, 12. + + [937] Plutarch: “Isis and Osiris.” + + [938] “The Origin of Serpent Worship,” by C. Staniland Wake, + M.A.I. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877. + + [939] “Tree and Serpent Worship,” etc. + + [940] Godfrey Higgins: “Anacalypsis;” Dupuis: “Origines des + Cultes,” iii., 51. + + [941] Martianus Capella: “Hymn to the Sun,” i., ii.; Movers: + “Phiniza,” 266. + + [942] Plutarch: “Isis and Osiris.” + + [943] Virgil: “Eclogues,” iv. + + [944] Ovid: “Fasti,” ii., 451. + + [945] Knorring: “Terra et Cœlum,” 53. + + [946] Anna is an Oriental designation from the Chaldean _ana_, + or heaven, whence Anaïtis and Anaïtres. Durga, the + consort of Siva, is also named Anna purna, and was + doubtless the original St. Anna. The mother of the + prophet Samuel was named Anna; the father of his + counterpart, Samson, was _Manu_. + + [947] The virgins of ancient time, as will be seen, were not + maids, but simply almas, or nubile women. + + [948] Kircher: “Œdipus Ægypticus,” iii., 5. + + [949] From θεραπευω, to serve, to worship, to heal. + + [950] E. Pococke derives the name _Pythagoras_ from _Buddha_, + and _guru_, a spiritual teacher. Higgins makes it + Celtic, and says that it means an observer of the stars. + See “Celtic Druids.” If, however, we derive the word + _Pytho_ from פתה, _petah_, the name would signify an + expounder of oracles, and Buddha guru a teacher of the + doctrines of Buddha. + + [951] In the Secret Museum of Naples, there is a marble + bas-relief representing the _Fall of Man_, in which _God + the Father plays the part of the Beguiling Serpent_. + + [952] First Epistle to the Corinthians, x. 11.: “All these + things happened unto them for _types_.” + + [953] Epistle to the Galatians, iv. 24: “It is written that + Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other + by a freewoman ... which things are an allegory.” + + [954] See “Job,” by various translators, and compare the + different texts. + + [955] See Kerr Porter’s “Persia,” vol. i., plates 17, 41. + + [956] The expression “of the kindred of Ram” denotes that he + was an Aramæan or Syrian from Mesopotamia. Buz was a son + of Nahor. “Elihu son of Barachel” is susceptible of two + translations. Eli-Hu--God is, or Hoa is God; and + Barach-Al--the worshipper of God, or Bar-Rachel, the son + of Rachel, or son of the ewe. + + [957] xxxvi. 24-27. + + [958] ix. 5-11. + + [959] xxxviii. 1, _et passim_. + + [960] Job xxxviii. 35. + + [961] Ibid., xli. 8. + + [962] Ibid., xli. 34. + + [963] _Atum_, or At-ma, is the Concealed God, at once Phtha + and Amon, Father and Son, Creator and thing created, + Thought and Appearance, Father and Mother. + + [964] Molitor, Ennemoser, Henman, Pfaff, etc. + + [965] Schopheim: “Traditions,” p. 32. + + [966] W. Williams: “Primitive History;” Dunlap: “Spirit + History of Man.” + + [967] Plutarch: “Isis and Osiris,” p. 17. + + [968] “Sibylline Oracles,” 760-788. + + [969] Euripides: “Bacchæ.” + + [970] We doubt the propriety of rendering κορη, virgin. + Demeter and Persephoneia were substantially the same + divinity, as were Apollo and Esculapius. The scene of + this adventure is laid in _Krete_ or _Koureteia_, where + Zeus was chief god. It was, doubtless, _Keres_ or + Demeter that is intended. She was also named κουρα, + which is the same as κωρη. As she was the goddess of the + Mysteries, she was fittest for the place as consort of + the Serpent-God and mother of Zagreus. + + [971] Pococke considers Zeus a grand lama, or chief Jaina, + and Kore-Persephone, or Kuru-Parasu-pani. Zagreus, is + _Chakras_, the wheel, or circle, the earth, the ruler of + the world. He was killed by the Titans, or Teith-ans + (Daityas). The Horns or crescent was a badge of Lamaic + sovereignty. + + [972] Nonnus: “Dionysiacs.” + + [973] See Deane’s “Serpent Worship,” pp. 89, 90. + + [974] Creuzer: “Symbol.,” vol. i., p. 341. + + [975] The Dragon is the _sun_, the generative principle-- + Jupiter-Zeus; and Jupiter is called the “Holy Spirit” by + the Egyptians, says Plutarch, “De Iside,” xxxvi. + + [976] In the original it stands _Æons_ (emanations). In the + translation it stands _worlds_. It was not to be + expected that, after anathematizing the doctrine of + emanations, the Church would refrain from erasing the + original word, which clashed diametrically with her + newly-enforced dogma of the Trinity. + + [977] See Dean’s “Serpent Worship,” p. 145. + + [978] Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 3. + + [979] See Dunlap’s “Spirit History of Man,” the chapter on + “the Logos, the Only Begotten and the King.” + + [980] Translated by Buckley. + + [981] “Select Works on Sacrifice.” + + [982] Typhon is called by Plutarch and Sanchoniathon, + “Tuphon, the _red_-skinned.” Plutarch: “Isis and + Osiris,” xxi.-xxvi. + + [983] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 269. + + [984] Rahu and Kehetty are the two fixed stars which form + the head and tail of the constellation of the Dragon. + + [985] E. Upham: “The Mahâvansi, etc.,” p. 54, for the + answer given by the chief-priest of Mulgirs Galle + Vihari, named Sue Bandare Metankere Samanere + Samayahanse, to a Dutch Governor in 1766. + + [986] We leave it to the learned archæologists and philologists + to decide how the _Naga_ or Serpent worship could travel + from Kashmir to Mexico and become the Nargâl worship, + which is also a Serpent worship, and a doctrine of + lycanthropy. + + [987] Michael, the chief of the Æons, is also “Gabriel, the + messenger of Life,” of the Nazarenes, and the Hindu + Indra, the chief of the good Spirits, who vanquished + Vasouki, the Demon who rebelled against Brahma. + + [988] See the Gnostic amulet called the “Chnuphis-Serpent,” + in the act of raising its head crowned with the _seven + vowels_, which is the kabalistic symbol for signifying + the “gift of speech to man,” or _Logos_. + + [989] “Tamas, the Vedas.” + + [990] Thomas Aquinas: “Somma,” ii., 94 Art. 4. + + [991] See des Mousseaux; see various other Demonographers; + the different “Trials of Witches,” the depositions of + the latter exacted by torture, etc. In our humble + opinion, the Devil must have contracted this + disagreeable smell and his habits of uncleanliness in + company with mediæval monks. Many of these saints + boasted of having never washed themselves! “To strip + one’s self for the sake of _vain_ cleanliness, is to sin + in the eyes of God,” says Sprenger, in the “Witches’ + Hammer.” Hermits and monks “dreaded all cleansing as so + much defilement. There was no bathing for a thousand + years!” exclaims Michelet in his “Sorcière.” Why such an + outcry against Hindu fakirs in such a case? These, if + they keep dirty, besmear themselves only after washing, + for their religion commands them to wash every morning, + and sometimes several times a day. + + [992] Lermontoff, the great Russian poet, author of the “Demon.” + + [993] “Les Hauts Phénomenes de la Magie,” p. 379. + + [994] “Movers,” p. 109. + + [995] Hercules is of Hindu origin. + + [996] The same as the Egyptian _Kneph_, and the Gnostic Ophis. + + [997] “Serpent Worship,” p. 145. + + [998] “Movers,” p. 397. Azazel and Samael are identical. + + [999] Saturn is Bel-Moloch and even Hercules and Siva. Both + of the latter are _Harakala_, or gods of the war, of the + battle, or the “Lords of Hosts.” Jehovah is called “a + man of war” in Exodus xv. 3. “The Lord of Hosts is his + name” (Isaiah li. 15), and David blesses him for + teaching his “hands to war and his fingers to fight” + (Psalms cxliv. 1). Saturn is also the Sun, and Movers + says that “Kronos Saturn was called by the Phœnicians + _Israel_ (130). Philo says the same (in Euseb., p. 44). + + [1000] “Blessed be Iahoh, Alahim, Alahi, _Israel_” (Psalm + lxxii.). + + [1001] Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism,” p. 60. + + [1002] Cousin: “Lect. on Mod. Phil.,” vol. i., p. 404. + + [1003] Movers, Duncker, Higgins, and others. + + [1004] “Hæres,” xxxiv; “Gnostics,” p. 53. + + [1005] Wine was first made _sacred_ in the mysteries of Bacchus. + Payne Knight believes--erroneously we think--that wine + was taken with the view to produce a false ecstasy + through intoxication. It was held _sacred_, however, and + the Christian Eucharist is certainly an imitation of the + Pagan rite. Whether Mr. Knight was right or wrong, we + regret to say that a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. + Joseph Blanchard, of New York, was found drunk in one of + the public squares on the night of Sunday, August 5, + 1877, and lodged in prison. The published report says: + “The prisoner said that he had been to church and taken + a little too much of the communion wine!” + + [1006] The initiatory rite typified a descent into the underworld. + Bacchus, Herakles, Orpheus, and Asklepius all descended + into hell and ascended thence the third day. + + [1007] King’s “Hist. Apost. Creed,” 8vo, p. 26. + + [1008] Justice Bailey’s “Common Prayer,” 1813, p. 9. + + [1009] “Apostle’s Creed;” “Apocryphal New Testament.” + + [1010] “On the Creed,” fol. 1676, p. 225. + + [1011] Lib. 1, c. 2; “Lib. de Princ.,” in “Proœm. Advers. + Praxeam,” c. ii. + + [1012] “De Fide et Symbol.” + + [1013] “Preller:” ii., p. 154. + + [1014] Nicodemus: “Apocryphal Gospel,” translated from the + Gospel published by Grynæus, “Orthodoxographa,” vol. i., + tom. ii., p. 643. + + [1015] Euripides: “Herakles,” 807. + + [1016] “Æneid,” viii., 274, ff. + + [1017] “Frogs;” see fragments given in “Sod, the Mystery of + Adonis.” + + [1018] See pages 180-187, 327. + + [1019] Aristophanes: “Frogs.” + + [1020] See Preface to “Hermas” in the Apocryphal New Testament. + + [1021] In the “Life of Buddha,” of Bkah Hgyur (Thibetan text), + we find the original of the episode given in the Gospel + according to Luke. An old and holy ascetic, Rishi Asita, + comes from afar to see the infant Buddha, instructed as + he is of his birth and mission by supernatural visions. + Having worshipped the little Gautama, the old saint + bursts into tears, and upon being questioned upon the + cause of his grief, answers: “After becoming Buddha, he + will help hundreds of thousands of millions of creatures + to pass to the other shore of the ocean of life, and + will lead them on forever to immortality. And I--I shall + not behold this pearl of Buddhas! Cured of my illness, I + shall not be freed by him from human passion! Great + King! I am too old--that is why I weep, and why, in my + sadness, I heave long sighs!” + + It does not prevent the holy man, however, from + delivering prophecies about the young Buddha, which, + with a very slight difference, are of the same substance + as those of Simeon about Jesus. While the latter calls + the young Jesus “a light for the revelation of the + Gentiles and the glory of the people of Israel,” the + Buddhist prophet promises that the young prince will + find himself clothed with the perfect and complete + _enlightenment_ or “light” of Buddha, and will turn the + wheel _of law_ as no one _ever did before him_. “Rgya + Tcher Rol Pa;” translated from the Thibetan text and + revised on the original Sanscrit, _Lalitavistara_, by P. + E. Foncaux. 1847. Vol. ii., pp. 106, 107. + + [1022] The sign of the cross--only a few days after the + resurrection, and before the cross was ever thought + of as a symbol! + + [1023] Payne Knight shows that “from the time of the first + King Menes, under whom all the country below Lake Mœris + was a bog (Herod., ii., 4), to that of the Persian + invasion, when it was the garden of the world”--between + 11,000 and 12,000 years must have elapsed. (See “Ancient + Art and Mythology;” cli., R. Payne Knight, p. 108. Edit. + by A. Wilder.) + + [1024] Seth or Sutech, “Rawlinson’s History of Herodotus,” + book ii., appendix viii., 23. + + [1025] The fact is vouchsafed for by Epiphanius. See Hone: + “Apocryphal New Testament;” “The Gospel of the Birth of + Mary.” + + In his able article “Bacchus, the Prophet-God,” + Professor A. Wilder remarks that “Tacitus was misled + into thinking that the Jews worshipped an ass, the + symbol of Typhon or Seth, the Hyk-sos God. The Egyptian + name of the ass was _eo_, the phonetic of Iao;” and + hence, probably, he adds, “a symbol from that mere + circumstance.” We can hardly agree with this learned + archæologist, for the idea that the Jews reverenced, for + some mysterious reason, Typhon under his symbolical + representation rests on more proof than one. And for one + we find a passage in the “Gospel of Mary,” is cited from + Epiphanius, which corroborates the fact. It relates to + the death of “Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, + murdered by Herod,” says the Protevangelion. Epiphanius + writes that the cause of the death of Zacharias was that + upon seeing a vision in the temple he, through surprise, + was willing to disclose it, but his mouth was stopped. + That which he saw was at the time of his offering + incense, and it was a man STANDING IN THE FORM OF AN + ASS. When he was gone out, and had a mind to speak thus + to the people, _Woe unto you, whom do ye worship?_ he + who had appeared unto him in the temple took away the + use of his speech. Afterward when he recovered it, and + was able to speak, he declared this to the Jews, and + they slew him. They (the Gnostics) add in this book, + that on this very account the high priest was commanded + by the law-giver (Moses) to carry little bells, that + whensoever he went into the temple to sacrifice, he + _whom they worshipped_, hearing the noise of the bells, + might have time enough to hide himself, and not be + caught in that ugly shape and figure” (Epiph.). + + [1026] “Phallism in Ancient Religions,” by Staniland Wake and + Westropp, p. 74. + + [1027] Hercules is also a god-fighter as well as Jacob-Israel. + + [1028] “Phallism in Ancient Religions,” p. 75. + + [1029] Antiochus Epiphanius found in 169 B.C. in the Jewish + temple, a man kept there to be sacrificed. Apion: + “Joseph, contra Apion,” ii., 8. + + [1030] The ox of Dionysus was sacrificed at the Bacchic Mysteries. + See “Anthon,” p. 365. + + [1031] “Paus.,” 5, 16. + + [1032] Judges iv. 4. + + [1033] 2 Kings, xxii. 14. + + [1034] xiv. 2; xx. 16, 17. + + [1035] xxvii. 28, 29. + + [1036] The festival denominated Liberalia occurred on the + seventeenth of March, now St. Patrick’s Day. Thus + Bacchus was also the patron saint of the Irish. + + [1037] Prof. A. Wilder: “Bacchus, the Prophet-God,” in the June + number (1877) of the “Evolution, a Review of Polities, + Religion, Science, Literature, and Art.” + + [1038] “Edinburgh Review,” April, 1851, p. 411. + + [1039] “Indian Sketches; or Life in the East,” written for the + “Commercial Bulletin,” of Boston. + + [1040] See chapter ii. of this vol., p. 110. + + [1041] It would be worth the trouble of an artist, while + travelling around the world, to make a collection of the + multitudinous varieties of Madonnas, Christs, saints, + and martyrs as they appear in various costumes in + different countries. They would furnish models for + masquerade balls in aid of church charities! + + [1042] Even as we write, there comes from Earl Salisbury, + Secretary of State for India, a report that the Madras + famine is to be followed by one probably still more + severe in Southern India, the very district where the + heaviest tribute has been exacted by the Catholic + missionaries for the expenses of the Church of Rome. The + latter, unable to retaliate otherwise, despoils British + subjects, and when famine comes as a consequence, makes + the heretical British Government pay for it. + + [1043] “Ancient Faiths and Modern,” p. 24. + + [1044] “Fétichisme, Polythéisme, Monothéisme.” + + [1045] “Oriental and Linguistic Studies,” “Vedic Doctrine of a + Future Life,” by W. Dwight Whitney, Prof. of Sanscrit + and Comparative Philology at Yale College. + + [1046] “Oriental and Linguistic Studies,” p. 48. + + [1047] In his article on “Paul, the Founder of Christianity,” + Professor A. Wilder, whose intuitions of truth are + always clear, says: “In the person of _Aher_ we + recognize the Apostle Paul. He appears to have been + known by a variety of appellations. He was named _Saul_, + evidently because of his vision of Paradise--Saul or + _Sheol_ being the Hebrew name of the other world. + _Paul_, which only means ‘the little man,’ was a species + of nickname. _Aher_, or _other_, was an epithet in the + Bible for persons outside of the Jewish polity, and was + applied to him for having extended his ministry to the + Gentiles. His real name was Elisha ben Abuiah.” + + [1048] “In the ‘Talmud’ Jesus is called AUTU H-AIS, אותו האיש, + _that man_.”--A. Wilder. + + [1049] See Moor’s plates, 75, No. 3. + + [1050] Max Müller’s estimate. + + [1051] Dr. Lundy: “Monumental Christianity,” p. 153. + + [1052] Buddhaghosa’s “Parables,” translated from the + Burmese, by Col. H. T. Rogers, R. E.; with an + introduction by M. Müller, containing “Dhammapada,” + 1870. + + [1053] Interpreter of the Consulate-General in Siam. + + [1054] “Ancient Faith and Modern,” p. 162. + + [1055] Ibid. + + [1056] The words contained within quotation marks are Inman’s. + + [1057] See vol. i. of this work, p. 319. + + [1058] p. 57. + + [1059] Matthew vii. 2. + + [1060] P. 25. + + [1061] See Draper’s “Conflict between Religion and Science,” + p. 224. + + [1062] This is the doctrine of the Supralapsarians, who + asserted that “He [God] _predestinated the fall of + Adam_, with all its pernicious consequences, from all + eternity, and that our first parents had no liberty from + the beginning.” + + It is also to this highly-moral doctrine that the + Catholic world became indebted, in the eleventh century, + for the institution of the Order known as the Carthusian + monks. Bruno, its founder, was driven to the foundation + of this monstrous Order by a circumstance well worthy of + being recorded here, as it graphically illustrates this + _divine_ predestination. A friend of Bruno, a French + physician, famed far and wide for his extraordinary + _piety_, _purity of morals_, and _charity_, died, and + his body was watched by Bruno himself. Three days after + his death, and as he was going to be buried, the pious + physician suddenly sat up in his coffin and declared, in + a loud and solemn voice, “that by the just judgment of + God he was eternally damned.” After which consoling + message from beyond the “dark river,” he fell back and + relapsed into death. + + In their turn, the Parsi theologians speak thus: “If any + of you commit sin under the belief that he shall be + saved by _somebody_, both the deceiver as well as the + deceived shall be damned to the day of Rasta Khéz.... + There is no Saviour. In the other world you shall + receive the return according to your actions.... _Your + Saviour is your deeds_ and God Himself.[1063] + + [1063] “The Modern Parsis,” lecture by Max Müller, 1862. + + [1064] “De Isid. et Osir.,” p. 380. + + [1065] Every tradition shows that Jesus was educated in Egypt + and passed his infancy and youth with the Brotherhoods + of the Essenes and other mystic communities. + + [1066] Bunsen found some records which show the language and + religious worship of the Egyptians, for instance, not + only existing at the opening of the old Empire, “but + already so fully established and fixed as to receive + _but a very slight development_ in the course of the + old, middle, and modern Empires,” and while this opening + of the old Empire is placed by him beyond the Menes + period, at least 4,000 years B.C., the origin of the + ancient Hermetic prayers and hymns of the “Book of the + Dead,” is assigned by Bunsen to the pre-Menite dynasty + of Abydos (between 4,000 and 4,500 B.C.), thus showing + that “the system of Osirian worship and mythology was + already formed 3,000 years before the days of Moses.” + + [1067] It was also called the “hook of attraction.” Virgil + terms it “Mystica vannus Iacchi,” “Georgics,” i., 166. + + [1068] In an Address to the Delegates of the Evangelical + Alliance, New York, 1874, Mr. Peter Cooper, a Unitarian, + and one of the noblest _practical_ Christians of the + age, closes it with the following memorable language: + “In that _last and final account_ it will be happy for + us if we shall then find that our influence through life + has tended to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and + soothe the sorrows of those who were sick and in + prison.” Such words from a man who has given two million + dollars in charity; educated four thousand young girls + in useful arts, by which they gain a comfortable + support; maintained a free public library, museum, and + reading-room; classes for working people; public + lectures by eminent scientists, open to all; and been + foremost in all good works, throughout a long and + blameless life, come with the noble force that marks the + utterances of all benefactors of their kind. The deeds + of Peter Cooper will cause posterity to treasure his + golden sayings in its heart. + + [1069] “_Aus dem Tibetischen übersetzt und mit dem Originaltexte + herausgegeben_,” von S. J. Schmidt. + + [1070] “Buddhism in Tibet,” by Emil Schlagintweit, 1863, p. 213. + + [1071] “Ecclesiastical History,” l. i., c. 13. + + [1072] Tathagâta is Buddha, “he who walks in the footsteps of + his predecessors;” as _Bhagavat_--he is the _Lord_. + + [1073] We have the same legend about St. Veronica--as a pendant. + + [1074] “Introduction à l’Histoire du Buddhisme Indien,” E. + Burnouf, p. 341. + + [1075] Moses was a most notable practitioner of Hermetic + Science. Bearing in mind that Moses (Asarsiph) is made + to run away to the Land of Midian, and that he “sat down + by a well” (Exod. ii.), we find the following: + + The “Well” played a prominent part in the Mysteries of + the Bacchic festivals. In the sacerdotal language of + every country, it had the same significance. A well is + “the fountain of salvation” mentioned in _Isaiah_ (xii. + 3). The water is the _male principle_ in its spiritual + sense. In its physical relation in the allegory of + creation, the water is chaos, and chaos is the female + principle vivified by the Spirit of God--the male + principle. In the “Kabala,” _Zachar_ means “male;” and + the Jordan was called Zachar (“Universal History,” vol. + ii., p. 429). It is curious that the Father of St. John + the Baptist, the Prophet of _Jordan_--Zacchar--should be + called _Zachar-ias_. One of the names of Bacchus is + _Zagreus_. The ceremony of pouring water on the shrine + was sacred in the Osirian rites as well as in the Mosaic + institutions. In the _Mishna_ it is said, “Thou shalt + dwell in Succa and _pour out water_ seven, and the pipes + six days” (“Mishna Succah,” p. 1). “Take _virgin earth_ + ... and work up the _dust_ with _living_ WATER,” + prescribes the _Sohar_ (Introduction to “Sohar;” + “Kabbala Denudata,” ii., pp. 220, 221). Only “earth and + water, according to Moses, can bring forth a _living + soul_,” quotes Cornelius Agrippa. The water of Bacchus + was considered to impart the Holy _Pneuma_ to the + initiate; and it washes off all sin by baptism through + the Holy _Ghost_, with the Christians. The “well” in the + kabalistic sense, is the mysterious emblem of the + _Secret Doctrine_. “If any man thirst, let him come + _unto me and drink_,” says Jesus (John vii.). + + Therefore, Moses the adept, is naturally enough + represented sitting by a well. He is approached by the + _seven_ daughters of the Kenite Priest of Midian coming + to fill the troughs, _to water their father’s flock_. + Here we have seven again--the mystic number. In the + present biblical allegory the daughters represent the + _seven occult powers_. “The shepherds came and drove + them (the seven daughters) away, but Moses stood up, and + helped them, and watered their flock.” The shepherds are + shown, by some kabalistic interpreters, to represent the + seven “badly-disposed Stellars” of the Nazarenes; for in + the old Samaritan text the number of these Shepherds is + also said to be seven (see kabalistic books). + + Then Moses, who had conquered the seven _evil_ Powers, + and won the friendship of the seven _occult_ and + beneficent ones, is represented as living with the Reuel + Priest of Midian, who invites “the Egyptian” to eat + bread, _i.e._, to partake of his wisdom. In the Bible + the elders of Midian are known as great soothsayers and + diviners. Finally, Reuel or Jethro, the initiator and + instructor of Moses, gives him in marriage his daughter. + This daughter is Zipporah, _i.e._, the esoteric Wisdom, + the shining light of knowledge, for Siprah means the + “shining” or “resplendent,” from the word “Sapar” to + shine. Sippara, in Chaldea, was the city of the “Sun.” + Thus Moses was initiated by the Midianite, or rather the + Kenite, and thence the biblical allegory. + + [1076] Schmidt: “Der Weise und der Thor,” p. 37. + + [1077] “Rgya Tcher Rol. Pa.,” “History of Buddha Sakya-muni” + (Sanscrit), “Lalitavistara,” vol. ii., pp. 90, 91. + + [1078] “Protevangelion” (ascribed to James), ch. xiii. and xiv. + + [1079] “Pali Buddhistical Annals,” iii., p. 28; “Manual of + Buddhism,” 142. Hardy. + + [1080] “Gospel of the Infancy,” chap. xx., xxi.; accepted by + Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Jerome, + and others. The same story, with the Hindu earmarks + rubbed off to avoid detection, is found at Luke ii., + 46, 47. + + [1081] Alabaster: “Wheel of the Law,” pp. 29, 34, 35, and 38. + + [1082] E. Upham: “The History and Doctrines of Buddhism,” + p. 135. Dr. Judson fell into this prodigious error by + reason of his fanaticism. In his zeal to “save souls,” + he refused to peruse the Burmese classics, lest his + attention should be diverted thereby. + + [1083] “Indian Antiquary,” vol. ii., p. 81; “Book of Ser Marco + Polo,” vol. i., p. 441. + + [1084] “Ssabismus,” vol. i., p. 725. + + [1085] Murray’s “History of Discoveries in Asia.” + + [1086] “Manual of Buddhism,” p. 142. + + [1087] See Inman’s “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian + Symbolism,” p. 92. + + [1088] “Rgya. Tcher. Rol. Pa.,” Bkah Hgyour (Thibetan version). + + [1089] Gospel according to Luke, i. 39-45. + + [1090] Didron: “Iconograph. Chrétienne Histoire de Dieu.” + + [1091] There are numerous works deduced immediately from the + “Vedas,” called the “Upa-Ved.” Four works are included + under this denomination, namely, the “Ayus,” + “Gandharva,” “Dhanus,” and “Sthāpatya.” The third + “Upaveda” was composed by Viswamitra for the use of the + Kshatriyas, the warrior caste. + + [1092] Bunsen’s “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., + p. 93. + + [1093] Alabaster; “Wheel of the Law,” pp. 43-47. + + [1094] “The Debatable Land,” p. 145. + + [1095] “We divide our zeal,” says Dr. Henry More, “against so + many things that we fancy Popish, that we scarce reserve + _a just share of detestation_ against what is truly so. + Such are that gross, rank, and scandalous impossibility + _of transubstantiation_, the various modes of fulsome + idolatry and lying impostures, the uncertainty of their + loyalty to their lawful sovereigns by their + superstitious adhesion to the spiritual tyranny of the + Pope, and that _barbarous and ferine cruelty against + those_ that are not either such fools as to be persuaded + to believe such things as they would obtrude upon men, + or, are not so false to God and their own consciences, + as, knowing better, yet to profess them” (Postscript to + “Glanvill”). + + [1096] Payne Knight believes that Ceres was not a personification + of the brute matter which composed the earth, but of the + female _productive principle_ supposed to pervade it, + which, joined to the active, was held to be the cause of + the organization and animation of its substance.... She + is mentioned as the wife of the Omnipotent Father, + Æther, or Jupiter (“The Symbolical Language of Ancient + Art and Mythology,” xxxvi.). Hence the words of Christ, + “it is the Spirit that quickeneth, _flesh profiteth + nothing_,” applied in their dual meaning to both + spiritual and terrestrial things, to spirit and matter. + + Bacchus, as Dionysus, is of Indian origin. Cicero + mentions him as a son of Thyoné and Nisus. Διόνυσος + means the god Dis from Mount Nys in India. Bacchus, + crowned with ivy, or _kissos_, is Christna, one of whose + names was _Kissen_. Dionysus is preëminently the deity + on whom were centred all the hopes for future life; in + short, he was the god who was expected to _liberate the + souls of men_ from their prisons of flesh. Orpheus, the + poet-Argonaut, is also said to have come on earth to + purify the religion of its gross, and terrestrial + anthropomorphism, he abolished human sacrifice and + instituted a mystic theology based on pure spirituality. + Cicero calls Orpheus a son of Bacchus. It is strange + that both seem to have originally come from India. At + least, as Dionysus Zagreus, Bacchus is of undoubted + Hindu origin. Some writers deriving a curious analogy + between the name of Orpheus and an old Greek term, + ὀρφος, _dark or tawny-colored_, make him Hindu by + connecting the term with his dusky Hindu complexion. See + Voss, Heyne and Schneider on the Argonautis. + + [1097] “Vie de Jesus,” p. 219. + + [1098] Ibid., p. 221. + + [1099] “Analysis of Religious Belief,” vol. i., p. 467. + + [1100] See the “Gita,” translated by Charles Wilkins, in 1785; + and the “Bhagavad-Purana,” containing the history of + Christna, translated into French by Eugène Burnouf. + 1840. + + [1101] Matthew vii. 21. + + [1102] “Of the People of India,” vol. i., p. 84. + + [1103] Or “Researches into the Mysteries of Occultism;” Boston, + 1877, Edited by Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten. + + [1104] See “Stone Him to Death;” “Septenary Institutions.” + Capt. James Riley, in his “Narrative” of his enslavement + in Africa, relates like instances of great longevity on + the Sahara Desert. + + [1105] Russian Armenia; one of the most ancient Christian + convents. + + [1106] “Egyptian Book of the Dead.” The Hindus have seven + upper and seven lower heavens. The seven mortal sins of + the Christians have been borrowed from the Egyptian + Books of Hermes with which Clement of Alexandria was so + familiar. + + [1107] The atrocious custom subsequently introduced among the + people, of sacrificing human victims, is a perverted + copy of the Theurgic Mystery. The Pagan priests, who did + not belong to the class of the hierophants, carried on + for awhile this hideous rite, and it served to screen + the genuine purpose. But the Grecian Herakles is + represented as the adversary of human sacrifices and as + slaying the men and monsters who offered them. Bunsen + shows, by the very absence of any representation of + human sacrifice on the oldest monuments, that this + custom had been abolished in the old Empire, at the + close of the seventh century after Menes; therefore, + 3,000 years B.C., Iphiscrates had stopped the human + sacrifices entirely among the Carthaginians. Diphilus + ordered bulls to be substituted for human victims. + Amosis forced the priests to replace the latter by + figures of wax. On the other hand, for every stranger + offered on the shrine of Diana by the inhabitants of the + Tauric Chersonesus, the Inquisition and the Christian + clergy can boast of a dozen of heretics offered on the + altar of the “mother of God,” and her “Son.” And when + did the Christians ever think of substituting either + animals or wax-figures for living heretics, Jews, and + witches? They burned these in effigy only when, through + providential interference, the doomed victims had + escaped their clutches. + + [1108] This is why Jesus recommends prayer in the solitude of + one’s closet. This secret prayer is but the _paravidya_ + of the Vedantic philosopher: “He who knows his soul + (inner self) daily retires to the region of _Swarga_ + (the heavenly realm) in his own heart,” says the + _Brihad-Aranyaka_. The Vedantic philosopher recognizes + the Âtman, the spiritual _self_, as the sole and Supreme + God. + + [1109] “Wheel of the Law,” p. 54. + + [1110] A. Wilder: “Ancient and Modern Prophecy.” + + [1111] While at _Petrovsk_ (Dhagestan, region of the Caucasus) + we had the opportunity of witnessing another such + _mystery_. It was owing to the kindness of Prince + Melikoff, the governor-general of Dhagestan, living at + Temerchan-Shoura, and especially of Prince Shamsoudine, + the ex-reigning Shamchal of Tarchoff, a native Tartar, + that during the summer of 1865 we assisted at this + ceremonial from the safe distance of a sort of private + box, constructed under the ceiling of the temporary + building. + + [1112] Does not this afford us a point of comparison with the + so-called “materializing mediums?” + + [1113] The Yezidis must number over 200,000 men altogether. + The tribes which inhabit the Pashalik of Bagdad, and are + scattered over the Sindjar mountains are the most + dangerous, as well as the most hated for their evil + practices. Their chief Sheik lives constantly near the + tomb of their prophet and reformer Adi, but every tribe + chooses its own sheik among the most learned in the + “black art.” This Adi or Ad is a mythic ancestor of + theirs, and simply is, Adi--the God of wisdom or the + Parsi Ab-ad the first ancestor of the human race, or + again Adh-Buddha of the Hindus, anthropomorphized and + degenerated. + + [1114] Within less than four months we have collected from the + daily papers forty-seven cases of crime, ranging from + drunkenness up to murder, committed by ecclesiastics in + the United States only. By the end of the year our + correspondents in the East will have valuable facts to + offset missionary denunciations of “heathen” + misdemeanors. + + [1115] “Evolution,” art. Paul, the Founder of Christianity. + + [1116] We find in Galatians iv. 4, the following: “But when the + fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, + _made of a woman, made under the law_.” + + [1117] The date has been fully established for these Pali Books + in our own century; sufficiently so, at least, to show + that they existed in Ceylon, 316 B.C., when Mahinda, the + son of Asoka, was there (See Max Müller, “Chips, etc.,” + vol. i., on Buddhism). + + [1118] “A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam,” by + M. de la Loubère, Envoy to Siam from France, 1687-8, + chap. xxv., London; “Diverse Observations to be Made in + Preaching the Gospel to the Orientals.” + + The Sieur de la Loubère’s report to the king was made, + as we see, in 1687-8. How thoroughly his proposition to + the Jesuits, to suppress and dissemble in preaching + Christianity to the Siamese, met their approval, is + shown in the passage elsewhere quoted from the Thesis + propounded by the Jesuits of Caen (“Thesis propugnata in + regio Soc. Jes. Collegio, celeberrimæ Academiæ + Cadoniensis, die Veneris, 30 Jan., 1693), to the + following effect: “... neither do the Fathers of the + Society of Jesus dissemble _when they adopt the + institute and the habit_ of the Talapoins of Siam.” In + five years the Ambassador’s little lump of leaven had + leavened the whole. + + [1119] In a discourse of Hermes with Thoth, the former says: + “It is impossible for thought to rightly conceive of + God.... One cannot describe, through material organs, + that which is immaterial and eternal.... One is a + perception of the spirit, the other a reality. That + which can be perceived by our senses can be described in + words; but that which is incorporeal, invisible, + immaterial, and without form cannot be realized through + our ordinary senses. I understand thus, O Thoth, I + understand that God is ineffable.” + + In the _Catechism of the Parsis_, as translated by M. + Dadabhai Naoroji, we read the following: + + “Q. What is the form of our God?” + + “A. Our God has neither face nor form, color nor shape, + nor fixed place. There is no other like Him. He is + Himself, singly such a glory that we cannot praise or + describe Him; nor our mind comprehend Him.” + + [1120] “Contemporary Review,” p. 588, July, 1870. + + [1121] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., pp. 304, 306. + + [1122] Ibid. + + [1123] Ibid. + + [1124] “Dec.,” v., lib. vi., cap. 2. + + [1125] “Travels in Tartary,” etc., pp. 121, 122. + + [1126] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., p. 340. + + [1127] His twenty or more volumes on Oriental subjects are + indeed a curious conglomerate of truth and fiction. They + contain a vast deal of fact about Indian traditions, + philosophy and chronology, with most just views + courageously expressed. But it seems as if the + philosopher were constantly being overlaid by the + romancist. It is as though two men were united in their + authorship--one careful, serious, erudite, scholarly, + the other a sensational and sensual French romancer, who + judges of facts not as they are but as _he_ imagines + them. His translations from _Manu_ are admirable; his + controversial ability marked; his views of priestly + morals unfair, and in the case of the Buddhists, + positively slanderous. But in all the series of volumes + there is not a line of dull reading; he has the eye of + the artist, the pen of the poet of nature. + + [1128] Les Fils de Dieu. “L’Inde Brahmanique,” p. 296. + + [1129] In its general sense, _Isvara_ means “Lord;” but the + Isvara of the mystic philosophers of India was + understood precisely as the union and communion of men + with the Deity of the Greek mystics. _Isvara-Parasada_ + means, literally, in Sanscrit, _grace_. Both of the + “Mimansas,” treating of the most abstruse questions, + explain _Karma_ as merit, or the _efficacy of works_; + Isvara-Parasada, as grace; and _Sradha_, as faith. The + “Mimansas” are the work of the two most celebrated + theologians of India. The “Pourva-Mimansa” was written + by the philosopher Djeminy, and the “Outtara-Mimansa” + (or Vedanta), by Richna Dvipayaa Vyasa, who collected + the four “Vedas” together. (See Sir William Jones, + Colebrooke, and others.) + + [1130] Suetonius: “August.” + + [1131] Plutarch. + + [1132] “Pliny,” xxx., pp. 2, 14. + + [1133] “Servius ad. Æon,” p. 71. + + [1134] Peary Chand Mittra: “The Psychology of the Aryas;” + “Human Nature,” for March, 1877. + + [1135] The Boulogne (France) correspondent of an English + journal says that he knows of a gentleman who has had an + arm amputated at the shoulder, “who is certain that he + has a spiritual arm, which he sees and actually feels + with his other hand. He can touch anything, and even + pull up things with the spiritual or phantom arm and + hand.” The party knows nothing of spiritualism. We give + this as we get it, without verification, but it merely + corroborates what we have seen in the case of an Eastern + adept. This eminent scholar and practical kabalist can + at will project his astral arm, and with the hand take + up, move, and carry objects, even at a considerable + distance from where he may be sitting or standing. We + have often seen him thus minister to the wants of a + favorite elephant. + + [1136] Answer to a question at “The National Association of + Spiritualists,” May 14th, 1877. + + [1137] “A Buddhist’s Opinions of the Spiritual States.” + + [1138] See the “London Spiritualist,” May 25, 1877, p. 246. + + [1139] See Coleman’s “Hindu Mythology.” + + [1140] Russian subjects are not allowed to cross the Tartar + territory, neither the subjects of the Emperor of + China to go to the Russian factories. + + [1141] These are the representatives of the Buddhist Trinity, + Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, or Fo, Fa, and Sengh, as + they are called in Thibet. + + [1142] A Bikshu is not allowed to accept anything directly even + from laymen of his own people, least of all from a + foreigner. The slightest contact with the body and even + dress of a person not belonging to their special + community is carefully avoided. Thus even the offerings + brought by us and which comprised pieces of red and + yellow _pou-lou_, a sort of woollen fabric the lamas + generally wear, had to pass through strange ceremonies. + They are forbidden, 1, to ask or beg for anything--even + were they starving--having to wait until it is + voluntarily offered; 2, to touch either gold or silver + with their hands; 3, to eat a morsel of food, even when + presented, unless the donor distinctly says to the + disciple, “This is for your master to _eat_.” Thereupon, + the disciple turning to the _pazen_ has to offer the + food in his turn, and when he has said, “Master, this is + allowed; take and eat,” then only can the lama take it + with the right hand, and partake of it. All our + offerings had to pass through such purifications. When + the silver pieces, and a few handfuls of annas (a coin + equal to four cents) were at different occasions offered + to the community, a disciple first wrapped his hand in a + yellow handkerchief, and receiving it on his palm, + conveyed the sum immediately into the _Badir_, called + elsewhere _Sabaït_, a sacred basin, generally wooden, + kept for offerings. + + [1143] These stones are highly venerated among Lamaists and + Buddhists; the throne and sceptre of Buddha are + ornamented with them, and the Taley Lama wears one on + the fourth finger of the right hand. They are found in + the Altai Mountains, and near the river Yarkuh. Our + talisman was a gift from the venerable high-priest, a + _Heiloung_, of a Kalmuck tribe. Though treated as + apostates from their primitive Lamaism, these nomads + maintain friendly intercourse with their brother + Kalmucks, the Chokhots of Eastern Thibet and Kokonor, + but even with the Lamaists of Lha-Ssa. The + ecclesiastical authorities however, will have no + relations with them. We have had abundant opportunities + to become acquainted with this interesting people of the + Astrakhan Steppes, having lived in their _Kibitkas_ in + our early years, and partaken of the lavish hospitality + of the Prince Tumene, their late chief, and his + Princess. In their religious ceremonies, the Kalmucks + employ trumpets made from the thigh and arm bones of + deceased rulers and high priests. + + [1144] The Buddhist Kalmucks of the Astrakhan steppes are + accustomed to make their idols out of the cremated ashes + of their princes and priests. A relative of the author + has in her collection several small pyramids composed of + the ashes of eminent Kalmucks and presented to her by + the Prince Tumene himself in 1836. + + [1145] The sacred fan used by the chief priests instead of an + umbrella. + + [1146] See vol. i., p. 476. + + [1147] See his “Lectures on Sound.” + + [1148] From the compound word sûtra, maxim or precept, and + antika, close or near. + + [1149] It sounds like injustice to Asôka to compare him with + Constantine, as is done by several Orientalists. If, in + the religious and political sense, Asôka did for India + what Constantine is alleged to have achieved for the + Western World, all similarity stops there. + + [1150] See “Indian Sketches;” Appleton’s “New Cyclopedia,” etc. + + [1151] _Aum_ (mystic Sanscrit term of the Trinity), _mani_ + (holy jewel), _padmé_ (_in_ the lotus, padma being the + name for lotus), _houm_ (be it so). The six syllables in + the sentence correspond to the six chief powers of + nature emanating from Buddha (the abstract deity, not + Gautama), who is the _seventh_, and the Alpha and Omega + of being. + + [1152] Moru (the pure) is one of the most famous lamaseries of + Lha-Ssa, directly in the centre of the city. There the + Shaberon, the Taley Lama, resides the greater portion of + the winter months; during two or three months of the + warm season his abode is at Foht-lla. At Moru is the + largest typographical establishment of the country. + + [1153] The Buddhist great canon, containing 1,083 works in + several hundred volumes, many of which treat of magic. + + [1154] “Crawfurd’s Mission to Siam,” p. 182. + + [1155] “Semedo,” vol. iii., p. 114. + + [1156] There was an anecdote current among Daguerre’s friends + between 1838 and 1840. At an evening party, Madame + Daguerre, some two months previous to the introduction + of the celebrated Daguerrean process to the _Académie + des Sciences_, by Arago (January, 1839), had an earnest + consultation with one of the medical celebrities of the + day about her husband’s mental condition. After + explaining to the physician the numerous symptoms of + what she believed to be her husband’s mental aberration, + she added, with tears in her eyes, that the greatest + proof to her of Daguerre’s insanity was his firm + conviction that he would succeed in nailing his own + shadow to the wall, or fixing it on _magical_ metallic + plates. The physician listened to the intelligence very + attentively, and answered that he had himself observed + in Daguerre lately the strongest symptoms of what, to + his mind, was an undeniable proof of madness. He closed + the conversation by firmly advising her to send her + husband quietly and without delay to Bicétre, the + well-known lunatic asylum. Two months later a profound + interest was created in the world of art and science by + the exhibition of a number of pictures taken by the new + process. The _shadows_ were fixed, after all, upon + metallic plates, and the “lunatic” proclaimed the father + of photography. + + [1157] Schott: “Über den Buddhismus,” p. 71. + + [1158] “The Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., p. 352. + + [1159] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 130, quoted by Col. Yule in vol. ii., + p. 353. + + [1160] No country in the world can boast of more medicinal + plants than Southern India, Cochin, Burmah, Siam, and + Ceylon. European physicians--according to time-honored + practice--settle the case of professional rivalship, by + treating the native doctors as quacks and empirics; but + this does not prevent the latter from being often + successful in cases in which eminent graduates of + British and French schools of Medicine have signally + failed. Native works on Materia Medica do not certainly + contain the secret remedies known, and successfully + applied by the native doctors (the Atibbā), from time + immemorial; and yet the best febrifuges have been + learned by British physicians from the Hindus, and where + patients, deafened and swollen by abuse of quinine, were + slowly dying of fever under the treatment of enlightened + physicians, the bark of the Margosa, and the Chiretta + herb have cured them completely, and these now occupy an + honorable place among European drugs. + + [1161] The Hindu appellation for the peculiar mantrâm or charm + which prevents the serpent from biting. + + [1162] Between the bells of the “heathen” worshippers, and the + bells and pomegranates of the Jewish worship, the + difference is this: the former, besides purifying the + soul of man with their harmonious tones, kept _evil_ + demons at a distance, “for the sound of pure bronze + breaks the enchantment,” says Tibullius (i., 8-22), and + the latter explained it by saying that the sound of the + bells “should be heard [by the Lord] when he [the + priest] goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, + and when he goeth out, _that he die not_” (Exodus + xxviii. 33; Eccles. xiv. 9). Thus, one sound served to + keep away _evil_ spirits, and the other, the Spirit of + Jehovah. The Scandinavian traditions affirm that the + Trolls were always driven from their abodes by the bells + of the churches. A similar tradition is in existence in + relation to the fairies of Great Britain. + + [1163] An elemental dæmon, in which every native of Asia believes. + + [1164] Lady, or Madam, in Moldavian. + + [1165] The hour in Bucharest corresponded perfectly with that + of the country in which the scene had taken place. + + [1166] Capt. W. L. D. O’Grady: “Life in India.” + + [1167] Neither Russia nor England succeeded in 1849 in forcing + them to recognize and respect the Turkish from the + Persian territory. + + [1168] Persepolis is the Persian Istakhâar, northeast of + Shiraz; it stood on a plain now called Merdusht. At the + confluence of the ancient Medus and the Araxes, now + Pulwân and Bend-emir. + + [1169] “Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hierogliphicum,” p. 544. + + [1170] We have twice assisted at the strange rites of the + remnants of that sect of fire-worshippers known as the + Guebres, who assemble from time to time at Baku, on the + “field of fire.” This ancient and mysterious town is + situated near the Caspian Sea. It belongs to Russian + Georgia. About twelve miles northeast from Baku stands + the remnant of an ancient Guebre temple, consisting of + four columns, from whose empty orifices issue constantly + jets of flame, which gives it, therefore, the name of + Temple of the Perpetual Fire. The whole region is + covered with lakes and springs of naphtha. Pilgrims + assemble there from distant parts of Asia, and a + priesthood, worshipping the divine principle of fire, is + kept by some tribes, scattered hither and thither about + the country. + + [1171] Baadéy-ku-Ba--literally “a gathering of winds.” + + [1172] See also “Magic and Mesmerism,” a novel reprinted by the + Harpers, thirty years ago. + + + + + INDEX. + + + + + INDEX. + + + Abarbanel, his explanation of the sign of the coming of the Messiah, + ii. 256 + + Abracadabra, diabolical, evoked anew, ii. 4 + + Abraham, his history, ii. 217; + belongs to the universal mythology, ii. 216; + _Zeruan_, _ib._; + Isaac, and Judah, from Brahma, Ikshwaka and Yada, ii. 488; + and his sons, the story an allegory, ii. 493 + + Abraiaman, or charmers of fishes and wild beasts in Ceylon, i. 606 + + Absolution and penance authorized in the Church of England, ii. 544 + + Absorbed, a state of intimate union, ii. 117 + + Abuses of magic denounced by the ancients, ii. 97, 99 + + Abydos, a pre-Menite dynasty, ii. 361 + + Academicians, French, i. 60; + reject theurgical magic, i. 281 + + Academy, French, indignant at the charge of Satanism, i. 101; + rejected mesmerism, i. 165, 171; + Committee of 1784, i. 171; + Committee of 1826, i. 173 + + Acari, produced by chemical experiments, i. 465 + + Accuser of Souls at the judgment, ii. 487 + + Acher (Paul) in the garden of delights, ii. 119; + “made depredations,” _ib._ + + Actions guided by spiritual beings, i. 366 + + Ad, its meaning, i. 579 + + Adah, her sons from the Euxine to Kashmere, i. 579 + + Ad-Am, only-begotten, i. 579 + + Adam (ανθροπως), Divine essence emanating from, + i. 1; + the primitive man, i. 2; + the second, i. 297; + the same as the “gods,” or Elohim, i. 299; + of dust, i. 302; + Kadmon, androgynous, i. 297; + the first man evolved, _ib._; + same as the Logos, Prometheus, Pimander, Hermes, and Herakles, i. + 298; + of Eden, eat without initiation of the Tree of Knowledge or secret + doctrine, i. 575; + invested with the _chitun_, or coat of skin, _ib._; + the fall, not personal transgression, but a law of dual evolution, + ii. 277; + conducted from Hell, ii. 517; + same as Tamuz, Adonis, and Helios, _ib._; + sends Seth on an errand to paradise, ii. 520; + Kadmon, ii. 36; + Kadmon, i. 93; + Kadmon, the first race of men his emanations, ii. 276; + Primus, the Microprosopus, ii. 452 + + Adamic Earth, i. 51 + + Adamite, the third race, produced by two races, i. 305 + + Adanari, the Hindu goddess, ii. 451, 453 + + Adar-gat, Aster’t, etc., the _Magna Mater_, i. 579 + + Adept, the first self-made, ii. 317; + of the highest order, may live indefinitely, ii. 563; + of the seventh rite, ii. 564 + + Adepts few, i. 17; + in Paris and elsewhere ii. 403; + “travellers,” _ib._ + + Adhima and Heva, created by Siva, and ancestors of the present race, + i. 590 + + A’di Buddha, the Unknown, ii. 156; + the father of the Yezidis, ii. 571 + + Adima and Heva, in the prophecies of Ramatsariar, i. 579 + + Adonai or Adamites, i. 303 + + Adonim, i. 301 + + Adonis, his rites celebrated in the grotto at Bethlehem, ii. 139 + + Adonis-worship, at the Jordan, ii. 181 + + Adrian supposed the Christians to worship Serapis, ii. 336 + + Æbel-Zivo, the Metatron, or Anointed spirit, ii. 154; ii. 236, 247; + the same as the Angel Gabriel, ii. 247 + + Æneas drives away ghosts with his sword, i. 362, 363 + + Æons, or genii, i. 300 + + Aërolites, used in the Mysteries, i. 282; + in the tower of Belos, ii. 331; + used to develop prophetic power, _ib._ + + Æther, i. 56; + in that form the Deity pervading all, i. 129; + the primordial chaos, i. 134; + the spirit of cosmic matter, i. 156; + deified, i. 158; + source whence all things come and whither they will return, i. 189; + the fifth element, i. 342; + a medium between this world and the other, _ib._; + the Breath of the Father, the Holy Ghost, ii. 50 + + Æthiopia, east of Babylonia, ii. 434 + + Æthiopians from the Indus, who settled near Egypt, probably Jews, i. + 567; + originally an Indian race, ii. 437; + law of inheritance by the mother, _ib._ + + Affinity of soul for body, i. 344; + acknowledged between the _Syllabus_ and the _Koran_, ii. 82 + + Afrasiah, the King of Assyria, i. 575 + + Africa, phantoms appearing in the desert, i. 604 + + Afrits, i. 141; + nature-spirits, Shedim, demons, i. 313; + studying antediluvian literature, ii. 29 + + Agassiz, Prof. L., unfairness of, i. 63; + his argument in favor of the immortality of all orders of living + beings, i. 420 + + Agathodaimon and Kakothodaimon, i. 133 + + Agathadæmon, the serpent on a pole, ii. 512 + + Age of paper, i. 535 + + Aged of the aged, ii. 244 + + Ages, golden, silver, copper and iron, no fiction, i. 34; + or Aions, ii. 144 + + Agni, the sun-god and fire-god, i. 270 + + Agrippa, Cornelius, i. 167, 200; + his remarks on the marvellous power of the human soul, i. 280 + + Ahab and his sons encouraged by the prophets, ii. 525 + + Ahaz, his family deposed, ii. 440 + + Ahijah the prophet instigates Jeroboam to revolt against Solomon, ii. + 439 + + Ahriman, his contest with Ormazd, ii. 237; + to be purified in the fiery lake, ii. 238 + + Aij-Taïon, the Supreme God of the Yakuts of Siberia, ii. 568 + + Ain-Soph, ii. 210 + + Ajunta, Buddhistic caverns of, i. 349 + + Akâsa, or life-principle, i. 113; + known to Hindu magicians, _ib._; + same as Archæus, i. 125; + a designation of astral and celestial lights combined, forming + the _anima mundi_, and constituting the soul and spirit of man, + i. 139; + the will, i. 144 + + Ak-Ad or Akkad, meaning suggested, i. 579 + + Akkadians, introduced the worship of Bel or Baal, i. 263; + progenitors and Aryan instructors of the Chaldeans, i. 576; + never a Turanian tribe, _ib._; + a tribe of Hindus, _ib._; + from Armenia, perhaps from Ceylon, i. 578; + invented by Lenormant, ii. 423 + + Akiba in the garden of delights, ii. 119 + + Aksakof, i. 41, 46; protests against the decision of Prof. + Mendeleyeff and commission adverse to mediumism, i. 118 + + Alba petra, or white stone of initiation, ii. 351 + + Alberico and not Amerigo, the name of Vespucius or Vespuzio, i. 591 + + Albertus Magnus, ii. 20 + + Albigenses, descendants of the Gnostics, ii. 502 + + Albumazar on the identity of the myths, ii. 489 + + Alchemical principles, i. 191 + + Alchemists, i. 66, 205 + + Alchemy, universally studied, i. 502; + old as tradition, i. 503; + books destroyed by Diocletian, the Roman Emperor, _ib._ + + Alchemy and magic prevalent among the clergy, ii. 57 + + Aleim or Eloim, gods or powers, also priests, i. 575 + + Alexander of Macedonia, his expedition into India doubtful, ii. 429 + + Alexandrian library, the most precious rolls preserved, ii. 27; + learned Copts do not believe it destroyed, ii. 28; + obtained from the Asiatics, _ib._; + school, derived the soul from the ether or world-soul, i. 316. + + Algebra, i. 536 + + Alkahest, i. 50; + the universal solvent clear water, i. 133; + overlooked by the French Academy, i. 165; + explained by Van Helmont and Paracelsus, i. 191 + + Allegory, becomes sacred history, ii. 406; + reserved for the inner sanctuary, ii. 493 + + Alligators do not disturb fakirs, i. 383 + + Allopathists in medicine enemies to psychology, i. 88; + oppose everything till stamped as regular, _ib._; + oppose discoveries, _ib._ + + All things formed after the model, i. 302 + + “Almighty, the Nebulous,” i. 129 + + Al-om-jah, an Egyptian hierophant, ii. 364 + + Alsatians believe Paracelsus to be only sleeping in his grave, ii. 500 + + Amasis, King of Egypt, sends a linen garment to Lindus, i. 536 + + Amazons, their circle-dance in Palestine, ii. 45 + + Amberley, Viscount, regards Jesus as an iconoclastic idealist, ii. + 562; + looks down upon the social plane indicated by the great Sopher, + _ib._ + + Amenthes, or Amenti, has no blazing hell, ii. 11 + + Americ, or great mountain, the name of a range in Central America + visited by Columbus, i. 592 + + America, Central, lost cities, i. 239; + not named from Vespucius, i. 591; + name found in Nicaragua, i. 592; + first applied to the continent in 1522, _ib._; + Markland, _ib._; + note of A. Wilder, _ib._; + the conservatory of spiritual sensitives, ii. 19 + + American lodges know nothing of esoteric Masonry, ii. 376; + templarism, its three degrees, ii. 383 + + Americans to join the Catholic Church, ii. 379 + + Amita or Buddha, his realm, i. 601 + + Ammonius Sakkas, i. 443; + dated his philosophy from Hermes, ii. 342 + + Amrita, the supreme soul, i. 265 + + Amulet, a soldier made proof by one against bullets, i. 378 + + Amulets and relics, spells and phylacteries, ii. 352 + + Amun, i. 262 + + An, spirits of, ii. 387 + + Anæsthesia, its discovery by Wells, i. 539; + the improvements by Morton, Simpson, and Colton, i. 540; + understood by the Egyptians and Brahmans, _ib._ + + Anahit, the earth, i. 11 + + Anathems, a custom original with Christians, ii. 334 + + Anaxagoras, belief concerning spiritual prototypes, i. 158 + + Anaximenes held the doctrine of evolution or development, i. 238 + + Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite a Jesuitical product, ii. 390 + + Ancient Philosophies, based on the doctrine of God the universal mind + diffused throughout nature, i. 289; + books written symbolically, i. 19; + of the ancient, i. 302; + Code of Manu, not in our possession, i. 585, 586; + landmarks of Masonry departed from, ii. 380; + mysteries hidden only from the profane, ii. 121; + religions, the wisdom or doctrine, their basis, ii. 99; + identical as to their secret meaning, ii. 410; + derived from one primitive worship, ii. 412; + word, note of Emanuel Swedenborg, ii. 470; + in Buddhistic Tartary, ii. 471 + + Ancients, monotheistical before Moses, i. 23; + knew certain sciences better than modern savants, i. 25; + regarded the physical sun as only an emblem, i. 270; + practiced psychometry, i. 331; + their religion that of the future, i. 613 + + Anderson, author of the Constitutions of 1723 and 1738, a Masonic + impostor, ii. 389; + Steve, his spiritual advisers anxious for his speedy execution lest + he should fall from grace, ii. 543 + + Angelo, Michel, his remarkable gem, i. 240 + + Angkor, figures purely archaic, i. 567 + + Anglican Church adopting again the Roman usages, ii. 544 + + Anima, i. 37 + + Anima Mundi, or world-soul, i. 56, 258; + same as Nirvana, i. 291; + feminine with the Gnostics and Nazarenes, i. 300; + bi-sexual, i. 301; + same as the astral light, _ib._; + an igneous, ethereal nature, i. 316, 317; + the human soul born upon leaving, i. 345 + + Animals, perhaps immortal, argument of Agassiz, i. 420, 427; + argument from natural instinct, i. 426, 427; + shut up in the ark, ii. 447 + + Animation, suspended, i. 483; + voluntarily, _ib._; + in cataleptic clairvoyance, i. 489 + + Anna, St., going in quest of her daughter Mary, ii. 491; + the origin of the name, _ib._ + + Annas and Caiaphas confess Jesus to be the Son of God, ii. 522 + + Annihilation, the meaning of the Buddhist doctrine, i. 290; + of the soul, i. 319 + + Annoia, ii. 282, 286 + + Anthesteria, the baptism and passage through the gate, ii. 245, 246 + + Anthropomorphic devil the bottom card, ii. 479 + + Anti-Christ, a fable invented as a precaution, ii. 535 + + Antichristianism, seeking to overthrow Christianity by science, i. 337 + + Anti-Masonic Convention denying the validity of an oath, ii. 373-375 + + Antipathy, its beginning, i. 309 + + Antitypes of men to be born, i. 310 + + Antiquity of human race, over 250,000 years, i. 3; + of necromancy and spiritualism, remote, i. 205; + lost natural philosophy, i. 235; + of optical instruments, gunpowder, the steam-engine, astronomical + science, i. 240, 241; + of the flood, i. 241; + opinion of Aristotle, i. 428 + + Ape, astral body, i. 327; + a degenerated man, ii. 278 + + Apis, the bull, secret book concerning his age, i. 406 + + Apocryphal Gospels first received and then discarded, ii. 518 + + Apollo made the prince of demons and lord of the under-world, ii. 488 + + Apollonius of Tyana, his journey an allegory, i. 19; + regard for stones, i. 265; + cast out devils, i. 356; + his power to witness the present and the future, i. 486; + beheld an empusa or ghûl, i. 604; + testimony of Justin Martyr respecting his powers, ii. 97; + not a “spirit-medium,” ii. 118; + his mistake, ii. 341; + his conjurations when wrapped in a woolen mantle, ii. 344; + visited Kashmere, ii. 434; + the faculty of his soul to quit the body, ii. 597; + vanished from sight and renewal elsewhere, _ib._ + + Apollyon, his various characters, ii. 511 + + Apophis, or Apap, the dragon, infests the soul, ii. 368 + + Apostles, Acts of, rejected, ii. 182; + Creed a forgery, ii. 514 + + Apostles of Buddhism, ii. 608 + + Apparitions of spirits of animals, i. 326 + + Appleton’s New American Cyclopædia misstates the date of the laws of + Manu, i. 587 + + Apuleius’ doctrine concerning birth and death of the soul, ii. 345; + on the beatific vision, ii. 145; + accused of black magic, ii. 149 + + Aquinas, Thomas, destroys the brazen oracular head of Albertus + Magnus, ii. 56 + + Arabic manuscripts, 80,000 burned at Granada, i. 511 + + Aralez, Armenian gods who revivify men, ii. 564 + + Arcane powers in Man, ii. 112; + knowledge and sorcery, ii. 583 + + Archæus, i. 14; + same as Chaos, fire, sidereal or astral light, psychic or ektenic + force, Akasa, etc., i. 125; + the principle of life, i. 400 + + Archæologists, their attacks on each other, ii. 471, 472 + + Archetypal man a spheroid, ii. 469 + + Architecture of the Egyptian temples, i. 517 + + Architectural remains in different countries, their remarkable + identity of parts, i. 572 + + Archons of this world, ii. 89, 90 + + Archytas, instructor of Plato, constructed a wooden dove, i. 543; + invented the screw and crane, _ib._ + + Arctic regions visited by the Phœnicians, i. 545 + + Argha, or ark, ii. 444 + + Arhat, i. 291; + reaches Nirvana while on earth, ii. 320 + + Arhats, free from evil desire, i. 346 + + Aristotle on the human soul and the world-soul, i. 251; + three natural principles, i. 310; + on gas from the earth, i. 200; + on form, i. 312; + on the _nous_ and _psuche_, i. 316; + on the filth element, i. 317; + believed in the nous and psuche, the reasoning and the animal soul, + i. 317; + borrowed doctrines from Pythagoras, i. 319, 320; + believed in a past eternity of human existence, i. 428; + doctrine of two-fold soul, i. 429; + taught the Buddhistic doctrine, i. 430; + believed light to be itself an energy, i. 510; + contradicted by the Neo-Platonists, i. 430; + taught that the earth was the centre of the universe, i. 408; + obnoxious to Christian theology, ii. 34; + upon Jon or יהוה, ii. 302 + + Ark, what it represents, ii. 444 + + Armenian tradition of giving life to a slain warrior, ii. 564 + + Armor, Prof., theory of malformations, i. 392 + + Arnobius, believed the soul corporeal, i. 317 + + Artesian well, used in China, i. 517 + + Articles of faith of the ancient wisdom-religions, ii. 116 + + Artificial lakes in ancient temples in Egypt, Asia, and America, i. + 572 + + Artificially fecundated woman, i. 77, 81 + + Arts in the archaic ages, i. 405, 406 + + Artufas, the temples of nagualism, i. 557 + + Aryan, Median, Persian, and Hindu, also the Gothic and Slavic + peoples, i. 576; + nations, had no devil, ii. 10; + carried bronze manufacture into Europe, i. 539; + united, 3,000 B.C., ii. 433; + in the valley of the upper Indus, _ib._; + did not borrow from the Semites, ii. 426 + + Asbestos, i. 229; + thread and oil made from it, i. 504 + + Asclepiadotus, reproduces chemically the exhalations of the sacred + oracle-grotto, i. 531 + + Asdt, אשדת (_Deut._ xxxiii. 2), signifies emanations, but + mistranslated, ii. 34 + + Asgârtha, temple in India, ii. 31 + + Ash-trees, third race of men created from, i. 558 + + Ashmole, Elias, the Rosicrucian, the first operative Mason of note, + ii. 349 + + Asia, middle belt, perhaps once a sea-bed, i. 590, 592 + + Asideans, or Khasdims, the same as Pharsi or Pharisees, ii. 441 + + Asmodeus, or Æshma-deva, ii. 482 + + Asmonean priest-kings promulgated the _Old Testament_ in opposition + to the Apocrypha, ii. 135; + first Pharisees, and then Sadducees, _ib._ + + Asoka and Augustine, ii. 32; + his missionaries, ii. 42; + the Buddhist, sent missionaries to other countries, ii. 491 + + Ass, the form of Typhon, ii. 484; + its Coptic name, AO, a phonetic of Iao, _ib._; + head found in the temple, ii. 523 + + Assyria, the land of Nimrod, or Bacchus, i. 568 + + Assyrians basso-relievos at Nagkon-Wat, i. 566; + sphinxes, ii. 451; + tablets, the flood, ii. 422 + + Assyrians, their archaic empire, ii. 486 + + Astral atmosphere, i. 314; + body or doppelganger, i. 360; + of the ape, i. 327; + fire, represented by the serpent, i. 137; + fluid can be compressed about the body, to protect it from + violence, i. 378, 380; + a bolt of it can be directed with fatal force, i. 380; + form oozing out of the body, i. 179; + bound to the corpse and infesting the living, i. 432; + light, i. 56, 156, 247; + the Ob or Python, i. 158; + currents, i. 247; + same as the anima mundi, i. 301; + dual and bi-sexual, _ib._; + Soul or Spirit, i. 12; + divided by H. More into the aërial and ætherial vehicles, i. 206; + said to linger about the body 3,000 years, i. 226; + doctrine of Epicurus, i. 250; + the perisprit, composed of matter, i. 289; + not immortal, i. 432; + virgin, i. 126 + + Astrograph, i. 385 + + Astrologers, Chaldean, i. 205 + + Astrology, i. 259 + + Astronomus, the title of the highest initiate, ii. 365 + + Astronomical calculations of Chaldeans and Egyptians, i. 21; + of Chaldeans and Aztecs, i. 11, 241; + of Chinese, i. 241 + + Aswatha, the Hindu tree of life, i. 152, 153 + + Athanor, the, the Archimedean lever, i. 506 + + Atheism, not a Buddhistical doctrine, i. 292 + + Atharva-Veda, great value, ii. 414, 415 + + Athbach, ii. 299 + + Atheists, none among heathen populations, ii. 240; + none in days of old, ii. 530 + + Athos, Mount, story of the manuscripts, ii. 52 + + Athothi, king of Egypt, writes a book on anatomy, i. 406 + + Athtor, or Mother Night, i. 91 + + Atlantis, the legend believed, i. 557 + + Atlantic ocean, once intersected by islands and a continent, i. 557, + 558; + mentioned in the _Secret Book_, i. 590; + perhaps the actual name of the great Southern continent in the + Indian Ocean, i. 591; + name not Greek, _ib._; + probable etymology of the name, _ib._; + two orders of inhabitants, i. 592, 593; + their fall, and the submersion of the island, i. 593 + + Atma, i. 346 + + Atman, the spiritual self, recognized as God, ii. 566 + + Atmospheric electricity embodied in demi-gods, i. 261 + + Atoms, doctrine taught by Demokritus, i. 249 + + Atonement, origin of the doctrine, ii. 41; + error of Prof. Draper, _ib._; + mysteries of initiation, ii. 42 + + Attraction, the great mystery, i. 338 + + Audhumla, the cow or female principle, i. 147 + + Augoeides, or part of the divine spirit, i. 12, 306, 315; + cannot be communed with by a hierophant with a touch of mortal + passion, i. 358; + self-shining vision of the future self, ii. 115; + the âtman or self, ii. 317 + + Augsburgian Jesuits desirous to change the Sabean emblems, ii. 450 + + Augustine, his accession to Christianity placed theology and science + at everlasting enmity, ii. 88; + his directions about the ladies’ toilet, ii. 331; + scouted the sphericity of the earth, ii. 477; + affirmed a predestinated state of happiness and predetermined + reprobation, ii. 546 + + A U M, meaning of the sacred letters, ii. 31; + the holy primitive syllable, ii. 39; + and Tum, ii. 387 + + Aur, i. 158 + + Aura Placida, deified into two martyrs, ii. 248 + + Aureole, from Babylonia, ii. 95 + + Auricular confession in the Anglican church, ii. 544 + + Aurora borealis, conjectures concerning it of scientists, i. 417 + + Aurumgahad, i. 349; + Buddhistic mementos, i. 349 + + Austin Friars, or Augustinians, outdone in magic by the Jesuits, i. + 445 + + Avany, the Virgin, by whom the first Buddha was incarnated, ii. 322 + + Avatar, i. 291; + the earliest, ii. 427 + + Avatars and emanations, ii. 155, 156; + of Vishnu, ii. 274; + they symbolize evolution of races, ii. 275 + + Avicenna, on chickens with hawks’ heads, i. 385 + + Azaz-El, or Siva, ii. 302, 303 + + Azoth, or creative principle, symbol, i. 462; + blunder of de Mirville, _ib._ + + Aztecs, of Mexico, their calendar, i. 11; + resembled the ancient Egyptians, i. 560 + + + Baal, prophets danced the circle-dance of the Amazons, ii. 45; + Tsephon, god of the crypt, ii. 487; + how his hierophants procured apparitions, ii. 567 + + Babies speaking good French, i. 371 + + Babinet on table-turning, i. 60, 101, 104; + declares levitation impossible and is refuted, i. 105; + his story of a fire-globe resembling a cat, i. 107 + + Babylon, built by those who escaped the deluge, i. 31; + after three conquerors, i. 534; + the great mother, or Magna Mater, ii. 501 + + Babylonia, the seat of Sanscrit literature, ii. 428 + + Babylonian priests, asserted their observations to have extended back + 470,000 years, i. 533; + system defined, ii. 170 + + Bacchic fan, held by Osiris, ii. 494 + + Bacchus, a saint of the Roman calendar, i. 160; + worship among the Jews, ii. 128; + “the son of God,” ii. 492; + myth, contains the history of the gods, ii. 527; + the Prophet-God, ii. 527, 528; + a saint in the calendar, ii. 528; + or Dionysus, his Indian origin, ii. 560 + + Bacon, Roger, miracles, i. 69; + predicted the use of steam and other modern inventions, i. 413 + + Badagas, a people of Hindustan who revere and maintain the Todas, ii. + 613-615 + + Bad demons, i. 343 + + Bael-tur, sacred to Siva, i. 469 + + Baggage from the Pagan mysteries, ii. 334 + + Bahak-Zivo, i. 298; + ordered to create, i. 299; + the creator, ii. 134 + + Bahira, the Nestorian monk, ii. 54 + + Balahala, the fifth degree, ii. 365 + + Balam Acan, a Toltecan king, i. 553 + + Ban, on spiritualistic writings, ii. 8 + + Banyan, the tree of knowledge and life, ii. 293 + + Baphomet, the alleged god of the Templars, ii. 302 + + Baptism of blood, the slaughter of a hierophant or an animal, ii. 42; + a general practice, ii. 134 + + Baptismal font in Egyptian pyramids, i. 519 + + Baptist preachers’ meeting in New York, ii. 473, 474; + a warm doctrine, _ib._ + + Baptista Porta, i. 66 + + Baptists, ii. 291 + + Bardesanian system, ii. 224 + + Barjota, Curé de, his magical powers, ii. 60; + saves the Pope’s life, _ib._ + + Barlaam and Josaphat, a ridiculous romance, ii. 580 + + Barrachias-Hassan-Oglu, i. 43 + + Barri (Italy), a statue of the Madonna with crinoline, ii. 9 + + Bart, his testimony in regard to Herakles, ii. 515 + + Basic matter of gold, i. 50 + + Basileus, the archon taking charge of the Eleusinians, ii. 90 + + Basilidean system, the exposition of Irenæus, ii. 157 + + Basilides, description of Clement, ii. 123; + derived his doctrines from the Gospel according to Matthew, ii. 155; + his doctrines set forth by Tertullian, ii. 189 + + Bastian, Dr., his conception of the temple of Angkor or Nagkon-Wat, + i. 567, 568 + + Batria, the wife of Pharaoh, teacher of Moses, i. 25 + + Battle of life, ii. 112 + + Baubo, in the Mysteries, what she directed, ii. 112 + + Bayle, his testimony on spurious relics, ii. 72 + + Beads and rosaries, of Buddhistic origin, ii. 95. + + Beatific vision or epopteia, testimony of Paul and Apuleius, ii. 146 + + Beaujeu, Count, his Masonic imposture, ii. 381 + + Beaumont, Elie de, on terrestrial circulation, i. 503 + + Beausobre, on the Rasit or Principle, ii. 36 + + Beel-Zebub (more properly Beel-Zebul, the Baal of the Temple) the + same as Apollo, the Oracle-God, ii. 481; + nicknamed Beel-Zebub, a god of flies, ii. 486 + + Beer made in ancient Egypt, i. 543 + + Bel, a personification of the Hindu Siva, i. 263; + and the dragon, i. 550; + Baal, the Devil, i. 552 + + Belial, a Diakka, ii. 482 + + Believers in magic, mesmerism and spiritualism, 800,000,000, i. 512 + + Bellarmin, Cardinal, his vision about the bottomless pit, ii. 8 + + Bells before the shrine of Jupiter-Ammon, ii. 95; + in Jewish and Buddhistic rites, _ib._ + + Belus, the first Assyrian king, deified, i. 552 + + Ben Asai, in the garden of delights, ii. 119; + Zoma, in the garden of delights, ii. 119 + + Benedict, St., and his black raven, ii. 78 + + Bengal, magical seance, i. 467 + + Bengalese conjurers and jugglers, i. 457; + planting trees, etc., which grew at once, _ib._ + + Bethlehem, grotto of, temple of Adonis, ii. 139 + + Beverages to produce visions, ii. 117 + + Bhagaved-gita, opinion of du Perron, ii. 562; + reverenced by the Brahmans, _ib._; + contains the greatest mysteries of the Brahmanic religion, ii. 563; + reverenced alike by Brahmanists and Buddhists, _ib._ + + Bhagavant, the same as Parabrahma, i. 91; + endued Brahma with creative power, i. 90; + not a creator, i. 347; + enters the world-egg, _ib._ + + Bhagaved, i. 148 + + Bhangulpore, Round Tower, ii. 5 + + Bhutavan, the Spirit of Evil, created to destroy the incarnation of + the sin of Brahma, i. 265 + + Bible, antedated by Vedas, i. 91; + its allegories repeated in Talapoin and Ceylonese traditions and + manuscripts, i. 577; + used as a weapon against the people who furnished it, ii. 96; + an allegorical screen of the Kabala, ii. 210; + the great light of modern Masonry, ii. 389; + four or five times written over, ii. 470; + when made up, ii. 471; + a secret volume, _ib._; + Patriarchs only zodiacal signs, ii. 459 + + Bilocation, i. 361 + + Binlang-stone, ii. 234 + + Biographers of the Devil, ii. 15 + + Birds, sung a mass for St. Francis, ii. 77 + + Birs-Nimrud, the temple of seven stages, i. 261 + + Birth of the human soul, i. 345 + + Birth-marks, i. 384 + + Bisexual, the first man, i. 559 + + Bishops of the fourth century illiterate, ii. 251 + + Black-faced Christ in India, ii. 532 + + Black gods worshipped by the Yakuts, ii. 568, 569 + + Blackguardism of Father Weninger, ii. 379 + + Black magic practised at the Vatican, ii. 6; + sorcery and witchcraft, an abuse, ii. 118; + mirror, i. 596; + reveals to the Inca queen her husband’s death, _ib._; + virgins in French cathedrals, figures of Isis, ii. 95 + + “Bleeding Head” of a murdered child employed as an oracle, ii. 56; + image, ii. 17 + + Blessed Virgin gives a demoniac a sound thrashing, ii. 76 + + Blind Force plus intelligence, i. 199; + psychic force, _ib._ + + Blood, the baptism, ii. 42; + of Jesus Christ, a phial of it presented to Henry III. of England, + ii. 71; + eagerness of spirits for it, i. 344; + its circulation understood by the Egyptians, i. 544; + liquefied at Naples and Nargercoil, in India, i. 613; + its emanations serve spirits with material for their apparitions, + ii. 567; + the universal Proteus and arcanum of life, _ib._; + -demons, i. 353; + -evocation by the Yakuts, Bulgarians and Moldavians, ii. 569, 570 + + Bloody legislation of Protestant countries against witchcraft, ii. + 503; + rites in Hayti, ii. 572 + + Blue, held in aversion as the symbol of evil, ii. 446; + ray, i. 137, 264; + -violet, the seventh ray, most responsive of all, i. 514 + + Body, the sepulchre of the soul, ii. 112; + how long it may be kept alive, ii. 563; + of Moses, a symbol for Palestine, ii. 482; + may be obsessed by spirits during the temporary absence of the + soul, ii. 589 + + Boismont, de, Brierre, on hallucinations, i. 144 + + Boodhasp, the founder of Sabism or baptism, ii. 290, 291 + + Book of the Dead, Egyptian, i. 517, 518; + quoted in the Gospel according to Matthew, ii. 548; + older than Menes, ii. 361; + of Jasher, i. 549; + of Jasher, the _Old Testament_ condensed, ii. 399; + of Numbers, Chaldean, i. 32 + + Books lost and destroyed, i. 24; + of Hermes, i. 33; + of Hermes, attested by the Champollions, i. 625 + + Births, feast of, supposed to be Bacchic, ii. 44, 45 + + Bosheth, Israelites consecrated, ii. 130 + + Both-al, Batylos, and Beth-el, i. 550 + + Bourbourg, Brasseur de, publishes _Popol Vuh_, i. 2 + + Boussingault on table-turning, i. 60 + + Bozrah, the convent there the place where the seed of Islam was sown, + ii. 54 + + Brachmans in Greece, ii. 321 + + Brahm, i. 291 + + Brahma, a secondary deity, like Jehovah, the demiurgos, i. 91; + evolved himself, and then brought nature from himself, i. 93; + creates Lomus, i. 133; + produces spiritual beings, then daints or giants, and, finally, the + castes of men, i. 148; + the name of the universal germ, ii. 261; + night of, ii. 272, 273, 421; + manifested as twelve attributes or gods, i. 348; + day and night, ii. 421 + + Brahma-Prajapati committed the first sin, i. 265; + his repentance and the hottest tear, _ib._ + + Brahm-âtma, or chief of the initiates, had the two crossed keys, ii. + 31 + + Brahman, his astounding declaration to Jacolliot, ii. 585 + + Brahmanas, ii. 409, 410; + the key to the Rig-Veda, ii. 415 + + Brahmanical religion, stated in the doctrine of God as the Universal + mind diffused through all things, i. 289 + + Brahmanism, pre-Vedic, identical with Buddhism, ii. 142; + Buddhism its primitive source, ii. 169 + + Brahman gods, Siva, Surya, and the Aswins denounced in the _Avesta_, + ii. 482, 483 + + Brahman-Yoggins, i. 307; + story of descent from giants, i. 122; + theories of the sun and moon, i. 264; + their powers of prediction and clairvoyance, i. 446; + possess secrets of anæsthesia, i. 540; + widows burned without hurting them, _ib._; + know that the rite of widow-burning was never prescribed, i. 541; + their religion exclusive, and not to be disseminated, i. 581; + dispossessed the Jaina natives of India, ii. 323; + in Babylonia, ii. 428; + and Buddhists, their extraordinary probity, ii. 474; + how it has deteriorated by Christian association, _ib._ + + Brain, substance changed by thought and sensation, i. 249, 250; + silvery spark in, i. 329 + + Brazen serpent, the caduceus of Mercury or Asklepios, i. 556; + symbol of Esculapius or Iao, ii. 481; + worshipped by the Israelites, _ib._; + broken by Hezekiah, ii. 440 + + Bread-and-mutton protoplasms, i. 421 + + Bread and wine, a sacrifice of great antiquity, ii. 43, 44, 513 + + Breath, immortal, infusing life, i. 302 + + Brighou, the pragâpati and his patriarchal descendants, ii. 427 + + Bronze age, i. 534 + + Bronze introduced into Europe 6,000 years ago by Aryan immigrants, i. + 539 + + Brothers of the Shadow, i. 319 + + Broussard on magnetism and medicine, ii. 610 + + Bruno, why slaughtered, i. 93; + Prof. Draper misrepresents him, i. 94; + held Jesus to be a magician, _ib._; + accusation against him, i. 95; + his reply, i. 96; + declared this world a star, _ib._; + acknowledged an universal Providence, _ib._; + doubted the Trinity, i. 97; + a Pythagorean, i. 98 + + Brutal force adored by Christendom, ii. 334 + + Buchanan, Prof. J. R., criticises Agassiz, i. 63; + his bridge from physical impression to consciousness, i. 87; + theory of psychometry, i. 182; + on tendency of gestures to follow the phrenological organs, i. 500 + + Buddha, the formless Brahm, i. 291; + the monad, _ib._, 550; + incarnation, _ib._; + his lama representative, i. 437, 438; + appearing of his shadow to Hiouen-Thsang, i. 600; + never deified by his followers, ii. 240; + a social rather than a religious reformer, ii. 339; + tempted and victorious, ii. 513; + never wrote, ii. 559; + his lessons to his disciples, _ib._; + taught the new birth, ii. 566; + breaks with the old mysteries, _ib._; + or Sommona-Cadom, the Siamese Saviour, ii. 576; + changed by the Vatican into St. Josaphat, ii. 579; + “just as if he had been a Christian,” ii. 581 + + Buddha-Siddârtha, i. 34; + -Gautama, i. 92; + lived 2,540 years ago, ii. 537; + teaches how to escape reincarnation, i. 346 + + Buddhism based on the doctrine of God, the universal Mind diffused + through all things, i. 289; + prehistoric, the once universal religion, ii. 123; + preached by Jesus, ii. 123; + its ethics, ii. 124; + identical with pre-Vedic Brahmanism, ii. 142; + the primitive source of Brahmanism, ii. 169; + its groundwork the kabalistic doctrine, i. 271; + its doctrine based on works, ii. 288; + esoteric doctrines, ii. 319; + the religion of the earlier Vedas, ii. 436; + degenerated into Lamaism, ii. 582 + + Buddhist patriarch of Nangasaki, ii. 79; + system, how mastered, i. 289; + monks in Syria and Babylon, ii. 290; + went so far as Ireland, _ib._; + theories of sun and moon, i. 264; + respect for the sapphire-stone, _ib._ + + Buddhistic element in Gnosticism and missionaries in Greece, ii. 321; + theology, four schools, ii. 533 + + Bull the emblem of life everywhere, ii. 235, 236; + against the comet, ii. 509; + and syllabus burned by the Bohemians, ii. 560 + + Bull’s eye in the target of Christianity, ii. 476 + + Bullets successfully resisted by talismans, i. 378 + + Bulwer-Lytton, his description of the _vril_, or primal force, i. 64, + 125; + elementary beings, i. 285, 289; + the Vril-ya, or coming race, i. 296 + + Bunsen, testimony concerning the Origines of Egypt, i. 529; + description of the Pyramid of Cheops, i. 518; + account of the Egyptian skill in quarrying, _ib._; + on the word PTR, ii. 93; + his opinion respecting Zoroaster and the Baktrian emigration, ii. + 432; + his opinion of Khamism, ii. 435; + on the exodus of the Israelites, ii. 558 + + Bur, the offspring of Audhumla, i. 147 + + Burning men to avoid shedding their blood, i. 64; + scientists about as ready as clergy, i. 85 + + Buried cities in Hindustan, i. 350 + + Butlerof, Prof. A., on the facts of spiritualism, ii. 3 + + + Cabeirians, i. 23 + + Cable-tow, the Brahmanical cord, ii. 393 + + Cadière, Mlle., her seduction by a Jesuit priest, ii. 633, 634 + + Cagliostro, an Hermetic philosopher, persecuted by the Church of + Rome, i. 200; + said to have made gold and diamonds, i. 509 + + Cain, ancestor of the Hivites, or Serpents, ii. 446; + and Siva, ii. 448; + or Kenu, the eldest, ii. 464 + + Calmeil imputes theomania of the Calvinists to hysteria and epilepsy, + i. 371; + his explanation of their extraordinary power of resistance to + blows, i. 375 + + Calmet, Dom, on vampires, i. 452 + + Calvin affirmed election, original sin, and reprobation, ii. 547 + + Carnac, the serpent’s mount, i. 554 + + Campanile Column, of St. Mark’s, in Venice, its original, ii. 5 + + Canals of Egypt, i. 516, 517 + + Canonical books, enforced eliminations, ii. 143; + selected by sortilege, ii. 251 + + Capuchins, their Christmas observances, ii. 365 + + Carpenter, W. B., lecture on Egypt, i. 440 + + Carthage more civilized than Rome, i. 520; + built long before the taking of Troy, _ib._; + not built by Dido, _ib._ + + Cataclysms, periodical, i. 31 + + Catalepsy and vampirism, i. 449, 450 + + Catherine of Medicis employed a sorcerer, ii. 55; + her resort to the charm of “the bleeding head,” ii. 56 + + Catholic ritual of pagan origin, ii. 85; + miracle in Poland means revolution, ii. 17; + must be Ultramontane and Jesuit, ii. 356; + missionaries becoming Talapoins, ii. 531 + + Catholicism more fetish-worshipping than Hinduism, ii. 80 + + Catholics persecute other Christians, ii. 81 + + Causes, Platonic division, i. 393 + + Cave-men of Les Eyzies, i. 295 + + Cave-temples of Ajunta, Buddhistic, i. 349; + of India, claimed by the Jainas, ii. 323 + + Caves of Mithras, ii. 491 + + Celestial Virgin pursued by the Dragon, a mystery and representation + in the constellations, ii. 490 + + Celsus, his accusations of the Christians, ii. 51; + not being refuted, his books burned, ii. 51, 52; + a copy probably existing at a monastery on Mount Athos, ii. 52; + his opinion of Jesus, ii. 530 + + Celebrated vase of the Genoa Cathedral, its material not known, i. + 537, 538 + + Celt, probably a hybrid of the Aryan and Iberians of Europe, i. 576 + + Cement, ancient, i. 239 + + Cenchrea, Paul shorn and Lucius initiated there, ii. 90 + + Centenarians, Parr, Jenkins, and others, ii. 564 + + Central America, her peoples to be traced to the Phœnicians and + Mosaic Israelites, i. 555; + Asia, the face of the country changed, ii. 426; + Invisible, i. 302 + + Cerebral electricity, its dependence upon the statical, i. 322 + + Ceremony of withdrawing the soul, ii. 603 + + Ceres or Demeter, the female or passive productive principle, ii. 560 + + Cerinthus, his doctrines described by Irenæus, ii. 176 + + Cevennes, prophets of, i. 221; + the Convulsionaires, miraculous occurrences, i. 370; + statement by Figuier, i. 370, 371 + + Chair of St. Fiacre and its prolificating virtue, ii. 332 + + Chaldean Arba and Christian Four, ii. 171; + oracles, i. 535; + denounce augury, _ib._ + + Chaldeans, their correct astronomical calculations, i. 11; + their magic, i. 66; + their theory of magic, i. 459; + their origin, ii. 46; + Hebrew Sanscrit, _ib._ + + Champollion declares the Egyptians monotheists, i. 24; + his description of Karnak, i. 523; + synopsis of his discoveries, i. 530 + + Chandragupta, his exploits, ii. 607, 608 + + Chaos, the Female Principle, i. 61; + Archæus, Akasa, i. 125; + the Soul of the World, i. 129; + and ether, the first two, i. 341 + + Charlatan only will ever use mercury as a medicine, ii. 621 + + Charms, the Dharani, their extraordinary powers, i. 471 + + Charmed life, i. 379 + + Charmers, their power over beasts and reptiles, i. 381 + + Charybdis, the maëlstrom, i. 545 + + Chemi, or Chem, the ancient name of Egypt, i. 541 + + Chemical vapors taking forms, i. 127 + + Chemicals keep away disagreeable physical phenomena, i. 356, 357 + + Chemist and magician compared, i. 464 + + Chemistry, ancient proficiency, i. 50; + revolution, i. 163; + Egypt its cradle, i. 541; + called alchemy, i. 542 + + Cheops, his engraved ring, i. 240; + pyramid of, its measure and weight, i. 518; + Prof. Smyth’s descriptions, i. 520 + + Cherub, one of his nails preserved as a relic, ii. 71; + of Jeheskiel, ii. 451 + + Cherubs, the vehans of deity, ii. 231 + + Chess played in Egypt and India 5,000 years ago, i. 544 + + Chevalier Ramsay, the Jesuit inventor of the Scottish Rite, ii. 390 + + Chicago murderers converted in prison, ii. 543 + + Child, Mrs. Lydia M., remarks on Hindu emblems, i. 583; ii. 445 + + Child-burning by the Jesuits, ii. 65 + + Child-medium, Sanscrit written in her presence, i. 368; + Kate Fox’s son, i. 439 + + Children, born malformed, wounded, and parts cut away, i. 386; + may kill their parents, ii. 363; + sacrificed to Moloch-Hercules, at Tophet, in the valley of Hinnom, + ii. 11 + + China, the glass, i. 537; + metal work, i. 538 + + Chinese believe in the art of overcoming mortality, i. 214; + ancient emperor puts two astronomers to death, i. 241 + + _Chitonuth our_, chitons or coats of skin, a priestly garb, i. 575; + Adam and his wife invested by יהוה אלהים, Java Aleim, _ib._ + + Chrestians before Christians, ii. 323 + + Chrestos, worshipped many centuries before Christ, ii. 324; + Christians and Jews alike united, ii. 558 + + Christ a reïncarnationist, ii. 145; + destroyed Jehovah-worship, ii. 527; + a modified Christna, ii. 532; + a personage rather than a person, ii. 576 + + Christian spiritualists, i. 54; + denominations, peculiarity of their deity, ii. 2, 354, 485, 581; + spent on their buildings, ii. 2; + the spiritualists in them, ii. 2; + hatred of spiritualism, ii. 4; + symbols, presence of phallism, ii. 5; + Church, with the rites and priestly robes of heathenism, ii. 96; + doctrines classified, ii. 145; + doctrines, their origin in Middle Asia, ii. 338; + Gnostics, ii. 324; + appeared just as the Essenes disappeared, _ib._; + Sabbath, its date, ii. 419; + theology, its origin, ii. 525 + + Christianity, early, based on the doctrine of God, the universal mind + diffused through all things, i. 285; + description of Max Müller, ii. 10; + pure heathenism, ii. 80; + primitive, had secret pass-words and rites, ii. 204; + doctrines taken from Brahmanism and Buddhism, the ceremonials and + pageantry from Lamaism, ii. 211; + its true spirit found only in Buddhism, ii. 240; + made little change from Roman paganism, ii. 334; + its doctrines plagiarized, ii. 346; + and a personal God repudiated by Freemasons at Lausanne, ii. 377; + bull’s eye in its target, ii. 476; + theological, the Devil its patron genius, ii. 478; + its symbols anticipated by the older religions, ii. 557; + Paul the real founder, ii. 574; + stripped of every feature to make it acceptable to the Siamese, ii. + 579 + + Christians, few understand Jewish theology, i. 17; + divided into three unequal parties, ii. 3; + why they quarrelled with the Pagans, ii. 51; + accepted the worship of the God of the gardens, _ib._; + Old, called Nazarenes, ii. 151; + only seven to twelve in each church, ii. 175; + Pauline and Petrine controversy, _ib._; + of St. John, or Mendæans, ii. 289, 290; + do not believe in Christ, ii. 290; + accused of child-murder at their “perfect passover,” ii. 333; + originally composed of secret societies, ii. 335; + anciently kept no Sabbaths, ii. 419; + claim the discovery of the Devil, ii. 477; + praiseworthy, modified Buddhists, ii. 540; + Russian and Bulgarian, cursed by the Pope, ii. 560 + + Christism, before Christ, ii. 32 + + Christmas festivals of Capuchins, ii. 365 + + Christna, orthography of the name, i. 586; + crushing the head of the serpent, ii. 446; + and his mother with the aureole, ii. 95; + raises the daughter of Angashuna to life, ii. 241; + the good shepherd, crushes the serpent Kalinaga, is crucified, ii. + 447; + Sakya-muni, and Jesus, three men exalted to deity, ii. 536; + lived 6,877 years ago (1877), ii. 537; + his dying words to the hunter, ii. 545, 546; + his eulogy of works rather than contemplations, ii. 563 + + Christos or Crestos, ii. 142; + his entering into the man Jesus at the Jordan, ii. 186; + the Angel Gabriel, ii. 193; + from the Sanskrit kris or sacred, ii. 158; + an aggregation of the emanations, etc., ii. 159 + + Christs of the pre-Christian ages, ii. 43 + + Church and priest, benefits if they were to pass away, ii. 586 + + Church of Rome in 1876, excommunicating and cursing, ii. 6; + her powerless fury against the Bulgarians and Servians, ii. 7; + pre-eminent in murderous propensity, i. 27; + has mightier enemies than “heretics” and “infidels,” ii. 30; + believes in magic, ii. 76; + its maxim to deceive and lie to promote its ends, ii. 303 + + Churches, their phallic symbols, ii. 5; + ancient, only seven to twelve in each, ii. 175. + + Cicero, on divine exhalations from the earth, i. 200; + concerning the gods, i. 280 + + Cipher of the S. P. R. C., the Knight Rosy Cross of Heredom, and of + the Knights Kadosh, ii. 395; + Royal Arch, ii. 396 + + Circle, perfect, decussated, ii. 469; + of necessity, i. 296; + of necessity, when completed, i. 346; + of necessity, the sacred mysteries at Thebes, i. 553; + of stones, i. 572 + + Circle-dance or chorus of the Amazons, performed by King David and + others, ii. 45; + of the Amazons around a priapic image, a common usage and + sanctioned by a Catholic priest, ii. 331, 332; + taught to initiates in the sixth degree, ii. 365 + + Circulation, terrestrial, i. 503; + of the blood, understood by the Egyptians, i. 544 + + City, the mysterious, story of, i. 547 + + Civilization, ancient, i. 239; + of the east preceded that of the west, i. 539 + + Clairvoyance, cataleptic, the subject practically dead, i. 484 + + Clearchus gives five cases of larvæ or vampires, i. 364; + story of the boy whose soul was led away from the body and returned + again, i. 365, 366 + + Clear vision obstructed by physical memory, ii. 591 + + Clemens Alexandrinus, believed in metempsychosis, i. 12; + denounces the Mysteries, ii. 100 + + Cleonymus returned after dying, i. 364 + + Cleopatra sent news by a wire, i. 127 + + Clergy, Greek, Roman and Protestant, discountenance spiritual + phenomena, i. 26; + Roman and Protestant burned and hanged mediums, _ib._; + Protestant, their hatred of spiritualism, ii. 4; + their cast-off garb worn by men of science, ii. 8; + attired in the cast-off garb of the heathen priesthood, _ib._ + + Clerkship of the Templars, ii. 385 + + Clermont system, the Scottish Rite, ii. 381 + + Clinton, De Witt, Grand Master of the first Grand Encampment General, + ii. 383 + + Clocks and dials in ancient periods, i. 536 + + Coats of skin, i. 2, 149; + explained, i. 293; + worn by the priests of Hercules, i. 575; + Adam and his wife so invested, _ib._; + _Chitonuth our_, ii. 458 + + Code of Justinian copied from Manu, i. 586 + + _Codex Nazaræus_ prohibits the worship of Adonai the Sun-god, ii. 131; + denounces Jesus, ii. 132 + + Coffin, from Egypt, dated by astronomical delineations, i. 520, 521 + + Colenso, Bishop, exiled the _Old Testament_, ii. 4 + + Colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences, i. 482 + + Collouca-Batta, account of the migrations of Manu-Vina from India to + Egypt, i. 627 + + Collyridians asserted Mary to be virgin-born, ii. 110; + transferred their worship from Astoreth to Mary, ii. 444 + + Colob, a planet on which the Mormon chief god lives, ii. 2 + + Colored masonry not acknowledged, ii. 391 + + Colquhoun, J. C., on the doctrine of a personal devil, ii. 477 + + Commission, Russian, to investigate spiritual phenomena, i. 117 + + Communication, subjective, with spirits, ii. 115 + + Communication, supposed, with the dead, with angels, devils, and + gods, i. 323 + + Communion with God, a pagan sentiment, ii. 470 + + Companions, or Kabalists, ii. 470 + + Compensation, the law never swerves, ii. 545 + + Comte, Auguste, i. 76; + catechism of religion of positivism, i. 78; + his feminine mystery, i. 81; + his doctrines repudiated by Huxley, i. 82; + his philosophy belonging to David Hume, _ib._; + the ventriloquist, on spiritual phenomena, i. 101 + + Comtists, or positivists, despised and hated, ii. 3 + + Conflict between the world-religions, i. 307 + + Conical monuments imputed to Hermes Trismegistus, i. 551 + + Conjurers, i. 73 + + Consciousness a quality of the soul, i. 199 + + Constitutions, secret, of the Jesuits, ii. 354 + + Continent, Atlantian, i. 591; + Lemuria, i. 592; + Great Equinoctial, i. 594; + in the Pacific, i. 594; + inhabited by the Rutas, _ib._ + + “Control,” i. 360 + + Convulsionaries cured by marriage, i. 375 + + Convulsionary, extraordinary resistance to external injury, i. 373 + + Corcoran, Catherine, malformed child, i. 392 + + Cordanus, power of leaving his body to go on errands, i. 477 + + Corinthian bride, resuscitated by Apollonius of Tyana, i. 481 + + Correspondences, Swedenborg’s doctrine that of Pythagoras and + Kabalists, i. 306 + + Corson, Prof., on science and its contests with religion, i. 403 + + Cory, exceptions to his view of Plato and Pythagoras, i. 288 + + Cosmo, St., traffic by the Italian clergy in his phallic _ex-votos_, + ii. 5 + + Cosmogonical doctrines based on one formula, i. 341 + + Counterfeit relics palmed off on Prince Radzivil, ii. 72; + they work miracles, _ib._ + + Counterfeits in thaumaturgy are proofs of an original, ii. 567 + + Covercapal, the serpent-god, converted, ii. 509 + + Cox, Sergeant, proposition concerning the physical phenomena of + spiritualism, i. 195; + his denial, i. 201 + + Creation, doctrine of Hermetists and Rosicrucians, i. 258; + cycle of, ii. 272, 273; + Plato’s discourse, ii. 469; + of mankind, Hindu legend, i. 148; + Norse legend, i. 146, 151; + of men from the tree _tzite_ and women from the reed _sibac_, i. + 558 + + Creative Principle, proclaimed at Lausanne by the supreme councils of + Freemasonry, ii. 377; + denounced by Gen. Pike, _ib._ + + Creator, not the Highest God, i. 309; + the father of matter and the bad, _ib._ + + Credo, as amended by Robert Taylor, ii. 522 + + Creed, suggested for Protestant and Catholic bodies, ii. 473 + + Crime of every kind sanctioned by Jesuit doctrine, ii. 353; + by ecclesiastics in the United States, ii. 573 + + Crimean war, i. 260 + + Crook, Episcopal, adopted from the Etrurian augurs, ii. 94 + + Crookes, Prof., begins to investigate spiritual phenomena, i. 44; + on psychic force, i. 45; + theories, i. 47; + remarks on Prof. Thury, i. 112; + his experiment with the planchette, i. 199; + acknowledges the evidence of spiritual phenomena overwhelming, i. + 202; + weighing light, i. 281 + + Cross, philosophical, i. 508; + or Tau, an ancient symbol, ii. 393; + Egyptian, found at Palenque, i. 572; + a sign of recognition, long before the Christian era, ii. 87; + found on the walls of the Serapeum, ii. 253, 254; + used in the Mysteries, _ib._; + of the Zodiac, ii. 452; + revered by every nation, ii. 453; + the geometrical basis of religious symbolism, _ib._; + acknowledged by the Jews, ii. 454 + + Crosse, Andrew, producing living insects by chemical action, i. 465 + + Crowe, Catherine, on stigmata or birth marks, i. 396 + + Crusade of des Mousseaux and de Mirville against the arch-enemy, ii. + 15 + + Cryptographs of the Sovereign Princes Rose Croix, ii. 394 + + Crypts of Thebes and Memphis, i. 553; + mysteries of the circle of necessity, _ib._ + + Cults derived from one primitive religion, ii. 412 + + Cup, consecrated in the Bacchic mysteries, ii. 513 + + Cures effected at the Egyptian temples, i. 531, 532 + + Curse inheres in matter, i. 433; + allegorical, of the earth, ii. 420 + + Cursing, a Christian, and not a pagan practice, ii. 334; + prohibited because it will return, ii. 608 + + Cusco, its temples and hieroglyphics, i. 597; + tunnel to Lima and Bolivia, _ib._ + + Cycle, at the bottom, i. 247; + doctrine demonstrated, i. 348; + the Unavoidable, the Mysteries, i. 553 + + Cycles of human existence, i. 5, 6, 247, 293; + of the universe, ii. 420 + + Cyclopeans were Phœnicians, i. 567; + were shepherds in Libya, miners and builders, and forged bolts for + Zeus, _ib._; + same as Anakim, _ib._ + + Cyclopes, or Cuclo-pos, the Rajpoot race, ii. 438 + + Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, anthropomorphized Isis as Mary, ii. 41; + his murder of Hypatia, ii. 53; + the assassin of Hypatia sold church vessels, etc., ii. 253 + + Czechs of Bohemia burn the Bull and Syllabus, ii. 560 + + + Dactyls, Phrygian, i. 23 + + Daguerre declared by a physician to be insane because he declared his + discovery, ii. 619 + + Daimonion of Socrates the cause of his death, ii. 117 + + Daimonia, i. 276 + + Daityas, i. 313 + + Damiano, St., traffic in Isernia, in his limbs and _ex-voto_, ii. 5 + + Dam-Sâdhna, a practice of fakirs like the rabbinic method of + “entering paradise,” ii. 590 + + Danger, the greatest to be feared, ii. 122 + + Daniel a Babylonian Rabbi, astrologer, and magus, ii. 236 + + Dardanus received the Kabeiri gods as a dowry, i. 570; + carried their worship to Samothrace and Troy, _ib._ + + Darius Hystaspes, teacher of the Mazdean religion, ii. 140; + put down the magian rites, ii. 142; + restored the worship of Ormazd, ii. 220; + added the Brahman to the Magian doctrine, ii. 306; + the institutor of magism, ii. 502; + established a Persian colony in Judea, ii. 441 + + Dark races of Hindustan worshipped Bala-Mahadeva, ii. 434 + + Darkness and the bad, how produced, i. 302 + + Darwin, his theory, i. 14 + + Darwinian line of descent, i. 154; + theory, in book of Genesis, i. 303 + + Daughters of Shiloh, their dance, ii. 45 + + David, King, exorcised the evil spirit of God, i. 215; + how he reinforced his failing vigor, i. 217; + danced the circle-dance of the Amazons, ii. 45; + knew nothing of Moses, _ib._; + performing a phallic dance before the ark, ii. 79; + brought the name Jehovah to Palestine, ii. 297; + established the Sadducean priesthood, _ib._; + ascends out of hell, ii. 517; + the Israelitish King Arthur, ii. 439; + establishes a new religion in Palestine, _ib._ + + Davis, A. J., on Diakka, i. 218 + + Day and night of Brahma, ii. 421 + + Daytha, the Hindu Nimrod, ii. 425 + + Dead, their ashes assuming their likeness, ii. 663 + + Death, when it actually occurs, i. 482; + when resuscitation is possible, i. 485; + planetary, i. 254; + no certain signs, i. 479; + exposition, i. 480; + language of Pimander, i. 624, 625; + the penalty for divulging secrets of initiation, ii. 99; + the Gates, ii. 364; + the second, ii. 368 + + Death-symbol at the orgies, ii. 138 + + Decameron, Boccaccio’s, prudery beside the _Golden Legend_, ii. 79 + + Decimal notation unknown to Pythagoras, ii. 300; + known to the Pythagoreans, _ib._ + + Degeneracy of Christians, ii. 575 + + Degrees, the three, ii. 364 + + Deicide, never charged on the Jews by Jesus, ii. 193 + + Deity, from deva, and devil from daeva, the same etymology, ii. 512; + represented by three circles in one, ii. 212 + + Delegatus, ii. 154 + + Deluge, i. 30; + Hindu story, ii. 425 + + Demeter, the Kabeirian, her picture represented with the electrified + head, i. 234; + or Ceres, the intellectual soul, ii. 112 + + Demigod philosophers, ii. 536 + + Demigods and atmospheric electricity, i. 261 + + Demiurgic Mind, i. 55 + + Demiurgos, or architect of the world, Brahma, i. 191; + Jehovah, _ib._ + + Democritus, i. 61; + on death, i. 365; + on the soul, i. 401; + a student of the Magi, i. 512; + his belief concerning magic, _ib._ + + Demon and Martin Luther, ii. 73; + of Socrates, ii. 283, 284; + same as the _nous_, _ib._ + + Demons, the doctrine of Buddha, i. 448; + in the Western Sahara, fascinate travellers, i. 604; + sometimes speak the truth, ii. 71; + opinion of Proclus, i. 312 + + Demoniac, sulphurous flames, ii. 75; + one receives a sound thrashing from the Blessed Virgin, ii. 76 + + Demonologia, i. 89 + + Demon-worship and saint-worship substantially the same, ii. 29 + + Dendera, the temple, the female figures, i. 524 + + De Negre, Grand Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis, ii. 380 + + Denon, his description of the ruins of Karnak, i. 524 + + Dentists in ancient Egypt, i. 545 + + Denton, Prof., examples of psychometrical power, i. 183; + illustrates archæology by psychometry, i. 295 + + Dervish, their initiation, ii. 317 + + Desatir, or book of Shet, on light, ii. 113 + + Descartes believed in occult medicine, i. 71; + his system of physics, i. 206 + + Descendants, resemblance to ancestors, i. 385 + + Descent into hell, ii. 177; + to subdue the rebellious archangel, i. 299; + how explained by Kabalists, _ib._; + of spirit to matter, i. 285 + + Designations of the virgin-mothers, Hindu, Egyptian, and Catholic, + ii. 209 + + Des Mousseaux, his reply to Calmeil and Figuier in regard to + Convulsionaries, i. 375, 376; + on miracles, magic, etc., i. 614, 615; + Chevalier, his crusade against the devil, ii. 15; + proves magic and spiritualism to be twin-sciences, _ib._ + + Despres made the diamond, i. 509 + + Destiny, an influence that each man weaves round himself, ii. 593; + how guided, _ib._ + + Devas and Asuras, their battles, i. 12 + + Devs, i. 141; + nature-spirits, called also shedim, demons, and afrites, i. 313 + + Devil, memoir of, i. 102; + the chief pillar of faith, i. 103; + not an entity, but an errant force, i. 138; + and deity, words of the same etymology, ii. 512; + the Shadow of God, i. 560; + the anthropomorphic, a creation of man, i. 561; + Aryan nations had none, ii. 10; + called by des Mousseaux the Serpent of _Genesis_, ii. 15; + a whole community possessed, ii. 16; + pesters St. Dominic as a flea and as a monkey, ii. 78; + Christians claim the discovery, ii. 477; + the patron genius of theological Christianity, ii. 477; + to deny him equivalent to denying the Saviour, ii. 478; + what he is, ii. 480; + an essential antagonistic force, _ib._; + the key found in the book of Job, ii. 493; + the fundamental stone of Christianity, ii. 501; + origin of the English notions, _ib._; + the European, ii. 502; + with horns and hoof, only known in Popish Encyclicals, ii. 503; + his various delineations by authors, ii. 511 + + Devils, 15,000 in a man, ii. 75; + the Fathers made them from the pagan gods, ii. 502 + + Devil-worshippers of Travancore, i. 135; + falsely-termed, their practice, i. 446, 447 + + Dew from heaven, i. 307 + + Dewel, a demon of Ceylon, i. 448 + + Dharana, or catalepsy, ii. 590, 591 + + Dharm-Asoka, the great propagandist of Buddhism, ii. 607 + + Dhyâna or perfection, ii. 287 + + Diabolical manifestations, frowned at by the Roman Church, ii. 4 + + Diagram of the Nazarenes, ii. 295 + + Diakka, discovered by A. J. Davis, i. 218; + what Porphyry said, i. 219 + + Dialogue of David and the devils, ii. 75 + + Diamond, made by Desprez, i. 509 + + Dido, Elissa, or Astarte, the virgin of the sea, ii. 446 + + Dirghatamas’ hymns, ii. 411 + + Di Franciscis, Don Pasquale, “professor of flunkeyism in things + spiritual,” ii. 7; + pious collection of papal fishwoman’s talk, _ib._ + + Dii minores, or twelve gods, ii. 451 + + Diktamnos, i. 264 + + Diobolos (son of Zeus) changed to Diabolos, an accuser, ii. 485 + + Dionysus, his worship superseded by the rites of Mithras, ii. 491; + or Bacchus, his Hindu origin, ii. 560 + + Diploteratology or production of monsters, i. 390 + + Disbelievers in magic cannot share the faith of the church, ii. 71 + + Diocletian burned libraries of books upon the secret arts, i. 405 + + Dionysius Areopagita and the Kabala, i. 26 + + Dionè pursued by Typhon to the Euphrates, ii. 490 + + Disciples of John, ii. 289, 290; + do not believe in Christ, ii. 290 + + Dissimilarities between Buddhism and Christianity, ii. 540, 541 + + “Distractions” of adversaries of spiritualism, i. 116 + + Divination by the lot, ii. 20, 21; + prohibited by the Council of Varres, i. 21; + devoid of sin, ii. 353 + + Divine book, i. 406; + magic, i. 26 + + Djin reading magic rolls, ii. 29 + + Docetæ or illusionists, believed in the Maya, ii. 157 + + Documents sure to reappear, ii. 26 + + Dodechædron, the geometrical figure of the universe, i. 342 + + Domes, the reproductions of the lithos, ii. 5 + + Dominic and the devils, ii. 73, 75; + receives a rosary from the Virgin Mary, ii. 74; + most hated by devils, ii. 75; + and the devil flea and monkey, ii. 78 + + Dominicans, none in hell, ii. 75 + + Dodona, priestesses, prophesied by means of the oak, ii. 592 + + Doppelganger, or astral body, i. 360 + + Double cross of Chaldea, ii. 453; + existence, i. 179, 180; + life of the adept, ii. 564; + perverted into the offering of human sacrifices, ii. 565 + + Double-sexed creators, i. 156 + + Dove, represented Noah, worshipped, ii. 448 + + Dowager mother alone the mediatrix, ii. 9; + owes the present Pope for the finest gem in her coronet, _ib._ + + Dracontia, or temples to the dragon, i. 554 + + Dragon and the sun, the basis of heliolatrous religion, i. 550; + sons of, the hierophants, i. 553; + cured of a sore eye by Simeon Stylites, and adored God, ii. 77; + Apophis, his influence on the soul, ii. 368; + Horus piercing his head, ii. 446; + pursues Thuesis and her son, ii. 490; + glided over the cradle of Mary, ii. 505; + of Ceylon, Rawho, ii. 509 + + Dragons, oriental in character, i. 448 + + Drama of Job explained, ii. 494, 495 + + Draper, Prof., on pagan belief concerning the human spirit, i. 429; + asserts that Aristotle taught the Buddhistic doctrine, i. 430; + probably meant to misrepresent the Neo-platonic philosophers, i. + 431; + defines the “age of faith” and “age of decrepitude,” i. 582; + on Olympus restored by Constantine, ii. 49; + on the conflict instituted by Augustine between religion and + science, ii. 88 + + Dream produced by the inner ego of a Shaman at the author’s request, + ii. 628 + + Dress of the Christian clergy like that of ancient pagans, ii. 94 + + Druidical structures like other ancient works, i. 572 + + Druids denominated themselves snakes, i. 554 + + Drummer of Tedworth, i. 363 + + Druzes of Mount Lebanon, ii. 306; + their 80,000 warriors, ii. 308; + never became Christians, ii. 309; + their doctrines, ii. 309, 310; + believe in “two souls,” ii. 315; + their tricks with strangers, _ib._; + correct and garbled versions of their commandments, ii. 311 + + Duad or second, i. 212; + ether and chaos the first, i. 343 + + Dual evolution represented in Adam, ii. 277; + taught by Plato and others, ii. 279 + + Dudim, or mandragora, i. 465 + + Dunbar, George, endeavor to derive the Sanscrit from the Greek + language, i. 443 + + Duomo of Milan, its original, ii. 5 + + Du Potet, Baron, Grand Master of Mesmerism, i. 166; + views of sorcery, epidemics, antipathies, magic, i. 279, 333 + + Dupuis mistook ancient symbolism, i. 24 + + Durga, the active virtue, or Shekinah, ii. 276 + + Dust of the earth to become the constituent of living soul, ii. 420 + + Dynasties, two in India, ii. 437 + + Dwellers of the threshold, i. 285 + + + Early Christian Church invented the doctrine of Second Advent to shut + off periodical incarnations, ii. 535; + Christianity itself a heresy, ii. 123; + its history imparted to the first Knight Templars, ii. 382 + + Earth, queen of the Serpents, i. 10; + the goddess Anahit or Venus, i. 11; + magical exhalations, i. 199, 200; + a magnet, i. 282 + + Earths germinate, i. 389 + + East, the land of knowledge, i. 89; + its civilization preceded that of the West, i. 539 + + Eastern Æthiopians an Aryan stock, ii. 435; + magic, its adepts uniformly in good health, ii. 595; + requires no “conditions” like mediums, _ib._ + + Ebers Papyrus in the Astor library, i. 3; + quoted, i. 23; + its curious contents, i. 529 + + Ebionites, ii. 127; + the first Christians, ii. 180; + the relatives of Jesus, ii. 181; + used only the Gospel according to Matthew, ii. 182; + the Nazarenes their instructors, ii. 190; + condemned as heretics, ii. 307 + + Ecbatana, her seven walls and other wonders, i. 534 + + Echo in the desert of Gobi, i. 606 + + Ecclesia non novit sanguinem, ii. 58 + + Eclectic Platonists adopt the inductive method, ii. 34; + school, its dispersion desired by Christians, ii. 52; + its groundwork, ii. 342, 343 + + Ecstasy, power of conversing with Deity, i. 121; + doctrine of Paracelsus and Van Helmont, i. 170; + defined by Plotinus, i. 486 + + Ectenic force, i. 55; + same as psychic force, i. 113; + same as the Akasa, _ib._ + + Eden, the allegory of the Book of Genesis, i. 575 + + Edison, of Newark, N. J., supposed discovery of a new force, i. 126 + + Egg, spiritual or mundane, i. 56; + evolved by Emepht, the supreme, i. 146; + Isle of Chemmis produced from it, i. 147; + Bhagavant enters and emerges as Brahma, i. 346; + and bird, which appeared first?, i. 426, 428 + + _Egkosmioi_, i. 312 + + Ego, the sentient soul, inseparable from the brain, ii. 590 + + Egypt, resort of philosophers, i. 25; + priests could communicate from temple to temple, i. 127; + doctrine of evolution taught, i. 154; + the perpetual lamp discovered there, i. 226; + taught the secret to Moses, i. 228; + Pythagoras twenty-two years in the temple, i. 284; + Hermetic brothers, ii. 307; + secret biography of its gods, i. 406; + books before Menes, _ib._; + did not learn her wisdom from her Semitic neighbors, i. 515; + akin with India, _ib._; + probably colonized by the Eastern Ethiopians, _ib._; + 20,000 years’ antiquity, i. 519; + the birthplace of chemistry, i. 541; + dentists and oculists, i. 545; + no doctor allowed to practice more than one specialty, _ib._; + trial by jury, _ib._; + received her laws from pre-Vedic India, i. 589; + colonized from India in the dynasty of Soma-Vanga, i. 627 + + Egyptian temples, architecture of, i. 517; + monuments defeat the efforts of the fathers, ii. 520; + saints reappearing as a serpent, ii. 490 + + Egyptians, civilized before the first dynasties, i. 6; + astronomical calculations, i. 21; + were monotheists, i. 23; + knowledge of engineering, i. 516; + changed the course of the Nile, _ib._; + their astronomical erudition, i. 520; + their high civilization disputed, i. 521; + arts of war, i. 531; + gods in the Grecian pantheon, i. 543; + made beer, manufactured glass and imitated gems, i. _ib._; + the best music-teachers, i. 544; + understood the circulation of the blood, _ib._; + their sacred books older than the Genesis, ii. 431; + ancient Indians, ii. 434; + the Caucasian race, ii. 436 + + Eight powers of the soul, ii. 593 + + Eight hundred million believers in magic, mesmerism, and + spiritualism, i. 512 + + Eight-pointed star or double cross, ii. 453 + + El, i. 13; + the sun-god, same as Seth, Saturn, Seth, Siva, ii. 524 + + Elcazar, Rabbi, expelled demons, ii. 350 + + Electric waves, i. 278 + + Electrical photography, i. 395 + + Electricity, personated by Thor in Norse legends, i. 160, 161; + two kinds, i. 188, 322; + occult properties anciently understood, i. 234; + represented at Samothrace by the Kabeirian Demeter, _ib._; + denoted by the Dioskuri, i. 235; + the fire on the altar, i. 283; + blind and intelligent, i. 322; + cerebral, _ib._; + developed from magnetic currents, i. 395; + used anciently to supply fire to the altars, i. 526 + + Electro-magnetism, i. 103; + employed by Paracelsus, i. 164 + + Elion, or Elon, the highest god, i. 554 + + Eliphas Levi, on resuscitation of the dead, i. 485 + + Elixir of life regarded as absurd, i. 501; + possible, i. 502; + curious accounts, i. 503 + + Elizabeth, Queen, Jesuitic attempt to murder her, ii. 373 + + Elemental demon driven away with a sword, i. 364; + spirits, i. 67, 311; + inhabit the universal ether, i. 284; + psychic embryos, i. 311; + live in the ether, _ib._; + power to assume tangible bodies, _ib._ + + Elementary spirits, i. 67; + three classes, i. 310; + called demons by Proclus, i. 312; + terrestrial spirits, i. 319; + four classes, _ib._; + peril of evoking them, i. 342; + afraid of sharp weapons, i. 362 + + Elephanta, the Mahody, ii. 5 + + Eleusinian Mysteries, ii. 44 + + Elihu, the hierophant of Job, ii. 497 + + Elisha anointed Jehu that he might unite the Israelites, ii. 525 + + Ellenborough, Lady, her talisman, ii. 255, 256 + + Elohim inhabiting an island in the ancient inland sea of Middle Asia, + i. 589, 590, 599 + + Eloim, gods or powers, priests; also Aleim, i. 575 + + Emanation of souls from divinity, doctrine of, i. 13 + + Emanations, doctrine of, ii. 34 + + Embalming in Thibet, ii. 603 + + Emanuel, not Christ, but the son of Isaiah, ii. 166; + the son of the Alma, in whose days Syria and Israel were overcome, + ii. 440 + + Embryo, stamped with a resemblance by the imagination of the mother, + i. 385; + its nucleus, i. 389 + + Emepht, the supreme, first principle, i. 146; + emanation from him of the creative God, ii. 41 + + Emigration from India to the West, ii. 428 + + Eminent men called gods, i. 24, 280 + + Emmerich, Catherine, the Tyrolese ecstatic, i. 398 + + Empedocles believed in two souls, i. 317; + restored a woman to life, i. 480; + arrested a water-spout, ii. 597 + + Empusa or ghûl, beheld by Apollonius of Tyana, i. 604 + + Enmity, everlasting, between theology and science, ii. 88 + + Ennemoser on seership, etc., in India, i. 460 + + Enoch, sacred delta of, i. 20; + Masonic legend, i. 571; + builds a subterranean structure with nine chambers, _ib._; + communicates secrets to Methuselah, _ib._; + the type of the dual man, spiritual and terrestrial, ii. 453; + and Elias ascending from hell, ii. 517 + + Enoch-Verihe, i. 560 + + En-Soph, i. 16, 67, 270, 272; + means No-Thing, _quo ad non_, the same as nirvana, i. 292; + the first principle, i. 347; + within its first emanation, ii. 37 + + Enthusiastic energy, ii. 591 + + Ephesus a focus of the universal secret doctrines, ii. 155 + + Epicurus disbelieved in God, i. 317; + believed the soul constituted of the roundest, finest atoms, _ib._; + testimony concerning the gods, i. 436 + + Epidemic in moral and physical affairs, i. 274, 276, 277; + of assassination, i. 277; + of possession in Germany, i. 374 + + Epimenides, i. 364; + power to make his soul leave his body and return, ii. 597 + + Epiphanius, a Gnostic renegade, who betrayed his associates as + state’s evidence, ii. 249; + belied the Gnostics, ii. 330 + + Episcopalian crook adopted from the augurs of Etruria, ii. 94 + + Epopt, master-builder, adept, ii. 91 + + Epoptæ, knew nothing of the last and dreaded rite, ii. 563 + + Epopteia, revelation and clairvoyance, the last stage in initiation, + ii. 90 + + Erring spirits, their re-incarnation, i. 357 + + Eslinger, Elizabeth, the apparition, i. 68 + + Esoteric catechism, i. 19; + doctrines never committed to writing, i. 271; + Masonry not known in American lodges, ii. 376 + + Essaoua or sorcerers, i. 488 + + Essenes, hermetic fraternities, i. 16; + had greater and minor mysteries, ii. 42; + had the same customs as the Apostles, ii. 196; + believed in pre-existence, ii. 280; + declared by Eusebius to have been the first Christians, ii. 323; + older than the Christians, _ib._; + never employed oaths, ii. 373; + probably Buddhists, ii. 491 + + Eternal torments of hell, why pagans are condemned to them, ii. 8; + letter of Virgin Mary on the subject, _ib._; + damnation, the only doctrine invented originally by Christians, ii. + 334; + meaning of the word, ii. 12 + + Eternity, the duad or second, i. 212; + no Hebrew word to express the idea, ii. 12 + + Ether, the universal, i. 128, 156, 284; + properties, i. 181; + directed by an intelligence, i. 199; + disturbed by planetary aspects, i. 275; + influenced by Divine thought, i. 310; + the universal world-soul, i. 316, 341; + universal, the womb of the universe, i. 389; + universal, the repository of the spiritual images of all forms and + thoughts, i. 395; + the Orphean doctrine denounced by the early Christians, ii. 35 + + Ethereal body, i. 281 + + Ethiopians, eastern, the builders, colonists of Egypt, i. 515 + + Etruscans understood electricity and employed it in worship, i. 527; + invented lightning-rods, _ib._ + + Eucharist, common to many ancient nations, ii. 43 + + Eurinus returned after dying, i. 365 + + European science, without the knowledge of the secrets of herbs of + dreams, ii. 589 + + Europeans cannot see certain colors, i. 211 + + Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, perverted chronology, i. 288; + convicted of mendacity, ii. 327 + + Evapto, or initiation, same as epopteia, ii. 90, 91 + + Eve, the name and its affinity with the Tetragrammaton, ii. 299; + her story told kabalistically, ii. 223-225 + + Every nation has believed in a God, ii. 121 + + Evil possessed space as the intelligences retired, i. 342; + essential to the evolving of the good, ii. 480; + eye, i. 380; + Pope Pio Nono said to have the gift, _ib._; + magic, i. 26 + + Evocation, of souls, objected to, i. 321; + of the dead, i. 492; + the “souls of the blessed” do not come, i. 493; + blood used for the purpose, _ib._ + + Evocations, magical, pronounced in a particular dialect, ii. 46; + a formula, _ib._ + + Evolution, taught by science, the secret doctrine and the Bible, i. + 152; + theory found in India and Assyria, i. 154; + held by Anaximenes and accepted by the Chaldeans, i. 238; + taught by Hermes, i. 257; + doctrine of Robert Fludd, i. 258; + ancient belief, i. 285, 295; + doctrine of A. R. Wallace, i. 294; + operation defined, i. 329, 330; + spiritual and physical, i. 352; + theory does not solve the ultimate mystery, i. 419; + of man out of primordial spirit-matter, i. 429; + Darwin begins his theory at the wrong end, _ib._; + as taught by the Bhagavat and Manu, ii. 260; + by Sanchoniathon and Darwin, ii. 261; + of our own planet, ii. 420; + for six days, and one of repose, ii. 422; + of the universe, ii. 467; + of man from the highest to lowest, ii. 424 + + Exorcising a girl in Catalonia, ii. 68 + + Exorcism, ii. 66; + new ritual, ii. 69 + + Exorcist-priest, ii. 66 + + Exoteric religion, its God an idol or fiction, i. 307 + + Exposures, pretended, of impostors, i. 75 + + Extinction at death, those who believe it will commit, in + consequence, any sin they choose, ii. 566 + + _Ex votos_, Phallic, traffic by the Roman clergy, ii. 5 + + Ezekiel’s wheel, a wheel of the Adonai, ii. 451; + explained, ii. 455; + exoteric, ii. 461; + esoteric, ii. 462 + + Ezra compiled the _Pentateuch_, i. 578 + + + Fables, allegorical science and anthropology, i. 122; + allegorized the gods and natural phenomena, i. 261 + + Fairfield, Francis Gerry, his testimony in regard to the + phantom-hand, ii. 594, 595 + + Faith, the Devil the chief pillar, i. 103; + its power to heal disease, i. 216; + phenomena of, i. 323; + its great power, ii. 597; + of the Church, disbelievers in magic cannot share, ii. 76; + omni-perceptive, inside of human credulity, ii. 120 + + Faithful daughters of the church, ii. 54 + + Fakir buried six weeks and resuscitated, i. 477; + and his guru, ii. 105 + + Fakirs not harmed by alligators, i. 383; + use the force known as Akasa, i. 113; + raised from the ground, i. 115, 224 + + Fall of Adam, not a personal transgression, but an evolution, ii. 277 + + Fallen angels, hurled by Siva into Onderah, ii. 11 + + Familiar spirit, those having one, refused initiation, ii. 118 + + Famines follow missionaries, ii. 531 + + Faraday, i. 11; + his medium-catcher, i. 63 + + Fascination, i. 380, 381; + at a precipice, i. 501 + + Fatalism rejected by ancients, ii. 593 + + Fate, defined by Henry More, i. 206 + + “Father” of Jesus, the hierophant of the mysteries, ii. 561 + + Fathers, selected narratives for their saints, from the poets and + pagan legends, ii. 78 + + Fauste asserts that the evangeliums or gospels were not written by + Jesus or the apostles, but by unknown persons, ii. 38 + + Fav-Atma, or sentient soul, ii. 590 + + Favre, Jules, counsel for Madam Roger, i. 166 + + Feast of the dead in Moldavia and Bulgaria, ii. 569, 570 + + Felix, preacher of Notre Dame, on mystery and science, i. 337 + + Felt, George H., i. 22 + + Female trinity, ii. 444 + + Ferho, the greatest, i. 300; + first cause, i. 301; + believed in by Jesus and John, ii. 290 + + Fessler’s rite, a Jesuitical production, ii. 390 + + Fetahil, i. 298; + called to aid in creation, i. 299; + the newest man and creator, i. 300; + the “newest man,” ii. 175 + + Fiery serpents (_Numbers_, xxi.), a name given to the Levites, i. 555; + or seraphs, the Levites, or serpent-tribe, ii. 481; + the allegory explained, ii. 129 + + Fifteen thousand devils in a man, ii. 75 + + Fifth degree, ii. 365; + element, i. 317; + stage of initiation the most awful and sublime, ii. 101 + + Fifty millions slaughtered by Christians since Jesus said, “Love your + enemies,” ii. 479 + + Fifty-five thousand Protestant clergymen in the United States, ii. 1 + + Final absorption, i. 12 + + Finger of the Holy Ghost preserved as a relic, ii. 71 + + Fiords of Norway described in the Odyssey, i. 549 + + Fire, living, i. 129; + on the altar, electric, i. 283; + its triple potency, i. 423; + from heaven, always employed by the ancients in the temples, i. 526; + preserved by the magi, i. 528; + and brimstone, the lake, ii. 12 + + Fire-proof mediums, i. 445, 446 + + Fūkara-Yogis, ii. 164 + + First Air, or anima mundi, ii. 227; + adept, ii. 317; + begotten, constructed the world, i. 342; + cause, denied by Vyasa and Kapila, ii. 261; + Christians, the Elianites, ii. 180; + the disciples of Paul, ii. 178; + cycle, i. 301; + gods, a hierarchy of higher powers, ii. 451; + light, i. 302; + man created bi-sexual, i. 559; + races of men spiritual, ii. 276; + direct emanations of the Tikkun or Adam Kadmon, _ib._; + sin, committed by Brahma-Pragâpati and his daughter Ushas, i. 265; + the spirit of evil created to destroy its incarnation, _ib._; + trinity, i. 341. + + Fish displaying magnetic affinity, i. 210 + + Fish-charming in Ceylon, i. 606 + + Fisher (Dr. G.) on deploteratology, i. 390 + + Fishwife, talk of papal discourses, ii. 7 + + Fiske, Prof. J., i. 42; + disputes the doctrine of cycles and the high civilization of the + Egyptians, i. 521; + declares the theories of profound science in ancient Egypt and the + East utterly destroyed, i. 525 + + Five thousand Roman Catholic clergy in the United States, ii. 1 + + Flammarion the astronomer, his avowal, i. 195; + Camille, his curious revelation, ii. 450 + + Flight of the alone to the Alone, ii. 413 + + Flood, 10,000 years B.C., i. 241; + as described in the Assyrian tablets, ii. 422; + Hindu legend, ii. 428; + the old serpent, ii. 447 + + Florentine scientist witnessing a re-incarnation of a Dalai-Lama, i. + 437 + + “Flowers of Speech,” Mr. Gladstone’s catalogue, ii. 7 + + Fludd, Robert (_de Fluctibus_), on magnetism, i. 71; + on minerals as rudimentary of plants, etc., i. 258; + chief of the “philosophers by fire,” i. 309; + on the essence of gold, i. 511 + + Flute-player of Vaucanson, i. 543 + + Fœtal life, little known about it, i. 386 + + Fœtus, its sensitive surface like a collodionized plate, i. 385; + its signature, _ib._; + extinguished, i. 402 + + Foraisse, M., his story respecting Masonry, ii. 381 + + Forbidden ground, i. 418 + + Force, magnetic, body nourished by, i. 169; + produced by will, i. 285; + the supreme artist and providence, ii. 40 + + Force-correlation, i. 235; + taught in prehistoric time, i. 241, 242; + the A B C of Occultism, i. 243 + + Fore-heaven, ii. 534 + + Fall of man an allegory, and so regarded, ii. 541 + + Forever, meaning of the word, ii. 12 + + Forgery the basis of the Church, ii. 329 + + Former life, i. 347 + + Forms, images impressed on the ether, i. 395 + + Formula of an evocation, ii. 46 + + Formulas, secret, i. 66; + for inextinguishable fire, i. 229 + + Four ages or yugs, ii. 275; + ages of the Bible like those of the nations, ii. 443; + gospels, their doctrines found elsewhere, ii. 337; + kingdoms in nature, i. 329; + men not begotten by the gods, nor born of women, i. 558; + the gods afraid of them, and give them wives, i. 558; + races of men, i. 559; + Tanaïm, etc., entered the garden, ii. 119; + “Truths,” i. 290, 291 + + Fournié, Dr., declares that no physiology of the nervous system + exists, i. 407; + remarkable declaration concerning the human ovule, i. 397 + + Fourth degree, ii. 365; + race, parents of men “whose daughters were fair,” i. 559 + + Fourfold emanations, ii. 272 + + Francis, St., preached to the birds, ii. 77; + preached to a wolf till he repented, _ib._ + + Francke, A., remarks on the transmutations of Christianity, ii. 38; + the Sephiroth and Providence, ii. 40 + + Free and Accepted Masons, and the Masonic impostor, Anderson, ii. 389 + + Free-Masonry, its origin in London, ii. 349; + proclaims a creative principle as Great Architect, ii. 377 + + French Revolution, what it achieved for freedom, ii. 22 + + Fretheim, Abbé, his faculty of conversing by power of will, i. 476 + + Friar Pietro presents a demon to Dr. Torralva, ii. 60 + + Fundamental doctrine identical in all the ancient religions, ii. 99 + + Funeral ritual of the Egyptians, ii. 367 + + Future life, better to believe in it, ii. 566; + self, beheld at the moment of initiation, ii. 115; + man, primitive shape, i. 388, 389; + religion of, i. 76; + woman of, artificially fecundated, i. 77; + also offered to the incubi, i. 78 + + + Gabriel, the same as Christos, ii. 193 + + Gaffarillus, on the form of a burned plant remaining in the ashes, i. + 475, 476 + + Galileo, i. 35; + anticipated, i. 159, 238 + + Gallæus, quotation from, ii. 504 + + Gan-Duniyas, an Assyrian name of Babylonia, i. 575 + + Gan-Eden, or garden of Eden, also Ganduniyas, a name of Babylonia, i. + 575 + + Ganesor, the elephant-headed god found in Central America, i. 572, 573 + + Ganges, the paradisiacal river, ii. 30 + + Gap between Christianity and Judaism, ii. 526 + + Garden of delight (Eden), the mysterious science, ii. 119; + of Eden, allegory, i. 575; + name of Babylonia, _ib._; + explanation as a sacerdotal college, _ib._ + + Garibaldi, his testimony concerning priests, ii. 347; + a Mason, ii. 391 + + Garlic, story by Hippocrates, i. 20 + + Gasparin, Count Agenor de, i. 99; + makes no differences between magnetic phenomena and will-force, i. + 109; + his labors, ii. 15 + + Gate of the House of Life, and of Dionysus, ii. 245, 246 + + Gates of Death, in the hall of initiation, ii. 364 + + Gautama-Buddha, his birth announced to Maya his mother by a vision, + i. 92; + called an atheist, i. 307; + his answer to King Prasenagit on miracles, i. 599, 600; + a disciple of a Jaina guru, ii. 322; + his legends wrought into the evangelists, ii. 491, 492; + his history copied into _The Golden Legend_, ii. 579; + his esoteric doctrines, ii. 319; + first opened the sanctuary to the pariah, _ib._ + + Gayatri, its metre, ii. 410 + + Gegen Chutuktu, late patriarch of Mongolia, an incarnation of Buddha, + ii. 617 + + Gehenna, a valley near Jerusalem, where the Israelites immolated + their children, ii. 11; + of the universe, or eighth sphere or planet, i. 328; + repentance possible, i. 352 + + Gemantria, ii. 298 + + Gemma, Cornelius, account of a child born wounded, i. 386 + + Genealogy of the gods, astronomical, i. 267 + + Generations, fall into, i. 315 + + Genesis, Book of, a reminiscence of the Babylonish captivity, i. 576; + first three chapters transcribed from other cosmogonies, the fourth + and fifth from the secret _Book of Numbers_, the _Kabala_, i. + 579; + the introductory chapters do not treat of creation, ii. 421; + the book later than the invention of the sign Libra, ii. 457 + + Genghis Khan, his tomb and promised reappearance, i. 598 + + Genii, or Æons, lord of, i. 300 + + Genius, the divine spirit, i. 277 + + Genoa cathedral, the celebrated vase, i. 537, 538 + + Geographers in pre-Mosaic days, i. 406 + + Geometers of the Alexandrian Museum, i. 7 + + Germany depopulated by the thirty years’ war, ii. 503; + priestesses, how they hypnotized themselves, ii. 592 + + Ghosts, unlike materialized spirits, i. 69; i. 345 + + Ghouls, i. 319; + or ghûls, in the deserts, i. 604; + and vampires, ii. 564 + + Giants, i. 31; + progenitors of Brahmans, i. 122; + remains of a prehistorical race, i. 303, 304 + + Gibbon, his praise of the Gnostics, ii. 249 + + Gilbert on magnetism, i. 497 + + Giles, Rev. Chauncey, on spiritual death, i. 317 + + Ginnungagap, the cup of illusion, i. 147; + the boundless abyss of the mundane pit, i. 160 + + Girard, Father, his employment of sorcery and revolting crimes, ii. + 633 + + Gladstone, Hon. W. E., “Speeches of Pius IX.,” ii. 4; + catalogue of “flowers of speech” in papal discourses, ii. 7 + + Glass that would not break, i. 50; + malleable, i. 239; + in Pompeii, China, and Genoa, i. 537 + + Glass-blowing in Egypt, i. 543 + + Gliddon, George R., description of the moving of an obelisk, i. 519; + eloquent testimony to Egyptian civilization, i. 521, 522 + + Glycerine, a compound of three hydroxyl groups, i. 505, 506 + + Gnosis, the Kabala, or secret knowledge, still existing, ii. 38 + + Gnostic, wrote _Gospel according to John_, i. 2; + serpent with the seven vowels, ii. 489 + + Gnosticism, oriental, i. 271; + Buddhistic elements, ii. 321 + + Gnostics, ii. 41; + believed in metempsychosis, i. 12; + early Christians and followers of the Essenes, i. 26; + originated many Christian doctrines, ii. 41, 42; + their greatest heresies, ii. 155, 156; + praised by Gibbon, ii. 259; + their doctrines falsified by the Christian Fathers, ii. 326; + their view of the Jewish God, ii. 526 + + Gobi desert, the seat of empire, i. 598; + jealousy of foreign intrusion, i. 599; + testimony of Marco Polo, _ib._; + believed to be inhabited by malignant beings, i. 603 + + Goblins, elementary, i. 68 + + God, personal, denied by modern scientists, i. 16; + an intelligent, omnipotent, individual will, i. 58; + his existence denied by Comte and the Positivists, i. 76; + to be sought in nature, and not outside, i. 93; + belief of Henry More, the English Platonist, i. 205, 206; + Kircher’s doctrine of the one magnet, i. 208; + the monad, i. 212; + doctrines of Voltaire and Volney, i. 268; + the central sun, i. 270; + the universal mind, the original doctrine, i. 289; + is no-thing, not a concrete or visible being like objects, i. 292; + belief of the Stoics, i. 317; + of the several Christian denominations, ii. 2; + the Father, ii. 50; + of the gardens, his rites adopted by the Fathers, ii. 51; + each immortal spirit, ii. 153; + “manifest in the flesh,” a forged text, ii. 178; + his actions subject to necessity, ii. 251; + Masonic testimony, ii. 377; + the Father, the beguiling serpent, ii. 492; + prepares hell for priers into his mysteries, ii. 524; + every man’s, bounded by his own conceptions, ii. 567 + + God-man, the first man, i. 297 + + God’s comedy and our tragedy, ii. 534 + + Godfrey Higgins in error about Roman Catholic esoterism, ii. 121 + + Gods, eminent men so called, i. 24, 280; + inferior to deities, i. 287; + supercelestial and intercosmic, i. 312; + pagan, Christian archangels, i. 316; + kind and beneficent demons, i. 332; + their names kept secret, i. 581; + not incarnations of the Supreme Being, ii. 153 + + Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, i. 297 + + Gold, basic matter of, i. 50; + its manufacture asserted, i. 503; + testimony of Francesco Picos, i. 504; + assertion of Dr. Peisse, i. 508, 509; + made by Theodore Tiffereau, i. 509; + the deposit of light, i. 511 + + _Golden Legend_, a conservatory of pious lies, ii. 74; + choice excerpts, ii. 76-79; + beats the _Decameron_, ii. 79; + a parodized or plagiarized history of Buddha, ii. 579 + + Good demons appear, i. 333; + spirits hardly ever appear, i. 344; + enough Morgan, ii. 372; + Shepherd, a Gnostic symbol, ii. 149 + + Goodale, Miss Annie, death, i. 479 + + Goodness must be alternated by its opposite, ii. 480 + + Gorillas mentioned by Hanno, i. 412 + + Gospel according to Peter, ii. 181; + fourth, full of Gnostic expressions, ii. 205; + fourth, blends Christianity with the Gnosis and Kabala, ii. 211 + + Gospels, their authors and compilers not known, ii. 37, 38 + + Gossein, fakir, contest with a sorcerer, i. 368 + + Græco-Russian church never under the Roman Catholics, i. 27 + + Grand council of the emperors, a Jesuitical production, ii. 390; + secours, i. 374; + cycle, Orpheus, i. 294; + its character, i. 296; + cycle completed, i. 303 + + Grandville, Dr., on mummy-bandaging, i. 539 + + Gravitation, none in the Newtonian sense, i. 271 + + Gray brain-matter the god, i. 36 + + Great Dragon, crushed under the foot of the Virgin of the Sea, ii. + 446; + Vasaki, casting out a flood of poison which the earth swallows, ii. + 490; + equinoctial continent, i. 594; + Masonic revolution of 1717, ii. 389; + secret of evocation, ii. 114; + snake, worshipped by the pueblo-chiefs of Mexico, i. 557; + spirit of the Indian, the manifested Brahma, i. 560; + synagogue revised the Pentateuch, i. 578; + universal soul, absorption into it does not involve loss of + individuality, ii. 116; + year, i. 30 + + Greatest scientists inanimate corpses, i. 318 + + Greece derived its art from Egypt, i. 521 + + Gregory VII., pope, a magician, ii. 56, 57; + of Tours, exposition of sortilege, ii. 20 + + Gross, T., denounces those opposed to investigation, ii. 96 + + Grote assimilates the Pythagoreans to the Jesuits, ii. 529 + + Gunpowder, anciently used by the Chinese, i. 241 + + Guru-astara, a spiritual teacher, ii. 141 + + Gymnosophists of India, i. 90; + knew the Akâsa, i. 113 + + + Half-death, i. 452 + + Half-gods, i. 323; + or mukti, men regenerate on earth, ii. 566 + + Hierophant, transfer of his life to a candidate, ii. 563 + + Hakem, the wise one of the Druzes, ii. 310 + + Haideck, Countess, a Mason, ii. 391 + + Hall of spirits, ii. 365 + + Hamites preferred to settle near rivers and oceans, ii. 458 + + Hamsa, the Messiah of the Druzes, ii. 308; + the precursor, ii. 310 + + Hanno, mention of gorillas, i. 412 + + Hanuma, or Hanuman the sacred monkey, the progenitor of the + Europeans, i. 563; + resembles the Egyptian cynocephalus, i. 564; + endowed with speech, ii. 274 + + Hare, Prof., i. 38; + views of Comte’s positive philosophy, i. 79; + mistreated by Harvard professors, i. 176, 177; + declared _non compos mentis_, i. 233; + bullied by Prof. Henry, i. 245 + + Harmony and justice analagous, i. 330 + + Hasty burial deprecated, i. 453 + + Haug, Dr., asserts the affinity of the Zoroastrian, Jewish, and + Christian religions, ii. 486 + + Haunted house, i. 69 + + Hayes, Moses Michael, introduced Royal Arch Masonry into this + country, ii. 393 + + Hayti, a centre of secret societies, where infants are immolated, ii. + 572 + + Healing art in the temples always magical, ii. 502 + + Heathen processions and priapic emblems at Easter in France, ii. 332; + priesthood, their cast-off garb worn by Christian clergy, ii. 8 + + Heavenly Man, Tikkun, Protogonos, ii. 276 + + Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible the oldest, ii. 430; + burned by the Inquisition, _ib._ + + Hebron, or Kirjath-Arba, city of the four Kabeiri, ii. 171; + Smaragdine tablet of Hermes found, i. 507 + + Heliocentric system known by Hindus 2,000 B.C., i. 9; + denied alike by scholars and the clergy, i. 84; + known by the priests of Egypt, i. 532 + + Hel, or Hela, neither a state nor place of punishment, ii. 11; + cold and cheerless, _ib._ + + Hell, a German goddess, ii. 11; + not a place of punishment in Scandinavian mythology, _ib._; + nowhere so set forth in Egyptian or Hindu mythology, nor in the + Jewish Scriptures, _ib._; + the Archimedean lever of Christian theology, _ib._; + said to be located in the sun, ii. 12; + denied by Origen, ii. 13; + hypothesis of Mr. Swinden, _ib._; + Augustine’s theory of miracles, _ib._; + eternal torments of, all pagans condemned to, ii. 8; + Virgin Mary testifying to it with her own signature, _ib._; + the damned, ii. 25; + priests there, but no monks, _ib._; + no Dominicans, _ib._; + a hallucination, ii. 507; + never means eternal torment, ii. 507; + the translation in the Bible a forgery, ii. 506; + its prince quarrelling with Satan, ii. 515 + + Hellenic figures at Nagkon-Wat, i. 568 + + Hell-torments, their perpetuity denied by Origen, ii. 13 + + Helps, artificial, to clairvoyance, ii. 592 + + Heptaktis, the seven-rayed god, ii. 417 + + Herakleitus on fighting with anger, i. 248; + the Ephesian, his philosophical doctrine of fire and flux, i. 422; + the spirit of fire, i. 423 + + Herakles, the Grecian Hercules, the Logos, i. 298; + disseminated a mild religion, ii. 515; + the only-begotten, ii. 515; + the saviour, _ib._; + ascending from the nether house of Pluto, ii. 517; + slew the sacrificers of men, ii. 565 + + Herbs of dreams and enchantments, ii. 589 + + Her-cules, the Sanscrit form of Mel-Kartha, i. 567 + + Hercules, the magnet named from him, i. 130; + not the same as the Grecian Herakles, _ib._; + creator and father, i. 131; + killed by the devil, i. 132; + and Thor, i. 261; + the first-begotten, Bel, Baal, and Siva, ii. 492; + the Titan, restores Jupiter or Zeus to his throne, i. 299; + descends to Hades, _ib._; + Invictus, his initiation into the Eleusynia and descent into hell, + ii. 516 + + Herder places the cradle of mankind in India, ii. 30 + + Heredom Rosy Cross, ii. 394 + + Heresies, early Christianity among them, ii. 123; + secret sects of the Christians, ii. 289; + one still in existence, ii. 290 + + Hermas, the pastor of, a book quoting from the _Sohar_, ii. 243, 244 + + Hermes, the counterpart of the serpent, ii. 508; + his prediction to Prometheus, ii. 514, 515; + Trismegistus, 20,000 books written before Menes, i. 406; + his _Smaragdine Tablet_ or manual of alchemy, i. 507; + reputed author of serpent-worship and heliolatry, i. 551; + an evocation of angels and demons to preside at Mysteries, i. 613; + and Hostanes believed in one God, ii. 88 + + Hermetic books on medicine, i. 3; + their antiquity, i. 37; + Brothers of Egypt, ii. 307; + doctrine accounts most reasonably for the formation of the world, + i. 341; + fraternities, i. 16; + gold, i. 511; + philosophers, i. 1 + + Hermetists’ doctrine of creation, i. 258; + why they wrote incomprehensibly, i. 627 + + Hermodorus or Hermotimus, i. 364, 476 + + Hero invented a steam-engine, i. 241 + + Herodotus mentioned a night of six months, i. 412; + testimony concerning the pyramids, i. 518, 519; + description of the labyrinth, i. 522 + + Hezekiah, the Redeemer and Messiah, ii. 440, 441; + the rod or scion from the stem of Jesse, ii. 441; + a prince from Bethlehem establishes a sacred college and a new + religion, terminating Baal and serpent-worship, ii. 440; + succeeded on the extinction of the family of Ahaz, ii. 166 + + Hiarchus and Hiram, i. 19 + + Hieroglyph of Knights Kadosh, ii. 391 + + Hieroglyphics on the stones of the Temple of Dendera, i. 524 + + Hierophant offered his own life, ii. 42; + did not allow candidates to see or hear him personally, ii. 93 + + Hierophants, Egyptian, i. 90 + + Higgins, Godfrey, i. 33; + rebuke of skeptics who accept the Bible stories, i. 284; + had not the key to the esoteric doctrine, i. 347; + on the Rasit, ii. 35 + + High Hierophant transferring his life, ii. 564 + + Highest pyrotechny, i. 306 + + Hildebrand, the seventh Pope Gregory, a magician, ii. 557 + + Hindu demigods, ii. 103; + wonderful appearance seen by Jacolliot, _ib._; + gods, masks without actors, ii. 261, 262; + populations in Greece, ii. 428; + rites belong to a religion older than the present one, ii. 535 + + Hindus, more susceptible to magnetism, ii. 610; + and Iranians, battles, i. 12; + ancient, their philosophy and science, i. 618-620; + their great probity, ii. 474; + corrupted by European associations, _ib._ + + Hindustan, once called Æthiopia, ii. 434; + dark races worshipped Maha Deva, _ib._ + + Hiouen-Thsang, his description of the magicians of Peshawer, i. 599; + his vision of the shade of Buddha, i. 600 + + Hippocrates, his views like of Herakleitos, i. 423; + identical with those of the Rosicrucians, _ib._; + his doctrine of man’s inner sense, i. 425; + praise of instinct, i. 434 + + Hiram, i. 19 + + Hiram Abiff, i. 29 + + Hitchcock, E. A., exposition of alchemy, i. 308; + Prof., on psychometric photography, i. 184 + + Hivim, or Hivites, descendants of the Serpent, i. 554; + Ophites, or serpent-tribe, Cain their ancestor, ii. 446; + of Palestine a serpent-tribe, ii. 481 + + Hobbs, Abigail, confederated with the devil, i. 361 + + Holy Ghost, the Æther, the breath of God, ii. 50; + a bit of his finger kept as a relic, ii. 71. + + Holy kiss, and toilet directions of Augustine, ii. 331; + limbs of Sts. Cosmo and Damiano, phallic symbols, ii. 5; + syllable, supreme mystery, ii. 114; + thief ascends out of hell, ii. 517 + + Homer, the Iliad probably plagiarized, ii. 436 + + Homunculi of Paracelsus, i. 465 + + Hononer, the Persian Logos, or living manifested word, i. 560 + + Horse with fingers, i. 411, 412 + + Horse-shoe magnet applied to the phantom-hand, ii. 594 + + Horus piercing the head of the serpent, ii. 446 + + Hospitals anciently established near temples, ii. 98 + + Houdin Robert, i. 73, 100; + testimony in regard to table-rapping and levitation, i. 358, 359; + suspected of magic, i. 379 + + House of David deposed by the Israelites, ii. 439 + + Howitt William, explanation of exorcism, ii. 66 + + Huc, Abbé, his testimony concerning the infant Dalai-Lama, i. 438; + his book placed on the _Index Expurgatorius_, _ib._; + his account of the marvellous tree, i. 440; + the picture of the moon, i. 441; + punishment for his candor, ii. 345, 346; + his testimony of the Lamaic doctrines, ii. 582; + his story of the children compelled to swallow mercury, ii. 604. + + Hufeland, Dr., theory of magnetic sympathy, i. 207 + + Human body once half ethereal, i. 1; + made as a prison of earlier races, i. 2; + credulity contains inside of it an omni-perceptive faith, ii. 120; + embryo, evolved, i. 302, 303; + fœtus, transient forms like those of fœtal animals, i. 388; + process of development, i. 389; + race, many before Adam, i. 2; + imprisoned in bodies, i. 2; + antiquity more than 250,000 years, i. 3; + authorities differ in regard to original barbarism, i. 4; + sacrifices, an ancient practice, ii. 547; + abolished in Egypt, Africa, and Greece, ii. 568; + offered to the Virgin Mary as heretics, _ib._; + soul an immortal god, i. 345; + is born and dies like man, _ib._; + spirit, sees all things as in the present, i. 185 + + Humanity, happy day for it, ii. 586. + + Humboldt, Alexander von, suspected intercourse between Mexicans and + Hindus, i. 548 + + Humboldt, Alexander, on presumptuous skepticism, i. 223 + + Hume, David, exalted by Prof. Huxley, i. 421; + the real founder of the positive philosophy, i. 82; + testimony in the miracles at the tomb of Abbé Paris, i. 373 + + Hunt, Prof. Sterry, on solutions, i. 192 + + Huss, John, his memory sacred in Bohemia, ii. 560 + + Huxley, physical basis of life, i. 15; + classes spiritualism outside of philosophical inquiry, i. 15; + repudiates positive philosophy as Catholicism minus Christianity, + i. 82; + defines what constitutes proof, i. 121; + confesses ignorance of matter, i. 408; + his theory formulated, i. 419 + + Hyk-sos, or shepherds of Egypt, the ancestors of the earlier + Israelites, ii. 487 + + Hymns by Dirghatamas, ii. 411 + + Hyneman, Leopold, testimony on Masonry becoming sectarian, ii. 380 + + Hypatia, her atrocious murder by order of St. Cyril, ii. 53; + letter of Synesius, _ib._; + why Cyril caused her to be murdered, ii. 253 + + Hystaspes, Gushtasp, Vistaspa, ii. 141; + visited Kashmere, ii. 434 + + Hysteria imputed to the prophets of the Cevennes, i. 371 + + + I was, but am no more, ii. 393 + + I. H. S., in hoc signum, ii. 527 + + Iachus, an Egyptian physician, i. 406 + + Iaho, variety of etymologies, ii. 301; + statement of Aristotle, ii. 302 + + Iamblichus, i. 33; + raised ten cubits from the ground, i. 115; + forbids endeavors to procure phenomena, i. 219; + explanation of Pythagoras, i. 248, 284; + on manifestations of demons, etc., i. 333; + the founder of theurgy, his practice, i. 489; + his explanation of the objects of the Mysteries, ii. 101 + + Iao, the male essence of the Phœnicians, i. 61 + + Yava, יהוה, the secret name of the mystery-god, ii. 165 + + Idæic finger, i. 23 + + Identity of all ancient religions and secret fraternities between the + ancient faiths, ii. 100 + + Idiots, reborn, i. 351 + + Iessaens, ii. 190 + + Ievo, not the same as Iao, ii. 296 + + Iezedians, came from Basrah, ii. 197 + + Ignition of stars, i. 254 + + Ilda-Baoth, the son of Chaos, ii. 183; + his sons, _ib._; + creates man, ii. 184; + punishes him for transgression, ii. 185; + his abode in the planet Saturn, ii. 236; + transformed into the Devil, ii. 501 + + Illuminati and their purposes, ii. 391 + + Illusion (_Maya_), the veil of the arcana, i. 271 + + Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin, an element of old phallic + religion, ii. 5; + why promulgated, ii. 110 + + Imagination, the plastic power of the soul, i. 396; + not identical with fancy, _ib._; + a memory of preceding states, _ib._; + its power upon physical condition, i. 385; + its influence on fœtal life doubted by Magendie, i. 390 + + Immodesty of the _Vedas_ exceeded by that of the Bible, ii. 88 + + Immoral principles of the Jesuits, ii. 355 + + Immorality, sexual, said to be produced by religious instinct, i. 83 + + Ilus or Hyle, the slime or earth-matter, i. 146 + + Immortal, Chinese, Siamese, etc., believe some know the art of + becoming, i. 214; + theory of Maxwell, i. 216; + breath, i. 302; + portion of immortal matter, ii. 262 + + Immortality of the soul, the doctrine as old as the twelfth Egyptian + dynasty, ii. 361; + of the spirit, Moksha and Nirvana, ii. 116; + of all, a false idea, i. 316; + to be won, _ib._ + + Imparting the secret to the successor, ii. 671 + + Impostor-demons, seven, ii. 234 + + Incarnation explained, ii. 152, 153; + prophetic star, ii. 454; + exhibited before the author, ii. 599-602 + + Incarnations, the five of the Buddhists, ii. 275; + known in all the old world-religions, ii. 503; + of the deity, periodical, ii. 535 + + Incas, the lost treasures, i. 596; + the story of the last queen, _ib._; + their tomb, i. 597; + the tunnel, i. 598 + + Incendiarism, epidemic, i. 276 + + India, magic in, i. 89; + gymnosophists, i. 80; + of the archaic period, i. 589; + included Persia, Thibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary, _ib._; + the alma mater of the world-religions, ii. 30; + said to be the cradle of the human race, _ib._; + derived her rites from some foreign source, ii. 535; + Southern, the law of inheritance, ii. 437 + + Indian dynasties, solar and lunar, ii. 437, 438 + + Indicator, Prof. Faraday, i. 63 + + Individual life in the future to be won, i. 316; + existence, how sustained, i. 318, 319; + existence of the spirit a Hindu doctrine, ii. 534 + + Individualization depends on the spirit, i. 315 + + Indranee and her son painted with the aureole, ii. 95 + + Induction, not the usual mode of great discoveries, i. 513 + + Ineffable name employed by Jesus, ii. 387 + + Infant, temporarily animated by the spirit of a lama, ii. 601, 602 + + Infant-girl burned as a witch, ii. 65 + + Infant-prophet in France, i. 438 + + Infants, dying, prematurely born a second time, i. 351; + unborn, how influenced, i. 395; + eaten at the sacrifices in Hayti, ii. 572 + + Initiation, the practice in every ancient religion, ii. 99; + represented the experience of the soul after death, ii. 494; + of a Druze, ii. 313 + + Injunction of secresy, ii. 40 + + Inman, Dr. Thos., defines greatest curse of a nation, ii. 121, 122; + on Christian heathenism, ii. 80, 81; + declares the Atheism imputed to Buddha Sakya not supported, ii. 533; + comparison of Christians and Buddhists, ii. 540 + + Inner Man, can withdraw from the body, ii. 588 + + Inner Sense, doctrine of Hippocrates, i. 424, 425; + of Iamblichus, i. 435 + + Innocent III., bull against magic, ii. 69 + + Innocents of Bethlehem, their massacre, a myth copied from India, ii. + 199 + + Inquisition, the slaughter-house of the church, destroyed by Napoleon + I., ii. 22; + its atrocious cruelty, ii. 55; + its bloodshed and human sacrifices unparalleled in paganism, ii. 5, + 6; + why invented, ii. 58; + its origin in Paradise, ii. 59; + burned Hebrew Bibles, ii. 430 + + Inquisitors of our days, the scientists, i. 99 + + Insanity from spiritualism in the United States, ii. 7; + the obsession by spirits, ii. 589 + + Inscription on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept, i. 92 + + Instinct, i. 425; + its miracles, i. 433 + + Integral whole, ii. 116 + + Intelligence of the electric bolt, i. 188; + ether directed, i. 199 + + Intelligent electricity, i. 322 + + Intercosmic gods, i. 312 + + Interior Man, doctrine of Socrates and Plato, ii. 283 + + Interview with a young lama re-incarnated Buddha, ii. 598 + + Intuition the guide of the seer, i. 433; + a rudiment in every one, i. 434; + doctrine of Iamblichus, i. 435 + + Investigation denounced as a criminal labor, ii. 96 + + Invisible Sun, i. 302 + + Invocation of ancestors by Moldavian Christians, ii. 570 + + Invulnerability, can be imparted, i. 379 + + Iran and Turan, their wars conflicts between Persians and Assyrians + or Aturians, i. 576 + + Irenæus, makes Christ fifty years old, ii. 305; + on the trine in man, ii. 285; + and the Gnostics, their contests, ii. 51; + believed the soul corporeal, i. 317; + attempted to establish a new doctrine on the basis of Plato, i. 289; + found guilty of falsehood, ii. 327 + + Irenæus Philaletha, explanation of the peculiar style of Hermetic + writers, i. 628 + + Ireland visited by Buddhist missionaries, ii. 290, 291 + + Iron in the sun, i. 513; + found in the Pyramid of Cheops, i. 542. + + Isaiah the prophet, his vision of seraphs, i. 358; + terminated the direct line of David, ii. 440; + celebrates the new chief, Hezekiah, _ib._ + + Isarim or Essenean initiates, ii. 42; + found the Smaragdine Tablet at Hebron, i. 507 + + Isernia, worship of the _limbs_ of Saints Cosmo and Damiano, and + traffic in phallic _ex-votos_, ii. 5 + + Ishmonia, the petrified city, traditions of books and magic + literature, ii. 29 + + Isis, the name of a medicine, i. 532; + the Virgin Mother of Egypt, ii. 10; + queen of Heaven, ii. 50; + immaculate, her titles applied to the Virgin Mary, ii. 95; + anthropomorphised into Mary, ii. 41; + the “woman clothed with the sun,” ii. 489 + + Isitwa, the divine power, ii. 593 + + Islam, the minarets, ii. 5 + + Islamism, the outgrowth of the Nestorian controversy, ii. 54 + + Island of Middle Asia, inhabited by Elohim, i. 589; + empire of the Pacific Ocean, i. 592 + + Israel, what the name means, ii. 401; + the enumeration of 12 tribes supposed to be purely mythical, i. 568 + + Israelites, intermarried perpetually with the other nations of + Palestine, i. 568; + why their language was Semitic, _ib._; + their symbols relate to sun-worship, ii. 401; + the plebeian were Canaanites and Phœnicians, ii. 134; + worshipped Baal or Bacchus and the Serpent, ii. 523; + their prophets disapproved of sacrificial worship, ii. 525; + offered human sacrifices, ii. 524; + their prophetesses, _ib._ + + Israelitish Tabernacle, elegant workmanship, i. 536 + + Istar, Astoreth, the same as Venus, Queen of Heaven, ii. 444 + + Isvara, a psychological condition, ii. 591 + + “Itself” met by the disembodied soul at the gates of Paradise, ii. 635 + + Iurbo Adonai, ii. 185, 189 + + Ixtlilxochitl, author of the Popul-Vuh, i. 548 + + + Jacob, extraordinary fecundity of his family, ii. 558; + the Zouave, i. 165, 217, 218 + + Jacob’s pillar a lingham, ii. 445 + + Jacolliot, Louis, i. 139; + criticises orientalists, i. 583; + testimony in regard to theopœia, i. 616, 617; + branded as a humbug, ii. 47; + denounces the theory of Turanians and Semitism, ii. 48; + on vulgar magic in India, ii. 70; + description of Brahmanic initiations, ii. 103; + sees a living spectre, ii. 104, 105; + on Hindu metaphysics, ii. 262; + disbelieves in the chastity of Buddhistic monks, ii. 321; + knew no secrets, ii. 584 + + Jadūgar or sorcerers in India, ii. 69 + + Jaga-nath, ii. 297 + + Jah-Buh-Sun, ii. 348 + + Jaina sect claims Buddhism, ii. 321; + owners of the cave-temples, ii. 323 + + Jains, taught the existence of two ethereal bodies, i. 429 + + Jairus, resuscitation of his daughter by Jesus, i. 481 + + James the Just, never called Jesus the Son of God, ii. 202 + + Japanese, their probity, ii. 573 + + Jasher, Book of, ii. 399 + + Java Aleim, יהוה אלהים (Lord-God), head of the priest-caste of + Eden or Babylonia, i. 575; + invests man with the coat of skin, _ib._; + of the Sacerdotal College, ii. 293 + + Javanese, island empire, i. 592 + + Jehovah, his castle of fire, i. 270; + a cruel anthropomorphic deity, i. 307; + not the sacred name at all, ii. 398; + only a Masoretic invention, _ib._; + feminine, ii. 399; + resembled Siva, ii. 524 + + Jehovah-Nissi or Iao-Nisi, the same as Osiris or Bacchus the + Dio-Nysos or Jove of Nysa, ii. 165, 526 + + Jehovah-worship and Christianity abandoned by Freemasons at Lausanne, + ii. 377 + + Jeroboam made the lawful king of the Israelites, ii. 439 + + Jerome, St., mentions Jews of Lydda and Tiberias as mystic teachers, + i. 26; + procured the Gospel of Matthew from the Nazarenes, ii. 181; + his perverted text of Job, ii. 496 + + Jerusalem, the temple not so ancient as pretended, ii. 389 + + Jesuit cryptography, ii. 397 + + Jesuits, a secret society, now control the Roman Church, ii. 352; + their magic, ii. 353; + their secret constitution, ii. 354; + Mackenzie’s description, ii. 355; + their profession of faith, ii. 358; + their expulsion from Venice, _ib._; + declare Christianity not evidently true, ii. 358, 359; + sanction the murder of parents, ii. 363; + disguised as Talapoins, i. 371; + contest of magic with the Augustinians, i. 445; + two, desiring to change Sabean for Christian names, ii. 450; + adopt the institute and habit of Siamese Talapoins, ii. 577; + set aside Christian doctrines, ii. 578 + + Jesus, of Renan, Strauss and Viscount Amberley, ii. 562; + Talmudic story, ii. 201; + discovered and revealed the occult theology, ii. 202; + or Nebo, inspired by Mercury, ii. 132; + and Christna, united to their Chrestos, ii. 558; + his life a copy of Christna, his character of Buddha, ii. 339; + preached Buddhism, ii. 123; + believed in Ferho or Fo, ii. 290; + did not give any name to the Father, _ib._; + his true history imparted to the Templars, ii. 382; + regarded as a brother, _ib._; + an avatar like Melchizedek, becomes a son of God by baptism, ii. + 566; + son of Panther, a high pontiff of the universal secret doctrines, + ii. 386; + proclaims himself the Son of God and humanity, _ib._; + represented by a great serpent, ii. 490; + an Essene and Nazarene, ii. 131; + used oil and drank wine, _ib._; + of the church, the ideal of Irenæus, ii. 33; + classified his teachings, ii. 145, 147; + said to have been a Pharisee, ii. 148; + said to have been a magician, _ib._; + the materialized divine spirit, ii. 576; + deified because of his dramatic death, ii. 339; + why he died, ii. 545; + always called a _man_, ii. 239; + forgave his enemies, ii. 8; + the heirs of Peter curse theirs, ii. 9; + cast out devils by purifying the atmosphere, i. 356; + taught the _Logia_, or secret doctrines, ii. 191; + transmitted magnetic or theurgical powers, i. 130; + healed by word of command, i. 217; + his followers innovators, ii. 132; + endeavored to give the arcane truth to the many, ii. 561; + made little impression upon his own century, ii. 335; + familiar with the Koinoboi, ii. 336; + who rejected him as the Son of God, ii. 455; + said to have been hanged and stoned, ii. 255; + never pronounced the name of Jehovah, ii. 163; + his doctrines like those of Manu, ii. 164; + and Buddha never wrote, ii. 559; + unwilling to die, hence, no self-sacrificing Savior, ii. 545 + + Jewish colonists of Palestine imbued with Magdean notions, ii. 481; + people regard the Mosaic books as an allegory, i. 554, 555; + theology not understood by Christians, i. 17 + + Jews excluded from Masonic lodges, ii. 390; + their doubtful origin, ii. 438; + worshipped Baal or Hercules, ii. 524; + brought the Persian dualism to Palestine, ii. 500, 501; + named Ormazd and Ahriman, Satan, ii. 501; + an Indian sect, the Kaloni, i. 567; + probably came from Afghanistan or India, _ib._; + similar or identical with the Phœnicians, i. 566 + + Job, book of, Satan or Typhon appears, ii. 483; + the allegory explained in the Book of the Dead, ii. 493; + a representation of initiation, ii. 494; + will give the key to the whole matter of the Devil, ii. 493; + his trials and vindication, ii. 485; + seeing God, ii. 485, 486; + the neophyte, hears God in the whirlwind, ii. 498; + vindicated by his Redeemer or champion, ii. 499, 500 + + Jobard, on two kinds of electricity, i. 188 + + John, Gospel written by a Gnostic, i. 2; + travelled in Asia Minor and learned of the Mithraic rites, ii. 507; + the Baptist, his disciples Essenean dissenters, ii. 130; + disciples of, same as Nazareans or Mendæans, do not believe in + Christ, ii. 290 + + Jonah, the prophet, the allegory explained, ii. 258 + + Jones, Sir William, on the laws of Manu, i. 585; + rules for constructing a purana, ii. 492 + + Josaphat, St., a transmogrified Buddha, ii. 579 + + Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Masonry erected on the same + cosmical myths, i. 405 + + Joseph, studied in Egypt, i. 25; + became an Egyptian, i. 566 + + Josephus, interpolated, ii. 196; + his passage concerning Jesus, ii. 328 + + Joshua, fugitives, i. 545 + + Jowett, translator of Plato, exceptions to his criticism, i. 288 + + Judæans, whether they were ever in Palestine before Cyrus, a problem, + i. 568 + + Judæi, the designation of the Jews, an Indian term, ii. 441 + + Judea, its primitive history a distortion of Indian fable, ii. 471 + + Judgment of the Dead, ii. 364 + + Juggernaut, his procession imitated by missionaries in Ceylon, ii. 113 + + Jugglers of India and Egypt, i. 73; + walking from tree-top to tree-top, i. 495 + + Julian, the emperor, a son of God or Mithra by initiation, ii. 566 + + Juno, her temple covered with pointed blades of swords, i. 527; + her abandoning of Veii for Rome, i. 614 + + Jupiter and four moons discovered in Assyria, i. 261; + his mythological adventures, astronomical phenomena, i. 267, 268; + or Zeus originally the cosmic force, i. 262; + also the demiurg, _ib._; + the chief deity of the Orphic hymn, i. 263 + + Jury-trial, introduced by the Egyptians, i. 545 + + Justice and harmony analogous, i. 330 + + Justin Martyr, criticised for his heretical opinion about Socrates, + ii. 8; + his testimony concerning the talismans of Apollonius of Tyana, ii. + 97; + on the non-observance of the Sabbath by Christians, ii. 419 + + Justinian, code of, copied from the code of Manu, i. 586 + + + K----, a positivist and skeptic, his experiences in Thibet, ii. + 599-602 + + Kabala, its fundamental geometrical figure the key to the problem, i. + 14; + Chaldean, not known, i. 17; + included in the Arcane doctrines, i. 205; + same as the laws of Manu, i. 271; + solves esoteric doctrines of every religion, i. 271; + never written, _ib._; + concerning _Shedim_, i. 313; + its system of Sephiroth and emanations, ii. 213; + repeated in Talapoin manuscripts, i. 577; + Oriental, or secret Book of Numbers, i. 579 + + Kabalists, Chaldean, claim science above 70,000 years old, i. 1; + explanation of the allegory of descent into hell, i. 299 + + Kabeiri, Assyrian divinities, i. 569; + differently named and numbered in different places, _ib._; + reproduced in their Samothracian postures on the walls of + Nagkon-Wat, _ib._; + had similar names east as west, _ib._; + worshipped at Hebron, the city of Beni-Anak or _anakim_, _ib._; + number hardly known, ii. 478; + their names, ii. 170 + + Kabeirian gods represented at Nagkon-Wat, i. 565, 566 + + Kadeshim, or Galli, in the Hebrew sanctuaries, ii. 45 + + Kadeshuth, or Nautch-girls in India, ii. 45 + + Kadosh degree invented at Lyons, ii. 384 + + Kalani, an Indian sect, progenitors of the Jews, i. 567 + + Kalavatti, raised from the dead by Christna, ii. 241 + + Kalmucks, described earlier human races than the present, i. 2 + + Kalpas, i. 31 + + Kali, the “fall of man,” ii. 275 + + Kali-Yug, the designation of the present third yug or age of mankind, + i. 587; + began 4,500 years ago, _ib._ + + Kaliadovki, or Christian mysteries, ii. 119 + + Kangalins, or witches in India, ii. 69 + + Kanhari caves at Salsette, the abode of St. Josaphat, ii. 580, 581 + + Kanni, or bad virgins, ii. 447 + + Kansa of Madura, commands the murder of Christna and the massacre of + the infants, ii. 199 + + Kapila, a skeptic, i. 121; i. 307; + denied a First Cause, ii. 261 + + Karabtanos, i. 300 + + Karnak, the representative of Thebes, its archeological remains, i. + 523; + lakes and mountains in its sanctuary, i. 524 + + Kasbeck, the mountain where Prometheus was punished, i. 298 + + Katie King, i. 48, 54; + soulless, i. 67 + + Kavindisami the fakir, causes a seed to grow miraculously, i. 139 + + Kebar-Zivo, i. 300 + + Kepler believed the stars to be intelligences, i. 207, 208, 253 + + Kerrenhappuch, a mystic name, ii. 496 + + Kerner, Dr., witnessing case of Elizabeth Eslinger, i. 68; + account of the encounter of the Cossack and Frenchman, i. 398 + + Keto or Cetus, the same as Dagon or Poseidon, ii. 258 + + Key to the Buddhist system, i. 289; + to the mysteries lost by the Roman Catholic Church, ii. 121; + G. Higgins mistaken, _ib._ + + Keys of St. Peter, where they originated, ii. 31; + cross and fishes, eastern symbols, ii. 255; + to Masonic ciphers, ii. 394 + + Keystone, absent at Nagkon-Wat, Santa Cruz del Quichè, Ocosingo, and + the Cyclopean structures of Greece and Italy, i. 571; + has an esoteric meaning, _ib._ + + Khaldi, worshippers of the moon-god, ii. 48 + + Khamism, an ancient deposit from Western Asia, ii. 435 + + Khansa, remarkable juggling trick, i. 473 + + Kidder, Bishop, remarkable testimony concerning the religion a wise + man would choose, ii. 240 + + King, John, i. 75 + + Kings and statesmen, Jesuit method for assassinating, ii. 373 + + Kircher, Father, taught universal magnetism, i. 208 + + Kiyun or Kivan, the same as Siva, i. 570 + + Klikoucha, i. 28 + + Klippoth, i. 141 + + Kneph, his snake-emblem, i. 133; + producing the mundane egg, ii. 226 + + Knights Kadosch, cipher, ii. 395; + hieroglyph, ii. 396; + Rose Croix, cipher, ii. 395; + Templars, i. 30; + Templars, the modern, have no secrets dangerous to the Church, ii. + 381; + Templars, French Order, ii. 384, 385; + the assassination of a Prince, ii. 385 + + Knowledge, tree of, the pippala, ii. 412; + arcane, when sorcery and when wisdom, ii. 58 + + Koheleth, the summary, ii. 476 + + Koinobi or communists of Egypt, ii. 305 + + Kol-Arbas, the Tetrad or group of four mistaken for a Gnostic leader, + ii. 248 + + Korè-Persephonè, Zeus the Dragon, and their son, ii. 505 + + Kosmos, regarded as God or comprehending God, i. 154 + + Kounboum, mystery of, i. 289; + the Sacred Tree of Thibet, i. 302; + the wonderful Tree of Thibet with letters and symbols on its + leaves, i. 440; + Sanscrit characters on the leaves and bark, ii. 46 + + Kristophores, or the fourth degree, ii. 365 + + Kronos, i. 132 + + Krupte (crypt) the abode of a _teleiotes_, ii. 93 + + Kublai-Khan, ii. 608; + why he failed to adopt Christianity, ii. 581, 582; + reverences Christ, Mahomet, Moses, and Buddha all together, ii. 582; + his testimony concerning Christians, ii. 583 + + Kuklopes or Cyclopeans, shepherds, miners, builders, metal-workers, + and Anakim, i. 567 + + Kuklos Anangkes, or Circle of Necessity, i. 553 + + Kukushan, a medicinal plant of extraordinary virtue, ii. 608 + + Kumil-Mâdan, the undine, an elemental spirit, i. 496 + + Kurds, affirmed to be Indo-European, ii. 629; + are Mahometans, magicians, Yezids, and fire-worshippers, ii. 630; + scene with a sorcerer, ii. 631 + + Kutchi of Lha-Ssa, magically apprised by a Shaman of the author’s + helpless condition in the desert, ii. 628 + + Kutti-Satan, a Tamil spirit, i. 567 + + + Labyrinth, the great, description by Herodotus, i. 522 + + Lactantius on calling up souls, i. 167; + declared the heliocentric system a heretical doctrine, i. 526; + rejected the doctrine of the antipodes, ii. 477 + + Læstrygonians of the _Odyssey_ cannibal races of Norway, i. 549 + + Laghana-Sastra, a secret sect in India, ii. 315; + their sacred groves, ii. 316 + + Lake, mysteries of, ii. 138; + of fire and brimstone, ii. 12; + the devil cast in it, with the beast and false prophet, _ib._; + place of purification of the wicked, ii. 238 + + Lakes and mountains in the Sanctuary of Karnak, i. 524 + + Lakshmi or Lakmi, the Damatri Venus or Great Mother, ii. 259, 598 + + Lama infant, or reincarnated Buddha, interview with him, ii. 598 + + Lamaic saints at a cave-temple, ii. 599; + exorcism, ii. 626 + + Lamaism, the purest Buddhism, ii. 608 + + Lamas, Thibetan, use the force known as Akâsa, i. 113 + + Lamps, ever-burning, one in the tomb of Cicero’s daughter, i. 224, + 228; + in crypts of India, Thibet, and Japan, i. 225; + in Travancore, _ib._; + in Egypt, i. 226; + at Athens, Carthage, Edessa, Antioch, i. 227; + in the Appian Way and the Mosaic Tabernacle, i. 128; + mode of preparing, i. 229 + + Lamp-wicks of stone, i. 231; + of asbestos, i. 231 + + Land-measuring, known by the Egyptians, i. 531 + + Lao-tsi, or Laotsen, his figure produced by magic, i. 600 + + Lares, i. 345 + + Larmenius, charter forged, ii. 385 + + Larva, the soul, i. 344, 345 + + Larvæ, shadows of men that have once lived, i. 310; + their reincarnation, i. 357 + + Last rite, not known by the highest epoptæ, ii. 563 + + Latin Church, nearly upset by modern research, ii. 6; + despoiled the kabalists and theurgists, ii. 85; + preserves the old pagan worship, even to the dress of the clergy, + ii. 92 + + Lausanne, declaration of the Supreme Masonic Councils, ii. 377; + denounced by Gen. Pike, _ib._ + + Leaping of the prophets of Baal, ii. 45 + + Leaves, impressions made on, i. 368, 369 + + Le Comte, Prof., comparison of living and dead organism, i. 466; + on vital force, i. 313 + + Lempriere accuses Pythagoras and Porphyry, i. 431 + + Lemure, i. 345 + + Lemuria, the last continent of the Indian Ocean, perhaps the same as + Atlantis, i. 591, 592; + the Indian legend, i. 594 + + Lens found at Nineveh, i. 239 + + Lentulus, his forged letter, ii. 151 + + Leopard-skin, a sacred appendage of the mysteries, i. 568; + found sculptured in basso-relievo in Central America, i. 569; + employed by the Brahmans, _ib._ + + Lesser mysteries, their meaning and object, ii. 111 + + Lesser and greater mysteries, accused of indecency, ii. 100 + + Letter of Father Raulica on magic, ii. 70; + of Mary Virgin to the Bishop and Church of Messina, ii. 83; + from a Druze brother to the author, ii. 313 + + Letters, ii. 83; + invented in Egypt, i. 532 + + Levi, a caste rather than a tribe, i. 568 + + Levi, Eliphas, exposition of the means to acquire magical power, i. + 137; + his remark on the ancient Christian malignity, ii. 250 + + Leviathan, the occult science, ii. 499 + + Law of compensation never swerves, ii. 545 + + Levitation discussed, i. 491, 492, 494-498; + under magnetic conditions practicable, ii. 589 + + Levitations, i. 100, 225; + declared impossible, i. 105; + of Iamblichus, i. 115; + occasioned by the attraction of the _perisprit_ or astral soul, i. + 197; + disapproved by Iamblichus, i. 219 + + Levites, or serpent-tribe, the seraphs or fiery serpents, ii. 481 + + Lewis, Sir G. C., opinion adverse to the culture of the ancients, i. + 525 + + Liberalia, or St. Patrick’s day, a festival of the Church, ii. 528 + + Libyan shepherds, Cyclopeans, i. 567 + + Lichen, produced, i. 302 + + Life, a phenomenon of matter, i. 115 + + Life-principle, speculations, i. 466 + + Life-transfer, ii. 564 + + Light, chemical relations, i. 136; + undulatory theory much doubted, i. 137; + mystical, the Divine Intelligence, i. 258; + same as electricity, _ib._; + both matter and a force, i. 281; + sympathy its offspring, i. 309; + an energy, not an emanation, the view of Aristotle, i. 510; + sublimated gold, i. 511 + + Lightning, conjured down by Prometheus, i. 526; + fate of Tullius, i. 527 + + Lightning-photographs, i. 394, 395 + + Lightning-rods on ancient temples, i. 527, 528; + used in India, i. 528 + + Lilith, Adam’s “first wife,” ii. 445 + + Linen of ancient Egypt, i. 536; + fire-proof, i. 230 + + Linga, same as the pillars of the patriarchs, ii. 235 + + Lingham, or emblem of Maha Deva, ii. 5; + and Yoni in churches, ii. 5 + + Lithos or phallus, reproduced in steeples, turrets, and domes, ii. 5 + + Littré on positive philosophy, i. 78 + + Living acari by chemical experiments, i. 465; + fire, i. 301 + + Local gods, ii. 451 + + Lodestone, its power to affect a whole audience, i. 265 + + Logia, or secret doctrines taught by Jesus, ii. 191 + + Logoi, all fail and are punished, i. 298 + + Logos, i. 131; + in every mythos, i. 162 + + Λόγος Αληθής, _True Doctrine_ of Celsus, story of the + book at a convent, ii. 52 + + Long-face, the Supreme God, ii. 247 + + Long hair, worn by John the Baptist and Jesus, and denounced by + Paul, ii. 140 + + Lord of the Genii, i. 300 + + Losing one’s soul possible, i. 317 + + Lost word, where to be sought, i. 580; + and its substitute, Mac Benac, ii. 349 + + Lotus, the sacred flower of Egyptians and Hindus, i. 91; + superseded by the lilies, i. 92 + + Loubère, M. de la, on Buddha and the Buddhists, ii. 576-579 + + Lourdes, shrine of, materializations of Virgin Mary, i. 119; + the madonna, her miracles, i. 614, ii. 6; + the moving of the statue, i. 618 + + Love, its magnetism the originator of created things, i. 210 + + Lucifer, i. 299 + + Luke, the evangelist, reputed an Essene, ii. 144 + + Lunar dynasties in India, the Chandra Vensa, ii. 438 + + Lundy, Rev. Dr., what he has proved, ii. 557 + + Luther and the demon, ii. 73; + the worst man in Europe, ii. 200; + his denunciation of the Catholics, ii. 208; + intolerant, and Calvin bloodthirsty, ii. 503 + + Lycanthropes, over 600 put to death in the Jura by sentence of a + judge, ii. 626 + + Lutherans burned as sorcerers, ii. 61 + + Luxor, unfading colors, i. 239; + brotherhood of, ii. 308 + + + Macaulay, his criticism of scientists and philosophers, i. 424 + + Mac Benac, ii. 349 + + Machagistia, the magic taught in Persia and Babylonia, i. 251; + the testimony of Plato, ii. 306 + + Mackenzie, his description of the Jesuits, ii. 355 + + Macrocosm, i. 62 + + Macroprosopos or macrocosm, i. 580 + + Madonna of Barri, with crinoline, ii. 9; + of Rio de Janeiro, _décolletée_, with blonde hair and chignon, ii. + 10 + + Madras famine made worse by Catholic taxation, ii. 532 + + Maëlstrom, the Charybdis of the Odyssey, i. 545. + + Magendie, remedy for consumption, i. 89; + absents himself from experiments instituted by the French Academy + in 1826, i. 175, 176; + acknowledges that little is known of fœtal life, i. 386; + opinion of malformation, i. 388, 390; + asserts influence of imagination on the fœtus, i. 394 + + Magi established magic, i. 25; + taught the birth and decadence of worlds, i. 255; + Pythagoras, their associate, i. 284; + objected to the evocation of souls, i. 321; + three schools, ii. 361; + Chaldean, the masters of the Jews, _ib._; + two schools, ii. 128, 306 + + Magic, based on natural science, i. 17; + once universally taught, i. 18, 247; + a divine science, i. 25; + originally established by Magi, and not by priests, _ib._; + very ancient, _ib._; + Moses and Joseph proficients, _ib._; + two kinds, divine and evil, i. 26; + neglected by Masons, i. 30; + spiritualism, its modern form, i. 42; + profound knowledge of simples and minerals, i. 66; + likely to be rediscovered by scientists, i. 67; + esoteric in India, i. 90; + practised by Gymnosophists, i. 90; + the _divina sapientia_, i. 94; + Salverte’s Philosophy of Magic, i. 115; + mesmerism an important branch, i. 129; + theory of Eliphas Levi, i. 137; + modern forms, i. 138; + doctrine of Paracelsus, Agrippa, and Philalethes, i. 167; + included in the arcane doctrine of Wisdom, i. 205; + the power never possessed by those addicted to vicious indulgences, + i. 218; + its basis, the occult or spiritual principle, i. 244; + testimony of Du Potet, i. 279; + theurgical, i. 281; + a sacerdotal science, i. 262; + exemplified in eastern countries of Asia, i. 320; + adepts understand the akasa or astral fluid, i. 378; + synonymous with religion and science, i. 459; + belief of Demokritus; 800,000,000 believers in, i. 512; + Votan of Ancient America, i. 545; + cultivated by Aztecs and ancient Egyptians, i. 560; + studied by the people of Pashai or Peshawer, i. 599; + seance described by Hon. J. L. O’Sullivan, i. 608-611; + the church believes in it, ii. 76; + used to select the canonical books of Holy Scripture, ii. 251; + denounced, ii. 502; + the science of man and nature, and its applications in practice, + ii. 583; + its principles, ii. 587-590; + its cornerstone, ii. 589; + black, practised at the Vatican, ii. 6; + taught in the lamaseries, ii. 609; + magnetism its alphabet, ii. 610 + + Magic arcanum, i. 506; + crystal, i. 467; + lamp of Hermes, ii. 417 + + Magical anæsthetics of the Brahmans, used in the burning of widows, + i. 540; + exhibitions of Tartary and Thibet, testimony of Col. Yule, i. 600; + moon of Thibet, i. 441; + evocation a part of the sacerdotal office, ii. 118; + evocations must be pronounced in a particular dialect, ii. 46 + + Magician, how different from a witch, i. 366; + difference from a medium, i. 367; + can summon and dismiss spirits at will, _ib._ + + Magism flourished at the Ur of the Kasdeans, i. 549 + + Magnale magnum, i. 170, 213 + + Magus, Magh, Mahaji, i. 129 + + Magnes, i. 64; + rediscovered by Mesmer, i. 71; + the living fire or spirit of light, i. 129 + + Magret, rediscovered by Paracelsus, i. 71; + the stone, i. 129; + its concealed power, i. 168; + Kircher’s doctrine of one magnet in the universe, i. 208; + the same as the spiritual Sun, or God, i. 209; + the poles signified in the Mysteries by the Dioskuri, i. 235; + the sun, i. 271 + + Magnetic currents develop into electricity, i. 395 + + Magnetization, two kinds, i. 178; + of minerals by animal magnetism, i. 209; + of a table or person, i. 322 + + Magnetism, i. 129; + animal, denied by modern science and then accepted, i. 130; + the magic power of man, i. 170; + taught by Des Cartes, i. 206; + by Naudé, Hufeland, Wirdig, and Kepler, i. 207; + and by Porta and Father Kircher, i. 209; + of love, the originator of every created thing, i. 210; + taught in the Mysteries, i. 234; + poles represented by the Dioskuri, i. 235; + the universal law, i. 244; + the alphabet of magic, ii. 610; + being true, medicine absurd, _ib._ + + Mahâbhârata, antedated the age of Cyrus the great, ii. 428 + + Maha Deva or Siva, his lingham or emblem in pagodas, ii. 5; + worshipped by the dark races of Hindustan, ii. 434 + + Mahady of Elephanta, ii. 5 + + Mahat, or Prakriti, the external sense-life, ii. 565 + + Mahomet, his testimony concerning Jews, ii. 480 + + Mahometan, confession of Faith on the Chair of Peter, ii. 25 + + Mahometanism, the outgrowth of Christian cruelty, ii. 53, 54; + making more proselytes than Christians, ii. 239 + + Maimonides, i. 17 + + Malagrida, burned for sorcery in 1761, ii. 58 + + Malays, their island empire, i. 592 + + Males suckling their young, i. 412 + + Malformations, opinion of Magendie, i. 388; + theory of Prof. Armor, i. 392 + + _Malum in se_, no such principle, ii. 480 + + Man, once communed with unseen universes, i. 2; + belief of the Kalmucks, _ib._; + “as immortal as God,” i. 13; + how influenced, i. 39; + composed of like elements as the stars, i. 168; + magnetism his magic power, i. 170; + different electric condition of persons and sexes, i. 171; + possessed of three spirits, i. 212; + a little world inside the great, _ib._; + Van Helmont’s theory, i. 213; + Plato’s theory, i. 276, 297; + androgynous, i. 497; + created in the sixth millenium, i. 342; + possesses arcane powers, ii. 113; + how he should do, ii. 122; + the fall an evolution, ii. 277; + his spirit, if not his soul, preëxistent, ii. 280; + the object of the alchemic, Hermetic, and mystic explorations, i. + 308; + the philosopher’s stone and trinity in unity, i. 309; + a microcosm, i. 323; + never steps outside of universal life, ii. 343; + the six principles, ii. 367; + first appears as a stone, i. 389; + has power to shape matter, i. 394, 395; + ante-natal maternal impressions of this character, i. 395; + seven days on the pillar, ii. 447; + the story of the fall regarded as an allegory, ii. 546; + has a natural, a spiritual, and final birth, ii. 565; + triune, body, soul, and immortal spirit, ii. 588; + how he becomes an immortal entity, _ib._ + + Man-tree, i. 297 + + Mandrakes or Mandragora, a magical plant, i. 465 + + Manes, i. 37, 345; + his fate, ii. 208 + + Manifestations, subjective and objective, i. 68; + mediumistic, in Asia, i. 320 + + Mano, ii. 228, 229, 300 + + Mantheon, a title of Zoroaster, ii. 409 + + Mantic frenzy produced by exhalations from the earth, i. 531 + + Manu, laws the same as the doctrines of the sages and Kabala, i. 271; + doctrine of the universe, _ib._; + laws of, opinion of Sir William Jones, i. 585; + the basis of the code of Justinian, i. 581; + their age, i. 586-588; + widow-burning not mentioned in them, i. 588; + on life, evolution, and transformations, i. 620, 621; + predicts the advent of the Divine One, ii. 50; + knew nothing of deluge, ii. 427, 428 + + Manus, six, progenitors of six races of men, i. 590 + + Manu-Vina or Menes, colonizes Egypt from India, i. 627 + + Manwantara, i. 32 + + Marathos or Martu, ancient city and name of Phœnicia, means _The + West_, i. 579 + + Marathon, neighing of horses and shouts of men heard 400 years after + the battle, i. 70 + + Marcion distinguished between Judaism and Christianity, ii. 162; + his doctrines, ii. 103; + accepted Paul and denied the other apostles, ii. 168; + the great hæresiarch, his influence, ii. 159, 160; + brutally assailed by Tertullian and Epiphanius, _ib._ + + Marco Polo, on veins of salamander or asbestos, i. 504; + asserts that in Kashmere images are made to speak, i. 505; + brought movable types and blocks for printing, from China, i. 513; + describes Buddha as living like a Christian, ii. 581; + on the nature-spirits of the deserts, i. 603; + would not retract his “falsehoods,” _ib._; + declaration in regard to hearing spirits talk in the desert, i. 604 + + Marcosians, their sacrament, ii. 513 + + Marechale d’Ancre, her trial for sorcery, ii. 60 + + Mariana, Jesuit, explains the best way to kill a king, ii. 372, 373 + + Markland, a possible root of name America, i. 592 + + Marriage cured the convulsionaries, i. 375 + + Marrying the father’s wife, ii. 240 + + Marses in Italy, power over serpents, i. 381 + + Martu or Marathos, the west, i. 579 + + Mary, virgin, materializing at Lourdes, i. 119; + writes a letter from heaven declaring the pagans condemned to + eternal torments, ii. 8; + the anthropomorphized Isis, ii. 41; + writes letters, ii. 82, 83; + text of one, ii. 87; + without her consent, no redemption, ii. 172, 173; + overshadowed by Ilda-Baoth and not by Æbel Zivo or Gabriel, ii. 247; + like Dido, the Virgin of the Sea, ii. 446; + is visited by the Agathodaimon serpent, ii. 505 + + Mason, Osgood, on deity and nature, i. 426 + + Masonic ciphers, the keys, ii. 394; + fraternity, its unworthy members, ii. 376; + honors offered by M. de Nègre, a grand hierophant, refused, ii. 380; + institute, brought into disrepute by the Jesuits, ii. 385; + pagan in origin, _ib._; + Templars, a creation of the Jesuits, ii. 381 + + Masonry, neglect of magic and spiritualism, i. 30; + once a true secret organization, ii. 349; + who should be excluded, ii. 376; + esoteric, not known in American lodges, _ib._; + the time to remodel it has come, ii. 377; + no secrets left unpublished, _ib._; + whether Christian or pagan, _ib._; + departing from its original aims, ii. 380; + European and American, the Bible its great light, ii. 389 + + Masons, accusations against them half guess-work, ii. 372; + reject a personal God, ii. 375; + and the impostor Anderson, ii. 389 + + Masorets changed the immodest words in the Bible, ii. 430 + + Master-builder, epopt, adept, the Apostle Paul, ii. 91 + + Master’s word, communicated only at low breath, ii. 99 + + Mas’udi, on the ghûls in the desert, i. 604 + + Materialization, what spirits practice it, i. 319; + personal, i. 321 + + Materializations recorded in the Bible, i. 493 + + “Materialized spirits,” i. 67; + witnessed by the author, i. 69; + Virgin Mary to be expected at the Vatican, ii. 82; + often comes and lights a taper at Arras, _ib._ + + Mathematical error held by the Gnostics, ii. 194 + + Mathematicians, ancient, went to Egypt to be instructed, i. 531 + + Mathematics, Pythagorean and Platonic, i. 106 + + Matsya, the earliest avatar, ii. 427 + + Matter, how produced, i. 140; + proclaimed by modern physicists sole and autocratic sovereign of + the universe, i. 235; + its indestructibility, i. 243; + origin, i. 258; + the serpent that tempted man, i. 297; + not created by Divine thought, i. 310; + indestructible and eternal, i. 328; + fructified by the Divine idea or imagination, i. 396; + the remote effect of emanative energy, ii. 35 + + Matthew, gospel of, a secret book written in Hebrew, ii. 181, 182; + quotes the Egyptian Book of the Dead, ii. 548 + + Matwanlin, on voices in the deserts, i. 604 + + Maudsley, Prof., repudiates Comte, ii. 3; + rejects the positive philosophy, i. 82 + + Mauritania Tingitana, its columns, i. 545 + + Mauritius, his nauscopite, i. 240 + + Max Müller, scouts the idea of original human brutality, i. 4; + on the meaning of Veda, i. 354; + on Sanscrit literature, i. 442; + on the four ancestors, i. 559; + on Brahmanical literature, i. 580; + on the mutations of Christianity, ii. 10; + on the science of religion, ii. 26; + his retort upon Prof. Whitney, ii. 47; + assertion on the Hindu gods, ii. 413; + on the _Vedas_, ii. 414; + his understanding of Nirvana, ii. 432 + + Maxwell, his offer to cure diseases abandoned as incurable, i. 215; + his theory of the world-soul or life-spirit, i. 215, 216 + + Maya, or illusion, i. 289 + + Mayas of Yucatan, their mysterious city, i. 547 + + Mecassipa, an enchanter, i. 355 + + Medallions from the ashes of the dead, ii. 603 + + Mediatorship, how exercised, i. 487, 488 + + Medici family patrons of the black art, ii. 55 + + Medicine, classed by Bacon as a conjectural science, i. 405; + modern, what it has gained and lost, i. 20; + occult, suggested by Descartes, i. 214 + + Medium, a conductor, i. 201; + difference from a magician, i. 367; + a passive, the adept an active instrument, ii. 588; + needs a foreign intelligence, ii. 592 + + Medium-catcher of Prof. Faraday, i. 63 + + Medium-healers, charged with vampirism, i. 490, 491 + + Mediums, their visions more trustworthy than those of Catholic + priests, ii. 73; + burned, hanged, and otherwise murdered, i. 26, 353; + in Russia, i. 27; + generally utter commonplace ideas, i. 221; + their astral limbs, ii. 595; + are usually diseased, _ib._; + the Mosaic law contemplated killing them, i. 356; + passive, i. 488; + unregulated ones persecuted, i. 489; + how cured, i. 490; + generally disordered while the ancient thaumaturgists were not, + _ib._ + + Mediumistic diathesis, i. 117; + phenomena in Asia, i. 320 + + Mediumship, physical and spiritual, i. 367; + its phases seldom altered, _ib._; + depends upon a peculiar organization, i. 367; + psychographic, i. 368; + its conditions and circumstances, i. 487; + in holy men, mediatorship, _ib._; + in these days an undesirable gift, i. 488; + natural, ii. 118; + the opposite of adeptship, ii. 588 + + Megasthenes traces the Jews to the Kalani of India, i. 567 + + Melampus, his magical cures, i. 531 + + Melanephoris, the third degree, ii. 364 + + Mementos of a long bygone civilization, i. 349 + + Memory, views of Ammonius Sakkas, ii. 591; + of God, i. 178 + + Men produced by the giant Ymir, and also by the cow Audhumla, i. + 148; + denoted by the tree of life, Yggdrasill, Zampun, Aswatha, i. 151-4; + existed at a period extremely remote, i. 155; + of the Stone Age described by Mrs. Denton, i. 295; + revivified without souls, ii. 564; + races differ in their spiritual gifts, ii. 588; + soulless, ii. 369; + of science wear the cast-off garb of priests dyed to escape + detection, ii. 8 + + Mendeleyeff, Prof., declares spiritualism a mixture of superstition, + delusion, and fraud, i. 117; + protest by Butleroff, Aksakoff, and others, i. 118 + + Menes, turned the course of the Nile, i. 516 + + Menon, the inventor of letters, i. 532 + + Mensabulism, i. 322 + + Mental photography, i. 322 + + Mentuhept, Queen, inscription on her monument, ii. 92 + + Mercaba, ii. 348; + must be first known, ii. 349; + a hidden doctrine, _ib._ + + Mercurius vitæ of Paracelsus, ii. 620 + + Mercury, water of, symbol of the soul, i. 309; + or quicksilver, never used by Yogi or alchemist, only by + charlatans, and not by Paracelsus, ii. 620, 621; + never restored a man to health, _ib._ + + Meridian, known when the first pyramid was built, i. 536 + + Meru or Meruah, sound, etc., i. 592; + and its gods, ii. 233, 234 + + Mesmer, rediscovered animal magnetism, i. 165; + his 27 propositions, i. 172; + condemned by the French Committee of 1784 + + Mesmerism, i. 23; + a rediscovery of what Paracelsus taught, i. 72; + repudiated by positivists, i. 82; + used successfully by physicians, _ib._; + an important branch of magic, i. 129, 131; + condemned in France in 1784, i. 171; + prize offered for thesis by the Prussian Government, i. 173; + taught by Descartes, i. 206 + + Message delivered at Kounboum, ii. 604 + + Messages, writing by spirits, i. 367 + + Messiah, comes in the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, in the sign + Pisces, ii. 256; + the fifth emanation, ii. 259 + + Metallic springs found in ancient war-chariots, i. 530 + + Metalline, a compound overcoming friction, i. 502 + + Metallurgy among the Egyptians and Semitic races, i. 538 + + Metals not simple bodies, i. 509 + + Metatron, or angel of the Lord, transformed into Jesus the son of + Mary, ii. 33; + seventy names, ii. 245 + + Metempsychosis, i. 8; + believed by all philosophers, early fathers and Gnostics, i. 12; + doctrine of Plato, i. 276, 277; + an allegory, not to be literally understood, and relating to + experiences of the soul, i. 289, 550; + of Buddha, i. 291; + dreaded by Hindus, i. 348; + the separation of the _thumos_ and ridding the _nous_ of the + _phren_, ii. 286 + + Methuselah helps Enoch construct nine chambers underground in the + land of Canaan, i. 571; + receives from him certain secret learning, _ib._ + + Metis, the same as Sophia of the Gnostics, and Sephira, ii. 163 + + Mexican serpent-gods, i. 572 + + Mexicans, ancient, i. 313; + their theory of lunar eclipses similar to the Hindu, i. 548 + + Mexico, serpent-worship, i. 46, 551-558 + + Michael, the unknown angel, ii. 488; + a phial of his sweat preserved as a relic, ii. 71; + the archangel, the same as Ophiomorphos, ii. 206; + and the Devil, their dispute, ii. 482; + the Dragon-slayer, ii. 488 + + Michelet, testimony in regard to the Jesuits, ii. 358, 359 + + Microcosm, i. 212 + + Microcosmos, i. 28 + + Microprosopos (little face), the microcosm, i. 580; + the Adam primos, ii. 452 + + Microscope, its brothers in the Books of Moses, i. 240 + + Middle Asia, botany and mineralogy, i. 89; + ever-burning lamps, i. 227 + + Midgard snake, i. 151 + + Midianites regarded as wise men, ii. 449 + + Milk of the Celestial Virgin, i. 64 + + Milton, John, regarded _Paradise Lost_ as a book of fiction, ii. 501 + + Mimer, the deep well of wisdom, i. 151 + + Minarets of Islam, ii. 5 + + Minerals, magnetized by man, i. 209; + the basis of evolution of vegetable organisms, _ib._; + their occult properties, ii. 589 + + Miracles, those of the Bible surpassed by those of the Vedas, i. 90; + so-called, genuine, from Moses to Cagliostro, i. 128; + none in nature, ii. 587; + at the tomb of Abbé Paris, i. 372; + among the Convulsionaires, _ib._; + none in Protestant countries, ii. 17; + in spite of the Church, ii. 22, 23 + + Miraculous Conception, a legend of Buddhism, ii. 504; + fire at the Holy Sepulchre, ii. 404 + + Mirville, De, i. 99; + refutes Babinet’s denial of levitation, i. 105; + the nebulous Almighty, i. 129 + + Mithra, a triple god, ii. 41 + + Mithraic Mysteries, ii. 351; + initiation of Julian the Emperor, ii. 566 + + Mixture to out-stench devils, ii. 67 + + Mnizurin, i. 321 + + Mochtana or Mokomna, the Druze apostle, ii. 308 + + Morals, the Buddhistic code, ii. 608 + + Model of the Universe, i. 302 + + Modern philosophers, see only the physical form of Isis, i. 16; + devil, a heritage from Cybelè, ii. 501; + Savants know less than ancients, i. 15; + science denies a Supreme Being or Personal God, i. 16; + teaches the power of human thought to affect the matter of another + universe, i. 310; + scientists hate new truths, i. 409; + spiritualism, i. 40; + the modern form of magic, i. 42 + + Mœris, the artificial lake constructed in Egypt, i. 516 + + Moisasure, the Hindu Lucifer, i. 299 + + Moksha and the Nirvana, ii. 116; + the second spiritual birth, ii. 566 + + Moldenwaher, his documents concerning the prosecution of the + Knights-Templar, bought up by Free-masons, ii. 383 + + Moloch-Hercules, children immolated to him in the valley of the + Gehenna, ii. 11 + + Moloch-God of the inquisition, ii. 65 + + Moloch-like divinity of Roman church, i. 27 + + Monad, i. 212; + Buddha, i. 291 + + Monas, ii. 347 + + Mongolians, ought to have been called Scyths, i. 576 + + Monkey of God, now exorcised with holy water, ii. 96 + + Monkeys exhibiting human intellect, i. 326; + fabled to be progenitors of western people, i. 563; + in Egyptian temples, i. 564; + in all Buddhistic temples, _ib._ + + Monkish impostors expelled from convents in Southern Mongolia, ii. 609 + + Monks, their fury for exorcising and roasting the convulsionaires of + the Cevennes, i. 370, 372; + none in hell, ii. 75 + + Monoliths, for Egyptian monuments, i. 518; + how transported, _ib._ + + Monogenes, or only-begotten, a name of Proserpina, ii. 284 + + Montesquieu, on two witnesses, i. 87 + + Montezuma, his effigy worshipped in Mexico, i. 557 + + Montgeron, writes a book on Jansenist miracles, i. 373 + + Monuments, religious, the expression of the same thoughts, i. 561; + planned and built under supervision of priests, _ib._; + alike in Asia and America, _ib._ + + Moody, the revivalist, would see his son’s eyes dug out, ii. 250; + and Sankey, confounded by a Roman bishop with spiritualists, ii. 7 + + Moon, the same as Diana, Diktynna, Artemis, Juno, etc., i. 267; + her worship in Crete, _ib._; + influence on women, _ib._; + legends of her phases, i. 265, 266; + influence on tides, persons, and vegetation, i. 273; + in middle nature, and green the middle color, i. 514 + + Moon-god, Deus Lunus, worshipped by the Khaldi, ii. 48 + + Moon-kings, or lunar dynasty, reigned at Pruyag and Allahabad, ii. 48 + + Moor, his explanation of the Wittoba, ii. 557, 558 + + Moore, Rev. Dunlop, assertion of the age of the institutes of Manu, + i. 585 + + Moors, bearded, figures at the great temple of Angkor, or Nagkon-Wat, + i. 565, 567 + + Mora in Sweden, young children burned alive as witches, ii. 503 + + More, Henry, i. 54, 74; + his belief in Pythagorean doctrines, i. 204, 205; + adversary of Eugenius Philalethes, i. 308; + demonstration of witchcraft, i. 353; + theory of birth-marks, i. 384, 385 + + Morgan, “good enough till after the election,” ii. 372 + + Moigno, Abbé, his wretched success in writing down Huxley, Tyndall, + and Raymond, i. 336 + + Mormons, polytheists, ii. 2 + + Mortal soul, i. 276, 326 + + Mosaic books, regarded by well-educated Jews allegory, i. 554, 555; + religion a sun-and-serpent worship, ii. 129 + + Moses, the pupil of the mother of Pharaoh’s daughter, i. 25; + communicated secrets to the seventy elders, i. 26; + his code required two witnesses, i. 87; + placed a perpetual lamp in the tabernacle, i. 228; + described Jehovah the anthropomorphic deity as being the highest + God, i. 307; + could not obtain his other name, i. 309; + philosophized or spoke in allegory, i. 436; + said to have had knowledge of electricity, i. 528; + chief of the Sodales or priest-colleges, i. 555; + a hierophant of Heliopolis and priest of Osiris, _ib._; + initiated, _ib._; + became an Egyptian and a priest, i. 556; + denounced the spirit of Ob, not Od, i. 594; + disputes over his body, its allegorical interpretation, ii. 482; + an initiate, ii. 129; + and the Israelites, their story typical, ii. 493; + versed in occult sciences, ii. 59; + the law not more than two or three centuries older than + Christianity, ii. 526 + + Moslem arms blessed by the Pope, ii. 560 + + Mother and child, a very ancient sign and myth, ii. 491; + -trunk, the universal religion, ii. 123; + of God the most ancient, ii. 49, 50; + the Heaven itself, ii. 50; + lodge, the great, ii. 315 + + Mountain of light, its appearance to Hiouen-Thsang, i. 600 + + Mouse-mark, produced by alarm, i. 391 + + Mousseaux, Des, i. 99; + declares the devil the chief pillar of faith, i. 103 + + Movable printing types, in China before our Era, i. 513; + used in the earliest periods of lamaism in Thibet, _ib._ + + Moyst natures or elementary spirits, i. 342, 343 + + Mukti, or half-gods, ii. 566 + + Müller, Albrecht, testimony in regard to ancient skill, i. 539 + + Mummy, bandaging, i. 20; + a symbol, i. 297; + a finger-ring at the London Exhibition of 1851, i. 531 + + Mummy-bandaging, i. 539; + 1000 yards long _ib._ + + Mundane tree, i. 297 + + Mundane cross of heaven, ii. 454; + egg or universal womb, ii. 214; + snake creeps out of the primordial _ilus_, i. 298 + + Muratori, his felt cuirasse, copied from the ancients, i. 530 + + Murder, an obstacle to ancient, but not to Jesuit initiation, ii. 363 + + Murderous language of Jerome and Tertullian, ii. 250 + + Music, power over diseases, i. 215; + effect on persons, i. 275; + its influence on reptiles, i. 382; + employed in Egyptian temples for healing of nervous disorders, i. + 544 + + Musical instruments in Egypt, i. 544; + sand, i. 605; + tones influence vegetation, i. 514 + + Mutton-protoplasm, i. 251 + + Mysteries, i. 15; + little known, i. 24; + of the Israelites, i. 26; + theurgic, i. 130; + Samothracian, i. 132; + occult properties of magnetism and electricity taught, i. 234; + representation of Demeter with the electrified head, _ib._; + the Dioskuri, i. 234-243; + Pythagoras initiated, i. 284; + their gradation, ii. 101; + ennobling in their character, _ib._; + of the ancients identical with the Hindu and Buddhist initiations, + ii. 113, 114; + divine visions beheld in them, ii. 118; + of the Christians, ii. 119; + Jesuit, not revealed to all priests, ii. 350; + Mithraïc, twelve tortures, ii. 351; + taught to the Babylonians, ii. 457 + + Mysterious city of the Mayas of Yucatan, i. 547; + science existed apart from “mediumship,” ii. 118 + + Mystery of the celestial Virgin pursued by the Dragon, ii. 490; + and science, Mr. Felix’s book, i. 337 + + Mystery-God of the Ineffable Name, ii. 289 + + Mystic doctrines not properly understood, i. 429; + legends of the Middle Ages, ii. 38 + + Mystical words of power in old religions, ii. 99; + properties in plants, ii. 589 + + Myths, fables, when misunderstood, and truths as once understood, ii. + 431 + + + Nabatheans in Lebanon, ii. 197 + + Nagal, the chief sorcerer of the Mexicans, i. 556 + + Nagas, or kingly snakes, i. 448; + or serpent-tribes of Kashmere, teachers of Apollonius, ii. 434; + or serpent-worshippers of Kashmere converted to the Buddhistic + faith, ii. 608 + + Nagkon-Wat, i. 239; + description of Frank Vincent, i. 561-563; + pictures represent scenes from the _Ramayava_, i. 573; + 100,000 separate figures, _ib._; + ascribed to the lost tribes of Israel, i. 565; + suggested to have been built for Buddhaghosa, _ib._; + contains representations of Oannes or Dagon, the Kabeiri, the + monkey or Vulcan, Egyptian and Assyrian figures, _ib._ + + Nagualism and voodoo-worship, i. 556, 557; + secret worships, i. 557; ii. 572; + perpetuated by Catholic persecution, ii. 573 + + Nails of a cherub preserved as relics, ii. 71 + + Name, Ineffable, not possessed by Masons, ii. 387 + + Nandi, the Vehan of Siva, ii. 235 + + Nara, the mundane egg or universal womb, ii. 214 + + Narayana, mover of the waters, Brahma, i. 91 + + Nation, its greatest curse, ii. 121 + + _National Quarterly_, on modern scientists, i. 240, 249 + + Natural magic, no relation to sleight of hand, i. 128; + “mediumship,” ii. 118 + + Nature, four kingdoms, i. 329; + a materialization of spirit, i. 428; + triune, the visible or objective, the vital or subjective principle + and the eternal spirit, ii. 587; + the servant of the magician, ii. 590; + reveals all arts, i. 424, 425 + + Nature-spirits or shedim, i. 313; + or elementary, i. 349 + + Naudé, a defender of occult magnetism and theosophy, i. 207 + + Naus-copite, an optical instrument, i. 240 + + Navel and less comely parts of Jesus for relics, ii. 71; + symbolized by the ark, ii. 444 + + Nazarene system explained, ii. 227-229; + diagram, ii. 295 + + Nazarenes, had a gospel inscribed to Peter, ii. 127; + an anti-Bacchus caste, ii. 129; + existed before Christ, ii. 139, 181; + some as Galileans, ii. 139; + their belief of a divine overshadowing, ii. 154 + + Nazaret or Zoroaster, ii. 140 + + Nazars, Joseph, Samuel, Samson, Zoroaster, and Zorobabel, ii. 128; + wore their hair long, but cut it off at initiation, ii. 90; + Jesus belonged to them, _ib._ + + Nazireates, inimical to the Israelites, ii. 131 + + Nebelheim, the matrix of the earth, i. 147 + + Nebular theory, the ancient docrine, i. 238 + + Necessity, circle of, i. 226, 296; + men its toy, i. 276; + circle of, when completed, i. 346 + + Necho, King of Egypt, wrote on astronomy, i. 406; + canal of, i. 517; + II., sent a fleet to circumnavigate Africa, i. 542 + + Necklace, imprinted by lightning on two ladies, i. 398 + + Necromancy, a science of remote antiquity, i. 205 + + ΝΕΚΡΟΚΗΔΕΙΑ _nekrokedeia_, i. 228 + + Neoconis, the second degree, ii. 364 + + Neo-Platonic Eclectic School, ii. 32 + + Neo-Platonists, i. 262; + their time of greatest glory, ii. 41; + their doctrines and practices copied, ii. 84; + not “spirit mediums,” ii. 118; + when they were doomed, ii. 252 + + Nero, his ring, i. 240; + dared not seek initiation, ii. 363 + + Neros I., i. 31; + the Great, i. 33 + + Nervous disorders, i. 117; + disorders a specialty in ancient Egypt, i. 529; + disorders treated with music in Egyptian temples, i. 544; + exhaustion at spiritual circles, i. 343 + + Neurological telegraphy proposed, i. 324 + + Never-embodied men, i. 301 + + Neville, Francis, twice resuscitated, i. 479 + + New birth and accompanying slaughter, ii. 42; + taught by Buddha and Jesus, ii. 566 + + New Jersey, negroes burned at the stake for witchcraft, ii. 18 + + New Testament, passages compared with sentences from the + philosophers, ii. 338 + + Newton Bishop, on the transformation of paganism into popery, ii. 29; + Dr. the American healer, i. 165, 217, 218; + Isaac, believer in magnetism, i. 177 + + Niccolini, his exposure of the profligacy of monks, ii. 365, 366 + + Nicodemus, Gospel taken from the pagan authors, ii. 518 + + Nicolaitans adhered to marriage, ii. 329 + + Nicolas, a man of honest report, ii. 333 + + Night of Brahma, ii. 272, 273 + + Nimbus and Tonsure solar emblems, ii. 94 + + Nimrod, or spotted, a name of Bacchus, the wearer of the spotted + skin, i. 568 + + Nimroud, convex lens found, i. 240 + + Nin or Imus of the Tzendales the same as Ninus, i. 551; + received homage in the form of a serpent, i. 522 + + Nineveh, 47 miles in circumference, i. 241 + + Nirvana, i. 241, 290; + the world of cause, i. 346; + not nihilism nor extinction, i. 430; + complete purification from matter, ii. 117; + subjective but not objective existence, ii. 286; + a personal immortality in spirit, but not in soul, ii. 320; + or Moksha, the second spiritual birth, ii. 566; + the ocean to which all religions tend, ii. 639 + + Nirvritti or rest, i. 243 + + No devil, no Christ, ii. 492 + + Noah, or Nuah, same as Swayambhuva, ii. 448; + the universal mother, ii. 444 + + Nonnus, his legend of Korè and her son, ii. 504 + + Norns, or Parcæ, watering the roots of the tree Yggdrasill, i. 151 + + Norse kingdom of the dead, ii. 11; + contained no blazing hell, _ib._ + + NOUS, i. 55, 131; + consecrated to Mary, Isis, and Nari, ii. 210; + or rational soul, everyman endowed, ii. 279; + the spirit or reasoning soul, doctrine of Aristotle, i. 317; + the first-born, or Christ, ii. 157 + + No-Zeruan, the ancient of days, ii. 142 + + Nout, the Egyptian name of the Divine Spirit, ii. 282; + same as Nous, _ib._ + + Nuah (Hea) king of the humid principle, ii. 429 + + Nubia, its rock-temples, i. 542 + + Nucleus of the embryo, i. 389 + + Numa, King of Rome, Books of, i. 527; + understood electricity, _ib._; + opposed the use of images in worship, _ib._ + + Numbers, Hermetic Book, on cosmic changes, i. 254; + book of secret, the great Kabala, i. 579 + + Numerals of Pythagoras, hieroglyphical symbols, i. 35; + the basis of all systems of mysticism, ii. 407 + + Nun, an Egyptian designation, ii. 95 + + Nysa, Nyssa, always found where Bacchus was worshipped, ii. 165; + same as Sinai, _ib._ + + + Oak, sacred, i. 297, 298 + + Oannes, i. 133; + the man fish, i. 349; + the same as Vishnu, ii. 257; + name signifies a spirit, _ib._ + + Oath taken by initiates, i. 409 + + Ob, the astral light, i. 158 + + Obeah women in Guiana charm snakes, i. 383 + + Obelisks of Egypt, i. 518; + mode of transporting them, i. 519; + imputed to Hermes Trismegistus, i. 551 + + Object of this book, ii. 98, 99 + + Obscene relics at Embrum, ii. 332 + + Obscene bas-reliefs on the doors of St. Peter’s Cathedral, _ib._ + + Obscene statue of Christ and its miracles, _ib._ + + Obscenity of heathen rites, ii. 76 + + Obsession and possession, i. 487, 488; ii. 16; + all confined to Roman Catholic countries, ii. 17 + + Obsessions, irresistible, i. 276 + + Occult properties in minerals, ii. 589; + powers by inheritance, ii. 635, 636 + + Occultism, physical, i. 19 + + Oculists in ancient Egypt, i. 545 + + Od, an agent described by Baron Reichenbach, i. 146; + astral currents vivified, i. 158; + emanations identical with flames from magnets, etc., i. 169 + + Odic Force, i. 67 + + Odin, i. 19; + breathing in man and woman, the ash and the alder, the breath + of life, i. 151; + Alfadir, _ib._ + + Oersted, on laws of nature, i. 506, 507 + + Oetinger, experiment on ashes of plants, i. 476 + + O’Grady, Wm. L. D., his letter denouncing the influence of + missionaries in India, ii. 475; + on Hindu demoralization under British rule, ii. 574; + his account of a Christian saturnalia in India, ii. 532 + + Okhal or hierophant of the Druzes, ii. 309 + + Okhals or spiritualists of Syria, ii. 292 + + Old book, one original copy only in existence, i. 1; + gods of the heathen, the same as the ancient patriarchs, ii. 450; + man and his son, remarkable resuscitation, i. 484; + Testament, exiled by Colenso and recalled, ii. 4; + Testament, no real history in it, ii. 441; + universes evolved before the present, ii. 421 + + Olympic gods, their biographies relate to physics and chemistry, i. + 261; + women climbing perpendicular walls, i. 374 + + Onderah, the Hindu abyss of darkness, only an intermediate state, ii. + 11 + + One only good, ii. 238; + in three, i. 258 + + Only-begotten sons, ii. 191 + + Operative masons, ii. 392 + + Ophiomorphos and Ophis Christos, ii. 449 + + Ophion called also Dominus, ii. 512 + + Ophiozenes in Cyprus, power over venomous reptiles, i. 381 + + Ophis, the same as Chnuphis or Kneph, ii. 187; + or the agathodaimon, ii. 293, 295 + + Ophism and heliolatry imputed to Hermes, i. 55i + + Ophite Gnostics rejected the _Old Testament_, ii. 147; + Theogony correctly given, ii. 187; + worship transmuted into Christian symbolism, ii. 505; + or serpent-worshipping Christians, their scheme, ii. 292; + seven planetary genii, ii. 296; + rejected the Mosaic writings, ii. 168; + taught the doctrine of emanations, ii. 169; + and Nazarenes compared, ii. 174; + denounced by Peter and Jude, ii. 205; + accused of licentiousness, ii. 325 + + Optical instruments of ancient times, i. 240 + + Oracle of the bleeding head consulted by Queen Catherine of Medicis, + ii. 56 + + Oracles obtained during the sacred sleep, i. 357 + + Oracular head, made by Pope Sylvester II., ii. 56; + by Albertus Magnus destroyed by Thomas Aquinas, _ib._ + + Orcus, i. 298, 299 + + Oriental philosophy, fundamental propositions, ii. 587 + + Orientals, their senses more acute, i. 211; + ascribe a human figure to the soul, i. 214; + believe certain persons have made gold and lived for ages, _ib._ + + Orientalists have shown similarities between religions, ii. 49 + + Origen, believed in metempsychosis, i. 12; + an Alexandrian Platonist, i. 25; + secret doctrines of Moses, i. 26; + believed the spirit preëxistent from eternity, i. 316; + deemed the soul corporeal, i. 317; + denied the perpetuity of hell-torments, ii. 13; + taught that devils would be pardoned, _ib._; + believed that the damned would receive pardon and bliss, ii. 238; + on the threefold partition of man, ii. 285 + + Ormazd, his worship restored, ii. 220; + his creations, ii. 221 + + Orobio exposes the inquisition, ii. 59 + + Orohippus, i. 411 + + Orpheus, alleged to be a disciple of Moses, i. 532; + on the virtues of the lodestone, i. 265 + + Orphic Mysteries not the popular Bacchic rites, ii. 129 + + Osiris, i. 93, 202; + brought up at Nysa and called Dionnysos, ii. 165; + his slaying denoted the period when his worship was under the ban + of the Hyk-sos government, ii. 487; + and Typhon, E. Pococke’s theory, ii. 435, 436 + + O’Sullivan, Hon. John L., description of a semi-magical seance, i. 608 + + Oulam does not mean infinite duration, ii. 12 + + Ovule ceases to be an integral part of the body of the mother, i. 401 + + Ovum, impregnated, its evolutionary history, i. 389 + + Oxus-tribes or bull-worshippers dominate Western Asia, ii. 439 + + Owen, Robert D., on worship of words, ii. 560 + + + Pagan idols, their destruction commanded by the Roman emperor, ii. 40; + worship, the Latin church preserves its symbols, rites, + architecture and clerical dress, ii. 92 + + Paganism, true meaning of the word, ii. 179; + ancient wisdom replete with deity, ii. 639; + converted and applied to popery, ii. 29 + + Pagans condemned to the eternal torments of hell, ii. 8; + Virgin Mary writing this to a saint, _ib._ + + Palenque, keystone not found, i. 571; + the Tau and astronomical cross, i. 572 + + Pali, their manuscripts translated, i. 578; + have similar traditions as the Babylonians, _ib._; + shepherds, who emigrated west, _ib._ + + Pallium, or stole, a feminine sign, ii. 94; + that of Augustine bedecked with Buddhistic crosses, ii. 94 + + Panther, Grecian, contained Egyptian gods, i. 543; + panther, the sinful father of Jesus, ii. 386 + + Papacy, scientific, danger of, i. 403; + “and civil power,” Mr. Thompson’s book denounced, ii. 378 + + Papal tiara, the coiffure of the Assyrian gods, ii. 94; + discourses, catalogue of foul epithets on those who oppose the + pope, ii. 7 + + Paper, time-proof, i. 529 + + Papyrus, as old as Menes and the first dynasty, i. 530; + art of its preparation, _ib._ + + Parables or double-meanings in the discourses of Jesus, ii. 145 + + Parabrahma the Eternal, Bhaghavant, i. 91 + + Paracelsus, i. 20, 50; + his learning, i. 52; + discovered hydrogen, i. 52, 169; + his doctrine of faith and will, i. 57, 170; + rediscovery of the magnet, i. 71, 164, 167; + persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church, i. 100; + his homunculi, i. 133, 465; + teacher of animal-magnetism and electro-magnetism, i. 164; + theory of a concealed power of the magnet, i. 168; + sidereal force, _ib._; + theory of dreams, i. 170; + on the alkahest, i. 191; + method of transposing letters in his terms, _ib._; + taught that three spirits actuate man, i. 212; + removed disease by contact of healthy persons, i. 217; + his preparation of mercury, ii. 620; + and chorœa, and was persecuted for it as a magician, ii. 565; + received the true initiation, ii. 349; + his assertion that magic was taught in the Bible, ii. 500; + Alsatians believe him not dead, _ib._ + + Paradigm of the universe, i. 212 + + Paradise Lost, the drama of Milton, ii. 501, 502; + the unformulated belief of the English, _ib._ + + Paradoxes, five, of adversaries of Spiritualism, i. 116 + + Paralysis of the soul during life, ii. 368 + + Parerga, i. 59 + + Pariahs, or Tchandales, the parents of the Jews, ii. 438 + + Paris carrying off Helen, and Ravana carrying off Sita, i. 566; + Abbé, the Jansenist, miracles at his tomb for 20 years, i. 372 + + Parker, Father, accuses the Protestants of the purpose to destroy the + Bible, ii. 200 + + Parodi, Maria Teresa, case of malformed child, i. 392 + + Parrot-headed squabs, i. 395, 396 + + Parsis deny any vicarious sacrifice, ii. 547 + + Pashai (Peshawer) or Udayna, classic land of sorcery, i. 599; + testimony of Hiouen-Thsang, _ib._ + + Pastaphoris, the first degree, ii. 364 + + Patriarchs, great gods, and pradjapatis represented signs of the + Zodiac, ii. 450 + + Paul, supposed to have been personified and assailed by Peter under + the name of Simon Magus, ii. 89; + and Plato, quoted, ii. 89, 90; + the real founder of Christianity, ii. 574; + a wise master-builder, or adept, ii. 90, 91; + why persecuted by Peter, James, and John, ii. 91; + supposed to be polluted by the Gnosis, _ib._; + the apostle, used language pertaining to initiations, ii. 90; + was initiated, _ib._; + confessed himself a Nazarene, ii. 137; + on the beatific vision, ii. 146; + his epistles alone acknowledged by Marcion, ii. 162; + differs from Peter, ii. 180; + is adopted by the Reformers, _ib._; + his reference to occult powers, ii. 206; + only worthy apostle of Jesus, ii. 241; + taught that man was a trine, ii. 281; + regarded Christianity and Judaism as entirely distinct, ii. 525; + the apostle, his descendants said to possess the power of braving + serpents, i. 381; + asserted the story of Moses and Abraham to be allegories, ii. 493 + + Pausanias on shadowy soldiers at Marathon, i. 70; + warned not to unveil the holy rites, i. 130 + + Perry Chand Mittra, his views on psychology of the Aryas, ii. 593 + + Pedactyl equus, i. 411 + + Peisse, Dr., on alchemy and making gold, i. 508, 509 + + Penalties of mutilation, ii. 99, 100 + + Pencil writing answers to questions, in Tartary, i. 600 + + Pentacle, Pythagorean, ii. 451, 452 + + Pentagram, can determine the countenance of unborn infants, i. 395 + + Pentateuch, constituted after the model of a purana, ii. 492; + not written by Moses, ii. 167; + compiled by Ezra and revised, i. 578; + revised by the Jews, ii. 526 + + Pepper, Prof., his apparatus to produce spiritual appearances, i. 359 + + Perfect circle decussated by the letter X, ii. 469 + + Perfect Passover of orthodox Christians, ii. 333 + + Periktione, mother of Plato, her miraculous conception, ii. 325 + + Perispirit, i. 197; + the astral soul, i. 289 + + Permutation, doctrine of, ii. 152 + + Perpetual motion, denied by science, i. 501; + illustrated by the universe and the atomic theory, i. 502; + proved by the telescope and microscope, _ib._ + + Persiphone or Proserpina, the same as Ceres or Demeter, ii. 505 + + Persepolis, wonders, i. 534; + the inscriptions older than any in Sanscrit, ii. 436 + + Persia, her wonders, i. 534 + + Persian Mirror, a robber detected by its use and punished, ii. 631 + + Persian colonists dominated in Judea, the Canaanites being the + proletaries, ii. 441 + + Personal devil not believed in by the ancients, ii. 483 + + Personality not to be applied to spiritual essence, i. 315 + + Persons cut to pieces and put again together good as new, i. 473, 474 + + Peru, net-work of subterranean passages, i. 595, 598; + treasures of the Incas, i. 596 + + Peruvians, still preserve their ancient traditions and sacerdotal + caste, i. 546; + magical ceremonies, _ib._ + + Peter, פתר, name taken from the Mysteries, ii. 29 + + PTR, its symbol an opened eye, ii. 92, 93; + the interpreter, ii. 392; + had nothing to do with the foundation of the Latin Church, ii. 91; + his name Petra or Kiffa, _ib._; + the whole story of his apostleship at Rome a play on the name + denoting the Hierophant or interpreter of the mysteries, ii. + 91, 92; + the pulpit of, declared to be the teachings of the spirit of God, + ii. 8; + had two chairs, ii. 23, 25; + was never at Rome, ii. 24; + his life at Babylon, ii. 127; + was a Nazarene, _ib._; + denounced Paul without naming him, ii. 179 + + Peter-ref-su, a mystery-word on a coffin, ii. 92; + Bunsen’s comments, ii. 92, 93 + + Peter the Great, stopped spurious miracles, ii. 17 + + Petra, the rock-temple of the Church, ii. 30 + + Petra, or rock, the logos, ii. 246 + + Petroma, the two tablets of stone, ii. 91 + + _Phœdrus_, i. 2 + + Phallic symbols in churches, ii. 5; + stone, batylos, or lingham, denounced by des Mousseaux, _ib._ + + Phallism, heathen, in Christian symbols, ii. 5; + in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and the fetish-worship + of Isernia, _ib._ + + Phanes, the revealed god, i. 146 + + Phantasmal duplicate, i. 360 + + Phantasy, ii. 591 + + Phantom-hand, false as well as true, ii. 594; + statement of Dr. Fairfield, ii. 595; + what it really is, _ib._ + + Phantoms, the manifestations of bad demons, i. 333 + + Phases of modern Christianity, ii. 575 + + Pharisees, believed in transmigration of souls, i. 347 + + Phenomena, spiritual, discountenanced by the clergy, i. 26; + divine visions of Pius, IX., i. 27; + the Klikouchy and the Yourodevoy, i. 28; + absurd position assumed by scientists, i. 40; + Aksakof, i. 41; + Fisk, Crookes, and Wallace, i. 42; + the Dialectical Society, i. 44; + theories of Prof. Crookes, i. 47; + existed long before spiritualism, i. 53; + Prof. Faraday’s tests, i. 63; + materialization, i. 67; + a haunted house, i. 69; + physical displays seldom caused by disembodied spirits, i. 73; + opposition of the positivists, i. 75; + hostility of allopathists, i. 88; + laid at the door of Satan, i. 99; + testimony of de Gasparin, i. 101; + hostility of medical writers, i. 102; + Mr. Weekman the first investigator in America, i. 106; + reality acknowledged by Prof. Thury, i. 110; + his theory, i. 113; + E. Salverte, i. 115; + De Mirville’s five distractions or paradoxes, i. 116; + condemned by Commission of the Imperial University of St + Petersburgh, i. 117; + how produced, i. 199; + evidence adduced by Prof. Crookes overwhelming, i. 202; + given by an exterior intelligence, i. 203; + deceptions, i. 217-222; + Iamblichus forbids endeavors to procure them, i. 219 + + Pherecydes, taught that æther was heaven, i. 157 + + Philalethes, Eugenius (Thomas Vaughan), i. 51, 167; + not an adept, i. 306; + model of Swedenborg, _ib._; + anticipated modern doctrine of the earth’s beginning, i. 255 + + Phillips, Wendell, i. 211, 240 + + Philo Judæus, on spirits in the air, i. 2; + praise of magic, i. 25; + contradicted himself on purpose, ii. 39; + was the father of new platonism, ii. 144 + + Philonæa, visited her lover after death, i. 365 + + Philosophers, believed in metempsychosis, also that men have two + souls, i. 12; + their consignment to hell desired, ii. 250 + + Philosopher’s stone, sought by a king of Siam, i. 571 + + Philosophy, Oriental, its fundamental propositions, ii. 587 + + Phœnicians, circumnavigated the globe, i. 239; + the earliest navigators, i. 545; + their achievements, _ib._; + an Ethiopian race, i. 566, 567; + traced by Herodotus to the Persian Gulf, i. 567; + Phoinikes, or Ph’anakes, i. 569; + the same as the Hyk-sos or shepherds of Egypt, _ib._; + more or less identified with the Israelites, _ib._ + + Photographing in colors by will-power, i. 463 + + Photography, electrical, i. 395 + + Phtha, the active or male creative principle, i. 186 + + Physical body may be levitated, ii. 589 + + Physically spiritualized, the coming human race to be, i. 296 + + Physician declares Daguerre to be insane, ii. 619 + + Physicians wash their hands on leaving a patient, ii. 611; + problems, i. 277 + + Physicists divinify matter and overlook life, i. 235 + + Pia Metak, king of Siam, becomes able to walk in the air, ii. 618 + + Picture of a slain soldier, extraordinary phenomena, ii. 17 + + Pictures hidden from view, Prof. Draper’s description, i. 186 + + Picus, Francisco, testimony in regard to transmutation, i. 504 + + Pierart, explanation of catalepsy and vampirism, i. 449 + + Pigmies in Africa, i. 412 + + Pike, Gen. Albert, declaration against the creative principle + proclaimed at Lausanne, ii. 377 + + Pilate convokes an assembly of Jews, ii. 522 + + Pillars set up by the patriarchs, identical with the lingam of Siva, + ii. 235 + + Pimander, i. 93; + the same as the Logos Prometheus, etc., i. 298; + the nous, word, or Divine Light, ii. 50 + + Pippala, the sacred tree of knowledge, ii. 412 + + Pitar, its form seen at the moment of initiation, ii. 114 + + Pitris, the lunar ancestors of men, ii. 106, 117; + their worship fast becoming the worship of the spiritual portion of + mankind, ii. 639; + the doctrine of their existence revealed to initiates, ii. 114; + a sect in India, ii. 308 + + Pious assassins of the early church, ii. 304 + + Pius IX, excommunicates Czar Nicholas as a schismatic i. 27; + has divine visions, or rather epileptic fits, _ib._; + evil eye, i. 381; + pretends to be superior to St. Ambrose and the prophet Nathan, ii. + 14; + is the faithful echo of the Jesuits, ii. 359 + + Planchette, writing by, i. 199 + + Planet, i. 301 + + Plants are magnets, i. 281, 282 + + Plant-growing trick, i. 139, 141, 142 + + Plants, attracted by the sun, i. 209; + sympathies and antipathies, _ib._; + sympathy with human beings, i. 246; + possess mystical properties, ii. 589 + + Plato, not often read understandingly, i. 8; + echoed the teachings of Pythagoras, i. 9; + doctrine of the soul, will, or _nous_, i. 14, 55; + his symbology misunderstood, i. 37; + suggestion for physical improvement of the human race, i. 77; + doctrine of wisdom, i. 131; + on trance prophets, i. 201; + asserted to be ignorant of anatomy, i. 236; + his method, i. 237; + Prof. Jewett’s acknowledgment, _ib._; + on origin of the sun, i. 258; + taught correlation of forces, i. 261; + his doctrines the same as those of Manu, i. 271; + declares man the toy of necessity, i. 276; + doctrine of genius, i. 277; + theory of metempsychosis, i. 277; + attraction, i. 281; + his speculations on creation and cosmogony, to be taken + allegorically, i. 287; + veneration for the mysteries, _ib._; + would not admit poets into his commonwealth, i. 288; + dismisses Homer for his apparent antagonism to monotheism, _ib._; + accused of absurdities, etc., i. 307; + derived the soul from the world-soul, i. 316; + shows the deity geometrizing, i. 318; + on the future of the dead, i. 328; + learned secret science in Egypt, i. 406; + versed in the knowledge of the heliocentric system, i. 408, 409; + his “noble lie” concerning Atlantis, i. 413; + on human races, i. 428; + his esoteric doctrines the same as the Buddhistic, i. 430; + on prayer, i. 434; + on God geometrizing, i. 506; + on spiritual numerals, i. 514; + the Atlantis a possible cover of a story made arcane at initiation, + i. 591; + copies Djeminy and Vyasa, i. 621; + complains of unbelief, ii. 16; + his faculty of production, _ib._; + confessed that he derived his teachings from ancient and sacred + doctrines, ii. 39; + on divine mysteries, ii. 113; + not a “spirit-medium,” ii. 118; + and other philosophers taught dual evolution, ii. 279; + on the trine of man, ii. 282; + definition of the soul, ii. 285; + his testimony concerning the Machagistia, ii. 306; + discourse concerning the creation, ii. 469; + taught that there was in matter a blind force, ii. 483; + on exaltation of the soul above sense, ii. 591 + + Platonic philosophy adopted into the church, ii. 33 + + Platonism introduced into Christianity, ii. 325 + + Platonists, their books burned, i. 405 + + Pleroma, three degrees, i. 302 + + Pleasanton on the Blue Ray, i. 137, 264; + denies gravitation, and the existence of centripetal and + centrifugal forces, i. 271; + his theory of light, i. 272 + + Pliny mentions phantoms on the deserts of Africa, i. 604 + + Plotinus, on the descent of the soul into generated existence, ii. + 112; + six times united to his god, ii. 115; i. 292; + on human knowledge, i. 434; + on prayer, _ib._; + on ecstasy, i. 486; + impulse in the soul to return to its centre, _ib._; + on public worship of the gods, i. 489; + a clairvoyant, seer, and more, ii. 591 + + Plutarch on the oracular vapors, i. 200; + on the nature of men, ii. 283; + on the dæmon of Socrates, ii. 284 + + Pococke, E., his theory of Osiris and Typhon, ii. 435, 436 + + Poland, what a Catholic miracle in that country means, ii. 18 + + Polykritus returned after dying, i. 364 + + Polygamy openly preached by certain Positivists, i. 78 + + Pompei, the room full of glass, i. 537 + + Pope seized the scepter of the Pagan pontiff, ii. 30; + now sympathising with the Turks against Christians, ii. 81; + Calvin and Luther, their doctrine one, ii. 479, 480; + his fulminations against science, ii. 559, 560; + Calixtus III. issues a bull against Halley’s Comet, ii. 509 + + Popes known as magicians, ii. 56 + + Popol-Vuh, a manuscript of Quiché, i. 2; + leaves the antiquarian in the dark, i. 548 + + Porphyry, upon Diakka, bad demons of sorcery, i. 219; + twice united with God, i. 292; + upon the passion of spirits for putrid substances and fresh blood, + i. 344; + on freshly-spilt blood in evocation, i. 493 + + Porta, Baptista, theory of magic, world-soul, astral light, i. 208 + + Poruthû-Madân, the wrestling demon, aiding in levitation, taming + animals, etc., i. 496 + + Positivism of Littré found in Vyasa, 10,400 B.C., i. 621 + + Positivists, i. 73; + their religion without a God, i. 76; + design to uproot Spiritualism, _ib._; + preach Polygamy, i. 78; + the climax of their system, i. 80; + neglect no means to overthrow Spiritualism, i. 83; + despised and hated, ii. 3 + + Possession, epidemic in Germany, i. 375 + + Poudot, the shoemaker, his house beset by an elemental demon, i. 364 + + Power of leaving the body temporarily, i. 476, 477; + power to disappear, and to be seen in other forms, ii. 583 + + Powers in nature, as recognized by exact science, and by kabalists, + i. 466 + + Pradjapatis, the ancestors of mankind, ten in number, ii. 427 + + Prakamya, the power to change old age to youth, ii. 583 + + Pralayas or dissolutions, two, ii. 424 + + Prakriti, or Mahat, the external life, ii. 565 + + Pranayama, ii. 590 + + Prapti, the faculty of divination, healing and predicting, ii. 593 + + Pratyahara, ii. 590 + + Pravritti or active existence, i. 243 + + Prayer and its sequences, i. 434 + + Prayers, kept secret from strangers, i. 581 + + Pre-Adamite, man described, i. 295; + earth, i. 505 + + Prediction of the Russo-Turkish war, i. 260 + + Preëminence of woman, ii. 299 + + Preëxistence, apparent, i. 179 + + Preëxistent, the spirit of man, i. 316, 317; ii. 280; + law of form, i. 420 + + Pregnant woman, highly impressible and receptive, i. 394; + odic emanation and its influence on fœtus, i. 395; + under the influence of the ether or astral light, _ib._; + might influence the features of children by pentagram, _ib._ + + Prehistoric races, i. 545 + + Premature burial, i. 456 + + Presbytere de Cideville, phenomenon of thunder and images of + fantastic animals as predicted by a sorcerer, i. 106 + + Preston, Rev. Dr., his doctrine of a Mother in the plan of + redemption, ii. 172 + + Preterhuman beings, their alliance indicated in every ancient + religion, ii. 299 + + Pre-Vedic religion of India, ii. 39 + + Priest, Assyrian, always bore the name of his god, i. 554 + + Priest-ridden nations always fall, ii. 121, 122 + + Priestesses of Germany, how they prophesied, ii. 592 + + Priestley, Dr. Joseph, discovered oxygen, i. 250; + anticipated the present-day philosophers, _ib._; + on the godhood of Jesus, ii. 239 + + Priests, their cast-off garb worn by men of science, ii. 8 + + Priest-sorcerers, ii. 57 + + Primal element obtained, i. 51; + like clear water, _ib._ + + Primitive Christianity, with grip, pass-words and degrees of + initiation, ii. 204; + Christians, a community of secret societies, ii. 335; + triads, ii. 454 + + Primordial substance, i. 133 + + Prince of Hohenlohe a medium, i. 28; + of Hell sides with the strongest, and treats Satan very badly, ii. + 517 + + _Principe Createur_ identical with the _Principe Generateur_ and not + Christian, ii. 377 + + Principes, i. 300 + + Probation of Jesus, ii. 484, 485; + the Devil or Diabolos no malignant principle, ii. 485 + + Proclus, on magic and emanation, i. 243; + theory of the gods or planetary spirits, i. 311, 312; + his remarkable statements of marvels acted by dead persons, i. 364; + on second dying and the luminous form, i. 432; + his idea of divine power, i. 489; + the mystic pass-word, _ib._; + his explanation of the gradation of the Mysteries, ii. 101; + upon apparitions beheld in the Mysteries, ii. 113 + + Proctor, R. A., i. 245; + accuses the ancients of ignorance, i. 253 + + Profanation to eat blood, ii. 567 + + Projecting of the astral or spiritual body, ii. 619, 620 + + Prometheus, the Logos or Adam Kadmon, i. 298; + revealed the art of bringing down lightning, i. 526; + prediction of Hermes, ii. 514, 515 + + Prophecies from Hindu books, ii. 556; + antedate Christianity, ii. 557 + + Prophecy determined in two ways, i. 200; + gift imparted by infection, i. 217; + a power possessed by the soul both in and apart from the body, + ii. 594 + + Prophetic star of the incarnation, ii. 454 + + Prophets of Baal danced the circle-dance of the Amazons, ii. 45; + dominated in Israel, and priests in Judah, ii. 439; + of Israel never approved of sacrificial worship, ii. 525; + led a party against the priests, _ib._ + + Protection from vampires, etc., i. 460 + + Protest against ethnological distinction from the progeny of Noah, + ii. 434 + + Protestant world still under the imputation of magical commerce with + Satan, ii. 503 + + Protestantism has no rights, i. 27 + + Protestants in the United States, ii. 1; + their bloody statutes against witchcraft, ii. 503 + + Protevangelium, a parody of the Nicene creed, ii. 473 + + Protogonos, i. 341 + + Proto-hippus, i. 411 + + Protoplasm, i. 223; + taught by Seneca, etc., i. 249; + doctrine of the Swâbhâvikas, or Hindu pantheists, i. 250 + + Prunnikos, mother of Ilda-Baoth, the God of the Jews, ii. 187 + + Psyche, the animal soul, i. 317 + + Psychic embryos, i. 311; + force, i. 45-67; + same as ectenic force, i. 113; + same as the Akasa, _ib._; + known to the ancient philosophers, i. 131; + propositions of Sergeant Cox, i. 195; + a blind force, i. 199 + + Psychode force, i. 55, 113 + + Psychography, or writing of messages by spirits, i. 367 + + Psychological epidemics, ii. 625; + powers of certain nuns in Thibet, ii. 609 + + Psychology, heretofore almost unknown, i. 407; + the basis of physiology anciently, but now based by scholars upon + physiology, i. 424 + + Psychomatics of occultism, i. 344 + + Psychometry, i. 182; + Prof. Denton and wife, i. 183; i. 330; + practised by the ancients, i. 331 + + Psychophobia, i. 46 + + Psylli in Africa, serpent-charmers, i. 381 + + Pueblos of Mexico still worship the sun, moon, stars, and fire, i. 557 + + Pulpit of Peter the teaching of the Spirit of God, ii. 8 + + Punch-and-Judy boxes or Christian mysteries, ii. 119 + + Punjaub, population hybridized with Asiatic Æthiopians, i. 567 + + Purana, rules for writing one, ii. 492; + the model of the Pentateuch, _ib._ + + Purple, Tyrian, i. 239 + + Pûttâm, or imps, i. 447 + + Pyramids, their architecture and symbolism, i. 236; + of Egypt, i. 518; + their purpose, i. 519; + the baptismal font, _ib._; + the supposed manufacture of the material, _ib._; + built on the former sea-shore, i. 520 + + Pyrrho, how to be interpreted, ii. 530 + + Pythagoras, his philosophy derived from the Brahmans, i. 9; + taught the heliocentric system, i. 35, 532; + believed in an infinity of worlds, i. 96; + Bruno his disciple, i. 96, 98; + taught God as the Universal Mind, i. 131; + his esoteric system included in the arcane doctrines of wisdom, i. + 205; + Galileo a student, i. 238; + his maxim widely scattered, “Do not stir the fire with a sword,” i. + 247; + dual signification of his precepts, i. 248; + his trinity, i. 262; + regard for precious stones and their mystical virtues, i. 265; + his doctrine the same as the laws of Manu, i. 271; + alleged influence on birds and animals, i. 283; + testimony of Thomas Taylor, i. 284; + initiated in the Mysteries of Byblos, Tyre, Syria, Egypt and + Babylon, _ib._; + did not teach literal transmigration of the soul, i. 289; + taught the Buddhistic doctrines, i. 289-291; + held for a clever impostor, i. 307; + derived the soul from the world-soul, i. 316; + mathematical doctrine of the universe, i. 318; + taught the same as Buddha, i. 347; + explains imagination as memory, i. 396; + copied by Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy, i. 512; + learned music in Egypt and taught it in Italy, i. 544; + placed the sphere of purification in the sun, ii. 12; + subdued wild animals, ii. 77; + persuaded a bull not to eat beans, ii. 78; + was not a “spirit-medium,” ii. 118; + his system of numerals, ii. 300; + probably did not understand decimal notation, _ib._ + + Pythagorean pentacle, ii. 451, 452 + + Pythagorists were probably Buddhists, ii. 491 + + Pytho, or Ob, i. 355 + + Pythoness, her powers of seership, ii. 590 + + + Quack, a false name imposed on Paracelsus, ii. 621 + + Queen of Heaven indebted to Pius IX., ii. 9; + the Virgin Mary, Isis, Ishtar, Astarté, Queen Dido, Anna, Anaitis, + etc., ii. 96, 446-450 + + Quetzo-Cohuatl, the serpent-god of Mexican legends, i. 546; + wonders wrought by him, ii. 558; + his wand, _ib._ + + Quiché cosmogony, i. 549 + + Quicksilver and sulphur, a magical preparation to give long life, ii. + 620 + + Quotation from _Psalms_ credited by Matthew to Isaiah, ii. 172 + + + Rabbinical chronology, none before the twelfth century, ii. 443 + + Races, human, many died out before Adam, i. 2; + pre-Adamite, i. 305; + of men differ in gifts, ii. 588 + + Radzivil, Prince, detects the impostures of monks, ii. 72 + + Rahat, or perfect man, ii. 287, 288 + + Railroads in Upper Egypt, i. 528 + + Ram, or Aries, the symbol of creative power, i. 262 + + Ramayana the source and origin of Homer’s inspiration, ii. 278 + + Ramsay, Count, his story of the Templars, ii. 384 + + Raspberry-mark produced by longing, i. 391 + + Rasit, its meaning suppressed, ii. 34; + wisdom, ii. 35 + + Rational soul, every man endowed, ii. 279 + + Raulica, Father Ventura de, letter on magic, ii. 70 + + Ravan and Rama, ii. 436 + + Raven and St. Benedict, ii. 78 + + Rawho, the demon of Ceylon, ii. 509 + + Rawlinson, Sir H. C., brings home an engraved stone, i. 240; + declares that the Akkadians came from Armenia, i. 263; + conjectures respecting the Aryans, ii. 433 + + Rawson, Prof. A. L., a member of the Druze Brotherhood of Lebanon, + ii. 312; + account of his initiation, ii. 313 + + Rays of the Star of Bethlehem preserved as a relic, ii. 71 + + Razors, superior article in Africa, i. 538 + + Realm of Amita, legend of, i. 601 + + Reason, what it is, i. 425; + developed at the expense of instinct, i. 433; + and instinct, their source, i. 432 + + Reber, G., shows that there was no apostolic church at Rome, ii. 124 + + Rebold, Dr., statement concerning the ancient colleges of Egypt, i. + 520 + + Reciprocal influences, i. 314 + + Red dragon, the Assyrian military symbol, borrowed by Persia, + Byzantium, and Rome, ii. 484 + + Redeemer not promised in the book of Genesis, but by Manu, ii. 50 + + Red-haired man, repugnance to stepping over his shadow, ii. 610; + the magnetism dreaded, ii. 611 + + Reformation had Paul for leader, ii. 180 + + Reformers as bloodthirsty as Catholics, ii. 503 + + Regazzoni, remarkable experiments, i. 142; + the mesmerist, feats, i. 283 + + Regenerated heathendom in the Christian ranks, ii. 80 + + Regeneration or spiritual birth taught in India, ii. 565 + + Regulation wardrobe of the Madonna, ii. 9 + + Reichenbach, described the Od force, i. 146; + prepared the way to understand Paracelsus, i. 167; + on odic force of pregnant women, i. 394 + + Reincarnation, its cause, i. 346; + its possibility, and impossibility, i. 351 + + Religion without a God, i. 76; + of the future, _ib._; + of the ancients the religion of the future, i. 613; + private or national property, not to be shared with foreigners, i. + 581; + taught in the oldest Mysteries, i. 567; + which dreads the light must be false, ii. 121; + of Gautama, propagandism, ii. 608 + + Religions, ancient, based on indestructibility of matter and force, + i. 243; + anciently sabaistic, i. 261; + derived from one source and tend to one end, ii. 639; + Papacy and scientific, i. 403 + + Religious customs of the Mexicans and Peruvians like those of the + Phœnicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, i. 551; + instinct productive of immorality, i. 83; + liberty considered as intolerance, ii. 503; + reform pure at the beginning, ii. 333; + myths have an historical foundation, ii. 431; + teachers, ii. 1 + + Renan, E., described Jesus as a Gallicized rabbi, ii. 562 + + Repentance possible even in Hades or Gehenna, i. 352 + + Repercussion, i. 360 + + Rephaim, i. 133 + + Resistance, extraordinary, to blows, sharp instruments, etc., i. 375, + 376 + + Resuscitated Buddha, a babe speaking with man’s voice, i. 437 + + Resuscitations, i. 478, 479, 480; + after actual death, impossible, i. 481 + + Report of French Parliament upon the Jesuits, ii. 353 + + Resplendent one, ii. 113; + the Augoeides, or self-shining vision, ii. 115 + + Retribution on the Roman Catholic Church, ii. 121 + + Reuchlin, John, a Kabalist, ii. 20 + + Revelation, or Apocalypse, its author a Kabalist, ii. 91; + his hatred of the Mysteries made him the enemy of Paul, _ib._ + + Revenge of Ilda-Baoth for the transgression of his command, ii. 185 + + Rib of the Word made flesh preserved as a relic, ii. 71 + + Rig-Veda, hymns written before Zoroaster, ii. 433 + + Rio Janeiro, her Madonna with bare limbs, blond hair and chignon, + ii. 9; + her Christ in dandy evening dress, ii. 10 + + Rishi Kutsa, i. 11 + + Rishis, or sages, i. 90 + + Rite of Swedenborg, a Jesuitical production, ii. 390 + + Rites and ceremonial dress of Christian clergy like that of + Babylonians, etc., ii. 94 + + Ritual of exorcism, ii. 69; + funeral, of the Egyptians, ii. 367 + + Rituals, Kabalistic and Catholic compared, ii. 85, 86 + + Rochester Cathedral, its originals, ii. 5; + rappings, i. 36 + + Rock-temples of Ipsambul, i. 542; + works of Phœnician cities, i. 570; + similar in Egypt and America, i. 571 + + Rod of Moses, the _crux ansata_, ii. 455 + + Roger Bacon, i. 64 + + Roma, Cambodian traditions, i. 566 + + Roman Catholic Clergy murdered mediums, i. 26; + Church burned sorcerers that were not priests, ii. 58; + Church has deprived herself of the key to her own religious + mysteries, ii. 121; + Church regards dissent, heresy, and witchcraft identical, ii. 503; + considers religious liberty as intolerance, _ib._ + + Roman Catholics in the United States, ii. 1; + frown at the spiritual phenomena as diabolical, ii. 4; + pontiffs arrogate dominion over Greek and Protestant Christians, i. + 27 + + Rome, Church of, put Bruno to death for his doctrines, i. 93; + regards the spiritual phenomena as genuine, i. 100; + Church of, cursing spiritualists, ii. 6; + excommunicating the Bulgarians, Servians, Russians, and Italian + liberals, ii. 7 + + Rosaries of Buddhistic origin, ii. 95 + + Roscoe, Professor, on iron in the sun, i. 513 + + Rose, impression of one on Mme. von N., i. 398 + + Rosicrucians, persecuted and burned, i. 64; + their doctrine of creation, i. 258; + still a mystery, ii. 380; + unknown to its cruelest enemy, the Church, _ib._; + the aim to support Catholicism, ii. 394; + their doctrine of fire, i. 423 + + Rosie Cross, brothers live only in name, i. 29; + mysterious body, i. 64; + burned without mercy by the Church, _ib._ + + Round Tower of Bhangulpore, ii. 5 + + Rousseau, the savant, encounter with a toad, i. 399 + + Royal Arch word, ii. 293; + cipher, ii. 396 + + Ruc, from New Zealand, i. 603 + + Rufus of Thessalonica returned to life after dying, i. 365 + + Rules imposed upon neophytes, ii. 365 + + Russia, no church-miracles, ii. 17 + + Russian conquest of Turkey predicted, i. 260 + + + S. P. R. C., the cipher, ii. 395 + + Sabazian worship Sabbatic, ii. 45 + + Sabbath, adopted by the Jews from other peoples, ii. 417; + Christian, its origin, ii. 419 + + Sabbatical institution not mentioned in Job, ii. 494 + + Sabeanism, treated of in Job, ii. 494 + + Sacerdotal caste in every ancient religion, ii. 99; + office, magical evocation, ii. 118 + + Sacred sleep, i. 357; + produced by draughts of soma-juice, _ib._; + lake, ii. 364; + writings of India have a deeper meaning, ii. 430; + books of the Jews destroyed, 158 B.C., ii. 470; + tree of Kounboum renews its budding in the time of Son-Ka-po, ii. + 609 + + Sacrifice of the hierophant or victim, ii. 42; + of blood, ii. 566 + + Sacrificial worship never approved by the Israelitish prophets, ii. + 525 + + Sacrilege to seek to understand a mystery, ii. 249 + + Sahara, perhaps once a sea-bed, i. 592 + + St. Paul’s Cathedral, its double lithoi, ii. 5; + Medard, the fanatics, i. 375; + John, Knights of, not Masons, ii. 383; + persecuted by the Inquisition, _ib._ + + Saints rescued from hell, ii. 517; + Buddhistic and Lamaistic, their great sanctity, ii. 608; + never washing themselves, ii. 511 + + Sakti, the active energy of the gods, ii. 276; + employed as a vehan, _ib._ + + Sakti-trimurti, or female trinity, ii. 444 + + Salamander or asbestos, i. 504 + + Salem, Mass., obsessions occurring there, i. 71; + witchcraft, the obeah woman, i. 361; + witchcraft, ii. 18 + + Salsette, the Kanhari caves, the abode of St. Josaphat, ii. 580, 581 + + Salt regarded as the universal menstruum and one of the chief + formative principles, i. 147 + + Salverte, his philosophy of magic, i. 115; + imputes deception to Iamblichus and others, _ib._; + his account of a soldier protected by an amulet, i. 378; + on mechanics and invention in ancient times, i. 516; + on the use of electricity, etc., by Numa and Tullus, kings of + Rome, i. 527 + + Samâddi, an exalted spiritual condition, ii. 590 + + Samael or Satan, the simoon or wind of the desert, ii. 483 + + Samaritans recognized only the books of Moses and Joshua, ii. 470 + + Samothrace, a mystery enacted there once every seven years, i. 302; + worship of the Kabeiri brought thither by Dardanus, i. 570 + + Samothracian Mysteries and new life, i. 132; + magnetism and electricity, i. 234 + + Samson, the Hebrew Herakles, a mythical character, ii. 439; + represented by the Somona of Ceylon, i. 577 + + Samuel the prophet, a mythical hero, the doppel of Samson, ii. 439; + the Hebrew Ganesa, _ib._; + his school, i. 26 + + San Marco at Venice, the original of the Campanila column, ii. 5 + + Sanchoniathon, on chaos and creation, i. 342 + + Sanctity of the chair of Peter, its source, ii. 25 + + Sankhya, the eight faculties of the soul, ii. 592, 593 + + Sanctuary of the pagodas never entered by a European [except Mr. + Ellis--see Higgins’s _Apocalypsis_--very doubtful], ii. 623 + + Sannyâsi, a saint of the second degree, ii. 98 + + Sanscrit, endeavor to show its derivation from the Greek, i. 443; + inscriptions, none older than Chandragupta, ii. 436; + the vernacular of the Akkadians, ii. 46; + appears on the leaves of the magical Koumboum, _ib._; + books written in presence of a child-medium, i. 368; + impressions by a fakir or juggler on leaves, i. 368, 369; + manuscripts translated into every Asiatic language, i. 578; + language derived from the Rutas, i. 594 + + Sapphire, sacred to the moon, i. 264; + possesses a magical power and produces somnambulic phenomena, _ib._; + Hindu legend of its first production, i. 265 + + Sar or Saros, i. 30 + + Sara-isvati, wife of Brahma, goddess of sacred knowledge, ii. 409 + + Sarcophagus, porphyry, in the pyramids, i. 519 + + Sargent, Epes, on spiritual deceptions, i. 220; + his arraignment of Tyndall for coquetting with different beliefs, + i. 419 + + Sargon, the original of the story of Moses, ii. 442 + + Sarpa Rajni, the queen of the serpents, ii. 489 + + Sarles, Rev. John W., advocates the damnation of adult heathen, ii. + 474 + + Satan, his existence first made a dogma by Christians, ii. 13; + declared fundamental, ii. 14; + Ilda-Baoth, so called, ii. 186; + identical with Jehovah, ii. 451; + the mainstay of sacerdotism, ii. 480; + to be contemplated from their planes, ii. 481; + personified as a devil by the Asideans, ii. 481; + same as Ahriman or Anramanyas, _ib._; + the name applied to a serpent in the Hebrew Scriptures, ii. 481; + the same as Seth, god of the Hittites, _ib._; + of the book of Job, ii. 483; + counsels with the Lord, ii. 485; + a son of God, ii. 492; + makes a sortie into New England and other colonies, ii. 503; + the Biblical term for public accuser, ii. 494; + the same as Typhon, _ib._; + cast forth by the prince of hell, ii. 515, 516; + is made subject to Beelzebub, prince of hell, ii. 517; + and Beelzebub hold a conversation about Jesus, ii. 520, 521 + + Satanism defined by Father Ventura de Raulica, ii. 14 + + Sati, a burned widow, i. 541 + + Sattras, imitations of the course of the sun, i. 11 + + Saturation of the medium, i. 499, 500 + + Saturn, Chaldean discovery of his rings, i. 260, 263; + the father of Zeus, i. 263; + the same as Bel, Baal, and Siva, _ib._; + his image, ii. 235; + or Kronos, offers his only-begotten son to Ouranos and circumcises + himself and family, i. 578; + the myth original in the _Maha-Bharata_, _ib._ + + Saturnalia of monks at Christmas, ii. 366 + + Saul, evil spirit exorcised, i. 215 + + Saviour, would be lost if we lose our demons, ii. 476 + + Scandinavian tradition of trolls, ii. 624 + + Scepter of the Boddhisgat seen floating in the air, ii. 610 + + Scheme of the Ophites, ii. 292 + + Schlieman, the Hellenist, finds evidence of cycles of development, i. + 6; + at Mycenæ, i. 598 + + Schmidt, I. J., statement in regard to the steppes of Turan and + desert of Gobi, i. 603 + + Scholars, ancient, believed in arcane doctrines, i. 205 + + Scholastic science knows neither beginning nor end, i. 336 + + Schools of magic in the Lamaseries, ii. 609 + + Schopenhauer, i. 55, 59; + on nature as illusion, ii. 158 + + Science, formerly arcane and taught in the sanctuary, i. 7; + its progress, i. 40; + spiritualism, i. 83; + “has no belief,” i. 278; + knows no beginning or end, i. 336; + called anti-christianism, i. 337; + mystery fatal to it, i. 338; + its parent source, the unknown, i. 339; + its dilemma, i. 340; + will never distinguish the difference between human and animal + ovules, i. 397; + invading the domain of religion, i. 403; + surrounded by a large hypothetical domain, i. 404; + her domain within the limit of the changes of matter, i. 421; + gross conception of fire, i. 423; + its dogmas concerning perpetual motion, elixir of life, + transmutation of metals and universal solvent, i. 501; + stages of its growth, i. 533; + its three necessary elements, ii. 637; + spiritism does not prevent them, _ib._; + modern, fails to satisfy the aspirations of the race; makes the + future a void and bereaves man of life, ii. 639 + + Scientific knowledge confined to the temples, i. 25; + Association, or American Association for the Advancement of + Science, on spiritualism and roosters crowing in the night, i. + 245, 246; + attainments of ancient Hindu savants, i. 618, 620 + + Scientists bound in duty to investigate, i. 5; + afraid of spiritual phenomena, i. 41; + treatment of Prof. Crookes, i. 44; + likely to rediscover magic, i. 67; + not to be credited for the increase of knowledge, i. 84; + denied Buffon, Franklin, the steam-engine, railroad, etc., i. 85; + surpassed the clergy in hostility to discovery, _ib._; + as much given to persecution, _ib._; + know little certain, i. 224; + entrapping of Slade the medium, _ib._; + put forth no new doctrines, i. 248, 249; + anticipated by Liebig and Priestly, i. 250; + many of them inanimate corpses, i. 317; + their _ultima thule_, i. 340; + curious conjectures concerning the aurora, i. 417; + their incapacity to understand the spiritual side, i. 418 + + Scin-lecca, or double, ii. 104; + makes the principal manifestations, ii. 517 + + Scintilla, the Divine, produces a monad, i. 302; + of Abraham taken from Michael, ii. 452; + Isaac from Gabriel, and Jacob from Uriel, ii. 452 + + Scottish rite, its headquarters at a Jesuit college, ii. 381 + + Screw, invented by Archytas, the instructor of Plato, i. 543 + + Scyths, probably the same as Mongolians, i. 576 + + Sea, ancient inland sea north of the Himalayas, i. 589 + + Seal, Solomon’s of Hindu origin, i. 135 + + Seance in Bengal, i. 467 + + Second Emanation condenses matter and diffuses life, i. 302; + Adam created unisexual, i. 559; + spiritual birth, ii. 566; + advent, a fable invented for a precaution, ii. 535; + death, ii. 368; + sight, i. 211 + + Secret formulæ, i. 66; + sacerdotal castes in every ancient religion, ii. 99; + doctrine, its martyrs, i. 574; + of Moses, ii. 525; + volume, the real Hebrew Bible, ii. 471; + sects of the Christians, ii. 289; + are still in existence, ii. 290; + God of the Kabala, ii. 230; + of secrets, ii. 568 + + Secrets for prolonging life, ii. 563 + + Sectarian beliefs to disappear, i. 613 + + Sects existing before Christ, ii. 144 + + Sedecla, the Obeah woman of En-Dor, i. 494 + + Seer, receives impressions directly from his spirit, ii. 591 + + Seers or epoptæ, not spirit-mediums, ii. 118 + + Seer-adept, knows how to suspend the action of the brain, ii. 591 + + Seership natural with some people, ii. 588; + two kinds, of the soul and the spirit, ii. 590; + an elevation of the soul, ii. 591 + + Self of man, inner triune, ii. 114; + the future, ii. 115 + + Self-consciousness, attained on earth, i. 368 + + Self-printed records on the sacred tree, i. 302 + + Seir-Anpin, the Christos, ii. 230; + the third god, ii. 247 + + Semitic, the least spiritual branch of the human family, ii. 434; + its germs found in Khamism, ii. 435 + + Semi-monastics, ii. 608 + + Sensitive flame obeying a man’s order, ii. 607 + + Separation, temporary, of the spirit from the body, ii. 588 + + Sephira, i. 160; + the Divine Intelligence and mother of the Sephiroth, i. 258; + the same as Metis and Sophia, i. 263; + the first emanation, i. 270; + or Sacred Aged (Maha Lakshmi), ii. 421 + + Sephiroth, i. 258; + concealed wisdom, their father, _ib._; + or emanations, ii. 36; + ten, three classes in one unit, ii. 40; + the same as the ten Pradjapatis, ii. 215; + same as the ten patriarchs, _ib._ + + Sepulchres in Thibet, extraordinary arrangement of bodies and + decorations, ii. 604 + + Seraph, his snout preserved as a relic, ii. 71 + + Serapis, a name of Surya, ii. 438; + an accepted type of Christ, ii. 336; + his picture adopted by the Christians, _ib._; + represented by a serpent, ii. 490; + usurped the worship of Osiris, ii. 491; + the seven vowels chanted as a hymn in his honor, i. 514 + + Serpent of Genesis, des Mousseaux’s name for the devil, i. 15; + matter, i. 297; + dwelling in the branches of the tree of life, i. 298; + symbol of wisdom and immortality, i. 553; + of the book of _Genesis_, Ash-mogh or Asmodeus, ii. 188; + persuades man to eat of the tree of knowledge, ii. 185; + Christna crushing his head, ii. 446; + the divine symbol east and west, ii. 484; + most spirit-like of all reptiles, and hence a favorite symbol, ii. + 489; + how it became the emblem of eternity and of the world, ii. 489; + universally venerated, ii. 489; + a symbol of Serapis and Jesus, ii. 490; + and Eve, ii. 512 + + Serpent-charmers, cannot fascinate human beings, ii. 612; + their powers, ii. 628 + + Serpent-charming, i. 381, 382, 470 + + Serpent-monsters, i. 393 + + Serpent-god, sons of, the hierophants, i. 553 + + Serpent-gods, Mexican, 13 in number, i. 572 + + Serpent-trail round the unformed earth, ii. 489 + + Serpent-worship, its origin not known, ii. 489 + + Serpent-worshippers of Kashmere become Buddhists, ii. 608 + + Serpent’s catacombs in Egypt, i. 553; + mysteries of the unavoidable cycle or centre of necessity, _ib._ + + Serpents, the earth their queen, i. 10; + Kneph, Agathodaimon, Kakodaimon, i. 133, 157; + Eliphas Levi’s, symbol of astral fire, i. 137; + queen of, ii. 489; + used as plaything at Hindu festivals, ii. 622 + + Servius, on the ancient practice of employing celestial fire at the + altars, i. 526 + + Sesostris, instructed by the oracle in the Trinity, ii. 51 + + Seth, the reputed son of Adam, the same as Hermes, Thoth, and Sat-an, + i. 554; + the same as Typhon, ii. 482 + + Seth, his interview with Michael at the gate of Paradise, ii. 520; + worshipped by the Hittites, ii. 523; + same as El, ii. 524 + + Sethicnites, disbelieved that Jesus was God, ii. 176 + + Seven, a sacred Hindu number, ii. 407; + among the Chaldeans, ii. 408; + potentiality of the number, ii. 417; + steps, the descent, i. 353; + degrees, old English Templar Rite, ii. 377; + vowels chanted as a hymn, i. 514; + caverns, i. 552; + spirits, i. 300, 301; + spirits of the Apocalypse, i. 461; + impostor demons, ii. 296; + Æons, _ib._; + rishis, _ib._ + + Seven-headed, serpent, ii. 489 + + Seventh degree, ii. 365; + ray and seven vowel, i. 514; + rite, the life transfer, ii. 564 + + Severus, Alexander, pillaged Egyptian temples for books, i. 406 + + Sexual element in Christianity, ii. 80; + emblems and worship, ii. 445 + + Shaberon, summoning a lama by spirit-message, ii. 604; + his wonderful summons to rescue the author from peril in Mongolia, + ii. 628 + + Shaberons, or Khubilhans, reincarnations of Buddha, ii. 609 + + Shad-belly coat first worn by Babylonian priests, ii. 458 + + Shadow, repugnance to stepping across it, ii. 610; + magnetic exhalation, ii. 611 + + Shakers, spiritual phenomena, ii. 18 + + Shaman, prophesying, ii. 624, 625; + prediction of the Crimean war, ii. 625; + extraordinary scene with the talismanic stone, ii. 626, 628; + “dragged out of his skin,” ii. 628; + priests bound to perform their “true rites” but once a year, at the + solstice, ii. 624 + + Shamanism or spirit-worship, the oldest religion of Mongolia, an + offshoot of primitive theurgy, ii. 615 + + Shamans occasionally enjoy divine powers, i. 3, 211; + of Siberia, degenerate scions of ancient Shamanism, ii. 616; + sometimes only mediums, sometimes magicians, ii. 625; + power over psychical epidemics, ii. 626; + each one has a talisman, _ib._ + + Shampooing or tschamping, a magical manipulation, i. 445 + + Shark-charmers or Kadal-katti, i. 606; + paid by the British government, i. 607 + + Shebang, the Sabbath, ii., 418 + + Shedim, nature-spirits, or Afrites, i. 313 + + Shekinah, the veil of the most ancient, ii. 223 + + Shem, Ham and Japhet, the old gods Samas, Kham and Iapetos, ii. 487 + + Shemites, Assyrians, i. 576; + probably a hybrid of Hamite and Aryan, _ib._ + + Shien-Sien, a blissful state, power of those obtaining it to + transport themselves everywhere, ii. 618, 620 + + Shiloh, daughters, their dance, ii. 45 + + Shimeon and Patar, ii. 93 + + Shoëpffer, Prof., teaches that the earth does not revolve, i. 621 + + Shoel ob, or consulter with familiar spirits, i. 355 + + Shudâla-Mâdan, the ghoul or graveyard fiend, i. 495 + + Shu-King, i. 11 + + Shûla-Mâdan, the furnace-demon, i. 496; + helps the juggler with raising trees, _ib._ + + Shu-tukt, a collegiate monastery, having in it over 30,000 monks, ii. + 609 + + Siam, a king in 1670 who sought for the philosopher’s stone, i. 571 + + Siamese, the power of monks, i. 213, 214; + study of the philosopher’s stone, i. 214; + believe that some know how to render themselves immortal, _ib._ + + Sidereal force taught by Paracelsus, i. 168 + + Signature of the fœtus, i. 385 + + Silver, its aura, the quicksilver of the yogis or alchemists, ii. + 620, 621 + + Silver and green associated in hermetic symbolism, i. 513 + + Silvery spark in the brain, i. 329 + + Simeon, the existence of such a tribe denied, i. 368; + ben Iochai, compiler of the _Zohar_, ii. 548; + rabbi, author of the _Zohar_, i. 301, 302; + his sons arise and relate what they saw in hell, ii. 519; + his prototype in India, _ib._ + + Simon ben Iochai, i. 263; + Stylites, lived 36 years atop of a pillar, ii. 77; + cured a dragon of a sore eye, _ib._ + + Simon Magus, a personification of the apostle Paul, ii. 89; + powers attributed to him, i. 471; + his journey through the air, ii. 357; + and Peter, ii. 190, 191 + + Simoun, or the wind of the desert, called Diabolos, ii. 483 + + Simulacrum of a Roumanian lady conducted by a Shaman to the tent of + the author, ii. 627, 628 + + Sin the necessary cause of the greatest good, ii. 479 + + Sinai, Mount, metals smelted there, i. 542; + story of Moses and the brass seraph, _ib._ + + Singing sands, i. 605 + + Sins, the five which divide the offender from his associates, ii. 608 + + Siphra Dzeniouta, i. 1 + + Sister’s son inheriting a crown, ii. 437 + + Sistra at the Israelitish festival, ii. 45 + + Siva, the fire-god, same as Bel and Saturn or Kronos, i. 263; + vigil-night, i. 446; + represented as sacrificing a rhinoceros instead of his son, i. 577, + 578; + identical with Baal, Moloch, Saturn and Abraham, i. 578; + created Adhima and Heva, ancestors of the present race of mankind, + i. 590; + hurls fallen angels into Onderah, ii. 11; + his paradise, ii. 234; + hurls the devils into the bottomless pit, ii. 238; + Sabazios and Sabaoth the same divinity, ii. 487; + the same as the western chief gods, ii. 524; + most intellectual of the gods, _ib._ + + Six principles of man, ii. 367; + days of evolution and one of repose, ii. 422; + sacred syllables, “aum mani padma houm,” ii. 606; + races of men mentioned in laws of Manu, i. 590; + thousand years the term of creation, i. 342; + thousand infant skulls found in a fish-pond by a convent in Rome, + ii. 58 + + Sixteenth incarnation of Buddha at Urga, ii. 617 + + Sixth degree, ii. 365 + + Sixty thousand (60,428) paid religious teachers in the United States, + ii. 1 + + Skepticism a malady, i. 115 + + Skill displayed in embalming in Thibet, ii. 603, 604 + + Skulls of infants found at nunneries, ii. 58, 210 + + Slade, the medium, pretended exposure by Prof. Lankester, i. 118, 224 + + Slavonian Christians now assailed by the Catholics, ii. 81 + + Slavonians, the mystic word, ii. 42 + + Smaragdine, tablet of Hermes, found at Hebron, i. 507 + + Smith, George, his reading of the Assyrian tablets, ii. 422; + his reading of the story of Sargon, ii. 442 + + Snake-symbol of Phanes, the mundane serpent and mundane year, i. 146, + 151, 157 + + Smyth, Prof. Piazzi, on the corn-bin, i. 519; + mathematical description of the great pyramid, i. 520 + + Snake-skin considered magnetic, ii. 507 + + Snake’s Hole, the subterranean passage terminating at the root of the + heavens, i. 553 + + Snakes kept in Moslem mosques, ii. 490; + reared with children in India, _ib._ + + Snout of a seraph preserved as a relic, ii. 71 + + Society not certain but that all ends in annihilation, ii. 3 + + “Society,” British, in India, its supercilious contempt for the + Hindus and marvels in Hindustan, ii. 613 + + Socrates, his demoniac or divine faculty and its service, i. 131; + his demon, ii. 283; + same as the _nous_ or spirit, ii. 284; + opinion of Justin Martyr about his future fate criticised, ii. 8; + a medium, and therefore not initiated, ii. 117; + why put to death as an atheist, ii. 118 + + Sod, an arcanum of Mystery, i. 301, 555; + the Mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, _ib._; + the _secret_ of Simeon and Levi, _ib._; + great, of the Kadeshim, ii. 131 + + Sodales, or priest-colleges, Moses their chief, i. 555 + + Sodalian oath, i. 409 + + Sodom and Gomorrah, suffering eternal fire, ii. 12 + + Sohar, its compilation, ii. 348; + its theories like the Hindu, ii. 276 + + Solar trinity, red, blue and yellow, ii. 417; + dynasty in India, the Surga Vansa, ii. 437 + + Solemn ceremony of the Druzes, ii. 312 + + Solidarities of Greece and Rome, ii. 389 + + Solitary Copts, students of ancient lore, ii. 306 + + Solomon, or Sol-Om-On, ii. 389; i. 19; + obtained secret learning, i. 135; + seal of Hindu origin, _ib._; + ships to Ophir or India, i. 136; + his seven abominations, ii. 67; + learned from Votan the particulars of the products of the occident, + i. 546; + the builder of temples, ii. 439; + revolts against him, _ib._; + his temple never visited by the prophets, ii. 525; + and his temple only allegorical, ii. 391; + temple, the brazen columns and bowls to aid in entheastic power, + ii. 542 + + Soma, juice of, produces trance, i. 357 + + Somona, the Singalese Samson, i. 577 + + “Son of Man,” ii. 232 + + Son of God at one with man, ii. 635 + + Sons of the Serpent-God, i. 553 + + Son-Ka-po, the Shaberon, or avatar and great reformer, immaculately + conceived, and translated without dying into heaven, ii. 609 + + Sophia or wisdom, ii. 41; + the Holy Ghost as a female principle, i. 130; + the Gnostic principle of wisdom, the same as Sephira and Metis, i. + 263 + + Sorcerer in Africa, impervious to bullets, i. 379 + + Sorcerers, burned when not priests, ii. 58 + + Sorcery, i. 279; + misapplied arcane knowledge, ii. 581; + few facts better established, i. 366; + with blood, ii. 567, 568; + practised at the Vatican, ii. 620; + approved by Augustine, ii. 20; + employed for crime, ii. 633 + + Sortes Sanctorum, ii. 20, 21 + + Sortie of Satan into New England, ii. 503 + + Sortilegium or sorcery, practised by clergy and monks, ii. 6; + Gregory of Tours, ii. 20 + + Sosigenes, reformed the calendar for Cæsar, i. 11 + + Sosiosh, the tenth avatar and fifth Buddha, ii. 236; + a permutation of Vishnu, ii. 237 + + Sotheran, Charles, letter on Freemasonry, ii. 388 + + Soul, displays power when the body is asleep, i. 199; + the two named by Plato, i. 276; + marvellous power, i. 280; + passage through the seven planetary chambers, i. 297; + spirit wholly distinct, i. 315; + dissolves into ether, _ib._; + possible loss of its distinct being, i. 316, 317; + the garment of the spirit, i. 309; + exists as preexisting matter, i. 317; + doctrine of the Greek and Roman philosophers, i. 429; + of Aristotle, Homer, the Jains and Brahmans, _ib._; + the camera in which facts are fixed, i. 486; + escaping temporarily from the body, ii. 105; + may dwell in paradise while the body lives in this world, i. 602; + punished by union with the body, ii. 112; + the Vedic doctrine, ii. 263; + universal, when it sleeps, ii. 274; + its transmigration does not relate to man’s condition after death, + ii. 280; + its feminine, ii. 281; + a part of it mortal, ii. 283; + the doctrine of Pythagoras, ii. 283; + Plato’s definition, ii. 285, 286; + its paralysis during life, ii. 368; + not knit to flesh, ii. 565; + sentient, the Ego, inseparable from the brain, ii. 590; + raised above inferior good, ii. 591; + power to liberate itself and behold things subjectively, ii. 591; + its eight faculties, ii. 592; + its teachings authoritative, ii. 593; + possesses a power of prescience even when in the body, ii. 594; + disembodied, meets itself at the gate of Paradise, ii. 635; + of the world the archeal universal, “mind,” Sophia the Holy Ghost + as a female principle, i. 130; + doctrine of Baptista Porta, i. 208; + external, i. 276; + higher mortal, _ib._; + the great universal, union with it does not involve loss of + individuality, ii. 116 + + Soul-blind like color-blind, i. 387 + + Soul-electricity, i. 322 + + Soul-deaths, ii. 369 + + Soulless men yet living, ii. 369 + + Souls, or immortal gods emanate from the triad, i. 348; + come to souls and impart to them information, ii. 594 + + Source of the religious faiths of mankind, ii. 639; + double, of every religion, _ib._ + + South Carolina, statutes in force in 1865, imposing the death-penalty + for witchcraft, ii. 18 + + Sparks or old worlds that perished, ii. 421 + + Speaking images, i. 505 + + Specialties in medical practice in Egypt, i. 545 + + Speculative Masons, ii. 392 + + Spectre of a herdsman in Bavaria, i. 451 + + Spectroscope, confirmed doctrines of Paracelsus, i. 168, 169 + + Spell of the evil eye, ii. 633 + + Spheres, music of, i. 275 + + Spinoza, his philosophy, i. 93; + furnishes a key to the unwritten secret, i. 308 + + Spirit, its origin, i. 258; + not existing, but immortal, i. 291; + or spiritus, the soul or _anima mundi_, the mother, i. 299, 300; + progeny of, i. 301; + human, an emanation of the eternal spirit, i. 305; + never entered wholly into the body, i. 306; + is masculine, ii. 281; + of man preëxistent, ii. 280; + distinct from soul, i. 315; + individualization depends upon it, _ib._; + becomes an angel, i. 316; + its preëxistence believed, _ib._; + alone immortal, ii. 362; + leaving an old for a young body, ii. 563; + by its vision all things can be known, ii. 588; + may abandon the body for specific periods, ii. 589; + the sole original unity, ii. 607; + the interpreter of God to man, ii. 635; + its Protean powers little known by spiritualists, ii. 638 + + Spirit-ancestor, a serpent, 45, 46 + + Spirit-form, i. 197 + + Spirit-voices not articulate, i. 68; + audible, i. 220 + + Spirit-intercourse, 446,000,000 believers, i. 117 + + Spirit-flowers produced by a Bikshuni, ii. 609 + + Spiritists of France attacked by the Roman church, ii. 6 + + Spirits that control mediums, generally human, i. 67; + cannot “materialize,” _ib._; + not attracted by every body alike, i. 69; + produce few of the “physical phenomena,” i. 73; + the seven, i. 300, 301; + not possessed of the same attractions, i. 344; + or ghosts, hurt by weapons, i. 363; + heard talking in the desert of Lop, and elsewhere, i. 604; + three categories of communication, ii. 115; + may take possession of bodies in the absence of the soul, ii. 589; + bad, compelled Garma-Khian to appear and render an account, ii. 616; + city of, _ib._ + + Spiritual phenomena among the Shakers, ii. 18; + discountenanced by the clergy, i. 26; + chase the scientists, i. 41; + Iamblichus forbids the endeavor to procure them, i. 219; + sun, i. 29, 32; + the magnet of Kircher, i. 208, 209; + Gama, Ormazd, the soul of things, God, i. 270; + invisible and in the centre of space, i. 302; + the supreme deity, ii. 13; + death, its cause, i. 318; + eyes, i. 145; + sight, scientists without it, i. 318; + photography, i. 486 + + Spiritual entity, in man, an ancient doctrine, ii. 593; + transferred, ii. 563; + limbs, can be made visible, ii. 596; + world in proximity to us, ii. 593; + state, as unfolded in the Sankhya, a philosophy, ii. 593; + numerals, i. 514; + crisis of the Shaman, ii. 625; + or magical powers exist in every man, ii. 635; + circles are constructed on no principle, ii. 638; + Self the sole and Supreme God, ii. 566 + + Spiritualism, drifting, i. 53; + efforts of Positivists to uproot, i. 76, 83; + pretends only to be a science, i. 83; + pronounced a delusion in Russia, i. 118; + universally diffused from remote antiquity, i. 205; + why it must continue to vegetate, ii. 636; + is iconoclastic, not constructed, ii. 637; + not scientific, ii. 637, 638; + exoteric, too much directed to personal matters, _ib._; + esoteric, very rare, _ib._ + + Spiritualists, the majority remain in the religious denominations, + ii. 2; + take no active part in the formation of a system of philosophy, ii. + 637; + start with a fallacy, ii. 638 + + Splendor, mighty Lord of, i. 301 + + Spurious passage in the First Epistle of John, ii. 177 + + Square hat of the Hierophant, ii. 392 + + Squirrel materialized, i. 329 + + Sri-Iantara, or Solomon’s seal, ii. 265 + + Stainton, Moses, his criticisms of popular spiritualism, ii. 638 + + Stan-gyour, a work on magic, i. 580 + + Stanhope, Lady Esther, faints at a Yezidi orgy, ii. 572 + + Star of Bethlehem, rays carried home by a monk as relics, ii. 71 + + Starry heaven, worship proposed under Christian names, ii. 450 + + Stars, ignition, i. 254; + influence on fates of men, i. 259; + and man have direct affinity, i. 168, 169 + + Statues, restorative of health, i. 283; + possible to animate them, i. 485; + endowed with reason, i. 613 + + Steam-engine, invented by Hero of Alexandria, i. 241 + + Stedingers, accused and exterminated, ii. 331 + + Steel, rusts in India and Egypt, i. 211; + superior article in India, i. 538; + in Egypt, _ib._ + + Steeples, turrets, and domes, phallic symbols, ii. 5 + + Stephens, believes the key to American hieroglyphs will yet be + obtained, i. 546; + story of the unknown city of the Mayas, i. 547 + + Stewart, Prof. Balfour, his tribute to Herakleitus, i. 422; + warning to scientists, i. 424; + denies perpetual light, i. 510 + + Stigmata, or birth-marks, i. 384; + produced by sorcery of a Jesuit priest, ii. 633 + + Stone of Memphis, its potency to prevent pain, i. 540; + two tables, masculine and feminine, ii. 5; + a Shaman’s talisman, “spoke” saving the author’s life, ii. 626 + + Stonehenge, its gods recognized as the divinities of Delphos and + Babylon, i. 550; + remarkable statement of Dr. Stukely, i. 572; + Hamitic in plan, _ib._ + + Stoics, belief concerning God, i. 317 + + Stones, their secret virtues, i. 265 + + Strangers, never admitted into a caste, nor to religion, i. 581 + + Stukely, Dr., remarks concerning Stonehenge, i. 572 + + Subjective mediums, i. 311; + communication with human god-like spirits, ii. 115 + + Subsidy paid by the East India Company to maintain worship at the + pagodas, ii. 624 + + Subterranean passages in Peru, i. 595, 597 + + Subtile influence emanated from every man’s body, ii. 610 + + Suetonius knew nothing of Christians, ii. 535, 536 + + Suez Canal, i. 516, 517; + that of Necho, i. 517 + + Sufis, their idea of one universal creed, ii. 306 + + Suicide and insanity caused by Elementaries, ii. 7 + + Suicides and murderers, i. 344 + + Sulanuth, i. 325 + + Sulphur, the secret fire or spirit of the alchemists, i. 309; + and quicksilver, a preparation to promote longevity, ii. 620, 621 + + Summary of Koheleth, ii. 476 + + Sun, an emblem of the sun-god, i. 270; + only a magnet or reflector, i. 271; + has no more heat in it than the moon, _ib._; + represented under the image of a dragon, i. 552; + made the location of hell, ii. 12; + view of Pythagoras, _ib._; + increases the magnetic exhalations, ii. 611; + and serpent-worship, the religion of the Phœnicians and Mosaic + Israelites, i. 555 + + Sun-worship once contemplated by Catholics, ii. 450 + + Sun-worshippers always regarded the sun as an emblem of the spiritual + sun, i. 270 + + Sunrise and sunset as taught by the Shastras, i. 10 + + Supersentient soul, ii. 590 + + “Superstitions” in regard to drowned persons, ii. 611 + + Supreme Being denied by modern science, i. 16; + by the positivists, i. 71; + never rejected by Buddhistical philosophy, i. 292; + Essence, ii. 213, 214; + the Swayambhuva and En-Soph, ii. 218; + mystery of the holy syllable, ii. 114 + + Surgery of Yogis and Talapoins, ii. 621 + + Surnden, Rev. T., on locality of hell, ii. 12 + + Sutrantika, the sect having secret Buddhistic religion, ii. 607 + + Suttee, or burning of widows, not practised when the Code of Manu was + compiled, i. 588 + + Swâbhâvikas, Hindu pantheists, the teachers of protoplasm, i. 250; + their views of Essence, ii. 262 + + Swayambhuva, the unrevealed Deity, ii. 39; + the unity of three trinities, making with himself two prajapatis, + ii. 39, 40; + the Supreme Essence the same as En-Soph, ii. 214 + + Swearing forbidden by Jesus, ii. 273 + + Sweat of St. Michael, a phial of it preserved, ii. 71 + + Swedenborg personated by a Diakka, i. 219; + on speech of spirits, i. 220; + _Heavenly Arcana_, i. 306; + a natural-born magician, but not an adept, _ib._; + made Thomas Vaughan his model, _ib._; + doctrine of correspondences, or hermetic symbolism, _ib._; + believed in possibility of losing individual existence, i. 317; + miraculous cures by his father, i. 464; + indicates _the lost word_, i. 580; + rite of, a Jesuitical product, ii. 390 + + Swedenborgians believe in possible obliteration of the human + personality, i. 317; + believe that the soul may abandon the body for specific periods, + ii. 319 + + Swedish system of Freemasonry, ii. 381 + + Syllabus and Koran, a great affinity acknowledged, ii. 82 + + Sylvester II., Pope, a sorcerer, ii. 56; + his “oracular head,” ii. 56 + + Symbol, its use, ii. 93 + + Symbols, i. 21; + Christian, and phallism, ii. 5 + + Sympathy, mysterious, between plants and human beings, i. 246; + the offspring of light, i. 309 + + Synagogue, “deposited its inheritance in the hands of Christ,” ii. + 477; + has not expired, _ib._ + + Synesius, belief in metempsychosis, i. 12; + his quotation from the book of stone at Memphis, i. 257; + believed the spirit preëxisted from eternity as a distinct being, + i. 316; + bishop of Cyrene, his letter to Hypatia, ii. 53; + adhered to the Platonic doctrines, ii. 198 + + Systems, Indian, Chaldean and Ophite compared, ii. 170 + + + Tabernacles or ingatherings, feast of, ii. 44; + regarded as Bacchic rites, _ib._ + + Table, no demons enclosed, i. 322 + + Table-turning, i. 99, 105 + + Tainting of Souls, i. 321 + + Talapoins, of Siam, power over wild beasts, i. 213; + have incombustible cloth, i. 231; + have the _Kabala_, _Bible_, and other allegories in their + manuscripts, i. 577; + Jesuits disguised as, ii. 371; + their secrets of medicine, ii. 621 + + Tale of the Two Brothers of Central America, i. 550 + + Talisman, i. 462; ii. 636 + + Talismans of Apollonius, testimony of Justin Martyr, ii. 97 + + Talmage, Rev. Dr., description of Martha, ii. 102 + + Talmud, i. 17 + + Tamil-Hindus worship Kutti-Satan, perhaps Seth or Satan, i. 567 + + Tamti, the same as Belita, ii. 444; + the sea, ii. 445 + + Tanaim, the four who entered the garden, ii. 119; + the Kabalistic, ii. 470 + + Tarchon, an Etruscan priest and his bryony-hedge, i. 527 + + Tartar robber detected by a Koordian sorcerer, ii. 631 + + Tartary, magic, i. 599; + spiritualism, i. 600; + planchette-writing, _ib._; + happy and heathen, ii. 240 + + Tau and astronomical cross of Egypt found at the palace of + Palenque, i. 572; + the handled cross, a symbol of Eternal life, ii. 254; + the signet or name of God, _ib._; + the hierophantic investiture, ii. 365 + + Taylor, Thomas, his testimony concerning Pythagoras, i. 284; + is unceremonious with the Mosaic God, i. 288 + + Taylor, Robert, his amended Credo, ii. 522 + + Tcharaka, a Hindu physician of 5,000 years ago, i. 560 + + Tcherno-Bog, or Bogy, the ancient deity of the Russians, ii. 572 + + Teaching of the soul, the highest method of knowledge, ii. 595 + + Tear of Brahma, the hottest, becoming a sapphire, i. 265 + + Telegraphy, neurological, i. 324 + + Telephone, i. 126; + some such mode of communication possessed by the Egyptian priests, + i. 127 + + Telescope in the light-house of Alexandria, i. 528 + + Templar rite, old English, of seven degrees, ii. 377 + + Templarism is Jesuitism, ii. 390 + + Templars, the founding of the ancient order, ii. 381, 382; + did not believe in Christ, ii. 382; + succeeded by the Jesuits, ii. 383; + the pseudo-order invented to obviate the imputation of Jesuitism, + ii. 384 + + Temple of the Holy Molecule, i. 413; + had possession of Eastern mysteries, ii. 380; + of the perpetual fire, ii. 632; + at Jerusalem, not so ancient as was pretended, ii. 389; + of Solomon, not esteemed by any Hebrew prophet, ii. 525 + + Temples, anciently the repositories of science, i. 25 + + Ten, the Pythagorean, ii. 171; + virtues of initiation, ii. 98 + + Teraphim, Kabeiri-gods, i. 570; + identical with Seraphim, _ib._; + serpent-images, _ib._; + received by Dardanus as a dowry and carried to Samothrace and Troy, + _ib._ + + Teratology, named by Geoffroi St. Hilaire, i. 390 + + Terrestrial elementary spirits, i. 319; + circulation, i. 503; + immortality, ii. 620 + + Tertullian, i. 46; + on devils, i. 159; + believed the soul corporeal, i. 317; + desires to see all philosophers in the Gehenna-fire, ii. 250; + his intolerance, ii. 329 + + Tetractys, i. 9; + the One, the Chaos, wisdom and reason, ii. 36; i. 507 + + Tetragram, i. 506, 507 + + Thales, believed water the primordial substance, i. 134, 189; + said to have discovered the electric properties of amber, i. 234; + his belief concerning water and the Divine Mind, ii. 458 + + Thaumaturgist, his power of becoming invisible, or appearing in two + or more forms, ii. 588 + + Thaumaturgists, use the force known as Akasa, i. 113; + declared by Salverte to be knaves, i. 115 + + Thebes, or Th-aba, ii. 448; + ancient, i. 523; + its prodigious ruins, i. 523, 524; + the Twelve Tortures, ii. 364 + + Themura, ii. 298 + + Theocletus, Grand Pontiff of the Order of the Temple, initiated the + original Knight Templars, ii. 382 + + Theology, comparative, and two-edged weapon, ii. 531; + Christian, subversive rather than promotive of spirituality and + good morals, ii. 634 + + Theologies, ancient, all agree, ii. 39 + + Theon of Smyrna, his explanation of the five grades in the Mysteries, + ii. 101 + + Theomania of the Cevennois imputed to hysteria and epilepsy, i. 371 + + Theophrastus, legatee of Aristotle, i. 320 + + Theopœa, the art of endowing figures with life, i. 615, 616; + testimony of Jacolliot, i. 616, 617 + + Theosophists, their confederations in Germany, ii. 20 + + Theosophy, disfigured by theology, i. 13 + + Therapeutæ, a branch of the Essenes, ii. 144 + + Therapeutists probably Buddhists, ii. 491 + + Thermuthis, the name of Pharaoh’s daughter and of the sacred asp, i. + 556 + + Thespesius, apparently dead for three days, i. 484 + + Thessalian sorceresses evoked shadows with blood, ii. 568 + + Theurgic Mystery, ii. 563-575 + + Theurgists, i. 205-219; + knew occult properties of magnetism and electricity, i. 234; + not “spirit-mediums,” ii. 118; + persecuted by the Christians, ii. 34 + + Theurgy, its phenomena produced by magnetic powers, i. 23; + the devil at its head, i. 161 + + Thevetat, the “Dragon” of the Atlantis, i. 593; + his seduction of the people, _ib._ + + Thing, the one, of the Smaragdine Tablet, i. 507, 508; + named by Hermetic philosophy, i. 508 + + Third emanation produces the universe of physical matter, and, + finally, “Darkness and the Bad,” i. 302; + race of men in Hesiod, i. 558; + in Popul-Vuh, _ib._; + race of men, the Nephilim, i. 559 + + Thirteen Mexican Serpent-Gods, i. 572 + + This book, its object, ii. 98, 99 + + Thomas, St., in Malabar, ii. 534; + Aquinas, ii. 20; + Taylor, an expositor of Plato’s meaning, ii. 108, 109 + + Thomson, Sir William, declares science bound to face every problem, + i. 223 + + Thompson, Hon. R. W., denounced by a Catholic priest, ii. 378 + + Thor, his electric hammer, i. 160 + + Thought affects the matter of another universe, i. 310 + + Thought-communication effected by a Shaman with his stone, ii. 627 + + Thoughts guided by spiritual being, i. 366; + human, projected upon the universal ether, i. 395; ii. 636 + + Thrætaona, the Persian Michael, contending with Zohak, ii. 486 + + Three degrees of the pleroma, i. 302; + tricks exhibited, i. 73; + degrees of communication with spirits, ii. 115; + emanations, i. 302; + kabalistic forces, _ib._; + Gods, or archial principles, First Cause, Logos, and World-soul, + ii. 33; + Saviours, ii. 536; + legends concerning them, ii. 537-539; + enumeration of their followers, ii. 539; + births of man, ii. 568; + three hundred million Buddhists seeking Nirvana, ii. 533; + mothers, i. 257 + + Three-sided prism of man’s nature, ii. 634 + + Throwing spells by aid of the wind, ii. 632 + + Thrum-stone, i. 231 + + Thummim, i. 536, 537 + + Θυμος, _thumos_, the astral soul, i. 429 + + Thury, Prof., on levitation, cited by de Gasparin, i. 99, 109; + his theory of spiritual phenomena, i. 110; + imputes them to the action of wills not human, i. 112; + psychode and ectenic force, i. 113 + + Tiara, papal, the coiffure of the Assyrian gods, ii. 94 + + Tickets to Heaven, ii. 243 + + Tiffereau, Theodore, assertion that he had made gold, i. 509 + + Tiger mesmerized, i. 467 + + Tigress, bereft of her cubs, mesmerized by a fakir, ii. 623 + + Tikkun, the first born, the Heavenly Man, ii. 276 + + Tillemont, declares all illustrious pagans condemned to the eternal + torments of hell, ii. 8 + + _Timæus_, cannot be understood except by an initiate, ii. 39 + + Time and space no obstacles to the inner man, ii. 588 + + Tir-thankara, the preceptor of Gautama, ii. 322 + + Tissu, the spiritual teacher of Kublai-Khan, his great holiness, ii. + 608; + reforms religion, ii. 609 + + To Ον, of Plato, ii. 38 + + Tobo, liberator of the soul of Adam, ii. 517 + + Todas, a strange people discovered in Southern Hindustan fifty years + ago, ii. 613; + revered and maintained by the Badagas, ii. 614; + an order and not a race, _ib._ + + Tolticas, said to be descended from the house of Israel, i. 552 + + Tooth, Navel and less comely relics of Jesus, ii. 71 + + Tophet, a place in the valley of Gehenna, where a fire was kept and + children immolated, ii. 11; + not a place of endless woe, ii. 502 + + Torquemeda, Tomas de, his prodigious cruelty, ii. 59; + burned Hebrew Bibles, ii. 430 + + Torralva and his demon Zequiel, ii. 60 + + Torturing people by means of Simulacra, ii. 55 + + Toulouse, the Bishop of, his falsehoods about Protestants and + Spiritualists of America, ii. 7 + + Townshend, Colonel, remarkable power of suspending animation, i. 483 + + Traditions, ancient, belong to India, ii. 259 + + Tragedy of Human Life, its plot ever the same, ii. 640 + + Trance-life, i. 181 + + Transformation of the ancient ideas, ii. 491 + + Transmigration, dreaded by the Hindu, i. 346; + of the soul, does not relate to man’s condition after death, ii. + 280 + + Transmural Vision, i. 145 + + Transmutation of metal, the actual fact asserted, i. 503, 504; + Dr. Wilder’s opinion, i. 505; + salt, sulpher, and mercury thrice combined in azoth, _ib._ + + Transubstantiation, an arcane utterance perverted, ii. 560 + + Travancore, perpetual lamp, i. 225 + + Tree, Yggdrasill, i. 133, 151; + Zampun, i. 152; + Aswatha, _ib._; + symbol of universal life, _ib._; + the pyramid, i. 154; + Gogard, i. 297; + serpent dwells in its branches, i. 298; + the microcosmic and macrocosmic, i. 297; + tziti, the third race of men, i. 558; + of knowledge, ii. 184; + or pippala, ii. 412 + + Triad, the Intelligible, i. 212; + from the duad, i. 348 + + Triads, or trinities, Babylonian, Phœnician and Hindu, ii. 48; + Persian and Egyptian, ii. 49 + + Tribes of Israel, what evidence before Ezra, i. 508; + no tribe of Simeon, _ib._ + + Trigonocephali, their bite kills like a flash of lighting, ii. 622 + + Trimurti, i. 92; + their habitation, ii. 234 + + Trinities, three, in one unity, making ten Sephiroth or Prajâpatis, + ii. 39, 40; + Hindu, Egyptian and Christian, ii. 227 + + Trinity, the first, i. 341; + of Egyptians, i. 160; + three Sephiroth or emanations, ii. 36; + the doctrine revealed to Sesostris, ii. 51; + the word first found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, ii. 522; + listening for the answer of Mary, ii. 173; + kabalistic, ii. 222; + of workers in the cosmogony, ii. 420; + of nature the lock of magic, ii. 635 + + Triple Trimurti, ii. 39 + + Trithemius, ii. 20 + + Trizna or feast of the dead in Moldavia, ii. 569, 570 + + Trojan war a counterpart of that of the _Ramâyana_, i. 566 + + Troy, worship of the Kabeiri brought by Dardanus, i. 570 + + True Adamic Earth, i. 51; + doctrine Λόγος Αληθής of Celsus, a copy still in + existence, ii. 52; + faith the embodiment of divine charity, ii. 640 + + Truth, religions but vari-colored fragments of its beam, ii. 639 + + Tschuddi, Dr., his story of the train of llama, and treasure, i. 546 + + Tullia, daughter of Cicero, lamp found burning in her tomb, i. 224 + + Tullus Hostilius, King of Rome, struck by lightning, i. 527 + + Tum, devotees of, ii. 387 + + Tunnel from Cusco to Lima and Bolivia, i. 597; + entrance, _ib._; + dangers of its exploration, i. 598 + + Turkey, wars with Russia and final conquest, i. 261 + + Turanian, should have been applied to the Assyrians, i. 576; + evidently applied to the nomadic Caucasian, progenitor of the + Hamite or Æthiopian, _ib._ + + Turner, his account of an interview with a young lama or reincarnated + Buddha, ii. 598 + + Turrets, the reproduction of the lithos, ii. 5 + + Tutelar genius who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, etc., ii. 639 + + Twelve houses, the fable, i. 267; + tables, a compilation, i. 588; + labors of Hercules depicted on the chair of Peter, ii. 25; + disciples sent by Jehosaphat to preach, ii. 517; + great gods, ii. 448; + minor gods, Dii minores, ii. 451; + tortures, ii. 351; + of Theban initiation, ii. 364; + thousand years employed in creation, i. 342 + + Twenty-nine witch-burnings, ii. 62 + + Two souls taught by the philosophers, i. 12, 317; + idols of monotheistic Christianity, ii. 9; + primeval principles, i. 341; + principles, the Jews brought the doctrine from Persia, ii. 500, 501; + diagrams explained, ii. 266, 271; + “old ones,” ii. 350; + brothers of the Bible, the good and evil principles, ii. 489; + religions in each old faith, ii. 607 + + Two-headed serpents, i. 393 + + Tycho-Brahe, vision of the star, i. 441, 442 + + Tyndall confesses science powerless, i. 14; + views of consciousness, i. 86; + displays forms as of living plants and animals in an experimental + tube, i. 127; + his avoidance to investigate spiritual phenomena, i. 176; + his Belfast Address, i. 314; + his judgment of cowards, i. 418; + declares spiritualism a degrading belief, _ib._; + confesses that the evolution hypothesis does not solve the last + mystery, i. 419; + his experiments on sound, ii. 606; + his definition of science, ii. 637 + + Typhon once worshipped in Egypt, and then changed to an evil demon, + ii. 487; + Plutarch’s explanation, ii. 483; + father of Ierosolumos and Ioudaios, ii. 484; + separated from his androgyne, ii. 524 + + Tyrian worship introduced into Israel by Ahab, ii. 525 + + Tyrrhenian cosmogony, i. 342 + + + Udayna or Pashai (Peshawer) the classic land of sorcery, i. 599; + statement of Hiouen-Thsang, _ib._ + + Ultramontanes accused in France of siding with the Mahometans, ii. 82 + + Ulysses frightens phantoms with his sword, i. 362 + + Umbilical cord ruptured and healed, i. 386 + + Umbilicus, represented by the ark, ii. 444 + + Umbra, or shade, i. 37 + + Unavoidable cycle, Mysteries, i. 553 + + Unconscious cerebration, i. 55, 232; + ventriloquism, i. 101 + + Urdar, the fountain of life, i. 151, 162 + + Underworld, i. 37 + + Undines, i. 67 + + Union to the Deity, ii. 591 + + Unity of three trinities, ii. 39; + the Sephiroth or prajapatis, _ib._ + + Universal soul, or mind, i. 56; + the doctrine underlying all philosophies, Buddhism, Brahmanism, and + Christianity, i. 289; + relation to the reasoning and the animal soul, i. 316; + solvent, i. 50, 137, 189 + + Universals to particulars, i. 288 + + Universe, or Kosmos, the body of the invisible sun, i. 302; + doubt, i. 324; + how came it, i. 341; + the concrete image of the ideal abstraction, i. 342; + existed from eternity, _ib._; + passes through four ages, ii. 421; + a musical instrument, i. 514 + + Unknown presence, when witnessed, ii. 164; + the future self of man, ii. 165 + + Unregulated mediums punished, i. 489 + + Unrevealed God, i. 160 + + Unseen Universe, or all things there recorded, ii. 588; + spiritual universe, its existence demonstrated, ii. 15 + + Untrained mediumship illustrated by Socrates and his daimonion, ii. + 117 + + Untenable dogmas of science, i. 501 + + Upasakes and Upasakis, Buddhistic semi-monastics, ii. 608 + + Uper-Ouranoi, i. 312 + + + Vach, or sacred speech, ii. 409 + + Vaivaswata, the Hindu Noah, ii. 425 + + Valachian lady, her simulacrum brought to the author in her tent in + Mongolia, ii. 627, 628 + + Vampirism, a terrible case in Russia, i. 454 + + Vampire-governor, and his widow, i. 454, 455 + + Vampires, i. 319; + shedim, etc., i. 449; + magnetic, i. 462; + ghouls and, wandering about, ii. 564 + + Van Helmont, i. 50, 57; + on magnetism and will, i. 170; + on transmutation of earth into water, i. 190; + testimony of Deleuze, i. 194; + a Pythagorean, i. 205; + theory of man, i. 213; + remarkable account of a child born headless immediately after an + execution, i. 386; + on the power of woman’s imagination, i. 399; + testimony of Dr. Fournier, i. 400; + ridiculed for his directions for production of animals, i. 414 + + Vari-colored fragments of the beam of Divine Truth, ii. 639 + + Vasitva, power of mesmerizing, also of restraining the passions, i. + 393 + + Vasaki, the great dragon, ii. 490 + + Vast inland sea of middle Asia, and its island, i. 589 + + Vatican, black magic practised there, ii. 6; + secret libraries, ii. 16, 19; + clergy, how an access, ii. 18 + + Vatou, or candidate, for initiation, ii. 98; + sensitive to spiritual influences, ii. 118 + + Vaughan, Thomas, anecdote of his attempted sale of gold, i. 504 + + Vedas, antedate the Bible, i. 91; + contain no such immodesty as the Bible, ii. 80; + older than the flood, ii. 427 + + Vedic words, the controversies of Sanscrit scholars, ii. 47; + peoples not all Aryans, ii. 413 + + Vedic Pitris, their worship fast becoming the worship of the + spiritual portion of mankind, ii. 639 + + Vegetation, influence of the moon, i. 273; + influenced by musical tones, i. 514 + + Vehicle of life, ii. 418 + + Venerable “Mah,” ii. 388 + + Ventriloquists or pythiæ, i. 355 + + Ventura de Raulica, his letter asserting the existence of Satan as a + fundamental dogma of the Church, ii. 14 + + Vesica Piscis, a Zodiacal sign, ii. 255 + + Vicarious atonement, a ridiculous idea, i. 316 + + Vicarious atonement, ii. 542; + obliterates no wrong, ii. 545; + not known by Peter, ii. 546 + + Vigil-night of Siva, i. 446 + + Vincent, Frank, his description of the ruins of Nagkon-Wat, i. 562, + 565 + + Vine, the symbol of blood and life, ii. 244; + Jesus, ii. 561; + his “Father” not God, but the hierophant, _ib._ + + Viracocha, the Peruvian deity, ii. 259 + + Viradji, the Son of God, his origin, ii. 111 + + Virgin, celestial, milk of, i. 64; + of the sea, crushes the dragon under her feet, ii. 446; + of the Zodiac, rises above the horizon, Dec. 25th, ii. 490; + Blessed, thrashing a demoniac, ii. 76; + Mary, declaring all pagans condemned to eternal torments, over her + own signature, ii. 8; + succeeded to the titles, symbols and rites of Isis, ii. 95; + on the crescent moon, like pagan goddesses, ii. 96; + queen of heaven, ii. _ib._; + mother without a husband, positivist, i. 81; + of the Avatar, Son-Ka-po, ii. 589 + + Virgin-mothers, Hindu, Egyptian, and Catholic, their epithets, ii. 209 + + Vishnu, takes the form of a fish, ii. 257; + same as Oannes, _ib._; + the Adam Kadmon of the kabalists, ii. 259; + his ten avatars, ii. 274; + symbolize evolution, ii. 275; + the expression of the whole universe, ii. 277 + + Vishnu-flower, ii. 467 + + Visible universe from Brahma-Prajapati, i. 348 + + Visions witnessed by initiates, ii. 113; + produced by sorcery, ii. 633 + + Visit to the Ladakh in Thibet, ii. 598 + + Visiting and leaving the body at home, ii. 604, 605 + + Vistaspa, a king of Bactriana, ii. 141 + + Visvamitra, his escape in the ark, ii. 257; + Egypt colonized in his reign, i. 627 + + Vital force, speculations of men of science, i. 466 + + Viti, Sancti, Chorœa, or St. Vitus’ Dance, ii. 625 + + Voices of spirits and goblins heard in the desert, i. 604 + + Volatile salts obnoxious to devils, i. 356 + + Volney, mistook ancient worship, i. 24; + his doctrine of God, i. 268 + + Voltaire, on the being of God, i. 268 + + Voluntary withdrawal of the spirit from the body, ii. 588 + + Votan, his admission to the snake’s hole as a son of the snakes, i. + 553; + supposed by de Bourbourg to be descended from Ham and Canaan, i. + 554; + the hero of the Mexicans, i. 545; + probably identical with Quetzel-coatl, _ib._; + intercourse with King Solomon, _ib._; + the navigating serpent, _ib._ + + Voodo orgy in Cuba, ii. 573 + + Vourdalak or vampires of Servia, i. 451, ii. 368 + + Vowels, the seven, chanted as a hymn to Serapis, i. 514 + + Vridda Manava, or laws of Manu, i. 585 + + Vril, Bulwer-Lytton’s designation of the one primal force, i. 64, 125 + + Vril-ya, the coming race, i. 296 + + Vulcan, Phta, or Hephaistos, represented at Nakyon-Wat, i. 565, 566 + + Vulgar magic in India, ii. 20 + + Vyasa, a positivist, i. 621; + denied a First Cause, ii. 261 + + Vyse, Col., found a piece of iron in the pyramid of Cheops, i. 542 + + + Wagner, Prof. Nicholas, on heat and psychical force, i. 497; + on mediumistic phenomena, i. 499 + + Walking above the ground, i. 472; + the faculty sought by devotees, and attained by a King of Siam, ii. + 618 + + Wallace, A. R., on cycles, i. 155; + belief in spiritualism and mesmerism, i. 177; + theory of human development, i. 294 + + War of Michael and the dragon, an old myth, ii. 486 + + Warrior, slain and resuscitated, but without a soul, ii. 564 + + War-chariots, ancient, lighter than modern artillery-wagons, i. 530; + had metallic springs, _ib._ + + Water, of Phtha, i. 64; + the first principle of things, i. 133; + an universal solvent, i. 133, 189; + of mercury, the soul or psychical substance, i. 309; + the first-created element, ii. 458 + + Waters turned to blood, i. 413, 415 + + Washing of images, ii. 138 + + Wave-theory of light not accepted by Prof. Cooke, i. 137 + + Weapons, dæmons afraid of, i. 362 + + Weekman, reputed the first investigator of spirit-phenomena in + America, i. 105 + + Weeks of seven days used in the East, ii. 418 + + Weird cries of the Gobi, i. 604 + + Weninger, Father F. X., a Jesuit priest, his denunciation of + Secretary Thompson, ii. 378, 379 + + Wesermann, power to influence the dreams of others, and to appear + double, i. 477 + + White-skinned people not often able to acquire magical powers, ii. 635 + + White stone of initiation, ii. 351 + + Whitney, Prof. W. D., his criticism of Max Müller, ii. 47; + denunciation of Jacolliot, _ib._; + his translation of a Vedic hymn, ii. 534 + + Widow-burning, or _suttee_, practised 2,500 years, but not when the + Code of Manu was compiled, i. 588; + sustained by the Brahmans from a forged verse of the _Rig-Veda_, i. + 589 + + Widows burned without pain by the Brahmans, i. 540 + + Wild beasts will not attack Buddhistic nuns, ii. 609 + + Wilder, A., on possibility of transmutation, i. 505; + suggestion of another classification of the Assyrians and Mongols, + i. 575; + notes in regard to America, the Atlantic continent, Lemuria, and + the deserts of Africa and Asia, i. 592; + on skeptics, and respect for earnest convictions, i. 437; + on Paul and Plato, ii. 90; + on the designation Peter and the pretension of the Pope to be his + successor, ii. 92; + opinion of Zeruana, Turan, and Zohak, ii. 142; + description of Paul, ii. 574-6 + + Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, his testimony in regard to ancient Egyptian + civilization, i. 526; + J. J. G., declares truth temperamental, i. 234 + + Will, i. 56-61; + its potency in a state of ecstasy, i. 170; + produces force, i. 285; + an emanation of deity, _ib._; + power of, ii. 21; + enables one to wound or injure another, i. 360, 361; + generates force, and force generates matter, ii. 320 + + Will-force of the Yogis, ii. 565 + + Will-power, killing birds by it, i. 380; + photographing by, i. 463; + the most powerful of magnets, i. 472; + its exercise the highest form of prayer, ii. 592 + + Wine first sacred in the Bacchic Mysteries, ii. 514 + + Winged men of the _Phædrus_, i. 2 + + Wirdig taught that nature is ensouled, i. 207 + + Wisdom, the arcane doctrine of the ancients, i. 205, 436; + or the principle, ii. 35; + the chief, ii. 36; + first emanation of the En-Soph, ii. 37; + origin, ii. 218; + the ethnic parent of every religion, ii. 639, 640 + + Wisdom-doctrine underlay every ancient religion, ii. 99 + + Wisdom-religion, to be found in the pre-Vedic religion of India, ii. + 39; + its articles of faith, ii. 116; + explained in Code of Manu, _ib._; + the parent cult, ii. 216 + + Wise women, ii. 525 + + Witch, a knowing woman, i. 354; + or kangalin, lawful for a Hindu to kill her, ii. 612 + + Witch-burnings in Germany, ii. 61; + twenty-nine, ii. 62, 63 + + Witchcraft, execution in Salem, and other American provinces, ii. 18; + laws in force in South Carolina in 1865, _ib._; + an offence among the ancients, ii. 98; + those guilty of it not initiates, ii. 117, 118 + + Witches, pretended, dozens of thousands burned, i. 353; + of the middle ages, the votaries of the former religion, ii. 502 + + Witches’ Sabbath, the orgies of Bacchus, ii. 528 + + Withdrawal of the inner from the outer man, ii. 583 + + Withdrawing of the inner from the outer, i. 476 + + Wittoba, the crucified image of Christna anterior to Christianity, + ii. 557 + + Wizard, a wise man, i. 354 + + Wolf, converted by St. Francis, ii. 77 + + Wolsey, Cardinal, accused of sorcery, ii. 57 + + Woman, of the future, i. 77; + fecundated artificially, i. 77, 81; + must cease to be the female of the men, i. 78; + ridding her of every maternal function, _ib._; + applying a latent force, _ib._; + offered to the encubi, _ib._; + impossible, i. 81; + evolved out of men, i. 297; + highly impressible when pregnant, i. 394; + exudes akasa as an odic emanation, i. 395; + how this is projected into the astral light or ether, and + repercussing, impresses itself upon the fœtus, _ib._; + evolved out of the lusts of matter, i. 433; + clothed with the sun, the goddess Isis, ii. 489 + + Women, magnetically influenced by the moon, i. 264 + + Women-colleges, to superintend worship, ii. 524, 525 + + Wong-Ching-Fu, his explanation of Nepang or Nirvana, ii. 319, 320 + + Wonder-working fakirs seldom to be seen, ii. 612, 613 + + Word, magical, i. 445; + ineffable, and performance of miracles, ii. 370; + lost by the Christians, _ib._; + where to be sought, ii. 371, ii. 418; + “long lost but now found,” ii. 393 + + World, how called into existence, i. 341; + how all will go well with it, ii. 122; + soul of, i. 129, 208, 215, 342; + religions, startled by utterances of scientists, i. 248, 249 + + World-religions, conflict between, i. 307; + identical at their starting-point, ii. 215; + the devil their founder, ii. 479 + + World-mountains, allegorical expressions of cosmogony, i. 157 + + World-soul, the source of all souls, and ether, i. 316 + + World-tree of knowledge, i. 574 + + Worlds, an incalculable number before the present one, ii. 424 + + Worship of the sun and serpent by Phœnicians and Mosaic Israelites, + i. 555; + of words, denounced, ii. 560; + of the spiritual portion of mankind, ii. 639 + + Wounds, mortal, self-inflicted and healed, i. 224 + + Wreaths of green leaves for oracles, ii. 612 + + Wren, Sir Christopher, simply the Master of the London operative + masons, ii. 390 + + Wright, Thomas, on sorcery and magic, i. 356 + + Writings under the ban, ii. 8 + + + X, decussation of the perfect circle, ii. 469 + + X., Dr. extraordinary scenes at a seance, i. 608-611 + + Xenophanes, his satire on the representations of God, ii. 242 + + Ximenes, cardinal, burned 80,000 Arabic manuscripts, i. 511 + + Xisuthrus or Hasisadra, sailed with the ark to Armenia, ii. 217; + translated to the gods, ii. 424; + Oannes and Vishnu in the first avatar, ii. 457 + + + Yaho, an old Shemitic mystic name of the Supreme Being, ii. 297 + + Yadus migrating from India to Egypt, i. 444 + + Yang-kie and Mahu, dwellers in both worlds, i. 601, 602 + + Yakuts and their worship, ii. 568 + + Yarker, John jr., account of the dervishes, ii. 316; + his testimony in regard to Free-masonry, ii. 376 + + Year of blood, 1876, i. 439 + + Yezidis, or devil-worshippers genuine sorcerers, ii. 571; + their worship, ii. 572 + + Yggdrasill, i. 133; + universe springing up beneath its branches, i. 151 + + Ymir, the Norse giant, i. 147; + generates a race of depraved men, i. 148; + is slain by the sons of Bur, i. 150 + + Yogas or cycles, i. 293 + + Yogis of India, ii. 346; + their extraordinary powers, ii. 565; + regarded as demi-gods, ii. 612; + a peculiar medicine used by them composed of sulphur and juice of + a plant, ii. 621; + their longevity, ii. 620; + their medicinal preparation of sulphur and quicksilver, ii. 620 + + Yörmungand, the midgard or earth-serpent, i. 151 + + Yourodevoy, i. 28 + + Youth, the means of regaining, ii. 618 + + Yowahous, ii. 313 + + Yugas, i. 31 + + Yule, Colonel, on movable type, i. 515; + on spiritualism in Tartary, i. 600; + testimony in regard to spiritual flowers drawn by a medium in Bond + street, London, i. 601 + + + Zacharias, saw an apparition in the temple, ass-formed, ii. 523 + + Zadokites, or Sadducees, made a priest-caste by David, ii. 297 + + Zampun, the Thibetan tree of life, i. 152 + + Zamzummim, the Cyclopeans, i. 567 + + Zarathustra-Spitoma, his untold antiquity, i. 12 + + Zarevna Militrissa and the serpent, i. 550 + + Zeller, criticism of the Fathers in regard to Plato, i. 288 + + Zequiel, a demon presented to Torralva, ii. 60 + + Zeno taught two eternal qualities in nature, i. 12 + + Zeru-Ishtar, a Chaldean or Magian high-priest, ii. 129 + + Zeruan, Saturn or Abraham, the legend of the Titans, ii. 217 + + Zeus, the æther, i. 187, 188 + + Zeus-Dionysus, i. 262 + + Zmeij Gorenetch, the dragon, i. 550 + + Znachar, the Russian sorcerer, ii. 571 + + Zodiac, its symbolism, ii. 456; + its origin, 16,984 years ago, _ib._ + + Zohak and Gemshid, their struggle that of the Persians and Assyrians, + i. 576; + and Feridun, the legend explained, ii. 486; + or Azhi-Dahaka, the serpent of the Avesta, ii. 486; + a personification of Assyria, _ib._ + + Zonarus traces knowledge from Chaldea to Egypt, thence to the Greeks, + i. 543 + + Zoömagnetism, or animal magnetism, i. 206; + can magnetize minerals, _ib._ + + Zoroaster, Zarathustra, Zuruastara, Zuryaster, a spiritual teacher, + ii. 141; + a reformer of Chaldean Magic, i. 191; + when he lived, ii. 141; + Baron Bunsen’s opinion, ii. 432 + + Zoroastrian religion, its affinity with Judaism and Christianity, ii. + 486 + + Zoroastrianism, no schism, ii. 142 + + Zoroastrians, migrated from India, ii. 143 + + Zoro-Babel or prince of Babylon, ii. 441 + + Zuinglius, the first reformer, his cosmopolitan doctrine of the Holy + Ghost, i. 132 + + + + + 706 BROADWAY, + _New York, March, 1878_. + + + J. W. Bouton’s Catalogue + + OF + + NEW AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS, + + _Importations and Remainders_, + + COMPRISING IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE WORKS IN THE + FOLLOWING DEPARTMENTS OF LITERATURE: + + _Art, Contemporary and Ancient_, + _Art Periodicals_, + _Antiquities_, + _Archæology_, + _Ancient Religions and Worships_, + _Biography_, + _Caxton and Early Printing_, + _Costume_, + _Cruikshankiana_, + _Ceramic Art_, + _Dictionaries, Glossaries, Language, etc._ + _Dramatists, Old_, + _Etchings, Modern_, + _Free Masonry_, + _Genealogy_, + _Illustrated Works_, + _Musical Instruments_, + _Mythology_, + _Ornament, Architectural, Textile, etc._, + _Ornithology_, + _Old Poetry_, + _Phallic and Symbol Worship_, + _Shakspeariana, Etc., Etc._ + + + + + INDEX. + + + PAGE + Æsop’s Fables, illustrated, 19 + Amberley, Religious Beliefs, 6 + Anacalypsis, Higgins, 3 + Antiquities of Long Island, 15 + Archæology, Westropp’s Hand-Book, 25 + Archie Armstrong’s Jests, 29 + Avesta, Bleeck, 25 + + Behn’s Dram. Works, 15 + Bible of Humanity, 3 + Blake, Swinburne’s Essay, 23 + Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 21 + Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, 3 + Boccaccio, Decameron, illustrated, 19 + Brome’s Dram. Works, 15 + Burns’ Complete Works, 6 + + Catalogue, Wilson Colln. of Paintings, 19 + Caxton’s Dictes and Sayinges, 5 + Statutes of Henry VIII., 30 + Centlivre’s Dram. Works, 15 + Champney, Quiet Corner of England, 25 + Chapman’s Dram. Works, 15 + Chinese Classics, 23 + Cokain’s Dram. Works, 18 + Costume, Lacroix, XVIII. Siècle, 17 + Planché, 8 + Historique, Racinet, 11 + Crowne’s Dram. Works, 18 + Cruikshank, Illustrations of Time, 24 + Phrenological Illus., 24 + + Davenant’s Dram. Works, 18 + Dekker’s Dram. Works, 15 + Diary of Am. Revolution, 24 + Dibdin’s Bibliomania, 29 + Douglas’ Poetical Works, 29 + Dramatic Works of Tourneur, 6 + Dramatists, Early English, 15 + of the Restoration, 18 + Duyckinck’s Cyclopædia of Am. Literature, 27 + + Edwards’ Founders of Brit. Museum, 23 + Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, 14 + English Rogue, 22 + Engravings, Willshire’s Guide, 31 + Erasmus’ Apophthegms, 5 + Etchings, Chapters on Painting, 12 + Contemporary Art, 4 + Examples of Modern, 11, 12 + after Frans Hals, 32 + “L’Art”, 33 + from National Gallery, 12 + The Portfolio, 34 + Unger’s Works, 32 + Wilson Catalogue, 19 + Examples of Contemporary Art, 4 + + Fine Arts, Æsop’s Fables, illus., 19 + Bible Plates, 5 + Bell’s Anatomy of Expression, 20 + Blake, Etchings, 4 + Blake, Heaven and Hell, 21 + Chapters on Painting, 12 + Contemporary Art, 4 + Costume, Racinet, 11 + Cruikshank’s “Time”, 24 + “Phrenological Illus., 24 + Dürer’s Little Passion, 19 + Etchings from National Gallery, 12 + French Artists, &c., 12 + Works of Hals, 32 + Holbein, 23 + Jeanne d’Arc, 17 + Jésus-Christ, 17 + Jones’ Alhambra, 30 + Jones’ Gram. of Ornmt., 28 + Keramic Art, Japan, 7 + Lacroix, 4 + Lacroix, XVIII. Siècle, vol. 1, 17 + “L’Art.”, 33 + Lundy, 9 + Mod. Etchings, 11, 12 + Planché, Costume, 8 + Polychromatic Ornament, 7 + The Portfolio, 34 + Quiet Corner of Eng., 25 + Textile Fabrics, 31 + Turner Gallery, 10 + Wright’s Womankind, 26 + Wilson’s Catalogue, 19 + Willshire on Prints, 31 + Works of Wm. Unger, 32 + Freemasonry, Hyneman’s Register, 27 + Mackenzie, Cyclo., 7 + Paton, Symbols, 25 + French Artists of Present Day, 12 + Furman’s Long Island, 15 + + Gesta Romanorum, 28 + Glapthorne’s Dram. Works, 15 + Grammar of Ornament, Jones, 28 + Racinet, 7 + Greville Memoirs, 29 + + Halliwell’s Hist. of Stratford on Avon, 24 + Hamerton’s Examples of Mod. Etchings, 12 + Heywood’s Dram. Works, 15 + Higgins’ Anacalypsis, 3 + Holbein, by Woltman, 23 + + Inman’s Ancient Faith embodied in Ancient + Names, 2 v., 14 + Ancient Faiths & Modern, 13 + Anc. Pagan Symbolism, 16 + Ireland, Shak. Forgeries, 26 + Isis Unveiled, 3 + + Jeanne d’Arc, Wallon, 17 + + Keramic Art of Japan, Fr., 7 + King’s Gnostics, 25 + Knight’s Ancient Art and Mythology, 13 + Worship of Priapus, 28 + + Lacroix, XVIII. Siècle, Costume, &c., 17 + XVIII. Siècle., vol. 2. Sciences, 4 + Lacy’s Dram. Works, 18 + L’Art. Art Magazine, 33 + Lee’s Life, &c., of De Foe, 26 + Legge’s Chinese Classics, 23 + Leland, Fu Sang, 16 + Littré Dictionnaire de la Langue Française, 24 + Lundy’s Monumental Christianity, 9 + + Mackay’s Lost Beauties of the English Language, 16 + Markland’s Lady de Osorio, 23 + Marmion’s Dram. Works, 18 + Masonic Register, Hyneman’s, 27 + Memoirs of Sanson Family, 25 + Mexico, Geiger, 22 + Michelet, Bible of Humanity, 3 + Moore’s Epicurean, 9 + Musical Instruments, &c., 5 + + Nares’ Glossary Early Eng., 29 + + Original Lists of Emigrants, &c., 21 + Ornamental Textile Fabrics, 31 + Owen Jones, Alhambra, 30 + + “Passio Christi.” See Dürer, 19 + Paton’s Symbolism of Masonry, 25 + Phallic Worship, Anacalypsis, 3 + Isis Unveiled, 3 + Knight, 28 + Inman, 14, 16 + Westropp and Wake, 14 + “Portfolio,” an Artistic Periodical, 34 + Prostitution. Dufour, Hist., 31 + + Rambosson, Harmonies du Son, 5 + Religions. Amberley, 6 + Avesta, 25 + Ancient Art & Mythology, 13 + Ancient Faiths & Modern, 14 + Ancient Pagan Symbols, 16 + Ancient Symbol Worship, 14 + Chinese Classics, 23 + Gnostics, etc., 25 + Higgins, Anacalypsis, 3 + Isis Unveiled, 3 + Inman, Ancient Faiths, 13 + Knight’s Priapus, 28 + Lundy, Monum. Christ’y, 9 + Michelet’s Bible of Humanity, 3 + Rosicrucians, 27 + Serpent and Siva Worship, 3 + Taylor, Eleusinian Mysteries, 14 + Wheeler’s India, 13 + Yarker’s Mysteries, 27 + Rump Songs, &c., 22 + + Serpent and Siva Worship, 3 + Shakespeare, Facsimile of 1st fol., 18 + Forgeries, Ireland, 26 + School of, 4 + Songs, &c. Museum Deliciarum, 20 + Ballads, D’Urfey’s Pills, 20 + and Ballads, The Rump, 22 + Westminster Drolleries, 22 + Story of the Stick, 21 + Symbolism. Anacalypsis, 3 + of Freemasonry, 25 + Gnostics, &c., 25 + Inman, 16 + Inman’s Anc. Faiths, &c., 14 + Knight’s Priapus, 28 + Lundy, 9 + Rosicrucians, 27 + Serpent Worship, 3 + Westropp, &c., 14 + Yarker, 27 + + Turner Gallery, 10 + Tourneur’s Plays 6 + + Unger, Frans Hals, 32 + Works, 32 + + Veuillot. Jésus-Christ, 17 + Violin and its Makers, Hart, 18 + + Walford’s County Families, 30 + Westminster Drolleries, 22 + Westropp, Handbook of Archæology, 25 + Wheeler’s History of India, 13 + Willshire on Prints, 31 + Wilson’s Dram. Works, 18 + Ornithology, 8 + Wright’s Womankind, 26 + + Yarker, Scientific and Religious Mysteries, 27 + + + + +Isis Unveiled; + + A MASTER KEY TO THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE + AND THEOLOGY. BY H. P. BLAVATSKY, Corresponding Secretary of + the Theosophical Society. _2 vols. Royal 8vo, about 1,500 + pages, cloth, $7.50._ + +The recent revival of interest in Philology and Archæology, resulting +from the labors of BUNSEN, LAYARD, HIGGINS, MÜLLER, DR. SCHLIEMANN, +and others, has created a great demand for works upon Eastern topics. + +To the scholar and the specialist, to the philologist and the +archæologist, this work will be a most valuable acquisition, aiding +them in their labors and giving to them the only clue to the +labyrinth of confusion in which they are involved. To the general +reader it will be especially attractive because of its fascinating +style and pleasing arrangement, presenting a constant variety of racy +anecdote, pithy thought, sound scholarship, and vivid description. +Mme. BLAVATSKY possesses the happy gift of versatility in an eminent +degree, and her style is varied to suit her theme with a graceful +ease refreshing to the reader, who is led without weariness from +page to page. The author has accomplished her task with ability, and +has conferred upon all a precious boon, whose benefit the scientist +as well as the religionist, the specialist as well as the general +reader, will not be slow to recognize. + + +Bible of Humanity; + + By JULES MICHELET, author of “The History of France,” + “Priests, Women, and Families,” “L’Amour,” etc. Translated + from the French by V. CALFA. _1 vol. 8vo, cloth, $3.00._ + +“His _Bible of Humanity_ is a large epic in prose. The artist-historian, +in the manner of inspired men and prophets, sings the evolution of +mankind. There is no doubt that he throws brilliant glimpses of light +on the long course of events and works which he unfolds; but at the +same time he carries away the reader with such rapid flight of +imagination as almost to make him giddy.”--_Larousse’s Universal +Dictionary_. + + + NEW EDITION OF HIGGINS’ GREAT WORK. + +The Anacalypsis; + + An attempt to draw aside the Veil of the Saïtic Isis; + or, an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations, and + Religions. By GODFREY HIGGINS, Esq. Vol. I., 8vo, cloth, + $4.50. To be completed in four volumes. + +The extreme rarity, and consequent high price of the “Anacalypsis” +has hitherto placed it beyond the reach of many scholars and +students. The new edition is issued in a much more convenient form, +and sold at less than one-sixth of the price of the original. + +The powerful though rather dogmatic logic, and the profound learning +of the author, give the work a singular importance; and in a thinking +age, when many things formerly considered truths are passing away +into the shadows of tradition, the student of comparative mythology +and the origin of religion and languages will look upon Higgins’ +Anacalypsis as his guide and luminary through the darkness of dawning +science. + + +Serpent and Siva Worship + + And Mythology in Central America, Africa, and Asia; and The + Origin of Serpent Worship. Two Treatises. By HYDE CLARKE and + C. STANILAND WAKE, M.A.I. Edited by Alexander Wilder, M.D. + 8vo, paper cover, 50 cents. + +“Serpent lore is the literature of the earliest times, and every +discovery in ethnical science is adding to our knowledge of this +feature of the race. These two eminent anthropologists suggest +some very interesting speculations, which seem confirmed by modern +research, and will be examined with avidity by scholars.” + + + _SPLENDID NEW VOLUME OF ETCHINGS._ + +Examples of Contemporary Art. + + _Etchings from Representative Works of Living English and + Foreign Artists_, viz.:--FORTUNY, JULES BRETON, BERNIER, E. + BURNE JONES, F. LEIGHTON, GONZALEZ, MACBETH, G. F. WATTS, + ORCHARDSON, VAN MARCKE, PACZKA, CHAPLIN, etc., etc. Executed + by WALTNER, MARTIAL, CHAMPOLLION, LALAUZE, HÉDOUIN, CHAUVEL, + GREUX, etc. One large folio volume, vellum cloth, gilt, $12.00. + +“Apart from its value as a graphic account of the two great foreign +Exhibitions of Art, this elegant volume deserves special attention +from the value of its text, furnishing as it does a general record +of the artistic achievements of the past year. They are, in fact, +careful reviews of the representative Exhibitions from which subjects +of the illustrations have been chosen, and their purpose is to +supply, within moderate limits, a coherent account of the recent +progress of the Arts in England and France.” + + + _INTERESTING NEW WORK ON BLAKE._ + +William Blake. + + _Etchings from his Works_, embracing many of the rarest + subjects executed by that unique Artist. By W. BELL SCOTT. + Proofs on India paper. Folio, half cloth, $8.00. + +“Such is the plan and moral part of the author’s invention; the +technical part and the execution of the artist, though to be examined +by other principles and addressed to a narrower circle, equally claim +approbation, sometimes excite our wonder, and not seldom our fears, +when we see him play on the very verge of legitimate invention; +but wildness so picturesque in itself, so often redeemed by taste, +simplicity, and elegance, what child of fancy--what artist--would +wish to discharge? The groups and single figures on their own +basis, abstracted from the general composition and considered +without attention to the plan, frequently exhibit those genuine and +unaffected attitudes--those simple graces--which nature and the heart +alone can dictate, and only an eye inspired by both discover. _Every +class of artists, in every stage of their progress or attainments, +from the student to the finished master, and from the contriver of +ornament to the painter of history, will find here materials of art +and hints of improvement._”--_Cromek._ + + + _NEW VOLUME BY PAUL LACROIX._ + +XVIIIᵐᵉ Siècle. + + _Lettres, Sciences et Arts._ France (1700-1798). + Illustrated with 15 chromo-lithographs and 250 + wood-engravings, after WATTEAU, VANLOO, BOUCHER, VERNET, + EISEN, GRAVELOT, MOREAU, ST. AUBIN, COCHIN, etc. One Volume + imperial 8vo. Tastefully bound, gilt edges, $13.50. Full + polished Levant morocco, gilt edges, $22.50. + + +The School of Shakspere. + + _Including “The Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley,” + with a New Life of Stukeley from Unpublished Sources; “Nobody + and Somebody;” “Histriomastix;” “The Prodigal Son;” “Jack + Drum’s Entertainment;” “A Warning for Fair Women,” with + Reprints of the Accounts of the Murder; and “Faire Em.” + Edited, with Introduction and Notes, and an Account of Robert + Green and his Quarrels with Shakspere, by_ RICHARD SIMPSON. + _With an Introduction by_ F. J. FURNIVALL. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth. + $6.00. + + +Schnorr’s Bible Illustrations: + + La Sainte Bible, Ancien et Nouveau Testament récit et + commentaires, par M. l’Abbé Salmon du diocèse de Paris. + Handsomely printed and illustrated, with 240 beautiful + engravings on wood from the celebrated designs of Schnorr of + Carolsfeld. A handsome volume, 4to, _paper, uncut, $6.00_; or, + _full turkey morocco, extra, gilt leaves, $12.00_. + + +Musical Instruments, Sound, &c. + + Les Harmonies du Son et les Instruments de Musique, par I. + Rambosson. _Most profusely illustrated with upwards of 200 + beautiful engravings on wood, and five chromo-lithographic + plates._ 1 large vol. 8vo, pp. 582, _paper uncut, $4.00; or + half red morocco, extra, gilt edges, $6.00_. + +An entirely new work, in which the subject is treated in a most +exhaustive manner. The book is divided into four general heads, +the _first_ devoted to the History of Music, and its influence on +Physique and Morals, the Influence of Music on Intelligence, on the +Sentiments, Locomotion, etc. The _second_, Acoustics, or production +and propagation of sound, including the most recent discoveries in +this branch. The _third_, on the History of Musical Instruments. The +_fourth_, on the Voice, etc. + + +The Apophthegms of Erasmus. + + Translated into English by Nicholas Udall. Literally + reprinted from the scarce Edition of 1564. _Beautifully + printed on heavy laid paper, front. 8vo, new cloth, uncut._ + + Only 250 copies, each of which is numbered and attested by + autograph signature of the editor. $7.50. + +“This is a pleasant gossipy book, full of wise saws, if not of modern +instances. It may be considered one of the earliest English jest +books. The wit in it is not as startling as fireworks, but there is +a good deal of grave, pleasant humor, and many of those touches of +nature which make the whole world kin. When Nicholas Udall undertook +to translate this work he was the right man in the right place. +Probably no old English book so abounds with colloquialisms and +idiomatic expressions. It is very valuable on that account. This +reprint has been made from the second edition, that of 1562. The +reprint is literal; the only difference being that, to make it easier +for the general reader, the contractions have been filled in, and the +Greek quotations, which were exceedingly incorrect, have been, in +most cases, put right.” + + + _CAXTON COMMEMORATION VOLUME._ + +The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers. + + The First Book printed by Caxton in England (printed at + the Almonry at Westminster in the year 1477). 1 vol., small + folio. Printed in exact facsimile of the _editio princeps_, on + paper manufactured expressly for the work, and having all the + peculiarities of the original. 1 vol., small folio. $10.00. + +The printing of this unique work has been executed by a photographic +process which reproduces infallibly all the characteristics of the +original work, and the binding is a careful reproduction of that of +Caxton’s day. + +This memorial volume is rendered still more interesting, and to the +connoisseur more valuable, by an Introduction by William Blades, +Esq., author of the Life and Typography of William Caxton, giving a +short, historical account of the book, the circumstances that led to +its publication, and its position among the works printed by Caxton. +It is believed that the publication of this work will, apart from +its value to collectors, be generally acceptable as representing the +first work issued from the press in England, and as illustrating the +state of the art of printing in its infancy. + + + _To form Six Volumes, demy 8vo_ + (Vols. I.-III. Poetry; IV.-VI. Prose Works)._ + +Complete Works of Robert Burns. + + Edited by W. SCOTT DOUGLAS, with Explanatory Notes, Various + Readings and Glossary. _Containing 327 Poems and Songs, + arranged chronologically, 15 of which have not hitherto + appeared in a complete form; Nasmyth’s Two Portraits of Burns, + newly engraved on steel; The Birthplace of Burns and Tam o’ + Shanter, after Sam Bough, by W. Forrest; and the Scottish + Muse, by Clark Stanton; Four Facsimiles of Original MSS.; a + Colored Map, Wood Engravings, Music, &c._ + + ∵ Now Ready, Volumes I., II., and III., 8vo, cloth, price + $5.00 each. Also on Large Paper, _India Proof Plates_, royal + 8vo, cloth, $10.00 per volume. + + THE THIRD VOLUME contains hitherto unpublished Poems, + drawings of Ellisland and Lincluden by SAM BOUGH, engraved on + steel by Forrest, facsimiles, &c. + + OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. + +“We heartily congratulate the admirers of Burns, and of poetry, in +the prospect of having in their hands ... such a labor of love and of +knowledge.”--_W. M. Rossetti in The Academy._ + +“Promises to outshine all former editions in completeness, accuracy, +and interest.”--_Aberdeen Journal._ + +“The edition will be unquestionably the best which has yet +appeared.”--_Birmingham Gazette._ + +“Will doubtless supersede all others as library edition of +Burns.”--_Daily Review._ + +“Really an ‘exhaustive effort’ to collect the whole of the +poems.”--_Edinburgh Courant._ + +“May challenge comparison with any previous product of the Scottish +press.”--_Inverness Courier._ + +“A gratifying addition to general literature. Is of the highest order +of merit.”--_London Scottish Journal._ + +“A fine library edition of Scotland’s greatest poet.”--_Pall Mall +Gazette._ + + +The Plays and Poems of Cyril Tourneur. + + _Edited, with Critical Introduction and Notes, by_ JOHN + CHURTON COLLINS. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth. $6.00. _Large paper_ + (only 50 printed). $12.00. + +“So much of the dramatic fire and vigor which form the special +characteristics of the Elizabethan dramatists is discernable in Cyril +Tourneur, that it is satisfactory to see his works collected.... +If on the one hand he may claim to have enriched the drama with +characters that may compare with the best in Chapman or Marston, +he has also in realism gone beyond Webster.... Mr. Collins has +discharged completely his editorial duties, and his notes display a +considerable amount of reading.”--ATHENÆUM. + + + _OFFERED AT A GREAT REDUCTION IN PRICE._ + +An Analysis of Religious Belief. + + By VISCOUNT AMBERLEY. “Ye shall know the truth, and the + truth shall make you free.” 2 large, handsomely printed vols. + demy 8vo, new cloth, uncut. $8.00 (_usual price $15.00_). + +“Let them (the readers) remember that while he assails much which +they reckon unassailable, he does so in what to him is the cause +of goodness, nobleness, love, truth, and of the mental progress of +mankind.”--_Extract front Lady Russell’s Preface._ + +“He has bequeathed to the world a collection of interesting facts +for others to make use of. It is a museum of antiquities, relics, +and curiosities. All of the religions of the world are here jostling +one another in picturesque confusion, like the figures in a +masquerade.”--_Times._ + +“This work has more than one claim on the reader’s attention. Its +intrinsic interest is considerable.”--_Spectator._ + +“No one will fail during its perusal to be deeply interested, and, what +is more, powerfully stimulated to independent thought.”--_Examiner._ + + +Polychromatic Ornament. + + 100 PLATES IN GOLD, SILVER, AND COLORS, _comprising upwards + of 2,000 specimens of the styles of Ancient, Oriental, and + Mediæval Art_, and including the Renaissance, and XVIIth and + XVIIIth centuries, selected and arranged for practical use by + A. Racinet, with Explanatory Text, and a general introduction. + Folio, cloth, gilt edges. $40.00. + +Monsieur Racinet is well known, both in France and in this country, +as the author of the principal designs in those magnificent works, +“Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance” and “Les Arts Somptuaires.” He is +therefore peculiarly well fitted to grapple with the difficulties of +so intricate a subject, and it will be found that he has discharged +his task in a manner to deserve general approval and admiration. +His happy choice of subjects, all of them taken from _originals_, +his ingenious grouping of them in harmonious forms, his wonderful +accuracy in drawing, and his perfect fidelity of color are only +equalled by the profound knowledge which has enabled him to combine +so vast a collection in historical order, and yet in a classical form. + + +Keramic Art of Japan. + + LA CÉRAMIQUE JAPONAISE. FRENCH EDITION, traduit par M. + P. Louiby. _Containing Sixty-three Plates_ (_Thirty-five of + which are in Gold and Colors_), and nearly 200 pages of Text, + with numerous Wood Engravings printed in Colors; the whole + being produced from original Japanese works of the greatest + beauty, and representing the entire range of Japanese Keramic + Art, Ancient and Modern. By G. A. AUDSLEY and J. L. BOWES, + of Liverpool. Containing a Comprehensive Introductory Essay + upon Japanese Art in all its various branches, illustrated + by thirteen Photo-Lithographic and Autotype Plates, and + numerous Wood Engraving, printed in colors. Also, a concise + Dissertation on Keramic Productions of Japan, from the + earliest records up to the present day; with sectional + articles on the Pottery and Porcelain of the various provinces + of the Empire in which manufactories exist, fully illustrated + by thirty-five plates, superbly printed in full colors and + gold, and fifteen plates in autotype. To be supplied in seven + parts, folio, at $10.00 each. Parts I. and II. now ready. + + N. B.--_Parts not sold separately._ + +No one who has examined the Art productions of Japan can have +failed to observe the great beauty of the Keramic Wares of the +country, and the refined and educated feeling everywhere displayed +in their decoration. Their general artistic excellence, and the +skilful rendering of natural objects they usually present, have long +commended them to the attention of the artists of Europe--long, +indeed, before they were sought after by collectors; and it is not +too much to say that many of our well-known artists have shown by +their works their appreciation of Japanese drawing and coloring. + + +The Royal Masonic Cyclopædia + + Of History, Rites, Symbolism, and Biography. By KENNETH R. + H. MACKENZIE. 1 vol. demy 8vo, cloth (pp. 768), $7.00. + +The most complete and valuable work of reference that has ever been +presented to the Craft. + +“The task of the Editor has been admirably performed, and there can +be no question the work will be a valuable addition to every Masonic +library.”--_Freemason’s Chronicle._ + +“The Editor has lavished much reading and labor on his subject.”-- +_Sunday Times._ + +“A deeply-learned work for the benefit of Freemasons.”--_Publishers’ +Circular._ + +“Your new work is excellent.”--Bro. W. R. WOODMAN, M.D., G.S.B. + +“Evidences a considerable amount of hard work, alike in research and +study, ... and we can honestly and sincerely say we wish fraternally +all success to the Royal Masonic Cyclopædia.”--_Freemason._ + + +Wilson’s American Ornithology: + + Or, Natural History of the Birds of the United States; with + the Continuation by PRINCE CHARLES LUCIAN BONAPARTE. NEW AND + ENLARGED EDITION, =_completed by the insertion of above One + Hundred Birds omitted in the original work_=, and illustrated + by valuable Notes and a life of the Author by Sir WILLIAM + JARDINE. Three Vols., 8vo, with a Portrait of WILSON, and + 103 Plates, exhibiting nearly Four Hundred figures of Birds, + accurately engraved and beautifully colored, cloth extra, + gilt top, $18.00. Half smooth morocco, gilt top, $20.00. Half + morocco extra, gilt top, $25.00. Full tree calf extra, gilt or + marbled edges, $30.00. + + _A few copies have been printed on_ LARGE PAPER. Imperial + 8vo size, 3 vols., half morocco, gilt top, $40.00. + +One of the cheapest books ever offered to the American public. The +old edition, not nearly so complete as the present, has always +readily brought from $50.00 to $60.00 per copy. + +“The History of American Birds, by Alexander Wilson, is equal in +elegance to the most distinguished of our own splendid works on +Ornithology.”--CUVIER. + +“With an enthusiasm never excelled, this extraordinary man penetrated +through the vast territories of the United States, undeterred by +forests or swamps, for the sole purpose of describing the native +birds.”--LORD BROUGHAM. + +“By the mere force of native genius, and of delight in nature, he +became, without knowing it a good, a great writer.”--_Blackwood’s +Magazine._ + +“All his pencil or pen has touched is established incontestably; by +the plate, description, and history he has always determined his bird +so obviously as to defy criticism, and prevent future mistake.... We +may add, without hesitation, that such a work as he has published is +still a desideratum in Europe.”--CHARLES LUCIAN BONAPARTE. + + + COMPLETION OF PLANCHÉ’S GREAT WORK. + +Cyclopædia of Costume; + + Or, A Dictionary of Dress--Regal, Ecclesiastical, Civil, + and Military--from the Earliest Period in England to the reign + of George the Third, including Notices of Contemporaneous + Fashions on the Continent. By J. R. PLANCHÉ, Somerset Herald. + Profusely illustrated by fourteen full-page colored plates, + some heightened with gold, and many hundred others throughout + the text. 1 vol. 4to, white vellum cloth, blue edges, unique + style, $20.00. Green vellum cloth, gilt top, $20.00. Half + morocco, extra, gilt top, $25.00. Full morocco, extra, very + elegant, $37.50. + +“There is no subject connected with dress with which ‘Somerset +Herald’ is not as familiar as ordinary men are with the ordinary +themes of everyday life. The gathered knowledge of many years is +placed before the world in this his latest work, and there will +exist no other work on the subject half so valuable. The numerous +illustrations are all effective--for their accuracy the author is +responsible: they are well drawn and well engraved, and, while +indispensable to a proper comprehension of the text, are satisfactory +as works of art.”--_Art Journal._ + +“These numbers of a Cyclopædia of Ancient and Modern Costume give +promise that the work will be one of the most perfect works ever +published upon the subject. The illustrations are numerous and +excellent, and would, even without the letter-press, render the work +an invaluable book of reference for information as to costumes for +fancy balls and character quadrilles.... Beautifully printed and +superbly illustrated.”--_Standard._ + +“Those who know how useful is Fairholt’s brief and necessarily +imperfect glossary will be able to appreciate the much greater +advantages promised by Mr. Planché’s book.”--_Athenæum._ + + + UNIFORM IN STYLE WITH LÜBKE’S AND MRS. JAMESON’S ART WORKS. + +Monumental Christianity; + + Or, the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church, as + Witnesses and Teachers of the one Catholic Faith and Practice. + By JOHN P. LUNDY, Presbyter. 1 vol. demy 4to. Beautifully + printed on superior paper, with over 200 illustrations + throughout the text, and numerous large folding plates. Cloth, + gilt top, $7.50. Half morocco, extra, gilt top, $10.00. Full + morocco, extra, or tree calf, $15.00. + +This is a presentation of the facts and verities of Christianity from +the earliest monuments and contemporary literature. These include +the paintings, sculptures, sarcophagi, glasses, lamps, seal-rings, +and inscriptions of the Christian Catacombs and elsewhere, as well +as the mosaics of the earliest Christian churches. Many of these +monuments are evidently of Pagan origin, as are also the symbols; and +the author has drawn largely from the ancient religions of India, +Chaldea, Persia, Egypt, Etruria, Greece, and Rome, believing that +they all contained germs of religious truths which it is the province +of Christianity to preserve, develop, and embody in a purer system. +The Apostles’ Creed is exhibited, with its parallel or counterpart, +article by article, in the different systems thus brought under +review. + +The book is profusely illustrated, and many of the monuments +presented in facsimile were studied on the spot by the author, and +several are specimens obtained in foreign travel. This is one of +the most valuable contributions to ecclesiastical and archæological +literature. The revival of Oriental learning, both in Europe and +America, has created a demand for such publications, but no one has +occupied the field which Dr. Lundy has chosen. The Expositions which +he has made of the symbols and mysteries are thorough without being +exhaustive; and he has carefully excluded a world of collateral +matter, that the attention might not be diverted from the main object +of the work. Those who may not altogether adopt his conclusions will +nevertheless find the information which he has imparted most valuable +and interesting. + +“As a contribution to Church and general history, the exhaustive and +learned work of Dr. Lundy will be welcome to students and will take a +high place.”--_Church Journal._ + +“When, indeed, we say that from beginning to end this book will +certainly be found to possess a powerful interest to the careful +student, and that its influence for good cannot fail to be +considerable, we in nowise exaggerate its intrinsic merits. It is one +of the most valuable additions to our literature which the season has +produced.”--_New York Times._ + + +The Epicurean; + + A Tale, and ALCIPHRON; a Poem. By THOMAS MOORE. With + vignette illustrations on steel, by J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. 1 + vol. 12mo. Handsomely printed on toned paper. Cloth, extra, + gilt top, $2.00. Tree calf extra, gilt edges, $4.50. + +“Our sense of the beauties of this tale may be appreciated by the +acknowledgment that for insight into human nature, for poetical +thought, for grace, refinement, intellect, pathos, and sublimity, +we prize the Epicurean even above any other of the author’s works. +Indeed, although written in prose, this is a masterly poem, and will +forever rank as one of the most exquisite productions in English +literature.”--_Literary Gazette._ + + +The Turner Gallery, + + A SERIES OF SIXTY ENGRAVINGS, from the Works of J. M. W. + TURNER, R.A. With Biographical Sketch and Descriptive Text by + RALPH N. WORNUM, Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery, + London. One volume, folio, INDIA PROOFS. Elegantly bound in + half Levant morocco, extra, gilt edges, $50.00. Full Levant + morocco, extra, very elegant, $75.00. + + ---- The same. Atlas folio. LARGE PAPER. _Artists’ Proofs._ + Half morocco, extra, $110.00. Full Levant morocco, extra, + $165.00 + + THE TURNER GALLERY is already so well known to lovers of + art and to students of Turner, that, in announcing a reissue + of a limited number of copies of this important National + Work, little need be said by way of comment or introduction. + The Original Engravings have, for the first time, been + employed, instead of the electrotype plates hitherto used, + thus _securing impressions of more genuineness and brilliancy + than have yet been offered to the public_. Of the high-class + character of the Engravings themselves, and of the skill and + excellence with which they are executed, such well-known names + as JEENS, ARMYTAGE, WILLMORE, E. GOODALL, BRANDARD, WALLIS, + COUSENS, and MILLER, will be a sufficient guarantee. + + _From the London Art Journal._ + + “A series of engravings from Turner’s finest pictures, and of a size + and equality commensurate with their importance, has not till now + been offered to the public. + + “In selecting the subjects, the publisher has chosen judiciously. + Many of his grandest productions are in this series of Engravings, + and the ablest landscape engravers of the day have been employed + on the plates, among which are some that, we feel assured, Turner + himself would have been delighted to see. These _proof impressions_ + constitute a volume of exceeding beauty, which deserves to find a + place in the library of every man of taste. The number of copies + printed is too limited for a wide circulation, but, on that account, + the rarity of the publication makes it the more valuable. + + “It is not too much to affirm, that a more beautiful and worthy + tribute to the genius of the great painter does not exist, and is + not likely to exist at any future time.” + +The attention of Collectors and Connoisseurs is particularly invited +to the above exceedingly choice volume; they should speedily avail +themselves of the opportunity of securing a copy at the low price at +which it is now offered. + + + _AN ENTIRELY NEW WORK ON COSTUME BY M. RACINET, + AUTHOR OF “POLYCHROMATIC ORNAMENT,” ETC._ + +Le Costume Historique. + + _Illustrated with 500 Plates_, 300 of which are in Colors, + Gold and Silver, and 200 in Tinted Lithography (Camaïeu). + Executed in the finest style of the art, by Messrs. DIDOT & + CO., of Paris. Representing Authentic Examples of the Costumes + and Ornaments of all Times, among all Nations. With numerous + choice specimens of Furniture, Ornamental Metal Work, Glass, + Tiles, Textile Fabrics, Arms and Armor, Useful Domestic + Articles, Modes of Transport, etc. With explanatory Notices + and Historical Dissertations (in French). By M. A. RACINET, + author of “Polychromatic Ornament.” To be issued in 20 parts. + Small 4to (7½ × 8½ inches), $4.50 each. Folio, large paper + (11½ × 16 inches), in cloth portfolio, $9.00 each. + + _NO ORDERS RECEIVED EXCEPT FOR THE COMPLETE WORK._ + +Each part will contain 25 plates, 15 in colors and 10 in tinted +Lithography. Parts 1, 2, and 3 are now ready for delivery. Upon +completion of the work, the price will be raised 25 per cent. + +“The Messrs. Firmin Didot & Co., of Paris, a firm that disputes +with the house of Hachette & Co. the honor of supplying France +and the world with the most beautiful books at the cheapest rates +compatible with the greatest excellence in editing and ‘making,’ +have recently published the beginning of a work which, by making +its appeal chiefly to the eye, is sure of a welcome in this +picture-loving age of ours. This is the HISTORY OF COSTUME, by A. +Racinet, well-known already to that portion of our public which is +interested in the decorative art by his illustrated work on ornament. +_L’Ornement Polychrome._--Racinet gives the word ‘costume’ almost +as wide a sweep of meaning as Viollet-le-Duc gives to furniture +in his now famous _Dictionnaire du Mobilier_. * * * * The field +surveyed consists not only of costumes proper, but of arms, armor, +drinking vessels, objects used in the service of the church, modes +of transport, harness, head-gear and modes of dressing the hair, +domestic interiors, and furniture in the ordinary acceptation of +the term. Each plate is to be accompanied with an explanatory text, +and there will be added an historical study, so that little will +be wanting to make this one of the completest encyclopædias of the +sort that has ever appeared. * * * * A charming taste has presided +over the selection of the subject, and the abundant learning that +has been brought to bear in the collection of illustrations, from so +wide a field of human action, is made to seem like play, so lightly +is it handled. * * * * No scientific arrangement is observed in the +order in which the subjects are presented. We have ancient Egypt, +Assyria, Rome, Greece, India, Europe in the middle ages, and from +the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Japan, Turkey, Syria, +Russia, and Poland, mixed up for the present, as if the work were +an illustrated report of a fancy ball; and, to most of us, the gay +parade as it rolls along is none the less pleasant for this want of +order.”--_Scribner’s Monthly._ + +“The name of Firmin Didot & Co., of Paris, is such a guarantee of +mechanical execution in a book, that it is sufficient to state +that _Le Costume Historique_ is fully on a par with any of the +former publications of this distinguished house. In addition to +its other features, this work has numerous illustrations, giving +restorations of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian interiors. In fact the +work is conceived on a large plan, and will be found most useful to +the artist. With such a book as a reference, some of the glaring +inconsistencies we still see from time to time on the stage, +where periods as to costume, some hundreds of years apart, are +terribly mixed up, might be prevented, and the unities saved. The +publishers have had the excellent idea of reducing the size of the +illustrations, so as to bring the price of this picture-cyclopædia +of the costume of the world within the means of the most prudent +book-buyer.”--_N. Y. Daily Times._ + +“A new work on costume, most expensive to the publishers and cheap to +the subscribers. Parts I., II., and III., with twenty-five pictures +in each, are ready. We have minutely examined them, and find them +worthy of great praise, both for general excellences of execution +and for the recondite and curious sources drawn upon--the latter +characteristic making the collector master of a great many pictorial +facts and illustrations whose original sources are hard even to see +and impossible to become possessed of.”--_Nation._ + +“This work is unquestionably the best work on its subject ever +offered to the public, and it will engage very general attention. In +shapeliness and convenience, too, it leaves nothing to be desired, +which cannot be said often of cyclopædias of costume. One can enjoy +the colors and contents of these ‘parts’ while lounging in a veranda +or rocking in a boudoir. It is not necessary to adjourn to a public +library and to an immovable chair.”--_Evening Post._ + + + _NEW SERIES._ + +Examples of Modern Etching. + + A series of 20 _Choice Etchings_ by QUEROY, + BRUNET-DEBAINES, HAMERTON, GEORGE, BURTON, WISE, LEGROS, LE + RAT, SEYMOUR-HADEN, etc., etc., with descriptive text by P. G. + HAMERTON, folio, cloth gilt, $12.00. + + Edited, with notes, by PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, Editor + of the “_Portfolio_.” Twenty Plates, by Balfourier, Bodmer, + Bracquemond, Chattock, Flameng, Feyen-Perrin, Seymour Haden, + Hamerton, Hesseltine, Laguillermie, Lalanne, Legros, Lucas, + Palmer, Rajon, Veyrassat, etc. The text beautifully printed + on heavy paper. Folio, tastefully bound in cloth, full gilt, + $10.00. + +Among the contents of this choice volume, may be mentioned “_The +Laughing Portrait of Rembrandt_,” by Flameng; _Twickenham Church_, +by Seymour Haden; _Aged Spaniard_, by Legros; _The Hare--A Misty +Morning_, by Bracquemond; _The Thames at Richmond_, by Lalanne; _The +Ferryboat_, by Veyrassat, etc. + +∵ A set of proofs of the plates in the above volume alone are worth +in the London market £10 10s. 0d., or seventy dollars currency. + + +Etchings from the National Gallery. + + A series of eighteen choice plates by Flameng, Le Rat, + Rajon, Wise, Waltner, Brunet-Debaines, Gaucherel, Richeton, + etc., after the paintings by Masaccio, Bellini, Giorgione, + Moroni, Mantegna, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Cuyp, Maes, Hobbema, + Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, and Landseer, with Notes by + RALPH N. WORNUM (Keeper of the National Gallery). The text + handsomely printed on heavy paper. Folio, tastefully bound in + cloth, full gilt, $10.00. + +To admirers of Etchings, the present volume offers several of the +most notable of recently executed plates, among others the _Portrait +of Rembrandt_, by Waltner; _The Parish Clerk_, after Gainsborough, +by the same etcher; _The Burial of Wilkie_, after Turner, by +Brunet-Debaines; _Portrait of a Youth_, after Masaccio, by Léopold +Flameng, etc. + + +French Artists of the Present Day. + + A series of twelve fac-simile engravings, after pictures + by Gérome, Rosa Bonheur, Corot, Pierre Billet, Legros, + Ch. Jacque, Veyrassat, Hébert, Jules Breton, etc., with + Biographical Notices by René Ménard. Folio, tastefully bound + in cloth, gilt, $10.00. + + +Chapters on Painting. + + By RENÉ MÉNARD (Editor of “Gazette des Beaux-Arts”). + Translated under the superintendence of Philip Gilbert + Hamerton. Illustrated with a series of forty superb etchings, + by Flameng, Coutry, Masson, Le Rat, Jacquemart, Chauvel, etc., + the text beautifully printed by Claye, of Paris. Royal 4to, + paper, uncut, $25.00. Half polished levant mor., gilt top, + $30.00. + + +Ancient Art and Mythology. + + The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology. + An Inquiry. By RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT, author of “Worship of + Priapus.” A new edition, with Introduction, Notes translated + into English, and a new and complete Index. By ALEXANDER + WILDER, M.D. 1 vol. 8vo, cloth, handsomely printed, $3.00. + +“Not only do these explanations afford a key to the religion and +mythology of the ancients, but they also enable a more thorough +understanding of the canons and principles of art. It is well +known that the latter was closely allied to the other; so that the +symbolism of which the religious emblems and furniture consisted +likewise constituted the essentials of architectural style and +decoration, textile embellishments, as well as the arts of sculpture, +painting, and engraving. Mr. Knight has treated the subject with +rare erudition and ingenuity, and with such success that the labor +of those who come after him rather add to the results of his +investigations than replace them in important particulars. The labors +of Champollion, Bunsen, Layard, Bonomi, the Rawlinsons, and others, +comprise his deductions so remarkably as to dissipate whatever of his +assertions that appeared fanciful. Not only are the writings of Greek +and Roman authors now more easy to comprehend, but additional light +has been afforded to a correct understanding of the canon of the Holy +Scripture.”--_Extract from Editor’s Preface._ + + + A SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME TO “ANCIENT FAITHS.” + +Ancient Faiths and Modern. + + A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends, and Divinities in + Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, before the + Christian Era. Showing their Relations to Religious Customs + as they now exist. By THOMAS INMAN, M.D., author of “Ancient + Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names,” etc., etc. 1 vol. 8vo, + cloth, $5.00. + +This work is most aptly expressed by the title, and the author, who +is one of our most learned and accomplished modern writers, has +done ample justice to his subject. He pries boldly into Bluebeard’s +closet, little recking whether he shall find a ghost, skeleton, or +a living being; and he tells us very bluntly and explicitly what +he has witnessed. Several years since he gave to the learned world +his treatise on _Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names_, in +which were disclosed the ideas underlying the old-world religions, +and the nature of hieroglyphical symbols employed in the East. The +present volume complements that work, elaborates more perfectly the +ideas there set forth, and traces their relations to the faiths, +worship, and religious dogmas of modern time. We are astonished to +find resemblances where it would be supposed that none would exist, +betraying either a similar origin or analogous modes of thinking and +reasoning among nations and peoples widely apart in race, country, +and period of history. The author is bold and often strong in his +expressions, from the intensity of his convictions, but this serves +to deepen the interest in his subject. Those who have read his former +works with advantage will greet this volume with a cordial welcome; +and all who desire to understand the original religions of mankind, +the ideas which lie back of the revelations of Holy Scripture, and +particularly, those who are not easily shocked when they come in +contact with sentiments with which they have not been familiar, will +find this book full of entertainment as well as of instruction. Dr. +Inman is working up a new mine of thought, and the lover of knowledge +will give his labor a welcome which few of our modern authors receive. + + +Wheeler’s India. + + History of India. By J. TALBOYS WHEELER, Assistant + Secretary to the Government of India, in the Foreign + Department, Secretary of the Record Commission, Author of the + “Geography of Herodotus.” + + The Ramayana and the Brahmanic Period. 8vo, cloth, pp. + lxxxviii. and 680, with two maps. $6.00. + + Hindu, Buddhist, Brahmanical Revival. 8vo, cloth, pp. 484, + with two maps, cloth. $5.00. + + Under Mussulman Rule. (Vol. IV.), 8vo, $4.50. + + +Dr. Inman’s Ancient Faiths. + + Embodied in Ancient Names; or, an Attempt to trace the + Religious Belief, Sacred Rites, and Holy Emblems of certain + Nations, by an Interpretation of the Names given to Children + by Priestly Authority, or assumed by Prophets, Kings, and + Hierarchs. By THOMAS INMAN, M.D. Profusely illustrated with + Engravings on Wood. 2 vols., 8vo, cloth, $20.00. + +“Dr. Inman’s present attempt to trace the religious belief, sacred +rites, and holy emblems of certain nations, has opened up to him +many hitherto unexplored fields of research, or, at least, fields +that have not been over-cultivated, and the result is a most curious +and miscellaneous harvest of facts. The ideas on priapism developed +in a former volume receive further extension in this. Dr. Inman, as +will be seen, does not fear to touch subjects usually considered +sacred in an independent manner, and some of the results at which he +has arrived are such as will undoubtedly startle, if not shock, the +orthodox. But this is what the author expects, and for this he has +thoroughly prepared himself. In illustration of his peculiar views +he has ransacked a vast variety of historical storehouses, and with +great trouble and at a considerable cost, he places the conclusions +at which he has arrived before the world. With the arguments +employed, the majority of readers will, we expect, disagree; even +when the facts adduced will remain undisputed, their application is +frequently inconsequent. In showing the absurdity of a narrative or +an event in which he disbelieves, the Doctor is powerful. No expense +has been spared on the work, which is well and fully illustrated, and +contains a good index.”--_Bookseller._ + + + NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION. + +Ancient Symbol Worship. + + Influence of the Phallic Idea in the Religions of + Antiquity. By HODDER M. WESTROPP and C. STANILAND WAKE. With + an Introduction, additional Notes, and Appendix, by ALEXANDER + WILDER, M.D. New Edition, with eleven full-page Illustrations. + 1 vol. 8vo, cloth, $3.00. + +The favor with which this treatise has been received has induced the +publisher to bring out a new edition. It makes a valuable addition +to our knowledge, enabling us to acquire a more accurate perception +of the ancient-world religions. We may now understand Phallism, not +as a subject of ribaldry and leering pruriency, but as a matter of +veneration and respect. The Biblical student, desirous to understand +the nature and character of the idolatry of the Israelites during the +Commonwealth and Monarchy, the missionary to heathen lands fitting +for his work, and the classic scholar endeavoring to comprehend +the ideas and principles which underlie Mythology, will find their +curiosity gratified; and they will be enabled at the same time to +perceive how not only many of our modern systems of religion, but our +arts and architecture, are to be traced to the same archaic source. +The books examined and quoted by the authors constitute a library +by themselves, and their writers are among the ripest scholars of +their time. Science is rending asunder the veil that conceals the +adytum of every temple, and revealing to men the sanctities revered +so confidingly during the world’s childhood. With these disclosures, +there may be somewhat of the awe removed with which we have regarded +the symbols, mysteries, and usages of that period; but the true mind +will not be vulgarized by the spectacle. + + +The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries. + + A Dissertation, by THOMAS TAYLOR, Translator of “Plato,” + “Plotinus,” “Porphyry,” “Iamblichus,” “Proclus,” “Aristotle,” + etc., etc. Third edition. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, + Emendations, and Glossary, by ALEXANDER WILDER, M.D. 1 vol. + 8vo, cloth, $3.00. + +In the Mysteries, the dramas acted at Eleusis and other sacred +places, were embodied the deeper thoughts and religious sentiment +of the archaic world. The men and women initiated into them were +believed to be thenceforth under special care of God, for this life +and the future. So holy and interior were the doctrines considered +which had been learned in the Sanctuary from the two tablets of +stone, that it was not lawful to utter them to another. What was +seen and learned elsewhere might be admirable; but the exercises of +Eleusis and Olympia had in them the something divine, and those who +observed them were “the children of God,” and imaging Him in wisdom, +intuitive discernment, and love. + +The reader desirous of getting the kernel of the doctrines of Plato, +Orpheus, Eumolpas, and their fellow-laborers, as well as of the +Alexandrian Eclectics, will obtain invaluable aid from this treatise. + + + _NOW OFFERED AT GREATLY REDUCED PRICES._ + +Pearson’s Reprints of the Old Dramatists. + + Being fac-simile reprints of the entire text of each + author, without note or comment, with Life and Memoir. + Handsomely printed on ribbed paper, made expressly for the + purpose, and bound in antique boards, uncut edges, in exact + imitation of the rare originals. + + Comprising the following: + + MRS. BEHN’S PLAYS, HISTORIES AND NOVELS. 6 vols. 12mo, + “ “ “ “ “ “ 6 vols. 8vo, + Large Paper. + + MRS. CENTLIVRE’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 3 vols. 12mo, + “ “ “ “ “ 8vo, + Large Paper. + + RICHARD BROME’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 3 vols. 12mo, + “ “ “ “ “ 8vo, + Large Paper. + + GEORGE CHAPMAN’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 3 vols. 12mo, + “ “ “ “ “ 8vo, + Large Paper. + + THOMAS DEKKER’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 4 vols. 12mo, + “ “ “ “ “ 8vo, + Large Paper. + + THOMAS HEYWOOD’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 6 vols. 12mo, + “ “ “ “ “ 8vo, + Large Paper. + + HENRY GLAPTHORNE’S PLAYS AND POEMS. 2 vols. 12mo, + “ “ “ “ “ 8vo, + Large Paper. + + Together, 27 vols. 12mo, $54.00, or on large and thick + paper, 27 vols. 8vo, $108.00. + +The balance of the edition of these reprints having been recently +“sold off” in London, I am now enabled to offer them at the above +greatly reduced prices, for a brief period only. Several of the +authors being already out of print, the time is not far distant when +it will be impossible to procure complete sets, and collectors will +do well to secure them while they have the opportunity. + + +Antiquities of Long Island. + + By GABRIEL FURMAN. With a Bibliography by Henry Onderdonk, + Jr. To which is added Notes, Geographical and Historical, + relating to the town of Brooklyn, in Kings County, on Long + Island. 1 vol. large 12mo, cloth, $3.00. + + +Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism. + + By THOMAS INMAN, M.D., author of “Ancient Faiths Embodied + in Ancient Names,” etc. Second edition, revised and enlarged, + with an Essay on Baal Worship, on “the Assyrian Sacred Grove,” + and other allied symbols. By JOHN NEWTON, M.R.C.S.E., etc. + Profusely illustrated. 1 vol. cloth, $3.00. + +This book contains in a nutshell the essence of Dr. Inman’s other +publications, and for the reader of limited means is just what he +requires. The subject of symbolism is as deep as human thought and +as broad in its scope as humanity itself. The erudite thinker finds +it not only worthy of his best energies, but capable of taxing them +to the utmost. Many pens have been employed upon it, and it has +never grown old. Dr. Inman’s views are somewhat peculiar; he has +concentrated his attention to the ideas which he believes to underlie +the symbolism of the most ancient periods, and can be traced through +the autonomy of the Christian Church. He finds the relation which +exists, and the antiquarian likewise, between Asshur and Jehovah, the +Baal of Syria and the God whom Christians worship; and the mysteries +of the Sacred Grove, of which the Old Testament says so much, are +unfolded and made sensible to the common intellect. Scholars will +welcome this volume, and the religious reader will peruse its pages +with the profoundest interest. The symbols which characterize worship +constitute a study which will never lose its interest, so long as +learning and art have admirers. + + +The Lost Beauties of the English Language. + + An Appeal to Authors, Poets, Clergymen, and Public + Speakers. By CHAS. MACKAY, LL.D. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth extra, + $1.75. + +Words change as well as men, sometimes from no longer meeting the new +wants of the people, but oftener from the attraction of novelty which +impels everybody to change. A dictionary of obsolete words, and terms +becoming obsolete, is a valuable reminder of the treasures which we +are parting with; not always wisely, for in them are comprised a +wealth of expression, idiom, and even history, which the new words +cannot acquire. Dr. Mackay has placed a host of such on record, +with quotations to illustrate how they were read by the classical +writers of the English language, not many centuries ago, and enables +us to read those authors more understandingly. If he could induce +us to recall some of them back to life, it would be a great boon to +literature; but hard as it might have been for Cæsar to add a new +word to his native Latin language, it would have been infinitely more +difficult to resuscitate an obsolete one, however more expressive +and desirable. Many of the terms embalmed in this treatise are not +dead as yet: and others of them belong to that prolific department of +our spoken language that does not get into dictionaries. But we all +need to know them; and they really are more homogeneous to our people +than their successors, the stilted foreign-born and alien English, +that “the Best” is laboring to naturalize into our language. The old +words, like old shoes and well-worn apparel, sit most comfortably. + + +Fu-Sang; + + Or, the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests + in the Fifth Century. Containing a Translation of Professor + Carl Neumann’s work on the subject, made under supervision of + the Author; a letter by Colonel Barclay Kennon, late of the + U. S. North Coast Pacific Survey, on the Possibility of an + Easy Passage from China to California; and a Résumé of the + Arguments of De Guigues, Klaproth, Gustave D’Eichthal, and + Dr. Bretschneider on the Narrative of Hoei-Shin, with other + Contributions and Comments, by CHARLES G. LELAND, 1 vol. 12mo, + cloth, $1.75. + + + FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. + +Lacroix. + + (BIBLIOPHILE JACOB) XVIIIᵐᵉ SIÈCLE, INSTITUTIONS, USAGES, + ET COSTUMES, France, 1700-1789. Illustrated with twenty-one + large and beautifully executed chromo-lithographs, and upwards + of three hundred and fifty engravings on wood after Watteau, + Vanloo, Boucher, Lancret, Chardin, Bouchardin, Saint-Aubin, + Eisen, Moreau, etc. 1 vol. thick Imperial 8vo, half red + morocco, extra gilt leaves, $13.50. + + ----The same, full crimson Levant super-extra, $22.50. + +The title of this new work, by the indefatigable Paul Lacroix, +conveys but an indifferent idea of its contents. It is admirably +gotten up, and is illustrated in a most profuse manner, equalling, +if not excelling, the former works of the same author, giving us a +living picture of the 18th century--the king, nobility, bourgeoisie, +people, parliaments, clergy, army and navy, commerce, education, +police, etc., Paris, its pleasures, promenades, fêtes, salons, +cuisine, theatres, costumes, etc., etc. + + + A NEW WORK ON CHRISTIAN ART. + +Jésus-Christ. + + Attendu, vivant, continué, dans le monde, par LOUIS + VEUILLOT, avec une étude sur l’Art Chrétien par E. CARTIER. + 16 large and beautifully executed chromo-lithographs, and 200 + engravings, etchings, and woodcuts, from the most celebrated + monuments, from the period of the Catacombs to the present + day. Thick Imp. 8vo, new half morocco extra, gilt leaves, + $13.50. + + ----The same, printed on large Holland paper. Imp. 8vo, + half polished Levant morocco, gilt top, $22.50. + +This elegant work is uniform in style and illustration with the +works of Paul Lacroix, by the same house. The illustrations (which +were prepared under the direction of M. Dumoulin), are of the most +attractive character, and present a chronological view of Christian +art. The exquisite series of chromos are from pictures by Giotto, +Ghirlandajo, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, Fra Bartolommeo-Angelico, +Sacchi di Pavia, Flandrin, and a head of Christ from the Catacombs, +Fac-similes, by Armand, Durand, from rare etchings by Marc Antonio, +Dürer, etc., also a reduction from Prevost, plate of the wedding at +Cana, after Paul Veronese, and nearly 200 charming engravings on wood. + + + UNIFORM WITH THE WORKS OF PAUL LACROIX. + +Jeanne D’Arc. + + Par H. WALLON (Secrétaire de l’Académie des Inscriptions et + Belles-Lettres). Beautifully printed on heavy vellum paper, + and illustrated with 14 CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES, and one + hundred and fifty fine engravings on wood after monuments of + art, fac-similes, etc., etc. 1 large volume, thick royal 8vo, + half red morocco, full gilt, gilt edges, $13.50. Full polished + morocco extra, $22.50. + +Contents: An account of the arms and military dresses of the period, +accompanied by descriptive figures taken from the seals of the +Archives; a map of feudal France, by M. Aug. Longnon, a new work +of the highest importance to the history of the 15th century; a +study of the worship shown to Joan of Arc in the French and Foreign +literatures (it is known that during the lifetime of Joan, her +wonderful mission was represented on the stage); fac-similes of +letters of Joan, etc., etc. + + +Dramatists of the Restoration. + + Beautifully printed on superior paper, to range with + Pickering’s edition of Webster, Peele, Marlowe, etc. As the + text of most of these authors has, in later editions, been + either imperfectly or corruptly dealt with, the several Plays + have been presented in an unmutilated form, and carefully + collated with the earliest and best editions. + +Biographical Notices and brief Notes accompany the works of each +author. The series has been entrusted to the joint editorial care of +JAMES MAIDMENT and W. H. LOGAN. It comprises the following authors: + + SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 5 vols. + JOHN CROWNE’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 4 vols. + SIR ASTON COKAIN’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol. + JOHN WILSON’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol. + JOHN LACY’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol. + SHAKERLEY MARMION’S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol. + + Together, 13 vols. post 8vo, white vellum cloth, $50.00. + Large paper, 13 vols. 8vo, $75.00. Whatman’s drawing paper + (only thirty copies printed), $110.00. + + +The First Edition of Shakespeare. + + Mr. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S Comedies, Histories, and + Tragedies. Published according to the True Original Copies. + London. Printed by ISAAC IAGGARD and ED. BLOUNT. 1623. An + exact reproduction of the extremely rare original, in reduced + fac-simile by a photographic process, ensuring the strictest + accuracy in every detail. Post 8vo, half mor., gilt top, $3.00. + +“A complete fac-simile of the celebrated First Folio edition of 1623 +for half-a-guinea is at once a miracle of cheapness and enterprise. +Being in a reduced form, the type is necessarily rather diminutive, +but it is as distinct as in a genuine copy of the original, +and will be found to be as useful, and far more handy to the +student.”--_Athenæum._ + + +The Violin. + + Its famous makers and their imitators. By GEORGE HART. In + the above-mentioned work the author treats of the Origin, + History, Development of this, the greatest of musical + instruments, and gives interesting details concerning those + ingenious makers who brought it to its present state of + perfection. + + It is illustrated by upwards of forty first-class Wood + Engravings from Photographs, which represent the exact + Outlines and Proportions of the masterpieces of ANTONIUS + STRADIUARIUS, AMATI, BERGONZI, and others, including the + celebrated violin by JOSEPH GUARNERIUS, on which PAGANINI + achieved his marvellous success. 1 vol. post 8vo, cloth, $4.00. + + The same. Large Paper. Demy 4to, cloth, $8.00. + + + A SUPERB SERIES OF ETCHINGS. + +The Wilson Collection. + + Collection de M. John W. Wilson. Exposée dans la Galerie du + Cercle Artistique et Littéraire de Bruxelles, au profit des + pauvres de cette Ville. Troisième édition. Handsomely printed + on heavy paper, and illustrated with a series of 68 large and + most exquisitely executed etchings, from the most remarkable + pictures in this celebrated collection. FINE IMPRESSIONS. + Thick royal 4to, paper, uncut, $25.00; or in half morocco, + gilt tops, uncut, $30.00. + +∵ Already out of print and scarce. + +This charming catalogue was gotten up at the expense of the generous +owner of the collection, and the money received from its sale donated +to the fund for the relief of the poor of the city. The edition +consisted of 1,000 copies. It was immediately exhausted. + +The Catalogue is a model of its kind. The notices are in most +instances accompanied with a fac-simile of the artist’s signature +to the picture; a biographical sketch of the artist; notices of the +engraved examples, if any; and critical notes on each picture. + +The graphic department is, however, the great feature of this +Catalogue, embracing, as it does, upwards of sixty examples of the +best etchers of the present day, including Greux, Chauvel, Martial, +Rajon, Gaucherel, Jacquemart, Hédouin, Lemaire, Duclos, Masson, +Flameng, Lalanne, Gilbert, etc., etc. + + +Dürer’s “Little Passion.” + + Passio Christi. A complete set of the Thirty-seven + Woodcuts, by Albert Dürer. Reproduced in fac-simile. Edited by + W. C. Prime. One volume, Royal 4to (13 × 10½ inches). Printed + on heavy glazed paper, half vellum, $10.00. Morocco antique, + $15.00. + +The Little Passion of Albert Dürer, consisting of thirty-seven +woodcuts, has long been regarded as one of the most remarkable +collections of illustrations known to the world. Complete sets of +the entire series are excessively rare. The editions which have been +published in modern times in Europe are defective, lacking more or +less of the Plates, and are of an inferior and unsatisfactory class +of workmanship. + + +Æsop’s Fables. + + With 56 illustrations, from designs by Henry L. Stephens. + Royal 4to, cloth extra, gilt leaves, $10.00. + +Mr. Stephens has no superior in the peculiar style of illustration +which is most effective in bringing out the spirit of Æsop’s Fables, +and in this volume he has given us fifty-six full page cartoons, +brimming with droll humor, reciting the Fables over again, and +enforcing their morals just as effectively as was done by the words +of Æsop himself. The illustrations are among the finest specimens of +art ever produced in this country, and the volume as a whole is most +creditable to American artistic skill. + + +Boccaccio’s Decameron; + + Or, Ten Days’ Entertainment. Now fully translated into + English, with Introduction by THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., + F.S.A. Illustrated by STOTHARD’S Engravings on Steel, and the + 12 unique plates from the rare Milan Edition. One volume, + thick 12mo, cloth extra, $3.50, or handsomely bound in half + polished Levant morocco, gilt top, $5.50. + +The most complete translation, containing many passages not hitherto +translated into English. + + +Bell’s Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression, + + As connected with the Fine Arts. Profusely illustrated + Royal 8vo, cloth, uncut, $4.50. + + +Tom D’Urfey’s “Pills to Purge Melancholy.” + + Being a collection of Merry Ballads and Songs, old and new, + fitted to all humors, having each its proper tune for voice + and instrument. An exact and beautiful reprint of this very + scarce work. Small paper, 6 vols., crown 8vo, bds., uncut, + $15.00. Large paper, 6 vols. crown 4to. Only a few printed. + Bds., uncut, $24.00. + +“But what obtained Mr. D’Urfey his greatest reputation was a +peculiarly happy knack he possessed in the writing of satires and +irregular odes. Many of these were upon temporary occasions, and were +of no little service to the party in whose cause he wrote; which, +together with his natural vivacity and good humor, obtained him +the favor of great numbers, of all ranks and conditions, monarchs +themselves not excluded. He was strongly attached to the Tory +interest, and in the latter part of Queen Anne’s reign had frequently +the honor of diverting that princess with witty catches and songs +of humor suited to the spirit of the times, written by himself, and +which he sang in a lively and entertaining manner. And the author of +the Guardian, who, in No. 67. has given a very humorous account of +Mr. D’Urfey, with a view to recommend him to the public notice for a +benefit play, tells us that he remembered King Charles II. leaning on +Tom D’Urfey’s shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with +him. + +“He appears to have been a diverting companion, and a cheerful, +honest, good-natured man; so that he was the delight of the most +polite companies in conversations, from the beginning of Charles +II.’s to the latter part of King George I.’s reign; and many an +honest gentleman got a reputation in his country by pretending to +have been in company with Tom D’Urfey.”--_Chalmers._ + + + UNIFORM WITH “TOM D’URFEY’S PILLS.” + +Musarum Deliciæ; + + Or, The Muses’ Recreation, 1656; Wit Restor’d, 1658; and + Wit’s Recreation, 1640. The whole compared with the originals; + with all the Wood Engravings, Plates, Memoirs, and Notes. A + new edition, in 2 volumes, post 8vo, beautifully printed on + antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, $4.00. + + A FEW LARGE PAPER COPIES have been prepared. 2 vols. 4to, + $7.50. + +∵ Of the Poets of the Restoration, there are none whose works are +more rare than those of Sir John Mennis and Dr. James Smith. The +small volume entitled “Musarum Deliciæ; or, The Muses’ Recreation,” +which contains the production of these two friends, was not +accessible to Mr. Freeman when he compiled his “Kentish Poets,” and +has since become so rare that it is only found in the cabinets of the +curious. A reprint of the “Musarum Deliciæ,” together with several +other kindred pieces of the period, appeared in 1817, forming two +volumes of Facetiæ, edited by Mr. E. Dubois, author of “The Wreath,” +etc. These volumes having in turn become exceedingly scarce, the +Publishers venture to put forth the present new edition, in which, +while nothing has been omitted, no pains have been spared to render +it more complete and elegant than any that has yet appeared. The +type, plates, and woodcuts of the originals have been accurately +followed; the Notes of the editor of 1817 are considerably augmented, +and indexes have been added, together with a portrait of Sir John +Mennis, from a painting by Vandyke in Lord Clarendon’s Collection. + + +The Story of the Stick + + In all Ages and all Lands. A Philosophical History and + Lively Chronicle of the Stick as the Friend and Foe of Man. + Its Uses and Abuses. As Sceptre and as Crook. As the Warrior’s + Weapon, and the Wizard’s Wand. As Stay, as Stimulus, and as + Scourge. Translated and adapted from the French of ANTONY RÉAL + (Fernand Michel). 1 vol., 12mo, extra cloth, red edges, $1.50. + + “Wrought for a Staff, wrought for a Rod.” + SWINBURNE.--_Atalanta in Calydon._ + +The above work condenses in a lively narrative form a most +astonishing mass of curious and recondite information in regard to +the subject of which it treats. From the bludgeon of Cain to the +truncheon of the Marshals of France, from the budding rod of Aaron +to the blazing cane of M. de Balzac, the stick, in all its relations +with man since first he meddled with the Tree of Knowledge of Good +and Evil, is shown here to have played a far greater part in history +than is commonly imagined. It has been the instrument of justice, +it has been the tool also of luxury. It has ministered to man, its +maker, pleasure as well as pain, and has served for his support as +well as for his subjugation. The mysteries in which it has figured +are some of them revealed and others of them hinted in these most +entertaining and instructive pages, for between the days of the +society of Assassins in the East and those of the society of the +Aphrodites in the West, the Stick has been made the pivot of many +secret associations, all of them interesting to the student of human +morals, but not all of them wisely to be treated of before the +general public. The late Mr. Buckle especially collected on this +subject some most astounding particulars of social history, which +he did not live to handle in his own inimitable way, but of which +an adequate inkling is here afforded to the serious and intelligent +reader. + + + OUR EMIGRANT ANCESTORS. + +Original Lists of Persons of Quality. + + Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving-men + Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; + Maidens Pressed; and others who went from Great Britain to + the American Plantations, 1600-1700. With their Ages, the + Localities where they formerly Lived in the Mother Country, + Names of the Ships in which they embarked, and other + interesting particulars. From MSS. preserved in the State + Paper Department of Her Majesty’s Public Record Office, + England. Edited by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. A very handsome volume, + crown 4to, 700 pages, elegantly bound in half Roxburghe + morocco, gilt top, $10.00. + + A few Large Paper copies have been printed, small folio, + $17.50. + + +Blake’s (Wm.) Marriage of Heaven and Hell: + + A reproduction and facsimile of this marvelous work, + printed in colors, on paper made expressly for the work. 4to, + hf. Roxburghe morocco, uncut, $10.00. 1790 (1868). + +∵ _A very few copies remaining._ + +“The most curious and significant, while it is certainly the most +daring in conception and gorgeous in illustration of all Blake’s +works.”--_Gilchrist’s Life of Blake._ + + + A NEW AND ATTRACTIVE BOOK ON MEXICO + +A Peep at Mexico: + + Narrative of a Journey Across the Republic, from the + Pacific to the Gulf, in December, 1873, and January, 1874. By + J. L. GEIGER, F.R.G.S. Demy 8vo, pp. 368, with 4 Maps and 45 + original Photographs. Cloth, $8.50. + + +The English Rogue. + + Described in the Life of MERITON LATROON, and other + Extravagants, comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of both + Sexes. By RICHARD HEAD and FRANCIS KIRKMAN. A fac-simile + reprint of the rare Original Edition (1665-1672), with + Frontispiece, Fac-similes of the 12 copper-plates, and + Portraits of the authors. In Four Volumes, post 8vo, + beautifully printed on antique laid paper, made expressly, and + bound in antique boards, $6.00, or LARGE PAPER COPIES, 4 vols. + 8vo, $10.00. + +∵ This singularly entertaining work may be described as the first +English novel, properly so-called. The same air of reality pervades +it as that which gives such a charm to stories written by DeFoe half +a century later. The interest never flags for a moment, from the +first chapter to the last. + +As a picture of the manners of the period, two hundred years ago, +in England, among the various grades of society through which the +hero passes in the course of his extraordinary adventures, and among +gypsies, beggars, thieves, etc., the book is invaluable to students. + + +The Rump; + + Or, An Exact Collection of the choicest POEMS and SONGS + relating to the late Times, and continued by the most eminent + Wits; from Anno 1639 to 1661. A Fac-simile Reprint of the + rare Original edition (London, 1662), with Frontispiece and + Engraved Title-page. In 2 vols. post 8vo, printed on antique + laid paper, and bound in antique boards, $4.00; or Large Paper + Copies, $6.00. + +∵ A very rare and extraordinary collection of some two hundred +Popular Ballads and Cavalier Songs, on all the principal incidents +of the great Civil War, the Trial of Strafford, the Martyrdom of +King Charles, the Commonwealth, Cromwell, Pym, the Roundheads, etc. +It was from such materials that Lord Macaulay was enabled to produce +his vivid pictures of England in the sixteenth century. To historical +students and antiquaries, and to the general reader, these volumes +will be found full of interest. + + +Westminster Drolleries. + + Ebsworth’s (J. Woodfall) Westminster Drolleries, with an + introduction on the Literature of the Drolleries, and Copious + Notes, Illustrations, and Emendations of Text. 2 vols. 12mo, + cloth, uncut, $8.00. Boston (Eng.), 1875. + +∵ _Only a small_ Edition; privately printed. + + +Swinburne’s William Blake; + + A Critical Essay. With Illustrations from Blake’s Designs + in Fac-simile, some colored. 8vo, cloth, $3.00. + +A valuable contribution to our knowledge of a most remarkable man, +whose originality and genius are now beginning to be generally +recognized. + + +Holbein and His Times. + + By DR. ALFRED WOLTMANN, translated by F. A. BUNNETT. With + portraits and nearly 60 fine engravings from the works of this + wonderful artist. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, _gilt leaves_, $5.00. + + +Memoir of the Lady Ana De Osorio, + + Countess of Chinchon, and Vice-Queen of Peru, A.D. 1629-39. + With a Plea for the Correct Spelling of the Chinchona Genus. + By CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, C.B., Member of the Imperial Academy + Naturæ Curiosorum, with the Cognomen of CHINCHON. Small 4to, + with Illustrations, $7.50. + + + FOUNDERS OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. + +Lives of the Founders, Augmenters, and other Benefactors of the British +Museum. + + 1570 to 1870. Based on new researches at the Rolls House; + in the Department of MSS. of the British Museum; in the Privy + Council Office, and in other Collections, Public and Private. + By EDWARD EDWARDS. 1 vol. 8vo, large and beautiful type, + cloth, $4.00. LARGE PAPER, ROYAL 8vo (only 60 copies printed), + cloth, $10.00. + +∵ _By a special arrangement with the English publishers, Messrs. +Trübner & Co., the above is offered at the greatly reduced price +mentioned._ + + +Legge’s Chinese Classics. + + Translated into English, with Preliminary Essays and + Explanatory Notes. Vol. I., THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF + CONFUCIUS. Vol. II., THE LIFE AND WORKS OF MENCIUS. Vol. III., + THE SHE KING; OR, THE BOOK OF POETRY. Together 3 vols. 8vo, + cloth, $10.00. + + +Diary of the American Revolution. + + By FRANK MOORE, from Newspapers and Original Documents. + Handsomely printed on heavy laid paper, and Illustrated with + a fine series of steel-plate portraits, INDIA PROOFS. 2 vols. + impl. 8vo, paper uncut, $8.00. New York, printed privately, + 1865. + +∴ Large Paper. Only a Limited Impression. Published at $20.00 per copy. + + +Littré’s French Dictionary. + + Dictionnaire de la Langue Française. Par E. LITTRÉ, de + l’Institut (Académie Française et Académie des Inscriptions + et Belles-Lettres). Four large vols. royal quarto, new half + morocco, $40.00. + +“No language that we have ever studied, or attempted to study, +possesses a Dictionary so rich in the history of words as this +great work which M. Littré has fortunately lived long enough to +complete.”--_Saturday Review._ + + + UNIFORM WITH THE LARGE FOLIO SHAKSPEARE EDITED BY + THE SAME AUTHOR. + +Halliwell’s New Place. + + An Historical Account of the New Place, + Stratford-upon-Avon, the last residence of Shakspeare. Folio, + cloth (uniform in size with the edition of Shakspeare’s Works + edited by the Author), elegantly printed on super-fine paper, + and illustrated by upwards of sixty woodcuts, comprising + views, antiquities, fac-similes of deeds, etc. By JAMES O. + HALLIWELL, F.R.S. $10.00. + +This is a most important work for the Shakspearian student. The +great researches of the author have enabled him to bring to light +many facts hitherto unknown in reference to the “great bard.” All +the documents possessing any real claim to importance are inserted +at full length, and many of them are now printed for the first time. +With respect to the illustrations, which have been executed by J. T. +Blight, Esq., F. W. Fairholt, Esq., E. W. Ashbee, Esq., and J. H. +Rimbault, Esq., no endeavors have been spared to attain the strictest +accuracy. + + + _REISSUE OF CRUIKSHANK’S ETCHINGS._ + +Cruikshank’s Illustrations of Time. + + A series of 35 Etchings. By GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Oblong + quarto, paper, carefully printed from the original plates. + $2.00. 1874 + ----The Same. COLORED. $3.00. 1874 + + +Cruikshank’s Phrenological Illustrations; + + or, An Artist’s View of the Craniological System of + Doctors Gall and Spurzheim. By GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. A series + of _33 Etchings, illustrative of the various Organs of the + Brain_. Oblong quarto, paper, $2.00. + ----The Same. COLORED. $3.00. + +∵ This reissue, of which only a limited impression has been made, is +printed from the original coppers. + +“Have we not before us, at this very moment, a print--one of the +admirable ‘_Illustrations of Phrenology_’--which entire work was +purchased by a joint-stock company of boys--each drawing lots +afterwards for the separate prints, and taking his choice in +rotation? The writer of this, too, had the honor of drawing the first +lot, and seized immediately upon ‘Philoprogenitiveness’--a marvellous +print, indeed--full of ingenuity and fine, jovial humor.”--WM. M. +THACKERAY. + + + SEVEN GENERATIONS OF EXECUTIONERS. + +Memoirs of the Sanson Family. + + Compiled from Private Documents in the possession of the + Family (1688 to 1847), by HENRI SANSON. Translated from the + French, with an Introduction by CAMILLE BARRÈRE. Two vols. + post 8vo, cloth, $5.50; or half calf, extra, $7.50. + +“A faithful translation of this curious work, which will certainly +repay perusal, not on the ground of its being full of horrors--for +the original author seems to be rather ashamed of the technical +aspect of his profession, and is commendably reticent as to its +details--but because it contains a lucid account of the most notable +_causes célèbres_ from the time of Louis XIV. to a period within the +memory of persons still living.... The memoirs, if not particularly +instructive, can scarcely fail to be extremely entertaining.”--_Daily +Telegraph._ + +“A book of great though somewhat ghastly interest.... Something much +above a mere chapter of horrors.”--_Graphic._ + + +Avesta. + + THE RELIGIOUS BOOKS OF THE PARSEES. From Professor + SPIEGEL’S German Translation of the Original Manuscripts, by + A. H. BLEECK. 3 vols. in 1, 8vo, cloth, $7.50. + +English scholars who wish to become acquainted with the “Bible of the +Parsees,” now for the first time published in English, should secure +this copy. To thinkers the “Avesta” will be a most valuable work; +they will now have an opportunity to compare its TRUTHS with those of +the BIBLE, the KORAN, and the VEDAS. + + +Freemasonry. + + PATON’S (CHARLES I.) FREEMASONRY, ITS SYMBOLISM, RELIGIOUS + NATURE, AND LAW OF PERFECTION. Thick 8vo, new cloth, uncut, + $3.50. + + +Hand-Book of Archæology. + + Egyptian--Greek--Etruscan--Roman. By H. M. WESTROPP. + Profusely Illustrated with Engravings on Wood. 8vo, new cloth, + uncut, $3.00. + + +The Gnostics + + AND THEIR REMAINS, ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL. By C. W. KING. + Profusely Illustrated. 8vo, new cloth, gilt, $7.50. + + ∴ The only English work on the subject. _Out of print and scarce._ + + +Champneys’ Quiet Corner of England. + + Studies of Landscape and Architecture in Winchelsea, Rye, + and Romney Marsh. With thirty-one Illustrations by ALFRED + DAWSON. Imperial 8vo, cloth, gilt, gilt leaves, $5.00. + +“Mr. Champneys is an architect who takes the liberty to think for +himself--a man of much original genius and sincere culture, young, +and with an enthusiastic contempt for conventionality, which I +hope he may never outgrow.”--_New York Tribune, Letter from London +Correspondent._ + + +Ireland’s Shakspeare Forgeries. + + The Confessions of William Henry Ireland, containing the + Particulars of his Fabrication of the Shakspeare Manuscripts; + together with Anecdotes and Opinions of many distinguished + Persons in the Literary, Political, and Theatrical World. A + new edition, with additional Fac-similes, and an Introduction + by RICHARD GRANT WHITE. 1 volume, 12mo, vellum cloth, uncut + edges, $2.00; or, on Large and Thick paper, 8vo, $3.50. + Edition limited to 300 copies. + +Enthusiasts are easily duped, and of all enthusiasts, excepting +the religious, those who give themselves up to the worship of some +great poet or artist are the easiest prey of the impostor. To them, +a book, a letter, the least scrap or relic which is connected +directly, or it would seem indirectly, with their idol, is an +inestimable treasure, and they are uneasy until it is in their +possession, or removed hopelessly beyond their reach. Of all these +enthusiasts the “Shakspearians” are, and for a hundred years have +been, at once the most numerous, and the most easily, because the +most willingly, deceived. To their craving and their greed we owe +the “Ireland Forgeries,” which were merely an impudent attempt to +supply a demand--an attempt made by a clever, ignorant young scamp, +who succeeded in deluding the whole body of them in England two +generations ago. His “Confessions” are the simply told story of this +stupendous imposture: and the book--long out of print and scarce--is +one the most _naïf_ and amusing of its kind in the whole history of +literature. His exhibition of the “gulls,” whom he made his victims, +is equally delightful and instructive; and chiefly so, because +of his simplicity and frankness. He conceals nothing, palliates +nothing; tells the whole story of his ridiculous iniquity, and +leaves a lasting lesson to the whole tribe of credulous collectors, +Shakspearian and others. + +“It has frequently afforded me a matter of astonishment to think +how this literary fraud could have so long duped the world, and +involved in its deceptious vortex such personages as Parr, Wharton, +and Sheridan, not omitting Jemmy Boswell, of Johnsonian renown; nor +can I ever refrain from smiling whensoever the volumes of Malone and +Chalmers, together with the pamphlets of Boaden, Waldron, Wyatt, +and Philalethes, otherwise, ---- Webb, Esq., chance to fall in my +way.”--W. H. IRELAND’S “_Chalcographimania_.” + + +Womankind in Western Europe, + + From the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century. + _Illuminated Title_, 10 CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES, and + _numerous Woodcuts_. Small 4to, cloth, extra gilt, + $4.50. 1869. + +This work is something more than a drawing-room ornament. It is an +elaborate and careful summary of all that one of our most learned +antiquaries, after years of pleasant labor on a very pleasant +subject, has been able to learn as to the condition of women from the +earliest times. + + +DeFoe’s Life and Works, + + Life and Newly-Discovered Writings of Daniel DeFoe. + Comprising Several Hundred Important Essays, Pamphlets, and + other Writings, now first brought to light, after many years’ + diligent search. By WILLIAM LEE, Esq. With Facsimiles and + Illustrations. 3 vols. 8vo, cloth, $6.00. Or in tree calf, + extra, $15.00. + + Vol. I.--A NEW MEMOIR OF DEFOE. Vols. II. and + III.--HITHERTO UNKNOWN WRITINGS. + +A most valuable contribution to English history and English +literature. + +For many years it has been well known in literary circles that the +gentleman to whom the public is indebted for this valuable addition +to the knowledge of DeFoe’s Life and Works has been an indefatigable +collector of everything relating to the subject, and that such +collection had reference to a more full and correct Memoir than had +yet been given to the world. + + +World’s Masonic Register: + + Containing Name, Number, Location, and Time of Meeting of + every Masonic Lodge in the World, etc., also every Chapter, + Council, and Commandery in the United States and Canada, + Date of Organization, etc., and Statistics of each Masonic + Jurisdiction, etc. By Leon Hyneman. _Portrait_, thick 8vo, pp. + 566, cloth, $2.00. + + +The Rosicrucians; + + Their Rites and Mysteries. With chapters on the Ancient + Fire and Serpent-Worshippers, and Explanations of the Mystic + Symbols represented in the Monuments and Talismans of the + primeval Philosophers. By HARGRAVE JENNINGS. Crown 8vo, 316 + wood engravings, $3. + +∴ A volume of startling facts and opinions upon this very mysterious +subject. + + +Scientific and Religious Mysteries of Antiquity: + + The Gnosis and Secret Schools of the Middle Ages, Modern + Rosicrucianism, and Free and Accepted Masonry. By John Yarker. + 12mo, new cloth, $2.00. + +∴ “The sublime depths of the mysteries of antiquity have been sounded +but by few minds in the lapse of ages, and those who have leisure to +follow upon their tracks will meet with an ample reward.” + + + ONLY ONE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED. + +Duyckinck’s Cyclopædia of American Literature. + + Printed by Alvord, on a hand-press, and on tinted paper of + extra weight and finish, prepared expressly for the work. For + the convenience of persons desirous of illustrating the work, + for which purpose it is admirably adapted, it has been issued + in five parts, with separate rubricated titles, each of the + two original volumes being divided into two parts, of about + three hundred and fifty pages each, and the new Supplement + forming the fifth. A finely engraved portrait printed on India + paper is given with each part. The subjects of these portraits + are Benjamin Franklin, James Fenimore Cooper, Washington + Irving, William Hickling Prescott, and, with the Supplement, + a portrait of the late George L. Duyckinck, newly engraved in + line, by Burt, after an original painting by Duggan. 5 vols. + 4to, uncut, $25.00. Half morocco, gilt top, $50.00. + + Only thirteen sets of this edition now remain. + + +Payne Knight’s Worship of Priapus. + + A discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its connection + with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients. By RICHARD PAYNE + KNIGHT, Esq. A new edition. To which is added an essay on the + worship of the generative powers during the middle ages of + Western Europe. Illustrated with 138 engravings (many of which + are full-page), from Ancient Gems, Coins, Medals, Bronzes, + Sculpture, Egyptian Figures, Ornaments, Monuments, etc. + Printed on heavy toned paper, at the Chiswick Press, 1 vol. + 4to, half Roxburghe morocco, gilt top, $35.00. + +“R. P. Knight, the writer of the first ‘Essay,’ was a Fellow of the +Royal Society, a member of the British Parliament, and one of the +most learned antiquaries of his time. His museum of Phallic objects +is now most carefully preserved in the London British Museum. The +second ‘Essay,’ bringing our knowledge of the worship of Priapus down +to the present time, so as to include the more recent discoveries +throwing any light upon the matter, is said to be by one of the most +distinguished English antiquaries--the author of numerous works which +are held in high esteem. He was assisted it is understood, by two +prominent Fellows of the Royal Society, one of whom has recently +presented a wonderful collection of Phallic objects to the British +Museum authorities.” + + +Gesta Romanorum. + + Or, Entertaining Moral Stories. Invented by the Monks as a + fireside recreation; and commonly applied to their Discourses + from the Pulpit, whence the most celebrated of our Poets and + others, from the earliest times, have extracted their Plots. + Translated from the Latin, with Preliminary Observations and + Copious Notes, by the Rev. CHARLES SWAN. New edition, with an + Introduction by THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. 2 vols. 8vo, + vellum cloth, uncut, printed on large and heavy paper, $10.00. + Full calf, extra, $17.50. + + A limited edition only was printed, of which now only 14 + copies remain. + +“They” (the Monks) “might be disposed occasionally to recreate +their minds with subjects of a light and amusing nature; and what +could be more innocent or delightful than the stories of the GESTA +ROMANORUM!”--_Douce’s Illustrations to Shakespeare._ + + +Jones’ (Owen) Grammar of Ornament. + + A Series of 112 exquisitely colored Plates, executed in + Chromolithography, comprising 3000 examples of the Decoration + of all Ages and Nations, with Descriptive Letterpress, + illustrated with Woodcuts. Folio, cloth, extra, gilt edges. + $30.00. + +This new edition is a reproduction of the larger work on a smaller +scale; a few of the plates which could not be reduced have been +printed on a larger scale, and the same artistic matter has been +extended from 100 to 112 plates. + + +Dibdin’s Bibliomania; + + Or, Book-Madness: A Bibliographical Romance. With + numerous Illustrations. A new Edition, with a Supplement, + including a Key to the Assumed Characters in the Drama. 8vo, + half-Roxburghe, $6.00; a few Large Paper copies, Imp. 8vo, + half-Roxburghe, the edges altogether uncut, $12.00. + +“I have not yet recovered from the delightful delirium into which +your ‘Bibliomania’ has completely thrown me. Your book, to my taste, +is one of the most extraordinary gratifications I have enjoyed for +many years.”--ISAAC DISRAELI. + + +Greville’s Memoirs. + + Journal of the Reign of King George IV. and King William + IV. By the late Charles C. F. Greville, Esq. Edited by Henry + Reeve. 3 vols. 8vo, cloth, $7.50. + +No equally important contribution to the political history of the +last generation has been made by any previous writer. As a man of +rank and fashion, Mr. Greville associated, on terms of equality, with +all the statesmen of his time, and his long tenure of a permanent +office immediately outside of the circle of politics compelled him to +observe a neutrality which was probably congenial to his character +and inclination.--_Saturday Review._ + + +Archie Armstrong’s Banquet of Jests. + + Reprinted from the original edition, together with ARCHIE’S + DREAM (1641), handsomely printed in antique style, with red + line borders. Square 12mo, new vellum cloth, uncut, $6.50. + + The same, printed on Whatman’s paper (limited to 25 + copies). Square 12mo, new cloth, $9.00. + +∴ The edition (of all kinds) was limited to 252 copies. It is +completely exhausted, and copies are now difficult to obtain. + +“A more amusing budget of odd stories, clever witticisms, and +laughter-moving tales, is not to be found in Jester’s Library.” + + +Nares’ Glossary. + + Or, Collection of Words, Phrases, Names, and Allusions to + Customs, Proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require + Illustration in the Works of English Authors, particularly + Shakespeare and his contemporaries. NEW EDITION, with + additions, etc., by J. O. Halliwell and Thomas Wright. 2 vols. + 8vo, new cloth, $6.50. + + +Gavin Douglas’ Poetical Works. + + With Memoir, Notes and Glossary, by J. Small, M.A., + F.S.A. Illustrated by specimens of the Manuscripts, and the + title-pages and woodcuts of the early editions in facsimile. + Handsomely printed in 4 vols. post 8vo, cloth. $18.00. 1874. + + ----The same, LARGE PAPER. _Fifty copies only printed._ 4 + handsome demy 8vo vols. cloth, $25.00. (Published @ £6.6.0.) + +The distinguished poets, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, Bishop of +Dunkeld, and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, form a trio of whom +Scotland has every reason to be proud; but, as the Works of the +second of these have not hitherto been collected, an Edition of them +has long been a _desideratum_ in Scottish Literature. + + +Walford’s County Families. + + The County Families of the United Kingdom; or, Manual of + the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of Great Britain and + Ireland. Containing a Brief Notice of the Descent, Birth, + Marriage, Education, and Appointments of each person; his + Heir Apparent or Presumptive; as also a Record of the Offices + which he has hitherto held, with his Town Address and Country + Residence. By EDWARD WALFORD, M.A. 1 vol. thick imperial + octavo. Cloth, gilt edges. 1,200 pages, $8.00. + + +Caxton’s Statutes of Henry VII., 1489. + + Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by JOHN RAE, Esq., + Fellow of the Royal Institution. The earliest known volume + of Printed Statutes, and remarkable as being in English. It + contains some very curious and primitive Legislation on Trade + and Domestic Matters. In remarkable fac-simile, from the rare + original. Small folio, half morocco, uncut, $7.50. + + +Owen Jones’ Alhambra. + + Plans, Elevations, and Sections of the Alhambra, with + the elaborate details of this beautiful specimen of Moorish + Architecture, minutely displayed in 100 beautifully engraved + plates, 67 of which are highly finished in gold and colors, + from Drawings taken on the spot by JULES GOURY and OWEN JONES, + with a complete translation of the Arabic Inscriptions, and + an Historical Notice of the Kings of Granada, by PASCUAL DE + GAYANGOS. 2 vols. imperial folio (pub. at £24), elegantly half + bound morocco, gilt edges, full gilt backs. $100. + + The same work on Large Paper, 2 vols. atlas folio, 100 + plates, 67 of them in gold and colors, the engraved plates on + India paper (pub. at £36), half bound morocco, gilt edges. + $125. + +For practical purposes, to architects the small paper copies will +suffice; but gentlemen desirous of adding a noble book in its finest +appearance to their library, must have a Large Paper copy. + +“In spite of earthquakes, mines and counter-mines--spite of Spanish +convicts, French soldiers, Spanish bigotry, and Flemish barbarism +of thieves and gipsys, contrabandists and brigands, paupers, +charcoal-burners and snow-gatherers, the Alhambra still exists--one +of the most recent of European ruins. It is the most perfect in +repair and the richest in design; it has suffered less from man, +or the elements, and has fallen more gently into decay. It was not +molten like Nineveh in an hour, or buried in a day like Pompeii; it +was not smitten down at a blow like Corinth, or sapped for centuries +like Athens. Though it has been alternately a barrack, a prison, a +tea garden, and an almshouse--though its harem has been a hen-house, +its prisons pens for sheep; the Alhambra is still one of the most +wonderful productions of Eastern splendor, lingering in Europe long +after the Moslem waves have rolled back into Asia, like a golden cup +dropped on the sand, or like the last tent of some dead Arab, still +standing, when the rest of his tribe have long since taken up their +spears, untethered their camels, and sought their new homes in the +far desert.” + + +Prostitution. + + DUFOUR (PIERRE). Histoire de la Prostitution chez tous + les peuples du Monde, depuis l’antiquité la plus reculée + jusqu’à nos jours. _Illustrated with numerous fine engravings + on steel._ 6 vols. in 3, 8vo, hf. cf. gilt tops. _Scarce._ + $18.00. 6 vols. 8vo, cloth, $13.50. + + ORIGINAL and ONLY GENUINE EDITION. + +In this learned work--the best that we have on the subject--many +of the chapters are devoted to dissertations on matters of general +interest to students of literature. We instance Chap. XXIV., +containing a treatise on the Obscenity of the French language, the +Jargon of Argot, its Origin, etc.; also in Chap. XXXII., a highly +interesting bibliographical account of the Aretin plates by Marc +Antonio, etc., etc. + +The author was threatened with criminal prosecution, and pledged +himself never to reproduce the work; it has now become scarce. + + + _NEW AND MAGNIFICENT WORK ON TEXTILE FABRICS._ + +Ornamental Textile Fabrics + + Of all Ages and Nations. A practical Collection of + Specimens. Illustrated with Fifty Plates in Gold, Silver, and + Colors, Comprising upwards of 1,000 various styles of Ancient, + Mediæval and Modern Ornamental Designs of Textile Fabrics, + with Explanatory Description and a General Introduction. By M. + DUMONT-AUBERVILLE. 1 vol. folio, cloth, gilt, extra. $25.00. + +The Editor of this work, M. Dupont-Auberville, is known as one of the +most distinguished archæologists of modern France, and Textile Art is +the department of archæology to which he has devoted the best years +of his life. His collection of specimens of textile fabrics embraces +models taken from all ages and from all countries, and is admitted by +all artists to be unique in every respect. + +The works of ancient textile art, both in the East and the West, are +done full justice to, but at the same time the framer of “Ornamental +Textile Fabrics” has drawn more amply from the extensive stock of +models belonging to more recent periods. From his immense collection +of specimens taken from the Renaissance and the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, he has selected those subjects which are most +worthy of the attention both of the amateur and the manufacturer. +In this manner the work now submitted to the public is not a mere +ornamental one, but at the same time it possesses a practical +usefulness which must cause it to be valued by all who make a study +of taste in manufacturing industry in general, and the art of weaving +in particular. + + + _AN ENTIRELY NEW AND REVISED EDITION._ + +Old Print Collectors’ Guide: + + An Introduction to the Study and Collection of Ancient + Prints. Frontispiece, plates of monograms, and illustrations. + By WM. H. WILLSHIRE. Handsomely printed. _2 large vols. demy_ + 8vo, half morocco, gilt top, $11.00. + +∴ This new edition entirely supersedes the previous one, having, in +addition to much new matter, full lists of Monograms and marks of +celebrated collectors and amateurs. A work indispensable to the Print +Collector, being a concentration in one volume of all the varied +information relative to the History of Engraving and of Ancient +Prints. + +CONTENTS.--I. Engraving in Ancient Times. II. Engraving in General, +from the beginning of the 13th to the 15th Century. III. On the +Various Processes or kinds of Engraving. IV. Advice on the Study +and Collection of Prints. V. The Various Schools of Engraving. VI. +The Northern Schools to the time of Dürer. VII. Northern Schools +from Dürer to the 17th Century. VIII. The Southern Schools of Wood +Engraving. IX. The Masters of “Chiaro oscuro.” X. Metal Engraving. +Masters of 1446, etc. XI. Dutch and Flemish Schools. XII. French +and English Schools. XIII. Chief Etchers of the Northern Schools. +XIV. On Engraving in the “Dotted Manner.” XV. The Southern Schools +of Engraving on Metal. Nielli. XVI. Italian Schools. XVII. School +of Marc Antonio. XVIII. Chief Etchers of the Italian Schools. XIX. +Mezzotinto Engravings and Engravers. XX. On the Examination and +Purchase of Ancient Prints. XXI. On the Conservation and Arrangement +of Prints. Appendix.--British Museum Collection, Douce Collection, +Oxford, Polytypage, Cliché, Mezzotinto Engraving, High-priced Books, +Varia Bibliography, Monograms, indexes, etc., etc. + + +The Works of William Unger. + + =_A Series of Seventy-two Etchings after the Old Masters._= + With Critical and Descriptive Notes by C. VOSMAER. Comprising + the most celebrated paintings of the following artists: + TINTORETTO, RUYSDAEL, REMBRANDT, GUIDO, POUSSIN, RUBENS, + OSTADE, JAN STEEN, VAN DYCK, WOUVERMANS, PAUL POTTER, FRANS + HALS, VERONESE, JORDAENS, VAN DER VELDE, BROUWER, etc., etc. + + Ten parts folio, 16 × 22 inches, printed on heavy Dutch + paper, $60.00. Or half morocco, extra gilt top, elegant and + substantial, $80.00. + +“No engraver who ever lived has so completely identified himself with +painters he had to interpret as Professor Unger in the seventy-two +plates which compose his ‘Works.’ He can adopt at will the most +opposite styles, and work on each with ease, a fluency such as +other men can only attain in one manner--their own--and after half +a lifetime. Indeed, one would not be going far wrong to describe +Professor Unger as an art critic of very uncommon insight, who +explains the sentiment and execution of great painters with an +etching needle instead of a pen. + +“It has been said of engraving that it is an unintellectual +occupation, because it is simply copyism; but such engraving as this +is not unintellectual, for it proves a delicacy and keenness of +understanding which are both rare among artists and critics. Unger +has not the narrowness of the ordinary artist, for he can enter into +the most opposite styles; nor has he the technical ignorance of the +ordinary critic, for he can draw--I will not say like a great master, +but like twenty different great masters. + +“Mr. Vosmaer, the now well-known Dutch critic, who writes in English +and French as well as in his own language, has much increased +the interest in Unger’s etchings by accompanying them with a +valuable biographic essay of his own, much superior to the ordinary +‘letter-press,’ which publishers in general appear to consider as a +necessary companion to engraving. + +“The seventy-two etchings before us are, on the whole, the most +remarkable set of studies from old masters which has been issued by +the enterprise of our modern publishers, and they can hardly fail to +make fine work better appreciated both by artists and amateurs. + +“A few words of praise are due to the spirited publisher, Mr. +Sijthoff, of Leyden, for the manner in which these etchings of +Unger have been published. They are printed on fine Dutch paper, +and mounted (pasted by the upper edge only) on sufficiently good +boards in such a manner as to enter into the most carefully arranged +collections without further change. They are accompanied by a text +printed with the greatest taste, on very fine Dutch paper. This +series is printed in one class of proof only, and issued at a price +that is most reasonable, and Mr. Sijthoff deserves our thanks for +placing works of real art, thoroughly well got up, within the reach +of cultivated people who have limited incomes. + +“We recommend them strongly to all artists and lovers of art +as a valuable means of art education and a source of enduring +pleasure.”--HAMERTON in the _International Review_ for Jan., 1876. + + +Etchings after Frans Hals. + + A Series of 20 beautifully executed Etchings. By WILLIAM + UNGER. With an Essay on the Life and Works of the artist, by + C. Vosmaer. Two parts, complete, royal folio. Impressions + on India paper, $25.00. Selected proofs, before letters, on + India paper, $40.00. Artist proofs on India paper, $60.00. + Or elegantly bound in half Levant morocco, extra, gilt top, + $15.00 additional to the above prices. Uniform with Unger’s + works. + +“They who know the Dutch painter Hals only through the few portraits +by him which have reached this country have but a slight comparative +acquaintance with his works. ‘A stranger to all academical lore, to +all literary co-operation,’ writes Mr. Vosmaer, ‘Frans Hals appeared +merely as a portrait-painter, like most of the modern artists of +his youth ... true to life, but also excelling by naturalness and +masterly handling. Subsequently he portrayed the joyous popular life +of the streets and the tavern; at last those phases of national +social life, which have at once their image and memorial in the +pictures of the arquebusiers and the civic governors.’”--_London Art +Journal_, Aug. 1873. + + + _THE NEW FRENCH ART JOURNAL._ + +L’Art. + + Revue Hebdomadaire Illustrée. (M. Eugène Véron et Chas. + Tardieu, rédacteurs.) Handsomely printed on heavy toned paper, + and illustrated with several hundred engravings on wood from + drawings and pictures by celebrated cotemporary artists, + examples of antique and modern sculpture, objects of Art + Industry in all branches, and a series of superbly executed + etchings by the best living etchers, executed expressly for + this work; being principally from the more noticeable pictures + exhibited in the Salons of Europe, carefully printed on + Holland paper. Forming four volumes a year. Royal folio (17½ + × 12 in.) of about 500 pp. each, with nearly 200 woodcuts, + facsimiles, etc., and upwards of twenty etchings in each + volume. 4 vols., folio. Stitched, paper covers, uncut, $36.00. + In cloth, gilt top, uncut edges, $45.00. Handsomely bound + in half red morocco (Jansen style), gilt tops, uncut edges, + $65.00. + + ANOTHER EDITION, printed throughout on heavy _Holland + paper_, in the most careful manner. The etchings in two + states, _Artist proof_ on _Japan paper_, and ordinary print on + Holland paper. The edition is _strictly limited to one hundred + copies, numbered_. Forming 4 thick volumes, folio. Price, + $125.00. + + ∵ N. B.--Payments to be made on delivery of each quarterly + volume. + + OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. + +“Nowhere but in Paris could such a Review be produced every week +as _L’Art_, so magnificent in every respect, paper, typography, +illustrations, and above all, so many sided in its view of art, and +so abundant and interesting in its information. It has now been +brought to the fourth year of its life, with every sign of assured +and increasing vigor, and we are glad to learn, from the report +of the editor to the subscribers, that something more substantial +than the _succès d’estime_ has rewarded the experiment of such a +costly venture.... It is simply the cheapest and the best thing of +its kind. M. Véron seems, at any rate, to have solved the problem +of combining excellence with cheapness. We find, besides numerous +little facsimiles of sketches, and autograph letters of eminent +artists, musicians, and dramatists, no less than seventy fine +etchings by such men as Flameng, Courtry, Desbrosses, Lançon, etc., +and woodcuts of Claude’s and Turner’s pictures, with a series of +very remarkable copies of the famous tapestries at Madrid, from the +designs of Albrecht Dürer and Van Eyck, by Edmond Yon, Perrichon, and +C. Maurand, as well as singularly fine examples of wood engraving. +Supposing the reading matter of the Review were as ephemeral and +trivial in its purpose as the cheapest of the cheap instead of being, +as it is, rich and racy, with the native style of all French pens, +thoughtful and often profoundly suggestive, and generally complete, +in reference to detail, the two etchings by Flameng, from pictures by +Frans Hals and Nicholas Maas, alone would be really most valuable and +acceptable to the print-collector.... While _L’Art_ is conducted in +this style the editor may feel quite secure that France will not lose +that artistic supremacy she has long held.”--_London Times._ + +“It would be easy and pleasant to go on discoursing about the +pictures in _L’Art_, a paper which is so full of good, sober, +and just criticisms, trustworthy news about art, and designs not +otherwise to be obtained by most people.”--_Saturday Review._ + +“The new volume of _L’Art_ sufficiently manifests the success of +a very valuable and interesting publication.... There is no other +journal in existence which so happily and skilfully combines the +labors of artists and authors which does not subordinate art to +letters, or letters to art, but permits them to go ‘hand in hand, +not one before another.’... In brief, this grand folio volume of +_L’Art_ abounds in matters of interest to all readers and students of +æsthetic and cultivated taste.”--_The World_ (London). + +“There is some monotony in praising each successive portion of a +periodical as it appears with an absolutely equal cordiality; but the +evenness of merit in _L’Art_ makes this uniformity of commendation a +duty.”--_The Nation._ + +“America is so destitute of illustrated works which can at all +compare with _L’Art_ that she cannot do better than study and enjoy +this French publication. Certainly there is no other means by which +so many valuable pictures can be obtained at so small a price.”--_The +Christian Union._ + +“Sumptuous in paper and type, lavish in illustrations, and with +critical and explanatory text of singular merit; the most famous of +modern art journals.”--_N. Y. Times._ + + +The Portfolio: + + An Artistic Periodical, edited by PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON. + Illustrated with Etchings, Autotypes, Woodcuts, Facsimiles, + Engravings, Heliogravures, etc. _Published monthly._ + + Subscription reduced to TEN DOLLARS per annum. + + ∴ _Sent, Postage free, to any part of the United States, on + receipt of the Subscription price._ + +“The chief intention of ‘The Portfolio’ is to supply to its +subscribers, at a lower cost than would be possible without the +certain sale of a regular periodical circulation, Works of Art +of various kinds, but always such as are likely to interest a +cultivated public; and to accompany them with literature by writers +of proved ability, superior to mere letter-press, and more readable +than pure criticism or cataloguing.” Among the artists who have +furnished original etchings are Bracquemond, Lalanne, Rajon, Legros, +and Leopold Flameng, who has given some noble specimens of his +skill, especially in the reproduction of “The Laughing Portrait of +Rembrandt,” in his particular province as a reviver of the works of +that artist. The subjects in all cases are chosen for their worth +and rarity, and in these respects the “Portfolio” fairly rivals its +great contemporary, one of the noblest fine-art periodicals ever +issued, the Parisian “Gazette des Beaux-Arts.” It has the same finish +in execution in the minutest details of paper and print, and is in +every way a _thoroughly artistic production_, far ahead in this way +of anything of the class heretofore issued in England. + +There are numerous single illustrations in the “Portfolio,” worth the +price of the volume, suitable for framing. + + OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. + +“Of the PORTFOLIO altogether it is to be said, that not only is it +_the first periodical in the English language devoted to fine-art, +but that it leads all others by a very great distance_, whatever the +second and third of such publications may be taken to be. + +“We warmly commend it to the notice of all who would cultivate in +themselves and their families an appreciation of the beautiful in +nature and art. The illustrations are largely of sylvan scenery, +and etchings from the finest paintings are given, with letter-press +descriptions, and the best articles from the highest authorities, so +that the monthly paper itself, an illustration of what is taught, +becomes a complete magazine of the science of art. _We would regard +the introduction of such a journal into the family as a good +educator, while it will prove a source of exquisite pleasure to those +who have already a taste for the beautiful._”--_N. Y. Observer._ + +“We look for the PORTFOLIO as for the only serial published, in +which works of art of a certain kind and of peculiar merit are to +be found. Etching is not as popular, perhaps, as it should be, but +if anything is likely to bring its merits before the public, it is +such examples as are to be had here. Their effect is striking, and in +execution they are little short of perfect; at any rate they exhibit +this kind of work in the highest degree of perfection to which it has +attained.”--_N. Y. Daily Times._ + +“Mr. Hamerton’s PORTFOLIO is easily chief among English art +periodicals, and has the advantage of being written by men who +are not only familiar with the literature of art and the works of +artists, but are artists by profession, and so know the feelings, +aims, and technicalities of artists. The editor is probably better +acquainted with continental artists and their work than most of +the insular fellows, and his art theories and criticisms are +proportionately more catholic and valuable. The PORTFOLIO, instead +of being a magazine of current gossip about artists and their +doings, is a work of permanent value, apart from its excellent +illustrations, as a collection of able essays, critical, historical, +technical, and personal, very free from narrowness and professional +or national prejudice. It is the glory of the Portfolio that it +is in a way cosmopolitan, free from the prejudices of nations and +schools.”--_Atlantic Monthly._ + +“The Portfolio is very charming. An Art periodical far superior to +anything which has hitherto appeared.”--_Guardian._ + +“From the first it has stood nearly alone as really ‘an artistic +periodical.’ An hour spent over the Portfolio is one of refreshment, +encouragement, and unalloyed delight.”--_Spectator._ + +“Of the Etchings the merits are unquestionable: indeed, the work +is enriched with some of the finest examples. The literary part +is generally worthy of praise for being scholarly, graceful, and +interesting.”--_Athenæum._ + +“Dealing with artistic subjects generally, and always in a spirit of +intelligence and refinement.”--_Graphic._ + +“To the portfolio is unanimously accorded the first place as an +artistic periodical.”--_Cambridge Chronicle._ + + Back volumes for 1870, ’71, ’72, ’73, ’74, ’75, ’76, + and ’77 may still be had on application. Any volume sold + separately. Price, in _blue cloth_, _gilt leaves_, $14.00 each. + + + + +Transcriber’s Note: + +Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like +this_. Those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=. +Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to precede the +index. Printing errors, such reversed order, or partially printed +letters, diacriticals, and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops +missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added. +Except as noted below for Greek and Hebrew, misspelled words and +irregular use of quotation marks were not changed. Footnote 608 has +two anchors. + +Τhree-column texts in the original were reformatted as blockquotes +to improve display in handheld devices. The “pigpen” cipher is +illustrated on lines 17308 through 17340. + +In the index, punctuation was standardized and a few page number +references were adjusted to match book pages. Some entries are not +in alphabetical order; these were left as printed. Term indexed as +“spirit-ancestor” does not appear in either Volume 1 or Volume 2. + +Corrections to Greek: + + TEXT: + line 4162, from Επὶ ὸπτομαι to Επι οπτομαι + line 9998, from καθολὶκὰ πνεὺματα to καθολικὰ πνεύματα + line 12258, from παλινθρομοῡσι to παλινδρομοῦσι + line 13192, from Ιαο to Ιαω + line 14205, from Υαχινθε to Υακινθε + line 15053, from αχοιμητω σροφαλιγγι to ακοιμητω στροφαλιγγι + FOOTNOTES: + FN [561] from γρωτογονος to πρωτογονος + INDEX: + line 33587, from ανθροπος to ανθροπως + line 37599, from Λογος Αληθης to Λόγος Αληθής + line 41224, from Λογος Αληθης to Λόγος Αληθής + +Corrections to Hebrew: + + TEXT: + line 7560, from חכטות to חכמות + line 8031, from בויצ to בויץ + line 9250, from בתר to כתר + line 9269, from תפא־ת to תפארת + line 9277, from שבינה to שכינה + line 9387, from שמ to שם + line 9433, from עולמ to עולם + line 9552, from חכמות־נסתדה to חכמות־נסתרה + line 11531, from אין to עין + line 11595, from עצחיומ to עצחיום + line 11652, from אפּוַימ to אפּוַים + line 13015, from וה to יה + line 13227, from יח to יה + line 20155, from קיך to קין + line 20218, from תבל to הבל + line 20226, from קיון to קינן + line 20245, from אוד to ארד + line 20248, from לםך to למך + line 21151, from יבת to יכח + FOOTNOTES: + [878] from כחכות עור to כתנות עור + [912] from הוי to חוי + INDEX: + line 34848, from יהוה אלהימ to יהוה אלהים + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75871 *** |