I. Lord Mano — the King of Life and

Light — Rex Lucis, First Life, or the primitive man.
3. Lord Jordan — manifestation or emana- tion of Jordan Maximus — the waters of grace. Second Life.
3. The Superior Father— Abatur. Third Life.
This Trinity produces also a duad — Lord Ledhoio, and Fetahil, the genius (the former, a perfect emanation, the latter, imperfect).
2. Ophis, the Agathodsemon.
3. Sophia Androgyne — ^wisdom; who, in her turn — fecundated with the Divine Light — produces
Christ OS and Sophia- Achamoth (one per- fect, the other imperfect), as an emana- tion.
• Its description is found in one of the magic books of the Egyptian King Nechep- sos, and its use prescribed on green jasper stones, as a potent amulet. Galen mentions it in his work, ^^ De Simp. Med.," c. ix.
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Lord Jordan — ** the Lord of all Jordans," Sophia- Acbamoth emanates Ilda-Baotli— manifests Netubto (Faith without the Demiurge, who produces material Works).* and soulless creation. "Works with'
out Faith " (or grace).*
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-dasmons," or stellars, who " will deceive all the sons of Adam." These are Sol ; Spiritus Venereus (Holy Spirit, in her material aspect), f the mother of the " seven badly-disposed stellars," answering to the Gnostic Achamoth ; Nebu^ or Mercury, '' a false Mes- siah, who will deprave the ancient worship of God ; " \ Sin (or Luna, or Shuril) ; KiUN (Kivan, or Saturn) ; Bel- Jupiter ; and the seventh, Nerig^ Mars {Codex NazarauSy p. 57).
The Christos of the Gnostics is the chief of the seven .^Eons, St John's seven spirits of God ; the Nazarenes have also their seven genii or good MoTi% whose chief is Rex Lucis^ Mano, their Christos. The Sofia 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 Haeretics. 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 thor- oughly demonstrated.
In the Ophite gems of King ( Gnostics), we find the name of lao re- peated, and often confounded with that of levo, 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 Jeho- vah we will at once explain this word. It seems to us surpassingly strange that so many learned archaeologists should have so little insisted that there was more than one Jehovah, and disclaimed that the name origin-
♦ Consider those two diametrically-opposed doctrines— the Catholic and the Protest- ant ; the one preached by Paul, the semi-Platonist, and the other by James, the ortho- dox Talmudist.
f The material, bad side of Sophia-Achamoth, who emanates from herself Ilda- Baoth and his six sons.
} See NorI>erg*s translation of "Codex Nazaneus," Preface. This proves onc« more the identification of Jesus with Gautama- Buddha, in the minds of the Nazanen Gnostics, as Nebu or Mercury is the planet sacred to the Buddhas.
NEITHER DAVID NOR SOLOMON MOSAIC JEWS. 297
ated with Moses. lao is certainly a title of the Supreme Being, and be- longs 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 lao was a *' mystery name " from the beginning, mn^ and m never came into use before King David. Anterior to his time, few or no proper names were compounded with iali or jah. It looks rather as though David, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines (2 Satnuel), 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 yron^ 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 mm, like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and Venus, Adon and Astarte.
Says Fiirst : ** The very ancient name of God, Y&ho, written in the Greek Iaa», 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 Chal- deans, whose remains are to be found amongst the Neo-platonists, the highest divinity enthroned above the seven heavens, representing the Spiritual Light-Principle (nous) * and also conceived as Demiurgus, f was called low '^rr^, who was, like the Hebrew Yaho, mysterious and un- mentionable, and whose name was communicated to the initiated. The Phoenicians had a Supreme God whose name was trilateral and secret^ and he was Icuo." |
But while Fiirst 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, com- monly called JaggernAth. Javhe means " he who is," and Dr. Spiegel traces even the Persian name of God, " Ahura,'* to the root ah^ § which
* Nous, the designation given by Anaxagoras to the Supreme Deity, was taken from Egypt, where he was styled NouT.
f By very few though, for the creators of the material universe were always consid- ered as subordinate deities to the Most High God.
{ Lydus^ ic, Ledrenus, l.c. g '* Erin das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris."
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in Sanscrit is pronounced as, to breathe, and asu, became, therefore, in time, synonymous with " Spirit.*' * Rawlinson strongly supports the opinion of an Aryan or Vedic influence on the early Babylonian mythol- ogy. 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 laoi, and its Sanscrit root traced in every country. Ju ox Jovis is the. oldest Latin name for God. " As male he is ^Mpitery or Ju^ the father, pitar being Sanscrit for father; as feminine, Ju-;f^ or Ju, the comforter — nnn being the Phoenician word for rest and comfort."f Pro- fessor Max Miiller 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 lAO, 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 primi- tive 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 lije and light are therein united. For " the number i (one) is born from the spirit, and the number 10 (ten) from matter;" J "the unity has made the TEN, the ten the unity." §
The kabalistic gemantria — one of the methods for extracting the hid- den meaning from letters, words, and sentences — is arithmetical. It consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they bear as num- bers, 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 : || " One, the spirit of the Alahim of Lives." T" So again, in the oldest kabalistic diagrams, the ten Sephirodi are represented as wheels or circles, and Adam Kadmon, the primitive man, as an upright pillar. '* Wheels and
♦ Asi means, moreover, ** Thou art," in Sanscrit, and also *' sword,** •* ^w',*» with- ont the accent on the first voweL
f Professor A. Wilder. % These sacred anagrams were called "Zeruph."
§ *« Book of Numbers, or Book of the Keys."
I The ** Jezira," or book of the creation, was written by Rabbi Akiba, who was the
teacher and instructor of Simeon Ben lochai, 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 lochai lived before the second destruction
of the temple.
T •* Jezira," p. 8.
lAO, THE TRILATERAL NAME. 299
seraphim and the holy creatures" (chioth), says Rabbi Akiba. * In another system of the same branch of the symbolical Kabala^ called Ath- bach — 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, f 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 mani- festing 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 princii>le was considered the vivifying invisible spirit, and the female, mother nature ; we shall be enabled to understand how that mysterious cause came at first 10 be represented (in the picture-writings, perhaps) as the combination of the Alpha and Omega of numbers, a decimal, then as lAO, a trilateral name, containing in itself a deep allegory.
lAO, 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 Miiller, " 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." J It certainly meant the latter. In Hebrew> " Ah" and " lah " mean life. Cornehus Agrippa, in his treatise on the Preeminence of IVoman, 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 info the middte of his own name^^ becomes clear.
It may perhaps be argued, by way of objection, that it is not ascer- tained 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 Miiller " the two words * cipher' and *zero,' which are in reality but one . . . are sufficient
* Ibid. See the constancy with which Ezekiel sticks in hib vision to the " wheels '* of the " living creatures" (ch. i., passim).
f He was an Alexandrian Neo-platonic under the first of the Ptolemies. I "Chips," vol. i.
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to prove that our figures are borrowed from the Arabs." * 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 Hindus- tan, and never claimed the discovery for themselves.f As to the Pytha- goreans, we need but turn to the ancient manuscripts of Boethius*s Geometry, composed in the sixth century, to find in the Pythagorean numerals J the i and the nought, as the first and final cipher. And Por- phyr}', who quotes from the Pythagorean Moderatus, § says that the nu- merals of Pythagoras were " hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of thuigs."
Now, if the most ancient Indian manuscripts show as yet no trace of decimal notation in them, Max Miiller 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 Miiller corroborating this statement, at least so far as allowing the iV>^- 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 Py- thagoras, who lived on the very close of the archaic ages, || we yet have sufficient evidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Boethius, were known to the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was built. T 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." ** 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 sug- gestive enough. So, for instance, Vishnu is represented in the Kurmava- tara (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.
♦ Sec Max MuUer's •' Our Figures." t Ibid.
X See King's " Gnostics and their Remains,'* plate xiiL g " Vita Pythagor."
I 608 B.C. \ This city was built 332 B. C.
•• "Metaph.,"vii. F.
THE ''LORD god" OF THE HEBREWS. 3OI
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, ex- tended as the cipher i. 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.* 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-i>ole. f
The holiest of the temples among the Hindus, are those of Jaggar- nAth. This deity is worshipped equally by all the sects of India, and /^gg^^^^^^ 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 laho, 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 " Adonai"— or Lord. Philo Byb- lus spells it in Greek letters lEYQ — lEOV. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounced it labi ( Yahva) and the Jews Yaho ; which would make it as we have shown I-ah-0. Diodorus states that "among the Jews they relate that Moses called the God loo. " 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 laho. 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, Jeho- vah 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 \,o Jehovah-jireh.
It would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between the mystery-God law, adopted from the highest antiquity by all who par- ticipated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests, and his phonetic coun- terparts, whom we find treated with so little reverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics. Once having burdened themselves like the Azazel
* See drawings from the Temple of Rama, Coleman*s *' Mythology of the Hindus.*' New York : J. W. Beaton, Publisher.
\ See llargrave Jennings : ** Kosicrucians,** p. 252.
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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 predeces- sors in monotheism — were, till a very late period, as idolatrous and poly- theistic as their neighbors. The shrewd Talmudists have escaped the accusation for long centuries by screening themselves behind the Maso- retic invention. But, as in everything else, truth was at last brought to light. We know now that Ihoh mrr* must be read lahoh and lah, not Jehovah. lah of the Hebrews is plainly the lacchos (Bacchus) of the Mysteries ; the God " from whom the liberation of souls was expected — Dionysus, lacchos, lahoh, lah." * Aristotle then was right when he said : " Jon rn-;t was Oromasdes and Ahriman Pluto, for the God of heav- en, Ahura-mazda, rides on a chariot which the Horse of the Sun follows. \ And Dunlap quotes Psalm Ixviii. 4, which reads :
** Praise him by his name lach (n*^)*
Who rides upon the heavens, as on a horse,"
and then shows that " the Arabs represented lauk (lach) by a horse. The Horse of the Sun (Dionysus)." J lah is a softening of lach, **he ex- plains." h ch and T\ h interchange ; so x softens to h. The Hebrews express the idea of Life both by a ch and an A ; as chiach, to be, hiah, to be ; lach, God of Life, lah, " I am'" § Well then may we repeat these lines of Ausonius :
" Ogugii calls me Bacchus ; Egypt thinks me Osiris ;
The Musiaiis name me Ph*anax ; the Indi consider me Dionysus ;
The Roman Mysteries call me Liber ; the Arabian race Adonis I '*
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 tnie relation that Baphomet bore to Azaz^l, the scape- goat of the wilderness, \ whose character and meaning are entirely per-
♦ K O. Miiller: " History of Greek Literature," p. 283; "Movers," pp. 547- 553 ; Dunlap : " Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni," p. 21.
f See ** Universal History," vol. v., p. 301.
X '• Spirit. HUt.," pp. 64, 67, 78. § " Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni," p. 21.
I See Leviticus xvl 8, 10, and other verses relating to the biblical goat in the original texts.
VISHNU THE LIFE-GIVER. 303
verted in the Christian translations. " This terrible and venerable name of God," says Land, * librarian to the Vatican, " through the pen of bibli- cal glossers, has been a devil, a mountain, a wilderness^ and a he-goaty In Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopedia, 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 oi author of Death, in contrast to Jehovah, the author of Life ; the latter received a dead goat as an offering." \ The Hindu Trinity is composed of three person- ages, which are convertible into one. The Trimurti is one, and in it? 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 Crea- tor, and the Preserver, and Siva is the Destroyer, and the Death-giving deity. " Death to the Life-Giver, life to the Death-dealer. The sym- bolical antithesis is grand and beautiful," says Gliddon. J ^^ Deus est Dccmon inversus " of the kabalists now becomes clear. It is but the intense and cruel desire to crush out the last vestige of the old philoso- phies 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 ? " naively 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." § A maxini
♦ " Sagra Scrittura," and " Paralipomenl" f Article ** Goat," p. 257.
X " Types of Mankind," p. 600 ; ** Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia." §** Ecclesiastical History," vol. I, pp. 381, 382. Read the whole quotations to appreciate the doctrine in full.
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applied in its fullest sense by that accomplished professor in forgery, the Armenian Eusebius; or yet, that innocent-looking bible-kaleidoscop- ist — Irenaeus. 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 Anus, 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 instnicted 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 vinceSj* that " visionary " Christianity, which had crept on since the days of Irenaeus, 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 remark- able 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 infi- dels ; and this, notwithstanding that upon a careful computation we would find that the fragments of the " true Cross" had multiplied them- selves 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 how- ever— in every comer 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 Irenaeus was to crush tnith 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 Ptolemaeus. And this is again a case of evidence against which no blind faith can prevail. Ecclesiastical history assures us that Christ's
WHO TAUGHT JESUS ABOUT GOD ? 30$
• ministry was but of three years' duration. There is a decided discrep>- ancy on this point between the first three synoptics and the fourth gos- pel ; but it was left for Iren early as a.d. i8o — 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 sup- port 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 Ptolemaeus 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 Ptolemaeus was very little at variance with the gospels. But Irenaeus, 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 1 " 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 Therapeutae, 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 oi international and universal Freemasonry, among their esoteric societies. "These Rashees," says Higgins, "are the Essenians, Carmelites, or Nazarites of the temple." * ** 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 ])ossession 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 ;
• " Anacalypsis.** 20
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•
and by which these two great reformers, particularly the latter^ wrought many of the miracles mentioned in the Scriptures ^ *
Plato states that the mystic Magian religion, known under the name of MacAagistia, 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 per- fected 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 MagL f Ammian, in his history of Julian's Persian expedition, gives the story by stating that one day Hystaspes, as he was boldly pene- trating 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 descend- ants to succeeding ages." J It is from these descendants that the Sufis, chiefly composed of Persians and Syrians, acquired their proficient knowl- edge in astrology, medicine, and the esoteric doctrine of the ages. " The Sufi doctrine," says C. W. King, " involved the grand idea of one uni- versal creed which could be secretly held under any profession of an out- ward faith ; and, in fact, took virtually the same view of religious systems as that in which the ancient philosophers had regarded such matters." § 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 Petraea, Palestine, and the impenetrable forests of Abyssinia, though rarely met with, may some- times be seen. Many and various are the nationalities to which belong the disciples of that mysterious school, and many the side-shoots of that
• Quoted in the *« Seers of the Ages," by J. M. Peebles.
f 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 ofhciate in the popular rites only. We see the same in the Elcusinian 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 su]>erstitions of the latter that Darius revolted, and ** crushed them," for the inscription of his tomb shows that he was a ^Miierophant'* 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, how* ever much guess-work may have been expended on tliem.
X xxiii, 6. § " The Gnostics and their Remains," p. 185.
THE HERMETIC BROTHERS OF EGYPT. 307
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. *
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 pennission of one who has a right to giv^ it. In a recent and very valuable work on secret societies, K. R. H. Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cychpadia^ we find the learned author himself, an honorary member of the Canongate Kilwinning I^odge, 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 ver}' ancient times, having a hierarchy of officers, secret signs, and passwords, and a pecu- liar 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 per- sons who maintained the actual existence of this body of religious phil- osophers, and who hinted that they themselves were actually members. There was no reason to doubt the good faith of these individuals — ap- parently unknown to each other, and men of moderate competence, blameless lives, austere manners, and almost ascetic in their habits.
* These are truths which cannot fail to impress themselves upon the minds of earnest thinkers. While the Ebionitcs, Nazaritcs, Ilemerobaptists, Lampseans, Sabians, and the many other earliest sects which wavered later between the varying dogmatisms song- gestcd 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 unadulter- ated as they had been received. And still, even all these alx>ve-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 tem- ]}le at Jerusalem as * a hou«e of prayer for all nations.' . . . But the torrent of progress swept past the Ebionites, and left them stranded on the shore *'* (" An Analysis of Relig ious Beliefs," by Viscount Amberley, vol. L, p. 446).
308 ISIS UNVEILED.
They all appeared to be men of forty to forty-five years of age, and evi- dently 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." *
Another of such sub-brotherhoods is the sect of the Pitris, in India. Known by name, now that JacoUiot 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, URhum, 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 mission- aries, 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 Aiill 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 Druzcs^^ f said one
* 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 Rosicnician basis, and numbering many member:* ** (" Royal Masonic Cyclopaetlia," 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.
f 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 canne 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
THE BROTHERHOOD OF LUXOR. 309
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 vol- umes 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 apos- tate Der\'ish, who was expelled from the sect Hanafi, for improper con- duct— the embezzlement of the money of widows and orphans. The Exposi dc 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^ * a venerable old man, who spoke English as well as P>ench, opened the volume of de Sacy, and, offering it to his interlocutor, remarked, with a benevolent smile : " Read this instructive and tnithful 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 I^banon 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 Maho- metanism. They have a regular order of priesthood and a kind of hier^ archy . . . 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 trust- worthy 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
to the care of a few initiates, with the injunction of the greatest secresy. They are Bsnally called Unitarians.
• 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 hiero- phant of old, m the Eleusinian and others.
3IO ISIS UNVEILED.
of God. He is the essence of life, and although incomprehensible and invisible, is to be known through occasional manifestations in human form.* Like the Hindus they hold that he was incarnated more than once on earth. Hamsa was Xhtt precursor of the last manifestation to be (the tenth avatar) f 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 dis- ciples, 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^7v 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 Openings 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 incessant- ly." 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 de- gree of purity and sanctity. Until their resurrection, by which they im- derstand 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 intelli- gence, or mind. It is the latter which imparts and conmiunicates 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 Cyclopaedias of America (Appleton's), they are garbled afler the fashion that may be seen in the comparative tabulation below ; the spurious and the true order parallel :
* This is the doctrine of the Gnostics who held Christos to be the personal immortal Spirit of man.
f Tlie ten Messiahs or avatars remind again of the five Buddhistic and ten Brah- manical avatars of Buddha and Christna.
THE DRUZES OF MOUNT LEBANON.
311
Correct Version of the Command- ments AS Imparted Orally by THE Teachers. ♦