CHAPTER XVI—A SAMPLE OF MASONIC OCCULTISM OF

ENGLISH CRAFTSMEN.
This chapter is a mere reprint of a passage from the History of Freemasonry published in England and the United States of America in 1891, by 21 editors and §9 contributors. The writer of the particular treatise it is taken from, was Wm. R. Singleton, 33rd degree, etc., District of Columbia. For the want of the Hebrew types our printer leaves vacant the places of Hebrew words. Now Bro. Singleton speaks, and quotes :
“We here present a sample of Occultism in the following “extracts, for which we are indebted to General Albert Pike, 33rd degree, Grand Commander of the Supreme Council “A.:.A.°.S.‘.R.*. Southern Jurisdiction, who many years “since loaned the writer the manuscript from which it is a “copy : “There are in nature two forces producing an equilib- “rium, and the three are but a single law. Behold the Ter- “nary summing itself up in Unity ; and adding the idea of “Unity to that of Ternary, we arrive at the Quarternary, the “first squared and perfect number, ‘source of all numerical “combinations and principal of all forms.
“Affirmation, negation, discussion, solution,—such are the “four philosophic operations of the human mind ; the discus-
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“sion reconciles the affirmation with the negative by making “them necessary the one to the other. So it is that the phil- “osophic Ternary producing itself from the antagonistic “Binary completed by the Quarternary, squared basis of all “truth.
“In God, according t)» the conse.rated dogma, there are “three Persons, and these persons are but a single God. Three “and one give the idea of four, because the Unity is necessary “to explain the three. Therefore in almost all languayes the “name of God is of four letters [Jod, He repeated, and Vav], “since one of them is repeated ; and that express’s the WORD “and the creation of the WORD.
“Two affirmations make possible or necessary two cor- “responding negations. ‘Existence is,’ means ‘Nothingness is “not.” The affirmative, as Word, produces the affirmative as “realization or Incarnation of the Word, and each of these “affirmations corresponds to the negation of its contrary.
“So it is that, according to the expression of the Kaba!- “ists, the name of the Devil as Evil is composed of the letters “upside down of the very natne of the Deity, or the Good
“This Evil is the lost reflection, or imperfect mirage of “the Light in the Shadow.
“But all that exists, whether in the Good or in the Evil, “in the Light or in the Shadow, exists and is revealed by the “Quarternary.
“The Affirmative of the Units supposes the number four, ‘if this Affirmative does not resolve in the Unity itself, as in “the vicious circ’e ; wherefore the Ternary, is we have al- “ready remarked, is explained by the Binary, and is resolved “by the Quarternary, which is the squared Unity of the equal “members and the quadrangular base of the Cube, Unity of “Construction, Solidity and Measure.
“The Kabalistic Tetragram YODHEVA expresses God in “Humanity, and Humanity in God.
“The four cardinal astronomical points are relatively to “us the Yes and No of Light, the East and the West; and “the Yes and No of Heat, the South and North.
“What is in visible nature reveals, as we already know, “by the single dogma of the Kabala, that which is in the do- “main of invisible nature, or second causes at all points pro- “portioned and analogous to the manifestations of the First “Cause.
“Wherefore this First Cause has always revealed itself by
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“the Cross ; the Cross, that unit composed of two, each of the “two divided to form four; the Cross, that key of the mys- “teries of India and Egypt, the Tau of the Patriarchs, the “divine Sign of Osiris, the Stanros of the Gnostics, the Key- “Stone of the Temple, the Symbol of Occult Masonry ; the “Cross, that central point of junction of the right angles of “two infinite Triangles ; the Cross, which in the French lan- “guage seems to be the first root of the verb CROITRE (to “believe, and to grow or increase), thus uniting the ideas of “Science, Religion, and Progress.
“(It is an apt emblem and symbol of Infinity ; because “its four arms, each infinitely prolonged, would infinitely “diverge, the distance between them infinitely increasing.) “The incommunicable axiom is Kabalistically contained in “the four letters of the Tetragram, thus arranged: in the “letters of the words AZOTH and INRI, written Kabalistically, “and in the Monogram of Christ, as it was embroidered on “the Labarum, and which the Kabalist Postel interpreted by “the word ROTA, from which the Adepts have formed their “TARO, Or TAROT, repeating the first letter to indicate the “circle, and to give it to be understood that the word has “returned
“The whole magical science consists in the knowledge of “this secret. To know it and to dare without serving, is “Human Omnipotence ; but to reveal it to a profane is to lose “it; to reveal it even to a disciple is to abdicate in favor of “that disciple.
“The perfect word, that which is adequate to the thought ‘which it expresses, always virtually contains or supposes a “Quarternary ; the idea and its three necessary and correla- “tive forms ; and then also the image of the thing expressed, “with the three terms of the judgment which qualifies it. “When I say ‘Being exists,’ I impliedly affirm that ‘Nothing- “‘ness does not exist.’
“A Height, a Length, which the Height geometrically “cuts in two ; a Depth separated from the Height by the in- “tercection of the Length,—this is the natural Quarternary, “composed of two lines crossing each other ; there are also in “nature four movements produced by two forces, which sus- “tain each other by their tendencies in opposite directions.
“But the law which rules bodies is analogous and pro- “poitioned to that which governs spirits; and that which “governs spirits is the very manifestation of the secret of God.
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“That is to say, of the mystery of the creation.’ (De la Haute “Magic, Vol. 1, pp. 66-97.)
“From the Book - ,or Porta Coelorum of Rabbi Abra- “ham Cohen Sura, of Portugal, Dissertation VII, cap 2 :—
“§ 1. Jod, —— , because simple is a One and first “somewhat, and is like unto the Unit, which is prime to all “other numbers, and to a point, which is the first of all bodies ; “a point moved lengthwise produces a line, or Vav, -——, and “this moved sideways produces a superficies, and so from Vav “becoines Daleth, —; formation tends from the right toward “the left, and communication is from the higher to the lower, “and this is the full expression [plenitude] of this letter, Jod, “thus : ——, Jod, Vav, Daleth, ie. I or J or Y, V or U, and “D, making IUD, YOD or JOD. But Vav and Daleth are “numerically 10, as Jod, their principle, is. Moreover, if “Daleth becomes more dense, and to it is added depth, then “we have a body wherein are all the dimensions ; thus —, He, “which is the symbol of profundity [depth].
“Thus Yod is the point or unity, Vav the perpendicular “line, Daleth a superficies, and He represents a square.
mr 3. Thence, one corresponds to the point ; two to the “line, because a line is extension between two points ; three “to a superficies, because the first of plain figures is a triangle “formed by lines connecting three points. ‘Four points con- “stitute the first body, which is a cube. But in the Quarter- “nary [4] 10 are contained, thus 1, 2, 3,4=10, and thus the “Tetragrammaton is in itself Unity, but contains in itself a “that is the two letter ‘He’ contains also 3 (ie, its three “different letters, Yod, He and Vav); and contains a!so 4
“(i.e the four several letters, —, —, —, —). It also contains “in itself 5, of which figure, He is the cypher, 6, of which Vav “is the cypher, 7, in the mode of writing called —, 52, whose
“lesser number is (§ plus 2) 7; 8, because the number of the “NAME is 26, whose lesser number is 2 plus 6=8; 9, in the “modes of writing, —, 72 ; —, 63; —, 45, and — ; the final “Nun denoting 700, and Beth 2; and the lesser number of “702 being (7 plus o plus o plus 2) g; and 10, because in the “said Plentitude [YOD-HE-VAV-HE] are ten letters. So “that the Tetragrammaton contains all the numbers; and as “in to all the numbers are contained, so in the Quarternary “are all bodies contained ; and these numbers are the two “symbols of Universal Perfection, and by them all things are “measured and numbered, they being the similitudes of the
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“Ten Sephiroth of the AEnsophic World, which is the cause “of the other four worlds [AZILUTH, BRIAH, JEZIRAH, and “ASIAH], ordinarily expressed by the word ——, ABIA, “formed by their initials. “The Magic Triangle of the Pagan Theosophites is the “celebrated ABRACADABRA ABRACADABR ABRACADAB
“to which they ascribed extraordinary virtues, and which they “figured in an equilateral triangle as above. “Number of letters 66=6 plus 6=12=3x4—6 plus 6 “plus 7=18=9 666.
“This combination of letters is the Key of the Penta- “sram. The initial A is repeated in the single word five “times, and reproduced in the whole figure thirty times, which “sives the elements and numbers of the two figures No. 5 and “No. 6. The isolated A represents the Unity of the first “principle, or of the Intellectual or Active Agent. The A “united with the B represents the fecundution of the Binary “by Unity. The R is the sign of the Ternary, because it “hierographically represents the effusion that results from the “union of the two principles. The number of letters in the “single word (11) adds one (Unity) of the Initiate to the “denary of Pythagoras; and the whole number of all the “letters added together is 66. Kabalistically 6 plus 6 forms “the number 12, the number of a square whereof each side is “the Ternary 3, and consequently the mystic quadrature. of “the Circle. The author of the Apocalypse that-——of the “Christian Kabala has made up the number of the Beast, that “is to say of Idolatry, by adding 6 to the double senary (66— “making 666) of the Abracadabra, which Kabalistically (6 “plus 6 plus 6) gives 18, the number assigned in the Jarot to “the hieroglyphic sign of Night and of the Profane. The
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“Moon with the towers, the Dog, the Wolf, and the Crab,—a “mysterious and obscure number, the Kabalistic Key of which “is 9, the number of initiation.
“On this subject the sacred Kabalist says: ‘Let him “who has understanding [that is to say, the Key of the Kab- “alistic numbers] calculate the number of the Beast, for it is “the number of a Man, and this number is 666,’ [Rev. xiii, “18]. This is in fact the decade of Pythagoras multiplied by “itself, and added to the sum of the triangular Pentacle of “the Abracadabra ; it is therefore the summary of all the “magic of the ancient world; the entire programme of the “human genius, which the divine genius of the Gospel wished “to absorb or supplant.
“These hieroglyphical combinations of letters and num- “bers belong to the practical part of the Kabala, which, in “this point of view, is divided into Gematria and Temurah. “These. calculations, which now seem to us arbitrary and un- “interesting, then belonged to the philosophic symbolism of “the Orient, and were of the greatest importance in the teach- “ing of the holy things which emanated from the occult “sciences. The absolute Kabalistic aiphabet, which connected “the first ideas with allegories, allegories with letters, and “letters with numbers, was what was then called the Keys of “Solomon. We have already seen that these keys, preserved “unto our day, but completely unknown, are nothing eise than “the game of JAROT, whose ancient allegories have becn re- “marked and appreciated for the first time in our days by the “learned antiquary, Count de Gebelin.
“The double triangle of Solomon is explained by St. “John in a remarkable manner: ‘There are,’ he says, ‘three “witnesses in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy “Spirit ; and three witnesses in earth, the breath, the water, “and the Word.’ He thus agrees with the masters of the “Hermetic philosophy, who give their sulphur the name of “ether ; their mercury the name of philosophical water ; and “style their salt dragon’s blood, or menstruum of the earth ; “the blood or the salt corresponding by apposition with the “Father, the aortic or mercurial water with the Word or “Logos, and the breath with the Holy Spirit. But matters of “lofty symbolism can only be understood by the true con- “dition of science. (De ia Haute Magic, Vol. II., pp. 31-35.)
“THE HOLY AND MYSTERIOUS PENTAGRAM, called in “the Gnostic schools the Blazing Star (L’Etoile flamboyante),
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“is the sign of Intellectual Omnipotence and Autocracy.
“It is the star o: the Magi; it is the sign of THE WORD “MADE FLESH, an according to the direction of its rays, this “absolute symbol! represents Good or Evil, Order or Disorder, “the blessed Lamb of Ormuzd (Ahuro-Mazdao), and Saint ‘John, or the accursed Goat of Mendes.
“It is initiation or profanation ; it is Lucifer or Vesper, “the morning or the evening star.
“It is Mary or Lilith, victory or death, light (day) or “darkness (night). When the Pentagram elevates two of its “points, it represents Satan, or the goat of the Mysteries ; and ‘when it elevates one of its points only, it represents the “Saviour, goodness, virtue.
“The Pentagram is the figure of the human body, with “four limbs and a single point, which should represent the “head.
“A human figure, with the head downward, naturally “represents a demon; that is to say, intellectual overturning, “disorder, or insanity. But if magic is a reality, if this occult “science is the veritable law of the three worlds, this absolute “sign, old as history, and more than history, should exercise, “and does in fact exercise, an incalculable influence over “spirits freed from their material envelopes.
“The sign of the Pentagram is also called the sign of the “Microcosm, and it represents what the Kabalists of the book “Sohar call Microprosopos.
“The complete understanding of the Pentagram is the “key of the two worlds. It is absolute natural philosophy “and science.
“The sign of the Pentagram should be composed of seven “metals, or at least be traced in pure gold on white marble.
“We may also draw it with vermillion on a lamb-skin “without spot or blemish, symbol of integrity and light.
“The ancient magicians drew the sign of the Pentagram “on their doorsteps, to prevent evil spirits from entering and “good ones from going out. This constraint resulted from “the direction of the rays of the star. Two points diverted “outwardly repelled the evil spirits; two directed inwardly “retained them prisoners ; a single point within captivated “the good spirits.
“The G which Frecmasons place in the centre of the “blazing star signifies GNOSIS and GENERATION, the two “sacred words of the ancient Kabala. It also means the
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“GRAND ARCHITECT, for the Pentagram, on whatevcr side “we view it, represents an A. All the Mysteries of Magic, “all the symbols of the Gnosis, all the figures of Occultism, “all the Kabalistic keys of prophecy, are summed up in the “sion of the Pentagram, which Paracelsus pronounces the “greatest and mos: potent of all signs. Those who heed nut “the sign of the Cross, tremble at the sight of the Star “of the Microcosm. The Magus, on the contrary, when
“he feels his will grown feeble, turns his eyes toward this
“symbol, takes it in his right hand, and feels himself armed “with intellectual omnipotence, provided he is really a King “worthy to be led by the Star to the cradle of the divine “realization ; provided he knows, dares, wills, and is SILENT “... provided, in fine, that the intrepid gaze of his soul cor- “responds with the two eyes which the upper point of the “Pentagram always presents to him open. (De la Haute “Magic, Vol. II, pp. 23-62).
“The whole revolutionary work of modern times was “symbolically summed up-by the Napoleonic substitution of “the Star of Honor for the Cross of Saint Louis. It was the “Pentagram substituted for the Labarum, the reinstatement “of the symbol of light, the Masonic resurrection of Adon- “hiram. It is said that Napoleon believed in his star ; and if “he could have:been persuaded to say what he understood by “this star, it would have been found that it was his own “genius ; and therefore he was in the right to adopt for his “sign the Pentagram, that symbol of human sovereignty by “the intelligent initiative .(1D., Vol, II, pp. 83, 84).
“One of these medals has become popular in our times, “so that even those who have no-religion hang it on the necks “of their children. The figures on it are so perfectly Kabal- istic that the, nedal is really a double and admirable Pentacle. “On one side we see the Grand Initiation, the Celestial “Mother of the Sohar, the Isis of Egypt, the Venus Urania of “the Platonists, the Mary of Christianity, standing upon the “world and setting one foot on the head of the Magic Ser- “pent. She extends her two hands so that they form a “triangle, whereof the head of the woman is the apex ; her “hands are open, and emitting rays, which make of them a “double Pentagram when the rays are all directed towards the “earth, which evidently represents the emancipation of the “intelligence of !aor.
“On the other side we see the double Tau of the Hier-
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“ophants, the Lingam in the double CTEIS or in the triple “Phallus supported with the interlacing and double insertion “of the Kabalistic and Masonic M, representing the square “between the two columns, Iachin and Boaz. Above are “placed on a level two hearts, loving and suffering, and “around twelve Pentagrams. (ID, Vol. II, pp. 84, 85).
After this abominable Phallic and hellish use and inter- pretation of the Miraculous Medal of the Virgin Mother of Christ, how could Catholics be accused of rash judgment if they admit A. Pike, the 80 Luminaries, and his other fellow- students and admirers to profane Mass and all other Christian mysteries? It is Satanic and diaboilic.