CHAPTER XVIIIL.—THE HOLY EMPIRE—REGNUM SANCTUM

—OF THE ENGLISH ESOTERIC MASONS.
The Text Book of Advanced Freemasonry was published in Great Britain, but the compiler owns that, for the Kadosh degrees—of course the esoteric ones—he is indebted to Bro. McClenachan, 33rd degree, of New York. We cull from them:
“We now approach the Holy Empire, which signifies the “attainment of the science and power of the Magi. The four “words of the Magi are to KNOW, to DARE, to WILL and to “be SILENT, and are written in the four symbolic forms of “the Sphynx.”
We have seen, chapter xvi, in the quotation from Pike’s manuscript published by the 80 Luminaries, that the Magus turning his eyes toward the Holy Pentagram, the Blazing Star, and taking it in his hands feels himself armed with “intellectual omnipotence, provided he is a king worthy to be
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so
“led by the Star to the cradle of divine realization * provided “he knows, dares, wills and is silent.”
This being quoted by the 80 Luminaries from the Haute Magic translated by Pike, we will look for information in the same Haute Magic, but translated by Waite, p. 87 ;
“Magic was culled formerly the Sacerdotal Art, and the “Royal Art, because initiation gave empire over souls to the “Sages, and adroitness for ruling wills.”
A. E. Waite, having digested the Haute Magic, and other magical works of Eliphas Levi, informs us that the Magi are called kings “because magical initiation constitutes a veritable “royalty, and the great art of the Magi is termed the Royal “Art or Holy Kingdom—Regnum Sanctum. The guiding “star is the same Blazing Star which is a symbol in all initia- “tion. kor the Alchemists it is the sign of the Quintescence, “for the Magicians the Great Arcanum, for the Kabalists the “Sacred Pentagram. We could prove that the study of this “Pentagram should indubitably have led the Magi to an ac- “quaintance with the new name which was to exalt itself “above all names and bend the knees of all beings who are “capable of adoration. Thus Magic unites in a single science “all that is most certain in philosophy and most infallible and “eternal in religion.”—P. 41 Mysteries of Magic, by Waite, 2nd edition, Keegan, French, Trubner & Co., (897.
In an essay by A. E. Waite himself, prefacing the Mag- ical Writings of Thomas Vaughan, 1888, p. xix, he says:
“The earnest student who turns for illumination to the “sanctuaries of the ancient mystic wisdom and for counsel to “its grand hierophants, finds himself face to face with the “departed but still eloquent representatives of a Sacerdotal “and Royal science which claims to be exclusively acquainted “with the One Way of Rectitude and the Unerring Path of “Light.”
A. Pike and his fellow-students or disciples, such as the 380 Luminaries, A. E. Waite and other champions of the Eng- lish craft, all quote or follow more or less the magical doc- trines and practises of Eliphas Levi; hence Masons cannot reasonably object to our taking from the same scurces the explanation of the KNOW, the WILL, the DARE, and the BE SILENT, and the various significations of the SPHYNX. We read in the Haute Magic, p. 88* :
* Any one who has
does not blush at the cultus of the phallus and cteis in the divine and human, or in any other world.
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“He knows the secret of the future, he dares in the “present and he is silent on the past. He knows the failings “of the human heart; he dares make use of them to achieve “his work ; and he is silent as to his purposes. He knows “the principle of all symbolisms and of all religions ; he dares “to practise or to abstain from them without hypocrisy and “without impiety’—but not without contradiction. L. F.— “he is silent upon the one dogma of supreme initiation. He “knows the existence and nature of the Great Magical Agent; “he dares perform the acts and give utterance to the words “which make it subject to human will, and he is silent upon the “mysteries of the Great Arcanum.” At p. 15 of the same book, read: “The Sphynx, that symbol of symbols, the eternal enigma “of the vulgar, the granite pedestal of the science of the sages, “the voracious and silent monster whose invariable form ex- “presses the one dogma of the great universal mystery.” P. 32: “The sphynx has not only a man’s head, it has woman’s “breasts ; do you know how to resist feminine charms? * No, “is it not so?” P.77: “Now this armed Sphynx represents “the law of mystery which watches at the door of initiation “to warn away the profane.” | P. 355 : “The symbolical tetrad “renresented in the mysteries of Memphis and Thebes by the “four forms of the Sphynx, the man, eagle, lion and bull.... “Now, these four signs, with all their analogies, explained the “one word hidden in all sanctuaries, that word which the “Bacchantes seemed to divine in their intoxication, when “they worked themselves into frenzy for Io Evohe. What, “then, was the meaning of this mysterious term? It was the “name of the four primitive letters of the mother tongue. “The Jod, symbol of the wine, or paternal sceptre of Noah ; “the He, type of the cup of libations, and also of maternity ; “the Vau which joins the two, and was depicted in India by “the great and mysterious lingam,’—or Masonic phallus.
We are aware that the English craftmen have other pro- poundings for the exoteric and esoteric Masons, but they cannot deny that the above one is dearer than any other to the hearts of the English fellow-students or disciples of Al- bert Pike, whether in the British Empire or the United States. Hewas the King and Pope of the English Free- masonry ; this Yankee had the Prince of Wales, Lord Lathom and other peers of the British realm in actual submission, as it is proved in another chapter The most prevalent occultist hue now-a-days in the English esoteric craft is the Pikean.
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