Religion of love. Knights of templars. Free judges. The inquisition Minor Italian sects. Miscellaneous societies. Addeddate Bookplateleaf Call number HS Before, however, I had arranged and digested my materials, a review in the " Athenaeum" No. I procured the book and intended at first to give a translation of it, but though I began as a translator, my labours speedily assumed a more independent form.
Much, I found, had to be omitted xiv Preface. Much, on the other hand, had to be added from sources, chiefly English and German, unknown to the Italian author; much had to be placed on a different basis and in another light; and again, many societies not mentioned by Signor De Castro had to be introduced to the reader, such as the Gardena, the Chauffeurs, Fenians, International, 0-Kee-Pa, Ku-Klux, Inquisition,. Wahibees; so that, with these additions, and the amplification of sections in the original Italian, forming frequently entirely new articles, the work, as it now is presented to the English public, though in its framework retaining much of its foreign prototype, may yet claim the merit of being not only essentially original, but the most comprehensive account of Secret Societies extant in English, French, German, or Italian, the leading languages of Europe; for whatever has been written on the subject in any one of them has been consulted and put under contribution.
In English, there is no work that can at aU compete with it, for the small book published in by Charles Knight, and entitled, " Secret Societies of the Middle Ages," embraces four societies only. Anxious to utilize my latest memoranda, I have taken advantage of the MS. Leipzig, Man's Origin. Philadelphia, Mysteries of the Cabin. Horse Mosaics. Euins of Empires. Cours Philosophique des Initiations Anciennes et Modernes.
Fabre cT Olivet. La Langue Hebrai'que Eestituee. Hence also our terms magia, magic, image, imagination, all implying the fixing in a form, figure or creature these words being synonymous — of the potencies of the primeval, structureless, living matter. The Magus therefore is one that makes the operations of the Eternal Life his study. Antiquity of the Magi. As sages, they were kings in the sense of Horace : " Ad summam, sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives.
Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum. Aristotle asserts it to have been more ancierit than the foundation of the kingdom of Egypt ; Plato, unable to reckon it by years, computes it by myriads. At the present day most writers agree in dating the rise of the reign of the Magi five thousand years before the Trojan war.
Nor was his home in India, but in Bactriana, which lies more to the east, beyond the Caspian Sea, close to the moun- tains of India, along the great rivers Oxus and laxartes ; so that the Brahmins, or priests of India, may be.
Traces of itmay be found in the ancient Zendavesta not — the book now passing by that name, which is merely. This doctrine is not the creed of the two opposite, but equally powerful principles, as has been asserted for Ahrimanes, the principle of evil, is not equal with Oromazes, which is good.
Evil is not uncreated and eternal ; it is rather transitory and limited in power. And Plutarch records an opinion, which anon we shall see confirmed, that Ahrimanes and his angels shall be annihilated — that dualism is not eternal; its life is ia time, of which it constitutes the grand drama, and in which it is the perennial cause of motion and transformation.
This is true philosophy, and fully in accordance with the funda- mental principles of nature 11 The Supreme Being, or Eternal Life, is elsewhere called Time without limits, for no origin can be assigned to him ; enshrined in his glory, and pos- sessing properties and attributes inapprehensible by our understanding, to him belongs silent adoration.
Creation had a beginning by means of emana- tion. The first emanation from the Eternal was the light, whence issued the King of Light, Oromazes. By means of speech Oromazes created the pure world, of which he is the preserver and judge. Oromazes is a holy and celestial being, intelligence and knowledge. Oromazes, the first-born of Time without limits, began by creating after his image and likeness.
The second series of creations by Oromazes was that of the twenty-eight izads, that watch over the happiness, innocence and preservation of the world models of virtue, iaterpreters of the prayers of men. The third host of pure spirits is more numerous, and forms that of the far oJiars, the thoughts of Oro- mazes, or the ideas conceived by him before pro- ceeding to the creation of things.
Not only the faro- hars of holy men and innocent infants stand before Oromazes, but this latter himself has his farohar, the personification of his wisdom and beneficent idea, his reason, his logos.
These spirits hover over the head of everyman and this idea passed over to the ; Greeks and Romans, and we meet with it again in the familiar spirit of Socrates, the evil genius of Brutus, and the genius comes of Horace. The threefold creation of good spirits was the necessary consequence of the contemporaneous de- velopment qf the principle of evil.
The second- born of the Eternal, Ahrimanes, emanated like Oromazes from the primitive light, and was pure like it, but being ambitious and haughty, he became jealous. Ahrimanes also toot part in the creation and sub- sequent corruption and destruction of man, whom Oromazes had produced by an act of his wiU and by the Word.
Out of the seed of that being Oromazes afterwards drew the first human pair, Meshia and Meshiane ; but, Ahrimanes first seduced the woman and then the man, leading them into evil chiefly by the eating of certain fruits. See " Introduction. But Ahrimanes and his evil spirits are eventually to be overcome and cast out from every place ; and in the stern combat just and industrious men have nothing to fear ; for according to Zoroaster, labour is the exterminator of evil, and that man best obeys the righteous judge of all who assiduously tills the earth and causes it to bring forth harvests and fruit-bearing trees.
At the end of twelve thousand years, when the earth shall cease to be afflicted by the evils brought upon it by the spirits of darkness, three prophets shall appear and assist man with their power and knowledge, restoring the earth to its pristine beauty, judging the good and the evil, and conducting the first into a region of ineffable bliss.
Ahrimanes, and the captive demons and men, shall be purified in a sea of liquid metal, and the law of Oromazes shaU rule everywhere. It is scarcely necessary to point out to the reader the astronomical bearing of the theogony of Zoroaster. The six good genii represent the six summer months, while the evil genii stand for the winter months. The twenty-eight izads are the days of a lunar month. But theosophicaUy, the six periods during which the imiverse was created refer to the six working properties of nature.
Ancient Mysteries. Hence the Magi and Parsees have been called fire-worshippers. But the former saw and the latter see in the fire not a divinity, but simply the cause of heat and motion, thus anticipating the most recent discoveries of physical science, or rather, remembering some of the lost knowledge. The Parsees did not form any God, to cd,ll him the one true God they did ; not iavoke any authority extrinsic to life ; they did not rely on any uncertain tradition ; but amidst all the recondite forces of nature, they chose the one' that governs them all, that reveals itself by the most tremendous effects.
Origin of the word Deus, God. Those Magi that gave their name to occult science magic performed no sorcery and believed ia no miracles. In the bosom of Asiatic immo- bility they did hot condemn motion, but rather -considered it as the glorious symbol of the Eternal Cause.
Other castes aimed at impoverishing the people and subjecting it to the yoke of ignorance and superstition; but thanks to the Magi, the Indian. Olympus, peopled with monstrous creatures. But the original idea was founded on a correct perception of the origin and nature of things, for light is truly the substance of all things ; all matter is only a compaction of light. Thus the Magi founded a moral system and an empire; they had a literature, a science and a poetry.
The number of probations he had to pass through was very great, and ended with a fast of fifty days' continuance. These trials had to be endured in a subterranean cave, where he was condemned to perpetual silence and total solitude. At the expiration of the novitiate, the candidate was brought forth into the cavern of initiation, where he was armed with enchanted armour by his guide, who was the representative of Simorgh, a monstrous griffin 27 , and an important agent in the ma- chinery of Persian mythology, and furnished with talismans, that he might be ready to encounter all the hideous monsters raised up by the evil spirits to impede his progress.
Introduced into an inner apartment, he was purified with fire and water, and put through the seven stages of initiation. First,- he beheld a deep and dangerous vault froni the precipice where he stood, into which a single false step might throw him down to the " throne of dreadful necessity," — the first three properties of nature. Groping his way through the mazes of the gloomy cavern, he soon beheld the sacred fire at through its recesses and illuminate intervals flash his path; he also heard the distant yelling of ra- venous beasts — the roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the fierce and threatening bark of dogs.
But his attendant, who maintained a profound silence, hurried him forward towards the quarter whence these sounds proceeded, and at the sudden opening of a door he found himself in a den of wild beasts, dimly lighted with a single lamp. Thence he passed into another cavern, shrouded in darkness, where he heard the terrific roaring of thunder and saw vivid and continuous flashes of lightning, which in streaming sheets of fire rendered visible the flitting shades of avenging genii, re- sentiQg his intrusion into their chosen abodes.
To restore the candidate a little, he was next con- ducted into another apartment, where his excited feelings were soothed with melodious music and the flavour of grateful perfumes'. On his expressing his readiness to proceed through the remaining ceremo- nies, a signal was given by his conductor, and three priests immediately made their appearance, one of whom cast a living serpent into his bosom as a token of regeneration 57 ; and, a private door having been opened, there issued forth such howlings and cries of lamentation and dismay, as struck him with new and indescribable emotions of terror.
On turning his eyes to the place whence these noises proceeded, he beheld exhibited in every appalling form the torments of the wicked in Hades. A splendid sun and starry system moved in accordance with deli- cious music.
The number four was considered the ' most perfect, because in the first four properties of nature 11 are comprised and implied all the rest ; wherefore also the first four numbers summed up make up the decad, after which all is only repe- tition.
Myth of Rustam. But Eustam overcomes hinij and with three drops of the giant's blood restores sight to all his captives. The sym- bolical three drops of blood had their counterparts in all the mysteries of the ancient world.
The blindness with which those who seek the giant are smitten, of course refers to the emblematic mental blindness of the aspirant to initiation. Origin of Mithraic Worship. But in course of time the conception of this Mithras be- came perverted, and he usurped the attributes of divinity.
Such usurpation of the rank of the supe- rior Deity on the part of the inferior is of frequent occurrence in mythology ; it suffices to refer to Siva and Vishnu in India, Serapis in Egypt, Ju- piter in Greece.
The perversion was rendered easy by confounding the symbol with the thing sym- bolized, the genius of the sun with the sun itself, which alone remained in the language, since the modern Persian name of the sun mihr represents the regular modification of the Zend Mithras.
The Persian Mithras must not be confounded with that of India, for it is undoubted that another Mithras, different from the Zendic, from the most ancient times was the object of a special mysterious worship, and that the initiated knew him as the sun. Taking the letters of the Greek word " Meithras at their numerical value, we number , obtain the the days of the year.
The same holds good of " Abraxas," the name which Basilides gave to the Deity, and further of "Belenos," the name given to the sun in Gaul. Dogmas, Sj-c. According to Herodotus, Mithras became the Mylitta of Babylon, the Assyrian Venus, to whom was paid an obscene worship as to the female prin- ciple of creation, the goddess of fecundity, of life ; one perhaps with Anaitis, the Armenian goddess.
Rites of Initiation. Clement, at Rome, a was discovered singularly well-preserved temple of Mithras some years ago. When the monk who had, on my visit to Eome, shown me the church above, said that he would now take me down to the pagan temple of Mithras, I could not help saying to myself, " If you but knew it, Mithras is!
The initiations into this degree were similar to those detailed in the foregoing section, but, if pos- sible, more severe than into any other, and few passed through all The festival of the the tests. The first degree was inaugurated with purifying lustrations, and a sign was set on the neophyte's brow, whilst he offered to the god a loaf and a cup of water.
A crown was presented to him on the point of a sword, and he put it on his head saying, " Mithras is my crown. The priests and officers of the temple, disguised as Hons, tigers, leopards, bears, wolves, and other wild beasts, attacked the candidate with fierce howHngs.
In these sham fights the aspirant ran great personal danger, though sometimes the priests caught a Tartar. Thus we are told that the Emperor Com- modus on his initiation carried the joke too far, and slew one of the priests who had assailed him in the form of a wild beast.
In the next degree be put on a mantle on which were painted the signs of the zodiac. After passing through other trials, ifhis courage did not fail him, he was hailed as a " Lion of Mithras," in allusion to the zodiacal sign in which the sun attained his greatest power. We meet with the same idea in the degree of Master Mason. The grand secret was- then im- parted. What was At this distance of time it it? In fact, the Mithraic mysteries represent the progress of darkness to light.
According to Guignault, Mithras is love ; with regard to the Eternal, he is the son of mercy ; with regard to Oromazes and AhrimaneSj the fire of love. Rites derived from Magism.
Further, it became an axiom in religion that the offspring of a son and a mother was the best calcu- lated for the office of a priest. Traces of Magism are also found in the speculations of Manes, the Eeligion of Love, and the secret history of the Templars. This wealth is an iufal- Kble sign of the mental poverty and grossness of the people, who, ignorant of the laws of nature, and terrified at its phenomena, acknowledged as many supernatural beings as there were mysteries for them.
The Brahmins reckon up , gods — a frightful host, that have kept Indian life servile and stagnant, perpetuated the divisions of caste, upheld ignorance, and weighed like an incubus on the breasts of their deluded dupes, and turned existence into a nightmare of grief and servitude. Thus in the second chapter of the first part of the "Vishnu Purana," it is written: " God is without form, epithet, definition, or de- scription ; free from defect, incapable of annihilation, change, grief, or pain.
We can only say that he, that is, the Eternal Being, is God. That Only One that was never defined. This Being extends over all things. He is mere spirit without corporeal form ; without extension of any size, un- impressionable, and without any organs ; he is pure, perfect, omniscient, omnipresent, the ruler of the in- tellect Allusions to this separation are found in the Legend of the Temple ; and there are other divisions in theological nomenclature which respectively refer to the traditions of those grand sections.
The Buddhists were Magians, the Brahminists Sabseans. The famous Buddhist doctrine of Nir- VElna or Nihilism — so totally misapprehended, as long as was supposed to mean total annihilation it is profoundly theosophicaJ, and really means the perfect absorption into the Deity, though Buddha does not allow of a personal god or creator.
By the Deity he means the light, the eternal liberty, and therefore calls Nirvana the highest stage of spiritual liberty and bHss. The individual soul, on leaving the body in which it was imprisoned, re- turns into the universal soul; just as the solar light. On this doctrine was afterwards engrafted the false belief in the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, and the misanthropic system of self-renunciation, which, in India, led to the self-torturings of fakirs and other fanatics ; and which finds its analogies in Christian communities in the asceticism of fasts, penances, macerations, solitude, flagellation, and all the mad practices of monks, anchorets, and other religious zealots.
And in various sects asceticism has led to the adoption of many strange practices. In the " Contes de la Keine de Navarre" there is a passage which at some length refers to a special mode adopted by monks and other men for the mortification of the flesh.
Of such persons the queen says: "lis disent qu'il faut s'liabituer a la chastete, et pour eprouver leurs forces Us parlent aux plus belles, et a celles qu'ils aiment le plus, et en haisaiit et touchant, Us eprouvent quits sont dans une entiere mortification. Quand Us sentent que ce plaisir les emeut. They spread over Africa ; and in Ethiopia they lived as solitaires, and revived on the banks of the Nile many phases of Asiatic theosophy.
Priests-errant, they were re- ported to carry with them a secret doctrine, of which the simplicity of their lives and the purity of their morals might be considered as the outward manifes- tation; though ia after times they became one of the most debauched and immoral sects in India. They beUeved in one only Godj the immortality of the soul and its transr migratiouj and when old age or disease prostrated them, they ascended the funeral pile, deeming it ignominious to let years or evils afflict them.
Alex- ander saw one of them close his life in this manner. The priestly colleges of Ethiopia and Egypt maintained constant relations. Osiris is an Ethi- opian divinity. Every year the two families of priests met on the boundaries of the two countries to offer common sacrifices to Ammon, —another name for Jupiter, —and celebrate the festival which the Greeks called heliotrapeza, or Table of the Sun.
Amidst the predominant fetishism of Africa, pro- duced partly by climate and partly by the same cir- cumstances that gave rise to Indian fetishism, we cannot help admiring that colony of thinkers which long resisted the progress of despotism, and whose destruction was the revenge of intolerance and tyranny. Places for celebrating Mysteries. In the sacellum, only acces- sible to the initiated, the supreme Deity was repre- sented by the lingam, which was used more or less by all ancient nations to represent his creative power, though in India it was also typified by the petal and calyx of the lotus.
He was then prepared by a Brahmin, who became his spiritual guide for the second degree, the probationary cere- monies of which consisted ia incessant occupation in prayers, fastiugs, ablutions, and the study of as- tronomy. In the hot season he sat exposed to five fires, four blazing around him, with the sun above ; in the rains he stood uncovered ; in the cold season he wore wet clothing. This was brilliantly illuminated, and there sat the three chief hierophants, in the east, west and south, representing the gods Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, surrounded by attendant myst- agogues, dressed in appropriate vestments.
The initiation was begun by an apostrophe to the sun, addressed by the name of Pooroosh, here meaning the vital soul, or portion of the universal spirit of Brahm ; and the candidate, after some further pre- liminary ceremonies, was made to circumambulate the cavern three times, and afterwards conducted through seven dark caverns, during which period the waitings of Mahadeva for the loss of Siva were represented by dismal bowlings.
The usual para- phernalia of flashes of light, of dismal sounds and horrid phantoms were produced to terrify and confuse the aspirant. Having arrived at the last cavern, the sacred conch was blown, the folding doors thrown open, and the candidate was admitted into an apartment filled with dazzling lights, orna- mented with statues and emblematic figures richly decorated with gems, and scented with the most fragrant perfumes.
This saceUum was inteijded to represent Paradise, and was actually so called in the temple of EUora. The reader wiU have noticed in one case I say Brahm and. The ineffable name Aum. This word was OM, or in a trUiteral form AUM, to represent the creative, preserving, and destroying power of the Deity, personified in Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the symbol of which was.
The emblems around and the aporreta of the were then mysteries explained, and the candidate instructed that by means of the knowledge of OM he was to become one with the Deity. With the Persians the syllable HOM meant the tree of Hfe, a tree and a man at the same time, the dwelling-place of the soul of Zoroaster ; and with them also, as with the Indians, it was forbidden on pain of death to reveal it. In this secret name, involving the rejection of poly- theism, and comprising the knowledge of nature, we have the golden thread that unites ancient and modem secret societies.
The worship of this symbol could not but lead to great abuses, especially as regarded the gymnosophists The Lotus. The Indian gods were always represented as seated on it. It was an emblem of the soul's freedom when liberated from its earthly tabernacle, the body ; for it takes root in the mud deposited at the bottom of a river, vege- tates from the germ to a perfect plant, and after- wards rising proudly above the waves, it floats iu air, as if independent of any extraneous aid.
It is placed on a golden table, as the symbol of Siva, on the top of Mount Menu, the holy mountain of India, the centre of the earth, worshipped by Hiu- doos, Tartars, Montchurians and Mongols. It is supposed to be in Northern India, to have three peaks, composed of gold, silver and iron, on which reposes the trine deity Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Geographically this mountain is evidently the table- land of Tartary, whose southern boundary is formed by the Himalayas. This custom of accounting a three-peaked mountain holy was not confined to India alone, but prevailed also among the Jews.
Thus Olivet, near Jerusalem, had three peaks, which were accounted the residence of the Deity — Che- mosh, Milcom, Ashtoreth 2 Kings xxiii. In Zechariah xiv. A long and narrow strip of landj watered by im- mense floods and surromided by immense solitudes — such is Egypt. Very high and steep rocks protected it from the incursions of the nomadic tribeSj and thus a valley, a river, and a race sufficed to create, if not the most ancient, at least one of the most ancient and illustrious cultures, a world of marvels, at a time when Europeans went naked, and dyed their skins, as Caesar found the ancient Britons, and when the Greeks, armed with bows and arrows, led a nomadic existence.
The Egyp- tians, many thousand years before the Trojan war, had invented writing, as is proved, for instance, by the hieratic papyrus of the time of Eameses II. They also knew many comforts of life, which our pride calls modern ; and the Greek writers, whom the Egyptian priests called children, are full of recollections of that mysterious land, recording the father Nile, Thebes with its hundred gates, the Pyramids, Lake Meroe, the Labyrinth, the Sphinx, and the statue of Memnon saluting the rising sun.
But those obelisks, sacred to the sun, by their conical form like that of the flame ; those labyrinths, those human- headed birds, typifying the intelligent soul; those scarabei, signifying creative power ; those sphinxes, representing force, the Hon or sun, and man ; those serpents expressing Hfe and eternity 57 ; those strange combinations of forms ; those hieroglyphics —they long remained secrets for us, and perhaps always were a secret for the Egyptian people that in fear and silence erected the pyramids —aU these symbols constituted the language of one of the vastest and most elaborate secret societies that ever existed.
LThe temple of Luxor is the vastest on earth — six propylsea with long files of columns, and colossi and obelisks and sphinxes ; six cloisters every new generation of kings for seventy centuries added some new portion and inscribed on the walls the history of its deeds, and every new addition removed the faithful further from the seat of the god; the marvel and mystery increased.
Egyptian Priests and JKwg's. To Plato, who saw it from a distance, this govern- ment seemed stupendous, and he idealized it it was ; for him the " city of God," the pattern republic. Nevertheless, as was inevitable, might rebelled against doctrine, the soldiery broke the rein of the priesthood, and by the side of the pontiffs arose the kings, or to speak more correctly, the two series proceeded in parallels ; that of the priests was not set aside, it had its palaces, the temples, strong like fortresses, along the Nile, which were at the same time splendid' abodes, agricultural establish- ments, commercial depots, and caravan stations; its members appointed and ruled the kings them- selves, regulating the most minute acts of their daily conduct ; [they were the depositaries of the highest oflBces, and as the learned savans, magis- trates, and physicians, enjoyed the first honours!!
Their chief colleges were at Thebes, Memphis, HeliopoHs, and Sa'is ; they possessed a great por- tion of the land, which they caused to be cultivated paid no taxes, but collected tithes. Their doc- trineSj like those of all other priesthoods, were therefore exoteric and esoteric ; and the mysteries were of two kinds, the greater and the less, the former being the mysteries of Osiris and Serapis, the latter those of Isis. The mysteries of Osiris were celebrated at the autumnal equinox ; those of Serapis at the summer solstice ; and those of Isis at the vernal equinox.
He is killed by Typhon, a serpent engendered by the mud of the Nile. Osiris having been kiUed by Python — to which, however, the wider meaning of the sun's imaginary disappearance, or death, during the winter season, was attached — Isis, his wife, or the moon, goes in search of him, and at last finds his body, cut into fourteen pieces, that" is to say, into as many parts as there are days between the full moon and the new she collects all the pieces, with one important ex- ception, for which she made a substitution which gave rise to a worship resembling that of the Hngam in India.
Her image was worshipped at Sais under the emblem of "Isis veiled," with ' By a transposition of consonants, common enough in the formation of new words ; Typhon from Python is an instance already mentioned forma, from ; fjopcpti, is another.
But making no allowance for the quarter of a day which finishes the year, the civil year every four years began one day too soon, and so the beginniag of the year went successively through every one of the days of the natural year in the space of four times , which makes 1, years. They fancied they blessed and made all the seasons to prosper by making them thus to enjoy one after another the feast of Isis, which was celebrated along with that of Sirius, though it was frequently very remote from that constellation; wherefore they introduced the image of dogs, or even the real and living animals, pre- ceding the chariots of Isis.
The Gross. This sign really signifies the fire,as we have seen It was frequently surmounted by a circle, typifying the deity that governs this important operation.
Other nations adopted the custom, and hence the cross or the letter T, whereby it was symbolized throughout the ancient world, was supposed to be a sign or letter of more than ordi- nary significance.
In the mysteries, the crijix ansata was the symbol of eternal life. But the cross was worshipped as an astronomical sign in other countries. But the older and deeper meaning of the cross is shown in 11 ; it refers to the fire, and the double quality everywhere observable in nature. The pyramids, in fact, may be looked upon, considering their size, shape, and solidity, as artificial mountains, covering buried cities. Their form not only symbolically represented the ascend- ing flame, but also had a deeper origin in the conical form, which is the primitive figure of all natural products.
Process of Initiation. Arrived at the bottom, he saw two doors —one of them barred, the other yielding to the touch of his hand. Passing through it, he beheld a winding gallery, whilst the door behind him shut with a clang that reverberated through the vaults. Inscriptions Uke the following met his eye " Whoso : shall pass along this road alone, and without looking back, shall be purified by fire, water, and air ; and overcoming the fear of death, shaU issue from the bowels of the earth to the light of day, preparing his soul to receive the mysteries of Isis.
Here the candidate had ofifered to him the last chance of returning, if so incUned. Electing to go forward, he underwent the trial by fire, by passing through a haU.
A wide and dark canalj fed by the waters of the Nile, arrests his pro- gress. Placing the flickering lamp upon his head, he plunges into the canal, and swims to the opposite bank, where the greatest trial, that by air, awaits him. He lands upon a platform leading to an ivory door, bounded by two walls of brass, into each of which is inserted an immense wheel of the same metal.
He in vaia attempts to open the door, when, espying two large iron rings affixed to it, he takes hold ofthem but suddenly the platform sinks ; from under him, a chilling blast of wind extinguishes his lamp, the two brazen wheels revolve with for- midable rapidity and stunning noise, whilst he remains suspended by the two rings over the fathomless abyss.
But ere he is exhausted the platform returns, the ivory door opens, and he sees before him a magnificent temple, brilliantly illumi- nated, and filled with the priests of Isis clothed in the mystic insignia of their offices, the hierophant at their head. But the ceremonies of initiation do not cease here. The candidate is subject to a series of fastings, which gradually increase for nine times nine days.
During this period a rigorous silence is imposed upon him, which if he preserve in- violate, he is at length fully initiated into the esoteric doctrines of Isis. He is next introduced into the most secret part of the sacred ' edifice, where a priest instructs him in the appli- cation of the symbols found therein. He is then publicly announced as a person who has been initiated into the mysteries of Isis —the first degree of the Egyptian rites.
We know but little of them, and Apuleius only slightly touches upon them. When Theodosius destroyed the temple of Serapis there were discovered subterraneous passages and engines wherein and wherewith the priests tried the candi- dates. Porphyry, in referring to the greater myste- ries, quotes a fragment of Cheremones, an Egyptian priest, which imparts an astronomical meaning to the whole legend of Osiris, thus confirming what has been said above.
And Herodotus, in describing the temple of Minerva, where the rites of Osiris were celebrated, and speaking of a tomb placed in the most secret recess, as in Christian churches there are calvaries behind the altar, says : " It is the tomb of a god whose name I dare not mention. In these the legend of the murder of Osiris by his brother Typhon was represented, and the god was per- sonated by the candidate. As we shall see here- after, the Freemasons exactly copy this pro- cedure in the master's degree, substituting for Osiris, Hiram Abiff, one of the three grand masters at the building of Solomon's temple.
The per- fectly initiated candidate was called Al-om-jak, from the name of the Deity 40 , and the dogma of the unity of God was the chief secret imparted to him. How great and how dangerous a secret it was may easily be seen when it is borne in mind that cen- turies after the institution of the mysteries, Socrates lost his Hfe for promulgating the same doctrine. She was also represented with different emblems, aU betokening her manifold characteristics. The lucid round, the snake, the ears of com, and the sistrum represent the titular deities of the Hecatsean Hecate, Goddess of Night , Bacchic, Eleusinian, and Ionic mysteries, that is, the mystic rites in general for whose sake the alle- gory was invented.
Her names, to return to them, are given in the following words, put into her mouth by Apuleius in his " Golden Ass," which is a description of the mysteries under the guise of a fable : —" Behold, Lucius, I, moved by thy prayers, am present with thee ; I who am nature, the parent of things, the queen of all the elements, the primordial progeny of the ages, the supreme of divinities, the sovereign of the spirits of the dead, the first of the celestials, the first and universal substance, the uniform and multiform aspect of the uncreated essence ; I who rule by my nod the luminous sumimits of the heavens, the breezes of the sea, and the silence of the realms beneath, and whose one divinity the whole orb of the earth venerates under a manifold form, by dif- ferent rites, and a variety of appellations.
Hence the early Phrygians call me Pessinuntica, mother of the gods ; the Attic aborigines, Cecropian Minerva; the floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus; the arrow-bearing Cretans, Diana Dictynna ; the three-tongued Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine ; and the Eleusinians, the ancient goddess Ceres.
Some also call me Juno, others Bellona, others Hecate, and others Rhamnusia. Queen Isis. And asinEgyptthemysterieswerededicated to Isis and Osiris, so in Samothrace they were sacred to the mother of the gods, in "BoRntia. Dionysiac or Bacchic Mysteries. The latter were celebrated every year at the autumnal equinox, and females were admitted to them, wearing the crea- tive emblem suspended round their necks.
They ended with the sacrifice of an unclean animal, which was eaten by the worshippers. Then aspirants and initiated proceeded with sacred dances towards the temple. The Canephoroi, carrying golden vases full of the choicest fruits, were followed by the bearers of the creative emblem, who were furnished with long poles, and were crowned with ivy, a herb sacred to Bacchus, or the sun personified.
Now came other celebrants habited as women, but per- forming all the repulsive actions of drunken men. The next night the ceremonies of initiation were performed, in which the fable of Bacchus slain by the Titans was scenically represented, the aspirant acting the part of Bacchus. The greater mysteries were celebrated every three years at the vernal equinox, in the neighbourhood of a marsh, like the festival of Sais, in Egypt.
On the night preceding the initiation, the spouse of the hierophant sacrificed a ram. She represented the spouse of Bacchus, and when seated as such on the throne, the priests and initiated of both sexes ex- claimed: " Hail, spouse, hail,! Sahazian Mysteries.
The mysteries were performed at night, and represented the amours of Jupiter, in the form of a serpent, and Proserpina. A golden — others say a living — ser- pent was introduced into the bosom of the candi- date,who exclaimed, " Bvoe Sabai Bacchi Anes! Attes Hues "! Evoe or Eve in most languages!
When Moses lifted up a brazen serpent in the Wil- derness, the afflicted Hebrews knew that it was a sign of preservation. Sabai has already been ex- plained; Hues and Attes were other names of Bacchus. These mysteries continued to be cele- brated to the last days of paganism, and in the days of Domitian, 7, initiated were found in Eome alone. Mysteries of the Oahiri.
The chief places for the celebration of these mys- teries were the islands of Samothrace and Lemnos.
The priests were called Corybantes. There is much perplexity connected with this subject; since, be- sides what is mentioned above, the mysteries are also said to have been instituted in honour of Atys, the son of Cybele.
Atys means the sun, and the mysteries were celebrated at the vernal equinox, and there cannot, therefore, be any doubt that, like all the other mysteries in their period of decay, they represented the enigmatical death of the sun in winter and his regeneration in the spring.
The ceremonies lasted three days. The first day was one of sadness : a cruciform pine with the image of Atys attached to it was cut down, the mutilated body of Atys having been discovered at the f6ot of such a tree ; the second day was a day of trumpets, which were blown to awaken the god from his deathlike sleep ; and the third day, that of joy, was the day of initiation and celebration of his return to life.
The mysteries were originally celebrated only at Bleusis, a town of Attica, but eventually extended to Italy and even to Britain. Like aU other mys- teries, they were divided into the greater and the less, and the latter, Hke the Bacchic and Cabiric rites, lasted nine days, and were merely preparatory, con- sisting of lustrations and sacrifices. The cere- monies of initiation iato the greater mysteries were opened by the herald exclaiming : " Retire, ye profane.
Ancient mysteries. Christian initiations. Anti-social societies. Social regeneration -- II. International commune and anarchists. Political secret societies. Miscellaneous societies.
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