{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75871/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75871","id":"gutenberg_75871","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75871","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Theosophy"],"text":"ISIS UNVEILED:\n\n A MASTER-KEY\n\n TO THE\n\n MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN\n\n SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.\n\n BY\n\n H. P. BLAVATSKY,\n CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.\n\n \u201cCecy est un livre de bonne Foy.\u201d--MONTAIGNE.\n\n VOL. II.--_THEOLOGY._\n\n FOURTH EDITION.\n\n NEW YORK:\n J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY.\n LONDON: BERNARD QUARITCH.\n 1878.\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, BY\n J. W. BOUTON.\n 1877.\n\n\n TROW\u2019S\n PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,\n PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS,\n _205-213 East 12th St._,\n NEW YORK.\n\n\n\n\n TABLE OF CONTENTS.\n\n\n PAGE\n\n PREFACE iv\n Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson and Baroness Burdett-Coutts.\n\n\n Volume Second.\n\n _THE \u201cINFALLIBILITY\u201d OF RELIGION._\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n THE CHURCH: WHERE IS IT?\n\n Church statistics 1\n Catholic \u201cmiracles\u201d and spiritualistic \u201cphenomena\u201d 4\n Christian and Pagan beliefs compared 10\n Magic and sorcery practised by Christian clergy 20\n Comparative theology a new science 25\n Eastern traditions as to Alexandrian Library 27\n Roman pontiffs imitators of the Hindu Brahm-\u00e2tma 30\n Christian dogmas derived from heathen philosophy 33\n Doctrine of the Trinity of Pagan origin 45\n Disputes between Gnostics and Church Fathers 51\n Bloody records of Christianity 53\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n CHRISTIAN CRIMES AND HEATHEN VIRTUES.\n\n Sorceries of Catherine of Medicis 55\n Occult arts practised by the clergy 59\n Witch-burnings and auto-da-f\u00e9 of little children 62\n Lying Catholic saints 74\n Pretensions of missionaries in India and China 79\n Sacrilegious tricks of Catholic clergy 82\n Paul a kabalist 91\n Peter not the founder of Roman church 91\n Strict lives of Pagan hierophants 98\n High character of ancient \u201cmysteries\u201d 101\n Jacolliot\u2019s account of Hindu fakirs 103\n Christian symbolism derived from Phallic worship 109\n Hindu doctrine of the Pitris 114\n Brahminic spirit-communion 115\n Dangers of _untrained_ mediumship 117\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n DIVISIONS AMONGST THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.\n\n Resemblance between early Christianity and Buddhism 123\n Peter never in Rome 124\n Meanings of \u201cNazar\u201d and \u201cNazarene\u201d 129\n Baptism a derived right 134\n Is Zoroaster a generic name? 141\n Pythagorean teachings of Jesus 147\n The Apocalypse kabalistic 147\n Jesus considered an adept by some Pagan philosophers\n and early Christians 150\n Doctrine of permutation 152\n The meaning of God-Incarnate 153\n Dogmas of the Gnostics 155\n Ideas of Marcion, the \u201cheresiarch\u201d 159\n Precepts of Manu 163\n Jehovah identical with Bacchus 165\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n ORIENTAL COSMOGONIES AND BIBLE RECORDS.\n\n Discrepancies in the Pentateuch 167\n Indian, Chaldean and Ophite systems compared 170\n Who were the first Christians? 178\n Christos and Sophia-Achamoth 183\n Secret doctrine taught by Jesus 191\n Jesus never claimed to be God 193\n New Testament narratives and Hindu legends 199\n Antiquity of the \u201cLogos\u201d and \u201cChrist\u201d 205\n Comparative Virgin-worship 209\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n MYSTERIES OF THE KABALA.\n\n En-Soph and the Sephiroth 212\n The primitive wisdom-religion 216\n The book of Genesis a compilation of Old World legends 217\n The Trinity of the Kabala 222\n Gnostic and Nazarene systems contrasted with Hindu myths 225\n Kabalism in the book of Ezekiel 232\n Story of the resurrection of Jairus\u2019s daughter found\n in the history of Christna 241\n Untrustworthy teachings of the early Fathers 248\n Their persecuting spirit 249\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n ESOTERIC DOCTRINES OF BUDDHISM PARODIED IN CHRISTIANITY.\n\n Decisions of Nicean Council, how arrived at 251\n Murder of Hypatia 252\n Origin of the fish-symbol of Vishnu 256\n Kabalistic doctrine of the Cosmogony 264\n Diagrams of Hindu and Chaldeo-Jewish systems 265\n Ten mythical Avatars of Vishnu 274\n Trinity of man taught by Paul 281\n Socrates and Plato on soul and spirit 283\n True Buddhism, what it is 288\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n EARLY CHRISTIAN HERESIES AND SECRET SOCIETIES.\n\n Nazareans, Ophites, and modern Druzes 291\n Etymology of IAO 298\n \u201cHermetic Brothers\u201d of Egypt 307\n True meaning of Nirvana 319\n The Ja\u00efna sect 321\n Christians and Chrestians 323\n The Gnostics and their detractors 325\n Buddha, Jesus, and Apollonius of Tyana 341\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n JESUITRY AND MASONRY.\n\n The _Sohar_ and Rabbi Simeon 348\n The Order of Jesuits and its relation to some of the\n Masonic orders 352\n Crimes permitted to its members 355\n Principles of Jesuitry compared with those of Pagan\n moralists 364\n Trinity of man in Egyptian _Book of the Dead_ 367\n Freemasonry no longer esoteric 372\n Persecution of Templars by the Church 381\n Secret Masonic ciphers 395\n Jehovah not the \u201cIneffable Name\u201d 398\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n THE VEDAS AND THE BIBLE.\n\n Nearly every myth based on some great truth 405\n Whence the Christian Sabbath 406\n Antiquity of the Vedas 410\n Pythagorean doctrine of the potentialities of numbers 417\n \u201cDays\u201d of _Genesis_ and \u201cDays\u201d of Brahma 422\n Fall of man and the Deluge in the Hindu books 425\n Antiquity of the Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata 429\n Were the ancient Egyptians of the Aryan race? 434\n Samuel, David, and Solomon mythical personages 439\n Symbolism of Noah\u2019s Ark 447\n The Patriarchs identical with zodiacal signs 459\n All Bible legends belong to universal history 469\n\n\n CHAPTER X.\n\n THE DEVIL-MYTH.\n\n The devil officially recognized by the Church 477\n Satan the mainstay of sacerdotalism 480\n Identity of Satan with the Egyptian Typhon 483\n His relation to serpent-worship 489\n The Book of Job and the Book of the Dead 493\n The Hindu devil a metaphysical abstraction 501\n Satan and the Prince of Hell in the Gospel of Nicodemus 515\n\n\n CHAPTER XI.\n\n COMPARATIVE RESULTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY.\n\n The age of philosophy produced no atheists 530\n The legends of three Saviours 537\n Christian doctrine of the Atonement illogical 542\n Cause of the failure of missionaries to convert\n Buddhists and Brahmanists 553\n Neither Buddha nor Jesus left written records 559\n The grandest mysteries of religion in the Bagaved-gita 562\n The meaning of regeneration explained in the\n Satapa-Br\u00e2hmana 565\n The sacrifice of blood interpreted 566\n Demoralization of British India by Christian\n missionaries 573\n The Bible less authenticated than any other sacred book 577\n Knowledge of chemistry and physics displayed by Indian\n jugglers 583\n\n\n CHAPTER XII.\n\n CONCLUSIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n Recapitulation of fundamental propositions 587\n Seership of the soul and of the spirit 590\n The phenomenon of the so-called spirit-hand 594\n Difference between mediums and adepts 595\n Interview of an English ambassador with a re\u00efncarnated\n Buddha 598\n Flight of a lama\u2019s astral body related by Abb\u00e9 Huc 604\n Schools of magic in Buddhist lamaseries 609\n The unknown race of Hindu Todas 613\n Will-power of fakirs and yogis 617\n Taming of wild beasts by fakirs 622\n Evocation of a living spirit by a Shaman, witnessed\n by the writer 626\n Sorcery by the breath of a Jesuit Father 633\n Why the study of magic is almost impracticable in\n Europe 635\n Conclusion 635\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE TO PART II.\n\n\nWere it possible, we would keep this work out of the hands of many\nChristians whom its perusal would not benefit, and for whom it was not\nwritten. We allude to those whose faith in their respective churches\nis pure and sincere, and those whose sinless lives reflect the\nglorious example of that Prophet of Nazareth, by whose mouth the\nspirit of truth spake loudly to humanity. Such there have been at all\ntimes. History preserves the names of many as heroes, philosophers,\nphilanthropists, martyrs, and holy men and women; but how many more\nhave lived and died, unknown but to their intimate acquaintance,\nunblessed but by their humble beneficiaries! These have ennobled\nChristianity, but would have shed the same lustre upon any other faith\nthey might have professed--for they were higher than their creed. The\nbenevolence of Peter Cooper and Elizabeth Thompson, of America, who\nare not orthodox Christians, is no less Christ-like than that of the\nBaroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, of England, who is one. And yet, in\ncomparison with the millions who have been accounted Christians, such\nhave always formed a small minority. They are to be found at this day,\nin pulpit and pew, in palace and cottage; but the increasing\nmaterialism, worldliness and hypocrisy are fast diminishing their\nproportionate number. Their charity, and simple, child-like faith in\nthe infallibility of their Bible, their dogmas, and their clergy,\nbring into full activity all the virtues that are implanted in our\ncommon nature. We have personally known such God-fearing priests and\nclergymen, and we have always avoided debate with them, lest we might\nbe guilty of the cruelty of hurting their feelings; nor would we rob a\nsingle layman of his blind confidence, if it alone made possible for\nhim holy living and serene dying.\n\nAn analysis of religious beliefs in general, this volume is in\nparticular directed against theological Christianity, the chief\nopponent of free thought. It contains not one word against the pure\nteachings of Jesus, but unsparingly denounces their debasement into\npernicious ecclesiastical systems that are ruinous to man\u2019s faith in\nhis immortality and his God, and subversive of all moral restraint.\n\nWe cast our gauntlet at the dogmatic theologians who would enslave\nboth history and science; and especially at the Vatican, whose\ndespotic pretensions have become hateful to the greater portion of\nenlightened Christendom. The clergy apart, none but the logician, the\ninvestigator, the dauntless explorer should meddle with books like\nthis. Such delvers after truth have the courage of their opinions.\n\n\n\n\n ISIS UNVEILED.\n\n _PART TWO.--RELIGION._\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n \u201cYea, the time cometh, that whomsoever killeth you, will\n think that he doeth God service.\u201d--_Gospel according to\n John_, xvi., 2.\n\n \u201cLet him be ANATHEMA ... who shall say that human Sciences\n ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one\n may be allowed to hold as true their assertions even when\n opposed to revealed doctrines.\u201d--_\u0152cumenical Council of\n 1870._\n\n \u201cGLOUC.--The Church! Where is it?\u201d--_King Henry VI._, Act\n i., Sc. 1.\n\n\nIn the United States of America, sixty thousand (60,428) men are\npaid salaries to teach the Science of God and His relations to His\ncreatures.\n\nThese men contract to impart to us the knowledge which treats of the\nexistence, character, and attributes of our Creator; His laws and\ngovernment; the doctrines we are to believe and the duties we are\nto practice. Five thousand (5,141) of them,[1] with the prospect of\n1273 theological students to help them in time, teach this science\naccording to a formula prescribed by the Bishop of Rome, to five\nmillion people. Fifty-five thousand (55,287) local and travelling\nministers, representing fifteen different denominations,[2] each\ncontradicting the other upon more or less vital theological\nquestions, instruct, in their respective doctrines, thirty-three\nmillion (33,500,000) other persons. Many of these teach according\nto the canons of the cis-Atlantic branch of an establishment which\nacknowledges a daughter of the late Duke of Kent as its spiritual\nhead. There are many hundred thousand Jews; some thousands of\nOrientals of all kinds; and a very few who belong to the Greek\nChurch. A man at Salt Lake City, with nineteen wives and more than\none hundred children and grandchildren, is the supreme spiritual\nruler over ninety thousand people, who believe that he is in frequent\nintercourse with the gods--for the Mormons are Polytheists as well as\nPolygamists, and their chief god is represented as living in a planet\nthey call Colob.\n\nThe God of the Unitarians is a bachelor; the Deity of the\nPresbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and the other orthodox\nProtestant sects a spouseless Father with one Son, who is identical\nwith Himself. In the attempt to outvie each other in the erection\nof their sixty-two thousand and odd churches, prayer-houses, and\nmeeting-halls, in which to teach these conflicting theological\ndoctrines, $354,485,581 have been spent. The value of the Protestant\nparsonages alone, in which are sheltered the disputants and their\nfamilies, is roughly calculated to approximate $54,115,297. Sixteen\nmillion (16,179,387) dollars, are, morever, contributed every year\nfor current expenses of the Protestant denominations only. One\nPresbyterian church in New York cost a round million; a Catholic\naltar alone, one-fourth as much!\n\nWe will not mention the multitude of smaller sects, communities, and\nextravagantly original little heresies in this country which spring\nup one year to die out the next, like so many spores of fungi after a\nrainy day. We will not even stop to consider the alleged millions of\nSpiritualists; for the majority lack the courage to break away from\ntheir respective religious denominations. These are the back-door\nNicodemuses.\n\nAnd now, with Pilate, let us inquire, What is truth? Where is it to\nbe searched for amid this multitude of warring sects? Each claims to\nbe based upon divine revelation, and each to have the keys of the\ncelestial gates. Is either in possession of this rare truth? Or, must\nwe exclaim with the Buddhist philosopher, \u201cThere is but one truth on\nearth, and it is unchangeable: and this is--that there is _no_ truth\non it!\u201d\n\nThough we have no disposition whatever to trench upon the ground that\nhas been so exhaustively gleaned by those learned scholars who have\nshown that every Christian dogma has its origin in a heathen rite,\nstill the facts which they have exhumed, since the enfranchisement\nof science, will lose nothing by repetition. Besides, we propose to\nexamine these facts from a different and perhaps rather novel point\nof view: that of the old philosophies as esoterically understood.\nThese we have barely glanced at in our first volume. We will use them\nas the standard by which to compare Christian dogmas and miracles\nwith the doctrines and phenomena of ancient magic, and the modern\n\u201cNew Dispensation,\u201d as Spiritualism is called by its votaries. Since\nthe materialists deny the phenomena without investigation, and since\nthe theologians in admitting them offer us the poor choice of two\npalpable absurdities--the Devil and miracles--we can lose little by\napplying to the theurgists, and they may actually help us to throw a\ngreat light upon a very dark subject.\n\nProfessor A. Butlerof, of the Imperial University of St. Petersburg,\nremarks in a recent pamphlet, entitled _Mediumistic Manifestations_,\nas follows: \u201cLet the facts (of modern spiritualism) belong if you\nwill to the number of those which were more or less known by the\nancients; let them be identical with those which in the dark ages\ngave importance to the office of Egyptian priest or Roman augur; let\nthem even furnish the basis of the sorcery of our Siberian Shaman;\n... let them be all these, and, if they are _real facts_, it is\nno business of ours. All the facts in nature _belong to science_,\nand every addition to the store of science enriches instead of\nimpoverishing her. If humanity has once admitted a truth, and then in\nthe blindness of self-conceit denied it, to return to its realization\nis a step forward and not backward.\u201d\n\nSince the day that modern science gave what may be considered the\ndeath-blow to dogmatic theology, by assuming the ground that religion\nwas full of mystery, and mystery is unscientific, the mental state\nof the educated class has presented a curious aspect. Society seems\nfrom that time to have been ever balancing itself upon one leg, on\nan unseen tight-rope stretched from our visible universe into the\ninvisible one; uncertain whether the end hooked on faith in the\nlatter might not suddenly break, and hurl it into final annihilation.\n\nThe great body of nominal Christians may be divided into three\nunequal portions: materialists, spiritualists, and Christians proper.\nThe materialists and spiritualists make common cause against the\nhierarchical pretensions of the clergy; who, in retaliation, denounce\nboth with equal acerbity. The materialists are as little in harmony\nas the Christian sects themselves--the Comtists, or, as they call\nthemselves, the positivists, being despised and hated to the last\ndegree by the schools of thinkers, one of which Maudsley honorably\nrepresents in England. Positivism, be it remembered, is that\n\u201creligion\u201d of the future about whose founder even Huxley has made\nhimself wrathful in his famous lecture, _The Physical Basis of Life_;\nand Maudsley felt obliged, in behalf of, to express himself thus: \u201cIt\nis no wonder that scientific men should be anxious to disclaim Comte\nas their law-giver, and to protest against such a king being set up\nto reign over them. Not conscious of any personal obligation to his\nwritings--conscious how much, in some respects, he has misrepresented\nthe spirit and pretensions of science--they repudiate the allegiance\nwhich his enthusiastic disciples would force upon them, and which\npopular opinion is fast coming to think a natural one. They do\nwell in thus making a timely assertion of independence; for if it\nbe not done soon, it will soon be too late to be done well.\u201d[3]\nWhen a materialistic doctrine is repudiated so strongly by two such\nmaterialists as Huxley and Maudsley, then we must think indeed that\nit is absurdity itself.\n\nAmong Christians there is nothing but dissension. Their various\nchurches represent every degree of religious belief, from the\nomnivorous credulity of blind faith to a condescending and high-toned\ndeference to the Deity which thinly masks an evident conviction of\ntheir own deific wisdom. All these sects believe more or less in the\nimmortality of the soul. Some admit the intercourse between the two\nworlds as a fact; some entertain the opinion as a sentiment; some\npositively deny it; and only a few maintain an attitude of attention\nand expectancy.\n\nImpatient of restraint, longing for the return of the dark ages,\nthe Romish Church frowns at the _diabolical_ manifestations, and\nindicates what she would do to their champions had she but the power\nof old. Were it not for the self-evident fact that she herself is\nplaced by science on trial, and that she is handcuffed, she would\nbe ready at a moment\u2019s notice to repeat in the nineteenth century\nthe revolting scenes of former days. As to the Protestant clergy, so\nfurious is their common hatred toward spiritualism, that as a secular\npaper very truly remarks: \u201cThey seem willing to undermine the public\nfaith in all the spiritual phenomena of the past, as recorded in the\n_Bible_, if they can only see the pestilent modern heresy stabbed to\nthe heart.\u201d[4]\n\nSummoning back the long-forgotten memories of the Mosaic laws, the\nRomish Church claims the monopoly of miracles, and of the right\nto sit in judgment over them, as being the sole heir thereto by\ndirect inheritance. The _Old Testament_, exiled by Colenso, his\npredecessors and contemporaries, is recalled from its banishment. The\nprophets, whom his Holiness the Pope condescends at last to place,\nif not on the same level with himself, at least at a less respectful\ndistance,[5] are dusted and cleaned. The memory of all the diabolical\nabracadabra is evoked anew. The blasphemous _horrors_ perpetrated\nby Paganism, its phallic worship, thaumaturgical wonders wrought\nby Satan, human sacrifices, incantations, witchcraft, magic, and\nsorcery are recalled and DEMONISM is confronted with _spiritualism_\nfor mutual recognition and identification. Our modern demonologists\nconveniently overlook a few insignificant details, among which is the\nundeniable presence of heathen phallism in the Christian symbols. A\nstrong spiritual element of this worship may be easily demonstrated\nin the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of\nGod; and a physical element equally proved in the fetish-worship of\nthe holy _limbs_ of Sts. Cosmo and Damiano, at Isernia, near Naples;\na successful traffic in which _ex-voto_ in wax was carried on by the\nclergy, annually, until barely a half century ago.[6]\n\nWe find it rather unwise on the part of Catholic writers to\npour out their vials of wrath in such sentences as these: \u201cIn a\nmultitude of pagodas, the phallic stone, ever and always assuming,\nlike the Grecian _batylos_, the brutally indecent form of the\n_lingham_ ... the Maha Deva.\u201d[7] Before casting slurs on a symbol\nwhose profound metaphysical meaning is too much for the modern\nchampions of that religion of sensualism _par excellence_, Roman\nCatholicism, to grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their\noldest churches, and change the form of the cupolas of their own\ntemples. The Mahody of Elephanta, the Round Tower of Bhangulpore,\nthe minarets of Islam--either rounded or pointed--are the originals\nof the _Campanile_ column of San Marco, at Venice, of the Rochester\nCathedral, and of the modern Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples,\nturrets, domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of the\nprimitive idea of the _lithos_, the upright phallus. \u201cThe western\ntower of St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, London,\u201d says the author of _The\nRosicrucians_, \u201cis one of the double _lithoi_ placed always in\nfront of every temple, Christian as well as heathen.\u201d[8] Moreover,\nin all Christian Churches, \u201cparticularly in Protestant churches,\nwhere they figure most conspicuously, the two tables of stone of the\nMosaic Dispensation are placed over the altar, side by side, as a\nunited stone, the tops of which are rounded.... The right stone is\n_masculine_, the left _feminine_.\u201d Therefore neither Catholics nor\nProtestants have a right to talk of the \u201cindecent forms\u201d of heathen\nmonuments so long as they ornament their own churches with the\nsymbols of the Lingham and Yoni, and even write the laws of their God\nupon them.\n\nAnother detail not redounding very particularly to the honor of the\nChristian clergy might be recalled in the word Inquisition. The\ntorrents of human blood shed by this _Christian_ institution, and\nthe number of its human sacrifices, are unparalleled in the annals of\nPaganism. Another still more prominent feature in which the clergy\nsurpassed their masters, the \u201cheathen,\u201d is _sorcery_. Certainly in\nno Pagan temple was black magic, in its real and true sense, more\npracticed than in the Vatican. While strongly supporting exorcism as\nan important source of revenue, they neglected magic as little as\nthe ancient heathen. It is easy to prove that the _sortilegium_, or\nsorcery, was widely practiced among the clergy and monks so late as\nthe last century, and is practiced occasionally even now.\n\nAnathematizing every manifestation of occult nature outside the\nprecincts of the Church, the clergy--notwithstanding proofs to the\ncontrary--call it \u201cthe work of Satan,\u201d \u201cthe snares of the fallen\nangels,\u201d who \u201crush in and out from the bottomless pit,\u201d mentioned by\nJohn in his kabalistic _Revelation_, \u201cfrom whence arises a smoke as\nthe smoke of a great furnace.\u201d \u201c_Intoxicated by its fumes, around\nthis pit are daily gathering millions of Spiritualists, to worship at\n\u201cthe Abyss of Baal._\u201d[9]\n\nMore than ever arrogant, stubborn, and despotic, now that she has\nbeen nearly upset by modern research, not daring to interfere with\nthe powerful champions of science, the Latin Church revenges herself\nupon the unpopular phenomena. A despot without a victim, is a word\nvoid of sense; a power which neglects to assert itself through\noutward, well-calculated effects, risks being doubted in the end.\nThe Church has no intention to fall into the oblivion of the ancient\nmyths, or to suffer her authority to be too closely questioned. Hence\nshe pursues, as well as the times permit, her traditional policy.\nLamenting the enforced extinction of her ally, the Holy Inquisition,\nshe makes a virtue of necessity. The only victims now within reach\nare the Spiritists of France. Recent events have shown that the meek\nspouse of Christ never disdains to retaliate on helpless victims.\n\nHaving successfully performed her part of _Deus-ex-Machina_ from\nbehind the French Bench, which has not scrupled to disgrace itself\nfor her, the Church of Rome sets to work and shows in the year\n1876 what she can do. From the whirling tables and dancing pencils\nof profane Spiritualism, the Christian world is warned to turn to\nthe divine \u201cmiracles\u201d of Lourdes. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical\nauthorities utilize their time in arranging for other more easy\ntriumphs, calculated to scare the superstitious out of their senses.\nSo, acting under orders, the clergy hurl dramatic, if not very\nimpressive anathemas from every Catholic diocese; threaten right\nand left; excommunicate and curse. Perceiving, finally, that her\nthunderbolts directed even against crowned heads fall about as\nharmlessly as the Jupiterean lightnings of Offenbach\u2019s _Calchas_,\nRome turns about in powerless fury against the victimized _prot\u00e9g\u00e9s_\nof the Emperor of Russia--the unfortunate Bulgarians and Servians.\nUndisturbed by evidence and sarcasm, unbaffled by proof, \u201cthe\nlamb of the Vatican\u201d impartially divides his wrath between the\nliberals of Italy, \u201cthe impious whose breath has the stench of the\nsepulchre,\u201d[10] the \u201cschismatic Russian _Sarmates_,\u201d and the heretics\nand spiritualists, \u201cwho worship at the bottomless pit where the great\nDragon lies in wait.\u201d\n\nMr. Gladstone went to the trouble of making a catalogue of what he\nterms the \u201cflowers of speech,\u201d disseminated through these Papal\ndiscourses. Let us cull a few of the chosen terms used by this\nvicegerent of Him who said that, \u201cwhosoever shall say _Thou fool_,\nshall be in danger of hell-fire.\u201d They are selected from authentic\ndiscourses. Those who oppose the Pope are \u201cwolves, Pharisees,\nthieves, liars, hypocrites, dropsical children of Satan, sons of\nperdition, of sin, and corruption, satellites of Satan in human\nflesh, monsters of hell, demons incarnate, stinking corpses, men\nissued from the pits of hell, traitors and Judases led by the spirit\nof hell; children of the deepest pits of hell,\u201d etc., etc.; the\nwhole piously collected and published by Don Pasquale di Franciscis,\nwhom Gladstone has, with perfect propriety, termed, \u201can accomplished\nprofessor of _flunkeyism_ in things spiritual.\u201d[11]\n\nSince his Holiness the Pope has such a rich vocabulary of\ninvectives at his command, why wonder that the Bishop of Toulouse\ndid not scruple to utter the most undignified falsehoods about the\nProtestants and Spiritualists of America--people doubly odious to a\nCatholic--in his address to his diocese: \u201cNothing,\u201d he remarks, \u201cis\nmore common in an era of unbelief than to see a _false revelation\nsubstitute itself for the true one_, and minds neglect the teachings\nof the Holy Church, to devote themselves to the study of divination\nand the occult sciences.\u201d With a fine episcopal contempt for\nstatistics, and strangely confounding in his memory the audiences\nof the revivalists, Moody and Sankey, and the patrons of darkened\nseance-rooms, he utters the unwarranted and fallacious assertion\nthat \u201cit has been proven that Spiritualism, in the United States,\nhas caused one-sixth of all the cases of suicide and insanity.\u201d\nHe says that it is not possible that the spirits \u201cteach either an\nexact science, because they are lying demons, or a useful science,\nbecause the character of the word of Satan, like Satan himself, is\nsterile.\u201d He warns his dear _collaborateurs_, that \u201cthe writings in\nfavor of Spiritualism are under the ban;\u201d and he advises them to let\nit be known that \u201cto frequent spiritual circles with the intention\nof accepting the doctrine, is to apostatize from the Holy Church,\nand assume the risk of excommunication;\u201d finally, says he, \u201cPublish\nthe fact that the teaching of no spirit should prevail against that\nof the pulpit of Peter, which is the teaching of the Spirit of God\nHimself!!\u201d\n\nAware of the many false teachings attributed by the Roman Church to\nthe Creator, we prefer disbelieving the latter assertion. The famous\nCatholic theologian, Tillemont, assures us in his work that \u201call the\nillustrious Pagans are condemned to the eternal torments of hell,\n_because_ they lived before the time of Jesus, and, therefore, could\nnot be benefited by the redemption!!\u201d He also assures us that the\nVirgin Mary personally testified to this truth over her own signature\nin a letter to a saint. Therefore, this is also a revelation--\u201cthe\nSpirit of God Himself\u201d teaching such charitable doctrines.\n\nWe have also read with great advantage the topographical descriptions\nof _Hell and Purgatory_ in the celebrated treatise under that name\nby a Jesuit, the Cardinal Bellarmin. A critic found that the author,\nwho gives the description from a _divine_ vision with which he was\nfavored, \u201cappears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer\u201d\nabout the secret tracts and formidable divisions of the \u201cbottomless\npit.\u201d Justin Martyr having actually committed to paper the heretical\nthought that after all Socrates might not be altogether fixed in\nhell, his Benedictine editor criticises this too benevolent father\nvery severely. Whoever doubts the Christian charity of the Church\nof Rome in this direction is invited to peruse the _Censure_ of\nthe Sorbonne, on Marmontel\u2019s _Belisarius_. The _odium theologicum_\nblazes in it on the dark sky of orthodox theology like an aurora\nborealis--the precursor of God\u2019s wrath, according to the teaching of\ncertain medi\u00e6val divines.\n\nWe have attempted in the first part of this work to show, by\nhistorical examples, how completely men of science have deserved\nthe stinging sarcasm of the late Professor de Morgan, who remarked\nof them that \u201cthey wear the priest\u2019s cast-off garb, dyed to escape\ndetection.\u201d The Christian clergy are, in like manner, attired in the\ncast-off garb of the _heathen_ priesthood; acting diametrically in\nopposition to their _God\u2019s_ moral precepts, but nevertheless, sitting\nin judgment over the whole world.\n\nWhen dying on the cross, the martyred Man of Sorrows forgave his\nenemies. His last words were a prayer in their behalf. He taught his\ndisciples to curse not, but to bless, even their foes. But the heirs\nof St. Peter, the self constituted representatives on earth of that\nsame meek Jesus, unhesitatingly curse whoever resists their despotic\nwill. Besides, was not the \u201cSon\u201d long since crowded by them into the\nbackground? They make their obeisance only to the Dowager Mother,\nfor--according to their teaching--again through \u201cthe direct Spirit\nof God,\u201d she alone acts as a mediatrix. The \u0152cumenical Council of\n1870 embodied the teaching into a dogma, to disbelieve which is to\nbe doomed forever to the \u2018bottomless pit.\u2019 The work of Don Pasquale\ndi Franciscis is positive on that point; for he tells us that, as\nthe Queen of Heaven owes to the present Pope \u201cthe finest gem in her\ncoronet,\u201d since he has conferred on her the unexpected honor of\nbecoming suddenly immaculate, there is nothing she cannot obtain from\nher Son for \u201cher Church.\u201d[12]\n\nSome years ago, certain travellers saw in Barri, Italy, a statue\nof the Madonna, arrayed in a flounced pink skirt over a swelling\n_crinoline_! Pious pilgrims who may be anxious to examine the\nregulation wardrobe of their God\u2019s mother may do so by going to\nSouthern Italy, Spain, and Catholic North and South America. The\nMadonna of Barri must still be there--between two vineyards and a\n_locanda_ (gin-shop). When last seen, a half-successful attempt had\nbeen made to clothe the infant Jesus; they had covered his legs with\na pair of dirty, scollop-edged pantaloons. An English traveller\nhaving presented the \u201cMediatrix\u201d with a green silk parasol, the\ngrateful population of the _contadini_, accompanied by the village\npriest, went in procession to the spot. They managed to stick the\nsunshade, opened, between the infant\u2019s back and the arm of the\nVirgin which embraced him. The scene and ceremony were both solemn\nand highly refreshing to our religious feelings. For there stood\nthe image of the goddess in its niche, surrounded with a row of\never-burning lamps, the flames of which, flickering in the breeze,\ninfect God\u2019s pure air with an offensive smell of olive oil. The\nMother and Son truly represent the two most conspicuous idols of\n_Monotheistic_ Christianity!\n\nFor a companion to the idol of the poor _contadini_ of Barri, go\nto the rich city of Rio Janeiro. In the Church of the Duomo del\nCandelaria, in a long hall running along one side of the church,\nthere might be seen, a few years ago, another Madonna. Along the\nwalls of the hall there is a line of saints, each standing on a\ncontribution-box, which thus forms a fit pedestal. In the centre\nof this line, under a gorgeously rich canopy of blue silk, is\nexhibited the Virgin Mary leaning on the arm of Christ. \u201cOur Lady\u201d is\narrayed in a very _d\u00e9collet\u00e9_ blue satin dress with short sleeves,\nshowing, to great advantage, a snow-white, exquisitely-moulded\nneck, shoulders, and arms. The skirt equally of blue satin with\nan overskirt of rich lace and gauze puffs, is as short as that of\na ballet-dancer; hardly reaching the knee, it exhibits a pair of\nfinely-shaped legs covered with flesh colored silk tights, and blue\nsatin French boots with very high red heels! The blonde hair of this\n\u201cMother of God\u201d is arranged in the latest fashion, with a voluminous\n_chignon_ and curls. As she leans on her Son\u2019s arm, her face is\nlovingly turned toward her Only-Begotten, whose dress and attitude\nare equally worthy of admiration. Christ wears an evening dress-coat,\nwith swallow-tail, black trousers, and low cut white vest; varnished\nboots, and white kid gloves, _over one of which_ sparkles a rich\ndiamond ring, worth many thousands we must suppose--a precious\nBrazilian jewel. Above this body of a modern Portuguese dandy, is a\nhead with the hair parted in the middle; a sad and solemn face, and\neyes whose patient look seems to reflect all the bitterness of this\nlast insult flung at the majesty of the Crucified.[13]\n\nThe Egyptian Isis was also represented as a Virgin Mother by her\ndevotees, and as holding her infant son, Horus, in her arms. In some\nstatues and _basso-relievos_, when she appears alone she is either\ncompletely nude or veiled from head to foot. But in the Mysteries,\nin common with nearly every other goddess, she is entirely veiled\nfrom head to foot, as a symbol of a mother\u2019s chastity. It would\nnot do us any harm were we to borrow from the ancients some of the\npoetic sentiment in their religions, and the innate veneration they\nentertained for _their_ symbols.\n\nIt is but fair to say at once that the last of the _true_ Christians\ndied with the last of the direct apostles. Max M\u00fcller forcibly asks:\n\u201cHow can a missionary in such circumstances meet the surprise and\nquestions of his pupils, unless he may point to that seed,[14] and\ntell them what Christianity was meant to be? unless he may show that,\nlike all other religions, Christianity too, has had its history; that\nthe Christianity of the nineteenth century is not the Christianity\nof the middle ages, and that the Christianity of the middle ages was\nnot that of the early Councils; that the Christianity of the early\nCouncils was not that of the Apostles, and that what has been said by\nChrist, that alone was well said?\u201d[15]\n\nThus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between\nmodern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the\nformer in a personal devil and in hell. \u201cThe Aryan nations had no\ndevil,\u201d says Max M\u00fcller. \u201cPluto, though of a sombre character, was a\nvery respectable personage; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a\nmischievous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too,\nlike Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans\nwere indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth,\nSatan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way.\u201d\n\nThe same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a different place\nfrom our region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an\nintermediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian\n_Hel_ or Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment;\nfor when Frigga, the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white\ngod, who died and found himself in the dark abodes of the shadows\n(Hades) sent Hermod, a son of Thor, in quest of her beloved child,\nthe messenger found him in the inexorable region--alas! but still\ncomfortably seated on a rock, and reading a book.[16] The Norse\nkingdom of the dead is moreover situated in the higher latitudes of\nthe Polar regions; it is a cold and cheerless abode, and neither the\ngelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur present the least\nsimilitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the miserable\n\u201cdamned\u201d sinners with which the Church so generously peoples it.\nNo more is it the Egyptian Amenthes, the region of judgment and\npurification; nor the Onder\u00e2h--the abyss of darkness of the Hindus;\nfor even the fallen angels hurled into it by Siva, are allowed\nby Parabrahma to consider it as an intermediate state, in which\nan opportunity is afforded them to prepare for higher degrees of\npurification and redemption from their wretched condition. The\nGehenna of the _New Testament_ was a locality outside the walls of\nJerusalem; and in mentioning it, Jesus used but an ordinary metaphor.\nWhence then came the dreary dogma of hell, that Archimedean lever\nof Christian theology, with which they have succeeded to hold in\nsubjection the numberless millions of Christians for nineteen\ncenturies? Assuredly not from the Jewish Scriptures, and we appeal\nfor corroboration to any well-informed Hebrew scholar.\n\nThe only designation of something approaching hell in the _Bible_\nis _Gehenna_ or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem, where was situated\nTophet, a place where a fire was perpetually kept for sanitary\npurposes. The prophet Jeremiah informs us that the Israelites used\nto sacrifice their children to Moloch-Hercules on that spot; and\nlater we find Christians quietly replacing this divinity by their\ngod of _mercy_, whose wrath will not be appeased, unless the Church\nsacrifices to him her unbaptized children and sinning sons on the\naltar of \u201ceternal damnation!\u201d\n\nWhence then did the divine learn so well the conditions of hell, as\nto actually divide its torments into two kinds, the _p\u00e6na damni_ and\np\u00e6n\u00e6 sensus, the former being the privation of the beatific vision;\nthe latter the _eternal_ pains _in a lake of fire and brimstone_?\nIf they answer us that it is in the _Apocalypse_ (xx. 10), we are\nprepared to demonstrate whence the theologist John himself derived\nthe idea, \u201cAnd _the devil_ that deceived them was cast into the lake\nof fire and brimstone, where _the beast_ and the false prophet are\nand shall be tormented for ever and ever,\u201d he says. Laying aside the\nesoteric interpretation that the \u201cdevil\u201d or tempting demon meant\nour own earthly body, which after death will surely dissolve in the\n_fiery_ or ethereal elements,[17] the word \u201ceternal\u201d by which our\ntheologians interpret the words \u201cfor ever and ever\u201d does not exist in\nthe Hebrew language, either as a word or meaning. There is no Hebrew\nword which properly expresses _eternity_; \u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd _oulam_, according to\nLe Clerc, only imports a time whose beginning or end is not known.\nWhile showing that this word does not mean _infinite_ duration, and\nthat in the _Old Testament_ the word _forever_ only signifies a long\ntime, Archbishop Tillotson has completely perverted its sense with\nrespect to the idea of hell-torments. According to his doctrine, when\nSodom and Gomorrah are said to be suffering \u201ceternal fire,\u201d we must\nunderstand it only in the sense of that fire not being extinguished\ntill both cities were entirely consumed. But, as to hell-fire the\nwords must be understood in the strictest sense of infinite duration.\nSuch is the decree of the learned divine. For the duration of the\npunishment of the wicked must be proportionate to the eternal\nhappiness of the righteous. So he says, \u201cThese (speaking of the\nwicked) \u201cshall go away \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cc\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd into _eternal_ punishment;\nbut the righteous \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b6\u03c9\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03b9\u03c9\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd into life eternal.\u201d\n\nThe Reverend T. Surnden,[18] commenting on the speculations of his\npredecessors, fills a whole volume with unanswerable arguments,\ntending to show that the locality _of Hell is in the sun_. We suspect\nthat the reverend speculator had read the _Apocalypse_ in bed,\nand had the nightmare in consequence. There are two verses in the\n_Revelation of John_ reading thus: \u201cAnd the fourth angel poured out\nhis vial upon the sun, and power was given him to scorch men with\nfire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name\nof God.\u201d[19] This is simply Pythagorean and kabalistic allegory. The\nidea is new neither with the above-mentioned author nor with John.\nPythagoras placed the \u201csphere of purification in the sun,\u201d which\nsun, with its sphere, he moreover locates in the middle of the\nuniverse,[20] the allegory having a double meaning: 1. Symbolically,\nthe central, spiritual sun, the Supreme Deity. Arrived at this region\nevery soul becomes purified of its sins, and unites itself forever\nwith its spirit, having previously suffered throughout all the lower\nspheres. 2. By placing the sphere of _visible_ fire in the middle\nof the universe, he simply taught the heliocentric system which\nappertained to the Mysteries, and was imparted only in the higher\ndegree of initiation. John gives to his Word a purely kabalistic\nsignificance, which no \u201cFathers,\u201d except those who had belonged to\nthe Neo-platonic school, were able to comprehend. Origen understood\nit well, having been a pupil of Ammonius Saccas; therefore we see him\nbravely denying the perpetuity of hell-torments. He maintains that\nnot only men, but even devils (by which term he meant disembodied\nhuman sinners), after a certain duration of punishment shall be\npardoned and finally restored to heaven.[21] In consequence of this\nand other such heresies Origen was, as a matter of course, exiled.\n\nMany have been the learned and truly-inspired speculations as to the\nlocality of hell. The most popular were those which placed it in the\ncentre of the earth. At a certain time, however, skeptical doubts\nwhich disturbed the placidity of faith in this highly-refreshing\ndoctrine arose in consequence of the meddling scientists of those\ndays. As a Mr. Swinden in our own century observes, the theory was\ninadmissible because of two objections: 1st, that a fund of fuel\nor sulphur sufficient to maintain so furious and constant a fire\ncould not be there supposed; and, 2d, that it must want the nitrous\nparticles in the air to sustain and keep it alive. \u201cAnd how,\u201d says\nhe, \u201ccan a fire be eternal, when, by degrees, the whole substance of\nthe earth must be consumed thereby?\u201d[22]\n\nThe skeptical gentleman had evidently forgotten that centuries ago\nSt. Augustine solved the difficulty. Have we not the word of this\nlearned divine that hell, nevertheless, _is_ in the centre of the\nearth, for \u201cGod supplies the central fire with air _by a miracle_?\u201d\nThe argument is unanswerable, and so we will not seek to upset it.\n\nThe Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma\nof the Church. And once that she had established it, she had to\nstruggle for over 1,700 years for the repression of a mysterious\nforce which it was her policy to make appear of diabolical origin.\nUnfortunately, in manifesting itself, this force invariably tends\nto upset such a belief by the ridiculous discrepancy it presents\nbetween the alleged cause and the effects. If the clergy have not\nover-estimated the real power of the \u201cArch-Enemy of God,\u201d it must be\nconfessed that he takes mighty precautions against being recognized\nas the \u201cPrince of Darkness\u201d who aims at our souls. If modern\n\u201cspirits\u201d are devils at all, as preached by the clergy, then they can\nonly be those \u201cpoor\u201d or \u201cstupid devils\u201d whom Max M\u00fcller describes as\nappearing so often in the German and Norwegian tales.\n\nNotwithstanding this, the clergy fear above all to be forced to\nrelinquish this hold on humanity. They are not willing to let us\njudge of the tree by its fruits, for that might sometimes force\nthem into dangerous dilemmas. They refuse, likewise, to admit,\nwith unprejudiced people, that the phenomena of Spiritualism has\nunquestionably spiritualized and reclaimed from evil courses many an\nindomitable atheist and skeptic. But, as they confess themselves,\nwhat is the use in a Pope, if there is no Devil?\n\nAnd so Rome sends her ablest advocates and preachers to the rescue\nof those perishing in \u201cthe bottomless pit.\u201d Rome employs her\ncleverest writers for this purpose--albeit they all indignantly\ndeny the accusation--and in the preface to every book put forth by\nthe prolific des Mousseaux, the French Tertullian of our century,\nwe find undeniable proofs of the fact. Among other certificates of\necclesiastical approval, every volume is ornamented with the text\nof a certain original letter addressed to the very pious author by\nthe world-known Father Ventura de Raulica, of Rome. Few are those\nwho have not heard this famous name. It is the name of one of the\nchief pillars of the Latin Church, the ex-General of the Order of the\nTheatins, Consultor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Examiner of\nBishops, and of the Roman Clergy, etc., etc., etc. This strikingly\ncharacteristic document will remain to astonish future generations by\nits spirit of unsophisticated demonolatry and unblushing sincerity.\nWe translate a fragment verbatim, and by thus helping its circulation\nhope to merit the blessings of Mother Church:[23]\n\n \u201cMONSIEUR AND EXCELLENT FRIEND:\n\n \u201cThe greatest victory of Satan was gained on that day when\n he succeeded in making himself denied.\n\n \u201cTo demonstrate the existence of Satan, is to re\u00ebstablish\n _one of the fundamental dogmas of the Church_, which serve\n as a basis for Christianity, and, without which, Satan would\n be but a name....\n\n \u201cMagic, mesmerism, magnetism, somnambulism, spiritualism,\n spiritism, hypnotism ... are only other names for SATANISM.\n\n \u201cTo bring out such a truth and show it in its proper light,\n is to unmask the enemy; it is to unveil the immense danger\n of certain practices, _reputed innocent_; it is to deserve\n well in the eyes of humanity and of religion.\n\n \u201cFATHER VENTURA DE RAULICA.\u201d\n\nA-men!\n\nThis is an unexpected honor indeed, for our American \u201ccontrols\u201d in\ngeneral, and the innocent \u201cIndian guides\u201d in particular. To be thus\nintroduced in Rome as princes of the Empire of Eblis, is more than\nthey could ever hope for in other lands.\n\nWithout in the least suspecting that she was working for the future\nwelfare of her enemies--the spiritualists and spiritists--the Church,\nsome twenty years since, in tolerating des Mousseaux and de Mirville\nas the biographers of the Devil, and giving her approbation thereto,\ntacitly confessed the literary copartnership.\n\nM. the Chevalier Gougenot des Mousseaux, and his friend and\ncollaborateur, the Marquis Eudes de Mirville, to judge by their long\ntitles, must be aristocrats _pur sang_, and they are, moreover,\nwriters of no small erudition and talent. Were they to show\nthemselves a little more parsimonious of double points of exclamation\nfollowing every vituperation, and invective against Satan and his\nworshippers, their style would be faultless. As it is, the crusade\nagainst the enemy of mankind was fierce, and lasted for over twenty\nyears.\n\nWhat with the Catholics piling up their psychological phenomena to\nprove the existence of a personal devil, and the Count de Gasparin,\nan ancient minister of Louis Philippe, collecting volumes of other\nfacts to prove the contrary, the spiritists of France have contracted\nan everlasting debt of gratitude toward the disputants. The existence\nof an unseen spiritual universe peopled with invisible beings has now\nbeen demonstrated beyond question. Ransacking the oldest libraries,\nthey have distilled from the historical records the quintessence\nof evidence. All epochs, from the Homeric ages down to the present\nday, have supplied their choicest materials to these indefatigable\nauthors. In trying to prove the authenticity of the miracles wrought\nby Satan in the days preceding the Christian era, as well as\nthroughout the middle ages, they have simply laid a firm foundation\nfor a study of the phenomena in our modern times.\n\nThough an ardent, uncompromising enthusiast, des Mousseaux unwittingly\ntransforms himself into the tempting demon, or--as he is fond of\ncalling the Devil--the \u201cserpent of _Genesis_.\u201d In his desire to\ndemonstrate in every manifestation the presence of the Evil One, he\nonly succeeds in demonstrating that Spiritualism and magic are no new\nthings in the world, but very ancient twin-brothers, whose origin must\nbe sought for in the earliest infancy of ancient India, Chaldea,\nBabylonia, Egypt, Persia, and Greece.\n\nHe proves the existence of \u201cspirits,\u201d whether these be angels or\ndevils, with such a clearness of argument and logic, and such\nan amount of evidence, historical, irrefutable, and strictly\nauthenticated, that little is left for spiritualist authors who may\ncome after him. How unfortunate that the scientists, who believe\nneither in devil nor spirit, are more than likely to ridicule M. des\nMousseaux\u2019s books without reading them, for they really contain so\nmany facts of profound scientific interest!\n\nBut what can we expect in our own age of unbelief, when we find\nPlato, over twenty-two centuries ago, complaining of the same? \u201cMe,\ntoo,\u201d says he, in his _Euthyphron_, \u201cwhen I say anything in the\npublic assembly concerning divine things, _and predict to them_ what\nis going to happen, they ridicule as mad; and although _nothing that\nI have predicted has proved untrue_, yet they envy all such men as we\nare. However, we ought not to heed, but pursue our own way.\u201d\n\nThe literary resources of the Vatican and other Catholic repositories\nof learning must have been freely placed at the disposal of these\nmodern authors. When one has such treasures at hand--original\nmanuscripts, papyri, and books pillaged from the richest heathen\nlibraries; old treatises on magic and alchemy; and records of all the\ntrials for witchcraft, and sentences for the same to rack, stake, and\ntorture, it is mighty easy to write volumes of accusations against\nthe Devil. We affirm on good grounds that there are hundreds of the\nmost valuable works on the occult sciences, which are sentenced to\neternal concealment from the public, but are attentively read and\nstudied by the privileged who have access to the Vatican Library.\nThe laws of nature are the same for heathen sorcerer as for Catholic\nsaint; and a \u201cmiracle\u201d may be produced as well by one as by the\nother, without the slightest intervention of God or devil.\n\nHardly had the manifestations begun to attract attention in Europe,\nthan the clergy commenced their outcry that their traditional enemy\nhad reappeared under another name, and \u201cdivine miracles\u201d also began\nto be heard of in isolated instances. First they were confined to\nhumble individuals, some of whom claimed to have them produced\nthrough the intervention of the Virgin Mary, saints and angels;\nothers--according to the clergy--began to suffer from _obsession_\nand _possession_; for the Devil must have his share of fame as\nwell as the Deity. Finding that, notwithstanding the warning, the\n_independent_, or so-called spiritual phenomena went on increasing\nand multiplying, and that these manifestations threatened to\nupset the carefully-constructed dogmas of the Church, the world\nwas suddenly startled by extraordinary intelligence. In 1864, a\nwhole community became possessed of the Devil. Morzine, and the\nawful stories of its demoniacs; Valleyres, and the narratives of\nits well-authenticated exhibitions of sorcery; and those of the\nPresbytere de Cideville curdled the blood in Catholic veins.\n\nStrange to say, the question has been asked over and over again,\nwhy the \u201cdivine\u201d miracles and most of the obsessions are so strictly\nconfined to Roman Catholic dioceses and countries? Why is it that\nsince the Reformation there has been scarcely one single divine\n\u201cmiracle\u201d in a Protestant land? Of course, the answer we must expect\nfrom Catholics is, that the latter are peopled by _heretics_, and\nabandoned by God. Then why are there no more Church-miracles in\nRussia, a country whose religion differs from the Roman Catholic\nfaith but in external forms of rites, its fundamental dogmas being\nidentically the same, except as to the emanation of the Holy\nGhost? Russia has her accepted saints and thaumaturgical relics,\nand miracle-working images. The St. Mitrophaniy of Voroneg is an\nauthenticated miracle-worker, but his miracles are limited to\nhealing; and though hundreds upon hundreds have been healed _through\nfaith_, and though the old cathedral is full of magnetic effluvia,\nand whole generations will go on _believing_ in his power, and some\npersons will always be healed, still no such miracles are heard of\nin Russia as the Madonna-walking, and Madonna letter-writing, and\nstatue-talking of Catholic countries. Why is this so? Simply because\nthe emperors have strictly forbidden that sort of thing. The Czar,\nPeter the Great, stopped every spurious \u201cdivine\u201d miracle with one\nfrown of his mighty brow. He declared he would have _no false_\nmiracles played by the holy _icones_ (images of saints), and they\ndisappeared forever.[24]\n\nThere are cases on record of isolated and independent phenomena\nexhibited by certain images in the last century; the latest was the\nbleeding of the cheek of an image of the Virgin, when a soldier of\nNapoleon cut her face in two. This miracle, alleged to have happened\nin 1812, in the days of the invasion by the \u201cgrand army,\u201d was the\nfinal farewell.[25] But since then, although the three successive\nemperors have been pious men, their will has been respected, and\nthe images and saints have remained quiet, and hardly been spoken\nof except as connected with religious worship. In Poland, a land of\nfurious ultramontanism, there were, at different times, desperate\nattempts at miracle-doing. They died at birth, however, for the\nargus-eyed police were there; a Catholic miracle in Poland, made\npublic by the priests, generally meaning political revolution,\nbloodshed, and war.\n\nIs it then, not permissible to at least suspect that if, in one\ncountry divine miracles may be arrested by civil and military law,\nand in another they _never occur_, we must search for the explanation\nof the two facts in some natural cause, instead of attributing them\nto either god or devil? In our opinion--if it is worth anything--the\nwhole secret may be accounted for as follows. In Russia, the clergy\nknow better than to bewilder their parishes, whose piety is sincere\nand faith strong without miracles; they know that nothing is better\ncalculated than the latter to sow seeds of distrust, doubt, and\nfinally of skepticism which leads directly to atheism. Moreover\nthe climate is less propitious, and the magnetism of the average\npopulation too positive, _too healthy_, to call forth _independent_\nphenomena; and fraud would not answer. On the other hand, neither in\nProtestant Germany, nor England, nor yet in America, since the days\nof the Reformation, has the clergy had access to any of the Vatican\nsecret libraries. Hence they are all but poor hands at the magic of\nAlbertus Magnus.\n\nAs for America being overflowed with sensitives and mediums, the\nreason for it is partially attributable to climatic influence\nand especially to the physiological condition of the population.\nSince the days of the Salem witchcraft, 200 years ago, when the\ncomparatively few settlers had pure and unadulterated blood in their\nveins, nothing much had been heard of \u201cspirits\u201d or \u201cmediums\u201d until\n1840.[26] The phenomena then first appeared among the ascetic and\nexalted Shakers, whose religious aspirations, peculiar mode of life,\nmoral purity, and physical chastity all led to the production of\nindependent phenomena of a psychological as well as physical nature.\nHundreds of thousands, and even millions of men from various climates\nand of different constitutions and habits, have, since 1692, invaded\nNorth America, and by intermarrying have substantially changed the\nphysical type of the inhabitants. Of what country in the world do the\nwomen\u2019s constitutions bear comparison with the delicate, nervous, and\nsensitive constitutions of the feminine portion of the population of\nthe United States? We were struck on our arrival in the country with\nthe semi-transparent delicacy of skin of the natives of both sexes.\nCompare a hard-working Irish factory girl or boy, with one from a\ngenuine American family. Look at their hands. One works as hard as\nthe other; they are of equal age, and both seemingly healthy; and\nstill, while the hands of the one, after an hour\u2019s soaping, will show\na skin little softer than that of a young alligator, those of the\nother, notwithstanding constant use, will allow you to observe the\ncirculation of the blood under the thin and delicate epidermis. No\nwonder, then, that while America is the conservatory of sensitives\nthe majority of its clergy, unable to produce divine or any other\nmiracles, stoutly deny the possibility of any phenomena except those\nproduced by tricks and juggling. And no wonder also that the Catholic\npriesthood, who are practically aware of the existence of magic\nand spiritual phenomena, and believe in them while dreading their\nconsequences, try to attribute the whole to the agency of the Devil.\n\nLet us adduce one more argument, if only for the sake of\ncircumstantial evidence. In what countries have \u201cdivine miracles\u201d\nflourished most, been most frequent and most stupendous? Catholic\nSpain, and Pontifical Italy, beyond question. And which more than\nthese two, has had access to ancient literature? Spain was famous for\nher libraries; the Moors were celebrated for their profound learning\nin alchemy and other sciences. The Vatican is the storehouse of an\nimmense number of ancient manuscripts. During the long interval of\nnearly 1,500 years they have been accumulating, from trial after\ntrial, books and manuscripts confiscated from their sentenced\nvictims, to their own profit. The Catholics may plead that the books\nwere generally committed to the flames; that the treatises of famous\nsorcerers and enchanters perished with their accursed authors. But\nthe Vatican, if it could speak, could tell a different story. It\nknows too well of the existence of certain closets and rooms, access\nto which is had but by the very few. It knows that the entrances to\nthese secret hiding-places are so cleverly concealed from sight in\nthe carved frame-work and under the profuse ornamentation of the\nlibrary-walls, that there have even been Popes who lived and died\nwithin the precincts of the palace without ever suspecting their\nexistence. But these Popes were neither Sylvester II., Benedict IX.,\nJohn XX., nor the VIth and VIIth Gregory; nor yet the famous Borgia\nof toxicological memory. Neither were those who remained ignorant of\nthe hidden lore friends of the sons of Loyola.\n\nWhere, in the records of European Magic, can we find cleverer\nenchanters than in the mysterious solitudes of the cloister? Albert\nMagnus, the famous Bishop and conjurer of Ratisbon, was never\nsurpassed in his art. Roger Bacon was a monk, and Thomas Aquinas one\nof the most learned pupils of Albertus. Trithemius, Abbot of the\nSpanheim Benedictines, was the teacher, friend, and confidant of\nCornelius Agrippa; and while the confederations of the Theosophists\nwere scattered broadcast about Germany, where they first originated,\nassisting one another, and struggling for years for the acquirement\nof esoteric knowledge, any person who knew how to become the favored\npupil of certain monks, might very soon be proficient in all the\nimportant branches of occult learning.\n\nThis is all in history and cannot be easily denied. Magic, in all its\naspects, was widely and nearly openly practiced by the clergy till\nthe Reformation. And even he who was once called the \u201cFather of the\nReformation,\u201d the famous John Reuchlin,[27] author of the _Mirific\nWord_ and friend of Pico di Mirandola, the teacher and instructor of\nErasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, was a kabalist and occultist.\n\nThe ancient _Sortilegium_, or divination by means of _Sortes_\nor lots--an art and practice now decried by the clergy as an\nabomination, designated by _Stat. 10 Jac._ as felony,[28] and by\n_Stat. 12 Carolus II._ excepted out of the general pardons, on the\nground of being _sorcery_--was widely practiced by the clergy and\nmonks. Nay, it was sanctioned by St. Augustine himself, who does\nnot \u201cdisapprove of this method of learning futurity, provided it be\nnot used for worldly purposes.\u201d More than that, he confesses having\npracticed it himself.[29]\n\nAye; but the clergy called it _Sortes Sanctorum_, when it was\nthey who practiced it; while the _Sortes Pr\u00e6nestin\u00e6_, succeeded\nby the _Sortes Homeric\u00e6_ and _Sortes Virgilian\u00e6_, were abominable\n_heathenism_, the worship of the Devil, when used by any one else.\n\nGregory de Tours informs us that when the clergy resorted to the\n_Sortes_ their custom was to lay the _Bible_ on the altar, and to\npray the Lord that He would discover His will, and disclose to them\nfuturity in one of the verses of the book. Gilbert de Nogent writes\nthat in his days (about the twelfth century) the custom was, at\nthe consecration of bishops, to consult the _Sortes Sanctorum_, to\nthereby learn the success and fate of the episcopate. On the other\nhand, we are told that the _Sortes Sanctorum_ were condemned by the\nCouncil of Agda, in 506. In this case again we are left to inquire,\nin which instance has the infallibility of the Church failed? Was it\nwhen she prohibited that which was practiced by her greatest saint\nand patron, Augustine, or in the twelfth century, when it was openly\nand with the sanction of the same Church practiced by the clergy for\nthe benefit of the bishop\u2019s elections? Or, must we still believe that\nin both of these contradictory cases the Vatican was inspired by the\ndirect \u201cspirit of God?\u201d\n\nIf any doubt that Gregory of Tours approved of a practice that\nprevails to this day, more or less, even among strict Protestants,\nlet them read this: \u201cLendastus, Earl of Tours, who was for ruining\nme with Queen Fredegonde, coming to Tours, big with evil designs\nagainst me, I withdrew to my oratory under a deep concern, where I\ntook the _Psalms_.... My heart revived within me when I cast my eyes\non this of the seventy-seventh _Psalm_: \u2018He caused them to go on with\nconfidence, whilst the sea swallowed up their enemies.\u2019 Accordingly,\nthe count spoke not a word to my prejudice; and leaving Tours that\nvery day, the boat in which he was, sunk in a storm, but his skill in\nswimming saved him.\u201d\n\nThe sainted bishop simply confesses here to having practiced a bit of\nsorcery. _Every mesmerizer knows the power of will during an intense\ndesire bent on any particular subject._ Whether in consequence of\n\u201cco-incidents\u201d or otherwise, the opened verse suggested to his mind\nrevenge by drowning. Passing the remainder of the day in \u201cdeep\nconcern,\u201d and possessed by this all-absorbing thought, the saint--it\nmay be unconsciously--exercises his will on the subject; and thus\nwhile imagining in the accident the hand of God, he simply becomes\na sorcerer exercising his magnetic will which reacts on the person\nfeared; and the count barely escapes with his life. Were the accident\ndecreed by God, the culprit would have been drowned; for a simple\nbath could not have altered his malevolent resolution against St.\nGregory had he been very intent on it.\n\nFurthermore, we find anathemas fulminated against this lottery of\nfate, at the council of Varres, which forbids \u201call ecclesiastics,\nunder pain of excommunication, to perform that kind of divination,\nor to pry into futurity, by looking into any book, or writing,\nwhatsoever.\u201d The same prohibition is pronounced at the councils of\nAgda in 506, of Orleans, in 511, of Auxerre in 595, and finally at\nthe council of Aenham in 1110; the latter condemning \u201csorcerers,\nwitches, diviners, such as occasioned death by magical operations,\nand who practiced fortune-telling by the holy-book lots;\u201d and the\ncomplaint of the joint clergy against de Garlande, their bishop at\nOrleans, and addressed to Pope Alexander III., concludes in this\nmanner: \u201cLet your apostolical hands put on strength to _strip naked_\nthe iniquity of this man, that the curse prognosticated on the day of\nhis consecration may overtake him; for the gospels being opened on\nthe altar _according to custom_, the first words were: _and the young\nman, leaving his linen cloth, fled from them naked_.\u201d[30]\n\nWhy then roast the lay-magicians and consulters of books, and\ncanonize the ecclesiastics? Simply because the medi\u00e6val as well as\nthe modern phenomena, manifested through laymen, whether produced\nthrough occult knowledge or happening independently, upset the claims\nof both the Catholic and Protestant Churches to divine miracles.\nIn the face of reiterated and unimpeachable evidence it became\nimpossible for the former to maintain successfully the assertion\nthat seemingly miraculous manifestations by the \u201cgood angels\u201d and\nGod\u2019s direct intervention could be produced exclusively by her chosen\nministers and holy saints. Neither could the Protestant well maintain\non the same ground that miracles had ended with the apostolic ages.\nFor, whether of the same nature or not, the modern phenomena claimed\nclose kinship with the biblical ones. The magnetists and healers of\nour century came into direct and open competition with the apostles.\nThe Zouave Jacob, of France, had outrivalled the prophet Elijah in\nrecalling to life persons who were seemingly dead; and Alexis, the\nsomnambulist, mentioned by Mr. Wallace in his work,[31] was, by his\nlucidity, putting to shame apostles, prophets, and the Sibyls of old.\nSince the burning of the last witch, the great Revolution of France,\nso elaborately prepared by the league of the secret societies and\ntheir clever emissaries, had blown over Europe and awakened terror\nin the bosom of the clergy. It had, like a destroying hurricane,\nswept away in its course those best allies of the Church, the Roman\nCatholic aristocracy. A sure foundation was now laid for the right of\nindividual opinion. The world was freed from ecclesiastical tyranny\nby opening an unobstructed path to Napoleon the Great, who had given\nthe deathblow to the Inquisition. This great slaughter-house of the\nChristian Church--wherein she butchered, in the name of the Lamb, all\nthe sheep arbitrarily declared scurvy--was in ruins, and she found\nherself left to her own responsibility and resources.\n\nSo long as the phenomena had appeared only sporadically, she had\nalways felt herself powerful enough to repress the consequences.\nSuperstition and belief in the Devil were as strong as ever, and\nScience had not yet dared to publicly measure her forces with those\nof supernatural Religion. Meanwhile the enemy had slowly but surely\ngained ground. All at once it broke out with an unexpected violence.\n\u201cMiracles\u201d began to appear in full daylight, and passed from their\nmystic seclusion into the domain of natural law, where the profane\nhand of Science was ready to strip off their sacerdotal mask. Still,\nfor a time, the Church held her position, and with the powerful help\nof superstitious fear checked the progress of the intruding force.\nBut, when in succession appeared mesmerists and somnambulists,\nreproducing the physical and mental phenomenon of ecstasy, hitherto\nbelieved to be the special gift of saints; when the passion for\nthe turning tables had reached in France and elsewhere its climax\nof fury; when the psychography--alleged spiritual--from a simple\ncuriosity had developed itself and settled into an unabated interest,\nand finally ebbed into religious mysticism; when the echoes aroused\nby the first raps of Rochester, crossing the oceans, spread until\nthey were re-percussed from nearly every corner of the world--then,\nand only then, the Latin Church was fully awakened to a sense of\ndanger. Wonder after wonder was reported to have occurred in the\nspiritual circles and the lecture-rooms of the mesmerists; the sick\nwere healed, the blind made to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to\nhear. J. R. Newton in America, and Du Potet in France, were healing\nthe multitude without the slightest claim to divine intervention. The\ngreat discovery of Mesmer, which reveals to the earnest inquirer the\nmechanism of nature, mastered, as if by magical power, organic and\ninorganic bodies.\n\nBut this was not the worst. A more direful calamity for the Church\noccurred in the evocation from the upper and nether worlds of a\nmultitude of \u201cspirits,\u201d whose private bearing and conversation gave\nthe direct lie to the most cherished and profitable dogmas of the\nChurch. These \u201cspirits\u201d claimed to be the identical entities, in a\ndisembodied state, of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, friends\nand acquaintances of the persons viewing the weird phenomena. The\nDevil seemed to have no objective existence, and this struck at the\nvery foundation upon which the chair of St. Peter rested.[32] Not a\nspirit except the mocking mannikins of Planchette would confess to\nthe most distant relationship with the Satanic majesty, or accredit\nhim with the governorship of a single inch of territory. The clergy\nfelt their prestige growing weaker every day, as they saw the people\nimpatiently shaking off, in the broad daylight of truth, the dark\nveils with which they had been blindfolded for so many centuries.\nThen finally, fortune, which previously had been on their side in the\nlong-waged conflict between theology and science, deserted to their\nadversary. The help of the latter to the study of the occult side of\nnature was truly precious and timely, and science has unwittingly\nwidened the once narrow path of the phenomena into a broad highway.\nHad not this conflict culminated at the nick of time, we might have\nseen, reproduced on a miniature scale the disgraceful scenes of the\nepisodes of Salem witchcraft and the Nuns of Loudun. As it was, the\nclergy were muzzled.\n\nBut if science has unintentionally helped the progress of the occult\nphenomena, the latter have reciprocally aided science herself. Until\nthe days when newly-reincarnated philosophy boldly claimed its place\nin the world, there had been but few scholars who had undertaken\nthe difficult task of studying comparative theology. This science\noccupies a domain heretofore penetrated by few explorers. The\nnecessity which it involved of being well acquainted with the dead\nlanguages, necessarily limited the number of students. Besides, there\nwas less popular need for it so long as people could not replace the\nChristian orthodoxy by something more tangible. It is one of the most\nundeniable facts of psychology, that the average man can as little\nexist out of a religious element of some kind, as a fish out of the\nwater. The voice of truth, \u201ca voice stronger than the voice of the\nmightiest thunder,\u201d speaks to the inner man in the nineteenth century\nof the Christian era, as it spoke in the corresponding century B.C.\nIt is a useless and unprofitable task to offer to humanity the\nchoice between a future life and annihilation. The only chance that\nremains for those friends of human progress who seek to establish\nfor the good of mankind a faith, henceforth stripped entirely of\nsuperstition and dogmatic fetters is to address them in the words\nof Joshua: \u201cChoose ye this day whom you will serve; whether the gods\nwhich your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood,\nor the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell.\u201d[33]\n\n\u201cThe science of religion,\u201d wrote Max M\u00fcller in 1860, \u201cis only just\nbeginning.... During the last fifty years the authentic documents\nof the most important religions in the world _have been recovered\nin a most unexpected and almost miraculous manner_.[34] We have now\nbefore us the Canonical books of Buddhism; the _Zend-Avesta_ of\nZoroaster is no longer a sealed book; and the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_\nhave revealed a state of religions anterior to the first beginnings\nof that mythology which in Homer and Hesiod stands before us as a\nmouldering ruin.\u201d[35]\n\nIn their insatiable desire to extend the dominion of blind faith, the\nearly architects of Christian theology had been forced to conceal, as\nmuch as it was possible, the true sources of the same. To this end\nthey are said to have burned or otherwise destroyed all the original\nmanuscripts on the _Kabala_, magic, and occult sciences upon which\nthey could lay their hands. They ignorantly supposed that the most\ndangerous writings of this class had perished with the last Gnostic;\nbut some day they may discover their mistake. Other authentic and as\nimportant documents will perhaps re\u00e4ppear in a \u201cmost unexpected and\nalmost miraculous manner.\u201d\n\nThere are strange traditions current in various parts of the East--on\nMount Athos and in the Desert of Nitria, for instance--among certain\nmonks, and with learned Rabbis in Palestine, who pass their lives in\ncommenting upon the _Talmud_. They say that not all the rolls and\nmanuscripts, reported in history to have been burned by C\u00e6sar, by\nthe Christian mob, in 389, and by the Arab General Amru, perished as\nit is commonly believed; and the story they tell is the following:\nAt the time of the contest for the throne, in 51 B.C., between\nCleopatra and her brother Dionysius Ptolemy, the Bruckion, which\ncontained over seven hundred thousand rolls, all bound in wood and\n_fire-proof_ parchment, was undergoing repairs, and a great portion\nof the original manuscripts, considered among the most precious,\nand which were not duplicated, were stored away in the house of one\nof the librarians. As the fire which consumed the rest was but the\nresult of accident, no precautions had been taken at the time. But\nthey add, that several hours passed between the burning of the fleet,\nset on fire by C\u00e6sar\u2019s order, and the moment when the first buildings\nsituated near the harbor caught fire in their turn; and that all the\nlibrarians, aided by several hundred slaves attached to the museum,\nsucceeded in saving the most precious of the rolls. So perfect and\nsolid was the fabric of the parchment, that while in some rolls the\ninner pages and the wood-binding were reduced to ashes, of others\nthe parchment binding remained unscorched. These particulars were\nall written out in Greek, Latin, and the Chaldeo-Syriac dialect, by\na learned youth named Theodas, one of the scribes employed in the\nmuseum. One of these manuscripts is alleged to be preserved till\nnow in a Greek convent; and the person who narrated the tradition\nto us had seen it himself. He said that many more will see it\nand learn where to look for important documents, when a certain\nprophecy will be fulfilled; adding, that most of these works could\nbe found in Tartary and India.[36] The monk showed us a copy of the\noriginal, which, of course, we could read but poorly, as we claim\nbut little erudition in the matter of dead languages. But we were\nso particularly struck by the vivid and picturesque translation of\nthe holy father, that we perfectly remember some curious paragraphs,\nwhich run, as far as we can recall them, as follows:--\u201cWhen the Queen\nof the Sun (Cleopatra) was brought back to the half-ruined city,\nafter the fire had devoured the _Glory of the World_; and when she\nsaw the mountains of books--or rolls--covering the half-consumed\nsteps of the _estrada_; and when she perceived that the inside was\ngone and the indestructible covers alone remained, she wept in rage\nand fury, and cursed the meanness of her fathers who had grudged the\ncost of the real Pergamos for the inside as well as the outside of\nthe precious rolls.\u201d Further, our author, Theodas, indulges in a joke\nat the expense of the queen for believing that nearly all the library\nwas burned; when, in fact, hundreds and thousands of the choicest\nbooks were safely stored in his own house and those of other scribes,\nlibrarians, students, and philosophers.\n\nNo more do sundry very learned Copts scattered all over the East in\nAsia Minor, Egypt, and Palestine believe in the total destruction\nof the subsequent libraries. For instance, they say that out of\nthe library of Attalus III. of Pergamus, presented by Antony to\nCleopatra, not a volume was destroyed. At that time, according to\ntheir assertions, from the moment that the Christians began to\ngain power in Alexandria--about the end of the fourth century--and\nAnatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, began to insult the national gods, the\nPagan philosophers and learned theurgists adopted effective measures\nto preserve the repositories of their sacred learning. Theophilus,\na bishop, who left behind him the reputation of a most rascally and\nmercenary villain, was accused by one named Antoninus, a famous\ntheurgist and eminent scholar of occult science of Alexandria, with\nbribing the slaves of the Serapion to steal books which he sold to\nforeigners at great prices. History tells us how Theophilus had\nthe best of the philosophers, in A.D. 389; and how his successor\nand nephew, the no less infamous Cyril, butchered Hypatia. Suidas\ngives us some details about Antoninus, whom he calls Antonius, and\nhis eloquent friend Olympus, the defender of the Serapion. But\nhistory is far from being complete in the miserable remnants of\nbooks, which, crossing so many ages, have reached our own learned\ncentury; it fails to give the facts relating to the first five\ncenturies of Christianity which are preserved in the numerous\ntraditions current in the East. Unauthenticated as these may appear,\nthere is unquestionably in the heap of chaff much good grain. That\nthese traditions are not oftener communicated to Europeans is not\nstrange, when we consider how apt our travellers are to render\nthemselves antagonistic to the natives by their skeptical bearing\nand, occasionally, dogmatic intolerance. When exceptional men like\nsome arch\u00e6ologists, who knew how to win the confidence and even\nfriendship of certain Arabs, are favored with precious documents,\nit is declared simply a \u201ccoincidence.\u201d And yet there are widespread\ntraditions of the existence of certain subterranean, and immense\ngalleries, in the neighborhood of Ishmonia--the \u201cpetrified City,\u201d\nin which are stored numberless manuscripts and rolls. For no amount\nof money would the Arabs go near it. At night, they say, from the\ncrevices of the desolate ruins, sunk deep in the unwatered sands of\nthe desert, stream the rays from lights carried to and fro in the\ngalleries by no human hands. The Afrites study the literature of the\nantediluvian ages, according to their belief, and the Djin learns\nfrom the magic rolls the lesson of the following day.\n\nThe _Encyclopedia Britannica_, in its article on Alexandria, says:\n\u201cWhen the temple of Serapis was demolished ... the valuable library\nwas _pillaged_ or destroyed; and _twenty_ years afterwards[37] the\n_empty shelves_ excited the regret ... etc.\u201d But it does not state\nthe subsequent fate of the _pillaged_ books.\n\nIn rivalry of the fierce Mary-worshippers of the fourth century,\nthe modern clerical persecutors of liberalism and \u201cheresy\u201d would\nwillingly shut up all the heretics and their books in some modern\nSerapion and burn them alive.[38] The cause of this hatred is\nnatural. Modern research has more than ever unveiled the secret. \u201cIs\nnot the worship of saints and angels now,\u201d said Bishop Newton, years\nago, \u201cin all respects the same that the worship of demons was in\nformer times? The name only is different, the thing is identically\nthe same ... the very same temples, the very same images, which were\nonce consecrated to Jupiter and the other demons, are now consecrated\nto the Virgin Mary and other saints ... the whole of Paganism is\nconverted and applied _to Popery_.\u201d\n\nWhy not be impartial and add that \u201ca good portion of it was adopted\nby Protestant religions also?\u201d\n\nThe very apostolic designation _Peter_ is from the Mysteries. The\nhierophant or supreme pontiff bore the Chaldean title \u05e4\u05ea\u05e8, _peter_,\nor interpreter. The names Phtah, Peth\u2019r, the residence of Balaam,\nPatara, and Patras, the names of oracle-cities, _pateres_ or\n_pateras_ and, perhaps, Buddha,[39] all come from the same root.\nJesus says: \u201cUpon this _petra_ I will build my Church, and the\ngates, or rulers of Hades, shall not prevail against it;\u201d meaning by\n_petra_ the rock-temple, and by metaphor, the Christian Mysteries;\nthe adversaries to which were the old mystery-gods of the underworld,\nwho were worshipped in the rites of Isis, Adonis, Atys, Sabazius,\nDionysus, and the Eleusinia. No _apostle_ Peter was ever at Rome; but\nthe Pope, seizing the sceptre of the _Pontifex Maximus_, the keys of\nJanus and Kubel\u00e9, and adorning his Christian head with the cap of\nthe _Magna Mater_, copied from that of the tiara of Brahm\u00e2tma, the\nSupreme Pontiff of the Initiates of old India, became the successor\nof the Pagan high priest, the real Peter-Roma, or _Petroma_.[40]\n\nThe Roman Catholic Church has two far mightier enemies than the\n\u201cheretics\u201d and the \u201cinfidels;\u201d and these are--Comparative Mythology\nand Philology. When such eminent divines as the Rev. James Freeman\nClarke go so much out of their way to prove to their readers that\n\u201cCritical Theology from the time of Origen and Jerome ... and the\nControversial Theology during fifteen centuries, has not consisted in\naccepting on authority the opinions of other people,\u201d but has shown,\non the contrary, much \u201cacute and comprehensive reasoning,\u201d we can but\nregret that so much scholarship should have been wasted in attempting\nto prove that which a fair survey of the history of theology upsets\nat every step. In these \u201ccontroversies\u201d and critical treatment of the\ndoctrines of the Church one can certainly find any amount of \u201cacute\nreasoning,\u201d but far more of a still acuter sophistry.\n\nRecently the mass of cumulative evidence has been re-inforced to an\nextent which leaves little, if any, room for further controversy. A\nconclusive opinion is furnished by too many scholars to doubt the\nfact that India was the _Alma-Mater_, not only of the civilization,\narts, and sciences, but also of all the great religions of antiquity;\nJudaism, and hence Christianity, included. Herder places the cradle\nof humanity in India, and shows Moses as a clever and relatively\n_modern_ compiler of the ancient Brahmanical traditions: \u201cThe river\nwhich encircles the country (India) is the sacred Ganges, which\nall Asia considers as the paradisaical river. There, also, is the\nbiblical Gihon, which is none else but the Indus. The Arabs call it\nso unto this day, and the names of the countries watered by it are\nyet existing among the Hindus.\u201d Jacolliot claims to have translated\nevery ancient palm-leaf manuscript which he had the fortune of\nbeing allowed by the Brahmans of the pagodas to see. In one of his\ntranslations, we found passages which reveal to us the _undoubted\norigin of the keys_ of St. Peter, and account for the subsequent\nadoption of the symbol by their Holinesses, the Popes of Rome.\n\nHe shows us, on the testimony of the _Agrouchada Parikshai_, which he\nfreely translates as \u201cthe _Book of Spirits_\u201d (Pitris), that centuries\nbefore our era the _initiates_ of the temple chose a Superior\nCouncil, presided over by the Brahm-\u00e2tma or supreme chief of all\nthese _Initiates_. That this pontificate, which could be exercised\nonly by a Brahman who had reached the age of eighty years;[41] that\nthe Brahm-\u00e2tma was sole guardian of the mystic formula, _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of\nevery science, contained in the three mysterious letters,\n\n =A=\n\n =U= =M=\n\nwhich signify _creation_, _conservation_, and _transformation_. He\nalone could expound its meaning in the presence of the initiates\nof the third and supreme degree. Whomsoever among these initiates\nrevealed to a profane a single one of the truths, even the smallest\nof the secrets entrusted to his care, was put to death. He who\nreceived the confidence had to share his fate.\n\n\u201cFinally, to crown this able system,\u201d says Jacolliot, \u201cthere existed\na word still more superior to the mysterious monosyllable--A U M, and\nwhich rendered him who came into the possession of its key nearly the\nequal of Brahma himself. The Brahm-\u00e2tma alone possessed this key, and\ntransmitted it in a sealed casket to his successor.\n\n\u201cThis unknown word, of which no human power could, even to-day, when\nthe Brahmanical authority has been crushed under the Mongolian and\nEuropean invasions, to-day, when each pagoda has its Brahm-\u00e2tma,[42]\n_force the disclosure_, was engraved in a golden triangle and\npreserved in a sanctuary of the temple of Asgartha, whose Brahm-\u00e2tma\nalone held the keys. He also bore upon his tiara _two crossed keys_\nsupported by two kneeling Brahmans, symbol of the precious deposit\nof which he had the keeping.... This word and this triangle were\nengraved upon the tablet of the ring that this religious chief wore\nas one of the signs of his dignity; it was also framed in a golden\nsun on the altar, where every morning the Supreme Pontiff offered\nthe sacrifice of the sarvameda, or sacrifice to all the forces of\nnature.\u201d[43]\n\nIs this clear enough? And will the Catholics still maintain that it\nwas the Brahmans of 4,000 years ago who copied the ritual, symbols,\nand dress of the Roman Pontiffs? We would not feel in the least\nsurprised.\n\nWithout going very far back into antiquity for comparisons, if we\nonly stop at the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, and contrast\nthe so-called \u201cheathenism\u201d of the third Neo-platonic Eclectic School\nwith the growing Christianity, the result may not be favorable to\nthe latter. Even at that early period, when the new religion had\nhardly outlined its contradictory dogmas; when the champions of the\nbloodthirsty Cyril knew not themselves whether Mary was to become\n\u201cthe Mother of God,\u201d or rank as a \u201cdemon\u201d in company with Isis; when\nthe memory of the meek and lowly Jesus still lingered lovingly in\nevery Christian heart, and his words of mercy and charity vibrated\nstill in the air, even then the Christians were outdoing the Pagans\nin every kind of ferocity and religious intolerance.\n\nAnd if we look still farther back, and seek for examples of true\n_Christism_, in ages when Buddhism had hardly superseded Brahmanism\nin India, and the name of Jesus was only to be pronounced three\ncenturies later, what do we find? Which of the holy pillars of the\nChurch has ever elevated himself to the level of religious tolerance\nand noble simplicity of character of some heathen? Compare, for\ninstance, the Hindu Asoka, who lived 300 B.C., and the Carthaginian\nSt. Augustine, who flourished three centuries after Christ. According\nto Max M\u00fcller, this is what is found engraved on the rocks of Girnar,\nDhauli, and Kapurdigiri:\n\n\u201cPiyadasi, the king beloved of the gods, desires that the ascetics\n_of all creeds_ might reside in all places. All these ascetics\nprofess alike the command which people should exercise over\nthemselves, and the purity of the soul. _But people have different\nopinions and different inclinations._\u201d\n\nAnd here is what Augustine wrote after his baptism: \u201cWondrous depth\nof thy words! whose surface, behold! is before us, inviting to\nlittle ones; yet are they a wondrous depth, O my God, a wondrous\ndepth! It is awful to look therein; yes ... an awfulness of honor,\nand a trembling of love. Thy enemies [read Pagans] thereof I _hate_\nvehemently; Oh, _that thou wouldst slay them_ with thy two-edged\nsword, that they might no longer be enemies to it; for _so do I love\nto have them slain_.\u201d[44]\n\nWonderful spirit of Christianity; and that from a Manichean converted\nto the religion of one who even on his cross prayed for his enemies!\n\nWho the enemies of the \u201cLord\u201d were, according to the Christians, is\nnot difficult to surmise; the few inside the Augustinian fold were\nHis new children and favorites, who had supplanted in His affections\nthe sons of Israel, His \u201cchosen people.\u201d The rest of mankind were\nHis natural foes. The teeming multitudes of heathendom were proper\nfood for the flames of hell; the handful within the Church communion,\n\u201cheirs of salvation.\u201d\n\nBut if such a proscriptive policy was just, and its enforcement was\n\u201csweet savor\u201d in the nostrils of the \u201cLord,\u201d why not scorn also\nthe Pagan rites and philosophy? Why draw so deep from the wells of\nwisdom, dug and filled up to brim by the same heathen? Or did the\nfathers, in their desire to imitate the chosen people whose time-worn\nshoes they were trying to fit upon their feet, contemplate the\nre\u00ebnaction of the spoliation-scene of the _Exodus_? Did they propose,\nin fleeing from heathendom as the Jews did from Egypt, to carry off\nthe valuables of its religious allegories, as the \u201cchosen ones\u201d did\nthe gold and silver ornaments?\n\nIt certainly does seem as if the events of the first centuries of\nChristianity were but the reflection of the images thrown upon\nthe mirror of the future at the time of the Exodus. During the\nstormy days of Iren\u00e6us, the Platonic philosophy, with its mystical\nsubmersion into Deity, was not so obnoxious after all to the new\ndoctrine as to prevent the Christians from helping themselves to its\nabstruse metaphysics in every way and manner. Allying themselves with\nthe ascetical theurapeut\u00e6--forefathers and models of the Christian\nmonks and hermits, it was in Alexandria, let it be remembered, that\nthey laid the first foundations of the purely Platonic trinitarian\ndoctrine. It became the Plato-Philonean doctrine later, and such as\nwe find it now. Plato considered the divine nature under a three-fold\nmodification of the _First Cause_, the reason or _Logos_, and the\nsoul or spirit of the universe. \u201cThe three archial or original\nprinciples,\u201d says Gibbon,[45] \u201cwere represented in the Platonic\nsystem as three gods, united with each other by a mysterious and\nineffable generation.\u201d Blending this transcendental idea with the\nmore hypostatic figure of the _Logos_ of Philo, whose doctrine was\nthat of the oldest Kabala, and who viewed the King Messiah, as the\nmetatron, or \u201cthe angel of the Lord,\u201d the _Legatus_ descended in\nflesh, but not the _Ancient of Days_ Himself;[46] the Christians\nclothed with this mythical representation of the Mediator for the\nfallen race of Adam, Jesus, the son of Mary. Under this unexpected\ngarb his personality was all but lost. In the modern Jesus of the\nChristian Church, we find the ideal of the imaginative Iren\u00e6us, not\nthe adept of the Essenes, the obscure reformer from Galilee. We see\nhim under the disfigured Plato-Philonean mask, not as the disciples\nheard him on the mount.\n\nSo far then the heathen philosophy had helped them in the building\nof the principal dogma. But when the theurgists of the third\nNeo-platonic school, deprived of their ancient Mysteries, strove\nto blend the doctrines of Plato with those of Aristotle, and by\ncombining the two philosophies added to their theosophy the primeval\ndoctrines of the Oriental _Kabala_, then the Christians from rivals\nbecame persecutors. Once that the metaphysical allegories of Plato\nwere being prepared to be discussed in public in the form of Grecian\ndialectics, all the elaborate system of the Christian trinity would\nbe unravelled and the divine prestige completely upset. The eclectic\nschool, reversing the order, had adopted the inductive method; and\nthis method became its death-knell. Of all things on earth, logic and\nreasonable explanations were the most hateful to the new religion of\nmystery; for they threatened to unveil the whole ground-work of the\ntrinitarian conception; to apprise the multitude of the doctrine of\nemanations, and thus destroy the unity of the whole. It could not be\npermitted, and it was not. History records the _Christ_-like means\nthat were resorted to.\n\nThe universal doctrine of emanations, adopted from time immemorial\nby the greatest schools which taught the kabalistic, Alexandrian,\nand Oriental philosophers, gives the key to that panic among the\nChristian fathers. That spirit of Jesuitism and clerical craft, which\nprompted Parkhurst, many centuries later, to suppress in his _Hebrew\nLexicon_ the true meaning of the first word of _Genesis_, originated\nin those days of war against the expiring Neo-platonic and eclectic\nschool. The fathers had decided to pervert the meaning of the word\n\u201c_daimon_,\u201d[47] and they dreaded above all to have the esoteric and\ntrue meaning of the word _Rasit_ unveiled to the multitudes; for if\nonce the true sense of this sentence, as well as that of the Hebrew\nword _asdt_ (translated in the Septuagint \u201c_angels_,\u201d while it\nmeans emanations),[48] were understood rightly, the mystery of the\nChristian trinity would have crumbled, carrying in its downfall the\nnew religion into the same heap of ruins with the ancient Mysteries.\nThis is the true reason why dialecticians, as well as Aristotle\nhimself, the \u201cprying philosopher,\u201d were ever obnoxious to Christian\ntheology. Even Luther, while on his work of reform, feeling the\nground insecure under his feet, notwithstanding that the dogmas had\nbeen reduced by him to their simplest expression, gave full vent to\nhis fear and hatred for Aristotle. The amount of abuse he heaped\nupon the memory of the great logician can only be equalled--never\nsurpassed--by the Pope\u2019s anathemas and invectives against the\nliberals of the Italian government. Compiled together, they might\neasily fill a copy of a new encyclop\u00e6dia with models for monkish\ndiatribes.\n\nOf course the Christian clergy can never get reconciled with a\ndoctrine based on the application of strict logic to discursive\nreasoning. The number of those who have abandoned theology on this\naccount has never been made known. They have asked questions and\nbeen forbidden to ask them; hence, separation, disgust, and often a\ndespairing plunge into the abyss of atheism. The Orphean views of\nether as chief _medium between_ God and created matter were likewise\ndenounced. The Orphic \u00c6ther recalled too vividly the _Archeus_,\nthe Soul of the World, and the latter was in its metaphysical\nsense as closely related to the emanations, being the first\nmanifestation--Sephira, or Divine Light. And when could the latter be\nmore feared than at that critical moment?\n\nOrigen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, and Maimonides,\non the authority of the _Targum_ of Jerusalem, the orthodox and\ngreatest authority of the Jews, held that the first two words in\nthe book of _Genesis_--B-RASIT, mean _Wisdom_, or the _Principle_.\nAnd that the idea of these words meaning \u201c_in the beginning_\u201d was\nnever shared but by the profane, who were not allowed to penetrate\nany deeper into the esoteric sense of the sentence. Beausobre,\nand after him Godfrey Higgins, have demonstrated the fact. \u201cAll\nthings,\u201d says the _Kabala_, \u201care derived from one great Principle,\nand this principle is the _unknown_ and _invisible_ God. From Him a\nsubstantial power immediately proceeds, which is the _image of God_,\nand the source of all subsequent emanations. This second principle\nsends forth, by the _energy_ (or _will_ and _force_) of emanation,\nother natures, which are more or less perfect, according to their\ndifferent degrees of distance, in the scale of emanation, from the\nFirst Source of existence, and which constitute different worlds,\nor orders of being, all united to the eternal power from which they\nproceed. _Matter is nothing more than the most remote effect of the\nemanative energy_ of the Deity. The material world receives its form\nfrom the immediate agency of powers far beneath the First Source of\nBeing[49].... Beausobre[50] makes St. Augustine the Manichean say\nthus: \u2018And if by _Rasit_ we understand the _active Principle_ of the\ncreation, instead of its _beginning_, in such a case we will clearly\nperceive that Moses never meant to say that heaven and earth were\nthe first works of God. He only said that God created heaven and\nearth _through the Principle_, who is His Son. It is not the _time_\nhe points to, but to the immediate author of the creation.\u2019 Angels,\naccording to Augustine, were created _before_ the firmament, and\naccording to the esoteric interpretation, the heaven and earth were\ncreated after that, evolving from the _second_ Principle or the\nLogos--the creative Deity. \u201cThe word _principle_,\u201d says Beausobre,\n\u201cdoes not mean that the heaven and earth were created before\nanything else, for, to begin with, the _angels_ were created before\nthat; but that God did everything through His Wisdom, which is His\n_Verbum_, and which the Christian _Bible_ named the _Beginning_,\u201d\nthus adopting the exoteric meaning of the word abandoned to the\nmultitudes. The _Kabala_--the Oriental as well as the Jewish--shows\nthat a number of _emanations_ (the Jewish Sephiroth) issued from the\n_First_ Principle, the chief of which was _Wisdom_. This Wisdom is\nthe Logos of Philo, and Michael, the chief of the Gnostic Eons; it\nis the Ormazd of the Persians; _Minerva_, goddess of wisdom, of the\nGreeks, who emanated from the head of Jupiter; and the second Person\nof the Christian Trinity. The early Fathers of the Church had not\nmuch to exert their imagination; they found a ready-made doctrine\nthat had existed in every theogony for thousands of years before\nthe Christian era. Their trinity is but the trio of Sephiroth, the\nfirst three kabalistic _lights_ of which Moses Nachmanides says, that\n\u201c_they have never been seen by any one_; there is not any defect in\nthem, nor any disunion.\u201d The first eternal number is the Father, or\nthe Chaldean primeval, invisible, and incomprehensible _chaos_, out\nof which proceeded the _Intelligible_ one. The Egyptian Phtah, or\n\u201cthe _Principle of Light_--not the light itself, and the Principle\nof Life, though himself _no_ life.\u201d The _Wisdom_ by which the Father\ncreated the heavens is the _Son_, or the kabalistic androgynous\nAdam Kadmon. The Son is at once the male _Ra_, or Light of Wisdom,\nPrudence or _Intelligence_, Sephira, the female part of Himself;\nwhile from this dual being proceeds the third emanation, the Binah or\nReason, the second Intelligence--the Holy Ghost of the Christians.\nTherefore, strictly speaking, there is a TETRAKTIS or quaternary,\nconsisting of the Unintelligible First monad, and its triple\nemanation, which properly constitute our Trinity.\n\nHow then avoid perceiving at once, that had not the Christians\npurposely disfigured in their interpretation and translation the\nMosaic _Genesis_ to fit their own views, their religion, with its\npresent dogmas, would have been impossible? The word Rasit, once\ntaught in its new sense of the _Principle_ and not the _Beginning_,\nand the anathematized doctrine of emanations accepted, the position\nof the second trinitarian personage becomes untenable. For, if the\nangels are the _first_ divine emanations from the Divine Substance,\nand were in existence _before_ the Second Principle, then the\nanthropomorphized _Son_ is at best an emanation like themselves,\nand cannot be God _hypostatically_ any more than our visible works\nare ourselves. That these metaphysical subtleties never entered\ninto the head of the honest-minded, sincere Paul, is evident; as\nit is furthermore evident, that like all learned Jews he was well\nacquainted with the doctrine of emanations and never thought of\ncorrupting it. How can any one imagine that Paul identified the _Son_\nwith the _Father_, when he tells us that God made Jesus \u201ca _little\nlower_ than the angels\u201d (_Hebrews_ ii. 9), and a _little higher_ than\nMoses! \u201cFor this MAN was counted worthy of more glory than Moses\u201d\n(_Hebrews_ iii. 3). Of whatever, or how many forgeries, interlined\nlater in the _Acts_, the Fathers are guilty we know not; but that\nPaul never considered Christ more than a man \u201cfull of the Spirit of\nGod\u201d is but too evident: \u201cIn the _arche_ was the _Logos_, and the\nLogos was adnate to the Theos.\u201d\n\n_Wisdom_, the first emanation of En-Soph; the Protogonos, the\nHypostasis; the Adam Kadmon of the kabalist, the Brahma of the Hindu;\nthe Logos of Plato, and the \u201c_Beginning_\u201d of St. John--is the\nRasit--\u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05d9\u05ea, of the _Book of Genesis_. If rightly interpreted it\noverturns, as we have remarked, the whole elaborate system of\nChristian theology, for it proves that behind the _creative_ Deity,\nthere was a HIGHER god; a planner, an architect; and that the former\nwas but His executive agent--a simple POWER!\n\nThey persecuted the Gnostics, murdered the philosophers, and\nburned the kabalists and the masons; and when the day of the great\nreckoning arrives, and the light shines in darkness, what will they\nhave to offer in the place of the departed, expired religion? What\nwill they answer, these pretended monotheists, these worshippers\nand _pseudo_-servants of the one living God, to their Creator? How\nwill they account for this long persecution of them who were the\ntrue followers of the grand Megalistor, the supreme great master\nof the Rosicrucians, the FIRST of masons. \u201cFor he is the Builder\nand Architect of the Temple of the universe; He is the _Verbum\nSapienti_.\u201d[51]\n\n\u201cEvery one knows,\u201d wrote the great Manichean of the third century,\nFauste, \u201cthat the Evangeliums were written neither by Jesus Christ,\nnor his apostles, but long after their time by some unknown persons,\nwho, judging well that they would hardly be believed when telling of\nthings they had not seen themselves, headed their narratives with\nthe names of the apostles or of disciples contemporaneous with the\nlatter.\u201d\n\nCommenting upon the subject, A. Franck, the learned Hebrew scholar\nof the Institute and translator of the _Kabala_, expresses the same\nidea. \u201cAre we not authorized,\u201d he asks, \u201cto view the _Kabala_ as\na precious remnant of religious philosophy of the Orient, which,\ntransported into Alexandria, got mixed to the doctrine of Plato, and\nunder the usurped name of Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens,\nconverted and consecrated by St. Paul, was thus enabled to penetrate\ninto the mysticism of the medi\u00e6val ages?\u201d[52]\n\nSays Jacolliot: \u201cWhat is then this religious philosophy of\nthe Orient, which has penetrated into the mystic symbolism of\nChristianity? We answer: This philosophy, the traces of which we find\namong the Magians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Hebrew kabalists\nand the Christians, is none other than that of the Hindu Brahmans,\nthe sectarians of the _pitris_, or the spirits of the invisible\nworlds which surround us.\u201d[53]\n\nBut if the Gnostics were destroyed, the _Gnosis_, based on the\nsecret science of sciences, still lives. It is the earth which\nhelps the woman, and which is destined to open her mouth to swallow\nup medi\u00e6val Christianity, the usurper and assassin of the great\nmaster\u2019s doctrine. The ancient _Kabala_, the Gnosis, or traditional\n_secret_ knowledge, was never without its representatives in any age\nor country. The trinities of initiates, whether passed into history\nor concealed under the impenetrable veil of mystery, are preserved\nand impressed throughout the ages. They are known as Moses, Aholiab,\nand Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, as Plato, Philo, and\nPythagoras, etc. At the Transfiguration we see them as Jesus, Moses,\nand Elias, the three Trismegisti; and three kabalists, Peter, James,\nand John--whose _revelation_ is the key to all wisdom. We found them\nin the twilight of Jewish history as Zoroaster, Abraham, and Terah,\nand later as Henoch, Ezekiel, and Daniel.\n\nWho, of those who ever studied the ancient philosophies, who\nunderstand intuitionally the grandeur of their conceptions, the\nboundless sublimity of their views of the Unknown Deity, can hesitate\nfor a moment to give the preference to their doctrines over the\nincomprehensible dogmatic and contradictory theology of the hundreds\nof Christian sects? Who that ever read Plato and fathomed his \u03a4\u03bf \u1f48\u03bd,\n\u201c_whom no person has seen except the Son_,\u201d can doubt that Jesus was a\ndisciple of the same secret doctrine which had instructed the great\nphilosopher? For, as we have shown before now, Plato never claimed to\nbe the inventor of all that he wrote, but gave credit for it to\nPythagoras, who, in his turn, pointed to the remote East as the source\nwhence he derived his information and his philosophy. Colebrooke shows\nthat Plato confesses it in his epistles, and says that he has taken\nhis teachings from ancient and sacred doctrines![54] Moreover, it is\nundeniable that the theologies of all the great nations dovetail\ntogether and show that each is a part of \u201cone stupendous whole.\u201d Like\nthe rest of the initiates we see Plato taking great pains to conceal\nthe true meaning of his allegories. Every time the subject touches the\ngreater secrets of the Oriental _Kabala_, secret of the true cosmogony\nof the universe and of the _ideal_, pre\u00ebxisting world, Plato shrouds\nhis philosophy in the profoundest darkness. His _Tim\u00e6us_ is so\nconfused that no one but an _initiate_ can understand the secret\nmeaning. And Mosheim thinks that Philo has filled his works with\npassages directly contradicting each other for the sole purpose of\nconcealing the true doctrine. For once we see a critic on the right\ntrack.\n\nAnd this very trinitarian idea, as well as the so bitterly denounced\ndoctrine of emanations, whence their remotest origin? The answer is\neasy, and every proof is now at hand. In the sublime and profoundest\nof all philosophies, that of the universal \u201cWisdom-Religion,\u201d the\nfirst traces of which, historical research now finds in the old\npre-Vedic religion of India. As the much-abused Jacolliot well\nremarks, \u201cIt is not in the religious works of antiquity, such as the\n_Vedas_, the _Zend Avesta_, the _Bible_, that we have to search for\nthe exact expression of the ennobling and sublime beliefs of those\nepochs.\u201d[55]\n\n\u201cThe holy primitive syllable, composed of the three letters A--U--M.,\nin which is contained the Vedic Trimurti (Trinity), must be kept\nsecret, like another triple Veda,\u201d says Manu, in book xi., sloka 265.\n\nSwayambhouva is the unrevealed Deity; it is the Being existent\nthrough and of itself; he is the central and immortal germ of\nall that exists in the universe. Three trinities emanate and are\nconfounded in him, forming a Supreme _unity_. These trinities, or the\ntriple _Trimurti_, are: the Nara, Nari, and Viradyi--the _initial_\ntriad; the Agni, Vaya, and Sourya--the _manifested_ triad; Brahma,\nVishnu, and Siva, the _creative_ triad. Each of these triads becomes\nless metaphysical and more adapted to the vulgar intelligence as\nit descends. Thus the last becomes but the symbol in its concrete\nexpression; the necessarianism of a purely metaphysical conception.\nTogether with Swayambhouva, they are the ten _Sephiroth_ of the\nHebrew kabalists, the ten Hindu Prag\u00e2patis--the En-Soph of the\nformer, answering to the great _Unknown_, expressed by the mystic A U\nM of the latter.\n\nSays Franck, the translator of the _Kabala_:\n\n\u201cThe ten Sephiroth are divided into _three classes_, each of them\npresenting to us the divinity _under a different aspect_, the whole\nstill remaining an _indivisible Trinity_.\n\n\u201cThe first three Sephiroth are purely intellectual in metaphysics,\nthey express the absolute identity of existence and thought, and form\nwhat the modern kabalists called the intelligible world--which is the\nfirst manifestation of God.\n\n\u201cThe three that follow, make us conceive God in one of their aspects,\nas the identity of goodness and wisdom; in the other they show to us,\nin the Supreme good, the origin of beauty and magnificence (in the\ncreation). Therefore, they are named the _virtues_, or the _sensible\nworld_.\n\n\u201cFinally, we learn, by the last three Sephiroth, that the Universal\nProvidence, that the Supreme artist is also _absolute Force_, the\nall-powerful cause, and that, at the same time, this cause _is the\ngenerative element of all that is_. It is these last Sephiroth that\nconstitute the _natural world_, or nature in its essence and in its\n_active_ principle, _Natura naturans._\u201d[56]\n\nThis kabalistic conception is thus proved identical with that of the\nHindu philosophy. Whoever reads Plato and his _Dialogue_ Tim\u00e6us, will\nfind these ideas as faithfully re-echoed by the Greek philosopher.\nMoreover, the injunction of secrecy was as strict with the kabalists,\nas with the initiates of the Adyta and the Hindu Yogis.\n\n\u201cClose thy mouth, lest thou shouldst speak of _this_ (the mystery),\nand thy heart, lest thou shouldst think aloud; and if thy heart has\nescaped thee, bring it back to its place, for such is the object of\nour alliance\u201d (_Sepher Jezireh_, _Book of Creation_).\n\n\u201cThis is a secret which gives death: close thy mouth lest thou\nshouldst reveal to the vulgar; compress thy brain lest something\nshould escape from it and fall outside\u201d (_Agrouchada-Parikshai_).\n\nTruly the fate of many a future generation hung on a gossamer\nthread, in the days of the third and fourth centuries. Had not the\nEmperor sent in 389 to Alexandria a rescript--which was forced from\nhim by the Christians--for the destruction of every idol, our own\ncentury would never have had a Christian mythological Pantheon of\nits own. Never did the Neo-platonic school reach such a height of\nphilosophy as when nearest its end. Uniting the mystic theosophy\nof old Egypt with the refined philosophy of the Greeks; nearer to\nthe ancient Mysteries of Thebes and Memphis than they had been for\ncenturies; versed in the science of soothsaying and divination,\nas in the art of the Therapeutists; friendly with the acutest men\nof the Jewish nation, who were deeply imbued with the Zoroastrian\nideas, the Neo-platonists tended to amalgamate the old wisdom of the\nOriental _Kabala_ with the more refined conceptions of the Occidental\nTheosophists. Notwithstanding the treason of the Christians, who\nsaw fit, for political reasons, after the days of Constantine, to\nrepudiate their tutors, the influence of the new Platonic philosophy\nis conspicuous in the subsequent adoption of dogmas, the origin\nof which can be traced but too easily to that remarkable school.\nThough mutilated and disfigured, they still preserve a strong family\nlikeness, which nothing can obliterate.\n\nBut, if the knowledge of the occult powers of nature opens the\nspiritual sight of man, enlarges his intellectual faculties, and\nleads him unerringly to a profounder veneration for the Creator,\non the other hand ignorance, dogmatic narrow-mindedness, and a\nchildish fear of looking to the bottom of things, invariably leads to\nfetish-worship and superstition.\n\nWhen Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, had openly embraced the cause\nof Isis, the Egyptian goddess, and had anthropomorphized her into\nMary, the mother of God; and the trinitarian controversy had taken\nplace; from that moment the Egyptian doctrine of the emanation of\nthe creative God out of Emepht began to be tortured in a thousand\nways, until the Councils had agreed upon the adoption of it as it\nnow stands--the disfigured Ternary of the kabalistic Solomon and\nPhilo! But as its origin was yet too evident, the _Word_ was no\nlonger called the \u201cHeavenly man,\u201d the _primal_ Adam Kadmon, but\nbecame the Logos--Christ, and was made as old as the \u201cAncient of the\nAncient,\u201d his father. The _concealed_ WISDOM became identical with\nits emanation, the DIVINE THOUGHT, and made to be regarded co\u00ebqual\nand co\u00ebternal with its first manifestation.\n\nIf we now stop to consider another of the fundamental dogmas of\nChristianity, the doctrine of atonement, we may trace it as easily\nback to heathendom. This corner-stone of a Church which had believed\nherself built on a firm rock for long centuries, is now excavated\nby science and proved to come from the Gnostics. Professor Draper\nshows it as hardly known in the days of Tertullian, and as having\n\u201c_originated_ among the Gnostic heretics.\u201d[57] We will not permit\nourselves to contradict such a learned authority, farther than to\nstate that it _originated_ among them no more than their \u201canointed\u201d\nChristos and Sophia. The former they modelled on the original of\nthe \u201cKing Messiah,\u201d the male principle of wisdom, and the latter on\nthe third Sephiroth, from the Chaldean _Kabala_,[58] and even from\nthe Hindu Brahma and Sara-\u00e2svati,[59] and the Pagan Dionysus and\nDemeter. And here we are on firm ground, if it were only because it\nis now proved that the _New Testament_ never appeared in its complete\nform, such as we find it now, till 300 years after the period of\napostles,[60] and the _Sohar_ and other kabalistic books are found to\nbelong to the first century before our era, if not to be far older\nstill.\n\nThe Gnostics entertained many of the Essenean ideas; and the\nEssenes had their \u201cgreater\u201d and \u201cminor\u201d Mysteries at least two\ncenturies before our era. They were the _Isarim_ or _Initiates_,\nthe descendants of the Egyptian hierophants, in whose country they\nhad been settled for several centuries before they were converted\nto Buddhistic monasticism by the missionaries of King Asoka, and\namalgamated later with the earliest Christians; and they existed,\nprobably, before the old Egyptian temples were desecrated and ruined\nin the incessant invasions of Persians, Greeks, and other conquering\nhordes. The hierophants had their _atonement_ enacted in the Mystery\nof Initiation ages before the Gnostics, or even the Essenes, had\nappeared. It was known among hierophants as the BAPTISM OF BLOOD, and\nwas considered not as an atonement for the \u201cfall of man\u201d in Eden,\nbut simply as an expiation for the past, present, and future sins of\nignorant but nevertheless polluted mankind. The hierophant had the\noption of either offering his pure and sinless life as a sacrifice\nfor his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin, or an animal\nvictim. The former depended entirely on their own will. At the last\nmoment of the solemn \u201cnew birth,\u201d the initiator passed \u201cthe word\u201d to\nthe initiated, and immediately after that the latter had a weapon\nplaced in his right hand, and was ordered _to strike_.[61] This is\nthe true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement.\n\nVerily the \u201cChrists\u201d of the pre-Christian ages were many. But they\ndied unknown to the world, and disappeared as silently and as\nmysteriously from the sight of man as Moses from the top of Pisgah,\nthe mountain of Nebo (oracular wisdom), after he had laid his hands\nupon Joshua, who thus became \u201cfull of the spirit of wisdom\u201d (_i.e._,\n_initiated_).\n\nNor does the Mystery of the Eucharist pertain to Christians alone.\nGodfrey Higgins proves that it was instituted many hundreds of\nyears before the \u201cPaschal Supper,\u201d and says that \u201cthe sacrifice of\nbread and wine was common to many ancient nations.\u201d[62] Cicero\nmentions it in his works, and wonders at the strangeness of the rite.\nThere had been an esoteric meaning attached to it from the first\nestablishment of the Mysteries, and the Eucharistia is one of the\noldest rites of antiquity. With the hierophants it had nearly the\nsame significance as with the Christians. Ceres was _bread_, and\nBacchus was _wine_; the former meaning regeneration of life from the\nseed, and the latter--the grape--the emblem of wisdom and knowledge;\nthe accumulation of the spirit of things, and the fermentation\nand subsequent strength of that esoteric knowledge being justly\nsymbolized by wine. The mystery related to the drama of Eden; it is\nsaid to have been first taught by Janus, who was also the first to\nintroduce in the temples the sacrifices of \u201cbread\u201d and \u201cwine\u201d in\ncommemoration of the \u201cfall into generation\u201d as the symbol of the\n\u201cseed.\u201d \u201cI am the vine, and my Father is the husbandman,\u201d says Jesus,\nalluding to the secret knowledge that could be imparted by him. \u201cI\nwill drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I\ndrink it new in the kingdom of God.\u201d\n\nThe festival of the Eleusinian Mysteries began in the month of\nBo\u00ebdromion, which corresponds with the month of September, the time\nof grape-gathering, and lasted from the 15th to the 22d of the month,\n_seven_ days.[63] The Hebrew festival of the Feast of Tabernacles\nbegan on the 15th and ended on the 22d of the month of Ethanim, which\nDunlap shows as derived from Adonim, Adonia, Attenim, Ethanim;[64]\nand this feast is named in _Exodus_ (xxiii. 16) the feast of\n_ingatherings_. \u201cAll the men of Israel assembled unto King Solomon at\nthe feast in the month Ethanim, which is the _seventh_.\u201d[65]\n\nPlutarch thinks the feast of the booths to be the Bacchic rites, not\nthe Eleusinian. Thus \u201cBacchus was directly called upon,\u201d he says.\nThe _Sabazian_ worship was _Sabbatic_; the names Evius, or Hevius,\nand Luaios are identical with _Hivite_ and _Levite_. The French name\nLouis is the Hebrew _Levi_; Iacchus again is Iao or Jehovah; and Baal\nor Adon, like Bacchus, was a phallic god. \u201cWho shall ascend into the\nhill (the high place) of the Lord?\u201d asks the holy king David, \u201cwho\nshall stand in the place of his _Kadushu_ \u05e7\u05d3\u05e9\u05d5\u201d? (_Psalms_ xxiv. 3).\nKadesh may mean in one sense to _devote, hallow, sanctify_, and even\nto initiate or to set apart; but it also means the ministers of\nlascivious rites (the Venus-worship) and the true interpretation of\nthe word Kadesh is bluntly rendered in _Deuteronomy_ xxiii. 17;\n_Hosea_ iv. 14; and _Genesis_ xxxviii., from verses 15 to 22. The\n\u201choly\u201d Kadeshuth of the _Bible_ were identical as to the duties of\ntheir office with the Nautch-girls of the later Hindu pagodas. The\nHebrew _Kadeshim_ or galli lived \u201cby the house of the Lord, where the\nwomen wove hangings for the grove,\u201d or bust of Venus-Astart\u00e8, says\nverse the seventh in the twenty-third chapter of 2 Kings.\n\nThe dance performed by David round the ark was the \u201ccircle-dance\u201d\nsaid to have been prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries. Such\nwas the dance of the daughters of Shiloh (_Judges_ xxi. 21, 23 _et\npassim_), and the leaping of the prophets of Baal (_1 Kings_ xviii.\n26). It was simply a characteristic of the Sabean worship, for it\ndenoted the motion of the planets round the sun. That the dance was a\nBacchic frenzy is apparent. Sistra were used on the occasion, and the\ntaunt of Michael and the king\u2019s reply are very expressive. \u201cThe king\nof Israel uncovered himself before his maid-servants as one of the\n_vain_ (or debauched) fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself.\u201d And he\nretorts: \u201cI will play (act wantonly) before \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, and I will be yet\nmore vile than this, and I will be base in my own sight.\u201d When we\nremember that David had sojourned among the Tyrians and Philistines,\nwhere their rites were common; and that indeed he had conquered that\nland away from the house of Saul, by the aid of mercenaries from their\ncountry, the countenancing and even, perhaps, the introduction of such\na Pagan-like worship by the weak \u201cpsalmist\u201d seems very natural. David\nknew nothing of Moses, it seems, and if he introduced the\nJehovah-worship it was not in its monotheistic character, but simply\nas that of one of the many gods of the neighboring nations--a tutelary\ndeity to whom he had given the preference, and chosen among \u201call other\ngods.\u201d\n\nFollowing the Christian dogmas seriatim, if we concentrate our\nattention upon one which provoked the fiercest battles until its\nrecognition, that of the Trinity, what do we find? We meet it, as\nwe have shown, northeast of the Indus; and tracing it to Asia Minor\nand Europe, recognize it among every people who had anything like\nan established religion. It was taught in the oldest Chaldean,\nEgyptian, and Mithra\u00eftic schools. The Chaldean Sun-god, Mithra, was\ncalled \u201cTriple,\u201d and the trinitarian idea of the Chaldeans was a\ndoctrine of the Akkadians, who, themselves, belonged to a race which\nwas the first to conceive a metaphysical trinity. The Chaldeans\nare a tribe of the Akkadians, according to Rawlinson, who lived in\nBabylonia from the earliest times. They were Turanians, according\nto others, and instructed the Babylonians into the first notions of\nreligion. But these same Akkadians, who were they? Those scientists\nwho would ascribe to them a Turanian origin, make of them the\ninventors of the cuneiform characters; others call them Sumerians;\nothers again, respectively, make their language, of which (for\nvery good reasons) no traces whatever remain--Kasdean, Chaldaic,\nProto-Chaldean, Kasdo-Scythic, and so on. The only tradition worthy\nof credence is that these Akkadians instructed the Babylonians in\nthe Mysteries, and taught them the sacerdotal or _Mystery_-language.\nThese Akkadians were then simply a tribe of the Hindu-Brahmans, now\ncalled Aryans--their vernacular language, the Sanscrit[66] of the\nVedas; and the sacred or Mystery-language, that which, even in our\nown age, is used by the Hindu fakirs and initiated Brahmans in their\nmagical evocations.[67] It has been, from time immemorial, and still\nis employed by the initiates of all countries, and the Thibetan lamas\nclaim that it is in this tongue that appear the mysterious characters\non the leaves and bark of the sacred Koumboum.\n\nJacolliot, who took such pains to penetrate the mysteries of the\nBrahmanical initiation in translating and commenting upon the\n_Agrouchada-Parikshai_, confesses the following:\n\n\u201cIt is pretended also, without our being able to verify the\nassertion, that the magical evocations were pronounced in a\nparticular language, and that it was forbidden, under pain of death,\nto translate them into vulgar dialects. The rare expressions that\nwe have been able to catch like--_L\u2019rhom_, _h\u2019hom_, _sh\u2019hrum_,\n_sho\u2019rhim_, are in fact most curious, and do not seem to belong to\nany known idiom.\u201d[68]\n\nThose who have seen a fakir or a lama reciting his mantras and\nconjurations, know that he never pronounces the words audibly when\npreparing for a phenomenon. His lips move, and none will ever hear\nthe terrible formula pronounced, except in the interior of the\ntemples, and then in a cautious whisper. This, then, was the language\nnow respectively baptized by every scientist, and, according to his\nimaginative and philological propensities, Kasdeo-Semitic, Scythic,\nProto-Chaldean, and the like.\n\nScarcely two of even the most learned Sanscrit philologists are\nagreed as to the true interpretation of Vedic words. Let one put\nforth an essay, a lecture, a treatise, a translation, a dictionary,\nand straightway all the others fall to quarrelling with each other\nand with him as to his sins of omission and commission. Professor\nWhitney, greatest of American Orientalists, says that Professor\nM\u00fcller\u2019s notes on the _Rig Veda S\u00e2nhita_ \u201care far from showing that\nsound and thoughtful judgment, that moderation and economy which\nare among the most precious qualities of an exegete.\u201d Professor\nM\u00fcller angrily retorts upon his critics that \u201cnot only is the joy\nembittered which is the inherent reward of all _bona fide_ work, but\nselfishness, malignity, aye, _even untruthfulness_, gain the upper\nhand, and the healthy growth of science is stunted.\u201d He differs \u201cin\nmany cases from the explanations of Vedic words given by Professor\nRoth\u201d in his _Sanscrit Dictionary_, and Professor Whitney shampooes\nboth their heads by saying that there are, unquestionably, words and\nphrases \u201cas to which both alike will hereafter be set right.\u201d\n\nIn volume i. of his _Chips_, Professor M\u00fcller stigmatizes all\nthe _Vedas_ except the _Rik_, the _Atharva-Veda_ included, as\n\u201ctheological twaddle,\u201d while Professor Whitney regards the latter\nas \u201cthe most comprehensive and valuable of the four collections,\nnext after the _Rik_.\u201d To return to the case of Jacolliot. Professor\nWhitney brands him as a \u201cbungler and a humbug,\u201d and, as we remarked\nabove, this is the very general verdict. But when the _Bible dans\nl\u2019Inde_ appeared, the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Acad\u00e9mique de Saint Quentin requested\nM. Textor de Ravisi, a learned Indianist, ten years Governor of\nKarikal, India, to report upon its merits. He was an ardent Catholic,\nand bitterly opposed Jacolliot\u2019s conclusions where they discredited\nthe Mosaic and Catholic revelations; but he was forced to say:\n\u201cWritten with good faith, in an easy, vigorous, and passionate style,\nof an easy and varied argumentation, the work of M. Jacolliot is\nof absorbing interest ... a learned work on known facts and with\nfamiliar arguments.\u201d\n\nEnough. Let Jacolliot have the benefit of the doubt when such very\nimposing authorities are doing their best to show up each other as\nincompetents and literary journeymen. We quite agree with Professor\nWhitney that \u201cthe truism, that [for European critics?] it is far\neasier to pull to pieces than to build up, is nowhere truer than in\nmatters affecting the arch\u00e6ology and history of India.\u201d[69]\n\nBabylonia happened to be situated on the way of the great stream\nof the earliest Hindu emigration, and the Babylonians were one of\nthe first peoples benefited thereby.[70] These Khaldi were the\nworshippers of the Moon-god, Deus Lunus, from which fact we may\ninfer that the Akkadians--if such must be their name--belonged to\nthe race of the Kings of the Moon, whom tradition shows as having\nreigned in Pruyay--now Allahabad. With them the trinity of Deus Lunus\nwas manifested in the three lunar phases, completing the quaternary\nwith the fourth, and typifying the death of the Moon-god in its\ngradual waning and final disappearance. This death was allegorized\nby them, and attributed to the triumph of the genius of evil over\nthe light-giving deity; as the later nations allegorized the death\nof their Sun-gods, Osiris and Apollo, at the hands of Typhon and the\ngreat Dragon Python, when the sun entered the winter solstice. Babel,\nArach, and Akkad are names of the sun. The _Zoroastrian Oracles_ are\nfull and explicit upon the subject of the Divine Triad. \u201cA triad of\nDeity shines forth throughout the whole world, of which a Monad is\nthe head,\u201d admits the Reverend Dr. Maurice.\n\n\u201cFor from this Triad, in the bosoms, are all things governed,\u201d says\na Chaldean oracle. The Phos, Pur, and Phlox, of Sanchoniathon,[71]\nare Light, Fire, and Flame, three manifestations of the Sun who is\n_one_. Bel-Saturn, Jupiter-Bel, and Bel or Baal-Chom are the Chaldean\ntrinity;[72] The Babylonian Bel was regarded in the Triune aspect\nof Belitan, Zeus-Belus (the mediator) and Baal-Chom who is Apollo\nChom\u00e6us. This was the Triune aspect of the \u2018Highest God,\u2019 who is,\naccording to Berosus, either El (the Hebrew), Bel, Belitan, Mithra,\nor Zervana, and has the name \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1, \u201cthe Father.\u201d[73] The Brahma,\nVishnu, and Siva,[74] corresponding to Power, Wisdom, and Justice,\nwhich answer in their turn to Spirit, Matter, Time, and the Past,\nPresent, and Future, can be found in the temple of Gharipuri;\nthousands of dogmatic Brahmans worship these attributes of the Vedic\nDeity, while the severe monks and nuns of Buddhistic Thibet recognize\nbut the sacred trinity of the three cardinal virtues: _Poverty_,\n_Chastity_, and _Obedience_, professed by the Christians, practiced by\nthe Buddhists and some Hindus alone.\n\nThe Persian triplicate Deity also consists of three persons, Ormazd,\nMithra, and Ahriman. \u201cThat is that principle,\u201d says Porphyry,[75]\n\u201cwhich the author of the _Chaldaic Summary_ saith, \u2018_They conceive\nthere is one principle of all things, and declare that is one and\ngood._\u2019\u201d The Chinese idol Sanpao, consists of three equal in all\nrespects;[76] and the Peruvians \u201csupposed their Tanga-tanga to be one\nin three, and three in one,\u201d says Faber.[77] The Egyptians have their\nEmepht, Eicton, and Phta; and the triple god seated on the Lotos can\nbe seen in the St. Petersburg Museum, on a medal of the Northern\nTartars.\n\nAmong the Church dogmas which have most seriously suffered of late\nat the hands of the Orientalists, the last in question stands\nconspicuous. The reputation of each of the three personages of the\nanthropomorphic godhead as an original revelation to the Christians\nthrough Divine will, has been badly compromised by inquiry into its\npredecessors and origin. Orientalists have published more about the\nsimilarity between Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Christianity than was\nstrictly agreeable to the Vatican. Draper\u2019s assertion that \u201cPaganism\nwas modified by Christianity, Christianity by Paganism,\u201d[78] is being\ndaily verified. \u201cOlympus was restored but the divinities passed under\nother names,\u201d he says, treating of the Constantine period. \u201cThe more\npowerful provinces insisted on the adoption of their time-honored\nconceptions. Views of the trinity in accordance with the Egyptian\ntraditions were established. Not only was the adoration of Isis under\na new name restored, but even her image, standing on the crescent\nmoon, reappeared. The well-known effigy of that goddess with the\ninfant Horus in her arms has descended to our days, in the beautiful\nartistic creations of the Madonna and child.\u201d\n\nBut a still earlier origin than the Egyptian and Chaldean can be\nassigned to the Virgin \u201cMother of God,\u201d Queen of Heaven. Though Isis\nis also by right the Queen of Heaven, and is generally represented\ncarrying in her hand the Crux Ansata composed of the mundane cross,\nand of the Stauros of the Gnostics, she is a great deal younger\nthan the celestial virgin, Neith. In one of the tombs of the\nPharaohs--Rhameses, in the valley of Biban-el-Molouk, in Thebes,\nChampollion, Junior, discovered a picture, according to his opinion\nthe most ancient ever yet found. It represents the heavens symbolized\nby the figure of a woman bedecked with stars. The birth of the Sun is\nfigured by the form of a little child, issuing from the bosom of its\n\u201cDivine Mother.\u201d\n\nIn the _Book of Hermes_, \u201cPimander\u201d is enunciated in distinct and\nunequivocal sentences, the whole trinitarian dogma accepted by the\nChristians. \u201cThe light is me,\u201d says Pimander, the DIVINE THOUGHT. \u201cI\nam the _nous_ or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older\nthan the human principle which escapes from the shadow. I am the\ngerm of thought, the resplendent WORD, the SON of God. Think that\nwhat thus sees and hears in thee, is the _Verbum_ of the Master, it\nis the Thought, which is God the Father.... The celestial ocean, the\n\u00c6THER, which flows from east to west, is the Breath of the Father,\nthe life-giving Principle, the HOLY GHOST!\u201d \u201cFor they are not at all\nseparated and their union is LIFE.\u201d\n\nAncient as may be the origin of Hermes, lost in the unknown days of\nEgyptian colonization, there is yet a far older prophecy, directly\nrelating to the Hindu Christna, according to the Brahmans. It is,\nto say the least, strange that the Christians claim to base their\nreligion upon a prophecy of the _Bible_, which exists nowhere in\nthat book. In what chapter or verse does Jehovah, the \u201cLord God,\u201d\npromise Adam and Eve to send them a Redeemer who will save humanity?\n\u201cI will put enmity between thee and the woman,\u201d says the Lord God to\nthe serpent, \u201cand between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy\nhead, and thou shalt bruise his heel.\u201d\n\nIn these words there is not the slightest allusion to a Redeemer,\nand the subtilest of intellects could not extract from them, as they\nstand in the third chapter of _Genesis_, anything like that which\nthe Christians have contrived to find. On the other hand, in the\ntraditions and _Manu_, Brahma promises directly to the first couple\nto send them a Saviour who will teach them the way to salvation.\n\n\u201cIt is from the lips of a messenger of Brahma, who will be born\nin Kuroukshetra, Matsya, and the land of Pantchola, also called\nKanya-Cubja (mountain of the Virgin), that all men on earth will\nlearn their duty,\u201d says _Manu_ (book ii., slokas 19 and 20).\n\nThe Mexicans call the Father of their Trinity Yzona, the Son Bacab,\nand the Holy Ghost Echvah, \u201cand say they received it (the doctrine)\nfrom their ancestors.\u201d[79] Among the Semitic nations we can trace the\ntrinity to the prehistorical days of the fabled Sesostris, who is\nidentified by more than one critic with Nimrod, \u201cthe mighty hunter.\u201d\nManetho makes the oracle rebuke the king, when the latter asks, \u201cTell\nme, O thou strong in fire, who before me could subjugate all things?\nand who shall after me?\u201d And the oracle saith thus: \u201cFirst God, then\nthe Word, and then \u2018the Spirit.\u2019\u201d[80]\n\nIn the foregoing lies the foundation of the fierce hatred of the\nChristians toward the \u201cPagans\u201d and the theurgists. Too much had\nbeen _borrowed_; the ancient religions and the Neo-platonists\nhad been laid by them under contribution sufficiently to perplex\nthe world for several thousand years. Had not the ancient creeds\nbeen speedily obliterated, it would have been found impossible to\npreach the Christian religion as a New Dispensation, or the direct\nRevelation from God the Father, through God the Son, and under the\ninfluence of God the Holy Ghost. As a political exigence the Fathers\nhad--to gratify the wishes of their rich converts--instituted even\nthe festivals of Pan. They went so far as to accept the ceremonies\nhitherto celebrated by the Pagan world in honor of the _God of the\ngardens_, in all their primitive _sincerity_.[81] It was time to\nsever the connection. Either the Pagan worship and the Neo-platonic\ntheurgy, with all ceremonial of magic, must be crushed out forever,\nor the Christians become Neo-platonists.\n\nThe fierce polemics and single-handed battles between Iren\u00e6us and the\nGnostics are too well known to need repetition. They were carried on\nfor over two centuries after the unscrupulous Bishop of Lyons had\nuttered his last religious paradox. Celsus, the Neo-platonist, and a\ndisciple of the school of Ammonius Saccas, had thrown the Christians\ninto perturbation, and even had arrested for a time the progress of\nproselytism by successfully proving that the original and purer forms\nof the most important dogmas of Christianity were to be found only in\nthe teachings of Plato. Celsus accused them of accepting the worst\nsuperstitions of Paganism, and of interpolating passages from the\nbooks of the Sybils, without rightly understanding their meaning. The\naccusations were so plausible, and the facts so patent, that for a\nlong time no Christian writer had ventured to answer the challenge.\nOrigen, at the fervent request of his friend, Ambrosius, was the\nfirst to take the defense in hand, for, having belonged to the same\nPlatonic school of Ammonius, he was considered the most competent\nman to refute the well-founded charges. But his eloquence failed,\nand the only remedy that could be found was to destroy the writings\nof Celsus themselves.[82] This could be achieved only in the fifth\ncentury, when copies had been taken from this work, and many were\nthose who had read and studied them. If no copy of it has descended\nto our present generation of scientists, it is not because there is\nnone extant at present, but for the simple reason that the monks of a\ncertain Oriental church on Mount Athos will neither show nor confess\nthey have one in their possession.[83] Perhaps they do not even know\nthemselves the value of the contents of their manuscripts, on account\nof their great ignorance.\n\nThe dispersion of the Eclectic school had become the fondest hope of\nthe Christians. It had been looked for and contemplated with intense\nanxiety. It was finally achieved. The members were scattered by the\nhand of the monsters Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, and his nephew\nCyril--the murderer of the young, the learned, and the innocent\nHypatia![84]\n\nWith the death of the martyred daughter of Theon, the mathematician,\nthere remained no possibility for the Neo-platonists to continue\ntheir school at Alexandria. During the life-time of the youthful\nHypatia her friendship and influence with Orestes, the governor\nof the city, had assured the philosophers security and protection\nagainst their murderous enemies. With her death they had lost their\nstrongest friend. How much she was revered by all who knew her for\nher erudition, noble virtues, and character, we can infer from the\nletters addressed to her by Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, fragments\nof which have reached us. \u201cMy heart yearns for the presence of your\ndivine spirit,\u201d he wrote in 413 A. D., \u201cwhich more than anything else\ncould alleviate the bitterness of my fortunes.\u201d At another time he\nsays: \u201cOh, my mother, my sister, my teacher, my benefactor! My soul\nis very sad. The recollection of my children I have lost is killing\nme.... When I have news of you and learn, as I hope, that you are\nmore fortunate than myself, I am at least only half-unhappy.\u201d\n\nWhat would have been the feelings of this most noble and worthy\nof Christian bishops, who had surrendered family and children and\nhappiness for the faith into which he had been attracted, had a\nprophetic vision disclosed to him that the only friend that had been\nleft to him, his \u201cmother, sister, benefactor,\u201d would soon become an\nunrecognizable mass of flesh and blood, pounded to jelly under the\nblows of the club of Peter the Reader--that her youthful, innocent\nbody would be cut to pieces, \u201cthe flesh scraped from the bones,\u201d by\noyster-shells and the rest of her cast into the fire, by order of the\nsame Bishop Cyril he knew so well--Cyril, the CANONIZED Saint!![85]\n\nThere has never been a religion in the annals of the world with\nsuch a bloody record as Christianity. All the rest, including the\ntraditional fierce fights of the \u201cchosen people\u201d with their next\nof kin, the idolatrous tribes of Israel, pale before the murderous\nfanaticism of the alleged followers of Christ! Even the rapid\nspread of Mahometanism before the conquering sword of the Islam\nprophet, is a direct consequence of the bloody riots and fights\namong Christians. It was the intestine war between the Nestorians\nand Cyrilians that engendered Islamism; and it is in the convent of\nBozrah that the prolific seed was first sown by Bahira, the Nestorian\nmonk. Freely watered by rivers of blood, the tree of Mecca has grown\ntill we find it in the present century overshadowing nearly two\nhundred millions of people. The recent Bulgarian atrocities are but\nthe natural outgrowth of the triumph of Cyril and the Mariolaters.\n\nThe cruel, crafty politician, the plotting monk, glorified by\necclesiastical history with the aureole of a martyred saint. The\ndespoiled philosophers, the Neo-platonists, and the Gnostics,\ndaily anathematized by the Church all over the world for long and\ndreary centuries. The curse of the unconcerned Deity hourly invoked\non the magian rites and theurgic practice, and the Christian\nclergy themselves using _sorcery_ for ages. Hypatia, the glorious\nmaiden-philosopher, torn to pieces by the Christian mob. And such\nas Catherine de Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Joanna of Naples, and the\nIsabellas of Spain, presented to the world as the faithful daughters\nof the Church--some even decorated by the Pope with the order of the\n\u201cImmaculate Rose,\u201d the highest emblem of womanly purity and virtue,\na symbol sacred to the Virgin-mother of God! Such are the examples\nof human justice! How far less blasphemous appears a total rejection\nof Mary as an immaculate goddess, than an idolatrous worship of her,\naccompanied by such practices.\n\nIn the next chapter we will present a few illustrations of sorcery,\nas practiced under the patronage of the Roman Church.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n \u201cThey undertake by scales of miles to tell\n The bounds, dimensions, and extent of hell;\n * * * * *\n Where bloated souls in smoky durance hung\n Like a Westphalia gammon or neat\u2019s tongue,\n To be redeemed with masses and a song.\u201d\n --OLDHAM: _Satires upon the Jesuits_.\n\n\n \u201c_York._--But you are more inhuman, more inexorable--\n O, ten times more--than tigers of Hyrcania.\u201d\n --_King Henry VI._, Part Third, Act i., Scene iv.\n\n\n \u201c_War._--And hark ye, Sirs; because she is a maid\n Spare for no faggots, let there be enough;\n Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake.\u201d\n --_King Henry VI._, Part First, Act v., Scene iv.\n\n\nIn that famous work of Bodin, on sorcery,[86] a frightful story is\ntold about Catherine of Medicis. The author was a learned publicist,\nwho, during twenty years of his life, collected authentic documents\nfrom the archives of nearly every important city of France, to make\nup a complete work on sorcery, magic, and the power of various\n\u201cdemons.\u201d To use an expression of Eliphas Levi, his book offers a\nmost remarkable collection of \u201cbloody and hideous facts; acts of\nrevolting superstition, arrests, and executions of stupid ferocity.\u201d\n\u201cBurn every body!\u201d the Inquisition seemed to say--God will easily\nsort out His own! Poor fools, hysterical women, and idiots were\nroasted alive, without mercy, for the crime of \u201cmagic.\u201d But, \u201cat the\nsame time, how many great culprits escaped this unjust and sanguinary\n_justice_! This is what Bodin makes us fully appreciate.\u201d\n\nCatherine, the pious Christian--who has so well deserved in the eyes\nof the Church of Christ for the atrocious and never-to-be-forgotten\nmassacre of St. Bartholomew--the Queen Catherine, kept in her\nservice an apostate Jacobin priest. Well versed in the \u201cblack art,\u201d\nso fully patronized by the Medici family, he had won the gratitude\nand protection of his pious mistress, by his unparalleled skill in\nkilling people at a distance, by torturing with various incantations\ntheir wax simulacra. The process has been described over and over\nagain, and we scarcely need repeat it.\n\nCharles was lying sick of an incurable disease. The queen-mother who\nhad everything to lose in case of his death, resorted to necromancy,\nand consulted the oracle of the \u201cbleeding head.\u201d This infernal\noperation required the decapitation of a child who must be possessed\nof great beauty and purity. He had been prepared in secret for his\nfirst communion, by _the chaplain_ of the palace, who was apprised\nof the plot, and at midnight of the appointed day, in the chamber\nof the sick man, and in presence only of Catherine and a few of her\nconfederates, the \u201cdevil\u2019s mass\u201d was celebrated. Let us give the\nrest of the story as we find it in one of Levi\u2019s works: \u201cAt this\nmass, celebrated before the image of the demon, having under his feet\na reversed cross, the sorcerer consecrated two wafers, one black\nand one white. The white was given to the child, whom they brought\nclothed as for baptism, and who was murdered upon the very steps of\nthe altar, immediately after his communion. His head, separated from\nthe trunk by a single blow, was placed, all palpitating, upon the\ngreat black wafer which covered the bottom of the paten, then placed\nupon a table where some mysterious lamps were burning. The exorcism\nthen began, and the demon was charged to pronounce an oracle, and\nreply by the mouth of this head to a secret question that the king\ndared not speak aloud, and that had been confided to no one. Then a\nfeeble voice, a strange voice, which had nothing of human character\nabout it, made itself audible in this poor little martyr\u2019s head.\u201d The\nsorcery availed nothing; the king died, and--Catherine remained the\nfaithful daughter of Rome!\n\nHow strange, that des Mousseaux, who makes such free use of\nBodin\u2019s materials to construct his formidable indictment against\nSpiritualists and other sorcerers, should have overlooked this\ninteresting episode!\n\nIt is a well-attested fact that Pope Sylvester II. was publicly\naccused by Cardinal Benno with being a sorcerer and an enchanter.\nThe brazen \u201coracular head\u201d made by his Holiness was of the same kind\nas the one fabricated by Albertus Magnus. The latter was smashed to\npieces by Thomas Aquinas, not because it was the work of or inhabited\nby a \u201cdemon,\u201d but because the spook who was fixed inside, by mesmeric\npower, talked incessantly, and his verbiage prevented the eloquent\nsaint from working out his mathematical problems. These heads and\nother talking statues, trophies of the magical skill of monks and\nbishops, were fac-similes of the \u201canimated\u201d gods of the ancient\ntemples. The accusation against the Pope was proved at the time. It\nwas also demonstrated that he was constantly attended by \u201cdemons\u201d\nor spirits. In the preceding chapter we have mentioned Benedict\nIX., John XX., and the VIth and VIIth Gregory, who were all known\nas magicians. The latter Pope, moreover, was the famous Hildebrand,\nwho was said to have been so expert at \u201cshaking lightning out of\nhis sleeve.\u201d An expression which makes the venerable spiritualistic\nwriter, Mr. Howitt, think that \u201cit was the origin of the celebrated\nthunder of the Vatican.\u201d\n\nThe magical achievements of the Bishop of Ratisbon and those of\nthe \u201cangelic doctor,\u201d Thomas Aquinas, are too well known to need\nrepetition; but we may explain farther how the \u201cillusions\u201d of the\nformer were produced. If the Catholic bishop was so clever in making\npeople believe on a bitter winter night that they were enjoying the\ndelights of a splendid summer day, and cause the icicles hanging from\nthe boughs of the trees in the garden to seem like so many tropical\nfruits, the Hindu magicians also practice such biological powers unto\nthis very day, and claim the assistance of neither god nor devil.\nSuch \u201cmiracles\u201d are all produced by the same human power that is\ninherent in every man, if he only knew how to develop it.\n\nAbout the time of the Reformation, the study of alchemy and magic\nhad become so prevalent among the clergy as to produce great\nscandal. Cardinal Wolsey was openly accused before the court and the\nprivy-council of confederacy with a man named Wood, a sorcerer, who\nsaid that \u201c_My Lord Cardinale had suche a rynge that whatsomevere he\naskyd of the Kynges grace that he hadd yt_;\u201d adding that \u201c_Master\nCromwell, when he ... was servaunt in my lord cardynales housse ...\nrede many bokes and specyally the boke of Salamon ... and studied\nmettells and what vertues they had after the canon of Salamon_.\u201d This\ncase, with several others equally curious, is to be found among the\nCromwell papers in the Record Office of the Rolls House.\n\nA priest named William Stapleton was arrested as a conjurer, during\nthe reign of Henry VIII., and an account of his adventures is still\npreserved in the Rolls House records. The Sicilian priest whom\nBenvenuto Cellini calls a necromancer, became famous through his\nsuccessful conjurations, and was never molested. The remarkable\nadventure of Cellini with him in the Colosseum, where the priest\nconjured up a whole host of devils, is well known to the reading\npublic. The subsequent meeting of Cellini with his mistress, as\npredicted and brought about by the conjurer, at the precise time\nfixed by him, is to be considered, as a matter of course, a \u201ccurious\ncoincidence.\u201d In the latter part of the sixteenth century there\nwas hardly a parish to be found in which the priests did not study\nmagic and alchemy. The practice of exorcism to cast out devils \u201cin\nimitation of Christ,\u201d who by the way never used exorcism at all,\nled the clergy to devote themselves openly to \u201csacred\u201d magic in\ncontradistinction to black art, of which latter crime were accused\nall those who were neither priests nor monks.\n\nThe occult knowledge gleaned by the Roman Church from the once fat\nfields of theurgy she sedulously guarded for her own use, and sent to\nthe stake only those practitioners who \u201cpoached\u201d on her lands of the\n_Scientia Scientiarum_, and those whose sins could not be concealed\nby the friar\u2019s frock. The proof of it lies in the records of history.\n\u201cIn the course only of fifteen years, between 1580 to 1595, and only\nin the single province of Lorraine, the President Remigius burned\n900 witches,\u201d says Thomas Wright, in his _Sorcery and Magic_. It was\nduring these days, prolific in ecclesiastical murder and unrivalled\nfor cruelty and ferocity, that Jean Bodin wrote.\n\nWhile the orthodox clergy called forth whole legions of \u201cdemons\u201d\nthrough magical incantations, unmolested by the authorities, provided\nthey held fast to the established dogmas and taught no heresy, on the\nother hand, acts of unparalleled atrocity were perpetrated on poor,\nunfortunate fools. Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of eighty, was burnt\nby these evangelical Jack Ketches in 1761. In the Amsterdam library\nthere is a copy of the report of his famous trial, translated from\nthe Lisbon edition. He was accused of sorcery and illicit intercourse\nwith the Devil, who had \u201cdisclosed to him _futurity_.\u201d (?) The\nprophecy imparted by the Arch-Enemy to the poor visionary Jesuit is\nreported in the following terms: \u201cThe culprit hath confessed that the\ndemon, under the form of the blessed Virgin, having commanded him to\nwrite the life of Antichrist (?), told him that he, Malagrida, was\na second John, but more clear than John the Evangelist; that there\nwere to be three Antichrists, and that the last should be born at\nMilan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920; that he would marry\nProserpine, one of the infernal furies,\u201d etc.\n\nThe prophecy is to be verified forty-three years hence. Even were\nall the children born of monks and nuns really to become antichrists\nif allowed to grow up to maturity, the fact would seem far less\ndeplorable than the discoveries made in so many convents when the\nfoundations have been removed for some reason. If the assertion of\nLuther is to be disbelieved on account of his hatred for popery, then\nwe may name discoveries of the same character made quite recently in\nAustrian and Russian Poland. Luther speaks of a fish-pond at Rome,\nsituated near a convent of nuns, which, having been cleared out by\norder of Pope Gregory, disclosed, at the bottom, over six thousand\ninfant skulls; and of a nunnery at Neinburg, in Austria, whose\nfoundations, when searched, disclosed the same relics of celibacy and\nchastity!\n\n\u201c_Ecclesia non novit Sanguinem!_\u201d meekly repeated the scarlet-robed\ncardinals. And to avoid the spilling of blood which horrified them,\nthey instituted the Holy Inquisition. If, as the occultists maintain,\nand science half confirms, our most trifling acts and thoughts are\nindelibly impressed upon the eternal mirror of the astral ether,\nthere must be somewhere, in the boundless realm of the unseen\nuniverse, the imprint of a curious picture. It is that of a gorgeous\nstandard waving in the heavenly breeze at the foot of the great\n\u201cwhite throne\u201d of the Almighty. On its crimson damask face a cross,\nsymbol of \u201cthe Son of God who died for mankind,\u201d with an _olive_\nbranch on one side, and a sword, stained to the hilt with human\ngore, on the other. A legend selected from the _Psalms_ emblazoned\nin golden letters, reading thus: \u201c_Exurge, Domine, et judica causam\nmeam._\u201d For such appears the standard of the Inquisition, on a\nphotograph in our possession, from an original procured at the\nEscurial of Madrid.\n\nUnder this Christian standard, in the brief space of fourteen years,\nTomas de Torquemada, the confessor of Queen Isabella, burned over\nten thousand persons, and sentenced to the torture eighty thousand\nmore. Orobio, the well-known writer, who was detained so long in\nprison, and who hardly escaped the flames of the Inquisition,\nimmortalized this institution in his works when once at liberty in\nHolland. He found no better argument against the Holy Church than to\nembrace the Judaic faith and submit even to circumcision. \u201cIn the\ncathedral of Saragossa,\u201d says a writer on the Inquisition, \u201cis the\ntomb of a famous inquisitor. Six pillars surround the tomb; _to each\nis chained a Moor_, as preparatory to being burned.\u201d On this St.\nFoix ingenuously observes: \u201cIf ever the Jack Ketch of any country\nshould be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this might serve as\nan excellent model!\u201d To make it complete, however, the builders of\nthe tomb ought not to have omitted a bas-relief of the famous horse\nwhich was burnt for sorcery and witchcraft. Granger tells the story,\ndescribing it as having occurred in his time. The poor animal \u201chad\nbeen taught to tell the spots upon cards, and the hour of the day by\nthe watch. Horse and owner were both indicted by the sacred office\nfor dealing with the Devil, and both were burned, with a great\nceremony of _auto-da-f\u00e9_, at Lisbon, in 1601, as wizards!\u201d\n\nThis immortal institution of Christianity did not remain without\nits Dante to sing its praise. \u201cMacedo, a Portuguese Jesuit,\u201d says\nthe author of _Demonologia_, \u201chas discovered the origin of the\nInquisition, in the terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege that\nGod was the first who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain\nand the workmen of Babel!\u201d\n\nNowhere, during the middle ages, were the arts of magic and sorcery\nmore practiced by the clergy than in Spain and Portugal. The Moors\nwere profoundly versed in the occult sciences, and at Toledo,\nSeville, and Salamanca, were, once upon a time, the great schools\nof magic. The kabalists of the latter town were skilled in all the\nabstruse sciences; they knew the virtues of precious stones and\nother minerals, and had extracted from alchemy its most profound\nsecrets.\n\nThe authentic documents pertaining to the great trial of the\nMarechale d\u2019Ancre, during the regency of Marie de Medicis, disclose\nthat the unfortunate woman perished through the fault of the\npriests with whom, like a true Italian, she surrounded herself.\nShe was accused by the people of Paris of sorcery, because it had\nbeen asserted that she had used, after the ceremony of exorcism,\nnewly-killed white cocks. Believing herself constantly bewitched,\nand being in very delicate health, the Marechale had the ceremony of\nexorcism publicly applied to herself in the Church of the Augustins;\nas to the birds, she used them as an application to the forehead on\naccount of dreadful pains in the head, and had been advised to do so\nby Montalto, the Jew physician of the queen, and the Italian priests.\n\nIn the sixteenth century, the Cur\u00e9 de Barjota, of the diocese of\nCallahora, Spain, became the world\u2019s wonder for his magical powers.\nHis most extraordinary feat consisted, it was said, in transporting\nhimself to any distant country, witnessing political and other\nevents, and then returning home to predict them in his own country.\nHe had a familiar demon, who served him faithfully for long years,\nsays the _Chronicle_, but the cur\u00e9 turned ungrateful and cheated him.\nHaving been apprised by his demon of a conspiracy against the Pope\u2019s\nlife, in consequence of an intrigue of the latter with a fair lady,\nthe cur\u00e9 transported himself to Rome (in his double, of course) and\nthus saved his Holiness\u2019 life. After which he repented, confessed his\nsins to the gallant Pope, and _got absolution_. \u201cOn his return he was\ndelivered, as a matter of form, into the custody of the inquisitors\nof Logro\u00f1o, but was acquitted and restored to his liberty very soon.\u201d\n\nFriar Pietro, a Dominican monk of the fourteenth century--the\nmagician who presented the famous Dr. Eugenio Torralva, a physician\nattached to the house of the admiral of Castile, with a _demon_ named\nZequiel--won his fame through the subsequent trial of Torralva. The\nprocedure and circumstances attendant upon the extraordinary trial\nare described in the original papers preserved in the Archives of\nthe Inquisition. The Cardinal of Volterra, and the Cardinal of Santa\nCruz, both saw and communicated with Zequiel, who proved, during the\nwhole of Torralva\u2019s life, to be a pure, kind, elemental spirit, doing\nmany beneficent actions, and remaining faithful to the physician to\nthe last hour of his life. Even the Inquisition acquitted Torralva,\non that account; and, although an immortality of fame was insured\nto him by the satire of Cervantes, neither Torralva nor the monk\nPietro are fictitious heroes, but historical personages, recorded in\necclesiastical documents of Rome and Cuen\u00e7a, in which town the trial\nof the physician took place, January the 29th 1530.\n\nThe book of Dr. W. G. Soldan, of Stuttgart, has become as famous in\nGermany, as Bodin\u2019s book on _Demonomania_ in France. It is the most\ncomplete German treatise on witchcraft of the sixteenth century. One\ninterested to learn the secret machinery underlying these thousands\nof legal murders, perpetrated by a clergy who pretended to believe\nin the Devil, and succeeded in making others believe in him, will\nfind it divulged in the above-mentioned work.[87] The true origin of\nthe daily accusations and death-sentences for sorcery are cleverly\ntraced to personal and political enmities, and, above all, to the\nhatred of the Catholics toward the Protestants. The crafty work of\nthe Jesuits is seen at every page of the bloody tragedies; and it\nis in Bamberg and W\u00fcrzburg, where these worthy sons of Loyola were\nmost powerful at that time, that the cases of witchcraft were most\nnumerous. On the next page we give a curious list of some victims,\nmany of whom were children between the ages of seven and eight\nyears, and Protestants. \u201cOf the multitudes of persons who perished\nat the stake in Germany during the first half of the seventeenth\ncentury for sorcery, the crime of many was their attachment to the\nreligion of Luther,\u201d says T. Wright, \u201c... and the petty princes\nwere not unwilling to seize upon any pretense to fill their coffers\n... the persons most persecuted being those whose property was a\nmatter of consideration.... At Bamberg, as well as at W\u00fcrzburg, the\nbishop was a sovereign prince in his dominions. The Prince-Bishop,\nJohn George II., who ruled Bamberg ... after several unsuccessful\nattempts to root out Lutheranism, distinguished his reign by a\nseries of sanguinary witch-trials, which disgrace the annals of that\ncity.... We may form some notion of the proceedings of his worthy\nagent,[88] from the statement of the most authentic historians, that\nbetween 1625 and 1630, not less than 900 trials took place in the\ntwo courts of Bamberg and Zeil; and a pamphlet published at Bamberg\nby authority, in 1659, states the number of persons whom Bishop John\nGeorge had caused to be burned for sorcery, to have been 600.\u201d[89]\n\nRegretting that space should prevent our giving one of the most\ncurious lists in the world of burned witches, we will nevertheless\nmake a few extracts from the original record as printed in Hauber\u2019s\n_Bibliotheca Magica_. One glance at this horrible catalogue of\nmurders in Christ\u2019s name, is sufficient to discover that out of\n162 persons burned, more than one-half of them are designated as\n_strangers_ (_i.e._, Protestants) in this hospitable town; and of\nthe other half we find _thirty-four children_, the oldest of whom\nwas fourteen, the youngest _an infant_ child of Dr. Sch\u00fctz. To make\nthe catalogue shorter we will present of each of the twenty-nine\n_burnings_, but the most remarkable.[90]\n\n\n IN THE FIRST BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.\n\n Old Ancker\u2019s widow.\n The wife of Liebler.\n The wife of Gutbrodt.\n The wife of H\u00f6cker.\n\n\n IN THE SECOND BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.\n\n Two strange women (names unknown).\n The old wife of Beutler.\n\n\n IN THE THIRD BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.\n\n Tungersleber, a minstrel.\n Four wives of citizens.\n\n\n IN THE FOURTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.\n\n A strange man.\n\n\n IN THE FIFTH BURNING, NINE PERSONS.\n\n Lutz, an eminent shop-keeper.\n The wife of Baunach, a senator.\n\n\n IN THE SIXTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n The fat tailor\u2019s wife.\n A strange man.\n A strange woman.\n\n\n IN THE SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.\n\n A strange girl of twelve years old.\n A strange man, a strange woman.\n A strange bailiff (Schultheiss).\n Three strange women.\n\n\n IN THE EIGHTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.\n\n Baunach, a senator, the fattest citizen in W\u00fcrzburg.\n A strange man.\n Two strange women.\n\n\n IN THE NINTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.\n\n A strange man.\n A mother and daughter.\n\n\n IN THE TENTH BURNING, THREE PERSONS.\n\n Steinacher, a very rich man.\n A strange man, a strange woman.\n\n\n IN THE ELEVENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.\n\n Two women and two men.\n\n\n IN THE TWELFTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.\n\n Two strange women.\n\n\n IN THE THIRTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.\n\n A little girl nine or ten years old.\n A younger girl, her little sister.\n\n\n IN THE FOURTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.\n\n The mother of the two little girls before mentioned.\n A girl twenty-four years old.\n\n\n IN THE FIFTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.\n\n A boy twelve years of age, in the first school.\n A woman.\n\n\n IN THE SIXTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n A boy of ten years of age.\n\n\n IN THE SEVENTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.\n\n A boy eleven years old.\n A mother and daughter.\n\n\n IN THE EIGHTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n Two boys, twelve years old.\n The daughter of Dr. Junge.\n A girl of fifteen years of age.\n A strange woman.\n\n\n IN THE NINETEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n A boy of ten years of age.\n Another boy, twelve years old.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTIETH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n G\u00f6bel\u2019s child, the most beautiful girl in W\u00fcrzburg.\n Two boys, each twelve years old.\n Stepper\u2019s little daughter.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-FIRST BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n A boy fourteen years old.\n The little son of Senator Stolzenberger.\n Two alumni.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-SECOND BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n St\u00fcrman, a rich cooper.\n A strange boy.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-THIRD BURNING, NINE PERSONS.\n\n David Croten\u2019s boy, nine years old.\n The two sons of the prince\u2019s cook, one fourteen, the other ten\n years old.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-FOURTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.\n\n Two boys in the hospital.\n A rich cooper.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-FIFTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n A strange boy.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-SIXTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.\n\n Weydenbush, a senator.\n The little daughter of Valkenberger.\n The little son of the town council bailiff.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.\n\n A strange boy.\n A strange woman.\n Another boy.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-EIGHTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.\n\n The infant daughter of Dr. Sch\u00fctz.\n A blind girl.\n\n\n IN THE TWENTY-NINTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.\n\n The fat noble lady (Edelfrau).\n A doctor of divinity.\n\n\n _Item._\n\n \u23a7 \u201cStrange\u201d men and women, _i.e._,\n \u23aa _Protestants_, 28\n \u23aa Citizens, apparently all WEALTHY people, 100\n _Summary_: \u23a8 Boys, girls, and little children, 34\n \u23aa ---\n \u23a9 In nineteen months, 162 persons.\n\n\u201cThere were,\u201d says Wright, \u201clittle girls of from seven to ten years\nof age among the witches, and _seven and twenty_ of them were\nconvicted and burnt,\u201d at some of the other _br\u00e4nde_, or burnings.\n\u201cThe numbers brought to trial in these terrible proceedings were so\ngreat, and they were treated with so little consideration, that it\nwas usual not even to take the trouble of setting down their names,\nbut they were cited as the accused No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and so\non.[91] The Jesuits took their confessions in private.\u201d\n\nWhat room is there in a theology which exacts such holocausts\nas these to appease the bloody appetites of its priests for the\nfollowing gentle words:\n\n\u201cSuffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for\nof such is the kingdom of Heaven.\u201d \u201cEven so it is not the will of\nyour Father ... that one of these little ones should perish.\u201d \u201cBut\nwhoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it\n_were better for him that a millstone were hanged_ about his neck and\nthat he were drowned in the depths of the sea.\u201d\n\nWe sincerely hope that the above words have proved no vain threat to\nthese child-burners.\n\nDid this butchery in the name of their Moloch-god prevent these\ntreasure-hunters from resorting to the black art themselves? Not in\nthe least; for in no class were such consulters of \u201cfamiliar\u201d spirits\nmore numerous than among the clergy during the fifteenth, sixteenth,\nand seventeenth centuries. True, there were some Catholic priests\namong the victims, but though these were generally accused of having\n\u201cbeen led into practices too dreadful to be described,\u201d it was not\nso. In the twenty-nine burnings above catalogued we find the names of\n_twelve vicars_, _four_ canons, and two doctors of divinity _burnt\nalive_. But we have only to turn to such works as were published at\nthe time to assure ourselves that each popish priest executed was\naccused of \u201cdamnable heresy,\u201d _i.e._, a tendency to reformation--a\ncrime more heinous far than sorcery.\n\nWe refer those who would learn how the Catholic clergy united\nduty with pleasure in the matter of exorcisms, revenge, and\ntreasure-hunting, to volume II., chapter i., of W. Howitt\u2019s _History\nof the Supernatural_. \u201cIn the book called _Pneumatologia Occulta et\nVera_, all the forms of adjuration and conjuration were laid down,\u201d\nsays this veteran writer. He then proceeds to give a long description\nof the favorite _modus operandi_. The _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute\nMagie_ of the late Eliphas Levi, treated with so much abuse and\ncontempt by des Mousseaux, tells nothing of the weird ceremonies\nand practices but what was practiced legally and with the tacit if\nnot open consent of the Church, by the priests of the middle ages.\nThe exorcist-priest entered a circle at midnight; he was clad in\na new surplice, and had a consecrated band hanging from the neck,\ncovered with sacred characters. He wore on the head a tall pointed\ncap, on the front of which was written in Hebrew the holy word,\nTetragrammaton--the ineffable name. It was written with a new pen\ndipped in the blood of a white dove. What the exorcists most yearned\nafter, was to release miserable spirits _which haunt spots where\nhidden treasures lie_. The exorcist sprinkles the circle with the\nblood of a black lamb and a white pigeon. The priest had to adjure\nthe evil spirits of hell--Acheront, Magoth, Asmodei, Beelzebub,\nBelial, and all the damned souls, in the mighty names of Jehovah,\nAdonay, Elohah, and Sabaioth, which latter was the God of Abraham,\nIsaac, and Jacob, who dwelt in the Urim and Thummim. When the damned\nsouls flung in the face of the exorcist that he was a sinner, and\ncould not get the treasure from them, the priest-sorcerer had to\nreply that \u201call his sins were washed out in the blood of Christ,[92]\nand he bid them depart as cursed ghosts and damned flies.\u201d When the\nexorcist dislodged them at last, the poor soul was \u201ccomforted in the\nname of the Saviour, and _consigned to the care of good angels_,\u201d\nwho were less powerful, we must think, than the exorcising Catholic\nworthies, \u201cand the rescued treasure, of course, was secured for the\nChurch.\u201d\n\n\u201cCertain days,\u201d adds Howitt, \u201care laid down in the calendar of the\nChurch as most favorable for the practice of exorcism; and, if the\ndevils are difficult to drive, a fume of sulphur, assaf\u0153tida, bear\u2019s\ngall, and rue is recommended, which, it was presumed, would outstench\neven devils.\u201d\n\nThis is the Church, and this the priesthood, which, in the nineteenth\ncentury, pays 5,000 priests to teach the people of the United States\nthe infidelity of science and the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome!\n\nWe have already noticed the confession of an eminent prelate that the\nelimination of Satan from theology would be fatal to the perpetuity\nof the Church. But this is only partially true. The Prince of Sin\nwould be gone, but sin itself would survive. If the Devil were\nannihilated, the _Articles of Faith_ and the _Bible_ would remain.\nIn short there would still be a pretended divine revelation, and the\nnecessity for self-assumed inspired interpreters. We must, therefore,\nconsider the authenticity of the _Bible_ itself. We must study its\npages, and see if they, indeed, contain the commands of the Deity,\nor but a compendium of ancient traditions and hoary myths. We must\ntry to interpret them for ourselves--if possible. As to its pretended\ninterpreters, the only possible assimilation we can find for them in\nthe _Bible_ is to compare them with the man described by the wise\nKing Solomon in his _Proverbs_, with the perpetrator of these \u201csix\nthings ... yea _seven_ ... which doth the Lord hate,\u201d and which are\nan abomination unto Him, to wit: \u201cA _proud_ look, a _lying_ tongue,\nand hands that shed _innocent blood_; an heart _that deviseth wicked\nimaginations_, feet that be swift in running to mischief; a _false\nwitness_ that speaketh lies, and _he that soweth discord among\nbrethren_\u201d (_Proverbs_ vi. 16, 17, 18, 19).\n\nOf which of these accusations are the long line of men who have left\nthe imprint of their feet in the Vatican guiltless?\n\n\u201cWhen the demons,\u201d says Augustine, \u201c_insinuate_ themselves in the\ncreatures, they begin by conforming themselves _to the will of every\none_.... In order to attract men, they begin by seducing them, by\nsimulating obedience.... _How could one know, had he not been taught\nby the demons themselves_, what they like or what they hate; _the\nname which attracts, or that which forces them into obedience_;\nall this art, in short, of _magic_, the whole science of the\nmagicians?\u201d[93]\n\nTo this impressive dissertation of the \u201csaint,\u201d we will add that\nno magician has ever denied that he had learned the _art_ from\n\u201cspirits,\u201d whether, being a medium, they acted independently on him,\nor he had been initiated into the science of \u201cevocation\u201d by his\nfathers who knew it before himself. But who was it then that taught\nthe exorcist? The priest who clothes himself with an authority not\nonly over the magician, but even over all these \u201cspirits,\u201d whom he\ncalls demons and _devils_ as soon as he finds them obeying any one\nbut himself? He must have learned somewhere from some one that power\nwhich he pretends to possess. For, \u201c... _how could one know had he\nnot been taught by the demons themselves ... the name which attracts,\nor that which forces them into obedience?_\u201d asks Augustine.\n\nUseless to remark that we know the answer beforehand: \u201cRevelation\n... _divine_ gift ... the Son of God; nay, God Himself, through His\ndirect Spirit, who descended on the apostles as the Pentecostal fire,\nand who is now alleged to overshadow every priest who sees fit to\nexorcise for either glory or a gift. Are we then to believe that\nthe recent scandal of public exorcism, performed about the 14th of\nOctober, 1876, by the senior priest of the Church of the Holy Spirit,\nat Barcelona, Spain, was also done under the direct superintendence\nof the Holy Ghost?[94] It will be urged that the \u201cbishop was not\ncognizant of this freak of the clergy;\u201d but even if he were, how\ncould he have protested against a rite considered since the days of\nthe apostles, one of the most holy prerogatives of the Church of\nRome? So late as in 1852, only twenty-five years ago, these rites\nreceived a public and solemn sanction from the Vatican, and a new\n_Ritual of Exorcism_ was published in Rome, Paris, and other Catholic\ncapitals. Des Mousseaux, writing under the immediate patronage of\nFather Ventura, the General of the Theatines of Rome, even favors\nus with lengthy extracts from this famous ritual, and explains the\nreason _why_ it was enforced again. It was in consequence of the\nrevival of Magic under the name of Modern Spiritualism. The bull of\nPope Innocent VIII. is exhumed, and translated for the benefit of\ndes Mousseaux\u2019s readers. \u201cWe have heard,\u201d exclaims the Sovereign\nPontiff, \u201cthat a great number of persons of both sexes have feared\nnot to enter into relations with the spirits of hell; and that, by\ntheir practice of sorcery ... they strike with sterility the conjugal\nbed, destroy the germs of humanity in the bosom of the mother, and\nthrow spells on them, and set a barrier to the multiplication of\nanimals ... etc., etc.;\u201d then follow curses and anathemas against the\npractice.\n\nThis belief of the Sovereign Pontiffs of an enlightened Christian\ncountry is a direct inheritance by the most ignorant multitudes\nfrom the southern Hindu rabble--the \u201cheathen.\u201d The diabolical arts\nof certain kangalins (witches) and jad\u016bgar (sorcerers) are firmly\nbelieved in by these people. The following are among their most\ndreaded powers: to inspire love and hatred at will; to send a devil\nto take possession of a person and torture him; to expel him; to\ncause sudden death or an incurable disease; to either strike cattle\nwith or protect them from epidemics; to compose philtres that will\neither strike with sterility or provoke unbounded passions in men and\nwomen, etc., etc. The sight alone of a man said to be such a sorcerer\nexcites in a Hindu profound terror.\n\nAnd now we will quote in this connection the truthful remark of\na writer who passed years in India in the study of the origin of\nsuch superstitions: \u201cVulgar magic in India, like a degenerated\ninfiltration, goes hand-in-hand with the most ennobling beliefs\nof the sectarians of the _Pitris_. It was the _work of the lowest\nclergy_, and designed to hold the populace in a perpetual state of\nfear. It is thus that in all ages and under every latitude, side by\nside with philosophical speculations of the highest character, one\nalways finds _the religion of the rabble_.\u201d[95] In India it was the\nwork of the _lowest clergy_; in Rome, that of the _highest Pontiffs_.\nBut then, have they not as authority their greatest saint, Augustine,\nwho declares that \u201cwhoever believes not in the evil spirits, refuses\nto believe in Holy Writ?\u201d[96]\n\nTherefore, in the second half of the nineteenth century, we find the\ncounsel for the Sacred Congregation of Rites (exorcism of demons\nincluded), Father Ventura de Raulica, writing thus, in a letter\npublished by des Mousseaux, in 1865:\n\n \u201cWe are in full magic! and under false names; the Spirit\n of lies and impudicity goes on perpetrating his horrible\n deprecations.... The most grievous feature in this is that\n among the most serious persons they do not attach the\n importance to the strange phenomena which they deserve,\n these manifestations that we witness, and which become with\n every day more weird, striking, as well as most fatal.\n\n \u201cI cannot sufficiently admire and praise, from this\n standpoint, the zeal and courage displayed by you in your\n work. The facts which you have collected are calculated to\n throw light and conviction into the most skeptical minds;\n and after reading this remarkable work, written with so\n much learnedness and consciousness, blindness is no longer\n possible.\n\n \u201cIf anything could surprise us, it would be the\n indifference with which these phenomena have been treated\n by _false_ Science, endeavoring, as she has, to turn into\n ridicule so grave a subject; the childish simplicity\n exhibited by her in the desire to explain the facts by\n absurd and contradictory hypotheses....[97]\n\n [Signed] \u201c_The Father Ventura de Raulica_, etc., etc.\u201d\n\nThus encouraged by the greatest authorities of the Church of Rome,\nancient and modern, the Chevalier argues the necessity and the\nefficacy of exorcism by the priests. He tries to demonstrate--_on\nfaith_, as usual-- that the power of the spirits of hell is closely\nrelated to certain rites, words, and formal signs. \u201cIn the diabolical\nCatholicism,\u201d he says \u201cas well as in the _divine_ Catholicism,\npotential grace is _bound_ (_li\u00e9e_) to certain signs.\u201d While the\npower of the Catholic priest proceeds from God, that of the Pagan\npriest proceeds from the Devil. The Devil, he adds, \u201cis forced to\nsubmission\u201d before the holy minister of God--\u201c_he dares not_ LIE.\u201d[98]\n\nWe beg the reader to note well the underlined sentence, as we mean\nto test its truth impartially. We are prepared to adduce proofs,\nundeniable and undenied even by the Popish Church--forced, as she\nwas, into the confession--proofs of hundreds of cases in relation\nto the most solemn of her dogmas, wherein the \u201cspirits\u201d lied from\nbeginning to end. How about certain holy relics authenticated by\nvisions of the blessed Virgin, and a host of saints? We have at hand\na treatise by a pious Catholic, Jilbert de Nogen, on the relics of\nsaints. With honest despair he acknowledges the \u201cgreat number of\nfalse relics, as well as false legends,\u201d and severely censures the\ninventors of these lying miracles. \u201cIt was on the occasion _of one\nof our Saviour\u2019s teeth_,\u201d writes the author of _Demonologia_, \u201cthat\nde Nogen took up his pen on this subject, by which the monks of St.\nMedard de Soissons pretended to work miracles; a pretension which he\nasserted to be as chimerical as that of several persons who believed\nthey possessed the navel, and other parts less comely, of the body of\nChrist.\u201d[99]\n\n\u201cA monk of St. Antony,\u201d says Stephens,[100] \u201chaving been at\nJerusalem, saw there several relics, among which was a bit of _the\nfinger of the Holy Ghost_, as sound and entire as it had ever been;\nthe snout of the seraph that appeared to St. Francis; one of the\nnails of a cherub; one of the ribs of the _Verbum caro factum_ (the\nWord made flesh); some rays of the star that appeared to the three\nkings of the East; a phial of St. Michael\u2019s sweat, that exuded when\nhe was fighting against the Devil, etc. \u2018All which things,\u2019 observes\nthe monkish treasurer of relics, \u2018I have brought with me home very\ndevoutly.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd if the foregoing is set aside as the invention of a Protestant\nenemy, may we not be allowed to refer the reader to the History\nof England and authentic documents which state the existence of a\nrelic not less extraordinary than the best of the others? Henry III.\nreceived from the Grand Master of the Templars a phial containing\na small portion of the sacred blood of Christ which he had shed\nupon the cross. It was attested to be genuine by the seals of the\nPatriarch of Jerusalem, and others. The procession bearing the\nsacred phial from St. Paul\u2019s to Westminster Abbey is described by the\nhistorian: \u201cTwo monks received the phial, and deposited it in the\nAbbey ... which made all England shine with glory, dedicating it to\nGod and St. Edward.\u201d\n\nThe story of the Prince Radzivil is well known. It was the undeniable\ndeception of the monks and nuns surrounding him and his own confessor\nwhich made the Polish nobleman become a Lutheran. He felt at first so\nindignant at the \u201cheresy\u201d of the Reformation spreading in Lithuania,\nthat he travelled all the way to Rome to pay his homage of sympathy\nand veneration to the Pope. The latter presented him with a precious\nbox of relics. On his return home, his confessor saw the Virgin, who\ndescended from her glorious abode for the sole purpose of blessing\nthese relics and authenticating them. The superior of the neighboring\nconvent and the mother-abbess of a nunnery both saw the same vision,\nwith a re\u00ebnforcement of several saints and martyrs; they prophesied\nand \u201cfelt the Holy Ghost\u201d ascending from the box of relics and\novershadowing the prince. A demoniac provided for the purpose by the\nclergy was exorcised in full ceremony, and upon being touched by the\nbox immediately recovered, and rendered thanks on the spot to the\nPope and the Holy Ghost. After the ceremony was over the guardian\nof the treasury in which the relics were kept, threw himself at the\nfeet of the prince, and confessed that on their way back from Rome he\nhad lost the box of relics. Dreading the wrath of his master, he had\nprocured a similar box, \u201cwhich he had filled with the small bones of\ndogs and cats;\u201d but seeing how the prince was deceived, he preferred\nconfessing his guilt to such blasphemous tricks. The prince said\nnothing, but continued for some time testing--not the relics, but his\nconfessor and the vision-seers. Their mock raptures made him discover\nso thoroughly the gross impositions of the monks and nuns that he\njoined the Reformed Church.\n\nThis is history. Bayle shows that when the Roman Church is no longer\nable to deny that there have been false relics, she resorts to\nsophistry, and replies that if false relics have wrought miracles\nit is \u201cbecause of the good intentions of the believers, who thus\nobtained from God a reward of their good faith!\u201d The same Bayle\nshows, by numerous instances, that whenever it was proved that\nseveral bodies of the same saint, or three heads of him, or three\narms (as in the case of Augustine) were said to exist in different\nplaces, and that they could not well be all authentic, the cool and\ninvariable answer of the Church was that they were all genuine;\nfor \u201cGod had multiplied and miraculously reproduced them for the\ngreater glory of His Holy Church!\u201d In other words they would have\nthe faithful believe that the body of a deceased saint may, through\ndivine miracle, acquire the physiological peculiarities of a\ncrawfish!\n\nWe fancy that it would be hard to demonstrate to satisfaction that\nthe visions of Catholic saints, are, in any one particular instance,\nbetter or more trustworthy than the average visions and prophecies of\nour modern \u201cmediums.\u201d The visions of Andrew Jackson Davis--however\nour critics may sneer at them--are by long odds more philosophical\nand more compatible with modern science than the Augustinian\nspeculations. Whenever the visions of Swedenborg, the greatest among\nthe modern seers, run astray from philosophy and scientific truth, it\nis when they most run parallel with theology. Nor are these visions\nany more useless to either science or humanity than those of the\ngreat orthodox saints. In the life of St. Bernard it is narrated\nthat as he was once in church, upon a Christmas eve, he prayed that\nthe very hour in which Christ was born might be revealed to him; and\nwhen the \u201ctrue and correct hour came, he saw the divine babe appear\nin his manger.\u201d What a pity that the divine babe did not embrace\nso favorable an opportunity to fix the correct day and year of his\ndeath, and thereby reconcile the controversies of his putative\nhistorians. The Tischendorfs, Lardners, and Colensos, as well as\nmany a Catholic divine, who have vainly squeezed the marrow out of\nhistorical records and their own brains, in the useless search, would\nat least have had something for which to thank the saint.\n\nAs it is, we are hopelessly left to infer that most of the beatific\nand divine visions of the _Golden Legend_, and those to be found in\nthe more complete biographies of the most important \u201csaints,\u201d as well\nas most of the visions of our own persecuted seers and seeresses,\nwere produced by ignorant and undeveloped \u201cspirits\u201d passionately\nfond of personating great historical characters. We are quite ready\nto agree with the Chevalier des Mousseaux, and other unrelenting\npersecutors of magic and spiritualism in the name of the Church, that\nmodern spirits are often \u201clying spirits;\u201d that they are ever on hand\nto humor the respective hobbies of the persons who communicate with\nthem at \u201ccircles;\u201d that they _deceive_ them and, therefore, are not\n_always_ good \u201cspirits.\u201d\n\nBut, having conceded so much, we will now ask of any impartial\nperson: is it possible to believe at the same time that the _power_\ngiven to the exorcist-priest, that supreme and _divine_ power of\nwhich he boasts, has been given to him by God for the purpose of\ndeceiving people? That the prayer pronounced by him _in the name of\nChrist_, and which, forcing the _demon_ into submission, makes him\nreveal himself, is calculated at the same time to make the devil\nconfess _not the truth_, but that only which it is the _interest of\nthe church to which the exorcist belongs_, should _pass for truth_?\nAnd this is what invariably happens. Compare, for instance, the\nresponses given by the demon to Luther, with those obtained from the\ndevils by St. Dominick. The one argues against the private mass,\nand upbraids Luther with placing the Virgin Mary and saints before\nChrist, and thus dishonoring the Son of God;[101] while the demons\nexorcised by St. Dominick, upon seeing the Virgin whom the holy\nfather had also evoked to help him, roar out: \u201cOh! our enemy! oh!\nour damner! ... why didst thou descend from heaven to torment us?\nWhy art thou so powerful an intercessor for sinners! Oh! _thou most\ncertain and secure way to heaven_ ... thou commandest us _and we are\nforced to confess_ that nobody is damned who only perseveres in thy\nholy worship, etc., etc.\u201d[102] Luther\u2019s \u201cSaint Satan\u201d assures him\nthat while believing in the transubstantiation of Christ\u2019s body and\nblood he had been worshipping merely bread and wine; and the _devils_\nof all the Catholic saints promise _eternal damnation_ to whomsoever\ndisbelieves or even so much as doubts the dogma!\n\nBefore leaving the subject, let us give one or two more instances\nfrom the _Chronicles of the Lives of the Saints_, selected from such\nnarratives as are fully accepted by the Church. We might fill volumes\nwith proofs of undeniable confederacy between the exorcisers and the\ndemons. Their very nature betrays them. Instead of being independent,\ncrafty entities, bent on the destruction of men\u2019s souls and spirits,\nthe majority of them are simply the elementals of the kabalists;\ncreatures with no intellect of their own, but faithful mirrors of\nthe WILL which evokes, controls, and guides them. We will not waste\nour time in drawing the reader\u2019s attention to doubtful or obscure\nthaumaturgists and exorcisers, but take as our standard one of the\ngreatest saints of Catholicism, and select a bouquet from that same\nprolific conservatory of pious lies, _The Golden Legend_, of James de\nVeragine.[103]\n\nSt. Dominick, the founder of the famous order of that name, is one of\nthe mightiest saints on the calendar. His order was the first that\nreceived a solemn confirmation from the Pope,[104] and he is well\nknown in history as the associate and counsellor of the infamous\nSimon de Montford, the papal general, whom he helped to butcher the\nunfortunate Albigenses in and near Toulouse. The story goes that\nthis saint and the Church after him, claim that he received from the\nVirgin, _in propri\u00e2 person\u00e2_, a rosary, whose virtues produced such\nstupendous miracles that they throw entirely into the shade those of\nthe apostles, and even of Jesus himself. A man, says the biographer,\nan abandoned sinner, was bold enough to doubt the virtue of the\nDominican rosary; and for this unparalleled blasphemy was punished\non the spot by having 15,000 devils take possession of him. Seeing\nthe great suffering of the tortured demoniac, St. Dominick forgot the\ninsult and called the devils to account.\n\nFollowing is the colloquy between the \u201cblessed exorcist\u201d and the\ndemons:\n\n_Question._--How did you take possession of this man, and how many\nare you?\n\n_Answer of the Devils._--We came into him for having spoken\ndisrespectfully of the rosary. We are 15,000.\n\n_Question._--Why did so many as 15,000 enter him?\n\n_Answer._--Because there are fifteen decades in the rosary which he\nderided, etc.\n\n_Dominick._--Is not all true I have said of the virtues of the rosary?\n\n_Devils._--Yes! Yes! (_they emit flames through the nostrils of the\ndemoniac_). Know all ye Christians that Dominick never said one word\nconcerning the rosary that is not most true; and know ye further,\nthat if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you.\n\n_Dominick._--Who is the man in the world the Devil hates the most?\n\n_Devils._--(_In chorus._) Thou art the very man (_here follow verbose\ncompliments_).\n\n_Dominick._--Of which state of Christians are there the most damned?\n\n_Devils._--In hell we have merchants, pawnbrokers, fraudulent\nbankers, grocers, Jews, apothecaries, etc., etc.\n\n_Dominick._--Are there any priests or monks in hell?\n\n_Devils._--There are a great number of priests, but _no monks_, with\nthe exception of such as have transgressed the rule of their order.\n\n_Dominick._--Have you any Dominicans?\n\n_Devils._--Alas! alas! we have not one yet, but we expect a great\nnumber of them after their devotion is a little cooled.\n\nWe do not pretend to give the questions and answers literally, for\nthey occupy twenty-three pages; but the substance is here, as may\nbe seen by any one who cares to read the _Golden Legend_. The full\ndescription of the hideous bellowings of the demons, their enforced\nglorification of the saint, and so on, is too long for this chapter.\nSuffice it to say that as we read the numerous questions offered by\nDominick and the answers of the demons, we become fully convinced\nthat they corroborate in every detail the unwarranted assertions and\nsupport the interests of the Church. The narrative is suggestive.\nThe legend graphically describes the battle of the exorcist with the\nlegion from the bottomless pit. The sulphurous flames which burst\nforth from the nose, mouth, eyes, and ears, of the demoniac; the\nsudden appearance of over a hundred angels, clad in golden armor;\nand, finally, the descent of the blessed Virgin herself, in person,\nbearing a golden rod, with which she administers a sound thrashing\nto the demoniac, to force the devils to confess that of herself\nwhich we scarcely need repeat. The whole catalogue of theological\ntruths uttered by Dominick\u2019s devils were embodied in so many articles\nof faith by his Holiness, the present Pope, in 1870, at the last\n\u0152cumenical Council.\n\nFrom the foregoing it is easy to see that the only substantial\ndifference between infidel \u201cmediums\u201d and orthodox saints lies in the\nrelative usefulness of the _demons_, if demons we must call them.\nWhile the Devil faithfully supports the Christian exorcist in his\n_orthodox_ (?) views, the modern spook generally leaves his medium\nin the lurch. For, by lying, he acts _against_ his or her interests\nrather than otherwise, and thereby too often casts foul suspicion on\nthe genuineness of the mediumship. Were modern \u201cspirits\u201d _devils_,\nthey would evidently display a little more discrimination and cunning\nthan they do. They would act as the _demons_ of the saint which,\ncompelled by the ecclesiastical magician and by the power of \u201cthe\nname ... which forces them into submission,\u201d _lie in accordance with\nthe direct interest_ of the exorcist and his church. The moral of the\nparallel we leave to the sagacity of the reader.\n\n\u201cObserve well,\u201d exclaims des Mousseaux, \u201cthat there are _demons_\nwhich sometimes will speak the truth.\u201d \u201cThe exorcist,\u201d he adds,\nquoting the _Ritual_, \u201cmust command the demon to tell him whether he\nis detained in the body of the demoniac through some magic art, or by\n_signs_, or any objects which usually serve for this evil practice.\nIn case the exorcised person has swallowed the latter, he must vomit\nthem back; and if they are not in his body, the demon must indicate\nthe proper place where they are to be found; and having found them\nthey must be burned.\u201d[105] Thus some demons reveal the existence of\nthe bewitchment, tell who is its author, and indicate the means to\ndestroy the _malefice_. But beware to ever resort, in such a case,\nto magicians, sorcerers, or mediums. You must call to help you but\nthe minister of your Church! \u201cThe Church believes in magic, as you\nwell see,\u201d he adds, \u201csince she expresses it so formally. And those\nwho _disbelieve in magic_, can they still hope to share the faith of\ntheir own Church? And who can teach them better? To whom did Christ\nsay: \u2018Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ... and lo, I am with\nyou always, even to the end of the world?\u2019\u201d[106]\n\nAre we to believe that he said this but to those who wear these\nblack or scarlet liveries of Rome? Must we then credit the story\nthat this power was given by Christ to Simon Stylites, the saint who\nsanctified himself by perching on a pillar (_stylos_) sixty feet\nhigh, for thirty-six years of his life, without ever descending\nfrom it, in order that, among other miracles stated in the _Golden\nLegend_, he might cure a _dragon_ of a sore eye? \u201cNear Simon\u2019s pillar\nwas the dwelling of a dragon, so very venomous that the stench was\nspread for miles round his cave.\u201d This ophidian-hermit met with an\naccident; he got a thorn in his eye, and, becoming blind, crept to\nthe saint\u2019s pillar, and pressed his eye against it for three days,\nwithout touching any one. Then the blessed saint, from his a\u00ebrial\nseat, \u201c_three feet in diameter_,\u201d ordered earth and water to be\nplaced on the dragon\u2019s eye, out of which suddenly emerged a thorn\n(or stake), a cubit in length; when the people saw the \u201cmiracle\u201d\nthey glorified the Creator. As to the grateful dragon, he arose and,\n\u201chaving adored God for two hours, returned to his cave\u201d[107]--a\nhalf-converted ophidian, we must suppose.\n\nAnd what are we to think of that other narrative, to disbelieve\nin which is \u201c_to risk one\u2019s salvation_,\u201d as we were informed by a\nPope\u2019s missionary, of the Order of the Franciscans? When St. Francis\npreached a sermon in the wilderness, the birds assembled from the\nfour cardinal points of the world. They warbled and applauded every\nsentence; they sang a holy mass in chorus; finally they dispersed\nto carry the glad tidings all over the universe. A grasshopper,\nprofiting by the absence of the Holy Virgin, who generally kept\ncompany with the saint, remained perched on the head of the \u201cblessed\none\u201d for a whole week. Attacked by a ferocious wolf, the saint, who\nhad no other weapon but the sign of the cross which he made upon\nhimself, instead of running away from his rabid assailant, began\narguing with the beast. Having imparted to him the benefit to be\nderived from the holy religion, St. Francis never ceased talking\nuntil the wolf became as meek as a lamb, and even shed tears of\nrepentance over his past sins. Finally, he \u201cstretched his paws in the\nhands of the saint, followed him like a dog through all the towns\nin which he preached, and became half a Christian!\u201d[108] Wonders\nof zo\u00f6logy! a horse turned sorcerer, a wolf and a dragon turned\nChristians!\n\nThese two anecdotes, chosen at random from among hundreds, if\nrivalled are not surpassed by the wildest romances of the Pagan\nthaumaturgists, magicians, and spiritualists! And yet, when\nPythagoras is said to have subdued animals, even wild beasts, merely\nthrough a powerful mesmeric influence, he is pronounced by one-half\nof the Catholics a bare-faced impostor, and by the rest a sorcerer,\nwho worked magic in confederacy with the Devil! Neither the she-bear,\nnor the eagle, nor yet the bull that Pythagoras is said to have\npersuaded to give up eating beans, were alleged to have answered with\nhuman voices; while St. Benedict\u2019s \u201cblack raven,\u201d whom he called\n\u201cbrother,\u201d argues with him, and croaks his answers like a born\ncasuist. When the saint offers him one-half of a poisoned loaf, the\nraven grows indignant and reproaches him in Latin as though he had\njust graduated at the Propaganda!\n\nIf it be objected that the _Golden Legend_ is now but half supported\nby the Church; and that it is known to have been compiled by the\nwriter from a collection of the lives of the saints, for the most\npart unauthenticated, we can show that, at least in one instance,\nthe biography is no legendary compilation, but the history of one\nman, by another one who was his contemporary. Jortin and Gibbons\ndemonstrated years ago, that the early fathers used to select\nnarratives, wherewith to ornament the lives of their apocryphal\nsaints, from Ovid, Homer, Livy, and even from the unwritten popular\nlegends of Pagan nations. But such is not the case in the above\ninstances. St. Bernard lived in the twelfth century, and St. Dominick\nwas nearly contemporaneous with the author of the _Golden Legend_.\nDe Veragine died in 1298, and Dominick, whose exorcisms and life he\ndescribes so minutely, instituted his order in the first quarter\nof the thirteenth century. Moreover, de Veragine was Vicar-General\nof the Dominicans himself, in the middle of the same century, and\ntherefore described the miracles wrought by his hero and patron but a\nfew years after they were alleged to have happened. He wrote them in\nthe same convent; and while narrating these wonders he had probably\nfifty persons at hand who had been eye-witnesses to the saint\u2019s mode\nof living. What must we think, in such a case, of a biographer who\nseriously describes the following: One day, as the blessed saint was\noccupied in his study, the Devil began pestering him, in the shape of\na flea. He frisked and jumped about the pages of his book until the\nharassed saint, unwilling as he was to act unkindly, even toward a\ndevil, felt compelled to punish him by fixing the troublesome devil\non the very sentence on which he stopped, by clasping the book. At\nanother time the same devil appeared under the shape of a monkey.\nHe grinned so horribly that Dominick, in order to get rid of him,\nordered the devil-monkey to take the candle and hold it for him\nuntil he had done reading. The poor imp did so, and held it until it\nwas consumed to the very end of the wick; and, notwithstanding his\npitiful cries for mercy, the saint compelled him to hold it till his\nfingers were burned to the bones!\n\nEnough! The approbation with which this book was received by the\nChurch, and the peculiar sanctity attributed to it, is sufficient to\nshow the estimation in which veracity was held by its patrons. We\nmay add, in conclusion, that the finest quintessence of Boccaccio\u2019s\n_Decameron_ appears prudery itself by comparison with the filthy\nrealism of the _Golden Legend_.\n\nWe cannot regard with too much astonishment the pretensions of\nthe Catholic Church in seeking to convert Hindus and Buddhists to\nChristianity. While the \u201cheathen\u201d keeps to the faith of his fathers,\nhe has at least the one redeeming quality--that of not having\napostatized for the mere pleasure of exchanging one set of idols\nfor another. There may be for him some novelty in his embracing\nProtestantism; for in that he gains the advantage, at least, of\nlimiting his religious views to their simplest expression. But when\na Buddhist has been enticed into exchanging his Shoe Dagoon for the\nSlipper of the Vatican, or the eight hairs from the head of Gautama\nand Buddha\u2019s tooth, which work miracles, for the locks of a Christian\nsaint, and a tooth of Jesus, which work far less clever miracles, he\nhas no cause to boast of his choice. In his address to the Literary\nSociety of Java, Sir T. S. Raffles is said to have narrated the\nfollowing characteristic anecdote: \u201cOn visiting the great temple\non the hills of Nangasaki, the English commissioner was received\nwith marked regard and respect by the venerable patriarch of the\nnorthern provinces, a man eighty years of age, who entertained him\nmost sumptuously. On showing him round the courts of the temple, one\nof the English officers present heedlessly exclaimed, in surprise,\n\u2018Jesus Christus!\u2019 The patriarch turning half round, with a placid\nsmile, bowed significantly, with the expression: \u2018We know your Jasus\nChristus! Well, don\u2019t obtrude him upon us in our temples, and we\nremain friends.\u2019 And so, with a hearty shake of the hands, these two\nopposites parted.\u201d[109]\n\nThere is scarcely a report sent by the missionaries from India,\nThibet, and China, but laments the diabolical \u201cobscenity\u201d of the\nheathen rites, their lamentable impudicity; all of which \u201care so\nstrongly suggestive of devil-worship,\u201d as des Mousseaux tells us. We\ncan scarcely be assured that the morality of the Pagans would be in\nthe least improved were they allowed a free inquiry into the life\nof say the psalmist-king, the author of those sweet _Psalms_ which\nare so rapturously repeated by Christians. The difference between\nDavid performing a phallic dance before the holy ark--emblem of the\nfemale principle--and a Hindu Vishnavite bearing the same emblem on\nhis forehead, favors the former only in the eyes of those who have\nstudied neither the ancient faith nor their own. When a religion\nwhich compelled David to cut off and deliver two hundred foreskins of\nhis enemies before he could become the king\u2019s son-in-law (_1 Sam._\nxviii.) is accepted as a standard by Christians, they would do well\nnot to cast into the teeth of heathen the impudicities of their\nfaiths. Remembering the suggestive parable of Jesus, they ought to\ncast the beam out of their own eye before plucking at the mote in\ntheir neighbor\u2019s. The sexual element is as marked in Christianity\nas in any one of the \u201cheathen religions.\u201d Certainly, nowhere in\nthe _Vedas_ can be found the coarseness and downright immodesty of\nlanguage, that Hebraists now discover throughout the Mosaic _Bible_.\n\nIt would profit little were we to dwell much upon subjects which\nhave been disposed of in such a masterly way by an anonymous author\nwhose work electrified England and Germany last year;[110] while as\nregards the particular topic under notice, we cannot do better than\nrecommend the scholarly writings of Dr. Inman. Albeit one-sided, and\nin many instances unjust to the ancient heathen, Pagan, and Jewish\nreligions, the _facts_ treated in the _Ancient and Pagan Christian\nSymbolism_, are unimpeachable. Neither can we agree with some English\ncritics who charge him with an intent to destroy Christianity. If\nby _Christianity_ is meant the external religious forms of worship,\nthen he certainly seeks to destroy it, for in his eyes, as well as in\nthose of every truly religious man, who has studied ancient exoteric\nfaiths, and their symbology, Christianity is pure heathenism, and\nCatholicism, with its fetish-worshipping, is far worse and more\npernicious than Hinduism in its most idolatrous aspect. But while\ndenouncing the exoteric forms and unmasking the symbols, it is not\nthe religion of Christ that the author attacks, but the artificial\nsystem of theology. We will allow him to illustrate the position in\nhis own language, and quote from his preface:\n\n\u201cWhen vampires were discovered by the acumen of any observer,\u201d he\nsays, \u201cthey were, we are told, ignominiously killed, by a stake being\ndriven through the body; but experience showed them to have such\ntenacity of life that they rose, again and again, notwithstanding\nrenewed impalement, and were not ultimately laid to rest till wholly\nburned. In like manner, the regenerated heathendom, which dominates\nover the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, has risen again and again,\nafter being transfixed. Still cherished by the many, it is denounced\nby the few. Amongst other accusers, I raise my voice against the\nPaganism which exists so extensively in ecclesiastical Christianity,\nand will do my utmost to expose the imposture.... In a vampire story\ntold in _Thalaba_, by Southey, the resuscitated being takes the form\nof a dearly-beloved maiden, and the hero is obliged to kill her with\nhis own hand. He does so; but, whilst he strikes the form of the\nloved one, he feels sure that he slays only a demon. In like manner,\nwhen I endeavor to destroy the current heathenism, which has assumed\nthe garb of Christianity, _I do not attack real religion_.[111] Few\nwould accuse a workman of malignancy, who cleanses from filth the\nsurface of a noble statue. There may be some who are too nice to\ntouch a nasty subject, yet even they will rejoice when some one else\nremoves the dirt. Such a scavenger is wanted.\u201d[112]\n\nBut is it merely Pagans and heathen that the Catholics persecute,\nand about whom, like Augustine, they cry to the Deity, \u201cOh, my God!\n_so do I wish Thy enemies to be slain?_\u201d Oh, no! their aspirations\nare more Mosaic and Cain-like than that. It is against their next of\nkin in faith, against their schismatic brothers that they are now\nintriguing within the walls which sheltered the murderous Borgias.\nThe _larv\u00e6_ of the infanticidal, parricidal, and fratricidal Popes\nhave proved themselves fit counsellors for the Cains of Castelfidardo\nand Mentana. It is now the turn of the Slavonian Christians, the\nOriental Schismatics--the Philistines of the Greek Church!\n\nHis Holiness the Pope, after exhausting, in a metaphor of\nself-laudation, every point of assimilation between the great\nbiblical prophets and himself, has finally and truly compared himself\nwith the Patriarch Jacob \u201cwrestling against his God.\u201d He now crowns\nthe edifice of Catholic piety by openly sympathizing with the Turks!\nThe vicegerent of God inaugurates his infallibility by encouraging,\nin a true Christian spirit, the acts of that Moslem David, the\nmodern Bashi Bazuk; and it seems as if nothing would more please his\nHoliness than to be presented by the latter with several thousands of\nthe Bulgarian or Servian \u201cforeskins.\u201d True to her policy to be all\nthings to all men to promote her own interests, the Romish Church\nis, at this writing (1876), benevolently viewing the Bulgarian and\nServian atrocities, and, probably, man\u0153uvring with Turkey against\nRussia. Better Islam, and the hitherto-hated Crescent over the\nsepulchre of the Christian god, than the Greek Church established\nat Constantinople and Jerusalem as the state religion. Like a\ndecrepit and toothless ex-tyrant in exile, the Vatican is eager for\nany alliance that promises, if not a restoration of its own power,\nat least the weakening of its rival. The axe its inquisitors once\nswung, it now toys with in secret, feeling its edge, and waiting,\nand hoping against hope. In her time, the Popish Church has lain with\nstrange bedfellows, but never before now sunk to the degradation of\ngiving her moral support to those who for over 1200 years spat in her\nface, called her adherents \u201cinfidel dogs,\u201d repudiated her teachings,\nand denied godhood to her God!\n\nThe press of even Catholic France is fairly aroused at this\nindignity, and openly accuses the Ultramontane portion of the\nCatholic Church and the Vatican of siding, during the present Eastern\nstruggle, with the Mahometan against the Christian. \u201cWhen the\nMinister of Foreign Affairs in the French Legislature spoke some mild\nwords in favor of the Greek Christians, he was only applauded by the\nliberal Catholics, and received coldly by the Ultramontane party,\u201d\nsays the French correspondent of a New York paper.\n\n\u201cSo pronounced was this, that M. Lemoinne, the well-known editor of\nthe great liberal Catholic journal, the _D\u00e9bats_, was moved to say\nthat the Roman Church felt more sympathy for the Moslem than the\nschismatic, just as they preferred an infidel to the Protestant.\n\u2018There is at bottom,\u2019 says this writer, \u2018a great affinity between\nthe _Syllabus_ and the _Koran_, and between the two heads of the\nfaithful. The two systems are of the same nature, and are united on\nthe common ground of a one and unchangeable theory.\u2019 In Italy, in\nlike manner, the King and Liberal Catholics are in warm sympathy with\nthe unfortunate Christians, while the Pope and Ultramontane faction\nare believed to be inclining to the Mahometans.\u201d\n\nThe civilized world may yet expect the apparition of the materialized\nVirgin Mary within the walls of the Vatican. The so often-repeated\n\u201cmiracle\u201d of the Immaculate Visitor in the medi\u00e6val ages has recently\nbeen enacted at Lourdes, and why not once more, as a _coup de gr\u00e2ce_\nto all heretics, schismatics, and infidels? The miraculous wax taper\nis yet seen at Arras, the chief city of Artois; and at every new\ncalamity threatening her beloved Church, the \u201cBlessed Lady\u201d appears\npersonally, and lights it with her own fair hands, in view of a whole\n\u201cbiologized\u201d congregation. This sort of \u201cmiracle,\u201d says E. Worsley,\nwrought by the Roman Catholic Church, \u201cbeing most certain, and never\ndoubted of by any.\u201d[113] Neither has the private correspondence with\nwhich the most \u201cGracious Lady\u201d honors her friends been doubted. There\nare two precious missives from her in the archives of the Church. The\nfirst purports to be a letter in answer to one addressed to her by\nIgnatius. She confirms all things learned by her correspondent from\n\u201cher friend\u201d--meaning the Apostle John. She bids him hold fast to\nhis vows, and adds as an inducement: \u201c_I and John will come together\nand pay you a visit._\u201d[114]\n\nNothing was known of this unblushing fraud till the letters were\npublished at Paris, in 1495. By a curious accident it appeared\nat a time when threatening inquiries began to be made as to the\ngenuineness of the fourth Synoptic. Who could doubt, after such\na confirmation from headquarters! But the climax of effrontery\nwas capped in 1534, when another letter was received from the\n\u201cMediatrix,\u201d which sounds more like the report of a lobby-agent to a\nbrother-politician. It was written in excellent Latin, and was found\nin the Cathedral of Messina, together with the image to which it\nalludes. Its contents run as follows:\n\n \u201cMary Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer of the world, to the\n Bishop, Clergy, and the other faithful of Messina, sendeth\n health and benediction from _herself_ and son:[115]\n\n \u201cWhereas ye have been mindful of establishing the worship\n of me; now this is to let you know that by so doing ye\n have found great favor in my sight. I have a long time\n reflected with pain upon your city, which is exposed to\n much danger from its contiguity to the fire of Etna, and I\n have often had words about it with my son, for he was vexed\n with you because of your guilty neglect of my worship,\n so that he would not care a pin about my intercession.\n Now, however, that you have come to your senses, and have\n happily begun to worship me, he has conferred upon me the\n right to become your everlasting protectress; but, at the\n same time, I warn you to mind what you are about, and give\n me no cause of repenting of my kindness to you. The prayers\n and festivals instituted in my honor please me tremendously\n (_vehementer_), and if you faithfully persevere in these\n things, and provided you oppose to the utmost of your\n power, the heretics which now-a-days are spreading through\n the world, by which both my worship and that of the other\n saints, male and female, are so endangered, you shall enjoy\n my perpetual protection.\n\n \u201cIn sign of this compact, I send you down from Heaven the\n image of myself, cast by celestial hands, and if ye hold\n it in the honor to which it is entitled, it will be an\n evidence to me of your obedience and your faith. Farewell.\n Dated in Heaven, whilst sitting near the throne of my son,\n in the month of December, of the 1534th year from his\n incarnation.\n\n \u201cMARY VIRGIN.\u201d\n\nThe reader should understand that this document is no anti-Catholic\nforgery. The author from whom it is taken,[116] says that the\nauthenticity of the missive \u201cis attested by the Bishop himself, his\nVicar-General, Secretary, and six Canons of the Cathedral Church of\nMessina, all of whom have signed that attestation with their names,\nand confirmed it upon oath.\n\n\u201cBoth the epistle and image were found upon the high altar, where\nthey had been placed by angels from heaven.\u201d\n\nA Church must have reached the last stages of degradation, when such\nsacrilegious trickery as this could be resorted to by its clergy, and\naccepted with or without question by the people.\n\nNo! far from the man who feels the workings of an immortal spirit\nwithin him, be such a religion! There never was nor ever will be\na truly philosophical mind, whether of Pagan, heathen, Jew, or\nChristian, but has followed the same path of thought. Gautama-Buddha\nis mirrored in the precepts of Christ; Paul and Philo Jud\u00e6us are\nfaithful echoes of Plato; and Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus won their\nimmortal fame by combining the teachings of all these grand masters\nof true philosophy. \u201cProve all things; hold fast that which is good,\u201d\nought to be the motto of all brothers on earth. Not so is it with\nthe interpreters of the _Bible_. The seed of the Reformation was\nsown on the day that the second chapter of _The Catholic Epistle of\nJames_, jostled the eleventh chapter of the _Epistle to the Hebrews_\nin the same _New Testament_. One who believes in Paul cannot believe\nin James, Peter, and John. The Paulists, to remain Christians with\ntheir apostle, must withstand Peter \u201cto the face;\u201d and if Peter\n\u201cwas to be blamed\u201d and _was wrong_, then he was not infallible.\nHow then can his successor (?) boast of his infallibility? Every\nkingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every\nhouse divided against itself must fall. A plurality of masters has\nproved as fatal in religions as in politics. What Paul preached, was\npreached by every other mystic philosopher. \u201cStand _fast therefore\nin the liberty_ wherewith Christ hath made us free, and _be not\nentangled again with the yoke of bondage_!\u201d exclaims the honest\napostle-philosopher; and adds, as if prophetically inspired: \u201cBut if\nye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one\nof another.\u201d\n\nThat the Neo-platonists were not always despised or accused of\ndemonolatry is evidenced in the adoption by the Roman Church of their\nvery rites and theurgy. The identical evocations and incantations\nof the Pagan and Jewish Kabalist, are now repeated by the Christian\nexorcist, and the theurgy of Iamblichus was adopted word for word.\n\u201cDistinct as were the Platonists and Pauline Christians of the\nearlier centuries,\u201d writes Professor A. Wilder, \u201cmany of the more\ndistinguished teachers of the new faith were deeply tinctured with\nthe philosophical leaven. Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene, was\nthe disciple of Hypatia. _St. Anthony reiterated the theurgy of\nIamblichus._ The _Logos_, or word of the _Gospel according to John_,\nwas a Gnostic personification. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and\nothers of the fathers drank deeply from the fountains of philosophy.\nThe ascetic idea which carried away the Church was like that which\nwas practiced by Plotinus ... all through the middle ages there rose\nup men who accepted the interior doctrines which were promulgated by\nthe renowned teacher of the Academy.\u201d[117]\n\nTo substantiate our accusation that the Latin Church first despoiled\nthe kabalists and theurgists of their magical rites and ceremonies,\nbefore hurling anathemas upon their devoted heads, we will now\ntranslate for the reader fragments from the forms of _exorcism_\nemployed by kabalists and Christians. The identity in phraseology,\nmay, perhaps, disclose one of the reasons why the Romish Church has\nalways desired to keep the faithful in ignorance of the meaning of\nher Latin prayers and ritual. Only those directly interested in\nthe deception have had the opportunity to compare the rituals of\nthe Church and the magicians. The best Latin scholars were, until\na comparatively recent date, either churchmen, or dependent upon\nthe Church. Common people could not read Latin, and even if they\ncould, the reading of the books on magic was prohibited, under\nthe penalty of anathema and excommunication. The cunning device\nof the confessional made it almost impossible to consult, even\nsurreptitiously, what the priests call a _grimoire_ (a devil\u2019s\nscrawl), or _Ritual of Magic_. To make assurance doubly sure, the\nChurch began destroying or concealing everything of the kind she\ncould lay her hands upon.\n\nThe following are translated from the _Kabalistic Ritual_, and that\ngenerally known as the _Roman Ritual_. The latter was promulgated in\n1851 and 1852, under the sanction of Cardinal Engelbert, Archbishop\nof Malines, and of the Archbishop of Paris. Speaking of it, the\ndemonologist des Mousseaux says: \u201cIt is the ritual of Paul V.,\nrevised by the most learned of modern Popes, by the contemporary of\nVoltaire, Benedict XIV.\u201d[118]\n\n KABALISTIC. ROMAN CATHOLIC.\n (Jewish and Pagan.)\n\n _Exorcism of Salt._ _Exorcism of Salt._[119]\n\n The Priest-Magician blesses The Priest blesses the\n the Salt, and says: _Salt_ and says: \u201c_Creature\n \u201c_Creature of Salt_,[120] in of Salt_, I exorcise thee in\n thee may remain the the name of the living God\n WISDOM (of God); ... _become the health of\n and may it preserve from all the soul and of the body_!\n corruption _our minds and_ Everywhere where thou art\n _bodies_. Through Hochmael (\u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d0\u05dc thrown _may the unclean\n God of wisdom), and the spirit be put to flight_....\n power of _Ruach_ Hochmael _Amen._\u201d\n (Spirit of the Holy Ghost)\n may the Spirits of matter\n (bad spirits) before it\n recede.... _Amen._\u201d\n\n _Exorcism of Water Exorcism of Water._\n (and Ashes)._\n\n \u201cCreature of the Water, I \u201cCreature of the water, in\n exorcise thee ... by _the the name of the Almighty\n three names_ which are God, the Father, the Son,\n Netsah, Hod, and Jerod and the Holy Ghost ... _be\n (kabalistic trinity), in the exorcised_.... I adjure thee\n beginning and in the end, by in the name of the Lamb ...\n Alpha and Omega, which are (the magician says _bull_ or\n in the Spirit Azoth (Holy ox--_per alas Tauri_) of the\n Ghost, or the \u2018_Universal Lamb that trod upon the\n Soul_\u2019), I exorcise and basilisk and the aspic, and\n adjure thee.... Wandering who crushes under his foot\n eagle, may the Lord command the lion and the dragon.\u201d\n thee by the _wings of the\n bull and his flaming\n sword_.\u201d (The cherub placed\n at the east gate of Eden.)\n\n _Exorcism of an _Exorcism of the Devil._\n Elemental Spirit._\n\n \u201cSerpent, in the name of the * * * * *\n Tetragrammaton, the Lord; He \u201cO Lord, let him who carries\n commands thee, by the angel along with him the terror,\n and the lion. flee, struck in his turn by\n terror and defeated. O thou,\n \u201cAngel of darkness, obey, who art the Ancient Serpent\n and run away with this holy ... tremble before the hand\n (exorcised) water. Eagle in of him who, having triumphed\n chains, obey this sign, and of the tortures of hell (?)\n retreat before the breath. _devictis gemitibus and\n Moving serpent, crawl at my inferni_, recalled the souls\n feet, or be tortured by to light.... The more whilst\n _this sacred fire_, thou decay, the more\n evaporate before this holy terrible will be thy torture\n incense. Let water return to ... by Him who reigns over\n water (the elemental spirit the living and the dead ...\n of water); let the fire and who will judge the\n burn, and the air circulate; century by fire, _s\u00e6culum\n let the earth return to per ignem_, etc. In the name\n earth by the virtue of the of the Father, Son, and the\n Pentagram, which is the Holy Ghost. _Amen._\u201d[121]\n Morning Star, and in the\n name of the tetragrammaton\n which is traced in the\n centre of _the Cross of\n Light_. _Amen._\u201d\n\n\nIt is unnecessary to try the patience of the reader any longer,\nalthough we might multiply examples. It must not be forgotten that we\nhave quoted from the latest revision of the _Ritual_, that of 1851-2.\nIf we were to go back to the former one we would find a far more\nstriking identity, not merely of phraseology but of ceremonial form.\nFor the purpose of comparison we have not even availed ourselves\nof the ritual of ceremonial magic of the _Christian_ kabalists of\nthe middle ages, wherein the language modelled upon a belief in the\ndivinity of Christ is, with the exception of a stray expression here\nand there, identical with the Catholic Ritual.[122] The latter,\nhowever, makes one improvement, for the originality of which the\nChurch should be allowed all credit. Certainly nothing so fantastical\ncould be found in a ritual of magic. \u201cGive place,\u201d apostrophizing\nthe \u201cDemon,\u201d it says, \u201cgive place to Jesus Christ ... thou _filthy,\nstinking, and ferocious beast_ ... dost thou rebel? Listen and\ntremble, Satan; enemy of the faith, enemy of the human race,\nintroducer of death ... root of all evil, promoter of vice, soul\nof envy, origin of avarice, cause of discord, prince of homicide,\nwhom God curses; author of incest and sacrilege, inventor of all\nobscenity, _professor_ of the most detestable actions, _and Grand\nMaster of Heretics_ (_!!_) (_Doctor H\u00e6reticorum!_) What! ... dost\nthou still stand? Dost dare to resist, and thou knowest that Christ,\nour Lord, is coming?... Give place to Jesus Christ, give place to\nthe Holy Ghost, which, by His blessed Apostle Peter, has flung thee\ndown before the public, in the person of Simon the Magician\u201d (_te\nmanifeste stravit in Simone mago_).[123]\n\nAfter such a shower of abuse, no devil having the slightest feeling\nof self-respect could remain in such company; unless, indeed, he\nshould chance to be an Italian Liberal, or King Victor Emmanuel\nhimself; both of whom, thanks to Pius IX., have become anathema-proof.\n\nIt really seems too bad to strip Rome of all her symbols at once;\nbut justice must be done to the despoiled hierophants. Long before\nthe sign of the Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was\nemployed as a secret sign of recognition among neophytes and adepts.\nSays Levi: \u201cThe sign of the Cross adopted by the Christians does not\nbelong exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the\noppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by\nthe occult verse of the _Pater_, to which we have called attention\nin another work, that there were originally two ways of making it,\nor, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning--one\nreserved for priests and initiates; the other given to neophytes\nand the profane. Thus, for example, the _initiate_, carrying his\nhand to his forehead, said: _To thee_; then he added, _belong_; and\ncontinued, while carrying his hand to the breast--_the kingdom_;\nthen, to the left shoulder--_justice_; to the right shoulder--_and\nmercy_. Then he joined the two hands, adding: _throughout the\ngenerating cycles: \u2018Tibi sunt Malchut, et Geburah et Chassed per\n\u00c6onas\u2019_--a sign of the Cross, _absolutely_ and magnificently\nkabalistic, which the profanations of Gnosticism made the militant\nand official Church completely _lose_.\u201d[124]\n\nHow fantastical, therefore, is the assertion of Father Ventura,\nthat, while Augustine was a Manichean, a philosopher, ignorant of\nand refusing to humble himself before the sublimity of the \u201cgrand\nChristian revelation,\u201d he knew nothing, understood naught of God,\nman, or universe; \u201c... he remained poor, small, obscure, sterile,\nand wrote nothing, did nothing really grand or useful.\u201d But, hardly\nhad he become a Christian \u201c... when his reasoning powers and\nintellect, enlightened at the _luminary of faith_, elevated him to\nthe most sublime heights of philosophy and theology.\u201d And his other\nproposition that Augustine\u2019s genius, as a consequence, \u201cdeveloped\nitself in all its grandeur and prodigious fecundity ... his intellect\nradiated with that immense splendor which, reflecting itself in his\nimmortal writings, has never ceased for one moment during fourteen\ncenturies to illuminate the Church and the world!\u201d[125]\n\nWhatever Augustine was as a Manichean, we leave Father Ventura to\ndiscover; but that his accession to Christianity established an\neverlasting enmity between theology and science is beyond doubt.\nWhile forced to confess that \u201cthe Gentiles had possibly something\n_divine_ and true in their doctrines,\u201d he, nevertheless, declared\nthat for their superstition, idolatry, and pride, they had \u201cto\nbe detested, and, unless they improved, to be punished by divine\njudgment.\u201d This furnishes the clew to the subsequent policy of the\nChristian Church, even to our day. If the Gentiles did not choose\nto come into the Church, all that was divine in their philosophy\nshould go for naught, and the divine wrath of God should be visited\nupon their heads. What effect this produced is succinctly stated\nby Draper: \u201cNo one did more than this Father to bring science and\nreligion into antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the _Bible_\nfrom its true office--a guide to purity of life--and placed it in\nthe perilous position of being the arbiter of human knowledge, an\naudacious tyranny over the mind of man. The example once set, there\nwas no want of followers; the works of the Greek philosophers were\nstigmatized as profane; the transcendently glorious achievements\nof the Museum of Alexandria were hidden from sight by a cloud of\nignorance, mysticism, and unintelligible jargon, out of which there\ntoo often flashed the destroying lightnings of ecclesiastical\nvengeance.\u201d[126]\n\nAugustine and Cyprian[127] admit that Hermes and Hostanes believed in\none true god; the first two maintaining, as well as the two Pagans,\nthat he is invisible and incomprehensible, except spiritually.\nMoreover we invite any man of intelligence--provided he be not a\nreligious fanatic--after reading fragments chosen at random from the\nworks of Hermes and Augustine on the Deity, to decide which of the\ntwo gives a more philosophical definition of the \u201cunseen Father.\u201d We\nhave at least one writer of fame who is of our opinion. Draper calls\nthe Augustinian productions a \u201crhapsodical conversation\u201d with God; an\n\u201cincoherent dream.\u201d[128]\n\nFather Ventura depicts the saint as attitudinizing before an\nastonished world upon \u201cthe most sublime heights of philosophy.\u201d But\nhere steps in again the same unprejudiced critic, who passes the\nfollowing remarks on this colossus of Patristic philosophy. \u201cWas it\nfor this preposterous scheme,\u201d he asks, \u201cthis product of ignorance\nand audacity, that the works of the Greek philosophers were to be\ngiven up? It was none too soon that the great critics who appeared\nat the Reformation, by comparing the works of these writers with one\nanother, brought them to their proper level, and taught us to look\nupon them all with contempt.\u201d[129]\n\nFor such men as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Apollonius, and even\nSimon Magus, to be accused of having formed a pact with the Devil,\nwhether the latter personage exist or not, is so absurd as to need\nbut little refutation. If Simon Magus--the most problematical of all\nin an historical sense--ever existed otherwise than in the overheated\nfancy of Peter and the other apostles, he was evidently no worse than\nany of his adversaries. A difference in religious views, however\ngreat, is insufficient _per se_ to send one person to heaven and the\nother to hell. Such uncharitable and peremptory doctrines might have\nbeen taught in the middle ages; but it is too late now for even the\nChurch to put forward this traditional scarecrow. Research begins to\nsuggest that which, if ever verified, will bring eternal disgrace on\nthe Church of the Apostle Peter, whose very imposition of herself\nupon that disciple must be regarded as the most unverified and\nunverifiable of the assumptions of the Catholic clergy.\n\nThe erudite author of _Supernatural Religion_ assiduously endeavors\nto prove that by _Simon Magus_ we must understand the apostle Paul,\nwhose Epistles were secretly as well as openly calumniated by Peter,\nand charged with containing \u201c_dysno\u00ebtic_ learning.\u201d The Apostle of\nthe Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and very learned; the\nApostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious, _insincere_, and very\nignorant. That Paul had been, partially, at least, if not completely,\ninitiated into the theurgic mysteries, admits of little doubt. His\nlanguage, the phraseology so peculiar to the Greek philosophers,\ncertain expressions used but by the initiates, are so many sure\near-marks to that supposition. Our suspicion has been strengthened by\nan able article in one of the New York periodicals, entitled _Paul\nand Plato_,[130] in which the author puts forward one remarkable\nand, for us, very precious observation. In his _Epistles to the\nCorinthians_ he shows Paul abounding with \u201cexpressions suggested\nby the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis, and the lectures\nof the (Greek) philosophers. He (Paul) designates himself an\n_idiotes_--a person unskilful in the Word, but not in the _gnosis_\nor philosophical learning. \u2018We speak wisdom among the perfect or\ninitiated,\u2019 he writes; \u2018not the wisdom of this world, nor of the\narchons of this world, but divine wisdom in a mystery, secret--which\n_none of the Archons of this world knew_.\u2019\u201d[131]\n\nWhat else can the apostle mean by these unequivocal words, but\nthat he himself, as belonging to the _myst\u00e6_ (initiated), spoke of\nthings shown and explained only in the Mysteries? The \u201cdivine wisdom\nin a mystery which none of the _archons of this world knew_,\u201d has\nevidently some direct reference to the _basileus_ of the Eleusinian\ninitiation who _did know_. The _basileus_ belonged to the staff of\nthe great hierophant, and was an _archon_ of Athens; and as such was\none of the chief _myst\u00e6_, belonging to the _interior_ Mysteries, to\nwhich a very select and small number obtained an entrance.[132] The\nmagistrates supervising the Eleusinians were called archons.\n\nAnother proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the \u201cInitiates\u201d\nlies in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at\nCenchrea (where Lucius, _Apuleius_, was initiated) because \u201che\nhad a vow.\u201d The _nazars_--or set apart--as we see in the Jewish\nScriptures, had to cut their hair which they wore long, and which \u201cno\nrazor touched\u201d at any other time, and sacrifice it on the altar of\ninitiation. And the nazars were a class of Chaldean theurgists. We\nwill show further that Jesus belonged to this class.\n\nPaul declares that: \u201cAccording to the grace of God which is given\nunto me, as a wise _master-builder_, I have laid the foundation.\u201d[133]\n\nThis expression, master-builder, used only _once_ in the whole\n_Bible_, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In the\nMysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called _Epopteia_,\nor revelation, reception into the secrets. In substance it means that\nstage of divine clairvoyance when everything pertaining to this earth\ndisappears, and earthly sight is paralyzed, and the soul is united\nfree and pure with its Spirit, or God. But the real significance of\nthe word is \u201coverseeing,\u201d from \u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9--_I see myself_. In Sanscrit\nthe word _ev\u00e2pto_ has the same meaning, as well as _to obtain_.[134]\nThe word _epopteia_ is a compound one, from \u0395\u03c0\u03b9--upon, and \u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9--to\nlook, or an overseer, an inspector--also used for a master-builder.\nThe title of master-mason, in Freemasonry, is derived from this, in\nthe sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when Paul entitles himself\na \u201cmaster-builder,\u201d he is using a word pre-eminently kabalistic,\ntheurgic, and masonic, and one which no other apostle uses. He thus\ndeclares himself an _adept_, having the right to _initiate_ others.\n\nIf we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the Grecian\nMysteries and the _Kabala_, before us, it will be easy to find the\nsecret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated by Peter, John,\nand James. The author of the _Revelation_ was a Jewish kabalist _pur\nsang_, with all the hatred inherited by him from his forefathers\ntoward the Mysteries.[135] His jealousy during the life of Jesus\nextended even to Peter; and it is but after the death of their\ncommon master that we see the two apostles--the former of whom\nwore the Mitre and the Petaloon of the Jewish Rabbis--preach so\nzealously the rite of circumcision. In the eyes of Peter, Paul, who\nhad humiliated him, and whom he felt so much his superior in \u201cGreek\nlearning\u201d and philosophy, must have naturally appeared as a magician,\na man polluted with the \u201c_Gnosis_,\u201d with the \u201cwisdom\u201d of the Greek\nMysteries--hence, perhaps, \u201cSimon[136] the Magician.\u201d\n\nAs to Peter, biblical criticism has shown before now that he had\nprobably no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at\nRome, than to furnish the pretext so readily seized upon by the\ncunning Iren\u00e6us to benefit this Church with the new name of the\napostle--_Petra_ or _Kiffa_, a name which allowed so readily, by an\neasy play upon words, to connect it with _Petroma_, the double set\nof stone tablets used by the hierophant at the initiations, during\nthe final Mystery. In this, perhaps, lies concealed the whole secret\nof the claims of the Vatican. As Professor Wilder happily suggests:\n\u201cIn the Oriental countries the designation \u05e4\u05ea\u05e8, Peter (in Ph\u0153nician\nand Chaldaic, an interpreter) appears to have been the title of this\npersonage (the hierophant).... There is in these facts some reminder\nof the peculiar circumstances of the Mosaic Law ... and also of the\nclaim of the Pope to be the successor of Peter, the hierophant or\ninterpreter of the Christian religion.\u201d[137]\n\nAs such, we must concede to him, to some extent, the right to be such\nan interpreter. The Latin Church has faithfully preserved in symbols,\nrites, ceremonies, architecture, and even in the very dress of her\nclergy, the tradition of the Pagan worship--of the public or exoteric\nceremonies, we should add; otherwise her dogmas would embody more\nsense and contain less blasphemy against the majesty of the Supreme\nand Invisible God.\n\nAn inscription found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept, of the\neleventh dynasty (2250 B.C.), now proved to have been transcribed\nfrom the seventeenth chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ (dating not\nlater than 4500 B.C.), is more than suggestive. This monumental text\ncontains a group of hieroglyphics, which, when interpreted, read thus:\n\n =PTR.= =RF.= =SU.=\n Peter- ref- su.\n\nBaron Bunsen shows this sacred formulary mixed up with a whole\nseries of glosses and various interpretations on a monument forty\ncenturies old. \u201cThis is identical with saying that the record (the\ntrue interpretation) was at that time no longer intelligible.... We\nbeg our readers to understand,\u201d he adds, \u201cthat a sacred text, a hymn,\ncontaining the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a state\nabout 4,000 years ago ... as to be all but unintelligible to royal\nscribes.\u201d[138]\n\nThat it was unintelligible to the uninitiated among the latter is as\nwell proved by the confused and contradictory glossaries, as that it\nwas a \u201cmystery\u201d-word, known to the hierophants of the sanctuaries,\nand, moreover, a word chosen by Jesus, to designate the office\nassigned by him to one of his apostles. This word, PTR, was partially\ninterpreted, owing to another word similarly written in another group\nof hieroglyphics, on a stele, the sign used for it being an opened\neye.[139] Bunsen mentions as another explanation of PTR--\u201cto show.\u201d\n\u201cIt appears to me,\u201d he remarks, \u201cthat our PTR is literally the old\nAramaic and Hebrew \u2018Patar\u2019, which occurs in the history of Joseph as\nthe specific word for _interpreting_; whence also _Pitrum_ is the\nterm for interpretation of a text, a dream.\u201d[140] In a manuscript of\nthe first century, a combination of the Demotic and Greek texts,[141]\nand most probably one of the few which miraculously escaped the\nChristian vandalism of the second and third centuries, when all such\nprecious manuscripts were burned as magical, we find occurring in\nseveral places a phrase, which, perhaps, may throw some light upon\nthis question. One of the principal heroes of the manuscript, who\nis constantly referred to as \u201cthe Judean Illuminator\u201d or Initiate,\n\u03a4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c9\u03c4\u1f74\u03c2, is made to communicate but with his _Patar_; the latter\nbeing written in Chaldaic characters. Once the latter word is coupled\nwith the name _Shimeon_. Several times, the \u201cIlluminator,\u201d who rarely\nbreaks his contemplative solitude, is shown inhabiting a \u039a\u03c1\u03cd\u03c0\u03c4\u03b7\n(cave), and teaching the multitudes of eager scholars standing\noutside, not orally, but through this _Patar_. The latter receives the\nwords of wisdom by applying his ear to a circular hole in a partition\nwhich conceals the teacher from the listeners, and then conveys them,\nwith explanations and glossaries, to the crowd. This, with a slight\nchange, was the method used by Pythagoras, who, as we know, never\nallowed his neophytes to see him during the years of probation, but\ninstructed them from behind a curtain in his cave.\n\nBut, whether the \u201cIlluminator\u201d of the Gr\u00e6co-Demotic manuscript is\nidentical with Jesus or not, the fact remains, that we find him\nselecting a \u201cmystery\u201d-appellation for one who is made to appear later\nby the Catholic Church as the janitor of the Kingdom of Heaven and\nthe interpreter of Christ\u2019s will. The word Patar or Peter locates\nboth master and disciple in the circle of initiation, and connects\nthem with the \u201cSecret Doctrine.\u201d The great hierophant of the ancient\nMysteries never allowed the candidates to see or hear him personally.\nHe was the Deus-ex-Machina, the presiding but invisible Deity,\nuttering his will and instructions through a second party; and\n2,000 years later, we discover that the Dala\u00ef-Lamas of Thibet had\nbeen following for centuries the same traditional programme during\nthe most important religious mysteries of lamaism. If Jesus knew\nthe secret meaning of the title bestowed by him on Simon, then he\nmust have been initiated; otherwise he could not have learned it;\nand if he was an initiate of either the Pythagorean Essenes, the\nChaldean Magi, or the Egyptian Priests, then the doctrine taught by\nhim was but a portion of the \u201cSecret Doctrine\u201d taught by the Pagan\nhierophants to the few select adepts admitted within the sacred adyta.\n\nBut we will discuss this question further on. For the present we\nwill endeavor to briefly indicate the extraordinary similarity--or\nrather identity, we should say--of rites and ceremonial dress of\nthe Christian clergy with that of the old Babylonians, Assyrians,\nPh\u0153nicians, Egyptians, and other Pagans of the hoary antiquity.\n\nIf we would find the model of the Papal tiara, we must search the\nannals of the ancient Assyrian tablets. We invite the reader to give\nhis attention to Dr. Inman\u2019s illustrated work, _Ancient Pagan and\nModern Christian Symbolism_. On page sixty-four, he will readily\nrecognize the head-gear of the successor of St. Peter in the coiffure\nworn by gods or angels in ancient Assyria, \u201cwhere it appears crowned\nby an emblem of the _male_ trinity\u201d (the Christian Cross). \u201cWe may\nmention, in passing,\u201d adds Dr. Inman, \u201cthat, as the Romanists adopted\nthe mitre and the tiara from \u2018the cursed brood of Ham,\u2019 so they\nadopted the Episcopalian crook from the augurs of Etruria, and the\nartistic form with which they clothe their angels from the painters\nand urn-makers of Magna Grecia and Central Italy.\u201d\n\nWould we push our inquiries farther, and seek to ascertain as much\nin relation to the nimbus and the tonsure of the Catholic priest\nand monk?[142] We shall find undeniable proofs that they are solar\nemblems. Knight, in his _Old England Pictorially Illustrated_, gives\na drawing by St. Augustine, representing an ancient Christian bishop,\nin a dress probably identical with that worn by the great \u201csaint\u201d\nhimself. The _pallium_, or the ancient stole of the bishop, is the\nfeminine sign when worn by a priest in worship. On St. Augustine\u2019s\npicture it is bedecked with Buddhistic crosses, and in its whole\nappearance it is a representation of the Egyptian =T= (tau), assuming\nslightly the figure of the letter =Y=. \u201cIts lower end is the mark of\nthe masculine triad,\u201d says Inman; \u201cthe right hand (of the figure) has\nthe forefinger extended, like the Assyrian priests while doing homage\n_to the grove_.... When a male dons the pallium in worship, he becomes\nthe representative of the trinity in the unity, the _arba_, or mystic\nfour.\u201d[143]\n\n\u201cImmaculate is our Lady Isis,\u201d is the legend around an engraving\nof Serapis and Isis, described by King, in _The Gnostics and their\nRemains_, \u1f29 \u039a\u03a5\u03a1\u0399\u0391 \u0399\u03f9\u0399\u03f9 \u0391\u0393\u039d\u0397 \u201c... the very terms applied afterwards to\nthat personage (the Virgin Mary) who succeeded to her form, titles,\nsymbols, rites, and ceremonies.... Thus, her devotees carried into the\nnew priesthood the former badges of their profession, the obligation\nto celibacy, the tonsure, and the surplice, omitting, unfortunately,\nthe frequent ablutions prescribed by the ancient creed.\u201d \u201cThe \u2018Black\nVirgins,\u2019 so highly reverenced in certain French cathedrals ...\nproved, when at last critically examined, basalt figures of\nIsis!\u201d[144]\n\nBefore the shrine of Jupiter Ammon were suspended tinkling bells,\nfrom the sound of whose chiming the priests gathered the auguries; \u201cA\ngolden bell and a pomegranate ... round about the hem of the robe,\u201d\nwas the result with the Mosaic Jews. But in the Buddhistic system,\nduring the religious services, the gods of the Deva Loka are always\ninvoked, and invited to descend upon the altars by the ringing of\nbells suspended in the pagodas. The bell of the sacred table of Siva\nat Kuhama is described in Kailasa, and every Buddhist vihara and\nlamasery has its bells.\n\nWe thus see that the bells used by Christians come to them directly\nfrom the Buddhist Thibetans and Chinese. The beads and rosaries\nhave the same origin, and have been used by Buddhist monks for over\n2,300 years. The _Linghams_ in the Hindu temples are ornamented upon\ncertain days with large berries, from a tree sacred to Mahadeva,\nwhich are strung into rosaries. The title of \u201cnun\u201d is an Egyptian\nword, and had with them the actual meaning; the Christians did not\neven take the trouble of translating the word _Nonna_. The aureole\nof the saints was used by the antediluvian artists of Babylonia,\nwhenever they desired to honor or deify a mortal\u2019s head. In a\ncelebrated picture in Moore\u2019s _Hindoo Pantheon_, entitled, \u201cChristna\nnursed by Devaki, from a highly-finished picture,\u201d the Hindu Virgin\nis represented as seated on a lounge and nursing Christna. The hair\nbrushed back, the long veil, and the golden aureole around the\nVirgin\u2019s head, as well as around that of the Hindu Saviour, are\nstriking. No Catholic, well versed as he might be in the mysterious\nsymbolism of iconology, would hesitate for a moment to worship at\nthat shrine the Virgin Mary, the mother of his God![145] In Indur\nSubba, the south entrance of the Caves of Ellora, may be seen to this\nday the figure of Indra\u2019s wife, Indranee, sitting with her infant\nson-god, pointing the finger to heaven with the same gesture as the\nItalian Madonna and child. In _Pagan and Christian Symbolism_, the\nauthor gives a figure from a medi\u00e6val woodcut--the like of which we\nhave seen by dozens in old psalters--in which the Virgin Mary, with\nher infant, is represented as the Queen of Heaven, on the crescent\nmoon, emblem of virginity. \u201cBeing before the sun, she almost eclipses\nits light. Than this, nothing could more completely identify the\nChristian mother and child with Isis and Horus, Ishtar, Venus, Juno,\nand a host of other Pagan goddesses, who have been called \u2018Queen of\nHeaven,\u2019 \u2018Queen of the Universe,\u2019 \u2018Mother of God,\u2019 \u2018Spouse of God,\u2019\n\u2018the Celestial Virgin,\u2019 \u2018the Heavenly Peace-Maker,\u2019 etc.\u201d[146]\n\nSuch pictures are not purely astronomical. They represent the male\ngod and the female goddess, as the sun and moon in conjunction, \u201cthe\nunion of the triad with the unit.\u201d The horns of the cow on the head\nof Isis have the same significance.\n\nAnd so above, below, outside, and inside, the Christian Church, in\nthe priestly garments, and the religious rites, we recognize the\nstamp of exoteric heathenism. On no subject within the wide range of\nhuman knowledge, has the world been more blinded or deceived with\nsuch persistent misrepresentation as on that of antiquity. Its hoary\npast and its religious faiths have been misrepresented and trampled\nunder the feet of its successors. Its hierophants and prophets, myst\u00e6\nand epopt\u00e6,[147] of the once sacred adyta of the temple shown as\ndemoniacs and devil-worshippers. Donned in the despoiled garments\nof the victim, the Christian priest now anathematizes the latter\nwith rites and ceremonies which he has learned from the theurgists\nthemselves. The Mosaic _Bible_ is used as a weapon against the people\nwho furnished it. The heathen philosopher is cursed under the very\nroof which has witnessed his initiation; and the \u201cmonkey of God\u201d\n(_i.e._, the devil of Tertullian), \u201cthe originator and founder of\nmagical theurgy, the science of illusions and lies, whose father\nand author is the demon,\u201d is exorcised with holy water by the hand\nwhich holds the identical _lituus_[148] with which the ancient\naugur, after a solemn prayer, used to determine the regions of\nheaven, and evoke, in the name of the HIGHEST, the minor god (now\ntermed the Devil), who unveiled to his eyes futurity, and enabled\nhim to prophesy! On the part of the Christians and the clergy it is\nnothing but shameful ignorance, prejudice, and that contemptible\npride so boldly denounced by one of their own reverend ministers, T.\nGross,[149] which rails against all investigation \u201cas a useless or\na criminal labor, when it must be feared that they will result in\nthe overthrow of pre\u00ebstablished systems of faith.\u201d On the part of\nthe scholars it is the same apprehension of the possible necessity\nof having to modify some of their erroneously-established theories\nof science. \u201cNothing but such pitiable prejudice,\u201d says Gross,\n\u201ccan have thus misrepresented the theology of heathenism, and\ndistorted--nay, caricatured--its forms of religious worship. It is\ntime that posterity should raise its voice in vindication of violated\ntruth, and that the present age should learn a little of that common\nsense of which it boasts with as much self-complacency as if the\nprerogative of reason was the birthright only of modern times.\u201d\n\nAll this gives a sure clew to the real cause of the hatred felt by the\nearly and medi\u00e6val Christian toward his Pagan brother and dangerous\nrival. We hate but what we fear. The Christian thaumaturgist once\nhaving broken all association with the Mysteries of the temples and\nwith \u201cthese schools so renowned for magic,\u201d described by St.\nHilarion,[150] could certainly expect but little to rival the Pagan\nwonder-workers. No apostle, with the exception perhaps of healing by\nmesmeric power, has ever equalled Apollonius of Tyana; and the scandal\ncreated among the apostles by the miracle-doing Simon Magus, is too\nnotorious to be repeated here again. \u201cHow is it,\u201d asks Justin Martyr,\nin evident dismay, \u201chow is it that the talismans of Apollonius (the\n\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1) have power in certain members of creation, for they\nprevent, _as we see_, the fury of the waves, and the violence of the\nwinds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst our Lord\u2019s miracles\nare preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius _are most\nnumerous_, and actually manifested in present facts, so as to lead\nastray all beholders?\u201d[151] This perplexed martyr solves the problem\nby attributing very correctly the efficacy and potency of the charms\nused by Apollonius to his profound knowledge of the sympathies and\nantipathies (or repugnances) of nature.\n\nUnable to deny the evident superiority of their enemies\u2019 powers, the\nfathers had recourse to the old but ever successful method--that\nof slander. They honored the theurgists with the same insinuating\ncalumny that had been resorted to by the Pharisees against Jesus.\n\u201cThou hast a d\u00e6mon,\u201d the elders of the Jewish Synagogue had said to\nhim. \u201cThou hast the Devil,\u201d repeated the cunning fathers, with equal\ntruth, addressing the Pagan thaumaturgist; and the widely-bruited\ncharge, erected later into an article of faith, won the day.\n\nBut the modern heirs of these ecclesiastical falsifiers, who charge\nmagic, spiritualism, and even magnetism with being produced by a\ndemon, forget or perhaps never read the classics. None of our bigots\nhas ever looked with more scorn on the _abuses_ of magic than did the\ntrue initiate of old. No modern or even medi\u00e6val law could be more\nsevere than that of the hierophant. True, he had more discrimination,\ncharity, and justice, than the Christian clergy; for while banishing\nthe \u201cunconscious\u201d sorcerer, the person troubled with a demon, from\nwithin the sacred precincts of the adyta, the priests, instead of\nmercilessly burning him, took care of the unfortunate \u201cpossessed\none.\u201d Having hospitals expressly for that purpose in the neighborhood\nof temples, the ancient \u201cmedium,\u201d if obsessed, was taken care of and\nrestored to health. But with one who had, by conscious _witchcraft_,\nacquired powers dangerous to his fellow-creatures, the priests of\nold were as severe as justice herself. \u201cAny person _accidentally_\nguilty of homicide, or of any crime, or convicted of _witchcraft_,\nwas excluded from the Eleusinian Mysteries.\u201d[152] And so were they\nfrom all others. This law, mentioned by all writers on the ancient\ninitiation, speaks for itself. The claim of Augustine, that all the\nexplanations given by the Neo-platonists were invented by themselves\nis absurd. For nearly every ceremony in their true and successive\norder is given by Plato himself, in a more or less covered way.\nThe Mysteries are as old as the world, and one well versed in the\nesoteric mythologies of various nations can trace them back to the\ndays of the ante-Vedic period in India. A condition of the strictest\nvirtue and purity is required from the _Vatou_, or candidate in India\nbefore he can become an initiate, whether he aims to be a simple\nfakir, a _Purohita_ (public priest) or a _Sanny\u00e2si_, a saint of the\nsecond degree of initiation, the most holy as the most revered of\nthem all. After having conquered, in the terrible trials preliminary\nto admittance to the inner temple in the subterranean crypts of his\npagoda, the sanny\u00e2si passes the rest of his life in the temple,\npracticing the eighty-four rules and ten virtues prescribed to the\nYogis.\n\n\u201cNo one who has not practiced, during his whole life, the ten virtues\nwhich the divine Manu makes incumbent as a duty, can be initiated\ninto the Mysteries of the council,\u201d say the Hindu books of initiation.\n\nThese virtues are: \u201cResignation; the act of rendering good for\nevil; temperance; probity; purity; chastity; repression of the\nphysical senses; the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; that of\nthe _Superior_ soul (spirit); worship of truth; abstinence from\nanger.\u201d These virtues must alone direct the life of a true Yogi. \u201cNo\nunworthy adept ought to defile the ranks of the holy initiates by\nhis presence for twenty-four hours.\u201d The adept becomes guilty after\nhaving once broken any one of these vows. Surely the exercise of such\nvirtues is inconsistent with the idea one has of _devil_-worship and\nlasciviousness of purpose!\n\nAnd now we will try to give a clear insight into one of the chief\nobjects of this work. What we desire to prove is, that underlying\nevery ancient popular religion was the same ancient wisdom-doctrine,\none and identical, professed and practiced by the initiates of every\ncountry, who alone were aware of its existence and importance. To\nascertain its origin, and the precise age in which it was matured, is\nnow beyond human possibility. A single glance, however, is enough to\nassure one that it could not have attained the marvellous perfection\nin which we find it pictured to us in the relics of the various\nesoteric systems, except after a succession of ages. A philosophy\nso profound, a moral code so ennobling, and practical results so\nconclusive and so uniformly demonstrable is not the growth of a\ngeneration, or even a single epoch. Fact must have been piled upon\nfact, deduction upon deduction, science have begotten science, and\nmyriads of the brightest human intellects have reflected upon the\nlaws of nature, before this ancient doctrine had taken concrete\nshape. The proofs of this identity of fundamental doctrine in the\nold religions are found in the prevalence of a system of initiation;\nin the secret sacerdotal castes who had the guardianship of mystical\nwords of power, and a public display of a phenomenal control over\nnatural forces, indicating association with preterhuman beings. Every\napproach to the Mysteries of all these nations was guarded with the\nsame jealous care, and in all, the penalty of death was inflicted\nupon initiates of any degree who divulged the secrets entrusted\nto them. We have seen that such was the case in the Eleusinian\nand Bacchic Mysteries, among the Chaldean Magi, and the Egyptian\nhierophants; while with the Hindus, from whom they were all derived,\nthe same rule has prevailed from time immemorial. We are left in no\ndoubt upon this point; for the _Agrushada Parikshai_ says explicitly,\n\u201cEvery initiate, to whatever degree he may belong, who reveals the\ngreat sacred formula, must be put to death.\u201d\n\nNaturally enough, this same extreme penalty was prescribed in all the\nmultifarious sects and brotherhoods which at different periods have\nsprung from the ancient stock. We find it with the early Essenes,\nGnostics, theurgic Neo-platonists, and medi\u00e6val philosophers;\nand in our day, even the Masons perpetuate the memory of the old\nobligations in the penalties of throat-cutting, dismemberment,\nand disemboweling, with which the candidate is threatened. As the\nMasonic \u201cmaster\u2019s word\u201d is communicated only at \u201clow breath,\u201d so the\nselfsame precaution is prescribed in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_\nand the Jewish _Mercaba_. When initiated, the neophyte was led by\nan _ancient_ to a secluded spot, and there the latter whispered _in\nhis ear_ the great secret.[153] The Mason swears, under the most\nfrightful penalties, that he will not communicate the secrets of any\ndegree \u201cto a brother of an _inferior degree_;\u201d and the _Agrushada\nParikshai_ says: \u201cAny initiate of the third degree who reveals before\nthe prescribed time, to the initiates of the second degree, the\nsuperior truths, must be put to death.\u201d Again, the Masonic apprentice\nconsents to have his \u201ctongue torn out by the roots\u201d if he divulge\nanything to a profane; and in the Hindu books of initiation, the same\n_Agrushada Parikshai_, we find that any initiate of the first degree\n(the lowest) who betrays the secrets of his initiation, to members of\nother castes, for whom the science should be a closed book, must have\n\u201chis _tongue cut out_,\u201d and suffer other mutilations.\n\nAs we proceed, we will point out the evidences of this identity of\nvows, formulas, rites, and doctrines, between the ancient faiths.\nWe will also show that not only their memory is still preserved in\nIndia, but also that the Secret Association is still alive and as\nactive as ever. That, after reading what we have to say, it may be\ninferred that the chief pontiff and hierophant, the _Brahm\u00e2tma_, is\nstill accessible to those \u201cwho know,\u201d though perhaps recognized by\nanother name; and that the ramifications of his influence extend\nthroughout the world. But we will now return again to the early\nChristian period.\n\nAs though he were not aware that there was any esoteric significance\nto the exoteric symbols, and that the Mysteries themselves were\ncomposed of two parts, the lesser at Agr\u00e6, and the higher ones at\nEleusinia, Clemens Alexandrinus, with a rancorous bigotry that\none might expect from a renegade Neo-platonist, but is astonished\nto find in this generally honest and learned Father, stigmatized\nthe Mysteries as indecent and diabolical. Whatever were the rites\nenacted among the neophytes before they passed to a higher form of\ninstruction; however misunderstood were the trials of _Katharsis_\nor purification, during which they were submitted to every kind of\nprobation; and however much the immaterial or physical aspect might\nhave led to calumny, it is but wicked prejudice which can compel a\nperson to say that under this external meaning there was not a far\ndeeper and spiritual significance.\n\nIt is positively absurd to judge the ancients from our own standpoint\nof propriety and virtue. And most assuredly it is not for the\nChurch--which now stands accused by all the modern symbologists of\nhaving adopted precisely these same emblems in their coarsest aspect,\nand feels herself powerless to refute the accusations--to throw the\nstone at those who were her models. When men like Pythagoras, Plato,\nand Iamblichus, renowned for their severe morality, took part in the\nMysteries, and spoke of them with veneration, it ill behooves our\nmodern critics to judge them so rashly upon their merely external\naspect. Iamblichus explains the worst; and his explanation, for an\nunprejudiced mind, ought to be perfectly plausible. \u201cExhibitions of\nthis kind,\u201d he says, \u201cin the Mysteries were designed to free us from\nlicentious passions, by gratifying the sight, and at the same time\nvanquishing all evil thought, through _the awful sanctity_ with which\nthese rites were accompanied.\u201d[154] \u201cThe wisest and best men in the\nPagan world,\u201d adds Dr. Warburton, \u201care unanimous in this, that the\nMysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest ends by the\nworthiest means.\u201d[155]\n\nIn these celebrated rites, although persons of both sexes and all\nclasses were allowed to take a part, and a participation in them\nwas even obligatory, very few indeed attained the higher and final\ninitiation. The gradation of the Mysteries is given us by Proclus\nin the fourth book of his _Theology of Plato_. \u201cThe perfective rite\n\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03b7, precedes in order the initiation--_Muesis_--and the initiation,\n_Epopteia_, or the final apocalypse (revelation).\u201d Theon of Smyrna, in\n_Mathematica_, also divides the mystic rites into five parts: \u201cthe\nfirst of which is the previous purification; for _neither are the\nMysteries communicated to all_ who are willing to receive them; ...\nthere are certain persons who are prevented by the voice of the crier\n(\u03ba\u03b7\u03c1\u03c5\u03be) ... since it is necessary that such as are not expelled from\nthe Mysteries should first be refined by certain purifications which\nthe reception of the sacred rites succeeds. The third part is\ndenominated _epopteia_ or reception. And the fourth, which is the end\nand design of the revelation, is _the binding of the head and fixing\nof the crowns_[156] ... whether after this he (the initiated person)\nbecomes ... an hierophant or sustains some other part of the\nsacerdotal office. But the fifth, which is produced from all these,\n_is friendship and interior communion with God_.\u201d And this was the\nlast and most awful of all the Mysteries.\n\nThere are writers who have often wondered at the meaning of this\nclaim to a \u201cfriendship and interior communion with God.\u201d Christian\nauthors have denied the pretensions of the \u201cPagans\u201d to such\n\u201ccommunion,\u201d affirming that only Christian saints were and are\ncapable of enjoying it; materialistic skeptics have altogether\nscoffed at the idea of both. After long ages of religious materialism\nand spiritual stagnation, it has most certainly become difficult\nif not altogether impossible to substantiate the claims of either\nparty. The old Greeks, who had once crowded around the Agora of\nAthens, with its altar to the \u201cUnknown God,\u201d are no more; and their\ndescendants firmly believe that they have found the \u201cUnknown\u201d in the\nJewish Jehova. The divine ecstasies of the early Christians have made\nroom for visions of a more modern character, in perfect keeping with\nprogress and civilization. The \u201cSon of man\u201d appearing to the rapt\nvision of the ancient Christian as coming from the seventh heaven, in\na cloud of glory, and surrounded with angels and winged seraphim, has\nmade room for a more prosaic and at the same time more business-like\nJesus. The latter is now shown as making morning calls upon Mary and\nMartha in Bethany; as seating himself on \u201cthe _ottoman_\u201d with the\nyounger sister, a lover of \u201cethics,\u201d while Martha goes off to the\nkitchen to cook. Anon the heated fancy of a blasphemous Brooklyn\npreacher and harlequin, the Reverend Dr. Talmage, makes us see her\nrushing back \u201cwith besweated brow, a pitcher in one hand and the\ntongs in the other ... into the presence of Christ,\u201d and blowing him\nup for not caring that her sister hath left her \u201cto serve alone.\u201d[157]\n\nFrom the birth of the solemn and majestic conception of the\nunrevealed Deity of the ancient adepts to such caricatured\ndescriptions of him who died on the Cross for his philanthropic\ndevotion to humanity, long centuries have intervened, and their\nheavy tread seems to have almost entirely obliterated all sense of\na spiritual religion from the hearts of his professed followers. No\nwonder then, that the sentence of Proclus is no longer understood by\nthe Christians, and is rejected as a \u201cvagary\u201d by the materialists,\nwho, in their negation, are less blasphemous and atheistical than\nmany of the reverends and members of the churches. But, although the\nGreek _epoptai_ are no more, we have now, in our own age, a people\nfar more ancient than the oldest Hellenes, who practice the so-called\n\u201cpreterhuman\u201d gifts to the same extent as did their ancestors far\nearlier than the days of Troy. It is to this people that we draw the\nattention of the psychologist and philosopher.\n\nOne need not go very deep into the literature of the Orientalists to\nbecome convinced that in most cases they do not even suspect that\nin the arcane philosophy of India there are depths which they have\nnot sounded, and _cannot_ sound, for they pass on without perceiving\nthem. There is a pervading tone of conscious superiority, a ring\nof contempt in the treatment of Hindu metaphysics, as though the\nEuropean mind is alone enlightened enough to polish the rough diamond\nof the old Sanscrit writers, and separate right from wrong for the\nbenefit of their descendants. We see them disputing over the external\nforms of expression without a conception of the great vital truths\nthese hide from the profane view.\n\n\u201cAs a rule, the Brahmans,\u201d says Jacolliot, \u201crarely go beyond the\nclass of _grihesta_ [priests of the vulgar castes] and _purohita_\n[exorcisers, divines, prophets, and evocators of spirits]. And\nyet, we shall see ... once that we have touched upon the question\nand study of manifestations and phenomena, that these initiates\nof the _first_ degree (the lowest) attribute to themselves, and\nin appearance possess faculties developed to a degree which has\nnever been equalled in Europe. As to the initiates of the second\nand especially of the third category, they pretend to be enabled to\nignore time, space, and to command life and death.\u201d[158]\n\nSuch initiates as these M. Jacolliot _did not meet_; for, as he says\nhimself, they only appear on the most solemn occasions, and when the\nfaith of the multitudes has to be strengthened by phenomena of a\nsuperior order. \u201cThey are never seen, either in the neighborhood of,\nor even inside the temples, except at the grand quinquennial festival\nof the fire. On that occasion, they appear about the middle of the\nnight, on a platform erected in the centre of the sacred lake, like\nso many phantoms, and by their conjurations they illumine the space.\nA fiery column of light ascends from around them, rushing from earth\nto heaven. Unfamiliar sounds vibrate through the air, and five or\nsix hundred thousand Hindus, gathered from every part of India to\ncontemplate these demigods, throw themselves with their faces buried\nin the dust, invoking the souls of their ancestors.\u201d[159]\n\nLet any impartial person read the _Spiritisme dans le Monde_, and\nhe cannot believe that this \u201cimplacable rationalist,\u201d as Jacolliot\ntakes pride in terming himself, said one word more than is warranted\nby what he had seen. His statements support and are corroborated by\nthose of other skeptics. As a rule, the missionaries, even after\npassing half a lifetime in the country of \u201cdevil-worship,\u201d as they\ncall India, either disingenuously _deny_ altogether what they cannot\nhelp knowing to be true, or ridiculously attribute phenomena to this\npower of the Devil, that outrival the \u201cmiracles\u201d of the apostolic\nages. And what do we see this French author, notwithstanding his\nincorrigible rationalism, forced to admit, after having narrated the\ngreatest wonders? Watch the fakirs as he would, he is compelled to\nbear the strongest testimony to their perfect honesty in the matter\nof their miraculous phenomena. \u201cNever,\u201d he says, \u201chave we succeeded\nin detecting a single one in the act of deceit.\u201d One fact should be\nnoted by all who, without having been in India, still fancy they\nare clever enough to expose the fraud of _pretended_ magicians.\nThis skilled and cool observer, this redoubtable materialist, after\nhis long sojourn in India, affirms, \u201cWe unhesitatingly avow that we\nhave not met, either in India or in Ceylon, a single European, even\namong the oldest residents, who has been able to indicate the means\nemployed by these devotees for the production of these phenomena!\u201d\n\nAnd how should they? Does not this zealous Orientalist confess to us\nthat even he, who had every available means at hand to learn many\nof their rites and doctrines at first hand, failed in his attempts\nto make the Brahmans explain to him their secrets. \u201cAll that our\nmost diligent inquiries of the Pourohitas could elicit from them\nrespecting the acts of their superiors (the invisible initiates of\nthe temples), amounts to very little.\u201d And again, speaking of one of\nthe books, he confesses that, while purporting to reveal all that\nis desirable to know, it \u201cfalls back into mysterious formulas, in\ncombinations of magical and occult letters, the secret of which it\nhas been impossible for us to penetrate,\u201d etc.\n\nThe fakirs, although they can never reach beyond the first degree of\ninitiation, are, notwithstanding, the only agents between the living\nworld and the \u201csilent brothers,\u201d or those initiates who never cross\nthe thresholds of their sacred dwellings. The F\u016bkara-Yogis belong\nto the temples, and who knows but these cenobites of the sanctuary\nhave far more to do with the psychological phenomena which attend the\nfakirs, and have been so graphically described by Jacolliot, than the\n_Pitris_ themselves? Who can tell but that the fluidic spectre of the\nancient Brahman seen by Jacolliot was the Scin-lecca, the spiritual\n_double_, of one of these mysterious sanny\u00e2si?\n\nAlthough the story has been translated and commented upon by\nProfessor Perty, of Geneva, still we will venture to give it in\nJacolliot\u2019s own words: \u201cA moment after the disappearance of the\nhands, the fakir continuing his evocations (_mantras_) more earnestly\nthan ever, a cloud like the first, but more opalescent and more\nopaque, began to hover near the small brasier, which, by request of\nthe Hindu, I had constantly fed with live coals. Little by little it\nassumed a form entire human, and I distinguished the spectre--for I\ncannot call it otherwise--of an old Brahman sacrificator, kneeling\nnear the little brasier.\n\n\u201cHe bore on his forehead the signs sacred to Vishnu, and around his\nbody the triple cord, sign of the initiates of the priestly caste. He\njoined his hands above his head, as during the sacrifices, and his\nlips moved as if they were reciting prayers. At a given moment, he\ntook a pinch of perfumed powder, and threw it upon the coals; it must\nhave been a strong compound, for a thick smoke arose on the instant,\nand filled the two chambers.\n\n\u201cWhen it was dissipated, I perceived the spectre, which, two steps\nfrom me, was extending to me its fleshless hand; I took it in mine,\nmaking a salutation, and I was astonished to find it, although bony\nand hard, warm and living.\n\n\u201c\u2018Art thou, indeed,\u2019 said I at this moment, in a loud voice, \u2018an\nancient inhabitant of the earth?\u2019\n\n\u201cI had not finished the question, when the word AM (yes) appeared\nand then disappeared in letters of fire, on the breast of the old\nBrahman, with an effect much like that which the word would produce\nif written in the dark with a stick of phosphorus.\n\n\u201c\u2018Will you leave me nothing in token of your visit?\u2019 I continued.\n\n\u201cThe spirit broke the triple cord, composed of three strands of\ncotton, which begirt his loins, gave it to me, and vanished at my\nfeet.\u201d[160]\n\n\u201cOh Brahma! what is this mystery which takes place every night?...\nWhen lying on the matting, with eyes closed, the body is lost\nsight of, and the soul escapes to enter into conversation with the\nPitris.... Watch over it, O Brahma, when, forsaking the resting body,\nit goes away to hover over the waters, to wander in the immensity\nof heaven, and penetrate into the dark and mysterious nooks of the\nvalleys and grand forests of the Hymavat!\u201d (_Agroushada Parikshai._)\n\nThe fakirs, when belonging to some particular temple, never act but\nunder orders. Not one of them, unless he has reached a degree of\nextraordinary sanctity, is freed from the influence and guidance of\nhis guru, his teacher, who first initiated and instructed him in\nthe mysteries of the _occult_ sciences. Like the _subject_ of the\nEuropean mesmerizer, the average fakir can never rid himself entirely\nof the psychological influence exercised on him by his guru. Having\npassed two or three hours in the silence and solitude of the inner\ntemple in prayer and meditation, the fakir, when he emerges thence,\nis mesmerically strengthened and prepared; he produces wonders far\nmore varied and powerful than before he entered. The \u201cmaster\u201d has\n_laid his hands upon him_, and the fakir feels strong.\n\nIt may be shown, on the authority of many Brahmanical and Buddhist\nsacred books, that there has ever existed a great difference between\nadepts of the higher order, and purely psychological subjects--like\nmany of these fakirs, who are mediums in a certain qualified sense.\nTrue, the fakir is ever talking of Pitris, and this is natural; for\nthey are his protecting deities. But are the Pitris _disembodied\nhuman beings of our race_? This is the question, and we will discuss\nit in a moment.\n\nWe say that the fakir may be regarded in a degree as a medium; for he\nis--what is not generally known--under the direct mesmeric influence\nof a living adept, his sanny\u00e2si or guru. When the latter dies, the\npower of the former, unless he has received the last transfer of\nspiritual forces, wanes and often even disappears. Why, if it were\notherwise, should the fakirs have been excluded from the right of\nadvancing to the second and third degree? The lives of many of them\nexemplify a degree of self-sacrifice and sanctity unknown and utterly\nincomprehensible to Europeans, who shudder at the bare thought of\nsuch self-inflicted tortures. But however shielded from control by\nvulgar and earth-bound spirits, however wide the chasm between a\ndebasing influence and their self-controlled souls; and however well\nprotected by the seven-knotted magical bamboo rod which he receives\nfrom the guru, still the fakir lives in the outer world of sin and\nmatter, and it is possible that his soul may be tainted, perchance,\nby the magnetic emanations from profane objects and persons, and\nthereby open an access to strange spirits and _gods_. To admit one\nso situated, one not under any and all circumstances sure of the\nmastery over himself, to a knowledge of the awful mysteries and\npriceless secrets of initiation, would be impracticable. It would\nnot only imperil the security of that which must, at all hazards,\nbe guarded from profanation, but it would be consenting to admit\nbehind the veil a fellow being, whose mediumistic irresponsibility\nmight at any moment cause him to lose his life through an involuntary\nindiscretion. The same law which prevailed in the Eleusinian\nMysteries before our era, holds good now in India.\n\nNot only must the adept have mastery over himself, but he must\nbe able to control the inferior grades of spiritual beings,\nnature-spirits, and earthbound souls, in short the very ones by whom,\nif by any, the fakir is liable to be affected.\n\nFor the objector to affirm that the Brahman-adepts and the fakirs\nadmit that of themselves they are powerless, and can only act with\nthe help of disembodied human spirits, is to state that these Hindus\nare unacquainted with the laws of their sacred books and even the\nmeaning of the word _Pitris_. The _Laws of Manu_, the _Atharva-Veda_,\nand other books, prove what we now say. \u201cAll that exists,\u201d says the\n_Atharva-Veda_, \u201cis in the power of the gods. The gods are under the\npower of magical conjurations. The magical conjurations are under\nthe control of the Brahmans. Hence the gods are in the power of the\nBrahmans.\u201d This is logical, albeit seemingly paradoxical, and it is\nthe fact. And this fact will explain to those who have not hitherto\nhad the clew (among whom Jacolliot must be numbered, as will appear\non reading his works), why the fakir should be confined to the first,\nor lowest degree of that course of initiation whose highest adepts,\nor hierophants, are the _sanny\u00e2sis_, or members of the ancient\nSupreme Council of Seventy.\n\nMoreover, in Book I., of the Hindu _Genesis_, or _Book of Creation_\nof _Manu_, the _Pitris_ are called the _lunar_ ancestors of the human\nrace. They belong to a race of beings different from ourselves, and\ncannot properly be called \u201chuman spirits\u201d in the sense in which the\nspiritualists use this term. This is what is said of them:\n\n\u201cThen they (the gods) created the Jackshas, the Rakshasas, the\nPisatshas,[161] the Gandarbas[162] and the Apsaras, and the Asuras,\nthe Nagas, the Sarpas and the Suparnas,[163] and the Pitris--_lunar\nancestors of the human race_\u201d (See _Institutes of Manu_, Book I.,\nsloka 37, where the Pitris are termed \u201cprogenitors of mankind\u201d).\n\nThe Pitris are a distinct race of spirits belonging to the\nmythological hierarchy or rather to the kabalistical nomenclature,\nand must be included with the good genii, the d\u00e6mons of the Greeks,\nor the inferior gods of the invisible world; and when a fakir\nattributes his phenomena to the Pitris, he means only what the\nancient philosophers and theurgists meant when they maintained\nthat all the \u201cmiracles\u201d were obtained through the intervention of\nthe gods, or the good and bad d\u00e6mons, who control the powers of\nnature, the _elementals_, who are subordinate to the power of him\n\u201cwho knows.\u201d A ghost or human phantom would be termed by a fakir\n_pal\u012bt_, or _chutn\u0101_, as that of a female human spirit _pichhalp\u0101i_,\nnot _pitris_. True, _pitara_ means (plural) fathers, ancestors; and\npitr\u0101-i is a kinsman; but these words are used in quite a different\nsense from that of the Pitris invoked in the mantras.\n\nTo maintain before a devout Brahman or a fakir that any one can\nconverse with the spirits of the dead, would be to shock him with\nwhat would appear to him blasphemy. Does not the concluding verse of\nthe _Bagavat_ state that this supreme felicity is alone reserved to\nthe holy sanny\u00e2sis, the gurus, and yogis?\n\n\u201cLong before they finally rid themselves of their mortal envelopes,\nthe souls who have practiced only good, such as those of the\nsanny\u00e2sis and the vanaprasthas, acquire the faculty of conversing\nwith the souls which preceded them to the swarga.\u201d\n\nIn this case the Pitris instead of genii are the spirits, or rather\nsouls, of the departed ones. But they will freely communicate only\nwith those whose atmosphere is as pure as their own, and to whose\nprayerful _kalassa_ (invocation) they can respond without the risk of\ndefiling their own celestial purity. When the soul of the invocator\nhas reached the _Sayadyam_, or perfect identity of essence with the\nUniversal Soul, when matter is utterly conquered, then the adept\ncan freely enter into daily and hourly communion with those who,\nthough unburdened with their corporeal forms, are still themselves\nprogressing through the endless series of transformations included in\nthe gradual approach to the Param\u00e2tma, or the grand Universal Soul.\n\nBearing in mind that the Christian fathers have always claimed for\nthemselves and their saints the name of \u201cfriends of God,\u201d and knowing\nthat they borrowed this expression, with many others, from the\ntechnology of the Pagan temples, it is but natural to expect them\nto show an evil temper whenever alluding to these rites. Ignorant,\nas a rule, and having had biographers as ignorant as themselves, we\ncould not well expect them to find in the accounts of their beatific\nvisions a descriptive beauty such as we find in the Pagan classics.\nWhether the visions and objective phenomena claimed by both the\nfathers of the desert and the hierophants of the sanctuary are to\nbe discredited, or accepted as facts, the splendid imagery employed\nby Proclus and Apuleius in narrating the small portion of the final\ninitiation that they dared reveal, throws completely into the shade\nthe plagiaristic tales of the Christian ascetics, faithful _copies_\nthough they were intended to be. The story of the temptation of St.\nAnthony in the desert by the female demon, is a parody upon the\npreliminary trials of the neophyte during the _Mikra_, or minor\nMysteries of Agr\u00e6--those rites at the thought of which Clemens railed\nso bitterly, and which represented the bereaved Demeter in search of\nher child, and her good-natured hostess Baubo.[164]\n\nWithout entering again into a demonstration that in Christian, and\nespecially Irish Roman Catholic, churches[165] the same apparently\nindecent customs as the above prevailed until the end of the last\ncentury, we will recur to the untiring labors of that honest and\nbrave defender of the ancient faith, Thomas Taylor, and his works.\nHowever much dogmatic Greek scholarship may have found to say\nagainst his \u201cmistranslations,\u201d his memory must be dear to every\ntrue Platonist, who seeks rather to learn the inner thought of the\ngreat philosopher than enjoy the mere external mechanism of his\nwritings. Better classical translators may have rendered us, in more\ncorrect phraseology, Plato\u2019s _words_, but Taylor shows us Plato\u2019s\n_meaning_, and this is more than can be said of Zeller, Jowett, and\ntheir predecessors. Yet, as writes Professor A. Wilder, \u201cTaylor\u2019s\nworks have met with favor at the hands of men capable of profound\nand recondite thinking; and it must be conceded that he was endowed\nwith a superior qualification--that of an intuitive perception of the\ninterior meaning of the subjects which he considered. Others may have\nknown more Greek, but he knew more Plato.\u201d[166]\n\nTaylor devoted his whole useful life to the search after such\nold manuscripts as would enable him to have his own speculations\nconcerning several obscure rites in the Mysteries corroborated by\nwriters who had been initiated themselves. It is with full confidence\nin the assertions of various classical writers that we say that\nridiculous, perhaps licentious in some cases, as may appear ancient\nworship to the modern critic, it ought not to have so appeared to the\nChristians. During the medi\u00e6val ages, and even later, they accepted\npretty nearly the same without understanding the secret import of\nits rites, and quite satisfied with the obscure and rather fantastic\ninterpretations of their clergy, who accepted the exterior form\nand distorted the inner meaning. We are ready to concede, in full\njustice, that centuries have passed since the great majority of the\nChristian clergy, who _are not allowed to pry into God\u2019s mysteries\nnor seek to explain_ that which the Church has once accepted and\nestablished, have had the remotest idea of their symbolism, whether\nin its exoteric or esoteric meaning. Not so with the head of the\nChurch and its highest dignitaries. And if we fully agree with\nInman that it is \u201cdifficult to believe that the ecclesiastics who\nsanctioned the publication of such prints[167] could have been as\nignorant as modern ritualists,\u201d we are not at all prepared to believe\nwith the same author \u201cthat the latter, if they knew the real meaning\nof the symbols commonly used by the Roman Church, would _not_ have\nadopted them.\u201d\n\nTo eliminate what is plainly derived from the sex and nature worship\nof the ancient heathens, would be equivalent to pulling down the\nwhole Roman Catholic image-worship--the _Madonna_ element--and\nreforming the faith to Protestantism. The enforcement of the late\ndogma of the Immaculation was prompted by this very secret reason.\nThe science of symbology was making too rapid progress. Blind\nfaith in the Pope\u2019s infallibility and in the immaculate nature\nof the Virgin and _of her ancestral female lineage to a certain\nremove_ could alone save the Church from the indiscreet revelations\nof science. It was a clever stroke of policy on the part of the\nvicegerent of God. What matters it if, by \u201cconferring upon her such\nan honor,\u201d as Don Pascale de Franciscis na\u00efvely expresses it, he has\nmade a goddess of the Virgin Mary, an Olympian Deity, who, having\nbeen by her very nature placed in the impossibility of sinning,\ncan claim no virtue, no personal merit for her purity, precisely\nfor which, as we were taught to believe in our younger days, she\nwas chosen among all other women. If his Holiness has deprived her\nof this, perhaps, on the other hand, he thinks that he has endowed\nher with at least one physical attribute not shared by the other\nvirgin-goddesses. But even this new dogma, which, in company with the\nnew claim to _infallibility_, has quasi-revolutionized the Christian\nworld, is not original with the Church of Rome. It is but a return to\na hardly-remembered _heresy_ of the early Christian ages, that of the\nCollyridians, so called from their _sacrificing cakes_ to the Virgin,\nwhom they claimed to _be Virgin-born_.[168] The new sentence, \u201cO,\nVirgin Mary, _conceived without sin_,\u201d is simply a tardy acceptance\nof that which was at first deemed a \u201c_blasphemous heresie_\u201d by the\northodox fathers.\n\nTo think for one moment that any of the popes, cardinals, or other\nhigh dignitaries \u201cwere not aware\u201d from the first to the last of the\nexternal meanings of their symbols, is to do injustice to their\ngreat learning and their spirit of Machiavellism. It is to forget\nthat the emissaries of Rome will never be stopped by any difficulty\nwhich can be skirted by the employment of Jesuitical artifice.\nThe policy of complaisant conformity was never carried to greater\nlengths than by the missionaries in Ceylon, who, according to the\nAbb\u00e9 Dubois--certainly a learned and competent authority--\u201cconducted\nthe images of the Virgin and Saviour on triumphal cars, imitated\nfrom the orgies of Juggernauth, and introduced the dancers from the\nBrahminical rites into the ceremonial of the church.\u201d[169] Let us at\nleast thank these black-frocked politicians for their consistency in\nemploying the car of Juggernauth, upon which the \u201cwicked heathen\u201d\nconvey the _lingham_ of Siva. To have used _this_ car to carry in its\nturn the Romish representative of the female principle in nature,\nis to show discrimination and a thorough knowledge of the oldest\nmythological conceptions. They have blended the two deities, and thus\nrepresented, in a Christian procession, the \u201cheathen\u201d Brahma, or Nara\n(the father), Nari (the mother), and Viradj (the son).\n\nSays Manu: \u201cThe Sovereign Master who exists through himself, divides\nhis body into two halves, male and female, and from the union of\nthese two principles is born Viradj, the Son.\u201d[170]\n\nThere was not a Christian Father who could have been ignorant of\nthese symbols in their physical meaning; for it is in this latter\naspect that they were abandoned to the ignorant rabble. Moreover,\nthey all had as good reasons to suspect the occult symbolism\ncontained in these images; although as none of them--Paul excepted,\nperhaps--had been initiated they could know nothing whatever about\nthe nature of the final rites. Any person revealing these mysteries\nwas put to death, regardless of sex, nationality, or creed. A\nChristian father would no more be proof against _an accident_ than a\nPagan _Mysta_ or the \u039c\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2.\n\nIf during the _Aporreta_ or preliminary arcanes, there were some\npractices which might have shocked the pudicity of a Christian\nconvert--though we doubt the sincerity of such statements--their\nmystical symbolism was all sufficient to relieve the performance\nof any charge of licentiousness. Even the episode of the Matron\nBaubo--whose rather eccentric method of consolation was immortalized\nin the minor Mysteries--is explained by impartial mystagogues quite\nnaturally. Ceres-Demeter and her earthly wanderings in search of\nher daughter are the euhemerized descriptions of one of the most\nmetaphysico-psychological subjects ever treated of by human mind.\nIt is a mask for the transcendent narrative of the initiated seers;\nthe celestial vision of the freed soul of the initiate of the last\nhour describing the process by which the soul that has not yet been\nincarnated descends for the first time into matter, \u201cBlessed is he\nwho hath seen those _common concerns_ of the underworld; he knows\nboth the end of life and its divine origin from Jupiter,\u201d says\nPindar. Taylor shows, on the authority of more than one initiate,\nthat the \u201cdramatic performances of the Lesser Mysteries were\ndesigned by their founders, to signify _occultly_ the condition of\nthe unpurified soul invested with an earthly body, and enveloped\nin a material and physical nature ... that the soul, indeed, till\npurified by philosophy, suffers death through its union with the\nbody.\u201d\n\nThe body is the sepulchre, the prison of the soul, and many Christian\nFathers held with Plato that the soul is _punished_ through its union\nwith the body. Such is the fundamental doctrine of the Buddhists and\nof many Brahmanists too. When Plotinus remarks that \u201cwhen the soul\nhas descended into generation (from its _half_-divine condition)\nshe partakes of evil, and is carried a great way into a state the\nopposite of her first purity and integrity, to be entirely merged\nin which is nothing more than to fall into dark mire;\u201d[171] he only\nrepeats the teachings of Gautama-Buddha. If we have to believe the\nancient initiates at all, we must accept their interpretation of the\nsymbols. And if, moreover, we find them perfectly coinciding with\nthe teachings of the greatest philosophers and that which we know\nsymbolizes the same meaning in the modern Mysteries in the East, we\nmust believe them to be right.\n\nIf Demeter was considered the intellectual soul, or rather the\n_Astral_ soul, half emanation from the spirit and half tainted with\nmatter through a succession of spiritual evolutions--we may readily\nunderstand what is meant by the Matron Baubo, the Enchantress, who\nbefore she succeeds in reconciling the soul--Demeter, to its new\nposition, finds herself obliged to assume the sexual forms of an\ninfant. Baubo is _matter_, the physical body; and the intellectual,\nas yet pure astral soul can be ensnared into its new terrestrial\nprison but by the display of innocent babyhood. Until then, doomed to\nher fate, Demeter, or _Magna-mater_, the Soul, wonders and hesitates\nand suffers; but once having partaken of the magic potion prepared\nby Baubo, she forgets her sorrows; for a certain time she parts with\nthat consciousness of higher intellect that she was possessed of\nbefore entering the body of a child. Thenceforth she must seek to\nrejoin it again; and when the age of reason arrives for the child,\nthe struggle--forgotten for a few years of infancy--begins again. The\nastral soul is placed between matter (body) and the highest intellect\n(its immortal spirit or _nous_). Which of those two will conquer? The\nresult of the battle of life lies between the triad. It is a question\nof a few years of physical enjoyment on earth and--if it has begotten\nabuse--of the dissolution of the earthly body being followed by death\nof the astral body, which thus is prevented from being united with\nthe highest spirit of the triad, which alone confers on us individual\nimmortality; or, on the other hand, of becoming immortal myst\u00e6;\ninitiated before death of the body into the divine truths of the\nafter life. Demi-gods below, and GODS above.\n\nSuch was the chief object of the Mysteries represented as diabolical\nby theology, and ridiculed by modern symbologists. To disbelieve that\nthere exist in man certain arcane powers, which, by psychological\nstudy he can develop in himself to the highest degree, become an\nhierophant and then impart to others under the same conditions of\nearthly discipline, is to cast an imputation of falsehood and lunacy\nupon a number of the best, purest, and most learned men of antiquity\nand of the middle ages. What the hierophant was allowed to see at the\nlast hour is hardly hinted at by them. And yet Pythagoras, Plato,\nPlotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, and many others knew and affirmed\ntheir reality.\n\nWhether in the \u201cinner temple,\u201d or through the study of theurgy\ncarried on privately, or by the sole exertion of a whole life of\nspiritual labor, they all obtained the practical proof of such divine\npossibilities for man fighting his battle with life on earth to win a\nlife in the eternity. What the last _epopteia_ was is alluded to by\nPlato in _Ph\u00e6drus_ (64); \u201c... being initiated in those _Mysteries_,\nwhich it is lawful to call the most blessed of all mysteries ... we\nwere freed from the molestations of evils which otherwise await us\nin a future period of time. Likewise, in consequence of this divine\n_initiation_, we became _spectators_ of entire, simple, immovable,\nand _blessed visions_, resident in a pure light.\u201d This sentence shows\nthat they saw _visions_, gods, spirits. As Taylor correctly observes,\nfrom all such passages in the works of the initiates it may be\ninferred, \u201cthat the most sublime part of the _epopteia_ ... consisted\nin beholding the gods themselves invested with a resplendent light,\u201d\nor highest planetary spirits. The statement of Proclus upon this\nsubject is unequivocal: \u201cIn all the initiations and mysteries, the\ngods exhibit many forms of themselves, and appear in _a variety of\nshapes_, and sometimes, indeed, a formless light of themselves is\nheld forth to the view; sometimes this light is according _to a human\nform_, and sometimes it proceeds into a different shape.\u201d[172]\n\n\u201cWhatever is _on earth is the resemblance and_ SHADOW _of something\nthat is in the sphere_, while that resplendent thing (the prototype\nof the soul-spirit) remaineth in _unchangeable_ condition, it is well\nalso with its shadow. But when the _resplendent one_ removeth far\nfrom its shadow life removeth from the latter to a distance. And yet,\nthat very light is the shadow of something still more resplendent\nthan itself.\u201d Thus speaks _Desatir_, the Persian _Book of Shet_,[173]\nthereby showing its identity of esoteric doctrines with those of the\nGreek philosophers.\n\nThe second statement of Plato confirms our belief that the Mysteries\nof the ancients were identical with the Initiations, as practiced\nnow among the Buddhists and the Hindu adepts. The highest visions,\nthe most _truthful_, are produced, not through _natural_ ecstatics\nor \u201cmediums,\u201d as it is sometimes erroneously asserted, but through\na regular discipline of gradual initiations and development of\npsychical powers. The Myst\u00e6 were brought into close union with\nthose whom Proclus calls \u201cmystical natures,\u201d \u201cresplendent gods,\u201d\nbecause, as Plato says, \u201cwe were ourselves pure and immaculate, being\nliberated from this _surrounding vestment_, which we denominate body,\nand to which we are now bound like an oyster to its shell.\u201d[174]\n\nSo the doctrine of planetary and terrestrial Pitris was revealed\n_entirely_ in ancient India, as well as now, only at the last moment\nof initiation, and to the adepts of superior degrees. Many are the\nfakirs, who, though pure, and honest, and self-devoted, have yet\nnever seen the astral form of a purely _human pitar_ (an ancestor or\nfather), otherwise than at the solemn moment of their first and last\ninitiation. It is in the presence of his instructor, the guru, and\njust before the _vatou_-fakir is dispatched into the world of the\nliving, with his seven-knotted bamboo wand for all protection, that\nhe is suddenly placed face to face with the unknown PRESENCE. He sees\nit, and falls prostrate at the feet of the evanescent form, but is\nnot entrusted with the great secret of its evocation; for it is the\nsupreme mystery of the holy syllable. The AUM contains the evocation\nof the Vedic triad, the _Trimurti_ Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, say the\nOrientalists;[175] it contains the evocation of _something more real\nand objective than this triune abstraction_--we say, respectfully\ncontradicting the eminent scientists. It is the trinity of man\nhimself, on his way to become immortal through the solemn union of\nhis inner triune SELF--the exterior, gross body, the husk not even\nbeing taken in consideration in this human trinity.[176] It is,\nwhen this trinity, in anticipation of the final triumphant reunion\nbeyond the gates of corporeal death became for a few seconds a UNITY,\nthat the candidate is allowed, at the moment of the initiation, to\nbehold his future self. Thus we read in the Persian _Desatir_, of\nthe \u201cResplendent one;\u201d in the Greek philosopher-initiates, of the\nAugoeides--the self-shining \u201cblessed vision resident in the pure\nlight;\u201d in Porphyry, that Plotinus was united to his \u201cgod\u201d six times\nduring his lifetime; and so on.\n\n\u201cIn ancient India, the mystery of the triad, known but to the\ninitiates, could not, under the penalty of death, be revealed to the\nvulgar,\u201d says Vrihaspati.\n\nNeither could it in the ancient Grecian and Samothracian Mysteries.\n_Nor can it be now._ It is in the hands of the adepts, and must\nremain a mystery to the world so long as the materialistic savant\nregards it as an undemonstrated fallacy, an insane hallucination, and\nthe dogmatic theologian, a snare of the Evil One.\n\n_Subjective_ communication with the human, god-like spirits of those\nwho have preceded us to the silent land of bliss, is in India divided\ninto three categories. Under the spiritual training of a guru or\nsanny\u00e2si, the vatou (disciple or neophyte) begins _to feel_ them.\nWere he not under the immediate guidance of an adept, he would be\ncontrolled by the invisibles, and utterly at their mercy, for among\nthese subjective influences he is unable to discern the good from the\nbad. Happy the sensitive who is sure of the purity of his spiritual\natmosphere!\n\nTo this subjective consciousness, which is the _first_ degree, is,\nafter a time, added that of clairaudience. This is the _second_\ndegree or stage of development. The sensitive--when not naturally\nmade so by psychological training--now audibly hears, but is still\nunable to discern; and is incapable of verifying his impressions, and\none who is unprotected the tricky powers of the air but too often\ndelude with semblances of voices and speech. But the guru\u2019s influence\nis there; it is the most powerful shield against the intrusion of the\n_bhutn\u00e1_ into the atmosphere of the vatou, consecrated to the pure,\nhuman, and celestial Pitris.\n\nThe _third_ degree is that when the fakir or any other candidate\nboth feels, hears, and sees; and when he can at will produce the\n_reflections_ of the Pitris on the mirror of astral light. All\ndepends upon his psychological and mesmeric powers, which are always\nproportionate to the intensity of his _will_. But the fakir will\nnever control the Akasa, the spiritual life-principle, the omnipotent\nagent of every phenomenon, in the same degree as an adept of the\nthird and highest initiation. And the phenomena produced by the\nwill of the latter do not generally run the market-places for the\nsatisfaction of open-mouthed investigators.\n\nThe unity of God, the immortality of the spirit, belief in salvation\nonly through our works, merit and demerit; such are the principal\narticles of faith of the Wisdom-religion, and the ground work of\nVedaism, Buddhism, Parsism, and such we find to have been even that\nof the ancient Osirism, when we, after abandoning the popular sun-god\nto the materialism of the rabble, confine our attention to the _Books\nof Hermes_, the thrice-great.\n\n\u201cThe THOUGHT concealed as yet the world in silence and darkness....\nThen the Lord who exists through Himself, and _who is not to be\ndivulged to the external senses of man_; dissipated darkness, and\nmanifested the perceptible world.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe that can be perceived only by the spirit, that escapes the\norgans of sense, who is without visible parts, eternal, the soul of\nall beings, that none can comprehend, displayed His own splendor\u201d\n(_Manu_, book i., slokas, 6-7).\n\nSuch is the ideal of the Supreme in the mind of every Hindu\nphilosopher.\n\n\u201cOf all the duties, the principal one is to acquire the knowledge of\nthe supreme soul (the spirit); it is the first of all sciences, _for\nit alone confers on man immortality_\u201d (_Manu_, book xii., sloka 85).\n\nAnd our scientists talk of the Nirvana of Buddha and the Moksha of\nBrahma as of a complete annihilation! It is thus that the following\nverse is interpreted by some materialists.\n\n\u201cThe man who recognizes the _Supreme Soul_, in his own soul, as well\nas in that of all creatures, and who is equally just to all (whether\nman or animals) obtains the happiest of all fates, that to be finally\n_absorbed_ in the bosom of Brahma\u201d (_Manu_, book xii., sloka 125).\n\nThe doctrine of the Moksha and the Nirvana, as understood by the\nschool of Max M\u00fcller, can never bear confronting with numerous\ntexts that can be found, if required, as a final refutation. There\nare sculptures in many pagodas which contradict, point-blank, the\nimputation. Ask a Brahman to explain Moksha, address yourself to\nan educated Buddhist and pray him to define for you the meaning of\nNirvana. Both will answer you that in every one of these religions\nNirvana represents the dogma of the spirit\u2019s immortality. That,\nto reach the Nirvana means absorption into the great universal\nsoul, the latter representing a _state_, not an individual being\nor an anthropomorphic god, as some understand the great EXISTENCE.\nThat a spirit reaching such a state becomes a _part_ of the\nintegral _whole_, but never loses its individuality for all that.\nHenceforth, the spirit lives spiritually, without any fear of further\nmodifications of form; for form pertains to matter, and the state of\n_Nirvana_ implies a complete purification or a final riddance from\neven the most sublimated particle of matter.\n\nThis word, _absorbed_, when it is proved that the Hindus and\nBuddhists believe in the _immortality_ of the spirit, must\nnecessarily mean intimate union, not annihilation. Let Christians\ncall them idolaters, if they still dare do so, in the face of science\nand the latest translations of the sacred Sanscrit books; they have\nno right to present the speculative philosophy of ancient sages as\nan inconsistency and the philosophers themselves as illogical fools.\nWith far better reason we can accuse the ancient Jews of utter\n_nihilism_. There is not a word contained in the Books of Moses--or\nthe prophets either--which, taken literally, implies the spirit\u2019s\nimmortality. Yet every devout Jew hopes as well to be \u201cgathered into\nthe bosom of A-Braham.\u201d\n\nThe hierophants and some Brahmans are accused of having administered\nto their epoptai strong drinks or an\u00e6sthetics to produce visions\nwhich shall be taken by the latter as realities. They did and do use\nsacred beverages which, like the Soma-drink, possess the faculty\nof freeing the astral form from the bonds of matter; but in those\nvisions there is as little to be attributed to hallucination as\nin the glimpses which the scientist, by the help of his optical\ninstrument, gets into the microscopic world. A man cannot perceive,\ntouch, and converse with pure spirit through any of his bodily\nsenses. Only spirit alone can talk to and see spirit; and even our\nastral soul, the _Doppelganger_, is too gross, too much tainted\nyet with earthly matter to trust entirely to its perceptions and\ninsinuations.\n\nHow dangerous may often become _untrained_ mediumship, and how\nthoroughly it was understood and provided against by the ancient\nsages, is perfectly exemplified in the case of Socrates. The old\nGrecian philosopher was a \u201cmedium;\u201d hence, he had never been\ninitiated into the Mysteries; for such was the rigorous law. But he\nhad his \u201cfamiliar spirit\u201d as they call it, his _daimonion_; and this\ninvisible counsellor became the cause of his death. It is generally\nbelieved that if he was not initiated into the Mysteries it was\nbecause he himself neglected to become so. But the _Secret Records_\nteach us that it was because he could not be admitted to participate\nin the sacred rites, and precisely, as we state, on account of his\nmediumship. There was a law against the admission not only of such\nas were convicted of deliberate _witchcraft_[177] but even of those\nwho were known to have \u201ca familiar spirit.\u201d The law was just and\nlogical, because a genuine medium is more or less irresponsible;\nand the eccentricities of Socrates are thus accounted for in some\ndegree. A medium must be _passive_; and if a firm believer in his\n\u201cspirit-guide\u201d he will allow himself to be ruled by the latter,\nnot by the rules of the sanctuary. A _medium_ of olden times, like\nthe modern \u201cmedium\u201d was subject to be _entranced_ at the will and\npleasure of the \u201cpower\u201d which _controlled_ him; therefore, he could\nnot well have been entrusted with the awful secrets of the final\ninitiation, \u201cnever to be revealed under the penalty of death.\u201d The\nold sage, in unguarded moments of \u201cspiritual inspiration,\u201d revealed\nthat which he had never learned; and was therefore put to death as an\natheist.\n\nHow then, with such an instance as that of Socrates, in relation\nto the visions and spiritual wonders at the epoptai, of the Inner\nTemple, can any one assert that these seers, theurgists, and\nthaumaturgists were all \u201cspirit-mediums?\u201d Neither Pythagoras,\nPlato, nor any of the later more important Neo-platonists; neither\nIamblichus, Longinus, Proclus, nor Apollonius of Tyana, were ever\nmediums; for in such case they would not have been admitted to\nthe Mysteries at all. As Taylor proves--\u201cThis assertion of divine\nvisions in the Mysteries is clearly confirmed by Plotinus. And in\nshort, that magical evocation formed a part of the sacerdotal office\nin them, and that this was universally believed by all antiquity\nlong before the era of the later Platonists,\u201d shows that apart from\nnatural \u201cmediumship,\u201d there has existed, from the beginning of time,\na mysterious science, discussed by many, but known only to a few.\n\nThe use of it is a longing toward our only true and real home--the\nafter-life, and a desire to cling more closely to our parent spirit;\nabuse of it is sorcery, witchcraft, _black_ magic. Between the two is\nplaced natural \u201cmediumship;\u201d a soul clothed with imperfect matter, a\nready agent for either the one or the other, and utterly dependent\non its surroundings of life, constitutional heredity--physical as\nwell as mental--and on the nature of the \u201cspirits\u201d it attracts around\nitself. A blessing or a curse, as fate will have it, unless the\nmedium is purified of earthly dross.\n\nThe reason why in every age so little has been generally known of\nthe mysteries of initiation, is twofold. The first has already been\nexplained by more than one author, and lies in the terrible penalty\nfollowing the least indiscretion. The second, is the superhuman\ndifficulties and even dangers which the daring candidate of old\nhad to encounter, and either conquer, or die in the attempt, when,\nwhat is still worse, he did not lose his reason. There was no real\ndanger to him whose mind had become thoroughly spiritualized, and\nso prepared for every terrific sight. He who fully recognized the\npower of his immortal spirit, and never doubted for one moment its\nomnipotent protection, had naught to fear. But woe to the candidate\nin whom the slightest physical fear--sickly child of matter--made\nhim lose sight and faith in his own invulnerability. He who was not\nwholly confident of his moral fitness to accept the burden of these\ntremendous secrets was doomed.\n\nThe _Talmud_ gives the story of the four Tana\u00efm, who are made, in\nallegorical terms, to enter into _the garden of delights_; _i.e._, to\nbe initiated into the occult and final science.\n\n\u201cAccording to the teaching of our holy masters the names of the four\nwho entered the garden of delight, are: Ben Asai, Ben Zoma, Acher,\nand Rabbi Akiba....\n\n\u201cBen Asai looked and--lost his sight.\n\n\u201cBen Zoma looked and--lost his reason.\n\n\u201cAcher made depredations in the plantation\u201d (mixed up the whole and\nfailed). \u201cBut Akiba, who had entered in peace, came out of it in\npeace, for the saint whose name be blessed had said, \u2018This old man is\nworthy of serving us with glory.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThe learned commentators of the _Talmud_, the Rabbis of the\nsynagogue, explain that the _garden of delight_, in which those\nfour personages are made to enter, is but that mysterious science,\nthe most terrible of sciences _for weak intellects, which it leads\ndirectly to insanity_,\u201d says A. Franck, in his _Kabbala_. It is not\nthe pure at heart and he who studies but with a view to perfecting\nhimself and so more easily acquiring the promised immortality,\nwho need have any fear; but rather he who makes of the science of\nsciences a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who should tremble.\n_The latter will never withstand the kabalistic evocations of the\nsupreme initiation._\n\nThe licentious performances of the thousand and one early Christian\nsects, may be criticised by partial commentators as well as the\nancient Eleusinian and other rites. But why should they incur the\nblame of the theologians, the Christians, when their own \u201cMysteries\u201d\nof \u201cthe divine incarnation with Joseph, Mary, and the angel\u201d in\na sacred _trilogue_ used to be enacted in more than one country,\nand were famous at one time in Spain and Southern France? Later,\nthey fell like many other once secret rites into the hands of the\npopulace. It is but a few years since, during every Christmas week,\nPunch-and-Judy-boxes, containing the above named personages, an\nadditional display of the infant Jesus in his manger, were carried\nabout the country in Poland and Southern Russia. They were called\n_Kaliadovki_, a word the correct etymology of which we are unable\nto give unless it is from the verb _Kaliadov\u00e2t_, a word that we as\nwillingly abandon to learned philologists. We have seen this show in\nour days of childhood. We remember the three king-Magi represented\nby three dolls in powdered wigs and colored tights; and it is from\nrecollecting the simple, profound veneration depicted on the faces\nof the pious audience, that we can the more readily appreciate the\nhonest and just remark by the editor, in the introduction to the\n_Eleusinian Mysteries_, who says: \u201cIt is ignorance which leads to\nprofanation. Men ridicule what they do not properly understand....\nThe undercurrent of this world is set toward one goal; and inside of\nhuman credulity--call it human weakness, if you please--is a power\nalmost infinite, a holy faith capable of apprehending the supremest\ntruths of all existence.\u201d\n\nIf that abstract sentiment called _Christian charity_ prevailed in\nthe Church, we would be well content to leave all this unsaid. We\nhave no quarrel with Christians whose faith is sincere and whose\npractice coincides with their profession. But with an arrogant,\ndogmatic, and dishonest clergy, we have nothing to do except to see\nthe ancient philosophy--antagonized by modern theology in its puny\noffspring--Spiritualism--defended and righted so far as we are able,\nso that its grandeur and sufficiency may be thoroughly displayed. It\nis not alone for the esoteric philosophy that we fight; nor for any\nmodern system of moral philosophy, but for the inalienable right of\nprivate judgment, and especially for the ennobling idea of a future\nlife of activity and accountability.\n\nWe eagerly applaud such commentators as Godfrey Higgins, Inman, Payne\nKnight, King, Dunlap, and Dr. Newton, however much they disagree\nwith our own mystical views, for their diligence is constantly being\nrewarded by fresh discoveries of the Pagan paternity of Christian\nsymbols. But otherwise, all these learned works are useless. Their\nresearches only cover half the ground. Lacking the true key of\ninterpretation they see the symbols only in a physical aspect. They\nhave no password to cause the gates of mystery to swing open; and\nancient spiritual philosophy is to them a closed book. Diametrically\nopposed though they be to the clergy in their ideas respecting it, in\nthe way of interpretation they do little more than their opponents\nfor a questioning public. Their labors tend to strengthen materialism\nas those of the clergy, especially the Romish clergy, do to cultivate\nbelief in diabolism.\n\nIf the study of Hermetic philosophy held out no other hope of reward,\nit would be more than enough to know that by it we may learn with\nwhat perfection of justice the world is governed. A sermon upon this\ntext is preached by every page of history. Among all there is not\none that conveys a deeper moral than the case of the Roman Church.\nThe divine law of compensation was never more strikingly exemplified\nthan in the fact that by her own act she has deprived herself of\nthe only possible key to her own religious mysteries. The assumption\nof Godfrey Higgins that there are two doctrines maintained in the\nRoman Church, one for the masses and the other--the esoteric--for the\n\u201cperfect,\u201d or the initiates, as in the ancient Mysteries, appears\nto us unwarranted and rather fantastic. They have lost the key, we\nrepeat; otherwise no terrestrial power could have prostrated her, and\nexcept a superficial knowledge of the means of producing \u201cmiracles,\u201d\nher clergy can in no way be compared in their wisdom with the\nhierophants of old.\n\nIn burning the works of the theurgists; in proscribing those who\naffect their study; in affixing the stigma of demonolatry to magic\nin general, Rome has left her exoteric worship and _Bible_ to be\nhelplessly riddled by every free-thinker, her sexual emblems to be\nidentified with coarseness, and her priests to unwittingly turn\nmagicians and even sorcerers in their exorcisms, which are but\nnecromantic evocations. Thus retribution, by the exquisite adjustment\nof divine law, is made to overtake this scheme of cruelty, injustice,\nand bigotry, through her own suicidal acts.\n\nTrue philosophy and divine truth are convertible terms. A religion\nwhich dreads the light cannot be a religion based on either truth\nor philosophy--hence, it must be false. The ancient Mysteries were\nmysteries to the profane only, whom the hierophant never sought nor\nwould accept as proselytes; to the initiates the Mysteries became\nexplained as soon as the final veil was withdrawn. No mind like\nthat of Pythagoras or Plato would have contented itself with an\nunfathomable and incomprehensible mystery, like that of the Christian\ndogma. There can be but one truth, for two small truths on the same\nsubject can but constitute one great error. Among thousands of\nexoteric or popular conflicting religions which have been propagated\nsince the days when the first men were enabled to interchange their\nideas, not a nation, not a people, nor the most abject tribe, but\nafter their own fashion has believed in an Unseen God, the First\nCause of unerring and immutable laws, and in the immortality of our\nspirit. No creed, no false philosophy, no religious exaggerations,\ncould ever destroy that feeling. It must, therefore, be based upon\nan absolute truth. On the other hand, every one of the numberless\nreligions and religious sects views the Deity after its own fashion;\nand, fathering on the unknown its own speculations, it enforces these\npurely human outgrowths of overheated imagination on the ignorant\nmasses, and calls them \u201crevelation.\u201d As the dogmas of every religion\nand sect often differ radically, they cannot be _true_. And if\nuntrue, what are they?\n\n\u201cThe greatest curse to a nation,\u201d remarks Dr. Inman, \u201cis not _a bad\nreligion_, but a form of faith which prevents manly inquiry. I know\nof no nation of old that was priest-ridden which did not fall under\nthe swords of those who did not care for hierarchs.... The greatest\ndanger is to be feared from those ecclesiastics who wink at vice,\nand encourage it as a means whereby they can gain power over their\nvotaries. So long as every man does to other men as he would that\nthey should do to him, and _allows no one to interfere between him\nand his Maker_, all will go well with the world.\u201d[178]\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n \u201cKING.--Let us from point to point this story know.\u201d\n --_All\u2019s Well That Ends Well._--Act v., Scene 3.\n\n\n \u201cHe is the One, self-proceeding; and from Him all things proceed.\n And in them He Himself exerts His activity; no mortal\n BEHOLDS HIM, but HE beholds all!\u201d--_Orphic Hymn._\n\n\n \u201cAnd Athens, O Athena, is thy own!\n Great Goddess hear! and on my darkened mind\n Pour thy pure light in measure unconfined;\n That sacred light, O all-proceeding Queen,\n Which beams eternal from thy face serene.\n My soul, while wand\u2019ring on the earth, inspire\n With thy own blessed and impulsive fire!\u201d\n --PROCLUS; TAYLOR: _To Minerva_.\n\n \u201cNow _faith_ is the substance of things.... By faith the harlot\n Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had\n _received the spies in peace_.\u201d--_Hebrews_ xi. 1, 31.\n\n \u201cWhat doth it profit, my brethren, though a man hath faith, and have\n not works? _Can_ FAITH _save him_?... Likewise also was not Rahab\n the harlot _justified by works_, when she had received the\n messengers, and had sent them out another way?\u201d--_James_ ii. 14, 25.\n\n\nClement describes Basilides, the Gnostic, as \u201ca philosopher devoted\nto the contemplation of divine things.\u201d This very appropriate\nexpression may be applied to many of the founders of the more\nimportant sects which later were all engulfed in one--that stupendous\ncompound of unintelligible dogmas enforced by Iren\u00e6us, Tertullian,\nand others, which is now termed Christianity. _If these must be\ncalled heresies, then early Christianity itself must be included\nin the number._ Basilides and Valentinus preceded Iren\u00e6us and\nTertullian; and the two latter Fathers had less facts than the\ntwo former Gnostics to show that their _heresy_ was plausible.\nNeither divine right nor truth brought about the triumph of their\nChristianity; fate alone was propitious. We can assert, with entire\nplausibility, that there is not one of all these sects--Kabalism,\nJudaism, and our present Christianity included--but sprung from\nthe two main branches of that one mother-trunk, the once universal\nreligion, which antedated the Vedaic ages--we speak of that\nprehistoric Buddhism which merged later into Brahmanism.\n\nThe religion which the primitive teaching of the early few apostles\nmost resembled--a religion preached by Jesus himself--is the elder of\nthese two, Buddhism. The latter as taught in its primitive purity,\nand carried to perfection by the last of the Buddhas, Gautama, based\nits moral ethics on three fundamental principles. It alleged that\n1, every thing existing, exists from natural causes; 2, that virtue\nbrings its own reward, and vice and sin their own punishment; and,\n3, that the state of man in this world is probationary. We might\nadd that on these three principles rested the universal foundation\nof every religious creed; God, and individual immortality for\nevery man--if he could but win it. However puzzling the subsequent\ntheological tenets; however seemingly incomprehensible the\nmetaphysical abstractions which have convulsed the theology of every\none of the great religions of mankind as soon as it was placed on a\nsure footing, the above is found to be the essence of every religious\nphilosophy, with the exception of later Christianity. It was that\nof Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of Plato, of Jesus, and even of Moses,\nalbeit the teachings of the Jewish law-giver have been so piously\ntampered with.\n\nWe will devote the present chapter mainly to a brief survey of the\nnumerous sects which have recognized themselves as Christians; that\nis to say, that have believed in a _Christos_, or an ANOINTED ONE.\nWe will also endeavor to explain the latter appellation from the\nkabalistic standpoint, and show it reappearing in every religious\nsystem. It might be profitable, at the same time, to see how much the\nearliest apostles--Paul and Peter, agreed in their preaching of the\nnew Dispensation. We will begin with Peter.\n\nWe must once more return to that greatest of all the Patristic\nfrauds; the one which has undeniably helped the Roman Catholic Church\nto its unmerited supremacy, viz.: the barefaced assertion, in the\nteeth of historical evidence, that Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome.\nIt is but too natural that the Latin clergy should cling to it, for,\nwith the exposure of the fraudulent nature of this pretext, the dogma\nof apostolic succession must fall to the ground.\n\nThere have been many able works of late, in refutation of this\npreposterous claim. Among others we note Mr. G. Reber\u2019s, _The Christ\nof Paul_, which overthrows it quite ingeniously. The author proves,\n1, that there was no church established at Rome, until the reign\nof Antoninus Pius; 2, that as Eusebius and Iren\u00e6us both agree that\nLinus was the second Bishop of Rome, into whose hands \u201cthe blessed\napostles\u201d Peter and Paul committed the church after building it,\nit could not have been at any other time than between A.D. 64 and\n68; 3, that this interval of years happens during the reign of\nNero, for Eusebius states that Linus held this office twelve years\n(_Ecclesiastical History_, book iii., c. 13), entering upon it A.D.\n69, one year after the death of Nero, and dying himself in 81. After\nthat the author maintains, on very solid grounds, that Peter could\nnot be in Rome A.D. 64, for he was then in Babylon; wherefrom he\nwrote his first Epistle, the date of which is fixed by Dr. Lardner\nand other critics at precisely this year. But we believe that his\nbest argument is in proving that it was not in the character of the\ncowardly Peter to risk himself in such close neighborhood with Nero,\nwho \u201cwas feeding the wild beasts of the Amphitheatre with the flesh\nand bones of Christians\u201d[179] at that time.\n\nPerhaps the Church of Rome was but consistent in choosing as her\ntitular founder the apostle who thrice denied his master at the\nmoment of danger; and the only one, moreover, except Judas, who\nprovoked Christ in such a way as to be addressed as the \u201cEnemy.\u201d\n\u201cGet thee behind me, SATAN!\u201d exclaims Jesus, rebuking the taunting\napostle.[180]\n\nThere is a tradition in the Greek Church which has never found favor\nat the Vatican. The former traces its origin to one of the Gnostic\nleaders--Basilides, perhaps, who lived under Trajan and Adrian, at\nthe end of the first and the beginning of the second century. With\nregard to this particular tradition, if the Gnostic is Basilides,\nthen he must be accepted as a sufficient authority, having claimed\nto have been a disciple of the Apostle Matthew, and to have had for\nmaster Glaucias, a disciple of St. Peter himself. Were the narrative\nattributed to him authenticated, the London Committee for the\nRevision of the Bible would have to add a new verse to _Matthew_,\n_Mark_, and _John_, who tell the story of Peter\u2019s denial of Christ.\n\nThis tradition, then, of which we have been speaking, affirms that,\nwhen frightened at the accusation of the servant of the high priest,\nthe apostle had thrice denied his master, and the cock had crowed,\nJesus, who was then passing through the hall in custody of the\nsoldiers, turned, and, looking at Peter, said: \u201cVerily, I say unto\nthee, Peter, thou shalt deny me throughout the coming ages, and never\nstop until thou shalt be old, and shalt stretch forth thy hands, and\nanother shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.\u201d The\nlatter part of this sentence, say the Greeks, relates to the Church\nof Rome, and prophesies her constant apostasy from Christ, under the\nmask of false religion. Later, it was inserted in the twenty-first\nchapter of _John_, but the whole of this chapter had been pronounced\na forgery, even before it was found that this _Gospel_ was never\nwritten by John the Apostle at all.\n\nThe anonymous author of _Supernatural Religion_, a work which in\ntwo years passed through several editions, and which is alleged to\nhave been written by an eminent theologian, proves conclusively\nthe spuriousness of the four gospels, or at least their complete\ntransformation in the hands of the too-zealous Iren\u00e6us and his\nchampions. The fourth gospel is completely upset by this able author;\nthe extraordinary forgeries of the Fathers of the early centuries\nare plainly demonstrated, and the relative value of the synoptics\nis discussed with an unprecedented power of logic. The work carries\nconviction in its every line. From it we quote the following: \u201cWe\ngain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in the\nreality of Divine Revelation. Whilst we retain, pure and unimpaired,\nthe treasure of Christian morality, we relinquish nothing but the\ndebasing elements added to it by human superstition. We are no\nlonger bound to believe a theology which outrages reason and moral\nsense. We are freed from base anthropomorphic views of God and His\ngovernment of the Universe, and from Jewish Mythology we rise to\nhigher conceptions of an infinitely wise and beneficent Being, hidden\nfrom our finite minds, it is true, in the impenetrable glory of\nDivinity, but whose laws of wondrous comprehensiveness and perfection\nwe ever perceive in operation around us.... The argument so often\nemployed by theologians, that Divine revelation is necessary for man,\nand that certain views contained in that revelation are required for\nour moral consciousness, is purely imaginary, and derived from the\nrevelation which it seeks to maintain. The only thing absolutely\nnecessary for man is TRUTH, and to that, and that alone, must our\nmoral consciousness adapt itself.\u201d[181]\n\nWe will consider farther in what light was regarded the Divine\nrevelation of the Jewish _Bible_ by the Gnostics, who yet believed\nin Christ in their own way, a far better and less blasphemous one\nthan the Roman Catholic. The Fathers have forced on the believers\nin Christ a _Bible_, the laws prescribed in which he was the first\nto break; the teachings of which he utterly rejected; and for which\ncrimes he was finally crucified. Of whatever else the Christian world\ncan boast, it can hardly claim logic and consistency as its chief\nvirtues.\n\nThe fact alone that Peter remained to the last an \u201capostle of the\ncircumcision,\u201d speaks for itself. _Whosoever else might have built\nthe Church of Rome it was not Peter._ If such were the case, the\nsuccessors of this apostle would have to submit themselves to\ncircumcision, if it were but for the sake of consistency, and to\nshow that the claims of the popes are not utterly groundless, Dr.\nInman asserts that report says that \u201cin our Christian times popes\nhave to be privately perfect,\u201d[182] but we do not know whether it is\ncarried to the extent of the Levitical Jewish law. The first fifteen\nChristian bishops of Jerusalem, commencing with James and including\nJudas, were all circumcised Jews.[183]\n\nIn the _Sepher Toldos Jeshu_,[184] a Hebrew manuscript of great\nantiquity, the version about Peter is different. Simon Peter, it\nsays, was one of their own brethren, though he had somewhat departed\nfrom the laws, and the Jewish hatred and persecution of the apostle\nseems to have existed but in the fecund imagination of the fathers.\nThe author speaks of him with great respect and fairness, calling\nhim \u201ca faithful servant of the living God,\u201d who passed his life in\nausterity and meditation, \u201cliving in Babylon at the summit of a\ntower,\u201d composing hymns, and preaching charity. He adds that Peter\nalways recommended to the Christians not to molest the Jews, but\nas soon as he was dead, behold another preacher went to Rome and\npretended that Simon Peter had altered the teachings of his master.\nHe invented a burning hell and threatened every one with it; promised\nmiracles, but worked none.\n\nHow much there is in the above of fiction and how much of truth, it\nis for others to decide; but it certainly bears more the evidence\nof sincerity and fact on its face, than the fables concocted by the\nfathers to answer their end.\n\nWe may the more readily credit this friendship between Peter and\nhis late co-religionists as we find in _Theodoret_ the following\nassertion: \u201cThe Nazarenes are Jews, honoring the ANOINTED (Jesus) as\na _just man_ and using the _Evangel_ according to Peter.\u201d[185] Peter\nwas a Nazarene, according to the _Talmud_. He belonged to the sect of\nthe later Nazarenes, which dissented from the followers of John the\nBaptist, and became a rival sect; and which--as tradition goes--was\ninstituted by Jesus himself.\n\nHistory finds the first Christian sects to have been either Nazarenes\nlike John the Baptist; or Ebionites, among whom were many of the\nrelatives of Jesus; or Essenes (Iessaens) the Therapeut\u00e6, healers,\nof which the Nazaria were a branch. All these sects, which only in\nthe days of Iren\u00e6us began to be considered heretical, were more or\nless kabalistic. They believed in the expulsion of demons by magical\nincantations, and practiced this method; Jervis terms the Nabatheans\nand other such sects \u201cwandering Jewish exorcists,\u201d[186] the Arabic\nword _Nab\u00e6_, meaning to wander, and the Hebrew \u05e0\u05d1\u05d0 naba, to\nprophesy. The _Talmud_ indiscriminately calls all the Christians\n_Nozari_.[187] All the Gnostic sects equally believed in magic.\nIren\u00e6us, in describing the followers of Basilides, says, \u201cThey use\nimages, invocations, incantations, and all other things pertaining\nunto magic.\u201d Dunlap, on the authority of Lightfoot, shows that Jesus\nwas called _Nazaraios_, in reference to his humble and mean external\ncondition; \u201cfor Nazaraios means separation, alienation from other\nmen.\u201d[188]\n\nThe real meaning of the word nazar \u05e0\u05d6\u05e8 signifies to vow or consecrate\none\u2019s self to the service of God. As a noun it is a _diadem_ or emblem\nof such consecration, a head so consecrated.[189] Joseph was styled a\n_nazar_.[190] \u201cThe head of Joseph, the vertex of the nazar among his\nbrethren.\u201d Samson and Samuel (\u05e9\u05de\u05d5\u05be\u05d0\u05dc \u05e9\u05e6\u05e9\u05d5\u05df Semes-on and Semva-el) are\ndescribed alike as _nazars_. Porphyry, treating of Pythagoras, says\nthat he was purified and initiated at Babylon by Zar-adas, the head of\nthe sacred college. May it not be surmised, therefore, that the\nZoro-Aster was the _nazar_ of Ishtar, Zar-adas or Na-Zar-Ad,[191]\nbeing the same with change of idiom? Ezra, or \u05e2\u05d6\u05e8\u05d0, was a priest and\nscribe, a hierophant; and the first Hebrew colonizer of Judea\nwas \u05d6\u05e8\u05d5\u05d1\u05d1\u05dc Zeru-Babel or the Zoro or nazar of Babylon.\n\nThe Jewish Scriptures indicate two distinct worships and religions\namong the Israelites; that of Bacchus-worship under the mask of\nJehovah, and that of the Chaldean initiates to whom belonged some\nof the _nazars_, the theurgists, and a few of the prophets. The\nheadquarters of these were always at Babylon and Chaldea, where two\nrival schools of Magians can be distinctly shown. Those who would\ndoubt the statement will have in such a case to account for the\ndiscrepancy between history and Plato, who of all men of his day\nwas certainly one of the best informed. Speaking of the Magians, he\nshows them as instructing the Persian kings of Zoroaster, as the\nson or priest of Oromasdes; and yet Darius, in the inscription at\nBihistun, boasts of having restored the cultus of Ormazd and put down\nthe Magian rites! Evidently there were two distinct and antagonistic\nMagian schools. The oldest and the most esoteric of the two being\nthat which, satisfied with its unassailable knowledge and secret\npower, was content to apparently relinquish her exoteric popularity,\nand concede her supremacy into the hands of the reforming Darius.\nThe later Gnostics showed the same prudent policy by accommodating\nthemselves in every country to the prevailing religious forms, still\nsecretly adhering to their own essential doctrines.\n\nThere is another hypothesis possible, which is that Zero-Ishtar\nwas the high priest of the Chaldean worship, or Magian hierophant.\nWhen the Aryans of Persia, under Darius Hystaspes, overthrew the\nMagian Gomates, and _restored_ the Masdean worship, there ensued an\namalgamation by which the Magian Zoro-astar became the Zara-tushra\nof the _Vendidad_. This was not acceptable to the other Aryans, who\nadopted the Vedic religion as distinguished from that of _Avesta_.\nBut this is but an hypothesis.\n\nAnd whatever Moses is now believed to have been, we will demonstrate\nthat he was an initiate. The Mosaic religion was at best a\nsun-and-serpent worship, diluted, perhaps, with some slight\nmonotheistic notions before the latter were forcibly crammed into the\nso-called \u201cinspired Scriptures\u201d by Ezra, at the time he was alleged to\nhave _re_written the Mosaic books. At all events the _Book of Numbers_\nwas a later book; and there the sun-and-serpent worship is as plainly\ntraceable as in any Pagan story. The tale of the fiery serpents is an\nallegory in more than one sense. The \u201cserpents\u201d were the _Levites_ or\n_Ophites_, who were Moses\u2019 bodyguard (see _Exodus_ xxxii. 26); and the\ncommand of the \u201cLord\u201d to Moses to hang the heads of the people \u201cbefore\nthe Lord against the sun,\u201d which is the emblem of this Lord, is\nunequivocal.\n\nThe nazars or prophets, as well as the Nazarenes, were an\nanti-Bacchus caste, in so far that, in common with all the initiated\nprophets, they held to the spirit of the symbolical religions and\noffered a strong opposition to the idolatrous and exoteric practices\nof the dead letter. Hence, the frequent stoning of the prophets by\nthe populace and under the leadership of those priests who made a\nprofitable living out of the popular superstitions. Otfried M\u00fcller\nshows how much the Orphic Mysteries differed from the _popular_\nrites of Bacchus,[192] although the _Orphikoi_ are known to have\nfollowed the worship of Bacchus. The system of the purest morality\nand of a severe asceticism promulgated in the teachings of Orpheus,\nand so strictly adhered to by his votaries, are incompatible with\nthe lasciviousness and gross immorality of the popular rites. The\nfable of Arist\u00e6us pursuing Eurydik\u00e9 into the woods where a serpent\noccasions her death, is a very plain allegory, which was in part\nexplained at the earliest times. Arist\u00e6us is _brutal power_, pursuing\nEurydik\u00e9, the esoteric doctrine, into the woods where the serpent\n(emblem of every sun-god, and worshipped under its grosser aspect\neven by the Jews) kills her; _i.e._, forces truth to become still\nmore esoteric, and seek shelter in the Underworld, which is not\nthe hell of our theologians. Moreover, the fate of Orpheus, torn\nto pieces by the Bacchantes, is another allegory to show that the\ngross and popular rites are always more welcome than divine but\nsimple truth, and proves the great difference that must have existed\nbetween the esoteric and the popular worship. As the poems of both\nOrpheus and Mus\u00e6us were said to have been lost since the earliest\nages, so that neither Plato nor Aristotle recognized anything\nauthentic in the poems extant in their time, it is difficult to say\nwith precision what constituted their peculiar rites. Still we have\nthe oral tradition, and every inference to draw therefrom; and this\ntradition points to Orpheus as having brought his doctrines from\nIndia. As one whose religion was that of the oldest Magians--hence,\nthat to which belonged the initiates of all countries, beginning with\nMoses, the \u201csons of the Prophets,\u201d and the ascetic _nazars_ (who\nmust not be confounded with those against whom thundered Hosea and\nother prophets) to the Essenes. This latter sect were Pythagoreans\nbefore they rather degenerated, than became perfected in their\nsystem by the Buddhist missionaries, whom Pliny tells us established\nthemselves on the shores of the Dead Sea, ages before his time, \u201c_per\ns\u00e6culorum millia_.\u201d But if, on the one hand, these Buddhist monks\nwere the first to establish monastic communities and inculcate the\nstrict observance of dogmatic conventual rule, on the other they\nwere also the first to enforce and popularize those stern virtues so\nexemplified by Sakya-muni, and which were previously exercised only\nin isolated cases of well-known philosophers and their followers;\nvirtues preached two or three centuries later by Jesus, practiced by\na few Christian ascetics, and gradually abandoned, and even entirely\nforgotten by the Christian Church.\n\nThe _initiated_ nazars had ever held to this rule, which had to be\nfollowed before them by the adepts of every age; and the disciples\nof John were but a dissenting branch of the Essenes. Therefore,\nwe cannot well confound them with all the nazars spoken of in the\n_Old Testament_, and who are accused by Hosea with having separated\nor consecrated themselves to _Bosheth_ \u05d1\u05e9\u05ea (see Hebrew text); which\nimplied the greatest possible abomination. To infer, as some critics\nand theologians do, that it means to separate one\u2019s self to _chastity_\nor continence, is either to advisedly pervert the true meaning, or to\nbe totally ignorant of the Hebrew language. The eleventh verse of the\nfirst chapter of Micah half explains the word in its veiled\ntranslation: \u201cPass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, etc.,\u201d and in\nthe original text the word is _Bosheth_. Certainly neither Baal, nor\nIahoh Kadosh, with his _Kadeshim_, was a god of ascetic virtue, albeit\nthe _Septuaginta_ terms them, as well as the _galli_--the perfected\npriests--\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, the _initiated_ and the _consecrated_.[193]\nThe great _Sod_ of the _Kadeshim_, translated in _Psalm_ lxxxix. 7, by\n\u201cassembly of the saints,\u201d was anything but a mystery of the\n\u201c_sanctified_\u201d in the sense given to the latter word by Webster.\n\nThe Nazireate sect existed long before the laws of Moses, and\noriginated among people most inimical to the \u201cchosen\u201d ones of\nIsrael, viz., the people of Galilee, the ancient _olla-podrida_ of\nidolatrous nations, where was built Nazara, the present Nazareth.\nIt is in Nazara that the ancient Nazor\u00efa or Nazireates held their\n\u201cMysteries of Life\u201d or \u201cassemblies,\u201d as the word now stands in\nthe translation,[194] which were but the secret mysteries of\ninitiation,[195] utterly distinct in their practical form from the\npopular Mysteries which were held at Byblus in honor of Adonis. While\nthe true _initiates_ of the ostracised Galilee were worshipping the\ntrue God and enjoying transcendent visions, what were the \u201cchosen\u201d\nones about? Ezekiel tells it to us (chap. viii) when, in describing\nwhat he saw, he says that the _form_ of a hand took him by a lock of\nhis head and transported him from Chaldea unto Jerusalem. \u201cAnd there\nstood seventy men of the senators of the house of Israel.... \u2018Son of\nman, hast thou seen what the ancients ... do in the dark?\u2019\u201d inquires\nthe \u201cLord.\u201d \u201cAt the door of the house of the Lord ... behold there\nsat women weeping for Tammuz\u201d (Adonis). We really cannot suppose\nthat the Pagans have ever surpassed the \u201cchosen\u201d people in certain\nshameful _abominations_ of which their own prophets accuse them so\nprofusely. To admit this truth, one hardly needs even to be a Hebrew\nscholar; let him read the _Bible_ in English and meditate over the\nlanguage of the \u201choly\u201d prophets.\n\nThis accounts for the hatred of the later Nazarenes for the orthodox\nJews--followers of the _exoteric_ Mosaic Law--who are ever taunted\nby this sect with being the worshippers of Iurbo-Adunai, or Lord\nBacchus. Passing under the disguise of _Adoni-Iachoh_ (original\ntext, _Isaiah_ lxi. 1), Iahoh and Lord Sabaoth, the Baal-Adonis, or\nBacchus, worshipped in the groves and _public sods_ or Mysteries,\nunder the polishing hand of Ezra becomes finally the later-vowelled\nAdonai of the Massorah--the One and Supreme God of the Christians!\n\n\u201cThou shalt not worship the Sun who is named Adunai, says the _Codex_\nof the Nazarenes; whose name is also _Kadush_[196] and El-El. This\nAdunai will elect to himself a nation and congregate _in crowds_ (his\nworship will be exoteric) ... Jerusalem will become the refuge and\ncity of the _Abortive_, who shall perfect themselves (circumcise)\nwith a sword ... and shall adore Adunai.\u201d[197]\n\nThe oldest Nazarenes, who were the descendants of the Scripture\n_nazars_, and whose last prominent leader was John the Baptist,\nalthough never very orthodox in the sight of the scribes and\nPharisees of Jerusalem were, nevertheless, respected and left\nunmolested. Even Herod \u201cfeared the multitude\u201d because they regarded\nJohn as a prophet (_Matthew_ xiv. 5). But the followers of Jesus\nevidently adhered to a sect which became a still more exasperating\nthorn in their side. It appeared as a heresy _within_ another\nheresy; for while the nazars of the olden times, the \u201cSons of the\nProphets,\u201d were Chaldean kabalists, the adepts of the new dissenting\nsect showed themselves reformers and innovators from the first.\nThe great similitude traced by some critics between the rites and\nobservances of the earliest Christians and those of the Essenes may\nbe accounted for without the slightest difficulty. The Essenes, as we\nremarked just now, were the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had\noverrun Egypt, Greece, and even Judea at one time, since the reign\nof Asoka the zealous propagandist; and while it is evidently to the\nEssenes that belongs the honor of having had the Nazarene reformer,\nJesus, as a pupil, still the latter is found disagreeing with his\nearly teachers on several questions of formal observance. He cannot\nstrictly be called an Essene, for reasons which we will indicate\nfurther on, neither was he a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect.\nWhat Jesus _was_, may be found in the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, in the unjust\naccusations of the Bardesanian Gnostics.\n\n\u201cJesu is _Nebu_, the false Messiah, the destroyer of the old orthodox\nreligion,\u201d says the _Codex_.[198] He is the founder of the sect of\nthe new nazars, and, as the words clearly imply, a follower of the\nBuddhist doctrine. In Hebrew the word _naba_ \u05e0\u05d1\u05d0 means to speak of\ninspiration; and \u05e0\u05d1\u05d5 is _nebo_, a god of wisdom. But Nebo is also\n_Mercury_, and _Mercury is Buddha_ in the Hindu monogram of planets.\nMoreover, we find the Talmudists holding that Jesus was inspired by\nthe genius of Mercury.[199]\n\nThe Nazarene reformer had undoubtedly belonged to one of these\nsects; though, perhaps, it would be next to impossible to decide\nabsolutely which. But what is self-evident is that he preached the\nphilosophy of Buddha-Sakyam\u00fbni. Denounced by the later prophets,\ncursed by the Sanhedrim, the nazars--they were confounded with others\nof that name \u201cwho separated themselves unto that shame,\u201d[200] they\nwere secretly, if not openly persecuted by the orthodox synagogue.\nIt becomes clear why Jesus was treated with such contempt from\nthe first, and deprecatingly called \u201cthe Galilean.\u201d Nathaniel\ninquires--\u201cCan there any good thing come out of Nazareth?\u201d (_John_\ni. 46) at the very beginning of his career; and merely because he\nknows him to be a _nazar_. Does not this clearly hint, that even the\nolder nazars were not really Hebrew religionists, but rather a class\nof Chaldean theurgists? Besides, as the _New Testament_ is noted\nfor its mistranslations and transparent falsifications of texts,\nwe may justly suspect that the word Nazareth was substituted for\nthat of _nasaria_, or nozari. That it originally read \u201cCan any good\nthing come from a nozari, or Nazarene;\u201d a follower of St. John the\nBaptist, with whom we see him associating from his first appearance\non the stage of action, after having been lost sight of for a period\nof nearly twenty years. The blunders of the _Old Testament_ are as\nnothing to those of the _gospels_. Nothing shows better than these\nself-evident contradictions the system of pious fraud upon which\nthe superstructure of the Messiahship rests. \u201cThis _is Elias_ which\nwas for to come,\u201d says Matthew of John the Baptist, thus forcing an\nancient kabalistic tradition into the frame of evidence (xi. 14). But\nwhen addressing the Baptist himself, they ask him (_John_ i. 16),\n\u201cArt thou Elias?\u201d \u201cAnd he saith _I am not_!\u201d Which knew best--John or\nhis biographer? And which is divine revelation?\n\nThe motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, to\nbenefit humanity at large by producing a religious reform which\nshould give it a religion of pure ethics; the true knowledge of God\nand nature having remained until then solely in the hands of the\nesoteric sects, and their adepts. As Jesus used _oil_ and the Essenes\nnever used aught but pure water,[201] he cannot be called a strict\nEssene. On the other hand, the Essenes were also \u201cset apart;\u201d they\nwere healers (_assaya_) and dwelt in the desert as all ascetics did.\n\nBut although he did not abstain from wine he could have remained a\nNazarene all the same. For in chapter vi. of _Numbers_, we see that\nafter the priest has waved a part of the hair of a Nazorite for a\nwave-offering before the Lord, \u201cafter that a Nazarene may drink\nwine\u201d (v. 20). The bitter denunciation by the reformer of the people\nwho would be satisfied with nothing is worded in the following\nexclamation: \u201cJohn came neither eating nor drinking and they say: \u2018He\nhath a devil.\u2019... The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they\nsay: \u2018Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber.\u2019\u201d And yet he was\nan Essene and Nazarene, for we not only find him sending a message\nto Herod, to say that he was one of those who cast out demons, and\nwho performed cures, but actually calling himself a prophet and\ndeclaring himself equal to the other prophets.[202]\n\nThe author of _Sod_ shows Matthew trying to connect the appellation\nof Nazarene with a prophecy,[203] and inquires \u201cWhy then does\nMatthew state that the prophet said he should be called _Nazaria_?\u201d\nSimply \u201cbecause he belonged to that sect, and a prophecy would\nconfirm his claims to the Messiahship.... Now it does not appear\nthat the prophets anywhere state that the Messiah will be called a\n_Nazarene_.\u201d[204] The fact alone that Matthew tries in the last verse\nof chapter ii. to strengthen his claim that Jesus dwelt in Nazareth\n_merely to fulfil a prophecy_, does more than weaken the argument, it\nupsets it entirely; for the first two chapters have sufficiently been\nproved later forgeries.\n\nBaptism is one of the oldest rites and was practiced by all the\nnations in their Mysteries, as sacred ablutions. Dunlap seems to\nderive the name of the _nazars_ from nazah, sprinkling; Bahak-Zivo\nis the genius who called the world into existence[205] out of\nthe \u201cdark water,\u201d say the Nazarenes; and Richardson\u2019s _Persian,\nArabic, and English Lexicon_ asserts that the word _Bahak_ means\n\u201craining.\u201d But the Bahak-Zivo of the Nazarenes cannot be traced\nso easily to Bacchus, who \u201cwas the rain-god,\u201d for the nazars were\nthe greatest opponents of Bacchus-worship. \u201cBacchus is brought up\nby the Hyades, the rain-nymphs,\u201d says Preller;[206] who shows,\nfurthermore, that[207] at the conclusion of the religious Mysteries,\nthe priests baptized (washed) their monuments and anointed them\nwith oil. All this is but a very indirect proof. The Jordan baptism\nneed not be shown a substitution for the _exoteric_ Bacchic rites\nand the libations in honor of Adonis or Adoni--whom the Nazarenes\nabhorred--in order to prove it to have been a sect sprung from the\n\u201cMysteries\u201d of the \u201cSecret Doctrine;\u201d and their rites can by no means\nbe confounded with those of the Pagan populace, who had simply fallen\ninto the idolatrous and unreasoning faith of all plebeian multitudes.\nJohn was the prophet of these Nazarenes, and in Galilee he was termed\n\u201cthe Saviour,\u201d but he was not the founder of that sect which derived\nits tradition from the remotest Chaldeo-Akkadian theurgy.\n\n\u201cThe early plebeian Israelites were Canaanites and Ph\u0153nicians,\nwith the same worship of the Phallic gods--Bacchus, Baal or Adon,\nIacchos--Iao or Jehovah;\u201d but even among them there had always\nbeen a class of _initiated_ adepts. Later, the character of this\nplebe was modified by Assyrian conquests; and, finally, the Persian\ncolonizations superimposed the Pharisean and Eastern ideas and\nusages, from which the _Old Testament_ and the Mosaic institutes\nwere derived. The Asmonean priest-kings promulgated the canon of the\n_Old Testament_ in contradistinction to the _Apocrypha_ or Secret\nBooks of the Alexandrian Jews--kabalists.[208] Till John Hyrcanus\nthey were Asideans (Chasidim) and Pharisees (Parsees), but then\nthey became Sadducees or Zadokites--asserters of sacerdotal rule as\ncontradistinguished from rabbinical. The Pharisees were lenient and\nintellectual, the Sadducees, bigoted and cruel.\n\nSays the _Codex_: \u201cJohn, son of the Aba-Saba-Zacharia, conceived\nby his mother _Anasabet_ in her hundredth year, had baptized for\n_forty-two years_[209] when Jesu Messias came to the Jordan to\nbe baptized with John\u2019s baptism.... But he will _pervert John\u2019s\ndoctrine_, changing the baptism of the Jordan, and perverting the\nsayings of justice.\u201d[210]\n\nThe baptism was changed from _water_ to that of the Holy Ghost,\nundoubtedly in consequence of the ever-dominant idea of the Fathers\nto institute a reform, and make the Christians distinct from St.\nJohn\u2019s Nazarenes, the Nabatheans and Ebionites, in order to make\nroom for new dogmas. Not only do the Synoptics tell us that Jesus\nwas baptizing the same as John, but John\u2019s own disciples complained\nof it, though surely Jesus cannot be accused of following a purely\nBacchic rite. The parenthesis in verse 2d of John iv., \u201c... though\nJesus himself baptized not,\u201d is so clumsy as to show upon its face\nthat it is an interpolation. Matthew makes John say that he that\nshould come after him would not baptize them with water \u201cbut with\n_the Holy Ghost_ and fire.\u201d Mark, Luke, and John corroborate these\nwords. Water, fire, and spirit, or Holy Ghost, have all their origin\nin India, as we will show.\n\nNow there is one very strange peculiarity about this sentence. It\nis flatly denied in _Acts_ xix. 2-5. Apollos, a Jew of Alexandria,\nbelonged to the sect of St. John\u2019s disciples; he had been baptized,\nand instructed others in the doctrines of the Baptist. And yet when\nPaul, cleverly profiting by his absence at Corinth, finds certain\ndisciples of Apollos\u2019 at Ephesus, and asks them whether they received\n_the Holy Ghost_, he is na\u00efvely answered, \u201cWe have not so much as\nheard whether there be any Holy Ghost!\u201d \u201cUnto what then were you\nbaptized?\u201d he inquires. \u201c_Unto John\u2019s baptism_,\u201d they say. Then Paul\nis made to repeat the words attributed to John by the Synoptics; and\nthese men \u201cwere baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,\u201d exhibiting,\nmoreover, at the same instant, the usual polyglot gift which\naccompanies the descent of the Holy Ghost.\n\nHow then? St. John the Baptist, who is called the \u201cprecursor,\u201d that\n\u201cthe prophecy might be fulfilled,\u201d the great prophet and martyr,\nwhose words ought to have had such an importance in the eyes of his\ndisciples, announces the \u201cHoly Ghost\u201d to his listeners; causes crowds\nto assemble on the shores of the Jordan, where, at the great ceremony\nof Christ\u2019s baptism, the promised \u201cHoly Ghost\u201d appears within the\nopened heavens, and the multitude hears the voice, and yet there are\ndisciples of St. John who have \u201cnever so much as _heard_ whether\nthere be any Holy Ghost!\u201d\n\nVerily the disciples who wrote the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_ were right.\nOnly it is not Jesus himself, but those who came after him, and who\nconcocted the _Bible_ to suit themselves, that \u201c_perverted_ John\u2019s\ndoctrine, _changed_ the baptism of the Jordan, and perverted the\nsayings of justice.\u201d\n\nIt is useless to object that the present _Codex_ was written\ncenturies after the direct apostles of John preached. So were our\n_Gospels_. When this astounding interview of Paul with the \u201cBaptists\u201d\ntook place, Bardesanes had not yet appeared among them, and the sect\nwas not considered a \u201cheresy.\u201d Moreover, we are enabled to judge how\nlittle St. John\u2019s promise of the \u201cHoly Ghost,\u201d and the appearance of\nthe \u201cGhost\u201d himself, had affected his disciples, by the displeasure\nshown by them toward the disciples of Jesus, and the kind of rivalry\nmanifested from the first. Nay, so little is John himself sure of the\nidentity of Jesus with the expected Messiah, that after the famous\nscene of the baptism at the Jordan, and the oral assurance by the\n_Holy Ghost_ Himself that \u201c_This is my beloved Son_\u201d (_Matthew_ iii.\n17), we find \u201cthe Precursor,\u201d in _Matthew_ xi., sending two of his\ndisciples from his prison to inquire of Jesus: \u201cArt thou _he_ that\nshould come, or do we look _for another_!!\u201d\n\nThis flagrant contradiction alone ought to have long ago satisfied\nreasonable minds as to the putative divine inspiration of the _New\nTestament_. But we may offer another question: If baptism is the\nsign of regeneration, and an ordinance instituted by Jesus, why do\nnot Christians now baptize as Jesus is here represented as doing,\n\u201cwith the Holy Ghost and with fire,\u201d instead of following the custom\nof the Nazarenes? In making these palpable interpolations, what\npossible motive could Iren\u00e6us have had except to cause people to\nbelieve that the appellation of Nazarene, which Jesus bore, came only\nfrom his father\u2019s residence at Nazareth, and not from his affiliation\nwith the sect of _Nazaria_, the healers?\n\nThis expedient of Iren\u00e6us was a most unfortunate one, for from time\nimmemorial the prophets of old had been thundering against the\nbaptism of fire as practiced by their neighbors, which imparted the\n\u201cspirit of prophecy,\u201d or the Holy Ghost. But the case was desperate;\nthe Christians were universally called Nazor\u00e6ns and Iessaens\n(according to Epiphanius), and Christ simply ranked as a Jewish\nprophet and healer--so self-styled, so accepted by his own disciples,\nand so regarded by their followers. In such a state of things there\nwas no room for either a new hierarchy or a new God-head; and since\nIren\u00e6us had undertaken the business of manufacturing both, he had to\nput together such materials as were available, and fill the gaps with\nhis own fertile inventions.\n\nTo assure ourselves that Jesus was a true Nazarene--albeit with ideas\nof a new reform--we must not search for the proof in the translated\n_Gospels_, but in such original versions as are accessible.\nTischendorf, in his translation from the Greek of _Luke_ iv. 34,\nhas it \u201cIesou Nazarene;\u201d and in the Syriac it reads \u201cIasoua, thou\n_Nazaria_.\u201d Thus, if we take in account all that is puzzling and\nincomprehensible in the four _Gospels_, revised and corrected as they\nnow stand, we shall easily see for ourselves that the true, original\nChristianity, such as was preached by Jesus, is to be found only in\nthe so-called Syrian heresies. Only from them can we extract any\nclear notions about what was primitive Christianity. Such was the\nfaith of Paul, when Tertullus the orator accused the apostle before\nthe governor Felix. What he complained of was that they had found\n\u201cthat man a mover of sedition ... a ringleader of _the sect of the\nNazarenes_;\u201d[211] and, while Paul denies every other accusation, he\nconfesses that \u201cafter the way which they call heresy, _so worship I\nthe God of my fathers_.\u201d[212] This confession is a whole revelation.\nIt shows: 1, that Paul admitted belonging to the sect of the\nNazarenes; 2, that he worshipped the _God of his fathers_, not the\ntrinitarian Christian God, of whom he knows nothing, and who was not\ninvented until after his death; and, 3, that this unlucky confession\nsatisfactorily explains why the treatise, _Acts of the Apostles_,\ntogether with John\u2019s _Revelation_, which at one period was utterly\nrejected, were kept out of the canon of the _New Testament_ for such\na length of time.\n\nAt Byblos, the neophytes as well as the hierophants were, after\nparticipating in the Mysteries, obliged to fast and remain in\nsolitude for some time. There was strict fasting and preparation\nbefore as well as after the Bacchic, Adonian, and Eleusinian orgies;\nand Herodotus hints, with fear and veneration about the LAKE of\nBacchus, in which \u201cthey (the priests) made at night exhibitions of\nhis life and sufferings.\u201d[213] In the Mithraic sacrifices, during\nthe initiation, a preliminary scene of death was simulated by the\nneophyte, and it preceded the scene showing him himself \u201cbeing born\nagain by the rite _of baptism_.\u201d A portion of this ceremony is still\nenacted in the present day by the Masons, when the neophyte, as the\nGrand Master Hiram Abiff, lies dead, and is raised by the strong grip\nof the lion\u2019s paw.\n\nThe priests were circumcised. The neophyte could not be initiated\nwithout having been present at the solemn Mysteries of the LAKE. The\nNazarenes were baptized in the Jordan; and could not be baptized\nelsewhere; they were also circumcised, and had to fast before as well\nas after the purification by baptism. Jesus is said to have fasted\nin the wilderness for forty days, immediately after his baptism. To\nthe present day, there is outside every temple in India, a lake,\nstream, or a reservoir full of holy water, in which the Brahmans and\nthe Hindu devotees bathe daily. Such places of consecrated water are\nnecessary to every temple. The bathing festivals, or _baptismal_\nrites, occur twice every year; in October and April. Each lasts ten\ndays; and, as in ancient Egypt and Greece, the statues of their\ngods, goddesses, and idols are immersed in water by the priests; the\nobject of the ceremony being to wash away from them the sins of their\nworshippers which they have taken upon themselves, and which pollute\nthem, until washed off by holy water. During the Ar\u00e2tty, the bathing\nceremony, the principal god of every temple is carried in solemn\nprocession to be baptized in the sea. The Brahman priests, carrying\nthe sacred images, are followed generally by the Maharajah--barefoot,\nand nearly naked. _Three times_ the priests enter the sea; the third\ntime they carry with them the whole of the images. Holding them up\nwith prayers repeated by the whole congregation, the Chief Priest\nplunges the statues of the gods _thrice_ in the name of the _mystic\ntrinity_, into the water; after which they are purified.[214] The\nOrphic hymn calls _water_ the greatest purifier of men and gods.\n\nOur Nazarene sect is known to have existed some 150 years B.C., and\nto have lived on the banks of the Jordan, and on the eastern shore\nof the Dead Sea, according to Pliny and Josephus.[215] But in King\u2019s\n_Gnostics_, we find quoted another statement by Josephus from verse\n13, which says that the Essenes had been established on the shores of\nthe Dead Sea \u201cfor thousands of ages\u201d before Pliny\u2019s time.[216]\n\nAccording to Munk the term \u201cGalilean\u201d is nearly synonymous with that\nof \u201cNazarene;\u201d furthermore, he shows the relations of the former with\nthe Gentiles as very intimate. The populace had probably gradually\nadopted, in their constant intercourse, certain rites and modes\nof worship of the Pagans; and the scorn with which the Galileans\nwere regarded by the orthodox Jews is attributed by him to the same\ncause. Their friendly relations had certainly led them, at a later\nperiod, to adopt the \u201cAdonia,\u201d or the sacred rites over the body\nof the lamented Adonis, as we find Jerome fairly lamenting this\ncircumstance. \u201cOver Bethlehem,\u201d he says, \u201cthe grove of Thammuz,\nthat is of Adonis, was casting its shadow! And in the GROTTO where\nformerly the infant Jesus cried, the lover of Venus was being\nmourned.\u201d[217]\n\nIt was after the rebellion of Bar Cochba, that the Roman Emperor\nestablished the Mysteries of Adonis at the Sacred Cave in Bethlehem;\nand who knows but this was the _petra_ or rock-temple on which the\nchurch was built? The Boar of Adonis was placed above the gate of\nJerusalem which looked toward Bethlehem.\n\nMunk says that the \u201cNazireate was an institution established before\nthe laws of Musah.\u201d[218] This is evident; as we find this sect not\nonly mentioned but minutely described in _Numbers_ (chap. vi.). In\nthe commandment given in this chapter to Moses by the \u201cLord,\u201d it is\neasy to recognize the rites and laws of the Priests of Adonis.[219]\nThe abstinence and purity strictly prescribed in both sects are\nidentical. Both allowed their hair _to grow long_[220] as the Hindu\nc\u0153nobites and fakirs do to this day, while other castes shave their\nhair and abstain on certain days from wine. The prophet Elijah, a\nNazarene, is described in _2 Kings_, and by Josephus as \u201ca hairy man\ngirt with a girdle of leather.\u201d[221] And John the Baptist and Jesus\nare both represented as wearing very long hair.[222] John is \u201cclothed\nwith camel\u2019s hair\u201d and wearing a girdle of hide, and Jesus in a long\ngarment \u201cwithout any seams\u201d ... \u201cand very white, like snow,\u201d says\nMark; the very dress worn by the Nazarene Priests and the Pythagorean\nand Buddhist Essenes, as described by Josephus.\n\nIf we carefully trace the terms _nazar_, and _nazaret_, throughout\nthe best known works of ancient writers, we will meet them in\nconnection with \u201cPagan\u201d as well as Jewish adepts. Thus, Alexander\nPolyhistor says of Pythagoras that he was a disciple of the Assyrian\n_Nazaret_, whom some suppose to be Ezekiel. Diogenes La\u00ebrtius states\nmost positively that Pythagoras, after being initiated into all\nthe Mysteries of the Greeks and barbarians, \u201cwent into Egypt and\nafterward visited the Chaldeans and Magi;\u201d and Apuleius maintains\nthat it was Zoroaster who instructed Pythagoras.\n\nWere we to suggest that the Hebrew _nazars_, the railing prophets of\nthe \u201cLord,\u201d had been initiated into the so-called Pagan mysteries,\nand belonged (or at least a majority of them) to the same Lodge\nor circle of adepts as those who were considered idolaters; that\ntheir \u201ccircle of prophets\u201d was but a collateral branch of a secret\nassociation, which we may well term \u201cinternational,\u201d what a\nvisitation of Christian wrath would we not incur! And still, the case\nlooks strangely suspicious.\n\nLet us first recall to our mind that which Ammianus Marcellinus, and\nother historians relate of Darius Hystaspes. The latter, penetrating\ninto Upper India (Bactriana), learned pure rites, and stellar and\ncosmical sciences from Brachmans, and communicated them to the\nMagi. Now Hystaspes is shown in history to have crushed the Magi;\nand introduced--or rather forced upon them--the pure religion of\nZoroaster, that of Ormazd. How is it, then, that an inscription\nis found on the tomb of Darius, stating that he was \u201cteacher and\nhierophant of magic, or magianism?\u201d Evidently there must be some\nhistorical mistake, and history confesses it. In this imbroglio of\nnames, Zoroaster, the teacher and instructor of Pythagoras, can be\nneither the Zoroaster nor Zarathustra who instituted sun-worship\namong the Parsees; nor he who appeared at the court of Gushtasp\n(Hystaspes) the alleged father of Darius; nor, again, the Zoroaster\nwho placed his magi above the kings themselves. The oldest\nZoroastrian scripture--the _Avesta_--does not betray the slightest\ntraces of the reformer having ever been acquainted with any of the\nnations that subsequently adopted his mode of worship. He seems\nutterly ignorant of the neighbors of Western Iran, the Medes, the\nAssyrians, the Persians, and others. If we had no other evidences of\nthe great antiquity of the Zoroastrian religion than the discovery\nof the blunder committed by some scholars in our own century, who\nregarded King Vistaspa (Gushtasp) as identical with the father of\nDarius, whereas the Persian tradition points directly to Vistaspa as\nto the last of the line of Kaianian princes who ruled in Bactriana,\nit ought to be enough, for the Assyrian conquest of Bactriana took\nplace 1,200 years B.C.[223]\n\nTherefore, it is but natural that we should see in the appellation\nof Zoroaster not a name but a generic term, whose significance must\nbe left to philologists to agree upon. _Guru_, in Sanscrit, is a\nspiritual teacher; and as Zuruastara means in the same language he\nwho worships the sun, why is it impossible, that by some natural\nchange of language, due to the great number of different nations\nwhich were converted to the sun worship, the word _guru-astara_, the\nspiritual teacher of sun-worship, so closely resembling the name of\nthe founder of this religion, became gradually transformed in its\nprimal form of Zuryastara or Zoroaster? The opinion of the kabalists\nis that there was but one Zarathustra and many _guruastars_ or\nspiritual teachers, and that one such _guru_, or rather _huru_aster,\nas he is called in the old manuscripts, was the instructor of\nPythagoras. To philology and our readers we leave the explanation\nfor what it is worth. Personally we believe in it, as we credit on\nthis subject kabalistic tradition far more than the explanation of\nscientists, no two of whom have been able to agree up to the present\nyear.\n\nAristotle states that Zoroaster lived 6,000 years before Christ;\nHermippus of Alexandria, who is said to have read the genuine books\nof the Zoroastrians, although Alexander the Great is accused of\nhaving destroyed them, shows Zoroaster as the pupil of Azonak\n(Azon-ach, or the Azon-God) and as having lived 5,000 years before\nthe fall of Troy. Er or Eros, whose vision is related by Plato in the\n_Republic_, is declared by Clement to have been Zordusth. While the\nMagus who dethroned Cambyses was a Mede, and Darius proclaims that he\nput down the Magian rites to establish those of Ormazd, Xanthus of\nLydia declares Zoroaster to have been the chief of the Magi!\n\nWhich of them is wrong? or are they all right, and only the modern\ninterpreters fail to explain the difference between the Reformer\nand his apostles and followers? This blundering of our commentators\nreminds us of that of Suetonius, who mistook the Christians for one\nChristos, or _Crestos_, as he spells it, and assured his readers that\nClaudius banished him for the disturbance he made among the Jews.\n\nFinally, and to return again to the _nazars_, Zaratus is mentioned\nby Pliny in the following words: \u201cHe was Zoroaster and _Nazaret_.\u201d\nAs Zoroaster is called _princeps_ of the Magi, and _nazar_ signifies\nseparated or consecrated, is it not a Hebrew rendering of _mag_?\nVolney believes so. The Persian word _Na-zaruan_ means millions of\nyears, and refers to the Chaldean \u201cAncient of Days.\u201d Hence the name\nof the Nazars or Nazarenes, who were consecrated to the service of\nthe Supreme one God, the kabalistic En-Soph, or the Ancient of Days,\nthe \u201cAged of the aged.\u201d\n\nBut the word _nazar_ may also be found in India. In Hindustani\n_nazar_ is sight, internal or _supernatural_ vision; _nazar band-\u012b_\nmeans fascination, a mesmeric or magical spell; and _nazar\u0101n_ is the\nword for sightseeing or vision.\n\nProfessor Wilder thinks that as the word _Zeruana_ is nowhere to\nbe found in the _Avesta_, but only in the later Parsi books, it\ncame from the Magians, who composed the Persian sacred caste in\nthe Sassan period, but were originally Assyrians. \u201cTuran, of the\npoets,\u201d he says, \u201cI consider to be Aturia, or Assyria; and that Zohak\n(Az-dahaka, Dei-okes, or Astyages), the Serpent-king, was Assyrian,\nMedian, and Babylonian--when those countries were united.\u201d\n\nThis opinion does not, however, in the least implicate our statement\nthat the secret doctrines of the Magi, of the pre-Vedic Buddhists, of\nthe hierophants of the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes, and of the adepts\nof whatever age and nationality, including the Chaldean kabalists\nand the Jewish _nazars_, were _identical_ from the beginning. When\nwe use the term _Buddhists_, we do not mean to imply by it either\nthe exoteric Buddhism instituted by the followers of Gautama-Buddha,\nnor the modern Buddhistic religion, but the secret philosophy of\nSakyamuni, which in its essence is certainly identical with the\nancient wisdom-religion of the sanctuary, the pre-Vedic Brahmanism.\nThe \u201cschism\u201d of Zoroaster, as it is called, is a direct proof\nof it. For it was no _schism_, strictly speaking, but merely a\npartially-public exposition of strictly monotheistic religious\ntruths, hitherto taught only in the sanctuaries, and that he had\nlearned from the Brahmans. Zoroaster, the primeval institutor of\nsun-worship, cannot be called the founder of the dualistic system;\nneither was he the first to teach the unity of God, for he taught but\nwhat he had learned himself with the Brahmans. And that Zarathustra\nand his followers, the Zoroastrians, \u201chad been settled in India\nbefore they immigrated into Persia,\u201d is also proved by Max M\u00fcller.\n\u201cThat the Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India,\u201d he\nsays, \u201cduring the Vaidik period, can be proved as distinctly as that\nthe inhabitants of Massilia started from Greece.... Many of the gods\nof the Zoroastrians come out ... as mere reflections and deflections\nof the primitive and authentic gods of the _Veda_.\u201d[224]\n\nIf, now, we can prove--and we can do so on the evidence of the\n_Kabala_ and the oldest traditions of the wisdom-religion, the\nphilosophy of the old sanctuaries--that all these gods, whether of\nthe Zoroastrians or of the _Veda_, are but so many personated _occult\npowers_ of nature, the faithful servants of the adepts of secret\nwisdom--Magic--we are on secure ground.\n\nThus, whether we say that Kabalism and Gnosticism proceeded from\nMasdeanism or Zoroastrianism, it is all the same, unless we meant\nthe _exoteric_ worship--which we do not. Likewise, and in this\nsense, we may echo King, the author of the _Gnostics_, and several\nother arch\u00e6ologists, and maintain that both the former proceeded\nfrom _Buddhism_, at once the simplest and most satisfying of\nphilosophies, and which resulted in one of the purest religions of\nthe world. It is only a matter of chronology to decide which of these\nreligions, differing but in external form, is the oldest, therefore\nthe least adulterated. But even this bears but very indirectly, if\nat all, on the subject we treat of. Already some time before our\nera, the adepts, except in India, had ceased to congregate in large\ncommunities; but whether among the Essenes, or the Neo-platonists,\nor, again, among the innumerable struggling sects born but to die,\nthe same doctrines, identical in substance and spirit, if not always\nin form, are encountered. By _Buddhism_, therefore, we mean that\nreligion signifying literally the doctrine of wisdom, and which\nby many ages antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddh\u00e2rtha\nSakyamuni.\n\nAfter nineteen centuries of enforced eliminations from the canonical\nbooks of every sentence which might put the investigator on the true\npath, it has become very difficult to show, to the satisfaction\nof exact science, that the \u201cPagan\u201d worshippers of Adonis, their\nneighbors, the Nazarenes, and the Pythagorean Essenes, the healing\nTherapeutes,[225] the Ebionites, and other sects, were all, with very\nslight differences, followers of the ancient theurgic Mysteries. And\nyet by analogy and a close study of the _hidden_ sense of their rites\nand customs, we can trace their kinship.\n\nIt was given to a contemporary of Jesus to become the means of\npointing out to posterity, by his interpretation of the oldest\nliterature of Israel, how deeply the kabalistic philosophy agreed\nin its esoterism with that of the profoundest Greek thinkers. This\ncontemporary, an ardent disciple of Plato and Aristotle, was Philo\nJud\u00e6us. While explaining the Mosaic books according to a purely\nkabalistic method, he is the famous Hebrew writer whom Kingsley calls\nthe Father of New Platonism.\n\nIt is evident that Philo\u2019s Therapeutes are a branch of the Essenes.\nTheir name indicates it--\u1f18\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03b9, _Asaya_, physician. Hence, the\ncontradictions, forgeries, and other desperate expedients to reconcile\nthe prophecies of the Jewish canon with the Galilean nativity and\ngodship.\n\nLuke, who was a physician, is designated in the Syriac texts as\n_Asaia_, the Essaian or Essene. Josephus and Philo Jud\u00e6us have\nsufficiently described this sect to leave no doubt in our mind that\nthe Nazarene Reformer, after having received his education in their\ndwellings in the desert, and been duly initiated in the Mysteries,\npreferred the free and independent life of a wandering _Nazaria_, and\nso separated or _inazarenized_ himself from them, thus becoming a\ntravelling Therapeute, a Nazaria, a healer. Every Therapeute, before\nquitting his community, had to do the same. Both Jesus and St. John\nthe Baptist preached the end of the Age;[226] which proves their\nknowledge of the secret computation of the priests and kabalists, who\nwith the chiefs of the Essene communities alone had the secret of the\nduration of the cycles. The latter were kabalists and theurgists;\n\u201cthey had their _mystic_ books, and predicted future events,\u201d says\nMunk.[227]\n\nDunlap, whose personal researches seem to have been quite successful\nin that direction, traces the Essenes, Nazarenes, Dositheans, and\nsome other sects as having all existed before Christ: \u201cThey rejected\npleasures, _despised riches_, _loved one another_, and more than\nother sects, neglected wedlock, deeming the conquest of the passions\nto be virtuous,\u201d[228] he says.\n\nThese are all virtues preached by Jesus; and if we are to take the\ngospels as a standard of truth, Christ was a metempsychosist \u201cor\n_re-incarnationist_--again like these same Essenes, whom we see were\nPythagoreans in all their doctrines and habits. Iamblichus asserts\nthat the Samian philosopher spent a certain time at Carmel with\nthem.[229] In his discourses and sermons, Jesus always spoke in\nparables and used metaphors with his audience. This habit was again\nthat of the Essenians and the Nazarenes; the Galileans who dwelt\nin cities and villages were never known to use such allegorical\nlanguage. Indeed, some of his disciples being Galileans as well as\nhimself, felt even surprised to find him using with the people such a\nform of expression. \u201cWhy speakest thou unto them in parables?\u201d[230]\nthey often inquired. \u201cBecause, it is given unto you to know the\nMysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given,\u201d\nwas the reply, which was that of an initiate. \u201cTherefore, I speak\nunto them in parables; because, they seeing, see not, and hearing,\nthey hear not, neither do they understand.\u201d Moreover, we find Jesus\nexpressing his thoughts still clearer--and in sentences which are\npurely Pythagorean--when, during the _Sermon on the Mount_, he says:\n\n \u201cGive ye not that which is sacred to the dogs,\n Neither cast ye your pearls before swine;\n For the swine will tread them under their feet\n And the dogs will turn and rend you.\u201d\n\nProfessor A. Wilder, the editor of Taylor\u2019s _Eleusinian Mysteries_,\nobserves \u201ca like disposition on the part of Jesus and Paul to\nclassify their doctrines as esoteric and exoteric, the Mysteries\nof the Kingdom of God \u2018for the apostles,\u2019 and \u2018parables\u2019 for the\nmultitude. \u2018We speak wisdom,\u2019 says Paul, \u2018among them that _are\nperfect_\u2019 (or initiated).\u201d[231]\n\nIn the Eleusinian and other Mysteries the participants were always\ndivided into two classes, the _neophytes_ and the _perfect_. The\nformer were sometimes admitted to the preliminary initiation: the\ndramatic performance of Ceres, or the soul, descending to Hades.[232]\nBut it was given only to the \u201c_perfect_\u201d to enjoy and learn the\nMysteries of the divine _Elysium_, the celestial abode of the\nblessed; this Elysium being unquestionably the same as the \u201cKingdom\nof Heaven.\u201d To contradict or reject the above, would be merely to\nshut one\u2019s eyes to the truth.\n\nThe narrative of the Apostle Paul, in his second _Epistle to\nthe Corinthians_ (xii. 3, 4), has struck several scholars, well\nversed in the descriptions of the mystical rites of the initiation\ngiven by some classics, as alluding most undoubtedly to the final\n_Epopteia_.[233] \u201cI knew a certain man--_whether in body or outside\nof body_, I know not: God knoweth--who was rapt into Paradise, and\nheard things ineffable \u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c1\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, _which it is not lawful for a\nman to repeat_.\u201d These words have rarely, so far as we know, been\nregarded by commentators as an allusion to the beatific visions of an\n\u201c_initiated_\u201d seer. But the phraseology is unequivocal. These things\n\u201c_which it is not lawful to repeat_,\u201d are hinted at in the same words,\nand the reason for it assigned, is the same as that which we find\nrepeatedly expressed by Plato, Proclus, Iamblichus, Herodotus, and\nother classics. \u201cWe speak WISDOM only among them who are PERFECT,\u201d\nsays Paul; the plain and undeniable translation of the sentence being:\n\u201cWe speak of the profounder (or final) esoteric doctrines of the\nMysteries (which were denominated _wisdom_) only among them who are\n_initiated_.\u201d[234] So in relation to the \u201cman who was rapt into\nParadise\u201d--and who was evidently Paul himself[235]--the Christian word\nParadise having replaced that of Elysium. To complete the proof, we\nmight recall the words of Plato, given elsewhere, which show that\nbefore an initiate could see the gods in their purest light, he had to\nbecome _liberated_ from his body; _i.e._, to separate his astral soul\nfrom it.[236] Apuleius also describes his initiation into the\nMysteries in the same way: \u201cI approached the confines of death; and,\nhaving trodden on the threshold of Proserpina, returned, having been\ncarried through all the elements. In the depths of midnight I saw the\nsun glittering with a splendid light, together with _the infernal and\nsupernal gods_, and to these divinities approaching, I paid the\ntribute of devout adoration.\u201d[237]\n\nThus, in common with Pythagoras and other hierophant reformers,\nJesus divided his teachings into exoteric and esoteric. Following\nfaithfully the Pythagoreo-Essenean ways, he never sat at a meal\nwithout saying \u201cgrace.\u201d \u201cThe priest prays before his meal,\u201d says\nJosephus, describing the Essenes. Jesus also divided his followers\ninto \u201cneophytes,\u201d \u201cbrethren,\u201d and the \u201cperfect,\u201d if we may judge by\nthe difference he made between them. But his career at least as a\npublic Rabbi, was of a too short duration to allow him to establish\na regular school of his own; and with the exception, perhaps, of\nJohn, it does not seem that he had initiated any other apostle.\nThe Gnostic amulets and talismans are mostly the emblems of the\napocalyptic allegories. The \u201cseven vowels\u201d are closely related to\nthe \u201cseven seals;\u201d and the mystic title Abraxas, partakes as much of\nthe compositian of _Shem Hamphirosh_, \u201cthe holy word\u201d or ineffable\nname, as the name called: The word of God, that \u201c_no man knew but he\nhimself_,\u201d[238] as John expresses it.\n\nIt would be difficult to escape from the well-adduced proofs that the\n_Apocalypse_ is the production of an initiated kabalist, when this\n_Revelation_ presents whole passages taken from the _Books of Enoch_\nand _Daniel_, which latter is in itself an abridged imitation of the\nformer; and when, furthermore, we ascertain that the Ophite Gnostics\nwho rejected the _Old Testament_ entirely, as \u201cemanating from an\ninferior being (Jehovah),\u201d accepted the most ancient prophets, such\nas Enoch, and deduced the strongest support from this book for\ntheir religious tenets, the demonstration becomes evident. We will\nshow further how closely related are all these doctrines. Besides,\nthere is the history of Domitian\u2019s persecutions of magicians and\nphilosophers, which affords as good a proof as any that John was\ngenerally considered a kabalist. As the apostle was included among\nthe number, and, moreover, conspicuous, the imperial edict banished\nhim not only from Rome, but even from the continent. It was not the\nChristians whom--confounding them with the Jews, as some historians\nwill have it--the emperor persecuted, but the astrologers and\nkabalists.[239]\n\nThe accusations against Jesus of practicing the magic of Egypt were\nnumerous, and at one time universal, in the towns where he was known.\nThe Pharisees, as claimed in the _Bible_, had been the first to\nfling it in his face, although Rabbi Wise considers Jesus himself a\nPharisee. The _Talmud_ certainly points to James the Just as one of\nthat sect.[240] But these partisans are known to have always stoned\nevery prophet who denounced their evil ways, and it is not on this\nfact that we base our assertion. These accused him of sorcery, and of\ndriving out devils by Beelzebub, their prince, with as much justice\nas later the Catholic clergy had to accuse of the same more than one\ninnocent martyr. But Justin Martyr states on better authority that\nthe men of his time _who were not Jews_ asserted that the miracles\nof Jesus were performed by magical art--\u03bc\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ba\u1f74 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b1--the very\nexpression used by the skeptics of those days to designate the feats\nof thaumaturgy accomplished in the Pagan temples. \u201cThey even ventured\nto call him a magician and a deceiver of the people,\u201d complains the\nmartyr.[241] In the _Gospel of Nicodemus_ (the _Acta Pilate_), the\nJews bring the same accusation before Pilate. \u201cDid we not tell thee he\nwas a magician?\u201d[242] Celsus speaks of the same charge, and as a\nNeo-platonist believes in it.[243] The Talmudic literature is full of\nthe most minute particulars, and their greatest accusation is that\n\u201cJesus could fly as easily in the air as others could walk.\u201d[244] St.\nAustin asserted that it was generally believed that he had been\ninitiated in Egypt, and that he wrote books concerning magic, which he\ndelivered to John.[245] There was a work called _Magia Jesu Christi_,\nwhich was attributed to Jesus[246] himself. In the _Clementine\nRecognitions_ the charge is brought against Jesus that he did not\nperform his miracles as a Jewish prophet, but as a magician, _i.e._,\nan initiate of the \u201cheathen\u201d temples.[247]\n\nIt was usual then, as it is now, among the intolerant clergy of\nopposing religions, as well as among the lower classes of society,\nand even among those patricians who, for various reasons had been\nexcluded from any participation of the Mysteries, to accuse,\nsometimes, the highest hierophants and adepts of sorcery and black\nmagic. So Apuleius, who had been initiated, was likewise accused of\nwitchcraft, and of carrying about him the figure of a skeleton--a\npotent agent, as it is asserted, in the operations of the black art.\nBut one of the best and most unquestionable proofs of our assertion\nmay be found in the so-called _Museo Gregoriano_. On the sarcophagus,\nwhich is panelled with bas-reliefs representing the miracles of\nChrist,[248] may be seen the full figure of Jesus, who, in the\nresurrection of Lazarus, appears beardless \u201cand equipped with a wand\nin the received guise of a _necromancer_ (_?_) whilst the corpse of\nLazarus is swathed in bandages exactly as an Egyptian mummy.\u201d\n\nHad posterity been enabled to have several such representations\nexecuted during the first century when the figure, dress, and\nevery-day habits of the Reformer were still fresh in the memory\nof his contemporaries, perhaps the Christian world would be more\nChrist-like; the dozens of contradictory, groundless, and utterly\nmeaningless speculations about the \u201cSon of Man\u201d would have been\nimpossible; and humanity would now have but one religion and one\nGod. It is this absence of all proof, the lack of the least positive\nclew about him whom Christianity has deified, that has caused the\npresent state of perplexity. No pictures of Christ were possible\nuntil after the days of Constantine, when the Jewish element was\nnearly eliminated among the followers of the new religion. The Jews,\napostles, and disciples, whom the Zoroastrians and the Parsees had\ninoculated with a holy horror of any form of images, would have\nconsidered it a sacrilegious blasphemy to represent in any way or\nshape their master. The only authorized image of Jesus, even in the\ndays of Tertullian, was an allegorical representation of the \u201cGood\nShepherd,\u201d[249] which was no portrait, but the figure of a man with a\njackal-head, like Anubis.[250] On this gem, as seen in the collection\nof Gnostic amulets, the Good Shepherd bears upon his shoulders the\nlost lamb. He seems to have a human head upon his neck; but, as King\ncorrectly observes, \u201cit only _seems so_ to the uninitiated eye.\u201d On\ncloser inspection, he becomes the double-headed Anubis, having one\nhead human, the other a jackal\u2019s, whilst his girdle assumes the form\nof a serpent rearing aloft its crested head. \u201cThis figure,\u201d adds the\nauthor of the _Gnostics_, etc., \u201chad two meanings--one obvious for\nthe vulgar; the other mystical, and recognizable by the _initiated\nalone_. It was perhaps the signet of some chief teacher or\napostle.\u201d[251] This affords a fresh proof that the Gnostics and early\n_orthodox_ (?) Christians were not so wide apart in their _secret\ndoctrine_. King deduces from a quotation from _Epiphanius_, that even\nas late as 400 A.D. it was considered an atrocious sin to attempt to\nrepresent the bodily appearance of Christ. Epiphanius[252] brings it\nas an idolatrous charge against the Carpocratians that \u201cthey kept\npainted portraits, and _even gold and silver images_, and _in other\nmaterials_, which they pretended to be portraits of Jesus, and made\nby Pilate after the likeness of Christ.... These they keep in secret,\nalong with Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and setting them all\nup together, they worship and offer sacrifices unto them _after the\nGentiles\u2019 fashion_.\u201d\n\nWhat would the pious Epiphanius say were he to resuscitate and\nstep into St. Peter\u2019s Cathedral at Rome! Ambrosius seems also very\ndesperate at the idea--that some persons fully credited the statement\nof Lampridius that Alexander Severus had in his private chapel an\nimage of Christ among other great philosophers. \u201cThat the Pagans\nshould have preserved the likeness of Christ,\u201d he exclaims, \u201cbut the\ndisciples have neglected to do so, is a notion the mind shudders to\nentertain, much less to believe.\u201d\n\nAll this points undeniably to the fact, that except a handful\nof self-styled Christians who subsequently won the day, all the\ncivilized portion of the Pagans who knew of Jesus honored him as\na philosopher, an _adept_ whom they placed on the same level with\nPythagoras and Apollonius. Whence such a veneration on their part\nfor a man, were he simply, as represented by the Synoptics, a poor,\nunknown Jewish carpenter from Nazareth? As an incarnated God there\nis no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the\ncritical examination of science; as one of the greatest reformers,\nan inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor\nof bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics,\nJesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the\npanorama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding\nfarther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past;\nand his theology--based on human fancy and supported by untenable\ndogmas may, nay, must with every day lose more of its unmerited\nprestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral\nreformer instead of growing paler will become with every century\nmore pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and\nuniversal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but\none father--the UNKNOWN ONE above--and one brother--the whole of\nmankind below.\n\nIn a pretended letter of Lentulus, a senator and a distinguished\nhistorian, to the Roman senate, there is a description of the\npersonal appearance of Jesus. The letter itself, written in horrid\nLatin, is pronounced a bare-faced forgery; but we find therein an\nexpression which suggests many thoughts. Albeit a forgery it is\nevident that whosoever invented it has nevertheless tried to follow\ntradition as closely as possible. The hair of Jesus is represented\nin it as \u201cwavy and curling ... flowing down upon his shoulders,\u201d and\nas \u201c_having a parting in the middle of the head after the fashion of\nthe Nazarenes_.\u201d This last sentence shows: 1. That there was such a\ntradition, based on the biblical description of John the Baptist,\nthe _Nazaria_, and the custom of this sect. 2. Had Lentulus been\nthe author of this letter, it is difficult to believe that Paul\nshould never have heard of it; and had he known its contents, he\nwould never have pronounced it a _shame_ for men to wear their hair\nlong,[253] thus shaming his Lord and Christ-God. 3. If Jesus did\nwear his hair long and parted in the middle of the forehead, after\nthe fashion of the Nazarenes (as well as John, the only one of his\napostles who followed it), then we have one good reason more to say\nthat Jesus must have belonged to the sect of the Nazarenes, and been\ncalled NASARIA for this reason and not because he was an inhabitant\nof Nazareth; for they never wore their hair long. The Nazarite, who\n_separated_ himself unto the Lord, allowed \u201cno razor to come upon his\nhead.\u201d \u201cHe shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his\nhead grow,\u201d says _Numbers_ (vi. 5). Samson was a Nazarite, _i.e._,\nvowed to the service of God, and in his hair was his strength.\n\u201cNo razor shall come upon his head; the child shall be a Nazarite\nunto God from the womb\u201d (_Judges_ xiii. 5). But the final and most\nreasonable conclusion to be inferred from this is that Jesus, who was\nso opposed to all the orthodox Jewish practices, would _not_ have\nallowed his hair to grow had he not belonged to this sect, which\nin the days of John the Baptist had already become a heresy in the\neyes of the Sanhedrim. The _Talmud_, speaking of the Nazaria, or the\nNazarenes (who had abandoned the world like Hindu yogis or hermits)\ncalls them a sect of physicians, of wandering exorcists; as also does\nJervis. \u201cThey went about the country, living on alms and performing\ncures.\u201d[254] Epiphanius says that the Nazarenes come next in heresy\nto the Corinthians whether having existed \u201cbefore them or after them,\nnevertheless _synchronous_,\u201d and then adds that \u201call Christians at\nthat time were equally called _Nazarenes_!\u201d[255]\n\nIn the very first remark made by Jesus about John the Baptist, we\nfind him stating that he is \u201cElias, which was for to come.\u201d This\nassertion, if it is not a later interpolation for the sake of having\na prophecy fulfilled, means again that Jesus was a kabalist; unless\nindeed we have to adopt the doctrine of the French spiritists and\nsuspect him of believing in re\u00efncarnation. Except the kabalistic\nsects of the Essenes, the Nazarenes, the disciples of Simeon Ben\nIocha\u00ef, and Hillel, neither the orthodox Jews, nor the Galileans,\nbelieved or knew anything about the doctrine of _permutation_. And\nthe Sadducees rejected even that of the resurrection.\n\n\u201cBut the author of this _restitutionis_ was Mosah, our master, upon\nwhom be peace! Who was the _revolutio_ (transmigration) of Seth and\nHebel, that he might cover the nudity of his Father Adam--_Primus_,\u201d\nsays the _Kabala_.[256] Thus, Jesus hinting that John was the\n_revolutio_, or transmigration of Elias, seems to prove beyond any\ndoubt the school to which he belonged.\n\nUntil the present day uninitiated Kabalists and Masons believe\npermutation to be synonymous with transmigration and metempsychosis.\nBut they are as much mistaken in regard to the doctrine of the true\nKabalists as to that of the Buddhists. True, the _Sohar_ says in one\nplace, \u201cAll souls are subject to transmigration ... men do not know\nthe ways of the Holy One, blessed be He; they do not know that they\nare brought before the tribunal, both before they enter this world\nand after they quit it,\u201d and the Pharisees also held this doctrine,\nas Josephus shows (_Antiquities_, xviii. 13). Also the doctrine of\nGilgul, held to the strange theory of the \u201cWhirling of the Soul,\u201d\nwhich taught that the bodies of Jews buried far away from the Holy\nLand, still preserve a particle of soul which can neither rest nor\nquit them, until it reaches the soil of the \u201cPromised Land.\u201d And this\n\u201cwhirling\u201d process was thought to be accomplished by the soul being\nconveyed back through an actual evolution of species; transmigrating\nfrom the minutest insect up to the largest animal. But this was an\n_exoteric_ doctrine. We refer the reader to the _Kabbala Denudata_\nof Henry Khunrath; his language, however obscure, may yet throw some\nlight upon the subject.\n\nBut this doctrine of permutation, or _revolutio_, must not be\nunderstood as a belief in re\u00efncarnation. That Moses was considered\nthe transmigration of Abel and Seth, does not imply that the\nkabalists--those who were _initiated_ at least--believed that\nthe identical spirit of either of Adam\u2019s sons reappeared under\nthe corporeal form of Moses. It only shows what was the mode of\nexpression they used when hinting at one of the profoundest mysteries\nof the Oriental Gnosis, one of the most majestic articles of faith\nof the Secret Wisdom. It was purposely veiled so as to half conceal\nand half reveal the truth. It implied that Moses, like certain\nother god-like men, was believed to have reached the highest of all\nstates on earth:--the rarest of all psychological phenomena, the\nperfect union of the immortal spirit with the terrestrial _duad_ had\noccurred. The trinity was complete. A _god_ was incarnate. But how\nrare such incarnations!\n\nThat expression, \u201cYe are gods,\u201d which, to our biblical students,\nis a mere abstraction, has for the kabalists a vital significance.\nEach immortal spirit that sheds its radiance upon a human being is\na god--the Microcosmos of the Macrocosmos, part and parcel of the\nUnknown God, the First Cause of which it is a direct emanation. It\nis possessed of all the attributes of its parent source. Among these\nattributes are omniscience and omnipotence. Endowed with these,\nbut yet unable to fully manifest them while in the body, during\nwhich time they are obscured, veiled, limited by the capabilities\nof physical nature, the thus divinely-inhabited man may tower far\nabove his kind, evince a god-like wisdom, and display deific powers;\nfor while the rest of mortals around him are but _overshadowed_ by\ntheir divine SELF, with every chance given to them to become immortal\nhereafter, but no other security than their personal efforts to\nwin the kingdom of heaven, the so chosen man has already become an\nimmortal while yet on earth. His prize is secured. Henceforth he will\nlive forever in eternal life. Not only he may have \u201cdominion\u201d[257]\nover all the works of creation by employing the \u201cexcellence\u201d of the\nNAME (the ineffable one) but be higher in this life, not, as Paul is\nmade to say, \u201ca little lower than the angels.\u201d[258]\n\nThe ancients never entertained the sacrilegious thought that such\nperfected entities were incarnations of the One Supreme and for ever\ninvisible God. No such profanation of the awful Majesty entered into\ntheir conceptions. Moses and his antitypes and types were to them\nbut complete men, gods on earth, for their _gods_ (divine spirits)\nhad entered unto their hallowed tabernacles, the purified physical\nbodies. The disembodied spirits of the heroes and sages were termed\ngods by the ancients. Hence, the accusation of polytheism and\nidolatry on the part of those who were the first to anthropomorphize\nthe holiest and purest abstractions of their forefathers.\n\nThe real and hidden sense of this doctrine was known to all the\ninitiates. The Tana\u00efm imparted it to their elect ones, the Isarim, in\nthe solemn solitudes of crypts and deserted places. It was one of the\nmost esoteric and jealously guarded, for human nature was the same\nthen as it is now, and the sacerdotal caste as confident as now in\nthe supremacy of its knowledge, and ambitious of ascendency over the\nweaker masses; with the difference perhaps that its hierophants could\nprove the legitimacy of their claims and the plausibility of their\ndoctrines, whereas now, _believers_ must be content with blind faith.\n\nWhile the kabalists called this mysterious and rare occurrence of the\nunion of spirit with the mortal charge entrusted to its care, the\n\u201cdescent of the Angel Gabriel\u201d (the latter being a kind of generic\nname for it), the _Messenger of Life_, and the angel Metatron; and\nwhile the Nazarenes termed the same Abel-Zivo,[259] the _Delegatus_\nsent by the Lord of Celsitude, it was universally known as the\n\u201cAnointed Spirit.\u201d\n\nThus it is the acceptation of this doctrine which caused the Gnostics\nto maintain that Jesus was a man overshadowed by the Christos or\nMessenger of Life, and that his despairing cry from the cross \u201cEloi,\nEloi, Lama Sabachthani,\u201d was wrung from him at the instant when he\nfelt that this inspiring Presence had finally abandoned him, for--as\nsome affirmed--his faith _had_ also abandoned him when on the cross.\n\nThe early Nazarenes, who must be numbered among the Gnostic sects,\nbelieving that Jesus was a prophet, held, nevertheless, in relation\nto him the same doctrine of the divine \u201covershadowing,\u201d of certain\n\u201cmen of God,\u201d sent for the salvation of nations, and to recall them\nto the path of righteousness. \u201cThe Divine mind is eternal,\u201d says the\n_Codex_,[260] \u201cAnd it is pure light, and poured out through splendid\n_and immense space_ (pleroma). It is Genetrix of the \u00c6ons. But one\nof them went to matter (chaos) stirring up confused (turbulentos)\nmovements; and by a certain portion of _heavenly_ light fashioned\nit, properly constituted for use and appearance, but the beginning\nof every evil. The Demiurg (of matter) claimed divine honor.[261]\nTherefore Christus (\u201cthe anointed\u201d), the prince of the \u00c6ons (powers),\nwas sent (expeditus), who _taking on the person_ of a most devout\nJew, Iesu, _was to conquer him_; but who having _laid it_ (the body)\n_aside_, departed on high.\u201d We will explain further on the full\nsignificance of the name Christos and its mystic meaning.\n\nAnd now, in order to make such passages as the above more\nintelligible, we will endeavor to define, as briefly as possible,\nthe dogmas in which, with very trifling differences, nearly all the\nGnostic sects believed. It is in Ephesus that flourished in those\ndays the greatest college, wherein the abstruse Oriental speculations\nand the Platonic philosophy were taught in conjunction. It was a\nfocus of the universal \u201csecret\u201d doctrines; the weird laboratory\nwhence, fashioned in elegant Grecian phraseology, sprang the\nquintessence of Buddhistic, Zoroastrian, and Chaldean philosophy.\nArtemis, the gigantic concrete symbol of theosophico-pantheistic\nabstractions, the great mother Multimamma, androgyne and patroness\nof the \u201cEphesian writings,\u201d was conquered by Paul; but although the\nzealous converts of the apostles pretended to burn all their books on\n\u201ccurious arts,\u201d \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1, enough of these remained for them to\nstudy when their first zeal had cooled off. It is from Ephesus that\nspread nearly all the _Gnosis_ which antagonized so fiercely with the\nIren\u00e6an dogmas; and still it was Ephesus, with her numerous collateral\nbranches of the great college of the Essenes, which proved to be the\nhot-bed of all the kabalistic speculations brought by the Tana\u00efm from\nthe captivity. \u201cIn Ephesus,\u201d says Matter, \u201cthe notions of the\nJewish-Egyptian school, and the semi-Persian speculations of the\nkabalists had then recently come to swell the vast conflux of Grecian\nand Asiatic doctrines, so there is no wonder that teachers should have\nsprung up there who strove to combine the religion newly preached by\nthe apostle with the ideas there so long established.\u201d\n\nHad not the Christians burdened themselves with the _Revelations_\nof a little nation, and accepted the Jehovah of Moses, the Gnostic\nideas would never have been termed _heresies_; once relieved of their\ndogmatic exaggerations the world would have had a religious system\nbased on pure Platonic philosophy, and surely something would then\nhave been gained.\n\nNow let us see what are the greatest _heresies_ of the Gnostics. We\nwill select Basilides as the standard for our comparisons, for all\nthe founders of other Gnostic sects group round him, like a cluster\nof stars borrowing light from their sun.\n\nBasilides maintained that he had had all his doctrines from the\nApostle Matthew, and from Peter through Glaucus, the disciple of the\nlatter.[262] According to Eusebius,[263] he published twenty-four\nvolumes of _Interpretations upon the Gospels_,[264] all of which\nwere burned, a fact which makes us suppose that they contained\nmore truthful matter than the school of Iren\u00e6us was prepared to\ndeny. He asserted that the unknown, eternal, and uncreated Father\nhaving first brought forth _Nous_, or Mind, the latter emanated\nfrom itself--the _Logos_. The Logos (the Word of John) emanated\nin its turn _Phronesis_, or the Intelligences (Divine-human\nspirits). From Phronesis sprung _Sophia_, or feminine wisdom, and\n_Dynamis_--strength. These were the personified attributes of the\nMysterious godhead, the Gnostic quinternion, typifying the five\nspiritual, but intelligible substances, personal virtues or beings\nexternal to the unknown godhead. This is pre\u00ebminently a kabalistic\nidea. It is still more Buddhistic. The earliest system of the\nBuddhistic philosophy--which preceded by far Gautama-Buddha--is based\nupon the uncreated substance of the \u201cUnknown,\u201d the A\u2019di Buddha.[265]\nThis eternal, infinite Monad possesses, as proper to his own essence,\nfive acts of wisdom. From these it, by five separate acts of Dhy\u00e2n,\nemitted five Dhyani Buddhas; these, like A\u2019di Buddha, are quiescent\nin their system (passive). Neither A\u2019di, nor either of the five\nDhyani Buddhas, were ever incarnated, but seven of their emanations\nbecame Avatars, _i.e._, were incarnated on this earth.\n\nDescribing the Basilidean system, Iren\u00e6us, quoting the Gnostics,\ndeclares as follows:\n\n\u201cWhen the uncreated, _unnamed_ Father saw the corruption of mankind,\nhe sent his first-born _Nous_, into the world, in the form of Christ,\nfor the redemption of all who believe in him, out of the power of\nthose who fabricated the world (the Demiurgus, and his six sons, the\nplanetary genii). He appeared amongst men as the man, Jesus, and\nwrought miracles. This Christ did _not die_ in person, but Simon\nthe Cyrenian suffered in his stead, _to whom he lent his bodily\nform_; for the Divine Power, the Nous of the Eternal Father, _is not\ncorporeal_, and _cannot die_. Whoso, therefore, maintains that Christ\nhas died, is still the bondsman of ignorance; whoso denies the same,\nhe is free, and hath understood the purpose of the Father.\u201d[266]\n\nSo far, and taken in its abstract sense, we do not see anything\nblasphemous in this system. It may be a _heresy_ against the theology\nof Iren\u00e6us and Tertullian,[267] but there is certainly nothing\nsacrilegious against the religious idea itself, and it will seem to\nevery impartial thinker far more consistent with divine reverence\nthan the anthropomorphism of actual Christianity. The Gnostics were\ncalled by the orthodox Christians, _Docet\u00e6_, or Illusionists, for\nbelieving that Christ did not, nor could, suffer death actually--in\nphysical body. The later Brahmanical books contain, likewise,\nmuch that is repugnant to the reverential feeling and idea of the\nDivinity; and as well as the Gnostics, the Brahmans explain such\nlegends as may shock the divine dignity of the Spiritual beings\ncalled gods by attributing them to _Maya_ or illusion.\n\nA people brought up and nurtured for countless ages among all the\npsychological phenomena of which the civilized (!) nations read,\nbut reject as incredible and worthless, cannot well expect to have\nits religious system even understood--let alone appreciated. The\nprofoundest and most transcendental speculations of the ancient\nmetaphysicians of India and other countries, are all based on that\ngreat Buddhistic and Brahmanical principle underlying the whole of\ntheir religious metaphysics--_illusion_ of the senses. Everything\nthat is finite is illusion, all that which is eternal and infinite is\nreality. Form, color, that which we hear and feel, or see with our\nmortal eyes, exists only so far as it can be conveyed to each of us\nthrough our senses. The universe for a man born blind does not exist\nin either form or color, but it exists in its _privation_ (in the\nAristotelean sense), and is a reality for the spiritual senses of\nthe blind man. We all live under the powerful dominion of phantasy.\nAlone the highest and invisible _originals_ emanated from the thought\nof the Unknown are real and permanent beings, forms, and ideas; on\nearth, we see but their reflections; more or less correct, and ever\ndependent on the physical and mental organization of the person who\nbeholds them.\n\nAges untold before our era, the Hindu Mystic Kapila, who is\nconsidered by many scientists as a skeptic, because they judge him\nwith their habitual superficiality, magnificently expressed this idea\nin the following terms:\n\n\u201cMan (physical man) counts for so little, that hardly anything can\ndemonstrate to him his proper existence and that of nature. Perhaps,\nthat which we regard as the universe, and the divers beings which\nseem to compose it, have nothing real, and are but the product of\ncontinued illusion--_maya_--of our senses.\u201d\n\nAnd the modern Schopenhauer, repeating this philosophical idea,\n10,000 years old now, says: \u201cNature is non-existent, _per se_....\nNature is the infinite illusion of our senses.\u201d Kant, Schelling, and\nother metaphysicians have said the same, and their school maintains\nthe idea. The objects of sense being ever delusive and fluctuating,\ncannot be a reality. Spirit alone is unchangeable, hence--alone\nis no illusion. This is pure Buddhist doctrine. The religion of\nthe _Gnosis_ (knowledge), the most evident offshoot of Buddhism,\nwas utterly based on this metaphysical tenet. Christos suffered\n_spiritually_ for us, and far more acutely than did the illusionary\nJesus while his body was being tortured on the Cross.\n\nIn the ideas of the Christians, Christ is but another name for Jesus.\nThe philosophy of the Gnostics, the initiates, and hierophants\nunderstood it otherwise. The word Christos, \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, like all Greek\nwords, must be sought in its philological origin--the Sanscrit. In\nthis latter language _Kris_ means sacred,[268] and the Hindu deity was\nnamed Chris-na (the pure or the sacred) from that. On the other hand,\nthe Greek _Christos_ bears several meanings, as anointed (pure oil,\n_chrism_) and others. In all languages, though the synonym of the word\nmeans pure or sacred essence, it is the first emanation of the\ninvisible Godhead, manifesting itself tangibly in spirit. The Greek\nLogos, the Hebrew Messiah, the Latin Verbum, and the Hindu Viradj (the\nson) are identically the same; they represent an idea of collective\nentities--of flames detached from the one eternal centre of light.\n\n\u201cThe man who accomplishes pious but interested acts (with the sole\nobject of his salvation) may reach the ranks of the _devas_\n(saints);[269] but he who accomplishes, disinterestedly, the same\npious acts, finds himself ridden forever of the five elements\u201d (of\nmatter). \u201cPerceiving the Supreme Soul in all beings and all beings in\nthe Supreme Soul, in offering his own soul in sacrifice, he identifies\nhimself with the Being who shines in his own splendor\u201d (_Manu_, book\nxii., slokas 90, 91).\n\nThus, Christos, as a unity, is but an abstraction: a general idea\nrepresenting the collective aggregation of the numberless\nspirit-entities, which are the direct emanations of the infinite,\ninvisible, incomprehensible FIRST CAUSE--the individual spirits of\nmen, erroneously called the souls. They are the divine sons of God, of\nwhich some only overshadow mortal men--but this the majority--some\nremain forever planetary spirits, and some--the smaller and rare\nminority--unite themselves during life with some men. Such God-like\nbeings as Gautama-Buddha, Jesus, Tissoo, Christna, and a few others\nhad united themselves with their spirits permanently--hence, they\nbecame gods on earth. Others, such as Moses, Pythagoras, Apollonius,\nPlotinus, Confucius, Plato, Iamblichus, and some Christian saints,\nhaving at intervals been so united, have taken rank in history as\ndemi-gods and leaders of mankind. When unburthened of their\nterrestrial tabernacles, their freed souls, henceforth united forever\nwith their spirits, rejoin the whole shining host, which is bound\ntogether in one spiritual solidarity of thought and deed, and called\n\u201cthe anointed.\u201d Hence, the meaning of the Gnostics, who, by saying\nthat \u201cChristos\u201d suffered spiritually for humanity, implied that his\nDivine Spirit suffered mostly.\n\nSuch, and far more elevating were the ideas of Marcion, the great\n\u201cHeresiarch\u201d of the second century, as he is termed by his opponents.\nHe came to Rome toward the latter part of the half-century, from A.D.\n139-142, according to Tertullian, Iren\u00e6us, Clemens, and most of his\nmodern commentators, such as Bunsen, Tischendorf, Westcott, and many\nothers. Credner and Schleiermacher[270] agree as to his high and\nirreproachable personal character, his pure religious aspirations and\nelevated views. His influence must have been powerful, as we find\nEpiphanius writing more than two centuries later that in his time the\nfollowers of Marcion were to be found throughout the whole world.[271]\n\nThe danger must have been pressing and great indeed, if we are to\njudge it to have been proportioned with the opprobrious epithets\nand vituperation heaped upon Marcion by the \u201cGreat African,\u201d that\nPatristic Cerberus, whom we find ever barking at the door of the\nIren\u00e6an dogmas.[272] We have but to open his celebrated refutation of\nMarcion\u2019s _Antitheses_, to acquaint ourselves with the _fine-fleur_\nof monkish abuse of the Christian school; an abuse so faithfully\ncarried through the middle ages, to be renewed again in our present\nday--at the Vatican. \u201cNow, then, ye hounds, yelping at the God of\nTruth, whom the apostles cast out, to all your questions. These are\nthe bones of contention which ye gnaw,\u201d etc.[273] \u201cThe poverty of\nthe Great African\u2019s arguments keeps pace with his abuse,\u201d remarks\nthe author of _Supernatural Religion_.[274] \u201cTheir (the Father\u2019s)\nreligious controversy bristles with misstatements, and is turbid with\npious abuse. Tertullian was a master of his style, and the vehement\nvituperation with which he opens and often interlards his work\nagainst \u2018the impious and sacrilegious Marcion,\u2019 offers anything but a\nguarantee of fair and legitimate criticism.\u201d\n\nHow firm these two Fathers--Tertullian and Epiphanius--were on their\ntheological ground, may be inferred from the curious fact that they\nintemperately both vehemently reproach \u201cthe beast\u201d (Marcion) \u201cwith\nerasing passages from the _Gospel of Luke_ which never were in _Luke_\nat all.\u201d[275] \u201cThe lightness and inaccuracy,\u201d adds the critic, \u201cwith\nwhich Tertullian proceeds, are all the better illustrated by the\nfact that not only does he accuse Marcion falsely, but _he actually\ndefines the motives_ for which he expunged a passage _which never\nexisted_; in the same chapter he also similarly accuses Marcion of\nerasing (from _Luke_) the saying that Christ had not come to destroy\nthe law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, and he actually\nrepeats the charge on two other occasions.[276] Epiphanius also\ncommits the mistake of reproaching Marcion with omitting from _Luke_\nwhat is only found in _Matthew_.\u201d[277]\n\nHaving so far shown the amount of reliance to be placed in the\nPatristic literature, and it being unanimously conceded by the\ngreat majority of biblical critics that what the Fathers fought\nfor was not _truth_, but their own interpretations and unwarranted\nassertions,[278] we will now proceed to state what were the views\nof Marcion, whom Tertullian desired to annihilate as the most\ndangerous _heretic_ of his day. If we are to believe Hilgenfeld, one\nof the greatest German biblical critics, then \u201cFrom the critical\nstanding-point one must ... consider the statements of the Fathers\nof the Church only as expressions of their _subjective view_, which\nitself requires proof.\u201d[279]\n\nWe can do no better nor make a more correct statement of facts\nconcerning Marcion than by quoting what our space permits from\n_Supernatural Religion_, the author of which bases his assertions\non the evidence of the greatest critics, as well as on his own\nresearches. He shows in the days of Marcion \u201ctwo broad parties in the\nprimitive Church\u201d--one considering Christianity \u201ca mere continuation\nof the law, and dwarfing it into an Israelitish institution, a narrow\nsect of Judaism;\u201d the other representing the glad tidings \u201cas the\nintroduction of a new system, applicable to all, and supplanting the\nMosaic dispensation of the law by a universal dispensation of grace.\u201d\nThese two parties, he adds, \u201cwere popularly represented in the early\nChurch, by the two apostles Peter and Paul, and their antagonism is\nfaintly revealed in the _Epistle to the Galatians_.\u201d[280]\n\nMarcion, who recognized no other _Gospels_ than a few _Epistles\nof Paul_, who rejected totally the anthropomorphism of the _Old\nTestament_, and drew a distinct line of demarcation between the old\nJudaism and Christianity, viewed Jesus neither as a King, Messiah\nof the Jews, nor the son of David, who was in any way connected\nwith the law or prophets, \u201cbut a divine being sent to reveal to man\na spiritual religion, wholly new, and a God of goodness and grace\nhitherto unknown.\u201d The \u201cLord God\u201d of the Jews in his eyes, the\nCreator (Demiurgos), was totally different and distinct from the\nDeity who sent Jesus to reveal the divine truth and preach the glad\ntidings, to bring reconciliation and salvation to all. The mission of\nJesus--according to Marcion--was to abrogate the Jewish \u201cLord,\u201d who\n\u201cwas opposed to the God and Father of Jesus Christ as _matter is to\nspirit, impurity to purity_.\u201d\n\nWas Marcion so far wrong? Was it blasphemy, or was it intuition,\ndivine inspiration in him to express that which every honest heart\nyearning for truth, more or less feels and acknowledges? If in his\nsincere desire to establish a purely spiritual religion, a universal\nfaith based on unadulterated truth, he found it necessary to make\nof Christianity an entirely new and separate system from that of\nJudaism, did not Marcion have the very words of Christ for his\nauthority? \u201cNo man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old garment\n... for the rent is made worse.... Neither do men put new wine into\nold bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and\nthe bottles perish; but _they put new wine into new bottles_, and\nboth are preserved.\u201d In what particular does the jealous, wrathful,\nrevengeful God of Israel resemble the unknown deity, the God of mercy\npreached by Jesus;--_his_ Father who is in Heaven, and the Father\nof all humanity? This Father alone is the God of spirit and purity,\nand, to compare Him with the subordinate and capricious Sinaitic\nDeity is an error. Did Jesus ever pronounce the name of Jehovah? Did\nhe ever place _his_ Father in contrast with this severe and cruel\nJudge; his God of mercy, love, and justice, with the Jewish genius\nof retaliation? Never! From that memorable day when he preached his\nSermon on the Mount, an immeasurable void opened between his God\nand that other deity who fulminated his commands from that other\nmount--Sinai. The language of Jesus is unequivocal; it implies not\nonly rebellion but defiance of the Mosaic \u201cLord God.\u201d \u201cYe have\nheard,\u201d he tells us, \u201cthat it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and\na tooth for a tooth: but _I say_ unto you, That ye resist not evil:\nbut whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the\nother also. Ye have heard that it hath been said [by the same \u201cLord\nGod\u201d on Sinai]: Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.\nBut _I say_ unto you; Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,\ndo good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully\nuse you, and persecute you\u201d (_Matthew_ v.).\n\nAnd now, open _Manu_ and read:\n\n\u201cResignation, _the action of rendering good for evil_, temperance,\nprobity, purity, repression of the senses, the knowledge of the\n_Sastras_ (the holy books), that of the supreme soul, truthfulness\nand abstinence from anger, such are the ten virtues in which consists\nduty.... Those who study these ten precepts of duty, and after\nhaving studied them conform their lives thereto, will reach to the\nsupreme condition\u201d (_Manu_, book vi., sloka 92).\n\nIf _Manu_ did not trace these words many thousands of years before\nthe era of Christianity, at least no voice in the whole world will\ndare deny them a less antiquity than several centuries B.C. The same\nin the case of the precepts of Buddhism.\n\nIf we turn to the _Pr\u00e2timoksha S\u00fbtra_ and other religious tracts of\nthe Buddhists, we read the ten following commandments:\n\n 1. Thou shalt not kill any living creature.\n 2. Thou shalt not steal.\n 3. Thou shalt not break thy vow of chastity.\n 4. Thou shalt not lie.\n 5. Thou shalt not betray the secrets of others.\n 6. Thou shalt not wish for the death of thy enemies.\n 7. Thou shalt not desire the wealth of others.\n 8. Thou shalt not pronounce injurious and foul words.\n 9. Thou shalt not indulge in luxury (sleep on soft beds or be lazy).\n 10. Thou shalt not accept gold or silver.[281]\n\n\u201cGood master, what shall I do that I may have eternal life?\u201d asks a\nman of Jesus. \u201cKeep the commandments.\u201d \u201cWhich?\u201d \u201cThou shalt do no\nmurder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou\nshalt not bear false witness,\u201d[282] is the answer.\n\n\u201cWhat shall I do to obtain possession of Bhodi? (knowledge of eternal\ntruth)\u201d asks a disciple of his Buddhist master. \u201cWhat way is there to\nbecome an Upasaka?\u201d \u201cKeep the commandments.\u201d \u201cWhat are they?\u201d \u201cThou\nshalt abstain all thy life from murder, theft, adultery, and lying,\u201d\nanswers the master.[283]\n\nIdentical injunctions are they not? Divine injunctions, the living up\nto which would purify and exalt humanity. But are they more divine\nwhen uttered through one mouth than another? If it is god-like to\nreturn good for evil, does the enunciation of the precept by a\nNazarene give it any greater force than its enunciation by an Indian,\nor Thibetan philosopher? We see that the Golden Rule was not original\nwith Jesus; that its birth-place was India. Do what we may, we cannot\ndeny Sakya-Muni Buddha a less remote antiquity than several centuries\nbefore the birth of Jesus. In seeking a model for his system of\nethics why should Jesus have gone to the foot of the Himalayas rather\nthan to the foot of Sinai, but that the doctrines of Manu and\nGautama harmonized exactly with his own philosophy, while those of\nJehovah were to him abhorrent and terrifying? The Hindus taught to\nreturn _good for evil_, but the Jehovistic command was: \u201cAn eye for\nan eye\u201d and \u201ca tooth for a tooth.\u201d\n\nWould Christians still maintain the identity of the \u201cFather\u201d of\nJesus and Jehovah, if evidence sufficiently clear could be adduced\nthat the \u201cLord God\u201d was no other than the Pagan Bacchus, Dionysos?\nWell, this identity of the Jehovah at Mount Sinai with the god\nBacchus is hardly disputable. The name \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 is Yava or Iao,\naccording to Theodoret, which is the _secret_ name of the Ph\u0153nician\nMystery-god;[284] and it was actually adopted from the Chaldeans with\nwhom it also was the secret name of the creator. Wherever Bacchus\nwas worshipped there was a tradition of Nysa and a cave where he was\nreared. Beth-San or Scythopolis in Palestine had that designation;\nso had a spot on Mount Parnassus. But Diodorus declares that Nysa\nwas between Ph\u0153nicia and Egypt; Euripides states that Dionysos came\nto Greece from India; and Diodorus adds his testimony: \u201cOsiris was\nbrought up in Nysa, in Arabia the Happy; he was the son of Zeus, and\nwas named from his father (nominative Zeus, genitive _Dios_) and the\nplace Dio-Nysos\u201d--the Zeus or Jove of Nysa. This identity of name\nor title is very significant. In Greece Dionysos was second only to\nZeus, and Pindar says:\n\n \u201cSo Father Zeus governs all things, and Bacchus he governs also.\u201d\n\nBut outside of Greece Bacchus was the all-powerful \u201cZagreus, the\nhighest of gods.\u201d Moses seems to have worshipped him personally\nand together with the populace at Mount Sinai; unless we admit\nthat he was an _initiated_ priest, an adept, who knew how to lift\nthe veil which hangs behind all such exoteric worship, but kept\nthe secret. \u201c_And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it\nJehovah_-NISSI!\u201d or _Iao-Nisi_. What better evidence is required to\nshow that the Sinaitic god was indifferently Bacchus, Osiris, and\nJehovah? Mr. Sharpe appends also his testimony that the place where\nOsiris was born \u201cwas Mount Sinai, called by the Egyptians Mount\nNissa.\u201d The Brazen Serpent was a _nis_, \u05e0\u05d7\u05e9, and the month of\nthe Jewish Passover _nisan_.\n\nIf the Mosaic \u201cLord God\u201d was the only living God, and Jesus His only\nSon, how account for the rebellious language of the latter? Without\nhesitation or qualification he sweeps away the Jewish _lex talionis_\nand substitutes for it the law of charity and self-denial. If the\n_Old Testament_ is a divine revelation, how can the _New Testament_\nbe? Are we required to believe and worship a Deity who contradicts\nhimself every few hundred years? Was Moses inspired, or was Jesus\n_not_ the son of God? This is a dilemma from which the theologians\nare bound to rescue us. It is from this very dilemma that the\nGnostics endeavored to snatch the budding Christianity.\n\nJustice has been waiting nineteen centuries for intelligent\ncommentators to appreciate this difference between the orthodox\nTertullian and the Gnostic Marcion. The brutal violence, unfairness,\nand bigotry of the \u201cgreat African\u201d repulse all who accept his\nChristianity. \u201cHow can a god,\u201d inquired Marcion, \u201cbreak his own\ncommandments? How could he consistently prohibit idolatry and\nimage-worship, and still cause Moses to set up the brazen serpent?\nHow command: Thou shalt not steal, and then order the Israelites to\n_spoil_ the Egyptians of their gold and silver?\u201d Anticipating the\nresults of modern criticism, Marcion denies the applicability to\nJesus of the so-called Messianic prophecies. Writes the author of\n_Supernatural Religion_:[285] \u201cThe Emmanuel of Isaiah is not Christ;\nthe \u2018Virgin,\u2019 his mother, is simply a \u2018young woman,\u2019 an alma of the\ntemple; and the sufferings of the servant of God (_Isaiah_ lii.\n13-liii. 3) are not predictions of the death of Jesus.\u201d[286]\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n \u201cNothing better than those MYSTERIES, by which, from a\n rough and fierce life, we are polished to gentleness\n (humanity, kindness), and softened.\u201d--CICERO: _de Legibus_,\n ii., 14.\n\n\n \u201cDescend, O Soma, with that stream with which thou lightest\n up the Sun.... Soma, a Life Ocean spread through All, thou\n fillest creative the Sun with beams.\u201d--_Rig-Veda_, ii., 143.\n\n\n \u201c... the beautiful Virgin ascends, with long hair, and\n she holds two ears in her hand, and sits on a seat and\n feeds a BOY as yet little, and suckles him and gives him\n food.\u201d--AVENAR.\n\n\nIt is alleged that the _Pentateuch_ was written by Moses, and yet\nit contains the account of his own death (_Deuteronomy_ xxxiv. 6);\nand in _Genesis_ (xiv. 14), the name Dan is given to a city, which\n_Judges_ (xviii. 29), tells us was only called by that name at that\nlate day, it having previously been known as Laish. Well might Josiah\nhave rent his clothes when he had heard the words of the Book of the\nLaw; for there was no more of Moses in it than there is of Jesus in\nthe _Gospel according to John_.\n\nWe have one fair alternative to offer our theologians, leaving them\nto choose for themselves, and promising to abide by their decision.\nOnly they will have to admit, either that Moses was an impostor,\nor that his books are forgeries, written at different times and\nby different persons; or, again, that they are full of fraudulent\ninterpolations. In either case the work loses all claims to be\nconsidered divine _Revelation_. Here is the problem, which we quote\nfrom the _Bible_--the word of the God of Truth:\n\n\u201cAnd I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name\nof God Almighty, but by my name of JEHOVAH was I not known to them\u201d\n(_Exodus_ vi. 3), spake God unto Moses.\n\nA very startling bit of information that, when, before arriving\nat the book of _Exodus_, we are told in _Genesis_ (xxii. 14) that\n\u201cAbraham called the name of that place\u201d--where the patriarch\nhad been preparing to cut the throat of his only-begotten\nson--\u201cJEHOVAH-jireh!\u201d (Jehovah sees.) Which is the inspired\ntext?--both cannot be--which the forgery?\n\nNow, if both Abraham and Moses had not belonged to the same holy\ngroup, we might, perhaps, help theologians by suggesting to them\na convenient means of escape out of this dilemma. They ought to\ncall the reverend Jesuit Fathers--especially those who have been\nmissionaries in India--to their rescue. The latter would not be for\na moment disconcerted. They would coolly tell us that beyond doubt\nAbraham had heard the name of Jehovah and _borrowed_ it from Moses.\nDo they not maintain that it was they who invented the _Sanscrit_,\nedited _Manu_, and composed the greater portion of the _Vedas?_\n\nMarcion maintained, with the other Gnostics, the fallaciousness of\nthe idea of an incarnate God, and therefore denied the corporeal\nreality of the living body of Christ. His entity was a mere\n_illusion_; it was not made of human flesh and blood, neither was it\nborn of a human mother, for his divine nature could not be polluted\nwith any contact with sinful flesh.[287] He accepted Paul as the\nonly apostle preaching the pure gospel of truth, and accused the\nother disciples of \u201cdepraving the pure form of the gospel doctrines\ndelivered to them by Jesus, mixing up matters of the Law with the\nwords of the Saviour.\u201d[288]\n\nFinally we may add that modern biblical criticism, which\nunfortunately became really active and serious only toward the end\nof the last century, now generally admits that Marcion\u2019s text of the\nonly gospel he knew anything about--that of Luke, is far superior and\nby far more correct than that of our present Synoptics. We find in\n_Supernatural Religion_ the following (for every Christian) startling\nsentence: \u201cWe are, therefore, _indebted to Marcion for the correct\nversion even of \u2018the Lords Prayer_.\u2019\u201d[289]\n\nIf, leaving for the present the prominent founders of Christian\nsects, we now turn to that of the Ophites, which assumed a definite\nform about the time of Marcion and the Basilideans, we may find\nin it the reason for the _heresies_ of all others. Like all other\nGnostics, they rejected the Mosaic _Bible_ entirely. Nevertheless,\ntheir philosophy, apart from some deductions original with several\nof the most important founders of the various branches of Gnosticism\nwas not new. Passing through the Chaldean kabalistic tradition,\nit gathered its materials in the Hermetic books, and pursuing its\nflight still farther back for its metaphysical speculations, we\nfind it floundering among the tenets of Manu, and the earliest\nHindu ante-sacerdotal genesis. Many of our eminent antiquarians\ntrace the Gnostic philosophies right back to Buddhism, which does\nnot impair in the least either their or our arguments. We repeat\nagain, _Buddhism is but the primitive source of Brahmanism_. It\nis not against the primitive _Vedas_ that Gautama protests. It is\nagainst the sacerdotal and official state religion of his country;\nand the Brahmans, who in order to make room for and give authority\nto the castes, at a later period crammed the ancient manuscripts\nwith interpolated slokas, intended to prove that the castes were\npredetermined by the Creator by the very fact that each class of men\nwas issued from a more or less noble limb of Brahma. Gautama-Buddha\u2019s\nphilosophy was that taught from the beginning of time in the\nimpenetrable secresy of the inner sanctuaries of the pagodas. We need\nnot be surprised, therefore, to find again, in all the fundamental\ndogmas of the Gnostics, the metaphysical tenets of both Brahmanism\nand Buddhism. They held that the _Old Testament_ was the revelation\nof an inferior being, a subordinate divinity, and did not contain a\nsingle sentence of their _Sophia_, the Divine Wisdom. As to the _New\nTestament_, it had lost its purity when the compilers became guilty\nof interpolations. The revelation of divine truth was sacrificed by\nthem to promote selfish ends and maintain quarrels. The accusation\ndoes not seem so very improbable to one who is well aware of the\nconstant strife between the champions of circumcision and the \u201cLaw,\u201d\nand the apostles who had given up Judaism.\n\nThe Gnostic Ophites taught the doctrine of Emanations, so hateful\nto the defenders of the unity in the trinity, and _vice versa_. The\nUnknown Deity with them had _no name_; but his first female emanation\nwas called Bythos or Depth.[290] It answered to the Shekinah of the\nkabalists, the \u201cVeil\u201d which conceals the \u201cWisdom\u201d in the _cranium_\nof the highest of the _three_ heads. As the Pythagorean Monad, this\n_nameless_ Wisdom was the _Source_ of Light, and _Ennoia_ or Mind,\nis Light itself. The latter was also called the \u201cPrimitive Man,\u201d\nlike the Adam Kadmon, or ancient Adam of the _Kabala_. Indeed, if\nman was created after his likeness and in the image of God, then\nthis God was like his creature in shape and figure--hence, he is the\n\u201cPrimitive man.\u201d The first Manu, the one evolved from Swayambhuva,\n\u201che who exists unrevealed in his own glory,\u201d is also, in one sense,\nthe primitive man, with the Hindus.\n\nThus the \u201cnameless and the unrevealed,\u201d Bythos, his female\nreflection, and Ennoia, the revealed Mind proceeding from both, or\ntheir Son are the counterparts of the Chaldean first triad as well as\nthose of the Brahmanic Trimurti. We will compare: in all the three\nsystems we see\n\nTHE GREAT FIRST CAUSE as the ONE, the primordial germ, the unrevealed\nand grand ALL, existing through himself. In the\n\n INDIAN PANTHEON.\n Brahma-Zyaus.\n\n THE CHALDEAN.\n Ilu, Kabalistic En-Soph.\n\n IN THE OPHITE.\n The Nameless, or Secret Name.\n\nWhenever the Eternal awakes from its slumber and desires to manifest\nitself, it divides itself into male and female. It then becomes in\nevery system\n\n THE DOUBLE-SEXED DEITY, The universal Father and Mother.\n\n IN INDIA.\n Brahma.\n Nara (male), Nari (female).\n\n IN CHALDEA.\n Eikon or En-Soph.\n Anu (male), Anata (female).\n\n IN THE OPHITE SYSTEM.\n Nameless Spirit.\n Abrasax (male), Bythos (female).\n\nFrom the union of the two emanates a third, or creative Principle--the\nSON, or the manifested Logos, the product of the Divine Mind.\n\n IN INDIA.\n Viradj, the Son.\n\n IN CHALDEA.\n Bel, the Son.\n\n OPHITE SYSTEM.\n Ophis (another name for Ennoia), the Son.\n\nMoreover, each of these systems has a triple male trinity, each\nproceeding separately through itself from one female Deity. So, for\ninstance:\n\n IN INDIA.\n The Trinity--Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, are blended into ONE, who\n is _Brahm\u00e4_, (neuter gender), creating and being created\n through the Virgin Nari (the mother of perpetual fecundity).\n\n IN CHALDEA.\n The trinity--Anu, Bel, Hoa (or Sin, Samas, Bin), blend into\n ONE who is Anu (double-sexed) through the Virgin Mylitta.\n\n IN THE OPHITE SYSTEM.\n The trinity consisted of the Mystery named Sig\u00e8, Bythos,\n Ennoia. These become ONE who is _Abrasax_, from the Virgin\n _Sophia_ (or _Pneuma_), who herself is an emanation of Bythos\n and the Mystery-god and emanates through them, Christos.\n\nTo place it still clearer, the Babylonian System recognizes first--the\nONE (Ad, or Ad-ad), who is never named, but only acknowledged in\nthought as the Hindu Swayambhuva. From this he becomes manifest as Anu\nor Ana--the one above all--Monas. Next comes the Demiurge called Bel\nor Elu, who is the active power of the Godhead. The third is the\nprinciple of Wisdom, Hea or Hoa, who also rules the sea and the\nunderworld. Each of these has his divine consort, giving us Anata,\nBelta, and Davkina. These, however, are only like the _Saktis_, and\nnot especially remarked by theologists. But the female principle is\ndenoted by Mylitta, the Great Mother, called also Ishtar. So with the\nthree male gods, we have the Triad or Trimurti, and with Mylitta\nadded, the _Arba_ or Four (Tetraktys of Pythagoras), which perfects\nand potentializes all. Hence, the above-given modes of expression. The\nfollowing Chaldean diagram may serve as an illustration for all\nothers:\n\n \u23a7 Anu, \u23ab Mylitta--Arba-il,\n Triad \u23a8 Bel, \u23ac or\n \u23a9 Hoa, \u23ad Four-fold God,\n\nbecome, with the Christians,\n\n \u23a7God the Father, \u23ab Mary, or mother of these three Gods\n Trinity \u23a8God the Son, \u23ac since they are one,\n \u23a9God the Holy Ghost,\u23ad or, the Christian Heavenly Tetraktys.\n\nHence, Hebron, the city of the Kabeiri was called Kirjath-Arba, city\nof the Four. The Kabeiri were Axieros--the noble Eros, Axiokersos,\nthe worthy horned one, Axiokersa, Demeter and Kadmiel, Hoa, etc.\n\nThe Pythagorean ten denoted the Arba-Il or Divine Four, emblematized\nby the Hindu Lingham: Anu, 1; Bel, 2; Hoa, 3, which makes 6. The\ntriad and Mylitta as 4 make the ten.\n\nThough he is termed the \u201cPrimitive Man,\u201d Ennoia, who is like the\nEgyptian Pimander, the \u201cPower of the Thought Divine,\u201d the first\nintelligible manifestation of the Divine Spirit in material form,\nhe is like the \u201cOnly-Begotten\u201d Son of the \u201cUnknown Father,\u201d of all\nother nations. He is the emblem of the first appearance of the divine\nPresence in his own works of creation, tangible and visible, and\ntherefore comprehensible. The mystery-God, or the ever-unrevealed\nDeity fecundates through His will Bythos, the unfathomable and\ninfinite depth that exists in silence (Sig\u00e8) and darkness (for our\nintellect), and that represents the abstract idea of all nature, the\never-producing Cosmos. As neither the male nor female principle,\nblended into the idea of a double-sexed Deity in ancient conceptions,\ncould be comprehended by an ordinary human intellect, the theology of\nevery people had to create for its religion a Logos, or manifested\nword, in some shape or other. With the Ophites and other Gnostics\nwho took their models direct from more ancient originals, the\nunrevealed Bythos and her male counterpart produce Ennoia, and\nthe three in their turn produce Sophia,[291] thus completing the\nTetraktys, which will emanate Christos, the very essence of the\nFather Spirit. As the unrevealed One, or concealed Logos in its\nlatent state, he has existed from all eternity in the Arba-Il, the\nmetaphysical abstraction; therefore, he is ONE with all others as a\nunity, the latter (including all) being indifferently termed Ennoia,\nSig\u00e8 (silence), Bythos, etc. As the revealed one, he is Androgyne,\nChristos, and Sophia (Divine Wisdom), who descend into the man Jesus.\nBoth Father and Son are shown by Iren\u00e6us to have loved the beauty\n(_formam_) of the primitive woman,[292] who is Bythos--Depth--as\nwell as Sophia, and as having produced conjointly Ophis and Sophia\n(double-sexed unity again), male and female wisdom, one being\nconsidered as the unrevealed Holy Spirit, or elder Sophia--the\n_Pneuma_--the intellectual \u201cMother of all things;\u201d the other the\nrevealed one, or _Ophis_, typifying divine wisdom fallen into matter,\nor God-man--Jesus, whom the Gnostic Ophites represented by the\nserpent (Ophis).\n\nFecundated by the Divine Light of the Father and Son, the highest\nspirit and Ennoia, Sophia produces in her turn two other emanations--\none perfect Christos, the second imperfect Sophia-Achamoth,[293]\nfrom \u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d5\u05ea hakhamoth (simple wisdom), who becomes the mediatrix\nbetween the intellectual and material worlds.\n\nChristos was the mediator and guide between God (the Higher), and\neverything spiritual in man; Achamoth--the younger Sophia--held the\nsame duty between the \u201cPrimitive man,\u201d Ennoia and matter. What was\nmysteriously meant by the general term, _Christos_, we have just\nexplained.\n\nDelivering a sermon on the \u201cMonth of Mary,\u201d we find the Rev.\nDr. Preston, of New York City, expressing the Christian idea\nof the female principle of the trinity better and more clearly\nthan we could, and substantially in the spirit of an ancient\n\u201cheathen\u201d philosopher. He says that the \u201cplan of the redemption\nmade it necessary that a mother should be found, and Mary stands\npre-eminently alone as the only instance when a creature was\nnecessary to the consummation of God\u2019s work.\u201d We will beg the right\nto contradict the reverend gentleman. As shown above, thousands of\nyears before our era it was found necessary by all the \u201cheathen\u201d\ntheogonies to find a female principle, a \u201cmother\u201d for the triune\nmale principle. Hence, Christianity does not present the \u201conly\ninstance\u201d of such a consummation of God\u2019s work--albeit, as this\nwork shows, there was more philosophy and less materialism, or\nrather anthropomorphism, in it. But hear the reverend Doctor express\n\u201cheathen\u201d thought in Christian ideas. \u201cHe\u201d (God), he says, \u201cprepared\nher (Mary\u2019s) virginal and celestial purity, for a mother defiled\ncould not become the mother of the Most High. The holy virgin,\neven in her childhood, was more pleasing than all the Cherubim and\nSeraphim, and from infancy to the maturing maidenhood and womanhood\nshe grew more and more pure. By her very sanctity she reigned over\nthe heart of God. _When the hour came, the whole court of heaven was\nhushed, and the trinity listened for the answer of Mary, for without\nher consent the world could not have been redeemed._\u201d\n\nDoes it not seem as if we were reading Iren\u00e6us explaining the Gnostic\n\u201c_Heresy_, which taught that the Father and Son loved the beauty\n(_formam_) of the celestial Virgin?\u201d or the Egyptian system, of\nIsis being both wife, sister, and mother of Osiris--Horus? With the\nGnostic philosophy there were but _two_, but the Christians have\nimproved and perfected the system by making it completely \u201cheathen,\u201d\nfor it is the Chaldean Anu--Bel--Hoa, merging into Mylitta. \u201cThen\nwhile this month (of Mary),\u201d adds Dr. Preston, \u201cbegins in the\npaschal season--the month when nature decks herself with fruits and\nflowers, the harbingers of a bright harvest--let us, too, begin for\na golden harvest. In this month the dead comes up out of the earth,\nfiguring the resurrection; so, when we are kneeling before the altar\nof the holy and immaculate Mary, let us remember that there should\ncome forth from us the bud of promise, the flower of hope, and the\nimperishable fruit of sanctity.\u201d\n\nThis is precisely the substratum of the Pagan thought, which, among\nother meanings, emblematized by the rites of the resurrection\nof Osiris, Adonis, Bacchus, and other slaughtered sun-gods, the\nresurrection of all nature in spring, the germination of seeds that\nhad been dead and sleeping during winter, and so were allegorically\nsaid to be kept in the underworld (Hades). They are typified by the\nthree days passed in hell before his resurrection by Hercules, by\nChrist, and others.\n\nThis derivation, or rather _heresy_, as it is called in Christianity,\nis simply the Brahmanic doctrine in all its archaic purity. Vishnu,\nthe second personage of the Hindu trinity, is also the Logos, for\nhe is made subsequently to incarnate himself in Christna. And\nLakmy (or Lakshmy) who, as in the case of Osiris, and Isis, of\nEn-Soph and Sephira, and of Bythos and Ennoia, is both his wife,\nsister, and daughter, through this endless correlation of male\nand female creative powers in the abstruse metaphysics of the\nancient philosophies--is Sophia-Achamoth. Christna is the mediator\npromised by Brahma to mankind, and represents the same idea as\nthe Gnostic Christos. And Lakmy, Vishnu\u2019s spiritual half, is the\nemblem of physical nature, the universal mother of all the material\nand revealed forms; the mediatrix and protector of nature, like\nSophia-Achamoth, who is made by the Gnostics the mediatrix between\nthe Great Cause and Matter, as Christos is the mediator between him\nand spiritual humanity.\n\nThis Brahmano-Gnostic tenet is more logical, and more consistent with\nthe allegory of _Genesis_ and the fall of man. When God curses the\nfirst couple, He is made to curse also the earth and everything that\nis on it. The _New Testament_ gives us a Redeemer for the first sin\nof mankind, which was punished for having sinned; but there is not a\nword said about a Saviour who would take off the unmerited curse from\nthe earth and the animals, which had never sinned at all. Thus the\nGnostic allegory shows a greater sense of both justice and logic than\nthe Christian.\n\nIn the Ophite system, Sophia, the Androgyne Wisdom, is also the\nfemale spirit, or the Hindu female Nari (Narayana), moving on the\nface of the waters--chaos, or future matter. She vivifies it from\nafar, but not touching the abyss of darkness. She is unable to do\nso, for Wisdom is purely intellectual, and cannot act directly on\nmatter. Therefore, Sophia is obliged to address herself to her\nSupreme Parent; but although life proceeds primally from the Unseen\nCause, and his Ennoia, neither of them can, any more than herself,\nhave anything to do with the lower chaos in which matter assumes its\ndefinite shape. Thus, Sophia is obliged to employ on the task her\n_imperfect_ emanation, Sophia-Achamoth, the latter being of a mixed\nnature, half spiritual and half material.\n\nThe only difference between the Ophite cosmogony and that of\nthe St. John Nazarenes is a change of names. We find equally an\nidentical system in the _Kabala_, the _Book of Mystery_ (_Liber\nMysterii_).[294] All the three systems, especially that of the\nkabalists and the Nazarenes, which were the _models_ for the Ophite\nCosmogony, belong to the pure Oriental Gnosticism. The _Codex\nNazar\u00e6us_ opens with: \u201cThe Supreme King of Light, Mano, the great\nfirst one,\u201d[295] etc., the latter being the emanation of Ferho--the\nunknown, formless LIFE. He is the chief of the \u00c6ons, from whom\nproceed (or shoot forth) five refulgent rays of Divine light. Mano is\n_Rex Lucis_, the Bythos-Ennoia of the Ophites. \u201c_Unus est Rex Lucis\nin suo regno, nec ullus qui eo altior, nullus qui ejus similitudinem\nretulerit, nullus qui sublatis oculis, viderit Coronam qu\u00e6 in ejus\ncapite est._\u201d He is the Manifested Light around the highest of the\nthree kabalistic heads, the concealed wisdom; from him emanate\nthe three _Lives_. \u00c6bel Zivo is the revealed Logos, Christos the\n\u201cApostle Gabriel,\u201d and the first Legate or messenger of light. If\nBythos and Ennoia are the Nazarene Mano, then the dual-natured, the\nsemi-spiritual, semi-material Achamoth must be Fetahil when viewed\nfrom her spiritual aspect; and if regarded in her grosser nature, she\nis the Nazarene \u201cSpiritus.\u201d\n\nFetahil,[296] who is the reflection of his father, Lord Abatur, the\n_third_ life--as the elder Sophia is also the third emanation--is\nthe \u201cnewest-man.\u201d Perceiving his fruitless attempts to create a\nperfect material world, the \u201cSpiritus\u201d calls to one of her progeny,\nthe Karabtanos--Ilda-Baoth--who is without sense or judgment (\u201cblind\nmatter\u201d), to unite himself with her to create something definite out\nof this confused (_turbulentos_) matter, which task she is enabled to\nachieve only after having produced from this union with Karabtanos\nthe seven stellars. Like the six sons or genii of the Gnostic\nIlda-Baoth, they then frame the material world. The same story is\nrepeated over again in Sophia-Achamoth. Delegated by her purely\nspiritual parent, the elder Sophia, to create the world of _visible\nforms_, she descended into chaos, and, overpowered by the emanation\nof matter, lost her way. Still ambitious to create a world of matter\nof her own, she busied herself hovering to and fro about the dark\nabyss, and imparted life and motion to the inert elements, until she\nbecame so hopelessly entangled in matter that, like Fetahil, she is\nrepresented sitting immersed in mud, and unable to extricate herself\nfrom it; until, by the contact of matter itself, she produces the\n_Creator_ of the material world. He is the Demiurgus, called by the\nOphites Ilda-Baoth, and, as we will directly show, the parent of the\nJewish God in the opinion of some sects, and held by others to be the\n\u201cLord God\u201d Himself. It is at this point of the kabalistic-gnostic\ncosmogony that begins the Mosaic _Bible_. Having accepted the Jewish\n_Old Testament_ as their standard, no wonder that the Christians were\nforced by the exceptional position in which they were placed through\ntheir own ignorance, to make the best of it.\n\nThe first groups of Christians, whom Renan shows numbering but from\nseven to twelve men in _each church_, belonged unquestionably to the\npoorest and most ignorant classes. They had and could have no idea of\nthe highly philosophical doctrines of the Platonists and Gnostics,\nand evidently knew as little about their own newly-made-up religion.\nTo these, who if Jews, had been crushed under the tyrannical dominion\nof the \u201claw,\u201d as enforced by the elders of the synagogues, and if\nPagans had been always excluded, as the lower castes are until now\nin India, from the religious mysteries, the God of the Jews and\nthe \u201cFather\u201d preached by Jesus were all one. The contention which\nreigned from the first years following the death of Jesus, between\nthe two parties, the Pauline and the Petrine--were deplorable. What\none did, the other deemed a sacred duty to undo. If the _Homilies_\nare considered apocryphal, and cannot very well be accepted as an\ninfallible standard by which to measure the animosity which raged\nbetween the two apostles, we have the _Bible_, and the proofs\nafforded therein are plentiful.\n\nSo hopelessly entangled seems Iren\u00e6us in his fruitless endeavors to\ndescribe, to all outward appearance at least, the true doctrines of\nthe many Gnostic sects of which he treats and to present them at the\nsame time as abominable \u201cheresies,\u201d that he either deliberately,\nor through ignorance, confounds all of them in such a way that\nfew metaphysicians would be able to disentangle them, without the\n_Kabala_ and the _Codex_ as the true keys. Thus, for instance, he\ncannot even tell the difference between the Sethianites and the\nOphites, and tells us that they called the \u201cGod of all,\u201d \u201c_Hominem_,\u201d\na MAN, and his mind the SECOND man, or the \u201c_Son of man_.\u201d So does\nTheodoret, who lived more than two centuries after Iren\u00e6us, and who\nmakes a sad mess of the chronological order in which the various\nsects succeeded each other.[297] Neither the Sethianites, (a branch\nof the Jewish Nazarenes) nor the Ophites, a purely Greek sect, have\never held anything of the kind. Iren\u00e6us contradicts his own words by\ndescribing in another place the doctrines of Cerinthus, the direct\ndisciple of Simon Magus. He says that Cerinthus taught that the world\nwas not created by the FIRST GOD, but by a virtue (virtus) or power,\nan \u00c6on so distant from the First Cause that he was even ignorant of\nHIM who _is above all things_. This \u00c6on subjected Jesus, he begot him\nphysically through Joseph from one who was not a virgin, but simply\nthe wife of that Joseph, and Jesus was born like all other men.\nViewed from this physical aspect of his nature, Jesus was called the\n\u201cson of man.\u201d It is only after his _baptism_, that _Christos_, the\nanointed, descended from the Princeliness of above, in the figure of\na dove, and then announced the UNKNOWN Father through Jesus.[298]\n\nIf, therefore, Jesus was physically considered as a son of man, and\nspiritually as the Christos, who overshadowed him, how then could\nthe \u201cGOD OF ALL,\u201d the \u201c_Unknown_ Father,\u201d be called by the Gnostics\n_Homo_, a MAN, and his Mind, Ennoia, the SECOND man, or _Son of\nman_? Neither in the Oriental _Kabala_, nor in Gnosticism, was the\n\u201cGod of all\u201d ever anthropomorphized. It is but the first, or rather\nthe second emanations, for Shekinah, Sephira, Depth, and other\nfirst-manifested female virtues are also emanations, that are termed\n\u201cprimitive men.\u201d Thus Adam Kadmon, Ennoia (or Sig\u00e8), the _logoi_ in\nshort, are the \u201conly-begotten\u201d ones but not the _Sons_ of man, which\nappellation properly belongs to Christos the son of Sophia (the\nelder) and of the primitive man who produces him through his own\nvivifying light, which emanates from the source or _cause_ of all,\nhence the _cause_ of his light also, the \u201cUnknown Father.\u201d There\nis a great difference made in the Gnostic metaphysics between the\nfirst unrevealed Logos and the \u201canointed,\u201d who is Christos. Ennoia\nmay be termed, as Philo understands it, the _Second_ God, but he\nalone is the \u201cPrimitive and First man,\u201d and by no means the Second\none, as Theodoret and Iren\u00e6us have it. It is but the inveterate\ndesire of the latter to connect Jesus in every possible way, even in\nthe _H\u00e6resies_, with the _Highest_ God, that led him into so many\nfalsifications.\n\nSuch an identification with the _Unknown_ God, even of Christos,\nthe anointed--the \u00c6on who overshadowed him--let alone of the man\nJesus, never entered the head of the Gnostics nor even of the direct\napostles and of Paul, whatever later forgeries may have added.\n\nHow daring and desperate were many such deliberate falsifications was\nshown in the first attempts to compare the original manuscripts with\nlater ones. In Bishop Horseley\u2019s edition of Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s works,\nseveral manuscripts on theological subjects were cautiously withheld\nfrom publication. The article known as _Christ\u2019s Descent into Hell_,\nwhich is found in the later Apostles\u2019 Creed, is not to be found in\nthe manuscripts of either the fourth or sixth centuries. It was an\nevident interpolation copied from the fables of Bacchus and Hercules\nand enforced upon Christendom as an article of faith. Concerning it\nthe author of the preface to the _Catalogue of the Manuscripts of\nthe King\u2019s Library_ (preface, p. xxi.) remarks: \u201cI wish that the\ninsertion of the article of _Christ\u2019s Descent into Hell_ into the\nApostles\u2019 Creed could be as well accounted for as the _insertion_ of\nthe _said_ verse\u201d (_First Epistle of John_, v. 7).[299]\n\nNow, this verse reads: \u201cFor there are three that bear record in\nHeaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost; and these three are\none.\u201d This verse, which has been \u201cappointed to be read in churches,\u201d\nis now known to be spurious. It is not to be found in any Greek\nmanuscript, save one at Berlin, which was transcribed from some\ninterpolated paraphrase between the lines. In the first and second\neditions of Erasmus, printed in 1516 and 1519, this allusion to\nthese three heavenly witnesses is _omitted_; and the text is not\ncontained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the\nfifteenth century.[300] It was not mentioned by either of the Greek\necclesiastical writers nor by the early Latin fathers, so anxious to\nget at every proof in support of their trinity; and it was omitted\nby Luther in his German version. Edward Gibbon was early in pointing\nout its spurious character. Archbishop Newcome rejected it, and the\nBishop of Lincoln expresses his conviction that it is spurious.[301]\nThere are twenty-eight Greek authors--Iren\u00e6us, Clemens, and\nAthanasius included, who neither quote nor mention it; and seventeen\nLatin writers, numbering among them Augustine, Jerome, Ambrosius,\nCyprian, and Pope Eusebius, who appear utterly ignorant of it. \u201cIt\nis evident that if the text of the heavenly witnesses had been known\nfrom the beginning of Christianity the ancients would have eagerly\nseized it, inserted it in their creeds, quoted it repeatedly against\nthe heretics, and selected it for the brightest ornament of every\nbook that they wrote upon the subject of the Trinity.\u201d[302]\n\nThus falls to the ground the strongest trinitarian pillar. Another\nnot less obvious forgery is quoted from Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s words by\nthe editor of the _Apocryphal New Testament_. Newton observes \u201cthat\nwhat the Latins have done to this text (_First Epistle of John_, v.),\nthe Greeks have done to that of St. Paul (_Timothy_ iii. 16).\u201d For,\nby changing \u039f\u03a3 into \u0398\u03a3, the abbreviation of \u0398\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 (God), in the\nAlexandrian manuscript, from which their subsequent copies were made,\nthey now read, \u201c_Great is the mystery of godliness_, GOD _manifested\nin the flesh_;\u201d whereas all the churches, for the first four or five\ncenturies, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome, as\nwell as the rest, read: \u201cGreat is the mystery of godliness WHICH WAS\n_manifested in the flesh_.\u201d Newton adds, that now that the disputes\nover this forgery are over, they that read GOD made manifest in the\nflesh, instead of the _godliness which was_ manifested in the flesh,\nthink this passage \u201cone of the most obvious and pertinent texts for\nthe business.\u201d\n\nAnd now we ask again the question: Who were the first Christians?\nThose who were readily converted by the eloquent simplicity of Paul,\nwho promised them, with the name of Jesus, _freedom_ from the narrow\nbonds of ecclesiasticism. They understood but one thing; they were\nthe \u201cchildren of promise\u201d (_Galatians_ iv. 28). The \u201callegory\u201d of\nthe Mosaic _Bible_ was unveiled to them; the covenant \u201cfrom the\nMount Sinai which gendereth _to bondage_\u201d was Agar (Ibid., 24), the\nold Jewish synagogue, and she was \u201cin bondage with her children\u201d\nto Jerusalem, the new and the free, \u201cthe mother of us all.\u201d On the\none hand the synagogue and the law which persecuted every one who\ndared to step across the narrow path of bigotry and dogmatism;\non the other, Paganism[303] with its grand philosophical truths\nconcealed from sight; unveiling itself but to the few, and leaving\nthe masses hopelessly seeking to discover who was _the_ god, among\nthis overcrowded pantheon of deities and sub-deities. To others,\nthe apostle of circumcision, supported by all his followers, was\npromising, if they obeyed the \u201claw,\u201d a life hereafter, and a\nresurrection of which they had no previous idea. At the same time\nhe never lost an occasion to contradict Paul without naming him,\nbut indicating him so clearly that it is next to impossible to\ndoubt whom Peter meant. While he may have converted some men, who\nwhether they had believed in the Mosaic resurrection promised by\nthe Pharisees, or had fallen into the nihilistic doctrines of the\nSadducees, or had belonged to the polytheistic heathenism of the\nPagan rabble, had no future after death, nothing but a mournful\nblank, we do not think that the work of contradiction, carried on\nso systematically by the two apostles, had helped much their work\nof proselytism. With the educated thinking classes they succeeded\nvery little, as ecclesiastical history clearly shows. Where was\nthe truth; where the inspired word of God? On the one hand, as we\nhave seen, they heard the apostle Paul explaining that of the two\ncovenants, \u201cwhich things are an allegory,\u201d the old one from Mount\nSinai, \u201cwhich gendereth unto bondage,\u201d was _Agar_ the bondwoman; and\nMount Sinai itself answered to \u201cJerusalem,\u201d which now is \u201cin bondage\u201d\nwith her circumcised children; and the new covenant meant Jesus\nChrist--the \u201cJerusalem which is above and free;\u201d and on the other\nPeter, who was contradicting and even abusing him. Paul vehemently\nexclaims, \u201cCast out the bondwoman and her son\u201d (the old _law_ and the\nsynagogue). \u201cThe son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son\nof the freewoman.\u201d \u201cStand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith\nChrist hath made us free; be not entangled again with the yoke of\nbondage.... Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised,\nChrist shall profit you nothing!\u201d (_Gal._ v. 2). What do we find\nPeter writing? Whom does he mean by saying, \u201cThese who speak great\nswelling words of vanity.... While they promise them _liberty_, they\nthemselves are servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome,\nof the same is he brought in bondage.... For if _they have escaped_\nthe pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and\nSaviour, they are again entangled therein, and overcome ... it had\n_been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness_,\nthan after they have known it to turn from the holy _commandment\ndelivered unto them_\u201d (_Second Epistle_).\n\nPeter certainly cannot have meant the Gnostics, for they had never\nseen \u201cthe holy commandment delivered unto them;\u201d Paul had. They\nnever promised any one \u201cliberty\u201d from bondage, but Paul had done so\nrepeatedly. Moreover the latter rejects the \u201cold covenant,\u201d Agar the\nbondwoman; and Peter holds fast to it. Paul warns the people against\nthe _powers_ and _dignities_ (the lower angels of the kabalists); and\nPeter, as will be shown further, respects them and _denounces those\nwho do not_. Peter preaches circumcision, and Paul forbids it.\n\nLater, when all these extraordinary blunders, contradictions,\ndissensions and inventions were forcibly crammed into a frame\nelaborately executed by the episcopal caste of the new religion,\nand called Christianity; and the chaotic picture itself cunningly\npreserved from too close scrutiny by a whole array of formidable\nChurch penances and anathemas, which kept the curious back under the\nfalse pretense of sacrilege and profanation of divine mysteries;\nand millions of people had been butchered in the name of the God of\nmercy--then came the Reformation. It certainly deserves its name in\nits fullest paradoxical sense. It abandoned Peter and alleges to\nhave chosen Paul for its only leader. And the apostle who thundered\nagainst the old law of bondage; who left full liberty to Christians\nto either observe the Sabbath or set it aside; who rejects everything\nanterior to John the Baptist, is now the professed standard-bearer\nof Protestantism, which holds to the _old_ law more than the Jews,\nimprisons those who view the Sabbath as Jesus and Paul did, and\noutvies the synagogue of the first century in dogmatic intolerance!\n\nBut who then _were_ the first Christians, may still be asked?\nDoubtless the Ebionites; and in this we follow the authority of\nthe best critics. \u201cThere can be little doubt that the author (of\nthe _Clementine Homilies_) was a representative of Ebionitic\nGnosticism, which _had once been the purest form of primitive\nChristianity_....\u201d[304] And who were the Ebionites? The pupils\nand followers of the early Nazarenes, the kabalistic Gnostics. In\nthe preface to the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, the translator says: \u201cThat\nalso the Nazarenes did not reject ... the \u00c6ons is natural. For of\nthe Ebionites who acknowledged them (the \u00c6ons), these were the\ninstructors.\u201d[305]\n\nWe find, moreover, Epiphanius, the Christian Homer of _The Heresies_,\ntelling us that \u201cEbion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form\nof the Cerinthians (who fable that the world was put together by\nangels), and the appellation of Christians.\u201d[306] An appellation\ncertainly more correctly applied to them than to the orthodox\n(so-called) Christians of the school of Iren\u00e6us and the later\nVatican. Renan shows the Ebionites numbering among their sect all\nthe surviving relatives of Jesus. John the Baptist, his cousin and\n_precursor_, was the accepted Saviour of the Nazarenes, and their\nprophet. His disciples dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and\nthe scene of the baptism of the Jordan is clearly and beyond any\nquestion proved by the author of _Sod, the Son of the Man_, to have\nbeen the site of the Adonis-worship.[307] \u201cOver the Jordan and beyond\nthe lake dwelt the Nazarenes, a sect said to have existed already at\nthe birth of Jesus, and to have counted him among its number. They\nmust have extended along the east of the Jordan, and southeasterly\namong the Arabians (_Galat._ i. 17, 21; ii. 11), and Sab\u00e6ans in the\ndirection of Bosra; and again, they must have gone far north over the\nLebanon to Antioch, also to the northeast to the Nazarian settlement\nin Ber\u0153a, where St. Jerome found them. In the desert the Mysteries\nof Adonis may have still prevailed; in the mountains Aiai Adonai was\nstill a cry.\u201d[308]\n\n\u201cHaving been united (conjunctus) to the Nazarenes, each (Ebionite)\nimparted to the other out of his own wickedness, and decided that\nChrist _was of the seed of a man_,\u201d writes Epiphanius.\n\nAnd if they did, we must suppose they knew more about their\ncontemporary prophet than Epiphanius 400 years later. Theodoret,\nas shown elsewhere, describes the Nazarenes as Jews who \u201chonor the\nAnointed as a just man,\u201d and use the _evangel_ called \u201c_According to\nPeter_.\u201d Jerome finds the authentic and original _evangel_, written\nin Hebrew, by Matthew the apostle-publican, in the library collected\nat C\u00e6sarea, by the martyr Pamphilius. \u201c_I received permission from\nthe Nazar\u00e6ans_, who at Ber\u0153a of Syria used this (gospel) to translate\nit,\u201d he writes toward the end of the fourth century.[309] \u201cIn the\n_evangel_ which the _Nazarenes_ and _Ebionites_ use,\u201d adds Jerome,\n\u201cwhich recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek,[310] and which\nis called by most persons the _genuine Gospel of Matthew_,\u201d etc.\n\nThat the apostles had received a \u201csecret doctrine\u201d from Jesus, and\nthat he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of\nJerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the\nBishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, he complains that \u201ca difficult\nwork is enjoined, since this translation has been commanded me\nby your Felicities, which _St. Matthew himself, the Apostle and\nEvangelist_, DID NOT WISH TO BE OPENLY WRITTEN. For if it had not\nbeen SECRET, he (Matthew) would have added to the _evangel_ that\nwhich he gave forth was his; but he made up this book sealed up in\nthe Hebrew characters, which he put forth _even in such a way_ that\nthe book, written in Hebrew letters and _by the hand of himself_,\nmight be possessed _by the men most religious_, who also, in the\ncourse of time, received it from those who preceded them. But this\nvery book they never gave to any one to be transcribed, and its\n_text_ they related some one way and some another.\u201d[311] And he adds\nfurther on the same page: \u201cAnd it happened that this book, having\nbeen published by a disciple of Manich\u00e6us, named Seleucus, who also\nwrote falsely _The Acts of the Apostles_, exhibited matter not for\nedification, but for destruction; and that this book was approved\nin a synod which the ears of the Church properly refused to listen\nto.\u201d[312]\n\nHe admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as being\nwritten \u201c_by the hand of Matthew_;\u201d a book which, notwithstanding\nthat he translated it twice, was nearly unintelligible to him, for\nit was arcane or _a secret_. Nevertheless, Jerome coolly sets down\nevery commentary upon it, except his own, as _heretical_. More than\nthat, Jerome knew that this _original Gospel of Matthew_ was the\nexpounder of the only true doctrine of Christ; and that it was the\nwork of an evangelist who had been the friend and companion of Jesus.\nHe knew that if of the two _Gospels_, the Hebrew in question and the\nGreek belonging to our present Scripture, one was spurious, hence\nheretical, it was not that of the Nazarenes; and yet, knowing all\nthis, Jerome becomes more zealous than ever in his persecutions of\nthe \u201cH\u00e6retics.\u201d Why? Because to accept it was equivalent to reading\nthe death-sentence of the established Church. The _Gospel according\nto the Hebrews_ was but too well known to have been the only one\naccepted for four centuries by the Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes\nand the Ebionites. And neither of the latter accepted the _divinity_\nof Christ.\n\nIf the commentaries of Jerome on the Prophets, his famous _Vulgate_,\nand numerous polemical treatises are all as trustworthy as this\nversion of the _Gospel according to Matthew_, then we have a divine\nrevelation indeed.\n\nWhy wonder at the unfathomable mysteries of the Christian religion,\nsince it is perfectly _human_? Have we not a letter written by one\nof the most respected Fathers of the Church to this same Jerome,\nwhich shows better than whole volumes their traditionary policy?\nThis is what _Saint_ Gregory of Nazianzen wrote to his friend and\nconfidant _Saint_ Jerome: \u201cNothing can impose better on a people\nthan _verbiage_; the less they understand the more they admire. Our\nfathers and doctors have often said, not what they thought, but what\ncircumstances and necessity forced them to.\u201d\n\nBut to return to our Sophia-Achamoth and the belief of the genuine,\nprimitive Christians.\n\nAfter having produced Ilda-Baoth, Ilda from \u05d9\u05dc\u05d3, a child, and Baoth\nfrom \u05d1\u05d5\u05d9\u05e5, the egg, or \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea, _Baoth_, a waste, a desolation,\nSophia-Achamoth suffered so much from the contact with matter,\nthat after extraordinary struggles she escapes at last out of the\nmuddy chaos. Although unacquainted with the pleroma, the region\nof her mother, she reached the middle space and succeeded in\nshaking off the material parts which have stuck to her spiritual\nnature; after which she immediately built a strong barrier\nbetween the world of intelligences (spirits) and the world of\nmatter. Ilda-Baoth, is thus the \u201cson of darkness,\u201d the creator of\nour sinful world (the physical portion of it). He follows the\nexample of Bythos and produces from himself six stellar spirits\n(sons). They are all in his own image, and reflections one of the\nother, which become darker as they successively recede from their\nfather. With the latter, they all inhabit seven regions disposed\nlike a ladder, beginning under the middle space, the region of\ntheir mother, Sophia-Achamoth, and ending with our earth, the\n_seventh_ region. Thus they are the genii of the seven planetary\nspheres of which the lowest is the region of our earth (the\nsphere which surrounds it, our \u00e6ther). The respective names of\nthese genii of the spheres are _I\u00f2ve_ (Jehovah), _Sabaoth_,\n_Adonai_, _Eloi_, _Ouraios_, _Astaphaios_.[313] The first four,\nas every one knows, are the mystic names of the Jewish \u201cLord\nGod,\u201d[314] he being, as C. W. King expresses it, \u201cthus degraded\nby the Ophites into the appellations of the subordinates of the\nCreator; \u201cthe two last names are those of the genii of fire and\nwater.\u201d\n\nIlda-Baoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses, was\nnot a pure spirit; he was ambitious and proud, and rejecting the\nspiritual light of the middle space offered him by his mother\nSophia-Achamoth, he set himself to create a world of his own. Aided\nby his sons, the six planetary genii, he fabricated man, but this one\nproved a failure. It was a monster; soulless, ignorant, and crawling\non all fours on the ground like a material beast. Ilda-Baoth was\nforced to implore the help of his spiritual mother. She communicated\nto him a ray of her divine light, and so animated man and endowed him\nwith a soul. And now began the animosity of Ilda-Baoth toward his\nown creature. Following the impulse of the divine light, man soared\nhigher and higher in his aspirations; very soon he began presenting\nnot the image of his Creator Ilda-Baoth but rather that of the\nSupreme Being, the \u201cprimitive man,\u201d Ennoia. Then the Demiurgus was\nfilled with rage and envy; and fixing his jealous eye on the abyss of\nmatter, his looks envenomed with passion were suddenly reflected in\nit as in a mirror; the reflection became animate, and there arose out\nof the abyss Satan, serpent, Ophiomorphos--\u201cthe embodiment of envy\nand of cunning. He is the union of all that is most base in matter,\nwith the hate, envy, and craft of a spiritual intelligence.\u201d[315]\n\nAfter that, always in spite at the perfection of man, Ilda-Baoth\ncreated the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable,\nand animal, with all evil instincts and properties. Impotent to\nannihilate the Tree of Knowledge, which grows in his sphere as in\nevery one of the planetary regions, but bent upon detaching \u201cman\u201d\nfrom his spiritual protectress, Ilda-Baoth forbade him to eat of its\nfruit, for fear it should reveal to mankind the mysteries of the\nsuperior world. But Sophia-Achamoth, who loved and protected the man\nwhom she had animated, sent her own genius Ophis, in the form of a\nserpent to induce man to transgress the selfish and unjust command.\nAnd \u201cman\u201d suddenly became capable of comprehending the mysteries of\ncreation.\n\nIlda-Baoth revenged himself by punishing the first pair, for man,\nthrough his _knowledge_, had already provided for himself a companion\nout of his spiritual and material half. He imprisoned man and woman\nin a dungeon of matter, in the body so unworthy of his nature,\nwherein man is still enthralled. But Achamoth protected him still.\nShe established between her celestial region and \u201cman,\u201d a current of\ndivine light, and kept constantly supplying him with this _spiritual_\nillumination.\n\nThen follow allegories embodying the idea of dualism, or the\nstruggle between good and evil, spirit and matter, which is found in\nevery cosmogony, and the source of which is again to be sought in\nIndia. The types and antitypes represent the heroes of this Gnostic\nPantheon, borrowed from the most ancient mythop\u0153ic ages. But, in\nthese personages, Ophis and Ophiomorphos, Sophia and Sophia-Achamoth,\nAdam-Kadmon, and Adam, the planetary genii and the divine \u00c6ons, we\ncan also recognize very easily the models of our biblical copies--the\neuhemerized patriarchs. The archangels, angels, virtues and powers,\nare all found, under other names, in the _Vedas_ and the Buddhistic\nsystem. The Avestic Supreme Being, Zero-ana, or \u201cBoundless Time,\u201d is\nthe type of all these Gnostic and kabalistic \u201cDepths,\u201d \u201cCrowns,\u201d and\neven of the Chaldean En-Soph. The six Amshaspands, created through\nthe \u201cWord\u201d of Ormazd, the \u201cFirst-Born,\u201d have their reflections in\nBythos and his emanations, and the antitype of Ormazd--Ahriman and\nhis devs also enter into the composition of Ilda-Baoth and his six\n_material_, though not wholly evil, planetary genii.\n\nAchamoth, afflicted with the evils which befall humanity,\nnotwithstanding her protection, beseeches the celestial mother\nSophia--her antitype--to prevail on the unknown DEPTH to send down\nChristos (the son and emanation of the \u201cCelestial Virgin\u201d) to the\nhelp of perishing humanity. Ilda-Baoth and his six sons of matter\nare shutting out the divine light from mankind. Man must be saved.\nIlda-Baoth had already sent his own agent, John the Baptist, from the\nrace of Seth, whom he protects--as a prophet to his people; but only\na small portion listened to him--the Nazarenes, the opponents of the\nJews, on account of their worshipping Iurbo-Adunai.[316] Achamoth\nhad assured her son, Ilda-Baoth, that the reign of Christos would\nbe only temporal, and thus induced him to send the forerunner, or\nprecursor. Besides that, she made _him cause_ the birth of the _man_\nJesus from the Virgin Mary, her own type on earth, \u201cfor the creation\nof a material personage could only be the work of the Demiurgus, not\nfalling within the province of a higher power. As soon as Jesus was\nborn, Christos, the perfect, uniting himself with Sophia (wisdom\nand spirituality), descended through the seven planetary regions,\nassuming in each an analogous form, and concealing his true nature\nfrom their genii, while he attracted into himself the sparks of\ndivine light which they retained in their essence. Thus, Christos\nentered into the _man_ Jesus at the moment of his baptism in the\nJordan. From that time Jesus began to work miracles; before that, he\nhad been completely ignorant of his mission.\u201d[317]\n\nIlda-Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his own\nkingdom of matter, stirred up the Jews against him, and Jesus was put\nto death.[318] When on the Cross, Christos and Sophia left his body\nand returned to their own sphere. The material body of the man Jesus\nwas abandoned to the earth, but he himself was given a body made\nup of _\u00e6ther_ (astral soul). \u201cThenceforward he consisted of merely\n_soul_ and _spirit_,\u201d which was the reason why the disciples did not\nrecognize him after the resurrection. In this spiritual state of a\n_simulacrum_, Jesus remained on earth for eighteen months after he\nhad risen. During this last sojourn, \u201che received from Sophia that\nperfect knowledge, that true Gnosis, _which he communicated to the\nvery few among the apostles_ who were capable of receiving the same.\u201d\n\n\u201cThence, ascending up into the middle space, he sits on the right\nhand of Ilda-Baoth, but unperceived by him, and there collects all\nthe souls which shall have been purified by the knowledge of Christ.\nWhen he has collected all the spiritual light that exists in matter,\nout of Ilda-Baoth\u2019s empire, the redemption will be accomplished and\nthe world will be destroyed. Such is the meaning of the re-absorption\nof all the spiritual light into the pleroma or fulness, whence it\noriginally descended.\u201d\n\nThe foregoing is from the description given by Theodoret and adopted\nby King in his _Gnostics_, with additions from Epiphanius and\nIren\u00e6us. But the former gives a very imperfect version, concocted\npartly from the descriptions of Iren\u00e6us, and partly from his own\nknowledge of the later Ophites, who, toward the end of the third\ncentury, had blended already with several other sects. Iren\u00e6us also\nconfounds them very frequently, and the real theogony of the Ophites\nis given by none of them correctly. With the exception of a change\nin names, the above-given theogony is that of all the Gnostics, and\nalso of the Nazarenes. Ophis is but the successor of the Egyptian\n_Chnuphis_, the Good Serpent with a lion\u2019s radiating head, and was\nheld from days of the highest antiquity as an emblem of wisdom, or\nThauth, the instructor and Saviour of humanity, the \u201cSon of God.\u201d \u201cOh\nmen, live soberly ... win your immortality!\u201d exclaims Hermes, the\nthrice-great Trismegistus. \u201cInstructor and guide of humanity, I will\nlead you on to salvation.\u201d Thus the oldest sectarians regarded Ophis,\nthe Agathod\u00e6mon, as identical with Christos; the serpent being the\nemblem of celestial wisdom and eternity, and, in the present case,\nthe antitype of the Egyptian Chnuphis-serpent. These Gnostics, the\nearliest of our Christian era, held: \u201cThat the supreme \u00c6on, having\nemitted other \u00c6ons out of himself, one of them, a female, _Prunnikos_\n(concupiscence), descended into the chaos, whence, unable to escape,\nshe remained suspended in the mid-space, being too clogged by matter\nto return above, and not falling lower where there was nothing in\naffinity with her nature. She then produced her son Ilda-Baoth,\nthe God of the Jews, who, in his turn, produced seven \u00c6ons, or\nangels,[319] who created the seven heavens.\u201d\n\nIn this plurality of heavens the Christians believed from the first,\nfor we find Paul teaching of their existence, and speaking of a man\n\u201ccaught up to the _third_ heaven\u201d (_2 Corin._, xiii.). From these\nseven angels Ilda-Baoth shut up all that was above him, lest they\nshould know of anything superior to himself.[320] They then created\nman in the image of their Father,[321] but prone and crawling on\nthe earth like a worm. But the heavenly mother, Prunnikos, wishing\nto deprive Ilda-Baoth of the power with which she had unwittingly\nendowed him, infused into man a celestial spark--the spirit.\nImmediately man rose upon his feet, soared in mind beyond the limits\nof the seven spheres, and glorified the Supreme Father, _Him that is\nabove Ilda-Baoth_. Hence, the latter, full of jealousy, cast down\nhis eyes upon the lowest stratum of matter, and begot a potency in\nthe form of a serpent, whom they (the Ophites) call his son. Eve,\nobeying him as the son of God, was persuaded to eat of the Tree of\nKnowledge.[322]\n\nIt is a self-evident fact that the serpent of the _Genesis_, who\nappears suddenly and without any preliminary introduction, must\nhave been the antitype of the Persian Arch-Devs, whose head is\nAsh-Mogh, the \u201ctwo-footed serpent of lies.\u201d If the _Bible_-serpent\nhad been deprived of his limbs before he had tempted woman unto sin,\nwhy should God specify as a punishment that he should go \u201cupon his\nbelly?\u201d Nobody supposes that he walked upon the extremity of his tail.\n\nThis controversy about the supremacy of Jehovah, between the\nPresbyters and Fathers on the one hand, and the Gnostics, the\nNazarenes, and all the sects declared heterodox, as a last resort, on\nthe other, lasted till the days of Constantine, and later. That the\npeculiar ideas of the Gnostics about the _genealogy_ of Jehovah, or\nthe proper place that had to be assigned, in the Christian-Gnostic\nPantheon, to the God of the Jews, were at first deemed neither\nblasphemous nor heterodox is evident in the difference of opinions\nheld on this question by Clemens of Alexandria, for instance, and\nTertullian. The former, who seems to have known of Basilides better\nthan anybody else, saw nothing heterodox or blamable in the mystical\nand transcendental views of the new Reformer. \u201cIn his eyes,\u201d remarks\nthe author of _The Gnostics_, speaking of Clemens, \u201cBasilides was\nnot a heretic, _i.e._, an innovator as regards the doctrines of the\nChristian Church, but a mere theosophic philosopher, who sought to\nexpress _ancient truths_ under new forms, and perhaps to combine\nthem with the new faith, the truth of which he could admit without\nnecessarily renouncing the old, exactly as is the case with the\nlearned Hindus of our day.\u201d[323]\n\nNot so with Iren\u00e6us and Tertullian.[324] The principal works of the\nlatter _against the Heretics_, were written after his separation\nfrom the Catholic Church, when he had ranged himself among the\nzealous followers of Montanus; and teem with unfairness and bigoted\nprejudice.[325] He has exaggerated every Gnostic opinion to a\nmonstrous absurdity, and his arguments are not based on coercive\nreasoning but simply on the blind stubbornness of a partisan fanatic.\nDiscussing Basilides, the \u201cpious, god-like, theosophic philosopher,\u201d\nas Clemens of Alexandria thought him, Tertullian exclaims: \u201cAfter\nthis, Basilides, the _heretic_, broke loose.[326] He asserted that\nthere is a Supreme God, by name Abraxas, by whom Mind was created,\nwhom the Greeks call _Nous_. From her emanated the Word; from the\nWord, Providence; from Providence, Virtue and Wisdom; from these\ntwo again, Virtues, _Principalities,[327] and Powers_ were made;\nthence infinite productions and emissions of angels. Among the lowest\nangels, indeed, and those that made this world, he sets _last of all_\nthe god of the Jews, whom he denies to be God himself, affirming that\nhe is but one of the angels.\u201d[328]\n\nIt would be equally useless to refer to the direct apostles of\nChrist, and show them as holding in their controversies that Jesus\nnever made any difference between his \u201cFather\u201d and the \u201cLord-God\u201d of\nMoses. For the _Clementine Homilies_, in which occur the greatest\nargumentations upon the subject, as shown in the disputations alleged\nto have taken place between Peter and Simon the Magician, are now\nalso proved to have been falsely attributed to Clement the Roman.\nThis work, if written by an Ebionite--as the author of _Supernatural\nReligion_ declares in common with some other commentators[329]--must\nhave been written either far later than the Pauline period,\ngenerally assigned to it, or the dispute about the identity of\nJehovah with God, the \u201cFather of Jesus,\u201d have been distorted by\nlater interpolations. This disputation is in its very essence\nantagonistic to the early doctrines of the Ebionites. The latter, as\ndemonstrated by Epiphanius and Theodoret, were the direct followers\nof the Nazarene sect[330] (the Sabians), the \u201cDisciples of John.\u201d\nHe says, unequivocally, that the Ebionites believed in the _\u00c6ons_\n(emanations), that the Nazarenes were _their instructors_, and that\n\u201ceach imparted to the other out of his own wickedness.\u201d Therefore,\nholding the same beliefs as the Nazarenes did, an Ebionite would not\nhave given even so much chance to the doctrine supported by Peter in\nthe _Homilies_. The old Nazarenes, as well as the later ones, whose\nviews are embodied in the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, never called Jehovah\notherwise than _Adonai_, _Iurbo_, the God of the _Abortive_[331]\n(the orthodox Jews). They kept their beliefs and religious tenets\nso _secret_ that even Epiphanius, writing as early as the end of\nthe fourth century,[332] confesses his ignorance as to their real\ndoctrine. \u201cDropping the name of Jesus,\u201d says the Bishop of Salamis,\n\u201cthey neither call themselves _Iessaens_, nor continue to hold the\nname of the Jews, nor name themselves Christians, but _Nazarenes_....\nThe resurrection of the dead is confessed by them ... but concerning\nChrist, _I cannot say_ whether they think him a _mere man_, or as the\n_truth is_, confess that he was born through the _Holy Pneuma_ from\nthe Virgin.\u201d[333]\n\nWhile Simon Magus argues in the _Homilies_ from the standpoint of\nevery Gnostic (Nazarenes and Ebionites included), Peter, as a true\napostle of circumcision, holds to the old Law and, as a matter of\ncourse, seeks to blend his belief in the divinity of Christ with his\nold Faith in the \u201cLord God\u201d and ex-protector of the \u201cchosen people.\u201d\nAs the author of _Supernatural Religion_ shows, the Epitome,[334]\n\u201ca blending of the other two, probably intended to purge them from\nheretical doctrine\u201d[335] and, together with a great majority of\ncritics, assigns to the _Homilies_, a date not earlier than the end\nof the third century, we may well infer that they must differ widely\nwith their original, if there ever was one. Simon the Magician proves\nthroughout the whole work that the Demiurgus, the Architect of the\nWorld, is not the highest Deity; and he bases his assertions upon\nthe words of Jesus himself, who states repeatedly that \u201cno man knew\nthe Father.\u201d Peter is made in the _Homilies_ to repudiate, with a\ngreat show of indignation, the assertion that the Patriarchs were\nnot deemed worthy to know the Father; to which Simon objects again\nby quoting the words of Jesus, who thanks the \u201cLord of Heaven and\nearth that what was concealed from the wise\u201d he has \u201crevealed to\nbabes,\u201d proving very logically that according to these very words the\nPatriarchs could not have known the \u201cFather.\u201d Then Peter argues, in\nhis turn, that the expression, \u201cwhat is _concealed_ from the wise,\u201d\netc., referred to the concealed _mysteries_ of the creation.[336]\n\nThis argumentation of Peter, therefore, had it even emanated from\nthe apostle himself, instead of being a \u201creligious romance,\u201d as the\nauthor of _Supernatural Religion_ calls it, would prove nothing\nwhatever in favor of the identity of the God of the Jews, with the\n\u201cFather\u201d of Jesus. At best it would only demonstrate that Peter had\nremained from first to last \u201can apostle of circumcision,\u201d a Jew\nfaithful to his old law, and a defender of the _Old Testament_. This\nconversation proves, moreover, the weakness of the cause he defends,\nfor we see in the apostle a man who, although in most intimate\nrelations with Jesus, can furnish us nothing in the way of direct\nproof that he ever thought of teaching that the all-wise and all-good\nPaternity he preached was the morose and revengeful thunderer of\nMount Sinai. But what the _Homilies_ do prove, is again our assertion\nthat there was a secret doctrine preached by Jesus to the few who\nwere deemed worthy to become its recipients and custodians. \u201cAnd\nPeter said: \u2018We remember that our Lord and teacher, as commanding,\nsaid to us, guard the mysteries for me, and the sons of my house.\nWherefore also he explained to his disciples, _privately_, the\n_mysteries of the kingdoms of the heavens_.\u2019\u201d[337]\n\nIf we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the\n\u201cPagans\u201d consisted of the \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u1fe5\u03ae\u03c4\u03b1, _aporrheta_, or secret discourses;\nthat the secret _Logia_ or discourses of Jesus contained in the\noriginal _Gospel according to Matthew_, the meaning and interpretation\nof which St. Jerome confessed to be \u201ca difficult task\u201d for him to\nachieve, were of the same nature; and if we remember, further, that to\nsome of the interior or final Mysteries only a very select few were\nadmitted; and that finally it was from the number of the latter that\nwere taken all the ministers of the holy \u201cPagan\u201d rites, we will then\nclearly understand this expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: \u201cGuard\n_the Mysteries for me and the sons of my house_,\u201d _i.e._, of my\ndoctrine. And, if we understand it rightly, we cannot avoid thinking\nthat this \u201csecret\u201d doctrine of Jesus, even the technical expressions\nof which are but so many duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic\nmystic phraseology--that this doctrine, we say, was based on the same\ntranscendental philosophy of Oriental _Gnosis_ as the rest of the\nreligions of those and earliest days. That none of the later Christian\nsects, despite their boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident\nfrom the contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the\nmistakes of every preceding century by the discoveries of the\nsucceeding one. These mistakes, in a number of manuscripts claimed to\nbe authentic, are sometimes so ridiculous as to bear on their face the\nevidence of being pious forgeries. Thus, for instance, the utter\nignorance of some patristic champions of the very gospels they claimed\nto defend. We have mentioned the accusation against Marcion by\nTertullian and Epiphanius of mutilating the _Gospel_ ascribed to Luke,\nand erasing from it that which is now proved to have never been in\nthat Gospel at all. Finally, the method adopted by Jesus of speaking\nin parables, in which he only followed the example of his sect, is\nattributed in the _Homilies_ to a prophecy of _Isaiah_! Peter is made\nto remark: \u201cFor Isaiah said: \u2018I will open my mouth in parables, and I\nwill utter things that have been kept secret from the foundation of\nthe world.\u2019\u201d This erroneous reference to Isaiah of a sentence given in\n_Psalms_ lxxviii. 2, is found not only in the apocryphal _Homilies_,\nbut also in the Sinaitic _Codex_. Commenting on the fact in the\n_Supernatural Religion_, the author states that \u201cPorphyry, in the\nthird century, twitted Christians with this erroneous ascription by\ntheir inspired evangelist to Isaiah of a passage from a _Psalm_, and\nreduced the Fathers to great straits.\u201d[338] Eusebius and Jerome tried\nto get out of the difficulty by ascribing the mistake to an \u201cignorant\nscribe;\u201d and Jerome even went to the length of asserting that the name\nof Isaiah never stood after the above sentence in any of the old\ncodices, but that the name of Asaph was found in its place, only\n\u201c_ignorant_ men had removed it.\u201d[339] To this, the author again\nobserves that \u201cthe fact is that the reading \u2018Asaph\u2019 for \u2018Isaiah\u2019 is\nnot found in any manuscript extant; and, although \u2018Isaiah\u2019 has\n_disappeared_ from all but a few obscure codices, it cannot be denied\nthat the name anciently stood in the text. In the Sinaitic _Codex_,\nwhich is probably the earliest manuscript extant ... and which is\nassigned to the fourth century,\u201d he adds, \u201cthe prophet _Isaiah_ stands\nin the text by the first hand, _but is erased_ by the second.\u201d[340]\n\nIt is a most suggestive fact that there is not a word in the so-called\nsacred _Scriptures_ to show that Jesus was actually regarded as a God\nby his disciples. Neither before nor after his death did they pay him\ndivine honors. Their relation to him was only that of disciples and\n\u201cmaster;\u201d by which name they addressed him, as the followers of\nPythagoras and Plato addressed their respective masters before them.\nWhatever words may have been put into the mouths of Jesus, Peter,\nJohn, Paul, and others, there is not a single act of adoration\nrecorded on their part, nor did Jesus himself ever declare his\nidentity with _his Father_. He accused the Pharisees of _stoning_\ntheir prophets, not of deicide. He termed himself the son of God, but\ntook care to assert repeatedly that they were all the children of God,\nwho was the Heavenly Father of all. In preaching this, he but repeated\na doctrine taught ages earlier by Hermes, Plato, and other\nphilosophers. Strange contradiction! Jesus, whom we are asked to\nworship as the one living God, is found, immediately after his\nResurrection, saying to Mary Magdalene: \u201cI am not yet ascended _to my\nFather_; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto _my\nFather_ and _your_ Father, and to _my_ God and _your_ God!\u201d (_John_\nxx. 17.)\n\nDoes this look like identifying himself with his Father? \u201c_My_\nFather and _your_ Father, _my_ God and _your_ God,\u201d implies, on\nhis part, a desire to be considered on a perfect equality with his\nbrethren--nothing more. Theodoret writes: \u201cThe h\u00e6retics agree with\nus respecting the beginning of all things.... But they say there is\nnot one Christ (God), but one above, and the other below. And this\nlast _formerly dwelt in many_; but _the Jesus_, they at one time say\nis _from_ God, at another they call him a SPIRIT.\u201d[341] This spirit\nis the Christos, the _messenger_ of life, who is sometimes called\nthe Angel _Gabriel_ (in Hebrew, the mighty one of God), and who took\nwith the Gnostics the place of the Logos, while the Holy Spirit was\nconsidered _Life_.[342] With the sect of the Nazarenes, though,\nthe Spiritus, or Holy Ghost, had less honor. While nearly every\nGnostic sect considered it a Female Power, whether they called it\n _Binah_, \u05e0\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4, _Sophia_, the Divine Intellect, with the Nazarene sect\nit was the _Female Spiritus_, the astral light, the genetrix of all\nthings of _matter_, the chaos in its evil aspect, made _turbido_ by\nthe Demiurge. At the creation of man, \u201cit was light on the side of\nthe FATHER, and it was light (material light) on the side of the\nMOTHER. And this is the \u2018_two-fold_ man,\u2019\u201d[343] says the _Sohar_.\n\u201cThat day (the last one) will perish the seven badly-disposed\nstellars, also the sons of man, who have confessed the _Spiritus_,\nthe Messias (false), the Deus, and the MOTHER of the SPIRITUS shall\nperish.\u201d[344]\n\nJesus enforced and illustrated his doctrines with signs and\nwonders; and if we lay aside the claims advanced on his behalf by\nhis deifiers, he did but what other kabalists did; and only _they_\nat that epoch, when, for two centuries the sources of prophecy\nhad been completely dried up, and from this stagnation of public\n\u201cmiracles\u201d had originated the skepticism of the unbelieving sect of\nthe Sadducees. Describing the \u201cheresies\u201d of those days, Theodoret,\nwho has no idea of the hidden meaning of the word Christos, the\n_anointed_ messenger, complains that they (the Gnostics) assert\n_that this Messenger or Delegatus changes his body from time to\ntime_, \u201c_and goes into other bodies, and at each time is differently\nmanifested_. And these (the overshadowed prophets) use incantations\nand invocations of various demons and baptisms in the confession\nof their principles.... They embrace astrology and magic, and the\nmathematical error,\u201d (?) he says.[345]\n\nThis \u201cmathematical error,\u201d of which the pious writer complains,\nled subsequently to the rediscovery of the heliocentric system,\nerroneous as it may still be, and forgotten since the days of\nanother \u201cmagician\u201d who taught it--Pythagoras. Thus, the wonders of\nhealing and the thaums of Jesus, which he imparted to his followers,\nshow that they were learning, in their daily communication with\nhim, the theory and practice of the new ethics, day by day, and in\nthe familiar intercourse of intimate friendship. Their faith was\nprogressively developed, like that of all neophytes, simultaneously\nwith the increase of knowledge. We must bear in mind that Josephus,\nwho certainly must have been well informed on the subject, calls\nthe skill of expelling demons \u201ca science.\u201d This growth of faith is\nconspicuously shown in the case of Peter, who, from having lacked\nenough faith to support him while he could walk on the water from the\nboat to his Master, at last became so expert a thaumaturgist, that\nSimon Magus is said to have offered him money to teach him the secret\nof healing, and other wonders. And Philip is shown to have become an\n\u00c6throbat as good as Abaris of Pythagorean memory, but less expert\nthan Simon Magus.\n\nNeither in the _Homilies_ nor any other early work of the apostles,\nis there anything to show that either of his friends and followers\nregarded Jesus as anything more than a prophet. The idea is as\nclearly established in the _Clementines_. Except that too much room\nis afforded to Peter to establish the identity of the Mosaic God\nwith the Father of Jesus, the whole work is devoted to Monotheism.\nThe author seems as bitter against Polytheism as against the claim\nto the divinity of Christ.[346] He seems to be utterly ignorant of\nthe Logos, and his speculation is confined to Sophia, the Gnostic\nwisdom. There is no trace in it of a hypostatic trinity, but the\nsame overshadowing of the Gnostic \u201cwisdom (Christos and Sophia) is\nattributed in the case of Jesus as it is in those of Adam, Enoch,\nNoah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses.[347] These personages are\nall placed on one level, and called \u2018true prophets,\u2019 and the seven\npillars of the world.\u201d More than that, Peter vehemently denies the\nfall of Adam, and with him, the doctrine of atonement, as taught by\nChristian theology, utterly falls to the ground, _for he combats it\nas a blasphemy_.[348] Peter\u2019s theory of sin is that of the Jewish\nkabalists, and even, in a certain way, Platonic. Adam not only never\nsinned, but, \u201cas a true prophet, possessed of the Spirit of God,\nwhich afterwards was in Jesus, _could not_ sin.\u201d[349] In short, the\nwhole of the work exhibits the belief of the author in the kabalistic\ndoctrine of permutation. The _Kabala_ teaches the doctrine of\ntransmigration of the spirit.[350] \u201cMosah is the _revolutio_ of Seth\nand Hebel.\u201d[351]\n\n\u201cTell me who it is who brings about the _re-birth_ (the revolutio)?\u201d\nis asked of the wise Hermes. \u201cGod\u2019s Son, the _only man_, through the\nwill of God,\u201d is the answer of the \u201cheathen.\u201d[352]\n\n\u201cGod\u2019s son\u201d is the immortal spirit assigned to every human being. It\nis this divine entity which is the \u201c_only man_,\u201d for the casket which\ncontains our soul, and the soul itself, are but half-entities, and\nwithout its overshadowing both body and astral soul, the two are but\nan animal _duad_. It requires a trinity to form the complete \u201cman,\u201d\nand allow him to remain immortal at every \u201cre-birth,\u201d or _revolutio_,\nthroughout the subsequent and ascending spheres, every one of which\nbrings him nearer to the refulgent realm of eternal and _absolute_\nlight.\n\n\u201cGod\u2019s FIRST-BORN, who is the \u2018holy Veil,\u2019 the \u2018Light of Lights,\u2019 it\nis he who sends the revolutio of the Delegatus, for he is the _First\nPower_,\u201d says the kabalist.[353]\n\n\u201cThe pneuma (spirit) and the dunamis (power), which is from the God,\nit is right to consider nothing else than the _Logos_, who is _also_\n(?) First-begotten to the God,\u201d argues a Christian.[354]\n\n\u201cAngels and powers are in heaven!\u201d says Justin, thus bringing forth\na purely kabalistic doctrine. The Christians adopted it from the\n_Sohar_ and the h\u00e6retical sects, and if Jesus mentioned them, it\nwas not in the official synagogues that he learned the theory,\nbut directly in the kabalistic teachings. In the Mosaic books,\nvery little mention is made of them, and Moses, who holds direct\ncommunications with the \u201cLord God,\u201d troubles himself very little\nabout them. The doctrine was a secret one, and deemed by the orthodox\nsynagogue heretical. Josephus calls the Essenes heretics, saying:\n\u201cThose admitted among the Essenes must swear to communicate their\ndoctrines to no one any otherwise _than as he received them himself_,\nand equally to preserve the books _belonging to their sect_, and the\n_names of the angels_.\u201d[355] The Sadducees did not believe in angels,\nneither did the uninitiated Gentiles, who limited their Olympus to\ngods and demi-gods, or \u201cspirits.\u201d Alone, the kabalists and theurgists\nhold to that doctrine from time immemorial, and, as a consequence,\nPlato, and Philo Jud\u00e6us after him, followed first by the Gnostics,\nand then by the Christians.\n\nThus, if Josephus never wrote the famous interpolation forged by\nEusebius, concerning Jesus, on the other hand, he has described in\nthe Essenes all the principal features that we find prominent in\nthe Nazarene. When praying, they sought solitude.[356] \u201cWhen thou\nprayest, enter into thy closet ... and pray to thy Father which is in\nsecret\u201d (_Matthew_ vi. 6). \u201cEverything spoken by them (Essenes) is\nstronger than an oath. Swearing is shunned by them\u201d (_Josephus_ II.,\nviii., 6). \u201cBut I say unto you, swear not at all ... but let your\ncommunication be yea, yea; nay, nay\u201d (_Matthew_ v. 34-37).\n\nThe Nazarenes, as well as the Essenes and the Therapeut\u00e6, believed\nmore in their own interpretations of the \u201chidden sense\u201d of the more\nancient Scriptures, than in the later laws of Moses. Jesus, as we\nhave shown before, felt but little veneration for the commandments of\nhis predecessor, with whom Iren\u00e6us is so anxious to connect him.\n\nThe Essenes \u201center into the houses of _those whom they never saw\npreviously_, as if they were their intimate friends\u201d (_Josephus_ II.,\nviii., 4). Such was undeniably the custom of Jesus and his disciples.\n\nEpiphanius, who places the Ebionite \u201cheresy\u201d on one level with that\nof the Nazarenes, also remarks that the Nazaraioi come next to the\nCerinthians,[357] so much vituperated against by Iren\u00e6us.[358]\n\nMunk, in his work on _Palestine_, affirms that there were 4,000\nEssenes living in the desert; that they had their mystical books,\nand predicted the future.[359] The Nabatheans, with very little\ndifference indeed, adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and\nthe Sabeans, and all of them honored John the Baptist more than\nhis successor Jesus. The Persian Iezidi say that they originally\ncame to Syria from Busrah. They use baptism, and believe in seven\narchangels, though paying at the same time reverence to Satan. Their\nprophet Iezed, who flourished long prior to Mahomet,[360] taught that\nGod will send a messenger, and that the latter would reveal to him\na book which is already written in heaven from the eternity.[361]\nThe Nabatheans inhabited the Lebanon, as their descendants do to\nthe present day, and their religion was from its origin purely\nkabalistic. Maimonides speaks of them as if he identified them with\nthe Sabeans. \u201cI will mention to thee the writings ... respecting\nthe belief and institutions of the _Sabeans_,\u201d he says. \u201cThe most\nfamous is the book _The Agriculture of the Nabath\u00e6ans_, which has\nbeen translated by Ibn Wahohijah. This book is full of heathenish\nfoolishness.... It speaks of the preparations of TALISMANS, the\ndrawing down of the powers of the SPIRITS, MAGIC, DEMONS, and ghouls,\nwhich make their abode in the desert.\u201d[362]\n\nThere are traditions among the tribes living scattered about _beyond_\nthe Jordan, as there are many such also among the descendants of the\nSamaritans at Damascus, Gaza, and at Naplosa (the ancient Shechem).\nMany of these tribes have, notwithstanding the persecutions of\neighteen centuries, retained the faith of their fathers in its\nprimitive simplicity. It is there that we have to go for traditions\nbased on _historical_ truths, however disfigured by exaggeration\nand inaccuracy, and compare them with the religious legends of the\nFathers, which they call revelation. Eusebius states that before\nthe siege of Jerusalem the small Christian community--comprising\nmembers of whom many, if not all, knew Jesus and his apostles\npersonally--took refuge in the little town of Pella, on the opposite\nshore of the Jordan. Surely these simple people, separated for\ncenturies from the rest of the world, ought to have preserved their\ntraditions fresher than any other nations! It is in Palestine that\nwe have to search for the _clearest_ waters of Christianity, let\nalone its source. The first Christians, after the death of Jesus, all\njoined together for a time, whether they were Ebionites, Nazarenes,\nGnostics, or others. They had no Christian dogmas in those days, and\ntheir Christianity consisted in believing Jesus to be a prophet,\nthis belief varying from seeing in him simply a \u201cjust man,\u201d[363] or\na holy, inspired prophet, a vehicle used by Christos and Sophia to\nmanifest themselves through. These all united together in opposition\nto the synagogue and the tyrannical technicalities of the Pharisees,\nuntil the primitive group separated in two distinct branches--which,\nwe may correctly term the Christian kabalists of the Jewish Tana\u00efm\nschool, and the Christian kabalists of the Platonic Gnosis.[364] The\nformer were represented by the party composed of the followers of\nPeter, and John, the author of the _Apocalypse_; the latter ranged\nwith the Pauline Christianity, blending itself, at the end of the\nsecond century, with the Platonic philosophy, and engulfing, still\nlater, the Gnostic sects, whose symbols and misunderstood mysticism\noverflowed the Church of Rome.\n\nAmid this jumble of contradictions, what Christian is secure in\nconfessing himself such? In the old Syriac _Gospel according to Luke_\n(iii. 22), the Holy Spirit is said to have descended in the likeness\nof a dove. \u201cJesua, full of the sacred Spirit, returned from Jordan,\nand the Spirit led him into the desert\u201d (old Syriac, _Luke_ iv. 1,\n_Tremellius_). \u201cThe difficulty,\u201d says Dunlap, \u201cwas that the Gospels\ndeclared that John the Baptist saw the Spirit (the Power of God)\ndescend upon Jesus after he had reached manhood, and if the Spirit\nthen first descended upon him, there was some ground for the opinion\nof the Ebionites and Nazarenes who denied his _preceding_ existence,\nand refused him the attributes of the LOGOS. The Gnostics, on the\nother hand, objected to the flesh, but conceded the Logos.\u201d[365]\n\nJohn\u2019s _Apocalypsis_, and the explanations of sincere Christian\nbishops, like Synesius, who, to the last, adhered to the Platonic\ndoctrines, make us think that the wisest and safest way is to hold\nto that sincere primitive faith which seems to have actuated the\nabove-named bishop. This best, sincerest, and most unfortunate of\nChristians, addressing the \u201cUnknown,\u201d exclaims: \u201cOh Father of the\nWorlds ... Father of the \u00c6ons ... _Artificer of the Gods_, it is holy\nto praise!\u201d But Synesius had Hypatia for instructor, and this is why\nwe find him confessing in all sincerity his opinions and profession\nof faith. \u201cThe rabble desires nothing better than to be deceived....\nAs regards myself, therefore, _I will always be a philosopher with\nmyself_, but I _must be priest_ with the people.\u201d\n\n\u201cHoly is God the Father of all being, holy is God, whose wisdom is\ncarried out into execution by his own Powers!... Holy art Thou, who\nthrough the Word had created all! Therefore, I believe in Thee, and\nbear testimony, and go into the LIFE and LIGHT.\u201d[366] Thus speaks\nHermes Trismegistus, the heathen divine. What Christian bishop could\nhave said better than that?\n\nThe apparent discrepancy of the four gospels as a whole, does not\nprevent every narrative given in the _New Testament_--however much\ndisfigured--having a ground-work of truth. To this, are cunningly\nadapted details made to fit the later exigencies of the Church. So,\npropped up partially by indirect evidence, still more by blind faith,\nthey have become, with time, articles of faith. Even the fictitious\nmassacre of the \u201cInnocents\u201d by King Herod has a certain foundation\nto it, in its allegorical sense. Apart from the now-discovered fact\nthat the whole story of such a massacre of the Innocents is bodily\ntaken from the Hindu _Bagaved-gitta_, and Brahmanical traditions, the\nlegend refers, moreover, allegorically, to an historical fact. King\nHerod is the type of Kansa, the tyrant of Madura, the maternal uncle\nof Christna, to whom astrologers predicted that a son of his niece\nDevaki would deprive him of his throne. Therefore he gives orders to\nkill the male child that is born to her; but Christna escapes his\nfury through the protection of Mahadeva (the great God) who causes\nthe child to be carried away to another city, out of Kansa\u2019s reach.\nAfter that, in order to be sure and kill the right boy, on whom he\nfailed to lay his murderous hands, Kansa has all the male newborn\ninfants within his kingdom killed. Christna is also worshipped by the\ngopas (the shepherds) of the land.\n\nThough this ancient Indian legend bears a very suspicious resemblance\nto the more modern biblical romance, Gaffarel and others attribute\nthe origin of the latter to the persecutions during the Herodian\nreign of the kabalists and the _Wise men_, who had not remained\nstrictly orthodox. The latter, as well as the prophets, were\nnicknamed the \u201cInnocents,\u201d and the \u201cBabes,\u201d on account of their\nholiness. As in the case of certain degrees of modern Masonry, the\nadepts reckoned their grade of initiation by a _symbolic_ age. Thus\nSaul who, when chosen king, was \u201ca choice and goodly man,\u201d and \u201cfrom\nhis shoulders upward was higher than any of the people,\u201d is described\nin Catholic versions, as \u201cchild of _one year_ when he began to\nreign,\u201d which, in its literal sense, is a palpable absurdity. But in\n_1 Samuel_ x., his anointing by Samuel and initiation are described;\nand at verse 6th, Samuel uses this significant language: \u201c... the\nSpirit of the Lord will come upon thee and thou shalt prophesy with\nthem, _and shalt be turned into another man_.\u201d The phrase above\nquoted is thus made plain--he had received one degree of initiation\nand was symbolically described as \u201ca child one year old.\u201d The\nCatholic _Bible_, from which the text is quoted, with charming candor\nsays in a foot-note: \u201cIt is extremely difficult to explain\u201d (meaning\nthat Saul was a child of one year). But undaunted by any difficulty\nthe Editor, nevertheless, does take upon himself to explain it, and\nadds: \u201c_A child of one year._ That is, _he was good and like an\ninnocent child_.\u201d An interpretation as ingenious as it is pious; and\nwhich if it does no good can certainly do no harm.[367]\n\nIf the explanation of the kabalists is rejected, then the whole\nsubject falls into confusion; worse still--for it becomes a direct\nplagiarism from the Hindu legend. All the commentators have agreed\nthat a litteral massacre of young children is nowhere mentioned in\nhistory; and that, moreover, an occurrence like that would have made\nsuch a bloody page in Roman annals that the record of it would have\nbeen preserved for us by every author of the day. Herod himself was\nsubject to the Roman law; and undoubtedly he would have paid the\npenalty of such a monstrous crime, with his own life. But if, on the\none hand, we have not the slightest trace of this fable in history,\non the other, we find in the official complaints of the Synagogue\nabundant evidence of the persecution of the initiates. The _Talmud_\nalso corroborates it.\n\nThe Jewish version of the birth of Jesus is recorded in the\n_Sepher-Toldos Jeshu_ in the following words:\n\n\u201cMary having become the mother of a Son, named Jehosuah, and the boy\ngrowing up, she entrusted him to the care of the Rabbi Elhanan, and\nthe child progressed in knowledge, for he was well gifted with spirit\nand understanding.\n\n\u201cRabbi Jehosuah, son of Perachiah, continued the education of\nJehosuah (Jesus) after Elhanan, and _initiated_ him in the _secret_\nknowledge;\u201d but the King, Janneus, having given orders to slay all\nthe initiates, Jehosuah Ben Perachiah, fled to Alexandria, in Egypt,\ntaking the boy with him.\n\nWhile in Alexandria, continues the story, they were received in the\nhouse of a rich and learned lady (personified Egypt). Young Jesus\nfound her beautiful, notwithstanding \u201c_a defect in her eyes_,\u201d and\ndeclared so to his master. Upon hearing this, the latter became so\nangry that his pupil should find in the land of bondage anything\ngood, that \u201che cursed him and drove the young man from his presence.\u201d\nThen follow a series of adventures told in allegorical language,\nwhich show that Jesus supplemented his initiation in the Jewish\n_Kabala_ with an additional acquisition of the secret wisdom of\nEgypt. When the persecution ceased, they both returned to Judea.[368]\n\nThe real grievances against Jesus are stated by the learned author of\n_Tela Ignea Satan\u00e6_ (the fiery darts of Satan) to be two in number:\n1st, that he had discovered the great Mysteries of their Temple, by\nhaving been initiated in Egypt; and 2d, that he had profaned them by\nexposing them to the vulgar, who misunderstood and disfigured them.\nThis is what they say:[369]\n\n\u201cThere exists, in the sanctuary of the living God, a cubical stone,\non which are sculptured the holy characters, the combination of\nwhich gives the explanation of the attributes and powers of the\nincommunicable name. This explanation is the secret key of all the\noccult sciences and forces in nature. It is what the Hebrews call the\n_Scham hamphorash_. This stone is watched by two lions of gold, who\nroar as soon as it is approached.[370] The gates of the temple were\nnever lost sight of, and the door of the sanctuary opened but once\na year, to admit the High Priest alone. But Jesus, who had learned\nin Egypt the \u2018great secrets\u2019 at the initiation, forged for himself\ninvisible keys, and thus was enabled to penetrate into the sanctuary\nunseen.... He copied the characters on the cubical stone, and hid\nthem in his thigh;[371] after which, emerging from the temple, he\nwent abroad and began astounding people with his miracles. The dead\nwere raised at his command, the leprous and the obsessed were healed.\nHe forced the stones which lay buried for ages at the bottom of\nthe sea to rise to the surface until they formed a mountain, from\nthe top of which he preached.\u201d The _Sepher Toldos_ states further\nthat, _unable to displace_ the cubical stone of the sanctuary, Jesus\nfabricated one of clay, which he showed to the nations and passed it\noff for the true cubical stone of Israel.\n\nThis allegory, like the rest of them in such books, is written\n\u201c_inside and outside_\u201d--it has its secret meaning, and ought to be\nread two ways. The kabalistic books explain its mystical meaning.\nFurther, the same Talmudist says, in substance, the following: Jesus\nwas thrown in prison,[372] and kept there forty days; then flogged\nas a seditious rebel; then stoned as a blasphemer in a place called\nLud, and finally allowed to expire upon a cross. \u201cAll this,\u201d explains\nLevi, \u201cbecause he revealed to the people the truths which they\n(the Pharisees) wished to bury for their own use. He had divined\nthe occult theology of Israel, had compared it with the wisdom\nof Egypt, and found thereby the reason for a universal religious\nsynthesis.\u201d[373]\n\nHowever cautious one ought to be in accepting anything about Jesus\nfrom Jewish sources, it must be confessed that in some things they\nseem to be more correct in their statements (whenever their direct\ninterest in stating facts is not concerned) than our good but too\njealous Fathers. One thing is certain, James, the \u201cBrother of the\nLord,\u201d is silent about the _resurrection_. He terms Jesus nowhere\n\u201cSon of God,\u201d nor even Christ-God. Once only, speaking of Jesus, he\ncalls him the \u201cLord of Glory,\u201d but so do the Nazarenes when writing\nabout their prophet _Iohanan bar Zacharia_, or John, son of Zacharias\n(St. John Baptist). Their favorite expressions about their prophet\nare the same as those used by James when speaking of Jesus. A man \u201cof\nthe seed of a man,\u201d \u201cMessenger of Life,\u201d of light, \u201cmy Lord Apostle,\u201d\n\u201cKing sprung of Light,\u201d and so on. \u201cHave not the faith of our _Lord_\nJESUS Christ, _the Lord of Glory_\u201d etc., says James in his epistle\n(ii. 1), presumably addressing Christ as GOD. \u201cPeace to thee, my\n_Lord_, JOHN Abo Sabo, Lord of Glory!\u201d says the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_\n(ii., 19), known to address but a prophet. \u201cYe have condemned and\nkilled the _Just_,\u201d says James (v. 6). \u201cIohanan (John) is the _Just_\none, he comes in the way of _justice_,\u201d says Matthew (xxi. 32, Syriac\ntext).\n\nJames does not even call Jesus _Messiah_, in the sense given to\nthe title by the Christians, but alludes to the kabalistic \u201cKing\nMessiah,\u201d who is Lord of Sabaoth[374] (v. 4), and repeats several\ntimes that the \u201cLord\u201d will come, but identifies the latter nowhere\nwith Jesus. \u201cBe patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the\nLord ... be patient, for the coming of the Lord _draweth nigh_\u201d (v.\n7, 8). And he adds: \u201cTake, my brethren, the prophet (Jesus) _who\nhas spoken in the name of the Lord_ for an example of suffering,\naffliction, and of patience.\u201d Though in the present version the\nword \u201cprophet\u201d stands in the plural, yet this is a deliberate\nfalsification of the original, the purpose of which is too evident.\nJames, immediately after having cited the \u201cprophets\u201d as an example,\nadds: \u201cBehold ... ye have _heard_ of the patience of Job, and _have\nseen the end_ of the Lord\u201d--thus combining the examples of these two\nadmirable characters, and placing them on a perfect equality. But we\nhave more to adduce in support of our argument. Did not Jesus himself\nglorify the prophet of the Jordan? \u201cWhat went ye out for to see? A\nprophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.... Verily,\nI say unto you, among them that are born _of women_ there hath not\nrisen a greater than John the Baptist.\u201d\n\nAnd of whom was he who spoke thus born? It is but the Roman Catholics\nwho have changed Mary, the mother of Jesus, into a _goddess_. In the\neyes of all other Christians she was a woman, whether his own birth\nwas immaculate or otherwise. According to strict logic, then, Jesus\nconfessed John _greater_ than himself. Note how completely this\nmatter is disposed of by the language employed by the Angel Gabriel\nwhen addressing Mary: \u201cBlessed art thou among _women_.\u201d These words\nare unequivocal. He does not adore her as the Mother of God, nor does\nhe call her _goddess_; he does not even address her as \u201cVirgin,\u201d but\nhe calls her _woman_, and only distinguishes her above other women as\nhaving had better fortune, through her purity.\n\nThe Nazarenes were known as Baptists, Sabians, and John\u2019s Christians.\nTheir belief was that the Messiah was not the Son of God, but simply\na prophet who would follow John. \u201cJohanan, the Son of the Abo\nSabo Zachariah, shall say to himself, \u2018Whoever will believe in my\n_justice_ and my BAPTISM shall be joined to my association; he shall\nshare with me the seat which is the abode of life, of the supreme\nMano, and of living fire\u201d (_Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, ii., p. 115). Origen\nremarks \u201cthere are some who said of John (the Baptist) that he was\nthe _anointed_ (Christus).[375] The Angel Rasiel of the kabalists\nis the Angel _Gabriel_ of the Nazarenes, and it is the latter who\nis chosen of all the celestial hierarchy by the Christians to\nbecome the messenger of the \u2018annunciation.\u2019 The genius sent by the\n\u2018Lord of Celsitude\u2019 is \u00c6bel Zivo, whose name is also called GABRIEL\nLegatus.\u201d[376] Paul must have had the sect of the Nazarenes in mind\nwhen he said: \u201cAnd last of all he (Jesus) was seen of me also, as _of\none born out of due time_\u201d (_1 Corinth._, xv. 8), thus reminding his\nlisteners of the expression usual to the Nazarenes, who termed the\nJews \u201cthe abortions, or born out of time.\u201d Paul prides himself of\nbelonging to a h\u00e6resy.[377]\n\nWhen the metaphysical conceptions of the Gnostics, who saw in Jesus\nthe Logos and the anointed, began to gain ground, the earliest\nChristians separated from the Nazarenes, who accused Jesus of\nperverting the doctrines of John, and changing the baptism of the\nJordan.[378] \u201cDirectly,\u201d says Milman, \u201cas it (the Gospel) got\n_beyond_ the borders of Palestine, and the name of \u2018Christ\u2019 had\nacquired sanctity and veneration in the Eastern cities, he became\na kind of _metaphysical impersonation_, while the religion lost\nits purely moral cast and assumed the character of a _speculative\ntheogony_.\u201d[379] The only half-original document that has reached us\nfrom the primitive apostolic days, is the _Logia_ of Matthew. The\nreal, genuine doctrine has remained in the hands of the Nazarenes,\nin this _Gospel of Matthew_ containing the \u201csecret doctrine,\u201d the\n\u201cSayings of Jesus,\u201d mentioned by Papias. These sayings were, no\ndoubt, of the same nature as the small manuscripts placed in the\nhands of the neophytes, who were candidates for the Initiations into\nthe Mysteries, and which contained the _Aporrheta_, the revelations\nof some important rites and symbols. For why should Matthew take such\nprecautions to make them \u201c_secret_\u201d were it otherwise?\n\nPrimitive Christianity had its grip, pass-words, and degrees of\ninitiation. The innumerable Gnostic gems and amulets are weighty\nproofs of it. It is a whole symbolical science. The kabalists were\nthe first to embellish the universal Logos,[380] with such terms\nas \u201cLight of Light,\u201d the Messenger of LIFE and LIGHT,[381] and we\nfind these expressions adopted _in toto_ by the Christians, with the\naddition of nearly all the Gnostic terms such as Pleroma (fulness),\nArchons, \u00c6ons, etc. As to the \u201cFirst-Born,\u201d the First, and the\n\u201cOnly-Begotten,\u201d these are as old as the world. Origen shows the\nword \u201cLogos\u201d as existing among the Brachmanes. \u201cThe _Brachmanes_ say\nthat the God is _Light_, not such as one sees, nor such as the sun\nand fire; but they have the _God_ LOGOS, not the articulate, the\nLogos of the Gnosis, through whom the highest MYSTERIES of the Gnosis\nare seen by the wise.\u201d[382] The _Acts_ and the fourth _Gospel_ teem\nwith Gnostic expressions. The kabalistic: \u201cGod\u2019s first-born emanated\nfrom the Most High,\u201d together with _that which is the \u201cSpirit of\nthe Anointing;\u201d_ and again \u201cthey called him the anointed of the\nHighest,\u201d[383] are reproduced in Spirit and substance by the author\nof the _Gospel according to John_. \u201cThat was _the true light_,\u201d and\n\u201cthe light shineth in darkness.\u201d \u201cAnd the WORD _was made flesh_.\u201d\n\u201cAnd his _fulness_ (pleroma) have all we received,\u201d etc. (_John_ i.\net seq.).\n\nThe \u201cChrist,\u201d then, and the \u201cLogos\u201d existed ages before Christianity;\nthe Oriental Gnosis was studied long before the days of Moses, and we\nhave to seek for the origin of all these in the archaic periods of\nthe primeval Asiatic philosophy. Peter\u2019s second _Epistle_ and Jude\u2019s\nfragment, preserved in the _New Testament_, show by their phraseology\nthat they belong to the kabalistic Oriental Gnosis, for they use\nthe same expressions as did the Christian Gnostics who built a part\nof their system from the Oriental _Kabala_. \u201cPresumptuous are they\n(the Ophites), self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of\nDIGNITIES,\u201d says Peter (2d Epistle ii. 10), the original model for\nthe later abusive Tertullian and Iren\u00e6us.[384] \u201cLikewise (even as\nSodom and Gomorrah) also these _filthy_ dreamers defile the flesh,\ndespise DOMINION and speak evil of DIGNITIES,\u201d says Jude, repeating\nthe very words of Peter, and thereby expressions consecrated in the\n_Kabala_. _Dominion_ is the \u201cEmpire,\u201d the _tenth_ of the kabalistic\nsephiroth.[385] The _Powers_ and Dignities are the subordinate genii\nof the Archangels and Angels of the _Sohar_.[386] These emanations\nare the very life and soul of the _Kabala_ and Zoroastranism; and\nthe _Talmud_ itself, in its present state, is all borrowed from the\n_Zend-avesta_. Therefore, by adopting the views of Peter, Jude, and\nother Jewish apostles, the Christians have become but a dissenting\nsect of the Persians, for they do not even interpret the meaning\nof all such _Powers_ as the true kabalists do. Paul\u2019s warning his\nconverts against the worshipping of angels, shows how well he\nappreciated, even so early as his period, the dangers of borrowing\nfrom a metaphysical doctrine the philosophy of which could be rightly\ninterpreted but by its well-learned adherents, the Magi and the\nJewish Tana\u00efm. \u201cLet no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary\nhumility and _worshipping of angels_, intruding into those things\nwhich he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,\u201d[387]\nis a sentence laid right at the door of Peter and his champions. In\nthe _Talmud_, Michael is Prince of Water, who has _seven_ inferior\nspirits subordinate to him. He is the patron, the guardian angel of\nthe Jews, as Daniel informs us (v. 21), and the Greek Ophites, who\nidentified him with their Ophiomorphos, the personified creation\nof the envy and malice of Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurgus (Creator of\nthe _material_ world), and undertook to prove that he was also\nSamuel, the Hebrew prince of the evil spirits, or Persian devs, were\nnaturally regarded by the Jews as blasphemers. But did Jesus ever\nsanction this belief in angels except in so far as hinting that they\nwere the messengers and subordinates of God? And here the origin of\nthe later splits between Christian beliefs is directly traceable to\nthese two early contradictory views.\n\nPaul, believing in all such occult powers in the world \u201cunseen,\u201d\nbut ever \u201cpresent,\u201d says: \u201cYe walked according to the \u00c6ON of this\nworld, according to the _Archon_ (Ilda-Baoth, the _Demiurg_) that\nhas the domination of the air,\u201d and \u201cWe wrestle not against flesh\nand blood, but against the _dominations_, the _powers_; the lords of\ndarkness, the mischievousness of spirits in the upper regions.\u201d This\nsentence, \u201cYe were dead in sin and error,\u201d for \u201cye walked according\nto the _Archon_,\u201d or Ilda-Baoth, the God and creator of matter of\nthe Ophites, shows unequivocally that: 1st, Paul, notwithstanding\nsome dissensions with the more important doctrines of the Gnostics,\nshared more or less their cosmogonical views on the emanations; and\n2d, that he was fully aware that this Demiurge, whose Jewish name\nwas Jehovah, was _not_ the God preached by Jesus. And now, if we\ncompare the doctrine of Paul with the religious views of Peter and\nJude, we find that, not only did they worship Michael, the Archangel,\nbut that also they _reverenced_ SATAN, because the latter was also,\nbefore his fall, an angel! This they do quite openly, and abuse\nthe Gnostics[388] for speaking \u201cevil\u201d of him. No one can deny the\nfollowing: Peter, when denouncing those who are not afraid to speak\nevil of \u201c_dignities_,\u201d adds immediately, \u201cWhereas angels, which\nare greater in power and might, _bring not railing accusations_\nagainst them (the dignities) before the Lord\u201d (ii. 11). Who are the\ndignities? Jude, in his general epistle, makes the word as clear as\nday. The _dignities_ are the DEVILS!! Complaining of the disrespect\nshown by the Gnostics to the _powers_ and _dominions_, Jude argues\nin the very words of Peter: \u201cAnd yet, Michael, the Archangel, when\ncontending _with the devil_, he disputed about the body of Moses,\n_durst not bring against him a railing accusation_, but said, The\nLord rebuke thee\u201d (i. 9). Is this plain enough? If not, then we have\nthe _Kabala_ to prove who were the _dignities_.\n\nConsidering that _Deuteronomy_ tells us that the \u201c_Lord_\u201d Himself\nburied Moses in a valley of Moab (xxxiv. 6), \u201cand no man knoweth of\nhis sepulchre unto this day,\u201d this biblical _lapsus lingu\u00e6_ of Jude\ngives a strong coloring to the assertions of some of the Gnostics.\nThey claimed but what was secretly taught by the Jewish kabalists\nthemselves; to wit: that the highest supreme God was unknown and\ninvisible; \u201cthe King of Light is a closed eye;\u201d that Ilda-Baoth, the\nJewish second Adam, was the real Demiurge; and that Iao, Adonai,\nSabaoth, and Eloi were the quaternary emanation which formed the\nunity of the God of the Hebrews--Jehovah. Moreover, the latter was\nalso called Michael and Samael by them, and regarded but as an angel,\nseveral removes from the Godhead. In holding to such a belief, the\nGnostics countenanced the teachings of the greatest of the Jewish\ndoctors, Hillel, and other Babylonian divines. Josephus shows the\ngreat deference of the official Synagogue in Jerusalem to the wisdom\nof the schools of Central Asia. The colleges of Sora, Pumbiditha, and\nNahaidea were considered the headquarters of esoteric and theological\nlearning by all the schools of Palestine. The Chaldean version of\nthe _Pentateuch_, made by the well-known Babylonian divine, Onkelos,\nwas regarded as the most authoritative of all; and it is according\nto this learned Rabbi that Hillel and other Tana\u00efm after him held\nthat the Being who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, on Mount\nSinai, and who finally buried him, was the _angel_ of the Lord,\nMemro, and not the Lord Himself; and that he whom the Hebrews of\nthe _Old Testament_ mistook for _Iahoh_ was but His messenger, one\nof His sons, or emanations. All this establishes but one logical\nconclusion--namely, that the Gnostics were by far the superiors\nof the disciples, in point of education and general information;\neven in a knowledge of the religious tenets of the Jews themselves.\nWhile they were perfectly well-versed in the Chaldean wisdom, the\nwell-meaning, pious, but fanatical as well as ignorant disciples,\nunable to fully understand or grasp the religious spirit of their own\nsystem, were driven in their disputations to such convincing logic\nas the use of \u201cbrute beasts,\u201d \u201csows,\u201d \u201cdogs,\u201d and other epithets so\nfreely bestowed by Peter.\n\nSince then, the epidemic has reached the apex of the sacerdotal\nhierarchy. From the day when the founder of Christianity uttered the\nwarning, that he who shall say to his brother, \u201cThou fool, shall\nbe in danger of hell-fire,\u201d all who have passed as its leaders,\nbeginning with the ragged fishermen of Galilee, and ending with\nthe jewelled pontiffs, have seemed to vie with each other in the\ninvention of opprobrious epithets for their opponents. So we find\nLuther passing a final sentence on the Catholics, and exclaiming\nthat \u201cThe Papists are all asses, put them in whatever form you like;\nwhether they are boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, hashed,\nthey will be always the same asses.\u201d Calvin called the victims he\npersecuted, and occasionally burned, \u201cmalicious barking dogs, full of\nbestiality and insolence, base corrupters of the sacred writings,\u201d\netc. Dr. Warburton terms the Popish religion \u201can impious farce,\u201d and\nMonseigneur Dupanloup asserts that the Protestant Sabbath service is\nthe \u201cDevil\u2019s mass,\u201d and all clergymen are \u201cthieves and ministers of\nthe Devil.\u201d\n\nThe same spirit of incomplete inquiry and ignorance has led the\nChristian Church to bestow on its most holy apostles, titles assumed\nby their most desperate opponents, the \u201cH\u00e6retics\u201d and Gnostics.\nSo we find, for instance, Paul termed the vase of election \u201c_Vas\nElectionis_,\u201d a title chosen by _Manes_,[389] the greatest heretic of\nhis day in the eyes of the Church, Manes meaning, in the Babylonian\nlanguage, the chosen vessel or receptacle.[390]\n\nSo with the Virgin Mary. They were so little gifted with originality,\nthat they copied from the Egyptian and Hindu religions their several\napostrophes to their respective Virgin-mothers. The juxtaposition of\na few examples will make this clear.\n\n HINDU.\n _Litany of our Lady Nari: Virgin._ (_Also Devanaki._)\n\n 1. Holy Nari--Mari\u0101ma, Mother of perpetual fecundity.\n 2. Mother of an incarnated God--Vishnu (Devanaki).\n 3. Mother of Christna.\n 4. Eternal Virginity--Kanyab\u00e2va.\n 5. Mother--Pure Essence, Akasa.\n 6. Virgin most chaste--Kanya.\n 7. Mother Taumatra, of the _five_ virtues or elements.\n 8. Virgin Trigana (of the three elements, power or richness,\n love, and mercy).\n 9. Mirror of Supreme Conscience--Ahancara.\n 10. Wise Mother--Saraswati.\n 11. Virgin of the white Lotos, Pedma or Kamala.\n 12. Womb of Gold--Hyrania.\n 13. Celestial Light--Lakshmi.\n 14. Ditto.\n 15. Queen of Heaven, and of the universe--Sakti.\n 16. Mother soul of all beings--Paramatma.\n 17. Devanaki is conceived without sin, and immaculate\n herself. (According to the Brahmanic fancy.)\n\n EGYPTIAN.\n _Litany of our Lady Isis: Virgin._\n\n 1. Holy Isis, universal mother--Muth.\n 2. Mother of Gods--Athyr.\n 3. Mother of Horus.\n 4. Virgo generatrix--Neith.\n 5. Mother-soul of the universe--Anouk\u00e9.\n 6. Virgin sacred earth--Isis.\n 7. Mother of all the virtues--Thmei, with the same\n qualities.\n 8. Illustrious Isis, most powerful, merciful, just. (_Book\n of the Dead._)\n 9. Mirror of Justice and Truth--Thmei.\n 10. Mysterious mother of the world--_Buto_ (secret wisdom).\n 11. Sacred Lotos.\n 12. Sistrum of Gold.\n 13. Astart\u00e9 (Syrian), Astaroth (Jewish).\n 14. Argua of the Moon.\n 15. Queen of Heaven, and of the universe--Sati.\n 16. Model of all mothers--Athor.\n 17. Isis is a Virgin Mother.\n\n ROMAN CATHOLIC.\n _Litany of our Lady of Loretto: Virgin._\n\n 1. Holy Mary, mother of divine grace.\n 2. Mother of God.\n 3. Mother of Christ.\n 4. Virgin of Virgins.\n 5. Mother of Divine Grace.\n 6. Virgin most chaste.\n 7. Mother most pure.\n Mother undefiled.\n Mother inviolate.\n Mother most amiable.\n Mother most admirable.\n 8. Virgin most powerful.\n Virgin most merciful.\n Virgin most faithful.\n 9. Mirror of Justice.\n 10. Seat of Wisdom.\n 11. Mystical Rose.\n 12. House of Gold.\n 13. Morning Star.\n 14. Ark of the Covenant.\n 15. Queen of Heaven.\n 16. Mater Dolorosa.\n 17. Mary conceived without sin. (In accordance with later\n orders.)\n\nIf the Virgin Mary has her nuns, who are consecrated to her and bound\nto live in chastity, so had Isis her nuns in Egypt, as Vesta had hers\nat Rome, and the Hindu Nari, \u201cmother of the world hers.\u201d The virgins\nconsecrated to her cultus--the Devadasi of the temples, who were the\nnuns of the days of old--lived in great chastity, and were objects of\nthe most extraordinary veneration, as the holy women of the goddess.\nWould the missionaries and some travellers reproachfully point to the\nmodern Devadasis, or Nautch-girls? For all response, we would beg\nthem to consult the official reports of the last quarter century,\ncited in chapter II., as to certain discoveries made at the razing\nof convents, in Austria and Italy. Thousands of infants\u2019 skulls were\nexhumed from ponds, subterranean vaults, and gardens of convents.\nNothing to match _this_ was ever found in heathen lands.\n\nChristian theology, getting the doctrine of the archangels and angels\ndirectly from the Oriental _Kabala_, of which the Mosaic _Bible_ is\nbut an allegorical screen, ought at least to remember the hierarchy\ninvented by the former for these personified emanations. The hosts of\nthe Cherubim and Seraphim, with which we generally see the Catholic\nMadonnas surrounded in their pictures, belong, together with the\nElohim and Beni Elohim of the Hebrews, to the _third_ kabalistic\nworld, _Jezirah_. This world is but one remove higher than _Asiah_,\nthe fourth and lowest world, in which dwell the grossest and most\nmaterial beings--the _klippoth_, who delight in evil and mischief,\nand whose chief is _Belial_!\n\nExplaining, in his way, of course, the various \u201cheresies\u201d of the\nfirst two centuries, Iren\u00e6us says: \u201cOur H\u00e6retics hold ... that\nPROPATOR is known but to the _only-begotten_ son, that is to the\n_mind_\u201d (the nous). It was the Valentinians, the followers of the\n\u201cprofoundest doctor of the Gnosis,\u201d Valentinus, who held that \u201cthere\nwas a perfect AI\u00d4N, who existed before Bythos, or Buthon (the Depth),\ncalled Propator.\u201d This is again kabalistic, for in the _Sohar_ of\nSimon Ben Iocha\u00ef, we read the following: \u201c_Senior occultatus est\net absconditus; Microprosopus manifestus est, et non manifestus_\u201d\n(Rosenroth: _The Sohar Liber Mysteries_, iv., 1).\n\nIn the religious metaphysics of the Hebrews, the Highest One is an\nabstraction; he is \u201cwithout form or being,\u201d \u201cwith no likeness with\nanything else.\u201d[391] And even Philo calls the Creator, the _Logos_\nwho stands next God, \u201cthe SECOND God.\u201d \u201cThe _second_ God who is his\nWISDOM.\u201d[392] God is NOTHING, he is nameless, and therefore called\n_Ain-Soph_--the word _Ain_ meaning _nothing_.[393] But if, according\nto the older Jews, Jehovah is _the_ God, and He manifested Himself\nseveral times to Moses and the prophets, and the Christian Church\nanathematized the Gnostics who denied the fact--how comes it, then,\nthat we read in the fourth gospel that \u201c_No man hath seen God_ AT ANY\nTIME, but the _only-begotten_ Son ... he hath declared him?\u201d The very\nwords of the Gnostics, in spirit and substance. This sentence of St.\nJohn--or rather whoever wrote the gospel now bearing his name--floors\nall the Petrine arguments against Simon Magus, without appeal. The\nwords are repeated and emphasized in chapter vi.: \u201c_Not that any\nman hath seen the Father_, save he which is of God, he (Jesus) hath\nseen the Father\u201d (46)--the very objection brought forward by Simon\nin the _Homilies_. These words prove that either the author of the\nfourth evangel had no idea of the existence of the _Homilies_, or\nthat he was _not_ John, the friend and companion of Peter, whom he\ncontradicts point-blank with this emphatic assertion. Be it as it\nmay, this sentence, like many more that might be profitably cited,\nblends Christianity completely with the Oriental Gnosis, and hence\nwith the KABALA.\n\nWhile the doctrines, ethical code, and observances of the Christian\nreligion were all appropriated from Brahmanism and Buddhism, its\nceremonials, vestments, and pageantry were taken bodily from Lamaism.\nThe Romish monastery and nunnery are almost servile copies of similar\nreligious houses in Thibet and Mongolia, and interested explorers\nof Buddhist lands, when obliged to mention the unwelcome fact,\nhave had no other alternative left them but, with an anachronism\nunsurpassed in recklessness, to charge the offense of plagiarism upon\nthe religious system their own mother Church had despoiled. This\nmakeshift has served its purpose and had its day. The time has at\nlast come when this page of history must be written.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n \u201cLearn to know all, but keep thyself unknown.\u201d--GNOSTIC MAXIM.\n\n\n \u201cThere is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,\n Whose form is not like unto man\u2019s, and as unlike his nature;\n But vain mortals imagine that gods _like themselves are begotten_\n With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members.\u201d\n --XENOPHANES: _Clem. Al. Strom._, v. 14, \u00a7 110.\n\n \u201cTYCHIADES.--Can you tell me the reason, Philocles, why most\n men desire to lye, and delight not only to speak fictions\n themselves, but give busie attention to others who do?\n \u201cPHILOCLES.--There be many reasons, Tychiades, which compell\n some to speak lyes, because they see \u2019tis profitable.\u201d--_A\n Dialogue of Lucian._\n\n\n \u201cSPARTAN.--Is it to thee, or to God, that I must confess?\n \u201cPRIEST.--To God.\n \u201cSPARTAN.--Then, MAN, stand back!\u201d--PLUTARCH: _Remarkable\n Lacedemonian Sayings_.\n\n\nWe will now give attention to some of the most important Mysteries of\nthe _Kabala_, and trace their relations to the philosophical myths of\nvarious nations.\n\nIn the oldest Oriental _Kabala_, the Deity is represented as three\ncircles in one, shrouded in a certain smoke or chaotic exhalation.\nIn the preface to the _Sohar_, which transforms the three primordial\ncircles into THREE HEADS, over these is described an exhalation or\nsmoke, neither black nor white, but colorless, and circumscribed\nwithin a circle. This is the unknown Essence.[394] The origin of\nthe Jewish image may, perhaps, be traced to Hermes\u2019 _Pimander_, the\nEgyptian _Logos_, who appears within a cloud of a humid nature, with\na smoke escaping from it.[395] In the _Sohar_ the highest God is, as\nwe have shown in the preceding chapter, and as in the case of the\nHindu and Buddhist philosophies, a pure abstraction, whose objective\nexistence is denied by the latter. It is Hakama, the \u201cSUPREME WISDOM,\nthat cannot be understood by reflection,\u201d and that lies within and\nwithout the CRANIUM of LONG FACE[396] (Sephira), the uppermost of the\nthree \u201cHeads.\u201d It is the \u201cboundless and the infinite En-Soph,\u201d the\nNo-Thing.\n\nThe \u201cthree Heads,\u201d superposed above each other, are evidently taken\nfrom the three mystic triangles of the Hindus, which also superpose\neach other. The highest \u201chead\u201d contains the _Trinity in Chaos_, out\nof which springs the manifested trinity. En-Soph, the unrevealed\nforever, who is boundless and unconditioned, cannot create, and\ntherefore it seems to us a great error to attribute to him a\n\u201ccreative thought,\u201d as is commonly done by the interpreters. In every\ncosmogony this supreme Essence is _passive_; if boundless, infinite,\nand unconditioned, it can have no _thought_ nor _idea_. It acts not\nas the result of volition, but in obedience to its own nature,\nand _according to the fatality of the law of which it is itself\nthe embodiment_. Thus, with the Hebrew kabalists, En-Soph is\nnon-existent \u05e2\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05df, for it is incomprehensible to our finite intellects,\nand therefore cannot exist to our minds. Its first emanation was\nSephira, the crown \u05db\u05ea\u05e8. When the time for an active period had\ncome, then was produced a natural expansion of this Divine\nessence from within outwardly, obedient to eternal and immutable\nlaw; and from this eternal and infinite light (which to us is\ndarkness) was emitted a spiritual substance.[397] This was the\nFirst Sephiroth, containing in herself the other nine \u05e1\u05e4\u05d9\u05e8\u05d5\u05ea Sephiroth,\nor intelligences. In their totality and unity they represent the\narchetypal man, Adam Kadmon, the \u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, who in his individuality\nor unity is yet dual, or bisexual, the Greek _Didumos_, for he is the\nprototype of all humanity. Thus we obtain three trinities, each\ncontained in a \u201chead.\u201d In the first head, or face (the three-faced\nHindu Trimurti), we find _Sephira_, the first androgyne, at the apex\nof the upper triangle, emitting _Hackama_, or Wisdom, a masculine and\nactive potency--also called Jah, \u05d9\u05d4--and _Binah_, \u05d1\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4, or Intelligence,\na female and passive potency, also represented by the name Jehovah \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4.\nThese three form the first trinity or \u201cface\u201d of the Sephiroth. This\ntriad emanated _Hesed_, \u05d7\u05e1\u05d3, or Mercy, a masculine active potency,\nalso called _El_, from which emanated _Geburah_ \u05d3\u05d9\u05df, or Justice, also\ncalled Eloha, a feminine passive potency; from the union of these\ntwo was produced Tiphereth \u05ea\u05e4\u05d0\u05e8\u05ea, Beauty, Clemency, the Spiritual\nSun, known by the divine name _Elohim_; and the second triad, \u201cface,\u201d\nor \u201chead,\u201d was formed. These emanating, in their turn, the masculine\npotency _Netzah_, \u05e0\u05e6\u05d7, Firmness, or Jehovah Sabaoth, who issued the\nfeminine passive potency _Hod_, \u05d4\u05d5\u05d3, Splendor, or Elohim Sabaoth; the\ntwo produced _Jesod_, \u05d9\u05e1\u05d5\u05d3, Foundation, who is the mighty living one\n_El-Chai_, thus yielding the third trinity or \u201chead.\u201d The tenth\nSephiroth is rather a duad, and is represented on the diagrams as the\nlowest circle. It is Malchuth or Kingdom, \u05de\u05dc\u05db\u05d5\u05ea, and Shekinah \u05e9\u05db\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4,\nalso called Adonai, and _Cherubim_ among the angelic hosts. The first\n\u201cHead\u201d is called the Intellectual world; the second \u201cHead\u201d is the\nSensuous, or the world of Perception, and the third is the Material or\nPhysical world.\n\n\u201cBefore he gave any shape to the universe,\u201d says the _Kabala_,\n\u201cbefore he produced any form, he was alone without any form and\nresemblance to anything else. Who, then, can comprehend him, how\nhe was before the creation, since he was formless? Hence, it is\nforbidden to represent him by any form, similitude, or even by his\nsacred name, by a single letter, or a single point.... The Aged of\nthe Aged, the Unknown of the Unknown, has a form, and yet no form. He\nhas a form whereby the universe is preserved, and yet has no form,\nbecause he cannot be comprehended. When he first assumed a form (in\nSephira, his first emanation), he caused nine splendid lights to\nemanate from it.\u201d[398]\n\nAnd now we will turn to the Hindu esoteric Cosmogony and definition\nof \u201cHim who is, and yet is not.\u201d\n\n\u201cFrom him who is,[399] from this immortal Principle which exists in\nour minds but cannot be perceived by the senses, is born Purusha, the\nDivine male and female, who became _Narayana_, or the Divine Spirit\nmoving on the water.\u201d\n\nSwayambhuva, the unknown essence of the Brahmans, is identical with\nEn-Soph, the unknown essence of the kabalists. As with the latter,\nthe ineffable name could not be pronounced by the Hindus, under the\npenalty of death. In the ancient primitive trinity of India, that\nwhich may be certainly considered as pre-Vedic, the _germ_ which\nfecundates the _mother-principle_, the mundane egg, or the universal\nwomb, is called _Nara_, the Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, which\nemanates from the primordial essence. It is like Sephira, the oldest\nemanation, called the _primordial point_, and the _White Head_, for\nit is the point of divine light appearing from within the fathomless\nand boundless darkness. In _Manu_ it is \u201cNARA, or the Spirit of God,\nwhich moves on Ayana (Chaos, or place of motion), and is called\nNARAYANA, or moving on the waters.\u201d[400] In Hermes, the Egyptian, we\nread: \u201cIn the beginning of the time there was naught in the chaos.\u201d\nBut when the \u201c_verbum_,\u201d issuing from the void like a \u201ccolorless\nsmoke,\u201d makes its appearance, then \u201cthis verbum moved on the humid\nprinciple.\u201d[401] And in _Genesis_ we find: \u201cAnd darkness was upon\nthe face of the deep (chaos). And the Spirit of God moved upon the\nface of the waters.\u201d In the _Kabala_, the emanation of the primordial\npassive principle (Sephira), by dividing itself into two parts,\nactive and passive, emits Chochma-Wisdom and Binah-Jehovah, and in\nconjunction with these two acolytes, which complete the trinity,\nbecomes the Creator of the abstract Universe; the physical world\nbeing the production of later and still more material powers.[402] In\nthe Hindu Cosmogony, Swayambhuva emits Nara and Nari, its bisexual\nemanation, and dividing its parts into two halves, male and female,\nthese fecundate the mundane egg, within which develops Brahma, or\nrather Viradj, the Creator. \u201cThe starting-point of the Egyptian\nmythology,\u201d says Champollion, \u201cis a triad ... namely, Kneph, Neith,\nand Phtah; and Ammon, the male, the father; Muth, the female and\nmother; and Khons, the son.\u201d\n\nThe ten Sephiroth are copies taken from the ten Pr\u00e2djapatis created\nby Viradj, called the \u201cLords of all beings,\u201d and answering to the\nbiblical Patriarchs.\n\nJustin Martyr explains some of the \u201cheresies\u201d of the day, but in a\nvery unsatisfactory manner. _He shows, however, the identity of all\nthe world-religions at their starting-points._ The first _beginning_\nopens invariably with the _unknown_ and passive deity, producing\nfrom himself a certain active power or virtue, \u201cRational,\u201d which is\nsometimes called WISDOM, sometimes the SON, very often God, Angel,\nLord, and LOGOS.[403] The latter is sometimes applied to the very\nfirst emanation, but in several systems it proceeds from the first\nandrogyne or double ray produced at the beginning by the unseen.\nPhilo depicts this wisdom as male and female. But though its first\nmanifestation had a beginning, for it proceeded from _Oulom_[404]\n(Ai\u00f4n, time), the highest of the \u00c6ons, when emitted from the Fathers,\nit had remained with him _before all creations_, for it is part of\nhim.[405] Therefore, Philo Jud\u00e6us calls Adam Kadmon \u201c_mind_\u201d (the\nEnnoia of _Bythos_ in the Gnostic system). \u201cThe mind, let it be named\nAdam.\u201d[406]\n\nStrictly speaking, it is difficult to view the Jewish _Book of\nGenesis_ otherwise than as a chip from the trunk of the mundane tree\nof universal Cosmogony, rendered in Oriental allegories. As cycle\nsucceeded cycle, and one nation after another came upon the world\u2019s\nstage to play its brief part in the majestic drama of human life,\neach new people evolved from ancestral traditions its own religion,\ngiving it a local color, and stamping it with its individual\ncharacteristics. While each of these religions had its distinguishing\ntraits, by which, were there no other archaic vestiges, the physical\nand psychological status of its creators could be estimated, all\npreserved a common likeness to one prototype. This parent cult was\nnone other than the primitive \u201cwisdom-religion.\u201d The Israelitish\n_Scriptures_ are no exception. Their national history--if they can\nclaim any autonomy before the return from Babylon, and were anything\nmore than migratory septs of Hindu pariahs, cannot be carried back\na day beyond Moses; and if this ex-Egyptian priest must, from\ntheological necessity, be transformed into a Hebrew patriarch, we\nmust insist that the Jewish nation was lifted with that smiling\ninfant out of the bulrushes of Lake Moeris. Abraham, their alleged\nfather, belongs to the universal mythology. Most likely he is but one\nof the numerous aliases of _Zeruan_ (Saturn), the king of the golden\nage, who is also called the old man (emblem of time).[407]\n\nIt is now demonstrated by Assyriologists that in the old Chaldean\nbooks Abraham is called Zeru-an, or Zerb-an--meaning one very rich in\ngold and silver, and a mighty prince.[408] He is also called Zarouan\nand Zarman--a decrepit old man.[409]\n\nThe ancient Babylonian legend is that Xisuthrus (Hasisadra of the\nTablets, or Xisuthrus) sailed with his ark to Armenia, and his son\nSim became supreme king. Pliny says that Sim was called Zeruan; and\nSim is Shem. In Hebrew, his name writes \u05e9\u05dd, _Shem_--a sign. Assyria\nis held by the ethnologists to be the land of Shem, and Egypt called\nthat of Ham. Shem, in the tenth chapter of _Genesis_ is made the\nfather of all the children of Eber, of Elam (Oulam or Eilam), and\nAshur (Assur or Assyria). The \u201c_nephelim_,\u201d or fallen men, _Gebers_,\nmighty men spoken of in _Genesis_ (vi. 4), come from _Oulam_, \u201cmen of\n_Shem_.\u201d Even Ophir, which is evidently to be sought for in the India\nof the days of Hiram, is made a descendant of Shem. The records are\npurposely mixed up to make them fit into the frame of the Mosaic\n_Bible_. But _Genesis_, from its first verse down to the last, has\nnaught to do with the \u201cchosen people;\u201d it belongs to the world\u2019s\nhistory. Its appropriation by the Jewish authors in the days of the\nso-called _restoration_ of the destroyed books of the Israelites, by\nEzra, proves nothing, and, until now, has been self-propped on an\nalleged divine revelation. It is simply a compilation of the universal\nlegends of the universal humanity. Bunsen says that in the \u201cChaldean\ntribe immediately connected with Abraham, we find reminiscences of\ndates disfigured and misunderstood, as genealogies of single men, or\nindications of epochs. The Abrahamic recollections go back at least\nthree millenia beyond the grandfather of Jacob.\u201d[410]\n\nAlexander Polyhistor says that Abraham was born at Kamarina or\n_Uria_, a city of soothsayers, and _invented astronomy_. Josephus\nclaims the same for Terah, Abraham\u2019s father. The tower of Babel was\nbuilt as much by the direct descendants of Shem as by those of the\n\u201caccursed\u201d Ham and Canaan, for the people in those days were \u201cone,\u201d\nand the \u201cwhole earth was of one language;\u201d and Babel was simply an\nastrological tower, and its builders were astrologers and adepts\nof the primitive Wisdom-Religion, or, again, what we term Secret\nDoctrine.\n\nThe Berosian Sybil says: Before the Tower, Zeru-an, Titan, and\nYapetosthe governed the earth, Zeru-an wished to be supreme, but his\ntwo brothers resisted, when their sister, Astlik, intervened and\nappeased them. It was agreed that Zeru-an should rule, but his male\nchildren should be put to death; and strong Titans were appointed to\ncarry this into effect.\n\nSar (circle, saros) is the Babylonian god of the sky. He is also\nAssaros or Asshur (the son of Shem), and Zero--Zero-ana, the\nchakkra, or wheel, boundless time. Hence, as the first step taken by\nZoroaster, while founding his new religion, was to change the most\nsacred deities of the Sanscrit _Veda_ into names of evil spirits, in\nhis Zend _Scriptures_, and even to reject a number of them, we find\nno traces in the _Avesta_ of Chakkra--the symbolic circle of the sky.\n\nElam, another of the sons of Shem, is _Oulam_ \u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd, and refers to an\norder or cycle of events. In _Ecclesiastes_ iii. 11, it is termed\n\u201cworld.\u201d In _Ezekiel_ xxvi. 20, \u201cof old time.\u201d In _Genesis_ iii. 22,\nthe word stands as \u201cforever;\u201d and in chapter ix. 16, \u201ceternal.\u201d\nFinally, the term is completely defined in _Genesis_ vi. 4, in the\nfollowing words: \u201cThere were _nephelim_ (giants, fallen men, or\nTitans) on the earth.\u201d The word is synonymous with \u00c6on, \u03b1\u03b9\u03c9\u03bd. In\n_Proverbs_ viii. 23, it reads: \u201cI was effused from _Oulam_, from\n_Ras_\u201d (wisdom). By this sentence, the wise king-kabalist refers to\none of the mysteries of the human spirit--the immortal crown of the\nman-trinity. While it ought to read as above, and be interpreted\nkabalistically to mean that the _I_ (or my eternal, immortal _Ego_),\nthe spiritual entity, was effused from the boundless and nameless\neternity, through the creative wisdom of the unknown God, it reads in\nthe canonical translation: \u201cThe Lord possessed me in the beginning of\nhis way, before his works of old!\u201d which is unintelligible nonsense,\nwithout the kabalistic interpretation. When Solomon is made to say\nthat _I_ was \u201cfrom the beginning ... while, as yet, he (the Supreme\nDeity) had not made the earth nor the highest part of the dust of the\nworld ... I was there,\u201d and \u201cwhen he appointed the foundations of the\nearth ... then I was by him, _as one brought up with him_,\u201d what can\nthe kabalist mean by the \u201c_I_,\u201d but his own divine spirit, a drop\neffused from that eternal fountain of light and wisdom--the universal\nspirit of the Deity?\n\nThe thread of glory emitted by En-Soph from the highest of the\nthree kabalistic heads, through which \u201call things shine with\nlight,\u201d the thread which makes its exit through Adam _Primus_, is\nthe individual spirit of every man. \u201cI was daily his (En-Soph\u2019s)\ndelight, rejoicing always before him ... and my delights were\n_with the sons of men_,\u201d adds Solomon, in the same chapter of the\n_Proverbs_. The immortal spirit delights in the _sons of men_, who,\nwithout this spirit, are but dualities (physical body and astral\nsoul, or that _life-principle_ which animates even the lowest of the\nanimal kingdom). But, we have seen that the doctrine teaches that\nthis spirit cannot unite itself with that man in whom matter and the\ngrossest propensities of his animal soul will be ever crowding it\nout. Therefore, Solomon, who is made to speak under the inspiration\nof his own spirit, that possesses him for the time being, utters\nthe following words of wisdom: \u201cHearken unto me, my son\u201d (the dual\nman), \u201cblessed are they who keep my ways.... Blessed is the man that\nheareth me, watching daily at my gates.... For whoso _findeth me,\nfindeth life_, and shall obtain favor of the Lord.... But he that\nsinneth _against me_ wrongeth his _own soul_ ... and loves _death_\u201d\n(_Proverbs_ vii. 1-36).\n\nThis chapter, as interpreted, is made by some theologians, like\neverything else, to apply to Christ, the \u201cSon of God,\u201d who states\nrepeatedly, that he who follows him obtains eternal life, and\nconquers death. But even in its distorted translation it can be\ndemonstrated that it referred to anything but to the alleged Saviour.\nWere we to accept it in this sense, then, the Christian theology\nwould have to return, _nolens volens_, to Averroism and Buddhism;\nto the doctrine of emanation, in short; for Solomon says: \u201cI was\neffused\u201d from Oulam and Rasit, both of which are a part of the\nDeity; and thus Christ would not be as their doctrine claims, God\nhimself, but only an _emanation_ of Him, like the Christos of the\nGnostics. Hence, the meaning of the personified Gnostic \u00c6on, the word\nsignifying cycles or determined periods in the eternity and at the\nsame time, representing a hierarchy of celestial beings--spirits.\nThus Christ is sometimes termed the \u201cEternal \u00c6on.\u201d But the word\n\u201ceternal\u201d is erroneous in relation to the \u00c6ons. Eternal is that which\nhas neither beginning nor end; but the \u201cEmanations\u201d or \u00c6ons, although\nhaving lived as absorbed in the divine essence from the eternity,\nwhen once individually emanated, must be said to have a beginning.\nThey may be therefore _endless_ in this spiritual life, never eternal.\n\nThese endless emanations of the one First Cause, all of which were\ngradually transformed by the popular fancy into distinct gods,\nspirits, angels, and demons, were so little considered immortal,\nthat all were assigned a limited existence. And this belief, common\nto all the peoples of antiquity, to the Chaldean Magi as well as\nto the Egyptians, and even in our day held by the Brahmanists\nand Buddhists, most triumphantly evidences the monotheism of the\nancient religious systems. This doctrine calls the life-period of\nall the inferior divinities, \u201cone day of Parabrahma.\u201d After a cycle\nof fourteen milliards, three hundred and twenty-millions of human\nyears--the tradition says--the trinity itself, with all the lesser\ndivinities, will be annihilated, together with the universe, and\ncease to exist. Then another universe will gradually emerge from the\npralaya (dissolution), and men on earth will be enabled to comprehend\nSWAYAMBHUVA as he is. Alone, this primal cause will exist forever, in\nall his glory, filling the infinite space. What better proof could\nbe adduced of the deep reverential feeling with which the \u201cheathen\u201d\nregard the one Supreme eternal cause of all things visible and\ninvisible.\n\nThis is again the source from which the ancient kabalists derived\nidentical doctrines. If the Christians understood _Genesis_ in\ntheir own way, and, if accepting the texts literally, they enforced\nupon the uneducated masses the belief in a creation of our world\nout of nothing; and moreover assigned to it a _beginning_, it is\nsurely not the Tana\u00efm, the sole expounders of the hidden meaning\ncontained in the _Bible_, who are to be blamed. No more than any\nother philosophers had they ever believed either in spontaneous,\nlimited, or _ex nihilo_ creations. The _Kabala_ has survived to\nshow that their philosophy was precisely that of the modern Nep\u00e4l\nBuddhists, the Sv\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas. They believed _in the eternity and the\nindestructibility of matter_, and hence in many prior creations and\ndestructions of worlds, before our own. \u201cThere were old worlds which\nperished.\u201d[411] \u201cFrom this we see that the Holy One, blessed be His\nname, had successively created and destroyed sundry worlds, before\nhe created the present world; and when he created this world he\nsaid: \u2018This pleases me; the previous ones did not please me.\u2019\u201d[412]\nMoreover, they believed, again like the Sv\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas, now termed\nAtheists, that every thing proceeds (is created) from its own nature\nand that once that the first impulse is given by that Creative Force\ninherent in the \u201cSelf-created substance,\u201d or Sephira, everything\nevolves out of itself, following its pattern, the more spiritual\nprototype which precedes it in the scale of infinite creation. \u201cThe\nindivisible point which has no limit, and cannot be comprehended\n(for it is absolute), expanded from within, and formed a brightness\nwhich served as a garment (a veil) to the indivisible points....\nIt, too, expanded from within.... Thus, _everything originated\nthrough_ a constant upheaving agitation, and thus finally the world\noriginated.\u201d[413]\n\nIn the later Zoroastrian books, after that Darius had restored both\nthe worship of Ormazd and added to it the purer magianism of the\nprimitive _Secret Wisdom_--\u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d5\u05ea\u05be\u05e0\u05e1\u05ea\u05e8\u05d4, of which, as the inscription\ntells us, he was himself a hierophant, we see again reappearing the\nZeru-ana, or boundless time, represented by the Brahmans in the\n_chakkra_, or a circle; that we see figuring on the uplifted finger of\nthe principal deities. Further on, we will show the relation in which\nit stands to the Pythagorean, mystical numbers--the first and the\nlast--which is a _zero_ (0), and to the greatest of the Mystery-Gods\nIAO. The identity of this symbol alone, in all the old religions, is\nsufficient to show their common descent from one primitive Faith.[414]\nThis term of \u201cboundless time,\u201d which can be applied but to the ONE who\nhas neither beginning nor end, is called by the Zoroastrians\nZeruana-Akarene, because he has always existed. \u201cHis glory,\u201d they say,\nis too exalted, his light too resplendent for either human intellect\nor mortal eyes to grasp and see. His primal emanation is eternal light\nwhich, from having been previously concealed in darkness, was called\nout to manifest itself, and thus was formed Ormazd, \u201cthe King of\nLife.\u201d He is the first-born of boundless time, but like his own\nantitype, or pre\u00ebxisting spiritual idea, has lived within primitive\ndarkness from all eternity. His _Logos_ created the pure intellectual\nworld. After the lapse of three grand cycles[415] he created the\nmaterial world in six periods. The six Amshaspands, or _primitive_\nspiritual men, whom Ormazd created in his own image, are the mediators\nbetween this world and himself. Mithras is an emanation of the Logos\nand the chief of the twenty-eight _izeds_, who are the tutelary angels\nover the spiritual portion of mankind--the souls of men. The\n_Ferouers_ are infinite in number. They are the ideas or rather the\nideal conceptions of things which formed themselves in the mind of\nOrmazd or Ahuramazda before he willed them to assume a concrete form.\nThey are what Aristotle terms \u201cprivations\u201d of forms and substances.\nThe religion of Zarathustra, as he is always called in the _Avesta_,\nis one from which the ancient Jews have the most borrowed. In one of\nthe Yashts, Ahuramazda, the Supreme, gives to the seer as one of his\nsacred names, _Ahmi_, \u201cI am;\u201d and in another place, _ahmi yat ahmi_,\n\u201cI am that I am,\u201d as Jehovah is alleged to have given it to Moses.\n\nThis Cosmogony, adopted with a change of names in the Rabbinical\n_Kabala_, found its way, later, with some additional speculations\nof Manes, the half-Magus, half-Platonist, into the great body of\nGnosticism. The real doctrines of the Basilideans, Valentinians, and\nthe Marcionites cannot be correctly ascertained in the prejudiced\nand calumnious writings of the Fathers of the Church; but rather\nin what remains of the works of the Bardesanesians, known as the\nNazarenes. It is next to impossible, now that all their manuscripts\nand books are destroyed, to assign to any of these sects its due part\nin dissenting views. But there are a few men still living who have\npreserved books and direct traditions about the Ophites, although\nthey care little to impart them to the world. Among the unknown sects\nof Mount Lebanon and Palestine the truth has been concealed for more\nthan a thousand years. And their _diagram_ of the Ophite scheme\ndiffers with the description of it given by Origen and hence with the\n_diagram_ of Matter.[416]\n\nThe kabalistic trinity is one of the models of the Christian one.\n\u201cThe ANCIENT whose name be sanctified, is with three heads, but\nwhich make only one.\u201d[417] _Tria capita exsculpa sunt, unum intra\nalterum, et alterum supra alterum._ Three heads are inserted in one\nanother, and one over the other. The first head is the Concealed\nWisdom (_Sapientia Abscondita_). Under this head is the ANCIENT\n(Pythagorean _Monad_), the most hidden of mysteries; a head which is\nno head (_caput quod non est caput_); no one can know what that is\nin this head. No intellect is able to comprehend this wisdom.[418]\nThis _Senior Sanctissimus_ is surrounded by the three heads. He is\nthe eternal LIGHT of the wisdom; and the wisdom is the source from\nwhich all the manifestations have begun. These three heads, included\nin ONE HEAD (which is no head); and these three are bent down\n(overshadow) SHORT-FACE (the son) and through them all things shine\nwith light.[419] \u201cEn-Soph emits a thread from El or _Al_ (the highest\nGod of the Trinity), and the light follows the thread and enters, and\npassing through makes its exit through Adam _Primus_ (Kadmon), who is\n_concealed_ until the plan for arranging (_statum dispositionis_) is\nready; it threads through him from his head to his feet; and in him\n(in the concealed Adam) is the figure of A MAN.\u201d[420]\n\n\u201cWhoso wishes to have an insight into the sacred unity, let him\nconsider a flame rising from a burning coal or a burning lamp. He\nwill see first a two-fold light--a bright white, and a black or blue\nlight; the white light is _above_, and ascends in a direct light,\nwhile the blue, or dark light, is _below_, and seems as the chair of\nthe former, yet both are so intimately connected together that they\nconstitute only one flame. The seat, however, formed by the blue\nor dark light, is again connected with the burning matter which is\n_under_ it again. The white light never changes its color, it always\nremains white; but various shades are observed in the lower light,\nwhilst the lowest light, moreover, takes two directions; _above_,\nit is connected with the white light, and _below_ with the burning\nmatter. Now, this is constantly consuming itself, and perpetually\nascends to the upper light, and thus everything merges into a single\nunity.\u201d[421]\n\nSuch were the ancient ideas of the trinity in the unity, as an\nabstraction. Man, who is the microcosmos of the macrocosmos, or of\nthe archetypal heavenly man, Adam Kadmon, is likewise a trinity; for\nhe is _body_, _soul_, and _spirit_.\n\n\u201cAll that is created by the \u2018Ancient of the Ancients\u2019 can live\nand exist only by a male and a female,\u201d says the Sohar.[422] He\nalone, to whom no one can say, \u201cThou,\u201d for he is the spirit of the\nWHITE-HEAD in whom the \u201cTHREE HEADS\u201d are united, is uncreated.\nOut of the subtile fire, on one side of the White Head, and of\nthe \u201csubtile air,\u201d on the other, emanates Shekinah, his veil (the\nfemininized Holy Ghost). \u201cThis air,\u201d says Idra Rabba, \u201cis the most\noccult (occultissimus) attribute of the Ancient of the Days.[423] The\nAncienter of the Ancienter is the _Concealed_ of the Concealed.[424]\nAll things are Himself, and Himself is concealed on every way.[425]\nThe _cranium_ of the WHITE-HEAD has no beginning, but its end has a\nshining reflection and a _roundness_ which is our universe.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey regard,\u201d says Klenker, \u201cthe first-born as man and wife, in\nso far as his light includes in itself all other lights, and in so\nfar as his spirit of life or breath of life includes all other life\nspirits in itself.\u201d[426] The kabalistic Shekinah answers to the\nOphite Sophia. Properly speaking, Adam Kadmon is the Bythos, but in\nthis emanation-system, where everything is calculated to perplex\nand place an obstacle to inquiry, he is the _Source_ of Light, the\nfirst \u201cprimitive man,\u201d and at the same time _Ennoia_, the Thought of\nBythos, the Depth, for he is Pimander.\n\nThe Gnostics, as well as the Nazarenes, allegorizing on the\npersonification, said that the _First_ and _Second_ man loved the\nbeauty of Sophia, (Sephira) the first woman, and thus the Father\nand the Son fecundated the heavenly \u201cWoman\u201d and, from primal\ndarkness procreated the visible light (Sephira is the Invisible, or\nSpiritual Light), \u201cwhom they called the ANOINTED CHRISTUM, or King\nMessiah.\u201d[427] This Christus is the _Adam of Dust_ before his fall,\nwith the spirit of the Adonai, his Father, and Shekinah Adonai,\nhis mother, upon him; for Adam Primus is Adon, Adonai, or Adonis.\nThe primal existence manifests itself by its wisdom, and produces\nthe _Intelligible_ LOGOS (all visible creation). This wisdom was\nvenerated by the Ophites under the form of a serpent. So far we see\nthat the first and second life are the two Adams, or the first and\nthe second man. In the former lies _Eva_, or the yet unborn spiritual\nEve, and she is within Adam _Primus_, for she is a part of himself,\nwho is androgyne. The Eva of dust, she who will be called in\n_Genesis_ \u201cthe mother of all that live,\u201d is _within_ Adam the Second.\nAnd now, from the moment of its first manifestation, the LORD MANO,\nthe Unintelligible Wisdom, disappears from the scene of action. It\nwill manifest itself only as Shekinah, the GRACE; for the CORONA is\n\u201cthe innermost Light of all Lights,\u201d and hence it is darkness\u2019s own\nsubstance.[428]\n\nIn the _Kabala_, Shekinah is the ninth emanation of Sephira, which\ncontains the whole of the ten Sephiroth within herself. She belongs\nto the third triad and is produced together with _Malchuth_ or\n\u201cKingdom,\u201d of which she is the female counterpart. Otherwise she is\nheld to be higher than any of these; for she is the \u201cDivine Glory,\u201d\nthe \u201cveil,\u201d or \u201cgarment,\u201d of En-Soph. The Jews, whenever she is\nmentioned in the _Targum_, say that she is the glory of Jehovah,\nwhich dwelt in the tabernacle, manifesting herself like a visible\ncloud; the \u201cGlory\u201d rested over the Mercy-Seat in the _Sanctum\nSanctorum_.\n\nIn the Nazarene or Bardesanian System, which may be termed the Kabala\nwithin the Kabala, the Ancient of Days--_Antiquus Altus_, who is the\nFather of the Demiurgus of the universe, is called the _Third_ Life,\nor _Abatur_; and he is the Father of Fetahil, who is the architect\nof the visible universe, which he calls into existence by the powers\nof his genii, at the order of the \u201cGreatest;\u201d the Abatur answering\nto the \u201cFather\u201d of Jesus in the later Christian theology. These two\nsuperior _Lives_ then, are the crown within which dwells the greatest\n_Ferho_. \u201cBefore any creature came into existence the Lord Ferho\nexisted.\u201d[429] This one is the First Life, formless and invisible;\nin whom the living Spirit of LIFE exists, the Highest GRACE. The two\nare ONE from eternity, for they are the Light and the CAUSE of the\nLight. Therefore, they answer to the kabalistic concealed _wisdom_,\nand to the concealed Shekinah--the Holy Ghost. \u201cThis light, which\nis manifested, is the garment of the Heavenly Concealed,\u201d says Idra\nSuta. And the \u201cheavenly man\u201d is the superior Adam. \u201cNo one knows his\npaths except _Macroprosopus_\u201d (Long-face)--the Superior _active_\ngod.[430] \u201cNot as I am _written_ will I be read; in this world my\nname will be written Jehovah and read Adonai,\u201d[431] say the Rabbins,\nvery correctly. Adonai is the Adam Kadmon; he is FATHER and MOTHER\nboth. By this double mediatorship the Spirit of the \u201cAncient of the\nAncient\u201d descends upon the _Microprosopus_ (Short-face) or the Adam\nof Eden. And the \u201cLord God breathes into his nostrils the breath of\nlife.\u201d\n\nWhen the woman separates herself from her androgyne, and becomes a\ndistinct individuality, the first story is repeated over again. Both\nthe Father and Son, the two Adams, love her beauty; and then follows\nthe allegory of the temptation and fall. It is in the _Kabala_, as\nin the Ophite system, in which both the Ophis and the Ophiomorphos\nare emanations emblematized as serpents, the former representing\nEternity, Wisdom, and Spirit (as in the Chaldean Magism of\nAspic-worship and Wisdom-Doctrine in the olden times), and the latter\nCunning, Envy, and Matter. Both spirit and matter are serpents; and\nAdam Kadmon becomes the Ophis who tempts himself--man and woman--to\ntaste of the \u201cTree of Good and Evil,\u201d in order to teach them the\nmysteries of spiritual wisdom. Light tempts Darkness, and Darkness\nattracts Light, for Darkness is _matter_, and \u201cthe _Highest_ Light\nshines not in its _Tenebr\u00e6_.\u201d With knowledge comes the temptation\nof the Ophiomorphos, and he prevails. The dualism of every existing\nreligion is shown forth by the fall. \u201cI have gotten a man from _the\nLord_,\u201d exclaims Eve, when the Dualism, Cain and Abel--evil and\ngood--is born. \u201cAnd the Adam knew Hua, his woman (_astu_), and she\nbecame pregnant and bore _Kin_, and she said: \u05e7\u05d9\u05e0\u05ea\u05d9 \u05d0\u05d9\u05e9 \u05d0\u05ea\u05be\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4: _Kiniti\nais_ Yava.--I have gained or obtained a husband, even _Yava_--Is,\nAis--man.\u201d \u201c_Cum arbore peccati Deus creavit seculum._\u201d\n\nAnd now we will compare this system with that of the Jewish\nGnostics--the Nazarenes, as well as with other philosophies.\n\nThe ISH AMON, the pleroma, or the boundless circle within which lie\n\u201call forms,\u201d is the THOUGHT of the power divine; it works in SILENCE,\nand suddenly light is begotten by darkness; it is called the SECOND\nlife; and this one produces, or generates the THIRD. This third light\nis \u201cthe FATHER of all things that live,\u201d as EUA is the \u201cmother of\nall that live.\u201d He is the Creator who calls inert matter into life,\nthrough his vivifying spirit, and, therefore, is called the ancient\nof the world. Abatur is the Father who creates the first Adam, who\ncreates in his turn the second. Abatur opens a gate and walks to the\ndark water (chaos), and looking down into it, the darkness reflects\nthe image of Himself ... and lo! a SON is formed--the Logos or\nDemiurge; Fetahil, who is the builder of the _material_ world, is\ncalled into existence. According to the Gnostic dogma, this was the\n_Metatron_, the Archangel Gabriel, or messenger of life; or, as the\nbiblical allegory has it, the androgynous Adam-Kadmon again, the SON,\nwho, with his Father\u2019s spirit, produces the ANOINTED, or Adam before\nhis fall.\n\nWhen Swayambhuva, the \u201cLord who exists through himself,\u201d feels\nimpelled to manifest himself, he is thus described in the Hindu\nsacred books.\n\nHaving been impelled to produce various beings from his own divine\nsubstance, he first manifested the waters which developed within\nthemselves a productive seed.\n\nThe seed became a germ bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with\na thousand beams; and in that egg he was born himself, in the form\nof BRAHMA, the great principle of all the beings (_Manu_, book i.,\nslokas 8, 9).\n\nThe Egyptian Kneph, or Chnuphis, Divine Wisdom, represented by a\nserpent, produces an egg from his mouth, from which issues Phtha. In\nthis case Phtha represents the universal germ, as well as Brahm\u00e4,\nwho is of the neuter gender, when the final _a_ has a diaresis on\nit;[432] otherwise it becomes simply one of the names of the Deity.\nThe former was the model of the THREE LIVES of the Nazarenes, as\nthat of the kabalistic \u201cFaces,\u201d PHARAZUPHA, which, in its turn,\nfurnished the model for the Christian Trinity of Iren\u00e6us and his\nfollowers. The egg was the primitive matter which served as a\nmaterial for the building of the visible universe; it contained,\nas well as the Gnostic Pleroma, the kabalistic Shekinah, the man\nand wife, the spirit and life, \u201cwhose light includes all other\nlights\u201d or life-spirits. This first manifestation was symbolized\nby a serpent, which is at first _divine_ wisdom, but, _falling\ninto generation_, becomes polluted. Phtha is the heavenly man, the\nEgyptian Adam-Kadmon, or Christ, who, in conjunction with the female\nHoly Ghost, the ZOE, produces the five elements, air, water, fire,\nearth, and ether; the latter being a servile copy from the Buddhist\nA\u2019d, and his five Dhyana Buddhas, as we have shown in the preceding\nchapter. The Hindu Swayambhuva-Nara, develops from himself the\n_mother-principle_, enclosed within his own divine essence--Nari,\nthe immortal Virgin, who, when impregnated by his spirit, becomes\nTaum\u00e2tra, the mother of the five elements--air, water, fire, earth,\nand ether. Thus may be shown how from the Hindu cosmogony all others\nproceed.\n\nKnorr von Rosenroth, busying himself with the interpretation of the\n_Kabala_, argues that, \u201cIn this first state (of secret wisdom),\nthe infinite God Himself can be understood as \u2018Father\u2019 (of the new\ncovenant). But the _Light_ being let down by the Infinite through\na canal into the \u2018primal Adam,\u2019 or _Messiah_, and joined with him,\ncan be applied to the name SON. And the influx emitted down from\nhim (the Son) to the lower parts (of the universe), can be applied\nto the character of the Holy Ghost.\u201d[433] Sophia-Achamoth, the\nhalf-spiritual, half-material LIFE, which vivifies the inert matter\nin the depths of chaos, is the Holy Ghost of the Gnostics, and the\n_Spiritus_ (female) of the Nazarenes. She is--be it remembered--the\n_sister_ of _Christos_, the perfect emanation, and both are children\nor emanations of Sophia, the purely spiritual and intellectual\ndaughter of Bythos, the Depth. For the elder Sophia is Shekinah, the\nFace of God, \u201cGod\u2019s Shekinah, which is his image.\u201d[434]\n\n\u201cThe _Son_ Zeus-Belus, or Sol-Mithra is an image of the Father, an\nemanation from the _Supreme Light_,\u201d says Movers. \u201cHe passed for\nCreator.\u201d[435]\n\n\u201cPhilosophers say the first air is _anima mundi_. But the garment\n(Shekinah) is higher than the first air, since it is joined closer\nto the En-Soph, the Boundless.\u201d[436] Thus _Sophia_ is Shekinah, and\nSophia-Achamoth the _anima mundi_, the astral light of the kabalists,\nwhich contains the spiritual and material germs of all _that is_. For\nthe Sophia-Achamoth, like _Eve_, of whom she is the prototype, is\n\u201cthe mother of all that live.\u201d\n\nThere are three trinities in the Nazarene system as well as in the\nHindu philosophy of the ante and early Vedic period. While we see\nthe few translators of the _Kabala_, the Nazarene _Codex_, and other\nabstruse works, hopelessly floundering amid the interminable pantheon\nof names, unable to agree as to a system in which to classify them,\nfor the one hypothesis contradicts and overturns the other, we can\nbut wonder at all this trouble, which could be so easily overcome.\nBut even now, when the translation, and even the perusal of the\nancient Sanscrit has become so easy as a point of comparison,\nthey would never think it possible that every philosophy--whether\nSemitic, Hamitic, or Turanian, as they call it, has its key in the\nHindu sacred works. Still facts are there, and facts are not easily\ndestroyed. Thus, while we find the Hindu trimurti triply manifested as\n\n Nara (or Para-Pouroucha), Agni, Brahma, the Father,\n Nari (Mariama), Vaya, Vishnu, the Mother,\n Viradj (Brahm\u00e4), Surya, Siva, the Son,\n\nand the Egyptian trinity as follows:\n\n Kneph (or Amon), Osiris, Ra (Horus), the Father,\n Maut (or Mut), Isis, Isis, the Mother,\n Khons, Horus, Malouli, the Son;[437]\n\nthe Nazarene System runs,\n\n Ferho (Ish-Amon), Mano, Abatur, the Father,\n Chaos (dark water), Spiritus (female), Netubto, the Mother,\n Fetahil, Ledhaio, Lord Jordan, the Son.\n\nThe first is the concealed or non-manifested trinity--a pure\nabstraction. The other the active or the one revealed in the results\nof creation, proceeding out of the former--its spiritual prototype.\nThe third is the mutilated image of both the others, crystallized in\nthe form of human dogmas, which vary according to the exuberance of\nthe national materialistic fancy.\n\nThe Supreme Lord of splendor and of light, luminous and refulgent,\nbefore which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord\nFerho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity;\nand Lord Jordan--the spirit, the living water of grace.[438] He is\nthe one through whom alone we can be saved; and thus he answers\nto the Shekinah, the spiritual garment of En-Soph, or the Holy\nGhost. These three constitute the trinity in _abscondito_. The\nsecond trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the\nsimilitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth;\nand the second Ferho is the King of Light--MANO (_Rex Lucis_). He\nis the heavenly life and light, and older than the Architect of\nheaven and earth.[439] The second life is _Ish Amon_ (Pleroma), the\nvase of election, containing the visible thought of the _Iordanus\nMaximus_--the _type_ (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype\nof the living water, who is the \u201cspiritual Jordan.\u201d[440] Third life,\nwhich is produced by the other two, is ABATUR (_Ab_, the Parent or\nFather). This is the mysterious and decrepit \u201cAged of the Aged,\u201d the\n\u201cAncient _Senem sui obtegentem et grand\u00e6vum mundi_.\u201d This latter\nthird Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of\nthe world, whom the Ophites call Ilda-Baoth,[441] though Fetahil is\nthe _only-begotten one_, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who\nbegets him by looking into the \u201cdark water;\u201d[442] but the Lord Mano,\n\u201cthe Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii,\u201d is higher than the\nFather, in this kabalistic _Codex_--one is purely spiritual, the\nother material. So, for instance, while Abatur\u2019s \u201conly begotten\u201d one\nis the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano,\nthe \u201cLord of Celsitude,\u201d who is the son of Him, who is \u201cthe Father\nof all who preach the Gospel,\u201d produces also an \u201conly-begotten\u201d one,\nthe Lord Lehdaio, \u201ca just Lord.\u201d He is the Christos, the anointed,\nwho pours out the \u201cgrace\u201d of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the\n_Highest Crown_.\n\nIn the Arcanum, \u201cin the assembly of splendor, lighted by MANO, to\nwhom the scintillas of splendor owe their origin,\u201d the genii who\nlive in light \u201crose, they went to the visible Jordan, and flowing\nwater ... they assembled for a counsel ... and called forth the\nOnly-Begotten Son of an imperishable image, and who cannot be\nconceived by reflection, Lehdaio, the just Lord, and sprung from\nLehdaio, the just lord, whom the life had produced by his word.\u201d[443]\n\nMano is the chief of the seven \u00c6ons, who are Mano (_Rex Lucis_)\nAiar Zivo, Ignis Vivus, Lux, Vita, Aqua Viva (the living water of\nbaptism, the genius of the Jordan), and Ipsa Vita, the chief of the\nsix genii, which form with him the mystic _seven_. The Nazarene Mano\nis simply the copy of the Hindu first Manu--the emanation of Manu\nSwayambhuva--from whom evolve in succession the six other Manus,\ntypes of the subsequent races of men. We find them all represented by\nthe apostle-kabalist John in the \u201cseven lamps of fire\u201d burning before\nthe throne, which are the seven spirits of God,[444] and in the seven\nangels bearing the seven vials. Again in Fetahil we recognize the\noriginal of the Christian doctrine.\n\nIn the _Revelation_ of Joannes Theologos it is said: \u201cI turned and\nsaw in the midst of the _seven_ candlesticks one like unto the Son\nof man ... his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as\nsnow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire ... and his feet like unto\nfine brass, as if they burned in a furnace\u201d (i. 13, 14, 15). _John_\nhere repeats, as is well known, the words of Daniel and Ezekiel.\n\u201cThe Ancient of Days ... whose hair was white as pure wool ... etc.\u201d\nAnd \u201cthe appearance of a _man_ ... above the throne ... and the\nappearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.\u201d[445] The\nfire being \u201cthe glory of the Lord.\u201d Fetahil is son of the man, the\nThird Life, and his upper part is represented as white as snow, while\nstanding near the throne of the living fire he has the appearance of\na flame.\n\nAll these \u201capocalyptic\u201d visions are based on the description of\nthe \u201cwhite head\u201d of the Sohar, in whom the kabalistic trinity is\nunited. The white head, \u201cwhich conceals in its cranium the spirit,\u201d\nand which is environed by subtile fire. The \u201cappearance of a man\u201d\nis that of Adam Kadmon, through which passes the thread of light\nrepresented by the fire. Fetahil is the _Vir Novissimis_ (the newest\nman), the son of Abatur,[446] the latter being the \u201cman,\u201d or the\n_third_ life,[447] now the third personage of the trinity. _John_\nsees \u201cone like unto the son of man,\u201d holding in his right hand seven\nstars, and standing between \u201cseven golden candlesticks\u201d (_Revelation_\ni.). Fetahil takes his \u201cstand on high,\u201d according to the will of\nhis father, \u201cthe highest \u00c6on who has seven sceptres,\u201d and seven\ngenii, who astronomically represent the seven planets or stars. He\nstands \u201cshining in the garment of the Lord\u2019s, resplendent by the\nagency of the genii.\u201d[448] He is the Son of his Father, Life, and\nhis mother, Spirit, or Light.[449] The Logos is represented in the\n_Gospel according to John_ as one in whom was \u201c_Life_, and the life\nwas the _light_ of men\u201d (i. 4). Fetahil is the Demiurge, and his\nfather created the visible universe of matter through him.[450] In\nthe _Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians_ (iii. 9), God is said to have\n\u201c_created all things_ by Jesus.\u201d In the _Codex_ the Parent-LIFE says:\n\u201cArise, go, our son first-begotten, ordained for all creatures.\u201d[451]\n\u201cAs the living father hath sent me,\u201d says Christ, \u201cGod sent his\nonly-begotten son that we might live.\u201d[452] Finally, having\nperformed his work on earth, Fetahil reascends to his father Abatur.\n\u201c_Et qui, relicto quem procreavit mundo, ad Abatur suum patrem\ncontendit._\u201d[453] \u201cMy father sent me ... I go to the Father,\u201d repeats\nJesus.\n\nLaying aside the theological disputes of Christianity which try to\nblend together the Jewish Creator of the first chapter of _Genesis_\nwith the \u201cFather\u201d of the _New Testament_, Jesus states repeatedly\nof his Father that \u201cHe is _in secret_.\u201d Surely he would not have so\ntermed the ever-present \u201cLord God\u201d of the Mosaic books, who showed\nHimself to Moses and the Patriarchs, and finally allowed all the\nelders of Israel to look on Himself.[454] When Jesus is made to\nspeak of the temple at Jerusalem as of his \u201cFather\u2019s house,\u201d he does\nnot mean the physical building, which he maintains he can destroy\nand then again rebuild in three days, but of the temple of Solomon;\nthe wise kabalist, who indicates in his _Proverbs_ that every man\nis the temple of God, or of his own divine spirit. This term of the\n\u201cFather who is in secret,\u201d we find used as much in the _Kabala_ as\nin the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, and elsewhere. No one has ever seen the\nwisdom concealed in the \u201cCranium,\u201d and no one has beheld the \u201cDepth\u201d\n(Bythos). Simon, the _Magician_, preached \u201cone Father unknown to\nall.\u201d[455]\n\nWe can trace this appellation of a \u201csecret\u201d God still farther back.\nIn the _Kabala_ the \u201cSon\u201d of the _concealed_ Father who dwells in\nlight and glory, is the \u201cAnointed,\u201d the _Seir-Anpin_, who unites in\nhimself all the Sephiroth, he is Christos, or the Heavenly man. It\nis through Christ that the Pneuma, or the Holy Ghost, creates \u201call\nthings\u201d (_Ephesians_ iii. 9), and produces the four elements, air,\nwater, fire, and earth. This assertion is unquestionable, for we find\nIren\u00e6us basing on this fact his best argument for the necessity of\nthere being four gospels. There can be neither more nor fewer than\nfour--he argues. \u201cFor as there are four quarters of the world, and\nfour general winds (\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u1f70 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1) ... it is right that she (the\nChurch) should have four pillars. From which it is manifest that the\nWord, _the maker of all_, he _who sitteth upon the Cherubim_ ... as\nDavid says, supplicating his advent, \u2018Thou that sittest between the\nCherubim, shine forth!\u2019 For the Cherubim also are _four-faced_ and\ntheir faces are symbols of the working of the Son of God.\u201d[456]\n\nWe will not stop to discuss at length the special holiness of the\nfour-faced Cherubim, although we might, perhaps, show their origin\nin all the ancient pagodas of India, in the _vehans_ (or vehicles)\nof their chief gods; as likewise we might easily attribute the\nrespect paid to them to the kabalistic wisdom, which, nevertheless,\nthe Church rejects with great horror. But, we cannot resist the\ntemptation to remind the reader that he may easily ascertain the\nseveral significances attributed to these Cherubs by reading the\n_Kabala_. \u201cWhen the souls are to leave their abode,\u201d says the\n_Sohar_, holding to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls in the\nworld of emanations, \u201ceach soul separately appears before the Holy\nKing, dressed in a sublime form, with the features in which it is to\nappear in this world. It is from this sublime form that the image\nproceeds\u201d (_Sohar_, iii., p. 104 ab). Then it goes on to say that the\ntypes or forms of these faces are four in number--those of the angel\nor man, of the lion, the bull, and the eagle. Furthermore, we may\nwell express our wonder that Iren\u00e6us should not have re-enforced his\nargument for the four gospels--by citing the whole Pantheon of the\nfour-armed Hindu gods?\n\nEzekiel in representing his four animals, now called Cherubim,\nas types of the four symbolical beings, which, in his visions\nsupport the throne of Jehovah, had not far to go for his models.\nThe Chaldeo-Babylonian protecting genii were familiar to him; the\nSed, Alap or _Kirub_ (Cherubim), the bull, with the human face; the\nNirgal, human-headed lion; Oustour the Sphinx-man; and the Nathga,\nwith its eagle\u2019s head. The religion of the masters--the idolatrous\nBabylonians and Assyrians--was transferred almost bodily into the\nrevealed Scripture of the Captives, and from thence came into\nChristianity.\n\nAlready, we find Ezekiel addressed by the likeness of the glory of\nthe Lord, \u201cas Son of man.\u201d This peculiar title is used repeatedly\nthroughout the whole book of this prophet, which is as kabalistic\nas the \u201croll of a book\u201d which the \u201cGlory\u201d causes him to eat. It is\nwritten _within_ and _without_; and its real meaning is identical\nwith that of the _Apocalypse_. It appears strange that so much stress\nshould be laid on this peculiar appellation, said to have been\napplied by Jesus to himself, when, in the symbolical or kabalistic\nlanguage, a prophet is so addressed. It is as extraordinary to\nsee Iren\u00e6us indulging in such graphic descriptions of Jesus as\nto show him, \u201cthe maker of all, sitting upon a Cherubim,\u201d unless\nhe identifies him with Shekinah, whose usual place was among the\nCharoubs of the Mercy Seat. We also know that the Cherubim and\nSeraphim are titles of the \u201cOld Serpent\u201d (the orthodox Devil) the\nSeraphs being the burning or fiery serpents, in kabalistic symbolism.\nThe ten emanations of Adam Kadmon, called the Sephiroth, have all\nemblems and titles corresponding to each. So, for instance, the last\ntwo are Victory, or Jehovah-Sabaoth, whose symbol is the right column\nof Solomon, the Pillar _Jachin_; while GLORY is the left Pillar,\nor Boaz, and its name is \u201cthe Old Serpent,\u201d and also \u201cSeraphim and\nCherubim.\u201d[457]\n\nThe \u201cSon of man\u201d is an appellation which could not be assumed\nby any one but a kabalist. Except, as shown above, in the _Old\nTestament_, it is used but by one prophet--Ezekiel, the kabalist.\nIn their mysterious and mutual relations, the \u00c6ons or Sephiroth\nare represented in the _Kabala_ by a great number of circles, and\nsometimes by the figure of a MAN, which is symbolically formed out of\nsuch circles. This man is Seir-Anpin, and the 243 numbers of which\nhis figure consists relate to the different orders of the celestial\nhierarchy. The original idea of this figure, or rather the model,\nmay have been taken from the Hindu Brahma, and the various castes\ntypified by the several parts of his body, as King suggests in his\n_Gnostics_. In one of the grandest and most beautiful cave-temples\nat Ellora, Nasak, dedicated to Vishvakarma, son of Brahma, is a\nrepresentation of this God and his attributes. To one acquainted with\nEzekiel\u2019s description of the \u201clikeness of four living creatures,\u201d\nevery one of which had four faces and the hands of a man under\nits wings, etc.,[458] this figure at Ellora must certainly appear\nabsolutely _biblical_. Brahma is called the father of \u201cman,\u201d as well\nas Jupiter and other highest gods.\n\nIt is in the Buddhistic representations of Mount Meru, called by\nthe Burmese _My\u00e9-nmo_, and by the Siamese _Sineru_, that we find\none of the originals of the Adam Kadmon, Seir-Anpin, the \u201cheavenly\nman,\u201d and of all the \u00c6ons, Sephiroth, Powers, Dominions, Thrones,\nVirtues, and Dignities of the _Kabala_. Between two pillars, which\nare connected by an arch, the key-stone of the latter is represented\nby a _crescent_. This is the domain in which dwells the Supreme\nWisdom of A\u2019di Buddha, the Supreme and invisible Deity. Beneath this\nhighest central point comes the circle of the direct emanation of\nthe Unknown--the circle of Brahma with some Hindus, of the first\n_avatar_ of Buddha, according to others. This answers to Adam Kadmon\nand the ten Sephiroth. Nine of the emanations are encircled by the\ntenth, and occasionally represented by pagodas, each of which bears\na name which expresses one of the chief attributes of the manifested\nDeity. Then below come the seven stages, or heavenly spheres, each\nsphere being encircled by a sea. These are the celestial mansions\nof the _devatas_, or gods, each losing somewhat in holiness and\npurity as it approaches the earth. Then comes Meru itself, formed of\nnumberless circles within three large ones, typifying the trinity of\nman; and for one acquainted with the numerical value of the letters\nin biblical names, like that of the \u201cGreat Beast,\u201d or that of Mithra\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03b8\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03c2, and others, it is an easy matter to establish the\nidentity of the Meru-gods with the emanations or Sephiroth of the\nkabalists. Also the genii of the Nazarenes, with their special\nmissions, are all found on this most ancient mythos, a most perfect\nrepresentation of the symbolism of the \u201csecret doctrine,\u201d as taught in\narchaic ages.\n\nKing gives a few hints--though doubtless too insufficient to teach\nanything important, for they are based upon the calculations of\nBishop Newton[459]--as to this mode of finding out mysteries in the\nvalue of letters. However, we find this great arch\u00e6ologist, who\nhas devoted so much time and labor to the study of Gnostic gems,\ncorroborating our assertion. He shows that the entire theory is\nHindu, and points out that the durga, or female counterpart of each\nAsiatic god, is what the kabalists term active _Virtue_[460] in the\ncelestial hierarchy, a term which the Christian Fathers adopted and\nrepeated, without fully appreciating, and the meaning of which the\nlater theology has utterly disfigured. But to return to Meru.\n\nThe whole is surrounded by the Maha Samut, or the great sea--the\nastral light and ether of the kabalists and scientists; and within\nthe central circles appears \u201cthe likeness of a man.\u201d He is the\nAchadoth of the Nazarenes, the twofold unity, or the androgyne man;\nthe heavenly incarnation, and a perfect representation of Seir-Anpin\n(short-face), the son of _Arich Anpin_ (long-face).[461] This\nlikeness is now represented in many lamaseries by Gautama-Buddha,\nthe last of the incarnated avatars. Still lower, under the Meru,\nis the dwelling of the great Naga, who is called _Rajah Naga_, the\nking-serpent--the serpent of _Genesis_, the Gnostic Ophis--and the\ngoddess of the earth, Bhum\u00e2y Nari, or Y\u00e2ma, who waits upon the great\ndragon, for she is Eve, \u201cthe mother of all that live.\u201d Still lower\nis the eighth sphere, the infernal regions. The uppermost regions\nof Brahma are surrounded by the sun, moon, and planets, the seven\nstellars of the Nazarenes, and just as they are described in the\n_Codex_.\n\n\u201cThe seven impostor-D\u00e6mons who deceive the sons of Adam. The name of\none is _Sol_; of another _Spiritus Venereus_, Astro; of the third\n_Nebu_, Mercurius _a false Messiah_; ... the name of a fourth is\nSin _Luna_; the fifth is _Kiun_, Saturnus; the sixth, Bel-Zeus;\nthe seventh, Nerig-_Mars_.\u201d[462] Then there are \u201c_Seven Lives_\nprocreated,\u201d seven good Stellars, \u201cwhich are from Cabar Zio, and\nare those bright ones who shine in their own form and splendor\nthat pours from on high.... At the gate of the HOUSE OF LIFE the\nthrone is fitly placed for the Lord of Splendor, and there are THREE\nhabitations.\u201d[463] The habitations of the _Trimurti_, the Hindu\ntrinity, are placed beneath the key-stone--the golden crescent, in\nthe representation of Meru. \u201cAnd there was under his feet (of the God\nof Israel) as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone\u201d (_Exodus_\nxxiv. 10). Under the crescent is the heaven of Brahma, all paved with\nsapphires. The paradise of Indra is resplendent with a thousand suns;\nthat of Siva (Saturn), is in the northeast; his throne is formed of\nlapis-lazuli and the floor of heaven is of fervid gold. \u201cWhen he sits\non the throne he blazes with fire up to _the loins_.\u201d At Hurdwar,\nduring the fair, in which he is more than ever Mahadeva, the highest\ngod, the attributes and emblems sacred to the Jewish \u201cLord God,\u201d may\nbe recognized one by one in those of Siva. The Binlang stone,[464]\nsacred to this Hindu deity, is an unhewn stone like the Beth-el,\nconsecrated by the Patriarch Jacob, and set up by him \u201cfor a pillar,\u201d\nand like the latter Binlang is _anointed_. We need hardly remind the\nstudent that the _linga_, the emblem sacred to Siva and whose temples\nare modelled after this form, is identical in shape, meaning, and\npurpose with the \u201cpillars\u201d set up by the several patriarchs to mark\ntheir adoration of the Lord God. In fact, one of these patriarchal\nlitho\u00ef might even now be carried in the Sivaitic processions of\nCalcutta, without its Hebrew derivation being suspected. The four\narms of Siva are often represented with appendages like wings; he has\n_three_ eyes and a _fourth_ in the crescent, obtained by him at the\nchurning of the ocean, as P\u00e2ncha Mukhti Siva has four heads.\n\nIn this god we recognize the description given by Ezekiel, in the\nfirst chapter of his book, of his vision, in which he beholds the\n\u201clikeness of a man\u201d in the four living creatures, who had \u201cfour\nfaces, four wings,\u201d who had one pair of \u201cstraight feet ... which\nsparkled like the color _of burnished_ brass ... and their rings were\nfull of eyes round about them four.\u201d It is the throne and heaven of\nSiva that the prophet describes in saying \u201c... and there was the\nlikeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone ... and\nI saw as the color of amber (gold) as the appearance of fire around\nabout ... from his loins even upward, and from the appearance of\nhis loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire\u201d\n(_Ezekiel_ i. 27). \u201cAnd his feet like unto fine brass, as if they\nburned in a furnace\u201d (_Revelation_ i. 15). \u201cAs for their faces ...\none had the face of a cherub, and the face of a lion ... they also\nhad the face of _an ox_ and the face of an eagle\u201d (_Ezekiel_ i.\n10, x. 14). This _fourfold_ appearance which we find in the two\n_cherubims_ of gold on the two ends of the ark; these symbolic four\n_faces_ being adopted, moreover, later, one by each evangelist, as\nmay be easily ascertained from the pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke,\nand John,[465] prefixed to their respective gospels in the Roman\nVulgate and Greek _Bibles_.\n\n\u201cTaaut, the great god of the Ph\u0153nicians,\u201d says Sanchoniathon, \u201cto\nexpress the character of Saturn or Kronos, made his image having four\neyes ... two before, two behind, open and closed, and four wings, two\nexpanded, two folded. The eyes denote that the god sees in sleep, and\nsleeps in waking; the position of the wings that he flies in rest,\nand rests in flying.\u201d\n\nThe identity of Saturn with Siva is corroborated still more when\nwe consider the emblem of the latter, the _damara_, which is an\nhour-glass, to show the progress of time, represented by this god in\nhis capacity of a destroyer. The bull Nardi, the _vehan_ of Siva and\nthe most sacred emblem of this god, is reproduced in the Egyptian\nApis; and in the bull created by Ormazd and killed by Ahriman. The\nreligion of Zoroaster, all based upon the \u201csecret doctrine,\u201d is found\nheld by the people of Eritene; it was the religion of the Persians\nwhen they conquered the Assyrians. From thence it is easy to trace\nthe introduction of this emblem of LIFE represented by the Bull, in\nevery religious system. The college of the Magians had accepted it\nwith the change of dynasty;[466] Daniel is described as a Rabbi, the\nchief of the Babylonian astrologers and Magi;[467] therefore we see\nthe Assyrian little bulls and the attributes of Siva reappearing\nunder a hardly modified form in the cherubs of the Talmudistic Jews,\nas we have traced the bull Apis in the sphinxes or cherubs of the\nMosaic Ark; and as we find it several thousand years later in the\ncompany of one of the Christian evangelists, Luke.\n\nWhoever has lived in India long enough to acquaint himself even\nsuperficially with the native deities, must detect the similarity\nbetween Jehovah and other gods besides Siva. As Saturn, the latter\nwas always held in great respect by the Talmudists. He was held in\nreverence by the Alexandrian kabalists as the direct inspirer of the\nlaw and the prophets; one of the names of Saturn was Israel, and we\nwill show, in time, his identity in a certain way with Abram, which\nMovers and others hinted at long since. Thus it cannot be wondered at\nif Valentinus, Basilides, and the Ophite Gnostics placed the dwelling\nof their Ilda-Baoth, also a destroyer as well as a creator, in the\nplanet Saturn; for it was he who gave the law in the wilderness and\nspoke through the prophets. If more proof should be required we\nwill show it in the testimony of the canonical _Bible_ itself. In\n_Amos_ the \u201cLord\u201d pours vials of wrath upon the people of Israel. He\nrejects their burnt-offerings and will not listen to their prayers,\nbut inquires of Amos, \u201chave ye offered unto _me_ sacrifices and\nofferings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?\u201d \u201cBut ye\nhave borne the tabernacles of your Moloch and _Chiun_ your images,\nthe _star of your god_\u201d (v. 25, 26). Who are Moloch and _Chiun_ but\nBaal--Saturn--Siva, and _Chiun_, Kivan, the same Saturn whose star\nthe Israelites had made to themselves? There seems no escape in this\ncase; all these deities are identical.\n\nThe same in the case of the numerous Logo\u00ef. While the Zoroastrian\nSosiosh is framed on that of the tenth Brahmanical Avatar, and\nthe fifth Buddha of the followers of Gautama; and we find the\nformer, after having passed part and parcel into the kabalistic\nsystem of king Messiah, reflected in the Apostle Gabriel of the\nNazarenes, and \u00c6bel-Zivo, the Legatus, sent on earth by the Lord of\nCelsitude and Light; all of these--Hindu and Persian, Buddhist and\nJewish, the Christos of the Gnostics and the Philonean Logos--are\nfound combined in \u201cthe Word made flesh\u201d of the fourth _Gospel_.\nChristianity includes all these systems, patched and arranged to meet\nthe occasion. Do we take up the _Avesta_--we find there the dual\nsystem so prevalent in the Christian scheme. The struggle between\nAhriman,[468] Darkness, and Ormazd, Light, has been going on in the\nworld continually since the beginning of time. When the worst arrives\nand Ahriman will seem to have conquered the world and corrupted all\nmankind, _then will appear the Saviour_ of mankind, Sosiosh. He\nwill come seated upon a white horse and followed by an army of good\ngenii equally mounted on milk-white steeds.[469] And this we find\nfaithfully copied in the _Revelation_: \u201cI saw heaven opened, and\nbeheld a _white horse_; and he that sat upon him was called faithful\nand true.... And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon\nwhite horses\u201d (_Revelation_ xix. 11, 14). Sosiosh himself is but a\nlater Persian _permutation_ of the Hindu Vishnu. The figure of this\ngod may be found unto this day representing him as the Saviour, the\n\u201cPreserver\u201d (the preserving spirit of God), in the temple of Rama.\nThe picture shows him in his tenth incarnation--the _Kalki avatar_,\nwhich is yet to come--as an armed warrior mounted upon a white\nhorse. Waving over his head the sword destruction, he holds in his\nother hand a discus, made up of rings encircled in one another, an\nemblem of the revolving cycles or great ages,[470] for Vishnu will\nthus appear but at the end of the _Kaliyug_, answering to the end of\nthe world expected by our Adventists. \u201cAnd out of his mouth goeth\na sharp sword ... on his head were many crowns\u201d (_Revelation_ xix.\n12). Vishnu is often represented with several crowns superposed on\nhis head. \u201cAnd I saw an angel standing on the Sun\u201d (17). The _white\nhorse is the horse of the Sun_.[471] Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, is\nalso born of a virgin,[472] and at the end of days he will come as\na Redeemer to regenerate the world, but he will be preceded by two\nprophets, who will come to announce him.[473] Hence the Jews who had\nMoses and Elias, are now waiting for the Messiah. \u201cThen comes the\ngeneral _resurrection_, when the good will immediately enter into\nthis happy abode--the regenerated earth; and Ahriman and his angels\n(the devils),[474] and the wicked, be purified by immersion in a\nlake of molten metal.... Henceforward, all will enjoy unchangeable\nhappiness, and, headed by Sosiosh, ever sing the praises of the\nEternal One.\u201d[475] The above is a perfect repetition of Vishnu\nin his tenth avatar, for he will then throw the wicked into the\ninfernal abodes in which, after purifying themselves, they will be\npardoned--even those devils which rebelled against Brahma, and were\nhurled into the bottomless pit by Siva,[476] as also the \u201cblessed\nones\u201d will go to dwell with the gods, over the Mount Meru.\n\nHaving thus traced the similarity of views respecting the Logos,\nMetatron, and Mediator, as found in the _Kabala_ and the _Codex_\nof the Christian Nazarenes and Gnostics, the reader is prepared to\nappreciate the audacity of the Patristic scheme to reduce a purely\nmetaphysical figure into concrete form, and make it appear as if\nthe finger of prophecy had from time immemorial been pointing down\nthe vista of ages to Jesus as the coming Messiah. A theomythos\nintended to symbolize the coming day, near the close of the great\ncycle, when the \u201cglad tidings\u201d from heaven should proclaim the\nuniversal brotherhood and common faith of humanity, the day of\nregeneration--was violently distorted into an accomplished fact.\n\n\u201cWhy callest thou me good? there is none good but _one, that is\nGod_,\u201d says Jesus. Is this the language of a God? of the second\nperson in the Trinity, who is identical with the First? And if this\nMessiah, or Holy Ghost of the Gnostic and Pagan Trinities, had come\nin his person, what did he mean by distinguishing between himself\nthe \u201cSon of man,\u201d and the Holy Ghost? \u201cAnd whosoever shall speak a\nword against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him\nthat blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven,\u201d\nhe says.[477] And how account for the marvellous identity of this\nvery language, with the precepts enunciated, centuries before, by\nthe Kabalists and the \u201cPagan\u201d initiates? The following are a few\ninstances out of many.\n\n\u201cNo one of the gods, no man or Lord, can be good, but _only God\nalone_,\u201d says Hermes.[478]\n\n\u201cTo be a good man is impossible, God alone possesses this privilege,\u201d\nrepeats Plato, with a slight variation.[479]\n\nSix centuries before Christ, the Chinese philosopher Confucius said\nthat his doctrine was simple and easy to comprehend (_L\u00fbn-y\u00f9_, chap.\n5, \u00a7 15). To which one of his disciples added: \u201cThe doctrine of our\nMaster consists in having an invariable correctness of heart, and in\ndoing toward others as we would that they should do to us.\u201d[480]\n\n\u201cJesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles,\u201d[481]\nexclaims Peter, long after the scene of Calvary. \u201cThere was a _man_\nsent from God, whose name was John,\u201d[482] says the fourth _Gospel_,\nthus placing the Baptist on an equality with Jesus. John the Baptist,\nin one of the most solemn acts of his life, that of baptizing Christ,\nthinks not that he is going to baptize _a God_, but uses the word man.\n\u201cThis is he of whom I said, after me cometh _a man_.\u201d[483] Speaking of\nhimself, Jesus says, \u201cYou seek to kill _me, a man_ that hath told you\nthe truth, which _I have heard of God_.\u201d[484] Even the blind man of\nJerusalem, healed by the great thaumaturgist, full of gratitude and\nadmiration for his benefactor, in narrating the miracle does not call\nJesus God, but simply says, \u201c... _a man_ that is called Jesus, made\nclay.\u201d[485]\n\nWe do not close the list for lack of other instances and proofs, but\nsimply because what we now say has been repeated and demonstrated by\nothers, many times before us. But there is no more incurable evil\nthan blind and unreasoning fanaticism. Few are the men who, like Dr.\nPriestley, have the courage to write, \u201cWe find nothing like divinity\nascribed to Christ before Justin Martyr (A.D. 141), who, from being a\nphilosopher, became a Christian.\u201d[486]\n\nMahomet appeared nearly six hundred years[487] after the presumed\ndeicide. The Gr\u00e6co-Roman world was still convulsed with religious\ndissensions, withstanding all the past imperial edicts and forcible\nChristianization. While the Council of Trent was disputing about the\n_Vulgate_, the unity of God quietly superseded the trinity, and soon\nthe Mahometans outnumbered the Christians. Why? Because their prophet\nnever sought to identify himself with Allah. Otherwise, it is safe to\nsay, he would not have lived to see his religion flourish. Till the\npresent day Mahometanism has made and is now making more proselytes\nthan Christianity. Buddha Siddh\u00e2rtha came as a simple mortal,\ncenturies before Christ. The religious ethics of this faith are now\nfound to far exceed in moral beauty anything ever dreamed of by the\nTertullians and Augustines.\n\nThe true spirit of Christianity can alone be fully found in Buddhism;\npartially, it shows itself in other \u201cheathen\u201d religions. Buddha\nnever made of himself a god, nor was he deified by his followers.\nThe Buddhists are now known to far outnumber Christians; they are\nenumerated at nearly 500,000,000. While cases of conversion among\nBuddhists, Brahmanists, Mahometans, and Jews become so rare as to\nshow how sterile are the attempts of our missionaries, atheism and\nmaterialism spread their gangrenous ulcers and gnaw every day deeper\nat the very heart of Christianity. There are no atheists among\nheathen populations, and those few among the Buddhists and Brahmans\nwho have become infected with materialism may always be found to\nbelong to large cities densely thronged with Europeans, and only\namong educated classes. Truly says Bishop Kidder: \u201cWere a wise man to\nchoose his religion from those who profess it, perhaps Christianity\nwould be the last religion he would choose!\u201d\n\nIn an able little pamphlet from the pen of the popular lecturer, J.\nM. Peebles, M.D., the author quotes, from the London _Athen\u00e6um_, an\narticle in which are described the welfare and civilization of the\ninhabitants of Yarkand and Kashgar, \u201cwho seem virtuous and happy.\u201d\n\u201cGracious Heavens!\u201d fervently exclaims the honest author, who\nhimself was once a Universalist clergyman, \u201cGrant to keep Christian\nmissionaries _away_ from \u2018happy\u2019 and heathen Tartary!\u201d[488]\n\nFrom the earliest days of Christianity, when Paul upbraided the\n_Church_ of Corinth for a crime \u201cas is not so much as named among\nthe Gentiles--that one should have his father\u2019s wife;\u201d and for their\nmaking a pretext of the \u201cLord\u2019s Supper\u201d for _debauch_ and drunkenness\n(_1 Corinthians_, v. 1), the profession of the name of Christ has\never been more a pretext than the evidence of holy feeling. However,\na correct form of this verse is: \u201cEverywhere the lewd practice among\nyou is heard about, such a lewd practice as is nowhere among the\nheathen nations--even the having or marrying of the father\u2019s wife.\u201d\nThe Persian influence would seem to be indicated in this language.\nThe practice existed \u201cnowhere among the nations,\u201d except in Persia,\nwhere it was esteemed especially meritorious. Hence, too, the Jewish\nstories of Abraham marrying his sister, Nahor, his niece, Amram his\nfather\u2019s sister, and Judah his son\u2019s widow, whose children appear to\nhave been legitimate. The Aryan tribes esteemed endogamic marriages,\nwhile the Tartars and all barbarous nations required all alliances to\nbe exagamous.\n\nThere was but one apostle of Jesus worthy of that name, and that was\nPaul. However disfigured were his _Epistles_ by dogmatic hands before\nbeing admitted into the Canon, his conception of the great and divine\nfigure of the philosopher who died for his idea can still be traced\nin his addresses to the various Gentile nations. Only, he who would\nunderstand him better yet must study the Philonean _Logos_ reflecting\nnow and then the Hindu _Sabda_ (logos) of the Mimansa school.\n\nAs to the other apostles, those whose names are prefixed to the\n_Gospels_--we cannot well believe in their veracity when we find them\nattributing to their Master miracles surrounded by circumstances,\nrecorded, if not in the oldest books of India, at least in such\nas antedated Christianity, and in the very phraseology of the\ntraditions. Who, in his days of simple and blind credulity, but\nmarvelled at the touching narrative given in the _Gospels according\nto Mark_ and _Luke_ of the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus?\nWho has ever doubted its originality? And yet the story is copied\nentirely from the _Hari-Purana_, and is recorded among the miracles\nattributed to Christna. We translate it from the French version:\n\n\u201cThe King Angashuna caused the betrothal of his daughter, the\nbeautiful Kalavatti, with the young son of Vamadeva, the powerful\nKing of Antarv\u00e9di, named Govinda, to be celebrated with great pomp.\n\n\u201cBut as Kalavatti was amusing herself in the groves with her\ncompanions, she was stung by a serpent and died. Angashuna tore his\nclothes, covered himself with ashes, and cursed the day when he was\nborn.\n\n\u201cSuddenly, a great rumor spread through the palace, and the following\ncries were heard, a thousand times repeated: \u2018_Pacya pitaram; pacya\ngurum!_\u2019 \u2018The Father, the Master!\u2019 Then Christna approached, smiling,\nleaning on the arm of Ardjuna.... \u2018Master!\u2019 cried Angashuna, casting\nhimself at his feet, and sprinkling them with his tears, \u2018See my poor\ndaughter!\u2019 and he showed him the body of Kalavatti, stretched upon a\nmat....\n\n\u201c\u2018Why do you weep?\u2019 replied Christna, in a gentle voice. \u2018_Do you not\nsee that she is sleeping?_ Listen to the sound of her breathing, like\nthe sigh of the night wind which rustles the leaves of the trees.\nSee, her cheeks resuming their color, her eyes, whose lids tremble as\nif they were about to open; her lips quiver as if about to speak; she\nis sleeping, I tell you; and hold! see, she moves, _Kalavatti! Rise\nand walk!_\u2019\n\n\u201cHardly had Christna spoken, when the breathing, warmth, movement,\nand life returned little by little, into the corpse, and the young\ngirl, obeying the injunction of the demi-god, rose from her couch\nand rejoined her companions. But the crowd marvelled and cried out:\n\u2018This is a god, since death is no more for him than sleep?\u2019\u201d[489]\n\nAll such parables are enforced upon Christians, with the addition of\ndogmas which, in their extraordinary character, leave far behind them\nthe wildest conceptions of heathenism. The Christians, in order to\nbelieve in a Deity, have found it necessary to kill their God, that\nthey themselves should live!\n\nAnd now, the Supreme, unknown one, the Father of grace and mercy,\nand his celestial hierarchy are managed by the Church as though they\nwere so many theatrical stars and supernumeraries under salary! Six\ncenturies before the Christian era, Xenophones had disposed of such\nanthropomorphism by an immortal satire, recorded and preserved by\nClement of Alexandria:\n\n \u201cThere is one God Supreme ...\n Whose form is not like unto man\u2019s, and as unlike his nature;\n But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten\n With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members;\n So if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man\u2019s fashion,\n And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead\n Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,\n Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing.\u201d[490]\n\nAnd hear Vyasa--the poet-pantheist of India, who, for all the\nscientists can prove, may have lived, as Jacolliot has it, some\nfifteen thousand years ago--discoursing on Maya, the illusion of the\nsenses:\n\n\u201cAll religious dogmas only serve to obscure the intelligence of\nman.... Worship of divinities, under the allegories of which is\nhidden respect for natural laws, drives away truth to the profit of\nthe basest superstitions\u201d (_Vyasa Maya_).\n\nIt was given to Christianity to paint us God Almighty after the\nmodel of the kabalistic abstraction of the \u201cAncient of Days.\u201d From\nold frescos on cathedral ceilings; Catholic missals, and other icons\nand images, we now find him depicted by the poetic brush of Gustave\nDor\u00e9. The awful, unknown majesty of Him, whom no \u201cheathen\u201d dared to\nreproduce in concrete form, is figuring in our own century in _Dor\u00e9\u2019s\nIllustrated Bible_. Treading upon clouds that float in mid-air,\ndarkness and chaos behind him and the world beneath his feet, a\nmajestic old man stands, his left hand gathering his flowing robes\nabout him, and his right raised in the gesture of command. He has\nspoken the Word, and from his towering person streams an effulgence\nof Light--the Shekinah. As a poetic conception, the composition does\nhonor to the artist, but does it honor God? Better, the chaos behind\nHim, than the figure itself; for there, at least, we have a solemn\nmystery. For our part, we prefer the silence of the ancient heathens.\nWith such a gross, anthropomorphic, and, as we conceive, blasphemous\nrepresentation of the First Cause, who can feel surprised at any\niconographic extravagance in the representation of the Christian\nChrist, the apostles, and the putative Saints? With the Catholics St.\nPeter becomes quite naturally the janitor of Heaven, and sits at the\ndoor of the celestial kingdom--a ticket-taker to the Trinity!\n\nIn a religious disturbance which recently occurred in one of the\nSpanish-American provinces, there were found upon the bodies of some\nof the killed, passports signed by the Bishop of the Diocese and\naddressed to St. Peter; bidding him \u201c_admit the bearer as a true son\nof the Church_.\u201d It was subsequently ascertained that these unique\ndocuments were issued by the Catholic prelate just before his deluded\nparishioners went into the fight at the instigation of their priests.\n\nIn their immoderate desire to find evidence for the authenticity of\nthe _New Testament_, the best men, the most erudite scholars even\namong Protestant divines, but too often fall into deplorable traps.\nWe cannot believe that such a learned commentator as Canon Westcott\ncould have left himself in ignorance as to Talmudistic and purely\nkabalistic writings. How then is it that we find him quoting, with\nsuch serene assurance as presenting \u201cstriking analogies to the\n_Gospel of St. John_,\u201d passages from the work of _The Pastor of\nHermas_, which are complete sentences from the kabalistic literature?\n\u201cThe view which Hermas gives of Christ\u2019s nature and work is no less\nharmonious with apostolic doctrine, and it offers striking analogies\nto the _Gospel of St. John_.... He (Jesus) is a rock higher than the\nmountains, able to hold the whole world, ancient, and yet having a\nnew gate!... He is older than creation, so that he took counsel with\nthe Father about the creation which he made.... No one shall enter in\nunto him otherwise than by his Son.\u201d[491]\n\nNow while--as the author of _Supernatural Religion_ well\nproves--there is nothing in this which looks like a corroboration\nof the doctrine taught in the fourth gospel, he omits to state that\nnearly everything expressed by the pseudo-Hermas in relation to his\nparabolic conversation with the \u201cLord\u201d is a plain quotation, with\nrepeated variations, from the _Sohar_ and other kabalistic books. We\nmay as well compare, so as to leave the reader in no difficulty to\njudge for himself.\n\n\u201cGod,\u201d says Hermas, \u201cplanted the vineyard, that is, He created the\npeople and gave them to His Son; and the Son ... himself cleansed\ntheir sins, etc.;\u201d _i.e._, the Son washed them in his blood, in\ncommemoration of which Christians drink wine at the communion. In the\n_Kabala_ it is shown that the Aged of the Aged, or \u201c_Long-Face_,\u201d\nplants a vineyard, the latter typifying mankind; and a vine, meaning\nLife. The Spirit of \u201c_King_ Messiah\u201d is, therefore, shown as washing\nhis garments in _the wine_ from above, from the creation of the\nworld.[492] Adam, or A-Dam is \u201cblood.\u201d The life of the flesh is in\nthe blood (nephesh--soul), _Leviticus_ xvii. And Adam-Kadmon is\nthe Only-Begotten. Noah also plants a vineyard--the allegorical\nhot-bed of future humanity. As a consequence of the adoption of the\nsame allegory, we find it reproduced in the Nazarene _Codex_. Seven\nvines are procreated, which spring from Iukabar Ziva, and Ferho (or\nParcha) Raba waters them.[493] When the blessed will ascend among the\ncreatures of Light, they shall see Iavar-Zivo, _Lord of_ LIFE, and\nthe First VINE![494] These kabalistic metaphora are thus naturally\nrepeated in the _Gospel according to John_ (xv. 1): \u201cI am the true\nvine, and my Father is the husbandman.\u201d In _Genesis_ (xlix.), the\ndying Jacob is made to say, \u201cThe sceptre shall not depart from\nJudah (the lion\u2019s whelp), nor a lawgiver from between his feet,\nuntil Shiloh (Siloh) comes.... Binding his colt unto _the vine_,\nand his ass\u2019s colt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments _in\nwine_, and his clothes _in the blood of grapes_.\u201d Shiloh is \u201cKing\nMessiah,\u201d as well as the Shiloh in Ephraim, which was to be made the\ncapital and the place of the sanctuary. In _The Targum of Onkelos_,\nthe Babylonian, the words of Jacob read: \u201cUntil the _King Messiah_\nshall come.\u201d The prophecy has failed in the Christian as well as in\nthe kabalistico-Jewish sense. The sceptre has departed from Judah,\nwhether the Messiah has already or will come, unless we believe, with\nthe kabalists, that Moses was the first Messiah, who transferred his\nsoul to Joshua--Jesus.[495]\n\nSays Hermas: \u201cAnd, in the middle of the plain, he showed me a great\n_white_ rock, which had risen out of the plain, and the rock was\nhigher than the mountains, rectangular, so as to be able to hold\nthe whole world; but that rock was old, having a gate hewn out of\nit, and the hewing out of the gate seemed to me to be recent.\u201d In\nthe _Sohar_, we find: \u201cTo 40,000 superior worlds the _white_ of the\nskull of His Head (of the most Sacred Ancient _in absconditus_) is\nextended.[496]... When _Seir_ (the first reflection and image of\nhis Father, the Ancient of the Ancient) will, through the mystery\nof the seventy names of Metatron, descend into Iezirah (the third\nworld), he will open a new gate.... The Spiritus Decisorius will cut\nand divide the garment (Shekinah) into two parts.[497]... At the\ncoming of King Messiah, from the sacred cubical stone of the Temple\na _white light_ will be arising during forty days. This will expand,\nuntil _it encloses the whole world_.... At that time King Messiah\nwill allow himself to be revealed, and will be seen coming out of\nthe gate of the garden of Odan (Eden). \u2018He will be revealed in the\nland Galil.\u2019[498]... When \u2018he has made satisfaction for the sins of\nIsrael, he will lead them on through a _new gate_ to the seat of\njudgment.\u2019[499] At the _Gate of the House of Life_, the throne is\nprepared for the Lord of Splendor.\u201d[500]\n\nFurther on, the commentator introduces the following quotation:\n\u201cThis _rock_ and this _gate_ are the Son of God. \u2018How, Lord,\u2019 I\nsaid, \u2018is the rock old and the gate new?\u2019 \u2018Listen,\u2019 He said, \u2018and\nunderstand, thou ignorant man. The _Son of God is older than all of\nhis creation_, so that he was a Councillor with the Father in His\nworks of creation; and for this is he old.\u2019\u201d[501]\n\nNow, these two assertions are not only purely kabalistic, without\neven so much as a change of expression, but Brahmanical and Pagan\nlikewise. \u201c_Vidi virum excellentem c\u0153li terr\u00e6que conditore natu\nmajorem._... I have seen the most excellent (superior) MAN, who\nis older by birth than the maker of heaven and earth,\u201d says the\nkabalistic _Codex_.[502] The Eleusinian Dionysus, whose particular\nname was _Iacchos_ (Iaccho, Iahoh)[503]--the God from whom the\nliberation of souls was expected--was considered older than the\nDemiurge. At the mysteries of the Anthesteria at the lakes (the\nLimn\u00e6), after the usual baptism by purification of water, the\n_Myst\u00e6_ were made to pass through to another door (gate), and\none particularly for that purpose, which was called \u201cthe gate of\nDionysus,\u201d and that of \u201cthe _purified_.\u201d\n\nIn the _Sohar_, the kabalists are told that the work-master, the\nDemiurge, said to the Lord: \u201cLet us make man after our image.\u201d[504]\nIn the original texts of the first chapter of _Genesis_, it stands:\n\u201cAnd the _Elohim_ (translated as the Supreme God), who are the\nhighest gods or powers, said: Let us make man in _our_ (?) image,\nafter _our_ likeness.\u201d In the _Vedas_, Brahma holds counsel with\nParabrahma, as to the best mode to proceed to create the world.\n\nCanon Westcott, quoting Hermas, shows him asking: \u201cAnd why is the\ngate _new_, Lord? I said. \u2018Because,\u2019 he replied, \u2018he was manifested\nat the last of the days of the dispensation; for this cause the gate\nwas made new, in order that they who shall be saved might enter by it\ninto the Kingdom of God.\u2019\u201d[505] There are two peculiarities worthy\nof note in this passage. To begin with, it attributes to \u201cthe Lord\u201d\na false statement of the same character as that so emphasized by the\nApostle John; and which brought, at a later period, the whole of\nthe orthodox Christians, who accepted the apostolic allegories as\nliteral, to such inconvenient straits. Jesus, as Messiah, was _not_\nmanifested at the last of the days; for the latter are yet to come,\nnotwithstanding a number of divinely-inspired prophecies, followed\nby disappointed hopes, as a result, to testify to his immediate\ncoming. The belief that the \u201clast times\u201d had come, was natural, when\nonce the coming of King Messiah had been acknowledged. The second\npeculiarity is found in the fact that the _prophecy_ could have been\naccepted at all, when even its approximate determination is a direct\ncontradiction of Mark, who makes Jesus distinctly state that neither\nthe angels, nor the Son himself, know of that day or that hour.[506]\nWe might add that, as the belief undeniably originated with the\n_Apocalypse_, it ought to be a self-evident proof that it belonged to\nthe calculations peculiar to the kabalists and the Pagan sanctuaries.\nIt was the secret computation of a cycle, which, according to their\nreckoning, was ending toward the latter part of the first century. It\nmay also be held as a corroborative proof, that the _Gospel according\nto Mark_, as well as that ascribed to _John_, and the _Apocalypse_,\nwere written by men, of whom neither was sufficiently acquainted\nwith the other. The Logos was first definitely called _petra_ (rock)\nby Philo; the word, moreover, as we have shown elsewhere, means,\nin Chaldaic and Ph\u0153nician, \u201cinterpreter.\u201d Justin Martyr calls him,\nthroughout his works, \u201cangel,\u201d and makes a clear distinction between\nthe Logos and God the Creator. \u201cThe Word of God is His Son ...\nand he is also called Angel and Apostle, for he declares whatever\nwe ought to know (interprets), and is sent to declare whatever is\ndisclosed.\u201d[507]\n\n\u201cAdan Inferior is distributed into its own paths, into thirty-two\nsides of paths, yet it is not known to any one but _Seir_. But no one\nknows the SUPERIOR ADAN nor His paths, except that Long Face\u201d--the\nSupreme God.[508] Seir is the Nazarene \u201cgenius,\u201d who is called \u00c6bel\nZivo; and Gabriel Legatus--also \u201cApostle Gabriel.\u201d[509] The Nazarenes\nheld with the kabalists that even the Messiah who was to come did\nnot know the \u201c_Superior_ Adan,\u201d the concealed Deity; no one except\nthe _Supreme_ God; thus showing that above the Supreme Intelligible\nDeity, there is one still more secret and unrevealed. Seir-Anpin\nis the third God, while \u201cLogos,\u201d according to Philo Jud\u00e6us, is\nthe second one.[510] This is distinctly shown in the _Codex_. The\nfalse Messiah shall say: \u201cI am Deus, son of Deus; my Father sent me\nhere.... I am the first _Legate_, I am \u00c6bel Zivo, I am come from on\nhigh! But distrust him; for he will not be \u00c6bel Zivo. \u00c6bel Zivo will\nnot permit himself to be seen in this age.\u201d[511] Hence the belief\nof some Gnostics that it was not \u00c6bel Zivo (Archangel Gabriel) who\n\u201c_overshadowed_\u201d Mary, but Ilda-Baoth, who formed the _material body_\nof Jesus; _Christos_ uniting himself with him only at the moment of\nbaptism in the Jordan.\n\nCan we doubt Nork\u2019s assertion that \u201cthe Bereshith Rabba, the oldest\npart of the Midrash Rabboth, _was known to the Church Fathers in a\nGreek translation_?\u201d[512]\n\nBut if, on the one hand, they were sufficiently acquainted with the\ndifferent religious systems of their neighbors to have enabled them\nto build a new religion alleged to be distinct from all others,\ntheir ignorance of the _Old Testament_ itself, let alone the more\ncomplicated questions of Grecian metaphysics, is now found to have\nbeen deplorable. \u201cSo, for instance, in _Matthew_ xxvii. 9 f., the\npassage from _Zechariah_ xi. 12, 13, is attributed to Jeremiah,\u201d says\nthe author of _Supernatural Religion_. \u201cIn _Mark_ i. 2, a quotation\nfrom _Malachi_ iii. 1, is ascribed to Isaiah. In _1 Corinthians_,\nii. 9, a passage is quoted as _Holy Scripture_, which is not found in\nthe _Old Testament_ at all, but which is taken, as Origen and Jerome\nstate, from an apocryphal work, _The Revelation of Elias_ (Origen:\n_Tract._ xxxv.), and the passage is similarly quoted by the so-called\n_Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians_ (xxxiv.)\u201d. How reliable are\nthe pious Fathers in their explanations of divers heresies may be\nillustrated in the case of Epiphanius, who mistook the Pythagorean\nsacred Tetrad, called in the Valentinian _Gnosis_, Kol-Arbas, for\na _heretic leader_.[513] What with the involuntary blunders, and\ndeliberate falsifications of the teachings of those who differed in\nviews with them; the canonization of the mythological Aura Placida\n(gentle breeze), into a pair of Christian martyrs--St. Aura and St.\nPlacida;[514] the deification of a _spear_ and a _cloak_, under\nthe names of SS. Longimus and Amphibolus;[515] and the Patristic\nquotations from prophets, of what was never in those prophets at all;\none may well ask in blank amazement whether the so-called religion of\nChrist has ever been other than an incoherent dream, since the death\nof the Great Master.\n\nSo malicious do we find the holy Fathers in their unrelenting\npersecution of pretended \u201c_h\u00e6resies_,\u201d[516] that we see them telling,\nwithout hesitation the most preposterous untruths, and inventing\nentire narratives, the better to impress their own otherwise\nunsupported arguments upon ignorance. If the mistake in relation to\nthe tetrad had at first originated as a simple consequence of an\nunpremeditated blunder of Hippolytus, the explanations of Epiphanius\nand others who fell into the same absurd error[517] have a less\ninnocent look. When Hippolytus gravely denounces the great heresy of\nthe Tetrad, Kol-Arbas, and states that the imaginary Gnostic leader\nis, \u201cKalorbasus, who endeavors to explain religion by measures\nand numbers,\u201d[518] we may simply smile. But when Epiphanius, with\nabundant indignation, elaborates upon the theme, \u201cwhich is Heresy\nXV.,\u201d and pretending to be thoroughly acquainted with the subject,\nadds: \u201cA certain Heracleon follows after Colorbasus, which is Heresy\nXVI.,\u201d[519] then he lays himself open to the charge of deliberate\nfalsification.\n\nIf this zealous _Christian_ can boast so unblushingly of having\ncaused \u201c_by his information_ seventy women, even of rank, to be\nsent into exile, _through the seductions of some_ in whose number\nhe had himself been drawn into joining their sect,\u201d he has left us\na fair standard by which to judge him. C. W. King remarks, very\naptly, on this point, that \u201cit may reasonably be suspected that this\nworthy renegade had in this case saved himself from the fate of his\nfellow-religionists by turning evidence against them, on the opening\nof the persecution.\u201d[520]\n\nAnd thus, one by one, perished the Gnostics, the only heirs to whose\nshare had fallen a few stray crumbs of the unadulterated truth of\nprimitive Christianity. All was confusion and turmoil during these\nfirst centuries, till the moment when all these contradictory dogmas\nwere finally forced upon the Christian world, and examination was\nforbidden. For long ages it was made a sacrilege, punishable with\nsevere penalties, often death, to seek to comprehend that which the\nChurch had so conveniently elevated to the rank of _divine_ mystery.\nBut since biblical critics have taken upon themselves to \u201cset the\nhouse in order,\u201d the cases have become reversed. Pagan creditors now\ncome from every part of the globe to claim their own, and Christian\ntheology begins to be suspected of complete bankruptcy. Such is the\nsad result of the fanaticism of the \u201corthodox\u201d sects, who, to borrow\nan expression of the author of \u201cThe Decline and Fall of the Roman\nEmpire,\u201d never were, like the Gnostics, \u201cthe most polite, the most\nlearned, and most wealthy of the Christian name.\u201d And, if not all\nof them \u201csmelt garlic,\u201d as Renan will have it, on the other hand,\nnone of these Christian saints have ever shrunk from spilling their\nneighbor\u2019s blood, if the views of the latter did not agree with their\nown.\n\nAnd so all our philosophers were swept away by the ignorant and\nsuperstitious masses. The Philaletheians, the lovers of truth,\nand their eclectic school, perished; and there, where the young\nHypatia had taught the highest philosophical doctrines; and where\nAmmonius Saccas had explained that \u201cthe _whole which Christ had in\nview_ was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the\nwisdom of the ancients--to reduce within bounds the universally\nprevailing dominion of superstition ... and to exterminate the\nvarious errors that had found their way into the different popular\nreligions\u201d[521]--there, we say, freely raved the \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 of\nChristianity. No more precepts from the mouth of the \u201cGod-taught\nphilosopher,\u201d but others expounded by the incarnation of a most cruel,\nfiendish superstition.\n\n\u201cIf thy father,\u201d wrote St. Jerome, \u201clies down across thy threshold,\nif thy mother uncovers to thine eyes the bosom which suckled thee,\ntrample on thy father\u2019s lifeless body, trample on thy mother\u2019s bosom,\nand, with eyes unmoistened and dry, fly to the Lord who calleth\nthee!!\u201d\n\nThis sentence is equalled, if not outrivalled, by this other,\npronounced in a like spirit. It emanates from another father of\nthe early Church, the eloquent Tertullian, who hopes to see all\nthe \u201cphilosophers\u201d in the gehenna fire of Hell. \u201cWhat shall be the\nmagnitude of that scene!... How shall I laugh! How shall I rejoice!\nHow shall I triumph when I see so many illustrious kings who were\nsaid to have mounted into heaven, groaning with Jupiter, their god,\nin the lowest darkness of hell! Then shall the soldiers who have\npersecuted the name of Christ burn in more cruel fire than any they\nhad kindled for the saints!\u201d[522]\n\nThese murderous expressions illustrate the spirit of Christianity\ntill this day. But do they illustrate the teachings of Christ? By\nno means. As Eliphas Levi says, \u201cThe God in the name of whom we\nwould trample on our mother\u2019s bosom we must see in the hereafter, a\nhell gaping widely at his feet, and an exterminating sword in his\nhand.... Moloch burned children but a few seconds; it was reserved\nto the disciples of a god who is alleged to have died to redeem\nhumanity on the cross, to create a new Moloch whose burning stake is\neternal!\u201d[523]\n\nThat this spirit of true Christian love has safely crossed nineteen\ncenturies and rages now in America, is fully instanced in the case\nof the rabid Moody, the revivalist, who exclaims: \u201cI have a son, and\nno one but God knows how I love him; but I would see those beautiful\neyes dug out of his head to-night, rather than see him grow up to\nmanhood and go down to the grave without Christ and without hope!!\u201d\n\nTo this an American paper, of Chicago, very justly responds: \u201cThis is\nthe spirit of the inquisition, which we are told is dead. If Moody\nin his zeal would \u2018dig out\u2019 the eyes of his darling son, to what\nlengths may he not go with the sons of others, whom he may love less?\nIt is the spirit of Loyola, gibbering in the nineteenth century,\nand prevented from lighting the fagot flame and heating red-hot the\ninstruments of torture only by the arm of law.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n \u201cThe curtains of Yesterday drop down, the curtains of\n To-morrow roll up; but Yesterday and To-morrow both\n _are_.\u201d--_Sartor Resartus_: Natural Supernaturalism.\n\n\n \u201cMay we not then be permitted to examine the authenticity\n of the Bible? which since the second century has been put\n forth as the criterion of scientific truth? To maintain\n itself in a position so exalted, it must challenge human\n criticism.\u201d--_Conflict between Religion and Science._\n\n\n \u201cOne kiss of Nara upon the lips of Nari and all Nature\n wakes.\u201d--VINA SNATI (A Hindu Poet).\n\n\nWe must not forget that the Christian Church owes its present\ncanonical _Gospels_, and hence its whole religious dogmatism, to\nthe _Sortes Sanctorum_. Unable to agree as to which were the most\ndivinely-inspired of the numerous gospels extant in its time, the\nmysterious Council of Nicea concluded to leave the decision of the\npuzzling question to miraculous intervention. This Nicean Council\nmay well be called mysterious. There was a mystery, first, in the\nmystical number of its 318 bishops, on which Barnabas (viii. 11,\n12, 13) lays such a stress; added to this, there is no agreement\namong ancient writers as to the time and place of its assembly,\nnor even as to the bishop who presided. Notwithstanding the\ngrandiloquent eulogium of Constantine,[524] Sabinus, the Bishop\nof Heraclea, affirms that \u201cexcept Constantine, the emperor, and\nEusebius Pamphilus, these bishops were a set of _illiterate,\nsimple_ creatures, that understood nothing;\u201d which is equivalent\nto saying that they were a set of fools. Such was apparently the\nopinion entertained of them by Pappus, who tells us of the bit of\nmagic resorted to to decide which were the _true_ gospels. In his\n_Synodicon_ to that Council Pappus says, having \u201cpromiscuously put\nall the books that were referred to the Council for determination\nunder a communion-table in a church, they (the bishops) besought the\nLord that the _inspired_ writings might get upon the table, while the\nspurious ones remained underneath, and _it happened accordingly_.\u201d\nBut we are not told who kept the keys of the council chamber over\nnight!\n\nOn the authority of ecclesiastical eye-witnesses, therefore, we\nare at liberty to say that the Christian world owes its \u201cWord of\nGod\u201d to a method of divination, for resorting to which the Church\nsubsequently condemned unfortunate victims as conjurers, enchanters,\nmagicians, witches, and vaticinators, and burnt them by thousands!\nIn treating of this truly divine phenomenon of the self-sorting\nmanuscripts, the Fathers of the Church say that God himself presides\nover the _Sortes_. As we have shown elsewhere, Augustine confesses\nthat he himself used this sort of divination. But opinions, like\nrevealed religions, are liable to change. That which for nearly\nfifteen hundred years was imposed on Christendom as a book, of which\nevery word was written under the direct supervision of the Holy\nGhost; of which not a syllable, nor a comma could be changed without\nsacrilege, is now being retranslated, revised, corrected, and clipped\nof whole verses, in some cases of entire chapters. And yet, as soon\nas the new edition is out, its doctors would have us accept it as\na new \u201cRevelation\u201d of the nineteenth century, with the alternative\nof being held as an infidel. Thus, we see that, no more _within_\nthan _without_ its precincts, is the infallible Church to be trusted\nmore than would be reasonably convenient. The forefathers of our\nmodern divines found authority for the _Sortes_ in the verse where\nit is said: \u201cThe lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing\nthereof is of the Lord;\u201d[525] and now, their direct heirs hold\nthat \u201cthe whole disposing thereof is of the Devil.\u201d Perhaps, they\nare unconsciously beginning to endorse the doctrine of the Syrian\nBardesanes, that the actions of God, as well as of man, _are subject\nto necessity_?\n\nIt was no doubt, also, according to strict \u201cnecessity\u201d that the\nNeo-platonists were so summarily dealt with by the Christian mob. In\nthose days, the doctrines of the Hindu naturalists and antediluvian\nPyrrhonists were forgotten, if they ever had been known at all,\nto any but a few philosophers; and Mr. Darwin, with his modern\n_discoveries_, had not even been mentioned in the prophecies. In\nthis case the law of the survival of the fittest was reversed; the\n_Neo-platonists were doomed to destruction from the day when they\nopenly sided with Aristotle_.\n\nAt the beginning of the fourth century crowds began gathering at\nthe door of the academy where the learned and unfortunate Hypatia\nexpounded the doctrines of the divine Plato and Plotinus, and thereby\nimpeded the progress of Christian proselytism. She too successfully\ndispelled the mist hanging over the religious \u201cmysteries\u201d invented by\nthe Fathers, not to be considered dangerous. This alone would have\nbeen sufficient to imperil both herself and her followers. It was\nprecisely the teachings of this Pagan philosopher, which had been so\nfreely borrowed by the Christians to give a finishing touch to their\notherwise incomprehensible scheme, that had seduced so many into\njoining the new religion; and now the Platonic light began shining\nso inconveniently bright upon the pious patchwork, as to allow every\none to see whence the \u201crevealed\u201d doctrines were derived. But there\nwas a still greater peril. Hypatia had studied under Plutarch, the\nhead of the Athenian school, and had learned all the secrets of\ntheurgy. While she lived to instruct the multitude, no _divine_\nmiracles could be produced before one who could divulge the natural\ncauses by which they took place. Her doom was sealed by Cyril, whose\neloquence she eclipsed, and whose authority, built on degrading\nsuperstitions, had to yield before hers, which was erected on the\nrock of immutable natural law. It is more than curious that Cave, the\nauthor of the _Lives of the Fathers_, should find it incredible that\nCyril sanctioned her murder on account of his \u201cgeneral character.\u201d A\nsaint who will sell the gold and silver vessels of his church, and\nthen, after spending the money, lie at his trial, as he did, may\nwell be suspected of anything. Besides, in this case, the Church\nhad to fight for her life, to say nothing of her future supremacy.\nAlone, the hated and erudite Pagan scholars, and the no less learned\nGnostics, held in their doctrines the hitherto concealed wires of all\nthese theological marionettes. Once the curtain should be lifted,\nthe connection between the old Pagan and the new Christian religions\nwould be exposed; and then, what would have become of the Mysteries\ninto which it is sin and blasphemy to pry? With such a coincidence\nof the astronomical allegories of various Pagan myths with the\ndates adopted by Christianity for the nativity, crucifixion, and\nresurrection, and such an identity of rites and ceremonies, what\nwould have been the fate of the new religion, had not the Church,\nunder the pretext of serving Christ, got rid of the too-well-informed\nphilosophers? To guess what, if the _coup d\u2019\u00e9tat_ had then failed,\nmight have been the prevailing religion in our own century would\nindeed, be a hard task. But, in all probability, the state of things\nwhich made of the middle ages a period of intellectual darkness,\nwhich degraded the nations of the Occident, and lowered the European\nof those days almost to the level of a Papuan savage--could not have\noccurred.\n\nThe fears of the Christians were but too well founded, and their\npious zeal and prophetic insight was rewarded from the very first.\nIn the demolition of the Serapeum, after the bloody riot between\nthe Christian mob and the Pagan worshippers had ended with the\ninterference of the emperor, a Latin cross, of a perfect Christian\nshape, was discovered hewn upon the granite slabs of the adytum.\nThis was a lucky discovery, indeed; and the monks did not fail to\nclaim that the cross had been hallowed by the Pagans in a \u201cspirit\nof prophecy.\u201d At least, Sozomen, with an air of triumph, records\nthe fact.[526] But, arch\u00e6ology and symbolism, those tireless and\nimplacable enemies of clerical false pretences, have found in the\nhieroglyphics of the legend running around the design, at least a\npartial interpretation of its meaning.\n\nAccording to King and other numismatists and arch\u00e6ologists, the\ncross was placed there as the symbol of eternal life. Such a Tau, or\nEgyptian cross, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries.\nSymbol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon the breast of\nthe initiate, after his \u201cnew birth\u201d was accomplished, and the Myst\u00e6\nhad returned from their baptism in the sea. It was a mystic sign\nthat his spiritual birth had regenerated and united his astral soul\nwith his divine spirit, and that he was ready to ascend in spirit\nto the blessed abodes of light and glory--the Eleusinia. The Tau\nwas a magic talisman at the same time as a religious emblem. It\nwas adopted by the Christians through the Gnostics and kabalists,\nwho used it largely, as their numerous gems testify, and who had\nthe Tau (or handled cross) from the Egyptians, and the Latin cross\nfrom the Buddhist missionaries, who brought it from India, where it\ncan be found until now, two or three centuries B.C. The Assyrians,\nEgyptians, ancient Americans, Hindus, and Romans had it in various,\nbut very slight modifications of shape. Till very late in the\nmedi\u00e6val ages, it was considered a potent spell against epilepsy and\ndemoniacal possession; and the \u201csignet of the living God,\u201d brought\ndown in St. John\u2019s vision by the angel ascending from the east to\n\u201cseal the servants of our God in their foreheads,\u201d was but the same\nmystic Tau--the Egyptian cross. In the painted glass of St. Dionysus\n(France), this angel is represented as stamping this sign on the\nforehead of the elect; the legend reads, SIGNVM \u03a4\u0391\u03a5. In King\u2019s\n_Gnostics_, the author reminds us that \u201cthis mark is commonly born\nby St. Anthony, an _Egyptian_ recluse.\u201d[527] What the real meaning\nof the Tau was, is explained to us by the Christian St. John, the\nEgyptian Hermes, and the Hindu Brahmans. It is but too evident\nthat, with the apostle, at least, it meant the \u201cIneffable Name,\u201d as\nhe calls this \u201csignet of the living God,\u201d a few chapters further\non,[528] the \u201c_Father\u2019s name written in their foreheads_.\u201d\n\nThe Brahm\u00e2tma, the chief of the Hindu initiates, had on his head-gear\ntwo keys, symbol of the revealed mystery of life and death, placed\ncross-like; and, in some Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and Mongolia,\nthe entrance of a chamber within the temple, generally containing the\nstaircase which leads to the inner dagh\u00f4ba,[529] and the porticos\nof some _Prachida_[530] are ornamented with a cross formed of two\nfishes, and as found on some of the zodiacs of the Buddhists. We\nshould not wonder at all at learning that the sacred device in the\ntombs in the Catacombs, at Rome, the \u201cVesica piscis,\u201d was derived\nfrom the said Buddhist zodiacal sign. How general must have been\nthat geometrical figure in the world-symbols, may be inferred from\nthe fact that there is a Masonic tradition that Solomon\u2019s temple\nwas built on three foundations, forming the \u201ctriple Tau,\u201d or three\ncrosses.\n\nIn its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as\nan emblem, to the realization by the earliest philosophy of an\nandrogynous dualism of every manifestation in nature, which proceeds\nfrom the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity, while\nthe Christian emblem is simply due to chance. Had the Mosaic law\nprevailed, Jesus should have been lapidated.[531] The crucifix was\nan instrument of torture, and utterly common among Romans as it was\nunknown among Semitic nations. It was called the \u201cTree of Infamy.\u201d It\nis but later that it was adopted as a Christian symbol; but, during\nthe first two decades, the apostles looked upon it with horror.[532]\nIt is certainly not the Christian Cross that John had in mind when\nspeaking of the \u201csignet of the living God,\u201d but the _mystic_ Tau--the\nTetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on the most ancient kabalistic\ntalismans, was represented by the four Hebrew letters composing the\nHoly Word.\n\nThe famous Lady Ellenborough, known among the Arabs of Damascus, and\nin the desert, after her last marriage, as _Hanoum Medjouy\u00e9_, had a\ntalisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druze from Mount\nLebanon. It was recognized by a certain sign on its left corner,\nto belong to that class of gems which is known in Palestine as a\n\u201c_Messianic_\u201d amulet, of the second or third century, B.C. It is a\ngreen stone of a pentagonal form; at the bottom is engraved a fish;\nhigher, Solomon\u2019s seal;[533] and still higher, the four Chaldaic\nletters----Jod, He, Vau, He, IAHO, which form the name of the Deity.\nThese are arranged in quite an unusual way, running from below\nupward, in reversed order, and forming the Egyptian Tau. Around these\nthere is a legend which, as the gem is not our property, we are not\nat liberty to give. The Tau, in its mystical sense, as well as the\n_crux ansata_, is the _Tree of Life_.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIt is well known, that the earliest Christian emblems--before it was\never attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus--were\nthe Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and _the Fish_. The origin of the\nlatter emblem, which has so puzzled the arch\u00e6ologists, thus becomes\ncomprehensible. The whole secret lies in the easily-ascertained\nfact that, while in the _Kabala_, the King Messiah is called\n\u201cInterpreter,\u201d or Revealer of the mystery, and shown to be the\n_fifth_ emanation, in the _Talmud_--for reasons we will now\nexplain--the Messiah is very often designated as \u201cDAG,\u201d or the\nFish. This is an inheritance from the Chaldees, and relates--as the\nvery name indicates--to the Babylonian Dagon, the man-fish, who was\nthe instructor and interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared.\nAbarbanel explains the name, by stating that the sign of his\n(Messiah\u2019s) coming \u201cis the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the\nsign _Pisces_.\u201d[534] Therefore, as the Christians were intent upon\nidentifying their Christos with the Messiah of the _Old Testament_,\nthey adopted it so readily as to forget that its true origin might\nbe traced still farther back than the Babylonian Dagon. How eagerly\nand closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by the early Christians,\nwith every imaginable kabalistic and Pagan tenet, may be inferred\nfrom the language of Clemens, of Alexandria, addressed to his brother\nco-religionists.\n\nWhen they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate\nsymbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the following\nwords: \u201cLet the engraving upon the gem of your ring be either _a\ndove_, or _a ship running before the wind_ (the Argha), or _a fish_.\u201d\nWas the good father, when writing this sentence, laboring under the\nrecollection of Joshua, son of Nun (called _Jesus_ in the Greek and\nSlavonian versions); or had he forgotten the real interpretation of\nthese Pagan symbols? Joshua, son of Nun, or Nave (_Navis_), could\nhave with perfect propriety adopted the image of a _ship_, or even\nof a fish, for Joshua means Jesus, son of the fish-god; but it was\nreally too hazardous to connect the emblems of Venus, Astarte, and\nall the Hindu goddesses--the _argha_, _dove_, and _fish_--with the\n\u201cimmaculate\u201d birth of their god! This looks very much as if in the\nearly days of Christianity but little difference was made between\nChrist, Bacchus, Apollo, and the Hindu Christna, the incarnation of\nVishnu, with whose first avatar this symbol of the fish originated.\n\nIn the _Hari-purana_, in the _Bagaved-gitta_, as well as in several\nother books, the god Vishnu is shown as having assumed the form of a\nfish with a human head, in order to reclaim the _Vedas_ lost during\nthe deluge. Having enabled Visvamitra to escape with all his tribe\nin the ark, Vishnu, pitying weak and ignorant humanity, remained\nwith them for some time. It was this god who taught them to build\nhouses, cultivate the land, and to thank the unknown Deity whom he\nrepresented, by building temples and instituting a regular worship;\nand, as he remained half-fish, half-man, all the time, at every\nsunset he used to return to the ocean, wherein he passed the night.\n\n\u201cIt is he,\u201d says the sacred book, \u201cwho taught men, after the\ndiluvium, all that was necessary for their happiness.\n\n\u201cOne day he plunged into the water and returned no more, for the\nearth had covered itself again with vegetation, fruit, and cattle.\n\n\u201cBut he had taught the Brahmas the secret of all things\u201d\n(_Hari-purana_).\n\nSo far, we see in this narrative the _double_ of the story given by\nthe Babylonian Berosus about Oannes, the fish-man, who is no other\nthan Vishnu--unless, indeed, we have to believe that it was Chaldea\nwhich civilized India!\n\nWe say again, we desire to give nothing on our sole authority.\nTherefore we cite Jacolliot, who, however criticised and contradicted\non other points, and however loose he may be in the matter of\nchronology (though even in this he is nearer right than those\nscientists who would have all Hindu books written since the Council\nof Nicea), at least cannot be denied the reputation of a good\nSanscrit scholar. And he says, while analyzing the word _Oan_,\nor Oannes, that _O_ in Sanscrit is an interjection expressing an\ninvocation, as O, Swayambhuva! O, God! etc; and _An_ is a radical,\nsignifying in Sanscrit a spirit, a being; and, we presume, what the\nGreeks meant by the word _D\u00e6mon_, a semi-god.\n\n\u201cWhat an extraordinary antiquity,\u201d he remarks, \u201cthis fable of Vishnu,\ndisguised as a fish, gives to the sacred books of the Hindus;\nespecially in presence of the fact that the _Vedas_ and _Manu_ reckon\nmore _than twenty-five thousand years of existence_, as proved by the\nmost serious as the most authentic documents. Few peoples, says the\nlearned Halhed, have their annals more authentic or serious than the\nHindus.\u201d[535]\n\nWe may, perhaps, throw additional light upon the puzzling question of\nthe fish-symbol by reminding the reader that according to _Genesis_\nthe first created of living beings, the first type of animal life,\nwas the fish. \u201cAnd the Elohim said: \u2018Let the waters bring forth\nabundantly the moving creature that _hath life_\u2019 ... and God created\ngreat whales ... and the morning and the evening were the _fifth\nday_.\u201d Jonah is swallowed by a big fish, and is cast out again three\ndays later. This the Christians regard as a premonition of the three\ndays\u2019 sepulture of Jesus which preceded his resurrection--though\nthe statement of the three days is as fanciful as much of the rest,\nand adopted to fit the well-known threat to destroy the temple and\nrebuild it again in _three_ days. Between his burial and alleged\nresurrection there intervened but _one day_--the Jewish Sabbath--as\nhe was buried on Friday evening and rose to life at dawn on Sunday.\nHowever, whatever other circumstance may be regarded as a prophecy,\nthe story of Jonah cannot be made to answer the purpose.\n\n\u201cBig Fish\u201d is Cetus, the latinized form of Keto-\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03c9 and keto is\nDagon, Poseidon, the female gender of it being Keton Atar-gatis--the\nSyrian goddess, and Venus, of Askalon. The figure or bust of Der-Keto\nor Astarte was generally represented on the prow of the ships. Jonah\n(the Greek Iona, or _dove_ sacred to Venus) fled to Jaffa, where the\ngod Dagon, the man-fish, was worshipped, and dared not go to N\u00edneveh,\n_where the dove was revered_. Hence, some commentators believe that\nwhen Jonah was thrown overboard and was swallowed by a fish, we\nmust understand that he was picked up by one of these vessels, on\nthe prow of which was the figure of _Keto_. But the kabalists have\nanother legend, to this effect: They say that Jonah was a run-away\npriest from the temple of the goddess where the dove was worshipped,\nand desired to abolish idolatry and institute monotheistic worship.\nThat, caught near Jaffa, he was held prisoner by the devotees of\nDagon in one of the prison-cells of the temple, and that it is the\nstrange form of the cell which gave rise to the allegory. In the\ncollection of Mose de Garcia, a Portuguese kabalist, there is a\ndrawing representing the interior of the temple of Dagon. In the\nmiddle stands an immense idol, the upper portion of whose body is\nhuman, and the lower fish-like. Between the belly and the tail is an\naperture which can be closed like the door of a closet. In it the\ntransgressors against the local deity were shut up until further\ndisposal. The drawing in question was made from an old tablet covered\nwith curious drawings and inscriptions in old Ph\u0153nician characters,\ndescribing this Venetian _oubliette_ of biblical days. The tablet\nitself was found in an excavation a few miles from Jaffa. Considering\nthe extraordinary tendency of Oriental nations for puns and\nallegories, is it not barely possible that the \u201cbig fish\u201d by which\nJonah was swallowed was simply the cell within the belly of Dagon?\n\nIt is significant that this double appellation of \u201cMessiah\u201d and\n\u201cDag\u201d (fish), of the Talmudists, should so well apply to the Hindu\nVishnu, the \u201cPreserving\u201d Spirit, and the second personage of the\nBrahmanic trinity. This deity, having already manifested itself, is\nstill regarded as the future Saviour of humanity, and is the selected\nRedeemer, who will appear at its tenth incarnation or _avatar_, like\nthe Messiah of the Jews, to lead the blessed onward, and restore to\nthem the primitive _Vedas_. At his first avatar, Vishnu is alleged\nto have appeared to humanity, in form like a fish. In the temple of\nRama, there is a representation of this god which answers perfectly\nto that of Dagon, as given by Berosus. He has the body of a man\nissuing from the mouth of a fish, and holds in his hands the lost\n_Veda_. Vishnu, moreover, is the water-god, in one sense, the Logos\nof the Parabrahm, for as the three persons of the manifested god-head\nconstantly interchange their attributes, we see him in the same\ntemple represented as reclining on the seven-headed serpent, Ananta\n(eternity), and moving, like the _Spirit_ of God, on the face of the\nprimeval waters.\n\nVishnu is evidently the Adam Kadmon of the kabalists, for Adam is the\nLogos or the first Anointed, as Adam Second is the King Messiah.\n\nLakmy, or Lakshmi, the passive or feminine counterpart of Vishnu,\nthe creator and the preserver, is also called Ada Maya. She is the\n\u201cMother of the World,\u201d Damatri, the Venus Aphrodite of the Greeks;\nalso Isis and Eve. While Venus is born from the sea-foam, Lakmy\nsprings out from the water at the churning of the sea; when born, she\nis so beautiful that all the gods fall in love with her. The Jews,\nborrowing their types wherever they could get them, made their first\nwoman after the pattern of Lakmy. It is curious that Viracocha, the\nSupreme Being in Peru, means, literally translated, \u201cfoam of the sea.\u201d\n\nEugene Burnouf, the great authority of the French school, announces\nhis opinion in the same spirit: \u201cWe must learn one day,\u201d he observes,\n\u201cthat all ancient traditions disfigured by emigration and legend,\nbelong to the history of India.\u201d Such is the opinion of Colebrooke,\nInman, King, Jacolliot, and many other Orientalists.\n\nWe have said above, that, according to the secret computation\npeculiar to the students of the hidden science, Messiah is the\nfifth emanation, or potency. In the Jewish _Kabala_, where the ten\nSephiroth emanate from Adam Kadmon (placed below the crown), he comes\nfifth. So in the Gnostic system; so in the Buddhistic, in which the\nfifth Buddha--Maitree, will appear at his last advent to save mankind\nbefore the final destruction of the world. If Vishnu is represented\nin his forthcoming and last appearance as the _tenth_ avatar or\nincarnation, it is only because every unit held as an androgyne\nmanifests itself doubly. The Buddhists who reject this dual-sexed\nincarnation reckon but five. Thus, while Vishnu is to make his last\nappearance in his tenth, Buddha is said to do the same in his fifth\nincarnation.[536]\n\nThe better to illustrate the idea, and show how completely the real\nmeaning of the avatars, known only to the students of the secret\ndoctrine was misunderstood by the ignorant masses, we elsewhere\ngive the diagrams of the Hindu and Chaldeo-Kabalistic avatars and\nemanations.[537] This basic and true fundamental stone of the\nsecret cycles, shows on its very face, that far from taking their\nrevealed _Vedas_ and _Bible_ literally, the Brahman-pundits, and\nthe Tana\u00efm--the scientists and philosophers of the pre-Christian\nepochs--speculated on the creation and development of the world quite\nin a Darwinian way, both anticipating him and his school in the\nnatural selection of species, gradual development, and transformation.\n\nWe advise every one tempted to enter an indignant protest against\nthis affirmation to read more carefully the books of Manu, even in\nthe incomplete translation of Sir William Jones, and the more or less\ncareless one of Jacolliot. If we compare the Sanchoniathon Ph\u0153nician\nCosmogony, and the record of Berosus with the _Bhagavatta_ and\n_Manu_, we will find enunciated exactly the same principles as those\nnow offered as the latest developments of modern science. We have\nquoted from the Chaldean and Ph\u0153nician records in our first volume;\nwe will now glance at the Hindu books.\n\n\u201cWhen this world had issued out of darkness, the subtile elementary\nprinciples produced the vegetal seed which animated first the plants;\nfrom the plants, life passed into fastastical bodies which were born\n_in the ilus of the waters_; then, through a series of forms and\nvarious animals, it reached MAN.\u201d[538]\n\n\u201cHe (man, before becoming such) will pass successively through\nplants, worms, insects, fish, serpents, tortoises, cattle, and wild\nanimals; such is the inferior degree.\u201d\n\n\u201cSuch, from Brahma down to the vegetables, are declared the\ntransmigrations which take place in this world.\u201d[539]\n\nIn the Sanchoniathonian Cosmogony, men are also evolved out of the\nilus of the chaos,[540] and the same evolution and transformation of\nspecies are shown.\n\nAnd now we will leave the rostrum to Mr. Darwin: \u201cI believe\nthat animals have descended from at most only four or five\nprogenitors.\u201d[541]\n\nAgain: \u201cI should infer from analogy that probably all the organic\nbeings which have ever lived on this earth, have descended from\nsome one primordial form.[542]... I view all beings, not as special\ncreations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which\nlived long _before the first bed of the Silurian system was\ndeposited_.\u201d[543]\n\nIn short, they lived in the Sanchoniathonian chaos, and in the _ilus_\nof Manu. Vyasa and Kapila go still farther than Darwin and Manu.\n\u201cThey see in Brahma but the name of the universal germ; _they deny\nthe existence of a First Cause_; and pretend that everything in\nnature found itself developed only in consequence of material and\nfatal forces,\u201d says Jacolliot.[544]\n\nCorrect as may be this latter quotation from Kapila, it demands a\nfew words of explanation. Jacolliot repeatedly compares Kapila and\nVeda Vyasa with Pyrrho and Littr\u00e9. We have nothing against such a\ncomparison with the Greek philosopher, but we must decidedly object\nto any with the French Comtist; we find it an unmerited fling at\nthe memory of the great Aryan sage. Nowhere does this prolific\nwriter state the repudiation by either ancient or modern Brahmans of\nGod--the \u201cunknown,\u201d universal Spirit; nor does any other Orientalist\naccuse the Hindus of the same, however perverted the general\ndeductions of our savants about Buddhistic atheism. On the contrary,\nJacolliot states more than once that the learned Pundits and educated\nBrahmans have never shared the popular superstitions; and affirms\ntheir unshaken belief in the unity of God and the soul\u2019s immortality,\nalthough most assuredly neither Kapila, nor the initiated Brahmans,\nnor the followers of the Vedanta school would ever admit the\nexistence of an anthropomorphic creator, a \u201cFirst Cause\u201d in the\nChristian sense. Jacolliot, in his _Indo-European and African\nTraditions_, is the first to make an onslaught on Professor M\u00fcller,\nfor remarking that the Hindu gods were \u201cmasks without actors ...\nnames without being, and not beings without names.\u201d[545] Quoting, in\nsupport of his argument, numerous verses from the sacred Hindu books,\nhe adds: \u201cIs it possible to refuse to the author of these stanzas a\ndefinite and clear conception of the divine force, of the Unique\nBeing, master and Sovereign of the Universe?... Were the altars then\nbuilt to a metaphor?\u201d[546]\n\nThe latter argument is perfectly just, so far as Max M\u00fcller\u2019s\nnegation is concerned. But we doubt whether the French rationalist\nunderstands Kapila\u2019s and Vyasa\u2019s philosophy better than the German\nphilologist does the \u201ctheological twaddle,\u201d as the latter terms the\n_Atharva-Veda_. Professor M\u00fcller and Jacolliot may have ever so great\nclaims to erudition, and be ever so familiar with Sanscrit and other\nancient Oriental languages, but both lack the key to the thousand\nand one mysteries of the old secret doctrine and its philosophy.\nOnly, while the German philologist does not even take the trouble to\nlook into this magical and \u201ctheological twaddle,\u201d we find the French\nIndianist never losing an opportunity to investigate. Moreover,\nhe honestly admits his incompetency to ever fathom this ocean of\nmystical learning. In its existence he not only firmly believes, but\nthroughout his works he incessantly calls the attention of science\nto its unmistakable traces at every step in India. Still, though the\nlearned Pundits and Brahmans--his \u201crevered masters\u201d of the pagodas\nof Villenoor and Ch\u00e9lambrum in the Carnatic,[547] as it seems,\npositively refused to reveal to him the mysteries of the magical part\nof the _Agrouchada-Pariksha\u00ef_,[548] and of Brahm\u00e2tma\u2019s triangle,[549]\nhe persists in the honest declaration that everything is possible in\nHindu metaphysics, even to the Kapila and Vyasa systems having been\nhitherto misunderstood.\n\nM. Jacolliot weakens his assertion immediately afterward with the\nfollowing contradiction:\n\n\u201cWe were one day inquiring of a Brahman of the pagoda of Ch\u00e9lambrum,\nwho belonged to the _skeptical school of the naturalists of Vyasa_,\nwhether he believed in the existence of God. He answered us, smiling:\n\u2018_Aham eva param Brahma_\u2019--I am myself a god.\n\n\u201c\u2018What do you mean by that?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I mean that every being on earth, however humble, is an immortal\nportion of the immortal matter.\u2019\u201d[550]\n\nThe answer is one which would suggest itself to every ancient\nphilosopher, Kabalist and Gnostic, of the early days. It contains the\nvery spirit of the delphic and kabalistic commandment, for esoteric\nphilosophy solved, ages ago, the problem of what man was, is, and\nwill be. If persons believing the _Bible_ verse which teaches that\nthe \u201cLord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed\ninto his nostrils the breath of life,\u201d reject at the same time the\nidea that every atom of this dust, as every particle of this \u201cliving\nsoul,\u201d contains \u201cGod\u201d within itself, then we pity the logic of that\nChristian. He forgets the verses which precede the one in question.\nGod blesses equally every beast of the field and every living\ncreature, in the water as in the air, and He endows them all with\n_life_, which is a breath of His own Spirit, and the _soul_ of the\nanimal. Humanity is the Adam Kadmon of the \u201cUnknown,\u201d His microcosm,\nand His only representative on earth, and every man is a god on earth.\n\nWe would ask this French scholar, who seems so familiar with every\nsloka of the books of Manu, and other Vedic writers, the meaning of\nthis sentence so well known to him:\n\n\u201cPlants and vegetation reveal a multitude of forms because of\ntheir precedent actions; they are surrounded by darkness, but are\nnevertheless endowed with an interior soul, and feel equally pleasure\nand pain\u201d (_Manu_, book i.).\n\nIf the Hindu philosophy teach the presence of a degree of _soul_ in\nthe lowest forms of vegetable life, and even in every atom in space,\nhow is it possible that it should deny the same immortal principle\nto man? And if it once admit the immortal spirit in man, how can it\nlogically deny the existence of the parent source--I will not say the\nfirst, but the eternal Cause? Neither rationalists nor sensualists,\nwho do not comprehend Indian metaphysics, should estimate the\nignorance of Hindu metaphysicians by their own.\n\nThe grand cycle, as we have heretofore remarked, includes the\nprogress of mankind from its germ in the primordial man of spiritual\nform to the deepest depth of degradation he can reach--each\nsuccessive step in the descent being accompanied by a greater\nstrength and grossness of the physical form than its precursor--and\nends with the Flood. But while the grand cycle, or age, is running\nits course, seven minor cycles are passed, each marking the evolution\nof a new race out of the preceding one, on a new world. And each of\nthese races, or grand types of humanity, breaks up into subdivisions\nof families, and they again into nations and tribes, as we see the\nearth\u2019s inhabitants subdivided to-day into Mongols, Caucasians,\nIndians, etc.\n\nBefore proceeding to show by diagrams the close resemblance\nbetween the esoteric philosophies of all the ancient peoples,\nhowever geographically remote from each other, it will be useful\nto briefly explain the real ideas which underlie all those symbols\nand allegorical representations and have hitherto so puzzled the\nuninitiated commentators. Better than anything, it may show that\nreligion and science were closer knit than twins in days of old;\nthat they were one in two and two in one from the very moment of\ntheir conception. With mutually convertible attributes, science\nwas spiritual and religion was scientific. Like the androgyne man\nof the first chapter of _Genesis_--\u201cmale and female,\u201d passive and\nactive; created in the image of the Elohim. Omniscience developed\nomnipotency, the latter called for the exercise of the former, and\nthus the giant had dominion given him over all the four kingdoms of\nthe world. But, like the second Adam, these androgynes were doomed to\n\u201cfall and lose their powers\u201d as soon as the two halves of the duality\nseparated. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge gives death without the\nfruit of the Tree of Life. Man must know _himself_ before he can hope\nto know the ultimate genesis even of beings and powers less developed\nin their inner nature than himself. So with religion and science;\nunited two in one they were infallible, for the spiritual intuition\nwas there to supply the limitations of physical senses. Separated,\nexact science rejects the help of the inner voice, while religion\nbecomes merely dogmatic theology--each is but a corpse without a\nsoul.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe esoteric doctrine, then, teaches, like Buddhism and Brahmanism,\nand even the persecuted _Kabala_, that the one infinite and unknown\nEssence exists from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious\nsuccessions is either passive or active. In the poetical phraseology\nof Manu these conditions are called the \u201cday\u201d and the \u201cnight\u201d of\nBrahma. The latter is either \u201cawake\u201d or \u201casleep.\u201d The Sv\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas, or\nphilosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in\nNepaul), speculate but upon the active condition of this \u201cEssence,\u201d\nwhich they call Svabh\u00e2v\u00e2t, and deem it foolish to theorize upon the\nabstract and \u201cunknowable\u201d power in its passive condition. Hence they\nare called atheists by both Christian theology and modern scientists;\nfor neither of the two are able to understand the profound logic of\ntheir philosophy. The former will allow of no other God than the\npersonified _secondary_ powers which have blindly worked out the\nvisible universe, and which became with them the anthropomorphic God\nof the Christians--the Jehovah, roaring amid thunder and lightning.\nIn its turn, rationalistic science greets the Buddhists and the\nSv\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas as the \u201cpositivists\u201d of the archaic ages. If we take a\none-sided view of the philosophy of the latter, our materialists\nmay be right in their own way. The Buddhists maintain that there\nis _no_ Creator but an infinitude of _creative powers_, which\ncollectively form the one eternal substance, the _essence_ of which\nis inscrutable--hence not a subject for speculation for any true\nphilosopher. Socrates invariably refused to argue upon the mystery\nof universal being, yet no one would ever have thought of charging\nhim with atheism, except those who were bent upon his destruction.\nUpon inaugurating an active period, says the _Secret Doctrine_, an\nexpansion of this Divine essence, _from within outwardly_, occurs\nin obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phenomenal or\nvisible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of cosmical\nforces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when the\npassive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence\ntakes place, and the previous work of creation is gradually and\nprogressively undone. The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its\nmaterial dispersed; and \u201cdarkness,\u201d solitary and alone, broods once\nmore over the face of the \u201cdeep.\u201d To use a metaphor which will convey\nthe idea still more clearly, an outbreathing of the \u201cunknown essence\u201d\nproduces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. _This\nprocess has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe\nis but one of an infinite series which had no beginning and will have\nno end._\n\nThus we are enabled to build our theories solely on the visible\nmanifestations of the Deity, on its objective natural phenomena.\nTo apply to these creative principles the term God is puerile and\nabsurd. One might as well call by the name of Benvenuto Cellini the\nfire which fuses the metal, or the air that cools it when it is run\nin the mould. If the inner and ever-concealed spiritual, and to our\nminds abstract, Essence within these forces can ever be connected\nwith the creation of the physical universe, it is but in the sense\ngiven to it by Plato. IT may be termed, at best, the framer of the\nabstract universe which developed gradually in the Divine Thought\nwithin which it had lain dormant.\n\nIn Chapter VIII. we will attempt to show the esoteric meaning of\n_Genesis_, and its complete agreement with the ideas of other\nnations. The six days of creation will be found to have a meaning\nlittle suspected by the multitude of commentators, who have exercised\ntheir abilities to the full extent in attempting to reconcile them by\nturns with Christian theology and un-Christian geology. Disfigured as\nthe _Old Testament_ is, yet in its symbolism are preserved enough of\nthe original in its principal features to show the family likeness to\nthe cosmogonies of older nations than the Jews.\n\nWe here give the diagrams of the Hindu and the Chaldeo-Jewish\ncosmogonies. The antiquity of the diagram of the former may be\ninferred from the fact that many of the Brahmanical pagodas are\ndesigned and built on this figure, called the \u201cSri-Iantara.\u201d[551]\nAnd yet we find the highest honors paid to it by the Jewish and\nmedi\u00e6val kabalists, who call it \u201cSolomon\u2019s seal.\u201d It will be quite an\neasy matter to trace it to its origin, once we are reminded of the\nhistory of the king-kabalist and his transactions with King Hiram and\nOphir--the country of peacocks, gold, and ivory--for which land we\nhave to search in old India.\n\n\n EXPLANATION OF THE TWO DIAGRAMS\n\n REPRESENTING THE\n\n CHAOTIC AND THE FORMATIVE PERIODS, BEFORE AND AFTER\n OUR UNIVERSE BEGAN TO BE EVOLVED.\n\n FROM THE ESOTERIC BRAHMANICAL, BUDDHISTIC, AND CHALDEAN\n STANDPOINTS, WHICH AGREE IN EVERY RESPECT WITH THE EVOLUTIONARY\n THEORY OF MODERN SCIENCE.\n\n THE HINDU DOCTRINE. THE CHALDEAN DOCTRINE.\n _The Upper Triangle_ _The Upper Triangle_\n\n Contains the Ineffable Name. Contains the Ineffable Name.\n It is the AUM--to be It is En-Soph, the\n pronounced only mentally, Boundless, the Infinite,\n under penalty of death. The whose name is known to no\n Unrevealed Para-Brahma, the one but the initiated, and\n Passive-Principle; absolute could not be pronounced\n and unconditioned \u201cmukta,\u201d aloud under the penalty of\n which cannot enter into the death.\n condition of a Creator, as\n the latter, in order to No more than Para-Brahma can\n _think_, _will_, and _plan_, En-Soph create, for he is in\n must be bound and the same condition of\n conditioned (baddha); hence, non-being as the former; he\n in one sense, be a finite is \u05e2\u05d9\u05df non-existent so long\n being. \u201cTHIS (Para-Brahma) as he lies in his latent or\n was absorbed in the passive state within _Oulom_\n non-being, imperceptible, (the boundless and termless\n without any distinct time); as such he is not the\n attribute, non-existent for Creator of the visible\n our senses. He was absorbed universe, neither is he the\n in his (to us) eternal (to _Aur_ (Light). He will\n himself) periodical, sleep,\u201d become the latter when the\n for it was one of the period of creation shall\n \u201cNights of Brahma.\u201d have compelled him to expand\n Therefore he is not the the Force within himself,\n _First_ but the Eternal according to the Law of\n Cause. He is the Soul of which he is the embodiment\n Souls, whom no being can and essence.\n comprehend in this state.\n But \u201che who studies the \u201cWhosoever acquaints himself\n secret Mantras and with \u05d4\u05f4\u05d3 the Mercaba and the\n comprehends the _V\u00e2ch_\u201d (the _lahgash_ (secret speech or\n Spirit or hidden voice of incantation),[552] will\n the Mantras, the active learn the secret of\n manifestation of the latent secrets.\u201d\n Force) will learn to\n understand him in his\n \u201crevealed\u201d aspect.\n\nBoth \u201cTHIS\u201d and En-Soph, in their first manifestation of Light,\nemerging from within Darkness, may be summarized in the Svabh\u00e2v\u00e2t,\nthe Eternal and the uncreated Self-existing Substance which produces\nall; while everything which is of its essence produces itself out of\nits own nature.\n\n _The Space Around the _The Space Around the\n Upper Triangle._ Upper Triangle._\n\n When the \u201cNight of Brahma\u201d When the active period had\n was ended, and the time came arrived, En-Soph sent forth\n for the Self-Existent to from within his own eternal\n manifest _Itself_ by essence, Sephira, the active\n revelation, it made its Power, called the Primordial\n glory visible by sending Point, and the Crown,\n forth from its Essence an _Keter_. It is only through\n active Power, which, female her that the \u201cUn-bounded\n at first, subsequently Wisdom\u201d could give a\n becomes androgyne. It is concrete form to his\n Aditi, the \u201cInfinite,\u201d[553] abstract Thought. Two sides\n the Boundless, or rather the of the upper triangle, the\n \u201cUn-bounded.\u201d Aditi is the right side and the base, are\n \u201cmother\u201d of all the gods, composed of unbroken lines;\n and Aditi is the Father and the third, the left side, is\n the Son.[554] \u201cWho will give dotted. It is through the\n us back to the great Aditi, latter that emerges Sephira.\n that I may see father and Spreading in every\n mother?\u201d[555] It is in direction, she finally\n conjunction with the latter encompasses the whole\n female, Force, that the triangle. In this emanation\n Divine but latent Thought of the female active\n produces the great principle from the left side\n \u201cDeep\u201d--water. \u201cWater is of the mystic triangle, is\n born from a transformation foreshadowed the creation of\n of light ... and from a Eve from Adam\u2019s left rib.\n _modification_ of the water Adam is the Microcosm of the\n is born the earth,\u201d says Macrocosm, and is created in\n Manu (book i.). the image of the Elohim. In\n the Tree of Life \u05e2\u05e6\u05d7\u05d9\u05d5\u05dd the\n \u201cYe are born of Aditi from triple triad is disposed in\n the water, you who are born such a manner that the three\n of the earth, hear ye all my male Sephiroth are on the\n call.\u201d[556] right, the three female on\n the left, and the four\n In this water (or primeval uniting principles in the\n chaos) the \u201cInfinite\u201d centre. From the Invisible\n androgyne, which, with the Dew falling from the Higher\n Eternal Cause, forms the \u201cHead\u201d Sephira creates\n first abstract Triad, primeval water, or chaos\n rendered by AUM, deposited taking shape. It is the\n the germ of universal life. first step toward the\n It is the Mundane Egg, in solidification of Spirit,\n which took place the which through various\n gestation of P\u016br\u016bsha, or the modifications will produce\n manifested Brahma. The germ earth.[557] \u201c_It requires\n which fecundated the earth and water to make a\n _Mother_ Principle (the living soul_,\u201d says Moses.\n water) is called Nara, the\n Divine Spirit or Holy When Sephira emerges like an\n Ghost,[558] and the waters active power from within the\n themselves, are an emanation latent Deity, she is female;\n of the former, Nari, while when she assumes the office\n the Spirit which brooded of a creator, she becomes a\n over it is called male; hence, she is\n Narayana.[559] androgyne. She is the\n \u201cFather and Mother Aditi,\u201d\n \u201cIn that egg, the great of the Hindu Cosmogony.\n Power sat inactive a whole After brooding over the\n _year of the Creator_, at \u201cDeep,\u201d the \u201cSpirit of God\u201d\n the close of which, by his produces its own image in\n thought alone, he caused the the water, the Universal\n egg to divide itself.\u201d[560] Womb, symbolized in _Manu_\n The upper half became by the Golden Egg. In the\n heaven, the lower, the earth kabalistic Cosmogony, Heaven\n (both yet in their ideal, and Earth are personified by\n not their manifested form). Adam Kadmon and the second\n Adam. The first Ineffable\n Thus, this second triad, Triad, contained in the\n only another name for the abstract idea of the \u201cThree\n first one (never pronounced Heads,\u201d was a \u201cmystery\n aloud), and which is the name.\u201d It was composed of\n real pre-Vedic and En-Soph, Sephira, and Adam\n primordial _secret_ Kadmon, the Protogonos, the\n Trimurti, consisted of latter being identical with\n the former, when\n Nara, Father-Heaven, bisexual.[561] In every\n Nari, Mother-Earth, triad there is a male, a\n Viradj, the Son--or Universe. female, and an androgyne.\n Adam-Sephira is the Crown\n The Trimurti, comprising (Keter). It sets itself to\n Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the work of creation, by\n the Preserver, and Siva, the first producing Chochmah,\n Destroyer and Regenerator, Male Wisdom, a masculine\n belongs to a later period. active potency, represented\n It is an anthropomorphic by \u05d7\u05d4, jah, or the Wheels of\n afterthought, invented for Creation, \u05d0\u05e4\u05bc\u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05dd, from which\n the more popular proceeds Binah, Intelligence,\n comprehension of the female and passive potency,\n uninitiated masses. The which is _Jehovah_, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4,\n _Dikshita_, the initiate, whom we find in the _Bible_\n knew better. Thus, also, the figuring as the Supreme. But\n profound allegory under the this Jehovah is not the\n colors of a ridiculous kabalistic Jodcheva. The\n fable, given in the _binary_ is the fundamental\n _Aytareya Brahmana_,[562] corner-stone of _Gnosis_. As\n which resulted in the the binary is the Unity\n representations in some multiplying itself and\n temples of Brahm-Nara, self-creating, the kabalists\n assuming the form of a bull, show the \u201cUnknown\u201d passive\n and his daughter, En-Soph, as emanating from\n Aditi-Nari, that of a himself, Sephira, which,\n heifer, contains the same becoming visible light, is\n metaphysical idea as the said to produce Adam Kadmon.\n \u201cfall of man,\u201d or that of But, in the hidden sense,\n the Spirit into Sephira and Adam are one and\n generation--matter. The the same light, only latent\n All-pervading Divine Spirit and active, invisible and\n embodied under the symbols visible. The second Adam, as\n of Heaven, the Sun, and Heat the human tetragram,\n (fire)--the correlation of produces in his turn Eve,\n cosmic forces--fecundates out of his side. It is this\n Matter or Nature, the second triad, with which the\n daughter of Spirit. And kabalists have hitherto\n Para-Brahma himself has to dealt, hardly hinting at the\n submit to and bear the Supreme and Ineffable One,\n penance of the curses of the and never committing\n other gods (Elohim) for such anything to writing. All\n an incest. (See knowledge concerning the\n corresponding column.) latter was imparted orally.\n According to the immutable, It is the _second_ Adam,\n and, therefore, fatal law, then, who is the unity\n both Nara and Nari are represented by _Jod_, emblem\n mutually Father and Mother, of the kabalistic male\n as well as Father and principle, and, at the same\n Daughter.[563] Matter, time, he is Chochmah,\n through infinite _Wisdom_, while _Binah_ or\n transformation, is the Jehovah is Eve; the first\n gradual product of Spirit. Chochmah issuing from Keter,\n The unification of one or the androgyne, Adam\n Eternal Supreme Cause Kadmon, and the second,\n required such a correlation; Binah, from Chochmah. If we\n and if nature be the product combine with _Jod_ the three\n or effect of that Cause, in letters which form the name\n its turn it has to be of Eve, we will have the\n fecundated by the same divine tetragram pronounced\n divine Ray which produced IEVO-HEVAH, Adam and Eve, \u05d9\u05d7\u05d5\u05d4,\n nature itself. The most Jehovah, male and female, or\n absurd cosmogonical the idealization of humanity\n allegories, if analyzed embodied in the first man.\n without prejudice, will be Thus is it that we can prove\n found built on strict and that, while the Jewish\n logical necessarianism. kabalists, in common with\n their initiated masters, the\n \u201cBeing was born from Chaldeans and the Hindus,\n not-being,\u201d says a verse in adored the Supreme and\n the _Rig-Veda_.[564] The Unknown God, in the sacred\n first being had to become silence of their\n androgyne and finite, by the sanctuaries, the ignorant\n very fact of its creation as masses of every nation were\n a being. And thus even the left to adore something\n sacred Trimurti, containing which was certainly less\n Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva than the Eternal Substance\n will have an end when the of the Buddhists, the\n \u201cnight\u201d of Para-Brahma so-called Atheists. As\n succeeds the present \u201cday,\u201d Brahma, the deity manifested\n or period of universal in the mythical _Manu_, or\n activity. the first man (born of\n Swayambhuva, or the\n The second, or rather the Self-existent), is finite,\n first, triad---as the so Jehovah, embodied in Adam\n highest one is a pure and Eve, is but a _human_\n abstraction--is the god. He is the symbol of\n intellectual world. The V\u00e2ch humanity, a mixture of good\n which surrounds it is a more with a portion of\n definite transformation of unavoidable evil; of spirit\n Aditi. Besides its occult fallen into matter. In\n significance in the secret worshipping Jehovah, we\n Mantr\u00e2m, V\u00e2ch is personified simply worship nature, as\n as the active power of embodied in man,\n Brahma proceeding from him. half-spiritual and\n In the _Vedas_ she is made half-material, at best: we\n to speak of herself as the are Pantheists, when not\n supreme and universal soul. fetich worshippers, like the\n \u201cI bore the Father on the idolatrous Jews, who\n head of the universal mind, sacrificed on high places,\n and _my origin is in the in groves, to the\n midst of the ocean_; and personified male and female\n therefore do I pervade all principle, ignorant of IAO,\n beings.... Originating all the Supreme \u201cSecret Name\u201d of\n beings, I pass like the the Mysteries.\n breeze (Holy Ghost). I am\n above this heaven, beyond Shekinah is the Hindu V\u00e2ch,\n this earth; and _what is the and praised in the same\n Great One that am I_.\u201d[565] terms as the latter. Though\n Literally, V\u00e2ch is speech, shown in the kabalistic Tree\n the power of awakening, of Life as proceeding from\n through the metrical the ninth Sephiroth, yet\n arrangement contained in Shekinah is the \u201cveil\u201d of\n the number and syllables En-Soph, and the \u201cgarment\u201d\n of the Mantras,[566] of Jehovah. The \u201cveil,\u201d for\n corresponding powers in it succeeded for long ages\n the invisible world. In in concealing the real\n the sacrificial Mysteries supreme God, the universal\n V\u00e2ch stirs up the Brahma Spirit, and masking Jehovah,\n (_Brahma jinvati_), or the exoteric deity, made the\n the power lying latent at Christians accept him as the\n the bottom of every magical \u201cfather\u201d of the initiated\n operation. It existed from Jesus. Yet the kabalists,\n eternity as the Yajna (its as well as the Hindu\n latent form), lying dormant _Dikshita_, know the power\n in Brahma from of the Shekinah or V\u00e2ch,\n \u201cno-beginning,\u201d and and call it the \u201csecret\n proceeded forth from him as wisdom,\u201d \u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d7\u05be\u05e0\u05e1\u05d4\u05d3\u05d7.\n V\u00e2ch (the active power). It\n is the key to the The triangle played a\n \u201cTraividy\u00e2,\u201d the thrice prominent part in the\n sacred science which teaches religious symbolism of every\n the Yajus (the sacrificial great nation; for everywhere\n Mysteries).[567] it represented the three\n great principles--spirit,\n Having done with the force, and matter; or the\n unrevealed triad, and the active (male), passive\n first triad of the (female), and the dual or\n Sephiroth, called the correlative principle which\n \u201cintellectual world,\u201d little partakes of both and binds\n remains to be said. In the the two together. It was the\n great geometrical figure _Arba_ or mystic \u201cfour,\u201d[568]\n which has the double the mystery-gods, the Kabeiri,\n triangle in it, the central summarized in the unity of\n circle represents the world one supreme Deity. It is\n within the universe. The found in the Egyptian\n double triangle belongs to pyramids, whose equal sides\n one of the most important, tower up until lost in one\n if it is not in itself the crowning point. In the\n most important, of the kabalistic diagram the\n mystic figures in India. It central circle of the\n is the emblem of the Brahmanical figure is\n Trimurti three in one. The replaced by the cross; the\n triangle with its apex celestial perpendicular and\n upward indicates the male the terrestrial horizontal\n principle, downward the base line.[569] But the idea\n female; the two typifying, is the same: Adam Kadmon is\n at the same time, spirit and the type of humanity as a\n matter. This world within collective totality within\n the infinite universe is the the unity of the creative\n microcosm within the God and the universal\n macrocosm, as in the Jewish spirit.\n _Kabala_. It is the symbol\n of the womb of the universe, \u201cOf him who is formless, the\n the terrestrial egg, whose non-existent (also the\n archetype is the golden eternal, but _not_ First\n mundane egg. It is from Cause), is born the heavenly\n within this spiritual bosom man.\u201d But after he created\n of mother nature that the form of the heavenly\n proceed all the great man \u05d0\u05d3\u05de\u05e2\u05dc\u05d0\u05d4, he \u201cused it as\n saviours of the a vehicle wherein to\n universe--the avatars of the descend,\u201d says the _Kabala_.\n invisible Deity. Thus Adam Kadmon is the\n avatar of the concealed\n \u201cOf him who is and yet is power. After that the\n not, from the not-being, heavenly Adam creates or\n Eternal Cause, is born the engenders by the combined\n being Pouroucha,\u201d says Manu, power of the Sephiroth, the\n the legislator. Pouroucha is earthly Adam. The work of\n the \u201cdivine male,\u201d the creation is also begun by\n _second_ god, and the Sephira in the creation of\n avatar, or the Logos of the ten Sephiroth (who are\n Para-Brahma and his divine the Pradjapatis of the\n son, who in his turn _Kabala_, for they are\n produced Viradj, the son, or likewise the Lords of all\n the ideal type of the beings).\n universe. \u201cViradj begins the\n work of creation by The _Sohar_ asserts the\n producing the ten same. According to the\n Pradjapati, \u2018the lords of kabalistic doctrine there\n all beings.\u2019\u201d were old worlds (see Idra\n Suta: _Sohar_, iii., p. 292\n According to the doctrine of b). Everything will return\n Manu, the universe is some day to that from which\n subjected to a periodical it first proceeded. \u201cAll\n and never-ending succession things of which this world\n of creations and consists, spirit as well as\n dissolutions, which periods body, will return to their\n of creation are named principal, and the roots\n Manv\u00e2ntara. from which they proceeded\u201d\n (_Sohar_, ii., 218 b). The\n \u201cIt is the germ (which the kabalists also maintain the\n Divine Spirit produced from indestructibility of matter,\n its own substance) which albeit their doctrine is\n never perishes in the being, shrouded still more\n for it becomes the soul of carefully than that of the\n Being, and at the period of Hindus. The creation is\n _pralaya_ (dissolution) it eternal, and the universe is\n returns to absorb itself the \u201cgarment,\u201d or \u201cthe veil\n again _into the Divine_ of God\u201d--Shekinah; and the\n Spirit, _which itself_ rests latter is immortal and\n from all eternity within eternal as Him within whom\n Swayambhuva, the it has ever existed. Every\n \u2018Self-Existent\u2019\u201d world is made after the\n (_Institutes of Manu_, pattern of its predecessor,\n book i.). and each more gross and\n material than the preceding\n As we have shown, neither one. In the _Kabala_ all\n the Sv\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas, Buddhist were called sparks. Finally,\n philosophers--nor the our present grossly\n Brahmans believe in a materialistic world was\n creation of the universe _ex formed.\n nihilo_, but both believe in\n the _Prakriti_, the In the Chaldean account of\n indestructibility of matter. the period which preceded\n the Genesis of our world,\n The evolution of species, Berosus speaks of a time\n and the successive when there existed nothing\n appearance of various new but darkness, and an abyss\n types is very distinctly of waters, filled with\n shown in _Manu_. hideous monsters, \u201cproduced\n of a two-fold principle ....\n \u201cFrom earth, heat, and These were creatures in\n water, are born all which were combined the\n creatures, whether animate limbs of every species of\n or inanimate, produced by animals. In addition to\n the germ which the Divine these fishes, reptiles,\n Spirit drew from its own serpents, with other\n substance. Thus has Brahma monstrous animals, which\n established the series of assumed each other\u2019s shape\n transformations from the and countenance.\u201d[571]\n plant up to man, and from\n man up to the primordial\n essence.... Among them each\n succeeding being (or\n element) acquires the\n quality of the preceding;\n and in as many degrees as\n each of them is advanced,\n with so many properties is\n it said to be endowed\u201d\n (_Manu_, book i., sloka\n 20).[570]\n\n This, we believe, is the\n veritable theory of the\n modern evolutionists.\n\nIn the first book of Manu, we read: \u201cKnow that the sum of 1,000\ndivine ages, composes the totality of one day of Brahma; and that one\nnight is equal to that day.\u201d One thousand divine ages is equal to\n4,320,000,000 of human years, in the Brahmanical calculations.\n\n\u201cAt the expiration of each night, Brahma, who has been asleep,\nawakes, and through the sole energy of the motion causes to emanate\nfrom himself the spirit, which in its essence _is_, and yet is not.\u201d\n\n\u201cPrompted by the desire to create, the Spirit (first of the\nemanations) operates the creation and gives birth to ether, which the\nsages consider as having the faculty of transmitting sound.\n\n\u201cEther begets air whose property is tangible, and which is necessary\nto life.\n\n\u201cThrough a transformation of the air, light is produced.\n\n\u201cFrom air and light, which begets heat, water is formed, and the\nwater is the womb of all the living germs.\u201d\n\nThroughout the whole immense period of progressive creation,\ncovering 4,320,000,000 years, ether, air, water and fire (heat), are\nconstantly forming matter under the never-ceasing impulse of the\nSpirit, or the _unrevealed_ God who fills up the whole creation,\nfor he is in all, and all is in him. This computation, which was\nsecret and which is hardly hinted at even now, led Higgins into the\nerror of dividing every ten ages into 6,000 years. Had he added a\nfew more ciphers to his sums he might have come nearer to a correct\nexplanation of the neroses, or secret cycles.[572]\n\nIn the _Sepher Jezireh_, the kabalistic Book of Creation, the author\nhas evidently repeated the words of Manu. In it, the Divine Substance\nis represented as having alone existed from the eternity, boundless\nand absolute; and emitted from itself the Spirit. \u201cOne is the Spirit\nof the living God, blessed be His Name, who liveth for ever! Voice,\nSpirit, and Word, this is the Holy Spirit;\u201d[573] and this is the\nkabalistic abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously anthropomorphized\nby the Fathers. From this triple ONE emanated the whole Cosmos.\nFirst from ONE emanated number TWO, or Air, the creative element;\nand then number THREE, _Water_, proceeded from the air; _Ether_\nor _Fire_ complete the mystic four, the Arba-il.[574] \u201cWhen the\nConcealed of the Concealed wanted to reveal Himself, he first made a\npoint (primordial point, or the first Sephira, air or Holy Ghost),\nshaped it into a sacred form (the ten Sephiroth, or the Heavenly\nman), and covered it with a rich and splendid garment, _that is the\nworld_.\u201d[575] \u201cHe maketh the wind His messengers, flaming Fire his\nservants,\u201d says the _Jezireh_, showing the cosmical character of the\nlater euhemerized angels,[576] and that the Spirit permeates every\nminutest atom of the Cosmos.[577]\n\nWhen the cycle of creation is run down, the energy of the manifested\nword is weakening. He alone, the Unconceivable, is unchangeable (ever\nlatent), but the Creative Force, though also eternal, as it has been\nin the former from \u201cno beginning,\u201d yet must be subject to periodical\ncycles of activity and rest; as it had a _beginning_ in one of its\naspects, when it first emanated, therefore must also have an end.\nThus, the evening succeeds the day, and the night of the deity\napproaches. Brahma is gradually falling asleep. In one of the books\nof _Sohar_, we read the following:\n\n\u201cAs Moses was keeping a vigil on Mount Sinai, in company with the\nDeity, who was concealed from his sight by a cloud, he felt a great\nfear overcome him and suddenly asked: \u2018Lord, where art Thou ...\nsleepest thou, O Lord?\u2019 And the _Spirit_ answered him: \u2018I never\nsleep; were I to fall asleep for a moment _before my time_, all\nthe Creation would crumble into dissolution in one instant.\u2019\u201d And\nVamadeva-Mod\u0113ly describes the \u201cNight of Brahma,\u201d or the second period\nof the Divine Unknown existence, thus:\n\n\u201cStrange noises are heard, proceeding from every point.... These are\nthe precursors of the Night of Brahma; _dusk rises at the horizon_\nand the Sun passes away behind the thirtieth degree of Macara (sign\nof the zodiac), and will reach no more the sign of the _Minas_\n(zodiacal _pisces_, or fish). The gurus of the pagodas appointed\nto watch the r\u0101s-chakr (Zodiac), may now break their circle and\ninstruments, for they are henceforth useless.\n\n\u201cGradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabitable spots multiply\non the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs of\nwaters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the ocean\nshows its sandy bottom, and plants die. Men and animals decrease in\nsize daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets can hardly\ngravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one, like a lamp\nwhich the hand of the chokra (servant) neglects to replenish. Sourya\n(the Sun) flickers and goes out, matter falls into dissolution\n(pralaya), and Brahma merges back into Dy\u00e4us, the Unrevealed God, and\nhis task being accomplished, he falls asleep. Another day is passed,\nnight sets in and continues until the future dawn.\n\n\u201cAnd now again re-enter into the golden egg of His Thought, the germs\nof all that exist, as the divine Manu tells us. During His peaceful\nrest, the animated beings, endowed with the principles of action,\ncease their functions, and all feeling (manas) becomes dormant. When\nthey are all absorbed in the SUPREME SOUL, this Soul of all the\nbeings sleeps in complete repose, till the day when it resumes its\nform, and awakes again from its primitive darkness.\u201d[578]\n\nIf we now examine the ten mythical avatars of Vishnu, we find them\nrecorded in the following progression:\n\n1. Matsya-Avatar: as a fish. It will also be his tenth and last\navatar, at the end of the Kali-yug.\n\n2. Kurm-Avatar: as a tortoise.\n\n3. Varaha: as a boar.\n\n4. Nara-Sing: as a _man-lion_; last animal stage.\n\n5. Vamuna: as a dwarf; first step toward the human form.\n\n6. Parasu-Rama: as a hero, but yet an imperfect man.\n\n7. Rama-Chandra: as the hero of Ramay\u00e2na. Physically a perfect man;\nhis next of kin, friend and ally Hanoum\u0101, the monkey-god. _The monkey\nendowed with speech._[579]\n\n8. Christna-Avatar: the Son of the Virgin Devanaguy (or Devaki) one\nformed by God, or rather by the manifested Deity Vishnu, who is\nidentical with Adam Kadmon.[580] Christna is also called Kaneya, the\nSon of the Virgin.\n\n9. Gautama-Buddha, Siddh\u00e2rtha, or Sakya-muni. (The Buddhists reject\nthis doctrine of their Buddha being an incarnation of Vishnu.)\n\n10. This avatar has not yet occurred. It is expected in the future,\nlike the Christian Advent, the idea of which was undoubtedly copied\nfrom the Hindu. When Vishnu appears for the last time he will come\nas a \u201cSaviour.\u201d According to the opinion of some Brahmans he will\nappear himself under the form of the horse Kalki. Others maintain\nthat he will be mounting it. This horse is the envelope of the\nspirit of evil, and Vishnu will mount it, invisible to all, till he\nhas conquered it for the last time. The \u201cKalki-Avataram,\u201d or the\nlast incarnation, divides Brahmanism into two sects. That of the\nVa\u00efhn\u00e2va refuses to recognize the incarnations of their god Vishnu in\nanimal forms literally. They claim that these must be understood as\nallegorical.\n\nIn this diagram of avatars we see traced the gradual evolution and\ntransformation of all species out of the ante-Silurian mud of Darwin\nand the _ilus_ of Sanchoniathon and Berosus. Beginning with the\nAzoic time, corresponding to the _ilus_ in which Brahma implants\nthe creative germ, we pass through the Pal\u00e6ozoic and Mesozoic\ntimes, covered by the first and second incarnations as the fish and\ntortoise; and the Cenozoic, which is embraced by the incarnations\nin the animal and semi-human forms of the boar and man-lion; and we\ncome to the fifth and crowning geological period, designated as the\n\u201cera of mind, or age of man,\u201d whose symbol in the Hindu mythology is\nthe dwarf--the first attempt of nature at the creation of man. In\nthis diagram we should follow the main-idea, not judge the degree of\nknowledge of the ancient philosophers by the literal acceptance of\nthe popular form in which it is presented to us in the grand epical\npoem of _Maha-Bharata_ and its chapter the _Bagaved-gitta_.\n\nEven the four ages of the Hindu chronology contain a far more\nphilosophical idea than appears on the surface. It defines them\naccording to both the psychological or mental and the physical states\nof man during their period. Crita-yug, the golden age, the \u201cage of\njoy,\u201d or spiritual innocence of man; Treta-yug, the age of silver,\nor that of fire--the period of supremacy of man and of giants and of\nthe sons of God; Dwapara-yug, the age of bronze--a mixture already\nof purity and impurity (spirit and matter), the age of doubt; and at\nlast our own, the Kali-yug, or age of iron, of darkness, misery, and\nsorrow. In this age, Vishnu had to incarnate himself in Christna,\nin order to save humanity from the goddess Kali, consort of Siva,\nthe all-annihilating--the goddess of death, destruction, and human\nmisery. Kali is the best emblem to represent the \u201cfall of man;\u201d\nthe falling of spirit into the degradation of matter, with all its\nterrific results. We have to rid ourselves of Kali before we can ever\nreach \u201cMoksha,\u201d or Nirvana, the abode of blessed Peace and Spirit.\n\nWith the Buddhists the last incarnation is the fifth. When\nMaitree-Buddha comes, then our present world will be destroyed; and\na new and a better one will replace it. The four arms of every Hindu\nDeity are the emblems of the four preceding manifestations of our\nearth from its invisible state, while its head typifies the fifth and\nlast _Kalki_-Avatar, when this would be destroyed, and the power of\nBudh--Wisdom (with the Hindus, of Brahma), will be again called into\nrequisition to manifest itself--as a _Logos_--to create the future\nworld.\n\nIn this diagram, the male gods typify Spirit in its deific\nattributes, while their female counterparts--the _Sakti_, represent\nthe active energies of these attributes. The _Durga_ (active virtue),\nis a subtile, invisible force, which answers to Shekinah--the garment\nof En-Soph. She is the Sakti through which the passive \u201cEternal\u201d\ncalls forth the visible universe from its first ideal conception.\nEvery one of the three personages of the exoteric Trimurti are shown\nas using their _Sakti_ as a _Vehan_ (vehicle). Each of them is for\nthe time being the form which sits upon the mysterious wagon of\nEzekiel.\n\nNor do we see less clearly carried out in this succession of avatars,\nthe truly philosophical idea of a simultaneous spiritual and physical\nevolution of creatures and man. From a fish the progress of this dual\ntransformation carries on the physical form through the shape of a\ntortoise, a boar, and a man-lion; and then, appearing in the dwarf of\nhumanity, it shows Parasu Rama physically, a perfect, spiritually,\nan undeveloped entity, until it carries mankind personified by one\ngod-like man, to the apex of physical and spiritual perfection--a god\non earth. In Christna and the other Saviours of the world we see the\nphilosophical idea of the progressive dual development understood\nand as clearly expressed in the _Sohar_. The \u201cHeavenly man,\u201d who is\nthe Protogonos, Tikkun, the first-born of God, or the universal Form\nand Idea, engenders Adam. Hence the latter is god-born in humanity,\nand endowed with the attributes of all the ten Sephiroth. These are:\nWisdom, Intelligence, Justice, Love, Beauty, Splendor, Firmness,\netc. They make him the Foundation or basis, \u201c_the mighty living\none_,\u201d \u05d0\u05dc\u05d7\u05d9, and the crown of creation, thus placing him as the\nAlpha and Omega to reign over the \u201ckingdom\u201d--Malchuth. \u201cMan is both\nthe import and the highest degree of creation,\u201d says the _Sohar_. \u201cAs\nsoon as man was created, everything was complete, including the upper\nand nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He unites in\nhimself all forms\u201d (iii., p. 48 a).\n\nBut this does not relate to our degenerated mankind; it is only\noccasionally that men are born who are the types of what man should\nbe, and yet is not. The first races of men were spiritual, and their\nprotoplastic bodies were not composed of the gross and material\nsubstances of which we see them composed now-a-day. The first men\nwere created with all the faculties of the Deity, and powers far\ntranscending those of the angelic host; for they were the direct\nemanations of Adam Kadmon, the primitive man, the Macrocosm; while\nthe present humanity is several degrees removed even from the earthly\nAdam, who was the Microcosm, or \u201cthe little world.\u201d Seir Anpin,\nthe mystical figure of the Man, consists of 243 numbers, and we\nsee in the circles which follow each other that it is the angels\nwhich emanated from the \u201cPrimitive Man,\u201d not the Sephiroth from\nangels. Hence, man was intended from the first to be a being of\nboth a progressive and retrogressive nature. Beginning at the apex\nof the divine cycle, he gradually began receding from the centre of\nLight, acquiring at every new and lower sphere of being (worlds each\ninhabited by a different race of human beings) a more solid physical\nform and losing a portion of his _divine_ faculties.\n\nIn the \u201cfall of Adam\u201d we must see, not the personal transgression of\nman, but simply the law of the dual evolution. Adam, or \u201cMan,\u201d begins\nhis career of existences by dwelling in the garden of Eden \u201cdressed\nin the celestial garment, which _is a garment of heavenly light_\u201d\n(_Sohar_, ii., 229 b); but when expelled he is \u201cclothed\u201d by God, or\nthe eternal law of Evolution or necessarianism, with coats of skin.\nBut even on this earth of material degradation--in which the divine\nspark (Soul, a corruscation of the Spirit) was to begin its physical\nprogression in a series of imprisonments from a stone up to a man\u2019s\nbody--if he but exercise his WILL and call his deity to his help, man\ncan transcend the powers of the angel. \u201cKnow ye not that we shall\njudge angels?\u201d asks Paul (_1 Corinthians_, vi. 3). The real man is\nthe Soul (Spirit), teaches the _Sohar_. \u201cThe mystery of the earthly\nman is after the mystery of the heavenly man ... the wise can read\nthe mysteries in the human face\u201d (ii., 76 a).\n\nThis is still another of the many sentences by which Paul must be\nrecognized as an initiate. For reasons fully explained, we give far\nmore credit for genuineness to certain Epistles of the apostles, now\ndismissed as apocryphal, than to many suspicious portions of the\n_Acts_. And we find corroboration of this view in the _Epistle of\nPaul to Seneca_. In this message Paul styles Seneca \u201cmy respected\nmaster,\u201d while Seneca terms the apostle simply \u201cbrother.\u201d\n\nNo more than the true religion of Judaic philosophy can be judged\nby the absurdities of the exoteric _Bible_, have we any right to\nform an opinion of Brahmanism and Buddhism by their nonsensical and\nsometimes disgusting popular forms. If we only search for the true\nessence of the philosophy of both _Manu_ and the _Kabala_, we will\nfind that Vishnu is, as well as Adam Kadmon, the expression of the\nuniverse itself; and that his incarnations are but concrete and\nvarious embodiments of the manifestations of this \u201cStupendous Whole.\u201d\n\u201cI am the Soul, O, Arjuna. I am the Soul which exists in the heart of\nall beings; and I am the beginning and the middle, and also the end\nof existing things,\u201d says Vishnu to his disciple, in _Bagaved-gitta_\n(ch. x., p. 71).\n\n\u201cI am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.... I am the first\nand the last,\u201d says Jesus to John (_Rev._ i. 6, 17).\n\nBrahma, Vishnu, and Siva are a trinity in a unity, and, like the\nChristian trinity, they are mutually convertible. In the esoteric\ndoctrine they are one and the same manifestation of him \u201cwhose name\nis too sacred to be pronounced, and whose power is too majestic and\ninfinite to be imagined.\u201d Thus by describing the avatars of one, all\nothers are included in the allegory, with a change of form but not of\nsubstance. It is out of such manifestations that emanated the many\nworlds that were, and that will emanate the one--which is to come.\n\nColeman, followed in it by other Orientalists, presents the seventh\navatar of Vishnu in the most caricatured way.[581] Apart from the\nfact that the _Ramayana_ is one of the grandest epic poems in the\nworld--the source and origin of Homer\u2019s inspiration--this avatar\nconceals one of the most scientific problems of our modern day.\nThe learned Brahmans of India never understood the allegory of the\nfamous war between men, giants, and monkeys, otherwise than in the\nlight of the transformation of species. It is our firm belief that\nwere European academicians to seek for information from some learned\nnative Brahmans, instead of unanimously and incontinently rejecting\ntheir authority, and were they, like Jacolliot--against whom they\nhave nearly all arrayed themselves--to seek for light in the oldest\ndocuments scattered about the country in pagodas, they might\nlearn strange but not useless lessons. Let any one inquire of an\n_educated_ Brahman the reason for the respect shown to monkeys--the\norigin of which feeling is indicated in the story of the valorous\nfeats of Hanoum\u0101, the generalissimo and faithful ally of the hero\nof Ramayana,[582] and he would soon be disabused of the erroneous\nidea that the Hindus accord deific honors to a monkey-_god_. He\nwould, perhaps, learn--were the Brahman to judge him worthy of an\nexplanation--that the Hindu sees in the ape but what Manu desired he\nshould: the transformation of species most directly connected with\nthat of the human family--a bastard branch engrafted on their own\nstock before the final perfection of the latter.[583] He might learn,\nfurther, that in the eyes of the educated \u201cheathen\u201d the spiritual\nor _inner_ man is one thing, and his terrestrial, physical casket\nanother. That _physical_ nature, the great combination of physical\ncorrelations of forces ever creeping on toward perfection, has to\navail herself of the material at hand; she models and remodels as she\nproceeds, and finishing her crowning work in man, presents him alone\nas a fit tabernacle for the overshadowing of the Divine spirit. But\nthe latter circumstance does not give man the right of life and death\nover the animals lower than himself in the scale of _nature_, or\nthe right to torture them. Quite the reverse. Besides being endowed\nwith a soul--of which every animal, and even plant, is more or less\npossessed--man has his immortal _rational_ soul, or _nous_, which\nought to make him at least equal in magnanimity to the elephant,\nwho treads so carefully, lest he should crush weaker creatures than\nhimself. It is this feeling which prompts Brahman and Buddhist alike\nto construct hospitals for sick animals, and even insects, and to\nprepare refuges wherein they may finish their days. It is this same\nfeeling, again, which causes the Ja\u00efn sectarian to sacrifice one-half\nof his life-time to brushing away from his path the helpless,\ncrawling insects, rather than recklessly deprive the smallest of\nlife; and it is again from this sense of highest benevolence and\ncharity toward the weaker, however abject the creature may be,\nthat they honor one of the natural modifications of their own dual\nnature, and that later the popular belief in metempsychosis arose.\nNo trace of the latter is to be found in the _Vedas_; and the true\ninterpretation of the doctrine, discussed at length in _Manu_ and\nthe Buddhistic sacred books, having been confined from the first to\nthe learned sacerdotal castes, the false and foolish popular ideas\nconcerning it need occasion no surprise.\n\nUpon those who, in the remains of antiquity, see evidence that modern\ntimes can lay small claim to originality, it is common to charge a\ndisposition to exaggerate and distort facts. But the candid reader\nwill scarcely aver that the above is an example in point. There were\nevolutionists before the day when the mythical Noah is made, in the\n_Bible_, to float in his ark; and the ancient scientists were better\ninformed, and had their theories more logically defined than the\nmodern evolutionists.\n\nPlato, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, the Eleatic schools of Greece, as well\nas the old Chaldean sacerdotal colleges, all taught the doctrine of\nthe dual evolution; the doctrine of the transmigration of souls\nreferring only to the progress of man from world to world, after\ndeath here. Every philosophy worthy of the name, taught that the\n_spirit_ of man, if not the _soul_, was pre\u00ebxistent. \u201cThe Essenes,\u201d\nsays Josephus, \u201cbelieved that the souls were immortal, and that they\ndescended from the ethereal spaces to be chained to bodies.\u201d[584] In\nhis turn, Philo Jud\u00e6us says, the \u201cair is full of them (of souls);\nthose which are nearest the earth, descending to be tied to mortal\nbodies, \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b1\u1f56\u03b8\u03b9\u03c2, return to other bodies, being desirous to\nlive in them.\u201d[585] In the _Sohar_, the soul is made to plead her\nfreedom before God: \u201cLord of the Universe! I am happy in this world,\nand do not wish to go into another world, where I shall be a handmaid,\nand be exposed to all kinds of pollutions.\u201d[586] The doctrine of fatal\nnecessity, the everlasting immutable Law, is asserted in the answer of\nthe Deity: \u201cAgainst thy will thou becomest an embryo, and against thy\nwill thou art born.\u201d[587] Light would be incomprehensible without\ndarkness, to make it manifest by contrast; good would be no good\nwithout evil, to show the priceless nature of the boon; and so,\npersonal virtue could claim no merit, unless it had passed through the\nfurnace of temptation. Nothing is eternal and unchangeable, save the\nConcealed Deity. Nothing that is finite--whether because it had a\nbeginning, or must have an end--can remain stationary. It must either\nprogress or recede; and a soul which thirsts after a re\u00fcnion with its\nspirit, which alone confers upon it immortality, must purify itself\nthrough cyclic transmigrations, onward toward the only Land of Bliss and\nEternal Rest, called in the _Sohar_, \u201cThe Palace of Love,\u201d \u05d4\u05d9\u05d1\u05dc \u05d0\u05d4\u05d1\u05ea;\nin the Hindu religion, \u201cMoksha;\u201d among the Gnostics, the \u201cPleroma of\neternal Light;\u201d and by the Buddhists, Nirvana. The Christian calls it\nthe \u201cKingdom of Heaven,\u201d and claims to have alone found the truth,\nwhereas he has but invented a new name for a doctrine which is co\u00ebval\nwith man.\n\nThe proof that the transmigration of the soul does not relate to\nman\u2019s condition on this earth _after_ death, is found in the _Sohar_,\nnotwithstanding the many incorrect renderings of its translators.\n\u201cAll souls which have alienated themselves in heaven from the Holy\nOne--blessed be His Name--have thrown themselves into an abyss at\ntheir very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are\nto descend on earth.[588]... Come and see when the soul reaches\nthe abode of Love.... The soul could not bear this light, but for\nthe luminous mantle which she puts on. For, just as the soul, when\nsent to this earth, puts on an earthly garment to preserve herself\nhere, so she receives above a shining garment, in order to be able\nto look without injury into the mirror, whose light proceeds from\nthe Lord of Light.\u201d[589] Moreover, the _Sohar_ teaches that the soul\ncannot reach the abode of bliss, unless she has received the \u201choly\nkiss,\u201d or the re-union of the soul _with the substance from which\nshe emanated_--spirit. All souls are dual, and, while the latter\nis a feminine principle, the spirit is masculine. While imprisoned\nin body, man is a trinity, unless his pollution is such as to have\ncaused his divorce from the spirit. \u201cWoe to the soul which prefers to\nher divine husband (spirit), the earthly wedlock with her terrestrial\nbody,\u201d records a text of the _Book of the Keys_.[590]\n\nThese ideas on the transmigrations and the trinity of man, were\nheld by many of the early Christian Fathers. It is the jumble made\nby the translators of the _New Testament_ and ancient philosophical\ntreatises between soul and spirit, that has occasioned the many\nmisunderstandings. It is also one of the many reasons why Buddha,\nPlotinus, and so many other initiates are now accused of having\nlonged for the total extinction of their souls--\u201cabsorption unto the\nDeity,\u201d or \u201creunion with the universal soul,\u201d meaning, according\nto modern ideas, annihilation. The animal soul must, of course, be\ndisintegrated of its particles, before it is able to link its purer\nessence forever with the immortal spirit. But the translators of\nboth the _Acts_ and the _Epistles_, who laid the foundation of the\n_Kingdom of Heaven_, and the modern commentators on the Buddhist\n_Sutra of the Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness_, have\nmuddled the sense of the great apostle of Christianity, as of the\ngreat reformer of India. The former have smothered the word \u03c6\u03c5\u03c7\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2,\nso that no reader imagines it to have any relation with _soul_; and\nwith this confusion of _soul_ and _spirit_ together, _Bible_ readers\nget only a perverted sense of anything on the subject; and the\ninterpreters of the latter have failed to understand the meaning and\nobject of the Buddhist four degrees of Dhy\u00e2na.\n\nIn the writings of Paul, the entity of man is divided into a\ntrine--flesh, psychical existence or _soul_, and the overshadowing\nand at the same time interior entity or SPIRIT. His phraseology is\nvery definite, when he teaches the _anastasis_, or the continuation\nof life of those who have died. He maintains that there is a\n_psychical_ body which is sown in the corruptible, and a spiritual\nbody that is raised in incorruptible substance. \u201cThe first man is\nof the earth earthy, the second man from heaven.\u201d Even James (iii.\n15) identifies the soul by saying that its \u201cwisdom descendeth not\nfrom the above but is terrestrial, _psychical_, _demoniacal_\u201d (see\nGreek text). Plato, speaking of the Soul (_psuch\u00e9_), observes that\n\u201cwhen she allies herself to the _nous_ (divine substance, a god, as\npsuch\u00e9 is a goddess), she does everything aright and felicitously;\nbut the case is otherwise when she attaches herself to _Annoia_.\u201d\nWhat Plato calls _nous_, Paul terms the _Spirit_; and Jesus makes\nthe _heart_ what Paul says of the _flesh_. The natural condition of\nmankind was called in Greek \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1; the new condition \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2. In\nAdam came the former (death), in Christ the latter (resurrection), for\nit is he who first publicly taught mankind the \u201cNoble Path\u201d to Eternal\nlife, as Gautama pointed the same Path to Nirvana. To accomplish both\nends there was but one way, according to the teachings of both.\n\u201cPoverty, chastity, contemplation or inner prayer; contempt for wealth\nand the illusive joys of this world.\u201d\n\n\u201cEnter on this Path and put an end to sorrow; verily the Path has\nbeen preached by me, who have found out how to quench the darts of\ngrief. You yourselves must make the effort; _the Buddhas are only\npreachers_. The thoughtful who enter the Path are freed from the\nbondage of the Deceiver (Mar\u00e2).[591]\n\n\u201cEnter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad\nis the way that leadeth to destruction.... Follow me.... Every one\nthat heareth these sayings and doeth them not, shall be likened\nunto a foolish man\u201d (_Matthew_ vii. and viii.). \u201c_I can of mine own\nself do nothing_\u201d (_John_ v. 30). \u201cThe care of this world, and the\ndeceitfulness of riches, choke the word\u201d (_Matthew_ xiii. 22), say\nthe Christians; and it is only by shaking off all delusions that the\nBuddhist enters on the \u201cPath\u201d which will lead him \u201caway from the\nrestless tossing waves of the ocean of life,\u201d and take him \u201cto the\ncalm City of Peace, to the real joy and rest of Nirvana.\u201d\n\nThe Greek philosophers are alike made misty instead of mystic by their\ntoo learned translators. The Egyptians revered the Divine Spirit, the\nOne-Only One, as NOUT. It is most evident that it is from that word\nthat Anaxagoras borrowed his denominative _nous_, or, as he calls it,\n\u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2--the Mind or Spirit self-potent, the \u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03b7\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2.\n\u201cAll things,\u201d says he, \u201cwere in chaos; then came \u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 and introduced\norder.\u201d He also denominated this \u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 the One that ruled the many. In\nhis idea \u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 was God; and the _Logos_ was man, the emanation of the\nformer. The external powers perceived _phenomena_; the _nous_ alone\nrecognized _noumena_ or subjective things. This is purely Buddhistic\nand esoteric.\n\nHere Socrates took his clew and followed it, and Plato after\nhim, with the whole world of interior knowledge. Where the old\nIonico-Italian world culminated in Anaxagoras, the new world began\nwith Socrates and Plato. Pythagoras made the _Soul_ a self-moving\nunit, with three elements, the _nous_, the _phren_ and the _thumos_;\nthe latter two, shared with the brutes; the former only, being his\nessential _self_. So the charge that he taught transmigration is\nrefuted; he taught no more than Gautama-Buddha ever did, whatever the\npopular superstition of the Hindu rabble made of it after his death.\nWhether Pythagoras borrowed from Buddha, or Buddha from somebody\nelse, matters not; the esoteric doctrine is the same.\n\nThe Platonic School is even more distinct in enunciating all this.\n\nThe real selfhood was at the basis of all. Socrates therefore taught\nthat he had a \u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd (_daimonion_), a spiritual something which put\nhim in the road to wisdom. He himself knew nothing, but this put him\nin the way to learn all.\n\nPlato followed him with a full investigation of the principles of\nbeing. There was an _Agathon_, Supreme God, who produced in his own\nmind a _paradeigma_ of all things.\n\nHe taught that in man was \u201cthe immortal principle of the soul,\u201d a\nmortal body, and a \u201cseparate mortal kind of soul,\u201d which was placed\nin a separate receptacle of the body from the other; the immortal\npart was in the head (_Tim\u00e6us_ xix., xx.) the other in the trunk\n(xliv.).\n\nNothing is plainer than that Plato regarded the interior man as\nconstituted of two parts--one always the same, formed of the same\nentity as Deity, and one mortal and corruptible.\n\n\u201cPlato and Pythagoras,\u201d says Plutarch, \u201cdistribute the soul into two\nparts, the rational (no\u00ebtic) and irrational (_agnoia_); that that\npart of the soul of man which is rational, is eternal; for though it\nbe not God, yet it is the product of an eternal deity, but that part\nof the soul which is divested of reason (_agnoia_) dies.\u201d\n\n\u201cMan,\u201d says Plutarch, \u201cis compound; and they are mistaken who think\nhim to be compounded of two parts only. For they imagine that the\nunderstanding is a part of the soul, but they err in this no less\nthan those who make the soul to be a part of the body, for the\nunderstanding (_nous_) as far exceeds the soul, as the soul is better\nand diviner than the body. Now this composition of the soul (\u03c6\u03c5\u03c7\u03b7)\nwith the understanding (\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2) makes reason; and with the body,\npassion; of which the one is the beginning or principle of pleasure\nand pain, and the other of virtue and vice. Of these three parts\nconjoined and compacted together, the earth has given the body, the\nmoon the soul, and the sun the understanding to the generation of man.\n\n\u201cNow of the deaths we die, _the one makes man two of three_, and the\nother, _one_ of (out of) two. The former is in the region and\njurisdiction of Demeter, whence the name given to the Mysteries \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\nresembled that given to death, \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd. The Athenians also heretofore\ncalled the deceased sacred to Demeter. As for the _other death_ it is\nin the moon or region of Persophon\u00e9. And as with the one the\nterrestrial, so with the other the celestial Hermes doth dwell. This\nsuddenly and with violence plucks the soul from the body; but\nProserpina mildly and in a long time disjoins the understanding from\nthe soul. For this reason she is called _Monogenes_, _only-begotten_,\nor rather _begetting one alone_; for the better part of man becomes\nalone when it is separated by her. Now both the one and the other\nhappens thus according to nature. It is ordained by Faith that every\nsoul, whether with or without understanding (\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2), when gone out of\nthe body, should wander for a time, though not all for the same, in\nthe region lying between the earth and moon. For those that have been\nunjust and dissolute suffer there the punishment due to their\noffences; but the good and virtuous are there detained till they are\npurified, and have, by expiation, purged out of them all the\ninfections they might have contracted from the contagion of the body,\nas if from foul health, living in the mildest part of the air, called\nthe Meadows of Hades, where they must remain for a certain prefixed\nand appointed time. And then, as if they were returning from a\nwandering pilgrimage or long exile into their country, they have a\ntaste of joy, such as they principally receive who are initiated into\nSacred Mysteries, mixed with trouble, admiration, and each one\u2019s\nproper and peculiar hope.\u201d\n\nThe _d\u00e6monium_ of Socrates was this \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2, mind, spirit, or\nunderstanding of the divine in it. \u201cThe \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 of Socrates,\u201d says\nPlutarch, \u201cwas pure and mixed itself with the body no more than\nnecessity required.... Every soul hath some portion of \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2, reason, a\nman cannot be a man without it; but as much of each soul as is mixed\nwith flesh and appetite is changed and through pain or pleasure\nbecomes irrational. Every soul doth not mix herself after one sort;\nsome plunge themselves into the body, and so, in this life their whole\nframe is corrupted by appetite and passion; others are mixed as to\nsome part, but the purer part [nous] still remains _without the body_.\nIt is not drawn down into the body, but it swims above and touches\n(overshadows) the extremest part of the man\u2019s head; it is like a cord\nto hold up and direct the subsiding part of the soul, as long as it\nproves obedient and is not overcome by the appetites of the flesh. The\npart that is plunged into the body is called _soul_. But the\nincorruptible part is called the _nous_ and _the vulgar think it is\nwithin them_, as they likewise imagine the image reflected from a\nglass to be in that glass. But the more intelligent, who know it to be\nwithout, call it a Da\u00ebmon\u201d (a god, a spirit).\n\n\u201cThe soul, like to a dream, flies quick away, which it does not\nimmediately, as soon as it is separated from the body, but afterward,\nwhen it is alone and divided from the understanding (_nous_)....\nThe soul being moulded and formed by the understanding (_nous_),\nand itself moulding and forming the body, by embracing it on every\nside, receives from it an impression and form; so that although it be\nseparated both from the understanding and the body, it nevertheless\nso retains still its figure and resemblance for a long time, that it\nmay, with good right, be called its image.\n\n\u201cAnd of these souls the moon is the element, because souls resolve\ninto her, as the bodies of the deceased do into earth. Those, indeed,\nwho have been virtuous and honest, living a quiet and philosophical\nlife, without embroiling themselves in troublesome affairs, are\nquickly resolved; because, being left by the nous, understanding, and\nno longer using the corporeal passions, they incontinently vanish\naway.\u201d\n\nWe find even Iren\u00e6us, that untiring and mortal enemy of every Grecian\nand \u201cheathen\u201d heresy, explain his belief in the trinity of man. The\nperfect man, according to his views, consists of _flesh_, _soul_,\nand _spirit_. \u201c... carne, anima, spiritu, altero quidem figurante,\nspiritu, altero quod formatur, carne. Id vero quod inter haec est\nduo, est anima, quae aliquando subsequens spiritum elevatur ab eo,\naliquando autem consentient carni in terrenas concupiscentias\u201d\n(_Iren\u00e6us_ v., 1).\n\nAnd Origen, in his _Sixth Epistle to the Romans_, says: \u201cThere is a\nthreefold partition of man, the body or flesh, the lowest part of our\nnature, on which the old serpent by original sin inscribed the law\nof sin, and by which we are tempted to vile things, and as oft as we\nare overcome by temptations are joined fast to the Devil; the spirit,\nin or by which we express the likeness of the divine nature in which\nthe very Best Creator, from the archetype of his own mind, engraved\nwith his finger (that is, his spirit), the eternal law of honesty; by\nthis we are joined (conglutinated) to God and made one with God. In\nthe third, the soul mediates between these, which, as in a factious\nrepublic, cannot but join with one party or the other, is solicited\nthis way and that and is at liberty to choose the side to which it\nwill adhere. If, renouncing the flesh, it betakes itself to the party\nof the spirit it will itself become spiritual, but if it cast itself\ndown to the cupidities of the flesh it will degenerate itself into\nbody.\u201d\n\nPlato (in _Laws_ x.) defines _soul_ as \u201cthe motion that is able\nto move itself.\u201d \u201cSoul is the most ancient of all things, and the\ncommencement of motion.\u201d \u201cSoul was generated prior to body, and body\nis posterior and secondary, as being, according to nature, ruled over\nby the ruling soul.\u201d \u201cThe soul which administers all things that are\nmoved in every way, administers likewise the heavens.\u201d\n\n\u201cSoul then leads everything in heaven, and on earth, and in the sea,\nby its movements--the names of which are, to will, to consider, to\ntake care of, to consult, to form opinions true and false, to be in\na state of joy, sorrow, confidence, fear, hate, love, together with\nall such primary movements as are allied to these ... being a goddess\nherself, she ever takes as an ally NOUS, a god, and disciplines all\nthings correctly and happily; but when with _Annoia_--not _nous_--it\nworks out everything the contrary.\u201d\n\nIn this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is treated\nas essential existence. _Annihilation_ comes under a similar\nexegesis. The positive state, is essential being but no manifestation\nas such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance, entered _nirvana_,\nit lost objective existence but retained subjective. To objective\nminds this is becoming absolute nothing; to subjective, NO-thing,\nnothing to be displayed to sense.\n\nThese rather lengthy quotations are necessary for our purpose.\nBetter than anything else, they show the agreement between the\noldest \u201cPagan\u201d philosophies--not \u201cassisted by the light of divine\nrevelation,\u201d to use the curious expression of Laboulaye in relation\nto Buddha--and the early Christianity of some Fathers. Both Pagan\nphilosophy and Christianity, however, owe their elevated ideas on\nthe soul and spirit of man and the unknown Deity to Buddhism and the\nHindu Manu. No wonder that the Manicheans maintained that Jesus was\na permutation of Gautama; that Buddha, Christ, and Mani were one\nand the same person,[592] for the teachings of the former two were\nidentical. It was the doctrine of old India that Jesus held to when\npreaching the complete renunciation of the world and its vanities in\norder to reach the kingdom of Heaven, Nirvana, where \u201cmen neither\nmarry nor are given in marriage, but live like the angels.\u201d\n\nIt is the philosophy of Siddh\u00e2rtha-Buddha again that Pythagoras\nexpounded, when asserting that the _ego_ (\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2) was eternal with God,\nand that the soul only passed through various stages (Hindu\n_Rupa-locas_) to arrive at the divine excellence; meanwhile the\n_thumos_ returned to the earth, and even the _phren_ was eliminated.\nThus the _metempsychosis_ was only a succession of disciplines through\nrefuge-heavens (called by the Buddhists _Zion_),[593] to work off the\nexterior mind, to rid the _nous_ of the _phren_, or soul, the Buddhist\n\u201cWinyanaskandaya,\u201d _that principle that lives_ from _Karma_ and the\nSkandhas (groups). It is the latter, the metaphysical personations of\nthe \u201cdeeds\u201d of man, whether good or bad, which, after the death of his\nbody, incarnate themselves, so to say, and form their many invisible\nbut never-dying compounds into a new body, or rather into an ethereal\nbeing, the _double_ of what man was _morally_. It is the astral body\nof the kabalist and the \u201cincarnated deeds\u201d which form the new sentient\nself as his _Ahancara_ (the ego, self-consciousness), given to him by\nthe sovereign Master (the breath of God) can never perish, for it is\nimmortal _per se_ as a spirit; hence the sufferings of the newly-born\n_self_ till he rids himself of every earthly thought, desire, and\npassion.\n\nWe now see that the \u201cfour mysteries\u201d of the Buddhist doctrine have\nbeen as little understood and appreciated as the \u201cwisdom\u201d hinted at\nby Paul, and spoken \u201camong them that are _perfect_\u201d (initiated),\nthe \u201cmystery-wisdom\u201d which \u201cnone of the _Archons_ of this world\nknew.\u201d[594] The fourth degree of the Buddhist Dhy\u00e2na, the fruit of\nSam\u00e2dhi, which leads to the utmost perfection, to _Viconddham_, a\nterm correctly rendered by Burnouf in the verb \u201c_perfected_,\u201d[595] is\nwholly misunderstood by others, as well as in himself. Defining the\ncondition of Dhy\u00e2na, St. Hilaire argues thus:\n\n\u201cFinally, having attained the fourth degree, the ascetic possesses\nno more this feeling of beatitude, however obscure it may be ...\nhe has also lost all memory ... he has reached impassibility, as\nnear a neighbor of Nirvana as can be.... However, this absolute\nimpassibility does not hinder the ascetic from acquiring, at\nthis very moment, _omniscience and the magical power; a flagrant\ncontradiction, about which the Buddhists_ no more disturb themselves\nthan about so many others.\u201d[596]\n\nAnd why should they, when these contradictions are, in fact, no\ncontradictions at all? It ill behooves us to speak of contradictions\nin other peoples\u2019 religions, when those of our own have bred, besides\nthe three great conflicting bodies of Romanism, Protestantism, and\nthe Eastern Church, a thousand and one most curious smaller sects.\nHowever it may be, we have here a term applied to one and the same\nthing by the Buddhist holy \u201cmendicants\u201d and Paul, the Apostle. When\nthe latter says: \u201cIf so be that I might attain the _resurrection_\nfrom among the dead [the Nirvana], not as though I had already\nattained, or were already _perfect_\u201d (initiated),[597] he uses an\nexpression common among the initiated Buddhists. When a Buddhist\nascetic has reached the \u201cfourth degree,\u201d he is considered a rahat.\nHe produces every kind of phenomena by the sole power of his freed\nspirit. A _rahat_, say the Buddhists, is one who has acquired the\npower of flying in the air, becoming invisible, commanding the\nelements, and working all manner of wonders, commonly, and as\nerroneously, called _meipo_ (miracles). He is a _perfect_ man, a\ndemi-god. A god he will become when he reaches Nirvana; for, like the\ninitiates of both Testaments, the worshippers of Buddha know that\nthey \u201care gods.\u201d\n\n\u201cGenuine Buddhism, overleaping the barrier between finite and\ninfinite mind, urges its followers to aspire, _by their own efforts_,\nto that divine perfectibility of which it teaches that man is\ncapable, and by attaining which man becomes _a god_,\u201d says Brian\nHoughton Hodgson.[598]\n\nDreary and sad were the ways, and blood-covered the tortuous paths by\nwhich the world of the Christians was driven to embrace the Iren\u00e6an\nand Eusebian Christianity. And yet, unless we accept the views of\nthe ancient Pagans, what claim has our generation to having solved\nany of the mysteries of the \u201ckingdom of heaven?\u201d What more does the\nmost pious and learned of Christians know of the future destiny and\nprogress of our immortal spirits than the heathen philosopher of old,\nor the modern \u201cPagan\u201d beyond the Himalaya? Can he even boast that\nhe knows as much, although he works in the full blaze of \u201cdivine\u201d\nrevelation? We have seen a Buddhist holding to the religion of his\nfathers, both in theory and practice; and, however blind may be\nhis faith, however absurd his notions on some particular doctrinal\npoints, later engraftings of an ambitious clergy, yet in practical\nworks his Buddhism is far more Christ-like in deed and spirit than\nthe average life of our Christian priests and ministers. The fact\nalone that his religion commands him to \u201chonor his own faith, but\nnever slander that of other people,\u201d[599] is sufficient. It places\nthe Buddhist lama immeasurably higher than any priest or clergyman\nwho deems it his sacred duty to curse the \u201cheathen\u201d to his face, and\nsentence him and his religion to \u201ceternal damnation.\u201d Christianity\nbecomes every day more a religion of pure emotionalism. The doctrine\nof Buddha is entirely based on practical works. A general love of all\nbeings, human and animal, is its nucleus. A man who knows that unless\nhe toils for himself he has to starve, and understands that he has\nno scapegoat to carry the burden of his iniquities for him, is ten\ntimes as likely to become a better man than one who is taught that\nmurder, theft, and profligacy can be washed in one instant as white\nas snow, if he but believes in a God who, to borrow an expression of\nVolney, \u201conce took food upon earth, and is now himself the food of\nhis people.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n \u201cOf the tenets of the Druzes, nothing authentic has ever\n come to light; the popular belief amongst their neighbors\n is, that they adore an idol in the form of a calf.\u201d--KING:\n _The Gnostics and their Remains_.\n\n\n \u201cO ye Lords of Truth without fault, who are forever cycling\n for eternity ... save me from the annihilation of this\n Region of the _Two Truths_.\u201d--_Egyptian Ritual of the Dead._\n\n\n \u201cPythagoras correctly regarded the \u201cIneffable Name\u201d\n of God ... as the Key to the Mysteries of the\n universe.\u201d--PANCOAST: _Blue and Red Light_.\n\n\nIn the next two chapters we shall notice the most important of the\nChristian secret sects--the so-called \u201cHeresies\u201d which sprang into\nexistence between the first and fourth centuries of our era.\n\nGlancing rapidly at the Ophites and Nazareans, we shall pass to their\nscions which yet exist in Syria and Palestine, under the name of\nDruzes of Mount Lebanon; and near Basra or Bassorah, in Persia, under\nthat of Mend\u00e6ans, or Disciples of St. John. All these sects have an\nimmediate connection with our subject, for they are of kabalistic\nparentage and have once held to the secret \u201cWisdom Religion,\u201d\nrecognizing as the One Supreme, the Mystery-God of the _Ineffable\nName_. Noticing these numerous secret societies of the past, we\nwill bring them into direct comparison with several of the modern.\nWe will conclude with a brief survey of the Jesuits, and of that\nvenerable nightmare of the Roman Catholic Church--modern Freemasonry.\nAll of these modern as well as ancient fraternities--present\nFreemasonry excepted--were and are more or less connected with\nmagic--practically, as well as theoretically; and, every one of\nthem--Freemasonry _not_ excepted--was and still is accused of\ndemonolatry, blasphemy, and licentiousness.\n\nOur object is not to write the history of either of them; but only\nto compare these sorely-abused communities with the Christian sects,\npast and present, and then, taking historical facts for our guidance,\nto defend the secret science as well as the men who are its students\nand champions against any unjust imputation.\n\nOne by one the tide of time engulfed the sects of the early\ncenturies, until of the whole number only one survived in its\nprimitive integrity. That one still exists, still teaches the\ndoctrine of its founder, still exemplifies its faith in works of\npower. The quicksands which swallowed up every other outgrowth of\nthe religious agitation of the times of Jesus, with its records,\nrelics, and traditions, proved firm ground for this. Driven from\ntheir native land, its members found refuge in Persia, and to day the\nanxious traveller may converse with the direct descendants of the\n\u201cDisciples of John,\u201d who listened, on the Jordan\u2019s shore, to the \u201cman\nsent from God,\u201d and were baptized and believed. This curious people,\nnumbering 30,000 or more, are miscalled \u201cChristians of St. John,\u201d but\nin fact should be known by their old name of Nazareans, or their new\none of Mend\u00e6ans.\n\nTo term them Christians, is wholly unwarranted. They neither believe\nin Jesus as Christ, nor accept his atonement, nor adhere to his\nChurch, nor revere its \u201cHoly Scriptures.\u201d Neither do they worship\nthe Jehovah-God of the Jews and Christians, a circumstance which of\ncourse proves that their founder, John the Baptist, did not worship\nhim either. And if not, what right has he to a place in the _Bible_,\nor in the portrait-gallery of Christian saints? Still further, if\nFerho was his God, and he was \u201ca man sent by God,\u201d he must have been\nsent by Lord Ferho, and in his name baptized and preached? Now, if\nJesus was baptized by John, the inference is that he was baptized\naccording to his own faith; therefore, Jesus too, was a believer in\nFerho, or Faho, as they call him; a conclusion that seems the more\nwarranted by his silence as to the name of his \u201cFather.\u201d And why\nshould the hypothesis that _Faho_ is but one of the many corruptions\nof Fho or Fo, as the Thibetans and Chinese call Buddha, appear\nridiculous? In the North of Nepaul, Buddha is more often called _Fo_\nthan _Buddha_. The Book of _Mahaw\u0101nsa_ shows how early the work of\nBuddhistic proselytism began in Nepaul; and history teaches that\nBuddhist monks crowded into Syria[600] and Babylon in the century\npreceding our era, and that Buddhasp (Bodhisatva) the alleged\nChaldean, was the founder of Sabism or _baptism_.[601]\n\nWhat the actual Baptists, _el-Mogtasila_, or Nazareans, do believe,\nis fully set forth in other places, for they are the very Nazarenes\nof whom we have spoken so much, and from whose _Codex_ we have\nquoted. Persecuted and threatened with annihilation, they took refuge\nin the Nestorian body, and so allowed themselves to be arbitrarily\nclassed as Christians, but as soon as opportunity offered, they\nseparated, and now, for several centuries have not even nominally\ndeserved the appellation. That they are, nevertheless, so called by\necclesiastical writers, is perhaps not very difficult to comprehend.\nThey know too much of early Christianity to be left outside the\npale, to bear witness against it with their traditions, without the\nstigma of heresy and backsliding being fastened upon them to weaken\nconfidence in what they might say.\n\nBut where else can science find so good a field for biblical research\nas among this too neglected people? No doubt of their inheritance of\nthe Baptist\u2019s doctrine; their traditions are without a break. What\nthey teach now, their forefathers taught at every epoch where they\nappear in history. They are the disciples of that John who is said\nto have foretold the advent of Jesus, baptized him, and declared\nthat the latchet of his shoe he (John) was not worthy to unloose. As\nthey two--the Messenger and the Messiah--stood in the Jordan, and\nthe elder was consecrating the younger--his own cousin, too, humanly\nspeaking--the heavens opened and God Himself, in the shape of a dove,\ndescended in a glory upon his \u201cBeloved Son!\u201d How then, if this tale\nbe true, can we account for the strange infidelity which we find\namong these surviving Nazareans? So far from believing Jesus the Only\nBegotten Son of God, they actually told the Persian missionaries,\nwho, in the seventeenth century, first discovered them to Europeans,\nthat the Christ of the _New Testament_ was \u201ca false teacher,\u201d and\nthat the Jewish system, as well as that of Jesus (?), came from\nthe realm of darkness! Who knows better than they? Where can more\ncompetent living witnesses be found? Christian ecclesiastics would\nforce upon us an anointed Saviour heralded by John, and the disciples\nof this very Baptist, from the earliest centuries, have stigmatized\nthis ideal personage as an impostor, and his putative Father,\nJehovah, \u201ca spurious God,\u201d the Ilda-Baoth of the Ophites! Unlucky\nfor Christianity will be the day when some fearless and honest\nscholar shall persuade their elders to let him translate the contents\nof their secret books and compile their hoary traditions! It is a\nstrange delusion that makes some writers think that the Nazareans\nhave no other sacred literature, no other literary relics than four\ndoctrinal works, and that curious volume full of astrology and magic\nwhich they are bound to peruse at the sunset hour, on every Sol\u2019s day\n(Sunday).\n\nThis search after truth leads us, indeed, into devious ways. Many\nare the obstacles that ecclesiastical cunning has placed in the way\nof our finding the primal source of religious ideas. Christianity is\non trial, and has been, ever since science felt strong enough to act\nas Public Prosecutor. A portion of the case we are drafting in this\nbook. What of truth is there in this Theology? Through what sects has\nit been transmitted? _Whence was it primarily derived?_ To answer,\nwe must trace the history of the World Religion, alike through the\nsecret Christian sects as through those of other great religious\nsubdivisions of the race; _for the Secret Doctrine is the Truth_,\nand that religion is nearest divine that has contained it with least\nadulteration.\n\nOur search takes us hither and thither, but never aimlessly do we\nbring sects widely separated in chronological order, into critical\njuxtaposition. There is one purpose in our work to be kept constantly\nin view--the analysis of religious beliefs, and the definition of\ntheir descent from the past to the present. What has most blocked the\nway is Roman Catholicism; and not until the secret principles of this\nreligion are uncovered can we comprehend the iron staff upon which it\nleans to steady its now tottering steps.\n\nWe will begin with the Ophites, Nazareans, and the modern Druzes.\nThe personal views of the author, as they will be presented in the\ndiagrams, will be most decidedly at variance with the prejudiced\nspeculations of Iren\u00e6us, Theodoret, and Epiphanius (the sainted\nrenegade, who sold his brethren), inasmuch as they will reflect the\nideas of certain kabalists in close relations with the mysterious\nDruzes of Mount Lebanon. The Syrian _okhals_, or Spiritualists, as\nthey are sometimes termed, are in possession of a great many ancient\nmanuscripts and gems, bearing upon our present subject.\n\nThe first _scheme_--that of the Ophites--from the very start, as\nwe have shown, varies from the description given by the Fathers,\ninasmuch as it makes Bythos or depth, a female emanation, and assigns\nher a place answering to that of Pleroma, only in a far superior\nregion; whereas, the Fathers assure us that the Gnostics gave the\nname of Bythos to the First Cause. As in the kabalistic system, it\nrepresents the boundless and infinite void within which is concealed\nin darkness the Unknown Primal motor of all. It envelops HIM like\na veil: in short we recognize again the \u201cShekinah\u201d of the En-Soph.\nAlone, the name of \u0399\u0391\u03a9, Iao, marks the upper centre, or rather the\npresumed spot where the Unknown One may be supposed to dwell. Around\nthe Iao, runs the legend, \u03f9\u0395\u039c\u0395\u03f9 \u0395\u0399\u039b\u0391\u039c \u0391\u0392\u03a1\u0391\u03a3\u0391\u039e. \u201cThe eternal\nSun-Abrasax\u201d (the Central Spiritual Sun of all the kabalists,\nrepresented in some diagrams of the latter by the circle of\nTiphereth).\n\nFrom this region of unfathomable Depth, issues forth a circle formed\nof spirals; which, in the language of symbolism, means a grand cycle,\n\u03ba\u03c5\u03ba\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as to follow the\nspirals, lies the serpent--emblem of wisdom and eternity--the Dual\nAndrogyne: the cycle representing _Ennoia_ or the Divine mind, and the\nSerpent--the Agathodaimon, Ophis--the Shadow of the Light. Both were\nthe Logo\u00ef of the Ophites; or the unity as Logos manifesting itself as\na double principle of good and evil; for, according to their views,\nthese two principles are immutable, and existed from all eternity, as\nthey will ever continue to exist.\n\nThis symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent,\nas the Saviour, coiled either around the Sacramental loaf or a Tau.\nAs a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos; when separated, one\nis the Tree of Life (Spiritual); the other, the Tree of Knowledge\nof Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human\ncouple--the material production of Ilda-Baoth, but which owed its\nspiritual principle to Sophia-Achamoth--to eat of the forbidden\nfruit, although Ophis represents Divine Wisdom.\n\nThe Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree\nof Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India. The\nArasa-Maram, the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindus, since\nVishnu, during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty\nshade, and there taught humanity philosophy and sciences, is called\nthe Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protective\numbrage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils\ntheir first lessons on immortality and initiate them in the mysteries\nof life and death. The _Java_-ALEIM of the Sacerdotal College are\nsaid, in the Chaldean tradition, to have taught the sons of men\nto become like one of them. To the present day Foh-tchou,[602]\nwho lives in his Foh-Ma\u00ebyu, or temple of Buddha, on the top of\n\u201cKouin-long-sang,\u201d[603] the great mountain, produces his greatest\nreligious miracles under a tree called in Chinese Sung-Ming-Sh\u016d, or\nthe Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, for ignorance is death,\nand knowledge alone gives immortality. This marvellous display\ntakes place every three years, when an immense concourse of Chinese\nBuddhists assemble in pilgrimage at the holy place.\n\nIlda-Baoth, the \u201cSon of Darkness,\u201d and the creator of the material\nworld, was made to inhabit the planet Saturn, which identifies him\nstill more with the Jewish Jehovah, who was Saturn himself, according\nto the Ophites, and is by them denied his Sinaitic name. From\nIlda-Baoth emanate six spirits, who respectively dwell with their\nfather in the seven planets. These are Saba--or Mars; Adonai--Sol,\nor the Sun;[604] Ievo--the Moon; Eloi--Jupiter; Astaphoi--Mercury\n(spirit of water); and Oura\u00efos--Venus, spirit of fire.[605]\n\nIn their functions and description as given, these seven planets\nare identical with the Hindu _Sapta-Loca_, the seven places or\nspheres, or the superior and inferior worlds; for they represent the\nkabalistic seven spheres. With the Ophites, they belong to the lower\nspheres. The monograms of these Gnostic planets are also Buddhistic,\nthe latter differing, albeit slightly, from those of the usual\nastrological \u201chouses.\u201d In the explanatory notes which accompany the\ndiagram, the names of Cirenthius (the disciple of Simon Magus), of\nMenander, and of certain other Gnostics, whose names are not to be\nmet with in the Patristic writings, are often mentioned; such as\nParcha (Ferho), for instance.[606]\n\nThe author of the diagram claims, moreover, for his sect, the\ngreatest antiquity, bringing forward, as a proof, that their\n\u201cforefathers\u201d were the builders of all the \u201cDracontia\u201d temples,\neven of those beyond \u201cthe great waters.\u201d He asserts that the \u201cJust\nOne,\u201d who was the mouthpiece of the Eternal \u00c6on (Christos), himself\nsent his disciples into the world, placing them under the double\nprotection of Sige (Silence, the Logos), and Ophis, the Agathod\u00e6mon.\nThe author alludes, no doubt, to the favorite expression of Jesus,\n\u201cbe wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.\u201d On the diagram, Ophis\nis represented as the Egyptian Cnuphis or Kneph, called Draconti\u00e6. He\nappears as a serpent standing erect on its tail, with a lion\u2019s head,\ncrowned and radiated, and bearing on the point of each ray one of\nthe seven Greek vowels--symbol of the seven celestial spheres. This\nfigure is quite familiar to those who are acquainted with the Gnostic\ngems,[607] and is borrowed from the Egyptian _Hermetic books_. The\ndescription given in the _Revelation_, of one \u201clike unto the Son of\nMan,\u201d with his seven stars, and who is the Logos, is another form of\nOphis.\n\nThe Nazarene diagram, except in a change of names, is identical\nwith that of the Gnostics, who evidently borrowed their ideas from\nit, adding a few appellations from the Basiledean and Valentinian\nsystems. To avoid repetition, we will now simply present the two in\nparallel.\n\nThus, we find that, in the Nazarene Cosmogony, the names of their\npowers and genii stand in the following relations to those of the\nGnostics:\n\n NAZARENE. GNOSTIC-OPHITE.\n\n _First Trinity._ _First Unity in a Trinity._\n\n Lord FERHO--the Life which IAO--the Ineffable Name of\n is no Life--the Supreme God. the Unknown Deity--Abraxas,\n The _Cause_ which produces and the \u201cEternal Spiritual\n the Light, or the Logos _in Sun.\u201d Unity enclosed within\n abscondito_. The water of the Depth, Bythos, feminine\n Jordanus Maximus--the water principle--the boundless\n of Life, or Ajar, the circle, within which lie all\n feminine principle. Unity in ideal forms. From this Unity\n a Trinity, enclosed within emanates\n the ISH AMON.\n\n _Second Trinity._ _Second Trinity._\n\n (The manifestation (Idem.)\n of the first.)\n\n 1. Lord MANO--the King of 1. Ennoia--mind.\n Life and Light--_Rex Lucis_.\n First LIFE, or the primitive\n man.\n\n 2. Lord Jordan--manifestation 2. Ophis, the Agathod\u00e6mon.\n or emanation of Jordan\n Maximus--the waters of\n grace. Second LIFE.\n\n 3. The Superior Father-- 3. Sophia Androgyne--wisdom;\n Abatur. Third LIFE. who, in her turn--fecundated\n with the Divine Light--produces\n\n This Trinity produces also a Christos and Sophia-Achamoth\n duad--Lord Ledhoio, and (one perfect, the other\n Fetahil, the genius (the imperfect), as an emanation.\n former, a perfect emanation,\n the latter, imperfect).\n\n Lord Jordan--\u201cthe Lord of Sophia-Achamoth emanates\n all Jordans,\u201d manifests Ilda-Baoth--the Demiurge,\n NETUBTO (Faith _without_ who produces material and\n Works).[608] soulless creation. \u201cWorks\n _without_ Faith\u201d (or\n grace).[608]\n\nMoreover, the Ophite seven planetary genii, who emanated one from the\nother, are found again in the Nazarene religion, under the name of\nthe \u201cseven impostor-d\u00e6mons,\u201d or stellars, who \u201cwill deceive all the\nsons of Adam.\u201d These are _Sol_; _Spiritus Venereus_ (Holy Spirit, in\nher material aspect),[609] the mother of the \u201cseven badly-disposed\nstellars,\u201d answering to the Gnostic Achamoth; _Nebu_, or Mercury, \u201ca\nfalse Messiah, who will deprave the ancient worship of God;\u201d[610] SIN\n(or Luna, or Shuril); KIUN (Kivan, or Saturn); Bel-Jupiter; and the\nseventh, _Nerig_, Mars (_Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, p. 57).\n\nThe Christos of the Gnostics is the chief of the seven \u00c6ons,\nSt. John\u2019s seven spirits of God; the Nazarenes have also their\nseven genii or good \u00c6ons, whose chief is _Rex Lucis_, MANO, their\nChristos. The _Sapta Rishis_, the seven sages of India, inhabit the\n_Sapta-Poura_, or the seven celestial cities.\n\nWhat less or more do we find in the Universal Ecclesia, until the\ndays of the Reformation, and in the Roman Popish Church after\nthe separation? We have compared the relative value of the Hindu\nCosmogony; the Chaldeo, Zoroastrian, Jewish _Kabala_; and that of\nthe so-termed H\u00e6retics. A correct diagram of the Judaico-CHRISTIAN\nreligion, to enforce which on the heathen who have furnished it,\nare expended such great sums every year, would still better prove\nthe identity of the two; but we lack space and are also spared the\nnecessity of proving what is already thoroughly demonstrated.\n\nIn the Ophite gems of King (_Gnostics_), we find the name of Iao\nrepeated, and often confounded with that of Ievo, while the latter\nsimply represents one of the genii antagonistic to Abraxas. In order\nthat these names may not be taken as identical with the name of\nthe Jewish Jehovah we will at once explain this word. It seems to\nus surpassingly strange that so many learned arch\u00e6ologists should\nhave so little insisted that there was more than one Jehovah, and\ndisclaimed that the name originated with Moses. Iao is certainly a\ntitle of the Supreme Being, and belongs _partially_ to the Ineffable\nName; but it neither originated with nor was it the sole property of\nthe Jews. Even if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the\ntutelar \u201cSpirit,\u201d the alleged protector and national deity of the\n\u201cChosen people of Israel,\u201d there is yet no possible reason why other\nnationalities should receive Him as the Highest and One-living God.\nBut we deny the assumption altogether. Besides, there is the fact that\nYaho or Iao was a \u201cmystery name\u201d from the beginning, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 and \u05d9\u05d4 never\ncame into use before King David. Anterior to his time, few or no\nproper names were compounded with _iah_ or jah. It looks rather as\nthough David, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines\n(_2 Samuel_), brought thence the name of Jehovah. He made Zadok\nhigh-priest, from whom came the Zadokites or Sadducees. He lived and\nruled first at Hebron \u05d7\u05d1\u05e8\u05d5\u05df, Habir-on or Kabeir-town, where the rites\nof the four (mystery-gods) were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon\nrecognized either Moses or the law of Moses. They aspired to build a\ntemple to \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and\nVenus, Adon and Astarte.\n\nSays F\u00fcrst: \u201cThe very ancient name of God, Y\u00e2ho, written in the Greek\n\u0399\u03b1\u03c9, appears, apart _from its derivation_, to have been an old mystic\nname of the Supreme deity of the Shemites. (Hence it was told to Moses\nwhen initiated at HOR-EB--the _cave_, under the direction of Jethro,\nthe Kenite or Cainite priest of Midian.) In an old religion of the\nChaldeans, whose remains are to be found amongst the Neo-platonists,\nthe highest divinity enthroned above the seven heavens, representing\nthe Spiritual Light-Principle (_nous_)[611] and also conceived as\nDemiurgus,[612] was called \u0399\u03b1\u03c9 \u05d9\u05d7\u05d3, who was, like the Hebrew Y\u00e2ho,\nmysterious and unmentionable, and whose name was communicated to\nthe initiated. The Ph\u0153nicians had a Supreme God whose name was\ntrilateral and _secret_, and he was \u0399\u03b1\u03c9.\u201d[613]\n\nBut while F\u00fcrst insists that the name has a Semitic origin, there\nare other scholars who trace it farther than he does, and look back\nbeyond the classification of the Caucasians.\n\nIn Sanscrit we have Jah and Jaya, or Jaa and Ja-ga, and this throws\nlight on the origin of the famous festival of the car of Jaga-nath,\ncommonly called Jaggern\u00e2th. Javhe means \u201che who is,\u201d and Dr. Spiegel\ntraces even the Persian name of God, \u201cAhura,\u201d to the root _ah_,[614]\nwhich in Sanscrit is pronounced _as_, to breathe, and _asu_,\nbecame, therefore, in time, synonymous with \u201cSpirit.\u201d[615] Rawlinson\nstrongly supports the opinion of an Aryan or Vedic influence on the\nearly Babylonian mythology. We have given, a few pages back, the\nstrongest possible proofs of the identity of Vishnu with Dag-on.\nThe same may be adduced for the title of \u0399\u03b1\u03c9, and its Sanscrit root\ntraced in every country. JU or _Jovis_ is the oldest Latin name for\nGod. \u201cAs male he is Ju-_piter_, or _Ju_, the father, pit\u00e4r being\nSanscrit for father; as feminine, Ju-_no_ or Ju, the comforter--\u05d3\u05d5\u05d7\nbeing the Ph\u0153nician word for rest and comfort.\u201d[616] Professor Max\nM\u00fcller shows that although \u201cDyaus,\u201d sky, does not occur as a masculine\nin the ordinary Sanscrit, yet it does occur in the _Veda_, \u201cand thus\nbears witness to the early Aryan worship of Dyaus, the Greek Zeus\u201d\n(_The Veda_).\n\nTo grasp the real and primitive sense of the term \u0399\u0391\u03a9, and the reason\nof its becoming the designation for the most mysterious of all\ndeities, we must search for its origin in the figurative phraseology\nof all the primitive people. We must first of all go to the most\nancient sources for our information. In one of the _Books of Hermes_,\nfor instance, we find him saying that the number TEN is the mother of\nthe soul, and that the _life_ and _light_ are therein united. For \u201cthe\nnumber 1 (one) is born from the spirit, and the number 10 (ten) from\nmatter;\u201d[617] \u201cthe unity has made the TEN, the TEN the unity.\u201d[618]\n\nThe kabalistic _gemantria_--one of the methods for extracting the\nhidden meaning from letters, words, and sentences--is arithmetical.\nIt consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they bear\nas numbers, in _outward_ shape as well as in their individual sense.\nMoreover, by the _Themura_ (another method used by the kabalists) any\nword could be made to yield its mystery out of its anagram. Thus,\nwe find the author of _Sepher Jezira_ saying, one or two centuries\nbefore our era:[619] \u201cONE, the spirit of the _Alahim_ of Lives.\u201d[620]\nSo again, in the oldest kabalistic diagrams, the _ten_ Sephiroth are\nrepresented as wheels or circles, and Adam Kadmon, the primitive man,\nas an _upright_ pillar. \u201cWheels and seraphim and the holy creatures\u201d\n(chioth), says Rabbi Akiba.[621] In another system of the same branch\nof the symbolical _Kabala_, called Athbach--which arranges the\nletters of the alphabet by pairs in three rows--all the couples in\nthe first row bear the numerical value _ten_; and in the system of\nSimeon Ben-Shetah,[622] the uppermost couple--the most sacred of all,\nis preceded by the Pythagorean cipher, one and a nought, or zero--10.\n\nIf we can once appreciate the fact that, among all the peoples of the\nhighest antiquity, the most natural conception of the First Cause\nmanifesting itself in its creatures, and that to this they could not\nbut ascribe the creation of all, was that of an androgyne deity; that\nthe male principle was considered the vivifying invisible spirit,\nand the female, mother nature; we shall be enabled to understand\nhow that mysterious cause came at first to be represented (in the\npicture-writings, perhaps) as the combination of the Alpha and Omega\nof numbers, a decimal, then as IAO, a trilateral name, containing in\nitself a deep allegory.\n\n_IAO_, in such a case, would--etymologically considered--mean the\n\u201cBreath of Life,\u201d generated or springing forth between an upright\nmale and an egg-shaped female principle of nature; for, in Sanscrit,\n_as_ means \u201cto be,\u201d \u201cto live or exist;\u201d and originally it meant \u201cto\nbreathe.\u201d \u201cFrom it,\u201d says Max M\u00fcller, \u201cin its original sense of\nbreathing, the Hindus formed \u2018asu,\u2019 breath, and \u2018asura,\u2019 the name of\nGod, whether it meant the breathing one or the giver of breath.\u201d[623]\nIt certainly meant the latter. In Hebrew, \u201cAh\u201d and \u201cIah\u201d mean life.\nCornelius Agrippa, in his treatise on the _Pre\u00ebminence of Woman_,\nshows that \u201cthe word Eve suggests comparison with the mystic symbols\nof the kabalists, the name of the woman having affinity with the\nineffable Tetragrammaton, the most sacred name of the divinity.\u201d\nAncient names were always consonant with the things they represented.\nIn relation to the mysterious name of the Deity in question, the\nhitherto inexplicable hint of the kabalists as to the efficacy of the\nletter H, \u201cwhich Abram took away from his wife Sarah\u201d and \u201cput _into\nthe middle of his own name_,\u201d becomes clear.\n\nIt may perhaps be argued, by way of objection, that it is not\nascertained as yet at what period of antiquity the _nought_ occurs\nfor the first time in Indian manuscripts or inscriptions. Be\nthat as it may, the case presents circumstantial evidence of too\nstrong a character not to carry a conviction of probability with\nit. According to Max M\u00fcller \u201cthe two words \u2018cipher\u2019 and \u2018zero,\u2019\nwhich are in reality but one ... are sufficient to prove that our\nfigures are borrowed from the Arabs.\u201d[624] Cipher is the Arabic\n\u201ccifron,\u201d and means _empty_, a translation of the Sanscrit name\nof the nought \u201csynya,\u201d he says. The Arabs had their figures from\nHindustan, and never claimed the discovery for themselves.[625] As\nto the Pythagoreans, we need but turn to the ancient manuscripts\nof Bo\u00ebthius\u2019s _Geometry_, composed in the sixth century, to find\nin the Pythagorean numerals[626] the 1 and the _nought_, as\nthe first and final cipher. And Porphyry, who quotes from the\nPythagorean _Moderatus_,[627] says that the numerals of Pythagoras\nwere \u201chieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained ideas\nconcerning the nature of things.\u201d\n\nNow, if the most ancient Indian manuscripts show as yet no trace of\ndecimal notation in them, Max M\u00fcller states very clearly that until\nnow he has found but nine letters (the initials of the Sanscrit\nnumerals) in them--on the other hand we have records as ancient to\nsupply the wanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the sacred\nimagery in the most ancient temples of the far East. Pythagoras\nderived his knowledge from India; and we find Professor Max M\u00fcller\ncorroborating this statement, at least so far as allowing the\n_Neo_-Pythagoreans to have been the first teachers of \u201cciphering\u201d\namong the Greeks and Romans; that \u201cthey, at Alexandria, or in Syria,\nbecame acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted them to the\nPythagorean abacus\u201d (our figures). This cautious allowance implies\nthat Pythagoras himself was acquainted with but _nine_ figures. So\nthat we might reasonably answer that although we possess no certain\nproof that the decimal notation was known to Pythagoras, who lived\non the very close of the archaic ages,[628] we yet have sufficient\nevidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Bo\u00ebthius, were\nknown to the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was built.[629]\nThis evidence we find in Aristotle, who says that \u201csome philosophers\nhold that ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to\nTEN in all.\u201d[630] This, we believe, will be sufficient to show that\nthe decimal notation was known among them at least as early as four\ncenturies B.C., for Aristotle does not seem to treat the question as\nan innovation of the \u201cNeo-Pythagoreans.\u201d\n\nBesides, as we have remarked above, the representations of the\narchaic deities, on the walls of the temples, are of themselves quite\nsuggestive enough. So, for instance, Vishnu is represented in the\nKurmavatara (his second avatar) as a tortoise sustaining a circular\npillar, on which the semblance of himself (Maya, or the illusion)\nsits with all his attributes. While one hand holds a flower, another\na club, the third a shell, the fourth, generally the upper one, or\nat the right--holds on his forefinger, extended as the cipher 1,\nthe _chakra_, or discus, which resembles a ring, or a wheel, and\nmight be taken for the nought. In his first avatar, the Matsyavatam,\nwhen emerging from the fish\u2019s mouth, he is represented in the same\nposition.[631] The ten-armed Durga of Bengal; the ten-headed Ravana,\nthe giant; Parvati--as Durga, Indra, and Indrani, are found with this\nattribute, which is a perfect representation of the May-pole.[632]\n\nThe holiest of the temples among the Hindus, are those of Jaggarn\u00e2th.\nThis deity is worshipped equally by all the sects of India, and\n_Jagg_arn\u00e2th is named \u201cThe Lord of the World.\u201d He is the god of the\nMysteries, and his temples, which are most numerous in Bengal, are\nall of a pyramidal form.\n\nThere is no other deity which affords such a variety of etymologies\nas Iaho, nor a name which can be so variously pronounced. It is only\nby associating it with the Masoretic points that the later Rabbins\nsucceeded in making Jehovah read \u201cAdona\u00ef\u201d--or Lord. Philo Byblus\nspells it in Greek letters \u0399\u0395\u03a5\u03a9--IEOV. Theodoret says that the\nSamaritans pronounced it _Iab\u00e8_ (_Yahva_) and the Jews Yaho; which\nwould make it as we have shown I-ah-O. Diodorus states that \u201camong the\nJews they relate that Moses called the God \u0399\u03b1\u03c9.\u201d It is on the\nauthority of the _Bible_ itself, therefore, that we maintain that\nbefore his initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses had never\nknown the word Iaho. The future Deity of the sons of Israel calls out\nfrom the burning bush and gives His name as \u201cI am that I am,\u201d and\nspecifies carefully that He is the \u201cLord God of the Hebrews\u201d (_Exod._\niii. 18), not of the other nations. Judging him by his own acts,\nthroughout the Jewish records, we doubt whether Christ himself, had he\nappeared in the days of the _Exodus_, would have been welcomed by the\nirascible Sinaitic Deity. However, \u201cThe Lord God,\u201d who becomes, on His\nown confession, Jehovah only in the 6th chapter of _Exodus_ (verse 3)\nfinds his veracity put to a startling test in _Genesis_ xxii. 14, in\nwhich _revealed_ passage Abraham builds an altar to _Jehovah-jireh_.\n\nIt would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between\nthe mystery-God \u0399\u03b1\u03c9, adopted from the highest antiquity by all who\nparticipated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests, and his\nphonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so little reverence\nby the Ophites and other Gnostics. Once having burdened themselves\nlike the Azazel of the wilderness with the sins and iniquities of the\nJewish nation, it now appears hard for the Christians to have to\nconfess that those whom they thought fit to consider the \u201cchosen\npeople\u201d of God--their sole predecessors in monotheism--were, till a\nvery late period, as idolatrous and polytheistic as their neighbors.\nThe shrewd Talmudists have escaped the accusation for long centuries\nby screening themselves behind the Masoretic invention. But, as in\neverything else, truth was at last brought to light. We know now that\nIhoh \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 must be read Iahoh and Iah, not Jehovah. Iah of the Hebrews\nis plainly the Iacchos (Bacchus) of the Mysteries; the God \u201cfrom whom\nthe liberation of souls was expected--Dionysus, Iacchos, Iahoh,\nIah.\u201d[633] Aristotle then was right when he said: \u201cJon \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 was\nOromasdes and Ahriman Pluto, for the God of heaven, Ahura-mazda, rides\non a chariot which the _Horse of the Sun_ follows.\u201d[634] And Dunlap\nquotes _Psalm_ lxviii. 4, which reads:\n\n \u201cPraise him by his name Iach (\u05d9\u05d4),\n Who rides upon the heavens, as on a horse,\u201d\n\nand then shows that \u201cthe Arabs represented Iauk (Iach) by a horse.\nThe Horse of the Sun (Dionysus).\u201d[635] Iah is a softening of Iach,\n\u201che explains.\u201d \u05d7 _ch_ and \u05d4 _h_ interchange; so _s_ softens to _h_.\nThe Hebrews express the idea of LIFE both by a _ch_ and an _h_; as\nchiach, to be, hiah, to be; Iach, God of Life, Iah, \u201cI _am_.\u201d[636]\nWell then may we repeat these lines of Ausonius:\n\n \u201cOgugi\u00e2 calls me Bacchus; Egypt thinks me Osiris;\n The Musians name me Ph\u2019anax; the Indi consider me Dionysus;\n The Roman Mysteries call me Liber; the Arabian race Adonis!\u201d\n\nAnd the chosen people Adoni and Jehovah--we may add.\n\nHow little the philosophy of the old secret doctrine was understood,\nis illustrated in the atrocious persecutions of the Templars by the\nChurch, and in the accusation of their worshipping the Devil under\nthe shape of the goat--Baphomet! Without going into the old Masonic\nmysteries, there is not a Mason--of those we mean who _do know\nsomething_--but has an idea of the true relation that Baphomet bore\nto Az\u00e2z\u00eal, the scapegoat of the wilderness,[637] whose character\nand meaning are entirely perverted in the Christian translations.\n\u201cThis terrible and venerable name of God,\u201d says Lanci,[638] librarian\nto the Vatican, \u201cthrough the pen of biblical glossers, has been a\n_devil_, a mountain, a _wilderness_, and a _he-goat_.\u201d In Mackenzie\u2019s\n_Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, the author very correctly remarks that\n\u201cthis word should be divided into Azaz and El,\u201d for \u201cit signifies\nGod of Victory, but is here used in the sense of _author of Death_,\nin contrast to Jehovah, the _author of Life_; the latter received\na dead goat as an offering.\u201d[639] The Hindu Trinity is composed of\nthree personages, which are convertible into one. The _Trimurti_\nis one, and in its abstraction indivisible, and yet we see a\nmetaphysical division taking place from the first, and while Brahma,\nthough collectively representing the three, remains behind the\nscenes, Vishnu is the Life-Giver, the Creator, and the Preserver,\nand Siva is the _Destroyer_, and the _Death-giving_ deity. \u201cDeath\nto the _Life-Giver_, life to the _Death-dealer_. The symbolical\nantithesis is grand and beautiful,\u201d says Gliddon.[640] \u201c_Deus est\nD\u00e6mon inversus_\u201d of the kabalists now becomes clear. It is but the\nintense and cruel desire to crush out the last vestige of the old\nphilosophies by perverting their meaning, for fear that their own\ndogmas should not be rightly fathered on them, which impels the\nCatholic Church to carry on such a systematic persecution in regard\nto Gnostics, Kabalists, and even the comparatively innocent Masons.\n\nAlas, alas! How little has the divine seed, scattered broadcast by\nthe hand of the meek Judean philosopher, thrived or brought forth\nfruit. He, who himself had shunned hypocrisy, warned against public\nprayer, showing such contempt for any useless exhibition of the same,\ncould he but cast his sorrowful glance on the earth, from the regions\nof eternal bliss, would see that this seed fell neither on sterile\nrock nor by the way-side. Nay, it took deep root in the most prolific\nsoil; one enriched even to plethora with lies and human gore!\n\n\u201cFor, if the truth of God hath more abounded, _through my lie_ unto\nhis glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?\u201d na\u00efvely inquires\nPaul, the best and sincerest of all the apostles. And he then adds:\n\u201c_Let us do evil_, that good may come!\u201d (_Romans_ iii. 7, 8). This\nis a confession which we are asked to believe as having been a\ndirect inspiration from God! It explains, if it does not excuse, the\nmaxim adopted later by the Church that \u201cit is an act of virtue to\ndeceive and lie, when by such means the interests of _the Church_\nmight be promoted.\u201d[641] A maxim applied in its fullest sense by\nthat accomplished professor in forgery, the Armenian Eusebius; or\nyet, that innocent-looking bible-kaleidoscopist--Iren\u00e6us. And these\nmen were followed by a whole army of pious assassins, who, in the\nmeanwhile, had improved upon the system of deceit, by proclaiming\nthat it was lawful even to kill, when by murder they could enforce\nthe new religion. Theophilus, \u201cthat perpetual enemy of peace and\nvirtue,\u201d as the famous bishop was called; Cyril, Athanasius, the\nmurderer of Arius, and a host of other canonized \u201cSaints,\u201d were all\nbut too worthy successors of _Saint_ Constantine, who drowned his\nwife in boiling water; butchered his little nephew; murdered, with\nhis own pious hand, two of his brothers-in-law; killed his own son\nCrispus, bled to death several men and women, and smothered in a well\nan old monk. However, we are told by Eusebius that this Christian\nEmperor was rewarded by a _vision_ of Christ himself, bearing his\ncross, who instructed him to march to other triumphs, inasmuch as he\nwould always protect him!\n\nIt is under the shade of the Imperial standard, with its famous sign,\n\u201c_In hoc signo vinces_,\u201d that \u201c_visionary_\u201d Christianity, which\nhad crept on since the days of Iren\u00e6us, arrogantly proclaimed its\nrights in the full blaze of the sun. The Labarum had most probably\nfurnished the model for the _true_ cross, which was \u201cmiraculously,\u201d\nand agreeably to the Imperial will, found a few years later. Nothing\nshort of such a remarkable vision, impiously doubted by some severe\ncritics--Dr. Lardner for one--and a fresh miracle to match, could\nhave resulted in the finding of a cross where there had never\nbefore been one. Still, we have either to believe the phenomenon\nor dispute it at the risk of being treated as infidels; and this,\nnotwithstanding that upon a careful computation we would find that\nthe fragments of the \u201ctrue Cross\u201d had multiplied themselves even\nmore miraculously than the five loaves in the invisible bakery, and\nthe two fishes. In all cases like this, where miracles can be so\nconveniently called in, there is no room for dull fact. History must\nstep out that fiction may step in.\n\nIf the alleged founder of the Christian religion is now, after the\nlapse of nineteen centuries, preached--more or less unsuccessfully\nhowever--in every corner of the globe, we are at liberty to think\nthat the doctrines attributed to him would astonish and dismay him\nmore than any one else. A system of deliberate falsification was\nadopted from the first. How determined Iren\u00e6us was to crush truth\nand build up a Church of his own on the mangled remains of the seven\nprimitive churches mentioned in the _Revelation_, may be inferred\nfrom his quarrel with Ptolem\u00e6us. And this is again a case of evidence\nagainst which no blind faith can prevail. Ecclesiastical history\nassures us that Christ\u2019s ministry was but of three years\u2019 duration.\nThere is a decided discrepancy on this point between the first three\nsynoptics and the fourth gospel; but it was left for Iren\u00e6us to show\nto Christian posterity that so early as A.D. 180--the probable time\nwhen this Father wrote his works against heresies--even such pillars\nof the Church as himself either knew nothing certain about it, or\ndeliberately lied and falsified dates to support their own views.\nSo anxious was the worthy Father to meet every possible objection\nagainst his plans, that no falsehood, no sophistry, was too much for\nhim. How are we to understand the following; and who is the falsifier\nin this case? The argument of Ptolem\u00e6us was that Jesus was too young\nto have taught anything of much importance; adding that \u201cChrist\npreached for _one year only_, and then suffered in the twelfth\nmonth.\u201d In this Ptolem\u00e6us was very little at variance with the\ngospels. But Iren\u00e6us, carried by his object far beyond the limits of\nprudence, from a mere discrepancy between one and three years, makes\nit _ten_ and even twenty years! \u201cDestroying his (Christ\u2019s) whole\nwork, and _robbing him of that age_ which is _both necessary_ and\nmore honorable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during\nwhich also, as a teacher, he excelled all others.\u201d And then, having\nno certain data to furnish, he throws himself back on _tradition_,\nand claims that Christ had preached for over TEN years! (book ii., c.\n22, pp. 4, 5). In another place he makes Jesus fifty years old.\n\nBut we must proceed in our work of showing the various origins of\nChristianity, as also the sources from which Jesus derived his own\nideas of God and humanity.\n\nThe Koinobi lived in Egypt, where Jesus passed his early youth. They\nwere usually confounded with the Therapeut\u00e6, who were a branch of\nthis widely-spread society. Such is the opinion of Godfrey Higgins\nand De Rebold. After the downfall of the principal sanctuaries,\nwhich had already begun in the days of Plato, the many different\nsects, such as the Gymnosophists and the Magi--from whom Clearchus\nvery erroneously derives the former--the Pythagoreans, the Sufis,\nand the Reshees of Kashmere, instituted a kind of international\nand universal Freemasonry, among their esoteric societies. \u201cThese\nRashees,\u201d says Higgins, \u201care the Essenians, Carmelites, or Nazarites\nof the temple.\u201d[642] \u201cThat occult science known by ancient priests\nunder the name of _regenerating fire_,\u201d says father Rebold, \u201c... a\nscience that for more than 3,000 years was the peculiar possession of\nthe Indian and Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge of which Moses\nwas initiated at Heliopolis, where he was educated; and Jesus among\nthe Essenian priests of Egypt or Judea; and by which these two great\nreformers, _particularly the latter_, wrought many of the miracles\nmentioned in the _Scriptures_.\u201d[643]\n\nPlato states that the mystic Magian religion, known under the name\nof _Machagistia_, is the most uncorrupted form of worship in things\ndivine. Later, the Mysteries of the Chaldean sanctuaries were added\nto it by one of the Zoroasters and Darius Hystaspes. The latter\ncompleted and perfected it still more with the help of the knowledge\nobtained by him from the learned ascetics of India, whose rites were\nidentical with those of the initiated Magi.[644] Ammian, in his\nhistory of Julian\u2019s Persian expedition, gives the story by stating\nthat one day Hystaspes, as he was boldly penetrating into the unknown\nregions of Upper India, had come upon a certain wooded solitude, the\ntranquil recesses of which were \u201coccupied by those exalted sages,\nthe Brachmanes (or Shamans). Instructed by their teaching in the\nscience of _the motions of the_ world and of the heavenly bodies,\nand in _pure religious rites_ ... he transfused them into the creed\nof the Magi. The latter, coupling these doctrines with their _own\npeculiar science of foretelling the future_, have handed down the\nwhole through their descendants to succeeding ages.\u201d[645] It is from\nthese descendants that the Sufis, chiefly composed of Persians and\nSyrians, acquired their proficient knowledge in astrology, medicine,\nand the esoteric doctrine of the ages. \u201cThe Sufi doctrine,\u201d says C.\nW. King, \u201cinvolved the grand idea of one universal creed which could\nbe secretly held under any profession of an outward faith; and, in\nfact, took virtually the same view of religious systems as that in\nwhich the ancient philosophers had regarded such matters.\u201d[646]\nThe mysterious Druzes of Mount Lebanon are the descendants of all\nthese. Solitary Copts, earnest students scattered hither and thither\nthroughout the sandy solitudes of Egypt, Arabia Petr\u00e6a, Palestine,\nand the impenetrable forests of Abyssinia, though rarely met with,\nmay sometimes be seen. Many and various are the nationalities to\nwhich belong the disciples of that mysterious school, and many the\nside-shoots of that one primitive stock. The secresy preserved by\nthese sub-lodges, as well as by the one and supreme great lodge, has\never been proportionate to the activity of religious persecutions;\nand now, in the face of the growing materialism, their very existence\nis becoming a mystery.[647]\n\nBut it must not be inferred, on that account, that such a mysterious\nbrotherhood is but a fiction, not even _a name_, though it remains\nunknown to this day. Whether its affiliates are called by an\nEgyptian, Hindu, or Persian name, it matters not. Persons belonging\nto one of these sub-brotherhoods have been met by trustworthy, and\nnot unknown persons, besides the present writer, who states a few\nfacts concerning them, by the special permission of one _who has\na right to give it_. In a recent and very valuable work on secret\nsocieties, K. R. H. Mackenzie\u2019s _Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, we find\nthe learned author himself, an honorary member of the Canongate\nKilwinning Lodge, No. 2 (Scotland), and a Mason not likely to be\nimposed upon, stating the following, under the head, _Hermetic\nBrothers of Egypt_:\n\n\u201cAn occult fraternity, which has endured from very ancient times,\nhaving a hierarchy of officers, secret signs, and passwords,\nand a peculiar method of instruction in science, religion, and\nphilosophy.... If we may believe those who, at the present time,\nprofess to belong to it, _the philosopher\u2019s stone_, _the elixir of\nlife_, _the art of invisibility_, and the power of communication\ndirectly with the ultramundane life, are parts of the inheritance\nthey possess. The writer has met with only three persons who\nmaintained the actual existence of this body of religious\nphilosophers, and who hinted that they themselves were actually\nmembers. There was no reason to doubt the good faith of these\nindividuals--apparently unknown to each other, and men of moderate\ncompetence, blameless lives, austere manners, and almost ascetic in\ntheir habits. They all appeared to be men of forty to forty-five\nyears of age, and evidently of vast erudition ... their knowledge of\nlanguages not to be doubted.... They never remained long in any one\ncountry, but passed away without creating notice.\u201d[648]\n\nAnother of such sub-brotherhoods is the sect of the Pitris, in\nIndia. Known by name, now that Jacolliot has brought it into public\nnotice, it yet is more arcane, perhaps, than the brotherhood that Mr.\nMackenzie names the \u201cHermetic Brothers.\u201d What Jacolliot learned of\nit, was from fragmentary manuscripts delivered to him by Brahmans,\nwho had their reasons for doing so, we must believe. The _Agrouchada\nParikshai_ gives certain details about the association, as it was\nin days of old, and, when explaining mystic rites and magical\nincantations, explains nothing at all, so that the mystic L\u2019om,\nL\u2019Rhum, Sh\u2019hrum, and Sho-rim Ramaya-Namaha, remain, for the mystified\nwriter, as much a puzzle as ever. To do him justice, though, he fully\nadmits the fact, and does not enter upon useless speculations.\n\nWhoever desires to assure himself that there now exists a religion\nwhich has baffled, for centuries, the impudent inquisitiveness\nof missionaries, and the persevering inquiry of science, let him\nviolate, if he can, the seclusion of the Syrian Druzes. He will find\nthem numbering over 80,000 warriors, scattered from the plain east\nof Damascus to the western coast. They covet no proselytes, shun\nnotoriety, keep friendly--as far as possible--with both Christians\nand Mahometans, respect the religion of every other sect or people,\nbut will never disclose their own secrets. Vainly do the missionaries\nstigmatize them as infidels, idolaters, brigands, and thieves.\nNeither threat, bribe, nor any other consideration will induce a\nDruze to become a convert to dogmatic Christianity. We have heard of\ntwo in fifty years, and both have finished their careers in prison,\nfor drunkenness and theft. They proved to be \u201creal _Druzes_,\u201d[649]\nsaid one of their chiefs, in discussing the subject. There never\nwas a case of an _initiated_ Druze becoming a Christian. As to the\nuninitiated, they are never allowed to even see the sacred writings,\nand none of them have the remotest idea where these are kept. There\nare missionaries in Syria who boast of having in their possession\na few copies. The volumes alleged to be the correct expositions\nfrom these secret books (such as the translation by Petis de la\nCroix, in 1701, from the works presented by Nasr-Allah to the French\nking), are nothing more than a compilation of \u201csecrets,\u201d known more\nor less to every inhabitant of the southern ranges of Lebanon and\nAnti-Libanus. They were the work of an apostate Dervish, who was\nexpelled from the sect Hanafi, for improper conduct--the embezzlement\nof the money of widows and orphans. The _Expos\u00e9 de la Religion des\nDruzes_, in two volumes, by Sylvestre de Sacy (1828), is another\nnet-work of hypotheses. A copy of this work was to be found, in 1870,\non the window-sill of one of their principal _Holowey_, or place\nof religious meeting. To the inquisitive question of an English\ntraveller, as to their rites, the _Okhal_,[650] a venerable old man,\nwho spoke English as well as French, opened the volume of de Sacy,\nand, offering it to his interlocutor, remarked, with a benevolent\nsmile: \u201cRead this instructive and truthful book; I could explain to\nyou neither better nor more correctly the secrets of God and our\nblessed Hamsa, than it does.\u201d The traveller understood the hint.\n\nMackenzie says they settled at Lebanon about the tenth century, and\n\u201cseem to be a mixture of Kurds, Mardi-Arabs, and other semi-civilized\ntribes. Their religion is compounded of Judaism, Christianity, and\nMahometanism. They have a regular order of priesthood and _a kind of\nhierarchy_ ... there is a regular system of passwords and signs....\nTwelve month\u2019s probation, to which either sex is admitted, preceded\ninitiation.\u201d\n\nWe quote the above only to show how little even persons as\ntrustworthy as Mr. Mackenzie really know of these mystics.\n\nMosheim, who knows as much, or we should rather say as little, as any\nothers, is entitled to the merit of candidly admitting that \u201ctheir\nreligion is peculiar to themselves, and is involved in some mystery.\u201d\nWe should say it was--rather!\n\nThat their religion exhibits traces of Magianism and Gnosticism is\nnatural, as the whole of the Ophite esoteric philosophy is at the\nbottom of it. But the characteristic dogma of the Druzes is the\nabsolute unity of God. He is the essence of life, and although\nincomprehensible and invisible, is to be known through _occasional\nmanifestations in human form_.[651] Like the Hindus they hold that\nhe was incarnated more than once on earth. Hamsa was the _precursor_\nof the last manifestation to be (the tenth _avatar_)[652] not the\ninheritor of Hakem, who is yet to come. Hamsa was the personification\nof the \u201cUniversal Wisdom.\u201d Boha-eddin in his writings calls him\nMessiah. The whole number of his disciples, or those who at\ndifferent ages of the world have imparted wisdom to mankind, which\nthe latter as invariably have forgotten and rejected in course of\ntime, is one hundred and sixty-four (164, the kabalistic _s d k_).\nTherefore, their stages or degrees of promotion after initiation\nare five; the first three degrees are typified by the \u201cthree feet\nof the candlestick of the inner Sanctuary, which holds the light of\nthe _five_ elements;\u201d the last two degrees, the most important and\nterrifying in their solemn grandeur belonging to the highest orders;\nand the whole five degrees emblematically represent the said five\nmystic Elements. The \u201cthree feet are the holy _Application_, the\n_Opening_, and the _Phantom_,\u201d says one of their books; on man\u2019s\ninner and outer soul, and his body, a phantom, a passing shadow. The\nbody, or matter, is also called the \u201cRival,\u201d for \u201che is the minister\nof sin, the Devil ever creating dissensions between the Heavenly\nIntelligence (spirit) and the soul, which he tempts incessantly.\u201d\nTheir ideas on transmigration are Pythagorean and kabalistic. The\nspirit, or Temeami (the divine soul), was in Elijah and John the\nBaptist; and the soul of Jesus was that of H\u2019amsa; that is to say,\nof the same degree of purity and sanctity. Until their resurrection,\nby which they understand the day when the spiritual bodies of men\nwill be absorbed into God\u2019s own essence and being (the Nirvana of the\nHindus), the souls of men will keep their astral forms, except the\nfew chosen ones who, from the moment of their separation from their\nbodies, begin to exist as pure spirits. The life of man they divide\ninto soul, body, and intelligence, or mind. It is the latter which\nimparts and communicates to the soul the divine spark from its H\u2019amsa\n(Christos).\n\nThey have seven great commandments which are imparted equally to all\nthe uninitiated; and yet, even these well-known articles of faith\nhave been so mixed up in the accounts of outside writers, that, in\none of the best Cyclop\u00e6dias of America (Appleton\u2019s), they are garbled\nafter the fashion that may be seen in the comparative tabulation\nbelow; the spurious and the true order parallel:\n\n CORRECT VERSION OF THE GARBLED VERSION\n COMMANDMENTS AS IMPARTED REPORTED BY THE\n ORALLY BY THE CHRISTIAN\n TEACHERS.[653] MISSIONARIES AND\n given in Pretended\n Expositions.[654]\n\n 1. _The unity of God_, or the 1. (2) \u201c\u2018Truth in words,\u2019\n infinite oneness of Deity. meaning in practice,\n _only truth to the\n religion and to the\n initiated; it is lawful\n to act and to speak\n falsehood to men of\n another creed_.\u201d[655]\n\n 2. _The essential excellence 2. (7) \u201cMutual help,\n of Truth._ watchfulness, and\n protection.\u201d\n\n 3. Toleration; right given to 3. (?) \u201cTo renounce all\n all men and women to freely other religions.\u201d[656]\n express their opinions on\n religious matters, and make\n the latter subservient to\n reason.\n\n 4. Respect to all men and 4. (?) \u201cTo be separate from\n women according to their infidels of every kind,\n character and conduct. not externally but only\n in heart.\u201d[657]\n\n 5. Entire submission to God\u2019s 5. (1) \u201cRecognize God\u2019s\n decrees. eternal unity.\u201d\n\n 6. Chastity of body, mind, and 6. (5) \u201cSatisfied with God\u2019s\n soul. acts.\u201d\n\n 7. Mutual help under all 7. (5) \u201cResigned to God\u2019s\n conditions. will.\u201d\n\nAs will be seen, the only expos\u00e9 in the above is that of the great\nignorance, perhaps malice, of the writers who, like Sylvestre de\nSacy, undertake to enlighten the world upon matters concerning which\nthey know nothing.\n\n\u201cChastity, honesty, meekness, and mercy,\u201d are thus the four\ntheological virtues of all Druzes, besides several others demanded\nfrom the initiates: \u201cmurder, theft, cruelty, covetousness, slander,\u201d\nthe five sins, to which several other sins are added in the sacred\ntablets, but which we must abstain from giving. The morality of\nthe Druzes is strict and uncompromising. Nothing can tempt one of\nthese Lebanon Unitarians to go astray from what he is taught to\nconsider his duty. _Their ritual being unknown to outsiders_, their\nwould-be historians have hitherto denied them one. Their \u201cThursday\nmeetings\u201d are open to all, but no interloper has ever participated\nin the rites of initiation which take place occasionally on Fridays\nin the greatest secresy. Women are admitted to them as well as men,\nand they play a part of great importance at the initiation of men.\nThe probation, unless some extraordinary exception is made, is long\nand severe. Once, in a certain period of time, a solemn ceremony\ntakes place, during which all the elders and the initiates of the\nhighest two degrees start out for a pilgrimage of several days to a\ncertain place in the mountains. They meet within the safe precincts\nof a monastery said to have been erected during the earliest times\nof the Christian era. Outwardly one sees but old ruins of a once\ngrand edifice, used, says the legend, by some Gnostic sects as\na place of worship during the religious persecutions. The ruins\nabove ground, however, are but a convenient mask; the subterranean\nchapel, halls, and cells, covering an area of ground far greater\nthan the upper building; while the richness of ornamentation, the\nbeauty of the ancient sculptures, and the gold and silver vessels\nin this sacred resort, appear like \u201ca dream of glory,\u201d according to\nthe expression of an initiate. As the lamaseries of Mongolia and\nThibet are visited upon grand occasions by the holy shadow of \u201cLord\nBuddha,\u201d so here, during the ceremonial, appears the resplendent\nethereal form of Hamsa, the Blessed, which instructs the faithful.\nThe most extraordinary feats of what would be termed magic take place\nduring the several nights that the convocation lasts; and one of the\ngreatest mysteries--faithful copy of the past--is accomplished within\nthe discreet bosom of our mother earth; not an echo, nor the faintest\nsound, not a glimmer of light betrays without the grand secret of the\ninitiates.\n\nHamsa, like Jesus, was a mortal man, and yet \u201cHamsa\u201d and \u201cChristos\u201d\nare synonymous terms as to their inner and hidden meaning. Both are\nsymbols of the _Nous_, the divine and higher soul of man--his spirit.\nThe doctrine taught by the Druzes on that particular question of the\nduality of spiritual man, consisting of one soul mortal, and another\nimmortal, is identical with that of the Gnostics, the older Greek\nphilosophers, and other initiates.\n\nOutside the East we have met one initiate (and only one), who,\nfor some reasons best known to himself, does not make a secret of\nhis initiation into the Brotherhood of Lebanon. It is the learned\ntraveller and artist, Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York City. This\ngentleman has passed many years in the East, four times visited\nPalestine, and has travelled to Mecca. It is safe to say that he\nhas a priceless store of facts about the beginnings of the Christian\nChurch, which none but one who had had free access to repositories\nclosed against the ordinary traveller could have collected. Professor\nRawson, with the true devotion of a man of science, noted down\nevery important discovery he made in the Palestinian libraries,\nand every precious fact orally communicated to him by the mystics\nhe encountered, and some day they will see the light. He has most\nobligingly sent us the following communication, which, as the reader\nwill perceive, fully corroborates what is above written from our\npersonal experience about the strange fraternity incorrectly styled\nthe Druzes:\n\n \u201c34 BOND ST., NEW YORK, June 6, 1877.\n\n \u201c... Your note, asking me to give you an account of my\n initiation into a secret order among the people commonly\n known as Druzes, in Mount Lebanon, was received this\n morning. I took, as you are fully aware, an obligation at\n that time to conceal within my own memory the greater part\n of the \u2018mysteries,\u2019 with the most interesting parts of the\n \u2018instructions;\u2019 so that what is left may not be of any\n service to the public. Such information as I can rightfully\n give, you are welcome to have and use as you may have\n occasion.\n\n \u201cThe probation in my case was, by _special dispensation_,\n made one month, during which time I was \u2018shadowed\u2019 by a\n priest, who served as my cook, guide, interpreter, and\n general servant, that he might be able to testify to the\n fact of my having strictly conformed to the rules in diet,\n ablutions, and other matters. He was also my instructor\n in the text of the ritual, which we recited from time to\n time for practice, in dialogue or in song, as it may have\n been. Whenever we happened to be near a Druze village, on\n a Thursday, we attended the \u2018open\u2019 meetings, where men\n and women assembled for instruction and worship, and to\n expose to the world generally their religious practices.\n I was never present at a Friday \u2018close\u2019 meeting before my\n initiation, nor do I believe any one else, man or woman,\n ever was, except by collusion with a priest, and that is\n not probable, for a false priest forfeits his life. The\n practical jokers among them sometimes \u2018fool\u2019 a too curious\n \u2018Frank\u2019 by a sham initiation, especially if such a one is\n suspected of having some connection with the missionaries\n at Beirut or elsewhere.\n\n \u201cThe initiates include both women and men, and the\n ceremonies are of so peculiar a nature that both sexes\n are required to assist in the ritual and \u2018work.\u2019\n The \u2018furniture\u2019 of the \u2018prayer-house\u2019 and of the\n \u2018vision-chamber\u2019 is simple, and except for convenience may\n consist of but a strip of carpet. In the \u2018Gray Hall\u2019 (the\n place is never named, and is underground, _not far_ from\n Bayt-ed-Deen) there are some rich decorations and valuable\n pieces of ancient furniture, the work of Arab silversmiths\n five or six centuries ago, inscribed and dated. The day of\n initiation must be a continual fast from daylight to sunset\n in winter, or six o\u2019clock in summer, and the ceremony is\n from beginning to end a series of trials and temptations,\n calculated to test the endurance of the candidate under\n physical and mental pressure. It is seldom that any but the\n young man or woman succeeds in \u2018winning\u2019 all the \u2018prizes,\u2019\n since _nature will sometimes exert itself_ in spite of the\n most stubborn will, and the neophyte fail of passing some\n of the tests. In such a case the probation is extended\n another year, when another trial is had.\n\n \u201cAmong other tests of the neophyte\u2019s self-control are the\n following: Choice pieces of cooked meat, savory soup,\n pilau, and other appetizing dishes, with sherbet, coffee,\n wine, and water, are set, as if accidentally, in his way,\n and he is left alone for a time with the tempting things.\n To a hungry and fainting soul the trial is severe. But a\n more difficult ordeal is when the seven priestesses retire,\n all but one, the youngest and prettiest, and the door\n is closed and barred on the outside, after warning the\n candidate that he will be left to his \u2018reflections,\u2019 for\n half an hour. Wearied by the long-continued ceremonial,\n weak with hunger, parched with thirst, and a sweet\n reaction coming after the tremendous strain to keep his\n animal nature in subjection, this moment of privacy and of\n temptation is brimful of peril. The beautiful young vestal,\n timidly approaching, and with glances which lend a double\n magnetic allurement to her words, begs him in low tones to\n \u2018bless her.\u2019 Woe to him if he does! A hundred eyes see him\n from secret peep-holes, and only to the ignorant neophyte\n is there the appearance of concealment and opportunity.\n\n \u201cThere is no infidelity, idolatry, or other really bad\n feature in the system. They have the relics of what was\n once a grand form of nature-worship, which has been\n contracted under a despotism into a secret order, hidden\n from the light of day, and exposed only in the smoky glare\n of a few burning lamps, in some damp cave or chapel under\n ground. The chief tenets of their religious teachings are\n comprised in seven \u2018tablets,\u2019 which are these, to state\n them in general terms:\n\n \u201c1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of deity.\n\n \u201c2. The essential excellence of truth.\n\n \u201c3. The law of toleration as to all men and women in\n opinion.\n\n \u201c4. Respect for all men and women as to character and\n conduct.\n\n \u201c5. Entire submission to God\u2019s decrees as to fate.\n\n \u201c6. Chastity of body and mind and soul.\n\n \u201c7. Mutual help under all conditions.\n\n \u201cThese tenets are not printed or written. Another set is\n printed or written to mislead the unwary, but with these we\n are not concerned.\n\n \u201cThe chief results of the initiation seemed to be a kind\n of mental illusion or sleep-waking, in which the neophyte\n saw, or thought he saw, the images of people who were\n known to be absent, and in some cases thousands of miles\n away. I thought (or perhaps it was my mind at work) I saw\n friends and relatives that I knew at the time were in New\n York State, while I was then in Lebanon. How these results\n were produced I cannot say. They appeared in a dark room,\n when the \u2018guide\u2019 was talking, the \u2018company\u2019 singing in\n the next \u2018chamber,\u2019 and near the close of the day, when\n I was tired out with fasting, walking, talking, singing,\n robing, unrobing, seeing a great many people in various\n conditions as to dress and undress, and with great mental\n strain in resisting certain physical manifestations that\n result from the appetites when they overcome the will, and\n in paying close attention to the passing scenes, hoping\n to remember them--so that I may have been unfit to judge\n of any new and surprising phenomena, and more especially\n of those apparently magical appearances which have always\n excited my suspicion and distrust. I know the various\n uses of the magic-lantern, and other apparatus, and took\n care to examine the room where the \u2018visions\u2019 appeared to\n me the same evening, and the next day, and several times\n afterwards, and knew that, in my case, there was no use\n made of any machinery or other means besides the voice of\n the \u2018guide and instructor.\u2019 On several occasions afterward,\n when at a great distance from the \u2018chamber,\u2019 the same\n or similar visions were produced, as, for instance, in\n Hornstein\u2019s Hotel at Jerusalem. A daughter-in-law of a\n well-known Jewish merchant in Jerusalem is an initiated\n \u2018sister,\u2019 and can produce the visions almost at will on any\n one who will live strictly according to the rules of the\n Order for a few weeks, more or less, according to their\n nature, as gross or refined, etc.\n\n \u201cI am quite safe in saying that the initiation is so\n peculiar that it could not be printed so as to instruct\n one who had not been \u2018worked\u2019 through the \u2018chamber.\u2019 So it\n would be even more impossible to make an expos\u00e9 of them\n than of the Freemasons. The real secrets are acted and not\n spoken, and require several initiated persons to assist in\n the work.\n\n \u201cIt is not necessary for me to say how some of the notions\n of that people seem to perpetuate certain beliefs of the\n ancient Greeks--as, for instance, the idea that a man has\n two souls, and many others--for you probably were made\n familiar with them in your passage through the \u2018upper\u2019\n and \u2018lower chamber.\u2019 If I am mistaken in supposing you an\n \u2018initiate,\u2019 please excuse me. I am aware that the closest\n friends often conceal that \u2018sacred secret\u2019 from each other;\n and even husband and wife may live--as I was informed\n in Dayr-el-Kamar was the fact in one family there--for\n twenty years together and yet neither know anything of\n the initiation of the other. You, undoubtedly, have good\n reasons for keeping your own counsel.\n\n \u201cYours truly,\n \u201cA. L. RAWSON.\u201d\n\nBefore we close the subject we may add that if a stranger ask for\nadmission to a \u201cThursday\u201d meeting he will never be refused. Only, if\nhe is a Christian, the _okhal_ will open a _Bible_ and read from it;\nand if a Mahometan, he will hear a few chapters of the _Koran_, and\nthe ceremony will end with this. They will wait until he is gone, and\nthen, shutting well the doors of their convent, take to their own\nrites and books, passing for this purpose into their subterranean\nsanctuaries. \u201cThe Druzes remain, even more than the Jews, a peculiar\npeople,\u201d says Colonel Churchill,[658] one of the few fair and\nstrictly impartial writers. \u201cThey marry within their own race; they\nare rarely if ever converted; they adhere tenaciously to their\ntraditions, and they baffle all efforts to discover their cherished\nsecrets.... The bad name of that caliph whom they claim as their\nfounder is fairly compensated by the pure lives of many whom they\nhonor as saints, and by the heroism of their feudal leaders.\u201d\n\nAnd yet the Druzes may be said to belong to one of the least esoteric\nof secret societies. There are others far more powerful and learned,\nthe existence of which is not even suspected in Europe. There are\nmany branches belonging to the great \u201cMother Lodge\u201d which, mixed\nup with certain communities, may be termed secret sects within\nother sects. One of them is the sect commonly known as that of\nLaghana-Sastra. It reckons several thousand adepts who are scattered\nabout in small groups in the south of the Dekkan, India. In the\npopular superstition, this sect is dreaded on account of its great\nreputation for magic and sorcery. The Brahmans accuse its members of\natheism and sacrilege, for none of them will consent to recognize\nthe authority of either the _Vedas_ or _Manu_, except so far as\nthey conform to the versions in their possession, and which they\nmaintain are professedly the only original texts; the Laghana-Sastra\nhave neither temples nor priests, but, twice a month, every member\nof the community has to absent himself from home for three days.\nPopular rumor, originated among their women, ascribes such absences\nto pilgrimages performed to their places of fortnightly resort. In\nsome secluded mountainous spots, unknown and inaccessible to other\nsects, hidden far from sight among the luxurious vegetation of\nIndia, they keep their bungalows, which look like small fortresses,\nencircled as they are by lofty and thick walls. These, in their turn,\nare surrounded by the sacred trees called _assonata_, and in Tam\u00fcl\n_arassa maram_. These are the \u201csacred groves,\u201d the originals of those\nof Egypt and Greece, whose initiates also built their temples within\nsuch \u201cgroves\u201d inaccessible to the profane.[659]\n\nIt will not be found without interest to see what Mr. John\nYarker, Jr., has to say on some modern secret societies among the\nOrientals. \u201cThe nearest resemblance to the Brahmanical Mysteries,\nis probably found in the very ancient \u2018_Paths_\u2019 of the Dervishes,\nwhich are usually governed by twelve officers, the oldest \u2018Court\u2019\nsuperintending the others by right of seniority. Here the master of\nthe \u2018Court\u2019 is called \u2018_Sheik_,\u2019 and has his deputies, \u2018Caliphs,\u2019\nor successors, of which there may be many (as, for instance, in\nthe brevet degree of a Master Mason). The order is divided into at\nleast four columns, pillars, or degrees. The first step is that\nof \u2018Humanity,\u2019 which supposes attention to the written law, and\n\u2018annihilation in the _Sheik_.\u2019 The second is that of the \u2018Path,\u2019\nin which the \u2018_Murid_,\u2019 or disciple, attains spiritual powers and\n\u2018self-annihilation\u2019 into the \u2018Peer\u2019 or founder of the \u2018Path.\u2019 The\nthird stage is called \u2018Knowledge,\u2019 and the \u2018_Murid_\u2019 is supposed\nto become inspired, called \u2018annihilation into the Prophet.\u2019 The\nfourth stage leads him even to God, when he becomes a part of the\nDeity and sees Him in all things. The first and second stages have\nreceived modern subdivisions, as \u2018Integrity,\u2019 \u2018Virtue,\u2019 \u2018Temperance,\u2019\n\u2018Benevolence.\u2019 After this the Sheik confers upon him the grade of\n\u2018Caliph,\u2019 or Honorary Master, for in their mystical language, \u2018the\nman must die before the saint can be born.\u2019 It will be seen that this\nkind of mysticism is applicable to Christ as founder of a \u2018Path.\u2019\u201d\n\nTo this statement, the author adds the following on the Bektash\nDervishes, who \u201coften initiated the Janizaries. They wear _a small\nmarble cube spotted with blood_. Their ceremony is as follows: Before\nreception a year\u2019s probation is required, during which false secrets\nare given to test the candidate; he has two godfathers _and is\ndivested of all metals and even clothing_; from the wool of a sheep a\ncord is made for his neck, and a girdle for his loins; he is led into\nthe centre of a square room, presented as a slave, and seated upon\na large stone with twelve escallops; his arms are crossed upon his\nbreast, his body inclined forward, his right toes extended over his\nleft foot; after various prayers he is placed in a particular manner,\nwith his hand in a peculiar way in that of the Sheik, who repeats a\nverse from the _Koran_: \u2018Those who on giving thee their hand swear\nto thee an oath, swear it to God, the hand of God is placed in\ntheir hand; whoever violates this oath, will do so to his hurt, and\nto whoever remains faithful God will give a magnificent reward.\u2019\nPlacing the hand below the chin is their sign, perhaps in memory of\ntheir vow. All use the double triangles. The Brahmans inscribe the\nangles with their trinity, and they possess also the Masonic sign of\ndistress as used in France.\u201d[660]\n\nFrom the very day when the first mystic found the means of\ncommunication between this world and the worlds of the invisible\nhost, between the sphere of matter and that of pure spirit, he\nconcluded that to abandon this mysterious science to the profanation\nof the rabble was to lose it. An abuse of it might lead mankind to\nspeedy destruction; it was like surrounding a group of children with\nexplosive batteries, and furnishing them with matches. The first\nself-made adept initiated but a select few, and kept silence with the\nmultitudes. He recognized his God and felt the great Being within\nhimself. The \u201c\u00c2tman,\u201d the Self,[661] the mighty Lord and Protector,\nonce that man knew him as the \u201c_I am_,\u201d the \u201c_Ego Sum_\u201d the \u201c_Ahmi_,\u201d\nshowed his full power to him who could recognize the \u201c_still small\nvoice_.\u201d From the days of the primitive man described by the first\nVedic poet, down to our modern age, there has not been a philosopher\nworthy of that name, who did not carry in the silent sanctuary of\nhis heart the grand and mysterious truth. If initiated, he learnt\nit as a sacred science; if otherwise, then, like Socrates repeating\nto himself, as well as to his fellow-men, the noble injunction,\n\u201cO man, know thyself,\u201d he succeeded in recognizing his God within\nhimself. \u201cYe are gods,\u201d the king-psalmist tells us, and we find\nJesus reminding the scribes that the expression, \u201cYe are gods,\u201d\nwas addressed to other mortal men, claiming for himself the same\nprivilege without any blasphemy.[662] And, as a faithful echo, Paul,\nwhile asserting that we are all \u201cthe temple of the living God,\u201d[663]\ncautiously adds, that after all these things are only for the \u201cwise,\u201d\nand it is \u201cunlawful\u201d to speak of them.\n\nTherefore, we must accept the reminder, and simply remark that even\nin the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_,\nwe detect throughout the same idea. Like an undercurrent, rapid and\nclear, it runs without mixing its crystalline purity with the muddy\nand heavy waves of dogmatism. We find it in the _Codex_, as well\nas in the _Vedas_, in the _Avesta_, as in the _Abhidharma_, and in\n_Kapila\u2019s S\u00e2nkhya S\u00fbtras_ not less than in the _Fourth Gospel_. We\ncannot attain the \u201cKingdom of Heaven,\u201d unless we unite ourselves\nindissolubly with our _Rex Lucis_, the Lord of Splendor and of\nLight, our Immortal God. We must first conquer immortality and\n\u201ctake the Kingdom of Heaven by violence,\u201d offered to our material\nselves. \u201cThe first man is of the earth earthy; the _second_ man _is\nfrom heaven_.... Behold, I show you a _mystery_,\u201d says Paul (_1\nCorinthians_, xv. 47). In the religion of Sakya-Mum, which learned\ncommentators have delighted so much of late to set down as purely\n_nihilistic_, the doctrine of immortality is very clearly defined,\nnotwithstanding the European or rather Christian ideas about Nirvana.\nIn the sacred Ja\u00efna books, of Patuna, the dying Gautama-Buddha is\nthus addressed: \u201cArise into _Nirvi_ (Nirvana) from this decrepit\nbody into which thou hast been sent. Ascend into _thy former abode_,\nO blessed Avatar!\u201d This seems to us the very opposite of Nihilism.\nIf Gautama is invited to re\u00e4scend into his \u201cformer abode,\u201d and this\nabode is Nirvana, then it is incontestable that Buddhistic philosophy\ndoes _not_ teach final annihilation. As Jesus is alleged to have\nappeared to his disciples after death, so to the present day is\nGautama believed to descend from Nirvana. And if he has an existence\nthere, then this state cannot be a synonym for _annihilation_.\n\nGautama, no less than all other great reformers, had a doctrine for\nhis \u201celect\u201d and another for the outside masses, though the main\nobject of his reform consisted in initiating all, so far as it was\npermissible and prudent to do, without distinction of castes or\nwealth, to the great truths hitherto kept so secret by the selfish\nBrahmanical class. Gautama-Buddha it was whom we see the first in\nthe world\u2019s history, moved by that generous feeling which locks the\nwhole humanity within one embrace, inviting the \u201cpoor,\u201d the \u201clame,\u201d\nand the \u201cblind\u201d to the King\u2019s festival table, from which he excluded\nthose who had hitherto sat alone, in haughty seclusion. It was he,\nwho, with a bold hand, first opened the door of the sanctuary to the\npariah, the fallen one, and all those \u201cafflicted by men\u201d clothed in\ngold and purple, often far less worthy than the outcast to whom their\nfinger was scornfully pointing. All this did Siddh\u00e2rtha six centuries\nbefore another reformer, as noble and as loving, though less favored\nby opportunity, in another land. If both, aware of the great danger\nof furnishing an uncultivated populace with the double-edged weapon\nof _knowledge which gives power_, left the innermost corner of the\nsanctuary in the profoundest shade, who, that is acquainted with\nhuman nature, can blame them for it? But while one was actuated by\nprudence, the other was forced into such a course. Gautama left\nthe esoteric and most dangerous portion of the \u201csecret knowledge\u201d\nuntouched, and lived to the ripe old age of eighty, with the\ncertainty of having taught the essential truths, and having converted\nto them one-third of the world; Jesus promised his disciples the\nknowledge which confers upon man the power _of producing far greater\nmiracles than he ever did himself_, and he died, leaving but a few\nfaithful men, only half way to knowledge, to struggle with the world\nto which they could impart but what they _half_-knew themselves.\nLater, their followers disfigured truth still more than they\nthemselves had done.\n\nIt is not true that Gautama never taught anything concerning a\nfuture life, or that he denied the immortality of the soul. Ask any\nintelligent Buddhist his ideas on Nirvana, and he will unquestionably\nexpress himself, as the well-known Wong-Chin-Fu, the Chinese orator,\nnow travelling in this country, did in a recent conversation with\nus about _Niepang_ (Nirvana). \u201cThis condition,\u201d he remarked, \u201cwe all\nunderstand to mean a final re\u00fcnion with God, co\u00efncident with the\nperfection of the human spirit by its ultimate disembarrassment of\nmatter. It is the very opposite of personal annihilation.\u201d\n\nNirvana means the certitude of personal immortality in _Spirit_, not\nin _Soul_, which, as a finite emanation, must certainly disintegrate\nits particles a compound of human sensations, passions, and yearning\nfor some objective kind of existence, before the immortal spirit\nof the _Ego_ is quite freed, and henceforth secure against further\ntransmigration in any form. And how can man ever reach this state so\nlong as the _Upad\u0101na_, that state of longing for _life_, more life,\ndoes not disappear from the sentient being, from the _Ahancara_\nclothed, however, in a sublimated body? It is the \u201cUp\u0101dana\u201d or the\nintense desire which produces WILL, and it is _will_ which develops\n_force_, and the latter generates _matter_, or an object having\nform. Thus the disembodied _Ego_, through this sole undying desire\nin him, unconsciously furnishes the conditions of his successive\nself-procreations in various forms, which depend on his mental state\nand _Karma_, the good or bad deeds of his preceding existence,\ncommonly called \u201cmerit and demerit.\u201d This is why the \u201cMaster\u201d\nrecommended to his mendicants the cultivation of the four degrees of\nDh\u0233ana, the noble \u201cPath of the Four Truths,\u201d _i.e._, that gradual\nacquirement of stoical indifference for either life or death; that\nstate of spiritual self-contemplation during which man utterly loses\nsight of his physical and dual individuality, composed of soul and\nbody; and uniting himself with his third and higher immortal self the\n_real and heavenly man_ merges, so to say, into the divine Essence,\nwhence his own spirit proceeded like a spark from the common hearth.\nThus the Arhat, the holy mendicant, can reach Nirvana while yet\non earth; and his spirit, totally freed from the trammels of the\n\u201cpsychical, terrestrial, _devilish_ wisdom,\u201d as James calls it, and\nbeing in its own nature omniscient and omnipotent, can on earth,\nthrough the sole power of his _thought_, produce the greatest of\nphenomena.\n\n\u201cIt is the missionaries in China and India, who first started this\nfalsehood about Niepang, or N\u00efepana (Nirvana),\u201d says Wong-Chin-Fu.\nWho can deny the truth of this accusation after reading the works of\nthe Abb\u00e9 Dubois, for instance? A missionary who passes forty years\nof his life in India, and then writes that the \u201cBuddhists admit\nof no other God but the body of man, and have no other object but\nthe satisfaction of their senses,\u201d utters an untruth which can be\nproved on the testimony of the laws of the Talapoins of Siam and\nBirmah; laws, which prevail unto this very day and which sentence a\nsah\u00e2n, or _punghi_ (a learned man; from the Sanscrit _pundit_), as\nwell as a simple Talapoin, to death by decapitation, for the crime\nof unchastity. No foreigner can be admitted into their _Kyums_, or\nViharas (monasteries); and yet there are French writers, otherwise\nimpartial and fair, who, speaking of the great severity of the rules\nto which the Buddhist monks are subjected in these communities, and\nwithout possessing one single fact to corroborate their skepticism,\nbluntly say, that \u201cnotwithstanding the great laudations bestowed upon\nthem (Talapoins) by certain travellers, merely on the _strength of\nappearances_, I do not believe at all in their chastity.\u201d[664]\n\nFortunately for the Buddhist talapoins, lamas, sah\u00e2ns, upasampadas,[665]\nand even samena\u00efras,[666] they have popular records and facts for\nthemselves, which are weightier than the unsupported personal opinion\nof a Frenchman, born in Catholic lands, whom we can hardly blame for\nhaving lost all faith in clerical virtue. When a Buddhist monk becomes\nguilty (which does not happen once in a century, perhaps) of criminal\nconversation, he has neither a congregation of tender-hearted members,\nwhom he can move to tears by an eloquent confession of his guilt, nor\na Jesus, on whose overburdened, long-suffering bosom are flung, as in\na common Christian dust-box, all the impurities of the race. No\nBuddhist transgressor can comfort himself with visions of a Vatican,\nwithin whose sin-encompassing walls black is turned into white,\nmurderers into sinless saints, and golden or silvery lotions can be\nbought at the confessional to cleanse the tardy penitent of greater or\nlesser offenses against God and man.\n\nExcept a few impartial arch\u00e6ologists, who trace a direct Buddhistic\nelement in Gnosticism, as in all those early short-lived sects\nwe know of very few authors, who, in writing upon primitive\nChristianity, have accorded to the question its due importance. Have\nwe not facts enough to, at least, suggest some interest in that\ndirection? Do we not learn that, as early as in the days of Plato,\nthere were \u201cBrachmans\u201d--read Buddhist, Samaneans, Saman, or Shaman\nmissionaries--in Greece, and that, at one time, they had overflowed\nthe country? Does not Pliny show them established on the shores of\nthe Dead Sea, for \u201cthousands of ages?\u201d After making every necessary\nallowance for the exaggeration, we still have several centuries B.C.\nleft as a margin. And is it possible that their influence should\nnot have left deeper traces in all these sects than is generally\nthought? We know that the Ja\u00efna sect claims Buddhism as derived\nfrom its tenets--that Buddhism existed before Siddh\u00e2rtha, better\nknown as Gautama-Buddha. The Hindu Brahmans who, by the European\nOrientalists, are denied the right of knowing anything about their\nown country, or understanding their own language and records better\nthan those who have never been in India, on the same principle as\nthe Jews are forbidden, by the Christian theologians, to interpret\ntheir own Scriptures--the Brahmans, we say, have authentic records.\nAnd these show the incarnation from the Virgin Avany of the first\nBuddha--_divine light_--as having taken place more than some\nthousands of years B.C., on the island of Ceylon. The Brahmans\nreject the claim that it was an avatar of Vishnu, but admit the\nappearance of a reformer of Brahmanism at that time. The story of\nthe Virgin Avany and her divine son, S\u00e2kya-muni, is recorded in one\nof the sacred books of the Cinghalese Buddhists--the _Nirdhasa_; and\nthe Brahmanic chronology fixes the great Buddhistic revolution and\nreligious war, and the subsequent spread of S\u00e2kya-muni\u2019s doctrine in\nThibet, China, Japan, and other places at 4,620 years B.C.[667]\n\nIt is clear that Gautama-Buddha, the son of the King of Kapilavastu,\nand the descendant of the first Sakya, through his father, who was\nof the Kshatriya, or warrior-caste, did not invent his philosophy.\nPhilanthropist by nature, his ideas were developed and matured while\nunder the tuition of Tir-thankara, the famous guru of the Ja\u00efna sect.\nThe latter claim the present Buddhism as a diverging branch of their\nown philosophy, and themselves, as the only followers of the first\nBuddha who were allowed to remain in India, after the expulsion of\nall other Buddhists, probably because they had made a compromise,\nand admitted some of the Brahmanic notions. It is, to say the\nleast, curious, that three dissenting and inimical religions, like\nBrahmanism, Buddhism, and Ja\u00efnism, should agree so perfectly in their\ntraditions and chronology, as to Buddhism, and that our scientists\nshould give a hearing but to their own unwarranted speculations and\nhypotheses. If the birth of Gautama may, with some show of reason, be\nplaced at about 600 B.C., then the preceding Buddhas ought to have\nsome place allowed them in chronology. The Buddhas are not gods,\nbut simply individuals overshadowed by the spirit of Buddha--the\ndivine ray. Or is it because, unable to extricate themselves from the\ndifficulty by the help of their own researches only, our Orientalists\nprefer to obliterate and deny the whole, rather than accord to the\nHindus the right of knowing something of their own religion and\nhistory? Strange way of discovering truths!\n\nThe common argument adduced against the Ja\u00efna claim, of having\nbeen the source of the restoration of ancient Buddhism, that the\nprincipal tenet of the latter religion is opposed to the belief of\nthe Ja\u00efnas, is not a sound one. Buddhists, say our Orientalists,\ndeny the existence of a Supreme Being; the Ja\u00efnas admit one, but\nprotest against the assumption that the \u201cHe\u201d can ever interfere\nin the regulation of the universe. We have shown in the preceding\nchapter that the Buddhists do not deny any such thing. But if any\ndisinterested scholar could study carefully the Ja\u00efna literature,\nin their thousands of books preserved--or shall we say hidden--in\nRajpootana, Jusselmere, at Patun, and other places;[668] and\nespecially if he could but gain access to the oldest of their sacred\nvolumes, he would find a perfect identity of philosophical thought,\nif not of popular rites, between the Ja\u00efnas and the Buddhists. The\nAdi-Buddha and Adin\u00e2tha (or Adiswara) are identical in essence and\npurpose. And now, if we trace the Ja\u00efnas back, with their claims to\nthe ownership of the oldest cave-temples (those superb specimens\nof Indian architecture and sculpture), and their records of an\nalmost incredible antiquity, we can hardly refuse to view them in\nthe light which they claim for themselves. We must admit, that in\nall probability they are the only true descendants of the primitive\nowners of old India, dispossessed by those conquering and mysterious\nhordes of white-skinned Brahmans whom, in the twilight of history, we\nsee appearing at the first as wanderers in the valleys of Jumna and\nGanges. The books of the Srawacs--the only descendants of the Arh\u00e2tas\nor earliest Ja\u00efnas, the naked forest-hermits of the days of old,\nmight throw some light, perhaps, on many a puzzling question. But\nwill our European scholars, so long as they pursue their own policy,\never have access to the _right_ volumes? We have our doubts about\nthis. Ask any trustworthy Hindu how the missionaries have dealt with\nthose manuscripts which unluckily fell into their hands, and then see\nif we can blame the natives for trying to save from desecration the\n\u201cgods of their fathers.\u201d\n\nTo maintain their ground Iren\u00e6us and his school had to fight hard\nwith the Gnostics. Such, also, was the lot of Eusebius, who found\nhimself hopelessly perplexed to know how the Essenes should be\ndisposed of. The ways and customs of Jesus and his apostles exhibited\ntoo close a resemblance to this sect to allow the fact to pass\nunexplained. Eusebius tried to make people believe that the Essenes\nwere the first Christians. His efforts were thwarted by Philo Jud\u00e6us,\nwho wrote his historical account of the Essenes and described them\nwith the minutest care, long before there had appeared a single\nChristian in Palestine. But, if there were no _Christians_, there\nwere Chr_e_stians long before the era of Christianity; and the\nEssenes belonged to the latter as well as to all other initiated\nbrotherhoods, without even mentioning the Christnites of India.\nLepsius shows that the word _Nofre_ means Chr\u0113stos, \u201cgood,\u201d and that\none of the titles of Osiris, \u201cOnnofre,\u201d must be translated \u201cthe\ngoodness of God made manifest.\u201d[669] \u201cThe worship of Christ was\nnot universal at this early date,\u201d explains Mackenzie, \u201cby which I\nmean that Christolatry had not been introduced; but the worship of\n_Chr\u0113stos_--the Good Principle--had preceded it by many centuries,\nand even survived the general adoption of Christianity, as shown on\nmonuments still in existence.\u201d ... Again, we have an inscription\nwhich is pre-Christian on an epitaphial tablet (Spon. _Misc. Erud._,\nAnt., x. xviii. 2). \u03a5\u03b1\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5 \u039b\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u03c9\u03bd \u0394\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03b9\u03b5 \u0397\u03c1\u03c9\u03c2 \u03a7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03a7\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5, and\nde Rossi (_Roma Sotteranea_, tome i., tav. xxi.) gives us another\nexample from the catacombs--\u201c\u00c6lia Chreste, in Pace.\u201d[670] And, _Kris_,\nas Jacolliot shows, means in Sanscrit \u201csacred.\u201d\n\nThe meritorious stratagems of the trustworthy Eusebius thus proved\nlost labor. He was triumphantly detected by Basnage, who, says\nGibbon, \u201cexamined with the utmost critical accuracy the curious\ntreatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeut\u00e6,\u201d and found that\n\u201cby proving it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, he has\ndemonstrated, in spite of Eusebius and a crowd of modern Catholics,\nthat the Therapeut\u00e6 were neither Christians nor monks.\u201d\n\nAs a last word, the _Christian_ Gnostics sprang into existence\ntoward the beginning of the second century, and just at the time\nwhen the Essenes most mysteriously faded away, which indicated that\nthey were the identical Essenes, and moreover pure _Christists_,\nviz.: they believed and were those who best understood what one of\ntheir own brethren had preached. In insisting that the letter Iota,\nmentioned by Jesus in _Matthew_ (v. 18), indicated a secret doctrine\nin relation to the ten \u00e6ons, it is sufficient to demonstrate to a\nkabalist that Jesus belonged to the Freemasonry of those days; for\n\u0399, which is Iota in Greek, has other names in other languages; and is,\nas it was among the Gnostics of those days, a pass-word, meaning the\nSCEPTRE of the FATHER, in Eastern brotherhoods which exist to this\nvery day.\n\nBut in the early centuries these facts, if known, were purposely\nignored, and not only withheld from public notice as much as\npossible, but vehemently denied whenever the question was forced upon\ndiscussion. The denunciations of the Fathers were rendered bitter in\nproportion to the truth of the claim which they endeavored to refute.\n\n\u201cIt comes to this,\u201d writes Iren\u00e6us, complaining of the Gnostics,\n\u201cthey neither consent to Scripture nor tradition.\u201d[671] And why\nshould we wonder at that, when even the commentators of the\nnineteenth century, with nothing but fragments of the Gnostic\nmanuscripts to compare with the voluminous writings of their\ncalumniators, have been enabled to detect fraud on nearly every\npage? How much more must the polished and learned Gnostics, with all\ntheir advantages of personal observation and knowledge of fact, have\nrealized the stupendous scheme of fraud that was being consummated\nbefore their very eyes! Why should they accuse Celsus of maintaining\nthat their religion was all based on the speculations of Plato, with\nthe difference that his doctrines were far more pure and rational\nthan theirs, when we find Sprengel, seventeen centuries later,\nwriting the following?--\u201cNot only did they (the Christians) think to\ndiscover the dogmas of Plato in the books of Moses, but, moreover,\nthey fancied that, by introducing Platonism into Christianity, they\nwould _elevate the dignity of this religion and make it more popular\namong the nations_.\u201d[672]\n\nThey introduced it so well, that not only was the Platonic philosophy\nselected as a basis for the trinity, but even the legends and\nmythical stories which had been current among the admirers of the\ngreat philosopher--as a time-honored custom required in the eyes\nof his posterity such an allegorical homage to every hero worthy\nof deification--were revamped and used by the Christians. Without\ngoing so far as India, did they not have a ready model for the\n\u201cmiraculous conception,\u201d in the legend about Periktion\u00e8, Plato\u2019s\nmother? In her case it was also maintained by popular tradition that\nshe had immaculately conceived him, and that the god Apollo was his\nfather. Even the annunciation by an angel to Joseph \u201cin a dream,\u201d the\nChristians copied from the message of Apollo to Ariston, Periktion\u00e8\u2019s\nhusband, that the child to be born from her was the offspring of that\ngod. So, too, Romulus was said to be the son of Mars, by the virgin\nRhea Sylvia.\n\nIt is generally held by all the symbolical writers that the Ophites\nwere found guilty of practicing the most licentious rites during\ntheir religious meetings. The same accusation was brought against the\nManich\u00e6ans, the Carpocratians, the Paulicians, the Albigenses--in\nshort, against every Gnostic sect which had the temerity to claim\nthe right to think for itself. In our modern days, the 160 American\nsects and the 125 sects of England are not so often troubled with\nsuch accusations; times are changed, and even the once all-powerful\nclergy have to either bridle their tongues or prove their slanderous\naccusations.\n\nWe have carefully looked over the works of such authors as Payne\nKnight, C. W. King, and Olshausen, which treat of our subject; we\nhave reviewed the bulky volumes of Iren\u00e6us, Tertullian, Sozomen,\nTheodoret; and in none but those of Epiphanius have we found any\naccusation based upon direct evidence of an eye-witness. \u201cThey say;\u201d\n\u201c_Some_ say;\u201d \u201cWe have heard\u201d--such are the general and indefinite\nterms used by the patristic accusers. Alone Epiphanius, whose works\nare invariably referred to in all such cases, seems to chuckle with\ndelight whenever he couches a lance. We do not mean to take upon\nourselves to defend the sects which inundated Europe at the eleventh\ncentury, and which brought to light the most wonderful creeds; we\nlimit our defense merely to those Christian sects whose theories\nwere usually grouped under the generic name of _Gnosticism_. These\nare those which appeared immediately after the alleged crucifixion,\nand lasted till they were nearly exterminated under the rigorous\nexecution of the Constantinian law. The greatest guilt of these were\ntheir syncretistic views, for at no other period of the world\u2019s\nhistory had truth a poorer prospect of triumph than in those days of\nforgery, lying, and deliberate falsification of facts.\n\nBut before we are forced to believe the accusations, may we not\nbe permitted to inquire into the historical characters of their\naccusers? Let us begin by asking, upon what ground does the Church\nof Rome build her claim of supremacy for her doctrines over those\nof the Gnostics? Apostolic succession, undoubtedly. The succession\n_traditionally_ instituted by the direct Apostle Peter. But what if\nthis prove a fiction? Clearly, the whole superstructure supported\nupon this one imaginary stilt would fall in a tremendous crash.\nAnd when we do inquire carefully, we find that we must take the\nword of Iren\u00e6us _alone_ for it--of Iren\u00e6us, who did not furnish one\nsingle valid proof of the claim which he so audaciously advanced,\nand who resorted for that to endless forgeries. He gives authority\nneither for his dates nor his assertions. This Smyrniote worthy\nhas not even the brutal but sincere faith of Tertullian, for he\ncontradicts himself at every step, and supports his claims solely on\nacute sophistry. Though he was undoubtedly a man of the shrewdest\nintellect and great learning, he fears not, in some of his assertions\nand arguments, to even appear an idiot in the eyes of posterity, so\nlong as he can \u201ccarry the situation.\u201d Twitted and cornered at every\nstep by his not less acute and learned adversaries, the Gnostics, he\nboldly shields himself behind blind faith, and in answer to their\nmerciless logic falls upon imaginary tradition invented by himself.\nReber wittily remarks: \u201cAs we read his misapplications of words and\nsentences, we would conclude that he was a lunatic if we did not know\nthat he was something else.\u201d[673]\n\nSo boldly mendacious does this \u201choly Father\u201d prove himself in many\ninstances, that he is even contradicted by Eusebius, more cautious\nif not more truthful than himself. He is driven to that necessity\nin the face of unimpeachable evidence. So, for instance, Iren\u00e6us\nasserts that Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, was a direct hearer of\nSt. John;[674] and Eusebius is compelled to show that Papias never\npretended to such a claim, but simply stated that he had received his\n_doctrine from those who had known John_.[675]\n\nIn one point, the Gnostics had the best of Iren\u00e6us. They drove\nhim, through mere fear of inconsistency, to the recognition of\ntheir kabalistic doctrine of atonement; unable to grasp it in its\nallegorical meaning, Iren\u00e6us presented, with Christian theology as\nwe find it in its present state of \u201coriginal sin _versus_ Adam,\u201d a\ndoctrine which would have filled Peter with pious horror if he had\nbeen still alive.\n\nThe next champion for the propagation of Apostolic Succession, is\nEusebius himself. Is the word of this Armenian Father any better than\nthat of Iren\u00e6us? Let us see what the most competent critics say of\nhim. And before we turn to modern critics at all, we might remind\nthe reader of the scurrilous terms in which Eusebius is attacked\nby George Syncellus, the Vice-Patriarch of Constantinople (eighth\ncentury), for his audacious falsification of the Egyptian Chronology.\nThe opinion of Socrates, an historian of the fifth century, is no\nmore flattering. He fearlessly charges Eusebius with perverting\nhistorical dates, in order to please the Emperor Constantine. In his\nchronographic work, before proceeding to falsify the synchronistic\ntables _himself_, in order to impart to Scriptural chronology a more\ntrustworthy appearance, Syncellus covers Eusebius with the choicest\nof monkish Billingsgate. _Baron Bunsen has verified the justness\nif not justified the politeness of this abusive reprehension._ His\nelaborate researches in the rectification of the _Egyptian List of\nChronology_, by Manetho, led him to confess that throughout his work,\nthe Bishop of C\u00e6sarea \u201chad undertaken, in a very _unscrupulous_ and\narbitrary spirit, to mutilate history.\u201d \u201cEusebius,\u201d he says, \u201cis the\noriginator of that systematic theory of synchronisms which has so\noften subsequently maimed and mutilated history in its procrustean\nbed.\u201d[676] To this the author of the _Intellectual Development of\nEurope_ adds: \u201cAmong those who have been the most guilty of this\noffense, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop of C\u00e6sarea\n... should be designated!\u201d[677]\n\nIt will not be amiss to remind the reader that it is the same\nEusebius who is charged with the interpolation of the famous\nparagraph concerning Jesus,[678] which was so miraculously found,\nin his time, in the writings of Josephus, the sentence in question\nhaving till that time remained perfectly unknown. Renan, in his _Life\nof Jesus_, expresses a contrary opinion. \u201cI believe,\u201d says he, \u201cthe\npassage respecting Jesus to be authentic. _It is perfectly in the\nstyle of Josephus_; and, _if_ this historian had made mention of\nJesus, it is _thus_ that he must have spoken of him.\u201d\n\nBegging this eminent scholar\u2019s pardon, we must again contradict him.\nLaying aside his cautious \u201c_if_,\u201d we will merely show that though\nthe short paragraph may possibly be genuine, and \u201cperfectly in the\nstyle of Josephus,\u201d its several parentheses are most palpably later\nforgeries; and \u201c_if_\u201d Josephus had made any mention of Christ at\nall, it is _not_ thus that he would \u201chave spoken of him.\u201d The whole\nparagraph consists of but a few lines, and reads: \u201cAt this time was\n_Iasous_, a \u2018WISE MAN,\u2019[679] if, at least, _it is right to call him a\nman_! (\u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1) for he was a doer of surprising works, and a teacher of\nsuch men as receive \u201cthe truths\u201d with pleasure.... _This was the_\nANOINTED (!!). And, on an accusation by the first men among us, having\nbeen condemned by Pilate to the cross, they did not stop loving him\nwho loved them. For _he appeared to them on the third day alive_, and\nthe divine prophets having said these and many other wonderful things\nconcerning him.\u201d\n\nThis paragraph (of sixteen lines in the original) has two unequivocal\nassertions and one qualification. The latter is expressed in the\nfollowing sentence: \u201cIf, at least, it is right to call him a\nman.\u201d The unequivocal assertions are contained in \u201cThis is the\nANOINTED,\u201d and in that Jesus \u201cappeared to them _on the third day\nalive_.\u201d History shows us Josephus as a thorough, uncompromising,\nstiff-necked, orthodox Jew, though he wrote for \u201cthe Pagans.\u201d It is\nwell to observe the false position in which these sentences would\nhave placed a true-born Jew, if they had really emanated from him.\nTheir \u201cMessiah\u201d was then and is still expected. The Messiah is the\n_Anointed_, and _vice versa_. And Josephus is made to admit that the\n\u201cfirst men\u201d among them have accused and crucified _their_ Messiah and\nAnointed!! No need to comment any further upon such a preposterous\nincongruity,[680] even though supported by so ripe a scholar as Renan.\n\nAs to that patristic fire-brand, Tertullian, whom des Mousseaux\napotheosizes in company with his other demi-gods, he is regarded\nby Reuss, Baur, and Schweigler, in quite a different light. The\nuntrustworthiness of statement and inaccuracy of Tertullian, says\nthe author of _Supernatural Religion_, are often apparent. Reuss\ncharacterizes his Christianism as \u201c_\u00e2pre_, _insolent_, _brutal_,\n_ferrailleur_.\u201d It is without unction and without charity, sometimes\neven _without loyalty_, when he finds himself confronted with\nopposition. \u201cIf,\u201d remarks this author, \u201cin the second century all\nparties except certain Gnostics were intolerant, Tertullian was the\nmost intolerant of all!\u201d\n\nThe work begun by the early Fathers was achieved by the sophomorical\nAugustine. His supra-transcendental speculations on the Trinity; his\nimaginary dialogues with the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and\nthe _disclosures_ and covert allusions about his ex-brethren, the\nManicheans, have led the world to load Gnosticism with opprobrium,\nand have thrown into a deep shadow the insulted majesty of the one\nGod, worshipped in reverential silence by every \u201cheathen.\u201d\n\n_And thus is it that the whole pyramid of Roman Catholic dogmas rests\nnot upon proof, but upon assumption._ The Gnostics had cornered\nthe Fathers too cleverly, and _the only salvation of the latter\nwas a resort to forgery_. For nearly four centuries, the great\nhistorians nearly cotemporary with Jesus had not taken the slightest\nnotice either of his life or death. Christians wondered at such an\nunaccountable omission of what the Church considered the greatest\nevents in the world\u2019s history. Eusebius saved the battle of the day.\nSuch are the men who have slandered the Gnostics.\n\nThe first and most unimportant sect we hear of is that of the\n_Nicola\u00eftans_, of whom John, in the _Apocalypse_, makes the\nvoice in his vision say that he hates their doctrine.[681] These\nNicola\u00eftans were the followers, however, of Nicolas of Antioch, one\nof the \u201cseven\u201d chosen by the \u201ctwelve\u201d to make distribution from the\ncommon fund to the proselytes at Jerusalem (_Acts_ ii. 44, 45, vi.\n1-5), hardly more than a few weeks, or perhaps months, after the\nCrucifixion;[682] and a man \u201cof honest report, _full of the Holy\nGhost and wisdom_\u201d (verse 3). Thus it would appear that the \u201cHoly\nGhost and wisdom\u201d from on high, were no more a shield against the\naccusation of \u201ch\u00e6resy\u201d than though they had never overshadowed the\n\u201cchosen ones\u201d of the apostles.\n\nIt would be but too easy to detect what kind of heresy it was\nthat offended, even had we not other and more authentic sources\nof information in the kabalistic writings. The accusation and\nthe precise nature of the \u201cabomination\u201d are stated in the second\nchapter of the book of _Revelation_, verses 14, 15. The sin was\nmerely--_marriage_. John was a \u201cvirgin;\u201d several of the Fathers\nassert the fact on the authority of tradition. Even Paul, the most\nliberal and high-minded of them all, finds it difficult to reconcile\nthe position of a married man with that of a faithful servant of God.\nThere is also \u201ca difference between a wife and a virgin.\u201d[683] The\nlatter cares \u201cfor the things of the Lord,\u201d and the former only for\n\u201chow she may please her husband.\u201d \u201cIf any man think that he behaveth\nuncomely towards his virgin ... let them marry. Nevertheless, he that\nstandeth steadfast in his heart, and hath power over his own will,\nand hath so decreed ... that he will keep _his virgin_, doeth well.\u201d\nSo that he who marries \u201cdoeth well ... but he that giveth her not in\nmarriage _doeth better_.\u201d \u201cArt thou loosed from a wife?\u201d he asks,\n\u201cseek not a wife\u201d (27). And remarking that according to his judgment,\nboth will be happier if they do not marry, he adds, as a weighty\nconclusion: \u201cAnd I think also that I have the spirit of God\u201d (40).\nFar from this spirit of tolerance are the words of John. According to\nhis vision there are \u201cbut the hundred and forty and four thousand,\nwhich were _redeemed_ from the earth,\u201d and \u201cthese are they which\nwere not defiled with women; for _they were virgins_.\u201d[684] This\nseems conclusive; for except Paul there is not one of these primitive\n_Nazari_, there \u201cset apart\u201d and vowed to God, who seemed to make\na great difference between \u201csin\u201d within the relationship of legal\nmarriage, and the \u201cabomination\u201d of adultery.\n\nWith such views and such narrow-mindedness, it was but natural that\nthese fanatics should have begun by casting this _iniquity_ as a\nslur in the faces of brethren, and then \u201cbearing on progressively\u201d\nwith their accusations. As we have already shown, it is only\nEpiphanius whom we find giving such minute details as to the\nMasonic \u201cgrips\u201d and other signs of recognition among the Gnostics.\nHe had once belonged to their number, and therefore it was easy\nfor him to furnish particulars. Only how far the worthy Bishop is\nto be relied upon is a very grave question. One need fathom human\nnature but very superficially to find that there seldom was yet a\ntraitor, a renegade, who, in a moment of danger turned \u201cState\u2019s\nevidence,\u201d who would not lie as remorselessly as he betrayed. Men\nnever forgive or relent toward those whom they injure. We hate our\nvictims in proportion to the harm we do them. This is a truth as\nold as the world. On the other hand, it is preposterous to believe\nthat such persons as the Gnostics, who, according to Gibbon, were\nthe wealthiest, proudest, most polite, as well as the most learned\n\u201cof the Christian name,\u201d were guilty of the disgusting, libidinous\nactions of which Epiphanius delights to accuse them. Were they even\nlike that \u201cset of tatterdemalions, almost naked, with fierce looks,\u201d\nthat Lucian describes as Paul\u2019s followers,[685] we would hesitate to\nbelieve such an infamous story. How much less probable then that men\nwho were Platonists, as well as Christians, should have ever been\nguilty of such preposterous rites.\n\nPayne Knight seems never to suspect the testimony of Epiphanius.\nHe argues that \u201cif we make allowance for the willing exaggerations\nof religious hatred, and consequent popular prejudice, the general\nconviction that these sectarians had rites and practices of a\nlicentious character appears too strong to be entirely disregarded.\u201d\nIf he draws an honest line of demarcation between the Gnostics of\nthe first three centuries and those medi\u00e6val sects whose doctrines\n\u201crather closely resembled modern communism,\u201d we have nothing to say.\nOnly, we would beg every critic to remember that if the Templars were\naccused of that most \u201cabominable crime\u201d of applying the \u201choly kiss\u201d\nto the root of Baphomet\u2019s tail,[686] St. Augustine is also suspected,\nand on very good grounds, too, of having allowed his community to go\nsomewhat astray from the primitive way of administering the \u201choly\nkiss\u201d at the feast of the Eucharist. The holy Bishop seems quite too\nanxious as to certain details of the ladies\u2019 toilet for the \u201ckiss\u201d to\nbe of a strictly orthodox nature.[687] Wherever there lurks a true\nand sincere religious feeling, there is no room for worldly details.\n\nConsidering the extraordinary dislike exhibited from the first by\nChristians to all manner of cleanliness, we cannot enough wonder at\nsuch a strange solicitude on the part of the holy Bishop for his\nfemale parishioners, unless, indeed, we have to excuse it on the\nground of a lingering reminiscence of Manichean rites!\n\nIt would be hard, indeed, to blame any writer for entertaining such\nsuspicions of immorality as those above noticed, when the records\nof many historians are at hand to help us to make an impartial\ninvestigation. \u201cH\u00e6retics\u201d are accused of crimes in which the Church\nhas more or less openly indulged even down to the beginning of our\ncentury. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX. issued two bulls against the\nStedingers \u201cfor various _heathen_ and magical practices,\u201d[688]\nand the latter, as a matter of course, were exterminated in the\nname of Christ and his Holy Mother. In 1282 a parish priest of\nInverkeithing, named John, performed rites on Easter day by far\nworse than \u201cmagical.\u201d Collecting a crowd of young girls, he forced\nthem to enter into \u201cdivine ecstasies\u201d and Bacchanalian fury, dancing\nthe old Amazonian circle-dance around the figure of the heathen\n\u201cgod of the gardens.\u201d Notwithstanding that upon the complaint of\nsome of his parishioners he was cited before his bishop, he retained\nhis benefice because he proved that _such was the common usage of\nthe country_.[689] The Waldenses, those \u201cearliest Protestants,\u201d\nwere accused of the most unnatural horrors; burned, butchered, and\nexterminated for calumnies heaped upon them by their accusers.\nMeanwhile the latter, in open triumph, forming their heathen\nprocessions of \u201cCorpus Christi,\u201d with emblems modelled on those of\nBaal-Peor and \u201cOsiris,\u201d and every city in Southern France carrying,\nin yearly processions on Easter days, loaves and cakes fashioned like\nthe so-much-decried emblems of the Hindu Sivites and Vishnites, as\nlate as 1825![690]\n\nDeprived of their old means for slandering Christian sects whose\nreligious views differ from their own, it is now the turn of the\n\u201cheathen,\u201d Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese, to share with the ancient\nreligions the honor of having cast in their teeth denunciations of\ntheir \u201clibidinous religions.\u201d\n\nWithout going far for proofs of equal if not surpassing immorality,\nwe would remind Roman Catholic writers of certain _bas-reliefs_ on\nthe doors of St. Peter\u2019s Cathedral. They are as brazen-faced as the\ndoor itself; but less so than any author, who, knowing all this,\nfeigns to ignore historical facts. A long succession of Popes have\nreposed their pastoral eyes upon these brazen pictures of the vilest\nobscenity, through those many centuries, without ever finding the\nslightest necessity for removing them. Quite the contrary; for we\nmight name certain Popes and Cardinals who made it a life-long study\nto copy these heathen suggestions of \u201cnature-gods,\u201d in practice as\nwell as in theory.\n\nIn Polish Podolia there was some years ago, in a Roman Catholic\nChurch, a statue of Christ, in black marble. It was reputed to\nperform miracles on certain days, such as having its hair and beard\ngrow in the sight of the public, and indulging in other _less_\ninnocent wonders. This show was finally prohibited by the Russian\nGovernment. When in 1585 the Protestants took Embrun (Department of\nthe Upper Alps), they found in the churches of this town relics of\nsuch a character, that, as the Chronicle expresses it, \u201cold Huguenot\nsoldiers were seen to blush, several weeks after, at the bare\nmention of the discovery.\u201d In a corner of the Church of St. Fiacre,\nnear Monceaux, in France, there was--and it still is there, if we\nmistake not--a seat called \u201cthe chair of St. Fiacre,\u201d which had the\nreputation of conferring fecundity upon barren women. A rock in the\nvicinity of Athens, not far from the so-called \u201cTomb of Socrates,\u201d\nis said to be possessed of the same virtue. When, some twenty years\nsince, the Queen Amelia, perhaps in a merry moment, was said to\nhave tried the experiment, there was no end of most insulting abuse\nheaped upon her, by a Catholic Padre, on his way through Syra to some\nmission. The Queen, he declared, was a \u201csuperstitious heretic!\u201d \u201can\nabominable witch!\u201d \u201cJezebel using magic arts.\u201d Much more the zealous\nmissionary would doubtless have added, had he not found himself,\nright in the middle of his vituperations, landed in a pool of mud,\noutside the window. The virtuous elocutionist was forced to this\nunusual transit by the strong arm of a Greek officer, who happened to\nenter the room at the right moment.\n\nThere never was a great religious reform that was not pure at the\nbeginning. The first followers of Buddha, as well as the disciples\nof Jesus, were all men of the highest morality. The aversion felt by\nthe reformers of all ages to vice under any shape, is proved in the\ncases of S\u00e2kya-muni, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, St. Paul, Ammonius\nSakkas. The great Gnostic leaders--if less successful--were not less\nvirtuous in practice nor less morally pure. Marcion, Basilides,[691]\nValentinus, were renowned for their ascetic lives. The Nicola\u00eftans,\nwho, if they did not belong to the great body of the Ophites,\nwere numbered among the small sects which were absorbed in it at\nthe beginning of the second century, owe their origin, as we have\nshown, to Nicolas of Antioch, \u201ca man of honest report, full of the\nHoly Ghost and wisdom.\u201d How absurd the idea that such men would\nhave instituted \u201clibidinous rites.\u201d As well accuse Jesus of having\npromoted the similar rites which we find practiced so extensively\nby the medi\u00e6val _orthodox_ Christians behind the secure shelter of\nmonastic walls.\n\nIf, however, we are asked to credit such an accusation against the\nGnostics, an accusation transferred with tenfold acrimony, centuries\nlater, to the unfortunate heads of the Templars, why should we not\nbelieve the same of the orthodox Christians? Minucius Felix states\nthat \u201cthe first Christians were accused by the world of inducing,\nduring the ceremony of the \u201cPerfect Passover,\u201d each neophyte, on his\nadmission, to plunge a knife into an infant concealed under a heap of\nflour; the body then serving for a banquet to the whole congregation.\nAfter they had become the dominant party, they (the Christians)\ntransferred this charge to their own dissenters.\u201d[692]\n\nThe real crime of heterodoxy is plainly stated by John in his\n_Epistles_ and _Gospel_. \u201cHe that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is\ncome in the flesh ... is a deceiver and _an antichrist_\u201d (2 _Epistle_\n7). In his previous _Epistle_, he teaches his flock that there are\n_two_ trinities (7, 8)--in short, the Nazarene system.\n\nThe inference to be drawn from all this is, that the made-up and\ndogmatic Christianity of the Constantinian period is simply an\noffspring of the numerous conflicting sects, half-castes themselves,\nborn of Pagan parents. Each of these could claim representatives\nconverted to the so-called _orthodox_ body of Christians. And, as\nevery newly-born dogma had to be carried out by the majority of\nvotes, every sect colored the main substance with its own hue, till\nthe moment when the emperor enforced this _revealed_ olla-podrida,\nof which he evidently did not himself understand a word, upon an\nunwilling world as the _religion of Christ_. Wearied in the vain\nattempt to sound this fathomless bog of international speculations,\nunable to appreciate a religion based on the pure spirituality of\nan ideal conception, Christendom gave itself up to the adoration of\nbrutal force as represented by a Church backed up by Constantine.\nSince then, among the thousand rites, dogmas, and ceremonies copied\nfrom Paganism, the Church can claim but one invention as thoroughly\noriginal with her--namely, the doctrine of eternal damnation, and one\ncustom, that of the anathema. The Pagans rejected both with horror.\n\u201cAn execration is a fearful and grievous thing,\u201d says Plutarch.\n\u201cWherefore, the priestess at Athens was commended for refusing to\ncurse Alkibiades (for desecration of the Mysteries) when the people\nrequired her to do it; _for_, she said, _that she was a priestess of\nprayers and not of curses_.\u201d[693]\n\n\u201cDeep researches would show,\u201d says Renan, \u201cthat nearly everything\nin Christianity is mere baggage brought from the Pagan Mysteries.\nThe primitive Christian worship is nothing but a mystery. The whole\ninterior police of the Church, the degrees of initiation, the command\nof silence, and a crowd of phrases in the ecclesiastical language,\nhave no other origin.... The revolution which overthrew Paganism\n_seems_ at first glance ... an absolute rupture with the past ... but\n_the popular faith saved its most familiar symbols from shipwreck_.\nChristianity introduced, at first, so little change into the habits\nof private and social life, that with great numbers in the fourth\nand fifth centuries it remains uncertain whether they were Pagans\nor Christians; many seem even to have pursued an irresolute course\nbetween the two worships.\u201d Speaking further of _Art_, which formed\nan essential part of the ancient religion, he says that \u201c_it had\nto break with scarce one of its traditions_. Primitive Christian\nart is really nothing but Pagan art in its decay, or in its lower\ndepartments. The Good Shepherd of the catacombs in Rome is a copy\nfrom the Aristeus, or from the Apollo Nornius, which figure in the\nsame posture on the Pagan sarcophagi, and still carries the flute of\nPan in the midst of the four half-naked seasons. On the Christian\ntombs of the Cemetery of St. Calixtus, Orpheus charms the animals.\nElsewhere, the Christ as Jupiter-Pluto, and Mary as Proserpina,\nreceive the souls that Mercury, wearing the broad-brimmed hat and\ncarrying in his hand the rod of the soul-guide (_psychopompos_),\nbrings to them, in presence of the three fates. Pegasus, the symbol\nof the apotheosis; Psyche, the symbol of the immortal soul; Heaven,\npersonified by an old man, the river Jordan; and Victory, figure on a\nhost of Christian monuments.\u201d\n\nAs we have elsewhere shown, the primitive Christian community\nwas composed of small groups scattered about and organized in\nsecret societies, with passwords, grips, and signs. To avoid the\nrelentless persecutions of their enemies, they were obliged to seek\nsafety and hold meetings in deserted catacombs, the fastnesses of\nmountains, and other safe retreats. Like disabilities were naturally\nencountered by each religious reform at its inception. From the\nvery first appearance of Jesus and his twelve disciples, we see\nthem congregating apart, having secure refuges in the wilderness,\nand among friends in Bethany, and elsewhere. Were Christianity not\ncomposed of \u201c_secret communities_,\u201d from the start, history would\nhave more _facts_ to record of its founder and disciples than it has.\n\nHow little Jesus had impressed his personality upon his own century,\nis calculated to astound the inquirer. Renan shows that Philo, who\ndied toward the year 50, and who was born many years earlier than\nJesus, living all the while in Palestine while the \u201cglad tidings\u201d\nwere being preached all over the country, according to the _Gospels_,\nhad never heard of him! Josephus, the historian, who was born three\nor four years after the death of Jesus, mentions his execution\nin a short sentence, and even those few words were altered \u201cby a\n_Christian hand_,\u201d says the author of the _Life of Jesus_. Writing at\nthe close of the first century, when Paul, the learned propagandist,\nis said to have founded so many churches, and Peter is alleged to\nhave established the apostolic succession, which the Iren\u00e6o-Eusebian\nchronology shows to have already included three bishops of Rome,[694]\nJosephus, the painstaking enumerator and careful historian of even\nthe most unimportant sects, entirely ignores the existence of a\nChristian sect. Suetonius, secretary of Adrian, writing in the first\nquarter of the second century, knows so little of Jesus or his\nhistory as to say that the Emperor Claudius \u201cbanished all the Jews,\nwho were continually making disturbances, at the instigation of one\n_Crestus_,\u201d meaning Christ, we must suppose.[695] The Emperor Adrian\nhimself, writing still later, was so little impressed with the tenets\nor importance of the new sect, that in a letter to Servianus he shows\nthat he believes the Christians to be worshippers of Serapis.[696]\n\u201cIn the second century,\u201d says C. W. King, \u201cthe syncretistic sects\nthat had sprung up in Alexandria, the very hot-bed of Gnosticism,\nfound out in Serapis a prophetic type of Christ as the Lord and\nCreator of all, and Judge of the living and the dead.\u201d[697] Thus,\nwhile the \u201cPagan\u201d philosophers had never viewed Serapis, or rather\nthe abstract idea which was embodied in him, as otherwise than a\nrepresentation of the Anima Mundi, the Christians anthropomorphized\nthe \u201cSon of God\u201d and his \u201cFather,\u201d finding no better model for him\nthan the idol of a Pagan myth! \u201cThere can be no doubt,\u201d remarks the\nsame author, \u201cthat the head of Serapis, marked, as the face is,\nby a grave and pensive majesty, supplied the first idea for the\nconventional portraits of the Saviour.\u201d[698]\n\nIn the notes taken by a traveller--whose episode with the monks\non Mount Athos we have mentioned elsewhere--we find that, during\nhis early life, Jesus had frequent intercourse with the Essenes\nbelonging to the Pythagorean school, and known as the Koinobi.\nWe believe it rather hazardous on the part of Renan to assert so\ndogmatically, as he does, that Jesus \u201cignored the very name of\nBuddha, of Zoroaster, of Plato;\u201d that he had never read a Greek nor\na Buddhistic book, \u201calthough he had more than one element in him,\nwhich, unawares to himself, proceeded from Buddhism, Parsism, and the\nGreek wisdom.\u201d[699] This is conceding half a miracle, and allowing\nas much to chance and coincidence. It is an abuse of privilege,\nwhen an author, who claims to write historical facts, draws\nconvenient deductions from hypothetical premises, and then calls\nit a biography--a _Life_ of Jesus. No more than any other compiler\nof legends concerning the problematical history of the Nazarene\nprophet, has Renan one inch of secure foothold upon which to maintain\nhimself; nor can any one else assert a claim to the contrary,\nexcept on inferential evidence. And yet, while Renan has not one\nsolitary fact to show that Jesus had never studied the metaphysical\ntenets of Buddhism and Parsism, or heard of the philosophy of\nPlato, his opponents have the best reasons in the world to suspect\nthe contrary. When they find that--1, all his sayings are in a\nPythagorean spirit, when not _verbatim_ repetitions; 2, his code of\nethics is purely Buddhistic; 3, his mode of action and walk in life,\nEssenean; and 4, his mystical mode of expression, his parables, and\nhis ways, those of an initiate, whether Grecian, Chaldean, or Magian\n(for the \u201cPerfect,\u201d who spoke the _hidden_ wisdom, were of the same\nschool of archaic learning the world over), it is difficult to escape\nfrom the logical conclusion that he belonged to that same body of\ninitiates. It is a poor compliment paid the Supreme, this forcing\nupon Him four gospels, in which, contradictory as they often are,\nthere is not a single narrative, sentence, or peculiar expression,\nwhose parallel may not be found in some older doctrine or philosophy.\nSurely, the Almighty--were it but to spare future generations their\npresent perplexity--might have brought down with Him, at His _first\nand only_ incarnation on earth, something original--something\nthat would trace a distinct line of demarcation between Himself\nand the score or so of incarnate Pagan gods, who had been born of\nvirgins, had all been saviours, and were either killed, or otherwise\nsacrificed themselves for humanity.\n\nToo much has already been conceded to the emotional side of the\nstory. What the world needs is a less exalted, but more faithful\nview of a personage, in whose favor nearly half of Christendom has\ndethroned the Almighty. It is not the erudite, world-famous scholar,\nwhom we question for what we find in his _Vie de Jesus_, nor is\nit one of his _historical_ statements. We simply challenge a few\nunwarranted and untenable assertions that have found their way past\nthe emotional narrator, into the otherwise beautiful pages of the\nwork--a life built altogether on mere probabilities, and yet that\nof one who, if accepted as an historical personage, has far greater\nclaims upon our love and veneration, fallible as he is with all his\ngreatness, than if we figure him as an omnipotent God. It is but in\nthe latter character that Jesus must be regarded by every reverential\nmind as a failure.\n\nNotwithstanding the paucity of old philosophical works now extant,\nwe could find no end of instances of perfect identity between\nPythagorean, Hindu, and _New Testament_ sayings. There is no lack\nof proofs upon this point. What is needed is a Christian public\nthat will examine what will be offered, and show common honesty in\nrendering its verdict. Bigotry has had its day, and done its worst.\n\u201cWe need not be frightened,\u201d says Professor M\u00fcller, \u201cif we discover\ntraces of truth, traces even of Christian truth, among the sages and\nlawgivers of other nations.\u201d\n\nAfter reading the following philosophical aphorisms, who can\nbelieve that Jesus and Paul had never read the Grecian and Indian\nphilosophers?\n\n\n SENTENCES FROM SEXTUS, THE VERSES FROM THE\n PYTHAGOREAN, and other NEW TESTAMENT.[700]\n Heathen.\n\n 1. \u201cPossess not treasures, but 1. \u201cLay not up for yourselves\n those things which no one treasures upon earth.\n can take from you.\u201d where moth and rust doth\n corrupt, and where\n thieves break through and\n steal\u201d (_Matthew_ vi. 19).\n\n 2. \u201cIt is better for a part of 2. \u201cAnd if thy hand offend\n the body which contains thee, cut it off; it is\n purulent matter, and better for thee to enter\n threatens to infect the _unto life_ maimed, than go\n whole, _to be burnt_, to hell,\u201d etc. (_Mark_ ix.\n than to continue so in 43).\n _another state_ (life).\u201d\n\n 3. \u201cYou have in yourself 3. \u201cKnow ye not ye are _the\n something _similar to temple of God_, and that the\n God_, and therefore use Spirit of God dwelleth in\n yourself _as the temple you?\u201d (_1 Corinthians_, iii.\n of God_.\u201d 16).\n\n 4. \u201cThe greatest honor which 4. \u201cThat ye may be the children\n can be paid to God, is to of your Father, which is\n know and imitate his in Heaven, be ye perfect\n _perfection_.\u201d even as your _Father is\n perfect_\u201d (_Matthew_ v.\n 45-48).\n\n 5. \u201cWhat I do not wish men to 5. \u201cDo ye unto others as ye\n do to me, I also wish not would that others should do\n to do to men\u201d (_Analects to you.\u201d\n of Confucius_, p. 76; see\n Max M\u00fcller\u2019s _The Works\n of Confucius_).\n\n 6. \u201cThe moon shines even in 6. \u201cHe maketh his sun to rise\n the house of the wicked\u201d on the evil and on the good,\n (_Manu_). and sendeth rain on the just\n and on the unjust\u201d (_Matthew_\n v. 45).\n\n 7. \u201cThey who give, have things 7. \u201cWhosoever hath, to him\n given to them; those who shall be given ... but\n withhold, have things whosoever hath not, from him\n taken from them\u201d (Ibid.). shall be taken away\u201d\n (_Matthew_ xiii. 12).\n\n 8. \u201cPurity of mind alone sees 8. \u201cBlessed are the pure in\n God\u201d (Ibid.)--still a heart, for they shall see\n popular saying in India. God\u201d (_Matthew_ v. 8).\n\nPlato did not conceal the fact that he derived his best philosophical\ndoctrines from Pythagoras, and that himself was merely the first to\nreduce them to systematic order, occasionally interweaving with them\nmetaphysical speculations of his own. But Pythagoras himself got his\nrecondite doctrines, first from the descendants of Mochus, and later,\nfrom the Brahmans of India. He was also initiated into the Mysteries\namong the hierophants of Thebes, the Persian and Chaldean Magi. Thus,\nstep by step do we trace the origin of most of our Christian doctrines\nto Middle Asia. Drop out from Christianity the personality of Jesus,\nso sublime, because of its unparalleled simplicity, and what remains?\nHistory and comparative theology echo back the melancholy answer, \u201cA\ncrumbling skeleton formed of the oldest Pagan myths!\u201d\n\nWhile the mythical birth and life of Jesus are a faithful copy of\nthose of the Brahmanical Christna, his historical character of a\nreligious reformer in Palestine is the true type of Buddha in India.\nIn more than one respect their great resemblance in philanthropic and\nspiritual aspirations, as well as external circumstances is truly\nstriking. Though the son of a king, while Jesus was but a carpenter,\nBuddha was not of the high Brahmanical caste by birth. Like Jesus, he\nfelt dissatisfied with the dogmatic spirit of the religion of his\ncountry, the intolerance and hypocrisy of the priesthood, their\noutward show of devotion, and their useless ceremonials and prayers.\nAs Buddha broke violently through the traditional laws and rules of\nthe Brahmans, so did Jesus declare war against the Pharisees, and the\nproud Sadducees. What the Nazarene did as a consequence of his humble\nbirth and position, Buddha did as a voluntary penance. He travelled\nabout as a beggar; and--again like Jesus--later in life he sought by\npreference the companionship of publicans and sinners. Each aimed at a\nsocial as well as at a religious reform; and giving a death-blow to\nthe old religions of his countries, each became the founder of a new\none.\n\n\u201cThe reform of Buddha,\u201d says Max M\u00fcller, \u201chad originally much more of\na social than of a religious character. The most important element of\nBuddhist reform has always been its social and moral code, not its\nmetaphysical theories. _That moral code is one of the most perfect\nwhich the world has ever known_ ... and he whose meditations had been\nhow to deliver the soul of man from misery and the fear of death, had\ndelivered the people of India from a degrading thraldom and from\npriestly tyranny.\u201d Further, the lecturer adds that were it otherwise,\n\u201cBuddha might have taught whatever philosophy he pleased, and we\nshould hardly have heard his name. The people would not have minded\nhim, and his system would only have been a drop in the ocean of\nphilosophic speculation by which India was deluged at all times.\u201d[701]\n\nThe same with Jesus. While Philo, whom Renan calls Jesus\u2019s elder\nbrother, Hillel, Shammai, and Gamaliel, are hardly mentioned--Jesus\nhas become a God! And still, pure and divine as was the moral code\ntaught by Christ, it never could have borne comparison with that of\nBuddha, but for the tragedy of Calvary. That which helped forward the\ndeification of Jesus was his dramatic death, the voluntary sacrifice\nof his life, alleged to have been made for the sake of mankind, and\nthe later convenient dogma of the atonement, invented by the\nChristians. In India, where life is valued as of no account, the\ncrucifixion would have produced little effect, if any. In a country\nwhere--as all the Indianists are well aware--religious fanatics set\nthemselves to dying by inches, in penances lasting for years; where\nthe most fearful macerations are self-inflicted by fakirs; where young\nand delicate widows, in a spirit of bravado against the government, as\nmuch as out of religious fanaticism, mount the funeral pile with a\nsmile on their face; where, to quote the words of the great lecturer,\n\u201cMen in the prime of life throw themselves under the car of\nJuggern\u00e2th, to be crushed to death by the idol they believe in, where\nthe plaintiff who cannot get redress starves himself to death at the\ndoor of his judge; where the philosopher who thinks he has learned all\nwhich this world can teach him, and who longs for absorption into the\nDeity, quietly steps into the Ganges, in order to arrive at the other\nshore of existence,\u201d[702] in such a country even a voluntary\ncrucifixion would have passed unnoticed. In Judea, and even among\nbraver nations than the Jews--the Romans and the Greeks--where every\none clung more or less to life, and most people would have fought for\nit with desperation, the tragical end of the great Reformer was\ncalculated to produce a profound impression. The names of even such\nminor heroes as Mutius Sc\u00e6vola, Horatius Cocles, the mother of the\nGracchi, and others, have descended to posterity; and, during our\nschool-days, as well as later in life, their histories have awakened\nour sympathy and commanded a reverential admiration. But, can we ever\nforget the scornful smile of certain Hindus, at Benares, when an\nEnglish lady, the wife of a clergyman, tried to impress them with the\ngreatness of the sacrifice of Jesus, in giving _his_ life for us?\nThen, for the first time the idea struck us how much the pathos of the\ngreat drama of Calvary had to do with subsequent events in the\nfoundation of Christianity. Even the imaginative Renan was moved by\nthis feeling to write in the last chapter of his _Vie de Jesus_, a few\npages of singular and sympathetic beauty.[703]\n\nApollonius, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, was, like him, an\nenthusiastic founder of a new spiritual school. Perhaps less\nmetaphysical and more practical than Jesus, less tender and perfect in\nhis nature, he nevertheless inculcated the same quintessence of\nspirituality, and the same high moral truths. His great mistake was to\nconfine them too closely to the higher classes of society. While to\nthe poor and the humble Jesus preached \u201cPeace on earth and good will\nto men,\u201d Apollonius was the friend of kings, and moved with the\naristocracy. He was born among the latter, and himself a man of\nwealth, while the \u201cSon of man,\u201d representing the people, \u201chad not\nwhere to lay his head;\u201d nevertheless, the two \u201cmiracle-workers\u201d\nexhibited striking similarity of purpose. Still earlier than\nApollonius had appeared Simon Magus, called \u201cthe great Power of God.\u201d\nHis \u201cmiracles\u201d are both more wonderful, more varied, and better\nattested than those either of the apostles or of the Galilean\nphilosopher himself. Materialism denies the fact in both cases, but\nhistory affirms. Apollonius followed both; and how great and renowned\nwere his miraculous works in comparison with those of the alleged\nfounder of Christianity as the kabalists claim, we have history again,\nand Justin Martyr, to corroborate.[704]\n\nLike Buddha and Jesus, Apollonius was the uncompromising enemy\nof all outward show of piety, all display of useless religious\nceremonies and hypocrisy. If, like the Christian Saviour, the sage of\nTyana had by preference sought the companionship of the poor and\nhumble; and if instead of dying comfortably, at over one hundred years\nof age, he had been a voluntary martyr, proclaiming divine Truth from\na cross,[705] his blood might have proved as efficacious for the\nsubsequent dissemination of spiritual doctrines as that of the\nChristian Messiah.\n\nThe calumnies set afloat against Apollonius, were as numerous as\nthey were false. So late as eighteen centuries after his death he was\ndefamed by Bishop Douglas in his work against miracles. In this the\nRight Reverend bishop crushed himself against historical facts. If we\nstudy the question with a dispassionate mind, we will soon perceive that\nthe ethics of Gautama-Buddha, Plato, Apollonius, Jesus, Ammonius Sakkas,\nand his disciples, were all based on the same mystic philosophy.\nThat all worshipped one God, whether they considered Him as the\n\u201cFather\u201d of humanity, who lives in man as man lives in Him, or as the\nIncomprehensible Creative Principle; all led God-like lives. Ammonius,\nspeaking of his philosophy, taught that their school dated from the days\nof Hermes, who brought his wisdom from India. It was the same mystical\ncontemplation throughout, as that of the Yogin: the communion of the\nBrahman with his own luminous Self--the \u201cAtman.\u201d And this Hindu\nterm is again kabalistic, _par excellence_. Who is \u201cSelf?\u201d is asked in\nthe _Rig-Veda_; \u201cSelf is the Lord of all things ... all things are\ncontained in this Self; all selves are contained in this Self. Brahm\u00e2n\nitself is but Self,\u201d[706] is the answer. Says Idra Rabba: \u201cAll things\nare Himself, and Himself is _concealed_ on every side.\u201d[707] The \u201cAdam\nKadmon of the kabalists contains in himself all the souls of the\nIsraelites, and he is himself in every soul,\u201d says the _Sohar_.[708]\nThe groundwork of the Eclectic School was thus identical with the\ndoctrines of the Yogin, the Hindu mystics, and the earlier Buddhism of\nthe disciples of Gautama. And when Jesus assured his disciples that\n\u201cthe spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because _it seeth\nHim not_, neither knoweth Him,\u201d dwells _with_ and _in_ them, who \u201care\nin Him and He in them,\u201d[709] he but expounded the same tenet that we\nfind running through every philosophy worthy of that name.\n\nLaboulaye, the learned and skeptical French savant, does not believe\na word of the miraculous portion of Buddha\u2019s life; nevertheless, he has\nthe candor to speak of Gautama as being _only second to_ Christ in the\ngreat purity of his ethics and personal morality. For both of these\nopinions he is respectfully rebuked by des Mousseaux. Vexed at this\nscientific contradiction of his accusations of demonolatry against\nGautama-Buddha, he assures his readers that \u201cce savant distingu\u00e9 n\u2019a\npoint etudi\u00e9 cette question.\u201d[710]\n\n\u201cI do not hesitate to say,\u201d remarks in his turn Barthelemy St. Hilaire,\n\u201cthat, except Christ alone, there is not among the founders of\nreligions, a figure either more pure or more touching than that of\nBuddha. His life is spotless. His constant heroism equals his\nconvictions.... He is the perfect model of all the virtues he\npreaches; his abnegation, his charity, his unalterable sweetness of\ndisposition, do not fail him for one instant. He abandoned, at the age\nof twenty-nine, his father\u2019s court to become a monk and a beggar ...\nand when he dies in the arms of his disciples, it is with the serenity\nof a sage who practiced virtue all his life, and who dies convinced of\nhaving found the truth.\u201d[711] This deserved panegyric is no stronger\nthan the one which Laboulaye himself pronounced, and which occasioned\ndes Mousseaux\u2019s wrath. \u201cIt is more than difficult,\u201d adds the former,\n\u201cto understand how men not assisted by revelation could have soared so\nhigh and approached so near the truth.\u201d[712] Curious that there should\nbe so many lofty souls \u201cnot assisted by revelation!\u201d\n\nAnd why should any one feel surprised that Gautama could die with\nphilosophical serenity? As the kabalists justly say, \u201cDeath does not\nexist, and man never steps outside of universal life. Those whom we\nthink dead live still in us, as we live in them.... The more one lives\nfor his kind, the less need he fear to die.\u201d[713] And, we might add,\nthat he who _lives_ for humanity does even more than him who dies for\nit.\n\nThe _Ineffable name_, in the search for which so many kabalists--\nunacquainted with any Oriental or even European adept--vainly consume\ntheir knowledge and lives, dwells latent in the heart of every man.\nThis mirific name which, according to the most ancient oracles,\n\u201crushes into the infinite worlds \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c9 \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b9,\u201d can be\nobtained in a twofold way: by regular initiation, and through the\n\u201csmall voice\u201d which Elijah heard in the cave of Horeb, the mount of\nGod. And \u201cwhen Elijah heard it he wrapped his _face in his mantle_ and\nstood in the entering of the cave. And behold there came _the_ voice.\u201d\n\nWhen Apollonius of Tyana desired to hear the \u201csmall voice,\u201d he used\nto wrap himself up entirely in a mantle of fine wool, on which he placed\nboth his feet, after having performed certain magnetic passes, and\npronounced not the \u201cname\u201d but an invocation well known to every adept.\nThen he drew the mantle over his head and face, and his translucid or\nastral spirit was free. On ordinary occasions he wore wool no more than\nthe priests of the temples. The possession of the secret combination of\nthe \u201cname\u201d gave the hierophant supreme power over every being, human\nor otherwise, inferior to himself in soul-strength. Hence, when Max\nM\u00fcller tells us of the Quich\u00e8 \u201cHidden majesty which was never to be\nopened by human hands,\u201d the kabalist perfectly understands what was\nmeant by the expression, and is not at all surprised to hear even this\nmost erudite philologist exclaim: \u201cWhat it was we do not know!\u201d\n\nWe cannot too often repeat that it is only through the doctrines of\nthe more ancient philosophies that the religion preached by Jesus may\nbe understood. It is through Pythagoras, Confucius, and Plato, that we\ncan comprehend the idea which underlies the term \u201cFather\u201d in the _New\nTestament_. Plato\u2019s ideal of the Deity, whom he terms the one\neverlasting, invisible God, the Fashioner and Father of all\nthings,[714] is rather the \u201cFather\u201d of Jesus. It is this Divine Being\nof whom the Grecian sage says that He can neither be envious nor the\noriginator of evil, for He can produce nothing but what is good and\njust,[715] is certainly not the Mosaic Jehovah, the \u201c_jealous_ God,\u201d\nbut the God of Jesus, who \u201calone is good.\u201d He extols His all-embracing,\ndivine power,[716] and His omnipotence, but at the same time intimates\nthat, as He is unchangeable, He can never desire to change his laws,\n_i.e._, to extirpate evil from the world through a miracle.[717] He is\nomniscient, and nothing escapes His watchful eye.[718] His justice,\nwhich we find embodied in the law of compensation and retribution,\nwill leave no crime without punishment, no virtue without its\nreward;[719] and therefore he declares that the only way to honor God\nis to cultivate moral purity. He utterly rejects not only the\nanthropomorphic idea that God could have a material body,[720] but\n\u201crejects with disgust those fables which ascribe passions, quarrels,\nand crimes of all sorts to the minor gods.\u201d[721] He indignantly denies\nthat God allows Himself to be propitiated, or rather bribed, by\nprayers and sacrifices.[722]\n\nThe _Ph\u00e6drus_ of Plato displays all that man once was, and that which\nhe may yet become again. \u201cBefore man\u2019s spirit sank into sensuality and\nwas embodied with it through the loss of his wings, he lived among the\ngods in the airy [spiritual] world where everything is true and pure.\u201d\nIn the _Tim\u00e6us_ he says that \u201cthere was a time when mankind did not\nperpetuate itself, but lived as pure spirits.\u201d In the future world,\nsays Jesus, \u201cthey neither marry nor are given in marriage,\u201d but \u201clive\nas the angels of God in Heaven.\u201d\n\nThe researches of Laboulaye, Anquetil Duperron, Colebrooke, Barthelemy\nSt. Hilaire, Max M\u00fcller, Spiegel, Burnouf, Wilson, and so many\nother linguists, have brought some of the truth to light. And now that\nthe difficulties of the Sanscrit, the Thibetan, the Singhalese, the\nZend, the Pehlevi, the Chinese, and even of the Burmese, are partially\nconquered, and the _Vedas_, and the _Zend-Avesta_, the Buddhist texts,\nand even Kapila\u2019s _S\u00fbtras_ are translated, a door is thrown wide open,\nwhich, once passed, must close forever behind any speculative or\nignorant calumniators of the old religions. Even till the present\ntime, the clergy have, to use the words of Max M\u00fcller--\u201cgenerally\nappealed to the deviltries and orgies of heathen worship ... but they\nhave seldom, if ever, endeavored to discover the true and original\ncharacter of the strange forms of faith and worship which they call\nthe work of the devil.\u201d[723] When we read the true history of Buddha\nand Buddhism, by M\u00fcller, and the enthusiastic opinions of both\nexpressed by Barthelemy St. Hilaire, and Laboulaye; and when, finally,\na Popish missionary, an eye-witness, and one who least of all can be\naccused of partiality to the Buddhists--the Abb\u00e9 Huc, we mean--finds\noccasion for nothing but admiration for the high individual character\nof these \u201cdevil-worshippers;\u201d we must consider Saky\u00e2-muni\u2019s philosophy\nas something more than the religion of fetishism and atheism, which\nthe Catholics would have us believe it. Huc was a missionary and it\nwas his first duty to regard Buddhism as no better than an outgrowth\nof the worship of Satan. The poor Abb\u00e9 was struck off the list of\nmissionaries at Rome,[724] after his book of travels was published.\nThis illustrates how little we may expect to learn the truth about the\nreligions of other people, through missionaries, when their accounts\nare first revised by the superior ecclesiastical authorities, and the\nformer severely punished for telling the truth.\n\nWhen these men who have been and still are often termed \u201cthe obscene\nascetics,\u201d the devotees of different sects of India in short, generally\ntermed \u201cYogi,\u201d were asked by Marco Polo, \u201chow it comes that they\nare not ashamed to go stark naked as they do?\u201d they answered the\ninquirer of the thirteenth century as a missionary of the nineteenth was\nanswered. \u201cWe go naked,\u201d they say, \u201cbecause naked we came into\nthe world, and we desire to have nothing about us that is of this world.\nMoreover, we have no sin of the flesh to be conscious of, and therefore,\nwe are not ashamed of our nakedness any more than you are to show\nyour hand or your face. You who are conscious of the sins of the flesh,\ndo well to have shame, and to cover your nakedness.\u201d[725]\n\nOne could make a curious list of the excuses and explanations of\nthe clergy to account for similarities daily discovered between Romanism\nand heathen religions. Yet the summary would invariably lead to one\nsweeping claim: The doctrines of Christianity were plagiarized by the\nPagans the world over! Plato and his older Academy stole the ideas\nfrom the Christian revelation--said the Alexandrian Fathers!! The\nBrahmans and Manu borrowed from the Jesuit missionaries, and the\n_Bhagaved-gita_ was the production of Father Calmet, who transformed\nChrist and John into Christna and Arjuna to fit the Hindu mind!! The\ntrifling fact that Buddhism and Platonism both antedated Christianity,\nand the _Vedas_ had already degenerated into Brahmanism before the days\nof Moses, makes no difference. The same with regard to Apollonius\nof Tyana. Although his thaumaturgical powers could not be denied in the\nface of the testimony of emperors, their courts, and the populations of\nseveral cities; and although few of these had ever heard of the Nazarene\nprophet whose \u201cmiracles\u201d had been witnessed by a few apostles only,\nwhose very individualities remain to this day a problem in history, yet\nApollonius has to be accepted as the \u201cmonkey of Christ.\u201d\n\nIf of really pious, good, and honest men, many are yet found among\nthe Catholic, Greek, and Protestant clergy, whose sincere faith has\nthe best of their reasoning powers, and who having never been among\nheathen populations, are unjust only through ignorance, it is not so\nwith the missionaries. The invariable subterfuge of the latter is to\nattribute to demonolatry the really Christ-like life of the Hindu and\nBuddhist ascetics and many of the lamas. Years of sojourn among\n\u201cheathen\u201d nations, in China, Tartary, Thibet, and Hindustan have\nfurnished them with ample evidence how unjustly the so-called\nidolators have been slandered. The missionaries have not even the\nexcuse of sincere faith to give the world that they mislead; and, with\nvery few exceptions, one may boldly paraphrase the remark made by\nGaribaldi, and say that: \u201c_A priest knows himself to be an impostor,\nunless he be a fool, or have been taught to lie from boyhood_.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n \u201cChristian and Catholic sons may accuse their fathers of the\n crime of heresy ... although they may know that their\n parents will be burnt with fire and put to death for it....\n And not only may they refuse them food, _if they attempt to\n turn them from the Catholic faith_, BUT THEY MAY ALSO JUSTLY\n KILL THEM.\u201d--_Jesuit Precept_ (F. STEPHEN FAGUNDEZ, in\n _Pr\u00e6cepta Decalogi_. Lugduni, 1640).\n\n \u201c_Most Wise._--What hour is it?\n\n \u201c_Respect. K. S. Warden._--It is the first hour of the day,\n the time when the veil of the temple was rent asunder, when\n darkness and consternation were spread over the earth--when\n the light was darkened--when the implements of Masonry were\n broken--when the flaming star disappeared--when the cubic\n stone was broken--when the \u2018WORD\u2019 was lost.\u201d--\n\n _Magna est Veritas et Pr\u00e6valebit._\n\n [Inline Illustration:]--JAH-BUH-LUN.\n\n\nThe greatest of the kabalistic works of the Hebrews--the _Sohar_ \u05d6\u05d4\u05e8--was\ncompiled by Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iocha\u00ef. According to some critics, this\nwas done years before the Christian era; according to others only\nafter the destruction of the temple. However, it was completed only by\nthe son of Simeon, Rabbi Eleazar, and his secretary, Rabbi Abba; for\nthe work is so immense and the subjects treated so abstruse that even\nthe whole life of this Rabbi, called the Prince of kabalists, did not\nsuffice for the task. On account of its being known that he was in\npossession of this knowledge, and of the _Mercaba_, which insured the\nreception of the \u201cWord,\u201d his very life was endangered, and he had to\nfly to the wilderness, where he lived in a cave for twelve years,\nsurrounded by faithful disciples, and finally died there amid signs\nand wonders.[726]\n\nBut voluminous as is the work, and containing as it does the main\npoints of the secret and oral tradition, it still does not embrace it\nall. It is well known that this venerable kabalist never imparted\nthe most important points of his doctrine otherwise than orally, and\nto a very limited number of friends and disciples, including his only\nson. Therefore, without the final initiation into the _Mercaba_ the\nstudy of the _Kabala_ will be ever incomplete, and the _Mercaba_ can\nbe taught only in \u201cdarkness, in a deserted place, and after many and\nterrific trials.\u201d Since the death of Simeon Ben-Iochai this hidden\ndoctrine has remained an inviolate secret for the outside world.\nDelivered _only as a mystery_, it was communicated to the candidate\norally, \u201c_face to face and mouth to ear_.\u201d\n\nThis Masonic commandment, \u201cmouth to ear, and the word at low breath,\u201d\nis an inheritance from the Tana\u00efm and the old Pagan Mysteries. Its\nmodern use must certainly be due to the indiscretion of some renegade\nkabalist, though the \u201cword\u201d itself is but a \u201csubstitute\u201d for the\n\u201clost word,\u201d and is a comparatively modern invention, as we will\nfurther show. The real sentence has remained forever in the sole\npossession of the adepts of various countries of the Eastern and\nWestern hemispheres. Only a limited number among the chiefs of the\nTemplars, and some Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century, always in\nclose relations with Arabian alchemists and initiates, could really\nboast of its possession. From the seventh to the fifteenth centuries\nthere was no one who could claim it in Europe; and although there\nhad been alchemists before the days of Paracelsus, he was the first\nwho had passed through the true initiation, that last ceremony which\nconferred on the adept the power of travelling toward the \u201cburning\nbush\u201d over the holy ground, and to \u201cburn the golden calf in the fire,\ngrind it to powder, and strow it upon the water.\u201d Verily, then,\nthis magic _water_, and the \u201clost word,\u201d resuscitated more than one\nof the pre-Mosaic Adonirams, Gedaliahs, and Hiram Abiffs. The real\nword now substituted by _Mac Benac_ and Mah was used ages before\nits pseudo-magical effect was tried on the \u201cwidow\u2019s sons\u201d of the\nlast two centuries. Who was, in fact, the first operative Mason of\nany consequence? Elias Ashmole, _the last of the Rosicrucians and\nalchemists_. Admitted to the freedom of the Operative Masons\u2019 Company\nin London, in 1646, he died in 1692. At that time Masonry was not\nwhat it became later; it was neither a political nor a Christian\ninstitution, but a true secret organization, which admitted into the\nties of fellowship all men anxious to obtain the priceless boon of\nliberty of conscience, and avoid clerical persecution.[727] Not until\nabout thirty years after his death did what is now termed modern\nFreemasonry see the light. It was born on the 24th day of June, 1717,\nin the Apple-tree Tavern, Charles Street, Covent Garden, London. And\nit was then, as we are told in Anderson\u2019s _Constitutions_, that the\nonly four lodges in the south of England elected Anthony Sayer first\nGrand Master of Masons. Notwithstanding its great youth, this grand\nlodge has ever claimed the acknowledgment of its supremacy by the\nwhole body of the fraternity throughout the whole world, as the Latin\ninscription on the plate put beneath the corner-stone of Freemasons\u2019\nHall, London, in 1775, would tell to those who could see it. But of\nthis more anon.\n\nIn _Die Kabbala_, by Franck, the author, following its \u201cesoteric\nravings,\u201d as he expresses it, gives us, in addition to the\ntranslations, his commentaries. Speaking of his predecessors, he says\nthat Simeon Ben-Iochai mentions repeatedly what the \u201ccompanions\u201d have\ntaught in the older works. And the author cites one \u201cIeba, the _old_,\nand Hamnuna, the _old_.\u201d[728] But what the two \u201cold\u201d ones mean, or\nwho they were, in fact, he tells us not, for he does not know himself.\n\nAmong the venerable sect of the Tana\u00efm, or rather the Tananim, the\nwise men, there were those who taught the secrets practically and\ninitiated some disciples into the grand and final Mystery. But the\n_Mishna Hagiga_, 2d section, say that the table of contents of\nthe _Mercaba_ \u201cmust only be delivered to wise old ones.\u201d[729] The\n_Gemara_ is still more dogmatic. \u201cThe more important secrets of the\nMysteries were not even revealed to all priests. Alone the initiates\nhad them divulged.\u201d And so we find the same great secresy prevalent\nin every ancient religion.\n\nBut, as we see, neither the _Sohar_ nor any other kabalistic volume\ncontains merely Jewish wisdom. The doctrine itself being the result\nof whole millenniums of thought, is therefore the joint property\nof adepts of every nation under the sun. Nevertheless, the _Sohar_\nteaches practical occultism more than any other work on that\nsubject; not as it is translated though, and commented upon by its\nvarious critics, but with the secret signs on its margins. These\nsigns contain the hidden instructions, apart from the metaphysical\ninterpretations and apparent absurdities so fully credited by\nJosephus, who was never initiated, and gave out the _dead letter_ as\nhe had received it.[730]\n\nThe real practical magic contained in the _Sohar_ and other\nkabalistic works, is only of use to those who read it _within_. The\nChristian apostles--at least, those who are said to have produced\n\u201cmiracles\u201d _at will_[731]--had to be acquainted with this science.\nIt ill-behooves a Christian to look with horror or derision upon\n\u201cmagic\u201d gems, amulets, and other talismans against the \u201cevil eye,\u201d\nwhich serve as charms to exercise a mysterious influence, either on\nthe possessor, or the person whom the magician desires to control.\nThere are still extant a number of such charmed amulets in public and\nprivate collections of antiquities. Illustrations of convex gems,\nwith mysterious legends--the meaning of which baffles all scientific\ninquiry--are given by many collectors. King shows several such in\nhis _Gnostics_, and he describes a white carnelian (chalcedony),\ncovered on both sides with interminable legends, to interpret which\nwould ever prove a failure; yes, in every case, perhaps, but that\nof a Hermetic student or an adept. But we refer the reader to his\ninteresting work, and the talismans described in his plates, to\nshow that even the \u201cSeer of Patmos\u201d himself was well-versed in this\nkabalistic science of talismans and gems. St. John clearly alludes\nto the potent \u201cwhite carnelian\u201d--a gem well-known among adepts,\nas the \u201c_alba petra_,\u201d or the stone of initiation, on which the\nword \u201c_prize_\u201d is generally found engraved, as it was given to the\ncandidate who had successfully passed through all the preliminary\ntrials of a neophyte. The fact is, that no less than the _Book of\nJob_, the whole _Revelation_, is simply an allegorical narrative of\nthe Mysteries and initiation therein of a candidate, who is John\nhimself. No high Mason, well versed in the different degrees, can\nfail to see it. The numbers _seven_, _twelve_, and others are all\nso many lights thrown over the obscurity of the work. Paracelsus\nmaintained the same some centuries ago. And when we find the \u201cone\nlike unto the Son of man\u201d saying (chap. ii. 17): \u201c_To him that\novercometh_, will I give to eat of the _hidden manna_, and will\ngive him a WHITE STONE, and in the stone a new name written\u201d--the\nword--which _no man knoweth_ saving _he that receiveth it_, what\nMaster Mason can doubt but it refers to the last head-line of this\nchapter?\n\nIn the pre-Christian Mithra\u00efc Mysteries, the candidate who\nfearlessly overcame the \u201c_twelve_ Tortures,\u201d which preceded the\nfinal initiation, received a small round cake or wafer of unleavened\nbread, symbolizing, _in one of its meanings_, the solar disk and\nknown as the heavenly bread or \u201cmanna,\u201d and having figures traced\non it. A _lamb_, or a _bull_ was killed, and with the blood the\ncandidate had to be sprinkled, as in the case of the Emperor Julian\u2019s\ninitiation. The _seven_ rules or mysteries were then delivered to\nthe \u201cnewly-born\u201d that are represented in the _Revelation_ as the\nseven seals which are opened \u201cin order\u201d (see chap. v. and vi.). There\ncan be no doubt that the Seer of Patmos referred to this ceremony.\n\nThe origin of the Roman Catholic amulets and \u201crelics\u201d blessed by\nthe Pope, is the same as that of the \u201cEphesian Spell,\u201d or magical\ncharacters engraved either on a stone or drawn on a piece of\nparchment; the Jewish amulets with verses out of the Law, and called\n_phylacteria_, \u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 and the Mahometan charms with verses of the\n_Koran_. All these were used as protective magic spells; and worn by\nthe believers on their persons. Epiphanius, the worthy ex-Marcosian,\nwho speaks of these charms when used by the Manicheans as amulets,\nthat is to say, things worn round the neck (Periapta), and\n\u201cincantations and _such-like trickery_,\u201d cannot well throw a slur upon\nthe \u201c_trickery_\u201d of the Pagans and Gnostics, without including the\nRoman Catholic and Popish amulets.\n\nBut consistency is a virtue which we fear is losing, under Jesuit\ninfluence, the slight hold it may ever have had on the Church. That\ncrafty, learned, conscienceless, terrible soul of Jesuitism, within\nthe body of Romanism, is slowly but surely possessing itself of the\nwhole prestige and spiritual power that clings to it. For the better\nexemplification of our theme it will be necessary to contrast the\nmoral principles of the ancient Tana\u00efm and Theurgists with those\nprofessed by the modern Jesuits, who practically control Romanism\nto-day, and are the hidden enemy that would-be reformers must\nencounter and overcome. Throughout the whole of antiquity, where,\nin what land, can we find anything like this Order or anything even\napproaching it? We owe a place to the Jesuits in this chapter on\nsecret societies, for more than any other they are a secret body,\nand have a far closer connection with actual Masonry--in France and\nGermany at least--than people are generally aware of. The cry of an\noutraged public morality was raised against this Order from its very\nbirth.[732] Barely fifteen years had elapsed after the bull approving\nits constitution was promulgated, when its members began to be driven\naway from one place to the other. Portugal and the Low Countries got\nrid of them, in 1578; France in 1594; Venice in 1606; Naples in 1622.\nFrom St. Petersburg they were expelled in 1815, and from all Russia\nin 1820.\n\nIt was a promising child from its very teens. What it grew up to be\nevery one knows well. The Jesuits have done more moral harm in this\nworld than all the fiendish armies of the mythical Satan. Whatever\nextravagance may seem to be involved in this remark, will disappear\nwhen our readers in America, who now know little about them, are\nmade acquainted with their principles (principio) and rules as\nthey appear in various works written by the Jesuits themselves. We\nbeg leave to remind the public that every one of the statements\nwhich follow in quotation marks are extracted from authenticated\nmanuscripts, or folios printed by this distinguished body. Many\nare copied from the large Quarto[733] published by the authority\nof, and verified and collated by the Commissioners of the French\nParliament. The statements therein were collected and presented to\nthe King, in order that, as the \u201cArrest du Parlement du 5 Mars,\n1762,\u201d expresses it, \u201cthe elder son of the Church might be made aware\nof the perversity of this doctrine.... A doctrine authorizing Theft,\nLying, Perjury, Impurity, every Passion and Crime, teaching Homicide,\nParricide, and Regicide, overthrowing religion in order to substitute\nfor it superstition, by favoring _Sorcery_, Blasphemy, Irreligion,\nand Idolatry ... etc.\u201d Let us then examine the ideas on _magic_ of\nthe Jesuits. Writing on this subject in his secret instructions,\nAnthony Escobar[734] says:\n\n\u201cIt is lawful ... to make use of the science acquired _through the\nassistance of the Devil_, provided the preservation and use of that\nknowledge do not depend upon the Devil, _for the knowledge is good\nin itself, and the sin by which it was acquired has gone by_.\u201d[735]\nHence, why should not a Jesuit cheat the Devil as well as he cheats\nevery layman?\n\n\u201c_Astrologers and soothsayers are either bound, or are not bound, to\nrestore the reward of their divination, if the event does not come to\npass._ I own,\u201d remarks the _good_ Father Escobar, \u201cthat the former\nopinion does not at all please me, because, when the astrologer or\ndiviner has exerted all the diligence _in the diabolic art_ which is\nessential to his purpose, he has fulfilled his duty, whatever may\nbe the result. As the physician ... is not bound to restore his fee\n... if his patient should die; so neither is the astrologer bound to\nrestore his charge ... except where he has used no effort, or was\nignorant of his diabolic art; because, when he has used his endeavors\nhe has not deceived.\u201d[736]\n\nFurther, we find the following on astrology: \u201cIf any one affirms,\nthrough conjecture founded upon the influence of the stars and the\ncharacter, disposition of a man, that he will be a soldier, an\necclesiastic, or a bishop, _this divination may be devoid of all\nsin_; because the stars and the disposition of the man may have the\npower of inclining the human will to a certain lot or rank, but not\nof constraining it.\u201d[737]\n\nBusembaum and Lacroix, in _Theologia Moralis_,[738] say, \u201cPalmistry\nmay be considered lawful, if from the lines and divisions of the\nhands it can ascertain the disposition of the body, and conjecture,\nwith probability, the propensities and affections of the soul.\u201d[739]\n\nThis noble fraternity, which many preachers have of late so\nvehemently denied to have ever been a _secret_ one, has been\nsufficiently proved as such. Their constitutions were translated\ninto Latin by the Jesuit Polancus, and printed in the college of\nthe Society at Rome, in 1558. \u201cThey were jealously kept secret, the\ngreater part of the Jesuits themselves knowing only extracts from\nthem.[740] _They were never produced to the light until 1761, when\nthey were published by order of the French Parliament_ in 1761,\n1762, in the famous process of Father Lavalette.\u201d The degrees of the\nOrder are: I. Novices; II. Lay Brothers, or temporal Coadjutors;\nIII. Scholastics; IV. Spiritual Coadjutors; V. Professed of Three\nVows; VI. Professed of Five Vows. \u201cThere is also a secret class,\nknown only to the General and a few faithful Jesuits, which, perhaps\nmore than any other, contributed to the dreaded and mysterious power\nof the Order,\u201d says Niccolini. The Jesuits reckon it among the\ngreatest achievements of their Order that Loyola supported, by a\nspecial memorial to the Pope, a petition for the re\u00f6rganization of\nthat abominable and abhorred instrument of wholesale butchery--the\ninfamous tribunal of the Inquisition.\n\nThis Order of Jesuits is now all-powerful in Rome. They have been\nreinstalled in the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical\nAffairs, in the Department of the Secretary of State, and in the\nMinistry of Foreign Affairs. The Pontifical Government was for\nyears previous to Victor Emanuel\u2019s occupation of Rome entirely in\ntheir hands. The Society now numbers 8,584 members. But we must\nsee what are their chief rules. By what is seen above, in becoming\nacquainted with their mode of action, we may ascertain what the whole\nCatholic body is likely to be. Says Mackenzie: \u201cThe Order has secret\nsigns and passwords, according to the degrees to which the members\nbelong, and as they wear no particular dress, it is very difficult\nto recognize them, unless they reveal themselves as members of the\nOrder; for they may appear as Protestants or Catholics, democrats or\naristocrats, infidels or bigots, according to the special mission\nwith which they are entrusted. Their spies are everywhere, of all\napparent ranks of society, and they may appear learned and wise, or\nsimple or foolish, as their instructions run. There are Jesuits of\nboth sexes, and all ages, and it is a well-known fact that members of\nthe Order, of high family and delicate nurture, are acting as menial\nservants in Protestant families, and doing other things of a similar\nnature in aid of the Society\u2019s purposes. We cannot be too much on our\nguard, for the whole Society, being founded on a law of unhesitating\nobedience, can bring its force on any given point with unerring and\nfatal accuracy.\u201d[741]\n\nThe Jesuits maintain that \u201cthe Society of Jesus is not of human\ninvention, _but it proceeded from him whose name it bears_. For Jesus\nhimself described that rule of life which the Society follows, _first\nby his example_, and afterwards by his words.\u201d[742]\n\nLet, then, all pious Christians listen and acquaint themselves with\nthis alleged \u201crule of life\u201d and precepts of their God, as exemplified\nby the Jesuits. Peter Alagona (_St. Thom\u00e6 Aquinatis Summ\u00e6 Theologi\u00e6\nCompendium_) says: \u201cBy the command of God it is lawful to kill an\ninnocent person, to steal, or commit ... (_Ex mandato Dei licet\noccidere innocentem, furari, fornicari_); because he is the Lord of\nlife and death, and all things, _and it is due to him thus to fulfil\nhis command_\u201d (Ex prim\u00e2 secund\u00e6, Qu\u00e6st., 94).\n\n\u201cA man of a religious order, who for a short time lays aside his\nhabit _for a sinful purpose_, is free from heinous sin, and does not\nincur the penalty of excommunication\u201d (Lib. iii., sec. 2., Probl. 44,\nn. 212).[743]\n\nJohn Baptist Taberna (_Synopsis Theologi\u00e6 Practic\u00e6_), propounds the\nfollowing question: \u201cIs a judge bound to restore the bribe which he\nhas received for passing sentence?\u201d _Answer: \u201cIf he has received the\nbribe for passing an unjust sentence, it is probable that he may\nkeep it.... This opinion is maintained and defended by fifty-eight\ndoctors\u201d_[744] (Jesuits).\n\nWe must abstain at present from proceeding further. So disgustingly\nlicentious, hypocritical, and demoralizing are nearly all of these\nprecepts, that it was found impossible to put many of them in print,\nexcept in the Latin language.[745] We will return to some of the more\ndecent as we proceed, for the sake of comparison. But what are we to\nthink of the future of the Catholic world, if it is to be controlled\nin word and deed by this villainous society? And that it is to be so,\nwe can hardly doubt, as we find the Cardinal Archbishop of Cambrai\nloudly proclaiming the same to all the faithful? His pastoral has\nmade a certain noise in France; and yet, as two centuries have\nrolled away since the _expos\u00e9_ of these infamous principles, the\nJesuits have had ample time to lie so successfully in denying the\njust charges, that most Catholics will never believe such a thing.\nThe _infallible_ Pope, Clement XIV. (Ganganelli), suppressed them on\nthe 23d of July, 1773, and yet they came to life again; and another\nequally infallible Pope, Pius VII., re\u00ebstablished them on the 7th of\nAugust, 1814.\n\nBut we will hear what Monseigneur of Cambrai is swift to proclaim in\n1876. We quote from a secular paper:\n\n\u201cAmong other things, he maintains that _Clericalism, Ultramontanism,\nand Jesuitism are one and the same thing--that is to say,\nCatholicism_--and that the distinctions between them have been\ncreated by the enemies of religion. There was a time, he says, when\na certain theological opinion was commonly professed in France\nconcerning the authority of the Pope. It was restricted to our\nnation, and was of recent origin. The civil power during a century\nand a half imposed official instruction. Those who profess these\nopinions were called Gallicans, and those who protested were called\nUltramontanes, because they had their doctrinal centre beyond the\nAlps, at Rome. To-day the distinction between the two schools is no\nlonger admissible. Theological Gallicanism can no longer exist, since\nthis opinion has ceased to be tolerated by the Church. _It has been\nsolemnly condemned, past all return, by the \u0152cumenical Council of the\nVatican. One cannot now be Catholic without being Ultramontane--and\nJesuit._\u201d[746]\n\nThis settles the question. We leave inferences for the present, and\nproceed to compare some of the practices and precepts of the Jesuits,\nwith those of individual mystics and organized castes and societies\nof the ancient time. Thus the fair-minded reader may be placed in a\nposition to judge between them as to the tendency of their doctrines\nto benefit or degrade humanity.\n\nRabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared\nthat he had performed \u201cmiracles\u201d by means of the _Book of Sepher\nJezireh_, and challenged every skeptic.[747] Franck, quoting from the\nBabylonian _Talmud_, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina\nand Oshoi.[748]\n\nSimon Magus was doubtless a pupil of the Tana\u00efm of Samaria, the\nreputation which he left behind, together with the title given to\nhim of \u201cthe Great Power of God,\u201d testifies strongly in favor of the\nability of his teachers. The calumnies so zealously disseminated\nagainst him by the unknown authors and compilers of the _Acts_ and\nother writings, could not cripple the truth to such an extent as to\nconceal the fact that no Christian could rival him in thaumaturgic\ndeeds. The story told about his falling during an a\u00ebrial flight,\nbreaking both his legs, and then committing suicide, is ridiculous.\nInstead of praying mentally that it should so happen, why did not\nthe apostles pray rather that they should be allowed to outdo Simon\nin wonders and miracles, for then they might have proved their\ncase far more easily than they did, and so converted thousands to\nChristianity. Posterity has heard but one side of the story. Were the\ndisciples of Simon to have a chance, we might find, perhaps, that it\nwas Peter who broke both his legs, had we not known that this apostle\nwas too prudent ever to venture himself in Rome. On the confession\nof several ecclesiastical writers, no apostle ever performed such\n\u201csupernatural wonders.\u201d Of course pious people will say this only the\nmore proves that it was the \u201cDevil\u201d who worked through Simon.\n\nSimon was accused of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, because he\nintroduced it as the \u201cHoly Spiritus, the _Mens_ (Intelligence), or\nthe mother of all.\u201d But we find the same expression used in the _Book\nof Enoch_, in which, in contradistinction to the \u201cSon of Man,\u201d he\nsays \u201cSon of the Woman.\u201d In the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes, and in\nthe _Sohar_, as well in the _Books of Hermes_, the expression is\nusual; and even in the apocryphal _Evangelium_ of the Hebrews we read\nthat Jesus himself admitted the sex of the Holy Ghost by using the\nexpression, \u201c_My mother, the Holy Pneuma_.\u201d\n\nBut what is the heresy of Simon, or what the blasphemies of all the\nheretics, in comparison with that of the same Jesuits who have now\nso completely mastered the Pope, ecclesiastical Rome, and the entire\nCatholic world? Listen again to their profession of faith.\n\n\u201cDo what your conscience tells you to be good and commanded: if,\nthrough invincible error, you believe lying or blasphemy to be\ncommanded by God, _blaspheme_.\u201d[749]\n\n\u201cOmit to do what your conscience tells you is forbidden: omit the\nworship of God, if you invincibly believe it to be prohibited by\nGod.\u201d[750]\n\n\u201cThere is an implied law ... obey an invincibly erroneous dictate\nof conscience. As often as you believe invincibly that a lie is\ncommanded--_lie_.\u201d[751]\n\n\u201cLet us suppose a Catholic to believe invincibly that the worship of\nimages is forbidden: in such a case our Lord Jesus Christ will be\nobliged to say to him, \u201c_Depart from me thou cursed ... because thou\nhast worshipped mine image_.\u201d So, neither, is there any absurdity in\nsupposing that Christ may say, \u201c_Come thou blessed ... because thou\nhast lied, believing invincibly, that in such a case I commanded the\nlie_.\u201d[752]\n\nDoes not this--but no! words fail to do justice to the emotions that\nthese astonishing precepts must awaken in the breast of every honest\nperson. Let silence, resulting from _invincible_ disgust, be our only\nadequate tribute to such unparalleled moral obliquity.\n\nThe popular feeling in Venice (1606), when the Jesuits were driven\nout from that city, expressed itself most forcibly. Great crowds\nhad accompanied the exiles to the sea-shore, and the farewell cry\nwhich resounded after them over the waves, was, \u201c_Ande in malora!_\u201d\n(Get away! and woe be to you.) \u201cThat cry was echoed throughout the\ntwo following centuries;\u201d says Michelet, who gives this statement,\n\u201cin Bohemia in 1618 ... in India in 1623 ... and throughout all\nChristendom in 1773.\u201d\n\nIn what particular was then Simon Magus a blasphemer, if he only did\nthat which his conscience invincibly told him was true? And in what\nparticular were ever the \u201cHeretics,\u201d or even _infidels_ of the worst\nkind more reprehensible than the Jesuits--those of Caen,[753] for\ninstance--who say the following:\n\n\u201cThe Christian religion is ... _evidently_ credible, but not\n_evidently true_. It is evidently credible; for it is evident that\nwhoever embraces it is prudent. _It is not evidently true_; for it\neither teaches obscurely, or the things which it teaches are obscure.\nAnd they who affirm that the Christian religion is evidently true,\nare obliged to confess that it is evidently false.\u201d\n\n\u201cInfer from hence--\n\n\u201c1. That it is _not_ evident that there is now any true religion in\nthe world.\n\n\u201c2. That it is _not_ evident that of all religions existing upon\nthe earth, the Christian religion is the most true; for have you\ntravelled over all countries of the world, or do you know that others\nhave?...\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201c4. That it is _not_ evident that the predictions of the prophets\nwere given by inspiration of God; for what refutation will you bring\nagainst me, if I deny that they were true prophecies, or assert that\nthey were only conjectures?\n\n\u201c5. That it is _not_ evident that the miracles were real, which\nare recorded to have been wrought by Christ; although no one can\nprudently deny them (Position 6).\n\n\u201cNeither is an avowed belief in Jesus Christ, in the Trinity, in all\nthe articles of Faith, and in the Decalogue, necessary to Christians.\nThe only explicit belief which was necessary to the former (Jews)\nand is necessary to the latter (Christians) is 1, of God; 2, of a\nrewarding God\u201d (Position 8).\n\nHence, it is also more than \u201cevident\u201d that there are moments in the\nlife of the greatest liar when he may utter some truths. It is in\nthis case so perfectly exemplified by the \u201cgood Fathers,\u201d that we can\nsee more clearly than ever whence proceeded the solemn condemnations\nat the \u0152cumenical Council of 1870, of certain \u201cheresies,\u201d and the\nenforcement of other articles of faith in which none believed less\nthan those who inspired the Pope to issue them. History has yet\nperhaps to learn that the octogenarian Pope, intoxicated with the\nfumes of his newly-enforced infallibility, was but the faithful echo\nof the Jesuits. \u201cAn old man is raised trembling upon the _pavois_\nof the Vatican;\u201d says Michelet, \u201cevery thing becomes absorbed and\nconfined in him.... For fifteen centuries Christendom had submitted\nto the spiritual yoke of the Church.... But that yoke was not\nsufficient for them; they wanted the whole world to bend under the\nhand of one master. Here my own words are too weak; I shall borrow\nthose of others. They (the Jesuits) wanted (this is the accusation\nflung in their faces by the Bishop of Paris in the full Council of\nTrent) _faire de l\u2019\u00e9pouse de Jesus Christ une prostitu\u00e9e aux volont\u00e9s\nd\u2019un homme_.\u201d[754]\n\nThey have succeeded. The Church is henceforth an inert tool, and\nthe Pope a poor weak instrument in the hands of this Order. But for\nhow long? Until the end comes, well may sincere Christians remember\nthe prophetic lamentations of the thrice-great Trismegistus over\nhis own country: \u201cAlas, alas, my son, a day will come when the\nsacred hieroglyphics will become but idols. _The world will mistake\nthe emblems of science for gods_, and accuse grand Egypt of having\nworshipped hell-monsters. But those who will calumniate us thus, will\nthemselves worship Death instead of Life, folly in place of wisdom;\nthey will denounce love and fecundity, fill their temples with dead\nmen\u2019s bones, as relics, and waste their youth in solitude and tears.\nTheir _virgins will be widows (nuns) before being wives_, and consume\nthemselves in grief; because men will have despised and profaned the\nsacred mysteries of Isis.\u201d[755]\n\nHow correct this prophecy has proved we find in the following Jesuit\nprecept, which again we extract from the Report of the Commissioners\nto the Parliament of Paris:\n\n\u201cThe more true opinion is, _that all inanimate and irrational things\nmay be legitimately worshipped_,\u201d says Father Gabriel Vasquez,\ntreating of Idolatry. \u201cIf the doctrine which we have established\nbe rightly understood, not only may a painted image and every holy\nthing, set forth by public authority for the worship of God, be\nproperly adored with God as the image of Himself, but also any other\nthing of this world, whether it be inanimate and irrational, or in\nits nature rational.\u201d[756]\n\n\u201cWhy may we not adore and worship with God, apart from danger,\nanything whatsoever of this world; for God is in it according to\nHis essence ... [This is precisely what the Pantheist and Hindu\nphilosophy maintains.] and preserves it continually by His power;\nand when we bow down ourselves before it and impress it with a kiss,\nwe present ourselves before God, the author of it, with the whole\nsoul, as unto the prototype of the image [follow instances of relics,\netc.].... To this we may add that, since everything of this world is\nthe work of God, and God is always abiding and working in it, we may\nmore readily conceive Him to be in it than a saint in the vesture\nwhich belonged to him. And, therefore, _without regarding in any way\nthe dignity of the thing created, to direct our thoughts to God,\nwhile we give to the creature the sign and mark of submission by a\nkiss or prostration, is neither vain nor superstitious, but an act of\nthe purest religion_.\u201d[757]\n\nA precept this, which, whether or not doing honor to the Christian\nChurch, may at least be profitably quoted by any Hindu, Japanese, or\nother heathen when rebuked for his worship of idols. We purposely\nquote it for the benefit of our respected \u201cheathen\u201d friends who will\nsee these lines.\n\nThe prophecy of Hermes is less equivocal than either of the alleged\nprophecies of Isaiah, which have furnished a pretext for saying that\nthe gods of all the nations were demons. Only, facts are stronger,\nsometimes, than the strongest faith. All that the Jews learned, they\nhad from older nations than themselves. The Chaldean Magi were their\nmasters in the secret doctrine, and it was during the Babylonian\ncaptivity that they learned its metaphysical as well as practical\ntenets. Pliny mentions three schools of Magi: one that he shows to\nhave been founded at an unknown antiquity; the other established\nby Osthanes and Zoroaster; the third by Moses and Jambres. And all\nthe knowledge possessed by these different schools, whether Magian,\nEgyptian, or Jewish, was derived from India, or rather from both\nsides of the Himalayas. Many a lost secret lies buried under wastes\nof sand, in the Gobi Desert of Eastern Turkestan, and the wise men of\nKhotan have preserved strange traditions and knowledge of alchemy.\n\nBaron Bunsen shows that the origin of the ancient prayers and hymns\nof the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_ is _anterior_ to Menes, and\nbelongs, probably, to the pre-Menite Dynasty of Abydos, between 3100\nand 4500 B.C. The learned Egyptologist makes the era of Menes, or\nNational Empire, as not later than 3059 B.C., and demonstrates that\n\u201cthe system of Osirian worship and mythology was already formed\u201d[758]\nbefore this era of Menes.\n\nWe find in the hymns of this scientifically-established pre-Edenic\nepoch (for Bunsen carries us back several centuries _beyond_ the\nyear of the creation of the world, 4004 B.C., as fixed by biblical\nchronology) precise lessons of morality, identical in substance, and\nnearly so in form of expression, with those preached by Jesus in\nhis Sermon on the Mount. We give the authority of the most eminent\nEgyptologists and hierologists for our statement. \u201cThe inscriptions\nof the twelfth Dynasty are filled with ritualistic formul\u00e6,\u201d says\nBunsen. Extracts from the Hermetic books are found on monuments\nof the earliest dynasties, and \u201con those of the twelfth (dynasty)\nportions of an _earlier_ ritual are by no means uncommon.... _To feed\nthe_ hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, bury the\n_dead_ ... _formed the first duty of a pious man_.... The doctrine of\nthe immortality of the soul is as old as this period\u201d (Tablet, _Brit.\nMus._, 562).[759]\n\nAnd far older, perhaps. It dates from the time when the soul was an\n_objective_ being, hence when it could hardly be denied by _itself_;\nwhen humanity was a spiritual race and death existed not. Toward the\ndecline of the cycle of life, the ethereal _man-spirit_ then fell\ninto the sweet slumber of temporary unconsciousness in one sphere,\nonly to find himself awakening in the still brighter light of a\nhigher one. But while the spiritual man is ever striving to ascend\nhigher and higher toward its source of being, passing through the\ncycles and spheres of individual life, physical man had to descend\nwith the great cycle of universal creation until it found itself\nclothed with the terrestrial garments. Thenceforth the soul was too\ndeeply buried under physical clothing to re\u00e4ssert its existence,\nexcept in the cases of those more spiritual natures, which, with\nevery cycle, became more rare. And yet none of the pre-historical\nnations ever thought of denying either the existence or the\nimmortality of the inner man, the real \u201cself.\u201d Only, we must bear\nin mind the teachings of the old philosophies: the spirit alone is\nimmortal--the soul, _per se_, is neither eternal nor divine. When\nlinked too closely with the physical brain of its terrestrial casket,\nit gradually becomes a _finite_ mind, a simple animal and sentient\nlife-principle, the _nephesh_ of the Hebrew _Bible_.[760]\n\nThe doctrine of man\u2019s _triune_ nature is as clearly defined in\nthe Hermetic books as it is in Plato\u2019s system, or again in that\nof the Buddhist and Brahmanical philosophies. And this is one of\nthe most important as well as least understood of the doctrines of\nHermetic science. The Egyptian Mysteries, so imperfectly known by\nthe world, and only through the few brief allusions to them in\nthe _Metamorphosis of Apuleius_, taught the greatest virtues. They\nunveiled to the aspirant in the \u201chigher\u201d mysteries of initiation that\nwhich many of our modern Hermetic students vainly search for in the\nkabalistic books, and which no obscure teachings of the Church, under\nthe guidance of the Order of Jesuits, will ever be able to unveil.\nTo compare, then, the ancient secret societies of the hierophants\nwith the artificially-produced hallucinations of those few followers\nof Loyola, who were, perchance, sincere at the beginning of their\ncareer, is to insult the former. And yet, in justice to them, we are\ncompelled to do so.\n\nOne of the most unconquerable obstacles to initiation, with the\nEgyptians as with the Greeks, was any degree of murder. One of the\ngreatest titles to admission in the Order of Jesuits is a _murder_\nin defence of Jesuitism. \u201c_Children may kill their parents if they\ncompel them to abandon the Catholic faith._\u201d\n\n\u201cChristian and Catholic sons,\u201d says Stephen Fagundez, \u201cmay accuse\ntheir fathers of the crime of heresy if they wish to turn them from\nthe faith, although they may know that their parents will be burned\nwith fire, and put to death for it, as Tolet teaches.... And not\nonly may they refuse them food ... _but they may also justly kill\nthem_.\u201d[761]\n\nIt is well known that Nero, the Emperor, _had never dared_ seek\ninitiation into the Mysteries on account of the murder of Agrippina!\n\nUnder Section XIV. of the _Principles of the Jesuits_, we find on\n_Homicide_ the following Christian principles inculcated by Father\nHenry Henriquez, in _Summ\u00e6 Theologi\u00e6 Moralis_. Tomus 1, Venetiis,\n1600 (Ed. Coll. Sion): \u201cIf an adulterer, even though he should be an\necclesiastic ... being attacked by the husband, kills his aggressor\n... _he is not considered irregular_: _non ridetur irregularis_ (Lib.\nXIV., _de Irregularitat\u00e6_, c. 10, \u00a7 3).\n\n\u201cIf a father were obnoxious to the State (being in banishment), and\nto the society at large, and there were no other means of averting\nsuch an injury, then I should approve of this\u201d (for a son to kill his\nfather), says Sec. XV., _on Parricide and Homicide_.[762]\n\n\u201cIt will be lawful for an ecclesiastic, or one of the religious\norder, _to kill a calumniator_ who threatens to spread atrocious\naccusations against himself or his religion,\u201d[763] is the rule set\nforth by the Jesuit Francis Amicus.\n\nSo far, good. We are informed by the highest authorities what a man\nin the Catholic communion may do that the common law and public\nmorality stamp as criminal, and still continue in the odor of\nJesuitical sanctity. Now suppose we again turn the medal and see what\nprinciples were inculcated by Pagan Egyptian moralists before the\nworld was blessed with these modern improvements in ethics.\n\nIn Egypt every city of importance was separated from its burial place\nby a sacred lake. The same ceremony of judgment which the _Book of\nthe Dead_ describes as taking place in the world of Spirit, took\nplace on earth during the burial of the mummy. Forty-two judges or\nassessors assembled on the shore and judged the departed \u201csoul\u201d\naccording to its actions when in the body, and it was only upon a\nunanimous approval of this _post-mortem_ jury that the boatman, who\nrepresented the Spirit of Death, could convey the justified defunct\u2019s\nbody to its last resting-place. After that the priests returned\nwithin the sacred precincts and instructed the neophytes upon the\nprobable solemn drama which was then taking place in the invisible\nrealm whither the soul had fled. The immortality of the spirit was\nstrongly inculcated by the Al-om-jah.[764] In the _Crata Nepoa_[765]\nthe following is described as the _seven_ degrees of the initiation.\n\nAfter a preliminary trial at Thebes, where the neophyte had to pass\nthrough many trials, called the \u201cTwelve Tortures,\u201d he was commanded\nto govern his passions and never lose for a moment the idea of his\nGod. Then as a symbol of the wanderings of the unpurified soul,\nhe had to ascend several ladders and wander in darkness in a cave\nwith many doors, all of which were locked. When he had overcome\nthe dreadful trials, he received the degree of _Pastophoris_, the\nsecond and third degrees being called the _Neocoris_, and the\n_Melanephoris_. Brought into a vast subterranean chamber thickly\nfurnished with mummies lying in state, he was placed in presence\nof the coffin which contained the mutilated body of Osiris covered\nwith blood. This was the hall called \u201cGates of Death,\u201d and it is\nmost certainly to this mystery that the passages in the _Book of\nJob_ (xxxviii. 17) and other portions of the _Bible_ allude when\nthese gates are spoken of.[766] In chapter x., we give the esoteric\ninterpretation of the \u201cBook of Job,\u201d which is the poem of initiation\n_par excellence_.\n\n \u201cHave the gates of death been opened to thee?\n Hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?\u201d\n\nasks the \u201cLord\u201d--_i.e._, the Al-om-jah, the Initiator--of Job,\nalluding to this third degree of initiation.\n\nWhen the neophyte had conquered the terrors of this trial, he was\nconducted to the \u201cHall of Spirits,\u201d to be judged by them. Among\nthe rules in which he was instructed, he was commanded \u201c_never to\neither desire or seek revenge; to be always ready to help a brother\nin danger, even unto the risk of his own life; to bury every dead\nbody; to honor his parents above all_; respect old age and protect\nthose weaker than himself; and finally, to ever bear in mind the\nhour of death, and that of resurrection, in a new and imperishable\nbody.\u201d[767] Purity and chastity were highly recommended, and\n_adultery threatened with death_.\n\nThen the Egyptian neophyte was made a _Kristophores_. In this degree\nthe mystery-name of IAO was communicated to him. The fifth degree\nwas that of _Balahala_, and he was instructed by Horus, in alchemy,\nthe \u201cword\u201d being _chemia_. In the sixth, the priestly dance in the\ncircle was taught him, in which he was instructed in astronomy, for\nit represented the course of the planets. In the seventh degree, he\nwas initiated into the final Mysteries. After a final probation in a\nbuilding set apart for it, the _Astronomus_, as he was now called,\nemerged from these sacred apartments called _Manneras_, and received\na cross--the _Tau_, which, at death, had to be laid upon his breast.\nHe was a hierophant.\n\nWe have read above the rules of these holy initiates of the\n_Christian_ Society of Jesus. Compare them with those enforced upon\nthe Pagan postulant, and Christian (!) morality with that inculcated\nin those mysteries of the Pagans upon which all the thunders of an\navenging Deity are invoked by the Church. Had the latter no mysteries\nof its own? Or were they in any wise purer, nobler, or more inciting\nto a holy, virtuous life? Let us hear what Niccolini has to say, in\nhis able _History of the Jesuits_, of the _modern_ mysteries of the\nChristian cloister.[768]\n\n\u201cIn most monasteries, and more particularly in those of the Capuchins\nand reformed (reformati), there begins at Christmas a series of\nfeasts, which continues till Lent. All sorts of games are played,\nthe most splendid banquets are given, and in the small towns, above\nall, the refectory of the convent is the best place of amusement for\nthe greater number of the inhabitants. At carnivals, two or three\nvery magnificent entertainments take place; the board so profusely\nspread that one might imagine that Copia had here poured forth\nthe whole contents of her horn. It must be remembered that these\ntwo orders live by alms.[769] The sombre silence of the cloister\nis replaced by a confused sound of merrymaking, and its gloomy\nvaults now echo with other songs than those of the psalmist. A ball\nenlivens and terminates the feast; and, to render it still more\nanimated, and perhaps to show _how completely their vow of chastity\nhas eradicated all their carnal appetite_, some of the young monks\nappear coquettishly dressed in the garb of the fair sex, and begin\nthe dance, along with others, transformed into gay cavaliers. _To\ndescribe the scandalous scene which ensues would be but to disgust my\nreaders._ I will only say that I have myself often been a spectator\nat such saturnalia.\u201d\n\nThe cycle is moving down, and, as it descends, the physical and\nbestial nature of man develops more and more at the expense of the\nSpiritual Self.[770] With what disgust may we not turn from this\nreligious farce called modern Christianity, to the noble faiths of\nold!\n\nIn the Egyptian _Funeral Ritual_ found among the hymns of the\n_Book of the Dead_, and which is termed by Bunsen \u201cthat precious\nand mysterious book,\u201d we read an address of the deceased, in the\ncharacter of Horus, detailing all that he has done for his father\nOsiris. Among other things the deity says:\n\n \u201c30. I have given thee thy _Spirit_.\n 31. I have given thee thy _Soul_.\n 32. I have given thee thy force (body),\u201d etc.\n\nIn another place the entity, addressed as \u201cFather\u201d by the disembodied\nsoul, is shown to mean the \u201cspirit\u201d of man; for the verse says:\n\u201cI have made my soul come and speak with _his Father_,\u201d its\n_Spirit_.[771]\n\nThe Egyptians regarded their _Ritual_ as essentially a Divine\ninspiration; in short, as modern Hindus do the _Vedas_, and modern\nJews their Mosaic books. Bunsen and Lepsius show that the term\n_Hermetic_ means inspired; for it is Thoth, the Deity itself, that\nspeaks and reveals to his elect among men the will of God and the\narcana of divine things. Portions of them are expressly stated \u201cto\nhave been written by the very finger of Thoth himself;\u201d to have been\nthe work and composition of the great God.[772] \u201cAt a later period\ntheir Hermetic character is still more distinctly recognized, and\non a coffin of the 26th Dynasty, Horus announces to the deceased\nthat Thoth himself has brought him the books of his divine words, or\nHermetic writings.\u201d[773]\n\nSince we are aware that Moses was an Egyptian priest, or at least\nthat he was learned in all their _wisdom_, we need not be astonished\nthat he should write in _Deuteronomy_ (ix. 10), \u201cAnd the _Lord_\ndelivered unto me two tables of stones written with the finger of\nGOD;\u201d or to find in _Exodus_ xxxi., \u201cAnd he (the Lord) gave unto\nMoses ... two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the\nfinger of God.\u201d\n\nIn the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other faiths founded on\nphilosophy, man was not merely, as with the Christians, a union of\nsoul and body; he was a trinity when spirit was added to it. Besides,\nthat doctrine made him consist of _kha_--body; _khaba_--astral form,\nor shadow; _ka_--animal soul or life-principle; _ba_--the higher\nsoul; and _akh_--terrestrial intelligence. They had also a sixth\nprinciple named _Sah_--or mummy; but the functions of this one\ncommenced only after the death of the body. After due purification,\nduring which the soul, separated from its body, continued to revisit\nthe latter in its mummified condition, this astral soul \u201cbecame\na God,\u201d for it was finally absorbed into \u201cthe Soul of the world.\u201d\nIt became transformed into one of the creative deities, \u201cthe god\nof Phtah,\u201d[774] the Demiurgos, a generic name for the creators of\nthe world, rendered in the _Bible_ as the Elohim. In the _Ritual_\nthe good or purified _soul_, \u201cin conjunction with its higher or\n_uncreated_ spirit, is more or less the victim of the dark influence\nof the dragon Apophis. If it has attained the final knowledge of the\nheavenly and the infernal mysteries--the _gnosis_, _i.e._, complete\nre\u00fcnion with the spirit, it will triumph over its enemies; if not\nthe soul could not escape its _second death_. It is \u2018the lake that\nburneth with fire and brimstone\u2019 (elements), into which those that\nare cast undergo a \u2018second death\u2019\u201d[775] (_Apocalypse_). This death is\nthe gradual dissolution of the astral form into its primal elements,\nalluded to several times already in the course of this work. But\nthis awful fate can be avoided by the knowledge of the \u201cMysterious\nName\u201d--the \u201cWord,\u201d[776] say the kabalists.\n\nAnd what then was the penalty attached to the neglect of it? When a\nman leads a naturally pure, virtuous life, there is none whatever;\nexcept a delay in the world of spirits, until he finds himself\nsufficiently purified to receive it from his Spiritual \u201cLord,\u201d one\nof the mighty Host. But if otherwise, the \u201csoul,\u201d as a half animal\nprinciple, becomes paralyzed, and grows unconscious of its subjective\nhalf--the Lord--and in proportion to the sensuous development of\nthe brain and nerves, sooner or later, it finally loses sight of\nits divine mission on earth. Like the _Vourdalak_, or Vampire, of\nthe Servian tale, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength\nand power at the expense of its spiritual parent. Then the already\nhalf-unconscious soul, now fully intoxicated by the fumes of earthly\nlife, becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It is powerless\nto discern the splendor of its higher spirit, to hear the warning\nvoice of its \u201cguardian Angel,\u201d and its \u201cGod.\u201d It aims but at the\ndevelopment and fuller comprehension of natural, earthly life; and\nthus, can discover but the mysteries of physical nature. Its grief\nand fear, hope and joy, are all closely blended with its terrestrial\nexistence. It ignores all that cannot be demonstrated by either its\norgans of action, or sensation. It begins by becoming virtually dead;\nit dies at last completely. It is _annihilated_. Such a catastrophe\nmay often happen long years before the final separation of the\n_life_-principle from the body. When death arrives, its iron and\nclammy grasp finds work with _life_ as usual; but there is no more a\nsoul to liberate. The whole essence of the latter has been already\nabsorbed by the vital system of the physical man. Grim death frees\nbut a spiritual corpse; at best an idiot. Unable either to soar\nhigher or awaken from lethargy, it is soon dissolved in the elements\nof the terrestrial atmosphere.\n\nSeers, righteous men, who had attained to the highest science of the\ninner man and the knowledge of truth, have, like Marcus Antoninus,\nreceived instructions \u201cfrom the gods,\u201d in sleep and otherwise.\nHelped by the purer spirits, those that dwell in \u201cregions of eternal\nbliss,\u201d they have watched the process and warned mankind repeatedly.\nSkepticism may sneer; _faith_, based on _knowledge_ and spiritual\nscience, believes and affirms.\n\nOur present cycle is pre\u00ebminently one of such soul-deaths. We elbow\nsoulless men and women at every step in life. Neither can we wonder,\nin the present state of things, at the gigantic failure of Hegel\u2019s\nand Schelling\u2019s last efforts at some metaphysical construction of\na system. When facts, palpable and tangible facts of phenomenal\nSpiritualism happen daily and hourly, and yet are denied by the\nmajority of \u201ccivilized\u201d nations, little chance is there for the\nacceptance of purely abstract metaphysics by the ever-growing crowd\nof materialists.\n\nIn the book called by Champollion _Le Manifestation \u00e0 la Lumi\u00e8re_,\nthere is a chapter on the _Ritual_ which is full of mysterious\ndialogues, with addresses to various \u201cPowers\u201d by the soul. Among\nthese dialogues there is one which is more than expressive of the\npotentiality of the \u201cWord.\u201d The scene is laid in the \u201cHall of the Two\nTruths.\u201d The \u201cDoor,\u201d the \u201cHall of Truth,\u201d and even the various parts\nof the gate, address the soul which presents itself for admission.\nThey all forbid it entrance unless it tells them their mystery,\nor mystic names. What student of the Secret Doctrines can fail to\nrecognize in these names an identity of meaning and purpose with\nthose to be met with in the _Vedas_, the later works of the Brahmans,\nand the _Kabala_?\n\nMagicians, Kabalists, Mystics, Neo-platonists and Theurgists of\nAlexandria, who so surpassed the Christians in their achievements\nin the secret science; Brahmans or Samaneans (Shamans) of old; and\nmodern Brahmans, Buddhists, and Lamaists, have all claimed that a\ncertain power attaches to these various names, pertaining to one\nineffable Word. We have shown from personal experience how deeply\nthe belief is rooted to this day in the popular mind all over\nRussia,[777] that the Word works \u201cmiracles\u201d and is at the bottom of\nevery magical feat. Kabalists mysteriously connect _Faith_ with it.\nSo did the apostles, basing their assertions on the words of Jesus,\nwho is made to say: \u201cIf ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed\n... nothing shall be impossible unto you,\u201d and Paul, repeating the\nwords of Moses, tells that \u201cthe WORD is nigh thee, even in thy mouth,\nand in thy heart; that is, the _word of faith_\u201d (_Romans_ x. 8).\nBut who, except the initiates, can boast of comprehending its full\nsignificance?\n\nIn our days it is as it was in olden times, to believe in the\nbiblical \u201cmiracles\u201d requires _faith_; but to be enabled to produce\nthem one\u2019s self demands a knowledge of the esoteric meaning of the\n\u201cword.\u201d \u201cIf Christ,\u201d say Dr. Farrar and Canon Westcott, \u201cwrought no\nmiracles, then the _gospels_ are untrustworthy.\u201d But even supposing\nthat he did work them, would that prove that gospels written by\nothers than himself are any more trustworthy? And if not, to what\npurpose is the argument? Besides, such a line of reasoning would\nwarrant the analogy that miracles performed by other religionists\nthan Christians ought to make _their_ gospels trustworthy. Does not\nthis imply at least an equality between the Christian Scriptures and\nthe Buddhist sacred books? For these equally abound with phenomena\nof the most astounding character. Moreover, the Christians have\nno longer _genuine_ miracles produced through their priests, for\nthey have _lost the Word_. But many a Buddhist Lama or Siamese\nTalapoin--unless all travellers have conspired to lie--has been and\nnow is able to duplicate every phenomenon described in the _New\nTestament_, and even do more, without any pretence of suspension of\nnatural law or divine intervention either. In fact, Christianity\nproves that it is as dead in faith as it is dead in works, while\nBuddhism is full of vitality and supported by practical proofs.\n\nThe best argument in favor of the genuineness of Buddhist \u201cmiracles\u201d\nlies in the fact that Catholic missionaries, instead of denying them\nor treating them as simple jugglery--as some Protestant missionaries\ndo have often found themselves in such straits as to be forced to\nadopt the forlorn alternative of laying the whole on the back of\nthe Devil. And so belittled do the Jesuits feel themselves in the\npresence of these genuine servants of God, that with an unparalleled\ncunning, they concluded to act in the case of the Talapoins and\nBuddhists as Mahomet is said to have acted with the mountain. \u201cAnd\nseeing that it would not move toward him, the Prophet moved himself\ntoward the mountain.\u201d Finding that they could not catch the Siamese\nwith the birdlime of their pernicious doctrines in Christian garb,\nthey disguised themselves, and for centuries appeared among the poor,\nignorant people as Talapoins, until exposed. They have even voted and\nadopted a resolution forthwith, which has now all the force of an\nancient article of faith. \u201cNaaman, the Syrian,\u201d say the Jesuits of\nCaen, \u201cdid not dissemble his faith when he bowed the knee with the\nking in the house of Rimmon; _neither do the Fathers of the Society\nof Jesus dissemble, when they adopt the institute and the habit of\nthe Talapoins of Siam_\u201d (nec dissimulant Patres S. J. Talapoinorum\nSiamensium institutum vestemque affectantes.--_Position_ 9, 30 Jan.,\n1693).\n\nThe potency contained in the _Mantras_ and the _V\u00e2ch_ of the Brahmans\nis as much believed in at this day as it was in the early Vedic\nperiod. The \u201cIneffable Name\u201d of every country and religion relates\nto that which the Masons affirm to be the mysterious characters\nemblematic of the nine names or attributes by which the Deity was\nknown to the initiates. The Omnific Word traced by Enoch on the two\ndeltas of purest gold, on which he engraved two of the mysterious\ncharacters, is perhaps better known to the poor, uneducated \u201cheathen\u201d\nthan to the highly accomplished Grand High Priests and Grand Z.\u2019s of\nthe Supreme Chapters of Europe and America. Only why the companions\nof the Royal Arch should so bitterly and constantly lament its loss,\nis more than we can understand. This word of M. M. is, as they will\ntell themselves, entirely composed of consonants. Hence, we doubt\nwhether any of them could ever have mastered its pronunciation, had\nit even been \u201cbrought to light from the secret vault,\u201d instead of its\nseveral corruptions. However, it is to the land of Mizraim that the\ngrandson of Ham is credited with having carried the sacred delta of\nthe Patriarch Enoch. Therefore, it is in Egypt, and in the East alone\nthat the mysterious \u201cWord\u201d must be sought.\n\nBut now that so many of the most important secrets of Masonry have\nbeen divulged by friend and foe, may we not say, without suspicion\nof malice or ill-feeling, that since the sad catastrophe of the\nTemplars, no \u201cLodge\u201d in Europe, still less in America, has ever known\nanything worth concealing. Reluctant to be misunderstood, we say _no_\nLodge, leaving a few _chosen_ brethren entirely out of question. The\nfrantic denunciations of the Craft by Catholic and Protestant writers\nappear simply ridiculous, as also the affirmation of the Abb\u00e9 Barruel\nthat everything \u201cbetrays our Freemasons as the descendants of those\nproscribed Knights\u201d Templars of 1314. The _Memoirs of Jacobinism_ by\nthis Abb\u00e9, an eye-witness to the horrors of the first Revolution,\nis devoted in great measure to the Rosicrucians and other Masonic\nfraternities. The fact alone that he traces the modern Masons to\nthe Templars, and points them out as secret assassins, trained to\npolitical murder, shows how little he knew of them, but how ardently\nhe desired, at the same time, to find in these societies convenient\nscape-goats for the crimes and sins of another secret society which,\nsince its existence, has harbored more than one dangerous political\nassassin--the Society of Jesus.\n\nThe accusations against Masons have been mostly half guess-work,\nhalf-unquenchable malice and predetermined vilification. Nothing\nconclusive and certain of a criminal character has been directly\nproven against them. Even their abduction of Morgan has remained a\nmatter of conjecture. The case was used at the time as a political\nconvenience by huckstering politicians. When an unrecognizable corpse\nwas found in Niagara River, one of the chiefs of this unscrupulous\nclass, being informed that the identity was exceedingly questionable,\nunguardedly exposed the whole plot by saying: \u201cWell, no matter, _he\u2019s\na good enough Morgan until after the election_!\u201d On the other hand,\nwe find the Order of the Jesuits not only permitting, in certain\ncases, but actually _teaching and inciting to \u201cHigh treason and\nRegicide.\u201d_[778]\n\nA series of _Lectures_ upon Freemasonry and its dangers, as delivered\nin 1862, by James Burton Robertson, Professor of Modern History in\nthe Dublin University, are lying before us. In them the lecturer\nquotes profusely as his authorities the said Abb\u00e9 (Barruel, a natural\nenemy of the Masons, _who cannot be caught at the confessional_),\nand Robison, a well-known apostate-Mason of 1798. As usual with\nevery party, whether belonging to the Masonic or anti-Masonic side,\nthe traitor from the opposing camp is welcomed with praise and\nencouragement, and great care is taken to whitewash him. However\nconvenient for certain political reasons the celebrated Committee\nof the Anti-Masonic Convention of 1830 (U. S. of America) may have\nfound it to adopt this most Jesuitical proposition of Puffendorf that\n\u201coaths oblige not when they are absurd and impertinent,\u201d and that\nother which teaches that \u201can oath obliges not if God does not accept\nit,\u201d[779] yet no truly honest man would accept such sophistry. We\nsincerely believe that the better portion of humanity will ever bear\nin mind that there exists a moral code of honor far more binding than\nan oath, whether on the _Bible_, _Koran_, or _Veda_. The Essenes\nnever swore on anything at all, but their \u201cayes\u201d and \u201cnays\u201d were as\ngood and far better than an oath. Besides, it seems surpassingly\nstrange to find nations that call themselves Christian instituting\ncustoms in civil and ecclesiastical courts diametrically opposed to\nthe command of their God,[780] who distinctly forbids any swearing at\nall, \u201cneither by heaven ... nor by the earth ... nor by the head.\u201d\nIt seems to us that to maintain that \u201can oath obliges not if God does\nnot accept it,\u201d besides being an absurdity--as no man living, whether\nhe be fallible or infallible, can learn anything of God\u2019s secret\nthoughts--is _anti-Christian_ in the full sense of the word.[781] The\nargument is brought forward only because it is convenient and answers\nthe object. Oaths will never be binding till each man will fully\nunderstand that humanity is the highest manifestation on earth of the\nUnseen Supreme Deity, and each man an incarnation of his God; and\nwhen the sense of _personal_ responsibility will be so developed in\nhim that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to\nhimself, as well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken\nby one who, without any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple\npromise of honor. Therefore, to bring forward as authorities such\nmen as Barruel or Robison is simply obtaining the public confidence\nunder false pretenses. It is not the \u201cspirit of _Masonic malice_\nwhose heart coins slanders like a mint,\u201d but far more that of the\nCatholic clergy and their champions; and a man who would reconcile\nthe two ideas of honor and perjury, in any case whatever, is not to\nbe trusted himself.\n\nLoud is the claim of the nineteenth century to pre\u00ebminence in\ncivilization over the ancients, and still more clamorous that of\nthe churches and their sycophants that Christianity has redeemed\nthe world from barbarism and idolatry. How little both are\nwarranted, we have tried to prove in these two volumes. The light\nof Christianity has only served to show how much more hypocrisy and\nvice its teachings have begotten in the world since its advent, and\nhow immensely superior were the ancients over us in every point of\nhonor.[782] The clergy, by teaching the helplessness of man, his\nutter dependence on Providence, and the doctrine of atonement, have\ncrushed in their faithful followers every atom of self-reliance and\nself-respect. So true is this, that it is becoming an axiom that the\nmost honorable men are to be found among atheists and the so-called\n\u201cinfidels.\u201d We hear from Hipparchus that in the days of _heathenism_\n\u201cthe shame and disgrace that justly attended the violation of his\noath threw the poor wretch into a fit of madness and despair, so\nthat he cut his throat and perished by his own hands, and his memory\nwas so abhorred after his death that his body lay upon the shore of\nthe island of Samos, and had no other burial than the sands of the\nsea.\u201d[783] But in our own century we find ninety-six delegates to\nthe United States Anti-Masonic Convention, every one doubtless a\nmember of some Protestant Church, and claiming the respect due to\nmen of honor and gentlemen, offering the most Jesuitical arguments\nagainst the validity of a Masonic oath. The Committee, pretending\nto quote the authority of \u201cthe most distinguished guides in the\nphilosophy of morals, and claiming the most ample support of _the\ninspired_[784] ... who wrote before Freemasonry existed,\u201d resolved\nthat, as an oath was \u201ca transaction between man on one part and the\nAlmighty Judge on the other,\u201d and the Masons were all infidels and\n\u201cunfit for civil trust,\u201d therefore their oaths had to be considered\nillegal and not binding.[785]\n\nBut we will return to these _Lectures_ of Robertson and his charges\nagainst Masonry. The greatest accusation brought against the latter\nis that Masons reject a _personal_ God (this on the authority of\nBarruel and Robison), and that they claim to be in possession of a\n\u201csecret to make men better and happier than Christ, his apostles and\nhis Church have made them.\u201d Were the latter accusation but half true,\nit might yet allow the consoling hope that they had really found\nthat secret by breaking off entirely from the mythical Christ of the\nChurch and the official Jehovah. But both the accusations are simply\nas malicious as they are absurd and untrue; as we shall presently see.\n\nLet it not be imagined that we are influenced by personal feeling\nin any of our reflections upon Masonry. So far from this being the\ncase we unhesitatingly proclaim our highest respect for the original\npurposes of the Order and some of our most valued friends are within\nits membership. We say naught against Masonry as it should be, but\ndenounce it as, thanks to the intriguing clergy, both Catholic and\nProtestant, it now begins to be. Professedly the most absolute of\ndemocracies, it is practically the appanage of aristocracy, wealth,\nand personal ambition. Professedly the teacher of true ethics, it is\ndebased into a propaganda of anthropomorphic theology. The half-naked\napprentice, brought before the master during the initiation of the\nfirst degree, is taught that at the door of the lodge every social\ndistinction is laid aside, and the poorest brother is the peer of\nevery other, though a reigning sovereign or an imperial prince. In\npractice, the Craft turns lickspittle in every monarchical country,\nto any regal scion who may deign, for the sake of using it as a\npolitical tool, to put on the once symbolical lambskin.\n\nHow far gone is the Masonic Fraternity in this direction, we can\njudge from the words of one of its highest authorities. John Yarker,\nJunior, of England; Past Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Greece;\nGrand Master of the Rite of Swedenborg; also Grand Master of the\nAncient and Primitive Rite of Masonry, and Heaven only knows what\nelse,[786] says that Masonry could lose nothing by \u201cthe adoption of\na higher (not pecuniary) standard of membership and morality, with\nexclusion from the \u2018purple\u2019 of all who _inculcate frauds, sham,\nhistorical degrees, and other immoral abuses_\u201d (page 158). And again,\non page 157: \u201cAs the Masonic Fraternity is now governed, the Craft is\nfast becoming the paradise of the _bon vivant_; of the \u2018charitable\u2019\nhypocrite, who forgets the version of St. Paul, and decorates his\nbreast with the \u2018charity jewel\u2019 (having by this judicious expenditure\nobtained the \u2018purple\u2019 he metes out judgment to other brethren of\ngreater ability and morality but less means); the manufacturer\nof paltry Masonic tinsel; the rascally merchant who swindles in\nhundreds, and even thousands, by appealing to the tender consciences\nof those few who do regard their O. B.\u2019s; and the Masonic \u2018Emperors\u2019\nand other charlatans who make power or money out of the aristocratic\npretensions which they have tacked on to our institution--_ad\ncaptandum vulgus_.\u201d\n\nWe have no wish to make a pretence of exposing secrets long since\nhawked about the world by perjured Masons. Everything vital, whether\nin symbolical representations, rites, or passwords, as used in modern\nFreemasonry, is known in the Eastern fraternities; though there\nseems to be no intercourse or connection between them. If Medea is\ndescribed by Ovid as having \u201carm, breast, and knee made bare, left\nfoot slipshod;\u201d and Virgil, speaking of Dido, shows this \u201cQueen\nherself ... now resolute on death, having one foot bare, etc.,\u201d[787]\nwhy doubt that there are in the East _real_ \u201cPatriarchs of the\nsacred Vedas,\u201d explaining the esotericism of pure Hindu theology and\nBrahmanism quite as thoroughly as European \u201cPatriarchs?\u201d\n\nBut, if there are a few Masons who, from study of kabalistic\nand other rare works, and coming in personal communication with\n\u201cBrothers\u201d from the far-away East, have learned something of\n_esoteric_ Masonry, it is not the case with the hundreds of\nAmerican Lodges. While engaged on this chapter, we have received\nmost unexpectedly, through the kindness of a friend, a copy of Mr.\nYarker\u2019s volume, from which passages are quoted above. It is brimful\nof learning and, what is more, of _knowledge_, as it seems to us. It\nis especially valuable at this moment, since it corroborates, in many\nparticulars, what we have said in this work. Thus, we read in it the\nfollowing:\n\n\u201cWe think we have sufficiently established the fact of the connection\nof Freemasonry with other speculative rites of antiquity, as well as\nthe antiquity and purity of the old English Templar-Rite of _seven\ndegrees_, and the spurious derivation of many of the other rites\ntherefrom.\u201d[788]\n\nSuch high Masons need not be told, though Craftsmen in general\ndo, that the time has come to remodel Masonry, and restore those\nancient landmarks, borrowed from the early sodalities, which the\neighteenth century founders of speculative Freemasonry meant to have\nincorporated in the fraternity. There are no longer any secrets left\nunpublished; the Order is degenerating into a convenience for selfish\nmen to use, and bad men to debase.\n\nIt is but recently that a majority of the Supreme Councils of the\nAncient and Accepted Rite assembled at Lausanne, justly revolting\nagainst such a blasphemous belief as that in a personal Deity,\ninvested with all human attributes, pronounced the following words:\n\u201cFreemasonry proclaims, as it has proclaimed from its origin, the\nexistence of a _creative principle_, under the name of the great\nArchitect of the universe.\u201d Against this, a small minority has\nprotested, urging that \u201cbelief in a _creative principle_ is not _the\nbelief in God, which Freemasonry requires of every candidate_ before\nhe can pass its very threshold.\u201d\n\nThis confession does not sound like the rejection of a personal God.\nCould we have had the slightest doubt upon the subject, it would\nbe thoroughly dispelled by the words of General Albert Pike,[789]\nperhaps the greatest authority of the day, among American Masons, who\nraises himself most violently against this innovation. We cannot do\nbetter than quote his words:\n\n\u201cThis _Principe Createur_ is no new phrase--it is but an old term\nrevived. _Our adversaries, numerous and formidable_, will say, and\nwill have the right to say, that our _Principe Createur_ is identical\nwith the _Principe Generateur_ of the Indians and Egyptians, and\nmay fitly be symbolized as it was symbolized anciently, by the\nLing\u00e6.... To accept this, in lieu of a personal God, is TO ABANDON\nCHRISTIANITY, and _the worship of Jehovah_, and return to wallow in\nthe styes of Paganism.\u201d\n\nAnd are those of _Jesuitism_, then, so much cleaner? \u201cOur\nadversaries, numerous and formidable.\u201d That sentence says all. Who\nthese so formidable enemies are, is useless to inquire. They are the\nRoman Catholics, and some of the Reformed Presbyterians. To read what\nthe two factions respectively write, we may well ask which adversary\nis the more afraid of the other. But, what shall it profit any one\nto organize against a fraternity that does not even dare to have\na belief of its own for fear of giving offense? And pray, how, if\nMasonic oaths mean anything, and Masonic penalties are regarded as\nmore than burlesque, can any adversaries, numerous or few, feeble\nor strong, know what goes on inside the lodge, or penetrate beyond\nthat \u201cbrother terrible, or the tiler, who guards, with a drawn sword,\nthe portals of the lodge?\u201d Is, then, this \u201cbrother terrible\u201d no more\nformidable than Offenbach\u2019s _General Boum_, with his smoking pistol,\njingling spurs, and towering _panache_? Of what use the millions\nof men that make up this great fraternity, the world over, if they\ncannot be so cemented together as to bid defiance to all adversaries?\nCan it be that the \u201cmystic tie\u201d is but a rope of sand, and Masonry\nbut a toy to feed the vanity of a few leaders who rejoice in ribbons\nand regalia? Is its authority as false as its antiquity? It seems so,\nindeed; and yet, as \u201ceven the fleas have smaller fleas to bite \u2019em,\u201d\nthere are Catholic alarmists, even here, who pretend to fear Masonry!\n\nAnd yet, these same Catholics, in all the serenity of their\ntraditional impudence, publicly threaten America, with its 500,000\nMasons, and 34,000,000 Protestants, with a union of Church and\nState under the direction of Rome! The danger which threatens the\nfree institutions of this republic, we are told, will come from\n\u201cthe principles of Protestantism logically developed.\u201d The present\nSecretary of the Navy--the Hon. R. W. Thompson, of Indiana, having\nactually dared, in his own free Protestant country, to publish a book\nrecently on _Papacy and the Civil Power_, in which his language is as\nmoderate as it is gentlemanly and fair, a Roman Catholic priest, at\nWashington, D. C.--the very seat of Government--denounces him with\nviolence. What is better, a representative member of the Society\nof Jesus, Father F. X. Weninger, D.D., pours upon his devoted head\na vial of wrath that seems to have been brought direct from the\nVatican cellars. \u201cThe assertions,\u201d he says, \u201cwhich Mr. Thompson\nmakes on the necessary antagonism between the Catholic Church and\nfree institutions, are characterized by pitiful ignorance and blind\naudacity. He is reckless of logic, of history, of common sense,\nof charity; and presents himself before the loyal American people\nas a narrow-minded bigot. No scholar would venture to repeat the\nstale calumnies which have so often been refuted.... In answer to\nhis accusations against the Church as the enemy of liberty, I tell\nhim that, if ever this country should become a Catholic country,\nthat is, if Catholics should ever be in the majority, and _have the\ncontrol of political power_, then he would see the principles of our\nConstitution carried out to the fullest extent; he would see that\nthese States would be in very deed _United_. He would behold a people\nliving in peace and harmony; joined in the bonds of one faith, their\nhearts beating in unison with love of their fatherland, with charity\nand forbearance toward all, and respecting the rights and consciences\neven of their slanderers.\u201d\n\nIn behalf of this \u201cSociety of Jesus,\u201d he advises Mr. Thompson to\nsend his book to the Czar, Alexander II., and to Frederick William,\nEmperor of Germany. He may expect from them, as a token of their\nsympathy, the orders of St. Andrew and of the Black Eagle. \u201cFrom\nclear-minded, self-thinking, patriotic Americans, he cannot expect\nanything but the _decoration_ of their contempt. As long as American\nhearts _will_ beat in American bosoms, and the blood of their fathers\n_shall_ flow in their veins, such efforts as Thompson\u2019s _shall_ not\nsucceed. True, genuine Americans will protect the Catholic Church in\nthis country and _will finally join it_.\u201d After that, having thus,\nas he seems to think, left the corpse of his impious antagonist\nupon the field, he marches off emptying the dregs of his exhausted\nbottle after the following fashion: \u201cWe leave the volume, whose\nargument we have killed, as a carcass to be devoured by those Texan\nbuzzards--those stinking birds--we mean that kind of men who love to\nfeed on corruption, calumnies, and lies, and are attracted by the\nstench of them.\u201d\n\nThis last sentence is worthy to be added as an appendix to the\n_Discorsi del Somma Pontifice Pio IX._, by Don Pasquale di\nFranciscis, immortalized in the contempt of Mr. Gladstone.--_Tel\nma\u00eetre tel Valet!_\n\nMoral: This will teach fair-minded, sober, and gentlemanly writers\nthat even so well-bred an antagonist as Mr. Thompson has shown\nhimself in his book, cannot hope to escape the only available weapon\nin the Catholic armory--Billingsgate. The whole argument of the\nauthor shows that while forcible, he intends to be fair; but he\nmight as well have attacked with a Tertullianistic violence, for his\ntreatment would not have been worse. It will doubtless afford him\nsome consolation to be placed in the same category with schismatic\nand infidel emperors and kings.\n\nWhile Americans, including Masons, are now warned to prepare\nthemselves to join the Holy Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church,\nwe are glad to know that there are some as loyal and respected as\nany in Masonry who support our views. Conspicuous among them is our\nvenerable friend, Mr. Leon Hyneman, P. M., and a member of the Grand\nLodge of Pennsylvania. For eight or nine years he was editor of\nthe _Masonic Mirror and Keystone_, and is an author of repute. He\nassures us personally that for over thirty years he has combated the\ndesign to erect into a Masonic dogma, belief in a _personal_ God. In\nhis work, _Ancient York and London Grand Lodges_, he says (p. 169):\n\u201cMasonry, instead of unfolding professionally with the intellectual\nadvancement of scientific knowledge and general intelligence, has\ndeparted from the original aims of the fraternity, and is apparently\ninclining towards a sectarian society. That is plainly to be seen\n... in the persistent determination not to expunge the sectarian\ninnovations interpolated in the Ritual.... It would appear that the\nMasonic fraternity of this country are as indifferent to ancient\nlandmarks and usages of Masonry, as the Masons of the past century,\nunder the London Grand Lodge were.\u201d It was this conviction which\nprompted him, in 1856, when Jacques Etienne Marconis de N\u00e8gre, Grand\nHierophant of the Rite of Memphis, came to America and tendered\nhim the Grand Mastership of the Rite in the United States, and the\nAncient and Accepted Rite offered him an Honorary 33d--to refuse both.\n\nThe Temple was the last European secret organization which, as a\nbody, had in its possession some of the mysteries of the East. True,\nthere were in the past century (and perhaps still are) isolated\n\u201cBrothers\u201d faithfully and secretly working under the direction of\nEastern Brotherhoods. But these, when they did belong to European\nsocieties, invariably joined them for objects unknown to the\nFraternity, though at the same time for the benefit of the latter. It\nis through them that modern Masons have all they know of importance;\nand the similarity now found between the Speculative Rites of\nantiquity, the mysteries of the Essenes, Gnostics, and the Hindus,\nand the highest and oldest of the Masonic degrees well prove the\nfact. If these mysterious brothers became possessed of the secrets of\nthe societies, they could never reciprocate the confidence, though in\ntheir hands these secrets were safer, perhaps, than in the keeping\nof European Masons. When certain of the latter were found worthy of\nbecoming affiliates of the Orient, they were secretly instructed and\ninitiated, but the others were none the wiser for that.\n\nNo one could ever lay hands on the Rosicrucians, and notwithstanding\nthe alleged discoveries of \u201csecret chambers,\u201d _vellums_ called\n\u201cT,\u201d and of fossil knights with ever-burning lamps, this ancient\nassociation and its true aims are to this day a mystery. Pretended\nTemplars and sham Rose-Croix, with a few genuine kabalists, were\noccasionally burned, and some unlucky Theosophists and alchemists\nsought and put to the torture; delusive confessions even were wrung\nfrom them by the most ferocious means, but yet, the true Society\nremains to-day as it has ever been, unknown to all, especially to its\ncruelest enemy--the Church.\n\nAs to the modern Knights Templar and those Masonic Lodges which now\nclaim a direct descent from the ancient Templars, their persecution\nby the Church was a farce from the beginning. They have not, nor\nhave they ever had any secrets, dangerous to the Church. Quite the\ncontrary; for we find J. G. Findel saying that the Scottish degrees,\nor the Templar system, only dates from 1735-1740, and \u201c_following its\nCatholic tendency, took up its chief residence in the Jesuit College\nof Clermont, in Paris_, and hence was called the Clermont system.\u201d\nThe present Swedish system has also something of the Templar element\nin it, but free from Jesuits and interference with politics; however,\nit asserts that it has Molay\u2019s Testament in the original, for a\nCount Beaujeu, a nephew of Molay, _never heard of elsewhere_--says\nFindel--transplanted Templarism into Freemasonry, and thus procured\nfor his uncle\u2019s ashes a mysterious sepulchre. It is sufficient to\nprove this a Masonic fable that on this pretended monument the day\nof Molay\u2019s funeral is represented as March 11, 1313, while the day\nof his death was March 19, 1313. This spurious production, which is\nneither genuine Templarism, nor genuine Freemasonry, has never taken\nfirm root in Germany. But the case is otherwise in France.\n\nWriting upon this subject, we must hear what Wilcke has to say of\nthese pretensions:\n\n\u201cThe present Knight Templars of Paris will have it, that they are\ndirect descendants from the ancient Knights, and endeavor to prove\nthis by documents, interior regulations, and secret doctrines.\nForaisse says the Fraternity of Freemasons was founded in Egypt,\nMoses communicating the secret teaching to the Israelites, Jesus to\nthe Apostles, and thence it found its way to the Knight Templars.\nSuch inventions are necessary ... to the assertion that the\nParisian Templars are the offspring of the ancient order. All these\nasseverations, unsupported by history, were fabricated _in the\nHigh Chapter of Clermont_ (Jesuits), and preserved by the Parisian\nTemplars as a legacy left them by those political revolutionists, the\nStuarts and the Jesuits.\u201d Hence we find the Bishops Gregoire[790] and\nM\u00fcnter[791] supporting them.\n\nConnecting the modern with the ancient Templars, we can at best,\ntherefore, allow them an adoption of certain rites and ceremonies\nof purely _ecclesiastical_ character after they had been cunningly\ninoculated into that grand and antique Order by the clergy. Since\nthis desecration, it gradually lost its primitive and simple\ncharacter, and went fast to its final ruin. Founded in 1118 by the\nKnights Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Omer, nominally for the\nprotection of the pilgrims, its true aim was the restoration of the\nprimitive secret worship. The true version of the history of Jesus,\nand the early Christianity was imparted to Hugh de Payens, by the\nGrand-Pontiff of the Order of the Temple (of the Nazarene or Johanite\nsect), one named Theocletes, after which it was learned by some\nKnights in Palestine, from the higher and more intellectual members\nof the St. John sect, who were initiated into its mysteries.[792]\nFreedom of intellectual thought and the restoration of one and\nuniversal religion was their secret object. Sworn to the vow of\nobedience, poverty, and chastity, they were at first the true Knights\nof John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness and living on wild\nhoney and locusts. Such is the tradition and the true kabalistic\nversion.\n\nIt is a mistake to state that the Order became only later\nanti-Catholic. It was so from the beginning, and the red cross on the\nwhite mantle, the vestment of the Order, had the same significance\nas with the initiates in every other country. It pointed to the four\nquarters of the compass, and was the emblem of the universe.[793]\nWhen, later, the Brotherhood was transformed into a Lodge, the\nTemplars had, in order to avoid persecution, to perform their own\nceremonies in the greatest secresy, generally in the hall of the\nchapter, more frequently in isolated caves or country houses built\namidst woods, while the ecclesiastical form of worship was carried on\npublicly in the chapels belonging to the Order.\n\nThough of the accusations brought against them by order of Philip\nIV., many were infamously false, the main charges were certainly\ncorrect, from the stand-point of what is considered by the Church,\n_heresy_. The present-day Templars, adhering strictly as they do to\nthe _Bible_, can hardly claim descent from those who did not believe\nin Christ, as God-man, or as the Saviour of the world; who rejected\nthe miracle of his birth, and those performed by himself; who did not\nbelieve in transubstantiation, the saints, holy relics, purgatory,\netc. The Christ Jesus was, in their opinion, a false prophet, but\nthe man Jesus a Brother. They regarded John the Baptist as their\npatron, but never viewed him in the light in which he is presented in\nthe _Bible_. They reverenced the doctrines of alchemy, astrology,\nmagic, kabalistic talismans, and adhered to the secret teachings of\ntheir chiefs in the East. \u201cIn the last century,\u201d says Findel, \u201cwhen\nFreemasonry erroneously supposed herself the daughter of Templarism,\ngreat pains were taken to regard the Order of Knights-Templars\nas innocent.... For this purpose not only legends and unrecorded\nevents were fabricated, but pains were taken to repress the truth.\nThe Masonic admirers of the Knights-Templars bought up the whole of\nthe documents of the lawsuit published by Moldenwaher, because they\nproved the culpability of the Order.\u201d[794]\n\nThis culpability consisted in their \u201cheresy\u201d against the Roman\nCatholic Church. While the real \u201cBrothers\u201d died an ignominious death,\nthe spurious Order which tried to step into their shoes became\nexclusively a branch of the Jesuits under the immediate tutelage of\nthe latter. True-hearted, honest Masons, ought to reject with horror\nany connection, let alone descent from these.\n\n\u201cThe Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,\u201d writes Commander\nGourdin,[795] \u201csometimes called the Knights Hospitallers, and the\nKnights of Malta, were not Freemasons. On the contrary, they seem\nto have been inimical to Freemasonry, for in 1740, the Grand Master\nof the Order of Malta caused the Bull of Pope Clement XII. to be\npublished in that island, and forbade the meetings of the Freemasons.\nOn this occasion several Knights and many citizens left the island;\nand in 1741, the Inquisition persecuted the Freemasons at Malta. The\nGrand Master proscribed their assemblies under severe penalties, and\nsix Knights were banished from the island in perpetuity for having\nassisted at a meeting. In fact, unlike the Templars, they had not\neven a secret form of reception. Reghellini says that he was unable\nto procure a copy of the secret Ritual of the Knights of Malta. The\nreason is obvious--there was none!\u201d\n\nAnd yet American Templarism comprises three degrees. 1, Knight of\nthe Red Cross; 2, Knight Templar; and 3, Knight of Malta. It was\nintroduced from France into the United States, in 1808, and the first\n_Grand Encampment General_ was organized on June 20, 1816, with\nGovernor De Witt Clinton, of New York, as Grand Master.\n\nThis inheritance of the Jesuits should hardly be boasted of. If the\nKnights Templar desire to make good their claims, they must choose\nbetween a descent from the \u201cheretical,\u201d anti-Christian, kabalistic,\nprimitive Templars, or connect themselves with the Jesuits,\nand nail their tesselated carpets directly on the platform of\nultra-Catholicism! Otherwise, their claims become a mere pretense.\n\nSo impossible does it become for the originators of the _ecclesiastical_\npseudo-order of Templars, invented, according to Dupuy, in France, by\nthe adherents of the Stuarts, to avoid being considered a branch of\nthe Order of the Jesuits, that we are not surprised to see an\nanonymous author, rightly suspected of belonging to the Jesuit Chapter\nat Clermont, publishing a work in 1751, in Brussels, on the lawsuit of\nthe Knights Templar. In this volume, in sundry mutilated notes,\nadditions, and commentaries, he represents the _innocence_ of the\nTemplars of the accusation of \u201cheresy,\u201d thus robbing them of the\ngreatest title to respect and admiration that these early\nfree-thinkers and martyrs have won!\n\nThis last pseudo-order was constituted at Paris, on the 4th of\nNovember, 1804, by virtue of a _forged Constitution_, and ever\nsince it has \u201ccontaminated genuine Freemasonry,\u201d as the highest\nMasons themselves tell us. _La Charte de transmission_ (tabula aurea\nLarmenii) presents the outward appearance of such extreme antiquity\n\u201cthat Gregoire confesses that if all the other relics of the Parisian\ntreasury of the Order had not silenced his doubts as to their ancient\ndescent, the sight of this charter would at the very first glance\nhave persuaded him.\u201d[796] The first Grand Master of this spurious\nOrder was a physician of Paris, Dr. Fahre-Palaprat, who assumed the\nname of Bernard Raymond.\n\nCount Ramsay, a Jesuit, was the first to start the idea of the\nTemplars being joined to the Knights of Malta. Therefore, we read\nfrom his pen the following:\n\n\u201cOur forefathers (!!!), the Crusaders, assembled in the Holy Land\nfrom all Christendom, wished to unite in a fraternity embracing\nall nations, that when bound together, heart and soul, for mutual\nimprovement, they might, in the course of time, represent one single\nintellectual people.\u201d\n\nThis is why the Templars are made to join the St. John\u2019s Knights, and\nthe latter got into the craft of Masonry known as St. John\u2019s Masons.\n\nIn the _Sceau Rompu_, in 1745, we find, therefore, the following most\nimpudent falsehood, worthy of the Sons of Loyola: \u201cThe lodges were\ndedicated to St. John, because _the Knights_-Masons had in the holy\nwars in Palestine joined the Knights of St. John.\u201d\n\nIn 1743, the Kadosh degree was invented at Lyons (so writes Thory,\nat least), and \u201cit represents the _revenge of the Templars_.\u201d And\nhere we find Findel saying that \u201cthe Order of Knights Templars had\nbeen abolished in 1311, and to that epoch they were obliged to have\nrecourse when, after the banishment of several Knights from Malta,\nin 1740, because they were Freemasons, it was no longer possible to\nkeep up a connection with the Order of St. John, or Knights of Malta,\nthen in the plenitude of their power _under the sovereignty of the\nPope_.\u201d\n\nTurning to Clavel, one of the best Masonic authorities, we read:\n\u201cIt is clear that the erection of the French Order of the Knight\nTemplars is not more ancient than the year 1804, and that it cannot\nlay any legitimate claim to being the continuation of the so-called\nsociety of \u2018la petite Resurrection des Templiers,\u2019 nor this latter,\neither, extend back to the ancient Order of the Knights Templars.\u201d\nTherefore, we see these pseudo-Templars, under the guidance of the\nworthy Father Jesuits, forging in Paris, 1806, the famous charter of\nLarmenius. Twenty years later, this nefast and subterranean body,\nguiding the hand of assassins, directed it toward one of the best and\ngreatest princes in Europe, whose mysterious death, unfortunately for\nthe interests of truth and justice, has never been--for political\nreasons--investigated and proclaimed to the world as it ought to\nhave been. It is this prince, a Freemason himself, who was the last\ndepository of the secrets of the true Knights Templar. For long\ncenturies these had remained unknown and unsuspected. Holding their\nmeetings once every _thirteen_ years, at Malta, and their Grand\nMaster advising the European brothers of the place of _rendezvous_\nbut a few hours in advance, these representatives of the once\nmightiest and most glorious body of Knights assembled on the fixed\nday, from various points of the earth. _Thirteen_ in number, in\ncommemoration of the year of the death of Jacques Molay (1313), the\nnow Eastern brothers, among whom were crowned heads, planned together\nthe future religious and political fate of the nations; while the\nPopish Knights, their murderous and bastard successors, slept soundly\nin their beds, without a dream disturbing their guilty consciences.\n\n\u201cAnd yet,\u201d says Rebold, \u201cnotwithstanding the confusion they had\ncreated (1736-72), the Jesuits had accomplished but one of their\ndesigns, viz.: _denaturalyzing and bringing into disrepute the\nMasonic Institution_. Having succeeded, as they believed, in\ndestroying it in one form, they were determined to use it in another.\nWith this determination, they arranged the systems styled \u2018Clerkship\nof the Templars,\u2019 an amalgamation of the different histories, events,\nand characteristics of the crusades mixed with the reveries of the\nalchemists. _In this combination Catholicism governed all, and the\nwhole fabrication moved upon wheels, representing the great object\nfor which the Society of Jesus was organized._\u201d[797]\n\nHence, the rites and symbols of Masonry which though \u201cPagan\u201d in\norigin, are all applied to and all flavor of Christianity. A Mason\nhas to declare his belief in a _personal_ God, Jehovah, and in the\nEncampment degrees also in Christ, before he can be accepted in\nthe Lodge, while the Johanite Templars believed in the unknown and\ninvisible Principle, whence proceeded the Creative Powers misnamed\n_gods_, and held to the Nazarene version of Ben-Panther being the\nsinful father of Jesus, who thus proclaimed himself \u201cthe son of god\nand of humanity.\u201d[798] This also accounts for the fearful oaths of\nthe Masons taken _on the Bible_, and for their lectures servilely\nagreeing with the Patriarcho-Biblical Chronology. In the American\nOrder of Rose Croix, for instance, when the neophyte approaches\nthe altar, the \u201cSir Knights are called to order, and the captain\nof the guard makes his proclamation.\u201d \u201cTo the glory of the sublime\narchitect of the universe (Jehovah-Binah?), under the auspices of the\nSovereign Sanctuary of _Ancient_ and _Primitive_ Freemasonry,\u201d etc.,\netc. Then the Knight Orator strikes 1 and tells the neophyte that\nthe antique legends of Masonry date back FORTY centuries; claiming\nno greater antiquity for the oldest of them than 622 A.M., at which\ntime he says Noah was born. Under the circumstances this will be\nregarded as a liberal concession to chronological preferences. After\nthat Masons[799] are apprised that it was about the year 2188 B.C.,\nthat Mizraim led colonies into Egypt, and laid the foundation of the\nKingdom of Egypt, which kingdom lasted 1,663 years (!!!). Strange\nchronology, which, if it piously conforms with that of the _Bible_,\ndisagrees entirely with that of history. The mythical nine names of\nthe Deity, imported into Egypt, according to the Masons, only in the\ntwenty-second century B.C., are found on monuments reckoned twice as\nold by the best Egyptologists. Nevertheless we must take at the same\ntime into consideration, that the Masons are themselves ignorant of\nthese names.\n\nThe simple truth is that modern Masonry is a sadly different thing\nfrom what the once universal secret fraternity was in the days when\nthe Brahma-worshippers of the AUM, exchanged grips and passwords with\nthe devotees of TUM, and the adepts of every country under the sun\nwere \u201cBrothers.\u201d\n\nWhat was then that mysterious name, that mighty \u201cword\u201d through whose\npotency the Hindu as well as the Chaldean and Egyptian initiate\nperformed his wonders? In chapter cxv. of the Egyptian _Funeral\nRitual_, entitled \u201cThe chapter of coming out to the Heaven ... and\nof knowing the Spirits of An\u201d (Heliopolis), Horus says: \u201cI knew the\nSpirits of An. The greatly glorious does not pass over it ... unless\nthe gods give me the WORD.\u201d In another hymn the soul, transformed,\nexclaims: \u201cMake road for me to Rusta. I am the Great One, dressed\nas the Great One. I have come! I have come! Delicious to me are the\nkings of Osiris. I am creating the water (through the power of the\n_Word_).... Have I not seen the hidden secrets ... I have given truth\nto the Sun. I am clear. I am adored for my purity\u201d (cxvii.-cxix. The\nchapters of the going into and coming out from the Rusta). In another\nplace the mummy\u2019s roll expresses the following: \u201cI am the Great God\n(spirit) existing of myself, the creator of _His Name_.... I know the\nname of this Great God that is there.\u201d\n\nJesus is accused by his enemies of having wrought miracles, and shown\nby his own apostles to have expelled _demons_ by the power of the\nINEFFABLE NAME. The former firmly believed that he had stolen it\nin the Sanctuary. \u201cAnd he cast the spirits with his _word_ ... and\nhealed all that were sick\u201d (_Matthew_ xviii. 16). When the Jewish\nrulers ask Peter (_Acts_ iv. 7): \u201cBy what power, or by what _name_,\nhave ye done this?\u201d Peter replies, \u201cBy the NAME of Jesus Christ of\nNazareth.\u201d But does this mean the name of Christ, as the interpreters\nwould make us believe; or does it signify, \u201cby the NAME which was\nin the possession of Jesus of Nazareth,\u201d the initiate, who was\naccused by the Jews to have learned it but who had it really through\ninitiation? Besides, he states repeatedly that all that he does he\ndoes in \u201c_His Father\u2019s Name_,\u201d not in his own.\n\nBut who of the modern Masons has ever heard it pronounced? In their\nown _Ritual_, they confess that they never have. The \u201cSir Orator\u201d\ntells the \u201cSir Knight,\u201d that the passwords which he received in\nthe preceding degrees are all \u201cso many corruptions\u201d of the true\nname of God engraved on the triangle; and that therefore they have\nadopted a \u201csubstitute\u201d for it. Such also is the case in the Blue\nLodge, where the Master, representing King Solomon, agrees with King\nHiram that the Word * * * \u201cshall be used as a _substitute_ for the\nMaster\u2019s word, until wiser ages shall discover the true one. What\nSenior Deacon, of all the thousands who have assisted in bringing\ncandidates from darkness to light; or what Master who has whispered\nthis mystic \u201cword\u201d into the ears of supposititious Hiram Abiffs,\nwhile holding them on the five points of fellowship, has suspected\nthe real meaning of even this substitute, which they impart \u201cat low\nbreath?\u201d How few new-made Master Masons but go away imagining that\nit has some occult connection with the \u201cmarrow in the bone.\u201d What\ndo they know of that mystical personage known to some adepts as the\n\u201cvenerable MAH,\u201d or of the mysterious Eastern Brothers who obey him,\nwhose name is abbreviated in the first syllable of the three which\ncompose the Masonic substitute--The MAH, who lives at this very day\nin a spot unknown to all but initiates, and the approaches to which\nare through trackless wildernesses, untrodden by Jesuit or missionary\nfoot, for it is beset by dangers fit to appall the most courageous\nexplorers? And yet, for generations this meaningless jingle of vowels\nand consonants has been repeated in noviciate ears, as though it\npossessed even so much potency as would deflect from its course a\nthistle-down floating in the air! Like Christianity, Freemasonry is a\ncorpse from which the spirit long ago fled.\n\nIn this connection, place may well be given to a letter from Mr.\nCharles Sotheran, Corresponding Secretary of the New York Liberal\nClub, which was received by us on the day after the date it bears.\nMr. Sotheran is known as a writer and lecturer on antiquarian,\nmystical, and other subjects. In Masonry, he has taken so many of the\ndegrees as to be a competent authority as regards the Craft. He is 32\n\u2234 A. and P. R., 94 \u2234 Memphis, K. R\u2720, K. Kadosh, M. M. 104, Eng., etc.\nHe is also an initiate of the modern English Brotherhood of the Rosie\nCross and other secret societies, and Masonic editor of the _New York\nAdvocate_. Following is the letter, which we place before the Masons\nas we desire that they should see what one of their own number has to\nsay:\n\n\n \u201cNEW YORK PRESS CLUB, January 11th, 1877.\n\n \u201cIn response to your letter, I willingly furnish the\n information desired with respect to the antiquity and\n present condition of Freemasonry. This I do the more\n cheerfully since we belong to the same secret societies,\n and you can thus better appreciate the necessity for the\n reserve which at times I shall be obliged to exhibit. You\n rightly refer to the fact that Freemasonry, no less than\n the effete theologies of the day, has its fabulous history\n to narrate. Clogged up as the Order has been by the rubbish\n and drift of absurd biblical legends, it is no wonder\n that its usefulness has been impaired and its work as a\n civilizer hampered. Fortunately the great anti-Masonic\n excitement that raged in the United States during a portion\n of this century, forced a considerable band of workers to\n delve into the true origin of the Craft, and bring about\n a healthier state of things. The agitation in America\n also spread to Europe and the literary efforts of Masonic\n authors on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Rebold,\n Findel, Hyneman, Mitchell, Mackenzie, Hughan, Yarker and\n others well-known to the fraternity, is now a matter of\n history. One effect of their labors has been, in a great\n measure, to bring the history of Masonry into an open\n daylight, where even its teachings, jurisprudence, and\n ritual are no longer secret from those of the \u2018profane,\u2019\n who have the wit to read as they run.\n\n \u201cYou are correct in saying that the _Bible_ is the \u2018great\n light\u2019 of European and American Masonry. In consequence\n of this the theistic conception of God and the biblical\n cosmogony have been ever considered two of its great\n corner-stones. Its chronology seems also to have been based\n upon the same pseudo-revelation. Thus Dr. Dalcho, in one of\n his treatises asserts that the principles of the Masonic\n Order were presented at and co\u00ebval with the creation. It\n is therefore not astonishing that such a pundit should\n go on to state that God was the first Grand Master, Adam\n the second, and the last named initiated Eve into the\n Great Mystery, as I suppose many a Priestess of Cybel\u00e8\n and \u2018Lady\u2019 Kadosh were afterward. The Rev. Dr. Oliver,\n another Masonic authority, gravely records what may be\n termed the minutes of a Lodge where Moses presided as Grand\n Master, Joshua as Deputy Grand Master, and Aholiab and\n Bezaleel as Grand Wardens! The temple at Jerusalem, which\n recent arch\u00e6ologists have shown to be a structure with\n nothing like the pretended antiquity of its erection, and\n incorrectly called after a monarch whose name proves his\n mystical character, Sol-Om-On (the name of the sun in three\n languages), plays, as you correctly observe, a considerable\n share in Masonic mystery. Such fables as these, and the\n traditional Masonic colonization of ancient Egypt, have\n given the Craft the credit of an illustrious origin to\n which it has no right, and before whose forty centuries\n of legendary history, the mythologies of Greece and Rome\n fade into insignificance. The Egyptian, Chaldean, and other\n theories necessary to each fabricator of \u2018high degrees\u2019\n have also each had their short period of prominence. The\n last \u2018axe to grind\u2019 has consecutively been the fruitful\n mother of unproductiveness.\n\n \u201cWe both agree that all the ancient priesthoods had their\n esoteric doctrines and secret ceremonies. From the Essenic\n brotherhood, an evolution of the Hindu Gymnosophists,\n doubtless proceeded the Solidarities of Greece and Rome as\n described by so-called \u2018Pagan\u2019 writers. Founded on these\n and copying them in the matter of ritual, signs, grips,\n passwords, etc., were developed the medi\u00e6val guilds.\n Like the present livery companies of London, the relics\n of the English trade-guilds, the operative Masons were\n but a guild of workmen with higher pretensions. From the\n French name \u2018Ma\u00e7on,\u2019 derived from \u2018Mas,\u2019 an old Norman\n noun meaning \u2018a house,\u2019 comes our English \u2018Mason,\u2019 a house\n builder. As the London companies alluded to present now\n and again the Freedom of the \u2018_Liveries_\u2019 to outsiders, so\n we find the trade-guilds of Masons doing the same. Thus\n the founder of the Ashmolean Museum was made free of the\n Masons at Warrington, in Lancashire, England, on the 16th\n October, 1646. The entrance of such men as Elias Ashmole\n into the Operative Fraternity paved the way for the great\n \u2018Masonic Revolution of 1717,\u2019 when SPECULATIVE Masonry\n came into existence. The Constitutions of 1723 and 1738,\n by the Masonic impostor Anderson, were written up for the\n newly-fledged and first Grand Lodge of \u2018Free and Accepted\n Masons\u2019 of England, from which body all others over the\n world hail to-day.\n\n \u201cThese bogus constitutions, written by Anderson, were\n compiled about then, and in order to palm off his miserable\n rubbish yclept history, on the Craft, he had the audacity\n to state that nearly all the documents relating to Masonry\n in England had been destroyed by the 1717 reformers.\n Happily, in the British Museum, Bodleian Library, and\n other public institutions, Rebold, Hughan and others\n have discovered sufficient evidence in the shape of old\n Operative Masonic charges to disprove this statement.\n\n \u201cThe same writers, I think, have conclusively upset the\n tenability of two other documents palmed upon Masonry,\n namely, the spurious charter of Cologne of 1535, and\n the forged questions, supposed to have been written by\n Leylande, the antiquary, from a MS. of King Henry VI. of\n England. In the last named, Pythagoras is referred to as\n having--\u2018formed a great lodge, at Crotona, and made many\n Masons, some of whom travelled into France, and there made\n many, from whence, in process of time, the art passed\n into England.\u2019 Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St.\n Paul\u2019s Cathedral, London, often called the \u2018Grand Master\n of Freemasons,\u2019 was simply the Master or President of the\n London Operative Masons Company. If such a tissue of fable\n could interweave itself into the history of the Grand\n Lodges which now have charge of the first three symbolical\n degrees, it is hardly astonishing that the same fate\n should befall nearly all of the High Masonic Degrees which\n have been aptly termed \u2018an incoherent medley of opposite\n principles.\u2019\n\n \u201cIt is curious to note too that most of the bodies which\n work these, such as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,\n the Rite of Avignon, the Order of the Temple, Fessler\u2019s\n Rite, the \u2018Grand Council of the Emperors of the East and\n West--Sovereign Prince Masons,\u2019 etc., etc., are nearly all\n the offspring of the sons of Ignatius Loyola. The Baron\n Hundt, Chevalier Ramsay, Tschoudy, Zinnendorf, and numerous\n others who founded the grades in these rites, worked under\n instructions from the General of the Jesuits. The nest\n where these high degrees were hatched, and no Masonic rite\n is free from their baleful influence more or less, was the\n Jesuit College of Clermont at Paris.\n\n \u201cThat bastard foundling of Freemasonry, the \u2018Ancient and\n Accepted Scottish Rite,\u2019 which is unrecognized by the Blue\n Lodges was the enunciation, primarily, of the brain of the\n Jesuit Chevalier Ramsay. It was brought by him to England\n in 1736-38, to aid the cause of the Catholic Stuarts.\n The rite in its present form of thirty-three degrees\n was reorganized at the end of the eighteenth century by\n some half dozen Masonic adventurers at Charleston, South\n Carolina. Two of these, Pirlet a tailor, and a dancing\n master named Lacorne, were fitting predecessors for a\n later resuscitation by a gentleman of the name of Gourgas,\n employed in the aristocratic occupation of a ship\u2019s\n clerk, on a boat trading between New York and Liverpool.\n Dr. Crucefix, _alias_ Goss, the _inventor_ of certain\n patent medicines of an objectionable character, ran the\n institution in England. The powers under which these\n worthies acted was a document claimed to have been signed\n by Frederick the Great at Berlin, on May 1st, 1786, and by\n which were revised the Masonic Constitution and Status of\n the High Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Rite. This\n paper was an impudent forgery and necessitated the issuing\n of a protocol by the Grand Lodges of the Three Globes of\n Berlin, which conclusively proved the whole arrangement to\n be false in every particular. On claims supported by this\n supposititious document, the Ancient and Accepted Rite\n have swindled their confiding brothers in the Americas\n and Europe out of thousands of dollars, to the shame and\n discredit of humanity.\n\n \u201cThe modern Templars, whom you refer to in your letter,\n are but mere magpies in peacock\u2019s plumes. The aim of\n the Masonic Templars is the sectarianization, or rather\n the Christianizing of Masonry, a fraternity which is\n supposed to admit the Jew, Parsee, Mahometan, Buddhist,\n in fact every religionist within its portals who accepts\n the doctrine of a personal god, and spirit-immortality.\n According to the belief of a section, if not all the\n Israelites, belonging to the Craft in America--Templarism\n is Jesuitism.\n\n \u201cIt seems strange, now that the belief in a personal God\n is becoming extinct, and that even the theologian has\n transformed his deity into an indescribable nondescript,\n that there are those who stand in the way of the general\n acceptation of the sublime pantheism of the primeval\n Orientals, of Jacob Boehme, of Spinoza. Often in the\n Grand Lodge and subordinate lodges of this and other\n jurisdictions, the old doxology is sung, with its \u2018Praise\n Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,\u2019 to the disgust of Israelites\n and free-thinking brethren, who are thus unnecessarily\n insulted. This could never occur in India, where the great\n light in a lodge may be the _Koran_, the _Zend-Avesta_,\n or one of the _Vedas_. The sectarian Christian spirit\n in Masonry must be put down. To-day there are German\n Grand Lodges which will not allow Jews to be initiated,\n or Israelites from foreign countries to be accepted as\n brethren within their jurisdiction. The French Masons\n have, however, revolted against this tyranny, and the\n Grand Orient of France does now permit the atheist and\n materialist to fellowship in the Craft. A standing rebuke\n upon the claimed universality of Masonry is the fact that\n the French brethren are now repudiated.\n\n \u201cNotwithstanding its many faults--and speculative\n Masonry is but human, and therefore fallible--there is\n no institution that has done so much, and is yet capable\n of such great undertakings in the future, for human,\n religious, and political improvement. In the last century\n the Illuminati taught, \u2018peace with the cottage, war with\n the palace,\u2019 throughout the length and breadth of Europe.\n In the last century the United States was freed from the\n tyranny of the mother country by the action of the Secret\n Societies more than is commonly imagined. Washington,\n Lafayette, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, were Masons. And\n in the nineteenth century it was Grand Master Garibaldi,\n 33, who unified Italy, working in accordance with the\n spirit of the faithful brotherhood, as the Masonic, or\n rather carbonari, principles of \u2018liberty, equality,\n humanity, independence, unity,\u2019 taught for years by brother\n Joseph Mazzini.\n\n \u201cSpeculative Masonry has much, too, within its ranks to\n do. One is to accept woman as a co-worker of man in the\n struggle of life, as the Hungarian Masons have done lately\n by initiating the Countess Haideck. Another important\n thing is also to recognize practically the brotherhood of\n all humanity by refusing none on account of color, race,\n position, or creed. The dark-skinned should not be only\n theoretically the brother of the light. The colored Masons\n who have been duly and regularly raised stand at every\n lodge-door in America craving admission, and they are\n refused. And there is South America to be conquered to a\n participation in the duties of humanity.\n\n \u201cIf Masonry be, as claimed, a progressive science and a\n school of pure religion, it should ever be found in the\n advance guard of civilization, not in the rear. If it\n be but an empirical effort, a crude attempt of humanity\n to solve some of the deepest problems of the race, and\n no more, then it must give place to fitter successors,\n perchance one of those that you and I know of, one that may\n have acted the prompter at the side of the chiefs of the\n Order, during its greatest triumphs, whispering to them as\n the d\u00e6mon did in the ear of Socrates.\n\n \u201cYours most Sincerely,\n \u201cCHARLES SOTHERAN.\u201d\n\nThus falls to ruins the grand epic poem of Masons, sung by so many\nmysterious Knights as another revealed gospel. As we see, the\nTemple of Solomon is being undermined and brought to the ground by\nits own chief \u201cMaster Masons,\u201d of this century. But if, following\nthe ingenious exoteric description of the _Bible_, there are yet\nMasons who persist in regarding it as once an actual structure,\nwho, of the students of the esoteric doctrine will ever consider\nthis mythic temple otherwise than an allegory, embodying the secret\nscience? Whether or not there ever was a real temple of that name,\nwe may well leave to arch\u00e6ologists to decide; but that the detailed\ndescription thereof in _1 Kings_ is purely allegorical, no serious\nscholar, proficient in the ancient as well as medi\u00e6val jargon of the\nkabalists and alchemists, can doubt. The building of the Temple of\nSolomon is the symbolical representation of the gradual acquirement\nof the _secret_ wisdom, or magic; the erection and development of\nthe spiritual from the earthly; the manifestation of the power and\nsplendor of the spirit in the physical world, through the wisdom and\ngenius of the builder. The latter, when he has become an adept, is a\nmightier king than Solomon himself, the emblem of the sun or _Light_\nhimself--the light of the real subjective world, shining in the\ndarkness of the objective universe. This is the \u201cTemple\u201d which can be\nreared _without the sound of the hammer, or any tool of iron being\nheard in the house while it is \u201cin building.\u201d_\n\nIn the East, this science is called, in some places, the\n\u201cseven-storied,\u201d in others, the \u201cnine-storied\u201d Temple; every story\nanswers allegorically to a degree of knowledge acquired. Throughout\nthe countries of the Orient, wherever magic and the wisdom-religion\nare studied, its practitioners and students are known among their\ncraft as Builders--for they build the temple of knowledge, of secret\nscience. Those of the adepts who are active, are styled practical or\n_operative_ Builders, while the students, or neophytes are classed\nas _speculative_ or theoretical. The former exemplify in works their\ncontrol over the forces of inanimate as well as animate nature; the\nlatter are but perfecting themselves in the rudiments of the sacred\nscience. These terms were evidently borrowed at the beginning by the\nunknown founders of the first Masonic guilds.\n\nIn the now popular jargon, \u201cOperative Masons\u201d are understood to be\nthe bricklayers and the handicraftsmen, who composed the Craft down\nto Sir Christopher Wren\u2019s time; and \u201cSpeculative Masons,\u201d all members\nof the Order, as now understood. The sentence attributed to Jesus,\n\u201cThou art Peter ... upon this rock I will build my church; and the\ngates of hell shall not prevail against it,\u201d disfigured, as it is,\nby mistranslation and misinterpretation, plainly indicates its real\nmeaning. We have shown the signification of _Pater_ and _Petra_, with\nthe hierophants--the interpretation traced on the tables of stone\nof the final initiation, was handed by the initiator to the chosen\nfuture interpreter. Having acquainted himself with its mysterious\ncontents, which revealed to him the mysteries of creation, the\ninitiated became a _builder_ himself, for he was made acquainted\nwith the _dodecahedron_, or the geometrical figure on which the\nuniverse was built. To what he had learned in previous initiations\nof the use of the rule and of architectural principles, was added a\ncross, the perpendicular and horizontal lines of which were supposed\nto form the foundation of the spiritual temple, by placing them\nacross the junction, or central primordial point, the element of\nall existences,[800] representing the first concrete idea of deity.\nHenceforth he could, as a Master builder (see _1 Corinthians_, iii.\n10), erect a temple of wisdom on that rock of _Petra_, for himself;\nand having laid a sure foundation, let \u201canother build thereon.\u201d\n\nThe Egyptian hierophant was given a square head-dress, which he\nhad to wear always, and a square (see Mason\u2019s marks), without\nwhich he could never go abroad. The perfect _Tau_ formed of the\nperpendicular (descending male ray, or spirit) a horizontal line\n(or matter, female ray), and the mundane circle was an attribute of\nIsis, and, it is but at his death that the Egyptian cross was laid\non the breast of his mummy. These square hats are worn unto this\nday by the Armenian priests. The claim that the cross is purely a\nChristian symbol introduced after our era, is strange indeed, when\nwe find Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the men of Judah, who\nfeared the Lord (_Ezekiel_ ix. 4), with the _signa Thau_, as it is\ntranslated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this sign was formed\nthus [Illustration] but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as a\nperfect Christian cross [Illustration]. In the _Revelation_, also,\nthe \u201cAlpha and Omega\u201d (spirit and matter), the first and the last,\nstamps the name of his Father in the foreheads of the _elect_.\n\nAnd if our statements are wrong, if Jesus was not an initiate, a\nMaster-builder, or Master-Mason as it is now called, how comes it,\nthat on the most ancient cathedrals we find his figure with Mason\u2019s\nmarks about his person? In the Cathedral of Santa Croce, Florence,\nover the main portal can be seen the figure of Christ holding a\nperfect square in his hand.\n\nThe surviving \u201cMaster-builders\u201d of the _operative_ craft of the true\nTemple, may go literally _half-naked_ and wander _slipshod_ for\never--now not for the sake of a puerile ceremony, but because, like\nthe \u201cSon of man,\u201d they have not where to lay their heads--and yet be\nthe only surviving possessors of the \u201cWord.\u201d Their \u201ccable-tow\u201d is\nthe sacred triple cord of certain Brahman-Sanny\u00e2si, or the string on\nwhich certain lamas hang their _yu-stone_; but with these apparently\nvalueless talismans, not one of them would part for all the wealth of\nSolomon and Sheba. The seven-knotted bamboo stick of the fakir can\nbecome as powerful as the rod of Moses \u201cwhich was created between\nthe evenings, and on which was engraven and set forth the great and\nglorious NAME, with which he was to do the wonders in Mizraim.\u201d\n\nBut these \u201coperative workmen\u201d have no fear that their secrets will\nbe disclosed by treacherous ex-high priests of chapters, though\ntheir generation may have received them through others than \u201cMoses,\nSolomon, and Zerubbabel.\u201d Had Moses Michael Hayes, the Israelite\nBrother who introduced Royal Arch Masonry into this country (in\nDecember. 1778),[801] had a prophetic presentiment of future\ntreasons, he might have instituted more efficacious obligations than\nhe has.\n\nTruly, the grand omnific Royal Arch word, \u201c_long lost but now\nfound_,\u201d has fulfilled its prophetic promise. The password of that\ndegree is no more \u201cI AM THAT I AM.\u201d It is now simply \u201cI was but am no\nmore!\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThat we may not be accused of vain boasting, we shall give the\nkeys to several of the secret ciphers of the most exclusive and\nimportant of the so-called higher Masonic degrees. If we mistake\nnot, these have never before been revealed to the outside world\n(except that of the Royal Arch Masons, in 1830), but have been most\njealously guarded within the various Orders. We are under neither\npromise, obligation, nor oath, and therefore violate no confidence.\nOur purpose is not to gratify an idle curiosity; we wish merely to\nshow Masons and the affiliates of all other Western societies--the\nCompany of Jesus included--that it is impossible for them to be\nsecure in the possession of any secrets that it is worth an Eastern\nBrotherhood\u2019s while to discover. Inferentially, it may also show them\nthat if the latter can lift the masks of European societies, they are\nnevertheless successful in wearing their own visors; for, if any one\nthing is universally acknowledged, it is that the real secrets of\nnot a single surviving ancient brotherhood are in possession of the\nprofane.\n\nSome of these ciphers were used by the Jesuits in their secret\ncorrespondence at the time of the Jacobin conspiracy, and when\nMasonry (the alleged successor to the Temple) was employed by the\nChurch for political purposes.\n\nFindel says (see his _History of Freemasonry_, p. 253) that in the\neighteenth century, \u201cbesides the modern Knights Templar, we see the\nJesuits ... disfiguring the fair face of Freemasonry. Many Masonic\nauthors, who were fully cognizant of the period, and knew exactly\nall the incidents occurring, positively assert that then and still\nlater the Jesuits exercised a pernicious influence, or at least\nendeavored to do so, upon the fraternity.\u201d Of the Rosicrucian Order\nhe remarks, upon the authority of Prof. Woog, that its \u201caim at first\n... was nothing less than the support and advancement of Catholicism.\n_When this religion manifested a determination entirely to repress\nliberty of thought_ ... the Rosicrucians enlarged their designs\nlikewise to check, if possible, the progress of this widely-spreading\nenlightenment.\u201d\n\nIn the _Sincerus Renatus_ (the truly converted) of S. Richter, of\nBerlin (1714), we note that laws were communicated for the government\nof the \u201cGolden Rosicrucians,\u201d which \u201cbear unmistakable evidences of\nJesuitical intervention.\u201d\n\nWe will begin with the cryptographs of the \u201cSovereign Princes Rose\nCroix,\u201d also styled _Knights of St. Andrew, Knights of the Eagle and\nPelican, Heredom, Ros\u00e6 Crucis, Rosy Cross, Triple Cross, Perfect\nBrother, Prince Mason, and so on_. The \u201cHeredom Rosy Cross\u201d also\nclaims a Templar origin, in 1314.[802]\n\n CIPHER OF THE\n S \u2234 P \u2234 R \u2234 C \u2234\n [Illustration]\n a b c d e f g h ij k l m n\n [Illustration]\n o p q r s t uv x y z &.\n\n\n CIPHER OF THE KNIGHT ROSE CROIX OF HEREDOM\n (of Kilwining).\n\n _0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17_\n a b c d e f g h i j ba (or) k kb kc kd ke kf kg kh\n\n _600 700 800 900 1000_\n gl hl il jl m\n\n\n CIPHER OF THE KNIGHTS KADOSH.\n (Also White and Black Eagle and Grand Elected Knight Templar.)\n\n _70 2 3 12 15 20 30 33 38 9 10 40_\n a b c d e f g h i k l m\n\n _60 80 81 82 83 48 85 86 90 91 94 95_\n n o p q r s t u v x y z\n\n\nThe Knights Kadosh have another cipher--or rather hieroglyph--which,\nin this case, is taken from the Hebrew, possibly to be the more in\nkeeping with the _Bible_ Kadeshim of the Temple.[803]\n\n[Illustration: HIEROGLYPH OF THE K \u2234 KAD \u2234]\n\nAs for the Royal Arch cipher, it has been exposed before now, but we\nmay well present it slightly amplified.\n\nThe cipher consists of certain combinations of right angles, with or\nwithout points or dots. Following is the basis of its\n\n[Illustration: _Formation._]\n\nNow, the alphabet consists of twenty-six letters, and these two signs\nbeing dissected, form thirteen distinct characters, thus:\n\n [Illustration:\n _1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13_]\n\nA point placed within each gives thirteen more, thus:\n\n [Illustration:\n _1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13_]\n\nMaking a total of twenty-six, equal to the number of letters in the\nEnglish alphabet.\n\nThere are two ways, at least, of combining and using these characters\nfor the purposes of secret correspondence. One method is to call the\nfirst sign, [In-line illustration] a; the same, with a point, \u27d3 b,\netc. Another is to apply them, in their regular course, to the first\nhalf of the alphabet, [In-line illustration] a, \u2293 b, and so on, to m;\nafter which, repeat them with a dot, beginning with \u27d3 n, [In-line\nillustration] o, etc., to \u22d6 z.\n\nThe alphabet, according to the first method, stands thus:\n\n [Illustration:]\n a b c d e f g h i j k l m\n\n [Illustration:]\n n o p q r s t u v w x y z\n\nAccording to the second method, thus:\n\n [Illustration:]\n a b c d e f g h i j k l m\n\n [Illustration:]\n n o p q r s t u v w x y z\n\nBesides these signs, the French Masons, evidently under the tuition\nof their accomplished masters--the Jesuits, have perfected this\ncipher in all its details. So they have signs even for commas,\ndiphthongs, accents, dots, etc., and these are\n\n [Illustration:]\n &c \u00e6 \u0153 w \u00e7 \u00b4 ` ^ - . , ; : \u2234 ?\n\nLet this suffice. We might, if we chose, give the cipher alphabets\nwith their keys, of another method of the Royal Arch Masons, strongly\nresembling a certain Hindu character; of the G \u2234 El \u2234 of the Mystic\nCity; of a well-known form of the Devanagari script of the (French)\nSages of the Pyramids; and of the Sublime Master of the Great Work,\nand others. But we refrain; only, be it understood, for the reason\nthat some of these alone of all the side branches of the original\nBlue Lodge Freemasonry, contain the promise of a useful future. As\nfor the rest, they may and will go to the ash-heap of time. High\nMasons will understand what we mean.\n\nWe must now give some proofs of what we have stated, and demonstrate\nthat the word Jehovah, if Masonry adheres to it, will ever remain as\na substitute, never be identical with the lost mirific name. This\nis so well known to the kabalists, that in their careful etymology\nof the \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 they show it beyond doubt to be only one of the many\nsubstitutes for the real name, and composed of the two-fold name of\nthe first androgyne--Adam and Eve, Jod (or Yodh), Vau and He-Va--the\nfemale serpent as a symbol of Divine Intelligence proceeding from the\nONE-Generative or _Creative_ Spirit.[804] Thus, Jehovah is not the\nsacred name at all. Had Moses given to Pharaoh the _true_ \u201cname,\u201d the\nlatter would not have answered as he did, for the Egyptian\nKing-Initiates knew it as well as Moses, who had learned it with them.\n_The_ \u201cname\u201d was at that time the common property of the adepts of all\nthe nations in the world, and Pharaoh knew certainly the \u201cname\u201d of the\nHighest God mentioned in the _Book of the Dead_. But instead of that,\nMoses (if we accept the allegory of _Exodus_ literally), gives Pharaoh\nthe name of _Yeva_, the expression or form of the Divine name used by\nall the _Targums_ as passed by Moses. Hence Pharaoh\u2019s reply: \u201cAnd who\nis that _Yeva_[805] that I should obey his voice?\u201d\n\n\u201cJehovah\u201d dates only from the Masoretic innovation. When the Rabbis,\nfor fear that they should lose the keys to their own doctrines, then\nwritten exclusively in consonants, began to insert their vowel-points\nin their manuscripts, they were utterly ignorant of the true\npronunciation of the NAME. Hence, they gave it the sound of _Adonah_,\nand made it read _Ja-ho-vah_. Thus the latter is simply a fancy, a\nperversion of the Holy Name. And how could they know it? Alone, out\nof all their nation the high priests had it in their possession, and\nrespectively passed it to their successors, as the Hindu Brahma\u00e2tma\ndoes before his death. Once a year only, on the day of atonement,\nthe high priest was allowed to pronounce it in a whisper. Passing\nbehind the veil into the inner chamber of the sanctuary, the Holy\nof Holies, with trembling lips and downcast eyes he called upon the\ndreaded NAME. The bitter persecution of the kabalists, who received\nthe precious syllables after deserving the favor by a whole life of\nsanctity, was due to a suspicion that they misused it. At the opening\nof this chapter we have told the story of Simeon Ben-Iocha\u00ef, one\nof the victims to this priceless knowledge, and see how little he\ndeserved his cruel treatment.\n\nThe _Book of Jasher_, a work--as we are told by a very learned Hebrew\ndivine, of New York--composed in Spain in the twelfth century as\n\u201ca popular tale,\u201d and that had not \u201cthe sanction of the Rabbinical\nCollege of Venice,\u201d is full of kabalistical, alchemical, and magical\nallegories. Admitting so much, it must still be said that there are\nfew popular tales but are based on historical truths. The _Norsemen\nin Iceland_, by Dr. G. W. Dasent, is also a collection of popular\ntales, but they contain the key to the primitive religious worship\nof that people. So with the _Book of Jasher_. It contains the whole\nof the _Old Testament_ in a condensed form, and as the Samaritans\nheld, _i.e._, the five _Books of Moses_, without the Prophets.\nAlthough rejected by the orthodox Rabbis, we cannot help thinking\nthat, as in the case of the apocryphal _Gospels_, which were written\nearlier than the canonical ones, the _Book of Jasher_ is the true\noriginal from which the subsequent _Bible_ was in part composed. Both\nthe apocryphal _Gospels_ and _Jasher_, are a series of religious\ntales, in which miracle is heaped upon miracle, and which narrate\nthe popular legends as they first originated, without any regard\nto either chronology or dogma. Still both are corner-stones of the\nMosaic and Christian religions. That there was a _Book of Jasher_\nprior to the Mosaic _Pentateuch_ is clear, for it is mentioned in\n_Joshua_, _Isaiah_, and _2 Samuel_.\n\nNowhere is the difference between the Elohists and Jehovists so\nclearly shown as in _Jasher_. Jehovah is here spoken of as the\nOphites held him to be, a Son of Ilda-Baoth, or Saturn. In this\nBook, the Egyptian Magi, when asked by Pharaoh \u201cWho is he, of whom\nMoses speaks as the _I am_?\u201d reply that the God of Moses \u201cwe have\nlearned, is the Son of the Wise, the Son of ancient kings\u201d (ch.\nlxxix. 45).[806] Now, those who assert that _Jasher_ is a forgery of\nthe twelfth century--and we readily believe it--should nevertheless\nexplain the curious fact that, while the above text is _not_ to be\nfound in the _Bible_, the answer to it _is_, and is, moreover,\ncouched in unequivocal terms. At _Isaiah_ xix. 11, the \u201cLord God\u201d\ncomplains of it very wrathfully to the prophet, and says: \u201cSurely\nthe princes of Zoan _are fools_, the counsel of the wise counsellors\nof Pharaoh is become brutish; how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the\nSon of the Wise, the Son of ancient kings?\u201d which is evidently a\nreply to the above. At _Joshua_ x. 13, _Jasher_ is referred to in\ncorroboration of the outrageous assertion that the sun stood still,\nand the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves. \u201cIs\nnot this written in the _Book of Jasher_?\u201d says the text. And at 2\n_Samuel_, i. 19, the same book is again quoted. \u201cBehold,\u201d it says,\n\u201cit is written in the _Book of Jasher_.\u201d Clearly, _Jasher_ must have\nexisted; it must have been regarded as authority; must have been\nolder than Joshua; and, since the verse in _Isaiah_ unerringly points\nto the passage above quoted, we have at least as much reason to\naccept the current edition of _Jasher_ as a transcription, excerpt,\nor compilation of the original work, as we have to revere the\nSeptuagint _Pentateuch_, as the primitive Hebraic sacred records.\n\nAt all events, Jehovah is not the ancient of the ancient, or \u201caged\nof the aged,\u201d of the _Sohar_; for we find him, in this book,\ncounselling with God the Father as to the creation of the world. \u201cThe\nwork-master spoke to the Lord. Let us make man after our image\u201d\n(_Sohar_ i., fol. 25). Jehovah is but the Metatron, and perhaps, not\neven the highest, but only one of the \u00c6ons; for he whom Onkelos calls\n_Memro_, the \u201cWord,\u201d is not the _exoteric_ Jehovah of the _Bible_,\nnor is he Jahve \u05d9\u05b7\u05d4\u05b0\u05d5\u05b6\u05d4 the Existing One.\n\nIt was the secresy of the early kabalists, who were anxious to\nscreen the real Mystery name of the \u201cEternal\u201d from profanation, and\nlater the prudence which the medi\u00e6val alchemists and occultists were\ncompelled to adopt to save their lives, that caused the inextricable\nconfusion of divine names. This is what led the people to accept\nthe Jehovah of the _Bible_ as the name of the \u201cOne living God.\u201d\nEvery Jewish elder, prophet, and other man of any importance knew\nthe difference; but as the difference lay in the vocalization of\nthe \u201cname,\u201d and its right pronunciation led to death, the common\npeople were ignorant of it, for no initiate would risk his life by\nteaching it to them. Thus the Sinaitic deity came gradually to be\nregarded as identical with \u201cHim whose name is known but to the wise.\u201d\nWhen Capellus translates: \u201cWhosoever shall pronounce the name of\nJehovah, shall suffer death,\u201d he makes two mistakes. The first is in\nadding the final letter _h_ to the name, if he wants this deity to\nbe considered either male or androgynous, for the letter makes the\nname feminine, as it really should be, considering it is one of the\nnames of Binah, the third emanation; his second error is in asserting\nthat the word _nokeb_ means only to pronounce _distinctly_. It means\nto pronounce _correctly_. Therefore, the biblical name Jehovah may\nbe considered simply a _substitute_, which, as belonging to one of\nthe \u201cpowers\u201d got to be viewed as that of the \u201cEternal.\u201d There is\nan evident mistake (one of the very many), in one of the texts in\n_Leviticus_, which has been corrected by Cahen, and which proves that\nthe interdiction did not at all concern the name of the exoteric\nJehovah, whose numerous other names could also be pronounced without\nany penalty being incurred.[807] In the vicious English version, the\ntranslation runs thus: \u201cAnd he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord,\nshall surely be put to death,\u201d _Levit._ xxiv. 16. Cahen renders it\nfar more correctly, thus: \u201cAnd he that blasphemeth the name of the\n_Eternal_ shall die,\u201d etc. The \u201cEternal\u201d being something higher than\nthe exoteric and personal \u201cLord.\u201d[808]\n\nAs with the Gentile nations, the symbols of the Israelites were ever\nbearing, directly or indirectly, upon sun-worship. The exoteric\nJehovah of the _Bible_ is a _dual_ god, like all the other gods;\nand the fact that David--who is entirely ignorant of Moses--praises\nhis \u201cLord,\u201d and assures him that the \u201cLord _is_ a great God, and a\ngreat King above all gods,\u201d may be of a very great importance to the\ndescendants of Jacob and David, but their national God concerns us in\nno wise. We are quite ready to show the \u201cLord God\u201d of Israel the same\nrespect as we do to Brahma, Zeus, or any other secondary deity. But\nwe decline, most emphatically, to recognize in him either the Deity\nworshipped by Moses, or the \u201cFather\u201d of Jesus, or yet the \u201cIneffable\nName\u201d of the kabalists. Jehovah is, perhaps, one of the _Elohim_,\nwho was concerned in the _formation_ (which is not creation) of the\nuniverse, one of the architects who built from pre-existing matter,\nbut he never was the \u201cUnknowable\u201d Cause that created \u201cbara,\u201d in the\nnight of the Eternity. These Elohim first form and bless; then they\n_curse_ and _destroy_; as one of these Powers, Jehovah is therefore\nby turns beneficent and malevolent; at one moment he punishes and\nthen repents. He is the antitype of several of the patriarchs--of\nEsau and of Jacob, the allegorical twins, emblems of the ever\nmanifest dual principle in nature. So Jacob, who is Israel, is the\nleft pillar--the feminine principle of Esau, who is the right pillar\nand the male principle. When he wrestles with Malach-Iho, the Lord,\nit is the latter who becomes the _right_ pillar, and Jacob-Israel\nnames God; although the _Bible_-interpreters have endeavored to\ntransform him into a mere \u201cangel of the Lord\u201d (_Genesis_ xxxii.),\nJacob conquers him--as matter will but too often conquer spirit--but\nhis _thigh_ is put out of joint in the fight.\n\nThe name of Israel has its derivation from Isaral or Asar, the\nSun-God, who is known as Suryal, Surya, and Sur. Isra-el means\n\u201cstriving with God.\u201d The \u201csun rising upon Jacob-Israel,\u201d is the\n_Sun_-God Isaral, fecundating _matter_ or earth, represented by the\n_female_-Jacob. As usual, the allegory has more than one hidden\nmeaning in the _Kabala_. Esau, \u00c6saou, Asu, is also the sun. Like the\n\u201cLord,\u201d Esau fights with Jacob and prevails not. The God-_Sun_ first\nstrives against, and then rises on him in covenant.\n\n\u201cAnd as he passed over Penuel, _the sun rose upon him_, and he\n(Jacob) _halted upon his thigh_\u201d (Genesis xxxii. 31). _Israel_ Jacob,\nopposed by his brother Esau, is _Samael_, and \u201cthe names of Samael\nare Azazel and _Satan_\u201d (the opposer).\n\nIf it will be argued that Moses was unacquainted with the Hindu\nphilosophy and, therefore, could not have taken Siva, the regenerator\nand the destroyer, as his model for Jehovah, then we must admit that\nthere was some miraculous international intuition which prompted\nevery nation to choose for its exoteric national deity the dual\ntype we find in the \u201cLord God\u201d of Israel. All these fables speak\nfor themselves. Siva, Jehovah, Osiris, are all the symbols of the\nactive principle in nature _par excellence_. They are the forces\nwhich preside at the formation or _regeneration_ of matter and its\ndestruction. They are the types of Life and Death, ever fecundating\nand decomposing under the never-ceasing influx of the _anima mundi_,\nthe Universal intellectual Soul, the invisible but ever-present\nspirit which is behind the correlation of the blind forces. This\nspirit alone is immutable, and therefore the forces of the universe,\ncause and effect, are ever in perfect harmony with this one great\nImmutable Law. Spiritual Life is the one primordial principle\n_above_; Physical Life is the primordial principle _below_, but\nthey are one under their dual aspect. When the Spirit is completely\nuntrammelled from the fetters of correlation, and its essence has\nbecome so purified as to be re-united with its CAUSE, it may--and yet\nwho can tell whether it really will--have a glimpse of the Eternal\nTruth. Till then, let us not build ourselves idols in our own image,\nand accept the shadows for the Eternal Light.\n\nThe greatest mistake of the age was to attempt a comparison of the\nrelative merits of all the ancient religions, and scoff at the\ndoctrines of the _Kabala_ and other superstitions.\n\nBut truth is stranger than fiction; and this world-old adage finds\nits application in the case in hand. The \u201cwisdom\u201d of the archaic\nages or the \u201csecret doctrine\u201d embodied in the _Oriental Kabala_, of\nwhich, as we have said, the Rabbinical is but an abridgment, did\nnot die out with the Philoletheans of the last Eclectic school.\nThe _Gnosis_ lingers still on earth, and its votaries are many,\nalbeit unknown. Such secret brotherhoods have been mentioned before\nMackenzie\u2019s time, by more than one great author. If they have been\nregarded as mere fictions of the novelist, that fact has only helped\nthe \u201cbrother-adepts\u201d to keep their incognito the more easily. We\nhave personally known several of them who, to their great merriment\nhad had the story of their lodges, the communities in which they\nlived, and the wondrous powers which they had exercised for many\nlong years, laughed at and denied by unsuspecting skeptics to their\nvery faces. Some of these brothers belong to the small groups of\n\u201ctravellers.\u201d Until the close of the happy Louis-Philippian reign,\nthey were pompously termed by the Parisian gar\u00e7on and trader, the\n_nobles \u00e9trangers_, and as innocently believed to be \u201cBoyards,\u201d\nValachian \u201cGospodars,\u201d Indian \u201cNabobs,\u201d and Hungarian \u201cMargraves,\u201d\nwho had gathered at the capital of the civilized world to admire\nits monuments and partake of its dissipations. There are, however,\nsome _insane_ enough to connect the presence of certain of these\nmysterious guests in Paris with the great political events that\nsubsequently took place. Such recall at least as very remarkable\ncoincidences, the breaking out of the Revolution of \u201893, and the\nearlier explosion of the South Sea Bubble, soon after the appearance\nof \u201cnoble foreigners,\u201d who had convulsed all Paris for more or less\nlonger periods, by either their mystical doctrines or \u201csupernatural\ngifts.\u201d The St. Germains and Cagliostros of this century, having\nlearned bitter lessons from the vilifications and persecutions of the\npast, pursue different tactics now-a-days.\n\nBut there are numbers of these mystic brotherhoods which have\nnaught to do with \u201ccivilized\u201d countries; and it is in their unknown\ncommunities that are concealed the skeletons of the past. These\n\u201cadepts\u201d could, if they chose, lay claim to strange ancestry, and\nexhibit verifiable documents that would explain many a mysterious\npage in both sacred and profane history. Had the keys to the hieratic\nwritings and the secret of Egyptian and Hindu symbolism been known to\nthe Christian Fathers, they would not have allowed a single monument\nof old to stand unmutilated. And yet, if we are well informed--and\nwe think we are--there was not one such in all Egypt, but the secret\nrecords of its hieroglyphics were carefully registered by the\nsacerdotal caste. These records still exist, though \u201cnot extant\u201d for\nthe general public, though perhaps the monuments may have passed away\nfor ever out of human sight.\n\nOf forty-seven tombs of the kings, near Gornore, recorded by the\nEgyptian priests on their sacred registers, only seventeen were known\nto the public, according to Diodorus Siculus, who visited the place\nabout sixty years B.C. Notwithstanding this _historical_ evidence,\nwe assert that the whole number exist to this day, and the royal\ntomb discovered by Belzoni among the sandstone mountains of Biban\nel-Melook (Melech?) is but a feeble specimen of the rest. We will\nadd, furthermore, that the Arab-Christians, the monks, scattered\naround in their poor, desolate convents on the borderland of the\ngreat Lybian Desert, know of the existence of such unbetrayed relics.\nBut they are Copts, sole remnants of the true Egyptian race, and the\nCopt predominating over the Christian monk in their natures, they\nkeep silent; for what reason it is not for us to tell. There are some\nwho believe that their monkish attire is but a blind, and that they\nhave chosen these desolate homes among arid deserts and surrounded\nby Mahometan tribes, for some ulterior purposes of their own. Be\nit as it may, they are held in great esteem by the Greek monks of\nPalestine; and there is a rumor current among the Christian pilgrims\nof Jerusalem, who throng the Holy Sepulchre at every Easter, that\nthe holy fire from heaven will never descend so _miraculously_ as\nwhen these monks of the desert are present to draw it down by their\nprayers.[809]\n\n\u201cThe kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it\nby force.\u201d Many are the candidates at the doors of those who are\nsupposed to know the path that leads to the secret brotherhoods.\nThe great majority are refused admittance, and these turn away\ninterpreting the refusal as an evidence of the non-existence of\nany such secret society. Of the minority accepted, more than\ntwo-thirds fail upon trial. The seventh rule of the ancient\nRosicrucian brotherhoods, which is universal among all true secret\nsocieties: \u201cthe Rosy-Crux becomes and is not _made_,\u201d is more than\nthe generality of men can bear to have applied to them. But let no\none suppose that of the candidates who fail, any will divulge to\nthe world even the trifle they may have learned, as some Masons do.\nNone know better than themselves how unlikely it is that a neophyte\nshould ever talk of what was imparted to him. Thus these societies\nwill go on and hear themselves denied without uttering a word until\nthe day shall come for them to throw off their reserve and show how\ncompletely they are masters of the situation.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n \u201cAll things are governed in the bosom of this triad.\u201d--LYDUS:\n _De Mensibus_, 20.\n\n\n \u201cThrice let the heaven be turned on its perpetual axis.\u201d--\n OVID: _Fast_ iv.\n\n\n \u201cAnd Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here _seven_ altars,\n and prepare me here _seven_ oxen and _seven_ rams.\u201d--\n _Numbers_ xxiii. 1, 2.\n\n\n \u201cIn _seven_ days all creatures who have offended me shall\n be destroyed by a deluge, but thou shalt be secured in a\n vessel miraculously formed; take, therefore ... and with\n _seven_ holy men, your respective wives, and pairs of\n all animals, enter the ark without fear; then shalt thou\n know God face to face, and all thy questions shall be\n answered.\u201d--_Bagavedgitta._\n\n\n \u201cAnd the Lord said, I will destroy man ... from the face\n of the earth.... But with thee will I establish my\n covenant.... Come thou and all thy house into the ark....\n For yet _seven_ days and I will cause it to rain upon the\n earth.\u201d--_Genesis_ vi., vii.\n\n\n \u201cThe Tetraktys was not only principally honored because all\n symphonies are found to exist within it, but also because\n it appears to contain the nature of all things.\u201d--THEOS. OF\n SMYRNA: _Mathem._, p. 147.\n\n\nOur task will have been ill-performed if the preceding chapters have\nnot demonstrated that Judaism, earlier and later Gnosticism,\nChristianity, and even Christian Masonry, have all been erected upon\nidentical cosmical myths, symbols, and allegories, whose full\ncomprehension is possible only to those who have inherited the key\nfrom their inventors.\n\nIn the following pages we will endeavor to show how much these have\nbeen misinterpreted by the widely-different, yet intimately-related\nsystems enumerated above, in fitting them to their individual needs.\nThus not only will a benefit be conferred upon the student, but a\nlong-deferred, and now much-needed act of justice will be done to\nthose earlier generations whose genius has laid the whole human race\nunder obligation. Let us begin by once more comparing the myths of the\n_Bible_ with those of the sacred books of other nations, to see which\nis the original, which copies.\n\nThere are but two methods which, correctly explained, can help us to\nthis result. They are--the _Vedas_, Brahmanical literature and the\nJewish _Kabala_. The former has, in a most philosophical spirit,\nconceived these grandiose myths; the latter borrowing them from the\nChaldeans and Persians, shaped them into a history of the Jewish\nnation, in which their spirit of philosophy was buried beyond the\nrecognition of all but the elect, and under a far more absurd form\nthan the Aryan had given them. The _Bible_ of the Christian Church is\nthe latest receptacle of this scheme of disfigured allegories which\nhave been erected into an edifice of superstition, such as never\nentered into the conceptions of those from whom the Church obtained\nher knowledge. The abstract fictions of antiquity, which for ages had\nfilled the popular fancy with but flickering shadows and uncertain\nimages, have in Christianity assumed the shapes of real personages,\nand become accomplished facts. Allegory, metamorphosed, becomes sacred\nhistory, and Pagan myth is taught to the people as a revealed\nnarrative of God\u2019s intercourse with His chosen people.\n\n\u201cThe myths,\u201d says Horace in his _Ars Poetica_, \u201chave been invented by\nwise men to strengthen the laws and teach moral truths.\u201d While Horace\nendeavored to make clear the very spirit and essence of the ancient\nmyths, Euhemerus pretended, on the contrary, that \u201cmyths were the\nlegendary history of kings and heroes, transformed into gods by the\nadmiration of the nations.\u201d It is the latter method which was\ninferentially followed by Christians when they agreed upon the\nacceptation of euhemerized patriarchs, and mistook them for men who\nhad really lived.\n\nBut, in opposition to this pernicious theory, which has brought forth\nsuch bitter fruit, we have a long series of the greatest philosophers\nthe world has produced: Plato, Epicharmus, Socrates, Empedocles,\nPlotinus, and Porphyry, Proclus, Damascenus, Origen, and even\nAristotle. The latter plainly stated this verity, by saying that a\ntradition of the highest antiquity, transmitted to posterity under the\nform of various myths, teaches us that the first principles of nature\nmay be considered as \u201cgods,\u201d for the _divine_ permeates all nature.\nAll the rest, details and personages, were added later for the clearer\ncomprehension of the vulgar, and but too often with the object of\nsupporting laws invented in the common interest.\n\nFairy tales do not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind--except\nthose few who in all ages have comprehended their hidden meaning and\ntried to open the eyes of the superstitious--have listened to such\ntales in one shape or the other and, after transforming them into\nsacred symbols, called the product RELIGION!\n\nWe will try to systematize our subject as much as the ever-recurring\nnecessity to draw parallels between the conflicting opinions that have\nbeen based on the same myths will permit. We will begin by the book of\n_Genesis_, and seek for its hidden meaning in the Brahmanical\ntraditions and the Chaldeo-Juda\u00efc _Kabala_.\n\nThe first Scripture lesson taught us in our infancy is that God\ncreated the world in six days, and rested on the _seventh_. Hence, a\npeculiar solenmity is supposed to attach to the seventh day, and the\nChristians, adopting the rigid observances of the Jewish sabbath, have\nenforced it upon us with the substitution of the first, instead of the\nseventh day of the week.\n\nAll systems of religious mysticism are based on numerals. With\nPythagoras, the Monas or unity, emanating the duad, and thus forming\nthe trinity, and the quaternary or Arba-il (the mystic _four_),\ncompose the number seven. The sacredness of numbers begins with the\ngreat First--the ONE, and ends only with the nought or zero--symbol of\nthe infinite and boundless circle which represents the universe. All\nthe intervening figures, in whatever combination, or however\nmultiplied, represent philosophical ideas, from vague outlines down to\na definitely-established scientific axiom, relating either to a moral\nor a physical fact in nature. They are a key to the ancient views on\ncosmogony, in its broad sense, including man and beings, and the\nevolution of the human race, spiritually as well as physically.\n\nThe number _seven_ is the most sacred of all, and is, undoubtedly, of\nHindu origin. Everything of importance was calculated by and fitted\ninto this number by the Aryan philosophers--ideas as well as\nlocalities. Thus they have the\n\n_Sapta-Rishi_, or seven sages, typifying the seven diluvian primitive\nraces (post-diluvian as some say).\n\n_Sapta-Loka_, the seven inferior and superior worlds, whence each of\nthese Rishis proceeded, and whither he returned in glory before\nreaching the final bliss of Moksha.[810]\n\n_Sapta-Kula_, or seven castes--the Brahmans assuming to represent the\ndirect descendants of the highest of them.[811]\n\nThen, again, the Sapta-Pura (seven holy cities); Sapta-Duipa (seven\nholy islands); Sapta-Samudra (the seven holy seas); Sapta-Parvata (the\nseven holy mountains); Sapta-Arania (the seven deserts); Sapta-Vruksha\n(the seven sacred trees); and so on.\n\nIn the Chaldeo-Babylonian incantation, this number reappears again as\nprominently as among the Hindus. The number is _dual_ in its\nattributes, _i.e._, holy in one of its aspects it becomes nefast under\nother conditions. Thus the following incantation we find traced on the\nAssyrian tablets, now so correctly interpreted.\n\n\u201cThe evening of evil omen, the region of the sky, which produces\nmisfortune....\n\n\u201cMessage of pest.\n\n\u201cDeprecators of Nin-Ki-gal.\n\n\u201cThe seven gods of the vast sky.\n\n\u201cThe seven gods of the vast earth.\n\n\u201cThe seven gods of blazing spheres.\n\n\u201cThe seven gods of celestial legion.\n\n\u201cThe seven gods maleficent.\n\n\u201cThe seven phantoms--bad.\n\n\u201cThe seven phantoms of maleficent flames....\n\n\u201cBad demon, bad _alal_, bad _gigim_, bad _telal_ ... bad god, bad\n_maskim_.\n\n\u201cSpirit of seven heavens remember.... Spirit of seven earths remember\n... etc.\u201d\n\nThis number reappears likewise on almost every page of _Genesis_,\nand throughout the Mosaic books, and we find it conspicuous (see\nfollowing chapter) in the _Book of Job_ and the Oriental _Kabala_.\nIf the Hebrew Semitics adopted it so readily, we must infer that it\nwas not blindly, but with a thorough knowledge of its secret meaning;\nhence, that they must have adopted the doctrines of their \u201cheathen\u201d\nneighbors as well. It is but natural, therefore, that we should seek\nin _heathen_ philosophy for the interpretation of this number, which\nagain reappeared in Christianity with its _seven_ sacraments, _seven_\nchurches in Asia Minor, _seven_ capital sins, _seven_ virtues (four\ncardinal and three theological), etc.\n\nHave the _seven_ prismatic colors of the rainbow seen by Noah no\nother meaning than that of a covenant between God and man to refresh\nthe memory of the former? To the kabalist, at least, they have a\nsignificance inseparable from the seven labors of magic, the seven\nupper spheres, the seven notes of the musical scale, the seven\nnumerals of Pythagoras, the seven wonders of the world, the seven\nages, and even the seven steps of the Masons, which lead to the Holy\nof Holies, after passing the flights of _three_ and _five_.\n\nWhence the identity then of these enigmatical, ever-recurring\nnumerals that are found in every page of the Jewish Scriptures, as\nin every ola and sloka of Buddhistic and Brahmanical books? Whence\nthese numerals that are the soul of the Pythagorean and Platonic\nthought, and that no unilluminated Orientalist nor biblical student\nhas ever been able to fathom? And yet they have a key ready in\ntheir hand, did they but know how to use it. Nowhere is the mystical\nvalue of human language and its effects on human action so perfectly\nunderstood as in India, nor any better explained than by the authors\nof the oldest _Brahmanas_. Ancient as their epoch is now found to\nbe, they only try to express, in a more concrete form, the abstract\nmetaphysical speculations of their own ancestors.\n\nSuch is the respect of the Brahmans for the sacrificial mysteries,\nthat they hold that the world itself sprang into creation as a\nconsequence of a \u201csacrificial word\u201d pronounced by the First Cause.\nThis word is the \u201cIneffable name\u201d of the kabalists, fully discussed\nin the last chapter.\n\nThe secret of the _Vedas_, \u201cSacred Knowledge\u201d though they may be, is\nimpenetrable without the help of the _Brahmanas_. Properly speaking,\nthe _Vedas_ (which are written in verse and comprised in four books)\nconstitute that portion called the _Mantra_, or magical prayer, and\nthe _Brahmanas_ (which are in prose) contain their key. While the\nMantra part is alone holy, the Brahmana portion contains all the\ntheological exegesis, and the speculations and explanations of the\nsacerdotal. Our Orientalists, we repeat, will make no substantial\nprogress toward a comprehension of Vedic literature until they place\na proper valuation upon works now despised by them; as, for instance,\nthe _Aitareya_ and _Kaush\u00eetaki Br\u00e2hmanas_, which belong to the\n_Rig-Veda_.\n\nZoroaster was called a _Manthran_, or speaker of Mantras, and,\naccording to Haug, one of the earliest names for the Sacred\nScriptures of the Parsis was _M\u00e2nthra-spe\u00f1ta_. The power and\nsignificance of the Brahman who acts as the Hotri-priest at the\nSoma-Sacrifice, consists in his possession and full knowledge of the\nuses of the sacred word or speech--_V\u00e2ch_. The latter is personified\nin Sara-isvati, the wife of Brahma, who is the goddess of the sacred\nor \u201cSecret Knowledge.\u201d She is usually depicted as riding upon a\npeacock with its tail all spread. The eyes upon the feathers of the\nbird\u2019s tail, symbolize the sleepless eyes that see all things. To one\nwho has the ambition of becoming an adept of the \u201cSecret doctrines,\u201d\nthey are a reminder that he must have the hundred eyes of Argus to\nsee and comprehend all things.\n\nAnd this is why we say that it is not possible to solve fully the\ndeep problems underlying the Brahmanical and Buddhistic sacred books\nwithout having a perfect comprehension of the esoteric meaning of\nthe Pythagorean numerals. The greatest power of this V\u00e2ch, or Sacred\nSpeech, is developed according to the form which is given to the\nMantra by the officiating Hotri, and this form consists wholly in\nthe numbers and syllables of the sacred metre. If pronounced slowly\nand in a certain rhythm, one effect is produced; if quickly and with\nanother rhythm, there is a different result. \u201cEach metre,\u201d says Haug,\n\u201cis the invisible master of something visible in this world; it is,\nas it were, its exponent and ideal. This great significance of the\nmetrical speech is derived from the number of syllables of which it\nconsists, for each thing has (just as in the Pythagorean system) a\ncertain numerical proportion. All these things, metres (chhandas),\nstomas, and prishthas, are liable to be as eternal and divine as the\nwords themselves they contain. The earliest Hindu divines did not\nonly believe in a primitive revelation of the words of the sacred\ntexts, but even in that of the various forms. These forms, along with\ntheir contents, the everlasting _Veda_-words, are symbols expressive\nof things of the invisible world, and in several respects comparable\nto the Platonic ideas.\u201d\n\n_This testimony from an unwilling witness shows again the identity\nbetween the ancient religions as to their secret doctrine._ The\nG\u00e2yatri metre, for example, consists of _thrice eight_ syllables, and\nis considered the most sacred of metres. It is the metre of Agni,\nthe fire-god, and becomes at times the emblem of Brahma himself,\nthe chief creator, and \u201cfashioner of man\u201d in his own image. Now\nPythagoras says that \u201cThe number eight, or the Octad, is the first\ncube, that is to say, squared in all senses, as a die, proceeding\nfrom its base two, or even number; _so is man four-square or\nperfect_.\u201d Of course few, except the Pythagoreans and kabalists,\ncan fully comprehend this idea; but the illustration will assist\nin pointing out the close kinship of the numerals with the Vedic\n_Mantras_. The chief problems of every theology lie concealed\nbeneath this imagery of fire and the varying rhythm of its flames.\nThe burning bush of the _Bible_, the Zoroastrian and other sacred\nfires, Plato\u2019s universal soul, and the Rosicrucian doctrines of both\nsoul and body of man being evolved out of fire, the reasoning and\nimmortal element which permeates all things, and which, according to\nHerakleitus, Hippocrates, and Parmenides, is God, have all the same\nmeaning.\n\nEach metre in the _Brahmanas_ corresponds to a number, and as shown\nby Haug, as it stands in the sacred volumes, is a prototype of some\nvisible form on earth, and its effects are either good or evil. The\n\u201csacred speech\u201d can save, but it can kill as well; its many meanings\nand faculties are well known but to the _Dikshita_ (the adept), who\nhas been initiated into many mysteries, and whose \u201cspiritual birth\u201d\nis completely achieved; the V\u00e2ch of the _mantra_ is a spoken power,\nwhich awakes another corresponding and still more occult power, each\nallegorically personified by some god in the world of spirits, and,\naccording as it is used, responded to either by the gods or the\n_Rakshasas_ (bad spirits). In the Brahmanical and Buddhist ideas,\na curse, a blessing, a vow, a desire, an idle thought, can each\nassume a visible shape and so manifest itself _objectively_ to the\neyes of its author, or to him that it concerns. Every sin becomes\nincarnated, so to say, and like an avenging fiend persecutes its\nperpetrator.\n\nThere are words which have a destructive quality in their very\nsyllables, as though objective things; for every sound awakens\na corresponding one in the invisible world of spirit, and the\nrepercussion produces either a good or bad effect. Harmonious rhythm,\na melody vibrating softly in the atmosphere, creates a beneficent and\nsweet influence around, and acts most powerfully on the psychological\nas well as physical natures of every living thing on earth; it reacts\neven on inanimate objects, for matter is still spirit in its essence,\ninvisible as it may seem to our grosser senses.\n\nSo with the numerals. Turn wherever we will, from the Prophets to the\nApocalypse, and we will see the biblical writers constantly using the\nnumbers _three_, _four_, _seven_, and _twelve_.\n\nAnd yet we have known some partisans of the _Bible_ who maintained\nthat the _Vedas_ were copied from the Mosaic books![812] The _Vedas_,\nwhich are written in Sanscrit, a language whose grammatical rules and\nforms, as Max M\u00fcller and other scholars confess, were _completely\nestablished_ long before the days when the great wave of emigration\nbore it from Asia all over the Occident, are there to proclaim their\nparentage of every philosophy, and every religious institution\ndeveloped later among Semitic peoples. And which of the numerals\nmost frequently occur in the Sanscrit chants, those sublime hymns to\ncreation, to the unity of God, and the countless manifestations of\nHis power? ONE, THREE, and SEVEN. Read the hymn by Dirghatamas.\n\n\u201cTO HIM WHO REPRESENTS ALL THE GODS.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe _God_ here present, our blessed patron, our sacrificer, has\na brother who spreads himself in mid-air. There exists a _third_\nBrother whom we sprinkle with our libations.... It is he whom I have\nseen master of men and armed with _seven_ rays.\u201d[813]\n\nAnd again:\n\n\u201c_Seven_ Bridles aid in guiding a car which has but ONE wheel, and\nwhich is drawn by a single horse that shines with _seven_ rays. The\nwheel has _three_ limbs, an immortal wheel, never-wearying, whence\nhang all the worlds.\u201d\n\n\u201cSometimes _seven_ horses drag a car of _seven_ wheels, and _seven_\npersonages mount it, accompanied by _seven_ fecund nymphs of the\nwater.\u201d\n\nAnd the following again, in honor of the fire-god--_Agni_, who is so\nclearly shown but a spirit subordinate to the ONE God.\n\n\u201cEver ONE, although having _three_ forms of double nature\n(androgynous)--he rises! and the priests offer to _God_, in the act\nof sacrifice, their prayers which reach the heavens, borne aloft by\nAgni.\u201d\n\nIs this a coincidence, or, rather, as reason tells us, the result\nof the derivation of many national cults from one primitive,\nuniversal religion? A _mystery_ for the uninitiated, the _unveiling_\nof the most sublime (because correct and true) psychological and\nphysiological problems for the initiate. Revelations of the personal\nspirit of man which is divine because that spirit is not only the\nemanation of the ONE Supreme God, but is the only God man is able,\nin his weakness and helplessness, to comprehend--to feel _within_\nhimself. This truth the Vedic poet clearly confesses, when saying:\n\n\u201cThe Lord, Master of the universe and full of wisdom, has entered\nwith me (into me)--weak and ignorant--and has formed me of\n_himself_ in that place[814] where the spirits obtain, by the help\nof _Science_, the peaceful enjoyment of the _fruit_, as sweet as\nambrosia.\u201d\n\nWhether we call this fruit \u201can apple\u201d from the Tree of Knowledge, or\nthe _pippala_ of the Hindu poet, it matters not. It is the fruit of\nesoteric wisdom. Our object is to show the existence of a religious\nsystem in India for many thousands of years before the exoteric\nfables of the Garden of Eden and the Deluge had been invented. Hence\nthe identity of doctrines. Instructed in them, each of the initiates\nof other countries became, in his turn, the founder of some great\nschool of philosophy in the West.\n\nWho of our Sanscrit scholars has ever felt interested in discovering\nthe real sense of the following hymns, palpable as it is: \u201c_Pippala_,\nthe sweet fruit of that tree upon which come _spirits_ who love the\n_science_ (?) and where _the gods produce all marvels_. This is a\nmystery for him _who knows not the Father_ of the world.\u201d\n\nOr this one again:\n\n\u201cThese stanzas bear at their head a title which announces that\nthey are consecrated to the _Viswad\u00e9vas_ (that is to say, to all\nthe gods). He who knows not the Being whom I sing _in all his\nmanifestations_, will comprehend nothing of my verses; those who do\nknow HIM are not strangers to this re\u00fcnion.\u201d\n\nThis refers to the re\u00fcnion and parting of the immortal and mortal\nparts of man. \u201cThe immortal Being,\u201d says the preceding stanza, \u201cis in\nthe cradle of the mortal Being. The two eternal spirits go and come\neverywhere; only some men know the one without knowing the other\u201d\n(_Dirghatamas_).\n\nWho can give a correct idea of Him of whom the _Rig-Veda_ says:\n\u201cThat which is One the wise call it in divers manners.\u201d That One is\nsung by the Vedic poets in all its manifestations in nature; and the\nbooks considered \u201cchildish and foolish\u201d teach how at will to call the\nbeings of wisdom for our instruction. They teach, as Porphyry says:\n\u201ca liberation from all terrene concerns ... a flight of the _alone_\nto the ALONE.\u201d\n\nProfessor Max M\u00fcller, whose every word is accepted by his school\nas philological gospel, is undoubtedly right in one sense when in\ndetermining the nature of the Hindu gods, he calls them \u201cmasks\nwithout an actor ... names without being, not beings without\nnames.\u201d[815] For he but proves thereby the monotheism of the ancient\nVedic religion. But it seems to us more than dubious whether he or\nany scientist of his school needed hope to fathom the old Aryan[816]\nthought, without an accurate study of those very \u201cmasks.\u201d To the\nmaterialist, as to the scientist, who for various reasons endeavors\nto work out the difficult problem of compelling facts to agree with\neither their own hobbies or those of the _Bible_, they may seem\nbut the empty shells of phantoms. Yet such authorities will ever\nbe, as in the past, the unsafest of guides, except in matters of\nexact science. The _Bible_ patriarchs are as much \u201cmasks without\nactors,\u201d as the prag\u00e2patis, and yet, if the living personage behind\nthese masks is but an abstract shadow there is an idea embodied in\nevery one of them which belongs to the philosophical and scientific\ntheories of ancient wisdom.[817] And who can render better service in\nthis work than the native Brahmans themselves, or the kabalists?\n\nTo deny, point-blank, any sound philosophy in the later Brahmanical\nspeculations upon the _Rig-Veda_, is equivalent to refusing to\never correctly understand the mother-religion itself, which gave\nrise to them, and which is the expression of the inner thought of\nthe direct ancestors of these later authors of the _Brahmanas_. If\nlearned Europeans can so readily show that all the Vedic gods are\nbut empty masks, they must also be ready to demonstrate that the\nBrahmanical authors were as incapable as themselves to discover these\n\u201cactors\u201d anywhere. This done, not only the three other sacred books\nwhich Max M\u00fcller says \u201cdo not deserve the name of _Vedas_,\u201d but the\n_Rig-Veda_ itself becomes a meaningless jumble of words; for what\nthe world-renowned and subtile intellect of the ancient Hindu sages\nfailed to understand, no modern scientist, however learned, can hope\nto fathom. Poor Thomas Taylor was right in saying that \u201cphilology is\nnot philosophy.\u201d\n\nIt is, to say the least, illogical to admit that there is a hidden\nthought in the literary work of a race perhaps ethnologically\ndifferent from our own; and then, because it is utterly unintelligible\nto us whose spiritual development during the several thousand\nintervening years has bifurcated into quite a contrary direction--deny\nthat it has any sense in it at all. But this is precisely what, with\nall due respect for erudition, Professor Max M\u00fcller and his school do\nin this instance, at least. First of all, we are told that, albeit\ncautiously and with some effort, yet we may still walk in the\nfootsteps of these authors of the _Vedas_. \u201cWe shall feel that we are\nbrought face to face and mind to mind with men yet intelligible to us\n_after we have freed ourselves from our modern conceits_. We shall not\nsucceed always; words, verses, nay whole hymns in the _Rig-Veda_, will\nand must remain to us a dead letter.... For, with a few exceptions ...\nthe whole world of the Vedic ideas is so entirely beyond our own\nintellectual horizon, that instead of translating, we can as yet only\nguess and combine.\u201d[818]\n\nAnd yet, to leave us in no possible doubt as to the true value of\nhis words, the learned scholar, in another passage, expresses his\nopinion on these same Vedas (with one exception) thus: \u201cThe only\nimportant, the only real Veda, is the _Rig-Veda_--the other so-called\n_Vedas_ deserve the name of _Veda_ no more than the _Talmud_ deserves\nthe name of _Bible_. Professor M\u00fcller rejects them as unworthy of\nthe attention of any one, and, as we understand it, on the ground\nthat they contain chiefly \u201csacrificial formulas, charms, and\nincantations.\u201d[819]\n\nAnd now, a very natural question: Are any of our scholars prepared\nto demonstrate that, so far, they are intimately acquainted with the\nhidden sense of these perfectly absurd \u201csacrificial formulas, charms,\nand incantations\u201d and magic nonsense of _Atharva-Veda_? We believe\nnot, and our doubt is based on the confession of Professor M\u00fcller\nhimself, just quoted. If \u201cthe whole world of the Vedic ideas [the\n_Rig-Veda_ cannot be included alone in this _world_, we suppose] is\nso entirely beyond our own [the scientists\u2019] intellectual horizon\nthat, instead of translating, we can as yet only guess and combine;\u201d\nand the _Yagur-Veda_, _Sama-Veda_, and _Atharva-Veda_ are \u201cchildish\nand foolish;\u201d[820] and the _Brahmanas_, the _S\u00fbtras Y\u00e2ska_, and\n_S\u00e2yana_, \u201cthough _nearest in time_ to the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_,\nindulge in the most frivolous and ill-judged interpretations,\u201d how\ncan either himself or any other scholar form any adequate opinion\nof either of them? If, again, the authors of the _Brahmanas_, the\nnearest in time to the Vedic hymns, were already incompetent to offer\nanything better than \u201cill-judged interpretations,\u201d then at what\nperiod of history, where, and by whom, were written these grandiose\npoems, whose mystical sense has died with their generations? Are\nwe, then, so wrong in affirming that if sacred texts are found in\nEgypt to have become--even to the priestly scribes of 4,000 years\nago--wholly unintelligible,[821] and the _Brahmanas_ offer but\n\u201cchildish and foolish\u201d interpretations of the _Rig-Veda_, at least as\nfar back as that, then, 1st, both the Egyptian and Hindu religious\nphilosophies are of an untold antiquity, far antedating ages\ncautiously assigned them by our students of comparative mythology;\nand, 2d, the claims of ancient priests of Egypt and modern Brahmans,\nas to their age, are, after all, correct.\n\nWe can never admit that the three other _Vedas_ are less worthy of\ntheir name than the Rig-hymns, or that the _Talmud_ and the _Kabala_\nare so inferior to the _Bible_. The very name of the _Vedas_ (the\nliteral meaning of which is _knowledge_ or _wisdom_) shows them\nto belong to the literature of those men who, in every country,\nlanguage, and age, have been spoken of as \u201cthose who know.\u201d In\nSanscrit the third person singular is _v\u00e9da_ (he knows), and the\nplural is _vid\u00e1_ (they know). This word is synonymous with the Greek\n\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c3\u03ad\u03b2\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 which Plato uses when speaking of the _wise_--the magicians;\nand with the Hebrew Hakamin, \u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d9\u05dd (wise men). Reject the\n_Talmud_ and its old predecessor the _Kabala_, and it will be simply\nimpossible ever to render correctly one word of that _Bible_ so much\nextolled at their expense. But then it is, perhaps, just what its\npartisans are working for. To banish the _Brahmanas_ is to fling away\nthe key that unlocks the door of the _Rig-Veda_. The _literal_\ninterpretation of the _Bible_ has already borne its fruits; with the\n_Vedas_ and the Sanscrit sacred books in general it will be just the\nsame, with this difference, that the absurd interpretation of the\n_Bible_ has received a time-honored right of eminent domain in the\ndepartment of the ridiculous; and will find its supporters, against\nlight and against proof. As to the \u201cheathen\u201d literature, after a few\nmore years of unsuccessful attempts at interpretation, its religious\nmeaning will be relegated to the limbo of exploded superstitions, and\npeople will hear no more of it.\n\nWe beg to be clearly understood before we are blamed and criticised\nfor the above remarks. The vast learning of the celebrated Oxford\nprofessor can hardly be questioned by his very enemies, yet we\nhave a right to regret his precipitancy to condemn that which he\nhimself confesses \u201centirely beyond our own intellectual horizon.\u201d\nEven in what he considers a ridiculous blunder on the part of the\nauthor of the _Brahmanas_, other more spiritually-disposed persons\nmay see quite the reverse. \u201c_Who_ is the greatest of the gods? Who\nshall first be praised by our songs?\u201d says an ancient Rishi of the\n_Rig-Veda_; mistaking (as Prof. M. imagines) the interrogative\npronoun \u201cWho\u201d for some divine name. Says the Professor: \u201cA place\nis allotted in the sacrificial invocations to a god \u2018Who,\u2019 and\nhymns addressed to him are called \u2018Whoish hymns.\u2019\u201d And is a god\n\u201cWho\u201d less natural as a term than a god \u201cI am?\u201d or \u201cWhoish\u201d hymns\nless reverential than \u201cI-amish\u201d psalms? And who can prove that\nthis is really a blunder, and not a premeditated expression? Is it\nso impossible to believe that the strange term was precisely due\nto a reverential awe which made the poet hesitate before giving a\nname, as form to that which is justly considered as the highest\nabstraction of metaphysical ideals--God? Or that the same feeling\nmade the commentator who came after him to pause and so leave the\nwork of anthropomorphizing the \u201cUnknown,\u201d the \u201cWHO,\u201d to future human\nconception? \u201cThese early poets thought more for themselves--than\nfor others,\u201d remarks Max M\u00fcller himself. \u201cThey sought rather, in\ntheir language, to be true to their own thought than to please\nthe imagination of their hearers.\u201d[822] Unfortunately it is this\nvery thought which awakes no responsive echo in the minds of our\nphilologists.\n\nFarther, we read the sound advice to students of the _Rig-Veda_\nhymns, to collect, collate, sift, and reject. \u201cLet him study the\ncommentaries, the _S\u00fbtras_, the _Brahmanas_, and even later works,\nin order to exhaust all the sources from which information can be\nderived. He [the scholar] _must not despise the traditions of the\nBrahmans_, even where their misconceptions ... are palpable.... Not\na corner in the _Brahmanas_, the _S\u00fbtras_, _Y\u00e2ska_, and _S\u00e2yana_,\nshould be left unexplored _before we propose a rendering of our\nown_.... When the scholar has done his work, the poet and philosopher\nmust take it up and finish it.\u201d[823]\n\nPoor chance for a \u201cphilosopher\u201d to step into the shoes of a learned\nphilologist and presume to correct _his_ errors! We would like to\nsee what sort of a reception the most learned Hindu scholar in India\nwould have from the educated public of Europe and America, if he\nshould undertake to correct a savant, after he had sifted, accepted,\nrejected, explained, and declared what was good, and what \u201cabsurd and\nchildish\u201d in the sacred books of his forefathers. That which would\nfinally be declared \u201cBrahmanic misconceptions,\u201d by the conclave of\nEuropean and especially German savants, would be as little likely to\nbe reconsidered at the appeal of the most erudite pundit of Benares\nor Ceylon, as the interpretation of Jewish Scripture by Maimonides\nand Philo-Jud\u00e6us, by Christians after the Councils of the Church\nhad accepted the mistranslations and explanations of Iren\u00e6us and\nEusebius. What pundit, or native philosopher of India should know his\nancestral language, religion, or philosophy as well as an Englishman\nor a German? Or why should a Hindu be more suffered to expound\nBrahmanism, than a Rabbinical scholar to interpret Judaism or the\nIsa\u00efan prophecies? Safer, and far more trustworthy translators can be\nhad nearer home. Nevertheless, let us still hope that we may find at\nlast, even though it be in the dim future, a European philosopher to\nsift the sacred books of the wisdom-religion, and not be contradicted\nby every other of his class.\n\nMeanwhile, unmindful of any alleged authorities, let us try to sift\nfor ourselves a few of these myths of old. We will search for an\nexplanation within the popular interpretation, and feel our way\nwith the help of the magic lamp of Trismegistus--the mysterious\nnumber _seven_. There must have been some reason why this figure was\nuniversally accepted as a mystic calculation. With every ancient\npeople, the Creator, or Demiurge, was placed over the seventh heaven.\n\u201cAnd were I to touch upon the initiation into our sacred Mysteries,\u201d\nsays Emperor Julian, the kabalist, \u201cwhich the Chaldean bacchised\nrespecting the _seven-rayed God, lifting up the souls through Him_, I\nshould say things unknown, and _very unknown to the rabble_, but well\nknown to the _blessed Theurgists_.\u201d[824] In _Lydus_ it is said that\n\u201cThe Chaldeans call the God IAO, and SABAOTH he is often called, _as\nHe_ who is over the seven orbits (heavens, or spheres), that is the\nDemiurge.\u201d[825]\n\nOne must consult the Pythagoreans and Kabalists to learn the\npotentiality of this number. Exoterically the seven rays of the solar\nspectrum are represented concretely in the seven-rayed god Heptaktis.\nThese seven rays epitomized into THREE primary rays, namely, the red,\nblue, and yellow, form the solar trinity, and typify respectively\nspirit-matter and spirit-essence. Science has also reduced of\nlate the seven rays to three primary ones, thus corroborating the\nscientific conception of the ancients of at least one of the visible\nmanifestations of the invisible deity, and the seven divided into a\nquaternary and a trinity.\n\nThe Pythagoreans called the number seven the vehicle of life, as it\ncontained body and soul. They explained it by saying, that the human\nbody consisted of four principal elements, and that the soul is\ntriple, comprising reason, passion, and desire. The ineffable WORD\nwas considered the _Seventh_ and highest of all, for there are six\nminor substitutes, each belonging to a degree of initiation. The Jews\nborrowed their Sabbath from the ancients, who called it _Saturn\u2019s_\nday and deemed it unlucky, and not the latter from the Israelites\nwhen Christianized. The people of India, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt\nobserved weeks of seven days; and the Romans learned the hebdomadal\nmethod from these foreign countries when they became subject to the\nEmpire. Still it was not until the fourth century that the Roman\nkalends, nones, and ides were abandoned, and weeks substituted in\ntheir place; and the astronomical names of the days, such as _dies\nSolis_ (day of the Sun), _dies Lun\u00e6_ (day of the Moon), _dies Martis_\n(day of Mars); _dies Mercurii_ (day of Mercury), _dies Jovis_ (day of\nJupiter), _dies Veneris_ (day of Venus), and _dies Saturni_ (day of\nSaturn), prove that it was not from the Jews that the week of seven\ndays was adopted. Before we examine this number kabalistically, we\npropose to analyse it from the standpoint of the Judaico-Christian\nSabbath.\n\nWhen Moses instituted the _yom shaba_, or _Shebang_ (Shabbath), the\nallegory of the Lord God resting from his work of creation on the\nseventh day was but a _cloak_, or, as the _Sohar_ expresses it, a\nscreen, to hide the true meaning.\n\nThe Jews reckoned then, as they do now, their days by number, as, day\nthe _first_; day the second; and so on; _yom ahad_; _yom sheni_; _yom\nshelisho_; _yom rebis_; _yom shamishi_; _yom shishehi_; yom SHABA.\n\n\u201cThe Hebrew _seven_ \u05e9\u05d1\u05e2, consisting of three letters, S. B. O., has\nmore than one meaning. First of all, it means _age_ or cycle,\nShab-ang; Sabbath \u05e9\u05d1\u05e2 can be translated _old age_, as well as _rest_,\nand in the old Coptic, _Sabe_ means _wisdom_, learning. Modern\narch\u00e6ologists have found that as in Hebrew _Sab_ \u05e9\u05d1 also means\n_gray-headed_, and that therefore the _Saba_-day was the day on which\nthe \u201cgray-headed men, or \u2018aged fathers\u2019 of a tribe, were in the habit\nof assembling for councils or sacrifices.\u201d[826]\n\n\u201cThus, the week of six days and the seventh, the _Saba_ or\n_Sapta_-day period, is of the highest antiquity. The observance of\nthe lunar festivals in India, shows that that nation held hebdomadal\nmeetings as well. With every new quarter the moon brings changes in\nthe atmosphere, hence certain changes are also produced throughout\nthe whole of our universe, of which the meteorological ones are the\nmost insignificant. On this day of the _seventh_ and most powerful\nof the prismatic days, the adepts of the \u201cSecret Science\u201d meet as\nthey met thousands of years ago, to become the agents of the occult\npowers of nature (emanations of the working God), and commune with\nthe invisible worlds. It is in this observance of the seventh day\nby the old sages--not as the resting day of the Deity, but because\nthey had penetrated into its occult power, that lies the profound\nveneration of all the heathen philosophers for the number _seven_\nwhich they term the \u201cvenerable,\u201d the sacred number. The Pythagorean\n_Tetraktis_, revered by the Platonists, was the _square_ placed below\nthe _triangle_; the latter, or the Trinity embodying the invisible\n_Monad_--the unity, and deemed too sacred to be pronounced except\nwithin the walls of a Sanctuary.\n\nThe ascetic observance of the Christian Sabbath by Protestants is\npure religious tyranny, and does more harm, we fear, than good. It\nreally dates only from the enactment (in 1678) of the 29th of Charles\nII., which prohibited any \u201ctradesman, artificer, workman, laborer,\nor other person,\u201d to \u201cdo or exercise any worldly labor, etc., etc.,\nupon the Lord\u2019s day.\u201d The Puritans carried this thing to extremes,\napparently to mark their hatred of Catholicism, both Roman and\nEpiscopal. That it was no part of the plan of Jesus that such a day\nshould be set apart, is evident not only from his words but acts. It\nwas not observed by the early Christians.\n\nWhen Trypho, _the Jew_, reproached the Christians _for not having a\nSabbath_, what does the martyr answer him? \u201cThe new law will have\nyou keep a perpetual Sabbath. You, when _you have passed a day in\nidleness, think you are religious_. The Lord is not pleased with\nsuch things as these. If any be guilty of _perjury or fraud_, let\nhim reform; _if he be an adulterer_, let him repent; and _he will\nthen have kept the kind of Sabbath truly pleasing to God_.... The\nelements are never idle, and keep no Sabbath. There was no need of\nthe observance of Sabbaths before Moses, neither now is there any\nneed of them after Jesus Christ.\u201d\n\nThe _Heptaktis_ is not the Supreme Cause, but simply an emanation\nfrom _Him_--the first visible manifestation of the Unrevealed Power.\n\u201cHis Divine _Breath_, which, violently breaking forth, condensed\nitself, shining with radiance until it evolved into Light, and so\nbecame cognizant to external sense,\u201d says John Reuchlin.[827] This\nis the emanation of the Highest, the Demiurge, a multiplicity in a\n_unity_, the _Elohim_, whom we see _creating_ our world, or rather\nfashioning it, in six days, and resting on the _seventh_. And who are\nthese _Elohim_ but the euhemerized powers of nature, the faithful\nmanifested servants, the laws of Him who is immutable law and harmony\nHimself?\n\nThey remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it\nis they who, according to the kabalists, formed in succession the\nsix material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that preceded\nour own, which, they say, is the _seventh_. If, in laying aside the\nmetaphysico-spiritual conception, we give our attention but to the\nreligio-scientific problem of creation in \u201csix days,\u201d over which\nour best biblical scholars have vainly pondered so long, we might,\nperchance, be on the way to the true idea underlying the allegory.\nThe ancients were philosophers, consistent in all things. Hence,\nthey taught that each of these departed worlds, having performed its\nphysical evolution, and reached--through birth, growth, maturity, old\nage, and death--the end of its cycle, had returned to its primitive\nsubjective form of a _spiritual_ earth. Thereafter it had to serve\nthrough all eternity as the dwelling of those who had lived on it\nas men, and even animals, but were now spirits. This idea, were it\neven as incapable of exact demonstration as that of our theologians\nrelating to Paradise, is, at least, a trifle more philosophical.\n\nAs well as man, and every other living thing upon it, our planet has\nhad its spiritual and physical evolution. From an impalpable ideal\n_thought_ under the creative Will of Him of whom we know nothing,\nand but dimly conceive in imagination, this globe became fluidic and\n_semi_-spiritual, then condensed itself more and more, until its\nphysical development--matter, the tempting demon--compelled it to try\nits own creative faculty. _Matter_ defied SPIRIT, and the earth, too,\nhad its \u201cFall.\u201d The allegorical curse under which it labors, is that\nit only _procreates_, it does not _create_. Our physical planet is\nbut the handmaiden, or rather the maid-of-all-work, of the spirit,\nits master. \u201cCursed be the ground ... thorns and thistles shall it\nbring,\u201d the Elohim are made to say. \u201cIn sorrow thou shalt bring forth\nchildren.\u201d The Elohim say this both to the ground and the woman. And\nthis curse will last until the minutest particle of matter on earth\nshall have outlived its days, until every grain of dust has, by\ngradual transformation through evolution, become a constituent part\nof a \u201cliving soul,\u201d and, until the latter shall reascend the cyclic\narc, and finally stand--its own _Metatron_, or Redeeming Spirit--at\nthe foot of the upper step of the spiritual worlds, as at the first\nhour of its emanation. Beyond that lies the great \u201cDeep\u201d--A MYSTERY!\n\nIt must be remembered that every cosmogony has a _trinity_ of workers\nat its head--Father, spirit; Mother, nature, or matter; and the\nmanifested universe, the Son or result of the two. The universe,\nalso, as well as each planet which it comprehends, passes through\n_four_ ages, like man himself. All have their infancy, youth,\nmaturity, and old age, and these four added to the other three make\nthe sacred seven again.\n\nThe introductory chapters of _Genesis_ were never meant to present\neven a remote allegory of the creation of _our_ earth. They embrace\n(chapter i.) a metaphysical conception of some indefinite period in\nthe eternity, when successive attempts were being made by the law of\nevolution at the formation of universes. This idea is plainly stated\nin the _Sohar_: \u201cThere were old worlds, which perished as soon as\nthey came into existence, were formless, and were called _sparks_.\nThus, the smith, when hammering the iron, lets the sparks fly in all\ndirections. The sparks are the primordial worlds which could not\ncontinue, because the _Sacred Aged_ (Sephira) had not as yet assumed\nits form (of androgyne or opposite sexes) of king and queen (Sephira\nand Kadmon) and the Master was not yet at his work.\u201d[828]\n\nThe six periods or \u201cdays\u201d of _Genesis_ refer to the same metaphysical\nbelief. Five such ineffectual attempts were made by the _Elohim_, but\nthe sixth resulted in worlds like our own (_i.e._, all the planets\nand most of the stars are worlds, and inhabited, though not like our\nearth). Having formed this world at last in the sixth period, the\nElohim rested in the _seventh_. Thus the \u201cHoly One,\u201d when he created\nthe present world, said: \u201cThis pleases me; the previous ones did not\nplease me.\u201d[829] And the Elohim \u201csaw everything that he had made, and\nbehold _it was_ very good. And the evening and the morning were the\nsixth _day_.\u201d--_Genesis_ i.\n\nThe reader will remember that in Chapter IV. an explanation was\ngiven of the \u201cday\u201d and \u201cnight\u201d of Brahma. The former represents a\ncertain period of cosmical activity, the latter an equal one of\ncosmical repose. In the one, worlds are being evolved, and passing\nthrough their allotted four ages of existence; in the latter the\n\u201cinbreathing\u201d of Brahma reverses the tendency of the natural forces;\neverything visible becomes gradually dispersed; chaos comes; and\na long night of repose reinvigorates the cosmos for its next term\nof evolution. In the morning of one of these \u201cdays\u201d the formative\nprocesses are gradually reaching their climax of activity; in the\nevening imperceptibly diminishing the same until the _pralaya_\narrives, and with it \u201c_night_.\u201d One such morning and evening do, in\nfact, constitute a cosmic day; and it was a \u201cday of Brahma\u201d that the\nkabalistic author of _Genesis_ had in mind each time when he said:\n\u201cAnd the evening and the morning were the first (or fifth or sixth,\nor any other) _day_.\u201d Six days of gradual evolution, one of repose,\nand then--evening! Since the first appearance of man on _our_ earth\nthere has been an eternal Sabbath or rest for the Demiurge.\n\nThe cosmogonical speculations of the first six chapters of _Genesis_\nare shown in the races of \u201csons of God,\u201d \u201cgiants,\u201d etc., of chapter\nvi. Properly speaking, the story of the formation of our earth, or\n\u201ccreation,\u201d as it is very improperly called, begins with the rescue\nof Noah from the deluge. The Chaldeo-Babylonian tablets recently\ntranslated by George Smith leave no doubt of that in the minds of\nthose who read the inscriptions esoterically. Ishtar, the great\ngoddess, speaks in column iii. of the destruction of the _sixth_\nworld and the appearance of the seventh, thus:\n\n\u201cSIX _days_ and _nights_ the wind, deluge, and storm overwhelmed.\n\n\u201cOn the _seventh_ day, in its course was calmed the storm, and all\nthe deluge,\n\n\u201cwhich had destroyed like an earthquake,[830]\n\n\u201cquieted. The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended....\n\n\u201cI perceived the shore at the boundary of the sea....\n\n\u201cto the country of Nizir went the ship (argha, or the moon).\n\n\u201cthe mountain of Nizir stopped the ship....\n\n\u201cthe _first_ day, and the _second_ day, the mountain of Nizir the\nsame.\n\n\u201cthe _fifth_ and the _sixth_, the mountain of Nizir the same.\n\n\u201con the _seventh_ day, in the course of it\n\n\u201cI sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and ...\nthe raven went ... and did not return.\n\n\u201cI built an altar on the peak of the mountain.\n\n\u201cby _seven_ herbs I cut, at the bottom of them I placed reeds, pines,\nand simgar....\n\n\u201cthe gods like flies over the sacrifice gathered.\n\n\u201cfrom of old _also the great God_ in his course.\n\n\u201cthe great brightness (the sun) of Anu had created.[831] When the\nglory of those gods the charm round my neck would not repel,\u201d etc.\n\nAll this has a purely astronomical, magical, and esoteric relation.\nOne who reads these tablets will recognize at a glance the biblical\naccount; and judge, at the same time, how disfigured is the great\nBabylonian poem by euhemeric personages--degraded from their exalted\npositions of gods into simple patriarchs. Space prevents our entering\nfully into this biblical travesty of the Chaldean allegories. We\nshall therefore but remind the reader that by the confession of the\nmost unwilling witnesses--such as Lenormant, first the inventor and\nthen champion of the Akkadians--the Chaldeo-Babylonian triad placed\nunder Ilon, the _unrevealed_ deity, is composed of Anu, Nuah, and\nBel. Anu is the primordial chaos, the god time and world at once,\n\u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 and \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, the uncreated matter issued from the one and\nfundamental principle of all things. As to _Nuah_, he is, according to\nthe same Orientalist:\n\n\u201c... the intelligence, we will willingly say the _verbum_, which\nanimates and fecundates matter, which penetrates the universe,\ndirects and makes it live; and at the same time Nuah is the king of\nthe _humid principle; the Spirit moving on the waters_.\u201d\n\nIs not this evident? Nuah is Noah, _floating on the waters_, in his\nark; the latter being the emblem of the argha, or moon, the feminine\nprinciple; Noah is the \u201cspirit\u201d falling into matter. We find him as\nsoon as he descends upon the earth, planting a vineyard, drinking of\nthe wine, and getting drunk on it; _i.e._, the pure spirit becoming\nintoxicated as soon as it is finally imprisoned in matter. The\nseventh chapter of _Genesis_ is but another version of the first.\nThus, while the latter reads: \u201c... and darkness was upon the face of\nthe deep. And the spirit (of God) moved upon the face of the waters,\u201d\nin chapter seventh, it is said: \u201c... and the waters prevailed ... and\nthe ark went (with Noah--the spirit) upon the face of the waters.\u201d\nThus Noah, if the Chaldean Nuah, is the spirit vivifying _matter_,\nchaos represented by the deep or waters of the flood. In the\nBabylonian legend it is Istar (Astoreth, the moon) which is shut up\nin the ark, and sends out a dove (emblem of Venus and other lunar\ngoddesses) in search of dry land. And whereas in the Semitic tablets\nit is Xisuthrus or Hasisadra who is \u201ctranslated to the company of the\ngods for his piety,\u201d in the _Bible_ it is Enoch who walks with, and\nbeing taken up by God, \u201cwas no more.\u201d\n\nThe successive existence of an incalculable number of worlds before\nthe subsequent evolution of our own, was believed and taught by all\nthe ancient peoples. The punishment of the Christians for despoiling\nthe Jews of their records and refusing the true key to them began\nfrom the earliest centuries. And thus is it that we find the holy\nFathers of the Church laboring through an impossible chronology and\nthe absurdities of literal interpretation, while the learned rabbis\nwere perfectly aware of the real significance of their allegories.\nSo not only in the _Sohar_, but also in other kabalistic works\naccepted by Talmudists, such as _Midrash Berasheth_, or the universal\n_Genesis_, which, with the _Merkaba_ (the chariot of Ezekiel),\ncomposes the _Kabala_, may be found the doctrine of a whole series of\nworlds evolving out of the chaos, and being destroyed in succession.\n\nThe Hindu doctrines teach of two _Pralayas_ or dissolutions; one\nuniversal, the Maha-Pralaya, the other partial, or the minor Pralaya.\nThis does not relate to the universal dissolution which occurs at the\nend of every \u201cDay of Brahma,\u201d but to the geological cataclysms at the\nend of every minor cycle of our globe. This historical and purely\nlocal deluge of Central Asia, the traditions of which can be traced\nin every country, and which, according to Bunsen, happened about the\nyear 10,000 B.C., had naught to do with the mythical Noah, or Nuah.\nA partial cataclysm occurs at the close of every \u201cage\u201d of the world,\nthey say, which does not destroy the latter, but only changes its\ngeneral appearance. New races of men and animals and a new flora\nevolve from the dissolution of the precedent ones.\n\nThe allegories of the \u201cfall of man\u201d and the \u201cdeluge,\u201d are the two\nmost important features of the _Pentateuch_. They are, so to say,\nthe Alpha and Omega, the highest and the lowest keys of the scale\nof harmony on which resounds the majestic hymns of the creation\nof mankind; for they discover to him who questions the _Zura_\n(figurative _Gemantria_), the process of man\u2019s evolution from the\nhighest spiritual entity unto the lowest physical--the post-diluvian\nman, as in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, every sign of the picture\nwriting which cannot be made to fit within a certain circumscribed\ngeometrical figure may be rejected as only intended by the sacred\nhierogrammatist for a premeditated blind--so many of the details in\nthe _Bible_ must be treated on the same principle, that portion only\nbeing accepted which answers to the numerical methods taught in the\n_Kabala_.\n\nThe deluge appears in the Hindu books only as a tradition. It claims\nno sacred character, and we find it but in the _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, the\n_Puranas_, and still earlier in the _Satapatha_, one of the latest\n_Brahmanas_. It is more than probable that Moses, or whoever wrote\nfor him, used these accounts as the basis of his own purposely\ndisfigured allegory, adding to it moreover the Chaldean Berosian\nnarrative. In _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, we recognize Nimrod under the name of\n_King Daytha_. The origin of the Grecian fable of the Titans scaling\nOlympus, and the other of the builders of the Tower of Babel who\nseek to reach heaven, is shown in the impious _Daytha_, who sends\nimprecations against heaven\u2019s thunder, and threatens to conquer\nheaven itself with his mighty warriors, thereby bringing upon\nhumanity the wrath of Brahma. \u201cThe Lord then resolved,\u201d says the\ntext, \u201cto chastise his creatures with a terrible punishment which\nshould serve as a warning to survivors, and to their descendants.\u201d\n\n_Vaivasvata_ (who in the _Bible_ becomes Noah) saves a little fish,\nwhich turns out to be an _avatar_ of Vishnu. The fish warns that just\nman that the globe is about to be submerged, that all that inhabit it\nmust perish, and orders him to construct a vessel in which he shall\nembark, with all his family. When the ship is ready, and _Vaivasvata_\nhas shut up in it with his family _the seeds of plants and pairs of\nall animals_, and the rain begins to fall, a gigantic fish, armed\nwith a horn, places itself at the head of the ark. The holy man,\nfollowing its orders, attaches a cable to this horn, and the fish\nguides the ship safely through the raging elements. In the Hindu\ntradition the number of days during which the deluge lasted _agrees\nexactly with that of the Mosaic account_. When the elements were\ncalmed, the fish landed the ark on the summit of the Himalayas.\n\nThis fable is considered by many orthodox commentators to have been\nborrowed from the Mosaic _Scriptures_.[832] But surely if such a\n_universal_ cataclysm had ever taken place within man\u2019s memory,\nsome of the monuments of the Egyptians, of which many are of such a\ntremendous antiquity, would have recorded that occurrence, coupled\nwith that of the disgrace of Ham, Canaan, and Mizraim, their\nalleged ancestors. But, till now, there has not been found the\nremotest allusion to such a calamity, although Mizraim certainly\nbelongs to the first generation after the deluge, if not actually\nan antediluvian himself. On the other hand the Chaldeans preserved\nthe tradition, as we find Berosus testifying to it, and the ancient\nHindus possess the legend as given above. Now, there is but one\nexplanation of the extraordinary fact that of two contemporary\nand civilized nations like Egypt and Chaldea, one has preserved\nno tradition of it whatever, although it was the most directly\ninterested in the occurrence--if we credit the _Bible_--and the other\nhas. The deluge noticed in the _Bible_, in one of the _Brahmanas_,\nand in the Berosus _Fragment_, relates to the partial flood which,\nabout 10,000 years B.C., according to Bunsen, and according to the\nBrahmanical computations of the Zodiac also changed the whole face\nof Central Asia.[833] Thus the Babylonians and the Chaldeans might\nhave learned of it from their mysterious guests, christened by some\nAssyriologists Akkadians, or what is still more probable they,\nthemselves, perhaps, were the descendants of those who had dwelt\nin the submerged localities. The Jews had the tale from the latter\nas they had everything else; the Brahmans may have recorded the\ntraditions of the lands which they first invaded, and had perhaps\ninhabited before they possessed themselves of the Punj\u00e2b. But the\nEgyptians, whose first settlers had evidently come from Southern\nIndia, had less reason to record the cataclysm, since it had perhaps\nnever affected them except indirectly, as the flood was limited to\nCentral Asia.\n\nBurnouf, noticing the fact that the story of the deluge is found only\nin one of the most modern _Brahmanas_, also thinks that it might\nhave been borrowed by the Hindus from the Semitic nations. Against\nsuch an assumption are ranged all the traditions and customs of the\nHindus. The Aryans, and especially the Brahmans, never borrowed\nanything at all from the Semitists, and here we are corroborated by\none of those \u201cunwilling witnesses,\u201d as Higgins calls the partisans of\nJehovah and _Bible_. \u201cI have never seen anything in the history of\nthe Egyptians and Jews,\u201d writes Abb\u00e9 Dubois, forty years a resident\nof India, \u201cthat would induce me to believe that either of these\nnations, or any other on the face of the earth, have been established\nearlier than the Hindus, and particularly the Brahmans; so I cannot\nbe induced to believe that the latter have drawn their rites from\nforeign nations. On the contrary, I infer that they have drawn them\nfrom an original source of their own. Whoever knows anything of the\nspirit and character of the Brahmans, their stateliness, their pride,\nand extreme vanity, their distance, and sovereign contempt for\neverything that is foreign, and of which they cannot boast to have\nbeen the inventors, will agree with me that such a people cannot have\nconsented to draw their customs and rules of conduct from an alien\ncountry.\u201d[834]\n\nThis fable which mentions the earliest avatar--the Matsya--relates\nto another yuga than our own, that of the first appearance of animal\nlife; perchance, who knows, to the Devonian age of our geologists? It\ncertainly answers better to the latter than the year 2348 B.C.! Apart\nfrom this, the very absence of all mention of the deluge from the\noldest books of the Hindus suggests a powerful argument when we are\nleft utterly to inferences as in this case. \u201cThe _Vedas_ and _Manu_,\u201d\nsays Jacolliot, \u201cthose monuments of the old Asiatic thought, existed\nfar earlier than the diluvian period; _this is an incontrovertible\nfact, having all the value of an historical truth_, for, besides the\ntradition which shows Vishnu himself as saving the _Vedas_ from the\ndeluge--a tradition which, notwithstanding its legendary form, must\ncertainly rest upon a real fact--it has been remarked that neither\nof these sacred books mention the cataclysm, while the _P\u00fbranas_\nand the _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, and a great number of other more recent\nworks, describe it with the minutest detail, _which is a proof of\nthe priority of the former_. The _Vedas_ certainly would never have\nfailed to contain a few hymns on the terrible disaster which, of all\nother natural manifestations, must have struck the imagination of the\npeople who witnessed it.\u201d\n\n\u201cNeither would Manu, who gives us a complete narrative of the\ncreation, with a chronology from the divine and heroical ages, down\nto the appearance of man on earth--have passed in silence an event\nof such importance.\u201d _Manu_ (book i., sloka 35), gives the names\nof ten eminent saints whom he calls pradj\u00e2patis (more correctly\n_prag\u00e2patis_), in whom the Brahman theologians see prophets,\nancestors of the human race, and the Pundits simply consider as ten\npowerful kings who lived in the Krita-yug, or the age of good (the\ngolden age of the Greeks).\n\nThe last of these prag\u00e2patis is Brighou.\n\n\u201cEnumerating the succession of these eminent beings who, according to\nManu, have governed the world, the old Brahmanical legislator names\nas descending from Brighou: Sw\u00e2rotchica, Ottami, Tamasa, Raivata, the\nglorious Tch\u00e2kchoucha, and the son of Vivasvat, every one of the six\nhaving made himself worthy of the title of Manu (divine legislator),\na title which had equally belonged to the Pradj\u00e2patis, and every\ngreat personage of primitive India. The genealogy stops at this name.\n\n\u201cNow, according to the _P\u00fbranas_ and the _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_ it was under a\ndescendant of this son of Vivaswata, named Vaivaswata that occurred\nthe great cataclysm, the remembrance of which, as will be seen, has\npassed into a tradition, and been carried by emigration into all\nthe countries of the East and West which India has colonized since\nthen....\n\n\u201cThe genealogy given by Manu stopping, as we have seen, at Vivaswata,\nit follows that this work (of Manu) knew nothing either of Vivaswata\nor the deluge.\u201d[835]\n\nThe argument is unanswerable; and we commend it to those official\nscientists, who, to please the clergy, dispute every fact proving the\ntremendous antiquity of the _Vedas_ and _Manu_. Colonel Vans Kennedy\nhas long since declared that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat\nof _Sanscrit_ literature and Brahman learning. And how or why should\nthe Brahmans have penetrated there, unless it was as the result of\nintestine wars and emigration from India? The fullest account of the\ndeluge is found in the _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_ of Vedavyasa, a poem in honor\nof the astrological allegories on the wars between the Solar and the\nLunar races. One of the versions states that Vivaswata became the\nfather of all the nations of the earth through his own progeny, and\nthis is the form adopted for the Noachian story; the other states\nthat--like Deukalion and Pyrrha--he had but to throw pebbles into the\nilus left by the retiring waves of the flood, to produce men at will.\nThese two versions--one Hebrew, the other Greek--allow us no choice.\nWe must either believe that the Hindus borrowed from pagan Greeks as\nwell as from monotheistic Jews, or--what is far more probable--that\nthe versions of both of these nations are derived from the Vedic\nliterature through the Babylonians.\n\nHistory tells us of the stream of immigration across the Indus, and\nlater of its overflowing the Occident; and of populations of Hindu\norigin passing from Asia Minor to colonize Greece. But history says\nnot a single word of the \u201cchosen people,\u201d or of Greek colonies having\npenetrated India earlier than the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., when\nwe first find vague traditions that make some of the problematical\n_lost_ tribes of Israel, take from Babylon the route to India. But\neven were the story of the ten tribes to find credence, and the\ntribes themselves be proved to have existed in profane as well as in\nsacred history, this does not help the solution at all. Colebrooke,\nWilson, and other eminent Indianists show the _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, if not\nthe _Satapatha_-br\u00e2hmana, in which the story is also given, as by\nfar antedating the age of Cyrus, hence, the possible time of the\nappearance of any of the tribes of Israel in India.[836]\n\nOrientalists accord the _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_ an antiquity of between twelve\nand fifteen hundred years B.C.; as to the Greek version it bears as\nlittle evidence as the other, and the attempts of the Hellenists in\nthis direction have as signally failed. The story of the conquering\narmy of Alexander penetrating into Northern India, itself becomes\nmore doubted every day. No Hindu national record, not the slightest\nhistorical memento, throughout the length and breadth of India offers\nthe slightest trace of such an invasion.\n\nIf even such _historical facts_ are now found to have been all the\nwhile fictions, what are we to think of narratives which bear on\ntheir very face the stamp of invention? We cannot help sympathizing\nat heart with Professor M\u00fcller when he remarks that it seems\n\u201cblasphemy to consider these fables of the heathen world as corrupted\nand misinterpreted fragments of _divine_ Revelation once granted to\nthe whole race of mankind.\u201d Only, can this scholar be held perfectly\nimpartial and fair to both parties, unless he includes in the number\nof these fables those of the _Bible_? And is the language of the _Old\nTestament_ more _pure_ or _moral_ than the books of the Brahmans? Or\nany fables of the _heathen_ world more blasphemous and ridiculous\nthan Jehovah\u2019s interview with Moses (_Exodus_ xxxiii. 23)? Are any of\nthe Pagan gods made to appear more fiendish than the same Jehovah in\na score of passages? If the feelings of a pious Christian are shocked\nat the absurdities of Father Kronos eating his children and maiming\nUranos; or of Jupiter throwing Vulcan down from heaven and breaking\nhis leg; on the other hand he cannot feel hurt if a _non_-Christian\nlaughs at the idea of Jacob boxing with the Creator, who \u201cwhen he saw\nthat _he prevailed not_ against him,\u201d dislocated Jacob\u2019s thigh, the\npatriarch still holding fast to God and not allowing Him to go His\nway, notwithstanding His pleading.\n\nWhy should the story of Deukalion and Pyrrha, throwing stones behind\nthem, and thus creating the human race, be deemed more ridiculous\nthan that of Lot\u2019s wife being changed into a pillar of salt, or of\nthe Almighty creating men _of clay_ and then breathing the breath of\nlife into them? The choice between the latter mode of creation and\nthat of the Egyptian ram-horned god fabricating man on a potter\u2019s\nwheel is hardly perceptible. The story of Minerva, goddess of wisdom,\nushered into existence after a certain period of gestation in her\nfather\u2019s brain, is at least suggestive and poetical, as an allegory.\nNo ancient Greek was ever burned for not accepting it literally; and,\nat all events, \u201cheathen\u201d fables in general are far less preposterous\nand blasphemous than those imposed upon Christians, ever since the\nChurch accepted the _Old Testament_, and the Roman Catholic Church\nopened its register of thaumaturgical saints.\n\n\u201cMany of the natives of India,\u201d continues Professor M\u00fcller, \u201cconfess\nthat their feelings revolt against the impurities attributed to\nthe gods by what they call their sacred writings; yet there are\nhonest Brahmans who will maintain that _these stories have a deeper\nmeaning_; that immorality being incompatible with a divine being,\n_a mystery_ must be supposed to be concealed in these time-hallowed\nfables, a mystery which an inquiring and reverent mind may hope to\nfathom.\u201d\n\nThis is precisely what the Christian clergy maintain in attempting\nto explain the indecencies and incongruities of the _Old Testament_.\nOnly, instead of allowing the interpretation to those who have the\nkey to these seeming incongruities, they have assumed to themselves\nthe office and right, by _divine_ proxy, to interpret these in their\nown way. They have not only done that but have gradually deprived the\nHebrew clergy of the means to interpret their Scriptures as their\nfathers did; so that to find among the Rabbis in the present century\na well-versed kabalist, is quite rare. The Jews have themselves\nforgotten the key! How could they help it? Where are the original\nmanuscripts? The oldest Hebrew manuscript in existence is said to be\nthe _Bodleian Codex_, which is not older than between eight and nine\nhundred years.[837] The break between Ezra and this _Codex_ is thus\nfifteen centuries. In 1490 the Inquisition _caused all the Hebrew\nBibles to be burned_; and Torquemada alone destroyed 6,000 volumes\nat Salamanca. Except a few manuscripts of the _Tora Ketubim_ and\n_Nebiim_, used in the synagogues, and which are of quite a recent\ndate, we do not think there is one old manuscript in existence which\nis not punctuated, hence--completely misinterpreted and altered by\nthe Masorets. Were it not for this timely invention of the _Masorah_,\nno copy of the _Old Testament_ could possibly be tolerated in our\ncentury. It is well known that the Masorets while transcribing the\noldest manuscripts put themselves to task to take out, except in a\nfew places which they have probably overlooked, all the _immodest_\nwords and put in places sentences of their own, often changing\ncompletely the sense of the verse. \u201cIt is clear,\u201d says Donaldson,\n\u201cthat the Masoretic school at Tiberias were engaged in settling\nor unsettling the Hebrew text until the final publication of the\n_Masorah_ itself.\u201d Therefore, had we but the original texts--judging\nby the present copies of the _Bible_ in our possession--it would\nbe really edifying to compare the _Old Testament_ with the _Vedas_\nand even with the Brahmanical books. We verily believe that no\nfaith, however blind, could stand before such an avalanche of crude\nimpurities and fables. If the latter are not only accepted but\nenforced upon millions of civilized persons who find it respectable\nand edifying to believe in them as _divine revelation_, why should we\nwonder that Brahmans believe their books to be equally a _Sruti_, a\nrevelation?\n\nLet us thank the Masorets by all means, but let us study at the same\ntime both sides of the medal.\n\nLegends, myths, allegories, symbols, if they but belong to the Hindu,\nChaldean, or Egyptian tradition, are thrown into the same heap of\nfiction. Hardly are they honored with a superficial search into\ntheir possible relations to astronomy or sexual emblems. The same\nmyths--when and because mutilated--are accepted as Sacred Scriptures,\nmore--the Word of God! Is this impartial history? Is this justice to\neither the past, the present, or the future? \u201cYe cannot serve God and\nMammon,\u201d said the Reformer, nineteen centuries ago. \u201cYe cannot serve\ntruth and public prejudice,\u201d would be more applicable to our own age.\nYet our authorities pretend they serve the former.\n\nThere are few myths in any religious system but have an historical\nas well as a scientific foundation. Myths, as Pococke ably\nexpresses it, \u201care now proved to be fables, just in proportion as\nwe _misunderstand_ them; truths, in proportion as they were once\n_understood_. Our ignorance it is which has made a myth of history;\nand our ignorance is an Hellenic inheritance, much of it the result\nof Hellenic vanity.\u201d[838]\n\nBunsen and Champollion have already shown that the Egyptian sacred\nbooks are by far older than the oldest parts of the _Book of\nGenesis_. And now a more careful research seems to warrant the\nsuspicion--which with us amounts to a certainty, that the laws\nof Moses are copies from the code of the Brahmanic _Manu_. Thus,\naccording to every probability, Egypt owes her civilization, her\ncivil institutions, and her arts, to India. But against the latter\nassumption we have a whole army of \u201cauthorities\u201d arrayed, and what\nmatters if the latter do deny the fact at present? Sooner or later\nthey will have to accept it, whether they belong to the German or\nFrench school. Among, but not of those who so readily compromise\nbetween interest and conscience, there are some fearless scholars,\nwho may bring out to light incontrovertible facts. Some twenty\nyears since, Max M\u00fcller, in a letter to the Editor of the London\n_Times_, April, 1857, maintained most vehemently that Nirvana meant\n_annihilation_, in the fullest sense of the word. (See _Chips_,\netc., vol. i., p. 287, on the meaning of Nirvana.) But in 1869, in\na lecture before the general meeting of the Association of German\nPhilologists at Kiel, \u201che distinctly declares his belief that the\nnihilism attributed to Buddha\u2019s teaching forms no part of his\ndoctrine, and that it is wholly wrong to suppose that Nirvana means\nannihilation.\u201d (Tr\u00fcbner\u2019s _American and Oriental Literary Record_,\nOct. 16, 1869; also Inman\u2019s _Ancient Faiths and Modern_, p. 128.) Yet\nif we mistake not, Professor M\u00fcller was as much of an authority in\n1857 as in 1869.\n\n\u201cIt will be difficult to settle,\u201d says (now) this great scholar,\n\u201cwhether the _Vedas_ is the oldest of books, and whether some of the\nportions of the _Old Testament_ may not be traced back to the same\nor even an earlier date than the oldest hymns of the _Veda_.\u201d[839]\nBut his retraction about the Nirvana allows us a hope that he may yet\nchange his opinion on the question of _Genesis_ likewise, so that the\npublic may have simultaneously the benefit of truth, and the sanction\nof one of Europe\u2019s greatest authorities.\n\nIt is well known how little the Orientalists have come to anything\nlike an agreement about the age of Zoroaster, and until this question\nis settled, it would be safer perhaps to trust implicitly in the\nBrahmanical calculations by the Zodiac, than to the opinions of\nscientists. Leaving the profane horde of unrecognized scholars, those\nwe mean who yet wait their turn to be chosen for public worship\nas idols symbolical of scientific leadership, where can we find,\namong the sanctioned authorities of the day, two that agree as to\nthis age? There\u2019s Bunsen, who places Zoroaster at Baktra, and the\nemigration of Baktrians to the Indus at 3784 B.C.,[840] and the\nbirth of Moses at 1392.[841] Now it is rather difficult to place\nZoroaster anterior to the _Vedas_, considering that the whole of\nhis doctrine is that of the earlier _Vedas_. True, he remained in\nAfghanistan for a period more or less problematical before crossing\ninto the Punj\u00e2b; but the _Vedas_ were begun in the latter country.\nThey indicate the progress of the Hindus, as the _Avesta_ that\nof the Iranians. And there is Haug who assigns to the _Aitareya\nBrahmanam_--a Brahmanical speculation and commentary upon the\n_Rig-Veda_ of a far later date than the _Veda_ itself--between 1400\nand 1200 B.C., while the _Vedas_ are placed by him between 2,000 and\n2,400 years B.C. Max M\u00fcller cautiously suggests certain difficulties\nin this chronological computation, but still does not altogether\ndeny it.[842] Let it, however, be as it may, and supposing that the\n_Pentateuch_ was written by Moses himself--notwithstanding that he\nwould thereby be made to twice record his own death--still, if Moses\nwas born, as Bunsen finds, in 1392 B.C., the _Pentateuch_ could not\nhave been written, _before the Vedas_. Especially if Zoroaster was\nborn 3784 B.C. If, as Dr. Haug[843] tells us, some of the hymns of\nthe _Rig-Veda_ were written before Zoroaster accomplished his schism,\nsomething like thirty-seven centuries B.C., and Max M\u00fcller says\nhimself that \u201cthe Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India\nduring the Vaidic period,\u201d how can some of the portions of the _Old\nTestament_ be traced back to the same or even \u201can earlier date than\nthe oldest hymns of the _Veda_?\u201d\n\nIt has generally been agreed among Orientalists that the Aryans,\n3,000 years B.C., were still in the steppes east of the Caspian,\nand united. Rawlinson _conjectures_ that they \u201cflowed east\u201d from\nArmenia as a common centre; while two kindred streams began to flow,\none northward over the Caucasus, and the other westward over Asia\nMinor and Europe. He finds the Aryans, at a period anterior to the\nfifteenth century before our era, \u201csettled in the territory watered\nby the Upper Indus.\u201d Thence Vedic Aryans migrated to the Punj\u00e2b, and\nZendic Aryans westward, establishing the historical countries. But\nthis, like the rest, is a hypothesis, and only given as such.\n\nAgain, Rawlinson, evidently following Max M\u00fcller, says: \u201cThe early\nhistory of the Aryans is for many ages an absolute blank.\u201d But many\nlearned Brahmans, however, have declared that they found trace of\nthe existence of the _Vedas_ as early as 2100 B.C.; and Sir William\nJones, taking for his guide the astronomical data, places the\n_Yagur-Veda_ 1580 B.C. This would be still \u201cbefore Moses.\u201d\n\nIt is upon the supposition that the Aryans did not leave Afghanistan\nfor the Punj\u00e2b prior to 1500 B.C. that Max M\u00fcller and other Oxford\nsavants have supposed that portions of the _Old Testament_ may be\ntraced back to the same or even an earlier date than the oldest\nhymns of the _Veda_. Therefore, until the Orientalists can show us\nthe correct date at which Zoroaster flourished, no authority can be\nregarded as better for the ages of the _Vedas_ than the Brahmans\nthemselves.\n\nAs it is a recognized fact that the Jews borrowed most of their laws\nfrom the Egyptians, let us examine who were the Egyptians. In our\nopinion--which is but a poor authority, of course--they were the\nancient Indians, and in our first volume we have quoted passages from\nthe historian Collouca-Batta that support such a theory. What we mean\nby ancient India is the following:\n\nNo region on the map--except it be the ancient Scythia--is more\nuncertainly defined than that which bore the designation of India.\n\u00c6thiopia is perhaps the only parallel. It was the home of the Cushite\nor Hamitic races, and lay to the east of Babylonia. It was once the\nname of Hindustan, when the dark races, worshippers of Bala-Mahadeva\nand Bhavani-Mahidevi, were supreme in that country. The India of\nthe early sages appears to have been the region at the sources of\nthe Oxus and Jaxartes. Apollonius of Tyana crossed the Caucasus, or\nHindu Kush, where he met with a king who directed him to the abode of\nthe sages--perhaps the descendants of those whom Ammianus terms the\n\u201cBrahmans of Upper India,\u201d and whom Hystaspes, the father of Darius\n(or more probably Darius Hystaspes himself) visited; and, having\nbeen instructed by them, infused their rites and ideas into the\nMagian observances. This narrative about Apollonius seems to indicate\nKashmere as the country which he visited, and the _Nagas_--after\ntheir conversion to Buddhism--as his teachers. At this time Aryan\nIndia did not extend beyond the Punj\u00e2b.\n\nTo our notion, the most baffling impediment in the way of\nethnological progress has always been the triple progeny of Noah.\nIn the attempt to reconcile postdiluvian races with a genealogical\ndescent from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the Christianesque Orientalists\nhave set themselves a task impossible of accomplishment. The biblical\nNoachian ark has been a Procrustean bed to which they had to make\neverything fit. Attention has therefore been diverted from veritable\nsources of information as to the origin of man, and a purely local\nallegory mistaken for a historical record emanating from an inspired\nsource. Strange and unfortunate choice! Out of all the sacred\nwritings of all the branch nations, sprung from the primitive stock\nof mankind, Christianity must choose for its guidance the national\nrecords and scriptures of a people perhaps the least spiritual of\nthe human family--the Semitic. A branch that has never been able to\ndevelop out of its numerous tongues a language capable of embodying\nideas of a moral and intellectual world; whose form of expression\nand drift of thought could never soar higher than the purely sensual\nand terrestrial figures of speech; whose literature has left nothing\noriginal, nothing that was not borrowed from the Aryan thought; and\nwhose science and philosophy are utterly wanting in those noble\nfeatures which characterize the highly spiritual and metaphysical\nsystems of the Indo-European (Japetic) races.\n\nBunsen shows Khamism (the language of Egypt) as a very ancient\ndeposit from Western Asia, containing _the germs_ of the Semitic, and\nthus bearing \u201cwitness to the primitive cognate unity of the Semitic\nand Aryan races.\u201d We must remember, in this connection, that the\npeoples of Southwestern and Western Asia, including the Medes, were\nall Aryans. It is yet far from being proved who were the original and\nprimitive masters of India. That this period is now beyond the reach\nof documentary history, does not preclude the probability of our\ntheory that it was the mighty race of builders, whether we call them\nEastern \u00c6thiopians, or dark-skinned Aryans (the word meaning simply\n\u201cnoble warrior,\u201d a \u201cbrave\u201d). They ruled supreme at one time over the\nwhole of ancient India, enumerated later by Manu as the possession of\nthose whom our scientists term the Sanscrit-speaking people.\n\nThese Hindus are _supposed_ to have entered the country from the\nnorthwest; they are _conjectured_ by some to have brought with them\nthe Brahmanical religion, and the language of the conquerors was\n_probably_ the Sanscrit. On these three meagre data our philologists\nhave worked ever since the Hindustani and its immense Sanscrit\nliterature was forcibly brought into notice by Sir William Jones--all\nthe time with the three sons of Noah clinging around their necks.\nThis is _exact_ science, free from religious prejudices! Verily,\nethnology would have been the gainer if this Noachian trio had been\nwashed overboard and drowned before the ark reached land!\n\nThe \u00c6thiopians are generally classed in the Semitic group; but we\nhave to see how far they have a claim to such a classification.\nWe will also consider how much they might have had to do with the\nEgyptian civilization, which, as a writer expresses it, seems\nreferable in the same perfection to the earliest dates, and not to\nhave had a rise and progress, as was the case with that of other\npeoples. For reasons that we will now adduce, we are prepared\nto maintain that Egypt owes her civilization, commonwealth and\narts--especially the art of building, to pre-Vedic India, and that\nit was a colony of the dark-skinned Aryans, or those whom Homer and\nHerodotus term the eastern \u00c6thiopians, _i.e._, the inhabitants of\nSouthern India, who brought to it their ready-made civilization in\nthe ante-chronological ages, of what Bunsen calls the pre-Menite, but\nnevertheless epochal history.\n\nIn Pococke\u2019s _India in Greece_, we find the following suggestive\nparagraph: \u201cThe plain account of the wars carried on between\nthe solar chiefs, Oosras (Osiris) the prince of the Guelas, and\n\u2018TU-PHOO\u2019 is the simple historical fact of the wars of the Apians,\nor Sun-tribes of Oude, with the people of \u2018TU-PHOO\u2019 or THIBET, who\nwere, in fact, the lunar race, mostly Buddhists[844] and opposed\nby Rama and the \u2018AITYO-PIAS\u2019 or people of Oude, subsequently the\nAITH-IO-PIANS of Africa.\u201d[845]\n\nWe would remind the reader in this connection, that Ravan, the\ngiant, who, in the _Ramayana_, wages such a war with Rama Chandra,\nis shown as King of Lanka, which was the ancient name for Ceylon;\nand that Ceylon, in those days, perhaps formed part of the main-land\nof Southern India, and was peopled by the \u201cEastern \u00c6thiopians.\u201d\nConquered by Rama, the son of Dasarata, the Solar King of ancient\nOude, a colony of these emigrated to Northern Africa. If, as many\nsuspect, Homer\u2019s _Iliad_ and much of his account of the Trojan war\nis plagiarized from the _Ramayana_, then the traditions which served\nas a basis for the latter must date from a tremendous antiquity.\nAmple margin is thus left in pre-chronological history for a period,\nduring which the \u201cEastern \u00c6thiopians\u201d might have established the\nhypothetical Mizraic colony, with their high Indian civilization and\narts.\n\nScience is still in the dark about cuneiform inscriptions. Until\nthese are completely deciphered, especially those cut in rocks found\nin such abundance within the boundaries of the old Iran, who can tell\nthe secrets they may yet reveal? There are no Sanscrit monumental\ninscriptions older than Chandragupta (315 B.C.), and the Persepolitan\ninscriptions are found 220 years older. There are even now some\nmanuscripts in characters utterly unknown to philologists and\npal\u00e6ographists, and one of them is, or was, some time since in the\nlibrary of Cambridge, England. Linguistic writers class the Semitic\nwith the Indo-European language, generally including the \u00c6thiopian\nand the ancient Egyptian in the classification. But if some of the\ndialects of the modern Northern Africa, and even the modern Gheez or\n\u00c6thiopian, are now so degenerated and corrupted as to admit of false\nconclusions as to the genetical relationship between them and the\nother Semitic tongues, we are not at all sure that the latter have\nany claim to such a classification, except in the case of the old\nCoptic and the ancient Gheez.\n\nThat there is more consanguinity between the \u00c6thiopians and the\nAryan, dark-skinned races, and between the latter and the Egyptians,\nis something which yet may be proved. It has been lately found that\nthe ancient Egyptians were of the Caucasian type of mankind, and\nthe shape of their skulls is purely Asiatic.[846] If they were less\ncopper-colored than the \u00c6thiopians of our modern day, the \u00c6thiopians\nthemselves might have had a lighter complexion in days of old. The\nfact that, with the \u00c6thiopian kings, the order of succession gave the\ncrown to the nephew of the king, the _son of his sister_, and not\nto his own son, is extremely suggestive. It is an old custom which\nprevails until now in Southern India. The Rajah is not succeeded by\nhis own sons, but by _his sister\u2019s sons_.[847]\n\nOf all the dialects and tongues alleged to be Semitic, the \u00c6thiopian\nalone is written from left to right like the Sanscrit and the\nIndo-Aryan people.[848]\n\nThus, against the origin of the Egyptians being attributed to an\nancient Indian colony, there is no graver impediment than Noah\u2019s\ndisrespectful son--Ham--himself a myth. But the earliest form of\nEgyptian religious worship and government, theocratic and sacerdotal,\nand her habits and customs all bespeak an Indian origin.\n\nThe earliest legends of the history of India mention two dynasties\nnow lost in the night of time; the first was the dynasty of kings,\nof \u201cthe race of the sun,\u201d who reigned in Ayodhia (now Oude); the\nsecond that of the \u201crace of the moon,\u201d who reigned in Pruyag\n(Allahabad). Let him who desires information on the religious\nworship of these early kings read the _Book of the Dead_, of the\nEgyptians, and all the peculiarities attending this sun-worship and\nthe sun-gods. Neither Osiris nor Horus are ever mentioned without\nbeing connected with the sun. They are the \u201cSons of the _Sun_;\u201d \u201cthe\nLord and Adorer of the Sun\u201d is his name. \u201cThe sun is the creator of\nthe body, the engenderer of the gods who are _the successors of the\nSon_.\u201d Pococke, in his most ingenious work, strongly advocates the\nsame idea, and endeavors to establish still more firmly the identity\nof the Egyptian, Greek, and Indian mythology. He shows the head\nof the Rajpoot Solar race--in fact the great Cuclo-pos (Cyclop or\nbuilder)--called \u201cThe great sun,\u201d in the earliest Hindu tradition.\nThis Gok-la Prince, the patriarch of the vast bands of Inachienses,\nhe says, \u201cthis _Great Sun_ was deified at his death, and according\nto the Indian doctrine of the metempsychosis, his Soul was supposed\nto have transmigrated into the bull \u2018Apis,\u2019 the Sera-pis of the\nGreeks, and the SOORA-PAS, or \u2018Sun-Chief\u2019 of the Egyptians....\n_Osiris_, properly Oosras, signifies both a \u2018a bull,\u2019 and \u2018a ray of\nlight.\u2019 _Soora-pas_ (Serapis) the sun chief,\u201d for the Sun in Sanscrit\nis S\u00fbrya. Champollion\u2019s _Manifestation to the Light_, reminds in\nevery chapter of the two Dynasties of the Kings of the Sun and the\nMoon. Later, these kings became all deified and transformed after\ndeath into solar and lunar deities. Their worship was the earliest\ncorruption of the great primitive faith which justly considered the\nsun and its fiery life-giving rays as the most appropriate symbol to\nremind us of the universal invisible presence of Him who is master of\nLife and Death. And now it can be traced all around the globe. It was\nthe religion of the earliest Vedic Brahmans, who call, in the oldest\nhymns of the _Rig-Veda_, S\u00fbrya (the sun) and Agni (fire) \u201cthe ruler\nof the universe,\u201d \u201cthe lord of men,\u201d and the \u201cwise king.\u201d It was the\nworship of the Magians, the Zoroastrians, the Egyptians and Greeks,\nwhether they called him Mithra, or Ahura-Mazda, or Osiris, or Zeus,\nkeeping in honor of his next of kin, Vesta, the pure celestial fire.\nAnd this religion is found again in the Peruvian solar-worship; in\nthe Sabianism and heliolatry of the Chaldees, in the Mosaic \u201cburning\nbush,\u201d the hanging of the heads or chiefs of the people toward the\nLord, the \u201cSun,\u201d and even in the Abrahamic building of fire-altars\nand the sacrifices of the monotheistic Jews, to Astart\u00e9 the Queen of\nHeaven.\n\nTo the present moment, with all the controversies and researches,\nHistory and Science remain as much as ever in the dark as to the\norigin of the Jews. They may as well be the exiled Tchandalas, or\nPariahs, of old India, the \u201cbricklayers\u201d mentioned by Vina-Svati,\nVeda-Vyasa and Manu, as the Ph\u0153nicians of Herodotus, or the Hyk-sos\nof Josephus, or descendants of Pali shepherds, or a mixture of all\nthese. The _Bible_ names the Tyrians as a kindred people, and claims\ndominion over them.[849]\n\nThere is more than one important character in the _Bible_, whose\nbiography proves him a mythical hero. Samuel is indicated as the\npersonage of the Hebrew Commonwealth. He is the _doppel_ of Samson,\nof the _Book of Judges_, as will be seen--being the son of Anna and\nEL-KAINA, as Samson was of Manua or Manoah. Both were fictitious\ncharacters, as now represented in the revealed book; one was the\nHebrew Hercules, and the other Ganesa. Samuel is credited with\nestablishing the republic, as putting down the Canaanite worship\nof Baal and Astart\u00e9, or Adonis and Venus, and setting up that of\nJehovah. Then the people demanded a king, and he anointed Saul, and\nafter him David of Bethlehem.\n\nDavid is the Israelitish King Arthur. He did great achievements\nand established a government in all Syria and Idumea. His dominion\nextended from Armenia and Assyria on the north and northeast, the\nSyrian Desert and Persian Gulf on the East, Arabia on the south, and\nEgypt and the Levant on the west. Only Ph\u0153nicia was excepted.\n\nHis friendship with Hiram seems to indicate that he made his first\nexpedition from that country into Judea; and his long residence at\nHebron, the city of the Kabeiri (_Arba_ or four), would seem likewise\nto imply that he established a new religion in the country.\n\nAfter David came Solomon, powerful and luxurious, who sought to\nconsolidate the dominion which David had won. As David was a\nJehovah-worshipper, a temple of Jehovah (Tukt Suleima) was built in\nJerusalem, while shrines of Moloch-Hercules, Khemosh, and Astart\u00e9\nwere erected on Mount Olivet. These shrines remained till Josiah.\n\nThere were conspiracies formed. Revolts took place in Idumea and\nDamascus; and Ahijah the prophet led the popular movement which\nresulted in deposing the house of David and making Jeroboam king.\nEver after the prophets dominated in Israel, where the calf-worship\nprevailed; the priests ruled over the weak dynasty of David, and the\nlascivious local worship existed over the whole country. After the\ndestruction of the house of Ahab, and the failure of Jehu and his\ndescendants to unite the country under one head, the endeavor was\nmade in Judah. Isaiah had terminated the direct line in the person\nof Ahaz (_Isaiah_ vii. 9), and placed on the throne a prince from\nBethlehem (_Micah_ v. 2, 5). This was Hezekiah. On ascending the\nthrone, he invited the chiefs of Israel to unite in alliance with him\nagainst Assyria (_2 Chronicles_, xxx. 1, 21; xxxi. 1, 5; _2 Kings_,\nxviii. 7). He seems to have established a sacred college (_Proverbs_\nxxv. 1), and to have utterly changed the worship. Aye, even unto\nbreaking into pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made.\n\nThis makes the story of Samuel and David and Solomon mythical. Most\nof the prophets who were literate seem to have begun about this time\nto write.\n\nThe country was finally overthrown by the Assyrians, who found the\nsame people and institutions as in the Ph\u0153nician and other countries.\n\nHezekiah was not the lineal, but the titular son of Ahaz. Isaiah, the\nprophet, belonged to the royal family, and Hezekiah was reputed his\nson-in-law. Ahaz refused to ally himself with the prophet and his\nparty, saying: \u201cI will not _tempt_ (depend on) the Lord\u201d (_Isaiah_\nvii. 12). The prophet had declared: \u201cIf you will not believe, surely\nyou shall not be established\u201d--foreshadowing the deposition of\nhis direct language. \u201cYe weary my God,\u201d replied the prophet, and\npredicted the birth of a child by an _alma_, or temple-woman, and\nthat before it should attain full age (_Hebrews_ v. 14; _Isaiah_ vii.\n16; viii. 4), the king of Assyria should overcome Syria and Israel.\nThis is the prophecy which Iren\u00e6us took such pains to connect with\nMary and Jesus, and made the reason why the mother of the Nazarene\nprophet is represented as belonging to the temple, and consecrated to\nGod from her infancy.\n\nIn a second song, Isaiah celebrated the new chief, to sit on the\nthrone of David (ix. 6, 7; xi. 1), who should restore to their homes\nthe Jews whom the confederacy had led captive (_Isaiah_ viii. 2-12;\n_Joel_ iii. 1-7; _Obadiah_ 7, 11, 14). Micah--his contemporary--also\nannounced the same event (iv. 7-13; v. 1-7). The Redeemer was to come\nout of Bethlehem; in other words, was of the house of David; and\nwas to resist Assyria to whom Ahaz had sworn allegiance, and also\nto reform religion (_2 Kings_, xviii. 4-8). This Hezekiah did. He\nwas grandson of Zechariah the seer (_2 Chronicles_, xxix. 1; xxvi.\n5), the counsellor of Uzziah; and as soon as he ascended the throne\nhe restored the religion of David, and destroyed the last vestiges\nof that of Moses, _i.e._, the _esoteric_ doctrine, declaring \u201cour\nfathers have trespassed\u201d (_2 Chron._, xxix. 6-9). He next attempted\na reunion with the northern monarchy, there being an interregnum in\nIsrael (_2 Chron._, xxx. 1, 2, 6; xxxi. 1, 6, 7). It was successful,\nbut resulted in an invasion by the king of Assyria. But it was a new\n_r\u00e9gime_; and all this shows the course of two parallel streams in\nthe religious worship of the Israelites; one belonging to the state\nreligion and adopted to fit political exigencies; the other pure\nidolatry, resulting from ignorance of the true esoteric doctrine\npreached by Moses. For the first time since Solomon built them \u201cthe\nhigh places were taken away.\u201d\n\nIt was Hezekiah who was the expected Messiah of the exoteric\nstate-religion. He was the scion from the stem of Jesse, who should\nrecall the Jews from a deplorable captivity, about which the Hebrew\nhistorians seem to be very silent, carefully avoiding all mention of\nthis particular fact, but which the irascible prophets imprudently\ndisclose. If Hezekiah crushed the exoteric Baal-worship, he also\ntore violently away the people of Israel from the religion of their\nfathers, and the secret rites instituted by Moses.\n\nIt was Darius Hystaspes who was the first to establish a Persian\ncolony in Judea, Zoro-Babel was perhaps the leader. \u201cThe name\n_Zoro-babel_ means \u2018the seed or son of Babylon\u2019--as Zoro-aster \u05e6\u05e8\u05d5\u05be\u05d0\u05e9\u05ea\u05e8\nis the seed, son, or prince of Ishtar.\u201d[850] The new colonists were\ndoubtless _Jud\u00e6i_. This is a designation from the East. Even Siam is\ncalled Judia, and there was an Ayodia in India. The temples of _Solom_\nor Peace were numerous. Throughout Persia and Afghanistan the names of\nSaul and David are very common. The \u201cLaw\u201d is ascribed in turn to\nHezekiah, Ezra, Simon the Just, and the Asmonean period. Nothing\ndefinite; everywhere contradictions. When the Asmonean period began,\nthe chief supporters of the Law were called Asideans or Khasdim\n(Chaldeans), and afterward Pharisees or Pharsi (Parsis). This\nindicates that Persian colonies were established in Judea and ruled\nthe country; while all the people that are mentioned in the books of\n_Genesis_ and _Joshua_ lived there as a commonalty (see _Ezra_ ix. 1).\n\nThere is no real history in the _Old Testament_, and the little\nhistorical information one can glean is only found in the indiscreet\nrevelations of the prophets. The book, as a whole, must have been\nwritten at various times, or rather invented as an authorization\nof some subsequent worship, the origin of which may be very easily\ntraced partially to the Orphic Mysteries, and partially to the\nancient Egyptian rites in familiarity with which Moses was brought up\nfrom his infancy.\n\nSince the last century the Church has been gradually forced into\nconcessions of usurped biblical territory to those to whom it of\nright belonged. Inch by inch has been yielded, and one personage\nafter another been proved mythical and Pagan. But now, after the\nrecent discovery of George Smith, the much-regretted Assyriologist,\none of the securest props of the _Bible_ has been pulled down. Sargon\nand his tablets are about demonstrated to be older than Moses. Like\nthe account of _Exodus_, the birth and story of the lawgiver seem to\nhave been \u201cborrowed\u201d from the Assyrians, as the \u201cjewels of gold and\njewels of silver\u201d were said to be from the Egyptians.\n\nOn page 224 of _Assyrian Discoveries_, Mr. George Smith says: \u201cIn\nthe palace of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, I found another fragment of\nthe curious history of Sargon, a translation of which I published in\nthe _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, vol. i.,\npart i., page 46. This text relates that Sargon, an early Babylonian\nmonarch, was born of royal parents, but concealed by his mother, who\nplaced him on the Euphrates in an ark of rushes, coated with bitumen,\nlike that in which the mother of Moses hid her child (see _Exodus_\nii.). Sargon was discovered by a man named Akki, a water-carrier, who\nadopted him as his son; and he afterward became King of Babylonia.\nThe capital of Sargon was the great city of Agadi--called by the\nSemites Akkad--mentioned in _Genesis_ as a capital of Nimrod\n(_Genesis_ x. 10), and here he reigned _for forty five years_.[851]\nAkkad lay near the city of _Sippara_,[852] on the Euphrates and north\nof Babylon. \u201cThe date of Sargon, who may be termed the Babylonian\nMoses, was in the sixteenth century and perhaps earlier.\u201d\n\nG. Smith adds in his _Chaldean Account_ that Sargon I. was a\nBabylonian monarch who reigned in the city of Akkad about 1600 B.C.\nThe name of Sargon signifies the right, true, or legitimate king.\nThis curious story is found on fragments of tablets from Kouyunjik,\nand reads as follows:\n\n1. Sargona, the powerful king, the king of Akkad am I.\n\n2. My mother was a princess, my father I did not know, a brother of\nmy father ruled over the country.\n\n3. In the city of Azupirana, which is by the side of the river\nEuphrates,\n\n4. My mother, the princess, conceived me; in difficulty she brought\nme forth.\n\n5. She placed me in an ark of rushes, with bitumen my exit she sealed\nup.\n\n6. She launched me in the river which did not drown me.\n\n7. The river carried me to Akki, the water-carrier it brought me.\n\n8. Akki, the water-carrier, in tenderness of bowels, lifted me, etc.,\netc.\n\nAnd now _Exodus_ (ii.): \u201cAnd when she (Moses\u2019 mother) could not\nlonger hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it\nwith slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it\nin the flags by the river\u2019s brink.\u201d\n\nThe story, says Mr. G. Smith, \u201cis supposed to have happened about\n1600 B.C., rather earlier than the supposed age of Moses[853] as we\nknow that the fame of Sargon reached Egypt, it is quite likely that\nthis account had a connection with the event related in _Exodus_ ii.,\nfor every action, when once performed, has a tendency to be repeated.\u201d\n\nThe \u201cages\u201d of the Hindus differ but little from those of the Greeks,\nRomans, and even the Jews. We include the Mosaic computation\nadvisedly, and with intent to prove our position. The chronology\nwhich separates Moses from the creation of the world by _only four\ngenerations_ seems ridiculous, merely because the Christian clergy\nwould enforce it upon the world literally.[854] The kabalists know\nthat these generations stand for ages of the world. The allegories\nwhich, in the Hindu calculations, embrace the whole stupendous sweep\nof the four ages, are cunningly made in the Mosaic books, through the\nobliging help of the _Masorah_, to cram into the small period of two\nmillenniums and a half (2513)!\n\nThe exoteric plan of the _Bible_ was made to answer also to four\nages. Thus, they reckon the Golden Age from Adam to Abraham; the\nsilver, from Abraham to David; copper, from David to the Captivity;\nthenceforward, the iron. But the secret computation is quite\ndifferent, and does not vary at all from the zodiacal calculations of\nthe Brahmans. We are in the Iron Age, or Kali-Yug, but it began with\nNoah, the mythical ancestor of our race.\n\nNoah, or Nuah, like all the euhemerized manifestations of the\nUnrevealed One--Swayambhuva (or Swayambhu), was androgyne. Thus,\nin some instances, he belonged to the purely feminine triad of the\nChaldeans, known as \u201cNuah, the universal Mother.\u201d We have shown, in\nanother chapter, that every male triad had its feminine counterpart,\none in three, like the former. It was the passive complement of the\nactive principle, its _reflection_. In India, the male trimurty is\nreproduced in the Sakti-trimurti, the feminine; and in Chaldea, Ana,\nBelita and Davkina answered to Anu, Bel, Nuah. The former three\nresumed in one--Belita, were called:\n\n\u201cSovereign goddess, lady of the nether abyss, mother of gods, queen\nof the earth, queen of fecundity.\u201d\n\nAs the primordial humidity, whence proceeded _all_, Belita is\nTamti, or the sea, the mother of _the city of Erech_ (the great\nChaldean necropolis), therefore, an infernal goddess. In the world\nof stars and planets she is known as Istar or Astoreth. Hence, she\nis identical with Venus, and every other queen of heaven, to whom\ncakes and buns were offered in sacrifice,[855] and, as all the\narch\u00e6ologists know, with _Eve_, the mother of all that live, and with\nMary.\n\nThe Ark, in which are preserved the germs of all living things\nnecessary to repeople the earth, represents the survival of life,\nand the supremacy of spirit over matter, through the conflict of\nthe opposing powers of nature. In the Astro-Theosophic chart of the\nWestern Rite, the Ark corresponds with the navel, and is placed at\nthe sinister side, the side of the woman (the moon), one of whose\nsymbols is the left pillar of Solomon\u2019s temple--Boaz. The umbilicus\nis connected with the receptacle in which are fructified the germs of\nthe race.[856] The Ark is the sacred _Argha_ of the Hindus, and thus,\nthe relation in which it stands to Noah\u2019s ark may be easily inferred,\nwhen we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel, used by the high\npriests as a sacrificial chalice in the worship of Isis, Astart\u00e8, and\nVenus-Aphrodit\u00e8, all of whom were goddesses of the generative powers\nof nature, or of matter--hence, representing symbolically the Ark\ncontaining the germs of all living things.\n\nWe admit that Pagans had and now have--as in India--strange symbols,\nwhich, to the eyes of the hypocrite and Puritan, seem scandalously\nimmoral. But did not the ancient Jews copy most of these symbols? We\nhave described elsewhere the identity of the lingham with Jacob\u2019s\npillar, and we could give a number of instances from the present\nChristian rites, bearing the same origin, did but space permit, and\nwere not all these noticed fully by Inman and others (See Inman\u2019s\n_Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names_).\n\nDescribing the worship of the Egyptians, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child\nsays: \u201cThis reverence for the production of life, introduced into\nthe worship of Osiris, the sexual emblems so common in Hindustan.\nA colossal image of this kind was presented to his temple in\nAlexandria, by King Ptolemy Philadelphus.... Reverence for the\nmystery of organized life led to the recognition of a masculine\nand feminine principle in all things, spiritual or material....\nThe sexual emblems, everywhere conspicuous in the sculptures of\ntheir temples, would seem impure in description, but _no clean and\nthoughtful mind_ could so regard them while witnessing the obvious\nsimplicity and solemnity with which the subject is treated.\u201d[857]\n\nThus speaks this respected lady and admirable writer, and no truly\npure man or woman would ever think of blaming her for it. But such a\nperversion of the ancient thought is but natural in an age of cant\nand prudery like our own.\n\nThe water of the flood when standing in the allegory for the symbolic\n\u201csea,\u201d Tamti, typifies the turbulent chaos, or matter, called \u201cthe\ngreat dragon.\u201d According to the Gnostic and Rosicrucian medi\u00e6val\ndoctrine, the creation of woman was not originally intended. She\nis the offspring of man\u2019s own impure fancy, and, as the Hermetists\nsay, \u201can obtrusion.\u201d Created by an unclean thought she sprang into\nexistence at the _evil_ \u201cseventh hour,\u201d when the \u201csupernatural\u201d real\nworlds had passed away and the \u201cnatural\u201d or _delusive_ worlds began\nevolving along the \u201cdescending Microcosmos,\u201d or the arc of the great\ncycle, in plainer phraseology. First \u201cVirgo,\u201d the Celestial Virgin of\nthe Zodiac, she became \u201cVirgo-Scorpio.\u201d But in evolving his second\ncompanion, man had unwittingly endowed her with his own share of\nSpirituality; and the new being whom his \u201cimagination\u201d had called\ninto life became his \u201cSaviour\u201d from the snares of Eve-Lilith, the\nfirst Eve, who had a greater share of matter in her composition than\nthe primitive \u201cspiritual\u201d man.[858]\n\nThus woman stands in the cosmogony in relation to \u201cmatter\u201d or the\n_great deep_, as the \u201cVirgin of the Sea,\u201d who crushes the \u201cDragon\u201d\nunder her foot. The \u201cFlood\u201d is also very often shown, in symbolical\nphraseology, as the \u201cgreat Dragon.\u201d For one acquainted with these\ntenets it becomes more than suggestive to learn that with the\nCatholics the Virgin Mary is not only the accepted patroness of\nChristian sailors, but also the \u201cVirgin of the Sea.\u201d So was Dido the\npatroness of the Ph\u0153nician mariners;[859] and together with Venus\nand other lunar goddesses--the moon having such a strong influence\nover the tides--was the \u201cVirgin of the Sea.\u201d _Mar_, the Sea, is the\nroot of the name Mary. The blue color, which was with the ancients\nsymbolical of the \u201cGreat Deep\u201d or the material world, hence--of evil,\nis made sacred to our \u201cBlessed Lady.\u201d It is the color of \u201cNotre Dame\nde Paris.\u201d On account of its relation to the symbolical serpent this\ncolor is held in the deepest aversion by the ex-Nazarenes, disciples\nof John the Baptist, now the Mend\u00e6ans of Basra.\n\nAmong the beautiful plates of Maurice, there is one representing\nChristna crushing the head of the Serpent. A three-peaked mitre is\non his head (typifying the trinity), and the body and tail of the\nconquered serpent encircles the figure of the Hindu god. This plate\nshows whence proceeded the inspiration for the \u201cmake up\u201d of a later\nstory extracted from an alleged prophecy. \u201cI will put enmity between\nthee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall\nbruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his _heel_.\u201d\n\nThe Egyptian Orante is also shown with his arms extended as on a\ncrucifix, and treading upon the \u201cSerpent;\u201d and Horus (the Logos) is\nrepresented piercing the head of the dragon, Typhon or Aphophis. All\nthis gives us a clew to the biblical allegory of Cain and Abel. Cain\nwas held as the ancestor of the Hivites, the Serpents, and the twins\nof Adam are an evident copy from the fable of Osiris and Typhon.\nApart from the external form of the allegory, however, it embodied\nthe philosophical conception of the eternal struggle of good and evil.\n\nBut how strangely elastic, how adaptable to any and every thing this\nmystical philosophy proved after the Christian era! When were ever\nfacts, irrefutable, irrefragable, and beyond denial, less potential\nfor the re\u00ebstablishment of truth than in our century of casuistry\nand Christian cunning? Is Christna proved to have been known as the\n\u201cGood Shepherd\u201d ages before the year A.D. 1, to have crushed the\nSerpent Kalinaga, and to have been crucified--all this was but a\nprophetic foreshadowing of the future! Are the Scandinavian Thor, who\nbruised the head of the Serpent with his cruciform mace, and Apollo,\nwho killed Python, likewise shown to present the most striking\nsimilarities with the heroes of the Christian fables; they become\nbut original conceptions of \u201cheathen\u201d minds, \u201cworking upon the old\nPatriarchal prophecies respecting the Christ, as they were contained\nin the one universal and primeval Revelation!\u201d[860]\n\nThe flood, then, is the \u201cOld Serpent\u201d or the great deep of matter,\nIsaiah\u2019s \u201cdragon in the sea\u201d (xxvii. 1), over which the ark safely\ncrosses on its way to the mount of Salvation. But, if we have heard\nof the ark and Noah, and the _Bible_ at all, it is because the\nmythology of the Egyptians was ready at hand for Moses (if Moses ever\nwrote any of the _Bible_), and that he was acquainted with the story\nof Horus, standing on his boat of a serpentine form, and killing the\nSerpent with his spear; and with the hidden meaning of these fables,\nand their real origin. This is also why we find in _Leviticus_, and\nother parts of his books, whole pages of laws identical with those of\n_Manu_.\n\nThe animals shut up in the ark are the human passions. They typify\ncertain ordeals of initiation, and the mysteries which were\ninstituted among many nations in commemoration of this allegory.\nNoah\u2019s ark rested on the seventeenth of the _seventh_ month. Here we\nhave again the number; as also in the \u201cclean beasts\u201d that he took by\n_sevens_ into the ark. Speaking of the water-mysteries of Byblos,\nLucian says: \u201cOn the top of one of the two pillars which Bacchus set\nup, a man remains _seven_ days.\u201d[861] He supposes this was done to\nhonor Deukalion. Elijah, when praying on the top of Mount Carmel,\nsends his servant to look for a cloud toward the sea, and repeats,\n\u201cgo again _seven_ times. And it came to pass at the _seventh_ time,\nbehold there arose a little cloud out of the sea like a man\u2019s\nhand.\u201d[862]\n\n\u201c_Noah_ is a _revolutio_ of Adam, as Moses is a revolutio of Abel\nand Seth,\u201d says the _Kabala_; that is to say, a repetition or\nanother version of the same story. The greatest proof of it is\nthe distribution of the characters in the _Bible_. For instance,\nbeginning with Cain, the first murderer, every _fifth_ man in his\nline of descent is a murderer. Thus there come Enoch, Irad, Mehujael,\nMethuselah, and the _fifth_ is _Lamech_, the second murderer, and he\nis Noah\u2019s father. By drawing the five-pointed star of Lucifer (which\nhas its crown-point downward) and writing the name of Cain beneath\nthe lowest point, and those of his descendants successively at each\nof the other points, it will be found that each fifth name--which\nwould be written beneath that of Cain--is that of a murderer. In the\n_Talmud_ this genealogy is given complete, and thirteen murderers\nrange themselves in line below the name of Cain. This is _no_\ncoincidence. Siva is the Destroyer, but he is also the _Regenerator_.\nCain is a murderer, but he is also the creator of nations, and an\ninventor. This star of Lucifer is the same one that John sees falling\ndown to earth in his _Apocalypse_.\n\nIn Thebes, or Theba, which means ark--TH-ABA being synonymous with\nKartha or Tyre, Astu or Athens and Urbs or Rome, and meaning also\nthe city--are found the same foliations as described on the pillars\nof the temple of Solomon. The bi-colored leaf of the olive, the\nthree-lobed fig-leaf, and the lanceolate-shaped laurel-leaf, had all\nesoteric as well as popular or vulgar meanings with the ancients.\n\nThe researches of Egyptologists present another corroboration of the\nidentity of the _Bible_-allegories with those of the lands of the\nPharaohs and Chaldeans. The dynastic chronology of the Egyptians,\nrecorded by Herodotus, Manetho, Eratosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, and\naccepted by our antiquarians, divided the period of Egyptian history\nunder four general heads: the dominion of gods, demi-gods, heroes,\nand mortal men. By combining the demi-gods and heroes into one class,\nBunsen reduces the periods to three: the ruling gods, the demi-gods\nor heroes--sons of gods, but born of mortal mothers--and the Manes,\nwho were the ancestors of individual tribes. These subdivisions, as\nany one may perceive, correspond perfectly with the biblical Elohim,\nsons of God, giants, and mortal Noachian men.\n\nDiodorus of Sicily and Berosus give us the names of the twelve great\ngods who presided over the twelve months of the year and the twelve\nsigns of the zodiac. These names, which include Nuah,[863] are too\nwell known to require repetition. The double-faced Janus was also\nat the head of twelve gods, and in his representations of him he is\nmade to hold the keys to the celestial domains. All these having\nserved as models for the biblical patriarchs, have done still further\nservice--especially Janus--by furnishing copy to St. Peter and his\ntwelve apostles, the former also double-faced in his denial, and\nalso represented as holding the keys of Paradise.\n\nThis statement that the story of Noah is but another version in its\nhidden meaning of the story of Adam and his three sons, gathers\nproof on every page of the book of _Genesis_. Adam is the prototype\nof Noah. Adam _falls_ because he eats of the forbidden fruit of\n_celestial_ knowledge; Noah, because he tastes of the _terrestrial_\nfruit: the juice of the grape representing the abuse of knowledge in\nan unbalanced mind. Adam gets stripped of his spiritual envelope;\nNoah of his terrestrial clothing; and the _nakedness_ of both makes\nthem feel ashamed. The wickedness of Cain is repeated in Ham. But the\ndescendants of both are shown as the wisest of races on earth; and\nthey are called on this account \u201csnakes,\u201d and the \u201csons of snakes,\u201d\nmeaning the _sons of wisdom_, and not of Satan, as some divines\nwould be pleased to have the world understand the term. Enmity has\nbeen placed between the \u201csnake\u201d and the \u201cwoman\u201d only in this mortal\nphenomenal \u201cworld of man\u201d as \u201cborn of woman.\u201d Before the carnal fall,\nthe \u201csnake\u201d was _Ophis_, the divine wisdom, which needed no matter\nto procreate men, humanity being utterly spiritual. Hence the war\nbetween the snake and the woman, or between spirit and matter. If,\nin its material aspect, the \u201cold serpent\u201d is matter, and represents\nOphiomorphos, in its spiritual meaning it becomes Ophis-Christos. In\nthe magic of the old Syro-Chaldeans both are conjoint in the zodiacal\nsign of the androgyne of Virgo-Scorpio, and may be _divided_ or\nseparated whenever needed. Thus as the origin of \u201cgood and evil,\u201d the\nmeaning of the S.S. and Z.Z. has always been interchangeable; and if\nupon some occasions the S.S. on sigils and talismans are suggestive\nof serpentine evil influence and denote a design of _black_ magic\nupon others, the double S.S. are found on the sacramental cups of the\nChurch and mean the presence of the Holy Ghost, or pure wisdom.\n\nThe Midianites were known as the _wise_ men, or sons of snakes,\nas well as Canaanites and Hamites; and such was the renown of the\nMidianites, that we find Moses, _the prophet, led on, and inspired\nby \u201cthe Lord,\u201d_ humbling himself before Hobab, the son of Raguel,\nthe _Midianite_, and beseeching him to remain with the people of\nIsrael: \u201cLeave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch _as thou knowest how\nwe are to encamp_ IN THE WILDERNESS, _thou mayest be to us instead\nof eyes_.\u201d[864] Further, when Moses sends spies to search out the\nland of Canaan, they bring as a proof of the wisdom (kabalistically\nspeaking) and goodness of the land, a branch with _one_ cluster of\n_grapes_, which they are compelled to bear between two men on a\nstaff. Moreover, they add: \u201cwe saw the children of ANAK there.\u201d\nThey are the _giants_, the sons of Anak, \u201c_which come of the\ngiants_,\u201d[865] and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so\nwe were in their sight.\u201d[866]\n\nAnak is Enoch, the patriarch, who _dies not_, and who is the first\npossessor of the \u201cmirific name,\u201d according to the _Kabala_, and the\nritual of Freemasonry.\n\nComparing the biblical patriarchs with the descendants of\nVaiswasvata, the Hindu Noah, and the old Sanscrit traditions about\nthe deluge in the Brahmanical _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, we find them mirrored in\nthe Vaidic patriarchs who are the primitive types upon which all the\nothers were modelled. But before comparison is possible, the Hindu\nmyths must be comprehended in their true significance. Each of these\nmythical personages bears, besides an astronomical significance, a\nspiritual or moral, and an anthropological or physical meaning. The\npatriarchs are not only euhemerized gods--the prediluvian answering\nto the _twelve_ great gods of Berosus, and to the _ten_ Pradj\u00e2pati,\nand the postdiluvian to the seven gods of the famous tablet in the\nNinivian Library, but they stand also as the symbols of the Greek\n\u00c6ons, the kabalistic Sephiroth, and the zodiacal signs, as types of\na series of human races.[867] This variation from _ten_ to _twelve_\nwill be accounted for presently, and proved on the very authority\nof the _Bible_. Only, they are not the first gods described by\nCicero,[868] which belong to a hierarchy of higher powers, the\nElohim--but appertain rather to the second class of the \u201ctwelve\ngods,\u201d the _Dii minores_, and who are the terrestrial reflections\nof the first, among whom Herodotus places Hercules.[869] Alone,\nout of the group of twelve, Noah, by reason of his position at the\ntransitional point, belongs to the highest Babylonian triad, Noah,\nthe spirit of the waters. The rest are identical with the inferior\ngods of Assyria and Babylonia, who represented the lower order of\nemanations, introduced around Bel, the Demiurge, and help him in his\nwork, as the patriarchs are shown to assist Jehovah--the \u201cLord God.\u201d\n\nBesides these, many of which were _local_ gods, the protecting\ndeities of rivers and cities, there were the four classes of genius,\nwe see Ezekiel making them support the throne of Jehovah in his\nvision. A fact which, if it identifies the Jewish \u201cLord God\u201d with one\nof the Babylonian trinity, connects, at the same time, the present\nChristian God with the same triad, inasmuch as it is these four\ncherubs, if the reader will remember, on which Iren\u00e6us makes Jesus\nride, and which are shown as the companions of the evangelists.\n\nThe Hindu kabalistic derivation of the books of _Ezekiel_ and\n_Revelation_ are shown in nothing more plainly than in this\ndescription of the four beasts, which typify the four elementary\nkingdoms--earth, air, fire, and water. As is well known, they are the\nAssyrian sphinxes, but these figures are also carved on the walls of\nnearly every Hindu pagoda.\n\nThe author of the _Revelation_ copies faithfully in his text (see\nchap. iv., verse 17) the Pythagorean pentacle, of which Levi\u2019s\nadmirable sketch is reproduced on page 452.\n\nThe Hindu goddess Adanari (or as it might be more properly written,\nAdonari, since the second a is pronounced almost like the English o)\nis represented as surrounded by the same figures. It fits exactly\nEzekiel\u2019s \u201cwheel of the Adonai,\u201d known as \u201cthe Cherub of Jeheskiel,\u201d\nand indicates, beyond question, the source from which the Hebrew seer\ndrew his allegories. For convenience of comparison we have placed the\nfigure in the pentacle. (See page 453.)\n\nAbove these beasts were the angels or spirits, divided in two groups:\nthe Igili, or celestial beings, and the Am-anaki, or terrestrial\nspirits, the giants, children of Anak, of whom the spies complained\nto Moses.\n\n[Illustration: ADONAI]\n\nThe _Kabbala Denudata_ gives to the kabalists a very clear, to the\nprofane a very muddled account of permutations or substitutions\nof one person for another. So, for instance, it says, that \u201cthe\nscintilla\u201d (spiritual spark or soul) of Abraham was taken from\nMichael, the chief of the \u00c6ons, and highest emanation of the Deity;\nso high indeed that in the eyes of the Gnostics, Michael was\nidentical with Christ. And yet Michael and Enoch are one and the same\nperson. Both occupy the junction-point of the cross of the Zodiac\nas \u201cman.\u201d The scintilla of Isaac was that of Gabriel, the chief of\nthe angelic host, and the scintilla of Jacob was taken from Uriel,\nnamed \u201cthe fire of God;\u201d the sharpest sighted spirit in all Heaven.\nAdam is not the Kadmon but Adam _Primus_, the _Microprosopus_. In one\nof his aspects the latter is Enoch, the terrestrial patriarch and\nfather of Methuselah. He that \u201cwalked with God\u201d and \u201cdid not die\u201d is\nthe spiritual Enoch, who typified humanity, eternal in spirit and as\neternal in flesh, though the latter does _die_. Death is but a new\nbirth, and spirit is immortal; thus humanity can never die, for the\n_Destroyer_ has become the _Creator_, Enoch is the type of the dual\nman, spiritual and terrestrial. Hence his place in the centre of the\nastronomical cross.\n\n[Illustration: ADANARI]\n\nBut was this idea original with the Hebrews? We think not. Every\nnation which had an astronomical system, and especially India, held\nthe cross in the highest reverence, for it was the geometrical basis\nof the religious symbolism of their _avatars_; the manifestation of\nthe Deity, or of the Creator in his creature MAN; of God in humanity\nand humanity in God, as spirits. The oldest monuments of Chaldea,\nPersia, and India disclose the double or eight-pointed cross. This\nsymbol, which very naturally is found, like every other geometrical\nfigure in nature, in plants as well as in the snowflakes, has led\nDr. Lundy, in his super-Christian mysticism, to name such cruciform\nflowers as form an eight-pointed star by the junction of the two\ncrosses--\u201cthe _Prophetic Star of the Incarnation_, which joined\nheaven and earth, God and man together.\u201d[870] The latter sentence\nis perfectly expressed; only, the old kabalist axiom, \u201cas above, so\nbelow,\u201d answers still better, as it discloses to us the same God for\nall humanity, not alone for the handful of Christians. It is the\n_Mundane_ cross of Heaven repeated on earth by plants and dual man:\nthe physical man superseding the \u201cspiritual,\u201d at the junction-point\nof which stands the mythical Libra-Hermes-Enoch. The gesture of one\nhand pointing to Heaven, is balanced by the other pointing down to\nthe earth; boundless generations below, boundless regenerations\nabove; the visible but the manifestation of the invisible; the man of\ndust abandoned to dust, the man of spirit reborn in spirit; thus it\nis finite humanity which is the Son of the Infinite God. Abba--the\nFather; Amona--the Mother; the Son, the Universe. This primitive\ntriad is repeated in all the theogonies. Adam Kadmon, Hermes, Enoch,\nOsiris, Christna, Ormazd, or Christos are all one. They stand as\n_Metatrons_ between body and soul--eternal spirits which redeem flesh\nby the regeneration of flesh _below_, and soul by the regeneration\n_above_, where humanity walks once more with God.\n\nWe have shown elsewhere that the symbol of the cross or Egyptian\n_Tau_, =T=, was by many ages earlier than the period assigned to\nAbraham, the alleged forefather of the Israelites, for otherwise\nMoses could not have learned it of the priests. And that the Tau was\nheld as sacred by the Jews as by other \u201cPagan\u201d nations is proved\nby a fact admitted now by Christian divines as well as by infidel\narch\u00e6ologists. Moses, in _Exodus_ xii. 22, orders his people to\nmark their _door-posts and lintels_ with blood, lest the \u201cLord God\u201d\nshould make a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead\nof the doomed Egyptians.[871] And this mark is a tau! The identical\nEgyptian handled _cross_, with the half of which talisman Horus\nraised the dead, as is shown on a sculptured ruin at Phil\u0153.[872] How\ngratuitous is the idea that all such crosses and symbols were so many\nunconscious prophecies of Christ, is fully exemplified in the case of\nthe Jews upon whose accusation Jesus was put to death. For instance,\nthe same learned author remarks in _Monumental Christianity_ that\n\u201cthe Jews themselves acknowledged this sign of salvation until they\nrejected Christ;\u201d and in another place he asserts that the rod of\nMoses, used in his miracles before Pharaoh, \u201cwas, no doubt, this\n_crux ansata_, or something like it, _also used by the Egyptian\npriests_.\u201d[873] Thus the logical inference would be, that 1, if the\nJews worshipped the same symbols as the Pagans, then they were no\nbetter than they; and 2, if, being so well versed as they were in the\nhidden symbolism of the cross, in the face of their having waited\nfor centuries for the Messiah, they yet rejected both the Christian\nMessiah and Christian Cross, then there must have been something\nwrong about both.\n\nThose who \u201crejected\u201d Jesus as the \u201cSon of God,\u201d were neither the\npeople ignorant of religious symbols, nor the handful of atheistical\nSadducees who put him to death; but the very men who were instructed\nin the secret wisdom, who knew the origin as well as the meaning of\nthe cruciform symbol, and who put aside both the Christian emblem and\nthe Saviour suspended from it, because they could not be parties to\nsuch a blasphemous imposition upon the common people.\n\nNearly all the prophecies about Christ are credited to the patriarchs\nand prophets. If a few of the latter may have existed as real\npersonages, every one of the former is a myth. We will endeavor\nto prove it by the hidden interpretation of the Zodiac, and the\nrelations of its signs to these antediluvian men.\n\nIf the reader will keep in mind the Hindu ideas of cosmogony,\nas given in chapter vi., he will better understand the relation\nbetween the biblical antediluvian patriarchs, and that puzzle of\ncommentators--\u201cEzekiel\u2019s wheel.\u201d Thus, be it remembered 1, that\nthe universe is not a spontaneous creation, but an evolution from\npre-existent matter; 2, that it is only one of an endless series of\nuniverses; 3, that eternity is pointed off into grand cycles, in\neach of which twelve transformations of our world occur, following\nits partial destruction by fire and water, alternately. So that\nwhen a new minor period sets in, the earth is so changed, even\ngeologically, as to be practically a new world; 4, that of these\ntwelve transformations, the earth after each of the first six is\ngrosser, and everything on it--man included--more material, than\nafter the preceding one: while after each of the remaining six the\ncontrary is true, both earth and man growing more and more refined\nand spiritual with each terrestrial change; 5, that when the apex\nof the cycle is reached, a gradual dissolution takes place, and\nevery living and objective form is destroyed. But when that point is\nreached, humanity has become fitted to live subjectively as well as\nobjectively. And not humanity alone, but also animals, plants, and\nevery atom. After a time of rest, say the Buddhists, when a new world\nbecomes self-formed, the astral souls of animals and of all beings,\nexcept such as have reached the highest Nirvana, will return on earth\nagain to end their cycles of transformations, and become men in their\nturn.\n\nThis stupendous conception, the ancients synthesized for the\ninstruction of the common people, into a single pictorial design--the\nZodiac, or celestial belt. Instead of the twelve signs now used,\nthere were originally but ten known to the general public, viz.:\nAries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo-Scorpio, Sagittarius,\nCapricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces.[874] These were exoteric. But\nin addition there were two mystical signs inserted, which none but\ninitiates comprehended, viz.: at the middle or junction-point where\nnow stands _Libra_, and at the sign now called Scorpio, which follows\nVirgo. When it was found necessary to make them exoteric, these two\nsecret signs were added under their present appellations as blinds\nto conceal the true names which gave the key to the whole secret of\ncreation, and divulged the origin of \u201cgood and evil.\u201d\n\nThe true Sabean astrological doctrine secretly taught that within\nthis double sign was hidden the explanation of the gradual\ntransformation of the world, from its spiritual and subjective, into\nthe \u201ctwo-sexed\u201d sublunary state. The twelve signs were therefore\ndivided into two groups. The first six were called the ascending,\nor the line of Macrocosm (the great spiritual world); the last\nsix, the descending line, or the Microcosm (the little secondary\nworld)--the mere reflection of the former, so to say. This division\nwas called Ezekiel\u2019s wheel, and was completed in the following way:\nFirst came the ascending five signs (euphemerized into patriarchs),\nAries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and the group concluded with\nVirgo-Scorpio. Then came the turning-point, _Libra_. After which, the\nfirst half of the sign Virgo-Scorpio, was duplicated and transferred\nto lead the lower, or descending group of Microcosm which ran\ndown to _Pisces_, or Noah (deluge). To make it clearer, the sign\nVirgo-Scorpio, which appeared originally thus \u264d\ufe0e, became simply\n_Virgo_, and the duplication, \u264f\ufe0e, or Scorpio, was placed between\nLibra, the _seventh_ sign (which is Enoch, or the angel Metatron,\nor _Mediator_ between spirit and matter, or God and man). It now\nbecame Scorpio (or Cain), which sign or patriarch led _mankind to\ndestruction_, according to exoteric theology; but, according to the\ntrue doctrine of the wisdom-religion, it indicated _the degradation\nof the whole universe in its course of evolution downward from the\nsubjective to the objective_.\n\nThe sign of _Libra_ is credited as a later invention by the Greeks,\nbut it is not generally stated that those among them who were\ninitiated had only made a change of names conveying the same idea as\nthe secret name to those \u201cwho knew,\u201d leaving the masses as unwise\nas ever. Yet it was a beautiful idea of theirs, this Libra, or\nthe balance, expressing as much as could possibly be done without\nunveiling the whole and ultimate truth. They intended it to imply\nthat when the course of evolution had taken the worlds to the\nlowest point of grossness, where the earths and their products were\ncoarsest, and their inhabitants most brutish, the turning-point had\nbeen reached--the forces were at an even balance. At the lowest\npoint, the still lingering divine spark of spirit within began\nto convey the upward impulse. The scales typified that eternal\nequilibrium which is the necessity of a universe of harmony, of\nexact justice, of the balance of centripetal and centrifugal forces,\ndarkness and light, spirit and matter.\n\n_These additional signs of the Zodiac warrant us in saying that the\nBook of Genesis as we now find it, must be of later date than the\ninvention of Libra by the Greeks_; for we find the chapters of the\ngenealogies remodelled to fit the new Zodiac, instead of the latter\nbeing made to correspond with the list of patriarchs. And it is this\naddition and the necessity of concealing the true key, that led the\nRabbinical compilers to repeat the names of Enoch and Lamech twice,\nas we see them now in the Kenite table. Alone, among all the books of\nthe _Bible_, _Genesis_ belongs to an immense antiquity. The others\nare all later additions, the earliest of which appeared with Hilkiah,\nwho evidently concocted it with the help of Huldah, the prophetess.\n\nAs there is more than one meaning attached to the stories of the\ncreation and deluge, we say, therefore, that the biblical account\ncannot be comprehended apart from the Babylonian story of the same;\nwhile neither will be thoroughly clear without the Brahmanical\nesoteric interpretation of the deluge, as found in the _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_\nand the _Satapatha-Brahm\u00e2na_. It is the Babylonians who were taught\nthe \u201cmysteries,\u201d the sacerdotal language, and their religion by\nthe problematical Akkadians who--according to Rawlinson came from\nArmenia--not the former who emigrated to India. Here the evidence\nbecomes clear. The Babylonian Xisuthrus is shown by Movers to have\nrepresented the \u201csun\u201d in the Zodiac, in the sign of Aquarius, and\n_Oannes_, the man-fish, the semi-demon, is Vishnu in his first\navatar; thus giving the key to the double source of the biblical\nrevelation.\n\nOannes is the emblem of priestly, esoteric wisdom; he comes out from\nthe sea, because the \u201cgreat deep,\u201d the water, typifies, as we have\nshown, the secret doctrine. For this same reason Egyptians deified\nthe Nile, apart from its being regarded, in consequence of its\nperiodical overflows, as the \u201cSaviour\u201d of the country. They even held\nthe crocodiles as sacred, from having their abode in the \u201cdeep.\u201d The\n\u201cHamites,\u201d so called, have always preferred to settle near rivers and\noceans. Water was the first-created element, according to some old\ncosmogonies. This name of Oannes is held in the greatest reverence,\nin the Chaldean records. The Chaldean priests wore a head-gear like\na fish\u2019s head, and a shadbelly coat, representing the body of a\nfish.[875]\n\n\u201cThales,\u201d says Cicero, \u201cassures that _water_ is the principle of all\nthings; and that God is that Mind which shaped and created all things\nfrom water.\u201d[876]\n\n \u201cIn the Beginning, SPIRIT within strengthens Heaven and Earth,\n The watery fields, and the lucid globe of Luna, and then--\n Titan stars; and mind infused through the limbs\n Agitates the whole mass, and mixes itself with GREAT MATTER.\u201d[877]\n\nThus water represents the duality of both the Macrocosmos and the\nMicrocosmos, in conjunction with the vivifying SPIRIT, and the\nevolution of the little world from the universal cosmos. The deluge\nthen, in this sense, points to that final struggle between the\nconflicting elements, which brought the first great cycle of our\nplanet to a close. These periods gradually merged into each other,\norder being brought out of chaos, or disorder, and the successive\ntypes of organism being evolved only as the physical conditions of\nnature were prepared for their appearance; for our present race could\nnot have breathed on earth, during that intermediate period, not\nhaving as yet the allegorical coats of skin.[878]\n\nIn chapters iv. and v. of _Genesis_, we find the so-called\ngenerations of Cain and Seth. Let us glance at them in the order in\nwhich they stand:\n\n LINES OF GENERATIONS.\n\n _Sethite._ _Kenite._\n 1. Adam. \u23ab \u23a7 1. Adam.\n 2. Seth. \u23aa \u23aa 2. Cain.\n 3. Enos. \u23aa \u23aa 3. Enoch.\n 4. Cainan. \u23aa \u23aa 4. Irad.\n 5. Mahalaleel. \u23ac Good Principle. Evil Principle. \u23a8 5. Mehujael.\n 6. Jared. \u23aa \u23aa 6. Methusael.\n 7. Enoch. \u23aa \u23aa 7. Lamech.\n 8. Methuselah. \u23aa \u23aa 8. Jubal. \u23ab\n 9. Lamech. \u23aa \u23aa 9. Jabal. \u23ac\n 10. Noah. \u23ad \u23a9 10. Tubal Cain. \u23ad\n\nThe above are the ten biblical patriarchs, identical with Hindu\nPrag\u00e2patis (Pradj\u00e2patis), and the Sephiroth of the _Kabala_. We say\n_ten_ patriarchs, not _twenty_, for the Kenite line was devised\nfor no other purpose than, 1, to carry out the idea of dualism,\non which is founded the philosophy of every religion; for these\ntwo genealogical tables represent simply the opposing powers or\nprinciples of good and evil; and 2, as a blind for the uninitiated\nmasses. Suppose we restore them to their primitive form, by erasing\nthese premeditated blinds. These are so transparent as to require but\na small amount of perspicacity to select, even though one should use\nonly his unaided judgment, and were not, as we are, enabled to apply\nthe test of the secret doctrine.\n\nBy ridding ourselves, therefore, of the Kenite names that are mere\nduplications of the Sethite, or of each other, we get rid of Adam;\nof Enoch--who, in one genealogy, is shown the father of Irad, and in\nthe other, the son of Jared; of Lamech, son of Methusael, whereas\nhe, Lamech, is son of Methuselah in the Sethite line; of Irad\n(Jared),[879] Jubal and Jabal, who, with Tubal-Cain, form a trinity\nin one, and that one the double of Cain; of Mehujael (who is but\nMahalaleel differently spelled), and Methusael (Methuselah). This\nleaves us in the Kenite genealogy of chapter iv., one only, Cain,\nwho--the first murderer and fratricide--is made to stand in his\nline as father of Enoch, the most virtuous of men, who does not die,\nbut is translated alive. Turn we now to the Sethite table, and we\nfind that Enos, or Enoch, comes _second_ from Adam, and is father to\nCain (an). This is no accident. There was an evident reason for this\ninversion of paternity; a palpable design--that of creating confusion\nand baffling inquiry.\n\nWe say, then, that the patriarchs are simply the signs of the Zodiac,\nemblems, in their manifold aspects, of the spiritual and physical\nevolution of human races, of ages, and of divisions of time. In\nastrology, the first four of the \u201cHouses,\u201d in the diagrams of the\n\u201cTwelve Houses of Heaven\u201d--namely, the first, tenth, seventh, and\nfourth, or the second inner square placed with its angles upward and\ndownward, are termed _angles_, as being of the greatest strength\nand power. They answer to Adam, Noah, Cain-an, and Enoch, Alpha,\nOmega, evil and good, leading the whole. Furthermore, when divided\n(including the two secret names) into four _trigons_ or triads, viz.:\nfiery, airy, earthy, and watery, we find the latter corresponding to\nNoah.\n\nEnoch and Lamech were doubled in the table of Cain, to fill out the\nrequired number ten in both \u201cgenerations\u201d in the _Bible_, instead of\nemploying the \u201cSecret Name;\u201d and, in order that the patriarchs should\ncorrespond with the ten kabalistic Sephiroth, and fit at the same\ntime the ten, and, subsequently, _twelve_ signs of the Zodiac, in a\nmanner comprehensible only to the kabalists.\n\nAnd now, Abel having disappeared out of that line of descent, he\nis replaced by Seth, who was clearly an afterthought suggested by\nthe necessity of not having the human race descend entirely from a\nmurderer. This dilemma being apparently first noticed when the Kenite\ntable had been completed, Adam is made (after all the generations\nhad appeared) to beget this son, Seth. It is a suggestive fact that,\nwhereas the double-sexed Adam of chapter v. is made in the likeness\nof the Elohim (see _Genesis_ chapter i. 27 and v. 1 of the same),\nSeth (v. 3) is begotten in Adam\u2019s \u201cown likeness,\u201d thus signifying\nthat there were men of different races. Also, it is most noticeable\nthat neither the age nor a single other particular respecting the\npatriarchs in the Kenite table is given, whereas the reverse is the\ncase with those in the Sethite line.\n\nMost assuredly, no one could expect to find, in a work open to the\npublic, the final mysteries of that which was preserved for countless\nages as the grandest secret of the sanctuary. But, without divulging\nthe key to the profane, or being taxed with undue indiscretion,\nwe may be allowed to lift a corner of the veil which shrouds the\nmajestic doctrines of old. Let us then write down the patriarchs as\nthey ought to stand in their relation to the Zodiac, and see how they\ncorrespond with the signs.\n\nThe following diagram represents Ezekiel\u2019s Wheel, as given in many\nworks, among others, in Hargrave Jenning\u2019s _Rosicrucians_:\n\n [Illustration: EZEKIEL\u2019S WHEEL (exoteric).\n\n MACROCOSMOS\n (ascending).\n\n MICROCOSMOS\n (descending).]\n\nThese signs are (follow numbers):\n\n 1, Aries; 2, Taurus; 3, Gemini; 4, Cancer; 5, Leo; 6,\n Virgo, or the _ascending_ line of the grand cycle of\n creation. After this comes 7, _Libra_--\u201cman,\u201d which, though\n it is found right in the middle, or the intersection point,\n leads down the numbers:\n\n 8, Scorpio; 9, Sagittarius; 10, Capricornus; 11, Aquarius;\n and 12, Pisces.\n\nWhile discussing the double sign of Virgo-Scorpio and Libra, Hargrave\nJennings observes (p. 65):\n\n\u201cAll this is incomprehensible, except in the strange mysticism of\nthe Gnostics and the kabalists; and the whole theory requires a\nkey of explanation to render it intelligible; which key is only\ndarkly referred to as possible, but refused absolutely, by these\nextraordinary men, as not permissible to be disclosed.\u201d\n\nThe said key must be turned _seven_ times before the whole system\nis divulged. We will give it but _one_ turn, and thereby allow the\nprofane one glimpse into the mystery. Happy he, who understands the\nwhole!\n\n [Illustration: EZEKIEL\u2019S WHEEL (esoteric).]\n\nTo explain the presence of Jodheva (or Yodheva), or what is generally\ntermed the tetragram \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, and of Adam and Eve, it will suffice to\nremind the reader of the following verses in _Genesis_, with their\nright meaning inserted in brackets.\n\n 1. \u201cAnd God [Elohim] created man in his [their] own image\n ... male and female created he them [him]\u201d--(ch. i. 27).\n\n 2. \u201cMale and female created he them [him] ... and called\n _their_ [his] name ADAM\u201d--(v. 2).\n\nWhen the ternary is taken in the beginning of the tetragram, it\nexpresses the divine creation _spiritually_, _i.e._, without any\ncarnal sin: taken at its opposite end it expresses the latter; it\nis feminine. The name of Eve is composed of three letters, that of\nthe primitive or heavenly Adam, is written with one letter, Jod or\nYodh; therefore it must not be read Jehova but _Ieva_, or Eve. The\nAdam of the first chapter is the spiritual, therefore pure androgyne,\nAdam Kadmon. When woman issues from the left rib of the second\nAdam (of dust), the pure _Virgo_ is separated, and falling \u201cinto\ngeneration,\u201d or the downward cycle, becomes _Scorpio_,[880] emblem\nof sin and matter. While the ascending cycle points at the purely\nspiritual races, or the ten prediluvian patriarchs (the Pradj\u00e2patis,\nand Sephiroth)[881] are led on by the creative Deity itself, who is\nAdam Kadmon or Yodcheva, the lower one is that of the terrestrial\nraces, led on by Enoch or _Libra_, the _seventh_; who, because he\nis half-divine, half-terrestrial, is said to have been taken by\nGod alive. Enoch, or Hermes, or Libra are one. All are the scales\nof universal harmony; justice and equilibrium are placed at the\ncentral point of the Zodiac. The grand circle of the heavens, so well\ndiscoursed upon by Plato, in his _Tim\u00e6us_, symbolizes the unknown\nas a unity; and the smaller circles which form the cross, by their\ndivision on the plane of the Zodiacal ring--typify, at the point of\ntheir intersection, life. The centripetal and centrifugal forces,\nas symbols of Good and Evil, Spirit and Matter, Life and Death, are\nalso those of the Creator and the Destroyer,--Adam and Eve, or God\nand the Devil, as they say in common parlance. In the subjective,\nas well as in the objective worlds, they are the two powers, which\nthrough their eternal conflict keep the universe of spirit and\nmatter in harmony. They force the planets to pursue their paths, and\nkeep them in their elliptical orbits, thus tracing the astronomical\ncross in their revolution through the Zodiac. In their conflict the\ncentripetal force, were it to prevail, would drive the planets and\nliving souls into the sun, type of the invisible Spiritual Sun, the\nPara\u00e2tma or great universal Soul, their parent; while the centrifugal\nforce would chase both planets and _souls_ into the dreary space, far\nfrom the luminary of the objective universe, away from the spiritual\nrealm of salvation and eternal life, and into the chaos of final\ncosmic destruction, and individual annihilation. But the _balance_\nis there, ever sensitive at the intersection point. It regulates\nthe action of the two combatants, and the combined effort of both,\ncauses planets and \u201cliving souls\u201d to pursue a double diagonal line\nin their revolution through Zodiac and Life; and thus preserving\nstrict harmony, in visible and invisible heaven and earth, the forced\nunity of the two reconciles spirit and matter, and Enoch is said to\nstand a \u201cMetatron\u201d before God. Reckoning from him down to Noah and\nhis three sons, each of these represent a new \u201cworld,\u201d _i.e._, our\nearth, which is the seventh[882] after every period of geological\ntransformation, gives birth to another and distinct race of men and\nbeings.\n\nCain leads the ascending line, or Macrocosm, for he is the Son of the\n\u201cLord,\u201d not of Adam (_Genesis_ iv. 1). The \u201cLord\u201d is Adam Kadmon,\nCain, the Son of sinful thought, not the progeny of flesh and blood,\nSeth on the other hand is the leader of the races of earth, for he is\nthe Son of Adam, and begotten \u201cin his own likeness, after his image\u201d\n(_Genesis_ v. 3). Cain is _Kenu_, Assyrian, and means eldest, while\nthe Hebrew word \u05e7\u05d9\u05df means a smith, an artificer.\n\nOur science shows that the globe has passed through five distinct\ngeological phases, each characterized by a different stratum,\nand these are in reverse order, beginning with the last: 1. The\nQuaternary period, in which man appears as a certainty; 2. The\nTertiary period, in which he _may have_ appeared; 3. Secondary\nperiod, that of gigantic saurians, the megalosaurus, icthyosaurus,\nand plesiosaurus--_no vestige of man_; 4. The Pal\u00e6ozoic period, that\nof gigantic crustacea; 5 (or first). The Azoic period, during which\nscience asserts organic life had not yet appeared.\n\nAnd is there no possibility that there was a period, and\nseveral periods, when man _existed_, and yet was not an organic\nbeing--therefore could not have left any vestige of himself for exact\nscience? _Spirit_ leaves no skeletons or fossils behind, and yet few\nare the men on earth who doubt that man can live both objectively\nand subjectively. At all events, the theology of the Brahmans, hoary\nwith antiquity, and which divides the formative periods of the earth\ninto four ages, and places between each of these a lapse of 1,728,000\nyears, far more agrees with official science and modern discovery\nthan the absurd chronological notions promulgated by the Councils of\nNice and Trent.\n\nThe names of the patriarchs were not Hebrew, though they may have\nbeen Hebraized later; they are evidently of Assyrian or Aryan origin.\n\nThus _Adam_, for instance, stands in the explained _Kabala_ as a\nconvertible term, and applies nearly to every other patriarch, as\nevery Sephiroth to each Sephira, and _vice versa_. Adam, Cain,\nand Abel form the first _triad_ of the twelve. They correspond in\nthe Sephiral tree to the Crown, Wisdom, and Intelligence; and in\nastrology to the three trigons--the fiery, the earthy, and the airy;\nwhich fact, were we allowed to devote more space than we have to\nits elucidation, would perhaps show that astrology deserves the\nname of science as well as any other. Adam (Kadmon) or Aries (ram)\nis identical with the Egyptian ram-headed god Amun, fabricating\nman on the potter\u2019s wheel. His duplication, therefore--or the Adam\nof dust--is also Aries, Amon, when standing at the head of his\ngenerations, for he fabricates mortals also in \u201chis own likeness.\u201d\nIn astrology the planet Jupiter is connected with the \u201cfirst house\u201d\n(Aries). The color of Jupiter, as seen in the \u201cstages of the seven\nspheres,\u201d on the tower of Borsippa, or Birs Nimrud, was _red_;[883]\nand in Hebrew Adam means \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u201cred\u201d as well as \u201cman.\u201d The Hindu god\nAgni, who presides at the sign of Pisces, next to that of Aries in\ntheir relation to the twelve months (February and March),[884] is\npainted of a deep red color, with _two_ faces (male and female),\n_three_ legs, and _seven_ arms; the whole forming the number twelve.\nSo, also, Noah (Pisces), who appears in the generations as the twelfth\npatriarch, counting Cain and Abel, is Adam again under another name,\nfor he is the forefather of a new race of mankind; and with his \u201cthree\nsons,\u201d one bad, one good, and one partaking of both qualities, is the\nterrestrial reflection of the super-terrestrial Adam and his three\nsons. Agni is represented mounted on a ram, with a tiara surmounted by\na cross.[885]\n\nKain, presiding over the Taurus (Bull) of the Zodiac, is also very\nsuggestive. Taurus belongs to the earthy trigon, and in connection\nwith this sign it will not be amiss to remind the student of an\nallegory from the Persian _Avesta_. The story goes that Ormazd\nproduced a being--source and type of all the universal beings--called\nLIFE, or Bull in the _Zend_. Ahriman (Cain) kills this being (Abel),\nfrom the seed of which (Seth) new beings are produced. Abel, in\nAssyrian, means _son_, but in Hebrew \u05d4\u05d1\u05dc it means something ephemeral,\nnot long-lived, _valueless_, and also a \u201cPagan idol,\u201d[886] as Kain\nmeans a _Hermaic statue_ (a pillar, the symbol of generation).\nLikewise, Abel is the female counterpart of Cain (male), for they are\ntwins and probably androgynous; the latter answering to Wisdom, the\nformer to Intelligence.\n\nSo with all other patriarchs. Enos, \u05d0\u05e0\u05d5\u05e9, is _Homo_ again--a\nman, or the same Adam, and Enoch in the bargain; and \u05e7\u05d9\u05d5\u05df _Kain-an_\nis identical with Cain. Seth, \u05e9\u05ea, is Teth, or Thoth, or Hermes; and\nthis is the reason, no doubt, why Josephus, in his first book (ch. 3)\nshows Seth so proficient in astrology, geometry, and other occult\nsciences. Foreseeing the flood, he says, he engraved the fundamental\nprinciples of his art on two pillars of brick and stone, the latter of\nwhich \u201che saw himself [Josephus] _to remain in Syria in his own\ntime_.\u201d Thus is it that Seth is identified also with Enoch, to whom\nkabalists and Masons attribute the same feat; and, at the same time,\nwith Hermes, or Kadmus again, for Enoch is identical with the\nformer; \u05d4\u05e0\u05d5\u05da, He-NOCH means a teacher, an initiator, or an initiate;\nin Grecian mythology, Inachus. We have seen the part he is made to\nplay in the Zodiac.\n\nMahalaleel, if we divide the word and write \u05de\u05d4\u05dc\u05d4, _m_a-_h_a-_l_a,\nmeans tender, merciful; and therefore is he made to correspond with\nthe fourth Sephira, _Love_ or _Mercy_, emanated from the first\ntriad.[887] _Ir_a_d_, \u05d9\u05e8\u05d3, or _I_a_r_e_d_, is (minus the\nvowels) precisely the same. If from the verb \u05d9\u05e8\u05d3, it means\n_descent;_ if from \u05d0\u05e8\u05d3, _ar_a_d_, it means offspring, and\nthus corresponds perfectly with the kabalistic emanations.\n\n_L_a_m_e_ch_, \u05dc\u05de\u05da, is not Hebrew, but Greek. Lam-ach means\nLam--the father, and Ou-Lom-Ach is the father of the age; or the\nfather of him (Noah) who inaugurates a new era or period of creation\nafter the _pralaya_ of the deluge; Noah being the symbol of a new\nworld, the Kingdom (Malchuth) of the Sephiroth; hence his father,\ncorresponding to the ninth Sephiroth, is the Foundation.[888]\nFurthermore, both father and son answer to Aquarius and Pisces in the\nZodiac; and thus the former belonging to the airy and the latter to\nthe _watery_ trigons, they close the list of the biblical myths.\n\nBut if, as we see, every patriarch represents, in one sense, like\neach of the Pradj\u00e2patis, a new race of antediluvian human beings;\nand if, as it may as easily be proved, they are the copies of the\nBabylonian _Saros_, or ages, the latter themselves copies of the\nHindu ten dynasties of the \u201cLords of beings,\u201d[889] yet, however we\nmay regard them, they are among the profoundest allegories ever\nconceived by philosophical minds.\n\nIn the _Nuctemeron_,[890] the evolution of the universe and\nits successive periods of formation, together with the gradual\ndevelopment of the human races, are illustrated as fully as possible\nin the twelve \u201chours\u201d into which the allegory is divided. Each \u201chour\u201d\ntypifies the evolution of a new man, and in its turn is divided\ninto four quarters or ages. This work shows how thoroughly was the\nancient philosophy imbued with the doctrines of the early Aryans,\nwho were the first to divide the life on our planet into four ages.\nIf one would trace this doctrine from its source in the night of\nthe traditional period down to the Seer of Patmos, he need not go\nastray among the religious systems of all nations. The Babylonians he\nwould find teaching that in four different periods four Oannes (or\nsuns) appeared; the Hindus asserting their four Yuga; the Greeks,\nRomans, and others firmly believing in the golden, silver, brazen,\nand iron ages, each of the epochs being heralded by the appearance of\na saviour. The four Buddhas of the Hindus and the three prophets of\nthe Zoroastrians--Oshedar-Cami, Oshedar-mah, and Sosiosh--preceded by\nZarotushtra, are the types of these ages.\n\nIn the _Bible_, the very opening tells us that _before the sons of God\nsaw the daughters of men_, the latter lived from 365 to 969 years.\nBut when the \u201cLord God\u201d saw the iniquities of mankind, He concluded\nto allow them at most 120 years of life (_Genesis_ vi. 3). To\naccount for such a violent oscillation in the human mortality-table\nis only possible by tracing this decision of the \u201cLord God\u201d to its\norigin. Such incongruities as we meet at every step in the _Bible_\ncan be only attributed to the facts that the book of _Genesis_ and\nthe other books of _Moses_ were tampered with and remodelled by\nmore than one author; and, that in their original state they were,\nwith the exception of the external form of the allegories, faithful\ncopies from the Hindu sacred books. In _Manu_, book i., we find the\nfollowing:\n\n\u201cIn the first age, neither sickness nor suffering were known. Men\nlived four centuries.\u201d\n\nThis was in the Krita or Satya yug.\n\n\u201cThe Krita-yug is the type of justice. The _bull_ which stands firm\non its four legs is its image; man adheres to truth, and evil does\nnot as yet direct his actions.\u201d[891] But in each of the following\nages primitive human life loses one-fourth of its duration, that\nis to say, in Treta-yug man lives 300, in Dwapara-yug 200, and in\nKali-yug, or our own age, but 100 years generally, at the most. Noah,\nson of Lamech--Oulom-_Ach_, or father of the age--is the distorted\ncopy of Manu, son of Swayambhu, and the six Manus or Rishis issued\nfrom the Hindu \u201cfirst man\u201d are the originals of Terah, Abraham,\nIsaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, the Hebrew sages, who beginning\nwith Terah were all alleged to have been astrologers, alchemists,\ninspired prophets, and soothsayers; or in a more profane but plainer\nlanguage--magicians.\n\nIf we consult the Talmudistic _Mishna_ we find therein the first\nemanated divine couple, the androgyne Demiurge Chochmah (or Hachma\nAchamoth) and Binah building themselves a house with _seven_ pillars.\nThey are the architects of God--Wisdom and Intelligence--and His\n\u201ccompass and square.\u201d The seven columns are the future _seven_\nworlds, or the typical _seven_ primordial \u201cdays\u201d of creation.\n\n\u201cChochmah immolates her victims.\u201d These victims are the numberless\nforces of nature which must \u201cdie\u201d (expend themselves) _in order that\nthey should live_; when one force dies out, it is but to give birth\nto another force, its progeny. It dies but lives in its children, and\nresuscitates at every _seventh_ generation. The servants of Chochmah,\nor wisdom, are the souls of H-Adam, for in him are all the souls of\nIsrael.\n\nThere are _twelve_ hours in the day, says the _Mishna_, and it is\nduring these hours that is accomplished the creation of man. Would\nthis be comprehensible, unless we had Manu to teach us that this\n\u201cday\u201d embraces the four ages of the world and has a duration of\n_twelve_ thousand divine years of the Devas?\n\n\u201cThe Creators (Elohim) outline in the second\u201d hour \u201cthe shape of a\nmore corporeal form of man. They separate it into two and prepare the\nsexes to become distinct from each other. Such is the way the Elohim\nproceeded in reference to every created thing.\u201d[892] \u201cEvery fish,\nfowl, plant, beast and man was androgyne at the first hour.\u201d\n\nSays the commentator, the great Rabbi Simeon:\n\n\u201cO, companions, companions, man as emanation was both man and woman;\nas well on the side of the FATHER as on the side of the MOTHER. And\nthis is the sense of the words, and Elohim spoke, Let there be Light\nand it was Light!... And this is the \u2018two-fold man!\u2019\u201d[893]\n\nA spiritual woman was necessary as a contrast for the spiritual\nman. Harmony is the universal law. In Taylor\u2019s translation, Plato\u2019s\ndiscourse upon creation is rendered so as to make him say of this\nuniverse that \u201cHe caused it to move with circular motion.... When,\ntherefore, that God who is a perpetually reasoning Divinity,\ncogitated about that God (man) _who was destined to subsist at some\ncertain period of time_, He produced his body smooth and even, and\nevery way even and whole from the centre, and made it perfect. This\nperfect circle of the created God, _He decussated in the form of the\nletter_ X.\u201d\n\nThe italics of both these sentences from _Tim\u00e6us_ belong to Dr.\nLundy, the author of that remarkable work mentioned once before,\n_Monumental Christianity_; and attention is drawn to the words of\nthe Greek philosopher, with the evident purpose of giving them the\nprophetic character which Justin Martyr applied to the same, when\naccusing Plato of having borrowed his \u201cphysiological discussion\nin the _Tim\u00e6us_ ... concerning the Son of God placed crosswise in\nthe universe,\u201d from Moses and his serpent of brass. The learned\nauthor seems to fully accord an unpremeditated prophecy to these\nwords; although he does not tell us whether he believes that like\nPlato\u2019s created god, Jesus was originally a sphere \u201csmooth and\neven, and every way even and whole from the centre.\u201d Even if Justin\nMartyr were excusable for his perversion of Plato, Dr. Lundy ought\nto know that the day for that sort of casuistry is long gone by.\nWhat the philosopher meant was _man_, who before being encased in\nmatter had no use for limbs, but was a pure spiritual entity. Hence\nif the Deity, and his universe, and the stellar bodies are to be\nconceived as spheroidal, this shape would be archetypal man\u2019s. As\nhis enveloping shell grew heavier, there came the necessity for\nlimbs, and the limbs sprouted. If we fancy a man with arms and legs\nnaturally extended at the same angle, by backing him against the\ncircle that symbolizes his prior shape as a spirit, we would have the\nvery figure described by Plato--the X cross within the circle.\n\nAll the legends of the creation, the fall of man, and the resultant\ndeluge, belong to universal history, and are no more the property\nof the Israelites than that of any other nation. What specially\nbelongs to them (kabalists excepted) are the disfigured details\nof every tradition. The _Genesis_ of Enoch is by far anterior to\nthe books of Moses,[894] and Guillaume Postel has presented it to\nthe world, explaining the allegories as far as he dared; but the\nground-work is still unexposed. For the Jews, the _Book of Enoch_\nis as canonical as the Mosaic books; and if the Christians accepted\nthe latter as an authority, we do not see why they should reject the\nformer as an apocrypha. No more can the age of one than that of the\nother be determined with anything like certainty. At the time of\nthe separation, the Samaritans recognized only the books of Moses\nand that of Joshua, says Dr. Jost.[895] In 168 B.C., Jerusalem had\nits temple plundered, and all the sacred books were destroyed;[896]\ntherefore, the few MSS. that remained were to be found only among the\n\u201cteachers of tradition.\u201d The kabalistic Tana\u00efm, and their initiates\nand prophets had always practised its teachings in common with\nthe Canaanites, the Hamites, Midianites, Chaldeans, and all other\nnations. The story of Daniel is a proof of it.\n\nThere was a sort of Brotherhood, or Freemasonry among the kabalists\nscattered all over the world, since the memory of man; and, like some\nsocieties of the medi\u00e6val Masonry of Europe, they called themselves\n_Companions_[897] and _Innocents_.[898] It is a belief (founded on\nknowledge) among the kabalists, that no more than the Hermetic rolls\nare the genuine sacred books of the seventy-two elders--books which\ncontained the \u201c_Ancient Word_\u201d--lost, but that they have all been\npreserved from the remotest times among secret communities. Emanuel\nSwedenborg says as much, and his words are based, he says, on the\ninformation he had from certain _spirits_, who assured him that \u201cthey\nperformed their worship according to this Ancient Word.\u201d \u201cSeek for\nit in China,\u201d adds the great seer, \u201cperadventure you may find it in\nGreat Tartary!\u201d Other students of occult sciences have had more than\nthe word of \u201ccertain spirits\u201d to rely upon in this special case--they\nhave seen the books.\n\nWe must choose therefore perforce between two methods--either to\naccept the _Bible_ exoterically or esoterically. Against the former\nwe have the following facts: That, after the first copy of the _Book\nof God_ has been edited and launched on the world by Hilkiah, this\ncopy disappears, and Ezra has to make a _new Bible_, which Judas\nMaccabeus finishes; that when it was copied from the horned letters\ninto square letters, it was corrupted beyond recognition; that the\n_Masorah_ completed the work of destruction; that, finally, we have a\ntext, not 900 years old, abounding with omissions, interpolations,\nand premeditated perversions; and that, consequently, as this\nMasoretic Hebrew text has fossilized its mistakes, and the key\nto the \u201cWord of God\u201d is lost, no one has a right to enforce upon\nso-called \u201cChristians\u201d the divagations of a series of hallucinated\nand, perhaps, spurious prophets, under the unwarranted and untenable\nassumption that the author of it was the \u201cHoly Ghost\u201d in _propria\nperson\u00e6_.\n\nHence, we reject this pretended monotheistic Scripture, made up\njust when the priests of Jerusalem found their political profit in\nviolently breaking off all connection with the Gentiles. It is at\nthis moment only that we find them persecuting kabalists, and banning\nthe \u201cold wisdom\u201d of both Pagans and Jews. _The real Hebrew Bible\nwas a secret volume, unknown to the masses_, and even the Samaritan\n_Pentateuch_ is far more ancient than the _Septuagint_. As for the\nformer, the Fathers of the Church never even heard of it. We prefer\ndecidedly to take the word of Swedenborg that the \u201cAncient Word\u201d\nis _somewhere in China or the Great Tartary_. The more so, as the\nSwedish seer is declared, at least by one clergymen, namely, the\nReverend Dr. R. L. Tafel, of London, to have been in a state of\n\u201cinspiration from God,\u201d while writing his theological works. He is\ngiven even the superiority over the penmen of the _Bible_, for, while\nthe latter had the words spoken to them in their ears, Swedenborg was\nmade to understand them rationally and was, therefore, _internally_\nand not externally illuminated. \u201cWhen,\u201d says the reverend author, \u201ca\nconscientious member of the New Church hears any charges made against\nthe divinity and the infallibility of either the soul or the body of\nthe doctrines of the New Jerusalem, he must at once place himself on\nthe unequivocal declaration made in those doctrines, that the Lord\nhas effected His second coming in and by means of those writings\nwhich were published by Emanuel Swedenborg, as His servant, and that,\ntherefore, those charges are not and cannot be true.\u201d And if it is\n\u201cthe Lord\u201d that spoke through Swedenborg, then there is a hope for\nus that at least one divine will corroborate our assertions, that\nthe ancient \u201cword of God\u201d is nowhere but in the heathen countries,\nespecially _Buddhistic Tartary, Thibet, and China_!\n\n\u201cThe primitive history of Greece is the primitive history of India,\u201d\nexclaims Pococke in his _India in Greece_. In view of subsequent\nfruits of critical research, we may paraphrase the sentence and say:\n\u201cThe primitive history of Judea is a distortion of Indian fable\nengrafted on that of Egypt. Many scientists, encountering stubborn\nfacts, and being reluctant to contrast the narratives of the \u201cdivine\u201d\nrevelation with those of the Brahmanical books, merely present them\nto the reading public. Meanwhile they limit their conclusions to\ncriticisms and contradictions of each other. So Max M\u00fcller opposes\nthe theories of Spiegel, and some one else; and Professor Whitney\nthose of the Oxford Orientalist; and Dr. Haug made onslaughts on\nSpiegel, while Dr. Spiegel chose some other victim; and now even the\ntime-honored Akkadians and Turanians have had their day of glory.\nThe _Proto-Kasdeans_, _Kasdeo-Scyths_, _Sumirians_, and what not,\nhave to make room for some other fictions. Alas! for the Akkads,\nHalevy, the Assyriologist attacks the Akkado-Sumirian language of old\nBabylon, and Chabas, the Egyptologist, not content with dethroning\nthe Turanian speech, which has rendered such eminent services to\nOrientalists when perplexed, calls the venerable parent of the\nAkkadians--Fran\u00e7ois Lenormant--himself, a charlatan. Profiting by the\nlearned turmoil, the Christian clergy take heart for their fantastic\ntheology on the ground that when the jury disagree there is a gain\nof time at least for the indicted party. And thus is overlooked\nthe vital question whether Christendom would not be the better for\nadopting Christism in place of Christianity, with its _Bible_, its\nvicarious atonement and its Devil. But to so important a personage as\nthe latter, we could not do less than devote a special chapter.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER X.\n\n \u201cGet thee behind me, SATAN\u201d (Jesus to Peter).--_Matt._ xvi. 23.\n\n \u201cSuch a deal of skimble-skamble stuff\n As puts me from my faith. I tell you what--\n He held me, last night, at least nine hours\n In reckoning up the several devils\u2019 names.\u201d--\n _King Henry IV._, Part i., Act iii.\n\n \u201cLa force terrible et juste qui tue eternellement les\n avortons a \u00e9t\u00e9 nomm\u00e9e par les \u00c9gyptiens Typhon, par les\n H\u00e9breux Sama\u00ebl; par les orientaux Satan; et par les Latins\n Lucifer. Le Lucifer de la Cabale n\u2019est pas un ange maudit\n et foudroy\u00e9; c\u2019est l\u2019ange qui \u00e9claire et qui _r\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e8re_ en\n tombant.\u201d--ELIPHAS LEVI: _Dogme et Rituel_.\n\n \u201cBad as he is, the Devil may be abus\u2019d,\n Be falsely charg\u2019d, and causelessly accus\u2019d,\n When Men, unwilling to be blam\u2019d alone,\n Shift off those Crimes on Him which are their Own.\u201d--_Defoe_, 1726.\n\n\nSeveral years ago, a distinguished writer and persecuted kabalist\nsuggested a creed for the Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies, which\nmay be thus formulated:\n\n _Protevangelium._\n\n \u201cI believe in the Devil, the Father Almighty of Evil, the Destroyer\n of all things, Perturbator of Heaven and Earth;\n And in Anti-Christ, his only Son, our Persecutor,\n Who was conceived of the Evil Spirit;\n Born of a sacrilegious, foolish Virgin;\n Was glorified by mankind, reigned over them,\n And ascended to the throne of Almighty God,\n From which he crowds Him aside, and from which he insults the\n living and the dead;\n I believe in the Spirit of Evil;\n The Synagogue of Satan;\n The coalition of the wicked;\n The perdition of the body;\n And the Death and Hell everlasting. _Amen._\u201d\n\nDoes this offend? Does it seem extravagant, cruel, blasphemous?\nListen. In the city of New York, on the ninth day of April,\n1877--that is to say, in the last quarter of what is proudly styled\nthe century of discovery and the age of illumination--the following\nscandalous ideas were broached. We quote from the report in the _Sun_\nof the following morning:\n\n\u201cThe Baptist preachers met yesterday in the Mariners\u2019 Chapel, in\nOliver Street. Several foreign missionaries were present. The Rev.\nJohn W. Sarles, of Brooklyn, read an essay, in which he maintained\nthe proposition _that all adult heathen, dying without the knowledge\nof the Gospel, are damned eternally_. Otherwise, the reverend\nessayist argued, the Gospel is a curse instead of a blessing, the men\nwho crucified Christ served him right, and the whole structure of\nrevealed religion tumbles to the ground.\n\n\u201cBrother Stoddard, a missionary from India, indorsed the views of the\nBrooklyn pastor. The Hindus were great sinners. One day, after he had\npreached in the market place, a Brahman got up and said: \u2018We Hindus\nbeat the world in lying, but this man beats us. How can he say that\nGod loves us? Look at the poisonous serpents, tigers, lions, and all\nkinds of dangerous animals around us. If God loves us, why doesn\u2019t He\ntake them away?\u2019\n\n\u201cThe Rev. Mr. Pixley, of Hamilton, N. Y., heartily subscribed to the\ndoctrine of Brother Sarles\u2019s essay, and asked for $5,000 to fit out\nyoung men for the ministry.\u201d\n\nAnd these men--we will not say teach the doctrine of Jesus, for that\nwould be to insult his memory, but--are _paid_ to teach his doctrine!\nCan we wonder that intelligent persons prefer annihilation to a\nfaith encumbered by such a monstrous doctrine? We doubt whether any\nrespectable Brahman would have confessed to the vice of lying--an\nart cultivated only in those portions of British India where the\nmost Christians are found[899] But we challenge any honest man in\nthe wide world to say whether he thinks the Brahman was far from the\ntruth in saying of the missionary Stoddard, \u201cthis man beats us all\u201d\nin lying. What else would he say, if the latter preached to them the\ndoctrine of _eternal damnation_, because, indeed, they had passed\ntheir lives without reading a Jewish book of which they never heard,\nor asked salvation of a Christ whose existence they never suspected!\nBut Baptist clergymen who need a few thousand dollars must devise\nterrifying sensations to fire the congregational heart.\n\nWe abstain, as a rule, from giving our own experience when we can\ncall acceptable witnesses, and so, upon reading missionary Stoddard\u2019s\noutrageous remarks, we requested our acquaintance, Mr. William L.\nD. O\u2019Grady,[901] to give a fair opinion upon the missionaries. This\ngentleman\u2019s father and grandfather were British army officers, and\nhe himself was born in India, and enjoyed life-long opportunities\nto learn what the general opinion among the English is of these\nreligious propagandists. Following is his communication in reply to\nour letter:\n\n \u201cYou ask me for my opinion of the Christian missionaries\n in India. In all the years I spent there, I never spoke to\n a single missionary. They were not in society, and, from\n what I heard of their proceedings and could see for myself,\n I don\u2019t wonder at it. _Their influence on the natives is\n bad._ Their converts are worthless, and, as a rule, of\n the lowest class; _nor do they improve by conversion_. No\n respectable family will employ Christian servants. They\n lie, they steal, they are unclean--and dirt is certainly\n not a Hindu vice; they drink--and no decent native of any\n other belief ever touches intoxicating liquor; they are\n outcasts from their own people and utterly despicable.\n Their new teachers set them a poor example of consistency.\n While holding forth to the Pariah that God makes no\n distinction of persons, they boast intolerably over the\n stray Brahmans, who, very much \u201coff color,\u201d occasionally,\n at long intervals, fall into the clutches of these\n hypocrites.\n\n \u201cThe missionaries get very small salaries, as publicly\n stated in the proceedings of the societies that employ\n them, but, in some unaccountable way, manage to live as\n well as officials with ten times their income. When they\n come home to recover their health, shattered, as they say,\n by their arduous labors--which they seem to be able to\n afford to do quite frequently, when supposed richer people\n cannot--they tell childish stories on platforms, exhibit\n idols as procured with infinite difficulty, which is quite\n absurd, and give an account of their imaginary hardships\n which is perfectly harrowing but untrue from beginning\n to end. I lived some years in India myself, and nearly\n all my blood-relations have passed or will pass the best\n years of their lives there. I know hundreds of British\n officials, and I never heard from one of them a single word\n in favor of the missionaries. Natives of any position look\n on them with the supremest contempt, although suffering\n chronic exasperation from their arrogant aggressiveness;\n and the British Government, which continues endowments to\n Pagodas, granted by the East India Company, and which\n supports unsectarian education, gives them no countenance\n whatever. Protected from personal violence, they yelp and\n bark at natives and Europeans alike, after the fashion of\n ill-conditioned curs. Often recruited from the poorest\n specimens of theological fanaticism, they are regarded on\n all sides as mischievous. Their rabid, reckless, vulgar,\n and offensive propagandism caused the great Mutiny of 1857.\n They are noisome humbugs.\n \u201cWM. L. D. O\u2019GRADY.\n \u201cNEW YORK, June 12, 1877.\u201d\n\nThe new creed therefore, with which we opened this chapter, coarse as\nit may sound, embodies the very essence of the belief of the Church\nas inculcated by her missionaries. It is regarded as less impious,\nless infidel, to doubt the personal existence of the Holy Ghost, or\nthe equal Godhead of Jesus, than to question the personality of the\nDevil. But a summary of Koheleth is well-nigh forgotten.[902] Who\never quotes the golden words of the prophet Micah,[903] or seems to\ncare for the exposition of the Law, as given by Jesus himself?[904]\nThe \u201cbull\u2019s eye\u201d in the target of Modern Christianity is in the\nsimple phrase to \u201cfear the Devil.\u201d\n\nThe Catholic clergy and some of the lay champions of the Roman Church\nfight still more for the existence of Satan and his imps. If Des\nMousseaux maintains the objective reality of spiritual phenomena with\nsuch an unrelenting ardor, it is because, in his opinion, the latter\nare the most direct evidence of the Devil at work. The Chevalier\nis more Catholic than the Pope; and his logic and deductions from\nnever-to-be and non-established premises are unique, and prove once\nmore that the creed offered by us is the one which expresses the\nCatholic belief most eloquently.\n\n\u201cIf magic and spiritualism,\u201d he says, \u201cwere both but chimeras,\nwe would have to bid an eternal farewell to all the rebellious\nangels, now troubling the world; for thus, we would have _no more\ndemons down here_.... And _if we lost our demons, we would_ LOSE\nOUR SAVIOUR likewise. For, from whom did that Saviour come to save\nus? And then, there would be no more Redeemer; for from whom or\nwhat could that Redeemer redeem us? Hence, _there would be no more\nChristianity_!!\u201d[905]\n\nOh, Holy Father of Evil; Sainted Satan! We pray thee do not abandon\nsuch pious Christians as the Chevalier des Mousseaux and some Baptist\nclergymen!!\n\nFor our part, we would rather remember the wise words of J. C.\nColquhoun,[906] who says that \u201cthose persons who, in modern times,\nadopt the doctrine of the Devil in its strictly literal and personal\napplication, do not appear to be aware that they are in reality\npolytheists, heathens, idolaters.\u201d\n\nSeeking supremacy in everything over the ancient creeds, the\nChristians claim the discovery of the Devil officially recognized\nby the Church. Jesus was the first to use the word \u201clegion\u201d when\nspeaking of them; and it is on this ground that M. des Mousseaux thus\ndefends his position in one of his demonological works. \u201cLater,\u201d\nhe says, \u201cwhen the synagogue _expired_, depositing its inheritance\nin the hands of Christ, were born into the world and _shone_, the\nFathers of the Church, who have been accused by certain persons of a\nrare and precious ignorance, of having borrowed their ideas as to the\nspirits of darkness from the theurgists.\u201d\n\nThree deliberate, palpable, and easily-refuted errors--not to use\na harsher word--occur in these few lines. In the first place, the\nsynagogue, far from having _expired_, is flourishing at the present\nday in nearly every town of Europe, America, and Asia; and of all\nchurches in Christian cities, it is the most firmly established,\nas well as the best behaved. Further--while no one will deny that\nmany Christian Fathers were born into the world (always, of course,\nexcepting the twelve fictitious Bishops of Rome, who were never\nborn at all), every person who will take the trouble to read the\nworks of the Platonists of the old Academy, who were theurgists\nbefore Iamblichus, will recognize therein the origin of Christian\nDemonology as well as the Angelology, the allegorical meaning\nof which was completely distorted by the Fathers. Then it could\nhardly be admitted that the said Fathers ever _shone_, except,\nperhaps, in the refulgence of their extreme ignorance. The Reverend\nDr. Shuckford, who passed the better part of his life trying to\nreconcile their contradictions and absurdities, was finally driven to\nabandon the whole thing in despair. The ignorance of the champions\nof Plato must indeed appear rare and precious by comparison with\nthe fathomless profundity of Augustine, \u201cthe giant of learning and\nerudition,\u201d who scouted the sphericity of the earth, for, if true,\nit would prevent the antipodes from seeing the Lord Christ when he\ndescended from heaven at the second advent; or, of Lactantius, who\nrejects with pious horror Pliny\u2019s identical theory, on the remarkable\nground that it would make the trees at the other side of the earth\ngrow and the men walk with their heads downward; or, again, of\nCosmas-Indicopleustes, whose orthodox system of geography is embalmed\nin his \u201cChristian topography;\u201d or, finally, of Bede, who assured\nthe world that the heaven \u201cis tempered with glacial waters, lest it\nshould be set on fire\u201d[907]--a benign dispensation of Providence,\nmost likely to prevent the radiance of their learning from setting\nthe sky ablaze!\n\nBe this as it may, these resplendent Fathers certainly did borrow\ntheir notions of the \u201cspirits of darkness\u201d from the Jewish kabalists\nand Pagan theurgists, with the difference, however, that they\ndisfigured and outdid in absurdity all that the wildest fancy of the\nHindu, Greek, and Roman rabble had ever created. There is not a dev\nin the Persian Pandaimonion half so preposterous, as a conception, as\ndes Mousseaux\u2019s _Incubus_ revamped from Augustine. Typhon, symbolized\nas an _ass_, appears a philosopher in comparison with the devil\ncaught by the Normandy peasant in a key-hole; and it is certainly not\nAhriman or the Hindu Vritra who would run away in rage and dismay,\nwhen addressed as _St. Satan_, by a native Luther.\n\nThe Devil is the patron genius of theological Christianity. So \u201choly\nand reverend is his name\u201d in modern conception, that it may not,\nexcept occasionally from the pulpit, be uttered in ears polite. In\nlike manner, anciently, it was not lawful to speak the sacred names\nor repeat the jargon of the Mysteries, except in the sacred cloister.\nWe hardly know the names of the Samothracian gods, but cannot tell\nprecisely the number of the Kabeiri. The Egyptians considered it\nblasphemous to utter the title of the gods of their secret rites.\nEven now, the Brahman only pronounces the syllable _Om_ in silent\nthought, and the Rabbi, the Ineffable Name, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4. Hence, we who\nexercise no such veneration, have been led into the blunders of\nmiscalling the names of HISIRIS and YAVA by the mispronunciations,\nOsiris and Jehovah. A similar glamour bids fair, it will be perceived,\nto gather round the designation of the dark personage of whom we are\ntreating; and in the familiar handling, we shall be very likely to\nshock the peculiar sensibilities of many who will consider a free\nmentioning of the Devil\u2019s names as blasphemy--the sin of sins, that\n\u201chath never forgiveness.\u201d[908]\n\nSeveral years ago an acquaintance of the author wrote a newspaper\narticle to demonstrate that the _diabolos_ or Satan of the _New\nTestament_ denoted the personification of an abstract idea, and not\na personal being. He was answered by a clergyman, who concluded the\nreply with the deprecatory expression, \u201cI fear that he has denied\nhis Saviour.\u201d In his rejoinder he pleaded, \u201cOh, no! we only denied\nthe Devil.\u201d But the clergyman failed to perceive the difference. In\nhis conception of the matter, the denying of the personal objective\nexistence of the Devil was itself \u201cthe sin against the Holy Ghost.\u201d\n\nThis necessary Evil, dignified by the epithet of \u201cFather of Lies,\u201d\nwas, according to the clergy, the founder of all the world-religions\nof ancient time, and of the heresies, or rather heterodoxies,\nof later periods, as well as the _Deus ex Machina_ of modern\nSpiritualism. In the exceptions which we take to this notion, we\nprotest that we do not attack true religion or sincere piety. We\nare only carrying on a controversy with human dogmas. Perhaps in\ndoing this we resemble Don Quixote, because these things are only\nwindmills. Nevertheless, let it be remembered that they have been\nthe occasion and pretext for the slaughtering of more than fifty\nmillions of human beings since the words were proclaimed: \u201cLOVE YOUR\nENEMIES.\u201d[909]\n\nIt is a late day for us to expect the Christian clergy to undo and\namend their work. They have too much at stake. If the Christian\nChurch should abandon or even modify the dogma of an anthropomorphic\ndevil, it would be like pulling the bottom card from under a castle\nof cards. The structure would fall. The clergymen to whom we have\nalluded perceived that upon the relinquishing of Satan as a personal\ndevil, the dogma of Jesus Christ as the second deity in their trinity\nmust go over in the same catastrophe. Incredible, or even horrifying,\nas it may seem, the Roman Church bases its doctrine of the godhood of\nChrist entirely upon the satanism of the fallen archangel. We have\nthe testimony of Father Ventura, who proclaims the vital importance\nof this dogma to the Catholics.\n\nThe Reverend Father Ventura, the illustrious ex-general of the\nTheatins, certifies that the Chevalier des Mousseaux, by his\ntreatise, _M\u0153urs et Pratiques des D\u00e9mons_, has deserved well of\nmankind, and still more of the most Holy Catholic and Apostolic\nChurch. With this voucher, the noble Chevalier, it will be perceived,\n\u201cspeaks as one having authority.\u201d He asserts explicitly, that _to the\nDevil and his angels we are absolutely indebted for our Saviour_; and\nthat but for them _we would have no Redeemer, no Christianity_.\n\nMany zealous and earnest souls have revolted at the monstrous dogma\nof John Calvin, the popekin of Geneva, that _sin is the necessary\ncause of the greatest good_. It was bolstered up, nevertheless,\nby logic like that of des Mousseaux, and illustrated by the same\ndogmas. The execution of Jesus, the god-man, on the cross, was the\nmost prodigious crime in the universe, yet it was necessary that\nmankind--those predestinated to everlasting life--might be saved.\nD\u2019Aubign\u00e9 cites the quotation by Martin Luther from the canon, and\nmakes him exclaim, in ecstatic rapture: \u201c_O beata culpa, qui talem\nmeruisti redemptorem_!\u201d O blessed sin, which didst merit such a\nRedeemer. We now perceive that the dogma which had appeared so\nmonstrous is, after all, the doctrine of Pope, Calvin, and Luther\nalike--that the three are one.\n\nMahomet and his disciples, who held Jesus in great respect as a\nprophet, remarks Eliphas Levi, used to utter, when speaking of\nChristians, the following remarkable words: \u201cJesus of Nazareth was\nverily a true prophet of Allah and a grand man; but lo! his disciples\nall went insane one day, and made a god of him.\u201d\n\nMax M\u00fcller kindly adds: \u201cIt was a mistake of the early Fathers to\ntreat the heathen gods as demons or evil spirits, and we must take\ncare not to commit the same error with regard to the Hindu gods.\u201d[910]\n\nBut we have Satan presented to us as the prop and mainstay of\nsacerdotism--an Atlas, holding the Christian heaven and cosmos upon\nhis shoulders. If he falls, then, in their conception, all is lost,\nand chaos must come again.\n\nThis dogma of the Devil and redemption seems to be based upon two\npassages in the _New Testament_: \u201cFor this purpose the Son of God\nwas manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil.\u201d[911]\n\u201cAnd there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against\nthe Dragon; and the Dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed\nnot; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great\nDragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan,\nwhich deceiveth the whole world.\u201d Let us, then, explore the ancient\nTheogonies, in order to ascertain what was meant by these remarkable\nexpressions.\n\nThe first inquiry is whether the term _Devil_, as here used, actually\nrepresents the malignant Deity of the Christians, or an antagonistic,\nblind force--the dark side of nature. By the latter we are not to\nunderstand the manifestation of any evil principle that is _malum\nin se_, but only the shadow of the Light, so to say. The theories\nof the kabalists treat of it as a force which is antagonistic, but\nat the same time essential to the vitality, evolving, and vigor of\nthe good principle. Plants would perish in their first stage of\nexistence, if they were kept exposed to a constant sunlight; the\nnight alternating with the day is essential to their healthy growth\nand development. Goodness, likewise, would speedily cease to be such,\nwere it not alternated by its opposite. In human nature, evil denotes\nthe antagonism of matter to the spiritual, and each is accordingly\npurified thereby. In the cosmos, the equilibrium must be preserved;\nthe operation of the two contraries produce harmony, like the\ncentripetal and centrifugal forces, and are necessary to each other.\nIf one is arrested, the action of the other will immediately become\ndestructive.\n\nThis personification, denominated _Satan_, is to be contemplated\nfrom three different planes: the _Old Testament_, the Christian\nFathers, and the ancient Gentile altitude. He is supposed to have\nbeen represented by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; nevertheless,\nthe epithet of Satan is nowhere in the Hebrew sacred writings applied\nto that or any other variety of ophidian. The Brazen Serpent of\nMoses was worshipped by the Israelites as a god;[912] being the\nsymbol of Esmun-Asklepius the Ph\u0153nician Iao. Indeed, the character\nof Satan himself is introduced in the 1st book of _Chronicles_ in\nthe act of instigating King David to number the Israelitish people,\nan act elsewhere declared specifically to have been moved by Jehovah\nhimself.[913] The inference is unavoidable that the two, Satan and\nJehovah, were regarded as identical.\n\nAnother mention of Satan is found in the _prophecies of Zechariah_.\nThis book was written at a period subsequent to the Jewish\ncolonization of Palestine, and hence, the Asideans may fairly be\nsupposed to have brought the personification thither from the East.\nIt is well known that this body of sectaries were deeply imbued with\nthe Mazdean notions; and that they represented Ahriman or Anra-manyas\nby the god-names of Syria. Set or Sat-an, the god of the Hittites and\nHyk-sos, and Beel-Zebub the oracle-god, afterward the Grecian Apollo.\nThe prophet began his labors in Judea in the second year of Darius\nHystaspes, the restorer of the Mazdean worship. He thus describes the\nencounter with Satan: \u201cHe showed me Joshua the high-priest standing\nbefore the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand\nto be his adversary. And the Lord said unto Satan: \u2018The Lord rebuke\nthee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee:\nis not this a brand plucked out of the fire?\u2019\u201d[914]\n\nWe apprehend that this passage which we have quoted is symbolical.\nThere are two allusions in the _New Testament_ that indicate that it\nwas so regarded. The _Catholic Epistle of Jude_ refers to it in this\npeculiar language: \u201cYet Michael the archangel, when contending with\nthe Devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, did not venture to\nutter to him a reviling judgment \u03ba\u03c1\u1fd1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03b3\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03b2\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c6\u03b7\u03bc\u03af\u03b1\u03c2, but\nsaid, \u2018The Lord rebuke thee.\u2019\u201d[915] The archangel Michael is thus\nmentioned as identical with the \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 Lord, or angel of the Lord, of\nthe preceding quotation, and thus is shown that the Hebrew Jehovah had\na twofold character, the secret and that manifested as the angel of\nthe Lord, or Michael the archangel. A comparison between these two\npassages renders it plain that \u201cthe body of Moses\u201d over which they\ncontended was Palestine, which as \u201cthe land of the Hittites\u201d[916] was\nthe peculiar domain of Seth, their tutelar god.[917] Michael, as the\nchampion of the Jehovah-worship, contended with the Devil or\nAdversary, but left judgment to his superior.\n\nBelial is not entitled to the distinction of either god or devil.\nThe term \u05d1\u05dc\u05d9\u05e2\u05dc, BELIAL, is defined in the Hebrew lexicons to mean\na destroying, waste, uselessness; or the phrase \u05d0\u05d9\u05e9\u05be\u05d1\u05dc\u05d9\u05e2\u05dc AIS-BELIAL\nor Belial-man signifies a wasteful, useless man. If Belial must be\npersonified to please our religious friends, we would be obliged to\nmake him perfectly distinct from Satan, and to consider him as a sort\nof spiritual \u201cDiakka.\u201d The demonographers, however, who enumerate nine\ndistinct orders of _daimonia_, make him chief of the third class--a\nset of hobgoblins, mischievous and good-for-nothing.\n\nAsmodeus is no Jewish spirit at all, his origin being purely Persian.\nBr\u00e9al, the author of _Hercule et Cacus_, shows that he is the Parsi\nEshem-Dev, or A\u00e9shma-dev, the evil spirit of concupiscence, whom Max\nM\u00fcller tells us \u201cis mentioned several times in the _Avesta_ as one of\nthe Devs,[918] originally gods, who became evil spirits.\u201d\n\nSamael is Satan; but Bryan and a good many other authorities show it\nto be the name of the \u201cSimoun\u201d--the wind of the desert,[919] and the\nSimoun is called Atabul-os or Diabolos.\n\nPlutarch remarks that by Typhon was understood anything violent,\nunruly, and disorderly. The overflowing of the Nile was called by\nthe Egyptians Typhon. Lower Egypt is very flat, and any mounds built\nalong the river to prevent the frequent inundations, were called\nTyphonian or _Taphos_; hence, the origin of Typhon. Plutarch, who\nwas a rigid, orthodox Greek, and never known to much compliment the\nEgyptians, testifies in his _Isis and Osiris_, to the fact that,\nfar from worshipping the Devil (of which Christians accused them),\nthey despised more than they dreaded Typhon. In his symbol of the\nopposing, obstinate power of nature, they believed him to be a poor,\nstruggling, half-dead divinity. Thus, even at that remote age, we\nsee the ancients already _too enlightened to believe in a personal\ndevil_. As Typhon was represented in one of his symbols under the\nfigure of an ass at the festival of the sun\u2019s sacrifices, the\nEgyptian priests exhorted the faithful worshippers not to carry gold\nornaments upon their bodies for fear of giving food to the _ass_![920]\n\nThree and a half centuries before Christ, Plato expressed his opinion\nof evil by saying that \u201cthere is in matter a blind, refractory force,\nwhich resists the will of the Great Artificer.\u201d This blind force,\nunder Christian influx, was made to see and become responsible; it\nwas transformed into Satan!\n\nHis identity with Typhon can scarcely be doubted upon reading the\naccount in _Job_ of his appearance with the sons of God, before the\nLord. He accuses Job of a readiness to curse the Lord to his face\nupon sufficient provocation. So Typhon, in the Egyptian _Book of\nthe Dead_, figures as the accuser. The resemblance extends even to\nthe names, for one of Typhon\u2019s appellations was _Seth_, or _Seph_;\nas S\u00e2t\u00e2n, in Hebrew, means an adversary. In Arabic the word is\n_Sh\u00e2tana_--to be adverse, to persecute, and Manetho says he had\ntreacherously murdered Osiris and allied himself with the Shemites\n(the Israelites). This may possibly have originated the fable told\nby Plutarch, that, from the fight between Horus and Typhon, Typhon,\novercome with fright at the mischief he had caused, \u201cfled seven days\non an ass, and escaping, begat the boys Ierosolumos and Ioudaios\n(Jerusalem and Judea).\u201d\n\nReferring to an invocation of Typhon-Seth, Professor Reuvens says\nthat the Egyptians worshipped Typhon under the form of an ass; and\naccording to him Seth \u201cappears gradually among the Semites as the\nbackground of their religious consciousness.\u201d[921] The name of\nthe ass in Coptic, AO, is a phonetic of IAO, and hence the animal\nbecame a pun-symbol. Thus Satan is a later creation, sprung from\nthe overheated fancy of the Fathers of the Church. By some reverse\nof fortune, to which the gods are subjected in common with mortals,\nTyphon-Seth tumbled down from the eminence of the deified son of\nAdam Kadmon, to the degrading position of a subaltern spirit, a\nmythical demon--ass. Religious schisms are as little free from the\nfrail pettiness and spiteful feelings of humanity as the partisan\nquarrels of laymen. We find a strong instance of the above in the\ncase of the Zoroastrian reform, when Magianism separated from the\nold faith of the Brahmans. The bright Devas of the _Veda_ became,\nunder the religious reform of Zoroaster, da\u00eavas, or evil spirits,\nof the _Avesta_. Even Indra, the luminous god, was thrust far back\ninto the dark shadow[922] in order to show off, in a brighter light,\nAhura-mazda, the Wise and Supreme Deity.\n\nThe strange veneration in which the Ophites held the serpent which\nrepresented Christos may become less perplexing if the students would\nbut remember that at all ages the serpent was the symbol of divine\nwisdom, which kills in order to resurrect, destroys but to rebuild\nthe better. Moses is made a descendant of Levi, a serpent-tribe.\nGautama-Buddha is of a serpent-lineage, through the Naga (serpent)\nrace of kings who reigned in Magadha. Hermes, or the god Taaut\n(Thoth), in his snake-symbol is T\u00eat; and, according to the Ophite\nlegends, Jesus or Christos is born from a snake (divine wisdom, or\nHoly Ghost), _i.e._, he became a Son of God through his initiation\ninto the \u201cSerpent Science.\u201d Vishnu, identical with the Egyptian\nKneph, rests on the heavenly _seven_-headed serpent.\n\nThe red or fiery dragon of the ancient time was the military ensign\nof the Assyrians. Cyrus adopted it from them when Persia became\ndominant. The Romans and Byzantines next assumed it; and so the\n\u201cgreat red dragon,\u201d from being the symbol of Babylon and Nineveh,\nbecame that of Rome.[923]\n\nThe temptation, or probation,[924] of Jesus is, however, the most\ndramatic occasion in which Satan appears. As if to prove the\ndesignation of Apollo, \u00c6sculapius, and Bacchus, _Diobolos_, or son\nof Zeus, he is also styled _Diabolos_, or accuser. The scene of the\nprobation was the wilderness. In the desert about the Jordan and\nDead Sea were the abodes of the \u201csons of the prophets,\u201d and the\nEssenes.[925] These ascetics used to subject their neophytes to\nprobations, analogous to the _tortures_ of the Mithraic rites; and\nthe temptation of Jesus was evidently a scene of this character.\nHence, in the _Gospel according to Luke_, it is stated that \u201cthe\nDiabolos, having completed the probation, left him for a specific\ntime, \u03b1\u03c7\u03c1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6; and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into\nGalilee.\u201d But the \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, or Devil, in this instance is evidently no\nmalignant principle, but one exercising discipline. In this sense the\nterms Devil and Satan are repeatedly employed.[926] Thus, when Paul\nwas liable to undue elation by reason of the abundance of revelations\nor epoptic disclosures, there was given him \u201ca thorn in the flesh, an\nangel of Satanas,\u201d to check him.[927]\n\nThe story of Satan in the _Book of Job_ is of a similar character. He\nis introduced among the \u201cSons of God,\u201d presenting themselves before\nthe Lord, as in a Mystic initiation. Micaiah the prophet describes a\nsimilar scene, where he \u201csaw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all\nthe host of Heaven standing by Him,\u201d with whom He took counsel, which\nresulted in putting \u201ca lying spirit into the mouth of the prophets\nof Ahab.\u201d[928] The Lord counsels with Satan, and gives him _carte\nblanche_ to test the fidelity of Job. He is stripped of his wealth\nand family, and smitten with a loathsome disease. In his extremity,\nhis wife doubts his integrity, and exhorts him to worship God, as\nhe is about to die. His friends all beset him with accusations, and\nfinally the Lord, the chief hierophant Himself, taxes him with the\nuttering of words in which there is no wisdom, and with contending\nwith the Almighty. To this rebuke Job yielded, making this appeal:\n\u201cI will demand of thee, and thou shalt declare unto me: wherefore\ndo I abhor myself and mourn in dust and ashes?\u201d Immediately he was\nvindicated. \u201cThe Lord said unto Eliphaz ... ye have not spoken of\nme the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.\u201d His integrity\nhad been asserted, and his prediction verified: \u201cI know that my\nChampion liveth, and that he will stand up for me at a later time on\nthe earth; and though after my skin my body itself be corroded away,\nyet even then without my flesh shall I see God.\u201d The prediction was\naccomplished: \u201cI have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but\nnow mine eye seeth thee.... And the Lord turned the captivity of Job.\u201d\n\nIn all these scenes there is manifested no such malignant diabolism\nas is supposed to characterize \u201cthe adversary of souls.\u201d\n\nIt is an opinion of certain writers of merit and learning, that\nthe Satan of the book of _Job_ is a Jewish myth, containing the\nMazdean doctrine of the Evil Principle. Dr. Haug remarks that \u201cthe\nZoroastrian religion exhibits a close affinity, or rather identity\nwith the Mosaic religion and Christianity, such as the personality\nand attributes of the Devil, and the resurrection of the dead.\u201d[929]\nThe war of the _Apocalypse_ between Michael and the Dragon, can be\ntraced with equal facility to one of the oldest myths of the Aryans.\nIn the _Avesta_ we read of war between Thr\u00e6taona and Azhi-Dahaka, the\ndestroying serpent. Burnouf has endeavored to show that the Vedic\nmyth of Ahi, or the serpent, fighting against the gods, has been\ngradually euhemerized into \u201cthe battle of a pious man against the\npower of evil,\u201d in the Mazdean religion. By these interpretations\nSatan would be made identical with Zohak or Azhi-Dahaka, who is a\nthree-headed serpent, with one of the heads a human one.[930]\n\nBeel-Zebub is generally distinguished from Satan. He seems, in the\n_Apocryphal New Testament_, to be regarded as the potentate of the\nunderworld. The name is usually rendered \u201cBaal of the Flies,\u201d which\nmay be a designation of the Scarab\u00e6i or sacred beetles.[931] More\ncorrectly it shall be read, as it is always given in the Greek text\nof the _Gospels_, Beelzebul, or lord of the household, as is indeed\nintimated in _Matthew_ x. 25: \u201cIf they have called the master of\nthe house Beelzebul, how much more shall they call them of his\nhousehold.\u201d He was also styled the prince or archon of d\u00e6mons.\n\nTyphon figures in the _Book of the Dead_, as the Accuser of souls\nwhen they appear for judgment, as Satan stood up to accuse Joshua,\nthe high-priest, before the angel, and as the Devil came to Jesus to\ntempt or test him during his great fast in the wilderness. He was\nalso the deity denominated Baal-Tsephon, or god of the crypt, in the\nbook of _Exodus_, and _Seth_, or the pillar. During this period, the\nancient or archaic worship was more or less under the ban of the\ngovernment; in figurative language, Osiris had been treacherously\nslain and cut in fourteen (twice _seven_) pieces, and coffined by his\nbrother Typhon, and Isis had gone to Byblos in quest of his body.\n\nWe must not forget in this relation that Saba or Sabazios, of Phrygia\nand Greece, was torn by the Titans into _seven_ pieces, and that he\nwas, like Heptaktis of the Chaldeans, the _seven_-rayed god. Siva,\nthe Hindu, is represented crowned with seven serpents, and he is the\ngod of war and destruction. The Hebrew Jehovah the Sabaoth is also\ncalled the Lord of hosts, Seba or Saba, Bacchus or Dionysus Sabazios;\nso that all these may easily be proved identical.\n\nFinally the princes of the older _r\u00e9gime_, the gods who had, on the\nassault of the giants, taken the forms of animals and hidden in\n\u00c6thiopia, returned and expelled the shepherds.\n\nAccording to Josephus, the Hyk-sos were the ancestors of the\nIsraelites.[932] This is doubtless substantially true. The Hebrew\n_Scriptures_, which tell a somewhat different story, were written\nat a later period, and underwent several revisions, before they\nwere promulgated with any degree of publicity. Typhon became odious\nin Egypt, and shepherds \u201can abomination.\u201d \u201cIn the course of the\ntwentieth dynasty he was suddenly treated as an evil demon, insomuch\nthat his effigies and name are obliterated on all the monuments and\ninscriptions that could be reached.\u201d[933]\n\nIn all ages the gods have been liable to be euhemerized into men.\nThere are tombs of Zeus, Apollo, Hercules, and Bacchus, which are\noften mentioned to show that originally they were only mortals. Shem,\nHam, and Japhet, are traced in the divinities Shamas of Assyria,\nKham of Egypt, and Iapetos the Titan. Seth was god of the Hyk-sos,\nEnoch, or Inachus, of the Argives; and Abraham, Isaac, and Judah have\nbeen compared with Brahma, Ikshwaka, and Yadu of the Hindu pantheon.\nTyphon tumbled down from godhead to devilship, both in his own\ncharacter as brother of Osiris, and as the Seth, or Satan of Asia.\nApollo, the god of day, became, in his older Ph\u0153nician garb, no more\nBaal Zebul, the Oracle-god, but prince of demons, and finally the\nlord of the underworld. The separation of Mazdeanism from Vedism,\ntransformed the _devas_ or gods into evil potencies. Indra, also, in\nthe _Vendidad_ is set forth as the subaltern of Ahriman,[934] created\nby him out of the materials of darkness,[935] together with Siva\n(Surya) and the two Aswins. Even Jahi is the demon of Lust--probably\nidentical with Indra.\n\nThe several tribes and nations had their tutelar gods, and vilified\nthose of inimical peoples. The transformation of Typhon, Satan and\nBeelzebub are of this character. Indeed, Tertullian speaks of Mithra,\nthe god of the Mysteries, as a devil.\n\nIn the twelfth chapter of the _Apocalypse_, Michael and his angels\novercame the Dragon and his angels: \u201cand the Great Dragon was cast\nout, that Archaic Ophis, called Diabolos and Satan, that deceiveth\nthe whole world.\u201d It is added: \u201cThey overcame him by the blood of the\nLamb.\u201d The Lamb, or Christ, had to descend himself to hell, the world\nof the dead, and remain there three days before he subjugated the\nenemy, according to the myth.\n\nMichael was denominated by the kabalists and the Gnostics, \u201cthe\nSaviour,\u201d the angel of the Sun, and angel of Light. (\u05de\u05d9\u05db\u05d0\u05dc, probably,\nfrom \u05d9\u05db\u05d7 to manifest and \u05d0\u05dc God.) He was the first of the \u00c6ons, and\nwas well-known to antiquarians as the \u201cunknown angel\u201d represented on\nthe Gnostic amulets.\n\nThe writer of the _Apocalypse_, if not a kabalist, must have been\na Gnostic. Michael was not a personage originally exhibited to\nhim in his vision (epopteia) but the Saviour and Dragon-slayer.\nArch\u00e6ological explorations have indicated him as identical with\nAnubis, whose effigy was lately discovered upon an Egyptian monument,\nwith a cuirass and holding a spear, like St. Michael and St. George.\nHe is also represented as slaying a Dragon, that has the head and\ntail of a serpent.[936]\n\nThe student of Lepsius, Champollion, and other Egyptologists will\nquickly recognize Isis as the \u201cwoman with child,\u201d \u201cclothed with the\nSun and with the Moon under her feet,\u201d whom the \u201cgreat fiery Dragon\u201d\npersecuted, and to whom \u201cwere given two wings of the Great Eagle that\nshe might fly into the wilderness.\u201d Typhon was red-skinned.[937]\n\nThe Two Brothers, the Good and Evil Principles, appear in the Myths\nof the _Bible_ as well as those of the Gentiles, and Cain and Abel,\nTyphon and Osiris, Esau and Jacob, Apollo and Python, etc., Esau\nor Osu, is represented, when born, as \u201cred all over like as hairy\ngarment.\u201d He is the Typhon or Satan, opposing his brother.\n\nFrom the remotest antiquity the serpent was held by every people\nin the greatest veneration, as the embodiment of Divine wisdom and\nthe symbol of spirit, and we know from Sanchoniathon that it was\nHermes or Thoth who was the first to regard the serpent as \u201cthe\nmost spirit-like of all the reptiles;\u201d and the Gnostic serpent\nwith the seven vowels over the head is but the copy of Ananta, the\nseven-headed serpent on which rests the god Vishnu.\n\nWe have experienced no little surprise to find upon reading the\nlatest European treatises upon serpent-worship, that the writers\nconfess that the public is \u201cstill almost in the dark as to the origin\nof the superstition in question.\u201d Mr. C. Staniland Wake, M.A.I., from\nwhom we now quote, says: \u201cThe student of mythology knows that certain\nideas were associated by the peoples of antiquity with the serpent,\nand that it was the favorite symbol of particular deities; but why\nthat animal rather than any other was chosen for the purpose is yet\nuncertain.\u201d[938]\n\nMr. James Fergusson, F.R.S., who has gathered together such an\nabundance of material upon this ancient cult, seems to have no more\nsuspicion of the truth than the rest.[939]\n\nOur explanation of the myth may be of little value to students\nof symbology, and yet we believe that the interpretation of the\nprimitive serpent-worship as given by the initiates is the correct\none. In Vol. i., p. 10, we quote from the serpent Mantra, in the\n_Aytareya-Brahmana_, a passage which speaks of the earth as the\n_Sarpa R\u00e2jni_, the Queen of the Serpents, and \u201cthe mother of all\nthat moves.\u201d These expressions refer to the fact that before our\nglobe had become egg-shaped or round it was a long trail of cosmic\ndust or fire-mist, moving and writhing like a serpent. This, say the\nexplanations, was the Spirit of God moving on the chaos until its\nbreath had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular\nshape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth--emblem of eternity\nin its spiritual and of our world in its physical sense. According\nto the notions of the oldest philosophers, as we have shown in the\npreceding chapter, the earth, serpent-like, casts off its skin and\nappears after every minor pralaya in a rejuvenated state, and after\nthe great pralaya resurrects or evolves again from its subjective\ninto objective existence. Like the serpent, it not only \u201cputs off its\nold age,\u201d says Sanchoniathon, \u201cbut increases in size and strength.\u201d\nThis is why not only Serapis, and later, Jesus, were represented by a\ngreat serpent, but even why, in our own century, big snakes are kept\nwith sacred care in Moslem mosques; for instance, in that of Cairo.\nIn Upper Egypt a famous saint is said to appear under the form of\na large serpent; and in India in some children\u2019s cradles a pair of\nserpents, male and female, are reared with the infant, and snakes\nare often kept in houses, as they are thought to bring (a magnetic\naura of) wisdom, health, and good luck. They are the progeny of Sarpa\nR\u00e2jni, the earth, and endowed with all her virtues.\n\nIn the Hindu mythology Vasaki, the Great Dragon, pours forth upon\nDurga, from his mouth, a poisonous fluid which overspreads the\nground, but her consort Siva caused the earth to open her mouth and\nswallow it.\n\nThus the mystic drama of the celestial virgin pursued by the\ndragon seeking to devour her child, was not only depicted in the\nconstellations of heaven, as has been mentioned, but was represented\nin the secret worship of the temples. It was the mystery of the\ngod Sol, and inscribed on a black image of Isis.[940] The Divine\nBoy was chased by the cruel Typhon.[941] In an Egyptian legend the\nDragon is said to pursue Thuesis (Isis) while she is endeavoring\nto protect her son.[942] Ovid describes Dion\u00e9 (the consort of the\noriginal Pelasgian Zeus, and mother of Venus) as flying from Typhon\nto the Euphrates,[943] thus identifying the myth as belonging to all\nthe countries where the Mysteries were celebrated. Virgil sings the\nvictory:\n\n \u201cHail, dear child of gods, great son of Jove!\n Receive the honors great; the time is at hand;\n The Serpent will die!\u201d[944]\n\nAlbertus Magnus, himself an alchemist and student of occult science,\nas well as a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, in his enthusiasm\nfor astrology, declared that the zodiacal sign of the celestial\nvirgin rises above the horizon on the twenty-fifth of December, at\nthe moment assigned by the Church for the birth of the Saviour.[945]\n\nThe sign and myth of the mother and child were known thousands of\nyears before the Christian era. The drama of the Mysteries of Demeter\nrepresents Persephoneia, her daughter, as carried away by Pluto\nor Hades into the world of the dead; and when the mother finally\ndiscovers her there, she has been installed as queen of the realm of\nDarkness. This myth was transcribed by the Church into the legend\nof St. Anna[946] going in quest of her daughter Mary, who has been\nconveyed by Joseph into Egypt. Persephon\u00e9 is depicted with two\nears of wheat in her hand; so is Mary in the old pictures; so was\nthe Celestial Virgin of the constellation. Albumazar the Arabian\nindicates the identity of the several myths as follows:\n\n\u201cIn the first decan of the Virgin rises a maid, called in Arabic\nAderenosa [Adha-nari?], that is, pure immaculate virgin,[947]\ngraceful in person, charming in countenance, modest in habit, with\nloosened hair, holding in her hands two ears of wheat, sitting upon\nan embroidered throne, nursing a boy, and rightly feeding him in the\nplace called Hebr\u00e6a; a boy, I say, named Iessus by certain nations,\nwhich signifies Issa, whom they also call Christ in Greek.\u201d[948]\n\nAt this time Grecian, Asiatic, and Egyptian ideas had undergone a\nremarkable transformation. The Mysteries of Dionysus-Sabazius had\nbeen replaced by the rites of Mithras, whose \u201ccaves\u201d superseded\nthe crypts of the former god, from Babylon to Britain. Serapis, or\nSri-Apa, from Pontus, had usurped the place of Osiris. The king of\nEastern Hindustan, Asoka, had embraced the religion of Siddh\u00e2rtha,\nand sent missionaries clear to Greece, Asia, Syria, and Egypt,\nto promulgate the evangel of wisdom. The Essenes of Judea and\nArabia, the Therapeutists[949] of Egypt, and the Pythagorists[950]\nof Greece and Magna Gr\u00e6cia, were evidently religionists of the\nnew faith. The legends of Gautama superseded the myths of Horus,\nAnubis, Adonis, Atys, and Bacchus. These were wrought anew into the\nMysteries and Gospels, and to them we owe the literature known as\nthe _Evangelists_ and the _Apocryphal New Testament_. They were kept\nby the Ebionites, Nazarenes, and other sects as sacred books, which\nthey might \u201cshow only to the wise;\u201d and were so preserved till the\novershadowing influence of the Roman ecclesiastical polity was able\nto wrest them from those who kept them.\n\nAt the time that the high-priest Hilkiah is said to have found the\n_Book of the Law_, the Hindu _Puranas_ (Scriptures) were known to\nthe Assyrians. These last had for many centuries held dominion from\nthe Hellespont to the Indus, and probably crowded the Aryans out of\nBactriana into the Punj\u00e2b. The _Book of the Law_ seems to have been\na _purana_. \u201cThe learned Brahmans,\u201d says Sir William Jones, \u201cpretend\nthat five conditions are requisite to constitute a real _purana_:\n\n\u201c1. To treat of the creation of matter in general.\n\n\u201c2. To treat of _the creation or production of secondary material and\nspiritual beings_.\n\n\u201c3. To give a chronological abridgment of the great periods of time.\n\n\u201c4. To give a genealogical abridgment of the principal families that\nreigned over the country.\n\n\u201c5. Lastly, to give the history of some great man in particular.\u201d\n\nIt is pretty certain that whoever wrote the _Pentateuch_ had this\nplan before him, as well as those who wrote the _New Testament_\nhad become thoroughly well acquainted with Buddhistic ritualistic\nworship, legends and doctrines, through the Buddhist missionaries who\nwere many in those days in Palestine and Greece.\n\nBut \u201cno Devil, no Christ.\u201d This is the basic dogma of the Church. We\nmust hunt the two together. There is a mysterious connection between\nthe two, more close than perhaps is suspected, amounting to identity.\nIf we collect together the mythical sons of God, all of whom were\nregarded as \u201cfirst-begotten,\u201d they will be found dovetailing together\nand blending in this dual character. Adam Kadmon bifurcates from the\nspiritual conceptive wisdom into the creative one, which evolves\n_matter_. The Adam made from dust is both son of God and Satan; and\nthe latter is also a son of God,[951] according to Job.\n\nHercules was likewise \u201cthe First-Begotten.\u201d He is also Bel, Baal,\nand Bal, and therefore Siva, the Destroyer. Bacchus was styled by\nEuripides, \u201cBacchus, the Son of God.\u201d As a child, Bacchus, like\nthe Jesus of the _Apocryphal Gospels_, was greatly dreaded. He is\ndescribed as benevolent to mankind; nevertheless he was merciless\nin punishing whomever failed of respect to his worship. Pentheus,\nthe son of Cadmus and Hermion\u00e9, was, like the son of Rabbi Hannon,\ndestroyed for his want of piety.\n\nThe allegory of Job, which has been already cited, if correctly\nunderstood, will give the key to this whole matter of the Devil, his\nnature and office; and will substantiate our declarations. Let no\npious individual take exception to this designation of allegory. Myth\nwas the favorite and universal method of teaching in archaic times.\nPaul, writing to the Corinthians, declared that the entire story of\nMoses and the Israelites was typical;[952] and in his _Epistle to the\nGalatians_, asserted that the whole story of Abraham, his two wives,\nand their sons was an allegory.[953] Indeed, it is a theory amounting\nto certitude, that the historical books of the _Old Testament_ were\nof the same character. We take no extraordinary liberty with the\n_Book of Job_ when we give it the same designation which Paul gave\nthe stories of Abraham and Moses.\n\nBut we ought, perhaps, to explain the ancient use of allegory and\nsymbology. The truth in the former was left to be deduced; the symbol\nexpressed some abstract quality of the Deity, which the laity could\neasily apprehend. Its higher sense terminated there; and it was\nemployed by the multitude thenceforth as an image to be employed\nin idolatrous rites. But the allegory was reserved for the inner\nsanctuary, when only the elect were admitted. Hence the rejoinder of\nJesus when his disciples interrogated him because he spoke to the\nmultitude in parables. \u201cTo you,\u201d said he, \u201cit is given to know the\nmysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given.\nFor whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more\nabundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even\nthat he hath.\u201d In the minor Mysteries a sow was washed to typify the\npurification of the neophyte; as her return to the mire indicated the\nsuperficial nature of the work that had been accomplished.\n\n\u201cThe Mythus is the undisclosed thought of the soul. The characteristic\ntrait of the myth is to convert reflection into history (a historical\nform). As in the epos, so in the myth, the historical element\npredominates. Facts (external events) often constitute the basis of\nthe myth, and with these, religious ideas are interwoven.\u201d\n\nThe whole allegory of Job is an open book to him who understands\nthe picture-language of Egypt as it is recorded in _the Book of the\nDead_. In the Scene of Judgment, Osiris is represented sitting on\nhis throne, holding in one hand the symbol of life, \u201cthe hook of\nattraction,\u201d and in the other the mystic Bacchic fan. Before him\nare the sons of God, the forty-two assessors of the dead. An altar\nis immediately before the throne, covered with gifts and surmounted\nwith the sacred lotus-flower, upon which stand four spirits. By the\nentrance stands the soul about to be judged, whom Thmei, the genius\nof Truth, is welcoming to this conclusion of the probation. Thoth\nholding a reed, makes a record of the proceedings in the Book of\nLife. Horus and Anubis, standing by the scales, inspect the weight\nwhich determines whether the heart of the deceased balances the\nsymbol of truth, or the latter preponderates. On a pedestal sits a\nbitch--the symbol of the Accuser.\n\nInitiation into the Mysteries, as every intelligent person knows, was\na dramatic representation of scenes in the underworld. Such was the\nallegory of Job.\n\nSeveral critics have attributed the authorship of this book to Moses.\nBut it is older than the _Pentateuch_. Jehovah is not mentioned in\nthe poem itself; and if the name occurs in the prologue, the fact\nmust be attributed to either an error of the translators, or the\npremeditation exacted by the later necessity to transform polytheism\ninto a monotheistic religion. The plan adopted was the very simple\none of attributing the many names of the Elohim (gods) to a single\ngod. So in one of the oldest Hebrew texts of Job (in chapter xii.\n9) there stands the name of Jehovah, whereas all other manuscripts\nhave \u201cAdonai.\u201d But in the original poem Jehovah is absent. In place\nof this name we find _Al_, _Aleim_, _Ale_, _Shaddai_, _Adonai_, etc.\nTherefore, we must conclude that either the prologue and epilogue\nwere added at a later period, which is inadmissible for many reasons,\nor that it has been tampered with like the rest of the manuscripts.\nThen, we find in this archaic poem no mention whatever of the\nSabbatical Institution; but a great many references to the sacred\nnumber seven, of which we will speak further, and a direct discussion\nupon Sabeanism, the worship of the heavenly bodies prevailing in\nthose days in Arabia. Satan is called in it a \u201cSon of God,\u201d one of\nthe council which presents itself before God, and he leads him into\ntempting Job\u2019s fidelity. In this poem, clearer and plainer than\nanywhere else, do we find the meaning of the appellation, Satan. It\nis a term for the office or character of _public accuser_. Satan is\nthe Typhon of the Egyptians, barking his accusations in Amenthi; an\noffice quite as respectable as that of the public prosecutor, in our\nown age; and if, through the ignorance of the first Christians, he\nbecame later identical with the Devil, it is through no connivance of\nhis own.\n\nThe _Book of Job_ is a complete representation of ancient initiation,\nand the trials which generally precede this grandest of all\nceremonies. The neophyte perceives himself deprived of everything\nhe valued, and afflicted with foul disease. His wife appeals to\nhim to adore God and die; there was no more hope for him. Three\nfriends appear on the scene by mutual appointment: Eliphaz, the\nlearned Temanite, full of the knowledge \u201cwhich wise men have told\nfrom their fathers--to whom alone the earth was given;\u201d Bildad, the\nconservative, taking matters as they come, and judging Job to have\ndone wickedly, because he was afflicted; and Zophar, intelligent\nand skilful with \u201cgeneralities\u201d but not interiorly wise. Job boldly\nresponds: \u201cIf I have erred, it is a matter with myself. You magnify\nyourselves and plead against me in my reproach; but it is God who has\noverthrown me. Why do you persecute me and are not satisfied with\nmy flesh thus wasted away? But I know that my Champion lives, and\nthat at a coming day he will stand for me in the earth; and though,\ntogether with my skin, all this beneath it shall be destroyed, yet\nwithout my flesh I shall see God.... Ye shall say: \u2018Why do we molest\nhim?\u2019 for the root of the matter is found in me!\u201d\n\nThis passage, like all others in which the faintest allusions\ncould be found to a \u201cChampion,\u201d \u201cDeliverer,\u201d or \u201cVindicator,\u201d was\ninterpreted into a direct reference to the Messiah; but apart from\nthe fact that in the Septuagint this verse is translated:\n\n \u201cFor I know that He is eternal\n Who is about to deliver me on earth,\n To restore this skin of mine which endures these things,\u201d etc.\n\nIn King James\u2019s version, as it stands translated, it has no\nresemblance whatever to the original.[954] The crafty translators\nhave rendered it, \u201cI know that _my Redeemer liveth_,\u201d etc. And\nyet _Septuagint_, _Vulgate_, and Hebrew original, have all to\nbe considered as an inspired Word of God. Job refers to his own\n_immortal_ spirit which is eternal, and which, when death comes,\nwill deliver him from his putrid earthly body and clothe him with\na new spiritual envelope. In the _Mysteries of Eleusinia_, in\nthe Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, and all other works treating on\nmatters of initiation, this \u201ceternal being\u201d has a name. With the\nNeo-platonists it was the _Nous_, the _Augoeides_; with the Buddhists\nit is _Aggra_; and with the Persians, _Ferwer_. All of these are\ncalled the \u201cDeliverers,\u201d the \u201cChampions,\u201d the \u201cMetatrons,\u201d etc. In\nthe Mithraic sculptures of Persia, the _ferwer_ is represented by a\nwinged figure hovering in the air above its \u201cobject\u201d or body.[955] It\nis the luminous Self--the \u00c2tman of the Hindus, our immortal spirit,\nwho alone can redeem our soul; and will, if we follow him instead of\nbeing dragged down by our body. Therefore, in the Chaldean texts,\nthe above reads, \u201cMy _deliverer_, my _restorer_,\u201d _i.e._, the Spirit\nwho will restore the decayed body of man, and transform it into a\nclothing of ether. And it is this _Nous_, _Augoeides_, _Ferwer_,\n_Aggra_, Spirit of himself, that the triumphant Job shall see without\nhis flesh--_i.e._, when he has escaped from his bodily prison, and\nthat the translators call \u201cGod.\u201d\n\nNot only is there not the slightest allusion in the poem of Job\nto Christ, but it is now well proved that all those versions by\ndifferent translators, which agree with that of king James, were\nwritten on the authority of Jerome, who has taken strange liberties\nin his _Vulgate_. He was the first to cram into the text this verse\nof his own fabrication:\n\n \u201c_I know that my Redeemer lives_,\n And at the last day _I shall arise from the earth_,\n And again shall be surrounded with my skin,\n And in my flesh I shall see my God.\u201d\n\nAll of which might have been a good reason for himself to believe\nin it since _he knew it_, but for others who did _not_, and who\nmoreover found in the text a quite different idea, it only proves\nthat Jerome had decided, by one more interpolation, to enforce the\ndogma of a resurrection \u201cat the last day,\u201d and in the identical skin\nand bones which we had used on earth. This is an agreeable prospect\nof \u201crestoration\u201d indeed. Why not the linen also, in which the body\nhappens to die?\n\nAnd how could the author of the _Book of Job_ know anything of the\n_New Testament_, when evidently he was utterly ignorant even of\nthe _Old_ one? There is a total absence of allusion to any of the\npatriarchs; and so evidently is it the work of an _Initiate_, that\none of the three daughters of Job is even called by a decidedly\n\u201cPagan\u201d mythological name. The name of _Kerenhappuch_ is rendered\nin various ways by the many translators. The _Vulgate_ has \u201chorn\nof antimony;\u201d and the LXX has the \u201chorn of Amalthea,\u201d the nurse\nof Jupiter, and one of the constellations, emblem of the \u201chorn of\nplenty.\u201d The presence in the _Septuagint_ of this heroine of Pagan\nfable, shows the ignorance of the transcribers of its meaning as well\nas the esoteric origin of the _Book of Job_.\n\nInstead of offering consolations, the three friends of the suffering\nJob seek to make him believe that his misfortune must have come\nin punishment of some extraordinary transgressions on his part.\nHurling back upon them all their imputations, Job swears that while\nhis breath is in him he will maintain his cause. He takes in view\nthe period of his prosperity \u201cwhen the secret of God was upon his\ntabernacles,\u201d and he was a judge \u201cwho sat chief, and dwelt as a king\nin the army, or one that comforteth the mourners,\u201d and compares with\nit the present time--when vagrant Bedouins held him in derision,\nmen \u201cviler than the earth,\u201d when he was prostrated by misfortune\nand foul disease. Then he asserts his sympathy for the unfortunate,\nhis chastity, his integrity, his probity, his strict justice,\nhis charities, his moderation, his freedom from the prevalent\nsun-worship, his tenderness to enemies, his hospitality to strangers,\nhis openness of heart, his boldness for the right, though he\nencountered the multitude and the contempt of families; and invokes\nthe Almighty to answer him, and his adversary to write down of what\nhe had been guilty.\n\nTo this there was not, and could not be, any answer. The three had\nsought to crush Job by pleadings and general arguments, and he had\ndemanded consideration for his specific acts. Then appeared the\nfourth; Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of\nRam.[956]\n\nElihu is the hierophant; he begins with a rebuke, and the sophisms\nof Job\u2019s false friends are swept away like the loose sand before the\nwest wind.\n\n\u201cAnd Elihu, the son of Barachel, spoke and said: \u2018Great men are\nnot always wise ... there _is_ a spirit in man; the _spirit within\nme_ constraineth me.... God speaketh once, yea twice, _yet man_\nperceiveth it not. In a dream; in a vision of the night, when deep\nsleep falleth upon man, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth\nthe ears of men, and sealeth their instruction. O Job, hearken unto\nme; hold thy peace, and I shall teach thee WISDOM.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd Job, who to the dogmatic fallacies of his three friends in the\nbitterness of his heart had exclaimed: \u201cNo doubt but ye are _the_\npeople, and wisdom shall die with you.... Miserable comforters are ye\nall.... Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason\nwith God. But _ye_ are forgers of lies, _ye_ are physicians of no\nvalue!\u201d The sore-eaten, visited Job, who in the face of the official\nclergy--offering for all hope the necessarianism of damnation, had\nin his despair nearly wavered in his patient faith, answered: \u201cWhat\n_ye_ know, _the same_ do I know also; I am not inferior unto you....\nMan cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a\nshadow, _and continueth not_.... Man dieth, and wasteth away, yea,\nman giveth up the ghost, and _where is he?_... If a man die shall\nhe _live_ again?... When a few years are come then I shall go the\nway _whence_ I shall not return.... O that one might plead for a man\nwith God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbor!\u201d Job finds one who\nanswers to his cry of agony. He listens to the wisdom of Elihu, the\nhierophant, the perfected teacher, the inspired philosopher. From his\nstern lips comes the just rebuke for his impiety in charging upon the\nSUPREME Being the evils of humanity. \u201cGod,\u201d says Elihu, \u201cis excellent\nin power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice; HE _will not\nafflict_.\u201d\n\nSo long as the neophyte was satisfied with his own worldly wisdom and\nirreverent estimate of the Deity and His purposes; so long as he gave\near to the pernicious sophistries of his advisers, the hierophant\nkept silent. But, when this anxious mind was ready for counsel and\ninstruction, his voice is heard, and he speaks with the authority of\nthe Spirit of God that \u201cconstraineth\u201d him: \u201cSurely God will not hear\n_vanity_, neither will the Almighty regard it.... He respecteth not\nany that are wise at heart.\u201d\n\nWhat better commentary than this upon the fashionable preacher, who\n\u201c_multiplieth_ words without knowledge!\u201d This magnificent _prophetic_\nsatire might have been written to prefigure the spirit that prevails\nin all the denominations of Christians.\n\nJob hearkens to the words of wisdom, and then the \u201cLord\u201d answers Job\n\u201cout of the whirlwind\u201d of nature, God\u2019s first visible manifestation:\n\u201cStand still, O Job, stand still! and consider the wondrous works of\nGod; for _by them alone_ thou canst know God. \u2018Behold, God is great,\nand _we know him not_,\u2019 Him who \u2018maketh small the drops of water;\n_but they_ pour down rain _according to the vapor thereof_;\u2019\u201d[957]\nnot according to the divine whim, but to the once established and\nimmutable laws. Which law \u201cremoveth the mountains and they know not;\nwhich shaketh the earth; which commandeth the sun, and _it riseth\nnot_; and sealeth up the stars; ... which doeth great things _past\nfinding out_; yea, and _wonders without number_.... Lo, _He goeth by\nme_, and I see _him not_; he passeth on also, but _I perceive him\nnot_!\u201d[958]\n\nThen, \u201cWho is this that darkeneth counsel by words without\nknowledge?\u201d[959] speaks the voice of God through His mouthpiece--\nnature. \u201cWhere wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?\ndeclare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures\nthereof, _if thou knowest_? When the morning stars sang together, and\nall the sons of God shouted for joy?... Wast thou present when I said\nto the seas, \u2018Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall\nthy proud waves be stayed?\u2019... Knowest thou who hath caused it to rain\non the earth, _where no man is_; on the wilderness, wherein _there is\nno man_.... Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose\nthe bands of Orion?... Canst thou _send lightnings_, that they may go,\nand say unto thee, \u2018Here we are?\u2019\u201d[960]\n\n\u201cThen Job answered the Lord.\u201d He understood His ways, and his eyes\nwere opened for the first time. The Supreme Wisdom descended upon\nhim; and if the reader remain puzzled before this final PETROMA of\ninitiation, at least Job, or the man \u201cafflicted\u201d in his blindness,\nthen realized the impossibility of catching \u201cLeviathan by putting a\nhook into his nose.\u201d The Leviathan is OCCULT SCIENCE, on which one\ncan lay his hand, but \u201c_do no more_,\u201d[961] whose power and \u201ccomely\nproportion\u201d God wishes not to conceal.\n\n\u201cWho can discover the face of his garment, or who can come to him\nwith his _double bridle_? Who can open the doors of his face, \u2018of\nhim whose _scales_ are his pride, shut up together as _with a closed\nseal_?\u2019 Through whose \u2018neesings a light doth shine,\u2019 and whose eyes\nare like the lids of the morning.\u201d Who \u201cmaketh a light to _shine_\nafter him,\u201d for those who have the fearlessness to approach him. And\nthen they, like him, will behold \u201call _high_ things, for he is king\nonly over all the children of pride.\u201d[962]\n\nJob, now in modest confidence, responded:\n\n \u201cI know that thou canst do everything,\n And that no thought of thine can be resisted.\n Who is he that maketh a show of arcane wisdom,\n Of which he knoweth nothing?\n Thus have I uttered what I did not comprehend--\n Things far above me, which I did not know.\n Hear! I beseech thee, and I will speak;\n I will demand of thee, and do thou answer me:\n I have heard thee with my ears,\n And now I see thee with my eyes,\n Wherefore am I loathsome,\n And mourn in dust and ashes?\u201d\n\nHe recognized his \u201cchampion,\u201d and was assured that the time for his\nvindication had come. Immediately the Lord (\u201cthe priests and the\njudges,\u201d _Deuteronomy_ xix. 17) saith to his friends: \u201cMy wrath is\nkindled against thee and against thy two friends; for ye have not\nspoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.\u201d So\n\u201cthe Lord turned the captivity of Job,\u201d and \u201cblessed the latter end\nof Job more than his beginning.\u201d\n\nThen in the judgment the deceased invokes four spirits who preside\nover the Lake of Fire, and is purified by them. He then is conducted\nto his celestial house, and is received by Athar and Isis, and\nstands before _Atum_,[963] the essential God. He is now _Turu_, the\nessential man, a pure spirit, and henceforth On-ati, the eye of fire,\nand an associate of the gods.\n\nThis grandiose poem of Job was well understood by the kabalists.\nWhile many of the medi\u00e6val Hermetists were profoundly religious\nmen, they were, in their innermost hearts--like kabalists of every\nage--the deadliest enemies of the clergy. How true the words\nof Paracelsus when worried by fierce persecution and slander,\nmisunderstood by friends and foes, abused by clergy and laity, he\nexclaimed:\n\n\u201cO ye of Paris, Padua, Montpellier, Salerno, Vienna, and Leipzig!\nYe are not teachers of the truth, but confessors of lies. Your\nphilosophy is a lie. Would you know _what_ MAGIC _really is_, then\nseek it in St. John\u2019s _Revelation_.... As you cannot yourselves prove\nyour teachings from the _Bible_ and the _Revelation_, then let your\nfarces have an end. The _Bible is the true key and interpreter_.\nJohn, not less than Moses, Elias, Enoch, David, Solomon, Daniel,\nJeremiah, and the rest of the prophets, was a _magician_, kabalist,\nand diviner. If now, all, or even any of those I have named, were yet\nliving, I do not doubt that you would make an example of them in your\nmiserable slaughter-house, and would annihilate them there on the\nspot, and _if_ it were possible, the Creator of all things too!\u201d\n\nThat Paracelsus had learned some mysterious and useful things out of\n_Revelation_ and other _Bible_ books, as well as from the _Kabala_,\nwas proved by him practically; so much so, that he is called by\nmany the \u201cfather of magic and founder of the occult physics of the\n_Kabala_ and magnetism.\u201d[964]\n\nSo firm was the popular belief in the supernatural powers of\nParacelsus, that to this day the tradition survives among the\nsimple-minded Alsatians that he is not dead, but \u201csleepeth in his\ngrave\u201d at Strasburg.[965] And they often whisper among themselves\nthat the green sod heaves with every respiration of that weary\nbreast, and that deep groans are heard as the great fire-philosopher\nawakes to the remembrance of the cruel wrongs he suffered at the\nhands of his cruel slanderers for the sake of the great truth!\n\nIt will be perceived from these extended illustrations that the Satan\nof the _Old Testament_, the Diabolos or Devil of the _Gospels_ and\n_Apostolic Epistles_, were but the antagonistic principle in matter,\nnecessarily incident to it, and not wicked in the moral sense of the\nterm. The Jews, coming from the Persian country, brought with them\nthe doctrine of _two principles_. They could not bring the _Avesta_,\nfor it was not written. But they--we mean the _Astdians_ and\n_Pharsi_--invested Ormazd with the secret name of \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, and\nAhriman with the name of the gods of the land, Satan of the Hittites,\nand _Diabolos_, or rather Diobolos, of the Greeks. The early Church,\nat least the Pauline part of it, the Gnostics and their successors,\nfurther refined upon their ideas; and the Catholic Church adopted and\nadapted them, meanwhile putting their promulgators to the sword.\n\nThe Protestant is a reaction from the Roman Catholic Church. It is\nnecessarily not coherent in its parts, but a prodigious host of\nfragments beating their way round a common centre, attracting and\nrepelling each other. Parts are centripetally impelled towards old\nRome, or the system which enabled old Rome to exist; part still\nrecoil under the centrifugal impulse, and seek to rush into the broad\nethereal region beyond Roman, or even Christian influence.\n\nThe modern Devil is their principal heritage from the Roman Cybel\u00e8,\n\u201cBabylon, the Great Mother of the idolatrous and abominable religions\nof the earth.\u201d\n\nBut it may be argued, perhaps, that Hindu theology, both Brahmanical\nand Buddhistic, is as strongly impregnated with belief in objective\ndevils as Christianity itself. There is a slight difference. This\nvery _subtlety_ of the Hindu mind is a sufficient warrant that the\nwell-educated people, the learned portion, at least, of the Brahman\nand Buddhist divines, consider the Devil in another light. With them\nthe Devil is a metaphysical abstraction, an allegory of necessary\n_evil_; while _with Christians the myth has become a historical\nentity, the fundamental stone on which Christianity, with its dogma\nof redemption, is built_. He is as necessary--as Des Mousseaux has\nshown--to the Church as the beast of the seventeenth chapter of the\n_Apocalypse_ was to his rider. The English-speaking Protestants, not\nfinding the _Bible_ explicit enough, have adopted the _Diabology_ of\nMilton\u2019s celebrated poem, _Paradise Lost_, embellishing it somewhat\nfrom Goethe\u2019s celebrated drama of _Faust_. John Milton, first a\nPuritan and finally a Quietist and Unitarian, never put forth his\ngreat production except as a work of fiction, but it thoroughly\ndovetailed together the different parts of Scripture. The Ilda-Baoth\nof the Ophites was transformed into an angel of light, and the\nmorning star, and made the Devil in the first act of the _Diabolic\nDrama_. Then the twelfth chapter of the _Apocalypse_ was brought in\nfor the second act. The great red Dragon was adopted as the same\nillustrious personage as _Lucifer_, and the last scene is his fall,\nlike that of Vulcan-Hephaistos, from Heaven into the island of\nLemnos; the fugitive hosts and their leader \u201ccoming to hard bottom\u201d\nin Pandemonium. The third act is the Garden of Eden. Satan holds a\ncouncil in a hall erected by him for his new empire, and determines\nto go forth on an exploring expedition in quest of the new world. The\nnext acts relate to the fall of man, his career on earth, the advent\nof the Logos, or Son of God, and his redemption of mankind, or the\nelect portion of them, as the case may be.\n\nThis drama of _Paradise Lost_ comprises the unformulated belief of\nEnglish-speaking \u201cevangelical Protestant Christians.\u201d Disbelief of\nits main features is equivalent, in their view, to \u201cdenying Christ\u201d\nand \u201cblaspheming against the Holy Ghost.\u201d If John Milton had supposed\nthat his poem, instead of being regarded as a companion of Dante\u2019s\n_Divine Comedy_, would have been considered as another _Apocalypse_\nto supplement the _Bible_, and complete its demonology, it is more\nthan probable that he would have borne his poverty more resolutely,\nand withheld it from the press. A later poet, Robert Pollok, taking\nhis cue from this work, wrote another, _The Course of Time_, which\nbade fair for a season to take the rank of a later _Scripture_;\nbut the nineteenth century has fortunately received a different\ninspiration, and the Scotch poet is falling into oblivion.\n\nWe ought, perhaps, to make a brief notice of the European Devil. He\nis the genius who deals in sorcery, witchcraft, and other mischief.\nThe Fathers taking the idea from the Jewish Pharisees, made devils of\nthe Pagan gods, Mithras, Serapis, and the others. The Roman Catholic\nChurch followed by denouncing the former worship as commerce with\nthe powers of darkness. The _malefecii_ and witches of the middle\nages were thus but the votaries of the proscribed worship. Magic in\nall ancient times had been considered as divine science, wisdom, and\nthe knowledge of God. The healing art in the temples of \u00c6sculapius,\nand at the shrines of Egypt and the East, had always been magical.\nEven Darius Hystaspes, who had exterminated the Median Magi, and\neven driven out the Chaldean theurgists from Babylon into Asia\nMinor, had also been instructed by the Brahmans of Upper Asia, and,\nfinally, while establishing the worship of Ormazd, was also himself\ndenominated the instituter of magism. All was now changed. Ignorance\nwas enthroned as the mother of devotion. Learning was denounced, and\nsavants prosecuted the sciences in peril of their lives. They were\ncompelled to employ a jargon to conceal their ideas from all but\ntheir own adepts, and to accept opprobrium, calumny, and poverty.\n\nThe votaries of the ancient worship were persecuted and put to\ndeath on charges of witchcraft. The Albigenses, descendants of the\nGnostics, and the Waldenses, precursors of the Protestants, were\nhunted and massacred under like accusations. Martin Luther himself\nwas accused of companionship with Satan in proper person. The whole\nProtestant world still lies under the same imputation. There is no\ndistinction in the judgments of the Church between dissent, heresy,\nand witchcraft. And except where civil authority protects, they are\nalike capital offences. Religious liberty the Church regards as\nintolerance.\n\nBut the reformers were nursed with the milk of their mother. Luther\nwas as bloodthirsty as the Pope; Calvin more intolerant than Leo or\nUrban. Thirty years of war depopulated whole districts of Germany,\nProtestants and Catholics cruel alike. The new faith too opened its\nbatteries against witchcraft. The statute books became crimsoned\nwith bloody legislation in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Great\nBritain, and the North American Commonwealth. Whosoever was more\nliberal, more intelligent, more free-speaking than his fellows was\nliable to arrest and death. The fires that were extinguished at\nSmithfield were kindled anew for magicians; it was safer to rebel\nagainst a throne than to pursue abstruse knowledge outside the\northodox dead-line.\n\nIn the seventeenth century Satan made a sortie in New England, New\nJersey, New York, and several of the Southern colonies of North\nAmerica, and Cotton Mather gives us the principal chronicles of\nhis manifestation. A few years later he visited the Parsonage of\nMora, in Sweden, and _Life in Dalecarlia_ was diversified with the\nburning alive of young children, and the whipping of others at\nthe church-doors on Sabbath-days. The skepticism of modern times\nhas, however, pretty much driven the belief in witchcraft into\nCoventry; and the Devil in personal anthropomorphic form, with his\nBacchus-foot, and his Pan-like goat\u2019s horns, holds place only in\nthe _Encyclical Letters_, and other effusions of the Roman Catholic\nChurch. Protestant respectability does not allow him to be named at\nall except with bated breath in a pulpit-enclosure.\n\nHaving now set forth the biography of the Devil from his first advent\nin India and Persia, his progress through Jewish, and both early\nand later Christian _Theo_logy down to the latest phases of his\nmanifestation, we now turn back to review certain of the opinions\nextant in the earlier Christian centuries.\n\nAvatars or incarnations were common to the old religions. India had\nthem reduced to a system. The Persians expected Sosiosh, and the\nJewish writers looked for a deliverer. Tacitus and Suetonius relate\nthat the East was full of expectation of the Great Personage about\nthe time of Octavius. \u201cThus doctrines obvious to Christians were the\nhighest arcana of Paganism.\u201d[966] The Maneros of Plutarch was a child\nof Palestine,[967] his mediator Mithras, the Saviour Osiris is the\nMessiah. In our present \u201c_Canonical Scriptures_\u201d are to be traced the\nvestigia of the ancient worships; and in the rites and ceremonies\nof the Roman Catholic Church we find the forms of the Buddhistical\nworship, its ceremonies and hierarchy. The first _Gospels_, once as\ncanonical as any of the present four, contain pages taken almost\nentire from Buddhistical narratives, as we are prepared to show.\nAfter the evidence furnished by Burnouf, Asoma, Korosi, Beal, Hardy,\nSchmidt, and translations from the _Tripitaka_, it is impossible to\ndoubt that the whole Christian scheme emanated from the other. The\n\u201cMiraculous Conception\u201d miracles and other incidents are found in\nfull in Hardy\u2019s _Manual of Buddhism_. We can readily realize why the\nRoman Catholic Church is anxious to keep the common people in utter\nignorance of the Hebrew _Bible_ and the Greek literature. Philology\nand comparative Theology are her deadliest enemies. The deliberate\nfalsifications of Iren\u00e6us, Epiphanius, Eusebius and Tertullian had\nbecome a necessity.\n\nThe _Sibylline Books_ at that period seem to have been regarded with\nextraordinary favor. One can easily perceive that they were inspired\nfrom the same source as those of the Gentile nations.\n\nHere is a leaf from Gall\u00e6us:\n\n \u201cNew Light has arisen:\n Coming from Heaven, it assumed a mortal form....\n ----Virgin, receive God in thy pure bosom--\n And the Word flew into her womb:\n Becoming incarnate in Time, and animated by her body,\n It was found in a mortal image, and a Boy was created\n By a Virgin.... The new God-sent Star was adored by the Magi,\n The infant swathed was shown in a manger....\n And Bethlehem was called \u201cGod-called country of the Word.\u201d[968]\n\nThis looks at first-sight like a prophecy of Jesus. But could it\nnot mean as well some other creative God? We have like utterances\nconcerning Bacchus and Mithras.\n\n\u201cI, son of Deus, am come to the land of the Thebans--Bacchus, whom\nformerly Semel\u00e9 (the virgin), the daughter of Kadmus (the man from\nthe East) brings forth--being delivered by the lightning-bearing\nflame; and having taken a mortal form instead of God\u2019s, I have\narrived.\u201d[969]\n\nThe _Dionysiacs_, written in the fifth century, serve to render this\nmatter very clear, and even to show its close connection with the\nChristian legend of the birth of Jesus:\n\n \u201cKor\u00e8-Persephoneia[970] ... you were wived as the Dragon\u2019s spouse,\n When Zeus, very coiled, his form and countenance changed,\n A Dragon-Bridegroom, coiled in love-inspiring fold....\n Glided to dark Kor\u00e8\u2019s maiden couch....\n Thus, by the alliance with the Dragon of \u00c6ther,\n The womb of Persephon\u00e8 became alive with fruit,\n Bearing Zagreus,[971] the Horned Child.\u201d[972]\n\nHere we have the secret of the Ophite worship, and the origin of\nthe Christian later-_revised_ fable of the immaculate conception.\nThe Gnostics were the earliest Christians with anything like a\nregular theological system, and it is only too evident that it was\nJesus who was made to fit their theology as Christos, and not their\ntheology that was developed out of his sayings and doings. Their\nancestors had maintained, before the Christian era, that the Great\nSerpent--Jupiter, the Dragon of Life, the Father and \u201cGood Divinity,\u201d\nhad glided into the couch of Semel\u00e9, and now, the post-Christian\nGnostics, with a very trifling change, applied the same fable to\nthe man Jesus, and asserted that the same \u201cGood Divinity,\u201d Saturn\n(Ilda-Baoth), had, in the shape of the Dragon of Life, glided over\nthe cradle of the infant Mary.[973] In their eyes the Serpent was the\nLogos--Christos, the incarnation of Divine Wisdom, through his Father\nEnno\u00efa and Mother Sophia.\n\n\u201cNow my mother, the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost) took me,\u201d Jesus is made\nto say in the _Gospel of the Hebrews_,[974] thus entering upon his\npart of Christos--the Son of Sophia, the Holy Spirit.[975]\n\n\u201cThe _Holy Ghost shall come upon thee_, and the POWER of the Highest\nshall overshadow thee; therefore, that holy thing which shall be born\nof thee shall be called Son of God,\u201d says the angel (_Luke_ i. 35).\n\n\u201cGod ... hath at the last of these days spoken to us by a Son, whom\nhe hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the \u00c6ons\u201d\n(Paul: _Heb._ i.).[976]\n\nAll such expressions are so many Christian quotations from the\n_Nonnus_ verse \u201c... through the \u00c6therial Draconteum,\u201d for Ether\nis the Holy Ghost or third person of the Trinity--the Hawk-headed\nSerpent, the Egyptian Kneph, emblem of the Divine Mind,[977] and\nPlato\u2019s universal soul.\n\n\u201cI, Wisdom, came out of the mouth of the Most High, and _covered the\nearth as a cloud_.\u201d[978]\n\nPimander, the Logos, issues from the Infinite Darkness, and covers\nthe earth with clouds which, serpentine-like, spread all over the\nearth (See Champollion\u2019s _Egypte_). The Logos is the _oldest_ image\nof God, and he is the _active_ Logos, says Philo.[979] The Father is\nthe _Latent Thought_.\n\nThis idea being universal, we find an identical phraseology\nto express it, among Pagans, Jews, and early Christians. The\nChaldeo-Persian _Logos_ is the Only-Begotten of the Father in the\nBabylonian cosmogony of Eudemus. \u201cHymn now, ELI, child of Deus,\u201d\nbegins a Homeric hymn to the sun.[980] Sol-Mithra is an \u201cimage of the\nFather,\u201d as the kabalistic Seir-Anpin.\n\nThat of all the various nations of antiquity, there never was one\nwhich believed in a personal devil more than liberal Christians in\nthe nineteenth century, seems hardly credible, and yet such is the\nsorrowful fact. Neither the Egyptians, whom Porphyry terms \u201cthe\nmost learned nation of the world,\u201d[981] nor Greece, its faithful\ncopyist, were ever guilty of such a crowning absurdity. We may add\nat once that none of them, not even the ancient Jews, believed in\nhell or an eternal damnation any more than in the Devil, although our\nChristian churches are so liberal in dealing it out to the heathen.\nWherever the word \u201chell\u201d occurs in the translations of the Hebrew\nsacred texts, it is unfortunate. The Hebrews were ignorant of such\nan idea; but yet the gospels contain frequent examples of the same\nmisunderstanding. So, when Jesus is made to say (_Matthew_ xvi. 18)\n\u201c... and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,\u201d in the\noriginal text it stands \u201cthe gates of _death_.\u201d Never is the word\n\u201chell\u201d--as applied to the state of _damnation_, either temporary or\neternal--used in any passage of the _Old Testament_, all hellists to\nthe contrary, notwithstanding. \u201cTophet,\u201d or \u201cthe Valley of Hinnom\u201d\n(_Isaiah_ lxvi. 24) bears no such interpretation. The Greek term\n\u201cGehenna\u201d has also quite a different meaning, as it has been proved\nconclusively by more than one competent writer, that \u201cGehenna\u201d is\nidentical with the Homeric Tartarus.\n\nIn fact, we have Peter himself as authority for it. In his second\n_Epistle_ (ii. 2) the Apostle, in the original text, is made to say\nof the sinning angels that God \u201ccast them down into _Tartarus_.\u201d This\nexpression too inconveniently recalling the war of Jupiter and the\nTitans, was altered, and now it reads, in King James\u2019s version: \u201ccast\nthem down to _hell_.\u201d\n\nIn the _Old Testament_ the expressions \u201cgates of death,\u201d and the\n\u201cchambers of death,\u201d simply allude to the \u201cgates of the grave,\u201d which\nare specifically mentioned in the _Psalms_ and _Proverbs_. Hell and\nits sovereign are both inventions of Christianity, co\u00ebval with its\naccession to power and resort to tyranny. They were hallucinations\nborn of the nightmares of the SS. Anthonys in the desert. Before our\nera the ancient sages knew the \u201cFather of Evil,\u201d and treated him no\nbetter than an ass, the chosen symbol of Typhon, \u201cthe Devil.\u201d[982]\nSad degeneration of human brains!\n\nAs Typhon was the dark shadow of his brother Osiris, so Python is\nthe evil side of Apollo, the bright god of visions, the seer and\nthe soothsayer. He is killed by Python, but kills him in his turn,\nthus redeeming humanity from sin. It was in memory of this deed\nthat the priestesses of the sun-god enveloped themselves in the\nsnake-skin, typical of the fabulous monster. Under its exhilarating\ninfluence--the serpent\u2019s skin being considered magnetic--the\npriestesses fell into magnetic trances, and \u201creceiving their voice\nfrom Apollo,\u201d they became prophetic and delivered oracles.\n\nAgain Apollo and Python are one and morally androgynous. The sun-god\nideas are all dual, without exception. The beneficent warmth of the\nsun calls the germ into existence, but excessive heat kills the\nplant. While playing on his seven-stringed planetary lyre, Apollo\nproduces harmony; but, as well as other sun-gods, under his dark\naspect he becomes the destroyer, Python.\n\nSt. John is known to have travelled in Asia, a country governed by\nMagi and imbued with Zoroastrian ideas, and in those days full of\nBuddhist missionaries. Had he never visited those places and come\nin contact with Buddhists, it is doubtful whether the _Revelation_\nwould have been written. Besides his ideas of the dragon, he gives\nprophetic narratives entirely unknown to the other apostles, and\nwhich, relating to the second advent, make of Christ a faithful copy\nof Vishnu.\n\nThus Ophios and Ophiomorphos, Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon,\nChristos and the Serpent, are all convertible terms. They are all\nLogoi, and one is unintelligible without the other, as day could not\nbe known had we no night. All are regenerators and saviours, one in\na spiritual, the other in a physical sense. One insures immortality\nfor the Divine Spirit; the other gives it through regeneration of\nthe seed. The Saviour of mankind has to die, because he unveils\nto humanity the great secret of the immortal ego; the serpent of\n_Genesis_ is cursed because he said to _matter_, \u201cYe shall not die.\u201d\nIn the world of Paganism the counterpart of the \u201cserpent\u201d is the\nsecond Hermes, the re\u00efncarnation of Hermes Trismegistus.\n\nHermes is the constant companion and instructor of Osiris and Isis.\nHe is the personified wisdom; so is Cain, the son of the \u201cLord.\u201d Both\nbuild cities, civilize and instruct mankind in the arts.\n\nIt has been repeatedly stated by the Christian missionaries in\nCeylon and India that the people are steeped in demonolatry; that\nthey are devil-worshippers, in the full sense of the word. Without\nany exaggeration we say that they are no more so than the masses of\nuneducated Christians. But even were they worshippers of (which is\nmore than believers in) the Devil, yet there is a great difference\nbetween the teachings of their clergy on the subject of a personal\ndevil and the dogmas of Catholic preachers and many Protestant\nministers also. The Christian priests are bound to teach and impress\nupon the minds of their flock the existence of the Devil, and the\nopening pages of the present chapter show the reason why. But not\nonly will the Cingalese Oepasampala, who belong to the highest\npriesthood, not confess to belief in a personal demon but even the\nSamenaira, the candidates and novices, would laugh at the idea.\nEverything in the external worship of the Buddhists is allegorical\nand is never otherwise accepted or taught by the educated _pungis_\n(pundits). The accusation that they allow, and tacitly agree to leave\nthe poor people steeped in the most degrading superstitions, is not\nwithout foundation; but that they enforce such superstitions, we\nmost vehemently deny. And in this they appear to advantage beside\nour Christian clergy, who (at least those who have not allowed their\nfanaticism to interfere with their brains), without believing a word\nof it, yet preach the existence of the Devil, as the personal enemy\nof a personal God, and the evil genius of mankind.\n\nSt. George\u2019s Dragon, which figures so promiscuously in the grandest\ncathedrals of the Christians, is not a whit handsomer than the King\nof Snakes, the Buddhist Nammad\u0101nam-n\u0101raya, the great Dragon. If the\nplanetary Demon Rawho, is believed, in the popular superstition of\nthe Cingalese, to endeavor to destroy the moon by swallowing it; and\nif in China and Tartary the rabble is allowed, without rebuke, to\nbeat gongs and make fearful noises to drive the monster away from its\nprey during the eclipses, why should the Catholic clergy find fault,\nor call this superstition? Do not the country clergy in Southern\nFrance do the same, occasionally, at the appearance of comets,\neclipses, and other celestial phenomena? In 1456, when Halley\u2019s comet\nmade its appearance, \u201cso tremendous was its apparition,\u201d writes\nDraper, \u201cthat it was necessary for the Pope himself to interfere.\nHe exorcised and expelled it from the skies. It slunk away into the\nabysses of space, terror-stricken by the maledictions of Calixtus\nIII., and did not venture back for seventy-five years!\u201d[983]\n\nWe never heard of any Christian clergyman or Pope trying to disabuse\nignorant minds of the belief that the Devil had anything to do with\neclipses and comets; but we do find a Buddhist chief priest saying to\nan official who twitted him with this superstition: \u201cOur Cingalese\nreligious books teach that the eclipses of the sun and moon denote an\nattack of Rahu[984] (one of the nine planets) _not by a devil_.\u201d[985]\n\nThe origin of the \u201cDragon\u201d myth so prominent in the _Apocalypse_ and\n_Golden Legend_, and of the fable about Simeon Stylites converting\nthe Dragon, is undeniably Buddhistic and even pre-Buddhistic. It was\nGautama\u2019s pure doctrines which reclaimed to Buddhism the Cashmerians\nwhose primitive worship was the Ophite or Serpent worship.\nFrankincense and flowers replaced the human sacrifices and belief\nin personal demons. It became the turn of Christianity to inherit\nthe degrading superstition about devils invested with pestilential\nand murderous powers. The _Mah\u00e2vansa_, oldest of the Ceylonese\nbooks, relates the story of King Covercapal (cobra-de-capello), the\nsnake-god, who was converted to Buddhism by a holy Rahat;[986] and\nit is earlier, by all odds, than the _Golden Legend_ which tells the\nsame of Simeon the Stylite and his Dragon.\n\nThe Logos triumphs once more over the great Dragon; Michael, the\nluminous archangel, chief of the \u00c6ons, conquers Satan.[987]\n\nIt is a fact worthy of remark, that so long as the initiate kept\nsilent \u201con what he knew,\u201d he was perfectly safe. So was it in days\nof old, and so it is now. As soon as the Christian God, emanating\nforth from _Silence_, manifested himself as the _Word_ or Logos, the\nlatter became the cause of his death. The serpent is the symbol of\nwisdom and eloquence, but it is likewise the symbol of destruction.\n\u201cTo dare, to know, to will, _and be silent_,\u201d are the cardinal axioms\nof the kabalist. Like Apollo and other gods, Jesus is killed by his\n_Logos_;[988] he rises again, kills him in his turn, and becomes\nhis master. Can it be that this old symbol has, like the rest of\nancient philosophical conceptions, more than one allegorical and\nnever-suspected meaning? The coincidences are too strange to be\nresults of mere chance.\n\nAnd now that we have shown this identity between Michael and Satan,\nand the Saviours and Dragons of other people, what can be more\nclear than that all these philosophical fables originated in India,\nthat universal hot-bed of metaphysical mysticism? \u201cThe world,\u201d says\nRamatsariar, in his comments upon the _Vedas_, \u201ccommenced with a\ncontest between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, and so\nmust end. After the destruction of matter evil can no longer exist,\nit must return to naught.\u201d[989]\n\nIn the _Apologia_, Tertullian falsifies most palpably every doctrine\nand belief of the Pagans as to the oracles and gods. He calls them,\nindifferently, demons and devils, accusing the latter of taking\npossession of even the birds of the air! What Christian would now\ndare doubt such an authority? Did not the Psalmist exclaim: \u201cAll\nthe gods of the nations are _idols_;\u201d and the Angel of the School,\nThomas Aquinas, explains, on his own _kabalistic_ authority, the\nword _idols_ by _devils_? \u201cThey come to men,\u201d he says, \u201cand offer\nthemselves to their adoration by operating certain things which seem\nmiraculous.\u201d[990]\n\nThe Fathers were prudent as they were wise in their inventions. To\nbe impartial, after having created a Devil, they set to creating\napocryphal saints. We have named several in preceding chapters;\nbut we must not forget Baronius, who having read in a work of\nChrysostom about the holy _Xenoris_, the word meaning a _pair_, a\ncouple, mistook it for the name of a saint, and proceeded forthwith\nto create of it a _martyr_ of Antioch, and went on to give a most\ndetailed and authentic biography of the \u201cblessed martyr.\u201d Other\ntheologians made of Apollyon--or rather _Apolou\u00f4n_--the anti-Christ.\nApolou\u00f4n is Plato\u2019s \u201cwasher,\u201d the god _who purifies_, who washes off,\nand _releases_ us from sin, but he was thus transformed into him\n\u201cwhose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue\nhath his name Apollyon\u201d--Devil!\n\nMax M\u00fcller says that the serpent in Paradise is a conception which\nmight have sprung up among the Jews, and \u201cseems hardly to invite\ncomparison with the much grander conceptions of the terrible power of\nVritra and Ahriman in the _Veda_ and _Avesta_.\u201d With the kabalists\nthe Devil was always a myth--God or good reversed. That modern Magus,\nEliphas Levi, calls the Devil _l\u2019ivresse astrale_. It is a blind\nforce like electricity, he says; and, speaking allegorically, as he\nalways did, Jesus remarked that he \u201cbeheld Satan like lightning fall\nfrom Heaven.\u201d\n\nThe clergy insist that God has sent the Devil to tempt mankind;\nwhich would be rather a singular way of showing his boundless love\nto humanity! If the Supreme One is really guilty of such unfatherly\ntreachery, he is worthy, certainly, of the adoration only of a Church\ncapable of singing the _Te Deum_ over a massacre of St. Bartholomew,\nand of blessing Mussulman swords drawn to slaughter Greek Christians!\n\nThis is at once sound logic and good sound law, for is it not a maxim\nof jurisprudence: \u201c_Qui facit per alium, facit per se?_\u201d\n\nThe great dissimilarity which exists between the various conceptions\nof the Devil is really often ludicrous. While bigots will invariably\nendow him with horns, tail, and every conceivable repulsive feature,\neven including an offensive _human_ smell,[991] Milton, Byron,\nGoethe, Lermontoff,[992] and a host of French novelists have sung\nhis praise in flowing verse and thrilling prose. Milton\u2019s Satan,\nand even Goethe\u2019s Mephistopheles, are certainly far more commanding\nfigures than some of the angels, as represented in the prose of\necstatic bigots. We have but to compare two descriptions. Let us\nfirst award the floor to the incomparably sensational des Mousseaux.\nHe gives us a thrilling account of an incubus, in the words of the\npenitent herself: \u201cOnce,\u201d she tells us, \u201cduring the space of a\nwhole half-hour, she saw _distinctly_ near her an individual with a\nblack, dreadful, horrid body, and whose hands, of an enormous size,\nexhibited _clawed_ fingers strangely hooked. The senses of sight,\nfeeling, and _smell_ were confirmed by that of hearing!!\u201d[993]\n\nAnd yet, for the space of several years, the damsel suffered herself\nto be led astray by such a hero! How far above this odoriferous\ngallant is the majestic figure of the Miltonic Satan!\n\nLet the reader then fancy, if he can, this superb chimera, this ideal\nof the rebellious angel become incarnate Pride, crawling into the\nskin of the most disgusting of all animals! Notwithstanding that\nthe Christian catechism teaches us that Satan in _propria persona_\ntempted our first mother, Eve, in a real paradise, and that in the\nshape of a serpent, which of all animals was the most insinuating\nand fascinating! God orders him, as a punishment, to crawl eternally\non his belly, and bite the dust. \u201cA sentence,\u201d remarks Levi, \u201cwhich\nresembles in nothing the traditional flames of hell.\u201d The more so,\nthat the real zo\u00f6logical serpent, which was created before Adam and\nEve, crawled on his belly, and bit the dust likewise, before there\nwas any original sin.\n\nApart from this, was not Ophion the Daimon, or Devil, like God\ncalled _Dominus_?[994] The word _God_ (deity) is derived from the\nSanscrit word _Deva_, and Devil from the Persian _da\u00ebva_, which words\nare substantially alike. Hercules, son of Jove and Alcmena, one of\nthe highest sun-gods and also Logos manifested, is nevertheless\nrepresented under a double nature, as all others.[995]\n\nThe Agathod\u00e6mon, the beneficent d\u00e6mon,[996] the same which we find\nlater among the Ophites under the appellation of the Logos, or divine\nwisdom, was represented by a serpent standing erect on a _pole_, in\nthe Bacchanalian Mysteries. The hawk-headed serpent is among the\noldest of the Egyptian emblems, and represents the divine mind, says\nDeane.[997]\n\nAzazel is Moloch and Samael, says Movers,[998] and we find Aaron,\nthe brother of the great law-giver Moses, making equal sacrifices to\nJehovah and Azazel.\n\n\u201cAnd Aaron shall cast lots _upon the two goats_; one lot for the Lord\n(_Ihoh_ in the original) and one lot for the scape-goat\u201d (_Azazel_).\n\nIn the _Old Testament_ Jehovah exhibits all the attributes of old\nSaturn,[999] notwithstanding his metamorphoses from Adoni into Eloi,\nand God of Gods, Lord of Lords.[1000]\n\nJesus is tempted on the mountain by the Devil, who promises to\nhim kingdoms and glory if he will only fall down and worship him\n(_Matthew_ iv. 8, 9). Buddha is tempted by the Demon Wasawarthi Mara,\nwho says to him as he is leaving his father\u2019s palace: \u201cBe entreated\nto stay that you may possess the honors that are within your\nreach; go not, go not!\u201d And upon the refusal of Gautama to accept\nhis offers, gnashes his teeth with rage, and threatens him with\nvengeance. Like Christ, Buddha triumphs over the Devil.[1001]\n\nIn the Bacchic Mysteries a _consecrated cup_ was handed around after\nsupper, called the cup of the Agathod\u00e6mon.[1002] The Ophite rite of\nthe same description is evidently borrowed from these Mysteries. The\ncommunion consisting of bread and wine was used in the worship of\nnearly every important deity.[1003]\n\nIn connection with the semi-Mithraic sacrament adopted by the\nMarcosians, another Gnostic sect, utterly kabalistic and _theurgic_,\nthere is a strange story given by Epiphanius as an illustration of\nthe cleverness of the Devil. In the celebration of their Eucharist,\nthree large vases of the finest and clearest crystal were brought\namong the congregation and filled with white wine. While the\nceremony was going on, in full view of everybody, this wine was\ninstantaneously changed into a blood-red, a purple, and then into an\nazure-blue color. \u201cThen the magus,\u201d says Epiphanius, \u201chands one of\nthese vases to a woman in the congregation, and asks her to bless\nit. When it is done, the magus pours out of it into another vase\nof much greater capacity with the prayer: \u201cMay the grace of God,\nwhich is above all, inconceivable, inexplicable, fill thy inner\nman, and augment the knowledge of Him within thee, sowing the grain\nof mustard-seed in good ground.[1004] Whereupon the liquor in the\nlarger vase swells and swells until it runs over the brim.\u201d[1005]\n\nIn connection with several of the Pagan deities which are made after\ndeath, and before their resurrection to descend into Hell, it will\nbe found useful to compare the pre-Christian with the post-Christian\nnarratives. Orpheus made the journey,[1006] and Christ was the last\nof these subterranean travellers. In the _Credo_ of the Apostles,\nwhich is divided in twelve sentences or _articles_, each particular\narticle having been inserted by each particular apostle, according\nto St. Austin[1007] the sentence \u201cHe descended into hell, the third\nday he rose again from the dead,\u201d is assigned to Thomas; perhaps,\nas an atonement for his unbelief. Be it as it may, the sentence is\ndeclared a forgery, and there is no evidence \u201cthat this creed was\neither framed by the apostles, or indeed, that it existed as a creed\nin their time.\u201d[1008]\n\nIt is the most important addition in the Apostle\u2019s Creed, and dates\nsince the year of Christ 600.[1009] It was not known in the days of\nEusebius. Bishop Parsons says that it was not in the ancient creeds\nor rules of faith.[1010] Iren\u00e6us, Origen, and Tertullian exhibit\nno knowledge of this sentence.[1011] It is not mentioned in any of\nthe Councils before the seventh century. Theodoret, Epiphanius, and\nSocrates are silent about it. It differs from the _creed_ in St.\nAugustine.[1012] Ruffinus affirms that in his time it was neither in\nthe Roman nor in the Oriental creeds (_Exposit. in Symbol. Apost._\n\u00a7 10). But the problem is solved when we learn that ages ago Hermes\nspoke thus to Prometheus, chained on the arid rocks of the Caucasian\nmount:\n\n\u201cTo such labors look thou for no termination, UNTIL SOME GOD SHALL\nAPPEAR AS A SUBSTITUTE IN THY PANGS, AND SHALL BE WILLING TO GO BOTH\nTO GLOOMY HADES AND TO THE MURKY DEPTHS AROUND TARTARUS!\u201d (\u00c6SCHYLUS:\n_Prometheus_, 1027, ff.).\n\nThis god was Herakles, the \u201cOnly-Begotten One,\u201d and the Saviour.\nAnd it is he who was chosen as a model by the ingenious Fathers.\nHercules--called Alexicacos--for he brought round the wicked and\nconverted them to virtue; _Soter_, or Saviour, also called Neulos\nEumelos--the _Good Shepherd_; Astrochiton, the star-clothed, and\nthe Lord of Fire. \u201cHe sought not to subject nations by force but\nby _divine wisdom_ and persuasion,\u201d says Lucian. \u201cHerakles spread\ncultivation and a mild religion, and destroyed the _doctrine of\neternal punishment_ by dragging Kerberus (the Pagan Devil) from the\nnether world.\u201d And, as we see, it was Herakles again who liberated\nPrometheus (the Adam of the pagans), by putting an end to the\ntorture inflicted on him for his transgressions, by descending to\nthe Hades, and going round the Tartarus. Like Christ he appeared\nas a _substitute for the pangs of humanity_, by offering himself\nin a self-sacrifice on a funereal-burning pile. \u201cHis voluntary\nimmolation,\u201d says Bart, \u201cbetokened the ethereal new birth of men....\nThrough the release of Prometheus, and the erection of altars,\nwe behold in him the mediator between the old and new faiths....\nHe abolished human sacrifice wherever he found it practiced. He\ndescended into the sombre realm of Pluto, as a shade ... he _ascended\nas a spirit to his father Zeus in Olympus_.\u201d\n\nSo much was antiquity impressed by the Heraklean legend, that even\nthe _monotheistic_ (?) Jews of those days, not to be outdone by their\ncontemporaries, put him to use in their manufacture of original\nfables. Herakles is accused in his mythobiography of an attempted\ntheft of the Delphian oracle. In _Sepher Toldos Jeschu_, the Rabbins\naccuse Jesus of stealing from their Sanctuary the Incommunicable Name!\n\nTherefore it is but natural to find his numerous adventures, worldly\nand religious, mirrored so faithfully in the _Descent into Hell_. For\nextraordinary daring of mendacity, and unblushing plagiarism, the\n_Gospel of Nicodemus_, only _now_ proclaimed apocryphal, surpasses\nanything we have read. Let the reader judge.\n\nAt the beginning of chapter xvi., Satan and the \u201cPrince of Hell\u201d are\ndescribed as peacefully conversing together. All of a sudden, both\nare startled by \u201ca voice as of thunder\u201d and the rushing of winds,\nwhich bids them to lift up their gates for \u201c_the King of Glory_\nshall come in.\u201d Whereupon the Prince of Hell hearing this \u201cbegins\nquarrelling with Satan for minding his duty so poorly, as not to have\ntaken the necessary precautions against such a visit.\u201d The quarrel\nends with the prince casting Satan \u201cforth from his hell,\u201d ordering,\nat the same time, his impious officers \u201cto shut the brass gates of\ncruelty, make them fast with iron bars, and fight courageously lest\nwe be taken captives.\u201d\n\nBut \u201cwhen all the company of the saints ... (in Hell?) heard this,\nthey spoke with a loud voice of anger to the Prince of Darkness,\n\u2018Open thy gates, that the King of Glory may come in,\u2019\u201d thereby\nproving that the prince needed spokesmen.\n\n\u201cAnd the _divine_ (?) prophet David cried out, saying: \u2018Did not I,\nwhen on earth, truly prophesy?\u2019\u201d After this, another prophet, namely\nholy Isaiah spake in like manner, \u201cDid not I rightly prophesy?\u201d etc.\nThen the company of the saints and prophets, after boasting for\nthe length of a chapter, and comparing notes of their prophecies,\nbegin a riot, which makes the Prince of Hell remark that, \u201cthe dead\nnever durst before behave themselves so insolently towards us\u201d (the\ndevils, xviii. 6); feigning the while to be ignorant _who_ it was\nclaiming admission. He then innocently asks again: \u201cBut who is the\nKing of Glory?\u201d Then David tells him that he knows the voice well,\nand understands its words, \u201cbecause,\u201d he adds, \u201cI spake them by his\nSpirit.\u201d Perceiving finally that the Prince of Hell would not open\nthe \u201cbrass doors of iniquity,\u201d notwithstanding the king-psalmist\u2019s\nvoucher for the visitor, he, David, concludes to treat the enemy\n\u201cas a Philistine, and begins shouting: \u2018And now, thou _filthy_ and\n_stinking_ prince of hell, open thy gates.... I tell thee that the\nKing of Glory comes ... let him enter in.\u2019\u201d\n\nWhile he was yet quarrelling the \u201cmighty Lord appeared in the form of\na _man_\u201d (?) upon which \u201cimpious _Death_ and her cruel officers are\nseized with fear.\u201d Then they tremblingly begin to address Christ with\nvarious flatteries and compliments in the shape of questions, each of\nwhich _is an article of creed_. For instance: \u201cAnd who art thou, so\npowerful and so great who dost release the captives that were _held\nin chains by original sin_?\u201d asks one devil. \u201cPerhaps, thou art that\nJesus,\u201d submissively says another, \u201cof whom Satan just now spoke,\nthat by the _death of the Cross thou wert about to receive the power\nover death_?\u201d etc. Instead of answering, the King of Glory \u201ctramples\nupon Death, seizes the Prince of Hell, and deprives him of his power.\u201d\n\nThen begins a turmoil in Hell which has been graphically described\nby Homer, Hesiod, and their interpreter Preller, in his account of\nthe Astronomical Hercules _Invictus_, and his festivals at Tyre,\nTarsus, and Sardis. Having been initiated in the Attic Eleusinia, the\nPagan god descends into Hades and \u201cwhen he entered the nether world\nhe spread such terror among the dead that all of them fled!\u201d[1013]\nThe same words are repeated in _Nicodemus_. Follows a scene of\nconfusion, horror, and lamenting. Perceiving that the battle is lost,\nthe Prince of Hell turns tail and prudently chooses to side with\nthe strongest. He against whom, according to Jude and Peter, even\nthe Archangel Michael \u201cdurst not bring a railing accusation before\nthe Lord,\u201d is now shamefully treated by his ex-ally and friend,\nthe \u201cPrince of Hell.\u201d Poor Satan is abused and reviled for all his\ncrimes both by devils and saints; while the _Prince_ is openly\nrewarded for his treachery. Addressing him, the King of Glory says\nthus: \u201cBeelzebub, the Prince of Hell, Satan the Prince shall now\nbe subject to thy dominion _forever, in the room of Adam_ and his\nrighteous sons, who are mine ... Come to me, all ye my saints, who\nwere _created in my image_, who _were condemned by the tree of the\nforbidden fruit_, and _by the Devil and death_. Live now _by the wood\nof my cross_; the Devil, the prince of this world is overcome (?) and\n_Death is conquered_.\u201d Then the Lord takes hold of Adam by his right\nhand, of David by the left, and \u201c_ascends_ from Hell, followed by all\nthe saints,\u201d Enoch and Elias, and by the \u201c_holy_ thief.\u201d[1014]\n\nThe pious author, perhaps through an oversight, omits to complete the\ncavalcade, by bringing up the rear with the penitent dragon of Simon\nStylites and the converted wolf of St. Francis, wagging their tails\nand shedding tears of joy!\n\nIn the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes it is _Tobo_ who is \u201cthe _liberator\nof the soul of Adam_,\u201d to bear it from Orcus (Hades) to the place of\nLIFE. Tobo is Tob-Adonijah, one of the twelve disciples (Levites)\nsent by Jehosaphat to preach to the cities of Judah the _Book of the\nLaw_ (_2 Chron._ xvii.). In the kabalistic books these were \u201cwise\nmen,\u201d Magi. They drew down the rays of the sun to enlighten the\nsheol (Hades) Orcus, and thus show the way out of the _Tenebr\u00e6_,\nthe darkness of ignorance, to the soul of Adam, which represents\ncollectively all the \u201csouls of mankind.\u201d Adam (Athamas) is Tamuz\nor Adonis, and Adonis is the sun Helios. In the _Book of the Dead_\n(vi. 231) Osiris is made to say: \u201cI shine like the sun in the\nstar-house at the feast of the sun.\u201d Christ is called the \u201cSun of\nRighteousness,\u201d \u201cHelios of Justice\u201d (Euseb.: _Demons. Ev._, v. 29),\nsimply a revamping of the old heathen allegories; nevertheless, to\nhave made it serve for such a use is no less blasphemous on the\npart of men who pretended to be describing a true episode of the\nearth-pilgrimage of their God!\n\n \u201cHerakles, who _has gone out from the chambers of earth_,\n Leaving the nether house of Plouton!\u201d[1015]\n\n \u201cAt THEE the Stygian lakes trembled; Thee the janitor of Orcus\n Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened....\n Hail _true_ SON _of_ JOVE, GLORY added to the gods!\u201d[1016]\n\nMore than four centuries before the birth of Jesus, Aristophanes\nhad written his immortal parody on the _Descent into Hell_, by\nHerakles.[1017] The chorus of the \u201cblessed ones,\u201d the initiated, the\nElysian Fields, the arrival of Bacchus (who is Iacchos--Iaho--and\n_Sabaoth_) with Herakles, their reception with lighted torches,\nemblems of _new life_ and RESURRECTION from darkness, death unto\nlight, eternal LIFE; nothing that is found in the _Gospel of\nNicodemus_ is wanting in this poem:[1018]\n\n \u201cWake, burning torches ... for thou comest\n Shaking them in thy hand, Iacche,\n Phosphoric star of the nightly rite!\u201d[1019]\n\nBut the Christians accept these _post-mortem_ adventures of their\ngod, concocted from those of his Pagan predecessors, and derided\nby Aristophanes four centuries before our era, _literally_! The\nabsurdities of _Nicodemus_ were read in the churches, as well as\nthose of the _Shepherd of Hermas_. Iren\u00e6us quotes the latter under\nthe name of _Scripture_, a divinely-inspired \u201crevelation;\u201d Jerome and\nEusebius both insist upon its being publicly read in the churches;\nand Athanasius observes that the Fathers \u201cappointed it to be read\nin _confirmation of faith and piety_.\u201d But then comes the reverse\nof this bright medal, to show once more how stable and trustworthy\nwere the opinions of the strongest pillars of an _infallible_ Church.\nJerome, who applauds the book in his catalogue of ecclesiastical\nwriters, in his later comments terms it \u201capocryphal and foolish!\u201d\nTertullian, who could not find praise enough for the _Shepherd of\nHermas_ when a Catholic, \u201cbegan abusing it when a Montanist.\u201d[1020]\n\nChapter xiii. begins with the narrative given by the two resuscitated\nghosts of Charinus and Lenthius, the sons of that Simeon who,\nin the _Gospel according to Luke_ (ii. 25-32), takes the infant\nJesus in his arms and blesses God, saying: \u201cLord, now lettest\nthou thy servant depart in peace ... for mine eyes have seen thy\nsalvation.\u201d[1021] These two ghosts have arisen from their cold\ntombs on purpose to declare \u201cthe mysteries\u201d which they saw after\ndeath in hell. They are enabled to do so only at the importunate\nprayer of Annas and Ca\u00efaphas, Nicodemus (the author), Joseph (of\nArimath\u00e6a), and Gamaliel, who beseech them to reveal to them the\ngreat secrets. Annas and Ca\u00efaphas, however, who bring the _ghosts_\nto the synagogue at Jerusalem, take the precaution to make the two\nresuscitated men, who had been dead and buried for years, to swear\non the _Book of the Law_ \u201cby God Adonai, and the God of Israel,\u201d to\ntell them only the truth. Therefore, after making the _sign of the\ncross_ on their tongues,[1022] they ask for some paper to write their\nconfessions (xii. 21-25). They state how, when \u201cin the depth of hell,\nin the blackness of darkness,\u201d they suddenly saw \u201ca substantial,\npurple-colored light illuminating the place.\u201d Adam, with the\npatriarchs and prophets, began thereupon to rejoice, and Isaiah also\nimmediately boasted that he had _predicted all that_. While this was\ngoing on, Simeon, their father, arrived, declaring that \u201cthe infant\nhe took in his arms in the temple was now coming to liberate them.\u201d\n\nAfter Simeon had delivered his message to the distinguished company\nin hell, \u201cthere came forth one like a little hermit (?), who proved\nto be John the Baptist.\u201d The idea is suggestive and shows that even\nthe \u201cPrecursor\u201d and \u201cthe Prophet of the Most High,\u201d had not been\nexempted from drying up in hell to the most diminutive proportions,\nand that to the extent of affecting his brains and memory. Forgetting\nthat (_Matthew_ xi.) he had manifested the most evident doubts as to\nthe Messiahship of Jesus, the Baptist also claims his right to be\nrecognized as a prophet. \u201cAnd I, John,\u201d he says, \u201cwhen I saw Jesus\ncoming to me, being moved by the Holy Ghost, I said: \u2018Behold the Lamb\nof God, who takes away the sins of the world\u2019 ... And I baptized him\n... and I saw the Holy Ghost descending upon him, and saying, \u2018This\nis my Beloved Son,\u2019 etc.\u201d And to think, that his descendants and\nfollowers, like the Mandeans of Basra, utterly reject these words!\n\nThen Adam, who acts as though his own veracity might be questioned\nin this \u201cimpious company,\u201d calls his son Seth, and desires him to\ndeclare to his sons, the patriarchs and prophets, what the Archangel\nMichael had told him at the gate of Paradise, when he, Adam, sent\nSeth \u201cto entreat God that he would anoint\u201d his head when Adam was\nsick (xiv. 2). And Seth tells them that when he was praying at the\ngates of Paradise, Michael advised him not to entreat God for \u201cthe\noil of the tree of mercy wherewith to anoint father Adam for his\n_headache_; because thou canst not by any means obtain it till the\nLAST DAY and times, namely _till 5,500 years be past_.\u201d\n\nThis little bit of private gossip between Michael and Seth was\nevidently introduced in the interests of Patristic Chronology; and\nfor the purpose of connecting Messiahship still closer with Jesus,\non the authority of a recognized and divinely-inspired Gospel. The\nFathers of the early centuries committed an inextricable mistake in\ndestroying fragile images and mortal Pagans, in preference to the\nmonuments of Egyptian antiquity. These have become the more precious\nto arch\u00e6ology and modern science since it is found they prove that\nKing Menes and his architects flourished between four and five\nthousand years before \u201cFather Adam\u201d and the universe, according to\nthe biblical chronology, were created \u201cout of nothing.\u201d[1023]\n\n\u201cWhile all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and\ncaptain of death,\u201d says to the Prince of Hell: \u201cPrepare to receive\nJesus of Nazareth himself, who boasted that he was the Son of God,\nand yet was a man afraid of death, and said: \u2018My soul is sorrowful\neven to death\u2019\u201d (xv. 1, 2).\n\nThere is a tradition among the Greek ecclesiastical writers that the\n\u201cH\u00e6retics\u201d (perhaps Celsus) had sorely twitted the Christians on this\ndelicate point. They held that if Jesus were not a simple mortal,\nwho was often forsaken by the Spirit of Christos, he could not have\ncomplained in such expressions as are attributed to him; neither\nwould he have cried out with a loud voice: \u201cMy _god_, My _god_! why\nhast thou forsaken me?\u201d This objection is very cleverly answered in\nthe _Gospel of Nicodemus_, and it is the \u201cPrince of Hell\u201d who settles\nthe difficulty.\n\nHe begins by arguing with Satan like a true metaphysician. \u201cWho is\nthat so powerful prince,\u201d he sneeringly inquires, \u201cwho is he so\npowerful, and yet a man who is afraid of death?... I affirm to thee\nthat when, therefore, he said he was afraid of death, _he designed to\nensnare thee_, and unhappy it will be to thee for everlasting ages!\u201d\n\nIt is quite refreshing to see how closely the author of this _Gospel_\nsticks to his _New Testament_ text, and especially to the fourth\nevangelist. How cleverly he prepares the way for seemingly \u201cinnocent\u201d\nquestions and answers, corroborating the most dubious passages of\nthe four gospels, passages more questioned and cross-examined in\nthose days of subtile sophistry of the learned Gnostics than they\nare now; a weighty reason why the Fathers should have been even more\nanxious to burn the documents of their antagonists than to destroy\ntheir heresy. The following is a good instance. The dialogue is still\nproceeding between Satan and the metaphysical _half-converted_ Prince\nof the under world.\n\n\u201cWho, then, is that Jesus of Nazareth,\u201d na\u00efvely inquires the prince,\n\u201cthat by his word hath taken away the dead from me, without prayers\nto God?\u201d (xv. 16).\n\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d replies Satan, with the innocence of a Jesuit, \u201c_it is the\nsame who took away from me_ LAZARUS, _after he had been four days\ndead_, and did both stink and was rotten?... It is the very same\nperson, Jesus of Nazareth.... I adjure thee, by the powers which\nbelong to thee and me, that thou bring him not to me!\u201d exclaims the\nprince. \u201cFor when I heard of the power of his word, I trembled for\nfear, and all my _impious_ company were disturbed. And we were not\nable to detain Lazarus, but he gave himself _a shake_, and _with all\nthe signs of malice_, he immediately went away from us; and the very\nearth, in which the dead body of Lazarus was lodged, presently turned\nhim alive.\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d thoughtfully adds the Prince of Hell, \u201cI know\nnow _that he is Almighty God_, who is mighty in his dominion, and\nmighty _in his human nature_, who is the Saviour of mankind. Bring\nnot therefore this person hither, for he will set at liberty all\nthose I held in prison under unbelief, and ... _will conduct them to\neverlasting life_\u201d (xv. 20).\n\nHere ends the _post-mortem_ evidence of the two ghosts. Charinus\n(ghost No. 1) gives what he wrote to Annas, Ca\u00efaphas, and Gamaliel,\nand Lenthius (ghost No. 2) his to Joseph and Nicodemus, having done\nwhich, both change into \u201cexceedingly white forms and were seen no\nmore.\u201d\n\nTo show furthermore that the \u201cghosts\u201d had been all the time under\nthe strictest \u201ctest conditions,\u201d as the modern spiritualists would\nexpress it, the author of the _Gospel_ adds: \u201cBut what they had wrote\nwas _found perfectly to agree_, the one not containing one letter\nmore or less than the other.\u201d\n\nThis news spread in all the synagogues, the Gospel goes on to state,\nthat Pilate went to the temple as advised by Nicodemus, and assembled\nthe Jews together. At this historical interview, Ca\u00efaphas and Annas\nare made to declare that their Scriptures testify \u201c_that He (Jesus)\nis the Son of God and the Lord and King of Israel_\u201d (!) and close the\nconfession with the following memorable words:\n\n\u201cAnd so it appears _that Jesus, whom we crucified, is Jesus Christ,\nthe Son of God, and true and Almighty God_. Amen.\u201d (!)\n\nNotwithstanding such a crushing confession for themselves, and the\nrecognition of Jesus as the Almighty God himself, the \u201cLord God of\nIsrael,\u201d neither the high priest, nor his father-in-law, nor any of\nthe elders, nor Pilate, who wrote those accounts, nor any of the Jews\nof Jerusalem, who were at all prominent, became Christians.\n\nComments are unnecessary. This _Gospel_ closes with the words:\n\u201cIn the name of _the Holy Trinity_ [of which Nicodemus could know\nnothing yet] _thus ends the Acts of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which\nthe emperor Theodosius the Great found at Jerusalem, in the hall of\nPontius Pilate among the public records_;\u201d and which history purports\nto have been written in Hebrew by Nicodemus, \u201c_the things being acted\nin the nineteenth year of Tiberius C\u00e6sar, emperor of the Romans, and\nin the seventeenth year of the government of Herod, the son of Herod,\nking of Galilee, on the eighth before the calends of April_, etc.,\netc.\u201d It is the most barefaced imposture that was perpetrated after\nthe era of pious forgeries opened with the first bishop of Rome,\nwhoever he may have been. The clumsy forger seems to have neither\nknown nor heard that the dogma of the Trinity was not propounded\nuntil 325 years later than this pretended date. Neither the _Old_\nnor the _New Testament_ contains the word Trinity, nor anything that\naffords the slightest pretext for this doctrine (see page 177 of this\nvolume, \u201cChrist\u2019s descent into Hell\u201d). No explanation can palliate\nthe putting forth of this spurious gospel as a divine revelation,\nfor it was known from the first as a premeditated imposture. If the\ngospel itself has been declared apocryphal, nevertheless every one\nof the dogmas contained in it was and is still enforced upon the\nChristian world. And even the fact that itself is now repudiated, is\nno merit, _for the Church was shamed and forced into it_.\n\nAnd so we are perfectly warranted in repeating the amended _Credo_ of\nRobert Taylor, which is substantially that of the Christians.\n\n I believe in Zeus, the Father Almighty,\n And in his son, Iasios Christ our Lord,\n Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost,\n Born of the Virgin Elektra,\n Smitten with a thunderbolt,\n Dead and buried,\n He descended into Hell,\n Rose again and ascended up on high,\n And will return to judge the living and the dead.\n I believe in the Holy Nous,\n In the Holy circle of Great Gods,\n In the Community of Divinities,\n In the expiation of sins,\n The immortality of the Soul\n And the Life Everlasting.\n\nThe Israelites have been proved to have worshipped Baal, the Syrian\nBacchus, offered incense to the Sabazian or \u00c6sculapian serpent, and\nperformed the Dionysian Mysteries. And how could it be otherwise\nif Typhon was called Typhon Set,[1024] and Seth, the son of Adam,\nis identical with Satan or Sat-an; and Seth was worshipped by the\nHittites? Less than two centuries B.C., we find the Jews either\nreverencing or simply worshipping the \u201cgolden head of an ass\u201d in\ntheir temple; according to Apion, Antiochus Epiphanes carried it off\nwith him. And Zacharias is struck dumb by the apparition of the deity\nunder the shape of an ass in the temple![1025]\n\nEl, the Sun-God of the Syrians, the Egyptians, and the Semites, is\ndeclared by Pleyt\u00e8 to be no other than Set or Seth, and El is the\nprimeval Saturn--Israel.[1026] Siva is an \u00c6thiopian God, the same\nas the Chaldean Baal--Bel; thus he is also Saturn. Saturn, El, Seth\nand Kiyun, or the biblical Chiun of Amos, are all one and the same\ndeity, and may be all regarded in their worst aspect as Typhon the\nDestroyer. When the religious Pantheon assumed a more definite\nexpression, Typhon was separated from his androgyne--the _good_\ndeity, and fell into degradation as a brutal _unintellectual_ power.\n\nSuch reactions in the religious feelings of a nation were not\nunfrequent. The Jews had worshipped Baal or Moloch, the Sun-God\nHercules,[1027] in their early days--if they had any days at all\nearlier than the Persians or Maccabees--and then made their prophets\ndenounce them. On the other hand, the characteristics of the Mosaic\nJehovah exhibit more of the moral disposition of Siva than of a\nbenevolent, \u201clong-suffering\u201d God. Besides, to be identified with Siva\nis no small compliment, for the latter is God of wisdom. Wilkinson\ndepicts him as the most intellectual of the Hindu gods. He is\n_three-eyed_, and, like Jehovah, terrible in his resistless revenge\nand wrath. And, although the Destroyer, \u201cyet he is the re-creator\nof all things in perfect wisdom.\u201d[1028] He is the type of St.\nAugustine\u2019s God who \u201cprepares _hell_ for pryers into his mysteries,\u201d\nand insists on trying human reason as well as common sense by forcing\nmankind to view with equal reverence his good and evil acts.\n\nNotwithstanding the numerous proofs that the Israelites worshipped\na variety of gods, and even offered human sacrifices until a far\nlater period than their Pagan neighbors, they have contrived to blind\nposterity in regard to truth. They sacrificed human life as late as\n169 B.C.,[1029] and the _Bible_ contains a number of such records. At\na time when the Pagans had long abandoned the abominable practice,\nand had replaced the sacrificial man by the animal,[1030] Jephthah\nis represented sacrificing his own daughter to the \u201cLord\u201d for a\nburnt-offering.\n\nThe denunciations of their own prophets are the best proofs against\nthem. Their worship in high places is the same as that of the\n\u201cidolaters.\u201d Their prophetesses are counterparts of the Pythi\u00e6 and\nBacchantes. Pausanias speaks of women-colleges which superintend the\nworship of Bacchus, and of the sixteen matrons of Elis.[1031] The\n_Bible_ says that \u201cDeborah, a prophetess ... judged Israel at that\ntime;\u201d[1032] and speaks of Huldah, another prophetess, who \u201cdwelt\nin Jerusalem, _in the college_;\u201d[1033] and _2 Samuel_ mentions\n\u201c_wise_ women\u201d several times,[1034] notwithstanding the injunction\nof Moses not to use either divination or augury. As to the final and\nconclusive identification of the \u201cLord God\u201d of Israel with Moloch,\nwe find a very suspicious evidence of the case in the last chapter\nof _Leviticus_, concerning _things devoted not to be redeemed_....\nA man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, _both of man_\nand beast.... None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be\nredeemed, _but shall surely be put to death_ ... for it is _most holy\nunto the Lord_.\u201d[1035]\n\nThe duality, if not the plurality of the gods of Israel may be\ninferred from the very fact of such bitter denunciations. Their\nprophets _never approved of sacrificial worship_. Samuel denied\nthat the Lord had any delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices (_1\nSamuel_, xv. 22). Jeremiah asserted, unequivocally, that the Lord,\nYava Sabaoth Elohe Israel, never commanded anything of the sort, but\ncontrariwise (vii. 21-24).\n\nBut these prophets who opposed themselves to human sacrifices were\nall _nazars_ and _initiates_. These prophets led a party in the\nnation against the priests, as later the Gnostics contended against\nthe Christian Fathers. Hence, when the monarchy was divided, we\nfind the priests at Jerusalem and the prophets in the country of\nIsrael. Even Ahab and his sons, who introduced the Tyrian worship\nof Baal-Hercules and the Syrian goddess into Israel, were aided and\nencouraged by Elijah and Elisha. Few prophets appeared in Judea till\nIsaiah, after the northern monarchy had been overthrown. Elisha\nanointed Jehu on purpose that he should destroy the royal families of\nboth countries, and so unite the people into one civil polity. For\nthe Temple of Solomon, desecrated by the priests, no Hebrew prophet\nor initiate cared a straw. Elijah never went to it, nor Elisha,\nJonah, Nahum, Amos, or any other Israelite. While the initiates were\nholding to the \u201csecret doctrine\u201d of Moses, the people, led by their\npriests, were steeped in idolatry exactly the same as that of the\nPagans. It is the popular views and interpretations of Jehovah that\nthe Christians have adopted.\n\nThe question is likely to be asked: \u201cIn the view of so much evidence\nto show that Christian theology is only a _pot-pourri_ of Pagan\nmythologies, how can it be connected with the religion of Moses?\u201d\nThe early Christians, Paul and his disciples, the Gnostics and\ntheir successors generally, regarded Christianity and Judaism as\nessentially distinct. The latter, in their view, was an antagonistic\nsystem, and from a lower origin. \u201cYe received the law,\u201d said Stephen,\n\u201cfrom the ministration of angels,\u201d or \u00e6ons, and not from the Most\nHigh Himself. The Gnostics, as we have seen, taught that Jehovah, the\nDeity of the Jews, was Ilda-Baoth, the son of the ancient _Bohu_, or\nChaos, the adversary of Divine Wisdom.\n\nThe question may be more than easily answered. The _law of Moses,\nand the so-called monotheism of the Jews, can hardly be said to have\nbeen more than two or three centuries older than Christianity_. The\n_Pentateuch_ itself, we are able to show, was written and revised\nupon this \u201cnew departure,\u201d at a period subsequent to the colonization\nof Judea under the authority of the kings of Persia. The Christian\nFathers, in their eagerness to make their new system dovetail with\nJudaism, and so avoid Paganism, unconsciously shunned Scylla only\nto be caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis. Under the monotheistic\nstucco of Judaism was unearthed the same familiar mythology of\nPaganism. But we should not regard the Israelites with less favor for\nhaving had a Moloch and being like the natives. Nor should we compel\nthe Jews to do penance for their fathers. They had their prophets and\ntheir law, and were satisfied with them. How faithfully and nobly\nthey have stood by their ancestral faith under the most diabolical\npersecutions, the present remains of a once-glorious people bear\nwitness. The Christian world has been in a state of convulsion from\nthe first to the present century; it has been cleft into thousands\nof sects; but the Jews remain substantially united. Even their\ndifferences of opinion do not destroy their unity.\n\nThe Christian virtues inculcated by Jesus in the sermon on the mount\nare nowhere exemplified in the Christian world. The Buddhist ascetics\nand Indian fakirs seem almost the only ones that inculcate and\npractice them. Meanwhile the vices which coarse-mouthed slanderers\nhave attributed to Paganism, are current everywhere among Christian\nFathers and Christian Churches.\n\nThe boasted wide gap between Christianity and Judaism, that is\nclaimed on the authority of Paul, exists but in the imagination\nof the pious. We are nought but the inheritors of the intolerant\nIsraelites of ancient days; not the Hebrews of the time of Herod\nand the Roman dominion, who, with all their faults, kept strictly\northodox and monotheistic, but the Jews who, under the name of\nJehovah-Nissi, worshipped Bacchus-Osiris, Dio-Nysos, the multiform\nJove of Nyssa, the Sinai of Moses. The kabalistic demons--allegories\nof the profoundest meaning--were adopted as objective entities, and a\nSatanic hierarchy carefully drawn by the orthodox demonologists.\n\nThe Rosicrucian motto, \u201c_Igne natura renovatur integra_,\u201d which\nthe alchemists interpret as nature renovated by fire, or matter by\nspirit, is made to be accepted to this day as _Iesus Nazarenus rex\nIud\u00e6orum_. The mocking satire of Pilate is accepted literally, and\nthe Jews made to unwittingly confess thereby the royalty of Christ;\nwhereas, if the inscription is not a forgery of the Constantinian\nperiod, it yet is the action of Pilate, against which the Jews were\nfirst to violently protest. I. H. S. is interpreted _Iesus Hominum\nSalvator_, and _In hoc signo_, whereas \u0399\u0397\u03a3 is one of the most ancient\nnames of Bacchus. And more than ever do we begin to find out, by the\nbright light of comparative theology, that the great object of Jesus,\nthe initiate of the inner sanctuary, was to open the eyes of the\nfanatical multitude to the difference between the highest\nDivinity--the mysterious and never-mentioned \u0399\u0391\u039f of the ancient\nChaldean and later Neo-platonic initiates--and the Hebrew Yahuh, or\nYaho (Jehovah). The modern Rosicrucians, so violently denounced by the\nCatholics, now find brought against them, as the most important\ncharge, the fact that they accuse Christ of having destroyed the\nworship of Jehovah. Would to Heaven he could have been allowed the\ntime to do so, for the world would not have found itself still\nbewildered, after nineteen centuries of mutual massacres, among 300\nquarrelling sects, and with a personal Devil reigning over a\nterrorized Christendom!\n\nTrue to the exclamation of David, paraphrased in _King James\u2019\nVersion_ as \u201call the gods of the nations are idols,\u201d _i.e._, devils,\nBacchus or the \u201cfirst-born\u201d or the Orphic theogony, the Monogenes, or\n\u201conly-begotten\u201d of Father Zeus and Kor\u00e9, was transformed, with the\nrest of the ancient myths, into a devil. By such a degradation, the\nFathers, whose pious zeal could only be surpassed by their ignorance,\nhave unwittingly furnished evidence against themselves. They have,\nwith their own hands, paved the way for many a future solution, and\ngreatly helped modern students of the science of religions.\n\nIt was in the Bacchus-myth that lay concealed for long and dreary\ncenturies both the future vindication of the reviled \u201cgods of the\nnations,\u201d and the last clew to the enigma of Jehovah. The strange\nduality of Divine and mortal characteristics, so conspicuous in the\nSinaitic Deity, begins to yield its mystery before the untiring\ninquiry of the age. One of the latest contributions we find in a\nshort but highly-important paper in the _Evolution_, a periodical of\nNew York, the closing paragraph of which throws a flood of light on\nBacchus, the Jove of Nysa, who was worshipped by the Israelites as\nJehovah of Sinai.\n\n\u201cSuch was the Jove of Nysa to his worshippers,\u201d concludes the author.\n\u201cHe represented to them alike the world of nature and the world\nof thought. He was the \u2018Sun of righteousness, with healing on his\nwings,\u2019 and he not only brought joy to mortals, but opened to them\nhope beyond mortality of immortal life. Born of a human mother,\nhe raised her from the world of death to the supernal air, to be\nrevered and worshipped. At once lord of all worlds, he was in them\nall alike the Saviour.\n\n\u201cSuch was Bacchus, the prophet-god. A change of cultus, decreed by\nthe Murderer-Imperial, the Emperor Theodosius, at the instance of\nGhostly-Father Ambrosius, of Milan, has changed his title to Father\nof Lies. His worship, before universal, was denominated Pagan or\n_local_, and his rites stigmatized as witchcraft. His orgies received\nthe name of _Witches\u2019 Sabbath_, and his favorite symbolical form\nwith the bovine foot became the modern representative of the Devil\nwith the cloven hoof. The master of the house having been called\nBeelzebub, they of his household were alike denounced as having\ncommerce with the powers of darkness. Crusades were undertaken; whole\npeoples massacred. Knowledge and the higher learning were denounced\nas magic and sorcery. Ignorance became the mother of devotion--such\nas was then cherished. Galileo languished long years in prison for\nteaching that the sun was in the centre of the solar universe.\nBruno was burned alive at Rome in 1600 for reviving the ancient\nphilosophy; yet, queerly enough, the Liberalia have become a festival\nof the Church,[1036] Bacchus is a saint in the calendar four times\nrepeated, and at many a shrine he may be seen reposing in the arms\nof his deified mother. The names are changed; the ideas remain as\nbefore.\u201d[1037]\n\nAnd now that we have shown that we must indeed \u201cbid an eternal\nfarewell to all the rebellious angels,\u201d we naturally pass to an\nexamination of the God Jesus, who was manufactured out of the man\nJesus to redeem us from these very mythical devils, as Father\nVentura shows us. This labor will of course necessitate once more a\ncomparative inquiry into the history of Gautama-Buddha, his doctrines\nand his \u201cmiracles,\u201d and those of Jesus and the predecessor of\nboth--Christna.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XI.\n\n \u201cNot to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one\u2019s\n mind, that is the teaching of the Awakened....\n\n \u201cBetter than Sovereignty over the earth, better than going\n to heaven, better than lordship over all the worlds is\n the reward of the first step in holiness.\u201d--_Dhammapada_,\n verses 178-183.\n\n\n Creator, where are these tribunals, where do these courts\n proceed, where do these courts assemble, where do the\n tribunals meet to which the man of the embodied world gives\n an account for his soul?--_Persian Vendidad_, xix. 89.\n\n\n Hail to thee O Man, who art come from the transitory place\n to the imperishable!--_Vendidad_, farg. vii., 136.\n\n\n To the true believer, truth, wherever it appears, is\n welcome, nor will any doctrine seem the less true or the\n less precious, because it was seen not only by Moses or\n Christ, but likewise by Buddha or Lao-tse.--MAX M\u00dcLLER.\n\n\nUnluckily for those who would have been glad to render justice to\nthe ancient and modern religious philosophies of the Orient, a fair\nopportunity has hardly ever been given to them. Of late there has\nbeen a touching accord between philologists holding high official\npositions, and missionaries from heathen lands. Prudence before\ntruth when the latter endangers our sinecures! Besides, how easy to\ncompromise with conscience. A State religion is a prop of government;\nall State religions are \u201cexploded humbugs\u201d; therefore, since one is\nas good, or rather as bad, as another, _the_ State religion may as\nwell be supported. Such is the diplomacy of official science.\n\nGrote in his _History of Greece_, assimilates the Pythagoreans to\nthe Jesuits, and sees in their Brotherhood but an ably-disguised\nobject to acquire political ascendancy. On the loose testimony of\nHerakleitus and some other writers, who accused Pythagoras of craft,\nand described him as a man \u201cof extensive research... but artful\nfor mischief and destitute of sound judgment,\u201d some historical\nbiographers hastened to present him to posterity in such a character.\n\nHow then if they must accept the Pythagoras painted by the satirical\nTimon: \u201ca juggler of solemn speech engaged in fishing for men,\u201d can\nthey avoid judging of Jesus from the sketch that Celsus has embalmed\nin his satire? Historical impartiality has nought to do with creeds\nand personal beliefs, and exacts as much of posterity for one as\nfor the other. The life and doings of Jesus are far less attested\nthan those of Pythagoras, if, indeed, we can say that they are\nattested at all by any _historical_ proof. For assuredly no one\nwill gainsay that as a real personage Celsus has the advantage as\nregards the credibility of his testimony over Matthew, or Mark, or\nLuke, or John, who never wrote a line of the _Gospels_ attributed to\nthem respectively. Withal Celsus is at least as good a witness as\nHerakleitus. He was known as a scholar and a Neo-platonist to some\nof the Fathers; whereas the very existence of the four Apostles must\nbe taken on blind faith. If Timon regarded the sublime Samian as \u201ca\njuggler,\u201d so did Celsus hold Jesus, or rather those who made all the\npretenses for him. In his famous work, addressing the Nazarene, he\nsays: \u201cLet us grant that the wonders were performed by you ... but\nare they not common with those who have been taught by the Egyptians\nto perform in the middle of the forum for a few oboli.\u201d And we know,\non the authority of the _Gospel according to Matthew_, that the\nGalilean prophet was also a man of solemn speech, and that he called\nhimself and offered to make his disciples \u201cfishers of men.\u201d\n\nLet it not be imagined that we bring this reproach to any who revere\nJesus as God. Whatever the faith, if the worshipper be but sincere,\nit should be respected in his presence. If we do not accept Jesus as\nGod, we revere _him as a man_. Such a feeling honors him more than\nif we were to attribute to him the powers and personality of the\nSupreme, and credit him at the same time with having played a useless\ncomedy with mankind, as, after all, his mission proves scarcely less\nthan a complete failure; 2,000 years have passed, and Christians do\nnot reckon one-fifth part of the population of the globe, nor is\nChristianity likely to progress any better in the future. No, we aim\nbut at strict justice, leaving all personality aside. We question\nthose who, adoring neither Jesus, Pythagoras, nor Apollonius, yet\nrecite the idle gossip of their contemporaries; those who in their\nbooks either maintain a prudent silence, or speak of \u201cour Saviour\u201d\nand \u201cour Lord,\u201d as though they believed any more in the made-up\ntheological Christ, than in the fabulous Fo of China.\n\n_There were no Atheists in those days of old; no disbelievers or\nmaterialists, in the modern sense of the word, as there were no\nbigoted detractors._ He who judges the ancient philosophies by their\nexternal phraseology, and quotes from ancient writings sentences\n_seemingly_ atheistical, is unfit to be trusted as a critic, for he\nis unable to penetrate into the inner sense of their metaphysics.\nThe views of Pyrrho, whose rationalism has become proverbial, can be\ninterpreted only by the light of the oldest Hindu philosophy. From\nManu down to the latest Sw\u00e2bh\u00e2vika, its leading metaphysical feature\never was to proclaim the reality and supremacy of spirit, with a\nvehemence proportionate to the denial of the objective existence of\nour material world--passing phantom of temporary forms and beings.\nThe numerous schools begotten by Kapila, reflect his philosophy no\nclearer than the doctrines left as a legacy to thinkers by Timon,\nPyrrho\u2019s \u201cProphet,\u201d as Sextus Empiricus calls him. His views on the\ndivine repose of the soul, his proud indifference to the opinion\nof his fellow men, his contempt for sophistry, reflect in an equal\ndegree stray beams of the self-contemplation of the Gymnosophists\nand of the Buddhist _Vaibh\u00e2shika_. Notwithstanding that he and\nhis followers are termed, from their state of constant suspense,\n\u201cskeptics,\u201d \u201cdoubters,\u201d inquirers, and ephectics, only because they\npostponed their final judgment on dilemmas, with which our modern\nphilosophers prefer dealing, Alexander-like, by cutting the Gordian\nknot, and then declaring the dilemma a superstition, such men as\nPyrrho cannot be pronounced atheists. No more can Kapila, or Giordano\nBruno, or again Spinoza, who were also treated as atheists; nor yet,\nthe great Hindu poet, philosopher, and dialectician, Veda-Vyasa,\nwhose principle that all is illusion--save the Great Unknown and His\ndirect essence--Pyrrho has adopted in full.\n\nThese philosophical beliefs extended like a net-work over the\nwhole pre-Christian world; and, surviving persecution and\nmisrepresentations, form the corner-stone of every now existing\nreligion outside Christianity.\n\nComparative theology is a two-edged weapon, and has so proved itself.\nBut the Christian advocates, unabashed by evidence, force comparison\nin the serenest way; Christian legends and dogmas, they say, do\nsomewhat resemble the heathen, it is true; but see, while the one\nteaches us the existence, powers, and attributes of an all-wise,\nall-good Father-God, Brahmanism gives us a multitude of minor gods,\nand Buddhism none whatever; one is fetishism and polytheism, the\nother bald atheism. Jehovah is the one true God, and the Pope and\nMartin Luther are His prophets! This is one edge of the sword, and\nthis the other: Despite missions, despite armies, despite enforced\ncommercial intercourse, the \u201cheathen\u201d find nothing in the teachings\nof Jesus--sublime though some are--that Christna and Gautama had not\ntaught them before. And so, to gain over any new converts, and keep\nthe few already won by centuries of cunning, the Christians give\nthe \u201cheathen\u201d dogmas more absurd than their own, and cheat them by\nadopting the habit of their native priests, and practicing the very\n\u201cidolatry and fetishism\u201d which they so disparage in the \u201cheathens.\u201d\nComparative theology works both ways.\n\nIn Siam and Burmah, Catholic missionaries have become perfect\nTalapoins to all external appearance, _i.e._, minus their virtues;\nand throughout India, especially in the south, they were denounced\nby their own colleague, the Abb\u00e9 Dubois.[1038] This was afterward\nvehemently denied. But now we have living witnesses to the\ncorrectness of the charge. Among others, Captain O\u2019Grady, already\nquoted, a native of Madras, writes the following on this systematic\nmethod of deception:[1039] \u201cThe hypocritical beggars profess\ntotal abstinence and horror of flesh to conciliate converts from\nHinduism.... I got one father, or rather, he got himself gloriously\ndrunk in my house, time and again, and the way he pitched into\nroast beef was a caution.\u201d Further, the author has pretty stories\nto tell of \u201cblack-faced Christs,\u201d \u201cVirgins on wheels,\u201d and of\nCatholic processions in general. We have seen such solemn ceremonies\naccompanied by the most infernal cacophony of a Cingalese orchestra,\ntam-tam and gongs included, followed by a like Brahmanic procession,\nwhich, for its picturesque coloring and _mise en sc\u00e8ne_, looked far\nmore solemn and imposing than the Christian saturnalias. Speaking\nof one of these, the same author remarks: \u201cIt was more devilish\nthan religious.... The bishops walked off Romeward,[1040] with a\nmighty pile of Peter\u2019s pence gathered in the minutest sums, with\ngold ornaments, nose-rings, anklets, elbow bangles, etc., etc., in\nprofusion, recklessly thrown in heaps at the feet of the grotesque\ncopper-colored image of the Saviour, with its Dutch metal halo and\ngaudily-striped cummerbund and--shade of Raphael!--blue turban.\u201d[1041]\n\nAs every one can see, such voluntary contributions make it quite\nprofitable to mimic the native Brahmans and bonzes. Between the\nworshippers of Christna and Christ, or Avany and the Virgin Mary,\nthere is less substantial difference, in fact, than between the two\nnative sects, the Vishnavites and the Sivites. For the _converted_\nHindus, Christ is a slightly modified Christna, that is all.\nMissionaries carry away rich donations and Rome is satisfied. Then\ncomes a year of famine; but the nose-rings and gold elbow-bangles are\ngone and people starve by thousands. What matters it? They die in\nChrist, and Rome scatters her blessings over their corpses, of which\nthousands float yearly down the sacred rivers to the ocean.[1042] So\nservile are the Catholics in their imitation, and so careful not to\ngive offense to their parishioners, that if they happen to have a few\nhigher caste converts in a Church, no pariah nor any man of the lower\ncastes, however good a Christian he may be, can be admitted into the\nsame Church with them. And yet they dare call themselves the servants\nof Him who sought in preference the society of the publicans and\nsinners; and whose appeal--\u201cCome unto me all ye that are heavy laden,\nand I will give you rest\u201d has opened to him the hearts of millions of\nthe suffering and the oppressed!\n\nFew writers are as bold and outspoken as the late lamented Dr. Thomas\nInman, of Liverpool, England. But however small their number, these\nmen all agree unanimously, that the philosophy of both Buddhism\nand Brahmanism must rank higher than Christian theology, and teach\nneither atheism or fetishism. \u201cTo my own mind,\u201d says Inman, \u201cthe\nassertion that Sakya did not believe in God is wholly unsupported.\nNay, his whole scheme is built upon the belief that there are powers\nabove which are capable of punishing mankind for their sins. It is\ntrue that these gods were not called Elohim, nor Jah, nor Jehovah,\nnor Jahveh, nor Adonai, nor Ehieh, nor Baalim, nor Ashtoreth--yet,\nfor the son of Suddhadana, there was a Supreme Being.\u201d[1043]\n\nThere are four schools of Buddhist theology, in Ceylon, Thibet, and\nIndia. One is rather pantheistical than atheistical, but the other\nthree are purely _theistical_.\n\nOn the first the speculations of our philologists are based. As to\nthe second, third, and the fourth, their teachings vary but in the\nexternal mode of expression. We have fully explained the spirit of it\nelsewhere.\n\nAs to practical, not theoretical views on the Nirvana, this is what\na rationalist and a skeptic says: \u201cI have questioned at the very\ndoors of their temples several hundreds of Buddhists, and have not\nfound one but strove, fasted, and gave himself up to every kind of\nausterity, to perfect himself and acquire immortality; not to attain\nfinal annihilation.\n\n\u201cThere are over 300,000,000 of Buddhists who fast, pray, and toil....\nWhy make of these 300,000,000 of men idiots and fools, macerating\ntheir bodies and imposing upon themselves most fearful privations\nof every nature, in order to reach a fatal annihilation which must\novertake them anyhow?\u201d[1044]\n\nAs well as this author we have questioned Buddhists and Brahmanists\nand studied their philosophy. _Apavarg_ has wholly a different\nmeaning from annihilation. It is but to become more and more\nlike Him, of whom he is one of the refulgent sparks, that is the\naspiration of every Hindu philosopher and the hope of the most\nignorant is _never to yield up his distinct individuality_. \u201cElse,\u201d\nas once remarked an esteemed correspondent of the author, \u201cmundane\nand separate existence would look like God\u2019s comedy and our tragedy;\nsport to Him that we work and suffer, death to us to suffer it.\u201d\n\nThe same with the doctrine of metempsychosis, so distorted by\nEuropean scholars. But as the work of translation and analysis\nprogresses, fresh religious beauties will be discovered in the old\nfaiths.\n\nProfessor Whitney has in his translation of the _Vedas_ passages in\nwhich he says, the assumed importance of the body to its old tenant\nis brought out in the strongest light. These are portions of hymns\nread at the funeral services, over the body of the departed one. We\nquote them from Mr. Whitney\u2019s scholarly work:\n\n \u201cStart onward! bring together all thy members;\n let not thy limbs be left, nor yet thy body;\n Thy spirit gone before, now follow after;\n Wherever it delights thee, go thou thither.\u201d\n * * * * *\n Collect thy body; with its every member;\n thy limbs with help of rites I fashion for thee.\n * * * * *\n If some one limb was left behind by Agni,\n When to thy Fathers\u2019 world he hence conveyed you,\n That very one I now again supply you;\n rejoice in heaven with all your limbs, ye Fathers![1045]\n\nThe \u201cbody\u201d here referred to is not the physical, but the _astral_\none--a very great distinction, as may be seen.\n\nAgain, belief in the individual existence of the immortal spirit\nof man is shown in the following verses of the Hindu ceremonial of\nincremation and burial.\n\n \u201cThey who within the sphere of earth are stationed,\n or who are settled now in realms of pleasure,\n The Fathers who have the earth--the atmosphere--the heaven for\n their seat,\n The \u201cfore-heaven\u201d the third heaven is styled,\n and where the Fathers have their seat.\u201d--(_Rig-Veda_, x.)\n\nWith such majestic views as these people held of God and the\nimmortality of man\u2019s spirit, it is not surprising that a comparison\nbetween the Vedic hymns and the narrow, unspiritual Mosaic books\nshould result to the advantage of the former in the mind of every\nunprejudiced scholar. Even the ethical code of _Manu_ is incomparably\nhigher than that of the _Pentateuch_ of Moses, in the literal meaning\nof which all the uninitiated scholars of two worlds cannot find a\nsingle proof that the ancient Jews believed either in a future life\nor an immortal spirit in man, or that Moses himself ever taught it.\nYet, we have eminent Orientalists who begin to suspect that the \u201cdead\nletter\u201d conceals something not apparent at first sight. So Professor\nWhitney tells us that \u201cas we look yet further into the forms of\nthe modern Hindu ceremonial we discover not a little of the same\ndiscordance between creed and observance; the one is not explained by\nthe other,\u201d says this great American scholar. He adds: \u201cWe are forced\nto the conclusion either that India derived its system of rites from\nsome foreign source, and practiced them blindly, careless of their\ntrue import, or _else that those rites are the production of another\ndoctrine of older date_, and have maintained themselves in popular\nusage after the decay of the creed of which they were the original\nexpression.\u201d[1046]\n\nThis creed has not decayed, and its hidden philosophy, as understood\nnow by the initiated Hindus, is just as it was 10,000 years ago. But\ncan our scholars seriously hope to have it delivered unto them upon\ntheir first demand? Or do they still expect to fathom the mysteries\nof the World-Religion in its popular exoteric rites?\n\nNo orthodox Brahmans and Buddhists would deny the Christian\nincarnation; only, they understand it in their own philosophical\nway, and how could they deny it? The very corner-stone of their\nreligious system is periodical incarnations of the Deity. Whenever\nhumanity is about merging into materialism and moral degradation, a\nSupreme Spirit incarnates himself in his creature selected for the\npurpose. The \u201cMessenger of the Highest\u201d links itself with the duality\nof matter and soul, and the triad being thus completed by the union\nof its Crown, a saviour is born, who helps restore humanity to the\npath of truth and virtue. The early Christian Church, all imbued\nwith Asiatic philosophy, evidently shared the same belief--otherwise\n_it would have neither erected into an article of faith the second\nadvent, nor cunningly invented the fable of Anti-Christ as a\nprecaution against possible future incarnations_. Neither could they\nhave imagined that Melchisedek was an avatar of Christ. They had only\nto turn to the _Bagavedgitta_ to find Christna or Bhagaved saying to\nArjuna: \u201cHe who follows me is saved by wisdom and even by works....\n_As often as virtue declines in the world, I make myself manifest to\nsave it._\u201d\n\nIndeed, it is more than difficult to avoid sharing this doctrine\nof periodical incarnations. Has not the world witnessed, at rare\nintervals, the advent of such grand characters as Christna,\nSakya-muni, and Jesus? Like the two latter personages, Christna\nseems to have been a real being, deified by his school at some\ntime in the twilight of history, and made to fit into the frame of\nthe time-honored religious programme. Compare the two Redeemers,\nthe Hindu and the Christian, the one preceding the other by some\nthousands of years; place between them Siddh\u00e2rtha Buddha, reflecting\nChristna and projecting into the night of the future his own luminous\nshadow, out of whose collected rays were shaped the outlines of the\nmythical Jesus, and from whose teachings were drawn those of the\nhistorical Christos; and we find that under one identical garment\nof poetical legend lived and breathed three real human figures. The\nindividual merit of each of them is rather brought out in stronger\nrelief than otherwise by this same mythical coloring; for no unworthy\ncharacter could have been selected for deification by the popular\ninstinct, so unerring and just when left untrammeled. _Vox populi,\nvox Dei_ was once true, however erroneous when applied to the present\npriest-ridden mob.\n\nKapila, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Basilides, Marcian, Ammonius\nand Plotinus, founded schools and sowed the germs of many a noble\nthought, and disappearing left behind them the refulgence of\ndemi-gods. But the three personalities of Christna, Gautama, and\nJesus appeared like true gods, each in his epoch, and bequeathed to\nhumanity three religions built on the imperishable rock of ages.\nThat all three, especially the Christian faith, have in time become\nadulterated, and the latter almost unrecognizable, is no fault\nof either of the noble Reformers. It is the priestly self-styled\nhusbandmen of the \u201cvine of the Lord\u201d who must be held to account by\nfuture generations. Purify the three systems of the dross of human\ndogmas, the pure essence remaining will be found identical. Even\nPaul, the great, the honest apostle, in the glow of his enthusiasm\neither unwittingly perverted the doctrines of Jesus, or else his\nwritings are disfigured beyond recognition. The _Talmud_, the record\nof a people who, notwithstanding his apostasy from Judaism, yet\nfeel compelled to acknowledge Paul\u2019s greatness as a philosopher and\nreligionist, says of Aher (Paul),[1047] in the _Yerushalmi_, that\n\u201che corrupted the work of that man\u201d--meaning Jesus.[1048]\n\nMeanwhile, before this smelting is completed by honest science and\nfuture generations, let us glance at the present aspect of the\nlegendary three religions.\n\n\n THE LEGENDS OF THREE SAVIOURS.\n\n CHRISTNA.\n\n _Epoch_: Uncertain. European science fears to commit itself.\n But the Brahmanical calculations fix it at about 6,877\n years ago.\n\n Christna descends of a royal family, but is brought up by\n shepherds; is called the _Shepherd God_. His birth and\n divine descent are kept secret from Kansa.\n\n An incarnation of Vishnu, the second person of the Trimurti\n (Trinity), Christna was worshipped at Mathura, on the\n river Jumna (See _Strabo_ and _Arrian_ and _Bampton\n Lectures_, pp. 98-100.\n\n Christna is persecuted by Kansa, Tyrant of Madura, but\n miraculously escapes. In the hope of destroying the child,\n the king has thousands of male innocents slaughtered.\n\n Christna\u2019s mother was Devaki, or Devanagui, an immaculate\n virgin (but had given birth to eight sons before Christna).\n\n Christna is endowed with beauty, omniscience, and\n omnipotence from birth. Produces miracles, cures the lame\n and blind, and casts out demons. Washes the feet of the\n Brahmans, and descending to the lowest regions (hell),\n liberates the dead, and returns to _Vaicontha_--the\n paradise of Vishnu. Christna was the God Vishnu himself in\n human form.\n\n Christna creates boys out of calves, and _vice versa_\n (Maurice\u2019s _Indian Antiquities_, vol. ii., p. 332). He\n crushes the Serpent\u2019s head. (Ibid.)\n\n Christna is Unitarian. He persecutes the clergy, charges\n them with ambition and hypocrisy to their faces, divulges\n the great secrets of the Sanctuary--the Unity of God and\n immortality of our spirit. Tradition says he fell a victim\n to their vengeance. His favorite disciple, Arjuna, never\n deserts him to the last. There are credible traditions\n that he died on the cross (a tree), nailed to it by an\n arrow. The best scholars agree that the Irish Cross at\n Tuam, erected long before the Christian era, is Asiatic.\n (See _Round Towers_, p. 296, _et seq._, by O\u2019Brien; also\n _Religions de l\u2019Antiquit\u00e9_; Creuzer\u2019s _Symbolik_, vol. i.,\n p. 208; and engraving in Dr. Lundy\u2019s _Monumental\n Christianity_, p. 160.\n\n Christna ascends to Swarga and becomes Nirguna.\n\n\n GAUTAMA-BUDDHA.\n\n _Epoch_: According to European science and the Ceylonese\n calculations, 2,540 years ago.\n\n Gautama is the son of a king. His first disciples are\n shepherds and mendicants.\n\n According to some, an incarnation of Vishnu; according to\n others, an incarnation of one of the Buddhas, and even of\n Ad\u2019Buddha, the Highest Wisdom.\n\n Buddhist legends are free from this plagiarism, but the\n Catholic legend that makes of him St. Josaphat, shows his\n father, king of Kapilavastu, slaying innocent young\n _Christians (!!)_. (See _Golden Legend_.)\n\n Buddha\u2019s mother was Maya, or Mayadeva; married to her\n husband (yet an immaculate virgin).\n\n Buddha is endowed with the same powers and qualities, and\n performs similar wonders. Passes his life with mendicants.\n It is claimed for Gautama that he was distinct from all\n other Avatars, having the entire spirit of Buddha in him,\n while all others had but a part (ansa) of the divinity in\n them.\n\n Gautama crushes the Serpent\u2019s head, _i.e._, abolishes the\n Naga worship as fetishism; but, like Jesus, makes the\n Serpent the emblem of divine wisdom.\n\n Buddha abolishes idolatry; divulges the Mysteries of the\n Unity of God and the Nirvana, the true meaning of which\n was previously known only to the priests. Persecuted and\n driven out of the country, he escapes death by gathering\n about him some hundreds of thousands of believers in his\n Buddhaship. Finally, dies, surrounded by a host of\n disciples, with Ananda, his beloved disciple and cousin,\n chief among them all. O\u2019Brien believes that the Irish\n Cross at Tuam is meant for Buddha\u2019s, but Gautama was never\n crucified. He is represented in many temples, as sitting\n under a cruciform tree, which is the \u201cTree of Life.\u201d In\n another image he is sitting on Naga the Raja of Serpents\n with a cross on his breast.[1049]\n\n Buddha ascends to Nirvana.\n\n\n JESUS OF NAZARETH.\n\n _Epoch_: Supposed to be 1877 years ago. His birth and royal\n descent are concealed from Herod the tyrant.\n\n Descends of the Royal family of David. Is worshipped by\n shepherds at his birth, and is called the \u201cGood Shepherd\u201d.\n (See _Gospel according to John_).\n\n An incarnation of the Holy Ghost, then the second person of\n the Trinity, now the third. But the Trinity was not invented\n until 325 years after his birth. Went to Mathura or Matarea,\n Egypt, and produced his first miracles there. (See _Gospel\n of Infancy_).\n\n Jesus is persecuted by Herod, King of Jud\u00e6a, but escapes\n into Egypt under conduct of an angel. To assure his\n slaughter, Herod orders a massacre of innocents, and 40,000\n were slain.\n\n Jesus\u2019 mother was Mariam, or Miriam; married to her husband,\n yet an immaculate virgin, but had several children besides\n Jesus. (See _Matthew_ xiii. 55, 56.)\n\n Jesus is similarly endowed. (See _Gospels and the Apocryphal\n Testament_.) Passes his life with sinners and publicans.\n Casts out demons likewise. The only notable difference\n between the three is that Jesus is charged with casting out\n devils by the power of Beelzebub, which the others were not.\n Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, dies, descends to\n hell, and ascends to heaven, after liberating the dead.\n\n Jesus is said to have crushed the Serpent\u2019s head, agreeably\n to original revelation in _Genesis_. He also transforms boys\n into kids, and kids into boys. (_Gospel of Infancy_.)\n\n Jesus rebels against the old Jewish law; denounces the\n Scribes, and Pharisees, and the synagogue for hypocrisy and\n dogmatic intolerance. Breaks the Sabbath, and defies the\n Law. Is accused by the Jews of divulging the secrets of the\n Sanctuary. Is put to death on a cross (a tree). Of the\n little handful of disciples whom he had converted, one\n betrays him, one denies him, and the others desert him at\n the last, except John--the disciple _he loved_. Jesus,\n Christna, and Buddha, all three Saviours, die either on or\n under _trees_, and are connected with crosses which are\n symbolical of the three-fold powers of creation.\n\n Jesus ascends to Paradise.\n\n\n RESULT.\n\nAbout the middle of the present century, the followers of these three\nreligions were reckoned as follows:[1050]\n\n OF CHRISTNA.\n Brahmans, 60,000,000.\n\n OF BUDDHA.\n Buddhists, 450,000,000.\n\n OF JESUS.\n Christians, 260,000,000.\n\nSuch is the present aspect of these three great religions, of which\neach is in turn reflected in its successor. Had the Christian\ndogmatizers stopped there, the results would not have been so\ndisastrous, for it would be hard, indeed, to make a bad creed out of\nthe lofty teachings of Gautama, or Christna, as _Bhagaved_. But they\nwent farther, and added to pure primitive Christianity the fables of\nHercules, Orpheus, and Bacchus. As Mussulmans will not admit that\ntheir _Koran_ is built on the substratum of the Jewish _Bible_, so\nthe Christians will not confess that they owe next to everything\nto the Hindu religions. But the Hindus have chronology to prove it\nto them. We see the best and most learned of our writers uselessly\nstriving to show that the extraordinary similarities--amounting\nto identity--between Christna and Christ are due to the spurious\n_Gospels of the Infancy_ and of _St. Thomas_ having \u201cprobably\ncirculated on the coast of Malabar, and giving color to the story\nof Christna.\u201d[1051] Why not accept truth in all sincerity, and\nreversing matters, admit that St. Thomas, faithful to that policy of\nproselytism which marked the earliest Christians, when he found in\nMalabar the original of the mythical Christ in Christna, tried to\nblend the two; and, adopting in his gospel (from which all others\nwere copied) the most important details of the story of the Hindu\nAvatar, engrafted the Christian heresy on the primitive religion of\nChristna. For any one acquainted with the spirit of Brahmanism, the\nidea of Brahmans accepting anything from a stranger, especially from\na foreigner, is simply ridiculous. That they, the most fanatic people\nin religious matters, who, during centuries, cannot be compelled to\nadopt the most simple of European usages, should be suspected of\nhaving introduced into their sacred books unverified legends about\na foreign God, is something so preposterously illogical, that it is\nreally waste of time to contradict the idea!\n\nWe will not stop to examine the too well-known resemblances between\nthe external form of Buddhistic worship--especially Lamaism--and\nRoman Catholicism, for noticing which poor Huc paid dear--but proceed\nto compare the most vital points. Of all the original manuscripts\nthat have been translated from the various languages in which\nBuddhism is expounded, the most extraordinary and interesting are\n_Buddha\u2019s Dhammapada_, or _Path of Virtue_, translated from the P\u00e2li\nby Colonel Rogers,[1052] and the _Wheel of the Law_, containing the\nviews of a Siamese Minister of State on his own and other religions,\nand translated by Henry Alabaster.[1053] The reading of these two\nbooks, and the discovery in them of similarities of thought and\ndoctrine often amounting to identity, prompted Dr. Inman to write\nthe many profoundly true passages embodied in one of his last works,\n_Ancient Faith and Modern_.[1054] \u201cI speak with sober earnestness,\u201d\nwrites this kind-hearted, sincere scholar, \u201cwhen I say that after\nforty years\u2019 experience among those who profess Christianity, and\nthose who proclaim ... more or less quietly their disagreement with\nit, I have noticed more sterling virtue and morality amongst the\nlast than the first.... I know personally many pious, good Christian\npeople, whom I honor, admire, and, perhaps, would be glad to emulate\nor to equal; but they deserve the eulogy thus passed on them, in\nconsequence of their good sense, having ignored the doctrine of\nfaith to a great degree, and having cultivated the practice of good\nworks.... In my judgment the most praiseworthy Christians whom I know\nare _modified Buddhists_, though probably, not one of them ever heard\nof Sidd\u00e2rtha.\u201d[1055]\n\nBetween the Lamaico-Buddhistic and Roman Catholic articles of faith\nand ceremonies, there are fifty-one points presenting a perfect and\nstriking similarity; and four diametrically antagonistic.\n\nAs it would be useless to enumerate the \u201csimilarities,\u201d for the\nreader may find them carefully noted in Inman\u2019s work on _Ancient\nFaith and Modern_, pp. 237-240, we will quote but the four\ndissimilarities, and leave every one to draw his own deductions\ntherefrom:\n\n 1. \u201cThe Buddhists hold that 1. \u201cThe Christians will\n nothing which is contradicted accept any nonsense, if\n by sound reason can be a promulgated by the Church as\n true doctrine of Buddha.\u201d a matter of faith.\u201d[1056]\n\n 2. \u201cThe Buddhists do not 2. \u201cThe Romanists adore the\n adore the mother of Sakya,\u201d mother of Jesus, and prayer\n though they honor her as a is made to her for aid and\n holy and saint-like woman, intercession.\u201d The worship\n chosen to be his mother of the Virgin has weakened\n through her great virtue. that of Christ and thrown\n entirely into the shadow\n that of the Almighty.\n\n 3. \u201cThe Buddhists have no 3. \u201cThe papal followers have\n sacraments.\u201d seven.\u201d\n\n 4. The Buddhists do not 4. The Christians are\n believe in any pardon for promised that if they only\n their sins, except after an believe in the \u201cprecious\n adequate punishment for each blood of Christ,\u201d this blood\n evil deed, and a offered by Him for the\n proportionate compensation expiation of the sins of the\n to the parties injured. whole of mankind (read\n Christians) will atone for\n every mortal sin.\n\nWhich of these theologies most commends itself to the sincere\ninquirer, is a question that may safely be left to the sound judgment\nof the reader. One offers light, the other darkness.\n\nThe _Wheel of the Law_ has the following:\n\n\u201cBuddhists believe that every act, word, or thought has its\nconsequence, which will appear sooner or later in the present or in\nthe future state. Evil acts will produce evil consequences,[1057]\ngood acts will produce good consequences: prosperity in this world,\nor birth in heaven ... in some future state.\u201d[1058]\n\nThis is strict and impartial justice. This is the idea of a Supreme\nPower which cannot fail, and therefore, can have neither wrath nor\nmercy, but leaves every cause, great or small, to work out its\ninevitable effects. \u201cWith what measure you mete, it shall be measured\nto you again\u201d[1059] neither by expression nor implication points to\nany hope of future mercy or salvation by proxy. Cruelty and mercy\nare finite feelings. The Supreme Deity is infinite, hence it can\nonly be JUST, and Justice must be blind. The ancient Pagans held on\nthis question far more philosophical views than modern Christians,\nfor they represented their Themis blindfold. And the Siamese author\nof the work under notice, has again a more reverent conception of\nthe Deity than the Christians have, when he thus gives vent to his\nthought: \u201cA Buddhist might believe in the existence of a God, sublime\nabove all human qualities and attributes--a perfect God, above\nlove, and hatred, and jealousy, calmly resting in a quiet happiness\nthat nothing could disturb; and of such a God he would speak no\ndisparagement, not from a desire to please Him, or fear to offend\nHim, but from natural veneration. But he cannot understand a God with\nthe attributes and qualities of men, a God who loves and hates, and\nshows anger; a Deity, who, whether described to him by Christian\nmissionaries, or by Mahometans, or Brahmans, or Jews, falls below his\nstandard of even an ordinary good man.\u201d[1060]\n\nWe have often wondered at the extraordinary ideas of God and His\njustice that seem to be honestly held by those Christians who blindly\nrely upon the clergy for their religion, and never upon their own\nreason. How strangely illogical is this doctrine of the Atonement.\nWe propose to discuss it with the Christians from the Buddhistic\nstand-point, and show at once by what a series of sophistries,\ndirected toward the one object of tightening the ecclesiastical yoke\nupon the popular neck, its acceptance as a divine command has been\nfinally effected; also, that it has proved one of the most pernicious\nand demoralizing of doctrines.\n\nThe clergy say: no matter how enormous our crimes against the laws\nof God and of man, we have but to believe in the self-sacrifice of\nJesus for the salvation of mankind, and His blood will wash out every\nstain. God\u2019s mercy is boundless and unfathomable. It is impossible\nto conceive of a human sin so damnable that the price paid in\nadvance for the redemption of the sinner would not wipe it out if a\nthousandfold worse. And, furthermore, it is never too late to repent.\nThough the offender wait until the last minute of the last hour of\nthe last day of his mortal life, before his blanched lips utter the\nconfession of faith, he may go to Paradise; the dying thief did it,\nand so may all others as vile. These are the assumptions of the\nChurch.\n\nBut if we step outside the little circle of creed and consider\nthe universe as a whole balanced by the exquisite adjustment of\nparts, how all sound logic, how the faintest glimmering sense of\nJustice revolts against this Vicarious Atonement! If the criminal\nsinned only against himself, and wronged no one but himself; if by\nsincere repentance he could cause the obliteration of past events,\nnot only from the memory of man, but also from that imperishable\nrecord, which no deity--not even the Supremest of the Supreme--can\ncause to disappear, then this dogma might not be incomprehensible.\nBut to maintain that one may wrong his fellow-man, kill, disturb\nthe equilibrium of society, and the natural order of things, and\nthen--through cowardice, hope, or compulsion, matters not--be\nforgiven by believing that the spilling of one blood washes out the\nother blood spilt--this is preposterous! Can the _results_ of a crime\nbe obliterated even though the crime itself should be pardoned?\nThe effects of a cause are never limited to the boundaries of the\ncause, nor can the results of crime be confined to the offender\nand his victim. Every good as well as evil action has its effects,\nas palpably as the stone flung into a calm water. The simile is\ntrite, but it is the best ever conceived, so let us use it. The\neddying circles are greater and swifter, as the disturbing object\nis greater or smaller, but the smallest pebble, nay, the tiniest\nspeck, makes its ripples. And this disturbance is not alone visible\nand on the surface. Below, unseen, in every direction--outward and\ndownward--drop pushes drop until the sides and bottom are touched\nby the force. More, the air above the water is agitated, and this\ndisturbance passes, as the physicists tell us, from stratum to\nstratum out into space forever and ever; an impulse has been given to\nmatter, and that is never lost, can never be recalled!...\n\nSo with crime, and so with its opposite. The action may be\ninstantaneous, the effects are eternal. When, after the stone is once\nflung into the pond, we can recall it to the hand, roll back the\nripples, obliterate the force expended, restore the etheric waves to\ntheir previous state of non-being, and wipe out every trace of the\nact of throwing the missile, so that Time\u2019s record shall not show\nthat it ever happened, then, _then_ we may patiently hear Christians\nargue for the efficacy of this Atonement.\n\nThe Chicago _Times_ recently printed the hangman\u2019s record of the\nfirst half of the present year (1877)--a long and ghastly record of\nmurders and hangings. Nearly every one of these murderers received\nreligious consolation, and many announced that they had received\nGod\u2019s forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, and were going that\nday to Heaven! _Their conversion was effected in prison._ See how\nthis ledger-balance of Christian Justice (!) stands: These red-handed\nmurderers, urged on by the demons of lust, revenge, cupidity,\nfanaticism, or mere brutal thirst for blood, slew their victims, in\nmost cases, without giving them time to repent, or call on Jesus to\nwash them clean with his blood. They, perhaps, died sinful, and, of\ncourse,--consistently with theological logic--met the reward of their\ngreater or lesser offenses. But the murderer, overtaken by human\njustice, is imprisoned, wept over by sentimentalists, prayed with\nand at, pronounces the charmed words of conversion, and goes to the\nscaffold a redeemed child of Jesus! Except for the murder, he would\nnot have been prayed with, redeemed, pardoned. Clearly this man did\nwell to murder, for thus he gained eternal happiness? And how about\nthe victim, and his or her family, relatives, dependants, social\nrelations--has Justice no recompense for them? Must they suffer in\nthis world and the next, while he who wronged them sits beside the\n\u201choly thief\u201d of Calvary and is forever blessed? On this question the\nclergy keep a prudent silence.\n\nSteve Anderson was one of these American criminals--convicted of\ndouble murder, arson, and robbery. Before the hour of his death\nhe was \u201cconverted,\u201d but, the record tells us that \u201c_his clerical\nattendants objected to his reprieve, on the ground that they felt\nsure of his salvation should he die then, but could not answer for\nit if his execution was postponed_.\u201d We address these ministers,\nand ask them to tell us on what grounds they felt sure of such a\nmonstrous thing. How they could feel _sure_, with the dark future\nbefore them, and the endless results of this double murder, arson,\nand robbery? They could be sure of nothing, but that their abominable\ndoctrine is the cause of three-fourths of the crimes of so-called\nChristians; that these terrific causes must produce like monstrous\neffects, which in their turn will beget other results, and so roll on\nthroughout eternity to an accomplishment that no man can calculate.\n\nOr take another crime, one of the most selfish, cruel, and heartless,\nand yet the most frequent, the seduction of a young girl. Society, by\nan instinct of self-preservation, pitilessly judges the victim, and\nostracizes her. She may be driven to infanticide, or self-murder, or\nif too averse to die, live to plunge into a career of vice and crime.\nShe may become the mother of criminals, who, as in the now celebrated\nJukes, of whose appalling details Mr. Dugdale has published the\nparticulars, breed other generations of felons to the number of\nhundreds, in fifty or sixty years. All this social disaster came\nthrough one man\u2019s selfish passion; shall he be forgiven by Divine\nJustice until his offense is expiated, and punishment fall only upon\nthe wretched human scorpions begotten of his lust?\n\nAn outcry has just been made in England over the discovery that\nAnglican priests are largely introducing auricular confession and\ngranting absolution after enforcing penances. Inquiry shows the\nsame thing prevailing more or less in the United States. Put to the\nordeal of cross-examination, the clergy quote triumphantly from the\nEnglish _Book of Common Prayer_ the rubrics which clearly give them\nthe absolving authority, through the power of \u201cGod, the Holy Ghost,\u201d\ncommitted unto them by the bishop by imposition of hands at their\nordination. The bishop, questioned, points to _Matthew_ xvi., 19, for\nthe source of his authority to bind and loose on earth those who are\nto be blessed or damned in heaven; and to the apostolic succession\nfor proof of its transmission from Simon Barjona to himself. The\npresent volumes have been written to small purpose if they have\nnot shown, 1, that Jesus, the Christ-God, is a myth concocted two\ncenturies after the real Hebrew Jesus died; 2, that, therefore, he\nnever had any authority to give Peter, or any one else, plenary\npower; 3, that even if he had given such authority, the word Petra\n(rock) referred to the revealed truths of the Petroma, not to him who\nthrice denied him; and that besides, the apostolic succession is a\ngross and palpable fraud; 4, that the _Gospel according to Matthew_\nis a fabrication based upon a wholly different manuscript. The whole\nthing, therefore, is an imposition alike upon priest and penitent.\nBut putting all these points aside for the moment, it suffices to ask\nthese pretended agents of the three gods of the Trinity, how they\nreconcile it with the most rudimental notions of equity, that if the\npower to pardon sinners for sinning has been given them, _they did\nnot also receive the ability by miracle to obliterate the wrongs done\nagainst person or property_. Let them restore life to the murdered;\nhonor to the dishonored; property to those who have been wronged,\nand force the scales of human and divine justice to recover their\nequilibrium. Then we may talk of their divine commission to bind and\nloose. Let them say, if they can do this. Hitherto the world has\nreceived nothing but sophistry--believed on _blind_ faith; we ask\npalpable, tangible evidence of their God\u2019s justice and mercy. But all\nare silent; no answer, no reply, and still the inexorable unerring\nLaw of Compensation proceeds on its unswerving path. If we but\nwatch its progress, we will find that it ignores all creeds, shows\nno preferences, but its sunlight and its thunderbolts fall alike\non heathen and Christian. No absolution can shield the latter when\nguilty, no anathema hurt the former when innocent.\n\nAway from us such an insulting conception of divine justice as\nthat preached by priests on their own authority. It is fit only\nfor cowards and criminals! If they are backed by a whole array of\nFathers and Churchmen, we are supported by the greatest of all\nauthorities, an instinctive and reverential sense of the everlasting\nand everpresent law of harmony and justice.\n\nBut, besides that of reason, we have other evidence to show that such\na construction is wholly unwarranted. The _Gospels_ being \u201cDivine\nrevelation,\u201d doubtless Christians will regard their testimony as\nconclusive. Do they affirm that Jesus gave himself as a voluntary\nsacrifice? On the contrary, there is not a word to sustain the idea.\nThey make it clear that he would rather have lived to continue\nwhat he considered his mission, and that _he died because he could\nnot help it, and only when betrayed_. Before, when threatened with\nviolence, _he had made himself invisible_ by employing the mesmeric\npower over the bystanders, claimed by every Eastern adept, and\nescaped. When, finally, he saw that his time had come, he succumbed\nto the inevitable. But see him in the garden, on the Mount of Olives,\nwrithing in agony until \u201chis sweat was, as it were, great drops\nof blood,\u201d praying with fervid supplication that the cup might be\nremoved from him; exhausted by his struggle to such a degree that\nan angel from heaven had to come and strengthen him; and say if the\npicture is that of a self-immolating hostage and martyr. To crown\nall, and leave no lingering doubt in our minds, we have his own\ndespairing words, \u201cNOT MY WILL, _but thine_, be done!\u201d (_Luke_ xxii.\n42, 43.)\n\nAgain, in the _Puranas_ it may be found that Christna was nailed\nto a tree by the arrow of a hunter, who, begging the dying god to\nforgive him, receives the following answer: \u201cGo, hunter, through\nmy favor, to Heaven, the abode of the gods.... Then the illustrious\nChristna, having united himself with his own pure, spiritual,\ninexhaustible, inconceivable, unborn, undecaying, imperishable, and\nuniversal Spirit, which is one with Vasudeva, abandoned his mortal\nbody, and ... he became Nirguna\u201d (Wilson\u2019s _Vishnu Purana_, p. 612).\nIs not this the original of the story of Christ forgiving the thief\non the cross, and promising him a place in Heaven? Such examples\n\u201cchallenge inquiry as to their origin and meaning _so long anterior\nto Christianity_,\u201d says Dr. Lundy in _Monumental Christianity_, and\nyet to all this he adds: \u201cThe idea of Krishna as a shepherd, I take\nto be older than either (the _Gospel of Infancy_ and that of _St.\nJohn_), _and prophetic of Christ_\u201d (p. 156).\n\nFacts like these, perchance, furnished later a plausible pretext\nfor declaring apocryphal all such works as the _Homilies_, which\nproved but too clearly the utter want of any early authority for\nthe doctrine of atonement. The _Homilies_ clash but little with the\n_Gospels_; they disagree entirely with the dogmas of the Church.\nPeter knew nothing of the atonement; and his reverence for the\nmythical father Adam would never have allowed him to admit that this\npatriarch had sinned and was accursed. Neither do the Alexandrian\ntheological schools appear to have been cognizant of this doctrine,\nnor Tertullian; nor was it discussed by any of the earlier Fathers.\nPhilo represents the story of the _Fall_ as symbolical, and Origen\nregarded it the same way as Paul, as an allegory.[1061]\n\nWhether they will or not, the Christians have to credit the foolish\nstory of Eve\u2019s temptation by a serpent. Besides, Augustine has\nformally pronounced upon the subject. \u201cGod, by His arbitrary will,\u201d\nhe says, \u201chas selected beforehand certain persons, _without regard\nto foreseen faith or good actions, and has irretrievably ordained\nto bestow upon them eternal happiness; while He has condemned\nothers in the same way to eternal reprobation_!!\u201d (_De dono\nperseveranti\u00e6_).[1062]\n\nCalvin promulgated views of Divine partiality and bloodthirstiness\nequally abhorrent. \u201cThe human race, corrupted radically in the fall\nwith Adam, has upon it the guilt and impotence of original sin;\nits redemption can be achieved only through an incarnation and a\npropitiation; of this redemption only electing grace can make the\nsoul a participant, and such grace, once given, is never lost; _this\nelection can come only from God, and it includes only a part of the\nrace, the rest being left to perdition_; election and perdition (the\n_horribile decretum_) are both predestinated in the Divine plan; that\nplan is a decree, and this decree is eternal and unchangeable ...\njustification is by _faith alone_, and _faith is the gift of God_.\u201d\n\nO Divine Justice, how blasphemed has been thy name! Unfortunately for\nall such speculations, belief in the propitiatory efficacy of blood\ncan be traced to the oldest rites. Hardly a nation remained ignorant\nof it. Every people offered animal and even human sacrifices to the\ngods, in the hope of averting thereby public calamity, by pacifying\nthe wrath of some avenging deity. There are instances of Greek and\nRoman generals offering their lives simply for the success of their\narmy. C\u00e6sar complains of it, and calls it a superstition of the\nGauls. \u201cThey devote themselves to death ... believing that unless\nlife is rendered for life the immortal gods cannot be appeased,\u201d\nhe writes. \u201cIf any evil is about to befall either those who now\nsacrifice, or Egypt, may it be averted on this head,\u201d was pronounced\nby the Egyptian priests when sacrificing one of their sacred animals.\nAnd imprecations were uttered over the head of the expiatory victim,\naround whose horns a piece of byblus was rolled.[1064] The animal\nwas generally led to some barren region, sacred to Typhon, in those\nprimitive ages when this fatal deity was yet held in a certain\nconsideration by the Egyptians. It is in this custom that lies the\norigin of the \u201cscape-goat\u201d of the Jews, who, when the rufous ass-god\nwas rejected by the Egyptians, began sacrificing to another deity the\n\u201cred heifer.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet all sins that have been committed in this world fall on me that\nthe world may be delivered,\u201d exclaimed Gautama, the Hindu Saviour,\ncenturies before our era.\n\nNo one will pretend to assert in our own age that it was the\nEgyptians who borrowed anything from the Israelites, as they now\naccuse the Hindus of doing. Bunsen, Lepsius, Champollion, have long\nsince established the precedence of Egypt over the Israelites in age\nas well as in all the religious rites that we now recognize among the\n\u201cchosen people.\u201d Even the _New Testament_ teems with quotations and\nrepetitions from the _Book of the Dead_, and Jesus, if everything\nattributed to him by his four biographers is true--must have been\nacquainted with the Egyptian Funereal Hymns.[1065] In the Gospel\naccording to _Matthew_ we find whole sentences from the ancient and\nsacred _Ritual_ which preceded our era by more than 4,000 years. We\nwill again compare.[1066]\n\nThe \u201csoul\u201d under trial is brought before Osiris, the \u201cLord of Truth,\u201d\nwho sits decorated with the Egyptian cross, emblem of eternal life,\nand holding in his right hand the _Vannus_ or the flagellum of\njustice.[1067] The spirit begins, in the \u201cHall of the Two Truths,\u201d\nan earnest appeal, and enumerates its good deeds, supported by the\nresponses of the forty-two assessors--_its incarnated deeds and\naccusers_. If justified, it is addressed as Osiris, thus assuming the\nappellation of the Deity whence its divine essence proceeded, and the\nfollowing words, full of majesty and justice, are pronounced! \u201cLet\nthe _Osiris_ go; ye see he is without fault.... He lived on truth, he\nhas fed on truth.... _The god has welcomed him_ as he desired. _He\nhas given food to my hungry, drink to my thirsty ones, clothes to my\nnaked_.... He has made the sacred food of the gods the meat of the\nspirits.\u201d\n\nIn the parable of _the Kingdom of Heaven_ (_Matthew_ xxv.), the _Son\nof Man_ (Osiris is also called the Son) sits upon the throne of his\nglory, judging the nations, and says to the justified, \u201cCome ye\nblessed of my Father (_the_ God) inherit the kingdom.... For _I was\nan hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink_\n... _naked and ye clothed me_.\u201d[1068] To complete the resemblance\n(_Matthew_ iii. 12): John is made to describe Christ as Osiris,\n\u201cwhose _fan_ (winnow or _vannus_) is in his hand, and who will \u201cpurge\nhis floor and gather his wheat into the garner.\u201d\n\nThe same in relation to Buddhist legends. In _Matthew_ iv. 19, Jesus\nis made to say: \u201cFollow me and I will make you _fishers_ of men,\u201d\nthe whole adapted to a conversation between him and Simon Peter and\nAndrew his brother.\n\nIn Schmidt\u2019s \u201c_Der Weise und der Thor_,[1069] a work full of\nanecdotes about Buddha and his disciples, the whole from original\ntexts, it is said of a new convert to the faith, that \u201che had been\ncaught by the hook of the doctrine, just as a fish, who has caught\nat the bait and line is securely pulled out.\u201d In the temples of Siam\nthe image of the expected Buddha, the Messiah Maitree, is represented\nwith a fisherman\u2019s net in the hand, while in Thibet he holds a kind\nof a trap. The explanation of it reads as follows: \u201cHe (Buddha)\ndisseminates upon the Ocean of birth and decay the Lotus-flower of\nthe excellent law as _a bait_; with the loop of devotion, never\ncast out in vain, he brings living beings up like fishes, and\ncarries them to the other side of the river, where there is true\nunderstanding.\u201d[1070]\n\nHad the erudite Archbishop Cave, Grabe, and Dr. Parker, who so\nzealously contended in their time for the admission of the _Epistles\nof Jesus Christ and Abgarus, King of Edessa_, into the Canon of\nthe _Scripture_, lived in our days of Max M\u00fcller and Sanscrit\nscholarship, we doubt whether they would have acted as they did.\nThe first mention of these Epistles ever made, was by the famous\nEusebius. This pious bishop seems to have been self-appointed to\nfurnish Christianity with the most unexpected proofs to corroborate\nits wildest fancies. Whether among the many accomplishments of the\nBishop of C\u00e6sarea, we must include a knowledge of the Cingalese,\nPehlevi, Thibetan, and other languages, we know not; but he surely\ntranscribed the letters of Jesus and Abgarus, and the story of the\nmiraculous portrait of Christ taken on a piece of cloth, by the\nsimple wiping of his face, from the Buddhistical Canon. To be sure,\nthe bishop declared that he found the letter himself written in\nSyriac, preserved among the registers and records of the city of\nEdessa, where Abgarus reigned.[1071] We recall the words of Babrias:\n\u201cMyth, O son of King Alexander, is an ancient human invention of\nSyrians, who lived in old time under Ninus and Belus.\u201d Edessa was\none of the ancient \u201choly cities.\u201d The Arabs venerate it to this day;\nand the purest Arabic is there spoken. They call it still by its\nancient name Orfa, once the city _Arpha-Kasda_ (Arphaxad) the seat of\na College of Chaldeans and Magi; whose missionary, called Orpheus,\nbrought thence the Bacchic Mysteries to Thrace. Very naturally,\nEusebius found there the tales which he wrought over into the story\nof Abgarus, and the sacred picture taken on a cloth; as that of\nBhagavat, or the blessed Tathag\u00e2ta (Buddha)[1072] was obtained by\nKing Binsbisara.[1073] The King having brought it, Bhagavat projected\nhis shadow on it.[1074] This bit of \u201cmiraculous stuff,\u201d with its\nshadow, is still preserved, say the Buddhists; \u201conly the shadow\nitself is rarely seen.\u201d\n\nIn like manner, the Gnostic author of _the Gospel according to\nJohn_, copied and metamorphosed the legend of Ananda who asked drink\nof a Matangha woman--the antitype of the woman met by Jesus at the\nwell,[1075] and was reminded by her that she belongs to a low\ncaste, and may have nothing to do with a holy monk. \u201cI do not ask\nthee, my sister,\u201d answers Ananda to the woman, \u201ceither thy caste or\nthy family, I only ask thee for water, if thou canst give me some.\u201d\nThis Matangha woman, charmed and moved to tears, repents, joins the\nmonastic Order of Gautama, and becomes a saint, rescued from a life\nof unchastity by Sakya-muni. Many of her subsequent actions were used\nby Christian forgers, to endow Mary Magdalen and other female saints\nand martyrs.\n\n\u201cAnd whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a\ncup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto\nyou, he shall in no wise lose his reward,\u201d says the Gospel (_Matthew_\nx. 42). \u201cWhosoever, with a purely believing heart, offers nothing but\na handful of water, or presents so much to the spiritual assembly,\nor gives drink therewith to the poor and needy, or to a beast of\nthe field; this meritorious action will not be exhausted in many\nages,\u201d[1076] says the Buddhist _Canon_.\n\nAt the hour of Gautama-Buddha\u2019s birth there were 32,000 wonders\nperformed. The clouds stopped immovable in the sky, the waters of\nthe rivers ceased to flow; the flowers ceased unbudding; the birds\nremained silent and full of wonder; all nature remained suspended in\nher course, and was full of expectation. \u201cThere was a preternatural\nlight spread all over the world; animals suspended their eating; the\nblind saw; and the lame and dumb were cured,\u201d etc.[1077]\n\nWe now quote from the _Protevangelion_:\n\n\u201cAt the hour of the Nativity, as Joseph looked up into the air, \u2018I\nsaw,\u2019 he says, \u2018_the clouds astonished_, and the fowls of the air\nstopping in the midst of their flight.... And I beheld the sheep\ndispersed ... and _yet the sheep stood still_; and I looked into a\nriver, and saw the kids _with their mouths close to the water, and\ntouching it, but they did not drink_.\n\n\u201c_Then a bright cloud overshadowed the cave._ But on a sudden\nthe cloud became _a great light_ in the cave, so that their eyes\ncould not bear it.... The hand of Salom\u00e9, which was withered,\nwas straightway cured.... The blind saw; the lame and dumb were\ncured.\u201d[1078]\n\nWhen sent to school, the young Gautama, without having ever studied,\ncompletely worsted all his competitors; not only in writing, but in\narithmetic, mathematics, metaphysics, wrestling, archery, astronomy,\ngeometry, and finally vanquishes his own professors by giving the\ndefinition of sixty-four kinds of writings, which were unknown to the\nmasters themselves.[1079]\n\nAnd this is what is said again in the _Gospel of the Infancy_: \u201cAnd\nwhen he (Jesus) was twelve years old ... a certain principal Rabbi\nasked him, \u2018Hast thou read books?\u2019 and a certain astronomer asked\nthe Lord Jesus whether he had studied astronomy. And Lord Jesus\nexplained to him ... about the spheres ... about the physics and\nmetaphysics. Also things that reason of man had never discovered....\nThe constitutions of the body, how the soul operated upon the body,\n... etc. And at this the master was so surprised that he said: \u201cI\nbelieve this boy was born before Noah ... he is more learned than any\nmaster.\u2019\u201d[1080]\n\nThe precepts of Hillel, who died forty years B.C., appear rather as\nquotations than original expressions in the Sermon on the Mount.\nJesus taught the world nothing that had not been taught as earnestly\nbefore by other masters. He begins his sermon with certain purely\nBuddhistic precepts that had found acceptance among the Essenes, and\nwere generally practiced by the _Orphikoi_, and the Neo-platonists.\nThere were the Philhellenes, who, like Apollonius, had devoted their\nlives to moral and physical purity, and who practiced asceticism. He\ntries to imbue the hearts of his audience with a scorn for worldly\nwealth; a fakir-like unconcern for the morrow; love for humanity,\npoverty, and chastity. He blesses the poor in spirit, the meek, the\nhungering and the thirsting after righteousness, the merciful and\nthe peace-makers, and, Buddha-like, leaves but a poor chance for\nthe proud castes to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Every word\nof his sermon is an echo of the essential principles of monastic\nBuddhism. The ten commandments of Buddha, as found in an appendix to\nthe _Pr\u00e2timoksha S\u00fbtra_ (Pali-Burman text), are elaborated to their\nfull extent in _Matthew_. If we desire to acquaint ourselves with the\nhistorical Jesus we have to set the mythical Christ entirely aside,\nand learn all we can of the man in the first Gospel. His doctrines,\nreligious views, and grandest aspirations will be found concentrated\nin his sermon.\n\nThis is the principal cause of the failure of missionaries to convert\nBrahmanists and Buddhists. These see that the little of really good\nthat is offered in the new religion is paraded only in theory,\nwhile their own faith demands that those identical rules shall be\napplied in practice. Notwithstanding the impossibility for Christian\nmissionaries to understand clearly the spirit of a religion wholly\nbased on that doctrine of emanation which is so inimical to their\nown theology, the reasoning powers of some simple Buddhistical\npreachers are so high, that we see a scholar like Gutzlaff,[1081]\nutterly silenced and put to great straits by Buddhists. Judson, the\nfamous Baptist missionary in Burmah, confesses, in his _Journal_,\nthe difficulties to which he was often driven by them. Speaking of\na certain Ooyan, he remarks that his strong mind was capable of\ngrasping the most difficult subjects. \u201cHis words,\u201d he remarks, \u201care\nas smooth as oil, as sweet as honey, and as sharp as razors; his mode\nof reasoning is soft, insinuating, and acute; and so adroitly does\nhe act his part, that _I with the strength of truth_, was scarcely\nable to keep him down.\u201d It appears though, that at a later period\nof his mission, Mr. Judson found that he had utterly mistaken the\ndoctrine. \u201cI begin to find,\u201d he says, \u201cthat the semi-atheism, which\nI had sometimes mentioned, is nothing but a refined Buddhism, having\nits foundation in the Buddhistic Scriptures.\u201d Thus he discovered\nat last that while there is in Buddhism \u201ca generic term of most\nexalted perfection actually applied to numerous individuals, a Buddha\nsuperior to the whole host of subordinate deities,\u201d there are also\nlurking in the system \u201cthe glimmerings of an _anima mundi_ anterior\nto, and even superior to, Buddha.\u201d[1082]\n\nThis is a happy discovery, indeed!\n\nEven the so-slandered Chinese believe in _One_, Highest God. \u201cThe\nSupreme Ruler of Heavens.\u201d Yuh-Hwang-Shang-ti, has his name inscribed\nonly on the golden tablet before the altar of heaven at the great\ntemple at Pekin, T\u2019Iantan. \u201cThis worship,\u201d says Colonel Yule, \u201cis\nmentioned by the Mahometan narrator of Shah Rukh\u2019s embassy (A.D.\n1421): \u2018Every year there are some days on which the emperor eats no\nanimal food.... He spends his time in an apartment which contains _no\nidol_, and says that _he is worshipping the God of Heaven_.\u201d[1083]\n\nSpeaking of Shahrastani, the great Arabian scholar, Chwolsohn says\nthat for him Sabaeism was not astrolatry, as many are inclined to\nthink. He thought \u201cthat God is too sublime and too great to occupy\nHimself with the immediate management of this world; that He has,\ntherefore, transferred the government thereof to the gods, and\nretained only the most important affairs for Himself; that further,\nman is too weak to be able to apply immediately to the Highest;\nthat he must, therefore, address his prayers and sacrifices to the\nintermediate divinities, to whom the management of the world has\nbeen entrusted by the Highest.\u201d Chwolsohn argues that this idea is\nas old as the world, and that \u201cin the heathen world this view was\nuniversally shared by the cultivated.\u201d[1084]\n\nFather Boori, a Portuguese missionary, who was sent to convert the\n\u201cpoor heathen\u201d of Cochin-China, as early as the sixteenth century,\n\u201cprotests in despair, in his narrative, that there is not a dress,\noffice, or ceremony in the Church of Rome, to which the Devil has\nnot here provided some counterpart. Even when the Father began\ninveighing against the idols, he was answered that these were the\nimages of departed great men, whom they worshipped exactly on the\nsame principle, and in the same manner, as the Catholics did the\nimages of the apostles and martyrs.\u201d[1085] Moreover, these idols\nhave importance but in the eyes of the ignorant multitudes. The\n_philosophy_ of Buddhism ignores images and fetishes. Its strongest\nvitality lies in its psychological conceptions of man\u2019s _inner_\nself. The road to the supreme state of felicity, called the Ford\nof Nirvana, winds its invisible paths through the spiritual,\nnot physical life of a person while on this earth. The sacred\nBuddhistical literature points the way by stimulating man to follow\n_practically_ the example of Gautama. Therefore, the Buddhistical\nwritings lay a particular stress on the spiritual privileges of man,\nadvising him to cultivate his powers for the production of _Meipo_\n(phenomena) during life, and for the attainment of Nirvana in the\nhereafter.\n\nBut turning again from the historical to the mythical narratives,\ninvented alike about Christna, Buddha, and Christ, we find the\nfollowing:\n\nSetting a model for the Christian avatar and the archangel Gabriel\nto follow, the luminous San-tusita (Bodhisat) appeared to Maha-maya\n\u2018like a cloud in the moonlight, coming from the north, and in his\nhand holding a white lotus.\u2019 He announced to her the birth of her\nson, and circumambulating the queen\u2019s couch thrice ... passed away\nfrom the dewa-loka and was conceived _in the world of men_.[1086]\nThe resemblance will be found still more perfect upon examining the\nillustrations in medi\u00e6val psalters,[1087] and the panel-paintings\nof the sixteenth century (in the Church of Jouy, for instance, in\nwhich the Virgin is represented kneeling, with her hands uplifted\ntoward the Holy Ghost, and the unborn child is miraculously seen\nthrough her body), and then finding the same subject treated in\nthe identical way in the sculptures in certain convents in Thibet.\nIn the Pali-Buddhistic annals, and other religious records, it\nis stated that Maha-devi and all her attendants were constantly\ngratified with the sight of the infant Bodhisatva quietly developing\nwithin his mother\u2019s bosom, and beaming already, from his place of\ngestation, upon humanity \u201cthe resplendent moonshine of his future\nbenevolence.\u201d[1088]\n\nAnanda, the cousin and future disciple of Sakya-muni, is represented\nas having been born at the same time. He appears to have been the\noriginal for the old legends about John the Baptist. For example, the\nPali narrative relates that Maha-maya, while pregnant with the sage,\npaid a visit to his mother, as Mary did to the mother of the Baptist.\nImmediately, as she entered the apartment, the unborn Ananda greeted\nthe unborn Buddha-Siddh\u00e2rtha, who also returned the salutation; and\nin like manner the babe, afterward John the Baptist, leaped in the\nwomb of Elizabeth when Mary came in.[1089] More even than that; for\nDidron describes a scene of salutation, painted on shutters at Lyons,\nbetween Elizabeth and Mary, in which the two unborn infants, both\npictured as outside their mothers, are also saluting each other.[1090]\n\nIf we turn now to Christna and attentively compare the prophecies\nrespecting him, as collected in the Ramatsariarian traditions of the\n_Atharva_, the _Vedangas_, and the Vedantas,[1091] with passages in\nthe _Bible_ and apocryphal Gospels, of which it is pretended that\nsome presage the coming of Christ, we shall find very curious facts.\nFollowing are examples:\n\n FROM THE HINDU BOOKS. FROM THE CHRISTIAN BOOKS.\n\n 1st. \u201cHe (the Redeemer) 1st. \u201cThe people of Galilee\n shall come, _crowned with of the Gentiles which sat in\n lights_, the pure fluid darkness saw great light\u201d\n issuing from the great soul (_Matthew_ iv. from _Isaiah_\n ... dispersing darkness\u201d ix. 1, 2).\n (_Atharva_).\n\n 2d. \u201cIn the _early part_ of 2d. \u201cBehold, a virgin shall\n the Kali-Yuga shall be born conceive and bear a son\u201d\n the son of the Virgin\u201d (_Isaiah_ vii. quoted in\n (_Vedanta_). _Matthew_ i. 23).\n\n 3d. \u201cThe Redeemer shall 3d. \u201cBehold, now, Jesus of\n come, and the accursed Nazareth, with the\n _Rakhasas_ shall fly for brightness of his glorious\n refuge to the deepest hell\u201d divinity, put to flight all\n (_Atharva_). the horrid powers of\n darkness\u201d (_Nicodemus_).\n\n 4th. \u201cHe shall come, and 4th. \u201cAnd I give unto them\n life will defy death ... and eternal life, and they shall\n he shall revivify the blood never perish\u201d (_John_ x. 28).\n of all beings, shall\n regenerate all bodies, and\n purify all souls.\u201d\n\n 5th. \u201cHe shall come, and all 5th. \u201cRejoice greatly, O\n animated beings, all the daughter of Zion! shout, O\n flowers, plants, men, women, daughter of Jerusalem!\n the infants, the slaves ... behold, thy King cometh unto\n shall together intone the thee ... he is just ... for\n chant of joy, for he is the how great is his goodness,\n Lord of all creatures ... he and how great is his beauty!\n is infinite, for he is Corn shall make the young\n power, for he is wisdom, for men cheerful, and new wine\n he is beauty, for he is all the maids\u201d (_Zechariah_ ix.).\n and in all.\u201d\n\n 6th. \u201cHe shall come, more 6th. \u201cBehold the lamb of\n sweet than honey and God\u201d (_John_ i. 36). \u201cHe was\n ambrosia, more pure than brought as a lamb to the\n _the lamb_ without spot\u201d slaughter\u201d (_Isaiah_ 53).\n (Ibid.).\n\n 7th. \u201cHappy the blest womb 7th. \u201cBlessed art thou among\n that shall bear him\u201d women, and blessed is the\n (Ibid.). fruit of thy womb\u201d (_Luke_\n i.); \u201cBlessed is the womb\n that bare thee\u201d (xi. 27).\n\n 8th. \u201cAnd God shall manifest 8th. \u201cGod manifested forth\n His glory, and make His His glory\u201d (_John_, 1st Ep.).\n power resound, and shall\n reconcile Himself with His \u201cGod was in Christ,\n creatures\u201d (Ibid.). reconciling the world unto\n himself\u201d (_2 Corinth._ v.).\n\n 9th. \u201cIt is in the bosom of 9th. \u201cBeing an unparalleled\n a woman that the ray of the instance, without any\n Divine splendor will receive pollution or defilement, and\n human form, and she shall a virgin shall bring forth a\n bring forth, being a virgin, son, and a maid shall bring\n for no impure contact shall forth the Lord\u201d (_Gospel of\n have defiled her\u201d Mary_, iii.).\n (_Vedangas_).\n\nLet there be exaggeration or not in attributing to the _Atharva-Veda_\nand the other books such a great antiquity, the fact remains that\n_these prophecies and their realization preceded Christianity_, and\nChristna preceded Christ. That is all we need care to inquire.\n\nOne is completely overwhelmed with astonishment upon reading Dr.\nLundy\u2019s _Monumental Christianity_. It would be difficult to say\nwhether an admiration for the author\u2019s erudition, or amazement at\nhis serene and unparalleled sophistry is stronger. He has gathered\na world of facts which prove that the religions, far more ancient\nthan Christianity, of Christna, Buddha, and Osiris had anticipated\neven its minutest symbols. His materials come from no forged\npapyri, no interpolated Gospels, but from sculptures on the walls\nof ancient temples, from monuments, inscriptions, and other archaic\nrelics, only mutilated by the hammers of iconoclasts, the cannon\nof fanatics, and the effects of time. He shows us Christna and\nApollo as good shepherds; Christna holding the cruciform _chank_\nand the _chakra_, and Christna \u201ccrucified in space,\u201d as he calls it\n(_Monumental Christianity_, fig. 72). Of this figure--borrowed by Dr.\nLundy from Moor\u2019s _Hindu Pantheon_--it may be truly said that it is\ncalculated to petrify a Christian with astonishment, for it is the\ncrucified Christ of Romish art to the last degree of resemblance.\nNot a feature is lacking; and, the author says of it himself: \u201cThis\nrepresentation I believe to be anterior to Christianity.... It looks\nlike a Christian crucifix in many respects.... The drawing, the\nattitude, the nail-marks in hands and feet, indicate a Christian\norigin, while the Parthian coronet of seven points, the absence of\nthe wood, and of the usual inscription, and the rays of glory above,\nwould seem to point to some other than a Christian origin. Can it be\nthe victim-man, or the priest and victim both in one, of the Hindu\nMythology, who offered himself a sacrifice before the worlds were?\nCan it be Plato\u2019s Second God who impressed himself on the universe in\nthe form of the cross? Or is it his divine man who would be scourged,\ntormented, fettered; have his eyes burnt out; and lastly ... _would\nbe crucified_?\u201d (_Republic_, c. ii., p. 52, _Spens. Trans._). It is\nall that and much more; _Archaic Religious Philosophy_ was universal.\n\nAs it is, Dr. Lundy contradicts Moor, and maintains that this figure\nis that of _Wittoba_, one of the avatars of Vishnu, hence Christna,\nand _anterior to Christianity_, which is a fact not very easily to be\nput down. And yet although he finds it prophetic of Christianity, he\nthinks it has no relation whatever to Christ! His only reason is that\n\u201cin a Christian crucifix the glory always comes from the sacred head;\nhere it is from above and beyond.... The Pundit\u2019s Wittoba then, given\nto Moor, would seem to be the crucified _Krishna_, the shepherd-god\nof Mathura ... a _Saviour--the Lord of the Covenant, as well as Lord\nof Heaven and earth--pure and impure, light and dark, good and bad,\npeaceful and war like, amiable and wrathful, mild and turbulent,\nforgiving and vindictive, God and a strange mixture of man_, but not\nthe Christ of the Gospels.\u201d\n\nNow all these qualities must pertain to Jesus as well as to Christna.\nThe very fact that Jesus was a man upon the mother\u2019s side--even\nthough he were a _God_, implies as much. His behavior toward the\nfig-tree, and his self-contradictions, in _Matthew_, where at one\ntime he promises peace on earth, and at another the sword, etc., are\nproofs in this direction. Undoubtedly this cut was never intended to\nrepresent Jesus of Nazareth. It was Wittoba, as Moor was told, and as\nmoreover the Hindu _Sacred Scriptures_ state, Brahma, the sacrificer\nwho is \u201cat once both sacrificer and victim;\u201d it is \u201cBrahma, victim\nin His Son Christna, who came to die on earth for our salvation, who\nHimself accomplishes the solemn sacrifice (of the Sarvameda).\u201d And\nyet, it is the man Jesus as well as the man Christna, for both were\nunited to their _Chrestos_.\n\nThus we have either to admit periodical \u201cincarnations,\u201d or let\nChristianity go as the greatest imposture and plagiarism of the ages!\n\nAs to the Jewish _Scriptures_, only such men as the Jesuit de\nCarri\u00e8re, a convenient representative of the majority of the Catholic\nclergy, can still command their followers to accept only the\nchronology established by the Holy Ghost. It is on the authority of\nthe latter that we learn that Jacob went, with a family of seventy\npersons, all told, to settle in Egypt in A.M. 2298, and that in\nA.M. 2513--just 215 years afterward--these seventy persons had so\nincreased that they left Egypt 600,000 fighting men strong, \u201cwithout\ncounting women and children,\u201d which, according to the science of\nstatistics, should represent a total population of between two\nand three millions!! Natural history affords no parallel to such\nfecundity, except in red herrings. After this let the Christian\nmissionaries laugh, if they can, at Hindu chronology and computations.\n\n\u201cHappy are those persons, but not to be envied,\u201d exclaims Bunsen,\n\u201cwho have no misgivings about making Moses march out with more than\ntwo millions of people at the end of a popular conspiracy and rising,\nin the sunny days of the eighteenth dynasty; who make the Israelites\nconquer Kanaan under Joshua, during and previous to the most\nformidable campaigns of conquering Pharaohs in that same country. The\nEgyptian and Assyrian annals, combined with the historical criticism\nof the _Bible_, prove that the exodus could only have taken place\nunder Menephthah, so that Joshua could not have crossed the Jordan\nbefore Easter 1280, the last campaign of Ramses III. in Palestine\nbeing in 1281.\u201d[1092]\n\nBut we must resume the thread of our narrative with Buddha.\n\nNeither he nor Jesus ever wrote one word of their doctrines. We\nhave to take the teachings of the masters on the testimony of the\ndisciples, and therefore it is but fair that we should be allowed\nto judge both doctrines on their intrinsic value. Where the logical\npreponderance lies, may be seen in the results of frequent encounters\nbetween Christian missionaries and Buddhist theologians (_pungui_).\nThe latter usually, if not invariably, have the better of their\nopponents. On the other hand, the \u201cLama of Jehovah\u201d rarely fails\nto lose his temper, to the great delight of the Lama of Buddha,\nand practically demonstrates his religion of patience, mercy, and\ncharity, by abusing his disputant in the most uncanonical language.\nThis we have witnessed repeatedly.\n\nDespite the notable similarity of the direct teachings of Gautama\nand Jesus, we yet find their respective followers starting from\ntwo diametrically opposite points. The Buddhist divine, following\nliterally the ethical doctrine of his master, remains thus true to\nthe legacy of Gautama; while the Christian minister, distorting\nthe precepts recorded by the four _Gospels_ beyond recognition,\nteaches, not that which Jesus taught, but the absurd, too often\npernicious, interpretations of fallible men--Popes, Luthers, and\nCalvins included. The following are two instances selected from\nboth religions, and brought into contrast. Let the reader judge for\nhimself:\n\n\u201cDo not believe in anything because it is rumored and spoken of by\nmany,\u201d says Buddha; \u201cdo not think that is a proof of its truth.\n\n\u201cDo not believe merely because the written statement of some old sage\nis produced; do not be sure that the writing has ever been revised by\nthe said sage, or can be relied on. Do not believe in what you have\nfancied, thinking that, _because an idea is extraordinary, it must\nhave been implanted by a Deva, or some wonderful being_.\n\n\u201cDo not believe in guesses, that is, assuming something at hap-hazard\nas a starting-point, and then drawing conclusions from it--reckoning\nyour two and your three and your four _before you have fixed your\nnumber one_.\n\n\u201c_Do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and\nmasters_, or believe and practice merely _because they believe and\npractice_.\n\n\u201cI [Buddha] tell you all, you must of yourselves know that this is\nevil, this is punishable, this is censured by wise men; belief in\nthis will bring no advantage to any one, but will cause sorrow; and\nwhen you know this, then eschew it.\u201d[1093]\n\nIt is impossible to avoid contrasting with these benevolent and\nhuman sentiments, the fulminations of the \u0152cumenical Council and the\nPope, against the employment of reason, and the pursuit of science\nwhen it clashes with revelation. The atrocious Papal benediction\nof Moslem arms and cursing of the Russian and Bulgarian Christians\nhave roused the indignation of some of the most devoted Catholic\ncommunities. The Catholic Czechs of Prague on the day of the recent\nsemi-centennial jubilee of Pius IX., and again on the 6th of July,\nthe day sacred to the memory of John Huss, the burned martyr, to mark\ntheir horror of the Ultramontane policy in this respect, gathered by\nthousands upon the neighboring Mount Zhishko, and with great ceremony\nand denunciations, burned the Pope\u2019s portrait, his Syllabus, and\nlast allocution against the Russian Czar, saying that they were good\nCatholics, but better Slavs. Evidently, the memory of John Huss is\nmore sacred to them than the Vatican Popes.\n\n\u201cThe worship of words is more pernicious than the worship of images,\u201d\nremarks Robert Dale Owen. \u201cGrammatolatry is the worst species of\nidolatry. We have arrived at an era in which literalism is destroying\nfaith.... The letter killeth.\u201d[1094]\n\nThere is not a dogma in the Church to which these words can be better\napplied than to the doctrine of _transubstantiation_.[1095] \u201cWhoso\neateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life,\u201d Christ\nis made to say. \u201cThis is a hard saying,\u201d repeated his dismayed\nlisteners. The answer _was that of an initiate_. \u201cDoth this offend\nyou? It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.\nThe words (_remata_, or arcane utterances) that I speak unto you,\nthey are Spirit and they are Life.\u201d\n\nDuring the Mysteries wine represented Bacchus, and bread\nCeres.[1096] The hierophant-initiator presented symbolically before\nthe final _revelation_ wine and bread to the candidate who had to eat\nand drink of both in token that the spirit was to quicken matter,\n_i.e._, the divine wisdom was to enter into his body through what was\nto be revealed to him. Jesus, in his Oriental phraseology, constantly\nassimilated himself to the true vine (_John_ xv. 1). Furthermore,\nthe hierophant, the discloser of the Petroma, was called \u201cFather.\u201d\nWhen Jesus says, \u201cDrink ... this is my blood,\u201d what else was meant,\nit was simply a metaphorical assimilation of himself to the vine,\nwhich bears the grape, whose juice is its blood--wine. It was a hint\nthat as he had himself been initiated by the \u201cFather,\u201d so he desired\nto initiate others. His \u201cFather\u201d was the husbandman, himself the\nvine, his disciples the branches. His followers being ignorant of\nthe terminology of the Mysteries, wondered; they even took it as an\noffense, which is not surprising, considering the Mosaic injunction\nagainst blood.\n\nThere is quite enough in the four gospels to show what was the\nsecret and most fervent hope of Jesus; the hope in which he began to\nteach, and in which he died. In his immense and unselfish love for\nhumanity, he considers it unjust to deprive the many of the results\nof the knowledge acquired by the few. This result he accordingly\npreaches--the unity of a spiritual God, whose temple is within\neach of us, and in whom we live as He lives in us--in spirit. This\nknowledge was in the hands of the Jewish adepts of the school of\nHillel and the kabalists. But the \u201cscribes,\u201d or lawyers, having\ngradually merged into the dogmatism of the dead letter, had long\nsince separated themselves from the Tana\u00efm, the true spiritual\nteachers; and the practical kabalists were more or less persecuted\nby the Synagogue. Hence, we find Jesus exclaiming: \u201cWoe unto you\nlawyers! _For ye have taken away the key of knowledge_ [the Gnosis]:\nye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering ye\nprevented\u201d (_Luke_ xi. 52). The meaning here is clear. They did take\nthe key away, and could not even profit by it themselves, for the\n_Masorah_ (tradition) had become a closed book to themselves as well\nas to others.\n\nNeither Renan nor Strauss, nor the more modern Viscount Amberley\nseem to have had the remotest suspicion of the real meaning of many\nof the parables of Jesus, or even of the character of the great\nGalilean philosopher. Renan, as we have seen, presented him to us\nas a Gallicized Rabbi, \u201c_le plus charmant de tous_,\u201d still but a\nRabbi; and one, moreover, who does not even come out of the school\nof Hillel, or any school either, albeit he terms him repeatedly\n\u201cthe charming doctor.\u201d[1097] He shows him as a sentimental young\nenthusiast, sprung out of the plebeian classes of Galilee, who\nimagines the ideal kings of his parables the empurpled and jewelled\nbeings of whom one reads in nursery tales.[1098]\n\nLord Amberley\u2019s Jesus, on the other hand, is an \u201ciconoclastic\nidealist,\u201d far inferior in subtilty and logic to his critics. Renan\nlooks over at Jesus with the one-sidedness of a Semitomaniac;\nViscount Amberley looks down upon him from the social plane of an\nEnglish lord. _Apropos_ of this marriage-feast parable, which he\nconsiders as embodying \u201ca curious theory of social intercourse,\u201d\nthe Viscount says: \u201cNobody can object to charitable individuals\nasking poor people or invalids _without rank_ at their houses....\nBut we cannot admit that this kind action ought to be rendered\nobligatory ... it is eminently desirable that we should do exactly\nwhat Christ would forbid us doing--namely, invite our neighbors\nand be invited by them as circumstances may require. The fear that\nwe may receive a recompense for the dinner-parties we may give, is\nsurely chimerical.... Jesus, in fact, overlooks entirely the more\nintellectual side of society.\u201d[1099] All of which unquestionably\nshows that the \u201cSon of God\u201d was no master of social etiquette, nor\nfit for \u201csociety;\u201d but it is also a fair example of the prevalent\nmisconception of even his most suggestive parables.\n\nThe theory of Anquetil du Perron that the _Bagaved-gita_ is an\nindependent work, as it is absent from several manuscripts of the\n_Mah\u00e2-Bh\u00e2rata_, may be as much a plea for a still greater antiquity\nas the reverse. The work is purely metaphysical and ethical, and in\na certain sense it is _anti-Vedic_; so far, at least, that it is in\nopposition with many of the later Brahmanical interpretations of the\n_Vedas_. How comes it, then, that instead of destroying the work,\nor, at least, of sentencing it as uncanonical--an expedient to which\nthe Christian Church would never have failed to resort--the Brahmans\nshow it the greatest reverence? Perfectly _unitarian_ in its aim, it\nclashes with the popular idol-worship. Still, the only precaution\ntaken by the Brahmans to keep its tenets from becoming too well\nknown, is to preserve it more secretly than any other religious book\nfrom every caste except the sacerdotal; and, to impose upon that\neven, in many cases, certain restrictions. The grandest mysteries of\nthe Brahmanical religion are embraced within this magnificent poem;\nand even the Buddhists recognize it, explaining certain dogmatic\ndifficulties in their own way. \u201cBe unselfish, subdue your senses and\npassions, which obscure reason and lead to deceit,\u201d says Christna to\nhis disciple Arjuna, thus enunciating a purely Buddhistic principle.\n\u201cLow men follow examples, great men give them.... The soul ought to\nfree itself from the bonds of action, and act absolutely according to\nits divine origin. _There is but one God_, and all other devotas are\ninferior, and mere forms (powers) of Brahma or of myself. _Worship by\ndeeds predominates over that of contemplation._\u201d[1100]\n\nThis doctrine coincides perfectly with that of Jesus himself.[1101]\nFaith alone, unaccompanied by \u201cworks,\u201d is reduced to naught in the\n_Bagaved-gita_. As to the _Atharva-Veda_, it was and is preserved in\nsuch secrecy by the Brahmans, that it is a matter of doubt whether\nthe Orientalists have a _complete_ copy of it. One who has read what\nAbb\u00e9 Dubois says may well doubt the fact. \u201cOf the last species--the\nAtharva--there are very few,\u201d he says, writing of the _Vedas_, \u201cand\nmany people suppose they no longer exist. But the truth is, they do\nexist, though they conceal themselves with more caution than the\nothers, from the fear of being suspected to be initiated in the magic\nmysteries and other dreaded mysteries which the work is believed to\nteach.\u201d[1102]\n\nThere were even those among the highest _epopt\u00e6_ of the greater\n_Mysteries_ who knew nothing of their last and dreaded rite--the\nvoluntary transfer of life from hierophant to candidate. In\n_Ghost-Land_[1103] this mystical operation of the adept\u2019s transfer\nof his spiritual entity, after the death of his body, into the\nyouth he loves with all the ardent love of a spiritual parent, is\nsuperbly described. As in the case of the re\u00efncarnation of the lamas\nof Thibet, an adept of the highest order may live indefinitely. His\nmortal casket wears out notwithstanding certain alchemical secrets\nfor prolonging the youthful vigor far beyond the usual limits, yet\nthe body can rarely be kept alive beyond ten or twelve score of\nyears. The old garment is then worn out, and the spiritual Ego forced\nto leave it, selects for its habitation a new body, fresh and full of\nhealthy vital principle. In case the reader should feel inclined to\nridicule this assertion of the possible prolongation of human life,\nwe may as well refer him to the statistics of several countries. The\nauthor of an able article in the _Westminster Review_, for October,\n1850, is responsible for the statement that in England, they have\nthe authentic instances of one Thomas Jenkins dying at the age of\n169, and \u201cOld Parr\u201d at 152; and that in Russia some of the peasants\nare \u201cknown to have reached 242 years.\u201d[1104] There are also cases\nof centenarianism reported among the Peruvian Indians. We are aware\nthat many able writers have recently discredited these claims to an\nextreme longevity, but we nevertheless affirm our belief in their\ntruth.\n\nTrue or false there are \u201csuperstitions\u201d among the Eastern people such\nas have never been dreamed even by an Edgar Poe or a Hoffmann. And\nthese beliefs run in the very blood of the nations with which they\noriginated. Carefully stripped of exaggeration they will be found\nto embody an universal belief in those restless, wandering, astral\nsouls, which are called ghouls and vampires. An Armenian Bishop of\nthe fifth century, named Yeznik, gives a number of such narratives in\na manuscript work (Book i., \u00a7\u00a7 20, 30), preserved some thirty years\nago in the library of the Monastery of Etchmeadzine.[1105] Among\nothers, there is a tradition dating from the days of heathendom,\nthat whenever a hero whose life is needed yet on earth falls on\nthe battle-field, the Aralez, the popular gods of ancient Armenia,\nempowered to bring back to life those slaughtered in battle, lick\nthe bleeding wounds of the victim, and breathe on them until they\nhave imparted a new and vigorous life. After that the warrior rises,\nwashes off all traces of his wounds, and resumes his place in the\nfray. But his immortal spirit has fled; and for the remainder of his\ndays he lives--a deserted temple.\n\nOnce that an adept was initiated into the last and most solemn\nmystery of the life-transfer, the awful _seventh_ rite of the great\nsacerdotal operation, which is the highest theurgy, he belonged no\nmore to this world. His soul was free thereafter, and the _seven_\nmortal sins lying in wait to devour his heart, as the soul, liberated\nby death, would be crossing the _seven_ halls and _seven_ staircases,\ncould hurt him no more alive or dead; he has passed the \u201ctwice seven\ntrials,\u201d the _twelve_ labors of the final hour.[1106]\n\nThe High Hierophant alone knew how to perform this solemn operation\nby infusing his own vital life and astral soul into the adept, chosen\nby him for his successor, who thus became endowed with a double\nlife.[1107]\n\n\u201cVerily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man _be born again_,\nhe cannot see the kingdom of God\u201d (_John_ iii. 3). Jesus tells\nNicodemus, \u201cThat which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which\nis born of the spirit is spirit.\u201d\n\nThis allusion, so unintelligible in itself, is explained in the\n_Satapa-Br\u00e2hmana_. It teaches that a man striving after spiritual\nperfection must have _three_ births: 1st. Physical from his mortal\nparents; 2d. _Spiritual_, through religious sacrifice (initiation);\n3d. His final birth into the world of spirit--at death. Though\nit may seem strange that we should have to go to the old land of\nthe Punj\u00e2b and the banks of the sacred Ganges, for an interpreter\nof words spoken in Jerusalem and expounded on the banks of the\nJordan, the fact is evident. This second birth, or regeneration\nof spirit, after the natural birth of that which is born of the\nflesh, might have astonished a Jewish ruler. Nevertheless, it had\nbeen taught 3,000 years before the appearance of the great Galilean\nprophet, not only in old India but to all the _epopt\u00e6_ of the Pagan\ninitiation, who were instructed in the great mysteries of LIFE and\nDEATH. This secret of secrets, that _soul_ is not knit to flesh,\nwas practically demonstrated in the instance of the Yogis, the\nfollowers of Kapila. Having emancipated their souls from the fetters\nof _Prakriti_, or _Mahat_ (the physical perception of the senses and\nmind--in one sense, creation), they so developed their soul-power\nand _will-force_, as to have actually enabled themselves, while on\nearth, to communicate with the supernal worlds, and perform what is\nbunglingly termed \u201cmiracles.\u201d[1108] Men whose astral spirits have\nattained on earth the _nehreyasa_, or the _mukti_, are half-gods;\ndisembodied spirits, they reach Moksha or _Nirvana_, and this is\ntheir _second_ spiritual birth.\n\nBuddha teaches the doctrine of a new birth as plainly as Jesus\ndoes. Desiring to break with the ancient Mysteries, to which it was\nimpossible to admit the ignorant masses, the Hindu reformer, though\ngenerally silent upon more than one secret dogma, clearly states his\nthought in several passages. Thus, he says: \u201c_Some people are born\nagain_; evil-doers go to Hell; righteous people go to Heaven; those\nwho are free from all worldly desires enter Nirvana\u201d (_Precepts of\nthe Dhammapada_, v., 126). Elsewhere Buddha states that \u201cit is better\nto believe in a future life, in which happiness or misery can be\nfelt; for if the heart believes therein, it will abandon sin and act\nvirtuously; and even if there is no resurrection, such a life will\nbring a good name and the regard of men. _But those who believe in\nextinction at death will not fail to commit any sin_ that they may\nchoose, because of their disbelief in a future.\u201d[1109]\n\nThe _Epistle to the Hebrews_ treats of the sacrifice of blood. \u201cWhere\na testament is,\u201d says the writer, \u201cthere must be of necessity _the\ndeath_ of the testator.... Without the shedding _of blood_ is no\nremission.\u201d Then again: \u201cChrist glorified not himself to _be made\nHigh Priest_; but He that said unto him: Thou art my son; TO-DAY HAVE\nI BEGOTTEN THEE\u201d (_Heb._ v. 5). This is a very clear inference, that,\n1, Jesus was considered only in the light of a high priest, like\nMelchisedek--another _avatar_, or incarnation of Christ, according to\nthe Fathers; and, 2, that the writer thought that Jesus had become a\n\u201cSon of God\u201d only at the moment of his initiation by water; hence,\nthat he was not born a god, neither was he begotten physically by\nHim. Every initiate of the \u201clast hour\u201d became, by the very fact of\nhis initiation, a son of God. When Maxime, the Ephesian, initiated\nthe Emperor Julian into the Mithra\u00efc Mysteries, he pronounced as the\nusual formula of the rite, the following: \u201cBy this blood, I wash thee\nfrom thy sins. The Word of the Highest has entered unto thee, and His\nSpirit henceforth will rest upon the NEWLY-BORN, _the now_-begotten\nof the Highest God.... Thou art the son of Mithra.\u201d \u201cThou art the\n\u2018_Son of God_,\u2019\u201d repeated the disciples after Christ\u2019s baptism.\nWhen Paul shook off the viper into the fire without further injury\nto himself, the people of Melita said \u201cthat he was _a god_\u201d (_Acts_\nxxviii.). \u201cHe is the son of God, the Beautiful!\u201d was the term used by\nthe disciples of Simon Magus, for they thought they recognized the\n\u201cgreat power of God\u201d in him.\n\nA man can have no god that is not bounded by his own human\nconceptions. The wider the sweep of his spiritual vision, the\nmightier will be his deity. But where can we find a better\ndemonstration of Him than in man himself; in the spiritual and divine\npowers lying dormant in every human being? \u201cThe very capacity to\nimagine the possibility of thaumaturgical powers, is itself evidence\nthat they exist,\u201d says the author of _Prophecy_. \u201cThe critic, as well\nas the skeptic, is generally inferior to the person or subject that\nhe is reviewing, and, therefore, is hardly a competent witness. _If\nthere are counterfeits, somewhere there must have been a genuine_\noriginal.\u201d[1110]\n\nBlood begets phantoms, and its emanations furnish certain spirits\nwith the materials required to fashion their temporary appearances.\n\u201cBlood,\u201d says Levi, \u201cis the first incarnation of the universal\nfluid; it is the materialized _vital light_. Its birth is the most\nmarvellous of all nature\u2019s marvels; it lives only by perpetually\ntransforming itself, for it is the universal Proteus. The blood\nissues from principles where there was none of it before, and it\nbecomes flesh, bones, hair, nails ... tears, and perspiration. It\ncan be allied neither to corruption nor death; when life is gone, it\nbegins decomposing; if you know how to re\u00e4nimate it, to infuse into\nit life by a new magnetization of its globules, life will return to\nit again. The universal substance, with its double motion, is the\ngreat arcanum of being; blood is the great arcanum of life.\u201d\n\n\u201cBlood,\u201d says the Hindu Ramatsariar, \u201ccontains all the mysterious\nsecrets of existence, no living being can exist without. It is\nprofaning the great work of the Creator to eat blood.\u201d\n\nIn his turn Moses, following the universal and traditional law,\nforbids eating blood.\n\nParacelsus writes that with the fumes of blood one is enabled to call\nforth any spirit we desire to see; for with its emanations it will\nbuild itself an appearance, a _visible_ body--only this is sorcery.\nThe hierophants of Baal made deep incisions all over their bodies and\nproduced apparitions, objective and tangible, with their own blood.\nThe followers of a certain sect in Persia, many of whom may be found\naround the Russian settlements in Temerchan-Shoura, and Derbent,\nhave their religious mysteries in which they form a large ring, and\nwhirl round in a frantic dance. Their temples are ruined, and they\nworship in large temporary buildings, securely enclosed, and with\nthe earthen floor deeply strewn with sand. They are all dressed in\nlong white robes, and their heads are bare and closely shaved. Armed\nwith knives, they soon reach a point of furious exaltation, and wound\nthemselves and others until their garments and the sand on the floor\nare soaked with blood. Before the end of the \u201cMystery\u201d _every man\nhas a companion_, who whirls round with him. Sometimes the spectral\ndancers have _hair on their heads_, which makes them quite distinct\nfrom their unconscious creators. As we have solemnly promised never\nto divulge the principal details of this terrible ceremony (which we\nwere allowed to witness but once), we must leave the subject.[1111]\n\nIn the days of antiquity the sorceresses of Thessaly added sometimes\nto the blood of a black lamb that of an infant, and by this means\nevoked the shadows. The priests were taught the art of calling up the\nspirits of the dead, as well as those of the elements, but their mode\nwas certainly not that of Thessalian sorceresses.\n\nAmong the Yakuts of Siberia there is a tribe dwelling on the very\nconfines of the Transba\u00efkal regions near the river Vitema (eastern\nSiberia) which practices sorcery as known in the days of the\nThessalian witches. Their religious beliefs are curious as a mixture\nof philosophy and superstition. They have a chief or supreme god\nAij-Ta\u00efon, who did not create, they say, but only _presides_ over\nthe creation of all the worlds. He lives on the _ninth_ heaven,\nand it is but from the _seventh_ that the other minor gods--his\nservants--can manifest themselves to their creatures. This ninth\nheaven, according to the revelation of the minor deities (spirits,\nwe suppose), has three suns and three moons, and the ground of this\nabode is formed of four lakes (the four cardinal points) of \u201csoft\nair\u201d (ether), instead of water. While they offer no sacrifices to\nthe Supreme Deity, for he needs none, they do try to propitiate both\nthe good and bad deities, which they respectively term the \u201cwhite\u201d\nand the \u201cblack\u201d gods. They do it, because neither of the two classes\nare good or bad through personal merit or demerit. As they are all\nsubject to the Supreme Aij-Ta\u00efon, and each has to carry on the duty\nassigned to him from eternity, they are not responsible for either\nthe good or evil they produce in this world. The reason given by the\nYakuts for such sacrifices is very curious. Sacrifices, they say,\nhelp each class of gods to perform their mission the better, and so\nplease the Supreme; and every mortal that helps either of them in\nperforming his duty must, therefore, please the Supreme as well,\nfor he will have helped justice to take place. As the \u201cblack\u201d gods\nare appointed to bring diseases, evils, and all kinds of calamities\nto mankind, each of which is a punishment for some transgression,\nthe Yakuts offer to them \u201cbloody\u201d sacrifices of animals; while to\nthe \u201cwhite\u201d they make pure offerings, consisting generally of an\nanimal consecrated to some special god and taken care of with great\nceremony, as having become sacred. According to their ideas the souls\nof the dead become \u201cshadows,\u201d and are doomed to wander on earth, till\na certain change takes place either for the better or worse, which\nthe Yakuts do not pretend to explain. The _light_ shadows, _i.e._,\nthose of good people, become the guardians and protectors of those\nthey loved on earth; the \u201cdark\u201d shadows (the wicked) always seek, on\nthe contrary, to hurt those they knew, by inciting them to crimes,\nwicked acts, and otherwise injuring mortals. Besides these, like the\nancient Chaldees, they reckon seven divine _Sheitans_ (d\u00e6mons) or\nminor gods. It is during the sacrifices of blood, which take place\nat night, that the Yakuts call forth the wicked or _dark_ shadows,\nto inquire of them what they can do to arrest their mischief; hence,\n_blood is necessary_, for without its fumes the ghosts could not make\nthemselves clearly visible, and would become, according to their\nideas, but the more dangerous, for they would suck it from living\npersons by their perspiration.[1112] As to the good, _light_ shadows,\nthey need not be called out; besides that, such an act disturbs\nthem; they can make their presence felt, when needed, without any\npreparation and ceremonies.\n\nThe blood-evocation is also practiced, although with a different\npurpose, in several parts of Bulgaria and Moldavia, especially in\ndistricts in the vicinity of Mussulmans. The fearful oppressions and\nslavery to which these unfortunate Christians have been subjected\nfor centuries has rendered them a thousand-fold more impressible,\nand at the same time more superstitious, than those who live in\ncivilized countries. On every seventh of May the inhabitants of every\nMoldavo-Valachian and Bulgarian city or village, have what they term\nthe \u201cfeast of the dead.\u201d After sunset, immense crowds of women and\nmen, each with a lighted wax taper in hand, resort to the burial\nplaces, and pray on the tombs of their departed friends. This ancient\nand solemn ceremony, called _Trizna_, is everywhere a reminiscence\nof primitive Christian rites, but far more solemn yet, while in\nMussulman slavery. Every tomb is furnished with a kind of cupboard,\nabout half a yard high, built of four stones, and with hinged\ndouble-doors. These closets contain what is termed the household\nof the defunct: namely, a few wax tapers, some oil and an earthen\nlamp, which is lighted on that day, and burns for twenty-four hours.\nWealthy people have silver lamps richly chiselled, and bejewelled\nimages, which are secure from thieves, for in the burial ground the\nclosets are even left open. Such is the dread of the population\n(Mussulman and Christian) of the revenge of the dead that a thief\nbold enough to commit any murder, would never dare touch the property\nof a dead person. The Bulgarians have a belief that every Saturday,\nand especially the eve of Easter Sunday, and until Trinity day\n(about seven weeks) the souls of the dead descend on earth, some to\nbeg forgiveness from those living whom they had wronged; others to\nprotect and commune with their loved ones. Faithfully following the\ntraditional rites of their forefathers, the natives on each Saturday\nof these seven weeks keep either lamps or tapers lighted. In addition\nto that, on the _seventh_ of May they drench the tombs with grape\nwine, and burn incense around them from sunset to sunrise. With\nthe inhabitants of towns, the ceremony is limited to these simple\nobservances. With some of the rustics though, the rite assumes the\nproportions of a theurgic evocation. On the eve of Ascension Day,\nBulgarian women light a quantity of tapers and lamps; the pots are\nplaced upon tripods, and incense perfumes the atmosphere for miles\naround; while thick white clouds of smoke envelope each tomb, as\nthough a veil had separated it from the others. During the evening,\nand until a little before midnight, in memory of the deceased,\nacquaintances and a certain number of mendicants are fed and treated\nwith wine and _raki_ (grape-whiskey), and money is distributed among\nthe poor according to the means of the surviving relatives. When the\nfeast is ended, the guests approaching the tomb and addressing the\ndefunct by name, thank him or her for the bounties received. When all\nbut the nearest relatives are gone, a woman, usually the most aged,\nremains alone with the dead, and--some say--resorts to the ceremony\nof invocation.\n\nAfter fervent prayers, repeated face downward on the grave-mound,\nmore or less drops of blood are drawn from near the left bosom,\nand allowed to trickle upon the tomb. This gives strength to the\ninvisible spirit which hovers around, to assume for a few instants\na visible form, and whisper his instructions to the Christian\ntheurgist--if he has any to offer, or simply to \u201cbless the mourner\u201d\nand then disappear again till the following year. So firmly rooted\nis this belief that we have heard, in a case of family difficulty, a\nMoldavian woman appeal to her sister to put off every decision till\nAscension-night, when their dead father _would be able to tell them\nof his will and pleasure in person_; to which the sister consented as\nsimply as though their parent were in the next room.\n\nThat there are fearful secrets in nature may well be believed\nwhen, as we have seen in the case of the Russian _Znachar_, the\nsorcerer _cannot_ die until he has passed the word to another, and\nthe hierophants of White Magic rarely do. It seems as if the dread\npower of the \u201cWord\u201d could only be entrusted to one man of a certain\ndistrict or body of people at a time. When the Brahm\u00e2tma was about\nto lay aside the burden of physical existence, he imparted his\nsecret to his successor, either orally, or by a writing placed in a\nsecurely-fastened casket which went into the latter\u2019s hands alone.\nMoses \u201clays his hands\u201d upon his neophyte, Joshua, in the solitudes of\nNebo and passes away forever. Aaron initiates Eleazar on Mount Hor,\nand dies. Siddh\u00e2rtha-Buddha promises his mendicants before his death\nto live in him who shall deserve it, embraces his favorite disciple,\nwhispers in his ear, and dies; and as John\u2019s head lies upon the bosom\nof Jesus, he is told that he shall \u201ctarry\u201d until he shall come. Like\nsignal-fires of the olden times, which, lighted and extinguished by\nturns upon one hill-top after another, conveyed intelligence along\na whole stretch of country, so we see a long line of \u201cwise\u201d men\nfrom the beginning of history down to our own times communicating\nthe word of wisdom to their direct successors. Passing from seer\nto seer, the \u201cWord\u201d flashes out like lightning, and while carrying\noff the initiator from human sight forever, brings the new initiate\ninto view. Meanwhile, whole nations murder each other in the name of\nanother \u201cWord,\u201d an empty substitute accepted literally by each, and\nmisinterpreted by all!\n\nWe have met few sects which truly practice sorcery. One such is\nthe Yezidis, considered by some a branch of the Koords, though we\nbelieve erroneously. These inhabit chiefly the mountainous and\ndesolate regions of Asiatic Turkey, about Mosul, Armenia, and are\nfound even in Syria,[1113] and Mesopotamia. They are called and known\neverywhere as devil-worshippers; and most certainly it is not either\nthrough ignorance or mental obscuration that they have set up the\nworship and a regular intercommunication with the lowest and the\nmost malicious of both elementals and elementaries. They recognize\nthe present wickedness of the chief of the \u201cblack powers;\u201d but at\nthe same time they dread his power, and so try to conciliate to\nthemselves his favors. He is in an open quarrel with Allah, they\nsay, but a reconciliation can take place between the two at any day;\nand those who have shown marks of their disrespect to the \u201cblack\none\u201d now, may suffer for it at some future time, and thus have both\nGod and Devil against them. This is simply a cunning policy that\nseeks to propitiate his Satanic majesty, who is no other than the\ngreat _Tcherno-bog_ (the black god) of the Variagi-Russ, the ancient\nidolatrous Russians before the days of Vladimir.\n\nLike Wierus, the famous demonographer of the sixteenth century (who\nin his _Pseudomonarchia D\u00e6monum_ describes and enumerates a regular\ninfernal court, which has its dignitaries, princes, dukes, nobles,\nand officers), the Yezidis have a whole pantheon of devils, and use\nthe Jakshas, a\u00ebrial spirits, to convey their prayers and respects\nto Satan their master, and the Afrites of the Desert. During their\nprayer-meetings, they join hands, and form immense rings, with\ntheir Sheik, or an officiating priest in the middle who claps his\nhands, and intones every verse in honor of Sheitan (Satan). Then\nthey whirl and leap in the air. When the frenzy is at its climax,\nthey often wound and cut themselves with their daggers, occasionally\nrendering the same service to their next neighbors. But their wounds\ndo not heal and cicatrize as easily as in the case of lamas and holy\nmen; for but too often they fall victims to these self-inflicted\nwounds. While dancing and flourishing high their daggers without\nunclasping hands--for this would be considered a sacrilege, and the\nspell instantly broken, they coax and praise Sheitan, and entreat\nhim to manifest himself in his works by \u201cmiracles.\u201d As their rites\nare chiefly accomplished during night, they do not fail to obtain\nmanifestations of various character, the least of which are enormous\nglobes of fire which take the shapes of the most uncouth animals.\n\nLady Hester Stanhope, whose name was for many years a power among\nthe masonic fraternities of the East, is said to have witnessed,\npersonally, several of these Yezidean ceremonies. We were told by\nan _Ockhal_, of the sect of Druses, that after having been present\nat one of the Yezidis\u2019 \u201cDevil\u2019s masses,\u201d as they are called, this\nextraordinary lady, so noted for personal courage and daring\nbravery, fainted, and notwithstanding her usual Emir\u2019s male attire,\nwas recalled to life and health with the greatest difficulty.\nPersonally, we regret to say, all our efforts to witness one of these\nperformances failed.\n\nA recent article in a Catholic journal on Nagualism and Voodooism\ncharges Hayti with being the centre of secret societies, with\nterrible forms of initiation and bloody rites, where _human infants\nare sacrificed and devoured by the adepts_(!!) Piron, a French\ntraveller, is quoted at length, describing a most fearful scene\nwitnessed by him in Cuba, in the house of a lady whom he never\nwould have suspected of any connection with so monstrous a sect. \u201cA\nnaked white girl acted as a voodoo priestess, wrought up to frenzy\nby dances and incantations that followed the sacrifice of a white\nand a black hen. A serpent, trained to its part, and acted on by the\nmusic, coiled round the limbs of the girl, its motions studied by the\nvotaries dancing around or standing to watch its contortions. The\nspectator fled at last in horror when the poor girl fell writhing in\nan epileptic fit.\u201d\n\nWhile deploring such a state of things in Christian countries, the\nCatholic article in question explains this tenacity for ancestral\nreligious rites as evidence of the _natural depravity of the human\nheart_, and makes a loud call for greater zeal on the part of\nCatholics. Besides repeating the absurd fiction about devouring\nchildren, the writer seems wholly insensible to the fact that a\ndevotion to one\u2019s faith that centuries of the most cruel and bloody\npersecution cannot quench, makes heroes and martyrs of a people,\nwhereas their conversion to any other faith would turn them simply\ninto renegades. A compulsory religion can never breed anything but\ndeceit. The answer received by the missionary Margil from some\nIndians supports the above truism. The question being: \u201cHow is it\nthat you are so heathenish after having been Christians so long?\u201d\nThe answer was: \u201cWhat would you do, father, if enemies of your\nfaith entered your land? Would you not take all your books and\nvestments and signs of religion and retire to the most secret caves\nand mountains? This is just what our priests, and prophets, and\nsoothsayers, and nagualists have done to this time and are still\ndoing.\u201d\n\nSuch an answer from a Roman Catholic, questioned by a missionary of\neither Greek or Protestant Church, would earn for him the crown of a\nsaint in the Popish martyrology. Better a \u201cheathen\u201d religion that can\nextort from a Francis Xavier such a tribute as he pays the Japanese,\nin saying that \u201cin virtue and probity they surpassed all the nations\nhe had ever seen;\u201d than a Christianity whose advance over the face\nof the earth sweeps aboriginal nations out of existence as with a\nhurricane of fire.[1114] Disease, drunkenness, and demoralization are\nthe immediate results of apostasy from the faith of their fathers,\nand conversion into a religion of mere forms.\n\nWhat Christianity is doing for British India, we need go to\nno inimical sources to inquire. Captain O\u2019Grady, the British\nex-official, says: \u201cThe British government is doing a shameful\nthing in turning the natives of India from a sober race to a nation\nof drunkards. And for pure _greed_. Drinking is forbidden by the\nreligion alike of Hindus and Mussulmans. But ... drinking is daily\nbecoming more and more prevalent.... What the accursed opium traffic,\nforced on China by British greed, has been to that unhappy country,\nthe government sale of liquor is likely to become to India. For it is\na government monopoly, based on almost precisely the same model as\nthe government monopoly of tobacco in Spain.... The outside domestics\nin European families usually get to be terrible drunkards.... The\nindoor servants usually detest drinking, and are a good deal more\nrespectable in this particular than their masters and mistresses\n... everybody drinks ... bishops, chaplains, freshly-imported\nboarding-school girls, and all.\u201d\n\nYes, these are the \u201cblessings\u201d that the modern Christian religion\nbrings with its _Bibles_ and _Catechisms_ to the \u201cpoor heathen.\u201d Rum\nand bastardy to Hindustan; opium to China; rum and foul disorders\nto Tahiti; and, worst of all, the example of hypocrisy in religion,\nand a practical skepticism and atheism, which, since it seems to\nbe good enough for _civilized_ people, may well in time be thought\ngood enough for those whom theology has too often been holding\nunder a very heavy yoke. On the other hand, everything that is\nnoble, spiritual, elevating, in the old religion is denied, and even\ndeliberately falsified.\n\nTake Paul, read the little of original that is left of him in the\nwritings attributed to this brave, honest, sincere man, and see\nwhether any one can find a word therein to show that Paul meant by\nthe word Christ anything more than the abstract ideal of the personal\ndivinity indwelling in man. For Paul, Christ is not a person, but an\nembodied idea. \u201cIf any man is in Christ he is a new creation,\u201d _he\nis reborn_, as after initiation, for the Lord is spirit--the spirit\nof man. Paul was the only one of the apostles who had understood\nthe secret ideas underlying the teachings of Jesus, although he had\nnever met him. But Paul had been initiated himself; and, bent upon\ninaugurating a new and broad reform, one embracing the whole of\nhumanity, he sincerely set his own doctrines far above the wisdom\nof the ages, above the ancient Mysteries and final revelation to\nthe epopt\u00e6. As Professor A. Wilder well proves in a series of able\narticles, it _was not Jesus, but Paul who was the real founder\nof Christianity_. \u201cThe disciples were called Christians first in\nAntioch,\u201d say the _Acts of the Apostles_. \u201cSuch men as Iren\u00e6us,\nEpiphanius, and Eusebius have transmitted to posterity a reputation\nfor untruth and dishonest practices; and the heart sickens at the\nstory of the crimes of that period,\u201d writes this author, in a recent\narticle.[1115] \u201cIt will be remembered,\u201d he adds, \u201cthat when the\nMoslems overran Syria and Asia Minor for the first time, they were\nwelcomed by the Christians of those regions as deliverers from the\nintolerable oppression of the ruling authorities of the Church.\u201d\n\nMahomet never was, neither is he now, considered a god; yet under the\nstimulus of his name millions of Moslems have served their God with\nan ardor that can never be paralleled by Christian sectarianism. That\nthey have sadly degenerated since the days of their prophet, does\nnot alter the case in hand, but only proves the more the prevalence\nof matter over spirit all over the world. Besides, they have never\ndegenerated more from primitive faith than Christians themselves.\nWhy, then, should not Jesus of Nazareth, a thousandfold higher,\nnobler, and morally grander than Mahomet, be as well revered by\nChristians and followed in practice, instead of being blindly adored\nin fruitless faith as a god, and at the same time worshipped much\nafter the fashion of certain Buddhists, who turn their wheel of\nprayers. That this faith has become sterile, and is no more worthy\nthe name of Christianity than the fetishism of Calmucks that of the\nphilosophy preached by Buddha, is doubted by none. \u201cWe would not be\nsupposed to entertain the opinion,\u201d says Dr. Wilder, \u201cthat modern\nChristianity is in any degree identical with the religion preached\nby Paul. It lacks his breadth of view, his earnestness, his keen\nspiritual perception. Bearing the impress of the nations by which it\nis professed, it exhibits as many forms as there are races. It is\none thing in Italy and Spain, but widely differs in France, Germany,\nHolland, Sweden, Great Britain, Russia, Armenia, Kurdistan, and\nAbyssinia. As compared with the preceding worships, the change seems\nto be more in name than in genius. Men had gone to bed Pagans and\nawoke Christians. As for the _Sermon on the Mount_, its conspicuous\ndoctrines are more or less repudiated by every Christian community\nof any considerable dimensions. Barbarism, oppression, cruel\npunishments, are as common now as in the days of Paganism.\n\n\u201cThe Christianity of Peter exists no more; that of Paul supplanted\nit, and was in its turn amalgamated with the other world religions.\nWhen mankind are enlightened, or the barbarous races and families\nare supplanted by those of nobler nature and instincts, the ideal\nexcellencies may become realities.\n\n\u201cThe \u2018Christ of Paul\u2019 has constituted an enigma which evoked the most\nstrenuous endeavor to solve. He was something else than the Jesus of\nthe _Gospels_. Paul disregarded utterly their \u2018endless genealogies.\u2019\nThe author of the fourth _Gospel_, himself an Alexandrian Gnostic,\ndescribes Jesus as what would now be termed a \u2018materialized\u2019 divine\nspirit. He was the Logos, or First Emanation--the Metathron....\nThe \u2018mother of Jesus,\u2019 like the Princess Maya, Dana\u00e9, or perhaps\nPeriktion\u00e9, had given birth, not to a love-child, but to a divine\noffspring. No Jew of whatever sect, no apostle, no early believer,\never promulgated such an idea. Paul treats of Christ as a personage\nrather than as a person. The sacred lessons of the secret assemblies\noften personified the divine good and the divine truth in a human\nform, assailed by the passions and appetites of mankind, but superior\nto them; and this doctrine, emerging from the crypt, was apprehended\nby churchlings and gross-minded men as that of immaculate conception\nand divine incarnation.\u201d\n\nIn the old book, published in 1693 and written by the Sieur de la\nLoub\u00e8re, French Ambassador to the King of Siam, are related many\ninteresting facts of the Siamese religion. The remarks of the\nsatirical Frenchman are so pointed that we will quote his words about\nthe Siamese Saviour--Sommona-Cadom.\n\n\u201cHow marvellous soever they pretend the birth of their Saviour has\nbeen, they cease not to give _him a father and a mother_.[1116] His\nmother, whose name is found in some of their _Balie_ (Pali?) books,\nwas called, as they say, _Maha_ MARIA, which seems to signify the\ngreat Mary, for Maha signifies great. However it be, this ceases not\nto give attention to the missionaries, and has perhaps given occasion\nto the Siamese to believe that Jesus being the son of _Mary_, was\nbrother to Sommona-Cadom, and that, having been crucified, he was\nthat _wicked_ brother whom they give to Sommona-Cadom, under the\nname of Thevetat, and whom they report to be punished in Hell, with\na punishment which participates something of a cross.... The Siamese\nexpect another Sommona-Cadom, I mean, another miraculous man like\nhim, whom they already named _Pronarote_, and whom they say was\nforetold by Sommona. He made all sorts of miracles.... He had two\ndisciples, both standing on each hand of his idol; one on the right\nhand, and the other on the left ... the first is named Pra-Magla,\nand the second _Pra Scaribout_.... The father of Sommona-Cadom was,\naccording to this same _Balie_ Book, a King of Teve Lanca, that is\nto say, a King of Ceylon. But _the Balie Books being without date\nand without the author\u2019s name, have no more authority than all the\ntraditions, whose origin is unknown_.\u201d[1117]\n\nThis last argument is as ill-considered as it is na\u00efvely expressed.\nWe do not know of any book in the whole world less authenticated as\nto date, authors\u2019 names, or tradition, than our Christian _Bible_.\nUnder these circumstances the Siamese have as much reason to believe\nin their miraculous Sommona-Cadom as the Christians in their\nmiraculously-born Saviour. Moreover, they have no better right to\nforce their religion upon the Siamese, or any other people, against\ntheir will, and in their own country, where they go unasked, than the\nso-called heathen \u201cto compel France or England to accept Buddhism at\nthe point of the sword.\u201d A Buddhist missionary, even in free-thinking\nAmerica, would daily risk being mobbed, but this does not at all\nprevent missionaries from abusing the religion of the Brahmans,\nLamas, and Bonzes, publicly to their teeth; and the latter are not\nalways at liberty to answer them. This is termed diffusing the\nbeneficent light of Christianity and civilization upon the darkness\nof heathenism!\n\nAnd yet we find that these pretensions--which might appear ludicrous\nwere they not so fatal to millions of our fellow-men, who only ask to\nbe left alone--were fully appreciated as early as in the seventeenth\ncentury. We find the same witty Monsieur de la Loub\u00e8re, under a\npretext of pious sympathy, giving some truly curious instructions to\nthe ecclesiastical authorities at home,[1118] which embody the very\nsoul of Jesuitism.\n\n\u201cFrom what I have said concerning the opinions of the Orientals,\u201d he\nremarks, \u201cit is easy to comprehend how difficult an enterprise it is\nto bring them over to the Christian religion; and of what consequence\nit is that the missionaries, which preach the Gospel in the East,\ndo perfectly understand the manners and belief of these people.\nFor as the apostles and first Christians, when God supported their\npreaching by so many wonders, did not on a sudden discover to the\nheathens all the mysteries which we adore, but a long time concealed\nfrom them, and the Catechumens themselves, the knowledge of those\nwhich might scandalize them; it seems very rational to me that the\nmissionaries, who have not the gift of miracles, ought not presently\nto discover to the Orientals all the mysteries nor all the practices\nof Christianity.\n\n\u201c\u2019Twould be convenient, for example, if I am not mistaken, not\nto preach unto them, _without great caution_, the worshipping of\nsaints; and as to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, I think it would\nbe necessary to manage it with them, if I may so say, and _not\nto speak to them of the mystery of the Incarnation_, till after\nhaving convinced them of the existence of a God Creator. For what\nprobability is there, to begin with, of persuading the Siamese to\nremove Sommona-Cadom, Pra Mogla, and Pra Scaribout from the altars,\nto set up Jesus Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul, in their stead?\n\u2019Twould, perhaps, be more proper not to preach unto them Jesus\nChrist crucified, till they have first comprehended that one may be\n_unfortunate_ and _innocent_; and that by the rule received, even\namongst them, which is, that the innocent might load himself with\nthe crimes of the guilty, it was necessary _that a god should become\nman_, to the end that this man-God should, by a laborious life, and\na shameful but voluntary death, satisfy for all the sins of men; but\nbefore all things it would be necessary to give them the true idea of\na God Creator, and justly provoked against men. The Eucharist, after\nthis, will not scandalize the Siamese, as it formerly scandalized\nthe Pagans of Europe; forasmuch as the Siamese do not believe\nSommona-Cadom could give his wife and children to the Talapoins to\neat.\n\n\u201cOn the contrary, as the Chinese are respectful toward their parents\neven to a scruple, I doubt not that if the Gospel should be presently\nput into their hands, they would be scandalized at that place, where,\nwhen some told Jesus Christ that his mother and his brethren asked\nafter him, he answered in such a manner, that he seems so little to\nregard them, that he affected not to know them. They would _not be\nless offended_ at those other mysterious words, which our divine\nSaviour spoke to the young man, who desired time to go and bury his\nparents: \u201cLet the dead,\u201d said he, \u201cbury the dead.\u201d Every one knows\nthe trouble which the Japanese expressed to St. Francis Xavier _upon\nthe eternity of damnation_, not being able to believe that their\ndead parents should fall into so horrible a misfortune for _want of\nhaving embraced Christianity, which they had never heard of_.... It\nseems necessary, therefore, to prevent and mollify this thought,\nby the means which that great apostle of the Indies used, in first\nestablishing the idea of an omnipotent, all-wise, and most just God,\nthe author of all good, to whom only everything is due, and by whose\nwill we owe unto kings, bishops, magistrates and to our parents the\nrespects which we owe them.\n\n\u201cThese examples are sufficient to show with what precautions it is\nnecessary to prepare the minds of the Orientals to think like us,\nand _not to be offended with most_ of the articles of the Christian\nfaith.\u201d[1119]\n\nAnd what, we ask, is left to preach? With no Saviour, no atonement,\nno crucifixion for human sin, no Gospel, no eternal damnation to tell\nthem of, and no miracles to display, what remained for the Jesuits to\nspread among the Siamese but the dust of the Pagan sanctuaries with\nwhich to blind their eyes? The sarcasm is biting indeed. The morality\nto which these poor heathen are made to adhere by their ancestral\nfaith is so pure, that Christianity has to be stripped of every\ndistinguishing mark before its priests can venture to offer it for\ntheir examination. A religion that cannot be trusted to the scrutiny\nof an unsophisticated people who are patterns of filial piety, of\nhonest dealing, of deep reverence for God and an instinctive horror\nof profaning His majesty, must indeed be founded upon error. That it\nis so, our century is discovering little by little.\n\nIn the general spoliation of Buddhism to make up the new Christian\nreligion, it was not to be expected that so peerless a character as\nGautama-Buddha would be left unappropriated. It was but natural that\nafter taking his legendary history to fill out the blanks left in the\nfictitious story of Jesus, after using what they could of Christna\u2019s,\nthey should take the man Sakya-muni and put him in their calendar\nunder an _alias_. This they actually did, and the Hindu Saviour in\ndue time appeared on the list of saints as Josaphat, to keep company\nwith those martyrs of religion, SS. Aura and Placida, Longinus and\nAmphibolus.\n\nIn Palermo there is even a church dedicated to _Divo Josaphat_. Among\nthe vain attempts of subsequent ecclesiastical writers to fix the\ngenealogy of this mysterious saint, the most original was the making\nhim Joshua, the son of Nun. But these trifling difficulties being\nat last surmounted, we find the history of Gautama copied _word for\nword_ from Buddhist sacred books, into the _Golden Legend_. Names of\nindividuals are changed, the place of action, India, remains the\nsame--in the Christian as in the Buddhist Legends. It can be also\nfound in the _Speculum Historiale_ of Vincent of Beauvais, which was\nwritten in the thirteenth century. The first discovery is due to\nthe historian de Couto, although Professor M\u00fcller credits the first\nrecognition of the identity of the two stories to M. Laboulaye, in\n1859. Colonel Yule tells us that[1120] these stories of Barlaam and\nJosaphat, are recognized by Baronius, and are to be found at p. 348,\nof _The Roman Martyrology_, set forth by command of Pope Gregory\nXIII., and revised by the authority of Pope Urban VIII., translated\nout of Latin into English by G. K. of the Society of Jesus.[1121]\n\nTo repeat even a small portion of this ecclesiastical nonsense would\nbe tedious and useless. Let him who doubts and who would learn the\nstory read it as given by Colonel Yule. Some[1122] of the Christian\nand ecclesiastical speculations seem to have embarrassed even Dominie\nValentyn. \u201cThere be some, who hold this Budhum for a fugitive Syrian\nJew,\u201d he writes; \u201cothers who hold him for a disciple of the Apostle\nThomas; but how in that case he could have been born 622 years before\nChrist I leave them to explain. Diego de Couto stands by the belief\nthat he was certainly _Joshua_, which is still more absurd!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe religious romance called _The History of Barlaam and Josaphat_\nwas, for several centuries, one of the most popular works in\nChristendom,\u201d says Col. Yule. \u201cIt was translated into all the chief\nEuropean languages, including Scandinavian and Sclavonic tongues....\nThis story first appears among the works of St. John of Damascus,\na theologian of the early part of the eighth century.\u201d[1123] Here\nthen lies the secret of its origin, for this St. John, before he\nbecame a divine, held a high office at the court of the Khalif Abu\nJ\u00e1far Almansur, where he probably learned the story, and afterwards\nadapted it to the new orthodox necessities of the Buddha turned into\na Christian saint.\n\nHaving repeated the plagiarized story, Diego de Couto, who seems to\nyield up with reluctance his curious notion that Gautama was Joshua,\nsays: \u201cTo this name (Bud\u00e2o) the Gentiles throughout all India have\ndedicated great and superb pagodas. With reference to this story,\nwe have been diligent in inquiring if the ancient Gentiles of those\nparts had in their writings any knowledge of St. Josaphat who was\nconverted by Balaam, and who in his legend is represented as the son\nof a great king of India, and who had just the same up-bringing, with\nall the same particulars that we have recounted of the life of the\nBud\u00e2o. And as I was travelling in the Isle of Salsette, and went to\nsee that rare and admirable pagoda, which we call the Canar\u00e1 Pagoda\n(K\u00e0nhari Caves) made in a mountain, with many halls cut out of one\nsolid rock, and inquiring of an old man about the work, what he\nthought as to who had made it, he told us that without doubt the work\nwas made by order of the father of St. Josaphat to bring him up in\nseclusion, as the story tells. And as it informs us that he was the\nson of a great king in India, it may well be, as we have just said,\nthat _he_ was the Bud\u00e2o, of whom they relate such marvels.\u201d[1124]\n\nThe Christian legend is taken, moreover, in most of its details,\nfrom the Ceylonese tradition. It is on this island that originated\nthe story of young Gautama rejecting his father\u2019s throne, and the\nking\u2019s erecting a superb palace for him, in which he kept him half\nprisoner, surrounded by all the temptations of life and wealth. Marco\nPolo told it as he had it from the Ceylonese, and his version is now\nfound to be a faithful repetition of what is given in the various\nBuddhist books. As Marco na\u00efvely expresses it, Buddha led a life of\nsuch hardship and sanctity, and kept such great abstinence, \u201c_just as\nif he had been a Christian_. Indeed,\u201d he adds, \u201chad he but been so,\nhe would have been a great saint of our Lord Jesus Christ, so good\nand pure was the life he led.\u201d To which pious apothegm his editor\nvery pertinently remarks that \u201cMarco is not the only eminent person\nwho has expressed this view of Sakya-muni\u2019s life in such words.\u201d And\nin his turn Prof. Max M\u00fcller says: \u201cAnd whatever we may think of\nthe sanctity of saints, let those who doubt the right of Buddha to\na place among them, read the story of his life as it is told in the\nBuddhistical canon. If he lived the life which is there described,\nfew saints have a better claim to the title than Buddha; and no one\neither in the Greek or the Roman Church need be ashamed of having\npaid to his memory the honor that was intended for St. Josaphat, the\nprince, the hermit, and the saint.\u201d\n\nThe Roman Catholic Church has never had so good a chance to\nChristianize all China, Thibet, and Tartary, as in the thirteenth\ncentury, during the reign of Kublai-Khan. It seems strange that they\ndid not embrace the opportunity when Kublai was hesitating at one\ntime between the four religions of the world, and, perhaps through\nthe eloquence of Marco Polo, favored Christianity more than either\nMahometanism, Judaism, or Buddhism. Marco Polo and Ramusio, one of\nhis interpreters, tell us why. It seems that, unfortunately for Rome,\nthe embassy of Marco\u2019s father and uncle failed, because Clement IV.\nhappened to die just at that very time. There was no Pope for several\nmonths to receive the friendly overtures of Kublai-Khan; and thus\nthe one hundred Christian missionaries invited by him could not be\nsent to Thibet and Tartary. To those who believe that there is an\nintelligent Deity above who takes a certain concern in the welfare of\nour miserable little world, this _contretemps_ must in itself seem a\npretty good proof that Buddhism should have the best of Christianity.\nPerhaps--who knows--Pope Clement fell sick so as to save the\nBuddhists from sinking into the idolatry of Roman Catholicism?\n\nFrom pure Buddhism, the religion of these districts has degenerated\ninto lamaism; but the latter, with all its blemishes--purely\nformalistic and impairing but little the doctrine itself--is yet\nfar above Catholicism. The poor Abb\u00e9 Huc very soon found it out\nfor himself. As he moved on with his caravan, he writes--\u201cevery\none repeated to us that, as we advanced toward the west, we should\nfind the doctrines growing more luminous and sublime. Lha-Ssa was\nthe great focus of light, the rays from which became weakened as\nthey were diffused.\u201d One day he gave to a Thibetan lama \u201ca brief\nsummary of Christian doctrine, which appeared by no means unfamiliar\nto him [we do not wonder at that], and he even maintained that it\n[Catholicism] did not differ much from the faith of the grand lamas\nof Thibet.... These words of the Thibetan lama astonished us not a\nlittle,\u201d writes the missionary; \u201cthe unity of God, the mystery of the\nIncarnation, the dogma of the real presence, appeared to us in his\nbelief.... The new light thrown on the religion of Buddha induced us\nreally to believe that we should find among the lamas of Thibet a\nmore purified system.\u201d[1125] It is these words of praise to lamaism,\nwith which Huc\u2019s book abounds, that caused his work to be placed on\nthe Index at Rome, and himself to be unfrocked.\n\nWhen questioned why, since he held the Christian faith to be the best\nof the religions protected by him, he did not attach himself to it,\nthe answer given by Kublai-Khan is as suggestive as it is curious:\n\n\u201cHow would you have me to become a Christian? There are four prophets\nworshipped and revered by all the world. The Christians say their\nGod is Jesus Christ; the Saracens, Mahomet; the Jews, Moses; the\nidolaters, Sogomon Borkan (Sakva-muni Burkham, or Buddha), who was\nthe first god among the idols; and I worship and pay respect to all\nfour, and pray that he among them who is greatest in heaven in very\ntruth may aid me.\u201d\n\nWe may ridicule the Khan\u2019s prudence; we cannot blame him for\ntrustingly leaving the decision of the puzzling dilemma to\nProvidence itself. One of his most unsurmountable objections to\nembrace Christianity he thus specifies to Marco: \u201cYou see that the\nChristians of these parts are so ignorant that they achieve nothing\nand can achieve nothing, whilst you see the idolaters can do anything\nthey please, insomuch that when I sit at table, the cups from the\nmiddle of the hall come to me full of wine or other liquor, without\nbeing touched by anybody, and I drink from them. They control storms,\ncausing them to pass in whatever direction they please, and do many\nother marvels; whilst, as you know, their idols speak, and give them\npredictions on whatever subjects they choose. But if I were to turn\nto the faith of Christ and become a Christian, then my barons and\nothers who are not converted, would say: \u2018What has moved you to be\nbaptized?... What powers or miracles have you witnessed on the part\nof Christ? You know the idolaters here say that their wonders are\nperformed by the sanctity and power of their idols.\u2019 Well, I should\nnot know what answer to make, so they would only be confirmed in\ntheir errors, and the idolaters, who are adepts in such surprising\narts, would easily compass my death. But now you shall go to your\nPope, and pray him on my part to send hither an hundred men skilled\nin your law; and if they are capable of rebuking the practices of\nidolaters to their faces, and of proving to them _that they too know\nhow to do such things, but will not_, because they are done by the\nhelp of the Devil and other evil spirits; and if they so control the\nidolaters that these shall have no power to perform such things in\ntheir presence, _and when we shall witness this_, we will denounce\nthe idolaters and their religion, and then I will receive baptism,\nand then all my barons and chiefs shall be baptized also, and thus,\nin the end, there will be more Christians here than exist in your\npart of the world.\u201d[1126]\n\nThe proposition was fair. Why did not the Christians avail themselves\nof it? Moses is said to have faced such an ordeal before Pharaoh, and\ncome off triumphant.\n\nTo our mind, the logic of this uneducated Mongol was unanswerable,\nhis intuition faultless. He saw good results in all religions, and\nfelt that, whether a man be Buddhist, Christian, Mahometan, or Jew,\nhis spiritual powers might equally be developed, his faith equally\nlead him to the highest truth. All he asked before making choice of a\ncreed for his people, was the evidence upon which to base faith.\n\nTo judge alone by its jugglers, India must certainly be better\nacquainted with alchemy, chemistry, and physics than any European\nacademy. The psychological wonders produced by some fakirs of\nSouthern Hindustan, and by the shaberons and hobilhans of Thibet and\nMongolia, alike prove our case. The science of psychology has there\nreached an acme of perfection never attained elsewhere in the annals\nof the marvellous. That such powers are not alone due to study, but\nare natural to every human being, is now proved in Europe and America\nby the phenomena of mesmerism and what is termed \u201cspiritualism.\u201d If\nthe majority of foreign travellers, and residents in British India,\nare disposed to regard the whole as clever jugglery, not so with a\nfew Europeans who have had the rare luck to be admitted _behind the\nveil_ in the pagodas. Surely these will not deride the rites, nor\nundervalue the phenomena produced in the secret lodges of India. The\n_mahadth\u00eavassthanam_ of the pagodas (usually termed _goparam_, from\nthe sacred pyramidal gateway by which the buildings are entered) has\nbeen known to Europeans before now, though to a mere handful in all.\n\nWe do not know whether the prolific Jacolliot[1127] was ever admitted\ninto one of these lodges. It is extremely doubtful, we should say,\nif we may judge from his many fantastic tales of the immoralities of\nthe mystical rites among the Brahmans, the fakirs of the pagodas,\nand even the Buddhists (!!) at all of which he makes himself figure\nas a Joseph. Anyhow, it is evident that the Brahmans taught him no\nsecrets, for speaking of the fakirs and their wonders, he remarks,\n\u201cunder the direction of initiated Brahmans they practice in the\nseclusion of the pagodas, the _occult sciences_.... And let no one\nbe surprised at this word, which seems to open the door of the\nsupernatural; while there are in the sciences which the Brahmans call\noccult, phenomena so extraordinary as to baffle all investigation,\nthere is not one which cannot be explained, and which is not subject\nto natural law.\u201d\n\nUnquestionably, any initiated Brahman could, if he would, explain\nevery phenomenon. But _he will not_. Meanwhile, we have yet to see an\nexplanation by the best of our physicists of even the most trivial\noccult phenomenon produced by a fakir-pupil of a pagoda.\n\nJacolliot says that it will be quite impracticable to give an account\nof the marvellous facts witnessed by himself. But adds, with entire\ntruthfulness, \u201clet it suffice to say, that in regard to magnetism\nand spiritism, Europe has yet to stammer over the first letters\nof the alphabet, and that the Brahmans have reached, in these two\ndepartments of learning, results in the way of phenomena that are\ntruly stupefying. When one sees these strange manifestations, whose\npower one cannot deny, without grasping the laws that the Brahmans\n_keep so carefully concealed_, the mind is overwhelmed with wonder,\nand one feels that he must run away and break the charm that holds\nhim.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe only explanation that we have been able to obtain on the subject\nfrom a learned Brahman, with whom we were on terms of the closest\nintimacy, was this: \u2018You have studied physical nature, and you have\nobtained, through the laws of nature, marvellous results--steam,\nelectricity, etc.; _for twenty thousand years or more, we have\nstudied_ the _intellectual_ forces, we have discovered their laws,\nand _we obtain, by making them act alone or in concert with matter,\nphenomena still more astonishing than your own_.\u2019\u201d\n\nJacolliot must indeed have been stupefied by wonders, for he says:\n\u201cWe have seen things such as one does not describe for fear of making\nhis readers doubt his intelligence ... but still we have seen them.\nAnd truly one comprehends how, in presence of such facts, the ancient\nworld believed ... in possessions of the Devil and in exorcism.\u201d[1128]\n\nBut yet this uncompromising enemy of priestcraft, monastic orders,\nand the clergy of every religion and every land--including\nBrahmans, lamas, and fakirs--is so struck with the contrast between\nthe fact-supported cults of India, and the empty pretences of\nCatholicism, that after describing the terrible self-tortures of the\nfakirs, in a burst of honest indignation, he thus gives vent to his\nfeelings: \u201cNevertheless, these fakirs, these mendicant Brahmans, have\nstill something grand about them: when they flagellate themselves,\nwhen during the self-inflicted martyrdom the flesh is torn out by\nbits, the blood pours upon the ground. But you (Catholic mendicants),\nwhat do you do to-day? You, Gray Friars, Capuchins, Franciscans,\nwho play at fakirs, with your knotted cords, your flints, your hair\nshirts, and your rose-water flagellations, your bare feet and your\ncomical mortifications--fanatics without faith, martyrs without\ntortures? Has not one the right to ask you, if it is to obey the\nlaw of God that you shut yourselves in behind thick walls, and thus\nescape the law of labor which weighs so heavily upon all other\nmen?... Away, you are only beggars!\u201d\n\nLet them pass on--we have devoted too much space to them and their\nconglomerate theology, already. We have weighed both in the balance\nof history, of logic, of truth, and found them wanting. Their\nsystem breeds atheism, nihilism, despair, and crime; its priests and\npreachers are unable to prove by works their reception of divine\npower. If both Church and priest could but pass out of the sight of\nthe world as easily as their names do now from the eye of our reader,\nit would be a happy day for humanity. New York and London might then\nsoon become as moral as a heathen city unoccupied by Christians;\nParis be cleaner than the ancient Sodom. When Catholic and Protestant\nwould be as fully satisfied as a Buddhist or Brahman that their every\ncrime would be punished, and every good deed rewarded, they might\nspend upon their own _heathen_ what now goes to give missionaries\nlong picnics, and to make the name of Christian hated and despised by\nevery nation outside the boundaries of Christendom.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs occasion required, we have reinforced our argument with\ndescriptions of a few of the innumerable phenomena witnessed by us\nin different parts of the world. The remaining space at our disposal\nwill be devoted to like subjects. Having laid a foundation by\nelucidating the philosophy of occult phenomena, it seems opportune\nto illustrate the theme with facts that have occurred under our own\neye, and that may be verified by any traveller. Primitive peoples\nhave disappeared, but primitive wisdom survives, and is attainable by\nthose who \u201cwill,\u201d \u201cdare,\u201d and can \u201ckeep silent.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XII.\n\n \u201cMy vast and noble capital, my Da\u00eftu, my splendidly-adorned;\n And thou, my cool and delicious summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung.\n * * * * *\n Alas, for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World!\n Alas, for my Da\u00eftu, seat of sanctity, glorious work of the\n immortal Kubla\u012b!\n All, all is rent from me!\u201d--COL. YULE, in _Marco Polo_.\n\n \u201cAs for what thou hearest others say, who persuade the many\n that the soul, when once freed from the body, neither\n suffers ... evil nor is conscious, I know that thou art\n better grounded in the doctrines received by us from our\n ancestors, and in the sacred orgies of Dionysus, than to\n believe them; _for the mystic symbols are well known to us\n who belong to the \u2018Brotherhood.\u2019_\u201d--PLUTARCH.\n\n\n \u201cThe problem of life is _man_. MAGIC, or rather Wisdom, is\n the evolved knowledge of the potencies of man\u2019s interior\n being; which forces are Divine emanations, as intuition is\n the perception of their origin, and initiation our induction\n into that knowledge.... We begin with instinct; the end is\n OMNISCIENCE.\u201d--A. WILDER.\n\n \u201cPower belongs to him WHO KNOWS.\u201d--_Brahmanical Book of\n Evocation._\n\n\nIt would argue small discernment on our part were we to suppose\nthat we had been followed thus far through this work by any but\nmeta-physicians, or mystics of some sort. Were it otherwise, we\nshould certainly advise such to spare themselves the trouble of\nreading this chapter; for, although nothing is said that is not\nstrictly true, they would not fail to regard the least wonderful of\nthe narratives as absolutely false, however substantiated.\n\nTo comprehend the principles of natural law involved in the several\nphenomena hereinafter described, the reader must keep in mind the\nfundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy which we have\nsuccessively elucidated. Let us recapitulate very briefly:\n\n1st. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result\nof law--eternal, immutable, ever active. Apparent miracle is but\nthe operation of forces antagonistic to what Dr. W. B. Carpenter,\nF.R.S.--a man of great learning but little knowledge--calls \u201cthe\nwell-ascertained laws of nature.\u201d Like many of his class, Dr.\nCarpenter ignores the fact that there may be laws once \u201cknown,\u201d now\nunknown to science.\n\n2d. Nature is triune: there is a visible, objective nature; an\ninvisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the\nother, and its vital principle; and, above these two, _spirit_,\nsource of all forces, alone eternal, and indestructible. The lower\ntwo constantly change; the higher third does not.\n\n3d. Man is also triune: he has his objective, physical body; his\nvitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are\nbrooded over and illuminated by the third--the sovereign, the\nimmortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with\nthe latter, he becomes an immortal entity.\n\n4th. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and\nof the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and\nits control over nature\u2019s forces may be acquired by the individual\nwhile still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this\nknowledge in practice.\n\n5th. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficently used, true\nmagic or wisdom.\n\n6th. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the\npassive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls\nhimself and all inferior potencies.\n\n7th. All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having\ntheir record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe,\nthe initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know\nall that has been known or can be known.\n\n8th. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or\nany other external quality; among some peoples seership naturally\nprevails, among others mediumship. Some are addicted to sorcery, and\ntransmit its secret rules of practice from generation to generation,\nwith a range of psychical phenomena, more or less wide, as the result.\n\n9th. One phase of magical skill is the voluntary and conscious\nwithdrawal of the inner man (astral form) from the outer man\n(physical body). In the cases of some mediums withdrawal occurs, but\nit is unconscious and involuntary. With the latter the body is more\nor less cataleptic at such times; but with the adept the absence\nof the astral form would not be noticed, for the physical senses\nare alert, and the individual appears only as though in a fit of\nabstraction--\u201ca brown study,\u201d as some call it.\n\nTo the movements of the wandering astral form neither time nor space\noffer obstacles. The thaumaturgist, thoroughly skilled in occult\nscience, can cause himself (that is, his physical body) to _seem_ to\ndisappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he may choose.\nHe may make his astral form visible, or he may give it protean\nappearances. In both cases these results will be achieved by a\nmesmeric hallucination of the senses of all witnesses, simultaneously\nbrought on. This hallucination is so perfect that the subject of it\nwould stake his life that he saw a reality, when it is but a picture\nin his own mind, impressed upon his consciousness by the irresistible\nwill of the mesmerizer.\n\nBut, while the astral form can go anywhere, penetrate any obstacle,\nand be seen at any distance from the physical body, the latter\nis dependent upon ordinary methods of transportation. It may be\nlevitated under prescribed magnetic conditions, but not pass from one\nlocality to another except in the usual way. Hence we discredit all\nstories of the a\u00ebrial flight of mediums in body, for such would be\nmiracle, and miracle we repudiate. Inert matter may be, in certain\ncases and under certain conditions, disintegrated, passed through\nwalls, and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot.\n\nSwedenborgians believe and arcane science teaches that the\nabandonment of the living body by the soul frequently occurs, and\nthat we encounter every day, in every condition of life, such living\ncorpses. Various causes, among them overpowering fright, grief,\ndespair, a violent attack of sickness, or excessive sensuality may\nbring this about. The vacant carcass may be entered and inhabited\nby the astral form of an adept sorcerer, or an elementary (an\nearth-bound disembodied human soul), or, very rarely, an elemental.\nOf course, an adept of white magic has the same power, but unless\nsome very exceptional and great object is to be accomplished, he\nwill never consent to pollute himself by occupying the body of an\nimpure person. In insanity, the patient\u2019s astral being is either\nsemi-paralyzed, bewildered, and subject to the influence of every\npassing spirit of any sort, or it has departed forever, and the\nbody is taken possession of by some vampirish entity near its own\ndisintegration, and clinging desperately to earth, whose sensual\npleasures it may enjoy for a brief season longer by this expedient.\n\n10th. The corner-stone of MAGIC is an intimate practical knowledge\nof magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and\npotencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects\nin and upon the animal kingdom and man. There are occult properties\nin many other minerals, equally strange with that in the lodestone,\nwhich all practitioners of magic _must_ know, and of which so-called\nexact science is wholly ignorant. Plants also have like mystical\nproperties in a most wonderful degree, and the secrets of the herbs\nof dreams and enchantments are only lost to European science, and\nuseless to say, too, are unknown to it, except in a few marked\ninstances, such as opium and hashish. Yet, the psychical effects of\neven these few upon the human system are regarded as evidences of\na temporary mental disorder. The women of Thessaly and Epirus, the\nfemale hierophants of the rites of Sabazius, did not carry their\nsecrets away with the downfall of their sanctuaries. They are still\npreserved, and those who are aware of the nature of Soma, know the\nproperties of other plants as well.\n\nTo sum up all in a few words, MAGIC is spiritual WISDOM; nature,\nthe material ally, pupil and servant of the magician. One common\nvital principle pervades all things, and this is controllable by the\nperfected human will. The adept can stimulate the movements of the\nnatural forces in plants and animals in a preternatural degree. Such\nexperiments are not obstructions of nature, but quickenings; the\nconditions of intenser vital action are given.\n\nThe adept can control the sensations and alter the conditions of\nthe physical and astral bodies of other persons not adepts; he can\nalso govern and employ, as he chooses, the spirits of the elements.\nHe cannot control the immortal spirit of any human being, living or\ndead, for all such spirits are alike sparks of the Divine Essence,\nand not subject to any foreign domination.\n\nThere are two kinds of seership--that of the soul and that of the\nspirit. The seership of the ancient Pythoness, or of the modern\nmesmerized subject, vary but in the artificial modes adopted to\ninduce the state of clairvoyance. But, as the visions of both depend\nupon the greater or less acuteness of the senses of the astral body,\nthey differ very widely from the perfect, omniscient spiritual state;\nfor, at best, the subject can get but glimpses of truth, through\nthe veil which physical nature interposes. The astral principle, or\nmind, called by the Hindu Yogin _fav-atma_, is the sentient soul,\ninseparable from our physical brain, which it holds in subjection,\nand is in its turn equally trammelled by it. This is the _ego_, the\nintellectual life-principle of man, his conscious entity. While it\nis yet _within_ the material body, the clearness and correctness of\nits spiritual visions depend on its more or less intimate relation\nwith its higher Principle. When this relation is such as to allow the\nmost ethereal portions of the soul-essence to act independently of\nits grosser particles and of the brain, it can unerringly comprehend\nwhat it sees; then only is it the pure, rational, _super_sentient\nsoul. That state is known in India as the _Sam\u00e2ddi_; it is the\nhighest condition of spirituality possible to man on earth. Fakirs\ntry to obtain such a condition by holding their breath for hours\ntogether during their religious exercises, and call this practice\n_dam-s\u0101dhna_. The Hindu terms _Pranayama_, _Pratyahara_, and\n_Dharana_, all relate to different psychological states, and show\nhow much more the Sanscrit, and even the modern Hindu language\nare adapted to the clear elucidation of the phenomena that are\nencountered by those who study this branch of psychological science,\nthan the tongues of modern peoples, whose experiences have not yet\nnecessitated the invention of such descriptive terms.\n\nWhen the body is in the state of _dharana_--a total catalepsy of the\nphysical frame--the soul of the clairvoyant may liberate itself, and\nperceive things subjectively. And yet, as the sentient principle of\nthe brain is alive and active, these pictures of the past, present,\nand future will be tinctured with the terrestrial perceptions of the\nobjective world; the physical _memory_ and _fancy_ will be in the\nway of clear vision. But the seer-adept knows how to suspend the\nmechanical action of the brain. His visions will be as clear as truth\nitself, uncolored and undistorted, whereas, the clairvoyant, unable\nto control the vibrations of the astral waves, will perceive but more\nor less broken images through the medium of the brain. The seer can\nnever take flickering shadows for realities, for his memory being as\ncompletely subjected to his will as the rest of the body, he receives\nimpressions directly from his spirit. Between his subjective and\nobjective selves there are no obstructive mediums. This is the real\nspiritual seership, in which, according to an expression of Plato,\nsoul is raised above all inferior good. When we reach \u201cthat which\nis supreme, which is _simple, pure, and unchangeable, without form,\ncolor, or human qualities_: the God--_our Nous_.\u201d\n\nThis is the state which such seers as Plotinus and Apollonius\ntermed the \u201cUnion to the Deity;\u201d which the ancient Yogins called\n_Isvara_,[1129] and the modern call \u201cSam\u00e2ddi;\u201d but this state is\nas far above modern clairvoyance as the stars above glow-worms.\nPlotinus, as is well known, was a clairvoyant-seer during his whole\nand daily life; and yet, _he had been united to his God_ but six\ntimes during the sixty-six years of his existence, as he himself\nconfessed to Porphyry.\n\nAmmonius Sakkas, the \u201cGod-taught,\u201d asserts that the only power\nwhich is directly opposed to soothsaying and looking into\nfuturity is _memory_; and Olympiodorus calls it _phantasy_. \u201cThe\nphantasy,\u201d he says (in _Platonis Ph\u00e6d._), is an impediment to our\nintellectual conceptions; and hence, when we are agitated by the\ninspiring influence of the Divinity, if the phantasy intervenes,\nthe enthusiastic energy ceases; for enthusiasm and the ecstasy are\ncontrary to each other. Should it be asked whether the soul is able\nto energize without the phantasy, we reply, that its perception of\nuniversals proves that it is able. It has perceptions, therefore,\nindependent of the phantasy; at the same time, however, the phantasy\nattends it in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on\nthe sea.\u201d\n\nA medium, moreover, needs either a foreign intelligence--whether it\nbe spirit or living mesmerizer--to overpower his physical and mental\nparts, or some factitious means to induce trance. An adept, and even\na simple fakir requires but a few minutes of \u201cself-contemplation.\u201d\nThe brazen columns of Solomon\u2019s temple; the golden bells and\npomegranates of Aaron; the Jupiter Capitolinus of Augustus, hung\naround with harmonious bells;[1130] and the brazen bowls of the\nMysteries when the Kora was called,[1131] were all intended for such\nartificial helps.[1132] So were the brazen bowls of Solomon hung\nround with a double row of 200 pomegranates, which served as clappers\nwithin the hollow columns. The priestesses of Northern Germany, under\nthe guidance of hierophants, could never prophesy but amidst the\nroar of the tumultuous waters. Regarding fixedly the eddies formed\non the rapid course of the river they _hypnotized_ themselves. So\nwe read of Joseph, Jacob\u2019s son, who sought for divine inspiration\nwith his silver divining-cup, which must have had a very bright\nbottom to it. The priestesses of Dodona placed themselves under\nthe ancient oak of Zeus (the Pelasgian, not the Olympian god), and\nlistened intently to the rustling of the sacred leaves, while others\nconcentrated their attention on the soft murmur of the cold spring\ngushing from underneath its roots.[1133] But the adept has no need of\nany such extraneous aids--the simple exertion of his _will_-power is\nall-sufficient.\n\nThe _Atharva-Veda_ teaches that the exercise of such will-power is\nthe highest form of prayer and its instantaneous response. To desire\nis to realize in proportion to the intensity of the aspiration; and\nthat, in its turn, is measured by inward purity.\n\nSome of these nobler Vedantic precepts on the soul and man\u2019s mystic\npowers, have recently been contributed to an English periodical\nby a Hindu scholar. \u201cThe _Sankhya_,\u201d he writes, \u201cinculcates that\nthe soul (_i.e._, astral body) has the following powers: shrinking\ninto a minute bulk to which everything is pervious; enlarging to a\ngigantic body; assuming levity (rising along a sunbeam to the solar\norb); possessing an unlimited reach of organs, as touching the moon\nwith the tip of a finger; irresistible will (for instance, sinking\ninto the earth as easily as in water); dominion over all things,\nanimate or inanimate; faculty of changing the course of nature;\nability to accomplish every desire.\u201d Further, he gives their various\nappellations:\n\n\u201cThe powers are called: 1, _Anima_; 2, _Mahima_; 3, _Laghima_; 4,\n_Garima_; 5, _Prapti_; 6, _Prakamya_; 7, _Vasitwa_; 8, _Isitwa_, or\ndivine power. The fifth, predicting future events, understanding\nunknown languages, curing diseases, divining unexpressed thoughts,\nunderstanding the language of the heart. The sixth is the power\nof converting old age into youth. The seventh is the power of\nmesmerizing human beings and beasts, and making them obedient; it is\nthe power of restraining passions and emotions. The eighth power is\nthe spiritual state, and presupposes the absence of the above seven\npowers, as in this state the Yogi is full of God.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo writings,\u201d he adds, \u201crevealed or sacred, were allowed to be so\nauthoritative and final _as the teaching of the soul_. Some of the\nRishis appear to have laid the greatest stress on this supersensuous\nsource of knowledge.\u201d[1134]\n\nFrom the remotest antiquity _mankind_ as a whole _have always been\nconvinced of the existence of a personal spiritual entity within the\npersonal physical man_. This inner entity was more or less divine,\naccording to its proximity to the _crown_--Chrestos. The closer the\nunion the more serene man\u2019s destiny, the less dangerous the external\nconditions. This belief is neither bigotry nor superstition, only\nan ever-present, instinctive feeling of the proximity of another\nspiritual and invisible world, which, though it be subjective to the\nsenses of the outward man, is perfectly objective to the inner ego.\nFurthermore, they believed that _there are external and internal\nconditions which affect the determination of our will upon our\nactions_. They rejected fatalism, for fatalism implies a blind course\nof some still blinder power. But they believed in _destiny_, which\nfrom birth to death every man is weaving thread by thread around\nhimself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided\neither by that presence termed by some the guardian angel, or our\nmore intimate astral inner man, who is but too often the evil genius\nof the man of flesh. Both these lead on the outward man, but one\nof them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible\naffray the stern and implacable _law of compensation_ steps in and\ntakes its course, following faithfully the fluctuations. When the\nlast strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the net-work\nof his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire\nof this _self-made_ destiny. It then either fixes him like the inert\nshell against the immovable rock, or like a feather carries him away\nin a whirlwind raised by his own actions.\n\nThe greatest philosophers of antiquity found it neither unreasonable\nnor strange that \u201csouls should come to souls, and impart to them\nconceptions of future things, occasionally by letters, or by a mere\ntouch, or by a glance reveal to them past events or announce future\nones,\u201d as Ammonius tells us. Moreover, Lamprias and others held\nthat if the _unembodied_ spirits or souls could descend on earth\nand become guardians of mortal men, \u201cwe should not seek to deprive\n_those souls which are still in the body_ of that power by which\nthe former know future events and are able to announce them. It is\nnot probable,\u201d adds Lamprias, \u201cthat the soul gains a new power of\nprophecy after separation from the body, and which before it did not\npossess. We may rather conclude _that it possessed all these powers\nduring its union with the body, although in a lesser perfection_....\nFor as the sun does not shine only when it passes from among the\nclouds, but has always been radiant and has only appeared dim and\nobscured by vapors, the soul does not only receive the power of\nlooking into futurity when it passes from the body as from a cloud,\nbut _has possessed it always_, though dimmed by connection with the\nearthly.\u201d\n\nA familiar example of one phase of the power of the soul or astral\nbody to manifest itself, is the phenomenon of the so-called\nspirit-hand. In the presence of certain mediums these seemingly\ndetached members will gradually develop from a luminous nebula, pick\nup a pencil, write messages, and then dissolve before the eyes of the\nwitnesses. Many such cases are recorded by perfectly competent and\ntrustworthy persons. These phenomena are real, and require serious\nconsideration. But false \u201cphantom-hands\u201d have sometimes been taken\nfor the genuine. At Dresden we once saw a hand and arm, made for the\npurpose of deception, with an ingenious arrangement of springs that\nwould cause the machine to imitate to perfection the movements of the\nnatural member; while exteriorly it would require close inspection to\ndetect its artificial character. In using this, the dishonest medium\nslips his natural arm out of his sleeve, and replaces it with the\nmechanical substitute; both hands may then be made to seem resting\nupon the table, while in fact one is touching the sitters, showing\nitself, knocking the furniture, and making other phenomena.\n\nThe mediums for real manifestations are least able, as a rule,\nto comprehend or explain them. Among those who have written most\nintelligently upon the subject of these luminous hands, may be\nreckoned Dr. Francis Gerry Fairfield, author of _Ten Years among\nthe Mediums_, an article from whose pen appears in the _Library\nTable_ for July 19, 1877. A medium himself, he is yet a strong\nopponent of the spiritualistic theory. Discussing the subject of the\n\u201cphantom-hand,\u201d he testifies that \u201cthis the writer has personally\nwitnessed, under conditions of test provided by himself, in his own\nroom, in full daylight, with the medium seated upon a sofa from six\nto eight feet from the table hovering upon which the apparition (the\nhand) appeared. The application of the poles of a horse-shoe magnet\nto the hand caused it to waver perceptibly, and threw the medium\ninto violent convulsions--pretty positive evidence that _the force\nconcerned in the phenomenon was generated in his own nervous system_.\u201d\n\nDr. Fairfield\u2019s deduction that the fluttering phantom-hand is an\nemanation from the medium is logical, and it is correct. The test\nof the horse-shoe magnet proves in a scientific way what every\nkabalist would affirm upon the authority of experience, no less than\nphilosophy. The \u201cforce concerned in the phenomenon\u201d is the will of\nthe medium, exercised unconsciously to the outer man, which for the\ntime is semi-paralyzed and cataleptic; the phantom-hand an extrusion\nof the man\u2019s inner or astral member. This is that real self whose\nlimbs the surgeon cannot amputate, but remain behind after the outer\ncasing is cut off, and (all theories of exposed or compressed nerve\ntermini to the contrary, notwithstanding) have all the sensations the\nphysical parts formerly experienced. This is that spiritual (astral)\nbody which \u201cis raised in incorruption.\u201d It is useless to argue that\nthese are _spirit_-hands; for, admitting even that at every seance\nhuman spirits of many kinds are attracted to the medium, and that\nthey do guide and produce some manifestations, yet to make hands or\nfaces objective they are compelled to use either the astral limbs of\nthe medium, or the materials furnished them by the elementals, or yet\nthe combined aural emanations of all persons present. _Pure_ spirits\nwill not and _cannot_ show themselves objectively; those that do are\nnot pure spirits, but elementary and impure. Woe to the medium who\nfalls a prey to such!\n\nThe same principle involved in the unconscious extrusion of a\nphantom limb by the cataleptic medium, applies to the projection\nof his entire \u201cdouble\u201d or astral body. This may be withdrawn by\nthe will of the medium\u2019s own inner self, without his retaining in\nhis physical brain any recollection of such an intent--that is one\nphase of man\u2019s dual capacity. It may also be effected by elementary\nand elemental spirits, to whom he may stand in the relation of\nmesmeric subject. Dr. Fairfield is right in one position taken in\nhis book, viz.: mediums are usually diseased, and in many if not\nmost cases the children or near connections of mediums. But he\nis wholly wrong in attributing all psychical phenomena to morbid\nphysiological conditions. The adepts of Eastern magic are uniformly\nin perfect mental and bodily health, and in fact the voluntary and\nindependent production of phenomena is impossible to any others. We\nhave known many, and never a sick man among them. The adept retains\nperfect consciousness; shows no change of bodily temperature, or\nother sign of morbidity; requires no \u201cconditions,\u201d but will do his\nfeats anywhere and everywhere; and instead of being passive and in\nsubjection to a foreign influence, rules the forces with iron will.\nBut we have elsewhere shown that the medium and the adept are as\nopposed as the poles. We will only add here that the body, soul, and\nspirit of the adept are all conscious and working in harmony, and the\nbody of the medium is an inert clod, and even his soul may be away in\na dream while its habitation is occupied by another.\n\nAn adept can not only project and make visible a hand, a foot, or\nany other portion of his body, but the whole of it. We have seen one\ndo this, in full day, while his hands and feet were being held by a\nskeptical friend whom he wished to surprise.[1135] Little by little\nthe whole astral body oozed out like a vapory cloud, until before us\nstood two forms, of which the second was an exact duplicate of the\nfirst, only slightly more shadowy.\n\nThe medium need not exercise any _will-power_. It suffices that\nshe or he shall know what is expected by the investigators. The\nmedium\u2019s \u201cspiritual\u201d entity, when not obsessed by other spirits,\nwill act outside the will or consciousness of the physical being, as\nsurely as it acts when within the body during a fit of somnambulism.\nIts perceptions, external and internal, will be acuter and far\nmore developed, precisely as they are in the sleep-walker. And\nthis is why \u201cthe materialized form sometimes knows more than the\nmedium,\u201d[1136] for the intellectual perception of the astral entity\nis proportionately as much higher than the corporeal intelligence\nof the medium in its normal state, as the spirit entity is finer\nthan itself. Generally the medium will be found cold, the pulse will\nhave visibly changed, and a state of nervous prostration succeeds\nthe phenomena, bunglingly and without discrimination attributed to\ndisembodied spirits; whereas, but one-third of them may be produced\nby the latter, another third by elementals, and the rest by the\nastral double of the medium himself.\n\nBut, while it is our firm belief that most of the physical\nmanifestations, _i.e._, those which neither need nor show\nintelligence nor great discrimination, are produced mechanically\nby the _scin-lecca_ (double) of the medium, as a person in sound\nsleep will when apparently awake do things of which he will retain\nno remembrance. The purely subjective phenomena are but in a very\nsmall proportion of cases due to the action of the personal astral\nbody. They are mostly, and according to the moral, intellectual, and\nphysical purity of the medium, the work of either the elementary, or\nsometimes very pure human spirits. Elementals have naught to do with\nsubjective manifestations. In rare cases it is the _divine_ spirit of\nthe medium himself that guides and produces them.\n\nAs Baboo Peary Chand Mittra says, in a letter[1137] to the President\nof the National Association of Spiritualists, Mr. Alexander\nCalder,[1138] \u201ca spirit is an essence or power, and has no form....\nThe very idea of form implies \u2018materialism.\u2019 The spirits [astral\nsouls, we should say] ... can assume forms for a time, but form is\nnot their permanent state. The more material is our soul, the more\nmaterial is our conception of spirits.\u201d\n\nEpimenides, the Orphikos, was renowned for his \u201csacred and marvellous\nnature,\u201d and for the faculty his soul possessed of quitting its body\n\u201c_as long and as often as it pleased_.\u201d The ancient philosophers who\nhave testified to this ability may be reckoned by dozens. Apollonius\nleft his body at a moment\u2019s notice, but it must be remembered\nApollonius was an adept--a \u201cmagician.\u201d Had he been simply a medium,\nhe could not have performed such feats _at will_. Empedocles of\nAgrigentum, the Pythagorean thaumaturgist, required no _conditions_\nto arrest a waterspout which had broken over the city. Neither did\nhe need any to recall a woman to life, as he did. Apollonius used no\n_darkened_ room in which to perform his \u00e6throbatic feats. Vanishing\nsuddenly in the air before the eyes of Domitian and a whole crowd of\nwitnesses (many thousands), he appeared an hour after in the grotto\nof Puteoli. But investigation would have shown that his physical\nbody having become invisible by the concentration of ak\u00e2sa about\nit, he could walk off unperceived to some secure retreat in the\nneighborhood, and an hour after his astral form appear at Puteoli to\nhis friends, and seem to be the man himself.\n\nNo more did Simon Magus wait to be entranced to fly off in the\nair before the apostles and crowds of witnesses. \u201cIt requires no\nconjuration and ceremonies; circle-making and incensing are mere\nnonsense and juggling,\u201d says Paracelsus. The human spirit \u201cis so\ngreat a thing that no man can express it; as God Himself is eternal\nand unchangeable, so also is the mind of man. If we rightly\nunderstood its powers, nothing would be impossible to us on earth.\nThe imagination is strengthened and developed through _faith in our\nwill_. Faith must confirm the imagination, for faith establishes the\nwill.\u201d\n\nA singular account of the personal interview of an English ambassador\nin 1783, with a re\u00efncarnated Buddha--barely mentioned in volume\ni.--an infant of eighteen months old at that time, is given in the\n_Asiatic Journal_ from the narrative of an eye-witness himself,\nMr. Turner, the author of _The Embassy to Thibet_. The cautious\nphraseology of a skeptic dreading public ridicule ill conceals\nthe amazement of the witness, who, at the same time, desires to\ngive facts as truthfully as possible. The infant lama received the\nambassador and his suite with a dignity and decorum so natural\nand unconstrained that they remained in a perfect maze of wonder.\nThe behavior of this infant, says the author, was that of an old\nphilosopher, grave and sedate and exceedingly courteous. He contrived\nto make the young pontiff understand the inconsolable grief into\nwhich the Governor-General of Galagata (Calcutta) the City of Palaces\nand the people of India were plunged when he died, and the general\nrapture when they found that he had resurrected in a young and fresh\nbody again; at which compliment the young lama regarded him and his\nsuite with looks of singular complacency, and courteously treated\nthem to confectionery from a golden cup. \u201cThe ambassador continued to\nexpress the Governor-General\u2019s hope that the lama might long continue\nto illumine the world with his presence, and that the friendship\nwhich had heretofore subsisted between them might be yet more\nstrongly cemented, for the benefit and advantage of the intelligent\nvotaries of the lama ... all which made the little creature look\nsteadfastly at the speaker, and graciously bow and nod--and bow\nand nod--as _if he_ understood and approved of every word that was\nuttered.\u201d[1139]\n\nAs _if_ he understood! _If_ the infant behaved in the most natural\nand dignified way during the reception, and \u201cwhen their cups were\nempty of tea became uneasy and throwing back his head and contracting\nthe skin of his brow, continued making a noise till they were filled\nagain,\u201d why could he not understand as well what was said to him?\n\nYears ago, a small party of travellers were painfully journeying\nfrom Kashmir to Leh, a city of Lad\u00e2hk (Central Thibet). Among\nour guides we had a Tartar Shaman, a very mysterious personage,\nwho spoke Russian a little and English not at all, and yet who\nmanaged, nevertheless, to converse with us, and proved of great\nservice. Having learned that some of our party were Russians, he had\nimagined that our protection was all-powerful, and might enable\nhim to safely find his way back to his Siberian home, from which,\nfor reasons unknown, some twenty years before, he had fled, as he\ntold us, via Kiachta and the great Gobi Desert, to the land of the\nTcha-gars.[1140] With such an interested object in view, we believed\nourselves safe under his guard. To explain the situation briefly:\nOur companions had formed the unwise plan of penetrating into Thibet\nunder various disguises, none of them speaking the language, although\none, a Mr. K----, had picked up some Kasan Tartar, and thought he\ndid. As we mention this only incidentally, we may as well say at once\nthat two of them, the brothers N----, were very politely brought back\nto the frontier before they had walked sixteen miles into the weird\nland of Eastern Bod; and Mr. K----, an ex-Lutheran minister, could\nnot even attempt to leave his miserable village near Leh, as from\nthe first days he found himself prostrated with fever, and had to\nreturn to Lahore via Kashmere. But one sight seen by him was as good\nas if he had witnessed the re\u00efncarnation of Buddha itself. Having\nheard of this \u201cmiracle\u201d from some old Russian missionary in whom\nhe thought he could have more faith than in Abb\u00e9 Huc, it had been\nfor years his desire to expose the \u201cgreat heathen\u201d jugglery, as he\nexpressed it. K---- was a positivist, and rather prided himself on\nthis anti-philosophical neologism. But his positivism was doomed to\nreceive a death-blow.\n\nAbout four days journey from Islamabad, at an insignificant mud\nvillage, whose only redeeming feature was its magnificent lake,\nwe stopped for a few days\u2019 rest. Our companions had temporarily\nseparated from us, and the village was to be our place of meeting.\nIt was there that we were apprised by our Shaman that a large party\nof Lama\u00efc \u201cSaints,\u201d on pilgrimage to various shrines, had taken up\ntheir abode in an old cave-temple and established a temporary Vihara\ntherein. He added that, as the \u201cThree Honorable Ones\u201d[1141] were said\nto travel along with them, the holy Bikshu (monks) were capable of\nproducing the greatest miracles. Mr. K----, fired with the prospect\nof exposing this humbug of the ages, proceeded at once to pay them\na visit, and from that moment the most friendly relations were\nestablished between the two camps.\n\nThe Vihar was in a secluded and most romantic spot secured against\nall intrusion. Despite the effusive attentions, presents, and\nprotestations of Mr. K----, the Chief, who was Pase-Budhu (an ascetic\nof great sanctity), declined to exhibit the phenomenon of the\n\u201cincarnation\u201d until a certain talisman in possession of the writer\nwas exhibited.[1142] Upon seeing this, however, preparations were at\nonce made, and an infant of three or four months was procured from\nits mother, a poor woman of the neighborhood. An oath was first of\nall exacted of Mr. K----, that he would not divulge what he might\nsee or hear, for the space of seven years. The talisman is a simple\nagate or carnelian known among the Thibetans and others as _A-yu_,\nand naturally possessed, or had been endowed with very mysterious\nproperties. It has a triangle engraved upon it, within which are\ncontained a few mystical words.[1143]\n\nSeveral days passed before everything was ready; nothing of a\nmysterious character occurring, meanwhile, except that, at the\nbidding of a Bikshu, ghastly faces were made to peep at us out of\nthe glassy bosom of the lake, as we sat at the door of the Vihar,\nupon its bank. One of these was the countenance of Mr. K----\u2019s\nsister, whom he had left well and happy at home, but who, as we\nsubsequently learned, had died some time before he had set out on\nthe present journey. The sight affected him at first, but he called\nhis skepticism to his aid, and quieted himself with theories of\ncloud-shadows, reflections of tree-branches, etc., such as people of\nhis kind fall back upon.\n\nOn the appointed afternoon, the baby being brought to the Vihara,\nwas left in the vestibule or reception-room, as K---- could go no\nfurther into the temporary sanctuary. The child was then placed on a\nbit of carpet in the middle of the floor, and every one not belonging\nto the party being sent away, two \u201cmendicants\u201d were placed at the\nentrance to keep out intruders. Then all the lamas seated themselves\non the floor, with their backs against the granite walls, so that\neach was separated from the child by a space, at least, of ten feet.\nThe chief, having had a square piece of leather spread for him by\nthe _desservant_, seated himself at the farthest corner. Alone, Mr.\nK---- placed himself close by the infant, and watched every movement\nwith intense interest. The only condition exacted of us was that\nwe should preserve a strict silence, and patiently await further\ndevelopments. A bright sunlight streamed through the open door.\nGradually the \u201cSuperior\u201d fell into what seemed a state of profound\nmeditation, while the others, after a _sotto voce_ short invocation,\nbecame suddenly silent, and looked as if they had been completely\npetrified. It was oppressively still, and the crowing of the child\nwas the only sound to be heard. After we had sat there a few moments,\nthe movements of the infant\u2019s limbs suddenly ceased, and his body\nappeared to become rigid. K---- watched intently every motion, and\nboth of us, by a rapid glance, became satisfied that all present\nwere sitting motionless. The superior, with his gaze fixed upon the\nground, did not even look at the infant; but, pale and motionless, he\nseemed rather like a bronze statue of a Talapoin in meditation than a\nliving being. Suddenly, to our great consternation, we saw the child,\nnot raise itself, but, as it were, violently jerked into a sitting\nposture! A few more jerks, and then, like an automaton set in motion\nby concealed wires, the four months\u2019 baby stood upon his feet! Fancy\nour consternation, and, in Mr. K----\u2019s case, horror. Not a hand had\nbeen outstretched, not a motion made, nor a word spoken; and yet,\nhere was a baby-in-arms standing erect and firm as a man!\n\nThe rest of the story we will quote from a copy of notes written on\nthis subject by Mr. K----, the same evening, and given to us, in case\nit should not reach its place of destination, or the writer fail to\nsee anything more.\n\n\u201cAfter a minute or two of hesitation,\u201d writes K----, \u201cthe baby turned\nhis head and looked at me with an expression of intelligence that\nwas simply awful! It sent a chill through me. I pinched my hands\nand bit my lips till the blood almost came, to make sure that I did\nnot dream. But this was only the beginning. The miraculous creature,\nmaking, _as I fancied_, two steps toward me, resumed his sitting\nposture, and, without removing his eyes from mine, repeated, sentence\nby sentence, in what I supposed to be Thibetan language, the very\nwords, which I had been told in advance, are commonly spoken at the\nincarnations of Buddha, beginning with \u2018I am Buddha; I am the old\nLama; I am his spirit in a new body,\u2019 etc. I felt a real terror; my\nhair rose upon my head, and my blood ran cold. For my life I could\nnot have spoken a word. There was no trickery here, no ventriloquism.\nThe infant lips moved, and the eyes seemed to search my very soul\nwith an expression that _made me think it was the face of the\nSuperior himself_, his eyes, his very look that I was gazing upon. It\nwas _as if his spirit had entered the little body, and was looking at\nme through the transparent mask of the baby\u2019s face_. I felt my brain\ngrowing dizzy. The infant reached toward me, and laid his little hand\nupon mine. I started as if I had been touched by a hot coal; and,\nunable to bear the scene any longer, covered my face with my hands.\nIt was but for an instant; but when I removed them, the little actor\nhad become a crowing baby again, and a moment after, lying upon his\nback, set up a fretful cry. The superior had resumed his normal\ncondition, and conversation ensued.\n\n\u201cIt was only after a series of similar experiments, extending over\nten days, that I realized the fact that I had seen the incredible,\nastounding phenomenon described by certain travellers, but always\nby me denounced as an imposture. Among a multitude of questions\nunanswered, despite my cross-examination, the Superior let drop one\npiece of information, which must be regarded as highly significant.\n\u2018What would have happened,\u2019 I inquired, through the shaman, \u2018if,\nwhile the infant was speaking, in a moment of insane fright, at the\nthought of its being the \u201cDevil,\u201d I had killed it?\u2019 He replied that,\nif the blow had not been instantly fatal, the child _alone_ would\nhave been killed.\u2019 \u2018But,\u2019 I continued, \u2018suppose that it had been as\nswift as a lightning-flash?\u2019 \u2018In such case,\u2019 was the answer, \u2018_you\nwould have killed me also_.\u2019\u201d\n\nIn Japan and Siam there are two orders of priests, of which\none are public, and deal with the people, the other strictly\nprivate. The latter are never seen; their existence is known but\nto very few natives, never to foreigners. Their powers are never\ndisplayed in public, nor ever at all except on rare occasions of\nthe utmost importance, at which times the ceremonies are performed\nin subterranean or otherwise inaccessible temples, and in the\npresence of a chosen few whose heads answer for their secrecy. Among\nsuch occasions are deaths in the Royal family, or those of high\ndignitaries affiliated with the Order. One of the most weird and\nimpressive exhibitions of the power of these magicians is that of\nthe withdrawal of the astral soul from the cremated remains of human\nbeings, a ceremony practiced likewise in some of the most important\nlamaseries of Thibet and Mongolia.\n\nIn Siam, Japan, and Great Tartary, it is the custom to make\nmedallions, statuettes, and idols out of the ashes of cremated\npersons;[1144] they are mixed with water into a paste, and after\nbeing moulded into the desired shape, are baked and then gilded. The\nLamasery of Ou-Tay, in the province of Chan-Si, Mongolia, is the\nmost famous for that work, and rich persons send the bones of their\ndefunct relatives to be ground and fashioned there. When the adept\nin magic proposes to facilitate the withdrawal of the astral soul\nof the deceased, which otherwise they think might remain stupefied\nfor an indefinite period _within_ the ashes, the following process\nis resorted to: The sacred dust is placed in a heap upon a metallic\nplate, strongly magnetized, of the size of a man\u2019s body. The adept\nthen slowly and gently fans it with the _Talapat Nang_,[1145] a fan\nof a peculiar shape and inscribed with certain signs, muttering,\nat the same time, a form of invocation. The ashes soon become, as\nit were, imbued with life, and gently spread themselves out into a\nthin layer which assumes the outline of the body before cremation.\nThen there gradually arises a sort of whitish vapor which after a\ntime forms into an erect column, and compacting itself, is finally\ntransformed into the \u201cdouble,\u201d or ethereal, astral counterpart of the\ndead, which in its turn dissolves away into thin air, and disappears\nfrom mortal sight.[1146]\n\nThe \u201cMagicians\u201d of Kashmir, Thibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary are\ntoo well known to need comments. If _jugglers_ they be, we invite the\nmost expert jugglers of Europe and America to match them if they can.\n\nIf our scientists are unable to imitate the mummy-embalming of the\nEgyptians, how much greater would be their surprise to see, as we\nhave, dead bodies preserved by alchemical art, so that after the\nlapse of centuries, they seem as though the individuals were but\nsleeping. The complexions were as fresh, the skin as elastic, the\neyes as natural and sparkling as though they were in the full flush\nof health, and the wheels of life had been stopped but the instant\nbefore. The bodies of certain very eminent personages are laid upon\ncatafalques, in rich mausoleums, sometimes overlaid with gilding or\neven with plates of real gold; their favorite arms, trinkets, and\narticles of daily use gathered about them, and a suite of attendants,\nblooming young boys and girls, but still corpses, preserved like\ntheir masters, stand as if ready to serve when called. In the convent\nof Great Kouren, and in one situated upon the Holy Mountain (Boht\u00e9\nOula) there are said to be several such sepulchres, which have been\nrespected by all the conquering hordes that have swept through those\ncountries. Abb\u00e9 Huc heard that such exist, but did not see one,\nstrangers of all kinds being excluded, and missionaries and European\ntravellers not furnished with the requisite protection, being the\nlast of all persons who would be permitted to approach the sacred\nplaces. Huc\u2019s statement that the tombs of Tartar sovereigns are\nsurrounded with children \u201cwho were compelled to swallow mercury until\nthey were suffocated,\u201d by which means \u201cthe color and freshness of the\nvictims is preserved so well that they appear alive,\u201d is one of these\nidle missionary fables which impose only upon the most ignorant who\naccept on hearsay. Buddhists have never immolated victims, whether\nhuman or animal. It is utterly against the principles of their\nreligion, and no Lamaist was ever accused of it. When a rich man\ndesired to be interred in _company_, messengers were sent throughout\nthe country with the Lama-embalmers, and children just dead in the\nnatural way were selected for the purpose. Poor parents were but too\nglad to preserve their departed children in this poetic way, instead\nof abandoning them to decay and wild beasts.\n\nAt the time when Abb\u00e9 Huc was living in Paris, after his return\nfrom Thibet, he related, among other unpublished wonders, to a Mr.\nArsenieff, a Russian gentleman, the following curious fact that he\nhad witnessed during his long sojourn at the lamasery of Kounboum.\nOne day while conversing with one of the lamas, the latter suddenly\nstopped speaking, and assumed the attentive attitude of one who is\nlistening to a message being delivered to him, although he (Huc)\nheard never a word. \u201cThen, I must go;\u201d suddenly broke forth the lama,\nas if in response to the message.\n\n\u201cGo where?\u201d inquired the astonished \u201clama of Jehovah\u201d (Huc). \u201cAnd\nwith whom are you talking?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo the lamasery of * * *,\u201d was the quiet answer. \u201cThe Shaberon wants\nme; it was he who summoned me.\u201d\n\nNow this lamasery was many days\u2019 journey from that of Kounboum, in\nwhich the conversation was taking place. But what seemed to astonish\nHuc the most was, that, instead of setting off on his journey, the\nlama simply walked to a sort of cupola-room on the roof of the house\nin which they lived, and another lama, after exchanging a few words,\nfollowed them to the terrace by means of the ladder, and passing\nbetween them, locked and barred his companion in. Then turning to Huc\nafter a few seconds of meditation, he smiled and informed the guest\nthat \u201che had gone.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how could he? Why you have locked him in, and the room has no\nissue?\u201d insisted the missionary.\n\n\u201cAnd what good would a door be to him?\u201d answered the custodian. \u201c_It\nis he himself who went away; his body is not needed, and so he left\nit in my charge._\u201d\n\nNotwithstanding the wonders which Huc had witnessed during his\nperilous journey, his opinion was that both of the lamas had\nmystified him. But three days later, not having seen his habitual\nfriend and entertainer, he inquired after him, and was informed that\nhe would be back in the evening. At sunset, and just as the \u201cother\nlamas\u201d were preparing to retire, Huc heard his absent friend\u2019s voice\ncalling as if from the clouds, to his companion to open the door\nfor him. Looking upward, he perceived the \u201ctraveller\u2019s\u201d outline\nbehind the lattice of the room where he had been locked in. When\nhe descended he went straight to the Grand Lama of Kounboum, and\ndelivered to him certain messages and \u201corders,\u201d from the place which\nhe \u201cpretended\u201d he had just left. Huc could get no more information\nfrom him as to his _a\u00ebrial_ voyage. But he always thought, he\nsaid, that this \u201cfarce\u201d had something to do with the immediate and\nextraordinary preparations for the polite expulsion of both the\nmissionaries, himself and Father Gabet, to Chogor-tan, a place\nbelonging to the Kounboum. The suspicion of the daring missionary\nmay have been correct, in view of his impudent inquisitiveness and\nindiscretion.\n\nIf the Abb\u00e9 had been versed in Eastern philosophy, he would have\nfound no great difficulty in comprehending both the flight of the\nlama\u2019s astral body to the distant lamasery while his physical frame\nremained behind, or the carrying on of a conversation with the\nShaberon that was inaudible to himself. The recent experiments with\nthe telephone in America, to which allusion was made in Chapter V.\nof our first volume, but which have been greatly perfected since\nthose pages went to press, prove that the human voice and the\nsounds of instrumental music may be conveyed along a telegraphic\nwire to a great distance. The Hermetic philosophers taught, as we\nhave seen, that the disappearance from sight of a flame does not\nimply its actual extinction. It has only passed from the visible\nto the invisible world, and may be perceived by the inner sense\nof vision, which is adapted to the things of that other and more\nreal universe. The same rule applies to sound. As the physical ear\ndiscerns the vibrations of the atmosphere up to a certain point,\nnot yet definitely fixed, but varying with the individual, so the\nadept whose interior hearing has been developed, can take the sound\nat this vanishing-point, and hear its vibrations in the astral light\nindefinitely. He needs no wires, helices, or sounding-boards; his\nwill-power is all-sufficient. Hearing with the spirit, time and\ndistance offer no impediments, and so he may converse with another\nadept at the antipodes with as great ease as though they were in the\nsame room.\n\nFortunately, we can produce numerous witnesses to corroborate our\nstatement, who, without being adepts at all, have, nevertheless,\nheard the sound of a\u00ebrial music and of the human voice, when neither\ninstrument nor speaker were within thousands of miles of the place\nwhere we sat. In their case they actually heard interiorly, though\nthey supposed their physical organs of hearing alone were employed.\nThe adept had, by a simple effort of will-power, given them for the\nbrief moment the same perception of the spirit of sound as he himself\nconstantly enjoys.\n\nIf our men of science could only be induced to test instead of\nderiding the ancient philosophy of the trinity of all the natural\nforces, they would go by leaps toward the dazzling truth, instead\nof creeping, snail-like, as at present. Prof. Tyndall\u2019s experiments\noff the South Foreland, at Dover, in 1875, fairly upset all previous\ntheories of the transmission of sound, and those he has made with\nsensitive flames[1147] bring him to the very threshold of arcane\nscience. One step further, and he would comprehend how adepts can\nconverse at great distances. But that step will _not_ be taken. Of\nhis sensitive--in truth, magical--flame, he says: \u201cThe slightest tap\non a distant anvil causes it to fall to seven inches. When a bunch\nof keys is shaken, the flame is violently agitated, and emits a loud\nroar. The dropping of a sixpence into a hand already containing coin,\nknocks the flame down. The creaking of boots sets it in violent\ncommotion. The crumpling or tearing of a bit of paper, or the rustle\nof a silk dress does the same. Responsive to every tick of a watch\nheld near it, it falls and explodes. The winding up of a watch\nproduces tumult. From a distance of thirty yards we may chirrup to\nthis flame, and cause it to fall and roar. Repeating a passage from\nthe _Fa\u00ebrie Queene_, the flame sifts and selects the manifold sounds\nof my voice, noticing some by a slight nod, others by a deeper bow,\nwhile to others it responds by violent agitation.\u201d\n\nSuch are the wonders of modern physical science; but at what cost of\napparatus, and carbonic acid and coal gas; of American and Canadian\nwhistles, trumpets, gongs, and bells! The poor heathen have none such\n_impedimenta_, but--will European science believe it--nevertheless,\nproduce the very same phenomena. Upon one occasion, when, in a case\nof exceptional importance, an \u201coracle\u201d was required, we saw the\npossibility of what we had previously vehemently denied--namely, a\nsimple mendicant cause a sensitive flame to give responsive flashes\nwithout a particle of apparatus. A fire was kindled of branches of\nthe _Beal_-tree, and some sacrificial herbs were sprinkled upon it.\nThe mendicant sat near by, motionless, absorbed in contemplation.\nDuring the intervals between the questions the fire burned low and\nseemed ready to go out, but when the interrogatories were propounded,\nthe flames leaped, roaring, skyward, flickered, bowed, and sent fiery\ntongues flaring toward the east, west, north, or south; each motion\nhaving its distinct meaning in a code of signals well understood.\nBetween whiles it would sink to the ground, and the tongues of flame\nwould lick the sod in every direction, and suddenly disappear,\nleaving only a bed of glowing embers. When the interview with the\nflame-spirits was at an end, the Bikshu (mendicant) turned toward the\njungle where he abode, keeping up a wailing, monotonous chant, to the\nrhythm of which the sensitive flame kept time, not merely like Prof.\nTyndall\u2019s, when he read the _Fa\u00ebrie Queene_, by simple motions, but\nby a marvellous modulation of hissing and roaring until he was out of\nsight. Then, as if its very life were extinguished, it vanished, and\nleft a bed of ashes before the astonished spectators.\n\nBoth in Western and Eastern Thibet, as in every other place where\nBuddhism predominates, there are two distinct religions, the same\nas it is in Brahmanism--the secret philosophy and the popular\nreligion. The former is that of the followers of the doctrine of the\nsect of the Sutr\u00e2ntika.[1148] They closely adhere to the spirit of\nBuddha\u2019s original teachings which show the necessity of _intuitional_\nperception, and all deductions therefrom. These do not proclaim their\nviews, nor allow them to be made public.\n\n\u201cAll _compounds_ are perishable,\u201d were the last words uttered by the\nlips of the dying Gautama, when preparing under the S\u00e2l-tree to enter\ninto Nirvana. \u201cSpirit is the sole, elementary, and primordial unity,\nand each of its rays is immortal, infinite, and indestructible.\nBeware of the illusions of matter.\u201d Buddhism was spread far and wide\nover Asia, and even farther, by Dharm-As\u00f4ka. He was the grandson of\nthe miracle-worker Chandragupta, the illustrious king who rescued the\nPunj\u00e2b from the Macedonians--if they ever were at Punj\u00e2b at all--and\nreceived Megasthenes at his court in Pataliputra. Dharm-As\u00f4ka was\nthe greatest King of the Ma\u00fbrya dynasty. From a reckless profligate\nand atheist, he had become Pry\u00e2dasi, the \u201cbeloved of the gods,\u201d and\nnever was the purity of his philanthropic views surpassed by any\nearthly ruler. His memory has lived for ages in the hearts of the\nBuddhists, and has been perpetuated in the humane edicts engraved\nin several popular dialects on the columns and rocks of Allahabad,\nDelhi, Guzerat, Peshawur, Orissa, and other places.[1149] His famous\ngrandfather had united all India under his powerful sceptre. When\nthe N\u00e2gas, or serpent-worshippers of Kashmere had been converted\nthrough the efforts of the apostles sent out by the Sthaviras of\nthe third councils, the religion of Gautama spread like wild-fire.\nG\u00e2ndhara, Cabul, and even many of the Satrapies of Alexander the\nGreat, accepted the new philosophy. The Buddhism of Nep\u00e2l being the\none which may be said to have diverged less than any other from the\nprimeval ancient faith, the Lamaism of Tartary, Mongolia, and Thibet,\nwhich is a direct offshoot of this country, may be thus shown to be\nthe purest Buddhism; for we say it again, Lamaism properly is but an\nexternal form of rites.\n\nThe Up\u00e2sakas and Up\u00e2sakis, or male and female semi-monastics and\nsemi-laymen, have equally with the lama-monks themselves, to strictly\nabstain from violating any of Buddha\u2019s rules, and must study _Meipo_\nand every psychological phenomenon as much. Those who become guilty\nof any of the \u201cfive sins\u201d lose all right to congregate with the pious\ncommunity. The most important of these is _not to curse upon any\nconsideration, for the curse returns upon the one that utters it, and\noften upon his innocent relatives who breathe the same atmosphere\nwith him_. To love each other, and even our bitterest enemies; to\noffer our lives even for animals, to the extent of abstaining from\ndefensive arms; to gain the greatest of victories by conquering\none\u2019s self; to avoid all vices; to practice all virtues, especially\nhumility and mildness; to be obedient to superiors, to cherish and\nrespect parents, old age, learning, virtuous and holy men; to provide\nfood, shelter, and comfort for men and animals; to plant trees on\nthe roads and dig wells for the comfort of travellers; such are the\nmoral duties of Buddhists. Every Ani or Bikshuni (nun) is subjected\nto these laws.\n\nNumerous are the Buddhist and Lamaic saints who have been renowned\nfor the unsurpassed sanctity of their lives and their \u201cmiracles.\u201d So\nTissu, the Emperor\u2019s spiritual teacher, who consecrated Kubla\u00ef-Khan,\nthe Nadir Shah, was known far and wide as much for the extreme\nholiness of his life as for the many wonders he wrought. But he\ndid not stop at fruitless miracles, but did better than that. Tissu\npurified completely his religion; and from one single province\nof Southern Mongolia is said to have forced Kublai to expel from\nconvents 500,000 monkish impostors, who made a pretext of their\nprofession, to live in vice and idleness. Then the Lamaists had\ntheir great reformer, the Shaberon Son-Ka-po, who is claimed to\nhave been immaculately conceived by his mother, a virgin from\nKoko-nor (fourteenth century), who is another wonder-worker. The\nsacred tree of Kounboum, the tree of the 10,000 images, which, in\nconsequence of the degeneration of the true faith had ceased budding\nfor several centuries, now shot forth new sprouts and bloomed more\nvigorously than ever from the hair of this avatar of Buddha, says the\nlegend. The same tradition makes him (Son-Ka-po) ascend to heaven\nin 1419. Contrary to the prevailing idea, few of these saints are\n_Khubilhans_, or Shaberons--re\u00efncarnations.\n\nMany of the lamaseries contain schools of magic, but the most\ncelebrated is the collegiate monastery of the Shu-tukt, where there\nare over 30,000 monks attached to it, the lamasery forming quite a\nlittle city. Some of the female nuns possess marvellous psychological\npowers. We have met some of these women on their way from Lha-Ssa\nto Candi, the Rome of Buddhism, with its miraculous shrines and\nGautama\u2019s relics. To avoid encounters with Mussulmans and other sects\nthey travel by night alone, unarmed, and without the least fear of\nwild animals, _for these will not touch them_. At the first glimpses\nof dawn, they take refuge in caves and viharas prepared for them by\ntheir co-religionists at calculated distances; for notwithstanding\nthe fact that Buddhism has taken refuge in Ceylon, and nominally\nthere are but few of the denomination in British India, yet the\nsecret Byauds (Brotherhoods) and Buddhist viharas are numerous, and\nevery Jain feels himself obliged to help, indiscriminately, Buddhist\nor Lamaist.\n\nEver on the lookout for occult phenomena, hungering after sights,\none of the most interesting that we have seen was produced by one of\nthese poor travelling Bikshu. It was years ago, and at a time when\nall such manifestations were new to the writer. We were taken to\nvisit the pilgrims by a Buddhist friend, a mystical gentleman born at\nKashmir, of Katchi parents, but a Buddha-Lamaist by conversion, and\nwho generally resides at Lha-Ssa.\n\n\u201cWhy carry about this bunch of dead plants?\u201d inquired one of the\nBikshuni, an emaciated, tall and elderly woman, pointing to a large\nnosegay of beautiful, fresh, and fragrant flowers in the writer\u2019s\nhands.\n\n\u201cDead?\u201d we asked, inquiringly. \u201cWhy they just have been gathered in\nthe garden?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd yet, they are dead,\u201d she gravely answered. \u201cTo be born in this\nworld, is this not death? See, how these herbs look when alive in the\nworld of eternal light, in the gardens of our blessed Foh?\u201d\n\nWithout moving from the place where she was sitting on the ground,\nthe Ani took a flower from the bunch, laid it in her lap, and began\nto draw together, by large handfuls as it were, invisible material\nfrom the surrounding atmosphere. Presently a very, very faint nodule\nof vapor was seen, and this slowly took shape and color, until,\npoised in mid-air, appeared a copy of the bloom we had given her.\nFaithful to the last tint and the last petal it was, and lying on its\nside like the original, but a thousand-fold more gorgeous in hue and\nexquisite in beauty, as the glorified human spirit is more beauteous\nthan its physical capsule. Flower after flower to the minutest herb\nwas thus reproduced and made to vanish, reappearing at our desire,\nnay, at our simple thought. Having selected a full-blown rose we\nheld it at arm\u2019s length, and in a few minutes our arm, hand, and the\nflower, perfect in every detail, appeared reflected in the vacant\nspace, about two yards from where we sat. But while the flower seemed\nimmeasurably beautified and as ethereal as the other spirit flowers,\nthe arm and hand appeared like a mere reflection in a looking-glass,\neven to a large spot on the fore arm, left on it by a piece of damp\nearth which had stuck to one of the roots. Later we learned the\nreason why.\n\nA great truth was uttered some fifty years ago by Dr. Francis Victor\nBroussais, when he said: \u201cIf magnetism were true, medicine would be\nan absurdity.\u201d Magnetism _is_ true, and so we shall not contradict\nthe learned Frenchman as to the rest. Magnetism, as we have shown,\nis the alphabet of magic. It is idle for any one to attempt to\nunderstand either the theory or the practice of the latter until\nthe fundamental principle of magnetic attractions and repulsions\nthroughout nature is recognized.\n\nMany so-called popular superstitions are but evidences of an\ninstinctive perception of this law. An untutored people are taught\nby the experience of many generations that certain phenomena occur\nunder fixed conditions; they give these conditions and obtain the\nexpected results. Ignorant of the laws, they explain the fact by\nsupernaturalism, for experience has been their sole teacher.\n\nIn India, as well as in Russia and some other countries, there is an\ninstinctive repugnance to stepping across a man\u2019s shadow, especially\nif he have red hair; and in the former country, natives are extremely\nreluctant to shake hands with persons of another race. These are\nnot idle fancies. Every person emits a magnetic exhalation or aura,\nand a man may be in perfect physical health, but at the same time\nhis exhalation may have a morbific character for others, sensitive\nto such subtile influences. Dr. Esdaile and other mesmerists long\nsince taught us that Oriental people, especially Hindus, are more\nsusceptible than the white-skinned races. Baron Reichenbach\u2019s\nexperiments--and, in fact, the world\u2019s entire experience--prove that\nthese magnetic exhalations are most intense from the extremities.\nTherapeutic manipulations show this; hand-shaking is, therefore, most\ncalculated to communicate antipathetic magnetic conditions, and the\nHindus do wisely in keeping their ancient \u201csuperstition\u201d--derived\nfrom Manu--constantly in mind.\n\nThe magnetism of a red-haired man, we have found, in almost every\nnation, is instinctively dreaded. We might quote proverbs from the\nRussian, Persian, Georgian, Hindustani, French, Turkish, and even\nGerman, to show that treachery and other vices are popularly supposed\nto accompany the rufous complexion. When a man stands exposed to\nthe sun, the magnetism of that luminary causes his emanations to\nbe projected toward the shadow, and the increased molecular action\ndevelops more electricity. Hence, an individual to whom he is\nantipathetic--though neither might be sensible of the fact--would\nact prudently in not passing through the shadow. Careful physicians\nwash their hands upon leaving each patient; why, then, should they\nnot be charged with superstition, as well as the Hindus? The sporules\nof disease are invisible, but no less real, as European experience\ndemonstrates. Well, _Oriental experience for a hundred centuries has\nshown that the germs of moral contagion linger about localities, and\nimpure magnetism can be communicated by the touch_.\n\nAnother prevalent belief in some parts of Russia, particularly\nGeorgia (Caucasus), and in India, is that in case the body of a\ndrowned person cannot be otherwise found, if a garment of his be\nthrown into the water it will float until directly over the spot, and\nthen sink. We have even seen the experiment successfully tried with\nthe sacred cord of a Brahman. It floated hither and thither, circling\nabout as though in search of something, until suddenly darting in a\nstraight line for about fifty yards, it sank, and at that exact spot\nthe divers brought up the body. We find this \u201csuperstition\u201d even\nin America. A Pittsburg paper, of very recent date, describes the\nfinding of the body of a young boy, named Reed, in the Monongahela,\nby a like method. All other means having failed, it says, \u201ca curious\nsuperstition was employed. One of the boy\u2019s shirts was thrown into\nthe river where he had gone down, and, it is said, floated on the\nsurface for a time, and finally settled to the bottom at a certain\nplace, which proved to be the resting-place of the body, and which\nwas then drawn out. The belief that the shirt of a drowned person\nwhen thrown into the water will follow the body is well-spread,\nabsurd as it appears.\u201d\n\nThis phenomenon is explained by the law of the powerful attraction\nexisting between the human body and objects that have been long worn\nupon it. The oldest garment is most effective for the experiment; a\nnew one is useless.\n\nFrom time immemorial, in Russia, in the month of May, on Trinity\nDay, maidens from city and village have been in the habit of casting\nupon the river wreaths of green leaves--which each girl has to form\nfor herself--and consulting their oracles. If the wreath sinks, it\nis a sign that the girl will die unmarried within a short time; if\nit floats, she will be married, the time depending upon the number\nof verses she can repeat during the experiment. We positively affirm\nthat we have personal knowledge of several cases, two of them our\nintimate friends, where the augury of death proved true, and the\ngirls _died_ within twelve months. Tried on any other day than\nTrinity, the result would doubtless be the same. The sinking of the\nwreath is attributable to its being impregnated with the unhealthy\nmagnetism of a system which contains the germs of early death; such\nmagnetisms having an attraction for the earth at the bottom of the\nstream. As for the rest, we are willing to abandon it to the friends\nof coincidence.\n\nThe same general remark as to superstition having a scientific basis\napplies to the phenomena produced by fakirs and jugglers, which\nskeptics heap into the common category of trickery. And yet, to a\nclose observer, even to the uninitiated, an enormous difference is\npresented between the _k\u00eemiya_ (phenomenon) of a fakir, and the\n_batte-b\u00e2zi_ (jugglery) of a trickster, and the necromancy of a\n_j\u00e2d\u00fbgar_, or _s\u00e2hir_, so dreaded and despised by the natives. This\ndifference, imperceptible--nay incomprehensible--to the skeptical\nEuropean, is instinctively appreciated by every Hindu, whether of\nhigh or low caste, educated or ignorant. The _kang\u00e2lin_, or witch,\nwho uses her terrible _abhi-ch\u00e2r_ (mesmeric powers) with intent to\ninjure, may expect death at any moment, for every Hindu finds it\nlawful to kill her; a _bukka-baz_, or juggler, serves to amuse. A\nserpent-charmer, with his _b\u00e2-\u00eeni_ full of venomous snakes, is less\ndreaded, for his powers of fascination extend but to animals and\nreptiles; he is unable to charm human beings, to perform that which\nis called by the natives _mantar ph\u00fbnkn\u00e2_, to throw spells on men\nby magic. But with the yogi, the sanny\u00e2si, the holy men who acquire\nenormous psychological powers by mental and physical training, the\nquestion is totally different. Some of these men are regarded by the\nHindus as demi-gods. Europeans cannot judge of these powers but in\nrare and exceptional cases.\n\nThe British resident who has encountered in the _maidans_ and public\nplaces what he regards as frightful and loathsome human beings,\nsitting motionless in the self-inflicted torture of the _\u00fbrddwa\nbahu_, with arms raised above the head for months, and even years,\nneed not suppose they are the wonder-working fakirs. The phenomenon\nof the latter are visible only through the friendly protection of\na Brahman, or under peculiarly fortuitous circumstances. Such men\nare as little accessible as the real Nautch girls, of whom every\ntraveller talks, but very few have actually seen, since they belong\nexclusively to the pagodas.\n\nIt is surpassingly strange, that with the thousands of travellers\nand the millions of European residents who have been in India, and\nhave traversed it in every direction, so little is yet known of that\ncountry and the lands which surround it. It may be that some readers\nwill feel inclined not merely to doubt the correctness but even\nopenly contradict our statement? Doubtless, we will be answered that\nall that it is desirable to know about India is already known? In\nfact this very reply was once made to us personally. That resident\nAnglo-Indians should not busy themselves with inquiries is not\nstrange; for, as a British officer remarked to us upon one occasion,\n\u201csociety does not consider it well-bred to care about Hindus or\ntheir affairs, or even show astonishment or desire information upon\nanything they may see extraordinary in that country.\u201d But it really\nsurprises us that at least travellers should not have explored\nmore than they have this interesting realm. Hardly fifty years\nago, in penetrating the jungles of the Blue or Neilgherry Hills in\nSouthern Hindustan, a strange race, perfectly distinct in appearance\nand language from any other Hindu people, was discovered by two\ncourageous British officers who were tiger-hunting. Many surmises,\nmore or less absurd, were set on foot, and the missionaries, always\non the watch to connect every mortal thing with the _Bible_, even\nwent so far as to suggest that this people was one of the lost\ntribes of Israel, supporting their ridiculous hypothesis upon their\nvery fair complexions and \u201cstrongly-marked Jewish features.\u201d The\nlatter is perfectly erroneous, the Todas, as they are called, not\nbearing the remotest likeness to the Jewish type; either in feature,\nform, action, or language. They closely resemble each other, and,\nas a friend of ours expresses himself, the handsomest of the Todas\nresemble the statue of the Grecian Zeus in majesty and beauty of form\nmore than anything he had yet seen among men.\n\nFifty years have passed since the discovery; but though since that\ntime towns have been built on these hills and the country has been\ninvaded by Europeans, no more has been learned of the Todas than\nat the first. Among the foolish rumors current about this people,\nthe most erroneous are those in relation to their numbers and to\ntheir practicing polyandry. The general opinion about them is that\non account of the latter custom their number has dwindled to a\nfew hundred families, and the race is fast dying out. We had the\nbest means of learning much about them, and therefore state most\npositively that the Todas neither practice polyandry nor are they\nas few in number as supposed. We are ready to show that no one\nhas ever seen children belonging to them. Those that may have been\nseen in their company have belonged to the Badagas, a Hindu tribe\ntotally distinct from the Todas, in race, color, and language, and\nwhich includes the most direct \u201cworshippers\u201d of this extraordinary\npeople. We say _worshippers_, for the Badagas clothe, feed, serve,\nand positively look upon every Toda as a divinity. They are giants\nin stature, white as Europeans, with tremendously long and generally\nbrown, wavy hair and beard, which no razor ever touched from birth.\nHandsome as a statue of Pheidias or Praxiteles, the Toda sits the\nwhole day inactive, as some travellers who have had a glance at them\naffirm. From the many conflicting opinions and statements we have\nheard from the very residents of Ootakamund and other little new\nplaces of civilization scattered about the Neilgherry Hills, we cull\nthe following:\n\n\u201cThey never use water; they are wonderfully handsome and noble\nlooking, but extremely unclean; unlike all other natives they despise\njewelry, and never wear anything but a large black drapery or blanket\nof some woollen stuff, with a colored stripe at the bottom; they\nnever drink anything but pure milk; they have herds of cattle but\nneither eat their flesh, nor do they make their beasts of labor\nplough or work; they neither sell nor buy; the Badagas feed and\nclothe them; they never use nor carry weapons, not even a simple\nstick; the Todas can\u2019t read and won\u2019t learn. They are the despair of\nthe missionaries and apparently have no sort of religion, beyond the\nworship of themselves as the Lords of Creation.\u201d[1150]\n\nWe will try to correct a few of these opinions, as far as we have\nlearned from a very holy personage, a Brahmanam-guru, who has our\ngreat respect.\n\nNobody has ever seen more than five or six of them at one time; they\nwill not talk with foreigners, nor was any traveller ever inside\ntheir peculiar long and flat huts, which apparently are without\neither windows or chimney and have but one door; nobody ever saw\nthe funeral of a Toda, nor very old men among them; nor are they\ntaken sick with cholera, while thousands die around them during such\nperiodical epidemics; finally, though the country all around swarms\nwith tigers and other wild beasts, neither tiger, serpent, nor any\nother animal so ferocious in those parts, was ever known to touch\neither a Toda or one of their cattle, though, as said above, they\nnever use even a stick.\n\nFurthermore the Todas do not marry at all. They seem few in number,\nfor no one has or ever will have a chance of numbering them; as soon\nas their solitude was profaned by the avalanche of civilization--which\nwas, perchance, due to their own carelessness--the Todas began moving\naway to other parts as unknown and more inaccessible than the\nNeilgherry hills had formerly been; they are not born of Toda mothers,\nnor of Toda parentage; they are the children of a certain very select\nsect, and are set apart from their infancy for special religious\npurposes. Recognized by a peculiarity of complexion, and certain other\nsigns, such a child is known as what is vulgarly termed a Toda, from\nbirth. Every third year, each of them must repair to a certain place\nfor a certain period of time, where each of them must meet; their\n\u201cdirt\u201d is but a mask, such as a sanny\u00e2si puts on in public in\nobedience to his vow; their cattle are, for the most part, devoted to\nsacred uses; and, though their places of worship have never been\ntrodden by a profane foot, they nevertheless exist, and perhaps rival\nthe most splendid pagodas--_goparams_--known to Europeans. The Badagas\nare their special vassals, and--as has been truly remarked--worship\nthem as half-deities; for their birth and mysterious powers entitle\nthem to such a distinction.\n\nThe reader may rest assured that any statements concerning them, that\nclash with the little that is above given, are false. No missionary\nwill ever catch one with his bait, nor any Badaga betray them, though\nhe were cut to pieces. They are a people who fulfill a certain high\npurpose, and whose secrets are inviolable.\n\nFurthermore, the Todas are not the only such mysterious tribe in\nIndia. We have named several in a preceding chapter, but how many are\nthere besides these, that will remain unnamed, unrecognized, and yet\never present!\n\nWhat is now generally known of Shamanism is very little; and that has\nbeen perverted, like the rest of the non-Christian religions. It is\ncalled the \u201cheathenism\u201d of Mongolia, and wholly without reason, for\nit is one of the oldest religions of India. It is spirit-worship, or\nbelief in the immortality of the souls, and that the latter are still\nthe same men they were on earth, though their bodies have lost their\nobjective form, and man has exchanged his physical for a spiritual\nnature. In its present shape, it is an offshoot of primitive theurgy,\nand a practical blending of the visible with the invisible world.\nWhenever a denizen of earth desires to enter into communication with\nhis invisible brethren, he has to assimilate himself to their nature,\n_i.e._, he meets these beings half-way, and, furnished by them with a\nsupply of spiritual essence, endows them, in his turn, with a portion\nof his physical nature, thus enabling them sometimes to appear in a\nsemi-objective form. It is a temporary exchange of natures, called\ntheurgy. Shamans are called sorcerers, because they are said to\nevoke the \u201cspirits\u201d of the dead for purposes of necromancy. The\ntrue Shamanism--striking features of which prevailed in India in\nthe days of Megasthenes (300 B.C.)--can no more be judged by its\ndegenerated scions among the Shamans of Siberia, than the religion\nof Gautama-Buddha can be interpreted by the fetishism of some of\nhis followers in Siam and Burmah. It is in the chief lamaseries of\nMongolia and Thibet that it has taken refuge; and there Shamanism, if\nso we must call it, is practiced to the utmost limits of intercourse\nallowed between man and \u201cspirit.\u201d The religion of the lamas has\nfaithfully preserved the primitive science of _magic_, and produces\nas great feats now as it did in the days of Kubla\u00ef-Khan and his\nbarons. The ancient mystic formula of the King Srong-ch-Tsans-Gampo,\nthe \u201cAum mani padm\u00e9 houm,\u201d[1151] effects its wonders now as well\nas in the seventh century. Avalokitesvara, highest of the three\nBoddhisattvas, and patron saint of Thibet, projects his shadow, full\nin the view of the faithful, at the lamasery of Dga-G\u2019Dan, founded\nby him; and the luminous form of Son-Ka-pa, under the shape of a\nfiery cloudlet, that separates itself from the dancing beams of\nthe sunlight, holds converse with a great congregation of lamas,\nnumbering thousands; the voice descending from above, like the\nwhisper of the breeze through foliage. Anon, say the Thibetans, the\nbeautiful appearance vanishes in the shadows of the sacred trees in\nthe park of the lamasery.\n\nAt Garma-Khian (the mother-cloister) it is rumored that bad and\nunprogressed spirits are made to appear on certain days, and _forced_\nto give an account of their evil deeds; they are compelled by the\nlamaic adepts to redress the wrongs done by them to mortals. This\nis what Huc na\u00efvely terms \u201cpersonating evil spirits,\u201d _i.e._,\ndevils. Were the skeptics of various European countries permitted to\nconsult the accounts printed daily[1152] at Moru, and in the \u201cCity\nof Spirits,\u201d of the business-like intercourse which takes place\nbetween the lamas and the invisible world, they would certainly feel\nmore interest in the phenomena described so triumphantly in the\nspiritualistic journals. At Buddha-lla, or rather Foht-lla (Buddha\u2019s\nMount), in the most important of the many thousand lamaseries of that\ncountry, the sceptre of the Boddhisgat is seen floating, unsupported,\nin the air, and its motions regulate the actions of the community.\nWhenever a lama is called to account in the presence of the Superior\nof the monastery, he knows beforehand it is useless for him to\ntell an untruth; the \u201cregulator of justice\u201d (the sceptre) is there,\nand its waving motion, either approbatory or otherwise, decides\ninstantaneously and unerringly the question of his guilt. We do not\npretend to have witnessed all this personally--we wish to make no\npretensions of any kind. Suffice it, with respect to any of these\nphenomena, that what we have not seen with our own eyes has been so\nsubstantiated to us that we indorse its genuineness.\n\nA number of lamas in Sikkin produce _meipo_--\u201cmiracle\u201d--by magical\npowers. The late Patriarch of Mongolia, Gegen Chutuktu, who resided\nat Urga, a veritable paradise, was the sixteenth incarnation\nof Gautama, therefore a Boddhisattva. He had the reputation of\npossessing powers that were phenomenal, even among the thaumaturgists\nof the land of miracles _par excellence_. Let no one suppose that\nthese powers are developed without cost. The lives of most of these\nholy men, miscalled idle vagrants, cheating beggars, who are supposed\nto pass their existence in preying upon the easy credulity of their\nvictims, are miracles in themselves. Miracles, because they show what\na determined will and perfect purity of life and purpose are able to\naccomplish, and to what degree of preternatural ascetism a human body\ncan be subjected and yet live and reach a ripe old age. No Christian\nhermit has ever dreamed of such refinement of monastic discipline;\nand the a\u00ebrial habitation of a Simon Stylite would appear child\u2019s\nplay before the fakir\u2019s and the Buddhist\u2019s inventions of will-tests.\nBut the theoretical study of magic is one thing; the possibility\nof practicing it quite another. At _Br\u00e2s-ss-Pungs_, the Mongolian\ncollege where over three hundred magicians (_sorciers_, as the\nFrench missionaries call them) teach about twice as many pupils from\ntwelve to twenty, the latter have many years to wait for their final\ninitiation. Not one in a hundred reaches the highest goal; and out of\nthe many thousand lamas occupying nearly an entire city of detached\nbuildings clustering around it, not more than two per cent. become\nwonder-workers. One may learn by heart every line of the 108 volumes\nof _Kadjur_,[1153] and still make but a poor practical magician.\nThere is but one thing which leads surely to it, and this particular\nstudy is hinted at by more than one Hermetic writer. One, the Arabian\nalchemist Abipili, speaks thus: \u201cI admonish thee, whosoever thou art\nthat desirest to dive into the inmost parts of nature; if that thou\nseekest thou findest not _within thee_, thou wilt _never find it\nwithout thee_. If thou knowest not the excellency of thine own house,\nwhy dost thou seek after the excellency of other things?... O MAN,\nKNOW THYSELF! IN THEE IS HID THE TREASURE OF TREASURERS.\u201d\n\nIn another alchemic tract, _De manna Benedicto_, the author expresses\nhis ideas of the philosopher\u2019s stone, in the following terms: \u201cMy\nintent is for certain reasons not to prate too much of the matter,\nwhich yet is but one only thing, already too plainly described; for\nit shows and sets down such magical and natural uses of it [the\nstone] as many that have had it never knew nor heard of; and such as,\nwhen I beheld them, _made my knees to tremble and my heart to shake,\nand I to stand amazed at the sight of them_!\u201d\n\nEvery neophyte has experienced more or less such a feeling; but once\nthat it is overcome, the man is an ADEPT.\n\nWithin the cloisters of Dshashi-Lumbo and Si-Dzang, these powers,\ninherent in every man, called out by so few, are cultivated to their\nutmost perfection. Who, in India, has not heard of the Banda-Chan\nRamboutchi, the _Houtouktou_ of the capital of Higher Thibet? His\nbrotherhood of Khe-lan was famous throughout the land; and one of\nthe most famous \u201cbrothers\u201d was a _Peh-ling_ (an Englishman) who had\narrived one day during the early part of this century, from the West,\na thorough Buddhist, and after a month\u2019s preparation was admitted\namong the Khe-lans. He spoke every language, including the Thibetan,\nand knew every art and science, says the tradition. His sanctity and\nthe phenomena produced by him caused him to be proclaimed a shaberon\nafter a residence of but a few years. His memory lives to the present\nday among the Thibetans, but his real name is a secret with the\nshaberons alone.\n\nThe greatest of the _meipo_--said to be the object of the ambition of\nevery Buddhist devotee--was, and yet is, the faculty of walking in\nthe air. The famous King of Siam, Pia Metak, the Chinese, was noted\nfor his devotion and learning. But he attained this \u201csupernatural\ngift\u201d only after having placed himself under the direct tuition of\na priest of Gautama-Buddha. Crawfurd and Finlayson, during their\nresidence at Siam, followed with great interest the endeavors of some\nSiamese nobles to acquire this faculty.[1154]\n\nNumerous and varied are the sects in China, Siam, Tartary,\nThibet, Kashmir, and British India, which devote their lives to\nthe cultivation of \u201csupernatural powers,\u201d so called. Discussing\none of such sects, the _Taoss\u00e9_, Semedo says: \u201cThey pretend that\nby means of certain exercises and meditations one shall regain\nhis youth, and others will attain to be _Shien-sien_, _i.e._,\n\u2018Terrestrial Beati,\u2019 in whose state every desire is gratified,\nwhilst they have the power to transport themselves from one place\nto another, _however distant_, with speed and facility.\u201d[1155] This\nfaculty relates but to the _projection_ of the _astral entity_,\nin a more or less corporealized form, and certainly not to bodily\ntransportation. This phenomenon is no more a miracle than one\u2019s\nreflection in a looking-glass. No one can detect in such an image a\nparticle of matter, and still there stands our double, faithfully\nrepresenting, even to each single hair on our heads. If, by this\nsimple law of reflection, our double can be seen in a mirror, how\nmuch more striking a proof of its existence is afforded in the\nart of photography! _It is no reason, because our physicists have\nnot yet found the means of taking photographs, except at a short\ndistance, that the acquirement should be impossible to those who\nhave found these means in the power of the human will itself,\nfreed from terrestrial concern._[1156] Our thoughts are _matter_,\nsays science; every energy produces more or less of a disturbance\nin the atmospheric waves. Therefore, as every man--in common with\nevery other living, and even inert object--has an _aura_ of his own\nemanations surrounding him; and, moreover, is enabled, by a trifling\neffort, to transport himself in _imagination_ wherever he likes,\nwhy is it scientifically impossible that his thought, regulated,\nintensified, and guided by that powerful magician, the educated will,\nmay become corporealized for the time being, and appear to whom it\nlikes, a faithful double of the original? Is the proposition, in the\npresent state of science, any more unthinkable than the photograph or\ntelegraph were less than forty years ago, or the telephone less than\nfourteen months ago?\n\nIf the sensitized plate can so accurately seize upon the _shadow_ of\nour faces, then this shadow or reflection, although we are unable to\nperceive it, must be something substantial. And, if we can, with the\nhelp of optical instruments, project our _semblances_ upon a white\nwall, at several hundred feet distance, sometimes, then there is no\nreason why the adepts, the alchemists, the savants of the secret art,\nshould not have already found out that which scientists deny to-day,\nbut may discover true to-morrow, _i.e._, how to project electrically\ntheir astral bodies, in an instant, through thousands of miles of\nspace, leaving their material shells with a certain amount of animal\nvital principle to keep the physical life going, and acting within\ntheir spiritual, ethereal bodies as safely and intelligently as\nwhen clothed with the covering of flesh? There is a higher form of\nelectricity than the physical one known to experimenters; a thousand\ncorrelations of the latter are as yet veiled to the eye of the modern\nphysicist, and none can tell where end its possibilities.\n\nSchott explains that by _Sian_ or _Shin-Sian_ are understood in the\nold Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao\n(Taoss\u00e9) sect, \u201cpersons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life\nof anchorites, and who have attained, either through their ascetic\nobservances or by the power of charms and elixirs, to the possession\nof miraculous gifts and of terrestrial _immortality_\u201d[1157](?) This\nis exaggerated if not altogether erroneous. What they claim, is\nmerely their ability to prolong human life; and they can do so, if\nwe have to believe human testimony. What Marco Polo testifies to in\nthe thirteenth century is corroborated in our own days. \u201cThere are\nanother class of people called _Chughi_\u201d (Yogi), he says, \u201cwho are\nindeed properly called _Abraiamans_ (Brahmans?) who are extremely\nlong-lived, every man of them living to 150 or 200 years. They eat\nvery little, rice and milk chiefly. And these people make use of a\nvery strange beverage, a potion of sulphur and quicksilver mixed\ntogether, and this they drink twice every month.... This, they say,\ngives them long life; and it is a potion they are used to take from\ntheir childhood.\u201d[1158] Burnier shows, says Colonel Yule, the Yogis\nvery skilful in preparing mercury \u201cso admirably that one or two\ngrains taken every morning restored the body to perfect health;\u201d\nand adds that the _mercurius vit\u00e6_ of Paracelsus was a compound in\nwhich entered antimony and quicksilver.[1159] This is a very careless\nstatement, to say the least, and we will explain what we know of it.\n\nThe longevity of some lamas and Talapoins is proverbial; and it is\ngenerally known that they use some compound which \u201crenews the old\nblood,\u201d as they call it. And it was equally a recognized fact with\nalchemists that a judicious administration, \u201cof _aura of silver_ does\nrestore health and prolongs life itself to a wonderful extent.\u201d But\nwe are fully prepared to oppose the statements of both Bernier and\nCol. Yule who quotes him, that it is _mercury_ or quicksilver which\nthe Yogis and the alchemists used. The Yogis, in the days of Marco\nPolo, as well as in our modern times, _do use that which may appear\nto be quicksilver, but is not_. Paracelsus, the alchemists, and other\nmystics, meant by _mercurius vit\u00e6_, the living spirit of silver, the\n_aura_ of silver, not the _argent vive_; and this _aura_ is certainly\nnot the mercury known to our physicians and druggists. There can be\nno doubt that the imputation that Paracelsus introduced mercury into\nmedical practice is utterly incorrect. No mercury, whether prepared\nby a medi\u00e6val fire-philosopher or a modern self-styled physician, can\nor ever did restore the body to perfect health. Only an unmitigated\ncharlatan ever will use such a drug. And it is the opinion of many\nthat it is just with the wicked intention of presenting Paracelsus in\nthe eyes of posterity as a _quack_, that his enemies have invented\nsuch a preposterous lie.\n\nThe Yogis of the olden times, as well as modern lamas and Talapoins,\nuse a certain ingredient with a minimum of sulphur, and a milky juice\nwhich they extract from a medicinal plant. They must certainly be\npossessed of some wonderful secrets, as we have seen them healing the\nmost rebellious wounds in a few days; restoring broken bones to good\nuse in as many hours as it would take days to do by means of common\nsurgery. A fearful fever contracted by the writer near Rangoon, after\na flood of the Irrawaddy River, was cured in a few hours by the juice\nof a plant called, if we mistake not, Kukushan, though there may be\nthousands of natives ignorant of its virtues who are left to die of\nfever. This was in return for a trifling kindness we had done to\na _simple mendicant_; a service which can interest the reader but\nlittle.\n\nWe have heard of a certain water, also, called _\u00e2b-i-hay\u00e2t_, which\nthe popular superstition thinks hidden from every mortal eye, except\nthat of the holy sanny\u00e2si; the fountain itself being known as the\n\u00e2b-i-haiw\u00e2n-\u00ee. It is more than probable though, that the Talapoins\nwill decline to deliver up their secrets, even to academicians and\nmissionaries; as these remedies must be used for the benefit of\nhumanity, never for money.[1160]\n\nAt the great festivals of Hindu pagodas, at the marriage feasts\nof rich high-castes, everywhere where large crowds are gathered,\nEuropeans find gun\u00ee--or serpent-charmers, fakirs-mesmerizers,\nthaum-working sanny\u00e2si, and so-called \u201cjugglers.\u201d To deride is\neasy--to explain, rather more troublesome--to science impossible.\nThe British residents of India and the travellers prefer the first\nexpedient. But let any one ask one of these Thomases how the\nfollowing results--which they cannot and do not deny--are produced?\nWhen crowds of gun\u00ee and fakirs appear with their bodies encircled\nwith cobras-de-capello, their arms ornamented with bracelets of\n_corallilos_--diminutive snakes inflicting certain death in a few\nseconds--and their shoulders with necklaces of trigonocephali, the\nmost terrible enemy of naked Hindu feet, whose bite kills like a\nflash of lightning, the sceptic witness smiles and gravely proceeds\nto explain how these reptiles, having been thrown in cataleptic\ntorpor, were all deprived by the gun\u00ee of their fangs. \u201cThey are\nharmless and it is ridiculous to fear them.\u201d \u201cWill the Sa\u00ebb caress\none of my n\u00e2g?\u201d asked once a gun\u00ee approaching our interlocutor,\nwho had been thus humbling his listeners with his herpetological\nachievements for a full half hour. Rapidly jumping back--the brave\nwarrior\u2019s feet proving no less nimble than his tongue--Captain\nB----\u2019s angry answer could hardly be immortalized by us in print.\nOnly the gun\u00ee\u2019s terrible body-guard saved him from an unceremonious\nthrashing. Besides, say a word, and for a half-roupee any\nprofessional serpent-charmer will begin creeping about and summon\naround in a few moments numbers of untamed serpents of the most\npoisonous species, and will handle them and encircle his body with\nthem. On two occasions in the neighborhood of Trinkemal a serpent was\nready to strike at the writer, who had once nearly sat on its tail,\nbut both times, at a rapid whistle of the gun\u00ee whom we had hired to\naccompany us, it stopped--hardly a few inches from our body, as if\narrested by lightning and slowly sinking its menacing head to the\nground, remained stiff and motionless as a dead branch, under the\ncharm of the _k\u012bln\u0101_.[1161]\n\nWill any European juggler, tamer, or even mesmerizer, risk repeating\njust once an experiment that may be daily witnessed in India, if\nyou know where to go to see it? There is nothing in the world more\nferocious than a royal Bengal tiger. Once the whole population of\na small village, not far from Dakka, situated on the confines of a\njungle, was thrown into a panic at the appearance of an enormous\ntigress, at the dawn of the day. These wild beasts never leave their\ndens but at night, when they go searching for prey and for water.\nBut this unusual circumstance was due to the fact that the beast was\na mother, and she had been deprived of her two cubs, which had been\ncarried away by a daring hunter, and she was in search of them. Two\nmen and a child had already become her victims, when an aged fakir,\nbent on his daily round, emerging from the gate of the pagoda, saw\nthe situation and understood it at a glance. Chanting a mantr\u00e2m he\nwent straight to the beast, which with flaming eye and foaming mouth\ncrouched near a tree ready for a new victim. When at about ten feet\nfrom the tigress, without interrupting his modulated prayer, the\nwords of which no layman comprehends, he began a regular process of\nmesmerization, as we understood it; he made _passes_. A terrific\nhowl which struck a chill into the heart of every human being in the\nplace, was then heard. This long, ferocious, drawling howl gradually\nsubsided into a series of plaintive broken sobs, as if the bereaved\nmother was uttering her complaints, and then, to the terror of the\ncrowd which had taken refuge on trees and in the houses, the beast\nmade a tremendous leap--on the holy man as they thought. They were\nmistaken, she was at his feet, rolling in the dust, and writhing. A\nfew moments more and she remained motionless, with her enormous head\nlaid on her fore-paws, and her bloodshot but now mild eye riveted on\nthe face of the fakir. Then the holy man of prayers sat beside the\ntigress and tenderly smoothed her striped skin, and patted her back,\nuntil her groans became fainter and fainter, and half an hour later\nall the village was standing around this group; the fakir\u2019s head\nlying on the tigress\u2019s back as on a pillow, his right hand on her\nhead, and his left thrown on the sod under the terrible mouth, from\nwhich the long red protruding tongue was gently licking it.\n\nThis is the way the fakirs tame the wildest beasts in India. Can\nEuropean tamers, with their white-hot iron rods, do as much? Of\ncourse every fakir is not endowed with such a power; comparatively\nvery few are. And yet the actual number is large. How they are\n_trained_ to these requirements in the pagodas will remain an\neternal secret, to all except the Brahmans and the adepts in occult\nmysteries. The stories, hitherto considered fables, of Christna and\nOrpheus charming the wild beasts, thus receives its corroboration\nin our day. There is one fact which remains undeniable. _There is\nnot a single European_ in India who could have, or has ever boasted\nof having, penetrated into the enclosed sanctuary _within_ the\npagodas. Neither authority nor money has ever induced a Brahman to\nallow an uninitiated foreigner to pass the threshold of the reserved\nprecinct. To use authority in such a case would be equivalent to\nthrowing a lighted taper into a powder magazine. The Hindus, mild,\npatient, long-suffering, whose very apathy saved the British from\nbeing driven out of the country in 1857, would raise their hundred\nmillions of devotees as one man, at such a profanation; regardless\nof sects or castes, they would exterminate every Christian. The\nEast India Company knew this well and built her stronghold on the\nfriendship of the Brahmans, and by paying subsidy to the pagodas;\nand the British Government is as prudent as its predecessor. It is\nthe castes, and non-interference with the prevailing religions, that\nsecure its comparative authority in India. But we must once more\nrecur to Shamanism, that strange and most despised of all surviving\nreligions--\u201cSpirit-worship.\u201d\n\nIts followers have neither altars nor idols, and it is upon the\nauthority of a Shaman priest that we state that their true rites,\nwhich they are bound to perform only once a year, on the shortest\nday of winter, cannot take place before any stranger to their faith.\nTherefore, we are confident that all descriptions hitherto given in\nthe _Asiatic Journal_ and other European works, are but guess-work.\nThe Russians, who, from constant intercourse with the Shamans in\nSiberia and Tartary, would be the most competent of all persons\nto judge of their religion, have learned nothing except of the\npersonal proficiency of these men in what they are half inclined to\nbelieve clever jugglery. Many Russian residents, though, in Siberia,\nare firmly convinced of the \u201csupernatural\u201d powers of the Shamans.\nWhenever they assemble to worship, it is always in an open space, or\na high hill, or in the hidden depths of a forest--in this reminding\nus of the old Druidical rites. Their ceremonies upon the occasions\nof births, deaths, and marriages are but trifling parts of their\nworship. They comprise offerings, the sprinkling of the fire with\nspirits and milk, and weird hymns, or rather, magical incantations,\nintoned by the officiating Shaman, and concluding with a chorus of\nthe persons present.\n\nThe numerous small bells of brass and iron worn by them on the\npriestly robe of deerskin,[1162] or the pelt of some other animal\nreputed magnetic, are used to drive away the malevolent spirits\nof the air, a _superstition_ shared by all the nations of old,\nincluding Romans, and even the Jews, whose golden bells tell the\nstory. They have iron staves also covered with bells, for the same\nreason. When, after certain ceremonies, the desired crisis is\nreached, and \u201cthe spirit has spoken,\u201d and the priest (who may be\neither male or female) feels its overpowering influence, the hand of\nthe Shaman is drawn by some occult power toward the top of the staff,\nwhich is commonly covered with hieroglyphics. With his palm pressing\nupon it, he is then raised to a considerable height in the air, where\nhe remains for some time. Sometimes he leaps to an extraordinary\nheight, and, according to the control--for he is often but an\nirresponsible medium--pours out prophecies and describes future\nevents. Thus, it was that, in 1847, a Shaman in a distant part of\nSiberia prophesied and accurately detailed the issue of the Crimean\nwar. The particulars of the prognostication being carefully noted by\nthose present at the time, were all verified six years after this\noccurrence. Although usually ignorant of even the name of astronomy,\nlet alone having studied this science, they often prophesy eclipses\nand other astronomical phenomena. When consulted about thefts and\nmurders, they invariably point out the guilty parties.\n\nThe Shamans of Siberia are all ignorant and illiterate. Those of\nTartary and Thibet--few in number--are mostly learned men in their\nown way, and will not allow themselves to fall under the control of\nspirits of any kind. The former are _mediums_ in the full sense of\nthe word; the latter, \u201cmagicians.\u201d It is not surprising that pious\nand superstitious persons, after seeing one of such crises, should\ndeclare the Shaman to be under demoniacal possession. As in the\ninstances of Corybantic and Bacchantic fury among the ancient Greeks,\nthe \u201cspiritual\u201d crisis of the Shaman exhibits itself in violent\ndancing and wild gestures. Little by little the lookers-on feel the\nspirit of imitation aroused in them; seized with an irresistible\nimpulse, they dance, and become, in their turn, ecstatics; and he who\nbegins by joining the chorus, gradually and unconsciously takes part\nin the gesticulations, until he sinks to the ground exhausted, and\noften dying.\n\n\u201cO, young girl, a god possesses thee! it is either Pan, or Hekat\u00e9, or\nthe venerable Corybantes, or Cybel\u00e9 that agitates thee!\u201d the chorus\nsays, addressing Ph\u0153dra, in Euripides. This form of psychological\nepidemic has been too well known from the time of the middle ages\nto cite instances from it. The _Chor\u0153a sancti Viti_ is an historical\nfact, and spread throughout Germany. Paracelsus cured quite a number\nof persons possessed of such a spirit of imitation. But he was a\nkabalist, and therefore accused, by his enemies, of having cast out\nthe devils by the power of a stronger demon, which he was believed to\ncarry about with him in the hilt of his sword. The Christian judges\nof those days of horror found a better and a surer remedy. Voltaire\nstates that, in the district of Jura, between 1598 and 1600, over 600\nlycanthropes were put to death by a pious judge.\n\nBut, while the illiterate Shaman is a victim, and during his crisis\nsometimes sees the persons present, under the shape of various\nanimals, and often makes them share his hallucination, his brother\nShaman, learned in the mysteries of the priestly colleges of Thibet,\n_expels_ the elementary creature, which can produce the hallucination\nas well as a living mesmerizer, not through the help of a stronger\ndemon, but simply through his knowledge of the nature of the\ninvisible enemy. Where academicians have failed, as in the cases of\nthe Cevennois, a Shaman or a lama would have soon put an end to the\nepidemic.\n\nWe have mentioned a kind of carnelian stone in our possession,\nwhich had such an unexpected and favorable effect upon the Shaman\u2019s\ndecision. Every Shaman has such a talisman, which he wears attached\nto a string, and carries under his left arm.\n\n\u201cOf what use is it to you, and what are its virtues?\u201d was the\nquestion we often offered to our guide. To this he never answered\ndirectly, but evaded all explanation, promising that as soon as an\nopportunity was offered, and we were alone, he would ask the stone\n_to answer for himself_. With this very indefinite hope, we were left\nto the resources of our own imagination.\n\nBut the day on which the stone \u201cspoke\u201d came very soon. It was during\nthe most critical hours of our life; at a time when the vagabond\nnature of a traveller had carried the writer to far-off lands, where\nneither civilization is known, nor security can be guaranteed for one\nhour. One afternoon, as every man and woman had left the _yourta_\n(Tartar tent), that had been our home for over two months, to witness\nthe ceremony of the Lama\u00efc exorcism of a Tshoutgour,[1163] accused\nof breaking and spiriting away every bit of the poor furniture and\nearthenware of a family living about two miles distant, the Shaman,\nwho had become our only protector in those dreary deserts, was\nreminded of his promise. He sighed and hesitated; but, after a short\nsilence, left his place on the sheepskin, and, going outside, placed\na dried-up goat\u2019s head with its prominent horns over a wooden peg,\nand then dropping down the felt curtain of the tent, remarked that\nnow no living person would venture in, for the goat\u2019s head was a sign\nthat he was \u201cat work.\u201d\n\nAfter that, placing his hand in his bosom, he drew out the little\nstone, about the size of a walnut, and, carefully unwrapping it,\nproceeded, as it appeared, to swallow it. In a few moments his limbs\nstiffened, his body became rigid, and he fell, cold and motionless as\na corpse. But for a slight twitching of his lips at every question\nasked, the scene would have been embarrassing, nay--dreadful. The\nsun was setting, and were it not that dying embers flickered at the\ncentre of the tent, complete darkness would have been added to the\noppressive silence which reigned. We have lived in the prairies\nof the West, and in the boundless steppes of Southern Russia; but\nnothing can be compared with the silence at sunset on the sandy\ndeserts of Mongolia; not even the barren solitudes of the deserts of\nAfrica, though the former are partially inhabited, and the latter\nutterly void of life. Yet, there was the writer alone with what\nlooked no better than a corpse lying on the ground. Fortunately, this\nstate did not last long.\n\n\u201cMahand\u016b!\u201d uttered a voice, which seemed to come from the bowels of\nthe earth, on which the Shaman was prostrated. \u201cPeace be with you ...\nwhat would you have me do for you?\u201d\n\nStartling as the fact seemed, we were quite prepared for it, for we\nhad seen other Shamans pass through similar performances. \u201cWhoever\nyou are,\u201d we pronounced mentally, \u201cgo to K----, and try to bring that\nperson\u2019s _thought_ here. See what that other party does, and tell * *\n* what we are doing and how situated.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am there;\u201d answered the same voice. \u201cThe old lady (kokona)[1164]\nis sitting in the garden ... she is putting on her spectacles and\nreading a letter.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe contents of it, and hasten,\u201d was the hurried order while\npreparing note-book and pencil. The contents were given slowly, as\nif, while dictating, the invisible presence desired to afford us time\nto put down the words phonetically, for we recognized the Valachian\nlanguage of which we know nothing beyond the ability to recognize it.\nIn such a way a whole page was filled.\n\n\u201cLook west ... toward the third pole of the yourta,\u201d pronounced the\nTartar in his natural voice, though it sounded hollow, and as if\ncoming from afar. \u201cHer _thought_ is here.\u201d\n\nThen with a convulsive jerk, the upper portion of the Shaman\u2019s body\nseemed raised, and his head fell heavily on the writer\u2019s feet, which\nhe clutched with both his hands. The position was becoming less and\nless attractive, but curiosity proved a good ally to courage. In\nthe west corner was standing, life-like but flickering, unsteady\nand mist-like, the form of a dear old friend, a Roumanian lady of\nValachia, a mystic by disposition, but a thorough disbeliever in this\nkind of occult phenomena.\n\n\u201cHer thought is here, but her body is lying unconscious. We could not\nbring her here otherwise,\u201d said the voice.\n\nWe addressed and supplicated the apparition to answer, but all in\nvain. The features moved, and the form gesticulated as if in fear\nand agony, but no sound broke forth from the shadowy lips; only\nwe imagined--perchance it was a fancy--hearing as if from a long\ndistance the Roumanian words, \u201c_Non se p\u00f3te_\u201d (it cannot be done).\n\nFor over two hours, the most substantial, unequivocal proofs that the\nShaman\u2019s astral soul was travelling at the bidding of our unspoken\nwish, were given us. Ten months later, we received a letter from our\nValachian friend in response to ours, in which we had enclosed the\npage from the note-book, inquiring of her what she had been doing\non that day, and describing the scene in full. She was sitting--she\nwrote--in the garden on that morning[1165] prosaically occupied in\nboiling some conserves; the letter sent to her was word for word the\ncopy of the one received by her from her brother; all at once--in\nconsequence of the heat, she thought--she fainted, and remembered\ndistinctly _dreaming_ she saw the writer in a desert place which she\naccurately described, and sitting under a \u201cgypsy\u2019s tent,\u201d as she\nexpressed it. \u201cHenceforth,\u201d she added, \u201cI can doubt no longer!\u201d\n\nBut our experiment was proved still better. We had directed the\nShaman\u2019s inner _ego_ to the same friend heretofore mentioned in this\nchapter, the Kutchi of Lha-Ssa, who travels constantly to British\nIndia and back. _We know_ that he was apprised of our critical\nsituation in the desert; for a few hours later came help, and we were\nrescued by a party of twenty-five horsemen who had been directed by\ntheir chief to find us at the place where we were, which no living\nman endowed with common powers could have known. The chief of this\nescort was a Shaberon, an \u201cadept\u201d whom we had never seen before, nor\ndid we after that, for he never left his _soumay_ (lamasery), and\nwe could have no access to it. But _he was a personal friend of the\nKutchi_.\n\nThe above will of course provoke naught but incredulity in the\ngeneral reader. But we write for those who will believe; who,\nlike the writer, understand and know the illimitable powers and\npossibilities of the human astral soul. In this case we willingly\nbelieve, nay, we know, that the \u201cspiritual double\u201d of the Shaman did\nnot act alone, for he was no adept, but simply a medium. According to\na favorite expression of his, as soon as he placed the stone in his\nmouth, his \u201cfather appeared, dragged him out of his skin, and took\nhim wherever he wanted,\u201d and at his bidding.\n\nOne who has only witnessed the chemical, optical, mechanical, and\nsleight-of-hand performances of European prestidigitateurs, is\nnot prepared to see, without amazement, the open-air and off-hand\nexhibitions of Hindu jugglers, to say nothing of fakirs. Of the\nmere displays of deceptive dexterity we make no account, for Houdin\nand others far excel them in that respect; nor do we dwell upon\nfeats that permit of confederacy, whether resorted to or not. It is\nunquestionably true that non-expert travellers, especially if of an\nimaginative turn of mind, exaggerate inordinately. But our remark is\nbased upon a class of phenomena not to be accounted for upon any of\nthe familiar hypotheses. \u201cI have seen,\u201d says a gentleman who resided\nin India, \u201ca man throw up into the air a number of balls numbered\nin succession from one upwards. As each went up--and there was no\ndeception about their going up--the ball was seen clearly in the\nair, getting smaller and smaller, till it disappeared altogether out\nof sight. When they were all up, twenty or more, the operator would\npolitely ask which ball you wanted to see, and then would shout out,\n\u2018No. 1,\u2019 \u2018No. 15,\u2019 and so on, as instructed by the spectators, when\nthe ball demanded would bound to his feet violently from some remote\ndistance.... These fellows have very scanty clothing, and apparently\nno apparatus whatever. Then, I have seen them swallow three different\ncolored powders, and then, throwing back the head, wash them down\nwith water, drunk, in the native fashion, in a continuous stream from\na _lotah_, or brass-pot, held at arm\u2019s length from the lips, and keep\non drinking till the swollen body could not hold another drop, and\nwater overflowed from the lips. Then, these fellows, after squirting\nout the water in their mouths, have spat out the three powders on a\nclean piece of paper, dry and unmixed.\u201d[1166]\n\nIn the eastern portion of Turkey and Persia, have dwelt, from time\nimmemorial, the warlike tribes of the Koordistan. This people\nof purely Indo-European origin, and without a drop of Semitic\nblood in them (though some ethnologists seem to think otherwise),\nnotwithstanding their brigand-like disposition, unite in themselves\nthe mysticism of the Hindu and the practices of the Assyrio-Chaldean\nmagians, vast portions of whose territory they have helped themselves\nto, and will not give up, to please either Turkey or even all\nEurope.[1167] Nominally, Mahometans of the sect of Omar, their\nrites and doctrines are purely magical and magian. Even those who\nare Christian Nestorians, are Christians but in name. The Kaldany,\nnumbering nearly 100,000 men, and with their two Patriarchs, are\nundeniably rather Manicheans than Nestorians. Many of them are Yezids.\n\nOne of these tribes is noted for its fire-worshipping predilections.\nAt sunrise and sunset, the horsemen alight and, turning towards the\nsun, mutter a prayer; while at every new moon they perform mysterious\nrites throughout the whole night. They have a tent set apart for\nthe purpose, and its thick, black, woolen fabric is decorated with\nweird signs, worked in bright red and yellow. In the centre is\nplaced a kind of altar, encircled by three brass bands, to which\nare suspended numerous rings by ropes of camel\u2019s hair, which every\nworshipper holds with his right hand during the ceremony. On the\naltar burns a curious, old-fashioned silver lamp, a relic found\npossibly among the ruins of Persepolis.[1168] This lamp, with three\nwicks, is an oblong cup with a handle to it, and is evidently of the\nclass of Egyptian sepulchral lamps, once found in such profusion in\nthe subterranean caves of Memphis, if we may believe Kircher.[1169]\nIt widened from its end toward the middle, and its upper part was of\nthe shape of a heart; the apertures for the wicks forming a triangle,\nand its centre being covered by an inverted heliotrope attached to a\ngracefully-curved stalk proceeding from the handle of the lamp. This\nornament clearly bespoke its origin. It was one of the sacred vessels\nused in sun-worship. The Greeks gave the _heliotrope_ its name from\nits strange propensity to ever incline towards the sun. The ancient\nMagi used it in their worship; and who knows but Darius had performed\nthe mysterious rites with its triple light illuminating the face of\nthe king-hierophant!\n\nIf we mention the lamp at all, it is because there happened to be a\nstrange story in connection with it. What the Koords do, during their\nnocturnal rites of lunar-worship, we know but from hearsay; for they\nconceal it carefully, and no stranger could be admitted to witness\nthe ceremony. But every tribe has one old man, sometimes several,\nregarded as \u201choly beings,\u201d who know the past, and can divulge the\nsecrets of the future. These are greatly honored, and generally\nresorted to for information in cases of theft, murders, or danger.\n\nTravelling from one tribe to the other, we passed some time in\ncompany with these Koords. As our object is not autobiographical,\nwe omit all details that have no immediate bearing upon some occult\nfact, and even of these, have room but for a few. We will then simply\nstate that a very expensive saddle, a carpet, and two Circassian\ndaggers, richly mounted and chiselled in gold, had been stolen from\nthe tent, and that the Koords, with the chief of the tribe at the\nhead, had come, taking Allah for their witness that the culprit could\nnot belong to their tribe. We believed it, for it would have been\nunprecedented among these nomadic tribes of Asia, as famed for the\nsacredness in which they hold their guests, as for the ease with\nwhich they plunder and occasionally murder them, when once they have\npassed the boundaries of their _ao\u00fbl_.\n\nA suggestion was then made by a Georgian belonging to our caravan to\nhave resort to the light of the _koodian_ (sorcerer) of their tribe.\nThis was arranged in great secrecy and solemnity, and the interview\nappointed to take place at midnight, when the moon would be at its\nfull. At the stated hour we were conducted to the above-described\ntent.\n\nA large hole, or square aperture, was managed in the arched roof of\nthe tent, and through it poured in vertically the radiant moonbeams,\nmingling with the vacillating triple flame of the little lamp.\nAfter several minutes of incantations, addressed, as it seemed to\nus, to the moon, the conjurer, an old man of tremendous stature,\nwhose pyramidal turban touched the top of the tent, produced a\nround looking-glass, of the kind known as \u201cPersian mirrors.\u201d Having\nunscrewed its cover, he then proceeded to breathe on it, for over ten\nminutes, and wipe off the moisture from the surface with a package\nof herbs, muttering incantations the while _sotto voce_. After every\nwiping the glass became more and more brilliant, till its crystal\nseemed to radiate refulgent phosphoric rays in every direction. At\nlast the operation was ended; the old man, with the mirror in his\nhand, remained as motionless as if he had been a statue. \u201cLook,\nHanoum ... look steadily,\u201d he whispered, hardly moving his lips.\nShadows and dark spots began gathering, where one moment before\nnothing was reflected but the radiant face of the full moon. A few\nmore seconds, and there appeared the well-known saddle, carpet, and\ndaggers, which seemed to be rising as from a deep, clear water, and\nbecoming with every instant more definitely outlined. Then a still\ndarker shadow appeared hovering over these objects, which gradually\ncondensed itself, and then came out, as visibly as at the small end\nof a telescope, the full figure of a man crouching over them.\n\n\u201cI know him!\u201d exclaimed the writer. \u201cIt is the Tartar who came to us\nlast night, offering to sell his mule!\u201d\n\nThe image disappeared, as if by enchantment. The old man nodded\nassent, but remained motionless. Then he muttered again some\nstrange words, and suddenly began a song. The tune was slow and\nmonotonous, but after he had sung a few stanzas in the same unknown\ntongue, without changing either rhythm or tune, he pronounced,\n_recitative_-like, the following words, in his broken Russian:\n\n\u201cNow, Hanoum, look well, whether we will catch him--the fate of the\nrobber--we will learn this night,\u201d etc.\n\nThe same shadows began gathering, and then, almost without\ntransition, we saw the man lying on his back, in a pool of blood,\nacross the saddle, and two other men galloping off at a distance.\nHorror-stricken, and sick at the sight of this picture, we desired to\nsee no more. The old man, leaving the tent, called some of the Koords\nstanding outside, and seemed to give them instructions. Two minutes\nlater, a dozen of horsemen were galloping off at full speed down the\nside of the mountain on which we were encamped.\n\nEarly in the morning they returned with the lost objects. The saddle\nwas all covered with coagulated blood, and of course abandoned to\nthem. The story they told was, that upon coming in sight of the\nfugitive, they saw disappearing over the crest of a distant hill two\nhorsemen, and upon riding up, the Tartar thief was found dead upon\nthe stolen property, exactly as we had seen him in the magical glass.\nHe had been murdered by the two banditti, whose evident design to rob\nhim was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the party sent by the\nold Koodian.\n\nThe most remarkable results are produced by the Eastern \u201cwise men,\u201d\nby the simple act of breathing upon a person, whether with good or\nevil intent. This is pure mesmerism; and among the Persian dervishes\nwho practice it the animal magnetism is often reinforced by that of\nthe elements. If a person happens to stand facing a certain wind,\nthere is always danger, they think; and many of the \u201clearned ones\u201d\nin occult matters can never be prevailed upon to go at sunset in\na certain direction from whence blows the wind. We have known an\nold Persian from Baku,[1170] on the Caspian Sea, who had the most\nunenviable reputation for _throwing spells_ through the timely help\nof this wind, which blows but too often at that town, as its Persian\nname itself shows.[1171] If a victim, against whom the wrath of the\nold fiend was kindled, happened to be facing this wind, he would\nappear, as if by enchantment, cross the road rapidly, and breathe in\nhis face. From that moment, the latter would find himself afflicted\nwith every evil--he was under the spell of the \u201cevil eye.\u201d\n\nThe employment of the human breath by the sorcerer as an adjunct\nfor the accomplishment of his nefarious purpose, is strikingly\nillustrated in several terrible cases recorded in the French\nannals--notably those of several Catholic priests. In fact, this\nspecies of sorcery was known from the oldest times. The Emperor\nConstantine (in Statute iv., _Code de Malef._, etc.) prescribed\nthe severest penalties against such as should employ sorcery to do\nviolence to chastity and excite unlawful passion. Augustine (_Cit\u00e9\nde Dieu_) warns against it; Jerome, Gregory, Nazianzen and many\nother ecclesiastical authorities, lend their denunciation of a crime\nnot uncommon among the clergy. Baffet (book v., tit. 19, chap. 6)\nrelates the case of the cur\u00e9 of Peifane, who accomplished the ruin of\na highly-respected and virtuous lady parishioner, the Dame du Lieu,\nby resort to sorcery, and was burned alive for it by the Parliament\nof Grenoble. In 1611, a priest named Gaufridy was burned by the\nParliament of Provence for seducing a penitent at the confessional,\nnamed Magdelaine de la Palud, _by breathing upon her_, and thus\nthrowing her into a delirium of sinful love for him.\n\nThe above cases are cited in the official report of the famous case\nof Father Girard, a Jesuit priest of very great influence, who,\nin 1731, was tried before the Parliament of Aix, France, for the\nseduction of his parishioner, Mlle. Catherine Cadi\u00e8re, of Toulon,\nand certain revolting crimes in connection with the same. The\nindictment charged that the offence was brought about by resort\nto sorcery. Mlle. Cadi\u00e8re was a young lady noted for her beauty,\npiety, and exemplary virtues. Her attention to her religious\nduties was exceptionally rigorous, and that was the cause of her\nperdition. Father Girard\u2019s eye fell upon her, and he began to\nman\u0153uvre for her ruin. Gaining the confidence of the girl and her\nfamily by his apparent great sanctity, he one day made a pretext\nto blow his breath upon her. The girl became instantly affected\nwith a violent passion for him. She also had ecstatic visions of a\nreligious character, stigmata, or blood-marks of the \u201cPassion,\u201d and\nhysterical convulsions. The long-sought opportunity of seclusion\nwith his penitent finally offering, the Jesuit breathed upon her\nagain, and before the poor girl recovered her senses, his object had\nbeen accomplished. By sophistry and the excitation of her religious\nfervor, he kept up this illicit relation for months, without her\nsuspecting that she had done anything wrong. Finally, however, her\neyes were opened, her parents informed, and the priest was arraigned.\nJudgment was rendered October 12th, 1731. Of twenty-five judges,\ntwelve voted to send him to the stake. The criminal priest was\ndefended by all the power of the Society of Jesus, and it is said\nthat a million francs were spent in trying to suppress the evidence\nproduced at the trial. The facts, however, were printed in a work\n(in 5 vols., 16mo), now rare, entitled _Recueil G\u00e9n\u00e9ral des Pi\u00e8ces\ncontenues au Procez du P\u00e8re Jean-Baptiste Girard, Jesuite_, etc.,\netc.[1172]\n\nWe have noted the circumstance that, while under the sorcerous\ninfluence of Father Girard, and in illicit relations with him, Mlle.\nCadi\u00e8re\u2019s body was marked with the _stigmata_ of the _Passion_,\nviz.: the bleeding wounds of thorns on her brow, of nails in her\nhands and feet, and of a lance-cut in her side. It should be added\nthat the same marks were seen upon the bodies of six other penitents\nof this priest, viz.: Mesdames Guyol, Laugier, Grodier, Allemande,\nBatarelle, and Reboul. In fact, it became commonly remarked that\nFather Girard\u2019s handsome parishioners were strangely given to\necstasies and _stigmata_! Add this to the fact that, in the case\nof Father Gaufridy, above noted, the same thing was proved, upon\nsurgical testimony, to have happened to Mlle. de Palud, and we have\nsomething worth the attention of all (especially spiritualists) who\nimagine these _stigmata_ are produced by pure spirits. Barring the\nagency of the Devil, whom we have quietly put to rest in another\nchapter, Catholics would be puzzled, we fancy, despite all their\ninfallibility, to distinguish between the stigmata of the sorcerers\nand those produced through the intervention of the Holy Ghost or the\nangels. The Church records abound in instances of alleged diabolical\nimitations of these signs of saintship, but, as we have remarked, the\nDevil is out of court.\n\nBy those who have followed us thus far, it will naturally be asked,\nto what practical issue this book tends; much has been said about\nmagic and its potentiality, much of the immense antiquity of its\npractice. Do we wish to affirm that the occult sciences ought to be\nstudied and practiced throughout the world? Would we replace modern\nspiritualism with the ancient magic? Neither; the substitution could\nnot be made, nor the study universally prosecuted, without incurring\nthe risk of enormous public dangers. At this moment, a well-known\nspiritualist and lecturer on mesmerism is imprisoned on the charge\nof raping a subject whom he had hypnotized. A sorcerer is a public\nenemy, and mesmerism may most readily be turned into the worst of\nsorceries.\n\nWe would have neither scientists, theologians, nor spiritualists turn\npractical magicians, but all to realize that there was true science,\nprofound religion, and genuine phenomena before this modern era. We\nwould that all who have a voice in the education of the masses should\nfirst know and then _teach_ that the safest guides to human happiness\nand enlightenment are those writings which have descended to us from\nthe remotest antiquity; and that nobler spiritual aspirations and a\nhigher average morality prevail in the countries where the people\ntake their precepts as the rule of their lives. We would have all to\nrealize that magical, _i.e._, spiritual powers exist in every man,\nand those few to practice them who feel called to teach, and are\nready to pay the price of discipline and self-conquest which their\ndevelopment exacts.\n\nMany men have arisen who had glimpses of the truth, and fancied\nthey had it all. Such have failed to achieve the good they might\nhave done and sought to do, because vanity has made them thrust\ntheir personality into such undue prominence as to interpose it\nbetween their believers and the _whole_ truth that lay behind. The\nworld needs no sectarian church, whether of Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet,\nSwedenborg, Calvin, or any other. There being but ONE Truth, man\nrequires but one church--the Temple of God within us, walled in by\nmatter but penetrable by any one who can find the way; _the pure in\nheart see God_.\n\n_The trinity of nature is the lock of magic, the trinity of man the\nkey that fits it._ Within the solemn precincts of the sanctuary the\nSUPREME had and has no name. It is unthinkable and unpronounceable;\nand yet every man finds in himself his god. \u201cWho art thou, O fair\nbeing?\u201d inquires the disembodied soul, in the _Khordah-Avesta_, at\nthe gates of Paradise. \u201cI am, O Soul, _thy good and pure thoughts_,\nthy works and thy _good law_ ... thy angel ... and thy god.\u201d Then\nman, or the soul, is reunited with ITSELF, for this \u201cSon of God\u201d is\none with him; it is his own mediator, the _god_ of his human soul and\nhis \u201cJustifier.\u201d \u201c_God not revealing himself immediately to man, the\nspirit is his interpreter_,\u201d says Plato in the _Banquet_.\n\nBesides, there are many good reasons why the study of magic, except\nin its broad philosophy, is nearly impracticable in Europe and\nAmerica. Magic being what it is, the most difficult of all sciences\nto learn experimentally--its acquisition is practically beyond the\nreach of the majority of white-skinned people; and that, whether\ntheir effort is made at home or in the East. Probably not more than\none man in a million of European blood is fitted--either physically,\nmorally, or psychologically--to become a practical magician, and\nnot one in ten millions would be found endowed with all these three\nqualifications as required for the work. Civilized nations lack\nthe phenomenal powers of endurance, both mental and physical, of\nthe Easterns; the favoring temperamental idiosyncrasies of the\nOrientals are utterly wanting in them. In the Hindu, the Arabian,\nthe Thibetan, an intuitive perception of the possibilities of occult\nnatural forces in subjection to human will, comes by inheritance;\nand in them, the physical senses as well as the spiritual are far\nmore finely developed than in the Western races. Notwithstanding the\nnotable difference of thickness between the skulls of a European and\na Southern Hindu, this difference, being a purely climatic result,\ndue to the intensity of the sun\u2019s rays, involves no psychological\nprinciples. Furthermore, there would be tremendous difficulties in\nthe way of _training_, if we can so express it. Contaminated by\ncenturies of dogmatic superstition, by an ineradicable--though quite\nunwarranted--sense of superiority over those whom the English term\nso contemptuously \u201cniggers,\u201d the white European would hardly submit\nhimself to the practical tuition of either Kopt, Brahman, or Lama.\nTo become a neophyte, one must be ready to devote himself heart and\nsoul to the study of mystic sciences. Magic--most imperative of\nmistresses--brooks no rival. Unlike other sciences, a theoretical\nknowledge of formul\u00e6 without mental capacities or soul powers, is\nutterly useless in magic. The spirit must hold in complete subjection\nthe combativeness of what is loosely termed educated reason, until\nfacts have vanquished cold human sophistry.\n\nThose best prepared to appreciate occultism are the spiritualists,\nalthough, through prejudice, until now they have been the bitterest\nopponents to its introduction to public notice. Despite all foolish\nnegations and denunciations, their phenomena are real. Despite, also,\ntheir own assertions they are wholly misunderstood by themselves. The\ntotally insufficient theory of the constant agency of disembodied\nhuman spirits in their production has been the bane of the _Cause_.\nA thousand mortifying rebuffs have failed to open their reason\nor intuition to the truth. Ignoring the teachings of the past,\nthey have discovered no substitute. We offer them philosophical\ndeduction instead of unverifiable hypothesis, scientific analysis and\ndemonstration instead of undiscriminating faith. Occult philosophy\ngives them the means of meeting the reasonable requirements of\nscience, and frees them from the humiliating necessity to accept the\noracular teachings of \u201cintelligences,\u201d which as a rule have less\nintelligence than a child at school. So based and so strengthened,\nmodern phenomena would be in a position to command the attention\nand enforce the respect of those who carry with them public\nopinion. Without invoking such help, spiritualism must continue to\nvegetate, equally repulsed--not without cause--both by scientists\nand theologians. In its modern aspect, it is neither a science, a\nreligion, nor a philosophy.\n\nAre we unjust; does any intelligent spiritualist complain that we\nhave misstated the case? To what can he point us but to a confusion\nof theories, a tangle of hypotheses mutually contradictory? Can he\naffirm that spiritualism, even with its thirty years of phenomena,\nhas any defensible philosophy; nay, that there is anything like an\nestablished method that is generally accepted and followed by its\nrecognized representatives?\n\nAnd yet, there are many thoughtful, scholarly, earnest writers among\nthe spiritualists, scattered the world over. There are men who, in\naddition to a scientific mental training and a reasoned faith in\nthe phenomena _per se_, possess all the requisites of leaders of\nthe movement. How is it then, that, except throwing off an isolated\nvolume or so, or occasional contributions to journalism, they all\nrefrain from taking any active part in the formation of a system of\nphilosophy? This is from no lack of moral courage, as their writings\nwell show. Nor because of indifference, for enthusiasm abounds,\nand they are sure of their facts. Nor is it from lack of capacity,\nbecause many are men of mark, the peers of our best minds. It is\nsimply for the reason that, almost without exception, they are\nbewildered by the contradictions they encounter, and wait for their\ntentative hypotheses to be verified by further experience. Doubtless\nthis is the part of wisdom. It is that adopted by Newton, who, with\nthe heroism of an honest, unselfish heart, withheld for seventeen\nyears the promulgation of his theory of gravitation, only because he\nhad not verified it to his own satisfaction.\n\nSpiritualism, whose aspect is rather that of aggression than of\ndefense, has tended toward iconoclasm, and so far has done well.\nBut, in pulling down, it does not rebuild. Every really substantial\ntruth it erects is soon buried under an avalanche of chimeras, until\nall are in one confused ruin. At every step of advance, at the\nacquisition of every new vantage-ground of FACT, some cataclysm,\neither in the shape of fraud and exposure, or of premeditated\ntreachery, occurs, and throws the spiritualists back powerless\nbecause they _cannot_ and their invisible friends _will_ not (or\nperchance can, less than themselves) make good their claims.\nTheir fatal weakness is that they have but _one_ theory to offer\nin explanation of their challenged facts--the agency of _human\ndisembodied spirits_, and the medium\u2019s complete subjection to them.\nThey will attack those who differ in views with them with a vehemence\nonly warranted by a better cause; they will regard every argument\ncontradicting their theory as an imputation upon their common sense\nand powers of observation; and they will positively refuse even to\nargue the question.\n\nHow, then, can spiritualism be ever elevated to the distinction of a\nscience? This, as Professor Tyndall shows, includes three absolutely\nnecessary elements: observation of facts; induction of laws from\nthese facts; and verification of those laws by constant practical\nexperience. What experienced observer will maintain that spiritualism\npresents either one of these three elements? The medium is not\nuniformly surrounded by such test conditions that we may be sure of\nthe facts; the inductions from the supposed facts are unwarranted\nin the absence of such verification; and, as a corollary, there has\nbeen no sufficient verification of those hypotheses by experience. In\nshort, the prime element of accuracy has, as a rule, been lacking.\n\nThat we may not be charged with desire to misrepresent the position\nof spiritualism, at the date of this present writing, or accused\nof withholding credit for advances actually made, we will cite a\nfew passages from the London _Spiritualist_ of March 2, 1877. At\nthe fortnightly meeting, held February 19, a debate occurred upon\nthe subject of \u201cAncient Thought and Modern Spiritualism.\u201d Some of\nthe most intelligent Spiritualists of England participated. Among\nthese was Mr. W. Stainton Moses, M.A., who has recently given some\nattention to the relation between ancient and modern phenomena. He\nsaid: \u201cPopular spiritualism is not scientific; it does very little in\nthe way of scientific verification. Moreover, exoteric spiritualism\nis, to a large extent, devoted to presumed communion with personal\nfriends, or to the gratification of curiosity, or the mere evolution\nof marvels.... The truly esoteric science of spiritualism is very\nrare, and not more rare than valuable. To it we must look to the\norigination of knowledge which may be developed exoterically....\nWe proceed too much on the lines of the physicists; our tests are\ncrude, and often illusory; we know too little of the Protean power\nof spirit. Here the ancients were far ahead of us, and can teach us\nmuch. We have not introduced any certainty into the conditions--a\nnecessary prerequisite for true scientific experiment. This is\nlargely owing to the fact that our circles are constructed on no\nprinciple.... We have not even mastered the elementary truths which\nthe ancients knew and acted on, _e.g._, the isolation of mediums.\nWe have been so occupied with wonder-hunting that we have hardly\ntabulated the phenomena, or propounded one theory to account for\nthe production of the simplest of them.... We have never faced the\nquestion: What is the intelligence? This is the great blot, the most\nfrequent source of error, and here we might learn with advantage\nfrom the ancients. There is the strongest disinclination among\nspiritualists to admit the possibility of the truth of occultism.\nIn this respect they are as hard to convince as is the outer world\nof spiritualism. Spiritualists start with a fallacy, viz.: that all\nphenomena are caused by the action of departed human spirits; _they\nhave not looked into the powers of the human spirit_; they do not\nknow the extent to which spirit acts, how far it reaches, what it\nunderlies.\u201d\n\nOur position could not be better defined. If Spiritualism has a\nfuture; it is in the keeping of such men as Mr. Stainton Moses.\n\nOur work is done--would that it were better done! But, despite our\ninexperience in the art of book-making, and the serious difficulty of\nwriting in a foreign tongue, we hope we have succeeded in saying some\nthings that will remain in the minds of the thoughtful. The enemies\nof truth have been all counted, and all passed in review. Modern\nscience, powerless to satisfy the aspirations of the race, makes the\nfuture a void, and bereaves man of hope. In one sense, it is like the\nBaital Pachisi, the Hindu vampire of popular fancy, which lives in\ndead bodies, and feeds but on the rottenness of matter. The theology\nof Christendom has been rubbed threadbare by the most serious minds\nof the day. It is found to be, on the whole, subversive, rather than\npromotive of spirituality and good morals. Instead of expounding the\nrules of divine law and justice, it teaches but _itself_. In place\nof an ever-living Deity, it preaches the Evil One, and makes him\nindistinguishable from God Himself! \u201cLead us not into temptation\u201d\nis the aspiration of Christians. Who, then, is the tempter? Satan?\nNo; the prayer is not addressed to him. It is that tutelar genius\nwho hardened the heart of Pharaoh, put an evil spirit into Saul,\nsent lying messengers to the prophets, and tempted David to sin; it\nis--the _Bible_-God of Israel!\n\nOur examination of the multitudinous religious faiths that mankind,\nearly and late, have professed, most assuredly indicates that they\nhave all been derived from one primitive source. It would seem as\nif they were all but different modes of expressing the yearning of\nthe imprisoned human soul for intercourse with supernal spheres. As\nthe white ray of light is decomposed by the prism into the various\ncolors of the solar spectrum, so the beam of divine truth, in passing\nthrough the _three-sided_ prism of man\u2019s nature, has been broken\nup into vari-colored fragments called RELIGIONS. And, as the rays\nof the spectrum, by imperceptible shadings, merge into each other,\nso the great theologies that have appeared at different degrees of\ndivergence from the original source, have been connected by minor\nschisms, schools, and off-shoots from the one side or the other.\nCombined, their aggregate represents one eternal truth; separate,\nthey are but shades of human error and the signs of imperfection. The\nworship of the Vedic _pitris_ is fast becoming the worship of the\nspiritual portion of mankind. It but needs the right perception of\nthings objective to finally discover that the only world of reality\nis the subjective.\n\nWhat has been contemptuously termed Paganism, was ancient wisdom\nreplete with Deity; and Judaism and its offspring, Christianity and\nIslamism, derived whatever of inspiration they contained from this\nethnic parent. Pre-Vedic Brahmanism and Buddhism are the double\nsource from which all religions sprung; Nirvana is the ocean to which\nall tend. For the purposes of a philosophical analysis, we need not\ntake account of the enormities which have blackened the record of\nmany of the world\u2019s religions. True faith is the embodiment of divine\ncharity; those who minister at its altars, are but human. As we turn\nthe bloodstained pages of ecclesiastical history, we find that,\nwhoever may have been the hero, and whatever costumes the actors may\nhave worn, the plot of the tragedy has ever been the same. But the\nEternal Night was in and behind all, and we pass from what we see to\nthat which is invisible to the eye of sense. Our fervent wish has\nbeen to show true souls how they may lift aside the curtain, and, in\nthe brightness of that Night made Day, look with undazzled gaze upon\nthe UNVEILED TRUTH.\n\n\n THE END.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n [1] These figures are copied from the \u201cReligious Statistics\n of the United States for the year 1871.\u201d\n\n [2] These are: The _Baptists_, _Congregationalists_,\n _Episcopalians_, Northern _Methodists_, Southern\n _Methodists_, Methodists _various_, Northern\n _Presbyterians_, Southern _Presbyterians_, _United\n Presbyterians_, _United Brethren_, _Brethren in\n Christ_, _Reformed Dutch_, _Reformed German_, _Reformed\n Presbyterians_, _Cumberland Presbyterians_.\n\n [3] H. Maudsley: \u201cBody and Mind.\u201d\n\n [4] \u201cBoston Sunday Herald,\u201d November 5, 1876.\n\n [5] See the self-glorification of the present Pope in the\n work entitled, \u201cSpeeches of Pope Pius IX.\u201d by Don\n Pascale de Franciscis; and the famous pamphlet of that\n name by the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone. The latter quotes\n from the work named the following sentence pronounced\n by the Pope: \u201cMy wish is that all governments should\n know that I am speaking in this strain.... And I have\n _the right_ to speak, _even more than Nathan the\n prophet_ to David the king, _and a great deal more than\n St. Ambrose had to Theodosius_!!\u201d\n\n [6] See King\u2019s \u201cGnostics,\u201d and other works.\n\n [7] Des Mousseaux: \u201cLa Magie au XIXme Si\u00e8cle,\u201d chap. i.\n\n [8] Hargrave Jennings: \u201cThe Rosicrucians,\u201d pp. 228-241.\n\n [9] Des Mousseaux: \u201cHauts Ph\u00e9nomenes de la Magie.\u201d\n\n [10] Don Pasquale di Franciscis: \u201cDiscorsi del Sommo\n Pontefice Pio IX.,\u201d Part i., p. 340.\n\n [11] \u201cSpeeches of Pius IX.,\u201d p. 14. Am. Edition.\n\n [12] Vide \u201cSpeeches of Pope Pius IX.,\u201d by Don Pasq. di\n Franciscis; Gladstone\u2019s pamphlet on this book; Draper\u2019s\n \u201cConflict between Religion and Science,\u201d and others.\n\n [13] The fact is given to us by an eye-witness who has visited\n the church several times; a Roman Catholic, who felt\n perfectly _horrified_, as he expressed it.\n\n [14] Referring to the seed planted by Jesus and his Apostles.\n\n [15] \u201cChips,\u201d vol. i., p. 26, Preface.\n\n [16] Mallet: \u201cNorthern Antiquities.\u201d\n\n [17] Ether is both _pure_ and _impure_ fire. The composition\n of the latter comprises all its visible forms, such as\n the \u201ccorrelation of forces\u201d--heat, flame, electricity,\n etc. The former is the _Spirit_ of Fire. The difference\n is purely alchemical.\n\n [18] See \u201cInquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell,\u201d by\n Rev. T. Surnden.\n\n [19] Revelation xvi. 8-9.\n\n [20] Aristotle mentions Pythagoreans who placed the sphere of\n fire in the sun, and named it _Jupiter\u2019s Prison_. See\n \u201cDe C\u0153lo,\u201d lib. ii.\n\n [21] \u201cDe Civit. Dei,\u201d 1, xxi., c. 17.\n\n [22] \u201cDemonologia and Hell,\u201d p. 289.\n\n [23] \u201cLes Hauts Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes de la Magie,\u201d p. v., Preface.\n\n [24] Dr. Stanley: \u201cLectures on the Eastern Church,\u201d p. 407.\n\n [25] In the government of Tambov, a gentleman, a rich landed\n proprietor, had a curious case happen in his family\n during the Hungarian campaign of 1848. His only and\n much-beloved nephew, whom, having no children, he had\n adopted as a son, was in the Russian army. The elderly\n couple had a portrait of his--a water-color painting--\n constantly, during the meals, placed on the table in\n front of the young man\u2019s usual seat. One evening as the\n family, with some friends, were at their early tea, the\n glass over the portrait, without any one touching it,\n was shattered to atoms with a loud explosion. As the\n aunt of the young soldier caught the picture in her hand\n she saw the forehead and head besmeared with blood. The\n guests, in order to quiet her, attributed the blood to\n her having cut her fingers with the broken glass. But,\n examine as they would, they could not find the vestige\n of a cut on her fingers, and no one had touched the\n picture but herself. Alarmed at her state of excitement\n the husband, pretending to examine the portrait more\n closely, cut his finger on purpose, and then tried to\n assure her that it was his blood and that, in the first\n excitement, he had touched the frame without any one\n remarking it. All was in vain, the old lady felt sure\n that Dimitry was killed. She began to have masses said\n for him daily at the village church, and arrayed the\n whole household in deep mourning. Several weeks later,\n an official communication was received from the colonel\n of the regiment, stating that their nephew was killed by\n a fragment of a shell which had carried off the upper\n part of his head.\n\n [26] Executions for witchcraft took place, not much later than\n a century ago, in other of the American provinces.\n Notoriously there were negroes executed in New Jersey by\n burning at the stake--the penalty denounced in several\n States. Even in South Carolina, in 1865, when the State\n government was \u201creconstructed,\u201d after the civil war, the\n statutes inflicting death for witchcraft were found to\n be still unrepealed. It is not a hundred years since\n they have been enforced to the murderous letter of their\n text.\n\n [27] _Vide_ the title-page on the English translation of\n Mayerhoff\u2019s \u201cReuchlin und Seine Zeit,\u201d Berlin, 1830.\n \u201cThe Life and Times of John Reuchlin, or Capnion, the\n Father of the German Reformation,\u201d by F. Barham, London,\n 1843.\n\n [28] Lord Coke: 3 \u201cInstitutes,\u201d fol. 44.\n\n [29] _Vide_ \u201cThe Life of St. Gregory of Tours.\u201d\n\n [30] Translated from the original document in the Archives of\n Orleans, France; also see \u201cSortes and Sortilegium;\u201d\n \u201cLife of Peter de Blois.\u201d\n\n [31] \u201cMiracles and Modern Spiritualism.\u201d\n\n [32] There were two chairs of the titular apostle at Rome. The\n clergy, frightened at the uninterrupted evidence\n furnished by scientific research, at last decided to\n confront the enemy, and we find the \u201cChronique des Arts\u201d\n giving the cleverest, and at the same time most\n _Jesuitical_, explanation of the fact. According to\n their story, \u201cThe _increase_ in the number of the\n faithful decided Peter upon making Rome henceforth the\n centre of his action. The cemetery of Ostrianum was too\n distant and would _not suffice for the re\u00fcnions of the\n Christians_. The motive which had induced the Apostle to\n confer on _Linus and Cletus_ successively the episcopal\n character, in order to render them capable of sharing\n the solicitudes of a church whose extent was to be\n without limits, led naturally to a multiplication of the\n places of meeting. The particular residence of Peter was\n therefore fixed at Viminal; and there was established\n that mysterious Chair, the symbol of power and truth.\n The august seat which was venerated at the Ostrian\n Catacombs was not, however, removed. Peter still visited\n this cradle of the Roman Church, and often, without\n doubt, exercised his holy functions there. A _second_\n Chair, expressing the same mystery as the first, was set\n up at Cornelia, and it is this which has come down to us\n through the ages.\u201d\n\n Now, so far from it being possible that there ever were\n two genuine chairs of this kind, the majority of critics\n show that Peter never was at Rome at all; the reasons\n are many and unanswerable. Perhaps we had best begin by\n pointing to the works of Justin Martyr. This great\n champion of Christianity, writing in the early part of\n the second century _in Rome_, where he fixed his abode,\n eager to get hold of the least proof in favor of the\n truth for which he suffered, seems _perfectly unconscious\n of St. Peter\u2019s existence_!!\n\n Neither does any other writer of any consequence mention\n him in connection with the Church of Rome, earlier than\n the days of Iren\u00e6us, when the latter set himself to\n invent a new religion, drawn from the depths of his\n imagination. We refer the reader anxious to learn more\n to the able work of Mr. George Reber, entitled \u201cThe\n Christ of Paul.\u201d The arguments of this author are\n conclusive. The above article in the \u201cChronique des\n Arts,\u201d speaks of the _increase_ of the faithful to such\n an extent that Ostrianum could not contain the number of\n Christians. Now, if Peter was at Rome at all--runs Mr.\n Reber\u2019s argument--it must have been between the years A.\n D. 64 and 69; for at 64 he was at Babylon, from whence\n he wrote epistles and letters to Rome, and at some time\n between 64 and 68 (the reign of Nero) he either died a\n martyr or in his bed, for Iren\u00e6us makes him deliver the\n Church of Rome, together with Paul (!?) (whom he\n persecuted and quarrelled with all his life), into the\n hands of _Linus_, who became bishop in 69 (see Reber\u2019s\n \u201cChrist of Paul,\u201d p. 122). We will treat of it more\n fully in chapter iii.\n\n Now, we ask, in the name of common sense, how could the\n _faithful_ of Peter\u2019s Church _increase_ at such a rate,\n when Nero trapped and killed them like so many mice\n during his reign? History shows the few Christians\n fleeing from Rome, wherever they could, to avoid the\n persecution of the emperor, and the \u201cChronique des Arts\u201d\n makes them increase and multiply! \u201cChrist,\u201d the article\n goes on to say, \u201cwilled that this visible sign of the\n doctrinal authority of his vicar should also have its\n portion of immortality; one can follow it from age to\n age in the documents of the Roman Church.\u201d Tertullian\n formally attests its existence in his book \u201cDe\n Pr\u00e6scriptionibus.\u201d Eager to learn everything concerning\n so interesting a subject, we would like to be shown when\n did _Christ_ WILL anything of the kind? However:\n \u201cOrnaments of ivory have been fitted to the front and\n back of the chair, but only on those parts repaired with\n acacia-wood. Those which cover the panel in front are\n divided into three superimposed rows, each containing\n six plaques of ivory, on which are engraved various\n subjects, among others the \u2018Labors of Hercules.\u2019 Several\n of the plaques were wrongly placed, and seemed to have\n been affixed to the chair at a time when the remains of\n antiquity were employed as ornaments, without much\n regard to fitness.\u201d This is the point. The article was\n written simply as a clever answer to several facts\n published during the present century. Bower, in his\n \u201cHistory of the Popes\u201d (vol. ii., p. 7), narrates that\n in the year 1662, while cleaning one of the chairs, \u201cthe\n \u2018Twelve Labors of Hercules\u2019 unluckily appeared engraved\n upon it,\u201d after which the chair was removed and another\n substituted. But in 1795, when Bonaparte\u2019s troops\n occupied Rome, the chair was again examined. This time\n there was found the Mahometan confession of faith, in\n Arabic letters: \u201cThere is no Deity but Allah, and\n Mahomet is his Apostle.\u201d (See appendix to \u201cAncient\n Symbol-Worship,\u201d by H. M. Westropp and C. Staniland\n Wake.) In the appendix Prof. Alexander Wilder very\n justly remarks as follows: \u201cWe presume that the Apostle\n of the Circumcision, as Paul, his great rival, styles\n him, was never at the Imperial City, nor had a successor\n there, not even in the ghetto. The \u2018Chair of Peter,\u2019\n therefore, is _sacred_ rather than apostolical. Its\n sanctity proceeded, however, from the esoteric religion\n of the former times of Rome. The hierophant of the\n Mysteries probably occupied it on the day of initiations,\n when exhibiting to the candidates the _Petroma_ (stone\n tablet containing the last revelation made by the\n hierophant to the neophyte for initiation).\u201d\n\n [33] Joshua xxiv. 15.\n\n [34] One of the most surprising facts that have come under our\n observation, is that students of profound research\n should not couple the frequent recurrence of these\n \u201cunexpected and almost miraculous\u201d discoveries of\n important documents, at the most opportune moments, with\n a premeditated design. Is it so strange that the\n custodians of \u201cPagan\u201d lore, seeing that the proper\n moment had arrived, should cause the needed document,\n book, or relic to fall as if by accident in the right\n man\u2019s way? Geological surveyors and explorers even as\n competent as Humboldt and Tschuddi, have not discovered\n the hidden mines from which the Peruvian Incas dug their\n treasure, although the latter confesses that the present\n degenerate Indians have the secret. In 1839, Perring,\n the arch\u00e6ologist, proposed to the sheik of an Arab\n village two purses of gold, if he helped him to discover\n the entrance to the hidden passage leading to the\n sepulchral chambers in the North Pyramid of Doshoor. But\n though his men were out of employment and half-starved,\n the sheik proudly refused to \u201csell the secret of the\n dead,\u201d promising to show it _gratis_, when _the time\n would come for it_. Is it, then, impossible that in some\n other regions of the earth are guarded the remains of\n that glorious literature of the past, which was the\n fruit of its majestic civilization? What is there so\n surprising in the idea? Who knows but that as the\n Christian Church has unconsciously begotten free thought\n by reaction against her own cruelty, rapacity, and\n dogmatism, the public mind may be glad to follow the\n lead of the Orientalists, away from Jerusalem and\n towards Ellora; and that then much more will be\n discovered that is now hidden?\n\n [35] \u201cChips from a German Workshop,\u201d vol. i., p. 373; Semitic\n Monotheism.\n\n [36] An after-thought has made us fancy that we can understand\n what is meant by the following sentences of _Moses of\n Choren\u00e8_: \u201cThe ancient Asiatics,\u201d says he, \u201cfive\n centuries before our era--and especially the Hindus, the\n Persians, and the Chaldeans, had in their possession a\n quantity of historical and scientific books. These works\n were partially borrowed, partially translated in the\n Greek language, mostly since the Ptolemies had established\n the Alexandrian library and encouraged the writers by\n their liberalities, so that the Greek language became\n the deposit of all the sciences\u201d (\u201cHistory of Armenia\u201d).\n Therefore, the greater part of the literature included\n in the 700,000 volumes of the Alexandrian Library was\n due to India, and her next neighbors.\n\n [37] Bonamy says in \u201cLe Bibliotheque d\u2019Alexandrie,\u201d quoting,\n we suppose, the Presbyter Orosius, who was an\n eye-witness, \u201c_thirty_ years later.\u201d\n\n [38] Since the above was written, the spirit here described\n has been beautifully exemplified at Barcelona, Spain,\n where the Bishop Fray Joachim invited the local\n spiritualists to witness a formal burning of spiritual\n books. We find the account in a paper called \u201cThe\n Revelation,\u201d published at Alicante, which sensibly adds\n that the performance was \u201ca caricature of the memorable\n epoch of the Inquisition.\u201d\n\n [39] E. Pococke gives the variations of the name Buddha as:\n Bud\u2019ha, Buddha, Booddha, Butta, Pout, Pote, Pto, Pte,\n Phte, Phtha, Phut, etc., etc. See \u201cIndia in Greece,\u201d\n Note, Appendix, 397.\n\n [40] The tiara of the Pope is also a perfect copy of that of\n the Dala\u00ef-Lama of Thibet.\n\n [41] It is the traditional policy of the College of Cardinals\n to elect, whenever practicable, the new Pope among the\n oldest valetudinarians. The hierophant of the Eleusinia\n was likewise always an old man, and unmarried.\n\n [42] This is not correct.\n\n [43] \u201cLe Spiritisme dans le Monde,\u201d p. 28.\n\n [44] Translated by Prof. Draper for \u201cConflict between Religion\n and Science;\u201d book xii.\n\n [45] \u201cDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire.\u201d\n\n [46] \u201cSohar Comment.,\u201d Gen. xl. 10; \u201cKabbal. Denud.,\u201d i., 528.\n\n [47] \u201cThe beings which the philosophers of other peoples\n distinguish by the name \u2018D\u00e6mons,\u2019 Moses names \u2018Angels,\u2019\u201d\n says Philo Jud\u00e6us.--\u201cDe Gigant,\u201d i. 253.\n\n [48] Deuteronomy xxxiii. 2., \u05d0\u05e9\u05d3\u05ea is translated \u201cfiery\n law\u201d in the English Bible.\n\n [49] See Rees\u2019s \u201cEncyclop\u00e6dia,\u201d art. Kabala.\n\n [50] \u201cHistor. Manich.,\u201d Liv. vi., ch. i., p. 291.\n\n [51] \u201cThe altogether mystical coloring of Christianity\n harmonized with the Essene rules of life and opinions,\n and it is not improbable that Jesus and John the Baptist\n were initiated into the Essene Mysteries, to which\n Christianity may be indebted for many a form of\n expression; as indeed the community of Therapeut\u00e6, an\n offspring of the Essene order, soon belonged wholly to\n Christianity\u201d (\u201cYost,\u201d i., 411--quoted by the author of\n \u201cSod, the Son of the Man\u201d).\n\n [52] A. Franck: \u201cDie Kabbala.\u201d\n\n [53] \u201cLe Spiritisme dans le Monde.\u201d\n\n [54] \u201cAsi\u00e0t. Trans.,\u201d i., p. 579.\n\n [55] Louis Jacolliot: \u201cThe Initiates of the Ancient Temples.\u201d\n\n [56] Franck: \u201cDie Kabbala.\u201d\n\n [57] See \u201cConflict between Religion and Science,\u201d p. 224.\n\n [58] See \u201cSohar;\u201d \u201cKab. Den.;\u201d \u201cThe Book of Mystery,\u201d the\n oldest book of the kabalists; and Milman: \u201cHistory of\n Christianity,\u201d pp. 212, 213-215.\n\n [59] Milman: \u201cHistory of Christianity,\u201d p. 280. The _Kurios_\n and _Kora_ are mentioned repeatedly in \u201cJustin Martyr.\u201d\n See p. 97.\n\n [60] See Olshausen: \u201cBiblischer Commentar \u00fcber sammtliche\n Schriften des Neuen Testaments,\u201d ii.\n\n [61] There is a wide-spread _superstition_ (?), especially\n among the Slavonians and Russians, that the _magician_\n or wizard cannot die before he has passed the \u201cword\u201d to\n a successor. So deeply is it rooted among the popular\n beliefs, that we do not imagine there is a person in\n Russia who has not heard of it. It is but too easy to\n trace the origin of this superstition to the old\n Mysteries which had been for ages spread all over the\n globe. The ancient _Variago-Rouss_ had his Mysteries in\n the North as well as in the South of Russia; and there\n are many relics of the by-gone faith scattered in the\n lands watered by the sacred Dnieper, the baptismal\n Jordan of all Russia. No _Zn\u00e2char_ (the knowing one) or\n _Koldoun_ (sorcerer), male or female, can die in fact\n before he has passed the mysterious word to some one.\n The popular belief is that unless he does that he will\n linger and suffer for weeks and months, and were he even\n finally to get liberated, it would be only to wander on\n earth, unable to quit its region unless he finds a\n successor even after death. How far the belief may be\n verified by others, we do not know, but we have seen a\n case which, for its tragical and mysterious _d\u00e9noument_,\n deserves to be given here as an illustration of the\n subject in hand. An old man, of over one hundred years\n of age, a peasant-serf in the government of S----,\n having a wide reputation as a sorcerer and healer, was\n said to be dying for several days, and still unable to\n die. The report spread like lightning, and the poor old\n fellow was shunned by even the members of his own\n family, as the latter were afraid of receiving the\n unwelcome inheritance. At last the public rumor in the\n village was that he had sent a message to a colleague\n less versed than himself in the art, and who, although\n he lived in a distant district, was nevertheless coming\n at the call, and would be on hand early on the following\n morning. There was at that time on a visit to the\n proprietor of the village a young physician who,\n belonging to the famous school of _Nihilism_ of that\n day, laughed outrageously at the idea. The master of the\n house, being a very pious man, and but half inclined to\n make so cheap of the \u201csuperstition,\u201d smiled--as the\n saying goes--but with one corner of his mouth. Meanwhile\n the young skeptic, to gratify his curiosity, had made a\n visit to the dying man, had found that he could not live\n twenty-four hours longer, and, determined to prove the\n absurdity of the \u201csuperstition,\u201d had taken means to\n detain the coming \u201csuccessor\u201d at a neighboring village.\n\n Early in the morning a company of four persons,\n comprising the physician, the master of the place, his\n daughter, and the writer of the present lines, went to\n the hut in which was to be achieved the triumph of\n skepticism. The dying man was expecting his liberator\n every moment, and his agony at the delay became extreme.\n We tried to persuade the physician to humor the patient,\n were it for humanity\u2019s sake. He only laughed. Getting\n hold with one hand of the old wizard\u2019s pulse, he took\n out his watch with the other, and remarking in French\n that all would be over in a few moments, remained\n absorbed in his professional experiment. The scene was\n solemn and appalling. Suddenly the door opened, and a\n young boy entered with the intelligence, addressed to\n the doctor, that the _koum_ was lying dead drunk at a\n neighboring village, and, according to _his orders_,\n could not be with \u201cgrandfather\u201d till the next day. The\n young doctor felt confused, and was just going to\n address the old man, when, as quick as lightning, the\n Zn\u00e2char snatched his hand from his grasp and raised\n himself in bed. His deep-sunken eyes flashed; his\n yellow-white beard and hair streaming round his livid\n face made him a dreadful sight. One instant more, and\n his long, sinewy arms were clasped round the physician\u2019s\n neck, as with a supernatural force he drew the doctor\u2019s\n head closer and closer to his own face, where he held\n him as in a vise, while _whispering_ words inaudible to\n us in his ear. The skeptic struggled to free himself,\n but before he had time to make one effective motion the\n work had evidently been done; the hands relaxed their\n grasp, and the old sorcerer fell on his back--a corpse!\n A strange and ghostly smile had settled on the stony\n lips--a smile of fiendish triumph and satisfied revenge;\n but the doctor looked paler and more ghastly than the\n dead man himself. He stared round with an expression of\n terror difficult to describe, and without answering our\n inquiries rushed out wildly from the hut, in the\n direction of the woods. Messengers were sent after him,\n but he was nowhere to be found. About sunset a report\n was heard in the forest. An hour later his body was\n brought home, with a bullet through his head, for the\n skeptic had blown out his brains!\n\n What made him commit suicide? What magic spell of\n sorcery had the \u201cword\u201d of the dying wizard left on his\n mind? Who can tell?\n\n [62] \u201cAnacalypsis;\u201d also Tertullian.\n\n [63] \u201cAnthon,\u201d art. Eleusinia.\n\n [64] Dunlap: \u201cMusah, His Mysteries,\u201d p. 71.\n\n [65] 1 Kings, viii. 2.\n\n [66] Let us remember in this connection that Col. Van Kennedy\n has long ago declared his opinion that Babylonia was\n once the seat of the Sanscrit language and of\n Brahmanical influence.\n\n [67] \u201c\u2018The Agrouchada-Parikshai,\u2019 which discloses, to a certain\n extent, the order of initiation, does not give the\n formula of evocation,\u201d says Jacolliot, and he adds that,\n according to some Brahmans, \u201cthese formula were never\n written, they were and still are imparted in a whisper\n in the ear of the adepts\u201d (\u201c_mouth to ear, and the word\n at low breath_,\u201d say the Masons).--\u201cLe Spiritisme dans\n le Monde,\u201d p. 108.\n\n [68] \u201cLe Spiritisme dans le Monde,\u201d p. 108.\n\n [69] W. D. Whitney: \u201cOriental and Linguistic Studies, The\n Veda, etc.\u201d\n\n [70] Jacolliot seems to have very logically demonstrated the\n absurd contradictions of some philologists, anthropologists,\n and Orientalists, in regard to their _Akkado and Semito_\n mania. \u201cThere is not, perhaps, much of good faith in\n their negations,\u201d he writes. \u201cThe scientists who invent\n Turanian peoples know very well that in _Manu_ alone,\n there is more of veritable science and philosophy than\n in all that this pretended Semitism has hitherto\n furnished us with; but they are the slaves of a path\n which some of them are following the last fifteen,\n twenty, or even thirty years.... We expect, therefore,\n nothing of the present. India will owe its\n reconstitution to the scientists of the next generation\u201d\n (\u201cLe Gen\u00e8se de l\u2019Humanit\u00e9,\u201d pp. 60-61).\n\n [71] Cory: \u201cAnc. Frag.\u201d\n\n [72] Movers: \u201cPhoinizer,\u201d 263.\n\n [73] Dunlap: \u201cSp. Hist. of Man,\u201d p. 281.\n\n [74] Siva is not a god of the _Vedas_, strictly speaking. When\n the _Vedas_ were written, he held the rank of Maha-Deva\n or Bel among the gods of aboriginal India.\n\n [75] \u201cDe Antro Nympharum.\u201d\n\n [76] \u201cNavarette,\u201d book ii., c. x.\n\n [77] \u201cOn the Origin of Heathen Idolatry.\u201d\n\n [78] Isis and Osiris are said, in the Egyptian sacred books,\n to have appeared (_i.e._, been worshipped), on earth,\n later than Thot, the _first_ Hermes, called Trismegistus,\n who wrote all their sacred books according to the\n command of God or by \u201cdivine revelation.\u201d The companion\n and instructor of Isis and Osiris was Thot, or Hermes\n II., who was an incarnation of the celestial Hermes.\n\n [79] Lord Kingsborough: \u201cAnt. Mex.,\u201d p. 165.\n\n [80] \u201cAp. Malal.,\u201d lib. i., cap. iv.\n\n [81] Payne Knight: \u201cPhallic Worship.\u201d\n\n [82] The Celsus above mentioned, who lived between the second\n and third centuries, is not Celsus the Epicurean. The\n latter wrote several works against Magic, and lived\n earlier, during the reign of Hadrian.\n\n [83] We have the facts from a trustworthy witness, having no\n interest to invent such a story. Having injured his leg\n in a fall from the steamer into the boat in which he was\n to land at the Mount, he was taken care of by these\n monks, and during his convalescence, through gifts of\n money and presents, became their greatest friend, and\n finally won their entire confidence. Having asked for\n the loan of some books, he was taken by the Superior to\n a large cellar in which they keep their sacred vessels\n and other property. Opening a great trunk, full of old\n musty manuscripts and rolls, he was invited by the\n Superior to \u201c_amuse_ himself.\u201d The gentleman was a\n scholar, and well versed in Greek and Latin text. \u201cI was\n amazed,\u201d he says, in a private letter, \u201cand had my\n breath taken away, on finding among these old parchments,\n so unceremoniously treated, some of the most valuable\n relics of the first centuries, hitherto believed to have\n been lost.\u201d Among others he found a half-destroyed\n manuscript, which he is perfectly sure must be a copy of\n the \u201cTrue Doctrine,\u201d the \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2 of Celsus, out of\n which Origen quoted whole pages. The traveller took as\n many notes as he could on that day, but when he came to\n offer to the Superior to purchase some of these writings\n he found, to his great surprise, that no amount of money\n would tempt the monks. They did not know what the\n manuscripts contained, nor \u201cdid they care,\u201d they said.\n But the \u201cheap of writing,\u201d they added, was transmitted\n to them from one generation to another, and there was a\n tradition among them that these papers would one day\n become the means of crushing the \u201cGreat Beast of the\n Apocalypse,\u201d their hereditary enemy, the Church of Rome.\n They were constantly quarrelling and fighting with the\n Catholic monks, and among the whole \u201cheap\u201d they _knew_\n that there was a \u201choly\u201d relic which protected them. They\n did not know _which_, and so in their doubt abstained.\n It appears that the Superior, a shrewd Greek, understood\n his _bevue_ and repented of his kindness, for first of\n all he made the traveller give him his most sacred word\n of honor, strengthened by an oath he made him take on\n the image of the Holy Patroness of the Island, never to\n betray their secret, and never mention, at least, the\n name of their convent. And finally, when the anxious\n student who had passed a fortnight in reading all sorts\n of antiquated trash before he happened to stumble over\n some precious manuscript, expressed the desire to have\n the key, to \u201camuse himself\u201d with the writings once more,\n he was very _na\u00efvely_ informed that the \u201ckey had been\n lost,\u201d and that they did not know where to look for it.\n And thus he was left to the few notes he had taken.\n\n [84] See the historical romance of Canon Kingsley, \u201cHypatia,\u201d\n for a highly picturesque account of the tragical fate of\n this young martyr.\n\n [85] We beg the reader to bear in mind that it is the same\n Cyril who was accused and proved guilty of having sold\n the gold and silver ornaments of his church, and spent\n the money. He pleaded guilty, but tried to excuse\n himself on the ground that he had used the money for the\n poor, but could not give evidence of it. His duplicity\n with Arius and his party is well known. Thus one of the\n first Christian saints, and the founder of the Trinity,\n appears on the pages of history as a murderer and a\n thief!\n\n [86] \u201cLa D\u00e9monomanie, ou trait\u00e9 des Sorciers.\u201d Paris, 1587.\n\n [87] Dr. W. G. Soldan: \u201cGeschichte der Hexen processe, aus den\n Quellen dargestellt.\u201d Stuttgart, 1843.\n\n [88] Frederick Forner, Suffragan of Bamberg, author of a\n treatise against heretics and sorcerers, under the title\n of \u201cPanoplia Armatur\u00e6 Dei.\u201d\n\n [89] \u201cSorcery and Magic,\u201d by T. Wright, M.A., F.S.A., etc.,\n Corresponding Member of the National Institute of\n France, vol. ii., p. 185.\n\n [90] Besides these burnings in Germany, which amount to many\n thousands, we find some very interesting statements in\n Prof. Draper\u2019s \u201cConflict between Religion and Science.\u201d\n On page 146, he says: \u201cThe families of the convicted\n were plunged into irretrievable ruin. Llorente, the\n historian of the Inquisition, computes that Torquemada\n and his collaborators, in the course of eighteen years,\n burned at the stake 10,220 persons, 6,860 in effigy, and\n otherwise punished 97,321!... With unutterable disgust\n and indignation, we learn that the papal government\n realized much money by selling to the rich, dispensations\n to secure them from the Inquisition.\u201d\n\n [91] \u201cSorcery and Magic;\u201d \u201cThe Burnings at W\u00fcrtzburg,\u201d p. 186.\n\n [92] And retinted in the blood of the millions murdered in his\n name--in the no less innocent blood than his own, of the\n little child-_witches_!\n\n [93] St. Augustine: \u201cCity of God,\u201d I, xxi., ch. vi.; des\n Mousseaux: \u201cM\u0153urs et Pratiques des Demons.\u201d\n\n [94] A correspondent of the London \u201cTimes\u201d describes the\n Catalonian exorcist in the following lines:\n\n \u201cAbout the 14th of October it was privately announced\n that a young woman of seventeen or eighteen years of\n age, of the lower class, having long been afflicted with\n \u2018a hatred of holy things,\u2019 the senior priest of the\n Church of the Holy Spirit would cure her of her disease.\n The exhibition was to be held in a church frequented by\n the best part of the community. The church was dark, but\n a sickly light was shed by wax lights on the sable forms\n of some eighty or a hundred persons who clustered round\n the _presbyterio_, or sanctuary, in front of the altar.\n Within the little enclosure or sanctuary, separated from\n the crowd by a light railing, lay, on a common bench,\n with a little pillow for her head to recline upon, a\n poorly-clad girl, probably of the peasant or artisan\n class; her brother or husband stood at her feet to\n restrain her (at times) frantic kicking by holding her\n legs. The door of the vestry opened; the exhibitor--I\n mean the priest--came in. The poor girl, not without\n just reason, \u2018had an aversion to holy things,\u2019 or, at\n least, the 400 devils within her distorted body had such\n an aversion, and in the confusion of the moment,\n thinking that the father was \u2018a holy thing,\u2019 she doubled\n up her legs, screamed out with twitching mouth, her\n whole body writhing, and threw herself nearly off the\n bench. The male attendant seized her legs, the women\n supported her head and swept out her dishevelled hair.\n The priest advanced and, mingling familiarly with the\n shuddering and horror-struck crowd, said, pointing at\n the suffering child, now sobbing and twitching on the\n bench, \u2018Promise me, my children, that you will be\n prudent (_prudentes_), and of a truth, sons and\n daughters mine, you shall see marvels.\u2019 The promise was\n given. The exhibitor went to procure stole and short\n surplice (_estola y roquete_), and returned in a moment,\n taking his stand at the side of the \u2018possessed with the\n devils,\u2019 with his face toward the group of students. The\n order of the day\u2019s proceedings was a lecture to the\n bystanders, and the operation of exorcising the devils.\n \u2018You know,\u2019 said the priest, \u2018that so great is this\n girl\u2019s aversion to holy things, myself included, that\n she goes into convulsions, kicks, screams, and distorts\n her body the moment she arrives at the corner of this\n street, and her convulsive struggles reach their climax\n when she enters the sacred house of the Most High.\u2019\n Turning to the prostrate, shuddering, most unhappy\n object of his attack, the priest commenced: \u2018In the name\n of God, of the saints, of the blessed Host, of every\n holy sacrament of our Church, I adjure thee, Rusbel,\n come out of her.\u2019 (N. B. \u2018Rusbel\u2019 is the name of a\n devil, the devil having 257 names in Catalonia.) Thus\n adjured, the girl threw herself--in an agony of\n convulsion, till her distorted face, foam-bespattered\n lips and writhing limbs grew well-nigh stiff--at full\n length upon the floor, and, in language semi-obscene,\n semi-violent, screamed out, \u2018I don\u2019t choose to come out,\n you thieves, scamps, robbers.\u2019 At last, from the\n quivering lips of the girl, came the words, \u2018I will;\u2019\n but the devil added, with traditional perversity, \u2018I\n will cast the 100 out, but by the mouth of the girl.\u2019\n The priest objected. The exit, he said, of 100 devils\n out of the small Spanish mouth of the woman would \u2018leave\n her suffocated.\u2019 Then the maddened girl said she must\n undress herself for the devils to escape. This petition\n the holy father refused. \u2018Then I will come out through\n the right foot, but first\u2019--the girl had on a hempen\n sandal, she was obviously of the poorest class--\u2018you\n must take off her sandal.\u2019 The sandal was untied; the\n foot gave a convulsive plunge; the devil and his\n myrmidons (so the _cura_ said, looking round triumphantly)\n had gone to their own place. And, assured of this, the\n wretched dupe of a girl lay quite still. The bishop was\n not cognizant of this freak of the clergy, and the\n moment it came to the ears of the civil authorities, the\n sharpest means were taken to prevent a repetition of the\n scandal.\u201d\n\n [95] Louis Jacolliot: \u201cLe Spiritisme dans le Monde,\u201d p. 162.\n\n [96] St. Augustine: \u201cCity of God.\u201d\n\n [97] \u201cM\u0153urs et Pratiques des Demons,\u201d p. ii.\n\n [98] Des Mousseaux: \u201cTable des Mati\u00e8res.\u201d\n\n [99] \u201cDemonologia;\u201d London, 1827, J. Bumpus, 23 Skinner Street.\n\n [100] \u201cTrait\u00e9 Preparatif \u00e0 l\u2019Apologie pour Herodote,\u201d c. 39.\n\n [101] De Missa Privat\u00e2 et Unctione Sacerdotum.\n\n [102] See the \u201cLife of St. Dominick\u201d and the story about\n the miraculous Rosary; also the \u201cGolden Legend.\u201d\n\n [103] James de Varasse, known by the Latin name of James\n de Veragine, was Vicar General of the Dominicans and\n Bishop of Genoa in 1290.\n\n [104] Thirteenth century.\n\n [105] \u201cRituale Romanum,\u201d pp. 475-478. Parisiis, 1852.\n\n [106] \u201cM\u0153urs et Pratiques des Demons,\u201d p. 177.\n\n [107] See the narrative selected from the \u201cGolden Legend,\u201d\n by Alban Butler.\n\n [108] See the \u201cGolden Legend;\u201d \u201cLife of St. Francis;\u201d\n \u201cDemonologia.\u201d\n\n [109] \u201cThe Mythology of the Hindus,\u201d by Charles Coleman.\n Japan.\n\n [110] \u201cSupernatural Religion.\u201d\n\n [111] Neither do we, if by _true religion_ the world shall\n at last understand the adoration of one Supreme,\n Invisible, and Unknown Deity, by works and acts, not by\n the profession of vain human dogmas. But our intention\n is to go farther. We desire to demonstrate that if we\n exclude ceremonial and fetish worship from being\n regarded as essential parts of religion, then the true\n Christ-like principles have been exemplified, and true\n Christianity practiced since the days of the apostles,\n exclusively among Buddhists and \u201cheathen.\u201d\n\n [112] \u201cAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,\u201d p. xvi.\n\n [113] \u201cDiscourses of Miracles wrought in the Roman Catholic\n Church; or a full Refutation of Dr. Stillingfleet\u2019s\n unjust Exceptions against Miracles.\u201d Octavo, 1676, p. 64.\n\n [114] After this, why should the Roman Catholics object to\n the claims of the Spiritualists? If, without proof, they\n believe in the \u201cmaterialization\u201d of Mary and John, for\n Ignatius, how can they logically deny the\n materialization of Katie and John (King), when it is\n attested by the careful experiments of Mr. Crookes, the\n English chemist, and the cumulative testimony of a large\n number of witnesses?\n\n [115] The \u201cMother of God\u201d takes precedence therefore of God?\n\n [116] See the \u201cNew Era\u201d for July, 1875. N. Y.\n\n [117] \u201cPaul and Plato.\u201d\n\n [118] See \u201cLa Magie au XIXme Si\u00e8cle,\u201d p. 168.\n\n [119] \u201cRom. Rit.,\u201d edit. of 1851, pp. 291-296, etc., etc.\n\n [120] _Creature_ of salt, air, water, or of any object to\n be _enchanted_ or _blessed_, is a technical word in\n magic, adopted by the Christian clergy.\n\n [121] \u201cRom. Rit.,\u201d pp. 421-435.\n\n [122] See \u201cArt-Magic,\u201d art. Peter d\u2019Abano.\n\n [123] \u201cRitual,\u201d pp. 429-433; see \u201cLa Magie au XIXme Si\u00e8cle,\u201d\n pp. 171, 172.\n\n [124] \u201cDogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,\u201d vol. ii., p. 88.\n\n [125] \u201cConferences,\u201d by Le P\u00e8re Ventura, vol. ii., part i.,\n p. lvi., Preface.\n\n [126] \u201cConflict between Religion and Science,\u201d p. 62.\n\n [127] \u201cDe Baptismo Contra Donatistas,\u201d lib. vi., ch. xliv.\n\n [128] \u201cConflict, etc.,\u201d p. 37.\n\n [129] Ibid.\n\n [130] \u201cPaul and Plato,\u201d by A. Wilder, editor of \u201cThe\n Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries,\u201d of Thomas Taylor.\n\n [131] \u201cPaul and Plato.\u201d\n\n [132] See Taylor\u2019s \u201cEleus. and Bacchic Myst.\u201d\n\n [133] 1 Corin., iii. 10.\n\n [134] In its most extensive meaning, the Sanscrit word has\n the same literal sense as the Greek term; both imply\n \u201crevelation,\u201d by no human agent, but through the\n \u201creceiving of the sacred drink.\u201d In India the initiated\n received the \u201cSoma,\u201d sacred drink, which helped to\n liberate his soul from the body; and in the Eleusinian\n Mysteries it was the sacred drink offered at the\n Epopteia. The Grecian Mysteries are wholly derived from\n the Brahmanical Vedic rites, and the latter from the\n ante-vedic religious Mysteries--primitive Buddhist\n philosophy.\n\n [135] It is needless to state that _the Gospel according to\n John_ was not written by John but by a Platonist or a\n Gnostic belonging to the Neo-platonic school.\n\n [136] The fact that Peter persecuted the \u201cApostle to the\n Gentiles,\u201d under that name, does not necessarily imply\n that there was no Simon Magus individually distinct from\n Paul. It may have become a generic name of abuse.\n Theodoret and Chrysostom, the earliest and most prolific\n commentators on the Gnosticism of those days, seem\n actually to make of Simon a rival of Paul, and to state\n that between them passed frequent messages. The former,\n as a diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the\n \u201cantitheses of the Gnosis\u201d (1st Epistle to Timothy),\n must have been a sore thorn in the side of the apostle.\n There are sufficient proofs of the actual existence of\n Simon Magus.\n\n [137] \u201cIntrod. to Eleus. and Bacchic Mysteries,\u201d p. x. Had\n we not trustworthy kabalistic tradition to rely upon, we\n might be, perhaps, forced to question whether the\n authorship of the Revelation is to be ascribed to the\n apostle of that name. He seems to be termed John the\n Theologist.\n\n [138] Bunsen: \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d vol. v.,\n p. 90.\n\n [139] See de Roug\u00e9: \u201cStele,\u201d p. 44; PTAR (videus) is interpreted\n on it \u201cto appear,\u201d with a sign of interrogation after\n it--the usual mark of scientific perplexity. In Bunsen\u2019s\n fifth volume of \u201cEgypte,\u201d the interpretation following\n is \u201cIlluminator,\u201d which is more correct.\n\n [140] Bunsen\u2019s \u201cEgypt,\u201d vol. v., p. 90.\n\n [141] It is the property of a mystic whom we met in Syria.\n\n [142] The Priests of Isis were tonsured.\n\n [143] See \u201cAncient Faiths,\u201d vol. ii., pp. 915-918.\n\n [144] \u201cThe Gnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 71.\n\n [145] See illustration in Inman\u2019s \u201cAncient Pagan and Modern\n Christian Symbolism,\u201d p. 27.\n\n [146] Ibid., p. 76.\n\n [147] Initiates and seers.\n\n [148] The augur\u2019s, and now bishop\u2019s, pastoral crook.\n\n [149] \u201cThe Heathen Religion.\u201d\n\n [150] \u201cP\u00e8res du Desert d\u2019Orient,\u201d vol. ii., p. 283.\n\n [151] Justin Martyr: \u201cQu\u00e6st.,\u201d xxiv.\n\n [152] See Taylor\u2019s \u201cEleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries;\u201d\n Porphyry and others.\n\n [153] Franck: \u201cDie Kabbala.\u201d\n\n [154] \u201cMysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians.\u201d\n\n [155] \u201cDivine Legation of Moses;\u201d The \u201cEleusinian Mysteries\u201d\n as quoted by Thos. Taylor.\n\n [156] This expression must not be understood literally;\n for as in the initiation of certain Brotherhoods it has\n a secret meaning, hinted at by Pythagoras, when he\n describes his feelings after the initiation and tells\n that he was crowned by the gods in whose presence he had\n drunk \u201cthe waters of life\u201d--in Hindu, _\u00e2-bi-hay\u00e2t_,\n fount of life.\n\n [157] This original and very long sermon was preached in a\n church at Brooklyn, N. Y., on the 15th day of April,\n 1877. On the following morning, the reverend orator was\n called in the \u201cSun\u201d a gibbering charlatan; but this\n deserved epithet will not prevent other reverend\n buffoons doing the same and even worse. And this is the\n religion of Christ! Far better disbelieve in him\n altogether than caricature one\u2019s God in such a manner.\n We heartily applaud the \u201cSun\u201d for the following views:\n \u201cAnd then when Talmage makes Christ say to Martha in the\n tantrums: \u2018Don\u2019t worry, but sit down on this ottoman,\u2019\n he adds the climax to a scene that the inspired writers\n had nothing to say about. Talmage\u2019s buffoonery is going\n too far. If he were the worst heretic in the land,\n instead of being straight in his orthodoxy, he would not\n do so much evil to religion as he does by his familiar\n blasphemies.\u201d\n\n [158] \u201cLe Spiritisme dans le Monde,\u201d p. 68.\n\n [159] Ibid., pp. 78, 79.\n\n [160] Louis Jacolliot: \u201cPh\u00e9nomenes et Manifestations.\u201d\n\n [161] Pisatshas, d\u00e6mons of the race of the gnomes, the\n giants and the vampires.\n\n [162] Gandarbas, good d\u00e6mons, celestial seraphs, singers.\n\n [163] Asuras and Nagas are the Titanic spirits and the\n dragon or serpent-headed spirits.\n\n [164] See Arnolius: \u201cOp. Cit.,\u201d pp. 249, 250.\n\n [165] See Inman\u2019s \u201cAncient Pagan and Modern Christian\n Symbolism.\u201d\n\n [166] Introduction to Taylor\u2019s \u201cEleusinian and Bacchic\n Mysteries,\u201d published by J. W. Bouton.\n\n [167] Illustrated figures \u201cfrom an ancient Rosary of the\n blessed Virgin Mary, printed at Venice, 1524, with a\n license from the Inquisition.\u201d In the illustrations\n given by Dr. Inman the Virgin is represented in an\n Assyrian \u201cgrove,\u201d the _abomination in the eyes of the\n Lord_, according to the Bible prophets. \u201cThe book in\n question,\u201d says the author, \u201ccontains numerous figures,\n all resembling closely the Mesopotamian emblem of\n _Ishtar_. The presence of the woman _therein_ identifies\n the two as symbolic of Isis, or _la nature_; and a man\n bowing down in adoration thereof shows the same idea as\n is depicted in Assyrian sculptures, where males offer to\n the goddess _symbols_ of _themselves_\u201d (See \u201cAncient\n Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,\u201d p. 91. Second\n edition. J. W. Bouton, publisher, New York).\n\n [168] See King\u2019s \u201cGnostics,\u201d pp. 91, 92; \u201cThe Genealogy of\n the Blessed Virgin Mary,\u201d by Faustus, Bishop of Riez.\n\n [169] Prinseps quotes Dubois, \u201cEdinburgh Review,\u201d April, 1851,\n p. 411.\n\n [170] \u201cManu,\u201d book I., sloka 32: Sir W. Jones, translating\n from the Northern \u201cManu,\u201d renders this _sloka_ as\n follows: \u201cHaving divided his own substance, the mighty\n Power became half male, half female, or _nature active\n and passive_; and from that female he produced VIRAJ.\u201d\n\n [171] \u201cEnead,\u201d i., book viii.\n\n [172] \u201cCommentary upon the Republic of Plato,\u201d p. 380.\n\n [173] Verses 33-41.\n\n [174] \u201cPh\u00e6drus,\u201d p. 64.\n\n [175] The Supreme Buddha is invoked with two of his\n acolytes of the theistic triad, Dharma and Sanga. This\n triad is addressed in Sanscrit in the following terms:\n\n _Namo Buddh\u00e2ya,\n Namo Dharm\u00e2ya,\n Namo Sang\u00e2ya,\n Aum!_\n\n while the Thibetan Buddhists pronounce their invocations\n as follows:\n\n _Nan-won Fo-tho-ye,\n Nan-won Tha-ma-ye,\n Nan-won Seng-kia-ye,\n Aan!_\n\n See also \u201cJournal Asiatique,\u201d tome vii., p. 286.\n\n [176] The body of man--his coat of skin--is an inert mass of\n matter, _per se_; it is but the _sentient_ living body\n within the man that is considered as the man\u2019s body\n proper, and it is that which, together with the fontal\n soul or purely astral body, directly connected with the\n immortal spirit, constitutes the trinity of man.\n\n [177] We really think that the word \u201cwitchcraft\u201d ought, once\n for all, to be understood in the sense which properly\n belongs to it. Witchcraft may be either conscious or\n unconscious. Certain wicked and dangerous results may be\n obtained through the mesmeric powers of a so-called\n sorcerer, who misuses his potential fluid; or again they\n may be achieved through an easy access of malicious\n tricky \u201cspirits\u201d (so much the worse if human) to the\n atmosphere surrounding a medium. How many thousands of\n such irresponsible innocent victims have met infamous\n deaths through the tricks of those Elementaries!\n\n [178] \u201cAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,\u201d preface,\n p. 34.\n\n [179] \u201cThe Christ of Paul,\u201d p. 123.\n\n [180] Gospel according to Mark, viii. 33.\n\n [181] \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d vol. ii., p. 489.\n\n [182] \u201cAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,\u201d p. 28.\n\n [183] See Eusebius, \u201cEx. H.,\u201d bk. iv., ch. v.; \u201cSulpicius\n Severus,\u201d vol. ii., p. 31.\n\n [184] It appears that the Jews attribute a very high antiquity\n to \u201cSepher Toldos Jeshu.\u201d It was mentioned for the first\n time by Martin, about the beginning of the thirteenth\n century, for the Talmudists took great care to conceal\n it from the Christians. Levi says that Porchetus\n Salvaticus published some portions of it, which were\n used by Luther (see vol. viii., Jena Ed.). The Hebrew\n text, which was missing, was at last found by M\u00fcnster\n and Buxtorf, and published in 1681, by Christopher\n Wagenseilius, in Nuremberg, and in Frankfort, in a\n collection entitled \u201cTela Ignea Satan\u00e6,\u201d or The Burning\n Darts of Satan (\u201cSee Levi\u2019s Science des Esprits\u201d).\n\n [185] Theodoret: \u201cH\u00e6retic. Fab.,\u201d lib. ii., 11.\n\n [186] Jervis W. Jervis: \u201cGenesis,\u201d p. 324.\n\n [187] \u201cLightfoot,\u201d 501.\n\n [188] Dunlap: \u201cSod, the Son of the Man,\u201d p. x.\n\n [189] Jeremiah vii. 29: \u201cCut off thine hair, O Jerusalem,\n and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high\n places.\u201d\n\n [190] Genesis xlix. 26.\n\n [191] Nazareth?\n\n [192] Otfried M\u00fcller: \u201cHistorical Greek Literature,\u201d pp.\n 230-240.\n\n [193] See \u201cMovers,\u201d p. 683.\n\n [194] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d ii., 305.\n\n [195] See Lucian: \u201cDe Syria Dea.\u201d\n\n [196] See Psalm lxxxix. 18.\n\n [197] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d i. 47.\n\n [198] Ibid.; Norberg: \u201cOnomasticon,\u201d 74.\n\n [199] Alph. de Spire: \u201cFortalicium Fidei,\u201d ii., 2.\n\n [200] Hosea ix. 10.\n\n [201] \u201cThe Essenes considered oil as a defilement,\u201d says\n Josephus: \u201cWars,\u201d ii., p. 7.\n\n [202] Luke xiii. 32.\n\n [203] Matthew ii. We must bear in mind that the Gospel\n according to Matthew in the New Testament is not the\n original Gospel of the apostle of that name. The\n authentic Evangel was for centuries in the possession of\n the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, as we show further on\n the admission of St. Jerome himself, who confesses that\n he had to _ask permission_ of the Nazarenes to translate\n it.\n\n [204] Dunlap: \u201cSod, the Son of the Man.\u201d\n\n [205] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. ii., p. 233.\n\n [206] Preller: vol. i., p. 415.\n\n [207] Ibid., vol. i., p. 490.\n\n [208] The word Apocrypha was very erroneously adopted as\n doubtful and spurious. The word means _hidden_ and\n _secret_; but that which is secret may be often more\n true than that which is revealed.\n\n [209] The statement, if reliable, would show that Jesus was\n between fifty and sixty years old when baptized; for the\n Gospels make him but a few months younger than John. The\n kabalists say that Jesus was over forty years old when\n first appearing at the gates of Jerusalem. The present\n copy of the \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us\u201d is dated in the year 1042,\n but Dunlap finds in Iren\u00e6us (2d century) quotations from\n and ample references to this book. \u201cThe basis of the\n material common to Iren\u00e6us and the \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us\u201d must\n be at least as early as the first century,\u201d says the\n author in his preface to \u201cSod, the Son of the Man,\u201d p. i.\n\n [210] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. i., p. 109; Dunlap: Ibid., xxiv.\n\n [211] Acts xxiv. 5.\n\n [212] Ibid., 14.\n\n [213] \u201cHerodotus,\u201d ii., p. 170.\n\n [214] The Hindu High Pontiff--the Chief of the Namburis, who\n lives in the Cochin Land, is generally present during\n these festivals of \u201cHoly Water\u201d immersions. He travels\n sometimes to very great distances to preside over the\n ceremony.\n\n [215] \u201cAnt. Jud.,\u201d xiii., p. 9; xv., p. 10.\n\n [216] King thinks it a great exaggeration and is inclined to\n believe that these Essenes, who were most undoubtedly\n Buddhist monks, were \u201cmerely a continuation of the\n associations known as Sons of the Prophets.\u201d \u201cThe\n Gnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 22.\n\n [217] St. Jerome: \u201cEpistles,\u201d p. 49 (ad. Poulmam); see\n Dunlap\u2019s \u201cSpirit-History,\u201d p. 218.\n\n [218] \u201cMunk,\u201d p. 169.\n\n [219] Bacchus and Ceres--or the mystical _Wine_ and _Bread_,\n used during the Mysteries, become, in the \u201cAdonia,\u201d\n Adonis and Venus. Movers shows that \u201c_Iao_ is Bacchus,\u201d\n p. 550; and his authority is _Lydus de Mens_ (38-74);\n \u201cSpir. Hist.,\u201d p. 195. _Iao_ is a Sun-god and the Jewish\n Jehovah; the intellectual or Central Sun of the\n kabalists. See _Julian_ in _Proclus_. But this \u201cIao\u201d is\n not the Mystery-god.\n\n [220] Josephus: \u201cAnt. Jud.,\u201d iv., p. 4.\n\n [221] Ibid., ix.; 2 Kings, i. 8.\n\n [222] In relation to the well-known fact of Jesus wearing his\n hair long, and being always so represented, it becomes\n quite startling to find how little the unknown Editor of\n the \u201cActs\u201d knew about the Apostle Paul, since he makes\n him say in 1 Corinthians xi. 14, \u201cDoth not Nature itself\n teach you, that if a _man have long hair, it is a shame\n unto him_?\u201d Certainly Paul could never have said such a\n thing! Therefore, if the passage is genuine, Paul knew\n nothing of the prophet whose doctrines he had embraced\n and for which he died; and if false--how much more\n reliable is what remains?\n\n [223] Max M\u00fcller has sufficiently proved the case in his\n lecture on the \u201cZend-Avesta.\u201d He calls Gushtasp \u201cthe\n mythical pupil of Zoroaster.\u201d Mythical, perhaps, only\n because the period in which he lived and learned with\n Zoroaster is too remote to allow our modern science to\n speculate upon it with any certainty.\n\n [224] Max M\u00fcller: \u201cZend Avesta,\u201d 83.\n\n [225] Philo: \u201cDe Vita. Contemp.\u201d\n\n [226] The real meaning of the division into _ages_ is esoteric\n and Buddhistic. So little did the uninitiated Christians\n understand it that they accepted the words of Jesus\n _literally_ and firmly believed that he meant the end of\n the world. There had been many prophecies about the\n forthcoming age. Virgil, in the fourth Eclogue, mentions\n the Metatron--a new offspring, with whom the _iron age_\n shall end and a _golden one_ arise.\n\n [227] \u201cPalestine,\u201d p. 525, et seq.\n\n [228] \u201cSod,\u201d vol. ii., Preface, p. xi.\n\n [229] \u201cVit. Pythag.\u201d Munk derives the name of the _Iess\u00e6ns_\n or Essenes from the Syriac _Asaya_--the healers, or\n physicians, thus showing their identity with the\n Egyptian Therapeut\u00e6. \u201cPalestine,\u201d p. 515.\n\n [230] Matthew xiii. 10.\n\n [231] \u201cEleusinian Mysteries,\u201d p. 15.\n\n [232] This descent to Hades signified the inevitable fate of\n each soul to be united for a time with a terrestrial\n body. This union, or dark prospect for the soul to find\n itself imprisoned within the dark tenement of a body,\n was considered by all the ancient philosophers and is\n even by the modern Buddhists, as a punishment.\n\n [233] \u201cEleusinian Mysteries,\u201d p. 49, foot-note.\n\n [234] \u201cThe profound or esoteric doctrines of the ancients were\n denominated _wisdom_, and afterward _philosophy_, and\n also the _gnosis_, or knowledge. They related to the\n human soul, its divine parentage, its supposed\n degradation from its high estate by becoming connected\n with \u201cgeneration\u201d or the physical world, its onward\n progress and restoration to God by regenerations or ...\n transmigrations.\u201d Ibid, p. 2, foot-note.\n\n [235] Cyril of Jerusalem asserts it. See vi. 10.\n\n [236] \u201cPh\u00e6drus,\u201d 64.\n\n [237] \u201cThe Golden Ass,\u201d xi.\n\n [238] \u201cApocalypse,\u201d xix. 12.\n\n [239] See Suet. in \u201cVita. Eutrop.,\u201d 7. It is neither cruelty,\n nor an insane indulgence in it, which shows this emperor\n in history as passing his time in catching flies and\n transpiercing them with a golden bodkin, but religious\n superstition. The Jewish astrologers had predicted to\n him that he had provoked the wrath of Beelzebub, the\n \u201cLord of the flies,\u201d and would perish miserably through\n the revenge of the dark god of Ekron, and die like King\n Ahaziah, because he persecuted the Jews.\n\n [240] We believe that it was the Sadducees and not the Pharisees\n who crucified Jesus. They were Zadokites--partisans of\n the house of Zadok, or the sacerdotal family. In the\n \u201cActs\u201d the apostles were said to be persecuted by the\n Sadducees, but never by the Pharisees. In fact, the\n latter never persecuted any one. They had the scribes,\n rabbis, and learned men in their numbers, and were not,\n like the Sadducees, jealous of their order.\n\n [241] \u201cDial.,\u201d p. 69.\n\n [242] Fabricius: \u201cCod. Apoc., N. T.,\u201d i., 243; Tischendorf:\n \u201cEvang. Ap.,\u201d p. 214.\n\n [243] Origen: \u201cCont. Cels.,\u201d 11.\n\n [244] Rabbi Iochan: \u201cMag.,\u201d 51.\n\n [245] \u201cOrigen,\u201d 11.\n\n [246] Cf. \u201cAugust de Consans. Evang.,\u201d i., 9; Fabric.: \u201cCod.\n Ap. N. T.,\u201d i., p. 305, ff.\n\n [247] \u201cRecog.,\u201d i. 58; cf., p. 40.\n\n [248] King\u2019s \u201cGnostics,\u201d p. 145; the author places this\n sarcophagus among the earliest productions of that art\n which inundated later the world with mosaics and\n engravings, representing the events and personages of\n the \u201cNew Testament.\u201d\n\n [249] \u201cDe Pudicitia.\u201d See \u201cThe Gnostics and their Remains,\u201d\n p. 144.\n\n [250] Ibid., plate i., p. 200.\n\n [251] This gem is in the collection of the author of \u201cThe\n Gnostics and their Remains.\u201d See p. 201.\n\n [252] \u201cH\u00e6resies,\u201d xxvii.\n\n [253] 1 Cor. xi. 14.\n\n [254] See the \u201cIsraelite Indeed,\u201d vol. ii., p. 238; \u201cTreatise\n Nazir.\u201d\n\n [255] \u201cEpiph. ed. Petar,\u201d vol. i., p 117.\n\n [256] \u201cKabbala Denudata,\u201d ii., 155; \u201cVallis Regia,\u201d Paris\n edition.\n\n [257] Psalms viii.\n\n [258] This contradiction, which is attributed to Paul in\n Hebrews, by making him say of Jesus in chapter i., 4:\n \u201cBeing made _so much better_ than the angels,\u201d and then\n immediately stating in chapter ii. 9, \u201cBut we see Jesus,\n who was made _a little lower_ than the angels,\u201d shows\n how unscrupulously the writings of the apostles, if they\n ever wrote any, were tampered with.\n\n [259]\u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d i. 23.\n\n [260] Ibid., preface, p. v., translated from Norberg.\n\n [261] \u201cAccording to the Nazarenes and Gnostics, the Demiurg,\n the creator of the material world, is not the highest\n God.\u201d (See Dunlap: \u201cSod, the Son of the Man.\u201d)\n\n [262] Clemens: \u201cAl. Strom.\u201d vii., 7, \u00a7 106.\n\n [263] H. E., iv. 7.\n\n [264] The gospels interpreted by Basilides were not our\n present gospels, which, as it is proved by the greatest\n authorities, were not in his days in existence. See\n \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d vol. ii., chap. Basilides.\n\n [265] The five make mystically ten. They are androgynes.\n \u201cHaving divided his body in two parts, the Supreme\n Wisdom became male and female\u201d (\u201cManu,\u201d book i., sloka\n 32). There are many early Buddhistic ideas to be found\n in Brahmanism.\n\n The prevalent idea that the last of the Buddhas, Gautama,\n is the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, or the _ninth_\n Avatar, is disclaimed partially by the Brahmans, and\n wholly rejected by the learned Buddhist theologians. The\n latter insist that the worship of Buddha possesses a far\n higher claim to antiquity than any of the Brahmanical\n deities of the _Vedas_, which they call secular\n literature. The Brahmans, they show, came from other\n countries, and established their heresy on the already\n accepted popular _deities_. They conquered the land by\n the sword, and succeeded in burying truth, by building a\n theology of their own on the ruins of the more ancient\n one of Buddha, which had prevailed for ages. They admit\n the divinity and spiritual existence of some of the\n Vedantic gods; but as in the case of the Christian\n angel-hierarchy they believe that all these deities are\n greatly subordinate, even to the incarnated Buddhas.\n They do not even acknowledge the creation of the\n physical universe. Spiritually and _invisibly_ it has\n existed from all eternity, and thus it was made merely\n visible to the human senses. When it first appeared it\n was called forth from the realm of the invisible into\n the visible by the impulse of A\u2019di Buddha--the \u201cEssence.\u201d\n They reckon twenty-two such visible appearances of the\n universe governed by Buddhas, and as many destructions\n of it, by fire and water in regular successions. After\n the last destruction by the flood, at the end of the\n precedent cycle--(the exact calculation, embracing\n several millions of years, is a secret cycle) the world,\n during the present age of the Kali Yug--Maha Bhadda\n Calpa--has been ruled successively by four Buddhas, the\n last of whom was Gautama, the \u201cHoly One.\u201d The fifth,\n Maitree-Buddha, is yet to come. This latter is the\n expected kabalistic King Messiah, the Messenger of\n Light, and Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, who will come\n on a _white_ horse. It is also the Christian Second\n Advent. See \u201cApocalypse\u201d of St. John.\n\n [266] \u201cIren\u00e6us,\u201d i. 23.\n\n [267] Tertullian reversed the table himself by rejecting,\n later in life, the doctrines for which he fought with\n such an acerbity and by becoming a Montanist.\n\n [268] In his debate with Jacolliot upon the right spelling\n of the Hindu Christna, Mr. Textor de Ravisi, an\n ultramontane Catholic, tries to prove that the name of\n Christna ought to be written Krishna, for, as the latter\n means black, and the statues of this deity are generally\n black, the word is derived from the color. We refer the\n reader to Jacolliot\u2019s answer in his recent work,\n \u201cChristna et le Christ,\u201d for the conclusive evidence\n that the name is not derived from the color.\n\n [269] There is no equivalent for the word \u201cmiracle,\u201d in the\n Christian sense, among the Brahmans or Buddhists. The\n only correct translation would be _meipo_, a wonder,\n something remarkable; but not a violation of natural\n law. The \u201csaints\u201d only produce _meipo_.\n\n [270] \u201cBeitr\u00e4ge,\u201d vol. i., p. 40; Schleiermacher: \u201cS\u00e4mmtl.\n Werke,\u201d viii.; \u201cEinl., N. T.,\u201d p. 64.\n\n [271] \u201cEpiph. H\u00e6ra.,\u201d xlii., p. 1.\n\n [272] Tertullian: \u201cAdv. Marc.,\u201d ii. 5; cf. 9.\n\n [273] Ibid., ii. 5.\n\n [274] vol. ii., p. 105.\n\n [275] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 100.\n\n [276] \u201cAdv. Marc.,\u201d iv., 9, 36.\n\n [277] \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d p. 101; Matthew v. 17.\n\n [278] This author, vol. ii., p. 103, remarks with great\n justice of the \u201cHeresiarch\u201d Marcion, \u201cwhose high\n personal character exerted so powerful an influence upon\n his own time,\u201d that \u201cit was the misfortune of Marcion to\n live in an age when Christianity had passed out of the\n pure morality of its infancy; when, untroubled by\n complicated questions of dogma, simple faith and pious\n enthusiasm had been the one great bond of Christian\n brotherhood, into a phase of ecclesiastical development\n in which religion was fast degenerating into theology,\n and complicated doctrines were rapidly assuming the\n rampant attitude which led to so much bitterness,\n persecution, and schism. In later times Marcion might\n have been honored as a reformer, in his own he was\n denounced as a heretic. Austere and ascetic in his\n opinions, he aimed at superhuman purity, and, although\n his clerical adversaries might scoff at his impracticable\n doctrines regarding marriage and the subjugation of the\n flesh, they have had their parallels amongst those whom\n the Church has since most delighted to honor, and, at\n least, the whole tendency of his system was markedly\n towards the side of virtue.\u201d These statements are based\n upon Credner\u2019s \u201cBeitr\u00e4ge,\u201d i., p. 40; cf. Neander:\n \u201cAllg. K. G.,\u201d ii., p. 792, f.; Schleiermacher, Milman,\n etc., etc.\n\n [279] Justin\u2019s \u201cDie Evv.,\u201d p. 446, sup. B.\n\n [280] But, on the other hand, this antagonism is very _strongly_\n marked in the \u201cClementine Homilies,\u201d in which Peter\n unequivocally denies that Paul, whom he calls Simon the\n Magician, has ever had a _vision_ of Christ, and calls\n him \u201can enemy.\u201d Canon Westcott says: \u201cThere can be no\n doubt that St. Paul is referred to as \u2018the enemy\u2019\u201d (\u201cOn\n the Canon,\u201d p. 252, note 2; \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d\n vol. ii., p 35). But this antagonism, which rages unto\n the present day, we find even in St. Paul\u2019s \u201cEpistles.\u201d\n What can be more energetic than such like sentences:\n \u201cSuch are _false_ apostles, deceitful workers,\n transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ....\n I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest\n apostle\u201d (2 Corinthians, xi.). \u201cPaul, an apostle _not of\n men_, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ _and_ God the\n Father, who raised him from the dead ... but there be\n some that trouble you, and _would pervert_ the Gospel of\n Christ ... _false brethren_.... When Peter came to\n Antioch I withstood him to his face, because he was to\n be blamed. For before that certain came from James, _he\n did eat_ with the Gentiles, but when they were come he\n withdrew, fearing them which were of the circumcision.\n And the other Jews dissembled ... insomuch that Barnabas\n also was carried away with their _dissimulation_,\u201d etc.,\n etc. (Galat. i. and ii.). On the other hand, we find\n Peter in the \u201cHomilies,\u201d indulging in various complaints\n which, although alleged to be addressed to Simon Magus,\n are evidently all direct answers to the above-quoted\n sentences from the Pauline Epistles, and _cannot_ have\n anything to do with Simon. So, for instance, Peter said:\n \u201cFor some among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful\n preaching, and accepted certain _lawless_ and _foolish_\n teaching of the hostile men (enemy)\u201d--Epist. of Peter to\n James, \u00a7 2. He says further: \u201cSimon (Paul) ... who came\n before me to the Gentiles ... and I have followed him as\n light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as\n health upon disease\u201d (\u201cHomil.,\u201d ii. 17). Still further,\n he calls him _Death_ and a _deceiver_ (Ibid., ii. 18).\n He warns the Gentiles that \u201cour Lord and _Prophet_ (_?_)\n (_Jesus_) announced that he would send from among his\n followers, apostles to _deceive_. \u201cTherefore, above\n all, remember to avoid every apostle, or teacher, or\n prophet, who first does not accurately compare his\n teaching with that of James, called the brother of our\n Lord\u201d (see the difference between Paul and James on\n _faith_, Epist. to Hebrews, xi., xii., and Epist. of\n James, ii.). \u201cLest the Evil One should send a false\n preacher ... as he has sent to us Simon (?) preaching a\n counterfeit of truth in the name of our Lord, and\n disseminating error\u201d (\u201cHom.\u201d xi., 35; see above\n quotation from Gal. 1, 5). He then denies Paul\u2019s\n assertion, in the following words: \u201cIf, therefore, our\n Jesus indeed appeared in a vision to you, it was only as\n an irritated adversary.... But how can any one through\n visions become wise in teaching? And if you say, \u2018it is\n possible,\u2019 then I ask, wherefore did the Teacher remain\n for a whole year and discourse to those who were\n attentive? And how can _we believe your story that he\n appeared to you_? And in what manner did he appear to\n you, when you hold opinions contrary to his teaching?...\n For you now set yourself up against me, who am a _firm\n rock, the foundation of the Church_. If you were not an\n opponent, you would not calumniate me, you would not\n revile my teaching ... (circumcision?) in order that, in\n declaring what I have myself heard from the Lord, I may\n not be believed, as though _I were condemned_.... But if\n you say that I am condemned, you blame God who revealed\n Christ to me.\u201d \u201cThis last phrase,\u201d observes the author\n of \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d \u201c\u2018if you say that I am\n condemned,\u2019 is an evident allusion to Galat. ii, 11, \u2018I\n withstood him to the face, because he was condemned\u2019\u201d\n (\u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d p. 37). \u201cThere cannot be a\n doubt,\u201d adds the just-quoted author, \u201cthat the Apostle\n Paul is attacked in this religious romance as the great\n enemy of the true faith, under the hated name of Simon\n the Magician, whom Peter follows everywhere for the\n purpose of unmasking and confuting him\u201d (p. 34). And if\n so, then we must believe that it was St. Paul who broke\n both his legs in Rome when flying in the air.\n\n [281] \u201cPr\u00e2timoksha S\u00fbtra,\u201d Pali Burmese copy; see also \u201cLotus\n de la Bonne Loi,\u201d translated by Burnouf, p. 444.\n\n [282] Matthew xix. 16-18.\n\n [283] \u201cPittakatayan,\u201d book iii., Pali Version.\n\n [284] See Judges xiii. 18, \u201cAnd the angel of the Lord said\n unto him: Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is\n SECRET?\u201d\n\n [285] Vol. ii., p. 106.\n\n [286] Emmanuel was doubtless the son of the prophet himself, as\n described in the sixth chapter; what was predicted, can\n only be interpreted on that hypothesis. The prophet had\n also announced to Ahaz the extinction of his line. \u201cIf\n ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.\u201d\n Next comes the prediction of the placing of a new prince\n on the throne--Hezekiah of Bethlehem, said to have been\n Isaiah\u2019s son-in-law, under whom the captives should\n return from the uttermost parts of the earth. Assyria\n should be humbled, and peace overspread the Israelitish\n country, compare Isaiah vii. 14-16; viii. 3, 4; ix. 6,\n 7; x. 12, 20, 21; xi.; Micah v., 2-7. The popular party,\n the party of the prophets, always opposed to the\n Zadokite priesthood, had resolved to set aside Ahaz and\n his time-serving policy, which had let in Assyria upon\n Palestine, and to set up Hezekiah, a man of their own,\n who should rebel against Assyria and overthrow the\n Assur-worship and Baalim (2 Kings xv. 11). Though only\n the prophets hint this, it being cut out from the\n historical books, it is noticeable that Ahaz offered his\n own child to Moloch, also that he died at the age of\n thirty-six, and Hezekiah took the throne at twenty-five,\n in full adult age.\n\n [287] Tertullian: \u201cAdv. Marci,\u201d iii. 8 ff.\n\n [288] \u201cSup. Rel.,\u201d vol. ii., p. 107; \u201cAdv. Marci,\u201d iii. 2, \u00a7 2;\n cf. iii. 12, \u00a7 12.\n\n [289] \u201cSup. Relig.,\u201d vol. ii., p. 126.\n\n [290] We give the systems according to an old diagram\n preserved among some Kopts and the Druses of Mount\n Lebanon. Iren\u00e6us had perhaps some good reasons to\n disfigure their doctrines.\n\n [291] Sophia is the highest prototype of woman--the first\n _spiritual_ Eve. In the Bible the system is reversed and\n the intervening emanation being omitted, Eve is degraded\n to simple humanity.\n\n [292] See \u201cIren\u00e6us,\u201d book i., chap. 31-33.\n\n [293] In King\u2019s \u201cGnostics,\u201d we find the system a little\n incorrect. The author tells us that he followed\n Bellermann\u2019s \u201cDrei Programmen \u00fcber die Abraxas gemmen.\u201d\n\n [294] See \u201cIdra Magna.\u201d\n\n [295] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6ns,\u201d part i., p. 9.\n\n [296] See \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6ns,\u201d i., 181. Fetahil, sent to frame\n the world, finds himself immersed in the abyss of mud,\n and soliloquizes in dismay until the _Spiritus_\n (Sophia-Achamoth) unites herself completely with matter,\n and so creates the material world.\n\n [297] \u201cIren\u00e6us,\u201d 37, and Theodoret, quoted in the same page.\n\n [298] Ibid., i. xxv.\n\n [299] See preface to the \u201cApocryphal New Testament,\u201d London,\n printed for W. Hone, Ludgate Hill, 1820.\n\n [300] \u201cIt is first cited by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin\n writer of no credit, in the latter end of the fifth\n century, and by him it is suspected to have been\n forged.\u201d\n\n [301] \u201cElements of Theology,\u201d vol. ii., p. 90, note.\n\n [302] Parson\u2019s \u201cLetters to Travis,\u201d 8vo., p. 402.\n\n [303] The term \u201cPaganism\u201d is properly used by many modern\n writers with hesitation. Professor Alexander Wilder, in\n his edition of Payne Knight\u2019s \u201cSymbolical Language of\n Ancient Art and Mythology,\u201d says: \u201cIt (\u2018Paganism\u2019) has\n degenerated into slang, and is generally employed with\n more or less of an opprobrious meaning. The correcter\n expression would have been \u2018the ancient ethnical\n worships,\u2019 but it would be hardly understood in its true\n sense, and we accordingly have adopted the term in\n popular use, but not disrespectfully. A religion which\n can develop a Plato, an Epictetus, and an Anaxagoras, is\n not gross, superficial, or totally unworthy of candid\n attention. Besides, many of the rites and doctrines\n included in the Christian as well as in the Jewish\n Institute, appeared first in the other systems.\n Zoroastrianism anticipated far more than has been\n imagined. The cross, the priestly robes and symbols, the\n sacraments, the Sabbath, the festivals and anniversaries,\n are all anterior to the Christian era by thousands of\n years. The ancient worship, after it had been excluded\n from its former shrines, and from the metropolitan\n towns, was maintained for a long time by the inhabitants\n of humble localities. To this fact it owes its later\n designation. From being kept up in the _Pagi_, or rural\n districts, its votaries were denominated _Pagans_, or\n provincials.\u201d\n\n [304] \u201cSuper. Relig.,\u201d vol. ii., p. 5.\n\n [305] Norberg: Preface to \u201cCod. Naz.,\u201d p. v.\n\n [306] Epiph.: \u201cContra Ebionitas.\u201d\n\n [307] See preface, from page 1 to 34.\n\n [308] Ibid., p. 7, preface.\n\n [309] Hieronymus: \u201cDe Virus.,\u201d illust., cap. 3. \u201cIt is\n remarkable that, while all church fathers say that\n Matthew wrote in _Hebrew_, the whole of them use the\n Greek text as the genuine apostolic writing, without\n mentioning what relation the _Hebrew_ Matthew has to our\n Greek one! It had many _peculiar additions_ which are\n wanting in our evangel.\u201d (Olshausen: \u201cNachweis der\n Echtheit der s\u00e4mmtlichen Schriften des Neuen Test.,\u201d p.\n 32; Dunlap: \u201cSod, the Son of the Man,\u201d p. 44.)\n\n [310] Hieronymus: \u201cCommen. to Matthew,\u201d book ii., ch. xii.,\n 13. Jerome adds that it was written in the Chaldaic\n language, but with Hebrew letters.\n\n [311] \u201cSt. Jerome,\u201d v., 445; \u201cSod, the Son of the Man,\u201d p. 46.\n\n [312] This accounts also for the rejection of the works of\n Justin Martyr, who used only this \u201cGospel according to\n the Hebrews,\u201d as also did most probably Titian, his\n disciple. At what late period was fully established the\n _divinity_ of Christ we can judge by the mere fact that\n even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce\n this book as spurious, but only classed it with such as\n the Apocalypse of John; and Credner (\u201cZur Gesch. Des\n Kan.,\u201d p. 120) shows Nicephorus inserting it, together\n with the Revelation, in his \u201cStichometry,\u201d among the\n Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the _genuine_ primitive\n Christians, rejecting the rest of the apostolic\n writings, made use only of this Gospel (\u201cAdv. H\u00e6r.\u201d i.,\n 26), and the Ebionites, as Epiphanius declares, firmly\n believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man\n \u201cof the seed of a man.\u201d\n\n [313] See King\u2019s \u201cGnostics,\u201d p. 31.\n\n [314] This Iove, Iao, or Jehovah is quite distinct from the\n God of the Mysteries, IAO, held sacred by all the\n nations of antiquity. We will show the difference\n presently.\n\n [315] King\u2019s \u201cGnostics.\u201d\n\n [316] Iurbo and Adunai, according to the Ophites, are names\n of Iao-Jehovah, one of the emanations of Ilda-Baoth.\n \u201cIurbo is called by the Abortions (the Jews) Adunai\u201d\n (\u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. iii., p. 73).\n\n [317] King: \u201cThe Gnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 31.\n\n [318] In the \u201cGospel of Nicodemus,\u201d Ilda-Baoth is called\n _Satan_ by the pious and anonymous author;--evidently,\n one of the final flings at the half-crushed enemy. \u201cAs\n for me,\u201d says Satan, excusing himself to the prince of\n hell, \u201cI tempted him (Jesus), and stirred up my old\n people, the Jews, against him\u201d (chap. xv. 9). Of all\n examples of Christian ingratitude this seems almost the\n most conspicuous. The poor Jews are first robbed of\n their sacred books, and then, in a spurious \u201cGospel,\u201d\n are insulted by the representation of Satan claiming\n them as his \u201cold people.\u201d If they were his people, and\n at the same time are \u201cGod\u2019s chosen people,\u201d then the\n name of this God must be written Satan and not Jehovah.\n This is logic, but we doubt if it can be regarded as\n complimentary to the \u201cLord God of Israel.\u201d\n\n [319] This is the Nazarene system; the Spiritus, after uniting\n herself with Karabtanos (_matter_, turbulent and\n senseless), brings forth _seven badly-disposed stellars_,\n in the Orcus; \u201cSeven Figures,\u201d which she bore \u201cwitless\u201d\n (\u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d i., p. 118). Justin Martyr evidently\n adopts this idea, for he tells us of \u201cthe sacred\n prophets, who say that one and the same _spirit_ is\n divided into _seven_ spirits (pneumata). \u201cJustin ad\n Gr\u00e6cos;\u201d \u201cSod,\u201d vol. ii., p. 52. In the Apocalypse the\n Holy Spirit is subdivided into \u201c_seven_ spirits before\n the throne,\u201d from the Persian Mithraic mode of\n classifying.\n\n [320] This certainly looks like the \u201c_jealous_ God\u201d of the\n Jews.\n\n [321] It is the _Elohim_ (plural) who create Adam, and do not\n wish man to become \u201cas one of US.\u201d\n\n [322] Theodoret: \u201cH\u00e6ret.;\u201d King\u2019s \u201cGnostics.\u201d\n\n [323] \u201cGnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 78.\n\n [324] Some persons hold that he was Bishop of Rome; others,\n of Carthage.\n\n [325] His polemical work addressed against the so-called\n orthodox Church--the Catholic--notwithstanding its\n bitterness and usual style of vituperation, is far more\n fair, considering that the \u201cgreat African\u201d is said to\n have been expelled from the Church of Rome. If we\n believe St. Jerome, it is but the envy and the unmerited\n calumnies of the early Roman clergy against Tertullian\n which forced him to renounce the Catholic Church and\n become a Montanist. However, were the unlimited\n admiration of St. Cyprian, who terms Tertullian \u201cThe\n Master,\u201d and his estimate of him merited, we would see\n less error and paganism in the Church of Rome. The\n expression of Vincent of Lerius, \u201cthat every word of\n Tertullian was a sentence, and every sentence a triumph\n _over error_,\u201d does not seem very happy when we think of\n the respect paid to Tertullian by the Church of Rome,\n notwithstanding his partial apostasy and the _errors_ in\n which the latter still abides and has even enforced upon\n the world as _infallible_ dogmas.\n\n [326] Were not the views of the Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also\n deemed a HERESY by the Church of Rome? It is quite\n extraordinary to see how easily the Vatican encourages\n the abuse of one _heretic_ Tertullian, against another\n _heretic_ Basilides, when the abuse happens to further\n her own object.\n\n [327] Does not Paul himself speak of \u201c_Principalities_ and\n _Powers_ in heavenly places\u201d (Ephesians iii. 10; i. 21),\n and confess that there be _gods_ many and _Lords_ many\n (Kurioi)? And angels, powers (Dunameis), and\n _Principalities_? (See 1 Corinthians, viii. 5; and\n Epistle to Romans, viii. 38.)\n\n [328] Tertullian: \u201cPr\u00e6script.\u201d\n\n [329] Baur; Credner; Hilgenfeld; Kirchhofer; Lechler; Nicolas;\n Ritschl; Schwegler; Westcott, and Zeller; see\n \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d vol. ii., p. 2.\n\n [330] See Epiphanius: \u201cContra Ebionitas.\u201d\n\n [331] The Ophites, for instance, made of Adonai the third son\n of Ilda-Baoth, a malignant genius, and, like his other\n five brothers, a constant enemy and adversary of man,\n whose divine and immortal spirit gave man the means of\n becoming the rival of these genii.\n\n [332] The Bishop of Salamis died A.D. 403.\n\n [333] \u201cEpiphanius,\u201d i., 122, 123.\n\n [334] The \u201cClementines\u201d are composed of three parts--to wit:\n the Homilies, the Recognitions, and an Epitome.\n\n [335] \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d vol. ii., p. 2.\n\n [336] \u201cHomilies,\u201d xviii., 1-15.\n\n [337] \u201cClementine Homilies;\u201d \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d vol. ii.\n\n [338] \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d p. 11.\n\n [339] Hieron.: \u201cOpp.,\u201d vii., p. 270, ff.; \u201cSupernatural\n Religion,\u201d p. 11.\n\n [340] Ibid.\n\n [341] Theodoret: \u201cH\u00e6ret. Fab.,\u201d ii., vii.\n\n [342] See \u201cIren\u00e6us,\u201d I., xii., p. 86.\n\n [343] \u201cAusz\u00fcge aus dem Sohar,\u201d p. 12.\n\n [344] \u201cCod. Naz.,\u201d vol. ii., p. 149.\n\n [345] Theodoret: \u201cH\u00e6ret. Fab.,\u201d ii., vii.\n\n [346] \u201cHomilies,\u201d xvi., 15 ff.; ii., 12; iii., 57-59; x., 19.\n Schliemann: \u201cDie Clementinem,\u201d p. 134 ff., \u201cSupernatural\n Religion,\u201d vol. ii., p. 349.\n\n [347] \u201cHomilies,\u201d iii., 20 f; ii., 16-18, etc.\n\n [348] Ibid., iii., 20 ff.\n\n [349] Schliemann: \u201cDie Clementinem,\u201d pp. 130-176; quoted also\n in \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d p. 342.\n\n [350] We will speak of this doctrine further on.\n\n [351] \u201cKabbala Denudata,\u201d vol. ii., p. 155; \u201cVallis Regia.\u201d\n\n [352] \u201cHermes,\u201d X., iv., 21-23.\n\n [353] Idra Magna: \u201cKabbala Denudata.\u201d\n\n [354] Justin Martyr: \u201cApol.,\u201d vol. ii., p. 74.\n\n [355] Josephus: \u201cWars,\u201d II., chap. 8. sec. 7.\n\n [356] See Josephus; Philo; Munk (35). Eusebius mentions their\n semneion, where they perform the mysteries of a retired\n life (\u201cEcclesiastic History,\u201d lib. ii., ch. 17).\n\n [357] \u201cEpiphanius,\u201d ed. Petau, i., p. 117.\n\n [358] Cerinthus is the same Gnostic--a contemporary of John\n the Evangelist--of whom Iren\u00e6us invented the following\n anecdote: \u201cThere are those who heard him (Polycarp) say\n that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at\n Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed forth\n from the bath-house ... crying out, \u2018Let us fly, lest\n the bath-house fall down, Cerinthus, the enemy of the\n truth, being within it\u2019\u201d (Iren\u00e6us: \u201cAdv. H\u00e6r.,\u201d iii., 3,\n \u00a7 4).\n\n [359] Munk: \u201cPalestine,\u201d p. 525; \u201cSod, the Son of the Man.\u201d\n\n [360] \u201cHaxthausen,\u201d p. 229.\n\n [361] \u201cShahrast\u00e2ni;\u201d Dr. D. Chwolsohn: \u201cDie Ssabier und der\n Ssabismus,\u201d ii., p. 625.\n\n [362] Maimonides, quoted in Dr. D. Chwolsohn: \u201cDie Ssabier\n und der Ssabismus,\u201d ii., p. 458.\n\n [363] \u201cYe have condemned and killed the just,\u201d says James\n in his epistle to the twelve tribes.\n\n [364] Porphyry makes a distinction between what he calls\n \u201cthe _Antique_ or _Oriental philosophy_,\u201d and the\n properly Grecian system, that of the Neo-platonists.\n King says that all these religions and systems are\n branches of one antique and common religion, the Asiatic\n or Buddhistic (\u201cGnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 1).\n\n [365] \u201cSod, the Son of the Man.\u201d\n\n [366] \u201cHermes Trismegistus,\u201d pp. 86, 87, 90.\n\n [367] It is the correct interpretation of the Bible allegories\n that makes the Catholic clergy so wrathful with the\n Protestants who freely scrutinize the Bible. How bitter\n this feeling has become, we can judge by the following\n words of the Reverend Father Parker of Hyde Park, New\n York, who, lecturing in St. Teresa\u2019s Catholic Church, on\n the 10th of December, 1876, said: \u201cTo whom does the\n Protestant Church owe its possession of the Bible,\n _which they wish to place in the hands of every ignorant\n person and child_? To monkish hands, that laboriously\n transcribed it before the age of printing. Protestantism\n has produced dissension in Church, rebellions and\n outbreaks in State, unsoundness in social life, and will\n never be satisfied short of the downfall of the Bible!\n Protestants must admit that the Roman Church has done\n more to scatter Christianity and extirpate idolatry than\n all their sects. From one pulpit it is said that there\n is no hell, and from another that there is immediate and\n unmitigated damnation. One says that Jesus Christ was\n only a man; another that you must be plunged bodily into\n water to be baptized, and refuses the rites to infants.\n Most of them have no prescribed form of worship, no\n sacred vestments, and their doctrines are as undefined\n as their service is informal. The founder of Protestantism,\n Martin Luther, was the worst man in Europe. The advent\n of the Reformation was the signal for civil war, and\n from that time to this the world has been in a restless\n state, uneasy in regard to Governments, and every day\n becoming more skeptical. The ultimate tendency of\n Protestantism is clearly nothing less than the\n destruction of all respect for the Bible, and the\n disruption of government and society.\u201d Very plain talk\n this. The Protestants might easily return the\n compliment.\n\n [368] Eliphas Levi ascribes this narrative to the Talmudist\n authors of \u201cSota\u201d and \u201cSanhedrin,\u201d p. 19, book of\n \u201cJechiel.\u201d\n\n [369] This fragment is translated from the original Hebrew\n by Eliphas Levi in his \u201cLa Science des Esprits.\u201d\n\n [370] Those who know anything of the rites of the Hebrews\n must recognize in these lions the gigantic figures of\n the Cherubim, whose symbolical monstrosity was well\n calculated to frighten and put to flight the profane.\n\n [371] Arnobius tells the same story of Jesus, and narrates\n how he was accused of having robbed the sanctuary of the\n secret names of the Holy One, by means of which\n knowledge he performed all the miracles.\n\n [372] This is a translation of Eliphas Levi.\n\n [373] \u201cLa Science des Esprits,\u201d p. 37.\n\n [374] \u201cIsraelite Indeed,\u201d vol. iii., p. 61.\n\n [375] \u201cOrigen,\u201d vol. ii., p. 150.\n\n [376] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. i., p. 23.\n\n [377] \u201cIn the way these call heresy I worship\u201d (Acts xxiv. 14).\n\n [378] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. ii., p. 109.\n\n [379] \u201cMilman,\u201d p. 200.\n\n [380] Dunlap says in \u201cSod, the Son of the Man:\u201d \u201cMr. Hall, of\n India, informs us that he has seen Sanscrit philosophical\n treatises in which the _Logos_ continually occur,\u201d\n p. 39, foot-note.\n\n [381] See John i.\n\n [382] Origen: \u201cPhilosophumena,\u201d xxiv.\n\n [383] Kleuker: \u201cNatur und Ursprung der Emanationslehre bei\n den Kabbalisten,\u201d pp. 10, 11; see \u201cLibri Mysterii.\u201d\n\n [384] \u201cThese as natural _brute beasts_.\u201d \u201cThe dog has turned\n to its own vomit again; and _the sow_ that was washed to\n her wallowing in the mire\u201d (22).\n\n [385] The types of the creation, or the attributes of the\n Supreme Being, are through the emanations of Adam\n Kadmon; these are: \u201cThe _Crown_, _Wisdom_, _Prudence_,\n _Magnificence_, _Severity_, _Beauty_, _Victory_,\n _Glory_, _Foundation_, _Empire_. Wisdom is called _Jeh_;\n Prudence, _Jehovah_; Severity, _Elohim_; Magnificence,\n _El_; Victory and Glory, SABAOTH; Empire or Dominion,\n ADONAI.\u201d Thus when the Nazarenes and other Gnostics of\n the more Platonic tendency twitted the Jews as\n \u201cabortions who worship their god Iurbo, _Adunai_,\u201d we\n need not wonder at the wrath of those who had accepted\n the old Mosaic system, but at that of Peter and Jude who\n claim to be followers of Jesus and dissent from the\n views of him who was also a Nazarene.\n\n [386] According to the \u201cKabala,\u201d _Empire_ or _Dominion_ is\n \u201cthe consuming fire, and his wife is the Temple or\n the Church.\u201d\n\n [387] Colossians ii. 18.\n\n [388] It is more likely that both abused Paul, who preached\n against this belief; and that the Gnostics were only\n a pretext. (See Peter\u2019s second Epistle.)\n\n [389] The true name of Manes--who was a Persian by birth--was\n _Cubricus_. (See Epiph. \u201cLife of Manes,\u201d H\u00e6ret. lxv.) He\n was flayed alive at the instance of the Magi, by the\n Persian King Varanes I. Plutarch says that Manes or\n Manis means Masses or ANOINTED. The vessel, or vase of\n election, is, therefore, the vessel full of that light\n of God, which he pours on one he has selected for his\n interpreter.\n\n [390] See King\u2019s \u201cGnostics,\u201d p. 38.\n\n [391] Franck: \u201cDie Kabbala,\u201d p. 126.\n\n [392] Philo: \u201cQu\u00e6st. et Solut.\u201d\n\n [393] See Franck: \u201cDie Kabbala,\u201d p. 153 ff.\n\n [394] \u201cKabbala Denudata;\u201d preface to the \u201cSohar,\u201d ii., p. 242.\n\n [395] See Champollion\u2019s \u201cEgypte.\u201d\n\n [396] \u201cIdra Rabba,\u201d vi., p. 58.\n\n [397] Idra Suta: \u201cSohar,\u201d ii.\n\n [398] Idra Suta: \u201cSohar,\u201d iii., p. 288 a.\n\n [399] _Ego sum qui sum_ (see \u201cBible\u201d).\n\n [400] See \u201cInstitutes of Manu,\u201d translated by Sir William\n Jones.\n\n [401] Champollion.\n\n [402] We are fully aware that some Christian kabalists term\n En-Soph the \u201cCrown,\u201d identify him with Sephira; call\n En-Soph \u201can emanation from God,\u201d and make the ten\n Sephiroth comprise \u201cEn-Soph\u201d as a unity. They also very\n erroneously reverse the first two emanations of\n Sephira--Chochma and Binah. The greatest kabalists have\n always held Chochma (Wisdom) as a male and active\n intelligence, Jah \u05d9\u05d4, and placed it under the No. 2 on\n the right side of the triangle, whose apex is the crown,\n while Binah (Intelligence) or \u05d1\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4, is under No. 3 on\n the left hand. But the latter, being represented by its\n divine name as Jehovah \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, very naturally showed\n the God of Israel as only a third emanation, as well as\n a feminine, passive principle. Hence when the time came\n for the Talmudists to transform their multifarious\n deities into one living God, they resorted to their\n Masoretic points and combined to transform Jehovah into\n Adonai, \u201cthe Lord.\u201d This, under the persecution of the\n Medi\u00e6val kabalists by the Church, also forced some of\n the former to change their female Sephiroth into male,\n and _vice versa_, so as to avoid being accused of\n disrespect and blasphemy to Jehovah; whose name,\n moreover, by mutual and secret agreement they accepted\n as a _substitute_ for Jah, or the mystery name IAO.\n Alone the _initiated_ knew of it, but later it gave rise\n to a great confusion among the _uninitiated_. It would\n be worth while--were it not for lack of space--to quote\n a few of the many passages in the oldest Jewish\n authorities, such as Rabbi Akiba, and the \u201cSohar,\u201d which\n corroborate our assertion. Chochma-Wisdom is a male\n principle everywhere, and Binah-Jehovah, a female\n potency. The writings of Iren\u00e6us, Theodoret, and\n Epiphanius, teeming with accusations against the\n Gnostics and \u201cH\u00e6resies,\u201d repeatedly show Simon Magus and\n Cerenthus making of Binah the feminine divine Spirit\n which inspired Simon. Binah is Sophia, and the Sophia of\n the Gnostics is surely not a male potency, but simply\n the feminine Wisdom, or Intelligence. (See any ancient\n \u201cArbor Kabbalistica,\u201d or Tree of the Sephiroth.) Eliphas\n Levi, in the \u201cRituel de la Haute Magie,\u201d vol. i., pp.\n 223 and 231, places Chochma as No. 2 and as a male\n Sephiroth on the right hand of the Tree. In the \u201cKabala\u201d\n the three male Sephiroth--Chochma, Chesed, Netsah--are\n known as the Pillar of Mercy; and the three feminine on\n the left, namely, Binah, Geburah, Hod, are named the\n Pillar of Judgment; while the four Sephiroth of the\n centre--Kether, Tiphereth, Jesod, and Malchuth--are\n called the Middle Pillar. And, as Mackenzie, in the\n \u201cRoyal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia,\u201d shows, \u201cthere is an analogy\n in these three pillars to the three Pillars of Wisdom,\n Strength, and Beauty in a Craft Lodge of Masonry, while\n the En-Soph forms the mysterious blazing star, or mystic\n light of the East.\u201d (p. 407).\n\n [403] Justin: \u201cCum. Trypho,\u201d p. 284.\n\n [404] A division indicative of time.\n\n [405] Sanchoniathon calls time the oldest \u00c6on, _Protogonos_,\n the \u201c_first-born_.\u201d\n\n [406] Philo Jud\u00e6us: \u201cCain and his Birth,\u201d p. xvii.\n\n [407] Azrael, angel of death, is also Israel. _Ab-ram_ means\n father of elevation, high placed father, for Saturn is\n the highest or outmost planet.\n\n [408] See Genesis xiii. 2.\n\n [409] Saturn is generally represented as a very old man, with\n a sickle in his hand.\n\n [410] Bunsen: \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d vol. v.,\n p. 85.\n\n [411] Idra Suta: \u201cSohar,\u201d iii., p. 292 b.\n\n [412] Bereshith Rabba: \u201cParsha,\u201d ix.\n\n [413] \u201cSohar,\u201d i., p. 20 a.\n\n [414] \u201cThe Sanscrit _s_,\u201d says Max M\u00fcller, \u201cis represented by\n the _z_ and _h_. Thus the geographical name \u2018hapta\n hendu,\u2019 which occurs in the \u2018Avesta,\u2019 becomes\n intelligible, if we retranslate the _z_ and _h_ into the\n Sanscrit _s_. For \u2018Sapta Sindhu,\u2019 or the seven rivers,\n is the old Vaidic name for India itself\u201d (\u201cChips,\u201d vol.\n i., p. 81). The \u201cAvesta\u201d is the spirit of the\n \u201cVedas\u201d--the esoteric meaning made partially known.\n\n [415] What is generally understood in the \u201cAvesta\u201d system as a\n _thousand_ years, means, in the esoteric doctrine, a\n cycle of a duration known but to the initiates and which\n has an allegorical sense.\n\n [416] Matter: \u201cHistoire Critique du Gnosticisme,\u201d pl. x.\n\n [417] Idra Suta: \u201cSohar,\u201d iii., p. 288.\n\n [418] Ibid., sect. ii.\n\n [419] Ibid., vii.\n\n [420] Jam vero quoniam hoc in loco recondita est illa plane\n non utuntur, et tantum de parte lucis ejus particepant\n qu\u00e6 demittitur et ingreditur intra filum Ain Soph\n protensum e Persona \u05d0\u05dc (_Al_-God) deorsum: intratque et\n perrumpit et transit per Adam primum occultum usque in statum\n dispositionis transitque per eum a capite usque ad pedes\n ejus: _et in eo est figura hominis_ (\u201cKabbala Denudata,\u201d\n ii., p. 246).\n\n [421] \u201cSohar,\u201d i., p. 51 a.\n\n [422] Book iii., p. 290.\n\n [423] \u201cIdra Rabba,\u201d \u00a7\u00a7 541, 542.\n\n [424] Ibid., iii., p. 36.\n\n [425] Ibid., p. 171.\n\n [426] \u201cNat. und Urspr. d. Emanationslehre b. d. Kabbalisten,\u201d\n p. ii.\n\n [427] \u201cIren\u00e6us,\u201d p. 637.\n\n [428] \u201cIdra Suta,\u201d ix.; \u201cKabbala Denudata;\u201d see Pythagoras:\n \u201cMonad.\u201d\n\n [429] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d i., p. 145.\n\n [430] \u201cIdra Rabba,\u201d viii., pp. 107-109.\n\n [431] \u201cAusz\u00fcge aus dem Sohar,\u201d p. 11.\n\n [432] He is the universal and spiritual _germ_ of all things.\n\n [433] \u201cAd. Kabb. Chr.,\u201d p. 6.\n\n [434] \u201cSohar,\u201d p. 93.\n\n [435] \u201cMovers,\u201d p. 265.\n\n [436] \u201cKabbala Denudata,\u201d vol. ii., p. 236.\n\n [437] Champollion, Junior: \u201cLettres.\u201d\n\n [438] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. ii., pp. 47-57.\n\n [439] Ibid., vol. i., p. 145.\n\n [440] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 211.\n\n [441] Ibid., vol. i., p. 308.\n\n [442] Sophia-Achamoth also begets her son Ilda-Baoth, the\n _Demiurge_, by looking into chaos or matter, and by\n coming in contact with it.\n\n [443] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. ii., p. 109. See \u201cSod, the Son\n of the Man,\u201d for translation.\n\n [444] Revelation iv. 5.\n\n [445] Ezekiel.\n\n [446] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. ii., p. 127.\n\n [447] The first androgyne duad being considered a _unit_ in\n all the secret computations, is, therefore, the Holy\n Ghost.\n\n [448] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. iii., p. 59.\n\n [449] Ibid., vol. i., p. 285.\n\n [450] Ibid., vol. i., p. 309.\n\n [451] Ibid., vol. i., p. 287. See \u201cSod, the Son of the Man,\u201d\n p. 101.\n\n [452] John iv. 9.\n\n [453] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. ii., p. 123.\n\n [454] \u201cThen went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and\n seventy of the elders of Israel. _And they saw the God\n of Israel_,\u201d Exodus xxiv. 9, 10.\n\n [455] Iren\u00e6us: \u201cClementine Homilies,\u201d I., xxii., p. 118.\n\n [456] \u201cAdv. H\u00e6s.,\u201d III., ii., 18.\n\n [457] See King\u2019s \u201cGnostics.\u201d\n\n [458] Ezekiel i.-ii.\n\n [459] \u201cGnostics and their Remains.\u201d\n\n [460] \u201cAlthough this science is commonly supposed to be\n peculiar to the Jewish Talmudists, there is no doubt\n that they borrowed the idea from a foreign source, and\n that from the Chaldeans, the _founders of magic art_,\u201d\n says King, in the \u201cGnostics.\u201d The titles _Iao_ and\n _Abraxas_, etc., instead of being recent Gnostic\n figments, were indeed holy names, borrowed from the most\n ancient formul\u00e6 of the East. Pliny must allude to them\n when he mentions the virtues ascribed by the Magi to\n amethysts engraved with the names of the sun and moon,\n names not expressed in either the Greek or Latin\n tongues. In the \u201c_Eternal Sun_,\u201d the \u201c_Abraxas_,\u201d the\n \u201c_Adonai_,\u201d of these gems, we recognize the very amulets\n ridiculed by the philosophic Pliny (\u201cGnostics,\u201d pp. 79,\n 80); _Virtutes_ (miracles) as employed by Iren\u00e6us.\n\n [461] So called to distinguish the short-face, who _is\n exterior_, \u201cfrom the venerable sacred ancient\u201d (the\n \u201cIdra Rabba,\u201d iii., 36; v. 54). Seir-Anpin is the \u201cimage\n of the Father.\u201d \u201cHe that hath seen me hath seen my\n Father\u201d (John xiv. 9).\n\n [462] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. iii., p. 57.\n\n [463] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 61.\n\n [464] This stone, of a sponge-like surface, is found in\n Narmada and seldom to be seen in other places.\n\n [465] John has an eagle near him; Luke, a bull; Mark, a lion;\n and Matthew, an angel--the kabalistic quaternary of the\n Egyptian Tarot.\n\n [466] See Matter, upon the subject.\n\n [467] Consult Book of Daniel, iv., v.\n\n [468] Ahriman, the production of Zoroaster, is so called in\n hatred of the Arias or Aryas, the Brahmans against whose\n dominion the Zoroastrians had revolted. Although an Arya\n (a noble, a sage) himself, Zoroaster, as in the case of\n the Devas whom he disgraced from gods to the position of\n _devils_, hesitated not to designate this type of the\n spirit of evil under the name of his enemies, the\n Brahman-Aryas. The whole struggle of Ahura-mazd and\n Ahriman is but the allegory of the great religious and\n political war between Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism.\n\n [469] \u201cNork,\u201d ii., 146.\n\n [470] Rev. Mr. Maurice takes it also to mean the cycles.\n\n [471] \u201cDuncker,\u201d ii., 363; Spiegel\u2019s \u201cAvesta,\u201d i., 32, 34.\n\n [472] See the \u201cBook of Dehesh,\u201d 47.\n\n [473] See King\u2019s translation of the \u201cZend Avesta,\u201d in his\n \u201cGnostics,\u201d p. 9.\n\n [474] The d\u00e6vas or devils of the Iranians contrast with the\n devas or deities of India.\n\n [475] \u201cNork,\u201d ii., 146.\n\n [476] The Bishop of Ephesus, 218 A.D.; Eusebius: \u201cH. E.\u201d iii.,\n 31. Origen stoutly maintained the doctrine of eternal\n punishment to be erroneous. He held that at the second\n advent of Christ even the devils among the damned would\n be forgiven. The eternal damnation is a later\n _Christian_ thought.\n\n [477] Luke xii. 10.\n\n [478] \u201cHermes Trismegistus,\u201d vi. 55.\n\n [479] Plato Protogoras; \u201cCory,\u201d p. 274.\n\n [480] Panthier: \u201cLa Chine,\u201d ii., 375; \u201cSod, the Son of the Man,\u201d\n p. 97.\n\n [481] Acts ii. 22.\n\n [482] John i. 6.\n\n [483] Ibid., 30.\n\n [484] John viii. 40.\n\n [485] Ibid., ix. 11.\n\n [486] Priestley: \u201cHistory of Early Christianity,\u201d p. 2,\n sect. 2.\n\n [487] Mahomet was born in 571 A.D.\n\n [488] J. M. Peebles: \u201cJesus--Man, Myth, or God?\u201d\n\n [489] Translated from the \u201cHari-Purana,\u201d by Jacolliot:\n \u201cChristna, et le Christ.\u201d\n\n [490] Clement: \u201cAl. Strom.,\u201d v. 14, \u00a7 110; translation\n given in \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d vol. i, p. 77.\n\n [491] This work, \u201cThe Pastor of Hermas,\u201d is no longer extant,\n but appears only in the \u201cStichometry\u201d of Nicephorus; it\n is now considered an apocrypha. But, in the days of\n Iren\u00e6us, it was quoted as Holy Scripture (see \u201cSup.\n Religion,\u201d vol. i., p. 257) by the Fathers, held to be\n divinely inspired, and publicly read in the churches\n (Iren\u00e6us: \u201cAdv. H\u00e6r.,\u201d iv., 20). When Tertullian became\n a Montanist he rejected it, after having _asserted_ its\n divinity (Tertullian: \u201cDe Orat.,\u201d p. 12).\n\n [492] \u201cSohar,\u201d xl., p. 10.\n\n [493] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. iii., pp. 60, 61.\n\n [494] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 281; vol. iii., p. 59.\n\n [495] We must remind the reader, in this connection, that\n Joshua and Jesus are one and the same name. In the\n Slavonian Bibles Joshua reads--_Iessus_ (or Jesus),\n _Navin_.\n\n [496] \u201cIdra Rabba,\u201d vol. iii., \u00a7 41; the \u201cSohar.\u201d\n\n [497] \u201cKabbala Denudata,\u201d vol. ii., p. 230; the \u201cBook of the\n Babylonian Companions,\u201d p. 35.\n\n [498] \u201cSohar Ex.,\u201d p. 11.\n\n [499] \u201cMidrash Hashirim;\u201d \u201cRabbi Akaba;\u201d \u201cMidrash Koheleth,\u201d\n vol. ii., p. 45.\n\n [500] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. iii., p. 60.\n\n [501] \u201cOn the Canon,\u201d p. 178 ff.\n\n [502] Vol. ii., p. 57; Norberg\u2019s \u201cOnomasticon;\u201d \u201cSod, the\n Son of the Man,\u201d p. 103.\n\n [503] \u201cPreller,\u201d vol. i., p. 484; K. O. Muller: \u201cHistory of\n Greek Literature,\u201d p. 238; \u201cMovers,\u201d p. 553.\n\n [504] \u201cSohar,\u201d vol. i., fol. 25.\n\n [505] \u201cSimil.,\u201d vol. ix., p. 12; \u201cSupernatural Religion,\u201d\n vol. i., p. 257.\n\n [506] Mark xiii. 32.\n\n [507] \u201cApolog.,\u201d vol. i., p. 63.\n\n [508] \u201cIdra Rabba,\u201d x., p. 177.\n\n [509] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d vol. i., p. 23.\n\n [510] Philo says that the _Logos_ is the _interpreter_ of the\n highest God, and argues, \u201cthat he must be the God of us\n imperfect beings\u201d (\u201cLeg. Alleg.,\u201d iii., \u00a7 73). According\n to his opinion man was not made in the likeness of the\n _most High_ God, the Father of all, but in that of the\n _second_ God who is his word--Logos\u201d (Philo: \u201cFragments,\u201d\n 1; ex. Euseb. \u201cPr\u00e6par. Evang.,\u201d vii., 13).\n\n [511] \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d p. 57; \u201cSod, the Son of the Man,\u201d p. 59.\n\n [512] \u201cHundert und ein Frage,\u201d p. xvii.; Dunlap: \u201cSod, the\n Son of the Man,\u201d p. 87; the author, who quotes Nork,\n says that parts of the \u201cMidrashim\u201d and the \u201cTargum\u201d of\n Onkelos, antedate the \u201cNew Testament.\u201d\n\n [513] Writing upon Ptolem\u00e6us and Heracleon, the author of\n \u201cSupernatural Religion\u201d (vol. ii., p. 217) says that\n \u201cthe inaccuracy of the Fathers keeps pace with their\n want of critical judgment,\u201d and then proceeds to\n illustrate this particularly ridiculous blunder\n committed by Epiphanius, in common with Hippolytus,\n Tertullian, and Philostrius. \u201cMistaking a passage of\n Iren\u00e6us, \u2018Adv. H\u00e6r.,\u2019 i., p. 14, regarding the Sacred\n Tetrad (Kol-Arbas), Hippolytus supposes Iren\u00e6us to refer\n to another heretic leader.\u201d He at once treats the Tetrad\n as such a leader named \u201cColarbasus,\u201d and after dealing\n (vi., 4) with the doctrines of Secundus, and Ptolem\u00e6us,\n and Heracleon, he proposes, \u00a7 5, to show, \u201cwhat are the\n opinions held by Marcus and _Colarbasus_,\u201d these two\n being, according to him, the successors of the school of\n Valentinus (cf. Bunsen: \u201cHippolytus, U. S. Zeit.,\u201d p. 54\n f.; \u201cRef. Omn. H\u00e6r.,\u201d iv., \u00a7 13).\n\n [514] See Godf. Higgins: \u201cAnacalypsis.\u201d\n\n [515] Inman: \u201cAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,\u201d\n p. 84.\n\n [516] Meaning--holding up of _different views_.\n\n [517] \u201cThis absurd mistake,\u201d remarks the author of \u201cSupernatural\n Religion,\u201d vol. ii., p. 218, \u201cshows how little these\n writers knew of the Gnostics of whom they wrote, and how\n the one ignorantly follows the other.\u201d\n\n [518] \u201cRef. Omn. H\u00e6r.,\u201d iv., \u00a7 13.\n\n [519] Epiph.: \u201cH\u00e6r.,\u201d xxxvi., \u00a7 1, p. 262 (quoted in \u201cSupernatural\n Religion\u201d). See Volkmar\u2019s \u201cDie Colorabasus-gnosis\u201d in\n Niedner\u2019s \u201cZeitschr. Hist. Theol.\u201d\n\n [520] \u201cGnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 182 f., note 3.\n\n [521] Mosheim.\n\n [522] Tertullian: \u201cDespect\u00e6,\u201d ch. xxx.\n\n [523] Mosheim: \u201cEccles. Hist.,\u201d c. v., \u00a7 5.\n\n [524] Socrates: \u201cScol. Eccl. Hist.,\u201d b. I., c. ix.\n\n [525] \u201cProverbs,\u201d chap. xvi., p. 33. In ancient Egypt and\n Greece, and among Israelites, small sticks and balls\n called the \u201csacred divining lots\u201d were used for this\n kind of oracle in the temples. According to the figures\n which were formed by the accidental juxtaposition of the\n latter, the priest interpreted the will of the gods.\n\n [526] Another untrustworthy, untruthful, and ignorant writer,\n and ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His\n alleged history of the strife between the Pagans,\n Neo-platonics, and the Christians of Alexandria and\n Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to 439,\n dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of\n deliberate falsifications. Edition of \u201cReading,\u201d Cantab,\n 1720, fol. Translated. Plon fr\u00e8res, Paris.\n\n [527] \u201cGems of the Orthodox Christians,\u201d vol. i., p. 135.\n\n [528] Revelation xiv. 1.\n\n [529] Dagh\u00f4ba is a small temple of globular form, in which\n are preserved the relics of Gautama.\n\n [530] Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like\n our mausoleums, and are sacred to votive offerings to\n the dead.\n\n [531] The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been\n hung, he was lapidated and buried under the water at the\n junction of two streams. \u201cMishna Sanhedrin,\u201d vol. vi.,\n p. 4; \u201cTalmud,\u201d of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a.\n\n [532] \u201cCoptic Legends of the Crucifixion,\u201d MSS. xi.\n\n [533] The engraving represents the talisman as of twice the\n natural size. We are at a loss to understand why King,\n in his \u201cGnostic Gems,\u201d represents Solomon\u2019s seal as a\n five-pointed star, whereas it is six-pointed, and is the\n signet of Vishnu, in India.\n\n [534] King (\u201cGnostics\u201d) gives the figure of a Christian\n symbol, very common during the middle ages, of three\n fishes interlaced into a triangle, and having the FIVE\n letters (a most sacred Pythagorean number) \u0399. \u03a7. \u0398\u03a5\u03a3\n engraved on it. The number five relates to the same\n kabalistic computation.\n\n [535] \u201cLa Gen\u00e8se de l\u2019Humanit\u00e9,\u201d p. 9.\n\n [536] The kabalistic Sephiroth are also ten in number, or\n five pairs.\n\n [537] An avatar is a descent from on high upon earth of the\n Deity in some manifest shape.\n\n [538] \u201cBhagavatta.\u201d\n\n [539] \u201cManu,\u201d books i. and xii.\n\n [540] See Cory\u2019s \u201cAncient Fragments.\u201d\n\n [541] \u201cOrigin of Species,\u201d first edition, p. 484.\n\n [542] Ibid., p. 484.\n\n [543] Ibid., pp. 488, 489.\n\n [544] \u201cLa Gen\u00e8se de l\u2019Humanit\u00e9,\u201d p. 339.\n\n [545] \u201cTraditions Indo-Europ\u00e9ennes et Africaines,\u201d p. 291.\n\n [546] \u201cTraditions Indo-Europ\u00e9ennes et Africaines,\u201d pp. 294,\n 295.\n\n [547] \u201cLes Fils de Dieu,\u201d p. 32.\n\n [548] \u201cLe Spiritisme dans le Monde,\u201d p. 78 and others.\n\n [549] \u201cLes Fils de Dieu,\u201d p. 272. While not at all astonished\n that Brahmans should have refused to satisfy M.\n Jacolliot\u2019s curiosity, we must add that the meaning of\n this sign is known to the superiors of every Buddhist\n lamasery, not alone to the Brahmans.\n\n [550] \u201cLa Gen\u00e8se de l\u2019Humanit\u00e9,\u201d p. 339.\n\n [551] See \u201cJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society,\u201d vol. xiii.,\n p. 79.\n\n [552] _Lahgash_ is nearly identical in meaning with _V\u00e2ch_,\n the hidden power of the Mantras.\n\n [553] In \u201cRig-Veda Sanhita\u201d the meaning is given by Max\n M\u00fcller as the Absolute, \u201cfor it is derived from\n \u2018_diti_,\u2019 bond, and the negative particle _A_.\u201d\n\n [554] \u201cHymns to the Maruts\u201d I., 89, 10.\n\n [555] Ibid., I., 24, 1.\n\n [556] Ibid., X., 63, 2.\n\n [557] George Smith gives the first verses of the Akkadian\n _Genesis_ as found in the Cuneiform Texts on the\n \u201cLateres Coctiles.\u201d There, also, we find _Anu_, the\n passive deity or En-Soph, _Bel_, the Creator, the Spirit\n of God (Sephira) moving on the face of the waters, hence\n water itself, and _Hea_ the Universal Soul or wisdom of\n the three combined.\n\n The first eight verses read thus:\n\n 1. When above, were not raised the heavens;\n 2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up.\n 3. The abyss had not broken its boundaries.\n 4. The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the\n producing mother of the whole of them. (This is the\n Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)\n 5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained but\n 6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.\n 7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them;\n 8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist.\n\n This was the chaotic or ante-genesis period.\n\n [558] Thus is it that we find in all the philosophical\n theogonies, the Holy Ghost female. The numerous sects of\n the Gnostics had Sophia; the Jewish kabalists and\n Talmudists, Shekinah (the garment of the Highest), which\n descended between the two cherubim upon the Mercy Seat;\n and we find even Jesus made to say, in an old text, \u201cMy\n _Mother_, the Holy Ghost, took me.\u201d\n\n \u201cThe waters are called _nara_, because they were the\n production of Nara, the Spirit of God\u201d (\u201cInstitutes\n of Manu.\u201d i. 10).\n\n [559] Narayana, or that which moves on the waters.\n\n [560] \u201cManu,\u201d sloka 12.\n\n [561] When a female power, she is Sephira; when male, he is\n Adam Kadmon, for, as the former contains in herself the\n other nine Sephiroth, so, in their totality, the latter,\n including Sephira, is embodied in the Archetypal Kadmon,\n the \u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n [562] See Haug\u2019s \u201cAytareya Brahmanam,\u201d of the Rig-Veda.\n\n [563] The same transformations are found in the cosmogony of\n every important nation. Thus, we see in the Egyptian\n mythology, Isis and Osiris, sister and brother, man and\n wife; and Horus, the Son of both, becoming the husband\n of his mother, Isis, and producing a son, _Malouli_.\n\n [564] Mandala I., S\u00fbkta 166, Max M\u00fcller.\n\n [565] \u201cAsiatic Researches,\u201d vol. viii., pp. 402, 403;\n Colebrooke\u2019s translation.\n\n [566] As in the Pythagorean numerical system every number on\n earth, or the world of the effects, corresponds to its\n invisible prototype in the world of causes.\n\n [567] See initial chap., vol. i., word Yajna.\n\n [568] Eve is the trinity of nature, and Adam the unity of\n spirit; the former the created material principle, the\n latter the ideal organ of the creative principle, or, in\n other words, this androgyne is both the principle and\n the Logos, for \u05d0 is the male, and \u05d1 the female; and, as\n Levi expresses it, this first letter of the holy\n language, Aleph, represents a man pointing with one hand\n toward the sky, and with the other toward the ground. It\n is the macrocosm and the microcosm at the same time, and\n explains the double triangle of the Masons and the\n five-pointed star. While the male is active the female\n principle is passive, for it is SPIRIT and MATTER, the\n latter word meaning _mother_ in nearly every language.\n The columns of Solomon\u2019s temple, Jachin and Boaz, are\n the emblems of the androgyne; they are also respectively\n male and female, white and black, square and round; the\n male a unity, the female a binary. In the later\n kabalistic treatises, the active principle is pictured\n by the sword \u05d6\u05db\u05e8, the passive by the sheath \u05e0\u05e7\u05d1\u05d4. See\n \u201cDogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,\u201d vol. i.\n\n [569] The vertical line being the male principle, and the\n horizontal the female, out of the union of the two at\n the intersection point is formed the CROSS; the oldest\n symbol in the Egyptian history of gods. It is the key of\n Heaven in the rosy fingers of Neith, the celestial\n virgin, who opens the gate at dawn for the exit of her\n first-begotten, the radiant sun. It is the Stauros of\n the Gnostics, and the philosophical cross of the\n high-grade Masons. We find this symbol ornamenting the\n _tee_ of the umbrella-shaped oldest pagodas in Thibet,\n China, and India, as we find it in the hand of Isis, in\n the shape of the \u201chandled cross.\u201d In one of the Chaitya\n caves, at Ajunta, it surmounts the three umbrellas in\n stone, and forms the centre of the vault.\n\n [570] \u201cWhen this world had emerged from obscurity, the subtile\n elementary principles produced the vegetable germ which\n at first animated the plants; from the plants, life\n passed through the fantastic organisms which were born\n in the ilus (_boue_) of the waters; then through a\n series of forms and different animals, it at length\n reached man\u201d (\u201cManu,\u201d book i.; and \u201cBhagavatta\u201d).\n\n Manu is a convertible type, which can by no means be\n explained as a personage. Manu means sometimes humanity,\n sometimes man. The Manu who emanated from the uncreated\n Swayambhuva is, without doubt, the type of Adam Kadmon.\n The Manu who is progenitor of the other six Manus is\n evidently identical with the Rishis, or seven primeval\n sages who are the forefathers of the post-diluvian\n races. He is--as we shall show in Chapter VIII.--Noah,\n and his six sons, or subsequent generations are the\n originals of the post-diluvian and mythical patriarchs\n of the Bible.\n\n [571] Cory\u2019s \u201cAncient Fragments.\u201d\n\n [572] See Vol. I., chap. i., pp. 33, 34, of this work.\n\n [573] \u201cSepher Jezireh,\u201d chap. i., Mishna ixth.\n\n [574] Ibid.\n\n [575] \u201cSohar,\u201d i., 2 a.\n\n [576] \u201cSepher Jezireh,\u201d Mishna ix., 10.\n\n [577] It is interesting to recall Hebrews i. 7, in connection\n with this passage. \u201cWho maketh his angels (messengers)\n spirits, and his ministers (servants, those who\n minister) a flame of fire.\u201d The resemblance is too\n striking for us to avoid the conclusion that the author\n of \u201cHebrews\u201d was as familiar with the \u201cKabala\u201d as adepts\n usually are.\n\n [578] \u201cThe Sons of God;\u201d \u201cThe India of the Brahmans,\u201d p. 230.\n\n [579] May it not be that Hanoum\u0101 is the representative of that\n link of beings half-man, half-monkeys, which, according\n to the theories of Messrs. Hovelacque and Schleicher,\n were arrested in their development, and fell, so to say,\n into a retrogressive evolution?\n\n [580] The Primal or Ultimate Essence has _no name_ in India. It\n is indicated sometimes as \u201cThat\u201d and \u201cThis.\u201d \u201cThis\n (universe) was not originally anything. There was\n neither heaven, nor earth, nor atmosphere. That being\n non-existent resolved \u2018Let me be.\u2019\u201d (Original Sanscrit\n Text.) Dr. Muir, vol. v., p. 366.\n\n [581] Coleman\u2019s \u201cHindu Mythology.\u201d\n\n [582] The siege and subsequent surrender of Lanca (Isle of\n Ceylon) to Rama is placed by the Hindu chronology--based\n upon the Zodiac--at 7,500 to 8,000 years B.C., and the\n following or eighth incarnation of Vishnu at 4,800 B.C.\n (from the book of the Historical Zodiacs of the\n Brahmans).\n\n [583] A Hanoverian scientist has recently published a work\n entitled _Ueber die Aufl\u00f6sung der Arten dinck Nat\u00fcrliche\n Jucht Wahl_, in which he shows, with great ingenuity,\n that Darwin was wholly mistaken in tracing man back to\n the ape. On the contrary, he maintains that it is the\n ape which has evolved from man. That, in the beginning,\n mankind were, morally and physically, the types and\n prototypes of our present race and of human dignity, by\n their beauty of form, regularity of feature, cranial\n development, nobility of sentiments, heroic impulses,\n and grandeur of ideal conceptions. This is a purely\n Brahmanic, Buddhistic, and kabalistic philosophy. His\n book is copiously illustrated with diagrams, tables,\n etc. He says that the gradual debasement and degradation\n of man, morally and physically, can be readily traced\n throughout the ethnological transformations down to our\n times. And, as one portion has already degenerated into\n apes, so the civilized man of the present day will at\n last, under the action of the inevitable law of\n necessity, be also succeeded by like descendants. If we\n may judge of the future by the actual present, it\n certainly does seem possible that so unspiritual and\n materialistic a body as our physical scientists should\n end as _simia_ rather than as seraphs.\n\n [584] \u201cDe Bel. Jud.,\u201d vol. ii., p. 12.\n\n [585] \u201cDe Somniio,\u201d p. 455 d.\n\n [586] \u201cSohar,\u201d vol. ii., p. 96.\n\n [587] \u201cMishna;\u201d \u201cAboth,\u201d vol. iv., p. 29; Mackenzie\u2019s \u201cRoyal\n Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia,\u201d p. 413.\n\n [588] \u201cSohar,\u201d vol. iii, p. 61 b.\n\n [589] Ibid., vol. i., p. 65 b.\n\n [590] Hermetic work.\n\n [591] \u201cDhamma-pada,\u201d slokas 276 et seq.\n\n [592] Neander: \u201cHistory of the Church,\u201d vol. i., p. 817.\n\n [593] It is from the highest _Zion_ that Maitree-Buddha, the\n Saviour to come, will descend on earth; and it is also\n from Zion that comes the Christian Deliverer (see Romans\n xi. 26).\n\n [594] 1 Corinth. ii. 6, 7, 8.\n\n [595] \u201cLotus de la Bonne Loi,\u201d p. 806.\n\n [596] \u201cDu Bouddhisme,\u201d 95.\n\n [597] Philippians iii. 11-14.\n\n [598] \u201cThe Mah\u00e2vansa,\u201d vol. i., Introduction.\n\n [599] The Five Articles of Faith.\n\n [600] Not only did the Buddhist missionaries make their way\n to the Mesopotamian Valley, but they even went so far\n west as Ireland. The Rev. Dr. Lundy, in his work on\n \u201cMonumental Christianity,\u201d referring to an Irish Round\n Tower, observes: \u201cHenry O\u2019Brien explains this Round\n Tower Crucifixion as that of Buddha; the animals as the\n elephant and the bull, sacred to Buddha, and into which\n his soul entered after death; the two figures standing\n beside the cross as Buddha\u2019s virgin mother, and Kama his\n favorite disciple. The whole picture bears a close\n likeness to the Crucifixion, in the cemetery of Pope\n Julius, except the animals, which are conclusive proof\n that it cannot be Christian. It came ultimately from the\n far East to Ireland, with the Ph\u0153nician colonists, who\n erected the Round Towers as symbols of the life-giving\n and preserving power of man and nature, and how that\n universal life is produced through suffering and death.\u201d\n\n When a Protestant clergyman is thus forced to confess\n the pre-Christian existence of the crucifix in Ireland,\n its Buddhistic character, and the penetration of the\n missionaries of that faith even to that then remote\n portion of the earth, we need not wonder that in the\n minds of the Nazarean contemporaries of Jesus and their\n descendants, he should not have been associated with\n that universally known emblem in the character of a\n Redeemer.\n\n In noticing this admission of Dr. Lundy, Mr. Charles\n Sotheran remarked, in a lecture before the American\n Philological Society, that both legends and\n arch\u00e6ological remains unite in proving beyond question\n \u201cthat Ireland, like every other nation, once listened to\n the propagandists of Siddh\u00e2rtha-Buddha.\u201d\n\n [601] \u201cThe religion of multiplied baptisms, the scion of the\n still existent sect named the \u2018Christians of St. John,\u2019\n or Mend\u00e6ans, whom the Arabs call _el-Mogtasila_ and\n Baptists. The Aramean verb _seba_, origin of the name\n _Sabian_, is a synonym of \u03b2\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03b9\u03b6\u03c9\u201d (Renan: \u201cVie de\n Jesus\u201d).\n\n [602] Foh-Tchou, literally, in Chinese, meaning Buddha\u2019s lord,\n or the teacher of the doctrines of Buddha--Foh.\n\n [603] This mountain is situated southwest of China, almost\n between China and Thibet.\n\n [604] SOL, being situated, on the diagram, exactly in the\n centre of the solar system (of which the Ophites appear\n to have been cognizant)--hence, under the direct\n vertical ray of the Higher Spiritual Sun--showers his\n brightness on all other planets.\n\n [605] Speaking of Venus, Placidus, the astrologer, always\n maintained that \u201cher bluish lustre denotes heat.\u201d As to\n Mercury, it was a strange fancy of the Ophites to\n represent him as a spirit of water, when astrologically\n considered he is as \u201ca cold, dry, earthy, and melancholy\n star.\u201d\n\n [606] The name which Norberg translates, in his Onomasticon\n to the \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d as Ferho, stands, in the\n original, _Parcha Rabba_. In the \u201cLife of Manes,\u201d given\n by Epiphanius, in his \u201cH\u00e6r.,\u201d lxvi., is mentioned a\n certain priest of Mithras, a friend of the great\n H\u00e6resiarch Manes, named Parchus.\n\n [607] Its description is found in one of the magic books of\n the Egyptian King Nechepsos, and its use prescribed on\n green jasper stones, as a potent amulet. Galen mentions\n it in his work, \u201cDe Simp. Med.,\u201d c. ix.\n\n [608] Consider those two diametrically-opposed doctrines--the\n Catholic and the Protestant; the one preached by Paul,\n the semi-Platonist, and the other by James, the orthodox\n Talmudist.\n\n [609] The material, bad side of Sophia-Achamoth, who emanates\n from herself Ilda-Baoth and his six sons.\n\n [610] See Norberg\u2019s translation of \u201cCodex Nazar\u00e6us,\u201d Preface.\n This proves once more the identification of Jesus with\n Gautama-Buddha, in the minds of the Nazarene Gnostics,\n as _Nebu_ or Mercury is the planet sacred to the\n Buddhas.\n\n [611] Nous, the designation given by Anaxagoras to the\n Supreme Deity, was taken from Egypt, where he was\n styled NOUT.\n\n [612] By very few though, for the creators of the material\n universe were always considered as subordinate\n deities to the Most High God.\n\n [613] Lydus, 1. c., Ledrenus, 1. c.\n\n [614] \u201cEr\u00e2n das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris.\u201d\n\n [615] _Asi_ means, moreover, \u201cThou art,\u201d in Sanscrit, and\n also \u201csword,\u201d \u201c_Asi_,\u201d without the accent on the\n first vowel.\n\n [616] Professor A. Wilder.\n\n [617] These sacred anagrams were called \u201cZeruph.\u201d\n\n [618] \u201cBook of Numbers, or Book of the Keys.\u201d\n\n [619] The \u201cJezira,\u201d or book of the creation, was written by\n Rabbi Akiba, who was the teacher and instructor of\n Simeon Ben Iochai, who was called the prince of the\n kabalists, and wrote the \u201cSohar.\u201d Franck asserts that\n \u201cJezira\u201d was written one century B.C. (\u201cDie Kabbala,\u201d\n 65), but other and as competent judges make it far\n older. At all events, it is now proved that Simeon Ben\n Iochai lived _before_ the second destruction of the\n temple.\n\n [620] \u201cJezira,\u201d p. 8.\n\n [621] Ibid. See the constancy with which Ezekiel sticks in\n his vision to the \u201c_wheels_\u201d of the \u201cliving creatures\u201d\n (ch. 1., passim).\n\n [622] He was an Alexandrian Neo-platonic under the first of\n the Ptolemies.\n\n [623] \u201cChips,\u201d vol. i.\n\n [624] See Max M\u00fcller\u2019s \u201cOur Figures.\u201d\n\n [625] Ibid.\n\n [626] See King\u2019s \u201cGnostics and their Remains,\u201d plate xiii.\n\n [627] \u201cVita Pythagor.\u201d\n\n [628] 608 B.C.\n\n [629] This city was built 332 B.C.\n\n [630] \u201cMetaph.,\u201d vii. F.\n\n [631] See drawings from the Temple of Rama, Coleman\u2019s \u201cMythology\n of the Hindus.\u201d New York: J. W. Bouton, Publisher.\n\n [632] See Hargrave Jennings: \u201cRosicrucians,\u201d p. 252.\n\n [633] K. O. M\u00fcller: \u201cHistory of Greek Literature,\u201d p. 283;\n \u201cMovers,\u201d pp. 547-553; Dunlap: \u201cSod, the Mysteries of\n Adoni,\u201d p. 21.\n\n [634] See \u201cUniversal History,\u201d vol. v., p. 301.\n\n [635] \u201cSpirit. Hist.,\u201d pp. 64, 67, 78.\n\n [636] \u201cSod, the Mysteries of Adoni,\u201d p. 21.\n\n [637] See Leviticus xvi. 8, 10, and other verses relating to\n the biblical goat in the original texts.\n\n [638] \u201cSagra Scrittura,\u201d and \u201cParalipomeni.\u201d\n\n [639] Article \u201cGoat,\u201d p. 257.\n\n [640] \u201cTypes of Mankind,\u201d p. 600; \u201cRoyal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia.\u201d\n\n [641] \u201cEcclesiastical History,\u201d vol. i., pp. 381, 382. Read\n the whole quotations to appreciate the doctrine in full.\n\n [642] \u201cAnacalypsis.\u201d\n\n [643] Quoted in the \u201cSeers of the Ages,\u201d by J. M. Peebles.\n\n [644] We hold to the idea--which becomes self-evident when the\n Zoroastrian imbroglio is considered--that there were,\n even in the days of Darius, two distinct sacerdotal\n castes of Magi: the initiated and those who were allowed\n to officiate in the popular rites only. We see the same\n in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Belonging to every temple\n there were attached the \u201chierophants\u201d of the _inner_\n sanctuary, and the secular clergy who were not even\n instructed in the Mysteries. It is against the\n absurdities and superstitions of the latter that Darius\n revolted, and \u201ccrushed them,\u201d for the inscription of his\n tomb shows that he was a \u201chierophant\u201d and a Magian\n himself. It is also but the exoteric rites of this class\n of Magi which descended to posterity, for the great\n secresy in which were preserved the \u201cMysteries\u201d of the\n true Chaldean Magi was never violated, however much\n guess-work may have been expended on them.\n\n [645] xxiii., 6.\n\n [646] \u201cThe Gnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 185.\n\n [647] These are truths which cannot fail to impress themselves\n upon the minds of earnest thinkers. While the Ebionites,\n Nazarites, Hemerobaptists, Lampseans, Sabians, and the\n many other earliest sects which wavered later between\n the varying dogmatisms suggested to them by the\n _esoteric_ and misunderstood parables of the Nazarene\n teacher, whom they justly regarded as a prophet, there\n were men, for whose names we would vainly search\n history, who preserved the secret doctrines of Jesus as\n pure and unadulterated as they had been received. And\n still, even all these above-mentioned and conflicting\n sects were far more orthodox in their Christianity, or\n rather Christism, than the Churches of Constantine and\n Rome. \u201cIt was a strange fate that befell these\n unfortunate people\u201d (the Ebionites), says Lord Amberley,\n \u201cwhen, overwhelmed by the flood of heathenism that had\n swept into the Church, they were condemned as heretics.\n Yet, there is no evidence that they had ever swerved\n from the doctrines of Jesus, or of the disciples who\n knew him in his lifetime.... Jesus himself was\n circumcised ... reverenced the temple at Jerusalem as \u2018a\n house of prayer for all nations.\u2019... But the torrent of\n progress swept past the Ebionites, and left them\n stranded on the shore\u201d (\u201cAn Analysis of Religious\n Beliefs,\u201d by Viscount Amberley, vol. i., p. 446).\n\n [648] What will, perhaps, still more astonish American readers,\n is the fact that, in the United States, a mystical\n fraternity now exists, which claims an intimate\n relationship with one of the oldest and most powerful of\n Eastern Brotherhoods. It is known as the Brotherhood of\n Luxor, and its faithful members have the custody of very\n important secrets of science. Its ramifications extend\n widely throughout the great Republic of the West. Though\n this brotherhood has been long and hard at work, the\n secret of its existence has been jealously guarded.\n Mackenzie describes it as having \u201ca Rosicrucian basis,\n and numbering many members\u201d (\u201cRoyal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia,\u201d\n p. 461). But, in this, the author is mistaken; it has no\n Rosicrucian basis. The name Luxor is primarily derived\n from the ancient Beloochistan city of Looksur, which\n lies between Bela and Kedgee, and also gave its name to\n the Egyptian city.\n\n [649] These people do not accept the name of Druzes, but\n regard the appellation as an insult. They call themselves\n the \u201cdisciples of Hamsa,\u201d their Messiah, who came to\n them, in the tenth century, from the \u201cLand of the Word\n of God,\u201d and, together with his disciple, Mochtana\n Boha-eddin, committed this _Word_ to writing, and\n entrusted it to the care of a few initiates, with the\n injunction of the greatest secresy. They are usually\n called Unitarians.\n\n [650] The Okhal (from the Arabic _akl_--intelligence or wisdom)\n are the initiated, or wise men of this sect. They hold,\n in their mysteries, the same position as the hierophant\n of old, in the Eleusinian and others.\n\n [651] This is the doctrine of the Gnostics who held Christos\n to be the personal immortal Spirit of man.\n\n [652] The ten Messiahs or avatars remind again of the five\n Buddhistic and ten Brahmanical avatars of Buddha and\n Christna.\n\n [653] See, farther on, a letter from an \u201cInitiate.\u201d\n\n [654] In this column the first numbers are those given in the\n article on the _Druzes_ in the \u201cNew American Cyclop\u00e6dia\u201d\n (Appleton\u2019s), vol. vi., p. 631. The numbers in\n parentheses show the sequence in which the commandments\n would stand were they given correctly.\n\n [655] This pernicious doctrine belongs to the old policy of\n the Catholic Church, but is certainly false as regards\n the Druzes. They maintain that it is right and lawful to\n _withhold the truth_ about their own tenets, no one\n outside their own sect having a right to pry into their\n religion. The _okhals_ never countenance deliberate\n falsehood in any form, although the laymen have many a\n time got rid of the spies sent by the Christians to\n discover their secrets, by deceiving them with sham\n initiations. (See the letter of Prof. Rawson to the\n author, p. 313.)\n\n [656] This commandment does not exist in the Lebanon teaching.\n\n [657] There is no such commandment, but the practice thereof\n exists by mutual agreement, as in the days of the\n Gnostic persecution.\n\n [658] \u201cMount Lebanon,\u201d vol. 3. London, 1853.\n\n [659] Every temple in India is surrounded by such belts of\n sacred trees. And like the Koum-boum of Kansu (Mongolia)\n no one but an initiate has a right to approach them.\n\n [660] John Yarker, Jr.: \u201cNotes on the Scientific and\n Religious Mysteries of Antiquity,\u201d etc.\n\n [661] This \u201cSelf,\u201d which the Greek philosophers called\n _Aug\u0153ides_, the \u201cShining One,\u201d is impressively and\n beautifully described in Max M\u00fcller\u2019s \u201cVeda.\u201d Showing\n the \u201cVeda\u201d to be the first book of the Aryan nations,\n the professor adds that \u201cwe have in it a period of the\n intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel\n in any other part of the world. In the hymns of the\n \u201cVeda\u201d we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of\n this world.... He invokes the gods around him, he\n praises, he worships them. But still with all these gods\n ... beneath him, and above him, the early poet seems ill\n at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast,\n he has discovered a power that is never mute when he\n prays, never absent when he fears and trembles. It seems\n to inspire his prayers, and yet to listen to them; it\n seems to live in him, and yet to support him and all\n around him. The only name he can find for this\n mysterious power is \u2018Brahman;\u2019 for _brahman_ meant\n originally force, will, wish, and the propulsive power\n of creation. But this impersonal brahman, too, as soon\n as it is named, grows into something strange and divine.\n It ends by being one of many gods, one of the great\n triad, worshipped to the present day. And still the\n thought within him has no real name; that power which is\n nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the\n heavens, and every living being, floats before his mind,\n conceived but not expressed. At last he calls it\n \u2018\u00c2tman,\u2019 for \u00c2tman, originally breath or spirit, comes\n to mean Self, and Self alone; _Self_, whether Divine or\n human; Self, whether creating or suffering; Self,\n whether one or all; but always Self, independent and\n free. \u2018Who has seen the first-born,\u2019 says the poet, when\n he who had no bones (_i.e._, form) bore him that had\n bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the\n world? Who went to ask this from any one who knew it?\u201d\n (\u201cRig-Veda,\u201d i., 164, 4). This idea of a divine Self,\n once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its\n supremacy; \u201c_Self_ is the Lord of all things, Self is\n the King of all things. As all the spokes of a wheel are\n contained in the nave and the circumference, all things\n are contained in this Self; all Selves are contained in\n this Self. Brahman itself is but Self\u201d (Ibid., p. 478;\n \u201cKh\u00e2ndogya-upanishad,\u201d viii., 3, 3, 4); \u201cChips from a\n German Workshop,\u201d vol. i., p. 69.\n\n [662] John x. 34, 35.\n\n [663] 2 Corinthians, vi. 16.\n\n [664] Jacolliot: \u201cVoyage au Pays des \u00c9l\u00e9phants.\u201d\n\n [665] Buddhist chief priests at Ceylon.\n\n [666] Samena\u00efra is one who studies to obtain the high office\n of a _Oepasampala_. He is a disciple and is looked upon\n as a son by the chief priest. We suspect that the\n Catholic seminarist must look to the Buddhists for the\n parentage of his title.\n\n [667] Jacolliot declares, in his \u201cFils de Dieu,\u201d that he\n copied these dates from the \u201cBook of the Historical\n Zodiacs,\u201d preserved in the pagoda of Vilenur.\n\n [668] We were told that there were nearly 20,000 of such books.\n\n [669] Lepsius: \u201cK\u00f6nigsbuch,\u201d b. ii, _tal. i. dyn._ 5, h. p.\n In 1 Peter ii. 3, Jesus is called \u201cthe Lord Crestos.\u201d\n\n [670] Mackenzie: \u201cRoyal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia,\u201d p. 207.\n\n [671] \u201cAdv. H\u00e6r.,\u201d iii., 2, \u00a7 2.\n\n [672] Sprengel: \u201cHistoire de la M\u00e9decine.\u201d\n\n [673] \u201cChrist of Paul,\u201d p. 188.\n\n [674] \u201cAdv. H\u00e6r.,\u201d v. 33, \u00a7 4.\n\n [675] Eusebius: \u201cHist. Eccles.,\u201d iii., p. 39.\n\n [676] Bunsen: \u201cEgypt,\u201d vol. i, p. 200.\n\n [677] \u201cInternal Development of Europe,\u201d p. 147.\n\n [678] \u201cAntiquities,\u201d lib. xviii., cap. 3.\n\n [679] Wise man always meant with the ancients a kabalist. It\n means astrologer and magician. \u201cIsraelite Indeed,\u201d\n vol. iii., p. 206. Hakim is a physician.\n\n [680] Dr. Lardner rejects it as spurious, and gives _nine_\n reasons for rejecting it.\n\n [681] Revelation i. and ii.\n\n [682] Philip, the first martyr, was one of the seven, and\n he was stoned about the year A.D. 34.\n\n [683] 1 Corinthians, vii. 34.\n\n [684] Revelation xiv. 3, 4.\n\n [685] Philopatris, in Taylor\u2019s \u201cDiegesis,\u201d p. 376.\n\n [686] King\u2019s \u201cGnostics and their Remains.\u201d\n\n [687] \u201cAug. Serm.,\u201d clii. See Payne Knight\u2019s \u201cMystic Theology\n of the Ancients,\u201d p. 107.\n\n [688] Baronius: \u201cAnnales Ecclesiastici,\u201d t. xxi., p. 89.\n\n [689] \u201cChron. de Lanercost,\u201d ed. Stevenson, p. 109.\n\n [690] Dulaure: \u201cHistoire Abreg\u00e9e des Diff\u00e9rens Cultes,\u201d\n vol. ii., p. 285; Martezzi \u201cPagani \u00e9 Christiani,\u201d p. 78.\n\n [691] Basilides is termed by Tertullian a Platonist.\n\n [692] C. W. King: \u201cThe Gnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 197,\n foot-note 1.\n\n [693] Plutarch: \u201cRoman Questions,\u201d p. 44.\n\n [694] Linus, Anacletus, and Clement.\n\n [695] \u201cLife of Claudius,\u201d sect. 25.\n\n [696] \u201cVita Saturnini Vopiscus.\u201d\n\n [697] \u201cThe Gnostics and their Remains,\u201d p. 68.\n\n [698] In Payne Knight\u2019s \u201cAncient Art and Mythology,\u201d Serapis\n is represented as wearing his hair long, \u201cformally\n turned back and disposed in ringlets falling down upon\n his breast and shoulders like that of women. His whole\n person, too, is always enveloped in drapery reaching to\n his feet.\u201d (\u00a7 cxlv.). This is the conventional picture\n of Christ.\n\n [699] \u201cVie de Jesus,\u201d p. 405.\n\n [700] See \u201cPirke Aboth;\u201d a Collection of Proverbs and\n Sentences of the old Jewish Teachers, in which many\n New Testament sayings are found.\n\n [701] \u201cBuddhism,\u201d p. 217.\n\n [702] Max M\u00fcller: \u201cChrist and other Masters;\u201d \u201cChips,\u201d vol. i.\n\n [703] The \u201cLife of Jesus\u201d by Strauss, which Renan calls \u201c_un\n livre, commode, exact, spirituel et consciencieux_\u201d (a\n handy, exact, witty, and conscientious book), rude and\n iconoclastic as it is, is nevertheless in many ways\n preferable to the \u201cVie de Jesus,\u201d of the French author.\n Laying aside the intrinsic and historical value of the\n two works--with which we have nothing to do, we now\n simply point to Renan\u2019s distorted outline-sketch of\n Jesus. We cannot think what led Renan into such an\n erroneous delineation of character. Few of those who,\n while rejecting the divinity of the Nazarene prophet,\n still believe that he is no myth, can read the work\n without experiencing an uneasy, and even angry feeling\n at such a psychological mutilation. He makes of Jesus a\n sort of sentimental ninny, a theatrical simpleton,\n enamored of his own poetical divagations and speeches,\n wanting every one to adore him, and finally caught in\n the snares of his enemies. Such was not Jesus, the\n Jewish philanthropist, the adept and mystic of a school\n now forgotten by the Christians and the Church--if it\n ever was known to her; the hero, who preferred even to\n risk death, rather than withhold some truths which he\n believed would benefit humanity. We prefer Strauss who\n openly names him an impostor and a pretender,\n occasionally calling in doubt his very existence; but\n who at least spares him that ridiculous color of\n sentimentalism in which Renan paints him.\n\n [704] See Chap. iii., p. 97.\n\n [705] In a recent work, called the \u201cWorld\u2019s Sixteen Crucified\n Saviors\u201d (by Mr. Kersey Graves) which attracted our\n notice by its title, we were indeed startled as we were\n forewarned on the title-page we should be by _historical_\n evidences to be found neither in history nor tradition.\n Apollonius, who is represented in it as one of these\n sixteen \u201csaviours,\u201d is shown by the author as finally\n \u201c_crucified_ ... having risen from the dead ...\n appearing to his disciples after his resurrection,\n and\u201d--like Christ again--\u201cconvincing a _Tommy_(?)\n Didymus\u201d by getting him to feel the print of the nails\n on his hands and feet (see note, p. 268). To begin with,\n neither Philostratus, the biographer of Apollonius, nor\n history says any such thing. Though the precise time of\n his death is unknown, no disciple of Apollonius ever\n said that he was either crucified, or appeared to them.\n So much for one \u201cSaviour.\u201d After that we are told that\n Gautama-Buddha, whose life and death have been so\n minutely described by several authorities, Barthelemy\n St. Hilaire included--was also \u201c_crucified_ by his\n enemies near the foot of the Nep\u00e4l mountains\u201d (see p.\n 107); while the Buddhist books, history, and scientific\n research tell us, through the lips of Max M\u00fcller and a\n host of Orientalists, that \u201cGautama-Buddha (S\u00e2kya-muni)\n died near the Ganges.... He had nearly reached the city\n of Kusin\u00e2gara, when his vital strength began to fail. He\n halted in a forest, and while sitting under a s\u00e2l tree\n he gave up the ghost\u201d (Max M\u00fcller: \u201cChips from a German\n Workshop,\u201d vol. i., p. 213). The references of Mr.\n Graves to Higgins and Sir W. Jones, in some of his\n hazardous speculations, prove nothing. Max M\u00fcller shows\n some antiquated authorities writing elaborate books \u201c...\n in order to prove that Buddha had been in reality the\n Thoth of the Egyptians; that he was Mercury, or Wodan,\n or Zoroaster, or Pythagoras.... Even Sir W. Jones ...\n identified Buddha first with Odin and afterwards with\n Shishak.\u201d We are in the nineteenth century, not in the\n eighteenth; and though to write books on the authority\n of the earliest Orientalists may in one sense be viewed\n as a mark of respect for old age, it is not always safe\n to try the experiment in our times. Hence this highly\n instructive volume lacks one important feature which\n would have made it still more interesting. The author\n should have added after Prometheus the \u201cRoman,\u201d and\n Alcides the _Egyptian god_ (p. 266) a seventeenth\n \u201ccrucified Saviour\u201d to the list, \u201cVenus, god of the\n war,\u201d introduced to an admiring world by Mr. Artemus\n Ward the \u201cshowman!\u201d\n\n [706] \u201cKhandogya-upanishad,\u201d viii., 3, 4; Max M\u00fcller: \u201cVeda.\u201d\n\n [707] \u201cIdra Rabba,\u201d x., 117.\n\n [708] Introd. in \u201cSohar,\u201d pp. 305-312.\n\n [709] John xiv.\n\n [710] \u201cLes Hauts Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes de la Magie,\u201d p. 74.\n\n [711] Barthelemy St. Hilaire: \u201cLe Buddha et sa Religion,\u201d\n Paris, 1860.\n\n [712] \u201cJournal des D\u00e9bats,\u201d Avril, 1853.\n\n [713] \u201cDogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.\u201d\n\n [714] \u201cTim\u00e6us;\u201d \u201cPolit.,\u201d 269, E.\n\n [715] \u201cTim\u00e6us,\u201d 29; \u201cPh\u00e6drus,\u201d 182, 247; \u201cRepub.,\u201d ii., 379, B.\n\n [716] \u201cLaws,\u201d iv., 715, E.; x., 901, C.\n\n [717] \u201cRepub.,\u201d ii., 381; \u201cTh\u00e6t.,\u201d 176, A.\n\n [718] \u201cLaws,\u201d x., 901, D.\n\n [719] \u201cLaws,\u201d iv., 716, A.; \u201cRepub.,\u201d x., 613, A.\n\n [720] \u201cPh\u00e6drus,\u201d 246, C.\n\n [721] E. Zeller: \u201cPlato and the Old Academy.\u201d\n\n [722] \u201cLaws,\u201d x., 905, D.\n\n [723] Max M\u00fcller: \u201cBuddhism,\u201d April, 1862.\n\n [724] Of the Abb\u00e9 Huc, Max M\u00fcller thus wrote in his \u201cChips\n from a German Workshop,\u201d vol. i., p. 187: \u201cThe late Abb\u00e9\n Huc pointed out the similarities between the Buddhist\n and Roman Catholic ceremonials with such a _na\u00efvet\u00e9_,\n that, to his surprise, he found his delightful \u2018Travels\n in Thibet\u2019 placed on the \u2018Index.\u2019 \u2018One cannot fail being\n struck,\u2019 he writes, \u2018with their great resemblance with\n the Catholicism. The bishop\u2019s crosier, the mitre, the\n dalmatic, the round hat that the great lamas wear in\n travel ... the mass, the double choir, the psalmody, the\n exorcisms, the censer with five chains to it, opening\n and shutting at will, the blessings of the lamas, who\n extend their right hands over the head of the faithful\n ones, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, the\n penances and retreats, the cultus of the Saints, the\n fasting, the processions, the litanies, the holy water;\n such are the similarities of the Buddhists with\n ourselves. He might have added tonsure, relics, and the\n confessional.\u201d\n\n [725] \u201cCrawford\u2019s Mission to Siam,\u201d p. 182.\n\n [726] Many are the marvels recorded as having taken place at\n his death, or we should rather say his translation; for\n he did not die as others do, but having suddenly\n disappeared, while a dazzling light filled the cavern\n with glory, his body was again seen upon its subsidence.\n When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual\n semi-darkness of the gloomy cave--then only, says\n Ginsburg, \u201cthe disciples of Israel perceived that the\n lamp of Israel was extinguished.\u201d His biographers tell\n us that there were voices heard from Heaven during the\n preparation for his funeral and at his interment. When\n the coffin was lowered down into the deep cave excavated\n for it, a flame broke out from it, and a voice mighty\n and majestic pronounced these words in the air: \u201cThis is\n he who caused the earth to quake, and the kingdoms to\n shake!\u201d\n\n [727] Plot: \u201cNatural History of Staffordshire.\u201d Published in 1666.\n\n [728] \u201cDie Kabbala,\u201d 75; \u201cSod,\u201d vol. ii.\n\n [729] \u201cDie Kabbala,\u201d 47.\n\n [730] He relates how Rabbi Eleazar, in the presence of Vespasian\n and his officers, expelled demons from several men by\n merely applying to the nose of the demoniac one of the\n number of roots recommended by King Solomon! The\n distinguished historian assures us that the Rabbi drew\n out the devils through the nostrils of the patients in\n the name of Solomon and by the power of the incantations\n composed by the king-kabalist. Josephus: \u201cAntiquities,\u201d\n VIII., ii., 5.\n\n [731] There are _unconscious_ miracles produced sometimes,\n which, like the phenomena now called \u201cSpiritual,\u201d are\n caused through natural cosmic powers, mesmerism,\n electricity, and the invisible beings who are always at\n work around us, whether they be human or elementary\n spirits.\n\n [732] It dates from 1540; and in 1555 a general outcry was\n raised against them in some parts of Portugal, Spain,\n and other countries.\n\n [733] Extracts from this \u201cArr\u00eat\u201d were compiled into a work in\n 4 vols., 12mo., which appeared at Paris, in 1762, and\n was known as \u201cExtraits des Assertions, etc.\u201d In a work\n entitled \u201cR\u00e9ponse aux Assertions,\u201d an attempt was made\n by the Jesuits to throw discredit upon the facts\n collected by the Commissioners of the French Parliament\n in 1762, as for the most part malicious fabrications.\n \u201cTo ascertain the validity of this impeachment,\u201d says\n the author of \u201cThe Principles of the Jesuits,\u201d \u201cthe\n libraries of the two universities of the British Museum\n and of Sion College have been searched for the authors\n cited; and in every instance where the volume was found,\n the correctness of the citation established.\u201d\n\n [734] \u201cTheologi\u00e6 Moralis,\u201d Tomus iv., Lugduni, 1663.\n\n [735] Tom. iv., lib. xxviii., sect. 1, de Pr\u00e6cept I., c. 20,\n n. 184.\n\n [736] Ibid., sect. 2, de Pr\u00e6cept I., Probl. 113, n. 586.\n\n [737] Richard Arsdekin, \u201cTheologia Tripartita,\u201d Coloni\u00e6,\n 1744, Tom. ii., Pars. ii., Tr. 5, c. 1, \u00a7 2, n. 4.\n\n [738] \u201cTheologia Moralis nunc pluribus partibus aucta, \u00e0 R.\n P. Claudio Lacroix, Societatis Jesu.\u201d Coloni\u00e6, 1757\n (Ed. Mus. Brit.).\n\n [739] Tom. ii., lib. iii., Pars. 1, Fr. 1, c. 1, dub. 2,\n resol. viii. What a pity that the counsel for the\n defense had not bethought them to cite this orthodox\n legalization of \u201ccheating by palmistry or otherwise,\u201d at\n the recent religio-scientific prosecution of the medium\n Slade, in London.\n\n [740] Niccolini: \u201cHistory of the Jesuits.\u201d\n\n [741] \u201cRoyal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia,\u201d p. 369.\n\n [742] Imago: \u201cPrimi S\u00e6culi Societatis Jesu,\u201d lib. 1., c. 3.,\n p. 64.\n\n [743] Anthony Escobar: \u201cUnivers\u00e6 Theologi\u00e6 Moralis receptiore,\n absque lite sententi\u00e6,\u201d etc., Tomus i., Lugduni, 1652\n (Ed. Bibl. Acad. Cant.). \u201cIdem sentio, e breve illud\n tempus ad unius hor\u00e6 spatium traho. Religiosus itaque\n habitum demittens assignato hoc temporis interstitio,\n non incurrit excommunicationem, _etiamsi dimittat non\n sol\u00f9m ex caus\u00e2, turpi, scilicet fornicandi, aut cl\u00e0m\n aliquid abripiendi, set etiam ut incognitus ineat\n lupanar_.\u201d Probl. 44, n. 213.\n\n [744] Pars. 11, Tra. 2, c. 31.\n\n [745] See \u201cThe Principles of the Jesuits, Developed in a\n Collection of Extracts from their own Authors.\u201d London,\n 1839.\n\n [746] From the Pastoral of the Archbishop of Cambrai.\n\n [747] See \u201cJerusalem Talmud, Synhedrin,\u201d c. 7, etc.\n\n [748] \u201cFranck,\u201d pp. 55, 56.\n\n [749] Charles Antony Casnedi: \u201cCrisis Theologica,\u201d\n Ulyssipone, 1711. Tome i., Disp. 6, Sect. 2, \u00a7 1, n. 59.\n\n [750] Ibid.\n\n [751] Ibid., \u00a7 2, n. 78.\n\n [752] Ibid., Sect. 5, \u00a7 1, n. 165.\n\n [753] \u201cThesis propugnata in regio Soc. Jes. Collegio\n celeberrim\u00e6 Academi\u00e6 Cadomensis, die Veneris, 30 Jan.,\n 1693.\u201d Cadomi, 1693.\n\n [754] Michelet and Quinet of the College of France: \u201cThe\n Jesuits.\u201d\n\n [755] Champollion: \u201cHermes Trismegistus,\u201d xxvii.\n\n [756] \u201cDe Cultu Adorationis Libri Tres.,\u201d Lib. iii., Disp. i.,\n c. 2.\n\n [757] Ibid.\n\n [758] \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d vol. v., p. 94.\n\n [759] Ibid., vol. v., p. 129.\n\n [760] \u201cAnd God created ... every _nephesh_ (life) that\n moveth\u201d (Gen. i. 21), meaning animals; and (Genesis ii.\n 7) it is said: \u201cAnd man became a _nephesh_\u201d (living\n soul); which shows that the word _nephesh_ was\n indifferently applied to _immortal_ man and to _mortal_\n beast. \u201cAnd surely your blood of your _nepheshim_\n (lives) will I require; at the hand of every beast will\n I require it, and at the hand of man\u201d (Gen. ix. 5).\n \u201cEscape for _nepheshe_\u201d (escape for thy _life_ is\n translated) (Gen. xix. 17). \u201cLet us not kill him,\u201d reads\n the English version (Gen. xxxvii. 21). \u201cLet us not kill\n his _nephesh_,\u201d is the Hebrew text. \u201c_Nephesh_ for\n _nephesh_,\u201d says Leviticus (xvii. 8). \u201cHe that killeth\n any man shall surely be put to death.\u201d \u201cHe that smiteth\n the _nephesh_ of a man\u201d (Levit. xxiv. 17); and from\n verse 18 and following it reads: \u201cAnd he that killeth a\n beast (nephesh) shall make it good.... Beast for beast,\u201d\n whereas the original text has it \u201cnephesh for nephesh.\u201d\n\n 1 Kings i. 12; ii. 23; iii. 11; xix. 2, 3, all have\n _nephesh_ for life and soul. \u201cThen shall thy _nepheshah_\n for (his) _nepheshu_,\u201d explains the prophet in 1 Kings\n xx. 39.\n\n Truly, unless we read the \u201cOld Testament\u201d kabalistically\n and comprehend the hidden meaning thereof, it is very\n little we can learn from it as regards the soul\u2019s\n immortality. The common people among Hebrews had not the\n slighest idea of soul and spirit, and made no difference\n between _life_, _blood_, and _soul_, calling the latter\n the \u201cbreath of life.\u201d And King James\u2019s translators have\n made such a jumble of it that _no one but a kabalist can\n restore the Bible to its original form_.\n\n [761] In \u201cPr\u00e6cepta Decaloga\u201d (Edit. of Sion Library), Tom. i.,\n lib. iv., c. 2, n. 7, 8.\n\n [762] Opinion of John de Dicastille, Sect. xv., \u201cDe Justitia\n et Jure,\u201d etc., cens. pp. 319, 320.\n\n [763] \u201cCurs\u00fbs Theologici,\u201d Tomus v., Duaci, 1642, Disp. 36,\n Sect. 5, n. 118.\n\n [764] Name of the highest Egyptian hierophants.\n\n [765] \u201cCrata Nepoa, or the Mysteries of the Ancient Egyptian\n Priests.\u201d\n\n [766] See Matthew xvi. 18, where it is mistranslated \u201cthe\n gates of Hell.\u201d\n\n [767] Humberto Malhandrini: \u201cRitual of Initiations,\u201d p. 105.\n Venice, 1657.\n\n [768] Pages 43, 44, note f. Niccolini of Rome, author of\n \u201cThe History of the Pontificate of Pius IX.;\u201d \u201cThe Life\n of Father Gavazzi,\u201d etc.\n\n [769] And begged in the name of _Him_ who had nowhere to lay\n his head!\n\n [770] In \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d Bunsen\n gives the cycle of 21,000 years, which he adopts to\n facilitate the chronological calculations for the\n reconstruction of the universal history of mankind. He\n shows that this cycle \u201cfor the nutation of the\n ecliptic,\u201d arrived at its apex in the year 1240 of our\n era. He says:\n\n \u201cThe cycle divides itself into two halves of 10,500 (or\n twice 5,250) years each.\n\n \u201cThe beginning of the first half:\n\n The highest point will be 19,760 B.C.\n The lowest 9,260\n Consequently the middle of the descending\n line (beginning of second quarter) will\n be 14,510\n The middle of the ascending line\n (beginning of fourth quarter) 4,010\n\n \u201cThe new cycle, which began in 1240 of our era, will come\n to the end of its first quarter in 4010 A.D.\u201d\n\n The Baron explains that \u201cin round numbers, the most\n favorable epochs for our hemisphere since the great\n catastrophe in Middle Asia (Deluge 10,000 years B.C.)\n are: the 4,000 years before, and the 4,000 years after\n Christ; and the beginning of the first epoch, _of which\n alone we can judge_, as it alone is complete before us,\n coincides exactly with the beginnings of national\n history, or (what is identical) with the beginning of\n _our consciousness_ of continuous existence\u201d (\u201cEgypt\u2019s\n Place in Universal History,\u201d Key, p. 102).\n\n \u201cOur consciousness\u201d must mean, we suppose, the\n consciousness _of scientists_, who accept nothing _on\n faith_, but much on unverified hypotheses. We do not say\n this with reference to the above-quoted author, earnest\n scholar and noble champion that he is, of freedom in the\n Christian Church, but generally. Baron Bunsen has well\n found for himself that a man cannot remain an honest\n scientist and please the clerical party. Even the little\n concessions he made in favor of the antiquity of\n mankind, brought on him, in 1859, the most insolent\n denunciations, such as \u201cWe lose all faith in the\n author\u2019s judgment ... he has yet to learn the very first\n principles of historical criticisms ... extravagant and\n _unscientific_ exaggeration,\u201d and so on--the pious\n vituperator closing his learned denunciations by\n assuring the public that Baron Bunsen \u201c_cannot even\n construct a Greek sentence_\u201d (\u201cQuarterly Review,\u201d 1859;\n see also \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d chap. on\n Egyptological Works and English Reviews). But we do\n regret that Baron Bunsen had no better opportunity to\n examine the \u201cKabala\u201d and the Brahmanical books of the\n Zodiacs.\n\n [771] \u201cThe Funeral Ritual of the Deeds of Horus.\u201d\n\n [772] Bunsen: \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d vol. v.,\n p. 133.\n\n [773] Lepsius: \u201cAbth.,\u201d iii.; Bl., 276; Bunsen, 134.\n\n [774] In the eighty-first chapter of the \u201cRitual\u201d the soul is\n called _the germ of lights_ and in the seventy-ninth the\n Demiurgos, or one of the creators.\n\n [775] \u201cRitual,\u201d vi., 44; Champollion: \u201cManifestations to the\n Light;\u201d Lepsius: \u201cBook of the Dead;\u201d Bunsen: \u201cEgypt\u2019s\n Place in Universal History.\u201d\n\n [776] We cannot help quoting a remark by Baron Bunsen in\n relation to the \u201cWord\u201d being identical with the\n \u201cIneffable Name\u201d of the Masons and the kabalists. While\n explaining the \u201cRitual,\u201d some of the details of which\n \u201cresemble rather the _enchantments of a magician than\n solemn rites_, although a hidden and mystical meaning\n must have been attached to them\u201d (the honest admission\n of this much, at least, is worth something), the author\n observes: \u201cThe mystery of names, the knowledge of which\n was a sovereign virtue, and which, at a later period,\n degenerated into the _rank heresy_ (?) of the Gnostics\n and the magic of enchanters, appears to have _existed\n not only in Egypt but elsewhere_. Traces of it are found\n in the \u2018Cabala\u2019 ... it prevailed in the Greek and\n Asiatic mythology\u201d (\u201cEgypt\u2019s Place, etc.,\u201d p. 147).\n\n We then see the representatives of Science agreeing upon\n this one point, at least. The initiates of all countries\n had the same \u201cmystery name.\u201d And now it remains with the\n scholars to prove that every adept, hierophant,\n magician, or enchanter (Moses and Aaron included) as\n well as every kabalist, from the institution of the\n Mysteries down to the present age, has been either a\n knave or a fool, for believing in the efficacy of this\n name.\n\n [777] See Chap. I., pp. 42, 43, note, of this volume.\n\n [778] See \u201cThe Principles of the Jesuits, Developed in a\n Collection of Extracts from their own Authors,\u201d London:\n J. G. and F. Rivington, St. Paul\u2019s Churchyard, and\n Waterloo Place, Pall Mall; H. Wix, 41 New Bridge Street,\n Blackfriars; J. Leslie, Queen Street, etc., 1839.\n Section xvii., \u201cHigh Treason and Regicide,\u201d containing\n thirty-four extracts from the same number of authorities\n (of the Society of Jesus) upon the question, among\n others the opinion thereof of the famous _Robert\n Bellarmine_. So Emmanuel Sa says: \u201cThe rebellion of an\n ecclesiastic against a king, _is not a crime of high\n treason, because he is not subject to the king_\u201d\n (\u201cConfessarium Aphorismi Verbo Clericus,\u201d Ed. Coloni\u00e6,\n 1615, Ed. Coll. Sion). \u201c_The people_,\u201d says John\n Bridgewater, \u201c_are not only permitted, but they are\n required and their duty demands_, that at the mandate of\n the Vicar of Christ, _who is the sovereign pastor over\n all nations of the earth_, the faith which they had\n previously made with such princes should not be kept\u201d\n (\u201cConcertatio Ecclesi\u00e6 Catholic\u00e6 in Angli\u00e2 adversus\n Calvino Papistas,\u201d Resp. fol. 348).\n\n In \u201cDe Rege et Regis Institutione, Libri Tres,\u201d 1640\n (Edit. Mus. Brit.), John Mariana goes even farther: \u201cIf\n the circumstances will permit,\u201d he says, \u201cit will be\n lawful to destroy with the sword the prince who is\n declared a public enemy.... _I shall never consider that\n man to have done wrong, who, favouring the public\n wishes, should attempt to kill him_,\u201d and \u201c_to put them\n to death is not only lawful, but a laudble and glorious\n action_.\u201d Est tamen salutaris cogitatio, ut sit\n principibus persuasum si rempublicam oppresserint, si\n vitiis et f\u00e6ditate intolerandi erunt, _e\u00e2 conditione\n vivere, ut non jure tantum, sed cum laude et glori\u00e2\n perimi possint_\u201d (Lib. i., c. 6, p. 61).\n\n But the most delicate piece of Christian teaching is\n found in the precept of this Jesuit when he argues upon\n the best and surest way of killing kings and statesmen.\n \u201cIn my own opinion,\u201d he says, \u201cdeleterious drugs should\n not be given to an enemy, neither should a deadly poison\n be mixed with his food or in his cup.... Yet _it will\n indeed be lawful to use this method_ in the case in\n question (that _he who should kill the tyrant would be\n highly esteemed, both in favor and in praise_,\u201d for \u201c_it\n is a glorious thing to exterminate this pestilent and\n mischievous race from the community of men_), not to\n constrain the person who is to be killed to take of\n himself the poison which, inwardly received, would\n deprive him of life, _but to cause it to be outwardly\n applied by another_ without his intervention; as, when\n there is so much strength in the poison, that if spread\n upon a seat or on the clothes it would be sufficiently\n powerful to cause death\u201d (Ibid., lib. i., c. f., p. 67).\n \u201cIt was thus that Squire attempted the life of Queen\n Elizabeth, at the instigation of the Jesuit Walpole.\u201d--\n Pasquier: \u201cCat\u00e9chisme des J\u00e9suites\u201d (1677, p. 350,\n etc.), and \u201cRapin\u201d (fol., Lond., 1733, vol. ii., book\n xvii., p. 148).\n\n [779] Puffendorf: \u201cDroit de la Nat.,\u201d book iv., ch. 1.\n\n [780] \u201cAgain, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of\n old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself.... But I say\n unto you, swear not at all,\u201d etc. \u201cBut let your\n communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is\n more than these cometh of evil\u201d (Matthew v. 33, 34,\n 37).\n\n [781] Barbeyrac, in his notes on Puffendorf, shows that the\n Peruvians used no oath, but a simple averment before\n the Inca, and were never found perjuring themselves.\n\n [782] We beg the reader to remember that we do not mean by\n Christianity the _teachings of Christ_, but those of\n his alleged servants--the clergy.\n\n [783] Dr. Anderson\u2019s \u201cDefence,\u201d quoted by John Yarker in his\n \u201cNotes on the Scientific and Religious Mysteries of\n Antiquity.\u201d\n\n [784] Epiphanius included, we must think, after that, in\n violation of his oath, he had sent over seventy persons\n into exile, who belonged to the secret society he\n betrayed.\n\n [785] United States Anti-Masonic Convention: \u201cObligation of\n Masonic Oaths,\u201d speech delivered by Mr. Hopkins, of\n New York.\n\n [786] John Yarker, Junr.: \u201cNotes on the Scientific and Religious\n Mysteries of Antiquity; the Gnosis and Secret Schools of\n the Middle Ages; Modern Rosicrucianism; and the various\n Rites and Degrees of Free and Accepted Masonry.\u201d London,\n 1872.\n\n [787] Ibid., p. 151.\n\n [788] John Yarker: \u201cNotes, etc.,\u201d p. 150.\n\n [789] \u201cProceedings of the Supreme Council of Sovereign Grand\n Inspectors-General of the Thirty-third and Last Degree,\n etc., etc. Held at the city of New York, August 15,\n 1876,\u201d pp. 54, 55.\n\n [790] \u201cHistoire des sectes religieuses,\u201d vol. ii., pp. 392-428.\n\n [791] \u201cNotitia codicis gr\u00e6ci evangelium Johannis variatum\n continentis,\u201d Havani\u00e6, 1828.\n\n [792] This is the reason why unto this day the fanatical and\n kabalistic members of the Nazarenes of Basra (Persia),\n have a tradition of the glory, wealth, and power of\n their \u201cBrothers,\u201d agents, or _messengers_ as they term\n them in Malta and Europe. There are some few remaining\n yet, they say, who will sooner or later restore the\n doctrine of their Prophet Iohanan (St. John), the son of\n Lord Jordan, and eliminate from the hearts of humanity\n every other false teaching.\n\n [793] The two great pagodas of Madura and Benares, are built\n in the form of a cross, each wing being equal in extent\n (See Mauri: \u201cIndian Antiquities,\u201d vol. iii., pp.\n 360-376).\n\n [794] Findel: \u201cHistory of Freemasonry,\u201d Appendix.\n\n [795] \u201cA Sketch of the Knight Templars and the Knights of\n St. John of Jerusalem,\u201d by Richard Woof, F.S.A.,\n Commander of the Order of Masonic Knight Templars.\n\n [796] Findel: \u201cHistory of Freemasonry,\u201d Appendix.\n\n [797] \u201cGeneral History of Freemasonry,\u201d p. 218.\n\n [798] See Gaffarel\u2019s version; Eliphas Levi\u2019s \u201cLa Science des\n Esprits;\u201d Mackenzie\u2019s \u201cRoyal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia;\u201d\n \u201cSepher Toldos Jeshu;\u201d and other kabalistical and\n Rabbinical works. The story given is this. A virgin\n named Mariam, betrothed to a young man of the name of\n Iohanan, was outraged by another man named Ben Panther\n or Joseph Panther, says \u201cSepher Toldos Jeshu.\u201d \u201cHer\n betrothed, learning of her misfortune, left her, at the\n same time forgiving her. The child born was Jesus, named\n Joshua. Adopted by his uncle Rabbi Jehosuah, he was\n initiated into the secret doctrine by Rabbi Elhanan, a\n kabalist, and then by the Egyptian priests, who\n consecrated him High Pontiff of the Universal Secret\n Doctrine, on account of his great mystic qualities. Upon\n his return into Judea his learning and powers excited\n the jealousy of the Rabbis, and they publicly reproached\n him with his origin and insulted his mother. Hence the\n words attributed to Jesus at Cana: \u2018Woman, what have I\n to do with thee?\u2019 (See John ii. 4.) His disciples having\n rebuked him with his unkindness to his mother, Jesus\n repented, and having learned from them the particulars\n of the sad story, he declared that \u201cMy mother has not\n sinned, she has not lost her innocence; she is immaculate\n and yet she is a mother.... As for myself I have no\n father, in this world, I am the Son of God and of\n humanity!\u201d Sublime words of confidence and trust in the\n unseen Power, but how fatal to the millions upon\n millions of men murdered because of these very words\n being so thoroughly misunderstood!\n\n [799] We speak of the American Chapter of Rose Croix.\n\n [800] Pythagoras.\n\n [801] The first _Grand Chapter_ was instituted at Philadelphia,\n in 1797.\n\n [802] See Yarker\u2019s \u201cNotes on the Mysteries of Antiquity,\u201d\n p. 153\n\n [803] See 2 Kings, xxiii. 7, Hebrew text, and English, the\n former especially. In the degree of Kadosh, a lecture is\n given upon the descent of Masonry through Moses,\n Solomon, the Essenes, and the Templars. Christian K.\n K.\u2019s may get some light as to the kind of \u201cTemple\u201d their\n ancestors would, in such a genealogical descent, have\n been attached to, by consulting verse 13 of the same\n chapter as above quoted.\n\n [804] See Eliphas Levi\u2019s \u201cDogme et Rituel,\u201d vol. i.\n\n [805] Yeva is _Heva_, the feminine counterpart of Jehovah-Binah.\n\n [806] We find a very suggestive point in connection with\n this appellation of Jehovah, \u201cSon of ancient Kings,\u201d in\n the Ja\u00efna sect of Hindustan, known as the Sauryas. They\n admit that Brahma is a Devat\u00e2, but deny his creative\n power, and call him the \u201cSon of a King.\u201d See \u201cAsiatic\n Researches,\u201d vol. ix., p. 279.\n\n [807] As, for instance, Shaddai, Elohim, Sabaoth, etc.\n\n [808] Cahen\u2019s \u201cHebrew Bible,\u201d iii., p. 117.\n\n [809] The Greek monks have this \u201cmiracle\u201d performed for the\n \u201cfaithful\u201d every year on Easter night. Thousands of\n pilgrims are there waiting with their tapers to light\n them at this sacred fire, which at the precise hour and\n when needed, descends from the chapel-vault and hovers\n about the sepulchre in tongues of fire until every one\n of the thousand pilgrims has lighted his wax taper at\n it.\n\n [810] The _Rishi_ are identical with _Manu_. The ten Prag\u00e2pati,\n sons of Viradj, called Maritchi, Atri, Angira, P\u00f4lastya,\n Poulaha, Kratu, Pratcheta, Vasishta, Brighu, and Narada,\n are euhemerized _Powers_, the Hindu Sephiroth. These\n emanate the seven Rishi, or Manus, the chief of whom\n issued himself from the \u201cuncreated.\u201d He is the Adam of\n earth, and signifies man. His \u201csons,\u201d the following six\n Manus, represent each a new race of men, and in the\n total they are _humanity_ passing gradually through the\n primitive seven stages of evolution.\n\n [811] In days of old, when the Brahmans studied more than they\n do now the hidden sense of their philosophy, they\n explained that each of these six distinct races which\n preceded ours had disappeared. But now they pretend that\n a specimen was preserved which was not destroyed with\n the rest, but reached the present _seventh_ stage. Thus\n they, the Brahmans are the specimens of the heavenly\n Manu, and issued from the mouth of Brahma; while the\n Sudra was created from his foot.\n\n [812] To avoid discussion we adopt the pal\u00e6ographical conclusions\n arrived at by Martin Haug and some other cautious\n scholars. Personally we credit the statements of the\n Brahmans and those of Halhed, the translator of the\n \u201cSastras.\u201d\n\n [813] The god Heptaktis.\n\n [814] The sanctuary of the initiation.\n\n [815] \u201cComparative Mythology.\u201d\n\n [816] While having no intention to enter at present upon a\n discussion as to the nomadic races of the \u201cRhematic\n period,\u201d we reserve the right to question the full\n propriety of terming that portion of the primitive\n people from whose traditions the \u201cVedas\u201d sprang into\n existence, Aryans. Some scientists find the existence of\n these Aryans not only unproved by science, but the\n traditions of Hindustan protesting against such an\n assumption.\n\n [817] Without the esoteric explanation, the \u201cOld Testament\u201d\n becomes an absurd jumble of meaningless tales--nay,\n worse than that, it must rank high with _immoral_ books.\n It is curious that Professor Max M\u00fcller, such a profound\n scholar in Comparative Mythology, should be found saying\n of the prag\u00e2patis and Hindu gods that they are masks\n _without actors_; and of Abraham and other mythical\n patriarchs that they were real living men; of Abraham\n especially, we are told (see \u201cSemitic Monotheism\u201d) that\n he \u201cstands before us as a figure second only to one in\n the whole history of the world.\u201d\n\n [818] The italics are our own. \u201cThe Vedas,\u201d lecture by Max\n M\u00fcller, p. 75.\n\n [819] \u201cChips,\u201d vol. i., p. 8.\n\n [820] We believe that we have elsewhere given the contrary\n opinion, on the subject of \u201cAtharva-Veda,\u201d of Prof.\n Whitney, of Yale College.\n\n [821] See Baron Bunsen\u2019s \u201cEgypt,\u201d vol. v.\n\n [822] \u201cChips,\u201d vol. i.; \u201cThe Vedas.\u201d\n\n [823] Max M\u00fcller: Lecture on \u201cThe Vedas.\u201d\n\n [824] Julian: \u201cIn Matrem,\u201d p. 173; Julian: \u201cOratio,\u201d v., 172.\n\n [825] Lyd.: \u201cDe Mensibus,\u201d iv., 38-74; \u201cMovers,\u201d p. 550;\n Dunlap: \u201cSaba,\u201d p. 3.\n\n [826] \u201cWestminster Review:\u201d Septenary Institutions; \u201cStone\n Him to Death.\u201d\n\n [827] \u201cDi Verbo Mirifico.\u201d\n\n [828] Idra Suta: \u201cSohar,\u201d book iii., p. 292 b. The Supreme\n consulting with the Architect of the world--his\n Logos--about creation.\n\n [829] Idra Suta: \u201cSohar,\u201d iii., 135 b. If the chapters of\n Genesis and the other Mosaic books, as well as the\n subjects, are muddled up, the fault is the compiler\u2019s--\n not that of oral tradition. Hilkiah and Josiah had to\n commune with Huldah, the prophetess, hence resort to\n _magic_ to understand the word of the \u201cLord God of\n Israel,\u201d most conveniently found by Hilkiah (2 Kings,\n xxiii.); and that it has passed still later through more\n than one revision and remodelling is but too well proved\n by its frequent incongruities, repetitions, and\n contradictions.\n\n [830] This assimilation of the deluge to an earthquake on the\n Assyrian tablets would go to prove that the antediluvian\n nations were well acquainted with other geological\n cataclysms besides the deluge, which is represented in\n the Bible as the _first_ calamity which befel humanity,\n and a punishment.\n\n [831] George Smith notes in the tablets, first the creation\n of the moon, and then of the sun: \u201cIts beauty and\n perfection are extolled, and the regularity of its\n orbit, which led to its being considered the type of a\n judge and the regulator of the world.\u201d Did this story of\n the deluge relate simply to a cosmogonical\n cataclysm--even were it universal--why should the\n goddess Ishtara or Astoreth (the moon) speak of the\n _creation of the sun_ after the deluge? The waters might\n have reached as high as the mountain of _Nizir_\n (Chaldean version), or Jebel-Djudi (the deluge-mountains\n of the Arabian legends), or yet Ararat (of the biblical\n narrative), and even Himalaya of the Hindu tradition,\n and yet not reach the sun--even the Bible itself stopped\n short of such a miracle. It is evident that the deluge\n of the people who first recorded it had another meaning,\n less problematical and far more philosophical than that\n of a _universal_ deluge, of which there are no\n geological traces whatever.\n\n [832] The \u201cdead letter that killeth,\u201d is magnificently\n illustrated in the case of the Jesuit de Carri\u00e8re,\n quoted in the \u201cBible dans l\u2019Inde.\u201d The following\n dissertation represents the spirit of the whole Catholic\n world: \u201cSo that the creation of the world,\u201d writes this\n faithful son of Loyola, explaining the biblical\n chronology of Moses, \u201cand all that is recorded in\n Genesis, might have become known to Moses through\n _recitals personally made to him by his fathers_.\n Perhaps, even, the memories yet existed among the\n Israelites, and from those recollections he may have\n recorded the dates of births and deaths of the\n patriarchs, the numbering of their children, and the\n names of the different countries in which each became\n established under the guidance _of the holy spirit,\n which we must always regard as the chief author of the\n sacred books_\u201d!!!\n\n [833] See chapter xv. and last of Part I.\n\n [834] \u201cDescription, etc., of the People of India,\u201d by the\n Abb\u00e9 J. A. Dubois, missionary in Mysore, vol. i., p. 186.\n\n [835] \u201cF\u00e9tichisme, Polyth\u00e9isme, Monoth\u00e9isme,\u201d pp. 170, 171.\n\n [836] Against the latter assumption derived solely from the\n accounts of the Bible we have every historical fact.\n 1st. There are no proofs of these twelve tribes having\n ever existed; that of Levi was a priestly caste and all\n the others imaginary. 2d. Herodotus, the most accurate\n of historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished,\n never mentions the Israelites at all? Herodotus was born\n in 484 B.C.\n\n [837] Dr. Kennicot himself, and Bruns, under his direction,\n about 1780, collated 692 manuscripts of the Hebrew\n \u201cBible.\u201d Of all these, only _two_ were credited to the\n tenth century, and three to a period as early as the\n eleventh and twelfth. The others ranged between the\n thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.\n\n In his \u201cIntroduzione alla Sacra Scrittura,\u201d pp. 34-47,\n De Rossi, of Parma, mentions 1,418 MSS. collated, and\n 374 editions. The oldest manuscript \u201cCodex,\u201d he\n asserts--that of Vienna--dates A.D. 1019; the next,\n Reuchlin\u2019s, of Carlsruhe, 1038. \u201cThere is,\u201d he declares,\n \u201cnothing in the manuscripts of the Hebrew \u2018Old\n Testament\u2019 extant of an earlier date than the eleventh\n century after Christ.\u201d\n\n [838] \u201cIndia in Greece,\u201d Preface, ix.\n\n [839] \u201cChips,\u201d vol. i.\n\n [840] \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d vol. v., p. 77.\n\n [841] Ibid., p. 78.\n\n [842] \u201cChips;\u201d \u201cAitareya Brahmanam.\u201d\n\n [843] Dr. M. Haug, Superintendent of the Sanscrit studies in\n the Poona College, Bombay.\n\n [844] Pococke belongs to that class of Orientalists who\n believe that Buddhism preceded Brahmanism, and was the\n religion of the earliest Vedas, Gautama having been but\n the restorer of it in its purest form, which after him\n degenerated again into dogmatism.\n\n [845] \u201cIndia in Greece,\u201d p. 200.\n\n [846] The Asiatic origin of the first dwellers in the Nilotic\n Valley is clearly demonstrated by concurrent and\n independent testimony. Cuvier and Blumenbach affirm that\n all the skulls of mummies which they had the opportunity\n of examining, presented the Caucasian type. A recent\n American physiologist (Dr. Morton) has also argued for\n the same conclusion (\u201cCrania \u00c6gyptiaca.\u201d Philadelphia,\n 1844).\n\n [847] The late Rajah of Travancore was succeeded by the elder\n son of his sister now reigning, the Maharajah _Rama\n Vurmah_. The next heirs are the sons of his deceased\n sister. In case the female line is interrupted by death,\n the royal family is obliged to adopt the daughter of\n some other Rajah, and unless daughters are born to this\n Rana another girl is adopted, and so on.\n\n [848] There are some Orientalists who believe that this\n custom was introduced only after the early Christian\n settlements in \u00c6thiopia; but as under the Romans the\n population of this country was nearly all changed, the\n element becoming wholly Arabic, we may, without doubting\n the statement, believe that it was the predominating\n Arab influence which had altered the earliest mode of\n writing. Their present method is even more analogous to\n the Devan\u0101gar\u00ef, and other more ancient Indian Alphabets,\n which read from left to right; and their letters show no\n resemblance to the Ph\u0153nician characters. Moreover, all\n the ancient authorities corroborate our assertion still\n more. Philostratus makes the Brahmin Iarchus say (V. A.,\n iii., 6) that the \u00c6thiopians were originally _an Indian\n race_, compelled to emigrate from the mother-land for\n sacrilege and regicide (see Pococke\u2019s \u201cIndia,\u201d etc.,\n ii., p. 206). An Egyptian is made to remark, that he had\n heard from his father, that the Indians were the wisest\n of men, and that the \u00c6thiopians, a colony of the\n Indians, preserved the wisdom and usages of their\n fathers, and acknowledged their ancient origin. Julius\n Africanus (in Eusebius and Syncellus), makes the same\n statement. And Eusebius writes: \u201cThe \u00c6thiopians,\n emigrating from the river Indus, settled in the vicinity\n of Egypt\u201d (Lemp., Barker\u2019s edition, \u201cMero\u00eb\u201d).\n\n [849] They might have been also, as Pococke thinks, simply the\n tribes of the \u201cOxus,\u201d a name derived from the \u201cOokshas,\u201d\n those people whose wealth lay in the \u201cOx,\u201d for he shows\n _Ookshan_ to be a crude form of _Ooksha_, an ox (in\n Sanscrit _ox_ is as in English). He believes that it was\n they, \u201cthe lords of the Oxus,\u201d who gave their name to\n the sea around which they ruled in many a country, the\n _Euxine_ or Ooksh-ine. _Pali_ means a shepherd, and\n _s\u2019than_ is a land. \u201cThe warlike tribes of the Oxus\n penetrated into Egypt, then swept onward to Palestine\n (PALI-STAN), the land of the Palis or shepherds, and\n there effected more permanent settlements\u201d (\u201cIndia in\n Greece\u201d). Yet, if even so, it would only the more\n confirm our opinion that the Jews are a hybrid race, for\n the \u201cBible\u201d shows them freely intermarrying, not alone\n with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race\n they come in contact with.\n\n [850] Prof. A. Wilder: \u201cNotes.\u201d\n\n [851] Moses reigned over the people of Israel in the\n wilderness for over _forty_ years.\n\n [852] The name of the wife of Moses was Zipporah (Exodus ii.).\n\n [853] About 1040, the Jewish doctors removed their schools\n from Babylonia to Spain, and of the four great rabbis\n that flourished during the next four centuries, their\n works all show different readings, and abound with\n mistakes in the manuscripts. The \u201cMasorah\u201d made things\n still worse. Many things that then existed in the\n manuscripts are there no longer, and their works teem\n with interpolations as well as with _lacun\u00e6_. The oldest\n Hebrew manuscript belongs to this period. Such is the\n divine revelation we are to credit.\n\n [854] No chronology was accepted by the rabbis as authoritative\n till the twelfth century. The 40 and 1,000 are not exact\n numbers, but have been crammed in to answer monotheism\n and the exigencies of a religion calculated to appear\n different from that of the Pagans. (\u201cChron. Orth.,\u201d p.\n 238). One finds in the \u201cPentateuch\u201d only events\n occurring about two years before the fabled \u201cExodus\u201d and\n the last year. The rest of the chronology is nowhere,\n and can be followed only through kabalistic\n computations, with a key to them in the hand.\n\n [855] The Gnostics, called Collyridians, had transferred\n from Astoreth their worship to Mary, also Queen of\n Heaven. They were persecuted and put to death by the\n orthodox Christians as heretics. But if these Gnostics\n had established her worship by offering her sacrifices\n of cakes, cracknels, or fine wafers, it was because they\n imagined her to have been born of an immaculate virgin,\n as Christ is alleged to have been born of his mother.\n And now, the Pope\u2019s _infallibility_ having been\n recognized and accepted, its first practical\n manifestation is the revival of the Collyridian belief\n as an article of faith (See \u201cApocryphal New Testament;\u201d\n Hone: \u201cThe Gospel of Mary attributed to Matthew\u201d).\n\n [856] Hargrave Jennings: \u201cRosicrucians.\u201d\n\n [857] \u201cProgress of Religious Ideas.\u201d\n\n [858] Lilith was Adam\u2019s _first_ wife \u201cbefore he _married_\n Eve,\u201d of whom \u201che begat nothing but devils;\u201d which\n strikes us as a very novel, if pious, way of explaining\n a very philosophical allegory: Burton\u2019s \u201cAnatomy of\n Melancholy.\u201d\n\n [859] It is in commemoration of the Ark of the Deluge that\n the Ph\u0153nicians, those bold explorers of the \u201cdeep,\u201d\n carried, fixed on the prow of their ships, the image of\n the goddess Astart\u00e8, who is Elissa, Venus Erycina of\n Sicily, and Dido, whose name is the feminine of David.\n\n [860] Dr. Lundy: \u201cMonumental Christianity.\u201d\n\n [861] Lucian, iv. 276.\n\n [862] 1 Kings xviii. All this is allegorical, and, what is\n more, purely magical. For Elijah is bent upon an\n incantation.\n\n [863] The Talmud books say that Noah was himself the _dove_\n (spirit), thus identifying him still more with the\n Chaldean Nouah. Baal is represented with the wings of a\n dove, and the Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim the\n image of a dove. \u201cTalmud, Tract. Chalin.,\u201d fol. 6, col. 1.\n\n [864] Numbers x. 29, 31.\n\n [865] The Bible contradicts itself as well as the Chaldean\n account, for in chapter vii. of Genesis it shows\n \u201cevery one of them\u201d perishing in the deluge.\n\n [866] Numbers xiii.\n\n [867] We do not see why the clergy--especially the Catholic--\n should object to our statement that the patriarchs are\n all signs of the zodiac, and the old gods of the\n \u201cheathen\u201d as well. There was a time, and that less than\n two centuries ago, when they themselves exhibited the\n most fervent desire to relapse into sun and star\n worship. This pious and curious attempt was denounced\n but a few months since by Camille Flammarion, the French\n astronomer. He shows two Augsburgian Jesuits, Schiller\n and Bayer, who felt quite anxious to change the names of\n the whole Sabean host of the starry heaven, and worship\n them again under Christian names! Having anathematized\n the idolatrous sun-worshippers for over fifteen\n centuries, the Church now seriously proposed to continue\n heliolatry--_to the letter_ this time--as their idea was\n to substitute for Pagan myths biblical and (in their\n ideas) real personages. They would have called the sun,\n Christ; the moon, Virgin Mary; Saturn, Adam; Jupiter,\n Moses (!); Mars, Joshua; Venus, John the Baptist; and\n Mercury, Elias. And very proper substitutes too, showing\n the great familiarity of the Catholic Church with\n ancient Pagan and kabalistic learning, and its\n readiness, perhaps, to at last confess the source whence\n came their own myths. For is not king Messiah the sun,\n the Demiurge of the heliolaters, under various names? Is\n he not the Egyptian Osiris and the Grecian Apollo? And\n what more appropriate name than Virgin Mary for the\n Pagan Diana-Astart\u00e9, \u201cthe Queen of Heaven,\u201d against\n which Jeremiah exhausted a whole vocabulary of\n imprecations? Such an adoption would have been\n historically as well as religiously correct. Two large\n plates were prepared, says Flammarion, in a recent\n number of \u201cLa Nature,\u201d and represented the heavens with\n Christian constellations instead of Pagan. Apostles,\n popes, saints, martyrs, and personages of the Old and\n New Testament completed this Christian Sabeanism. \u201cThe\n disciples of Loyola used every exertion to make this\n plan succeed.\u201d It is curious to find in India among the\n Mussulmans the name of Terah, Abraham\u2019s father, Azar or\n Azarh, and Azur, which also means fire, and is, at the\n same time, the name of the Hindu third solar month (from\n June to July), during which the sun is in _Gemini_, and\n the full moon near _Sagittarius_.\n\n [868] Cicero: \u201cDe Nat. Deo.,\u201d i., 13.\n\n [869] \u201cHerodotus,\u201d ii., 145.\n\n [870] \u201cMonumental Christianity,\u201d p. 3.\n\n [871] Who but the authors of the \u201cPentateuch\u201d could have invented\n a Supreme God or his angel so thoroughly human as to\n require a smear of blood upon the door-post to prevent\n his killing one person for another! For gross\n materialism this exceeds any theistical conception that\n we have noticed in Pagan literature.\n\n [872] Denon: \u201cEgypt,\u201d ii., pl. 40, No. 8, p. 54.\n\n [873] Pages 13 and 402.\n\n [874] In Volney\u2019s \u201cRuins of Empires\u201d p. 360, it is remarked\n that as _Aries_ was in its fifteenth degree 1447 B.C.,\n it follows that the first degree of \u201cLibra\u201d could not\n have coincided with the Vernal equinox more lately than\n 15,194 years B.C., to which, if you add 1790 years since\n Christ, it appears that 16,984 years have elapsed since\n the origin of the _Zodiac_.\n\n [875] See cuts in Inman\u2019s \u201cAncient Faiths.\u201d\n\n [876] Cicero: \u201cDe Nat. Deorum,\u201d i., 10.\n\n [877] Virgil: \u201c\u00c6neid,\u201d vi., 724 ff.\n\n [878] The term \u201ccoats of skin,\u201d is the more suggestive when\n we learn that the Hebrew word \u201cskin\u201d used in the\n original text, means _human_ skin. The text says: \u201cAnd\n _Java Aleim_ made for Adam and his wife \u05db\u05ea\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea \u05e2\u05d5\u05e8 CHITONUT\n OUR. The first Hebrew word is the same as the Greek\n \u03c7\u03b9\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd--chiton--coat. Parkhurst defines it as _the skin\n of men_ or animals \u05e2\u05e8 \u05e2\u05d5\u05e8 and \u05e2\u05e8\u05d4, OUR, OR, or ORA.\n The same word is used at Exodus xxxiv. 30, 35, when the\n _skin_ of Moses \u201cshone\u201d (A. Wilder).\n\n [879] Here, again, the \u201cMasorah,\u201d by converting one name\n into another, has helped to falsify the little that was\n left original in the primitive Scriptures.\n\n De Rossi, of Parma, says of the Massoretes, in his\n \u201cCompendis,\u201d vol. iv., p. 7: \u201cIt is known with what\n carefulness Esdras, the most excellent critic they have\n had, had _reformed_ [the text] and _corrected_ it, and\n restored it to its primary splendor. Of the many\n revisions undertaken after him, none are more celebrated\n than that of the Massoretes, who came after the sixth\n century ... and all the most zealous adorers and\n defenders of the \u201cMasorah,\u201d Christians and Jews ...\n ingenuously accord and confess that it, such as it\n exists, is _deficient_, _imperfect_, _interpolated_,\n _full of errors_, and _a most unsafe guide_.\u201d The square\n letter was not invented till after the third century.\n\n [880] Scorpio is the astrological sign of the organs of\n reproduction.\n\n [881] The patriarchs are all convertible in their numbers as\n well as interchangeable. According to what they relate,\n they become ten, five, seven, twelve, and even fourteen.\n The whole system is so complicated that it is an utter\n impossibility in a work like this to do more than hint\n at certain matters.\n\n [882] See vol. I. of the present work, p. 32. Alone, the Hindu\n calculation by the Zodiac, can give a key to the Hebrew\n chronologies and the ages of the patriarchs. If we bear\n in mind that, according to the former astronomical and\n chronological calculations, out of the fourteen\n manwantara (or divine ages), each of which composed of\n _twelve_ thousand years of the devas, multiplied by\n seventy-one, forms _one period_ of creation--not quite\n _seven_ are yet passed, the Hebrew calculation will\n become more clear. To help, as much as possible, those\n who will be sure to get a good deal bewildered in this\n calculation, we will remind the reader that the Zodiac\n is divided into 360 degrees, and every sign into thirty\n degrees; that in the Samaritan _Bible the age of Enoch\n is fixed at 360 years_; that in \u201cManu,\u201d the divisions of\n time are given thus: \u201cThe day and the night are composed\n of thirty _Mouhourta_. A mouhourta contains thirty\n _kal\u00e2s_. A month of the mortals is of thirty days, but\n it is but _one_ day of the pitris.... A year of the\n mortals is one day of the Devas.\u201d\n\n [883] See Rawlinson\u2019s \u201cDiagrams.\u201d\n\n [884] In the Brahmanical Zodiac the signs are all presided\n over by and dedicated to one of the twelve great gods.\n So, 1. Mecha (Aries) is dedicated to Varuna; 2. Vricha\n (Taurus), to Yama; 3. Mithuna (Gemini), to Pavana; 4.\n Karcataca (Cancer), to S\u00fbrya; 5. Sinha (Leo), to Soma;\n 6. Kanya (Virgo), to Kartikeia; 7. Toulha (Libra), to\n Kouvera; 8. Vristchica (Scorpio), to Kama; 9. Dhanous\n (Sagittarius), to Ganesa; 10. Makara (Capricornus), to\n Poulhar; 11. Kumbha (Aquarius), to Indra; and, 12, Minas\n (Pisces), to Agni.\n\n [885] Moor\u2019s \u201cHindu Pantheon,\u201d pp. 295-302.\n\n [886] Apollo was also _Abelius_, or Bel.\n\n [887] Halal is a name of Apollo. The name of Ma_halal_-Eliel\n would then be the autumnal sun, of July, and this\n patriarch presides over _Leo_ (July) the zodiacal sign.\n\n [888] See description of the Sephiroth, in chapter iv.\n\n [889] How servile was this Chaldean _copy_ may be seen in\n comparing the Hindu chronology with that of the\n Babylonians. According to Manu, the antediluvian\n dynasties of the Pradj\u00e2patis reigned 4,320,000 human\n years, a whole divine age of the devas in short, or that\n length of time which invariably occurs between life on\n earth and the dissolution of that life, or pralaya. The\n Chaldeans, in their turn, give precisely the same\n figures, minus _one_ cipher, to wit: they make their 120\n saros yield a total of 432,000 years.\n\n [890] Eliphas Levi gives it both in the Greek and Hebrew\n versions, but so condensed and arbitrarily that it is\n impossible for one who knows less than himself to\n understand him.\n\n [891] See Rabbi Simeon\u2019s dissertation on the primitive Man-Bull\n and the horns, \u201cSohar.\u201d\n\n [892] \u201cThe Nuctameron of the Hebrews;\u201d see Eliphas Levi,\n vol. i.\n\n [893] \u201cAnszuge aus dem Sohar,\u201d p. 13, 15.\n\n [894] Such is the opinion of the erudite Dr. Jost and\n Donaldson. \u201cThe Old Testament Books, as we now find\n them, seem to have been concluded about 150 years\n B.C.... The Jews now sought the other books, which had\n been dispersed during the wars, and brought them into\n one collection\u201d (Ghillany: \u201cMenschenopfer der Hebra\u00ebr,\u201d\n p. 1). \u201cSod, the Son of the Man.\u201d Appendix.\n\n [895] \u201cJost,\u201d vol. i., p. 51.\n\n [896] Burder\u2019s \u201cJosephus,\u201d vol. ii., pp. 331-335.\n\n [897] \u201cDie Kabbala,\u201d p. 95.\n\n [898] Gaffarel: Introduction to \u201cBook of Enoch.\u201d\n\n [899] So firmly established seems to have been the reputation\n of the Brahmans and Buddhists for the highest morality,\n and that since time immemorial, that we find Colonel\n Henry Yule, in his admirable edition of \u201cMarco Polo,\u201d\n giving the following testimony: \u201cThe high virtues\n ascribed to the Brahman and Indian merchants were,\n perhaps, in part, matter of tradition ... but the eulogy\n is so constant among medi\u00e6val travellers _that it must\n have had a solid foundation_. In fact, it would not be\n difficult to trace a chain of similar testimony from\n ancient times down to our own. Arrian says no Indian was\n ever accused of falsehood. Hwen T\u2019sang ascribes to the\n people of India eminent uprightness, honesty, and\n disinterestedness. Friar Jordanus (_circa_ 1330) says\n the people of Lesser India (Sindh and Western India)\n were true in speech and eminent in justice; and we may\n also refer to the high character given to the Hindus by\n Abul Fazl. But _after 150 years of European trade,\n indeed, we find a sad deterioration_.... Yet Pallas, in\n the last century, noticing the Bamyan colony at\n Astrakhan, says its members were notable for an upright\n dealing that made them greatly preferable to Armenians.\n And that wise and admirable public servant, the late Sir\n William Sleeman, in our own time, has said that he knew\n no class of men in the world more strictly honorable\n than the mercantile classes of India.\u201d[900]\n\n The sad examples of the rapid demoralization of _savage_\n American Indians, as soon as they are made to live in a\n close proximity with _Christian_ officials and\n missionaries, are familiar in our modern days.\n\n [900] The \u201cBook of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian,\u201d translated\n by Colonel Henry Yule, vol. ii., p. 354.\n\n [901] At the present moment Mr. O\u2019Grady is Editor of the\n \u201cAmerican Builder,\u201d of New York, and is well known for\n his interesting letters, \u201cIndian Sketches--Life in the\n East,\u201d which he contributed under the pseudonym of\n _Hadji Nicka Bauker Khan_, to the Boston \u201cCommercial\n Bulletin.\u201d\n\n [902] Ecclesiastes xii. 13; see Tayler Lewis\u2019s \u201cMetrical\n Translation.\u201d\n\n \u201cThe great conclusion here;\n Fear God and His commandments keep, for this is all of man.\u201d\n\n [903] See Micah vi., 6-8, \u201cNoyes\u2019s Translation.\u201d\n\n [904] Matthew xvii., 37-40.\n\n [905] \u201cLes Hauts Ph\u00e9nomenes de la Magie,\u201d p. 12, preface.\n\n [906] \u201cHistory of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism.\u201d\n\n [907] See Draper\u2019s \u201cConflict between Religion and Science.\u201d\n\n [908] Gospel according to Mark, iii. 29: \u201cHe that shall\n blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, hath never\n forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation\u201d\n (\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, error).\n\n [909] Gospel according to Matthew, v. 44.\n\n [910] \u201cComparative Mythology,\u201d April, 1856.\n\n [911] 1st Epistle of John, iii. 8.\n\n [912] 2 Kings, xviii. 4. It is probable that the fiery serpents\n or _Seraphim_ mentioned in the twenty-first chapter of\n the book of Numbers were the same as the Levites, or\n Ophite tribe. Compare Exodus xxxii. 26-29 with Numbers\n xxi. 5-9. The names Heva, \u05d7\u05d5\u05d4, _Hivi_ or Hivite, \u05d4\u05d5\u05d9, and\n Levi \u05dc\u05d5\u05d9, all signify a serpent; and it is a curious fact\n that the Hivites, or serpent-tribe of Palestine, like\n the Levites or Ophites of Israel, were ministers to the\n temples. The Gibeonites, whom Joshua assigned to the\n service of the sanctuary, were Hivites.\n\n [913] 1 Chronicles, xxi. 1: \u201cAnd Satan stood up against Israel\n and moved David to number Israel.\u201d 2d Samuel, xxiv. 1:\n \u201cAnd again the anger of the Lord was kindled against\n Israel, and he moved David against them to say: \u2018Go,\n number Israel and Judah.\u2019\u201d\n\n [914] Zechariah iii. 1, 2. A pun or play on words is noticeable;\n \u201cadversary\u201d is associated with \u201cSatan,\u201d as if from \u05e9\u05d8\u05df, to\n oppose.\n\n [915] Jude 9.\n\n [916] In the \u201cAssyrian Tablets,\u201d Palestine is called \u201cthe land\n of the Hittites;\u201d and the Egyptian Papyri, declaring the\n same thing, also make Seth, the \u201cpillar-god,\u201d their\n tutelar deity.\n\n [917] _Seth_, _Suteh_, or Sat-an, was the god of the aboriginal\n nations of Syria. Plutarch makes him the same as Typhon.\n Hence he was god of Goshen and Palestine, the countries\n occupied by the Israelites.\n\n [918] \u201cVendidad,\u201d fargard x., 23: \u201cI combat the d\u00e6va \u00c6shma, the\n very evil.\u201d \u201cThe Ya\u00e7nas,\u201d x. 18, speaks likewise of\n \u00c6shma-D\u00e6va, or Khasm: \u201cAll other sciences depend upon\n \u00c6shma, the cunning.\u201d \u201cServ.,\u201d lvi. 12: \u201cTo smite the\n wicked Auramanyas (Ahriman, the evil power), to smite\n \u00c6shma with the terrible weapon, to smite the Mazanian\n d\u00e6vas, to smite all devas.\u201d\n\n In the same fargard of the \u201cVendidad\u201d the Brahman\n divinities are involved in the same denunciation with\n \u00c6shma-d\u00e6va: \u201cI combat India, I combat Sauru, I combat\n the D\u00e6va Naonhaiti.\u201d The annotator explains them to be\n the Vedic gods, Indus, Gaurea, or Siva, and the two\n Aswins. There must be some mistake, however, for Siva,\n at the time the \u201cVedas\u201d were completed, was an\n aboriginal or \u00c6thiopian God, the Bala or Bel of Western\n Asia. He was not an Aryan or Vedic deity. Perhaps S\u00fbrya\n was the divinity intended.\n\n [919] Jacob Bryant: \u201cAnalysis of Ancient Mythology.\u201d\n\n [920] Plutarch: \u201cde Iside,\u201d xxx., xxxi.\n\n [921] Wilkinson\u2019s \u201cAncient Egyptians,\u201d p. 434.\n\n [922] See \u201cVendidad,\u201d fargand x.\n\n [923] Salverte: \u201cDes Sciences Occultes,\u201d appendix, note A.\n\n [924] The term \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 signifies a trial, or probation.\n\n [925] 2 Samuel, ii. 5, 15; vi. 1-4. Pliny.\n\n [926] See 1 Corinthians, v. 5; 2 Corinthians, xi. 14;\n 1 Timothy, i. 20.\n\n [927] 2d Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, xii. In\n Numbers xxii. 22 the angel of the Lord is described\n as acting the part of a Satan to Balaam.\n\n [928] 1 Kings, xxii. 19-23.\n\n [929] Haug: \u201cEssays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and\n Religion of the Parsees.\u201d\n\n [930] The \u201cAvesta\u201d describes the serpent Dahaka, as of the\n region of Bauri or Babylonia. In the Median history are\n two kings of the name Deiokes or Dahaka, and Astyages or\n Az-dahaka. There were children of Zohak seated on\n various Eastern thrones, after Feridun. It is apparent,\n therefore, that by Zohak is meant the Assyrian dynasty,\n whose symbol was the _purpureum signum draconis_--the\n purple sign of the Dragon. From a very remote antiquity\n (Genesis xiv.) this dynasty ruled Asia, Armenia, Syria,\n Arabia, Babylonia, Media, Persia, Bactria, and\n Afghanistan. It was finally overthrown by Cyrus and\n Darius Hystaspes, after \u201c1,000 years\u2019\u201d rule. Yima and\n Thr\u00e6taona, or Jemshid and Feridun, are doubtless\n personifications. Zohak probably imposed the Assyrian or\n Magian worship of fire upon the Persians. Darius was the\n vicegerent of Ahura-Mazda.\n\n [931] The name in the Gospels is \u03b2\u03b5\u03b5\u03bb\u03b6\u03b5\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb, or Baal of the\n Dwelling. It is pretty certain that Apollo, the Delphian\n God, was not Hellenian originally, but Ph\u0153nician. He was\n the Paian or physician, as well as the god of oracles.\n It is no great stretch of imagination to identify him\n with Baal-_Zebul_, the god of Ekron, or Acheron,\n doubtless changed to _Zebub_, or flies, by the Jews in\n derision.\n\n [932] \u201cAgainst Apion,\u201d i. 25. \u201cThe Egyptians took many\n occasions to hate and envy us: in the first place\n because our ancestors (the Hyk-sos, or shepherds) had\n had the dominion over their country, and when they were\n delivered from them and gone to their own country, they\n lived there in prosperity.\u201d\n\n [933] Bunsen. The name _Seth_ with the syllable _an_ from the\n Chaldean _ana_ or Heaven, makes the term _Satan_. The\n punners seem now to have pounced upon it, as was their\n wont, and so made it _Satan_ from the verb \u05e9\u05d8\u05df _Sitan_,\n to oppose.\n\n [934] \u201cVendidad,\u201d fargard x. The name _Vendidad_ is a\n contraction of _Vid\u00e6va-data_, ordinances against the\n D\u00e6vas.\n\n [935] _Bundahest_, \u201cAhriman created out of the materials of\n darkness Akuman and Ander, then Sauru and Nakit.\u201d\n\n [936] See Lenoir\u2019s \u201cDu Dragon de Metz,\u201d in \u201cM\u00e9moires de\n l\u2019Acad\u00e9mie Celtique,\u201d i., 11, 12.\n\n [937] Plutarch: \u201cIsis and Osiris.\u201d\n\n [938] \u201cThe Origin of Serpent Worship,\u201d by C. Staniland Wake,\n M.A.I. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877.\n\n [939] \u201cTree and Serpent Worship,\u201d etc.\n\n [940] Godfrey Higgins: \u201cAnacalypsis;\u201d Dupuis: \u201cOrigines des\n Cultes,\u201d iii., 51.\n\n [941] Martianus Capella: \u201cHymn to the Sun,\u201d i., ii.; Movers:\n \u201cPhiniza,\u201d 266.\n\n [942] Plutarch: \u201cIsis and Osiris.\u201d\n\n [943] Virgil: \u201cEclogues,\u201d iv.\n\n [944] Ovid: \u201cFasti,\u201d ii., 451.\n\n [945] Knorring: \u201cTerra et C\u0153lum,\u201d 53.\n\n [946] Anna is an Oriental designation from the Chaldean _ana_,\n or heaven, whence Ana\u00eftis and Ana\u00eftres. Durga, the\n consort of Siva, is also named Anna purna, and was\n doubtless the original St. Anna. The mother of the\n prophet Samuel was named Anna; the father of his\n counterpart, Samson, was _Manu_.\n\n [947] The virgins of ancient time, as will be seen, were not\n maids, but simply almas, or nubile women.\n\n [948] Kircher: \u201c\u0152dipus \u00c6gypticus,\u201d iii., 5.\n\n [949] From \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03c5\u03c9, to serve, to worship, to heal.\n\n [950] E. Pococke derives the name _Pythagoras_ from _Buddha_,\n and _guru_, a spiritual teacher. Higgins makes it\n Celtic, and says that it means an observer of the stars.\n See \u201cCeltic Druids.\u201d If, however, we derive the word\n _Pytho_ from \u05e4\u05ea\u05d4, _petah_, the name would signify an\n expounder of oracles, and Buddha guru a teacher of the\n doctrines of Buddha.\n\n [951] In the Secret Museum of Naples, there is a marble\n bas-relief representing the _Fall of Man_, in which _God\n the Father plays the part of the Beguiling Serpent_.\n\n [952] First Epistle to the Corinthians, x. 11.: \u201cAll these\n things happened unto them for _types_.\u201d\n\n [953] Epistle to the Galatians, iv. 24: \u201cIt is written that\n Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other\n by a freewoman ... which things are an allegory.\u201d\n\n [954] See \u201cJob,\u201d by various translators, and compare the\n different texts.\n\n [955] See Kerr Porter\u2019s \u201cPersia,\u201d vol. i., plates 17, 41.\n\n [956] The expression \u201cof the kindred of Ram\u201d denotes that he\n was an Aram\u00e6an or Syrian from Mesopotamia. Buz was a son\n of Nahor. \u201cElihu son of Barachel\u201d is susceptible of two\n translations. Eli-Hu--God is, or Hoa is God; and\n Barach-Al--the worshipper of God, or Bar-Rachel, the son\n of Rachel, or son of the ewe.\n\n [957] xxxvi. 24-27.\n\n [958] ix. 5-11.\n\n [959] xxxviii. 1, _et passim_.\n\n [960] Job xxxviii. 35.\n\n [961] Ibid., xli. 8.\n\n [962] Ibid., xli. 34.\n\n [963] _Atum_, or At-ma, is the Concealed God, at once Phtha\n and Amon, Father and Son, Creator and thing created,\n Thought and Appearance, Father and Mother.\n\n [964] Molitor, Ennemoser, Henman, Pfaff, etc.\n\n [965] Schopheim: \u201cTraditions,\u201d p. 32.\n\n [966] W. Williams: \u201cPrimitive History;\u201d Dunlap: \u201cSpirit\n History of Man.\u201d\n\n [967] Plutarch: \u201cIsis and Osiris,\u201d p. 17.\n\n [968] \u201cSibylline Oracles,\u201d 760-788.\n\n [969] Euripides: \u201cBacch\u00e6.\u201d\n\n [970] We doubt the propriety of rendering \u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7, virgin.\n Demeter and Persephoneia were substantially the same\n divinity, as were Apollo and Esculapius. The scene of\n this adventure is laid in _Krete_ or _Koureteia_, where\n Zeus was chief god. It was, doubtless, _Keres_ or\n Demeter that is intended. She was also named \u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1,\n which is the same as \u03ba\u03c9\u03c1\u03b7. As she was the goddess of the\n Mysteries, she was fittest for the place as consort of\n the Serpent-God and mother of Zagreus.\n\n [971] Pococke considers Zeus a grand lama, or chief Jaina,\n and Kore-Persephone, or Kuru-Parasu-pani. Zagreus, is\n _Chakras_, the wheel, or circle, the earth, the ruler of\n the world. He was killed by the Titans, or Teith-ans\n (Daityas). The Horns or crescent was a badge of Lamaic\n sovereignty.\n\n [972] Nonnus: \u201cDionysiacs.\u201d\n\n [973] See Deane\u2019s \u201cSerpent Worship,\u201d pp. 89, 90.\n\n [974] Creuzer: \u201cSymbol.,\u201d vol. i., p. 341.\n\n [975] The Dragon is the _sun_, the generative principle--\n Jupiter-Zeus; and Jupiter is called the \u201cHoly Spirit\u201d by\n the Egyptians, says Plutarch, \u201cDe Iside,\u201d xxxvi.\n\n [976] In the original it stands _\u00c6ons_ (emanations). In the\n translation it stands _worlds_. It was not to be\n expected that, after anathematizing the doctrine of\n emanations, the Church would refrain from erasing the\n original word, which clashed diametrically with her\n newly-enforced dogma of the Trinity.\n\n [977] See Dean\u2019s \u201cSerpent Worship,\u201d p. 145.\n\n [978] Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 3.\n\n [979] See Dunlap\u2019s \u201cSpirit History of Man,\u201d the chapter on\n \u201cthe Logos, the Only Begotten and the King.\u201d\n\n [980] Translated by Buckley.\n\n [981] \u201cSelect Works on Sacrifice.\u201d\n\n [982] Typhon is called by Plutarch and Sanchoniathon,\n \u201cTuphon, the _red_-skinned.\u201d Plutarch: \u201cIsis and\n Osiris,\u201d xxi.-xxvi.\n\n [983] \u201cConflict between Religion and Science,\u201d p. 269.\n\n [984] Rahu and Kehetty are the two fixed stars which form\n the head and tail of the constellation of the Dragon.\n\n [985] E. Upham: \u201cThe Mah\u00e2vansi, etc.,\u201d p. 54, for the\n answer given by the chief-priest of Mulgirs Galle\n Vihari, named Sue Bandare Metankere Samanere\n Samayahanse, to a Dutch Governor in 1766.\n\n [986] We leave it to the learned arch\u00e6ologists and philologists\n to decide how the _Naga_ or Serpent worship could travel\n from Kashmir to Mexico and become the Narg\u00e2l worship,\n which is also a Serpent worship, and a doctrine of\n lycanthropy.\n\n [987] Michael, the chief of the \u00c6ons, is also \u201cGabriel, the\n messenger of Life,\u201d of the Nazarenes, and the Hindu\n Indra, the chief of the good Spirits, who vanquished\n Vasouki, the Demon who rebelled against Brahma.\n\n [988] See the Gnostic amulet called the \u201cChnuphis-Serpent,\u201d\n in the act of raising its head crowned with the _seven\n vowels_, which is the kabalistic symbol for signifying\n the \u201cgift of speech to man,\u201d or _Logos_.\n\n [989] \u201cTamas, the Vedas.\u201d\n\n [990] Thomas Aquinas: \u201cSomma,\u201d ii., 94 Art. 4.\n\n [991] See des Mousseaux; see various other Demonographers;\n the different \u201cTrials of Witches,\u201d the depositions of\n the latter exacted by torture, etc. In our humble\n opinion, the Devil must have contracted this\n disagreeable smell and his habits of uncleanliness in\n company with medi\u00e6val monks. Many of these saints\n boasted of having never washed themselves! \u201cTo strip\n one\u2019s self for the sake of _vain_ cleanliness, is to sin\n in the eyes of God,\u201d says Sprenger, in the \u201cWitches\u2019\n Hammer.\u201d Hermits and monks \u201cdreaded all cleansing as so\n much defilement. There was no bathing for a thousand\n years!\u201d exclaims Michelet in his \u201cSorci\u00e8re.\u201d Why such an\n outcry against Hindu fakirs in such a case? These, if\n they keep dirty, besmear themselves only after washing,\n for their religion commands them to wash every morning,\n and sometimes several times a day.\n\n [992] Lermontoff, the great Russian poet, author of the \u201cDemon.\u201d\n\n [993] \u201cLes Hauts Ph\u00e9nomenes de la Magie,\u201d p. 379.\n\n [994] \u201cMovers,\u201d p. 109.\n\n [995] Hercules is of Hindu origin.\n\n [996] The same as the Egyptian _Kneph_, and the Gnostic Ophis.\n\n [997] \u201cSerpent Worship,\u201d p. 145.\n\n [998] \u201cMovers,\u201d p. 397. Azazel and Samael are identical.\n\n [999] Saturn is Bel-Moloch and even Hercules and Siva. Both\n of the latter are _Harakala_, or gods of the war, of the\n battle, or the \u201cLords of Hosts.\u201d Jehovah is called \u201ca\n man of war\u201d in Exodus xv. 3. \u201cThe Lord of Hosts is his\n name\u201d (Isaiah li. 15), and David blesses him for\n teaching his \u201chands to war and his fingers to fight\u201d\n (Psalms cxliv. 1). Saturn is also the Sun, and Movers\n says that \u201cKronos Saturn was called by the Ph\u0153nicians\n _Israel_ (130). Philo says the same (in Euseb., p. 44).\n\n [1000] \u201cBlessed be Iahoh, Alahim, Alahi, _Israel_\u201d (Psalm\n lxxii.).\n\n [1001] Hardy\u2019s \u201cManual of Buddhism,\u201d p. 60.\n\n [1002] Cousin: \u201cLect. on Mod. Phil.,\u201d vol. i., p. 404.\n\n [1003] Movers, Duncker, Higgins, and others.\n\n [1004] \u201cH\u00e6res,\u201d xxxiv; \u201cGnostics,\u201d p. 53.\n\n [1005] Wine was first made _sacred_ in the mysteries of Bacchus.\n Payne Knight believes--erroneously we think--that wine\n was taken with the view to produce a false ecstasy\n through intoxication. It was held _sacred_, however, and\n the Christian Eucharist is certainly an imitation of the\n Pagan rite. Whether Mr. Knight was right or wrong, we\n regret to say that a Protestant clergyman, the Rev.\n Joseph Blanchard, of New York, was found drunk in one of\n the public squares on the night of Sunday, August 5,\n 1877, and lodged in prison. The published report says:\n \u201cThe prisoner said that he had been to church and taken\n a little too much of the communion wine!\u201d\n\n [1006] The initiatory rite typified a descent into the underworld.\n Bacchus, Herakles, Orpheus, and Asklepius all descended\n into hell and ascended thence the third day.\n\n [1007] King\u2019s \u201cHist. Apost. Creed,\u201d 8vo, p. 26.\n\n [1008] Justice Bailey\u2019s \u201cCommon Prayer,\u201d 1813, p. 9.\n\n [1009] \u201cApostle\u2019s Creed;\u201d \u201cApocryphal New Testament.\u201d\n\n [1010] \u201cOn the Creed,\u201d fol. 1676, p. 225.\n\n [1011] Lib. 1, c. 2; \u201cLib. de Princ.,\u201d in \u201cPro\u0153m. Advers.\n Praxeam,\u201d c. ii.\n\n [1012] \u201cDe Fide et Symbol.\u201d\n\n [1013] \u201cPreller:\u201d ii., p. 154.\n\n [1014] Nicodemus: \u201cApocryphal Gospel,\u201d translated from the\n Gospel published by Gryn\u00e6us, \u201cOrthodoxographa,\u201d vol. i.,\n tom. ii., p. 643.\n\n [1015] Euripides: \u201cHerakles,\u201d 807.\n\n [1016] \u201c\u00c6neid,\u201d viii., 274, ff.\n\n [1017] \u201cFrogs;\u201d see fragments given in \u201cSod, the Mystery of\n Adonis.\u201d\n\n [1018] See pages 180-187, 327.\n\n [1019] Aristophanes: \u201cFrogs.\u201d\n\n [1020] See Preface to \u201cHermas\u201d in the Apocryphal New Testament.\n\n [1021] In the \u201cLife of Buddha,\u201d of Bkah Hgyur (Thibetan text),\n we find the original of the episode given in the Gospel\n according to Luke. An old and holy ascetic, Rishi Asita,\n comes from afar to see the infant Buddha, instructed as\n he is of his birth and mission by supernatural visions.\n Having worshipped the little Gautama, the old saint\n bursts into tears, and upon being questioned upon the\n cause of his grief, answers: \u201cAfter becoming Buddha, he\n will help hundreds of thousands of millions of creatures\n to pass to the other shore of the ocean of life, and\n will lead them on forever to immortality. And I--I shall\n not behold this pearl of Buddhas! Cured of my illness, I\n shall not be freed by him from human passion! Great\n King! I am too old--that is why I weep, and why, in my\n sadness, I heave long sighs!\u201d\n\n It does not prevent the holy man, however, from\n delivering prophecies about the young Buddha, which,\n with a very slight difference, are of the same substance\n as those of Simeon about Jesus. While the latter calls\n the young Jesus \u201ca light for the revelation of the\n Gentiles and the glory of the people of Israel,\u201d the\n Buddhist prophet promises that the young prince will\n find himself clothed with the perfect and complete\n _enlightenment_ or \u201clight\u201d of Buddha, and will turn the\n wheel _of law_ as no one _ever did before him_. \u201cRgya\n Tcher Rol Pa;\u201d translated from the Thibetan text and\n revised on the original Sanscrit, _Lalitavistara_, by P.\n E. Foncaux. 1847. Vol. ii., pp. 106, 107.\n\n [1022] The sign of the cross--only a few days after the\n resurrection, and before the cross was ever thought\n of as a symbol!\n\n [1023] Payne Knight shows that \u201cfrom the time of the first\n King Menes, under whom all the country below Lake M\u0153ris\n was a bog (Herod., ii., 4), to that of the Persian\n invasion, when it was the garden of the world\u201d--between\n 11,000 and 12,000 years must have elapsed. (See \u201cAncient\n Art and Mythology;\u201d cli., R. Payne Knight, p. 108. Edit.\n by A. Wilder.)\n\n [1024] Seth or Sutech, \u201cRawlinson\u2019s History of Herodotus,\u201d\n book ii., appendix viii., 23.\n\n [1025] The fact is vouchsafed for by Epiphanius. See Hone:\n \u201cApocryphal New Testament;\u201d \u201cThe Gospel of the Birth of\n Mary.\u201d\n\n In his able article \u201cBacchus, the Prophet-God,\u201d\n Professor A. Wilder remarks that \u201cTacitus was misled\n into thinking that the Jews worshipped an ass, the\n symbol of Typhon or Seth, the Hyk-sos God. The Egyptian\n name of the ass was _eo_, the phonetic of Iao;\u201d and\n hence, probably, he adds, \u201ca symbol from that mere\n circumstance.\u201d We can hardly agree with this learned\n arch\u00e6ologist, for the idea that the Jews reverenced, for\n some mysterious reason, Typhon under his symbolical\n representation rests on more proof than one. And for one\n we find a passage in the \u201cGospel of Mary,\u201d is cited from\n Epiphanius, which corroborates the fact. It relates to\n the death of \u201cZacharias, the father of John the Baptist,\n murdered by Herod,\u201d says the Protevangelion. Epiphanius\n writes that the cause of the death of Zacharias was that\n upon seeing a vision in the temple he, through surprise,\n was willing to disclose it, but his mouth was stopped.\n That which he saw was at the time of his offering\n incense, and it was a man STANDING IN THE FORM OF AN\n ASS. When he was gone out, and had a mind to speak thus\n to the people, _Woe unto you, whom do ye worship?_ he\n who had appeared unto him in the temple took away the\n use of his speech. Afterward when he recovered it, and\n was able to speak, he declared this to the Jews, and\n they slew him. They (the Gnostics) add in this book,\n that on this very account the high priest was commanded\n by the law-giver (Moses) to carry little bells, that\n whensoever he went into the temple to sacrifice, he\n _whom they worshipped_, hearing the noise of the bells,\n might have time enough to hide himself, and not be\n caught in that ugly shape and figure\u201d (Epiph.).\n\n [1026] \u201cPhallism in Ancient Religions,\u201d by Staniland Wake and\n Westropp, p. 74.\n\n [1027] Hercules is also a god-fighter as well as Jacob-Israel.\n\n [1028] \u201cPhallism in Ancient Religions,\u201d p. 75.\n\n [1029] Antiochus Epiphanius found in 169 B.C. in the Jewish\n temple, a man kept there to be sacrificed. Apion:\n \u201cJoseph, contra Apion,\u201d ii., 8.\n\n [1030] The ox of Dionysus was sacrificed at the Bacchic Mysteries.\n See \u201cAnthon,\u201d p. 365.\n\n [1031] \u201cPaus.,\u201d 5, 16.\n\n [1032] Judges iv. 4.\n\n [1033] 2 Kings, xxii. 14.\n\n [1034] xiv. 2; xx. 16, 17.\n\n [1035] xxvii. 28, 29.\n\n [1036] The festival denominated Liberalia occurred on the\n seventeenth of March, now St. Patrick\u2019s Day. Thus\n Bacchus was also the patron saint of the Irish.\n\n [1037] Prof. A. Wilder: \u201cBacchus, the Prophet-God,\u201d in the June\n number (1877) of the \u201cEvolution, a Review of Polities,\n Religion, Science, Literature, and Art.\u201d\n\n [1038] \u201cEdinburgh Review,\u201d April, 1851, p. 411.\n\n [1039] \u201cIndian Sketches; or Life in the East,\u201d written for the\n \u201cCommercial Bulletin,\u201d of Boston.\n\n [1040] See chapter ii. of this vol., p. 110.\n\n [1041] It would be worth the trouble of an artist, while\n travelling around the world, to make a collection of the\n multitudinous varieties of Madonnas, Christs, saints,\n and martyrs as they appear in various costumes in\n different countries. They would furnish models for\n masquerade balls in aid of church charities!\n\n [1042] Even as we write, there comes from Earl Salisbury,\n Secretary of State for India, a report that the Madras\n famine is to be followed by one probably still more\n severe in Southern India, the very district where the\n heaviest tribute has been exacted by the Catholic\n missionaries for the expenses of the Church of Rome. The\n latter, unable to retaliate otherwise, despoils British\n subjects, and when famine comes as a consequence, makes\n the heretical British Government pay for it.\n\n [1043] \u201cAncient Faiths and Modern,\u201d p. 24.\n\n [1044] \u201cF\u00e9tichisme, Polyth\u00e9isme, Monoth\u00e9isme.\u201d\n\n [1045] \u201cOriental and Linguistic Studies,\u201d \u201cVedic Doctrine of a\n Future Life,\u201d by W. Dwight Whitney, Prof. of Sanscrit\n and Comparative Philology at Yale College.\n\n [1046] \u201cOriental and Linguistic Studies,\u201d p. 48.\n\n [1047] In his article on \u201cPaul, the Founder of Christianity,\u201d\n Professor A. Wilder, whose intuitions of truth are\n always clear, says: \u201cIn the person of _Aher_ we\n recognize the Apostle Paul. He appears to have been\n known by a variety of appellations. He was named _Saul_,\n evidently because of his vision of Paradise--Saul or\n _Sheol_ being the Hebrew name of the other world.\n _Paul_, which only means \u2018the little man,\u2019 was a species\n of nickname. _Aher_, or _other_, was an epithet in the\n Bible for persons outside of the Jewish polity, and was\n applied to him for having extended his ministry to the\n Gentiles. His real name was Elisha ben Abuiah.\u201d\n\n [1048] \u201cIn the \u2018Talmud\u2019 Jesus is called AUTU H-AIS, \u05d0\u05d5\u05ea\u05d5 \u05d4\u05d0\u05d9\u05e9,\n _that man_.\u201d--A. Wilder.\n\n [1049] See Moor\u2019s plates, 75, No. 3.\n\n [1050] Max M\u00fcller\u2019s estimate.\n\n [1051] Dr. Lundy: \u201cMonumental Christianity,\u201d p. 153.\n\n [1052] Buddhaghosa\u2019s \u201cParables,\u201d translated from the\n Burmese, by Col. H. T. Rogers, R. E.; with an\n introduction by M. M\u00fcller, containing \u201cDhammapada,\u201d\n 1870.\n\n [1053] Interpreter of the Consulate-General in Siam.\n\n [1054] \u201cAncient Faith and Modern,\u201d p. 162.\n\n [1055] Ibid.\n\n [1056] The words contained within quotation marks are Inman\u2019s.\n\n [1057] See vol. i. of this work, p. 319.\n\n [1058] p. 57.\n\n [1059] Matthew vii. 2.\n\n [1060] P. 25.\n\n [1061] See Draper\u2019s \u201cConflict between Religion and Science,\u201d\n p. 224.\n\n [1062] This is the doctrine of the Supralapsarians, who\n asserted that \u201cHe [God] _predestinated the fall of\n Adam_, with all its pernicious consequences, from all\n eternity, and that our first parents had no liberty from\n the beginning.\u201d\n\n It is also to this highly-moral doctrine that the\n Catholic world became indebted, in the eleventh century,\n for the institution of the Order known as the Carthusian\n monks. Bruno, its founder, was driven to the foundation\n of this monstrous Order by a circumstance well worthy of\n being recorded here, as it graphically illustrates this\n _divine_ predestination. A friend of Bruno, a French\n physician, famed far and wide for his extraordinary\n _piety_, _purity of morals_, and _charity_, died, and\n his body was watched by Bruno himself. Three days after\n his death, and as he was going to be buried, the pious\n physician suddenly sat up in his coffin and declared, in\n a loud and solemn voice, \u201cthat by the just judgment of\n God he was eternally damned.\u201d After which consoling\n message from beyond the \u201cdark river,\u201d he fell back and\n relapsed into death.\n\n In their turn, the Parsi theologians speak thus: \u201cIf any\n of you commit sin under the belief that he shall be\n saved by _somebody_, both the deceiver as well as the\n deceived shall be damned to the day of Rasta Kh\u00e9z....\n There is no Saviour. In the other world you shall\n receive the return according to your actions.... _Your\n Saviour is your deeds_ and God Himself.[1063]\n\n [1063] \u201cThe Modern Parsis,\u201d lecture by Max M\u00fcller, 1862.\n\n [1064] \u201cDe Isid. et Osir.,\u201d p. 380.\n\n [1065] Every tradition shows that Jesus was educated in Egypt\n and passed his infancy and youth with the Brotherhoods\n of the Essenes and other mystic communities.\n\n [1066] Bunsen found some records which show the language and\n religious worship of the Egyptians, for instance, not\n only existing at the opening of the old Empire, \u201cbut\n already so fully established and fixed as to receive\n _but a very slight development_ in the course of the\n old, middle, and modern Empires,\u201d and while this opening\n of the old Empire is placed by him beyond the Menes\n period, at least 4,000 years B.C., the origin of the\n ancient Hermetic prayers and hymns of the \u201cBook of the\n Dead,\u201d is assigned by Bunsen to the pre-Menite dynasty\n of Abydos (between 4,000 and 4,500 B.C.), thus showing\n that \u201cthe system of Osirian worship and mythology was\n already formed 3,000 years before the days of Moses.\u201d\n\n [1067] It was also called the \u201chook of attraction.\u201d Virgil\n terms it \u201cMystica vannus Iacchi,\u201d \u201cGeorgics,\u201d i., 166.\n\n [1068] In an Address to the Delegates of the Evangelical\n Alliance, New York, 1874, Mr. Peter Cooper, a Unitarian,\n and one of the noblest _practical_ Christians of the\n age, closes it with the following memorable language:\n \u201cIn that _last and final account_ it will be happy for\n us if we shall then find that our influence through life\n has tended to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and\n soothe the sorrows of those who were sick and in\n prison.\u201d Such words from a man who has given two million\n dollars in charity; educated four thousand young girls\n in useful arts, by which they gain a comfortable\n support; maintained a free public library, museum, and\n reading-room; classes for working people; public\n lectures by eminent scientists, open to all; and been\n foremost in all good works, throughout a long and\n blameless life, come with the noble force that marks the\n utterances of all benefactors of their kind. The deeds\n of Peter Cooper will cause posterity to treasure his\n golden sayings in its heart.\n\n [1069] \u201c_Aus dem Tibetischen \u00fcbersetzt und mit dem Originaltexte\n herausgegeben_,\u201d von S. J. Schmidt.\n\n [1070] \u201cBuddhism in Tibet,\u201d by Emil Schlagintweit, 1863, p. 213.\n\n [1071] \u201cEcclesiastical History,\u201d l. i., c. 13.\n\n [1072] Tathag\u00e2ta is Buddha, \u201che who walks in the footsteps of\n his predecessors;\u201d as _Bhagavat_--he is the _Lord_.\n\n [1073] We have the same legend about St. Veronica--as a pendant.\n\n [1074] \u201cIntroduction \u00e0 l\u2019Histoire du Buddhisme Indien,\u201d E.\n Burnouf, p. 341.\n\n [1075] Moses was a most notable practitioner of Hermetic\n Science. Bearing in mind that Moses (Asarsiph) is made\n to run away to the Land of Midian, and that he \u201csat down\n by a well\u201d (Exod. ii.), we find the following:\n\n The \u201cWell\u201d played a prominent part in the Mysteries of\n the Bacchic festivals. In the sacerdotal language of\n every country, it had the same significance. A well is\n \u201cthe fountain of salvation\u201d mentioned in _Isaiah_ (xii.\n 3). The water is the _male principle_ in its spiritual\n sense. In its physical relation in the allegory of\n creation, the water is chaos, and chaos is the female\n principle vivified by the Spirit of God--the male\n principle. In the \u201cKabala,\u201d _Zachar_ means \u201cmale;\u201d and\n the Jordan was called Zachar (\u201cUniversal History,\u201d vol.\n ii., p. 429). It is curious that the Father of St. John\n the Baptist, the Prophet of _Jordan_--Zacchar--should be\n called _Zachar-ias_. One of the names of Bacchus is\n _Zagreus_. The ceremony of pouring water on the shrine\n was sacred in the Osirian rites as well as in the Mosaic\n institutions. In the _Mishna_ it is said, \u201cThou shalt\n dwell in Succa and _pour out water_ seven, and the pipes\n six days\u201d (\u201cMishna Succah,\u201d p. 1). \u201cTake _virgin earth_\n ... and work up the _dust_ with _living_ WATER,\u201d\n prescribes the _Sohar_ (Introduction to \u201cSohar;\u201d\n \u201cKabbala Denudata,\u201d ii., pp. 220, 221). Only \u201cearth and\n water, according to Moses, can bring forth a _living\n soul_,\u201d quotes Cornelius Agrippa. The water of Bacchus\n was considered to impart the Holy _Pneuma_ to the\n initiate; and it washes off all sin by baptism through\n the Holy _Ghost_, with the Christians. The \u201cwell\u201d in the\n kabalistic sense, is the mysterious emblem of the\n _Secret Doctrine_. \u201cIf any man thirst, let him come\n _unto me and drink_,\u201d says Jesus (John vii.).\n\n Therefore, Moses the adept, is naturally enough\n represented sitting by a well. He is approached by the\n _seven_ daughters of the Kenite Priest of Midian coming\n to fill the troughs, _to water their father\u2019s flock_.\n Here we have seven again--the mystic number. In the\n present biblical allegory the daughters represent the\n _seven occult powers_. \u201cThe shepherds came and drove\n them (the seven daughters) away, but Moses stood up, and\n helped them, and watered their flock.\u201d The shepherds are\n shown, by some kabalistic interpreters, to represent the\n seven \u201cbadly-disposed Stellars\u201d of the Nazarenes; for in\n the old Samaritan text the number of these Shepherds is\n also said to be seven (see kabalistic books).\n\n Then Moses, who had conquered the seven _evil_ Powers,\n and won the friendship of the seven _occult_ and\n beneficent ones, is represented as living with the Reuel\n Priest of Midian, who invites \u201cthe Egyptian\u201d to eat\n bread, _i.e._, to partake of his wisdom. In the Bible\n the elders of Midian are known as great soothsayers and\n diviners. Finally, Reuel or Jethro, the initiator and\n instructor of Moses, gives him in marriage his daughter.\n This daughter is Zipporah, _i.e._, the esoteric Wisdom,\n the shining light of knowledge, for Siprah means the\n \u201cshining\u201d or \u201cresplendent,\u201d from the word \u201cSapar\u201d to\n shine. Sippara, in Chaldea, was the city of the \u201cSun.\u201d\n Thus Moses was initiated by the Midianite, or rather the\n Kenite, and thence the biblical allegory.\n\n [1076] Schmidt: \u201cDer Weise und der Thor,\u201d p. 37.\n\n [1077] \u201cRgya Tcher Rol. Pa.,\u201d \u201cHistory of Buddha Sakya-muni\u201d\n (Sanscrit), \u201cLalitavistara,\u201d vol. ii., pp. 90, 91.\n\n [1078] \u201cProtevangelion\u201d (ascribed to James), ch. xiii. and xiv.\n\n [1079] \u201cPali Buddhistical Annals,\u201d iii., p. 28; \u201cManual of\n Buddhism,\u201d 142. Hardy.\n\n [1080] \u201cGospel of the Infancy,\u201d chap. xx., xxi.; accepted by\n Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Jerome,\n and others. The same story, with the Hindu earmarks\n rubbed off to avoid detection, is found at Luke ii.,\n 46, 47.\n\n [1081] Alabaster: \u201cWheel of the Law,\u201d pp. 29, 34, 35, and 38.\n\n [1082] E. Upham: \u201cThe History and Doctrines of Buddhism,\u201d\n p. 135. Dr. Judson fell into this prodigious error by\n reason of his fanaticism. In his zeal to \u201csave souls,\u201d\n he refused to peruse the Burmese classics, lest his\n attention should be diverted thereby.\n\n [1083] \u201cIndian Antiquary,\u201d vol. ii., p. 81; \u201cBook of Ser Marco\n Polo,\u201d vol. i., p. 441.\n\n [1084] \u201cSsabismus,\u201d vol. i., p. 725.\n\n [1085] Murray\u2019s \u201cHistory of Discoveries in Asia.\u201d\n\n [1086] \u201cManual of Buddhism,\u201d p. 142.\n\n [1087] See Inman\u2019s \u201cAncient Pagan and Modern Christian\n Symbolism,\u201d p. 92.\n\n [1088] \u201cRgya. Tcher. Rol. Pa.,\u201d Bkah Hgyour (Thibetan version).\n\n [1089] Gospel according to Luke, i. 39-45.\n\n [1090] Didron: \u201cIconograph. Chr\u00e9tienne Histoire de Dieu.\u201d\n\n [1091] There are numerous works deduced immediately from the\n \u201cVedas,\u201d called the \u201cUpa-Ved.\u201d Four works are included\n under this denomination, namely, the \u201cAyus,\u201d\n \u201cGandharva,\u201d \u201cDhanus,\u201d and \u201cSth\u0101patya.\u201d The third\n \u201cUpaveda\u201d was composed by Viswamitra for the use of the\n Kshatriyas, the warrior caste.\n\n [1092] Bunsen\u2019s \u201cEgypt\u2019s Place in Universal History,\u201d vol. v.,\n p. 93.\n\n [1093] Alabaster; \u201cWheel of the Law,\u201d pp. 43-47.\n\n [1094] \u201cThe Debatable Land,\u201d p. 145.\n\n [1095] \u201cWe divide our zeal,\u201d says Dr. Henry More, \u201cagainst so\n many things that we fancy Popish, that we scarce reserve\n _a just share of detestation_ against what is truly so.\n Such are that gross, rank, and scandalous impossibility\n _of transubstantiation_, the various modes of fulsome\n idolatry and lying impostures, the uncertainty of their\n loyalty to their lawful sovereigns by their\n superstitious adhesion to the spiritual tyranny of the\n Pope, and that _barbarous and ferine cruelty against\n those_ that are not either such fools as to be persuaded\n to believe such things as they would obtrude upon men,\n or, are not so false to God and their own consciences,\n as, knowing better, yet to profess them\u201d (Postscript to\n \u201cGlanvill\u201d).\n\n [1096] Payne Knight believes that Ceres was not a personification\n of the brute matter which composed the earth, but of the\n female _productive principle_ supposed to pervade it,\n which, joined to the active, was held to be the cause of\n the organization and animation of its substance.... She\n is mentioned as the wife of the Omnipotent Father,\n \u00c6ther, or Jupiter (\u201cThe Symbolical Language of Ancient\n Art and Mythology,\u201d xxxvi.). Hence the words of Christ,\n \u201cit is the Spirit that quickeneth, _flesh profiteth\n nothing_,\u201d applied in their dual meaning to both\n spiritual and terrestrial things, to spirit and matter.\n\n Bacchus, as Dionysus, is of Indian origin. Cicero\n mentions him as a son of Thyon\u00e9 and Nisus. \u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03bd\u03c5\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2\n means the god Dis from Mount Nys in India. Bacchus,\n crowned with ivy, or _kissos_, is Christna, one of whose\n names was _Kissen_. Dionysus is pre\u00ebminently the deity\n on whom were centred all the hopes for future life; in\n short, he was the god who was expected to _liberate the\n souls of men_ from their prisons of flesh. Orpheus, the\n poet-Argonaut, is also said to have come on earth to\n purify the religion of its gross, and terrestrial\n anthropomorphism, he abolished human sacrifice and\n instituted a mystic theology based on pure spirituality.\n Cicero calls Orpheus a son of Bacchus. It is strange\n that both seem to have originally come from India. At\n least, as Dionysus Zagreus, Bacchus is of undoubted\n Hindu origin. Some writers deriving a curious analogy\n between the name of Orpheus and an old Greek term,\n \u1f40\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2, _dark or tawny-colored_, make him Hindu by\n connecting the term with his dusky Hindu complexion. See\n Voss, Heyne and Schneider on the Argonautis.\n\n [1097] \u201cVie de Jesus,\u201d p. 219.\n\n [1098] Ibid., p. 221.\n\n [1099] \u201cAnalysis of Religious Belief,\u201d vol. i., p. 467.\n\n [1100] See the \u201cGita,\u201d translated by Charles Wilkins, in 1785;\n and the \u201cBhagavad-Purana,\u201d containing the history of\n Christna, translated into French by Eug\u00e8ne Burnouf.\n 1840.\n\n [1101] Matthew vii. 21.\n\n [1102] \u201cOf the People of India,\u201d vol. i., p. 84.\n\n [1103] Or \u201cResearches into the Mysteries of Occultism;\u201d Boston,\n 1877, Edited by Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten.\n\n [1104] See \u201cStone Him to Death;\u201d \u201cSeptenary Institutions.\u201d\n Capt. James Riley, in his \u201cNarrative\u201d of his enslavement\n in Africa, relates like instances of great longevity on\n the Sahara Desert.\n\n [1105] Russian Armenia; one of the most ancient Christian\n convents.\n\n [1106] \u201cEgyptian Book of the Dead.\u201d The Hindus have seven\n upper and seven lower heavens. The seven mortal sins of\n the Christians have been borrowed from the Egyptian\n Books of Hermes with which Clement of Alexandria was so\n familiar.\n\n [1107] The atrocious custom subsequently introduced among the\n people, of sacrificing human victims, is a perverted\n copy of the Theurgic Mystery. The Pagan priests, who did\n not belong to the class of the hierophants, carried on\n for awhile this hideous rite, and it served to screen\n the genuine purpose. But the Grecian Herakles is\n represented as the adversary of human sacrifices and as\n slaying the men and monsters who offered them. Bunsen\n shows, by the very absence of any representation of\n human sacrifice on the oldest monuments, that this\n custom had been abolished in the old Empire, at the\n close of the seventh century after Menes; therefore,\n 3,000 years B.C., Iphiscrates had stopped the human\n sacrifices entirely among the Carthaginians. Diphilus\n ordered bulls to be substituted for human victims.\n Amosis forced the priests to replace the latter by\n figures of wax. On the other hand, for every stranger\n offered on the shrine of Diana by the inhabitants of the\n Tauric Chersonesus, the Inquisition and the Christian\n clergy can boast of a dozen of heretics offered on the\n altar of the \u201cmother of God,\u201d and her \u201cSon.\u201d And when\n did the Christians ever think of substituting either\n animals or wax-figures for living heretics, Jews, and\n witches? They burned these in effigy only when, through\n providential interference, the doomed victims had\n escaped their clutches.\n\n [1108] This is why Jesus recommends prayer in the solitude of\n one\u2019s closet. This secret prayer is but the _paravidya_\n of the Vedantic philosopher: \u201cHe who knows his soul\n (inner self) daily retires to the region of _Swarga_\n (the heavenly realm) in his own heart,\u201d says the\n _Brihad-Aranyaka_. The Vedantic philosopher recognizes\n the \u00c2tman, the spiritual _self_, as the sole and Supreme\n God.\n\n [1109] \u201cWheel of the Law,\u201d p. 54.\n\n [1110] A. Wilder: \u201cAncient and Modern Prophecy.\u201d\n\n [1111] While at _Petrovsk_ (Dhagestan, region of the Caucasus)\n we had the opportunity of witnessing another such\n _mystery_. It was owing to the kindness of Prince\n Melikoff, the governor-general of Dhagestan, living at\n Temerchan-Shoura, and especially of Prince Shamsoudine,\n the ex-reigning Shamchal of Tarchoff, a native Tartar,\n that during the summer of 1865 we assisted at this\n ceremonial from the safe distance of a sort of private\n box, constructed under the ceiling of the temporary\n building.\n\n [1112] Does not this afford us a point of comparison with the\n so-called \u201cmaterializing mediums?\u201d\n\n [1113] The Yezidis must number over 200,000 men altogether.\n The tribes which inhabit the Pashalik of Bagdad, and are\n scattered over the Sindjar mountains are the most\n dangerous, as well as the most hated for their evil\n practices. Their chief Sheik lives constantly near the\n tomb of their prophet and reformer Adi, but every tribe\n chooses its own sheik among the most learned in the\n \u201cblack art.\u201d This Adi or Ad is a mythic ancestor of\n theirs, and simply is, Adi--the God of wisdom or the\n Parsi Ab-ad the first ancestor of the human race, or\n again Adh-Buddha of the Hindus, anthropomorphized and\n degenerated.\n\n [1114] Within less than four months we have collected from the\n daily papers forty-seven cases of crime, ranging from\n drunkenness up to murder, committed by ecclesiastics in\n the United States only. By the end of the year our\n correspondents in the East will have valuable facts to\n offset missionary denunciations of \u201cheathen\u201d\n misdemeanors.\n\n [1115] \u201cEvolution,\u201d art. Paul, the Founder of Christianity.\n\n [1116] We find in Galatians iv. 4, the following: \u201cBut when the\n fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son,\n _made of a woman, made under the law_.\u201d\n\n [1117] The date has been fully established for these Pali Books\n in our own century; sufficiently so, at least, to show\n that they existed in Ceylon, 316 B.C., when Mahinda, the\n son of Asoka, was there (See Max M\u00fcller, \u201cChips, etc.,\u201d\n vol. i., on Buddhism).\n\n [1118] \u201cA New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam,\u201d by\n M. de la Loub\u00e8re, Envoy to Siam from France, 1687-8,\n chap. xxv., London; \u201cDiverse Observations to be Made in\n Preaching the Gospel to the Orientals.\u201d\n\n The Sieur de la Loub\u00e8re\u2019s report to the king was made,\n as we see, in 1687-8. How thoroughly his proposition to\n the Jesuits, to suppress and dissemble in preaching\n Christianity to the Siamese, met their approval, is\n shown in the passage elsewhere quoted from the Thesis\n propounded by the Jesuits of Caen (\u201cThesis propugnata in\n regio Soc. Jes. Collegio, celeberrim\u00e6 Academi\u00e6\n Cadoniensis, die Veneris, 30 Jan., 1693), to the\n following effect: \u201c... neither do the Fathers of the\n Society of Jesus dissemble _when they adopt the\n institute and the habit_ of the Talapoins of Siam.\u201d In\n five years the Ambassador\u2019s little lump of leaven had\n leavened the whole.\n\n [1119] In a discourse of Hermes with Thoth, the former says:\n \u201cIt is impossible for thought to rightly conceive of\n God.... One cannot describe, through material organs,\n that which is immaterial and eternal.... One is a\n perception of the spirit, the other a reality. That\n which can be perceived by our senses can be described in\n words; but that which is incorporeal, invisible,\n immaterial, and without form cannot be realized through\n our ordinary senses. I understand thus, O Thoth, I\n understand that God is ineffable.\u201d\n\n In the _Catechism of the Parsis_, as translated by M.\n Dadabhai Naoroji, we read the following:\n\n \u201cQ. What is the form of our God?\u201d\n\n \u201cA. Our God has neither face nor form, color nor shape,\n nor fixed place. There is no other like Him. He is\n Himself, singly such a glory that we cannot praise or\n describe Him; nor our mind comprehend Him.\u201d\n\n [1120] \u201cContemporary Review,\u201d p. 588, July, 1870.\n\n [1121] \u201cBook of Ser Marco Polo,\u201d vol. ii., pp. 304, 306.\n\n [1122] Ibid.\n\n [1123] Ibid.\n\n [1124] \u201cDec.,\u201d v., lib. vi., cap. 2.\n\n [1125] \u201cTravels in Tartary,\u201d etc., pp. 121, 122.\n\n [1126] \u201cBook of Ser Marco Polo,\u201d vol. ii., p. 340.\n\n [1127] His twenty or more volumes on Oriental subjects are\n indeed a curious conglomerate of truth and fiction. They\n contain a vast deal of fact about Indian traditions,\n philosophy and chronology, with most just views\n courageously expressed. But it seems as if the\n philosopher were constantly being overlaid by the\n romancist. It is as though two men were united in their\n authorship--one careful, serious, erudite, scholarly,\n the other a sensational and sensual French romancer, who\n judges of facts not as they are but as _he_ imagines\n them. His translations from _Manu_ are admirable; his\n controversial ability marked; his views of priestly\n morals unfair, and in the case of the Buddhists,\n positively slanderous. But in all the series of volumes\n there is not a line of dull reading; he has the eye of\n the artist, the pen of the poet of nature.\n\n [1128] Les Fils de Dieu. \u201cL\u2019Inde Brahmanique,\u201d p. 296.\n\n [1129] In its general sense, _Isvara_ means \u201cLord;\u201d but the\n Isvara of the mystic philosophers of India was\n understood precisely as the union and communion of men\n with the Deity of the Greek mystics. _Isvara-Parasada_\n means, literally, in Sanscrit, _grace_. Both of the\n \u201cMimansas,\u201d treating of the most abstruse questions,\n explain _Karma_ as merit, or the _efficacy of works_;\n Isvara-Parasada, as grace; and _Sradha_, as faith. The\n \u201cMimansas\u201d are the work of the two most celebrated\n theologians of India. The \u201cPourva-Mimansa\u201d was written\n by the philosopher Djeminy, and the \u201cOuttara-Mimansa\u201d\n (or Vedanta), by Richna Dvipayaa Vyasa, who collected\n the four \u201cVedas\u201d together. (See Sir William Jones,\n Colebrooke, and others.)\n\n [1130] Suetonius: \u201cAugust.\u201d\n\n [1131] Plutarch.\n\n [1132] \u201cPliny,\u201d xxx., pp. 2, 14.\n\n [1133] \u201cServius ad. \u00c6on,\u201d p. 71.\n\n [1134] Peary Chand Mittra: \u201cThe Psychology of the Aryas;\u201d\n \u201cHuman Nature,\u201d for March, 1877.\n\n [1135] The Boulogne (France) correspondent of an English\n journal says that he knows of a gentleman who has had an\n arm amputated at the shoulder, \u201cwho is certain that he\n has a spiritual arm, which he sees and actually feels\n with his other hand. He can touch anything, and even\n pull up things with the spiritual or phantom arm and\n hand.\u201d The party knows nothing of spiritualism. We give\n this as we get it, without verification, but it merely\n corroborates what we have seen in the case of an Eastern\n adept. This eminent scholar and practical kabalist can\n at will project his astral arm, and with the hand take\n up, move, and carry objects, even at a considerable\n distance from where he may be sitting or standing. We\n have often seen him thus minister to the wants of a\n favorite elephant.\n\n [1136] Answer to a question at \u201cThe National Association of\n Spiritualists,\u201d May 14th, 1877.\n\n [1137] \u201cA Buddhist\u2019s Opinions of the Spiritual States.\u201d\n\n [1138] See the \u201cLondon Spiritualist,\u201d May 25, 1877, p. 246.\n\n [1139] See Coleman\u2019s \u201cHindu Mythology.\u201d\n\n [1140] Russian subjects are not allowed to cross the Tartar\n territory, neither the subjects of the Emperor of\n China to go to the Russian factories.\n\n [1141] These are the representatives of the Buddhist Trinity,\n Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, or Fo, Fa, and Sengh, as\n they are called in Thibet.\n\n [1142] A Bikshu is not allowed to accept anything directly even\n from laymen of his own people, least of all from a\n foreigner. The slightest contact with the body and even\n dress of a person not belonging to their special\n community is carefully avoided. Thus even the offerings\n brought by us and which comprised pieces of red and\n yellow _pou-lou_, a sort of woollen fabric the lamas\n generally wear, had to pass through strange ceremonies.\n They are forbidden, 1, to ask or beg for anything--even\n were they starving--having to wait until it is\n voluntarily offered; 2, to touch either gold or silver\n with their hands; 3, to eat a morsel of food, even when\n presented, unless the donor distinctly says to the\n disciple, \u201cThis is for your master to _eat_.\u201d Thereupon,\n the disciple turning to the _pazen_ has to offer the\n food in his turn, and when he has said, \u201cMaster, this is\n allowed; take and eat,\u201d then only can the lama take it\n with the right hand, and partake of it. All our\n offerings had to pass through such purifications. When\n the silver pieces, and a few handfuls of annas (a coin\n equal to four cents) were at different occasions offered\n to the community, a disciple first wrapped his hand in a\n yellow handkerchief, and receiving it on his palm,\n conveyed the sum immediately into the _Badir_, called\n elsewhere _Saba\u00eft_, a sacred basin, generally wooden,\n kept for offerings.\n\n [1143] These stones are highly venerated among Lamaists and\n Buddhists; the throne and sceptre of Buddha are\n ornamented with them, and the Taley Lama wears one on\n the fourth finger of the right hand. They are found in\n the Altai Mountains, and near the river Yarkuh. Our\n talisman was a gift from the venerable high-priest, a\n _Heiloung_, of a Kalmuck tribe. Though treated as\n apostates from their primitive Lamaism, these nomads\n maintain friendly intercourse with their brother\n Kalmucks, the Chokhots of Eastern Thibet and Kokonor,\n but even with the Lamaists of Lha-Ssa. The\n ecclesiastical authorities however, will have no\n relations with them. We have had abundant opportunities\n to become acquainted with this interesting people of the\n Astrakhan Steppes, having lived in their _Kibitkas_ in\n our early years, and partaken of the lavish hospitality\n of the Prince Tumene, their late chief, and his\n Princess. In their religious ceremonies, the Kalmucks\n employ trumpets made from the thigh and arm bones of\n deceased rulers and high priests.\n\n [1144] The Buddhist Kalmucks of the Astrakhan steppes are\n accustomed to make their idols out of the cremated ashes\n of their princes and priests. A relative of the author\n has in her collection several small pyramids composed of\n the ashes of eminent Kalmucks and presented to her by\n the Prince Tumene himself in 1836.\n\n [1145] The sacred fan used by the chief priests instead of an\n umbrella.\n\n [1146] See vol. i., p. 476.\n\n [1147] See his \u201cLectures on Sound.\u201d\n\n [1148] From the compound word s\u00fbtra, maxim or precept, and\n antika, close or near.\n\n [1149] It sounds like injustice to As\u00f4ka to compare him with\n Constantine, as is done by several Orientalists. If, in\n the religious and political sense, As\u00f4ka did for India\n what Constantine is alleged to have achieved for the\n Western World, all similarity stops there.\n\n [1150] See \u201cIndian Sketches;\u201d Appleton\u2019s \u201cNew Cyclopedia,\u201d etc.\n\n [1151] _Aum_ (mystic Sanscrit term of the Trinity), _mani_\n (holy jewel), _padm\u00e9_ (_in_ the lotus, padma being the\n name for lotus), _houm_ (be it so). The six syllables in\n the sentence correspond to the six chief powers of\n nature emanating from Buddha (the abstract deity, not\n Gautama), who is the _seventh_, and the Alpha and Omega\n of being.\n\n [1152] Moru (the pure) is one of the most famous lamaseries of\n Lha-Ssa, directly in the centre of the city. There the\n Shaberon, the Taley Lama, resides the greater portion of\n the winter months; during two or three months of the\n warm season his abode is at Foht-lla. At Moru is the\n largest typographical establishment of the country.\n\n [1153] The Buddhist great canon, containing 1,083 works in\n several hundred volumes, many of which treat of magic.\n\n [1154] \u201cCrawfurd\u2019s Mission to Siam,\u201d p. 182.\n\n [1155] \u201cSemedo,\u201d vol. iii., p. 114.\n\n [1156] There was an anecdote current among Daguerre\u2019s friends\n between 1838 and 1840. At an evening party, Madame\n Daguerre, some two months previous to the introduction\n of the celebrated Daguerrean process to the _Acad\u00e9mie\n des Sciences_, by Arago (January, 1839), had an earnest\n consultation with one of the medical celebrities of the\n day about her husband\u2019s mental condition. After\n explaining to the physician the numerous symptoms of\n what she believed to be her husband\u2019s mental aberration,\n she added, with tears in her eyes, that the greatest\n proof to her of Daguerre\u2019s insanity was his firm\n conviction that he would succeed in nailing his own\n shadow to the wall, or fixing it on _magical_ metallic\n plates. The physician listened to the intelligence very\n attentively, and answered that he had himself observed\n in Daguerre lately the strongest symptoms of what, to\n his mind, was an undeniable proof of madness. He closed\n the conversation by firmly advising her to send her\n husband quietly and without delay to Bic\u00e9tre, the\n well-known lunatic asylum. Two months later a profound\n interest was created in the world of art and science by\n the exhibition of a number of pictures taken by the new\n process. The _shadows_ were fixed, after all, upon\n metallic plates, and the \u201clunatic\u201d proclaimed the father\n of photography.\n\n [1157] Schott: \u201c\u00dcber den Buddhismus,\u201d p. 71.\n\n [1158] \u201cThe Book of Ser Marco Polo,\u201d vol. ii., p. 352.\n\n [1159] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 130, quoted by Col. Yule in vol. ii.,\n p. 353.\n\n [1160] No country in the world can boast of more medicinal\n plants than Southern India, Cochin, Burmah, Siam, and\n Ceylon. European physicians--according to time-honored\n practice--settle the case of professional rivalship, by\n treating the native doctors as quacks and empirics; but\n this does not prevent the latter from being often\n successful in cases in which eminent graduates of\n British and French schools of Medicine have signally\n failed. Native works on Materia Medica do not certainly\n contain the secret remedies known, and successfully\n applied by the native doctors (the Atibb\u0101), from time\n immemorial; and yet the best febrifuges have been\n learned by British physicians from the Hindus, and where\n patients, deafened and swollen by abuse of quinine, were\n slowly dying of fever under the treatment of enlightened\n physicians, the bark of the Margosa, and the Chiretta\n herb have cured them completely, and these now occupy an\n honorable place among European drugs.\n\n [1161] The Hindu appellation for the peculiar mantr\u00e2m or charm\n which prevents the serpent from biting.\n\n [1162] Between the bells of the \u201cheathen\u201d worshippers, and the\n bells and pomegranates of the Jewish worship, the\n difference is this: the former, besides purifying the\n soul of man with their harmonious tones, kept _evil_\n demons at a distance, \u201cfor the sound of pure bronze\n breaks the enchantment,\u201d says Tibullius (i., 8-22), and\n the latter explained it by saying that the sound of the\n bells \u201cshould be heard [by the Lord] when he [the\n priest] goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord,\n and when he goeth out, _that he die not_\u201d (Exodus\n xxviii. 33; Eccles. xiv. 9). Thus, one sound served to\n keep away _evil_ spirits, and the other, the Spirit of\n Jehovah. The Scandinavian traditions affirm that the\n Trolls were always driven from their abodes by the bells\n of the churches. A similar tradition is in existence in\n relation to the fairies of Great Britain.\n\n [1163] An elemental d\u00e6mon, in which every native of Asia believes.\n\n [1164] Lady, or Madam, in Moldavian.\n\n [1165] The hour in Bucharest corresponded perfectly with that\n of the country in which the scene had taken place.\n\n [1166] Capt. W. L. D. O\u2019Grady: \u201cLife in India.\u201d\n\n [1167] Neither Russia nor England succeeded in 1849 in forcing\n them to recognize and respect the Turkish from the\n Persian territory.\n\n [1168] Persepolis is the Persian Istakh\u00e2ar, northeast of\n Shiraz; it stood on a plain now called Merdusht. At the\n confluence of the ancient Medus and the Araxes, now\n Pulw\u00e2n and Bend-emir.\n\n [1169] \u201c\u00c6gyptiaci Theatrum Hierogliphicum,\u201d p. 544.\n\n [1170] We have twice assisted at the strange rites of the\n remnants of that sect of fire-worshippers known as the\n Guebres, who assemble from time to time at Baku, on the\n \u201cfield of fire.\u201d This ancient and mysterious town is\n situated near the Caspian Sea. It belongs to Russian\n Georgia. About twelve miles northeast from Baku stands\n the remnant of an ancient Guebre temple, consisting of\n four columns, from whose empty orifices issue constantly\n jets of flame, which gives it, therefore, the name of\n Temple of the Perpetual Fire. The whole region is\n covered with lakes and springs of naphtha. Pilgrims\n assemble there from distant parts of Asia, and a\n priesthood, worshipping the divine principle of fire, is\n kept by some tribes, scattered hither and thither about\n the country.\n\n [1171] Baad\u00e9y-ku-Ba--literally \u201ca gathering of winds.\u201d\n\n [1172] See also \u201cMagic and Mesmerism,\u201d a novel reprinted by the\n Harpers, thirty years ago.\n\n\n\n\n INDEX.\n\n\n\n\n INDEX.\n\n\n Abarbanel, his explanation of the sign of the coming of the Messiah,\n ii. 256\n\n Abracadabra, diabolical, evoked anew, ii. 4\n\n Abraham, his history, ii. 217;\n belongs to the universal mythology, ii. 216;\n _Zeruan_, _ib._;\n Isaac, and Judah, from Brahma, Ikshwaka and Yada, ii. 488;\n and his sons, the story an allegory, ii. 493\n\n Abraiaman, or charmers of fishes and wild beasts in Ceylon, i. 606\n\n Absolution and penance authorized in the Church of England, ii. 544\n\n Absorbed, a state of intimate union, ii. 117\n\n Abuses of magic denounced by the ancients, ii. 97, 99\n\n Abydos, a pre-Menite dynasty, ii. 361\n\n Academicians, French, i. 60;\n reject theurgical magic, i. 281\n\n Academy, French, indignant at the charge of Satanism, i. 101;\n rejected mesmerism, i. 165, 171;\n Committee of 1784, i. 171;\n Committee of 1826, i. 173\n\n Acari, produced by chemical experiments, i. 465\n\n Accuser of Souls at the judgment, ii. 487\n\n Acher (Paul) in the garden of delights, ii. 119;\n \u201cmade depredations,\u201d _ib._\n\n Actions guided by spiritual beings, i. 366\n\n Ad, its meaning, i. 579\n\n Adah, her sons from the Euxine to Kashmere, i. 579\n\n Ad-Am, only-begotten, i. 579\n\n Adam (\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2), Divine essence emanating from,\n i. 1;\n the primitive man, i. 2;\n the second, i. 297;\n the same as the \u201cgods,\u201d or Elohim, i. 299;\n of dust, i. 302;\n Kadmon, androgynous, i. 297;\n the first man evolved, _ib._;\n same as the Logos, Prometheus, Pimander, Hermes, and Herakles, i.\n 298;\n of Eden, eat without initiation of the Tree of Knowledge or secret\n doctrine, i. 575;\n invested with the _chitun_, or coat of skin, _ib._;\n the fall, not personal transgression, but a law of dual evolution,\n ii. 277;\n conducted from Hell, ii. 517;\n same as Tamuz, Adonis, and Helios, _ib._;\n sends Seth on an errand to paradise, ii. 520;\n Kadmon, ii. 36;\n Kadmon, i. 93;\n Kadmon, the first race of men his emanations, ii. 276;\n Primus, the Microprosopus, ii. 452\n\n Adamic Earth, i. 51\n\n Adamite, the third race, produced by two races, i. 305\n\n Adanari, the Hindu goddess, ii. 451, 453\n\n Adar-gat, Aster\u2019t, etc., the _Magna Mater_, i. 579\n\n Adept, the first self-made, ii. 317;\n of the highest order, may live indefinitely, ii. 563;\n of the seventh rite, ii. 564\n\n Adepts few, i. 17;\n in Paris and elsewhere ii. 403;\n \u201ctravellers,\u201d _ib._\n\n Adhima and Heva, created by Siva, and ancestors of the present race,\n i. 590\n\n A\u2019di Buddha, the Unknown, ii. 156;\n the father of the Yezidis, ii. 571\n\n Adima and Heva, in the prophecies of Ramatsariar, i. 579\n\n Adonai or Adamites, i. 303\n\n Adonim, i. 301\n\n Adonis, his rites celebrated in the grotto at Bethlehem, ii. 139\n\n Adonis-worship, at the Jordan, ii. 181\n\n Adrian supposed the Christians to worship Serapis, ii. 336\n\n \u00c6bel-Zivo, the Metatron, or Anointed spirit, ii. 154; ii. 236, 247;\n the same as the Angel Gabriel, ii. 247\n\n \u00c6neas drives away ghosts with his sword, i. 362, 363\n\n \u00c6ons, or genii, i. 300\n\n A\u00ebrolites, used in the Mysteries, i. 282;\n in the tower of Belos, ii. 331;\n used to develop prophetic power, _ib._\n\n \u00c6ther, i. 56;\n in that form the Deity pervading all, i. 129;\n the primordial chaos, i. 134;\n the spirit of cosmic matter, i. 156;\n deified, i. 158;\n source whence all things come and whither they will return, i. 189;\n the fifth element, i. 342;\n a medium between this world and the other, _ib._;\n the Breath of the Father, the Holy Ghost, ii. 50\n\n \u00c6thiopia, east of Babylonia, ii. 434\n\n \u00c6thiopians from the Indus, who settled near Egypt, probably Jews, i.\n 567;\n originally an Indian race, ii. 437;\n law of inheritance by the mother, _ib._\n\n Affinity of soul for body, i. 344;\n acknowledged between the _Syllabus_ and the _Koran_, ii. 82\n\n Afrasiah, the King of Assyria, i. 575\n\n Africa, phantoms appearing in the desert, i. 604\n\n Afrits, i. 141;\n nature-spirits, Shedim, demons, i. 313;\n studying antediluvian literature, ii. 29\n\n Agassiz, Prof. L., unfairness of, i. 63;\n his argument in favor of the immortality of all orders of living\n beings, i. 420\n\n Agathodaimon and Kakothodaimon, i. 133\n\n Agathad\u00e6mon, the serpent on a pole, ii. 512\n\n Age of paper, i. 535\n\n Aged of the aged, ii. 244\n\n Ages, golden, silver, copper and iron, no fiction, i. 34;\n or Aions, ii. 144\n\n Agni, the sun-god and fire-god, i. 270\n\n Agrippa, Cornelius, i. 167, 200;\n his remarks on the marvellous power of the human soul, i. 280\n\n Ahab and his sons encouraged by the prophets, ii. 525\n\n Ahaz, his family deposed, ii. 440\n\n Ahijah the prophet instigates Jeroboam to revolt against Solomon, ii.\n 439\n\n Ahriman, his contest with Ormazd, ii. 237;\n to be purified in the fiery lake, ii. 238\n\n Aij-Ta\u00efon, the Supreme God of the Yakuts of Siberia, ii. 568\n\n Ain-Soph, ii. 210\n\n Ajunta, Buddhistic caverns of, i. 349\n\n Ak\u00e2sa, or life-principle, i. 113;\n known to Hindu magicians, _ib._;\n same as Arch\u00e6us, i. 125;\n a designation of astral and celestial lights combined, forming\n the _anima mundi_, and constituting the soul and spirit of man,\n i. 139;\n the will, i. 144\n\n Ak-Ad or Akkad, meaning suggested, i. 579\n\n Akkadians, introduced the worship of Bel or Baal, i. 263;\n progenitors and Aryan instructors of the Chaldeans, i. 576;\n never a Turanian tribe, _ib._;\n a tribe of Hindus, _ib._;\n from Armenia, perhaps from Ceylon, i. 578;\n invented by Lenormant, ii. 423\n\n Akiba in the garden of delights, ii. 119\n\n Aksakof, i. 41, 46; protests against the decision of Prof.\n Mendeleyeff and commission adverse to mediumism, i. 118\n\n Alba petra, or white stone of initiation, ii. 351\n\n Alberico and not Amerigo, the name of Vespucius or Vespuzio, i. 591\n\n Albertus Magnus, ii. 20\n\n Albigenses, descendants of the Gnostics, ii. 502\n\n Albumazar on the identity of the myths, ii. 489\n\n Alchemical principles, i. 191\n\n Alchemists, i. 66, 205\n\n Alchemy, universally studied, i. 502;\n old as tradition, i. 503;\n books destroyed by Diocletian, the Roman Emperor, _ib._\n\n Alchemy and magic prevalent among the clergy, ii. 57\n\n Aleim or Eloim, gods or powers, also priests, i. 575\n\n Alexander of Macedonia, his expedition into India doubtful, ii. 429\n\n Alexandrian library, the most precious rolls preserved, ii. 27;\n learned Copts do not believe it destroyed, ii. 28;\n obtained from the Asiatics, _ib._;\n school, derived the soul from the ether or world-soul, i. 316.\n\n Algebra, i. 536\n\n Alkahest, i. 50;\n the universal solvent clear water, i. 133;\n overlooked by the French Academy, i. 165;\n explained by Van Helmont and Paracelsus, i. 191\n\n Allegory, becomes sacred history, ii. 406;\n reserved for the inner sanctuary, ii. 493\n\n Alligators do not disturb fakirs, i. 383\n\n Allopathists in medicine enemies to psychology, i. 88;\n oppose everything till stamped as regular, _ib._;\n oppose discoveries, _ib._\n\n All things formed after the model, i. 302\n\n \u201cAlmighty, the Nebulous,\u201d i. 129\n\n Al-om-jah, an Egyptian hierophant, ii. 364\n\n Alsatians believe Paracelsus to be only sleeping in his grave, ii. 500\n\n Amasis, King of Egypt, sends a linen garment to Lindus, i. 536\n\n Amazons, their circle-dance in Palestine, ii. 45\n\n Amberley, Viscount, regards Jesus as an iconoclastic idealist, ii.\n 562;\n looks down upon the social plane indicated by the great Sopher,\n _ib._\n\n Amenthes, or Amenti, has no blazing hell, ii. 11\n\n Americ, or great mountain, the name of a range in Central America\n visited by Columbus, i. 592\n\n America, Central, lost cities, i. 239;\n not named from Vespucius, i. 591;\n name found in Nicaragua, i. 592;\n first applied to the continent in 1522, _ib._;\n Markland, _ib._;\n note of A. Wilder, _ib._;\n the conservatory of spiritual sensitives, ii. 19\n\n American lodges know nothing of esoteric Masonry, ii. 376;\n templarism, its three degrees, ii. 383\n\n Americans to join the Catholic Church, ii. 379\n\n Amita or Buddha, his realm, i. 601\n\n Ammonius Sakkas, i. 443;\n dated his philosophy from Hermes, ii. 342\n\n Amrita, the supreme soul, i. 265\n\n Amulet, a soldier made proof by one against bullets, i. 378\n\n Amulets and relics, spells and phylacteries, ii. 352\n\n Amun, i. 262\n\n An, spirits of, ii. 387\n\n An\u00e6sthesia, its discovery by Wells, i. 539;\n the improvements by Morton, Simpson, and Colton, i. 540;\n understood by the Egyptians and Brahmans, _ib._\n\n Anahit, the earth, i. 11\n\n Anathems, a custom original with Christians, ii. 334\n\n Anaxagoras, belief concerning spiritual prototypes, i. 158\n\n Anaximenes held the doctrine of evolution or development, i. 238\n\n Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite a Jesuitical product, ii. 390\n\n Ancient Philosophies, based on the doctrine of God the universal mind\n diffused throughout nature, i. 289;\n books written symbolically, i. 19;\n of the ancient, i. 302;\n Code of Manu, not in our possession, i. 585, 586;\n landmarks of Masonry departed from, ii. 380;\n mysteries hidden only from the profane, ii. 121;\n religions, the wisdom or doctrine, their basis, ii. 99;\n identical as to their secret meaning, ii. 410;\n derived from one primitive worship, ii. 412;\n word, note of Emanuel Swedenborg, ii. 470;\n in Buddhistic Tartary, ii. 471\n\n Ancients, monotheistical before Moses, i. 23;\n knew certain sciences better than modern savants, i. 25;\n regarded the physical sun as only an emblem, i. 270;\n practiced psychometry, i. 331;\n their religion that of the future, i. 613\n\n Anderson, author of the Constitutions of 1723 and 1738, a Masonic\n impostor, ii. 389;\n Steve, his spiritual advisers anxious for his speedy execution lest\n he should fall from grace, ii. 543\n\n Angelo, Michel, his remarkable gem, i. 240\n\n Angkor, figures purely archaic, i. 567\n\n Anglican Church adopting again the Roman usages, ii. 544\n\n Anima, i. 37\n\n Anima Mundi, or world-soul, i. 56, 258;\n same as Nirvana, i. 291;\n feminine with the Gnostics and Nazarenes, i. 300;\n bi-sexual, i. 301;\n same as the astral light, _ib._;\n an igneous, ethereal nature, i. 316, 317;\n the human soul born upon leaving, i. 345\n\n Animals, perhaps immortal, argument of Agassiz, i. 420, 427;\n argument from natural instinct, i. 426, 427;\n shut up in the ark, ii. 447\n\n Animation, suspended, i. 483;\n voluntarily, _ib._;\n in cataleptic clairvoyance, i. 489\n\n Anna, St., going in quest of her daughter Mary, ii. 491;\n the origin of the name, _ib._\n\n Annas and Caiaphas confess Jesus to be the Son of God, ii. 522\n\n Annihilation, the meaning of the Buddhist doctrine, i. 290;\n of the soul, i. 319\n\n Annoia, ii. 282, 286\n\n Anthesteria, the baptism and passage through the gate, ii. 245, 246\n\n Anthropomorphic devil the bottom card, ii. 479\n\n Anti-Christ, a fable invented as a precaution, ii. 535\n\n Antichristianism, seeking to overthrow Christianity by science, i. 337\n\n Anti-Masonic Convention denying the validity of an oath, ii. 373-375\n\n Antipathy, its beginning, i. 309\n\n Antitypes of men to be born, i. 310\n\n Antiquity of human race, over 250,000 years, i. 3;\n of necromancy and spiritualism, remote, i. 205;\n lost natural philosophy, i. 235;\n of optical instruments, gunpowder, the steam-engine, astronomical\n science, i. 240, 241;\n of the flood, i. 241;\n opinion of Aristotle, i. 428\n\n Ape, astral body, i. 327;\n a degenerated man, ii. 278\n\n Apis, the bull, secret book concerning his age, i. 406\n\n Apocryphal Gospels first received and then discarded, ii. 518\n\n Apollo made the prince of demons and lord of the under-world, ii. 488\n\n Apollonius of Tyana, his journey an allegory, i. 19;\n regard for stones, i. 265;\n cast out devils, i. 356;\n his power to witness the present and the future, i. 486;\n beheld an empusa or gh\u00fbl, i. 604;\n testimony of Justin Martyr respecting his powers, ii. 97;\n not a \u201cspirit-medium,\u201d ii. 118;\n his mistake, ii. 341;\n his conjurations when wrapped in a woolen mantle, ii. 344;\n visited Kashmere, ii. 434;\n the faculty of his soul to quit the body, ii. 597;\n vanished from sight and renewal elsewhere, _ib._\n\n Apollyon, his various characters, ii. 511\n\n Apophis, or Apap, the dragon, infests the soul, ii. 368\n\n Apostles, Acts of, rejected, ii. 182;\n Creed a forgery, ii. 514\n\n Apostles of Buddhism, ii. 608\n\n Apparitions of spirits of animals, i. 326\n\n Appleton\u2019s New American Cyclop\u00e6dia misstates the date of the laws of\n Manu, i. 587\n\n Apuleius\u2019 doctrine concerning birth and death of the soul, ii. 345;\n on the beatific vision, ii. 145;\n accused of black magic, ii. 149\n\n Aquinas, Thomas, destroys the brazen oracular head of Albertus\n Magnus, ii. 56\n\n Arabic manuscripts, 80,000 burned at Granada, i. 511\n\n Aralez, Armenian gods who revivify men, ii. 564\n\n Arcane powers in Man, ii. 112;\n knowledge and sorcery, ii. 583\n\n Arch\u00e6us, i. 14;\n same as Chaos, fire, sidereal or astral light, psychic or ektenic\n force, Akasa, etc., i. 125;\n the principle of life, i. 400\n\n Arch\u00e6ologists, their attacks on each other, ii. 471, 472\n\n Archetypal man a spheroid, ii. 469\n\n Architecture of the Egyptian temples, i. 517\n\n Architectural remains in different countries, their remarkable\n identity of parts, i. 572\n\n Archons of this world, ii. 89, 90\n\n Archytas, instructor of Plato, constructed a wooden dove, i. 543;\n invented the screw and crane, _ib._\n\n Arctic regions visited by the Ph\u0153nicians, i. 545\n\n Argha, or ark, ii. 444\n\n Arhat, i. 291;\n reaches Nirvana while on earth, ii. 320\n\n Arhats, free from evil desire, i. 346\n\n Aristotle on the human soul and the world-soul, i. 251;\n three natural principles, i. 310;\n on gas from the earth, i. 200;\n on form, i. 312;\n on the _nous_ and _psuche_, i. 316;\n on the filth element, i. 317;\n believed in the nous and psuche, the reasoning and the animal soul,\n i. 317;\n borrowed doctrines from Pythagoras, i. 319, 320;\n believed in a past eternity of human existence, i. 428;\n doctrine of two-fold soul, i. 429;\n taught the Buddhistic doctrine, i. 430;\n believed light to be itself an energy, i. 510;\n contradicted by the Neo-Platonists, i. 430;\n taught that the earth was the centre of the universe, i. 408;\n obnoxious to Christian theology, ii. 34;\n upon Jon or \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, ii. 302\n\n Ark, what it represents, ii. 444\n\n Armenian tradition of giving life to a slain warrior, ii. 564\n\n Armor, Prof., theory of malformations, i. 392\n\n Arnobius, believed the soul corporeal, i. 317\n\n Artesian well, used in China, i. 517\n\n Articles of faith of the ancient wisdom-religions, ii. 116\n\n Artificial lakes in ancient temples in Egypt, Asia, and America, i.\n 572\n\n Artificially fecundated woman, i. 77, 81\n\n Arts in the archaic ages, i. 405, 406\n\n Artufas, the temples of nagualism, i. 557\n\n Aryan, Median, Persian, and Hindu, also the Gothic and Slavic\n peoples, i. 576;\n nations, had no devil, ii. 10;\n carried bronze manufacture into Europe, i. 539;\n united, 3,000 B.C., ii. 433;\n in the valley of the upper Indus, _ib._;\n did not borrow from the Semites, ii. 426\n\n Asbestos, i. 229;\n thread and oil made from it, i. 504\n\n Asclepiadotus, reproduces chemically the exhalations of the sacred\n oracle-grotto, i. 531\n\n Asdt, \u05d0\u05e9\u05d3\u05ea (_Deut._ xxxiii. 2), signifies emanations, but\n mistranslated, ii. 34\n\n Asg\u00e2rtha, temple in India, ii. 31\n\n Ash-trees, third race of men created from, i. 558\n\n Ashmole, Elias, the Rosicrucian, the first operative Mason of note,\n ii. 349\n\n Asia, middle belt, perhaps once a sea-bed, i. 590, 592\n\n Asideans, or Khasdims, the same as Pharsi or Pharisees, ii. 441\n\n Asmodeus, or \u00c6shma-deva, ii. 482\n\n Asmonean priest-kings promulgated the _Old Testament_ in opposition\n to the Apocrypha, ii. 135;\n first Pharisees, and then Sadducees, _ib._\n\n Asoka and Augustine, ii. 32;\n his missionaries, ii. 42;\n the Buddhist, sent missionaries to other countries, ii. 491\n\n Ass, the form of Typhon, ii. 484;\n its Coptic name, AO, a phonetic of Iao, _ib._;\n head found in the temple, ii. 523\n\n Assyria, the land of Nimrod, or Bacchus, i. 568\n\n Assyrians basso-relievos at Nagkon-Wat, i. 566;\n sphinxes, ii. 451;\n tablets, the flood, ii. 422\n\n Assyrians, their archaic empire, ii. 486\n\n Astral atmosphere, i. 314;\n body or doppelganger, i. 360;\n of the ape, i. 327;\n fire, represented by the serpent, i. 137;\n fluid can be compressed about the body, to protect it from\n violence, i. 378, 380;\n a bolt of it can be directed with fatal force, i. 380;\n form oozing out of the body, i. 179;\n bound to the corpse and infesting the living, i. 432;\n light, i. 56, 156, 247;\n the Ob or Python, i. 158;\n currents, i. 247;\n same as the anima mundi, i. 301;\n dual and bi-sexual, _ib._;\n Soul or Spirit, i. 12;\n divided by H. More into the a\u00ebrial and \u00e6therial vehicles, i. 206;\n said to linger about the body 3,000 years, i. 226;\n doctrine of Epicurus, i. 250;\n the perisprit, composed of matter, i. 289;\n not immortal, i. 432;\n virgin, i. 126\n\n Astrograph, i. 385\n\n Astrologers, Chaldean, i. 205\n\n Astrology, i. 259\n\n Astronomus, the title of the highest initiate, ii. 365\n\n Astronomical calculations of Chaldeans and Egyptians, i. 21;\n of Chaldeans and Aztecs, i. 11, 241;\n of Chinese, i. 241\n\n Aswatha, the Hindu tree of life, i. 152, 153\n\n Athanor, the, the Archimedean lever, i. 506\n\n Atheism, not a Buddhistical doctrine, i. 292\n\n Atharva-Veda, great value, ii. 414, 415\n\n Athbach, ii. 299\n\n Atheists, none among heathen populations, ii. 240;\n none in days of old, ii. 530\n\n Athos, Mount, story of the manuscripts, ii. 52\n\n Athothi, king of Egypt, writes a book on anatomy, i. 406\n\n Athtor, or Mother Night, i. 91\n\n Atlantis, the legend believed, i. 557\n\n Atlantic ocean, once intersected by islands and a continent, i. 557,\n 558;\n mentioned in the _Secret Book_, i. 590;\n perhaps the actual name of the great Southern continent in the\n Indian Ocean, i. 591;\n name not Greek, _ib._;\n probable etymology of the name, _ib._;\n two orders of inhabitants, i. 592, 593;\n their fall, and the submersion of the island, i. 593\n\n Atma, i. 346\n\n Atman, the spiritual self, recognized as God, ii. 566\n\n Atmospheric electricity embodied in demi-gods, i. 261\n\n Atoms, doctrine taught by Demokritus, i. 249\n\n Atonement, origin of the doctrine, ii. 41;\n error of Prof. Draper, _ib._;\n mysteries of initiation, ii. 42\n\n Attraction, the great mystery, i. 338\n\n Audhumla, the cow or female principle, i. 147\n\n Augoeides, or part of the divine spirit, i. 12, 306, 315;\n cannot be communed with by a hierophant with a touch of mortal\n passion, i. 358;\n self-shining vision of the future self, ii. 115;\n the \u00e2tman or self, ii. 317\n\n Augsburgian Jesuits desirous to change the Sabean emblems, ii. 450\n\n Augustine, his accession to Christianity placed theology and science\n at everlasting enmity, ii. 88;\n his directions about the ladies\u2019 toilet, ii. 331;\n scouted the sphericity of the earth, ii. 477;\n affirmed a predestinated state of happiness and predetermined\n reprobation, ii. 546\n\n A U M, meaning of the sacred letters, ii. 31;\n the holy primitive syllable, ii. 39;\n and Tum, ii. 387\n\n Aur, i. 158\n\n Aura Placida, deified into two martyrs, ii. 248\n\n Aureole, from Babylonia, ii. 95\n\n Auricular confession in the Anglican church, ii. 544\n\n Aurora borealis, conjectures concerning it of scientists, i. 417\n\n Aurumgahad, i. 349;\n Buddhistic mementos, i. 349\n\n Austin Friars, or Augustinians, outdone in magic by the Jesuits, i.\n 445\n\n Avany, the Virgin, by whom the first Buddha was incarnated, ii. 322\n\n Avatar, i. 291;\n the earliest, ii. 427\n\n Avatars and emanations, ii. 155, 156;\n of Vishnu, ii. 274;\n they symbolize evolution of races, ii. 275\n\n Avicenna, on chickens with hawks\u2019 heads, i. 385\n\n Azaz-El, or Siva, ii. 302, 303\n\n Azoth, or creative principle, symbol, i. 462;\n blunder of de Mirville, _ib._\n\n Aztecs, of Mexico, their calendar, i. 11;\n resembled the ancient Egyptians, i. 560\n\n\n Baal, prophets danced the circle-dance of the Amazons, ii. 45;\n Tsephon, god of the crypt, ii. 487;\n how his hierophants procured apparitions, ii. 567\n\n Babies speaking good French, i. 371\n\n Babinet on table-turning, i. 60, 101, 104;\n declares levitation impossible and is refuted, i. 105;\n his story of a fire-globe resembling a cat, i. 107\n\n Babylon, built by those who escaped the deluge, i. 31;\n after three conquerors, i. 534;\n the great mother, or Magna Mater, ii. 501\n\n Babylonia, the seat of Sanscrit literature, ii. 428\n\n Babylonian priests, asserted their observations to have extended back\n 470,000 years, i. 533;\n system defined, ii. 170\n\n Bacchic fan, held by Osiris, ii. 494\n\n Bacchus, a saint of the Roman calendar, i. 160;\n worship among the Jews, ii. 128;\n \u201cthe son of God,\u201d ii. 492;\n myth, contains the history of the gods, ii. 527;\n the Prophet-God, ii. 527, 528;\n a saint in the calendar, ii. 528;\n or Dionysus, his Indian origin, ii. 560\n\n Bacon, Roger, miracles, i. 69;\n predicted the use of steam and other modern inventions, i. 413\n\n Badagas, a people of Hindustan who revere and maintain the Todas, ii.\n 613-615\n\n Bad demons, i. 343\n\n Bael-tur, sacred to Siva, i. 469\n\n Baggage from the Pagan mysteries, ii. 334\n\n Bahak-Zivo, i. 298;\n ordered to create, i. 299;\n the creator, ii. 134\n\n Bahira, the Nestorian monk, ii. 54\n\n Balahala, the fifth degree, ii. 365\n\n Balam Acan, a Toltecan king, i. 553\n\n Ban, on spiritualistic writings, ii. 8\n\n Banyan, the tree of knowledge and life, ii. 293\n\n Baphomet, the alleged god of the Templars, ii. 302\n\n Baptism of blood, the slaughter of a hierophant or an animal, ii. 42;\n a general practice, ii. 134\n\n Baptismal font in Egyptian pyramids, i. 519\n\n Baptist preachers\u2019 meeting in New York, ii. 473, 474;\n a warm doctrine, _ib._\n\n Baptista Porta, i. 66\n\n Baptists, ii. 291\n\n Bardesanian system, ii. 224\n\n Barjota, Cur\u00e9 de, his magical powers, ii. 60;\n saves the Pope\u2019s life, _ib._\n\n Barlaam and Josaphat, a ridiculous romance, ii. 580\n\n Barrachias-Hassan-Oglu, i. 43\n\n Barri (Italy), a statue of the Madonna with crinoline, ii. 9\n\n Bart, his testimony in regard to Herakles, ii. 515\n\n Basic matter of gold, i. 50\n\n Basileus, the archon taking charge of the Eleusinians, ii. 90\n\n Basilidean system, the exposition of Iren\u00e6us, ii. 157\n\n Basilides, description of Clement, ii. 123;\n derived his doctrines from the Gospel according to Matthew, ii. 155;\n his doctrines set forth by Tertullian, ii. 189\n\n Bastian, Dr., his conception of the temple of Angkor or Nagkon-Wat,\n i. 567, 568\n\n Batria, the wife of Pharaoh, teacher of Moses, i. 25\n\n Battle of life, ii. 112\n\n Baubo, in the Mysteries, what she directed, ii. 112\n\n Bayle, his testimony on spurious relics, ii. 72\n\n Beads and rosaries, of Buddhistic origin, ii. 95.\n\n Beatific vision or epopteia, testimony of Paul and Apuleius, ii. 146\n\n Beaujeu, Count, his Masonic imposture, ii. 381\n\n Beaumont, Elie de, on terrestrial circulation, i. 503\n\n Beausobre, on the Rasit or Principle, ii. 36\n\n Beel-Zebub (more properly Beel-Zebul, the Baal of the Temple) the\n same as Apollo, the Oracle-God, ii. 481;\n nicknamed Beel-Zebub, a god of flies, ii. 486\n\n Beer made in ancient Egypt, i. 543\n\n Bel, a personification of the Hindu Siva, i. 263;\n and the dragon, i. 550;\n Baal, the Devil, i. 552\n\n Belial, a Diakka, ii. 482\n\n Believers in magic, mesmerism and spiritualism, 800,000,000, i. 512\n\n Bellarmin, Cardinal, his vision about the bottomless pit, ii. 8\n\n Bells before the shrine of Jupiter-Ammon, ii. 95;\n in Jewish and Buddhistic rites, _ib._\n\n Belus, the first Assyrian king, deified, i. 552\n\n Ben Asai, in the garden of delights, ii. 119;\n Zoma, in the garden of delights, ii. 119\n\n Benedict, St., and his black raven, ii. 78\n\n Bengal, magical seance, i. 467\n\n Bengalese conjurers and jugglers, i. 457;\n planting trees, etc., which grew at once, _ib._\n\n Bethlehem, grotto of, temple of Adonis, ii. 139\n\n Beverages to produce visions, ii. 117\n\n Bhagaved-gita, opinion of du Perron, ii. 562;\n reverenced by the Brahmans, _ib._;\n contains the greatest mysteries of the Brahmanic religion, ii. 563;\n reverenced alike by Brahmanists and Buddhists, _ib._\n\n Bhagavant, the same as Parabrahma, i. 91;\n endued Brahma with creative power, i. 90;\n not a creator, i. 347;\n enters the world-egg, _ib._\n\n Bhagaved, i. 148\n\n Bhangulpore, Round Tower, ii. 5\n\n Bhutavan, the Spirit of Evil, created to destroy the incarnation of\n the sin of Brahma, i. 265\n\n Bible, antedated by Vedas, i. 91;\n its allegories repeated in Talapoin and Ceylonese traditions and\n manuscripts, i. 577;\n used as a weapon against the people who furnished it, ii. 96;\n an allegorical screen of the Kabala, ii. 210;\n the great light of modern Masonry, ii. 389;\n four or five times written over, ii. 470;\n when made up, ii. 471;\n a secret volume, _ib._;\n Patriarchs only zodiacal signs, ii. 459\n\n Bilocation, i. 361\n\n Binlang-stone, ii. 234\n\n Biographers of the Devil, ii. 15\n\n Birds, sung a mass for St. Francis, ii. 77\n\n Birs-Nimrud, the temple of seven stages, i. 261\n\n Birth of the human soul, i. 345\n\n Birth-marks, i. 384\n\n Bisexual, the first man, i. 559\n\n Bishops of the fourth century illiterate, ii. 251\n\n Black-faced Christ in India, ii. 532\n\n Black gods worshipped by the Yakuts, ii. 568, 569\n\n Blackguardism of Father Weninger, ii. 379\n\n Black magic practised at the Vatican, ii. 6;\n sorcery and witchcraft, an abuse, ii. 118;\n mirror, i. 596;\n reveals to the Inca queen her husband\u2019s death, _ib._;\n virgins in French cathedrals, figures of Isis, ii. 95\n\n \u201cBleeding Head\u201d of a murdered child employed as an oracle, ii. 56;\n image, ii. 17\n\n Blessed Virgin gives a demoniac a sound thrashing, ii. 76\n\n Blind Force plus intelligence, i. 199;\n psychic force, _ib._\n\n Blood, the baptism, ii. 42;\n of Jesus Christ, a phial of it presented to Henry III. of England,\n ii. 71;\n eagerness of spirits for it, i. 344;\n its circulation understood by the Egyptians, i. 544;\n liquefied at Naples and Nargercoil, in India, i. 613;\n its emanations serve spirits with material for their apparitions,\n ii. 567;\n the universal Proteus and arcanum of life, _ib._;\n -demons, i. 353;\n -evocation by the Yakuts, Bulgarians and Moldavians, ii. 569, 570\n\n Bloody legislation of Protestant countries against witchcraft, ii.\n 503;\n rites in Hayti, ii. 572\n\n Blue, held in aversion as the symbol of evil, ii. 446;\n ray, i. 137, 264;\n -violet, the seventh ray, most responsive of all, i. 514\n\n Body, the sepulchre of the soul, ii. 112;\n how long it may be kept alive, ii. 563;\n of Moses, a symbol for Palestine, ii. 482;\n may be obsessed by spirits during the temporary absence of the\n soul, ii. 589\n\n Boismont, de, Brierre, on hallucinations, i. 144\n\n Boodhasp, the founder of Sabism or baptism, ii. 290, 291\n\n Book of the Dead, Egyptian, i. 517, 518;\n quoted in the Gospel according to Matthew, ii. 548;\n older than Menes, ii. 361;\n of Jasher, i. 549;\n of Jasher, the _Old Testament_ condensed, ii. 399;\n of Numbers, Chaldean, i. 32\n\n Books lost and destroyed, i. 24;\n of Hermes, i. 33;\n of Hermes, attested by the Champollions, i. 625\n\n Births, feast of, supposed to be Bacchic, ii. 44, 45\n\n Bosheth, Israelites consecrated, ii. 130\n\n Both-al, Batylos, and Beth-el, i. 550\n\n Bourbourg, Brasseur de, publishes _Popol Vuh_, i. 2\n\n Boussingault on table-turning, i. 60\n\n Bozrah, the convent there the place where the seed of Islam was sown,\n ii. 54\n\n Brachmans in Greece, ii. 321\n\n Brahm, i. 291\n\n Brahma, a secondary deity, like Jehovah, the demiurgos, i. 91;\n evolved himself, and then brought nature from himself, i. 93;\n creates Lomus, i. 133;\n produces spiritual beings, then daints or giants, and, finally, the\n castes of men, i. 148;\n the name of the universal germ, ii. 261;\n night of, ii. 272, 273, 421;\n manifested as twelve attributes or gods, i. 348;\n day and night, ii. 421\n\n Brahma-Prajapati committed the first sin, i. 265;\n his repentance and the hottest tear, _ib._\n\n Brahm-\u00e2tma, or chief of the initiates, had the two crossed keys, ii.\n 31\n\n Brahman, his astounding declaration to Jacolliot, ii. 585\n\n Brahmanas, ii. 409, 410;\n the key to the Rig-Veda, ii. 415\n\n Brahmanical religion, stated in the doctrine of God as the Universal\n mind diffused through all things, i. 289\n\n Brahmanism, pre-Vedic, identical with Buddhism, ii. 142;\n Buddhism its primitive source, ii. 169\n\n Brahman gods, Siva, Surya, and the Aswins denounced in the _Avesta_,\n ii. 482, 483\n\n Brahman-Yoggins, i. 307;\n story of descent from giants, i. 122;\n theories of the sun and moon, i. 264;\n their powers of prediction and clairvoyance, i. 446;\n possess secrets of an\u00e6sthesia, i. 540;\n widows burned without hurting them, _ib._;\n know that the rite of widow-burning was never prescribed, i. 541;\n their religion exclusive, and not to be disseminated, i. 581;\n dispossessed the Jaina natives of India, ii. 323;\n in Babylonia, ii. 428;\n and Buddhists, their extraordinary probity, ii. 474;\n how it has deteriorated by Christian association, _ib._\n\n Brain, substance changed by thought and sensation, i. 249, 250;\n silvery spark in, i. 329\n\n Brazen serpent, the caduceus of Mercury or Asklepios, i. 556;\n symbol of Esculapius or Iao, ii. 481;\n worshipped by the Israelites, _ib._;\n broken by Hezekiah, ii. 440\n\n Bread-and-mutton protoplasms, i. 421\n\n Bread and wine, a sacrifice of great antiquity, ii. 43, 44, 513\n\n Breath, immortal, infusing life, i. 302\n\n Brighou, the prag\u00e2pati and his patriarchal descendants, ii. 427\n\n Bronze age, i. 534\n\n Bronze introduced into Europe 6,000 years ago by Aryan immigrants, i.\n 539\n\n Brothers of the Shadow, i. 319\n\n Broussard on magnetism and medicine, ii. 610\n\n Bruno, why slaughtered, i. 93;\n Prof. Draper misrepresents him, i. 94;\n held Jesus to be a magician, _ib._;\n accusation against him, i. 95;\n his reply, i. 96;\n declared this world a star, _ib._;\n acknowledged an universal Providence, _ib._;\n doubted the Trinity, i. 97;\n a Pythagorean, i. 98\n\n Brutal force adored by Christendom, ii. 334\n\n Buchanan, Prof. J. R., criticises Agassiz, i. 63;\n his bridge from physical impression to consciousness, i. 87;\n theory of psychometry, i. 182;\n on tendency of gestures to follow the phrenological organs, i. 500\n\n Buddha, the formless Brahm, i. 291;\n the monad, _ib._, 550;\n incarnation, _ib._;\n his lama representative, i. 437, 438;\n appearing of his shadow to Hiouen-Thsang, i. 600;\n never deified by his followers, ii. 240;\n a social rather than a religious reformer, ii. 339;\n tempted and victorious, ii. 513;\n never wrote, ii. 559;\n his lessons to his disciples, _ib._;\n taught the new birth, ii. 566;\n breaks with the old mysteries, _ib._;\n or Sommona-Cadom, the Siamese Saviour, ii. 576;\n changed by the Vatican into St. Josaphat, ii. 579;\n \u201cjust as if he had been a Christian,\u201d ii. 581\n\n Buddha-Sidd\u00e2rtha, i. 34;\n -Gautama, i. 92;\n lived 2,540 years ago, ii. 537;\n teaches how to escape reincarnation, i. 346\n\n Buddhism based on the doctrine of God, the universal Mind diffused\n through all things, i. 289;\n prehistoric, the once universal religion, ii. 123;\n preached by Jesus, ii. 123;\n its ethics, ii. 124;\n identical with pre-Vedic Brahmanism, ii. 142;\n the primitive source of Brahmanism, ii. 169;\n its groundwork the kabalistic doctrine, i. 271;\n its doctrine based on works, ii. 288;\n esoteric doctrines, ii. 319;\n the religion of the earlier Vedas, ii. 436;\n degenerated into Lamaism, ii. 582\n\n Buddhist patriarch of Nangasaki, ii. 79;\n system, how mastered, i. 289;\n monks in Syria and Babylon, ii. 290;\n went so far as Ireland, _ib._;\n theories of sun and moon, i. 264;\n respect for the sapphire-stone, _ib._\n\n Buddhistic element in Gnosticism and missionaries in Greece, ii. 321;\n theology, four schools, ii. 533\n\n Bull the emblem of life everywhere, ii. 235, 236;\n against the comet, ii. 509;\n and syllabus burned by the Bohemians, ii. 560\n\n Bull\u2019s eye in the target of Christianity, ii. 476\n\n Bullets successfully resisted by talismans, i. 378\n\n Bulwer-Lytton, his description of the _vril_, or primal force, i. 64,\n 125;\n elementary beings, i. 285, 289;\n the Vril-ya, or coming race, i. 296\n\n Bunsen, testimony concerning the Origines of Egypt, i. 529;\n description of the Pyramid of Cheops, i. 518;\n account of the Egyptian skill in quarrying, _ib._;\n on the word PTR, ii. 93;\n his opinion respecting Zoroaster and the Baktrian emigration, ii.\n 432;\n his opinion of Khamism, ii. 435;\n on the exodus of the Israelites, ii. 558\n\n Bur, the offspring of Audhumla, i. 147\n\n Burning men to avoid shedding their blood, i. 64;\n scientists about as ready as clergy, i. 85\n\n Buried cities in Hindustan, i. 350\n\n Butlerof, Prof. A., on the facts of spiritualism, ii. 3\n\n\n Cabeirians, i. 23\n\n Cable-tow, the Brahmanical cord, ii. 393\n\n Cadi\u00e8re, Mlle., her seduction by a Jesuit priest, ii. 633, 634\n\n Cagliostro, an Hermetic philosopher, persecuted by the Church of\n Rome, i. 200;\n said to have made gold and diamonds, i. 509\n\n Cain, ancestor of the Hivites, or Serpents, ii. 446;\n and Siva, ii. 448;\n or Kenu, the eldest, ii. 464\n\n Calmeil imputes theomania of the Calvinists to hysteria and epilepsy,\n i. 371;\n his explanation of their extraordinary power of resistance to\n blows, i. 375\n\n Calmet, Dom, on vampires, i. 452\n\n Calvin affirmed election, original sin, and reprobation, ii. 547\n\n Carnac, the serpent\u2019s mount, i. 554\n\n Campanile Column, of St. Mark\u2019s, in Venice, its original, ii. 5\n\n Canals of Egypt, i. 516, 517\n\n Canonical books, enforced eliminations, ii. 143;\n selected by sortilege, ii. 251\n\n Capuchins, their Christmas observances, ii. 365\n\n Carpenter, W. B., lecture on Egypt, i. 440\n\n Carthage more civilized than Rome, i. 520;\n built long before the taking of Troy, _ib._;\n not built by Dido, _ib._\n\n Cataclysms, periodical, i. 31\n\n Catalepsy and vampirism, i. 449, 450\n\n Catherine of Medicis employed a sorcerer, ii. 55;\n her resort to the charm of \u201cthe bleeding head,\u201d ii. 56\n\n Catholic ritual of pagan origin, ii. 85;\n miracle in Poland means revolution, ii. 17;\n must be Ultramontane and Jesuit, ii. 356;\n missionaries becoming Talapoins, ii. 531\n\n Catholicism more fetish-worshipping than Hinduism, ii. 80\n\n Catholics persecute other Christians, ii. 81\n\n Causes, Platonic division, i. 393\n\n Cave-men of Les Eyzies, i. 295\n\n Cave-temples of Ajunta, Buddhistic, i. 349;\n of India, claimed by the Jainas, ii. 323\n\n Caves of Mithras, ii. 491\n\n Celestial Virgin pursued by the Dragon, a mystery and representation\n in the constellations, ii. 490\n\n Celsus, his accusations of the Christians, ii. 51;\n not being refuted, his books burned, ii. 51, 52;\n a copy probably existing at a monastery on Mount Athos, ii. 52;\n his opinion of Jesus, ii. 530\n\n Celebrated vase of the Genoa Cathedral, its material not known, i.\n 537, 538\n\n Celt, probably a hybrid of the Aryan and Iberians of Europe, i. 576\n\n Cement, ancient, i. 239\n\n Cenchrea, Paul shorn and Lucius initiated there, ii. 90\n\n Centenarians, Parr, Jenkins, and others, ii. 564\n\n Central America, her peoples to be traced to the Ph\u0153nicians and\n Mosaic Israelites, i. 555;\n Asia, the face of the country changed, ii. 426;\n Invisible, i. 302\n\n Cerebral electricity, its dependence upon the statical, i. 322\n\n Ceremony of withdrawing the soul, ii. 603\n\n Ceres or Demeter, the female or passive productive principle, ii. 560\n\n Cerinthus, his doctrines described by Iren\u00e6us, ii. 176\n\n Cevennes, prophets of, i. 221;\n the Convulsionaires, miraculous occurrences, i. 370;\n statement by Figuier, i. 370, 371\n\n Chair of St. Fiacre and its prolificating virtue, ii. 332\n\n Chaldean Arba and Christian Four, ii. 171;\n oracles, i. 535;\n denounce augury, _ib._\n\n Chaldeans, their correct astronomical calculations, i. 11;\n their magic, i. 66;\n their theory of magic, i. 459;\n their origin, ii. 46;\n Hebrew Sanscrit, _ib._\n\n Champollion declares the Egyptians monotheists, i. 24;\n his description of Karnak, i. 523;\n synopsis of his discoveries, i. 530\n\n Chandragupta, his exploits, ii. 607, 608\n\n Chaos, the Female Principle, i. 61;\n Arch\u00e6us, Akasa, i. 125;\n the Soul of the World, i. 129;\n and ether, the first two, i. 341\n\n Charlatan only will ever use mercury as a medicine, ii. 621\n\n Charms, the Dharani, their extraordinary powers, i. 471\n\n Charmed life, i. 379\n\n Charmers, their power over beasts and reptiles, i. 381\n\n Charybdis, the ma\u00eblstrom, i. 545\n\n Chemi, or Chem, the ancient name of Egypt, i. 541\n\n Chemical vapors taking forms, i. 127\n\n Chemicals keep away disagreeable physical phenomena, i. 356, 357\n\n Chemist and magician compared, i. 464\n\n Chemistry, ancient proficiency, i. 50;\n revolution, i. 163;\n Egypt its cradle, i. 541;\n called alchemy, i. 542\n\n Cheops, his engraved ring, i. 240;\n pyramid of, its measure and weight, i. 518;\n Prof. Smyth\u2019s descriptions, i. 520\n\n Cherub, one of his nails preserved as a relic, ii. 71;\n of Jeheskiel, ii. 451\n\n Cherubs, the vehans of deity, ii. 231\n\n Chess played in Egypt and India 5,000 years ago, i. 544\n\n Chevalier Ramsay, the Jesuit inventor of the Scottish Rite, ii. 390\n\n Chicago murderers converted in prison, ii. 543\n\n Child, Mrs. Lydia M., remarks on Hindu emblems, i. 583; ii. 445\n\n Child-burning by the Jesuits, ii. 65\n\n Child-medium, Sanscrit written in her presence, i. 368;\n Kate Fox\u2019s son, i. 439\n\n Children, born malformed, wounded, and parts cut away, i. 386;\n may kill their parents, ii. 363;\n sacrificed to Moloch-Hercules, at Tophet, in the valley of Hinnom,\n ii. 11\n\n China, the glass, i. 537;\n metal work, i. 538\n\n Chinese believe in the art of overcoming mortality, i. 214;\n ancient emperor puts two astronomers to death, i. 241\n\n _Chitonuth our_, chitons or coats of skin, a priestly garb, i. 575;\n Adam and his wife invested by \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd, Java Aleim, _ib._\n\n Chrestians before Christians, ii. 323\n\n Chrestos, worshipped many centuries before Christ, ii. 324;\n Christians and Jews alike united, ii. 558\n\n Christ a re\u00efncarnationist, ii. 145;\n destroyed Jehovah-worship, ii. 527;\n a modified Christna, ii. 532;\n a personage rather than a person, ii. 576\n\n Christian spiritualists, i. 54;\n denominations, peculiarity of their deity, ii. 2, 354, 485, 581;\n spent on their buildings, ii. 2;\n the spiritualists in them, ii. 2;\n hatred of spiritualism, ii. 4;\n symbols, presence of phallism, ii. 5;\n Church, with the rites and priestly robes of heathenism, ii. 96;\n doctrines classified, ii. 145;\n doctrines, their origin in Middle Asia, ii. 338;\n Gnostics, ii. 324;\n appeared just as the Essenes disappeared, _ib._;\n Sabbath, its date, ii. 419;\n theology, its origin, ii. 525\n\n Christianity, early, based on the doctrine of God, the universal mind\n diffused through all things, i. 285;\n description of Max M\u00fcller, ii. 10;\n pure heathenism, ii. 80;\n primitive, had secret pass-words and rites, ii. 204;\n doctrines taken from Brahmanism and Buddhism, the ceremonials and\n pageantry from Lamaism, ii. 211;\n its true spirit found only in Buddhism, ii. 240;\n made little change from Roman paganism, ii. 334;\n its doctrines plagiarized, ii. 346;\n and a personal God repudiated by Freemasons at Lausanne, ii. 377;\n bull\u2019s eye in its target, ii. 476;\n theological, the Devil its patron genius, ii. 478;\n its symbols anticipated by the older religions, ii. 557;\n Paul the real founder, ii. 574;\n stripped of every feature to make it acceptable to the Siamese, ii.\n 579\n\n Christians, few understand Jewish theology, i. 17;\n divided into three unequal parties, ii. 3;\n why they quarrelled with the Pagans, ii. 51;\n accepted the worship of the God of the gardens, _ib._;\n Old, called Nazarenes, ii. 151;\n only seven to twelve in each church, ii. 175;\n Pauline and Petrine controversy, _ib._;\n of St. John, or Mend\u00e6ans, ii. 289, 290;\n do not believe in Christ, ii. 290;\n accused of child-murder at their \u201cperfect passover,\u201d ii. 333;\n originally composed of secret societies, ii. 335;\n anciently kept no Sabbaths, ii. 419;\n claim the discovery of the Devil, ii. 477;\n praiseworthy, modified Buddhists, ii. 540;\n Russian and Bulgarian, cursed by the Pope, ii. 560\n\n Christism, before Christ, ii. 32\n\n Christmas festivals of Capuchins, ii. 365\n\n Christna, orthography of the name, i. 586;\n crushing the head of the serpent, ii. 446;\n and his mother with the aureole, ii. 95;\n raises the daughter of Angashuna to life, ii. 241;\n the good shepherd, crushes the serpent Kalinaga, is crucified, ii.\n 447;\n Sakya-muni, and Jesus, three men exalted to deity, ii. 536;\n lived 6,877 years ago (1877), ii. 537;\n his dying words to the hunter, ii. 545, 546;\n his eulogy of works rather than contemplations, ii. 563\n\n Christos or Crestos, ii. 142;\n his entering into the man Jesus at the Jordan, ii. 186;\n the Angel Gabriel, ii. 193;\n from the Sanskrit kris or sacred, ii. 158;\n an aggregation of the emanations, etc., ii. 159\n\n Christs of the pre-Christian ages, ii. 43\n\n Church and priest, benefits if they were to pass away, ii. 586\n\n Church of Rome in 1876, excommunicating and cursing, ii. 6;\n her powerless fury against the Bulgarians and Servians, ii. 7;\n pre-eminent in murderous propensity, i. 27;\n has mightier enemies than \u201cheretics\u201d and \u201cinfidels,\u201d ii. 30;\n believes in magic, ii. 76;\n its maxim to deceive and lie to promote its ends, ii. 303\n\n Churches, their phallic symbols, ii. 5;\n ancient, only seven to twelve in each, ii. 175.\n\n Cicero, on divine exhalations from the earth, i. 200;\n concerning the gods, i. 280\n\n Cipher of the S. P. R. C., the Knight Rosy Cross of Heredom, and of\n the Knights Kadosh, ii. 395;\n Royal Arch, ii. 396\n\n Circle, perfect, decussated, ii. 469;\n of necessity, i. 296;\n of necessity, when completed, i. 346;\n of necessity, the sacred mysteries at Thebes, i. 553;\n of stones, i. 572\n\n Circle-dance or chorus of the Amazons, performed by King David and\n others, ii. 45;\n of the Amazons around a priapic image, a common usage and\n sanctioned by a Catholic priest, ii. 331, 332;\n taught to initiates in the sixth degree, ii. 365\n\n Circulation, terrestrial, i. 503;\n of the blood, understood by the Egyptians, i. 544\n\n City, the mysterious, story of, i. 547\n\n Civilization, ancient, i. 239;\n of the east preceded that of the west, i. 539\n\n Clairvoyance, cataleptic, the subject practically dead, i. 484\n\n Clearchus gives five cases of larv\u00e6 or vampires, i. 364;\n story of the boy whose soul was led away from the body and returned\n again, i. 365, 366\n\n Clear vision obstructed by physical memory, ii. 591\n\n Clemens Alexandrinus, believed in metempsychosis, i. 12;\n denounces the Mysteries, ii. 100\n\n Cleonymus returned after dying, i. 364\n\n Cleopatra sent news by a wire, i. 127\n\n Clergy, Greek, Roman and Protestant, discountenance spiritual\n phenomena, i. 26;\n Roman and Protestant burned and hanged mediums, _ib._;\n Protestant, their hatred of spiritualism, ii. 4;\n their cast-off garb worn by men of science, ii. 8;\n attired in the cast-off garb of the heathen priesthood, _ib._\n\n Clerkship of the Templars, ii. 385\n\n Clermont system, the Scottish Rite, ii. 381\n\n Clinton, De Witt, Grand Master of the first Grand Encampment General,\n ii. 383\n\n Clocks and dials in ancient periods, i. 536\n\n Coats of skin, i. 2, 149;\n explained, i. 293;\n worn by the priests of Hercules, i. 575;\n Adam and his wife so invested, _ib._;\n _Chitonuth our_, ii. 458\n\n Code of Justinian copied from Manu, i. 586\n\n _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_ prohibits the worship of Adonai the Sun-god, ii. 131;\n denounces Jesus, ii. 132\n\n Coffin, from Egypt, dated by astronomical delineations, i. 520, 521\n\n Colenso, Bishop, exiled the _Old Testament_, ii. 4\n\n Colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences, i. 482\n\n Collouca-Batta, account of the migrations of Manu-Vina from India to\n Egypt, i. 627\n\n Collyridians asserted Mary to be virgin-born, ii. 110;\n transferred their worship from Astoreth to Mary, ii. 444\n\n Colob, a planet on which the Mormon chief god lives, ii. 2\n\n Colored masonry not acknowledged, ii. 391\n\n Colquhoun, J. C., on the doctrine of a personal devil, ii. 477\n\n Commission, Russian, to investigate spiritual phenomena, i. 117\n\n Communication, subjective, with spirits, ii. 115\n\n Communication, supposed, with the dead, with angels, devils, and\n gods, i. 323\n\n Communion with God, a pagan sentiment, ii. 470\n\n Companions, or Kabalists, ii. 470\n\n Compensation, the law never swerves, ii. 545\n\n Comte, Auguste, i. 76;\n catechism of religion of positivism, i. 78;\n his feminine mystery, i. 81;\n his doctrines repudiated by Huxley, i. 82;\n his philosophy belonging to David Hume, _ib._;\n the ventriloquist, on spiritual phenomena, i. 101\n\n Comtists, or positivists, despised and hated, ii. 3\n\n Conflict between the world-religions, i. 307\n\n Conical monuments imputed to Hermes Trismegistus, i. 551\n\n Conjurers, i. 73\n\n Consciousness a quality of the soul, i. 199\n\n Constitutions, secret, of the Jesuits, ii. 354\n\n Continent, Atlantian, i. 591;\n Lemuria, i. 592;\n Great Equinoctial, i. 594;\n in the Pacific, i. 594;\n inhabited by the Rutas, _ib._\n\n \u201cControl,\u201d i. 360\n\n Convulsionaries cured by marriage, i. 375\n\n Convulsionary, extraordinary resistance to external injury, i. 373\n\n Corcoran, Catherine, malformed child, i. 392\n\n Cordanus, power of leaving his body to go on errands, i. 477\n\n Corinthian bride, resuscitated by Apollonius of Tyana, i. 481\n\n Correspondences, Swedenborg\u2019s doctrine that of Pythagoras and\n Kabalists, i. 306\n\n Corson, Prof., on science and its contests with religion, i. 403\n\n Cory, exceptions to his view of Plato and Pythagoras, i. 288\n\n Cosmo, St., traffic by the Italian clergy in his phallic _ex-votos_,\n ii. 5\n\n Cosmogonical doctrines based on one formula, i. 341\n\n Counterfeit relics palmed off on Prince Radzivil, ii. 72;\n they work miracles, _ib._\n\n Counterfeits in thaumaturgy are proofs of an original, ii. 567\n\n Covercapal, the serpent-god, converted, ii. 509\n\n Cox, Sergeant, proposition concerning the physical phenomena of\n spiritualism, i. 195;\n his denial, i. 201\n\n Creation, doctrine of Hermetists and Rosicrucians, i. 258;\n cycle of, ii. 272, 273;\n Plato\u2019s discourse, ii. 469;\n of mankind, Hindu legend, i. 148;\n Norse legend, i. 146, 151;\n of men from the tree _tzite_ and women from the reed _sibac_, i.\n 558\n\n Creative Principle, proclaimed at Lausanne by the supreme councils of\n Freemasonry, ii. 377;\n denounced by Gen. Pike, _ib._\n\n Creator, not the Highest God, i. 309;\n the father of matter and the bad, _ib._\n\n Credo, as amended by Robert Taylor, ii. 522\n\n Creed, suggested for Protestant and Catholic bodies, ii. 473\n\n Crime of every kind sanctioned by Jesuit doctrine, ii. 353;\n by ecclesiastics in the United States, ii. 573\n\n Crimean war, i. 260\n\n Crook, Episcopal, adopted from the Etrurian augurs, ii. 94\n\n Crookes, Prof., begins to investigate spiritual phenomena, i. 44;\n on psychic force, i. 45;\n theories, i. 47;\n remarks on Prof. Thury, i. 112;\n his experiment with the planchette, i. 199;\n acknowledges the evidence of spiritual phenomena overwhelming, i.\n 202;\n weighing light, i. 281\n\n Cross, philosophical, i. 508;\n or Tau, an ancient symbol, ii. 393;\n Egyptian, found at Palenque, i. 572;\n a sign of recognition, long before the Christian era, ii. 87;\n found on the walls of the Serapeum, ii. 253, 254;\n used in the Mysteries, _ib._;\n of the Zodiac, ii. 452;\n revered by every nation, ii. 453;\n the geometrical basis of religious symbolism, _ib._;\n acknowledged by the Jews, ii. 454\n\n Crosse, Andrew, producing living insects by chemical action, i. 465\n\n Crowe, Catherine, on stigmata or birth marks, i. 396\n\n Crusade of des Mousseaux and de Mirville against the arch-enemy, ii.\n 15\n\n Cryptographs of the Sovereign Princes Rose Croix, ii. 394\n\n Crypts of Thebes and Memphis, i. 553;\n mysteries of the circle of necessity, _ib._\n\n Cults derived from one primitive religion, ii. 412\n\n Cup, consecrated in the Bacchic mysteries, ii. 513\n\n Cures effected at the Egyptian temples, i. 531, 532\n\n Curse inheres in matter, i. 433;\n allegorical, of the earth, ii. 420\n\n Cursing, a Christian, and not a pagan practice, ii. 334;\n prohibited because it will return, ii. 608\n\n Cusco, its temples and hieroglyphics, i. 597;\n tunnel to Lima and Bolivia, _ib._\n\n Cycle, at the bottom, i. 247;\n doctrine demonstrated, i. 348;\n the Unavoidable, the Mysteries, i. 553\n\n Cycles of human existence, i. 5, 6, 247, 293;\n of the universe, ii. 420\n\n Cyclopeans were Ph\u0153nicians, i. 567;\n were shepherds in Libya, miners and builders, and forged bolts for\n Zeus, _ib._;\n same as Anakim, _ib._\n\n Cyclopes, or Cuclo-pos, the Rajpoot race, ii. 438\n\n Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, anthropomorphized Isis as Mary, ii. 41;\n his murder of Hypatia, ii. 53;\n the assassin of Hypatia sold church vessels, etc., ii. 253\n\n Czechs of Bohemia burn the Bull and Syllabus, ii. 560\n\n\n Dactyls, Phrygian, i. 23\n\n Daguerre declared by a physician to be insane because he declared his\n discovery, ii. 619\n\n Daimonion of Socrates the cause of his death, ii. 117\n\n Daimonia, i. 276\n\n Daityas, i. 313\n\n Damiano, St., traffic in Isernia, in his limbs and _ex-voto_, ii. 5\n\n Dam-S\u00e2dhna, a practice of fakirs like the rabbinic method of\n \u201centering paradise,\u201d ii. 590\n\n Danger, the greatest to be feared, ii. 122\n\n Daniel a Babylonian Rabbi, astrologer, and magus, ii. 236\n\n Dardanus received the Kabeiri gods as a dowry, i. 570;\n carried their worship to Samothrace and Troy, _ib._\n\n Darius Hystaspes, teacher of the Mazdean religion, ii. 140;\n put down the magian rites, ii. 142;\n restored the worship of Ormazd, ii. 220;\n added the Brahman to the Magian doctrine, ii. 306;\n the institutor of magism, ii. 502;\n established a Persian colony in Judea, ii. 441\n\n Dark races of Hindustan worshipped Bala-Mahadeva, ii. 434\n\n Darkness and the bad, how produced, i. 302\n\n Darwin, his theory, i. 14\n\n Darwinian line of descent, i. 154;\n theory, in book of Genesis, i. 303\n\n Daughters of Shiloh, their dance, ii. 45\n\n David, King, exorcised the evil spirit of God, i. 215;\n how he reinforced his failing vigor, i. 217;\n danced the circle-dance of the Amazons, ii. 45;\n knew nothing of Moses, _ib._;\n performing a phallic dance before the ark, ii. 79;\n brought the name Jehovah to Palestine, ii. 297;\n established the Sadducean priesthood, _ib._;\n ascends out of hell, ii. 517;\n the Israelitish King Arthur, ii. 439;\n establishes a new religion in Palestine, _ib._\n\n Davis, A. J., on Diakka, i. 218\n\n Day and night of Brahma, ii. 421\n\n Daytha, the Hindu Nimrod, ii. 425\n\n Dead, their ashes assuming their likeness, ii. 663\n\n Death, when it actually occurs, i. 482;\n when resuscitation is possible, i. 485;\n planetary, i. 254;\n no certain signs, i. 479;\n exposition, i. 480;\n language of Pimander, i. 624, 625;\n the penalty for divulging secrets of initiation, ii. 99;\n the Gates, ii. 364;\n the second, ii. 368\n\n Death-symbol at the orgies, ii. 138\n\n Decameron, Boccaccio\u2019s, prudery beside the _Golden Legend_, ii. 79\n\n Decimal notation unknown to Pythagoras, ii. 300;\n known to the Pythagoreans, _ib._\n\n Degeneracy of Christians, ii. 575\n\n Degrees, the three, ii. 364\n\n Deicide, never charged on the Jews by Jesus, ii. 193\n\n Deity, from deva, and devil from daeva, the same etymology, ii. 512;\n represented by three circles in one, ii. 212\n\n Delegatus, ii. 154\n\n Deluge, i. 30;\n Hindu story, ii. 425\n\n Demeter, the Kabeirian, her picture represented with the electrified\n head, i. 234;\n or Ceres, the intellectual soul, ii. 112\n\n Demigod philosophers, ii. 536\n\n Demigods and atmospheric electricity, i. 261\n\n Demiurgic Mind, i. 55\n\n Demiurgos, or architect of the world, Brahma, i. 191;\n Jehovah, _ib._\n\n Democritus, i. 61;\n on death, i. 365;\n on the soul, i. 401;\n a student of the Magi, i. 512;\n his belief concerning magic, _ib._\n\n Demon and Martin Luther, ii. 73;\n of Socrates, ii. 283, 284;\n same as the _nous_, _ib._\n\n Demons, the doctrine of Buddha, i. 448;\n in the Western Sahara, fascinate travellers, i. 604;\n sometimes speak the truth, ii. 71;\n opinion of Proclus, i. 312\n\n Demoniac, sulphurous flames, ii. 75;\n one receives a sound thrashing from the Blessed Virgin, ii. 76\n\n Demonologia, i. 89\n\n Demon-worship and saint-worship substantially the same, ii. 29\n\n Dendera, the temple, the female figures, i. 524\n\n De Negre, Grand Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis, ii. 380\n\n Denon, his description of the ruins of Karnak, i. 524\n\n Dentists in ancient Egypt, i. 545\n\n Denton, Prof., examples of psychometrical power, i. 183;\n illustrates arch\u00e6ology by psychometry, i. 295\n\n Dervish, their initiation, ii. 317\n\n Desatir, or book of Shet, on light, ii. 113\n\n Descartes believed in occult medicine, i. 71;\n his system of physics, i. 206\n\n Descendants, resemblance to ancestors, i. 385\n\n Descent into hell, ii. 177;\n to subdue the rebellious archangel, i. 299;\n how explained by Kabalists, _ib._;\n of spirit to matter, i. 285\n\n Designations of the virgin-mothers, Hindu, Egyptian, and Catholic,\n ii. 209\n\n Des Mousseaux, his reply to Calmeil and Figuier in regard to\n Convulsionaries, i. 375, 376;\n on miracles, magic, etc., i. 614, 615;\n Chevalier, his crusade against the devil, ii. 15;\n proves magic and spiritualism to be twin-sciences, _ib._\n\n Despres made the diamond, i. 509\n\n Destiny, an influence that each man weaves round himself, ii. 593;\n how guided, _ib._\n\n Devas and Asuras, their battles, i. 12\n\n Devs, i. 141;\n nature-spirits, called also shedim, demons, and afrites, i. 313\n\n Devil, memoir of, i. 102;\n the chief pillar of faith, i. 103;\n not an entity, but an errant force, i. 138;\n and deity, words of the same etymology, ii. 512;\n the Shadow of God, i. 560;\n the anthropomorphic, a creation of man, i. 561;\n Aryan nations had none, ii. 10;\n called by des Mousseaux the Serpent of _Genesis_, ii. 15;\n a whole community possessed, ii. 16;\n pesters St. Dominic as a flea and as a monkey, ii. 78;\n Christians claim the discovery, ii. 477;\n the patron genius of theological Christianity, ii. 477;\n to deny him equivalent to denying the Saviour, ii. 478;\n what he is, ii. 480;\n an essential antagonistic force, _ib._;\n the key found in the book of Job, ii. 493;\n the fundamental stone of Christianity, ii. 501;\n origin of the English notions, _ib._;\n the European, ii. 502;\n with horns and hoof, only known in Popish Encyclicals, ii. 503;\n his various delineations by authors, ii. 511\n\n Devils, 15,000 in a man, ii. 75;\n the Fathers made them from the pagan gods, ii. 502\n\n Devil-worshippers of Travancore, i. 135;\n falsely-termed, their practice, i. 446, 447\n\n Dew from heaven, i. 307\n\n Dewel, a demon of Ceylon, i. 448\n\n Dharana, or catalepsy, ii. 590, 591\n\n Dharm-Asoka, the great propagandist of Buddhism, ii. 607\n\n Dhy\u00e2na or perfection, ii. 287\n\n Diabolical manifestations, frowned at by the Roman Church, ii. 4\n\n Diagram of the Nazarenes, ii. 295\n\n Diakka, discovered by A. J. Davis, i. 218;\n what Porphyry said, i. 219\n\n Dialogue of David and the devils, ii. 75\n\n Diamond, made by Desprez, i. 509\n\n Dido, Elissa, or Astarte, the virgin of the sea, ii. 446\n\n Dirghatamas\u2019 hymns, ii. 411\n\n Di Franciscis, Don Pasquale, \u201cprofessor of flunkeyism in things\n spiritual,\u201d ii. 7;\n pious collection of papal fishwoman\u2019s talk, _ib._\n\n Dii minores, or twelve gods, ii. 451\n\n Diktamnos, i. 264\n\n Diobolos (son of Zeus) changed to Diabolos, an accuser, ii. 485\n\n Dionysus, his worship superseded by the rites of Mithras, ii. 491;\n or Bacchus, his Hindu origin, ii. 560\n\n Diploteratology or production of monsters, i. 390\n\n Disbelievers in magic cannot share the faith of the church, ii. 71\n\n Diocletian burned libraries of books upon the secret arts, i. 405\n\n Dionysius Areopagita and the Kabala, i. 26\n\n Dion\u00e8 pursued by Typhon to the Euphrates, ii. 490\n\n Disciples of John, ii. 289, 290;\n do not believe in Christ, ii. 290\n\n Dissimilarities between Buddhism and Christianity, ii. 540, 541\n\n \u201cDistractions\u201d of adversaries of spiritualism, i. 116\n\n Divination by the lot, ii. 20, 21;\n prohibited by the Council of Varres, i. 21;\n devoid of sin, ii. 353\n\n Divine book, i. 406;\n magic, i. 26\n\n Djin reading magic rolls, ii. 29\n\n Docet\u00e6 or illusionists, believed in the Maya, ii. 157\n\n Documents sure to reappear, ii. 26\n\n Dodech\u00e6dron, the geometrical figure of the universe, i. 342\n\n Domes, the reproductions of the lithos, ii. 5\n\n Dominic and the devils, ii. 73, 75;\n receives a rosary from the Virgin Mary, ii. 74;\n most hated by devils, ii. 75;\n and the devil flea and monkey, ii. 78\n\n Dominicans, none in hell, ii. 75\n\n Dodona, priestesses, prophesied by means of the oak, ii. 592\n\n Doppelganger, or astral body, i. 360\n\n Double cross of Chaldea, ii. 453;\n existence, i. 179, 180;\n life of the adept, ii. 564;\n perverted into the offering of human sacrifices, ii. 565\n\n Double-sexed creators, i. 156\n\n Dove, represented Noah, worshipped, ii. 448\n\n Dowager mother alone the mediatrix, ii. 9;\n owes the present Pope for the finest gem in her coronet, _ib._\n\n Dracontia, or temples to the dragon, i. 554\n\n Dragon and the sun, the basis of heliolatrous religion, i. 550;\n sons of, the hierophants, i. 553;\n cured of a sore eye by Simeon Stylites, and adored God, ii. 77;\n Apophis, his influence on the soul, ii. 368;\n Horus piercing his head, ii. 446;\n pursues Thuesis and her son, ii. 490;\n glided over the cradle of Mary, ii. 505;\n of Ceylon, Rawho, ii. 509\n\n Dragons, oriental in character, i. 448\n\n Drama of Job explained, ii. 494, 495\n\n Draper, Prof., on pagan belief concerning the human spirit, i. 429;\n asserts that Aristotle taught the Buddhistic doctrine, i. 430;\n probably meant to misrepresent the Neo-platonic philosophers, i.\n 431;\n defines the \u201cage of faith\u201d and \u201cage of decrepitude,\u201d i. 582;\n on Olympus restored by Constantine, ii. 49;\n on the conflict instituted by Augustine between religion and\n science, ii. 88\n\n Dream produced by the inner ego of a Shaman at the author\u2019s request,\n ii. 628\n\n Dress of the Christian clergy like that of ancient pagans, ii. 94\n\n Druidical structures like other ancient works, i. 572\n\n Druids denominated themselves snakes, i. 554\n\n Drummer of Tedworth, i. 363\n\n Druzes of Mount Lebanon, ii. 306;\n their 80,000 warriors, ii. 308;\n never became Christians, ii. 309;\n their doctrines, ii. 309, 310;\n believe in \u201ctwo souls,\u201d ii. 315;\n their tricks with strangers, _ib._;\n correct and garbled versions of their commandments, ii. 311\n\n Duad or second, i. 212;\n ether and chaos the first, i. 343\n\n Dual evolution represented in Adam, ii. 277;\n taught by Plato and others, ii. 279\n\n Dudim, or mandragora, i. 465\n\n Dunbar, George, endeavor to derive the Sanscrit from the Greek\n language, i. 443\n\n Duomo of Milan, its original, ii. 5\n\n Du Potet, Baron, Grand Master of Mesmerism, i. 166;\n views of sorcery, epidemics, antipathies, magic, i. 279, 333\n\n Dupuis mistook ancient symbolism, i. 24\n\n Durga, the active virtue, or Shekinah, ii. 276\n\n Dust of the earth to become the constituent of living soul, ii. 420\n\n Dynasties, two in India, ii. 437\n\n Dwellers of the threshold, i. 285\n\n\n Early Christian Church invented the doctrine of Second Advent to shut\n off periodical incarnations, ii. 535;\n Christianity itself a heresy, ii. 123;\n its history imparted to the first Knight Templars, ii. 382\n\n Earth, queen of the Serpents, i. 10;\n the goddess Anahit or Venus, i. 11;\n magical exhalations, i. 199, 200;\n a magnet, i. 282\n\n Earths germinate, i. 389\n\n East, the land of knowledge, i. 89;\n its civilization preceded that of the West, i. 539\n\n Eastern \u00c6thiopians an Aryan stock, ii. 435;\n magic, its adepts uniformly in good health, ii. 595;\n requires no \u201cconditions\u201d like mediums, _ib._\n\n Ebers Papyrus in the Astor library, i. 3;\n quoted, i. 23;\n its curious contents, i. 529\n\n Ebionites, ii. 127;\n the first Christians, ii. 180;\n the relatives of Jesus, ii. 181;\n used only the Gospel according to Matthew, ii. 182;\n the Nazarenes their instructors, ii. 190;\n condemned as heretics, ii. 307\n\n Ecbatana, her seven walls and other wonders, i. 534\n\n Echo in the desert of Gobi, i. 606\n\n Ecclesia non novit sanguinem, ii. 58\n\n Eclectic Platonists adopt the inductive method, ii. 34;\n school, its dispersion desired by Christians, ii. 52;\n its groundwork, ii. 342, 343\n\n Ecstasy, power of conversing with Deity, i. 121;\n doctrine of Paracelsus and Van Helmont, i. 170;\n defined by Plotinus, i. 486\n\n Ectenic force, i. 55;\n same as psychic force, i. 113;\n same as the Akasa, _ib._\n\n Eden, the allegory of the Book of Genesis, i. 575\n\n Edison, of Newark, N. J., supposed discovery of a new force, i. 126\n\n Egg, spiritual or mundane, i. 56;\n evolved by Emepht, the supreme, i. 146;\n Isle of Chemmis produced from it, i. 147;\n Bhagavant enters and emerges as Brahma, i. 346;\n and bird, which appeared first?, i. 426, 428\n\n _Egkosmioi_, i. 312\n\n Ego, the sentient soul, inseparable from the brain, ii. 590\n\n Egypt, resort of philosophers, i. 25;\n priests could communicate from temple to temple, i. 127;\n doctrine of evolution taught, i. 154;\n the perpetual lamp discovered there, i. 226;\n taught the secret to Moses, i. 228;\n Pythagoras twenty-two years in the temple, i. 284;\n Hermetic brothers, ii. 307;\n secret biography of its gods, i. 406;\n books before Menes, _ib._;\n did not learn her wisdom from her Semitic neighbors, i. 515;\n akin with India, _ib._;\n probably colonized by the Eastern Ethiopians, _ib._;\n 20,000 years\u2019 antiquity, i. 519;\n the birthplace of chemistry, i. 541;\n dentists and oculists, i. 545;\n no doctor allowed to practice more than one specialty, _ib._;\n trial by jury, _ib._;\n received her laws from pre-Vedic India, i. 589;\n colonized from India in the dynasty of Soma-Vanga, i. 627\n\n Egyptian temples, architecture of, i. 517;\n monuments defeat the efforts of the fathers, ii. 520;\n saints reappearing as a serpent, ii. 490\n\n Egyptians, civilized before the first dynasties, i. 6;\n astronomical calculations, i. 21;\n were monotheists, i. 23;\n knowledge of engineering, i. 516;\n changed the course of the Nile, _ib._;\n their astronomical erudition, i. 520;\n their high civilization disputed, i. 521;\n arts of war, i. 531;\n gods in the Grecian pantheon, i. 543;\n made beer, manufactured glass and imitated gems, i. _ib._;\n the best music-teachers, i. 544;\n understood the circulation of the blood, _ib._;\n their sacred books older than the Genesis, ii. 431;\n ancient Indians, ii. 434;\n the Caucasian race, ii. 436\n\n Eight powers of the soul, ii. 593\n\n Eight hundred million believers in magic, mesmerism, and\n spiritualism, i. 512\n\n Eight-pointed star or double cross, ii. 453\n\n El, i. 13;\n the sun-god, same as Seth, Saturn, Seth, Siva, ii. 524\n\n Elcazar, Rabbi, expelled demons, ii. 350\n\n Electric waves, i. 278\n\n Electrical photography, i. 395\n\n Electricity, personated by Thor in Norse legends, i. 160, 161;\n two kinds, i. 188, 322;\n occult properties anciently understood, i. 234;\n represented at Samothrace by the Kabeirian Demeter, _ib._;\n denoted by the Dioskuri, i. 235;\n the fire on the altar, i. 283;\n blind and intelligent, i. 322;\n cerebral, _ib._;\n developed from magnetic currents, i. 395;\n used anciently to supply fire to the altars, i. 526\n\n Electro-magnetism, i. 103;\n employed by Paracelsus, i. 164\n\n Elion, or Elon, the highest god, i. 554\n\n Eliphas Levi, on resuscitation of the dead, i. 485\n\n Elixir of life regarded as absurd, i. 501;\n possible, i. 502;\n curious accounts, i. 503\n\n Elizabeth, Queen, Jesuitic attempt to murder her, ii. 373\n\n Elemental demon driven away with a sword, i. 364;\n spirits, i. 67, 311;\n inhabit the universal ether, i. 284;\n psychic embryos, i. 311;\n live in the ether, _ib._;\n power to assume tangible bodies, _ib._\n\n Elementary spirits, i. 67;\n three classes, i. 310;\n called demons by Proclus, i. 312;\n terrestrial spirits, i. 319;\n four classes, _ib._;\n peril of evoking them, i. 342;\n afraid of sharp weapons, i. 362\n\n Elephanta, the Mahody, ii. 5\n\n Eleusinian Mysteries, ii. 44\n\n Elihu, the hierophant of Job, ii. 497\n\n Elisha anointed Jehu that he might unite the Israelites, ii. 525\n\n Ellenborough, Lady, her talisman, ii. 255, 256\n\n Elohim inhabiting an island in the ancient inland sea of Middle Asia,\n i. 589, 590, 599\n\n Eloim, gods or powers, priests; also Aleim, i. 575\n\n Emanation of souls from divinity, doctrine of, i. 13\n\n Emanations, doctrine of, ii. 34\n\n Embalming in Thibet, ii. 603\n\n Emanuel, not Christ, but the son of Isaiah, ii. 166;\n the son of the Alma, in whose days Syria and Israel were overcome,\n ii. 440\n\n Embryo, stamped with a resemblance by the imagination of the mother,\n i. 385;\n its nucleus, i. 389\n\n Emepht, the supreme, first principle, i. 146;\n emanation from him of the creative God, ii. 41\n\n Emigration from India to the West, ii. 428\n\n Eminent men called gods, i. 24, 280\n\n Emmerich, Catherine, the Tyrolese ecstatic, i. 398\n\n Empedocles believed in two souls, i. 317;\n restored a woman to life, i. 480;\n arrested a water-spout, ii. 597\n\n Empusa or gh\u00fbl, beheld by Apollonius of Tyana, i. 604\n\n Enmity, everlasting, between theology and science, ii. 88\n\n Ennemoser on seership, etc., in India, i. 460\n\n Enoch, sacred delta of, i. 20;\n Masonic legend, i. 571;\n builds a subterranean structure with nine chambers, _ib._;\n communicates secrets to Methuselah, _ib._;\n the type of the dual man, spiritual and terrestrial, ii. 453;\n and Elias ascending from hell, ii. 517\n\n Enoch-Verihe, i. 560\n\n En-Soph, i. 16, 67, 270, 272;\n means No-Thing, _quo ad non_, the same as nirvana, i. 292;\n the first principle, i. 347;\n within its first emanation, ii. 37\n\n Enthusiastic energy, ii. 591\n\n Ephesus a focus of the universal secret doctrines, ii. 155\n\n Epicurus disbelieved in God, i. 317;\n believed the soul constituted of the roundest, finest atoms, _ib._;\n testimony concerning the gods, i. 436\n\n Epidemic in moral and physical affairs, i. 274, 276, 277;\n of assassination, i. 277;\n of possession in Germany, i. 374\n\n Epimenides, i. 364;\n power to make his soul leave his body and return, ii. 597\n\n Epiphanius, a Gnostic renegade, who betrayed his associates as\n state\u2019s evidence, ii. 249;\n belied the Gnostics, ii. 330\n\n Episcopalian crook adopted from the augurs of Etruria, ii. 94\n\n Epopt, master-builder, adept, ii. 91\n\n Epopt\u00e6, knew nothing of the last and dreaded rite, ii. 563\n\n Epopteia, revelation and clairvoyance, the last stage in initiation,\n ii. 90\n\n Erring spirits, their re-incarnation, i. 357\n\n Eslinger, Elizabeth, the apparition, i. 68\n\n Esoteric catechism, i. 19;\n doctrines never committed to writing, i. 271;\n Masonry not known in American lodges, ii. 376\n\n Essaoua or sorcerers, i. 488\n\n Essenes, hermetic fraternities, i. 16;\n had greater and minor mysteries, ii. 42;\n had the same customs as the Apostles, ii. 196;\n believed in pre-existence, ii. 280;\n declared by Eusebius to have been the first Christians, ii. 323;\n older than the Christians, _ib._;\n never employed oaths, ii. 373;\n probably Buddhists, ii. 491\n\n Eternal torments of hell, why pagans are condemned to them, ii. 8;\n letter of Virgin Mary on the subject, _ib._;\n damnation, the only doctrine invented originally by Christians, ii.\n 334;\n meaning of the word, ii. 12\n\n Eternity, the duad or second, i. 212;\n no Hebrew word to express the idea, ii. 12\n\n Ether, the universal, i. 128, 156, 284;\n properties, i. 181;\n directed by an intelligence, i. 199;\n disturbed by planetary aspects, i. 275;\n influenced by Divine thought, i. 310;\n the universal world-soul, i. 316, 341;\n universal, the womb of the universe, i. 389;\n universal, the repository of the spiritual images of all forms and\n thoughts, i. 395;\n the Orphean doctrine denounced by the early Christians, ii. 35\n\n Ethereal body, i. 281\n\n Ethiopians, eastern, the builders, colonists of Egypt, i. 515\n\n Etruscans understood electricity and employed it in worship, i. 527;\n invented lightning-rods, _ib._\n\n Eucharist, common to many ancient nations, ii. 43\n\n Eurinus returned after dying, i. 365\n\n European science, without the knowledge of the secrets of herbs of\n dreams, ii. 589\n\n Europeans cannot see certain colors, i. 211\n\n Eusebius, Bishop of C\u00e6sarea, perverted chronology, i. 288;\n convicted of mendacity, ii. 327\n\n Evapto, or initiation, same as epopteia, ii. 90, 91\n\n Eve, the name and its affinity with the Tetragrammaton, ii. 299;\n her story told kabalistically, ii. 223-225\n\n Every nation has believed in a God, ii. 121\n\n Evil possessed space as the intelligences retired, i. 342;\n essential to the evolving of the good, ii. 480;\n eye, i. 380;\n Pope Pio Nono said to have the gift, _ib._;\n magic, i. 26\n\n Evocation, of souls, objected to, i. 321;\n of the dead, i. 492;\n the \u201csouls of the blessed\u201d do not come, i. 493;\n blood used for the purpose, _ib._\n\n Evocations, magical, pronounced in a particular dialect, ii. 46;\n a formula, _ib._\n\n Evolution, taught by science, the secret doctrine and the Bible, i.\n 152;\n theory found in India and Assyria, i. 154;\n held by Anaximenes and accepted by the Chaldeans, i. 238;\n taught by Hermes, i. 257;\n doctrine of Robert Fludd, i. 258;\n ancient belief, i. 285, 295;\n doctrine of A. R. Wallace, i. 294;\n operation defined, i. 329, 330;\n spiritual and physical, i. 352;\n theory does not solve the ultimate mystery, i. 419;\n of man out of primordial spirit-matter, i. 429;\n Darwin begins his theory at the wrong end, _ib._;\n as taught by the Bhagavat and Manu, ii. 260;\n by Sanchoniathon and Darwin, ii. 261;\n of our own planet, ii. 420;\n for six days, and one of repose, ii. 422;\n of the universe, ii. 467;\n of man from the highest to lowest, ii. 424\n\n Exorcising a girl in Catalonia, ii. 68\n\n Exorcism, ii. 66;\n new ritual, ii. 69\n\n Exorcist-priest, ii. 66\n\n Exoteric religion, its God an idol or fiction, i. 307\n\n Exposures, pretended, of impostors, i. 75\n\n Extinction at death, those who believe it will commit, in\n consequence, any sin they choose, ii. 566\n\n _Ex votos_, Phallic, traffic by the Roman clergy, ii. 5\n\n Ezekiel\u2019s wheel, a wheel of the Adonai, ii. 451;\n explained, ii. 455;\n exoteric, ii. 461;\n esoteric, ii. 462\n\n Ezra compiled the _Pentateuch_, i. 578\n\n\n Fables, allegorical science and anthropology, i. 122;\n allegorized the gods and natural phenomena, i. 261\n\n Fairfield, Francis Gerry, his testimony in regard to the\n phantom-hand, ii. 594, 595\n\n Faith, the Devil the chief pillar, i. 103;\n its power to heal disease, i. 216;\n phenomena of, i. 323;\n its great power, ii. 597;\n of the Church, disbelievers in magic cannot share, ii. 76;\n omni-perceptive, inside of human credulity, ii. 120\n\n Faithful daughters of the church, ii. 54\n\n Fakir buried six weeks and resuscitated, i. 477;\n and his guru, ii. 105\n\n Fakirs not harmed by alligators, i. 383;\n use the force known as Akasa, i. 113;\n raised from the ground, i. 115, 224\n\n Fall of Adam, not a personal transgression, but an evolution, ii. 277\n\n Fallen angels, hurled by Siva into Onderah, ii. 11\n\n Familiar spirit, those having one, refused initiation, ii. 118\n\n Famines follow missionaries, ii. 531\n\n Faraday, i. 11;\n his medium-catcher, i. 63\n\n Fascination, i. 380, 381;\n at a precipice, i. 501\n\n Fatalism rejected by ancients, ii. 593\n\n Fate, defined by Henry More, i. 206\n\n \u201cFather\u201d of Jesus, the hierophant of the mysteries, ii. 561\n\n Fathers, selected narratives for their saints, from the poets and\n pagan legends, ii. 78\n\n Fauste asserts that the evangeliums or gospels were not written by\n Jesus or the apostles, but by unknown persons, ii. 38\n\n Fav-Atma, or sentient soul, ii. 590\n\n Favre, Jules, counsel for Madam Roger, i. 166\n\n Feast of the dead in Moldavia and Bulgaria, ii. 569, 570\n\n Felix, preacher of Notre Dame, on mystery and science, i. 337\n\n Felt, George H., i. 22\n\n Female trinity, ii. 444\n\n Ferho, the greatest, i. 300;\n first cause, i. 301;\n believed in by Jesus and John, ii. 290\n\n Fessler\u2019s rite, a Jesuitical production, ii. 390\n\n Fetahil, i. 298;\n called to aid in creation, i. 299;\n the newest man and creator, i. 300;\n the \u201cnewest man,\u201d ii. 175\n\n Fiery serpents (_Numbers_, xxi.), a name given to the Levites, i. 555;\n or seraphs, the Levites, or serpent-tribe, ii. 481;\n the allegory explained, ii. 129\n\n Fifteen thousand devils in a man, ii. 75\n\n Fifth degree, ii. 365;\n element, i. 317;\n stage of initiation the most awful and sublime, ii. 101\n\n Fifty millions slaughtered by Christians since Jesus said, \u201cLove your\n enemies,\u201d ii. 479\n\n Fifty-five thousand Protestant clergymen in the United States, ii. 1\n\n Final absorption, i. 12\n\n Finger of the Holy Ghost preserved as a relic, ii. 71\n\n Fiords of Norway described in the Odyssey, i. 549\n\n Fire, living, i. 129;\n on the altar, electric, i. 283;\n its triple potency, i. 423;\n from heaven, always employed by the ancients in the temples, i. 526;\n preserved by the magi, i. 528;\n and brimstone, the lake, ii. 12\n\n Fire-proof mediums, i. 445, 446\n\n F\u016bkara-Yogis, ii. 164\n\n First Air, or anima mundi, ii. 227;\n adept, ii. 317;\n begotten, constructed the world, i. 342;\n cause, denied by Vyasa and Kapila, ii. 261;\n Christians, the Elianites, ii. 180;\n the disciples of Paul, ii. 178;\n cycle, i. 301;\n gods, a hierarchy of higher powers, ii. 451;\n light, i. 302;\n man created bi-sexual, i. 559;\n races of men spiritual, ii. 276;\n direct emanations of the Tikkun or Adam Kadmon, _ib._;\n sin, committed by Brahma-Prag\u00e2pati and his daughter Ushas, i. 265;\n the spirit of evil created to destroy its incarnation, _ib._;\n trinity, i. 341.\n\n Fish displaying magnetic affinity, i. 210\n\n Fish-charming in Ceylon, i. 606\n\n Fisher (Dr. G.) on deploteratology, i. 390\n\n Fishwife, talk of papal discourses, ii. 7\n\n Fiske, Prof. J., i. 42;\n disputes the doctrine of cycles and the high civilization of the\n Egyptians, i. 521;\n declares the theories of profound science in ancient Egypt and the\n East utterly destroyed, i. 525\n\n Five thousand Roman Catholic clergy in the United States, ii. 1\n\n Flammarion the astronomer, his avowal, i. 195;\n Camille, his curious revelation, ii. 450\n\n Flight of the alone to the Alone, ii. 413\n\n Flood, 10,000 years B.C., i. 241;\n as described in the Assyrian tablets, ii. 422;\n Hindu legend, ii. 428;\n the old serpent, ii. 447\n\n Florentine scientist witnessing a re-incarnation of a Dalai-Lama, i.\n 437\n\n \u201cFlowers of Speech,\u201d Mr. Gladstone\u2019s catalogue, ii. 7\n\n Fludd, Robert (_de Fluctibus_), on magnetism, i. 71;\n on minerals as rudimentary of plants, etc., i. 258;\n chief of the \u201cphilosophers by fire,\u201d i. 309;\n on the essence of gold, i. 511\n\n Flute-player of Vaucanson, i. 543\n\n F\u0153tal life, little known about it, i. 386\n\n F\u0153tus, its sensitive surface like a collodionized plate, i. 385;\n its signature, _ib._;\n extinguished, i. 402\n\n Foraisse, M., his story respecting Masonry, ii. 381\n\n Forbidden ground, i. 418\n\n Force, magnetic, body nourished by, i. 169;\n produced by will, i. 285;\n the supreme artist and providence, ii. 40\n\n Force-correlation, i. 235;\n taught in prehistoric time, i. 241, 242;\n the A B C of Occultism, i. 243\n\n Fore-heaven, ii. 534\n\n Fall of man an allegory, and so regarded, ii. 541\n\n Forever, meaning of the word, ii. 12\n\n Forgery the basis of the Church, ii. 329\n\n Former life, i. 347\n\n Forms, images impressed on the ether, i. 395\n\n Formula of an evocation, ii. 46\n\n Formulas, secret, i. 66;\n for inextinguishable fire, i. 229\n\n Four ages or yugs, ii. 275;\n ages of the Bible like those of the nations, ii. 443;\n gospels, their doctrines found elsewhere, ii. 337;\n kingdoms in nature, i. 329;\n men not begotten by the gods, nor born of women, i. 558;\n the gods afraid of them, and give them wives, i. 558;\n races of men, i. 559;\n Tana\u00efm, etc., entered the garden, ii. 119;\n \u201cTruths,\u201d i. 290, 291\n\n Fourni\u00e9, Dr., declares that no physiology of the nervous system\n exists, i. 407;\n remarkable declaration concerning the human ovule, i. 397\n\n Fourth degree, ii. 365;\n race, parents of men \u201cwhose daughters were fair,\u201d i. 559\n\n Fourfold emanations, ii. 272\n\n Francis, St., preached to the birds, ii. 77;\n preached to a wolf till he repented, _ib._\n\n Francke, A., remarks on the transmutations of Christianity, ii. 38;\n the Sephiroth and Providence, ii. 40\n\n Free and Accepted Masons, and the Masonic impostor, Anderson, ii. 389\n\n Free-Masonry, its origin in London, ii. 349;\n proclaims a creative principle as Great Architect, ii. 377\n\n French Revolution, what it achieved for freedom, ii. 22\n\n Fretheim, Abb\u00e9, his faculty of conversing by power of will, i. 476\n\n Friar Pietro presents a demon to Dr. Torralva, ii. 60\n\n Fundamental doctrine identical in all the ancient religions, ii. 99\n\n Funeral ritual of the Egyptians, ii. 367\n\n Future life, better to believe in it, ii. 566;\n self, beheld at the moment of initiation, ii. 115;\n man, primitive shape, i. 388, 389;\n religion of, i. 76;\n woman of, artificially fecundated, i. 77;\n also offered to the incubi, i. 78\n\n\n Gabriel, the same as Christos, ii. 193\n\n Gaffarillus, on the form of a burned plant remaining in the ashes, i.\n 475, 476\n\n Galileo, i. 35;\n anticipated, i. 159, 238\n\n Gall\u00e6us, quotation from, ii. 504\n\n Gan-Duniyas, an Assyrian name of Babylonia, i. 575\n\n Gan-Eden, or garden of Eden, also Ganduniyas, a name of Babylonia, i.\n 575\n\n Ganesor, the elephant-headed god found in Central America, i. 572, 573\n\n Ganges, the paradisiacal river, ii. 30\n\n Gap between Christianity and Judaism, ii. 526\n\n Garden of delight (Eden), the mysterious science, ii. 119;\n of Eden, allegory, i. 575;\n name of Babylonia, _ib._;\n explanation as a sacerdotal college, _ib._\n\n Garibaldi, his testimony concerning priests, ii. 347;\n a Mason, ii. 391\n\n Garlic, story by Hippocrates, i. 20\n\n Gasparin, Count Agenor de, i. 99;\n makes no differences between magnetic phenomena and will-force, i.\n 109;\n his labors, ii. 15\n\n Gate of the House of Life, and of Dionysus, ii. 245, 246\n\n Gates of Death, in the hall of initiation, ii. 364\n\n Gautama-Buddha, his birth announced to Maya his mother by a vision,\n i. 92;\n called an atheist, i. 307;\n his answer to King Prasenagit on miracles, i. 599, 600;\n a disciple of a Jaina guru, ii. 322;\n his legends wrought into the evangelists, ii. 491, 492;\n his history copied into _The Golden Legend_, ii. 579;\n his esoteric doctrines, ii. 319;\n first opened the sanctuary to the pariah, _ib._\n\n Gayatri, its metre, ii. 410\n\n Gegen Chutuktu, late patriarch of Mongolia, an incarnation of Buddha,\n ii. 617\n\n Gehenna, a valley near Jerusalem, where the Israelites immolated\n their children, ii. 11;\n of the universe, or eighth sphere or planet, i. 328;\n repentance possible, i. 352\n\n Gemantria, ii. 298\n\n Gemma, Cornelius, account of a child born wounded, i. 386\n\n Genealogy of the gods, astronomical, i. 267\n\n Generations, fall into, i. 315\n\n Genesis, Book of, a reminiscence of the Babylonish captivity, i. 576;\n first three chapters transcribed from other cosmogonies, the fourth\n and fifth from the secret _Book of Numbers_, the _Kabala_, i.\n 579;\n the introductory chapters do not treat of creation, ii. 421;\n the book later than the invention of the sign Libra, ii. 457\n\n Genghis Khan, his tomb and promised reappearance, i. 598\n\n Genii, or \u00c6ons, lord of, i. 300\n\n Genius, the divine spirit, i. 277\n\n Genoa cathedral, the celebrated vase, i. 537, 538\n\n Geographers in pre-Mosaic days, i. 406\n\n Geometers of the Alexandrian Museum, i. 7\n\n Germany depopulated by the thirty years\u2019 war, ii. 503;\n priestesses, how they hypnotized themselves, ii. 592\n\n Ghosts, unlike materialized spirits, i. 69; i. 345\n\n Ghouls, i. 319;\n or gh\u00fbls, in the deserts, i. 604;\n and vampires, ii. 564\n\n Giants, i. 31;\n progenitors of Brahmans, i. 122;\n remains of a prehistorical race, i. 303, 304\n\n Gibbon, his praise of the Gnostics, ii. 249\n\n Gilbert on magnetism, i. 497\n\n Giles, Rev. Chauncey, on spiritual death, i. 317\n\n Ginnungagap, the cup of illusion, i. 147;\n the boundless abyss of the mundane pit, i. 160\n\n Girard, Father, his employment of sorcery and revolting crimes, ii.\n 633\n\n Gladstone, Hon. W. E., \u201cSpeeches of Pius IX.,\u201d ii. 4;\n catalogue of \u201cflowers of speech\u201d in papal discourses, ii. 7\n\n Glass that would not break, i. 50;\n malleable, i. 239;\n in Pompeii, China, and Genoa, i. 537\n\n Glass-blowing in Egypt, i. 543\n\n Gliddon, George R., description of the moving of an obelisk, i. 519;\n eloquent testimony to Egyptian civilization, i. 521, 522\n\n Glycerine, a compound of three hydroxyl groups, i. 505, 506\n\n Gnosis, the Kabala, or secret knowledge, still existing, ii. 38\n\n Gnostic, wrote _Gospel according to John_, i. 2;\n serpent with the seven vowels, ii. 489\n\n Gnosticism, oriental, i. 271;\n Buddhistic elements, ii. 321\n\n Gnostics, ii. 41;\n believed in metempsychosis, i. 12;\n early Christians and followers of the Essenes, i. 26;\n originated many Christian doctrines, ii. 41, 42;\n their greatest heresies, ii. 155, 156;\n praised by Gibbon, ii. 259;\n their doctrines falsified by the Christian Fathers, ii. 326;\n their view of the Jewish God, ii. 526\n\n Gobi desert, the seat of empire, i. 598;\n jealousy of foreign intrusion, i. 599;\n testimony of Marco Polo, _ib._;\n believed to be inhabited by malignant beings, i. 603\n\n Goblins, elementary, i. 68\n\n God, personal, denied by modern scientists, i. 16;\n an intelligent, omnipotent, individual will, i. 58;\n his existence denied by Comte and the Positivists, i. 76;\n to be sought in nature, and not outside, i. 93;\n belief of Henry More, the English Platonist, i. 205, 206;\n Kircher\u2019s doctrine of the one magnet, i. 208;\n the monad, i. 212;\n doctrines of Voltaire and Volney, i. 268;\n the central sun, i. 270;\n the universal mind, the original doctrine, i. 289;\n is no-thing, not a concrete or visible being like objects, i. 292;\n belief of the Stoics, i. 317;\n of the several Christian denominations, ii. 2;\n the Father, ii. 50;\n of the gardens, his rites adopted by the Fathers, ii. 51;\n each immortal spirit, ii. 153;\n \u201cmanifest in the flesh,\u201d a forged text, ii. 178;\n his actions subject to necessity, ii. 251;\n Masonic testimony, ii. 377;\n the Father, the beguiling serpent, ii. 492;\n prepares hell for priers into his mysteries, ii. 524;\n every man\u2019s, bounded by his own conceptions, ii. 567\n\n God-man, the first man, i. 297\n\n God\u2019s comedy and our tragedy, ii. 534\n\n Godfrey Higgins in error about Roman Catholic esoterism, ii. 121\n\n Gods, eminent men so called, i. 24, 280;\n inferior to deities, i. 287;\n supercelestial and intercosmic, i. 312;\n pagan, Christian archangels, i. 316;\n kind and beneficent demons, i. 332;\n their names kept secret, i. 581;\n not incarnations of the Supreme Being, ii. 153\n\n Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, i. 297\n\n Gold, basic matter of, i. 50;\n its manufacture asserted, i. 503;\n testimony of Francesco Picos, i. 504;\n assertion of Dr. Peisse, i. 508, 509;\n made by Theodore Tiffereau, i. 509;\n the deposit of light, i. 511\n\n _Golden Legend_, a conservatory of pious lies, ii. 74;\n choice excerpts, ii. 76-79;\n beats the _Decameron_, ii. 79;\n a parodized or plagiarized history of Buddha, ii. 579\n\n Good demons appear, i. 333;\n spirits hardly ever appear, i. 344;\n enough Morgan, ii. 372;\n Shepherd, a Gnostic symbol, ii. 149\n\n Goodale, Miss Annie, death, i. 479\n\n Goodness must be alternated by its opposite, ii. 480\n\n Gorillas mentioned by Hanno, i. 412\n\n Gospel according to Peter, ii. 181;\n fourth, full of Gnostic expressions, ii. 205;\n fourth, blends Christianity with the Gnosis and Kabala, ii. 211\n\n Gospels, their authors and compilers not known, ii. 37, 38\n\n Gossein, fakir, contest with a sorcerer, i. 368\n\n Gr\u00e6co-Russian church never under the Roman Catholics, i. 27\n\n Grand council of the emperors, a Jesuitical production, ii. 390;\n secours, i. 374;\n cycle, Orpheus, i. 294;\n its character, i. 296;\n cycle completed, i. 303\n\n Grandville, Dr., on mummy-bandaging, i. 539\n\n Gravitation, none in the Newtonian sense, i. 271\n\n Gray brain-matter the god, i. 36\n\n Great Dragon, crushed under the foot of the Virgin of the Sea, ii.\n 446;\n Vasaki, casting out a flood of poison which the earth swallows, ii.\n 490;\n equinoctial continent, i. 594;\n Masonic revolution of 1717, ii. 389;\n secret of evocation, ii. 114;\n snake, worshipped by the pueblo-chiefs of Mexico, i. 557;\n spirit of the Indian, the manifested Brahma, i. 560;\n synagogue revised the Pentateuch, i. 578;\n universal soul, absorption into it does not involve loss of\n individuality, ii. 116;\n year, i. 30\n\n Greatest scientists inanimate corpses, i. 318\n\n Greece derived its art from Egypt, i. 521\n\n Gregory VII., pope, a magician, ii. 56, 57;\n of Tours, exposition of sortilege, ii. 20\n\n Gross, T., denounces those opposed to investigation, ii. 96\n\n Grote assimilates the Pythagoreans to the Jesuits, ii. 529\n\n Gunpowder, anciently used by the Chinese, i. 241\n\n Guru-astara, a spiritual teacher, ii. 141\n\n Gymnosophists of India, i. 90;\n knew the Ak\u00e2sa, i. 113\n\n\n Half-death, i. 452\n\n Half-gods, i. 323;\n or mukti, men regenerate on earth, ii. 566\n\n Hierophant, transfer of his life to a candidate, ii. 563\n\n Hakem, the wise one of the Druzes, ii. 310\n\n Haideck, Countess, a Mason, ii. 391\n\n Hall of spirits, ii. 365\n\n Hamites preferred to settle near rivers and oceans, ii. 458\n\n Hamsa, the Messiah of the Druzes, ii. 308;\n the precursor, ii. 310\n\n Hanno, mention of gorillas, i. 412\n\n Hanuma, or Hanuman the sacred monkey, the progenitor of the\n Europeans, i. 563;\n resembles the Egyptian cynocephalus, i. 564;\n endowed with speech, ii. 274\n\n Hare, Prof., i. 38;\n views of Comte\u2019s positive philosophy, i. 79;\n mistreated by Harvard professors, i. 176, 177;\n declared _non compos mentis_, i. 233;\n bullied by Prof. Henry, i. 245\n\n Harmony and justice analagous, i. 330\n\n Hasty burial deprecated, i. 453\n\n Haug, Dr., asserts the affinity of the Zoroastrian, Jewish, and\n Christian religions, ii. 486\n\n Haunted house, i. 69\n\n Hayes, Moses Michael, introduced Royal Arch Masonry into this\n country, ii. 393\n\n Hayti, a centre of secret societies, where infants are immolated, ii.\n 572\n\n Healing art in the temples always magical, ii. 502\n\n Heathen processions and priapic emblems at Easter in France, ii. 332;\n priesthood, their cast-off garb worn by Christian clergy, ii. 8\n\n Heavenly Man, Tikkun, Protogonos, ii. 276\n\n Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible the oldest, ii. 430;\n burned by the Inquisition, _ib._\n\n Hebron, or Kirjath-Arba, city of the four Kabeiri, ii. 171;\n Smaragdine tablet of Hermes found, i. 507\n\n Heliocentric system known by Hindus 2,000 B.C., i. 9;\n denied alike by scholars and the clergy, i. 84;\n known by the priests of Egypt, i. 532\n\n Hel, or Hela, neither a state nor place of punishment, ii. 11;\n cold and cheerless, _ib._\n\n Hell, a German goddess, ii. 11;\n not a place of punishment in Scandinavian mythology, _ib._;\n nowhere so set forth in Egyptian or Hindu mythology, nor in the\n Jewish Scriptures, _ib._;\n the Archimedean lever of Christian theology, _ib._;\n said to be located in the sun, ii. 12;\n denied by Origen, ii. 13;\n hypothesis of Mr. Swinden, _ib._;\n Augustine\u2019s theory of miracles, _ib._;\n eternal torments of, all pagans condemned to, ii. 8;\n Virgin Mary testifying to it with her own signature, _ib._;\n the damned, ii. 25;\n priests there, but no monks, _ib._;\n no Dominicans, _ib._;\n a hallucination, ii. 507;\n never means eternal torment, ii. 507;\n the translation in the Bible a forgery, ii. 506;\n its prince quarrelling with Satan, ii. 515\n\n Hellenic figures at Nagkon-Wat, i. 568\n\n Hell-torments, their perpetuity denied by Origen, ii. 13\n\n Helps, artificial, to clairvoyance, ii. 592\n\n Heptaktis, the seven-rayed god, ii. 417\n\n Herakleitus on fighting with anger, i. 248;\n the Ephesian, his philosophical doctrine of fire and flux, i. 422;\n the spirit of fire, i. 423\n\n Herakles, the Grecian Hercules, the Logos, i. 298;\n disseminated a mild religion, ii. 515;\n the only-begotten, ii. 515;\n the saviour, _ib._;\n ascending from the nether house of Pluto, ii. 517;\n slew the sacrificers of men, ii. 565\n\n Herbs of dreams and enchantments, ii. 589\n\n Her-cules, the Sanscrit form of Mel-Kartha, i. 567\n\n Hercules, the magnet named from him, i. 130;\n not the same as the Grecian Herakles, _ib._;\n creator and father, i. 131;\n killed by the devil, i. 132;\n and Thor, i. 261;\n the first-begotten, Bel, Baal, and Siva, ii. 492;\n the Titan, restores Jupiter or Zeus to his throne, i. 299;\n descends to Hades, _ib._;\n Invictus, his initiation into the Eleusynia and descent into hell,\n ii. 516\n\n Herder places the cradle of mankind in India, ii. 30\n\n Heredom Rosy Cross, ii. 394\n\n Heresies, early Christianity among them, ii. 123;\n secret sects of the Christians, ii. 289;\n one still in existence, ii. 290\n\n Hermas, the pastor of, a book quoting from the _Sohar_, ii. 243, 244\n\n Hermes, the counterpart of the serpent, ii. 508;\n his prediction to Prometheus, ii. 514, 515;\n Trismegistus, 20,000 books written before Menes, i. 406;\n his _Smaragdine Tablet_ or manual of alchemy, i. 507;\n reputed author of serpent-worship and heliolatry, i. 551;\n an evocation of angels and demons to preside at Mysteries, i. 613;\n and Hostanes believed in one God, ii. 88\n\n Hermetic books on medicine, i. 3;\n their antiquity, i. 37;\n Brothers of Egypt, ii. 307;\n doctrine accounts most reasonably for the formation of the world,\n i. 341;\n fraternities, i. 16;\n gold, i. 511;\n philosophers, i. 1\n\n Hermetists\u2019 doctrine of creation, i. 258;\n why they wrote incomprehensibly, i. 627\n\n Hermodorus or Hermotimus, i. 364, 476\n\n Hero invented a steam-engine, i. 241\n\n Herodotus mentioned a night of six months, i. 412;\n testimony concerning the pyramids, i. 518, 519;\n description of the labyrinth, i. 522\n\n Hezekiah, the Redeemer and Messiah, ii. 440, 441;\n the rod or scion from the stem of Jesse, ii. 441;\n a prince from Bethlehem establishes a sacred college and a new\n religion, terminating Baal and serpent-worship, ii. 440;\n succeeded on the extinction of the family of Ahaz, ii. 166\n\n Hiarchus and Hiram, i. 19\n\n Hieroglyph of Knights Kadosh, ii. 391\n\n Hieroglyphics on the stones of the Temple of Dendera, i. 524\n\n Hierophant offered his own life, ii. 42;\n did not allow candidates to see or hear him personally, ii. 93\n\n Hierophants, Egyptian, i. 90\n\n Higgins, Godfrey, i. 33;\n rebuke of skeptics who accept the Bible stories, i. 284;\n had not the key to the esoteric doctrine, i. 347;\n on the Rasit, ii. 35\n\n High Hierophant transferring his life, ii. 564\n\n Highest pyrotechny, i. 306\n\n Hildebrand, the seventh Pope Gregory, a magician, ii. 557\n\n Hindu demigods, ii. 103;\n wonderful appearance seen by Jacolliot, _ib._;\n gods, masks without actors, ii. 261, 262;\n populations in Greece, ii. 428;\n rites belong to a religion older than the present one, ii. 535\n\n Hindus, more susceptible to magnetism, ii. 610;\n and Iranians, battles, i. 12;\n ancient, their philosophy and science, i. 618-620;\n their great probity, ii. 474;\n corrupted by European associations, _ib._\n\n Hindustan, once called \u00c6thiopia, ii. 434;\n dark races worshipped Maha Deva, _ib._\n\n Hiouen-Thsang, his description of the magicians of Peshawer, i. 599;\n his vision of the shade of Buddha, i. 600\n\n Hippocrates, his views like of Herakleitos, i. 423;\n identical with those of the Rosicrucians, _ib._;\n his doctrine of man\u2019s inner sense, i. 425;\n praise of instinct, i. 434\n\n Hiram, i. 19\n\n Hiram Abiff, i. 29\n\n Hitchcock, E. A., exposition of alchemy, i. 308;\n Prof., on psychometric photography, i. 184\n\n Hivim, or Hivites, descendants of the Serpent, i. 554;\n Ophites, or serpent-tribe, Cain their ancestor, ii. 446;\n of Palestine a serpent-tribe, ii. 481\n\n Hobbs, Abigail, confederated with the devil, i. 361\n\n Holy Ghost, the \u00c6ther, the breath of God, ii. 50;\n a bit of his finger kept as a relic, ii. 71.\n\n Holy kiss, and toilet directions of Augustine, ii. 331;\n limbs of Sts. Cosmo and Damiano, phallic symbols, ii. 5;\n syllable, supreme mystery, ii. 114;\n thief ascends out of hell, ii. 517\n\n Homer, the Iliad probably plagiarized, ii. 436\n\n Homunculi of Paracelsus, i. 465\n\n Hononer, the Persian Logos, or living manifested word, i. 560\n\n Horse with fingers, i. 411, 412\n\n Horse-shoe magnet applied to the phantom-hand, ii. 594\n\n Horus piercing the head of the serpent, ii. 446\n\n Hospitals anciently established near temples, ii. 98\n\n Houdin Robert, i. 73, 100;\n testimony in regard to table-rapping and levitation, i. 358, 359;\n suspected of magic, i. 379\n\n House of David deposed by the Israelites, ii. 439\n\n Howitt William, explanation of exorcism, ii. 66\n\n Huc, Abb\u00e9, his testimony concerning the infant Dalai-Lama, i. 438;\n his book placed on the _Index Expurgatorius_, _ib._;\n his account of the marvellous tree, i. 440;\n the picture of the moon, i. 441;\n punishment for his candor, ii. 345, 346;\n his testimony of the Lamaic doctrines, ii. 582;\n his story of the children compelled to swallow mercury, ii. 604.\n\n Hufeland, Dr., theory of magnetic sympathy, i. 207\n\n Human body once half ethereal, i. 1;\n made as a prison of earlier races, i. 2;\n credulity contains inside of it an omni-perceptive faith, ii. 120;\n embryo, evolved, i. 302, 303;\n f\u0153tus, transient forms like those of f\u0153tal animals, i. 388;\n process of development, i. 389;\n race, many before Adam, i. 2;\n imprisoned in bodies, i. 2;\n antiquity more than 250,000 years, i. 3;\n authorities differ in regard to original barbarism, i. 4;\n sacrifices, an ancient practice, ii. 547;\n abolished in Egypt, Africa, and Greece, ii. 568;\n offered to the Virgin Mary as heretics, _ib._;\n soul an immortal god, i. 345;\n is born and dies like man, _ib._;\n spirit, sees all things as in the present, i. 185\n\n Humanity, happy day for it, ii. 586.\n\n Humboldt, Alexander von, suspected intercourse between Mexicans and\n Hindus, i. 548\n\n Humboldt, Alexander, on presumptuous skepticism, i. 223\n\n Hume, David, exalted by Prof. Huxley, i. 421;\n the real founder of the positive philosophy, i. 82;\n testimony in the miracles at the tomb of Abb\u00e9 Paris, i. 373\n\n Hunt, Prof. Sterry, on solutions, i. 192\n\n Huss, John, his memory sacred in Bohemia, ii. 560\n\n Huxley, physical basis of life, i. 15;\n classes spiritualism outside of philosophical inquiry, i. 15;\n repudiates positive philosophy as Catholicism minus Christianity,\n i. 82;\n defines what constitutes proof, i. 121;\n confesses ignorance of matter, i. 408;\n his theory formulated, i. 419\n\n Hyk-sos, or shepherds of Egypt, the ancestors of the earlier\n Israelites, ii. 487\n\n Hymns by Dirghatamas, ii. 411\n\n Hyneman, Leopold, testimony on Masonry becoming sectarian, ii. 380\n\n Hypatia, her atrocious murder by order of St. Cyril, ii. 53;\n letter of Synesius, _ib._;\n why Cyril caused her to be murdered, ii. 253\n\n Hystaspes, Gushtasp, Vistaspa, ii. 141;\n visited Kashmere, ii. 434\n\n Hysteria imputed to the prophets of the Cevennes, i. 371\n\n\n I was, but am no more, ii. 393\n\n I. H. S., in hoc signum, ii. 527\n\n Iachus, an Egyptian physician, i. 406\n\n Iaho, variety of etymologies, ii. 301;\n statement of Aristotle, ii. 302\n\n Iamblichus, i. 33;\n raised ten cubits from the ground, i. 115;\n forbids endeavors to procure phenomena, i. 219;\n explanation of Pythagoras, i. 248, 284;\n on manifestations of demons, etc., i. 333;\n the founder of theurgy, his practice, i. 489;\n his explanation of the objects of the Mysteries, ii. 101\n\n Iao, the male essence of the Ph\u0153nicians, i. 61\n\n Yava, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, the secret name of the mystery-god, ii. 165\n\n Id\u00e6ic finger, i. 23\n\n Identity of all ancient religions and secret fraternities between the\n ancient faiths, ii. 100\n\n Idiots, reborn, i. 351\n\n Iessaens, ii. 190\n\n Ievo, not the same as Iao, ii. 296\n\n Iezedians, came from Basrah, ii. 197\n\n Ignition of stars, i. 254\n\n Ilda-Baoth, the son of Chaos, ii. 183;\n his sons, _ib._;\n creates man, ii. 184;\n punishes him for transgression, ii. 185;\n his abode in the planet Saturn, ii. 236;\n transformed into the Devil, ii. 501\n\n Illuminati and their purposes, ii. 391\n\n Illusion (_Maya_), the veil of the arcana, i. 271\n\n Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin, an element of old phallic\n religion, ii. 5;\n why promulgated, ii. 110\n\n Imagination, the plastic power of the soul, i. 396;\n not identical with fancy, _ib._;\n a memory of preceding states, _ib._;\n its power upon physical condition, i. 385;\n its influence on f\u0153tal life doubted by Magendie, i. 390\n\n Immodesty of the _Vedas_ exceeded by that of the Bible, ii. 88\n\n Immoral principles of the Jesuits, ii. 355\n\n Immorality, sexual, said to be produced by religious instinct, i. 83\n\n Ilus or Hyle, the slime or earth-matter, i. 146\n\n Immortal, Chinese, Siamese, etc., believe some know the art of\n becoming, i. 214;\n theory of Maxwell, i. 216;\n breath, i. 302;\n portion of immortal matter, ii. 262\n\n Immortality of the soul, the doctrine as old as the twelfth Egyptian\n dynasty, ii. 361;\n of the spirit, Moksha and Nirvana, ii. 116;\n of all, a false idea, i. 316;\n to be won, _ib._\n\n Imparting the secret to the successor, ii. 671\n\n Impostor-demons, seven, ii. 234\n\n Incarnation explained, ii. 152, 153;\n prophetic star, ii. 454;\n exhibited before the author, ii. 599-602\n\n Incarnations, the five of the Buddhists, ii. 275;\n known in all the old world-religions, ii. 503;\n of the deity, periodical, ii. 535\n\n Incas, the lost treasures, i. 596;\n the story of the last queen, _ib._;\n their tomb, i. 597;\n the tunnel, i. 598\n\n Incendiarism, epidemic, i. 276\n\n India, magic in, i. 89;\n gymnosophists, i. 80;\n of the archaic period, i. 589;\n included Persia, Thibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary, _ib._;\n the alma mater of the world-religions, ii. 30;\n said to be the cradle of the human race, _ib._;\n derived her rites from some foreign source, ii. 535;\n Southern, the law of inheritance, ii. 437\n\n Indian dynasties, solar and lunar, ii. 437, 438\n\n Indicator, Prof. Faraday, i. 63\n\n Individual life in the future to be won, i. 316;\n existence, how sustained, i. 318, 319;\n existence of the spirit a Hindu doctrine, ii. 534\n\n Individualization depends on the spirit, i. 315\n\n Indranee and her son painted with the aureole, ii. 95\n\n Induction, not the usual mode of great discoveries, i. 513\n\n Ineffable name employed by Jesus, ii. 387\n\n Infant, temporarily animated by the spirit of a lama, ii. 601, 602\n\n Infant-girl burned as a witch, ii. 65\n\n Infant-prophet in France, i. 438\n\n Infants, dying, prematurely born a second time, i. 351;\n unborn, how influenced, i. 395;\n eaten at the sacrifices in Hayti, ii. 572\n\n Initiation, the practice in every ancient religion, ii. 99;\n represented the experience of the soul after death, ii. 494;\n of a Druze, ii. 313\n\n Injunction of secresy, ii. 40\n\n Inman, Dr. Thos., defines greatest curse of a nation, ii. 121, 122;\n on Christian heathenism, ii. 80, 81;\n declares the Atheism imputed to Buddha Sakya not supported, ii. 533;\n comparison of Christians and Buddhists, ii. 540\n\n Inner Man, can withdraw from the body, ii. 588\n\n Inner Sense, doctrine of Hippocrates, i. 424, 425;\n of Iamblichus, i. 435\n\n Innocent III., bull against magic, ii. 69\n\n Innocents of Bethlehem, their massacre, a myth copied from India, ii.\n 199\n\n Inquisition, the slaughter-house of the church, destroyed by Napoleon\n I., ii. 22;\n its atrocious cruelty, ii. 55;\n its bloodshed and human sacrifices unparalleled in paganism, ii. 5,\n 6;\n why invented, ii. 58;\n its origin in Paradise, ii. 59;\n burned Hebrew Bibles, ii. 430\n\n Inquisitors of our days, the scientists, i. 99\n\n Insanity from spiritualism in the United States, ii. 7;\n the obsession by spirits, ii. 589\n\n Inscription on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept, i. 92\n\n Instinct, i. 425;\n its miracles, i. 433\n\n Integral whole, ii. 116\n\n Intelligence of the electric bolt, i. 188;\n ether directed, i. 199\n\n Intelligent electricity, i. 322\n\n Intercosmic gods, i. 312\n\n Interior Man, doctrine of Socrates and Plato, ii. 283\n\n Interview with a young lama re-incarnated Buddha, ii. 598\n\n Intuition the guide of the seer, i. 433;\n a rudiment in every one, i. 434;\n doctrine of Iamblichus, i. 435\n\n Investigation denounced as a criminal labor, ii. 96\n\n Invisible Sun, i. 302\n\n Invocation of ancestors by Moldavian Christians, ii. 570\n\n Invulnerability, can be imparted, i. 379\n\n Iran and Turan, their wars conflicts between Persians and Assyrians\n or Aturians, i. 576\n\n Iren\u00e6us, makes Christ fifty years old, ii. 305;\n on the trine in man, ii. 285;\n and the Gnostics, their contests, ii. 51;\n believed the soul corporeal, i. 317;\n attempted to establish a new doctrine on the basis of Plato, i. 289;\n found guilty of falsehood, ii. 327\n\n Iren\u00e6us Philaletha, explanation of the peculiar style of Hermetic\n writers, i. 628\n\n Ireland visited by Buddhist missionaries, ii. 290, 291\n\n Iron in the sun, i. 513;\n found in the Pyramid of Cheops, i. 542.\n\n Isaiah the prophet, his vision of seraphs, i. 358;\n terminated the direct line of David, ii. 440;\n celebrates the new chief, Hezekiah, _ib._\n\n Isarim or Essenean initiates, ii. 42;\n found the Smaragdine Tablet at Hebron, i. 507\n\n Isernia, worship of the _limbs_ of Saints Cosmo and Damiano, and\n traffic in phallic _ex-votos_, ii. 5\n\n Ishmonia, the petrified city, traditions of books and magic\n literature, ii. 29\n\n Isis, the name of a medicine, i. 532;\n the Virgin Mother of Egypt, ii. 10;\n queen of Heaven, ii. 50;\n immaculate, her titles applied to the Virgin Mary, ii. 95;\n anthropomorphised into Mary, ii. 41;\n the \u201cwoman clothed with the sun,\u201d ii. 489\n\n Isitwa, the divine power, ii. 593\n\n Islam, the minarets, ii. 5\n\n Islamism, the outgrowth of the Nestorian controversy, ii. 54\n\n Island of Middle Asia, inhabited by Elohim, i. 589;\n empire of the Pacific Ocean, i. 592\n\n Israel, what the name means, ii. 401;\n the enumeration of 12 tribes supposed to be purely mythical, i. 568\n\n Israelites, intermarried perpetually with the other nations of\n Palestine, i. 568;\n why their language was Semitic, _ib._;\n their symbols relate to sun-worship, ii. 401;\n the plebeian were Canaanites and Ph\u0153nicians, ii. 134;\n worshipped Baal or Bacchus and the Serpent, ii. 523;\n their prophets disapproved of sacrificial worship, ii. 525;\n offered human sacrifices, ii. 524;\n their prophetesses, _ib._\n\n Israelitish Tabernacle, elegant workmanship, i. 536\n\n Istar, Astoreth, the same as Venus, Queen of Heaven, ii. 444\n\n Isvara, a psychological condition, ii. 591\n\n \u201cItself\u201d met by the disembodied soul at the gates of Paradise, ii. 635\n\n Iurbo Adonai, ii. 185, 189\n\n Ixtlilxochitl, author of the Popul-Vuh, i. 548\n\n\n Jacob, extraordinary fecundity of his family, ii. 558;\n the Zouave, i. 165, 217, 218\n\n Jacob\u2019s pillar a lingham, ii. 445\n\n Jacolliot, Louis, i. 139;\n criticises orientalists, i. 583;\n testimony in regard to theop\u0153ia, i. 616, 617;\n branded as a humbug, ii. 47;\n denounces the theory of Turanians and Semitism, ii. 48;\n on vulgar magic in India, ii. 70;\n description of Brahmanic initiations, ii. 103;\n sees a living spectre, ii. 104, 105;\n on Hindu metaphysics, ii. 262;\n disbelieves in the chastity of Buddhistic monks, ii. 321;\n knew no secrets, ii. 584\n\n Jad\u016bgar or sorcerers in India, ii. 69\n\n Jaga-nath, ii. 297\n\n Jah-Buh-Sun, ii. 348\n\n Jaina sect claims Buddhism, ii. 321;\n owners of the cave-temples, ii. 323\n\n Jains, taught the existence of two ethereal bodies, i. 429\n\n Jairus, resuscitation of his daughter by Jesus, i. 481\n\n James the Just, never called Jesus the Son of God, ii. 202\n\n Japanese, their probity, ii. 573\n\n Jasher, Book of, ii. 399\n\n Java Aleim, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd (Lord-God), head of the priest-caste of\n Eden or Babylonia, i. 575;\n invests man with the coat of skin, _ib._;\n of the Sacerdotal College, ii. 293\n\n Javanese, island empire, i. 592\n\n Jehovah, his castle of fire, i. 270;\n a cruel anthropomorphic deity, i. 307;\n not the sacred name at all, ii. 398;\n only a Masoretic invention, _ib._;\n feminine, ii. 399;\n resembled Siva, ii. 524\n\n Jehovah-Nissi or Iao-Nisi, the same as Osiris or Bacchus the\n Dio-Nysos or Jove of Nysa, ii. 165, 526\n\n Jehovah-worship and Christianity abandoned by Freemasons at Lausanne,\n ii. 377\n\n Jeroboam made the lawful king of the Israelites, ii. 439\n\n Jerome, St., mentions Jews of Lydda and Tiberias as mystic teachers,\n i. 26;\n procured the Gospel of Matthew from the Nazarenes, ii. 181;\n his perverted text of Job, ii. 496\n\n Jerusalem, the temple not so ancient as pretended, ii. 389\n\n Jesuit cryptography, ii. 397\n\n Jesuits, a secret society, now control the Roman Church, ii. 352;\n their magic, ii. 353;\n their secret constitution, ii. 354;\n Mackenzie\u2019s description, ii. 355;\n their profession of faith, ii. 358;\n their expulsion from Venice, _ib._;\n declare Christianity not evidently true, ii. 358, 359;\n sanction the murder of parents, ii. 363;\n disguised as Talapoins, i. 371;\n contest of magic with the Augustinians, i. 445;\n two, desiring to change Sabean for Christian names, ii. 450;\n adopt the institute and habit of Siamese Talapoins, ii. 577;\n set aside Christian doctrines, ii. 578\n\n Jesus, of Renan, Strauss and Viscount Amberley, ii. 562;\n Talmudic story, ii. 201;\n discovered and revealed the occult theology, ii. 202;\n or Nebo, inspired by Mercury, ii. 132;\n and Christna, united to their Chrestos, ii. 558;\n his life a copy of Christna, his character of Buddha, ii. 339;\n preached Buddhism, ii. 123;\n believed in Ferho or Fo, ii. 290;\n did not give any name to the Father, _ib._;\n his true history imparted to the Templars, ii. 382;\n regarded as a brother, _ib._;\n an avatar like Melchizedek, becomes a son of God by baptism, ii.\n 566;\n son of Panther, a high pontiff of the universal secret doctrines,\n ii. 386;\n proclaims himself the Son of God and humanity, _ib._;\n represented by a great serpent, ii. 490;\n an Essene and Nazarene, ii. 131;\n used oil and drank wine, _ib._;\n of the church, the ideal of Iren\u00e6us, ii. 33;\n classified his teachings, ii. 145, 147;\n said to have been a Pharisee, ii. 148;\n said to have been a magician, _ib._;\n the materialized divine spirit, ii. 576;\n deified because of his dramatic death, ii. 339;\n why he died, ii. 545;\n always called a _man_, ii. 239;\n forgave his enemies, ii. 8;\n the heirs of Peter curse theirs, ii. 9;\n cast out devils by purifying the atmosphere, i. 356;\n taught the _Logia_, or secret doctrines, ii. 191;\n transmitted magnetic or theurgical powers, i. 130;\n healed by word of command, i. 217;\n his followers innovators, ii. 132;\n endeavored to give the arcane truth to the many, ii. 561;\n made little impression upon his own century, ii. 335;\n familiar with the Koinoboi, ii. 336;\n who rejected him as the Son of God, ii. 455;\n said to have been hanged and stoned, ii. 255;\n never pronounced the name of Jehovah, ii. 163;\n his doctrines like those of Manu, ii. 164;\n and Buddha never wrote, ii. 559;\n unwilling to die, hence, no self-sacrificing Savior, ii. 545\n\n Jewish colonists of Palestine imbued with Magdean notions, ii. 481;\n people regard the Mosaic books as an allegory, i. 554, 555;\n theology not understood by Christians, i. 17\n\n Jews excluded from Masonic lodges, ii. 390;\n their doubtful origin, ii. 438;\n worshipped Baal or Hercules, ii. 524;\n brought the Persian dualism to Palestine, ii. 500, 501;\n named Ormazd and Ahriman, Satan, ii. 501;\n an Indian sect, the Kaloni, i. 567;\n probably came from Afghanistan or India, _ib._;\n similar or identical with the Ph\u0153nicians, i. 566\n\n Job, book of, Satan or Typhon appears, ii. 483;\n the allegory explained in the Book of the Dead, ii. 493;\n a representation of initiation, ii. 494;\n will give the key to the whole matter of the Devil, ii. 493;\n his trials and vindication, ii. 485;\n seeing God, ii. 485, 486;\n the neophyte, hears God in the whirlwind, ii. 498;\n vindicated by his Redeemer or champion, ii. 499, 500\n\n Jobard, on two kinds of electricity, i. 188\n\n John, Gospel written by a Gnostic, i. 2;\n travelled in Asia Minor and learned of the Mithraic rites, ii. 507;\n the Baptist, his disciples Essenean dissenters, ii. 130;\n disciples of, same as Nazareans or Mend\u00e6ans, do not believe in\n Christ, ii. 290\n\n Jonah, the prophet, the allegory explained, ii. 258\n\n Jones, Sir William, on the laws of Manu, i. 585;\n rules for constructing a purana, ii. 492\n\n Josaphat, St., a transmogrified Buddha, ii. 579\n\n Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Masonry erected on the same\n cosmical myths, i. 405\n\n Joseph, studied in Egypt, i. 25;\n became an Egyptian, i. 566\n\n Josephus, interpolated, ii. 196;\n his passage concerning Jesus, ii. 328\n\n Joshua, fugitives, i. 545\n\n Jowett, translator of Plato, exceptions to his criticism, i. 288\n\n Jud\u00e6ans, whether they were ever in Palestine before Cyrus, a problem,\n i. 568\n\n Jud\u00e6i, the designation of the Jews, an Indian term, ii. 441\n\n Judea, its primitive history a distortion of Indian fable, ii. 471\n\n Judgment of the Dead, ii. 364\n\n Juggernaut, his procession imitated by missionaries in Ceylon, ii. 113\n\n Jugglers of India and Egypt, i. 73;\n walking from tree-top to tree-top, i. 495\n\n Julian, the emperor, a son of God or Mithra by initiation, ii. 566\n\n Juno, her temple covered with pointed blades of swords, i. 527;\n her abandoning of Veii for Rome, i. 614\n\n Jupiter and four moons discovered in Assyria, i. 261;\n his mythological adventures, astronomical phenomena, i. 267, 268;\n or Zeus originally the cosmic force, i. 262;\n also the demiurg, _ib._;\n the chief deity of the Orphic hymn, i. 263\n\n Jury-trial, introduced by the Egyptians, i. 545\n\n Justice and harmony analogous, i. 330\n\n Justin Martyr, criticised for his heretical opinion about Socrates,\n ii. 8;\n his testimony concerning the talismans of Apollonius of Tyana, ii.\n 97;\n on the non-observance of the Sabbath by Christians, ii. 419\n\n Justinian, code of, copied from the code of Manu, i. 586\n\n\n K----, a positivist and skeptic, his experiences in Thibet, ii.\n 599-602\n\n Kabala, its fundamental geometrical figure the key to the problem, i.\n 14;\n Chaldean, not known, i. 17;\n included in the Arcane doctrines, i. 205;\n same as the laws of Manu, i. 271;\n solves esoteric doctrines of every religion, i. 271;\n never written, _ib._;\n concerning _Shedim_, i. 313;\n its system of Sephiroth and emanations, ii. 213;\n repeated in Talapoin manuscripts, i. 577;\n Oriental, or secret Book of Numbers, i. 579\n\n Kabalists, Chaldean, claim science above 70,000 years old, i. 1;\n explanation of the allegory of descent into hell, i. 299\n\n Kabeiri, Assyrian divinities, i. 569;\n differently named and numbered in different places, _ib._;\n reproduced in their Samothracian postures on the walls of\n Nagkon-Wat, _ib._;\n had similar names east as west, _ib._;\n worshipped at Hebron, the city of Beni-Anak or _anakim_, _ib._;\n number hardly known, ii. 478;\n their names, ii. 170\n\n Kabeirian gods represented at Nagkon-Wat, i. 565, 566\n\n Kadeshim, or Galli, in the Hebrew sanctuaries, ii. 45\n\n Kadeshuth, or Nautch-girls in India, ii. 45\n\n Kadosh degree invented at Lyons, ii. 384\n\n Kalani, an Indian sect, progenitors of the Jews, i. 567\n\n Kalavatti, raised from the dead by Christna, ii. 241\n\n Kalmucks, described earlier human races than the present, i. 2\n\n Kalpas, i. 31\n\n Kali, the \u201cfall of man,\u201d ii. 275\n\n Kali-Yug, the designation of the present third yug or age of mankind,\n i. 587;\n began 4,500 years ago, _ib._\n\n Kaliadovki, or Christian mysteries, ii. 119\n\n Kangalins, or witches in India, ii. 69\n\n Kanhari caves at Salsette, the abode of St. Josaphat, ii. 580, 581\n\n Kanni, or bad virgins, ii. 447\n\n Kansa of Madura, commands the murder of Christna and the massacre of\n the infants, ii. 199\n\n Kapila, a skeptic, i. 121; i. 307;\n denied a First Cause, ii. 261\n\n Karabtanos, i. 300\n\n Karnak, the representative of Thebes, its archeological remains, i.\n 523;\n lakes and mountains in its sanctuary, i. 524\n\n Kasbeck, the mountain where Prometheus was punished, i. 298\n\n Katie King, i. 48, 54;\n soulless, i. 67\n\n Kavindisami the fakir, causes a seed to grow miraculously, i. 139\n\n Kebar-Zivo, i. 300\n\n Kepler believed the stars to be intelligences, i. 207, 208, 253\n\n Kerrenhappuch, a mystic name, ii. 496\n\n Kerner, Dr., witnessing case of Elizabeth Eslinger, i. 68;\n account of the encounter of the Cossack and Frenchman, i. 398\n\n Keto or Cetus, the same as Dagon or Poseidon, ii. 258\n\n Key to the Buddhist system, i. 289;\n to the mysteries lost by the Roman Catholic Church, ii. 121;\n G. Higgins mistaken, _ib._\n\n Keys of St. Peter, where they originated, ii. 31;\n cross and fishes, eastern symbols, ii. 255;\n to Masonic ciphers, ii. 394\n\n Keystone, absent at Nagkon-Wat, Santa Cruz del Quich\u00e8, Ocosingo, and\n the Cyclopean structures of Greece and Italy, i. 571;\n has an esoteric meaning, _ib._\n\n Khaldi, worshippers of the moon-god, ii. 48\n\n Khamism, an ancient deposit from Western Asia, ii. 435\n\n Khansa, remarkable juggling trick, i. 473\n\n Kidder, Bishop, remarkable testimony concerning the religion a wise\n man would choose, ii. 240\n\n King, John, i. 75\n\n Kings and statesmen, Jesuit method for assassinating, ii. 373\n\n Kircher, Father, taught universal magnetism, i. 208\n\n Kiyun or Kivan, the same as Siva, i. 570\n\n Klikoucha, i. 28\n\n Klippoth, i. 141\n\n Kneph, his snake-emblem, i. 133;\n producing the mundane egg, ii. 226\n\n Knights Kadosch, cipher, ii. 395;\n hieroglyph, ii. 396;\n Rose Croix, cipher, ii. 395;\n Templars, i. 30;\n Templars, the modern, have no secrets dangerous to the Church, ii.\n 381;\n Templars, French Order, ii. 384, 385;\n the assassination of a Prince, ii. 385\n\n Knowledge, tree of, the pippala, ii. 412;\n arcane, when sorcery and when wisdom, ii. 58\n\n Koheleth, the summary, ii. 476\n\n Koinobi or communists of Egypt, ii. 305\n\n Kol-Arbas, the Tetrad or group of four mistaken for a Gnostic leader,\n ii. 248\n\n Kor\u00e8-Persephon\u00e8, Zeus the Dragon, and their son, ii. 505\n\n Kosmos, regarded as God or comprehending God, i. 154\n\n Kounboum, mystery of, i. 289;\n the Sacred Tree of Thibet, i. 302;\n the wonderful Tree of Thibet with letters and symbols on its\n leaves, i. 440;\n Sanscrit characters on the leaves and bark, ii. 46\n\n Kristophores, or the fourth degree, ii. 365\n\n Kronos, i. 132\n\n Krupte (crypt) the abode of a _teleiotes_, ii. 93\n\n Kublai-Khan, ii. 608;\n why he failed to adopt Christianity, ii. 581, 582;\n reverences Christ, Mahomet, Moses, and Buddha all together, ii. 582;\n his testimony concerning Christians, ii. 583\n\n Kuklopes or Cyclopeans, shepherds, miners, builders, metal-workers,\n and Anakim, i. 567\n\n Kuklos Anangkes, or Circle of Necessity, i. 553\n\n Kukushan, a medicinal plant of extraordinary virtue, ii. 608\n\n Kumil-M\u00e2dan, the undine, an elemental spirit, i. 496\n\n Kurds, affirmed to be Indo-European, ii. 629;\n are Mahometans, magicians, Yezids, and fire-worshippers, ii. 630;\n scene with a sorcerer, ii. 631\n\n Kutchi of Lha-Ssa, magically apprised by a Shaman of the author\u2019s\n helpless condition in the desert, ii. 628\n\n Kutti-Satan, a Tamil spirit, i. 567\n\n\n Labyrinth, the great, description by Herodotus, i. 522\n\n Lactantius on calling up souls, i. 167;\n declared the heliocentric system a heretical doctrine, i. 526;\n rejected the doctrine of the antipodes, ii. 477\n\n L\u00e6strygonians of the _Odyssey_ cannibal races of Norway, i. 549\n\n Laghana-Sastra, a secret sect in India, ii. 315;\n their sacred groves, ii. 316\n\n Lake, mysteries of, ii. 138;\n of fire and brimstone, ii. 12;\n the devil cast in it, with the beast and false prophet, _ib._;\n place of purification of the wicked, ii. 238\n\n Lakes and mountains in the Sanctuary of Karnak, i. 524\n\n Lakshmi or Lakmi, the Damatri Venus or Great Mother, ii. 259, 598\n\n Lama infant, or reincarnated Buddha, interview with him, ii. 598\n\n Lamaic saints at a cave-temple, ii. 599;\n exorcism, ii. 626\n\n Lamaism, the purest Buddhism, ii. 608\n\n Lamas, Thibetan, use the force known as Ak\u00e2sa, i. 113\n\n Lamps, ever-burning, one in the tomb of Cicero\u2019s daughter, i. 224,\n 228;\n in crypts of India, Thibet, and Japan, i. 225;\n in Travancore, _ib._;\n in Egypt, i. 226;\n at Athens, Carthage, Edessa, Antioch, i. 227;\n in the Appian Way and the Mosaic Tabernacle, i. 128;\n mode of preparing, i. 229\n\n Lamp-wicks of stone, i. 231;\n of asbestos, i. 231\n\n Land-measuring, known by the Egyptians, i. 531\n\n Lao-tsi, or Laotsen, his figure produced by magic, i. 600\n\n Lares, i. 345\n\n Larmenius, charter forged, ii. 385\n\n Larva, the soul, i. 344, 345\n\n Larv\u00e6, shadows of men that have once lived, i. 310;\n their reincarnation, i. 357\n\n Last rite, not known by the highest epopt\u00e6, ii. 563\n\n Latin Church, nearly upset by modern research, ii. 6;\n despoiled the kabalists and theurgists, ii. 85;\n preserves the old pagan worship, even to the dress of the clergy,\n ii. 92\n\n Lausanne, declaration of the Supreme Masonic Councils, ii. 377;\n denounced by Gen. Pike, _ib._\n\n Leaping of the prophets of Baal, ii. 45\n\n Leaves, impressions made on, i. 368, 369\n\n Le Comte, Prof., comparison of living and dead organism, i. 466;\n on vital force, i. 313\n\n Lempriere accuses Pythagoras and Porphyry, i. 431\n\n Lemure, i. 345\n\n Lemuria, the last continent of the Indian Ocean, perhaps the same as\n Atlantis, i. 591, 592;\n the Indian legend, i. 594\n\n Lens found at Nineveh, i. 239\n\n Lentulus, his forged letter, ii. 151\n\n Leopard-skin, a sacred appendage of the mysteries, i. 568;\n found sculptured in basso-relievo in Central America, i. 569;\n employed by the Brahmans, _ib._\n\n Lesser mysteries, their meaning and object, ii. 111\n\n Lesser and greater mysteries, accused of indecency, ii. 100\n\n Letter of Father Raulica on magic, ii. 70;\n of Mary Virgin to the Bishop and Church of Messina, ii. 83;\n from a Druze brother to the author, ii. 313\n\n Letters, ii. 83;\n invented in Egypt, i. 532\n\n Levi, a caste rather than a tribe, i. 568\n\n Levi, Eliphas, exposition of the means to acquire magical power, i.\n 137;\n his remark on the ancient Christian malignity, ii. 250\n\n Leviathan, the occult science, ii. 499\n\n Law of compensation never swerves, ii. 545\n\n Levitation discussed, i. 491, 492, 494-498;\n under magnetic conditions practicable, ii. 589\n\n Levitations, i. 100, 225;\n declared impossible, i. 105;\n of Iamblichus, i. 115;\n occasioned by the attraction of the _perisprit_ or astral soul, i.\n 197;\n disapproved by Iamblichus, i. 219\n\n Levites, or serpent-tribe, the seraphs or fiery serpents, ii. 481\n\n Lewis, Sir G. C., opinion adverse to the culture of the ancients, i.\n 525\n\n Liberalia, or St. Patrick\u2019s day, a festival of the Church, ii. 528\n\n Libyan shepherds, Cyclopeans, i. 567\n\n Lichen, produced, i. 302\n\n Life, a phenomenon of matter, i. 115\n\n Life-principle, speculations, i. 466\n\n Life-transfer, ii. 564\n\n Light, chemical relations, i. 136;\n undulatory theory much doubted, i. 137;\n mystical, the Divine Intelligence, i. 258;\n same as electricity, _ib._;\n both matter and a force, i. 281;\n sympathy its offspring, i. 309;\n an energy, not an emanation, the view of Aristotle, i. 510;\n sublimated gold, i. 511\n\n Lightning, conjured down by Prometheus, i. 526;\n fate of Tullius, i. 527\n\n Lightning-photographs, i. 394, 395\n\n Lightning-rods on ancient temples, i. 527, 528;\n used in India, i. 528\n\n Lilith, Adam\u2019s \u201cfirst wife,\u201d ii. 445\n\n Linen of ancient Egypt, i. 536;\n fire-proof, i. 230\n\n Linga, same as the pillars of the patriarchs, ii. 235\n\n Lingham, or emblem of Maha Deva, ii. 5;\n and Yoni in churches, ii. 5\n\n Lithos or phallus, reproduced in steeples, turrets, and domes, ii. 5\n\n Littr\u00e9 on positive philosophy, i. 78\n\n Living acari by chemical experiments, i. 465;\n fire, i. 301\n\n Local gods, ii. 451\n\n Lodestone, its power to affect a whole audience, i. 265\n\n Logia, or secret doctrines taught by Jesus, ii. 191\n\n Logoi, all fail and are punished, i. 298\n\n Logos, i. 131;\n in every mythos, i. 162\n\n \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2, _True Doctrine_ of Celsus, story of the\n book at a convent, ii. 52\n\n Long-face, the Supreme God, ii. 247\n\n Long hair, worn by John the Baptist and Jesus, and denounced by\n Paul, ii. 140\n\n Lord of the Genii, i. 300\n\n Losing one\u2019s soul possible, i. 317\n\n Lost word, where to be sought, i. 580;\n and its substitute, Mac Benac, ii. 349\n\n Lotus, the sacred flower of Egyptians and Hindus, i. 91;\n superseded by the lilies, i. 92\n\n Loub\u00e8re, M. de la, on Buddha and the Buddhists, ii. 576-579\n\n Lourdes, shrine of, materializations of Virgin Mary, i. 119;\n the madonna, her miracles, i. 614, ii. 6;\n the moving of the statue, i. 618\n\n Love, its magnetism the originator of created things, i. 210\n\n Lucifer, i. 299\n\n Luke, the evangelist, reputed an Essene, ii. 144\n\n Lunar dynasties in India, the Chandra Vensa, ii. 438\n\n Lundy, Rev. Dr., what he has proved, ii. 557\n\n Luther and the demon, ii. 73;\n the worst man in Europe, ii. 200;\n his denunciation of the Catholics, ii. 208;\n intolerant, and Calvin bloodthirsty, ii. 503\n\n Lycanthropes, over 600 put to death in the Jura by sentence of a\n judge, ii. 626\n\n Lutherans burned as sorcerers, ii. 61\n\n Luxor, unfading colors, i. 239;\n brotherhood of, ii. 308\n\n\n Macaulay, his criticism of scientists and philosophers, i. 424\n\n Mac Benac, ii. 349\n\n Machagistia, the magic taught in Persia and Babylonia, i. 251;\n the testimony of Plato, ii. 306\n\n Mackenzie, his description of the Jesuits, ii. 355\n\n Macrocosm, i. 62\n\n Macroprosopos or macrocosm, i. 580\n\n Madonna of Barri, with crinoline, ii. 9;\n of Rio de Janeiro, _d\u00e9collet\u00e9e_, with blonde hair and chignon, ii.\n 10\n\n Madras famine made worse by Catholic taxation, ii. 532\n\n Ma\u00eblstrom, the Charybdis of the Odyssey, i. 545.\n\n Magendie, remedy for consumption, i. 89;\n absents himself from experiments instituted by the French Academy\n in 1826, i. 175, 176;\n acknowledges that little is known of f\u0153tal life, i. 386;\n opinion of malformation, i. 388, 390;\n asserts influence of imagination on the f\u0153tus, i. 394\n\n Magi established magic, i. 25;\n taught the birth and decadence of worlds, i. 255;\n Pythagoras, their associate, i. 284;\n objected to the evocation of souls, i. 321;\n three schools, ii. 361;\n Chaldean, the masters of the Jews, _ib._;\n two schools, ii. 128, 306\n\n Magic, based on natural science, i. 17;\n once universally taught, i. 18, 247;\n a divine science, i. 25;\n originally established by Magi, and not by priests, _ib._;\n very ancient, _ib._;\n Moses and Joseph proficients, _ib._;\n two kinds, divine and evil, i. 26;\n neglected by Masons, i. 30;\n spiritualism, its modern form, i. 42;\n profound knowledge of simples and minerals, i. 66;\n likely to be rediscovered by scientists, i. 67;\n esoteric in India, i. 90;\n practised by Gymnosophists, i. 90;\n the _divina sapientia_, i. 94;\n Salverte\u2019s Philosophy of Magic, i. 115;\n mesmerism an important branch, i. 129;\n theory of Eliphas Levi, i. 137;\n modern forms, i. 138;\n doctrine of Paracelsus, Agrippa, and Philalethes, i. 167;\n included in the arcane doctrine of Wisdom, i. 205;\n the power never possessed by those addicted to vicious indulgences,\n i. 218;\n its basis, the occult or spiritual principle, i. 244;\n testimony of Du Potet, i. 279;\n theurgical, i. 281;\n a sacerdotal science, i. 262;\n exemplified in eastern countries of Asia, i. 320;\n adepts understand the akasa or astral fluid, i. 378;\n synonymous with religion and science, i. 459;\n belief of Demokritus; 800,000,000 believers in, i. 512;\n Votan of Ancient America, i. 545;\n cultivated by Aztecs and ancient Egyptians, i. 560;\n studied by the people of Pashai or Peshawer, i. 599;\n seance described by Hon. J. L. O\u2019Sullivan, i. 608-611;\n the church believes in it, ii. 76;\n used to select the canonical books of Holy Scripture, ii. 251;\n denounced, ii. 502;\n the science of man and nature, and its applications in practice,\n ii. 583;\n its principles, ii. 587-590;\n its cornerstone, ii. 589;\n black, practised at the Vatican, ii. 6;\n taught in the lamaseries, ii. 609;\n magnetism its alphabet, ii. 610\n\n Magic arcanum, i. 506;\n crystal, i. 467;\n lamp of Hermes, ii. 417\n\n Magical an\u00e6sthetics of the Brahmans, used in the burning of widows,\n i. 540;\n exhibitions of Tartary and Thibet, testimony of Col. Yule, i. 600;\n moon of Thibet, i. 441;\n evocation a part of the sacerdotal office, ii. 118;\n evocations must be pronounced in a particular dialect, ii. 46\n\n Magician, how different from a witch, i. 366;\n difference from a medium, i. 367;\n can summon and dismiss spirits at will, _ib._\n\n Magism flourished at the Ur of the Kasdeans, i. 549\n\n Magnale magnum, i. 170, 213\n\n Magus, Magh, Mahaji, i. 129\n\n Magnes, i. 64;\n rediscovered by Mesmer, i. 71;\n the living fire or spirit of light, i. 129\n\n Magret, rediscovered by Paracelsus, i. 71;\n the stone, i. 129;\n its concealed power, i. 168;\n Kircher\u2019s doctrine of one magnet in the universe, i. 208;\n the same as the spiritual Sun, or God, i. 209;\n the poles signified in the Mysteries by the Dioskuri, i. 235;\n the sun, i. 271\n\n Magnetic currents develop into electricity, i. 395\n\n Magnetization, two kinds, i. 178;\n of minerals by animal magnetism, i. 209;\n of a table or person, i. 322\n\n Magnetism, i. 129;\n animal, denied by modern science and then accepted, i. 130;\n the magic power of man, i. 170;\n taught by Des Cartes, i. 206;\n by Naud\u00e9, Hufeland, Wirdig, and Kepler, i. 207;\n and by Porta and Father Kircher, i. 209;\n of love, the originator of every created thing, i. 210;\n taught in the Mysteries, i. 234;\n poles represented by the Dioskuri, i. 235;\n the universal law, i. 244;\n the alphabet of magic, ii. 610;\n being true, medicine absurd, _ib._\n\n Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata, antedated the age of Cyrus the great, ii. 428\n\n Maha Deva or Siva, his lingham or emblem in pagodas, ii. 5;\n worshipped by the dark races of Hindustan, ii. 434\n\n Mahady of Elephanta, ii. 5\n\n Mahat, or Prakriti, the external sense-life, ii. 565\n\n Mahomet, his testimony concerning Jews, ii. 480\n\n Mahometan, confession of Faith on the Chair of Peter, ii. 25\n\n Mahometanism, the outgrowth of Christian cruelty, ii. 53, 54;\n making more proselytes than Christians, ii. 239\n\n Maimonides, i. 17\n\n Malagrida, burned for sorcery in 1761, ii. 58\n\n Malays, their island empire, i. 592\n\n Males suckling their young, i. 412\n\n Malformations, opinion of Magendie, i. 388;\n theory of Prof. Armor, i. 392\n\n _Malum in se_, no such principle, ii. 480\n\n Man, once communed with unseen universes, i. 2;\n belief of the Kalmucks, _ib._;\n \u201cas immortal as God,\u201d i. 13;\n how influenced, i. 39;\n composed of like elements as the stars, i. 168;\n magnetism his magic power, i. 170;\n different electric condition of persons and sexes, i. 171;\n possessed of three spirits, i. 212;\n a little world inside the great, _ib._;\n Van Helmont\u2019s theory, i. 213;\n Plato\u2019s theory, i. 276, 297;\n androgynous, i. 497;\n created in the sixth millenium, i. 342;\n possesses arcane powers, ii. 113;\n how he should do, ii. 122;\n the fall an evolution, ii. 277;\n his spirit, if not his soul, pre\u00ebxistent, ii. 280;\n the object of the alchemic, Hermetic, and mystic explorations, i.\n 308;\n the philosopher\u2019s stone and trinity in unity, i. 309;\n a microcosm, i. 323;\n never steps outside of universal life, ii. 343;\n the six principles, ii. 367;\n first appears as a stone, i. 389;\n has power to shape matter, i. 394, 395;\n ante-natal maternal impressions of this character, i. 395;\n seven days on the pillar, ii. 447;\n the story of the fall regarded as an allegory, ii. 546;\n has a natural, a spiritual, and final birth, ii. 565;\n triune, body, soul, and immortal spirit, ii. 588;\n how he becomes an immortal entity, _ib._\n\n Man-tree, i. 297\n\n Mandrakes or Mandragora, a magical plant, i. 465\n\n Manes, i. 37, 345;\n his fate, ii. 208\n\n Manifestations, subjective and objective, i. 68;\n mediumistic, in Asia, i. 320\n\n Mano, ii. 228, 229, 300\n\n Mantheon, a title of Zoroaster, ii. 409\n\n Mantic frenzy produced by exhalations from the earth, i. 531\n\n Manu, laws the same as the doctrines of the sages and Kabala, i. 271;\n doctrine of the universe, _ib._;\n laws of, opinion of Sir William Jones, i. 585;\n the basis of the code of Justinian, i. 581;\n their age, i. 586-588;\n widow-burning not mentioned in them, i. 588;\n on life, evolution, and transformations, i. 620, 621;\n predicts the advent of the Divine One, ii. 50;\n knew nothing of deluge, ii. 427, 428\n\n Manus, six, progenitors of six races of men, i. 590\n\n Manu-Vina or Menes, colonizes Egypt from India, i. 627\n\n Manwantara, i. 32\n\n Marathos or Martu, ancient city and name of Ph\u0153nicia, means _The\n West_, i. 579\n\n Marathon, neighing of horses and shouts of men heard 400 years after\n the battle, i. 70\n\n Marcion distinguished between Judaism and Christianity, ii. 162;\n his doctrines, ii. 103;\n accepted Paul and denied the other apostles, ii. 168;\n the great h\u00e6resiarch, his influence, ii. 159, 160;\n brutally assailed by Tertullian and Epiphanius, _ib._\n\n Marco Polo, on veins of salamander or asbestos, i. 504;\n asserts that in Kashmere images are made to speak, i. 505;\n brought movable types and blocks for printing, from China, i. 513;\n describes Buddha as living like a Christian, ii. 581;\n on the nature-spirits of the deserts, i. 603;\n would not retract his \u201cfalsehoods,\u201d _ib._;\n declaration in regard to hearing spirits talk in the desert, i. 604\n\n Marcosians, their sacrament, ii. 513\n\n Marechale d\u2019Ancre, her trial for sorcery, ii. 60\n\n Mariana, Jesuit, explains the best way to kill a king, ii. 372, 373\n\n Markland, a possible root of name America, i. 592\n\n Marriage cured the convulsionaries, i. 375\n\n Marrying the father\u2019s wife, ii. 240\n\n Marses in Italy, power over serpents, i. 381\n\n Martu or Marathos, the west, i. 579\n\n Mary, virgin, materializing at Lourdes, i. 119;\n writes a letter from heaven declaring the pagans condemned to\n eternal torments, ii. 8;\n the anthropomorphized Isis, ii. 41;\n writes letters, ii. 82, 83;\n text of one, ii. 87;\n without her consent, no redemption, ii. 172, 173;\n overshadowed by Ilda-Baoth and not by \u00c6bel Zivo or Gabriel, ii. 247;\n like Dido, the Virgin of the Sea, ii. 446;\n is visited by the Agathodaimon serpent, ii. 505\n\n Mason, Osgood, on deity and nature, i. 426\n\n Masonic ciphers, the keys, ii. 394;\n fraternity, its unworthy members, ii. 376;\n honors offered by M. de N\u00e8gre, a grand hierophant, refused, ii. 380;\n institute, brought into disrepute by the Jesuits, ii. 385;\n pagan in origin, _ib._;\n Templars, a creation of the Jesuits, ii. 381\n\n Masonry, neglect of magic and spiritualism, i. 30;\n once a true secret organization, ii. 349;\n who should be excluded, ii. 376;\n esoteric, not known in American lodges, _ib._;\n the time to remodel it has come, ii. 377;\n no secrets left unpublished, _ib._;\n whether Christian or pagan, _ib._;\n departing from its original aims, ii. 380;\n European and American, the Bible its great light, ii. 389\n\n Masons, accusations against them half guess-work, ii. 372;\n reject a personal God, ii. 375;\n and the impostor Anderson, ii. 389\n\n Masorets changed the immodest words in the Bible, ii. 430\n\n Master-builder, epopt, adept, the Apostle Paul, ii. 91\n\n Master\u2019s word, communicated only at low breath, ii. 99\n\n Mas\u2019udi, on the gh\u00fbls in the desert, i. 604\n\n Materialization, what spirits practice it, i. 319;\n personal, i. 321\n\n Materializations recorded in the Bible, i. 493\n\n \u201cMaterialized spirits,\u201d i. 67;\n witnessed by the author, i. 69;\n Virgin Mary to be expected at the Vatican, ii. 82;\n often comes and lights a taper at Arras, _ib._\n\n Mathematical error held by the Gnostics, ii. 194\n\n Mathematicians, ancient, went to Egypt to be instructed, i. 531\n\n Mathematics, Pythagorean and Platonic, i. 106\n\n Matsya, the earliest avatar, ii. 427\n\n Matter, how produced, i. 140;\n proclaimed by modern physicists sole and autocratic sovereign of\n the universe, i. 235;\n its indestructibility, i. 243;\n origin, i. 258;\n the serpent that tempted man, i. 297;\n not created by Divine thought, i. 310;\n indestructible and eternal, i. 328;\n fructified by the Divine idea or imagination, i. 396;\n the remote effect of emanative energy, ii. 35\n\n Matthew, gospel of, a secret book written in Hebrew, ii. 181, 182;\n quotes the Egyptian Book of the Dead, ii. 548\n\n Matwanlin, on voices in the deserts, i. 604\n\n Maudsley, Prof., repudiates Comte, ii. 3;\n rejects the positive philosophy, i. 82\n\n Mauritania Tingitana, its columns, i. 545\n\n Mauritius, his nauscopite, i. 240\n\n Max M\u00fcller, scouts the idea of original human brutality, i. 4;\n on the meaning of Veda, i. 354;\n on Sanscrit literature, i. 442;\n on the four ancestors, i. 559;\n on Brahmanical literature, i. 580;\n on the mutations of Christianity, ii. 10;\n on the science of religion, ii. 26;\n his retort upon Prof. Whitney, ii. 47;\n assertion on the Hindu gods, ii. 413;\n on the _Vedas_, ii. 414;\n his understanding of Nirvana, ii. 432\n\n Maxwell, his offer to cure diseases abandoned as incurable, i. 215;\n his theory of the world-soul or life-spirit, i. 215, 216\n\n Maya, or illusion, i. 289\n\n Mayas of Yucatan, their mysterious city, i. 547\n\n Mecassipa, an enchanter, i. 355\n\n Medallions from the ashes of the dead, ii. 603\n\n Mediatorship, how exercised, i. 487, 488\n\n Medici family patrons of the black art, ii. 55\n\n Medicine, classed by Bacon as a conjectural science, i. 405;\n modern, what it has gained and lost, i. 20;\n occult, suggested by Descartes, i. 214\n\n Medium, a conductor, i. 201;\n difference from a magician, i. 367;\n a passive, the adept an active instrument, ii. 588;\n needs a foreign intelligence, ii. 592\n\n Medium-catcher of Prof. Faraday, i. 63\n\n Medium-healers, charged with vampirism, i. 490, 491\n\n Mediums, their visions more trustworthy than those of Catholic\n priests, ii. 73;\n burned, hanged, and otherwise murdered, i. 26, 353;\n in Russia, i. 27;\n generally utter commonplace ideas, i. 221;\n their astral limbs, ii. 595;\n are usually diseased, _ib._;\n the Mosaic law contemplated killing them, i. 356;\n passive, i. 488;\n unregulated ones persecuted, i. 489;\n how cured, i. 490;\n generally disordered while the ancient thaumaturgists were not,\n _ib._\n\n Mediumistic diathesis, i. 117;\n phenomena in Asia, i. 320\n\n Mediumship, physical and spiritual, i. 367;\n its phases seldom altered, _ib._;\n depends upon a peculiar organization, i. 367;\n psychographic, i. 368;\n its conditions and circumstances, i. 487;\n in holy men, mediatorship, _ib._;\n in these days an undesirable gift, i. 488;\n natural, ii. 118;\n the opposite of adeptship, ii. 588\n\n Megasthenes traces the Jews to the Kalani of India, i. 567\n\n Melampus, his magical cures, i. 531\n\n Melanephoris, the third degree, ii. 364\n\n Mementos of a long bygone civilization, i. 349\n\n Memory, views of Ammonius Sakkas, ii. 591;\n of God, i. 178\n\n Men produced by the giant Ymir, and also by the cow Audhumla, i.\n 148;\n denoted by the tree of life, Yggdrasill, Zampun, Aswatha, i. 151-4;\n existed at a period extremely remote, i. 155;\n of the Stone Age described by Mrs. Denton, i. 295;\n revivified without souls, ii. 564;\n races differ in their spiritual gifts, ii. 588;\n soulless, ii. 369;\n of science wear the cast-off garb of priests dyed to escape\n detection, ii. 8\n\n Mendeleyeff, Prof., declares spiritualism a mixture of superstition,\n delusion, and fraud, i. 117;\n protest by Butleroff, Aksakoff, and others, i. 118\n\n Menes, turned the course of the Nile, i. 516\n\n Menon, the inventor of letters, i. 532\n\n Mensabulism, i. 322\n\n Mental photography, i. 322\n\n Mentuhept, Queen, inscription on her monument, ii. 92\n\n Mercaba, ii. 348;\n must be first known, ii. 349;\n a hidden doctrine, _ib._\n\n Mercurius vit\u00e6 of Paracelsus, ii. 620\n\n Mercury, water of, symbol of the soul, i. 309;\n or quicksilver, never used by Yogi or alchemist, only by\n charlatans, and not by Paracelsus, ii. 620, 621;\n never restored a man to health, _ib._\n\n Meridian, known when the first pyramid was built, i. 536\n\n Meru or Meruah, sound, etc., i. 592;\n and its gods, ii. 233, 234\n\n Mesmer, rediscovered animal magnetism, i. 165;\n his 27 propositions, i. 172;\n condemned by the French Committee of 1784\n\n Mesmerism, i. 23;\n a rediscovery of what Paracelsus taught, i. 72;\n repudiated by positivists, i. 82;\n used successfully by physicians, _ib._;\n an important branch of magic, i. 129, 131;\n condemned in France in 1784, i. 171;\n prize offered for thesis by the Prussian Government, i. 173;\n taught by Descartes, i. 206\n\n Message delivered at Kounboum, ii. 604\n\n Messages, writing by spirits, i. 367\n\n Messiah, comes in the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, in the sign\n Pisces, ii. 256;\n the fifth emanation, ii. 259\n\n Metallic springs found in ancient war-chariots, i. 530\n\n Metalline, a compound overcoming friction, i. 502\n\n Metallurgy among the Egyptians and Semitic races, i. 538\n\n Metals not simple bodies, i. 509\n\n Metatron, or angel of the Lord, transformed into Jesus the son of\n Mary, ii. 33;\n seventy names, ii. 245\n\n Metempsychosis, i. 8;\n believed by all philosophers, early fathers and Gnostics, i. 12;\n doctrine of Plato, i. 276, 277;\n an allegory, not to be literally understood, and relating to\n experiences of the soul, i. 289, 550;\n of Buddha, i. 291;\n dreaded by Hindus, i. 348;\n the separation of the _thumos_ and ridding the _nous_ of the\n _phren_, ii. 286\n\n Methuselah helps Enoch construct nine chambers underground in the\n land of Canaan, i. 571;\n receives from him certain secret learning, _ib._\n\n Metis, the same as Sophia of the Gnostics, and Sephira, ii. 163\n\n Mexican serpent-gods, i. 572\n\n Mexicans, ancient, i. 313;\n their theory of lunar eclipses similar to the Hindu, i. 548\n\n Mexico, serpent-worship, i. 46, 551-558\n\n Michael, the unknown angel, ii. 488;\n a phial of his sweat preserved as a relic, ii. 71;\n the archangel, the same as Ophiomorphos, ii. 206;\n and the Devil, their dispute, ii. 482;\n the Dragon-slayer, ii. 488\n\n Michelet, testimony in regard to the Jesuits, ii. 358, 359\n\n Microcosm, i. 212\n\n Microcosmos, i. 28\n\n Microprosopos (little face), the microcosm, i. 580;\n the Adam primos, ii. 452\n\n Microscope, its brothers in the Books of Moses, i. 240\n\n Middle Asia, botany and mineralogy, i. 89;\n ever-burning lamps, i. 227\n\n Midgard snake, i. 151\n\n Midianites regarded as wise men, ii. 449\n\n Milk of the Celestial Virgin, i. 64\n\n Milton, John, regarded _Paradise Lost_ as a book of fiction, ii. 501\n\n Mimer, the deep well of wisdom, i. 151\n\n Minarets of Islam, ii. 5\n\n Minerals, magnetized by man, i. 209;\n the basis of evolution of vegetable organisms, _ib._;\n their occult properties, ii. 589\n\n Miracles, those of the Bible surpassed by those of the Vedas, i. 90;\n so-called, genuine, from Moses to Cagliostro, i. 128;\n none in nature, ii. 587;\n at the tomb of Abb\u00e9 Paris, i. 372;\n among the Convulsionaires, _ib._;\n none in Protestant countries, ii. 17;\n in spite of the Church, ii. 22, 23\n\n Miraculous Conception, a legend of Buddhism, ii. 504;\n fire at the Holy Sepulchre, ii. 404\n\n Mirville, De, i. 99;\n refutes Babinet\u2019s denial of levitation, i. 105;\n the nebulous Almighty, i. 129\n\n Mithra, a triple god, ii. 41\n\n Mithraic Mysteries, ii. 351;\n initiation of Julian the Emperor, ii. 566\n\n Mixture to out-stench devils, ii. 67\n\n Mnizurin, i. 321\n\n Mochtana or Mokomna, the Druze apostle, ii. 308\n\n Morals, the Buddhistic code, ii. 608\n\n Model of the Universe, i. 302\n\n Modern philosophers, see only the physical form of Isis, i. 16;\n devil, a heritage from Cybel\u00e8, ii. 501;\n Savants know less than ancients, i. 15;\n science denies a Supreme Being or Personal God, i. 16;\n teaches the power of human thought to affect the matter of another\n universe, i. 310;\n scientists hate new truths, i. 409;\n spiritualism, i. 40;\n the modern form of magic, i. 42\n\n M\u0153ris, the artificial lake constructed in Egypt, i. 516\n\n Moisasure, the Hindu Lucifer, i. 299\n\n Moksha and the Nirvana, ii. 116;\n the second spiritual birth, ii. 566\n\n Moldenwaher, his documents concerning the prosecution of the\n Knights-Templar, bought up by Free-masons, ii. 383\n\n Moloch-Hercules, children immolated to him in the valley of the\n Gehenna, ii. 11\n\n Moloch-God of the inquisition, ii. 65\n\n Moloch-like divinity of Roman church, i. 27\n\n Monad, i. 212;\n Buddha, i. 291\n\n Monas, ii. 347\n\n Mongolians, ought to have been called Scyths, i. 576\n\n Monkey of God, now exorcised with holy water, ii. 96\n\n Monkeys exhibiting human intellect, i. 326;\n fabled to be progenitors of western people, i. 563;\n in Egyptian temples, i. 564;\n in all Buddhistic temples, _ib._\n\n Monkish impostors expelled from convents in Southern Mongolia, ii. 609\n\n Monks, their fury for exorcising and roasting the convulsionaires of\n the Cevennes, i. 370, 372;\n none in hell, ii. 75\n\n Monoliths, for Egyptian monuments, i. 518;\n how transported, _ib._\n\n Monogenes, or only-begotten, a name of Proserpina, ii. 284\n\n Montesquieu, on two witnesses, i. 87\n\n Montezuma, his effigy worshipped in Mexico, i. 557\n\n Montgeron, writes a book on Jansenist miracles, i. 373\n\n Monuments, religious, the expression of the same thoughts, i. 561;\n planned and built under supervision of priests, _ib._;\n alike in Asia and America, _ib._\n\n Moody, the revivalist, would see his son\u2019s eyes dug out, ii. 250;\n and Sankey, confounded by a Roman bishop with spiritualists, ii. 7\n\n Moon, the same as Diana, Diktynna, Artemis, Juno, etc., i. 267;\n her worship in Crete, _ib._;\n influence on women, _ib._;\n legends of her phases, i. 265, 266;\n influence on tides, persons, and vegetation, i. 273;\n in middle nature, and green the middle color, i. 514\n\n Moon-god, Deus Lunus, worshipped by the Khaldi, ii. 48\n\n Moon-kings, or lunar dynasty, reigned at Pruyag and Allahabad, ii. 48\n\n Moor, his explanation of the Wittoba, ii. 557, 558\n\n Moore, Rev. Dunlop, assertion of the age of the institutes of Manu,\n i. 585\n\n Moors, bearded, figures at the great temple of Angkor, or Nagkon-Wat,\n i. 565, 567\n\n Mora in Sweden, young children burned alive as witches, ii. 503\n\n More, Henry, i. 54, 74;\n his belief in Pythagorean doctrines, i. 204, 205;\n adversary of Eugenius Philalethes, i. 308;\n demonstration of witchcraft, i. 353;\n theory of birth-marks, i. 384, 385\n\n Morgan, \u201cgood enough till after the election,\u201d ii. 372\n\n Moigno, Abb\u00e9, his wretched success in writing down Huxley, Tyndall,\n and Raymond, i. 336\n\n Mormons, polytheists, ii. 2\n\n Mortal soul, i. 276, 326\n\n Mosaic books, regarded by well-educated Jews allegory, i. 554, 555;\n religion a sun-and-serpent worship, ii. 129\n\n Moses, the pupil of the mother of Pharaoh\u2019s daughter, i. 25;\n communicated secrets to the seventy elders, i. 26;\n his code required two witnesses, i. 87;\n placed a perpetual lamp in the tabernacle, i. 228;\n described Jehovah the anthropomorphic deity as being the highest\n God, i. 307;\n could not obtain his other name, i. 309;\n philosophized or spoke in allegory, i. 436;\n said to have had knowledge of electricity, i. 528;\n chief of the Sodales or priest-colleges, i. 555;\n a hierophant of Heliopolis and priest of Osiris, _ib._;\n initiated, _ib._;\n became an Egyptian and a priest, i. 556;\n denounced the spirit of Ob, not Od, i. 594;\n disputes over his body, its allegorical interpretation, ii. 482;\n an initiate, ii. 129;\n and the Israelites, their story typical, ii. 493;\n versed in occult sciences, ii. 59;\n the law not more than two or three centuries older than\n Christianity, ii. 526\n\n Moslem arms blessed by the Pope, ii. 560\n\n Mother and child, a very ancient sign and myth, ii. 491;\n -trunk, the universal religion, ii. 123;\n of God the most ancient, ii. 49, 50;\n the Heaven itself, ii. 50;\n lodge, the great, ii. 315\n\n Mountain of light, its appearance to Hiouen-Thsang, i. 600\n\n Mouse-mark, produced by alarm, i. 391\n\n Mousseaux, Des, i. 99;\n declares the devil the chief pillar of faith, i. 103\n\n Movable printing types, in China before our Era, i. 513;\n used in the earliest periods of lamaism in Thibet, _ib._\n\n Moyst natures or elementary spirits, i. 342, 343\n\n Mukti, or half-gods, ii. 566\n\n M\u00fcller, Albrecht, testimony in regard to ancient skill, i. 539\n\n Mummy, bandaging, i. 20;\n a symbol, i. 297;\n a finger-ring at the London Exhibition of 1851, i. 531\n\n Mummy-bandaging, i. 539;\n 1000 yards long _ib._\n\n Mundane tree, i. 297\n\n Mundane cross of heaven, ii. 454;\n egg or universal womb, ii. 214;\n snake creeps out of the primordial _ilus_, i. 298\n\n Muratori, his felt cuirasse, copied from the ancients, i. 530\n\n Murder, an obstacle to ancient, but not to Jesuit initiation, ii. 363\n\n Murderous language of Jerome and Tertullian, ii. 250\n\n Music, power over diseases, i. 215;\n effect on persons, i. 275;\n its influence on reptiles, i. 382;\n employed in Egyptian temples for healing of nervous disorders, i.\n 544\n\n Musical instruments in Egypt, i. 544;\n sand, i. 605;\n tones influence vegetation, i. 514\n\n Mutton-protoplasm, i. 251\n\n Mysteries, i. 15;\n little known, i. 24;\n of the Israelites, i. 26;\n theurgic, i. 130;\n Samothracian, i. 132;\n occult properties of magnetism and electricity taught, i. 234;\n representation of Demeter with the electrified head, _ib._;\n the Dioskuri, i. 234-243;\n Pythagoras initiated, i. 284;\n their gradation, ii. 101;\n ennobling in their character, _ib._;\n of the ancients identical with the Hindu and Buddhist initiations,\n ii. 113, 114;\n divine visions beheld in them, ii. 118;\n of the Christians, ii. 119;\n Jesuit, not revealed to all priests, ii. 350;\n Mithra\u00efc, twelve tortures, ii. 351;\n taught to the Babylonians, ii. 457\n\n Mysterious city of the Mayas of Yucatan, i. 547;\n science existed apart from \u201cmediumship,\u201d ii. 118\n\n Mystery of the celestial Virgin pursued by the Dragon, ii. 490;\n and science, Mr. Felix\u2019s book, i. 337\n\n Mystery-God of the Ineffable Name, ii. 289\n\n Mystic doctrines not properly understood, i. 429;\n legends of the Middle Ages, ii. 38\n\n Mystical words of power in old religions, ii. 99;\n properties in plants, ii. 589\n\n Myths, fables, when misunderstood, and truths as once understood, ii.\n 431\n\n\n Nabatheans in Lebanon, ii. 197\n\n Nagal, the chief sorcerer of the Mexicans, i. 556\n\n Nagas, or kingly snakes, i. 448;\n or serpent-tribes of Kashmere, teachers of Apollonius, ii. 434;\n or serpent-worshippers of Kashmere converted to the Buddhistic\n faith, ii. 608\n\n Nagkon-Wat, i. 239;\n description of Frank Vincent, i. 561-563;\n pictures represent scenes from the _Ramayava_, i. 573;\n 100,000 separate figures, _ib._;\n ascribed to the lost tribes of Israel, i. 565;\n suggested to have been built for Buddhaghosa, _ib._;\n contains representations of Oannes or Dagon, the Kabeiri, the\n monkey or Vulcan, Egyptian and Assyrian figures, _ib._\n\n Nagualism and voodoo-worship, i. 556, 557;\n secret worships, i. 557; ii. 572;\n perpetuated by Catholic persecution, ii. 573\n\n Nails of a cherub preserved as relics, ii. 71\n\n Name, Ineffable, not possessed by Masons, ii. 387\n\n Nandi, the Vehan of Siva, ii. 235\n\n Nara, the mundane egg or universal womb, ii. 214\n\n Narayana, mover of the waters, Brahma, i. 91\n\n Nation, its greatest curse, ii. 121\n\n _National Quarterly_, on modern scientists, i. 240, 249\n\n Natural magic, no relation to sleight of hand, i. 128;\n \u201cmediumship,\u201d ii. 118\n\n Nature, four kingdoms, i. 329;\n a materialization of spirit, i. 428;\n triune, the visible or objective, the vital or subjective principle\n and the eternal spirit, ii. 587;\n the servant of the magician, ii. 590;\n reveals all arts, i. 424, 425\n\n Nature-spirits or shedim, i. 313;\n or elementary, i. 349\n\n Naud\u00e9, a defender of occult magnetism and theosophy, i. 207\n\n Naus-copite, an optical instrument, i. 240\n\n Navel and less comely parts of Jesus for relics, ii. 71;\n symbolized by the ark, ii. 444\n\n Nazarene system explained, ii. 227-229;\n diagram, ii. 295\n\n Nazarenes, had a gospel inscribed to Peter, ii. 127;\n an anti-Bacchus caste, ii. 129;\n existed before Christ, ii. 139, 181;\n some as Galileans, ii. 139;\n their belief of a divine overshadowing, ii. 154\n\n Nazaret or Zoroaster, ii. 140\n\n Nazars, Joseph, Samuel, Samson, Zoroaster, and Zorobabel, ii. 128;\n wore their hair long, but cut it off at initiation, ii. 90;\n Jesus belonged to them, _ib._\n\n Nazireates, inimical to the Israelites, ii. 131\n\n Nebelheim, the matrix of the earth, i. 147\n\n Nebular theory, the ancient docrine, i. 238\n\n Necessity, circle of, i. 226, 296;\n men its toy, i. 276;\n circle of, when completed, i. 346\n\n Necho, King of Egypt, wrote on astronomy, i. 406;\n canal of, i. 517;\n II., sent a fleet to circumnavigate Africa, i. 542\n\n Necklace, imprinted by lightning on two ladies, i. 398\n\n Necromancy, a science of remote antiquity, i. 205\n\n \u039d\u0395\u039a\u03a1\u039f\u039a\u0397\u0394\u0395\u0399\u0391 _nekrokedeia_, i. 228\n\n Neoconis, the second degree, ii. 364\n\n Neo-Platonic Eclectic School, ii. 32\n\n Neo-Platonists, i. 262;\n their time of greatest glory, ii. 41;\n their doctrines and practices copied, ii. 84;\n not \u201cspirit mediums,\u201d ii. 118;\n when they were doomed, ii. 252\n\n Nero, his ring, i. 240;\n dared not seek initiation, ii. 363\n\n Neros I., i. 31;\n the Great, i. 33\n\n Nervous disorders, i. 117;\n disorders a specialty in ancient Egypt, i. 529;\n disorders treated with music in Egyptian temples, i. 544;\n exhaustion at spiritual circles, i. 343\n\n Neurological telegraphy proposed, i. 324\n\n Never-embodied men, i. 301\n\n Neville, Francis, twice resuscitated, i. 479\n\n New birth and accompanying slaughter, ii. 42;\n taught by Buddha and Jesus, ii. 566\n\n New Jersey, negroes burned at the stake for witchcraft, ii. 18\n\n New Testament, passages compared with sentences from the\n philosophers, ii. 338\n\n Newton Bishop, on the transformation of paganism into popery, ii. 29;\n Dr. the American healer, i. 165, 217, 218;\n Isaac, believer in magnetism, i. 177\n\n Niccolini, his exposure of the profligacy of monks, ii. 365, 366\n\n Nicodemus, Gospel taken from the pagan authors, ii. 518\n\n Nicolaitans adhered to marriage, ii. 329\n\n Nicolas, a man of honest report, ii. 333\n\n Night of Brahma, ii. 272, 273\n\n Nimbus and Tonsure solar emblems, ii. 94\n\n Nimrod, or spotted, a name of Bacchus, the wearer of the spotted\n skin, i. 568\n\n Nimroud, convex lens found, i. 240\n\n Nin or Imus of the Tzendales the same as Ninus, i. 551;\n received homage in the form of a serpent, i. 522\n\n Nineveh, 47 miles in circumference, i. 241\n\n Nirvana, i. 241, 290;\n the world of cause, i. 346;\n not nihilism nor extinction, i. 430;\n complete purification from matter, ii. 117;\n subjective but not objective existence, ii. 286;\n a personal immortality in spirit, but not in soul, ii. 320;\n or Moksha, the second spiritual birth, ii. 566;\n the ocean to which all religions tend, ii. 639\n\n Nirvritti or rest, i. 243\n\n No devil, no Christ, ii. 492\n\n Noah, or Nuah, same as Swayambhuva, ii. 448;\n the universal mother, ii. 444\n\n Nonnus, his legend of Kor\u00e8 and her son, ii. 504\n\n Norns, or Parc\u00e6, watering the roots of the tree Yggdrasill, i. 151\n\n Norse kingdom of the dead, ii. 11;\n contained no blazing hell, _ib._\n\n NOUS, i. 55, 131;\n consecrated to Mary, Isis, and Nari, ii. 210;\n or rational soul, everyman endowed, ii. 279;\n the spirit or reasoning soul, doctrine of Aristotle, i. 317;\n the first-born, or Christ, ii. 157\n\n No-Zeruan, the ancient of days, ii. 142\n\n Nout, the Egyptian name of the Divine Spirit, ii. 282;\n same as Nous, _ib._\n\n Nuah (Hea) king of the humid principle, ii. 429\n\n Nubia, its rock-temples, i. 542\n\n Nucleus of the embryo, i. 389\n\n Numa, King of Rome, Books of, i. 527;\n understood electricity, _ib._;\n opposed the use of images in worship, _ib._\n\n Numbers, Hermetic Book, on cosmic changes, i. 254;\n book of secret, the great Kabala, i. 579\n\n Numerals of Pythagoras, hieroglyphical symbols, i. 35;\n the basis of all systems of mysticism, ii. 407\n\n Nun, an Egyptian designation, ii. 95\n\n Nysa, Nyssa, always found where Bacchus was worshipped, ii. 165;\n same as Sinai, _ib._\n\n\n Oak, sacred, i. 297, 298\n\n Oannes, i. 133;\n the man fish, i. 349;\n the same as Vishnu, ii. 257;\n name signifies a spirit, _ib._\n\n Oath taken by initiates, i. 409\n\n Ob, the astral light, i. 158\n\n Obeah women in Guiana charm snakes, i. 383\n\n Obelisks of Egypt, i. 518;\n mode of transporting them, i. 519;\n imputed to Hermes Trismegistus, i. 551\n\n Object of this book, ii. 98, 99\n\n Obscene relics at Embrum, ii. 332\n\n Obscene bas-reliefs on the doors of St. Peter\u2019s Cathedral, _ib._\n\n Obscene statue of Christ and its miracles, _ib._\n\n Obscenity of heathen rites, ii. 76\n\n Obsession and possession, i. 487, 488; ii. 16;\n all confined to Roman Catholic countries, ii. 17\n\n Obsessions, irresistible, i. 276\n\n Occult properties in minerals, ii. 589;\n powers by inheritance, ii. 635, 636\n\n Occultism, physical, i. 19\n\n Oculists in ancient Egypt, i. 545\n\n Od, an agent described by Baron Reichenbach, i. 146;\n astral currents vivified, i. 158;\n emanations identical with flames from magnets, etc., i. 169\n\n Odic Force, i. 67\n\n Odin, i. 19;\n breathing in man and woman, the ash and the alder, the breath\n of life, i. 151;\n Alfadir, _ib._\n\n Oersted, on laws of nature, i. 506, 507\n\n Oetinger, experiment on ashes of plants, i. 476\n\n O\u2019Grady, Wm. L. D., his letter denouncing the influence of\n missionaries in India, ii. 475;\n on Hindu demoralization under British rule, ii. 574;\n his account of a Christian saturnalia in India, ii. 532\n\n Okhal or hierophant of the Druzes, ii. 309\n\n Okhals or spiritualists of Syria, ii. 292\n\n Old book, one original copy only in existence, i. 1;\n gods of the heathen, the same as the ancient patriarchs, ii. 450;\n man and his son, remarkable resuscitation, i. 484;\n Testament, exiled by Colenso and recalled, ii. 4;\n Testament, no real history in it, ii. 441;\n universes evolved before the present, ii. 421\n\n Olympic gods, their biographies relate to physics and chemistry, i.\n 261;\n women climbing perpendicular walls, i. 374\n\n Onderah, the Hindu abyss of darkness, only an intermediate state, ii.\n 11\n\n One only good, ii. 238;\n in three, i. 258\n\n Only-begotten sons, ii. 191\n\n Operative masons, ii. 392\n\n Ophiomorphos and Ophis Christos, ii. 449\n\n Ophion called also Dominus, ii. 512\n\n Ophiozenes in Cyprus, power over venomous reptiles, i. 381\n\n Ophis, the same as Chnuphis or Kneph, ii. 187;\n or the agathodaimon, ii. 293, 295\n\n Ophism and heliolatry imputed to Hermes, i. 55i\n\n Ophite Gnostics rejected the _Old Testament_, ii. 147;\n Theogony correctly given, ii. 187;\n worship transmuted into Christian symbolism, ii. 505;\n or serpent-worshipping Christians, their scheme, ii. 292;\n seven planetary genii, ii. 296;\n rejected the Mosaic writings, ii. 168;\n taught the doctrine of emanations, ii. 169;\n and Nazarenes compared, ii. 174;\n denounced by Peter and Jude, ii. 205;\n accused of licentiousness, ii. 325\n\n Optical instruments of ancient times, i. 240\n\n Oracle of the bleeding head consulted by Queen Catherine of Medicis,\n ii. 56\n\n Oracles obtained during the sacred sleep, i. 357\n\n Oracular head, made by Pope Sylvester II., ii. 56;\n by Albertus Magnus destroyed by Thomas Aquinas, _ib._\n\n Orcus, i. 298, 299\n\n Oriental philosophy, fundamental propositions, ii. 587\n\n Orientals, their senses more acute, i. 211;\n ascribe a human figure to the soul, i. 214;\n believe certain persons have made gold and lived for ages, _ib._\n\n Orientalists have shown similarities between religions, ii. 49\n\n Origen, believed in metempsychosis, i. 12;\n an Alexandrian Platonist, i. 25;\n secret doctrines of Moses, i. 26;\n believed the spirit pre\u00ebxistent from eternity, i. 316;\n deemed the soul corporeal, i. 317;\n denied the perpetuity of hell-torments, ii. 13;\n taught that devils would be pardoned, _ib._;\n believed that the damned would receive pardon and bliss, ii. 238;\n on the threefold partition of man, ii. 285\n\n Ormazd, his worship restored, ii. 220;\n his creations, ii. 221\n\n Orobio exposes the inquisition, ii. 59\n\n Orohippus, i. 411\n\n Orpheus, alleged to be a disciple of Moses, i. 532;\n on the virtues of the lodestone, i. 265\n\n Orphic Mysteries not the popular Bacchic rites, ii. 129\n\n Osiris, i. 93, 202;\n brought up at Nysa and called Dionnysos, ii. 165;\n his slaying denoted the period when his worship was under the ban\n of the Hyk-sos government, ii. 487;\n and Typhon, E. Pococke\u2019s theory, ii. 435, 436\n\n O\u2019Sullivan, Hon. John L., description of a semi-magical seance, i. 608\n\n Oulam does not mean infinite duration, ii. 12\n\n Ovule ceases to be an integral part of the body of the mother, i. 401\n\n Ovum, impregnated, its evolutionary history, i. 389\n\n Oxus-tribes or bull-worshippers dominate Western Asia, ii. 439\n\n Owen, Robert D., on worship of words, ii. 560\n\n\n Pagan idols, their destruction commanded by the Roman emperor, ii. 40;\n worship, the Latin church preserves its symbols, rites,\n architecture and clerical dress, ii. 92\n\n Paganism, true meaning of the word, ii. 179;\n ancient wisdom replete with deity, ii. 639;\n converted and applied to popery, ii. 29\n\n Pagans condemned to the eternal torments of hell, ii. 8;\n Virgin Mary writing this to a saint, _ib._\n\n Palenque, keystone not found, i. 571;\n the Tau and astronomical cross, i. 572\n\n Pali, their manuscripts translated, i. 578;\n have similar traditions as the Babylonians, _ib._;\n shepherds, who emigrated west, _ib._\n\n Pallium, or stole, a feminine sign, ii. 94;\n that of Augustine bedecked with Buddhistic crosses, ii. 94\n\n Panther, Grecian, contained Egyptian gods, i. 543;\n panther, the sinful father of Jesus, ii. 386\n\n Papacy, scientific, danger of, i. 403;\n \u201cand civil power,\u201d Mr. Thompson\u2019s book denounced, ii. 378\n\n Papal tiara, the coiffure of the Assyrian gods, ii. 94;\n discourses, catalogue of foul epithets on those who oppose the\n pope, ii. 7\n\n Paper, time-proof, i. 529\n\n Papyrus, as old as Menes and the first dynasty, i. 530;\n art of its preparation, _ib._\n\n Parables or double-meanings in the discourses of Jesus, ii. 145\n\n Parabrahma the Eternal, Bhaghavant, i. 91\n\n Paracelsus, i. 20, 50;\n his learning, i. 52;\n discovered hydrogen, i. 52, 169;\n his doctrine of faith and will, i. 57, 170;\n rediscovery of the magnet, i. 71, 164, 167;\n persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church, i. 100;\n his homunculi, i. 133, 465;\n teacher of animal-magnetism and electro-magnetism, i. 164;\n theory of a concealed power of the magnet, i. 168;\n sidereal force, _ib._;\n theory of dreams, i. 170;\n on the alkahest, i. 191;\n method of transposing letters in his terms, _ib._;\n taught that three spirits actuate man, i. 212;\n removed disease by contact of healthy persons, i. 217;\n his preparation of mercury, ii. 620;\n and chor\u0153a, and was persecuted for it as a magician, ii. 565;\n received the true initiation, ii. 349;\n his assertion that magic was taught in the Bible, ii. 500;\n Alsatians believe him not dead, _ib._\n\n Paradigm of the universe, i. 212\n\n Paradise Lost, the drama of Milton, ii. 501, 502;\n the unformulated belief of the English, _ib._\n\n Paradoxes, five, of adversaries of Spiritualism, i. 116\n\n Paralysis of the soul during life, ii. 368\n\n Parerga, i. 59\n\n Pariahs, or Tchandales, the parents of the Jews, ii. 438\n\n Paris carrying off Helen, and Ravana carrying off Sita, i. 566;\n Abb\u00e9, the Jansenist, miracles at his tomb for 20 years, i. 372\n\n Parker, Father, accuses the Protestants of the purpose to destroy the\n Bible, ii. 200\n\n Parodi, Maria Teresa, case of malformed child, i. 392\n\n Parrot-headed squabs, i. 395, 396\n\n Parsis deny any vicarious sacrifice, ii. 547\n\n Pashai (Peshawer) or Udayna, classic land of sorcery, i. 599;\n testimony of Hiouen-Thsang, _ib._\n\n Pastaphoris, the first degree, ii. 364\n\n Patriarchs, great gods, and pradjapatis represented signs of the\n Zodiac, ii. 450\n\n Paul, supposed to have been personified and assailed by Peter under\n the name of Simon Magus, ii. 89;\n and Plato, quoted, ii. 89, 90;\n the real founder of Christianity, ii. 574;\n a wise master-builder, or adept, ii. 90, 91;\n why persecuted by Peter, James, and John, ii. 91;\n supposed to be polluted by the Gnosis, _ib._;\n the apostle, used language pertaining to initiations, ii. 90;\n was initiated, _ib._;\n confessed himself a Nazarene, ii. 137;\n on the beatific vision, ii. 146;\n his epistles alone acknowledged by Marcion, ii. 162;\n differs from Peter, ii. 180;\n is adopted by the Reformers, _ib._;\n his reference to occult powers, ii. 206;\n only worthy apostle of Jesus, ii. 241;\n taught that man was a trine, ii. 281;\n regarded Christianity and Judaism as entirely distinct, ii. 525;\n the apostle, his descendants said to possess the power of braving\n serpents, i. 381;\n asserted the story of Moses and Abraham to be allegories, ii. 493\n\n Pausanias on shadowy soldiers at Marathon, i. 70;\n warned not to unveil the holy rites, i. 130\n\n Perry Chand Mittra, his views on psychology of the Aryas, ii. 593\n\n Pedactyl equus, i. 411\n\n Peisse, Dr., on alchemy and making gold, i. 508, 509\n\n Penalties of mutilation, ii. 99, 100\n\n Pencil writing answers to questions, in Tartary, i. 600\n\n Pentacle, Pythagorean, ii. 451, 452\n\n Pentagram, can determine the countenance of unborn infants, i. 395\n\n Pentateuch, constituted after the model of a purana, ii. 492;\n not written by Moses, ii. 167;\n compiled by Ezra and revised, i. 578;\n revised by the Jews, ii. 526\n\n Pepper, Prof., his apparatus to produce spiritual appearances, i. 359\n\n Perfect circle decussated by the letter X, ii. 469\n\n Perfect Passover of orthodox Christians, ii. 333\n\n Periktione, mother of Plato, her miraculous conception, ii. 325\n\n Perispirit, i. 197;\n the astral soul, i. 289\n\n Permutation, doctrine of, ii. 152\n\n Perpetual motion, denied by science, i. 501;\n illustrated by the universe and the atomic theory, i. 502;\n proved by the telescope and microscope, _ib._\n\n Persiphone or Proserpina, the same as Ceres or Demeter, ii. 505\n\n Persepolis, wonders, i. 534;\n the inscriptions older than any in Sanscrit, ii. 436\n\n Persia, her wonders, i. 534\n\n Persian Mirror, a robber detected by its use and punished, ii. 631\n\n Persian colonists dominated in Judea, the Canaanites being the\n proletaries, ii. 441\n\n Personal devil not believed in by the ancients, ii. 483\n\n Personality not to be applied to spiritual essence, i. 315\n\n Persons cut to pieces and put again together good as new, i. 473, 474\n\n Peru, net-work of subterranean passages, i. 595, 598;\n treasures of the Incas, i. 596\n\n Peruvians, still preserve their ancient traditions and sacerdotal\n caste, i. 546;\n magical ceremonies, _ib._\n\n Peter, \u05e4\u05ea\u05e8, name taken from the Mysteries, ii. 29\n\n PTR, its symbol an opened eye, ii. 92, 93;\n the interpreter, ii. 392;\n had nothing to do with the foundation of the Latin Church, ii. 91;\n his name Petra or Kiffa, _ib._;\n the whole story of his apostleship at Rome a play on the name\n denoting the Hierophant or interpreter of the mysteries, ii.\n 91, 92;\n the pulpit of, declared to be the teachings of the spirit of God,\n ii. 8;\n had two chairs, ii. 23, 25;\n was never at Rome, ii. 24;\n his life at Babylon, ii. 127;\n was a Nazarene, _ib._;\n denounced Paul without naming him, ii. 179\n\n Peter-ref-su, a mystery-word on a coffin, ii. 92;\n Bunsen\u2019s comments, ii. 92, 93\n\n Peter the Great, stopped spurious miracles, ii. 17\n\n Petra, the rock-temple of the Church, ii. 30\n\n Petra, or rock, the logos, ii. 246\n\n Petroma, the two tablets of stone, ii. 91\n\n _Ph\u0153drus_, i. 2\n\n Phallic symbols in churches, ii. 5;\n stone, batylos, or lingham, denounced by des Mousseaux, _ib._\n\n Phallism, heathen, in Christian symbols, ii. 5;\n in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and the fetish-worship\n of Isernia, _ib._\n\n Phanes, the revealed god, i. 146\n\n Phantasmal duplicate, i. 360\n\n Phantasy, ii. 591\n\n Phantom-hand, false as well as true, ii. 594;\n statement of Dr. Fairfield, ii. 595;\n what it really is, _ib._\n\n Phantoms, the manifestations of bad demons, i. 333\n\n Phases of modern Christianity, ii. 575\n\n Pharisees, believed in transmigration of souls, i. 347\n\n Phenomena, spiritual, discountenanced by the clergy, i. 26;\n divine visions of Pius, IX., i. 27;\n the Klikouchy and the Yourodevoy, i. 28;\n absurd position assumed by scientists, i. 40;\n Aksakof, i. 41;\n Fisk, Crookes, and Wallace, i. 42;\n the Dialectical Society, i. 44;\n theories of Prof. Crookes, i. 47;\n existed long before spiritualism, i. 53;\n Prof. Faraday\u2019s tests, i. 63;\n materialization, i. 67;\n a haunted house, i. 69;\n physical displays seldom caused by disembodied spirits, i. 73;\n opposition of the positivists, i. 75;\n hostility of allopathists, i. 88;\n laid at the door of Satan, i. 99;\n testimony of de Gasparin, i. 101;\n hostility of medical writers, i. 102;\n Mr. Weekman the first investigator in America, i. 106;\n reality acknowledged by Prof. Thury, i. 110;\n his theory, i. 113;\n E. Salverte, i. 115;\n De Mirville\u2019s five distractions or paradoxes, i. 116;\n condemned by Commission of the Imperial University of St\n Petersburgh, i. 117;\n how produced, i. 199;\n evidence adduced by Prof. Crookes overwhelming, i. 202;\n given by an exterior intelligence, i. 203;\n deceptions, i. 217-222;\n Iamblichus forbids endeavors to procure them, i. 219\n\n Pherecydes, taught that \u00e6ther was heaven, i. 157\n\n Philalethes, Eugenius (Thomas Vaughan), i. 51, 167;\n not an adept, i. 306;\n model of Swedenborg, _ib._;\n anticipated modern doctrine of the earth\u2019s beginning, i. 255\n\n Phillips, Wendell, i. 211, 240\n\n Philo Jud\u00e6us, on spirits in the air, i. 2;\n praise of magic, i. 25;\n contradicted himself on purpose, ii. 39;\n was the father of new platonism, ii. 144\n\n Philon\u00e6a, visited her lover after death, i. 365\n\n Philosophers, believed in metempsychosis, also that men have two\n souls, i. 12;\n their consignment to hell desired, ii. 250\n\n Philosopher\u2019s stone, sought by a king of Siam, i. 571\n\n Philosophy, Oriental, its fundamental propositions, ii. 587\n\n Ph\u0153nicians, circumnavigated the globe, i. 239;\n the earliest navigators, i. 545;\n their achievements, _ib._;\n an Ethiopian race, i. 566, 567;\n traced by Herodotus to the Persian Gulf, i. 567;\n Phoinikes, or Ph\u2019anakes, i. 569;\n the same as the Hyk-sos or shepherds of Egypt, _ib._;\n more or less identified with the Israelites, _ib._\n\n Photographing in colors by will-power, i. 463\n\n Photography, electrical, i. 395\n\n Phtha, the active or male creative principle, i. 186\n\n Physical body may be levitated, ii. 589\n\n Physically spiritualized, the coming human race to be, i. 296\n\n Physician declares Daguerre to be insane, ii. 619\n\n Physicians wash their hands on leaving a patient, ii. 611;\n problems, i. 277\n\n Physicists divinify matter and overlook life, i. 235\n\n Pia Metak, king of Siam, becomes able to walk in the air, ii. 618\n\n Picture of a slain soldier, extraordinary phenomena, ii. 17\n\n Pictures hidden from view, Prof. Draper\u2019s description, i. 186\n\n Picus, Francisco, testimony in regard to transmutation, i. 504\n\n Pierart, explanation of catalepsy and vampirism, i. 449\n\n Pigmies in Africa, i. 412\n\n Pike, Gen. Albert, declaration against the creative principle\n proclaimed at Lausanne, ii. 377\n\n Pilate convokes an assembly of Jews, ii. 522\n\n Pillars set up by the patriarchs, identical with the lingam of Siva,\n ii. 235\n\n Pimander, i. 93;\n the same as the Logos Prometheus, etc., i. 298;\n the nous, word, or Divine Light, ii. 50\n\n Pippala, the sacred tree of knowledge, ii. 412\n\n Pitar, its form seen at the moment of initiation, ii. 114\n\n Pitris, the lunar ancestors of men, ii. 106, 117;\n their worship fast becoming the worship of the spiritual portion of\n mankind, ii. 639;\n the doctrine of their existence revealed to initiates, ii. 114;\n a sect in India, ii. 308\n\n Pious assassins of the early church, ii. 304\n\n Pius IX, excommunicates Czar Nicholas as a schismatic i. 27;\n has divine visions, or rather epileptic fits, _ib._;\n evil eye, i. 381;\n pretends to be superior to St. Ambrose and the prophet Nathan, ii.\n 14;\n is the faithful echo of the Jesuits, ii. 359\n\n Planchette, writing by, i. 199\n\n Planet, i. 301\n\n Plants are magnets, i. 281, 282\n\n Plant-growing trick, i. 139, 141, 142\n\n Plants, attracted by the sun, i. 209;\n sympathies and antipathies, _ib._;\n sympathy with human beings, i. 246;\n possess mystical properties, ii. 589\n\n Plato, not often read understandingly, i. 8;\n echoed the teachings of Pythagoras, i. 9;\n doctrine of the soul, will, or _nous_, i. 14, 55;\n his symbology misunderstood, i. 37;\n suggestion for physical improvement of the human race, i. 77;\n doctrine of wisdom, i. 131;\n on trance prophets, i. 201;\n asserted to be ignorant of anatomy, i. 236;\n his method, i. 237;\n Prof. Jewett\u2019s acknowledgment, _ib._;\n on origin of the sun, i. 258;\n taught correlation of forces, i. 261;\n his doctrines the same as those of Manu, i. 271;\n declares man the toy of necessity, i. 276;\n doctrine of genius, i. 277;\n theory of metempsychosis, i. 277;\n attraction, i. 281;\n his speculations on creation and cosmogony, to be taken\n allegorically, i. 287;\n veneration for the mysteries, _ib._;\n would not admit poets into his commonwealth, i. 288;\n dismisses Homer for his apparent antagonism to monotheism, _ib._;\n accused of absurdities, etc., i. 307;\n derived the soul from the world-soul, i. 316;\n shows the deity geometrizing, i. 318;\n on the future of the dead, i. 328;\n learned secret science in Egypt, i. 406;\n versed in the knowledge of the heliocentric system, i. 408, 409;\n his \u201cnoble lie\u201d concerning Atlantis, i. 413;\n on human races, i. 428;\n his esoteric doctrines the same as the Buddhistic, i. 430;\n on prayer, i. 434;\n on God geometrizing, i. 506;\n on spiritual numerals, i. 514;\n the Atlantis a possible cover of a story made arcane at initiation,\n i. 591;\n copies Djeminy and Vyasa, i. 621;\n complains of unbelief, ii. 16;\n his faculty of production, _ib._;\n confessed that he derived his teachings from ancient and sacred\n doctrines, ii. 39;\n on divine mysteries, ii. 113;\n not a \u201cspirit-medium,\u201d ii. 118;\n and other philosophers taught dual evolution, ii. 279;\n on the trine of man, ii. 282;\n definition of the soul, ii. 285;\n his testimony concerning the Machagistia, ii. 306;\n discourse concerning the creation, ii. 469;\n taught that there was in matter a blind force, ii. 483;\n on exaltation of the soul above sense, ii. 591\n\n Platonic philosophy adopted into the church, ii. 33\n\n Platonism introduced into Christianity, ii. 325\n\n Platonists, their books burned, i. 405\n\n Pleroma, three degrees, i. 302\n\n Pleasanton on the Blue Ray, i. 137, 264;\n denies gravitation, and the existence of centripetal and\n centrifugal forces, i. 271;\n his theory of light, i. 272\n\n Pliny mentions phantoms on the deserts of Africa, i. 604\n\n Plotinus, on the descent of the soul into generated existence, ii.\n 112;\n six times united to his god, ii. 115; i. 292;\n on human knowledge, i. 434;\n on prayer, _ib._;\n on ecstasy, i. 486;\n impulse in the soul to return to its centre, _ib._;\n on public worship of the gods, i. 489;\n a clairvoyant, seer, and more, ii. 591\n\n Plutarch on the oracular vapors, i. 200;\n on the nature of men, ii. 283;\n on the d\u00e6mon of Socrates, ii. 284\n\n Pococke, E., his theory of Osiris and Typhon, ii. 435, 436\n\n Poland, what a Catholic miracle in that country means, ii. 18\n\n Polykritus returned after dying, i. 364\n\n Polygamy openly preached by certain Positivists, i. 78\n\n Pompei, the room full of glass, i. 537\n\n Pope seized the scepter of the Pagan pontiff, ii. 30;\n now sympathising with the Turks against Christians, ii. 81;\n Calvin and Luther, their doctrine one, ii. 479, 480;\n his fulminations against science, ii. 559, 560;\n Calixtus III. issues a bull against Halley\u2019s Comet, ii. 509\n\n Popes known as magicians, ii. 56\n\n Popol-Vuh, a manuscript of Quich\u00e9, i. 2;\n leaves the antiquarian in the dark, i. 548\n\n Porphyry, upon Diakka, bad demons of sorcery, i. 219;\n twice united with God, i. 292;\n upon the passion of spirits for putrid substances and fresh blood,\n i. 344;\n on freshly-spilt blood in evocation, i. 493\n\n Porta, Baptista, theory of magic, world-soul, astral light, i. 208\n\n Poruth\u00fb-Mad\u00e2n, the wrestling demon, aiding in levitation, taming\n animals, etc., i. 496\n\n Positivism of Littr\u00e9 found in Vyasa, 10,400 B.C., i. 621\n\n Positivists, i. 73;\n their religion without a God, i. 76;\n design to uproot Spiritualism, _ib._;\n preach Polygamy, i. 78;\n the climax of their system, i. 80;\n neglect no means to overthrow Spiritualism, i. 83;\n despised and hated, ii. 3\n\n Possession, epidemic in Germany, i. 375\n\n Poudot, the shoemaker, his house beset by an elemental demon, i. 364\n\n Power of leaving the body temporarily, i. 476, 477;\n power to disappear, and to be seen in other forms, ii. 583\n\n Powers in nature, as recognized by exact science, and by kabalists,\n i. 466\n\n Pradjapatis, the ancestors of mankind, ten in number, ii. 427\n\n Prakamya, the power to change old age to youth, ii. 583\n\n Pralayas or dissolutions, two, ii. 424\n\n Prakriti, or Mahat, the external life, ii. 565\n\n Pranayama, ii. 590\n\n Prapti, the faculty of divination, healing and predicting, ii. 593\n\n Pratyahara, ii. 590\n\n Pravritti or active existence, i. 243\n\n Prayer and its sequences, i. 434\n\n Prayers, kept secret from strangers, i. 581\n\n Pre-Adamite, man described, i. 295;\n earth, i. 505\n\n Prediction of the Russo-Turkish war, i. 260\n\n Pre\u00ebminence of woman, ii. 299\n\n Pre\u00ebxistence, apparent, i. 179\n\n Pre\u00ebxistent, the spirit of man, i. 316, 317; ii. 280;\n law of form, i. 420\n\n Pregnant woman, highly impressible and receptive, i. 394;\n odic emanation and its influence on f\u0153tus, i. 395;\n under the influence of the ether or astral light, _ib._;\n might influence the features of children by pentagram, _ib._\n\n Prehistoric races, i. 545\n\n Premature burial, i. 456\n\n Presbytere de Cideville, phenomenon of thunder and images of\n fantastic animals as predicted by a sorcerer, i. 106\n\n Preston, Rev. Dr., his doctrine of a Mother in the plan of\n redemption, ii. 172\n\n Preterhuman beings, their alliance indicated in every ancient\n religion, ii. 299\n\n Pre-Vedic religion of India, ii. 39\n\n Priest, Assyrian, always bore the name of his god, i. 554\n\n Priest-ridden nations always fall, ii. 121, 122\n\n Priestesses of Germany, how they prophesied, ii. 592\n\n Priestley, Dr. Joseph, discovered oxygen, i. 250;\n anticipated the present-day philosophers, _ib._;\n on the godhood of Jesus, ii. 239\n\n Priests, their cast-off garb worn by men of science, ii. 8\n\n Priest-sorcerers, ii. 57\n\n Primal element obtained, i. 51;\n like clear water, _ib._\n\n Primitive Christianity, with grip, pass-words and degrees of\n initiation, ii. 204;\n Christians, a community of secret societies, ii. 335;\n triads, ii. 454\n\n Primordial substance, i. 133\n\n Prince of Hohenlohe a medium, i. 28;\n of Hell sides with the strongest, and treats Satan very badly, ii.\n 517\n\n _Principe Createur_ identical with the _Principe Generateur_ and not\n Christian, ii. 377\n\n Principes, i. 300\n\n Probation of Jesus, ii. 484, 485;\n the Devil or Diabolos no malignant principle, ii. 485\n\n Proclus, on magic and emanation, i. 243;\n theory of the gods or planetary spirits, i. 311, 312;\n his remarkable statements of marvels acted by dead persons, i. 364;\n on second dying and the luminous form, i. 432;\n his idea of divine power, i. 489;\n the mystic pass-word, _ib._;\n his explanation of the gradation of the Mysteries, ii. 101;\n upon apparitions beheld in the Mysteries, ii. 113\n\n Proctor, R. A., i. 245;\n accuses the ancients of ignorance, i. 253\n\n Profanation to eat blood, ii. 567\n\n Projecting of the astral or spiritual body, ii. 619, 620\n\n Prometheus, the Logos or Adam Kadmon, i. 298;\n revealed the art of bringing down lightning, i. 526;\n prediction of Hermes, ii. 514, 515\n\n Prophecies from Hindu books, ii. 556;\n antedate Christianity, ii. 557\n\n Prophecy determined in two ways, i. 200;\n gift imparted by infection, i. 217;\n a power possessed by the soul both in and apart from the body,\n ii. 594\n\n Prophetic star of the incarnation, ii. 454\n\n Prophets of Baal danced the circle-dance of the Amazons, ii. 45;\n dominated in Israel, and priests in Judah, ii. 439;\n of Israel never approved of sacrificial worship, ii. 525;\n led a party against the priests, _ib._\n\n Protection from vampires, etc., i. 460\n\n Protest against ethnological distinction from the progeny of Noah,\n ii. 434\n\n Protestant world still under the imputation of magical commerce with\n Satan, ii. 503\n\n Protestantism has no rights, i. 27\n\n Protestants in the United States, ii. 1;\n their bloody statutes against witchcraft, ii. 503\n\n Protevangelium, a parody of the Nicene creed, ii. 473\n\n Protogonos, i. 341\n\n Proto-hippus, i. 411\n\n Protoplasm, i. 223;\n taught by Seneca, etc., i. 249;\n doctrine of the Sw\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas, or Hindu pantheists, i. 250\n\n Prunnikos, mother of Ilda-Baoth, the God of the Jews, ii. 187\n\n Psyche, the animal soul, i. 317\n\n Psychic embryos, i. 311;\n force, i. 45-67;\n same as ectenic force, i. 113;\n same as the Akasa, _ib._;\n known to the ancient philosophers, i. 131;\n propositions of Sergeant Cox, i. 195;\n a blind force, i. 199\n\n Psychode force, i. 55, 113\n\n Psychography, or writing of messages by spirits, i. 367\n\n Psychological epidemics, ii. 625;\n powers of certain nuns in Thibet, ii. 609\n\n Psychology, heretofore almost unknown, i. 407;\n the basis of physiology anciently, but now based by scholars upon\n physiology, i. 424\n\n Psychomatics of occultism, i. 344\n\n Psychometry, i. 182;\n Prof. Denton and wife, i. 183; i. 330;\n practised by the ancients, i. 331\n\n Psychophobia, i. 46\n\n Psylli in Africa, serpent-charmers, i. 381\n\n Pueblos of Mexico still worship the sun, moon, stars, and fire, i. 557\n\n Pulpit of Peter the teaching of the Spirit of God, ii. 8\n\n Punch-and-Judy boxes or Christian mysteries, ii. 119\n\n Punjaub, population hybridized with Asiatic \u00c6thiopians, i. 567\n\n Purana, rules for writing one, ii. 492;\n the model of the Pentateuch, _ib._\n\n Purple, Tyrian, i. 239\n\n P\u00fbtt\u00e2m, or imps, i. 447\n\n Pyramids, their architecture and symbolism, i. 236;\n of Egypt, i. 518;\n their purpose, i. 519;\n the baptismal font, _ib._;\n the supposed manufacture of the material, _ib._;\n built on the former sea-shore, i. 520\n\n Pyrrho, how to be interpreted, ii. 530\n\n Pythagoras, his philosophy derived from the Brahmans, i. 9;\n taught the heliocentric system, i. 35, 532;\n believed in an infinity of worlds, i. 96;\n Bruno his disciple, i. 96, 98;\n taught God as the Universal Mind, i. 131;\n his esoteric system included in the arcane doctrines of wisdom, i.\n 205;\n Galileo a student, i. 238;\n his maxim widely scattered, \u201cDo not stir the fire with a sword,\u201d i.\n 247;\n dual signification of his precepts, i. 248;\n his trinity, i. 262;\n regard for precious stones and their mystical virtues, i. 265;\n his doctrine the same as the laws of Manu, i. 271;\n alleged influence on birds and animals, i. 283;\n testimony of Thomas Taylor, i. 284;\n initiated in the Mysteries of Byblos, Tyre, Syria, Egypt and\n Babylon, _ib._;\n did not teach literal transmigration of the soul, i. 289;\n taught the Buddhistic doctrines, i. 289-291;\n held for a clever impostor, i. 307;\n derived the soul from the world-soul, i. 316;\n mathematical doctrine of the universe, i. 318;\n taught the same as Buddha, i. 347;\n explains imagination as memory, i. 396;\n copied by Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy, i. 512;\n learned music in Egypt and taught it in Italy, i. 544;\n placed the sphere of purification in the sun, ii. 12;\n subdued wild animals, ii. 77;\n persuaded a bull not to eat beans, ii. 78;\n was not a \u201cspirit-medium,\u201d ii. 118;\n his system of numerals, ii. 300;\n probably did not understand decimal notation, _ib._\n\n Pythagorean pentacle, ii. 451, 452\n\n Pythagorists were probably Buddhists, ii. 491\n\n Pytho, or Ob, i. 355\n\n Pythoness, her powers of seership, ii. 590\n\n\n Quack, a false name imposed on Paracelsus, ii. 621\n\n Queen of Heaven indebted to Pius IX., ii. 9;\n the Virgin Mary, Isis, Ishtar, Astart\u00e9, Queen Dido, Anna, Anaitis,\n etc., ii. 96, 446-450\n\n Quetzo-Cohuatl, the serpent-god of Mexican legends, i. 546;\n wonders wrought by him, ii. 558;\n his wand, _ib._\n\n Quich\u00e9 cosmogony, i. 549\n\n Quicksilver and sulphur, a magical preparation to give long life, ii.\n 620\n\n Quotation from _Psalms_ credited by Matthew to Isaiah, ii. 172\n\n\n Rabbinical chronology, none before the twelfth century, ii. 443\n\n Races, human, many died out before Adam, i. 2;\n pre-Adamite, i. 305;\n of men differ in gifts, ii. 588\n\n Radzivil, Prince, detects the impostures of monks, ii. 72\n\n Rahat, or perfect man, ii. 287, 288\n\n Railroads in Upper Egypt, i. 528\n\n Ram, or Aries, the symbol of creative power, i. 262\n\n Ramayana the source and origin of Homer\u2019s inspiration, ii. 278\n\n Ramsay, Count, his story of the Templars, ii. 384\n\n Raspberry-mark produced by longing, i. 391\n\n Rasit, its meaning suppressed, ii. 34;\n wisdom, ii. 35\n\n Rational soul, every man endowed, ii. 279\n\n Raulica, Father Ventura de, letter on magic, ii. 70\n\n Ravan and Rama, ii. 436\n\n Raven and St. Benedict, ii. 78\n\n Rawho, the demon of Ceylon, ii. 509\n\n Rawlinson, Sir H. C., brings home an engraved stone, i. 240;\n declares that the Akkadians came from Armenia, i. 263;\n conjectures respecting the Aryans, ii. 433\n\n Rawson, Prof. A. L., a member of the Druze Brotherhood of Lebanon,\n ii. 312;\n account of his initiation, ii. 313\n\n Rays of the Star of Bethlehem preserved as a relic, ii. 71\n\n Razors, superior article in Africa, i. 538\n\n Realm of Amita, legend of, i. 601\n\n Reason, what it is, i. 425;\n developed at the expense of instinct, i. 433;\n and instinct, their source, i. 432\n\n Reber, G., shows that there was no apostolic church at Rome, ii. 124\n\n Rebold, Dr., statement concerning the ancient colleges of Egypt, i.\n 520\n\n Reciprocal influences, i. 314\n\n Red dragon, the Assyrian military symbol, borrowed by Persia,\n Byzantium, and Rome, ii. 484\n\n Redeemer not promised in the book of Genesis, but by Manu, ii. 50\n\n Red-haired man, repugnance to stepping over his shadow, ii. 610;\n the magnetism dreaded, ii. 611\n\n Reformation had Paul for leader, ii. 180\n\n Reformers as bloodthirsty as Catholics, ii. 503\n\n Regazzoni, remarkable experiments, i. 142;\n the mesmerist, feats, i. 283\n\n Regenerated heathendom in the Christian ranks, ii. 80\n\n Regeneration or spiritual birth taught in India, ii. 565\n\n Regulation wardrobe of the Madonna, ii. 9\n\n Reichenbach, described the Od force, i. 146;\n prepared the way to understand Paracelsus, i. 167;\n on odic force of pregnant women, i. 394\n\n Reincarnation, its cause, i. 346;\n its possibility, and impossibility, i. 351\n\n Religion without a God, i. 76;\n of the future, _ib._;\n of the ancients the religion of the future, i. 613;\n private or national property, not to be shared with foreigners, i.\n 581;\n taught in the oldest Mysteries, i. 567;\n which dreads the light must be false, ii. 121;\n of Gautama, propagandism, ii. 608\n\n Religions, ancient, based on indestructibility of matter and force,\n i. 243;\n anciently sabaistic, i. 261;\n derived from one source and tend to one end, ii. 639;\n Papacy and scientific, i. 403\n\n Religious customs of the Mexicans and Peruvians like those of the\n Ph\u0153nicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, i. 551;\n instinct productive of immorality, i. 83;\n liberty considered as intolerance, ii. 503;\n reform pure at the beginning, ii. 333;\n myths have an historical foundation, ii. 431;\n teachers, ii. 1\n\n Renan, E., described Jesus as a Gallicized rabbi, ii. 562\n\n Repentance possible even in Hades or Gehenna, i. 352\n\n Repercussion, i. 360\n\n Rephaim, i. 133\n\n Resistance, extraordinary, to blows, sharp instruments, etc., i. 375,\n 376\n\n Resuscitated Buddha, a babe speaking with man\u2019s voice, i. 437\n\n Resuscitations, i. 478, 479, 480;\n after actual death, impossible, i. 481\n\n Report of French Parliament upon the Jesuits, ii. 353\n\n Resplendent one, ii. 113;\n the Augoeides, or self-shining vision, ii. 115\n\n Retribution on the Roman Catholic Church, ii. 121\n\n Reuchlin, John, a Kabalist, ii. 20\n\n Revelation, or Apocalypse, its author a Kabalist, ii. 91;\n his hatred of the Mysteries made him the enemy of Paul, _ib._\n\n Revenge of Ilda-Baoth for the transgression of his command, ii. 185\n\n Rib of the Word made flesh preserved as a relic, ii. 71\n\n Rig-Veda, hymns written before Zoroaster, ii. 433\n\n Rio Janeiro, her Madonna with bare limbs, blond hair and chignon,\n ii. 9;\n her Christ in dandy evening dress, ii. 10\n\n Rishi Kutsa, i. 11\n\n Rishis, or sages, i. 90\n\n Rite of Swedenborg, a Jesuitical production, ii. 390\n\n Rites and ceremonial dress of Christian clergy like that of\n Babylonians, etc., ii. 94\n\n Ritual of exorcism, ii. 69;\n funeral, of the Egyptians, ii. 367\n\n Rituals, Kabalistic and Catholic compared, ii. 85, 86\n\n Rochester Cathedral, its originals, ii. 5;\n rappings, i. 36\n\n Rock-temples of Ipsambul, i. 542;\n works of Ph\u0153nician cities, i. 570;\n similar in Egypt and America, i. 571\n\n Rod of Moses, the _crux ansata_, ii. 455\n\n Roger Bacon, i. 64\n\n Roma, Cambodian traditions, i. 566\n\n Roman Catholic Clergy murdered mediums, i. 26;\n Church burned sorcerers that were not priests, ii. 58;\n Church has deprived herself of the key to her own religious\n mysteries, ii. 121;\n Church regards dissent, heresy, and witchcraft identical, ii. 503;\n considers religious liberty as intolerance, _ib._\n\n Roman Catholics in the United States, ii. 1;\n frown at the spiritual phenomena as diabolical, ii. 4;\n pontiffs arrogate dominion over Greek and Protestant Christians, i.\n 27\n\n Rome, Church of, put Bruno to death for his doctrines, i. 93;\n regards the spiritual phenomena as genuine, i. 100;\n Church of, cursing spiritualists, ii. 6;\n excommunicating the Bulgarians, Servians, Russians, and Italian\n liberals, ii. 7\n\n Rosaries of Buddhistic origin, ii. 95\n\n Roscoe, Professor, on iron in the sun, i. 513\n\n Rose, impression of one on Mme. von N., i. 398\n\n Rosicrucians, persecuted and burned, i. 64;\n their doctrine of creation, i. 258;\n still a mystery, ii. 380;\n unknown to its cruelest enemy, the Church, _ib._;\n the aim to support Catholicism, ii. 394;\n their doctrine of fire, i. 423\n\n Rosie Cross, brothers live only in name, i. 29;\n mysterious body, i. 64;\n burned without mercy by the Church, _ib._\n\n Round Tower of Bhangulpore, ii. 5\n\n Rousseau, the savant, encounter with a toad, i. 399\n\n Royal Arch word, ii. 293;\n cipher, ii. 396\n\n Ruc, from New Zealand, i. 603\n\n Rufus of Thessalonica returned to life after dying, i. 365\n\n Rules imposed upon neophytes, ii. 365\n\n Russia, no church-miracles, ii. 17\n\n Russian conquest of Turkey predicted, i. 260\n\n\n S. P. R. C., the cipher, ii. 395\n\n Sabazian worship Sabbatic, ii. 45\n\n Sabbath, adopted by the Jews from other peoples, ii. 417;\n Christian, its origin, ii. 419\n\n Sabbatical institution not mentioned in Job, ii. 494\n\n Sabeanism, treated of in Job, ii. 494\n\n Sacerdotal caste in every ancient religion, ii. 99;\n office, magical evocation, ii. 118\n\n Sacred sleep, i. 357;\n produced by draughts of soma-juice, _ib._;\n lake, ii. 364;\n writings of India have a deeper meaning, ii. 430;\n books of the Jews destroyed, 158 B.C., ii. 470;\n tree of Kounboum renews its budding in the time of Son-Ka-po, ii.\n 609\n\n Sacrifice of the hierophant or victim, ii. 42;\n of blood, ii. 566\n\n Sacrificial worship never approved by the Israelitish prophets, ii.\n 525\n\n Sacrilege to seek to understand a mystery, ii. 249\n\n Sahara, perhaps once a sea-bed, i. 592\n\n St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, its double lithoi, ii. 5;\n Medard, the fanatics, i. 375;\n John, Knights of, not Masons, ii. 383;\n persecuted by the Inquisition, _ib._\n\n Saints rescued from hell, ii. 517;\n Buddhistic and Lamaistic, their great sanctity, ii. 608;\n never washing themselves, ii. 511\n\n Sakti, the active energy of the gods, ii. 276;\n employed as a vehan, _ib._\n\n Sakti-trimurti, or female trinity, ii. 444\n\n Salamander or asbestos, i. 504\n\n Salem, Mass., obsessions occurring there, i. 71;\n witchcraft, the obeah woman, i. 361;\n witchcraft, ii. 18\n\n Salsette, the Kanhari caves, the abode of St. Josaphat, ii. 580, 581\n\n Salt regarded as the universal menstruum and one of the chief\n formative principles, i. 147\n\n Salverte, his philosophy of magic, i. 115;\n imputes deception to Iamblichus and others, _ib._;\n his account of a soldier protected by an amulet, i. 378;\n on mechanics and invention in ancient times, i. 516;\n on the use of electricity, etc., by Numa and Tullus, kings of\n Rome, i. 527\n\n Sam\u00e2ddi, an exalted spiritual condition, ii. 590\n\n Samael or Satan, the simoon or wind of the desert, ii. 483\n\n Samaritans recognized only the books of Moses and Joshua, ii. 470\n\n Samothrace, a mystery enacted there once every seven years, i. 302;\n worship of the Kabeiri brought thither by Dardanus, i. 570\n\n Samothracian Mysteries and new life, i. 132;\n magnetism and electricity, i. 234\n\n Samson, the Hebrew Herakles, a mythical character, ii. 439;\n represented by the Somona of Ceylon, i. 577\n\n Samuel the prophet, a mythical hero, the doppel of Samson, ii. 439;\n the Hebrew Ganesa, _ib._;\n his school, i. 26\n\n San Marco at Venice, the original of the Campanila column, ii. 5\n\n Sanchoniathon, on chaos and creation, i. 342\n\n Sanctity of the chair of Peter, its source, ii. 25\n\n Sankhya, the eight faculties of the soul, ii. 592, 593\n\n Sanctuary of the pagodas never entered by a European [except Mr.\n Ellis--see Higgins\u2019s _Apocalypsis_--very doubtful], ii. 623\n\n Sanny\u00e2si, a saint of the second degree, ii. 98\n\n Sanscrit, endeavor to show its derivation from the Greek, i. 443;\n inscriptions, none older than Chandragupta, ii. 436;\n the vernacular of the Akkadians, ii. 46;\n appears on the leaves of the magical Koumboum, _ib._;\n books written in presence of a child-medium, i. 368;\n impressions by a fakir or juggler on leaves, i. 368, 369;\n manuscripts translated into every Asiatic language, i. 578;\n language derived from the Rutas, i. 594\n\n Sapphire, sacred to the moon, i. 264;\n possesses a magical power and produces somnambulic phenomena, _ib._;\n Hindu legend of its first production, i. 265\n\n Sar or Saros, i. 30\n\n Sara-isvati, wife of Brahma, goddess of sacred knowledge, ii. 409\n\n Sarcophagus, porphyry, in the pyramids, i. 519\n\n Sargent, Epes, on spiritual deceptions, i. 220;\n his arraignment of Tyndall for coquetting with different beliefs,\n i. 419\n\n Sargon, the original of the story of Moses, ii. 442\n\n Sarpa Rajni, the queen of the serpents, ii. 489\n\n Sarles, Rev. John W., advocates the damnation of adult heathen, ii.\n 474\n\n Satan, his existence first made a dogma by Christians, ii. 13;\n declared fundamental, ii. 14;\n Ilda-Baoth, so called, ii. 186;\n identical with Jehovah, ii. 451;\n the mainstay of sacerdotism, ii. 480;\n to be contemplated from their planes, ii. 481;\n personified as a devil by the Asideans, ii. 481;\n same as Ahriman or Anramanyas, _ib._;\n the name applied to a serpent in the Hebrew Scriptures, ii. 481;\n the same as Seth, god of the Hittites, _ib._;\n of the book of Job, ii. 483;\n counsels with the Lord, ii. 485;\n a son of God, ii. 492;\n makes a sortie into New England and other colonies, ii. 503;\n the Biblical term for public accuser, ii. 494;\n the same as Typhon, _ib._;\n cast forth by the prince of hell, ii. 515, 516;\n is made subject to Beelzebub, prince of hell, ii. 517;\n and Beelzebub hold a conversation about Jesus, ii. 520, 521\n\n Satanism defined by Father Ventura de Raulica, ii. 14\n\n Sati, a burned widow, i. 541\n\n Sattras, imitations of the course of the sun, i. 11\n\n Saturation of the medium, i. 499, 500\n\n Saturn, Chaldean discovery of his rings, i. 260, 263;\n the father of Zeus, i. 263;\n the same as Bel, Baal, and Siva, _ib._;\n his image, ii. 235;\n or Kronos, offers his only-begotten son to Ouranos and circumcises\n himself and family, i. 578;\n the myth original in the _Maha-Bharata_, _ib._\n\n Saturnalia of monks at Christmas, ii. 366\n\n Saul, evil spirit exorcised, i. 215\n\n Saviour, would be lost if we lose our demons, ii. 476\n\n Scandinavian tradition of trolls, ii. 624\n\n Scepter of the Boddhisgat seen floating in the air, ii. 610\n\n Scheme of the Ophites, ii. 292\n\n Schlieman, the Hellenist, finds evidence of cycles of development, i.\n 6;\n at Mycen\u00e6, i. 598\n\n Schmidt, I. J., statement in regard to the steppes of Turan and\n desert of Gobi, i. 603\n\n Scholars, ancient, believed in arcane doctrines, i. 205\n\n Scholastic science knows neither beginning nor end, i. 336\n\n Schools of magic in the Lamaseries, ii. 609\n\n Schopenhauer, i. 55, 59;\n on nature as illusion, ii. 158\n\n Science, formerly arcane and taught in the sanctuary, i. 7;\n its progress, i. 40;\n spiritualism, i. 83;\n \u201chas no belief,\u201d i. 278;\n knows no beginning or end, i. 336;\n called anti-christianism, i. 337;\n mystery fatal to it, i. 338;\n its parent source, the unknown, i. 339;\n its dilemma, i. 340;\n will never distinguish the difference between human and animal\n ovules, i. 397;\n invading the domain of religion, i. 403;\n surrounded by a large hypothetical domain, i. 404;\n her domain within the limit of the changes of matter, i. 421;\n gross conception of fire, i. 423;\n its dogmas concerning perpetual motion, elixir of life,\n transmutation of metals and universal solvent, i. 501;\n stages of its growth, i. 533;\n its three necessary elements, ii. 637;\n spiritism does not prevent them, _ib._;\n modern, fails to satisfy the aspirations of the race; makes the\n future a void and bereaves man of life, ii. 639\n\n Scientific knowledge confined to the temples, i. 25;\n Association, or American Association for the Advancement of\n Science, on spiritualism and roosters crowing in the night, i.\n 245, 246;\n attainments of ancient Hindu savants, i. 618, 620\n\n Scientists bound in duty to investigate, i. 5;\n afraid of spiritual phenomena, i. 41;\n treatment of Prof. Crookes, i. 44;\n likely to rediscover magic, i. 67;\n not to be credited for the increase of knowledge, i. 84;\n denied Buffon, Franklin, the steam-engine, railroad, etc., i. 85;\n surpassed the clergy in hostility to discovery, _ib._;\n as much given to persecution, _ib._;\n know little certain, i. 224;\n entrapping of Slade the medium, _ib._;\n put forth no new doctrines, i. 248, 249;\n anticipated by Liebig and Priestly, i. 250;\n many of them inanimate corpses, i. 317;\n their _ultima thule_, i. 340;\n curious conjectures concerning the aurora, i. 417;\n their incapacity to understand the spiritual side, i. 418\n\n Scin-lecca, or double, ii. 104;\n makes the principal manifestations, ii. 517\n\n Scintilla, the Divine, produces a monad, i. 302;\n of Abraham taken from Michael, ii. 452;\n Isaac from Gabriel, and Jacob from Uriel, ii. 452\n\n Scottish rite, its headquarters at a Jesuit college, ii. 381\n\n Screw, invented by Archytas, the instructor of Plato, i. 543\n\n Scyths, probably the same as Mongolians, i. 576\n\n Sea, ancient inland sea north of the Himalayas, i. 589\n\n Seal, Solomon\u2019s of Hindu origin, i. 135\n\n Seance in Bengal, i. 467\n\n Second Emanation condenses matter and diffuses life, i. 302;\n Adam created unisexual, i. 559;\n spiritual birth, ii. 566;\n advent, a fable invented for a precaution, ii. 535;\n death, ii. 368;\n sight, i. 211\n\n Secret formul\u00e6, i. 66;\n sacerdotal castes in every ancient religion, ii. 99;\n doctrine, its martyrs, i. 574;\n of Moses, ii. 525;\n volume, the real Hebrew Bible, ii. 471;\n sects of the Christians, ii. 289;\n are still in existence, ii. 290;\n God of the Kabala, ii. 230;\n of secrets, ii. 568\n\n Secrets for prolonging life, ii. 563\n\n Sectarian beliefs to disappear, i. 613\n\n Sects existing before Christ, ii. 144\n\n Sedecla, the Obeah woman of En-Dor, i. 494\n\n Seer, receives impressions directly from his spirit, ii. 591\n\n Seers or epopt\u00e6, not spirit-mediums, ii. 118\n\n Seer-adept, knows how to suspend the action of the brain, ii. 591\n\n Seership natural with some people, ii. 588;\n two kinds, of the soul and the spirit, ii. 590;\n an elevation of the soul, ii. 591\n\n Self of man, inner triune, ii. 114;\n the future, ii. 115\n\n Self-consciousness, attained on earth, i. 368\n\n Self-printed records on the sacred tree, i. 302\n\n Seir-Anpin, the Christos, ii. 230;\n the third god, ii. 247\n\n Semitic, the least spiritual branch of the human family, ii. 434;\n its germs found in Khamism, ii. 435\n\n Semi-monastics, ii. 608\n\n Sensitive flame obeying a man\u2019s order, ii. 607\n\n Separation, temporary, of the spirit from the body, ii. 588\n\n Sephira, i. 160;\n the Divine Intelligence and mother of the Sephiroth, i. 258;\n the same as Metis and Sophia, i. 263;\n the first emanation, i. 270;\n or Sacred Aged (Maha Lakshmi), ii. 421\n\n Sephiroth, i. 258;\n concealed wisdom, their father, _ib._;\n or emanations, ii. 36;\n ten, three classes in one unit, ii. 40;\n the same as the ten Pradjapatis, ii. 215;\n same as the ten patriarchs, _ib._\n\n Sepulchres in Thibet, extraordinary arrangement of bodies and\n decorations, ii. 604\n\n Seraph, his snout preserved as a relic, ii. 71\n\n Serapis, a name of Surya, ii. 438;\n an accepted type of Christ, ii. 336;\n his picture adopted by the Christians, _ib._;\n represented by a serpent, ii. 490;\n usurped the worship of Osiris, ii. 491;\n the seven vowels chanted as a hymn in his honor, i. 514\n\n Serpent of Genesis, des Mousseaux\u2019s name for the devil, i. 15;\n matter, i. 297;\n dwelling in the branches of the tree of life, i. 298;\n symbol of wisdom and immortality, i. 553;\n of the book of _Genesis_, Ash-mogh or Asmodeus, ii. 188;\n persuades man to eat of the tree of knowledge, ii. 185;\n Christna crushing his head, ii. 446;\n the divine symbol east and west, ii. 484;\n most spirit-like of all reptiles, and hence a favorite symbol, ii.\n 489;\n how it became the emblem of eternity and of the world, ii. 489;\n universally venerated, ii. 489;\n a symbol of Serapis and Jesus, ii. 490;\n and Eve, ii. 512\n\n Serpent-charmers, cannot fascinate human beings, ii. 612;\n their powers, ii. 628\n\n Serpent-charming, i. 381, 382, 470\n\n Serpent-monsters, i. 393\n\n Serpent-god, sons of, the hierophants, i. 553\n\n Serpent-gods, Mexican, 13 in number, i. 572\n\n Serpent-trail round the unformed earth, ii. 489\n\n Serpent-worship, its origin not known, ii. 489\n\n Serpent-worshippers of Kashmere become Buddhists, ii. 608\n\n Serpent\u2019s catacombs in Egypt, i. 553;\n mysteries of the unavoidable cycle or centre of necessity, _ib._\n\n Serpents, the earth their queen, i. 10;\n Kneph, Agathodaimon, Kakodaimon, i. 133, 157;\n Eliphas Levi\u2019s, symbol of astral fire, i. 137;\n queen of, ii. 489;\n used as plaything at Hindu festivals, ii. 622\n\n Servius, on the ancient practice of employing celestial fire at the\n altars, i. 526\n\n Sesostris, instructed by the oracle in the Trinity, ii. 51\n\n Seth, the reputed son of Adam, the same as Hermes, Thoth, and Sat-an,\n i. 554;\n the same as Typhon, ii. 482\n\n Seth, his interview with Michael at the gate of Paradise, ii. 520;\n worshipped by the Hittites, ii. 523;\n same as El, ii. 524\n\n Sethicnites, disbelieved that Jesus was God, ii. 176\n\n Seven, a sacred Hindu number, ii. 407;\n among the Chaldeans, ii. 408;\n potentiality of the number, ii. 417;\n steps, the descent, i. 353;\n degrees, old English Templar Rite, ii. 377;\n vowels chanted as a hymn, i. 514;\n caverns, i. 552;\n spirits, i. 300, 301;\n spirits of the Apocalypse, i. 461;\n impostor demons, ii. 296;\n \u00c6ons, _ib._;\n rishis, _ib._\n\n Seven-headed, serpent, ii. 489\n\n Seventh degree, ii. 365;\n ray and seven vowel, i. 514;\n rite, the life transfer, ii. 564\n\n Severus, Alexander, pillaged Egyptian temples for books, i. 406\n\n Sexual element in Christianity, ii. 80;\n emblems and worship, ii. 445\n\n Shaberon, summoning a lama by spirit-message, ii. 604;\n his wonderful summons to rescue the author from peril in Mongolia,\n ii. 628\n\n Shaberons, or Khubilhans, reincarnations of Buddha, ii. 609\n\n Shad-belly coat first worn by Babylonian priests, ii. 458\n\n Shadow, repugnance to stepping across it, ii. 610;\n magnetic exhalation, ii. 611\n\n Shakers, spiritual phenomena, ii. 18\n\n Shaman, prophesying, ii. 624, 625;\n prediction of the Crimean war, ii. 625;\n extraordinary scene with the talismanic stone, ii. 626, 628;\n \u201cdragged out of his skin,\u201d ii. 628;\n priests bound to perform their \u201ctrue rites\u201d but once a year, at the\n solstice, ii. 624\n\n Shamanism or spirit-worship, the oldest religion of Mongolia, an\n offshoot of primitive theurgy, ii. 615\n\n Shamans occasionally enjoy divine powers, i. 3, 211;\n of Siberia, degenerate scions of ancient Shamanism, ii. 616;\n sometimes only mediums, sometimes magicians, ii. 625;\n power over psychical epidemics, ii. 626;\n each one has a talisman, _ib._\n\n Shampooing or tschamping, a magical manipulation, i. 445\n\n Shark-charmers or Kadal-katti, i. 606;\n paid by the British government, i. 607\n\n Shebang, the Sabbath, ii., 418\n\n Shedim, nature-spirits, or Afrites, i. 313\n\n Shekinah, the veil of the most ancient, ii. 223\n\n Shem, Ham and Japhet, the old gods Samas, Kham and Iapetos, ii. 487\n\n Shemites, Assyrians, i. 576;\n probably a hybrid of Hamite and Aryan, _ib._\n\n Shien-Sien, a blissful state, power of those obtaining it to\n transport themselves everywhere, ii. 618, 620\n\n Shiloh, daughters, their dance, ii. 45\n\n Shimeon and Patar, ii. 93\n\n Sho\u00ebpffer, Prof., teaches that the earth does not revolve, i. 621\n\n Shoel ob, or consulter with familiar spirits, i. 355\n\n Shud\u00e2la-M\u00e2dan, the ghoul or graveyard fiend, i. 495\n\n Shu-King, i. 11\n\n Sh\u00fbla-M\u00e2dan, the furnace-demon, i. 496;\n helps the juggler with raising trees, _ib._\n\n Shu-tukt, a collegiate monastery, having in it over 30,000 monks, ii.\n 609\n\n Siam, a king in 1670 who sought for the philosopher\u2019s stone, i. 571\n\n Siamese, the power of monks, i. 213, 214;\n study of the philosopher\u2019s stone, i. 214;\n believe that some know how to render themselves immortal, _ib._\n\n Sidereal force taught by Paracelsus, i. 168\n\n Signature of the f\u0153tus, i. 385\n\n Silver, its aura, the quicksilver of the yogis or alchemists, ii.\n 620, 621\n\n Silver and green associated in hermetic symbolism, i. 513\n\n Silvery spark in the brain, i. 329\n\n Simeon, the existence of such a tribe denied, i. 368;\n ben Iochai, compiler of the _Zohar_, ii. 548;\n rabbi, author of the _Zohar_, i. 301, 302;\n his sons arise and relate what they saw in hell, ii. 519;\n his prototype in India, _ib._\n\n Simon ben Iochai, i. 263;\n Stylites, lived 36 years atop of a pillar, ii. 77;\n cured a dragon of a sore eye, _ib._\n\n Simon Magus, a personification of the apostle Paul, ii. 89;\n powers attributed to him, i. 471;\n his journey through the air, ii. 357;\n and Peter, ii. 190, 191\n\n Simoun, or the wind of the desert, called Diabolos, ii. 483\n\n Simulacrum of a Roumanian lady conducted by a Shaman to the tent of\n the author, ii. 627, 628\n\n Sin the necessary cause of the greatest good, ii. 479\n\n Sinai, Mount, metals smelted there, i. 542;\n story of Moses and the brass seraph, _ib._\n\n Singing sands, i. 605\n\n Sins, the five which divide the offender from his associates, ii. 608\n\n Siphra Dzeniouta, i. 1\n\n Sister\u2019s son inheriting a crown, ii. 437\n\n Sistra at the Israelitish festival, ii. 45\n\n Siva, the fire-god, same as Bel and Saturn or Kronos, i. 263;\n vigil-night, i. 446;\n represented as sacrificing a rhinoceros instead of his son, i. 577,\n 578;\n identical with Baal, Moloch, Saturn and Abraham, i. 578;\n created Adhima and Heva, ancestors of the present race of mankind,\n i. 590;\n hurls fallen angels into Onderah, ii. 11;\n his paradise, ii. 234;\n hurls the devils into the bottomless pit, ii. 238;\n Sabazios and Sabaoth the same divinity, ii. 487;\n the same as the western chief gods, ii. 524;\n most intellectual of the gods, _ib._\n\n Six principles of man, ii. 367;\n days of evolution and one of repose, ii. 422;\n sacred syllables, \u201caum mani padma houm,\u201d ii. 606;\n races of men mentioned in laws of Manu, i. 590;\n thousand years the term of creation, i. 342;\n thousand infant skulls found in a fish-pond by a convent in Rome,\n ii. 58\n\n Sixteenth incarnation of Buddha at Urga, ii. 617\n\n Sixth degree, ii. 365\n\n Sixty thousand (60,428) paid religious teachers in the United States,\n ii. 1\n\n Skepticism a malady, i. 115\n\n Skill displayed in embalming in Thibet, ii. 603, 604\n\n Skulls of infants found at nunneries, ii. 58, 210\n\n Slade, the medium, pretended exposure by Prof. Lankester, i. 118, 224\n\n Slavonian Christians now assailed by the Catholics, ii. 81\n\n Slavonians, the mystic word, ii. 42\n\n Smaragdine, tablet of Hermes, found at Hebron, i. 507\n\n Smith, George, his reading of the Assyrian tablets, ii. 422;\n his reading of the story of Sargon, ii. 442\n\n Snake-symbol of Phanes, the mundane serpent and mundane year, i. 146,\n 151, 157\n\n Smyth, Prof. Piazzi, on the corn-bin, i. 519;\n mathematical description of the great pyramid, i. 520\n\n Snake-skin considered magnetic, ii. 507\n\n Snake\u2019s Hole, the subterranean passage terminating at the root of the\n heavens, i. 553\n\n Snakes kept in Moslem mosques, ii. 490;\n reared with children in India, _ib._\n\n Snout of a seraph preserved as a relic, ii. 71\n\n Society not certain but that all ends in annihilation, ii. 3\n\n \u201cSociety,\u201d British, in India, its supercilious contempt for the\n Hindus and marvels in Hindustan, ii. 613\n\n Socrates, his demoniac or divine faculty and its service, i. 131;\n his demon, ii. 283;\n same as the _nous_ or spirit, ii. 284;\n opinion of Justin Martyr about his future fate criticised, ii. 8;\n a medium, and therefore not initiated, ii. 117;\n why put to death as an atheist, ii. 118\n\n Sod, an arcanum of Mystery, i. 301, 555;\n the Mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, _ib._;\n the _secret_ of Simeon and Levi, _ib._;\n great, of the Kadeshim, ii. 131\n\n Sodales, or priest-colleges, Moses their chief, i. 555\n\n Sodalian oath, i. 409\n\n Sodom and Gomorrah, suffering eternal fire, ii. 12\n\n Sohar, its compilation, ii. 348;\n its theories like the Hindu, ii. 276\n\n Solar trinity, red, blue and yellow, ii. 417;\n dynasty in India, the Surga Vansa, ii. 437\n\n Solemn ceremony of the Druzes, ii. 312\n\n Solidarities of Greece and Rome, ii. 389\n\n Solitary Copts, students of ancient lore, ii. 306\n\n Solomon, or Sol-Om-On, ii. 389; i. 19;\n obtained secret learning, i. 135;\n seal of Hindu origin, _ib._;\n ships to Ophir or India, i. 136;\n his seven abominations, ii. 67;\n learned from Votan the particulars of the products of the occident,\n i. 546;\n the builder of temples, ii. 439;\n revolts against him, _ib._;\n his temple never visited by the prophets, ii. 525;\n and his temple only allegorical, ii. 391;\n temple, the brazen columns and bowls to aid in entheastic power,\n ii. 542\n\n Soma, juice of, produces trance, i. 357\n\n Somona, the Singalese Samson, i. 577\n\n \u201cSon of Man,\u201d ii. 232\n\n Son of God at one with man, ii. 635\n\n Sons of the Serpent-God, i. 553\n\n Son-Ka-po, the Shaberon, or avatar and great reformer, immaculately\n conceived, and translated without dying into heaven, ii. 609\n\n Sophia or wisdom, ii. 41;\n the Holy Ghost as a female principle, i. 130;\n the Gnostic principle of wisdom, the same as Sephira and Metis, i.\n 263\n\n Sorcerer in Africa, impervious to bullets, i. 379\n\n Sorcerers, burned when not priests, ii. 58\n\n Sorcery, i. 279;\n misapplied arcane knowledge, ii. 581;\n few facts better established, i. 366;\n with blood, ii. 567, 568;\n practised at the Vatican, ii. 620;\n approved by Augustine, ii. 20;\n employed for crime, ii. 633\n\n Sortes Sanctorum, ii. 20, 21\n\n Sortie of Satan into New England, ii. 503\n\n Sortilegium or sorcery, practised by clergy and monks, ii. 6;\n Gregory of Tours, ii. 20\n\n Sosigenes, reformed the calendar for C\u00e6sar, i. 11\n\n Sosiosh, the tenth avatar and fifth Buddha, ii. 236;\n a permutation of Vishnu, ii. 237\n\n Sotheran, Charles, letter on Freemasonry, ii. 388\n\n Soul, displays power when the body is asleep, i. 199;\n the two named by Plato, i. 276;\n marvellous power, i. 280;\n passage through the seven planetary chambers, i. 297;\n spirit wholly distinct, i. 315;\n dissolves into ether, _ib._;\n possible loss of its distinct being, i. 316, 317;\n the garment of the spirit, i. 309;\n exists as preexisting matter, i. 317;\n doctrine of the Greek and Roman philosophers, i. 429;\n of Aristotle, Homer, the Jains and Brahmans, _ib._;\n the camera in which facts are fixed, i. 486;\n escaping temporarily from the body, ii. 105;\n may dwell in paradise while the body lives in this world, i. 602;\n punished by union with the body, ii. 112;\n the Vedic doctrine, ii. 263;\n universal, when it sleeps, ii. 274;\n its transmigration does not relate to man\u2019s condition after death,\n ii. 280;\n its feminine, ii. 281;\n a part of it mortal, ii. 283;\n the doctrine of Pythagoras, ii. 283;\n Plato\u2019s definition, ii. 285, 286;\n its paralysis during life, ii. 368;\n not knit to flesh, ii. 565;\n sentient, the Ego, inseparable from the brain, ii. 590;\n raised above inferior good, ii. 591;\n power to liberate itself and behold things subjectively, ii. 591;\n its eight faculties, ii. 592;\n its teachings authoritative, ii. 593;\n possesses a power of prescience even when in the body, ii. 594;\n disembodied, meets itself at the gate of Paradise, ii. 635;\n of the world the archeal universal, \u201cmind,\u201d Sophia the Holy Ghost\n as a female principle, i. 130;\n doctrine of Baptista Porta, i. 208;\n external, i. 276;\n higher mortal, _ib._;\n the great universal, union with it does not involve loss of\n individuality, ii. 116\n\n Soul-blind like color-blind, i. 387\n\n Soul-electricity, i. 322\n\n Soul-deaths, ii. 369\n\n Soulless men yet living, ii. 369\n\n Souls, or immortal gods emanate from the triad, i. 348;\n come to souls and impart to them information, ii. 594\n\n Source of the religious faiths of mankind, ii. 639;\n double, of every religion, _ib._\n\n South Carolina, statutes in force in 1865, imposing the death-penalty\n for witchcraft, ii. 18\n\n Sparks or old worlds that perished, ii. 421\n\n Speaking images, i. 505\n\n Specialties in medical practice in Egypt, i. 545\n\n Speculative Masons, ii. 392\n\n Spectre of a herdsman in Bavaria, i. 451\n\n Spectroscope, confirmed doctrines of Paracelsus, i. 168, 169\n\n Spell of the evil eye, ii. 633\n\n Spheres, music of, i. 275\n\n Spinoza, his philosophy, i. 93;\n furnishes a key to the unwritten secret, i. 308\n\n Spirit, its origin, i. 258;\n not existing, but immortal, i. 291;\n or spiritus, the soul or _anima mundi_, the mother, i. 299, 300;\n progeny of, i. 301;\n human, an emanation of the eternal spirit, i. 305;\n never entered wholly into the body, i. 306;\n is masculine, ii. 281;\n of man pre\u00ebxistent, ii. 280;\n distinct from soul, i. 315;\n individualization depends upon it, _ib._;\n becomes an angel, i. 316;\n its pre\u00ebxistence believed, _ib._;\n alone immortal, ii. 362;\n leaving an old for a young body, ii. 563;\n by its vision all things can be known, ii. 588;\n may abandon the body for specific periods, ii. 589;\n the sole original unity, ii. 607;\n the interpreter of God to man, ii. 635;\n its Protean powers little known by spiritualists, ii. 638\n\n Spirit-ancestor, a serpent, 45, 46\n\n Spirit-form, i. 197\n\n Spirit-voices not articulate, i. 68;\n audible, i. 220\n\n Spirit-intercourse, 446,000,000 believers, i. 117\n\n Spirit-flowers produced by a Bikshuni, ii. 609\n\n Spiritists of France attacked by the Roman church, ii. 6\n\n Spirits that control mediums, generally human, i. 67;\n cannot \u201cmaterialize,\u201d _ib._;\n not attracted by every body alike, i. 69;\n produce few of the \u201cphysical phenomena,\u201d i. 73;\n the seven, i. 300, 301;\n not possessed of the same attractions, i. 344;\n or ghosts, hurt by weapons, i. 363;\n heard talking in the desert of Lop, and elsewhere, i. 604;\n three categories of communication, ii. 115;\n may take possession of bodies in the absence of the soul, ii. 589;\n bad, compelled Garma-Khian to appear and render an account, ii. 616;\n city of, _ib._\n\n Spiritual phenomena among the Shakers, ii. 18;\n discountenanced by the clergy, i. 26;\n chase the scientists, i. 41;\n Iamblichus forbids the endeavor to procure them, i. 219;\n sun, i. 29, 32;\n the magnet of Kircher, i. 208, 209;\n Gama, Ormazd, the soul of things, God, i. 270;\n invisible and in the centre of space, i. 302;\n the supreme deity, ii. 13;\n death, its cause, i. 318;\n eyes, i. 145;\n sight, scientists without it, i. 318;\n photography, i. 486\n\n Spiritual entity, in man, an ancient doctrine, ii. 593;\n transferred, ii. 563;\n limbs, can be made visible, ii. 596;\n world in proximity to us, ii. 593;\n state, as unfolded in the Sankhya, a philosophy, ii. 593;\n numerals, i. 514;\n crisis of the Shaman, ii. 625;\n or magical powers exist in every man, ii. 635;\n circles are constructed on no principle, ii. 638;\n Self the sole and Supreme God, ii. 566\n\n Spiritualism, drifting, i. 53;\n efforts of Positivists to uproot, i. 76, 83;\n pretends only to be a science, i. 83;\n pronounced a delusion in Russia, i. 118;\n universally diffused from remote antiquity, i. 205;\n why it must continue to vegetate, ii. 636;\n is iconoclastic, not constructed, ii. 637;\n not scientific, ii. 637, 638;\n exoteric, too much directed to personal matters, _ib._;\n esoteric, very rare, _ib._\n\n Spiritualists, the majority remain in the religious denominations,\n ii. 2;\n take no active part in the formation of a system of philosophy, ii.\n 637;\n start with a fallacy, ii. 638\n\n Splendor, mighty Lord of, i. 301\n\n Spurious passage in the First Epistle of John, ii. 177\n\n Square hat of the Hierophant, ii. 392\n\n Squirrel materialized, i. 329\n\n Sri-Iantara, or Solomon\u2019s seal, ii. 265\n\n Stainton, Moses, his criticisms of popular spiritualism, ii. 638\n\n Stan-gyour, a work on magic, i. 580\n\n Stanhope, Lady Esther, faints at a Yezidi orgy, ii. 572\n\n Star of Bethlehem, rays carried home by a monk as relics, ii. 71\n\n Starry heaven, worship proposed under Christian names, ii. 450\n\n Stars, ignition, i. 254;\n influence on fates of men, i. 259;\n and man have direct affinity, i. 168, 169\n\n Statues, restorative of health, i. 283;\n possible to animate them, i. 485;\n endowed with reason, i. 613\n\n Steam-engine, invented by Hero of Alexandria, i. 241\n\n Stedingers, accused and exterminated, ii. 331\n\n Steel, rusts in India and Egypt, i. 211;\n superior article in India, i. 538;\n in Egypt, _ib._\n\n Steeples, turrets, and domes, phallic symbols, ii. 5\n\n Stephens, believes the key to American hieroglyphs will yet be\n obtained, i. 546;\n story of the unknown city of the Mayas, i. 547\n\n Stewart, Prof. Balfour, his tribute to Herakleitus, i. 422;\n warning to scientists, i. 424;\n denies perpetual light, i. 510\n\n Stigmata, or birth-marks, i. 384;\n produced by sorcery of a Jesuit priest, ii. 633\n\n Stone of Memphis, its potency to prevent pain, i. 540;\n two tables, masculine and feminine, ii. 5;\n a Shaman\u2019s talisman, \u201cspoke\u201d saving the author\u2019s life, ii. 626\n\n Stonehenge, its gods recognized as the divinities of Delphos and\n Babylon, i. 550;\n remarkable statement of Dr. Stukely, i. 572;\n Hamitic in plan, _ib._\n\n Stoics, belief concerning God, i. 317\n\n Stones, their secret virtues, i. 265\n\n Strangers, never admitted into a caste, nor to religion, i. 581\n\n Stukely, Dr., remarks concerning Stonehenge, i. 572\n\n Subjective mediums, i. 311;\n communication with human god-like spirits, ii. 115\n\n Subsidy paid by the East India Company to maintain worship at the\n pagodas, ii. 624\n\n Subterranean passages in Peru, i. 595, 597\n\n Subtile influence emanated from every man\u2019s body, ii. 610\n\n Suetonius knew nothing of Christians, ii. 535, 536\n\n Suez Canal, i. 516, 517;\n that of Necho, i. 517\n\n Sufis, their idea of one universal creed, ii. 306\n\n Suicide and insanity caused by Elementaries, ii. 7\n\n Suicides and murderers, i. 344\n\n Sulanuth, i. 325\n\n Sulphur, the secret fire or spirit of the alchemists, i. 309;\n and quicksilver, a preparation to promote longevity, ii. 620, 621\n\n Summary of Koheleth, ii. 476\n\n Sun, an emblem of the sun-god, i. 270;\n only a magnet or reflector, i. 271;\n has no more heat in it than the moon, _ib._;\n represented under the image of a dragon, i. 552;\n made the location of hell, ii. 12;\n view of Pythagoras, _ib._;\n increases the magnetic exhalations, ii. 611;\n and serpent-worship, the religion of the Ph\u0153nicians and Mosaic\n Israelites, i. 555\n\n Sun-worship once contemplated by Catholics, ii. 450\n\n Sun-worshippers always regarded the sun as an emblem of the spiritual\n sun, i. 270\n\n Sunrise and sunset as taught by the Shastras, i. 10\n\n Supersentient soul, ii. 590\n\n \u201cSuperstitions\u201d in regard to drowned persons, ii. 611\n\n Supreme Being denied by modern science, i. 16;\n by the positivists, i. 71;\n never rejected by Buddhistical philosophy, i. 292;\n Essence, ii. 213, 214;\n the Swayambhuva and En-Soph, ii. 218;\n mystery of the holy syllable, ii. 114\n\n Surgery of Yogis and Talapoins, ii. 621\n\n Surnden, Rev. T., on locality of hell, ii. 12\n\n Sutrantika, the sect having secret Buddhistic religion, ii. 607\n\n Suttee, or burning of widows, not practised when the Code of Manu was\n compiled, i. 588\n\n Sw\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas, Hindu pantheists, the teachers of protoplasm, i. 250;\n their views of Essence, ii. 262\n\n Swayambhuva, the unrevealed Deity, ii. 39;\n the unity of three trinities, making with himself two prajapatis,\n ii. 39, 40;\n the Supreme Essence the same as En-Soph, ii. 214\n\n Swearing forbidden by Jesus, ii. 273\n\n Sweat of St. Michael, a phial of it preserved, ii. 71\n\n Swedenborg personated by a Diakka, i. 219;\n on speech of spirits, i. 220;\n _Heavenly Arcana_, i. 306;\n a natural-born magician, but not an adept, _ib._;\n made Thomas Vaughan his model, _ib._;\n doctrine of correspondences, or hermetic symbolism, _ib._;\n believed in possibility of losing individual existence, i. 317;\n miraculous cures by his father, i. 464;\n indicates _the lost word_, i. 580;\n rite of, a Jesuitical product, ii. 390\n\n Swedenborgians believe in possible obliteration of the human\n personality, i. 317;\n believe that the soul may abandon the body for specific periods,\n ii. 319\n\n Swedish system of Freemasonry, ii. 381\n\n Syllabus and Koran, a great affinity acknowledged, ii. 82\n\n Sylvester II., Pope, a sorcerer, ii. 56;\n his \u201coracular head,\u201d ii. 56\n\n Symbol, its use, ii. 93\n\n Symbols, i. 21;\n Christian, and phallism, ii. 5\n\n Sympathy, mysterious, between plants and human beings, i. 246;\n the offspring of light, i. 309\n\n Synagogue, \u201cdeposited its inheritance in the hands of Christ,\u201d ii.\n 477;\n has not expired, _ib._\n\n Synesius, belief in metempsychosis, i. 12;\n his quotation from the book of stone at Memphis, i. 257;\n believed the spirit pre\u00ebxisted from eternity as a distinct being,\n i. 316;\n bishop of Cyrene, his letter to Hypatia, ii. 53;\n adhered to the Platonic doctrines, ii. 198\n\n Systems, Indian, Chaldean and Ophite compared, ii. 170\n\n\n Tabernacles or ingatherings, feast of, ii. 44;\n regarded as Bacchic rites, _ib._\n\n Table, no demons enclosed, i. 322\n\n Table-turning, i. 99, 105\n\n Tainting of Souls, i. 321\n\n Talapoins, of Siam, power over wild beasts, i. 213;\n have incombustible cloth, i. 231;\n have the _Kabala_, _Bible_, and other allegories in their\n manuscripts, i. 577;\n Jesuits disguised as, ii. 371;\n their secrets of medicine, ii. 621\n\n Tale of the Two Brothers of Central America, i. 550\n\n Talisman, i. 462; ii. 636\n\n Talismans of Apollonius, testimony of Justin Martyr, ii. 97\n\n Talmage, Rev. Dr., description of Martha, ii. 102\n\n Talmud, i. 17\n\n Tamil-Hindus worship Kutti-Satan, perhaps Seth or Satan, i. 567\n\n Tamti, the same as Belita, ii. 444;\n the sea, ii. 445\n\n Tanaim, the four who entered the garden, ii. 119;\n the Kabalistic, ii. 470\n\n Tarchon, an Etruscan priest and his bryony-hedge, i. 527\n\n Tartar robber detected by a Koordian sorcerer, ii. 631\n\n Tartary, magic, i. 599;\n spiritualism, i. 600;\n planchette-writing, _ib._;\n happy and heathen, ii. 240\n\n Tau and astronomical cross of Egypt found at the palace of\n Palenque, i. 572;\n the handled cross, a symbol of Eternal life, ii. 254;\n the signet or name of God, _ib._;\n the hierophantic investiture, ii. 365\n\n Taylor, Thomas, his testimony concerning Pythagoras, i. 284;\n is unceremonious with the Mosaic God, i. 288\n\n Taylor, Robert, his amended Credo, ii. 522\n\n Tcharaka, a Hindu physician of 5,000 years ago, i. 560\n\n Tcherno-Bog, or Bogy, the ancient deity of the Russians, ii. 572\n\n Teaching of the soul, the highest method of knowledge, ii. 595\n\n Tear of Brahma, the hottest, becoming a sapphire, i. 265\n\n Telegraphy, neurological, i. 324\n\n Telephone, i. 126;\n some such mode of communication possessed by the Egyptian priests,\n i. 127\n\n Telescope in the light-house of Alexandria, i. 528\n\n Templar rite, old English, of seven degrees, ii. 377\n\n Templarism is Jesuitism, ii. 390\n\n Templars, the founding of the ancient order, ii. 381, 382;\n did not believe in Christ, ii. 382;\n succeeded by the Jesuits, ii. 383;\n the pseudo-order invented to obviate the imputation of Jesuitism,\n ii. 384\n\n Temple of the Holy Molecule, i. 413;\n had possession of Eastern mysteries, ii. 380;\n of the perpetual fire, ii. 632;\n at Jerusalem, not so ancient as was pretended, ii. 389;\n of Solomon, not esteemed by any Hebrew prophet, ii. 525\n\n Temples, anciently the repositories of science, i. 25\n\n Ten, the Pythagorean, ii. 171;\n virtues of initiation, ii. 98\n\n Teraphim, Kabeiri-gods, i. 570;\n identical with Seraphim, _ib._;\n serpent-images, _ib._;\n received by Dardanus as a dowry and carried to Samothrace and Troy,\n _ib._\n\n Teratology, named by Geoffroi St. Hilaire, i. 390\n\n Terrestrial elementary spirits, i. 319;\n circulation, i. 503;\n immortality, ii. 620\n\n Tertullian, i. 46;\n on devils, i. 159;\n believed the soul corporeal, i. 317;\n desires to see all philosophers in the Gehenna-fire, ii. 250;\n his intolerance, ii. 329\n\n Tetractys, i. 9;\n the One, the Chaos, wisdom and reason, ii. 36; i. 507\n\n Tetragram, i. 506, 507\n\n Thales, believed water the primordial substance, i. 134, 189;\n said to have discovered the electric properties of amber, i. 234;\n his belief concerning water and the Divine Mind, ii. 458\n\n Thaumaturgist, his power of becoming invisible, or appearing in two\n or more forms, ii. 588\n\n Thaumaturgists, use the force known as Akasa, i. 113;\n declared by Salverte to be knaves, i. 115\n\n Thebes, or Th-aba, ii. 448;\n ancient, i. 523;\n its prodigious ruins, i. 523, 524;\n the Twelve Tortures, ii. 364\n\n Themura, ii. 298\n\n Theocletus, Grand Pontiff of the Order of the Temple, initiated the\n original Knight Templars, ii. 382\n\n Theology, comparative, and two-edged weapon, ii. 531;\n Christian, subversive rather than promotive of spirituality and\n good morals, ii. 634\n\n Theologies, ancient, all agree, ii. 39\n\n Theon of Smyrna, his explanation of the five grades in the Mysteries,\n ii. 101\n\n Theomania of the Cevennois imputed to hysteria and epilepsy, i. 371\n\n Theophrastus, legatee of Aristotle, i. 320\n\n Theop\u0153a, the art of endowing figures with life, i. 615, 616;\n testimony of Jacolliot, i. 616, 617\n\n Theosophists, their confederations in Germany, ii. 20\n\n Theosophy, disfigured by theology, i. 13\n\n Therapeut\u00e6, a branch of the Essenes, ii. 144\n\n Therapeutists probably Buddhists, ii. 491\n\n Thermuthis, the name of Pharaoh\u2019s daughter and of the sacred asp, i.\n 556\n\n Thespesius, apparently dead for three days, i. 484\n\n Thessalian sorceresses evoked shadows with blood, ii. 568\n\n Theurgic Mystery, ii. 563-575\n\n Theurgists, i. 205-219;\n knew occult properties of magnetism and electricity, i. 234;\n not \u201cspirit-mediums,\u201d ii. 118;\n persecuted by the Christians, ii. 34\n\n Theurgy, its phenomena produced by magnetic powers, i. 23;\n the devil at its head, i. 161\n\n Thevetat, the \u201cDragon\u201d of the Atlantis, i. 593;\n his seduction of the people, _ib._\n\n Thing, the one, of the Smaragdine Tablet, i. 507, 508;\n named by Hermetic philosophy, i. 508\n\n Third emanation produces the universe of physical matter, and,\n finally, \u201cDarkness and the Bad,\u201d i. 302;\n race of men in Hesiod, i. 558;\n in Popul-Vuh, _ib._;\n race of men, the Nephilim, i. 559\n\n Thirteen Mexican Serpent-Gods, i. 572\n\n This book, its object, ii. 98, 99\n\n Thomas, St., in Malabar, ii. 534;\n Aquinas, ii. 20;\n Taylor, an expositor of Plato\u2019s meaning, ii. 108, 109\n\n Thomson, Sir William, declares science bound to face every problem,\n i. 223\n\n Thompson, Hon. R. W., denounced by a Catholic priest, ii. 378\n\n Thor, his electric hammer, i. 160\n\n Thought affects the matter of another universe, i. 310\n\n Thought-communication effected by a Shaman with his stone, ii. 627\n\n Thoughts guided by spiritual being, i. 366;\n human, projected upon the universal ether, i. 395; ii. 636\n\n Thr\u00e6taona, the Persian Michael, contending with Zohak, ii. 486\n\n Three degrees of the pleroma, i. 302;\n tricks exhibited, i. 73;\n degrees of communication with spirits, ii. 115;\n emanations, i. 302;\n kabalistic forces, _ib._;\n Gods, or archial principles, First Cause, Logos, and World-soul,\n ii. 33;\n Saviours, ii. 536;\n legends concerning them, ii. 537-539;\n enumeration of their followers, ii. 539;\n births of man, ii. 568;\n three hundred million Buddhists seeking Nirvana, ii. 533;\n mothers, i. 257\n\n Three-sided prism of man\u2019s nature, ii. 634\n\n Throwing spells by aid of the wind, ii. 632\n\n Thrum-stone, i. 231\n\n Thummim, i. 536, 537\n\n \u0398\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, _thumos_, the astral soul, i. 429\n\n Thury, Prof., on levitation, cited by de Gasparin, i. 99, 109;\n his theory of spiritual phenomena, i. 110;\n imputes them to the action of wills not human, i. 112;\n psychode and ectenic force, i. 113\n\n Tiara, papal, the coiffure of the Assyrian gods, ii. 94\n\n Tickets to Heaven, ii. 243\n\n Tiffereau, Theodore, assertion that he had made gold, i. 509\n\n Tiger mesmerized, i. 467\n\n Tigress, bereft of her cubs, mesmerized by a fakir, ii. 623\n\n Tikkun, the first born, the Heavenly Man, ii. 276\n\n Tillemont, declares all illustrious pagans condemned to the eternal\n torments of hell, ii. 8\n\n _Tim\u00e6us_, cannot be understood except by an initiate, ii. 39\n\n Time and space no obstacles to the inner man, ii. 588\n\n Tir-thankara, the preceptor of Gautama, ii. 322\n\n Tissu, the spiritual teacher of Kublai-Khan, his great holiness, ii.\n 608;\n reforms religion, ii. 609\n\n To \u039f\u03bd, of Plato, ii. 38\n\n Tobo, liberator of the soul of Adam, ii. 517\n\n Todas, a strange people discovered in Southern Hindustan fifty years\n ago, ii. 613;\n revered and maintained by the Badagas, ii. 614;\n an order and not a race, _ib._\n\n Tolticas, said to be descended from the house of Israel, i. 552\n\n Tooth, Navel and less comely relics of Jesus, ii. 71\n\n Tophet, a place in the valley of Gehenna, where a fire was kept and\n children immolated, ii. 11;\n not a place of endless woe, ii. 502\n\n Torquemeda, Tomas de, his prodigious cruelty, ii. 59;\n burned Hebrew Bibles, ii. 430\n\n Torralva and his demon Zequiel, ii. 60\n\n Torturing people by means of Simulacra, ii. 55\n\n Toulouse, the Bishop of, his falsehoods about Protestants and\n Spiritualists of America, ii. 7\n\n Townshend, Colonel, remarkable power of suspending animation, i. 483\n\n Traditions, ancient, belong to India, ii. 259\n\n Tragedy of Human Life, its plot ever the same, ii. 640\n\n Trance-life, i. 181\n\n Transformation of the ancient ideas, ii. 491\n\n Transmigration, dreaded by the Hindu, i. 346;\n of the soul, does not relate to man\u2019s condition after death, ii.\n 280\n\n Transmural Vision, i. 145\n\n Transmutation of metal, the actual fact asserted, i. 503, 504;\n Dr. Wilder\u2019s opinion, i. 505;\n salt, sulpher, and mercury thrice combined in azoth, _ib._\n\n Transubstantiation, an arcane utterance perverted, ii. 560\n\n Travancore, perpetual lamp, i. 225\n\n Tree, Yggdrasill, i. 133, 151;\n Zampun, i. 152;\n Aswatha, _ib._;\n symbol of universal life, _ib._;\n the pyramid, i. 154;\n Gogard, i. 297;\n serpent dwells in its branches, i. 298;\n the microcosmic and macrocosmic, i. 297;\n tziti, the third race of men, i. 558;\n of knowledge, ii. 184;\n or pippala, ii. 412\n\n Triad, the Intelligible, i. 212;\n from the duad, i. 348\n\n Triads, or trinities, Babylonian, Ph\u0153nician and Hindu, ii. 48;\n Persian and Egyptian, ii. 49\n\n Tribes of Israel, what evidence before Ezra, i. 508;\n no tribe of Simeon, _ib._\n\n Trigonocephali, their bite kills like a flash of lighting, ii. 622\n\n Trimurti, i. 92;\n their habitation, ii. 234\n\n Trinities, three, in one unity, making ten Sephiroth or Praj\u00e2patis,\n ii. 39, 40;\n Hindu, Egyptian and Christian, ii. 227\n\n Trinity, the first, i. 341;\n of Egyptians, i. 160;\n three Sephiroth or emanations, ii. 36;\n the doctrine revealed to Sesostris, ii. 51;\n the word first found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, ii. 522;\n listening for the answer of Mary, ii. 173;\n kabalistic, ii. 222;\n of workers in the cosmogony, ii. 420;\n of nature the lock of magic, ii. 635\n\n Triple Trimurti, ii. 39\n\n Trithemius, ii. 20\n\n Trizna or feast of the dead in Moldavia, ii. 569, 570\n\n Trojan war a counterpart of that of the _Ram\u00e2yana_, i. 566\n\n Troy, worship of the Kabeiri brought by Dardanus, i. 570\n\n True Adamic Earth, i. 51;\n doctrine \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2 of Celsus, a copy still in\n existence, ii. 52;\n faith the embodiment of divine charity, ii. 640\n\n Truth, religions but vari-colored fragments of its beam, ii. 639\n\n Tschuddi, Dr., his story of the train of llama, and treasure, i. 546\n\n Tullia, daughter of Cicero, lamp found burning in her tomb, i. 224\n\n Tullus Hostilius, King of Rome, struck by lightning, i. 527\n\n Tum, devotees of, ii. 387\n\n Tunnel from Cusco to Lima and Bolivia, i. 597;\n entrance, _ib._;\n dangers of its exploration, i. 598\n\n Turkey, wars with Russia and final conquest, i. 261\n\n Turanian, should have been applied to the Assyrians, i. 576;\n evidently applied to the nomadic Caucasian, progenitor of the\n Hamite or \u00c6thiopian, _ib._\n\n Turner, his account of an interview with a young lama or reincarnated\n Buddha, ii. 598\n\n Turrets, the reproduction of the lithos, ii. 5\n\n Tutelar genius who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, etc., ii. 639\n\n Twelve houses, the fable, i. 267;\n tables, a compilation, i. 588;\n labors of Hercules depicted on the chair of Peter, ii. 25;\n disciples sent by Jehosaphat to preach, ii. 517;\n great gods, ii. 448;\n minor gods, Dii minores, ii. 451;\n tortures, ii. 351;\n of Theban initiation, ii. 364;\n thousand years employed in creation, i. 342\n\n Twenty-nine witch-burnings, ii. 62\n\n Two souls taught by the philosophers, i. 12, 317;\n idols of monotheistic Christianity, ii. 9;\n primeval principles, i. 341;\n principles, the Jews brought the doctrine from Persia, ii. 500, 501;\n diagrams explained, ii. 266, 271;\n \u201cold ones,\u201d ii. 350;\n brothers of the Bible, the good and evil principles, ii. 489;\n religions in each old faith, ii. 607\n\n Two-headed serpents, i. 393\n\n Tycho-Brahe, vision of the star, i. 441, 442\n\n Tyndall confesses science powerless, i. 14;\n views of consciousness, i. 86;\n displays forms as of living plants and animals in an experimental\n tube, i. 127;\n his avoidance to investigate spiritual phenomena, i. 176;\n his Belfast Address, i. 314;\n his judgment of cowards, i. 418;\n declares spiritualism a degrading belief, _ib._;\n confesses that the evolution hypothesis does not solve the last\n mystery, i. 419;\n his experiments on sound, ii. 606;\n his definition of science, ii. 637\n\n Typhon once worshipped in Egypt, and then changed to an evil demon,\n ii. 487;\n Plutarch\u2019s explanation, ii. 483;\n father of Ierosolumos and Ioudaios, ii. 484;\n separated from his androgyne, ii. 524\n\n Tyrian worship introduced into Israel by Ahab, ii. 525\n\n Tyrrhenian cosmogony, i. 342\n\n\n Udayna or Pashai (Peshawer) the classic land of sorcery, i. 599;\n statement of Hiouen-Thsang, _ib._\n\n Ultramontanes accused in France of siding with the Mahometans, ii. 82\n\n Ulysses frightens phantoms with his sword, i. 362\n\n Umbilical cord ruptured and healed, i. 386\n\n Umbilicus, represented by the ark, ii. 444\n\n Umbra, or shade, i. 37\n\n Unavoidable cycle, Mysteries, i. 553\n\n Unconscious cerebration, i. 55, 232;\n ventriloquism, i. 101\n\n Urdar, the fountain of life, i. 151, 162\n\n Underworld, i. 37\n\n Undines, i. 67\n\n Union to the Deity, ii. 591\n\n Unity of three trinities, ii. 39;\n the Sephiroth or prajapatis, _ib._\n\n Universal soul, or mind, i. 56;\n the doctrine underlying all philosophies, Buddhism, Brahmanism, and\n Christianity, i. 289;\n relation to the reasoning and the animal soul, i. 316;\n solvent, i. 50, 137, 189\n\n Universals to particulars, i. 288\n\n Universe, or Kosmos, the body of the invisible sun, i. 302;\n doubt, i. 324;\n how came it, i. 341;\n the concrete image of the ideal abstraction, i. 342;\n existed from eternity, _ib._;\n passes through four ages, ii. 421;\n a musical instrument, i. 514\n\n Unknown presence, when witnessed, ii. 164;\n the future self of man, ii. 165\n\n Unregulated mediums punished, i. 489\n\n Unrevealed God, i. 160\n\n Unseen Universe, or all things there recorded, ii. 588;\n spiritual universe, its existence demonstrated, ii. 15\n\n Untrained mediumship illustrated by Socrates and his daimonion, ii.\n 117\n\n Untenable dogmas of science, i. 501\n\n Upasakes and Upasakis, Buddhistic semi-monastics, ii. 608\n\n Uper-Ouranoi, i. 312\n\n\n Vach, or sacred speech, ii. 409\n\n Vaivaswata, the Hindu Noah, ii. 425\n\n Valachian lady, her simulacrum brought to the author in her tent in\n Mongolia, ii. 627, 628\n\n Vampirism, a terrible case in Russia, i. 454\n\n Vampire-governor, and his widow, i. 454, 455\n\n Vampires, i. 319;\n shedim, etc., i. 449;\n magnetic, i. 462;\n ghouls and, wandering about, ii. 564\n\n Van Helmont, i. 50, 57;\n on magnetism and will, i. 170;\n on transmutation of earth into water, i. 190;\n testimony of Deleuze, i. 194;\n a Pythagorean, i. 205;\n theory of man, i. 213;\n remarkable account of a child born headless immediately after an\n execution, i. 386;\n on the power of woman\u2019s imagination, i. 399;\n testimony of Dr. Fournier, i. 400;\n ridiculed for his directions for production of animals, i. 414\n\n Vari-colored fragments of the beam of Divine Truth, ii. 639\n\n Vasitva, power of mesmerizing, also of restraining the passions, i.\n 393\n\n Vasaki, the great dragon, ii. 490\n\n Vast inland sea of middle Asia, and its island, i. 589\n\n Vatican, black magic practised there, ii. 6;\n secret libraries, ii. 16, 19;\n clergy, how an access, ii. 18\n\n Vatou, or candidate, for initiation, ii. 98;\n sensitive to spiritual influences, ii. 118\n\n Vaughan, Thomas, anecdote of his attempted sale of gold, i. 504\n\n Vedas, antedate the Bible, i. 91;\n contain no such immodesty as the Bible, ii. 80;\n older than the flood, ii. 427\n\n Vedic words, the controversies of Sanscrit scholars, ii. 47;\n peoples not all Aryans, ii. 413\n\n Vedic Pitris, their worship fast becoming the worship of the\n spiritual portion of mankind, ii. 639\n\n Vegetation, influence of the moon, i. 273;\n influenced by musical tones, i. 514\n\n Vehicle of life, ii. 418\n\n Venerable \u201cMah,\u201d ii. 388\n\n Ventriloquists or pythi\u00e6, i. 355\n\n Ventura de Raulica, his letter asserting the existence of Satan as a\n fundamental dogma of the Church, ii. 14\n\n Vesica Piscis, a Zodiacal sign, ii. 255\n\n Vicarious atonement, a ridiculous idea, i. 316\n\n Vicarious atonement, ii. 542;\n obliterates no wrong, ii. 545;\n not known by Peter, ii. 546\n\n Vigil-night of Siva, i. 446\n\n Vincent, Frank, his description of the ruins of Nagkon-Wat, i. 562,\n 565\n\n Vine, the symbol of blood and life, ii. 244;\n Jesus, ii. 561;\n his \u201cFather\u201d not God, but the hierophant, _ib._\n\n Viracocha, the Peruvian deity, ii. 259\n\n Viradji, the Son of God, his origin, ii. 111\n\n Virgin, celestial, milk of, i. 64;\n of the sea, crushes the dragon under her feet, ii. 446;\n of the Zodiac, rises above the horizon, Dec. 25th, ii. 490;\n Blessed, thrashing a demoniac, ii. 76;\n Mary, declaring all pagans condemned to eternal torments, over her\n own signature, ii. 8;\n succeeded to the titles, symbols and rites of Isis, ii. 95;\n on the crescent moon, like pagan goddesses, ii. 96;\n queen of heaven, ii. _ib._;\n mother without a husband, positivist, i. 81;\n of the Avatar, Son-Ka-po, ii. 589\n\n Virgin-mothers, Hindu, Egyptian, and Catholic, their epithets, ii. 209\n\n Vishnu, takes the form of a fish, ii. 257;\n same as Oannes, _ib._;\n the Adam Kadmon of the kabalists, ii. 259;\n his ten avatars, ii. 274;\n symbolize evolution, ii. 275;\n the expression of the whole universe, ii. 277\n\n Vishnu-flower, ii. 467\n\n Visible universe from Brahma-Prajapati, i. 348\n\n Visions witnessed by initiates, ii. 113;\n produced by sorcery, ii. 633\n\n Visit to the Ladakh in Thibet, ii. 598\n\n Visiting and leaving the body at home, ii. 604, 605\n\n Vistaspa, a king of Bactriana, ii. 141\n\n Visvamitra, his escape in the ark, ii. 257;\n Egypt colonized in his reign, i. 627\n\n Vital force, speculations of men of science, i. 466\n\n Viti, Sancti, Chor\u0153a, or St. Vitus\u2019 Dance, ii. 625\n\n Voices of spirits and goblins heard in the desert, i. 604\n\n Volatile salts obnoxious to devils, i. 356\n\n Volney, mistook ancient worship, i. 24;\n his doctrine of God, i. 268\n\n Voltaire, on the being of God, i. 268\n\n Voluntary withdrawal of the spirit from the body, ii. 588\n\n Votan, his admission to the snake\u2019s hole as a son of the snakes, i.\n 553;\n supposed by de Bourbourg to be descended from Ham and Canaan, i.\n 554;\n the hero of the Mexicans, i. 545;\n probably identical with Quetzel-coatl, _ib._;\n intercourse with King Solomon, _ib._;\n the navigating serpent, _ib._\n\n Voodo orgy in Cuba, ii. 573\n\n Vourdalak or vampires of Servia, i. 451, ii. 368\n\n Vowels, the seven, chanted as a hymn to Serapis, i. 514\n\n Vridda Manava, or laws of Manu, i. 585\n\n Vril, Bulwer-Lytton\u2019s designation of the one primal force, i. 64, 125\n\n Vril-ya, the coming race, i. 296\n\n Vulcan, Phta, or Hephaistos, represented at Nakyon-Wat, i. 565, 566\n\n Vulgar magic in India, ii. 20\n\n Vyasa, a positivist, i. 621;\n denied a First Cause, ii. 261\n\n Vyse, Col., found a piece of iron in the pyramid of Cheops, i. 542\n\n\n Wagner, Prof. Nicholas, on heat and psychical force, i. 497;\n on mediumistic phenomena, i. 499\n\n Walking above the ground, i. 472;\n the faculty sought by devotees, and attained by a King of Siam, ii.\n 618\n\n Wallace, A. R., on cycles, i. 155;\n belief in spiritualism and mesmerism, i. 177;\n theory of human development, i. 294\n\n War of Michael and the dragon, an old myth, ii. 486\n\n Warrior, slain and resuscitated, but without a soul, ii. 564\n\n War-chariots, ancient, lighter than modern artillery-wagons, i. 530;\n had metallic springs, _ib._\n\n Water, of Phtha, i. 64;\n the first principle of things, i. 133;\n an universal solvent, i. 133, 189;\n of mercury, the soul or psychical substance, i. 309;\n the first-created element, ii. 458\n\n Waters turned to blood, i. 413, 415\n\n Washing of images, ii. 138\n\n Wave-theory of light not accepted by Prof. Cooke, i. 137\n\n Weapons, d\u00e6mons afraid of, i. 362\n\n Weekman, reputed the first investigator of spirit-phenomena in\n America, i. 105\n\n Weeks of seven days used in the East, ii. 418\n\n Weird cries of the Gobi, i. 604\n\n Weninger, Father F. X., a Jesuit priest, his denunciation of\n Secretary Thompson, ii. 378, 379\n\n Wesermann, power to influence the dreams of others, and to appear\n double, i. 477\n\n White-skinned people not often able to acquire magical powers, ii. 635\n\n White stone of initiation, ii. 351\n\n Whitney, Prof. W. D., his criticism of Max M\u00fcller, ii. 47;\n denunciation of Jacolliot, _ib._;\n his translation of a Vedic hymn, ii. 534\n\n Widow-burning, or _suttee_, practised 2,500 years, but not when the\n Code of Manu was compiled, i. 588;\n sustained by the Brahmans from a forged verse of the _Rig-Veda_, i.\n 589\n\n Widows burned without pain by the Brahmans, i. 540\n\n Wild beasts will not attack Buddhistic nuns, ii. 609\n\n Wilder, A., on possibility of transmutation, i. 505;\n suggestion of another classification of the Assyrians and Mongols,\n i. 575;\n notes in regard to America, the Atlantic continent, Lemuria, and\n the deserts of Africa and Asia, i. 592;\n on skeptics, and respect for earnest convictions, i. 437;\n on Paul and Plato, ii. 90;\n on the designation Peter and the pretension of the Pope to be his\n successor, ii. 92;\n opinion of Zeruana, Turan, and Zohak, ii. 142;\n description of Paul, ii. 574-6\n\n Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, his testimony in regard to ancient Egyptian\n civilization, i. 526;\n J. J. G., declares truth temperamental, i. 234\n\n Will, i. 56-61;\n its potency in a state of ecstasy, i. 170;\n produces force, i. 285;\n an emanation of deity, _ib._;\n power of, ii. 21;\n enables one to wound or injure another, i. 360, 361;\n generates force, and force generates matter, ii. 320\n\n Will-force of the Yogis, ii. 565\n\n Will-power, killing birds by it, i. 380;\n photographing by, i. 463;\n the most powerful of magnets, i. 472;\n its exercise the highest form of prayer, ii. 592\n\n Wine first sacred in the Bacchic Mysteries, ii. 514\n\n Winged men of the _Ph\u00e6drus_, i. 2\n\n Wirdig taught that nature is ensouled, i. 207\n\n Wisdom, the arcane doctrine of the ancients, i. 205, 436;\n or the principle, ii. 35;\n the chief, ii. 36;\n first emanation of the En-Soph, ii. 37;\n origin, ii. 218;\n the ethnic parent of every religion, ii. 639, 640\n\n Wisdom-doctrine underlay every ancient religion, ii. 99\n\n Wisdom-religion, to be found in the pre-Vedic religion of India, ii.\n 39;\n its articles of faith, ii. 116;\n explained in Code of Manu, _ib._;\n the parent cult, ii. 216\n\n Wise women, ii. 525\n\n Witch, a knowing woman, i. 354;\n or kangalin, lawful for a Hindu to kill her, ii. 612\n\n Witch-burnings in Germany, ii. 61;\n twenty-nine, ii. 62, 63\n\n Witchcraft, execution in Salem, and other American provinces, ii. 18;\n laws in force in South Carolina in 1865, _ib._;\n an offence among the ancients, ii. 98;\n those guilty of it not initiates, ii. 117, 118\n\n Witches, pretended, dozens of thousands burned, i. 353;\n of the middle ages, the votaries of the former religion, ii. 502\n\n Witches\u2019 Sabbath, the orgies of Bacchus, ii. 528\n\n Withdrawal of the inner from the outer man, ii. 583\n\n Withdrawing of the inner from the outer, i. 476\n\n Wittoba, the crucified image of Christna anterior to Christianity,\n ii. 557\n\n Wizard, a wise man, i. 354\n\n Wolf, converted by St. Francis, ii. 77\n\n Wolsey, Cardinal, accused of sorcery, ii. 57\n\n Woman, of the future, i. 77;\n fecundated artificially, i. 77, 81;\n must cease to be the female of the men, i. 78;\n ridding her of every maternal function, _ib._;\n applying a latent force, _ib._;\n offered to the encubi, _ib._;\n impossible, i. 81;\n evolved out of men, i. 297;\n highly impressible when pregnant, i. 394;\n exudes akasa as an odic emanation, i. 395;\n how this is projected into the astral light or ether, and\n repercussing, impresses itself upon the f\u0153tus, _ib._;\n evolved out of the lusts of matter, i. 433;\n clothed with the sun, the goddess Isis, ii. 489\n\n Women, magnetically influenced by the moon, i. 264\n\n Women-colleges, to superintend worship, ii. 524, 525\n\n Wong-Ching-Fu, his explanation of Nepang or Nirvana, ii. 319, 320\n\n Wonder-working fakirs seldom to be seen, ii. 612, 613\n\n Word, magical, i. 445;\n ineffable, and performance of miracles, ii. 370;\n lost by the Christians, _ib._;\n where to be sought, ii. 371, ii. 418;\n \u201clong lost but now found,\u201d ii. 393\n\n World, how called into existence, i. 341;\n how all will go well with it, ii. 122;\n soul of, i. 129, 208, 215, 342;\n religions, startled by utterances of scientists, i. 248, 249\n\n World-religions, conflict between, i. 307;\n identical at their starting-point, ii. 215;\n the devil their founder, ii. 479\n\n World-mountains, allegorical expressions of cosmogony, i. 157\n\n World-soul, the source of all souls, and ether, i. 316\n\n World-tree of knowledge, i. 574\n\n Worlds, an incalculable number before the present one, ii. 424\n\n Worship of the sun and serpent by Ph\u0153nicians and Mosaic Israelites,\n i. 555;\n of words, denounced, ii. 560;\n of the spiritual portion of mankind, ii. 639\n\n Wounds, mortal, self-inflicted and healed, i. 224\n\n Wreaths of green leaves for oracles, ii. 612\n\n Wren, Sir Christopher, simply the Master of the London operative\n masons, ii. 390\n\n Wright, Thomas, on sorcery and magic, i. 356\n\n Writings under the ban, ii. 8\n\n\n X, decussation of the perfect circle, ii. 469\n\n X., Dr. extraordinary scenes at a seance, i. 608-611\n\n Xenophanes, his satire on the representations of God, ii. 242\n\n Ximenes, cardinal, burned 80,000 Arabic manuscripts, i. 511\n\n Xisuthrus or Hasisadra, sailed with the ark to Armenia, ii. 217;\n translated to the gods, ii. 424;\n Oannes and Vishnu in the first avatar, ii. 457\n\n\n Yaho, an old Shemitic mystic name of the Supreme Being, ii. 297\n\n Yadus migrating from India to Egypt, i. 444\n\n Yang-kie and Mahu, dwellers in both worlds, i. 601, 602\n\n Yakuts and their worship, ii. 568\n\n Yarker, John jr., account of the dervishes, ii. 316;\n his testimony in regard to Free-masonry, ii. 376\n\n Year of blood, 1876, i. 439\n\n Yezidis, or devil-worshippers genuine sorcerers, ii. 571;\n their worship, ii. 572\n\n Yggdrasill, i. 133;\n universe springing up beneath its branches, i. 151\n\n Ymir, the Norse giant, i. 147;\n generates a race of depraved men, i. 148;\n is slain by the sons of Bur, i. 150\n\n Yogas or cycles, i. 293\n\n Yogis of India, ii. 346;\n their extraordinary powers, ii. 565;\n regarded as demi-gods, ii. 612;\n a peculiar medicine used by them composed of sulphur and juice of\n a plant, ii. 621;\n their longevity, ii. 620;\n their medicinal preparation of sulphur and quicksilver, ii. 620\n\n Y\u00f6rmungand, the midgard or earth-serpent, i. 151\n\n Yourodevoy, i. 28\n\n Youth, the means of regaining, ii. 618\n\n Yowahous, ii. 313\n\n Yugas, i. 31\n\n Yule, Colonel, on movable type, i. 515;\n on spiritualism in Tartary, i. 600;\n testimony in regard to spiritual flowers drawn by a medium in Bond\n street, London, i. 601\n\n\n Zacharias, saw an apparition in the temple, ass-formed, ii. 523\n\n Zadokites, or Sadducees, made a priest-caste by David, ii. 297\n\n Zampun, the Thibetan tree of life, i. 152\n\n Zamzummim, the Cyclopeans, i. 567\n\n Zarathustra-Spitoma, his untold antiquity, i. 12\n\n Zarevna Militrissa and the serpent, i. 550\n\n Zeller, criticism of the Fathers in regard to Plato, i. 288\n\n Zequiel, a demon presented to Torralva, ii. 60\n\n Zeno taught two eternal qualities in nature, i. 12\n\n Zeru-Ishtar, a Chaldean or Magian high-priest, ii. 129\n\n Zeruan, Saturn or Abraham, the legend of the Titans, ii. 217\n\n Zeus, the \u00e6ther, i. 187, 188\n\n Zeus-Dionysus, i. 262\n\n Zmeij Gorenetch, the dragon, i. 550\n\n Znachar, the Russian sorcerer, ii. 571\n\n Zodiac, its symbolism, ii. 456;\n its origin, 16,984 years ago, _ib._\n\n Zohak and Gemshid, their struggle that of the Persians and Assyrians,\n i. 576;\n and Feridun, the legend explained, ii. 486;\n or Azhi-Dahaka, the serpent of the Avesta, ii. 486;\n a personification of Assyria, _ib._\n\n Zonarus traces knowledge from Chaldea to Egypt, thence to the Greeks,\n i. 543\n\n Zo\u00f6magnetism, or animal magnetism, i. 206;\n can magnetize minerals, _ib._\n\n Zoroaster, Zarathustra, Zuruastara, Zuryaster, a spiritual teacher,\n ii. 141;\n a reformer of Chaldean Magic, i. 191;\n when he lived, ii. 141;\n Baron Bunsen\u2019s opinion, ii. 432\n\n Zoroastrian religion, its affinity with Judaism and Christianity, ii.\n 486\n\n Zoroastrianism, no schism, ii. 142\n\n Zoroastrians, migrated from India, ii. 143\n\n Zoro-Babel or prince of Babylon, ii. 441\n\n Zuinglius, the first reformer, his cosmopolitan doctrine of the Holy\n Ghost, i. 132\n\n\n\n\n 706 BROADWAY,\n _New York, March, 1878_.\n\n\n J. W. Bouton\u2019s Catalogue\n\n OF\n\n NEW AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS,\n\n _Importations and Remainders_,\n\n COMPRISING IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE WORKS IN THE\n FOLLOWING DEPARTMENTS OF LITERATURE:\n\n _Art, Contemporary and Ancient_,\n _Art Periodicals_,\n _Antiquities_,\n _Arch\u00e6ology_,\n _Ancient Religions and Worships_,\n _Biography_,\n _Caxton and Early Printing_,\n _Costume_,\n _Cruikshankiana_,\n _Ceramic Art_,\n _Dictionaries, Glossaries, Language, etc._\n _Dramatists, Old_,\n _Etchings, Modern_,\n _Free Masonry_,\n _Genealogy_,\n _Illustrated Works_,\n _Musical Instruments_,\n _Mythology_,\n _Ornament, Architectural, Textile, etc._,\n _Ornithology_,\n _Old Poetry_,\n _Phallic and Symbol Worship_,\n _Shakspeariana, Etc., Etc._\n\n\n\n\n INDEX.\n\n\n PAGE\n \u00c6sop\u2019s Fables, illustrated, 19\n Amberley, Religious Beliefs, 6\n Anacalypsis, Higgins, 3\n Antiquities of Long Island, 15\n Arch\u00e6ology, Westropp\u2019s Hand-Book, 25\n Archie Armstrong\u2019s Jests, 29\n Avesta, Bleeck, 25\n\n Behn\u2019s Dram. Works, 15\n Bible of Humanity, 3\n Blake, Swinburne\u2019s Essay, 23\n Blake\u2019s Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 21\n Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, 3\n Boccaccio, Decameron, illustrated, 19\n Brome\u2019s Dram. Works, 15\n Burns\u2019 Complete Works, 6\n\n Catalogue, Wilson Colln. of Paintings, 19\n Caxton\u2019s Dictes and Sayinges, 5\n Statutes of Henry VIII., 30\n Centlivre\u2019s Dram. Works, 15\n Champney, Quiet Corner of England, 25\n Chapman\u2019s Dram. Works, 15\n Chinese Classics, 23\n Cokain\u2019s Dram. Works, 18\n Costume, Lacroix, XVIII. Si\u00e8cle, 17\n Planch\u00e9, 8\n Historique, Racinet, 11\n Crowne\u2019s Dram. Works, 18\n Cruikshank, Illustrations of Time, 24\n Phrenological Illus., 24\n\n Davenant\u2019s Dram. Works, 18\n Dekker\u2019s Dram. Works, 15\n Diary of Am. Revolution, 24\n Dibdin\u2019s Bibliomania, 29\n Douglas\u2019 Poetical Works, 29\n Dramatic Works of Tourneur, 6\n Dramatists, Early English, 15\n of the Restoration, 18\n Duyckinck\u2019s Cyclop\u00e6dia of Am. Literature, 27\n\n Edwards\u2019 Founders of Brit. Museum, 23\n Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, 14\n English Rogue, 22\n Engravings, Willshire\u2019s Guide, 31\n Erasmus\u2019 Apophthegms, 5\n Etchings, Chapters on Painting, 12\n Contemporary Art, 4\n Examples of Modern, 11, 12\n after Frans Hals, 32\n \u201cL\u2019Art\u201d, 33\n from National Gallery, 12\n The Portfolio, 34\n Unger\u2019s Works, 32\n Wilson Catalogue, 19\n Examples of Contemporary Art, 4\n\n Fine Arts, \u00c6sop\u2019s Fables, illus., 19\n Bible Plates, 5\n Bell\u2019s Anatomy of Expression, 20\n Blake, Etchings, 4\n Blake, Heaven and Hell, 21\n Chapters on Painting, 12\n Contemporary Art, 4\n Costume, Racinet, 11\n Cruikshank\u2019s \u201cTime\u201d, 24\n \u201cPhrenological Illus., 24\n D\u00fcrer\u2019s Little Passion, 19\n Etchings from National Gallery, 12\n French Artists, &c., 12\n Works of Hals, 32\n Holbein, 23\n Jeanne d\u2019Arc, 17\n J\u00e9sus-Christ, 17\n Jones\u2019 Alhambra, 30\n Jones\u2019 Gram. of Ornmt., 28\n Keramic Art, Japan, 7\n Lacroix, 4\n Lacroix, XVIII. Si\u00e8cle, vol. 1, 17\n \u201cL\u2019Art.\u201d, 33\n Lundy, 9\n Mod. Etchings, 11, 12\n Planch\u00e9, Costume, 8\n Polychromatic Ornament, 7\n The Portfolio, 34\n Quiet Corner of Eng., 25\n Textile Fabrics, 31\n Turner Gallery, 10\n Wright\u2019s Womankind, 26\n Wilson\u2019s Catalogue, 19\n Willshire on Prints, 31\n Works of Wm. Unger, 32\n Freemasonry, Hyneman\u2019s Register, 27\n Mackenzie, Cyclo., 7\n Paton, Symbols, 25\n French Artists of Present Day, 12\n Furman\u2019s Long Island, 15\n\n Gesta Romanorum, 28\n Glapthorne\u2019s Dram. Works, 15\n Grammar of Ornament, Jones, 28\n Racinet, 7\n Greville Memoirs, 29\n\n Halliwell\u2019s Hist. of Stratford on Avon, 24\n Hamerton\u2019s Examples of Mod. Etchings, 12\n Heywood\u2019s Dram. Works, 15\n Higgins\u2019 Anacalypsis, 3\n Holbein, by Woltman, 23\n\n Inman\u2019s Ancient Faith embodied in Ancient\n Names, 2 v., 14\n Ancient Faiths & Modern, 13\n Anc. Pagan Symbolism, 16\n Ireland, Shak. Forgeries, 26\n Isis Unveiled, 3\n\n Jeanne d\u2019Arc, Wallon, 17\n\n Keramic Art of Japan, Fr., 7\n King\u2019s Gnostics, 25\n Knight\u2019s Ancient Art and Mythology, 13\n Worship of Priapus, 28\n\n Lacroix, XVIII. Si\u00e8cle, Costume, &c., 17\n XVIII. Si\u00e8cle., vol. 2. Sciences, 4\n Lacy\u2019s Dram. Works, 18\n L\u2019Art. Art Magazine, 33\n Lee\u2019s Life, &c., of De Foe, 26\n Legge\u2019s Chinese Classics, 23\n Leland, Fu Sang, 16\n Littr\u00e9 Dictionnaire de la Langue Fran\u00e7aise, 24\n Lundy\u2019s Monumental Christianity, 9\n\n Mackay\u2019s Lost Beauties of the English Language, 16\n Markland\u2019s Lady de Osorio, 23\n Marmion\u2019s Dram. Works, 18\n Masonic Register, Hyneman\u2019s, 27\n Memoirs of Sanson Family, 25\n Mexico, Geiger, 22\n Michelet, Bible of Humanity, 3\n Moore\u2019s Epicurean, 9\n Musical Instruments, &c., 5\n\n Nares\u2019 Glossary Early Eng., 29\n\n Original Lists of Emigrants, &c., 21\n Ornamental Textile Fabrics, 31\n Owen Jones, Alhambra, 30\n\n \u201cPassio Christi.\u201d See D\u00fcrer, 19\n Paton\u2019s Symbolism of Masonry, 25\n Phallic Worship, Anacalypsis, 3\n Isis Unveiled, 3\n Knight, 28\n Inman, 14, 16\n Westropp and Wake, 14\n \u201cPortfolio,\u201d an Artistic Periodical, 34\n Prostitution. Dufour, Hist., 31\n\n Rambosson, Harmonies du Son, 5\n Religions. Amberley, 6\n Avesta, 25\n Ancient Art & Mythology, 13\n Ancient Faiths & Modern, 14\n Ancient Pagan Symbols, 16\n Ancient Symbol Worship, 14\n Chinese Classics, 23\n Gnostics, etc., 25\n Higgins, Anacalypsis, 3\n Isis Unveiled, 3\n Inman, Ancient Faiths, 13\n Knight\u2019s Priapus, 28\n Lundy, Monum. Christ\u2019y, 9\n Michelet\u2019s Bible of Humanity, 3\n Rosicrucians, 27\n Serpent and Siva Worship, 3\n Taylor, Eleusinian Mysteries, 14\n Wheeler\u2019s India, 13\n Yarker\u2019s Mysteries, 27\n Rump Songs, &c., 22\n\n Serpent and Siva Worship, 3\n Shakespeare, Facsimile of 1st fol., 18\n Forgeries, Ireland, 26\n School of, 4\n Songs, &c. Museum Deliciarum, 20\n Ballads, D\u2019Urfey\u2019s Pills, 20\n and Ballads, The Rump, 22\n Westminster Drolleries, 22\n Story of the Stick, 21\n Symbolism. Anacalypsis, 3\n of Freemasonry, 25\n Gnostics, &c., 25\n Inman, 16\n Inman\u2019s Anc. Faiths, &c., 14\n Knight\u2019s Priapus, 28\n Lundy, 9\n Rosicrucians, 27\n Serpent Worship, 3\n Westropp, &c., 14\n Yarker, 27\n\n Turner Gallery, 10\n Tourneur\u2019s Plays 6\n\n Unger, Frans Hals, 32\n Works, 32\n\n Veuillot. J\u00e9sus-Christ, 17\n Violin and its Makers, Hart, 18\n\n Walford\u2019s County Families, 30\n Westminster Drolleries, 22\n Westropp, Handbook of Arch\u00e6ology, 25\n Wheeler\u2019s History of India, 13\n Willshire on Prints, 31\n Wilson\u2019s Dram. Works, 18\n Ornithology, 8\n Wright\u2019s Womankind, 26\n\n Yarker, Scientific and Religious Mysteries, 27\n\n\n\n\nIsis Unveiled;\n\n A MASTER KEY TO THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE\n AND THEOLOGY. BY H. P. BLAVATSKY, Corresponding Secretary of\n the Theosophical Society. _2 vols. Royal 8vo, about 1,500\n pages, cloth, $7.50._\n\nThe recent revival of interest in Philology and Arch\u00e6ology, resulting\nfrom the labors of BUNSEN, LAYARD, HIGGINS, M\u00dcLLER, DR. SCHLIEMANN,\nand others, has created a great demand for works upon Eastern topics.\n\nTo the scholar and the specialist, to the philologist and the\narch\u00e6ologist, this work will be a most valuable acquisition, aiding\nthem in their labors and giving to them the only clue to the\nlabyrinth of confusion in which they are involved. To the general\nreader it will be especially attractive because of its fascinating\nstyle and pleasing arrangement, presenting a constant variety of racy\nanecdote, pithy thought, sound scholarship, and vivid description.\nMme. BLAVATSKY possesses the happy gift of versatility in an eminent\ndegree, and her style is varied to suit her theme with a graceful\nease refreshing to the reader, who is led without weariness from\npage to page. The author has accomplished her task with ability, and\nhas conferred upon all a precious boon, whose benefit the scientist\nas well as the religionist, the specialist as well as the general\nreader, will not be slow to recognize.\n\n\nBible of Humanity;\n\n By JULES MICHELET, author of \u201cThe History of France,\u201d\n \u201cPriests, Women, and Families,\u201d \u201cL\u2019Amour,\u201d etc. Translated\n from the French by V. CALFA. _1 vol. 8vo, cloth, $3.00._\n\n\u201cHis _Bible of Humanity_ is a large epic in prose. The artist-historian,\nin the manner of inspired men and prophets, sings the evolution of\nmankind. There is no doubt that he throws brilliant glimpses of light\non the long course of events and works which he unfolds; but at the\nsame time he carries away the reader with such rapid flight of\nimagination as almost to make him giddy.\u201d--_Larousse\u2019s Universal\nDictionary_.\n\n\n NEW EDITION OF HIGGINS\u2019 GREAT WORK.\n\nThe Anacalypsis;\n\n An attempt to draw aside the Veil of the Sa\u00eftic Isis;\n or, an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations, and\n Religions. By GODFREY HIGGINS, Esq. Vol. I., 8vo, cloth,\n $4.50. To be completed in four volumes.\n\nThe extreme rarity, and consequent high price of the \u201cAnacalypsis\u201d\nhas hitherto placed it beyond the reach of many scholars and\nstudents. The new edition is issued in a much more convenient form,\nand sold at less than one-sixth of the price of the original.\n\nThe powerful though rather dogmatic logic, and the profound learning\nof the author, give the work a singular importance; and in a thinking\nage, when many things formerly considered truths are passing away\ninto the shadows of tradition, the student of comparative mythology\nand the origin of religion and languages will look upon Higgins\u2019\nAnacalypsis as his guide and luminary through the darkness of dawning\nscience.\n\n\nSerpent and Siva Worship\n\n And Mythology in Central America, Africa, and Asia; and The\n Origin of Serpent Worship. Two Treatises. By HYDE CLARKE and\n C. STANILAND WAKE, M.A.I. Edited by Alexander Wilder, M.D.\n 8vo, paper cover, 50 cents.\n\n\u201cSerpent lore is the literature of the earliest times, and every\ndiscovery in ethnical science is adding to our knowledge of this\nfeature of the race. These two eminent anthropologists suggest\nsome very interesting speculations, which seem confirmed by modern\nresearch, and will be examined with avidity by scholars.\u201d\n\n\n _SPLENDID NEW VOLUME OF ETCHINGS._\n\nExamples of Contemporary Art.\n\n _Etchings from Representative Works of Living English and\n Foreign Artists_, viz.:--FORTUNY, JULES BRETON, BERNIER, E.\n BURNE JONES, F. LEIGHTON, GONZALEZ, MACBETH, G. F. WATTS,\n ORCHARDSON, VAN MARCKE, PACZKA, CHAPLIN, etc., etc. Executed\n by WALTNER, MARTIAL, CHAMPOLLION, LALAUZE, H\u00c9DOUIN, CHAUVEL,\n GREUX, etc. One large folio volume, vellum cloth, gilt, $12.00.\n\n\u201cApart from its value as a graphic account of the two great foreign\nExhibitions of Art, this elegant volume deserves special attention\nfrom the value of its text, furnishing as it does a general record\nof the artistic achievements of the past year. They are, in fact,\ncareful reviews of the representative Exhibitions from which subjects\nof the illustrations have been chosen, and their purpose is to\nsupply, within moderate limits, a coherent account of the recent\nprogress of the Arts in England and France.\u201d\n\n\n _INTERESTING NEW WORK ON BLAKE._\n\nWilliam Blake.\n\n _Etchings from his Works_, embracing many of the rarest\n subjects executed by that unique Artist. By W. BELL SCOTT.\n Proofs on India paper. Folio, half cloth, $8.00.\n\n\u201cSuch is the plan and moral part of the author\u2019s invention; the\ntechnical part and the execution of the artist, though to be examined\nby other principles and addressed to a narrower circle, equally claim\napprobation, sometimes excite our wonder, and not seldom our fears,\nwhen we see him play on the very verge of legitimate invention;\nbut wildness so picturesque in itself, so often redeemed by taste,\nsimplicity, and elegance, what child of fancy--what artist--would\nwish to discharge? The groups and single figures on their own\nbasis, abstracted from the general composition and considered\nwithout attention to the plan, frequently exhibit those genuine and\nunaffected attitudes--those simple graces--which nature and the heart\nalone can dictate, and only an eye inspired by both discover. _Every\nclass of artists, in every stage of their progress or attainments,\nfrom the student to the finished master, and from the contriver of\nornament to the painter of history, will find here materials of art\nand hints of improvement._\u201d--_Cromek._\n\n\n _NEW VOLUME BY PAUL LACROIX._\n\nXVIII\u1d50\u1d49 Si\u00e8cle.\n\n _Lettres, Sciences et Arts._ France (1700-1798).\n Illustrated with 15 chromo-lithographs and 250\n wood-engravings, after WATTEAU, VANLOO, BOUCHER, VERNET,\n EISEN, GRAVELOT, MOREAU, ST. AUBIN, COCHIN, etc. One Volume\n imperial 8vo. Tastefully bound, gilt edges, $13.50. Full\n polished Levant morocco, gilt edges, $22.50.\n\n\nThe School of Shakspere.\n\n _Including \u201cThe Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley,\u201d\n with a New Life of Stukeley from Unpublished Sources; \u201cNobody\n and Somebody;\u201d \u201cHistriomastix;\u201d \u201cThe Prodigal Son;\u201d \u201cJack\n Drum\u2019s Entertainment;\u201d \u201cA Warning for Fair Women,\u201d with\n Reprints of the Accounts of the Murder; and \u201cFaire Em.\u201d\n Edited, with Introduction and Notes, and an Account of Robert\n Green and his Quarrels with Shakspere, by_ RICHARD SIMPSON.\n _With an Introduction by_ F. J. FURNIVALL. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth.\n $6.00.\n\n\nSchnorr\u2019s Bible Illustrations:\n\n La Sainte Bible, Ancien et Nouveau Testament r\u00e9cit et\n commentaires, par M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Salmon du dioc\u00e8se de Paris.\n Handsomely printed and illustrated, with 240 beautiful\n engravings on wood from the celebrated designs of Schnorr of\n Carolsfeld. A handsome volume, 4to, _paper, uncut, $6.00_; or,\n _full turkey morocco, extra, gilt leaves, $12.00_.\n\n\nMusical Instruments, Sound, &c.\n\n Les Harmonies du Son et les Instruments de Musique, par I.\n Rambosson. _Most profusely illustrated with upwards of 200\n beautiful engravings on wood, and five chromo-lithographic\n plates._ 1 large vol. 8vo, pp. 582, _paper uncut, $4.00; or\n half red morocco, extra, gilt edges, $6.00_.\n\nAn entirely new work, in which the subject is treated in a most\nexhaustive manner. The book is divided into four general heads,\nthe _first_ devoted to the History of Music, and its influence on\nPhysique and Morals, the Influence of Music on Intelligence, on the\nSentiments, Locomotion, etc. The _second_, Acoustics, or production\nand propagation of sound, including the most recent discoveries in\nthis branch. The _third_, on the History of Musical Instruments. The\n_fourth_, on the Voice, etc.\n\n\nThe Apophthegms of Erasmus.\n\n Translated into English by Nicholas Udall. Literally\n reprinted from the scarce Edition of 1564. _Beautifully\n printed on heavy laid paper, front. 8vo, new cloth, uncut._\n\n Only 250 copies, each of which is numbered and attested by\n autograph signature of the editor. $7.50.\n\n\u201cThis is a pleasant gossipy book, full of wise saws, if not of modern\ninstances. It may be considered one of the earliest English jest\nbooks. The wit in it is not as startling as fireworks, but there is\na good deal of grave, pleasant humor, and many of those touches of\nnature which make the whole world kin. When Nicholas Udall undertook\nto translate this work he was the right man in the right place.\nProbably no old English book so abounds with colloquialisms and\nidiomatic expressions. It is very valuable on that account. This\nreprint has been made from the second edition, that of 1562. The\nreprint is literal; the only difference being that, to make it easier\nfor the general reader, the contractions have been filled in, and the\nGreek quotations, which were exceedingly incorrect, have been, in\nmost cases, put right.\u201d\n\n\n _CAXTON COMMEMORATION VOLUME._\n\nThe Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers.\n\n The First Book printed by Caxton in England (printed at\n the Almonry at Westminster in the year 1477). 1 vol., small\n folio. Printed in exact facsimile of the _editio princeps_, on\n paper manufactured expressly for the work, and having all the\n peculiarities of the original. 1 vol., small folio. $10.00.\n\nThe printing of this unique work has been executed by a photographic\nprocess which reproduces infallibly all the characteristics of the\noriginal work, and the binding is a careful reproduction of that of\nCaxton\u2019s day.\n\nThis memorial volume is rendered still more interesting, and to the\nconnoisseur more valuable, by an Introduction by William Blades,\nEsq., author of the Life and Typography of William Caxton, giving a\nshort, historical account of the book, the circumstances that led to\nits publication, and its position among the works printed by Caxton.\nIt is believed that the publication of this work will, apart from\nits value to collectors, be generally acceptable as representing the\nfirst work issued from the press in England, and as illustrating the\nstate of the art of printing in its infancy.\n\n\n _To form Six Volumes, demy 8vo_\n (Vols. I.-III. Poetry; IV.-VI. Prose Works)._\n\nComplete Works of Robert Burns.\n\n Edited by W. SCOTT DOUGLAS, with Explanatory Notes, Various\n Readings and Glossary. _Containing 327 Poems and Songs,\n arranged chronologically, 15 of which have not hitherto\n appeared in a complete form; Nasmyth\u2019s Two Portraits of Burns,\n newly engraved on steel; The Birthplace of Burns and Tam o\u2019\n Shanter, after Sam Bough, by W. Forrest; and the Scottish\n Muse, by Clark Stanton; Four Facsimiles of Original MSS.; a\n Colored Map, Wood Engravings, Music, &c._\n\n \u2235 Now Ready, Volumes I., II., and III., 8vo, cloth, price\n $5.00 each. Also on Large Paper, _India Proof Plates_, royal\n 8vo, cloth, $10.00 per volume.\n\n THE THIRD VOLUME contains hitherto unpublished Poems,\n drawings of Ellisland and Lincluden by SAM BOUGH, engraved on\n steel by Forrest, facsimiles, &c.\n\n OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.\n\n\u201cWe heartily congratulate the admirers of Burns, and of poetry, in\nthe prospect of having in their hands ... such a labor of love and of\nknowledge.\u201d--_W. M. Rossetti in The Academy._\n\n\u201cPromises to outshine all former editions in completeness, accuracy,\nand interest.\u201d--_Aberdeen Journal._\n\n\u201cThe edition will be unquestionably the best which has yet\nappeared.\u201d--_Birmingham Gazette._\n\n\u201cWill doubtless supersede all others as library edition of\nBurns.\u201d--_Daily Review._\n\n\u201cReally an \u2018exhaustive effort\u2019 to collect the whole of the\npoems.\u201d--_Edinburgh Courant._\n\n\u201cMay challenge comparison with any previous product of the Scottish\npress.\u201d--_Inverness Courier._\n\n\u201cA gratifying addition to general literature. Is of the highest order\nof merit.\u201d--_London Scottish Journal._\n\n\u201cA fine library edition of Scotland\u2019s greatest poet.\u201d--_Pall Mall\nGazette._\n\n\nThe Plays and Poems of Cyril Tourneur.\n\n _Edited, with Critical Introduction and Notes, by_ JOHN\n CHURTON COLLINS. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth. $6.00. _Large paper_\n (only 50 printed). $12.00.\n\n\u201cSo much of the dramatic fire and vigor which form the special\ncharacteristics of the Elizabethan dramatists is discernable in Cyril\nTourneur, that it is satisfactory to see his works collected....\nIf on the one hand he may claim to have enriched the drama with\ncharacters that may compare with the best in Chapman or Marston,\nhe has also in realism gone beyond Webster.... Mr. Collins has\ndischarged completely his editorial duties, and his notes display a\nconsiderable amount of reading.\u201d--ATHEN\u00c6UM.\n\n\n _OFFERED AT A GREAT REDUCTION IN PRICE._\n\nAn Analysis of Religious Belief.\n\n By VISCOUNT AMBERLEY. \u201cYe shall know the truth, and the\n truth shall make you free.\u201d 2 large, handsomely printed vols.\n demy 8vo, new cloth, uncut. $8.00 (_usual price $15.00_).\n\n\u201cLet them (the readers) remember that while he assails much which\nthey reckon unassailable, he does so in what to him is the cause\nof goodness, nobleness, love, truth, and of the mental progress of\nmankind.\u201d--_Extract front Lady Russell\u2019s Preface._\n\n\u201cHe has bequeathed to the world a collection of interesting facts\nfor others to make use of. It is a museum of antiquities, relics,\nand curiosities. All of the religions of the world are here jostling\none another in picturesque confusion, like the figures in a\nmasquerade.\u201d--_Times._\n\n\u201cThis work has more than one claim on the reader\u2019s attention. Its\nintrinsic interest is considerable.\u201d--_Spectator._\n\n\u201cNo one will fail during its perusal to be deeply interested, and, what\nis more, powerfully stimulated to independent thought.\u201d--_Examiner._\n\n\nPolychromatic Ornament.\n\n 100 PLATES IN GOLD, SILVER, AND COLORS, _comprising upwards\n of 2,000 specimens of the styles of Ancient, Oriental, and\n Medi\u00e6val Art_, and including the Renaissance, and XVIIth and\n XVIIIth centuries, selected and arranged for practical use by\n A. Racinet, with Explanatory Text, and a general introduction.\n Folio, cloth, gilt edges. $40.00.\n\nMonsieur Racinet is well known, both in France and in this country,\nas the author of the principal designs in those magnificent works,\n\u201cLe Moyen Age et la Renaissance\u201d and \u201cLes Arts Somptuaires.\u201d He is\ntherefore peculiarly well fitted to grapple with the difficulties of\nso intricate a subject, and it will be found that he has discharged\nhis task in a manner to deserve general approval and admiration.\nHis happy choice of subjects, all of them taken from _originals_,\nhis ingenious grouping of them in harmonious forms, his wonderful\naccuracy in drawing, and his perfect fidelity of color are only\nequalled by the profound knowledge which has enabled him to combine\nso vast a collection in historical order, and yet in a classical form.\n\n\nKeramic Art of Japan.\n\n LA C\u00c9RAMIQUE JAPONAISE. FRENCH EDITION, traduit par M.\n P. Louiby. _Containing Sixty-three Plates_ (_Thirty-five of\n which are in Gold and Colors_), and nearly 200 pages of Text,\n with numerous Wood Engravings printed in Colors; the whole\n being produced from original Japanese works of the greatest\n beauty, and representing the entire range of Japanese Keramic\n Art, Ancient and Modern. By G. A. AUDSLEY and J. L. BOWES,\n of Liverpool. Containing a Comprehensive Introductory Essay\n upon Japanese Art in all its various branches, illustrated\n by thirteen Photo-Lithographic and Autotype Plates, and\n numerous Wood Engraving, printed in colors. Also, a concise\n Dissertation on Keramic Productions of Japan, from the\n earliest records up to the present day; with sectional\n articles on the Pottery and Porcelain of the various provinces\n of the Empire in which manufactories exist, fully illustrated\n by thirty-five plates, superbly printed in full colors and\n gold, and fifteen plates in autotype. To be supplied in seven\n parts, folio, at $10.00 each. Parts I. and II. now ready.\n\n N. B.--_Parts not sold separately._\n\nNo one who has examined the Art productions of Japan can have\nfailed to observe the great beauty of the Keramic Wares of the\ncountry, and the refined and educated feeling everywhere displayed\nin their decoration. Their general artistic excellence, and the\nskilful rendering of natural objects they usually present, have long\ncommended them to the attention of the artists of Europe--long,\nindeed, before they were sought after by collectors; and it is not\ntoo much to say that many of our well-known artists have shown by\ntheir works their appreciation of Japanese drawing and coloring.\n\n\nThe Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia\n\n Of History, Rites, Symbolism, and Biography. By KENNETH R.\n H. MACKENZIE. 1 vol. demy 8vo, cloth (pp. 768), $7.00.\n\nThe most complete and valuable work of reference that has ever been\npresented to the Craft.\n\n\u201cThe task of the Editor has been admirably performed, and there can\nbe no question the work will be a valuable addition to every Masonic\nlibrary.\u201d--_Freemason\u2019s Chronicle._\n\n\u201cThe Editor has lavished much reading and labor on his subject.\u201d--\n_Sunday Times._\n\n\u201cA deeply-learned work for the benefit of Freemasons.\u201d--_Publishers\u2019\nCircular._\n\n\u201cYour new work is excellent.\u201d--Bro. W. R. WOODMAN, M.D., G.S.B.\n\n\u201cEvidences a considerable amount of hard work, alike in research and\nstudy, ... and we can honestly and sincerely say we wish fraternally\nall success to the Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia.\u201d--_Freemason._\n\n\nWilson\u2019s American Ornithology:\n\n Or, Natural History of the Birds of the United States; with\n the Continuation by PRINCE CHARLES LUCIAN BONAPARTE. NEW AND\n ENLARGED EDITION, =_completed by the insertion of above One\n Hundred Birds omitted in the original work_=, and illustrated\n by valuable Notes and a life of the Author by Sir WILLIAM\n JARDINE. Three Vols., 8vo, with a Portrait of WILSON, and\n 103 Plates, exhibiting nearly Four Hundred figures of Birds,\n accurately engraved and beautifully colored, cloth extra,\n gilt top, $18.00. Half smooth morocco, gilt top, $20.00. Half\n morocco extra, gilt top, $25.00. Full tree calf extra, gilt or\n marbled edges, $30.00.\n\n _A few copies have been printed on_ LARGE PAPER. Imperial\n 8vo size, 3 vols., half morocco, gilt top, $40.00.\n\nOne of the cheapest books ever offered to the American public. The\nold edition, not nearly so complete as the present, has always\nreadily brought from $50.00 to $60.00 per copy.\n\n\u201cThe History of American Birds, by Alexander Wilson, is equal in\nelegance to the most distinguished of our own splendid works on\nOrnithology.\u201d--CUVIER.\n\n\u201cWith an enthusiasm never excelled, this extraordinary man penetrated\nthrough the vast territories of the United States, undeterred by\nforests or swamps, for the sole purpose of describing the native\nbirds.\u201d--LORD BROUGHAM.\n\n\u201cBy the mere force of native genius, and of delight in nature, he\nbecame, without knowing it a good, a great writer.\u201d--_Blackwood\u2019s\nMagazine._\n\n\u201cAll his pencil or pen has touched is established incontestably; by\nthe plate, description, and history he has always determined his bird\nso obviously as to defy criticism, and prevent future mistake.... We\nmay add, without hesitation, that such a work as he has published is\nstill a desideratum in Europe.\u201d--CHARLES LUCIAN BONAPARTE.\n\n\n COMPLETION OF PLANCH\u00c9\u2019S GREAT WORK.\n\nCyclop\u00e6dia of Costume;\n\n Or, A Dictionary of Dress--Regal, Ecclesiastical, Civil,\n and Military--from the Earliest Period in England to the reign\n of George the Third, including Notices of Contemporaneous\n Fashions on the Continent. By J. R. PLANCH\u00c9, Somerset Herald.\n Profusely illustrated by fourteen full-page colored plates,\n some heightened with gold, and many hundred others throughout\n the text. 1 vol. 4to, white vellum cloth, blue edges, unique\n style, $20.00. Green vellum cloth, gilt top, $20.00. Half\n morocco, extra, gilt top, $25.00. Full morocco, extra, very\n elegant, $37.50.\n\n\u201cThere is no subject connected with dress with which \u2018Somerset\nHerald\u2019 is not as familiar as ordinary men are with the ordinary\nthemes of everyday life. The gathered knowledge of many years is\nplaced before the world in this his latest work, and there will\nexist no other work on the subject half so valuable. The numerous\nillustrations are all effective--for their accuracy the author is\nresponsible: they are well drawn and well engraved, and, while\nindispensable to a proper comprehension of the text, are satisfactory\nas works of art.\u201d--_Art Journal._\n\n\u201cThese numbers of a Cyclop\u00e6dia of Ancient and Modern Costume give\npromise that the work will be one of the most perfect works ever\npublished upon the subject. The illustrations are numerous and\nexcellent, and would, even without the letter-press, render the work\nan invaluable book of reference for information as to costumes for\nfancy balls and character quadrilles.... Beautifully printed and\nsuperbly illustrated.\u201d--_Standard._\n\n\u201cThose who know how useful is Fairholt\u2019s brief and necessarily\nimperfect glossary will be able to appreciate the much greater\nadvantages promised by Mr. Planch\u00e9\u2019s book.\u201d--_Athen\u00e6um._\n\n\n UNIFORM IN STYLE WITH L\u00dcBKE\u2019S AND MRS. JAMESON\u2019S ART WORKS.\n\nMonumental Christianity;\n\n Or, the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church, as\n Witnesses and Teachers of the one Catholic Faith and Practice.\n By JOHN P. LUNDY, Presbyter. 1 vol. demy 4to. Beautifully\n printed on superior paper, with over 200 illustrations\n throughout the text, and numerous large folding plates. Cloth,\n gilt top, $7.50. Half morocco, extra, gilt top, $10.00. Full\n morocco, extra, or tree calf, $15.00.\n\nThis is a presentation of the facts and verities of Christianity from\nthe earliest monuments and contemporary literature. These include\nthe paintings, sculptures, sarcophagi, glasses, lamps, seal-rings,\nand inscriptions of the Christian Catacombs and elsewhere, as well\nas the mosaics of the earliest Christian churches. Many of these\nmonuments are evidently of Pagan origin, as are also the symbols; and\nthe author has drawn largely from the ancient religions of India,\nChaldea, Persia, Egypt, Etruria, Greece, and Rome, believing that\nthey all contained germs of religious truths which it is the province\nof Christianity to preserve, develop, and embody in a purer system.\nThe Apostles\u2019 Creed is exhibited, with its parallel or counterpart,\narticle by article, in the different systems thus brought under\nreview.\n\nThe book is profusely illustrated, and many of the monuments\npresented in facsimile were studied on the spot by the author, and\nseveral are specimens obtained in foreign travel. This is one of\nthe most valuable contributions to ecclesiastical and arch\u00e6ological\nliterature. The revival of Oriental learning, both in Europe and\nAmerica, has created a demand for such publications, but no one has\noccupied the field which Dr. Lundy has chosen. The Expositions which\nhe has made of the symbols and mysteries are thorough without being\nexhaustive; and he has carefully excluded a world of collateral\nmatter, that the attention might not be diverted from the main object\nof the work. Those who may not altogether adopt his conclusions will\nnevertheless find the information which he has imparted most valuable\nand interesting.\n\n\u201cAs a contribution to Church and general history, the exhaustive and\nlearned work of Dr. Lundy will be welcome to students and will take a\nhigh place.\u201d--_Church Journal._\n\n\u201cWhen, indeed, we say that from beginning to end this book will\ncertainly be found to possess a powerful interest to the careful\nstudent, and that its influence for good cannot fail to be\nconsiderable, we in nowise exaggerate its intrinsic merits. It is one\nof the most valuable additions to our literature which the season has\nproduced.\u201d--_New York Times._\n\n\nThe Epicurean;\n\n A Tale, and ALCIPHRON; a Poem. By THOMAS MOORE. With\n vignette illustrations on steel, by J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. 1\n vol. 12mo. Handsomely printed on toned paper. Cloth, extra,\n gilt top, $2.00. Tree calf extra, gilt edges, $4.50.\n\n\u201cOur sense of the beauties of this tale may be appreciated by the\nacknowledgment that for insight into human nature, for poetical\nthought, for grace, refinement, intellect, pathos, and sublimity,\nwe prize the Epicurean even above any other of the author\u2019s works.\nIndeed, although written in prose, this is a masterly poem, and will\nforever rank as one of the most exquisite productions in English\nliterature.\u201d--_Literary Gazette._\n\n\nThe Turner Gallery,\n\n A SERIES OF SIXTY ENGRAVINGS, from the Works of J. M. W.\n TURNER, R.A. With Biographical Sketch and Descriptive Text by\n RALPH N. WORNUM, Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery,\n London. One volume, folio, INDIA PROOFS. Elegantly bound in\n half Levant morocco, extra, gilt edges, $50.00. Full Levant\n morocco, extra, very elegant, $75.00.\n\n ---- The same. Atlas folio. LARGE PAPER. _Artists\u2019 Proofs._\n Half morocco, extra, $110.00. Full Levant morocco, extra,\n $165.00\n\n THE TURNER GALLERY is already so well known to lovers of\n art and to students of Turner, that, in announcing a reissue\n of a limited number of copies of this important National\n Work, little need be said by way of comment or introduction.\n The Original Engravings have, for the first time, been\n employed, instead of the electrotype plates hitherto used,\n thus _securing impressions of more genuineness and brilliancy\n than have yet been offered to the public_. Of the high-class\n character of the Engravings themselves, and of the skill and\n excellence with which they are executed, such well-known names\n as JEENS, ARMYTAGE, WILLMORE, E. GOODALL, BRANDARD, WALLIS,\n COUSENS, and MILLER, will be a sufficient guarantee.\n\n _From the London Art Journal._\n\n \u201cA series of engravings from Turner\u2019s finest pictures, and of a size\n and equality commensurate with their importance, has not till now\n been offered to the public.\n\n \u201cIn selecting the subjects, the publisher has chosen judiciously.\n Many of his grandest productions are in this series of Engravings,\n and the ablest landscape engravers of the day have been employed\n on the plates, among which are some that, we feel assured, Turner\n himself would have been delighted to see. These _proof impressions_\n constitute a volume of exceeding beauty, which deserves to find a\n place in the library of every man of taste. The number of copies\n printed is too limited for a wide circulation, but, on that account,\n the rarity of the publication makes it the more valuable.\n\n \u201cIt is not too much to affirm, that a more beautiful and worthy\n tribute to the genius of the great painter does not exist, and is\n not likely to exist at any future time.\u201d\n\nThe attention of Collectors and Connoisseurs is particularly invited\nto the above exceedingly choice volume; they should speedily avail\nthemselves of the opportunity of securing a copy at the low price at\nwhich it is now offered.\n\n\n _AN ENTIRELY NEW WORK ON COSTUME BY M. RACINET,\n AUTHOR OF \u201cPOLYCHROMATIC ORNAMENT,\u201d ETC._\n\nLe Costume Historique.\n\n _Illustrated with 500 Plates_, 300 of which are in Colors,\n Gold and Silver, and 200 in Tinted Lithography (Cama\u00efeu).\n Executed in the finest style of the art, by Messrs. DIDOT &\n CO., of Paris. Representing Authentic Examples of the Costumes\n and Ornaments of all Times, among all Nations. With numerous\n choice specimens of Furniture, Ornamental Metal Work, Glass,\n Tiles, Textile Fabrics, Arms and Armor, Useful Domestic\n Articles, Modes of Transport, etc. With explanatory Notices\n and Historical Dissertations (in French). By M. A. RACINET,\n author of \u201cPolychromatic Ornament.\u201d To be issued in 20 parts.\n Small 4to (7\u00bd \u00d7 8\u00bd inches), $4.50 each. Folio, large paper\n (11\u00bd \u00d7 16 inches), in cloth portfolio, $9.00 each.\n\n _NO ORDERS RECEIVED EXCEPT FOR THE COMPLETE WORK._\n\nEach part will contain 25 plates, 15 in colors and 10 in tinted\nLithography. Parts 1, 2, and 3 are now ready for delivery. Upon\ncompletion of the work, the price will be raised 25 per cent.\n\n\u201cThe Messrs. Firmin Didot & Co., of Paris, a firm that disputes\nwith the house of Hachette & Co. the honor of supplying France\nand the world with the most beautiful books at the cheapest rates\ncompatible with the greatest excellence in editing and \u2018making,\u2019\nhave recently published the beginning of a work which, by making\nits appeal chiefly to the eye, is sure of a welcome in this\npicture-loving age of ours. This is the HISTORY OF COSTUME, by A.\nRacinet, well-known already to that portion of our public which is\ninterested in the decorative art by his illustrated work on ornament.\n_L\u2019Ornement Polychrome._--Racinet gives the word \u2018costume\u2019 almost\nas wide a sweep of meaning as Viollet-le-Duc gives to furniture\nin his now famous _Dictionnaire du Mobilier_. * * * * The field\nsurveyed consists not only of costumes proper, but of arms, armor,\ndrinking vessels, objects used in the service of the church, modes\nof transport, harness, head-gear and modes of dressing the hair,\ndomestic interiors, and furniture in the ordinary acceptation of\nthe term. Each plate is to be accompanied with an explanatory text,\nand there will be added an historical study, so that little will\nbe wanting to make this one of the completest encyclop\u00e6dias of the\nsort that has ever appeared. * * * * A charming taste has presided\nover the selection of the subject, and the abundant learning that\nhas been brought to bear in the collection of illustrations, from so\nwide a field of human action, is made to seem like play, so lightly\nis it handled. * * * * No scientific arrangement is observed in the\norder in which the subjects are presented. We have ancient Egypt,\nAssyria, Rome, Greece, India, Europe in the middle ages, and from\nthe fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Japan, Turkey, Syria,\nRussia, and Poland, mixed up for the present, as if the work were\nan illustrated report of a fancy ball; and, to most of us, the gay\nparade as it rolls along is none the less pleasant for this want of\norder.\u201d--_Scribner\u2019s Monthly._\n\n\u201cThe name of Firmin Didot & Co., of Paris, is such a guarantee of\nmechanical execution in a book, that it is sufficient to state\nthat _Le Costume Historique_ is fully on a par with any of the\nformer publications of this distinguished house. In addition to\nits other features, this work has numerous illustrations, giving\nrestorations of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian interiors. In fact the\nwork is conceived on a large plan, and will be found most useful to\nthe artist. With such a book as a reference, some of the glaring\ninconsistencies we still see from time to time on the stage,\nwhere periods as to costume, some hundreds of years apart, are\nterribly mixed up, might be prevented, and the unities saved. The\npublishers have had the excellent idea of reducing the size of the\nillustrations, so as to bring the price of this picture-cyclop\u00e6dia\nof the costume of the world within the means of the most prudent\nbook-buyer.\u201d--_N. Y. Daily Times._\n\n\u201cA new work on costume, most expensive to the publishers and cheap to\nthe subscribers. Parts I., II., and III., with twenty-five pictures\nin each, are ready. We have minutely examined them, and find them\nworthy of great praise, both for general excellences of execution\nand for the recondite and curious sources drawn upon--the latter\ncharacteristic making the collector master of a great many pictorial\nfacts and illustrations whose original sources are hard even to see\nand impossible to become possessed of.\u201d--_Nation._\n\n\u201cThis work is unquestionably the best work on its subject ever\noffered to the public, and it will engage very general attention. In\nshapeliness and convenience, too, it leaves nothing to be desired,\nwhich cannot be said often of cyclop\u00e6dias of costume. One can enjoy\nthe colors and contents of these \u2018parts\u2019 while lounging in a veranda\nor rocking in a boudoir. It is not necessary to adjourn to a public\nlibrary and to an immovable chair.\u201d--_Evening Post._\n\n\n _NEW SERIES._\n\nExamples of Modern Etching.\n\n A series of 20 _Choice Etchings_ by QUEROY,\n BRUNET-DEBAINES, HAMERTON, GEORGE, BURTON, WISE, LEGROS, LE\n RAT, SEYMOUR-HADEN, etc., etc., with descriptive text by P. G.\n HAMERTON, folio, cloth gilt, $12.00.\n\n Edited, with notes, by PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, Editor\n of the \u201c_Portfolio_.\u201d Twenty Plates, by Balfourier, Bodmer,\n Bracquemond, Chattock, Flameng, Feyen-Perrin, Seymour Haden,\n Hamerton, Hesseltine, Laguillermie, Lalanne, Legros, Lucas,\n Palmer, Rajon, Veyrassat, etc. The text beautifully printed\n on heavy paper. Folio, tastefully bound in cloth, full gilt,\n $10.00.\n\nAmong the contents of this choice volume, may be mentioned \u201c_The\nLaughing Portrait of Rembrandt_,\u201d by Flameng; _Twickenham Church_,\nby Seymour Haden; _Aged Spaniard_, by Legros; _The Hare--A Misty\nMorning_, by Bracquemond; _The Thames at Richmond_, by Lalanne; _The\nFerryboat_, by Veyrassat, etc.\n\n\u2235 A set of proofs of the plates in the above volume alone are worth\nin the London market \u00a310 10s. 0d., or seventy dollars currency.\n\n\nEtchings from the National Gallery.\n\n A series of eighteen choice plates by Flameng, Le Rat,\n Rajon, Wise, Waltner, Brunet-Debaines, Gaucherel, Richeton,\n etc., after the paintings by Masaccio, Bellini, Giorgione,\n Moroni, Mantegna, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Cuyp, Maes, Hobbema,\n Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, and Landseer, with Notes by\n RALPH N. WORNUM (Keeper of the National Gallery). The text\n handsomely printed on heavy paper. Folio, tastefully bound in\n cloth, full gilt, $10.00.\n\nTo admirers of Etchings, the present volume offers several of the\nmost notable of recently executed plates, among others the _Portrait\nof Rembrandt_, by Waltner; _The Parish Clerk_, after Gainsborough,\nby the same etcher; _The Burial of Wilkie_, after Turner, by\nBrunet-Debaines; _Portrait of a Youth_, after Masaccio, by L\u00e9opold\nFlameng, etc.\n\n\nFrench Artists of the Present Day.\n\n A series of twelve fac-simile engravings, after pictures\n by G\u00e9rome, Rosa Bonheur, Corot, Pierre Billet, Legros,\n Ch. Jacque, Veyrassat, H\u00e9bert, Jules Breton, etc., with\n Biographical Notices by Ren\u00e9 M\u00e9nard. Folio, tastefully bound\n in cloth, gilt, $10.00.\n\n\nChapters on Painting.\n\n By REN\u00c9 M\u00c9NARD (Editor of \u201cGazette des Beaux-Arts\u201d).\n Translated under the superintendence of Philip Gilbert\n Hamerton. Illustrated with a series of forty superb etchings,\n by Flameng, Coutry, Masson, Le Rat, Jacquemart, Chauvel, etc.,\n the text beautifully printed by Claye, of Paris. Royal 4to,\n paper, uncut, $25.00. Half polished levant mor., gilt top,\n $30.00.\n\n\nAncient Art and Mythology.\n\n The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology.\n An Inquiry. By RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT, author of \u201cWorship of\n Priapus.\u201d A new edition, with Introduction, Notes translated\n into English, and a new and complete Index. By ALEXANDER\n WILDER, M.D. 1 vol. 8vo, cloth, handsomely printed, $3.00.\n\n\u201cNot only do these explanations afford a key to the religion and\nmythology of the ancients, but they also enable a more thorough\nunderstanding of the canons and principles of art. It is well\nknown that the latter was closely allied to the other; so that the\nsymbolism of which the religious emblems and furniture consisted\nlikewise constituted the essentials of architectural style and\ndecoration, textile embellishments, as well as the arts of sculpture,\npainting, and engraving. Mr. Knight has treated the subject with\nrare erudition and ingenuity, and with such success that the labor\nof those who come after him rather add to the results of his\ninvestigations than replace them in important particulars. The labors\nof Champollion, Bunsen, Layard, Bonomi, the Rawlinsons, and others,\ncomprise his deductions so remarkably as to dissipate whatever of his\nassertions that appeared fanciful. Not only are the writings of Greek\nand Roman authors now more easy to comprehend, but additional light\nhas been afforded to a correct understanding of the canon of the Holy\nScripture.\u201d--_Extract from Editor\u2019s Preface._\n\n\n A SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME TO \u201cANCIENT FAITHS.\u201d\n\nAncient Faiths and Modern.\n\n A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends, and Divinities in\n Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, before the\n Christian Era. Showing their Relations to Religious Customs\n as they now exist. By THOMAS INMAN, M.D., author of \u201cAncient\n Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names,\u201d etc., etc. 1 vol. 8vo,\n cloth, $5.00.\n\nThis work is most aptly expressed by the title, and the author, who\nis one of our most learned and accomplished modern writers, has\ndone ample justice to his subject. He pries boldly into Bluebeard\u2019s\ncloset, little recking whether he shall find a ghost, skeleton, or\na living being; and he tells us very bluntly and explicitly what\nhe has witnessed. Several years since he gave to the learned world\nhis treatise on _Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names_, in\nwhich were disclosed the ideas underlying the old-world religions,\nand the nature of hieroglyphical symbols employed in the East. The\npresent volume complements that work, elaborates more perfectly the\nideas there set forth, and traces their relations to the faiths,\nworship, and religious dogmas of modern time. We are astonished to\nfind resemblances where it would be supposed that none would exist,\nbetraying either a similar origin or analogous modes of thinking and\nreasoning among nations and peoples widely apart in race, country,\nand period of history. The author is bold and often strong in his\nexpressions, from the intensity of his convictions, but this serves\nto deepen the interest in his subject. Those who have read his former\nworks with advantage will greet this volume with a cordial welcome;\nand all who desire to understand the original religions of mankind,\nthe ideas which lie back of the revelations of Holy Scripture, and\nparticularly, those who are not easily shocked when they come in\ncontact with sentiments with which they have not been familiar, will\nfind this book full of entertainment as well as of instruction. Dr.\nInman is working up a new mine of thought, and the lover of knowledge\nwill give his labor a welcome which few of our modern authors receive.\n\n\nWheeler\u2019s India.\n\n History of India. By J. TALBOYS WHEELER, Assistant\n Secretary to the Government of India, in the Foreign\n Department, Secretary of the Record Commission, Author of the\n \u201cGeography of Herodotus.\u201d\n\n The Ramayana and the Brahmanic Period. 8vo, cloth, pp.\n lxxxviii. and 680, with two maps. $6.00.\n\n Hindu, Buddhist, Brahmanical Revival. 8vo, cloth, pp. 484,\n with two maps, cloth. $5.00.\n\n Under Mussulman Rule. (Vol. IV.), 8vo, $4.50.\n\n\nDr. Inman\u2019s Ancient Faiths.\n\n Embodied in Ancient Names; or, an Attempt to trace the\n Religious Belief, Sacred Rites, and Holy Emblems of certain\n Nations, by an Interpretation of the Names given to Children\n by Priestly Authority, or assumed by Prophets, Kings, and\n Hierarchs. By THOMAS INMAN, M.D. Profusely illustrated with\n Engravings on Wood. 2 vols., 8vo, cloth, $20.00.\n\n\u201cDr. Inman\u2019s present attempt to trace the religious belief, sacred\nrites, and holy emblems of certain nations, has opened up to him\nmany hitherto unexplored fields of research, or, at least, fields\nthat have not been over-cultivated, and the result is a most curious\nand miscellaneous harvest of facts. The ideas on priapism developed\nin a former volume receive further extension in this. Dr. Inman, as\nwill be seen, does not fear to touch subjects usually considered\nsacred in an independent manner, and some of the results at which he\nhas arrived are such as will undoubtedly startle, if not shock, the\northodox. But this is what the author expects, and for this he has\nthoroughly prepared himself. In illustration of his peculiar views\nhe has ransacked a vast variety of historical storehouses, and with\ngreat trouble and at a considerable cost, he places the conclusions\nat which he has arrived before the world. With the arguments\nemployed, the majority of readers will, we expect, disagree; even\nwhen the facts adduced will remain undisputed, their application is\nfrequently inconsequent. In showing the absurdity of a narrative or\nan event in which he disbelieves, the Doctor is powerful. No expense\nhas been spared on the work, which is well and fully illustrated, and\ncontains a good index.\u201d--_Bookseller._\n\n\n NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION.\n\nAncient Symbol Worship.\n\n Influence of the Phallic Idea in the Religions of\n Antiquity. By HODDER M. WESTROPP and C. STANILAND WAKE. With\n an Introduction, additional Notes, and Appendix, by ALEXANDER\n WILDER, M.D. New Edition, with eleven full-page Illustrations.\n 1 vol. 8vo, cloth, $3.00.\n\nThe favor with which this treatise has been received has induced the\npublisher to bring out a new edition. It makes a valuable addition\nto our knowledge, enabling us to acquire a more accurate perception\nof the ancient-world religions. We may now understand Phallism, not\nas a subject of ribaldry and leering pruriency, but as a matter of\nveneration and respect. The Biblical student, desirous to understand\nthe nature and character of the idolatry of the Israelites during the\nCommonwealth and Monarchy, the missionary to heathen lands fitting\nfor his work, and the classic scholar endeavoring to comprehend\nthe ideas and principles which underlie Mythology, will find their\ncuriosity gratified; and they will be enabled at the same time to\nperceive how not only many of our modern systems of religion, but our\narts and architecture, are to be traced to the same archaic source.\nThe books examined and quoted by the authors constitute a library\nby themselves, and their writers are among the ripest scholars of\ntheir time. Science is rending asunder the veil that conceals the\nadytum of every temple, and revealing to men the sanctities revered\nso confidingly during the world\u2019s childhood. With these disclosures,\nthere may be somewhat of the awe removed with which we have regarded\nthe symbols, mysteries, and usages of that period; but the true mind\nwill not be vulgarized by the spectacle.\n\n\nThe Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.\n\n A Dissertation, by THOMAS TAYLOR, Translator of \u201cPlato,\u201d\n \u201cPlotinus,\u201d \u201cPorphyry,\u201d \u201cIamblichus,\u201d \u201cProclus,\u201d \u201cAristotle,\u201d\n etc., etc. Third edition. Edited, with Introduction, Notes,\n Emendations, and Glossary, by ALEXANDER WILDER, M.D. 1 vol.\n 8vo, cloth, $3.00.\n\nIn the Mysteries, the dramas acted at Eleusis and other sacred\nplaces, were embodied the deeper thoughts and religious sentiment\nof the archaic world. The men and women initiated into them were\nbelieved to be thenceforth under special care of God, for this life\nand the future. So holy and interior were the doctrines considered\nwhich had been learned in the Sanctuary from the two tablets of\nstone, that it was not lawful to utter them to another. What was\nseen and learned elsewhere might be admirable; but the exercises of\nEleusis and Olympia had in them the something divine, and those who\nobserved them were \u201cthe children of God,\u201d and imaging Him in wisdom,\nintuitive discernment, and love.\n\nThe reader desirous of getting the kernel of the doctrines of Plato,\nOrpheus, Eumolpas, and their fellow-laborers, as well as of the\nAlexandrian Eclectics, will obtain invaluable aid from this treatise.\n\n\n _NOW OFFERED AT GREATLY REDUCED PRICES._\n\nPearson\u2019s Reprints of the Old Dramatists.\n\n Being fac-simile reprints of the entire text of each\n author, without note or comment, with Life and Memoir.\n Handsomely printed on ribbed paper, made expressly for the\n purpose, and bound in antique boards, uncut edges, in exact\n imitation of the rare originals.\n\n Comprising the following:\n\n MRS. BEHN\u2019S PLAYS, HISTORIES AND NOVELS. 6 vols. 12mo,\n \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c 6 vols. 8vo,\n Large Paper.\n\n MRS. CENTLIVRE\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 3 vols. 12mo,\n \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c 8vo,\n Large Paper.\n\n RICHARD BROME\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 3 vols. 12mo,\n \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c 8vo,\n Large Paper.\n\n GEORGE CHAPMAN\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 3 vols. 12mo,\n \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c 8vo,\n Large Paper.\n\n THOMAS DEKKER\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 4 vols. 12mo,\n \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c 8vo,\n Large Paper.\n\n THOMAS HEYWOOD\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 6 vols. 12mo,\n \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c 8vo,\n Large Paper.\n\n HENRY GLAPTHORNE\u2019S PLAYS AND POEMS. 2 vols. 12mo,\n \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c \u201c 8vo,\n Large Paper.\n\n Together, 27 vols. 12mo, $54.00, or on large and thick\n paper, 27 vols. 8vo, $108.00.\n\nThe balance of the edition of these reprints having been recently\n\u201csold off\u201d in London, I am now enabled to offer them at the above\ngreatly reduced prices, for a brief period only. Several of the\nauthors being already out of print, the time is not far distant when\nit will be impossible to procure complete sets, and collectors will\ndo well to secure them while they have the opportunity.\n\n\nAntiquities of Long Island.\n\n By GABRIEL FURMAN. With a Bibliography by Henry Onderdonk,\n Jr. To which is added Notes, Geographical and Historical,\n relating to the town of Brooklyn, in Kings County, on Long\n Island. 1 vol. large 12mo, cloth, $3.00.\n\n\nAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism.\n\n By THOMAS INMAN, M.D., author of \u201cAncient Faiths Embodied\n in Ancient Names,\u201d etc. Second edition, revised and enlarged,\n with an Essay on Baal Worship, on \u201cthe Assyrian Sacred Grove,\u201d\n and other allied symbols. By JOHN NEWTON, M.R.C.S.E., etc.\n Profusely illustrated. 1 vol. cloth, $3.00.\n\nThis book contains in a nutshell the essence of Dr. Inman\u2019s other\npublications, and for the reader of limited means is just what he\nrequires. The subject of symbolism is as deep as human thought and\nas broad in its scope as humanity itself. The erudite thinker finds\nit not only worthy of his best energies, but capable of taxing them\nto the utmost. Many pens have been employed upon it, and it has\nnever grown old. Dr. Inman\u2019s views are somewhat peculiar; he has\nconcentrated his attention to the ideas which he believes to underlie\nthe symbolism of the most ancient periods, and can be traced through\nthe autonomy of the Christian Church. He finds the relation which\nexists, and the antiquarian likewise, between Asshur and Jehovah, the\nBaal of Syria and the God whom Christians worship; and the mysteries\nof the Sacred Grove, of which the Old Testament says so much, are\nunfolded and made sensible to the common intellect. Scholars will\nwelcome this volume, and the religious reader will peruse its pages\nwith the profoundest interest. The symbols which characterize worship\nconstitute a study which will never lose its interest, so long as\nlearning and art have admirers.\n\n\nThe Lost Beauties of the English Language.\n\n An Appeal to Authors, Poets, Clergymen, and Public\n Speakers. By CHAS. MACKAY, LL.D. 1 vol. 12mo, cloth extra,\n $1.75.\n\nWords change as well as men, sometimes from no longer meeting the new\nwants of the people, but oftener from the attraction of novelty which\nimpels everybody to change. A dictionary of obsolete words, and terms\nbecoming obsolete, is a valuable reminder of the treasures which we\nare parting with; not always wisely, for in them are comprised a\nwealth of expression, idiom, and even history, which the new words\ncannot acquire. Dr. Mackay has placed a host of such on record,\nwith quotations to illustrate how they were read by the classical\nwriters of the English language, not many centuries ago, and enables\nus to read those authors more understandingly. If he could induce\nus to recall some of them back to life, it would be a great boon to\nliterature; but hard as it might have been for C\u00e6sar to add a new\nword to his native Latin language, it would have been infinitely more\ndifficult to resuscitate an obsolete one, however more expressive\nand desirable. Many of the terms embalmed in this treatise are not\ndead as yet: and others of them belong to that prolific department of\nour spoken language that does not get into dictionaries. But we all\nneed to know them; and they really are more homogeneous to our people\nthan their successors, the stilted foreign-born and alien English,\nthat \u201cthe Best\u201d is laboring to naturalize into our language. The old\nwords, like old shoes and well-worn apparel, sit most comfortably.\n\n\nFu-Sang;\n\n Or, the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests\n in the Fifth Century. Containing a Translation of Professor\n Carl Neumann\u2019s work on the subject, made under supervision of\n the Author; a letter by Colonel Barclay Kennon, late of the\n U. S. North Coast Pacific Survey, on the Possibility of an\n Easy Passage from China to California; and a R\u00e9sum\u00e9 of the\n Arguments of De Guigues, Klaproth, Gustave D\u2019Eichthal, and\n Dr. Bretschneider on the Narrative of Hoei-Shin, with other\n Contributions and Comments, by CHARLES G. LELAND, 1 vol. 12mo,\n cloth, $1.75.\n\n\n FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.\n\nLacroix.\n\n (BIBLIOPHILE JACOB) XVIII\u1d50\u1d49 SI\u00c8CLE, INSTITUTIONS, USAGES,\n ET COSTUMES, France, 1700-1789. Illustrated with twenty-one\n large and beautifully executed chromo-lithographs, and upwards\n of three hundred and fifty engravings on wood after Watteau,\n Vanloo, Boucher, Lancret, Chardin, Bouchardin, Saint-Aubin,\n Eisen, Moreau, etc. 1 vol. thick Imperial 8vo, half red\n morocco, extra gilt leaves, $13.50.\n\n ----The same, full crimson Levant super-extra, $22.50.\n\nThe title of this new work, by the indefatigable Paul Lacroix,\nconveys but an indifferent idea of its contents. It is admirably\ngotten up, and is illustrated in a most profuse manner, equalling,\nif not excelling, the former works of the same author, giving us a\nliving picture of the 18th century--the king, nobility, bourgeoisie,\npeople, parliaments, clergy, army and navy, commerce, education,\npolice, etc., Paris, its pleasures, promenades, f\u00eates, salons,\ncuisine, theatres, costumes, etc., etc.\n\n\n A NEW WORK ON CHRISTIAN ART.\n\nJ\u00e9sus-Christ.\n\n Attendu, vivant, continu\u00e9, dans le monde, par LOUIS\n VEUILLOT, avec une \u00e9tude sur l\u2019Art Chr\u00e9tien par E. CARTIER.\n 16 large and beautifully executed chromo-lithographs, and 200\n engravings, etchings, and woodcuts, from the most celebrated\n monuments, from the period of the Catacombs to the present\n day. Thick Imp. 8vo, new half morocco extra, gilt leaves,\n $13.50.\n\n ----The same, printed on large Holland paper. Imp. 8vo,\n half polished Levant morocco, gilt top, $22.50.\n\nThis elegant work is uniform in style and illustration with the\nworks of Paul Lacroix, by the same house. The illustrations (which\nwere prepared under the direction of M. Dumoulin), are of the most\nattractive character, and present a chronological view of Christian\nart. The exquisite series of chromos are from pictures by Giotto,\nGhirlandajo, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, Fra Bartolommeo-Angelico,\nSacchi di Pavia, Flandrin, and a head of Christ from the Catacombs,\nFac-similes, by Armand, Durand, from rare etchings by Marc Antonio,\nD\u00fcrer, etc., also a reduction from Prevost, plate of the wedding at\nCana, after Paul Veronese, and nearly 200 charming engravings on wood.\n\n\n UNIFORM WITH THE WORKS OF PAUL LACROIX.\n\nJeanne D\u2019Arc.\n\n Par H. WALLON (Secr\u00e9taire de l\u2019Acad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions et\n Belles-Lettres). Beautifully printed on heavy vellum paper,\n and illustrated with 14 CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES, and one\n hundred and fifty fine engravings on wood after monuments of\n art, fac-similes, etc., etc. 1 large volume, thick royal 8vo,\n half red morocco, full gilt, gilt edges, $13.50. Full polished\n morocco extra, $22.50.\n\nContents: An account of the arms and military dresses of the period,\naccompanied by descriptive figures taken from the seals of the\nArchives; a map of feudal France, by M. Aug. Longnon, a new work\nof the highest importance to the history of the 15th century; a\nstudy of the worship shown to Joan of Arc in the French and Foreign\nliteratures (it is known that during the lifetime of Joan, her\nwonderful mission was represented on the stage); fac-similes of\nletters of Joan, etc., etc.\n\n\nDramatists of the Restoration.\n\n Beautifully printed on superior paper, to range with\n Pickering\u2019s edition of Webster, Peele, Marlowe, etc. As the\n text of most of these authors has, in later editions, been\n either imperfectly or corruptly dealt with, the several Plays\n have been presented in an unmutilated form, and carefully\n collated with the earliest and best editions.\n\nBiographical Notices and brief Notes accompany the works of each\nauthor. The series has been entrusted to the joint editorial care of\nJAMES MAIDMENT and W. H. LOGAN. It comprises the following authors:\n\n SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 5 vols.\n JOHN CROWNE\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 4 vols.\n SIR ASTON COKAIN\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol.\n JOHN WILSON\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol.\n JOHN LACY\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol.\n SHAKERLEY MARMION\u2019S DRAMATIC WORKS. 1 vol.\n\n Together, 13 vols. post 8vo, white vellum cloth, $50.00.\n Large paper, 13 vols. 8vo, $75.00. Whatman\u2019s drawing paper\n (only thirty copies printed), $110.00.\n\n\nThe First Edition of Shakespeare.\n\n Mr. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE\u2019S Comedies, Histories, and\n Tragedies. Published according to the True Original Copies.\n London. Printed by ISAAC IAGGARD and ED. BLOUNT. 1623. An\n exact reproduction of the extremely rare original, in reduced\n fac-simile by a photographic process, ensuring the strictest\n accuracy in every detail. Post 8vo, half mor., gilt top, $3.00.\n\n\u201cA complete fac-simile of the celebrated First Folio edition of 1623\nfor half-a-guinea is at once a miracle of cheapness and enterprise.\nBeing in a reduced form, the type is necessarily rather diminutive,\nbut it is as distinct as in a genuine copy of the original,\nand will be found to be as useful, and far more handy to the\nstudent.\u201d--_Athen\u00e6um._\n\n\nThe Violin.\n\n Its famous makers and their imitators. By GEORGE HART. In\n the above-mentioned work the author treats of the Origin,\n History, Development of this, the greatest of musical\n instruments, and gives interesting details concerning those\n ingenious makers who brought it to its present state of\n perfection.\n\n It is illustrated by upwards of forty first-class Wood\n Engravings from Photographs, which represent the exact\n Outlines and Proportions of the masterpieces of ANTONIUS\n STRADIUARIUS, AMATI, BERGONZI, and others, including the\n celebrated violin by JOSEPH GUARNERIUS, on which PAGANINI\n achieved his marvellous success. 1 vol. post 8vo, cloth, $4.00.\n\n The same. Large Paper. Demy 4to, cloth, $8.00.\n\n\n A SUPERB SERIES OF ETCHINGS.\n\nThe Wilson Collection.\n\n Collection de M. John W. Wilson. Expos\u00e9e dans la Galerie du\n Cercle Artistique et Litt\u00e9raire de Bruxelles, au profit des\n pauvres de cette Ville. Troisi\u00e8me \u00e9dition. Handsomely printed\n on heavy paper, and illustrated with a series of 68 large and\n most exquisitely executed etchings, from the most remarkable\n pictures in this celebrated collection. FINE IMPRESSIONS.\n Thick royal 4to, paper, uncut, $25.00; or in half morocco,\n gilt tops, uncut, $30.00.\n\n\u2235 Already out of print and scarce.\n\nThis charming catalogue was gotten up at the expense of the generous\nowner of the collection, and the money received from its sale donated\nto the fund for the relief of the poor of the city. The edition\nconsisted of 1,000 copies. It was immediately exhausted.\n\nThe Catalogue is a model of its kind. The notices are in most\ninstances accompanied with a fac-simile of the artist\u2019s signature\nto the picture; a biographical sketch of the artist; notices of the\nengraved examples, if any; and critical notes on each picture.\n\nThe graphic department is, however, the great feature of this\nCatalogue, embracing, as it does, upwards of sixty examples of the\nbest etchers of the present day, including Greux, Chauvel, Martial,\nRajon, Gaucherel, Jacquemart, H\u00e9douin, Lemaire, Duclos, Masson,\nFlameng, Lalanne, Gilbert, etc., etc.\n\n\nD\u00fcrer\u2019s \u201cLittle Passion.\u201d\n\n Passio Christi. A complete set of the Thirty-seven\n Woodcuts, by Albert D\u00fcrer. Reproduced in fac-simile. Edited by\n W. C. Prime. One volume, Royal 4to (13 \u00d7 10\u00bd inches). Printed\n on heavy glazed paper, half vellum, $10.00. Morocco antique,\n $15.00.\n\nThe Little Passion of Albert D\u00fcrer, consisting of thirty-seven\nwoodcuts, has long been regarded as one of the most remarkable\ncollections of illustrations known to the world. Complete sets of\nthe entire series are excessively rare. The editions which have been\npublished in modern times in Europe are defective, lacking more or\nless of the Plates, and are of an inferior and unsatisfactory class\nof workmanship.\n\n\n\u00c6sop\u2019s Fables.\n\n With 56 illustrations, from designs by Henry L. Stephens.\n Royal 4to, cloth extra, gilt leaves, $10.00.\n\nMr. Stephens has no superior in the peculiar style of illustration\nwhich is most effective in bringing out the spirit of \u00c6sop\u2019s Fables,\nand in this volume he has given us fifty-six full page cartoons,\nbrimming with droll humor, reciting the Fables over again, and\nenforcing their morals just as effectively as was done by the words\nof \u00c6sop himself. The illustrations are among the finest specimens of\nart ever produced in this country, and the volume as a whole is most\ncreditable to American artistic skill.\n\n\nBoccaccio\u2019s Decameron;\n\n Or, Ten Days\u2019 Entertainment. Now fully translated into\n English, with Introduction by THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A.,\n F.S.A. Illustrated by STOTHARD\u2019S Engravings on Steel, and the\n 12 unique plates from the rare Milan Edition. One volume,\n thick 12mo, cloth extra, $3.50, or handsomely bound in half\n polished Levant morocco, gilt top, $5.50.\n\nThe most complete translation, containing many passages not hitherto\ntranslated into English.\n\n\nBell\u2019s Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression,\n\n As connected with the Fine Arts. Profusely illustrated\n Royal 8vo, cloth, uncut, $4.50.\n\n\nTom D\u2019Urfey\u2019s \u201cPills to Purge Melancholy.\u201d\n\n Being a collection of Merry Ballads and Songs, old and new,\n fitted to all humors, having each its proper tune for voice\n and instrument. An exact and beautiful reprint of this very\n scarce work. Small paper, 6 vols., crown 8vo, bds., uncut,\n $15.00. Large paper, 6 vols. crown 4to. Only a few printed.\n Bds., uncut, $24.00.\n\n\u201cBut what obtained Mr. D\u2019Urfey his greatest reputation was a\npeculiarly happy knack he possessed in the writing of satires and\nirregular odes. Many of these were upon temporary occasions, and were\nof no little service to the party in whose cause he wrote; which,\ntogether with his natural vivacity and good humor, obtained him\nthe favor of great numbers, of all ranks and conditions, monarchs\nthemselves not excluded. He was strongly attached to the Tory\ninterest, and in the latter part of Queen Anne\u2019s reign had frequently\nthe honor of diverting that princess with witty catches and songs\nof humor suited to the spirit of the times, written by himself, and\nwhich he sang in a lively and entertaining manner. And the author of\nthe Guardian, who, in No. 67. has given a very humorous account of\nMr. D\u2019Urfey, with a view to recommend him to the public notice for a\nbenefit play, tells us that he remembered King Charles II. leaning on\nTom D\u2019Urfey\u2019s shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with\nhim.\n\n\u201cHe appears to have been a diverting companion, and a cheerful,\nhonest, good-natured man; so that he was the delight of the most\npolite companies in conversations, from the beginning of Charles\nII.\u2019s to the latter part of King George I.\u2019s reign; and many an\nhonest gentleman got a reputation in his country by pretending to\nhave been in company with Tom D\u2019Urfey.\u201d--_Chalmers._\n\n\n UNIFORM WITH \u201cTOM D\u2019URFEY\u2019S PILLS.\u201d\n\nMusarum Delici\u00e6;\n\n Or, The Muses\u2019 Recreation, 1656; Wit Restor\u2019d, 1658; and\n Wit\u2019s Recreation, 1640. The whole compared with the originals;\n with all the Wood Engravings, Plates, Memoirs, and Notes. A\n new edition, in 2 volumes, post 8vo, beautifully printed on\n antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, $4.00.\n\n A FEW LARGE PAPER COPIES have been prepared. 2 vols. 4to,\n $7.50.\n\n\u2235 Of the Poets of the Restoration, there are none whose works are\nmore rare than those of Sir John Mennis and Dr. James Smith. The\nsmall volume entitled \u201cMusarum Delici\u00e6; or, The Muses\u2019 Recreation,\u201d\nwhich contains the production of these two friends, was not\naccessible to Mr. Freeman when he compiled his \u201cKentish Poets,\u201d and\nhas since become so rare that it is only found in the cabinets of the\ncurious. A reprint of the \u201cMusarum Delici\u00e6,\u201d together with several\nother kindred pieces of the period, appeared in 1817, forming two\nvolumes of Faceti\u00e6, edited by Mr. E. Dubois, author of \u201cThe Wreath,\u201d\netc. These volumes having in turn become exceedingly scarce, the\nPublishers venture to put forth the present new edition, in which,\nwhile nothing has been omitted, no pains have been spared to render\nit more complete and elegant than any that has yet appeared. The\ntype, plates, and woodcuts of the originals have been accurately\nfollowed; the Notes of the editor of 1817 are considerably augmented,\nand indexes have been added, together with a portrait of Sir John\nMennis, from a painting by Vandyke in Lord Clarendon\u2019s Collection.\n\n\nThe Story of the Stick\n\n In all Ages and all Lands. A Philosophical History and\n Lively Chronicle of the Stick as the Friend and Foe of Man.\n Its Uses and Abuses. As Sceptre and as Crook. As the Warrior\u2019s\n Weapon, and the Wizard\u2019s Wand. As Stay, as Stimulus, and as\n Scourge. Translated and adapted from the French of ANTONY R\u00c9AL\n (Fernand Michel). 1 vol., 12mo, extra cloth, red edges, $1.50.\n\n \u201cWrought for a Staff, wrought for a Rod.\u201d\n SWINBURNE.--_Atalanta in Calydon._\n\nThe above work condenses in a lively narrative form a most\nastonishing mass of curious and recondite information in regard to\nthe subject of which it treats. From the bludgeon of Cain to the\ntruncheon of the Marshals of France, from the budding rod of Aaron\nto the blazing cane of M. de Balzac, the stick, in all its relations\nwith man since first he meddled with the Tree of Knowledge of Good\nand Evil, is shown here to have played a far greater part in history\nthan is commonly imagined. It has been the instrument of justice,\nit has been the tool also of luxury. It has ministered to man, its\nmaker, pleasure as well as pain, and has served for his support as\nwell as for his subjugation. The mysteries in which it has figured\nare some of them revealed and others of them hinted in these most\nentertaining and instructive pages, for between the days of the\nsociety of Assassins in the East and those of the society of the\nAphrodites in the West, the Stick has been made the pivot of many\nsecret associations, all of them interesting to the student of human\nmorals, but not all of them wisely to be treated of before the\ngeneral public. The late Mr. Buckle especially collected on this\nsubject some most astounding particulars of social history, which\nhe did not live to handle in his own inimitable way, but of which\nan adequate inkling is here afforded to the serious and intelligent\nreader.\n\n\n OUR EMIGRANT ANCESTORS.\n\nOriginal Lists of Persons of Quality.\n\n Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving-men\n Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen;\n Maidens Pressed; and others who went from Great Britain to\n the American Plantations, 1600-1700. With their Ages, the\n Localities where they formerly Lived in the Mother Country,\n Names of the Ships in which they embarked, and other\n interesting particulars. From MSS. preserved in the State\n Paper Department of Her Majesty\u2019s Public Record Office,\n England. Edited by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. A very handsome volume,\n crown 4to, 700 pages, elegantly bound in half Roxburghe\n morocco, gilt top, $10.00.\n\n A few Large Paper copies have been printed, small folio,\n $17.50.\n\n\nBlake\u2019s (Wm.) Marriage of Heaven and Hell:\n\n A reproduction and facsimile of this marvelous work,\n printed in colors, on paper made expressly for the work. 4to,\n hf. Roxburghe morocco, uncut, $10.00. 1790 (1868).\n\n\u2235 _A very few copies remaining._\n\n\u201cThe most curious and significant, while it is certainly the most\ndaring in conception and gorgeous in illustration of all Blake\u2019s\nworks.\u201d--_Gilchrist\u2019s Life of Blake._\n\n\n A NEW AND ATTRACTIVE BOOK ON MEXICO\n\nA Peep at Mexico:\n\n Narrative of a Journey Across the Republic, from the\n Pacific to the Gulf, in December, 1873, and January, 1874. By\n J. L. GEIGER, F.R.G.S. Demy 8vo, pp. 368, with 4 Maps and 45\n original Photographs. Cloth, $8.50.\n\n\nThe English Rogue.\n\n Described in the Life of MERITON LATROON, and other\n Extravagants, comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of both\n Sexes. By RICHARD HEAD and FRANCIS KIRKMAN. A fac-simile\n reprint of the rare Original Edition (1665-1672), with\n Frontispiece, Fac-similes of the 12 copper-plates, and\n Portraits of the authors. In Four Volumes, post 8vo,\n beautifully printed on antique laid paper, made expressly, and\n bound in antique boards, $6.00, or LARGE PAPER COPIES, 4 vols.\n 8vo, $10.00.\n\n\u2235 This singularly entertaining work may be described as the first\nEnglish novel, properly so-called. The same air of reality pervades\nit as that which gives such a charm to stories written by DeFoe half\na century later. The interest never flags for a moment, from the\nfirst chapter to the last.\n\nAs a picture of the manners of the period, two hundred years ago,\nin England, among the various grades of society through which the\nhero passes in the course of his extraordinary adventures, and among\ngypsies, beggars, thieves, etc., the book is invaluable to students.\n\n\nThe Rump;\n\n Or, An Exact Collection of the choicest POEMS and SONGS\n relating to the late Times, and continued by the most eminent\n Wits; from Anno 1639 to 1661. A Fac-simile Reprint of the\n rare Original edition (London, 1662), with Frontispiece and\n Engraved Title-page. In 2 vols. post 8vo, printed on antique\n laid paper, and bound in antique boards, $4.00; or Large Paper\n Copies, $6.00.\n\n\u2235 A very rare and extraordinary collection of some two hundred\nPopular Ballads and Cavalier Songs, on all the principal incidents\nof the great Civil War, the Trial of Strafford, the Martyrdom of\nKing Charles, the Commonwealth, Cromwell, Pym, the Roundheads, etc.\nIt was from such materials that Lord Macaulay was enabled to produce\nhis vivid pictures of England in the sixteenth century. To historical\nstudents and antiquaries, and to the general reader, these volumes\nwill be found full of interest.\n\n\nWestminster Drolleries.\n\n Ebsworth\u2019s (J. Woodfall) Westminster Drolleries, with an\n introduction on the Literature of the Drolleries, and Copious\n Notes, Illustrations, and Emendations of Text. 2 vols. 12mo,\n cloth, uncut, $8.00. Boston (Eng.), 1875.\n\n\u2235 _Only a small_ Edition; privately printed.\n\n\nSwinburne\u2019s William Blake;\n\n A Critical Essay. With Illustrations from Blake\u2019s Designs\n in Fac-simile, some colored. 8vo, cloth, $3.00.\n\nA valuable contribution to our knowledge of a most remarkable man,\nwhose originality and genius are now beginning to be generally\nrecognized.\n\n\nHolbein and His Times.\n\n By DR. ALFRED WOLTMANN, translated by F. A. BUNNETT. With\n portraits and nearly 60 fine engravings from the works of this\n wonderful artist. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, _gilt leaves_, $5.00.\n\n\nMemoir of the Lady Ana De Osorio,\n\n Countess of Chinchon, and Vice-Queen of Peru, A.D. 1629-39.\n With a Plea for the Correct Spelling of the Chinchona Genus.\n By CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, C.B., Member of the Imperial Academy\n Natur\u00e6 Curiosorum, with the Cognomen of CHINCHON. Small 4to,\n with Illustrations, $7.50.\n\n\n FOUNDERS OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.\n\nLives of the Founders, Augmenters, and other Benefactors of the British\nMuseum.\n\n 1570 to 1870. Based on new researches at the Rolls House;\n in the Department of MSS. of the British Museum; in the Privy\n Council Office, and in other Collections, Public and Private.\n By EDWARD EDWARDS. 1 vol. 8vo, large and beautiful type,\n cloth, $4.00. LARGE PAPER, ROYAL 8vo (only 60 copies printed),\n cloth, $10.00.\n\n\u2235 _By a special arrangement with the English publishers, Messrs.\nTr\u00fcbner & Co., the above is offered at the greatly reduced price\nmentioned._\n\n\nLegge\u2019s Chinese Classics.\n\n Translated into English, with Preliminary Essays and\n Explanatory Notes. Vol. I., THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF\n CONFUCIUS. Vol. II., THE LIFE AND WORKS OF MENCIUS. Vol. III.,\n THE SHE KING; OR, THE BOOK OF POETRY. Together 3 vols. 8vo,\n cloth, $10.00.\n\n\nDiary of the American Revolution.\n\n By FRANK MOORE, from Newspapers and Original Documents.\n Handsomely printed on heavy laid paper, and Illustrated with\n a fine series of steel-plate portraits, INDIA PROOFS. 2 vols.\n impl. 8vo, paper uncut, $8.00. New York, printed privately,\n 1865.\n\n\u2234 Large Paper. Only a Limited Impression. Published at $20.00 per copy.\n\n\nLittr\u00e9\u2019s French Dictionary.\n\n Dictionnaire de la Langue Fran\u00e7aise. Par E. LITTR\u00c9, de\n l\u2019Institut (Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise et Acad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions\n et Belles-Lettres). Four large vols. royal quarto, new half\n morocco, $40.00.\n\n\u201cNo language that we have ever studied, or attempted to study,\npossesses a Dictionary so rich in the history of words as this\ngreat work which M. Littr\u00e9 has fortunately lived long enough to\ncomplete.\u201d--_Saturday Review._\n\n\n UNIFORM WITH THE LARGE FOLIO SHAKSPEARE EDITED BY\n THE SAME AUTHOR.\n\nHalliwell\u2019s New Place.\n\n An Historical Account of the New Place,\n Stratford-upon-Avon, the last residence of Shakspeare. Folio,\n cloth (uniform in size with the edition of Shakspeare\u2019s Works\n edited by the Author), elegantly printed on super-fine paper,\n and illustrated by upwards of sixty woodcuts, comprising\n views, antiquities, fac-similes of deeds, etc. By JAMES O.\n HALLIWELL, F.R.S. $10.00.\n\nThis is a most important work for the Shakspearian student. The\ngreat researches of the author have enabled him to bring to light\nmany facts hitherto unknown in reference to the \u201cgreat bard.\u201d All\nthe documents possessing any real claim to importance are inserted\nat full length, and many of them are now printed for the first time.\nWith respect to the illustrations, which have been executed by J. T.\nBlight, Esq., F. W. Fairholt, Esq., E. W. Ashbee, Esq., and J. H.\nRimbault, Esq., no endeavors have been spared to attain the strictest\naccuracy.\n\n\n _REISSUE OF CRUIKSHANK\u2019S ETCHINGS._\n\nCruikshank\u2019s Illustrations of Time.\n\n A series of 35 Etchings. By GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Oblong\n quarto, paper, carefully printed from the original plates.\n $2.00. 1874\n ----The Same. COLORED. $3.00. 1874\n\n\nCruikshank\u2019s Phrenological Illustrations;\n\n or, An Artist\u2019s View of the Craniological System of\n Doctors Gall and Spurzheim. By GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. A series\n of _33 Etchings, illustrative of the various Organs of the\n Brain_. Oblong quarto, paper, $2.00.\n ----The Same. COLORED. $3.00.\n\n\u2235 This reissue, of which only a limited impression has been made, is\nprinted from the original coppers.\n\n\u201cHave we not before us, at this very moment, a print--one of the\nadmirable \u2018_Illustrations of Phrenology_\u2019--which entire work was\npurchased by a joint-stock company of boys--each drawing lots\nafterwards for the separate prints, and taking his choice in\nrotation? The writer of this, too, had the honor of drawing the first\nlot, and seized immediately upon \u2018Philoprogenitiveness\u2019--a marvellous\nprint, indeed--full of ingenuity and fine, jovial humor.\u201d--WM. M.\nTHACKERAY.\n\n\n SEVEN GENERATIONS OF EXECUTIONERS.\n\nMemoirs of the Sanson Family.\n\n Compiled from Private Documents in the possession of the\n Family (1688 to 1847), by HENRI SANSON. Translated from the\n French, with an Introduction by CAMILLE BARR\u00c8RE. Two vols.\n post 8vo, cloth, $5.50; or half calf, extra, $7.50.\n\n\u201cA faithful translation of this curious work, which will certainly\nrepay perusal, not on the ground of its being full of horrors--for\nthe original author seems to be rather ashamed of the technical\naspect of his profession, and is commendably reticent as to its\ndetails--but because it contains a lucid account of the most notable\n_causes c\u00e9l\u00e8bres_ from the time of Louis XIV. to a period within the\nmemory of persons still living.... The memoirs, if not particularly\ninstructive, can scarcely fail to be extremely entertaining.\u201d--_Daily\nTelegraph._\n\n\u201cA book of great though somewhat ghastly interest.... Something much\nabove a mere chapter of horrors.\u201d--_Graphic._\n\n\nAvesta.\n\n THE RELIGIOUS BOOKS OF THE PARSEES. From Professor\n SPIEGEL\u2019S German Translation of the Original Manuscripts, by\n A. H. BLEECK. 3 vols. in 1, 8vo, cloth, $7.50.\n\nEnglish scholars who wish to become acquainted with the \u201cBible of the\nParsees,\u201d now for the first time published in English, should secure\nthis copy. To thinkers the \u201cAvesta\u201d will be a most valuable work;\nthey will now have an opportunity to compare its TRUTHS with those of\nthe BIBLE, the KORAN, and the VEDAS.\n\n\nFreemasonry.\n\n PATON\u2019S (CHARLES I.) FREEMASONRY, ITS SYMBOLISM, RELIGIOUS\n NATURE, AND LAW OF PERFECTION. Thick 8vo, new cloth, uncut,\n $3.50.\n\n\nHand-Book of Arch\u00e6ology.\n\n Egyptian--Greek--Etruscan--Roman. By H. M. WESTROPP.\n Profusely Illustrated with Engravings on Wood. 8vo, new cloth,\n uncut, $3.00.\n\n\nThe Gnostics\n\n AND THEIR REMAINS, ANCIENT AND MEDI\u00c6VAL. By C. W. KING.\n Profusely Illustrated. 8vo, new cloth, gilt, $7.50.\n\n \u2234 The only English work on the subject. _Out of print and scarce._\n\n\nChampneys\u2019 Quiet Corner of England.\n\n Studies of Landscape and Architecture in Winchelsea, Rye,\n and Romney Marsh. With thirty-one Illustrations by ALFRED\n DAWSON. Imperial 8vo, cloth, gilt, gilt leaves, $5.00.\n\n\u201cMr. Champneys is an architect who takes the liberty to think for\nhimself--a man of much original genius and sincere culture, young,\nand with an enthusiastic contempt for conventionality, which I\nhope he may never outgrow.\u201d--_New York Tribune, Letter from London\nCorrespondent._\n\n\nIreland\u2019s Shakspeare Forgeries.\n\n The Confessions of William Henry Ireland, containing the\n Particulars of his Fabrication of the Shakspeare Manuscripts;\n together with Anecdotes and Opinions of many distinguished\n Persons in the Literary, Political, and Theatrical World. A\n new edition, with additional Fac-similes, and an Introduction\n by RICHARD GRANT WHITE. 1 volume, 12mo, vellum cloth, uncut\n edges, $2.00; or, on Large and Thick paper, 8vo, $3.50.\n Edition limited to 300 copies.\n\nEnthusiasts are easily duped, and of all enthusiasts, excepting\nthe religious, those who give themselves up to the worship of some\ngreat poet or artist are the easiest prey of the impostor. To them,\na book, a letter, the least scrap or relic which is connected\ndirectly, or it would seem indirectly, with their idol, is an\ninestimable treasure, and they are uneasy until it is in their\npossession, or removed hopelessly beyond their reach. Of all these\nenthusiasts the \u201cShakspearians\u201d are, and for a hundred years have\nbeen, at once the most numerous, and the most easily, because the\nmost willingly, deceived. To their craving and their greed we owe\nthe \u201cIreland Forgeries,\u201d which were merely an impudent attempt to\nsupply a demand--an attempt made by a clever, ignorant young scamp,\nwho succeeded in deluding the whole body of them in England two\ngenerations ago. His \u201cConfessions\u201d are the simply told story of this\nstupendous imposture: and the book--long out of print and scarce--is\none the most _na\u00eff_ and amusing of its kind in the whole history of\nliterature. His exhibition of the \u201cgulls,\u201d whom he made his victims,\nis equally delightful and instructive; and chiefly so, because\nof his simplicity and frankness. He conceals nothing, palliates\nnothing; tells the whole story of his ridiculous iniquity, and\nleaves a lasting lesson to the whole tribe of credulous collectors,\nShakspearian and others.\n\n\u201cIt has frequently afforded me a matter of astonishment to think\nhow this literary fraud could have so long duped the world, and\ninvolved in its deceptious vortex such personages as Parr, Wharton,\nand Sheridan, not omitting Jemmy Boswell, of Johnsonian renown; nor\ncan I ever refrain from smiling whensoever the volumes of Malone and\nChalmers, together with the pamphlets of Boaden, Waldron, Wyatt,\nand Philalethes, otherwise, ---- Webb, Esq., chance to fall in my\nway.\u201d--W. H. IRELAND\u2019S \u201c_Chalcographimania_.\u201d\n\n\nWomankind in Western Europe,\n\n From the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century.\n _Illuminated Title_, 10 CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES, and\n _numerous Woodcuts_. Small 4to, cloth, extra gilt,\n $4.50. 1869.\n\nThis work is something more than a drawing-room ornament. It is an\nelaborate and careful summary of all that one of our most learned\nantiquaries, after years of pleasant labor on a very pleasant\nsubject, has been able to learn as to the condition of women from the\nearliest times.\n\n\nDeFoe\u2019s Life and Works,\n\n Life and Newly-Discovered Writings of Daniel DeFoe.\n Comprising Several Hundred Important Essays, Pamphlets, and\n other Writings, now first brought to light, after many years\u2019\n diligent search. By WILLIAM LEE, Esq. With Facsimiles and\n Illustrations. 3 vols. 8vo, cloth, $6.00. Or in tree calf,\n extra, $15.00.\n\n Vol. I.--A NEW MEMOIR OF DEFOE. Vols. II. and\n III.--HITHERTO UNKNOWN WRITINGS.\n\nA most valuable contribution to English history and English\nliterature.\n\nFor many years it has been well known in literary circles that the\ngentleman to whom the public is indebted for this valuable addition\nto the knowledge of DeFoe\u2019s Life and Works has been an indefatigable\ncollector of everything relating to the subject, and that such\ncollection had reference to a more full and correct Memoir than had\nyet been given to the world.\n\n\nWorld\u2019s Masonic Register:\n\n Containing Name, Number, Location, and Time of Meeting of\n every Masonic Lodge in the World, etc., also every Chapter,\n Council, and Commandery in the United States and Canada,\n Date of Organization, etc., and Statistics of each Masonic\n Jurisdiction, etc. By Leon Hyneman. _Portrait_, thick 8vo, pp.\n 566, cloth, $2.00.\n\n\nThe Rosicrucians;\n\n Their Rites and Mysteries. With chapters on the Ancient\n Fire and Serpent-Worshippers, and Explanations of the Mystic\n Symbols represented in the Monuments and Talismans of the\n primeval Philosophers. By HARGRAVE JENNINGS. Crown 8vo, 316\n wood engravings, $3.\n\n\u2234 A volume of startling facts and opinions upon this very mysterious\nsubject.\n\n\nScientific and Religious Mysteries of Antiquity:\n\n The Gnosis and Secret Schools of the Middle Ages, Modern\n Rosicrucianism, and Free and Accepted Masonry. By John Yarker.\n 12mo, new cloth, $2.00.\n\n\u2234 \u201cThe sublime depths of the mysteries of antiquity have been sounded\nbut by few minds in the lapse of ages, and those who have leisure to\nfollow upon their tracks will meet with an ample reward.\u201d\n\n\n ONLY ONE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED.\n\nDuyckinck\u2019s Cyclop\u00e6dia of American Literature.\n\n Printed by Alvord, on a hand-press, and on tinted paper of\n extra weight and finish, prepared expressly for the work. For\n the convenience of persons desirous of illustrating the work,\n for which purpose it is admirably adapted, it has been issued\n in five parts, with separate rubricated titles, each of the\n two original volumes being divided into two parts, of about\n three hundred and fifty pages each, and the new Supplement\n forming the fifth. A finely engraved portrait printed on India\n paper is given with each part. The subjects of these portraits\n are Benjamin Franklin, James Fenimore Cooper, Washington\n Irving, William Hickling Prescott, and, with the Supplement,\n a portrait of the late George L. Duyckinck, newly engraved in\n line, by Burt, after an original painting by Duggan. 5 vols.\n 4to, uncut, $25.00. Half morocco, gilt top, $50.00.\n\n Only thirteen sets of this edition now remain.\n\n\nPayne Knight\u2019s Worship of Priapus.\n\n A discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its connection\n with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients. By RICHARD PAYNE\n KNIGHT, Esq. A new edition. To which is added an essay on the\n worship of the generative powers during the middle ages of\n Western Europe. Illustrated with 138 engravings (many of which\n are full-page), from Ancient Gems, Coins, Medals, Bronzes,\n Sculpture, Egyptian Figures, Ornaments, Monuments, etc.\n Printed on heavy toned paper, at the Chiswick Press, 1 vol.\n 4to, half Roxburghe morocco, gilt top, $35.00.\n\n\u201cR. P. Knight, the writer of the first \u2018Essay,\u2019 was a Fellow of the\nRoyal Society, a member of the British Parliament, and one of the\nmost learned antiquaries of his time. His museum of Phallic objects\nis now most carefully preserved in the London British Museum. The\nsecond \u2018Essay,\u2019 bringing our knowledge of the worship of Priapus down\nto the present time, so as to include the more recent discoveries\nthrowing any light upon the matter, is said to be by one of the most\ndistinguished English antiquaries--the author of numerous works which\nare held in high esteem. He was assisted it is understood, by two\nprominent Fellows of the Royal Society, one of whom has recently\npresented a wonderful collection of Phallic objects to the British\nMuseum authorities.\u201d\n\n\nGesta Romanorum.\n\n Or, Entertaining Moral Stories. Invented by the Monks as a\n fireside recreation; and commonly applied to their Discourses\n from the Pulpit, whence the most celebrated of our Poets and\n others, from the earliest times, have extracted their Plots.\n Translated from the Latin, with Preliminary Observations and\n Copious Notes, by the Rev. CHARLES SWAN. New edition, with an\n Introduction by THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. 2 vols. 8vo,\n vellum cloth, uncut, printed on large and heavy paper, $10.00.\n Full calf, extra, $17.50.\n\n A limited edition only was printed, of which now only 14\n copies remain.\n\n\u201cThey\u201d (the Monks) \u201cmight be disposed occasionally to recreate\ntheir minds with subjects of a light and amusing nature; and what\ncould be more innocent or delightful than the stories of the GESTA\nROMANORUM!\u201d--_Douce\u2019s Illustrations to Shakespeare._\n\n\nJones\u2019 (Owen) Grammar of Ornament.\n\n A Series of 112 exquisitely colored Plates, executed in\n Chromolithography, comprising 3000 examples of the Decoration\n of all Ages and Nations, with Descriptive Letterpress,\n illustrated with Woodcuts. Folio, cloth, extra, gilt edges.\n $30.00.\n\nThis new edition is a reproduction of the larger work on a smaller\nscale; a few of the plates which could not be reduced have been\nprinted on a larger scale, and the same artistic matter has been\nextended from 100 to 112 plates.\n\n\nDibdin\u2019s Bibliomania;\n\n Or, Book-Madness: A Bibliographical Romance. With\n numerous Illustrations. A new Edition, with a Supplement,\n including a Key to the Assumed Characters in the Drama. 8vo,\n half-Roxburghe, $6.00; a few Large Paper copies, Imp. 8vo,\n half-Roxburghe, the edges altogether uncut, $12.00.\n\n\u201cI have not yet recovered from the delightful delirium into which\nyour \u2018Bibliomania\u2019 has completely thrown me. Your book, to my taste,\nis one of the most extraordinary gratifications I have enjoyed for\nmany years.\u201d--ISAAC DISRAELI.\n\n\nGreville\u2019s Memoirs.\n\n Journal of the Reign of King George IV. and King William\n IV. By the late Charles C. F. Greville, Esq. Edited by Henry\n Reeve. 3 vols. 8vo, cloth, $7.50.\n\nNo equally important contribution to the political history of the\nlast generation has been made by any previous writer. As a man of\nrank and fashion, Mr. Greville associated, on terms of equality, with\nall the statesmen of his time, and his long tenure of a permanent\noffice immediately outside of the circle of politics compelled him to\nobserve a neutrality which was probably congenial to his character\nand inclination.--_Saturday Review._\n\n\nArchie Armstrong\u2019s Banquet of Jests.\n\n Reprinted from the original edition, together with ARCHIE\u2019S\n DREAM (1641), handsomely printed in antique style, with red\n line borders. Square 12mo, new vellum cloth, uncut, $6.50.\n\n The same, printed on Whatman\u2019s paper (limited to 25\n copies). Square 12mo, new cloth, $9.00.\n\n\u2234 The edition (of all kinds) was limited to 252 copies. It is\ncompletely exhausted, and copies are now difficult to obtain.\n\n\u201cA more amusing budget of odd stories, clever witticisms, and\nlaughter-moving tales, is not to be found in Jester\u2019s Library.\u201d\n\n\nNares\u2019 Glossary.\n\n Or, Collection of Words, Phrases, Names, and Allusions to\n Customs, Proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require\n Illustration in the Works of English Authors, particularly\n Shakespeare and his contemporaries. NEW EDITION, with\n additions, etc., by J. O. Halliwell and Thomas Wright. 2 vols.\n 8vo, new cloth, $6.50.\n\n\nGavin Douglas\u2019 Poetical Works.\n\n With Memoir, Notes and Glossary, by J. Small, M.A.,\n F.S.A. Illustrated by specimens of the Manuscripts, and the\n title-pages and woodcuts of the early editions in facsimile.\n Handsomely printed in 4 vols. post 8vo, cloth. $18.00. 1874.\n\n ----The same, LARGE PAPER. _Fifty copies only printed._ 4\n handsome demy 8vo vols. cloth, $25.00. (Published @ \u00a36.6.0.)\n\nThe distinguished poets, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, Bishop of\nDunkeld, and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, form a trio of whom\nScotland has every reason to be proud; but, as the Works of the\nsecond of these have not hitherto been collected, an Edition of them\nhas long been a _desideratum_ in Scottish Literature.\n\n\nWalford\u2019s County Families.\n\n The County Families of the United Kingdom; or, Manual of\n the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of Great Britain and\n Ireland. Containing a Brief Notice of the Descent, Birth,\n Marriage, Education, and Appointments of each person; his\n Heir Apparent or Presumptive; as also a Record of the Offices\n which he has hitherto held, with his Town Address and Country\n Residence. By EDWARD WALFORD, M.A. 1 vol. thick imperial\n octavo. Cloth, gilt edges. 1,200 pages, $8.00.\n\n\nCaxton\u2019s Statutes of Henry VII., 1489.\n\n Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by JOHN RAE, Esq.,\n Fellow of the Royal Institution. The earliest known volume\n of Printed Statutes, and remarkable as being in English. It\n contains some very curious and primitive Legislation on Trade\n and Domestic Matters. In remarkable fac-simile, from the rare\n original. Small folio, half morocco, uncut, $7.50.\n\n\nOwen Jones\u2019 Alhambra.\n\n Plans, Elevations, and Sections of the Alhambra, with\n the elaborate details of this beautiful specimen of Moorish\n Architecture, minutely displayed in 100 beautifully engraved\n plates, 67 of which are highly finished in gold and colors,\n from Drawings taken on the spot by JULES GOURY and OWEN JONES,\n with a complete translation of the Arabic Inscriptions, and\n an Historical Notice of the Kings of Granada, by PASCUAL DE\n GAYANGOS. 2 vols. imperial folio (pub. at \u00a324), elegantly half\n bound morocco, gilt edges, full gilt backs. $100.\n\n The same work on Large Paper, 2 vols. atlas folio, 100\n plates, 67 of them in gold and colors, the engraved plates on\n India paper (pub. at \u00a336), half bound morocco, gilt edges.\n $125.\n\nFor practical purposes, to architects the small paper copies will\nsuffice; but gentlemen desirous of adding a noble book in its finest\nappearance to their library, must have a Large Paper copy.\n\n\u201cIn spite of earthquakes, mines and counter-mines--spite of Spanish\nconvicts, French soldiers, Spanish bigotry, and Flemish barbarism\nof thieves and gipsys, contrabandists and brigands, paupers,\ncharcoal-burners and snow-gatherers, the Alhambra still exists--one\nof the most recent of European ruins. It is the most perfect in\nrepair and the richest in design; it has suffered less from man,\nor the elements, and has fallen more gently into decay. It was not\nmolten like Nineveh in an hour, or buried in a day like Pompeii; it\nwas not smitten down at a blow like Corinth, or sapped for centuries\nlike Athens. Though it has been alternately a barrack, a prison, a\ntea garden, and an almshouse--though its harem has been a hen-house,\nits prisons pens for sheep; the Alhambra is still one of the most\nwonderful productions of Eastern splendor, lingering in Europe long\nafter the Moslem waves have rolled back into Asia, like a golden cup\ndropped on the sand, or like the last tent of some dead Arab, still\nstanding, when the rest of his tribe have long since taken up their\nspears, untethered their camels, and sought their new homes in the\nfar desert.\u201d\n\n\nProstitution.\n\n DUFOUR (PIERRE). Histoire de la Prostitution chez tous\n les peuples du Monde, depuis l\u2019antiquit\u00e9 la plus recul\u00e9e\n jusqu\u2019\u00e0 nos jours. _Illustrated with numerous fine engravings\n on steel._ 6 vols. in 3, 8vo, hf. cf. gilt tops. _Scarce._\n $18.00. 6 vols. 8vo, cloth, $13.50.\n\n ORIGINAL and ONLY GENUINE EDITION.\n\nIn this learned work--the best that we have on the subject--many\nof the chapters are devoted to dissertations on matters of general\ninterest to students of literature. We instance Chap. XXIV.,\ncontaining a treatise on the Obscenity of the French language, the\nJargon of Argot, its Origin, etc.; also in Chap. XXXII., a highly\ninteresting bibliographical account of the Aretin plates by Marc\nAntonio, etc., etc.\n\nThe author was threatened with criminal prosecution, and pledged\nhimself never to reproduce the work; it has now become scarce.\n\n\n _NEW AND MAGNIFICENT WORK ON TEXTILE FABRICS._\n\nOrnamental Textile Fabrics\n\n Of all Ages and Nations. A practical Collection of\n Specimens. Illustrated with Fifty Plates in Gold, Silver, and\n Colors, Comprising upwards of 1,000 various styles of Ancient,\n Medi\u00e6val and Modern Ornamental Designs of Textile Fabrics,\n with Explanatory Description and a General Introduction. By M.\n DUMONT-AUBERVILLE. 1 vol. folio, cloth, gilt, extra. $25.00.\n\nThe Editor of this work, M. Dupont-Auberville, is known as one of the\nmost distinguished arch\u00e6ologists of modern France, and Textile Art is\nthe department of arch\u00e6ology to which he has devoted the best years\nof his life. His collection of specimens of textile fabrics embraces\nmodels taken from all ages and from all countries, and is admitted by\nall artists to be unique in every respect.\n\nThe works of ancient textile art, both in the East and the West, are\ndone full justice to, but at the same time the framer of \u201cOrnamental\nTextile Fabrics\u201d has drawn more amply from the extensive stock of\nmodels belonging to more recent periods. From his immense collection\nof specimens taken from the Renaissance and the seventeenth and\neighteenth centuries, he has selected those subjects which are most\nworthy of the attention both of the amateur and the manufacturer.\nIn this manner the work now submitted to the public is not a mere\nornamental one, but at the same time it possesses a practical\nusefulness which must cause it to be valued by all who make a study\nof taste in manufacturing industry in general, and the art of weaving\nin particular.\n\n\n _AN ENTIRELY NEW AND REVISED EDITION._\n\nOld Print Collectors\u2019 Guide:\n\n An Introduction to the Study and Collection of Ancient\n Prints. Frontispiece, plates of monograms, and illustrations.\n By WM. H. WILLSHIRE. Handsomely printed. _2 large vols. demy_\n 8vo, half morocco, gilt top, $11.00.\n\n\u2234 This new edition entirely supersedes the previous one, having, in\naddition to much new matter, full lists of Monograms and marks of\ncelebrated collectors and amateurs. A work indispensable to the Print\nCollector, being a concentration in one volume of all the varied\ninformation relative to the History of Engraving and of Ancient\nPrints.\n\nCONTENTS.--I. Engraving in Ancient Times. II. Engraving in General,\nfrom the beginning of the 13th to the 15th Century. III. On the\nVarious Processes or kinds of Engraving. IV. Advice on the Study\nand Collection of Prints. V. The Various Schools of Engraving. VI.\nThe Northern Schools to the time of D\u00fcrer. VII. Northern Schools\nfrom D\u00fcrer to the 17th Century. VIII. The Southern Schools of Wood\nEngraving. IX. The Masters of \u201cChiaro oscuro.\u201d X. Metal Engraving.\nMasters of 1446, etc. XI. Dutch and Flemish Schools. XII. French\nand English Schools. XIII. Chief Etchers of the Northern Schools.\nXIV. On Engraving in the \u201cDotted Manner.\u201d XV. The Southern Schools\nof Engraving on Metal. Nielli. XVI. Italian Schools. XVII. School\nof Marc Antonio. XVIII. Chief Etchers of the Italian Schools. XIX.\nMezzotinto Engravings and Engravers. XX. On the Examination and\nPurchase of Ancient Prints. XXI. On the Conservation and Arrangement\nof Prints. Appendix.--British Museum Collection, Douce Collection,\nOxford, Polytypage, Clich\u00e9, Mezzotinto Engraving, High-priced Books,\nVaria Bibliography, Monograms, indexes, etc., etc.\n\n\nThe Works of William Unger.\n\n =_A Series of Seventy-two Etchings after the Old Masters._=\n With Critical and Descriptive Notes by C. VOSMAER. Comprising\n the most celebrated paintings of the following artists:\n TINTORETTO, RUYSDAEL, REMBRANDT, GUIDO, POUSSIN, RUBENS,\n OSTADE, JAN STEEN, VAN DYCK, WOUVERMANS, PAUL POTTER, FRANS\n HALS, VERONESE, JORDAENS, VAN DER VELDE, BROUWER, etc., etc.\n\n Ten parts folio, 16 \u00d7 22 inches, printed on heavy Dutch\n paper, $60.00. Or half morocco, extra gilt top, elegant and\n substantial, $80.00.\n\n\u201cNo engraver who ever lived has so completely identified himself with\npainters he had to interpret as Professor Unger in the seventy-two\nplates which compose his \u2018Works.\u2019 He can adopt at will the most\nopposite styles, and work on each with ease, a fluency such as\nother men can only attain in one manner--their own--and after half\na lifetime. Indeed, one would not be going far wrong to describe\nProfessor Unger as an art critic of very uncommon insight, who\nexplains the sentiment and execution of great painters with an\netching needle instead of a pen.\n\n\u201cIt has been said of engraving that it is an unintellectual\noccupation, because it is simply copyism; but such engraving as this\nis not unintellectual, for it proves a delicacy and keenness of\nunderstanding which are both rare among artists and critics. Unger\nhas not the narrowness of the ordinary artist, for he can enter into\nthe most opposite styles; nor has he the technical ignorance of the\nordinary critic, for he can draw--I will not say like a great master,\nbut like twenty different great masters.\n\n\u201cMr. Vosmaer, the now well-known Dutch critic, who writes in English\nand French as well as in his own language, has much increased\nthe interest in Unger\u2019s etchings by accompanying them with a\nvaluable biographic essay of his own, much superior to the ordinary\n\u2018letter-press,\u2019 which publishers in general appear to consider as a\nnecessary companion to engraving.\n\n\u201cThe seventy-two etchings before us are, on the whole, the most\nremarkable set of studies from old masters which has been issued by\nthe enterprise of our modern publishers, and they can hardly fail to\nmake fine work better appreciated both by artists and amateurs.\n\n\u201cA few words of praise are due to the spirited publisher, Mr.\nSijthoff, of Leyden, for the manner in which these etchings of\nUnger have been published. They are printed on fine Dutch paper,\nand mounted (pasted by the upper edge only) on sufficiently good\nboards in such a manner as to enter into the most carefully arranged\ncollections without further change. They are accompanied by a text\nprinted with the greatest taste, on very fine Dutch paper. This\nseries is printed in one class of proof only, and issued at a price\nthat is most reasonable, and Mr. Sijthoff deserves our thanks for\nplacing works of real art, thoroughly well got up, within the reach\nof cultivated people who have limited incomes.\n\n\u201cWe recommend them strongly to all artists and lovers of art\nas a valuable means of art education and a source of enduring\npleasure.\u201d--HAMERTON in the _International Review_ for Jan., 1876.\n\n\nEtchings after Frans Hals.\n\n A Series of 20 beautifully executed Etchings. By WILLIAM\n UNGER. With an Essay on the Life and Works of the artist, by\n C. Vosmaer. Two parts, complete, royal folio. Impressions\n on India paper, $25.00. Selected proofs, before letters, on\n India paper, $40.00. Artist proofs on India paper, $60.00.\n Or elegantly bound in half Levant morocco, extra, gilt top,\n $15.00 additional to the above prices. Uniform with Unger\u2019s\n works.\n\n\u201cThey who know the Dutch painter Hals only through the few portraits\nby him which have reached this country have but a slight comparative\nacquaintance with his works. \u2018A stranger to all academical lore, to\nall literary co-operation,\u2019 writes Mr. Vosmaer, \u2018Frans Hals appeared\nmerely as a portrait-painter, like most of the modern artists of\nhis youth ... true to life, but also excelling by naturalness and\nmasterly handling. Subsequently he portrayed the joyous popular life\nof the streets and the tavern; at last those phases of national\nsocial life, which have at once their image and memorial in the\npictures of the arquebusiers and the civic governors.\u2019\u201d--_London Art\nJournal_, Aug. 1873.\n\n\n _THE NEW FRENCH ART JOURNAL._\n\nL\u2019Art.\n\n Revue Hebdomadaire Illustr\u00e9e. (M. Eug\u00e8ne V\u00e9ron et Chas.\n Tardieu, r\u00e9dacteurs.) Handsomely printed on heavy toned paper,\n and illustrated with several hundred engravings on wood from\n drawings and pictures by celebrated cotemporary artists,\n examples of antique and modern sculpture, objects of Art\n Industry in all branches, and a series of superbly executed\n etchings by the best living etchers, executed expressly for\n this work; being principally from the more noticeable pictures\n exhibited in the Salons of Europe, carefully printed on\n Holland paper. Forming four volumes a year. Royal folio (17\u00bd\n \u00d7 12 in.) of about 500 pp. each, with nearly 200 woodcuts,\n facsimiles, etc., and upwards of twenty etchings in each\n volume. 4 vols., folio. Stitched, paper covers, uncut, $36.00.\n In cloth, gilt top, uncut edges, $45.00. Handsomely bound\n in half red morocco (Jansen style), gilt tops, uncut edges,\n $65.00.\n\n ANOTHER EDITION, printed throughout on heavy _Holland\n paper_, in the most careful manner. The etchings in two\n states, _Artist proof_ on _Japan paper_, and ordinary print on\n Holland paper. The edition is _strictly limited to one hundred\n copies, numbered_. Forming 4 thick volumes, folio. Price,\n $125.00.\n\n \u2235 N. B.--Payments to be made on delivery of each quarterly\n volume.\n\n OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.\n\n\u201cNowhere but in Paris could such a Review be produced every week\nas _L\u2019Art_, so magnificent in every respect, paper, typography,\nillustrations, and above all, so many sided in its view of art, and\nso abundant and interesting in its information. It has now been\nbrought to the fourth year of its life, with every sign of assured\nand increasing vigor, and we are glad to learn, from the report\nof the editor to the subscribers, that something more substantial\nthan the _succ\u00e8s d\u2019estime_ has rewarded the experiment of such a\ncostly venture.... It is simply the cheapest and the best thing of\nits kind. M. V\u00e9ron seems, at any rate, to have solved the problem\nof combining excellence with cheapness. We find, besides numerous\nlittle facsimiles of sketches, and autograph letters of eminent\nartists, musicians, and dramatists, no less than seventy fine\netchings by such men as Flameng, Courtry, Desbrosses, Lan\u00e7on, etc.,\nand woodcuts of Claude\u2019s and Turner\u2019s pictures, with a series of\nvery remarkable copies of the famous tapestries at Madrid, from the\ndesigns of Albrecht D\u00fcrer and Van Eyck, by Edmond Yon, Perrichon, and\nC. Maurand, as well as singularly fine examples of wood engraving.\nSupposing the reading matter of the Review were as ephemeral and\ntrivial in its purpose as the cheapest of the cheap instead of being,\nas it is, rich and racy, with the native style of all French pens,\nthoughtful and often profoundly suggestive, and generally complete,\nin reference to detail, the two etchings by Flameng, from pictures by\nFrans Hals and Nicholas Maas, alone would be really most valuable and\nacceptable to the print-collector.... While _L\u2019Art_ is conducted in\nthis style the editor may feel quite secure that France will not lose\nthat artistic supremacy she has long held.\u201d--_London Times._\n\n\u201cIt would be easy and pleasant to go on discoursing about the\npictures in _L\u2019Art_, a paper which is so full of good, sober,\nand just criticisms, trustworthy news about art, and designs not\notherwise to be obtained by most people.\u201d--_Saturday Review._\n\n\u201cThe new volume of _L\u2019Art_ sufficiently manifests the success of\na very valuable and interesting publication.... There is no other\njournal in existence which so happily and skilfully combines the\nlabors of artists and authors which does not subordinate art to\nletters, or letters to art, but permits them to go \u2018hand in hand,\nnot one before another.\u2019... In brief, this grand folio volume of\n_L\u2019Art_ abounds in matters of interest to all readers and students of\n\u00e6sthetic and cultivated taste.\u201d--_The World_ (London).\n\n\u201cThere is some monotony in praising each successive portion of a\nperiodical as it appears with an absolutely equal cordiality; but the\nevenness of merit in _L\u2019Art_ makes this uniformity of commendation a\nduty.\u201d--_The Nation._\n\n\u201cAmerica is so destitute of illustrated works which can at all\ncompare with _L\u2019Art_ that she cannot do better than study and enjoy\nthis French publication. Certainly there is no other means by which\nso many valuable pictures can be obtained at so small a price.\u201d--_The\nChristian Union._\n\n\u201cSumptuous in paper and type, lavish in illustrations, and with\ncritical and explanatory text of singular merit; the most famous of\nmodern art journals.\u201d--_N. Y. Times._\n\n\nThe Portfolio:\n\n An Artistic Periodical, edited by PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON.\n Illustrated with Etchings, Autotypes, Woodcuts, Facsimiles,\n Engravings, Heliogravures, etc. _Published monthly._\n\n Subscription reduced to TEN DOLLARS per annum.\n\n \u2234 _Sent, Postage free, to any part of the United States, on\n receipt of the Subscription price._\n\n\u201cThe chief intention of \u2018The Portfolio\u2019 is to supply to its\nsubscribers, at a lower cost than would be possible without the\ncertain sale of a regular periodical circulation, Works of Art\nof various kinds, but always such as are likely to interest a\ncultivated public; and to accompany them with literature by writers\nof proved ability, superior to mere letter-press, and more readable\nthan pure criticism or cataloguing.\u201d Among the artists who have\nfurnished original etchings are Bracquemond, Lalanne, Rajon, Legros,\nand Leopold Flameng, who has given some noble specimens of his\nskill, especially in the reproduction of \u201cThe Laughing Portrait of\nRembrandt,\u201d in his particular province as a reviver of the works of\nthat artist. The subjects in all cases are chosen for their worth\nand rarity, and in these respects the \u201cPortfolio\u201d fairly rivals its\ngreat contemporary, one of the noblest fine-art periodicals ever\nissued, the Parisian \u201cGazette des Beaux-Arts.\u201d It has the same finish\nin execution in the minutest details of paper and print, and is in\nevery way a _thoroughly artistic production_, far ahead in this way\nof anything of the class heretofore issued in England.\n\nThere are numerous single illustrations in the \u201cPortfolio,\u201d worth the\nprice of the volume, suitable for framing.\n\n OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.\n\n\u201cOf the PORTFOLIO altogether it is to be said, that not only is it\n_the first periodical in the English language devoted to fine-art,\nbut that it leads all others by a very great distance_, whatever the\nsecond and third of such publications may be taken to be.\n\n\u201cWe warmly commend it to the notice of all who would cultivate in\nthemselves and their families an appreciation of the beautiful in\nnature and art. The illustrations are largely of sylvan scenery,\nand etchings from the finest paintings are given, with letter-press\ndescriptions, and the best articles from the highest authorities, so\nthat the monthly paper itself, an illustration of what is taught,\nbecomes a complete magazine of the science of art. _We would regard\nthe introduction of such a journal into the family as a good\neducator, while it will prove a source of exquisite pleasure to those\nwho have already a taste for the beautiful._\u201d--_N. Y. Observer._\n\n\u201cWe look for the PORTFOLIO as for the only serial published, in\nwhich works of art of a certain kind and of peculiar merit are to\nbe found. Etching is not as popular, perhaps, as it should be, but\nif anything is likely to bring its merits before the public, it is\nsuch examples as are to be had here. Their effect is striking, and in\nexecution they are little short of perfect; at any rate they exhibit\nthis kind of work in the highest degree of perfection to which it has\nattained.\u201d--_N. Y. Daily Times._\n\n\u201cMr. Hamerton\u2019s PORTFOLIO is easily chief among English art\nperiodicals, and has the advantage of being written by men who\nare not only familiar with the literature of art and the works of\nartists, but are artists by profession, and so know the feelings,\naims, and technicalities of artists. The editor is probably better\nacquainted with continental artists and their work than most of\nthe insular fellows, and his art theories and criticisms are\nproportionately more catholic and valuable. The PORTFOLIO, instead\nof being a magazine of current gossip about artists and their\ndoings, is a work of permanent value, apart from its excellent\nillustrations, as a collection of able essays, critical, historical,\ntechnical, and personal, very free from narrowness and professional\nor national prejudice. It is the glory of the Portfolio that it\nis in a way cosmopolitan, free from the prejudices of nations and\nschools.\u201d--_Atlantic Monthly._\n\n\u201cThe Portfolio is very charming. An Art periodical far superior to\nanything which has hitherto appeared.\u201d--_Guardian._\n\n\u201cFrom the first it has stood nearly alone as really \u2018an artistic\nperiodical.\u2019 An hour spent over the Portfolio is one of refreshment,\nencouragement, and unalloyed delight.\u201d--_Spectator._\n\n\u201cOf the Etchings the merits are unquestionable: indeed, the work\nis enriched with some of the finest examples. The literary part\nis generally worthy of praise for being scholarly, graceful, and\ninteresting.\u201d--_Athen\u00e6um._\n\n\u201cDealing with artistic subjects generally, and always in a spirit of\nintelligence and refinement.\u201d--_Graphic._\n\n\u201cTo the portfolio is unanimously accorded the first place as an\nartistic periodical.\u201d--_Cambridge Chronicle._\n\n Back volumes for 1870, \u201971, \u201972, \u201973, \u201974, \u201975, \u201976,\n and \u201977 may still be had on application. Any volume sold\n separately. Price, in _blue cloth_, _gilt leaves_, $14.00 each.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note:\n\nWords and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like\nthis_. Those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=.\nFootnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to precede the\nindex. Printing errors, such reversed order, or partially printed\nletters, diacriticals, and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops\nmissing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.\nExcept as noted below for Greek and Hebrew, misspelled words and\nirregular use of quotation marks were not changed. Footnote 608 has\ntwo anchors.\n\n\u03a4hree-column texts in the original were reformatted as blockquotes\nto improve display in handheld devices. The \u201cpigpen\u201d cipher is\nillustrated on lines 17308 through 17340.\n\nIn the index, punctuation was standardized and a few page number\nreferences were adjusted to match book pages. Some entries are not\nin alphabetical order; these were left as printed. Term indexed as\n\u201cspirit-ancestor\u201d does not appear in either Volume 1 or Volume 2.\n\nCorrections to Greek:\n \n TEXT:\n line 4162, from \u0395\u03c0\u1f76 \u1f78\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 to \u0395\u03c0\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\n line 9998, from \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03bb\u1f76\u03ba\u1f70 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1f7a\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 to \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u1f70 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\n line 12258, from \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe1\u03c3\u03b9 to \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b9\n line 13192, from \u0399\u03b1\u03bf to \u0399\u03b1\u03c9\n line 14205, from \u03a5\u03b1\u03c7\u03b9\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5 to \u03a5\u03b1\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\n line 15053, from \u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c9 \u03c3\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b9 to \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c9 \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b9\n FOOTNOTES:\n FN [561] from \u03b3\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 to \u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\n INDEX:\n line 33587, from \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 to \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2\n line 37599, from \u039b\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03b7\u03c2 to \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2\n line 41224, from \u039b\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03b7\u03c2 to \u039b\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2\n\nCorrections to Hebrew:\n\n TEXT:\n line 7560, from \u05d7\u05db\u05d8\u05d5\u05ea to \u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d5\u05ea\n line 8031, from \u05d1\u05d5\u05d9\u05e6 to \u05d1\u05d5\u05d9\u05e5\n line 9250, from \u05d1\u05ea\u05e8 to \u05db\u05ea\u05e8\n line 9269, from \u05ea\u05e4\u05d0\u05be\u05ea to \u05ea\u05e4\u05d0\u05e8\u05ea\n line 9277, from \u05e9\u05d1\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4 to \u05e9\u05db\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4\n line 9387, from \u05e9\u05de to \u05e9\u05dd\n line 9433, from \u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05de to \u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd\n line 9552, from \u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d5\u05ea\u05be\u05e0\u05e1\u05ea\u05d3\u05d4 to \u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d5\u05ea\u05be\u05e0\u05e1\u05ea\u05e8\u05d4\n line 11531, from \u05d0\u05d9\u05df to \u05e2\u05d9\u05df\n line 11595, from \u05e2\u05e6\u05d7\u05d9\u05d5\u05de to \u05e2\u05e6\u05d7\u05d9\u05d5\u05dd\n line 11652, from \u05d0\u05e4\u05bc\u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05de to \u05d0\u05e4\u05bc\u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05dd\n line 13015, from \u05d5\u05d4 to \u05d9\u05d4\n line 13227, from \u05d9\u05d7 to \u05d9\u05d4\n line 20155, from \u05e7\u05d9\u05da to \u05e7\u05d9\u05df\n line 20218, from \u05ea\u05d1\u05dc to \u05d4\u05d1\u05dc\n line 20226, from \u05e7\u05d9\u05d5\u05df to \u05e7\u05d9\u05e0\u05df\n line 20245, from \u05d0\u05d5\u05d3 to \u05d0\u05e8\u05d3\n line 20248, from \u05dc\u05dd\u05da to \u05dc\u05de\u05da\n line 21151, from \u05d9\u05d1\u05ea to \u05d9\u05db\u05d7\n FOOTNOTES:\n [878] from \u05db\u05d7\u05db\u05d5\u05ea \u05e2\u05d5\u05e8 to \u05db\u05ea\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea \u05e2\u05d5\u05e8\n [912] from \u05d4\u05d5\u05d9 to \u05d7\u05d5\u05d9\n INDEX:\n line 34848, from \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05de to \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd","title":"Isis unveiled, Volume 2 (of 2), Theology : $b A master-key to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":361303}