FREEMASONRY AND THE WESTERN TRADITION

PART I

By
W. Bro. J. R. Cleland, P.P.A.G., Chap., (Kent).

"This is the whole lesson we have to learn from the history of
mankind: to will the inevitable, and ourselves fulfil it.  The
creative work of the highest self-annihilating will is the final
winning of the fearless, forever loving man."

Richard Wagner, Letter to August Roeckel, 1854.

"From all time the minds that have attained, thanks to their
abnormal organisation, to a clear perception, have turned to the
minds of the multitude still in bondage to the will, and, having
compassion on them, have sought a means of communication with them. 
Foremost among these enlightened spirits have been the founders of
religions, and it has been their tragic destiny that they were
forced to make use of such a language and of such symbols as are
alone intelligible to ordinary unenlightened minds."

Richard Wagner, ibid 1855.

"The very thing, which is now called the Christian Religion,
existed among the ancients and never did not exist from the
beginnings of the human race, until Christ himself came in the
flesh, from which time the true religion, which already existed,
began to be called Christian."

St. Augustine, Retractatus 1.13.3.

"It has cost much to establish liberty in England.  It has needed
seas of blood to drown the idol of despotic power, but the English
do not think they have bought their laws too dearly.  Other nations
have had less trouble, have not shed less blood, but in their case
the blood they have sacrificed has only cemented their servitude."

Voltaire.


BRETHREN,

There is a well known saying in the East which, in the Sanskrit
tongue, reads, SATYAN NASTI PARO DHARMA, and the literal
translation is "THERE IS NO RELIGION GREATER THAN TRUTH," a
statement of obvious fact which is very often overlooked by people
desirous of emphasising the advantages of their own point of view. 
This attitude comes sometimes from genuine conviction that theirs
is the only view-point from which Truth is visible, but,
unfortunately, more often because they have "an axe to grind." When
we of the West begin to realize that Truth is nowhere to be found
in completeness, and everywhere to be found in part, we are liable
to say to ourselves, "we have only a very veiled statement of truth
in the West; our whole outlook is too material; our whole outlook
on religion is mere superstition and we are talking about something
that we do not understand.  We must go to the East, 'whence cometh
all wisdom,' there only will we find truth." There is quite a sound
foundation for this view of things, but I hope to show that it
means overlooking a very ancient tradition in the West, a statement
of fundamental truth inherent in the very atmosphere of Britain and
far more ancient than that statement of truth which we are apt to
look upon as peculiarly of the West, although Christianity had its
origin in the East and requires for its understanding a typically
Eastern facility for the interpretation of picturesque imagery
which we do not always possess.  St. Augustine, in the statement I
have quoted, is referring to that body of fundamental truth and
doctrine which is found as the basis of every religion and
philosophy in the world.  These same fundamentals form the basis of
that which I am referring to as the Western Tradition.  This
Tradition has passed through many phases, upon some of which we
have already touched in this Circle, the Tarot Cards, the Kabbalah,
the Rosicrucian Teaching and, above all, Freemasonry.

I want to see if I can put before you a logical sequence of
generation and growth of this Tradition, and at least suggest a
place of origin, which will be far from being the East, to which
our searching eyes are so prone to turn.  I have suggested that it
is fundamental truth to which St. Augustine refers and that it is
this same truth that we try to express in our masonic work and
teachings.  This truth has always existed but it has found numerous
and very varied means of expression, suited to the stage of
development of the people of the time and place when and where each
particular messenger came to interpret it to them.  So there arose
a symbolic teaching peculiar to the West and as closely linked to
Western religious thought and practice as the Eastern statements of
the Wisdom are linked to the religious thought and practice of the
East.  In all cases the basic teaching is the same - there can be
only one truth - but the garments in which the truth is clothed
vary so much in shape, colour and decoration that it is often
difficult to recognise that they clothe the same body.  The
religious teaching of the West today is a peculiar blending of the
two great streams, and perhaps finds its finest philosophic
expression in the Masonic Rituals.

In order to get a comprehensive view of the facts and growth of the
Western Tradition, it will be necessary to make a brief survey of
the main streams of procedure in Cosmic Evolution and trace to
their source some of the basic teachings, following them up through
the root-races and sub-races of our humanity.  Only thus can we
attain to that breadth of outline  which will enable us to pack so
tremendous a subject into the limits of one paper.  In fact, in the
initial stages, I propose to do little more than outline the facts
with regard to this earth of ours and leave you to delve for
yourselves into the greater Cosmic Cycles of which the existence of
this earth is but a fraction of a sub-cycle.  Suffice it then that
the evolution of life - as distinct  from that of form - in any
Solar system, takes place in a series of cycles and sub-cycles,
each of which has an initial period of growth to a culminating
point, from which it then disintegrates.  Our Solar system consists
of ten planetary schemes, in seven of which there are planets
capable of being seen by physical sight.  These schemes stand in
different stages in evolution and their humanities, except probably
in one instance, do not wear bodies of dense physical matter,
excepting, of course, our own earth.  In other physical planets of
the system, the humanity probably functions no lower than the
Etheric Physical level.  In each Planetary Scheme the life-force
travels round a cycle of seven planets, each successively getting
more dense and material until the fourth is reached, after which
they decrease in density again.  Our Earth-Chain, with which we are
more directly concerned, has in it four physical globes, one of
which is the dead remains of a former Chain, of which it was the
fourth, and only physical planet.  It is, of course, the Moon, from
which our earth itself was born.  The life on the Moon was probably
at the etheric level of manifestation.  Our Earth-chain is the
fourth in a succession of seven of which the Moon-chain was the
third, each chain starting one degree of density lower than the
last until the fourth is reached, when the other succeed in reverse
order.  Thus, as we find ourselves upon a dense physical planet,
and occupying bodies of dense physical matter, we may logically
expect to find, associated with our Earth, two other physical
planets, fitted for the sustenance of etheric life, and lying, as
it were, on either side of us.  From one of these the life-force
has been flowing to our Earth, and it will flow on towards the
other as the tale of the Earth works out to its close.  These two
are the planets which we know respectively as Mars and Mercury.

On each planet, again, the life of humanity moves forward through
a succession of root-races, seven in all, each accentuating one of
the characteristics of man, and each of these being divided into a
succession of seven sub-races.  Investigation shows that the first
and second root-races of this Earth were functioning before Mars
began to be deserted, some entities being available for the
existing primitive conditions of life here, whom Mars was too far
advanced to accommodate in the higher evolutionary level reached by
its humanity.  The earlier root-races on Earth were a
recapitulation of the first, second and third rounds or chains, for
the benefit of such entities as, although being considerably behind
the average in evolution, were yet able, by a very special effort
to be helped to catch up.  Real humanity began to incarnate only
when, vast changes taking place, about the middle of the third
root-race period, brought the environment back to something like
that to which the entities had before been accustomed.  At this
time took place the inception of certain movements intended to set
out humanity definitely on the way towards that higher spiritual
advancement which still lies before it.  This period was some ten
or eleven millions of years ago.  About this same time carne the
full establishment of the separation of the sexes.  The guidance of
the future of our humanity was then taken over by those Great
Beings, who came from the vastly more evolved humanity of the
planet Venus and who have come to be known as "The Lords of the
Flame." The third root-race is known as the Lemurian Race.  Its
centre was the great continent of Lemuria, of which Australia is a
remnant.  This race built up a marvellous civilization and
developed the arts to a high degree, more especially the art of
Building.  Much of their architecture was Cyclopean in its
proportions and perhaps they were the builders of those great
canals, joining the Pacific with the sea which occupied what is now
the basin of the Amazon.  The remains of these canals, with walls
of dressed stone, are now to be found on top of the Andes, which
rose under them and carried them up.

Probably much of the tradition with which I hope to deal was extant
even at that early date, but it would be a difficult matter to pin
down the descent.  The Fourth Root-race was the Atlantean, from
whose continent the Atlantic Ocean takes its name. Their greatest
civilization was at its zenith from about 1,000,000 years ago, when
their great capital city, the City of the Golden Gates, was built. 
From this centre came the various lines of descent which I have
grouped under the term, the Western Tradition.

The inner teaching of the State religion appears to have been a
statement of the fundamentals of the Ancient Wisdom and the people
lived very close to the forces of Nature, which the Ancient Wisdom
taught its initiates to control.  The civilization was a fine one
and the standard of culture high.  Materially also it was well
advanced.  For instance, the art of building and operating flying
machines was developed to an extent which makes our present methods
seem but a poor substitute.  But, as so often happens - and as has
happened in our own day - there arose a class of materialistic
self-seekers, who prostituted the powers conferred to their own
selfish ends and hence developed the practice of Black Magic.  Some
warning was conveyed to the race in the upheaval of about 800,000
B.C., but it made no permanent impression, so that things again
deteriorated and reached another climax about 210,000 B.C. This
time the priests of the Ancient Wisdom had ample warning of things
to come and led out an expedition of their still faithful followers
to found colonies for the preservation of the Mysteries.  To use
modern terminology, they evacuated their people to safe areas.  One
of the most important of these was the great colony founded in the
Nile Valley, where, to preserve the records as well as to act as a
Temple of Initiation, they built the Great "Light," which still
stands there, the Great Pyramid of Gizeh.  Then came the
overwhelming catastrophe, and for about 500 years the records lay
safely sealed under water.  This upheaval left the remains of the
continent of Atlantis divided into two island continents, Ruta and
Daitya, and these remained until the next catastrophe, in 75,025
B.C. From 200,000 B.C. for about 100,000 years, another great
civilization was built up and the Ancient Wisdom was again taught
in the Schools of the Mysteries.  The Empire of Atlantis spread
east and west and from it was derived much of that wisdom which we
know as the wisdom of Egypt.  But, once again, black magic became
rife, and a great being known as the Lord of the Dark Face leagued
himself with the earth spirits, the downward-trending natural
forces, to hamper the work of the White Emperor, the work of
Evolution.

Some remains of the cult then set up lingered long - and still
linger in the more material aspects of the worship of Pan.  Once
more, the forces of Evil were triumphant and the catastrophe of
75,025 B.C. became necessary.  Once again the essentials of the
Ancient Wisdom and  of the true worship were preserved in remote
quarters.

This catastrophe consisted of another great upheaval in the region
which is now the Atlantic Ocean, but its repercussions were felt in
remote quarters of the globe.  Ruta and Daitya were destroyed by
fire and water, and in their place remained a single island,
smaller than either of them, which has come down to us in history
as Poseidonis.

There we will leave it for the moment, while we trace the
beginnings of the Fifth, or Aryan, Root-race, from its early
progenitors in Ruta and Daitya.  Its actual inception dates back
still further, to the days of Atlantis itself, and it is largely to
those who were selected to build the bodies for its habitation that
we are indebted for the preservation of the Mysteries.  The first
move in the final segregation of the race was taken about 100,000
years ago by the isolation of a specialized tribe from the Fifth
Atlantean Sub-race, the white-skinned Semitic.  The members of this
tribe were forbidden to inter-marry with the people of the other
tribes, and were told that they would journey later as a tribe, far
away to a "promised land," under the guidance of a King or Lord,
who would be physically unknown to them.  As far back as this,
then, we find some of the distinctive features of the Western
Tradition already showing themselves.  I recall a story which
illustrates a point of view which is always liable to crop up in
the most unlikely places.  I believe it originated in a "Punch"
cartoon, at the time of the processions of unemployed in London. 
Such a procession, with banners waving, was passing along the
street when an American and a Scot found themselves together on the
pavement, and the conversation ran somewhat as follows:- "Waal, I
reckon this sort of thing just couldn't happen where I come from."
"And whaur micht ye cam frae?" " Gawd's own country, I guess!" "
Mon! ye've got an awfu' puir Scots accent!" Each, I am sure, spoke
from a deep-rooted racial conviction of pre-eminence.

About 80,000 B.C. this tribe set off through the Sahara Sea in
ships, and then onwards on foot, skirting the south of Egypt to
reach the highlands of Arabia.  Some few remained in Egypt, despite
orders to the contrary, and afterwards became slaves to a branch of
the Third Atlantean Sub-race, the Toltec, a red-skinned race which
then ruled the land.  A few years later, a small picked nucleus set
off towards the Gobi Sea, where the race was finally founded and
consolidated, and whence, at various times, the nuclei of the
various sub-races set out.  Two of these concern us especially, a
portion of the Second, the Arabian, and the Fourth, the Keltic. 
Later I must deal with the Fifth, the Teutonic, when I come to
speak of "Parsifal."
The pioneers of the Second Sub-race set forth from the Race Centre
and, about 40,000 B.C., set themselves to Aryanise the descendants
of the Arabs,  whom they had left behind thousands of years before. 
The Southern Arabian tribes maintained their independence and when,
later, that section of the country was over-run, a peculiarly
fanatical section, styling themselves a "Chosen People," set forth
and settled on the Somali coast. Later on this sect had a schism
within itset owing to the ruling High Priest breaking with this
"chosen people" tradition and allowing intermarriage with
neighbouring negro tribes. The conservative element moved up the
Red Sea to Egypt, whence, centuries later, they passed in a body
into Palestine, where we know them as the Jews.  It should be noted
that this title, the Chosen People, which the Jews arrogated to
themselves, was actually originally applied to the Hebrew Race,
which is synonymous with the Aryan Race.  The Second Sub-race
extended its power over Mesopotamia, most of Persia and all Africa,
except Egypt.  They kept together as an empire until internal
trouble started in Arabia, and the governor of Persia declared its
independence. Then followed civil wars and strife in Persia and
Chaldea, ending with the establishment of the Great Iranian Empire.
The Iranians came from the Race Centre about 30,000 B.C. and their
empire continued until about 2,200 B.C. It was while this internal
struggle was at its height, that Thoth, or Tahuti or, as the Greeks
called him, Hermes, came to give the doctrine of the Inner Light to
the Second Sub-race.  His religion was founded in Egypt and he then
travelled to Arabia.  Later, the same teacher appeared again as the
first Zarathushtra in Persia.

Now let us see something of the Fourth Sub-race, the Keltic.  They
passed along to the north of Persia into the Caucasus about 20,000
B.C., and settled in the district of Erivan, on the shore of Lake
Sevanga, whence they overran Armenia, Kurdistan and Phrygia.  About
10,000 B.C. they started westwards again.  The first wave were the
Ancient Greeks, from whom descended the Trojans who afterwards
fought the Later Greeks. Among other successes, they defeated
Poseidonis, and held the Mediterranean until the time of the final
catastrophe, the date of which, as given to us by Plato, works out
to 9,564 B.C. In this catastrophe, Poseidonis was finally
overwhelmed and its repercussions checked the advance of our Keltic
race for the moment, but later arrivals from the Caucasus enabled
them to hold the Mediterranean.  Later, some of the Fourth Race
peoples shared the trade with them; the Phoenicians, of
Semitic-Akkadian stock, and the Carthaginians, Akkadians with an
admixture of Arab and Negro.  On they came, wave after wave.  The
Albanians sprang from their second sub-division and the Italians
from the third.  The true Keltic Stock formed the vital fourth
wave, flowing up the Iberian peninsular and finally contributing to
the great Irish Stock, helping to bind Ireland under curious forms
of magic, so strong that they are potent factors even today.  A
more important contribution to the Irish Race had come along with
the sixth wave, which had progressed by the northern route through
Scandinavia, where there had been some intermingling with the Fifth
Sub-race.  These were the Tuatha-de-Danaan, famed in Irish story
and legend.  After the 9,564 B.C. tidal wave, some of the Old
Greeks settled down in Hellas, and to them there came Orpheus to
institute his new Mysteries.  Afterwards he developed into Phoebus
Apollo in Greece, but in the North he became Baldur, the Beautiful.

The Fourth and Fifth Sub-races passed through Persia together, but
the Fifth then broke off and settled in Dhagistan.  About 8,500
B.C. they started northward and formed their great cultural centre
at Cracow in Poland, the seed-bed of practically all European
culture.  They radiated still northward as the Slavs, some tending
eastwards and others becoming the stock from which sprang the
Russians of today.  Another branch travelled south into Croatia,
Serbia and Bosnia.  A later wave still were the Letts, who gave
rise to the Lithuanians and Prussians.  Finally came the Germanic
peoples as Teutons to South Germany and as Goths and Scandinavians
to Northern Europe.

So we see Three Main Waves sweeping, as it were, in an enormous
three-pronged pincer movement through North Africa and Spain,
through the countries of the northern shores of the Mediterranean,
and through northern Europe, to meet in and near Britain, where
they linked up with a branch of the old original Atlantean Stock
settled there, and preserving much of the original Atlantean
culture, shorn of its evil elements.  These had arrived as an
"evacuation to a safe area" carried out by their leaders who had
built, among other things, Stonehenge, a rebuke, in its rough
grandeur, to the tarnished magnificence of Atlantis and, in its
mathematical wonder, a tribute to Atlantean scientific advancement. 
Britain was certainly the centre of development of a cultus and a
secret tradition of extra-ordinary vitality and individuality,
which survived until comparatively recent times in full force, and
of which stray traces are still to be found all over the country.
It is well worth while to make a study of our old fairy tales and
nursery rhymes.  Given the necessary key, that is to say knowing
what to look for, one is amazed by the wealth of knowledge of
fundamentals displayed by their originators.  Jack and the
Beanstalk, Jack the Giant Killer, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty,
all these and many more well-known tales are veils for underlying
truths which are part and parcel of the Ancient Wisdom.  Among
other folk-songs and rhymes one might mention the Dorsetshire
ballad of King Arthur and his three sons and the tale of Old Mother
Hubbard, a tale which to outward seeming is full of ridiculous
contradictions.  One could multiply the list almost indefinitely.
The important point to note is that practically all this folk-lore
appears to be indigenous, inherent in the very atmosphere of the
British Race.

Druidism had undoubtedly a much higher mystical tendency than is
realised by most British people of today, who make contact with it
only in the age of its decline.  Wales was its last official
stronghold and there still exists an immense store of manuscript
material, much of which has not been investigated.  There is,
however, what appears to be an even older tradition which locates
the real centre of Druidism in Strathclyde.  That it survived
further north for a long time is well known, as also is the fact
that Iona was one of its last strongholds.  Strathclyde is, of
course, the traditional home of the Masonic Rites of Heredom and
"Mother" Kilwinning.  There seems to have been a close amalgamation
of Druidism with the early British Christian Church.  The
conjunction of the priesthoods was the probable origin of that most
mysterious brotherhood known as the Culdees, who were notoriously
unfriendly to the authority and discipline of the Church of Rome.
I shall have more to say of the early British Church in the second
paper of this series.  Of the Druids themselves, Julius Caesar (De
Bello Gallico Vl.13.) says, "It is believed that this discipline
was first instituted in Britain, and from thence transferred to
Gaul, for even at this day those who desire to be perfect adepts of
their art make a voyage thither to learn it," making it clear that
the Gaulish Druids regarded Britain not only as the birthplace of
their cult but, as it were, its headquarters, just as most other
faiths have their central pivotal locality such as Rome, Mecca,
Lhasa and so on.  We may take it, then, that Britain was certainly
one of the places where the Secret Tradition had been preserved.
This bears out the contention, when linked to certain peculiarities
to which we now come, that it was one of the "safe areas" to which
the old Stewards of the Mysteries of the Race from Atlantis
"evacuated" a nucleus of the faithful.

One of the most interesting evidences comes to light when one lays
alongside one another the Traditions of Britain and those of Egypt.
We find a most amazing identity of outlook and of incident. The
stories of Arthur and of Osiris are, taking into consideration the
difference of atmosphere and trappings, fundamentally identical. 
Druidism is only the Cult of Osiris in another form, and Arthur
would seem to have a common origin with Ausar or Osiris.  Arthur,
like Osiris, is the god of a mystical cult who, in the execution of
his duties, must periodically make a journey through the Under-
world, partly to keep its evil inhabitants in subjection and partly
to learn their secrets and passwords, in order that the souls of
the "just men made perfect," the Initiates, might travel through
these planes unharmed.  By becoming Osirified and, thus learning
the rituals and passwords of the secret lore, the initiate passes
safely through Amenti to eternal light.  Osiris remains King of the
living dead: Arthur, slain by his treacherous nephew, Mordred, is
carried in his sister's barque to the mysterious Isle of Avallach,
or Avallon, in the West, "the Place of Apples," where he remains,
neither alive nor dead, awaiting the time when his sword shall be
required for the salvation of Britain.  Osiris, slain by the
treachery of his brother, Set, is  carried across the Nile in the
barque of his sisters, Isis and Nepthys, to the region of Aalu in
the West, a place of plenteous fruits, and there he reigns, god of
the not dead, "awaiting glorious resurrection." Arthur and Osiris
are both closely associated with the cult of the Bull.  The bull,
Apis, was a form of Osiris, and in one of the best-known poems of
Taliesin the sacred ox is referred to in connection with the
descent of Arthur into Annwn.  Horus is the resurrected form of
Osiris and, like Arthur, he gathers round him a company of warriors
who devote themselves to the destruction of evil monsters.  Horus
was typified by the hawk, as Arthur by the crow.  The name of
Arthur's nephew Gwalchmai means "hawk" and is almost certainly the
same word as Harmachus, one of the names of Horus.  The points of
resemblance are so numerous and important that it would seem at
least probable that the stories had a common origin.  A later
edition of the same story appears in the ancient ballad of Thomas
the Rymour, who goes on just such a journey through the Underworld
to a place which was certainly the Keltic Annwn, and equally
certainly Avallon, for it was a place full of apple trees, which,
as usual, must not be plucked or eaten.  He enters as an initiate
and is instructed in prophecy by the Queen of Faerie. Now, the
actual home of Thomas was Strathclyde, which we have seen as the
traditional home of Druidism.  His surname was Learmont, the mount
of Ler or Llyr, the old British god of the sea, corresponding to
Neptune or Poseidon a fact which conveys another hint of the
Atlantean origin of the rite.

The Welsh writings in the "Book of Barddas," by Iolo Morganwg,
claim to have been handed down from time immemorial and they
probably enshrine beliefs, ideas and practices of the primitive
tradition of Britain.  There is strong evidence that they contain
outlines and even actual parts of the rituals of rites of
initiation.  Barddas gives a general view of the system and the
code of conduct laid down for those desirous of gaining knowledge
of higher planes of existence and, as Spence puts it, "perhaps
embracing a soul philosophy more in natural conformity with our
native psychology than any exotic system can possibly be."
Certainly, to the peaces of antiquity, Britain was the home of
Mystery, insula Sacra, the sacred island, home of the gods, to
enter which was to enter a region of enchantment, the shrine of a
cultus of peculiar force and sanctity. It has been called "the
Egypt of the West," with perhaps more truth than was realised by
those who coined the phrase.  At least, associated with Britain
were legends of strange and perilous marvels, preserved among the
European tribes. Its status, as a country of almost unique
sanctity, and the home of a survival of mysticism and occult
tradition was unrivalled in Europe.  It even outrivalled in
antiquity and sanction, so far as Europe was concerned the
traditions of Egypt and the East, with no directly traceable
connection between them.  Through its long insular segregation,
Britain developed a system entirely its own.  This system was
handed down through the ages and is still largely capable of being
recovered.  It centres still round the ancient place of its
inception in these islands, Strathclyde, and crops up as we have
seen, in later times, in the rites of Heredom and Kilwinning.  I am
claiming, without fear of being proved wrong, that the Freemasonry
of today, essentially British in origin as it is, is the casket in
which the ancient Western Tradition, which emanated from Atlantis,
is most fully enshrined, and by Freemasonry I do not mean to refer
only to the Craft but to the whole series of degrees and rites now
probably best known to the world outside as the Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite.  Spence, in his Mysteries of Britain has,
to some extent, failed to reach a final conclusion, either because
he had not realised its place of enshrinement, or because he was
held back by the peculiar ideas of what constitutes secrecy which
still prevail in some quarters.  His conclusion "that European
civilization, both Eastern and Western, arose from a common centre"
is certainly true.  His statement "it follows from this that the
religious and mystical ideas which flowed from that common fount
had also a single primitive origin" will be readily admitted. But
he traces the "Iberian" or "Mediterranean" race to an origin "in
North Western Africa," which is, as we have seen, if the origins
are carried back sufficiently far, approximately, but not quite,
correct, as the ultimate place of origin lay "to the North West of
Africa." He draws attention to the cult of the dead which it
"carried with it to our island, as it did to Egypt, culminating in
the sublime and intellectual system of Druidism, which found here
its natural home and environment, which survived in Britain long
after it had perished elsewhere, and lingered on, affecting the
entire process and history of British mystical thought even to the
present time." At least, the main stream of culture is admitted to
have arrived by sea from the south.

The tremendous impetus given to archaeological and ethnological
research by the last war, not only in this country, but also in
Spain, France and Scandinavia, has produced results which almost
universally bear out our story of the three-pronged advance of
culture across Europe and North Africa, and their convergence in
the region of Britain.  Nowhere does it contradict this.  I hold
that the probable solution of the difficulties remaining in the way
of full explanation of the sacrosanctity of these islands lies in
the admission of the fact that these three inflowing streams were
here met by a fourth stream, already so long planted as to have
become part of the very atmosphere of the soil, and having its
origin in a much more recent and direct break-away from the
Atlantean parent stem of which these three were, so to speak,
branchlets springing from another main bough.  That there was a
thriving and regular trade, linking Spain and Brittany with this
country, has been amply proven, and the rough-stone building plans
and methods are identical on each side.  The main trade-route
between Spain and Denmark skirted the West coast of Scotland. 
Identical chambers are found in Spain and in West Scotland.
Although these were often used as sepulchres for the remains of
specially important people, just as we today place memorials in our
cathedrals, the normal method for the disposal of dead bodies was
undoubtedly by cremation.  The general result of this has been, I
believe, to blind the eyes of our anthropologists, to some extent,
to the true facts.  The remains found have been sometimes of much
earlier date than has been generally supposed, for the
anthropologist has set a wide gulf between two types which were
probably largely contemporaneous.  One, the higher type, was the
man to whom was accorded the tomb-burial to preserve him as a
guardian of the tribe.  The other was the mental deficient, who was
"tabu," safe from molestation by the tribesmen, but driven out to
die by himself in the open, the afflicted of God.

The Long-barrow Men were great traders, and probably the direct
progeny of the original Atlantean stock.  They seem to have laid
great stress upon the cult of the dead in certain cases and upon
the facts of life after death, doctrines which, if misused, may
lead to necromancy and black magic.  This, in itself, gives a hint
of the reasons for the fall of Atlantis.

The tides of European invasion flowed in upon the islands of
Britain along the Northern and middle prongs of our trident, but it
is noteworthy that authorities are agreed that it was the religious
culture already established in these islands which triumphed,
giving, for all time, a peculiar tendency towards mystical
interpretation, persisting long after it had died out in Europe,
and still holding its own as a tendency today.  The Southern prong
of the trident brought with it a tradition which is of peculiar
importance and which linked with the older Atlantean tradition, as
having the same original source.  Whether it actually came from
Egypt may be doubted, but there is no doubt that it enshrined the
Egyptian tradition, and so strong was its influence that even
today, the delta-shaped south-east corner of England bears the same
name as the Delta of the Nile, Kent.  The two stories were, in the
main, the same and covered a visit to another world, the world of
shades. In the West we find the poem, "the Spoils of Annwn," by the
Bard Taliesin.  The translation of this by Stephens in his
"Literature of the Kymry," shows that it tells the story of the
passage through a number of enclosures, the names of some of which
are high, suggestive.  Caer Sidi, the Enclosure of the Shades; Caer
Vediwid, the Enclosure of the Perfect Ones; these are examples.
And, the hero is Arthur.  The poem follows similar lines to the
better-known "Harrowing of Hell." Caer Sidi is sometimes looked
upon as referring to the Zodiac itself.  Arthur and his companions
go to the help of Gwion, to complete his initiation.  They pass
through the various levels, finding, amongst other things, the
Cauldron of the goddess Keridwen, warmed by the breath of nine
damsels.  It is the Cauldron of Inspiration.

Egyptian Mystery teaching was very closely guarded and it was
always difficult for an outsider to get in.  The teaching was,
however, at various times, conferred upon distinguished foreigners. 
Moses was one such, and he passed the sacred lore on to the Jewish
priesthood, in whose care it survived, in more or less definite
form, even until the days of David and Solomon.  King Solomon built
his Temple on Egyptian Masonic lines, as a centre of masonic work
and symbolism.  It was intended to incorporate that set of
measurements, illustrative of certain astronomical and geodetic
fact, which had previously been used as the basis for the
construction of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh.  Solomon did not
succeed in preserving the tradition in its entirety, because some
of it had already been lost.  The external ceremonial and even the
traditional ornamentation was fairly preserved, but the inner
meaning was, to a large extent, lost.  Up to that time the
attention of the Jewish initiate had been directed to the great
House of Light at Gizeh.  Solomon attempted to focus attention,
instead, upon his own Temple.  For the traditional Osiris legend he
substituted the original form of our present Traditional History. 
It was his son who, later, owing to his extreme dislike for the
principal architect, perpetuated it by the insertion of his name as
the victim of the rite, a piece of petty spite which brought its
own revenge.  Solomon Judaised the whole ritual, substituting
Hebrew words for the original Egyptian, only sometimes succeeding
in preserving the original meaning, but bringing Jewish practice
into line with that of its nearest neighbours.. Many Mystery cults
formed a ring round the country occupied by the Jews.  They started
with the original Osiris story, but other peoples round had the
stories of Adonis and Tammuz, and so on, by which they were
influenced to some extent.

European Masonry owes much of its inception to Jewish influence
acting upon the soldiers of Vespasian and Titus, who carried it
into the Roman Collegia, whence it passed, by way of the Comacines,
through the darkness of the Middle Ages, coming to the surface
again when times became better and persecution less rife.  Many
fragments were gathered together in 1717, which belonged not only
to this line but also to the line of the older Druidic rites, as
well as to other sources.  There is no single line of masonic
orthodoxy.  The parallel tradition of Chaldea had a strong
influence upon Continental Freemasonry, and yet another line came
through with the Crusaders which combined many of the fundamentals
of the Mysteries and which found it a comparatively easy matter to
combine with the existing Druidic tradition.  One has to remember
that nearly all these rites, if not actually secret societies, were
at least societies with secrets, and this makes them all
exceedingly difficult to trace through documentary evidence.  Hence
there arises much confusion and contradiction.

Much of the Ancient Wisdom was lost on each of these different
lines of descent, yet what was left was perpetuated, treasured and
communicated in secret to the brethren selected.  Behind the scenes
there still lived on the Great White Brotherhood, ever preserving
the full body of Truth, and using its influence wherever
opportunity offered, so that as much as possible should be
preserved for the benefit of the earnest seeker in the outside
world.

Let us summarise the influences at work.

First, there is the Atlantes-Egyptian tradition, carrying through
into the home of the Fifth Race and flowing back through its
Egyptian shrine, along North Africa and up through the Iberian
Peninsula into Britain.

Second, there is the Chaldean Tammuz-Adonis tradition blending with
the Egypto-Jewish tradition, and preserving much of the old
Zoroastrian and Orphic Mystery-teaching, as it flowed through
Southern Europe, springing to new life in Mithraic Mysteries, and
again flowing into Britain.

Third, there is an Egypto-Aryan tradition flowing northwards to the
European cultural heart of Cracow and developing the Scandinavian
folk-lore, finally to spread its influence once more to Britain.

Fourth, there is the remnant of the original Atlantean tradition,
showing as the primeval Druidism of Britain itself, with which all
these other streams, flowing in from the East, found that they had
so much in common that they blended with it as with a cult showing
the fundamentals from which their own traditions might well have
descended.

Later still there came the so-called Christian missionary
influence, but once more the mystical and occult teachings of the
early church found an apparent prototype already established in
this peculiar Druidic cult, offering illustration and explanation
of their teachings and doctrines.  Here then we have an indigenous
Church, traditionally older than the Church of Rome.  Some of its
professors claim, in fact, that from it the Church of Rome is
schismatic.  The more detailed study of this British Christian
Church must be held over for the second part of this paper, which,
I intend, shall start with some details of its origins, and show
how it influenced the outlook of the people as a whole, created a
peculiar atmosphere and, through the evolution of a new intuition
and an adaptation of existing legends and symbols, led up to a
statement of fundamental truth which showed itself in the great
central symbol of the Holy Grail, and thence led to that
presentation of truth in allegory and symbol in a complete system,
which we possess today under the generic name of Freemasonry. 
Britain is the place of birth of Freemasonry and must remain its
Mecca, simply because this island is that centre towards which all
the converging streams of tradition flowed and in which they met
and coalesced to form that which, for want of better name, we have
called the "Western Tradition."

This Western Tradition is primarily a Tauric tradition.  Its
ancient traditional symbol is the Bull, the Apis of Egypt the bull
of Arthurian and Mithraic legend.  The Bull changes in later times
to the Ram, kid or lamb. The sign of Aries links with the Chalice
of Christian tradition, which, itself, is a passing from Aries to
Pisces.  The disciples of Jesus of Nazareth were fishers and one of
the chief characters in the Grail stories is the Fisher King. 
Today we are in process of taking the next step, suffering the
birth-pangs of a new age, whose symbol is a man, who carries a
waterpot, Aquarius.

As the blood of the people is shed, so that they wade through seas
of it towards the Freedom to come, more and more will they reach
out to the true baptism of Water which is the prelude to the
baptism of Fire.  The so-called successful man-of-the-world is not
the type to reach this "worship" easily, which all must ultimately
gain.  The real conqueror is, and can only be, the "pure fool,"
crazy in the eyes of the world, to whom its riches and honours mean
so little that he will not go a step out of his way to pick them up
and indeed hardly notices that he lacks them.  He is "in the world,
but not of it," Parsifal, the pure fool, of whom we will have to
speak more fully later.

Before closing this part of the paper, I want to touch lightly upon
a few other points.  First with regard to the Stone Monuments, such
as Stonehenge.  This great temple, and some others, were
constructed at a period so relatively early that it is extremely
difficult to posit very much concerning the religion of the men who
built them.  One writer talks in awed tones of a date about
1800-1700 B.C., as if this were almost too early to find ready
acceptance.  Actually, Stonehenge was certainly in existence before
9564 B.C., and very possibly before 75025 B.C. This marvellous
Circle was certainly used by many other cults having little in
common with the spiritual idealists who build it in protest against
the lavish luxury of their native land.  Some of the later rites
practised within its precincts were anything but ideal, or even
pleasant to think upon.  Spence suggests, of those who erected it,
that if they "had not finally developed the faith of Druidism ...
they were at least developing its tenets." Actually, later
Druidism, while it still held much that was fine, was but the pale
memory of its Ancient Wisdom teaching.  " If," says Kendrick,
"Stonehenge was not a temple of Druidism, then it must have been a
disused ruin in the La Tene period, when Druidism was the religion
of the land." He points out that a La Tene man was found buried
within the precincts, but he fails to draw the conclusion that they
had by then ceased to be treated as a sanctuary.  Other stone
circles were most probably faint imitations of the Stonehenge
original, just as the many pyramids of Egypt were faint copies of
the external seeming of the original "Light" at Gizeh.  The Editor
of Barddas points out that "there is no doubt that these bards
viewed the traditions of the Gorsedd as the genuine remains of
Ancient Druidism and there is reason to believe that in their main
features they were so.  The variations in minor points would
indicate in what direction and to what extent they suffered in
their passage from the Christian era downwards."

Christianity appears to have been regarded by people of Keltic
stock as the fulfilment of Druidism.  But one must admit that,
judging from its remains, theirs appears to have been a wider and
more all-embracing Christianity than that preached by the orthodox
and dogmatic churches of today.  It is, of course, well known that
many Druids became Christian priests.

The Druid alphabets form an interesting subject for study.  The
three original letters - note the parallel with the three
mother-letters of the Hebrew - are said to have been obtained by
MENW, the aged, from the voice of God Himself.  One of the symbols
of this fact is used today by the Government as its particular
mark, the Broad Arrow, and this is an almost universal symbol,
found even among the aboriginals of Australia.  The voice is said
to have manifested as three rays of light, to which were given the
sense and letters OIV.  MENW recalls, at once, all the great
law-givers of antiquity, from MANU in India and the East, through
AMUN and MENA in Egypt and NUMA in Rome, to the almost universal
AMEN.  Always we have a NAME of power.

The three letters are said to represent Love, Knowledge and Truth,
the three principal attributes emanating from God.  "Only a Bard of
thorough secrecy knows how the name of God is to be spoken audibly
by means of the three principal columns of letters, because only he
knows their meaning, accent and powers." We should note, in these
words, the close parallel to other teachings with regard to a
secret or lost name or pronunciation.

Arthur seems to have been a later appellation of the Druidic god,
Hu Gadarn or Darvell Gadarn, whose peculiar province it was to draw
souls out of Hades.  He was the supreme deity, who, with his strong
solar oxen, drew the Beaver of the Sun out of the water.  An image
of this god, probably carved in oak, his sacred wood, was taken to
Smithfield in 1538 and burned, together with a "friar," who had the
same name.  It is on record that oxen had been sacrificed to this
image.  The hold upon the popular imagination, which the Arthurian
legend exercised, can only be accounted for if it is seen as a
restatement of a much older tradition, which can hardly have been
other than Druidic.  This tradition links closely with the teaching
of the descent of a Solvator.  Bulls, were sacrificed in connection
with some such tradition in the parish of Gairloch, in Rosshire,
and oblations of milk were poured out on the hills as late as the
1870's.  The four organs which played round the fires of Caer Sidi
form a link with the Orphic and Hermetic Mysteries, and with the
Jubal of Freemasonry.  Fires were used in certain rites at certain
seasons of the year, such as Beltane, Midsummer (Lammas),
Halloween, and Yuil.

The Cauldron of Keridwen was associated with Druidic survivals in
Scotland to the end of the XVII century at least, and many places
have names which are derived from it in the root Aden, Eden or
Edin, which is derived from the Gaelic Aldheann, a cauldron or
goblet. The drinking of water from the cauldron was one of the
rites performed in the initiation of a candidate for the Mysteries
of the Druidic Craft, and took place only after twenty years of
intensive study and training.

Much has been said and written of the superstitions of the Druids,
but it is very noticeable that the suppression of superstition is
always the proclaimed objective of the most superstitious people,
which says volumes in favour of the Druids.  An instance is found
in the rite of the mistletoe which, properly understood, was a
ceremony full of truth and esoteric meaning.  I hardly need touch
upon the old tales of Brigantia or Brigiddu, and her change into
the Irish Brigit and the Christian Saint Bridget, or of the still
more peculiar confusion which led to the attribution to the Lady
Godiva, an actual historical personage and wife of Earl Leofric of
Mercia and mother of the famous Edwin and Morcar, of the part of
leading lady in a rite of initiation whose tradition had persisted
to her time, and which indeed still persists.

I may perhaps have time to touch more upon some of these tales
before passing to the main theme at our next meeting, but I doubt
if time will allow of it.  Suffice it for the present that in
Druidism we have a symbolic philosophy, a supremely pure, beautiful
and wise tradition, which tells of One God, Father of All; of a
people capable of directing their own free-will, yet incapable of
so far diverging from the strait path as ultimately to prevent the
attainment of the whole race to Union with God.  In this philosophy
we find such so-called "modern" ideas as the denial of the absolute
existence of Space and Time, which is now called Relativity, and
attached to this is a wonderful philosophic teaching of the
overcoming of Death.

The philosophy of Druidism is peculiarly British.  It has much in
common with the mystical philosophies of the East, but it still
holds its own peculiar outlook which is of particular psychological
value to the British race.  The fact is that we have here, if it
were only possible fully to reconstruct it - and I, for one,
believe that someday, perhaps in the nearer future than now seems
possible, this will be done - a philosophy native to the soil and
far more suited to the mental outlook of the British race than any
Eastern importation, however valuable and far-reaching.  It is a
pure, native mysticism, applied to what is usually now called the
Christian ideal, yet it is incomparably older than any Christianity
under that name.  The restoration of the old British Mystery
Tradition is a work which will have to be done if the race is to
survive and fulfil its high destiny.

It is true that "there is no religion greater than Truth," but the
guise in which the truth is given may attract or repel, may please
or disgust, or may have any other effect lying between the two
extremes.

Let us, Brethren, be among the pioneers of the resurrection of this
Ancient British Tradition, which, I believe carries healing for the
West, and ultimately for the East also, borne upon its wings.  In
its world-embracing philosophy it holds the key to "Peace to all
Beings."

Let me leave with you, in closing, that which Spence refers to as
the Enigma of the Bard :-


"There is nothing truly hidden but what is not conceivable,

There is nothing not conceivable but what is immeasurable,

There is nothing immeasurable but GOD;

There is no GOD but that which is not conceivable,

There is nothing not conceivable but that which is truly hidden,

There is nothing truly hidden but GOD."

END OF PART 1.