Isis Unveiled by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2
Theosophical University Press Online Edition
[[Vol. 2, Page 289]]
CHAPTER VII.
"Of the tenets of the Druzes, nothing authentic has ever
come to light; the popular belief amongst their neighbors is,
that they adore an idol in the form of a calf." -- KING:
The Gnostics and their Remains.
"O ye Lords of Truth without fault, who are forever cycling
for eternity . . . save me from the annihilation of this Region
of the Two Truths." -- Egyptian Ritual of the
Dead.
"Pythagoras correctly regarded the 'Ineffable Name' of God
. . . as the Key to the Mysteries of the universe." -- PANCOAST:
Blue and Red Light.
IN the next two chapters we shall notice the
most important of the Christian secret sects -- the so-called
"Heresies" which sprang into existence between the first
and fourth centuries of our era.
Glancing rapidly at the Ophites and Nazareans, we shall pass to
their scions which yet exist in Syria and Palestine, under the
name of Druzes of Mount Lebanon; and near Basra or Bassorah, in
Persia, under that of Mendaeans, or Disciples of St. John. All
these sects have an immediate connection with our subject, for
they are of kabalistic parentage and have once held to the secret
"Wisdom Religion," recognizing as the One Supreme, the
Mystery-God of the Ineffable Name. Noticing these numerous
secret societies of the past, we will bring them into direct comparison
with several of the modern. We will conclude with a brief survey
of the Jesuits, and of that venerable nightmare of the Roman Catholic
Church -- modern Freemasonry. All of these modern as well as ancient
fraternities -- present Freemasonry excepted -- were and are more
or less connected with magic -- practically, as well as theoretically;
and, every one of them -- Freemasonry not excepted --
was and still is accused of demonolatry, blasphemy, and licentiousness.
Our object is not to write the history of either of them; but
only to compare these sorely-abused communities with the Christian
sects, past and present, and then, taking historical facts for
our guidance, to defend the secret science as well as the men
who are its students and champions against any unjust imputation.
One by one the tide of time engulfed the sects of the early centuries,
until of the whole number only one survived in its primitive integrity.
That one still exists, still teaches the doctrine of its founder,
still exemplifies its faith in works of power. The quicksands
which swallowed up
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 290 ISIS UNVEILED.
every other outgrowth of the religious agitation of the times
of Jesus, with its records, relics, and traditions, proved firm
ground for this. Driven from their native land, its members found
refuge in Persia, and to-day the anxious traveller may converse
with the direct descendants of the "Disciples of John,"
who listened, on the Jordan's shore, to the "man sent from
God," and were baptized and believed. This curious people,
numbering 30,000 or more, are miscalled "Christians of St.
John," but in fact should be known by their old name of Nazareans,
or their new one of Mendaeans.
To term them Christians, is wholly unwarranted. They neither believe
in Jesus as Christ, nor accept his atonement, nor adhere to his
Church, nor revere its "Holy Scriptures." Neither do
they worship the Jehovah-God of the Jews and Christians, a circumstance
which of course proves that their founder, John the Baptist, did
not worship him either. And if not, what right has he to a place
in the Bible, or in the portrait-gallery of Christian
saints? Still further, if Ferho was his God, and he was "a
man sent by God," he must have been sent by Lord Ferho, and
in his name baptized and preached? Now, if Jesus was baptized
by John, the inference is that he was baptized according to his
own faith; therefore, Jesus too, was a believer in Ferho, or Faho,
as they call him; a conclusion that seems the more warranted by
his silence as to the name of his "Father." And why
should the hypothesis that Faho is but one of the many
corruptions of Fho or Fo, as the Thibetans and Chinese call Buddha,
appear ridiculous? In the North of Nepaul, Buddha is more often
called Fo than Buddha. The Book of Mahawansa
shows how early the work of Buddhistic proselytism began
in Nepaul; and history teaches that Buddhist monks crowded into
Syria* and Babylon in the
[[Footnote(s)]]--------------------------------------------------
* Not only did the Buddhist missionaries make their way to the
Mesopotamian Valley, but they even went so far west as Ireland.
The Rev. Dr. Lundy, in his work on "Monumental Christianity,"
referring to an Irish Round Tower, observes: "Henry O'Brien
explains this Round Tower Crucifixion as that of Buddha; the animals
as the elephant and the bull, sacred to Buddha, and into which
his soul entered after death; the two figures standing beside
the cross as Buddha's virgin mother, and Kama his favorite disciple.
The whole picture bears a close likeness to the Crucifixion, in
the cemetery of Pope Julius, except the animals, which are conclusive
proof that it cannot be Christian. It came ultimately from the
far East to Ireland, with the Phoenician colonists, who erected
the Round Towers as symbols of the life-giving and preserving
power of man and nature, and how that universal life is produced
through suffering and death."
When a Protestant clergyman is thus forced to confess the pre-Christian
existence of the crucifix in Ireland, its Buddhistic character,
and the penetration of the missionaries of that faith even to
that then remote portion of the earth, we need not wonder that
in the minds of the Nazarean contemporaries of Jesus and their
descendants, he [[Footnote continued on next page]]
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 291 SECRET CHRISTIAN AND OTHER SECTS.
century preceding our era, and that Buddhasp (Bodhisatva) the
alleged Chaldean, was the founder of Sabism or baptism.*
What the actual Baptists, el-Mogtasila, or Nazareans,
do believe, is fully set forth in other places, for they are the
very Nazarenes of whom we have spoken so much, and from whose
Codex we have quoted. Persecuted and threatened with
annihilation, they took refuge in the Nestorian body, and so allowed
themselves to be arbitrarily classed as Christians, but as soon
as opportunity offered, they separated, and now, for several centuries
have not even nominally deserved the appellation. That they are,
nevertheless, so called by ecclesiastical writers, is perhaps
not very difficult to comprehend. They know too much of early
Christianity to be left outside the pale, to bear witness against
it with their traditions, without the stigma of heresy and backsliding
being fastened upon them to weaken confidence in what they might
say.
But where else can science find so good a field for biblical research
as among this too neglected people? No doubt of their inheritance
of the Baptist's doctrine; their traditions are without a break.
What they teach now, their forefathers taught at every epoch where
they appear in history. They are the disciples of that John who
is said to have foretold the advent of Jesus, baptized him, and
declared that the latchet of his shoe he (John) was not worthy
to unloose. As they two -- the Messenger and the Messiah -- stood
in the Jordan, and the elder was consecrating the younger -- his
own cousin, too, humanly speaking -- the heavens opened and God
Himself, in the shape of a dove, descended in a glory upon his
"Beloved Son"! How then, if this tale be true, can we
account for the strange infidelity which we find among these surviving
Nazareans? So far from believing Jesus the Only Begotten Son of
God, they actually told the Persian missionaries, who, in the
seventeenth century, first discovered them to Europeans, that
the Christ of the New Testament was "a
false teacher," and that the Jewish system, as well as that
of Jesus (?), came from the realm of darkness! Who knows better
than they? Where can more competent living witnesses be found?
Christian eccle-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote continued from previous page]] should not have been
associated with that universally known emblem in the character
of a Redeemer.
In noticing this admission of Dr. Lundy, Mr. Charles Sotheran
remarked, in a lecture before the American Philological Society,
that both legends and archaeological remains unite in proving
beyond question "that Ireland, like every other nation, once
listened to the propagandists of Siddhartha-Buddha."
* "The religion of multiplied baptisms, the scion of the
still existent sect named the 'Christians of St. John,' or Mendaecans,
whom the Arabs call el-Mogtasila and Baptists. The Aramean
verb seba, origin of the name Sabian, is a synonym
of [[Baptizm]]" (Renan: "Vie de Jesus").
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 292 ISIS UNVEILED.
siastics would force upon us an anointed Saviour heralded by John,
and the disciples of this very Baptist, from the earliest centuries,
have stigmatized this ideal personage as an impostor, and his
putative Father, Jehovah, "a spurious God," the Ilda-Baoth
of the Ophites! Unlucky for Christianity will be the day when
some fearless and honest scholar shall persuade their elders to
let him translate the contents of their secret books and compile
their hoary traditions! It is a strange delusion that makes some
writers think that the Nazareans have no other sacred literature,
no other literary relics than four doctrinal works, and that curious
volume full of astrology and magic which they are bound to peruse
at the sunset hour, on every Sol's day (Sunday).
This search after truth leads us, indeed, into devious ways. Many
are the obstacles that ecclesiastical cunning has placed in the
way of our finding the primal source of religious ideas. Christianity
is on trial, and has been, ever since science felt strong enough
to act as Public Prosecutor. A portion of the case we are drafting
in this book. What of truth is there in this Theology? Through
what sects has it been transmitted? Whence was it
primarily derived? To answer, we must trace the history of
the World Religion, alike through the secret Christian sects as
through those of other great religious subdivisions of the race;
for the Secret Doctrine is the Truth, and that religion
is nearest divine that has contained it with least adulteration.
Our search takes us hither and thither, but never aimlessly do
we bring sects widely separated in chronological order, into critical
juxtaposition. There is one purpose in our work to be kept constantly
in view -- the analysis of religious beliefs, and the definition
of their descent from the past to the present. What has most blocked
the way is Roman Catholicism; and not until the secret principles
of this religion are uncovered can we comprehend the iron staff
upon which it leans to steady its now tottering steps.
We will begin with the Ophites, Nazareans, and the modern Druzes.
The personal views of the author, as they will be presented in
the diagrams, will be most decidedly at variance with the prejudiced
speculations of Irenaeus, Theodoret, and Epiphanius (the sainted
renegade, who sold his brethren), inasmuch as they will reflect
the ideas of certain kabalists in close relations with the mysterious
Druzes of Mount Lebanon. The Syrian okhals, or Spiritualists,
as they are sometimes termed, are in possession of a great many
ancient manuscripts and gems, bearing upon our present subject.
The first scheme -- that of the Ophites -- from the very
start, as we have shown, varies from the description given by
the Fathers, inasmuch as it makes Bythos or depth, a female emanation,
and assigns her a place
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 293 THE OPHITES, NAZAREANS, AND DRUZES.
answering to that of Pleroma, only in a far superior region; whereas,
the Fathers assure us that the Gnostics gave the name of Bythos
to the First Cause. As in the kabalistic system, it represents
the boundless and infinite void within which is concealed in darkness
the Unknown Primal motor of all. It envelops HIM
like a veil: in short we recognize again the "Shekinah"
of the En-Soph. Alone, the name of [[IAO]], Iao, marks
the upper centre, or rather the presumed spot where the Unknown
One may be supposed to dwell. Around the Iao, runs the legend,
[[CEMEC EILAM ABRASAX]]. "The eternal Sun-Abrasax" (the
Central Spiritual Sun of all the kabalists, represented in some
diagrams of the latter by the circle of Tiphereth).
From this region of unfathomable Depth, issues forth a circle
formed of spirals; which, in the language of symbolism, means
a grand cycle, [[kuklos]], composed of smaller ones.
Coiled within, so as to follow the spirals, lies the serpent --
emblem of wisdom and eternity -- the Dual Androgyne: the cycle
representing Ennoia or the Divine mind, and the Serpent
-- the Agathodaimon, Ophis -- the Shadow of the Light. Both were
the Logoi of the Ophites; or the unity as Logos manifesting itself
as a double principle of good and evil; for, according to their
views, these two principles are immutable, and existed from all
eternity, as they will ever continue to exist.
This symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent,
as the Saviour, coiled either around the Sacramental loaf or a
Tau. As a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos; when separated,
one is the Tree of Life (Spiritual); the other, the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human
couple -- the material production of Ilda-Baoth, but which owed
its spiritual principle to Sophia-Achamoth -- to eat of the forbidden
fruit, although Ophis represents Divine Wisdom.
The Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree
of Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India.
The Arasa-Maram, the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindus, since
Vishnu, during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty
shade, and there taught humanity philosophy and sciences, is called
the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protective
umbrage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils
their first lessons on immortality and initiate them in the mysteries
of life and death. The Java-ALEIM of
the Sacerdotal College are said, in the Chaldean tradition, to
have taught the sons of men to become like one of them. To the
present day Foh-tchou,* who lives in his Foh-Maeyu, or temple
of Buddha, on the
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Foh-Tchou, literally, in Chinese, meaning Buddha's lord, or
the teacher of the doctrines of Buddha -- Foh.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 294 ISIS UNVEILED.
top of "Kouin-long-sang,"* the great mountain, produces
his greatest religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese
Sung-Ming-Shu, or the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life,
for ignorance is death, and knowledge alone gives immortality.
This marvellous display takes place every three years, when an
immense concourse of Chinese Buddhists assemble in pilgrimage
at the holy place.
Ilda-Baoth, the "Son of Darkness," and the creator of
the material world, was made to inhabit the planet Saturn, which
identifies him still more with the Jewish Jehovah, who was Saturn
himself, according to the Ophites, and is by them denied his Sinaitic
name. From Ilda-Baoth emanate six spirits, who respectively dwell
with their father in the seven planets. These are Saba -- or Mars;
Adonai -- Sol, or the Sun;** Ievo -- the Moon; Eloi -- Jupiter;
Astaphoi -- Mercury (spirit of water); and Ouraios -- Venus, spirit
of fire.***
In their functions and description as given, these seven planets
are identical with the Hindu Sapta-Loca, the seven places
or spheres, or the superior and inferior worlds; for they represent
the kabalistic seven spheres. With the Ophites, they belong to
the lower spheres. The monograms of these Gnostic planets are
also Buddhistic, the latter differing, albeit slightly, from those
of the usual astrological "houses." In the explanatory
notes which accompany the diagram, the names of Cirenthius (the
disciple of Simon Magus), of Menander, and of certain other Gnostics,
whose names are not to be met with in the Patristic writings,
are often mentioned; such as Parcha (Ferho), for instance.****
The author of the diagram claims, moreover, for his sect, the
greatest antiquity, bringing forward, as a proof, that their "forefathers"
were the builders of all the "Dracontia" temples, even
of those beyond "the great waters." He asserts that
the "Just One," who was the mouth-piece of the Eternal
AEon (Christos), himself sent his disciples into the world, placing
them under the double protection of Sige (Silence, the
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* This mountain is situated south-west of China, almost between
China and Thibet.
** SOL, being situated, on the diagram, exactly
in the centre of the solar system (of which the Ophites appear
to have been cognizant) -- hence, under the direct vertical ray
of the Higher Spiritual Sun -- showers his brightness on all other
planets.
*** Speaking of Venus, Placidus, the astrologer, always maintained
that "her bluish lustre denotes heat." As to Mercury,
it was a strange fancy of the Ophites to represent him as a spirit
of water, when astrologically considered he is as "a cold,
dry, earthy, and melancholy star."
**** The name which Norberg translates, in his Onomasticon to
the "Codex Nazaraeus," as Ferho, stands, in the original,
Parcha Rabba. In the "Life of Manes," given
by Epiphanius, in his "Haer.," lxvi., is mentioned a
certain priest of Mithras, a friend of the great Haeresiarch Manes,
named Parchus.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 295 TWO COSMOGONIES COMPARED.
Logos), and Ophis, the Agathodaemon. The author alludes no doubt,
to the favorite expression of Jesus, "be wise as serpents,
and harmless as doves." On the diagram, Ophis is represented
as the Egyptian Cnuphis or Kneph, called Dracontiae. He appears
as a serpent standing erect on its tail, with a lion's head, crowned
and radiated, and bearing on the point of each ray one of the
seven Greek vowels -- symbol of the seven celestial spheres. This
figure is quite familiar to those who are acquainted with the
Gnostic gems,* and is borrowed from the Egyptian Hermetic
books. The description given in the Revelation, of
one "like unto the Son of Man," with his seven stars,
and who is the Logos, is another form of Ophis.
The Nazarene diagram, except in a change of names, is identical
with that of the Gnostics, who evidently borrowed their ideas
from it, adding a few appellations from the Basilidean and Valentinian
systems. To avoid repetition, we will now simply present the two
in parallel.
Thus, we find that, in the Nazarene Cosmogony, the names of their
powers and genii stand in the following relations to those of
the Gnostics:
[[Column 1]]
NAZARENE.
First Trinity.
Lord FERHO -- the Life which is no Life -- the Supreme
God. The Cause which produces the Light, or the Logos
in abscondito. The water of Jordanus Maximus
-- the water of Life, or Ajar, the feminine principle. Unity in
a Trinity, enclosed within the ISH AMON.
Second Trinity.
(The manifestation of the first.)
1. Lord MANO -- the King of Life and Light --
Rex Lucis. First LIFE, or the primitive
man.
2. Lord Jordan -- manifestation or emanation of Jordan
Maximus -- the waters of grace. Second LIFE.
3. The Superior Father -- Abatur. Third LIFE.
This Trinity produces also a duad -- Lord Ledhoio, and Fetahil,
the genius (the former, a perfect emanation, the latter, imperfect).
[[Column continued on next page]]
_____________
[[Column 2]]
GNOSTIC-OPHITE.
First Unity in a Trinity.
IAO -- the Ineffable Name of
the Unknown Deity -- Abraxas, and the "Eternal Spiritual
Sun." Unity enclosed within the Depth, Bythos, feminine principle
-- the boundless circle, within which lie all ideal forms. From
this Unity emanates the
Second Trinity.
(Idem.)
1. Ennoia -- mind.
2. Ophis, the Agathodaemon.
3. Sophia Androgyne -- wisdom; who, in her turn -- fecundated
with the Divine Light -- produces
Christos and Sophia-Achamoth (one perfect, the other imperfect),
as an emanation.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Its description is found in one of the magic books of the Egyptian
King Nechepsos, and its use prescribed on green jasper stones,
as a potent amulet. Galen mentions it in his work, "De Simp.
Med.," c. ix.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 296 ISIS UNVEILED.
[[Column 1 continued]]
Lord Jordan -- "the Lord of all Jordans," manifests
NETUBTO (Faith without Works).*
____________
[[Column 2 continued]]
Sophia-Achamoth emanates Ilda-Baoth -- the Demiurge, who produces
material and soulless creation. "Works without Faith"
(or grace).*
Moreover, the Ophite seven planetary genii, who emanated one from
the other, are found again in the Nazarene religion, under the
name of the "seven impostor-daemons," or stellars, who
"will deceive all the sons of Adam." These are Sol;
Spiritus Venereus (Holy Spirit, in her material aspect),**
the mother of the "seven badly-disposed stellars," answering
to the Gnostic Achamoth; Nebu, or Mercury, "a false
Messiah, who will deprave the ancient worship of God";***
SIN (or Luna, or Shuril); KIUN
(Kivan, or Saturn); Bel-Jupiter; and the seventh, Nerig, Mars
(Codex Nazaraeus, p. 57).
The Christos of the Gnostics is the chief of the seven AEons,
St. John's seven spirits of God; the Nazarenes have also
their seven genii or good Eons, whose chief is Rex Lucis,
MANO, their Christos. The Sapta Rishis,
the seven sages of India, inhabit the Sapta-Poura, or
the seven celestial cities.
What less or more do we find in the Universal Ecclesia, until
the days of the Reformation, and in the Roman Popish Church after
the separation? We have compared the relative value of the Hindu
Cosmogony; the Chaldeo, Zoroastrian, Jewish Kabala; and
that of the so-termed Haeretics. A correct diagram of the Judaico-CHRISTIAN
religion, to enforce which on the heathen who have furnished it,
are expended such great sums every year, would still better prove
the identity of the two; but we lack space and are also spared
the necessity of proving what is already thoroughly demonstrated.
In the Ophite gems of King (Gnostics), we find
the name of Iao repeated, and often confounded with that of Ievo,
while the latter simply represents one of the genii antagonistic
to Abraxas. In order that these names may not be taken as identical
with the name of the Jewish Jehovah we will at once explain this
word. It seems to us surpassingly strange that so many learned
archaeologists should have so little insisted that there was more
than one Jehovah, and disclaimed that the name origin-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Consider those two diametrically-opposed doctrines -- the Catholic
and the Protestant; the one preached by Paul, the semi-Platonist,
and the other by James, the orthodox Talmudist.
** The material, bad side of Sophia-Achamoth, who emanates from
herself Ilda-Baoth and his six sons.
*** See Norberg's translation of "Codex Nazaraeus,"
Preface. This proves once more the identification of Jesus with
Gautama-Buddha, in the minds of the Nazarene Gnostics, as Nebu
or Mercury is the planet sacred to the Buddhas.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 297 NEITHER DAVID NOR SOLOMON MOSAIC
JEWS.
ated with Moses. Iao is certainly a title of the Supreme Being,
and belongs partially to the Ineffable Name; but it neither
originated with nor was it the sole property of the Jews. Even
if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the tutelar "Spirit,"
the alleged protector and national deity of the "Chosen people
of Israel," there is yet no possible reason why other nationalities
should receive Him as the Highest and One-living God. But we deny
the assumption altogether. Besides, there is the fact that Yaho
or Iao was a "mystery name" from the beginning, 
and 
never came into use
before King David. Anterior to his time, few or no proper names
were compounded with iah or jah. It looks rather as though
David, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines (2
Samuel), brought thence the name of Jehovah. He
made Zadok high-priest, from whom came the Zadokites or Sadducees.
He lived and ruled first at Hebron 
,
Habir-on or Kabeir-town, where the rites of the four (mystery-gods)
were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon recognized either Moses
or the law of Moses. They aspired to build a temple to ,
like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and Venus, Adon
and Astarte.
Says Furst: "The very ancient name of God, Yaho, written
in the Greek [[Iao]], appears, apart from its derivation,
to have been an old mystic name of the Supreme deity of the
Shemites. (Hence it was told to Moses when initiated at HOR-EB
-- the cave, under the direction of Jethro, the Kenite
or Cainite priest of Midian.) In an old religion of the Chaldeans,
whose remains are to be found amongst the Neo-platonists, the
highest divinity enthroned above the seven heavens, representing
the Spiritual Light-Principle (nous)* and also
conceived as Derniurgus,** was called [[Iao]] 
,
who was, like the Hebrew Yaho, mysterious and unmentionable, and
whose name was communicated to the initiated. The Phoenicians
had a Supreme God whose name was trilateral and secret, and
he was [[Iao]]."***
But while Furst insists that the name has a Semitic origin, there
are other scholars who trace it farther than he does, and look
back beyond the classification of the Caucasians.
In Sanscrit we have Jah and Jaya, or Jaa and Ja-ga, and this throws
light on the origin of the famous festival of the car of Jaga-nath,
commonly called Jaggernath. Javhe means "he who is,"
and Dr. Spiegel traces even the Persian name of God, "Ahura,"
to the root ah,**** which
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Nous, the designation given by Anaxagoras to the Supreme Deity,
was taken from Egypt, where he was styled NOUT.
** By very few though, for the creators of the material universe
were always considered as subordinate deities to the Most High
God.
*** Lydus, 1. c., Ledrenus, 1. c.
**** "Eran das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris."
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 298 ISIS UNVEILED.
in Sanscrit is pronounced as, to breathe, and asu,
became, therefore, in time, synonymous with "Spirit."*
Rawlinson strongly supports the opinion of an Aryan or Vedic influence
on the early Babylonian mythology. We have given, a few pages
back, the strongest possible proofs of the identity of Vishnu
with Dag-on. The same may be adduced for the title of [[Iao]],
and its Sanscrit root traced in every country. JU
or Jovis is the oldest Latin name for God. "As male
he is Ju-piter, or Ju, the father, pitar being
Sanscrit for father; as feminine, Ju-no or Ju, the comforter
-- 
being the Phoenician
word for rest and comfort."** Professor Max Muller shows
that although "Dyaus," sky, does not occur as a masculine
in the ordinary Sanscrit, yet it does occur in the Veda, "and
thus bears witness to the early Aryan worship of Dyaus, the Greek
Zeus" (The Veda).
To grasp the real and primitive sense of the term [[IAO]],
and the reason of its becoming the designation for the most mysterious
of all deities, we must search for its origin in the figurative
phraseology of all the primitive people. We must first of all
go to the most ancient sources for our information. In one of
the Books of Hermes, for instance, we find him saying
that the number TEN is the mother of the soul, and that the life
and light are therein united. For "the number 1
(one) is born from the spirit, and the number 10 (ten) from matter";***
"the unity has made the TEN, the TEN the unity."****
The kabalistic gematria -- one of the methods for extracting
the hidden meaning from letters, words, and sentences -- is arithmetical.
It consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they
bear as numbers, in outward shape as well as in their
individual sense. Moreover, by the Themura (another method
used by the kabalists) any word could be made to yield its mystery
out of its anagram. Thus, we find the author of Sepher Jezira
saying, one or two centuries before our era:***** "ONE,
the spirit of the Alahim of Lives."****** So again,
in the oldest kabalistic diagrams, the ten Sephiroth
are represented as wheels or circles, and Adam Kadmon, the primitive
man, as an upright pillar. "Wheels and
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Asi means, moreover, "Thou art," in Sanscrit,
and also "sword," "Asi," without
the accent on the first vowel.
** Professor A. Wilder.
*** These sacred anagrams were called "Zeruph."
**** "Book of Numbers, or Book of the Keys."
***** The "Jezira," or book of the creation, was written
by Rabbi Akiba, who was the teacher and instructor of Simeon Ben
Iochai, who was called the prince of the kabalists, and wrote
the "Sohar." Franck asserts that "Jezira"
was written one century B.C. ("Die Kabbala," 65), but
other and as competent judges make it far older. At all events,
it is now proved that Simeon Ben Iochai lived before the
second destruction of the temple.
****** "Jezira," p. 8.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 299 IAO, THE TRILATERAL NAME.
seraphim and the holy creatures" (chioth), says Rabbi Akiba.*
In another system of the same branch of the symbolical Kabala,
called Athbach -- which arranges the letters of the alphabet
by pairs in three rows -- all the couples in the first row bear
the numerical value ten; and in the system of Simeon
Ben-Shetah,** the uppermost couple -- the most sacred of all,
is preceded by the Pythagorean cipher, one and a nought, or zero
-- 10.
If we can once appreciate the fact that, among all the peoples
of the highest antiquity, the most natural conception of the First
Cause manifesting itself in its creatures, and that to this they
could not but ascribe the creation of all, was that of an androgyne
deity; that the male principle was considered the vivifying invisible
spirit, and the female, mother nature; we shall be enabled to
understand how that mysterious cause came at first to be represented
(in the picture-writings, perhaps) as the combination of the Alpha
and Omega of numbers, a decimal, then as IAO,
a trilateral name, containing in itself a deep allegory.
IAO, in such a case, would -- etymologically
considered -- mean the "Breath of Life," generated or
springing forth between an upright male and an egg-shaped female
principle of nature; for, in Sanscrit, as means "to
be," "to live or exist"; and originally it meant
"to breathe." "From it," says Max Muller,
"in its original sense of breathing, the Hindus formed 'asu,'
breath, and 'asura,' the name of God, whether it meant the breathing
one or the giver of breath."*** It certainly meant the latter.
In Hebrew, "Ah" and "Iah" mean life. Cornelius
Agrippa, in his treatise on the Preeminence of Woman, shows
that "the word Eve suggests comparison with the mystic symbols
of the kabalists, the name of the woman having affinity with the
ineffable Tetragrammaton, the most sacred name of the divinity."
Ancient names were always consonant with the things they represented.
In relation to the mysterious name of the Deity in question, the
hitherto inexplicable hint of the kabalists as to the efficacy
of the letter H, "which Abram took away from his wife Sarah"
and "put into the middle of his own name,"
becomes clear.
It may perhaps be argued, by way of objection, that it is not
ascertained as yet at what period of antiquity the nought
occurs for the first time in Indian manuscripts or inscriptions.
Be that as it may, the case presents circumstantial evidence of
too strong a character not to carry a conviction of probability
with it. According to Max Muller "the two words 'cipher'
and 'zero,' which are in reality but one . . . are sufficient
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Ibid. See the constancy with which Ezekiel sticks in his vision
to the "wheels" of the "living
creatures" (ch. 1., passim).
** He was an Alexandrian Neo-platonic under the first of the Ptolemies.
*** "Chips," vol. i.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 300 ISIS UNVEILED.
to prove that our figures are borrowed from the Arabs."*
Cipher is the Arabic "cifron," and means empty,
a translation of the Sanscrit name of the nought "synya,"
he says. The Arabs had their figures from Hindustan, and never
claimed the discovery for themselves.** As to the Pythagoreans,
we need but turn to the ancient manuscripts of Boethius's Geometry,
composed in the sixth century, to find in the Pythagorean
numerals*** the 1 and the nought, as the first and final
cipher. And Porphyry, who quotes from the Pythagorean Moderatus,****
says that the numerals of Pythagoras were "hieroglyphical
symbols, by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature
of things."
Now, if the most ancient Indian manuscripts show as yet no trace
of decimal notation in them, Max Muller states very clearly that
until now he has found but nine letters (the initials of the Sanscrit
numerals) in them -- on the other hand we have records as ancient
to supply the wanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the
sacred imagery in the most ancient temples of the far East. Pythagoras
derived his knowledge from India; and we find Professor Max Muller
corroborating this statement, at least so far as allowing the
Neo-Pythagoreans to have been the first teachers of "ciphering"
among the Greeks and Romans; that "they, at Alexandria, or
in Syria, became acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted
them to the Pythagorean abacus" (our figures). This cautious
allowance implies that Pythagoras himself was acquainted with
but nine figures. So that we might reasonably answer
that although we possess no certain proof that the decimal notation
was known to Pythagoras, who lived on the very close of the archaic
ages,***** we yet have sufficient evidence to show that the full
numbers, as given by Boethius, were known to the Pythagoreans,
even before Alexandria was built.****** This evidence we find
in Aristotle, who says that "some philosophers hold that
ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to TEN in
all."******* This, we believe, will be sufficient to show
that the decimal notation was known among them at least as early
as four centuries B.C., for Aristotle does not seem to treat the
question as an innovation of the "Neo-Pythagoreans."
Besides, as we have remarked above, the representations of the
archaic deities, on the walls of the temples, are of themselves
quite suggestive enough. So, for instance, Vishnu is represented
in the Kurmavatara (his second avatar) as a tortoise sustaining
a circular pillar, on which the semblance of himself (Maya, or
the illusion) sits with all his attributes.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* See Max Muller's "Our Figures."
** Ibid.
*** See King's "Gnostics and their Remains," plate xiii.
**** "Vita Pythagor."
***** 608 B. C.
****** This city was built 332 B. C.
******* "Metaph.," vii. F.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 301 THE "LORD GOD" OF THE
HEBREWS.
While one hand holds a flower, another a club, the third a shell,
the fourth, generally the upper one, or at the right -- holds
on his forefinger, extended as the cipher 1, the chakra, or
discus, which resembles a ring, or a wheel, and might be taken
for the nought. In his first avatar, the Matsyavatam, when emerging
from the fish's mouth, he is represented in the same position.*
The ten-armed Durga of Bengal; the ten-headed Ravana, the giant;
Parvati -- as Durga, Indra, and Indrani, are found with this attribute,
which is a perfect representation of the May-pole.**
The holiest of the temples among the Hindus, are those of Jaggarnath.
This deity is worshipped equally by all the sects of India, and
Jaggarnath is named "The Lord of the World."
He is the god of the Mysteries, and his temples, which are most
numerous in Bengal, are all of a pyramidal form.
There is no other deity which affords such a variety of etymologies
as Iaho, nor a name which can be so variously pronounced. It is
only by associating it with the Masoretic points that the later
Rabbins succeeded in making Jehovah read "Adonai" --
or Lord. Philo Byblus spells it in Greek letters [[IEUO]]
-- IEVO. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounced it Iabe
(Yahva) and the Jews Yaho; which would
make it as we have shown I-ah-O. Diodorus states that "among
the Jews they relate that Moses called the God [[Iao]]."
It is on the authority of the Bible itself, therefore,
that we maintain that before his initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law,
Moses had never known the word Iaho. The future Deity of the sons
of Israel calls out from the burning bush and gives His name as
"I am that I am," and specifies carefully that He is
the "Lord God of the Hebrews" (Exod. iii. 18),
not of the other nations. Judging him by his own acts, throughout
the Jewish records, we doubt whether Christ himself, had he appeared
in the days of the Exodus, would have been welcomed by
the irascible Sinaitic Deity. However, "The Lord God,"
who becomes, on His own confession, Jehovah only in the 6th chapter
of Exodus (verse 3) finds his veracity put to
a startling test in Genesis xxii. 14, in which revealed
passage Abraham builds an altar to Jehovah-jireh.
It would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between
the mystery-God [[Iao]], adopted from the highest antiquity
by all who participated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests,
and his phonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so little
reverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics. Once having burdened
themselves like the Azazel of the
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* See drawings from the Temple of Rama, Coleman's "Mythology
of the Hindus." New York: J. W. Bouton, Publisher.
** See Hargrave Jennings: "Rosicrucians," p. 252.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 302 ISIS UNVEILED.
wilderness with the sins and iniquities of the Jewish nation,
it now appears hard for the Christians to have to confess that
those whom they thought fit to consider the "chosen people"
of God -- their sole predecessors in monotheism -- were, till
a very late period, as idolatrous and polytheistic as their neighbors.
The shrewd Talmudists have escaped the accusation for long centuries
by screening themselves behind the Masoretic invention. But, as
in everything else, truth was at last brought to light. We know
now that Ihoh must be
read Iahoh and Iah, not Jehovah. Iah of the Hebrews is plainly
the Iacchos (Bacchus) of the Mysteries; the God "from whom
the liberation of souls was expected -- Dionysus, Iacchos, Iahoh,
Iah."* Aristotle then was right when he said: "Joh
was Oromasdes and
Ahriman Pluto, for the God of heaven, Ahura-mazda, rides on a
chariot which the Horse of the Sun follows."** And
Dunlap quotes Psalm lxviii. 4, which reads:
"Praise him by his name Iach (),
Who rides upon the heavens, as on a horse,"
and then shows that "the Arabs represented Iauk (Iach) by
a horse. The Horse of the Sun (Dionysus)."*** Iah is a softening
of Iach, "he explains." 
ch and 
h
interchange; so s softens to h. The Hebrews
express the idea of LIFE both by a ch
and an h; as chiach, to be, hiah, to be; Iach, God of
Life, Iah, "I am."**** Well then may
we repeat these lines of Ausonius:
"Ogugia calls me Bacchus; Egypt thinks me Osiris;
The Musians name me Ph'anax; the Indi consider me Dionysus;
The Roman Mysteries call me Liber; the Arabian race Adonis!"
And the chosen people Adoni and Jehovah -- we may add.
How little the philosophy of the old secret doctrine was understood,
is illustrated in the atrocious persecutions of the Templars by
the Church, and in the accusation of their worshipping the Devil
under the shape of the goat -- Baphomet! Without going into the
old Masonic mysteries, there is not a Mason -- of those we mean
who do know something -- but has an idea of the true
relation that Baphomet bore to Azaze, the scapegoat of the wilderness,*****
whose character and meaning are entirely per-
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* K. O. Muller: "History of Greek Literature," p. 283;
"Movers," pp. 547-553; Dunlap: "Sod, the Mysteries
of Adoni," p. 21.
** See "Universal History," vol. v., p. 301.
*** "Spirit. Hist.," pp. 64, 67, 78.
**** "Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni," p. 21.
***** See Leviticus xvi. 8, 10, and other verses relating to the
biblical goat in the original texts.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 303 VISHNU THE LIFE-GIVER.
verted in the Christian translations. "This terrible and
venerable name of God," says Lanci,* librarian to the Vatican,
"through the pen of biblical glossers, has been a devil,
a mountain, a wilderness, and a he-goat."
In Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, the author
very correctly remarks that "this word should be divided
into Azaz and El," for "it signifies God of Victory,
but is here used in the sense of author of Death, in
contrast to Jehovah, the author of Life; the latter received
a dead goat as an offering."** The Hindu Trinity is composed
of three personages, which are convertible into one. The Trimurti
is one, and in its abstraction indivisible, and yet we see
a metaphysical division taking place from the first, and while
Brahma, though collectively representing the three, remains behind
the scenes, Vishnu is the Life-Giver, the Creator, and the Preserver,
and Siva is the Destroyer, and the Death-giving deity.
"Death to the Life-Giver, life to the Death-dealer.
The symbolical antithesis is grand and beautiful," says
Gliddon.*** "Deus est Daemon inversus"
of the kabalists now becomes clear. It is but the intense
and cruel desire to crush out the last vestige of the old philosophies
by perverting their meaning, for fear that their own dogmas should
not be rightly fathered on them, which impels the Catholic Church
to carry on such a systematic persecution in regard to Gnostics,
Kabalists, and even the comparatively innocent Masons.
Alas, alas! How little has the divine seed, scattered broadcast
by the hand of the meek Judean philosopher, thrived or brought
forth fruit.
He, who himself had shunned hypocrisy, warned against public prayer,
showing such contempt for any useless exhibition of the same,
could he but cast his sorrowful glance on the earth, from the
regions of eternal bliss, would see that this seed fell neither
on sterile rock nor by the way-side. Nay, it took deep root in
the most prolific soil; one enriched even to plethora with lies
and human gore!
"For, if the truth of God hath more abounded, through
my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?"
naively inquires Paul, the best and sincerest of all the apostles.
And he then adds: "Let us do evil, that good may
come!" (Romans iii. 7, 8). This is a confession
which we are asked to believe as having been a direct inspiration
from God! It explains, if it does not excuse, the maxim adopted
later by the Church that "it is an act of virtue to deceive
and lie, when by such means the interests of the Church might
be promoted."**** A maxim
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* "Sagra Scrittura," and "Paralipomeni."
** Article "Goat," p. 257.
*** "Types of Mankind," p. 600; "Royal Masonic
Cyclopaedia."
**** "Ecclesiastical History," vol. i., pp. 381, 382.
Read the whole quotations to appreciate the doctrine in full.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 304 ISIS UNVEILED.
applied in its fullest sense by that accomplished professor in
forgery, the Armenian Eusebius; or yet, that innocent-looking
bible-kaleidoscopist -- Irenaeus. And these men were followed
by a whole army of pious assassins, who, in the meanwhile, had
improved upon the system of deceit, by proclaiming that it was
lawful even to kill, when by murder they could enforce the new
religion. Theophilus, "that perpetual enemy of peace and
virtue," as the famous bishop was called; Cyril, Athanasius,
the murderer of Arius, and a host of other canonized "Saints,"
were all but too worthy successors of Saint Constantine,
who drowned his wife in boiling water; butchered his little nephew;
murdered, with his own pious hand, two of his brothers-in-law;
killed his own son Crispus, bled to death several men and women,
and smothered in a well an old monk. However, we are told by Eusebius
that this Christian Emperor was rewarded by a vision of
Christ himself, bearing his cross, who instructed him to march
to other triumphs, inasmuch as he would always protect him!
It is under the shade of the Imperial standard, with its famous
sign, "In hoc signo vinces," that
"visionary" Christianity, which
had crept on since the days of Irenaenus, arrogantly proclaimed
its rights in the full blaze of the sun. The Labarum had most
probably furnished the model for the true cross, which
was "miraculously," and agreeably to the Imperial will,
found a few years later. Nothing short of such a remarkable vision,
impiously doubted by some severe critics -- Dr. Lardner for one
-- and a fresh miracle to match, could have resulted in the finding
of a cross where there had never before been one. Still, we have
either to believe the phenomenon or dispute it at the risk of
being treated as infidels; and this, notwithstanding that upon
a careful computation we would find that the fragments of the
"true Cross" had multiplied themselves even more miraculously
than the five loaves in the invisible bakery, and the two fishes.
In all cases like this, where miracles can be so conveniently
called in, there is no room for dull fact. History must step out
that fiction may step in.
If the alleged founder of the Christian religion is now, after
the lapse of nineteen centuries, preached -- more or less unsuccessfully
however -- in every corner of the globe, we are at liberty to
think that the doctrines attributed to him would astonish and
dismay him more than any one else. A system of deliberate falsification
was adopted from the first. How determined Irenaeus was to crush
truth and build up a Church of his own on the mangled remains
of the seven primitive churches mentioned in the Revelation,
may be inferred from his quarrel with Ptolemaeus. And this
is again a case of evidence against which no blind faith can prevail.
Ecclesiastical history assures us that Christ's
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 305 WHO TAUGHT JESUS ABOUT GOD?
ministry was but of three years' duration. There is a decided
discrepancy on this point between the first three synoptics and
the fourth gospel; but it was left for Irenaeus to show to Christian
posterity that so early as A.D. 180 -- the probable time when
this Father wrote his works against heresies -- even such pillars
of the Church as himself either knew nothing certain about it,
or deliberately lied and falsified dates to support their own
views. So anxious was the worthy Father to meet every possible
objection against his plans, that no falsehood, no sophistry,
was too much for him. How are we to understand the following;
and who is the falsifier in this case? The argument of Ptolemaeus
was that Jesus was too young to have taught anything of much importance;
adding that "Christ preached for one year only, and
then suffered in the twelfth month." In this Ptolemaeus was
very little at variance with the gospels. But Irenaeus, carried
by his object far beyond the limits of prudence, from a mere discrepancy
between one and three years, makes it ten and even twenty
years! "Destroying his (Christ's) whole work, and robbing
him of that age which is both necessary and more
honorable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during
which also, as a teacher, he excelled all others." And then,
having no certain data to furnish, he throws himself back on tradition,
and claims that Christ had preached for over TEN years! (book
ii., c. 22, pp. 4, 5). In another place he makes Jesus fifty years
old.
But we must proceed in our work of showing the various origins
of Christianity, as also the sources from which Jesus derived
his own ideas of God and humanity.
The Koinobi lived in Egypt, where Jesus passed his early youth.
They were usually confounded with the Therapeutae, who were a
branch of this widely-spread society. Such is the opinion of Godfrey
Higgins and De Rebold. After the downfall of the principal sanctuaries,
which had already begun in the days of Plato, the many different
sects, such as the Gymnosophists and the Magi -- from whom Clearchus
very erroneously derives the former -- the Pythagoreans, the Sufis,
and the Reshees of Kashmere, instituted a kind of international
and universal Freemasonry, among their esoteric societies. "These
Rashees," says Higgins, "are the Essenians, Carmelites,
or Nazarites of the temple."* "That occult science known
by ancient priests under the name of regenerating fire,"
says Father Rebold, " . . . a science that for more
than 3,000 years was the peculiar possession of the Indian and
Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge of which Moses was initiated
at Heliopolis, where he was educated; and Jesus among the Essenian
priests of Egypt or Judea;
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* "Anacalypsis."
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 306 ISIS UNVEILED.
and by which these two great reformers, particularly the latter,
wrought many of the miracles mentioned in the Scriptures."*
Plato states that the mystic Magian religion, known under the
name of Machagistia, is the most uncorrupted form of
worship in things divine. Later, the Mysteries of the Chaldean
sanctuaries were added to it by one of the Zoroasters and Darius
Hystaspes. The latter completed and perfected it still more with
the help of the knowledge obtained by him from the learned ascetics
of India, whose rites were identical with those of the initiated
Magi.** Ammian, in his history of Julian's Persian expedition,
gives the story by stating that one day Hystaspes, as he was boldly
penetrating into the unknown regions of Upper India, had come
upon a certain wooded solitude, the tranquil recesses of which
were "occupied by those exalted sages, the Brachmanes (or
Shamans). Instructed by their teaching in the science of the
motions of the world and of the heavenly bodies, and in pure
religious rites . . . he transfused them into the creed of
the Magi. The latter, coupling these doctrines with their own
peculiar science of foretelling the future, have handed down
the whole through their descendants to succeeding ages."***
It is from these descendants that the Sufis, chiefly composed
of Persians and Syrians, acquired their proficient knowledge in
astrology, medicine, and the esoteric doctrine of the ages. "The
Sufi doctrine," says C. W. King, "involved the grand
idea of one universal creed which could be secretly held under
any profession of an outward faith; and, in fact, took virtually
the same view of religious systems as that in which the ancient
philosophers had regarded such matters."**** The mysterious
Druzes of Mount Lebanon are the descendants of all these. Solitary
Copts, earnest students scattered hither and thither throughout
the sandy solitudes of Egypt, Arabia, Petraea, Palestine, and
the impenetrable forests of Abyssinia, though rarely met with,
may sometimes be seen. Many and various are the nationalities
to which belong the disciples of that mysterious school, and many
the side-shoots of that
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Quoted in the "Seers of the Ages," by J. M. Peebles.
** We hold to the idea -- which becomes self-evident when the
Zoroastrian imbroglio is considered -- that there were, even in
the days of Darius, two distinct sacerdotal castes of Magi: the
initiated and those who were allowed to officiate in the popular
rites only. We see the same in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Belonging
to every temple there were attached the "hierophants"
of the inner sanctuary, and the secular clergy who were
not even instructed in the Mysteries. It is against the absurdities
and superstitions of the latter that Darius revolted, and "crushed
them," for the inscription of his tomb shows that he was
a "hierophant" and a Magian himself. It is also but
the exoteric rites of this class of Magi which descended to posterity,
for the great secresy in which were preserved the "Mysteries"
of the true Chaldean Magi was never violated, however much guess-work
may have been expended on them.
*** xxiii., 6.
**** "The Gnostics and their Remains," p. 185.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 307 THE HERMETIC BROTHERS OF EGYPT.
one primitive stock. The secresy preserved by these sub-lodges,
as well as by the one and supreme great lodge, has ever been proportionate
to the activity of religious persecutions; and now, in the face
of the growing materialism, their very existence is becoming a
mystery.*
But it must not be inferred, on that account, that such a mysterious
brotherhood is but a fiction, not even a name, though
it remains unknown to this day. Whether its affiliates are called
by an Egyptian, Hindu, or Persian name, it matters not. Persons
belonging to one of these sub-brotherhoods have been met by trustworthy,
and not unknown persons, besides the present writer, who states
a few facts concerning them, by the special permission of one
who has a right to give it. In a recent and very valuable
work on secret societies, K. R. H. Mackenzie's Royal
Masonic Cyclopaedia, we find the learned author himself,
an honorary member of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge, No. 2 (Scotland),
and a Mason not likely to be imposed upon, stating the following,
under the head, Hermetic Brothers of Egypt:
"An occult fraternity, which has endured from very ancient
times, having a hierarchy of officers, secret signs, and passwords,
and a peculiar method of instruction in science, religion, and
philosophy. . . . If we may believe those who, at the present
time, profess to belong to it, the philosopher's stone, the
elixir of life, the art of invisibility, and the power of
communication directly with the ultramundane life, are parts of
the inheritance they possess. The writer has met with only three
persons who maintained the actual existence of this body of religious
philosophers, and who hinted that they themselves were actually
members. There was no reason to doubt the good faith of these
individuals -- apparently unknown to each other, and men of moderate
competence, blameless lives, austere manners, and almost ascetic
in their habits.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* These are truths which cannot fail to impress themselves upon
the minds of earnest thinkers. While the Ebionites, Nazarites,
Hemerobaptists, Lampseans, Sabians, and the many other earliest
sects which wavered later between the varying dogmatisms suggested
to them by the esoteric and misunderstood parables of
the Nazarene teacher, whom they justly regarded as a prophet,
there were men, for whose names we would vainly search history,
who preserved the secret doctrines of Jesus as pure and unadulterated
as they had been received. And still, even all these above-mentioned
and conflicting sects were far more orthodox in their Christianity,
or rather Christism, than the Churches of Constantine and Rome.
"It was a strange fate that befell these unfortunate people"
(the Ebionites), says Lord Amberley, "when, overwhelmed by
the flood of heathenism that had swept into the Church, they were
condemned as heretics. Yet, there is no evidence that they had
ever swerved from the doctrines of Jesus, or of the disciples
who knew him in his lifetime. . . . Jesus himself was circumcised
. . . reverenced the temple at Jerusalem as 'a house of prayer
for all nations.' . . . But the torrent of progress swept past
the Ebionites, and left them stranded on the shore" ("An
Analysis of Religious Beliefs," by Viscount Amberley, vol.
i., p. 446).
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 308 ISIS UNVEILED.
They all appeared to be men of forty to forty-five years of age,
and evidently of vast erudition . . . their knowledge of languages
not to be doubted. . . . They never remained long in any one country,
but passed away without creating notice."*
Another of such sub-brotherhoods is the sect of the Pitris, in
India. Known by name, now that Jacolliot has brought it into public
notice, it yet is more arcane, perhaps, than the brotherhood that
Mr. Mackenzie names the "Hermetic Brothers." What Jacolliot
learned of it, was from fragmentary manuscripts delivered to him
by Brahmans, who had their reasons for doing so, we must believe.
The Agrouchada Parikshai gives certain details
about the association, as it was in days of old, and, when explaining
mystic rites and magical incantations, explains nothing at all,
so that the mystic L'om, L'Rhum, Sh'hrum, and Sho-rim Ramaya-Namaha,
remain, for the mystified writer, as much a puzzle as ever. To
do him justice, though, he fully admits the fact, and does not
enter upon useless speculations.
Whoever desires to assure himself that there now exists a religion
which has baffled, for centuries, the impudent inquisitiveness
of missionaries, and the persevering inquiry of science, let him
violate, if he can, the seclusion of the Syrian Druzes. He will
find them numbering over 80,000 warriors, scattered from the plain
east of Damascus to the western coast. They covet no proselytes,
shun notoriety, keep friendly -- as far as possible -- with both
Christians and Mahometans, respect the religion of every other
sect or people, but will never disclose their own secrets. Vainly
do the missionaries stigmatize them as infidels, idolaters, brigands,
and thieves. Neither threat, bribe, nor any other consideration
will induce a Druze to become a convert to dogmatic Christianity.
We have heard of two in fifty years, and both have finished their
careers in prison, for drunkenness and theft. They proved to be
"real Druzes,"** said one
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* What will, perhaps, still more astonish American readers, is
the fact that, in the United States, a mystical fraternity now
exists, which claims an intimate relationship with one of the
oldest and most powerful of Eastern Brotherhoods. It is known
as the Brotherhood of Luxor, and its faithful members have the
custody of very important secrets of science. Its ramifications
extend widely throughout the great Republic of the West. Though
this brotherhood has been long and hard at work, the secret of
its existence has been jealously guarded. Mackenzie describes
it as having "a Rosicrucian basis, and numbering many members"
("Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia," p. 461). But, in this,
the author is mistaken; it has no Rosicrucian basis. The name
Luxor is primarily derived from the ancient Beloochistan city
of Looksur, which lies between Bela and Kedgee, and also gave
its name to the Egyptian city.
** These people do not accept the name of Druzes, but regard the
appellation as an insult. They call themselves the "disciples
of Hamsa," their Messiah, who came to them, in the tenth
century, from the "Land of the Word of God," and, together
with his disciple, Mochtana Boha-eddin, committed this Word
to writing, and entrusted it [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 309 THE BROTHERHOOD OF LUXOR.
of their chiefs, in discussing the subject. There never was a
case of an initiated Druze becoming a Christian. As to
the uninitiated, they are never allowed to even see the sacred
writings, and none of them have the remotest idea where these
are kept. There are missionaries in Syria who boast of having
in their possession a few copies. The volumes alleged to be the
correct expositions from these secret books (such as the translation
by Petis de la Croix, in 1701, from the works presented by Nasr-Allah
to the French king), are nothing more than a compilation of "secrets,"
known more or less to every inhabitant of the southern ranges
of Lebanon and Anti-Libanus. They were the work of an apostate
Dervish, who was expelled from the sect Hanafi, for improper conduct
-- the embezzlement of the money of widows and orphans. The Expose
de la Religion des Druzes, in two volumes, by Sylvestre de
Sacy (1828), is another net-work of hypotheses. A copy of this
work was to be found, in 1870, on the window-sill of one of their
principal Holowey, or place of religious meeting. To
the inquisitive question of an English traveller, as to their
rites, the Okhal,* a venerable old man, who
spoke English as well as French, opened the volume of de Sacy,
and, offering it to his interlocutor, remarked, with a benevolent
smile: "Read this instructive and truthful book; I could
explain to you neither better nor more correctly the secrets of
God and our blessed Hamsa, than it does." The traveller understood
the hint.
Mackenzie says they settled at Lebanon about the tenth century,
and "seem to be a mixture of Kurds, Mardi-Arabs, and other
semi-civilized tribes. Their religion is compounded of Judaism,
Christianity, and Mahometanism. They have a regular order of priesthood
and a kind of hierarchy . . . there is a regular system
of passwords and signs. . . . Twelve month's probation, to which
either sex is admitted, preceded initiation."
We quote the above only to show how little even persons as trustworthy
as Mr. Mackenzie really know of these mystics.
Mosheim, who knows as much, or we should rather say as little,
as any others, is entitled to the merit of candidly admitting
that "their religion is peculiar to themselves, and is involved
in some mystery." We should say it was -- rather!
That their religion exhibits traces of Magianism and Gnosticism
is natural, as the whole of the Ophite esoteric philosophy is
at the bottom of it. But the characteristic dogma of the Druzes
is the absolute unity
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote continued from previous page]] to the care of a few
initiates, with the injunction of the greatest secresy. They are
usually called Unitarians.
* The Okhal (from the Arabic akl -- intelligence or wisdom)
are the initiated, or wise men of this sect. They hold, in their
mysteries, the same position as the hierophant of old, in the
Eleusinian and others.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 310 ISIS UNVEILED.
of God. He is the essence of life, and although incomprehensible
and invisible, is to be known through occasional manifestations
in human form.* Like the Hindus they hold that he
was incarnated more than once on earth. Hamsa was the precursor
of the last manifestation to be (the tenth avatar)**
not the inheritor of Hakem, who is yet to come. Hamsa was
the personification of the "Universal Wisdom." Bohaeddin
in his writings calls him Messiah. The whole number of his disciples,
or those who at different ages of the world have imparted wisdom
to mankind, which the latter as invariably have forgotten and
rejected in course of time, is one hundred and sixty-four (164,
the kabalistic s d k). Therefore, their stages
or degrees of promotion after initiation are five; the first three
degrees are typified by the "three feet of the candlestick
of the inner Sanctuary, which holds the light of the five
elements"; the last two degrees, the most important and terrifying
in their solemn grandeur belonging to the highest orders; and
the whole five degrees emblematically represent the said five
mystic Elements. The "three feet are the holy Application,
the Opening, and the Phantom,"
says one of their books; on man's inner and outer soul, and
his body, a phantom, a passing shadow. The body, or matter, is
also called the "Rival," for "he is the minister
of sin, the Devil ever creating dissensions between the Heavenly
Intelligence (spirit) and the soul, which he tempts incessantly."
Their ideas on transmigration are Pythagorean and kabalistic.
The spirit, or Temeami (the divine soul), was in Elijah and John
the Baptist; and the soul of Jesus was that of H'amsa; that is
to say, of the same degree of purity and sanctity. Until their
resurrection, by which they understand the day when the spiritual
bodies of men will be absorbed into God's own essence and being
(the Nirvana of the Hindus), the souls of men will keep their
astral forms, except the few chosen ones who, from the moment
of their separation from their bodies, begin to exist as pure
spirits. The life of man they divide into soul, body, and intelligence,
or mind. It is the latter which imparts and communicates to the
soul the divine spark from its H'amsa (Christos).
They have seven great commandments which are imparted equally
to all the uninitiated; and yet, even these well-known articles
of faith have been so mixed up in the accounts of outside writers,
that, in one of the best Cyclopaedias of America (Appleton's),
they are garbled after the fashion that may be seen in the comparative
tabulation below; the spurious and the true order parallel:
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* This is the doctrine of the Gnostics who held Christos to be
the personal immortal Spirit of man.
** The ten Messiahs or avatars remind again of the five Buddhistic
and ten Brahmanical avatars of Buddha and Christna.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 311 THE DRUZES OF MOUNT LEBANON.
[[Column 1]]
CORRECT VERSION OF THE COMMANDMENTS
AS IMPARTED ORALLY BY THE TEACHERS.*
1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of Deity.
2. The essential excellence of Truth.
3. Toleration; right given to all men and women to freely express
their opinions on religious matters, and make the latter subservient
to reason.
4. Respect to all men and women according to their character and
conduct.
5. Entire submission to God's decrees.
6. Chastity of body, mind, and soul.
7. Mutual help under all conditions.
___________
[[Column 2]]
GARBLED VERSION REPORTED
BY THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES
AND GIVEN IN PRETENDED EXPOSITIONS.**
1. (2) " 'Truth in words,' meaning in practice, only
truth to the religion and to the initiated; it is lawful to
act and to speak falsehood to men of another creed."***
2. (7) "Mutual help, watchfulness, and protection."
3. (?) "To renounce all other religions."****
4. (?) "To be separate from infidels of every kind, not externally
but only in heart."*****
5. (1) "Recognize God's eternal unity."
6. (5) "Satisfied with God's acts."
7. (5) "Resigned to God's will."
As will be seen, the only expose in the above is that of the great
ignorance, perhaps malice, of the writers who, like Sylvestre
de Sacy, undertake to enlighten the world upon matters concerning
which they know nothing.
"Chastity, honesty, meekness, and mercy," are thus the
four theological virtues of all Druzes, besides several others
demanded from the initiates: "murder, theft, cruelty, covetousness,
slander," the five sins, to which several other sins are
added in the sacred tablets, but which we must abstain from giving.
The morality of the Druzes is strict and
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* See, farther on, a letter from an "Initiate."
** In this column the first numbers are those given in the article
on the Druzes in the "New American Cyclopaedia"
(Appleton's), vol. vi., p. 631. The numbers in parentheses show
the sequence in which the commandments would stand were they given
correctly.
*** This pernicious doctrine belongs to the old policy of the
Catholic Church, but is certainly false as regards the Druzes.
They maintain that it is right and lawful to withhold the
truth about their own tenets, no one outside their own sect
having a right to pry into their religion. The okhals never
countenance deliberate falsehood in any form, although the laymen
have many a time got rid of the spies sent by the Christians to
discover their secrets, by deceiving them with sham initiations.
(See the letter of Prof. Rawson to the author, p. 313.)
**** This commandment does not exist in the Lebanon teaching.
***** There is no such commandment, but the practice thereof exists
by mutual agreement, as in the days of the Gnostic persecution.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 312 ISIS UNVEILED.
uncompromising. Nothing can tempt one of these Lebanon Unitarians
to go astray from what he is taught to consider his duty. Their
ritual being unknown to outsiders, their would-be historians
have hitherto denied them one. Their "Thursday meetings"
are open to all, but no interloper has ever participated in the
rites of initiation which take place occasionally on Fridays in
the greatest secresy. Women are admitted to them as well as men,
and they play a part of great importance at the initiation of
men. The probation, unless some extraordinary exception is made,
is long and severe. Once, in a certain period of time, a solemn
ceremony takes place, during which all the elders and the initiates
of the highest two degrees start out for a pilgrimage of several
days to a certain place in the mountains. They meet within the
safe precincts of a monastery said to have been erected during
the earliest times of the Christian era. Outwardly one sees but
old ruins of a once grand edifice, used, says the legend, by some
Gnostic sects as a place of worship during the religious persecutions.
The ruins above ground, however, are but a convenient mask; the
subterranean chapel, halls, and cells, covering an area of ground
far greater than the upper building; while the richness of ornamentation,
the beauty of the ancient sculptures, and the gold and silver
vessels in this sacred resort, appear like "a dream of glory,"
according to the expression of an initiate. As the lamaseries
of Mongolia and Thibet are visited upon grand occasions by the
holy shadow of "Lord Buddha," so here, during the ceremonial,
appears the resplendent ethereal form of Hamsa, the Blessed, which
instructs the faithful. The most extraordinary feats of what would
be termed magic take place during the several nights that the
convocation lasts; and one of the greatest mysteries -- faithful
copy of the past -- is accomplished within the discreet bosom
of our mother earth; not an echo, nor the faintest sound, not
a glimmer of light betrays without the grand secret of the initiates.
Hamsa, like Jesus, was a mortal man, and yet "Hamsa"
and "Christos" are synonymous terms as to their inner
and hidden meaning. Both are symbols of the Nous, the
divine and higher soul of man -- his spirit. The doctrine taught
by the Druzes on that particular question of the duality of spiritual
man, consisting of one soul mortal, and another immortal, is identical
with that of the Gnostics, the older Greek philosophers, and other
initiates.
Outside the East we have met one initiate (and only one), who,
for some reasons best known to himself, does not make a secret
of his initiation into the Brotherhood of Lebanon. It is the learned
traveller and artist, Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York City.
This gentleman has passed many years in the East, four times visited
Palestine, and has trav-
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 313 A LETTER FROM AN INITIATE.
elled to Mecca. It is safe to say that he has a priceless store
of facts about the beginnings of the Christian Church, which none
but one who had had free access to repositories closed against
the ordinary traveller could have collected. Professor Rawson,
with the true devotion of a man of science, noted down every important
discovery he made in the Palestinian libraries, and every precious
fact orally communicated to him by the mystics he encountered,
and some day they will see the light. He has most obligingly sent
us the following communication, which, as the reader will perceive,
fully corroborates what is above written from our personal experience
about the strange fraternity incorrectly styled the Druzes:
"34 BOND ST., NEW
YORK, June 6, 1877.
". . . Your note, asking me to give you an account of my
initiation into a secret order among the people commonly known
as Druzes, in Mount Lebanon, was received this morning. I took,
as you are fully aware, an obligation at that time to conceal
within my own memory the greater part of the 'mysteries,' with
the most interesting parts of the 'instructions'; so that what
is left may not be of any service to the public. Such information
as I can rightfully give, you are welcome to have and use as you
may have occasion.
"The probation in my case was, by special dispensation,
made one month, during which time I was 'shadowed' by a priest,
who served as my cook, guide, interpreter, and general servant,
that he might be able to testify to the fact of my having strictly
conformed to the rules in diet, ablutions, and other matters.
He was also my instructor in the text of the ritual, which we
recited from time to time for practice, in dialogue or in song,
as it may have been. Whenever we happened to be near a Druze village,
on a Thursday, we attended the 'open' meetings, where men and
women assembled for instruction and worship, and to expose to
the world generally their religious practices. I was never present
at a Friday 'close' meeting before my initiation, nor do I believe
any one else, man or woman, ever was, except by collusion with
a priest, and that is not probable, for a false priest forfeits
his life. The practical jokers among them sometimes 'fool' a too
curious 'Frank' by a sham initiation, especially if such a one
is suspected of having some connection with the missionaries at
Beirut or elsewhere.
"The initiates include both women and men, and the ceremonies
are of so peculiar a nature that both sexes are required to assist
in the ritual and 'work.' The 'furniture' of the 'prayer-house'
and of the 'vision-chamber' is simple, and except for convenience
may consist of but a strip of carpet. In the 'Gray Hall' (the
place is never named, and is underground, not far from
Bayt-ed-Deen) there are some rich decorations and valuable pieces
of ancient furniture, the work of Arab silversmiths five or six
centuries ago, inscribed and dated. The day of initiation must
be a continual fast from daylight to sunset in winter, or six
o'clock in summer, and the ceremony is from beginning to end a
series of trials and temptations, calculated to test the endurance
of the candidate under physical and mental pressure. It is seldom
that any but the young man or woman succeeds in 'winning' all
the 'prizes,' since nature will sometimes exert itself in
spite of the most stubborn will, and the neophyte fail of passing
some of the tests. In such a case the probation is extended another
year, when another trial is had.
"Among other tests of the neophyte's self-control are the
following: Choice pieces
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 314 ISIS UNVEILED.
of cooked meat, savory soup, pilau, and other appetizing dishes,
with sherbet, coffee, wine, and water, are set, as if accidentally,
in his way, and he is left alone for a time with the tempting
things. To a hungry and fainting soul the trial is severe. But
a more difficult ordeal is when the seven priestesses retire,
all but one, the youngest and prettiest, and the door is closed
and barred on the outside, after warning the candidate that he
will be left to his 'reflections,' for half an hour. Wearied by
the long-continued ceremonial, weak with hunger, parched with
thirst, and a sweet reaction coming after the tremendous strain
to keep his animal nature in subjection, this moment of privacy
and of temptation is brimful of peril. The beautiful young vestal,
timidly approaching, and with glances which lend a double magnetic
allurement to her words, begs him in low tones to 'bless her.'
Woe to him if he does! A hundred eyes see him from secret peep-holes,
and only to the ignorant neophyte is there the appearance of concealment
and opportunity.
"There is no infidelity, idolatry, or other really bad feature
in the system. They have the relics of what was once a grand form
of nature-worship, which has been contracted under a despotism
into a secret order, hidden from the light of day, and exposed
only in the smoky glare of a few burning lamps, in some damp cave
or chapel under ground. The chief tenets of their religious teachings
are comprised in seven 'tablets,' which are these, to state them
in general terms:
"1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of deity.
"2. The essential excellence of truth.
"3. The law of toleration as to all men and women
in opinion.
"4. Respect for all men and women as to character and conduct.
"5. Entire submission to God's decrees as to fate.
"6. Chastity of body and mind and soul.
"7. Mutual help under all conditions.
"These tenets are not printed or written. Another set is
printed or written to mislead the unwary, but with these we are
not concerned.
"The chief results of the initiation seemed to be a kind
of mental illusion or sleep-waking, in which the neophyte saw,
or thought he saw, the images of people who were known to be absent,
and in some cases thousands of miles away. I thought (or perhaps
it was my mind at work) I saw friends and relatives that I knew
at the time were in New York State, while I was then in Lebanon.
How these results were produced I cannot say. They appeared in
a dark room, when the 'guide' was talking, the 'company' singing
in the next 'chamber,' and near the close of the day, when I was
tired out with fasting, walking, talking, singing, robing, unrobing,
seeing a great many people in various conditions as to dress and
undress, and with great mental strain in resisting certain physical
manifestations that result from the appetites when they overcome
the will, and in paying close attention to the passing scenes,
hoping to remember them -- so that I may have been unfit to judge
of any new and surprising phenomena, and more especially of those
apparently magical appearances which have always excited my suspicion
and distrust. I know the various uses of the magic-lantern, and
other apparatus, and took care to examine the room where the 'visions'
appeared to me the same evening, and the next day, and several
times afterwards, and knew that, in my case, there was no use
made of any machinery or other means besides the voice of the
'guide and instructor.' On several occasions afterward, when at
a great distance from the 'chamber,' the same or similar visions
were produced, as, for instance, in Hornstein's Hotel at Jerusalem.
A daughter-in-law of a well-known Jewish merchant in Jerusalem
is an initiated 'sister,' and can produce the visions almost at
will on any one who will
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 315 THE "MOTHER LODGE"
AND ITS BRANCHES.
live strictly according to the rules of the Order for a few weeks,
more or less, according to their nature, as gross or refined,
etc.
"I am quite safe in saying that the initiation is so peculiar
that it could not be printed so as to instruct one who had not
been 'worked' through the 'chamber.' So it would be even more
impossible to make an expose of them than of the Freemasons. The
real secrets are acted and not spoken, and require several initiated
persons to assist in the work.
"It is not necessary for me to say how some of the notions
of that people seem to perpetuate certain beliefs of the ancient
Greeks -- as, for instance, the idea that a man has two souls,
and many others -- for you probably were made familiar with them
in your passage through the 'upper' and 'lower chamber.' If I
am mistaken in supposing you an 'initiate,' please excuse me.
I am aware that the closest friends often conceal that 'sacred
secret' from each other; and even husband and wife may live --
as I was informed in Dayr-el-Kamar was the fact in one family
there -- for twenty years together and yet neither know anything
of the initiation of the other. You, undoubtedly, have good reasons
for keeping your own counsel,
"Yours truly,
"A. L. RAWSON."
Before we close the subject we may add that if a stranger ask
for admission to a "Thursday" meeting he will never
be refused. Only, if he is a Christian, the okhal will
open a Bible and read from it; and if a Mahometan, he
will hear a few chapters of the Koran, and the ceremony
will end with this. They will wait until he is gone, and then,
shutting well the doors of their convent, take to their own rites
and books, passing for this purpose into their subterranean sanctuaries.
"The Druzes remain, even more than the Jews, a peculiar people,"
says Colonel Churchill,* one of the few fair and strictly impartial
writers. "They marry within their own race; they are rarely
if ever converted; they adhere tenaciously to their traditions,
and they baffle all efforts to discover their cherished secrets.
. . . The bad name of that caliph whom they claim as their founder
is fairly compensated by the pure lives of many whom they honor
as saints, and by the heroism of their feudal leaders."
And yet the Druzes may be said to belong to one of the least esoteric
of secret societies. There are others far more powerful and learned,
the existence of which is not even suspected in Europe. There
are many branches belonging to the great "Mother Lodge"
which, mixed up with certain communities, may be termed secret
sects within other sects. One of them is the sect commonly known
as that of Laghana-Sastra. It reckons several thousand adepts
who are scattered about in small groups in the south of the Dekkan,
India. In the popular superstition, this sect is dreaded on account
of its great reputation for magic and sorcery. The Brahmans accuse
its members of atheism and sacrilege, for none of them
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* "Mount Lebanon," vol. 3. London, 1853.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 316 ISIS UNVEILED.
will consent to recognize the authority of either the Vedas
or Manu, except so far as they conform to the versions
in their possession, and which they maintain are professedly the
only original texts; the Laghana-Sastra have neither temples nor
priests, but, twice a month, every member of the community has
to absent himself from home for three days. Popular rumor, originated
among their women, ascribes such absences to pilgrimages performed
to their places of fortnightly resort. In some secluded mountainous
spots, unknown and inaccessible to other sects, hidden far from
sight among the luxurious vegetation of India, they keep their
bungalows, which look like small fortresses, encircled as they
are by lofty and thick walls. These, in their turn, are surrounded
by the sacred trees called assonata, and in Tamul arassa
maram. These are the "sacred groves," the originals
of those of Egypt and Greece, whose initiates also built their
temples within such "groves" inaccessible to the profane.*
It will not be found without interest to see what Mr. John Yarker,
Jr., has to say on some modern secret societies among the Orientals.
"The nearest resemblance to the Brahmanical Mysteries, is
probably found in the very ancient 'Paths' of
the Dervishes, which are usually governed by twelve officers,
the oldest 'Court' superintending the others by right of seniority.
Here the master of the 'Court' is called 'Sheik,'
and has his deputies, 'Caliphs,' or successors, of which
there may be many (as, for instance, in the brevet degree of a
Master Mason). The order is divided into at least four columns,
pillars, or degrees. The first step is that of 'Humanity,' which
supposes attention to the written law, and 'annihilation in the
Sheik.' The second is that of the 'Path,' in
which the 'Murid,' or disciple, attains spiritual
powers and 'self-annihilation' into the 'Peer' or founder of the
'Path.' The third stage is called 'Knowledge,' and the 'Murid'
is supposed to become inspired, called 'annihilation into
the Prophet.' The fourth stage leads him even to God, when he
becomes a part of the Deity and sees Him in all things. The first
and second stages have received modern subdivisions, as 'Integrity,'
'Virtue,' 'Temperance,' 'Benevolence.' After this the Sheik confers
upon him the grade of 'Caliph,' or Honorary Master, for in their
mystical language, 'the man must die before the saint can be born.'
It will be seen that this kind of mysticism is applicable to Christ
as founder of a 'Path.' "
To this statement, the author adds the following on the Bektash
Dervishes, who "often initiated the Janizaries. They wear
a small marble cube spotted with blood. Their ceremony
is as follows: Before reception a year's probation is required,
during which false secrets are
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Every temple in India is surrounded by such belts of sacred
trees. And like the Koum-boum of Kansu (Mongolia) no one but an
initiate has a right to approach them.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 317 INITIATION AMONG THE BEKTASH
DERVISHES.
given to test the candidate; he has two godfathers and is
divested of all metals and even clothing; from the wool of
a sheep a cord is made for his neck, and a girdle for his loins;
he is led into the centre of a square room, presented as a slave,
and seated upon a large stone with twelve escallops; his arms
are crossed upon his breast, his body inclined forward, his right
toes extended over his left foot; after various prayers he is
placed in a particular manner, with his hand in a peculiar way
in that of the Sheik, who repeats a verse from the Koran:
'Those who on giving thee their hand swear to thee an oath,
swear it to God, the hand of God is placed in their hand; whoever
violates this oath, will do so to his hurt, and to whoever remains
faithful God will give a magnificent reward.' Placing the hand
below the chin is their sign, perhaps in memory of their vow.
All use the double triangles. The Brahmans inscribe the angles
with their trinity, and they possess also the Masonic sign of
distress as used in France."*
From the very day when the first mystic found the means of communication
between this world and the worlds of the invisible host, between
the sphere of matter and that of pure spirit, he concluded that
to abandon this mysterious science to the profanation of the rabble
was to lose it. An abuse of it might lead mankind to speedy destruction;
it was like surrounding a group of children with explosive batteries,
and furnishing them with matches. The first self-made adept initiated
but a select few, and kept silence with the multitudes. He recognized
his God and felt the great Being within himself. The "Atman,"
the Self,** the
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* John Yarker, Jr.: "Notes on the Scientific and Religious
Mysteries of Antiquity," etc.
** This "Self," which the Greek philosophers called
Augoeides, the "Shining One," is impressively
and beautifully described in Max Muller's "Veda." Showing
the "Veda" to be the first book of the Aryan nations,
the professor adds that "we have in it a period of the intellectual
life of man to which there is no parallel in any other part of
the world. In the hymns of the "Veda" we see man left
to himself to solve the riddle of this world. . . . He invokes
the gods around him, he praises, he worships them. But still with
all these gods . . . beneath him, and above him, the early poet
seems ill at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast,
he has discovered a power that is never mute when he prays, never
absent when he fears and trembles. It seems to inspire his prayers,
and yet to listen to them; it seems to live in him, and yet to
support him and all around him. The only name he can find for
this mysterious power is 'Brahman'; for brahman meant
originally force, will, wish, and the propulsive power of creation.
But this impersonal brahman, too, as soon as it is named, grows
into something strange and divine. It ends by being one of many
gods, one of the great triad, worshipped to the present day. And
still the thought within him has no real name; that power which
is nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the heavens, and
every living being, floats before his mind, conceived but not
expressed. At last he calls it 'Atman,' for Atman, originally
breath or spirit, comes to mean Self, [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 318 ISIS UNVEILED.
mighty Lord and Protector, once that man knew him as the "I
am," the "Ego Sum,"
the "Ahmi," showed his
full power to him who could recognize the "still small
voice." From the days of the primitive man
described by the first Vedic poet, down to our modern age, there
has not been a philosopher worthy of that name, who did not carry
in the silent sanctuary of his heart the grand and mysterious
truth. If initiated, he learnt it as a sacred science; if otherwise,
then, like Socrates repeating to himself, as well as to his fellow-men,
the noble injunction, "O man, know thyself," he succeeded
in recognizing his God within himself. "Ye are gods,"
the king-psalmist tells us, and we find Jesus reminding the scribes
that the expression, "Ye are gods," was addressed to
other mortal men, claiming for himself the same privilege without
any blasphemy.* And, as a faithful echo, Paul, while asserting
that we are all "the temple of the living God,"** cautiously
adds, that after all these things are only for the "wise,"
and it is "unlawful" to speak of them.
Therefore, we must accept the reminder, and simply remark that
even in the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the Codex
Nazaraeus, we detect throughout the same idea. Like an undercurrent,
rapid and clear, it runs without mixing its crystalline purity
with the muddy and heavy waves of dogmatism. We find it in the
Codex, as well as in the Vedas, in the Avesta,
as in the Abhidharma, and in Kapila's Sankhya
Sutras not less than in the Fourth Gospel. We cannot
attain the "Kingdom of Heaven," unless we unite ourselves
indissolubly with our Rex Lucis, the Lord of Splendor
and of Light, our Immortal God. We must first conquer immortality
and "take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence," offered
to our material selves. "The first man is of the earth earthy;
the second man is from heaven. . . . Behold,
I show you a mystery," says Paul (1
Corinthians, xv. 47). In the religion of Sakya-Muni, which
learned commentators have delighted so much of late to set down
as purely nihilistic, the doctrine of immortality is
very clearly defined, notwithstanding the European or rather Christian
ideas about Nirvana. In the sacred Jaina books, of Patuna, the
dying Gautama-
[[Footnote(s)]]--------------------------------------------------
[[footnote continued from previous page]] and Self alone; Self,
whether Divine or human; Self, whether creating or suffering;
Self, whether one or all; but always Self, independent and free.
'Who has seen the first-born,' says the poet, when he who had
no bones (i.e., form) bore him that had bones? Where
was the life, the blood, the Self of the world? Who went to ask
this from any one who knew it?" ("Rig-Veda," i.,
164, 4). This idea of a divine Self, once expressed, everything
else must acknowledge its supremacy; "Self is the
Lord of all things, Self is the King of all things. As all the
spokes of a wheel are contained in the nave and the circumference,
all things are contained in this Self; all Selves are contained
in this Self. Brahman itself is but Self" (Ibid., p. 478;
"Khandogya-upanishad," viii., 3, 3, 4); "Chips
from a German Workshop," vol. i., p. 69.
* John x. 34, 35.
** 2 Corinthians, vi. 16.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 319 THE ESOTERIC DOCTRINE OF BUDDHISM.
Buddha is thus addressed: "Arise into Nirvi (Nirvana)
from this decrepit body into which thou hast been sent. Ascend
into thy former abode, O blessed Avatar!" This seems
to us the very opposite of Nihilism. If Gautama is invited to
reascend into his "former abode," and this abode is
Nirvana, then it is incontestable that Buddhistic philosophy does
not teach final annihilation. As Jesus is alleged to
have appeared to his disciples after death, so to the present
day is Gautama believed to descend from Nirvana. And if he has
an existence there, then this state cannot be a synonym for annihilation.
Gautama, no less than all other great reformers, had a doctrine
for his "elect" and another for the outside masses,
though the main object of his reform consisted in initiating all,
so far as it was permissible and prudent to do, without distinction
of castes or wealth, to the great truths hitherto kept so secret
by the selfish Brahmanical class. Gautama-Buddha it was whom we
see the first in the world's history, moved by that generous feeling
which locks the whole humanity within one embrace, inviting the
"poor," the "lame," and the "blind"
to the King's festival table, from which he excluded those who
had hitherto sat alone, in haughty seclusion. It was he, who,
with a bold hand, first opened the door of the sanctuary to the
pariah, the fallen one, and all those "afflicted by men"
clothed in gold and purple, often far less worthy than the outcast
to whom their finger was scornfully pointing. All this did Siddhartha
six centuries before another reformer, as noble and as loving,
though less favored by opportunity, in another land. If both,
aware of the great danger of furnishing an uncultivated populace
with the double-edged weapon of knowledge which gives power,
left the innermost corner of the sanctuary in the profoundest
shade, who, that is acquainted with human nature, can blame them
for it? But while one was actuated by prudence, the other was
forced into such a course. Gautama left the esoteric and most
dangerous portion of the "secret knowledge" untouched,
and lived to the ripe old age of eighty, with the certainty of
having taught the essential truths, and having converted to them
one-third of the world; Jesus promised his disciples the knowledge
which confers upon man the power of producing far greater
miracles than he ever did himself, and he died, leaving but
a few faithful men, only half way to knowledge, to struggle with
the world to which they could impart but what they half-knew
themselves. Later, their followers disfigured truth still more
than they themselves had done.
It is not true that Gautama never taught anything concerning a
future life, or that he denied the immortality of the soul. Ask
any intelligent Buddhist his ideas on Nirvana, and he will unquestionably
express himself, as the well-known Wong-Chin-Fu, the Chinese orator,
now
Chapter 7, part 2
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