We will begin with the ancient Mysteries—those received from the
Atlanteans by the primitive Âryans—whose mental and intellectual state
Professor Max Müller has described with such a masterly hand, yet left so
incomplete withal.
He says: We have in it [in the _Rig Veda_] 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 “Âtman,” for âtman, originally
breath or spirit, comes to mean Self 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; it is the King of all things; as
all the spokes of a wheel are contained in the nave and
circumference, all things are contained in this Self; all selves
are contained in this _Self_.” (Brihadâranyaka, IV. v. 15).(506)
This Self, the highest, the one, and the universal, was symbolised on the
plane of mortals by the Sun, its life‐giving effulgence being in its turn
the emblem of the Soul—killing the terrestrial passions which have ever
been an impediment to the re‐union of the Unit Self (the Spirit) with the
All‐Self. Hence the allegorical mystery, only the broad features of which
may be given here. It was enacted by the “Sons of the Fire‐Mist” and of
“Light.” The second Sun (the “second hypostasis” of Rabbi Drach) appeared
as put on his trial, Vishvakarma, the Hierophant, cutting off seven of his
beams, and replacing them with a crown of brambles, when the “Sun” became
Vikarttana, shorn of his beams or rays. After that, the Sun—enacted by a
neophyte ready to be initiated—was made to descend into Pâtâla, the nether
regions, on a trial of Tantalus. Coming out of it triumphant, he emerged
from this region of lust and iniquity, to re‐become Karmasâkshin, witness
of the Karma of men,(507) and arose once more triumphant in all the glory
of his regeneration, as the Graha‐Râjah, King of the Constellations, and
was addressed as Gabhastiman, “re‐possessed of his rays.”
The “fable” in the popular Pantheon of India, founded upon, and born out
of the poetical mysticism of the _Rig‐Veda_—the sayings of which were
mostly all dramatised during the religious Mysteries—grew in the course of
its exoteric evolution into the following allegory. It may be found now in
several of the _Purânas_ and in other Scriptures. In the _Rig‐Veda_ and
its Hymns, Vishvakarma, a Mystery‐God, is the Logos, the Demiurgos, one of
the greatest Gods, and spoken of in two of the hymns as the highest. He is
the Omnificent (Vishvakarma), called the “Great Architect of the
Universe,” the
All seeing God, ... the father, the generator, the disposer, who
gives the gods their names, and is beyond the comprehension of
mortals,
as is every Mystery‐God. Esoterically, He is the personification of the
creative manifested Power: and mystically He is the seventh principle in
man, in its collectivity. For He is the son of Bhuvana, the self‐created,
luminous Essence, and of the virtuous, chaste and lovely Yoga‐Siddhâ, the
virgin Goddess, whose name speaks for itself, since it personified Yoga‐
power, the “chaste mother” that creates the Adepts. In the Rig‐Vaidic
Hymns, Vishvakarma performs the “great sacrifice,” _i.e._, sacrifices
himself for the world; or, as the _Nirukta_ is made to say, translated by
the Orientalists:
Vishvakarma first of all offers up all the world in a sacrifice,
and then ends by sacrificing himself.
In the mystical representations of his character, Vishvakarma is often
called Vittoba, and is pictured as the “Victim,” the “Man‐God,” or the
Avatâra crucified in space.
[Of the true Mysteries, the real Initiations, nothing of course can be
said in public; they can be known only to those who are able to experience
them. But a few hints can be given of the great ceremonial Mysteries of
Antiquity, which stood to the public as the real Mysteries, and into which
candidates were initiated with much ceremony and display of Occult Arts.
Behind these, in silence and darkness, were the true Mysteries, as they
have always existed and continue to exist. In Egypt, as in Chaldæa and
later in Greece, the Mysteries were celebrated at stated times, and the
first day was a public holiday, on which, with much pomp, the candidates
were escorted to the Great Pyramid and passed thereinto out of sight. The
second day was devoted to ceremonies of purification, at the close of
which the candidate was presented with a white robe; on the third
day](508) he was tried and examined as to his proficiency in Occult
learning. On the fourth day, after another ceremony symbolical of
purification, he was sent alone to pass through various trials, finally
becoming entranced in a subterranean crypt, in utter darkness, for two
days and two nights. In Egypt, the entranced neophyte was placed in an
empty sarcophagus in the Pyramid, where the initiatory rites took place.
In India and Central Asia, he was bound on a lathe, and when his body had
become like that of one dead (entranced), he was carried into the crypt.
Then the Hierophant kept watch over him “guiding the apparitional soul
(astral body) from this world of Samsâra (or delusion) to the _nether_
kingdoms, from which, if successful, he had the right of releasing _seven
suffering souls_” (Elementaries). Clothed with his Anandamayakosha, the
body of bliss—the Srotâpanna remained there where we have no right to
follow him, and upon returning—received the _Word_, with or without the
“heart’s blood” of the Hierophant.(509)
Only in truth the Hierophant was never killed—neither in India nor
elsewhere, the murder being simply feigned—unless the Initiator had chosen
the Initiate for his successor and had decided to pass to him the last and
supreme Word, after which he had to die—only one man in a nation having
the right to know that word. Many are those grand Initiates who have thus
passed out of the world’s sight, disappearing
As mysteriously from the sight of men as Moses from the top of
Mount Pisgah (_Nebo_, oracular Wisdom), after he had laid his
hands upon Joshua, who thus became “full of the spirit of wisdom,”
_i.e._, initiated.
But he died, he was not killed. For killing, if really done, would belong
to black, not to divine Magic. It is the transmission of light, rather
than a transfer of life, of life spiritual and divine, and it is the
shedding of Wisdom, not of blood. But the uninitiated inventors of
theological Christianity took the allegorical language _à la lettre_; and
instituted a dogma, the crude, misunderstood expression of which horrifies
and repels the spiritual “heathen.”
All these Hierophants and Initiates were types of the Sun and of the
Creative Principle (spiritual potency) as were Vishvakarma and Vikarttana,
from the origin of the Mysteries. Ragon, the famous Mason, gives curious
details and explanations with regard to the Sun rites. He shows that the
biblical Hiram, the great hero of Masonry (the “widow’s son”) a type taken
from Osiris, is the Sun‐God, the inventor of arts, and the “architect,”
the name Hiram meaning the _elevated_, a title belonging to the Sun. Every
Occultist knows how closely related to Osiris and the Pyramids are the
narratives in _Kings_ concerning Solomon, his Temple and its construction;
he knows also that the whole of the Masonic rite of Initiation is based
upon the Biblical allegory of the construction of that Temple, Masons
conveniently forgetting, or perhaps ignoring, the fact that the latter
narrative is modelled upon Egyptian and still earlier symbolisms. Ragon
explains it by showing that the three companions of Hiram, the “three
murderers,” typify the three last months of the year; and that Hiram
stands for the Sun—from its summer solstice downwards, when it begins
decreasing—the whole rite being an astronomical allegory.
During the summer solstice, the Sun provokes songs of gratitude
from all that breathes; hence Hiram, who represents it, can give
to whomsoever has the right to it, the sacred Word, that is to say
life. When the Sun descends to the inferior signs all Nature
becomes mute, and Hiram can no longer give the sacred Word to the
companions, who represent the three inert months of the year. The
first companion strikes Hiram feebly with a rule twenty‐four
inches long, symbol of the twenty‐four hours which make up each
diurnal revolution; it is the first distribution of time, which
after the exaltation of the mighty star, feebly assails his
existence, giving him the first blow. The second companion strikes
him with an _iron square_, symbol of the last season, figured by
the intersections of two right lines, which would divide into four
equal parts the Zodiacal circle, whose centre symbolises Hiram’s
heart, where it touches the point of the four squares representing
the four seasons: second distribution of time, which at that
period strikes a heavier blow at the solar existence. The third
companion strikes him mortally on his forehead with a heavy blow
of his mallet, whose cylindrical form symbolises the year, the
ring or circle: third distribution of time, the accomplishment of
which deals the last blow to the existence of the _expiring_ Sun.
From this interpretation it has been inferred that _Hiram_, a
_founder_ of metals, the hero of the new legend with the title of
_architect_, is Osiris (the Sun) of modern initiation; that
_Isis_, his widow, is the _Lodge_, the emblem of the Earth (_loka_
in Sanskrit, the world) and that _Horus_, son of Osiris (or of
light) and the widow’s son, is the _free Mason_, that is to say,
the _Initiate_ who inhabits the terrestrial lodge (_the child of
the Widow, and of Light_.)(510)
And here again, our friends the Jesuits have to be mentioned, for the
above rite is of their making. To give one instance of their success in
throwing dust into the eyes of ordinary individuals to prevent their
seeing the truths of Occultism, we will point out what they did in what is
now called Freemasonry.
This Brotherhood does possess a considerable portion of the symbolism,
formulæ, and ritual of Occultism, handed down from time immemorial from
the primeval Initiations. To render this Brotherhood a mere harmless
negation, the Jesuits sent some of their most able emissaries into the
Order, who first made the simple brethren believe that the true secret was
lost with Hiram Abiff; and then induced them to put this belief into their
formularies. They then invented specious but spurious higher degrees,
pretending to give further light upon this lost secret, to lead the
candidate on and amuse him with forms borrowed from the real thing but
containing no substance, and all artfully contrived to lead the aspiring
Neophyte to nowhere. And yet men of good sense and abilities, in other
respects, will meet at intervals, and with solemn face, zeal and
earnestness, go through the mockery of revealing “substituted secrets”
instead of the real thing.
If the reader turns to a very remarkable and very useful work called _The
Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, Art. “Rosicrucianism,” he will find its author,
a high and learned Mason, showing what the Jesuits have done to destroy
Masonry. Speaking of the period when the existence of this mysterious
Brotherhood (of which many pretend to know “something” if not a good deal,
and know in fact nothing) was first made known, he says:
There was a dread among the great masses of society in byegone
days of the unseen—a dread, as recent events and phenomena show
very clearly, not yet overcome in its entirety. Hence students of
Nature and mind were forced into an obscurity not altogether
unwelcome.... The Kabalistic reveries of a Johann Reuchlin led to
the fiery action of a Luther, and the patient labours of
Trittenheim produced the modern system of diplomatic cipher
writing.... It is very worthy of remark, that one particular
century, and that in which the Rosicrucians first showed
themselves, is distinguished in history as the era in which most
of these efforts at throwing off the trammels of the past [Popery
and Ecclesiasticism] occurred. Hence the opposition of the losing
party, and their virulence against anything mysterious or unknown.
They freely organised pseudo‐Rosicrucian and Masonic societies in
return; and these societies were instructed to irregularly entrap
the weaker brethren of the True and Invisible Order, and then
triumphantly betray anything they might be so inconsiderate as to
communicate to the superiors of these transitory and unmeaning
associations. Every wile was adopted by the authorities, fighting
in self‐defence against the progress of truth, to engage, by
persuasion, interest or terror, such as might be cajoled into
receiving the Pope as Master—when gained, as many converts to that
faith know, but dare not own, they are treated with neglect, and
left to fight the battle of life as best they may, not even being
admitted to the knowledge of such miserable aporrheta as the
Romish faith considers itself entitled to withhold.
But if Masonry has been spoiled, none is able to crush the real, invisible
Rosicrucian and the Eastern Initiate. The symbolism of Vishvakarma and
Sûrya Vikarttana has survived, where Hiram Abiff was indeed murdered, and
we will now return to it. It is not simply an astronomical, but is the
most solemn rite, an inheritance from the Archaic Mysteries that has
crossed the ages and is used to this day. It typifies a whole drama of the
Cycle of Life, of progressive incarnations, and of psychic as well as of
physiological secrets, of which neither the Church nor Science knows
anything, though it is this rite that has led the former to the greatest
of its Christian Mysteries.