form. The moon is supposed to exert a baneful or lucky influence
according as it is first viewed; the mystic horse-shoe, which is a
purely uterine symbol, is still widely employed; lucky and unlucky
days are still regarded; our playing cards are indicated by phallic
symbols, the spade, the triadic club, the omphallic distaff and
eminence disguised as the heart and the diamonds. Dionysius reappears
as St. Denys, or in France as St. Bacchus; Satan is revered as St.
Satur or St. Swithin; the Holy Virgin, Astraea, whose return was
heralded by Virgil as introducing the Golden Age, is now designated
as the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven. The Mother and Child are
to-day in Catholic countries adored as much as were Ceres and Bacchus,
or Isis and the infant Horus, centuries ago. The nuns of Christian
to-day are the nuns of the Buddhists or of the Egyptian worshippers
of Isis, and the phallic import is not lost even in their case since
they are the "Brides of the Savior." The libations of human blood
which were formerly offered to Bacchus found most tragic imitation in
the sacrifices of later days. The screechings of the ancient prophets
of Baal, and of the Egyptian worshippers, preceded the flagellations
of the penitentes. Even recently, during Holy Week in Rome, devotees
lash themselves until the blood runs, as did the young men in ancient
Rome during the Lupercalia. And even yet in New Mexico the Indian
_penitentes_ repeat the cruel flagellations and cross-bearing taught by
the Spanish priest, to the extent--sometimes--of an actual crucifixion.
In the ancient Roman catacombs are found portraits of the utensils
and furniture of the ancient mysteries, and one drawing shows a woman
standing before an altar offering buns to a certain god. In fact we may
say there is no Christian fast nor festival, procession nor sacrament,
custom nor example, that do not come quite naturally from previous
paganism.
The Creation is in fact a _human rather than a divine product_, in
this sense that it was suggested to the mind of man by the existence
of things, while its method was, at least at first, suggested by the
operations of nature; thus man saw the living bird emerge from the
egg, after a certain period of incubation, a phenomenon equivalent to
actual creation as apprehended by his simple mind. Incubation obviously
then associated itself with Creation, and this fact will explain
the universality with which the egg was received as a symbol in the
earlier systems of cosmogony. By a similar process creation came to be
symbolized in the form of a phallus, and so the Egyptians, in their
refinement of these ideas, adopted as their symbol of the first great
cause, a Scarabaeus, indicating the great hermaphroditic unity since
they believed this insect to be both male and female.
Further exemplification of the same underlying principle is seen in the
fact that most all of the ancient deities were paired, thus we have
heaven and earth, sun and moon, fire and earth, father and mother, etc.
Faber says,--"The Ancient Pagans of almost every part of the globe were
wont to symbolize the world by an egg; hence this symbol is introduced
into the cosmogonies of nearly all nations, and there are few persons
even among those who have made mythology their study to whom the
mundane egg is not perfectly familiar; it is the emblem not only of
earth and life but also of the universe in its largest extent."
I began this essay with the intention of demonstrating the recondite
but positive connection between the symbolism of the Church of to-day
and the phallic and iatric cults of pre-christian centuries. (Much
of the subject matter contained in the previous essay (III) may be
profitably read in this connection). As a humble disciple of that
Aesculapius who was the reputed founder of our craft, I have felt
that every genuine scholar in medicine should be familiar with these
relations between the past and the present.
V
THE RELATION OF THE GRECIAN MYSTERIES TO THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY
Ever since mentality has been an attribute of mankind, man has
appreciated that he is surrounded by a vast incomprehensible mystery
which ever closes in upon him, and from whose environment he may never
free himself. The endeavor to solve this mystery has on one hand
stimulated his reasoning power, and on the other nearly paralyzed it.
Having no better guidance he has in all time attributed to a Great
First Cause powers and faculties, even shape and form, more or less
human; thus from time immemorial God or the Gods have been given a
kingdom, a throne, some definite form, and even offspring. To him
or them have been given purely human attributes, and they have been
supposed to possess human passions and to be capable of love, wrath,
strength, etc. In nearly all ages lightning, for instance, has been
regarded as an expression of divine fury. As intelligence advanced
the number of Gods was reduced and their manifestations classified
and studied more or less imaginatively; and so while men have always
acknowledged the impossibility of explaining the great mysteries of
creation and of space, they have seemed to find it necessary to create
other equally inscrutable mysteries of purely human invention, such as
the incarnation, the trinity, the resurrection, vicarious salvation,
metempsychosis, and the like.
History shows the love of mystery to be contagious as well as
productive of its kind, and the origin of mystic teachings as well as
of most secret societies bears out these statements. Secrets, guarded
by fearful oaths, personified by meaningless emblems, concealed either
in language unintelligible to others, or else hidden in terms whose
special meaning is known only to the initiated, made attractive by
special signs, symbols, innocent rites, or barbarous observances,--all
of these means were designed solely to keep men banded together for
the purpose of forming a propaganda intended to perpetuate yet other
mysteries in which the initiates were especially interested. Since
history began such associations of men have existed for most diverse
ends, all having this in common, that only by this means could they
secure and maintain influence and power.
And so the series of pictures which represent man in this role may be
regarded as a panorama, led by garlanded priests carrying images of
Isis or droning hymns to Demeter of Eleusis, or Druids preparing for
their human sacrifices; followed by gay and voluptuous Bacchantes,
succeeded by white-robed Pythagoreans; next may come the suffering
Essenes bearing crosses, then the Latin Brotherhoods, followed by the
German and English Guilds, the Stone Masons with their implements,
the Crusader Knights, those coming first having an appearance of
actual humility and devotion, while those who follow are haughty and
contemptuous to a degree. Then would follow the black-robed Penitentes
and the members of the Society of Jesus, sanctimonious, with eyes cast
down, human machines, mere tools in the hands of their superiors; the
panorama continuing with a widely assorted lot of scholars, artisans
and men of all conditions in various regalia, and terminated with an
indistinguishable multitude of variously adorned men, some sleek and
fat, others ill-conditioned, some devout and sincere, others mere
jesters and knaves from every walk of life.
It was most natural and to be expected that primitive man should be
most profoundly impressed with the forces of nature, often terrifying
and frightful, often winsome and attractive, and that he should bow
himself down to the unknown cause of these manifestations. With his
extremely finite mind he necessarily personified them; after having
done this he proceeded to propitiate them by worship with certain forms
of ritual. Perhaps fire first and most of all attracted him in this
way, and drew from him the earliest acts of worship, for in spite of
the general views to the contrary fire is often of natural origin,
and must have been known to men before they became able to produce
it by their own efforts. From practical to generalized concepts was
a natural step, and thus mythology had its beginnings; the earliest
distinctions were as between that which is overhead, i. e. Heaven, and
that which is beneath, namely, the earth; these are the beginnings
of all cosmogonies. Next the Gods were given the attributes of sex;
Heaven was represented as masculine, fructifying, powerful; Earth as
conceptive, female and gentle. By the union of these two were produced
sun, moon and their progeny--the stars. Later the sun became Poseidon
or Neptune, because he appeared from and disappeared into the sea. Then
the imagination began to run riot, and gave rise to many individual
divinities, gods and goddesses, all with human passions and attributes,
mingling and propagating after human fashion, and begetting dynasties
and half human races, whose doings were the subject of countless epics,
dramas, myths and romances.
Thus time passed on and the original sense or meaning of these
myths, descending slowly by oral tradition, became lost, while the
myths themselves were for a long time accepted as historical facts.
Nevertheless in all ages there have been men who, like Aristotle,
Cicero and Plutarch, have questioned the accuracy of these statements
and shown themselves intelligent and active sceptics. During all these
times, however, a wily priest-craft had lived and thrived on the
superstitions of the common people and the practices in which they have
indulged; by these men, thus conditioned, any active doubt was regarded
as subversive of the system by which they were supported, and as one
not to be tolerated;--this condition pertaining not only to antiquity,
since it is too significant a feature even of the early years of this
twentieth century. A more or less honest though misinformed priesthood
has, in all times, been in favor of the purification of the theology
in vogue in their times and among their inner circles, and has in the
main given the most rationalistic interpretation to the obscure things
which they taught, and practised what their education and environment
would permit. But in order to preserve the mysteries, to maintain them
as such, and save themselves from becoming superfluous, not to say
intolerable, these same mysteries have been tricked out with mysticism,
symbolism of the most fantastic character, and allegory of the most
bewildering kind; moreover this has often been accomplished by dramatic
representations and by moralizing or demoralizing ceremonies. The
countries in which these "mysteries," as they have since been known,
were most commonly practised and most widely believed were Egypt,
Chaldea and Greece.
The sources of the Egyptian mysteries, like those of Egyptian
civilization, are the most difficult to discover. The Nile is
necessarily the basis of Egyptian history, geography, activity and
habits, and consequently must be also of the Egyptian cult. The people
who were known as Egyptians invaded the land of the Nile from the
direction of Asia, and found there a race of negro type whom they
subdued and with whom they later mingled. The Semites called the land
Misraim; the Greeks finally changed the name of its great river to
Neilos. The country is a land of enigmas. Who built those pyramids, and
why? Who originated the system of pictorial writing which we call the
hieroglyphic? Who planned those wonderful temples now either in ruins,
as in upper Egypt, or buried beneath the desert sands, as in lower
Egypt? Who brought and erected those mighty blocks of stone or massive
slabs from enormous distances, and handled them as we could scarcely do
to-day with the best of modern machinery?
In course of time two hereditary classes were formed, the priests who
dominated the minds, and the warriors who controlled the bodies of the
conquered people and the lower classes. The latter kept the throne of
Egypt occupied, while the former, having a monopoly of the knowledge of
the time, prescribed for the people what they must believe, yet were
very far from accepting these precepts for themselves, and in their
inner circles made light of that which they preached to the despised
classes without.
The Egyptians named their Sun God RE, but assigned the various
attributes of the sun to different personalities; they had moreover not
only Gods for the whole land, but Ptah was God of Memphis, Ammon God
of Thebes, etc. Local deities were often constructed out of inspiring
objects or from animals inhabited by spirits, and thus the fetichism
of the original negro race exerted no little influence upon the higher
cult of their lighter colored conquerors. Worship was paid to animals
not for their own sake but because of the Gods who were supposed to
reside within them; thus their prominent Gods were represented with
the head of some animal. This honor belonged not to any individual
animal but of necessity to the entire species, certain representatives
of which were maintained at public expense in the temples, where they
were carefully guarded and waited upon by the faithful. To harm one of
these animals was to be severely punished, to kill one of them was to
die. Conversely when a God failed in responding to the prayers of the
faithful his fetich had to suffer, and the priests first threatened the
animal, and if menaces were unavailing they killed the sacred beast,
albeit in secret, lest the people should learn of it.
As time went on there was less of zoölatry, and the Sun-Gods and their
associates figured more largely among the cult of the people. The sun's
course was not represented as that of a chariot, as among the Persians
and Greeks, but rather as the voyage of a Nile boat, upon which the
God Re navigated the heavens; from which it will appear that the
priestly religion was making slow progress to monotheism by means of
oligotheism. The secret teaching of the priests was now more and more
to the effect that the Gods stood not so much for themselves as for
something else. During the fourth dynasty the lower Egyptian city Anu
was known as the City of the Sun, hence the Greek name for the place,
Heliopolis. Still more characteristic was the giving of the name of
Osiris, who figured as God of Abdu, which the Greeks called Abydos,
in upper Egypt, to the God of the Sunset, who was king of the lower
domains and of death, brother and at the same time husband of Isis,
brother also of Set, who slew him, and father of Horus, i. e. God of
the new sun, who figures after each sunset. Horus fought with Set,
but being unable to completely destroy him left him the desert as his
kingdom, while himself holding to the Nile valley. This story of the
Gods was publicly represented in various scenes on certain holidays,
but only the priests, i. e., the initiated, knew the real meaning of
the representations. Even the name of Osiris and his abode were kept
secret, and outsiders heard only of the "great God" dwelling somewhere
in "the West."
These were the most famous of all the old Egyptian mysteries, though
to them were added many others, including that of Apis, the sacred
bull of Memphis, who served also as the symbol of the Sun and of the
fructifying Nile; beneath his tongue was to be seen the sacred beetle,
and the behavior of the great animal was supposed to be prophetic and
his actions to mean oracular sayings. The Sphinx again was a sun-God,
his image being repeated throughout the Nile region, and was always
thought of as a male; the head was represented as that of some king,
while the whole figure stood for the Sun-God Harmachis; although the
sphinx later introduced into Greece was always female.
While the Egyptians did not attribute to their numerous Gods divine
perfection, they nevertheless regarded religious practices as a means
of currying favor with their divinities, a custom apparently still in
favor. The priests believed in a Sun-God as the only true deity, but
not so the people; thus the priests in the various cities praised their
local and tutelary God as supreme and made him identical with Re, whose
name they appended to the original, as for instance _Amon-Re_. The
king, no matter where he was, prayed always to the local deity as lord
of heaven and earth, yet in words always the same.
At last during the eighteenth dynasty, about 1460 B. C., Amenhotep IV
realized that the power of the priesthood was a menace to the crown
and therefore proclaimed the Sun as the sole God, not in human shape,
but in that of a disk. He ordered all other images of other Gods
associated with the sun to be destroyed; the priests of these deposed
Gods lost their places and estates, which latter were confiscated.
But his sons-in-law who succeeded him restored the deposed monarchs.
Nevertheless they were marked as heretics by those priests who were
reinstated in their former power. In consequence of this conflict,
which was violent and prolonged, the intellectual life of Egypt was
paralyzed and the mystic teachings of the priests were henceforth not
disturbed by any wave of progress or advance.
The people again sank into a stupid and unredeemable formalism,
demonism and sorcery. With the purpose of amusing them the priests
furnished gorgeous sacrificial processions and festivals, while at
the same time drawing them away from the true God by teaching them a
worship of deceased kings and queens. They also built temples, to only
the outer portion of which were the people generally admitted, while
the innermost portions were guarded by these priests lest the mysteries
thus protected be such no longer. They also procured the building of
the ancient Labyrinth, near Lake Moeris, of which Herodotus tells us
that there were fifteen hundred chambers above ground and as many more
under ground, which latter were never shown except to the initiated,
and which contained the remains of sacred crocodiles and of the
Pharaohs.
The Egyptian priests taught that man was made up of _body_, a material
essence or the _soul_, which in the shape of a bird left the body
at death, and an _immaterial spirit_ which held to the man the same
relation which a God held to the animal in which he dwelt, and which
at death departed from the body like the image of a dream. They taught
also that, if the soul and spirit were to live on, the body should be
embalmed and laid in a rock chamber, and that then the relatives must
supply meat, drink, and clothing for its use. The spirit took its way
to Osiris and by means of a magic formula the dead would be made one
with Osiris; hence in the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" the deceased was
addressed as Osiris with his own name added, and could now lead a happy
life in the other world, which life was portrayed on the walls of the
Sepulchres in pictures which are still to be seen, showing how the
creature comforts of this world were to be enhanced in the next. Having
reached the outer world, and having escaped the host of demons that
threatened him on his passage, he could then revisit this earth at will
in any form.
The Egyptian priests also taught that there was a judgment of the dead,
and that new comers had to appear before Osiris, with his forty-two
Assessors, and disclaim the commission of each one of forty-two sins;
all of which was a magic formula for obtaining bliss according to
their notion rather than anything intended as a true statement. The
hippopotamus figured as an active agent in the Book of the Dead,
appearing always as the accuser, when the sins and the good deeds were
being weighed in the balance, while the God Thot was the "attorney for
the defense."
All these secret doctrines of a priestcraft necessitated secret
associations, at least of the higher priests, to which the king was
always admitted, the only Egyptian outside of the priesthood to be
thus taught their secrets. This was purely for protection; having less
fear of foreigners these priests often initiated distinguished men
from foreign lands, Greeks especially. Thus Orpheus, Homer, Lycurgus,
Solon, Herodotus, Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, and many others,
received the secret doctrine. The ritual was a long and tedious but
significant ceremony, taught by degrees like the Masonry of to-day, and
necessitated in some cases the right of circumcision; all who passed
it were pledged to the most strict silence. According to Diodorus the
Orphic Mysteries were in large degree a repetition of the Egyptian,
while the Greek legislators, philosophers and mathematicians whom I
have named drew their knowledge from the same source; all of which is
probably a very gross exaggeration. Nevertheless it would appear from
the hieroglyphic remains that high grade schools were conducted by the
Egyptian priests, and that foreign scholars could obtain for themselves
instruction in the exact sciences of the day. Only the priests,
however, were able to write the hieroglyphics, at least in the earlier
centuries of Egyptian history.
There can be no doubt but that the secret doctrine of the Egyptian
priests was both philosophic and religious, and was sharply
distinguished from the popular belief which mistook tradition for
truth; that it was monotheistic, that it rejected polytheism and
zoölatry, and that the true signification of Egyptian mythology was
expounded in private. Moreover an essential part of this mystery
concerned the interpretation of myths as allegorical accounts of
personified natural phenomena. For instance Plutarch ("Isis and
Osiris") writes--"When we hear of the Egyptian myths of the Gods, their
wanderings, their dismemberment and other like incidents, we must
recall the remarks already made, so as to understand that the stories
told are not to be taken literally as recounting actual occurrences."
Without now going into the subject of the relative age of the Egyptian
and Chaldean cults, I will remind you that the secret wisdom of
one race was not excelled by that of the other. The Chaldean races
are undoubtedly of Turanian origin, and their form of religion was
peculiar to the Ural-Altaic stock and the Turkic races, who originated
the Cuneiform writing. Their most ancient writings represented evil
spirits as coming from the desert in groups of seven, and contained
formulas for exorcising them; they were presided over by the heavens,
while from the higher spirits evolved Gods and Goddesses in countless
number. Upon the original ground work of Chaldean ideas a Semitic race
built a superstructure, and the first traces of the Babylonians and
Assyrians appeared some four thousand years B. C. Their highest God was
an individual whom they named Baal, while the sun and moon were his
images. As in Egypt the priests were held in great reverence, standing
next after the king, who was _ex officio_ high priest; they too had a
secret doctrine withheld from the vulgar. Although the Chaldeans were
astrologers rather than astronomers, they were yet familiar enough with
the heavens to estimate astral phenomena for what they really were,
instead of holding them to be Gods, though they may have represented
them as such to the common people. Their literature contained numerous
mythological poems, so obscure that to understand them a key was
required, which key was only in the possession of the priests. Inasmuch
as Abraham came from Ur in Chaldea, with him crept into biblical
literature much of the Chaldean tradition and folklore. The Chaldeans
had also their Noah, and their deluge, in which the dove figured as in
the biblical account. When the proprietor of the Ark finally freed the
animals he erected an altar and offered sacrifice, to which the Gods
gathered "like masses of flies." This story contributes but one section
of the great Chaldean epic in which are recounted the exploits of a
hero corresponding with the Nimrod of the Hebrew Bible, dating from the
twenty-third century B. C., and reminding one forcibly of the Herculean
and many other myths recounted in other ancient languages.
An off-shoot of the Chaldean culture was that of Persia, whose priestly
class were far removed above the warriors and farmers that constituted
the other two classes. Priests married only among their own race,
possessed all the knowledge, made their king _ex officio_ one of
themselves, and practised itinerant teaching, but solely among their
own caste. In the holy city, Ragha, the priests alone held rule and no
secular power prevailed; Zoroaster was their founder; they were the
physicians, astrologers, interpreters of dreams, scribes and officers
of justice, while they impressed upon the minds of the people their
exclusive duties;--to reverence the holy fire, which was their greatest
mystery, to listen to the teaching of passages from the sacred book,
and to perform numerous ceremonies of purification. Only the initiated
were taught the meaning of the strife between the good Ormuzd and the
evil Ahriman, which was probably the alternation of day and night, and
of summer and winter.