Part 3

It is supposed the prophet Ezekiel alludes to these initiations, when he speaks of the abominations committed by the idolatrous ancients of the house of Israel in the dark, every man in the chambers of its imagery.

Here again, I will quote from the book of Henoch: Chap. xxii.--"From thence I proceeded to another spot where I saw on the West a great and lofty mountain, a strong rock and four delightful places."

Chap. xiv. ver. 14.--"Then I went to another habitation more spacious than the former. Every entrance which was opened before me was erected in the midst of a vibrating flame. Ver. 18.--Its floor was on fire, above were lightning and agitated stars, whilst its roof exhibited a blazing fire. Ver. 21.--One of great glory sat upon the orb of the brilliant sun. Ver. 24.--A fire of great extent continued to rise up before him."

It is said that the ordeal through which the candidates were obliged to pass previous to admission into the Egyptian mysteries, were even more severe, and that Pythagoras, wise philosopher as he was, had a narrow escape from it.

The priests alone could arrive at a thorough understanding of the mysteries. So sacred were their secrets held that many of the members of the sacerdotal order, even, were not admitted to a participation of them; but those alone who proved themselves deserving of the honor; since Clement of Alexandria, tells us: "the Egyptians neither entrusted their mysteries to every one, nor degraded the secrets of divine matters by disclosing them to the profane, reserving them for the heir apparent to the throne, and for such of the priests as excelled in virtue and wisdom."

From all we can learn on the subject, the mysteries consisted of two kinds, the greater and the lesser, divided into many classes. The candidate for initiation had to be pure, his character without blemish. He was commanded to study such lessons as tended to purify the mind. Great was the honor of ascending to the greater mysteries and it was difficult to attain to it. An inscription of a high priest at Memphis, says Mr. Samuel Birch, states: "That he knew the arrangements of the Earth, and those of Heliopolis and Memphis; that he had penetrated the mysteries of every sanctuary; that nothing was concealed from him; that he adored God and glorified Him in all His works, and that he hid in his breast all that he had seen." Had he not kept his secrets so carefully concealed, no doubt he would have told us that at one of the initiations the figure of the god Osiris, in whose honor the mysteries were celebrated, and whose name the initiates did not dare pronounce, appeared to the candidate, as it did at Heliopolis to Pianchi, king of Ethiopia.

At a later period, when the ancient customs had become relaxed owing to the invasion of the country by foreigners and to the government passing from the hands of native rulers to those of Persian, of Greek or Roman governors, many, besides the priests, came to be admitted to the lesser mysteries. But all had to pass through the different grades and conform to the prescribed rules, as in the case of Thales, Eumolpus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus and others.

I will not here describe at length the initiations to the mysteries in honor of the Sun God, Mithra, instituted by Zoroaster, but only state that Porphyrius, on the testimony of Eubulus, says that this philosopher and reformer having selected a cavern in a pleasant locality in some mountains near Persia, dedicated it to Mithra, the Sun, creator and father of all beings; that he divided it into geometrical figures intended to represent the climates and elements; in a word that he imitated in a small way the order and disposition of the universe by Mithra. After him, it became customary to consecrate caverns for the celebration of mysteries; as we see yet in Japan.

The candidates for initiation to the Mithra mysteries were submitted to the most awful trials--among which one was to try the docility and courage of the applicant. He was ordered by the priest to kill a man. According to Plutarch, in his life of Pompeius, these mysteries were brought to the Occident by Cilician pirates about sixty-eight years before the Christian era. They were well received by the Greco-Latin world, and the initiated were soon to be counted by thousands. In the time of the Emperor Adrian, the mysteries of Mithra had become so popular that Pallas, a Greek writer, composed a poem on the subject, that Porphyrius has preserved in a special treatise on the abstinence from the use of animal flesh.

The mysterious initiations vividly impressed the imagination, as at times and by way of expiation, human victims were offered and immolated. The ceremonies of the priests consisted, says Origenes, in imitating the motions of the celestial bodies, those of the planets, in fact of the heavens. The initiated took the names of the constellations and dressed themselves as animals. A theology purely astronomical was taught in these mysteries, in which they used the purification by water in honor of the goddess _Ardvi çoura anâhita_, "She of the celestial waters;" the confession of sins; and a sort of eucharist, or offering of bread, still observed by the Parsis or fire worshippers in India. It may be said that during the last years of the Roman Empire, the religion of Mithra had become the state religion. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, if it extended to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Britain, and if some of its rites have found their way into Free Masonry, and are practised to the present day; thus again relating it with very ancient sacred mysteries, established by Zoroaster, the author of the Zend-Avesta at least 1,100 years before Christ, although Hermippus, the Greek translator of his work, places him 5,000 years before the taking of Troy.

If we go to Hindostan, there we will learn of a secret society of wise and learned men, whose object is the study of philosophy in all its branches, but particularly the spiritual development of man. The leading fraternity is established in Thibet; and the high pontiff and other dignitaries of the Lama religion belong to it. They are known throughout India by the name of _Mahatmas_ or Brothers. To obtain this title it is necessary to suffer a long and weary probation, and pass through ordeals of terrible severity. Many of the _Chelas_, as the aspirants are called, have spent twenty, even thirty years of blameless and arduous devotion to their task, and still they are in the earlier degrees, looking forward to the happy day when they may be judged worthy to have the title of Brother conferred upon them.

These _Mahatmas_ are the successors of those secret societies of learned Brahmins, so celebrated for their wisdom, from very remote ages, in India; and of whose colleges or lodges, always built on the summit of high mounds, either natural or artificial, Alexander, the Great, when he achieved the conquest of that country, was never able to take possession. Philostratus informs us, that their mode of defense consisted in surrounding themselves with clouds, by means of which they could at will render themselves visible or not, and hurling from their midst tempests and thunder on their enemies. Evidently in those early times, they had discovered gunpowder, or some other explosives of like nature, and made use of them to explode mines, and destroy their assailants. These same Brahmins claimed to have been the teachers of the Egyptians, who, according to that, would have received their civilization and scientific knowledge from them, as also did the Chaldeans. It is well known that the Magi were strangers who came to Babylon, possessors, says the prophet Daniel, not only of a special learning, but of a peculiar tongue. They formed a powerful society, into which at the beginning none but those of their own people were admitted, as their science was both exclusive and hereditary. A certain religious character was attached to the whole body; every priest must be a Chaldean, but every Chaldean was not a priest. They passed their whole lives in meditating questions of philosophy. Astronomy was their favorite study; but they acquired great reputation for their astrology. They were versed in the arts of prophesying, of explaining dreams and prodigies, and the omens furnished by the entrails of victims offered in sacrifice. The parents taught the children. At their head was a high pontiff with the title of _Rab-mag_, Venerable, or according to its meaning in the Maya language, _Lab-mac, "the old man."_ At Babylon they were the ruling order, the advisers of the King. Nothing is known to-day of their rites of initiation; but they must have been very similar to those of the Egyptians, since the civilization of Chaldea and that of Egypt were twin sisters; offspring from the same parents.

I have endeavored in a cursory manner to show that the ancient sacred mysteries were established for the same purpose in every civilized nation of antiquity, that is for the cultivation of science; the acquirement of knowledge; the bettering of man's moral and physical nature; the development of his intellectual and mental faculties; the understanding and study of the laws that govern the material and spiritual world, thus bringing him into closer contact with Deity. They kept their learning and discoveries a profound secret, surrounding them with mysterious allegories, and enigmatical symbols, for, as says Strabo: "to surround the things that are holy with a mysterious obscurity is to make Divinity venerable, is to imitate its nature that escapes man's senses," or, as Gregory of Nazianze, wrote to Jerome: "the less ignorant men understand the more they admire," and as the priests of to-day, in fact of all times, of all religions, they wished to be regarded by the masses as dispensers of the god's favors, as mediators between the Deity and man.

This similarity of the rites practiced in the initiations, the identity of symbols, proves that these rites and symbols had been communicated from one to another, just as in modern Free Masonry the initiations are the same in the lodges, the world over, having been carried to the most distant lands, by travelers, colonists or missionaries, from the fountain head, the Grand Lodge of England.

But with respect to the ancient Sacred Mysteries, the query arises as to where they originated. We know that from Egypt and Chaldea they were brought to Greece and Rome. From whom did the Egyptians and Chaldeans receive them? The Brahmins asserted that the Magi and the Hierophants were their disciples.

Admitting this assertion to be true, may we not ask, from whom did the Brahmins learn them? No doubt, if we question them on the subject, they will answer that they are the originators of these mystic rites, and secret societies of learned men; and with difficulty we could gainsay their assertion, were it not that Plutarch and other Greek writers, who have described the Eleusinian mysteries, have taken care to preserve the words used at the closing of the ceremonies by the officiating priest; and also made known to us the name and shape they gave to their place of meeting.

It is well known that the Brahmins, in many of their religious ceremonies, make use of words that are not Sanscrit, but are said to belong to a very ancient form of speech--now dead--the _Akkadian_, spoken by the inhabitants of the countries situated along the banks of the Euphrates, near its mouth. Strange as it may appear, this language presents many affinities with the Maya, which is still the vernacular of the aborigines of Yucatan and other countries south of the Peninsula. The fact is that the words _con-x--om--pan-x_, mean nothing in Greek, but, as we have said, are pure Maya vocables, that have the same meaning as that given to _can-sha--om--Pansha_ by Captain Wilford.

That is not all. We are also told that the place or temple where the initiated assembled to perform their ceremonies, had the form of a rectangle, [Symbol: long hollow rectangle] and that it represented the "Universe." Modern Masons have wrongly translated that idea by the Sanscrit word _loga_, from which the word _lodge_ has been derived, and the form of M.·. lodges adopted.

The shape of the temples was that of the Egyptian letter _M_ called "_ma_", a word that also means place, country and, by extension, the Universe. The Egyptians adopted it, therefore, not because they believed, as Dr. Fanton suggests, that the earth was square or _oblong_, for they knew full well it was spherical, but because the sign of the word _ma'_, conveyed to their mind the idea of the Earth, as the word _earth_ represents it to ours. But _ma_ is also the radical of Mayax; and likewise, in the Maya language, it means the country, the Earth. The Mayas selected the oblong square [Symbol: long hollow rectangle] to represent it, because it is the geometrical figure that is nearest in shape to the contours of the Yucatean peninsula.

So we have found a bridge to cross the vast expanse of water that lies between the Eastern and Western Continents--a clue that may lead us to the birth-place of the ancient sacred mysteries in those [Symbol: two signs with roofs] "Lands of the West," [Symbol: sign with hills] that "Land of _Kui_," the mother-land of the gods and of the ancestors of the Egyptians, where the god Osiris reigned supreme over the souls emancipated from the trammels of matter.

In the depths of the forests that cover the soil of Central America, lie hidden, under a cloak of verdure, the ruins of ancient cities. There, are to be seen the crumbling, awe-inspiring remains of grand old monuments; mementos of the power and civilization, of the scientific and intellectual attainments of the mighty races that erected them, and have disappeared forever in the abyss of time.

At Uxmal, one of these ancient great metropolis in Yucatan, there exists an artificial mound of peculiar construction.

The entire structure measured 29 metres (about 95 feet) in height; 66 metres (214 feet 6 inches) in length at the base, and 33 metres (107 feet 3 inches) in width. The lower part is formed of the frustum of an elliptical cone 14 metres (45 feet 6 inches) in height, divided into 7 gradients, each 2 metres high. On the upper plane of the frustum, which forms a terrace 35 metres long by 10 metres wide, are constructed the Sanctuary, or Holy of Holies, facing west, whose ground plan is made in the shape of a cross with a double set of arms; and a truncated rectangular pyramid 6 metres high, the upper plane of which supports the crowning edifice 6 metres high, 29 metres long and 7 metres wide.

This building emblem of the "Lands of the West," is composed of three separate apartments 2m. 25c. wide, having originally no communication with each other. Holes have been bored in the partition walls that have much weakened the construction; for what purpose it is difficult to surmise, unless it be for the love of destruction.

The rooms at the extremities are of the same size, 5m. 50c. (about 17 feet 10 inches) long, while the middle chamber is 7m. 25c. in length. The door of this chamber faced west, and led, by means of a small stair, to a terrace formed by the roof of the sanctuary.

From there the learned priests and astronomers, elevated above the mists of the plains below, could without hindrance follow the course of the celestial bodies, in the clear cloudless skies of Yucatan, where at times the atmosphere is so pure and transparent that stars are clearly visible to the naked eye, that require the aid of the telescope to be seen in other countries.

The doors of the other rooms faced East. The ceilings, like those of all the apartments in the monuments of Yucatan and Central America, form a triangular arch. This shape was adopted by the builders, not because they were ignorant of how to construct circular arches--since they erected edifices roofed with domes, but in accordance with certain esoteric teachings pertaining to the mysteries and relating to the mystic numbers 3.5.7.

This kind of arch is also found in the ancient tombs of Chaldea, at Mughier--in the center of the great pyramid of Ghizeh, in Egypt--in the most ancient monuments of Greece, as the treasure room at Mikéné, in the tombs of Etruria and other places.

Here, again, we learn from the book of Henoch, that the subterranean building that he constructed in the land of Canaan in the bowels of the mountain, with the help of his son Mathusalath, was in imitation of the nine vaults that were shown to him by the Deity, each apartment being roofed with an arch, the apex of which formed a key-stone with mirific characters inscribed on it. Each of the nine letters, we are told, represented one of the nine names traced in characters emblematical of the attributes of Deity. Henoch then constructed two triangles of the purest gold, and traced two of the mysterious characters on each. One he placed in the deepest arch; the other he entrusted to Mathusalath, _to whom he communicated important secrets._

Thou art Bait (the soul); thou art Athor, one of the Bia; and thou art Akori. Hail, father of the world! hail, triform God!

The triangular arches appear, therefore, as landmarks of one and the same doctrine, practised in remote times, in India, Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, Etruria and Central America.

In the ceilings of the rooms situated at the north and south extremities of the building are carved in peculiar and regular order, in deep intaglio, semispheres, ten centimeters in diameter, intended to represent the stars that at night so beautify the firmament. Inside of the triangle formed at each end of said rooms by the converging lines of the arch are also several of these semispheres--those in the north room form a triangle (Fig. 1); while those in the south room, five in number, figure a trapezium (Fig. 2); with one of these half spheres in the middle.

The middle chamber is now devoid of decorations of any sort. Its length, _seven_ meters, is to-day the only vestige which remains to indicate that in it, in former times, were practised rites and ceremonies pertaining to the third degree of initiation. This chamber could be reached by walking on the narrow terrace round the building; but I feel certain that those whose privilege it was to assemble within its walls, got to it from the west side.

There was a stairway nine metres wide, beautifully ornamented, leading from the court yard adjoining the priests' palace, to the entrance of the sanctuary. Thence another small stairway 2m. 40c. wide, situated on the north side of the sanctuary, led to the upper terrace, to the roof of that monument, and to the middle chamber. The access to the north and south rooms was by a grand stairway of ninety-six steps, each 20cm. high, that led to the upper terrace surrounding the whole edifice. This stairway, situated on the east side of the mound, is fourteen metres (45 feet 6 inches) wide, and, like that on the east side, so steep as to require no little practice and care to ascend and descend its narrow steps with comparative safety and ease.

A few centimetres above the lintel of the entrance to the sanctuary is a cornice that surrounds the whole edifice. On it are sculptured these symbols,

many times repeated. On the under part of this cornice are small rings cut in the stone, from which curtains were suspended, to hide the Holy of Holies from profane gaze.

The exterior of the monument was once upon a time ornamented with elaborate and beautifully executed sculptures, which have now, in great part, disappeared. Still those that adorn the exterior walls of the sanctuary, remain as specimens of the beautiful handiwork and of the great skill of the artists; whilst the exquisite architectural proportions of the whole edifice bespeak the mathematical and other scientific attainments of the architects who planned the building and superintended its erection.

The ornaments that cover these walls are remarkable in more than one sense. They are not only inscriptions in the Maya language, written in characters identical with, and having the same meaning and value as those carved on the temples of Egypt; but among them are symbols known to have belonged to the ancient sacred mysteries of the Egyptians, and to modern Free Masonry. In August 1880, among the débris, at the foot of the mound just described, I found pieces of what once had been the statue of a priest. The part of the statue, from the waist to the knee, particularly attracted my attention. Over his dress the personage wore an apron with an extended hand, as seen in the adjoining illustration. A symbol that will easily be recognized by members of the masonic fraternity.

We must not forget that Plato informs us that the priests of Egypt assured Solon, when he visited them 600 years before the Christian era, that all communications between their people and the inhabitants of the "Lands of the West" had been interrupted for 9,000 years, in consequence of the great cataclysms, during which, in one night, the large island of Atlantis disappeared, submerged under the waves of the ocean. Are we not then right if we surmise that the monuments of Mayax existed 11,500 years ago, and that mysteries, similar to those of Egypt, were celebrated in them? To support that belief we have the symbols already mentioned as existing in the chambers, the construction of the chambers themselves, the sculptures carved on the cornice that surrounds the sanctuary, representing cross bones and skeletons, with arms and hands uplifted, tokens that many of the Masons again cannot fail to recognize; besides other emblems that I will endeavor to explain, which exist on the walls of the residence of the priests, an edifice adjoining that temple. This may be considered the oldest known edifice in the world consecrated to secret rites and ceremonies; and its builders the founders of the sacred mysteries, that were transported from Mayax to India, Chaldea, Egypt, Etruria, by colonists or missionaries.

What the ceremonies of initiation were among the Mayas, it is difficult to surmise at present, all their books, except four that still exist, having been destroyed by the monks who came with the Spanish adventurers, or soon after the conquest.