freemasonry of the ancient Egypt 11

freemasonry of the ancient Egypt 11

Isis, by thus modelling and reproducing the missing member of Osiris,

gives the body of the god the appearance of completeness, but the life power

is not there. Isis, the priesthood, with their initiatory process, had accom-

 

 

 

THE SECRET DOCTRINE IN EGYPT

 

 

 

pi i shed all that could be accomplished by natural philosophy. Therefore re-

course is again had to magic. The golden phallus is rendered alive by the secret

processes rescued from the lost Book of Thoth. Thus the divine power ol Osiris

is restored through the regeneration of man himself and the processes of ini-

tiation. In the Greek system man was rendered divine because his composi-

tion contained the blood of Bacchus, and in Egypt, because it contained the

seminal power of Osiris. The institutions raised in the world to perpetuate

the deeper truths of life labored on through the centuries seeking for the lost

key (the living Crux Ansata) which, if rediscovered, would enliven and im-

pregnate the whole world and restore the good king Osiris to the throne left

empty by his cruel death.

 

I he purpose of the Isiac Rite is, therefore, revealed as twofold. The first

motive was the almost hopeless effort made by the bereaved Isis to restore her

husband to life. She hovers above his corpse in the form of a bird, trying to

restore his breath by the fluttering of her own wings. This ceremony is con-

cealed in the Book of the Respirations. The causing of Osiris to breathe again is

the great abstract ideal. The second and more imminent motive which actu-

ared Isis was to avenge herself uponTyphon and to destroy his power over the

world. This she determined to accomplish through her immaculately con-

ceived son, Horus, a term concealing the collective body of the perfected

adepts who were born again out of the womb of the Mother — Isis, the Mys-

tery School.

 

We can apply this analogy to a great modern system of initiation, Freema-

sonry, which has certainly perpetuated at least the outer form of the ancient

rites. Freemasonry as an institution is Isis, the mother of Mysteries, from

whose dark womb the Initiates are born in the mystery of the second or

philosophic birth. Thus all adepts, by virtue of their participation in the rites,

are figuratively, at least, the Sons of Isis. As Isis is the widow, seeking lo

restore her lord, and to avenge his cruel murder, it follows that all Master

Masons or Master Builders, are widows sons. They are the offspring of the

institution widowed by the loss of the living Word, and theirs is the eternal

quest — they discover by becoming.

 

 

 

• n 2 •

 

 

 

• Hi .

 

 

 

FREEMASONRY OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS

 

 

 

In the Egyptian rites Horus is the savior-avenger, son of Isis, conceived by

magic (the ritual) after the brutal murder of Osiris. Hence he is the posthu-

mous redeemer. Freemasons are Hori, they are the eye of Osiris, whose body

therefore, is made up of eyes. Each Initiate is a Horus. each is a hawk of the

sun, and for one reason is each raised and that is that he may join the army

which is to avenge the destruction of wisdom, and restore the reign of the all-

seeing lord. Each one is dedicated to the over-throwing of the reign of Ty-

phon. The great battle, in which the sons of the hawk rout the hosts of

darkness, is the mysterious Armageddon of Revelation, the Kurukshetra of

the Mahabharata, and the Ragnarok of the Eddas. In this battle the hosts

of the Adversary shall be routed forever.

 

The great purposes of the Osirian Rite are thus revealed in an unsus-

pected clarity. The Hershesti are philosophically opposed to the reign of am-

bition. It is their duty to reestablish that Golden Age when wisdom,

personified as Osiris— and not selfishness, personified by Typhon— shall dic-

tate the whole course of human procedure. The day must ultimately come

when the Hori. by virtue of their royal purpose, accomplish the consumma-

tion of the Great Work. The missing Word will be found and the golden sub-

stitute will be replaced as promised in the ancient rite. Osiris will rise in

splendor from the dead and rule the world through those sages and philoso-

phcrs in whom wisdom has become incarnate.

 

It should be particularly noted that the Egyptians do not regard Osiris as

wholly dead, but view him as continuing to live in the underworld where he

superintends the ceremony of the psychostasia. The underworld is not the

sphere of the dead alone; it is the world of the Mysteries. He is therefore god

of the hidden fane, the temple which is beneath the earth, the house of the

low ceiling, the crypts into which the Initiates go in search of truth. He is the

Dweller who abides in the darkness of the innermost. His throne is not in

the objective world but in that subjective sphere which is the inner life of

man. Thus is it arcanely intimated that while truth may perish from society, it

cannot die from the heart which preserves the sacred tradition through that

natural inspiration by which all men are gradually moved to truth.

 

 

 

• 11 4 -

 

 

 

THE SECRET DOCTRINE IN EGYPT

 

 

 

In the meantime the widow, Isis, the Mystery School, continues to pro-

duce out ol herself the host of potential redeemers. Spiritual education con-

tinues Irom age to age, and though temporarily obscured in this generation or

in that, its onward process is inevitable. Out of the Hidden House, guarded

by the silent god, must some day issue the glorious and illumined Horus, the

very incarnation of his own father, the personification of the lord of Abydos,

the avenger of all evil and the just god in whom there is no death.

 

 

 

. / 55 .

 

 

 

 

 

CRATA REPOA

 

 

 

FOREWORD

 

 

 

T he second half of the eighteenth century was a period of revival of old

beliefs and ancient doctrines. Freemasonry enjoyed unusual privileges in

I ranee and Germany; the French people, particularly, sponsored metaphysical

speculations, which have always been part of Freemasonic arcana.

 

Between the years 1750 and 1800, several extraordinary personalities ap-

peared to lend glamour and distinction to French secret societies. The most

famous of these, the Comte de St. Germain, practiced strange rites in France,

Alsace, and Germany. The Comte Cagliostro restored Egyptian Freemasonry

in Paris and included in the membership of his cult many persons of position

and distinction. Anton Mcsmer, a disciple of St. Germain, practiced mag-

netic healings and left strange, cryptic records of his discoveries. Benjamin

I t anklin visited the Court of France in his capacity as American Ambassador

niil introduced to the French mind his curious speculations on electricity.

 

Court de Gebelin was the principal Egyptologist of the French Academy.

It was this unusual man with his deep knowledge of ancient lore who rescued

the subject of the Tarot cards from oblivion. Fie advanced the hypothesis that

 

 

 

. n 7 .

 

 

 

 

FOREWORD

 

 

 

playing cards were the leaves of a sacred book which had descended from an-

cent Egypt. De Gebelin also tried to explain the meaning of the cards, de-

claring the pictures to represent symbols of philosophical and metaphysical

importance.

 

Dupuis was writing upon the histories of ancient cults and beliefs;

Lenoir was tracing Freemasonic origins to the Rites of Ancient Memphis;

and Ragon was explaining the symbolism of the Masonic crafts in terms of

Greek, Egyptian, and Hindu metaphysics. In all, the last half of the eigh-

teenth century was the Golden Age of scholarship in continental Free-

masonry.

 

The ,m P ulse behi °d Masonic scholarship in France during the period of

the Revolution and immediately thereafter is entirely obscure. It is quite pos-

sible that St. Germain, Cagliostro, and Claude Saint-Martin were the moving

spirits behind the sudden interest in Egyptian and Oriental metaphysics. Cer-

tainly, St. Germains TRINOSOPHIA and Cagliostro s EGYPTIAN RITES

 

stand out as the ablest products of the French recension.

 

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were bound to theological and

classical prejudices to information. Several efforts had been made towards re-

viving interest in Egyptian mysticism, but small success rewarded the efforts.

 

1 1 remained for a small group of pioneers in the eighteenth century France

and Germany, particularly France, to attempt a restoration of certain secret,

metaphysical systems not practiced in human society for 1,500 years.

 

Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom, who was initiated into the Society of the Rosi-

crucians on the Isle of Mauritius on the twelfth of September. 1794, by the

mysterious Comte de Chazal, has left extensive manuscripts setting forth his

findings and opinions on matters of interest to Rosicrucians and Freemasons.

Dr. Bacstrom maintained that Freemasonry as a secular order had its origin in

the Sanctuary of the Rosy Cross. He, furthermore, described the transition

through which the Ancient Brotherhood of the Unknown Philosophers

passed in the process of externalizing certain parts of itself as Freemasonry.

The learned Doctor made special point of the activity of the Hermetic

adepts in eighteenth century Europe. His conclusions fit very well into the