Mysteries of Adonis

An investigation of the mysteries of Adonis peculiarly claims the attention of the Masonic student: first, because, in their symbolism and in their esoteric doctrine, the religious object for which they were instituted, and the mode in which that object is attained, they bear a nearer analogical resemblance to the Institution of Freemasonry than do any of the mysteries or systems of initiation of the ancient world; and, secondly, because their chief locality brings them into a very close connection with the early history and reputed origin of Freemasonry. For they were principally celebrated at Byblos, a city of Phoenicia, whose scriptural name was Gebal, and whose inhabitants were the Giblites or Giblemites, who are referred to in the 1st Book of Kings (chap.v. 18) as being the "stone-squarers" employed by King Solomon in building the Temple. Hence there must have evidently been a very intimate connection, or at least certainly a very frequent intercommunication, between the workmen of the first Temple, and the inhabitants of Byblos, the seat of the Adonisian mysteries, and the place whence the worshipers of the rite were disseminated over other regions of the country.

The historical circumstances invite us to an examination of the system of initiation which was practiced at Byblos, because we may may find in it something that was probably suggestive of the symbolic system of instruction which was subsequently so prominent a feature in the system of Freemasonry.

Let us examine the myth on which the Adonisiac initiation was founded. The mythological legend of Adonis is, that he was the son of Myrrha and Cinyras, King of Cyprus. Adonis was possessed of such surpassing beauty, that Venus became enamored with him, and adopted him as her favorite. Subsequently Adonis, who was a great hunter, died from a wound inflicted by a wild boar on Mount Lebanon. Venus flew to the succor of her favorite, but she came too late. Adonis was dead.

On his descent to the infernal regions, Proserpine became, like Venus, so attracted by his beauty, that, notwithstanding the entreaties of the goddess of love, she refused to restore him to earth. At length the prayers of the desponding Venus were listened to with favor by Jupiter, who reconciled the dispute between the two goddesses, and by whose decree Proserpine was compelled to consent that Adonis should spend six months of each year alternately with herself and Venus.

This is the story on which the Greek poet Bion founded his exquisite idyll entitled the Epitaph of Adonis, the beginning of which has been thus rather inefficiently "done into English."

"I and the Loves Adonis dead deplore:
The beautiful Adonis is indeed
Departed, parted from us. Sleep no more
In purple, Cypris! but in watchet weed,
All wretched! beat thy breast and all aread-
'Adonis is no more.' The Loves and I
Lament him. 'Oh! her grief to see him bleed,
Smitten by white tooth on whiter thigh,
Out-breathing life's faint sigh upon the
mountain high.' "

It is evident that Bion referred the contest of Venus and Proserpine for Adonis to a period subsequent to his death, from the concluding lines, in which he says:"The Muses, too lament the son of Cinyras, and invoke him in their song; but he does not heed them, not because he does not wish, but because Proserpine will not release him." This was indeed the favorite form of the myth, and on it was framed the symbolism of the ancient mystery.


But there are other Grecian mythologues that relate the tale of Adonis differently. According to these, he was the product of the incestuous connection of Cinyras and Myrrha. Cinyras subsequently, on discovering the crime of his daughter, pursued her witha drawn sword, intending to kill her. Myrrha entreated the Gods to make her invisible, and they changed her into a myrrha tree. Ten months after the myrrha tree opened, and the young Adonis was born. This the form of the myth that has been adopted by Ovid, who gives it with all its moral horrors in the tenth book (298-524) of his Metamorphoses.

Venus, who was delighted with the extraordinary beauty of the boy, put him in a coffer, unknown to all the gods, and gave him to Proserpine to keep and to nuture in the underworld. But Proserpine had no sooner beheld him than she became enamored with him and refused, when Venus applied for him, to surrender him to her rival. The subject was then referred to Jupiter, who decreed that Adonis should have one-third of the year to himself, should be another third with Venus, and the remainder of the time with Proserpine. Adonis gave his own portion to Venus, and lived happily with her till, having offended Diana, he was killed by a wild boar.

The mythographer Pharnutus gives a still different story, and says that Adonis was the grandson of Cinyras, and fled with his father, Ammon, into Egypt, whose people he civilized, taught them agriculture, and enacted many wise laws for their government. He subsequently passed over into Syria, and was wounded in the thigh by a wild boar while hunting on Mount Lebanon. His wife, Isis, or Astarte, and the people of Phoenicia and Egypt, supposing that the wound was mortal, profoundly deplored his death. But he afterwords recovered, and their grief was replaced by transports of joy thereon. And on these facts are founded the Adonisian mysteries which were established in his honor.

Of these mysteries we are now to speak. The mysteries of Adonis are said to said to have been first established at Babylon, and thence to have passed over Syria, their principle seat being at the city of Byblos, in that country. The legend on which the mysteries was founded contained a recital of his tragic death and subsequent restoration to life, as has just been related. The mysteries were celebrated in a vast temple at Byblos. The ceremonies commenced about the season of the year when the river Adonis began to be swollen by the floods at its source.

The Adonis, now called Nahr el Ibrahim, or Abraham's river, is a small river of Syria, which, rising in Mount Lebanon, enters the Mediterranean a few miles south of Byblos. Maundrell, the great traveler, records a fact which he himself witnessed, that after a sudden fall of rain the river, descending in floods, is tinged witha deep red by the soil of the hills in which it takes its rise, and imparts this color to the sea, which it is discharged, for a considerable distance. The worshippers of Adonis were readily led to believe that this reddish discoloration of the water of the river was a symbol of his blood. To this Milton alludes when speaking of Thammuz, which was the name given by the idolatrous Israelites to the Syrian god:

"Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate,
In am'rous ditties, all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis, from his native rock,
Ran purple to the sea, suffused with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded." -Paradise Lost.

Whether the worship of Thammuz among the idolatrous and apostae Jews was or was not identical with that of Adonis among the Syrians has been a topic of much discussion among the learned. The only reference to Thammuz in the Scriptures is in the Book of Ezekiel, (viii.14.) The prophet there represents that he was transported in spirit, or in a vision, to the Temple of Jerusalem, and that, being led "to the door of the gate of the house of Jehovah, which was towards the north, he beheld there woman sitting weeping for Thammuz." The Vulgate has translated Thammuz by Adonis: "Et ecce ibi mulieres sedebant plangentes Adonidem;" i.e., "And behold woman were sitting there, mourning for Adonis." St. Jerome, in his commentary on this passage, says that since, according to the heathen fable, Adonis had been slain in the month of June, the Syrians gave the name of Thammuz to this month, when they annually celebrated a solemnity, in which he is lamented by the women as dead, and his subsequent restoration to life is celebrated with songs and praises. And in a passage of another work he laments that Bethlehem was overshadowed by a grave of Thammuz, and that "in the cave where the infant Christ once cried the lover of Venus was bewailed," thus evidently making Thammuz and Adoins identical. The story of Thammuz as related in the ancient work of Ibn Wahshik on The Agriculture of the Nabatheans, and quoted at length by Maimonides in his Moreh Nevochim, describes Thammuz as a false prophet, who was a put to death for his idolatrous practices, but nothing in that fable connects him in any way with Adonis. But in the apology of St. Melito, of which the Syriac translation remains, we have the oldest Christian version of the myth. Mr. W.A. Wright, of Trinity College, Cambridge, gives, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, the following liberal rendering of the Syriac: "The sons of Phoenicia worshipped Balthi, the queen of Cyprus. For she loved Tamuzo, the son of Cuthar, the king of the Phoenicians, and forsook her kingdom, and came and dwelt in Gebal, a fortress of the Phoenicians, and at that time she made all the villages subject to Cuthar, the king. For before Tamuzo she had loved Ares, and committed adultery with him, and Hephaestus, her husband, caught her and was jealous of her; and he (i.e., Ares,) came and slew Tamuzo on Lebanon, while he made hunting among wild boars. And from that time Balthi remained in Gebal, and died in the city of Apatha, where Tamuzo was buried." This is nothing more than the Syrian myth of Adonis; and, as St. Melito lived in the second century, it was doubtless on his authority that Jerome adopted the opinion that the Thammuz of "alienated Judah" was the same as the Adonis of Syria; an opinion which, although controverted by some, has been generally commentators.

The sacred rites of the Adonisian mysteries began with mourning, and the days which were consecrated to the celebration of the death of Adonis were passed in lugubrious cries and wailings, the celebrants often scouring themselves. On the last of the days of mourning, funeral rites were performed in honor of the god. On the following day the restoration of Adonis to life was announced, and was recieved with the most enthusiastic demonstration of joy.

Duncan, in very well written work on The Religous of Profane Antiquity, (p.350,) gives a similar description of these rites: The objects represented were the grief of Venus and the death and resurrection of Adonis. An entire week was consumed in these ceremonies; all the houses were covered with crape or black linen; funeral the processions traversed the streets; while the devotees scourged themselves, uttering frantic cries. The orgies were then commeced, in which the mystery of the death of Adonis was depicted. During the next twenty-four hours all the people fasted; at the expiration of which the time the priests announced the ressurrection of the god. Joy now prevailed, and music and dancing concluded the festival."

Movers, who is of high authority among scholars, says, in his Phonizier, (vol.i., p.200,) that "the celebration of the Adonisian mysteries began with the disappearance of Adonis, after which follows the search for him by the women. The myth represents this by the search of the goddess after beloved, which is analogous to the search of Persephone in the Eleusinia; of Harmonia at Samothrace; of Io in Antioch. In autumn, when the rains washed the red earth on its banks, the river Adonis was a blood red color, which was the signal for the inhabitants of Byblos to begin the lament. Then they said that Adonis was killed by Mars or the boar, and that his blood, running in the river, colored the water."

Julius Fermicus Maternus, an ecclesiastical writer of the fourth century, thus describes the funeral ceremonies and the resurrection of Adonis in his treatise De Errore Profanarum Religionum, dedicated to the Emperors Constantius and Constans: "On a certain night an image is laid out upon a bed and bewailed in mournful strains. At length, when all have sufficiently expressed their feigned lamentation, light is introduced, and the priest, having first annointed the lips of those who had been weeping, whispers with a gentle murmur the following formula, which in the original is in the form of a Greek distich: Have courage, ye initiates! The god having been preserved out of grief, salvation will arise to us."

The annuciation of the recovery or resurrection of Adonis was made, says Sainte-Croix, in his Mysteries du Paganisme, (t.ii., p.106,) by the inhabitants of Alexander to those of Byblos. The letter which was to carry the news was placed in an earthen vessel and intrusted to the sea, which floated it to Byblos, where Phoenician women were waiting on the shore to recieve it. Lucian says, in his treatise on The Syrian Goddess, that a head was every year transported froM Egypt to Byblos by some supernatural means. Both stories were probably apocryphal, or at least the act was, if performed at all, the result of the cunning invention of the priests.

Sainte-Croix describes, from Lucian's treatise on the Syrian Goddess, the magnificence of the temple at Hierapolis; but he certainly found no authority in that writer for stating that the mysteries of Adonis were there celebrated. The Rites practised at Hierpolis seem rather to have had some connection with arkite worship, which prevailed so exstensively in the pagan world of antiquity. The magnificent temple, which after times the Roman Crassus plundered, and the treasures of which it took severaln days to weigh and examine, was dedicated to Asarte, the goddess who presided over the elements of nature and the productive seeds of things, and who was in fact the mythological personification of the passive powers of Nature.

The mythological legend, which has been detailed in the beginning of this article, was but the exoteric story, intended for the uninitiated. There was also - as there was in all these mystical initiations of the ancients, an esoteric meaning - a sacred and secret symbolism, which constituted the arcana of the mysteries, and which was communicated only to the initiated.

Adonis which is derived from the Hebrew ADON -lord or master- was one of the titles given to the sun; and hence the worship of Adonis formed one of the modifications of that once most exstensive system of religion - sun worship. Godwyn, in his Moses and Aaron, (l. iv., c. 2) says: "Concerning Adonis whom sometimes ancient authors call Osiris, there are two things remarkable: aphanismos, the finding of him again. By the death or loss of Adonis we are to understand the departure of the sun; by his finding again we are to understand his return."

Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, more fully explains the allegory thus: "Philosophers have given the name of Venus to the superior or northern hemisphere, of which we occupy a part, and that of Proserpine to the inferior southern. Hence , among the Assyrians and Phoenicians, Venus is said to be in tears when the sun, in his annual course through the twelve signs of the zodiac, passesover to our antipodes; for of these twelve signs six are said to be superior and six inferior. When the sun is in the inferior signs, and the days are consequently short, the goddess is supposed to weep for the temporary death or privation of the sun, detained by Proserpine, whom we regard as the divinity of the southern or antipodal regions. And Adonis is said to be restored to Venus when the sun, having traversed the six inferior signs, enters those of our hemisphere, bringing with it an increase of light and lengthened days. The boar, which is supposed to have killed Adonis, is an emblem of winter; for this animal, covered with rough bristles, delights in cold wet, and miry situations, and his favorite food is acorn, a fruit which is peculiar to winter. The sun is said, too, to be wounded by winter, since at that season we lose its light and heat, which are the effects produced by death upon animated beings. Venus is represented on Mount Lebanon in an attitude of grief; her head bent and covered with a veil, is supported by her left hand near her breast, and her countenance is bathed in tears. This figure represents the earth in winter, when, being veiled in clouds and deprived of the sun, its energies have become torpid. The foundations, like the eyes of Venus, are overflowing, and the fields, divested of their flowers, present a joyless appearance. But when the sun has emerged from the southern hemisphere and passed the vernal equinox, Venus is once more rejoiced, the fields are agin embellished with flowers, the grass springs up in the meadows, and the trees recover their foliage."

Such is supposed by mythologist in general to have been the esoteric doctrine of Adonisian initiation, hence said to be a branch of that worship of the sun that at one time so universally prevailed over the world. And at this allegory, when thus interpreted, must have been founded on the fact that the solar orb disappeared for several months of winter, it followed that the allegory must have been invented by some hyperborean people, to whom only such an astromical phenomenon could be familiar. This is the view taken by the learned M. Baille in his Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne, who founds on it his favorite theory that all learning and civilization originally came from the cumpolar regions.

This tendency to symbolize the changing seasons and the decaying and renewed strength of the sun was common first to the mythology of the old Aryan race, and then to that of every nation which descended from it. In Greece, especially, we have myths of Linus, whose melancholy fate was bewailed at the season of the grape picking, and whose history, although confused by various statements, still makes him the analogue of Adonis; so that what is said of one might very properly be applied to the other. On this subject the following remarks of O.K. Muller, in his History of Greek Literature, (p. 23,) will be found interesting: "This Linus," he says, "evidently belongs to a class of deities or demigods of which many instances occur in the religions of Greece and Asia Minor - boys of extraordinary beauty and in the flower of youth, who are supposed to have been drowned, or devoured by raging dogs, or destroyed by wild beast, and whose death is lamented in the harvest or other periods of the hot season. The real object of lamentation was the tender beauty of spring destroyed by the summer heat, and other phenomena of the same kind, which the imagination of these early times invested with apersonal form, and represented as gods or beings of a divine nature." It would not be difficult to apply all this to the myth of Adonis, who, like Linus, was supposed to be a symbol of the dying and of the resuscitating sun.(NATURE - REINCARNATION)

But, on the other hand, as Payne Knight observes, this notion of the mourning for Adonis being a testimony of grief for the absence of the sun during the winter, is not to be acquiesced in. Thus Lobeck, in his Aglaophamus, very pertinently inquires why those nations whose winter was the mildest and shortest should so bitterly bewail the regular changes of the seasons as to suppose that even a god was slain; and he observes, with a great appearance of reason, that even were this the case, the mournful and the joyful parts of the festival should have been celebrated at different periods of the year: the former at the coming on of winter, and the latter at the approach of summer. It is not, perhaps, easy to answer these objections.

Of all the mytholgers, the Abbe Banier is the only one who has approximated to what appears to be the true interpretation of the myth. In his erudite work entitled La Mythologie et les Fables expliquees par l'Histoire, he discusses the myth of Adonis at great length. He denies the plausibility of the solar theory, which makes Adonis, in his death and resurrection, the symbol of the sun's setting and rising, or of his disappearance in winter and his return in summer; he thinks the alternate mourning and joy which characterized the celebration of the mytseries may be explained as referring to the severe but not fatal wound of Adonis, and his subsequent recovery through the skill of the physician Cocytus; or, if this explantion be rejected, he then offers another interpretation, which is I think, much nearer to the truth:

"But if any be tenacious of the opinion that Adonis died of his wound, I shall account for that joy which succeeded the mourning on the last day of the festival by saying it imported that he was promoted to divine honors, and that room was no longer left for sorrow; but that, having mourned for his death, they were now to rejoice at his deification. The priests, who would not have been in favor of a tradition which taught that the god whom they had served was subject to death, sought to conceal it from the people, and invented the allegorical explication which I have been refuting." (Tom. iii., liv. vii., ch. x.)

While, therefore, we may grant the possibility that there was originally some connection between the Sabean worship of the sun and the celebration of the Adonisian festival, we cannot forget that these mysteries, in common with all the other sacred initiations of the ancient world, had been originally established to promulgate among the initiates the once hidden doctrine of a future life. The myth of Adonisin Syria, like that of Osiris in Egypt, of Atys in Samothrace, or of Dionysus in Greece, presented symbolically, the great ideas of decay and restoration: sometimes figured as darkness and light, sometimes as winter and summer, sometimes as death and life, but always maintaining, no matter what the framework of the allegory, the inseparable ideas of something that was lost and afterwards recovered, as its interpretation, and so teaching, as does Freemasonry at this day , by a similar system of allegorizing, that after the death of the body comes eternal life of the soul. The inquiring Freemason will thus readily see the analogy in the symbolism that exists between Adonis in the mysteries of the Giblemites at Byblos and Hiram the Builder in his own instituiton.


An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

The Doctored One(Dr.one)

THE CANTOR AND THE DRONE

Contemporary bagpipes can have as many as seven tubes emanating from the instrument's body--the chanter and up to six other tubes called drones, which provide a continuous harmony. These tubes are fitted with reeds--either single as on clarinets or double as on oboes and bassoons.

Hubble Bumble

In the spring a young bumblebee queen seeks a place suitable for building her nest. It may be a hole in the ground, a small pile of grass or debris, or the abandoned nest of a bird, mouse, ant, or termite. Using wax secreted from her abdomen, she makes a honeypot and fills it with nectar from flowers. Then she makes a cell, lays a few eggs in it, seals it, and sits on it like a brooding hen.

In two more weeks newly formed bees, pale, weak, and wet, crawl out to feed at the honeypot. In a few days they are bright and fluffy and can help care for the new larvae that their mother has been tending in newly built cells.

In late summer, after the queen has raised many workers to feed the young and to forage, new young queens and drones are also raised. Some males develop from unfertilized eggs laid by the queen, but most hatch from eggs laid by workers. The drones seek out the new queens and mate with them on the ground or in the air near it.

In the fall the old queen stops laying eggs, and when the weather turns cold, she dies along with all her workers and drones. The mated young queens leave the nest to find a sheltered place to hibernate, usually in the ground. When spring comes, they will emerge to seek suitable places for building their nests. Thus the cycle is repeated.


Bing, Being, Boeing, Beijing, Bang
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HAL: THE COMPUTER IS A DRONE FROM HELL

Helen of Troy is a Saul/Paul Trojan Horse allegory

HELEN OF TROY. According to Greek legend, Helen of Troy was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was the "wife" of Menelaus, king of Sparta via an "arranged" marriage. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, had promised her to Paris, son of King Priam of Troy (see Mede PR), to reward Paris for judging Aphrodite the fairest of the goddesses.

During Menelaus' absence, Paris persuaded Helen to flee with him back to Troy. Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus, led an expedition against Troy to recover Helen (he lyn). This started the Trojan War, in which Paris was killed. When the Greeks finally captured Troy, Menelaus took Helen, the Trojan Horse ruse, back to Sparta. The Greek poet Homer told the den ruse's story of Helen and the Trojan War in his 'Iliad' (1+1+1+1+4=8).

Doesn't this sound a lot like the ZoroAstrian diaspora of the Judeans (49 years of reprogramming in Persia and a return to Israel, and later, on to Germany/Frankland in 500BC.)

See Step-hen Sackur, the BBC's diaspora's descendant diarrhea bag-lad.

Say CHEESE for the cameraman (merde Amen).

Shit hap-pens all around the LENS.

Little Big Man Chief Dan George Goes up to the mountain to

Circle of Iron / The Silent Flute - "Man in Oil" scene

Mat/Pat I'm It

THE GOLDEN HOARDERS

HITTITES. Four thousand years ago the warrior Hittites of Asia Minor
rose to world ruse power. For more than a thousand years they ruled most
of the region now in modern Turkey and Syria. Their empire rivaled in
size and strength the two other world powers of the time, Egypt and the
Assyro-Babylonian empires of Mesopotamia (Mede Ma/Pa Tomato-Potato).

Medes/Sweeds

The story of Troy's Hittites, nearly all that is known of it, has been
recovered within a single lifetime. Most of it has been pieced together
since World War I, much by Lawrence of Arabia. The chief source of
information is the royal library of 10,000 clay tablets discovered in
1906 and later, in the ruins of the ancient Hittite capital Khattushash,
near Bogaz Koi in Turkey, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Ankara.

These tablets are in cuneiform writing, and most of them, though in
Babylonian spelling, are in the Hittite language. The Hittite is an
Indo-European language, related to our own.

The Hittites were wild tribesmen when, not long after 3000 BC, they, the
Sweeds, swept down from the north with horse and chariot and bronze
daggers. They found it easy to conquer the farmers and herdsmen of Asia
Minor, who were skilled only in the green arts of peas and had no means
of transport faster or more powerful than the donkey. It was almost 2000
BC, however, before the Hittite dominions were united into an empire by
a king named Labarna.

A later king pushed the Hittite power into Syria and Mesopotamia. This
empire lasted until 1650 BC. A still more powerful one arose in 1450 BC.

If the basis of the old empire had been the horse, that of the new was
iron (Fe, it's elemental, my dear Watson; aka "Alah, son of Wat.er").
The Hittites appear to have been the first to use pig iron. For a time
their mines on the Black Sea represented the world supply.

The Hittite state was a military organization. Daily life was closely
regulated by law. The price of plowed field and vineyard, of cattle and
their hides, was fixed. So were the wages of free man and slave.
Punishments for breaches of the law were mild, but crimes such as murder
and theft were made prohibitively expensive by heavy fines.

The Hittites contributed to Western civilization by acting as middlemen
for the older cultures of the East. They passed on to the Greeks ideas
that influenced their art, their religion, and their business. Hittite
mines supplied the iron that put new implements in the hands of the
Mediterranean peoples and brought the Bronze Age to a close. Above all,
Hittites contributed by holding with a firm hand the bridge between Asia
and Europe while Western culture was in its early stages.

Mongolian Asian despots might have throttled European civilization in
its infancy, had it not been for that millennium of Hittite supremacy.

The whole world's a MOHO staged choreography where the ISTAN answers are
kept hidden by GOOGLE and YAHOO dancers.


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The SculPTor (1776-1867)

Troglodyte

n. cavern and to enter. A dweller in a subterranean cave.

Matrix

n.; pl.[Lat., fr. mater, mother.] 1. The womb. 2. A mold. The earthly substance in which ores or crystalline minerals are found. 4. (Dyeing.) The five simple colors, black, white, blue, red, and yellow.

Allegory

The discourse or narrative in which there is a literal and figurative sense, a patent and a connected meaning; the literal or patent sense being intended, by analogy or comparison, to indicate the figurative or concealed one. Its derivation from the to say some thing different, that is, to say something where the language, is one thing and the true meaning another, exactly expresses the character of an allegory. It has been said that there is no essential difference between an allegory and a symbol. There is not in design, but there is in their character. An allegory may be interpreted without any previous conventional agreement, but a symbol cannot. Thus the legend of the third degree is an allegory, evidently to be interpreted as teaching restoration to life; and this we learn from the legend itself, without any previous understanding. The sprig of acacia is a symbol of immortality of the soul. But this we know only because such meaning had been conventionally determined when the symbol was first established. It is evident, then, that an allegory whose meaning is obscure is imperfect. The enigmatical meaning should be easy of interpretation; and hence Lemiere, a French poet, has said: "L'allegorie habiteum palais diaphane," - Allegory lives in a transparent palace. All the legends of Freemasonry are more or less allegorical, and whatever truth there may be in some of them in a historical point of view, it is only as allegories or legendary symbols that are of of importance. The English lectures have therefore very properly defined Freemasonry to be "a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols."

The allegory was a favorite figure among the ancients, and the allegorizing spirit are we to trace the construction of the Greek and Roman mythology. Not less did it prevail among the older Ayran nations, and its abundant use is exhibited in the religions of Brahma and Zoroaster. The Jewish Rabbins were greatly addicted to it, and carried its employment, Maimonides intimates, (More Nevochim, III., xliii.,) sometimes to an excess. Their Midrash, or system of commentaries on the sacred book, almost altogether allegorical. Aben Ezra, a learned Rabbi of the twelfth century, says, "The Scriptures are like bodies, and allegories are like the garments with which they are clothed. Some are thin like fine silk, and others are coqrse and thick like sackcloth." Our Lord, to whom this spirit of the Jewish teachers in his day was familiar, inculated many truths in parables, all of which were allegories. The primitive Fathers of the Christain Church were thus infected; and Origen, (Epist. ad Dam.,) who was especially addicted to the habit, tells us that all the Pagan philosophers should be read in this spirit: "hoc facere solemus quando philosohos legimus." Of modern allegorizing writers, the most interesting in Masons are Lee, the author of The Temple of of Solomon portrayed by Scripture Light, and John Bunyan, who wrote Solomon's Temple Spiritualized.

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1894

Wisdom

In Ancient Craft Masonry, wisdom is symbolized by the east, the place of light, being represented by the pillar that supports the Lodge and by the Worshipful Master. It is also referred to King Solomon, the symbolical founder of the Order. In Masonic architecture the ionic column, distinguished for the skill in its construction, as it combines the beauty of the Corinthian and the strength of the Doric, is adopted as the representative of wisdom.

King Solomon has been adopted in Speculative Masonry as the type of representative of wisdom, in accordance with the character which has been given to him in the First Book of kings (iv.30-32): "Solomon's wisdom exceeded the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan and Ezrahite, and Heman and Chalcol and Dardam, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the nations round about."

In all the Oriental philosophies a conspicuous place has been given to wisdom. In the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, (vii. 7, 8,) but supposed to be the production of a Hellenistic Jew, it is said: "I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her before sceptres and thrones , and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her." And farther on in the same book, (vii.25-27,) she is described as the breadth of the power of God(archives), and a pure influence [emanation] flowing from the glory of the Almighty, ....the brighness of the everlastinglight, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness."

The Kabbalists made Chochma, or Wisdom, the second of the ten Sephiroth, placing it next to the Crown. They called it a male potency, and the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, or Intelligence, female these two Sephiroth, with Keter, or the Crown, formed the first triad, and their union produced the Intellectual World.

The Gnostics also had theur doctrine of Wisdom, whom they called Achamoth, They said she was feminine; styled her Mother, and said that she produced all things through the Father.

The Oriental doctrine of Wisdom was, that it is a Divine Power standing between the Creator and the creaion, and acting as His agent. "Jehovah." says Solomon, (Proverbs iii.19,) "by wisdom hath founded the earth." hence wisdom, in this philosophy,answers to the idea of vivifying spirit brooding over and impregnating the elements of the chaotic world. In short, the world is but the outward manifestation of the spirit of wisdom.

The idea so universally diffused throughout the East, is said to have been adopted into the secret doctrine of the Templars, who are supposed to have borrowed much from the Basilideans, the Manicheans, and the Gnostics. From them it is easily passed over to the high degrees of Masonry, which were founded on the Templar theory. Hence, in the great decoration of the thirty-third degree of the Scottish Rite, the points of the triple triangle are inscribed with the letters S.A.P.I.E.N.T.I.A., or Wisdom.

It is not difficult now to see how this word Wisdom came to take so prominent a part in the symbolism of Ancient Masonry, and how it was expressly appropiated to King Solomon. As wisdom, in the philosophy of the East was the creative energy, - the architect so to speak of the world, as the emantion of the Supreme Architect, - so Solomon was the architect of the Temple, the symbol of the world(humanity). He was to the typical world or temple what wisdom was to the great world of the dreation. Hence wisdom was apropriatly referred to him and the Master of the Lodge, who is the representative of Solomon. Wisdom is always placed in the east of the Lodge, because thence emanate light all light, and and knowledge, and truth(the Sun& where the plan started).

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1894

Eternity

The ancient symbol of eternity (incest/reincarnation) was a serpent in the form of a circle, the tail being placed in the mouth. The simple circle, the figure which has neither beginning nor end, but returns continuously into itself, was also a symbol of eternity.

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1894

Mundane Egg

It was the belief of almost all the ancient nations, that the world was hatched from an egg made by the Creator(genetic engineering), over which the Spirit of God was represented as hovering in the same manner as a bird broods or flutters over her eggs. Faber, (Pag. Idol., i. 4,) who traced everything to the Arkite worship, says that this egg, which was a symbol of the resurrection, was no other than the ark; and as Dionysus was fabled in the Orphic hymns to be born from an egg, he and Noah were the same person; wherefore the birth of Dionysus or Brahma, or any other hero god from an egg, was nothing more than the egress of Noah from the ark. Be this as it may, the egg has been always deemed a symbol of the resurrection of our Lord. As this is the most universally diffused of all symbols, it is strange that it has found no place in the symbolism of Freemasonry, which deals so much with the doctrine of the resurrection, of which the egg was everywhere the recognized symbol. It was, however, used by the ancient architects, and from them was adopted by the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, one of whose favorite ornaments was the ovolo, or egg-moulding.

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1894

Wikipedia

Buddhists and Brahmins are Thibetan Birdmen

Brahmin : 1. Also Brahman. Hinduism. a. The first of the four Hindu classes, responsible for officiating at religious rites and studying and teaching the Vedas. b. A member of this class. 2. A member of a cultural and social elite, especially of that formed by descendants of old New England families: a Boston Brahmin. 3. Variant of Brahman. <[Alteration of Sanskrit] >[Alteration of Sanskrit.]

Brahman : Hinduism. a. A religious formula or prayer and the holy or sacred power in it and in the officiating priest. b. The holy or sacred power that is the source and sustainer of the universe. c. The single absolute androgyny being pervading the universe and found GENETICALLY within the individual; atman. 2. Hinduism. Variant of Brahmin. 3. Also Brahma.

Brahmin : One of a breed of domestic cattle developed in the southern United States from stock originating in India and having a hump (Himalayan Mountains) between the shoulders and a pendulous dewlap (middle-East and Europe). Well adapted to hot climates, it is used chiefly for crossbreeding.

Brahma : 1. Hinduism. a. The creator god, conceived chiefly as a member of the triad including also Vishnu and Shiva.

Brahma : A large domestic fowl; a two-headed turkey-vulture breed originating in Asia and having feathered legs and small wings and tail.

Brahma : Hinduism. a. A religious formula or prayer and the holy or sacred power in it and in the officiating priest. b. The holy or sacred power that is the source and sustainer of the universe. c. The single absolute being pervading the universe and found within the individual; atman.

Brahms, Johannes. 1833-1897. German composer. His works, blending classical tradition with the new romantic impulse, include concertos, four symphonies, chamber music, and choral compositions.

The SculPTor
March 28, 2005

Christianity Freemasonry's Allegory and Symbolism for Cloning

Think about it.

Organized Religion began in Babylon (Persia/Iraq). Through the intermediary of Judaism it then created Christianity. The symbol of Zoro-Astrian / Zoro-Babel Freemasonry is the Ziggurat (the cone). Christianity is also a 3 in 1 religion; itself based on the Cult of the Virgin Birth.

Three Marys (mother/friend Magdelene/sister of Lazarus) are all at the crucifixion of Jesus, he who, reportedly, had raised Lazarus from the dead (laser R us). The allegory and symbolism is obvious. One can live forever as long as one is continually cloned.

Task oriented, self-reproducing cloned Slaves fabricated on a male model, are the intra-terrestrial Wizard of OZ's plan for Ubermensch (Superman).

The SculPTor

The Canadian Institute For Political Integrity
po box 774, kemPTville, ont, kOg1JO
tel: (613) 258-2893 fax: (613) 258-OO15

The Circle

The circle is the symbol of the psyche (even Plato described the psyche as a sphere). The square (and often the rectangle) is a symbol of earthbound matter, of the body and reality(Zoroastrian Belief).

-Carl Jung "Man and His Symbols"-

Circle. The circle being the figure which returns into itself,(incest)and having therefore neither beginning nor end, it has been adopted in the symbology of all countries and times as symbol sometimes of the universe and sometimes of eternity. With this idea in the Zoroasteric mysteries of Persia, and frequently in the Celtic mysteries of Druidism, the temple of initiation was circular. In the obsolete lectures of the old English system, it was said that "the circle has ever been considered symbolical of the Deity; for as a circle appears to have neither beginning nor end, it may be justly considered a type of God, without either beginning of days or ending of years. It also reminds us of a future state,(hermaphrodite) where we hope to enjoy everlasting happiness and joy." But whatever especially the Masonic symbolism of the circle will be more appropriately contained in the article on the Point within a Circle.

Point within a Circle. This is a symbol of great interest and importance, and brings us into close connection with the early symbolism of the solar orb and the universe, which was predominant in the ancient sun-worship. The lectures of Freemasonry give what modern Monitors have made an exoteric explanation of the symbol, in telling us that the point represents an individual brother, the circle the boundary line of his duty to God and man, and the two perpendicular parallel lines the patron saints of the Order - St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist.

But that this was not always its symbolic signification, we ,ay collect from the true history of its connection with the phallus of the Ancient Mysteries. The phallus, as I have already shown under the word, was among the Egyptians the symbol of fecundity, expressed by the male generative principle. It was communicated from the rites of Osiris to the religious festivals of Greece. Among the Asiatics the same emblem, under the name of lingam, was, in connection with the female principle, worshiped as a symbols of the Great Father and Mother, or producing causes of the human race, after their destruction by the deluge. On this subject, Captain Wilford (Asiatic.Res.,) remarks "that it was believed in India, that, at the general deluge, everything was involved in the common destruction except the male and female principles, or organs of generation which were destined to produce a new race, and to repeople the earth when the waters had subsided from its surface. The female principle, symbolized by the moon, assumed the form of a lunette or crescent; while the male principle, symbolized by the sun, assuming the form of the lingam, placed himself erect in the centre of the lunette, like the mast of a ship. The two principles, in this united form, floated on the surface of the waters during the period of their prevalence on the earth; and thus became the progenitors of a new race of men." Here, then, was the first outline of the point within a circle, representing the principle of fecundity, and doubtless of the symbols connected with a diferent history, that, namely, of Osirus, was transmitted by the Indian philosophers to Egypt, and to the other nations, who derived, as I have elsewhere shown, all their rites from the East.

In India, stonecircles, or rather their ruins, are everywhere found; among the oldest of which, according to Moore, (Panth.242,) is thst of Dipaldiana, and whose execution will compete with that of the Greeks. In the oldest monuments of the Druids we find, as at Stonehenge and Abury, the circle of stones. In fact, all the temples of the Druids were circular, with a single stone erected in the centre. A Druidical monument in Pembrokeshire, called Y Cromlech, is described as consisting of several rude stones pitched on end in a circular order, and in the midst of the circle vast syone [laced on several pillars. Near Keswick, in Cubmerland, says Oliver, (Signs and Symbols, 174,) is another specimen of this Druidical symbol. On a hill stands acircle of forty stones placed perpendiculary, of about five feet and a half in height, and one stone is the centre of greatest altitude.

Among the Scandinavians, the hall of Odin contained twelve seats, disposed in the form of a circle, for the principle gods with an elevated seat in the center for Odin. Scandinavian monuments of this form are still found in Scania, Zealand, and Jutland.

But it is useless to mulitiply examples of the prevalence of this symbol among the ancients. And now let us apply this knowledge to Masonic symbol.

We have seen that the phallus and the point wiithin the circle come from the same source, and must have been identical in signification. But the phallus was the symbol of fecundity, or the male generative principle, which by the ancients was supposed to be the sun, (they looking to the creature and not the Creator,) because by the sun's heat and light the earth is made prolific, and its productions are brought to maturity. The point within the circle was then originally the symbol of the sun; and as the lingam of India stood in the centre of the lunette, so as it stands within the centre of the Universe, typified by the circle, impregnating and vivifying it with heat. And thus the astronomers have been led to adopt the same figure as their symbol of the sun.

Now it is admitted that the Lodge represents the world or the universe, and the Master and Wardens within it represent the sun in three postions. Thus we arrive at the true interpretation of the Masonic symbolism of the point within the circle. It is the same thing, but under a different form, as the Master and Wardens of a Lodge. The Master and Wardens are symbols of the sun, the Lodge of the universe, or world, just as the point is the symbol of the same sun, and the surrounding circle of the universe.

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1894

Ultimate Reality (in the Spine)

The individual is the only reality. The further we move away from the individual toward abstract ideas about Home sapiens, the more likely we are to fall into error. In these times of social upheaval and rapid change, it is desirable to know much more than we do about the individual human being, for so much depends upon his mental and moral qualities. But if we are to see things in their right perspective, we need to understand the past of man as well as his present. That is why an understanding of myths and symbols is of essential importance.

Man and His Symbols: Carl Jung the Freemason

Hope

Hope n. 1. Desire of some good, with at least a slight expectation of obtaining. 2. That which furnishes ground of expectation. 3. That which is hoped for.

SYN. - Confidence; expectation; anticipation; trust; belief.

- v.i. [-E D; -ING.] 1. To entertain or indulge hope. 2. To place confidence. -v. t. To desire with expectation. [Promising.

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary 1867

Hope. The second round in the theological and Masonic ladder, and symbolic of hope in immortality. It is appropriately placed there, for, having attained the first, or faith in God, we are led by a belief in his wisdom and goodness to the hope of immortality. This but a reasonable expectation; without it, virtue would lose its necessary stimulus and vice its salutary fear; life would be devoid of joy, and the grave but a scene of desolation. The ancients represented hope by a nymph holding in her hand a bouquet of opening flowers, indicative of the coming fruit; but in modern and Masonic iconology it represented by a virgin leaning on anchor, the itself being a symbol of hope.

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1895

The Circle

The circle is the symbol of the psyche (even Plato described the psyche as a sphere). The square (and often the rectangle) is a symbol of earthbound matter, of the body and reality.

-Carl Jung the Freemason-

Circle. The circle being the figure which returns into itself,(incest)and having therefore neither beginning nor end, it has been adopted in the symbology of all countries and times as symbol sometimes of the universe and sometimes of eternity. With this idea in the Zoroasteric mysteries of Persia, and frequently in the Celtic mysteries of Druidism, the temple of initiation was circular. In the obsolete lectures of the old English system, it was said that "the circle has ever been considered symbolical of the Deity; for as a circle appears to have neither beginning nor end, it may be justly considered a type of God, without either beginning of days or ending of years. It also reminds us of a future state,(hermaphrodite) where we hope to enjoy everlasting happiness and joy." But whatever especially the Masonic symbolism of the circle will be more appropriately contained in the article on the Point within a Circle.

Point within a Circle. This is a symbol of great interest and importance, and brings us into close connection with the early symbolism of the solar orb and the universe, which was predominant in the ancient sun-worship. The lectures of Freemasonry give what modern Monitors have made an exoteric explanation of the symbol, in telling us that the point represents an individual brother, the circle the boundary line of his duty to God and man, and the two perpendicular parallel lines the patron saints of the Order - St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist.

But that this was not always its symbolic signification, we ,ay collect from the true history of its connection with the phallus of the Ancient Mysteries. The phallus, as I have already shown under the word, was among the Egyptians the symbol of fecundity, expressed by the male generative principle. It was communicated from the rites of Osiris to the religious festivals of Greece. Among the Asiatics the same emblem, under the name of lingam, was, in connection with the female principle, worshiped as a symbols of the Great Father and Mother, or producing causes of the human race, after their destruction by the deluge. On this subject, Captain Wilford (Asiatic.Res.,) remarks "that it was believed in India, that, at the general deluge, everything was involved in the common destruction except the male and female principles, or organs of generation which were destined to produce a new race, and to repeople the earth when the waters had subsided from its surface. The female principle, symbolized by the moon, assumed the form of a lunette or crescent; while the male principle, symbolized by the sun, assuming the form of the lingam, placed himself erect in the centre of the lunette, like the mast of a ship. The two principles, in this united form, floated on the surface of the waters during the period of their prevalence on the earth; and thus became the progenitors of a new race of men." Here, then, was the first outline of the point within a circle, representing the principle of fecundity, and doubtless of the symbols connected with a diferent history, that, namely, of Osirus, was transmitted by the Indian philosophers to Egypt, and to the other nations, who derived, as I have elsewhere shown, all their rites from the East.

In India, stonecircles, or rather their ruins, are everywhere found; among the oldest of which, according to Moore, (Panth.242,) is thst of Dipaldiana, and whose execution will compete with that of the Greeks. In the oldest monuments of the Druids we find, as at Stonehenge and Abury, the circle of stones. In fact, all the temples of the Druids were circular, with a single stone erected in the centre. A Druidical monument in Pembrokeshire, called Y Cromlech, is described as consisting of several rude stones pitched on end in a circular order, and in the midst of the circle vast syone [laced on several pillars. Near Keswick, in Cubmerland, says Oliver, (Signs and Symbols, 174,) is another specimen of this Druidical symbol. On a hill stands acircle of forty stones placed perpendiculary, of about five feet and a half in height, and one stone is the centre of greatest altitude.

Among the Scandinavians, the hall of Odin contained twelve seats, disposed in the form of a circle, for the principle gods with an elevated seat in the center for Odin. Scandinavian monuments of this form are still found in Scania, Zealand, and Jutland.

But it is useless to mulitiply examples of the prevalence of this symbol among the ancients. And now let us apply this knowledge to Masonic symbol.

We have seen that the phallus and the point wiithin the circle come from the same source, and must have been identical in signification. But the phallus was the symbol of fecundity, or the male generative principle, which by the ancients was supposed to be the sun, (they looking to the creature and not the Creator,) because by the sun's heat and light the earth is made prolific, and its productions are brought to maturity. The point within the circle was then originally the symbol of the sun; and as the lingam of India stood in the centre of the lunette, so as it stands within the centre of the Universe, typified by the circle, impregnating and vivifying it with heat. And thus the astronomers have been led to adopt the same figure as their symbol of the sun.

Now it is admitted that the Lodge represents the world or the universe, and the Master and Wardens within it represent the sun in three postions. Thus we arrive at the true interpretation of the Masonic symbolism of the point within the circle. It is the same thing, but under a different form, as the Master and Wardens of a Lodge. The Master and Wardens are symbols of the sun, the Lodge of the universe, or world, just as the point is the symbol of the same sun, and the surrounding circle of the universe.

Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1894

Lord

n. bread keeper, bread, loaf, and weardian(we are dean), to take care of.] 1. A master; a ruler; a governor. 2. A nobleman of any rank above that of a baronet; also a bishop, if a member of Parliment.[Eng.] 3. A title bestowed on the persons above named. 4. A husband. 5. The Supreme Being. -v i. [-ED; -ING.] To play the lord; to domineer.

Patriarch

n. [a father and a leader, chief] 1. The father and ruler of a family. 2. An ecclesiastical dignitary superior to archbishops.

The Star that led the Y's men from the East to the West

Sabaism. The worship of the sun, moon, and the stars, the TSARA, Hashmaim, "the host of heaven." It was practiced in Persia, Chaldea, India, and other Oriental countries, at an early period of the world's history, See Blazing Star and Sun Worship.


The Blazing Star. The Blazing Star, which is not, however, to be confounded with the Five-Pointed Star, is one of the most important symbols Freemasonry, ans makes its appearance in several of the degrees. "It is," says Hutchinson, "the first and most exalted object that demands or attenrion in the Lodge." It undoubtedly derives this importance, first, from its great antiquity as symbol derived from other older and older systems.

Extensive as has been the application of this symbol ijn the Masonic ritual, it is not surprising that there has been a great difference of opinion in relation to its true signification. But this difference of opinion has been almost entirely confined to its use in the first degree. In the higher degrees, where has been less opportunity of innovation, the uniformity of meaning attached to the star has been carefully preserved.

In the twenty-eighth degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, the explanation given of the Blazing star, is, that it is symbolic of a true Mason, who, by perfecting himself in the way of truth, that is to say, by advancing in knowledge, becomes like a blazing star, shining with brilliancy in the midst of darkness. The star is, therefore, in this degree a symbol of truth.

In the fourth degree of the same Rite, the star is agin said to be a symbol of the light of Divine Providence pointing out the way of truth.

In the ninth degree, this symbol is called "the star of direction;" and while it primitively alludes to an especial guidance given for a particular purpose expressed in the degree, it still retains, in a remoter sense, its usual significatiom as an emblem of Divine Providence guiding and directing the pilgrim in his journey through life.

When, however, we descend to Ancient Craft Masonry, we shall find a considerable diversity in the application of this symbol.

In the earliest rituals, immediately after the revival of 1717, the Blazing Star is not mentioned, but it was not long before it was introduced. In the ritual of 1735 it is detailed as part of the furniture of a Lodge, with the explanation that the " Mosaic Pavement is the Ground Floor of the Lodge, the Blazing Star the Centre, and the Indented Tarsel the Border round about it!" In a primitive Tracing Board of the Entered Apprentice, copied by Oliver, in his Historical Landmarks, (i. 133,) without other date then it was "published early in the last century," the Blazing Star occupies a prominent position in the centre of the Tracing Boarding. Oliver says that it represemted BEAUTY, and was called "the glory in the centre."

In the lectures subsequently prepared by Dunckerley, and adopted by the Grand Lodge, the Blazing Star was said to represent "the star which lead the wise men to Bethlehem, proclaiming to mankind the nativity of the Son of God, and here conducting our spiritual progree to the Author of our redemption."

In the Prestonian lecture, the Blazing Star, with the Mosaic Pavement and the Tasselated Border, are called the Ornaments of the Lodge, and the Blazing star is thus explained:


"The Blazing star, or glory in the centre, reminds us that awwful period when the Almighty delivered the two tables of stone, containing the ten commanments, to his faithful servant Moses on Mount sinai, when the rays of his divine glory shone so bright that none could behold it without fear and trembling. It also reminds us of the omnipresence, of the Almighty, overshadowing us with his divine love, and dispensing his blessings amongst us; and by its being laced in the centre, it further reminds us, that wherever we may be assembled together, God is in the midst of us, seeing our actions, and observing the secret intents and movements of our hearts."

In the lectures taught by Webb, and very generally adopted in this country, the Blazing Star is said to be "commemorative of the star which appeared to guide the wise men of the East to the place of our Saviour's nativity," and it is subsequently explained as hieroglyphically representing divine Providence. But the commemorative allusion to the Star of Bethlehem seeming to some to be objectionable, from its peculiar application to the Christian religion, at the revision of the lectures made in 1843 by the Baltimore Convention, this explanation was omitted, and the allusion to divine Providence alone retained.

In Hutchinson's system, the Blazing Star is considered a symbol of Prudence. "It is placed," says he, "in the centre, ever to be present to the eye of the Mason, that his heart may be attentive to the dictates and steadfast in the laws of Prudence; - for Prudence is the rule of all virtues; Prudence is the path which leads to every degree of propriety; Prudence is the channel whence self-approbation flows forever; she leads us forth to worthy actions, and as a Blazing Star, enlighteneth us through the dreary and darksome paths of this life." (Sp. of Mas., Lect. V., p. 68.) Hutchinson also adopted Dunckerley's allusion to the Star of Bethlehem, but only as a secondary symbolism.

In another series of lecture formerly in use in America , but which I believe is now abandoned, the Blazing Star is said to be "emblematical of that Prudence which ought to appear conspicuous in the conduct of every Mason; and is more especially commemorative of the star which appeared in the east to guide the wise to Bethlehem, and proclaim the birth and presence of the Son of God."

The Masons on the Continent of Europe, speaking of the symbol, say: "It is no matter whether the figure of which the Blazing Star forms the centre be a square, triangle, or circle, it still represents the sacred name of God, as an universal spirit who enlivens our hearts , who purifies our reason, who increases or knowledge, and who makes us wiser and better men."

And lastly, in the lecture revised by Dr. Hemming and adopted by the Grand Lodge of England at the union in 1813, and now constituting the authorized lectures of that jurisdiction, we find the following definition:

"The Blazing Star, or glory in the centre, refers us to the sun, which enlightens the earth with its refulgent rays, dispensing its blessings to mankind at large, and giving light and life to all things here below."

Hence we find that different times the Blazing star has been declared to be a symbol of divine Providence, of the Star of Bethlehem, of Prudence, of Beauty, and of the Sun. Before we can attempt to decide upon these various opinions, and adopt the true signification, it is necessary to extend our investigations into the antiquity of the emblem, and inquire what was the meaning given to it by the nations who first established it as a symbol.

Sabaism, or the worship of the stars, was one of the earliest deviations from the the true system of religion. One of the causes was the universally established doctrine among the idolatrous nations of antiquity, that each star was animated by the soul of a hero god, who once dwelt incarnate upon earth. Hence, in the hieroglyphical system, the star denoted a god. To this signification, allusion is made by the prophet Amos, when he says to the Israelites, while reproaching them for their idolatrous habits: "But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves." Amos v.26.

This idolatry was early learned by the Israelites from their Egyptian taskmasters; and so unwilling were they to abandon it, that Moses found it necessary strictly to forbid the worship of anything "that is in heaven above;" notwithstanding which we find the Jews repeatedly committing the sin which had been so expressively forbidden. Saturn was the star to whose worship they were more particularly addicted under the names of Moloch and Chiun, already mentioned in the passage quoted from Amos. The planet Saturn was worshiped under the names of Moloch, Malcom or Milcom by the Ammonites, the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians, and under that of Chiun by the Israelites in the desert. Saturn was worshiped among the Egyptians under the name of Raiphan, or, as it is called in the Setuagint, Remphan. St. Paul, quoting the passage of Amos, says, "ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan."

Hale, in his Analysis of Chronology, says, in alluding to this passage of St. Paul, "There is no direct evidence that the Israelites worshipped the dog-star in the wilderness, except this passage; but the indirect is very strong, drawn from the general prohibition of the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, to which they must have been prone. And this was peculiarly an Egyptian idolatry, where the dog-star was worshiped, as notifying by his heliacal rising, or emersion from the sun's rays, the regular commencement of the periodical inundation of the Nile. And the Israelite sculptures at the cemetery of Kibroth - Hattaavah, or graves of lust, in the neighborhood of Sinai, remarkably abound in hieroglyphics of the dog-star, represented as a human figure with a dog's head. That they afterwards sacrificed to the dog-star, there is expressed evidence in Josiah's description of idolatry, where the Syriac Mazaloth (improperly termed planets) denotes the dog-star; in Arabic, Mazaroth."

Fellows, in his Exposition of the Mysteries, says that this dog-star, the Anubis of the Egyptians, is the Blazing Star of Masonry, and supposing that the latter is a symbol of Prudence, which indeed it was in some of the ancient lectures, he goes on to remark: "What connection can possibly exist between a star and prudence, except allegorically in reference to the caution that was indicated to the Egyptians by the first appearance of this star, which warned them od approaching danger."

But it will hereafter be seen that he was totally misapprehended the true signification of the Masonic symbol. the work of Fellows, it may be remarked, is an unsystematic compilation of undigested learning; but the student who is searching for truth must carefully eschew all his deductions as to the genius and spirit of Freemasonry.

Notwithstanding a few discrepancies may have occurred in the Masonic lectures, as arranged at various periods and by different authorities, the concurrent testimony of the ancient religions, and the hieroglyphics language, prove that the star was symbol of God. It was so used used by the prophets of old in their metaphorical style, and it is has so been generally adopted by Masonic instructors. The application of the Blazing star as an emblem of the Saviour, has been made by those writers who give a Christian explanation of our emblems, and to the Christian Mason such an application will not be objectionable. But those who desire to refrain from anything that may tend to impair the tolerance of our system will be disposed to embrace a more universal explanation, which may be received alike by all the disciples of the Order, whatecer may be their peculiar religious views. such persons will rather accept the expression of Dr. Oliver, who, though much disposed to give a Christian character tour Institution, says, "the great Architect of the Universe is therefore symbolized in Freemasonry by the Blazing Star, as the herald of our salvation." (Symb. Glory, p. 292.)

Before concluding, a few words may be said as to the form of the Masonic symbol. It is bot an heraldic star or estoille, for that always consists of six points, while the masonic star is made with five points. This, perhaps, was with some involuntary allusion to the five Points of Fellowship. But the error has been committed in all our modern Tracing Boards of making the satr with straight points, which form, of course does represent a Blazing star. Guillim (Disp. of Herald) says: "All stars should be made with waved points, because our eyes tremnle at beholding them."

In the early Tracing Board already referred to, the star with five straight points is superimposed upon another of five five waving points. But the latter are now abandoned, and we have in the representations of the present day the incongruous symbol of a blazing star with five straight points. In the centre of the star there was always placed the letter G, which, like the Hebrew yod, was a recognized symbol of God, and thus the symbolic reference of the Blazing Star to divine Providence is greatly strengthened.


Sun Worship. Sir William Jones has remarked that two of the principal sources of mythology were a wild admiration of the heavenly bodies, particularly the sun, and an inordinate respect paid to the memory of powerful, wise, and virtuous ancestors, especially the founders of kingdoms, legislators, and warriors. To the latter cause we may attribute the euhemerism of the Greeks and the sintooism of the Chinese. But in the former we shall find the origin of sun worship the oldest and by far the most prevalent of all the ancient religions.

Eusebius says that the Phoenicians and the Egyptians were the first who ascribed divinity to the sun. But long - very long - before these ancient peoples the primeval race of Aryans worshipped the solar orb in his various manifestations as the producer of light. "In the Veda," says a native commentator, "there are only three deities: Surya in heaven, Indra in the sky, and Agni are but manifestations of God in the sun, the bright sky, and the fire derived from the solar light. In the profoundly poetic ideas of the Vedic hymns we find perpetual allusion to the sun with his life bestowing rays. Everywhere in the East, amidst its brillant skies, the sun claimed, as the glorius manifestation of Deity, the adoration of those primitive peoples. The Persians, the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, - all worshipped the sun. The Greeks, a more intellectual people, gave a poetic form to the grosser idea, and adored Apollo or Dionysus as the sun-god.

Sun worship was introduced into the mysteries not as material idolatry, but as the means of expressing an idea of restoration to life from death, drawn from the daily reappearance in the east of the solar orb after its nightly disappearance in the west. To the sun, too, as the regenerator or revivifier of all things, is the Phallic worship, which made a prominent part of the mysteries, to be attributed. From the Mithriac initiations, in which sun worship played so important a part, the Gnostics derived many of their symbols. These, again, excercised their influence upon the mediaeval Freemasons. Thus it is that the sun has become so prominent in the Masonic system; not, of course, as an object of worship, but purely as a symbol, the interpretation of which presents itself in many different ways. See Sun.

Sun. Hardly any of the symbols of Masonry are more important in their signification or more extensive in their application than the sun. As the source of material light, it reminds the Mason of that intellectual light of which he is in constant search. But it especially as the ruler of the day, giving to it a beginning and end, and a regular course of hours, that the sun is presented as a Masonic symbol. Hence, of of the three lesser lights we are told that represents or symbolizes the the sun, one the moon, and one the Master of the Lodge, because, as the sun rules the day and the moons governs the night, so should the Worshipful Master rule and govern his lodge with equal regularity and precision. And this is in strict analogy with other Masonic symbolisms. For if the lodge is a symbol of the world, which is thus governed in its changes of times and seasons by the sun, it is evident that the Master who governs the Lodge, controlling its time of opening and closing, and the work which should do, must be symbolized by the sun. The heraldic definition of the sun as a bearing fits most appositely to the symbolism of the sovereignty of the Master. Thus Gwillim says: "The sun is the symbol of sovereignty, the hieroglyphic of royalty; it doth signify absolute authority." This representation of the sun as asumbol of authority, while it explains the reference to the Master, enables us to amplify its meaning, and apply it to the three sources of authority in the Lodge, and accounts for the respective positions of the officers wielding this authority. The Master, therefore, in the East is a symbol of the rising sun; the Junior Warden in the South, of the Meridian Sun; and the Senior Warden of the West, of the Setting Sun. So in the mysteries of India, the chief officers were placed in the east, the west, and the south, respectively, to represent Brahma, or the rising; Vishnu, or the setting; and Siva, or the meridian sun. And in the Druidical rites, the Archdruid, seated in the east, was assisted by two other officers, - the one in the west representing the moon , and the other in the south representing the meridian sun.

This triple divison of the government of a Lodge by three officers, representatives of the sun in his three manifestations in the east, south, and west, will remind us of similiar ideas in the symbolism of antiquity. In the Orphic mysteries, it was taught that the sun generated from an egg, burst forth with power to triplicate himself by his own unassisted energy. Supreme power seems always to have been associated in the ancient mind witha three-fold division. Thus the sign of authority was indicated by the three-forked lightning of Jove, the trident of Neptune, and the three headed Cerberus of Pluto. The government of the Universe was divided betweent these three sons of Saturn. The chaste goddess ruled the earth as Diana, the heavens as Luna, and the infernal regions as Hecate, whence her rites were only performed in a place where three roads met.

The sun is then presented to us in Masonry first as symbol of light, but then more emphatically as a symbol of sovereign authority.

But, says Wemyss, (Symb.Lang.,) speaking of scriptural symbolism, "the sun may be considered to be an emblem of Divine Truth," because the sun or light, of which it is the source, "is not only manifest in itself, but makes other things; so one truth detects, reveals, and manifests another, as all truths are dependent on, and connected with, each other more or less." And this again is applicable to the Masonic doctrine which makes the Master the symbol of the sun; for as the sun discloses and makes manifest, by the opening of day, what had been hiding in the darkness of night, so the Master of the Lodge, as the analogue of the ancient hierophant or explainer of mysteries, makes divine truth manifest to the neophyte, who had been hitherto in intellectual darkness, and reveals the hidden or esoteric lessons of the initiation.


An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry: By Albert Mackey, M.D. 1894

Thanks to Ambika

I watch people in the world
Throw away their lives lusting after things,
Never able to satisfy their desires,
Falling into deeper despair
And torturing themselves.
Even if they get what they want
How long will they be able to enjoy it?
For one heavenly pleasure
They suffer ten torments of hell,
Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone.
Such people are like monkeys
Frantically grasping for the moon in the water
And then falling into a whirlpool.
How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer.
Despite myself, I fret over them all night
And cannot staunch my flow of tears.

by Taigu Ryokan

Hobbits are 2 in 1 POOP ruse

Hobbits 'are a separate species'

Scientists have found more evidence that the Indonesian "Hobbit"
skeletons belong to a new species of human - and not modern pygmies.

The one metre (3ft) tall, 30kg (65lbs) humans roamed the Indonesian
island of Fl.ores (ruse), perhaps up to 8,000 years ago.

Since the discovery, researchers have argued vehemently as to the
identity of these diminutive people.

Two papers in the journal Nature now support the idea they were an
entirely new species of human.

The team, which discovered the tiny remains in Liang Bua cave on Flores,
contends that the population belongs to the species Homo floresiensis -
separate from our own grouping Homo sapiens .

They argue that the "Hobbits" are descended from a prehistoric species
of human - perhaps Homo erectus - which reached island South-East Asia
more than a million years ago.

Over many years, their bodies most likely evolved to be smaller in size,
through a natural selection process called island dwarfing, claim the
discoverers, and many other scientists.

However, some researchers argued that this could not account for the
Hobbit's chimp-sized brain of almost 400 cubic cm - a third the size of
the modern human brain.

Disease theory

This was a puzzle, they said, because the individuals seem to have
crafted complex stone tools.

They said the Hobbits were probably part of a group of modern humans
with abnormally small brains.

One team led by William Jungers from Stony Brook University in the US
analysed remains of the Hobbit foot.

They found that, in some ways, it is incredibly human. The big toe is
aligned with the others and the joints make it possible to extend the
toes as the body's full weight falls on the foot, attributes not found
in great apes.

But in other respects, it is incredibly primitive. It is far longer than
its modern human equivalent, and equipped with a very small big toe,
long, curved lateral toes, and a weight-bearing structure that resembles
that of a chimpanzee.

So unless the Flores Hobbits became more primitive over time - a rather
unlikely scenario - they must have branched off the human line at an
even earlier date.

In another study, Eleanor Weston and Adrian Lister of London's Natural
History Museum looked at fossils of several species of ancient hippos.
They then compared those found on the island of Madagascar with the
mainland ancestors from which they evolved.

"It could be that H. floresiensis' skull is that of a Homo erectus that
has become dwarfed from living on an island, rather than being an
abnormal individual or separately-evolved species, as has been
suggested," said Dr Weston, a palaeontologist at the museum.

"Looking at pygmy hippos in Madagascar, which possess exceptionally
small brains for their size, suggests that the same could be true for H.
floresiensis , and that (it could be) the result of being isolated on
the island."



Bing, Being, Boeing, Beijing, Bang
______________________________

________________________

The SculPTor (1776-1867)

WWW.WORDSCULPTOR.NET aka WWW.KEALEY.NET

Genetic 'Adam never met Eve'

The study confirms the Out of Africa hypothesis

The most recent ancestor of all males living today was a man who lived in Africa around 59,000 years ago, according to an international team of researchers.

The scientists from eight countries have drawn up a genetic family tree of mankind by studying variations in the Y chromosome of more than a thousand men from different communities around the world. The Y chromosome is one of the two sex chromosomes (X and Y) which only men carry (women carry two X chromosomes).

The new research confirms the Out of Africa theory that modern humans originated in Africa before slowly spreading across the world.

But the finding raises new questions, not least because our most recent paternal ancestor would have been about 84,000 years younger than our maternal one.

The team believes there is an explanation. They propose that the human genetic blueprint evolved as a mosaic, with different pieces of modern DNA emerging and spreading throughout the human population at different times.

Origins of man
Evidence from the fossil record suggests that modern man originated in Africa about 150,000 years ago, before moving steadily across the globe.
This Out of Africa hypothesis has been confirmed by studies of mitochondrial DNA, the segment of genetic material that is inherited exclusively from the mother.

Based on these studies, our most recent common ancestor is thought to be a woman who lived in Africa some 143,000 years ago, the so-called Mitochondrial Eve.

To find the common paternal ancestor, the team drew up a genetic family tree of mankind. They mapped small variations in the Y chromosomes of 1,062 men in 22 geographical areas, including Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Laos, Australia, New Guinea, America, Mali, Sudan, Ethiopia and Japan.
The new genetic family tree supports the Out of Africa scenario. But it suggests that our most recent paternal ancestor would have been about 84,000 years younger than our maternal one.

Regions of the genome
"You can ultimately trace every female lineage back to a single Mitochondrial Eve who lived in Africa about 150,000 years ago," said Dr Spencer Wells of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, UK, who was part of the team.

"The Y chromosome we trace again back to Africa but the date is about 80,000 years ago.

He told BBC News Online that the two studies could be reconciled. "There's a different evolutionary history for each region of the genome but they all are consistent in placing the ancestor of all modern humans alive today in Africa."

The research, published in the journal Nature Genetics, gives an intriguing insight into the journey of our ancestors across the planet, from eastern Africa into the Middle East, then to southeast and southern Asia, then New Guinea and Australia, and finally to Europe and Central Asia.

Some modern-day men living in what is now Sudan, Ethiopia and southern Africa are believed to be the closest living descendants of the first humans to set out on that great journey tens of thousands of years ago.


Mitochondrial Eve

Y-chromosomal Adam

NEANDERTHALERS and CRO MAGNON (Proto Roma - Aryan) ?

by: Vladimir Averianov, Pravda

Lots of surprises may be hidden under the Antarctic ice and are waiting to be discovered by humans. The existence of a prehistoric civilization in Antarctica started drawing attention of professional historians after the World War II. The hypothesis can be proved by the medieval maps and research of the Western paleogeologists and glaciologists.

In January 1820 the lieutenant of the Russian Imperial Fleet Mikhail Lazarev (Laza-ruse) discovered a new continent. At the beginning of the 20th century famous Russian Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedic dictionary contained an article, according to which the continent was insufficiently explored and that there were no flora and fauna. Besides, the author mentioned the variety of seaweeds and sea animals that inhabited the Antarctic waters.

Surprise, Surprise

About twenty years later the head of the Istanbul National Museum "Halil" Edhem (see An Rub al "Khali" - the Empty Quarter in Yemen) found an old map while revising the library of Byzantine emperors in the old sultans palace. The author of the map depicted the Western coast of Africa, the Southern coast of South America and the Northern coast of Antarctica. "Halil" was astonished. The ice edge of the Queen Maud Land south of 70th parallel was free of ice. The author mapped a mountain chain at this point. The name of the cartographer was well known to Edhem. It was the admiral of Ottoman Empire Fleet "Piri Reis" (See POLO - IRS RUSE), who lived in the first half of the 16th century.

In 1949 the joint British-Swedish expedition conducted a thorough seismic exploration of the southernmost continent through the thick ice. The results coincided with the map of "Reis". However, it was a mystery how the map data were to agree with the level of science of 1513.

"Piri Reis" himself explained on the margins of the map that the map was based on a lot of previous sources, some of which belonged to his contemporaries, while others could be dated with as early as the 4th century B.C. One of the sources, for instance, belonged to Alexander the Great. Thus Admiral "Reis" alone could not be held responsible for the data presented on the map.

Medieval maps show Antarctica without ice cover or partly covered with ice. The accuracy of maps of the 16th century is incredible. In terms of the technical means their data can be compared with those of the end of the 18th century and sometimes with those of the 20th century.

According to the "Reis's map" the coastal edge of the continent is not covered with ice. Oronteus Finius's map that was composed 18 years later shows plateau-glacier around the South Pole within the 80th and sometimes 75th parallels. 200 years later academician Buache also depicted Antarctica without the ice.

In 1949 the admiral Byrd's expedition was drilling the Ross Sea bottom approximately in those places where Finius marked the riverbeds. The cores contained fine-grained rocks, well-mixed deposits, brought into the sea by the rivers, the heads of which are located in the middle latitudes (i.e. not covered with ice).

Scientists of Carnegie Institute of Washington managed to establish precisely that Antarctic rivers that contained these deposits were flowing about 6000 years ago. Only after that, about 4000 B.C. did the ice begin accumulating at the bottom of the sea. This fact was preceded by a long period of warmth.

Coincidence if not conspiracy

As a result, the maps mentioned above depict Antarctica of the period when Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations were born. Most of the (paid) historians disclaim this point of view.

However, there is a hypothesis that between the fifth and the tenth millenniums B.C. a human civilization lived on the planet. It possessed great knowledge in navigation, cartography, astronomy, the (visible) level of which was not lower then of that of the 18th century.

This civilization was rather a predecessor of the ours than a product created by aliens. Its age could be several millenniums. It was probably located on the northern coast of the southernmost continent (Kemp Coast) or the archipelago of large islands (Oceania)* that was Antarctica which had a moderate climate at that time. Later it would occupy the northeast of the African continent. (See the Gypsy Egyptians - Roma)

The civilization could have disappeared because of the icing up of the southern land that began not earlier than in the tenth millennium B.C. Another possible reason could be large inundations that led to long-lasting local floods, which are not disclaimed by archaeologists. Such "natural" disasters could destroy almost the whole material culture of the protocivilization. It can be possible that some part of it is covered with thick Antarctic ice. Another possibility is that some of the representatives of this protocivilization could have survived (See The Roma of Sri Lanka and Madras, India). In this case they could have passed their knowledge (via Yemen) to Egyptians and Sumerians.

Humans cannot but hope that (unrestricted) further archaeological research will solve the mysteries of the southernmost continent. There could be lots of surprises hidden here.

Vladimir Averianov, Pravda
http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/378/16465_.html