ANACALYPSIS
Godfrey
Higgins
1833
(Volume I [867 pages], Volume II [525 pages])
VOLUME II - BOOK III - CHAPTER I
ORIGIN OF LETTERS—MOON’S
PERIOD—NAMES OF LETTERS—BOUCHER—DR. WAIT ON SANSCRIT—CYCLE OF
FOURTEEN—THOTH—OM. HOMER—TARGUMS—DR. YOUNG. SOL—JOSEPH, PROTEUS.
STALLS—SOLOMON. SINDI. PETER—CRYPTOGRAPHY, INDIAN—VOWEL POINTS—ACROSTICS.
ANAGRAM—METATHESIS. THE HUMBER NINE—ARABIC LETTERS—THE GOD XANGTI—`Eij, mia, šn—SIGNETS—SIGMA TAU—ADAM. GENESIS
Page 147
The following book
will chiefly consist of a development of the mode in which the most important
of all the various branches of human science, the art of writing, was
discovered and brought to perfection. …
When I go back to the
most remote periods of antiquity into which it is possible to penetrate, I find
clear and positive evidence of several important facts. First, no animal food was eaten—no animals were sacrificed.* Secondly, it is recorded and it seems
probable, that the Gods had no names, and that no icons were used;** and almost
all ancient nations had a tradition, that they once possessed sacred writings
in a long-lost language. The possessors of these writings and this old
language, I think, must have been the people who erected the Pyramids, the
gigantic stone circles, and the other Cyclopćan buildings, which are found of
such peculiar character and size all over the world. The language of these
nations, or, in fact, the lost language which they used, we will now try to
discover—assuming, that it was the first written language of man.
* Sacrifice—Sacrum
Festum—sacrificium.
** This was because
the God of Wisdom, or the wise God,
was worshiped.
Page 160
I believe that no
person who has studied the subject ever doubted that there has been one
original, universal language. Mr. Bryant says, “There are in every climate some shattered fragments of original
history, some traces of a primitive and universal language; and these may be
observed in the names of Deities, terms of worship, titles of honour, which
prevail among nations widely separated, and who for ages had no connexion.”*
… I have no doubt that in very early times, a sacred or secret written
language, as was a natural consequence, consisted of a definite number of words
and ideas, each word and idea represented by a number. As long as a certain
pontifical government lasted, which I shall show was the first government, and
was the inventor of this symbolic letter, this would remain. By degrees the
priests of the order, but of distant nations, would add words to it, till the
number became cumbersome, and then the discovery of syllabic writing being
made, the numeral system would by degrees be deserted. This would be the first
language both written and spoken, used in all nations. By degrees in each
nation new words would be formed in addition to the old, and often exchanged
for the old; so that we might expect what we find, namely, some of the old
first words in every language. From the observation of Cluverius, that he found
a thousand words of other languages in the Hebrew, and from the circumstance
that it is in a less changed state than any other written language with which
we are acquainted, an effect which has arisen from the accidental concealment
of it, in the recess of the temple of Syria, I am induced to fix upon it as
being the nearest to the original language.
* Vall. Coll. Hib.
Vol. VI. p.4.
Page 164
When we reflect upon
the general tradition that Teut, Thoth, or Hermes, was the inventor of
letters,* and that in the very old histories they are always connected with the
idea of something magical, … I have formerly observed that I thought that
letters were secret and considered magical. This opinion is confirmed by this
observation of Guerin de Rocher, that the word used for letters or symbols of
notation is also used for the idea of miracle, and is used in Genesis i. 14, as
signs to divide the times. When a person considers the astonishing effect or
power of letters and figures of notation, he will not be surprised that they
should have given name to any miraculous effect. Nor is it surprising that the
signs TT, which described, in the first symbolic letters, the soli-lunar cycle,
should come to mean signs or letters generally, letters being considered the
conveyors of the knowledge of Wisdom or TT, or OM.
* See Vol. I. p.174
Cicero* says, that
Hermes or the fifth Mercury, whom the Egyptians call Thoth, was the inventor of
letters. This is nothing but the renewed incarnation of Hermes or the fifth
Buddha in Egypt.
* Natura Deod. Lib. iii.
Page 165
The first word of the
Alphabet is often one; which one is
often described by the monogram 1. Here the idea of unity, the To On, and self-existence are united. The number
ten is also the same monogram, and means excellence
or perfection, and has the same
reference to the hundreds that the 1 has to 10, and constantly describes the To On. In Arabic numerals, one and ten were the
same—1. They are the same in Roger Bacon’s calendar.* In French we have the Ie
in the pronoun je, I. All this exactly agrees with what we learn from
history—that the first Etruscan and Scandinavian or Runic letters or numbers
were right lines; that with the Irish** they were called after trees; that with
the Greeks they were carved on staves—Axibus ligneis—and that they were formed
of right lines and called Grammata or Petala or leaves, or petalon or leaf (I believe
tree); and that they are found with the mythos of Virgil and the leaves of the
Sibyls, and in the Rythms or Runes of Wales. Now all this leads to the important
result, that this system was not at first intended as a record of language but
of ideas. We see in the Arabian and Hebrew alphabets perfect order as concerns
numbers, but perfect disorder as concerns letters for names of letters or of
sounds; and we shall find presently all the planetary bodies and astronomical
periods described by numbers, for sounds and the formation of words, was not
discovered till long after arithmetic and astronomy; and that letters, selected
at first without any regard to system in reading, though afterward altered by
the Greeks, in their system, to accommodate it to a certain mythological
superstition, very evident in the 6, 60, 600, ss, samach, xi; and, in the 9, 90, 900, Teth, of which I shall
treat at large presently. In addition to this, I am quite convinced that an
attentive consideration of the plates of letters given by Mr. Astle, will
satisfy any person, that not only have the ancient systems once been all the
same, but the forms of the letters have been nearly so. …
* Astle on Letters,
p.189. ** See the Callan
Inscription, Celtic Druids, Figure 13, p.5.
Page 166
There are several
parts of my system which are facts
not theories. They are facts, that in
that system of letters which we have, and that probably the oldest, viz. the
Irish, the letters are called after the names of trees; that there are enow of
the old Hebrew yet so called, as to raise a very high probability that they
were all so originally; and that each tree's name begins with a letter
answering in sound to the sound of the letter. It is a fact, that the moon's
name in numbers, as above, is the name by which it was invoked in the orgies of
Bacchus. It is a fact, that the Greeks called their letters gramma and petala;
that the letters of all the oldest languages were in right lines, at angles,
(though some of the nations certainly corrupted their alphabet to humour the
mythos,) and that, at first, they mostly wrote from top to bottom.
If a person will
impartially consider the great number of duplicates in the Arabic, he will at
once see how unnecessary they must have been for a new-formed language : 4
symbols for d, 4 for Z or S, and 3 for T. All these were unnecessary for
numbers; but, in an unformed language, must have been incumbrances; and thus,
when numbers grew into letters, as
letters they were dropped. With the Greeks the vowel v became f, and, in
consequence, they were obliged to use for their figures two j s, and place
the vau at the end. We have seen the Chaldee or Hebrew written language traced
to North India, the land of the Sacć, and we have here the same alphabet of sixteen letters, brought by a tribe, as
their history says, from the same place. If this was a forgery, how came its
authors not to copy the Latin, the Greek, the Hebrew, of twenty-two letters, or the Arabic of twenty-eight ? It is out of
all credibility that the monks or bards of the middle ages should have known of
the sixteen letters.
Page 167
It is now expedient
to suspend our search into the origin of Letters, and to resume our inquiry
(from Volume I. pp. 685,686) into the origin of the most remarkable of all the
mysteries of the world—the meaning of the OM of Egypt, of Syria, of India, of
Delphi, of St. Peter's, of the Kremlin, of Lambeth—or, the Om of Isaiah, of
Buddha, of Cristna—of the sacred, never-to-be-spoken Om. … It brings us again to Om-Amet, Om the desire of all nations.
… The original numeral alphabet of the Indian Arabians had 28 letters or forms.
The Jews changed the number to 27, to make the M the centre. The Greeks changed
their number to humour a superstition, the same in principle, and to make the
two letters which describe their cycle, the cycle of 650, the centre letters.
If we examine this closely, it is exactly the same as the plan of the Jews. The
benignant dćmon of the cycle was the Son of Man, MN=650; and thus arose the
generic name of the species—Man,
Mannus, the Male, afterward joined to the female, making Am-mon or Om-an; and,
when aspirated, Homo, hominis, hominem. In accommodation to the same mythos,
the Greek vau or digamma or number six, was written j having the sound
of the number x=60, three lines or three j s or xes, and the number c=600. In like manner, the M final and 600 of the Hebrews
was constituted of the Amech, the 60 and 600, and the vau was, as the Vulgate calls
the mother of the race, Eva. The E
and U, the 5 and the 6, were the generators of all the cycles. They were both
Lustrums. Thus came Eva or Eve, the mother of the race of MN, the root of Homo, of Man, the root of Mun-di, holy cycle.
Page 169
When I reflect upon
all the circumstances attending the knowledge of letters, I feel no doubt that
they were not only considered to be magical, but that they constituted a great
part of magic itself. Let us consider, only for a moment, what miracles, as
figures of notation in solving problems in arithmetic, they would enable their
possessors to perform. Let us consider alone the foretelling of eclipses, and
let us add to this the knowledge of the periods of some of the comets, which I
shall shew in a future book that the early literati did possess. In the passage
quoted in Volume I. p. 675, from the Revelation xiii. 17, 18, the whole of my
theory both of wisdom and of the system of using numbers for symbols and
letters is, in one sentence, clearly expressed. The knowledge of the number is
called wisdom, and the letters are
called marks, that is, monograms or
symbols, names, and numbers. Daniel (ix. 2) says, he knew a thing 95./ .*95/" bsprim
mspr, from or by the letters in the book.
From 95/ spr
a letter, or symbol of notation, comes 4/ sp or Sup, or
Soph, wisdom. The idea of wisdom and
of letters is never separated.
Vallancey says,* that
storia is an Egyptian word, meaning what we should call news. It seems to have been the Hebrew 9): str, which I
think meant a scribe. I believe the scribes were a learned order, a kind of
priests, and that they were the only people who understood the art of writing.
* Coll. Hib. Vol. V.
p.209.
Page 175
If a person will
think deeply he will have no difficulty in forming an idea how, when the art of
writing was secret, a written word would be magical. A few lines scrawled in
the presence of a person on a bit of leaf or bark might be given to him, and he
might be told, whoever is a magician or initiated on seeing that scrawl, will
know your name, or any other desired fact. A person must think deeply on this,
or he will not see the force of the argument which arises from the dupe having
no idea of the nature or power of conveying knowledge by symbols. As the
Chaldćan priests were the only people who understood the secret of writing, it
followed, that they were all magi or magicians; and when the secret did begin
to creep out, all letters were magical or supernatural. This and some other
secrets—the telescope, astronomy, the loadstone—made the Chaldćans masters of
the world, and they became Moguls. Mogul is but Al-Mag, The Mage. On this
account all the princes of India desire to be invested with the pallium by the
old Mogul of Delhi, successor of Gengis Khan, of Tartary, the last incarnation
of divine wisdom. The mythos at last always reverts to its birth-place, Indian
Tartary—the mount Solima, the snow-capped Meru, where the Gods sit on the sides
of the North. …
Page 176
I consider that it
admits of no doubt, that all written syllabic languages with which we are
acquainted are the same, with merely dialectic variations; and that all the
alphabets or systems of letters are one, only with the letters in different
forms, as we have the English language and letter though one, yet WRITTEN IN
DIFFERENT forms. The Arabic table of
letters and numbers, compared with the Greek, proves this. We have here all the
numbers in order, but the letters in disorder. We ought in
considering these subjects never to forget, that all the various dialects of
the world are like the spokes of a wheel, as we go back converging towards one
another, till they meet in the centre; and, in a contrary direction, diverging,
till at last they are no longer visible to one another. I believe that
historical circumstances might be adduced, which would render it highly
probable that, fifteen hundred years A.C., the people speaking all the then
existing languages, could, though perhaps in some cases with difficulty,
understand one another.
Page 179
We will now try to
find the meaning of the word Solomon; often spelt Soleiman, Sulimon, Suleimon,
and %/-: slme.
Page 180
I imagine that the
following is the true translation of 2 Samuel xii. 24 and 25 : "And he
called his name Solomon (%/-: slme), and Ieue loved him. And Nathan the
prophet put his hand upon him ($*"-(-:*& uislh-bid)
and called him after Ieue, (or on account
of IE 9&"3" bobur)
Jedidiah," (%*$*$* ididie) that is, the most holy IE, or,
in Hebrew idiom, Holy, Holy IE. Here we have the ceirotonia and Christening, or giving the Christian name, usually
given with us at the baptism. I assume that the $ d in the word $*" bid
ought to be 9 r. With this the whole is sense, without it the whole is nonsense; and I think most Hebrew
scholars who shall go through my work, and see all the proofs which I shall
give of my theory, will agree with me that the emendation ought to be made.
Page 182
Why did Jesus say he
founded his church upon a rock or
stone ? I have shewn the word stan or stone, both in India and Europe, to have
the same meaning; therefore, it follows, that it is a very old word, probably
an arithmetical word. May it have been s/=200, t/=330, n/=50, n/=50, stnn cycle of 600 ? It is very true,
that the whole system was founded upon the cycle. What was the loadstone, which
I have supposed carried in the Amphi-prumna as its mast, the mast of Cockayne,*
of Minerva, but L’-di-stone the holy
stone ? It was, most assuredly of all inanimate things, the best emblem of
Wisdom. What can be more precious than the magnet ? This is highly figurative,
no doubt; but who can deny that the language of Jesus was figurative, and as
highly figurative too ? This Lapis would be the Lapis of 600; then, by
regimine, the lapis stnn.
* See Volume I. pp.
340, 344, 345.
I am quite certain
that no one who considers that Jesus taught in parables, as he said, that he
might not be understood, will think it unreasonable to go to an ćnigma for the
meaning of the ćnigmatical expression to Simon Peter, Cephas, Pierre, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will
build my church : Matt. xvi. 18. Now I think the stone on which Jesus meant
to found his church, was Saxum, Sax, Saca, in short, Buddha or divine wisdom.
This is perfect keeping with other equivoxes which Jesus is said to have used.
The stone of Sax would become the stone Sax, with the Latin termination. Jesus
Christ was a disciple of Buddha; that is, of Divine Wisdom. Who will deny this
? Thus we come at the first name of Buddha, Saca.
… A play upon language, or an equivoque being clearly meant, no objection can be taken to an explanation arising
from an equivoque. Sax is evidently
divine wisdom, Buddha. It is also a stone, the anointed stone of Jacob, the
emblem of the generative power or wisdom.
…
Page 185
The art of acrostic
writing, which we find in the Talmud, the Psalms, the Runes of Scandinavia,
&c., arose from the mode of making out a word from the first letters of
numbers. …
Mr. Mallet has
observed, "that the ancient Scandinavian poetry abounded with acrostics of
various kinds, as much as the Hebrews;"* the Scandinavian, that is, the
Saxon.
* Northern Ant. Vol.
II. p.144.
The practice to which
our grammarians have given the scientific or technical name of Anagram, partly
arose from the accidental transposition of the letters of a word, when changing
the writing from the numeral system of system of ciphers, and from the top downward,
to the literal and horizontal, and partly from indifference as to the order in
which the letters stood, when the language was in unspoken symbols. With respect
to language, I believe our grammarians give too much credit to system, and by
no means enough to what we call accident. A moment's reflection will shew
anyone that, in the unspoken language of numerical symbols, it was not the
least consequence in what order the symbols were placed. For instance, in the
word Sul, whether it were Slu or Sul, precisely the same idea would be
conveyed. This was the origin of Anagrams and Metathesis, to which we have
given these fine names.
Endless is the
nonsense which has been written respecting the ten Jewish Sephiroths; but Moore
has, perhaps, alone explained them. Their name, in fact, tells us what they
are. They are well known to be ten symbols; and what is Sepher but Cipher ?—the
ciphers of notation up to ten, which, it is evident, contained in themselves,
in the numeral language or language of ciphers, in its endless combinations,
all knowledge or wisdom ? This was really Cabalistic.* This was the meaning of
the ćnigma of Pythagoras, that every thing proceeded from numbers.
* See Basnage, p.199.
Page 186
In this language of
ciphers, every cipher or figure, to a certain extent, was, of course, the
symbol of a word, viz. to 9 inclusive. … After the Arabic notation was
invented, although all the figures from 9 to 99 would consist of two symbols,
they were in fact representatives of but one idea. Basnage says, that the
writing of Belshazzar's wall, interpreted by Daniel, consisted of but a letter
or symbol for a word; this is correctly cipher writing.
We will now consider
the number 9.
The Teth of the
Hebrew stands for nine. I have no
doubt that we have this letter nearer the original in form in the Greek Q Theta, a circle including a central point, though the
Greek Theta is not unlike the Teth both in name and form. This has the same
name as the Tha or Thas of the Egyptians, and the Fqaj of the Copts. It is called the everlasting number,
because, by whatever number it is multiplied, if the figures be added, they
make 9. Thus 7x9=63, and 6+3=9; or an equal number of nines, and for this
reason it has the emblem of eternity for its figure, viz. a point and a circle.
This Tha or Thas is the ninth or last number before the tens begin. The Tzaddi
is the 90, the second nine before the hundreds begin; and the Tzaddi final is the third 9, standing for 900,
before the thousands begin.
Page 187
We constantly read of
the Son of man. I have often wondered
why a human being should be so called. I have little doubt that by this was
meant, Son of the Solar Incarnation, Mn.
Man was the image of
God, of the being described by the number 650; in short, he was the microcosm
of God. Mind was Sapienta; and this was only to be made perceptible by one man
to another by means of the Logos or speech. Thus mind came to be described by
the word Logos, the speech or anima in motion, the spirit of God, of which the
Linga was the emblem. The organ of generation, for a similar reason, was called
Linga, or Lingua, language, or speech, or Logos. Mind was the To On. "Every thing tends to the To On"—"to the centre." For this
reason, when the alphabet consisted of only twenty-four letters or figures, the
two centre letters, the MN=650, formed its name. The name of that part of the
Hom or Homo, which more immediately partook of the nature of the To On, mind and man-min-di, viz. divus, holy or sacred, that is, MN.
After the sacred number, the Neros was found to be 600 and not 650, the number
of the letters was reduced from 28 to 27, and the M=600 was the sacred number.*
When this was the case, it is evident that those who did not understand all the reasoning might take either the LM
or the MN for their sacred number 650. Thus came the Lama and the menu. Thus
the Lamed came to be used indiscriminately with the Nun, as Ficinus tells us.
And thus, as we might expect, Lama, Menu, and Mani, were all the same. The
Lamed is, in fact, the LM-di, Holy or Sacred Lama.
* Thus, when it was
desired to retain the allegory of the tree of knowledge and letters in the
alphabetic numeral system, and the mansions of the moon and the days of the
moon's period were found to be more correctly described by 27, the letters were
reduced to 27.
Page 188
At last, the Lama
came to have the same name as the sheep, as the solar constellation, and as
"the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world," in the language of
figures, it was L=50, M=600=650. For a similar reason the Goat, which was the
same as the Lamb, was called Mn-des, M=600, N=50=650.
The Indian Fig-tree
was sacred to the Sun.* It was the tree of the Lam; then, from the regimine,
the tree Lam-di.
* Vall. Coll. Hib.
Vol. V. p.130.
The reader may
probably recollect the observations which I made in Volume I. pp. 606, 837,
838, that the Goat and the Sheep are the same genus of animal, and that they
will breed forward, or continue the breed, like the Greyhound and the Pointer,
not like the Horse and the Ass. This accounts for the Goat being often found
where a Sheep might be expected. At last the two animals came to be equally
adored, one as LM=650, the other MN=650.
Page 190
After man began to
theorize on the First Cause, he naturally designated it by the Monad or Unit,
which was at length described by a point : on this arose many most refined
speculations. It was on the Monad, on which was erected all the other numbers,
till we get to ten; the whole of the fingers which formed one circle or whole,
as it contained in itself all numbers. Then, by the invention of adding the
other numbers over again, all numbers are formed. … Thus it was the creator,
and the foundation or mother of figures, letters, and knowledge : from this,
the Iedi of Judi were the followers of the holy I, or Ie, or Io. From this
being the origin of letters as well as of creation, the golden fleece (holy
wisdom) and the apple of the Hesperides, apples of the tree of knowledge, holy
wisdom came.
The Chinese are said
to have a God called Xangti, whose name is kept a profound secret, never
mentioned on any occasion, but entrusted alone to those in the higher
mysteries, who meditate on it with the most profound reverence. Here we have
the exact history of the OM of the Indians, and of the IEUE of the Jews of the
twentieth chapter of Exodus, which, when properly and mysteriously translated,
means, as I have already stated, "Thou shalt not mention the name of % E &%* IEU, that is, of THE Self-existent
Being." … Ie or Io was Logos, a tree of wisdom. Wisdom was letters,
letters were a tree. Thus a tree was wisdom, because its leaves were letters; 0*3* ioz
was the word used for letters. I was
one, 1; one and a circle were 10, X; one and a circle were Io, which were IH or
XH, the circle 608; one and a circle were a dot and circle, the emblem of the
eternal monad—ť. It was Q, h/ 9, the
emblem of the eternal number, as they called it. A circle is a cipher; it is
the emblem of eternal wisdom; it is 4&:—4&2 sup or 4&' zup,
SoF, wisdom. Theta was nine, because 9 was the
emblem of eternity; conformably to this, the first letter of the hieroglyphic
alphabet was an owl, the emblem of
wisdom. …
VOLUME II - BOOK III - CHAPTER II
DIS MARIEBUS—SYSTEMS OF LETTERS—LAST
AVATARS. MOHAMED, &c.—NAMES OF THE GODS OF THE WEEK—CHINESE WRITING—ABACUS
AND NABATHEAN ALPHABET—JAVA—NORTHMORE'S SYSTEM—VON HAMMER'S BOOK.
SAXONS—BACCHUS. JANUS. OGHAM—RHYME. BARDS. FATES. VEDS—CHINESE—IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION OF SACA—PALLIUM—APOCRYPHA—DEISUL—HAMMER'S ARABIC BOOK
Page 203
We have seen, that in
Judia of Siam, Maria and Mania were the same. Maria was one of the persons
whose altars are inscribed Tribus Mariebus, of which one was the Virgo
Paritura. On the Heathen and Christian monuments the letters D. M. are
constantly found. The Christians say, they mean Deo Maximo, and the Heathens
say, they mean the Dis Mariebus, of whose history it is pretty clear they were
ignorant. But in fact they were the same, and meant Dis Mariebus—the holy
three, who had the care of the dead Christ, and embalmed him. They were the
three Parcć of the Europeans, who cut with their scissors the thread of life.
On a Christian tombstone, in the Church of St. Clemens at Rome, they are Dís
Manibus; however, the letters is and anibus have of late
years been filled with cement to disguise them. But upon many Christian
monuments the letters are, D. M. Sacrum XL.* This beats all our
Christian antiquarians; they can make nothing of the XL. But it probably meant
Deo M. 650. I think the three Marys or Parcć were the Trimurti—Tri-mr-di, the
holy triple Maria or Maia. One was Mary, Sal or Sul, Om; the
second, Mary Mag (or Magna) di-Helen or Magdalen; and the third, Mary the
mother of Jesus. The Mag is the same as Mogul—Mag-al—ard the Almug-tree, of
which the sacred part of the temple of Solomon was built, was the wood sacred
to the Mag-al or ul, or great God. From this, by the regimine,
came the name Mogul, as priests came to bear the names of their Gods.
* Basnage, B. iii. Ch. xxiii. p. 237, Eng. Trans.
Page 204
In great numbers of
places in the Old Testament, the allegory of trees and letters is referred to.
What was the Rod of Aaron which threw our branches or leaves or buds ? What
were the magical rods of Jacob ? What was the meaning of the branch from which
the stem of Jesse was to arise ? Was Jesse I-esa ? The Gnostics frequently
called Jesus the Tree of Life, and the tree itself which grew in the
middle of Paradise, and, at other times, a branch. My idea that the
fruit of the tree of knowledge was the acquisition of the knowledge of letters
without initiation, is supported by the assertion of Enoch, that the wickedness
of the world, which caused the flood, consisted in the attempts of men to
obtain forbidden knowledge. It is also strengthened by a passage of Proverbs,
Chap. iii. 13, 18, where Solomon says, “Happy is the man who findeth
wisdom,”—“She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.” I suppose
certain of the leaf-names of figures of notation were selected by a society,
and that this society being spread about in different countries, slight
differences in the mode of selecting the sixteen letters took place. Thus the
religious mythos was not every where described in exactly the same manner;
hence we see the small variation which shews itself between the Hebrew and the
Greek.
Page 205
… Every man who was
initiated into the mysteries, and who aspired to be a philosopher, is said to
have has his own alphabet, in which he concealed his doctrines from all but his
followers. At last, when writing became no longer a masonic or magical secret,
each country acquired, by degrees, the habit of using some one of them. Their
powers of notation, however, kept them all nearly the same, both in principle
and order. (That they have all the same numerical power, has been proved by
Gen. Vallancey in the plates to his fifth volume of the Coll. Hib.) And so, I
have no doubt, they continued, to a very late day, with only the little
variation in the last numbers of the Coptic and Greek. I think the probability
is, that the order of men, (who were not, strictly speaking, priests, but
nearly an order of priests, and some of whom might, perhaps, sustain the
priestly office,) called Chaldćans, from central India, were the original
inventors of the syllabic from the numeral system; and as for the numeral, I
know of no people more likely than they to have been, the inventors of it also.
… There is no fact more certain than the general solicitude of the learned
ancients to keep every part of science, as much as possible, a secret, each to
himself, or his sect or followers. There was an unceasing struggle between the
Bees, who tried to discover, and the Drones, who endeavoured to secrete; and,
for thousands of years, the Drones succeeded in preserving their science and
power, by admitting only the most talented or rich of the Bees into their
order, which operated doubly in their favour; it took strength from their
enemies and added it to themselves. It is impossible to deny that numbers of
the alphabets are formed in unaccountably complex shapes; these were the
alphabets of the drones, trying to envelop every thing in mystery. If the Bees
invented any, they would, for the sake of publicity, be of the simplest kind—like
the first alphabets of the drones, made by them before the power and utility of
the art were known, and before the necessity of using extraordinary care to
keep it secret became manifest to themselves.
… Though every
philosopher or his school had an alphabet of a peculiar form, each alphabet was
evidently founded on that of Arabia. The first alphabet was the Arabic alphabet
of numbers, each number having the name of a tree, and amounting to
twenty-eight. The second was the alphabet of letters, of Cadmus, which
consisted of sixteen culled out of the twenty-eight. After some time,
these sixteen were increased by adopting the whole twenty-two numeral of Arabic
letters, as they stand marked by the increasing numbers.* The more I meditate
on thousands of trifling circumstances connected with these subjects, the more
convinced I am, that, for many generations, the arts of reading, writing, and
the higher branches of arithmetic, were in the hands of a ruling order, and
this order was that of the high priests of Ur of the Chaldees; that is, of the
country Uria of Calida, that is, Calidi—country of the holy Cali. The
high-priest and ruler has been Mogh-ul from the most remote period. But the
time when and the country in which the first letters were invented, is an
ćnigma which I fear must remain unsolved. However, I think we may be assured,
that the place was East of the Indus, and West of China—probably in the tract
of country between the Nerbudda and sixty degrees north latitude. I think we
cannot come nearer than this to the place. Samarkland, Mundore, Oude, and
Tibet, have nearly equal claims, and there does not seem to me to be much room
for speculation on the subject.
* See Celtic Druids,
p.248.
Page 206
General Vallancey*
has shewn, that the old Chaldee alphabet is strictly the same as the
Estrangelo, (vide his Plates,) and that the same as the Phśnician, which
is, in fact, Hebrew or Syriac. These are the languages which we have found
(vide Vol. I. pp. 702, 765,) in the College of Casi, near Oude or Youdia, or
Benares, or at the temple of Solomon, at the Mere or Mount of Casi, in
Cashmere, the country of the crucified Indra. And again, a thousand miles to
the south, in the country of the crucified Ball-ii or Wittoba, in South India, at
Terpati or Tripoly or Trichinopoly, called Pushto and Syriac and Chaldee; in
each place both the Christian and Jewish mythos are recorded—the two, in fact,
are united in one. Again, we have found the same Hebrew language, and the same
double mythos, amalgamated in Mexico, carried thither before the invention of
letters or iron. The amalgamation of the Christian and Jewish mythoses, found
in both India and Mexico, and the ignorance, in the latter, of the knowledge of
iron and letters, are facts which can never be separated. It is impossible to
have clearer proofs that the whole existed before the time of Christ. …
* Coll. Hib. Vol. V.
p. 201.
Page 217
The Greek name of
Numeration is Ariqmoj—of Rhyme or Measure `Ruqmoj. The Persians, according to Chardin, call it Abged,
which word is evidently the a, b, g, d, of the Hebrew and Greek, and our a, b,
c. And the symbolical letters of the Indian Algebra, are called Abekt,
evidently at the bottom the same as the first letters of the Hebrew and Greek.*
In the same manner the instrument used by the ancient Greeks and Romans to
count with, and at present by the Chinese and Japanese, was and is called
Abacus. Count Paravey observes, very justly, that the names Abgeb, Abekt,
Abacus, Apices, prove the identity of figures and letters, and that the
latter were derived from the former.** …
* Vide Bija-Gauita of
Bhascara.
** Essay on Figures
and letters, p.59. In almost all nations we read of a learned lost language. No
one will deny that Algebra must have been considered a profoundly learned
science in all nations. The Greek letters were taken from the Hebrew or Arabic;
then here we have the name of this Indian learning in the names of the Hebrew
letters. This almost amounts to something more than a probability—to a
proof—that the Hebrew was the first language of the Indians.
Page 218
After I had nearly
finished what the reader has seen, I discovered in Hyde1 what in a
very remarkable manner confirms my hypotheses, but which will not surprise
those who have read what I have written respecting the Judćan mythos of the
Mexicans and Chinese. It is an alphabet of Tartars who now govern China, and
also an alphabet of the Mendeans, who, I suppose, are the Mandaites or
Nazoureans or Christians of St. John or Nabathćans.2 A moment’s consideration
will satisfy any Hebrew scholar, that they are both, notwithstanding the
difference in the shape of letters, correctly Hebrew. They do not differ even
in a single letter. After this no one will be surprised to find the Judćan
mythos in China. But this Tartar alphabet must be kept a secret as the use of
letters is prohibited.3
1 De Rel. Vet. Pers. in a
map at the bottom of the title of a Tartar book, in my copy, p.358.
2 Vide Ibid. App. p.524.
3 Ency. Brit. Vol. I.
p.727.
Page 219
Jesus and Mohamed were philosophers, preachers of wisdom and morality to
their countrymen, and, like Socrates and Pythagoras, neither of them left a
single word of writing behind him. Some persons believe Jesus to have been
murdered by the priests, others state that he escaped them; but at all events,
he seems to have offered no active opposition. Mohamed, on the contrary, when
struck, returned the blow and beat his enemies. But in each case the moment the
preacher was gone, books enow were manufactured by those whose interest it was
to establish a dominion over their fellow-creatures. In each case, I have no
doubt, the early actors in the drama were well-meaning fanatical devotees. I
doubt not that in India and in Europe millions went over from the religions of
the two Cristnas (the God of India and the God of Rome), to that of the new
Avatar, who, in the West, protected them by his arms against the sectaries of
the old Avatar. For though the followers of the new Avatar never persecuted,
the followers of the old one always did. It is not surprising under these
circumstances, that the new Avatar should have protected his followers by his
arms. This would excuse, if it did not justify, the wars of Mohamed, and also
account for his success.
Page 226
The principle of the fates was this : The First Cause was believed to
ordain a law, or foreordain to each cycle what should happen. In every cycle
the same things were repeated : the vates or fates only declared this law.
Jupiter was bound by his own pre-ordained law, because, when he made that law,
he, being omniscient, foresaw that he should not change it; he foresaw every
thing, which, on the whole, was for the best, and, in agreement with that, he
ordained every thing which would happen in the cycle, and for ever. However
long the cycle may be, still if it be a cycle every thing will recur. This,
although it may be false, is much more refined than our feeble conceptions,
that God is changing every day, at the request or prayers of every fool who
chooses to petition him; or, at least, as our book says, “when two or three are
gathered together.” What is for the best, the First Cause will enact, and if he
enact in time, he must enact it in a cycle, for time cannot exist out of
a cycle; we can only form an idea of what we call time by means or our
idea of circle or cycle. We know or believe from our senses that events proceed
in succession : how can we believe that events will proceed or succeed, for
ever, without a stop ? We may say we think they will, but of this we can form no
idea, as we shall find, if we examine the course of our ideas closely. The
Indians, meditating upon these matters, came at last, after the end of each
cycle, to place the First Cause, as well as the Creator, in a state of absolute
quietude; but what would this be, if continued, but Atheism ? To avoid this,
they made him rest a given time, then begin and enact anew the former order of
things, to create happiness—begin a new cycle. I shall be told, that this will
deprive man of free will, and perhaps God too. I cannot help this. It is not my
fault that this theory of the ancients is attended with a dangerous result. My
declaration of their opinion or faith does not change it, or make it. If my
reader will try some other theory he will soon find himself in an equal
difficulty; and this arises from the fact, that we here come to the extreme of
our faculties. If we go farther, we go beyond the power of the human
understanding, and then, if we talk at all, we necessarily talk nonsense, as
all the profound metaphysicians, like Berkeley, and the professors of the
Vedanta philosophy, do.
Page 227
If the mind of man could be brought to the consideration of the subject
of prophecy without prejudice, he would instantly see, that in its common and
usual interpretation it involves the very acme of absurdity. For what is it
that God the omnipotent chooses to reveal ? Something to man for his good,
which will happen in future : but, wonderful to tell, he always does this in
such a manner, that man shall not know that it has been revealed, until the
thing has happened. He gives it by the mouth of the priest, who is supposed
sometimes to understand, sometimes not to understand it. But can any thing be
more derogatory to the divine attributes ? Why does not God make his priests
speak out, intelligibly and clearly ? Why did not the prophet tell the Jews,
that their next Messiah should be a spiritual not a temporal
Messiah, like all their former Messiahs ? But every prophecy is an ćnigma to be
expounded by the priests. Here, again, we have the system of secrecy which
prevails through every part of the ancient world. Every thing was allegory and
ćnigma, contrived for the purpose of supporting the power of the favourite
initiated.
Page 232
The doctrine which I have taught of an universal Catholic or Pandćan
Judaic mythos having every where prevailed, I know from its singularity and its
opposition to the priesthood of the present day, will, at first, be treated
only with contempt : but there are certain facts which must be accounted for,
or in the end the theory will prevail, or I ought rather to say the truth will
be no longer doubted. It is a certain fact, that the temple of Solomon and the
tomb of Moses existed in Cashmere when the Mohamedans arrived there, and were
destroyed by them; therefore they were not named by them, or built by them. The
city of Oude or Ioudia, the Montes Solumi, country of Daudpotri, &c., are
in the same predicament if they are admitted to have had these same names
before the arrival of the Mohamedans; and this cannot be denied. It is not
credible that these places should have been built, or had these names given to
them, by the emigrant Samaritans, the bitter enemies of the system of David,
Solomon, &c. The above are proved facts, not theories, and must be
accounted for.
The same system is found near Cape Comarin; in Siam; in China; and in
Mexico : all these things must be accounted for. It is true, the whole detail
of the system is not found in the latter places to be exactly the same as it is
in the former, because the system is accommodated to the country, and to
existing circumstances in each case; but the fragments of it which are found,
which, like the broken pillars and capitals when found, prove a temple
anciently to have existed, render it highly probable that the very same system
once existed. In deed, they do more, they prove it : while the fact
that, with these fragments the most important parts of the Christian system
are found to have amalgamated before the Christian ćra, raises a grand obstacle
to the truth of the Judćan and Christian system, as at present laid down.
It may be fairly asked, How comes the Christian doctrine—the crucifixion for
instance—if there was an ancient Judćan doctrine and the crucifixion was part
of it, not to be clearly found in the system of Moses and the Jews of Western
Syria ? I contend that the whole Crestian mythos was an esoteric system; the
system concealed in the mysteries and in the Jewish unwritten Cabala; which, in
this case, will have been, in reality, no way different from the ancient
mysteries of the Gentiles. The opinion that there was a Cabala or unwritten
doctrine among the Jews was never denied. If there were such a thing, it must
have been taught somewhere, in some place, to its possessors, and this place must
have been their temple, though we read nothing about it. Thus, in fact, there
must have been Jewish initiations at Jerusalem as well as at Eleusis. We know
that circumcision, baptism, confirmation, and I believe the eucharist, the
doctrine of a murdered and resuscitated person, were all parts of the secret
mysteries; the former three of these we know fro certain were Jewish, and the
Apocrypha tells us the last was.
That there is not a more full account of the adventures of the incarnate
God in the Jewish canon, proves a fact which is, indeed, proved by a thousand
other circumstances—that the mythos was originally an unwritten secret, kept in
all countries from the mass of mankind, or a secret kept in allegories or
parables, but chiefly in the latter, the favourite resource of the religion.
The knowledge of the regenerated and reincarnated God was probably never openly
published, as long as it could be kept concealed. It was a great mystery. It
constituted the high mystery in all the temples in which the high mysteries
were celebrated. There is not a country where the leading points of it are not
to be discovered, and always, when discovered, found to have been carefully
hidden—points sufficiently important and sufficiently numerous to warrant the
conclusion, that the remainder of the system must have been known, though
perhaps it is not now in our power to discover it. But I do not doubt when the
very existence of the iconoclastic temple became endangered by the violence of
the idolaters, the books of the Apocrypha, or secret doctrine, were written to
preserve it, if possible, from being lost. But though we do not find the eight
Saviours clearly made out in the books of the Jewish canon, yet we have found
one of them in the Apocrypha; and they are most clearly and repeatedly foretold
in the Targums by the term Messiah. The Jews were always expecting this
Messiah. They believed Julius Cćsar, and, afterward Herod, to be the Messiah.
But, as neither of them restored the kingdom of Solomon, he was no longer
regarded as a Messiah; he passed away and was forgotten. But their book clearly
state, that Cyrus was a Messiah : that was, because he restored their
Temple.
Page 233
I some time ago made an observation on the attachment of Pythagoras and
the ancients to music. I have no doubt that music was closely connected with
religion. All the ancient unwritten mysteries, (and all mysteries were once
unwritten,) were originally preserved in rhythm or metre, and set to
music, or contained in or preserved by music. Rhythm, metre, and
music, were all invented for the purpose of aiding the memory—of assisting it
more correctly to retain the sacred numbers, &c. For many generations after
the use of letters became public, there were no writings in prose : all were in
poetry or rhythm. All the stone pillars in the temples, erected or placed
according to the numbers of the cycles, were partly for this same purpose. The sacred dances and scenic
representations were for the double purpose of doing honour to the God and
aiding the memory;1 precisely as the scenic representations of the
acts of Jesus Christ by the Romish church originally were, or perhaps are at
this day; and of which the plays called mysteries in Elizabeth’s time were a
remnant. The Bards were an order to preserve and regulate the choirs, the Salii
to preserve and regulate the dances. The origin of the Salii was, in fact,
unknown to the Romans, and they were equally ignorant of many other of their
institutions. The Salii were originally twelve in number. Their chief was
called Prć-Sul,2 which serves to shew that they were probably
Sul-ii—priests of Sol. They had an officer called Vates, a musician
: they were probably all Bards. But the most important of these rites were the
processions, or voyages of salvation, or what were called the Deisuls. In
these, I have no doubt, that the whole life and adventures of the incarnate God
were represented—from his birth to his resurrection and ascension.
1 It is observed by Neibuhr, that the ancients never grounded their
tragedies on real, but on mythic history only. Rom. Hist. Vol. I. p.341,
Ed. Walter.
2 These were priests
of the Sun; and I suspect they were prhj-sul, and from hence our word priest might be derived. …
The exact process
which took place in the formation of the Bardic order cannot, perhaps, be
clearly made out; but there can be little doubt that it became almost
exclusively devoted to the composing and singing of the sacred songs.
Originally all sacrifices were feasts, and feasts were sacrifices in honour of
the Deity; at these the Bards sung their sacred songs. And it was not till
these matters became common, that the Bards descended to celebrate the praises
of love and war. At First, these feasts were strictly confined to the temple,
and to the elect; but, as the labouring classes became more enlightened, they
insisted upon joining their superiors; and, by degrees, they discovered all the
secret : till, at last, horribile dictu, there is now scarcely a secret
left ! I have formerly stated that Clemens confessed that the Judćan mythos was
in the ceremonies of Eleusis. What else can cause them to be in the secret
mysteries ?
Page 234
I believe, as I have
repeatedly remarked, that for many generations the arts of reading, writing,
and the higher branches of arithmetic, were secret, sacred, and astrological;
that they were solely confined to the priesthood, which, chiefly by their
means, ruled all nations; that one system of sixteen letters pervaded
the whole world, and the priesthood was probably that of which we read so much
in the Indian books, described by the name of the empire of Pandća. If at first
the written language were the same as the spoken, yet a moment’s reflection
will shew, that the latter would diverge in a variety of ways, in different countries,
as time advanced. This is the allegory of the confusion of tongues
mentioned in Genesis. We every where read of a sacred, lost language. We
find this tradition with the Tamuls, with the Brahmins, with the Greeks, with
the Druids, indeed, with all nations. And I am quite certain, that if the
language of numeral symbols was not the lost language, the Synagogue Hebrew, in
consequence of the state of seclusion in which it has been kept in the temple,
is now nearer to it than any other.
… Now in all written
languages, even those which are the most distant from each other, we find a
surprising identity of words having the same meaning; for instance, we will
take the Sanscrit and English, as in the Sanscrit word sam, and English
word same, both meaning, like, similar. This I suppose to have
arisen from the secret, unspoken language of ciphers or figures having extended
over the whole world, and continuing fixed for many generations, after all
similarity in the spoken languages had disappeared. I think the words which we
find reduplicated, in the different and distant languages, are the words of the
secret, numerical, or sacred language, accidentally fallen into common use. I
think the example of seventy-three languages or systems of letters, all having
the Arabic for their foundation, treated of in the work found by Mr. Von Hammer
in Egypt, raises a strong presumption that Arabic (which I consider to be, in
fact, Hebrew) was the parent of the whole, when in its early Cufic state,
though now, no doubt, in every way changed. The fact that almost all the roots
of the Hebrew are found in the Arabic, proves them to be only close dialects of
one another. This idea also is supported by the place to which I have traced
the Arabic—North India—where we found an Arabia and a Suracena. I need not
remind my reader, that the Syriac is a close dialect of the Arabic and Hebrew;
and it is scarcely possible to believe that its names of Pushto and Estrangelo
should be given to the ancient sixteen letter language, (now called
Tamul,) without its being, or having originally been, the same language.* Let
it be remembered that the Judćan mythos is found in both North and South India.
It is also expedient to retain in recollection, that the Thamas is, in a very
peculiar manner, found both in Western Syria and in the Tamul-speaking part of
India.
* Vide Georgius,
Alph. Tib. p.583.
VOLUME II - BOOK III - CHAPTER III
ROMA. FLORA. PUSHTO—ALLEGORY OF THE
FLOWER CONTINUED—GENERAL OBSERVATIONS—ALLEGORIES—ALLEGORIES CONTINUED—RETROSPECT
Page 238
We have seen the way, or something very like it, in which man first
discovered the written language of numerical symbols, and by what steps he
probably proceeded to discover the art of alphabetic, syllabic writing. After
he had discovered the advantage and followed the practice of calling the sun by
the different combinations of figures which made up the first cycle of 666, and
which, as I have shewn, proceeded from unthought-of and unforeseen
circumstances, he would begin to try to form the next words or the remainder of
his written language, whether it were symbolic or syllabic, upon some system;
and I think we have an example of this in the connexion of the various words
having a relation to the first superstition, that is, to the adoration of the
female generative power, in the words Flora, flower, flour, pollen, Pallas,
&c. We shall discover examples of this in the history of the name of the eternal
city, Roma, which we shall find to have a near relationship to the letters
of the Tamuls of India.
Page 239
Thus the language of the Syrians and the Tamuls, of the Afghans and the
Arabians, the Estrangelo, or of the Chaldćans and the Jews, was the language of
the Flower—650 : and what flower was this, but the flower which grew in Carmel,
the garden of God, which grew in Nazareth, or in the place of the Natzir ? What
flower was this but the flower of which we so often read; which gave a name to
the capital of Persia—Susiana or Susa—the Lily or Lotus ? What flower but the
water rose, the rose of Ise, Iseur, Isuren, of Sharon ? “Susan, Lilium vel
Rosa, Uxor Joachim.”*
* Vall. Coll. Hib. Col. IV. Part I. p.264.
An old picture found in Palestine by Dr. Clarke induced him to make some
remarks on the Lotus or Lily, which, he observes, almost always accompanies the
figure of the Virgin. He says, that Nazareth, at this time, signifies a flower, and, from St. Jerom, that Nazareth in Hebrew
signifies a flower. This is the Lotus, equally sacred in India, Egypt,
Greece, and Syria. The bean which it produced in the Nile and Ganges, was that
which, when the mythos was lost, was believed by the votaries of Pythagoras to
be forbidden, in his mystics, to be eaten,* but which he really never forbade.
* Clarke, Vol. II.
p.411, Ed. 4to.
Page 240
Nazareth, the town of Nazir or Nazwfaioj, the flower, was situated in Carmel, the vineyard or
garden of God. Jesus was a flower; whence came the adoration, by the
Rossicrucians, of the Rose and Cross, which Rose was Ras, and this Ras, or
knowledge or wisdom, was stolen from the garden, which was also crucified, as
he literally is, on the red cornelian, the emblem of the Rossicrucians—a Rose
on a Cross. This crucified flower-plant was also liber, a book, a letter or
tree, or Bacchus or IHS. This IHS was Logos, Linga, letters, LTR=650. THE God was also
called Rose or Ras, because he was R=200, O=70, Z=90=360; or Rose=365;
RS=RST=600; the Rose of the Water, or Water-rose, as it is called
to this day. But this Rose of Sharon, this Logos, this word, was called in
Arabic and Chaldćan werta and werd the same as our word.*
Thus it was both the Linga, the generative principle, and Lingua, a word, or
words, language. How curiously the system is interwoven, like rods of willows
into a basket ! It was Flora, Flj=650, which was
the Flora of the Romans, and the %95 pre of the Hebrews, both meaning a flower. The famous
Hesperides was the Hebrew 63 oz *95 pri. The *95 pri means flower, but the 63 oz means letters as well as a tree;
and, I have no doubt, is closely connected, in some secret way, with the
allegory of the Arbor magna, cujus rami sunt leterć, &c. Push-to and
Push-pa are the same. Push, which means flower, is the root of both. The
corruption is not greater between Pushto and Pushpa, than between Pema and
Padma—names of the Lotus. We have found Buddha called Pema, Padma, the Lotus, a
flower. We have found him called Poti-sato; therefore Poti-sato meant flower.
…
* Asiat, Res. Vol. II. p.53.
Page 241
In addition to what I
have said in several places respecting the similarity of Cristna and Jesus
Christ, I now request my reader to observe (what I formerly overlooked), that
the celebrated Arjoon, the brother of Cristna, is nothing but John with the
epithet Ar prefixed. And I learn from Rammohun Roy that he was not the
elder brother of Cristna, as I have formerly stated, but, as John was to Jesus,
he was his cousin. He assisted him in his labours for the good of mankind, and
when he was killed, the Sun stood still to hear the lamentations of Cristna for
his loss.
All the names of Rome
are female—Roma, Flora, Valentia : nearly its first and greatest Goddess was
Vesta. Heyne suggests Roma to be Ruma.1 No person has puzzled all
inquirers more than the Indian Rama,2 the cousin of Cristna. He has
frequently been observed to have been to Cristna what John was to Jesus;3
and the similarity is so striking, that it puts the identity of the two
mythoses out of all question. …
1 See Vol. I. p.376.
2 We have not yet
found the origin of the word Ram the brother of Cristna, and of the animal of
the zodiac. Now, in the language of numbers, we find in the Hebrew the Samach
and the Mem final to stand for the same number—the famous number 600. From this
mutual convertibility I think the Ram and the Ras have been the same.
3 See Vol. I. pp.
648, 649.
Page 242
Arwma, the sweet smell,* means also a flower, that
is Pushpa or Pushto. This was the language of the followers of the Phasah or
the Lamb—it was the language of the Flower, of the Nazir, of the Flos-floris,
of Flora, of the Arouma, and of the flour of Ceres, or the Eucharistia. It was
the language of the pollen, the pollen of plants, the principle of generation,
of the Pole or Phallus, of the Pole which opened the Gate of Salvation, and it
was the Gate itself, the Arca-polis, place of deposit of the sacred things of
the state, which were the emblems of the Arch or divine wisdom,—it
was the Pala, the Pallas, (the divine wisdom,) and the Palladium or pallium of
Elijah, or of the Lamb of God.
* Jone’s Lex.
Erwj amor, and this is ama, which ama aspirated is C-ama.
Amor is Roma. Erwj is
Sora or Sura, the Sun. (Sora-Cora-mandel.) Erwj being Cama is also Ama or Venus; in India,
Cama-rina, Cama-marina, Sea-Goddess. Thus Venus and Cupid or Dipuc, that is,
the Virgin mother and Child are the same; these are the black Madonnas
and Bambinos of Italy. If Rama be Roma it is Amor or divine love, and is
the same to Cristna as Arjoon or Jnana, wisdom, cousin or assistant of
Jesus, is to Jesus.
Page 243
To the celebrated society of the
Rossicrucians or Rosé-cruxians, I have before alluded. I am not a member of this society, therefore,
I cannot betray any secrets. This society is closely allied to the Templars;
their emblem or monogram or jewel, or as malicious and bigoted adversaries
would say, their object of adoration is a Red Rose on a cross, thus—
When it can be done,
it is surrounded with a glory, and placed on a Calvary. When it is worn
appended and made of cornelian, garnet, ruby, or red glass, the Calvary and
glory are generally omitted. This is the Naurutz, Natzir, or Rose of Isuren, of
Tamul, or Sharon, or the Water Rose, the Lily, Padma, Lotus, crucified for the
salvation of man—crucified in the heavens at the vernal equinox : it is
celebrated at that time by the Persians, in what they call their NOU ROSÉ, i.e.
Neros or Naurutz. The word NOU is the Latin novus, and our new,
which, added to the word Rose, makes the new Rose of the vernal
equinox, and also makes on the Rose of the RSX RSS=360; and the XRS Xrs, or cross, or crs, or, with the letter e
added, the Rose=365; in short, the God of Day, the RSS or divine
wisdom, C, RS,*
Cross-Wisdom (Ethiopicč).
* The monogram with
which the title-page of the Latin Vulgate is ornamented, which, as I have
stated, was given me by a Catholic priest. It is placed on the breast of an
allegorical figure which wears three crowns—three crowns, not solely, if
it be at all, emblematical of Heaven, Earth, and Hell, but also emblematical of
an incarnation of the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer—an incarnation
of the Trinity or the Trimurti.
Page 244
Buddha is said to have been crucified for robbing a garden of a flower.
He is also, like the emblem of the Rossicrucians, called a Flower, a Rose, a
Padma, a Lotus, a Lily, and Jesus Christ is called a flower. The Virgin
in the pictures of the annunciation, is always presented with a flower by the
ministering angel, and that flower is the Lotus or Lily. In Mexico the same
thing is done, only the flower is a rose. I account for the fact that
Buddha was both the flower and the robber of the flower, from the regimine of the
language; (the Indians admit their ignorance;) from which the robber of the
flower became the robber-flower. … He was a flower, because as flour or pollen
he was the principle of fructification or generation. He was flour, because
flour was the fine or valuable part of the plant of Ceres or wheat, the pollen
which I am told, in this plant, and in this plant alone, renews itself when
destroyed. When the flour, pollen, is killed, it grows again several times.
This is a very beautiful type or symbol of the resurrection. On this account
the flour of wheat was the sacrifice offered to the Crhj or Ceres in the Eucarijia. In this pollen we have the name of pall or pallium, and
of Pallas, in the first language meaning wisdom. From this, language,
logos, linga, wisdom, all came to be identified with letters, the tree, liber,
Bacchus. Thus when the devotee ate the bread he ate the pollen, and thus ate
the body of God of generation : hence might come transubstantiation.
From this it came to pass, that the double allegory of the knowledge of good
and evil, and of the knowledge of the generative power in the female, then in
the male, and the knowledge of letters and of wisdom arose, and were blended
into one.
Page 248
As I have just said
the mysteries themselves arose from natural circumstances. I suppose the
knowledge of the Trimurti and the other doctrines of the Gnosis or Wisdom, the
branch of the Cabala called Berasit, explained by me, was the secret of
secrets, the grand Arcanum; that, along with this, one of the first secrets was
the knowledge of the art of writing and reading. From the extreme difficulty of
acquiring the art of writing and reading, it would almost necessarily be a secret
science even without any intention at first of making it so. The knowledge of
Wisdom became the knowledge of letters. All wisdom was conveyed by letters, by
the liber, the leaves, the bole, the stem of the tree; thus the tree became the
tree of knowledge to make man wise, forbidden to all but the initiated. … The
Casideans, the Chaldćans, the Essenes, the Therapeutć, the Mathematici, the
Freemasons, the Carmelites, the Assassins, Magi, Druids, were all the same, and
all held the Chreestian doctrine, and received, at their rite of baptism, which
was universal, a Chreestian name, and, by this rite, were admitted to the first
step of initiation into the mysteries. Here was the reason of the universal
toleration after the union of the two great sects of the Linga and Ioni took
place.
On admission into the
highest mysteries, the rite of circumcision was administered, or, perhaps,
originally, it was the general rule, that every one who was intended for the
order, should be circumcised in his youth. The word circumcised, as I have
before observed, has the meaning also of initiation. It is known that into the
high mysteries of Egypt and Eleusis no person was admitted who was not
circumcised, though neophytes were constantly admitted. Besides, every person
once admitted would choose to have his children admitted, and thus the order
was kept alive; and thus it was that the order, as we have found, was both
hereditary and not hereditary. The Monks constituted a class or order, at first
perhaps the elect or perfect, or only the persons admitted into the very high
mysteries. Perhaps the only persons who performed the functions. In the Culdees
of Iona and in Wales, there were both married and unmarried members of the
convents; but probably this was an abuse. Pythagoras became a neophyte, and was
admitted by the ceremony of circumcision.
We will now return to
the flower. In India, Buddha, as already stated, robbed the garden of a flower,
for which he died. In Western Syria the female presents the fruit of the tree
of the garden of love or wisdom to the male, by which means the death and
regeneration of man ensue, and without which the species would not have passed
on to futurity. Now what were the flowers of which the male deprived the garden
of delight alluded to above ? If my reader will carefully consider every
meaning which the word flower or flour or pollen possesses in plants and
animals, in short in all nature, he will then readily answer the question. And
if he wish to know what was the kind of fruit presented by the female to the
male to produce the prolongation of the species, he may ask any naturalist, or
even village surgeon, and he will tell him that the apples of love, the ova,
are not the produce of the male, but of the female. They were the apples of
knowledge, because, by being presented to the male and tasted by him, he
acquired a delicious knowledge which he never knew before, and he caused the
renewal of the animal, from generation to generation, to be ultimately absorbed
in the To On. Here we have the apples of knowledge in the garden
of delight. The flower spoken of was that without which there would be no
generations or regenerations, it was the grand ornament in the garden, and, in
this sense, the flower or plant of wisdom or knowledge. Without its stimulating
and nourishing power there would be no fructification. The plant was worthless
without it. It was the flower of wisdom—!-5 Pla, Pallas, Palladium, Pallium, and the Pollen
of every plant; and, with men who did not possess the recondite knowledge of
anatomy, it became, by mistake, the Phallus. I suppose I need not point out to
my reader what, in this allegory, constituted the garden, the Can-ia, the Gunh. The female presented to the male the apples of love,
the ova. He tasted and fell. With the increase of the species, cares and sorrow
arose, the ground became overrun with thorns and briars, and the garden of
delight faded away. From this first act came all the good and all the evil in
the world; without it there had been neither good nor evil. The being man,
mannus, homo, was [allegorically] not an animal; it was a plant. It is the only
being in whom red blood circulates, who at the same time masticates food and
produces flowers—which flowers bear fruits—of which flowers the male despoiled
the female, and thus propagated the species. There is yet one other animal
which, circulating red blood, bears flowers : but what is its Indian name
?—Hanu-man, the Monkey or Ape.
Page 250
… Here we see the reason why a tree was selected as the ground of the
allegory, for trees were literally books. The tree was very appropriately in
the garden of delight or knowledge or wisdom—the tree, the alphabet, by means
of which all divine science was known—the tree by the study of which the favoured youth, selected for instruction in
the secret mystic art, became one of the royal SACRED caste, enjoying the
contemplation of all the higher branches of knowledge, particularly astronomy.
The gardens of Adonis, of Syria, I really believe were all Edens, (Eden is
Adon,) delightful groves, seminaries of education in the secret sciences,
delightful retreats for study, imitated by the Domus Templi of the Templars at
Cambridge, and the college of Hassan Sabah at Cairo. …
Knowledge or wisdom, though not, perhaps, strictly identical, are
constantly confounded. This arises from the consideration that wisdom s really
the perfection of knowledge. In fact, perfect knowledge is wisdom. Jesus
Christ is constantly called the branch, and the vine—the way of salvation, the
way or door of life, the shepherd, the tree of life, the tree in the middle of
the Garden of E-don or of wisdom. In the title-page of the Alcoran des
Cordeliers, St. Francis is likened to Jesus Christ, by drawing him as a tree.
Christ was Wisdom, and Wisdom was the “arbor magna in medio Paradisi, cujus
rami dictiones, ulterius in ramos parvos et folia, quć sunt literć
extenduntur;” the great tree in the garden of Eden, whose leaves were letters,
and whose branches were words. How could the practice of calling letters by the
names of trees be better described ? Buddha was Wisdom; Jesus Christ was
Wisdom; consequently he was Buddha. Christ was the tree of life and of wisdom
or knowledge; Buddha was Veda; Veda was wisdom—the book of life. … In the Veda
was recorded all knowledge—past, present and future—the knowledge of
generations or re-generations of the man, the knowledge of the renewal of
cycles in sćcula sćculorum, that is, of cycles of cycles—the esoteric meaning
of sćcula sćculorum, aiwn twn aiwnwn, ćones, emanations of divine
wisdom. Our book which we miscal Genesis, or the book of generations,
ought to be Barasit—that is, Wisdom—that is, Veda or Buddha. Thus it is called
by the Jews.
Page 251
But there were two trees in Paradise—the tree of knowledge and the tree
of life. What was the tree of life ? We are told, that if Adam had eaten of the
fruit of the tree of life he would have lived for ever ! What does this
mean ? (Of course I assume that no person reading this book is so weak as to
admit the literal meaning.*) A part of the text seems to be wanting. May it
mean that, by the knowledge of the system of regenerations without having
obtained such knowledge by previous initiation into the secret use of
letters, of the Vedas, the Sophias, the ;&:9 rsut, or of
the knowledge obtained by means of letters, man would have become assured of
his eternal existence; or, that, by knowing the sacred truth, he would have
been induced so to modify his conduct as to ensure himself a speedy absorption
into the To On, to shorten the period or number of his
transmigrations ? Was the fruit of the tree of life the consequences of
admission into the sacred, i.e. secret, mysteries which, by producing fruits
meet for salvation, produced or hastened the salvation of the initiated ? We
know initiation was said exoterically to produce the most perfect happiness.
The effect of initiation was, reformation of manners, the future practice of
the most sublime virtues, the rendering of a man perfect—(“If thou wilt be
perfect, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor”—) inducing him to
desert all the little, narrow, selfish gratifications of this life, for the
purpose of securing those of a life to come. These, at least, were its tendency
and its object. I say not that this was certainly the meaning of the allegory of
the tree of life; but it seems to me, that it must have been this, or something
very like it. At all events, I think the explanation of the second part of the
allegory is in good keeping with, and is not unworthy of, the first; and they
are both beautiful, perhaps true. All this is strictly Masonic. I
trust I am not improperly betraying the secrets of the craft, of the Megalistor
Mundorum, when I state, that the designed effect of all Masonic initiation
is to render a man more virtuous—consequently more happy. A perfect Mason, if
such a thing could be, must be a perfect Buddhist, a perfect Jew, a perfect
Christian, a perfect Mohamedan. They are all Crhj or Crhj-oi or Christs.** And,
from the most remote antiquity, a man in every new cycle has been looked for,
who should be in a peculiar manner Crhj, to teach glad-tidings, divine wisdom, to mankind.
Moses; the conqueror of Babylon, called for this reason Cyrus; Pythagoras,
Herod, Cćsar Augustus, Jesus; Mo or Om AHMED the cyclar desire
of all nations; St. Francis; were all thought, each in his day, to be Crhj-oi by their followers; and the vital principle
which constituted a man, in each age, a member of his religion, and not a
heretic, was a belief that this Crhj was come at that time, or had previously come.
* After nearly the whole of the first volume had been printed, I met
with an observation of Mr. Christie’s, (Essay on Worship of Elements, p.25,)
that Dr. Kennicott had shewn that only one tree standing in Eden was forbidden
: this induced me to examine the question more carefully than I had done, and I
saw at one that Dr. Kennicott was right. The whole context, of all the tracts
of which Genesis is composed, relates only to one tree, except one short
passage at the end of the third chapter.
** Christians were first called Christs. Bingham.
Page 252
I just now asked the question, whether the attempt to acquire illegal
knowledge, or knowledge acquired by the possession of letters, was not the tree
of life. Enoch says, the great sin of the old world, and that for which it was
destroyed, was the attempt to obtain forbidden and illegal knowledge. This I
consider of great importance.
In Genesis it is said, that man acquired knowledge—tasted of the fruit
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil—illegally, illicitly, contrary to the
command of God; in consequence, the ground was cursed, and in future he had to
earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Allegory or gross inconsistency is on
the face of the story, respecting the curse of sterility fixed on the ground,
in consequence of man’s disobedience; for, it is said just before, that he was
placed in the garden to dress and till it; and every one knows that the
ground was not cursed : the sweet chestnut and the filbert, the plants of wheat
and barley, bring forth their fruit, and are succeeded by the orange, the fig,
&c., before they are decayed, as freely now as they always did. Then what
does this mean ? May it allude to the discovery by the people, by the
uninitiated, of the art of writing, of letters, of the tree of knowledge, of
the secrets of the priesthood ? May it mean, that the people, as in Tibet, were
taught the effect of good conduct by the initiated, but were not initiated into
its arcana, and that, in future, the arcana would be known to those only who
had gone through the labours of initiation ? The expression of Enoch seems to
favour this conjecture.
… This opens to us a most beautiful view of the ancient mysteries, a
view in every respect justified by masonic mysteries of the present day, and
anciently obscured by the unfortunate corporate and monopolising spirit, which excluded the mass of mankind from the
invaluable secret, and thus kept them in a state of debasement—a weakness which
seems inherent in the human character, at least a weakness attaching to the
character of the great men of antiquity with very few exceptions. …
Page 253
Persons may dispute about the allegory of the tree, the arbor magna in
medio Paradisi, and say this or that is not the meaning of the text; but I am
certain that no philosopher will deny there is a high probability that the
exposition which I have given of it, was the exposition of the ancients, and
that upon which their secret system was founded. The sacred books of the
Tamuls, as I have before stated, (in page 15,) is said to have had five
meanings. In India the mythos says, that the eldest son of God, the Adonis, the
male, at the instigation of the female, robbed the garden of a flower,
for which he was crucified; but that he rose again to life and immortality, and
by this he wrought the salvation of man. May this be, that he secured the
continuance of the generations of man ? …
Page 255
… A deep consideration of what we have seen, must, I think, satisfy any
one, that an uniform system may be perceived to have pervaded the whole world,
and to have come down to us from the earliest time. … We seem to be fighting
against a law of providence, which says, “Man, thy power of vision is limited;
thou shalt not look too far either behind or before thee.” Our circle of vision,
too, is narrowed not alone by Providence; the cunning and all the evil passions
of priests, and the prejudice of man, caused by his being educated by them, are
leagued with his weakness to impede progress, to embarrass our subject, and to
render more doubtful, researches which, in their own nature, are sufficiently
doubtful. When the priest cannot darken or throw into confusion, he burns, he
forges, and he lies; speculating, according to a theory or plan charged on the
philosophers by Mr. Faber,* but which that gentleman appears to me to have
practiced himself in the case of M. Volney, and on the old proverb, that a lie
uncontradicted for a fortnight, is as good as a truth. Therefore we must
be content with probabilities, and not expect mathematical demonstrations.
* “It is said to have been a regular part of the atheistical system, on
the continent, to misquote and misrepresent ancient authors; and the honest
principle of it is this : where one reader is capable of following the cipher,
ten will be incapable; of those who are capable, where one takes the trouble to
do it, ten will not take the trouble; and of those who detect the falsehood,
where one steps forward to expose it, ten will be silent. It may, therefore,
never be detected; and if it be detected, the voice of a single individual,
when the efforts of a whole conspiracy are employed to drown it, will be heard
to a very little distance.” Pag. Idol. Vol. III. p.650.
In all the vast variety of systems or religions it appears to me, that
no where is an original one to be found. All seem to be founded upon something
which has preceded, and to have arisen out of it. If we consider the state of
human understanding, this seems natural; for the mind of man is always jealous
of being deceived, to a certain extent, and so far as generally to detect
forgeries attempted de novo. We have several examples of the detection
of attempts of this kind; and I think there is reason to believe that none have
succeeded. I am quite certain, that an unprejudiced examination of every
religion or sect will result in the conviction, that it was founded on somewhat
which preceded it, and, generally, that it was got up more by fools than
rogues; though I must now be understood to deny, that the fools were, in many
cases, abundantly roguish. But there was, what they believed to be, truth at
the bottom, which it was thought good or right to support, and in the support
of which a little fraud was considered to be excusable, and, indeed, often
meritorious. And under this pretext they ran into the greatest extremes of
fraud. … The systems are like languages—both like the radii of a circle,
diverging from a center, as they advanced down the stream of time, but merging
into a center as we recede upwards. …
Page 256
The early monuments of man, in their scientific and gigantic character,
every where display power and science too great to exist without letters and
arithmetic, and in the unity of their character they prove that one system must
have extended over the whole world. …
What can be more striking than the universal adoration of the sun, in
his character of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, or as the emblem of the
Triple Deity, the Trimurti or Trinity—of Buddha, of Moses or Genesis, of
Orpheus, and of Jesus of Nazareth ? Is there a corner of the old world which
has not been stained with the blood shed on account of this beautiful, but
often-misunderstood, doctrine ? The proofs are complete of its existence in the
Aleim of the first verse of Genesis or Wisdom.
The doctrine of the androgynous nature of the Deity is as universal as the Trinitarian doctrine. There is no part of the old world where it is not found; and in the observations of the word Aleim, the plural feminine of the word AL, it is shewn to have existed as really with the Jews as with any other nation. All these, and many more, were the doctrines of the Cullidei or Chaldćans or Mathematici, evidently the most learned race in the world, as I have repeatedly intimated, and as I shall more satisfactorily prove.
Page 257
In the Buddhist history of Wisdom, or, as we call it in Greek, Genesis,
we have an account, and the first account, of the people of Chaldei. In India
there are clearly found two Urs of the Chaldees, or Urianas of Collida, from
either of which the Chaldei may have come. This Buddhist book expressly says,
that the Brahmin who founded the Judćan state in Western Syria came from the
East; therefore, if we are to believe it, they must have come from one of the
two Urs which were in the East; and this is an admission of this book to which
we cannot refute our assent,—every circumstance, all history and all
probability support it. And I think it must be concluded, that the Chaldei,
both of the West and Cape Comorin, were equally colonies of the Chaldei of central
Asia or Upper India. And a little reflection may induce the belief, that
settlements of Chaldei were also made even as far as Ireland, and the island of
Columba or Iona.