CHAPTER IV
MAZDEISM
(Zoroastrianism)
While the origin of Mazdeism seems shrouded in mystery, one may nevertheless recognize its antiquity, probably the same as that of the Rig-Vedha, for it has been proved by Eugene Bournouf and Spiegel that certain parts of the Avesta are as old as the Rig, and the many similarities of this religion with that of the Vedhas proves that Mazdeism must have had its origin at the time when the Aryans undertook the conquest of India, that is to say seventeen to eighteen centuries before our era
From Le Mazdeisme, I'avesta of G. de Lafont, we extract the following facts : 1 The historic role of Media began with Ouwakshatara, a name written by the Greeks Kyouxares, the founder of the Median empire. After defeating the Scythians, Kyouxares went to Assyria where he laid siege to Nineveh, after the destruction of which the Assyrian empire came to an end. (612 B. C.)
Kyouxares left a son Astyage whose daughter Man-dane married the Persian Cambyses and from their union sprang the great Cyrus the founder of the Persian empire.
The Parthian dynasty of the Arsacides, who reigned from 256 B. C. until 226 A. D., marks a fatal period for Mazdeism. It was only on the accession of Ardeschir Babejan, the founder of the Sassanide dynasty, that Mazdeism regained its strength. With Ardeshir, Mazdeism became the state religion and Shapour II caused all the Avesta texts treating of philosophy, medicine, cosmogony and astronomy to be collected.
Under the last Sassanides appeared several heretical sects, the most celebrated of which were those of Manes and of Mazdeck. However, in the seventh century, came the Arab conquest; with Yesdegirt the Persian empire of the Sassanides disappeared and with it the influence of Mazdeism.
Towards the tenth century, a few thousand Persians, faithful to the old cult, went into exile taking with them their laws and altars. Some of these took refuge in the Kirman in the Yezd while the others fled to India where they now constitute the well known sect of the Parsees.
The Zend Avesta, the sacred book of Persia and of the modern Parsees, contains the teaching of Zoroaster (Zarathustra), a reformer, said to have lived some 7000 years before Christ. It was first translated into French by Hyacinthe-Anquetil Duperron in 1761.
The Chevalier de Ramsay, giving Plutarch as his authority, says : — " Zoroaster taught that there are two Gods contrary to each other in their Operations, the one the Author of all the Good, the other of all the Evil in Nature. The good Principle he calls Oro-mazes, (Ahura-Mazda) the other the Daemon Arima-nius (Agra-Mainyus). He says that the one resembles Light and Truth, the other Darkness and Ignorance.
There is likewise a middle God between these two named Mythras, whom the Persians call the Intercessor or Mediator. Mythras is the Yazata (spirit) of light and the guardian of justice and truth. "
For the benefit of the reader we compile the following interesting information from the previously mentioned author, G. de Lafont :
Pure Zoroastrianism was monotheistic, for in the beginning Ahura-Mazda was recognized as infinitely more powerful than Agra-Mainyus, thus dualism, or the potential equality of these two deities, was actually the development of a later corruption of the Zoroastrian teaching.
The Avesta, the bible of Mazdeism, containing the revelations of Ahura-Mazda to the Prophet Zoroaster, is composed of two principal parts — the Avesta, containing the Vendidad, the Yacnca and the Vispered, and the Khorda Avesta, or little Avesta, itself composed of six parts.
Mazdeism taught the immortality of the soul, a compensating justice in another world of Heaven or Hell, the resurrection of the body, the last judgment and the freedom of the soul to choose between right and wrong as a free agent, as opposed to the Islamic theory of fatalism.
Oromazes is the Universal Creator of all that is good, eternal, he created the Good Genii, the spiritual and material world ; man is his creature, and at the end of time he will resurrect him to endow him with eternal happiness and will cause the powers of evil and evil itself to vanish from the earth. No cult is rendered to Agra-Mainyus (Lucifer) who, with his Devas (evil spirits) fights Ahura-Mazda (God) through the ages.
Fire, in the Mazdean religion, was worshipped as the luminous and pure element, the work of Ahura-Mazda and for that reason always burns sheltered from defilement. But it is not material fire that in this case is to be considered as a Yazata. The Avesta distinguishes several kinds of fire :
1. Berezucavanha, or internal fire of the earth.
2. Vohufryana or fire of the human body and animals. (Kundalini, Sex-force, Serpent Power).
3. Urvazista or fire of vegetation.
4. Vazista or fire of lightning.
5. Cpenista or fire of Ahura-Mazda, represented by the fire on the Altar.
The Fravashis (modern Ferouers) are supposed to be the souls of the dead deified. Their cult also forms the basis of the Ancestor worship, of the Pitris of India and the Manes of Latin Countries.
According to Geiger, by " Fravashis " must be understood the immortal, divine part in man, which unites with a body for a limited time only. Consequently there are Fravashis of those who are dead, of those who are living, and of those who are still unborn. Darmstater further explains that the Fravashis are the spiritual form of a being, independent of its material life and anterior to it. According to Mazdean teaching, Oromazes offered to the Ferouers of men the choice of remaining in the spiritual world or of descending on earth to incarnate in human bodies.
At the advent of death, corpses were supposed immediately to become the prey of the Demon Druge Nacus, the demon of the impurity of corpses. Thus, it being most essential never to allow the elements of fire, water and earth to be sullied by contact with anything unclean, the funeral rites and ceremonies of the Mazdeans differ from those of other religions.
Their ancient customs persist today among the Parsees of India where the bodies of the dead are carried to " The Towers of Silence " there to be exposed and devoured by the birds of prey.
Besides the many other parallels between Mazdeism and Christianity, the deity of the Mazdeans, their personal God, Ahura-Mazda, was not a god of vengeance as was the Jehovah of the Jews. He was the essence of universal love, charity, justice and activity and the ideal of Mazdean virtue in early times was similar to that of the Christians of today.
JAINISM
Jainism, which like Buddhism denies the authority of the Vedhas and is therefore regarded by the Brahmins of India as heretical, may have been founded by Parsva whose death is placed at 250 years before that of Vardhamana Mahavira, the last of the prophets of the Jains and a contemporary of Buddha.
Vardhamana Mahavira died at the age of 72 at Pava 527 B. C. He had eleven disciples to whom he preached the law. Many authorities however believe the Jain Church to be as old as Brahminism itself.
The following paragraph quoted from Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religions and Ethics, article on Jainism, describes the Jain theory of the Transmigration of Souls as opposed to the orthodox theory of Reincarnation. It is here referred to as " a peculiarity of the Jains which had struck all observers more than any other, viz. their extreme carefulness not to destroy any living being, a principle which is carried out to its very last consequences in monastic life, and has shaped the conduct of the laity in a great measure.
No layman will intentionally kill any living being, not even an insect, however troublesome : he will remove it carefully without hurting it. It goes without saying that the Jains are strict vegetarians. This principle of not hurting any living being bars them from some professions, e. g. agriculture, and has thrust them into commerce and especially into its least elevating branch of money-lending. Most of the money lending in Western India is in the hands of the Jains, and this accounts in a great measure both for their unpopularity and for their wealth. A remarkable institution of the Jains, due to their tender regard for animal life, is their asylums for old and diseased animals, the pan-jarapolas, where they are kept and fed till they die a natural death. "
The reluctance on the part of an orthodox Jain to discourage vermin on the theory that a louse may actually be his reincarnated grandmother or a scorpion some other reincarnated relative is only a logical development of his religious belief in the transmigration of souls.
The Jains are subdivided today into numerous schools each following the teachings of a certain master but united in certain fundamental beliefs.
CHAPTER V
CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM
Previous to the Christian era, China, judging from the available annals, presented the spectacle of a country whose social life was based almost solely on what might be called the family cult. The metaphysical tradition, overshadowing the life of the people, leading to a monotheistic belief in a Supreme Being, was the knowledge and belief of a few.
Vaguely, the people believed that the Monarch alone held communication with the Sublime Sovereign or God. The rites had nothing of a religious character, they were purely social. Then in 1122 B. C, when the Chinese dynasty of Chang-Yin was overthrown by the Tcheou, there were introduced in China numerous innovations, most of them appertaining to magic and occultism, also brahminic and avestic dogmas and beliefs.
The whole construction of social ideology in China had undergone a slow but radical change. The ground was prepared for the pantheistic teaching of the philosopher Lao-Tse whose doctrine was bitterly fought by Confucius (551-479) who opposed the dualist theory, and strove to regenerate the former state of Chinese social life, the cult of the family and ancestors. Moreover, the whole moral code of Confucius was contained in a few words : loyalty and good feeling towards one's neighbour.
Only in about 65 A. D. was Buddhism introduced in China, followed in turn by Mazdeism, Manicheism and Mahomedanism.
CHAPTER VI
EGYPTIAN ESOTERISM
More than any other country, Ancient Egypt was an illustration of theocratic power. There, priesthood ruled and adumbrated royalty. Depositories of the Indo-Iran tradition of Ra, Zarathustra and Manu, the priests of Thebes and Memphis made of Egypt the fortress of antique esoterism. Their Sovereign Lord God and Teacher bore the name of Hermes or Thoth, the Great Initiator. In him were typified the three great powers of royalty, law-giving or legislative and high priesthood which made the Greeks, disciples of the Egyptians, surname him Hermes Trismegistus or thrice great.
To Hermes was credited a large number of books containing the secrets of Indo-Aryan occult science. Fire was the first Principle, the basis of all teaching and the law of Ammon-Ra, the Sun God of Thebes.
Only after the conquest of Egypt by the Hyksos (2000 B. C.) did the priests spread among the people the cult of Osiris and Isis and their son Horus. This popular religion served as a screen which most effectively shielded the Hermetic mysteries from intrusion and disclosure and safeguarded ancient and Aryan esoterism which had to fear annihilation at the hands of the priesthood of the black or Ethiopian race whose esoterism was based upon a different conception of occult and psychic knowledge.
A striking example of the rivalry of the two esoteric schools is given in the Bible when Moses and Aaron, practising the magic taught them by the Ethiopian Jethro, failed to confound the Egyptian priests before Pharaoh.
Concealed behind the popular cult of Osiris and Isis was the soul of Egyptian esoterism which no one could reach, except after having been deemed worthy to penetrate the most sacred mysteries of Isis whose statue, with its face veiled, stood before the door of the temple of occultism.
The trials of initiation which a candidate had to withstand before he beheld the light of Osiris and understood the " Vision of Hermes " were long and terrible. They were interspersed, however, by states of trance induced by special beverages, during which the initiate had voluptuous visions of Isis preceded by the five-pointed flamboyant star or the Rose of Isis.
Two great flowing currents issued from the esoteric wisdom, jealously safeguarded by the Egyptians, namely: Mosaism or Judaism, taught by Moses whose God was Jehovah, and Orpheism taught by Orpheus whose God was Zeus or Jupiter. The former adapted his beliefs to suit the mentality of undisciplined, rebellious masses of Israelites in Egypt, hence a god of Fear and Vengeance ; the latter legislated for a people whose hellenic genius touched sublime heights of philosophic wisdom on the one hand, and sought on the other to carry its irrepressible sense of beauty and light-heartedness in its pursuit of material pleasures. Hence the great difference between the two currents which had derived their initial teaching from the same source.
CHAPTER VII
JUDAISM
The Pharisees Judaism has been described by Moses Mendelssohn, a learned Jew, in this way : — " Judaism is not a religion but a Law religionized. " This definition does away effectively with the erroneous belief prevalent among the non-Jews that Judaism is a religion.
In spite of the loud and frequent assertions, made by Jews and Christian divines alike, contending that the Jews were the first monotheists, it is a well proven fact that the high initiates of the Memphis priesthood were monotheists long before the Jews ever went to Egypt. Judaism would be best described as a rite or compendium of rites, for, if one lends belief to the existence of the Jewish Lawgiver, Moses, one must bear in mind that he first studied among the high initiates of Egypt, and later, became the pupil and son-in-law of black Jethro, the Ethiopian magician whom one might call the Father of Voodooism, name given to the magic practices and rites performed by the negroes.
The closer one studies the history of the Jews, the clearer it appears that they are neither a religious entity nor a nation. The absolute failure of Zionism which was a desperate effort on the part of certain Jewish leaders to bind all the Jews of the world into a national entity, whose territory would have been Palestine, proves the futility of such an effort.
Judaism is not a religion and the Jews are not a nation, but they are a sect with Judaism as a rite.
The obligations and rules of the rite for the Jewish masses are contained in the Talmud and Schulchan Aruk, but the esoteric teachings for the higher initiates are to be found in the Cabala.
Therein are contained the mysterious rites for evocations, the indications and keys to practices for conjuration of supernatural forces, the science of numbers, astrology, etc. The practical application of the Cabalist knowledge is manifested in the use made of it, through the ages, by Jews to gain influence both in the higher spheres of Gentile life and over the masses. Sovereigns and Popes, both, usually had one or more Jews as astrologers and advisers, and they frequently gave Jews control over their very life by employing them as physicians. Political power was thus gained by Jews in almost every Gentile country alongside with financial power, since Jewish court-bankers manipulated state funds and taxes.
Through the ages also, can be followed the spreading power of the sect, and no more awful example of the devastating and destructive power of the penetration of a secret subversive society has ever been witnessed.
With its B'nai B'rith Supreme Council as the directing head, the sect with its members swarming among all nations has become the sovereign power ruling in the councils of all nations and governing their political, economic, religious and educational policies.
In his book Nicholas II et les Juifs, Netchvolodow explains that " the Chaldean science acquired by many of the Jewish priests, during the captivity of Babylon, gave birth to the sect of the Pharisees whose name only appears in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the Jewish historians after the captivity (606 B. C). The works of the celebrated scientist Munk leave no doubt on the point that the sect appeared during the period of the captivity.
" From then dates the Cabala or Tradition of the Pharisees. For a long time their precepts were only transmitted orally but later they formed the Talmud and received their final form in the book called the Sepher ha Zohar. " 1
The Pharisees were, as it were, a class whose tendency was to form a kind of intellectual aristocracy among the Jews. At first, they formed a sort of brotherhood, a haburah, the members being called haburim or brothers. They were a subversive element, aiming at the overthrow of the Sadducean High-priesthood, whose members prided themselves on their aristocracy of blood and birth, to which the Pharisees opposed an aristocracy of learning. The war waged by the latter extends over a long period of time, and the rivalry was bitter. The Pharisees, who, although they professed, as one of their chief tenets, the utmost contempt of the am-haretz or simple people, did not overlook the fact that they needed their mass support for the attainment of their own aim, and they enlisted it by opposing the Sadducean strictness of the Law in many instances, namely, in the observance of the Sabbath.
The power of the Sadducees fell with the destruction of the Temple by Titus and thenceforth the Pharisaic element held supremacy among the Jews.
Quoting an acknowledged authority on Judaism, Mr. Flavien Brenier, Lt. Gen. Netchvolodow further describes the policy of the sect as follows : 2
" Before appearing proudly as the expression of Jewish aspirations, The Tradition of the Pharisees had serious difficulties to surmount, the chief of which was the revival of the orthodox faith stimulated in the Jewish people by the Captivity. To the exiles, bemoaning the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem and begging Jehovah to end the misfortunes of their homeland, the revelation that Jehovah was only a phantom, entailed not only certain defeat, but also their own exposure to perils the least of which would have been the loss of all authority over Israel.
" The Pharisees then, judging it wiser to capture the confidence of their compatriots by taking the lead of the religious movement, affected a scrupulous observance of the slightest prescriptions of the law and instituted the practice of complicated rituals, simultaneously however cultivating the new doctrine in their secret sanctuaries. These were regular secret societies, composed during the captivity of a few hundred adepts. At the time of Flavius Josephus which was that of their greatest prosperity they numbered only some 6,000 members.
" This group of intellectual pantheists was soon to acquire a directing influence over the Jewish nation. Nothing, moreover, likely to offend national sentiment ever appeared in their doctrines. However saturated with pantheistic Chaldeism they might have been, the Pharisees preserved their ethnic pride intact. This religion of Man divinised, which they had absorbed at Babylon, they conceived solely as applying to the profit of the Jew, the superior and predestined being. The promises of universal dominion which the orthodox Jew found in the Law, the Pharisees did not interpret in the sense of the reign of the God of Moses over the nations, but in that of a material domination to be imposed on the universe by the Jews. The awaited Messiah was no longer the Redeemer of original Sin, a spiritual victor who would lead the world, it was a temporal king, bloody with battle, who would make Israel master of the world and ' drag all peoples under the wheels of his chariot'. The Pharisees did not ask this enslavement of the nations of a mystical Jehovah, which they continued worshipping in public, only as a concession to popular opinion, for they expected its eventual consummation to be achieved by the secular patience of Israel and the use of human means.
" Monstrously different from the ancient law were such principles as these, but they had nothing one could see, which might have rendered unpopular those who let them filter, drop by drop, among the Jews.
" The admirably conceived organization of the Pharisees did not fail soon to bear fruit.
" One cannot better define its action in the midst of Jewish society before Jesus Christ, " said Mr. Fla-vien Brenier, " than in comparing it with that of the Freemasons in modern society. "
" A carefully restricted membership tightly bound, imposing on their members the religion of ' the secret', the Pharisees pursued relentlessly their double aim which was :
— 1. The seizure of political power, by the possession of the great political offices (the influence of which was tremendous in the reconstituted Jewish nation) and the conquest of the Sanhedrin (Jewish parliament).
" 2. To modify gradually the conceptions of the people in the direction of their secret doctrine. "
The first of these aims was achieved when Hillel, a Pharisee of Babylon who claimed Davidic descent, was elected president of the Sanhedrin. Thus ended the bitter fight between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Opposed to Hillel was Shammai, a Sadducee, supporter of the Sadducean High Priest who was made Chief Judge of the assembly. The attitude of the two men towards each other is a matter of long record in the Talmud
Among the most noted Pharisees, after Hillel, are : — Yochanan ben Zakkai, founder of the school of Yamnai, Akibah who, with Bar Cochba, fomented the revolt against the Romans under Hadrian, rebellion ending with the order for the dispersion of Jews (132 A. D.) Also Simon ben Yohai, who might be termed the great Magician and Father of the Cabala, lastly Judah the Prince who compiled the Babylonian Talmud. Under these chiefs, the Pharisaic power was definitely established in the Sanhedrin. Those among the Jews who clung to the Sadducean tradition and refused to acknowledge the dominion of the Pharisees, remained as dissidents. Such were the Samaritans and the Karaites who rejected the Talmud.
The second of the aims and its method of attainment is exposed in the so-called Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion so loudly denounced by the descendants of those who devised The Secret Doctrine in Israel, Israel here meaning the Jews as a religious community, most of whom remain quite ignorant of the intricate subversive schemes imputed to them.
The attitude of Jesus Christ to this sect is definitely expressed in the New Testament (see Luke xi and John viii).
Exoteric Judaism, the Jewish religion as practised in the twentieth century, is based on the Old Testament, and on equally ancient commentaries on it, preserved for ages as oral traditions, and known, as above stated, under the general name of The Talmud. All copies of this book were ordered to be burned by Philip IV, the Fair, King of France, in 1306, but the book survived the holocaust.
We know that the Jewish God is not the father of all men and the ideal of love, justice and mercy, like the Christian God, or even like Ahura-Mazda or Brahma. On the contrary, he is the God of vengeance down to the fourth generation, just and merciful only to his own people, but foe to all other nations, denying them human rights and commanding their enslavement that Israel might appropriate their riches and rule over them.
The following quotations will serve to illustrate this point :
— " And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee ; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them. "
— Deut. vii, 2.
" For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God : the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
" —Deut. vii, 6.
The Talmud comments upon it : " You are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts. " Baba Mecia 114,6.
On the house of the Goy (non-Jew) one looks as on the fold of cattle. " — Tosefta, Erubin viii.
From The Talmud (a prayer said on the eve of Passover, to the present day) " We beg Thee, 0 Lord, indict Thy wrath on the nations not believing in Thee, and not calling on Thy name. Let down Thy wrath on them and inflict them with Thy wrath. Drive them away in Thy wrath and crush them into pieces. Take away, O Lord, all bone from them. In a moment indict all disbelievers. Destroy in a moment all foes of Thy nation. Draw out with the root, disperse and ruin unworthy nations. Destroy them ! Destroy them immediately, in this very moment! " — (Pranajtis ; Chris-tianus in Talmudas Judeorum, quotations from : Syna-goga Judaica, p. 212. Minhagin, p. 23. Crach Chaim 480 Hagah).
" When one sees inhabited houses of the ' Goy ' one says, ' The Lord will destroy the house of the proud '. And when one sees them destroyed he says, ' The Lord God of Vengeance has revealed himself' — (The Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 58,6.)
" Those who do not own Torah and the prophets must all be killed. Who has power to kill them, let him kill them openly with the sword, if not, let him use artifices till they are done away with. " — (Schul-chan Aruch : Choszen Hamiszpat, 425,50).
The Jewish Sages soon understood that Christ's way of commenting upon the old Law introduced, instead of hatred towards foreign nations, brotherly feelings and equality of all men in the face of God, thus denying the Jews their privileged position as masters of the world.
At the same time, Christ's reforming the very primitive and rough moral ideas of the Old Testament, deprived the Jews of their very convenient-in-the-battle-of-life, unscrupulous, double morality. Thence the Jewish hatred for the Christian faith is conspicuous in the following quotations from Talmudic sources :
" The estates of the Goys are like wilderness, who first settles in them has a right to them. (Baba Batra, 54 b.)
" The property of the Goys is like a thing without a master. " (Schulchan Aruch : Choszen Hamiszpat, 156,5).
" If a Jew has struck his spade into the ground of the Goy, he has become the master of the whole. " (Baba Batra, 55 a.)
In order to enhance the authority of the Old Testament equally recognized by the Christians, while simultaneously augmenting that of the Talmud and the Rabbis, its commentators and authors teach :
— " In the law (the Bible) are things more or less important, but the words of the Learned in the Scripture are always important.
" It is more wicked to protest the words of the rabbis than of Torah " (Miszna, Sanhedryn xi, 3.) " Who changes the words of the rabbis ought to die. " (Erubin, 21, b.)
" The decisions of the Talmud are words of the living God. Jehovah himself asks the opinion of earthly rabbis when there are difficult affairs in heaven. " (Rabbi Menachem, Comments for the Fifth Book.)
" Jehovah himself in heaven studies the Talmud, standing : he has such respect for that book. " (Tr. Mechilla).
To enhance the dignity of religions dogmas the following commandments are given :
" That the Jewish nation is the only nation selected by God, while all the remaining ones are contemptible and hateful.
" That all property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which consequently is entitled to seize upon it without any scruples. "
" That an orthodox Jew is not bound to observe principles of morality towards people of other nations, and on the contrary, he even ought to act against morality, if it were profitable for himself or for the interest of Jews in general. "
" A Jew may rob a Goy (Goy means unclean, and is the disparaging name for a non-Jew), he may cheat him over a bill, which should not be perceived by him, otherwise the name of God would become dishonoured. " (Schulchan Aruch, ChoszenHamiszpat, 348.)
" Should a Goy to whom a Jew owed some money die without his heirs knowing about the debt, the Jew is not bound to pay the debt. " (Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamisz-pat 283, 1.)
" The son of Noah, who would steal a farthing ought to be put to death, but an Israelite is allowed to do injury to a goy; where it is written, Thou shalt not do injury to thy neighbour, is not said, Thou shalt not do injury to a goy. " (Miszna, Sanhedryn, 57.)
" A thing lost by a goy may not only be kept by the man who found it, but it is forbidden to give it back to him. " (Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat. 266, 1.)
" Who took an oath in the presence of the goys, the robbers, and the custom-house officer, is not responsible. " (Tosefta Szebnot, 11.)
" In order to annul marriages, oaths and promises, a Jew must go to the rabbi, and if he is absent, he must call three other Jews, and say to them that he is sorry to have done it, and they say, ' Thou art allowed to. ' (Schulchan Aruch, 2, 1. 247.)
The Kol Nidre prayer on the Day of Judgment, that acquits beforehand from the nonfulfilment of all kinds of oaths and vows, is given here.
" All vows, oaths, promises, engagements, and swearing, which, beginning this very day of reconciliation, we intend to vow, promise, swear, and bind ourselves to fulfil, we are sorry for already, and they shall be annulled, acquitted, annihilated, abolished, valueless, unimportant, our vow shall be no vows, and our oaths no oaths at all. " (Schulchan Aruch, edit. I., 136).
" If a goy wants a Jew to stand witness against a Jew at the Court of Law, and the Jew could give fair evidence, he is forbidden to do it, but if a Jew wants a Jew to be a witness in a similar case against a goy, he may do it. " — (Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamisz-pat, 28 art, 3 and 4.)
" Should a Jew inform the goyish authorities that another Jew has much money, and the other will suffer a loss through it, he must give him remuneration. " (Schulchan Aruch. ~ Ch. Ha., 338.)
" If there is no doubt that someone thrice betrayed the Jews, or caused that their money passed to the goys, a means and wise council must be found to do away with him. "
" Every one must contribute to the expense of the community (Kahal) in order to do away with the traitor. " Ibid., 163, 1.)
" It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciatory every where ....... it is permitted to kill him before he has denounced.... though it is necessary to warn him and say, ' Do not denounce. ' But should he say, ' I will denounce, ' he must be killed, and he who accomplishes it first will have the greater merit. " (Ibid., 388, 10.)
" How to interpret the word ' robbery '. A goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women slaves, etc., from a goy or from a Jew, but he (a Jew) is not forbidden to do all this to a goy. " (Tosefta, Aboda Zara, viii, 5.)
" If a goy killed a goy or a Jew he is responsible, but if a Jew killed a goy he is not responsible. "(Ibid., viii, 5.)
The authors of the Talmud, having issued this horrible moral code, that acquits all kinds of crimes, in order to make easier the strife with foreigners to their own nation, understood the necessity of keeping its contents a secret and thus legislated :
" To communicate anything to a goy about our religious relations would be equal to the killing of all the Jews, for if the goys knew what we teach about them, they would kill us openly. " (Book of Libbre David, 37.)
" It is forbidden to disclose the secrets of the Law. He who would do it would be as guilty as if he destroyed the whole world " (Jaktu Chadasz, 171,2). The restrictions and commandments bearing this in view were raised to the dignity of dogmas of faith. It is not astonishing that in face of such prohibitions the secrets of the Talmud have been so little known to other nations, especially to the Western ones, and till the present day, even the most progressive and citizen-like Jews think the disclosure of the principles of the Talmud a proof of the most outrageous intolerance, and an attack on the Jewish religion.
In order to separate the Jewish nation from all others, and thus prevent it from mixing with them, and losing their national peculiarities, a great many precepts of the ritual and rules for every-day life, prejudices and superstitions, the remainder of the times of barbarism and obscurity, have been gathered in the Talmud and consecrated as canons. The precepts observed by Eastern Jews till the present day deride even the most simple notions of culture and hygiene. For instance they enjoin : 79s
" If a Jew be called to explain any part of the rabbinic books, he only ought to give a false explanation, that he might not, by behaving differently, become an accomplice in betraying this information. Who will violate this order shall be put to death. " (Libbre David, 37.)
" It is forbidden to disclose the secrets of the Law. "
" One should and must make false oath, when the goys ask if our books contain anything against them. Then we are bound to state on oath that there is nothing like that. " (Szaalot-Utszabot. The book ofJore d'a, 17.)
" Every goy who studies Talmud, and every Jew who helps him in it, ought to die. " (Sanhedryn 59 a. Aboda Zora 8-6. Szagiga 13.)
" The ears of the goys are filthy, their baths, houses, countries are filthy. " (Tosefta Mikwat, v. 1.)
" A boy-goy after nine years and one day old, and a girl after three years and one day old, are considered filthy. " {Pereferkowicz : Talmud t. v., p. 11.)
These principles afford an explanation of the action of governments in excluding Jews from judicial and military positions. They also explain that mysterious phenomenon known as Antisemitism.
In his Manual of Freemasonry Richard Carlile makes the following observations : 3
" The disposition of the mistaken Jew is to monopolise his portion of the Sacred Scriptures as a charm or benefit prepared and presented to his people in their sectarian character.
" That there was no such nation as the Israelites, is a truth — found in the consideration that they are not mentioned beyond the Bible in any records whatever. Egypt knew them not, Persia knew them not, Hindostan knew them not, Scythia knew them not, Phoenicia knew them not, Greece knew them not, as a nation. And in the first general notice that we have of the Jews, they are introduced to the world as a sect, or a series of sects, being Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes ; and in that general notice, beyond that sort of mistaken allegorical history which Josephus has copied from the books of the Old Testament, and which is not otherwise corroborated, and no better authority than the book of the Old Testament, there is no presentation of the Jews as the descendants of a larger nation of Israelites ; as a religious or philosophical sect of distinction, mixed up with, and found in real human history, they are not to be traced higher than the century before the Christian era. It is satisfactory to be able to show the origin of anything, for such a knowledge is a common passion and curiosity among mankind ; and I think the Rev. Robert Taylor has discovered and developed the origin of the titles of Hebrew, Israelite, and Jew. 4
" Hebrew, Israelite, and Jew, are Syriac, Phoenician and Egyptian terms used in the mysterious degrees ; and it would be as reasonable to argue that the Freemasons are a dispersed nation, as that the Jews are, or were, a dispersed nation. The Rev. Mr. Taylor has beautifully explained this in his discourses. 5
" The scenes and characters of the mysterious drama, as found in the Eleusinian Orgies of Greece, were :
— Eleusis. — The Advent, or coming-in light —• the birth and character of the subject of the drama — the title of the whole play or mystery.
Hierophant. — The Expounder of the Mysteries, the High Priest, the Pope, the Archbishop.
Hupereet. — The Minister, or Ordinary Priest. Diaconos. — The Deacon, or Lower Officer.
Diadochos. — The Torch-bearer.
Photagogue. — The Bringer-in of Light.
Autoptos. — The Candidate admitted to see the sight. The visitor of the Temple —the Church- and Chapel-goer.
Autopsy. — The sight itself.
Hebrew. —The initiated Candidate who had passed through all the degrees of the mystery.
Teleios. — The adept, or perfected.
Israelite. — God-seer, purified from all guile.
Jew .— The God himself, or the mysterious perfection and deification of the human character.
" The whole type of what may be made of human nature by cultivation of mind, which is the conditional promise of paradise, or kingdom of heaven. This is the revelation of all the mysteries. "
Carlile further states 6
" We are prepared with historical disproofs of the existence of such a people as Israelites or Jews as a nation. They were a religious or philosophical sect, who had been made adepts in the higher Pagan Mysteries : a sect among nations ; but not a nation among sects. "
Judaism sanctions Gnosticism which is further elaborated in their books of the Cabala. For further study of this subject we refer the reader to Chapter XIII.
CHAPTER VIII
ORPHEISM AND THE PAGAN MYSTERIES
There is no greater or more erudite authority than Fabre d'Olivet (1768-1825) on Orpheus or Dyonisius 1 and to such an eminent source, among many others, must the reader be referred.
The feats of the white Dorian race of Greece and the mysticism of its priests of Thrace as well as the centuries-long rivalry between the solar or male cult and the lunar or female cult, have provided inexhaustible sources of religious and literary lore.
The legendary birth of Orpheus adorned with his descent from Apollo, his flight from Thrace, initiation in the temple of Memphis and return to his own country as a high adept of the most profound mysteries, constitute but the first part of his life.
After his return to Greece, he united the cults of Dyonisius and Zeus, reformed that of Bacchus and instituted the Mysteries. To him was allotted the task of reducing the power of the Bacchantes, priestesses of Hecate, by a magic superior to theirs, and their vengeance, which caused his death, has been the theme of many a poet.
One follows the evolution of Greece from Orpheus to Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato and one searches for the remnants of Egyptian esoterism in the utmost recesses of the Delphic temples and in the ceremonies of initiation to the Eleusinian mysteries. These, having still been practised until the Emperor Theodosius I, the Great, (379-395) prohibited them and ordered the destruction of the Eleusinian Temple, much material is available for their description.
We are indebted to Bishop Lavington, an erudite member of the Anglican Church, for a graphic description of the perversion to which they gave rise, but we preface this article with that author's apology to the reader, which, like the text of most of this chapter, we quote verbatim from the Bishop's book The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared, Part III :
" We wallow indeed in the mire, by publishing these things. But lest any one should fall into the mire of these heretics, from mere ignorance, I purposely and knowingly defile my own mouth, and the ears of the auditors, because it is beneficial. For it is much better to hear absurdity and filthiness in accusing others, than to fall into them out of ignorance. Much better to be informed of the mire, than, for want of information, to fall into it. "
Bishop Lavington then proceeds with the explanation of the Pagan Mysteries from which we quote : 2
" The Gods and Goddesses each had their special mysteries. Even Cotytto, the Goddess of Turpitude, had her rites and devotees. "
A high opinion of the Mysteries was very far from being general, or received by great and good Persons. Those great Men, Agesilaus and Epaminondas, would not submit to an Initiation ............. The Athenians asking Diogenes to be initiated because such had the Precedency in a future State ; he replied, ' Ridiculous thing ! that Agesilaus and Epaminondas must rowl in dirt; and every Scoundrel initiated, such as Patecion the Thief, be happy in the Elysian Fields. ' Nor shall we entertain the better Notion of the Mysteries when we find so wise and good a Man as Socrates refusing initiation. For which (though perhaps he had stronger) he gives this Reason : ' If the Mysteries were bad, he should not be able to conceal the Secret, but must discourage every one from Initiation; and if good, Humanity would oblige him to discover it for the public Benefit. '
" Rut whether the Mysteries were good or bad, Authors are pretty well agreed as to the preparatory Ceremonies, and manner of Initiation : whereby they were to Represent, and Act over again, the Actions and passions of the Deities, for whose Honour the Mysteries were instituted.
" That Initiation might seem a venerable and solemn Thing, the Devotees were taught to qualify themselves by Prayer to the Demons, Fastings, Watchings, Confession to the Priest, and other Lustrations. We read in Plutarch, ' that fasting is to precede the Mysteries of Ceres, ' and that Confession was required ; ' Antalcidas being examined by the Priest, in order to his initiation, what grievous crimes he had committed, made Answer, ' If I have been guilty of any such Crime, the Gods know it already. ' The Confession was a trick of the Masters of the Ceremonies to get the people under their Girdle.
" Tertullian says, ' As to the superstition of the Eleusinian Mysteries, what they conceal is the Shame of them. Therefore they make the Admission tortuous, take Time in the Initiation, set a Seal on. the Tongue, and instruct the Epoptae for five Years, to raise a high Opinion of them by Delay and Expectation. But all the Divinity in the sacred Domes, the Whole of what they aspire to, what sealeth the Tongue, is this :
___Simulacrum membri Virilis revelatur. But for a Cover of their Sacrilege, they pretend these Figures are only a mystical Representation of venerable Nature. ' " The original Reason of such figures being exposed to View, and had in Veneration, in the Mysteries, we learn from others. Clemens Alexandrinus giveth a full account of this religion of the Mysteries, too prolix to be transcribed ; — 'Of their wicked Institution, Cruelty, Stupidity, Madness, making Goddesses of Harlots, corrupting Mankind : — the Mysteries of Ceres are nothing but representations of incestuous Deities : — their ridiculous Exclamations upon Admission were, I have eat out of the Timbrel, I have drank out of the Cymbal, I have carried the Chest, I have crept into the secret Chamber. ' In the Chest Pudendum Bacchi inclusum erat. — Cistam et veretrum nova Reli-gione colenda tradunt. — It is a shame to mention the filthy circumstances in the story of Ceres...
" The Pagan Mysteries being of such an immoral Nature, and Tendency, it might justly be thought strange, were no Notice taken of them in the Holy Scriptures. And therefore, though such an Enquiry might carry us into too great a Length, yet I shall not entirely pass it over. There can be then little Doubt, but they are pointed out by St. Paul : ' It is a Shame even to speak of those Things that are done of them in Secret. ' And where Christianity is termed the Mystery of Godliness, it is set, I am persuaded, in Opposition, not only to the Mystery of Iniquity that was to work in the Christian World, but likewise to the preceding Mysteries among the Gentiles. Nor is it improbable, that the Apostle writeth in direct Opposition to the Appearances, Pretences, and Impostures of those false Divinities : Without Controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness...
" In the Old Testament, Deut. xxiii. 17 (not indeed in the Hebrew, but in the Septuagint) after the Words, ' There shall be no Whore, — nor Sodomites of the Sons of Israel, ' we find added Words of this Import, ' There shall not be an Initiator, nor an Initiated, of the Sons or Daughters of Israel. ' ' Tis possible this additional Clause may have been inserted by the Seventy, by Way of Interpretation of the preceding Words. They knew the Nature of the Mysteries full well; and we are led to this Meaning by the Impurities forbidden, and by the Price of the Dog in the next Verse ; the Egyptian God Anubis being usually figured with a Dog's Head. (Edit. Daniel. Schol.)
" We may observe also, that Philo the Jew (de Sacriflc.) expressly ranketh the Prohibition of the Mysteries among the Laws of Moses. ' The Law, saith he, expressly excludeth the whole of the Mysteries, their Inchantments and execrable Scurrilities, from the Holy Ordinances : not permitting those educated in her Society to celebrate such Heathen Rites; nor, depending on such mystical Ceremonies, to disregard the Truth ; and to follow the Works of Night and Darkness, omitting what deserveth the Light and the Day. Let none therefore among the Disciples of Moses either initiate, or be initiated : it being equally wicked either to teach, or to learn the Mysteries. — ' Tis generally the Case with them, that no good Person is initiated ; but Thieves, and Pirates, and mad Gangs of abominable and immodest women; after parting with their Money to the initiating Priests.
" Several of the Fathers have taken Notice of the same Passage in the Septuagint, and explained it in the same manner.
" For further Proof of the Turpitude in the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris, and that it was so from the Beginning, we need only consult Diodorus Siculus, Lib. I. ' Isis being overwhelmed with Grief for the Loss of her Husband Osiris, took particular Care in deifying him to consecrate his Pudenda ; which she ordered to be peculiarly honoured and adored in the Mysteries. And the same holy Institution was observed with the same Ceremonies, when carried into Greece by Orpheus : where the common People, partly from Ignorance, and partly from a Love of the new god (Phallus), were very fond of being initiated. '
" Much more might be collected (even from initiated Authors, however, generally shy) concerning the infamous Origin of the Mysteries, which I pass over.....
" The celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries commenced in Greece about 1400 years before Christ but ' whenever or however they were brought into Greece, and transferred to the Honour of Ceres and Proserpina, they were of the same Nature, and observed with equally chaste Ceremonies, with those of Isis... '
" One contrivance for ' giving the Initiated a Sight of the Divinities, was by means of a Looking-glass, wherein none could see their own Faces, but had a clear View of the Gods and Goddesses. ' This we have from Pausanias : and Eusebius relates the same Thing. - So easily might weak People, and under the utmost Astonishment, be deluded by Figures behind a glass, in a proper Habit and Posture ; and especially by living Persons, personating the Deities in any Manner they thought fit.
' As a proof of the Indecencies, Sozomen writeth, ' that Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, egregiously ridiculed and exposed to public View the shameful Figures belonging to the Mysteries, the Phallus, etc. which he brought out of the Pagan Temple. For which the enraged Heathens raised a Tumult, and massacred a great Number of the Christians. ' — Even the initiated Pausanias (notwithstanding his usual Reservedness) sometimes blurts out a little too much, and intimates something shameful — : ' as frequent assignations ;
— the proneness of the religious Females to venery — a Mixture of the Obscene and Miraculous ; — the continuance of the Eleusinian Festival for a week ; on the third Day whereof all Males, even the Dogs, are excluded ; but the next Day the Men are admitted among them, when they pass the Time in sporting, and light Discourse ; — the Amours of Ceres, of a very strange Kind ; with the Secrecy enjoined ; — The Obscenities in the Mysteries of Cupid, and suitable Hymns. '
" A man initiated, and under an Oath of Silence, could not well have discovered more of the true Nature of the Mysteries, and the Reason why they ought not to be divulged. We are assured too, that one Day of the Eleusinian Festival was set apart for the Rites of Venus and Cupid, and another for those of Bacchus : both of which were confessedly beyond measure abominable. Nor will our Opinion be more favourable, when we remember what Athenceus writes ; ' Apelles, being extremely desirous of drawing a Venus from the famous Phryne, could find no Opportunity of seeing her naked, without going to the Eleusinian and Neptunian Games ; where she stripped herself in the Sight of all the Men, and went into the sea to wash herself..'
" I apprehend therefore that no great Stress is to be laid upon those initiated Authors, who have thought themselves obliged to say nothing but what was good of the Mysteries ; or have talked of the Unity of the Deity, as the great Secret of them; perhaps to avoid the Shame of being thought Dupes to a foolery, or inquisitive into something worse. " 3
On the same subject the Chevalier de Ramsay, reputed founder of Scottish Rites, writes the following : 4 —
" About the fifteenth Olympiad, six hundred Years before the Christian aera, the Greeks having lost the traditional Knowledge of the Orientals, began to lay aside the Doctrine of the Ancients, and to reason about the Divine Nature from Prejudices which their Senses and Imagination suggested. Anaximander lived at that time, and was the first that set himself to destroy the Belief of a supreme Intelligence, in order to account for everything from the Action of blind Matter, which by necessity assumes all Sorts of Forms. He was followed by Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Strato, Lucretius, and all the School of the Atomical Philosophers.
" Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and all the great Men of Greece, opposed this impious Doctrine, and endeavoured to prove the ancient Theology of the Orientals. These Philosophers of a superior Genius observed in Nature, Motion, Thought and Design. And as the Idea of Matter includes none of these three Properties, they inferred from thence, that there was another Substance different from Matter.
" Greece being thus divided into two Sects, they disputed for a long time, without either Party being convinced. At length about the 120th Olympiad Pyrrho formed a third Sect whose great Principle was to doubt everything, and determine nothing. All the Atomists who had laboured in vain to find out a Demonstration of their false Principles, presently struck in with the Pyrrhonian Sect. They ran wildly into the System of an universal Doubt, and carried it almost to such an Excess of Frenzy, that they doubted of the clearest and most sensible Truths. They maintained without any Allegory, that everything we see is only an Illusion, and that the whole Series of Life is but a perpetual Dream of which those of the Night are only so many Images.
" At last Zeno set up a fourth School about the 130th Olympiad. This Philosopher endeavoured to reconcile the Disciples of Democritus with those of Plato, by maintaining that the first Principle was indeed an infinite Wisdom, but his Essence was only a pure Aether, or a subtile Light, which diffused itself everywhere, to give Life, Motion,' and Reason to all Beings.
" In these last Ages the modern Freethinkers have done nothing but revive the ancient Errors. Jordano Bruno, Vannini and Spinoza, have vamped up the monstrous System of Anaximander; and the last of the three has endeavoured to dazzle weak Minds, by dressing it up in a geometrical Form.
" Some Spinosists, finding that they were every Moment at a Loss for Evidence in the pretended Demonstrations of their Master, are fallen into a senseless sort of Scepticism, called Egomism, where every one fancies himself to be the only Being that exists.
" Mr. Hobbes and several other Philosophers, without setting up for Atheists, have ventured to maintain, that Thought and Extension are Properties of the same Substance.
" Descartes, F. Malebranche, Leibnitz, Dr. Bentley, Clarke, and several Philosophers of a Genius equally Mile and profound, have endeavoured to refute these Errors, and brought Arguments to support the ancient Theology. Besides the Proofs which are drawn from the Effects, they have insisted on others drawn from the Idea of the first Cause. They shew plainly that the Reasons of believing, are infinitely stronger than any Arguments there are for doubting. This is all that can be expected in metaphysical Discussions.
"The History of former times is like that of our own Human Understanding takes almost the same Forms in different Ages, and loses its Way in the same Labyrinths. "
next
THE DRUIDS
notes
chapter 4
1. Passim.
chapter 7
1. Lt. Gen. A. Netchvolodow, Nicolas II et les Juifs, p. 139.
2. Ibid., p. 139 et seq.
3 Carlile, Manual of Freemasonry, p. 88.
4. Ibid, p. viii.
5. Ibid., p. xi.
2. Bishop Lavington, The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared, p. 313 etseq.
3. Lavington.
4. The Chevalier de Ramsay, A Discourse upon the Theology and Mythology of the Antients in The Travels of Cyrus, vol. II, P. 76 et seq. (published 1728).
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