Part 56 (1/2)

The word AUM, says the Ramayan, represents ”The Being of Beings, One Substance in three forms; without mode, without quality, without pa.s.sion: Immense, Incomprehensible, Infinite, Indivisible, Immutable, Incorporeal, Irresistible.”

An old pa.s.sage in the Purana says: ”All the rites ordained in the Vedas, the sacrifices to the fire, and all other solemn purifications, shall pa.s.s away; but that which shall never pa.s.s away is the word A-O-O-M for it is the symbol of the Lord of all things.”

Herodotus says that the Ancient Pelasgi built no temples and wors.h.i.+pped no idols, and had a sacred name of Deity, which it was not permissible to p.r.o.nounce.

The Clarian Oracle, which was of unknown antiquity, being asked which of the Deities was named IAO, answered in these remarkable words: ”The Initiated are bound to conceal the mysterious secrets. Learn, then, that IAO is the Great G.o.d Supreme, that ruleth over all.”

The Jews consider the True Name of G.o.d to be irrecoverably lost by disuse, and regard its p.r.o.nunciation as one of the Mysteries that will be revealed at the coming of their Messiah. And they attribute its loss to the illegality of applying the Masoretic points to so sacred a Name, by which a knowledge of the proper vowels is forgotten. It is even said, in the Gemara of Abodah Zara, that G.o.d permitted a celebrated Hebrew Scholar to be burned by a Roman Emperor, because he had been heard to p.r.o.nounce the Sacred Name with points.

The Jews feared that the Heathen would get possession of the Name: and therefore, in their copies of the Scriptures, they wrote it in the Samaritan character, instead of the Hebrew or Chaldaic, that the adversary might not make an improper use of it: for they believed it capable of working miracles; and held that the wonders in Egypt were performed by Moses, in virtue of this name being engraved on his rod: and that any person who knew the true p.r.o.nunciation would be able to do as much as he did.

Josephus says it was unknown until G.o.d communicated it to Moses in the wilderness: and that it was lost through the wickedness of man.

The followers of Mahomet have a tradition that there is a secret name of the Deity which possesses wonderful properties; and that the only method of becoming acquainted with it, is by being initiated into the Mysteries of the _Ism Abla_.

H O M was the first framer of the new religion among the Persians, and His Name was Ineffable.

AMUN, among the Egyptians, was a name p.r.o.nounceable by none save the Priests.

The old Germans adored G.o.d with profund reverence, without daring to name Him, or to wors.h.i.+p Him in Temples. The Druids expressed the name of Deity by the letters O-I-W.

Among all the nations of primitive antiquity, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not a mere probable hypothesis, needing laborious researches and diffuse argumentation to produce conviction of its truth. Nor can we hardly give it the name of _Faith_; for it was a lively _certainty_, like the feeling of one's own existence and ident.i.ty, and of what is actually present; exerting its influence on all sublunary affairs, and the motive of mightier deeds and enterprises than any mere earthly interest could inspire.

Even the doctrine of transmigration of souls, universal among the Ancient Hindus and Egyptians, rested on a basis of the old primitive religion, and was connected with a sentiment purely religious. It involved this n.o.ble element of truth: That since man had gone astray, and wandered far from G.o.d, he must needs make many efforts, and undergo a long and painful pilgrimage, before he could rejoin the Source of all Perfection: and the firm conviction and positive certainty, that nothing defective, impure, or defiled with earthy stains, could enter the pure region of perfect spirits, or be eternally united to G.o.d; wherefore the soul had to pa.s.s through long trials and many purifications before it could attain that blissful end. And the end and aim of all these systems of philosophy was the final deliverance of the soul from the old calamity, the dreaded fate and frightful lot of being compelled to wander through the dark regions of nature and the various forms of the brute creation, ever changing its terrestrial shape, and its union with G.o.d, which they held to be the lofty destiny of the wise and virtuous soul.

Pythagoras gave to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls that meaning which the wise Egyptians gave to it in their Mysteries: He never taught the doctrine in that literal sense in which it was understood by the people. Of that literal doctrine not the least vestige is to be found in such of his symbols as remain, nor in his precepts collected by his disciple Lysias. He held that men always remain, in their essence, such as they were created; and can degrade themselves only by vice, and enn.o.ble themselves only by virtue.

Hierocles, one of his most zealous and celebrated disciples, expressly says that he who believes that the soul of man, after his death, will enter the body of a beast, for his vices, or become a plant for his stupidity, is deceived; and is absolutely ignorant of the eternal form of the soul, which can never change; for, always remaining man, it is said to become G.o.d or beast, through virtue or vice, though it can become neither one nor the other by nature, but solely by resemblance of its inclinations to theirs.

And Timaeus of Locria, another disciple, says that to alarm men and prevent them from committing crimes, they menaced them with strange humiliations and punishments; even declaring that their souls would pa.s.s into new bodies,--that of a coward into the body of a deer; that of a ravisher into the body of a wolf; that of a murderer into the body of some still more ferocious animal; and that of an impure sensualist into the body of a hog.

So, too, the doctrine is explained in the Phaedo. And Lysias says, that after the soul, purified of its crimes, has left the body and returned to Heaven, it is no longer subject to change or death, but enjoys an eternal felicity. According to the Indians, it returned to, and became a part of, the universal soul which animates everything.

The Hindus held that Buddha descended on earth to raise all human beings up to the perfect state. He will ultimately succeed, and all, himself included, be merged in Unity.

Vishnu is to judge the world at the last day. It is to be consumed by fire: The Sun and Moon are to lose their light; the Stars to fall; and a New Heaven and Earth to be created.

The legend of the fall of the Spirits, obscured and distorted, is preserved in the Hindu Mythology. And their traditions acknowledged, and they revered, the succession of the first ancestors of mankind, or the Holy Patriarchs of the primitive world, under the name of the Seven Great RIs.h.i.+S, or Sages of h.o.a.ry antiquity; though they invested their history with a cloud of fictions.

The Egyptians held that the soul was immortal; and that Osiris was to judge the world.

And thus reads the Persian legend:

”After Ahriman shall have ruled the world until the end of time, SOSIOSCH, the promised Redeemer, will come and annihilate the power of the DEVS (or Evil Spirits), awaken the dead, and sit in final judgment upon spirits and men. After that the comet _Gurzsher_ will be thrown down, and a general conflagration take place, which will consume the whole world. The remains of the earth will then sink down into _Duzakh_, and become for three periods a place of punishment for the wicked. Then, by degrees all will be pardoned, even _Ahriman_ and the _Devs_, and admitted to the regions of bliss, and thus there will be a new Heaven and a new earth.”

In the doctrines of Lamaism also, we find, obscured, and partly concealed in fiction, fragments of the primitive truth. For according to that faith, ”There is to be a final judgment before ESLIK KHAN: The good are to be admitted to Paradise, the bad to be banished to h.e.l.l, where there are eight regions burning hot and eight freezing cold.”

In the Mysteries, wherever they were practised, was taught that truth of the primitive revelation, the existence of One Great Being, Infinite and pervading the Universe, Who was there wors.h.i.+pped without superst.i.tion; and His marvellous nature, essence, and attributes taught to the Initiates; while the vulgar attributed His works to Secondary G.o.ds, personified, and isolated from Him in fabulous independence.

These truths were covered from the common people as with a veil; and the Mysteries were carried into every country, that, without disturbing the popular beliefs, truth, the arts, and the sciences might be known to those who were capable of understanding them, and maintaining the true doctrine incorrupt; which the people, p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion and idolatry, have in no age been able to do; nor, as many strange aberrations and superst.i.tions of the present day prove, any more now than heretofore. For we need but point to the doctrines of so many sects that degrade the Creator to the rank, and a.s.sign to Him the pa.s.sions of humanity, to prove that now, as always, the old truths must be committed to a few, or they will be overlaid with fiction and error, and irretrievably lost.

Though Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries, it is so in this qualified sense; that it presents but an imperfect image of their brilliancy; the ruins only of their grandeur, and a system that has experienced progressive alterations, the fruits of social events and political circ.u.mstances. Upon leaving Egypt, the Mysteries were modified by the habits of the different nations among whom they were introduced.