WITH SYMBOLICAL ILLUSTRATIONS AND A GLOSSARY

E. Valentia Straiton

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I GRATEFULLY DEDICATE MY BOOK
to my friend S. E. D., who has ever been ready to enrich my
resources with the treasures of her priceless wisdom and has
inspired me to rise above the bondage of materialism into
that paradise of promise, the happy fields of Aah-en-Ru. My
great desire is that all who read this book may be similarly
inspired to look above and to love the Great Cosmic Mother
and her children, the Luminaries, the stately Planets and the
brilliant Stars.

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FOREWORD

Age after age the Great Architect of the Universe has sent his
messengers in many lands to make plain to man that the laws under
which life spiritual and temporal evolves have been the same from
the foundation of the world and are but the reactions of the planet
earth to the stimuli of the moon, stars, suns and super-suns of the
heavens. And amongst these the Mighty Ruler, "Ship of the North,"
was ever pre-eminent in its primal energising.
The relation between the heavens and earth has been the same
fundamentally in all ages. Out of knowledge of this ancient bond
has been born the only true religion or "binding back" to
causation.
Heavenly forces play upon earth and visibly impress their
operative laws. The sun governs earth's motion. The moon sways
earth's tides. The pole-star exerts a law-giving, orbit-directing
influence upon earth's polar axis. And the signs of the zodiac
through which the Sun takes his royal course year after year and in
one of which earth dwells every age, being at present in Pisces and
proceeding thence into Aquarius, were called the "living creatures"
because of their lively magisterial modification of forces playing
through the sun upon earth. Of old other celestial governors of
earth were known and their forces differentiated and reverenced.
Reverence in its highest essence is an eternal and non-personal
attribute of the soul and withers slowly but fatally in the face of
the reiterated assertion of a personal exegetic dogma divorced from
Nature's laws. To continue in spiritual growth man must worship his
Maker alone, that First Cause of which all other causes are but
relegations or emanations.

vii

Astrology and astronomy, esoteric and exoteric knowledge of the
heavenly bodies or entities, have lain at the generating heart of
every great religion that has waxed and waned upon earth in
accordance with cyclic celestial law.
Out of the past the author has brought path-finding clues to
this First Cause which reveals Itself.
These pages are a contribution to that painstaking, scientific,
selfless research which shall in the coming years identify behind
the allegory, symbology and ritual of many faiths the same
everlasting truth, which perceived will unite all races and creeds
in reverence of creature for Creator, the one eternal religion or
"binding back" to Causation.

S. E. D.

viii

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"Every one of these Stars that are in Heaven, do not make the
like, or an equal course; who is it that hath prescribed unto every
one, the manner and the greatness of their course?
"This Bear that turns round about its own self; and carries the
whole World with her, who possessed and made such an Instrument.
"Who hath set the Bounds of the Sea? Who hath established the
Earth? For there is somebody, O Tat, that is the Maker and Lord of
these things.
"For it is impossible, O Son, that either place, or number, or
measure, should be observed without a Maker.
"For no order can be made by disorder or disproportion."

Hermes Trismegistus.

ix

x

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xi

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xii

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xiii

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xiv

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xvi

BOOK ONE
Dawn of Divine Conception

xvii

xviii

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"Depicted on the walls of the secret and sealed Shrine in the
Temple of Denderah is this picture of Hathor, known to the
Egyptians as the Virgin Mother or the Mother of God, to whom the
Temple was dedicated. Her name Hat-hor implying that she was the
"Habitation of the Holy Light" or the incarnate Horus, shewn by the
rays of divine splendor streaming from her.
"The secret and sealed Shrine was entered once a year by a
high-priest, on the night of midsummer and an image of the Holy
Mother was conveyed by a procession of priests up a secret stairway
to the roof where communion with her divine father Ra was held,
while within the Temple a festival to Hathor was celebrated."
From "The Book of the Master," by Marsham Adams.

xix

CHAPTER I
THE MOTHER MYSTERY

The most ancient peoples believed that God gave Revelation, and
was the One Supreme, the Eternal, the Infinite, pervading all
places and exalted in a super-celestial place of Divine Light, that
He was spiritual in essence, self-existent, uncreated, yet was made
manifest to all as the most tender love and truth, which they
received in their lives on earth with happiness and joy. Born of
this Supreme One was She of celestial loveliness and purity, Divine
in nature, whom they called the Spirit of God, the Dove1, the
Virgin Spirit, the Logos which is the Word of God, the earliest
first Mother, whose name came to represent the essence of all that
was beautiful and pure, and of most divine love. She was, in the
Talmud, "The Spirit of God that hovered over the water like a dove,
which spreads her wings over her young." She was the Shekinah, a
mystic word often variously typified as a Lotus, a Rose, an Egg,
and by symbols that were oval, as a Cup, a Boat or a Moon.
"God when He meditates on Divine Beauty, is said to be one; but
when He creates to be Bi-Une. The Syrians symbolized this communion
by their image of Ad-Ad, the Sun-Father, shooting down his splendid
rays toward the Earth, while she sent forth rays of splendor upward
that met and mingled with His beam."2
She was also the Argha, a most ancient form of the
________
1 Wine has a mystical relation to the Dove, which is the Holy
Spirit, in a passive sense, the Creator being the active power.
Wine and the Holy Spirit are of one root in primitive language.
"Truth, her essence, is spiritually called Wine, and sometimes
Blood, for Wine is the Blood of the Grape." These symbols all play
a remarkable part in both the Old and the New Testament.
2 Kenealy--The Book of God.

1

"Ship," the Ark that floated over the celestial waters of the
Abyss, the Great Matrix of the Universe, that place of spiritual
birth and re-birth and emergence into Immortality. Argha also means
a Cup, a Vessel in which flowers and fruit are offered to Deity,
the Cup that must always be curved like a ship.
This Argha was the primordial Mother of all, and was called the
"Holy Spirit," the Ark that held the germs of all nature, that
brooded over the Great Abyss, the Ship of the North, or Ship of
Life, that bore the germs of all being over the vast ocean of the
Infinite. She was the Immaculate of Supreme Heaven, in which God
was the ruling Force. "When God has been called the Holy Spirit,
the implication has been incorrect, the Holy Spirit was only His
Regent or representation, the second Great Being of the Universe,
the Anima Mundi, the Great Mother of Nature."
The Navi-formed Argha of the mysteries typified the Holy Spirit,
the Great Mother of all existence. The High Priests of the Arabians
make the Holy Spirit symbolized as a Cup or Ship, a necessary part
of their religion. In the "Vision of Hermas"1 the Holy Spirit was
called "The Old Woman who was the first of all creation."
The basic belief of all ancient cults is that Spirit is from
God, and that Souls come from the Holy Spirit, the great Soul of
the world, ever productive and having the attributes of the
Supreme. "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the
Almighty hath given me life."--Job xxxiii, 4.
Again the Holy Spirit was Virgo, the Virgin of the Zodiac, who
bore the Immaculate Son. She was the great nurse of all existence;
she was Wisdom; she was the Power of God, more beautiful than the
Sun, and when "compared with the
________
1 This Hermean work was an elementary Scripture used in the
church, as Eusebius says, "before the Christ had been completely
carnalized by the Sarkolatrae." This work was always held in very
great reverence by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and other great
thinkers, who considered it a divinely inspired work. Hermas was
surnamed "The Shepherd."

2

light she is found before it." She was the Mother of the Gods; She
was Issa, the Virgin of God; she was the Sea, the mystical Rose,
the Cup with wings. To typify her transcendent beauty, she was
called the Rainbow, having the seven colors or the seven stars in
One. At Sais she was bespangled with stars, and there she gave her
mystic message: "I am all that is; I am all that hath been; I am
all that will forever be: and my veil no mortal hath drawn aside.
The fruit that I brought forth was the Sun."
She was called by the Sanconiathans, "The air shining with
ethereal light."
She has been imaged as intensely black, her bosom bare, crowned
with a golden pyramid, about which twined an immense serpent. Night
and Darkness belong as symbols to very great antiquity. A
superabundance of darkness metaphysically is Light. "Darkness
adopted illumination in order to make itself visible."1
Out from the boundless Abyss of Darkness, acted upon by divine
power, came the Holy Light. Paracelsus called the Sidereal Light
the Astral Light, the reflection of the Great Immaculate Mother, to
whom the name of the Astral Light had been given;2--a name never
given to the father, or the fatherless son of the Immaculate
Mother, who was placed on the physical plane, as the lowest of the
manifestations.
This Holy Spirit, the Great Mother,3 is symbolized by a great
Tree whose branches spread over the entire world, and reach above
the heavens. A more beautiful symbol can hardly be conceived. This
Tree "has three roots, widely remote from each other. The first is
among the Gods; the second among the Giants (the blessed spirits);
the third embraces hell (region of all who are not among the
heavenly blessed). Under the roots is the fountain of carnal
________
1 Fludd, Robert.
2 Astral Light--Light derived from the stars; a light only
perceived psychically.
3 The Mexicans worshipped the Holy Spirit under the name
Chuacohuatl, the Serpent woman; and as Tonacacihua, the woman of
flesh.

3

desires, whence flow the infernal rivers, and the roots are gnawed
upon by the mighty serpent, Midhager (Conscience warring with
carnal desires); under this, reaching towards the land of the
Giants, is the Fountain of Wisdom and Knowledge."1
At a very much later period in the mysteries, Apuleius presents
a portrait of the supreme goddess mother, as she was unveiled to
the Initiates--"the Mother-earth, flower crowned, with her
bounteous-bosomed body full of fruit. The Mother-heaven in her
black mantle, lustrous with moon and stars; a radiant reality of
the divinest dreaming, unveiled in human form; a visible revelation
of the bringer-forth."2
In addition to these there are many beautiful revelations of the
Mother, earliest known thought of the Creator and His first
Creation, who, being direct from God, was the medium through which
life was given to the world.
The Sons of God were offspring of this Mother, and the ancient
world overflows with memories and symbols of these sons or
Celestial Messengers, who were called the Messiahs, emanations from
the Holy Spirit of God. The Messiahs were all incarnations of the
Sun. They were all concealed, buried, and arose from the dead
thereby typifying the setting and the rising of the Sun. Their
"Incarnation was symbolized as a Golden Serpent coming out of the
ark." The Serpent was a symbol of Immortality and Wisdom. The Ark
was the Holy of Holies.
The religion of the ancient peoples seems to have been one
throughout the entire world; a great brotherhood, a universal
faith. Strange has been the impulse of priests and theologians, to
deviate from the ancient holiness which was so solemn and majestic
in primeval days, and to instruct the masses in false doctrines.
The Garden of Eden, or Paradise, was the place of birth of Man,
and of Time. The Holy Spirit was a Garden, the
________
1 Kenealy--The Book of God, p. 324.
2 Massey, Gerald, The Natural Genesis, Vol. ii, p. 79.

4

Garden of Paradise, the female principle under its venerated
symbol. In this garden, which was also called Meru, grew all the
delicious fruits, flowers and vines, and among them the "Golden
Apple" of primitive times. This Garden was placed at the North, the
Egyptians called it Sais, and Proclus remarks, "It partakes of a
peculiar emanation from God." This is the Garden of Eden, the North
Pole itself, the North that was called Sacred, the home of the
constellation of the Great Bear, "The Genitrix," whose Seven Stars
were the Sailors, who watched over and ever will watch over the
celestial sea--"beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole
earth, is Mount Zion, on the side of the North."--Psalm lxviii, 2.
The Abyss, in Egypt is a name of the North, and the original
mother of this Abyss, which was Space, was called Typhon, the
Mother of Beginnings, the Mother of the Fields of Heaven, the
Mother of Revolutions (time cycles),1 as well as the Mother of Gods
and Men. She was later made goddess of the constellation of the
Great Bear, Mother-Goddess, and her first son was called Sut, the
Dog-Star in the south. It is here, in the mystical allegory born
amongst the stars, that we find the origin of the Immaculate
Conception. This Mother was called "The Old Woman," because she was
the first of all creation, and the world had been made for her.
From this early beginning developed the so-called Typhonian
Religion, which, with its types, is the oldest of all.
We read that from one Mother the Universe was born. This was the
Mother Typhon, a primordial figure of Power. A very ancient form of
Typhon was the Water Horse, the "Bearer of the Waters" which was
the Hippopotamus. This animal has four toes on each of its four
feet, and there-
________
1 This Mother of Revolutions was called the Producer and
Re-producer of souls, or gods, who were the self-born who came from
the cycles, created by the revolutions of the stars of the Great
Bear. They were later known as spirits of the gods, and in another
phase as the planetary spirits. Helios, the Sun-God, was born in
the cycles of the Sun--the Light-born.

5

fore was considered a type of the four corners of the earth. The
earliest types were always feminine, and were represented as
animals or having the properties of animals. Jehovah, who at first
was considered female, was also represented as a type of animal,
and by the Rabbins was known by the mystical name of four
letters--J H V H--their Tetragrammaton. The portrayal of a woman,
arching over the earth and resting on her hands and feet,
represents the four corners, or the four cardinal points. The
Zodiac was given as a human female figure, and upon this the
Astrological Chart was founded. Atum (the first Adam) is called in
the "Book of the Dead," "The Mother Goddess of Time." All
beginnings were founded on the feminine.
The constellation of the Great Bear was known as the Typhonian
Thigh, the "Thigh of the North," the birthplace of the beginnings
among the stars. In our Bible we read "The days come, saith the
Lord, that it shall no more be said, the Lord liveth, that brought
up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but the Lord
liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the
North."--Jeremiah xvi, 14.15.
The original Mother Typhon, "Lady of the Heavens," was Mother of
the male child known as Sut who grew up to be her consort, and who
eventually became his own father, in the character of the
generator. "The oldest permutation known in Theogony became
apparent at this point, which is that of the son becoming his own
father and the mother being generated by the son."1 It is in this
Typhonian Religion that we first find the worship of the Virgin
Mother, and the fatherless child, which later found a home in Rome.
"But she came to be portrayed as a male virgin or maleless, to
indicate the begetting or creating power on the way towards the
final fatherhood." It was Manu who said the male-virgin gave birth
to the Light. All mythical allegories of the heavens state that
from herself the Mother came first.
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.

6

At a far later period when solar time (i. e. time told by the Sun)
took the place of the early Sabean time (time told by the stars),
the self-creator was made in the image of the male. Forms of
worship of this very early religion are somewhat obscure, but it
did not in any way constitute a mystery of immodesty, for it is
known that originally it was pure and beautiful relating to the
mystery of life itself. Nothing impure had ever been connected with
it. All that was claimed to be obscene and anathematized as
unclean, was due to other and later interpretations. It represented
the naked nature of primal beginnings, the primitive physiological
conceptions of a creative force. There was nothing gross in it, but
much that was of absorbing interest. This religion finally passed
into Judea, making its home in Jerusalem. "The branding of the
Sut-Typhonians as the fatherless ones, religiously speaking, came
through worship of the mother and child, who became the harlot of
Revelation, and the bastard of the Osirians." 1
Sut, son of Typhon, was the name given to the first male ever
recognized or known, and though his manifestations were many, his
beginning was as Sut, the Dog-Star, as we know it, in the south. He
ended by becoming the Alpha and Omega of the Book of Revelation.
Al-Shadai, Adonis, Baal and others were all personifications of
this early son of the first Mother, and originally belonged to her
cult, which is the same as that of the Church of Rome today--the
worship of the Mother and the Child.
By a little searching many secrets of the ancient cult are
recognizable as explanations given for the so-called orthodox forms
of the religion of today. The Mother and Son worshipped by modern
Christians, hark back to Typhon in the Egypt above and her son Sut.
This Virgin Mother and the Child of heavenly conception were ages
old before they became Semitic. They were also worshipped by the
Hekshus, called the Shepherd Kings, of pre-monumental Egypt,
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.

7

who were the rulers for thirteen thousand years before the time of
their first king, Menes. The Shus-en-Har, or Hekshus, were known as
the followers of the great Egyptian God, Horus, with whom
mythologically the Israelites were connected.
When superseded the Sut-Typhonians were denounced by those who
had come to worship a Father and Son instead of the Mother and Son.
Of the good Typhon it was said, however, "Hers is a figure so
ancient that it belongs to a typology which preceded eschatology
and mythology, and of an order set in heaven for use and not for
worship, type of Time, and Force, and not for Beauty."
Primitive man knew nothing of the one God of a later religion.
In all earlier cults, God meant the Absolute, pervading all places,
in and of all, yet none might share His surpassing celestial
majesty. God was not a solitary figure, a Silence. "He was
surrounded by other gods of light, beauty, purity and divineness,
immortal in their essence for it emanated from the Most High,"1 but
all were encompassed by His love, a source of all. The second
Spirit of God, the second great power that began to exist when God
developed beauty out of Himself was the Mother, the Mother first
and foremost everywhere preceding any knowledge of that One God.
She was Nature, the Spirit of God, the Virgin Spirit of ineffable
loveliness, and as such received worship.2
Serpent worship, Tree worship and Water worship were all
feminine. The Serpent sloughed periodically as the feminine type,
and the bearing Tree with its fruit was feminine and Water was
feminine and the source of life, the Mother. Motherhood antedated
by aeons of time any knowledge of a
________
1 Kenealy--The Book of God.
2 The Egyptians symbolically named God the "Ancient Darkness."
Of this Darkness H. P. Blavatsky writes, "Darkness is the root of
Light, Light is matter, Darkness pure Spirit, Darkness
metaphysically is absolute Light. Light is merely a mass of shadows
as it can never be eternal, and is simply an illusion, or Maya."
The Hindu Initiates whose vision was sublime, recognized God as
"The One who is All" which we are apt to veil in the present era.

8

fatherhood that could have been identified as such, and even among
the original seven gods (later planets) there was no mention of
fatherhood.
In that far off beginning everything was Sabean, i.e. belonging
to the stars. It was only later when Sabean (Star) and then Lunar
(Moon) periods had made way for the Solar (Sun) periods that a male
element appears, and introduces the male and female as separate
deities, for in the beginning all was considered in double aspect
as male-female, Bi-Une. When at the advent of the solar period the
worship of the fatherhood in heaven became established, then, time
was reckoned by the Sun instead of as formerly by the Stars and the
Moon. Atum in Egypt, Hea in Assyria and Abraham in Israel became
the Father of the Gods, and the Child of the Mother became known as
the Son of the Father. This individualization of the Father, whom
the people then enthroned above the ancient Mother, was acclaimed
with great rejoicings. Finally the Child of both became a
substitute for the Mother and the Father of a later period of
theology.
The seventh day, Saturday, was always the day of Sut, Saturn,
but when Sut of Sabean origin was turned into a solar God, his day
became Sunday, the day of the Sun.1 In this solar form he became
known as Sebek-Ra, the Lamb of the thirteenth dynasty. This
occurred when, at the equinox, the Sun entered the Zodiacal sign
Aries symbolized as the Ram or Lamb, and, He, who was in his Sabean
origin the leader of the Typhonian Seven of the constellation of
the Great Bear, was continued as the Lamb of the Seven Stars of the
Book of Revelation.
The starting place was always in the North, where the ancients
noted that the revolving of the constellations around the Pole Star
took place. One of these early constellations was called Cassiopia,
the "Lady of the Seat." She can be
________
1 The secular church was founded by Constantine, who set aside
the day of the Sun--Sunday--for the worship of Jesus.

9

seen sitting in a chair in the pictorial charts of the heavens. She
was Queen of Ethiopia, our Biblical Kush, and this ancestral seat
in the north, as a point of beginning, suggests Ethiopia as the
first mystical birthplace. In the Hebrew writings Ethiopia, Kush
and Zaba are convertible terms for the same country, the Egypt
beyond Egypt, and combine with the "Za-be-ans from the
Wilderness."--Ez., xxiii, 42. Kush and Ethiopia are both names of
the North, where the constellation called The Thigh, the Matrix of
the World, is found.
At first, when the elementary Powers ruled lawlessly and
destructively, we learn that there was Chaos, and from out of this
chaotic dissolution in space, Creation brought with it the
beginnings of mythology, and ushered in the first period of Fixed
Time. The Seven Stars of the Constellation at the Pole, came to
convey the idea of this First Time. They were called "The
Beginningless Lights," and were held most sacred by the priests,
and many of the observations and the information given in the
sacred mysteries concerning these "Lights" have fortunately been so
carefully preserved that no type has ever been completely lost, and
all can still be studied in their pristine purity.
Knowledge of celestial time was attributed to Typhon, Goddess
Mother of the Great Bear, and to her son Sut, the Dog-Star. When
she made her first circle around the North Pole, at the rising of
the Dog-Star, in the south, the first year or cycle of time was
accomplished, of which Sut was made the announcer.1 Only an upper
and lower heaven were given at this period, it was before the four
corners or cardinal points had been represented, and before the
equinoxes and solstices had been established. This fulfilment of
the first year of Time remains fixed in the planisphere forever;
and regardless of all changes, this origin
________
1 Every race, tribe, and cult of olden time has had its
traditions of the early Seven Stars, and everywhere can be found
myths of "The woman and her dog"--Typhon and the Dog-Star, and the
divisions of Light and Darkness.

10

has never been entirely lost or superseded. It was found in the
heaven above and reflected in the earth below, and will remain as
witness of the early Sabean time which began with the old mother
Typhon and her son, Sut.
Although the roots of religion seem almost hidden in a remote
past, many proofs are extant of its having been developed from
Mythology, never Mythology from Religion. The conception of a
concealed deity lies at the foundation of all religions, which
explains perhaps the endeavors to make religion come before
mythology. The origin was with the Mother, who preceded the Father
and who had produced the first Seven Great Stars of the Bear as
early Forces born out of space or chaos, called Creative Forces by
all ancient peoples. These by the Christians were termed "The
Virtues of God;" in the Greek and Roman churches they were the
Seven Archangels, which belong also to the Parsee scriptures. They
had under their care and protection men, animals, fire, metal,
earth, water and plants. The original Seven have a common origin in
Egypt, Akkadia, India, Britain, and New Zealand.
Jacob Boehme says of the Feminine producer and of these Powers
or Forces, which he calls "Fountain Spirits," that "We find
especial properties in nature whereby this only Mother works all
things--desire, bitterness, anguish, fire, light, sound, and
substantiality; whatever the six forms are spiritually, that the
seventh is essentially. These are the seven forms of the Mother of
all being from whence all that is in the world is generated." And
again in his Theosophy he says, "The Creator hath, in the body of
this world, generated himself as it were creaturely in his
qualifying or Fountain Spirits, and all the stars are nothing else
but God's powers and the whole body of the world consisteth in the
seven qualifying or fountain spirits. Therefore man's life hath
such a beginning and rising up as was that of the planets and the
stars. . . . But that there are so many stars, of manifold effects
and operations, is from the infinite-

11

ness that is in the efficiency of the Seven Spirits of God in one
another, which generate themselves infinitely. . . . Man's property
lieth in sundry degrees according to the inward and outward
heavens, viz.: according to Divine manifestation, through the seven
powers of nature."
These were the mystical Seven, first found in the Seven large
Stars of the constellation of the Great Bear, and representing the
first Great Mother in her likeness as Mother of the first
elementary Forces and of Time. When the Solar period was
established these became the seven souls of Ra, the Egyptian Sun.
These Creative Forces, or Powers, were always known as gods, and
the higher gods of antiquity were always sons of the Mother before
they became sons of a Father. Sut, Horus, Shu, and others never had
a Father. In their origins they were male-female, as were all the
ancient gods. Zeus was often called the Beautiful Virgin, Venus has
been found bearded, the original Apollo was bi-sexual, Horus is
given in both sexes, Osiris and Isis are found to interchange. In
the vision of St. John in the Book of Revelation is found the
Logos, now connected with Jesus Hermaphrodite, and portrayed with
female breasts. Jehovah was originally female.
On a Babylonian tablet Venus is depicted as a male at sunrise
and a female at sunset. To the Peruvians Venus was a morning star
called "The Youth with the Curling Locks." Philo tells us that
Astarte placed on her head a Bull's horn as a symbol of her
lordship or male-female nature. In Sanscrit writings it was said
that the Bull was eaten as food but that the Cow was too sacred as
she was the Mother of Life. These were types of the early Mother.
The gods, divinities, and personages of mythology were
universal. They were made secret and divine because they were never
human, though their attributes were often based upon human
experiences, due to the knowledge of the ancient scholars, so
conversant with life here below and so versed

12

in astronomical knowledge. They taught their myths and allegories
whithersoever they went. These did not spring up independently in
various places in the world. Their unity in mythology is
conclusively proven. The further one searches into the great past
the more profound grows his wonder.
"Origen observes, 'If the Law of Moses had contained nothing
which was to be understood as having a secret meaning, the prophet
would not have said, 'Open thou mine eyes and I will behold
wondrous things out of thy law'," (Psalm cxix, 18), whereas he knew
that there was a veil of ignorance lying upon the heart of those
who read and do not understand the figurative meanings," and he
tells Celsus that the Egyptians veiled their knowledge of things in
fable and allegory--'The learned may penetrate into the
significance of all Oriental mysteries, but the vulgar can only see
the exterior symbol. It is allowed, by all who have any knowledge
of the Scriptures, that everything is conveyed enigmatically',"1
The Egyptian Khepsh, or Kush, became the Hebrew Chavvach,
personified throughout Inner Africa as "The Old Mother," who,
whether as Typhon, Khepsh, Kefa, or the Hebrew Chavvach, was the
early Kamite Eve, the Eve of the Biblical Genesis, typifying the
Birthplace of Existence, whether human or divine, i.e. celestial,
tradition says that this earliest Kamite Eve, called Adam's second
wife, was the cause of mankind losing Paradise, but creations in
primordial myths have naught to do with human creations, but became
humanized at a later period.
The Egyptian Kefa, as the first mother, meant "Mystery," and can
be identified as our Eve. She was the serpent woman, goddess of
gestation, and in Egypt had a serpent placed upon her head. The
oldest subject matter in the world is found in the Book of Genesis.
Misconceptions have
________
1 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. ii, p. 184.

13

arisen solely through wrong conception regarding the very ancient
wisdom of this first book of the Bible.
In the beginnings of mythology, the elements of Fire, Earth, Air
and Water were first typified, before there was any formation of
the world; later they became the establishers of Time and Order.
All creations were first Stellar, then Lunar, and last Solar, and
as such are found everywhere in ancient tradition. There were three
primary heavens in the Babylonian astronomy, the heaven of fire, of
aether and the planetary heaven. These answer to the star stations,
the lunar station and the solar station
The very ancient form of Typhon, called the "Bearer of the
Waters," was the Hippopotamus wearing a crocodile's tail (anciently
the crocodile or the dragon interchanged as the Constellation
Draco, adjoining that of the Great Bear). This was the old Typhon
who became outcast in a later theology, but as Kefa she was made
the Seven-fold Watcher, whose "Seven Eyes (stars) went to and fro
through all the earth." As she was Goddess of Time, they called her
child, Seb-Kronus, a second condition of Time (Kronus, Time). As
Sut he was the first announcer of Time, but as Seb-Kronus he became
a repeater of Time in dual aspect called the Sun and Sirius (or
Saturn). The earliest type of Sirius was not the dog but an Inner
African Giraffe,1 called the Ser which was a figure of Sut-Typhon,
counterpart of Sirius. From Ser we have Sirius just as from Sut we
have
________
1 The Giraffe, which is pictured in the heavens as the
Constellation Camelo Pardalis, lies close to the Pole Star and is a
peculiarly made animal, which became a type of great interest to
the deep-thinking and far-seeing Egyptians. Its head and body
resemble a horse, the neck and shoulders a camel. Its ears are like
those of an ox, and its tail like that of an ass. The legs seem to
be in imitation of an antelope's, while the color markings seem to
have been borrowed from the panther. He appears to be all out of
proportion, with his short body and long neck and legs, and lacks
beauty and grace in the sloping body and height. The head is very
beautiful, the eyes very brilliant yet with a softened beauty. They
are spiritual eyes. He never utters a sound, not even in the
agonies of death. His native land odor has been compared with that
of a hive of heather honey; both hearing and sight are highly
developed. Naturalists claim that the name Giraffe is a corruption
of the Arabic Serafe meaning "Lovable," which so truly fits this
animal. It has no vocal organs.

14

Sothis (Sirius). This animal can see both ways without turning its
head or its eyes, which made it the primary type of a steadfast
watcher, begotten as were other types through primitive man's
closeness to external nature.
Sut, as the first child of the mother of Time, when called Seb
or Sevekh-Kronus, was named the Dragon of the Seven Stars of the
Lesser Bear (Ursa Minor), the manifestor of the Seven which
encircled the Pole with her, when forming the first primary circle.
Records and cycles of time had depended upon these starry turners,
until they were found to be "unfaithful," not keeping the true
time. Sevekh, who was the earlier Sut, became the planet Saturn,
and one of his names was Sut-Nub. Nub means golden. When he became
famous as the ruler of the Golden Age of the Greeks, he was
christened Sut-Nub.
The Seven Stars of the Great Bear were also called the "Bringers
Forth;" i.e., of perennial time and creations, creators of the
first form taken in space. "Thus Time, and Space were figured as a
circle by placing a boundary around that which was boundless." In
ancient times the body of this constellation was nearer the North
Pole, and as the tail moved around the North Pole it was said
strongly to resemble a Pointer, like the hand of a clock--a Time
Teller. "Typhon in the north and Sut in the south were likened to
the two hands of a clock, the Bear being the pointer hand, and Sut
the Dog-Star the hour hand. Pythagoras calls the two bears the two
hands of the Genetrix."
The Chinese named this constellation "A Bushel," which was a
measure of time. In the writing of Hoh-Kwantsze we are told that
the Chinese determined their seasons and months of the year by the
revolutions of the Great Bear,--"When the tail of the Bear points
to the East (at nightfall) it is Spring to all the world; when the
tail of the Bear points to the South, it is Summer all over the
world; when the tail of the Bear points to the West, it is Autumn
to all the world; when the tail of the Bear points to the North, it

15

is Winter to all the world." The tail is also called the Handle.
From the hidden Sun of the Solar regime and through the
knowledge of the evolutionist came the cycles of Time. The Egyptian
God Taht, the Moon God, later the planet Mercury, and Seb, the
Star-God, later the planet Jupiter, were said to be born as
Time-keepers or Watchers in the heaven. They were types of gods and
angels but when history began these types were transformed into
demons. In the early beginnings types and symbols were necessities
of daily usage in the life of primitive man.
The element of Fire, the fire that vivifies, was called Heh, a
Serpent. The goddess Hea was the earlier Kefa, Chavvah, Hovah, or
Eve. Hovah is the feminine side of Jehovah. The Akkadian Hea was a
God of Wisdom, the repository of all wisdom. These all meet in the
first-mother Typhon, and among her many types was that of a
serpent. Heh as an element of Fire typified the Sun in its motion
without visible means, like the gliding of the serpent. Breathing,
or heaving as the motion of the serpent, became a type of
visibility. Kefa, Hefa (Eve), became the Great Serpent of Life, the
Serpent Woman, Goddess of Gestation.
The Serpent Fire of the occultists is said to lie at the base of
the spine coiled like a serpent. The Lord said unto Moses, "Make
thee a Seraph," which means a Fiery Serpent. Serf signifies a
Flame, and Ref is the serpent of Life.
The mythology of Israel begins, as we see, with the cult of
Hovah, who was Eve, the Typhonian Mother of Sut, also called Seth.
The serpent belongs to an early representation of the Mother, and
followed the time when she was known by the type of the
Hippopotamus, and coincides with the change in Israel from the
worship of the North, and the stars, to that instituted by Moses in
the Wilderness. "And the manna fed to the children of the
Wilderness is

16

emblematic of feminine reckoning and rule, and the angels' food
supplied by the Genetrix from the Gynoceum above to the children
below." "Man did eat angels' food," (Psalm lxxviii, 25), which was
the Bread of the Mighty, meaning that celestial knowledge which
originated at this northern point in the heavens.
The serpent became one of the special symbols of this oldest of
mothers. The Two Great Truths of the Egyptians were said to be
written with the Serpent; they were also given in the two
characters of the Gestator of the sign Pisces and the Virgin of the
Zodiacal sign Virgo, typical of gestation and maternity. She was
the Tree of Life as well as the Serpent of Life.
The two northern constellations of the Bears, called the Primal
Pair, became humanized as the parents of our race, and were placed
in the Garden of Eden, called the Mount, in which stood the Tree,
or the Pole. The Fall was introduced when the earlier stars as
timekeepers were found not to be keeping correct time, so they were
called Laggards. The imperfect creations preceded the perfect. The
earlier attempts at time-reckoning by the stars had failed.
The ancient traditions and allegories of the Egyptians and the
Chaldeans with their rootage in the far past were continued by the
Gnostics. They identified the early Seven Stars of the Great Bear
by name and nature, as the Seven Daemons who always opposed and
resisted the human race, because, as they claimed, the father of
the Seven had been cast down to a lower world, not meaning the
earth. This was portrayed in the Bible as the fall of Adam the
mortal on earth, but its origin was purely astronomical.
Error and darkness had their beginning together. It is said in
the Apocrypha, "Their beginning was with sinners." The true
doctrine of the Fall belongs to the hidden wisdom, known only to
teachers who have kept its meaning unsullied; and the books of the
Hidden Wisdom tell us that "to be allied to Wisdom is immortality."
"By means of her, I

17

shall obtain immortality, and leave behind me an everlasting
memorial to them that come after me." (Wisdom of Solomon, Chap.
viii, 17.)
In the Divine Pymander it is said, "This is the Mystery that to
this day is hidden, and kept secret; for Nature being mingled with
Man brought forth a Wonder most wonderful; for he having the Nature
of the Harmony of the Seven, from him whom I told thee, the Fire
and the Spirit, Nature continued not, but forthwith brought forth
seven Men, all Males and Females, and sublime, or on high,
according to the Natures of the Seven Governors." And these were
the Seven that finally became planetary, but primarily were the
Seven Stars of the constellation of the Great Bear.
The Egyptian books, the Hindu Puranas, the Chaldean and the
Assyrian scriptures all speak of seven primitive men or Adams. The
Jews got their Adam from Chaldea. Ad, in Sanscrit, is "The First."
The Assyrian Father is Ak-Ad, or Father Creator, and Ad-Ad meant
the "Only One." Adam stands really for the first primitive race.
In the Gnostic ideas of the Creation man was formed by "A
certain company of angels as a mere wriggling worm; the worm
becomes winged, a living spirit." Their Adam was Adam the "Red," or
the Sun. In Genesis we are told "Male and female created he them."
The Mohammedan tradition affirms that the body of Adam was at first
a figure of clay that was forty years in drying, and then the
Creator endowed it with breath. (Koran ch. lv.) Many are the
traditions of a first Adam or that which his name symbolized.
The Biblical account of the war in heaven is explained
astronomically, when Typhon and Sut, or the Northern constellation
of The Bear and the glowing Dog-Star in the south proved false in
their time reckoning, causing their own degradation, their
downfall. This was also brought about by the change in the earth's
axis, which had gradually pointed to a star other than the one
around which it had been revolving. It was the Egyptian Osirians
who cast out and

18

condemned the ancient Typhon, and who changed the Star-god into
Sevek-Ra the Sun-god. They then placed upon his head a pair of
horns, and he became the Ram or Lamb symbolized in the Zodiacal
sign, Aries, and when the Sun passed into this sign, Aries became
typical of the change from one Pole Star to another. This casting
out of the old Mother took place when theology turned many of these
ancient myths into religious history. Religious chaos resulted and
the past was almost lost in obscurity. But strange to relate,
followers of the ancient Typhonian cult of the first Immaculate
Conception are spread over the world today, though many of them are
in ignorance of the foundation of their religious belief.
It is well never to lose sight of the fact that in the
heaven-world all is pure and beautiful in its symbolism; nothing is
material, for all exists through God, whose rays are the Light now
piercing through the veil of His creations. There are many who do
not realize the beauty to be found in the old symbols, which have
been so cleverly falsified and maligned.

19

Celestial Ship of the North - [2] The Land of Light

CHAPTER II
THE LAND OF LIGHT

Kinship between Egypt and India is very closely marked, so that
debate arises as to which country can rightfully claim the oldest
astronomical knowledge.
In support of the Indian theory, it is said that the so-called
Eastern Ethiopians, a matured people, who colonized the Egyptian
territory, which was the home of the Kushite, or Hamitic, race,
came from southern India. The lower part of Egypt had been formerly
a gulf of the sea, but the sediment of thousands of years, brought
down by the river Nile and deposited there, made lower Egypt in no
uncertain way an offshoot of Ethiopia. It was called the Land of
Ham, or Kam.
Herodotus wrote, "I am of the opinion that the Egyptians
commenced their existence with the country called the Delta, but
that they always were, since men have been; and that, as the soil
gradually increased, many of them remained in their former homes,
and many came lower down. For ancient Thebes was called Egypt, and
the inhabitants considered themselves the most ancient of mankind."
Egypt lies near the center of the land surface of the world.
Piazzi Smith tells us that the base of her great Pyramid lies near
to the heart of all the world. "There is a Hermean fragment that
pictures the earth as a prostrate woman, her arms stretched forth
towards the heavens, and her feet pointing in the direction of the
northern constellation of the Great Bear; her body represents the
geographical divisions, while Egypt is typified as the heart of
all."
________
1 Stobeous.

23

Tradition also claims that Ethiopia was the home of the
Egyptians, that the founders of Egypt came from Meru, a word which
signifies the inhabitants of the "Mount at the North," "the
Birthplace," "the Outlet." In Hebrew writings, Zaba, land of the
Zabeans, Ethiopia and Kush, are names of the same country--the
"Egypt beyond Egypt." "Zaba, the first-born son of Kush," is
mentioned with Kush and Mitzraim. The inhabitants of Meru were the
"Zabeans from the wilderness." It is to be remembered that there is
a wilderness" above, in the heavens, as well as a wilderness below,
on earth.
The name "Kam" means "to create," and also "black;" hence Kam
signifies the home of the black race, the Ethiopians.
Mythologically, this race came from Khepsh, the constellation in
the northern heavens called "The Thigh," signifying Typhon, Mother
of the human race to the people who looked to the North, as the
ideal place for primitive parentage and birthplace of the world.
Kam, the Ham of the Hebrews, was known as the country of the
"coming forth." Research brings to light in the Hebrew writings
much mythological astrology evolved from a study of the heavens,
which afterward was given to the world as history and religion.
Later sophistries garbled and falsified that ancient learning,
which, primitive and simple, had been founded on the laws of nature
itself. Its very simplicity was unfathomable to later theorists.
The knowledge of astronomy and the perfection which this science
attained in ancient times seems beyond modern comprehension. Near
the city of Benares, in India, there are astronomical instruments
cut out of the solid rock of a mountain. In former times these were
used for making observations.
Semitic origins show etymologically their Kamitic derivation.
The "K" of Kam was transformed into the "S" of Sam, which was the
root of the word Semite. The Semites were known later as the
Sumarians. The Sumarians fol-

24

lowed the Kamites when the race of Kam left its primitive or
nomadic habitat. The earliest "Wise men" were known to have come
from the south, not from the east, and to have formulated the
language of the earlier settlers, or squatters, when they settled
in Sumaria on their journey northward.
Both Kam and Sam signify "black." The Semites were Kamites in a
later phase of development.
Since Kamite names are the earliest known, it seems probable
that Egypt is the missing link between the Inner African origins
and the rest of the world. As her myths are incalculably old, much
substantiality can be given to the theory that Egypt was the place
of Beginnings. No country on earth is like her, or situated so
favorably for the study of the stars; bounded at thirty degrees
north latitude by the sea; and traversed by a river which overflows
its banks three months of every year, and is dry nine months,
typical of the period of gestation. Egypt is reborn annually as her
waters add layer after layer to her soil, she literally comes from
herself like her great goddess Isis. In Egyptian mythology,
typology, and symbology the celestial is primordial and continually
contains the clue to the terrestrial; the earthly is ever but the
image of the heavenly. Egypt has no Genesis, no Exodus, her rootage
cannot be traced back to any line. Her offspring is civilization.
"Divinest foresight could have found no fitter cradle for the
youthful race, no mere quickening birthplace for the early mind of
man, no mouthpiece more adapted, for utterance to the whole world.
. . . .fruitful and fertile for man and beast, Life was easy there
from the first."1
In Egypt the migratory instinct was fostered from most remote
times. Her colonies were scattered over the world, and the four
racial colors, black, red, yellow, and white--all blending into the
Egyptian types, are depicted on her
________
1 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. i, p. 21.

25

monuments.1 The antiquity of Egypt is traced by both occultists and
antiquarians for hundreds of thousands of years. In the Egyptian
"Book of the Dead" can be found indications of a greater knowledge
of the heavens than the astronomy of today can touch.
"Egypt below" was but a replica of "Egypt above." Her myths and
fables, founded on her astronomes, have been so misunderstood by
many interpreters, so torn to bits in attempts to make history out
of myths, that their identity is at times barely recognizable. Her
ancient Truths, traced back to their Sabean origins, find their
verification in "the Egypt that never dies." Primitive human
customs were interpreted and preserved in her mythology of the
heavens, and were carved deep in the hieroglyphic symbols of her
imperishable monuments, all held sacred and divine, as coming
direct from God. This mythology was later called the Word of God.
Door after door opens in an endless vista to those who are
earnestly seeking the sacred truths known of old.
The Egyptian "Book of the Dead," which is traced back to 4260 B.
C., years before the writing of the New Testament, has its
foundation in the lore of the heavens, and in poetical imagery
follows the path of the Sun through the different signs of the
Zodiac. Many phrases, many headings of the chapters of the New
Testament are similar to those in the "Book of the Dead." Egypt
originated calendars, the incorporation of stars into groups and
constellations and first recorded solar motions.
"But the greatest proof that the people of Egypt were the first
to give names to the stars, and to arrange them
________
1 "A pictorial representation is found on the tomb of Seti First
of four races of people arranged in groups of four men each. These
are the Hahsi (negroes); the Hemu, men of a light brown hue, with
blue eyes, the hair in a bag; the Tamahu, who are as fair as
Europeans; and the Rut, who are Egyptian." See Massey, Gerald--A
Book of Beginnings, Vol. i, p. 27.
The color of the skin does not depend on climatic conditions;
these modify but do not create.

26

into zones, by the circle of the spheres, is the name by which that
country itself has been known. It was called "Aegyptian" from its
being overflowed while the Sun was in the sign of the Goat. . . .
This name is compounded of "Aegis, a Goat; and OB, the swelling of
the River; and Tan, a Country; which makes, when put together,
Aegiptan; i.e., a country overflowed by the Goat; which agrees with
the original fact. But besides being called Egypt, and Aman, it was
called Mizeraim; from which distinguishing epithet we may conclude
it was a country whose people first gave the names to the Stars. .
. . It was the custom with the ancients to call those brilliant
points in the heavens, which we call Stars, by the name of fires. .
. . Thus, then, this country was acknowledged to be the first that
studied the stars, by its being called Mazreoth, or Mizeraim. It
has been sufficiently proved, by the union of the Tropics with the
circle formed by their Zenith, to be 40,000 years ago; or
thereabouts."1
The constellation of "The Thigh," which we know as the Great
Bear, was the primordial birthplace in the North, the oldest known,
and though mythical and type of the ancient Mother Typhon, has
become historical. The star Mitzar, which can be seen in the tail
of the Great Bear, had been definitely identified as the Mitzraim
of celestial Egypt, before it was given as a name to the land of
Egypt in Africa. Thus Mitzar, Mitzraim, Mazaroth and Mes-ru are the
witnesses above.
There is a fragment of ancient lore given in the Hebrew
scriptures which asserts that the line of Mitzraim comes from Ham,
or Kam, joined with Kush. Thus Mitzraim is the son of Ham (Kam) of
the black race, and the black race was the first on earth, just as
it was in prototype in the heavens. Mazaroth, in its Sabean origin,
meant the stars, the "Fires of Heaven," while Mes-ru is the
equivalent of the Hebrew Mitzr, plural Mitzraim. Mest is the
birthplace,
________
1 Mackey, S. A.--Mythological Astronomy.

27

and Ru the door, gate, mouth, or opening, thus Metz-ru is the
outlet from the birthplace, found in the constellation of the Great
Bear or "The Thigh," and called the "matrix of the world."
In Africa the days and nights are of equal length. A river
Euphrates is there, sacred and revered as the Nile that runs
through the land of Kush (Kam) the Paradise of mythology, the
Garden of Eden on earth. "A rabbinical geographer of the Fifteenth
Century says it is declared by the knowing ones (the Gnostics) that
Paradise is situated under the middle line of the world where the
days are of equal length."1
"If equatorial Africa be the human birthplace, it is there we
may expect to find the earliest localization of the paradise and
Eden of mythology, in the country from which issues the river that
runs through all the land of Kush. . . . Moreover there is an
African river Euphrates or Eufrates, the chief river in Whydah
(Hwida) which is still revered as the sacred stream, and a
procession in honor of it is made annually."2
Some of the early black settlers of India were Egyptian in type.
Black Buddhas are found there whose images are cast in the negro
mould. In H. P. Blavatsky's book, "Caves and Jungles of Hindustan,"
on page 134 an account is given of some subterranean temples of
India, not far from Chandova, known as Enkay-Tenkay, in which are
numerous idols ascribed to early Buddhists. "They all, from the
tiniest to the hugest, are Negroes, with flat noses, thick lips,
forty-five degrees of the facial angle, and curly hair!. . . . This
unexpected African type, unheard of in India, upsets the
antiquarians entirely. This is why the archaeologists avoid
mentioning these caves." It is the immense past of the Egyptian
that accounts for the persistence of type. Diana of Ephesus is of
negroid type, and is a representation
________
1 Sepher Hamunoth, f. 65, C. i. Stehelin, Vol. ii, p. 4.
2 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. ii, p. 602.

28

of the Great Mother. The Sphinx of Egypt, whose age is so great as
not to be discoverable, has the same flat nose and full thick lips
as the negro.
Many such instances point to the prime antiquity of Egypt, and
to the conclusion that Egypt may indeed have been the cradle of the
human race. It is undoubtedly the place where primitive typology is
to be sought and studied, and is the point where history and
mythological astronomy converge most closely.
The negroes were thought to be sons of the mythical Ham (Kam), a
Hebrew derivative of the Egyptian god called Sevekh Kronus, a
second phase of the son of the first mother, who, when he became
planetary, was Saturn, whose color is black. Astrologically the
planet Saturn is of the greatest importance to the negro race
today, because it indicates a bridging over to a new condition and
into an entirely new development which has to do with Africa, where
Saturn has always been peculiarly potent. Astrologically the
polarity of Saturn must be repolarized in Africa by the negro race.
Saturn can never reach its highest expression in the new cycle
except in its bridging periods, and also through the negro race,
that primitive people belonging to an immense past, with only a few
remnants of correlative races remaining.
The early races being dark, a certain stigma has been placed
upon them, and even to the present time, they are thought by some
not only to be born without souls, but past redemption and to be
excluded from the heaven of the Christians because they belong to a
period previous to the entrance of the Solar reckoning of time,
before the Fatherhood had been inaugurated.
This is a peculiarly provincial and grotesque opinion about the
earlier races to entertain at the present time.
A study of negro horoscopes will be of great interest, as Saturn
will be found to play a part in the new cycle, by evolving the
dregs of the old. Saturn has been a planetary

29

god, but will now become a planetary wet nurse. Saturn is a great
Ender and a great Hanger-on.
Ancient priests of Egypt prophesied through astral motion. All
prophecy is based on astrology. Egypt is passing through a period
of rebirth or resurrection, as it were, today, and as her ancient
astrological knowledge comes more and more to light, it emphasizes
the fact that history has been evolved from this ancient mythical
astrology, whose foundations were formed by natural phenomena
belonging to the symbolic and sacred writings evolved from the
heavens. These facts found in the heavens, which were astrological,
had absolute verification on earth long before history and religion
existed; and an avalanche of misinterpretations subsequently is due
to theology. The supernatural had very little in common with
primitive man, who lived close to nature, looking above and below
for his natural facts, which he found in phenomena.
Egypt is and has always been looked upon as a land of mystery
and Light. Out of her great past that looms through the mists, her
ancient carvings, her hieroglyphs, her history grows more and more
beautiful, and the farther back in time one goes in his research,
the more he finds of stimulating material for thought, by which is
revealed the wisdom of those who held a lifelong communion with
nature, and who left a heritage of nature myths, which have been
permitted gradually to slip away, through the mere apathy or
unnecessary ignorance of the people of today.
The mysteries of Egypt were never borrowed, but came direct from
the heavens.1 Their "Book of God" was built on the knowledge that
"The first law of nature is uniformity
________
1 The primordial hieroglyphic ideograph, upon which later
written characters, signs, etc., were founded, was the
constellation of the Great Bear. The Chinese taught that the origin
of writing was traceable to the markings on the back of the
tortoise, which was the Typhon symbol of that country. The Egyptian
and Akkadian hieroglyphics were developed from figures all
primarily taken from natural objects, which, as time went on, took
on symbolical meanings, and the pictorial writing forming the basis
of the cuneiform characters is unmistakably only a species of the
hieroglyphics.

30

in diversity, and the second, the analogy.--As above so below."1
Egypt had a marvelous past previous to the recording of the most
ancient classics. It may well be called the "wonder country" of the
world. There is an Arab proverb, "Let us know the first, although
the followers do better."
In the second volume of the Secret Doctrine, page 432, Maspero
is quoted as saying, "It is to this prehistoric race that belongs
the honor. . .of having formed the principal cities of Egypt and
established the most important sanctuaries," while Lenormant also
cites Egypt as "the country of the great prehistoric sanctuaries,
seats of the sacerdotal dominion, which played the most important
part in the origin of civilization." "Egypt has kept her records of
a past so great that 6,000 years ago certain parts of a book were
discovered as antiquities of which tradition had been lost."2
It is conceded by archaeologists that the further they pierce
into Egypt's night of time the more wonderful and finer become the
arts in which her people excelled. Writing was known and used
during the time of Menes. It has been proven that the wonderfully
decorated Greek vases are copies from the Egyptian, visible on the
walls of palaces and tombs of the time of Amenhept First, when
Grecian art was unknown. Beer was known as a beverage 2100 years B.
C. The introduction of gold between two pieces of glass existed;
also perfect imitations of precious stones. Music for healing
nervous disorders was used in their temples. They created the lyre
of twelve strings. On the walls of a palace at Thebes Amenhept is
seen playing chess with the queen. The antiquity of the game of
chess goes back to the Garden of Eden, or the North Pole.
Originally it was played by four people, representing the first
four quarters of the world. Iron was known 20,000 years ago. Egypt
was the cradle of chemistry. Alchemy was practiced in those days,
and was part of prehistoric magic. Linen bands wrapped about
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.
2 Deveria, M.

31

their mummies have been found a thousand yards in length without a
break. The mystery of the circulation of the blood, of dyes, of
enamels, are but a fragment of their knowledge. Egypt is indeed
"old and grey in her ancient wisdom."
"In the oldest times within the memory of man we know only of
one advanced culture, of only one mode of writing, and of only one
literary development, viz.: those of Egypt; and we know of only one
contemporary people who could have had knowledge of this culture,
appropriated its results, and conveyed them to other nations--this
was the Kushite, the masters of the Erythraean Sea to its furthest
limits. It was by them that Babylonia was colonized and fertilized
with Egyptian culture. . . . The astronomy of Babylonia is only a
development of that of Egypt. . . . . .its architecture (that is to
say, its temples as well as its pyramids and obelisks) is an
imperfect imitation of Egyptian originals; and so with the other
arts. At every step we meet in Babylonia with the traces of the
Egyptian models. . . ."1
A most accurate record of the movements of the stars and
planets, with their positions, was kept by the priests of Egypt,
extending over an incredible number of years, and their
predictions, based on the eclipses of the Sun and Moon, have been
faithfully recorded. In Egypt the only fixed and definite period
was astronomical, in her symbology the celestial was primordial and
continually contains the clue to the terrestrial; the earthly being
the image of the heavenly. It was through the astrological that the
ancients learned the meaning of the "Dynasties of the Gods."
Five hundred years before the reign of Menes, "Herodotus was
shown, by the priests of Egypt, statues of their human Kings, and
Pontiffs--piromis (arch-prophets, or Maha-Choans of the temples),
born one from the other, who had reigned before Menes, their first
human King. These statues were enormous colossi in wood, three
hundred and
________
1 Lepsius, Professor--Introduction to "Nubian Grammar."

32

forty-five in number, each of which had his name, his history and
his annals. And they assured Herodotus that no historian could ever
understand or write an account of these superhuman Kings, unless he
had studied and learned the history of the three dynasties that
preceded the human--namely, the DYNASTIES OF THE GODS, that of
demigods, and of the Heroes, or giants (Giants or Titans)."1
Similarity is found in every tradition of these divine races.
"All the classics support Herodotus in the knowledge of the Three
Divine Dynasties preceding the coming of the human race."2 It is
also noted by De Rouge, "In the Turin Papyrus. Most remarkable of
all, Champollion, struck with amazement, found that he had under
his own eyes the whole truth. . . . It was the remains of a list of
Dynasties embracing the furthest mythoic times, or the 'REIN OF THE
GODS AND HEROES'."
Herodotus claims that chronological observations were made by
the Egyptian Priests during a period of fifty-two thousand (52,000)
years. To cite Pandoros, "It is before the time of Menes that the
reign of the seven Gods who ruled the world, took place. . . . It
was during this period that those benefactors of humanity descended
on earth and taught men to calculate the course of the Sun, Moon
and Stars by the twelve signs of the Ecliptic." Creuzer writes, It
is "From the spheres of the stars, wherein dwell the Gods of Light,
that wisdom descends to the inferior spheres. . . . In the system
of the ancient Priests, all things without exception--gods, the
genii, manes (souls), the whole world, are conjointly developed in
Space and Duration. . . . The Pyramid may be considered as a symbol
of the magnificent hierarchy of Spirits."
Modern writers are prone to deny these ancient annals of the
Divine Dynasties, but the world is beginning to awaken to the
necessity of recognizing the truths found in ancient
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 369.
2 Bailly.

33

traditions, and feeling the need of sweeping away the cobwebs that
have been allowed to accumulate and hide them. Many of the great
truths remain, awaiting that revelation which will banish much of
the skepticism and doubt at present surrounding them.
It is through tradition that we first learn of Menes, and there
is much evidence that he existed as king, and was the connecting
link between the ancient Dynasties and the people of the Monumental
Period of Egyptian history. Astrologically, his era must have been
about four thousand five hundred and sixty B. C.1 Astrological
cycles give foundations for these divine Dynasties, while papyri
and other written evidences coincide with this celestial
chronology. The Bull and Mena of Egypt are traced to the time when
the spring Equinox was in the zodiacal sign Taurus, the Bull. The
name Mena is also identified with the Bull, Men-Apis, as the
celestial birthplace of the Sun, or Heliopolis. This "Bull of
Menes" and the Bull of Osiris, are the same which coincided with
the myth of Osiris, represented as the death of the Sun taking
place in the sign Scorpio, which is opposite to that of Taurus, the
Bull. Scorpio is the sign of night, darkness, death, while Taurus
is the sign of physical generation, Life. The Egyptians placed the
crocodile in this sign of darkness, Scorpio, when the crocodile's
symbolical meaning had been transformed into an evil thing or
condition. This occurred at the time of the degradation of the
ancient Mother, Typhon--when the male was elevated above the
female.
It was at this time that history emerged from mythology, and the
Pharaohs assumed the titles of Divinities, to whom temples were
built. It was not the human king that was worshipped, but through
the human that which was thought divine.
________
1 Menes' date is variously given as 5869 B. C. (Champollion);
5004 B. C. (Mariette); 4455 B. C. (Brugsch); 3893 B. C. (Lieblein);
5510 B. C. (Petrie); 3892 (Lepsius); 3623 (Bunsen).

34

The Egyptians, at the period when Menes reigned, had all the
knowledge and wisdom of the Atlanteans, whose sacred records had
been carefully preserved by their priests. It was from these
marvelous records that they got their extraordinary understanding
of the heavens.
Since Menes belongs to a period so far back in the range of
time, we only catch glimpses of him through the mists that reflect
the rainbow glory of Old Egypt. Sceptical or pessimistic delvers in
the ancient cults are eager to pronounce his existence fabulous,
while earnest, open-minded seekers and evolutionists are convinced
that he actually lived. Esotericism traces from Menes starting
points of the greatest value in many different countries.
The Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt was that of Sebek, and this God
was symbolized as Sebek-Ra by the Pharaohs. Sebek, a Star-god, was
the crocodile-headed God of Darkness and also typified the Dragon.
Tradition says that Sebek devoured Mena, which is a purely
astrological symbolism relating to the Precession, carrying us back
from Taurus, the Bull, to the sign Aries, the Ram, and introducing
him in a new Solar character as Sebek-Ra, the Ram-headed God of the
sign Aries, the Ram, who at this point was given his horns.
Sebek-Ra was the Solar form of Sut, the Star-god. His Shrine was at
Ombos, and he was an older form of Seb-Kronus (Time) and earlier
identified with Sut. Because of the changing of Time he manifested
as the Sun-god, and became the Lamb of Sacrifice at the approach of
the Piscene Manifestation. Sebek-Ra can also be seen "wearing the
head of a Ram on an erect Serpent," and became a type of Shu, who
in his ancient character is also seen with two horns. Shu in his
latest character is the planet Mars, ruler of the Zodiacal house of
the Ram. The Ram-headed in the Harris Papyrus is shown
manufacturing men on the Potter's Wheel.
The Egyptians picture a serpent standing upon two legs,
symbolizing a High Initiate, or Hierophant. Sometimes he

35

wears a disc with the Ram's horn upon his head. Similarly Moses is
given with the Ram's horns upon his head, shewing him to be an
Egyptian Initiate.
When Sebek-Ra became the young Sun-god, he was The Lamb, of
those who called themselves "Sebek-hepts." Hept means peace, rest,
plenty, etc., as well as the number seven. The Sebekhepts of the
13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Dynasties were the Shus-en-Hars, or
Hek-Shus, who were worshippers of the child and his mother as
Sut-Typhon. Sebek as the son of Typhon became her consort, thus
representing one of the first Trinities.
From earliest times, whatever sign the Equinoctial colure was
in, that sign represented the place of the manifestation of the Sun
above (or below) the horizon, so when Taurus, the Bull, receded to
Aries the Ram of Sebek-Ra, it brought about a change of the
birthplace of heaven.
The Egyptians expressed the place of birth, or re-birth of the
Sun, and its burial below, by saying, "The tomb of one life was
ever the womb of another." They built their cities accordingly, as
places of Resurrection.
When the Vernal Equinox receded from the sign Aries, the Lamb,
into Pisces, the Fishes, and when the Sun-gods were born under this
sign the Gnostics, or early Christians, who were versed in ancient
wisdom typified the Sun-gods as fishes.
Sacrificial types had existed under all the different signs into
which the Vernal Equinox entered during the Precessional Cycles,
and thus the Lamb became the sacrificial type under the sign Aries.
Before that, when the colure was in the sign Taurus, the Bull,
there was the sacrifice of the Bull, and before that, when in the
sign Gemini, the Twins, twins are known to have been sacrificed as
offerings to the Gods. Every type corresponded in Solar
Astronomical time. Through knowledge of these sequences of the
great Precessional periods of the world proofs are found of the era
of Menes, and the Divine Dynasties.

36

About twenty-eight thousand years ago, the Vernal colure was in
the sign of the Fishes, the zodiacal Pisces, and about two thousand
years ago occurred a period closely allied to it. The Precession of
the Equinoxes takes approximately 26,000 years to pass through the
twelve signs of the Zodiac--hence the Piscene Manifestation of two
thousand years ago. Since then a lunar dark period has intervened,
out of which the world is now emerging into one of great light, as
the Sun enters a new precessional cycle of the zodiacal sign
Aquarius, the "Light-Bearer." This Light will manifest fully ere
Aquarius recedes into the sign Capricorn, the Sea-goat.
The Fish symbol, adopted so frequently in early Christian
portraiture, did not originate in the Piscene period of two
thousand years ago, for the end of a Great Cycle renews itself in
the beginning of a new Great Cycle, although it is not always
clearly defined. The Fish symbol belonged to the Vernal Equinox of
28,000 years ago, and was that of a Messiah Son, who was born in
the sign of the Fishes, and whose Mother Goddess wore a fish on her
head. There were other Fish-Goddesses, who were given a fish tail
--imagery that belonged to that ancient time. And when the watery
sign of the fishes receded into another sign, fish became an
abomination, as fish out of water might presumably be. Fish now
belongs to the Lenten season, when it is used as food, and is given
an important place in the diet on Fridays, which is the day of the
planet Venus, astrologically in its elevation in the sign Pisces,
the Fishes.
All ancient myths, legends, and allegories were created by men
who dealt with Nature, and who were profoundly spiritual. This
cannot be repeated too often. It is through ignorant
misinterpretation of mythology that history became transformed into
so-called historic truths, and that the heavenly or celestial
births of the Sun-gods were irreverently perverted. But Truth,
however long obscured, invariably

37

comes to light. And through their mythical significance eternal
truths will be forever traceable to their pure primordial origins,
for they belong to the Stars--those silent, faithful watchers in
the heavens.

38

Celestial Ship of the North - [3] "IT IS IN THE MYTHICAL WE HAVE THE
TRUE"

@insert vultures drawing

VULTURES
In the temple at Karnak these Vultures armed with sacred and
divine emblems are carved above the naves of the hypo-style halls
and on the under sides of the lintels of the immense doors through
which the king must pass on his way to the sanctuary. They are the
Vultures of the goddesses Nekheb and Uati. The Vultures symbolized
the Mother and as a talisman were worn to attract motherly love and
protection.

39

40

CHAPTER III
"IT IS IN THE MYTHICAL WE HAVE THE TRUE"

Renouf, the Roman Catholic Egyptologist, says in the Hibbert
lectures, "We know that mythology is the disease that springs up at
a peculiar stage of human culture." Professor Max Muller teaches
and scatters broadcast the same idea--that mythology is a disease
of language, and further says that "The ancient symbolism was a
result of something like a primitive aberration." To this Gerald
Massey, the greatest of all Egyptologists, makes answer: "They can
conceive the early man in their own likeness, and look upon him as
perversely prone to self-mystification, or as Fontanelle has it
'subject to beholding things that are not there'. . . My reply is,
'Tis but a dream of the metaphysical theorist that mythology is a
disease of language, or of anything else except his own brain. The
origin and meaning of mythology have been missed altogether by
these solarites and weather-mongers. . . Mythology was a primitive
mode of thinking the early thought. It was founded on natural
facts, and is still verifiable in phenomena. There is nothing
insane or irrational in it, when considered in the light of
evolution, and when its mode of expression by sign language is
thoroughly understood. The insanity lies in mistaking it for human
history and Divine revelation. Mythology is the repository of man's
most ancient science, and what concerns us chiefly is this . . .
when truly interpreted once more, it is destined to be the death of
those false theologies to which it has given birth."
In his "Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern," Gerald Massey states:
"In modern phraseology a statement is sometimes said to be mythical
in proportion to its being untrue; but

41

the ancient mythology was not a system or mode of falsifying in
that sense. Its fables were the means of conveying facts; they were
neither forgeries nor fictions." Fortunately primitive man was not
a metaphysician; he was spared the "darkness of subjectivity,"
which has been called the modern disease, and which seems to
exclude the understanding of primitive man.
The beginnings of the mythology of the Akkadians and of the
Egyptians are definite and identical. The ancient method of
conveying facts was by mythology--a plain simple mode of
expression, and in no way occult. By placing oneself in touch with
this simple understanding of nature, at least a faint gleam may be
had of the mysteries of the now shadowy past. In that past,
diademed by the stars of heaven, sacred because celestial, began
the Generations of the Heavens, with the separation of the upper
from the lower, or, the separation of Light from Darkness. All
falsities found in the interpretation of the myths are due to their
having become literalized.
The gesture or sign language, supplementing sounds, was an
outcome of the image-making faculty of primitive man. It revealed
his ideas, sensations, and experiences. It was thought, visualized,
a reflected mental expression before the development of words, and
became permanent in typology. The earliest method of representing
things, conditions, or Gods was through types, or typology. Kings
and prominent personages were worshipped or glorified under various
types, or symbols, which conveyed the idea of certain powers. Thus
the lion was the personification of strength and vigilance; the
eagle was the "Golden Bird that soared aloft fearlessly in the
flame of the Sun;" the serpent was the "Image of Eternity;" the
lightning held the sting of Death; and the Sun was "emblem of Life
and Light."
Primitive thought dealt with things known and recognized, and in
expressing it, the people dealt with simple things, which later
were introduced into the mysteries. The

42

type of them symbolized what had not yet been given a name. In this
way, the cat became the symbol of the Moon, because it saw in the
dark, and its eyes were luminous at night. But when in course of
time it became known that the Moon was the reflection of Solar
Light, the cat's eye became the type of the Sun, because it
reflected the Solar Light, as the eye gives back its image in its
mirror. "In its form as the goddess Pasht, it keeps watch for the
Sun with its paw holding down and bruising the head of the serpent
of darkness, which was called the Sun's enemy. The eye of the cat
was also very symbolical as a timekeeper. The Egyptians say that
the male cat changes the shape of the pupil of its eye according to
the course of the Sun. In the morning, at the rising of the
Sun-god, they are dilated; in the middle of the day they become
round, and about sunset appear less brilliant."1
A statue of a god in the City of the Sun was in the form of a
cat. When a transformation of the solar god was made into a cat,
the "Book of the Dead" said, "He makes the likeness of Seb," and
Seb was god of Time. A timepiece made in the form of a cat is still
in use by the Chinese, who employ the eye of a cat, according to
the size of its pupil, to determine time.
We find in the Egyptian mythology of the heavens definite
creations, their formation often being in accordance with the
character of the cycle and the division of the circle. In the "Book
of Enoch" are the words, "I behold the secrets of Heaven and of
Paradise, according to its divisions." The first division was that
of the Celestial Waters, from which the seventy-two duo-decans of
the Zodiac were finally evolved. Mythical Astrology was purely
Egyptian, originating from a primal source whose chief types came
from the constellations and stars. Hindu, Arabian, Chaldean and
Greek systems agree on this point. Ancient countries were very
close to each other in the knowledge and wisdom found in the
________
1 Hor Apollo.

43

heavens, as well as in many other ways. There was a time when
temples of astrological knowledge were scattered all over the
world--in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and in America. This was a
time when the myth of the Sun and the Dragon was sacred, and
belonged to a symbolical worship.
As types the Dragon and the Serpent were interchangeable, but
distinguishable. The Serpent, astronomically connected with the Sun
and spiritually with Wisdom, has been found portrayed in the
planisphere, scribbled or carved on rocks, in caves, or on
monuments all over the world. The Serpent symbol was the most
spiritual of all. It stood for physical regeneration and
immortality. It should be remembered that Moses was an Egyptian
Initiate, and knew the Wisdom of the Serpent.
A mythical and symbolical method of reasoning appears far back
in the distant vistas of time, before the words or language of any
people were known. Early beginnings were found in the heavens.
Knowledge of the Kamite Serpent of Millions of Years was one of the
first concepts. This was the seven-headed primordial Serpent of
Darkness, whose seven heads were the Seven Constellations in the
North, discovered as the makers of a circle as they turned around
the Pole which was anterior to the myths and symbols founded on the
Constellation Draco, the Dragon or Serpent, with its seven heads,
or seven stars, which belonged to the Constellation of the Little
Bear, and was joined to Draco in early reckonings.
This same Constellation Draco was also called the Crocodile,
which figures so largely in all mythological astrology, and as the
Crocodile was a type of Sunset and Sunrise. The tip of its tail as
Sunset was called Kam (black), while its two eyes represented the
Sunrise. This conforms to the natural fact, as the crocodile comes
out of the darkness at sunrise, lies on the sands during the
daytime, and at night, when it disappears in the water, the last
seen of it is the tip of its tail, which thus became the ideograph
of darkness.

44

This is the same Dragon, or Crocodile which was placed in the
mountains of the West or at Sunset in the Akkadian myth, and
because of its great jaws, was said to swallow the Lights, the Sun,
Moon and Stars. The Constellation Hydra--called the Dragon of the
Waters, below--and the Constellation Draco of the waters,
above--representing "Overwhelming Darkness"--were interchangeable.
"Out of the darkness leapt the lightning bolt, and in the deep
waters lurked another subtle foe of life. Thus the jaws and fangs
and sting of death were assigned to the devil of darkness, who
gradually assumed the character of man's mortal enemy, that brought
death to the world."1 It is difficult to realize that the
Constellation Draco, or the Serpent belonging to the myths of the
past became personified as the devil of theology.
The Scarab, or Beetle, was held very sacred, and seemingly born
of itself, and from itself, was given the title of "The Only
Begotten." In the month of June, or Mesore, at the rising of the
river Nile, this creature rolls its egg into a little ball which it
stows away, to await birth. Mesore means also re-birth, and was the
name given to the Zodiacal sign Cancer, which marked the month of
transformation, re-birth, and new beginning. A lunar symbol was
created from the Beetle or Scarab, as it was said to deposit its
seed and then leave it for twenty-eight days (typical of the
mystical Moon of nature) and on the twenty-ninth day the little
seed-ball opened and life was renewed. On this day the Moon came to
the conjunction of the Sun, and then reappeared, resurrected into a
new life. So the beetle below transformed into a new life just as
the Moon above coming to conjunction with the Sun in the chart of a
native, was said mystically to give re-birth to the Christos
within.
The sacred Beetle and the Crocodile because of their connection
with the inundation were considered most important in Egypt. "They
were prognosticators of the height of the
________
1 Massey, Gerald.

45

coming waters of the Nile; wherever their eggs were laid, would be
the utmost limit to which the waters would rise that year. For, not
being able to lay their eggs in the water, and being afraid to lay
them far from it, they have so exact a knowledge of futurity that
though they enjoy the benefit of the approaching stream at their
laying and hatching, they preserve their eggs dry and untouched by
the water."1
The Serpent was the type of renewal, and an emblem of
immortality. Among South African races there was a belief that the
spirits of dead ancestors came in the shape of serpents. The
ancestral spirit, that preceded the individual later ancestors,
became an ideograph of the serpent that transformed and renewed
itself.
The caterpillar and the serpent became types of the stealthy
crawling which was a necessity to early man. The Tadpole was an
ideograph of Millions by reason of the fecundity of the frog. In
England at one time when children were wanted a frog was swallowed
by the woman.
The Sow was a very sacred symbol, and type of the Great Mother
because she represented the multimammalian mother, the
many-breasted nourisher and Giver of Life. She was also a destroyer
of snakes, which run away from her. The Ibis was also a great
destroyer of snakes, and was therefore held in honor. For a person
to destroy a snake was a crime punishable by death in Egypt. The
Ibis was given to Taht, the Moon-god, who was the Egyptian god of
medicine, because of her internal purging and cleansing of herself.
So very fastidious was this bird that it would never go near
unwholesome water. The priests watched the Ibis to see from which
pool of water or river it would drink in order that they might take
thence the water to be used for their sacred ceremonies and
lustrations. Taht as the great Hermes was supposed to watch over
the Egyptians in the form of an Ibis and to teach them the occult
sciences.
________
1 Plutarch--Of Isis and Osiris.

46

Primitive peoples believed in and held in great reverence
divination by birds. The Christians hold the Dove sacred today as a
symbol of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. The Turtle Dove was a
symbol of Spirit, of Fire. Our North American Indians, the Hurons,
believed the souls of their dead friends became Turtle Doves. Hor
Apollo tells us that the Vulture was a symbol of the Mother. There
being no male Vulture, the female became impregnated by the wind,
which was called the Holy Ghost. This bird was a symbol of the
primal Virgin Mother. The white Vulture, found in the heavens as
the Constellation Aquila, the Eagle, is one of the paranatellons of
the sign Scorpio, and was connected with the myth of Prometheus.
The Vulture denoted Foreknowledge. "The Vulture indicated the place
of the Sun or Solar Fire, in the abyss of the inferior hemisphere,
the Fire that Prometheus was fabled to have snatched from heaven."
The mouse was especially reverenced for its blindness, as it
typified the Darkness, and became the subject of many a curious
tale. In Germany it was considered a symbol of the human soul. In
Egypt the mouse was a type of the early god Horus, as a first
condition of soul. Blood as a second condition was given to the
Hawk, symbol of breath.1 The Hawk was said to drink only blood,
never water, for the soul was sustained by blood. Blood and breath
were considered the primary elements or souls of life. The mouse
came to represent the soul of flesh, or the mother soul. When the
future life of Horus was being gestated, he was shut up in the
Meshkin, or Holy Shrine, place of annihilation or transformation,
and was symbolized by the Red Mouse. "The Mouse typified the
mystery of shutting up the red source of
________
1 In Germany where both rats and mice were thought to represent
the human soul, there is the story of a little red mouse creeping
out of the mouth of a sleeping child. It being difficult to arouse
her, she was taken to another place. On the return of the little
red mouse, not being able to find the child, he disappeared and
with his disappearance the child died.--(Told by Baring Gould in
Curious Myths, Vol. ii, p. 159.)

47

life, the flesh-maker, which was looked upon as the first factor in
biology."1
A superstition existed among Mexican women to the effect that
when the Moon was in eclipse there was danger that a woman's coming
child might be turned into a Mouse. Astrologically the Moon in
eclipse is fatal to gestation.
In Egypt the Hawk was reverenced as the personification of
Light, and the Mouse, because of its blindness, represented the
Darkness preceding light. In England the little blind Shrew Mouse
was sacrificed for purposes of healing. The little animal was
placed alive in a hole made in a tree and the ailment for which it
had been sacrificed was said to disappear with the remains of the
mouse. To denote "Disappearance" a mouse was used. Horus
disappeared in the "Shut-In" place, the "Hidden Shrine," that his
transformation might take place. The little shrew or blind Mouse
was adopted as a symbol of the Hidden Shrine, which was always the
place of re-birth of the Solar God. The Sun disappeared into the
Hidden Shrine in the West--the dark, to be born anew on the horizon
of the East as the child of Light, called the Sun of the
Resurrection. The resurrection is astronomical and Kronian, and
occurs at the end of all cycles.
In early mythical astrology the constellation of the Great Bear
as Mother Nature was represented in various ways and by different
symbolical names, among which are Rerit, the Sow, the Plough, the
Sword, Khepsh, the Ass, the Aan. All typified the great Mother
Typhon, called the "Almighty One" of the North, though later
denounced by the solarites as an abomination, because she was too
slow in her revolutions. They therefore called her "Sluggish Animal
of Satan." As Rerit, the Hebrew Lilith, she was Adam's first wife,
though it was Eve, his second wife, according to the Hebrew
version, who was said to have caused the fall from Paradise by
listening to the Serpent.

The Welsh, like the Egyptians, had their orders of Priests
________
1 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 48.

48

known as Diviners. The Welsh bards called their Diviners "SYW" and
the Egyptian Priests called theirs "Shaau," both terms being
identified with the Sow. The British Keridwen took the character of
HWCH, also meaning a Sow, and HWCH was a magician, similar to the
Greek Hecate. It was thought that pigs see the wind, and so they
were made to represent the divining faculty. The Plough was named
from this animal, the Sow, which ploughs the ground with its snout,
while the constellation in the heavens makes the circuit of the
Pole by ploughing through the stars and creating the furrows of
heaven.
The Sow was a primordial keeper of time, and has remained as a
timekeeping sacrifice once a year in many parts of the world. In
ancient times they had Sow-days. In Egypt once a year a sow was
sacrificed to the Moon and Isis. We hear of owners of herds of
swine sacrificing one of their herd on a certain day every year,
and there is still the custom of sacrificing pigs or sows at Easter
and Christmas.
Leprosy is mystically said to be the result of drinking the
Sow's milk, i. e., the Sow, meaning Lilith, or the Forbidden Fruit.
The Sword as the Flaming Sword, that turned every way, was the
Sword of the Four Corners, or the Cardinal points of the world, and
as the Crooked Sword or Sickle was a symbol of the planet Saturn,
called the Scythe of Time. In Egyptian it was called Khepsh, one of
the names of the constellation of the Great Bear. In the Denderah
planisphere it was symbolized by the leg of a Hippopotamus
indicating The Thigh, the original birthplace in Heaven. When
Saturn was represented as a God, a crown was placed upon his head,
endowing him with majesty, and making him a Judge of the Court of
Justice, held at the time of Reaping, the Harvest time, the Golden
Age, of Justice. Saturn has remained a symbol of Justice down to
the present day.
Khepsh, as the Constellation, making the circle of the Pole,
created the Garden of Eden, with the Pole at the

49

center as the Tree of Life. This Eden was made the home of the
Biblical Adam and Eve, who in ancient mythology were represented by
the Constellations of the two Bears. Adam became one with Sevekh,
the manifestor of the seven stars of the Little Bear, and Eve
became one with Kefa, the manifestor of the Seven Stars of the
Greater Bear of early Sabean days. These two were the outcast gods
of these constellations, but were later re-created as human beings.
The Fall was from the Sabean Star to the Lunar Moon time, to a
lower heaven, called Adamah in Genesis and not to earth.
The Ass in ancient mythology was a symbol of great importance.
The Ass originally typified the deity of the Dog-Star, then known
as Sut, son of the Typhonian Mother, who had the honor of rearing
this first child in heaven. The Ass, having long ears, became the
"Hearer," and was known as the "Utterer," and the "Sayer of Great
Words." The "Book of the Dead" says, "The Great Words are spoken by
the Ass." It was said mystically that the Ass once carried
immortality into heaven, but sold it to the Serpent.
"The Rabbins say that Moses, when in the presence of the burning
bush, was bidden to put off his shoes because they were made of the
hide of the Ass." This is of course symbolical. In Egyptian, the
Hebrew Jah, Iao or Ieu, mean an Ass, type of the Sabean Sut, who
was the earliest El, son or Sun. An ideograph of an Ass's head was
the equivalent of a period of time and of a cycle.
Moses brought from Egypt to the Israelites a Solar God
Jah-Adonai, which provides a reason for his "taking off" his shoes
in the presence of the Sun-god, Jehovah, who was the Sabean, Sut.
The Ass was also an ideographic hieroglyph of the number Thirty,
symbol of a luni-solar month, its numerical value bearing relation
to the month of thirty days, which was divided into the three weeks
of ten days each in the year of twelve months. Twenty-eight days of
the Moon period belonged to Sut-Typhon. When later thirty days were
allowed to the Moon, the period was called Sut's resurrection,

50

and then by the changing of the Sabean and Lunar periods to Solar
reckoning, Saturday, which was Sut's day, was converted into
Sunday, the day of the Sun. This number thirty signifying thirty
years of a celestial period, was assigned to the planet Saturn. The
triple phase of the Moon of thirty days connoted by 3X10 was
represented as the three-legged Ass, found in Persian Scriptures,
from which many myths of the trinities were created which later
became histories.
The Ass as a lunar symbol belonged to the night side of myths
and manifested great strength in the struggle with Darkness, the
enemy of Light. We find the Ass bearing the Sun, which she carries
between her two ears, also hauling it along with ropes, pictured as
vines. In the Twelfth Century she was made to assume the name Iu,
the original Sut, the Star-god, who became the Sun-god, and bears a
very close relation to the Hebrew deity Jehovah.
The Ass, when type of the full Moon, was the Mother. The waning
Moon was the impubescent son, and as the New Moon was the youth,
the "Lord of Light," who became the Solar Sun-god, or Messiah,
re-born from the Moon. In the ancient myth the Great Mother,
typified as the Ass, carried the "Messiah" of the mysteries, the
coming "New Light." In ancient trinities a Messianic child was
always the Light of the Moon, whose Father was the hidden source in
the underworld and whose Mother was the Moon who brought him forth.
Our word Head is the Egyptian Hut, and the winged Hut was a
symbol of the Sun. A horse's head was typical of Hut and the
Constellation Pegasus. The Sun about 5,000 years ago entered this
sign at the Winter Solstice, and when it began to mount was called
the Winged Horse. "Uttara-Bhadrapada is the twenty-seventh lunar
mansion in the Hindu Asterisms, partly in Pegasus. This was the
point at which the Sun began to mount, hence the Winged Horse."
Hut was the good demon overcoming the powers of darkness, and
became a substitute for the Ass of Typhon. In the

51

Hebrew myth we find the Ass, used instead of the horse to carry the
young hero Shiloh. The Jews are charged with preserving the symbol
of the Ass Head until a late period. Sut as the Messiah was
identified in Rome as the Egyptian IU. The Jews were certainly
Suttites from the very beginning, and even after 200 B. C. they are
known to have worshipped the Golden Head of an Ass. Zechariah's
death and dumbness were due to his vision in the temple which he
had entered to make offering of incense, and in which he saw a man
standing in the form of an Ass. Epiphanius writes that this was the
cause of his death, for when Zechariah came out of the temple and
through surprise would have disclosed what he had seen his mouth
was stopped. When he had it in his mind to say to the people--"Woe
unto you, whom do you worship," he who had appeared to him in the
temple took away his power of speech. Afterwards, when he had
recovered his speech, he declared what he had seen to the Jews, and
they slew him. "They (the Gnostics) add to this, that on this very
account the high priest was commanded by the law-giver (Moses) to
carry little bells, that whensoever he went into the temple to
sacrifice, he whom they worshipped, hearing the noise of the bells,
might have time enough to hide himself, and not be caught in that
ugly shape and figure."
The Cynocephalus, characterized as the Egyptian Dog-headed Ape,
was one of the earliest known of the sacred animals, and because of
its relation to the heavens, is of unusual interest. It also
belongs to the original Seven Sacred Stars of the mystic Seven of
the Constellation the Great Bear, and to the Lunar god Taht, who
was the deity of "Utterance" as well as "The Oracle of the Gods."
The Cynocephalus was honored in many temples in connection with the
Moon which it resembled in its feminine period and became a
reckoner of time under the name of Aan, and as the Kaf-Monkey its
ideograph is found amongst the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian temples.
Aan was a representation of the Moon in the

52

northern heavens, a lunar feminine type of the Great Mother from
which all proceeded, and was a Giant type of Soul. Kaf was a type
of the star-god Shu (Mars), who was one of the earlier determiners
of Time, and was also a type of one of the first elementaries, the
Wind, Air or Breath, and of Conception. Later the Cynocephalus
became the Genii of wind of the four corners. These are legends,
and many of them, of men being turned into monkeys as the result of
great hurricanes that had taken place. There is an African
superstition that men are changed into monkeys after death.
The Cynocephalus had a close symbolical connection with the
conjunction of the Sun and Moon,1 for it is said that during the
dark quarter of the Moon, which is loss of light, this animal goes
blind, and neither eats nor sleeps, but that when the New Moon
appears, it stands erect, with its paws uplifted, and is depicted
with a diadem upon its head, as it sings praises for the coming of
the Light. It was from this cry, at the coming of the Light, this
soul-given cry of rejoicing, that the sounds given in the scale of
music were evolved. Of this Darwin writes, "It is a remarkable fact
that an Ape, one of the Gibbons, produces an exact2 octave of
musical sounds, ascending and descending the scale of half tones."
The Ape, being an imitator, was used as a symbol of the
Transformer. In consequence of this, the Ape was confused with the
spirits of the dead, although it bore no relation to those
invisible spirits of the air, whose aeolian melodies were played by
the wind, giving rise to the magic harps. From these spirit
melodies the Eastern peoples deduced architectural forms.
________
1 In Champollion's "Pantheon Egyptien" plates or disks are to be
seen painted in brilliant colors in which the Cynocephalus wore
blue at the head and red at the tail, symbols of the dual lunation.
The disk at the tail signified the Aan, as the waning Moon.
Aesculapius had The Dog for companion (dogs were offered him), so
had the Cynocephalus of Hermes. Sirius was the Fire Dog of the
summer solstice, which rose heliacally with the Sun. All meet as
one in the Dog-Star, the Sabean Sut (Saturn), later the planet
Mercury.
2 And the monkey "alone of brute mammals may be said to
sing."--(Prof. Owen, "Descent of Man--Origin of the Scale in
Africa.")

53

Spirits were known as Breaths. Vowels as we know them are
Breaths, and the correct utterance of the vowels belonged to the
mysteries of Egypt as well as of India. Chanting of the vowels by
the Priests of the temples was a very ancient form of religious
service. They were chanted with solemnity often with great secrecy
and were thought most sacred. These "Breathing Utterances" were
chanted by the Egyptian priests as a hymn addressed to Serapis.
These vowels were the seven primary sounds, from which all others
were evolved and were finally ascribed to the planets. "These seven
tones in the musical scale are given as Sit, to the Moon; Ut
applies to Mercury; Re, to Venus; Mi, to the Sun; Fa, to Mars; Sol,
to Jupiter; and La to Saturn when making the Music of the Spheres,
and seven is also the number of the Moon, whose changes occur every
seven days."1
Chnuphis, identical with the Ophite Serpent, is portrayed
raising itself aloft, with seven rays darting from its crown, every
ray tipped with a vowel. These rays also represent the seven days
of the week, and the planets. It is said of this seven-lettered God
that he was the true and perfect Serpent, Jehovah, and that the
chanting of his name was for the seeker and inquirer of the sacred
wisdom. Vowels were symbolical of the life principle, and when a
name contained all the vowels it was especially connected with
Divinity, the Giver of all Life. The Agathodaemon, endowed with
knowledge of good and evil, was the symbol of divine wisdom and was
the Christos of the Gnostics, and became the Spiritual Sun of
Enlightenment and Wisdom.
In the Pistis Sophia Jesus asks, "Do you seek after these
mysteries? No mystery is more excellent than the seven vowels, for
they shall bring your soul into the Light of Lights. Nothing,
therefore, is more excellent than the mysteries which ye seek
after, saving only the mystery of
________
1 Dupuis--Tom 1, p. 75, authority.

54

the seven vowels and their forty-nine Powers, and the number
thereof."
The Mantrams of India attain their full power in sound. "The
most potent and effective magic agent, and the first of the keys
which open the door of communication between mortals and the
Immortals." Anyone who hears these Mantrams intoned will realize
their awe-inspiring sacredness, which must bring a stirring of the
heart, and a great spiritual quickening even to the unbeliever.
The seven vowels were consecrated to the seven principal
planets, and every planet in its revolution represented a sound,
the seven together forming a wondrous harmony. "It is on number
seven that Pythagoras composed his doctrine on the Harmony and
Music of the Spheres, calling 'a tone' the distance of the Moon
from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence
to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun 1 1/2 tones; from the Sun
to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter 1/2 a tone; from Jupiter to
Saturn 1/2 a tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making
seven tones--the diapason harmony. All the melody of nature is in
those seven tones, and therefore is called 'the Voice of Nature'."1
Although there are countless varieties of musical instruments,
all are reducible to three types. Prehistoric music passed through
three developments--the Drum, the Pipe, and the Lyre; "Rhythm,
Melody and Harmony."
The name Mes, meaning Mass, has as its hieroglyph a cake of
earth. A cake, product of the water, was called Mesi, which was
eaten as Bread belonging to the Mass, and this finally became the
wafer, used in religious ceremonies today. This Mes, or Mass,
produced from the mud which had become caked from being massed in
water, was used in ancient Egypt, and virtually under the same
name, and was made typical of primeval land. Mes was also a name of
the Abyss. The reeds growing in the marshes and along the
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 601.

55

water channels of the river Nile were the Egyptian plants Byblos
and Papyrus, from which we have the words Bible and Paper.
The color Green was very sacred as a symbol of re-birth, type of
immortality, and resurrection from the earth. These types, a few of
which have been given, will unlock many doors to understanding of
primeval man's outlook on life. He reverenced that great mystery
Birth and his unquestioning belief in re-birth as he looked to the
constellation of the Great Bear, the northern heavens, as that
point of commencement typified to him the first Great Mother of all
time. Philo, the most illustrious of his race, an Initiate of the
Mysteries, said, "It is in the mythical we have the true," and not
in the literal version where so much is false. The mis-reading of
mythology, upon which theology is founded, has resulted in
obscured, beclouded, chaotic, ubiquitous confusion filled with
religious falsehoods.
Research points to Egypt as the source of primitive astronomical
beginnings. Her early namings were often mystical, but divine in
meaning because celestial. They were transformed into the
physiological. Many imperishable proofs are found in her "myths and
fossils of language, which constituted the geology of prehistoric
times," says Gerald Massey, greatest of Egyptologists, who claimed
that the common center of primeval unity is found in Africa, womb
of the human race, with Egypt as its outlet into the world.

56

@insert line drawing EGYPTAN SYMBOLICAL HEAD-DRESS

The above illustration shows one of the head-dresses worn by the
Egyptian gods and goddesses. The two tall feathers crowning the
solar disk, symbolized upper and lower heaven. Two feathers also
denoted the Two Truths of Light and Shade and were symbolical of
Breath and Spirit.

57

Celestial Ship of the North - [4] Dualities

CHAPTER IV
DUALITIES

The true inner meaning of certain ancient myths has been
obscured by the lapse of time, and by reason of later retouchings
which have worked undeniable harm. But the original myths are
always reliable, and will withstand the tests of ages, they were
not born from civilization, nor from the mind of man, but were the
reaction of human cognition to divine impulse. Mythology commenced
with the measuring and distinguishing of periods. The Egyptians
were worshippers of Nature; the Greeks reveled in Beauty; the
Romans demanded Law; and the Northern races reverenced Courage.
Greek interpretations profusely set forth their ideals of beauty,
which caused Philo to complain, saying, "They brought a mist upon
learning making the discovery of truth almost impossible." Plato
becomes misleading when he called Time "the moving image of
eternity," for the "foundation of the image is in planetary and
stellar motion." He also, "in the foundations of the visible, tries
to establish all that was invisible." "The decadence of mythology
is to be found in the Greek poetizing, the Hebrew euhemerizing, and
the Vedic vagueness, where in India the myths have been vaporized"
is the discerning judgment of Gerald Massey, and, as he says,
"Poets play with shadows but mythology was the primitive way of
conveying facts."
Ancient mysteries, the oral "dark sayings of old," were
whispered lip to ear in the adyta because they contained the wisdom
sacredly guarded from the ignorant. When theology succeeded myth
these became the Sayings--Logia of the exoteric church.
Myth--Mythos and Mythology--derived from the Greek Mythos meant and
were equivalent to Logos.

59

The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere. She was the
Holy Spirit, the first word God spoke, His message to man, His
revelation. The Sayings, or Logia, in Egypt were later assigned to
Taht the Moon-god, the Sayer or Utterer of Divine Words, who was
reckoner and registrar of truth in the hall of Double Truth and
Double Justice. A study of ancient typology shows that it laid
stress upon duality, the "Two Truths" of all life.
The dual aspect of life, the Law of Opposites, lies at the root
of all Egyptian thought. The beginning was simply the Oneness1 that
opened in giving birth. The act of opening brought about duality.
The Constellation of the Great Bear, which appears under so many
types and names, was the matrix of the North, the opener, the
Female. From Darkness came the Light, from the Circle came the
Cross. Nowhere is duality more beautifully expressed than in
Egyptian mythology or mythical astrology, for primitive man looked
for inspiration and truth to the heavens. Nothing was so mystical
in Egypt that it could not be traced to its origin, for everything
there was typical.
An old Jewish tradition says that man was born of both sexes. In
the beginning all ancient Gods were bi-sexual, and from the early
Oneness, or the Mother, emerged the Child. Sex was originally
denoted in the gesture or sign language. Following this came
duality in the image, which can be found in the Sphinx, the
Centaur, and many others. One of the Pharaohs was known to wear the
tail of a lioness behind, so that he might thus express duality,
added power.
Africa is the land of equal day and night which in her
Astrological Mythology were divided into day and dark, the North
and South, or Life and Death. Water and Breath were known as the
regulators of all life and existence. Water was the Mother Source
that brought about all crea-
________
1 "All veritable Beginning in typology, mythology, numbers and
language can be traced to the Opening of a Oneness, which divides
and becomes dual in its manifestation."--Massey, Gerald--The
Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 137.

60

tion. Breath and Soul were synonymous. Biologically the mystical
Water of Life was Blood--Breath--fire. Water and Breath, as Blood
and Fire, were symbolic of the male and the female. Adam1 was
called the "Blood of the World," or the feminine Source. Blood was
called the Adamic Soul which was the mystical Water or Matter of
Life, the Red Earth of mythology. Adam is Red. The Virgin Earth is
Red, from which we have the name Adam, who in Egypt was Atum. Red
Earth was primordial matter. The Red Sea was the Egyptian Red Lake
of primordial matter. In the Semitic languages Blood was simply
Blood, Wine is called the blood of the grape, but the first wine in
its mystical meaning was the "Blood of the Tree of Life," and the
Great Mother was imaged as the Tree. The Greek Ouranus is derived
from the Egyptian Urnas, representing the Celestial Waters. "The
Waters of Ouranus or Urnas is the celestial water of life, i. e.,
Blood. Ur is the water or oil for anointing, really blood."
The dew of life and the dew of heaven, breath and spirit, are
dew condensed from breath. Rock crystal was supposed to be formed
from dew, and was accounted sacred. The heavens were said to be
formed by the rising of the vapor from the Abyss of Darkness, the
celestial water and breath.
The duality of upper and lower heaven is indicated as Breath or
the constellation Scorpio and as Water in that of the Crocodile.
The Scorpion is a sign of number 6, as well as Scorpio (Serk),
meaning to breathe. The Scorpion is said to have 6 eyes. Breath and
the number six are identical in the Zodiacal sign Taurus, the ruler
of which, Venus, is number six. Taurus and Scorpio polarize each
other in the Zodiac. A passage in the "Book of the Dead" reads, "I
am like the Sun in the Gates--I give the breath of life to

________
1 There is a symbolical relationship between the two Adams of
the Bible, one the man of Red earth and the other the heavenly man,
or earth and heaven. The humanizing of Adam through the Fall was
the descent of the soul into matter in one interpretation, or
heaven brought down to earth, but originally it was due to the
stars that "came not in their proper season."

61

Osiris. I have come like the Sun through the Gate of the Sun-goers,
otherwise called the Scorpion." Scorpio is the eighth gate in the
Zodiac, the gate of darkness, opening into life everlasting.
Our American Quiche have the duality of wind (breath) and water.
In their myth of the Four Ancestors, which were four forms of
spirit or breath, they represented the four elements as
male--breath, air, fire, and water--said to be created by the air
in motion. Their four wives, mothers of the human race, were forms
of water, as Beautiful Water, Falling Water, Water of Serpents and
Water of Birds.
In the New Testament there are the two baptisms, one by water
and one by fire, or as Justin says, "Fire kindled in the River
Jordan."
In the duality of Light and Shade, or light and its negation,
dark, are found the two primaries in which all colors blend.
There are the two solstices, north and south. Two stars or
constellations are connected with this division and are known as
the "Lawgivers" of the Zodiac, Kepheus in the north and Regulus in
the south. The sign Libra, or the scales, when placed at the
equinoctial level as a connecting link between the two heavens, is
also an emblem of the Two Truths, and of the spiritual birth from
above and the physical birth from below.
The Chinese have two primal principles called Yang and Yin, male
and female, or father heaven and mother earth. They were originally
known as Light and Shadow. They also had their two waters or rivers
in the valley of Han, which is the Egyptian Aan, the Fish. It was
in this valley that the mythical "Yellow Emperor" of China received
the ancient Dragon Writings from the river Ho, and the Tortoise
Writings from the river Lo. These two waters can be found in the
planisphere as the double stream of Aquarius.1 One of the myths
speaks of a mist which hung over
________
1 An ancient name of the birthplace is found in this double
stream of Aquarius.

62

the river for three days and nights, and when it lifted the Emperor
saw a great Fish, to which he made sacrifice, and as it swam out to
sea, he discovered and secured the mysterious map writings. This
Fish was probably the royal star Fomalhaut. Fomalhaut means the
Mouth of a Fish, and is found in Pisces Australis, a paranatellon
of Aquarius.
Among the primitive types of the old Great Mother are found the
Fish, the Crocodile, and the Water-cow, all of which are said to
"bring forth writing from the mouth," i. e., The Word, the Logos.
In a Maori myth the center of the heaven, was a point of
commencement, hence their custom of dividing a fish found stranded
on the beach. It must be divided through the middle of the backbone
and distributed to their chiefs. This divided fish harks back to
the one fish of the ancient birthplace of the primordial division,
which has come down to us as the two fishes of the Zodiacal Pisces.
When the Solar Zodiac was formed, Pisces became the Solar
birthplace, as the outlet from the Abyss. Semiramis was a
fish-tailed goddess who brought forth her child from the water. The
child Vishnu issues from the mouth of a fish holding in his hand
The Word, rescued from the waters. Rama in Egyptian means both Fish
and Throat, hence the issuing of the Word, the Logos, which in
celestial allegory means From Above. Rama was a name of the river
Tiber, the birthplace of the twins Romulus and Remus, and the Mitre
worn by the Pope of Rome represents the Fish's Mouth.
The Tree, Serpent, and Water are basic sources whence spring
many myths. To several races they represented the supreme type of
Deity. In a Russian fable a Flying Serpent brings two great heroes
to the borders of a lake, into which they throw the fresh green
branch of a Tree. As it touches the water it bursts into flames and
is quickly consumed. Going to another lake they throw into it an
old or decayed branch of a tree, which contacting the water
immediately

63

becomes a mass of beautiful blossoms. When the people murmured
against the bitter waters of Marah, Moses "cried unto the Lord; and
the Lord showed him a Tree, which when he had cast into the waters,
the waters were made sweet."--Exodus xv, 23-25.
Earliest emanations were from the Abyss, the primordial place of
birth and re-birth, of which the fish became a dual type. Fish is a
symbol of Breath, or Spirit, and Water. It lives and breathes in
the water. Birth from the water was symbolized when the Egyptian
goddess Neith was created, seven thousand years ago, under the type
of a fish, and gave birth to her child Horus, whom she netted or
fished from the water. Neith and Net are synonymous, and a fish was
placed on her head symbolizing birth from the water. Neith Isis, as
the Immaculate Virgin, is one of the oldest goddesses known. As
"Isis she symbolized personified Nature and as Neith, primordial
Matter and infinite space."
The double waters were said to issue from a mount called "The
Rock of the Horizon," "The Two Topped Mountain Divine." This Mount
or Rock first marked the Solstices and later the Equinoxes. Shu
(Mars) was god of Solstices. He was the Smiter or Divider of the
Rock from which the waters flowed, creating the division of the
heavens. Shu typified Fire, also a Lamp and a Light.
The Gnostics had two baptismal rites recognized by them as
physical and spiritual--exoteric or esoteric. "Generators of Years"
was one of the names for the Two Pools, "The Pool of Natron and the
Pool of Salt" in one of which the Sun was said to be re-born by day
and the Moon was renewed by night. The Two Waters were often
typified as the Pool of the Sun and the Pool of the Moon. Hebrews
and Mohammedans also had their Pool of the Sun and their Pool of
the Moon. "The fertilization of the world was from the Two Waters."
The Holy Mysteries of the Eleusinian Gnosis were read to the
candidates for initiation from two large tablets of

64

stone that fitted closely together and were called the Petroma.
They represented Truth in a dual or double aspect. Petru in
Egyptian means to interpret, to reveal, or explain. Similarly the
Ten Commandments of the Old Testament were written on two tablets
of stone, which are reverently read in the Christian churches, and
are being interpreted as were the mysteries of old from the ancient
Book of Stone called the Petroma, The Book of Truth, the Two Leaves
of Truth.
The two serpents of the beginning were the Constellation, Draco
in the North and Hydra in the South, both encircling the Poles.
"Hydra is the Serpent of wet, of moisture, the first element of
life; The Dragon of the North, the winged Dragon, the fiery
Dragon,1 the original of all the dragons of flame and drakes of
fire, was the symbol of the second element of life, the breath,
heat or fire that vivifies."2
The Head and the Tail of the Dragon represent the ascending and
descending nodes of the Moon. These are points or degrees in the
Zodiac occupied by the Moon when she crosses the Ecliptic. As she
passes from South to North latitude she is portrayed as the
dragon's head, and as the dragon's tail when she passes in the
opposite direction. Eclipses usually take place in the neighborhood
of the head or tail of the dragon.
Duality is found in the imagery of the two Bears, the Great Bear
and the Lesser Bear of the planisphere; similarly in the two dogs,
Canis major and Canis minor; the two Lions as Lion-gods; the two
Fishes; the two Mothers as Virgo the Virgin and Pisces the
Gestator; the Twins of Gemini, who in Egypt were the two Lion-gods.
There were also the Ass and its foal; the Dragon of the North and
the Dragon of the South; the double Anubis, or Sut in his dual
form. Sut-Horus and Sut-Nub are a double manifestation of the Light
and the Darkness of the horizon when portrayed with two
________
1 This was the dragon that fulminates fire for protection.
2 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 346.

65

heads of birds. One is the Black Vulture of night, the other is the
Golden Hawk of solar time.
In Egypt there were two golden harvests. The wilderness was made
to blossom and bear fruits by the inundation of their River Nile,
whose waters when first coming down were of a crude green color,
and very unwholesome. The color gradually changed to red, due to
the oxide of iron in the water, and when the Sun's rays spread over
the river, the waters had the appearance of blood, which became
typical. Red as Blood, represented to primitive man the Mother
Source. Water as a first element, the Water of Life, was recognized
in a mystical sense as Blood, hence the Mother Source of Life, a
universal belief. Matter as the Red Earth was mystically found in
mud as a source of beginning. The Sacred Lotus grew from roots in
the mud but blossomed in the light. This was the perfect flower
symbolizing the duality of life, as the breather in and out of the
water. Isis is supposed to have conceived through smelling this
flower. The Lotus was a flower of breath and reproduction, a type
or image of primal Cause.
The primitive idea of the origin of good and evil as opposite
principals, has evolved in our later day duality into God and the
Devil. Thus does the Eternal Law of Opposites find a crude modern
expression. All primitive myths originated in the darkness. The
earliest reckonings came from the Night. Night was the great
mystery of the mysteries. Darkness as the enemy of Light, later the
enemy of man, was evolved from that strange old Dragon of the Dark
which took its first form in Space, Darkness visible opponent of
the Light. From this Dragon of the Dark myriads of fables have
arisen, culminating in that curious composite of superstition, the
Christian Devil, a real miracle of miracles!

66

@insert drawing of serpent encircling the tree

WATCHING OVER EDEN

The serpent encircling the tree is keeping an eternal watch over
Eden. He is the guardian of treasures, starry jewels and all
precious things. The tree typifies the celestial mount or pole.
Mount or pole interchanges with the tree, and the serpent, later
called the Tempter instead of the Protector of the Tree of
Knowledge.

67

Celestial Ship of the North - [5] The Garden of "The Beautiful"

68

CHAPTER V
THE GARDEN OF "THE BEAUTIFUL"

Eden (or Ghedon as a root word) means periodicity, or a definite
time, and is feminine. It was created by the first turn of the
Seven Stars which formed the Constellation of the Great Mother in
the polar heaven, and these Seven were the archangels which became
identical with the stars that sang together in the dawn of
creation, when all the sons of Elohim shouted together for joy. Job
xxxvii, 7.
Eden has another name, Gen-Eden, which means Paradise, a "Garden
of Delight," a "Region of Supreme Loveliness." It also means to
encompass, to surround, to clasp, to enclose. It was a circle of
space, a cycle of time, a ring. As Paridhistha, it is situated on
the horizon. Eden by whatever name it may be called is a symbol of
the Seven Stars and their circle around the pole. It was the
Paradise or Highlands of early Sanscrit-speaking people. Its
etymological meaning in Greek signified voluptuousness. It was
their Olympus. It was also the early Mount Meru, the abode of the
gods, and must have been the Paradise of Mohammed, full of Houris.
It was never the property of the Jew. The tale of the lost Paradise
restoration has been attributed to the Hebrews but they had stolen
it from the Persians. One day its significance as an imperishable
symbol of the Mother heaven will again be recognized.
The original Eden meant Wisdom, and a place of bliss like
Nirvana. This makes reference to the fact that man has power to
evolve his own divine nature, since he holds within himself the
Eden in which grows the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and man
is the Knower thereof. "The Garden of Eden on the Euphrates became
the garden of the

69

Astrologers and the Magi." "China, 2000 B. C., had such a primitive
garden in Central Asia, inhabited by the 'Dragons of Wisdom'," the
Wise Ones. The Japanese also had their Garden of Eden "on the
Plateau of Pamir between the highest peaks of the Himalayan
ranges," a culminating point of Central Asia, where four rivers
flowed from a common source called "The Lake of the Dragons."1 The
Light descended at these places in the past.
The Jewish Eden was copied from the Chaldean, and its
temptations were of a very great antiquity. In past ages, there had
been a Sacerdotal College having Priests called Aliem, the
Hierophants of which were initiated into the knowledge of the Good
and Evil of the world. They taught the sons of men to become as one
of them. Thus in Genesis it is written, "Behold the man is to
become one of us, to know good and evil," and there were Priests or
Lords of the Garden of Eden who wore their "coats of skin."
The antiquity of the allegory of Genesis is indicated by the
fact that the Fall of Man into generation took place in Mesozoic
days, the Reptile Age, which is explained in the Zohar, which says
that the serpent (Satan) which seduced Eve was a kind of Flying
Camel. In an old Zoroastrian manuscript there is an account of a
huge serpent with a camel's neck, which in the Avesta is
represented after the Fall as having lost "its nature and its
name."
The banyan tree of India, so sacred to the Hindus (because
Vishnu during one of his incarnations reposed under its mighty
shade and there taught human philosophy and science) is called the
Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Under this tree their
teachers impart the first lessons of immortality, and initiate
their students into the mysteries of life and death.
In China today the teacher of the doctrine of Buddha is living
in a temple of Buddha, on top of a mountain between China and
Thibet, and there produces his greatest religious

________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--See The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, pp. 203,204.

70

miracles under a tree called the Tree of Knowledge and Tree of
Life. These miracles take place every three years, when great
throngs of Chinese Buddhists make a pilgrimage to this place.
The early Adepts, initiated at the fount of knowledge, who
understood the mystery of life and death, have been accused by
materially minded posterity of having been guilty of sin and of
having been tempted by the serpent. Strange interpretations have
been developed out of the mystery of the Garden of Eden, its tree
and its serpent. The serpent was the symbol of Divine Wisdom which
represented the Lord as the Logos speaking words of divine creative
wisdom, that his hearers also might become creators of this wisdom
in turn. A symbol of sacred knowledge in antiquity was a Tree, ever
guarded by a serpent, the serpent or dragon of wisdom. The serpent
of Hercules was said to guard the golden apple that hung from the
Pole, the Tree of Life, in the midst of the garden of the
Hesperides. The serpent that guarded the golden fruit in the garden
of the Hesperides and the serpent of the Garden of Eden, which
enfolded with its coils that mysterious tree, are the same.
Likewise Mount Meru with its beautiful tree, the abode of the
Gods was guarded by the serpent guarding the North Pole, whose
secret still defies the greatest explorers and scientists of the
day. We have also the myth of Juno giving to Jupiter on her
marriage with him a Tree with Golden Fruit. Is it not the same
tree, the Tree of Knowledge enfolded in the coils of the serpent,
which was given to Eve in the Garden of Eden, and from which she
offered the apple to Adam? What has changed this Serpent of Wisdom
into the devil of the Christians? The creative power in man is a
gift of divine wisdom and not the result of sin. It is far better
to place the so-called curse of the Garden of Eden where it
belongs. "The Cross itself is an evolution from the Tree and
Serpent, and thus became the salvation of mankind." It was divine
at first and later

71

humanized. "To the Eastern Occultist the Tree of Knowledge in the
paradise of man's own heart, becomes the Tree of Life Eternal, and
has naught to do with man's animal senses."1 "The universal essence
is first figured as a Tree of Life, union with the Tree of Life is
said to be 'The consummation of vision and the perfection of the
mystical.'"
The original Pillar of heaven as applied to the North was the
pivoting point or Pole. This was the Mount, with its alluring
garden, that surrounded the world. In Ezekiel, chapter xxviii,
13-14, the Lord is speaking, saying "Thou hast been in Eden, the
Garden of God; every previous stone was thy covering. . . . Thou
wast upon the Holy Mountain of God, thou hast walked up and down in
the midst of the precious stones of fire." These are the Stars, the
Pillar, the Tree and the Pole that belong to the Garden of Eden.
Within the Temples of Egypt, Babylon and China the heavens are
depicted upon the ceilings as "A Dome of Stars" the Mount that
surrounded the world.
There is also the beautiful Asvattha, Tree of Life, of the
Bhagavad-Gita, whose roots are generated in Heaven, representing
the Supreme Being, and whose luxuriant branches spread out over the
terrestrial world. Those who can reach above its branches need
never reincarnate and return to experience the suffering of the
world. But when this tree reached the Garden of Genesis it became
changed beyond imagination, its pristine purity was soiled, and it
has ever since been the herald of perverted truth and called a
Curse.
The passing of aeons of time has given many names and forms to
all symbols which were originally cosmic and astronomical. The Tree
might always have been kept green, nurtured by the Water of Life,
and the Dragon always have been divine, had they not been forced
out of their Sidereal Home. The primal pair in Paradise were
Typhon, goddess of the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and Sut, her son, as
manifestor of the Little Bear (Ursa Minor), the two constella-
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 587.

72

tions revolving around the pole of the Tree. There is a Kamite
legend of Isis and Osiris living together in Paradise in peace and
happiness until Osiris became possessed with the desire for the
drink of immortality, in the search for which he fell. Osiris is
the reputed discoverer of the vine, which is seen in the decans of
Virgo, and Isis, Virgin of this sign, was the discoverer of wheat,
branches of which she carries in her hand. Wheat is the symbol of
seed, and generation of life is from the seed. The vine, or the
grape, was an emblem of wisdom and knowledge. The wheat has been
thought by both Rabbins and Musselmen to have been the forbidden
fruit eaten by Adam. We are told that "Adam at the moment when he
tasted wheat, received the seed for the propagation of mankind.
From the grain which he ate sprang up a tree; life in me and in
thee is its fruit."1 The first seed belonged to the Great Mother.
The Iroquois have their legend of the lost heaven or Paradise,
and of the woman who dwelt there, to whom they sent a messenger
borne on the wings of a bird, who watched and waited until she came
to the tree in the garden, to draw water from the well, and then
tempted her to fall from grace. It is not unlike the Christian
legend of Mary being watched at the well by the Angel Gabriel. In
the Iroquois legend it is said that when the woman fell from heaven
she was caught on the back of a tortoise, on which was placed a
quantity of soil brought from the bottom of the sea by a fish, and
that there she gave birth to twins, sisters, found in many myths.
Ignorance leads to profanation, and ridicule born of
misunderstanding to untruth, conditions that inflame and energize
the fiery wheels of animal instincts found in the Zodiac, the Wheel
of Re-birth. The undercurrent of our world of humanity is setting
toward a goal reflecting the stars above. The dogmatism that can
see nothing but cobwebs in ancient philosophy and antagonizes the
seeker of archaic truths, will have to do battle with the Law of
Compensation.
________
1 Shea and Troyer--Dabistan, Vol. ii, p. 338.

73

To sum up the entire story of the Garden of Eden, Sharp writing
on Egypt says, "The whole history of the fall of man is of Egyptian
origin. The temptation of the woman by the serpent, and of man by
the woman, the sacred tree of knowledge, the cherubs guarding with
flaming swords at the door of the garden, the warfare declared
between the woman and the serpent, may all be seen upon the
Egyptian sculptured monuments."
There were said to be four Rivers of Eden which proceeded from a
central river. The River Pison flows around the land of Gold and
Light, dispensing and receiving. The River Gihon flows around the
land of Ethiopia, or Darkness, land of the most primitive races.
Hiddekel runs eastward to Assyria, a stream of Power--"The stream
rising and flowing back to ancient or interior ages, guiding to
Assyria the land of perfection and peace." The fourth river
Euphrates means the weaving together. It is fundamental power, and
is joy and delight--"The Voice of Heaven." It was anciently called
the "Soul of the Land."
Again we have the four rivers proceeding from a central river,
as 1 plus 4 equals 5. 1 equals the Monad, the Source. 4 Signature
of the Earth. But 5 equals 2 plus 3. 2 Duad, Antagonism, Light
versus Darkness. 3 Light Triumphant, Divinity in triple aspect. 2
plus 3, Duad permeated by and ruled over by Superior Force. "As
above, so below" is always to be remembered. Thus a correspondence
is found between the four fixed stars and the mundane registration
of the Cardinal Cross.

@insert symbol

There are also the Cosmic Rivers of the Human Will or Physical
Generation, with the Tree of Life at the center, and all flowing
from one source as they go forth to water the Paradise of the
heavens, or the heaven in one's heart. In the stars we find many
mystic meanings. Do not turn aside from the mystical, nor from
legends, for they are

74

most beautiful, and were of Celestial origin created for all
Eternity.
It was foretold that wherever a river-head could be located,
even with channels that no longer existed in usefulness, provided
there were four waterways, suggesting that it had once "run on all
fours," a Biblical Eden would be discovered, whether in Asia,
Africa, Europe or America. There is an ancient legendary prophecy
that the Lost Paradise with its Tree of Life will reappear upon a
mount, from whose summit there will spring four rivers that will
reach to the four quarters of the world. There was an ancient hymn
to the Goddess Ishtar extolling her as the Queen of the Four Rivers
which carries us back to the ancient Mother.
The cross is of immense antiquity, and was first celestial. The
Tree of Paradise was called the Tree of the Cross, and was placed
at the Mount of the Four Corners in the Garden of Eden, which was
formed by the stars encircling the pole. Here the great Serpent, as
the constellation Draco, kept his sacred watch, "the Cross was an
evolution from 'The Tree and the Serpent' and thus became the
salvation of mankind. By this it would become the very first
fundamental symbol of Creative cause, applying to geometry, to
numbers, to astronomy, to measure and to animal reproduction."1
The cross that is so sacred to the Christians is supposed to
date from the Crucifixion, about two thousand years ago. For many
years the cross stood for the Christ, but not the humanized Christ
of whom we have learned from the theologians, but for the Christ
that in those days of antiquity was a personification of the
Supreme Spirit, the Higher Self. Only in the Catacombs of Rome
during the early centuries of the Christian era, has the ageless
celestial Christ of the polar cross been humanized, and as an
alleged starting point for a new religion. The earliest human
figure on a cross appeared during that period and roused many
questionings and much skepticism concerning the truths and
realities
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 216.

75

of the Christ of the new religion, since the many and various
symbols used needed explanation and harked back to an allegorical
Christ. This questioning and unrest among the people disturbed the
Church very much, for previously the symbol on the cross was a
Lamb. Consequently during the reign of Justinian II, fearing lest
the reality of a personal Christ be lost, the Council of Trullo
decided that for the future the figure of a personal Jesus should
be portrayed upon the crucifix in place of the Lamb. "He shall be
represented in his human form, instead of the lamb, as in former
times."
No portrait of Jesus had been extant at any time to prove either
his humanity, or his divinity. Therefore, he had been represented
in many ways, even as a type of the so-called pagan gods. It was
very necessary to retain and not lose the symbol. "Therefore, it
was proclaimed that the symbol of the Lamb was to be superseded by
the human form, as the Christ our Lord." The Lamb had been
mentioned as the type of sacrifice belonging to the Zodiacal sign
Aries, symbolized by the Lamb or the Ram. Adrian, Pontiff of Rome
in the Eighth Century, proclaimed that the "Lamb of God must not be
depicted upon the cross as the chief object, but there is no
hindrance to the painting of a Lamb on the reverse or inferior
portion of the cross where Christ hath been duly portrayed as a
man."1
Over and over again one finds this imagery belonging to ancient
times twisted and turned into a later historical and theological
form. The cross was that of Life, never that of Death, and was an
image of Immortality. In many countries it represented the four
foundations of the world, the four corners, emblems of
reproduction, duration; and type of the Eternal.
The Tree of Life and the Cross were identical also with that
Mount Meru of the Four Corners that originated at the Pole, with
its seven steps, our Paradise. There is a legend
________
1 Cited by Didron, Icon. Chret, pp. 338-339.

76

that tells us that "Seth obtained a shoot from the Tree of Life,
and placed it on Adam's grave at Golgotha, where it sprang up as
the Cross of Christ, and the spot where it was reburied was
discovered by Helena." Another legend tells us that when Adam was
sick unto death he sent his son Seth to the Gate of Paradise to
pray for a little oil from the Tree of Life as a cure. But the Tree
had vanished with the lost Eden." This was the seven-branched tree,
replaced by the Cross of the Four Corners, or a tree of twelve
branches.
In another version Adam asks his son to tell the prophets and
the patriarchs what the angel Michael had told him when he was
praying at the gate of Paradise for a little oil to anoint his
father's head and heal his pain. The answer was that he had been
told that he was not to entreat God for "The oil of mercy, because
in no way could he obtain this oil until the Last Day and Times."
It is said by Esdras of those who are to be saved, "They shall
have the tree of life for an ointment of sweet savor." Esdras, II,
12. "The Tree of Life and knowledge is represented as being
restored in the shape of the cross, and the solar god who entered
Amenti once a year is now depicted as doing the same thing at the
end of the great cycle, as it is written in the 'First Book of the
Seventy' in a certain sacred volume said to have been preserved by
the Jews."1
These sayings all belong to the allegories of the heavens and
that immaculate birthplace in the North, and to the great cyclic
periods produced by the Precession of the Equinoxes.
The Rod of Moses was fabled to have been a shoot from the Tree
of Life. Likewise in a Christian tradition it is said that the
cross of Calvary was composed of four kinds of wood--the palm, the
cedar, the olive and the cypress. This was surely the cross that
represented the four corners or the four points of the Cardinal
Cross of the world. The mystical or mythological cross never
consisted of four different kinds
________
1 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. ii, pp. 382, 383.

77

of wood, yet many and varied are the traditions belonging to all
countries of the world concerning a certain wood held most sacred,
from which the cross might have been made. It was said to be the
Elder, which suggests the ancient mother Typhon, "it is yet
believed in England, and in other northern countries, that the wood
of the true cross was elderwood . . . the elder was one of the
trees of life in the north and a type of the old Mother. The elder
is one of the wine trees, a producer of the inspiring juice, and
its leaves and flowers are still held to be very healing. Also
there was a sacred festival at which the Romans annually paraded a
kind of crucifixion consisting of a dog stretched out alive upon a
cross of elderwood. The exhibition was made between the temples of
Juventus and Summanus."1
In King's "Gnostics," on page 91, there is shown a most curious
picture of a crucifixion found on the Palatine walls of Rome, for
stretched on the cross is a dog with the ears of an ass. This was
paraded in one of the Gnostics annual festivals, and was thought to
be the work of a pious Gnostic, but has been termed the
"Blasphemous Crucifixion." The dog was a type of the Egyptian
Sut--as Anup he was the Golden Jackal, and depicted on the cross or
at the Crossing. Sut, as we know, was the first son of the ancient
mother, who was represented as the great star in the South, Sirius,
or the Dog-Star, and who as the starry announcer had three
different types--the dog, the jackal, and the ass. He was the guide
of the crossings in pre-solar and pre-Christian myths, when known
as Sut-Nahsi or Sut-Nubti, he was the negro god, continued in Egypt
as Sut-Har of the Sun and Sirius cycle, a Sabean-Solar combination
found in other mythologies where a Star-god of fire became a
Sun-god.
Sut as Anubis was the Egyptian embalmer and preserver of the
dead; in Greece he was the Hound of Hermes, who guided souls to the
River Styx. He also guided the sun and the souls (the stars)
through the underworld, or night,
________
1 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 434.

78

and became the "Preparer of the Way," Guide of the passage through
the dark as the Star of Sunset. He became guide of the
resurrection, the deliverer, the Saviour, as he reached the Sunrise
of the horizon. In planetary form the Dog-Star is Mercury. Statues
of the god Mercury as a protecter from harm were erected, and were
in the shape of the cross. In Inner Africa, as the jackal, Mercury
was called the god of thieving, and later became the Mercury of the
Romans. By "thief" is meant the dark encroaching on the light. Both
the jackal and the dog-headed ape were types of the thief of light,
just as the fox and the jackal were the Typhonian types of the Dark
Power, which was the thief of the light of the Moon. These two were
also the prophesiers, their bark usually predicting calamity of
some kind. The Golden Jackal as the messenger, Mercury, was the
prophet of the Dog-Star, and of sunrise and sunset. The coyote, the
prairie dog of the North American Indians, was thought by them to
have brought the rood-diggers of California into the world. On the
fifth day of their most solemn religious ceremony, the Iroquois
Indians sacrificed a white dog by burning, to establish
communication with the Most High God. The Lenni Lenape Indians
honored the wolf as the animal that released mankind from the dark
abode underground. The Dog-Star "Fiery Flaming Sentinel of the
Fiery Hosts of Space," son of the Immaculate Mother--Goddess, can
be traced by means of monuments and allegory to the Lamb, the type
of Fulfilment.
There are pictures extant of the Lamb standing on a mountain,
out of which four rivers seem to be flowing, symbolizing the four
quarters of the world. Didron writes of a monument of the Eleventh
Century portraying the four streams called Gyon, Phishon, Tygris
and Eufrates, symbolized as men, each carrying an urn of one of the
streams. Their type and head-dress show them to be members of the
Mithraic cult. To this cult the Ram of Aries belonged which the
Persians always called the Lamb, and we are told by Dupuis,

79

that the Persians celebrated a feast relative to the cross just
before the Sun entered the sign Aries, the Lamb, when the Southern
Cross, the cross that remains in heaven for all time, shone most
brilliantly at night as a beautiful type of the Vernal Equinox.
In Christian Iconography the cross is connected with the Lamb,
representing the equinoctial colure in the sign of Aries, the Ram.
This crossing, as all other Zodiacal crossings, represented a cycle
of 2160 years, and was called the Christ sacrifice of that cycle.
The Lamb or Ram type also belongs to India, where the Spirit or God
of Fire was symbolized as the Cross of Fire ridden by the Lamb, and
was their solar sign of reproducing power. The Hindu Agni is the
Agnus Dei of the Christians.
The Egyptian god Sebek-Ra, who wore the horns of the Ram or
Lamb, is identical with the Lamb that was imaged on the cross for
seven or eight centuries, and which bore the sins of the world or
took them away, and was later converted into a human figure. With
the ending of this cycle of Aries came the beginning of that of the
Fishes, or the Zodiacal sign Pisces, when the child was portrayed
as a fish. This cycle of the Fishes was ushered in a little over
two thousand years ago.
In the Hermean Zodiac a Fish-goddess is to be seen holding a
dove in her hand. The Fish, the Dove, the Cross and the monogram K
R are all found in the Typology of the Catacombs of Rome, where
"the concealed burial-place of the ancient religion, visibly
becomes the birthplace of the new, and it is there we can see the
types in the process of transformation."1
The cross is composed of Chi and Ro, which reads Chr. Chr was
accepted as an abbreviated name for Christ, or conveyed that
meaning, but was not of Christian origin. Forty years before the
Christian Era it was found on the coins of the Ptolemies and also
on those of Herod. Chi and
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1 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 454.

80

Ro are the circle and the cross. The Ru is an oval, found on the
top of the Ankh Cross, which we find as the symbol of the planet
Venus. In Egyptian Chr or Kher or Kheru signifies a Word, a Voice,
and later became the solar Logos. Ker is a circle and identified
with the Ark, Kr and Ark are symbols of the cross and the circle.
The ark was the circle made by the Constellation of the Great Bear,
that primary circle made in heaven and earth, and is inseparable
from the cross, which was the symbol and type of the first four
corners of the world.1 Ru or Kr is a circle or a course of time,
and in various other languages has the meaning of a course. In
Greek it became an abbreviation of Kronus. K R is the root of the
name Kronus, Course, Circle, Cross, and Christ. Chrestos (Greek)
was the early Gnostic name for Christ. Justin Martyr claims the
early Christians were called Chrestians.
To the Gnostics, who were the early Christians, Christ as the
"Word of God" was never accepted as a man of flesh; manifestation
of the spirit was through the illumination of the mind, it was the
purification of the Spirit. "No man hath seen God at any time; the
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath
declared him.--John i, 18. "Even the Son of man which is in
heaven."--John iii, 13.
To them Christos meant the impersonal principle, the Atma within
every man's soul, not Jesus. The Fall, Incarnation, Atonement, and
Resurrection were never accepted literally by them. In the British
Museum is an old Coptic MS. In which Christos is frequently
referred to and this word is found to have been constantly replaced
by that of Jesus. Chrest is stolen or borrowed from the pagans, and
meant to them "'A disciple on probation,' a candidate for
hierophantship; who, when he had attained it, through initiation,
long trials and suffering, and had been anointed (rubbed with oil),
________
1 A cross is the symbol of the old god Anu of the Assyrian myth,
and Annu is the Egyptian place of the crossing and equinox; also of
Anit (Neith), who brings forth the child at the crossing.

81

was changed to Chrestos--the 'purified' . . . the Chrestos, the
'man of Sorrow,' became Christos himself." The finding of the
Christ within had taken place. Krishna, the Avatar, was sought for
among the shepherds who had concealed him, and thousands of their
newly-born babies were slain during the search. His conception,
birth and childhood is the prototype of the story in the New
Testament.1
The first Cross was celestial and Sabean, created by the
revolution of the constellation of the Great Bear, and its pattern
was found in the Ankh Cross of the Egyptians, their symbol of
Eternal Life and Continuity. It was from this revolution that the
origin of time, the cardinal points of the world, and the cross of
the four quarters were derived. It was followed by the Solar God,
who made his circle and crossing in the Equinoxes and Solstices. A
type is also found in the Swastika, which has a nail in each of its
four corners, and which is symbolized in the human figure extended
with nails in hands and feet. The figure of the cube unfolded forms
the figure of the cross. The cross was originally a symbol of life,
but finally came to symbolize death and the blood sacrifice.
Besides this fourfold cross there is the sixfold, many churches
being builded on the sixfold cross of the four quarters, the
Zenith, and Nadir.
In Ecclesiastical heraldry the single cross belongs to the
Bishops, the double cross to the Cardinals and Archbishops, while
the sixfold belongs to the Pope. The sixfold cross was known ages
before the Christian era. It was the cross of the completed solar
circle. In a feminine form it was the triple cross, the S S S of
the Sistrum and a form of the 666 of the Book of Revelation, known
as the Beast. The double triangle, known in India under the sign of
Vishnu, with its apex pointing upwards, was always masculine, and
with the apex pointing downwards was feminine and a form of the
number 6. The circle in its primacy, as the circle in heaven as
well as on earth, is the Ru, the female sign which is insep-
________
1 See "The Key to Theosophy," H. P. Blavatsky.

82

arable from the cross. In the human aspect of its typology there
must always be the male-female, therefore there could never be a
cross without the circle, for otherwise there could be no
reproduction.
Nails were emblems of reproduction and generation for both male
and female, and are found on the hands and feet on cuneiform
figures, symbolizing a second life. They also represent a phase of
pubescence, gestation and resurrection. Nails are found on the
chests of mummies in Egypt as a symbol of pubescence, potency and
virility, and they signify "to rise again." The number of nails
used depended upon the type of cross.
In the original crucifixion there is no cross. In the ancient
cult of the Avatar Krishna the crucified one was the cross, and was
typical of the Tree of Life. The stigmata are seen on his hands and
feet, and represent the Transfiguration, the passing from one life
to another, the re-birth into a higher spiritual existence.
The crucified Vishnu is seen extended into space, with nail
marks on hands and feet as tokens of his divinity and emblem of his
virility, which was so powerful as to cause him to be re-born after
his crucifixion. On that wonderful Tree of Life, not Death, no wood
is seen, no inscription, no nimbus, thus proving that the
crucifixion of Vishnu was entirely pre-Christian.
Nails are also seen on the hands and feet of Buddha, and on
Maya, just as they are seen on the arms of the Swastika cross, that
"Cross of the four quarters, foundation of the world. The Cross
that can be traced back to the very depths of the unfathomable
Archaic ages."
In Egypt, at the Vernal Equinox, when the Sun and the Moon were
reunited at Easter time, the child Horus was born. In mediaeval
times pictures of the crucifixion were accompanied by
representations of the Sun and the Moon, symbols of re-birth. The
woman arrayed with the Sun and Moon under her feet, is the Mother
Moon at the Vernal

83

Equinox, who brings forth her child at Easter, as related in the
Book of Revelation.
The position of the Sun and Moon at Easter is responsible for
the two traditions of the Crucifixion (the Passover or the
Crossing) occurring one on the 14th, the other on the 15th of the
Egyptian month Nisan, as well as for the two celebrations of the
Resurrection of Christ, which survived until a late period in Rome.
There are two diverse statements concerning the Resurrection in the
New Testament, one in St. Luke and the other in the Book of Acts,
further explained through the Mythos by Gerald Massey:
"In Luke the risen Christ is "carried up into Heaven" on the
third day following the crucifixion. In the Acts he is not "taken
up" into Heaven until the fortieth day, or after forty days! Such
serious discrepancies as these are forever irreconcilable as
history, but they are found to contain the very facts that
reconstitute the Mythos.
"The resurrection of Osiris at the Autumn equinox was lunar; at
the vernal equinox it was solar. After he was betrayed to his
death, when the sun was in the sign Scorpio, he rose again on the
third day as Lord of Light in the moon, or as Horus, the child of
the mother-moon. The solar resurrection was at the vernal equinox
when the sun entered the first of the upper signs and Orion rose.
This time it was in the character of the second Horus, the adult of
30 years; and this second resurrection followed the forty days of
mourning for the suffering God which were celebrated in the
Mysteries, and survive in a Christianized form as our Lent. And
just as the myth of the double Horus in the two characters of the
child of 12 years, and the adult Horus of 30 years, has been
continued in the Gospels to furnish the two phases in the life of
Jesus, so have the two different resurrections with their correct
dates been applied to the Christ made historical.
"Thus interpreted by means of the Mythos these two versions of
one alleged fact tend to corroborate my explana-

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tion already made that the two different dates for the crucifixion
given in the otherwise irreconcilable accounts belong to the
luni-solar reckoning in the same luni-solar myth. In Egyptian the
signs of a half moon and fourteen days are identical; and in the
dark half of the moon Osiris was torn into fourteen parts.
Therefore, the 14th of the lunar month was the day of full moon.
Whereas in the soli-lunar month of thirty days the 15th was the
middle of the month. Now the crucifixion or the crossing at Easter
was and still is determined by the day of full moon. This will be
on the 14th of the month of twenty-eight days in the reckoning by
the moon only, but on the 15th of the month according to the
soli-lunar reckoning. Both reckonings were extant in two different
cults and both were separately continued by the Eastern and Western
Churches for the one day of the crucifixion. Both cannot be
historically correct, but they are both astronomically true. Both
could be made to meet at a given point in the total combination
which was determined by the conjunction of the sun and moon at the
equinox as the day of full moon. But the two different dates for
the mid-month remained, and these are represented by the traditions
of two different dates for the crucifixion. Both the lunar and the
solar dates could be utilized by the Mythos, in which there were
two crucifixions and two resurrections, though these will not bear
witness for the single fact of the historical crucifixion. As we
have seen, the two ascensions of Osiris on the third day and at the
end of forty days, have been preserved, and are repeated as
historical transactions. Two different Crosses were also continued
in the Christian Iconography as the cross of Autumn and of Easter;
and although we may not be able to show two crucifixions in the
Canonical Gospels, nevertheless the total matter of the Mythos is
there. When Jesus was led up into the wilderness to be tempted of
the devil, and to suffer during forty days, we have the parallel to
the struggle between Osiris and Sut, which was celebrated during
the forty days

85

of mourning in the mysteries. Moreover, there were two days of
death or crucifixion kept in Rome until the present century, when
the dead Christ used to be laid out and exhibited on the Thursday
before Good Friday; and two days of resurrection were also
celebrated in the two Sabbaths on Saturday and Sunday. As the
Apostolic Constitutions show, both of these days were continued for
the two weekly holidays of the Christians, Saturday being the day
of rising again on the 7th day of the week in the lunar cult;
Sunday, the Sabbath of the 8th day, according to the solar
resurrection. Such are the fundamental facts; and, to my thinking,
they are of sufficient force to cleave the Canonical history right
in two, each half being then claimed by the Mythos. Here, as
elsewhere, the Mythos does explain the fact, but only by abolishing
the history. From beginning to end the ascertainable facts are
astronomical, and interpretable solely by means of the Gnostic
explanation of the Egyptian Mythos, which always denied, because it
disproved, the alleged human history."
The mummy, type of preservation, was called by the Egyptians the
Karast or Christ, and the perfection to which these people had
brought the embalming of their dead indicates that it must have
originated in a very remote past. The embalmed corpse of their dead
was type of the Karast, and was intended as the image of their own
resurrection, the spiritualized other self, which was the Eternal.
It was created through a great desire to make the other self
permanent, which accounts for the marvelous way in which the mummy
was prepared. It has been found carefully wrapped in woven bands of
linen one thousand yards in length without a seam. It was the
seamless robe of their primitive Karast which was the type of the
mystical Christ, the everlasting spirit within. The mummy was never
intended for a physical resurrection, as their doctrine of the
hereafter was one of Transformation. They believed in the
continuity and immortality of the Spirit, and not in a bodily

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resurrection. It was the Transformed, who would arise from the dead
at the re-birth of the spirit in the heaven world. This
Mummy-Christ type of the Spirit was placed in the tomb, which they
always called their "Good Dwelling." Great ingenuity was shown in
their endeavor to retain a general likeness of the dead, as the
other self, the True Self, the Spirit which was its own ancestor.
This was the origin of their Ancestor Worship.
The Assyrian Mammit, which was called Shebti, the double of the
dead, was also of Egyptian origin, and was spoken of "As a shape of
Salvation, descending from the midst of the Heavenly Abyss." It was
a preservative figure of divine attributes, which was placed in the
hands of the dying, and was thought to be the "one Deity that never
failed." Two images were sometimes placed with the dead in the
tomb, one the Shebti, double of the dead, ready for transformation;
the other the Ka, the spiritual, higher and immortal self.
Man was thought to be composed of various bodies. The Ka was an
ethereal projection or double of the person, and a perfect
likeness. The Ba, the soul, was portrayed as a bird, while the
Khoo, "The Luminous," was the spark of divine fire. The Ka, the
immortal self, remained with the body, but the Ba and the Khoo left
it to follow the gods, though they kept continually returning.
Body, soul and spirit seem to have been represented.
The Shebti, symbol of a second life, "was made of red clay,
which denoted the flesh, and glazed with a vitreous varnish that
was blue, the color sacred to the soul. This is the complexion of
the deceased who has been spiritualized. The soul is likewise
painted blue in the act of leaving its red body behind. This color
is the symbol of human immortality. Blue is also the robe of wisdom
whose bands are purple lace."1 The embalming of the dead with red
clay or red earth, which represented flesh, is of most ancient ori-

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gin. Red was the sacred color. Sometimes a material other than
earth, but of a red color was used for the embalming of the dead, a
process which did not belong to Egypt alone. In Africa the red
earth was used in various ways as a covering for the body of the
living as a protection from the intense heat of the Inner African
sun. This method finally developed into the preservation of the
dead. In many instances bones of the dead were unearthed and coated
with it. In the Book of the Dead we read, "I have made the dress
which Ptah has woven out of clay." "Ptah was the re-clother of the
deceased in flesh, i. e., the red clay which represented flesh, and
the clay dress of Ptah was initiated by this primitive way of
embalming bones, a rite performed among the Maoris, the Australian
aborigines, Mound Builders of Britain and the North American
Indians.
The Constellation of Orion was known as the Mummy Constellation,
which arose six thousand years ago. It represented the re-arisen
Horus, and was called the Star of the East. It was the Mammit, type
of Karast, image of the "Eternal when he transformed in the
underworld and obtained a Soul in the stars of heaven as he arose
on the horizon as or in the constellation of Orion." Karast also
means to anoint, to embalm or make a mummy. It is that which was
placed in the tomb for the re-birth of the spirit. "His soul does
not enter or is not thrust back into his mummy forever," says the
"Book of the Dead." This was that other self to whom they gave
worship.1
Even today in the heart of Africa the dying are prepared for the
tomb with the greatest reverence, for the tomb is to them typical
of the womb, hence the greatest care is exercised to keep the
likeness of the dead as nearly perfect
________
1 When the vernal equinox was in the sign Taurus, Orion became
the image of the re-arisen Horus, his "Glorified Body," and then it
was said "to shine in the stars of the constellation Orion, on the
bosom of the upper heaven."--(Book of Sen-Sen I, Records, Vol. iv,
p. 121.) In the ritual the re-arisen mummy says, "I am the great
constellation Orion dwelling in the solar birthplace in the midst
of the spirits."

88

as possible, and similar to the foetal embryo. The head is drawn to
the knees, which touch the chest, and the legs are folded to the
thighs. Many other nations prepare their dead in the same way. In
Africa a net is often used about the body to draw it into a living
shape. It is the oldest form of burial known, and belongs to the
Palaeolithic age, going back some 50,000 years.
All ancient tombs were images of the maternal birthplace, and
their earliest form was always feminine. This mother-mould was
adopted by the ancients because of their reverence towards the
mystery of birth, and their desire to reproduce. In whatever light
they looked upon their Christ, whether astronomical or mythical, he
was not of the flesh, though of both sexes, male-female, a Supreme
Spirit.
All these primitive beliefs speak more eloquently of divine
truths than does anything evolved by the so-called learning
attained by man in later, darker ages. Modern teaching and theology
are devoid of the profound reverence which the ancients had for the
mystery of birth and rebirth. Primitive phallic worship was as pure
and spotless as the seamless mummy band, robe of their Christ.
Unrecognized and unthought of by the majority of Christians,
phallic emblems and worship survive today in the symbolism of the
churches and their surrounding tombs, which symbolism was
instituted and founded upon the primitive worship of reproduction.
In Egypt, when a net was placed on the outside of the mummy in
its preparation, it was the symbol of the goddess Neith. This was
the net with which she rescued the young Horus from the water.
Interwoven with it were what were called the "Beads of Isis," sign
of reproduction and gestation, toward which they felt innate
veneration. "Neith was 'Lady of the Waters,' from whose divine
personality gushed the stream of life, and who gave to every mummy
the draught for which he thirsted," like the parched land thirsting
for the waters of the River Nile. The scarab was also woven in the
network, symbol of the regeneration of

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the mummy in the tomb, or reproduction as a primal truth.1
During Egyptian feasts a mummy image was carried about and
presented to each person with this remark: "Look upon this, then
drink, and rejoice, for thou shalt be as this."2 This was done to
remind them of immortality and the rebirth of happiness, belonging
to the mystery of transformation.
One of the Quiche myths tells of four old Men, Spirits or Gods,
who when dying left in their place a Bundle which could never be
opened or unfolded, as it had been made seamless. This Bundle was
known as the "Enveloped Majesty" and was held sacred as a memorial
to the Fathers. These four "Old Men," after giving counsel to those
they were leaving behind, sang an ancient sweet song called KAMUCU,
meaning "WE SEE." The myth says that they sang the song at the
mythical sunrise of the world "when all the stars sang together and
all the sons of God shouted for joy" as they shone rejoicing in the
primeval dawn. The Bundle bears a certain resemblance to the mummy
of Egypt. In the myth the four are combined into one. In many
instances fourfold gods or spirits are compounded into one.
Ezekiel, the Book of Revelation, Brahme, and Tat are examples of
this and belong to the typology of the four corners. The dropping
of a garment in passing meant the leaving of the body behind. The
bundle represented the god or spirit which had departed, and
reminds one of the mummy type of Egypt.
Green was a type of the Eternal, and a green stone was a symbol
of reproduction. A green stone, as well as a green axe, were worn
by both the living and the dead. The color green had the same
significance with the Aztecs, the Chinese,
________
1 Herodotus.
2 The Tie was a hieroglyphic sign of reproduction, and also a
sign of the covenant, carried by the Great and enceinte Mother as
her emblem. It was an ideograph of periodicity, of feminine
pubescence, "The first Ankh-tie was put on at puberty by the
leaf-wearers, some of them still clothe themselves with a
leaf-girdle today." The collar called Mena or Menka was the ring of
the wet nurse. It was made with nine or ten beads, symbolical of
the nine or ten months of gestation, and sign of the covenant.

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the Neolithic men, and with the Egyptians. Axes were made from the
polished emerald, felspar, jade or jasper. The axe was type of
founding by opening the ground, and making the passage for the dead
on its way towards the image of its resurrection. "Axes of green
stone were also buried in the ancient mounds of Japan, and an
emerald was made the base or heart of the Aztec mummy."
The Swastika Cross was placed on the breasts of defunct mystics,
and has been found on the heart of statues of Buddha. "It is a SEAL
placed also on the hearts of living Initiates, burnt into the
flesh, forever, with some"1--because they must keep certain Truths
inviolate, intact, and in eternal silence until an appointed time,
although this symbol is degraded today, it can never lose its
mysterious power.
The earliest Stigma ever branded on the human body was a totemic
token of puberty, and was the origin of the cross used as a brand
cut into the flesh, or tatooed on the thigh at the time when the
crossing from boyhood into manhood was being accomplished. This
tattooing was also typical of parenthood in either men or women.
Primitive people knew well the life histories of the animals which
they so freely make use of as Totems. From earliest times animals,
birds, insects and reptiles were adopted as a symbolic means of
expression. The zoological system of typology will endure forever
as it appropriately symbolized the stars and the constellations.
The origin of Totemism and heraldry is found in Egypt, where
entymological symbolism was used by tribes, clans or groups of
people for purpose of identification. The earliest ideographs, even
extended to the individual man whom we find denoted by his
individual star. Primitive people are known to clothe themselves in
figures of birds and animals, which they wear in their primitive
dances, imitating the call of the bird or the cry of the animal
which they personify, every tribe being distinguished by its
appropriate animal
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 586.

91

Totem sign. Totemism began ages before a male or individual
fatherhood as progenitor was known. Descent came from the mother's
side and she was first pictured as an animal, and that animal was
the type of the entire group or clan. The Totem representing the
ancestor's name did not originate until ages thereafter. These
groups and clans became symbolized in the Constellations, the Star
groups, thus linking their souls with the stars. Amongst the Arab
tribes many used a certain star as Totem, whilst others adopted the
constellations, and in certain countries shooting stars were
supposed to be the souls of the departed. Star Totems became star
deities, and the Totemic archetypes in heaven may be found in every
likeness on earth. The twelve signs of the Zodiac are Totemic and
are symbolized as animals. Today we follow that ancient method for
the ruling planet of the horoscope is the "Individual Guiding Star"
anciently a Totemic type.
The Cross and the Circle in our planetary symbolism are
indivisible. In Mercury there is the half circle, the circle, and
the cross; Jupiter gives us the cross and the crescent; Mars is the
cross on the circle; Venus has the cross below the circle; Saturn
has the semicircle and the cross. The square was always the symbol
of the earth, and the circle that of heaven. The fourth finger
wears the circle of the wedding ring because the thumb touching the
fourth finger makes the circle which denotes fatherhood. The cross
as a sign denoting the four corners or quarters is found
everywhere. The cross of the Christians is perhaps the sole
exception, since it became to the Christians type of the Eternal
Region, finally found by them in the Zodiacal sign Pisces which
solar birthplace became chief of all corners.

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Celestial Ship of the North - [6] The Sacred Four

@insert line drawing of Tat Cross

THE TAT CROSS

The Tat Cross or Pillar was a special type of the Moon-god Taht,
who was the establisher of the four quarters of the Moon, as well
as of Ptah the Sun-god when he established the four quarters of the
solar Zodiac. It is the equivalent of the Mount of the Four Corners
and was ever a sacred emblem.

93

94

CHAPTER VI
THE SACRED FOUR

The Great Mother was called the "Keeper of the Four
Corners"--the primal four corners which were universal in ancient
mythologies, and formed by her as she turned around the pole with
her Seven Stars. From this primal circle great mysticism has
evolved. The first seven elementaries, born from the Abyss, became
the spirits or stars presided over by this Great Mother. Of the
seven, Fire, Earth, Air and Water were and will be for all time the
four elements, symbolized in the four corners or the four quarters
of the universe. In earliest symbolism these elements were
represented as animals. Fire was portrayed as a bird, Earth a
beast, Air an ape and Water a fish. Water became recognized as an
element of life, and as the feminine source was the first element
to be humanized and became symbolized by the Great Mother.
Originally the heavens were said to rest on four corners. These
four corners typified the square and this square with the four
cardinal points was an original way of registering the circle. In a
first and feminine form, heaven was said to stand on four legs, as
it were, over the earth, or resting on the four corners. Didron
gives a figure of the square supplementing the circle in the halo
of the saints (Figure 5, 26).
In Egypt the Phoenix, Bird of Fire, was said to have the star
Sirius at the heart of it, and as it outshone the sunrise the South
was made to represent the quarter of Fire." The crocodile,
represented the earth, and the west, from which the earth was said
to have emerged from the inundation. The ape, as a symbol of breath
and air, represented the east, and the

95

hippopotamus, representing water, was given to the birthplace in
the north. The Genii of the early circle of the four quarters were
one female and three males. With the three males, the god Har, or
Ra (fire), was hawk-headed; the god Sut (earth) was ass-headed; the
god Shu (air) was ape-headed, and Uati (water) the Mother, the
female, was represented as human-headed. With the division into the
four quarters Uati, the hippopotamus, was portrayed with the nose
of an ape, the feet of a lion, and the hindquarters of a crocodile,
all of very great significance to one who understands the types.
The four elements, forces, and powers were looked upon in
primeval times with fear, which suggested one of the earliest
religious thoughts. In connection with the god Ra, who presided
over Fire, Fear was represented by devouring flames, with the god
Sut, who presided over the Earth, by the terrors of the earthquake;
with Shu, god of the Air, by the hurricane; with Uati, goddess of
the Water, fear was represented by drowning, being swallowed by
water. The death-giving heat in Egypt or Inner Africa was an early
symbol of fire, from which the historical or theological Hell was
evolved.
The Mexicans had four ages or aeons ruled over by the Sun, for
which they made the Sun a synonym. They called the past ages so
many destroyed Suns. These four great periods had all ended with a
cataclysm, symbolical of the elements that had represented the age,
for example, the Sun age was by fire, conflagration; the Earth age
by earthquake and famine; the Air age by hurricane; and the Water
period by the universal deluge.
These elements were all later personified as Gods, Genii, and
Winds, progeny of the Great Mother, the "Bearer of the Waters," or
the enceinte mother.. She was the primordial ark, and long before
boats were built was called the Ship of Life or the Ship of the
North. And this primitive ark or ship contained within herself the
causation of all the Fours, which still cling to the cardinal
points and the cross.

96

The ark was later represented as the coffin of Osiris, with the
four Genii standing and keeping guard at the corners. They were Ra,
Sut, Shu and Uati, the four great spirits of the seven stars of the
Great Bear, and of the four, Shu, was the Angel Gabriel, who in a
Mohammedan legend is called the chief of the four great Genii, or
the favored one of the angels, being the Spirit of Truth. He is the
angel who appeared to Mohammed in his great trance. In the legends
of the middle ages, the Angel Gabriel was called the second of the
great spirits that stood before the throne of God. Gabriel was Shu,
god of breath, a divine type of power. And as the planet Mars Shu
was known as the god of generation and was given the Feather of
Truth.
The typical four of India receiving the greatest honors were the
Cow, the Ape, the Eagle and the Serpent. They were called the
greatest of the Totemic types.
The Assyrian four Genii are represented by a lion with a man's
head, (fire); by a bull with a human face, (earth); by the Uster,
Aquarius, in human likeness, (air); and the Nettig or Scorpion with
the head of an eagle, (water). The elementary spirits, or Genii,
who are found stationed at the four corners, in whatever type,
represent the four elements--Fire, Earth, Air and Water. The
Mandans placed four tortoises at the corners of the earth and they
were said to spout forth water.
The heraldic emblems of China are the Stag, the Phoenix, the
Tortoise and the Dragon. In Egypt the Phoenix represents the south,
the Tortoise west, the Dragon north, and the Stag east. The Aztecs
have the four great ages of Fire, Earth, Air and Water. The Druids
have the Square, the Circle, the Triangle, and the Crescent,
signifying the elements. These four symbols are found in the
nimbus, in the portrayals of the Christian saints, as a Glory of
God. The nimbus truly belongs to the Holy Spirit, the Regent of
God.
When the four corners became established, a place of

97

importance was given to the Spring Equinox, when the conjunction of
the Sun and Moon took place, a conjunction which always signified
the birth of a new Sun, Child, or Christos, just as the conjunction
of the Sun and the Moon astrologically gives birth to the Christos
within. A yearly festival was always held in honor of the birth of
the Sun-god, or Saviour God, giving a representation of his
suffering, burial, and the resurrection into the new life,
typifying renewal, regeneration, and a new birth of nature. This
conjunction or crossing also represented the Rock of the Horizon,
on which the gods were wont to find refuge from the waters.
The most important word or glyph of ancient times, set in
heaven, and used figuratively, was the serpent, relating in
celestial correspondence to time, seasons, and the four elements
all being represented by serpents--Heh, represented Fire; Bata,
Earth; Nef, Breath; and Hydra, Water. A four-headed and four-winged
serpent in Egypt symbolized the four corners of the earth, and
their serpent, Apta, a name signifying "The Corner or end of the
World," was covered with four mystic figures, which represented the
four cardinal points. Hapu means "Corner or Secret Places," and the
serpent Hapu was represented with four heads. Four serpents, in
various forms and conditions, were used in many countries as
foundations for temples, within which, designated by a serpent were
corners and places for worship.
The four corners that turned four ways were called the Sword of
Flyfut, the weapon of Thor. This was a form of the four-footed
cross, type of the four corners, as was the Swastika or the God
Agni of the Hindus, or the Agnus Dei of the Christians.
Later the four corners were superseded by the form of the mount
that would rise in some mysterious way and fill the entire world as
a throne for the Solar God. For the elementaries of the beginning,
emanating from the Abyss, Darkness, or the Great Mother, had become
in the Solar myth the "Servants of the Solar God" Light, the
Egyptian

98

Ra, whose mother had been the ancient Typhon. This change was
typical of the struggle between Darkness and Light, "When the
Lioness spends her fiery fury against the Wicked, the Scorpion
stings on behalf of Gods and men." It is then the scorpion, kin of
the serpent, which holds within itself the sting of the world.
In Jacob Boehme's "Threefold Life of Man," Chapter 2, he writes
of the first elements in creative nature: "The first four forms in
themselves are the anger and the wrath of God in the eternal
nature; and they are in themselves nothing else, but such a source
or property as standeth in the darkness, and is not material, but
an originality of the Spirit, without which there would be nothing.
For the four forms are the cause of all things."
These elements, originally emanating from the Great Mother, were
called Primordial Forces, and became combined in a single Deity.
Later the worship of this one God arose, whose name was "I am that
I am," and whose symbol was the disk of the Sun, standing for
Light, Truth and all-sustaining Power.
This one God belongs wholly to religion, and was not an initial
creation. "No one God that is not a bi-une being, a twin form of
the 'double primitive essence,' mother-mould of the producer, was
primordial." If there is one god, an only one, as father of a
beginning, endowed with all the powers of deity, it is the Egyptian
Amen-Ra, the hidden Sun, whose creation came in the later solar
period. The earlier gods--Ptah, Seb, Shu, Osiris and Sut never had
a father. Taht, the lunar god, and Seb, the Star-god, were said to
be born of time, and there is an inscription belonging to the
Temple El-Karjeh referring to Amen-Ra as the "self-produced," "he
has not come out of a womb he has come out of cycles." (Records of
the Past.) The earlier gods were all evolved from space and from
the forces known as Fire, Earth, Air and Water, before the world
was made or creation had become an established fact. We learn from

99

Berosus that "in the beginning all was darkness and Water; and
therein were generated monstrous animals with strange and peculiar
forms. . . . A woman ruleth all." The conception of a Triune God
has come down to us today through the vista of ages, and through
its adoption by the Roman Catholic Church, it is today believed in
with blind unquestioning faith.
The four types were given as symbols of one God. The four
elementals of Egypt and those of the four corners became the souls
of the solar god, Ra. Four rams, animals with wings, and the four
Assyrian bulls with human heads, were types of the later solar god.
There was the four-headed Brahma, portrayal of the body of the
Hindu Creator, and signifying the four types or characters of the
elemental castes. All denote the four elements that were compounded
into One God, and made One.
Irenaeus assumes that for mystic reasons the Gospels needed to
be four in number, due to the origin of the Four Quarters and the
Spirits, Angels or Keepers of the Corners. "The books of the
Egyptian Horoscopus were four in number. The first treated of the
system of the fixed stars; the second and third of the solar and
lunar conjunctions (eclipses and the ends of periods being called
deluges and destructions); the fourth was the book of the risings
or resurrections of the sun, moon and stars, and eschatologically,
of the souls of men. Similarly four books of magic were assigned to
Taht or Hermes. We are told in the magical texts that

'These are the titles of the four books:
(1) The old book;
(2) The book to destroy men;
(3) The great book;
(4) The book to be as a God.'

"No better identification or apter illustration of the four
books of the 'Magical Texts' could be given than the Book of Adam
for (1) the Old Book; the Deluge for (2) the 'Book

100

to destroy Men;' the Law for (3) the Great Book; and the Book which
renews man and bears him into the kingdom of heaven for (4) the
'Book to be as a God'." While to quote from Egyptian Texts, "There
are four mansions of life at Abtu (the abode of the four corners);
each is built four stories high. There are four mansions of life.
Osiris is master thereof. The four outer walls are of stone. Its
foundation is sand, its exterior is jasper, one is placed to the
south, another to the north, another to the west, another to the
east. It is very hidden, unknown, invisible, nothing save the solar
disk sees it. It escapes men that go there. The sun's librarians,
the treasure-scribes, are within. . . . The writer of his divine
books is Taht, who vivifies it (the house) each day; its excellency
is neither seen nor heard. 'O thou daily hidden one' is written in
front of the house, and in the chapter to open the fate of this
house it is said, 'I have opened heaven, I have opened earth, I
enter'."1
From the earliest Sabean reckoning by the constellation of the
Great Bear down to the latest periodicity given for the Sun, the
Four Corners and the ancient Sabean cycle still remain in our solar
Zodiac with the four quarters marked out by the signs of the Lion,
the Bird, the Waterer, and the Bull.
In all lands in all languages are found endless myths of the
early Four, which belong to the circle discovered to have been made
by the constellation of the Great Bear revolving around the Pole.
These myths are sacred and elevating in thought, though often
crudely expressed by primitive peoples who were giving their
impressions and conceptions of the Spirits, Angels and Winds, which
were to carry their messages of love and reverence into the Great
Beyond.
The history of the world from beginning to end is found in the
stars and recorded in the Zodiac by a universal symbolism, the key
to which has always been and always will be with the Initiates, who
have ever known and held sacred the
________
1 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. ii, pp. 475-476.

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unchangeable Laws of God. Man's first insight into life itself came
through study of the stars, whereby the heavens revealed to him
their sacred truths, inspiring him, when he began to realize God,
the Eternal, the Absolute, to seek out the revelation of a higher
destiny. Aspiration and longing were in the heart of primitive man.
Thomas Carlyle realized this when he wrote these dynamic lines:
"The great antique heart how like a child in its simplicity, like a
man in its solemnity and depth; heaven lies over him wherever he
goes or stands on earth, making all the earth a mystic temple to
him, the earth's business all a kind of worship. Glimpses of bright
creatures flash in the common sunlight; angels yet hover doing
God's message among men." Knowledge of the Central Spiritual Sun,
and the manifestation of Light appearing at certain periods of
world change, came through primitive man's early piety and
reverence. May the soul of man be reawakened, through knowledge of
the stars and astrology as a sublime science, for "Knowledge is
Recollection," and eternal memory of the precious gems of the
golden age of the mythical and mystic is within man.
Moreover there are records extant on ancient monuments and
temples whose starry symbolism is readily deciphered by the
Initiates to whom we owe so much. We are told also that there are
in existence today secret inexhaustible volumes of sacred books
belonging to an immense antiquity.1 As a matter of fact, scientific
knowledge is but the development of occult knowledge, yet wherever
Science identifies and formulates one of these old occult Truths,
to the scientist it ceases to be occult.
________
1 In all corners of the world people had retained a knowledge of
sacred Books, which had disappeared or were mysteriously hidden.
The Vatican can tell of these, but the Vatican is ever silent. All
divine and holy traditions speak of these hidden Books, the Secret
writing. These traditions are prevalent among all nations, and
refer to the books being in a lost language.
Very priceless this Wisdom, which is within the reach of all,
much of which can be found in the Apocalypse, and which was
originally given to the Priests and to their followers thousands of
years before the Old Testament was written. It was the Wisdom from
that great Book of God, of the Sun, of the Moon, and of the Stars.

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There are signs, evidently ideographic, found on the hatches of
the Palaeolithic period, according to Lubeck. And when our Red
Indian tribes petitioned the President of the United States to
grant them possession of four small lakes, the petition was written
on a tiny piece of fabric barely covered with a few animals and
birds. Scientists cannot decipher the different methods the
American savages have of writing, nor their early hieroglyphic
ciphers which are preserved today and known in occultism as Senzar.
The American Indian has knowledge as profound as the hierophants of
the early days of the world, yet there are those who claim that the
ideographs of the Indians, as well as the written characters of the
Chinese, are "an attempt of the early races of mankind to express
untutored thoughts."
A tradition is extant among the Cheyenne Indian tribe that "Two
or three thousand years ago in the Cheyenne tribe, a boy was born,
who from babyhood possessed great intellectual powers. He not only
had supernatural powers, but he was a prophet from the beginning of
his life. This boy grew to manhood and lived to be four hundred
years old." His name was Motzyruff. "He went to a high mountain and
as he went near it a door opened for him to enter into the earth,
and he entered. Inside of the mountain he communicated with the
Great Medicine. There were several other men there who represented
other nations and were there to learn from the Great Medicine.
These men consisted of several red-skinned men, one black skinned
man, who was dressed in Indian fashion, and one white skinned man
who had long hair on his chin. All wore long hair on their heads. .
. . After four years Motzyruff returned to his people as a man of
supernatural powers, a messenger and prophet from the Great
Medicine."1
This is evidently the Cheyenne tradition of the King of the
World. Throughout Asia today the Messiah, whose
________
1 "Cheyenne Indian Ceremonial Organization of the Cheyenne Sun
Dance."--Smithsonian Publications.

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coming is confidently expected, is known as the King of the World.
A possible reference to this Super-Being occurs in the history of
the Cheyenne Indians of the United States and bears witness to
tutored thoughts of ancient wisdom on our continent prior to the
wthie man's advent.
Cardan says "He that goes about to destroy art is far worse than
he that is unskilled in it, for his mind is full of malice and
idleness as well as ignorance." Egotistical superficial knowledge
has held back many men's souls from finding the ancient eternal
laws of the heavens. To the astronomical priesthood of ancient days
we owe many of the sublime allegories which are our precious
inheritance, and which have become the foundations of many
theological systems. Sacred mysteries and their symbolism are the
same today as when primordial man created them out of the traceries
of the heavens. For this reason they will remain as unchangeable as
the Laws of Heaven. We also owe to the astrologers the principles
embodied in many myths and symbols of the Cross, the Cardinal
Cross, and the number Four, which are the foundations of life.
Cosmic Forces are represented by the Cardinal Cross, the four
points of the compass--North, East, South, West--each having a
distinct occult force at the beginning of all great cycles. These
occult properties are found in the winds of North, East, South and
West, and in the four principal stars creating a first Zodiac of
four signs in the making of the twelve.
The "sky is mystically spoken of as the Temple, and the eternal
consciousness of God. Its altar is the Sun, whose four arms or rays
typify the four corners or the cardinal cross of the universe,"
which have become the four fixed signs of the Zodiac, and as the
four powerful sacred animal signs are both cosmical and spiritual.
They represent the basic elements resembling our human principles.
The sign Leo represents Fire or Spirit; Taurus, Earth or Body;
Aquarius, Air, or Mind; and Scorpio represents Water

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likened to the Soul. Leo as the Lion, is the strength of the lower
nature, and is the Serpent Force which, if directed upward,
overcomes. Taurus, the Bull, is always the symbol of Creative
Force. Aquarius, the Man, is the Light-bearer, or Light-bringer.
Scorpio the Scorpion is often transmuted with Aquila, the Eagle, a
southern paranatellon of Scorpio, which rises at the same time with
Scorpio, they are closely linked in symbolism. Scorpio is "the
'Monster of Darkness,' who stings to death, and yet preserves and
reproduces," symbolizing not only generation but regeneration. As
the latter it is Aquila, the Eagle, the bird of the Sun which has
conquered the dark side of Scorpio (that adversary that can drag
man down lower than the beasts), but when transmuted is the Eagle
of Light, which can exalt above the gods.
Certain fixed stars belong to every one of these signs of the
Zodiac. Regulus, a star in the heart of the Lion, belongs to Leo;
Aldabaran, a star in the eye of the Bull, belongs to Taurus,
Fomalhaut, the eye of the Southern Fish, belongs to Aquarius; and
Antares belonging to the heart of the Scorpion--to Scorpio. These
four are known as the consecrated animals of the Zodiac, while the
signs themselves represent the basic fundamental elements of life,
Fire, Earth, Air and Water.
The Four can be traced back to the circle of Seven Stars, which
together with the four quarters,1 the four Gods, and the four
constellations, marked the four cardinal points and the solstices
and equinoxes, and gave us spring, summer, autumn and winter. The
four fixed Signs are found as the national symbols of the Chinese,
by whom the Lion is called the "Black Warrior," Taurus the "Azure
Dragon," Scorpio the "White Tiger," and Aquarius the "Red Bird."
These colors were prominent in the heraldry of the famous Yellow
Emperor, who is supposed to have reigned about the year
________
1 The four corners were a type of the Eternal, and in Egypt,
four times, was a synonym of Forever.

105

2697 B. C. An ancient teacher is made to say of him, "Cherish that
which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for such
knowledge is a curse. Then will I place you upon that abode of
Great Light which is the source of the Positive Power, and escort
you through the gate of Profound Mystery which is the course of
Negative Power. The Powers are the controllers of heaven and earth,
and each contains the other."
The four fixed signs are also compounded in the Sphinx, of whom
Denon writes, "The Sphinxes (of Egypt) have been wantonly
mutilated, with few exceptions, which barbarism, wearied with
destroying has spared; and on examining which it is easy to
distinguish, that some of them had a woman's head, others that of a
lion, a ram, a bull, etc. The avenue which leads from Cornac to
Lugsoar, or Luxor, was of this latter description; and this space
which is nearly half a league in extent, contains a constant
succession of these chimerical figures to the right and left." This
was the Egyptian manner of preserving their register of time
through the Zodiacal signs, giving several revolutions to the
equinoctial points. These so-called monsters were not gods, and
were not worshipped as something divine, as many deluded modern
interpreters in their anathemas against the ancients seek to make
the modern world believe. They were registers of time and were
preserved with veneration.
The Sphinx may possibly represent the passage of the Sun through
the signs Leo and Virgo at the time of the overflow of the river
Nile. The Virgin's head on the body of the lion was the passing of
one great Age or Cycle to another. The word Sphinx, derived from
the Hebrew, means "a woman disguised." We are all familiar with the
Great Sphinx, which is the woman disguised. But as Mr. Mackay says,
"The Act which put the Virgin's head upon the Lion's body, was 2100
years in passing . . . and as the stars of Leo were seen in that
constellation, from whence they received the bounty of the Virgin
after a lapse of 2000

106

years; the twofold figure pointing out the same division of the
Zodiac, was as truly a superabundance."
The four horses of the Book of Revelation correspond to the four
rivers of Eden and represent the Zodiacal constellations Virgo,
Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius as the struggles of the four lower
planes of existence. The yellow horse is Virgo, the "Virgin at the
gate," who is given power to overcome the passional side of life.
The red horse is Scorpio, ridden by Mars, who gives battle to the
lower desires. The black horse is Libra, the balance between, ready
to bring harmony and justice. The white horse is Sagittarius, the
Archer, who is the conqueror. White is a symbol of the purified
magnetic force of Light which revibrates and conquers the lower
mind, so that man can arouse the serpent coil, or Solar Force, from
its sleep of ages. Then man becomes a true Son of God, the Central
Spiritual Sun, the One God whom we are bidden to worship and no
other, as revealed in the Book of Revelation.
Ezekiel says, "The glory of the Lord comes from the way of the
East," the rising of the Sun, and Jeremiah, Isaiah and David assure
us that all evil comes from the North and the West, while the Roman
Catholics credit epidemics, wars, calamities to the invisible
forces emanating from the North and West.
A grievous misconception has arisen among the Christians
regarding the regents or angels guarding these points, which
according to their way of thinking are either virtues or devils.
The four cardinal points symbolized are allegorically in the square
forms of the Tabernacle, Obelisk, Temple or Pyramid and in all
sacred square buildings. Josephus takes care to explain that the
pillars of the Tabernacle, described in Numbers, "were the same as
those raised in Tyre to the four elements, which were placed on
four angles and faced the four cardinal points; adding that the
angles of the pedestals had equally the four figures of the Zodiac
on them representing the same orientation."

107

In all sacred buildings that have escaped the ravages of time,
whether in the Indian temples carved out of rock, or in the
Zoroastrian caves, or as the square of the obelisk or temple, these
four points as primitive elements were the basis of religion, and
were symbolical of the celestial signs of the Zodiac, and with
their regents, angels, or ruling planets, were typically the
protectors of mankind.

Ezekiel in his vision saw four living creatures, having in their
higher symbolism, four faces and four wings; faces of a man
(Aquarius); a Lion (Leo); an Ox (Taurus); and an Eagle (Scorpio).
Other symbolical names such as "Winged Globes," "Fiery Wheels,"1
were also given them. Ezekiel very plainly describes the four
Cosmic Angels as the four celestial signs of the Zodiac, "I looked
and behold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a
fire infolding itself? . . . Also out of the midst thereof came the
likeness of four living creatures . . . @they had the likeness of a
man, and every one had four faces and every one had four wings . .
. they had the face of a man, and the face of a lion . . . the face
of an ox . . . and the face of an eagle. . . . Now as I beheld the
living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living
creatures with his four faces . . . and their appearance and their
work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel . . . for the
spirit of the living creatures was in the wheel . . . their
appearance was like burning coals of fire, etc."--Ezekiel, Chapter
I.

The four living creatures with these faces, are used in
________
1 "The Seraphim were the fiery serpents of heaven, and are found
in a passage describing Mount Meru as the exalted mass of glory,
the venerable haunt of the gods and heavenly choristers . . . not
reached by sinful men . . . because guarded by Serpents. These were
called the Avengers, and the Winged Wheels."--Blavatsky, H. P.--The
Secret Doctrine.
The chariot of Ezekiel was called the Merkabah and like the Sun
was an emblem of solar worship. The doctrine of the Merkaba was a
great mystery, belonging to the hidden wisdom of the Kabala. In 1
Chronicles, Chap. xxvii, 18, we read of "Gold for the pattern of
the chariot of the cherubim, that opened out their wings, and
covered the ark of the covenant." The ark was the Cosmic Mother,
the Ship of the North, the earliest chariot or boat of the gods
known.

108

the Roman Catholic New Testament to preface the Gospels and
represent the Evangelists. With Zodiacal imagery, "the face of the
Eagle (Scorpio) is the symbol of Cosmic Spirit and is given to St.
John; the face of the ox, bull, (Taurus) is the symbol of Cosmic
Strength and is given to St. Luke; the face of the lion (Leo) is
the symbol of Cosmic Fire and is given to St. Mark; and the face of
the man (Aquarius) synthesizes the three into the symbol of Cosmic
Spirituality and is given to Matthew." (Raphael), Lion (Michael),
Bull (Uriel) and Eagle (Gabriel)1 to represent the four lower
principles as well as the four elements. These Four Ophite
Archangels, Raphael, Michael, Uriel and Gabriel, all have their
names ending with the name of the Deity, the El or Al of the
Hebrews, and are the Genii who presided over the fixed stars.
Nearly all anthropomorphic ideas and concepts of deity are composed
of four letters, Adad, Assyrian; Amun, Egyptian; JHVH, Hebrew;
Deus, Latin; Allh, Arabian; Taht, Egyptian; and many others.
In Ezekiel we find the four living creatures having "a physical
as well as a spiritual correspondence to the four constellations
that form the suite and cortege of the Solar God. Ezekiel was a
slave in Babylon when he had his marvelous visions, which were
truly astrological in intention. The stars he describes as tiny
lamps, and begins by saying "The heavens here opened and I saw a
vision of God," meaning the Sun. The Sun in its travels through the
Zodiac is described as the spirit of God moving up and down among
the living creatures. Some of the constellations are called beasts,
and the one with "eyes before and eyes behind" read-
________
1 "Gabriel is one of the seven planetary Gods, who are
attendants on the Sun circling about his Golden Throne, wherefore
they are called in Christian mythology, 'The Seven Angels of the
Presence.' His name, which means 'Strong Man of God,' identifies
him with Mars (Aries) who occupies Scorpio as his zodiacal house,
and is primarily the God of Generation."--Pryse, James, "Tidings of
St. Luke," p. 689.

109

ily suggests the constellation Taurus, with the brilliant stars in
each of the horns of the Bull. The circles, as S. A. Mackey
asserts, were the Equator and the Ecliptic, and the tropics, two
Parallels of Declination, having a wheel within a wheel, resembling
the movement of the Ecliptic as it moves up from the earth along
with the constellations, the living creatures. As they were lifted
up "they turned not as they went." Being turned up to the north
indicated the coming of the age of Sorrow and Trouble which would
fall to nations when "the wheels mounted up to the North until they
had passed the Poles as far on the other side." These first
chapters of Ezekiel are considered very precious heritages of
antiquity explaining the ancient science of astronomy. The visions
of Ezekiel and St. John give us knowledge of the pericyclosical
motion of the Poles (the Precession). To understand this motion and
the Wheels of Ezekiel, the Ecliptic, the Equator, the Tropics, the
Zodiac, along with their living creatures, and the Zodiacal
constellations "who turned not as they went" but went withersoever
the spirit (the Sun) was to go, is to perceive the immutable law
"As above, so below."
The four Beasts of Ezekiel and of Revelation are similar to the
Assyrian Sphinxes. They are also found on the walls of almost all
Hindu Pagodas.
The Evangelists have near them one of these animals. They are
grouped together in Solomon's Triangle, are in the pentacle of
Ezekiel, and are found in the four Cherubs or Sphinxes of the
sacred arch. Hence the early Christians adopted them, and the Roman
Catholics still represent these animals of the Zodiac in their
pictures of the Evangelists of the Four Gospels. Irenaeus, Bishop
of Lyons, insisted upon the necessity of having Four Gospels,
reasoning that there could not be less than four, as there were
four zones in the world, and four principal winds coming from the
four corners of the earth.
"There were four Angels standing at the four corners of

110

the earth, holding back the four Winds of the earth, so that no
Wind should blow over the Earth or the Sea or upon any Tree."
Revelation vii, 1.
And in the ninth chapter of the Book of Revelation a voice
speaks saying, "Set at liberty the four Angels who are prisoners
near the green River Euphrates." The Four Spirits in the Book of
Enoch are the four great angels--Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and
Phanuel, described as the four Winds or Spirits of the four
quarters. "The first wind is called the eastern, because the Most
High there descends, and frequently there descends he who is
blessed forever. The western wind has the name of diminution,
because there all the luminaries of heaven are diminished, and
descend. The fourth wind, which is named the north, is divided into
three parts; one of which is for the habitation of man; another for
seas of water, with valleys, woods, rivers, shady places, and snow;
and the third part contains paradise," which is the Garden, which
at a later period was placed in the East. Angels, Spirits and Winds
are all interchangeable.
Tradition tells us of a grotto in Central Asia wherein light
enters from four openings, placed crosswise at the four cardinal
points. Every light is of a different color, red, blue, orange-gold
and red, and they converge around a pillar of white marble, capped
in the center with a globe supposed to represent our earth. It is
named the Grotto of Zarathustra.
Four is the divine number of the Hebrews, a type of their deity,
their J H V H or Jehovah, in which are hidden great truths. The
Kabalists used this number to hide their secret doctrine concerning
the Divine Essence of the creative God. The four fundamental
elemental elements are said to be inhabited by beings called
Elementals. The Salamanders inhabit the fire, the Gnomes the earth,
the Sylphs the air, and the Nymphs the water.
On Egyptian monuments four different colors were

111

employed to represent the different races. The four corners of
Mount Meru, or the North Pole, have different colors representing
the four points of the compass. White was used for the east and
yellow for the south; black the west and red the north. The Mayas
had a different arrangement of the colors, coinciding with the Ages
that were named from them. Yellow as gold was given to the east;
white as silver to the north; red as copper, or brass, to the
south, while black as iron was given to the west. The combining of
the metals with the four quarters is found in many of the old
cults. Thus in his dream Belshazzar saw clay mixed with the iron at
the roots of the tree. And "when Zarathust desired immortality he
beheld the root of a tree, on which were four branches, one Golden,
one of Silver, one of Steel, and one mixed with Iron."1
On almost all ancient ruined monuments, towers and temples, the
four-armed cross is found. It was traced on the forehead of the
Neophyte with water and oil--"The Father's name written on the
forehead." The intersection of the Equator with Ecliptic forms the
Cross and symbolizes the Crucified. The cross has also been called
the Tree of Life, the mystery of the dual nature.
There are also the higher quaternaries of Space and Time. In
space there is length, breadth, thickness and the within; for Time,
there is past, present, future and ineffable time neither past,
present nor future, but including all time in every instant of
time. And there are the four planes of consciousness--physical,
astral, mental and spiritual. Zechariah saw four chariots. One was
red; one, black; one, white; and one, grizzled. Ezekiel saw four
living creatures, having four faces and four wings--faces of a man,
a lion, an ox, a man, and a flying eagle.
How easily can divinity be brought close to us! Look up to the
starry heavens above and also to the starry sphere
________
1 Bahman Yast--Ch. i, p. 2.

112

within, for as above, so below, or within. The Law of Compensation
was accurately known to the ancients. From the higher they looked
to the lower. They knew that positive energy meeting its magnetic
opposite would polarize its activities, and that polarity or
sympathetic attraction was a proof of the universe. Out of the
darkness of the past age, astrology will rise Phoenix-like
uplifting its ancient truth. "Time destroys the speculations of
man, but it confirms the judgment of nature." (Cicero.) Theology
today, combined with materialism, has tried to destroy many of the
marvelous philosophical and astrological conceptions of the past,
but new weapons are being forged out of the old, and we who love
those ancient days with their celestial symbolism will rejoice in
the forthcoming period.
From very far away has come the message, "There is somewhat in
us that loveth the mystical things, and so we tell not all, but the
love which seeketh and is not wearied." Seek and you will surely
find, seek with love in your heart, and the beautiful treasures of
heaven are yours.

113

corr. csn-6

"I looked and behold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great
cloud, and a fire infolding itself? . . . Also out of the midst
thereof came the likeness of four living creatures . . . they had
the likeness of a man, and every one had four faces and every one
had four wings . . . they had the face of a man, and the face of a
lion . . . the face of an ox . . . and the face of an eagle. . . .
Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the
earth by the living creatures with his four faces . . . and their
appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a
wheel . . . for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheel
. . . their appearance was like burning coals of fire, etc."

...

and the face of the man (Aquarius) synthesizes the three into the
symbol of Cosmic Spirituality and is given to St. Matthew."
Similarly the Ophites made use of the symbolic Dragon (Raphael)

Celestial Ship of the North - Ch. 7 - The Tree

@insert line drawing of view of village in Punt

VIEW OF A VILLAGE IN PUNT
(From Mariettes Deir-el-Bahari, plate 5.)

"The trees are two date-palms in fruit, and three myrrh-trees
(odoriferous sycamore), the foliage of the latter being indicated
by a line bounding the tops of the branches."
The mystical Sycamore or Fig Tree was a chief type of the Tree
of Life or of Knowledge, the "Tree that Told." It imaged the Mother
as the Giver of Life. In the above illustration the Sycamore Tree
with its enclosing line, oval in shape, maintains the ancient
symbol. The Mother of the Gods of ancient Egypt was hidden in a
Sycamore Tree. Christians from many lands worship a Sycamore Tree
in the gardens at Heliopolis where tradition states that Mary,
Joseph and the child sought shelter. "Religious traditions never
die, but reappear in new dress from time to time."

115

116

CHAPTER VII
THE TREE

There is a tradition that the first great tree of earth was
hung with clusters of beautiful stars or constellations, and that
certain human beings climbing ever higher and higher reached the
uppermost branches. There were others who stayed below, and thus
the trunk of the tree was divided in two, those human beings in the
branches remaining above in the heavens, while those below had
their roots in the earth. The vault of heaven was upheld by the
first tree, which putting forth two branches, produce our quarters.
The Tree in the beginning was single, feminine, the Mother,
the nourisher of life. When the heavens divided, there were two
branches. Then there were four, the four quarters of the four
cardinal points of the world, and then it became seven-branched,
and these were the seven constellations revolving around the Pole,
or the Seven Stars of the Great Bear. Then came the tree with its
twelve branches, and variable fruits for every month, representing
the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and finally this celestial Tree is
depicted with seventy-two branches, the duo-decans of the Zodiac,
and known as the Kabalistic Tree. "By means of the Tree space was
first penetrated, identified, divided and configurated." The
twelve-branched Tree of the Book of Revelation is the Bearer,
celestial type of the Zodiac. The Chinese Tree of heaven and earth
has twelve branches, signifying their twelve hours, which are our
twenty-four. The thirty-six Crossings of the Syrians were the
decans of the twelve Zodiacal signs, originally known as the
thirty-six Crossing Stars. The Zodiac is completed with three

117

hundred and sixty degrees. The square of ninety degrees is
one-fourth of the circle, creating the four corners, which is the
Cross within the circle.
The Tree was always feminine and the branch was the child, the
"Coming One." The Tree was made the symbol of the Mother as well as
of Mother Earth, and all that gave nourishment in bringing forth
the child or the fruit, symbol of renewal.
The mystical Tree belonging to the Fall was the Fig Tree,
supposed to introduce purity among men. The doctrine of the fig
tree belongs to the Hidden Wisdom. The human Fall was that of
ignorance--ignorance that brought death into the world. Among the
proverbs of Solomon we find, "Wisdom is a tree of life to them that
lay hold upon her; and happy is every man that retaineth her;" and
"To be allied to wisdom is immortality." The Tree of Knowledge of
Good and Evil is the Tree of Divine Wisdom, the Tree of Life, not
of death as our Bible would have us believe.
The Sycamore or Fig Tree figures very largely in many
traditions. Its name is derived from Sycos, a Fig Tree, and Moros,
a mulberry tree. It partakes of the nature of the mulberry in its
leaves and of the fig in its fruit and became chief type of the
Tree of Life. In Africa this tree is always green and is a prolific
bearer of fruit, being apparently unsusceptible to change of
climate, time or season. The fig is an emblem of the feminine
reproductive organ, as it contains the seed within itself. As the
Tree of Knowledge the fig is known as the "Tree that Told." In the
New Testament it is the blasted withered Tree, the tree without
fruit, typical of the degeneracy of the lunar darkness of the
Piscene Era of the past two thousand years.
In an Arab tradition the divine Jesus is said to have been
concealed in the trunk of a Gemaseh Tree by the web of a spider
which had been spun over the entrance and which had hidden him from
his pursuers. There is also a

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Turkish tradition that Mary and her child when pursued by those
whom Herod had sent to murder them, reached a Tree at Maturea which
had the power to open and close, it opened to receive them both and
they were saved, and to this day a Sycamore Fig Tree at Maturea is
pointed out as the "Tree of Mary and her Child." This tree
symbolizes the "Shrine, the Sekhem." The name Maturea comes from
Mat, which is an ancient name for An, the birth-place. "The Shrine
of the Child" imaged as the celestial Tree that offered food and
drink to all, was called the Sekhem, birth-place sacred to their
goddess mother Hathor. When the tree was portrayed with two
extended branches it imaged the Mother of Life and the Cross in
one, "The Bearer."
The Druids selected the most stately and beautiful tree as an
emblem of their Deity. After trimming away all its branches, they
chose two of the largest and fastened them like extended arms to
the highest point of the tree, representing the Cross.
There is a tree in the Koran called Al-Zakum. Mohammed had
this tree of Knowledge planted in a place called Hell, instead of
in Heaven. The fruit of this tree, of which the damned were to eat,
was represented by heads of devils and serpents. This
interpretation was, in a sense, but a later revival of the tree and
the serpent.
In Egypt the Ark, containing Osiris, floated on the water
until it became entangled in the branches of a tamarisk which had
grown to the height of a tree, and was enclosed with the child
within its trunk, symbolizing the Tree of Life, the "Sekhem" or the
"Shrine." Moreover the mother of Confucius was told in a dream she
would bring forth her child in the hollow of a tree.
In India there is a legend that Buddha had been incarnated
many times under the Asvattha, the sacred Fig Tree, their mythical
Tree of Knowledge, Wisdom and Enlightenment.

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Agni, the Hindu God of Fire, is said to have been born in
wood, like the embryo in the plant. Curiously wood and fire have
the same name in some languages, and Sun and Fire are the same in
Hindu. In Hindu philosophy souls are supposed to issue from the
soul of the world and return to it as a spark of fire.
The Palm Tree as an ideograph of time as well as of letters
was a form of the Tree of Knowledge, and when Taht, the Egyptian
scribe, carried a Palm cross in his hand it was a symbol of Time,
representing the crossing (astronomical), not the crucifixion. It
was the symbol of the equinoctial year. In Egypt the Buka is the
Palm Tree, the branch carried in the hand of Taht, is the Book of
Taht, and the bark of the tree was used for his writing. The Buka,
or Palm-branch finally yields us the name of the Book. The Palm
Tree was the Tree of Knowledge that first supplied the divine
drink. The Toddy Palm of Central Africa yielded a liquid like milk,
which was fermented and called Koumess. A fermented drink was used
in the ancient mysteries to induce the gift of prophecy and
divination, while the gods were said to become intoxicated in order
to obtain immortality. In Deuteronomy xiv, 26, the Jew is told to
save his money "for wine, or strong drink, or for whatever thy soul
desireth; and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God," and
this was to be his offering to the deity. The first wine, in a
mystical sense, was the blood of the Tree of Life. The juice of the
fruit of the tree was mingled with blood to prepare the Eucharist
of the ancient mysteries.
Buka is the Palm Tree, the Palm Toddy. Buk is food-bread; and
in a final phase it became the developed book, while retaining the
ancient name. Book and food are both found in the Papyrus plant,
the root of which is eaten as food, of which Hor Apollo aptly
writes, "To denote ancient descent, the Egyptians depict a bundle
of papyrus, and by this they initiate primordial food, for no one
can find the beginning of food or generation." The eating of the
book

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became synonymous with receiving knowledge, which assurance is
given us in the Book of Revelation.
The Tree of Life and Knowledge derived from motherhood was
wholly feminine. Duality came with the blending of the sexes. Then
the Tree of Life became masculine and the Tree of Knowledge
feminine, as the woman was the first to eat of its fruit. There is
a curious engraving of a sacred Tree of seven branches on an early
Babylonian Cylinder, in which there is a serpent, a man, and a
woman. Of its branches three are given to the man and four to the
woman. Back of her, elevated on its tail, is the serpent. It should
be remembered that "Dwelling in the Microcosmic Tree are the
manifested Serpents of Wisdom," and "in origin and in importance
the Tree of the first day and the Fount of Immortality are
indissolubly bound together." Our North American Indians have an
instructive symbology originated in reverence for the starry
heavens and their knowledge of the signs of Zodiac, and based upon
the importance of the four cardinal points symbolized in the Tree.
The Lenni Lenape Indians of Delaware hold a festival, in their
"House of Sacrifice," in honor of the God of Fire, recognized as
the Sun. Twelve poles or trees are gathered, which they tie
together at the top, and spread about below into a circle. This
they enclose by folding rugs and blankets around it, so that it
suggests a small furnace, into which they roll twelve stones,
heated until almost red hot. These are sacred to their twelve
spirits, four of which represent the genii of the four cardinal
points of heaven. Twelve men enter this Temple of Sacrifice, and
the duty of one of them, an old man, is to scatter twelve handfuls
of tobacco on the stones, the fumes from which, being intensified
in the enclosed circle, are inhaled by those inside. This is
construed as an inhaling of the spirit, or the Great Breath, and
produces a swooning, somnolent condition, which finally reaches a
state of ecstasy, in which the supernatural is induced, creating or
revealing to them the unseen world.

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The fumes of tobacco suggest to the Indian a purifying process
and an uplifting of thought, as incense does to other peoples. The
smoke wreathing towards the Great Spirit expanded into the Great
Breath and was their offering to the Most High. The puffing of the
pipe, sending the fumes of tobacco to the four spirits of the four
corners of the world, was an indispensable rite of the various
Indian tribes and preliminary to any religious gathering. Brinton,
writing on our North American Indians, calls the cult of the Red
Indian "an adoration of the Four Cardinal Points, identified with
the Four Winds or Spirits who were the Ancestors of the human race;
and that the Indian speaks as if he carried the Cross inside of him
and expressed himself according to the Cardinal points, even within
his wigwam."
The Lenni Lenape Indians1 when speaking of Manitou relate that
he floated on the waters in the beginning, where he created and
shaped the earth from a grain, and afterwards made man and woman
from a Tree. The Sioux Indians thought, however, that for many
years primal man stood with his feet held firmly in the earth,
growing up like a tree, near which grew another tree. A snake
appeared and gnawed them both off at the roots, and in their
freedom they walked away as human beings. This was their primitive
way of expressing ideas of the early garden of Eden, the serpent,
the tree and the primal pair.
The Oak Tree, bearing the Mistletoe, source of many sacred
legends, was said to have healing properties for both soul and
body. The Oak was "The Tree of Knowledge" of the Druids.2 They held
nothing in greater reverence, using

________
1 The Lenni Lenape Indians were those who made the famous treaty
with Penn in the year 1682. Penn addressed them as friends and
brothers, comparing the red and white men to the different members
of the human body, making pledge to live in peace and friendship
with them and their children of the forest, and they, being deeply
touched by his truth and sincerity, announced through their Chief
that they would "live in love with William Penn and his children as
long as the Sun and the Moon gave light."
2 Druids were Wise Men, Astrologers, who were ever watching the
heavens. They had their sanctuaries in great Round Towers, which
were observatories of the heavens.

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its leaves in all their religious ceremonies, and they considered
the growth of the mistletoe on it as a sign that the Deity had
chosen this tree as His own, and that therefore its virtues were
all-powerful, all-healing. In defining the word Mistletoe, "Mes is
generation, birth, child. Ter is time, a shoot, a sign of time. Ta
is to register, also a type. Thus Mis-tle-toe is a branch, typical
of another birth of time personified as the child, the Prince or
branch."1 They called mistletoe their Branch of Pure Gold. The old
gold of mythology was Fire. When gathered and kept for several
months mistletoe becomes a bright golden color and was most sacred
to them, as it revealed the treasures of both heaven and earth. On
the sixth day of the Moon six Druidic Priests plucked the sacred
branch of mistletoe. The Festival of the sixth day in olden times
was called the Lunar Sabbath, and the sixth day of the Moon was
anciently called Tabu time. The number six related to breath and
was synonymous with conception. The gathering of this sprig also
took place when the Sun was in the Zodiacal house Sagittarius, sign
of the hunting season, and when the Moon was within a few days of
its renewal the Mistletoe must be shot down with an arrow, and
caught in the left hand without its touching the ground.
Similarly the God Shu was placed by the Egyptians in the sign
Sagittarius, and represented great power. He was given the Bow and
Arrow. Arrows symbolized the Sunbeams and the bringing down of the
Light, and by the use of the arrow the divine properties and
magical healing qualities of the mistletoe were thought to be
retained if kept from contact with the earth.
There was a prevalent belief that Mistletoe contained the
"Seed of Fire" and had remarkable properties for extinguishing
fires, and it was therefore used as a preventative of fire as well
as medicinally for burns by fire.
________
1 Massey, Gerald.

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At the time of the gathering of the Mistletoe the Druids
prepared two white bulls with horns garlanded with flowers. The
Priests, in pure white, cut the Mistletoe with a golden knife, or
sickle, and as it fell it was caught in a cloak of pure white,
after which came the sacrifice of the bulls with the prayer "That
the deity may prosper his own gifts to them, to whom he has given
it."1 The death of a bull in the Druidic mysteries was a sacrifice
to virility, which the bull in the different cults seemed to
represent.
Again at the Summer Solstice, when the Sun was culminating in
the longest day of the year, the mistletoe was gathered for both
mystical and medicinal qualities. Because of its magical virtues,
as it grew neither in heaven nor on the earth, and contained the
purifying quality of the spark of fiery life from the Sun, it was
not allowed to touch the earth, as this contact would destroy this
spark of life. There was an "old superstition that the plant in
which the life of the sacred tree was consecrated not be exposed to
the risk it incurred by contact with the earth."2
When certain tribes among the Indians of British Columbia are
at war and desire to burn the homes of their enemies, they shoot at
them with arrows made from Oak Trees that have been struck by
lightning, or attach a part of this tree to the arrow, believing
its fire to be contained in the wood.
The Oak Tree is more frequently struck by lightning than any
other of the forest trees. Fire kindled by lightning was greatly
reverenced by primitive peoples since they imaged their God coming
down to earth as thunder and lightning. Great veneration was given
the Oak and the Mistletoe growing upon it, for the life or spirit
of the tree was supposed to be in the mistletoe, and therefore
everliving.
The Yule Log was of Oak, which was the King of the Forest. Its
wood was burned at the midsummer festivals
________
1 Pliny.
2 The Golden Bough, Vol. ii, p. 208.

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as well as in winter, when the golden treasures of the Sun therein
stored were released to find a home in the heart of the true
believer.
The Apple Tree was also made sacred by the Mistletoe, and was
called the Tree of Pure Gold. In ancient times covenants were made
and troths plighted under this tree. With its berried sprigs of
Mistletoe, so like the clustering stars, it was named the Tree of
the "Lofty Summit," pointing the way above. Today we find the
Mistletoe suspended overhead at Christmastime for the Christmas
kiss. "The tree of the Summit" was a type of the Celestial Pole,
Seat of Judgment, and was guarded by the celestial serpent, the
Constellation Draco.
So extremely sacred was the Tree, that ancient Priests had the
figure of a tree imprinted on their bodies, signifying that they
had knowledge of the Secret Serpent Wisdom. The sign of the Tree
was similar to the Swastika Cross cut into the flesh of the
Initiates as a sign of loyalty toward this Wisdom. The Hindus
called one of their trees "The Tree of Frankincense, whose
fragrance was guarded by the Winged Serpents" (the Seraphim). A
concealed symbolism is always found in these sacred mysteries.
The Divining Staff of the Rabbins was the Rod that budded,
over which was cut the "Name" and "Sun and Lord." It was a branch
of Fire that belonged to the mysteries. A legend of the first
Staff, created in the evening of the Sabbath, has been written by
the Rabbi Elizier, and is most enlightening.
The Chinese Tree of Knowledge was their Immortal Peach Tree,
which bore fruit but once in every three thousand years, around
which are woven tales and legends similar to those of the Tree of
our Mother Eve of the Garden of Eden. The Chinese manifestation was
a Justice one and stressed the three thousand year period, and
their Peach Tree of Immortality produced only the one fruit in
those years. It is said also of this Tree that three thousand years

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elapse before the Tree blossoms and another three thousand years
before its sets fruit, all having mystical significance. The Great
Mother in China was the Royal King-Mother who produced the Immortal
Peach, or the forbidden fruit of knowledge but once in every three
thousand years. It was the blossoming and the setting of the fruit
at stated periods that made this Tree a cyclic symbol, for their
Tree was an important type of Time.
In one of their legends Woo-te had eaten of this fruit, after
which he built a terraced pyramid of mud, high enough to reach
heaven and to the mother of this Immortal Peach. She descended to
earth by means of this pyramid for seven days and seven nights,
that she might discuss with Woo-te the "Principles of Reason" and
the Hidden Knowledge. The primitive pyramid with its seven steps or
stages is typical of the Great Mother or Goddess of the Seven Stars
belonging to the Mount, who was the Royal Mother Si Wang Mu living
high up in the mountain of Kwan Lun. Her Tree produced this
Immortal Peach from which it was believed the Elixir of Life could
be distilled, thus making the Peach a symbol of longevity or
Immortality.
The word God in Chinese, as well as in Egyptian and in
cuneiform writing, represents a Star. Under a horizontal line there
are three perpendicular wavy lines, apparently bringing down "Light
from the Sky," as the blue line above represents the firmament.
This outpouring of Rays of Light from the celestial heaven or from
the hidden Sun, their God, undoubtedly signified the pouring out of
the Light over China every three thousand years.
The Shenu of the Hebrew is the Thorn Bush. In Egyptian the
Shenu is the Thorny Acacia, a sacred Tree of Life from which the
divine voice was supposed to issue.1 In Deut. xxxiii, 16, the
Hebrew divinity is spoken of as "him that dwelt in the bush."
Diviners were placed in groves
________
1 The Shenu also represents a point in the heavens or place of
the Solstice recommencing in the sign of Leo, that of Fire.

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of these bushes, from which the oracular voice was thought to
issue. Sometimes they used pits for these ceremonies, surrounding
them with thorn bushes, from which the divine voice was supposed to
come.
The ancient peoples believed that the mounting of the Tree was
a means of reaching Paradise, their place of Rest. It is difficult
for us to understand this teaching today, or to comprehend that
they found their divine rest and peace in loving adoration of the
great Celestial Ocean of blossoming Stars and their contemplation
of the Golden Gate, beyond which lay Infinity.
Tracing the Tree back to these early beginnings of knowledge,
food and drink, we cannot wonder that the strangely reverent
primitive peoples looked upon the Tree as the Mother of Life.

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celestial ship of the north - ch. 8 - festivals of fire

@insert THE MAY POLE

The May Pole was the Tree of the Sun or Fire. The above is an
authentic May Pole with its symbolical additions. "In the Upper
portion we have the Apex of the Phallus, the Quarter-feuilles and
the Discus and Round. The lower portion is the Linga, Lingham, or
Phallus wreathed; also the 'Pole' of the Ship 'Argo,' otherwise the
'Tree of Knowledge'." ("The Rosicrucians," etc., by Hargrave
Jennings.)

129

130

CHAPTER VIII
FESTIVALS OF FIRE.

The May Pole is a symbol of the Tree of Knowledge, emblematic
of virile life, and garlanded with blossoming leaves, belongs to
the Crossing of the Sun at the summer solstice. It has been called
the Tree of the Sun or Fire. In one of its authentic
representations the phallus encircled with leaves looms above, and
just a little below is a circle forming the four-fold cross. The
seven ribbons of the May Pole symbolized the seven rays of the Sun,
the seven prismatic colors or the seven planets and belong to the
Great Mother as do all Sevens.
Sirius, Sut, Seb and Baal as gods were connected with the Tree
imaging the Mother, they all combined in Sut (Sirius) the first
born son and typified the element of Fire, that great and glowing
Sun of Fire we know as the Dog-Star. The name and the meaning of
Baal also may be a Fire-Tree, a Fire-God, or a Fire-Star. Our
Dog-Star is the Fire-Star which belongs to the midsummer because of
its heliacal rising and is typical of a new year, a branching of
the Eternal Tree, or a rekindling of the Fire of heaven.
Our Bible says that God showed Himself to His Prophets Isaiah,
Ezekiel and St. John in the midst of Fire. The word of God is
compared to Fire, "Is not my word like a Fire?" Jer. xxiii, 29, and
Jesus is likened to fire. Jesus sent His Holy Ghost or Spirit upon
his disciples in the form of tongues of flame, or like sparks of
fire, Acts ii, 3.
The worship of the Sun in its ancient purity was a belief that
the Divine Spark from the Great Spiritual Sun was a revealed
manifestation of God. The ancient peoples strove to bring this
Spark, which pertained to their God, the Abso-

131

lute, close to their hearts. Today we have a materialized god.
GOLD, the one thing in our present Era called Almighty. Two
thousand years from now, when our history is reviewed, we too shall
be called Worshippers--not of the Sun-god but of the Money-god,
which is one of the great illusions of this cycle of the "Dark
Star."
With the coming of Summer the burning of old brooms and the
relighting of the sacred Fires took place. The "Need Fires," or the
"Forced Fires," as they were sometimes called were kindled by the
spark obtained by the rubbing together of two pieces of wood,
usually of oak. To obtain this Spark, wooden axles belonging to
wagon wheels were symbolically used, around which they wound two
ropes, which were worked with the greatest speed by powerful men in
opposite groups, thus releasing the Fire that had been imprisoned
by the Sun. Reading back in the Egyptian Ritual, the stars and the
planets are found to be hauling the Sun by ropes, the bringing of
the Sun out of the night. The relighting of the Fire by the Spark
thus obtained was similarly imaged in these Fire Festivals.
In the ancient Sabean cult, Kar-tek was one of the names given
to the goddess of the Great Bear, whose son, Sut, became the Baal
of the solar rendering. Kar-tek means a Spark Holder. The "Need
Fires" or "Baal Fires" were always sacredly produced by a Spark at
their annual ceremonies. This was the divine Spark of the Druids,
found at the dawn, which gave them their inspiration through the
Fire from Heaven.
The Tree was superseded by the pyramid, and small ornamental
trees, pyramidal in shape, were carried about during the Christmas
festivals. The Fir Tree is pyramidal. Fir and Fire are from the
same root, from which we have the Fir-tree or the Fire-tree at our
Christmas festivals. Ta is an ideograph of the pyramid, and has the
meaning "to give." Through this we can trace back to its origin the
giving of the gifts at Christmas, which were originally offered to
the

132

youthful Sun-God during his festival, which occurred at the time of
his rebirth in December. We irreverently call this ancient festival
Pagan Sun-worship, though it is continued today, when Christians
throughout the world joyously gather about the gift-laden Christmas
Tree.
The Mummers at Christmas time, who wandered from house to
house, masked, had their origin in the old Sabean cult and
symbolized the darkness from which the Sun would arise. Christmas
Eve, December 24, was the darkest period of the year, when the
lowest ebb of all life was reached at midnight. The Pantomime is
also very ancient, having been born from the stars above, and given
in many types, with representations according to times and customs.
The Pyramid and the obelisk are male symbols, but their bases
are feminine and typical of the birthplace. The apex represents
Fire, Virility. The triangle is feminine at its base, but masculine
at its apex. The nave of the church is feminine, its spire is
masculine. The tomb in the earth is feminine, but the stone above
is masculine. "In the First Epistle of Timothy, Paul likens the
Church to a house and a pillar, . . . the pillar and House were
both symbolically the same. Pillar, Seat, Mount, Tree, or Abode,
was each representative of Motherhood, whose latest type was the
Mother Church."1 The myths and fables of the Tree first standing
for the North Pole, the Tree that was likened to the Horn that
produced the Golden Apples, that delicious fruit of the Garden of
the Hesperides are today an integral part of our so-called
Christian religion, which has seemingly failed to eat from the Tree
of ancient Knowledge.
In Egypt the equator was known as the Horn Point of the world,
called Apta. It was the beginning and the ending, and a point of
endurance, or a foundation. The Ascendant of the horoscope, which
shows the beginning as well as the ending of the great circle or
wheel of life, was sometimes known as the Horn.
________
1 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 393.

133

The Circle Dance, solar in origin, danced by David uncovered
before the Ark of the Covenant, was also a characteristically
Sabean rite, denoting the motion of the planets around the Sun.
A religious dance is performed by the Kaffirs at the time a
lad reaches the age of puberty. At this time the creative power,
the reproducing spirit, the Ruach, as the descending dove, called
the "Spirit of God," symbolical of rebirth and renewal falls upon
him. It is a manner of celebrating the coming of the fatherhood
upon earth. In the Hebrew tradition Ruach is said to enter the
child at the age of thirteen, when he becomes possessed of Ruach,
which is the "Breath of Life," or the coming of life of the spirit
in embryo.
Another religious dance, Solar in origin, given at the turning
point of the Summer Solstice, when the Sun entered the Zodiacal
sign Leo, was called by the Greeks the "Pyrrhic Dance," from Pur,
meaning Fire. The dancers imitated the coiling and gliding of the
serpent, esoterically signifying the motion of the Serpent Fire.
August, the month of the Lion, is a peculiarly Solar or Fire Month,
and while named after the Emperor Augustus, was perhaps so
designated to indicate its imperial authority in the Solar year. It
was the month of the Dog-Star days, and was by the Western Indians
consecrated to the Serpent Worship. The Serpents, by the way, are
charmed and controlled by Feathers. Feathers symbolized Breath and
were an early ideograph for Spirit. The well-known immunity of the
Indian dancers to the serpent poison is easily explainable when the
winged or feathered serpent art of Egypt is understood, and when we
realize the power of the Serpent Fire, which is closely allied to
the sign Leo, house of the Sun. This constellation with its subtle
connection with the Serpent is probably one of the most famous of
the twelve signs of the Zodiac.
Fire was the great secret of the Magi in the slaying of the
lion and the control of the serpent. "The lion is the celestial
Fire, while the serpents are the electric and mag-

134

netic currents of the earth;" and "That which is above is like that
which is below and that which is below is like that which is above,
for the fulfilment of all things."
In the first volume of the Secret Doctrine, on page 213, we
read that "The highest group of hierarchies is composed of the
divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as the 'Fiery Lions' and
the 'Lions of Life' whose esoterism is securely hidden in the
Zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the nucleole of the superior divine
World. They are the formless Fiery Breaths;" also, "the Hierarchy
of Creative Powers is divided into seven (or 4 and 3) esoteric,
within the twelve great Orders, recorded in the twelve signs of the
Zodiac; the seven of the manifesting scale being connected,
moreover, with the Seven Planets."
The death of the Scandinavian Sun-God Baldur, the Beautiful,
the Good, at midsummer, and the Fires that were to light him
through the underworld and greet him on his return to life, were
the same as those used in the burning of the yule log and the
hanging Lights on the Fire Tree. Baldur could be killed only by the
Mistletoe. He was the personification of the Mistletoe on the Tree,
which was thought to contain the life and spirit of the tree, yet
it was the Mistletoe that caused his death.
The Divining Rod was gathered on the mystic midsummer eve. It
was thought to be made of four kinds of wood, of which Mistletoe
was one. In England a sprig of mistletoe was always carried by the
Priests on Christmas Eve to the High Altar, at which time liberty
and pardon were granted to the wayfarer and the wicked who came and
stood at the Gates, which symbolized the four Quarters of Heaven
and Earth. This branch has been poetically said to bring back to
life those who wait at the Golden Gate, the Eighth, leading to
infinity.
The Russians have a belief that if the golden bloom of the
fern seed is caught at midnight on the mystical midsummer eve and
scattered about in the shadowy darkness, it will fall

135

to the ground like sparkling stars, directly on the spot where
great treasures are hidden. This is a key to the hidden mystical
treasures of divine knowledge.
Regarding the Eve of St. John fancies innumerable arose,
beautifully interwoven with the gathering of the flowers and
plants, golden and glowing from the entrapped rays of the summer
Sun, guarding against sorceries and disease. It was thought that
when the Sun had reached its greatest culminating point, its magic
entered the flowers, which must be culled before the witching hour
had passed, which brought together the youth and the maiden under
the enchanted spell of midnight, when they plighted their troth
with each other. Among those that were considered of the greatest
importance to be gathered for magical healing and divination was
St. John's wort, which some think should be gathered on the day
immediately following St. John's Eve when the sun enters the sign
of the Lion. Its bright yellow blossoms and golden stamens are tiny
types of the great Sun above. The edges of the calyx and leaves are
marked with dark purple spots, which yield a red oil, believed to
be the blood of St. John, hence its great healing property, and
value for endless other safety guarding purposes.
Magical flowers of the Solstice are chosen for their
brightness, their golden colors shedding light, like lamps in the
darkness, and should be gathered on the longest day of the year,
when the radiant fire and heat of the Sun at the very moment of its
greatest power carries its mystic message into the heart of the
plant.
We lovingly tread on enchanted ground whence man looked toward
heaven and the glowing Sun whose light and fire were stored in the
leaf and blossom and had dreams of magic and healing, extracting
the divine spark for wonder-working, as it were, from God Himself,
who was thought to manifest at the time of the two solstices,
celebrated by festivals of Sacred Fire.
The Summer Solstice was preeminently a feast of Fire or a

136

Fire Festival. In many lands huge bonfires were built on the
summits of high hills and wheels of Fire were sent blazing down the
hillsides, typical of the descending Sun, the wheel with its spokes
representing the sun and its rays.
At the Summer Solstice the lifting of children over the dying
embers of the fires, the joyous leaping through the flames, the
swinging and leaping around the blaze in their circular dance, the
sacred lighting of the flame by releasing the embedded fire of the
Sun, were all for purificatory purposes. They reverently and
joyously believed that the new born Sun would bring riches through
the golden summer and a plentiful harvest, and would dispel the
evil witchcraft of the sorcerer.
Midsummer fires are continued in our present era, but are
regarded as superstitions, whereas in olden days they were
reverenced as symbols of the Sun's crossing at the Summer Solstice.
At the Winter Solstice the Tree of Fire has become the Tree of
Light on our Christmas Eve. We have the burning of the Yule Log.
Yule means the Sun, whose Fire is transfigured in the green-leafed
Christmas Tree of renewal and rebirth, the light of which
symbolizes the return of life of the Sun-God.
December the twenty-fifth was originally devoted to the
worship of the Sun-God Mithra, and was adopted and introduced into
the Western Church in the Fourth Century, climaxing as the
anniversary of the birth of Jesus in the later Christian religion.
The origin of both the Maypole and the Christmas Tree however are
to be found in the crossing of the Sun in the two Solstices.
Mithra was the name of the Solar God of Light and Wisdom among
the Persians. His birthday was celebrated on the twenty-fifth of
December, date of the rebirth of the Sun at the time of the Winter
Solstice. The Mithraic cult was introduced into Rome by the early
Emperors, and the date of December twenty-fifth was adopted as a
special festival by Aurelian A. D. 273. The Solar character of this
festival

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was well known by the Roman Emperors, and not until the Fourth
Century was December twenty-fifth introduced and accepted as the
birthday of their Christ. "Augustus and Gregory discoursed on 'the
glowing light and diminishing darkness that follow a nativity'."1
"Pope Leo the Great recognized the day as the birthday of the Sun;
and denounced it as the birthday of Christ. He was Pope of Rome in
the Fourth or Fifth century. Gregory the Great became Pope about
the year 590."2
Mithra was said to have been born in a cave at the Winter
Solstice, which occurs in the Zodiacal sign Capricorn.3 Abba-Udda,
the Akkadian name for the tenth month, which corresponds
approximately to December, means "The Cave of Light," and indicates
the birth of the Mithraic Messiah. This Mithraic cult with its
aspirations towards moral purity and immortality, proved a
formidable rival to Christianity. Our Christmas is borrowed
directly from it, and close relation is found between the Sacred
Books of Revelation of the two cults--the Persian Zend-Avesta (the
Parsee Book of Zoroaster), written about 1000 B. C., and the Book
of Revelation of John of Patmos. The foundations of both these
books are astronomical and prophetic. All ancient prophets and
priests were astrologers.
A comparison of the two books will reveal the Christian form
of the Mithraic Revelation. To attain knowledge of God and see the
future, Zoroaster drinks of a special magnetized water which
produces a trance lasting seven days and nights. In Revelation we
are told that John eats a little Book that he may prophesy. The
Serpent, which was the constellation Draco, called the Serpent, or
the Dragon,
________
1 Olcott--Sun Lore of All Ages, p. 230.
2 Special Reports, Leo the Great and Gregory the Great.
3 On the twenty-fifth of December, the day of the Nativity of
the Sun, the days begin to lengthen, and the Sun's power is on the
increase. This was the time when in Egypt and Syria the celebrants
entered the inner shrine, and issued at midnight crying, "The
Virgin has brought forth"--"The Light is Waxing." The log burned on
Christmas Eve was in celebration of the birth of the divine child
as the Solar Sun-god.

138

figures largely in both visions. In one book the Dragon swallows
one-third of mankind, cattle, sheep, and other creatures; in the
other he draws the third part of the stars from heaven with his
tail. When the ancient religion of the Mother and Son was changed
into that of the Father and Son, the change was symbolized by the
falling of a star from heaven. This is the demoralization or
dethronement of that "Old Mother," who became the degraded Venus in
one cult and the harlot in the other. "When the Star Jupiter comes
to its culminating point and casts Venus down, the sovereignty
comes to the Prince," and there is the "Woman clothed with the Sun
whose Prince comes when the Star falls from the sky." Zoroaster
describes the seven regions of the world founded on the seven
heavens, or the Tree of seven branches with its divisions of time
and space. John describes the seven Churches of Asia and the
seven-branched Candlestick, or the Tree of seven branches. In the
fulfilment of the prophecies, the heaven of seven, or the early
seventy Princes or divisions, are replaced by the Zodiacal Tree
with its twelve branches or signs, and its thirty-six decans or
seventy-two duo-decans, from which Tree was derived the Cross,
symbolized in the four corners, or the four cardinal points of the
world. It was originally the Tree of Healing and of Light, which
vanished with the lost Paradise. Both cults were Kronian and Solar
and followed the cult of the Mother and Son, and were established
when the Sun was proved to be the true time-keeper.
The priestly ceremonies of the Mithraic mysteries were in
imitation of the motions of the heavenly bodies. The Initiates were
given the names of the Constellations, and were dressed like the
animals that were represented in the signs. Their purification was
by water, and in honor of "She of the Celestial Waters." They had
their Confessional, and also a kind of Eucharist, or offering of
bread. The "bread" used in the Mithraic sacraments was a round
cake, emblem of the Solar Disk, and the "Cup" is usually found on
the altar or

139

"table." All concerning the worship of Mithras and the caves used
for initiations, were destroyed after A. D. 400. There is a
tradition of the Rabbins, concerning the origin of the Wafer, given
by Alfonso de Spira, in his Fortelicium Fidei, vol. ii, 2, which
"says that its circular form is a symbol of the Sun, and that it is
offered to the genius of that luminary as a victim. 'The Wafer has
ever been styled the Hostia, the victim,' in Hebrew 'Messah'."
The worship of Mithra was introduced at Rome after the
conquest of Pontus by Pompey, as a distinct creed, which became
very popular during the second and third centuries of the Empire.
The religions of Mithra and of Serapis were the sole forms of
worship, penetrating far corners of the Empire, the Mithraic
Festival was called the "Birthday of the Invincible One," and
celebrated chariot races took place during this festival later
dedicated to the memory of Christ. Its exact date is not known, but
it is not surprising that "Leo the Great (Serm. II on the Birth of
the Lord), blames those Christians who gave offense to the weaker
souls through the shameful persuasion of some by whom this festival
of ours is reverenced not so much on account of the Christ's Birth
as on that of the 'Rising of the New Sun'."1
Mithra was undoubtedly admitted to be a type of Christ, and
the Jews when they were living in Persia obtained a great portion
of their spiritual wisdom from the Mithraic Creed. At that time
they brought into their worship a belief in a future state of
rewards and punishments, the latter carried on in a fiery lake.
Both Jews and Christians by misinterpreting the Mithraic ritual of
the "sacred fire" founded a fiery region named Gehenna by the Jews,
a name which in the New Testament is transferred by a metaphor into
Hell which figures so largely in their beliefs. The Jews have also
a Holy Order of the Angels, as well as Devils, a Last Judgment, and
the Immortality of the Soul, all of which are borrowed from the
religion of Zoroaster.
________
1 King--The Gnostics, pp. 49, 50.

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Justin Martyr declared that the Mithraic mysteries were so
like those of the Christians that they had stolen them to deceive
the people. A final severance of these two cults--biblical and
non-biblical--can never take place, because both are purely
astronomical, and upon them much later theological history has been
founded. Our Era of Light, however, now superseding the Era of
Darkness, will dissipate the fogs created by false interpretations
of the myths. Truth will finally reveal itself in the Light.
Millenia belong to the end of cycles, and are the fulfilment
of prophecies. In the new era, as in other precessional periods of
the past, prophecies will be fulfilled. In the thirteenth chapter
of St. Matthew, in speaking to the initiates Jesus says, "It is
given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." To
the unbelievers, indeed, it has not been given!
Kircher tells us that all who entered the Temple of the
Epicine divinity Serapis1 bore on brow or breast the letters or
sign of 10 (IU). IU was the Egyptian Messiah, their Coming One,
their Prince of Peace. Serapis, like all other gods, was a double
type of the Solar God Apis, and Sirius, or the Sun and Sirius.
Tracing the Egyptian myths to their source, we find basic truths
underlying their mythological structure. Sut, son of the ancient
Mother, was called the long-eared Ass, or IU, as the Hearer, who
became a type of the Bull God AU. AU was the Lord of Victory, and
resided in the house of Shu, the Egyptian Moses. This was the house
of the Lion-Gods, who light Atum, or AU (in other words the Sun) in
and out of the generative abyss of darkness. Hor Apollo says the
ear is a symbol of a future act. AU means to be, and thus as
Iu-Em-Hept he
________
1 In all temples where Isis and Serapis were worshipped, images
with the finger to the lips were seen, meaning that silence was to
be maintained regarding all that concerned the great Mother
Mystery, symbolized by the Shekinah of heaven, the Sacred Spirit as
Mother of all.

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is the future being, the Coming One. Cosmically and astronomically
the Sun-Gods were always Sons of the Sun, but when they had ceased
to be housed in their mythological and astronomical houses, they
became through theology "Sons of Righteousness."
In the Second Century in the city of Alexandria which was a
hot bed of Gnosticism, a sect sprang up which gave an almost
fanatical worship to Isis and Serapis. They believed Serapis the
prophetic type of Christ, Lord and Creator of all, judge of the
living and dead. Portraits and statues of his head were undoubtedly
the first conventional head of Christ. In Payne Knight's "Ancient
Art and Mythology" Serapis is represented as wearing his hair long,
"formerly turned back and disposed in ringlets falling down upon
his breast, and shoulders like that of a woman. His whole person,
too, is always enveloped in drapery reaching to his feet." Serapis
and Sarpa mean Serpent, and both Serapis and Jesus are later found
represented as a great Serpent, an indication of Divine Wisdom, and
symbol of Spirit. "The Egyptian Priests chanted the seven vowels as
a hymn addressed to Serapis, and at the sound of the seventh vowel,
as at the 'seventh ray' of the rising sun, the statute of Memnon
responded."1
Throughout all the celestial myths of Egypt, Horus, the
Egyptian Messiah, figures most prominently. Two Horuses were given
and yet were as one, symbolizing both sexes, male-female. The child
Horus, son of Isis, remained a child until twelve years of age. All
the children of Egypt wore what was called the Horus Lock until
they had reached the age of twelve. Full manhood was attained at
the age of thirty, at which age Horus was anointed, as the son of
Osiris.
Horus the adult was the revealer of the Father in heaven, when
his worship superseded that of the Mother and Son. The child Horus
was the shadow of the real, but when at the
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--Isis Unveiled, Vol. i, p. 514.

142

vernal equinox he became the Sun of the Resurrection, he was the
potent, pubescent Son. The name Horus denotes one who ascends as a
spirit. As the adult Horus, the revealer, his mythical character is
given in all the histories or legends of the world, and is always
identified with the ending of an Age or a Cycle.
In the Egyptian myth this youthful Messiah was manifestor of
the Seven Powers. He was known under different names in other
cults. In the Sut-Typhonian he was Har-Khuti, Lord of Light and of
the glorified elect. Har, the younger type of Horus, was spiritual,
had the power of becoming invisible, and typified the resurrection
of the Osirian cult. He was the Horus. In that of Iu-em-Hept he was
Atum, the Eternal Word. He was also Khunsu, the child in the cult
of Amen-Ra, introducing the Solar cult, and we finally find him as
the Good Shepherd, the Saint of God, the Bread of Life, as Truth
and the Life, the Fan Bearer, and the Door of Life.
"Horus represented the Path over which the dead passed out of
the sepulchre, the God whose name is written in the Road." As
Khunsu in the Denderah planisphere he is seen in a disk of the Full
Moon of Easter, offering a pig for sacrifice. In the judgment
scenes, given in the "Book of the Dead," the return to primordial
matter is pictured as entering the bodies of swine. As Ra, the Sun,
he is sometimes called Remi, the Weeper. It was Horus who sent fire
into the "Place of Destruction," and was "God of the Furnace"--that
is, the Solar Fire, which the theologians have construed into "Hell
Fire." Its origin lies in the scorching heat of the African summer
sun.
There are at least thirty-six different languages in Africa,
and in every one of them the word Fire is the same as Hell. In
Africa the heavens were looked upon as a "Hell of Fire" and in one
instance was called a "Heaven of Ashes" because of the intense heat
of Africa. Even today the heavens are termed "Fiery Furnaces."

143

Six thousand years ago, when the Vernal Equinox was in the
sign of Taurus, the Bull, the Constellation Orion arose as "The
Star of the East," and the three large brilliant stars seen in the
belt of the Constellation were mythically given the names of the
"Three Wise Kings." According to the Precession of the Equinoxes,
the next sign to arise was Aries. The constellation of the
brilliant Triangle was the new star arising on the horizon in the
East, and was said to beckon to the Wise Men, pointing to the
coming of a new Sun-God or Messiah. This Triangle, the pyramid of
Horus, belongs to the young Egyptian God Har-Khuti. Har, as the
younger God was type of Horus of the Resurrection, and spiritual.
He is pictured in one of their ancient Zodiacs holding a Triangle
in one hand, the rule or flail in the other. Horus of Egypt was
their Lord, their Alpha and Omega, the important events of whose
mythical life are found in counterpart in our New Testament. All
events given in his life were never human, but were of divine
significance because they were born from above, created out of the
configurations found in the heavens. Similarly the Fall in the
Solar cult was an astronomical myth, which has been surrounded with
that halo of glory which very frequently clothed their humanized
heroes who were all so called "Heathen Gods?"
When the sun rises at the time of the Winter Solstice, and the
Christmas celebration takes place, the Zodiacal sign Virgo appears
on the horizon. The twenty-fifth of December is a date given not
only for the birthday of the Sun, but also for the births of Jesus,
Buddha, and Mithra. Virgo, the virgin sign of the Zodiac, is
represented as a Mother, and looking at a very old planisphere of
the heavens, we can see her there symbolized, holding a child in
her arms, and apparently pursued by a serpent which is directly
under her feet, and as if about to be trodden upon. This same
symbolism obtains for Isis and Osiris of Egypt, Maya and Buddha of
India, as well as in China, and in the Book of

144

Revelation. The Woman and the Child later found in Rome as Mary and
Jesus are an example of it. The unity of the ancient myths found in
various countries of the world, slightly changed in some
renderings, due to elaborations, but identical in their roots, is
unmistakable. The myths of the Serpent, emblem of Eternity and type
of the night which encircles the world in an endless embrace are
similarly identical. And what of astrology, "Astrology is a
synthesis, because the Tree of Life is a single Tree and because
its branches spread through heaven bearing flowers of Stars . . .
are in correspondence with its roots, which are hidden in earth."1
And these Stars are reflectors of great and mightly splendors,
while our Sun, symbol of the Great Central Sun, which is the source
of all Truth and Light, is but the phantom shadow of that great
primal Source from which all glory emanates and which manifests in
man as a spark of Divine Fire.
________
1 Ballanche--Orphic Initiation.

145

Valentia Straiton's - Celestial Ship of the North - Ch. 9 Celestial
Waters

@insert NOAH'S ARK

147

148

CHAPTER IX
CELESTIAL WATERS

Every symbol in esoteric philosophy is said to have seven
keys. The Dragon also had its septenary interpretation. Its symbol
was the constellation of the Dragon, Draco, sometimes called "the
Scaly One," giving significance to its Seven beautiful Stars, which
in their highest symbolism became identical with the self-born, the
Logos. The Dragon is one of the most ancient of all symbols.
Terrestrially the name Dragon was given to the "Wise Men," who were
astrologers. The mystics were also called Dragons of Wisdom or
Serpents.
In China the Emperor's throne was known as the Dragon's Seat,
inherited from the Initiates or Dragons of Wisdom. The Chinese
profusely display emblems of the Dragon, of which the Twan-ying-t'u
says, "His Wisdom and Virtue are unfathomable . . . he does not go
in company, and does not live in herds, he wanders in the wilds
beyond the heavens. He goes and comes, fulfilling the decree; at
the proper season if there is perfection he comes forth, if not he
remains (invisible). And Kong-fu-tyu says of the Dragon, "The
Dragon feeds in pure water, and sports in the clear waters, i. e.
Wisdom and Life."

As far back as the third "Deluge" of the third Lemurian race,
that old Dragon "Whose tail sweeps whole nations out of existence
in the twinkling of an eye," that ancient "Old Dragon" of the
heavenly constellation was identical with the great Flood. "We know
that in the past the constellation of the Dragon was at the pole,
or boss, of the celestial sphere. In stellar temples . . . the
Dragon would be the uppermost or ruling constellation . . . it is
singular

149

how closely the constellations . . . correspond in sequence and in
range of right ascension with the events recorded respecting the
(Biblical) flood."1 The first great flood was heaven-born and
cosmical. There have been numbers of terrestrial floods.
The pyramids are closely connected with the constellation
Draco, and the deluges as are the Initiates, who were the Dragons
of Wisdom. The "Secret Doctrine" tells us that "The Great Dragon
(Deluge) had respect for the Serpents of Wisdom, whose holes are
under the Triangular Stones," i. e. the Pyramids at the four
corners of the world, records of which have been well preserved,
together with the history of human evolution traceable in the
heavens.
Anciently pyramids existed at the four corners of the earth,
and belonged to no single nation. They have been found scattered
over the two Americas, under and above ground in virgin forests, on
plains and in valleys all over the world. They were built with
geometrical precision corresponding to the heavens, showing that
the ancient peoples realized that "God geometrises." Endeavor to
reach their origins brings us to a time almost unimaginably far
distant. Pyramid, Dragon and Deluge became associated with the
Flood, and the floods of the Nile in Egypt were regarded as a
divine reminder of the Great Atlantean Flood.
The story of the Deluge is undeniably a universal tradition.
The Smithsonian confirms the existence of many deluges and glacial
periods dating the earliest one 850,000 years ago, and the last one
about 100,000 years ago. "But which was our Deluge? Assuredly the
former, the one which to this date remains recorded in the
traditions of all the peoples, from the remotest antiquity; the one
that finally swept away the last peninsulas of Atlantis, beginning
with Ruta and Daitya and ending with the (comparatively) small
island mentioned by Plato. This is shown by the agreement of
certain details in all the legends. It was the
________
1 Proctor.

150

last of its gigantic character . . . Noah's flood . . . at least,
only, a moral connection."1
Within the memory and possession of the Aryans observatories
of the submerged Atlantis are recorded at a period 850,000 years
ago. Floods preceding this date were traditional. We are told that
astronomical records had their beginnings in the early Atlantean
period. Age-old records can be found in the planisphere of the
ceiling of the Denderah Temple, showing that the Poles have been
inverted three different times. The ancient Planispheres and
Zodiacs, and their bearing on humanity, should be studied with
earnestness, and great reverence.
"Deluges" were caused by the reeling motion of the world, when
making the movement of precession. A great Zodiacal allegory, far
earlier than the Hebrew, and based on astrological fact, is the
Nimrod Epic, in twelve Cantos or legends, paralleling the Sun's
passage through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and containing
distinct reference to the animal forms of the Zodiac. The eleventh
canto was given to the God of Rain and Storms, Rimmon, whose place
was in the Zodiacal constellation Aquarius, sign of floods. The
Akkadians called this sign the "Curse of Rain." In an early Zodiac
the Egyptians, placed the goddess Menat, their wet-nurse, in this
sign, portraying her as the Mother from whose many breasts flowed
the "Water of Life."
Deluges signified the end of a cycle or period of time. A
first deluge is found in the conflict between Timelessness and
Time, or Chaos and Creation. Ancient legends teem with stories of
the Deluge, but all having a fundamental unity with the original
first telling of Time and Creation, when the heavens were the
Celestial Waters. In the symbolism of every nation the Deluge stood
for unsettled chaotic matter, Chaos itself, and for water, which
was the feminine principle. Today we are entering the sign
Aquarius, and we shall find changes, prophecies fulfilled, and a
chaotic con-
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 141.

151

dition which will spread over the entire world, carrying us back in
thought to those old traditions.
The flood has dual meaning, spiritual and physical, cosmic and
terrestrial. Chaos or the Great Deep stood for the Moon as the
Mother, whence proceeded all the germs of life. She was called the
Ark of the Celestial Waters, while the Sun was the principle giving
life to all. Ark was the mystic name for the Holy Spirit or Mother,
whom the Jews connected with Israel, Jehovah and his seed. Ur (Urt)
was the chief seat of the worship of the Moon-god, being the place
from which Abraham came. The Moon was originally feminine, but
later for a time was made masculine. The Akkadian Urdhu and the
Hebrew Ararat are the Egyptian form of Arurut. Urdhu is the
district of the Northern Mountain, which mythologically is the
North of the Great Bear, "The Thigh!" Ur meant First, Oldest,
Great, and Urt was the Enceinte Mother whose image "typified the
very primitive crib and cradle (Apt) of the human race, or the
time-births which began in the mountains of the north, Urdhu,
Ararat, or Urrtu, afterwards called the birthplace of man, in all
the oldest mythologies; the full form of whose name (Urt) is Rerit
(or Ururat), the Sow, the Hippopotamus, the Great Bear."1
In all traditions of the Deluge the Ark was made to contain
the Seed of Life, which in various miraculous ways was always saved
for future generations. This germ of all living things was
necessary for the repeopling of the earth. It represented the
"survival of life, and the supremacy of spirit over matter, through
the conflict of the opposing powers of nature."2 The ark, oblong in
shape, was used as the "Sacrificial Chalice" by the priests in the
worship of the goddesses who represented the generative powers of
nature. Hence the Ark as a symbolical representation of the mother
containing the seed of life was the Ship of the
________
1 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. ii, p. 521.
2 Blavatsky, H. P.--Isis Unveiled, Vol. ii, p. 444.

152

North. "The Talmud books say that Noah was himself the dove
(spirit), thus identifying him still more with the Chaldean Nouah.
Baal is represented with the wings of a dove, and the Samaritans
worshipped on Mount Gerizim, the image of a dove."1
The story of Noah's deluge is astronomical and astrological,
based on the same archaic traditions of persons who were saved from
the deluges or cataclysms in boats, ships, arks and canoes. Noah
clearly a mythical symbol, cannot be rightfully claimed by either
Jew or Christian. Noah is but a Jewish representation of the Pagan
Gods, who were never men but types of astronomical periods, or
solar or lunar years. Noah mythically means "One who rests,"
sometimes called the "Sun Setting." Also the Hebrew Nuach or Noah
is related to Breath, breathing. Nu means a flood; so did Time as
Seb, one of whose names was Nu, and Nua was rest, respose. "Nothing
is older than water as an element of life and there is nothing more
initial than its influence on the mind of man as an agent of
destruction, of death, of an ending, the water of death being the
natural antithesis to the breath of life."2
Water and Breath, in which baptismal regeneration finds its
origin, are a symbolical representation of "from out of the water
into a new life," or rebirth. Among the many names derived from the
word Noah, that of No means a boat, feminine symbol of repose,
rest; while Ah is masculine. No is also synonymous with habitation.
The Noahchidae, who were the Children of the Boat, have belonged to
different nations. All proves that Noah was never a human being,
but belonged to the mythological stories of the heavens.
Mystically Noah is interpreted as spirit falling into matter.
When so imprisoned the pure spirit is said to become intoxicated,
thus we find that Noah, as soon as he finds himself on dry land,
plants a vineyard and gets drunk. A mystical

________
1 Talmud, Tract--Chalin, Vol. vi, col. 1.
2 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. ii, p. 190.

153

interpretation extends to the two Falls given in the Bible, which
are closely related. The Fall of Adam came about because he had
tasted of the forbidden fruit, celestial knowledge. Noah's Fall was
caused by his drinking too freely of the terrestrial fruit of the
grape. Celestially the fruit of the grape was divine wisdom.
Drunkenness represented the abuse of this wisdom in an
irresponsible way, so "Adam gets stripped of his spiritual
envelope; Noah of his terrestrial clothing; and the nakedness of
both makes them ashamed."1 Noah's ark signifies spiritual rebirth,
the emergence into immortality.
There are many historical deluges as well as local ones
traceable in the traditions of many countries, but they have
nothing in common with the mystical Noah. Deluges, cataclysms or
cycles of time at the ending of different eras do not destroy the
world, but the general appearance is changed and a new type of
humanity, races, animals and flora evolve from the old.
Kaemfer in his "Japan" gives a tradition of the Chinese
flood--"The Island owing to the iniquity of its Giants, sinks to
the bottom of the ocean, and Peiru-un, the King, the Chinese Noah,
escapes alone with his family owing to a warning of the gods
through two idols. It is that pious Prince and his descendants who
have peopled China." It seems evident that this flood also points
to Atlantis, indicating a Chinese belief in the divine dynasties of
kings. One of the traditional deluges described in Hindu books
bears an interesting resemblance to the same tradition. Viavasvata
saves a little fish which turns out to be the Avatar Vishnu, who
warns him that the globe is about to be submerged, and that the
inhabitants will perish. He is told to construct a boat upon which
to embark with his family, "And the seeds and plants and pairs of
animals" are to go with him. At the coming of the rain an enormous
fish places itself at the bow. It has a large horn and to this
Viavasvata fastens the cable
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.

154

of his boat, and so is piloted through the turbulent waters. When
the storm ceases the boat is landed on the summit of the Himalayan
Mountains. This traditional story was never considered sacred, but
in some books was told concerning a descendant of Viavasvata. It
was carried into all countries belonging to India East and West.
The metaphysical meaning of Fish is divine, but the
theological was made phallic. Jesus, Vishnu, Bacchus and other
great Messengers were all called Fish. The Chinese term every great
period or cycle of time, Deluge. "Their River Scheme" with its
written program, is brought up from the water. An altar marks the
spot where the Fish or Fish-man emerges, and the River Scheme is
laid upon the altar. The same story is related of Xisuthrus, hero
of the Chaldean flood, while the Egyptians placed an empty boat in
the scales (Libra), which is their sign of the altar. Viavasvata,
Xisuthrus, Deukalion, and Noah were all heroes of world deluges.
Natural phenomena furnish names and records of the causes leading
to these events, whose mythical origins are discoverable, as are
all beginnings, in that wonderful birthplace in the north of the
heavens.
In the traditions of the terrestrial deluges reference is made
to the mystery of mankind's being saved from utter destruction at
the end of the third race by the woman, who was mortal and was made
the receptacle of the seed. There were three Dynasties preceding
human rulership, namely, the DYNASTIES OF THE GODS, of the
Demi-gods, and of the Heroes, or Giants. In every tradition
concerning these ancient floods or deluges the Seed is always
miraculously saved, sometimes spiritually and sometimes physically,
while Seven also figures very largely in all accounts. The Incas,
seven in number, repeopled the earth after the deluge. Xisuthrus,
or the Chaldean Noah, being saved was translated to heaven alive
with the Seven Kabirim Gods. The Chinese Yao has seven figures
sailing with him to be animated as human seed on his landing.
Osiris, when

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he enters his Solar Boat, takes with him the seven Rays. The Titans
who were especially associated with the flood, were seven. A
meaning of Titan is derived from Tit-Ain--"The Fountains of the
Chaotic Abyss," while Tit-theus, or Tityn, means "Divine Deluge."
Through all these names if properly read, will be traced records
and causes, originating in the constellation of the Dragon and its
Seven Stars, and leading to the Deluges.
Babylon owed its foundation to those who were saved from the
deluge. These were the Giants who built the Tower and were great
Astrologers. They had received their instructions of secret wisdom
concerning the heavens from their fathers, the "Mighty Ones," who
had left records of the periodic catacyclisms which they themselves
had witnessed. "This is in flat contradiction to the Bible
narrative, which tells us that the deluge was sent for the special
destruction of the Giants. The Babylon Priests had no reason for
telling lies."1 The Giants were the astrologers in whose temples
were kept records of all great periodical upheavals, of which they
were witnesses, and "As the star glimmering at an immeasurable
distance above our heads, in the boundless immensity of the sky,
reflects itself in the smooth waters of the lake, so does the
imagery of men of those antediluvian ages, reflect itself in the
periods we can embrace in an historical retrospect. As above, so it
is below, that which has been, will return again. As it is in
heaven, so on earth."2
The Tower of Babel, one of the most ancient astronomical
temples, was called the Temple of "Seven Lights," or the "Celestial
Earth." It was an edifice embodying the astronomical knowledge of
antiquity. Herodotus tells us that there was a road on the outside
of the Tower of Babel that went eight times round in its ascent,
giving the appearance of eight towers, and filled in from top to
bottom with many stars. It was built in the latitude of thirty-
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--Isis Unveiled, Vol. i, p. 31.
2 Blavatsky, H. P.

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two degrees. This is a fact of very great importance, as it shows
the "pericyclosical" motion of the poles around each other,
commemorating eight revolutions of the poles, or "The Serpent
coiling Eight times Around." The Babylonian astrologers made use of
this tower as an observatory. The Jews have coupled with this
wonderful monument, the history of one they called Nimrod, who was
not a man, though they would convey the idea that he was. The
meaning of the word "is compounded from Naim, beautiful; Ur,
heaven; and Ad, father; Nim'r-ad then, means the Beautiful Father
of Heaven." It is stated that the Giant Naboad (Nimrod) was the son
of Kush, Ethiopia, and of the race of Ham (Kam), who built
Babylon.1 In Genesis x, 6-10, it says, "the sons of Ham, Cush, and
Mizraim . . . and Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in
the earth. . . . And the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel and
Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." This history
pertains to the birthplace of mythological astronomy in the North.
Biblical allegory reveals that Nimrod became a Gibbor (Kibor) giant
on earth, and was called the greatest of the Gibborim (Egyptian
Kabiri) who were the Seven Great Stars "considered to be a
brotherhood of sailors through the celestial waters." Kabiri or
Kab-ari were the Seven companions or watchers, that made the circle
and cycle of time. (Kab, Egyptian, means to turn around, ari,
companions or watchers.) In the Ritual there are four Kabiri, lords
of the four cardinal points, the four genii that guard the four
corners of the sarcophagus. These four belong to the Seven Great
Spirits of the Great Bear, identified in mythology as the seven
Kabiri. The four earliest corners, called the four corners of the
Great Bear, were typified by the Hippopotamus, the Lion, the
Crocodile and the Monkey. The next following were called the four
quarters of Nimrod. They were the four royal stars, the great and
beautiful fires of heaven, Regulus, Antares, Alda-
________
1 Bunson--Egypt, Vol. i, p. 229.

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baran and Fomalhaut. Anhar-Nimrod, as the Great Gibor, was the
elevator of the heavens, founded on the four corners, and became
the Angel Gabriel. Shu-Anhar in planetary phase was Mars, a fact
which is an aid in tracing the original Nimrod, chief of the four
Kabiri, the four Royal Stars. Mars is god of generation and breath,
as well as god of War, and is the ruler of the zodiacal sign
Scorpio, representing the generative organs, and whose brilliant
star is Antares, of the royal group of Four. Gabriel was the
Announcer of the Coming Son, and Nimrod, "whose Tetrapolis above
was the model of the Tetrapolis below in the plain of Shinar"1 was
chief of the Kabiri of the four corners.
Nimrod, Shu and Kepheus are the same. Shu is portrayed as the
hunter with his dogs. He was the Lion of the Sun. On the Nineveh
tablet it says: "If the star of the Great Lion is gloomy, the heart
of the people will not rejoice." When transformed into the leopard,
or cat, he becomes the Lion-leoparded of Heraldry. Nimrod (Kepheus
or Shu) was the Hunter, Shepherd, Lawgiver and King of Kush. "Kush
begat Nimrod." Kush (Kam) or Ethiopia was the primeval parentage of
the black race, and Nimrod was son of Kush. Kush was a name of the
birthplace of the North--"The Thigh" (the Great Bear).
The City of Nineveh, the latitude of which is four degrees
nearer the Pole than that of Babylon, could have seen nine
revolutions of the pole of the Ecliptic pass between the North Pole
and its horizon, and from this circumstance "Nineveh received the
name Nin'-ophi, i. e., "Nine Serpents."2 There are other monuments
of ancient origin erected to reveal and perpetuate knowledge of the
pericyclosical motion of the Poles blended with the latitude of the
different countries. Every four degrees of latitude represented a
coil, or spiral, called a serpent, because of the two slow motions
of the Poles.
"The Serpent round the Solar-fire-place--the Solstice, or
________
1 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. ii, p. 516.
2 Mackey, S. A.--Mythological Astronomy, p. 72.

158

the Pole, is the pericyclosical figure described by the pole of the
ecliptic round the pole of the earth; which is known to form a
volute, increasing in size every 25,000 (or more) years, 'till it
reaches the Equator; when, by the present rate of the Pole's
apparent motion, there must have been traced, an imaginary SPIRAL,
having 22 or 23 rounds. The present rate and order of the polar
motion, would in forty-five times 25,000 years invert the order of
the Poles! describing among the stars, a winding stair-case, called
the CLIMAX or scale of heat, from whence is derived the word
climate, a measure of heat from cali, heat, and med or metre, a
measure. Hence it is very probable that the ancients, in, or about
the Age of Horror, divided the earth into forty-five climates, i.
e., twenty-two and a half on each side of the equator, allowing
four degrees to a climate. And as this number four is measured out
to us by the ascent or descent of the pole at every round made by
the recession of the equinoctial points, it became a number highly
venerated by all the ancients. The Pythagoreans called it the
mystical Tetrad; but this does not mean they worshipped the number
four as a God."1
This spiral motion has been the foundation of nearly all
religious history. The mind of man needs only to rise above the
prejudices of the past to realize a wealth of primitive knowledge
concerning "the Solstice, i. e., the Sun-stand--the boundary of the
sun which in the Eastern language, is Gibe-on." The North Pole was
called the Mountain. The highest point in the ecliptic, called the
Mount of the North Pole, was reached by the Sun at the summer
solstice ere it began its descent.
The different nations agree so exactly in respect to this
point that there can be neither doubt nor suspicion as to their
knowledge of this pericyclosical (Precessional) motion. Towers and
Temples modeled after the coils of the serpent, given as rings, and
connecting their country with
________
1 Mackey, S. A.--Mythological Astronomy, pp. 63-64.

159

the heavens, were erected to register this fact, and show
conclusively that peoples belonging to a remote antiquity
understood the Precession of the Equinoxes. Babylon, with her
thirty-two degrees of latitude, had her tower with its eight coils;
Nineveh at thirty-six degrees, is named from the nine coils. Pluto
(Egyptian) at twenty-four degrees, is portrayed with six coils of a
serpent about him. Pekin at forty degrees of latitude has her
Porcelain Tower ten stories high. Moreover there are many statues
of human figures with serpent coils representing latitudes of two,
four, six degrees, etc. About every twenty-five thousand years by
precessional reckoning the ecliptic is removed four degrees from
the Pole of the heaven, the angle of the pole varying four degrees
with every round or revolution. Each of the motions ascending or
descending every twenty-five thousand years with these four degrees
of change, was symbolized by serpents, each according to the
latitude of the country being represented by a volute, a coil of
the serpent. When the ecliptic is within sixteen degrees of the
Poles, it would be, every day, in the plane of the horizon in that
latitude. "By placing the sign Cancer at the North, that of
Capricorn at the South, Aries East and Libra West, the entire
Zodiac would be seen in the heavens every morning at sunrise, for
six months, and for the next six months would be seen at sunset."
In the latitude of eight degrees it would take the ecliptic 100,000
years to go from horizon to pole and back again; at sixteen degrees
the period would reach 200,000 years, and so on. (Deduced from
Mackey's Mythological Astronomy.)
During six periods of time the earth was subjected to heavy
ravages of the elements which caused floods and havoc of all kinds.
Subsequently the earth would become a better place to live in. When
the Great Star Aldabaran coincided with the Equator, astronomers of
that time could forecast the exact number of years the havoc of
waters would continue. About 31,000 years ago Aldabaran coincided
with

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the Equator at the Vernal Equinox. This star was a point in the
ecliptic used to measure the longitude of the Equator and regulate
time, from which new cycles could be deduced after the Zodiac had
gone through all parts of the Equator. Aldabaran was called "The
Leading Star of the Heavens," and also known as "The Guardian of
the Sky." It is one of the four Royal Stars of the Cardinal cross,
the four great Sacred signs, and is known as the Ruler or the
Regulator. Aldabaran is in the sign of Taurus, the Bull. Six or
seven thousand years ago, when this star again coincided with the
Equator, Babylon began her 1903 years of astronomical
calculations,1 and festivals were held to commemorate their great
period of devastation by flood, which they called "God's Wrath."
Some people have mistaken these floods for the beginning of the
world. Plato in his Timaeus claims the Egyptians believed the world
subject to conflagrations and deluges, while the Stoics adopted a
system of catastrophe destined at times to destroy the world, and
ever recurrent at the ending of the great sidereal cycle of
approximately twenty-five thousand years. The ancients thought that
when the gods could no longer bear the wickedness of man they sent
deluge to overwhelm humanity.
The Jews were not astronomers, their knowledge of the stars
was gathered when they were held as slaves. The Jews received much
instruction when in Babylon, in which city Ezekiel was thought to
have taught them. It has proved difficult, however, to make
astronomers of the Jews. Ezekiel had his marvelous visions when in
Babylon; Daniel had his when in Persia; and John when on the Isle
of Patmos. Both John and Ezekiel must have had knowledge of the
pericyclosical motion of the Poles. John's vision belongs to a very
remote antiquity. Jewish history covers nothing that is new, but
the early Jews had great ingenuity

________
1 The beginning of astronomical observations at Babylon was 2234
B. C. In the year 331 B. C. Alexander the Great found an unbroken
series of observations running back 1900 years.

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in "turning singulars into plurals; and plurals into singulars; and
what was feminine with their masters, they made to be masculine; in
working it into their histories; and in some places things
inanimate have been turned into men by adding the sign of the
masculine gender; this was frequently done by the Greeks."1
It is of interest to note that at the Feast of the Passover,
when the ecliptic and the equator met or crossed in the sign Aries,
the Ram or Lamb, all Egypt was gay, homes were decorated with
branches of trees and door posts surrounded with wreaths of
beautiful flowers. The Lamb was decorated with ribbons and flowers
and led around the city in triumph, to show the gratitude of the
people to the Giver of all good things for the favors that would
evolve from the Sun when going through this sign. Nevertheless the
Jews slew the Lamb, and smeared their doors with its blood, Exod.
xii, 7, disregarding entirely the astronomical significance of the
springtime and thus repudiating all astronomical reckonings.
Although the Jews began their records at the Vernal Equinox when
the Sun was in the constellation of the Bull, there is no relation
whatever between them and the beginning of the knowledge of
astronomy. The Hindus can trace their knowledge back to an
astounding antiquity, yet they have been termed "Benighted Hindus."
"These poor benighted Hindus have registered a knowledge of
astronomy ten times 25,000 years, since the Flood, or Age of
Horror, in the latitude of Benares."2 Benares was the chief seat of
celestial science in India, and astronomical tables were
constructed from the meridian of Greenwich.
Going back in memory to those ancient peoples and realizing
their reverence for the heavens and their Creator, one
instinctively feels that their sublime devotion was trying to
bridge the distance between then and now with an urge
________
1 Mackey, S. A.--Mythological Astronomy, p. 149.
2 Mackey, S. A.--Mythological Astronomy. Appendix p. 23.

162

or a prayer that a similar spiritual impulse might awaken the
sleepers of today. It is incomprehensible how writers, men of
learning, continually speak with contempt of the Hindus, whose
"Mysteries" came direct from their study of the stars, that Great
Book of God. Their imagery of the heavens was both symbolical and
poetical, so why denounce them because scholars have misinterpreted
both symbol and language? Their religion was infinitely superior to
that of the masses today. They were called worshippers of idols,
and what will be said of the Christians today? Perhaps they call us
also worshippers of idols, because we have our symbols of the Lamb,
and the Dove, and the Shepherd. Our miracles are nearly all
borrowed from the ancients, although we sadly distort their
meaning. Astrology is intimately connected with the piety of the
ancients. Their spirit and mind were awakened to a knowledge of the
Supreme and His Works. We are gradually approaching ancient
scientific wisdom today for the moving finger seems to be pointing
backward indicating that finally we shall ultimately identify in
the dead past the everliving present Truth.

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Celestial Ship of the North - Ch. 10 - Celestial Origin of Jewish
Race and Hebrew Language

@insert line drawing of the Seven Great Stars

THE SEVEN GREAT STARS

The Seven Stars of the Great Bear, which in the course of
evolution became spirits, genii, gods, planets, and endless other
typical Sevens belonging to all the countries of the world.

165

166

CHAPTER X
CELESTIAL ORIGIN OF JEWISH RACE AND
HEBREW LANGUAGE
SEVEN, TEN AND TWELVE

Egyptian myths became miracles in the Hebrew writings, the
name "miracle" having been substituted through ignorance. The Jews
undoubtedly commingled with the Hek-Shus, the Shus-en-Har, and the
Typhonians. They were known as the "Mixed Multitude." As the
so-called Shepherd Kings, they were Typhonian and not of foreign
birth. The earliest rendering of the name of the Hebrews is Gabari.
These were the Kabiri, the children of the Goddess Mother of the
Great Bear constellation, the Typhonians. The Hek-Shus (Hek-Sos)
were called the ancestors of the Israelites. The Jew, the Hebrew,
or the Israelite belonged to the pre-monumental cult of Sut-Typhon,
the ancient Shus-en-Har. The Disk worshippers theologically have
the same meaning as the Hek-Sos. The Hek-Shus and Jews were
identical and with the Shus-en-Hars were worshippers of the God
Har, or Sut, whether as the Sun or the Son. Manetho tells us that
the Hek-Sos were the so-called Shepherd Kings, who were styled
Captive and were known as the servants of the Egyptian God Horus.
They were finally driven into a city called Avaris. Their efforts
to hold this city being futile, they departed from Egypt through
the desert toward Syria and there built a city in the country of
Judea, and called it Jerusalem. Judea was named from the outcast
Jews of Egypt, and the city, Avaris, was called Typhonian. Josephus
claimed that his people were followers of the Hek-Shus religion,
the Typhonian, which was the worship of the Mother

167

and Son, the earliest ever known, belonging intact to the mythology
of the heavens.
The rulers of the Shus were called Heks. The Hek was an
Egyptian regent or governor. They were worshippers of Hek, who was
the earlier Kak, god of darkness. The Shus-en-Har did not cease
with the reign of Menes, whom tradition claims was King of Egypt
about 4560 B. C. following the Divine Dynasties. Violent agitation
ensued when the supremacy of the new cult of Sebek-Ra arrived and
strove to replace the worship of the ancient Son, Sut, and Sebek,
the crocodile.1 This was the quarrel between Sut, the Son, and the
Egyptian Amen-Ra, the Solar Son, resulting in alliance of the
Ammonians with the Osirians against the Typhonian cult. Sebek
personified the solar Ra (Sun). Sut and his Mother, belonging to
the Sabean time, were compelled to make way for the truer
time-keeping kept by the Sun. Sut and his Mother were, as the angel
Uriel poetically tells Enoch, "the stars which transgressed the
commandments of the Most High God." At this time vandalism ravaged
the monuments from which whole records of dynasties that had
maintained the cult of Sut-Typhon were erased.
The wars and struggles of the Hek-Shus began under the
Pharaohs of the Egyptian Monarchy, commencing when Amen-Ra, the
Solar God, became the generator. Contemporaneous elevation of the
male above the female instituted the degradation of the Mother and
Son, whose cult before the Fatherhood had been established, was a
worship embraced by the entire world under different names.
Theologians have been unable, even in the present day, to blot out
this worship of the Starry Child and Mother, denounced as "Temple
Closers" and "Enemies of God." It was a faith too strong to be
shaken. For a time the Osirian cult devastated the worship of the
Great Mother and her Son, yet it loomed up
________
1 In the adoption of the crocodile type there was a custom in
the town of Har for everyone to eat some part of a crocodile on a
certain day set apart for this.--Manetho.

168

again in the year 2300 B. C. As captive kings and servant rulers,
the Hek-Shus find identification with the Hebrews in Deut. v, 15,
"Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt."
The Government of the Shus-en-Har belongs to the most ancient
in the world. "The original service was that of the Shus-en-Har. .
. . The ancient theocracy represented a government assumed to be
divine with no monarchy but that of Divinity. It is the oldest form
of government in the world, earliest anywhere." Priests or Judges
were the Law Givers and representatives of the people. The Hebrew
"Mixed Multitude" most certainly adhered to the Typhonian religion
until it was looked upon as odious and an abomination. After the
expulsion of their last king, who was called SUT-Apehpeh, the
Osirians and Ammonians again came into power. Their city Avaris was
depicted as the "Home of the Leg." This was the constellation in
the North and seen in the planisphere as "The Hinder Thigh," symbol
of the Mother Typhon and the Matrix of the world. There surely can
be no denying that the origin of the Hebrew "Mixed Multitude" is in
the Egyptian Mythological Astrology of the Heavens.
The Jewish glyph and the Hebrew language are not original, but
borrowed from the Egyptian and are considered sacred. Hebrew is
composed of the hieroglyphs, symbols and myths of the Egyptians and
their gods. The imagery, allegories and divinities found in old
Hebrew writings are Egyptian and appertain to the Typhonian cult.
The Jewish "New" departure and developments were made out of the
oldest of all materials, originally mythical in Egypt, but
converted into the historical by the Jews. Celsus says, "The Jews
were a tribe of Egyptians who revolted from the established
religion." Their Jehovah can be traced back to the Great Mother.
The Eighteenth Dynasty overcame the Sut-Typhonians. Ramese II
was a follower of the Typhonian religion, and must, therefore, have
befriended the Jews. His wife also

169

adhered to this early religion of the Mother and Son. The
persecution of the Jews was due to their religion and to the fact
that they placed the male element in superiority--the Father and
Son above the Mother and Son.
About 2466 B. C. Amenhept I, of the Twelfth Dynasty founded a
special temple for the ram-headed god of Thebes. Osiris, the great
celestial god of the orthodox Egyptian religion, was succeeded by
the ram-headed god of one cult and by the Sebekhepts of another.
Sut was god of the Nashi, the negroes, and when he became the Aten
Sun of the horizon was especially worshipped by the Ethiopians and
by Amenhept III, whose mother was an Ethiopian, and therefore a
worshipper of the Aten Sun. Amenhept III reintroduced the Aten, or
Sun-disk worship, and called the youthful solar god Aten-Nefer. The
mother of Amenhept III had marked influence on both politics and
religion during this period, foreshadowing the religious revolt
that was impending at this time.
A hymn of the Fifteenth Century B.C. to Aten was used in the
worship of the Sun-disk as a symbol of God:

"Thy appearance is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,
O living Aten, the beginning of life!
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty.
Thy beams encompass all lands which thou hast made,
Thou bindest them with thy love . . .
The birds fly to their haunts--
Their wings adoring thee . . .
The small bird in the egg, sounding within the shell
Thou givest it breath within the egg . . .
How many are the things which thou hast made!
Thou createst the land by thy will, thou alone,
With peoples, herds, and flocks . . .
Thou givest to every man his place, thou framest his life."

Amenhept III built a large basin or lake on which he launched
a boat of the solar disk, emblematic of his worship, and called it
Aten-nefru. It was a symbol of the young sun-god, Aten. His mother
represented the boat as the

170

"Bearer," or the genetrix, which carries us back to the Mother as
the Ship of the North. This is the bark or boat representing the
Mother who impersonates the Virgin Mother of the Only One. She is
portrayed upon the walls of the temple of Ra at Luxor as the
earthly image of the mother who gives birth to the child Christ or
Messiah representative of the Aten-Sun. In mythology the Messiahs
were always born from a virgin mother. This mother was known as the
Maiden Virgin Queen, Mut-em-Ua; Em-Ua means "alone" and signifies
the mother in the line of the Typhonian descent who gives birth to
the Only One. The Aten-disk is the emblem of the divine and only
Son of the Mother, or mythically the Sun on the horizon, of which
this Virgin Queen Mother, Mut-em-Ua is the physical representation
on earth. In "The Shrine" or "Holy of Holies" of the temple at
Luxor, she is depicted as the Boat of the Sun. In this sacred room
four marvellous scenes, which bear close resemblance to those of
the birth of the Christian Messiah are engraved in hieroglyphics on
the walls. In the first the God

@insert line drawing of hieroglypics showing scene

Taht, the messenger of the angels, the "Annunciator of the Gods,"
appears to be telling the virgin queen that she is to give birth to
the Coming Son, who is to be the symbol of the Aten Sun. In the
following scene the god Kneph--Spirit, Divine Breath or Holy
Ghost--who causes conception, and Hathor, Nature, are with the
Queen Mother. Each takes her by the hand and holds the Ansated
Cross, symbol of Eternal Life, to her mouth. This entire scene is
typical of spiritual incarnation or conception. In the next scene
the child is dis-

171

covered surrounded by nurses, one of whom holds him in her hands.
In the last scene the child is enthroned, receiving the adoration
of gods and men, and behind the god Kneph three men are seen
kneeling offering the Ansated Cross and three gifts to the child.
These four scenes of the Annunciation, the Immaculate
Conception, Birth and Adoration, are quite familiar to Christians.
The Immaculate Conception, by the Great Mother, Mut-em-Ua, of the
child worshipped as the Aten-Sun, constituted the grandest and most
sublime mystery of every ancient religion.1
Aiu, the husband of the nurse of Khu-en-Aten, was said to be a
protege of Amenhept III. He was priest or holy father and
fan-bearer at the king's right hand. He was given the title of the
Royal Scribe of Justice, and was considered a Judge, a Sep, and as
Aiu-Sep he prefigures the Biblical Joseph. The Queen of Khu-en-Aten
had a sister who was thought to have been the wife of
Tut-Ankh-Amen, and afterwards of Har-em-Hebi.
Amenhept III was followed by Amenhept IV, and "he was supposed
to have changed his name to Khu-en-Aten, the Adorer of Aten.2 He
changed the name of the city called after him into Pa-Aten-Haru,
the city of delight for the solar disk, or rather the youthful
Sun-god Adon, the Lord, and he would appear in public riding on the
golden chariot like the disk of the Sun."--Inscription of Amenhept
IV.
Amenhept IV was the last of the Twelfth dynasty, and the
ram-headed god in all probability was adopted as Amen-Ra and as
Sebek Ra about the time that the Sun of the vernal equinox entered
the sign Aries the Ram in a date coinciding with the ending of the
Twelfth dynasty, in 2410 B. C. Amen was a title of Sebek, the
Typhonian
________
1 "In the great Harris Papyrus Rameses III complains that the
revolters and the insurrectionists have the gods in the human
likeness, and Queen Mut-em-Ua and her son assumed the human
likeness, as the Mary and child-Christ of the Aten cult."--Sharp,
"Egyptian Mythology."
2 The latest researches point to these two as being different
personages.

172

Sun-god. Amen-Au was the hidden Au, a god of the Sebek family of
gods, and Amen-Ra was the god of later Egyptian naming, who was
called the DIVINE FATHER.
According to monumental history there were several
Exoduses, under both religious and symbolical names. The Children
of Israel were the sons of El, Al, Ar, or Har, the highest type of
which was Sut,1 the Dog-Star, Sirius. Later Saturn as Sabaoth, son
of the mother Typhon in the North ruled over Israel. Sut-Typhon
fleeing from Egypt, riding on an ass, mythically signifies the
Great Exodus.2 Ass in its symbolical rendering is Iu, Sut, or
Ius--Jews--all one and the same, the son, and hence this very early
Exodus symbolizes the exit of Sabean time at the advent of Solar
reckoning. The first religion was Sabean, and pre-monumental, and
originated with the Star of Joudi, that great mother in the North,
and her son Sut, one of whose types was the Ass. To mythology can
be traced the idea of a male Eternal Being. "First was the Iu, the
one who for ever comes and becomes; the divine youth, the son of
the mother, the eternal boy, the universal lad.3 Next is the Being
who is, and ever continues to be; and lastly, the Being who
inferentially was and has been forever."4
The Ever Coming One, continuing to come can be identified as
born and reborn in the cycles of the Sun. IO, the Lunar Goddess,
the "White Wanderer of the Heavens," is an early feminine form
traceable to the Great Mother of Iu, the Jew, whether Sabean or
Solar. Iu-Sa, Iu-Su (Jesus) or Iu-Sif, was the coming son or the
Messiah of mythology. In thought the doctrine of the Coming One
________
1 Sut was the Sabean Son; Khunsu, the Lunar Son, and Adonai, the
Solar Sun.
2 The Ass was one of the types of Sut, the Dog-Star; similarly
Iu (the Coming One) is a name for an Ass. These types belonged to
the Cult of Sut-Typhon, during the Sabean period which preceded the
introduction of Solar time-keeping by Moses. Sut-Typhon was called
the ass and its foal.
3 Records, iv, 102, Hymn to Osiris, 17.
4 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. ii, p. 439.

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goes far back to the beginning. IU as the son of the mother, the
Coming One, was the double Horus of the Becoming, type of futurity,
and not the earth born Messiah. This fact has given rise
theologically to many false interpretations. The Egyptian A. U. was
the coming being, the embryo, and was similar to Ptah, who
personated the embryo, and also to Sut, the Ass-headed. IU is the
ancient name for Ass, and this is expressed in the Book of
Revelation by A, O, the Egyptian AU, signifying who was and is, and
is to be. The letter U is the letter O, thus the IU has the variant
AU, the A, O, the Alpha and Omega of the Greek alphabet. "The
Jews," says Petronius, in characterizing their cult, "calls unto
heaven's ears." The followers of Sut, whether as Egyptians in Egypt
or Hebrews out of it, were the followers of Sut-Typhon, the
long-eared Ass.

Iu-em-Hept (Hept means peace, plenty) was the peace-bringer,
and Nefer-Hept (Nef-breath) was the breather of peace. A
male-female dual nature runs through all ancient myths. Bacchus and
Horus were bi-sexual, and there is even a Greek statue representing
St. Sophia, the Christ, as a bearded female. Iu-em-Hept reappears
in the Hebrew writings as Ecclesiasticus, the Preacher. The
Apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus is called the "Wisdom of Jesus
the son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus." The Prologue of the book
admits it to be a work brought out of Egypt. In the Hebrew
collection the Preacher is identified with Jesus. Iu-em-Hept wore
the Long Garment, typical of a female gown, just as the Jewish High
Priests and the Roman Popes do. In the "Book of the Dead"
Iu-em-Hept wearing the long robe is addressed as follows, "Hail to
thee coming, approaching in peace, whose garment was that in which
was the 'Whole World'." Chapt. xviii, 24, of the Book of Solomon,
says , "For in the long garment was the whole world, and in the
four rows of stones was the glory of the fathers graven." The name
of the mystical Solomon signifies "Peace." Sol-Om-On represents
three names of

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the Sun in different languages. Iu-em-Hept was the Egyptian Jesus
known as "The Eternal Word" in the "Book of the Dead." IU the root
word means to come; the ever-coming one--he who comes with peace.
"The only satisfactory ethnological designation for a people
like the Hebrews must be derived from a religion that had its
rootage in mythology."1 In a certain sense the Israelites never
were in the Terrestrial Egypt. The Children of Israel were the sons
of the early Astrological Mythology of the Mother and were the
Seven Stars, whose leader was her son, who became Saturn, the
tribal god of the Jews.
The Jews are said to be a racial remnant from the Golden Age.
The Golden Age in Mythology was that of Sut-Nub, or the Typhonian
period. The Jews came from the northern part of Ethiopia, crossing
the deserts, and seem to have been builders of pyramids, which is
perhaps an evidence of their Egyptian origin. On the plains of
Africa there are remnants of pyramids undiscovered, save by the
Wild Tribes who regarded them as holy, the foundations of which
will one day be laid bare.
The Phoenicians, whose kings were the Hek-Shus, according to a
tradition of Manetho, were identified with the Shus-en-Har, who had
rootage in Egypt extending to pre-monumental times. They were
called Israelites, and belonged to the Typhonian or celestial
religion. They returned from their wanderings under the leadership
of their priests and fell into captivity. When Moses led them forth
they were briefly rewarded for earlier services, but their true
destiny will be world leadership at the end of the reign of
Justice, which will precede the Capricornian era, and Moses will be
the Law Giver in this coming age, of which all learned Jews have
foreknowledge.
The world Serpent is typified in the zodiacal sign Scorpio,
and the heavenly Serpent is in that of Capricorn. The Jews
________
1 Massey, Gerald.

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are represented by the sign Capricorn. The Jewish Serpent worship
was a priestly rite, performed in the service in the Synagogue, and
the Jewish priests were supposed to heal the sick with the Serpent
power. The Egyptians grew up in the essence of the Light, of which
the Jewish people had knowledge. When the Jews returned from their
wanderings their leader, Moses, who was an Egyptian, knew they were
the people destined to rule the world in a later cycle. Moses was
educated, as Manetho tells us, in the Temple of the Sun in the City
of the Sun. He was a great Egyptian Priest and knew that the
Israelites, or Jews, would rule at the culmination of the present
age of Justice, and he knew he would return in that period, and as
a world leader, give forth the real justice of the Mosaic power
under the new polarity which will not manifest in its entirety
before the new axial progress shall be established. At that period
the planet Saturn, their ruling planet and ruler of the sign
Capricorn, will come to the conjunction of the unseen planet.
Capricorn is service justified in evolution.
Among the various names given in celestial allegory to the
Sabean birthplace were the Egyptian Mitzraim and Mazaroth, names
originally in the heavens above that were later applied to the
Egypt below. The star Mitzr in the constellation The Great Bear
gave its name to the Celestial Mitzraim, which with Mazaroth
belonged to the primal Sabean birthplace. The first circle evolved
by this constellation and its Seven Stars was divided into ten
degrees or ten divisions of heaven, or ten tribes, and was again
subdivided into seventy. From this we have the earliest knowledge
of the Ten Tribes of Israel, which were purely Typhonian and were
ruled over by the Seven Stars of this constellation. These Seven,
Ten and Seventy were primarily celestial before they were
associated with the Nomes of the Egypt below. The name Astronomy
comes from Astro-nome, or the arrangement of the stars into nomes,
constellations or divisions, from which originated the first

176

Celestial Chart, with its naming and noming afterwards adopted in
many lands. Therefore, Mitzraim and Mazaroth are the truth-tellers
forevermore of the early Egypt, and her astronomical measurements.
Mazaroth means the Fires of Heaven or the "Lights," and the first
Nome was given to the Dog-Star, Sirius. Paradise, the early Garden,
was also one of the earliest nomes.
In the tenth chapter of Genesis the Seven Sons that came forth
from Mitzraim are given. These Seven appear under various names in
every ancient mythology and are always the Seven Stars of the
constellation of the Great Bear. From this first Sabean circle of
Seven, called the heaven of the Elohim, came the division into Ten,
the subdivisions of which created the seventy degrees or Nations
that were anterior to the Solar Circle of the twelve signs of the
Zodiac.
In Rabbinical lore the earth was divided into seven climates,
and every climate into ten parts. "These were the seventy nations
divided among seventy princes the blessed God taking no part in
them, because he is pure, wherefore they are not children of his
image, nor bear any resemblance of him; but Jacob is the portion of
his inheritance." In the Hebrew version there were ten generations
or patriarchs who followed the Seven, who were again followed by
the Seventy, between the Deluge and Abraham, and they certainly
coincided with the celestial allegory.

Atlantis was an immense Island beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
It was said to be governed by Neptune, who had ten sons, to each of
whom he gave a portion, or one-tenth, of the Island. His eldest son
was called Atlas, from whom the Island was named. It had been an
island of peace, plenty and harmony, but the people degenerated and
finally it disappeared because of earthquake and deluge.1 The ten
________
1 "Atlantis" is the Fourth Continent. . . . The famous island of
Plato of that name was but a fragment of this great continent.
Since the destruction of Atlantis the face of the earth has changed
more than once. . . . The last serious

177

divisions, the ten sons, coincide with the Hebrew ten divisions,
and they were the ten races of men mentioned in the Persian
Bundahish, which preceded the Chaldean. But Egypt tells us of no
similar legend. Their knowledge of a deluge belonged to the cycles
of Time. There were two lists of patriarchs who preceded the flood
called that of Noah. There were seven names in one list and ten in
the other, wherefore the number of nations into which the new earth
was arranged was seventy-two, representing the duo-de cans of the
solar Zodiac which superseded the Seven, the Ten and the Seventy.
The covenant of Abraham follows the flood, ending the first
period of the ten patriarchs. The bow or the circle in heaven was
one witness of this covenant connected with the Zodiac, and
circumcision was the other.
On the two lists of the names of the Patriarchs that preceded
the flood of Noah, the first seven are Adam, Cain, Hanoch, Jerad,
Methusael, Lamech and Noah. The second comprises Adam, Seth, Enos,
Qunan, Mahalalal, Jared, Hanoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah. These
are commonly called the Elohistic and Jehovistic records, and are
two forms of the Hebrew Generations given in one of the creation
legends.
The Patriarchs were sidereal, cosmic and numerical symbols and
signs. Volney in his "Ruins" frankly says, "All pretended
personages from Adam to Abraham and his father Terah were
mythological beings, Stars, Constellations, and Countries."
Patriarchs of Vedic origin were the earliest known and were
accepted emblematically as representations of the different signs
of the Zodiac, by Christians as well as by so-called heathens.
Fundamentally the patriarchs were
________
change occurred some 12,000 years ago, and was followed by the
submersion of Plato's little Atlantic island, which he calls
Atlantis after the parent continent. Geography was part of the
mysteries, in days of old. Says the Zohar, "These secrets (of land
and sea) were divulged to the men of secret science, but not to the
geographers'."--Blavatsky, H. P.--Preliminary Notes, The Secret
Doctrine, Vol. ii, pp. 8, 9.

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spiritual as well as physical types of evolution belonging to all
ages.
Deuteronomy xxxiii is an astronomical chapter of the Bible
describing the twelve tribes of Israel to be the twelve signs of
the Zodiac. Contemporaneously Jacob became the Father or the
Sun-God of the twelve signs.

In Deuteronomy xxxii, 8, 9, it is written, "When the Most High
divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the
sons of Adam he set the bounds of the people according to the
number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his
people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." In the Septuagint the
text reads, "According to the number of the Angels." These were the
mythological Israelites, later brought down to earth as a race of
human beings, and the God of the descendants of these children of
Israel was Jehovah, deity of the Seven Stars, tribal God of the
Jews, who were worshippers of the Lord God of Sabaoth. Sabaoth in
planetary form was Saturn, the Individualizer, the Bridging Planet,
connecting the material, mortal side of man with his higher
spiritual immortal nature, Saturn regenerates through pain and
suffering as he lifts the veil revealing the great Light beyond.
Beyond his Bridge lies the great enfolding love enveloped in the
wondrous Light of the world.
The seven sons of the Egyptian god, Ptah, and the seven sons
of Sydik, as well as many, many others, can be traced to the Seven
of the Great Bear. The seven spirits associated with this
constellation are mentioned in the Egyptian ritual--"These same are
behind the constellation of the Thigh, Ursa Major (The Great Bear)
of the Northern heaven." They were appointed chiefs and given power
over the seven constellations. The Persians later gave the
constellations to the planets. The seventy Shepherds, Princes or
Angels of the Kabala, who were said to appear on earth during the
downfall of the Tower of Babel, were rulers of the seventy
divisions. All Seventy can be found in Rab-

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binical writings under the names of Shepherds, Watchers, Elders,
and so forth. They all had a common origin in celestial allegory or
the phenomena of the heavens.
"After King Damascus, came Azelus, and then Adores, Abraham,
and Israhel, who were the Kings. But a prosperous family of ten
sons made Israhel more famous than any of his ancestors. Having
divided his kingdom in consequence, into ten governments, he
committed them to his sons, and called the whole people Jews."1
A rectification on astronomical grounds of the original
Seventy resulted in a total of seventy-two, representing the
duo-decans of the Solar Zodiac, and when the latest arrangement was
based upon the twelve signs and the seventy-two duo-decans of the
Solar Zodiac, the ten Tribes became twelve.
"The Afghans call themselves Ben-Issarael (children of
Is(sa)rael from Issa 'woman and also earth,' Sons of Mother Earth."
There remains no doubt concerning the Afghan tribes, "the names of
the oldest Arabic tribes, re-transliterated, yield the names of the
Zodiacal signs and of the mythical sons of Jacob likewise."2
When Jacob, of the ten, was changed to Israel, of the twelve,
it was said that the seventy princes were not the children of the
true, i. e. later, God. They were not born in his image, and bore
no likeness to him. In the old allegory there were seventy souls of
celestial bodies appointed Watchers and Timekeepers in the heaven
of the seventy divisions, or degrees, that preceded the seventy-two
divisions or degrees. The first mention of the name of Israel is
found in the 33rd chapter of Genesis, where we find Jacob elevated
to the position of "El," Lord. The name Israel is derived from
Isaral, or Asar, the Sun-God, and Isra-el means "Striving with
God."

Jacob wrestled all night with the Angel, or opposing
________
1 Cory's Ancient Fragments--From Justin, out of Trogus Pompeius,
p. 17.
2 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 200.

180

power, till break of day, but his thigh was put out of joint. This
was in the place called Pen-i-el, and he had "seen God face to
face" . . . "As he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him and he
halted upon his thigh," the hollow of which had been touched by the
Angel. The place Peniel is found in the heavens at the beginning of
the Zodiacal sign Sagittarius and in the constellation Scutum
Sobieski. Astrologically this is a point which induces spiritual
vision when favorably aspected. Always at the beginning of a new
cycle or age spiritual Light spreads more profusely over the world,
and to "see God face to face" becomes the privilege of the
attaining Seer who has developed his higher consciousness. The
constellation Scutum Sobieski is called the Coal Sack, as it is a
dark place in the heavens, where shooting stars are seen in the
month of November. From out the dark come these creative
birth-giving elements, Light out of Darkness always.
No historical evidence of these tribes is given. Herodotus,
who was born 483 B. C., and who was in Assyria when Ezra
flourished, does not mention the Israelites, and Brugsch Bey gives
it as a fact that "nowhere do the inscriptions contain one syllable
about the Israelites." In the mythology of the heavens proof is
found of the Children of Israel and of their belonging to the
Sabean beginnings. Their birthplace was that great "Ship of the
North," and their journeys were from out the land of Darkness into
the Light, or mythologically out of Night into Day. The story of
the Exodus was common property to all nations and can be found in
the ancient Book of Enoch, which is called "The Book of the
Revolutions of the Luminaries of Heaven," and is the history of the
Sabean, Lunar and Solar cycles of Time, from the earliest known
down to the Precessional Periods belonging to astronomical
reckonings, or from the circle of the twenty-four hour period to
the great cycle of 26,000 years. The Book of Enoch is filled with
secrets concerning the heavens, and with allegories that have been
turned into history. In the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" these
tribes

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and children are introduced as a Solar Allegory. Their home of
bondage was located in the nether Northern region. When Moses came
from Egypt he was a full Initiate with knowledge and wisdom of the
mysteries, which were of the heavens. The circle of the Exodus was
both Solar and Zodiacal, and represented the wanderings of the
Children of Israel. Gerald Massey states that it is apparent that
had the journey of the Israelites been a real one the Israelites at
Moseroth would have almost described a complete circle around to a
point at Baalzephon, the place of their departure, this circular
movement being Zodiacal.
It has been said that the Jews had but two tribes, those of
Judah and Levi. The Levites, however, could not have been a tribe,
as they were said to belong to a caste, a priestly Caste, and were
represented by the Zodiacal sign Aquarius. Their knowledge of the
Serpent went back for generations. Leo, the opposite sign of the
Zodiac, is Judah's natal sign, through which the present Aquarian
era will be ruled. Judah represented the God of the Twin Lions of
the heavens, who was the Law Giver, the "Triumphant One." Judah
also represented the Hebrew Kingdom of the Twelve Tribes, as
distinguished from the earlier ten Tribes of Israel. These tribes,
because of their relation to the Zodiac, are very easily identified
in the 49th chapter of Genesis.
Jacob foretold to Judah that "The sceptre shall not depart
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh
come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Genesis,
xlix, 10. Shiloh or the Messiah was the Returning One, whether
Stellar, Lunar or Solar, for the Shiloh was periodic in the
celestial myth. The Solar Shiloh was the Sun of the Resurrection.
The Hebrew Shiloh was called the afterbirth, typifying the adult
youth. The root of the name denotes renewal, rebirth. He became the
revealer of the father in heaven, when the masculine-minded cult
arrived. The ever coming one also belongs to the father,

182

"whose power came and forever came with the transformation at
puberty," when the creative power descends.
Cruden says that the full meaning of this prophecy is in
regard to the people of Israel in their relation to the Tribe of
Judah; and "this tribe alone returned entire from captivity with
some relics of the Tribe of Levi and Benjamin. From that time the
nation was distinguished by the title of the Jews in relation to
it, and the right to dispose of the sceptre was always in the tribe
of Judah. The Levites received power from them." The sceptre means
Power, Command.
The name Israel, derived from El1, the Lord, belongs to the
celestial Ten Tribes, in Je-shu-run. Jeshurun is identified with
the first circle of four quarters, in which the reckoning by ten
preceded the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The ten signs made way for
the coming of the twelve Tribes or the twelve signs of the Zodiac
having seventy-two duo-decans. The ten "lost tribes" were of
heaven. They remain above, veritable storehouses of knowledge,
revealing for all time in mythical language the great wisdom and
heavenly mysteries of the ancients.
The Egyptian god Ptah2 was called the founder of the Solar
Circle. Atum, his son, was typical of the change from
________
1 El was the supreme deity of the Hebrews and a male, son of the
Great Mother, identified by the Greeks and Romans with Kronus,
Saturn. El is the worn-down form of Hal or Har, equivalent to the
Egyptian Makheru, or true voice. El or Al was the supreme god of
the Babylonians. There is no other origin for the Hebrew El. El
interchanges with the Sabean Baal, Baal-Zebul, Baal-Zebub,
Bar-Sutekh, Bar-Typhon (Egyptian), Baal-Zephon and Baal-Kivan
(Hebrew). In the Babylonian and Phoenician mythologies they all
were the son (Al) of the Great Mother, goddess of Stars, Moon and
Sun. In the mysteries of Baal-Poer, Baal-Poer and Bar-Typhon were
the Openers. Baal-Poer was lord of the Openings, and is identical
with Sut or Bar-Typhon the Opener. Kivan is identified with the
Hebrew Jehovah. El-Shadai, Adonai, Baal were all personifications
of the son of the cult of Sut-Typhon, the First Great Mother.
2 The first form of Khepr-Ra is Ptah. Ptah was the image maker
of the gods. He was the Potter who shaped the Vase that contained
the Seeds of all living, the Vase being always a feminine symbol.
Ptah formed the circle of the Sun or Solar Zodiac.

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seventy to seventy-two divisions in the Solar Zodiac. The god Ptah
was the Hebrew Terah. Ptah and Terah were divine artificers. Terah
or "Old Time" was seventy years old before his three sons were born
in Ur of Chaldee, clearly defined in the myth as "representing the
time of the seventy Angels, Princes, Elders, or Shepherds, who
presided over the divisions of the heavens, as the seventy years of
Terah before the birth of Abraham."
In the 46th chapter of Genesis we are told that all the souls
that came into Egypt were three score and ten, the traditional
number of the house of Jacob. These were the seventy that preceded
the Solar Zodiac and were synonymous with the seventy Elders who
judged the people of Israel. "Terah was the Father of the Fathers
of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose children were to swarm
in multitudes, numerous as the stars of heaven or the sands of the
sea," and with his twelve sons went into Egypt and "grew into a
multitude 2,000,000 strong." The Egyptian god Ptah was also called
the Father of the Fathers of the Gods, and one of his symbols of
Time was a frog or tadpole, a sign of swarming millions. Ptah is
portrayed as beetle-headed and frog-headed, sometimes as a double
type having a scarab placed over the frog-head. And when the bounds
were set according to the number of the children of Israel, Deut.
xxxii, 8, the division represented the time at which Moses
instituted the Solar or final Zodiac. The twelve tribes received
his blessing, its bestowal being the last act of life. Gen. xlix.
Moses was king in Je-shu-run at the gathering of the Tribes.
Je-shu-run was the celestial four quarters of the heavens, later
called Solstices and Equinoxes, and representing the sacred animals
of the Zodiac--The Bull (Taurus); the Lion (Leo); the Bird
(Scorpio); and the Man (Aquarius). "There is none like unto the God
of Je-shu-run, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his
excellency on the sky." Deut. xxxiii, 26; also "Sing unto God, sing
praises to his name; extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his
name, JAH, and rejoice

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before him." Psalm lxviii, 4. The god of Je-shu-run is Jah-Adonai,
introduced by Moses as the Solar God.
Terah, Father of Abraham, was a "Maker of Images,"1 the
Teraphim. Time in Egypt is Ter, a name given to Khepr, the Beetle.
Ap is likewise a name of the Beetle and the Frog. Hence Terap. Its
plural in Hebrew is Teraphim, Images of Time. The "Teraphim were
consulted in Israel for oracular answers." The Teraphim were the
Gods worshipped by Micah and others. See Judges xviii. The Teraphim
were also called the Kabiri. The name Kabiri is derived from Abir,
one interpretation of which is Great. Kabiri were the sons of Eber
of Sutekh or Kefa, who are readily traced back to the seven sons of
the old Great Mother Typhon.
Teraphim and Seraphim became identical.2 The latter were
serpent images representing the fiery serpent of heaven, the one
fabled to have guarded Mount Meru, which was the Garden of Eden, so
that sinful man might not approach. They were sacred symbols of
immortality, and were the images received as a dowry and carried by
Dardanus to Samothrace and on to Troy. Teraphim and Seraphim were
worshipped ages and ages before the Christian era. Seldenus in
explaining the Teraphim says they were made and composed after the
position of certain stars and planets, and according to figures
that were located in the sky and called tutelary gods. Maimonides
writes that the worshippers who carved images which were Jewish
oracles "claimed that the light of the principal stars (planets)
permeating these through and through, the angelic VIRTUES (regents
of stars and planets) conversed with them, teaching them many most
useful things and arts." The Teraphim, made by the astrologers,
under certain constellations, were at times connected with sorcery,
witchcraft and idolatry.
________
1 "The temple images were human in shape and made of wood." (cf.
I Sam. xix, 13, 16.)
2 Sometimes they were winged wheels.

185

The Cherubim or Cherubs, were esoterically identical with the
Seraphim, being images or likenesses of the Celestial
Constellations. "The Heavenly Hosts," or "Cosmic Angels," and
having exquisite knowledge. It is said of the Seraphim that they
know most, but that the Cherubim love most. Cruden in his
Concordance interprets the word Cherub as meaning in Hebrew "The
Fulness of Knowledge; and Angels are so called from their exquisite
knowledge, and were therefore used for the punishment of men, who
sinned by affecting divine knowledge." Cherub has the meaning of a
serpent in a circle. Kr is circle, and Aub serpent.
Adonai, Jah, the Hebrew El, or Lord, has a Biblical connection
with the Cherubim, as the Lord of Israel is spoken of as dwelling
between the Cherubim and the Ark that was in the midst of them.
This was the Ark, that point of covenant between heaven and earth,
the constellation of "The Thigh," known as the Ship of the North,
the Holy of Holies for all eternity.
Clement Alexander thought it likely that the two Cherubs were
originally the constellations of the two Bears. They are found as
Solar Cherubs and at a later period as the two Beetles or Scarabs
which formerly symbolized the Zodiacal sign Cancer.1 "These two
Beetles were figured in an Ark, facing each other with wings
outspread." Josephus declares that Moses had seen these Cherubs
beneath the Throne of God, which astrologically represented the
North Pole, under which are the two constellations of the Bears.
The Beetles were the transformers. There was a "gate that opened
one way for the descent of the Sun, and afterwards of the souls to
the earth, the lower of the two regions; the other way being the
outlet to the land of eternal birth, in the eschatological phase of
the celestial imagery."2
By tracing history back to its starry Sabean origins one is
sure to find a safe original anchorage. All astronomical myths
________
1 So copied by Rosellini.
2 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. ii, p. 310.

186

began with the dark or night, in the primal Typhonian cult,
originating in that wonderful birthplace, the Celestial North, home
of the ancient Mother Typhon. In Inner Africa the symbols and types
of the primal Typhonian cult still remain extant in primitive form,
as they obtained, previous to the immigration down the Valley of
the Nile, which initiated the civilization of Egypt itself.
The mapping out of the heavens, the measuring of Time and the
Revolution of the Stars, were conceived by the ancients for
purposes of practical usage and human guidance. Their observations
became facts and were recorded in their astronomical mythology.
They observed and connoted with great accuracy the motions of the
Sun, Moon, and Stars.
In the Biblical Genesis we are told of divine creations, and
that when they were accomplished the Elohim saw that everything was
created Good. Who were the Elohim? Mythological Astronomy will tell
us. They were the Watchers in Heaven, the Seven Sons or Stars of
the Great Mother. They were also the Seven Great Architects of the
world, progenitors of man, and by their periodic revolutions Heaven
and Earth, the Upper and Lower, Night and Day, Darkness and Light
were created. "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her
Seven Pillars," (Prov. ix, 1), and her foundations were laid by
those Seven Great Stars that were first noticed encircling the
Pole. The Egyptian word for Create is "Ker-at." Ker means a Curve
and At a Circle, and "by the circle of Time was curved, carved and
created the heaven of Symbolism." The earliest circle makers were
the Seven Stars, the Elohim, who founded the first Celestial Chart
of phenomenal or visible origin.
Legends of all countries instinct with great beauty and uplift
of thought, tell of the Seven. The Rishis of India, the Hohgates of
our California Indians, the Spirits of the Great Bear in Egypt,
China and Japan, the Seven-branched

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Candlestick, the Seven Spirits before the Throne, the Seven Pillars
of Wisdom as well as the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost typifying
the Seven Stars revolving about the ancient Mother, who in those
faraway times was known as "The Living Word."
In the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" these Gods of the Circle
and of the "Seven Aahlu" were termed the "Ancestors of Light." The
Hebrew Elohim created Light. In Genesis we read "Let there be
Light, and there was Light," which indicates that the Seven were
the primal Light Bringers of the first creation, which was Sabean
in origin. Indeed "These Generators and Ancestors of Light were so
ancient they had been sublimated, divinized and relegated to a kind
of spiritual realm beyond the phenomenal creations described in the
book of Genesis."1 Generations were of heaven and astronomical.
Esoterically the Seven Stars were the "Sons of God," Divinities of
Power, who knew and could impart all the secrets of nature to man,
and who could reveal the wonderful but now Lost Word. "The Word
that is no Word," has to be sought in the seven names of the seven
first emanations, or the "Sons of the Fire" in the secret
scriptures of all the great nations."2 The Seven were the
all-embracing manifested deity only when considered as One. In
later theology they were materialistically transformed into the One
God, Jehovah, who was the Great Mother, one of whose names is the
familiar Eve. When Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge the Elohim were made to exclaim, "Behold the man has
become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now lest he put
forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live
for evermore."
In the first chapter of Genesis the first creators are called
Elohim; in the second, the divinity is called Jehovah. Upon the
authority of Biblical chronology, the Elohistic Texts were

________
1 Massey, Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. ii, p. 142.
2 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. i, p. 438.

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written 500 years after the date of Moses, while the Jehovistic
were written 800 years after his day. Jehovah was first the Mother,
and the Elohim her progeny. The Elohim were always Seven in number.
There were Seven Powers of Eternal Nature, first born in space;
then came the Seven Stars of the Goddess Mother, later represented
as the auxiliaries of Kronus, when with Time and the measuring of
Cycles, creation began. All are readily identified with the Sevens
of many myths, and are the Egyptian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Persian,
Hindu, Britanic, Kabalist and Gnostic prototypes of the Seven
Powers, who were considered the creators as it were of human
beings, before the Supreme Being had become anthromorphised.
Jehovah-Elohim was supreme as Jah. The Hebrew Lord as Iao, Jah
or Jehovah, the Supreme was symbolized by the number 10. One Jewish
sign of the Trinity is a circle of three yod letters. Their
numerical value is 30. In the earlier lunar reckoning there were
ten days to a week and three weeks to a month of thirty days, which
makes Jehovah into a Lunar deity, and a trinity in unity. The
Egyptian God Aten, the Coming One, or the newly arising sun, was
given a title of "Highness," and was signified by the 10.
The Most High God of the Jews, El, Eloi, Elohim, plural, and
Shadai, co-existed with Jehovah. The Hebrew El was the male supreme
deity. El is also the child. El-Shadai is Son of Shadai. He was
also called the Lord of Hosts or Angels and was the greatest of all
the gods, goddesses or divinities of the primal Seven in heaven,
Jehovah, the Mother of the Seven Great Stars. The God of the Jews
was frequently written of in the Pentateuch as She, but was changed
to He after the divinity had changed sex. Because of its feminine
origin it was thought blasphemy to speak the Ineffable Name J H V
H, the male, and female symbol, which was primarily the feminine
principle in all things spiritual and material and hence it became
sacred. Elohim, Jehovah and Shadai meet in one divinity and starry
constellation, the

189

Great Bear, the Mother who is sometimes called the Multamammae, the
many-breasted. This makes apparent the feminine nature of Shadai,
who, says the Book of Genesis, "shall bless thee with blessings of
heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of
the breasts and the womb," and who was worshipped by the Hebrews
under the name J H V H.
The tribal God of the descendants of Israel was Jehovah. The
Jewish natives who were born under Saturn when he had become
Jehovah were the worshippers of the Lord God of Sabaoth.
El in Egyptian is also the Child, who in the early Sabean days
was Sut, in planetary type Saturn. Later El was transformed into
Satan, whom Job introduces as one of the sons of God. Satan was
accounted a son and an Angel of God by all Semitic nations. The
learned Kabalist Eliphas Levy speaks of Satan thus: "It is the
angel who is proud enough to believe himself God; proud enough to
buy his independence at the price of eternal suffering and torture;
beautiful enough to have adored himself in full divine light;
strong enough to reign in darkness amidst agony, and to have built
himself a throne on his inextinguishable pyre." He further says
that the true name of Satan is that of Jehovah reversed, for Satan
is not a black god but the negation of Deity. The devil of the
early Christians, with horns, hoofs and tail was introduced from
Babylon through the Jewish Talmud. The Christian religion,
transposes Satan into an enemy of God, whereas in reality by Satan
the highest divine spirit or Occult Wisdom on earth is meant.
The Roman Catholics speak of seventy planets that preside over
the nations of the globe, meaning the Regents of the planets. "Each
people or nation has a direct Watcher or Guardian and a Father in
Heaven, which is a planetary spirit." This cannot be denied.
Philo, the most illustrious and devout Jew of his race,
recognizing the true nature of all sacred writings, treats the

190

Pentateuch as allegorical and symbolical. It is known that the
Pentateuch arose out of the older primitive documents by means of a
supplementary one. The real Hebrew Bible was a secret volume,
unknown to the masses, and is far more ancient than the Septuagint.
The Pentateuch was written on papyrus by a scribe's pen from the
ancient hieroglyphics, which were carved in stone. The Hebrews,
retaining these hieroglyphics, turned them into the square letters.
It is said the Pentateuch was given to Israel in the Holy Language,
and in the Ibri writing. The hieroglyphs were secret signs and gave
to the Egyptian writings their sacred character. Later the
Pentateuch was translated into the Aramaic language and the
Ashurith writing. The Hebrews retained the ancient language with
the square letters. Ibri writing and Holy Language identify the
oldest Hebrew as Egyptian. Ezra was a scribe of the Law of God of
heaven and was said to have worked with supernatural guidance and
divinely strengthened memory when he retranslated the Law from the
Ibri writing into the Chaldee of Ashureth, the square type. He was
the author of the modernized version of the lost books of Moses,
which the Israelites were the latest to adapt and make their own.
Talmudists insist that the five Books of Moses were engraven
on stone, and written in seventy languages. The present Hebrew
writing is no older than the fourth century of our era.
The names Jehovah-Elohim are derived from the two words each
of which is male-female; Jehovah, a compound of Jah, male, and
Hovah or Eve, female; and Elohim, a compound of El,1 male and H.
female. Numerically Jehovah is the diameter of the circle and
Elohim the circumference. Jehovah-Elohim was the Mother of the
Seven ele-

_______
1 El was the highest god of the seven, the Dragon with Seven
Heads, or the Constellation of Draco when combined with that of the
Little Bear. He was the same son of the first Mother who was the
Moon-god Jah of the lunar Trinity, which became duad as mother and
child, and evolved her consort, forming the trinity that preceded
the luni-solar Father, Mother, and Son.

191

mentary gods, combined in the one divinity, the one constellation.
A seven-fold god is mythological, whether Jehovah or Iao-Sabaoth.
Sevekh, the seven-fold, Ea with the seven fins, Ra with his seven
souls, the Hindu Agni with his seven arms, the Gnostic Chnubis with
his seven rays, the Dragon with his seven heads, and El of the
seventh Planet, and many others, were the vehicles of many
imaginings, and finally became converted into gods in relation to
celestial phenomena,1 when "the Gods were seen in their ideas as
Stars, and all their signs, and the Stars were numbered with all
the Gods in them."2

________
1 The seven properties assigned to nature are, Matter, Cohesion,
Fluxion, Coagulation, Accumulation, Station, Division.
2 Hermes Trismegistus.

192

Celestial Ship of the North - Ch. 11 - Heavenly Measures

@insert POLES OF THE ECLIPTIC AND THE EQUATOR

The circle A B is the Ecliptic or Zodiac, the apparent path of
the Sun. The circle C D represents the plane of the earth's
Equator. The line H shews the Pole of the Ecliptic and the line G
that of the Equator. The two points of intersection E and F are the
Equinoxes. The Precession of the Equinoxes is caused by the
movement of the Pole of the Equator G around the Pole of the
Ecliptic H, which takes 25,920 years to make the Great Cycle of
Precession. From "The Faith of Ancient Egypt," by S. G. P. Coryn

193

194

CHAPTER XI
HEAVENLY MEASURES

If theology is to be truly interpreted, astrological knowledge
cannot be ignored. The false concepts concerning astrology, most
ancient of sciences, will one day inevitably meet with
annihilation. Astrology is the gospel of the stars giving man
insight into the mystical and leading his thoughts into cognizance
of divinity. Symbols conveyed abstract qualities of the Deity,
ancient fables conveyed facts. When our theologians dip into the
great and wonderful past and apply its eternal truths to the
present, a glorious day will dawn for humanity. As Buchner says,
"The whole past of the earth is nothing but an unfolded present."
The Creator was the foremost thought in the minds of ancient
peoples who worshipped Him with a reverence rarely manifested in
our materialistic age. They believed that "They that be wise shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many
to righteousness as the stars forever and ever," Daniel xii, 3, and
that "He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by
their names." Psalm clxvii, 4.
Volney says, "If at some future period some one united
Astronomical Science to the erudition of Antiquity, too much
separated from it, that man will instruct his age in many things,
which the vanity of ours has no notion of."
Tradition relating to the Poles is of inestimable astrological
value. "Axieros" was the distinctive appellation given by the
ancients to the two poles, which were called, conjointly, the
"Kabirim." These were names suggesting the "principle of
generation" and "most powerful Gods." "The pole of the heavens
generates the season according to the

195

angle with which he penetrates the center of the earth--when
parallel, we have constant spring; but when he penetrates through
the equator, the ravages of the elements must be dreadful"!1
Polar motion was known to the ancients from time immemorial.
In certain temples of antiquity polar motion was made a special
study, the results of which are a priceless inheritance for us
today. There is a city and river in Africa called "Axim," where
undoubtedly this motion was known and recorded. The ancients had
many fancies regarding the angles formed in heaven and on earth by
the changing positions of the Poles. A story is frequently quoted
from Herodotus, that when Cambyses entered one of the temples of
the Kabirim in Egypt, he was convulsed with laughter at seeing what
he thought to be a man standing erect, and a woman standing on her
head in front of him. The Egyptians had used this fanciful method
to represent the passing of the North Pole of the earth to the
South Pole of the heavens.2
In Perry's "View of the Levant" a figure of the South Pole of
the earth in the constellation of the Harp is given in which the
Poles appear as two straight rods, surmounted with Hawk's wings, to
distinguish the North from the South. The Poles were often figured
as serpents with heads of hawks, one at each end. These symbols
also represented the Poles inverted "in consequence of the great
inclination of the axis, bringing each time as a result the
displacement of the Oceans, the submersion of the polar lands, and
the
________
1 Mackey, S. A.--Mythological Astronomy, p. 73.
2 These Poles are represented in a great Kabalistic symbol in
the Zohar. A figure of them is given in the "History of Magic," by
Eliphas Levi, p. 53, where the man (white) is seen standing erect,
and the woman (black) standing on her head. They seem interlocked,
with the arms meeting at an angle on each side. These figures in
stone are found in Egypt. Eliphas Levi interprets them as being God
and Nature; or God (Light) mirrored inversely in Nature and Matter
(Darkness). They are but figures of the Kabiri in existence in the
temples of Egypt over 2,500 years ago, and they personified the
passing of the North Pole of the earth to the South Pole of the
heavens, also the inverted Poles.

196

consequent upheaval of new Continents in the Equatorial regions,
and vice versa."1 These marvellous types of the Kabirim, or
so-called "Deluge" gods, have been distorted by modern
interpretation, which supposes them to have been worshipped as
gods.
Eusebius gives an account of one of these symbols, a serpent,
representing either the pole of the earth or the pole of the
heavens. It is taken from Epeis, an Egyptian, whose works were
translated into Greek by Arius. "He is of every serpent the most
divine, who opening his eyes fills all things with Light in his
primogenial residence, and if he closes them total darkness
ensues." Eusebius also quotes from two Persian writers, Zoroaster
Magus and Astanes: "The God has the head of a hawk, he is the first
of beings, immutable, eternal, unbegotten, indivisible,
indefinable, the giver of every good, immutable, of the holy most
holy, of the wise most wise, the source of equity and justice, self
taught, natural, perfect, intelligent, and the sole inventor of the
sacred powers of nature." Eusebius also speaks of the Egyptian
representation of the Universe as a circle of fire, and a serpent2
having the head of a hawk, or a circle dividing heaven and earth.
S. A. Mackey in his "Mythological Astronomy" explains this as
follows: "Here is the pole of the earth within the plane of the
ecliptic, attended with all the fiery consequences that must arise
from such a state in the heavens when the whole Zodiac in 25,000
years must have 'redden'd with the solar blaze,' and each sign must
have been vertical to the polar region."
Astronomically the Poles are the heavenly measurers. Their
name, Cabirim, means measure of the stars, the lights. In this word
beginning with a C instead of K, Cab means a measure, and Irim or
Urim means the heavens. They were
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 360.
2 The Astral Light, the Milky Way, the path of the Sun to the
Tropics Cancer and Capricorn, and the circles which form the
sidereal years, were always called Serpents. Hawk and Serpent
conjoined was a well-known type of the primordial divinity of a
dual nature.

197

always known as Great, Beneficent and Powerful Gods, and under so
many different names that much confusion has arisen concerning
them.1 An esoteric understanding brings light and a perfect
explanation which straightens out many of the riddles not easily
divulged to those without intuitive or perceptive knowledge.
Esoterically the Kabiri Dioscuri were the two poles, later called
by the Greeks Castor and Pollux, the two brilliant stars which are
given to represent the Zodiacal sign Gemini, which has been called
the two Pillars of Heaven. The Kabiri Titans were the seven great
gods cosmically and astronomically. As Titans they were called
children of the Sun, because of their being connected with
At-Al-As, "the Divine Sun," and with tit, the deluge. The Titans
were called Atlantes.
Diodorus ascribes the invention of Fire and the art of
manufacturing iron to the Kabiri Titans, and Pausanias proves that
the original Kabiric deity was Prometheus. The Kabiri were not only
cosmically generators of the Seasons, but also as presiding gods
were great volcanic energies. They brought Light into the world,
symbolized in Prometheus, who had also brought Light into the world
and had endowed humanity with reason and intellect. The name
Kabeiros means "The powerful through Fire," and wherever cult of the
Kabiri was recognized, it was always connected with fire. They
built their temples in the most volcanic regions. Possibly in this
we find a key to the Christians having made of them "Infernal
Gods." So sacred was their Temple at Memphis that only Priests were
allowed to enter. For many long ages the Kabiri lived in the memory
of the nations as the benefactors of man and whether called
planetary spirits, angels or messengers, taught the mysteries of
the art of Agriculture. Osiris-Isis, as the Great Kabir of Egypt,
was said to have revealed wheat, by producing it.
________
1 Kabiri, or Cabiri, is a generic name. They were called Mighty
Gods as well as Mortals of both sexes, and were Celestial,
Terrestrial, and Cosmic. Cabiri is a first rendering of the name by
the Hebrews.

198

The origin of the Semitic Kabirim, "The Powerful and the Mighty,
the Great," has disappeared in the shadowy mists of time. "The word
guebre1 comes from Kabiri, or Cabiri, and means the ancient fire
worshippers, or Parsis. As gabir it has remained as an appellation
of the Zoroastrians in Persia."2
In the Samothracian mysteries, the generic name of the Kabiri
was the "Holy Fires." They were the founders of the Seven
Localities of the Island of Samothrace, sacred to Vulcan. The
"Kabir born of the holy Lemnos" whom Pindar describes as the
Adamas, was "a type of primitive man, born from the bosom of Earth"
physically, and from the divine Fire of progenitors spiritually.
Hence derives the Seven Adams who were preeminently the Seven Stars
or Fires of the Constellation The Great Bear. According to
Babylonian accounts the first race to fall into generation was
Adami, the Dark Race, comprising those ancient primitive peoples
whose records were ever written in the heavens. In Inner Africa the
name of the most ancient Great Mother was "Khebma," whose children
were the Kamara or Kabiri (Kam means Black), the black race.
The Kabiri of Samothrace were said to drink at two fountains,
Lethe (oblivion), and Mnemosyne (memory). They like the most
ancient deities of the Egyptian temples were the Great Cosmic Gods,
the great Polar Gods who were the presiding powers of the Sidereal
26,000-year cycle and agents of the upward progress of the race. In
Grecian temples their rites became phallic, and their worship
indecent. In the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" they are called the
Lords of the four cardinal points, the Genii that guard the four
corners of the sarcophagus, belonging to the Seven Spirits, the
Seven Stars of the constellation The Great Bear. In the Kabala they
are the Watchers in Heaven, Councillors of the Most High. Noah was
called a great Kabir. He is
________
1 Gibbor, Hebrew, in the Septuagint is translated Giant.
2 Hyde's De Religione Persaum.

199

either a myth, or a legendary hero evolved from the Kabiri of
Samothrace of Titanic tradition. Cain, represented by the planet
Mars, is god of generation. Tubal-Cain was a Kabir, an instructor.
He was Vul-cain, greatest of all the gods of a later period, and in
Egypt termed the greatest of the gods.
The Deity of Israel was called the Great Kabir. The Hebrew
word Kab means "To roll around" and Khab in Egyptian is "to give
birth to." Ari, or aru in Egyptian are the Watchers, the
Companions, the Keepers. The Kabiri were the Seven that gave birth
to and made the first circle of time. The Watchers, the grouping of
the original Seven made by the clustering together of these stars
was called Kabbing. The Kabala itself, means the doctrine of the
stars, their revolutions, repetitions, hidden wisdom, and powers
relating to the cycles of time. The Jews claim that the Kabala was
taught by God to a select company of angels in paradise, while an
astronomical myth tells us that paradise, or the Garden of Eden,
was formed by the Seven Great Stars that circled the pole, called
the Kabiri or Kab-ari.
Occult science proves that the founders of all root races have
been connected with the North Pole. Gods, religions, beliefs,
myths, have all come from there. No wonder we find it alluded to as
the "Cradle of Man," for when the Pole star energises the earth's
axis humanity receives an upward urge or spiritual rebirth.
The ancient topography of the nature of the Arctic and
Antarctic regions of which the ancients had clear understanding is
unquestionably accurate. "If we hold at present only to the
astronomical and geographical significance it may be found that the
ancients knew the topography and nature of the Arctic and Antarctic
regions better than any of our modern astronomers."1
Early astronomers divided the heavens into three great
divisions. The point called the Mountain, denominated the Highest,
was the middle of the first division which always
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine.

200

seemed to remain above the horizon, and stationary. It was made the
seat of the Empire, whose monarch, from his throne, could behold
the whole world and every nation night or day. This was the Great
Judgment Seat, from which even unto this day, at certain periods in
world changes, proceeds the powerful Justice Ray of a Balancing
Manifestation.
Henry Melville in "Veritas" very fittingly speaks of the "Pole
Star" as the rock of ages. "'Trust ye in the Lord forever; for the
Lord Jehovah is the rock of ages.' Isaiah xxiv, 4. This Polar star
is the rock, or Mount Olympus of the Latins, which was so high that
no bird could fly to the top, nor were clouds ever seen on its
summit. This Polar Star is the Mount Meru of the Buddists, and the
Mount Zion of the Hebrews. 'They that trust in the Lord shall be as
Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.' Psalm
cxxv, 1. David says, 'Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.'
Psalm lxi, 1. From our world nothing can appear higher than the
Polar star which is the pivot or point of axis on which the earth
performs its diurnal and annular motion. David exclaims, 'thus
saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my
footstool; where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is
the place of my rest!' Isaiah lxvi, 1. Cephas, or Cepheus, means
rock . Cepheus is seated in the highest heaven, and he has Mount
Olympus, or the Pole Star, for his footstool." Celestial Astrology
and Astronomy are spoken of as lost sciences, and we are told that
until the position of the dark planets is known, astrology can not
become an exact science, yet it can and will again be raised to its
former sublimity.
The North Pole of the heavens was represented as the Mountain,
the South Pole as the Pit. The Mountain and the Pit explain the
meaning of Helion and Acheron, which, according to S. A. Mackey,
were made use of in astronomical calculations by the ancients.
Helion or the Sun, was the Sun in his highest, Acheron was usually
translated as Hell, or the last condition or state of the Sun in
its disappearance

201

among the Southern constellations. Could we look down from the
North Pole to the South Pole into the great abyss, the point of our
vision might lead us very quickly to the discerning of a Christian
Heaven and Hell, for many an absurd misinterpretation has been
generated concerning these primordial parents, the Poles.
"The North Pole of the Heavens has a circular path among the
stars." The star Polaris in the tail of the Lesser Bear is the
present Pole Star. It is about one and one-quarter degrees from the
true Pole. It has been and will remain the Pole Star for centuries
to come. "Yet owing to the precession of the Equinoxes, the real
Pole is continually, though slowly, changing, following a circle
around the Pole of the Ecliptic, which lies in the Constellation
Draco. It takes the North Pole about 26,000 years to complete its
great circle, which has a radius of 23 1/2 degrees. About the year
7500 A. D. the star Alpha in Cepheus will be the North Star; about
13,500 A. D. the brilliantly beautiful star Vega in Lyre will hold
that position; and about the year 21,000 A. D. the star Alpha in
Draco will again be the North Star."1 The discovery of this motion
of the Poles belongs to antiquity. And invariably the wisdom of
antiquity found its written expression in the symbolism of the
Heavens, through which came anciently our knowledge of The Supreme,
The Absolute, God.
"The two slow motions of the Pole are so proportionate to each
other, and produce such a complex figure in the heavens, differing
everywhere in the exact proportion of the different latitudes, that
the different nations never could have agreed in their
descriptions, had not each nation observed and registered for
itself."2
Mackey also explains that the pericyclosical motion calculated
according to the rate mentioned by the ancients, keeps the angle
decreasing, at a rate which will make the Pole of
________
1 Barritt, Leon--The Evening Sky Map.
2 Mackey, S. A.--Mythological Astronomy, p. 73.

202

the Earth unite with the Pole of the Ecliptic in something over
100,000 years, a period which would produce universal Spring.
Meru, the home of the gods, is the North Pole, the Garden of
Eden, whither the gods were supposed to ascend and descend
periodically. It was guarded by the great serpent, the
constellation Draco. These were the Zodiacal signs or Gods, passing
from the Pole of the earth up to the North Pole of the heavens,
according to the Precession, and then gradually sinking, towards
the Pit in the South. One ascends as another descends, which leads
us to the understanding of the spiral and its symbol, the Serpent,
which is best explained by S. A. Mackey in "The Sphinxiad:" "At
noon, the ecliptic would be parallel with the meridian, and part of
the Zodiac would descend from the North Pole to the North horizon;
crossing the eight coils of the serpent, which would seem like an
imaginary ladder with eight staves reaching from the earth to the
Pole, i. e., the throne of Jove, up this ladder, then the Gods, i.
e., the signs of the Zodiac ascended and descended. It is more than
400,000 years since the Zodiac formed the sides of the ladder. Did
the Jews receive some faint traces of antiquity from their
masters?" To explain he says, "If we assume a time when the Poles
were Parallel; the Pole of heaven, in eight times 25,000 years,
would seem to have described a pericyclosical figure round the Pole
of the earth like a serpent coiled eight times; and as each volve
is four degrees asunder, the figure of the serpent described by the
Pole of the heaven round the Pole of the earth, in 200,000 years
would sweep a circle, the diameter of which would be 64 degrees, i.
e. 32 degrees above the Pole, and 32 degrees below it. It would be
the circle of perpetual apparition in the latitude of 32 degrees."
People have certainly woven strange romances from the ascending and
descending signs of the Zodiac, and how determined the Christians
have been to find in this, the serpent of Genesis, instead of a
Cosmic Metaphor. There was a time when

203

"The Pole return'd not to her former place,
But seem'd to seek the other pole's embrace;
And by a spiral road-way round the skies,
At four degrees each step, was seen to rise."

and at this meeting of the Poles there was everlasting spring and
"'Twas nature's honeymoon--a time divine." It was the Golden Age
when Saturn created a reign of Justice. Our American Indians have
preserved a knowledge of distant ages, when the Sun disappeared in
winter, and must have known of the Polar Motion.
The Labyrinth in its spiral windings is a transcription of the
path of the North and South Poles of the earth, passing from the
ecliptic to join the North and South Poles of heaven, illustrating
the Precession of the Equinoxes, or the lessening of the angles of
the Pole. In the Labyrinth there were three Spiral staircases.
Opening from these and facing inward, were from three to four
thousand rooms. The labyrinthine windings began below, spiraling
upward and then downward to earth. This arrangement, mysterious yet
so simple, is wholly Egyptian in its suggestiveness. S. A. Mackey,
in his "Mythological Astronomy," asserts that the three spiral
staircases show that the Poles had repeated the ascent and descent
three different times, giving an immense antiquity to the
origination of the Labyrinth.
The Kabiri have been said to be one, two, three, four and
seven in number. One Kabir represented a Great or Mighty Power in
nature. Venus was called a Great Kabir when enceinte and typified
the first Mother, whose seven children as Stars, were the Kabiri.
The two Kabiri were typified as the two Poles of Heaven, the Kabiri
Dioscuri. Terrestrially Jupiter, Father of the Gods, and Bacchus,
God of Wine, personified the Poles. Three and four Kabiri are found
in the Grecian phallic worship, these numbers representing the male
and female principles. The four were also the Genii or Spirits of
the four corners or Cardinal Points belonging to the Seven Stars of
the constellation The Great Bear. There are four

204

Kabiri who were called by Sanchoniathan, the sons of Sydik. If we
identify Sydik with Noah as "a just man" of the Scriptures and with
Melchizedek priest of the most high god after "his own order" both
must have been the children of Justice and identified, as was Sut,
the Star-god, with Saturn, who became the planet of Justice. The
Kabiri were called Axieros, Axiokeros, Axiokersa and Kadmos or
Kadmillos, the latter being Hermes the Great of the sacred
writings. They represent modes of Force, and in their names should
be noticed the introduction and transportation of letters. The
letter A has been from most ancient times connected with the parent
Sun, while the X seems to relate to the cardinal cross of the fixed
stars, and S to the Serpent power. The Greek word for the ancient
wisdom (Wisdom of the Serpent) is Sophia. Note the presence of the
o, i, a and s in Sophia and similarly in the names of the Kabiri.
Originally letters were symbols of heavenly powers or modes of
force.
The Kabiri were said to have invented the letters of the
alphabet and the language of the gods. They taught mankind
architecture, law, legislation and different kinds of magic, and
the use of medical plants. The names Kabiri, Kadmus, Noah, Hermes,
Orpheus, Asklepios, etc., were all generic names.
The Kabiri Titans are identical "with all the rulers and
instructors of the primeval races which are referred to as the Gods
and Kings of the divine Dynasties."1 These were likened to the
gruesome individual whom we call the devil, by godly or religious
symbolists and by many theologians, who seem to rejoice in
rejecting all proofs to the contrary.

"We modern Europeans feel surprised when hearing talk of the
Spirits of the Sun, Moon, etc. But we repeat again, the natural
good sense and the upright judgment of the ancient peoples, quite
foreign to our entirely material ideas upon celestial mechanics and
physical sciences . . . could
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 393.

205

not see in the stars and planets only that which we see, namely:
simply masses of light, or opaque bodies moving in circuits in
sidereal space, merely according to the laws of attraction or
repulsion; but they saw in them living bodies, animated by spirits
as they saw the same in every kingdom of nature. . . . This
doctrine of spirits so consistent and comfortable to nature, from
which it was derived, formed a grand and unique conception, wherein
the physical, the moral, and the political aspects were all blended
together . . ."1 "The telluric, metalline, magnetic, electric and
fiery elements are all so many allusions and references to the
Cosmic and Astronomical character of the diluvian tragedy."2
Fortunately, from the myths of the past are emerging great
truths of which science is becoming aware. Our blinded eyes may yet
be opened to a truer revelation of the truths taught by Jesus, who
derived them from that mighty past, of which so little now remains
undistorted by modern lust for gold and the tottering power it
brings.
________
1 Creuzer--Egypte de Merville, pp. 450 to 455.
2 Blavatsky, H. P.

206

Celestial Ship of the North - Ch. 12 - Messengers of the Eternal

@insert CYCLIC TREE

The above illustration is copied from an old Egyptian Zodiac,
in which the Tree, Bird and Dog symbolize Cycles. The bird in the
tree represents the Phoenix Cycle of 500 years, which multiplied by
52 gives the Great cycle of 26,000 years. The dog, type of Sothis,
which also represented the Phoenix Cycle of 400 years with 365 days
to the year, which multiplied four times gives the 1,460 years
Cycle. The Sothic year was called Four-fold because of the heliacal
rising of the star Sothis, which was found one day late every four
years. It completes its Cycle in 1,461 years, every year
representing 365 1/4 days, and being called one-quarter of a Sothic
year. The Tree as a Type of Time becomes the symbol of the Great
Cycle of Eternity or the "Cyclic Renovation," the Precessional
period of 26,000 years.

207

208

CHAPTER XII
MESSENGERS OF THE ETERNAL

The star Sirius is undoubtedly the most interesting, and in
its surpassing brilliance the most glorious of all the "Fires"
above. Its renown is as ancient as the human race, it having been
known to all races and worshipped by all peoples without cessation.
It was the star of Eternal Dawn, the "Herald Star which measured
whole ages by the rising light as it dawned for a moment in the
eastern horizon."
Over 500,000,000 stars are observable within range of the
telescope, and these have untold distances between them. As to our
earth, it is "but as a grain of sand on an infinite seashore"--a
thought which all should make their own. Our Sun is 1,300,000 times
larger than our earth, and yet is insignificant beside the great
and glorious Sirius, which may possibly be outshone in light and
size by many other suns that dwell in infinite space. We should
accept with inward thankfulness the traditions and relics of the
great past which seem so indestructible, and persist with such
tenacity, and despite the destructive periods and peoples that
would obliterate that which has outlived a seeming oblivion.
Sirius was watched with great solicitude by the ancient
Egyptians, as it foretold the time of rising of the river Nile,
upon which their prosperity depended. The river was their single
source of life, and its rise depended on the rains which fell in
remote places unknown to them. This southern star, "The Spy and
Watch of the Gods," signalled the coming inundation, which began
when the Sun was in the sign Leo, the Lion, morning risings of
which preceded the inundation. The blending of these two fiery
luminaries gave forth intense heat. In a later day, which was even

209

then far remote from the twentieth century, the name Dog-Star was
given to Sirius, which rose in the beginning of August and remained
above the horizon for forty days. At the present time the rising of
this star in July precludes its having any influence whatever over
the dog-days, as its rising varies with the latitude of different
countries and also with the Precession. The Egyptian sacred year
began at the time of the rising of the river, coincident with the
rising of Sirius, producing in the Egyptian an overwhelming desire
to look above and note the movements of heavenly bodies, which
registered times and seasons creating unchanging foundations.
The first registering of the cycles as measures of time, was
based upon the annual heliacal1 rising of Sirius and the revolution
of the cluster of stars near the pole. Planetary time came much
later. When these stars failed to keep true time, Sut-Anubis
(Mercury) was given to Sirius as her messenger and was the lunar
Taht which became her bright and better half in the period of
time-keeping by the Moon, which followed that of the stars. The
myth of the Deluge is attributed to Sirius, when found losing time,
for Sirius unloosed the waters, called the Deluge, but these were
finally checked in their course by the Moon, the male lunar Taht,
when time became reckoned by each new Moon and by the month instead
of the year. It was in his lunar character or type that Taht came
to the assistance of the lagging star Sirius.
This was the origin of the myth of the dog that let in the
deluge--or admitted the devil into Eden; the "Little Dog"2 that can
be seen in the branches of a tree in the old Egyptian Zodiac,
keeping watch from a distance over the Garden of
________
1 There is always one day in the year when a star will arise,
just before the dawn, to vanish in the increasing splendor of the
rising sun, called the "heliacal rising."
2 The Egyptian phoenix is seen in the celestial tree as a little
dog, and also as the bird in the same tree. The phoenix bird and a
phoenix tree are found together under one name. The tree that began
as one became two, then four, then seven and nine and twelve, and
finally, as a Tree of Time became the symbol of the great cycle of
26,000 years, a type of immortality and the eternal.

210

Eden. As Mercury he was known as the "Southern Sentinel." Sirius as
the Dog-Star can be seen in the branches of the cyclic tree peering
about and spying into the promised land of--"Springtime, and the
Golden Fields of the Setting Sun."
There is a Russian tradition that the dog was placed in the
Garden of Eden to watch over Adam and Eve and to keep away the Evil
One, but that the dog, being tempted by a piece of bread, yielded
to Satan's wiles and allowed him to enter. Another tradition
ascribes to the guardianship of the dog the fact that enough corn
or seed was left to supply the world. One of the gods had become
very angry, thinking that this seed which was heaven-born had been
abused, and wished to destroy it entirely, but the dog pleaded that
at least a little of it be left, and his wish was granted. This is
the same little dog watching over Eden in the tree belonging to the
sign Virgo, the Virgin, which as the planet Mercury is a watcher
over the treasures of both heaven and earth. These legends as well
as scores of others were related of the Goddess Mother of the Great
Bear and her son Sut, when they were discovered to have been
unfaithful in their timekeeping, nevertheless the dog remained the
keeper of the Sothic year and of the Sothic or Phoenix cycle. The
Phoenix, bird of Fire and type of the resurrection is identified
with the Egyptian Bennu. The Phoenix constellation contains one of
the conspicuous stars of the heavens, Acharnar, the symbol of the
Phoenix1 and said to denote Victory after Death. This constellation
was said partly or wholly to correspond with Aquila, the Egyptian
Eagle, having as its beautiful star Altair, sometimes called the
Bird of Jove, and also with the constellation Cygnus, the Swan of
the Greeks.
________
1 "The Phoenix was an image of the Sothic year. This
constellation came to the meridian at the time of the rising of
Sothis. A star of the first magnitude, Acharnar, belongs to it. . .
. Akar (Eg) is a name of the underworld; Nar signifies victory;
thus Akarnar in Egyptian denotes the victory over Hades, symbolized
by the Phoenix, the bird of resurrection."--Massey, Gerald--A Book
of the Beginnings, Vol. i, pp. 107, 108.

211

Hor Apollo states "when the Egyptians would symbolize an aged
man they would portray a Swan, for when it is old it sings its
sweetest melody." The Swan became a type of renewal, of immortality
and with the approach of a new dawn it raised a song of great
sweetness and joy, because of the coming of the Light, and youth,
and a new beginning. It was a very beautiful and softened song of
resurrection. Sirius was guide of the resurrection as she rose
shining and majestic on the meridian bringing in the circling
years.
Ancient Egyptian Calendars of which Sothis (Sirius) was the
determiner were corrected by observing the heliacal rising of this
star, for corrections had become necessary, before knowledge was
obtained of the lunar periods leading to the determination of the
true length of the solar year. Years were numbered by means of
festivals.
Sut (Sirius) was the earliest form of the divinity of Fire and
can be traced by means of the monuments down to Sebek-Ra, the Ram
or Lamb of the Zodiacal Aries, considered the type of fulfilment.
Sirius has been identified as a type of Fire and of Gold and was
that "Fiery flaming sentinel of the fiery hosts of Space."
Associated with Sirius was the Golden Dog, and also Sut-Nub, the
black-and-golden Sun-and-Sirius god of the Golden Age.1
The great pyramid was considered by the Arabs to be the
________
1 Sut-Nub or Sut-Nahsi was the black Christ of Egypt, and has
been worshipped in Europe as the Black Bambino of the Italian
Church, and in India as Krishna, the black Christ. The black
Sut-Nahsi was a negro image of the earliest god. This black god was
continued as Sebek, Solar God of Darkness or the crocodile of
darkness. No matter under what line of descent, it was direct from
the motherhood and this single god is such only as the child of the
Virgin Mother. When the fatherhood had been established, the one
born of the Virgin as the descending dying Sun was the god, Jah, of
the Hebrew god of darkness, the black divinity.
"To this origin of the negro god and this line of descent
through the black Star-god, the black-and-golden Sun-and-Sirius
god, and the black god who was the sun of darkness, the Typhonians
remained devoutly attached . . . the god of darkness, the black
divinity, who becomes the black Iu . . . and finally the black
Jesus of the Christian cult, the Son of the Virgin Mother in the
Romanish Church, and the pre-monogamous worship of the
Africans."--Massey, Gerald--"A Book of the Beginnings," Vol. ii, p.
346 .

212

treasury of knowledge of all hidden wisdom from the beginning, and
was called "The Lights." The pyramid is a figure of seven founded
on the square and the triangle, and is identified with Sut (seven)
or Sirius. It was oriented to Sirius.
Nine or ten thousand years ago the Sothic cycle, suggestive of
the Typhonian worship, was still used by the Egyptians, who were
most learned astrologers and builders of pyramids. They had
profound knowledge of cycles, both great and small, and fully
understood the difference between the Fixed Stars and our planets,
for they looked upon the Fixed Stars as the "genii that never
moved" and the planets as the "genii which never rested."
There are very powerful aspects between the earth and the
satellite of Sirius, which do not seem to be mentioned either in
astronomy or astrology. It is invisible to human vision, but is the
refractor of Sirius' light to the earth, and is the so-called "Dark
Planet," because the refraction of Sirius makes it invisible to
human vision. It is not very far removed from our own Sun. It is
obedient to Sirius and to the solar system of Sirius, and yet
within equatable distance to our earth and is a great influence in
reviving on earth the ancient souls who will minister to the Light.
Should this fall in opposition to the Moon in the ninth house of
the horoscope, the house of Light, from the third, it gives a very
unusual perception of cosmic destiny.
The myth of the birth of Time, coming from above, was created
by the motion of the Stars encircling the Pole, and establishing
forever the Circle of Eternity. This is not an abstract conception,
but a basic fact, from which arose the cycles that belong to the
greatest antiquity. They were calculated by two very ancient
astrologers--Narada and Asuraya, the Atlanteans--so very long ago
that they seemed to and do belong to a mystic past, and are so
ancient that sceptics as well as many theologians deny their
existence, but the Secret Doctrine gives undeniable proofs, and
Occultism

213

has demonstrated the infallibility of these anciently computed
cycles, which have reached us today intact. Narada and Asuraya were
the great Giants of Archaic time. Narada in occultism is known as
Pesh-Hun, "The mysterious guiding intelligence which gives impulse
to and regulates the impetus of the cycles, 'whose symbol is in the
serpent Sesha, that carries within itself 'Infinite Time.' He is
reputed to have given dates for cycles in cyclic figures with
records of all the astronomical and cosmic ones to come. He taught
his science to those who were known as the first people who looked
above for knowledge, the first observers of the Fixed Stars.
Asuraya-Maya founded his astronomy on those records, together
with the length of the coming cycles, until the final great cycle
was reached. It is said of him that he was "one to whom God
imparted knowledge of the stars." He was known as a most powerful
magician and a wonderful astronomer, as well as the Greatest
Astrologer of Atlantis. The Egyptian Priests had these records and
arrangements of the stars, as did the Hindus, who still have them
today.
The Circle and the Cycle are synonymous. A circle is
Sar-Saros, or cycle, and with every race was the symbol of the
Unknown. It is "Boundless Space" and "Limitless Time in Eternity"
born from above, based on the myth of the birth of Time and the
Circle made by the stars that had neither beginning nor end. Thus
the Eternal was founded on the cycle and the circle, and continual
cyclic repetition, just as in the creation of the four cardinal
points from the circle, the "Four Times" of Egypt represented
"Forever," through the continuity of one circle mingling with
another. The transformation of one cycle into another can be found
in the Hebrew word "Everlasting," meaning ever-repeating. The
Hierophants of Egypt created from their philosophy the "Circle of
Necessity," the fate to which all are doomed as well as judged, the
circle that is symbolized in the twelve signs of the Zodiac.

214

Time cycles in the Books of Genesis, Daniel and Esdras are all
prophecies, and every prophecy is astrological, the prophets
themselves being astrologers. Death, renewal, or destruction and
reproduction of worlds in ancient times were thought to be by Fire
and Water. The end of the world or the Great Cycle was believed to
occur in either the sign Cancer (fire) or Capricorn (water), one
being the antithesis of the other. Berosus taught that when all the
planets should coincide in the constellation Cancer, the planets
being so placed that a straight line could pass directly through
their orbs, all earthly things would be consumed (pralaya) but that
cataclysm by flood would occur when the same combination of planets
took place in Capricorn. The devastation by fire belonged to
Cancer, as it was thought that the world was renewed in this sign,
ushering in birth and rebirth, an early cycle being typified by the
Beetle. The beetle was called the God of the resurrection of the
Sun or its renewal and a redeemer of the dead by his begetting.
When the beetle has his wings folded he represents his
metamorphosis or transformation. The beetle rolling his own seed
into a ball symbolizes both Sun and Soul, and is identified with
the Phoenix, whose transformation is by fire.
When a repeating cycle of time culminated at midsummer, the
beetle was interpreted to mean a Giant Cycle. The giant Repha of
the Hebrew writings "Had on every hand six fingers, and on every
foot six toes, four and twenty in number." II Samuel xxi, 20. Six
fingers and toes are traceable to the beetle, who had six tarsi on
its feet and had thirty joints, representing the six months of
ascent and the six of descent, with the thirty days to the month.
The Rephaims of Genesis, xiv, 5, who were in Ashtaroth, were the
"giants of the old world who carried themselves insolently towards
God and man and were drowned in the deluge," and were the Seven
Stars of The Great Bear, "who came not in their

215

proper season" and so deviated from the ways of wisdom. The deluge
was the ending of a cycle.
A Giant personified a Goliath cycle of time. The cycle of Sut
was a year, and that of Taht, the Moon-god, who superseded Sut, was
a month. All cycles symbolized the ebb and flow of life. In their
ascent they reached towards the highest, and by the immutable law
of opposites, their descent was towards the lowest, but every
returning cycle in its reemergence reached higher and higher. Our
present cycle has touched the lowest point of transition, a dark
period unproductive of understanding, and has seeminly failed to
recognize the divine spirit within, materialism having superseded
the Light.

Our great solar cycle or circling of the Zodiac brings periods
of Light and Dark, life and death or resurrection. The Egyptian
Great Years were the precessional periods called Cyclic
Renovations, a return of time and seasons to their original place.
An Egyptian year represented four of ours, and to "represent a
current year," says Hor Apollo, "they depict the fourth part of an
Arura, a measure of land of an hundred cubits; and when they would
express a year, they say a quarter, . . . four of these quarters
Squared the four-fold year." This failing of Sothis being one day
late every four years in its heliacal rising was allowed for
annually and rectified in its great cycle. This irregularity "was
considered to be the work of opposing powers of disorder, falsehood
and chaos."
Two periods of time in connection with the Egyptian Great
Years were of extreme importance. One was known as the Sothic
cycle, which covered a period of 1460 years, and the other as the
Phoenix cycle, covering a period of 1500 years. Herodotus tells us
the Phoenix appears every 500 years, the ancient Phoenix that went
down into Egypt to die or be transformed into the young one, which
took place in the city of the Sun, the city where Abraham taught
Astrology, and where the transformation of the Star-god into the
Sun-

216

god took place, and where the god Atum transformed into the son as
Iu-em-Hept the Jesus of the Apocrypha who is associated with the
400-year cycle. The Secret Doctrine states that Phoenix came from
Phenoch-Enoch, symbol of a secret cycle and initiation. This bird
was also thought to live a thousand years, when it kindled a flame
in which it was self-consumed, becoming reborn from itself and
living another thousand years.1 One form of the Phoenix of Egypt,
called the Bennu, is the Nycticorax, a bird that appeared at the
time of the inundation,2 and which had the double plume on the back
of its head.
In the Book of II Esdras, Chapter xii, 13-16, a parallel to
the Phoenix occurs where it says, "And the whole body of the eagle
was burnt, so that the earth was in great fear." Further it says,
"there shall rise up a kingdom upon earth, and it shall be feared
above all the kingdoms that were before it. In the same shall
twelve Kings reign one after another. Whereof the second shall
begin to reign, and shall have more time than any of the twelve.
And this do the twelve wings signify which thou sawest. If, as
Gerald Massy understands, we take this vision to refer to the
founding of the Zodiac of twelve signs, and the introduction of the
year or cycle, to which the quarter of a day was added to be
calculated as one day in every four years, and the one day taken
into account in the second month of the year as in our February,
then the second King may be said to have more time
________
1 The bonfire, whose origin was Sabean, was a fire connected
with an consecrated to the reappearance of Sothis, when it crowned
the summit of the year, just as the Phoenix or Bennu coming to the
meridian typified the fire in which the bird was fabled to have
been transformed.
2 The Nycticorax is an owl called the Night-crow, which
announces the time of sunset almost as truly as an almanac. This
peculiar bird, says Gilbert White, can only be watched and observed
during two hours of the twenty-four, and then in the dubious
twilight--an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise.--Massey,
Gerald--A Book of the Beginnings, Vol. i, p. 108.
The bird was a type and was continued as a figure of the Great
Year coinciding with a Talmudic legend of the bird over which the
angel of death had no power. This was the one who had not fallen,
as it had refused to eat of the forbidden fruit when it was offered
to Eve.

217

than any of the twelve, because the leap year of four fold length
would be reckoned and dated by the month of his reign. The
difference of a day corresponded exactly with the day intercalated
in the sacred calendar of the Egyptians every fourth year, as in
the case of our own Leap Year.
In the divine Dynasties the reign of Osiris is given as 400
years. The cycle of 400 years belongs to the Astronomical
Allegories in the Books of Genesis and of Esdras. The prophecies of
the Apocrypha belong to the period of 400 years called the Sun and
Sirius period, to which the Jesus of the Apocrypha belonged. There
is an Egyptian legend telling us that Osiris in the 365th year of
his reign took Horus as companion and left Nubia, with the purpose
of driving Sut-Typhon out of Egypt, so that the ushering in of the
correct Solar time of 365 1/4 days might be accomplished.
The ancient Sut-Typhonians were very learned astronomers and
had a thorough understanding of the cycles of Precession, and knew
of the longer axis of the earth's orbit (the apsides) which reduced
the actual period of precession in the 500-year cycle. "It carried
the axis of the orbit completely around the whole circumference of
the Ecliptic in 20,984 years."1 The length of the year calculated
by this second motion is about 21,000 years, or fifty-two times the
Phoenix cycle of 400 years.
The ancients always regarded the Angels as the repeaters of
the periods of time. We know them today as the heavenly or
celestial hosts. The Talmud states that "one angel is taller than
another by as many miles as a man could travel in 500 years." This
500 years determines the Phoenix period or cycle of time. In
Rabbinical history the Angels are placed in the lower heaven, Seven
of them being Archangels with as many as 360 under their charge.
This lower heaven is the third created, and is the solar circle or
ecliptic of 360 degrees. Job's joyous stars are the sons of Elohim,
the circle makers, the Seven Stars or children of the
________
1 Herschel.

218

Great Mother, the constellation of the Great Bear. We know that
Sut, her first son, was called Satan and was the mightiest, the
most beautiful, as well as the wisest of God's Archangels. He was
Sabaoth, the Lord God of Israel, later theologized into Satan, the
adversary, who is finally identifiable as the planet Saturn, symbol
of Justice.
Knowledge of the Angels came directly from the Pharisees, who
based their angelology on the Babylonian account of creation, which
is found on the Assyrian tiles. Their Angels, of which there are
Seven, are placed in the lower heaven. The second and third tiles
read "The Angels who are in rebellion, who are in the lower part of
heaven, had been created."
The Gnostics claimed that our earth had been created by the
lower Angels, the inferior Elohim, and taught that the God of
Israel was one of them. The Sadducees, who were guardians of the
Laws of Moses, rejected the doctrine of the Angels. The Essenes had
the knowledge of time-cycles and periodicity, which constituted the
Jewish Kabala.
The "Sons of God" are the only angels mentioned in the Book of
Genesis, but "The chariots of god are twenty thousand, even
thousands of angels; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the
holy place." Psalm lxviii, 17. In the solar myth the Lord is the
Sun in the midst of the stars in heaven. The Stars, the Angels,
myriads and myriads of them, and the little ones, "sun themselves
in one beam of all their glory and are gone."
Shennu, the Hebrew Sinai is the region of the time cycles.
Shenah, Hebrew, and Shena, Egyptian, denote a place of repetition
or transforming one into another at the end of a year. Shennu is a
circle, orbit, and the Shennu of Egypt means millions, crowds,
attendants, typifying time and periods which were personified as
Angels just as today, they have been called "Saints of God."
Angels were the "Messengers of the Eternal," that is, they
were the announcers of Time, and their doctrine was knowl-

219

edge of the time cycles, which was a sacred and hidden wisdom in
ancient times and originated with the great and first mother who
created the first circle or cycle with her earliest known Angels,
the Stars. In the "Book of the Dead" the messenger or Angel of
divine vengeance was called Apt, the "Living Word," and was this
same mother. Apt was a type word for Angel. Ap was to manifest,
make known, announce, and Apt was the feminine manifestation.
In archaic teachings the Fall was the incarnation of the
angels who had broken through and were in the chains of flesh and
matter, in contradistinction to the Fall1 of the Seven early Stars,
which were said to be inert and lazy, as they had failed to keep
time and the time cycles correctly. In the Zohar the Fall of the
Angels refers to those who have broken through the seven circles.
The "Seven Circles" are "the seven planets and planes, as are also
the seven invisible spirits, in the angelic sphere whose visible
symbols are the seven planets," the seven of the Great Bear and
others.
After the Fall in Eden the Angels were said to have imparted
their celestial knowledge to man that he might regain his lost
Paradise. The doctrine of the Kabala was centered in the cluster of
Seven Stars in the North. They were the Angels first noticed and
construed as the periodic messengers of heaven, keepers of the
cycles of time and makers of the circle of Eternity, of which they
were messengers. They still keep watch at the gates of the Solar
Zodiac, especially at the gates of the four corners in their last
material manifestation, when, consciousness rising above the Cross
of Matter, (formed by the four corners) is represented by a type,
sign, or angel pointing the way to that path in which life can be
most nobly expressed.
________
1 The Scriptures speak of the Giants who lived before the flood.
They were called Nephilim, the "mighty men of old." The word means
to fall, fall from heaven. They were the celestial Giants of the
primary world, the Seven great Stars belonging to the first great
mother, who had "transgressed the commandments of God" or whose
time-keeping had been found untrue.

220

Celestial Ship of the North - Ch. 13 - Keeper of Supernatural
Treasures of Knowledge and Wisdom

@insert THE CONSTELLATION DRACO

Draco was called the "Counsellor of Treasures" and as the
Dragon was part of all primeval revelation, "the fetishism of the
dark because primeval." Draco surrendered its character of the Good
Demon to undergo eschatological change. As the encircling Dragon or
Serpent, it was the symbol of Eternal Going Round, or Eternity, and
from its revolving around the pole originated the Serpent coiling
around the Tree, thus Serpent and Tree become inseparable.

221

222

CHAPTER XIII
KEEPER OF SUPERNATURAL TREASURES OF
KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM

Hor Apollo tells us that "The earliest observers gave the
first fact, revealed by the darkness as the whole starry Vast above
slowly crawling round and round in one general movement like a
serpent, whose variegated scales were the stars." From the rising
and the setting of the stars, so like the motion of the serpent,
many types were created. Among the elements above, the serpent was
a symbol of Fire and Air, and below of Earth and Water, these being
the four elements that were sacred over the entire world.
Serpent worship is as old as the heavens, and has been
practiced since the beginning of time as we represent time on
earth, and was symbolically interpreted by the primitive peoples.
The earth was spoken of as the "Queen of the Serpents and the
Mother of all that moves," which titles typified the time before
the earth had become globe-shaped or round, and was "A long trail
of cosmic dust or Fire-Mist moving and writhing like a serpent."
The spirit of God was thought to breathe upon this Fire-Mist until
it became cosmic matter, and finally circular, representing to the
people of early days, the ring-shaped symbol of the serpent with
its tail in its mouth, emblem of Eternity and Infinitude, whence
came all the globular1 bodies found within the universe.
________
1 "The simile of an egg expresses the fact taught in Occultism
that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to
globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been
with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity--a serpent
swallowing its tail. To realize the meaning, however, the sphere
must be thought of as seen from the center. . . . The 'Mundane Egg'
. . . is found in every world-theogony, where it is largely

223

The primordial Serpent seen in the heavens, was composed of
myriads and myriads of small stars forming a "luminous Zone,"
called the Astral Light. Moreover the path of the Sun through the
Sidereal Year was always allegorically called a Serpent. The
Serpent was a symbol of Divine Wisdom and was a synonym for
initiation into the secret mysteries of the Magi, the Astrologers.
The Gnostics of the first three centuries were philosophers
and formulators of the Wisdom or Gnosis which they taught.2 The
Gnosis was a spiritual and sacred knowledge obtained only through
initiation into spiritual mysteries. The Gnostics of the Second
Century found in their Serapis (Serpent) an accepted type of Christ
to whom the latter day Christians gave the name of Messiah. Serapis
was represented as a Serpent, just as Jesus was later. All ancient
religions were symbolized by a Serpent. In Egypt the resurrection
of Nature was represented by a Serpent having human legs. A Serpent
on two legs, also meant a high Initiate. It is commanded in the
"Book of the Dead" that Chap. clviii should be read in the presence
of a Serpent on two legs. The Serpent was the emblem of Christ, and
as the good genius, the Agathodaemon, the Serpent is found engraved
on many of the Gnostic gems.
"The 'Way of a Serpent,' and the workmanship, are among the
most amazing in all nature. It has no hands, and yet can climb a
tree to catch the agile monkey; it has no fins, but can outswim the
fish; no legs, yet the human foot can-
________
associated with the serpent symbol; the latter being everywhere, in
philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of eternity,
infinitude, regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. .
. . The 'Virgin Egg' is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic
prototype--the 'Virgin Mother'--Chaos or the Primeval
Deep."--Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. i, p. 65.
2 The Gnostics taught that Light and Shadow, Good and Evil, were
veritably one and have so existed through all eternity and will
continue so to exist as long as there is a manifested world.
"Shadow is not evil, it completes the Light, or Good. It is its
creator on earth."

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not match it in fleetness. Death is in its coil even for the bird
on the wing, which the springing reptile snatches out of its own
element. The Serpent slays with a dexterity that human destroyers
might look upon as divine. One of the most arresting sights is to
see this limbless creature turn its coils into a hand to grasp its
prey, and lift it to the deadly mouth. The serpent in the pangs of
sloughing is a phenomenon, once witnessed, never to be forgotten.
There is a startling fascination in the sight of that image of
self-emanation proceeding from itself, the young, repristinated,
larger life issuing of itself from the mask of its old dead self
like a spiritual body coming forth from the natural body, the
unparalleled type of self-emanation, of transformation, of a
resurrection to new life, of 'Time, or Renewal coming of Itself!'"1
The early Christians were Serpent worshippers, and among those
called the Naeserians the Serpent was known as the second person of
the cosmical and astronomical Trinity, symbolized by the
constellation of the Dragon, which celestially was said always to
have within it that which was sacred and divine. The true objective
of this worship was undoubtedly more obvious at the time when the
constellation Draco and the other most northern constellations were
more universally noticed and studied.
It can readily be seen why the Serpent, as the Constellation
Draco, winding itself around, as if guarding the Pole of Heaven, or
the Garden of Eden, was called the "keeper of supernatural
treasures of knowledge and wisdom," and that he might be a truer
transmitter of the Light than an anthropomorphic god. In some
countries the people ate certain parts of the Serpent and drank its
blood, in order to acquire knowledge, which would enable them to
understand the language of animals and birds. It was the unexpected
tasting of the Dragon's blood that opened the eyes and ears of
Sigurd so that he heard what the birds had
________
1 Massey, Gerald--The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 293.

225

to say, immortalized in the exquisite music of Wagner. Eve in the
Garden of Eden was faced with the serpent temptation. The original
Kamite record of this is found in the Tale of Setnu from "Records
of the Past" and of most precious wisdom. "Thou shalt know what
relates to the birds of the sky and the reptiles, and all that is
said by them. The divine power shall raise the fishes to the
surface of the water. If thou readest the second page it will
happen that if thou art in the Amenti thou wilt have power to
resume the form which thou hadst on earth," and to quote from The
Natural Genesis of Gerald Massey, "This marvellous book had been
placed in a box of iron, inside a box of brass, inside a box of
bronze, inside a box of ebony, inside a box of ivory, inside a box
of silver, inside a box of gold, and concealed in the middle of the
river Coptos. Iron, brass, bronze, ebony, ivory, silver and gold
make up the symbolical number seven, equivalent to the Seven coils
of Fafner the Dragon."
The star Alpha Draconis of the constellation Draco was the
Pole Star about 2793 B. C., and was held in very great reverence by
all the early nations, who called it by various names, such as "The
Judge of Heaven," "The Proclaimer of the Light," "The High Horned
One. It was an object of worship to the early Christians.
The central passages of the Temples of Hathor, Denderah and
Thebes were oriented to Alpha Draconis, then the Pole Star, as were
other temples and pyramids of later date. Our own astronomer,
Serviss, speaks very beautifully of these orientations, "to square
their work by the stars, and to construct long rows of sphinxes and
majestic columns to conduct a ray from the sky to the eye of God in
his dark and hidden chamber, where no impious foot dared follow."
The Hivites of the Old Testament were known as the Ophites,
and were connected with the Sabeans, worshippers of the Stars and
the celestial Serpent. No other people or nation gave to the
serpent the significance the later Chris-

226

tions have given it, for to all the older nations it was the symbol
of Wisdom, and of great Seers, and never the devil of evil that has
been manufactured into a belief in the lives of the people of
today.
The Brazen Serpent of Moses was the Divine Healer. Why has it
been Christianized into the dreaded reptile? Originally by the
ancients the Serpent was regarded as the "'First Beam of Light'
that radiated from the abyss of 'Divine Mysteries'." And the
Serpent Mystery was given only to the "Little Ones"--God's Little
Ones who were the perfect Initiates, as was Jesus who knew and
taught this sacred divine mystery.
To the Ophites the Serpent of Genesis and the Saviour were
one. They held the Serpent in unusual veneration. "Moses was a
descendent of Levi, the Serpent tribe; Buddha was of Serpent
lineage, through the Naga (serpent) race of Kings who reigned in
Magadha. Hermes-Thoth in his snake symbol is Tet, and according to
the Ophite legend, Jesus or Christos is born from a snake (Divine
Wisdom or the Holy Ghost) i. e. he became a Son of God through his
initiation into the serpent wisdom." The Ophites assumed a definite
existence about the Second Century, although the source of their
worship was ages older, and like other Gnostics, they did not
accept the teachings of the Old Testament, because they considered
them inferior in knowledge and not containing the true Divine
Wisdom. They worshipped the Serpent as the author of supreme
knowledge. A brief and most interesting summary of their views is
given by Epiphanius. "The supreme Aeon, having produced other Aeons
, one of them a female, Prunnicos descended into the waters;
whence, not being able to escape, she remained suspended in
mid-space, being too clogged up by matter to return above, and not
falling lower where there was nothing of affinity to her nature.
Here she produced her son Ildabaoth, the god of the Jews, who in
his turn produced seven Aeons, or Angels, who created the seven
heavens.

227

From these seven angels Ildabaoth shut up all that was above him,
lest they should know of anything superior to himself. They then
created man in the image of their father, but prone and crawling on
the earth like a worm. But the heavenly mother, Prunnicos, wishing
to deprive Ildabaoth of the powers she had involuntarily endowed
him with, infused into man a celestial spark, the soul. Immediately
man rose up upon his feet, soared in mind beyond the limits of the
eight spheres and glorified the Supreme Father, him that is above
Ildabaoth. Hence Ildabaoth, full of jealousy, cast down his eyes
upon the lowest stratum of matter, and begot a virtue in the form
of a serpent, whom they call his son. Eve obeying him as the son of
God, was readily persuaded to eat of the tree of knowledge."
The angels recognized by the Roman Church were included in the
Ophite planetary groups. Michael is figured as the Lion; Suriel as
the Bull; Raphael as the Serpent; and Gabriel as the Eagle.
There were renowned subterranean caves or crypts under the
cities of Memphis and Thebes. Those of Thebes were on the western
side of the River Nile, extending towards the Lybian desert. They
were known as the "Serpent's Catacombs," or passages wherein were
performed the sacred mysteries "'of the Unavoidable Cycle'
generally known as the 'Circle of Necessity', the inexorable doom
imposed upon every soul after the bodily death, when it had been
judged in the Amentian region."1
In Egypt the "Circle of Necessity" was called the "Inevitable
Circle," that of gestation, and the serpent became a supreme emblem
of this mystery of the mysteries.
All the legends of the Serpent, whether allegories in our
Bible or myths of ancient times, can be very easily traced to
Astrological Mythology. The Sun conqueror of the Dragon of
Darkness, the Celestial Virgin, the Dragon of the Book of
Revelation, and many others can be brought
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--Isis Unveiled, Vol. i, p. 553.

228

from the far off past and traced to their primal origin in the
Fixed Stars, the Zodiac and the Constellations.
"Fiery Serpents" was an epithet given the Levites of the
priestly caste, after they had departed from the good law, the
traditional teaching of Moses, and to all those who followed Black
Magic. They were the "rebellious children" against whom the
prophets thundered because of their sins and iniquities, and who
were to carry their riches "into the land whence came the viper and
fiery flying serpents" (Isaiah, xxx, 6) or Egypt and Chaldea whose
Initiates at this time had degenerated (700 B. C.). "But Fiery
Serpents' must be carefully distinguished from the 'Fiery Dragons
of Wisdom,' and the 'Sons of the Fire Mist'."1
There was an ancient teaching, which called the earth "The
Great Sea" and the "Sea of Life," and told of primordial Chaos and
the evolution of the Universe, comparing it to the uncoiling of a
Serpent "Extending hither and thither with its tail in its mouth,
which was a symbol of eternity and also of cyclic periods, and
every thousand days it manifested itself." These were the days of
Brahma, representing a period so great as to be almost
inexpressible.
Mythologically the Serpent encircles the world, clasping all
in one embrace, and when travailing in the pangs of a new birth,
during the painful process of its sloughing, it was made the symbol
of transformation and resurrection. Hor Apollo says of this
wonderful serpent, "moreover every year it puts off its old age
with its skin,2 as in the Universe the animal period effects a
corresponding change and becomes renovated, and the making use of
its own body for food implies that all things whatsoever that are
generated by Divine Providence in the world, undergo a corruption
into it again." The Serpent evolves into an image of Time, like
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. ii, p. 212.
2 One of the Rabbins relates that "when the old serpent shed its
skin presently after the fall of man, the Creator made a garment of
it to clothe Adam and Eve.

229

Kronus or Saturn, who devours his own children--that is, the days
of the week, or hours of the day, or the years. The Serpent Draco
was one of the early Time Symbols in the heavens. By the rising and
the setting of the stars Time and Seasons were indicated, and later
the Stars as divinities became the keepers of Time and the Seasons.
Plutarch feared unfolding the secrets of certain constellations
lest they declare war against the length of Time.1 He also held the
idea that all the elementaries or forces of nature got their souls
from the stars. There is a myth that when the constellation Draco,
the Serpent, went once around the Pole Star, it laid an Egg. This
was the Egg of the primary year in heaven. That the Universe was
shaped like an Egg, was in the beginning a universal belief. In
Egyptian symbology and worship the Egg was always associated with
the Serpent. They were really inseparable. The Serpent was a
phallic symbol only when dissociated from the Egg. Since the
Serpent was oviporous the symbol not only connoted Wisdom, but
became an emblem of the Logoi or self-born. It was often depicted
with an egg in its mouth which esoterically has reference to the
World Serpent bearing the Cosmic Egg in its mouth. The Egg was the
symbol of life in Immortality and Eternity. Chaos and Darkness, and
the embrace of the primordial waters by the wind (breath and fire)
are all connected with the Cosmic Egg, "with the thought that the
soul would gestate in the Egg of Immortality, to be reborn into a
new life on earth. It not only relates to the incarnation of man
but to his spiritual rebirth, or regeneration."2 In Egypt eggs
became sacred to Isis and on this account were never eaten by the
Priests. Diodorus states that Brahma and Osiris were born from the
Egg. The Brahmans will not eat Eggs, fearing lest they destroy the
latent life within and thus commit a sin.

There was a Chinese belief that the dropping of an egg
________
1 Of Isis and Osiris.
2 Blavatsky, H. P.

230

by the god Tien from heaven to earth and into the waters created
the first man. "This symbol is still regarded by some as
representing the idea of the origin of life, which is scientific
truth, though the human ovum is invisible to the naked eye.
Therefore we see respect shown to it from the remotest past, by the
Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, the Japanese, and the Siamese, the
North and South American tribes, and even the savages of the
remotest islands."1
In Adams County, Ohio, United States of America, on a great
mound has been discovered the figure of a serpent emanating an egg
from its mouth, showing knowledge of the serpent mystery. It
measures one thousand feet in length. The Mound Builders of America
outlined their enclosures in the forms of birds and serpents and
their hieroglyphs were raised in enormous reliefs. Egg and Age have
become synonymous as a cycle of time which is retained at the
present time in our Easter Egg.
In the Books of Genesis and Hosea is given the story of Jacob
and Esau. Jewish tradition tells us "that Esau when born, had the
likeness of a serpent on his heel." Esau personified the "Light-god
that bruised the serpent's head," and Jacob, who in Genesis laid
hold of Esau's heel was a demon of darkness, the Egyptian Kak "the
Elemental Darkness continued by name Kak or Ka, the Nocturnal Sun."
Jacob appears in both phases in the Biblical story.2 Twin brothers
belong to a myth incalculably old primarily belonging to ancient
Egypt and found in the folk-tales of many lands.
There are many allusions in the Bible to the serpent, as
Fiery, Brazen, Flying, but unfortunately these are seldom
understood. Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness were
assailed by Flying Fiery Serpents. "The Lord sent fieryserpents
among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of
Israel died." Then Moses was
________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. i, p. 366.
2 The name of Jacob is sometimes derived from a Hebrew word
meaning the "heel."

231

told to make a serpent of brass and elevate it on a pole, and "it
came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, he lived." Num. xxi, 9.
There was the rod of Moses which turned into a serpent and the
rod of the Egyptian Taht, the caduceus twined about with two
serpents. The army of Moses was saved by his using the Ibises.1 He
is said to have invented baskets, made like Arks, of sedge, which
he filled with Ibises (the Ibis is the Stork), which he let loose
when he came to the land which bred the serpents which were
destroyed. Taht wears the Ibis on his head.
Both the Brazen and Fiery Serpents were Saraphs, the "burning
fiery" messengers, or the Serpent Gods, the Nagas of India. The
Brazen Serpent was the divine healer. In the symbolical meaning of
Brazen is found the feminine principle, and in that of Fiery the
masculine. The "burning fiery" messenger and the brazen fiery
serpent signified Cosmic Creation.2 A word in Hebrew for Serpent is
Nachash, which is a term for brass, and a title of the Serpent is
"Brass of Earth," which tallies with the Hebrew Nachusta, Nachus
meaning brass, and ta is in Egyptian a word for earth. Brass was a
metal that symbolised the nether world, the mother earth, matrix of
creation, where life was given. The Serpent guarding the sacred
tree that held the treasures of knowledge was the Serpent of Wisdom
offering the fruit for the enlightenment of mankind, wherefore the
Gnostics were continually calling upon the Serpent for his services
to mankind. The Gnostics had full knowledge of the Tree of Good and
Evil, and to what heights of wisdom man could be lifted, and what
knowledge he could
________
1 Josephus.
2 The creative God emerges from the egg that issues from the
mouth of Kneph--as a winged serpent--because the Serpent is the
symbol of the All-Wisdom. With the Hebrews he is glyphed by the
'flying or fiery serpents' of the Wilderness and Moses, and with
the Alexandrian mystics he becomes the Ophio-Christos, the Logos of
the Gnostics."--Blavatsky, H. P.--The Secret Doctrine, Vol. i, p.
364.

232

attain by the eating of its fruit. The Gnostics knew that the Tree
and the Serpent were divine images.
By calling their Serpent the evil one, Hebrews and Persians in
their later theology perverted and degraded the Starry
Intelligences of heaven. "The Archaic Snake, as a malignant Deity,
a fiend of Cosmic proportions, is but the creation of theological
fancy."1 Perhaps much of the demoralization of the present time may
be due to listening to the doctrine of the theological Serpent, or
Satan, created for the credulity of our present humanity. It seems
incredible that this symbol has been so deeply misconstrued in
Bible interpretation, when it meant to ancient peoples, from whom
we derived our Bible, nothing less than a symbol of Eternity,
Wisdom, God. Some one has said that perhaps, after all, Hezekiah
was justified in ordering all the old symbols broken into pieces,
when we consider the evil imaged concerning them. The symbols of
Egg and Serpent have been handed down since the time of Moses, who
was versed in the Serpent Wisdom, but latterly were purposely
misrepresented.
It is unfortunate that so much of the beauty and reverence
once a part of religion has been destroyed, by the intrusion of the
vicarious atonement and the forgiveness of sins. Some one has said
that we have become manufacturers of misery, and to this we can add
the saying of Hermes that "The wickedness of the soul is in its
ignorance." H. P. Blavatsky has most truly said of today, "All is
doubt, negation, iconoclasm and brutal indifference in our age of
'isms' and no religion, every idol seems to be but that of the
Golden Calf."

The mythical dragon or serpent has been interpreted variously.
In the beginning there was the genitrix Typhon,2

________
1 Blavatsky, H. P.
2 The constellation Hydra was called the serpent of the south,
and was followed by the serpent Hapu of the four corners or
cardinal points of the world from which were developed the
twenty-eight mansions of the lunar Zodiac, that existed prior to
the solar Zodiac of twelve signs. From the one

233

whose son Sut or Sevekh was typified by the crocodile when he
signified
the number seven, because of his superior intelligence the crocodile
became synonymous with the soul. This Star-god crocodile was changed
into the Sun-god Sebek-Ra and converted into the Lamb. This is the
same
lamb that is found in the Book of Revelation, which "had two horns
like
a lamb, and . . . spake as a dragon." Hor Apollo tells us that "the
crocodile lays sixty eggs and is sixty days hatching them, and lives
sixty years." Sixty is the measure the Egyptian astronomers were
supposed to have used in their first operations. Sut, Sevekh or Sebek
in
planetary type is Saturn, and under this type Saturn in Chaldee is
Satur, i. e., Stur. Its numerical value is 666. The Greek S, as well
as
the Coptic, has the same numerical value as the 6, while S is the
symbol
of the serpent. Gerald Massey in his Natural Genesis gives very
interesting information as to the value of the 666 and SSS and says
that
old Sut became identified with 666 number of the Beast. Sut, Saturn or
Satur end in another double Christian continuation, for he became
canonized as the "Saint Satur," known as a martyr, in the Roman
Calendar, whose festival occurs on the 29th of March. Theological
martyrdom of the heavenly constellation is unique. If theology is the
final phase of mythology, it has a strange way of interpreting ancient
expression in modern thought. In one of the Hibbard Lectures, Renouf,
who was a Roman Catholic, exclaims, evidently with fervor, "Mythology
is
the disease which springs up at a peculiar stage of human
development."
Possibly he may have meant its modern interpretation which has
converted
the Most High God into Satan, the Devil, and who in the end was
reconverted into a Saint.
The Dragon of the Deep, as Darkness, was ever known as
________
came the many depicted in the planispheres, and when the first was
referred to, whether as the serpent, or as the mother, or as Typhon of
the abyss who emanated from chaos, she is finally identifiable as the
Virgin of the Zodiacal sign Virgo who was the original of our Eve, the
serpent woman of mystery and eternity.

234

"The Adversary of the Light." It is the same old Serpent of whom
"Theology has made the primal shadow substantial and permanent in the
mental sphere; and from the darkness of the beginning it has
abstracted
the Devil in the end."
Mosseau says that "The Christians were the first to make the
existence of Satan a dogma of the Church, arch enemy of God and Prince
of Darkness, Spiritualism and Magic the twin brothers. Rome sends her
preachers and advocates to rescue these from the 'Bottomless Pit'."
And
Father Ventura suggests that "To demonstrate the existence of Satan is
to re-establish one of the fundamental dogmas of the Christian Church,
which serves as a basis for Christianity, and without which, Satan
would
be but a name."
The Apophis or Akhekh Serpent of the Egyptians was a wicked
monster
of the deep, symbolized as the crooked serpent, with sword blades set
all around it, typical of destruction, and also as a door-keeper to
the
gate of death. It is depicted on a sarcophagus of Meneptah in the
valley
of death. It suggests Job's crooked Serpent "Have the gates of death
been opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of
death?" Job xxxviii, 17. In Isaiah 1, xxvii, both the crooked and the
piercing serpent are mentioned, when "in that day the Lord with his
sore
and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan, the piercing
serpent,
even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that
is in the sea." The crooked and piercing serpent of Hebrew Mythology
is
the Egyptian Bariak. Pra, Egyptian, and Bra, Hebrew, mean to manifest,
to eminate, Akh in Egyptian means Fire. Bariak signifies a "Fulminator
of Fire."
In Egyptian Tan means division, cutting in two, to divide, to
turn
away, a separator, and the Serpent covered with sword blades was the
piercing, severing Serpent. This was Job's monster of mythology, the
Serpent of night, representing powers of darkness and death, which
armed
with piercing
________
1 Massey, Gerald.