I wish particularly to point out in the present volume that I am not giving the meanings of symbols in the vestments in which they are now garbed. I am giving their origin and original meanings.
Up to the time of Mu's submersion all symbols retained their original meanings. From the time of Mu's destruction I must pass over about 5,000 or 6,000 years. Those were years when seemingly no history was written except a few scraps in India and Egypt.
During this time mankind apparently was reviving and repeopling the earth, after its almost total destruction by the submersion of Mu and other lands and the subsequent formation of gas belts and mountains.
On entering Egypt 6,000 years ago we find that many of the original symbols had survived but were very much Egyptianized, especially in pattern or design, with an incomprehensible theology attached to them. A multitude of new ones had besides been added, most of them having esoteric or hidden meanings.
This confusion increased when Upper and Lower Egypt merged into one kingdom. The two peoples not
only commingled personally, but also their two sets of symbols. Thus two sets were made into one without any being discarded. It meant at least two symbols for every conception. So great was the confusion of symbols in Egypt, 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, that hardly one-half of the priesthood understood those used in the temples of other cities, although they might be but a few miles away.
The next period to note in Egyptian history is the reigns of the Ptolemys.
Many Greek philosophers then went to Egypt and were taught the Egyptian Sacred Mysteries. This knowledge they took back to Greece, commencing about 600 B. C. In Greece the Sacred Mysteries were Grecianized, new names and further theology were added. The result, generally, was the creation of amusing myths. The familiar Grecian myths may therefore be said to be influenced by the legends and teachings of Egypt and India.
The next point to note is Mu's destruction, which removed her motherly control over religion and science throughout the world. The consequence was that each colony framed its own laws, at the same time making changes in religion to suit themselves.
It is very noticeable among all ancient people that directly the control of the Motherland was removed, those countries began to fall back. As time went on they so degenerated in science and religion that the teachings of the First Great Civilization were at last entirely
forgotten and became a thing of the past. Myths, those shadows of the past, alone remained. Here and there, however, solitary flowers strove to raise their heads out of the weeds which now choked the world's garden.
Coming down to present times, I find writers, supposed to be scholars, giving meanings to symbols that are purely mythical, the outcome, it may be, of fantastic dreams, and absolutely erroneous. Where they got their ideas I cannot imagine. Certainly not from the ancient writings. The result is that science has drifted into an age of theories. Theories are made subservient to facts. A fact cannot be a fact unless their crazy theories prove it. The more abstruse and bizarre the theory is, the more, apparently, it is scientifically thought of. A theory that is not even understood by the originator himself, and by no one else on earth, meets with scientific approval.
SYMBOLS AND FREE MASONRY.--Freemasons in their ceremonies use many of the ancient symbols. They freely admit that the original meanings are now forgotten but they know that originally the symbols were sacred, being used in religious ceremonies in the infinite days that are past and had a religious and moral meaning in line with the First Religion of Man--their origin.
Symbols and symbolisms are a principal division of archaeology. I am not a professional archaeologist, but I love the ancient and for over fifty years have been
diligent in the study of it. When Mu went down the school of archaeology went with her.
ARCHAEOLOGY.--The date when archaeology was first studied reaches far back into the distant past. More than 15,000 years ago, the ancients had special colleges for its study.
In these colleges a very profound knowledge of their past was attained. The further we go back, the more profound we find that archaeological knowledge.
Like all other ancient sciences, archaeology had a dark cloud cast over it when Mu the Motherland sank and the First Great Civilization was wiped out. Only seeds, remnants of mankind, were left here and there, out of which a new civilization was in time to develop.
It is virtually within memory of living man that the study of archaeology has been again undertaken. Those who today call themselves archaeologists are, generally, diggers of the remains of man who lived, say, from 1,000 to 5,000 years ago. These are but of yesterday in human history. Why do they not go back to the beginning, as the ancients did 15,000 years ago? The archaeological study of the ancients included the whole history of man from his beginning 200,000 years before, if the astronomical evidence whereby such dates are computed may be accepted.
Archaeology embraces much more than it is thought to do. As the ancients studied it, it was a fascinating story. It may be deemed a religion for, at every step, the student is confronted with works of a Supreme Conception,
with symbols of the power and wisdom of the Creator. The sights cause him contemplation, contemplation brings him in touch with the Supreme, the great Architect and Builder of all. As the student progresses, he becomes aware that other branches of science are intimately connected with it: geology, chemistry, astronomy and the Cosmic Forces. These must all be mastered to obtain the full benefit of what has been written and left behind by our forefathers for us, to act as guideposts to the greater knowledge.
NATURE.--Nature shows man what is the Origin of Life. It shows man's connection with the Great Source and the Great Cosmic Forces which control the Universe.
It also shows the origin of these Forces. Thus archaeology is but one letter in the long word that unfolds the wonders and glories of Creation, it brings man in closer touch with the Heavenly Father.
Again, incidentally, it shows that true science is the twin sister of religion: they are inseparable for without religion man could not comprehend the Cosmic Forces, and without fully comprehending these Forces he could not approach the Great Divine Love which rules the Universe.
The first chapters of the Bible were intended to teach man the workings of these Cosmic Forces. They failed to do so however because of the mistranslations of the Mosiac writings, which were in the tongue and characters of the Motherland, and were copies of the Sacred [paragraph continues]
Writings of Mu that Moses expounded when he was High Priest of the temple at Sinai. The esoteric temple writings of Egypt related the cause of the Flood, showing what the phenomenon actually was. Whoever wrote these chapters, as we now have them, failed fully to understand the ancient form of writing, as present man fails fully to understand the symbols and symbolisms which were there correctly copied.
The early part of the Bible therefore has not fully carried out the purpose for which it was intended. The Bible Moses actually handed down was the Sacred and Inspired Writings, the greatest and most profound work ever penned by man, containing a science beyond the conception of present man. Nothing however is, it seems, forever lost: for in various parts of the earth writings are being recovered which, when put together, provide us with a great part of the Original Sacred Inspired Writings of Mu. That which has been recovered gives:
The account of Creation down to and including the Creation of man and of woman.
The movements of all celestial bodies throughout the Universe, the Forces that are controlling their movement and the Source of these Forces.
The Origin of Life and what Life is, with the cause of the necessary changes in types of life during the earth's development.
Various geological phenomena and what their causes were.
And there is, finally, the coping stone of the Earth: Man.
I find a word frequently occurs in the Bible which is misapplied. I refer to "Miracle." There are no miracles. What seem miraculous is due to our ignorance. They are phenomena produced by the exercising of man's own Spiritual Force, given him at his creation. The Sacred Writings say that this Force was given to man "to enable him to rule the earth." Masters used their Spiritual Forces. Their works, not being understood by the multitude, were looked upon as miracles. "Master" was an ancient title bestowed on those who had mastered the use of their Spiritual Forces.
Those who spend their time merely in unearthing objects of the ancients are not true archaeologists. They are only diggers or miners. The archaeologist reads what he finds written on stone and clay, and informs the public what they say. A stone or plaque of clay with writing on it is only a stone or dried mud, having no more value than any other curious stone until the inscription upon it is read. Then it becomes a page of written history and may be the means of revolutionizing the thought and teachings of present man.
The value of archaeology is in this reading--thereby one gains a knowledge of the past. A voice is constantly calling, "Go forth unto nature and learn her great truths and lessons." Nature is the great schoolhouse for higher learning. No authorities are found there to muddle us. Nature is the one and only authority.
Every old rock, with its crinkly weathered face, every fossil, has its tale to tell; every leaf on tree and shrub whispers a story. The Universe, with its countless celestial bodies moving in perfect order and time, calls for observation and inspires a yearning to know the Source of all. All of these lessons are to be learned from nature to enable man in this life on the earth to prepare himself for the next step in his everlasting life.
THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION.--What is Religion? Max Müller says: "Religion is a mental faculty which, independent of, nay, in spite of sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the Infinite under different names and under varying disguises. Without that faculty no religion, not even the worship of idols and fetishes, would be possible, and if we will but listen attentively we can hear in all religions a groaning of the Spirit, a struggle to conceive the inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing after the Infinite, a love of God.
"As soon as we know anything of the thoughts of man and his feelings, we find him in possession of a religion.
"The intention of religion, wherever we find it, is always holy. However imperfect a religion may be, it always places the human soul in the presence of God, and however imperfect and however childish the conception of God may be, it always expresses the highest ideal of perfection which the human soul, for the time being, can reach and grasp."
The period in man's history which Max Müller here
refers to is geologically known at the Pleistocene Period, coming after the submersion of Mu. Therefore what he found were shadows of the Sacred Inspired Religion of the Motherland, orally transmitted from father to son for thousands of years among the descendants of the remnants saved when the mountains went up and cataclysmic waves of water flooded the low-lying lands. This is corroborated in a paragraph where he says:
"There was a primitive Aryan religion, a primitive Semitic religion and a primitive Tauranian religion before each of these primeval races was broken up and became separate in language, worship and national sentiment.
"The highest god received the same name in the ancient mythology of India, Greece, Italy and Germany, and was retained by them. The name was Dyaus in Sanscrit; Zeus in Greek; Jovis in Latin; and Tiu in German (Wotan?). They bring before us all the vividness of an event which we witnessed but yesterday.
"The ancestors of the whole Aryan race, thousands of years it may be before Homer or the Veda, worshipped an unseen being under the selfsame name, the name of Light and Sky. Let us not turn away and say that this was, after all, but nature worship and idolatry. No, it was not meant for that, though it may have been degraded into that in later times. Dyaus did not mean the blue sky nor simply the sky personified; it was meant for something else. We have in the Veda the invocation [paragraph continues]
'Dyaus Pitar,' the Greek 'Zue Pater' and the Latin 'Jupitar,' and that means in these three languages what it meant before these three languages were torn asunder: 'Heaven Father.'"
Let us go back to the time when these languages were still one. In the Sacred Inspired Writings of Mu 70,000 years ago the deity is frequently designated as "Heavenly Father" and "Father in Heaven." This name is more frequently used there than any other. Religion itself was based on the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Being so prominent in the ancient writings, it is no wonder that it has persisted through the ages. Jesus, whose teachings were purely those of the First Religion, begins The Lord's Prayer with "Our Father which art in Heaven."
Besides quoting Max Müller I shall give a few extracts from writers on the subject whom science calls authorities.
Kant and Schiller both assert that "A myth does not represent a debasement, or a sinking down from original perfection, not a victory of sensuality over reason, but on the contrary, it manifests the advancement of a man from a state of comparative rudeness to freedom and civilization."
I am not in accord with these ideas because common reasoning tells me the case should be reversed. Fully ninety-nine per cent of the myths are traceable to legends. Legends are history orally handed down. History
is a record of facts, so that myths instead of "manifesting advancement" manifest a retrogression; for they show that history, a part of civilization, is being forgotten. Therefore that civilization has declined.
Taylor, in "Anthropology," says, "In one sense every religion is a true religion. The great question which forced itself on their minds was one that we, with our knowledge, cannot half answer--what the life is which is sometimes with us but not always."
Taylor might with advantage consult the North American Indian, the semi-civilized Polynesians, the Maoris, the South African savages, and, beyond all, the Teachings of Jesus. The savages and semi-savages do not claim great knowledge on the subject. I have, however, found that they possess great wisdom which is untrammelled by the Queen of Myths, known as Science.
De Brosses says, "All nations had to begin with fetishes, to be followed afterwards by Polytheism and Monotheism."
I suspect De Brosses of toying with theories of our Simian origin. They have upset everyone who has ever come in contact with them. However, we shall let it pass because such writers as Max Müller, Dr. Happell, and Professor Pfliderer are directly opposed to such assumptions.
Hereafter, when dealing with the beginnings of religion, I shall show that man started with monotheism
and it was only after Mu's destruction that there was polytheism and idolatry was practiced. The next quotation is as extraordinary:
"At a very remote period in the civilization of Egypt, Babylon, Mexico and Peru, the Sun God had gained supremacy as the first and greatest of gods."
This is contradicted by all ancient writings. The Sun was never looked upon as a god by the ancients but as a symbol only of the Deity. Therefore, it was never worshipped by them. The sun, from the beginning, was the monotheistic symbol of the Deity. Being the monotheistic or collective symbol of the Deity, it was esteemed the most sacred of all sacred symbols.
This monotheistic symbol of the Deity existed tens of thousands of years before man settled in either Egypt, Babylon, Mexico or Peru. How, therefore, could it have gained supremacy during their time?