Chapter XXXI: Section VIII: The Symbolism of the Mystery‐Names Iao and Jehovah, with (2)

It is no explanation to say, as does Éliphas Lévi, that God, the universal Love, having caused the male Unit to dig an abyss in the female Binary, or Chaos, thereby produced the world. In addition to the grossness of the conception, it does not remove the difficulty of conceiving it without losing one’s veneration for the rather too human‐like ways of the Deity. It is to avoid such anthropomorphic conceptions that the Initiates never used the epithet “God” to designate the One and Secondless Principle in the Universe; and that—faithful in this to the oldest traditions of the Secret Doctrine the world over—they deny that such imperfect and often not very clean work could ever be produced by Absolute Perfection. There is no need to mention here other still greater metaphysical difficulties. Between speculative Atheism and idiotic Anthropomorphism there must be a philosophical mean, and a reconciliation. The Presence of the Unseen Principle throughout all Nature, and the highest manifestation of it on Earth—Man, can alone help to solve the problem, which is that of the mathematician whose _x_ must ever elude the grasp of our terrestrial algebra. The Hindûs have tried to solve it by their Avatâras, the Christians _think_ they have done so—by their one divine Incarnation. Exoterically—both are wrong; Esoterically both of them are very near the truth. Alone, among the Apostles of the Western religion, Paul seems to have fathomed—if not actually revealed—the archaic mystery of the cross. As for the rest of those who, by unifying and individualizing the Universal Presence, have synthesized it into one symbol—the central point in the crucifix—they show thereby that they have never seized the true spirit of the teaching of Christ, but rather that they have degraded it in more than one way by their erroneous interpretations. They have forgotten the spirit of that universal symbol and have selfishly monopolized it—as though the Boundless and the Infinite could ever be limited and conditioned to one manifestation individualized in one man, or even in a nation!

The four arms of the [Symbol: cross like the letter “X”], or decussated cross, and of the Hermetic cross, pointing to the four cardinal points—were well understood by the mystical minds of the Hindûs, Brâhmans and Buddhists, hundreds of years before it was heard of in Europe, for that symbol was and is found all over the world. They bent the ends of the cross and made of it their Svastika, 卐 now the Wan of the Mongolian Buddhist.(1311) It implies that the “central point” is not limited to one individual, however perfect; that The Principle (God) is in Humanity, and Humanity, as all the rest, is in It, like drops of water are in the ocean, the four ends being toward the four cardinal points, hence losing themselves in infinity.

Isarim, an Initiate, is said to have found at Hebron, on the _dead body_ of Hermes, the well known Smaragdine Tablet, which, it is said, contained the essence of Hermetic Wisdom. Upon it were traced, among others, the sentences:

Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross....

Ascend ... from the earth to heaven and then descend again to
earth.

The _riddle_ of the cross is contained in these words, and its double mystery is solved—to the Occultist.

The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite
directions, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and
breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting
point, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific
quaternary, when it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the
basis of the Occultist. Within its mystical precinct lies the
master‐key which opens the door of every science, physical as well
as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of
life circumscribes the four points of the cross, which represent
in succession, birth, life, death, and _immortality_.(1312)

“Attach thyself,” says the Alchemist, “to the four letters of the
tetragram disposed in the following manner. The letters of the
ineffable name are there, although thou mayest not discern them at
first. The incommunicable axiom is kabalistically contained
therein, and this is what is called the magic arcanum by the
masters.”(1313)

Again:

The Tau, Τ, and the astronomical cross of Egypt, [Symbol: Circle
with cross within] are conspicuous in several apertures of the
remains of Palenque. In one of the _basso‐relievos_ of the Palace
of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured as a hieroglyphic right
under the seated figure, is a Tau. The standing figure, which
leans over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with
the left hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its
right with the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The
position is precisely that of a Christian bishop giving his
blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often represented while at
the Last Supper.(1314)

The Egyptian Hierophant had a square head‐dress which he had to wear always during his functions. These square hats are worn unto this day by the Armenian priests. The perfect Tau—formed of the perpendicular (descending male ray) and the horizontal line (Matter, female principle)—and the mundane circle were attributes of Isis, and it was only at death that the Egyptian cross was laid on the breast of the mummy. The claim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol introduced after our era, is strange indeed, when we find Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the men of Judah who feared the Lord,(1315) with the _signum Thau_, as it is translated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this sign was formed thus [Symbol: Cross, tilted towards the northeast], but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as a perfect Christian cross ☦ (Tat, the emblem of stability). In the _Revelation_, also, the “Alpha and Omega”—Spirit and Matter—the first and the last, stamps the name of his Father on the foreheads of the _elect_. Moses(1316) orders his people to mark their _door‐posts_ and _lintels_ with blood, lest the “Lord God” should make a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead of the doomed Egyptians. And this mark is a Tau!—the identical Egyptian handled cross, with the half of which talisman Horus raised the dead, as is shown on a sculptured ruin at Philæ.

Enough has been said in the text about the Svastika and the Tau. Verily may the cross be traced back into the very depths of the unfathomable archaic ages! Its mystery deepens rather than clears, as we find it on the statues of Easter Island, in old Egypt, in Central Asia, engraved on rocks as the Tau and Svastika, in Pre‐Christian Scandinavia, everywhere! The author of the _Source of Measures_ stands perplexed before the endless shadow it throws back into antiquity, and is unable to trace it to any particular nation or man. He shows the Targums handed down by the Hebrews, obscured by translation. In _Joshua_(1317) read in Arabic, and in the _Targum of Jonathan_, it is said: “The king of Ai he _crucified_ upon a tree.”

The Septuagint rendering is of suspension from a _double word_ or
_cross_. (Wordsworth on Joshua.) ... The strangest expression of
this kind is in _Numbers_ (xxv. 4) where, by Onkelos (?) it is
read: “_Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) against the sun_.”
The word here is יקע, _to nail to_, rendered properly (Fuerst) by
the Vulgate, _to crucify_. The very construction of this sentence
is mystic.(1318)

So it is, but the spirit of it has been ever misunderstood. “To crucify before (not against) the Sun” is a phrase used of Initiation. It comes from Egypt, and primarily from India. The enigma can be unriddled only by searching for its key in the Mysteries of Initiation. The Initiated Adept, who had successfully passed through all the trials, was _attached_, not _nailed_, but simply tied on a couch in the form of a Tau, Τ, in Egypt, of a Svastika without the four additional prolongations (☩ not 卐) in India, plunged in a deep sleep—the “Sleep of Siloam,” as it is called to this day among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt. He was allowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights, during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to “confabulate” with the “Gods,” descend into Hades, Amenti, or Pâtâla—according to the country—and do works of charity to the invisible Beings, whether Souls of men or Elemental Spirits; his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the Sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of the approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced Candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris and Thoth, the God of Wisdom.

Let the reader who doubts the statement consult the Hebrew originals before he denies. Let him turn to some most suggestive Egyptian _bas reliefs_. One especially from the temple of Philæ, represents a _scene of initiation_. Two God‐Hierophants, one with the head of a hawk (the Sun), the other ibis‐headed (Mercury, Thoth, the God of Wisdom and Secret Learning, the assessor of Osiris‐Sun), are standing over the body of a Candidate just initiated. They are in the act of pouring on his head a double stream of “water” (the Water of Life and of New‐birth), the streams being interlaced in the shape of a cross and full of small ansated crosses. This is allegorical of the awakening of the Candidate who is now an Initiate, when the beams of the morning Sun, Osiris, strike the crown of his head; his entranced body being placed on its wooden Tau so as to receive the rays. Then appeared the Hierophant‐Initiators, and the sacramental words were pronounced, ostensibly to the Sun‐Osiris, in reality to the Spirit‐Sun within, enlightening the newly‐born man.

Let the reader meditate on the connection of the Sun with the cross from the highest antiquity, in both its generative and spiritually regenerative capacities. Let him examine the tomb of Bait‐Oxly, in the reign of Ramses II, where he will find the crosses in every shape and position; as also on the throne of that sovereign, and finally on a fragment representing the adoration of Bakhan‐Alearé, from the Hall of the ancestors of Totmes III, now preserved in the National Library of Paris. In this extraordinary sculpture and painting one sees the disk of the Sun beaming upon an ansated cross placed upon a cross of which those of the Calvary are perfect copies. The ancient MSS. mention these as the “hard couches of those who were in [spiritual] travail, the _act of giving birth to themselves_.” A quantity of such cruciform “couches,” on which the Candidate, thrown into a dead trance at the end of his supreme Initiation, was placed and secured, were found in the underground halls of the Egyptian Temples after their destruction. The worthy and holy Fathers of the Cyril and Theophilus types used them freely, believing they had been brought and concealed there by some new converts. Alone Origen, and after him Clemens Alexandrinus and other ex‐initiates, knew better. But they preferred to keep silent.

Again, let the reader read the Hindû “fables,” as the Orientalists call them, and remember the allegory of Vishvakarmâ, the Creative Power, the Great Architect of the World, called in the _Rig Veda_ the “All‐seeing God,” who “sacrifices himself to himself.” The Spiritual Egos of mortals are his own essence, _one with him_, therefore. Remember that he is called Deva‐vardhika, the “Builder of the Gods,” and that it is he who ties the Sun, Sûrya, his son‐in‐law, on his lathe—in the exoteric allegory, but on the Svastika, in Esoteric tradition, for on Earth he is the Hierophant‐ Initiator—and cuts away a portion of his brightness. Vishvakarmâ, remember again, is the son of Yoga‐siddhâ, _i.e._, the holy power of Yoga, and the fabricator of the “fiery weapon,” the magic Agneyastra.(1319) The narrative is given more fully elsewhere.

The author of the kabalistic work so often quoted from, asks:

The theoretical use of crucifixion then, must have been somehow
connected with the personification of this symbol [the structure
of the Garden of Paradise symbolized by a crucified man]. But how?
And as showing what? The symbol was of the origin of measures,
shadowing forth _creative law_ or _design_. What, practically, as
regards humanity, could actual crucifixion betoken? Yet, that it
was held as the effigy of some mysterious working of the same
system, is shown from the very fact of the use. There seems to be
deep below deep as to the mysterious workings of these number
values—[the symbolization of the connection of 113: 355, with
20612: 6561, by a _crucified man_]. Not only are they shown to
work in the cosmos but, ... by sympathy, they seem to work out
conditions relating to an unseen and spiritual world, and the
prophets seem to have held knowledge of the connecting links.
Reflection becomes more involved when it is considered that, the
power of expression of the law, _exactly_, by numbers clearly
defining a system, was not the _accident_ of the language, but was
its very _essence_, and of its _primary organic construction_;
therefore, neither the language, nor the mathematical system
attaching to it, could be of man’s invention, unless both were
_founded upon a prior language which afterwards became
obsolete_.(1320)

The author proves these points by further elucidation, and reveals the secret meaning of more than one dead‐letter narrative, by showing that probably, איש, _man_, was the _primordial_ word:

The very first word possessed by the Hebrews, whoever they were,
to carry the idea, by sound, of _a man_. The _essential_ of this
word was 113 [the numerical value of that word] from the
beginning, and carried with it the elements of the cosmical system
displayed.(1321)

This is demonstrated by the Hindû Vittoba, a form of Vishnu, as has already been stated. The figure of Vittoba, even to the nail‐marks on the feet,(1322) is that of _Jesus crucified_, in all its details save the cross. That _man_ was meant is proved to us further by the fact of the Initiate being _reborn_ after his _crucifixion_ on the _Tree of Life_. This “Tree” has now become exoterically—through its use by the Romans as an instrument of torture and the ignorance of the early Christian schemers—the _tree of death_!

Thus, one of the seven Esoteric meanings intended by this mystery of crucifixion by the mystic inventors of the system—the original elaboration and adoption of which dates back to the very establishment of the Mysteries—is discovered in the geometrical symbols containing the history of the evolution of man. The Hebrews—whose prophet Moses was so learned in the Esoteric Wisdom of Egypt, and who adopted their numerical system from the Phœnicians, and later from the Gentiles, from whom also they borrowed most of their Kabalistic Mysticism—most ingeniously adapted the cosmic and anthropological symbols of the “Heathen” nations to their peculiar _secret_ records. If Christian sacerdotalism has lost the key of this to‐ day, the early compilers of the Christian Mysteries were well versed in Esoteric Philosophy and the Hebrew Occult Metrology, and used it dexterously. Thus they took the word Aish, one of the Hebrew word‐forms for _man_, and used it in conjunction with that of Shânâh or _lunar year_, so mystically connected with the name of Jehovah, the supposed “Father” of Jesus, and embosomed the mystic idea in an astronomical value and formula.

The original idea of the “man crucified” in space certainly belongs to the ancient Hindûs. Moor shows this in his _Hindû Pantheon_ in the engraving that represents Vittoba. Plato adopted it in his decussated cross in space, the [Symbol: cross like the letter “X”], the “second God who impressed himself on the universe in the form of the cross”; Krishna is likewise shown “crucified.”(1323) Again it is repeated in the _Old Testament_ in the queer injunction to crucify men before the Lord, the Sun—which is no prophecy at all, but has a direct phallic significance. In that same most suggestive work on the kabalistic meanings, we read again:

In symbol, the nails of the cross have for the shape of the heads
thereof a solid pyramid, and a tapering square obeliscal shaft, or
phallic emblem, for the nail. Taking the position of the _three_
nails in the man’s extremities and on the cross, they form or mark
a _triangle_ in shape, one nail being at each corner of the
triangle. The wounds, or _stigmata_, in the extremities are
necessarily _four_, designative of the _square_.... The three
nails with the three wounds are in number 6, which denotes the 6
faces of the cube _unfolded_ [which make the cross or man‐form, or
7, counting three horizontal and four vertical squares], on which
the man is placed; and this in turn points to the circular measure
transferred on to the edges of the cube. The _one_ wound of the
feet separates into _two_ when the feet are separated, making
_three_ together _for all_, and _four when separated_, or 7 in
all—another and _most holy_ [_with the Jews_] feminine base
number.(1324)

Thus, while the phallic or sexual meaning of the “crucifixion nails” is proven by the geometrical and numerical reading, its mystical meaning is indicated by the short remarks upon it, as given above, in its connection with, and bearing upon, Prometheus. He is another victim, for he is crucified on the Cross of Love, on the rock of human passions, a sacrifice to his devotion to the cause of the spiritual element in Humanity.

Now, the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the idea of the cross, is not of “human invention,” for Cosmic Ideation and the spiritual representation of the Divine Ego‐man are at its basis. Later, it expanded into the beautiful idea adopted by, and represented in, the Mysteries, that of regenerated man, the mortal, who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his passions on the Procrustean bed of torture, became reborn as an Immortal. Leaving the body, the animal‐man, behind him, tied on the Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis, the Ego‐Soul became as free as a butterfly. Still later, owing to the gradual loss of spirituality, the cross became in Cosmogony and Anthropology no higher than a _phallic symbol_.

With the Esotericists from the remotest times, the Universal Soul or Anima Mundi, the material reflection of the Immaterial Ideal, was the Source of Life of all beings and of the Life‐Principle of the three kingdoms. This was _septenary_ with the Hermetic Philosophers, as with all Ancients. For it is represented as a sevenfold cross, whose branches are respectively, _light_, _heat_, _electricity_, _terrestrial magnetism_, _astral radiation_, _motion_, and _intelligence_, or what some call self‐ consciousness.

As we have said elsewhere, long before the cross or its sign were adopted as symbols of Christianity, the sign of the cross was used as a mark of recognition among Adepts and Neophytes, the latter being called Chrests—from Chrestos, the man of tribulation and sorrow. Says Éliphas Lévi:

The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong to
them exclusively. It is also kabalistic, and represents the
opposition and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by
the occult verse of the _Paternoster_ ... that there were
originally two ways of doing it, or, at least _two_ very different
formulas to express its meaning: one reserved for the priests and
initiates; the other given to neophytes and the profane. Thus, for
example, the initiate, carrying his hand to his forehead, said,
_To thee_; then he added, _belong_; and continued, carrying his
hand to the breast, _the kingdom_; then to the left shoulder,
_justice_; to the right shoulder, _and mercy_. Then he joined the
two hands, adding, _throughout the generating cycles—Tibi sunt
Malchut et Geburah et Chesed per Æonas_—an absolutely and
magnificently kabalistic sign of the cross, which the profanations
of Gnosticism made the militant and official Church completely
_lose_.(1325)

The “militant and official Church” did more: having helped herself to what had never belonged to her, she took only that which the “Profane” had—the kabalistic meaning of the _male_ and _female_ Sephiroth. She never lost the _inner_ and higher meaning since she never had it—Éliphas Lévi’s pandering to Rome notwithstanding. The sign of the cross adopted by the Latin Church was _phallic_ from the beginning, while that of the Greeks was the cross of the Neophytes, the Chrestoi.