Page 18 (part 3)

Staniland Wake justly observes in his work on "The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid" (London, 1882): "They must, however, have been more than mere coincidences , if the builders of the Pyramid had the astronomical knowledge displayed in its perfect orientation and in its other admitted astronomical features." They had it; and it is on this "knowledge" that the programme of the MYSTERIES and of the series of Initiations was based: thence, the construction of the Pyramids, the everlasting record and the indestructible symbol of these Mysteries and Initiations on Earth, as the courses of the stars are in Heaven. The cycle of Initiation was a reproduction in miniature of that great series of Cosmic changes to which astronomers have given the name of tropical or sidereal year. Just as, at the close of the cycle of the sidereal year [25,868 years], the heavenly bodies return to the same relative positions as they occupied at its outset, so at the close of the cycle of Initiation the inner man has regained the pristine state of divine purity and knowledge from which he set out on his cycle of terrestrial incarnation. Moses, an Initiate into the Egyptian Mystagogy, based the religious mysteries of the new nation which he created, upon the same abstract formula derived from this sidereal cycle, which he symbolised under the form and measurements of the tabernacle, that he is supposed to have constructed in the wilderness. On these data, the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon's Temple -- a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is simply, and as much a solar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif, of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical temple, the symbol of the cycle of [[Vol. 1, Page]] 315 PIAZZA SMYTH AND PETRIE DISAGREE. Initiation, coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses. That our author has undeniably discovered one and even two of the keys is fully demonstrated in the work just quoted. One has but to read it to feel a growing conviction that the hidden meaning of the allegories and parables of both Testaments is now unveiled. But that he owes this discovery far more to his own genius than to Parker and Piazzi Smyth, is as certain, if not more so. For, as just shown, whether the measures of the great Pyramid taken and adopted as the correct ones by the Biblical "Pyramidalists" are beyond suspicion, is not so sure. A proof of this is the work called "The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh," by Mr. F. Petrie, besides other works written quite recently to oppose the said calculations, which were called biassed. We gather that nearly every one of Piazzi Smyth's measurements differs from the later and more carefully made measurements of Mr. Petrie, who concludes the Introduction to his work with this sentence: "As to the results of the whole investigation, perhaps many theories will agree with an American who was a warm believer in Pyramid theories when he came to Gizeh. I had the pleasure of his company there for a couple of days, and at our last meal together he said to me in a saddened tone -- 'Well, Sir! I feel as if I had been to a funeral. By all means let the old theories have a decent burial, though we should take care that in our haste none of the wounded ones are buried alive.'" As regards the late J. Parker's calculation in general, and his third proposition especially, we have consulted some eminent mathematicians, and this is the substance of what they say: Parker's reasoning rests on sentimental, rather than mathematical, considerations, and is logically inconclusive. Proposition III . , namely, that -- "The circle is the natural basis or beginning of all area, and the square being made so in mathematical science, is artificial and arbitrary --" -- is an illustration of an arbitrary proposition, and cannot safely be relied upon in mathematical reasoning. The same observation applies, even more strongly, to Proposition VII., which states that: "Because the circle is the primary shape in nature, and hence the basis of area; and because the circle is measured by, and is equal to the square only in ratio of half its circumference by the radius, therefore, circumference and radius, and not the square of diameter, are the only natural and legitimate elements of area, by which all regular shapes are made equal to the square, and equal to the circle." Proposition IX. is a remarkable example of faulty reasoning, and it is the one on which Mr. Parker's Quadrature mainly rests. Here it is: -- [[Vol. 1, Page]] 316 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. "The circle and the equilateral triangle are opposite to one another in all the elements of their construction, and hence the fractional diameter of one circle, which is equal to the diameter of one square, is in the opposite duplicate ratio to the diameter of an equilateral triangle whose area is one," etc., etc. Granting, for the sake of argument, that a triangle can be said to have a radius in the sense in which we speak of the radius of a circle, -- for what Parker calls the radius of the triangle is the radius of a circle inscribed in the triangle and therefore not the radius of the triangle at all, -- and granting for the moment the other fanciful and mathematical propositions united in his premises, why must we conclude that if the triangle and circle are opposite in all the elements of their construction, the diameter of any defined circle is in the opposite duplicate ratio of the diameter of any given equivalent triangle? What necessary connection is there between the premises and the conclusion? The reasoning is of a kind not known in geometry, and would not be accepted by strict mathematicians. Whether the Archaic esoteric system originated the British inch or not, is of little consequence, however, to the strict and true metaphysician. Nor does Mr. Ralston Skinner's esoteric reading of the Bible become incorrect, merely because the measurements of the Pyramid will not be found to agree with those of Solomon's temple, the ark of Noah, etc.; or because Mr. Parker's Quadrature of the Circle is rejected by mathematicians. For Mr. Skinner's reading depends first of all on the Kabalistic methods and the Rabbinical value of the Hebrew letters. But it is extremely important to ascertain whether the measures used in the evolution and building of the Aryan symbolic religion, in the construction of their temples, the figures given in the Puranas, and especially in their chronology, their astronomical symbols, the duration of the cycles, and other computations, were, or were not, the same as those used in the Biblical measurements and glyphs. For this will prove that the Jews, unless they took their sacred cubit and measurements from the Egyptians (Moses being an initiate of the Priests) must have got those notions from India. At any rate they passed them to the early Christians.