The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall)

Hall opens the preface stating that ageless truths have usually been clothed in shabby garments, and that this work aims to supply a worthy tome. He records that work on the text began January 1, 1926, with reference collection begun in 1921. He explains footnotes were eliminated, a bibliography and topical index appended, and disclaims infallibility, originality, and plagiarism, professing no particular ism. He acknowledges libraries in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Ojai, and names contributors: Alfred Beri (German translations), Prof. Homer P. Earle (Latin, Italian, French, Spanish), Rabbi Jacob M. Alkow (Hebrew), Dr. C. B. Rowlingson (editing), Robert B. Tummonds, M. M. Saxton (dictation and index), J. Augustus Knapp (illustrations), Frederick E. Keast and Dr. John Henry Nash (printing/design), C. E. Benson (engraving), and Maud F. Galigher (sales). He notes the pre-publication sale of editions and thanks subscribers, closing with lines from John Bunyan, signed at Los Angeles, May 28, 1928. The Introduction defines philosophy as the science of estimating values. Hall cites Sir William Hamilton's collected definitions and lists six disciplines: metaphysics, logic, ethics, psychology, epistemology, and æsthetics. He quotes Plato, Laplace, Bacon, Aristotle, and Cicero. He then surveys Greek schools: the seven Sophos per Diogenes Laertius; the Ionic school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus); Heraclitus; a note on Babbitt's atom; the Pythagorean school (Pythagoras, Empedocles, Archytas); the Eleatic school (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Melissus, Zeno, Leucippus, Democritus); Socrates and his sect; the Elean sect (Phædo, Menedemus); a note on Plato; and the Megarian sect founded by Euclid of Megara.

Euclid maintains that good has no opposite and evil therefore does not exist, and when asked about the gods says he knows only that they hate curious persons. Eubulides succeeds Euclid, followed by Alexinus, Apollonius Cronus, Euphantus, and Diodorus, who is said to have died of grief at being unable to answer questions put to him by Stilpo; Diodorus holds nothing can be moved. Antisthenes of Athens founds the Cynics, saying philosophy taught him to converse with himself; Diogenes of Sinopis lives in a tub in the Metroum, and when a youth bores holes in it, Athens gives him a new tub and punishes the youth. Aristippus of Cyrene founds the Cyrenaics; Socrates labors vainly to reform him. Cyrenaic doctrines of pleasure are listed. Plato founds the Academic school, divided into old, middle, and new; Arcesilaus institutes the middle, Carneades the new. Plato is initiated by the Egyptians; his definitions of good, God, the One, and three orders of being are given, along with the inscription about geometry at the Academy. After Plato's death disciples split into Academics and Peripatetics under Aristotle, whom Plato calls "the mind of the school"; Thomas Taylor praises him. A plate from Kircher's Ars Magna Sciendi illustrates combinations and infinite diversity. Aristotle's divisions, soul faculties, and definition of God follow; he teaches Alexander the Great. Sextus Empiricus states Skeptic positions. Zeno the Cittiean founds Stoicism; Chrysippus holds good and evil mutually necessary; Diogenes, spat upon, says he is in doubt whether he ought to be angry. Epicurus of Samos founds the Epicureans, with four canons. Eclecticism, exemplified by Cicero, follows; then Neo-Pythagoreanism, Neo-Platonism beginning with Plotinus, a plate of Æneas at the gate of hell from Virgil, Patristic philosophy, Augustinianism, Gnosticism, Manichæism, Scholasticism, Thomism, Scotism, Bacon, and Hobbes.

The text opens by listing definitions: Humanism holds man to be the measure of all things; Rationalism bases knowledge on the reasoning faculties; Political Philosophy, Empiricism, Moralism, Idealism, Realism, and Phenomenalism follow, then Behaviorism and Neo-Realism as recent developments. Spinoza is described as conceiving God as a self-existent substance known through the attributes of extension and thought, with mind and body as modes. A plate caption on the Ptolemaic scheme of the universe states that Ptolemy's system diagrams divine and elemental relationships, its three zodiacs representing a threefold spiritual constitution. German philosophy is traced from Leibnitz and his monads, to Kant's three critiques and categories, to Fichte, von Schelling's doctrine of identity and threefold movement of the Absolute, Hegel's logic and unfolding Deity, Herbart's realism, and Schopenhauer's will, likened to a blind man carrying a lame man who sees. A caption on the Tree of Classical Mythology cites Proclus on ordering the Greek pantheon. Nietzsche follows, with eternal recurrence, will to power, and the superman; then Freudianism and Relativism. The French school begins with Descartes, then Comte's three stages and positivism, Traditionalism, the Sociological school, the Encyclopedists, Voltairism, Neo-Criticism, and Bergson. English philosophy covers Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Associationalism, Utilitarianism, Darwinism, Agnosticism, and Neo-Hegelianism. A caption on a Christian Trinity describes three faces in one head, comparing Brahma and Janus. Spencer, then Italian philosophers Bruno, Vico, Gioberti, and Croce are treated, with Sensism, Criticism, and Neo-Scholasticism. American schools are Transcendentalism (Emerson) and Pragmatism (James), with Dewey and Santayana. Sources are listed. The text then states philosophy came to the Greeks from the East, citing Stanley, and that philosophy emerged from the ancient Mysteries, closing with the question why so little is known of them.

The text opens by defining the Mysteries as secret societies binding initiates to secrecy and punishing betrayal with death, and states that their teachings became attached to the names of their disseminators rather than to their source. Symbolism is described as the language of the Mysteries and of Nature, chosen because it both reveals and conceals. A plate of the Orphic Egg, from Bryant's An Analysis of Ancient Mythology, is described: the serpent-entwined egg signifying Cosmos encircled by the Creative Spirit, the egg as the philosopher's soul and the serpent as the Mysteries. The initiates of antiquity are said to have preserved knowledge in mountains, images, mythologies, and temple arches, citing the Memnons of Egypt and the pyramids of Palanque. The book is dedicated to the proposition that a secret doctrine lies concealed in ancient emblems and rituals. Part 1 contrasts strong intellects with immature minds, citing the Apostle Paul on milk and meat, and divides pagan doctrine into esoteric and exoteric. Alexander Wilder defines the Mysteries as sacred dramas, naming those of Isis, Sabazius, Cybele, and Eleusis. Plato is said to have been criticized for revealing secrets. Robert Macoy is quoted on the Mysteries' contribution to civilization. The Mysteries are said to have become perverted, with the Bacchanalia introduced. Thomas Taylor is quoted that man is naturally a religious animal, and Celsus is quoted contrasting the proclamations of pagan criers with the Christian call to sinners. A plate from Montfaucon shows Cybele as a female hierophant, described in detail. Sun worship is linked to Atlantean origin, with the slain and resurrected golden Sun God. Secret societies are traced from ancient to modern times. The Druidic Mysteries follow: the derivation of Gwydd, Der-Wydd, and Go-Wydd; disputes over the word Druid, citing Max Müller; Druidic power over armies; their medicine; Éliphas Lévi on mistletoe and serpents' eggs; the Arch-Druid cutting mistletoe with a golden sickle and sacrificing a white bull. Robert Brown, Thomas Maurice, Artemidorus, and Cæsar are cited on origins. The three divisions—Ovate, Bard, and Druid—are described with their colors, then the Arch-Druid's breastplate, tiara, liath meisicith, cornan, and the glass boat Cwrwg Gwydrin. James Gardner reports two Arch-Druids in Britain. James Freeman Clarke describes Druidic belief in three worlds and transmigration; the text breaks off here.

The text opens with a statement that Good and Evil are exactly balanced so man may choose either, then relays the Welsh Triads on three objects of metempsychosis, three kinds of knowledge, three things that grow less (darkness, falsehood, death), and three that increase (light, life, truth). Druidic teaching is described as divided into a public moral code and an esoteric doctrine for initiated priests; candidates required good family and character, were tested, took vows of secrecy, and were taught in forests and caves about creation, the gods, Nature's laws, occult medicine, celestial bodies, magic and sorcery. Druid beliefs in immortality, transmigration, purgatory, and universal salvation are noted, along with feast days, solstice and equinox initiations, and the celebration of the Sun God's birth on December 25th. The Druids' Madonna, oaken cross, serpent, sun, moon and star worship are described; Caesar names Mercury among Gaulish deities. Charles Heckethorn describes Druid temple forms and the deities Hu and Ceridwen; Godfrey Higgins places Hu's origin in the Summer Country; Albert Pike links the Lost Word of Masonry to Hu. Hu the Sun God is murdered and restored; three degrees are described, including burial in a coffin and the open-boat ordeal, which Taliesin describes. Stonehenge is described. The text turns to Mithras: its spread through Rome, C. W. King and Alexander Wilder on Mithras and Mithra, the Zoroastrian opposition of Ormuzd and Ahriman across four periods of 3,000 years, with Mithras as mediator. The Encyclopædia Britannica lists resemblances between Mithraism and Christianity; Porphyry and John P. Lundy describe the cave; Higgins reports finds on the chair of St. Peter. Three Mithraic degrees, the crown, armor, and zodiac cape are described, plus the Lions, the bull-slaying, sacred dogs, the ladder of seven rungs, and exclusion of women. John O'Neill disputes the solar reading. Part 2 turns to Gnosticism: its name from Gnosis, Simon Magus, his contest with St. Peter and fatal fall, his quoted statement on the two shoots and pleroma, the Demiurgus, the six Æons, and the Syrian and Alexandrian schools, the latter founded by Basilides, to whom Abraxas is attributed.

The text opens with Godfrey Higgins's demonstration in Celtic Druids that the letters of Abraxas total 365 numerologically, and his note that Mithras yields the same value. Basilides is said to have taught 365 Æons summing to the Supreme Father, named Abraxas. Abraxas is described as a composite figure with human body, rooster head, and serpent legs. C. W. King, in Gnostics and Their Remains, quotes St. Irenæus on the succession Nous, Logos, Phronesis, Sophia, Dynamis, and reports Bellermann's reading of the Abraxas image, including the shield of Wisdom and whip of Power. Gnostic disagreement over the Demiurgus is described, some calling him evil, others divinely inspired, some identifying him with Jehovah; medieval Rosicrucianism and Odin are mentioned. The Gnostic Christ is presented as Nous, entering Jesus at baptism and departing before crucifixion, with Simon the Cyrenian dying in his place. Humanity is divided into three classes. Valentinus succeeds Basilides, adding fifteen pairs of emanations and the Virgin Sophia; the Pistis Sophia and James Freeman Clarke are cited; sects and decline are noted. The section on Asar-Hapi follows: Serapis's oracle to the King of Cyprus, etymologies from Higgins, Macrobius, Julian, Hebrew Saraph, and Osiris-Apis; King's Brahmanic derivation from Yama. Illustrations of a lion-faced gem and a labyrinth are described. Plutarch's account tells how Ptolemy Soter dreamed of a statue, Sosibius identified it at Sinope, and Soteles and Dionysius obtained it; Timotheus and Manetho pronounced it Serapis. Statue materials, the seven-lettered name, the Lesser and Greater Mysteries, labyrinth symbolism, Hadrian's letter, King on Serapis as prototype of Christ, and Theodosius's edict and the Serapeum's destruction follow, with Socrates reporting Christ's monogram found beneath. Knight and Pike are quoted. Finally, Robert Macoy's account of Sigge, who took the name Odin, founded twelve Drottars, and instituted rites celebrating Balder's death and restoration.

The text describes the Odinic Mysteries: the invisible Creator is called All-Father, with Odin, the one-eyed god, as his regent; the Drottars taught that the universe was made from Ymir, the hoarfrost giant formed from mists of Ginnungagap, whom Odin, Vili, and Ve slew. Odin built Asgard, where twelve Æsir dwelt, and Valhalla, where the slain feast. The nine chambers of Nordic initiation correspond to nine worlds, listed from Asgard to Hel-heim; a link to the Eleusinian nine spheres is proposed. Balder, Odin's son, is shot with a mistletoe arrow by the blind god Höthr at Loki's instigation; the grieving gods establish the Mysteries. The candidate, tasked with raising Balder, wanders nine caverns, meets three initiators (the Sublime, the Equal to the Sublime, the Highest), swears on a sword before Balder's statue, drinks mead from a skull, and receives the sacred ring. Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen is said to derive from these rituals. The text then treats the Eleusinian Mysteries, honoring Ceres and Persephone, attributed to Eumolpos. Lesser Mysteries, dedicated to Persephone, use the legend of her abduction by Pluto; Thomas Taylor and Plato are cited on the soul's imprisonment in body. Christie's report of Meursius lists the nine days of the Greater Rites in order. Teachings on transmigration, midnight births, and the evil of suicide follow; the candidate becomes Mystes. The Greater Mysteries show Ceres searching with two torches, finding Persephone, and arranging her half-year return. The initiate, passing brightening chambers to Ceres' statue, is hailed Epoptes. Weisse, Porphyry, Apuleius, Ouvaroff, Socrates, and Strabo are cited, closing with Porphyry on symbolism.

The span opens with a quotation from M. Ouvaroff's Essay on the Mysteries of Eleusis on cone, cylinder, phallus, and triangle, and a note on the Bacchic processional from Ovid's Metamorphosis, in which the candidate plays Bacchus, is slain by priests disguised as Titans, and is restored to life. The Bacchic Mysteries are described as triennial, two-degreed, with initiates crowned in myrtle and ivy. Godfrey Higgins is quoted from the Anacalypsis on Bacchus (Sabazius) born of a virgin on December 25th, changing water into wine, riding an ass, killed by the Titans, and rising on March 25th. Bacchus's resurrection is aided by Apollo; smoke from the burned Titans signifies the soul's ascent. Heckethorn is cited that the Eleusinian Mysteries were suppressed by Theodosius; Cicero is quoted on their teaching. The Orphic Mysteries follow: Thomas Taylor is quoted on Orpheus's obscurity and founding of theology. Orpheus's initiations, the death of Eurydice by serpent venom, his charming of Pluto and Persephone, his backward glance, and conflicting accounts of his death—lightning, suicide, or dismemberment by Ciconian women—are given, with Plato's Republic on his rebirth as a swan, and his floating head giving oracles. Allegorical readings follow: Orpheus as son of Apollo and Calliope, Eurydice as humanity, the lyre's seven strings as truths. The Bacchic and Dionysiac Rites recount the Titans luring Bacchus with a mirror, boiling and roasting him, Pallas saving his heart, Jupiter slaying the Titans and forming mankind from their ashes, and the prohibition of suicide. Interpretations of the mirror, boiling, roasting, and thunderbolts follow, plus the Dionysiac Architects, said to have served King Solomon, with CHiram Abiff believed an initiate. The Atlantis section cites M. Pierre Termier's Smithsonian lecture, M. Louis Germain's zoology, then summarizes Plato's Critias: Poseidon, Evenor, Leucipe, Cleito, Atlas, the concentric zones, orichalch walls, temples, and the kings' laws; the Timæus account of the island's sinking; Marcellus, Crantor, and Ignatius Donnelly; and the reading of the ten kings as the tetractys.

The text opens by citing Theon of Smyrna on the Pythagorean doctrine of opposites and states that the numbers 1 to 10 rule every creature under the Monad. The ten kings of Atlantis, holding Poseidon's trident scepter, ruled seven small and three great islands, symbolizing the triune powers of the Superior Deity and seven regents. The sinking of Atlantis and the Biblical fall of man are said to signify spiritual involution. The date of destruction is given as 9600 B.C. A lofty mountain on the central island, casting a shadow five thousand stadia, is identified as the axle mountain and source of stories of Olympus, Meru, and Asgard; the City of the Golden Gates is likened to the New Jerusalem. Ignatius Donnelly is quoted calling Atlantis the key of Greek mythology and the Greek gods human beings. Eden and the Deluge are traced to Atlantis. Cross and serpent are named Atlantean emblems; Gucumatz, the Popol Vuh's six sages and seventh feathered snake, and Quetzalcoatl or Kukulcan are cited. Oannes taught the Chaldeans; Quetzalcoatl fled Tezcatlipoca on a raft of serpents. Atlanteans built pyramids, then the cataclysms came. H. P. Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled, attributes the disaster to Thevetat's insinuations, naming Xisuthrus, Noah, and Vaiswasvata. Illumined Initiates withdrew to Egypt. The section on the dying god treats Tammuz and Ishtar; Ishtar descends through seven gates, is stripped at each, is imprisoned and diseased by the Mistress of Hades, then released by the gods' demand and reclothed ascending. Merodach slays a monster. Adonis, born of Smyrna's tree, is gored by a boar sent by Ars and rises March 25th. Atys, born December 24th, dies beneath a pine; Cybele preserves his body. Pan, Sabazius, and the Cabiric Mysteries of Samothrace follow, where Aschieros, Achiochersus, and Achiochersa murder Cashmala. Odin hangs nine nights and discovers the runes.

The chapter opens with a dramatized initiation scene: thunder rolls, lightning flashes, and the Temple veil is rent. An initiator in blue and gold robes points his wand into the darkness between two Lotus-headed columns and bids the white-robed candidate behold the Light of Egypt. A luminous haze fills the air; the initiator names the light the secret luminance of the Mysteries and calls forth its Master. A figure larger than a mortal appears in greenish sheen, its heart changing into an ibis and its brain into an emerald, bearing a winged serpent-entwined rod. The initiator hails Thoth Hermes, Thrice Greatest. A dragon-like Typhon appears breathing flame; Hermes strikes it with the staff, sets his foot on its skull, then vanishes. The text then reviews suppositions about Hermes' identity, citing Iamblichus, Manetho, Francis Barrett, Bryant, and Kenealy, and his identification with Cadmus, Enoch, and Mercury; his role as recorder in the judgment Hall of Osiris; his authorship of Masonic rituals; his calendar reform from 360 to 365 days; and the meaning of "Thrice Greatest." James Campbell Brown is quoted on the Hermetic books and the term "hermetically sealed." Clement of Alexandria's Stromata is quoted describing an Egyptian procession of Singer, Astrologer, Scribe, Stole-keeper, and Prophet, and the forty-two books of Hermes, most lost at the burning of Alexandria. The Book of Thoth is described as entrusted to Hermes' successors, kept in a golden box, later identified with the Tarot of the Bohemians. The Vision, Poimandres, follows: Hermes, meditating in a desolate place, meets the Great Dragon, Poimandres, the Mind of the Universe, who reveals Light and darkness, the Word called Reason, the Archetype, the Workman, the Seven Governors, the Universal Man who falls in love with his shadow, and the seven bisexual men. Poimandres commands Hermes to establish his Mysteries, then vanishes; Hermes consecrates his life to the Great Light.

The text describes Nature mingled with the Sky Man producing seven bisexual men embodying the Seven Governors, addressed to Hermes as the seven races, species, and wheels; earth is female, water male, spirits from fire and æther, and man receives Life and Light from the Great Dragon. At the period's end the knot of Destiny is untied. An inset note derives the name Hermes from "Herm," a form of CHiram, notes his worship as Odin, Wotan, and Buddha or Fo, gives two theories of his demise—translation like Enoch, or burial in the Valley of Ebron with books—and describes the Supreme Father as Shepherd and Hermes as shepherd dog, with the shepherd's crook among Egypt's three scepters. The hermaphroditic creatures are separated into sexes; God speaks to the Holy Word, commanding increase and self-knowledge; Providence with the Seven Governors and Harmony joins the sexes. Hermes asks why men lose immortality through ignorance; the Great Dragon answers that the ignorant worship the body. Hermes asks how the righteous pass to God, and Poimandres answers concerning Life and Light; asks the road, and is told to divide self from not-self; asks whether all men have Minds, and the Dragon declares itself the Mind, Father of the Word, doorkeeper against evil, absent from the wicked. Poimandres then describes death: the soul ascends seven Rings, returning powers to Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn at the Gate of Chaos, then reaches the Eighth Sphere and the Milky Way. He commissions Hermes, blesses him, and vanishes. Hermes preaches repentance; some scoff, others follow. Before dying he commits the Vision to writing, closing with "Holy is God" praises. The text then treats the Great Pyramid: Herodotus' account of machines, radishes and talents; disputes over Cheops, Manetho, Eratosthenes, Diodorus, Vyse's builders' marks, Lepsius' inscription; Caliph al Mamoun's tunneling in A.D. 820 and his buried-treasure ruse; an inset on Œdipus and the sphinx's riddle; then casing stones, Piazzi Smyth's and W. W. Harmon's dating, construction details, squaring the circle, and Smyth's and Dupré's disagreement over the well.

The text notes a niche whose converging walls suggest an intended passageway; Mr. Dupré believes an entrance lies here by which workmen exited. Biblical scholars are said to have identified the Great Pyramid as Joseph's granary, as a tomb for the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and as confirmation of prophecy. Turning to the Sphinx, the text reports Donnelly on antediluvian architecture, the stele naming Harmackis, restoration by Tahutmes IV after a vision, the discovered broken beard, later steps and temple, the depression in the crown, metal rods driven in, its dimensions, and limestone of mummulites. P. Christian, citing Iamblichus, describes a bronze gate and galleries in the Sphinx's belly leading beneath the Pyramid; the door cannot be found. Robert Ballard argues for subterranean residences and quarries; Hall judges such chambers insignificant. A vertical section follows: Taylor's measurements, refutation of the Lepsius Law, and descriptions of the King's Chamber, construction chambers, coffer, air vents, antechamber with its bossed slab, Grand Gallery, Queen's Chamber and its niche, the well, grotto, subterranean chamber, and al Mamoun's tunnel. The Sphinx is called androgynous; Gerald Massey is quoted on its male front and female rear. Under "The Pyramid Mysteries," Hall gives etymologies from Taylor and Smyth, numerical and zodiacal symbolism, the capstone as epitome, Marsham Adams's "House of the Hidden Places," association with Hermes and Osiris, and the Initiator whom Plato met. The King's Chamber staged the "second death"; the coffer's tone matches no scale. Hall predicts the Mysteries' return. The section on Isis opens with the Saitic inscription, Plutarch, Higgins, Knight, Apuleius's litany of names, and Le Plongeon's Queen Moo and Prince Coh.

The text argues that although Le Plongeon may be right, the allegorical World Virgin outweighs any historical queen, her appearance among many races discrediting the historical theory. Sextus Empyricus is cited that the Trojan war was fought over a statue of the moon goddess. Attempts to make Isis, Osiris, Typhon, Nephthys, and Aroueris grandchildren of Noah through Ham are set aside, Noah's ark being a cosmic allegory. Robert Fludd is cited for the sun's three properties—life, light, heat—yielding "from one light, three lights," the first three Master Masons. Osiris is called the third, material aspect of solar activity, his symbol an opened eye; Solomon's wives are planets, and Isis, the dark maid of Jerusalem, is receptive Nature. Five extra days beyond the 360-day year give birthdays: Osiris on the first, Typhon the third, Isis the fourth. Plutarch is quoted that Typhon means insolence and pride, and that the Greeks knew Osiris as Dionysos and Bacchus. Typhon, with seventy-two conspirators, has a chest made to fit Osiris, seals him in with molten lead, and casts it into the Nile on the seventeenth of Athyr. Diodorus records Isis's inscription at Nysa naming herself Queen, taught by Mercury, daughter of Saturn, wife and sister of Osiris, mother of Orus. The Pans and Satyrs discover the murder, giving the word panic; Isis, informed by children, finds the chest at Byblos in a tree made into a palace pillar; Typhon steals and dismembers the body into fourteen parts, Isis recovering thirteen and replacing the phallus in gold; Typhon is slain by Osiris's son. Isis becomes the Dog Star, Typhon the Bear. The text then describes her headdress, cow and bird forms, and the symbolism of her statue, quoting Apuleius and Plutarch on the sistrum, and detailing colors, crown, serpent, horns of plenty, ship, cymbal, grapes and corn, girdle, Virgo, pedestal, fire-box, scales, the pillars Jachin and Boaz, and Thoth the Dog-Headed, who protected Horus and lengthened the year to 365 days.

The text describes Isis crowned with the lunar orb and horned, then identifies Horus as son of Isis and Osiris, god of time and mortal life, whose four sons may represent the four kingdoms of Nature, and who avenged Osiris by slaying Typhon. It explains that Isis's power derives from the sun's rays, cites Apuleius seeing Isis rise from the ocean, quotes H. G. Wells on early life arising in water, and links veiled Isis to humid vapor carrying solar sperm-life. The ox beside her signifies Osiris as Taurus or Apis; Harpocrates, God of Silence, warns against disclosing secrets. Druids worshiped her as the moon; Godfrey Higgins disputes equating Isis with the moon. Isis is said to have conjured Ra to reveal his secret name, likened to the Lost Word of Masonry. Plutarch is quoted on what makes a true follower of Isis; troubadours sang of her as Sophia. On mummification, Servius is cited on Egyptian embalming versus Roman cremation; Osiris mummified below the waist symbolizes spirit within matter. Pythagoras is said to restate Egyptian teaching; Porphyry reproduces Euphantus's translated oration addressed to the Sun and gods, disclaiming sins by pointing to the chest of viscera. Early Christians pickled their dead; S.S.D.D. suggests only initiates were mummified. The final section treats sun worship, quoting Albert Pike, listing solar temples, then the Solar Trinity of dawn, noon, and sunset, the sun's annual and precessional paths, Robert Hewitt Brown on zodiacal transformations, Higgins, Hercules, Samson, George Oliver on Masonry, and Christianity's solar Jesus depicted in four seasonal ages.

The text opens by identifying the sun's attributes — light, raising the dead, feeding multitudes, stilling the tempest, rising after death — with Christ as known to Christendom. Under "The Birthday of the Sun," it states the pagans kept December 25 as the birthday of the Solar Man with rejoicing, feasts, processions, and temple offerings, the old Sun God having torn down the house of the Philistines before the new sun was born. An anonymous Master of Arts of Balliol College, Oxford, in Mankind Their Origin and Destiny, is quoted on Roman solar games, Servius's commentary on Virgil's seventh book of the Æneid, statements by Fathers of the Church in the time of Leo I, the Natalis solis invicti at Rome, and Mithra born in a grotto as Christ is born in a stable; a further quotation treats the sun absorbing the celestial Virgin in the eighth sign, Columella's calendar, and the Feast of the Assumption, formerly the Passage of the Virgin, and Astraea. Isis's inscription at the Temple of Sais is cited, Albertus Magnus on the Celestial Virgin rising at Christ's birth, the three stars of Orion's belt as the Magi, and Cancer's Stable and Ass, Præsepe Jovis, with Bear stars called Martha, Mary, and Lazarus's coffin. Jeremiah Shakerley's 1648 letter describes two Parelii beside the sun. "The Three Suns" divides the sun into spiritual, soular, and material, corresponding to spirit, soul, body, brain, heart, generative system, and the Transfiguration; historical multiple-sun sightings and William Lilly are cited, plus Paracelsus on the Eternal Sun, Rosicrucian names Vulcan, Christ, Lucifer, Jehovah, and Franz Hartmann on the sun as Wisdom. Sections follow on celestial inhabitants of the sun and Archangel Michael, Surya, alchemical gold and the Pearl of Great Price, the midnight sun with Apuleius and Etidorhpa, Typhon and werewolves, and solar colors, ending with the solar face and Leo.

The text opens by asserting the difficulty of estimating the effect of planetary and constellation study on ancient religion, philosophy, and science, noting the Magi of Persia were called Star Gazers and the Egyptians were honored for computing the motions of heavenly bodies. Ruins of primitive observatories exist worldwide; instruments of granite and brass were used, with examples cited at Jaipur, Rajputana, and the Peking wall observatory. Pagans regarded stars as living things; the Book of Judges is quoted on the stars fighting against Sisera. The Chaldeans, Phœnicians, Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, and Chinese are said to have had similar zodiacs, as did Central and North American Indians with differences. The derivation of zodiac from Greek is given, with Robert Hewitt Brown's etymology from zo and on. The division into twelve Houses is described, the shepherd theory of the signs' origin dismissed, and Richard Payne Knight quoted on emblematic animals. A ten-house zodiac theory follows, with solar and lunar year lengths, the first six benevolent signs linked to Ahura-Mazda's 6,000 years and the second six to Ahriman; Hargrave Jennings and Isaac Myer are cited on Libra's insertion. Precession of the equinoxes is explained (2,160 and 25,920 years). Plates from Kircher and Schotus are described. Taurus, Zoroaster's cave per Albert Pike, the Pleiades, Apis, and Sampson Arnold Mackey on abracadabra follow. Astrological traces in religions and the Hebrew alphabet are noted, then the equinoxes and solstices with dates. Aries is treated with Godfrey Higgins on the Lamb of God; Cancer with the scarab, Diana, and Knight on the moon; Libra with the balance and Paracelsus; Capricorn as House of Death, with John Cole on Babylon. The ages—Taurian, Aryan, Piscean, Aquarian—are described, with Lundy and St. Augustine on ΙΧΘΥΣ, and Upham on Aquarius. The text closes distinguishing geocentric (Ptolemaic, exoteric) from heliocentric (esoteric) astrology.

The text states that while the multitudes worshiped the house of the sun's reflection (the Bull), the wise revered the Scorpion or Serpent. Three symbols of Scorpio are given: the Scorpion, called the backbiter; the Serpent, symbol of wisdom; and the rarest, the Eagle, the most spiritual type. E. M. Plunket, in Ancient Calendars and Constellations, is quoted on the Scorpion joining Mithras in attacking the Bull. The Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians called the zodiac a series of furrows; the populace led bedecked steers through the streets while the philosophic elect abstained, wearing the Uræus. Robert Hewitt Brown, 32°, is quoted on Leo appearing to lift the sun at the summer solstice, and on the lion adored by Egyptians and Mexicans and the chief Druid of Britain styled a lion. John Cole describes the circular zodiac of Tentyra, its measurements and spiral procession from Leo through Cancer. The antiquity of the zodiac is discussed; one author placed man's concept of it at five million years old, possibly owed to Atlantis or Lemuria. Occultists held all life to be in stages of becoming, a solar system breaking into a zodiac. Pythagoras taught ten as the most perfect number, symbolized by the lesser tetractys. Houses were divided into decans and seventy-two duodecans, each assigned an angel by the Hebrews. Gemini and Sagittarius are then described. Albert Churchward is quoted on divisions of twelve. The law of analogy is named the Key to Wisdom. Metempsychosis is explained as a blind concerning the spirit's descent from the Milky Way. Julius Firmicus Maternus is quoted on the world's geniture per Æsculapius and Anubius; the seven ages are assigned to planets. Thomas Taylor's manuscript describes Plato's initiation at the Isiac Table. The Mensa Isiaca's history from 1527 through Cardinal Bembo, Mantua, Savoy, Paris and Turin is traced; Kircher, Westcott, Fosbroke, Montfaucon and Pignorius are cited. Kircher describes Egyptian sacrificial ritual and temple symbolism. Éliphas Lévi describes the Table's three compartments and the pantomorphic IYNX; the text suggests the twenty-one central figures correspond to the Tarot trumps and the zero card.

The passage opens by noting that the cipher, or circle, on the card denotes the superior sphere from which lower worlds, powers, and letters issue. Westcott is said to have published his rare volume in 1887, the only detailed English description since Humphreys translated Montfaucon in 1721. Westcott summarizes Levi's diagram: the Upper Region divided into four seasons with three zodiacal signs each, the Tetragrammaton assigned as Jod to Aquarius (Canopus), He to Taurus (Apis), Vau to Leo (Momphta), He final to Typhon, with the Cherubic parallel of Man, Bull, Lion, Eagle; the Lower Region to the twelve simple Hebrew letters; the Central Region to solar and planetary powers, with Ops, a Solomon's Seal, dark planets for the Ibimorphos and light planets for the Nephthæan triad. Westcott notes Levi transposed Serapis and Hecate, and identifies Ops with Terra, Rhea, or Cybele. Levi is quoted calling the Tablet a key to the Book of Thoth, surviving as the Tarocchi cards, described as 78 cards with 22 trumps. Lenoir's 1809 French essay is judged of little information; Kircher's eighty-page Latin article is translated and his plate reproduced. Waite and Wilkinson term the original a forgery; Winkelmann defends its antiquity; the author holds its maker an initiate. The symbolism section describes Egyptian temples, altars, and tables dedicated to gods in varying materials. Kircher's introduction outlines the threefold world, Father Mind, Governors, and Fathers of Fountains. The Table's three panels, forty-five figures, and fifteen named triads are listed, with Kircher's eight distinguishing respects, the border, and corner flowers. The Chaldean four spheres, emanation doctrine, Proclus, Aristotle, and Plato are cited. The central throne bears Isis as Pantomorphic IYNX, defined by Mead as a transmitting intelligence, with triple crown and Sephirothic parallels. Zoroaster, Lenoir, Kircher, Hamilton, Psellus, and the Sephira Yetzirah close the span.

The text opens with rhetorical questions about the Holy Temple at the Tablet's center and the seven triads, then quotes Psellus on the Egyptian triad of faith, truth, and love and the seven fountains, and on the highest material fountains of Apollo, Osiris, and Mercury, correlating each fountain with a planetary world. The upper panel's twelve zodiacal figures are described in four triads: the fixed signs (Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio) called the Fathers, identified with the four Maharajahs of Far Eastern teaching and Ezekiel's Cherubim; the cardinal signs called the Powers; the common signs called the Minds of the Four Lords. These form winged globes. The twelve forces produce the microcosm and the twelve sacred animals. Correspondences between upper and lower panels are said to key the relationship between the fixed zodiac (a dodecahedron) and the movable zodiac, likened to atmosphere, lungs, and body in a respiratory cycle. Multiple interpretations of the Table follow: auric bodies, planes of emanation, embryology, physiology, initiation, cosmogony, and alchemy, with the enthroned figure as Universal Mercury. The 21 figures reduce Qabbalistically to 3. References follow to a Gnostic papyrus in the Bodleian Library, the gates of East and West, Plato's study under the Magi Patheneith, Ochoaps, Sechtnouphis, and Etymon, Proclus, the Chaldean Oracles, Hesiod, the Orphic egg and Phanes, Thomas Taylor, Eusebius on Porphyry and Cneph, Samuel Boyse, and the Abbé Banier, who calls it a votive table. The text then turns to ever-burning lamps sealed in tombs, citing Westcott, Blavatsky, Kircher's contradictory explanations, and Montfaucon. Examples include the Appian Way tomb, Tulliola, Plutarch, St. Augustine, Edessa, England, the Lantern of Pallas, Nesis, Pausanias, Christian Rosencreutz, and Numa Pompilius; also the armored automaton that smashes a lamp, and Delphian tripod descriptions from Montfaucon and Beaumont. Asbestos wicks and a fuel formula from Tritenheim and Korndorf are given. Finally, Greek oracles: Delphi, Dodona, Trophonius, Latona; Apollo slays Python; the Pythia; the shepherds' discovery; the golden tripod; the priestess's purification.

The text describes the Pythia's preparations: bathing in the Castalian well, fasting, drinking from Cassotis, and chewing bay leaves; theories of drugged water or manufactured gas are noted as unproven. A panel on the Pythian Apollo names him twin of Diana, son of Jupiter and Latona, adult at birth, first physician and inventor of music, and describes the five successive temples at Delphi and its treasures. The prophetess, robed and seated on the tripod amid vapors, struggles, cries out, then utters hexameter predictions recorded by the five Hosii, descendants of Deucalion. Iamblichus is quoted on the fiery spirit possessing her. Apollonius of Tyana and Damis visit; Apollonius asks whether his name will be remembered, and the Pythoness answers yes but says it will be calumniated, and he leaves angry. Philosophers interpret and poets versify the messages. Serpents, the serpent-tripod, and the later law requiring priestesses over fifty are described, as is the shift from septennial to monthly consultation. James Gardner is quoted praising the oracle's influence. Dodona follows: Jupiter speaking through oaks, birds, and brass vases; the talking dove; the Selloi's disappearance and three succeeding priestesses. The Cave of Trophonius is described, with honey cake, ejection feet foremost, and the two fountains of forgetfulness and Mnemosyne. A panel treats Dodonean Jupiter and Deucalion's temple. The Seven Wonders are then presented as monuments to the Mysteries, correlated by Éliphas Lévi with the planets: Colossus of Rhodes, Temple of Diana at Ephesus, Phidias's Zeus, the Pharos, the Mausoleum, the Hanging Gardens, and the Great Pyramid. A panel recounts Trophonius decapitating his brother Agamedes. Then Mnesarchus and Parthenis consult Delphi; the oracle foretells Pythagoras; Higgins is quoted; his travels, initiations, coining of "philosopher," school at Crotona, marriage, and death are recounted.

The text opens with Pythagoras's physical description: over six feet, formed like Apollo, majestic, his power increasing with age. A word of praise from him brought disciples ecstasy, while one disciple killed himself after the Master showed momentary irritation; Pythagoras thereafter never spoke unkindly of anyone. His surviving disciples were persecuted. Disciples called him The Master or That Man; T. R. Prater is cited on an initiatory formula concealed in his name. After his death the school disintegrated and he came to be regarded as a god. Edouard Schuré's account is quoted of a dying Pythagorean who marked signs on an innkeeper's door, and a passing stranger a year later who paid his debts. Frank C. Higgins outlines Pythagorean tenets: monotheism, and three degrees—Mathematicus, Theoreticus, Electus—with pupils divided into exoterici and esoterici. Under "Pythagoric Fundamentals," applicants were tested in geometry, music, astronomy; Pythagoras taught moderation, condemned anarchy, and warned against praying for oneself. God is the Monad. He described meat as clouding reason, and his retreat diet, said to be Hercules' as given by Ceres. Pythagorean healing used poultices, plants, the sea onion, music, color, and verses of Homer; he opposed surgery and cauterizing. He taught on friendship, knowledge, wisdom, man as image of God, living planets. The Υ symbol marks the Forking of the Ways, possibly from Egypt. Transmigration is discussed, with Lévi's footnote listing his prior lives: Aethalides, Euphorbus, Hermotimus, a fisherman, then the Samian philosopher. He taught seals, the spiritualized body, threefold division into Supreme, Superior, Inferior Worlds. Redgrove is quoted on the five solids and elements; Hall adds ether/akasa. Divination, brass oracles, a river spirit greeting him, an earthquake prophecy, and hypnotic influence over bird, bear, and bull follow. Ten aphorisms from Iamblichus, translated by Thomas Taylor, are given with explanations, then the Golden Verses, then Pythagorean astronomy on central fire.

The text names the central globe the Tower of Jupiter, the Globe of Unity, the Grand Monad, and the Altar of Vesta, and states Pythagoras divided the universe into ten spheres: the globe of Divine Fire, seven planets, the earth, and the never-visible Antichthon. Clement of Alexandria is said to have believed Antichthon represented the mass of the heavens; others held it was the moon. Isaac Myer is quoted on each star being a world. The reverence of Pythagoras's disciples for Venus is described, with its names vesper, false light, star of the morning, Lucifer, Venus, Astarte, Aphrodite, Isis, and The Mother of the Gods. Pythagoras's astronomical knowledge is attributed to the Egyptian temples. The Canon is quoted, giving Kepler's 1596 rule nesting the regular solids among the planets; Kepler is said to have valued it more than the Electorate of Saxony, with approval by Tycho and Galileo. Interpolated panels describe the tetractys, citing Theon of Smyrna and the Pythagorean oath, and the cube and star formed from its dots. The text states the key to number science was lost with Pythagoras. Plutarch is quoted from Isis and Osiris on numbers named for gods, and Albert Pike is quoted from his Symbolism admitting ignorance. A method of computing numerical values of words follows, worked on Jehovah (26) and Abraxas (365), plus digit-reduction of 666 and 144,000 to 9. Alphabet tables from Higgins' Celtic Druids and a modern English system are described. Paraphrasing Thomas Taylor's Theoretic Arithmetic, the text ranks arithmetic prior to geometry, music, and astronomy; defines multitude and magnitude, monad, number, and the one, citing Hippasus's followers, the Platonists, and Leibnitz; then divides numbers into odd and even, and into incomposite, composite, incomposite-composite, evenly-even, evenly-odd, and oddly-odd. A panel describes the Sieve of Eratosthenes and, citing David Eugene Smith's History of Mathematics, Eratosthenes' measurement of the earth.

The text opens with Aristarchus of Samos, a Greek astronomer and mathematician of about 250 B.C., who established that the earth revolved around the sun; Copernicus believed himself the discoverer but restated Aristarchus's findings seventeen hundred years later. The account then treats evenly-odd numbers, whose quotients invert the parity of the divisor and each term of which equals half the sum of its neighbors, with examples using 18, 10, 18, and 6. Oddly-odd numbers are described as a compromise, formed by multiplying evenly-even numbers above 2 by odd numbers above one, with the halving of 12 given as an example, noting the Pythagoreans did not divide unity. Even numbers are then divided into superperfect, deficient, and perfect classes, illustrated by 24, 14, and 28; perfect numbers are listed as 6, 28, 496, and 8,128, and a rule for generating them from evenly-even sums and incomposite numbers is given. Theoretic Arithmetic is quoted comparing perfect numbers to virtues lying between excess and defect, citing timidity and audacity against fortitude, craft and fatuity against prudence, profusion and avarice against liberality, and likening superabundant and diminished numbers to vices. A table of the ten numbers follows, described as a paraphrase of Nicomachus, Theon of Smyrna, Proclus, Porphyry, Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria, Aristotle, and others: the monad with its names including chaos, Apollo, Jupiter, and Vesta; the duad, quoted from W. Wynn Westcott's Numbers as "Audacity," associated with Isis, Rhea, and Diana; the triad, with Apollo's tripod; the tetrad, called by Pythagoras the Number of Numbers and by Plutarch 36; the pentad and pentagram; the hexad; the heptad; the ogdoad; the ennead; and the decad, called by Pythagoras the nature of number, ending with the decimal system traced to reckoning on the fingers.

The text opens by declaring the human body the oldest and most universal symbol, noting that the Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, and Hindus treated analysis of man's triune nature as part of religious training, and that the Mysteries taught the universe was epitomized in the human constitution. Because the universe exceeds mortal comprehension, early philosophers turned to man, producing a system of God as Grand Man and man as little god, and the terms Macrocosm/Macroprosophus and Microcosm/Microprosophus. H. P. Blavatsky is quoted from Isis Unveiled on man as microcosm suspended by three spirits, citing Proclus on the Intelligible Triad. Next the text describes early priests placing a statue of a man in the temple sanctuary, possibly a manikin covered with hieroglyphs and openable to show organs; with the age of idolatry the secrets were lost, the figure was worshiped as a god, and temple and statue fell in ruin. Theology is said to rest on the human body, with anatomical analogy traced in creation myths, Adam and Eve, the Eleusinian degrees, Vishnu's incarnations, the Universal Egg, Ginnungagap, and the fish emblem. God and man are described as twofold, with spirit anterior to form. An inserted plate describes Böhme's Libri Apologetici, the Tetragrammaton as a tetractys within the inverted heart, Jehovah becoming Jehoshua by the letter Shin, with Böhme quoted: "This book is Christ in you." The text then treats three centers—upper, middle, lower—quoting Thomas Taylor on three suns, and assigns heart, brain, and generative system. Mystery temples built as a body are described, the candidate entering at the feet and receiving the highest degree at the brain, where the heart mystery is given. Proclus is quoted from On the Theology of Plato. A plate describes a hand bearing effigies of Christ, the Virgin, and the twelve Apostles with their symbols. The text closes with correspondences of elements, planets, zodiac, the number 5, fingers and toes, right and left halves, light and darkness, the face as trinity, and the Mysteries' purpose of unfolding man's nature.

The text states that knowledge of how man's constitution may be regenerated to spiritual illumination formed the esoteric doctrine of antiquity, that certain physical organs veil spiritual centers, and that probationary periods kept this from the unregenerate. A note describes Johann Georg Gichtel, disciple of Jakob Böhme, who circulated diagrams of the inner man's human, infernal, and divine states; William Law's plates are said to follow them, and Law's description of the three tables (before the Fall, after the Fall, and in regeneration) is quoted, the symbols being identified with the Hindu chakras. The text says the knowledge was hidden in allegory, citing the New Testament as a concealed account of human regeneration, and explains garments as symbols of form, with white, red, and blue robes signifying purity, sacrifice and love, and altruism. The body is called the measure of the universe; Delphi is named the navel of the earth; kingdoms, religions, and communities are treated as composite entities passing through Shakespeare's Seven Ages. Two figures of the Divine Tree in Man, reverse and obverse, are described. The spirit is diagrammed as a triangle whose lower point descends into matter, the undescended portion being the Anthropos, likened to Emerson's Oversoul; initiation permits reunion without death. The Hiramic legend follows: Solomon builds the temple; Hiram, King of Tyre, sends materials and CHiram Abiff, a Widow's Son. Details of the temple's dimensions, workmen, and construction without tools are given, with quotations from Anderson and Sickels. CHiram divides workmen into three grades; Jubela strikes his throat with a gauge, Jubelo his breast with a square, and Jubelum kills him with a maul. He is buried, the murderers captured and executed, and the body raised by the Master Mason with the Lion's Paw grip. Interpretations follow: von Welling's etymology, Pike's readings, the number 33, Osiris, Jacques de Molay, Charles the First, and Christ, with ignorance, superstition, and fear as the three ruffians.

The passage opens by naming the crown, the tiara, and the torch as enemies of universal democracy, and identifies CHiram as symbol of spiritual, intellectual, and physical emancipation and as Beautifier of the Eternal House, with modern utilitarianism sacrificing the beautiful for the practical. A plate from Montfaucon's Antiquities describes an emblematic hand extended to neophytes entering the Temple of Wisdom. Dr. Orville Ward Owen is said to have found Masonic ritual hidden in the First Shakespeare Folio; Bacon's New Atlantis is discussed, with Joseph Fort Newton noting Bacon's Temple of Solomon was an ideal state, and Bacon suggested as raised in Germany. An old manuscript is cited saying Freemasonry was formed by alchemists; Solomon's Temple is equated with the magnum opus. CHiram is compared to Kundalini and the Spirit Fire in the spine; E. A. Wallis Budge is cited on the pine cone on the dead person's head, alongside the thyrsus of Bacchus and Descartes on the pineal gland. An Oriental painting of three sunbursts containing Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva is described and applied to the gates where CHiram was struck, with no gate in the north. The Qabbalists' "Land of Egypt" and Moses raising the brazen serpent follow. Albert Pike is quoted on Khurum slain by three Fellow-Crafts as winter signs; others assign Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, with Typhon and Judas as Scorpio. Saturn, Santa Claus, and Diana of Ephesus are described. Robert Hewitt Brown is quoted on the annual solar tragedy. Plotinus's An Essay on the Beautiful introduces beauty's effect; the Dionysiac Architects and three Grand Masters follow. S. A. Zola, A. Gorham, and Robert Freke Gould are cited on Masons' marks. State, church, and mob are named as the trio destroying the Mysteries. A future university teaching Symbolism is envisioned. The final section defines harmony and beauty, then treats music: Hermes as founder, Plato on Egyptian songs, the lyre as human constitution, and Pythagoras hearing hammers at a brazier's shop and constructing a wooden arm.

The text opens with an experiment in which four cords of like composition, size, and weight are attached at intervals along an arm and loaded with twelve-, nine-, eight-, and six-pound weights corresponding to braziers' hammers. Pythagoras finds the first and fourth strings sound the octave (2:1, duple), the first and third the diapente (3:2, sesquialter), as do the second and fourth; the first and second give the diatessaron (4:3, sesquitercian), as do the third and fourth; Iamblichus gives the second and third as 8:9, epogdoan. The tetractys is said to hide the key to these ratios. The text notes hammers striking metal will not produce such tones, so Pythagoras probably used the monochord. Music is described as a dependency of mathematics; Pythagoras assigns each plane a tone, interval, number, name, color, and form. Interpolated plates describe the intervals of the spheres from Stanley, and Fludd's mundane monochord. Newlands' law of octaves is cited as modern corroboration. The Pythagoreans call themselves Canonics, opposed to the Harmonic School; Pythagoras warns against flutes and cymbals. Anecdotes follow: Pythagoras calms a drunken youth by having a flutist change from the Phrygian to the Spondaic mode; Empedocles saves his host Anchitus by changing mode; Esculapius cures sciatica with a trumpet. Pythagoras uses melodies and recitations from Hesiod and Homer, opens and closes days with song at Crotona, and gathers disciples in a circle at the vernal equinox. Iamblichus, Pliny, Plato, Damon, and Nauman are quoted. The music of the spheres section describes the universe as a monochord divided ninefold or twelvefold, the seven sacred vowels, Egyptian sacred songs, and architecture as crystallized music, ending with Jericho. The philosophy of color quotes Babbitt, cites Ecbatana, Borsippa, a Mogul fountain, Waddell on Tibet, Plato in Meno and Theætetus, and the tetractys as containing white light and the seven Logi.

The text states the seven Creators of the inferior spheres were called Elohim by the Jews and Builders or Governors by the Egyptians, depicted carving the universe with knives. Planet worship is traced to the seven creative attributes of God, with the planetary Lords dwelling in the sun. The law of the octave is presented as the preferred correspondence system: the ear registers nine to eleven octaves, the eye only seven color tones; red is matched to do, orange to re, yellow to mi, green to fa, blue to sol, indigo to la, violet to si. Two confirmations are offered, and Edwin D. Babbitt is quoted from The Principles of Light and Color on vibration counts. Colors are then assigned to the twelve zodiac signs from Aries to Pisces, and H. P. Blavatsky's table linking colors, principles of man, and states of matter is given. A note on Fludd's De Musica Mundana describes the threefold division of the four elements and the diatessaron. The planets are reassigned to notes, do as Mars through si as the moon. The second part states ancient races venerated water, air, and earth creatures as symbols of invisible forces. The fish is treated as the life-germ symbol, sacred to Aphrodite, linked to Freya and Friday, to nun, to Buddha's symbols, to the dolphin and the Dauphin, and to baptism. Composite creatures—phœnix, unicorn, centaur, pelican, mantichora—are described as initiatory symbols. Ichthyolatry, the Chinese fish, Typhon's division of Osiris, Jonah, Vishnu's Matsya avatar, Oannes, and ΙΧΘΥΣ follow, with Blavatsky's Dagon theory and leviathan, and Kenealy on the caterpillar. Insects are treated next: Khunrath's Amphitheatrum, plagues, ants, locusts, then the scarab (with Budge and Plutarch quoted, and Khepera and Ra), and finally the scorpion, Antares, and Goldsmith on Selk.

The span opens with George Smith's Chaldean Account of the Genesis, quoted on Izdubar (Nimrod) and the scorpion man who guards the gate and the rising and setting sun, at whose sight Izdubar felt fear; a Latin war machine also called the scorpion is noted. The butterfly, named Psyche, is likened to the three degrees of the Mystery School, its ovum-larva, larva-pupa, and pupa-imago stages matching unregenerate man, the disciple, and the initiate. Night moths signify secret wisdom, Acherontia atropos death, and the death-watch beetle warning of death. Opinions on the spider differ; Paracelsus is said to have taught it a medium of evil force, and magicians surrounded themselves with bats, spiders, cats, snakes, and monkeys to appropriate their life forces. Some schools held poisonous creatures germinate from man's evil nature. The American Indian "Spider Man" legend and the Indian Spider Gods and Great Spider follow. The beehive appears in Masonry; the bee is sacred to Venus, said with wheat and bananas to have come from that planet, surrounds the Indian god Prana, and emblemized French kings. The fly leads to Baal-Zebul, Beelzebub, Inman's reading "My Lord Who Hums" and the singing Memnon, and Naudæus's account of Virgil's brass fly at Naples. Under Reptiles, serpent worship is catalogued worldwide; the serpent signifies wisdom, the Eden allegory, Moses' brazen serpent, and Christ's instruction to be wise as serpents. A Paracelsus scorpion talisman is described. The serpent further denotes immortality, metempsychosis, and eternity; Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled is quoted on cosmic fire-mist. Then follow winged serpents, the Hopi snake dance, lizards and Mercury, Santee on reptilian pineal bodies, crocodiles and Typhon with Thomson on their pampering, the turtle, the Hindu elephants and turtle, and sphinx, centaur, man-bull, Uræus, Chiron, and the egg contended by Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. Part 2 treats birds: buzzard, eagle, pelican, peacock; Juno's peacock and Argus; the Navaho turkey; levitation; eagle feathers; angels; Odin's ravens Hugin and Munin; the eagle of Jupiter and Scorpio; the thunderbird; the hawk of Ra, Osiris, and Horus; the cock of Cashmala, Ares, and Eleusis, with Bacon's death; peacock and ibis, ibis sacred to Thoth; nocturnal birds; goose, crow, swan, scavengers, parrot and raven, and the dove.

The span opens with the dove, sacred to Astarte, Cybele, Isis, Venus, Juno, Mylitta, and Aphrodite, treated as emblem of maternal instinct, wisdom, and divine will; Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology is quoted on the name Ionah, applied to Jonah, the Baptist (Ioannes), and the author of the fourth Gospel. Masonic, pagan (the dove of Venus crucified on a wheel), Mohammedan, sceptral, and medieval uses follow. Clement's first-century account of the phœnix is quoted, then Herodotus's account of the bird carrying its parent in a ball of myrrh to Egypt. Hall notes Pliny's report of a phœnix exhibited under Claudius, describes the bird's plumage, tuft, lifespan, diet, and acacia nest, identifies it with the Persian roc and a constellation, and calls it a symbol of soul immortality, alchemical transmutation, and the Rose Croix pelican. Initiates are called phœnixes, with John iii. 3 cited. The Great Seal of the United States is argued to bear a phœnix, not an eagle; Benjamin Franklin's objection to the eagle, Gaillard Hunt's history, William Barton's 1782 design, Charles Eliot Norton's remark on the Masonic-looking device, and the recurrence of the number 13 are cited. Under Animals, Hall treats the lion (Hercules and Samson slaying the Leo lion), the cat (Bast at Bubastis, Diana, the Buddhist tale of the absent cat, Herodotus on cats and fire), and the Apis bull of Memphis—its markings, breath, drowning at twenty-five, and replacement signaling Osiris's reincarnation—plus Nandi, Jupiter's abduction of Europa, and Serapis. Then the ram and lamb of Aries, the goat and scapegoat, the Golden Fleece sought by Jason (Suidas calling it a book), deer, the wolf and the Fenris Wolf devouring Odin, and the unicorn described by Thomas Boreman, with J. P. Lundy's reading. Æneas battles the harpies; the Book of Lambspring's deer and unicorn are quoted. The Reptiles section begins with the serpent, the Ophites, and worldwide serpent worship; the text breaks off mid-sentence.

The passage opens mid-quotation about the deer desiring no name but that of the soul, and a statement that he who tames and couples such creatures may be called a Master. It then treats the Egyptian devil Typhon, symbolized by the Set monster with a snoutlike nose and pointed ears, possibly a hyena, living in sand storms and promulgating evil while also guarding the Egyptian dead from grave robbers. Other Typhonic symbols follow: the hippopotamus, sacred to Mars enthroned in Scorpio, and the ass — Jesus riding into Jerusalem on an ass is equated with Hermes standing on Typhon; early Christians were accused of worshiping an ass's head. Next come the hog or sow sacred to Diana, the boar that gored Atys, the monkey as irrational man, Cynocephalus the dog-headed ape associated with Thoth, the dog as symbol of fidelity, priestcraft and Mercury, the Dog Star Sirius, and the horse. Chiron instructed Achilles; the wooden horse of Troy conceals latent potentialities; the siege of Troy depicts Helena abducted by Paris and redeemed by the Greek army under Agamemnon. The text turns to yonic and phallic symbols, defends Priapic worship, cites King Edward III's motto, Sir William Hamilton on Isernia's worship of Priapus as St. Cosmo, and Pythagoras on the family and the divine trinity of Father, Mother, Child. It argues Christianity retains phallic emblems throughout its churches. Flowers are then discussed as symbols, followed by the lotus and rose as yonic emblems, the seven chakras with their petal-counts, Aaron's rod, and Tannhäuser. Interpolated plates describe the Tree of the Knights of the Round Table with King Arthur, and the Tree of Noah with Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Tree worship follows: Kapila, the inverted Sephirothic tree, Yggdrasil, the serpent as mind, the Druids and cedars of Lebanon, scriptural trees, Buddha's bodhi tree, Odin's Gungnir, Lundy's remarks on trees' usefulness, the Trees of Life and Knowledge as equilibrium and unbalance, the Ophites, the five chief trees, the thyrsus of Bacchus, Atys dying beneath the pine, and Albert Pike on the acacia.

The text describes the acacia as a type of immortality, noting a door-post taking root, its identification with the mimosa or sensitive plant, a Coptic legend that the sensitive plant first worshipped Christ, and four interpretations of acacia symbolism. Albert G. Mackey is cited on each Mystery having its own sacred plant—lettuce for Adonis, the lotus in Brahmin and Egyptian rites, mistletoe among Druids, myrtle in Greek Mysteries. The chest of Osiris lodging in a tamarisk is given as origin of the acacia sprig marking CHiram's grave, perpetuated also in the Christmas tree. A plate from Kircher shows the sunflower and plant magnetism. Apricot and quince are called yonic, grapes and fig phallic. The pomegranate is the Eleusinian fruit Prosperine ate; Jacob Bryant links it to the Ark; the Cabiri termed it "the forbidden secret"; it appears on Jachin and Boaz and the High Priest's ephod. Wine is discussed as false life, with Plutarch quoted on the priests of the sun at Heliopolis; Christ's saying "I am the vine" is compared to Bacchus, Dionysos, Arys, Adonis. The mandrake follows: Josephus on baaras, Templar accusations, Blavatsky's remark, the superstition of the dog uprooting it, medieval charms, and a quotation from Eliphas Levi. Onion, garlic, trifoliate shamrock and St. Patrick, and wreaths are treated. A plate shows the Tree of Alchemy, with Gloria Mundi quoted on metals growing like plants, and Richard Payne Knight on wreaths. The next section compares the four elements to man's constitution, bones to spirit, the skeleton to Saturn who mutilated Ouranos, Hyperborea, Ymir, Gæa, and Deucalion and Pyrrha casting stones that became men and women. Litholatry is traced through Higgins, Carnac's menhirs, logan stones, the Gygorian stone, Hercules' stone over the sons of Boreas, Stonehenge, and Christian survivals; fire later supplants stone worship. A plate shows Saturn swallowing the stone Rhea substituted for Jupiter, later placed at Delphi. Cubes, hermæ, Terminus, and the philosopher's stone follow, then the heading "The Tablets of the Law," with Moses receiving two tablets from Jehovah on Mount Sinai.

The text opens with the tables fashioned from the divine sapphire Schethiyâ, which the Most High cast from His throne into the Abyss; formed of heavenly dew, it was sundered by God's breath and inscribed in black fire, then delivered on the Sabbath into Moses' hands, who read the letters from the reverse side through the transparent jewel. The Ten Commandments are described as ten gems, and the decad is linked to the Pythagorean tetractys. Because of Israelite idolatry, Moses destroyed the sapphire tables and substituted two rough stone tablets bearing ten ancient letters, the former relating to the Tree of Life, the latter to the Tree of Good and Evil. The two tables are said to stand for oral and written tradition, and for superior and inferior worlds; authorities differ on their size and substance, some claiming sedr wood. Greek and Egyptian processional arks are noted, then the Israelite Ark containing manna, the budding rod, and the Tablets; in Solomon's house only the Tablets remained. Hargrave Jennings is quoted on the Commandments in two columns, Law and Prophets, masculine and feminine, linked to Jachin and Boaz, the brass pillars with bowls of fire and water, and to Cancer and Capricorn. Moses Maimonides divides productions into Nature and art. The Tannaim alone understood the Commandments. The pillars signify Mercy and Severity, with the High Priest standing between them. The Holy Grail section follows: Michael strikes the Lapis Exilis from Lucifer's crown; Joseph of Arimathea catches Christ's blood and carries the relics away; Parsifal, as Preston John, bears the Cup to India. Interpretations by Albert G. Mackey and James Russell Lowell are cited. Ensouled statues, oracular and musical stones, lithomancy by Helena, the Westminster stone, Heliogabalus, and the Caaba stone follow. Then metals as gods' bones per Manetho, hermæ, the four Ages and Yugas with Ullamudeian's calculation, Blavatsky on Orpheus and sapphires, magical rings from Plato, Josephus, Aristotle, Agrippa, and Apollonius, Éliphas Lévi's daily regalia, and tables of planetary and zodiacal stones.

The text opens with a warning that the mortal who accepts circulated stories literally will discover, at cost of sanity and health, that sorcery and philosophy have nothing in common. It notes that the Persian Magi carried mirrors as an emblem of the material sphere, and lists three meanings of the crystal ball: the Universal Egg, Deity before immersion in matter, and the ætheric sphere of the world. A caption on the Pythagorean signet ring reports that the Pythagoreans associated the number five with healing and the pentagram with health; Mackey is quoted saying the disciples of Pythagoras placed the letters of ΥΓΕΙΑ or SALUS in the angles, used it in epistle greetings, and that it served throughout the East as a charm against evil spirits. Meteors are described as tokens of divine favor; marked stones are cited, including a Chinese marble slab resembling a dragon and the Oberammergau stone resembling the face of Christ. Ceremonial magic is then defined as invoking and controlling spirits by formulæ. The text states that black magicians of Atlantis corrupted the Egyptian Mysteries, established a sacerdotal caste, made the Pharaoh a puppet of the Scarlet Council, destroyed keys to wisdom, mutilated rituals, and introduced idolatry. Medieval Qabbalists are said to have practiced magic founded on King Solomon's formula, some straying into demonism. Examples given are Napoleon Bonaparte's little red demon, the oracular heads of de Medici, and the dæmon of Socrates, which deserted him at his death sentence. Éliphas Lévi's invocation of Apollonius of Tyana is questioned. Four premises of black magic are listed, followed by remarks on Baphomet, the Goat of Mendes, and the astral light. Dr. Johannes Faustus is described hatching eggs with his mantle, being recovered dry from water, and being found slain with a knife. An extract from his 1524 book recounts his pact with the spirit Asteroth, his rejection of Marbuel and Aniguel as too slow, and his acceptance of Aciel, swift as human thought; it lists Aciel, Aniguel, Marbuel, Aciebel, Machiel, and Baruel with their forms and powers, describes the spring-root and the woodpecker, and gives instructions for drawing three concentric circles. A caption details Lévi's magical sword. After passages on the magician's later terror, vampirism and werewolves, and a magic circle illustration, the text reproduces from The Complete Book of Magic Science an Opening Prayer to God requesting a spirit of Jupiter, an Invocation of Zadkiel and Pabiel, Interrogatories in which Pabiel answers "Yes" and names himself, and a License to Depart.

The passage opens mid-instruction on the magical circle, stating that in a retired part of a house the circle may remain for future use but the room must be locked against strangers, and identifies the foregoing agreement as ceremonial magic. It then distinguishes black magic, in which the magician, not the demon, signs the pact with his own blood, since "he controls the soul who controls the blood of another"; the demon eventually wins the battle of wits and works to prevent the magician from fulfilling his part. The spirit, evoked by a conjurer within his circle, first demands the magician's body and soul after fifty years. An inserted plate description from Levi's Transcendental Magic explains the pentagram as the figure of the microcosm, the one rising out of the four, the "Star of the morning," marking five centers of force. If the magician refuses, the spirit proposes he give alms on Fridays in the name of Lucifer; refusing again, terms are negotiated until a pact is reached promising Lucifuge a human soul yearly in exchange for treasures, signed in blood. Notes follow on inverted figures signifying perverted power, a quotation from Paracelsus defending seals and characters, a description of a pact form with the Spirit of Jupiter from The Complete Book of Magic Science, and a plate of the pentacles of the seven planets. Black magic is said to have no symbols of its own, only inverted white-magic ones; the pentagram's three distortions are listed, with the names "sign of the cloven hoof" and "Goat of Mendes." The next chapter credits Paracelsus with occult pneumatology, describing each element as twofold, quoting Henry Drummond on protoplasm, and naming the four elementals: gnomes, undines, sylphs, salamanders. It cites ancient beliefs in nymphs and fauns, the dæmon of Socrates with Thomas Taylor's note, historical and literary instances, Paracelsus on transubstantial flesh and composita, elemental ethers, lifespans, and mortality. The gnomes are then treated at length—pygmies, tree sprites, their labors, king Gob, assignment to the North, gnomides, brownies—followed by St. Jerome's satyr, and the beginning of the undines.

The text describes undines inhabiting waterfalls, rivers, fens, and mountain lakes, noting the ancient belief that every fountain had its nymph and every ocean wave its oceanid, and listing names such as oreades, nereides, naiades, mermaids, and potamides. Undines resemble humans in size, sometimes associate with men and women, but return to the realm of Neptune; little is known of male undines. A Celtic legend places a semi-divine race in Ireland's marshes. Undines work with vital liquids, honor their ruler Necksa, hold the western corner of creation, and are linked to the West Wind. The salamanders follow: fire spirits without whom material fire cannot exist, evoked by friction, contacted through incense vapors. Paracelsus is quoted on salamanders as fiery balls; the Abbé de Villars is cited holding Zarathustra son of Vesta and the salamander Oromasis. The Acthnici subdivision appears as St. Elmo's fire. Their ruler is Djin; their corner is the South. The sylphs inhabit an ethereal air; Socrates is quoted from Plato's Phædo, and Anthony Todd Thomson on Fairies and Elves. Sylphs shape snowflakes, are led by Paralda, and females are called sylphids. Notes follow on mermaids and on sylphs inspiring the Muses; sylphs hold the eastern corner. General observations cover elemental warfare, the four fixed zodiac signs assigned to the kingdoms, the Church's use of "demon," elementals' lack of immortality, and the incubus and succubus, defined by Paracelsus as parasitical, plus the vampire, with a quotation from De Ente Spirituali. The Count de Gabalis lists offspring of human-elemental unions. The second part treats healing as priestly secret science, quotes Plato's Statesman, cites Clemens Alexandrinus, Hermes, the Smaragdine Tablet, and Hippocrates' separation of medicine, then expounds Paracelsus—his travels, quoted defenses, criticism of physicians from the Paragranum—and the doctrine of archæus, quoting Éliphas Lévi and James Gaffarel, whose passage breaks off mid-sentence.

The span opens with a quotation from Unheard-of Curiosities Concerning Talismanical Sculpture of the Persians, citing de la Violette's account of a Polish physician of Cracovia who kept herb ashes in glasses; held over a candle, the ashes of a rose rise, form a dark cloud, and reconstitute the shape of a rose. Paracelsus is described as treating derangements of the etheric double, and as naming the vehicle of the archæus the mumia, of which ether is the most universal form. Von Helmont, the Belgian alchemist credited with the term gas, tastes the root of A--- and reports thinking and feeling with the stomach rather than the head for two hours, never reproducing the effect. The text attributes this to paralysis of the cerebrospinal system. Paracelsus is quoted that life is contained in the Mumia, and his method of transferring diseased mumia to plants or animals is described. Seven Hermetic causes of disease are listed in order: evil spirits; derangement between spiritual and material natures; abnormal mental attitude; Karma; the motion and aspects of heavenly bodies; misuse of faculty; foreign substances. Seven corresponding treatments follow: spells and invocations; vibration; talismans; herbs; prayer; regulated diet; practical medicine. Paracelsus gathers dew at Hohenheim under certain planetary configurations. P. Davidson's tribute to plants is quoted from The Mistletoe and Its Philosophy; Culpeper, who died in 1654, is described and quoted on opposing diseases by herbs of opposite planets. Barrett's Magus is quoted on collyriums; poisons, the Borgias, and Egyptian clairvoyance-inducing drugs are discussed. Blavatsky is quoted from Isis Unveiled, Salverte from The Occult Sciences on preparatory drinks, and Hassan Sabbah's Assassins are mentioned. De Monte-Snyders' seven chemical syllables forming the materia prima are described. The span closes on Egyptian and Brahmin vibrotherapeutics, the Book of Coming Forth by Day, A.U.M., and the loss of ancient records.

Albert Pike, quoting Transcendental Magic in Morals and Dogma, praises the Kabalah's elements: ten ciphers, twenty-two letters, a triangle, square, and circle. The text then divides Hebrew theology into the law, the Mishna, and the Qabbalah, the last reserved for the highest initiates. Certain Jewish mystics hold that Moses ascended Mount Sinai three times for forty days each, receiving the written law, then its soul, then the Qabbalah, concealing these in the first four books of the Pentateuch. Qabbalism's origin is called controversial: angels were said to teach Adam through Raziel, with Tophiel teaching Shem, Raphael Isaac, Metatron Moses, Michael David. Christian D. Ginsburg is quoted on transmission from Adam through Noah, Abraham, Egypt, Moses, the seventy Elders, David and Solomon. Éliphas Lévi names three chief books: Sepher Yetzirah, Sepher ha Zohar, Apocalypse. Attributions and dates are discussed, including Rabbi Akiba, Simeon ben Jochai's twelve years in a cave with Elias, his death, and Moses de León's later publication. Qabbalism's influence on medieval thought and its links to alchemy, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry are noted, with illustrations of the seventy-two names of God. Five divisions follow: Natural, Analogical, Contemplative, Astrological, and Magical Qabbalah. Five English translations of the Sepher Yetzirah are listed before the text is given in six chapters: thirty-two paths, ten Sephiroth and twenty-two letters; the sealing of six directions with the Great Name; three Mother letters, seven Double, twelve Simple, assigned to universe, year, and man; planets, days, senses, zodiac, months, organs; and finally Abraham's covenant of tongue and circumcision.

The text opens by stating that the Qabbalists conceive of the Supreme Deity as an Incomprehensible Principle reached by eliminating all cognizable attributes; what remains is AIN SOPH, the eternal state of Being, which permeates all space and is without substance, essence, or intelligence. AIN SOPH is likened to a field of rich earth from which plants—universes, gods, and man—rise and to which they return. It is called The Most Ancient of all the Ancients, is sexless, and its symbol is a closed eye. Its nature is symbolized by a circle; centralization is described as the first step toward limitation, and the enclosed sphere is called the Kosmic Egg, unbroken until the day "Be With Us." In creation, the diffused life retires from circumference to center, establishing a point and leaving behind the Abyss, or Great Privation. Isaac Myer is quoted describing this concentration producing the Abyss, Aveer Qadmon, or Azoth. The text then describes man's Auric Egg as the AIN SOPH sphere of man, within which births, deaths, and rebirths occur. The Qabbalistic system of worlds follows: forty spheres emanate from AIN SOPH; AIN, AIN SOPH, and AIN SOPH AUR are distinguished. The Zohar is quoted on the Concealed making a single point, named I AM, Eheieh. Christian D. Ginsberg's names for the dot are given. The letter Shin is said to signify Kether, Chochmah, and Binah. Kether radiates nine globes forming the Sephiroth, reflected through four worlds: Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah, Assiah. Each world's ten spheres are listed in order—divine names from Eheieh to Adonai Melekh; archangels from Metatron to Sandalphon; hierarchies from Chaioth Ha Kadosh to the Ishim; and spheres from Rashith Ha-Galagalum through Cholom Yosodoth. Kircher's insertion of the Empyrean is noted. Assiah contains demons, called shells, and ten Archdemons; a closing chart description states each ring includes those within it.

The text states that A 1, the primitive dot, controls and contains the thirty-nine rings it encloses, so that the area from A 1 to D 10 is the original dot, with rings marking divisions and emanations within AIN SOPH. Power decreases toward the center, A 1 controlling thirty-nine rings and B 1 only twenty-nine; spiritual permanence lies at the circumference and material density at the center, D 10 symbolizing the chemical elements of earth, with vibration rates also declining inward. A 1 is nonetheless less than the three rings of AIN SOPH, X 1, X 2, X 3. The ten orders of demons and Archdemons of Assiah are listed in descending order from D 1 to D 10: Thaumiel with Satan and Moloch; Chaigidiel with Adam Belial; Satharial with Lucifuge; Gamchicoth with Astaroth; Golab with Asmodeus; Togarini with Belphegor; Harab Serap with Baal Chanan; Samael with Adramelek; Gamaliel with Lilith; Nahemoth with Nahema. The worlds are said to follow Ezekiel's vision, the man, throne, firmament, and living creatures signifying Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah, Assiah. A World Man is placed in each world, and a universal man from A 1 to D 10, linked to Nebuchadnezzar's dream and the Grand Man of the Zohar. Éliphas Lévi is quoted at length on the science of equilibrium, the face of God over the waters, the number six, Pascal's circle, and the Sepher Yetzirah's thirty-two symbols. Man at D 10 exists on four worlds; death is described as deflection of higher life impulses. The Fifty Gates of Light are enumerated in six orders, Kircher declaring Moses passed forty-nine and Christ alone the fiftieth. The Tree of the Sephiroth is then described: ten globes, three columns, twenty-two channels, the number 32, Adam Kadmon, Franck's glass bowls, the Sephiroth with their planets, Blavatsky's three heads, and the five later divisions including Macroprosophus and Microprosophus, followed by notes on Fludd and Kircher's diagrams.

The text opens by describing the Lesser Face as symbolized by the six-pointed star of Zion and the six faces of the cube, representing six directions and the first six days of Creation; MacGregor-Mathers is noted as including Binah among the parts of Microprosophus, making it septenary. Malchuth is identified as the Bride of Microprosophus, the divine Eve taken from his side. The order of Creation is traced from AIN SOPH through Macroprosophus, whose skull is said to contain thirteen thousand myriads of worlds, and whose scepter is the 22 Hebrew letters. From Kether come Chochmah and Binah, called Abba and Aima, corresponding to the I and first H of IHVH; the Sepher ha Zohar is quoted on male and female equality. Ibn Gebirol's alternate arrangement is noted, Binah's symbol given as the dove, and the added eleventh Sephira Daath explained; Isaac Myer discounts Daath. Microprosophus and Malchuth are placed in Yetzirah and Assiah. The three pillars—central, Jachin, Boaz—are described, the central column's numbers summing to 26. An engraving from Maurice's Indian Antiquities is described. Kircher's Tabernacle ornaments are noted. The Tetragrammaton's letters are analyzed, including the insertion of Shin to form Jehoshua; Éliphas Lévi's 24 dots and Albert Pike's remarks on the True Word are cited. Henrie Stephen's account of a monk shown relics in Jerusalem introduces a discussion of misunderstood symbolism. Gematria, Notarikon, and Temurah are defined with examples from MacGregor-Mathers, St. Augustine's ΙΧΘΥΣ, and the stone shethiyah. Blavatsky and Crawford Howell Toy are quoted on textual corruption. Ezekiel's vision of the Mercavah is described. Finally, Genesis is examined: the seven Elohim divide the waters, and the plural, androgynous Elohim and the word "replenish" are discussed, with encyclopedia opinions cited, closing on Neo-Platonist views of Adam.

Philo Judæus is said to have considered Adam to represent the human mind, able to name creatures but unable to comprehend its own nature; Adam is also likened to the Pythagorean monad, which on becoming the duad was exiled, cherubim and a flaming sword being set at the gates of the Causal World. The Isarim are cited for a doctrine of four Adams in the four Qabbalistic worlds — Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah, and Assiah, the fourth being the third after the fall. Accounts of the substances of Adam's formation follow: the seven worlds refused their substance and the Creator took it by force. St. Augustine finds a Notarikon in A-D-A-M from Anatole, Dysis, Arktos, Mesembria, and likens Adam sleeping while Eve is formed to Christ dying that the Church be formed. George Foote Moore's Judaism is quoted on Adam's huge size and on R. Samuel bar Nahman's statement that God created Adam facing both ways, then sawed him in two. The Zohar's two Adams are described. Eve is presented as the lower, mortal portion and temptress. Mohammed's followers, the Island of Ceylon, Adam's footprint, and burial by Melchizedek at Jerusalem are noted. Adam as Macrocosm and Microcosm, the Demiurgus lacking immortality, and the Gnostic descent of Nous follow. Hargrave Jennings is quoted on phallic symbolism and Noah praying before Adam's body, transmitted from Lamech to Noah. The Notarikon of Adam, David, and Messiah is given, then the shadows of the Elohim, the Temple's forty-six years and Adam's numerical value 46. A caption describes Noah's zodiacal ark from Myer's Qabbalah. Adam's spiritual generation by shadows explains Eve; two theories of the division of the sexes and marriage are compared, with the Church's stance on celibacy criticized. A ritual drama follows: the cherubim bar Adam, Adam answers invoking the Cross, and a serpent declaring itself Satan and Adversary is renounced by Adam, then reveals itself as an angel accomplishing his salvation. The Tarot section cites Singer, Van Rensselaer, Roberts, Court de Gébelin, P. Christian, and Schuré, ending with Rota Mundi and the anagram Taro.

W. F. C. Wigston is said to have found evidence that Sir Francis Bacon used Tarot symbolism in his ciphers, the numbers 21, 56, and 78 recurring in Bacon's cryptograms, and Bacon's Christian name appearing 21 times on page 56 of the Histories in the 1623 Shakespearian Folio. The text states Masonic, Pythagorean, Qabbalistic, and alchemical interest in the cards, compares them to the Greek letters placed on the Logos, and lists three ways the cards must be considered: as separate hieroglyphs, in relation to each other, and as vowels and consonants of a philosophic alphabet. Éliphas Lévi is quoted on an imprisoned person acquiring universal knowledge from the Tarot alone. Disagreements among Court de Gébelin, Grand Etteila, Levi, Waite, Case, Papus, Christian, Westcott, and Schuré are described, including Pamela Coleman Smith's deck. William Andrew Chatto is quoted on Portuguese cards resembling Oriental types, the Danari circle likened to the Chakra of Vichnou; Rosicrucian and Masonic emblems on mediæval decks are noted. Placement of the zero card, Le Mat, is disputed: Levi, Papus, Christian, and Waite place it between the 20th and 21st; Westcott makes it 22nd; Court de Gébelin and Case place it first. Waite is quoted denying valid correspondence between Hebrew letters and trumps. Papus is quoted on Initiates utilizing vice. The trumps are then described in order: Le Bateleur the juggler; La Papesse with the legend of Pope Joan; L'Impératrice the Empress; L'Empereur the Emperor; Le Pape the Pope; L'Amoureux the Lovers; Le Chariot; La Justice (Waite having reversed the eighth and eleventh); L'Hermite the Hermit, linked to Diogenes; La Roue de Fortune with Anubis, Typhon, and the sphinx; La Force with maiden and lion; and Le Pendu, the Hanged Man, associated with Judas Iscariot and, by Levi, with Prometheus.

The text notes the pseudo-Egyptian Tarot's hanged man suspended between two palm trees, signifying the Sun God. It then describes the thirteenth trump, La Mort, a reaping skeleton with a scythe cutting heads, hands, and feet from the earth, having severed one of its own feet; the scythe blade is the moon, the field the universe, and kings, queens, courtesans, and knaves are alike to death; some decks show an armored rider on a white horse; the pseudo-Egyptian version adds a rainbow. The fourteenth, La Temperance, shows an angelic figure with the sun on her forehead pouring water between two urns, the flow sometimes shaped as Aquarius; the spirit is an emissary of Jehovah; the pseudo-Egyptian figure is male, pouring from gold to silver. The fifteenth, Le Diable, is a Pan-like creature on a cubic stone with two chained satyrs and a torch; the pseudo-Egyptian version shows Typhon. The sixteenth, Le Feu du Ciel, shows a crowned tower struck by lightning, two figures falling, gold coins scattering; Levi links it to the letter Ayin. The seventeenth, Les Etoiles, shows a kneeling girl with two urns beneath eight stars; Count de Gébelin identifies the great star as Sothis and the figure as Isis flooding the Nile. The eighteenth, La Lune, shows Luna between two towers with dog, wolf, and crawfish; Court de Gébelin cites Pausanius on the moon goddess's tears and relates the towers to the Pillars of Hercules. An interpolated note lists the fifty subjects of the Mantegna deck, linked to the fifty gates of light. The nineteenth, Le Soleil, shows two children in a walled garden; Levi is quoted on Jakin and Bohas. The twentieth, Le Jugement, shows three figures and a trumpeting winged figure. The twenty-first, Le Monde, shows a female figure forming the sulphur symbol within a vesica-piscis wreath with Ezekiel's Cherubim. The minor trumps are linked to elements, the Tetragrammaton, and social classes; divination is dismissed. Historical playing-card varieties follow, then modern decks as calendrical symbols, Pottenger's claim about the United States, Masonic symbolism in court cards, and chess as a symbolic game with Ormuzd and Ahriman as white and black kings. The final section argues the Pentateuch derives from Egyptian Mystery rituals, quotes Thomas Inman doubting Mosaic authorship and Moses' historicity, and disputes him, treating "Moses" as a title of initiation.

The text opens by noting Moses, initiated in Egypt, taught the Jews a philosophy containing Egyptian esoteric principles, and describes Egypt's religions as older than the Egyptians knew, tracing their divine progenitors to Atlanteans who colonized Egypt. As Odin founded Mysteries in Scandinavia and Quexalcoatl in Mexico, Moses established among Israel's twelve tribes the Tabernacle Mysteries, the Tabernacle being a portable temple patterned on Egyptian models. Moses is said to have given chosen initiates oral teachings, keys called the Qabbalah; Janus, custodian of the key, is said to have been metamorphosed into St. Peter. Socrates' last words to Crito about a cock owed to Asclepius are cited as implying initiation. The account of construction follows Josephus's Antiquities, with Bible quotations from a 1599 "Breeches" Bible. Moses appointed Besaleel, son of Uri, of Judah, and Aholiab, son of Ahisamach, of Dan; Jacob's deathbed blessing assigned Judah a lion and Dan a serpent or bird. Exodus xxv is quoted on the offerings. The court's dimensions, brazen pillars, brass bases and silver capitals, eastward entrance, Altar of Burnt Offerings, and Laver of Purification are described, then the Tabernacle's measurements per Josephus, the Holy Place with Candlestick, Table of Shewbread, and Altar of Burnt Incense, and the Holy of Holies with the Ark. Josephus is said to hint at a third compartment. The Baraitha is quoted on curtains; Rabbi Judah on two covers; Calmet on "badger" meaning dark purple; a rejected Jewish book on the Shechinah. Furnishings are then interpreted as analogous to the human body. Josephus is quoted at length on the symbolism of divisions, loaves, candlestick, veils, and priestly vestments. Metals, the three divisions as Masonic degrees, Hawaiian and Great Pyramid parallels follow. The priests' garments—Machanese, Chethone, Masnaemphthes—and the High Priest's Meeir are described last.

The text quotes Ecclesiasticus on the golden bells and pomegranates that sounded as the priest walked, then describes the Meeir's embroidered girdle and the Ephod, which Josephus likens to a coat, woven in many colors with gold wire and fastened at the shoulders by two onyx buttons engraved with the names of the twelve sons of Jacob, six on each. The right stone's illumination signified Jehovah's affirmative answer, the left a negative. The Essen, or Breastplate of Righteousness and Prophecy, held twelve stones in gold sockets; Josephus writes that God declared victory beforehand through their splendor and that the Greeks called the breastplate "the Oracle," adding that the stones ceased to shine two hundred years before he wrote. The stones are linked to the zodiac, the Macroprosophus called The Ancient of Days in the Zohar, the number twelve among ancient peoples, and centers of life within the priests. The Rabbis taught each linen thread had twenty-four strands. The Urim and Thummim, kept in a pocket behind the breastplate, are variously explained as stones, dice, or written names; Gardner's The Faiths of the World compares them to Re and Themi. The High Priest's bonnet, blue cloth and threefold golden crown inscribed "Holiness unto the Lord," bore a golden flower-cup. He entered the Holy of Holies unclothed, with a chain tied to his foot. Plates describe the headdress and the Ark's Cherubim, which Josephus calls indescribable. The chapter then poses questions about the Rosicrucians and outlines four theories. The First Postulate summarizes the Fama Fraternitatis: C.R.C., placed in a cloister at five, traveled toward the Holy Land, studied at Damascus, then Damcar at sixteen, translating the book M; then Fez, then Spain, where he was ridiculed; returning to Germany he called three brethren, founding the Fraternity, later eight members, the "House of the Holy Spirit," and six rules. His tomb, a seven-sided illuminated vault marked POST CXX ANNOS PATEBO, was found 120 years later with his preserved body. The Second Postulate notes Macoy's attribution to Johann Valentin Andreæ, Higgins's Anacalypsis, suspicions concerning Bacon and Goethe, pseudo-Rosicrucians, and Hartmann's definitions.

The span opens by noting Rosicrucian charts and diagrams, the Brethren's binding by mutual aspiration, their unobtrusive lives, the absence of a central meeting place after C.R.C.'s death, and the unrevealed initiatory ritual. Under "The Crucified Rose" the original symbol is described—a rose crucified on a cross, sometimes on a three-stepped Calvary—linked to King Arthur's Round Table and the Order of the Garter, which Hargrave Jennings suspects of connection. The Order chose its own disciples, contacting them by sealed letters marked "C.R.C." or "R.C.," by visits to alchemists' laboratories, or through dreams and visions, binding them to secrecy. Comparisons follow to the lotus; Dante; Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma; Godfrey Higgins on Ros (dew), Ras, Rus; A. E. Waite on dew and the Philosopher's Stone; the cross as body held by three nails. Waite's Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Robert Fludd, Frank C. Higgins, the Encyclopædia Britannica on Ashmole's 1646 initiation, and Papus link Rosicrucianism to Freemasonry. The rose's symbolism is expounded: ten petals, the heart, Greek dawn, Apuleius regaining human shape by eating a rose given by Egyptian priests, and Luther's escutcheon. A second theory holds Freemasonry an outgrowth of Rosicrucianism, citing headquarters near Carlsbad, the Bohemian Brothers, the 18th degree, an anonymous manuscript foretelling Brothers of the Lily Cross, and political activity by Bacon, St.-Germain, and Cagliostro. The third postulate denies the Order's existence, questioning Andreæ's authorship; defenders include Philalethes, Maier, Heydon, and Fludd; literary treatments include Zanoni and Comte de Gabalis. The fourth postulate is transcendental: adepts functioning in astral form, Andreæ's crest of four red roses and white cross, drawing the nails through three alchemical initiations, the eagle passage from the Confessio, St.-Germain identified with Rosencreutz, and Heindel's etheric temple. The section closes summarizing Confessio Fraternitatis chapters I–V.

The text opens with declarations that the governments of Europe shall be reformed after the system of the philosophers of Damcar, that all who desire knowledge shall receive as much as they can understand, and that false theology shall be overthrown. A note on a rare print of Johann Valentin Andreæ reports rumors that his personality masked an emissary of the Rose Cross, compares his face with that of Sir Francis Bacon, cites the crescent (used on Bacon's crest as second son of Sir Nicholas Bacon) and the letters O MDC yielding 33 by a Baconian cipher. Chapters VII–XIV of the Confessio follow: Father C.R.C. was born in 1378 and died at 106; the Fraternity is open to sincere seekers and protected by God; a great flood of spiritual light shall come before the world's end, credited not to the Fraternity; new stars in Serpentarius and Cygnus signal a Council of the Elect, with the analogy of two eyes, nostrils, and ears but one tongue; a magic writing copied from the divine alphabet, like the tongue of Adam and Enoch, is described; students are exhorted to search the Sacred Scriptures; statements about transmutation of metals and the universal medicine are to be lightly understood, and the Christian Church is accused of misusing power; pseudo-alchemists, including "a stage player," are condemned; readers are invited to join; and warnings close the confession. A description follows of de Bry's diagram from Fludd's Collectio Operum, with Fludd's dates 1574–1637, and comments by De Quincey and Edward Waite. Under FRATERNITAS R.C., references in The Anatomy of Melancholy by Democritus junior (Robert Burton) are cited, including the footnote "Joh. Valent. Andreas, Lord Verulam." John Heydon's and Thomas Vaughan's accounts of Rosicrucian powers are quoted. Three objects of the Fraternity are listed: abolition of monarchy, reformation of science and philosophy, and discovery of the Universal Medicine—with notes on the Turbæ Philosophorum, Michael Maier's Viatorium, Elias Ashmole's testimony, and the three mountains Sophia, Qabbalah, and Magia.

The span opens with the statement that the mount bearing the House of the Rosy Cross remains hidden in clouds, followed by Michael Maier's assertion that the Fama and Confessio are true, that objecting to unfulfilled promises is childish, that many are called but few chosen, and that the masters hold out the rose as remote prize while imposing the cross on entrants; citations to Maier's Silentium post Clamores and De Quincey are given. A plate description of "The Elementary World" from Musæum Hermeticum Reformatum et Amplificatum enumerates its fifteen circles, from the Zodiac outward figures through elements, planetary orbits and angels, the twelve arts and sciences, Nature, and the closing statement that an angel is appointed to each faithful soul at birth. The text notes rose and cross imagery at Lichfield Chapter House, where Walter Conrad Arensberg believes Lord Bacon and his mother buried, and a crucified rose watermark in the 1628 Anatomy of Melancholy. It identifies rose as female and cross as male, names Thomas Inman, Hargrave Jennings, and Richard Payne Knight as observing their generative sense, and says the Rosicrucians and Templars were falsely accused of obscene rites. The text then reports that Hargrave Jennings reproduced five Qabbalistic charts without explanation, and that these belong to a series of fifteen in the writings of Georgius von Welling, published at Frankfort and Leipzig, 1735 and 1760. Lucifer is called the greatest mystery of symbolism and given the number 741. Tables I–X are then described in sequence: Table I's Ptolemaic chart with Schamayim, Ares, and the Reservoir, plus elemental and spiritual symbols; Table II's sphere and cube, salt, the sevenfold multiplications ending at 5,764,801, and the characters of metals and substances through sal tartar; Table III's days of creation; Table IV's tomb of Christian Rosencreutz with Orifelis and Lucifer's throne; Table V's Jupiter/Sachasiel version and Lucifer's fall producing Chaos; Table VI's chaos, elemental regions, Beelzebub, and Eden; Table VII's sulphur, vitriol, Copernican system, and last judgment; Table VIII's center of eternity and Ungrund; Table IX's Old and New Testament synthesis with the two Trees; Table X is named without description.

The text describes plates of diagrams. Figure 10 shows the New Jerusalem as a cube bearing the twelve tribes of Israel on its lines, with the eye of God at center and words from the Book of Revelation around the outer circle; Figures 11–15 are said to be possibly cipher symbols of the angels of the plagues, the Antichrist, the beast of Babylon, and the woman riding the beast. Table XI's Figure 1 gives the solar system according to Genesis, with the dot of Eternity and the Schamayim; Figures 2–11 cover the globe and zodiac, the Universal Mercury in mercury, sulphur, and salt, saltpetre, planetary angles, the Microcosm inscribed "Know thyself," and a universal character, with Figures 8, 9, and 10 left to the reader. Table XII covers a Mirror of Astrological Aspects, an alchemical formula reading "Out of one in all is all," comparative sizes of suns and planets, the solar system with spiritual heavens, creation out of the ring of Divine Eternity, the division of the waters, and the mercury of the philosophers. Table XIII presents Ain Soph, the three Divine Principles with Crown, Wisdom, and Understanding, the Trinity's outflow naming Lucifer, and Lucifer's abode. Tables XIV and XV show the triangle in a cross with the Secrets of Elohim and of Nature, the Road to Paradise, the earth before the flood, the Secret of Nature, and the point of rest signifying the Great Work. The text then asks whether transmutation is possible, defends alchemists' sanity, lists names including Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, and St.-Germain, quotes Albert Pike on Hermetic gold, reproduces the Act of William and Mary repealing Henry IV's statute, and cites Dr. Franz Hartmann on Wenzel Seiler's medal transmuted before Emperor Leopold I. It recounts the life of Paracelsus—his travels, medical reformation, enemies, death, and epitaph—quoting Professor John Maxson Stillman and A. M. Stoddart, with an inserted note on Albertus Magnus, his Android destroyed by St. Thomas Aquinas, and his midwinter garden feast, closing with Solomon Trismosin.

The text opens with Trismosin, said to have lived to 150 through alchemy, and quotes his Alchemical Wanderings on studying what one is. It then treats Raymond Lully, born about 1235, son of a seneschal to James the First of Aragon: his pursuit of Donna Ambrosia Eleanora Di Castello, who exposes her cancer to him; his renunciation, visions of Christ, study of Arabic, stabbing by his Mohammedan servant, and instruction in alchemy by Arnold of Villa Nova. Twice expelled from Tunis, he is invited by Edward the Second and Robert Bruce; an article from Household Words relates that John Cremer, Abbot of Westminster, brings him to England, receives the powder from him, and presents him to Edward, for whom Lully transmutes fifty thousand pounds weight of quicksilver, lead, and tin in the Tower. Edward breaks faith; Lully escapes in 1315, is stoned at Tunis, and dies near Majorca aged eighty-one. A note explains Cremer as a fictitious name, illustrating pseudonymous and invented alchemical personalities. Nicholas Flammel's own account follows: purchase of the Book of Abraham the Jew for two florins, its twenty-one leaves, its figures of Mercury, the winged old man, the flower, the rose tree, and the slaughtered infants; his wife Perrenella shares his study; Master Canches explains the hieroglyphics but dies at Orleans, after which Flammel achieves transmutation and conceals the formula in St. Innocent's churchyard. Count Bernard of Treviso, born 1406, searches from age fourteen and succeeds near seventy-six, naming dissolution by mercury the supreme secret. Part 1 calls alchemy and astrology the two oldest sciences, revealed to Adam; discusses Khem, Hermes Trismegistus and the Emerald, Alexander and the trees of the Sun and Moon, Atlantis, Chinese alchemists Ko Hsuan and Wei Po-yang, Bacstrom's four operations, the seven spheres and metals, mercury as Universal Medicine, and quotations from Paracelsus, Eliphas Levi, a Stone recipe, Hartmann, and Pernetus.

In his Key to Alchemy, Samuel Norton divides the alchemical processes into fourteen parts, listed in order: solution, filtration, evaporation, distillation, separation, rectification, calcination, commixtion, purification through putrefaction, inhibition, fermentation, fixation, multiplication, and projection, the last defined as turning base metals into gold. The text then states that the Great Arcanum was prized by the Atlantean priestcraft; when Atlas sank, hierophants of the Fire Mystery carried the formula to Egypt, whence it passed to Europe. Others trace the art to the two hundred angels described by the Prophet Enoch rather than to Hermes and his Emerald Tablet. Egypt, called "the black empire," gives alchemy the name "the black art." During the Middle Ages alchemy served as philosophy, science, and religion, gold-making allegory shielding rebels from persecution. Alchemy is described as threefold, symbolized by a triangle, 3 times 3, linked to the 33rd degree of Freemasonry. It is called the science of multiplication based on growth; examples include the mustard seed, the seed of gold in base metals, regeneration in man, transmutation in matter, and wisdom imparted to the ignorant but not to an idiot. Growth proceeds by Nature or by art; Dr. A. Dee is quoted from his Chemical Collections on Nature and Art embracing. James Campbell Brown's History of Chemistry is quoted listing seven aims: philosopher's stone, homunculi, alcahest, palingenesis, spiritus mundi, quintessence, and aurum potabile. Symbolism follows: mercury, sulphur, salt, plus Azoth; Herr von Welling is quoted on their triune nature and on Schamayim, and on Lucifer's misuse of the Divine Fire. Elias Ashmole is quoted on concealment; Dr. Hartmann's reading of Solomon's wives, concubines, and virgins is given. Tables of the triune power in four worlds, Paracelsus's arrangement, alchemical emblems, the four corners of creation, and Masonic correspondences follow. The text closes on death and putrefaction, naming Jesus, Hiram, Orpheus, Christna, and Osiris, and describes the red elixir, called the peacock, which may explode or seep through glass.

The text states that the properly developed universal solvent dissolves all metals and becomes a liquid fire, which when digested and augmented yields a transmuting medicine. Quoting The True Way of Nature by Hermes Trismegistus, given out by the Freemason I.C.H., it warns that multiplication completes at the ninth rotation. It notes seven stages in that work versus twelve in the Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermétique, listing the twelve from Aries/Calcination to Pisces/Projection, and links them to the twelve Rosicrucian degrees and the twelve Fellow Craftsmen seeking the murdered Builder. Solomon Trismosin's twenty-two stages are tied to the Tarot's major cards and the Hebrew letters. Dr. Franz Hartmann is cited as reading the Song of Solomon as an alchemical formula, with verse references. Per an appendix to Herr von Welling's work, the Stone cast on water forms a miniature universe. The text says minerals too may be tinctured, that the work exists in four worlds, and that one ingredient lies in the alchemist's own nature; Hartmann's footnote warns non-alchemists away, requiring "magnesia." An initiate and an uninitiated using identical methods would differ in result; rebirth precedes the Great Work, and further speech on this is forbidden. Part 2 gives a prayer by an unknown German adept to the Trinity for transmutation. It then describes adepts, Masters, secret transmission to a "philosophical son," the Brethren, and long-lived wanderers. The Emerald Table of Hermes follows, with Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom's translation and notes—Bacstrom initiated by Comte de Chazal—concerning Chiram Telat Machasot. Finally, Eugenius Philalethes' Lumen de Lumine supplies a letter from the Brothers of R.C. on the invisible magical mountain.

The text opens with a Rosicrucian document complaining that most men revile the Fama and Confessio Fraternitatis, or demand gold-making from the Brothers so as to live pompously, make wars, and sin; the Brothers cite the Ten Virgins, where the five foolish demanded oil of the five wise, say each man must labor for the treasure himself, stop their ears against those crying for gold, and leave their slanderers to God's judgment. Having noted the addressee's diligence in Holy Scripture, they answer him. They describe a mountain at the center of the earth, small and great, near and far, invisible, holding treasures, ringed by cruel beasts and ravenous birds through the devil's envy. They instruct the addressee to go there on a long dark night, prepare by prayer, ask no man the way, follow an unknown Guide who brings him at midnight, take courage and no weapons. There will come a great wind, lions and dragons, an earthquake, then a fire consuming rubbish; near daybreak a calm, the Day-Star, and the treasure, chiefly an exalted tincture that turns things to gold, restores youth, yields pearls, and must not be abused lest the Guide forsake him. Hall comments that this allegory may be an initiatory ritual, notes Paracelsus collected celestial energies in dew, and warns the processes are for the instructed. There follows the deathbed letter of the philosopher of Leyden (1662), subscribed in blood, to his cousin and son, adjuring secrecy, humility, and honor to the Creator. The process directs use of sea salt and dew-water gathered on glass plates at the full Moon. Hall explains solar and lunar rays crystallizing into virgin earth, quotes von Welling on rotting sealed water, and quotes Eugenius Philalethes' Lumen de Lumine on the Mountains of the Moon, Lunaria, and Hali the Arabian. The Leyden process continues through putrefaction, coagulation repeated to the fifth time, yielding the Mercury of the philosophers; five drops taken inwardly open knowledge. Von Welling is cited on universal salt as alkahest. Gold or silver is then dissolved, projected upon metals, and multiplied. The letter closes at Leyden, 27 March 1662.

The text opens by presenting the manuscript as an actual example of alchemical writing, calling its text as enigmatic as its diagrams. An unknown person through whose hands the manuscript passed is quoted describing it as of preeminent importance to Rosicrucians and Freemasons, noting its portraits of teachers and satirical representations of bunglers, its color development from blue-gold through black to white and rose, and its concern with the change in human beings rather than the making of gold. Ten bottles not reproduced are then described in sequence: the first, "Our Quicksilver"; the second, urging that the corporeal become incorporeal; the third, "Blackness showing through the Head of the Raven"; the fourth, "The Head of the Raven"; the fifth, "Sixth Raven's Head," where worms are born; the sixth, "Seventh Raven's Head," beside which a child called Elixir sits; the seventh, black blacker than black; the eighth, the great whiteness completed; the ninth, bearing a white rose saying "He who blanches me makes me red"; and the tenth, the blood-red Elixir with a red rose. The author's dedication prays to the Holy Spirit and names St. Thomas Aquinas, Raymond Lully, and Arnold of Villa Nova as sources. Hall states that medieval alchemists used Christian terminology to avoid persecution, that Mohammedans held Hermetic secrets and Paracelsus drew from them, and that alchemy and Qabbalism share a common end. The twenty-six leaves are then described in order, covering the Philosopher's Stone's material, St. Thomas Aquinas and Raymond Lully, Saturn and Mercury with Albertus Magnus, the three Mercuries, the sun-bird and earth-serpent, the Paschal Virgin, stone-breaking figures, Morienus and the salamander, Count Bernard of Treviso, the ladder of primitive matter, Hermes and Christopher of Paris, Aristotle, Paracelsus, the elements I A A T, the Lord's Prayer and furnace, the Queen and her sons, and finally the King's head, griffon, headless world figure, and Hermetic Seal.

The text opens with editorial framing: Johann Valentin Andreæ, born in Württemberg in 1586, is the self-admitted author of The Chemical Marriage, which makes the earliest known reference to Christian Rosencreutz and is regarded as the third Rosicrucian manifesto; a summary of the seven days follows. First Day: Christian Rosencreutz, praying before Easter, is disturbed by a storm and touched by a winged woman with eyes on her wings, who hands him a letter of invitation to a royal wedding and ascends blowing a trumpet. He dreams of a dungeon from which a hoary-headed man lowers a rope; C.R.C. is drawn out, the Ancient Matron records the names, and gold pieces are given. He dresses in white with a red ribbon, four roses, bread, water and salt, and departs. Second Day: he passes three cedars naming four paths, loses his bread to a dove attacked by a raven, and takes the southward road; he trades water and salt for tokens at two gates, squeezes through the third gate past Virgo Lucifera, is shorn, and joins the banquet. Virgo Lucifera announces a weighing; nine, including C.R.C., remain bound; he dreams of men suspended by threads. Third Day: the weighing occurs; C.R.C. outweighs all, frees the first emperor, and gives Virgo Lucifera his roses. He sees the Royal Sepulcher, library and globe, solves her riddle, and the Duchess directs the hanging of the weights. Fourth Day: the guests ascend 365 steps to the King and Queen; Old Atlas greets them; a comedy in seven acts is played; the six royal persons and the Moorish executioner are beheaded. Fifth Day: C.R.C. views Venus's body, the coffins are buried, and all sail to the Tower of Olympus to labor in the laboratory. Sixth Day: lots give C.R.C. a ladder; the guests ascend to the royal bodies. The text breaks off with plate descriptions.

Virgo Lucifera places the Moor's head in a kettle atop the fountain, pours on the prepared substances, and the boiling liquid dissolves the six royal bodies, which drain into a golden globe. Guests ascend to the third floor, where mirrors heat the globe; cut open with a diamond it yields a white egg, which Virgo Lucifera carries off. On the fourth floor the egg hatches an ugly bird, fed with the royal blood; its feathers turn black, white, then varicolored. On the fifth floor the bird bathes until its feathers fall away, leaving a blue stone made into pigment used to paint the bird. On the sixth floor the bird drinks at an altar fountain, feeds on white serpent's blood, and lays its neck on the book to be beheaded; its ashes are boxed in cypress. Virgo Lucifera calls C.R.C. and three comrades lazy "labourators" and has musicians blow them out; the musicians lead them to the eighth floor, where the old warden welcomes them. Virgo Lucifera substitutes false ashes in the box. The four mold the true ashes into two four-inch homunculi, fed with the bird's blood until full-sized; trumpets admit rays of light three times into each body, ensouling them. The young King and Queen awaken, receive white garments, and the King thanks C.R.C. before departing by ship. On the seventh day each guest is named Knight of the Golden Stone and given a medal. The company sails back in twelve ships. The blue-clad porter begs release; the King explains he is an astrologer punished for gazing on Lady Venus. Knights subscribe to five articles; C.R.C. hangs up his Golden Fleece and inscribes his name, dated 1459, then confesses and is assigned the porter's post. The text breaks off mid-sentence. Hall then interprets the marriage as spiritual culture, society as church, state, populace, the kings as threefold spirit, the tower's floors as planetary orbits. Turning to the Bacon–Shakspere question, Hall cites W. F. C. Wigston's "Rosicrucian mask," argues Shakspere lacked schooling, library, travel, and languages, notes Ben Jonson's "small Latin and less Greek," Judith's illiteracy per Ignatius Donnelly, the suit against Philip Rogers, and the spelling difference. He presents Bacon as Rosicrucian initiate, quotes Smedley and Rawley, and adduces the cipher number 33, "Francis" repeated, the acrostic BACon in The Tempest, the deleted will clause, Cawdry's simile, and "Hang-hog is latten for Bacon."

The text opens with a caption on a figure from Alciati Emblemata, published in Paris in 1618, noting the hog as Bacon's play on his own name, two pillars of Masonic interest, light and dark shaded A's, and the count of 17 letters matching the numerical value of "F. Baco." It states that "honorificabilitudinitatibus" in Love's Labour's Lost has the numerical equivalent 287, a Rosicrucian signature, and that the New Atlantis title page shows Father Time drawing a female figure from a cave with a Latin inscription about truth revealed in time. Mispaginations are described as cipher keys, with examples from the First and Second Shakespeare Folios, Bacon's Advancement and Proficience of Learning (1640), and Du Bartas' Divine Weeks (1641). A caption on Francis Bacon gives his birth in 1561 and recorded death in 1626, suggests a mock funeral and later life in Germany, and calls him probable son of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester. The biliteral cipher is found in L. Digges' verses in the First Folio through two fonts. A boar marks a pyramidal text in Du Bartas. Gustavus Selenus' 1624 cryptography volume is proposed as key to the Folio. Bacon's Interpretation of Nature is quoted on a sow imprinting the letter A. Watermarks, and Henry William Bearse's 1900 line-and-word cipher in Cymbeline, follow. A headpiece from Ralegh's History of the World is traced through several volumes. The Droeshout portrait is analyzed—mask-line, detached head, reversed coat, 157 letters, the AFBCON rearrangement. Freemasonry is said to descend from medieval secret societies. Ralegh's persecution by King James and his execution are described. Forgeries and the "philosophic death" follow, then Bacon as possible Prometheus, Vigenere's Philostrates, and Alfred Freund's "Spear-Shaker" claim. The chapter then treats cryptography generally, sacred and Hermetic alphabets, Roger Bacon's cipher decoded by Dr. William Romaine Newbold, recommended authors, and Selenus' title page of 1624, attributed to Augustus, Duke of Brunswick.

The span opens describing a plate: a nobleman (possibly Bacon) placing his hat on another man's head, lights in the top oval that may be beacons punning on Bacon, and side panels showing a nobleman handing a paper to a mean-looking man carrying a spear, and that same man later dressed as an actor, spurred and blowing a horn — noted as suggesting the syllable "spear." Ciphers are then grouped under seven headings. (1) The literal cipher, chiefly Sir Francis Bacon's biliteral cipher from De Augmentis Scientiarum, devised in Paris, using two fonts, five letters concealing one, and termed omnia per omnia; the "Shakespeare" folios are said to show varied type. The sentence "Wisdom and understanding are more to be desired than riches" is reduced to a's and b's, grouped in fives, yielding TEEBLPXEE, which a wheel cipher converts to ALLISWELL. Other literal forms include reversed alphabets, inserted words, and acrostic signatures. (2) The pictorial cipher, including Egyptian symbolism, alchemical diagrams, Montaigne's Essays title page, and Raphael's extra finger and toe. An alchemical cryptogram from Brown, after Kircher, yields "Sulphur Fixum Est Sol." (3) The acroamatic cipher: parables and allegories, each capable of seven interpretations; a Rosicrucian figure yields VITRIOL. (4) The numerical cipher, citing Kircher's Œdipus Ægyptiacus, Bacon's number 33, and mispaginations involving page 89 in the 1623 folio. A plate from Selenus depicting three circles of divine and human justice is described. (5) The musical cipher, from John Wilkins' Mercury (1641). (6) The arbitrary cipher, citing Albert Pike and Edgar Allan Poe's tables of letter frequency. The text breaks off at "7."

The text closes its account of cryptography by describing the code cipher, naming the Morse code as its familiar form for telegraphic and wireless communication, noting a variant embedding dots and dashes as punctuation marks, and mentioning business codes solvable only with a private code book. It lists miscellaneous systems using mechanical devices, colors, and objects, stating these had no direct bearing on religion and philosophy since the ancients seldom used them. It then describes medieval mystics concealing secrets of the human soul under terms drawn from chemistry, biology, astronomy, botany, and physiology, and recommends cryptography as training in discrimination and observation. A plate caption from Barrett's Magus describes Qabbalistic and magic alphabets, including "The Writing called Malachim." The Masonic section cites the Harleian, Sloane, Lansdowne, and Edinburgh-Kilwinning manuscripts, then quotes a 1701 Constitution on Lameck, his wives Adah and Zillah, and the children Jaball, Juball, Tubal-cain, and Naamah, who inscribed the crafts on two pillars; Hermes later found one. Josephus is cited on Adam's warning and the children of Seth. Enoch, whose name means the Initiator, built nine vaults and golden deltas, entrusting the smaller to Methuseleh, and was translated from Mount Moriah. John Leylande, appointed by Henry VIII, copied Henry VI's questions and answers, in which Peter Gower — identified as Pythagoras — brings Masonry from Groton (Crotona). Preston, on Pliny's authority, recounts Anaxarchus biting out his tongue and throwing it at Nicocreon. The seven liberal arts are enumerated. The Dionysiac Architects are then treated: Vitruvius on symmetry and propriety, Weisse and Heckethorn quoted, St. Paul called a master-builder, the altar to Æschylus, acoustic chambers, the Ark of the Covenant, Notre Dame's portals, the Roman Collegia, the Seal of Solomon, and the Knights Templars. The chapter ends with SOL-OM-ON and three temples: the universe, the body, and the Solar House.

The text states the soul, made of an invisible fiery substance, is cast by the Master Workman CHiram Abiff into a mold of clay and called the Molten Sea; the temple of the human soul is built by three Master Masons personifying Wisdom, Love, and Service. It notes Masonic writers regard Solomon's Temple as a miniature of the Universal Temple, quoting A. E. Waite calling it macrocosmic, and identifies Solomon as personified Universal Illumination. Albert Pike is quoted on the lost meanings of Masonic phrases. A plate from Cesariano's edition of Vitruvius is described, with the anonymous author of The Canon equating the Logos, Christ, and Adam Kadmon, and comparing the Cyllenian Hermes described by Hippolytus to Cesariano's figure; Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia is cited on man containing all numbers and measures. Solomon is said by the Rabbins to have been an initiate whose temple followed Egyptian and Atlantean patterns; Isaac Myer quotes pseudo-Clement on male and female. Masonry is traced from Atlantis as Sun and Fire Worship, and the Mysteries are said to have survived in Christian symbolism. Talmudic legends make Solomon a Qabbalist, alchemist, and necromancer; MacGregor-Mathers, Josephus, and Dr. Bacstrom are quoted on his magical and alchemical powers. The dervishes, Jelal-ud-din's Order of Mevlevi, and the hierarchy of holy men under the Qūtb or Axis are described from Garnett, with J. P. Brown noted. A section praises Freemasonry's symbolic heritage, quoting Pike's letter to Robert Freke Gould. The text then turns to Jesus, saying His true life story was never unfolded, and that Knights Templars learned part of it. Irenæus is quoted at length arguing Jesus lived to old age; Godfrey Higgins comments on it. Justin Martyr's Apology is quoted comparing Christ to sons of Jupiter. Springett quotes a text on Joshua, stoned at thirty-six. A note describes King Arthur's Round Table and his death at Kamblan. The text closes on Melchizedek, the names Panther and IHS, Bacchus parallels, and the Christos as the god-man within.

The text opens by stating that in the centuries before the Christian Era the secrets of the pagan Mysteries fell into profane hands, were regathered by philosophers and mystics, and preserved as Mystic Christianity. It reports the supposition that the Essenes were custodians of this knowledge and initiators of Jesus, who would have been initiated in the temple of Melchizedek where Pythagoras had studied. Josephus is quoted praising the Essenes' teaching of the soul's immortality and their husbandry. Their name is traced to a Syrian word for "physician"; Edouard Schuré is cited on their two centers, in Egypt at Lake Mœris and in Palestine at Engaddi. Their probation year, three degrees, celibate and married communities, crafts, and builders' symbols are described, with Joseph called carpenter and potter and the child Jesus making clay sparrows in the Gospels of Thomas and Pseudo-Matthew. A plate describes the Order of the Garter and St. George. The Essenes are called emanationists and Qabbalists awaiting the Messiah. The Protevangelium and Pseudo-Matthew are cited on Joseph's age; an angel instructs Zacharias to summon widowers with rods, and a dove flies from Joseph's short rod, giving Mary to him. Apocryphal miracle stories are criticized, including Nicodemus's bowing standards and the Letters of Pilate, in which an angel reassures Pilate. Jesus is said to be born of an immaculate (clean) conception, educated by the Essenes, attaining the Christening. Voltaire on Plato is cited. Jesus' teaching of the Divine Mind sacrificed and eaten by the world is recounted. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea receive the body; Waite calls Joseph the first bishop of Christendom. A plate recounts Jakob Böhme's life and the mysterious stranger's prophecy. Joseph of Arimathea reaches Britain, founds Glastonbury Abbey, and his staff becomes the Glastonbury thorn. Grail origins, Merlin's demon parentage, Arthur, Excalibur, the Round Table, and the Siege Perilous follow. A plate treats the nimbus. Finally, Jacobus de Voragine's legend traces the cross from Seth's three seeds through Noah, Moses, David, Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and Bethesda to Calvary.

The text opens with the Empress Helena's discovery of the cross, whose wood was of four varieties in one tree, representing the elements, and which healed the sick who touched it. It states that reverence for the cross is not limited to Christianity, and that early Christians concealed the pagan origin of their symbols by destroying or restricting other peoples' books and tampering with ancient authors, citing the supposedly spurious passage in Josephus about Jesus. A section on the lost libraries of Alexandria describes seven hundred thousand books destroyed by three fires — Cæsar's, and the burning of the Serapeum about A.D. 389 under Theodosius' edict — quoting H. P. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled on rolls saved by librarians and slaves. Thomas Macall Fallow is quoted on the near-universal pre-Christian use of the cross. Berjeau's History of the Holy Cross is described in six scenes: Adam directing Seth, Seth placing three seeds under dead Adam's tongue, the Queen of Sheba fording the stream, the tree placed over Solomon's Temple door, the crucifixion, and the true cross identified by raising a corpse. Cross veneration is traced among American Indians (William W. Seymour on the Aztec rain goddess and Quetzalcoatl), Japan, China, the Pythagoreans, Buddhism, India, Tibet, Elephanta, Chaldea, Eleusis, and the Rosicrucians. Three cross forms are described: the TAU (Druid god Hu, CHiram Abiff's hammer from Tubal-cain, Mithras, Egyptian kings), the Crux Ansata (Richard Payne Knight, Augustus Le Plongeon, Goblet d'Alviella's Nilometer), and the Roman/Greek cross. Astronomical, elemental, alchemical, and bodily symbolisms follow, including Albert Pike on the four Hebrew words. The crucifixion is called a cosmic allegory; Apollonius of Tyana's initiation in the Great Pyramid is recounted. A list of crucified saviors follows, then Prometheus, Mithras (J. P. Lundy quoting Dupuis), Buddha, and Christna (Louis Jacolliot's account of his death by arrows and suspension in a tree, and Ardjouna leading the crowd), Lundy on Moor's plate, Higgins on Pythagoras, Francis Barrett on Apollonius, and Quetzalcoatl.

The text opens with serpents carved in stone placed in Mexico, the cross of Quetzalcoatl among the Mayas, crosses painted on foreheads and placed over initiates' eyes, and Cortez arriving with the cross, whom the natives took for Quetzalcoatl returned. Godfrey Higgins is quoted on the Incas' marble cross taken by the Spaniards to the cathedral of Cuzco, cruciform Mexican temples, and Quexalcoatl crucified in the Codex Borgianus, with a serpent depriving him of the organs of generation and the figure shown black-faced. The crucifixion of the Word and of the dove is mentioned, and the Egyptian bird symbol. Hall then treats the three nails of the Passion: legends of a fourth nail dematerialized by a Hebrew Qabbalist, a nail made into a crown, and a nail in Constantine's bridle-bit; Hargrave Jennings on the British broad arrow and the TAU; Frank C. Higgins on the Quirigua apron; and the parallel of three nails, three murderers of CHiram Abiff, and three wounds of Prince Coh. Lord Kingsborough, C. W. King on a Gnostic gem, Jennings on the letter Shin valued at 300, J. P. Lundy on the crucifixion in space, Buddha's footprints, and Franz Hartmann on Böhme and I.N.R.J. follow, with the crucifixion read as sacrifice of personal consciousness. The Apocalypse section begins with Ephesus, Blavatsky on Artemis conquered by Paul, and legends of St. John's tomb. Disputes over authorship (Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Eusebius, Cerinthus, Jerome, Luther, Erasmus) precede three theories of origin. Hall then describes the Alpha and Omega among seven candlesticks, quoting Steiner and Pryse; the seven churches as planets, chakras, and Aryan divisions; the throne, twenty-four elders, four beasts, and the Lamb taking the sealed book; and the four horsemen, with Dupuis on the horses of the elements, Jupiter and Juno.

The passage continues an interpretation of the Apocalypse. The third horse, of water, is sacred to Neptune; the fourth, of earth, to Vesta; the four live harmoniously until Jupiter's racing horse burns the mane of the earth horse and Neptune's steed sweats, producing the deluge of Deucalion, until finally the fiery horse consumes the rest. St. John sees, at the fifth seal, those dead for the word of God; at the sixth, an earthquake, darkened sun, bloodied moon, and an angel sealing 144,000 of Israel—a number reduced to 9 by Pythagorean addition. At the seventh seal comes silence, then seven angels with trumpets; the star Wormwood falls, and another star receives the key to the bottomless pit. A mighty angel gives St. John a little book, which he eats. A plate of John's vision of the New Jerusalem is described. Chapter twelve's woman clothed with the sun is linked to Virgo and Isis; chapter thirteen's seven-headed beast to the Demiurgus and Cetus, with the number 666 explained by Kircher's table, Pryse, and Qabbalism. In chapter fourteen the Lamb stands on Mount Zion; an angel announces Babylon's fall; one like the Son of Man reaps with a sickle, and another angel reaps the vines. Chapters fifteen to eighteen give seven angels with vials and the harlot of Babylon. Chapters nineteen and twenty give the marriage of the Lamb, the rider Faithful and True, Armageddon between Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda, and the judgment. Chapters twenty-one and twenty-two describe the New Jerusalem, the Water of Life, and the Tree of Life; Jesus tells St. John He is the root of David and the morning star. The next section opens with Alexander Ross's invective against Mohammed and the Koran, answered by the second sura. Mohammed's birth in Mecca is described with Irving's wonders; Gabriel cleanses his heart. He travels with Abu Taleb, meets Nestorian Christians, marries Khadijah, receives revelation on Mount Hira, is reassured by Khadijah, and is stopped from suicide by Gabriel. His night journey through the seven heavens past the Patriarchs is recounted. Khadijah is his first convert; Muir is quoted; Abu Bekr joins, and A'isha becomes Mohammed's wife.

The text states that when his followers' enthusiasm forced his hand, Mohammed announced his mission already leading a strong faction. Fearing his prestige, the people of Mecca combined to assassinate him; Mohammed left Ali in his bed and fled with Abu Bekr to Yathrib (Medina), the flight called the Hegira, basis of Islamic chronology. In the eighth year he entered Mecca almost bloodlessly, circled the Caaba seven times, ordered its 360 images hewn down, cleansed and rededicated it to Allah, and granted amnesty to his enemies. In the tenth year he led the valedictory pilgrimage; Washington Irving is quoted on his preaching in the Caaba and from his camel, saying he is but a man; a voice from heaven declares the religion perfected, and the multitude and Mohammed's camel knelt. He returned to Medina. In A.H. 7 poison was administered at Kheibar, afflicting him thereafter. In A.H. 11 he visited a burial ground, said he had chosen to meet his Maker, preached on June 8th, then died in A’isha's arms after praying and thrice calling Gabriel. Carlyle is quoted on his last words. His burial under the Hujrah alongside Abū Bakr and ’Umar is described, with a reserved space for Jesus. Charges of cruelty and licentiousness are rejected, with quotations from Carlyle and Irving, including Irving on the death of Mohammed's son Ibrahim. A’isha reports he mended clothes, cobbled shoes, and loved to sew; further habits, dress, and the discarded gold ring are listed. A description of the Caaba follows: the black stone given Abraham by Gabriel, its heavenly model, Adam's construction, rebuilding by Abraham and Ishmael, the Carmathian capture in A.D. 930, and its dimensions, coverings, gates, and minarets. Polygamy charges are answered; Mohammed Webb quotes the Koran on equality of the sexes; Mohammed tells Fatima and Safiya to work out their own acceptance. Koranic contradictions are attributed to later compilation, with Higgins quoted. Four possible avenues to the Mysteries are listed, feminine symbolism noted, Jennings, Sir William Jones, Lane-Poole, and The Library of Original Sources quoted on Islamic civilization and scientists. The closing passage traces a phœnix reborn every six hundred years through Pythagoras, Nazareth, Ahmed, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon.

The text opens by describing the North American Indian as symbolist, mystic, and philosopher, whose Manidos control creation and descend among men, and who peopled forests, rivers, and sky with invisible beings, including tribes living in lake bottoms and Bat Indians. It states the Indians, like the Scandinavians, held earth to be an intermediate plane between a heavenly sphere and a subterranean world, and, like the Chaldeans, divided the intervals into strata; the number four is held sacred. Hero-narratives of journeys among the dead are said to prove Mystery cults existed. Hartley Burr Alexander is quoted on the Calumet, followed by a description of the pipe ceremony in which the master of ceremonies blows three whiffs toward zenith, ground, and Sun, thanking the Great Spirit, his Mother the Earth, and the Sun. A note on a Navaho sand painting reports Hasteen Klah's account of the Zuni, Hopi, and Navaho common emergence, the four sacred mountains, the four colored underground ranges, seven major deities, Bakochiddy, and the flood caused by Kahothsode. The text then treats the pipestone quarry, the sun as symbol, serpent symbolism, the Ohio serpent mound, reincarnation among tribes and Eskimos, guardian spirits and totems, and Hiawatha, who united the Iroquois into the League of the Five Nations, whose daughter was torn apart by a bird created by shamans, and who departed in his canoe. Turning to the Popol Vuh, Pryse is quoted on the Plumèd Serpent; discovery by Ximinez, translations by Brasseur de Bourbourg and Guthrie, and title renderings are listed. After remarks on priestcraft, sorcery, and human sacrifice, the Xibalba narrative follows: Hunhun-ahpu and Vukub-hunhun-ahpu die; Hunhun-ahpu's head in the calabash tree impregnates Xquiq by saliva; Cuchumaquiq demands her heart, but her executioners substitute rubber sap. Xquiq bears Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who journey to Xibalba, use the insect Xan to learn the twelve princes' names, refuse the heated bench, keep torches and cigars burning unconsumed, then pacify the spearmen and have ants gather flowers.

The princes of Xibalba counsel together and prepare further ordeals. In the fourth, Hunahpu and Xbalanque spend a night in the House of Cold and survive by building fires of pine cones. In the fifth, the House of the Tigers, they toss bones to the beasts; the princes assume they have given themselves up, but at dawn the brothers emerge unharmed and the Xibalbians cry, "Of what race are those?" The sixth, the House of Fire, leaves them unscorched. In the seventh, the House of the Bats, Camazotz decapitates Hunahpu, while Xbalanque passes. An inserted plate description treats a Midewiwin birch-bark roll, quoting Colonel Carrick Mallery, W. J. Hoffman on the four degrees, and Schoolcraft, and recounts Manabozho instructing and initiating an otter with the Migis. The narrative resumes: Hunahpu is restored by magic; both brothers permit themselves to be burned, their bones become man-fishes, then aged wanderers who dance, dismember and resurrect each other, slay and revive the princes' dog, and burn and rebuild the palace. When the monarch asks to be destroyed and restored, they slay the princes without reviving them, avenging Hunhun-ahpu and Vukub-hunhun-ahpu, then ascend as celestial lights. Under "Keys to the Mysteries of Xibalba," Le Plongeon compares the ordeals to Henoch's visions and Eleusinian and Egyptian initiation; Dr. Guthrie assigns the tests to the zodiac signs and identifies Xibalba with Atlantis; Hall reverses the river assignments; Mr. Pryse reads the symbols as bodily centers. The Caabaha temple and black stone are compared by Brasseur de Bourbourg to the Caaba. Discussion follows of Quetzalcoatl's image, carved elephants, and consecrated mantles. A new section asks whether pagan knowledge survives, cites Origen, Julian, and Albert Pike, invokes the Homeric golden chain, and lists persecuted initiates from Pythagoras to Cagliostro and St.-Germain. Hypatia, daughter of Theon and disciple of Plutarch, taught at Alexandria; Cyril's hostility preceded her murder by monks led by Peter the Reader in A.D. 415. A caption describes the Table of Cebes.

The text opens with the Comte di Cagliostro, described as passing across France before imprisonment by the Inquisition. His memoirs, written in the Bastille, state he was born in Malta and reared in Arabia under Altotas. W. H. K. Trowbridge is quoted on the calumny attached to him, and is credited with proving Cagliostro was not Giuseppe Balsamo, born 1743. After six months in the Bastille, Cagliostro was exonerated in the "Queen's Necklace" affair, having warned Cardinal de Rohan; an artist nonetheless painted him holding the necklace. Henry R. Evans is cited as another defender. The Pope commuted his death sentence to perpetual imprisonment; rumors say he escaped to India. Having founded the Egyptian Rite, Cagliostro admitted women; the Princesse de Lamballe became Mistress of Honor. Invited through Court de Gébelin, Cagliostro addressed a Masonic conference on May 10, 1785, declaring the Rose-Cross the true symbol of the Mysteries and, by an arrangement of letters, foretelling the Revolution, the fall of the monarchy, and Napoleon. In the Bastille he wrote a cryptic message about the Bastille's fall on July 14, 1789. He is said to have stepped aside for the Comte de St.-Germain. St.-Germain is then described: scholar, linguist, musician, painter, ambidextrous, historian, assistant to Mesmer, remover of flaws from diamonds for Louis XV in 1757; Madame de Pompadour attested his elixir; he warned Marie Antoinette. Mrs. Cooper-Oakley lists his aliases; Una Birch and Andrew Lang are quoted on his travels and identity. Cagliostro's appearance is described, and his statement that St.-Germain initiated him. Waite's disparagement is noted. E. Francis Udny's theories on Rákóczy and Bacon follow, plus Marshal Ney's feigned death. Finally, two American episodes: Robert Allen Campbell's account of "the Professor," recognized by Washington and Franklin, who designed the 1775 flag then vanished; and the unknown stranger who on July 4, 1776, cried "God has given America to be free!" before the Declaration was signed, then disappeared.

The text opens with Philip, King of Macedon, seeking a teacher for his fourteen-year-old son Alexander and writing to Aristotle, thanking the gods that his son was born in Aristotle's time. Aristotle travels to Macedon in the fourth year of the 108th Olympiad and teaches Alexander for eight years; Alexander says his father gave him being and Aristotle gave him well-being. Aristotle edits Homer's Iliad and presents it to Alexander, who carries it on campaign and, after defeating Darius, empties a jeweled unguent casket to house the volume. Learning that Aristotle published a prized discourse, Alexander writes reproaching him; Aristotle replies that none who had not heard him deliver the lecture could grasp its import. Alexander dies, and Aristotle dies a year later; Dante is cited calling him "the master of those who know." The text then argues that ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Indian philosophic culture excelled the modern, citing the Pythagorean school at Crotona, where a headstone was set for members who withdrew. Modern man is described as sinking into material illusion, industry, and greed, petrified by a Medusa-like face. A plate caption describes Jean Duvet of Langres, goldsmith to the King of France, whose Apocalypse engravings show John's face as Duvet's portrait. Science, religion, and philosophy are said to have become materialistic. A "School of the Worldly Wise Men" is described as dismissing mystics, Pythagoras, Socrates, St. Paul, Paracelsus, Cagliostro, and St.-Germain. The text calls for the return of the Mysteries, defines the philosophic life and the Great Work, states initiation required fifteen to twenty years, cites the World War's destruction of records and Mohammed on philosophers' ink. A caption describes Khunrath's portal with seven philosophic steps. The Platonists' simple and complex ignorance are distinguished, Socrates is cited on knowledge, virtue, and utility, Ptolemy is mentioned, and philosophy is said to call men to a comradeship of the spirit.

The text describes philosophy as leading men into vistas of truth, where grass, stick, and stone speak their secrets and an anthem swells from the four corners of creation. The seeker who follows the path of the wise reaches wisdom's summit and sees streets lost in cities, cities in nations, and space in eternity, until only the Self and the goodness of God remain. Two lives are distinguished: the unheeding life from womb to tomb, and the philosophic life from realization to infinity. Philosophers are said neither to be born nor to die. Socrates is quoted saying Anytus and Melitus may put him to death but cannot injure him. The gate between worlds is the heart in the mystic, reason in the philosopher. The text laments crumbled mystical institutions and departed white-robed sages, states that materiality has failed and the false civilization destroys its creator like the monster of Frankenstein, and closes by inviting the reader into the band of the elect.