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"Über die Mysterien der Aegyptier" by Ignaz von Born

Translated from German to English by Irene Johnson

Introduction

It is sad for the researching spirit that searches in the annals of the world after the progress of human
knowledge of refinement of customs and who wants to collect data which would contribute to the
enlightenment of the nations or had contributed, of understanding of IQ to find the data that contribute to the
fermentation of all the data that then brought more knowledge. It is difficult for this researcher to get rid of all
prejudices and to also be careful not to arrive at snap judgments and it is difficult for the researcher that he can
be kept captive by maybe arriving at some conclusions and when he realizes that the history in which people
who follow later try to find the pure truth. The sad thing is that when he realizes that this person who comes way
later to search after the pure truth that the noble deeds of emperors and kings and of people who were
considered the great ones the wise of each age and each epoch and their inventions and when you are looking
for the pure and you want to find it without any make up on, you want just the pure truth and then you find that
some of what her really needs is totally veiled in darkness; it may also be the darkness of those recording it who
are coming from their particular perspective which may be politically inspired or it may be that it is a totally
wrong perspective.

There where he hopes to find the source of a peoples, he finds that there are stories and legends and where he
hopes to find the true origin of a nation and to find where that nation’s knowledge and understanding of a
godhead came from he finds a puddle fool of nonsense and superstitions and the serious researcher shies back
from that, he finds it appalling and if he wants to find and read the document in ways of how these people,
these older cultures worshipped, he finds a totally impenetrable dark or empty allegories, or he finds things that
border on trickery. If looks in the legends of the peoples after the people who were leaders who were truly
useful who worked on their father land achieving knowledge then he will find that history did not find it
worthwhile to document the most of those people. However, the names of conquerors who enlarged the
borders of their empire with the blood of their peoples their underlings those are recorded carefully. It also
appears that when you look in the legends of the peoples you find that the speeches, the noble rhetorical
records that are attributed to emperors or to their military leaders or to political leaders such as senators
attributing to that where mostly just figments of the imagination of those recording it, or it was motivated by
their trying to achieve something. This realization if I may use a comparison or an allegory from the kingdom of
animals is that the cleverness of the swallow is watching and waiting for the bee to come by and snatching the
bee it forgets to mention that the bee is the one bringing in the honey and the wax in service to god’s plan and
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to the benefit for man and these allegories also speak of a war of spiders against one another how the spiders
are very aware and careful not to be caught by ambush and it does not mention the web, the artifact that is
being woven, built in secrecy.

Brief history of the old times is lost in antiquity and becomes a fable, and the history of newer times is a song of
praise of kings and great ones, sung by people who are in essence for hire, and even those hirelings will elevate
their own misdeeds and those of the vices of the people that they are talking about to virtues.

If the philosopher seizes the torch of criticism he does break through the darkness and is able to pull together
the different facts in order to compare and to differentiate and to just accumulate all the date in order to choose
the specific subject that he wants to chose as a focus of his considerations and to further illuminate then all of a
sudden he realizes that he is missing some materials that would help him distinguish what is really truth and he
realizes that his documentation and his recount or account of his own period that he is living in is again
depending on those filters. The fault of this kind of mishandling of history falls directly on the recorder of
history. They were paid for and usually employed by the regent of the state, and they were searching for favors
or positions of higher rank or presents they were either trying to become ingratiated or they were very short-
sighted they are yes persons. Prejudices and hate partiality as far as politics hunger or thirst for honor was
directing their penmanship, and instead of truth they left us with error and inventions. These considerations
make us more aware of the loss we have of the oldest and most important documents of the most illuminated
and oldest nation. It is the holy yearbooks of the Egyptians, which were to be documented under the
supervision of the high priest who was supposed to be above all criticism and only responsible to god so he
would not allow any error to be documented; these documents are no longer available since they are lost.

Since it was the very honest documentation under the supervision of the high priest that was going on in Egypt
it was truly truth in the temple of truth that was reliable, and these are the documents that are lost. In this
manner all profane and un-noble not just deeds but intentions of higher ups, people of nobility, they were all
documented and there were judges, these keepers of the laws, of the religion, and so they proof read before
things were really recorded and the secret register of the virtues and the vices of even a king were read to the
peoples upon the death of the king and then the peoples could decide whether their former regent was entitled
to whatever their ceremonies were prior to being buried (burial ceremonies). Were they entitled to that or were
their vices outweighing their virtues. The high priest was responsible for doing all this.

That is where the names of the people of merit were preserved for posterity and where special events were
recorded. They had everything recorded in the high priests whether it was customs and ceremonies which were
to be practiced and it was a long row or priestly sciences and accumulated knowledge and secrets and without a
wrapping but in holy language which the experienced mystical could understand that is how it was presented.
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Hermes taught us the first art and science. And Menas ordered mysteries. Busiris buried in a stone in the temple
of Thebes the horrible curse against those of nobility who would bring about waste and weakness and decay.
Whoever it would be that would bring about the decay into their society. Sesostres (Sarastro?) brought about the
order in the state government to be wise and just and giving and so Sesostres he earned that our order was
singing songs of praise.

This person set dams against the Nile towards the east from Memphis – to the east of Memphis there were
dams. The son of Ceres ruled with hardness, harshly. He was just trying to accumulate wealth for himself, that
was the counsel of his throne. 400,000 talents of gold and silver, that is what he left at the end of his ruling; but
that was accompanied by the wrath of the gods, from whom he had in essence stolen from and the tears of his
peoples that he had suppressed.

Osiris was mortal. We call the sun the unchangeable symbol of god with his name, yet Osiris was a mortal.
Knowledge of nature is the main reason, the goal of our practice. This producer and nourisher and maintainer of
all beings we honor under the picture of Isis. Only the one can lift her veils without being punished, who knows
her full power and knowledge of nature. If you misuse any of that you will get punishment. This was the tone,
the contents of the holy books through and through marked with the stamp of truth and authenticity.

Worthy to be kept in the holy temple, to be preserved where it was always open and accessible, these books on
wisdom, pure, such as the sources of the Nile. But only as with the sources of the Nile accessible to the one who
had been schooled and highly ordained. Such a genuine continuation of the secret yearbooks would have if
they had been accessible to the other nations, might have made the search for people in those nations after
knowledge and enlightenment too easy. In other words, if there had been a smooth transition or transfer of the
knowledge that might have made it too easy for subsequent people. And yet it seems to be part of man that he
has the knowledge that he needs to come to through his own research process.

It was providence that allowed that barbarians got into Egypt with weapons, they broke into the portals of the
temples and broke into the very innermost of these and ruined and destroyed valuable documents to all of
mankind. By their not knowing what they were doing. The priests fled and hid themselves. A new form of god
service was adopted the holy language and the meaning of the hieroglyphics was lost and became an
insolvable puzzle. It was not possible for the profanes and the people that were not knowledgeable to solve the
hieroglyphics. They didn’t realize that the treasure that was contained in the hieroglyphics and in those books
and documents was far more than that which they were seeking after, after which they hunted with greed.
Nothing remains to us of these valuable and important documents except here and there a little fragment some
of which were collected by some lucky wise people who even though they were foreigners they were granted
access to some of the secrets by the keepers of the holy places and these lucky foreigners had managed to get
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access of instruction by some of these keepers of the secrets which they then took to their fatherland where then
careful researchers here and there got a spark of these remnant of old documents.

These ruins of fragments, which just hint at the magnitude of accomplishments and knowledge which this
formerly so important peoples but now so very brought down, they hint at what their grandeur had been. So he,
the writer, has tracked these works of the oldest writers; ‘I have carried together little pieces in order to satisfy
my own searching for enlightenment and knowledge. This challenges me to seek and become knowledgeable
in all that may have reference to our own noble order. And how closely related to these mysteries of older times
we feel.’

Soon I became aware of how unjust was the judgment of the statement of our newer historians who judge the
oldest Egyptian according to today’s folk whom they consider are raw and uncivilized people whose religion is
just a web of nonsense, whose priests are less than then honorable, who just pull tricks on people, and whose
knowledge and mysteries are total nonsense, make believe.

I was motivated because I was upset with how unjustly older Egyptians have been judged by the new historians,
comparing them to the people that had been brought down to whatever circumstances that they were very
primitive; irritated and motivated by these incorrect and unjust judgments I stared documenting for my own
accumulation of knowledge; I started to document first an outline of the constitution of the Egyptians out of
their oldest times, out of antiquity, and started gaining a more correct data about the religion of the peoples
and of the priests and I searched sources for their ceremonies, their religious practices and the kind of their
ordination and their duties once they are ordained and the extent of their knowledge and I observed the
wellness for the whole nation that came from the inner workings of the temple, because they were so set on
truly recording what was correct, what was right, what was moral, and then let it be known after that person’s
life, in essence they have written all the chapters of their life, and then compared those customs and ceremonies
of the Egyptian mysteries with the ones of the masons.

It was that last statement alone that I wanted to get into more. But I found afterwards how sincerely the
enlightenment of them and the constitution and the custom and the religion of this peculiar peoples are woven
together and with this consideration I found it necessary to look at the whole thing to illumine the mysteries
and have it be a service in the comparison to Egypt and the masons.
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Chapter one –
Overview of the condition of the Egyptian peoples in the
oldest times

The first concern of the person who is left up to himself is to maintain and to just take care of his most necessary
needs, and when he is left up to himself he seeks to protect himself against the wrath of the elements, then to
protect himself against the strength and the might of wild animals, and then he seeks to protect himself against
wild peoples that might be just as wild as the animals and then to find food for nourishment.

In this condition he is not well educated, he is fairly dumb, he is not going to be very trusting, he may actually
be quite evil minded because he is suspicious. Once his most basic needs are taken care of and satisfies so his
security is taken care of, then he starts to look at things around him much more closely and then it is through
experience and thinking that he finds to apply what is around him and use it to make his existence more
confortable. And once he can enter community and work with other peoples cooperatively, then he can achieve
comforts. His intelligence and his experience leads him and those around him to an existence and to seek a
higher way of existing. He recognized that there is a god or superior being and he becomes trusting enough to
in different ways to test his intelligence and his understanding of things, and he ponders and he invents things
and thus contributes to the elevation of arts and for scientific knowledge to become accumulated so that there is
a whole base of scientific knowledge and this is the first history of all peoples and also of Egypt, the start of
civilization.

The first Egyptians found themselves on this narrow bit of earth which towards evening was filled with wild
animals that could just tear whatever into pieces, so those animals came out of the desert of Libya, then in the
east it was there are impenetrable marshes and swamps, towards the north there is a perilous sea with a few
areas where a ship could dock, come in easily, and to the south, are the cataracts of the Nile and high mountains
and thus it is quite isolated from the rest of the world as though even from just nature’s view it was destined to
be separate like that, to be the seat of secrets.

A portion of their population, of their peoples, moved to the mountains and lived from hunting, and another
portion of their population lived along the banks of the river Nile and lived off a diet rich in fish. The peoples
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living in the mountains and those living along the river saw one another as enemies. Ones were considered
gruesome and hardened and the others clever and wild and so they were laying in wait for one another and
fought one another.

Superstition, which is the daughter of ignorance, used natural phenomena of these primitive and wild peoples
and something that you can understand from them not being educated very well. They observed when they saw
these phenomena of nature, such as the regularity of the seasons, the rising and falling of the Nile river waters,
and then fiery apparitions in the air which can be attributed to gases rising from the swamps and the hot climate
and so they tried to explain these phenomena.

They looked at the different animals that were incubated in the remaining swampy waters and in the mud of the
Nile, and so when they did not see the animals hatching, they thought the mud did it, and then they saw them
coming out of that, so when the eggs broke open, so they considered them births of the river Nile’s and so then
they also assumed that their own parents had been children of this mud and morass of the river. They could feel
how weak they were as compared to these animals, and so they believed that the gods had hidden themselves
within these powerful animals in order to punish the peoples for their vices and their crimes.

The crocodile and the wolf became revered as well as the animals which sought after the crocodile and the wolf
and who devoured them. These observations and then these beliefs that they arrived at contributed to their first
comprehension of bad or evil minded and good gods, and the assumption that there was a wondering of souls.

The most spectacular natural phenomena they saw would be the sun which appeared to arise in full beauty out
of the ocean, and the dignified celebration of the rising moon. And then there is the glimmering beauty of the
stars, and they were just in total amazement.

Vulcan, the Saturn of the Greeks, was the first one to use hard rocks to strike and start fire. This merit, that he
quasi took light and heat from the sun, he borrowed it from the sun, and this gave him highest rank of ruling
over Egypt. Osiris was the firstborn sun of Saturnus and Rhea, and he appeared out of the middle of the land.

Osiris was a man, a human who became enlightened earlier through observing nature and through
understanding, and he had courage enough to influence the peoples among which he lived. He travelled
through the countryside and he enticed the inhabitants with music and with dancing. He invented the music
and the dancing, and he attracted people to him and he taught them both field and agricultural cultivation and
wine cultivation and that is how he developed societies that were interconnected and interdependent.

Isis is his wife and sister. She is responsible for showing teaching about healthful plants, knowing how to collect
plants that have medicinal properties.
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Osiris was accompanied by a number of people who then became followers of his, he was able to go beyond the
borders of the country in order to spread benevolent intentions.

Isis was taking care of the government. Thoyt, the helper of Isis whom the Phoenicians called Taut, and whom
the Greeks called Hermes, and the Romans called Mercurius, the messenger from the gods, was the first one to
instruct the Egyptians in the sciences and also guide them into the different art forms. He is the one who
designated the bodies and he invented the method to express thoughts with symbols, and brought about the
governmental order and hierarchy by the burgers, by the populace, by a certain level of the populace. Then he
also introduced the ceremonies the customs for the temple worship. He saw to it that temples were built then
he called people to the priesthood to devote their lives to being in the temple and to see to it that these customs
and rituals were followed. He observed the regulated courses of the stars in the skies and he saw to it that olive
trees were planted and he brought about the first sounds out of the lyre.

Osiris returned triumphantly to Egypt, proud of the fact that all the people he had visited had been transformed
thorough the wisdom or principle he had set out to teach them, but he had forced them into civilization. While
still in this euphoria, Osiris was ambushed by his brother Typho, or Seth, who killed him, cutting his body into
several pieces, distributing them among his own followers. Isis and her son Horus pursued the murderers of
Osiris killing them and recovering the rest of her husband’s precious remains. With waxes and pitch from trees
they made several figurines that resembling Osiris, and inside each wax/pitch figurine they hid a part of the real
body of Osiris. After this had been done, Isis then called the priests of the different temples together and made
them swear an oath of the strictest silence, giving each one a figurine and telling them in no uncertain terms
that the place where they were to be buried were to be kept secret and holy. Osiris was to be venerated under a
symbolized depiction of an animal. Soon the word spread throughout Egypt that Osiris had become a god, and
the animal which was most useful for agriculture became venerated instead of the one who had actually
invented civilized agriculture, thus it was the bull, Apis who became the object of veneration by the people.
After Isis and her son Horus died they too became elevated to god status. Until then the land, according to the
legends of the Egyptians, had been ruled by gods.

When I consider the sequence of their laws and their celebrations and the recorded deeds of the regions in as
far as they have any relationship to the mysteries of Egypt, when I look at them and make reference to them
then I am at the same time naming the most benevolent and the wisest men because according to the customs
and the laws of the land only those that were outstanding through being benevolent in their actions deeds and
thinking were worthy to sit on the throne, and so they were the only ones who were elected and governed as
kings. Hermes the second, the son of Agathodemon, he ranks highly to be named. He improved the knowledge
of god among the peoples, he discovered the basic principles of arithmetic and geometry, he introduced,
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instead of the symbols that were used prior, he introduced hieroglyphics; then he had two columns built on
which he had chiseled in stone this newly invented symbols in order to for eternity to thus engrave and preserve
the all knowledge of Egypt. (It was a vain hope to forever preserve them that way – Irene’s comment?)

He had hoped that to have these there forever, but then the Nile river alone broke through the dams both the
artificial and the natural dams, and flood Egypt tore down the monuments of stone that had contained the
Egyptian wisdoms and so arts and sciences lay for a long number of years down until Hermes Trismegistus
appeared on the scene and he collected the spread out remnants of the former knowledge and he found again
the key to the hieroglyphics and he improved on that system of hieroglyphics and then he trusted all that
knowledge to the guild of priests which were entrusted with this holy treasure in the innermost part of the
temples. To this restorer, as far as the sciences and the arts are concerned, Egypt owes their position of honor
and glory where they found themselves after they had recovered their former glory.

The wellness, the well-being of the country kept thriving, growing daily because it was guided through the
wisest of laws, it was governed by noblemen who all belonged to the same order that was focused on the
principle of purity in customs and to be doing what is right and beneficial to all, and who did not know any
other luck or glory and no other pride, then to see to what was best for their country and their country men, in
other words they wanted to have a legacy that things were going to be as good or better and since they were
also members of the priesthood they were also keepers of the secrets, and the best that religion and
government could achieve and could seek was in their undivided interest.

Their biggest emphasis was improving agriculture and Moeris spent the whole time that he reigned on the
ditching and diking out of the swamps around Memphis. He had a deep pond dug, 50…., 36 stadia in total
volume and so the water was directed there from the Nile in canals that were 300 stadia long and 300 feet wide.
Others crisscrossed the country with canals and thus dried out swamps and set dams of the Nile to keep it in its
borders. To each one was assigned a field that was his to cultivate. If the Niles’ falling, there was alluvial soil that
came with the Nile’s flooding, and so when it is falling it leaves back this alluvial soil, if there were some
difference as to whose field is where then they had people that were measuring the earth, engineers surveyors
that way they could decide which was whose in order to avoid battles about the land.

In the most noble way they used fruit bringing earth and they had harvests that were a hundred fold of that
which they would have had, had they just tried to manage things on their own where they only had puddles and
swamps.
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Sesostres is responsible for having divided the country into thirty six districts in which each district had one
person that had the power to keep order, achieve order, security and justice for everyone. Sesostres is compared
with Solomon of Egypt.

It was Sesostres who decided what the rights were for the priests, the soldiers and the burgers. He let them
know what their obligations and duties were. He is responsible for having the canals used to move goods and
people. Sesostres is the one who started military duty and the ones that avoided serving he gave dishonorable
discharge. Then he had a council of ten wisest men elected from Heliopolis and Memphis so if there was a
dispute among people they were the judges. There was a code of rules and punishments, a codex, a regulatory
code. The highest level of human criminal behavior was the breaking oaths and murdering one’s father. They
had a census. Everyone had to demonstrate how they were gainfully employed. In order to combat epidemics,
they had dietary rules and regulations and also prescribed medicines that were to be taken. Storehouses were
built in each district in which certain allowed and approved foods were to be stored. Even the funerary
ceremonies were dictated by laws, based on the wealth of the deceased.

Youth had to be raised without much being spent on them, their youth hungered and thirsted, that was normal,
to have their bodies accustomed to the elements. Youth were not spoiled in any way, have them barely above
survival conditions.

Then there was the religious education of the people. In religious instruction Osiris and Isis were the benevolent
gods, and Typho was the vicious or bad deity. Every good thing that happened was attributed to Osiris and Isis,
and anything bad that that one feared about, or that did happen you attributed to Typho. Sacrifices one hoped
to win over the good or benevolent gods into your camp kindly disposed to you in order to assuage the bad one.
Then they explained the reason why this or whatever animal was holy to the nation. The steer and the cow they
taught were good for plowing the earth, sheep were very valuable because they were often born as twins, the
sheep also provide wool and milk for nourishment for men. The dog is protecting them at home and
accompanied them in hunting expeditions, and it was said to be the dogs that found the dead body of Osiris.
Ichneumon eats the eggs of the crocodile and kills the crocodiles. The stork ruts out the snakes and
grasshoppers. The vulture takes care of scorpions. And even the Crocodiles would be watchmen of Egypt, who
keep away the foreigners and enemies of the country, because of the fertile Nile.

In the shape of a wolf, Osiris came to help Isis and Horus when they slew Typho. In this manner the birds and
the fishes were enumerated as useful or harmful, and the plants which they could eat of use for food or for
medicinal qualities.
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The knowledge that they passed was always mixed in with religion because that was the powerful way with
which they could direct the intentions of the regions of the country and in this way they could control the
peoples.

Finally they talked about the sciences and the arts, arithmetic, geometry, mechanics and astronomy, which were
taught at Thebes; they were at the height of their development if we may believe the witnesses of Plato,
Aristotle, Cicero and Diodorus.

The history and geology of the land, particularly the history and observations of the Nile, then anatomy and
physiology and the knowledge of different illnesses, the embalming of dead bodies, the art of boiling salt and
saltpeter, then to press oil and wine, then to color wool and then to smelt glass, then the smithing of irons, to
manufacture steel, then the hewing of stones, to plain stones, all those were subjects of public instruction; so
anyone who had an inclination was interested in those subjects, could avail themselves of that knowledge.
Finally the person they attributed this to is Psameticus. He opens to the foreigner the country for import and
export which king Pocchorus, who was the one who came up with trade and commerce laws and regulations.
Their economy under Ptolemy grew to incredible new heights. Through these wise institutions the population
grew with also not only to their satisfaction but delight, and Egypt had a very favorable reputation, to the
highest levels.

Diodorus certifies that under Ptolemy there were seven million inhabitants when they did the census. With that
many human hands the Egyptians executed grandiose accomplishments, works, things that we know from
accounts that almost sound as though they were fables had they not been recorded in the holy books and had
they not been recorded from eyewitnesses and if they had not remained as partial witnesses in the ruins that we
still see. They built thirty thousand cities.

The famous and wealthy Theben of the Greeks, which Osiris built in honor of the Sun City, Heliopolis, had a ring
of protective masonry around it that was the size of 140 stadia. He cited it, Heliopolis, with the most magnificent
buildings the most ornate, elaborate temples. Those were the most magnificent temples which following
generations of regents filled with the mostly costly present made of gold and silver and then the city had
obelisks, and large scale things that they called colossus. These were just ornaments of the city and they
surpassed everything that had been done before that through human art and ambition or that has been done
since then.

The burial site which Osimanduas had built was ten stadia in size. The ante court which directed you into the
temple was pieced out of small pieces, was two hundred shoes long and 45 shoes high, and it had square
columns and they were 16 forearms high, and that was made from stones and resembling animals that
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supported the roof instead of columns, the roof was made of stones that were 8 shoes long, and the ceiling was
blue with golden stars painted on it. And from there, from that ante court, you got into the hall, whose walls
were totally covered with hieroglyphics, and from there were covered arched areas, again very ornamented, and
then you got into the library.

The library had a sign over the entrance that said ‘nourishment and medicament for the soul.’ From the library
you entered into the house in which the king’s dead body was to be laid, surrounded by a number of small
buildings, which were designated to the keeping of holy animals. You had to go up some stairs to arrive at the
sarcophagus where the dead body was to be in, above which there was one forearm thick golden circle that is
365 forearms in circumference on which they had the 365 subdivisions for each day of the year and the different
astronomical notations on it.

Uchoreus build the city of Memphis in the spot where he had observed that the Nile had formed an island in the
shape of the large letter D. the favorite location, position of this city and the extraordinary columnar buildings
which Moeris had built there, and the dams which protected the city against the flooding of the Nile all attracted
a number of inhabitants to the city of Memphis. The temple of the deity Vulcan, which Sesostres had started,
had a splendor and a wealth demonstrated in the building of it. Besides the public buildings and the dams and
canals which were built for the protection and benefit of all Egypt and other works which show the united power
of the whole nation and required it, and then ruins that still show us today the extent, the grandiose size, the
splendor and the courage, these are all witnesses to what these people accomplished and there are the colossal
colossi, the real big monuments and the Egyptians pyramids; that is the most convincing proof of the wealth of
the size of the population of the knowledge base, of the industriousness and perseverance of the kings and the
inhabitants of that land.

Sesostres had built or raised two obelisks each one of them one hundred and twenty forearms high from a stone
that was available at Memphis and he put those two obelisks in front of the temple of Vulcan and then a picture
column of himself and his wife. And those picture columns are made of a single stone that is thirty-four arms
high.

Instead of columns, Psammetichus put into the easterly part of the ante court at Memphis, twelve forearms high
colossi and Rhamsarit, he put two more colossal statues there and each one of them is 24 forearms high. And
finally Mansis put in front of this same temple a huge statue on top of a base that is a foot thing; the foot alone
was 75 feet long and then next to two others that were 20 feet high.

King Thenmeis he had three pyramids that were 130 stadia from Memphis and 45 stadia away from the Nile; he
had those built in which they fetched the stone from Arabia. They had dams built specifically just built for the
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transport of that they brought the stone from Arabia across the Nile on those dams and that is work that
employed 360,000 humans for 20 years. His successor, Cephres, built another pyramid that was equally high
which was specifically for legumes, for the food for the workers, it was simply for storage, and 1600 talents were
used for that.

If you are looking at it from afar and you are not knowledgeable about the background then you might look at
these obelisks and pyramids as monuments of just pride and poor judgment of a few tyrants that might have
ruled over Egypt, or as unnecessary piled up heaps of stone that exhibited the poor taste of a people that
amassed them but if you are looking more closely and you have a better background then you will consider
them as honorable monuments that are witness to the knowledge of this nation.

Always remembering the catastrophe the misfortune that hit the two columns of Hermes that fell when the
water of the Nile flooded, and the barbarian period that followed that; they were always trying to safeguard, to
keep their sciences that were growing in a body of knowledge each day to keep them safe in the event that all
dams of the Nile should break, or if fire should destroy, and also being aware that fire could devour the holy
books. Even if the light should be extinguished from the holy places and the swords should kill all the priests of
the order that were charged to keeping that or if circumstances should force them to flee and that the treasure
should be fallen into the hands of robbers who would carry them to other parts of the earth. And so they seemed
to have decided to proliferate their knowledge in a way that resists every attempt to forcefully take these with
how they finished the pyramids.

The example of the first Egyptians who in a similar manner tried to have their history and secrets on the columns
of Thoyt, or as others believe and defend who carved their knowledge and secrets into the walls of subterranean
caves, and then there is the witness of Plinius who is citing the hieroglyphics on the obelisks with philosophical
observations it is the enduring materials that are resistant to erosion and extremes of climate which they chose,
it is the firmness of the stones and the majestic simplicity of the buildings when they were trying to do nothing
more but to give them durability and to create a room such as the figure of a pyramid that in its body is a very
largely spread out base that ends up in one point, and all these circumstances make it more than likely that they
were erected with the simple intention of documenting the whole wealth of the political and civilian population
and priestly population and their knowledge to be witness and a documentation within it. And so as thought it
was called to be the Bible of the Egyptians whose letters and characters might be distinguished over time and
made legible. But the big thing is there in its simplicity and size and dimensions. From a different vantage point
it could that these pyramids whose corners are placed with astronomical precision to meet with each one of the
four directions and that have the right relationship of size base versus height, and the courage to bring the
stones the rock for these monuments out of very distant regions and they did not shy the cost considering the
 13

multitude of peoples that were occupied doing this. They are truly witness to convey that they Egyptians were
knowledgeable in these various sciences, the height and base measurements and the ability to raise lift things
with levers, the art of leveraging and lifting and astronomy as well as the riches and the might of their kings, to
proclaim that in the centuries to come.

All the knowledge and the arts which formally Orpheus, Musaeus, Melampus, Dedalus and homer and
afterwards Pythagoras Plato and the mathematician Eudoxus and Democrie and Aenopus and the artist and
Tellecl and Theodus from Egypt, all this knowledge and this art which these people got from Egypt they spread
through the rest of the world the wise legislation that was focused on the benevolence of the country which
Moses and solon and Lycurg the great givers of the law of the other nations borrowed from Egypt. All of that is
the almost incredible size of the population and wisdom of the land and all this was the consequence of the
wisdom and the care of the priestly people who were the watchers the keepers of the sciences and the
knowledge. It was a stream of the light came from the temples and spread over all of Egypt which then in the
following section I will examine further.
 14

Part two -
Constitution, duties and knoweldge of the Egyptian priests

The realization of godhead, a superior being, is the basis for every religion. The first or to be more precise, the
oldest Egyptians, felt that their existence and the manifold creatures around them must be the works of a higher
being. Since they searched on their own and since they didn’t have any manifestation of what had gone on and
they were unable to imagine a spiritual being that was invisibly above them or around them that with one ‘let it
be’ could created a myriad of worlds, they saw those creatures around them whose benevolent influence they
could feel daily, they saw them as the higher being or as the creator themselves, and so they wanted to show
their gratitude in different ways of praying tribute and being subservient.
The beauty and the splendor of the sun and the light that brings light and warmth to all of creation and the
source of all fertility in all creation is touched by the sun all that let them to believe that the sun was the most
dominant of celestial bodies and that it was the fountain of all plenty and abundance. It was the most might of
those gods that were watching over them so they venerated the sun under the name of Osiris. Such as the
Chaldeans, the Canaanites, the Moabites, the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Persians, the Greeks, the
Romans, they venerated the sun under the name of Bel, Moloch, Chemosh, Adonis, Saturn, Mithras, Apollo and
Thebes.
With warm gratitude they plucked or harvested when spring returned and nature became alive again; bunch
grass, loose sprigs or a handful of fruit was sacrificial giving to god who had allowed thins to sprout. I believe
that the godhead was not offended when I believe and I think that god recognized the good intentions with this
people in all simplicity tried to attribute or show their thanks to the giver of all good just as god was pleased or
looked benevolently on the precious incense that might billow from other peoples towards heaven of the blood
of sacrificial animals that were streaming and being caught ceremoniously in golden vessels. Just when and as
the wealth of Egyptians improved then there was more and more splendor in the religious customs and
practices. The fruits of the fields were their first food and thus their sacrifices. They made out of the fruits of the
field a kind of bread and then they sacrificed cakes and then finally in the keeping of animals became more
common and so they believed that they needed to give back to god a portion of what they had received so they
butchered animals.
People who had dedicated themselves to the service of god then gained higher standing within the human
society than the others. They became organs in the body of the population of the peoples who with their voice
became intermediaries to whom the gods would listen to more favorably so that is how their own class of
peoples developed and they had a common interest and common function within the society. It was a good
thing that these servants of the sacrifices before they could become a dominating and a domineering, harmful
society within society, had been distributed by Thoyt through the appearance of Osiris into the various gilds and
 15

temples and their duties were determined and this would be like the refining and so since their standard was
raised so much by the own givers of the law, so they had a constitution to give them direction which made them
worthy to be keepers of the land and the higher knowledge and the most secret of secrets and to have a
fortunate administration for Egypt. That was the primary and final goal of this peculiar prisesthood in Egypt.

This last statement that it is because of these people being given very direct checks and balances, what they
could or could not do since they were entrusted with all these secrets, they could not use their power in negative
way, this last bit I can prove by just using my assumptions when I illuminate the daily living the duties and the
knoweldge base for the Egyptian priests more closely. To serve the gods and to avail themselves of the wisdom
is the legislative destination and purpose of the priests. In order to achieve this they were very particular whom
they selected to enter their order so there were stringent criteria. To be in the order one had to be a free person.
He had to be locally born, and could not be female. The sons of the priests who had been raised under close
supervision of the fathers and raised to live according to the virtues and wisdoms they had a more likely
standing chance of getting admitted into the order of the priests but it was not automatic. The novice had to
submit himself to stringent testing of his steadfastness and of his perseverance and when he had proved these
various tests, and then he had to be willing to be circumcised. Cleanliness moderation and virtuousness were
the virtues moderation in morally, and in relationship to temper and consumption of food and drink. They
sheered their hair on their head and their whole body every three days. They bathed three times a day and
washed their hands more often than that. Their clothing was white linen their shoes were made of the paper
plant, and according to what Plutarch says it would have been unacceptable to be clothed in the wool or the hair
of an animal when your own hair is considered unclean. They avoided strong drinks and spicy plants because
those things produce more thirst and the strong drink can weaken your judgment. They did not enjoy any sea
salt very little fish and rarely oil in order not to be provoked to fleshly wants. Their bread was mixed with hyssop.
When they were going through the ritualistic cleansing in preparation for a service
they did not eat any bread or meat of eggs and they did not have any relations with their wives, of whom they
only had one. Only on festivals days did they come into the company of other people on the regular days they
were only amongst themselves and they were promenading, walking under the picture columns of their gods,
their walk was very measured, their eyes were cast down, their forehead reflected that they were in deep
thought. Their behavior was serious and measured so as to reflect their status.

Each temple and each godhead had their own priesthood that was dedicated to them.
The priesthood of the Vulcan temple in Memphis, the priesthood of the sun god to Heliopolis, the priesthood of
Isis to Sais and the gods to Thebes and then the Nile gods. They were comprised of several persons and each of
these guilds were subdivided into two classes, one of whom was more concentrated in the sciences and the
other more concentrated on the mechanics of the services. In the first class you had the prophets, of which there
was to be only one in each guild of priests according to the witness or the documentation by Clemens of
 16

Alexandria. One was with the guild of the priests and one is with Herodotus’ high priest who supervised or had
the responsibility for the services and the priests, and he must have been very knowledgeable in the law. He
was the keeper of 10 books of Hermes which were specifically on the laws of the gods and the church business.
These single ones followed in the hierarchy of the priests and the Hierostollisten and Moschosphragristen were
in charge of the public church celebrations. Those are the ones who were entrusted with the 10 books of Hermes
about religion and sacrifices and prayers and which festival days were to be observed when and how. Then the
Hierogrammist which were the wise and learned people of Egypt and they were more than likely the same as
the Arpedonapten or according to the Jablonseys, the Pterophori. They had a red string and vulture feathers on
their head because according to legend this bird, the vulture, and the legislation about the services were tied
together with a red string and brought to the temple at Thebes and were deposited there and to commemorate
that event in this fable, all the people that were the keepers of the books and the customs had a red string as
part of their garb and several vulture feathers on their head.

The Hierogrammists were secret writers, like court secretaries, so if there was any public event they appeared
with a roll of paper and a container of black ink and a tube to dump into the ink. A part of their knowledge was
that they knew the holy language so in essence there was the common language, then there was the temple
language or holy speech, or cosmography; they had to know geography, astronomy, and the chorography of
Egypt. They had to know about the description of the Nile and how to make certain concoctions and how to
furnish the temple. The 10 books of Hermes were in their safe-keeping and they had to examine the sacrificial
animals and with their head they had to vouch for these animals being genuine and then they certified that they
had been inspected with a stamped seal on their horns. Finally came the Horologe who were keepers of time,
they used the stars to say what time it was and were the interpreters of what the stars said. They possessed four
books which were mainly on astronomy. Among these were the singers who encouraged the free arts.
Chaeromon says that during the night they were busy with astronomical observations and periodically they had
certain tasks during the temple services and then during the day 3 to 4 times a day they were the ones to start
the praise songs and then the rest of their time they dedicated to geometrical and arithmetic tasks and
problems and solutions. The two books by Hermes with the praise songs of the gods and the duties of the kings
they carried publicly at official celebrations. These are all in the first classes of the priests.
The second class of priests had less to do with the sciences. They did not put their hand to any of those direct
services and they did not have to be as particular about their cleanliness. They were the Pastophores and the
Neochores. The first ones carried around the picture columns of the gods in festive decoration; they needed to
be strong. They also were busy with the medicinal knowledge. Among them were the Toricheutae which
embalmed the dead bodies and they were highly respected and had access to the innermost of the temple. The
Neochores were charged with, as with the Greeks, for the cleanliness of the picture columns of the gods and of
the temple and they were also the tourist guides in the temple. The lowest ones in that class were the one as the
 17

historian Chaeromon calls them, they were partially the pipers and partly the keepers of the holy animals, and
that was an office that was usually inherited from father to son.

The service of the gods consisted of sacrificial animals which were killed in front of the entrance to the temple
because the Egyptians did not allow that their holy places would be sullied with blood. They had very strict rules
as to what sequence was to be followed with the ceremonies which was very impressive to the common people
to see how this was handled, and the festivities and public religious practices which I will skip over since they
are described thoroughly by Herodotus and Plutarch. What I am trying to prove and research has nothing to do
with the specifics and the mechanics of the sacrificial animals.

The wisdom of the priests is much closer and much more important subject to set the dignity of the Egyptian
priesthood into a brighter light, a more prominent light. It does not comprise only philosophy but the whole
body of knowledge as we know is recorded in the Hermetic books, which Clemens of Alexandria has preserved
for us. Their concept of god or their body of knowledge about god was so pure as only man can achieve who
without the help of specific revelation and relying on just their enduring thirst for knowledge and their
dedicated studies and concentration of all their intellectual power can achieve.

Jamblichius lets us see with one glance their ideas about the godhead. “Listen” he says, “the meaning and the
interpretation of the symbols according to the teachings of the wise Egyptians; I remove the veil which would
keep you through your misguided fantasies to see the festive speech in the hieroglyphics. Prepare your ears to
hear and perceive the voice of wisdom. Through the glue and through excrement we gain understanding of the
body and of the material world so as with everything that has nourishing or life-giving strength that whichever
is born or that whichever is an element. However, god, the originator, the creator, the source of all nature, which
has given the seed of life in all bodies who created the elements he is above all and includes everything within
himself. He is far above all of nature is neither material nor body but spirit, eternal, cannot be separated, whole
within himself and veiled within himself. And in spite of he having everything within himself and in spite of his
having share himself with all of creation and in spite of his shining forth out of all parts of his creation and in
spite of his being spread through all this and yet he is differentiated from it all and is separate. The poppy flower
on top of which with the Egyptians the godhead sits without touching the earth is the symbol of those high
properties and this all might. Everything on the poppy flower is circular round the leaves and the fruit just as our
thoughts and our strength of the spirit moves in circles. Above these spirits, the strength of these spirits, the bite
of the spirit of god with which his illuminating the material world god is hovering in holy and worthy and quiet
majestic manner. This is what gives his magnitude, which is indicated in his sitting position. In other pictures
you may see a godhead that is directing a ship; when you see that remember that he is also the one that reigns
over the whole world. Above all things” the writer continues, “remember that in the very beginning of all things
was god; he alone, older than the sun, formally untouched unmoved and in his solitary unity hidden, nothing
 18

that intellect can grasp is in him. None of our, however we imagine him to be is worthy of his true nature. He
went out from himself and is truth and truthful and truthfully good and charitable. Is there something greater or
older than he is? He is the origin of everything good, he is root out of which all beings and all intellect and
understanding came forth; he is sufficient in himself because he is his own origin. The beginning of all things,
god of gods, the unity and the original being out of from whom creature and being have come forth. Who
among us has dared to give us a more distinct comprehension of the eternal whom no created spirit can grasp?
Who has drawn the outline of a picture of god in a more virtuous and majestic form?”
And those were the comprehensions that Egyptian priests had of god. The priests were taught to become
familiar with those ideas that were being human understanding and grasp from their first entrance into the
order. Those were the grasps that they had of the teaching of the mysteries that were the object of the
veneration and the uninitiated found it totally ungraspable and unexplainable. But it was something that the
priests could grasp to a degree who they had a picture of the unity of god and nature and they were abstract
ideas that they had learned from the beginning of their schooling. And where is the simple population that
does not require something that they can grasp in order to venerate it. They need something they could see, not
something abstract, that they could venerate it.
How can you expect a raw, simple and primitive people that from their first origins only knew physical gods that
they could see, how could you ask them to come up with that much strength of soul to elevate themselves to a
level to recognize a god that they could not see.
For that reason the priests gave the peoples a choice of venerating Osiris, Apis, Isis, Horus, Harpocrates, Anubis,
Macedo, Canubis etc.. and Typho. One or more than one according to their taste and they celebrated in these
gods by the priests’ cults, holy days with custom and law designated ceremony and splendor.

Osiris was the origin of all good things and with Isis the creative power and under Horus his benevolence and
under Harpocrates his grandeur and that could not be explained in words, you just had to be quiet in the
veneration of Harpocrates; and under Anubis his strength and under Canubis his benevolent deeds which was
proved to the Egyptians because of the seasons of the Nile with the rising and falling of the waters and the
fertilization of the land, and Typho, he was the justice seeker who made things right.
That which the populace saw as so many different gods for the priests was actually just the different properties
of one god, which they knew through the mysteries. The priests had the understanding

The awareness and the remembrance of death was something that was impressed very deeply upon the
initiated and the fact that the soul is an eternal, has eternal life, it cannot die, is something that has been
elaborated on in the mysteries of Egypt and out of these mysteries of Egypt it was transplanted to other peoples.
At their festival meals, meals for guests, not in a family setting but when they had come to the end of the
serving of food at a large gathering with guests, there was the custom of carrying around “the” skeleton and this
was also done at the annual memorial celebration to recall Osiris who had been murdered by Typho, but who
 19

had been found again and so some of these customs that were part of annual celebrations let you become
aware of some of the mysteries even though the Egyptians veiled their mysteries into complete silence and
secrecy. Even more telling and convincing is the prayer which the priests directs to Osiris at the death bed
wherever the priest is called: “you eternal one, you who rule over everything under the image and the body of
the sun, you gods, you who have the power to give life and then to call it back, take me and bring me into the
company of the elect.”

“The philosophy or the idea that good and evil minded persons would after this life face either some
punishment or some reward was introduced to the peoples under the teaching of the soul’s wonderings. They
demonstrated and taught that just as in former times the souls of the highest kings and of the most noble men
had been transformed and transplanted into the stars and the constellations in the same manner the souls of
men after their merit they would inhabit the bodies of good or evil animals, and would be wondering about in
those animal bodies. Another science that the priests had to study and become very versed in was the
knowledge of the holy language which included the interpretation of the hieroglyphics because that is how they
could gain higher knowledge.”

“The Egyptians’ urge to convey certain ideas to everyone and this included the necessity to teach the peoples
certain laws and to have certain happenings be the knowledge of later generations led the fathers of all
peoples, such as the Phoenicians, the Ethiopians, the Etrurians, the Indians, the Scythians, the Chinese in the
orient, and the Mexicans in the west to the idea that there are certain figures they could use in conveying ideas
and so it could be assumed that their meaning was common knowledge and so they could be used in lieu of
words. It was the keen sense of observation that brought the Egyptians to the point of such a highly refined
degree and everyone who was learned had to be very knowledgeable to express themselves in this painted
language. They seized either chalk or a chisel, and were drawing either on wood or were engraving in stone the
shapes of an animal or of a plant or other things. The passersby could read with ease then what they were
writing.”

“They could read readily what the point was that they meant to convey. In the ante court of the temple at Sais,
one could see a child, an old man, a vulture and a fish and a seahorse engraved, and there was nobody who did
not understand this warning proclamation of the priests: “You who are treading around the world, and leaving it
again beware, be knowledgeable that the gods hate arrogance.” unversheteit? Thus each family recognized the
bodies of their forbearers according to the signs and symbols that were drawn into the mummies of their
forbearers. They preserved deeds for posterity in that way, by having them engraved in the picture columns.
These stood sometimes outside the mausoleums and or temples. To provide all the detail in all these pictures
would have been very cumbersome that is why they resorted to a kind of short hand, so instead of having the
 20

whole figure they would have just the outlines, or just a couple of lines that indicated what they wanted to
convey. A full circle became the image of the sun, and a half circle became the image of the moon. This kind of
documentation was middle ground between picture series and a language that comprise of alphabetical letters,
a hyeroglyphical cursive writing. Such useful invention could not be kept just to the priest so it became common
knowledge. The priests figured they would not be able to keep it to themselves, unless they would hide some of
their knowledge from the profane. They invented for themselves another way of writing that was very similar to
the one the common people used. Herodotus refers to one as epistle writing and the other as hierogrammm
manner of writing. In order to have the latter, to make it less accessible to people they used some other signs
aside from the usual ones and applied some mystical meaning to some portions of it which were only known by
the initiated. Such as - the prophane saw the symbol of the sun and the moon, thus Osiris and Isis. To the
initiated into mystical knowledge, in their understanding, it was not just the sun and Orisis – the sun was the
highest godhead and was the origin, the fountain of everything good, and the moon was the picture of the
almighty power of the creator. Not only is for the initiated that the sun is symbolically the highest godhead and
the originator of everything good and the moon is the image of the almighty power of the creator, but even
more frequently the sign of the sun refers to spirit and to everything fiery whereas the sign of the moon is to be
interpreted as water and earth, or parts of earth. Out of these came according to their teachings, air. Air
originated out of the sun and the moon and what was going with the fire and the water and the earth.

The priests created a dialect that only they knew. This special language, originated and practiced by the priests,
they wrote down into their holy yearbooks in their annals, using hieroglyphics to veil their secrets. Among the
philosophical sciences that were taught in the mysteries, it was nature that had first rank just as the picture or
the image of Isis representing nature was the first one after Osiris. Osiris had highest rank and then Isis.

Diodorus has preserved the contents of their concept of how earth had started and all creatures and that formed
the basis of their knowledge. They taught that at the beginning all nature was chaos, heaven and earth were one
thing because all elements were mixed up. But after the bodies started separating one from the other, earth
gained its present order, which we can now witness.

Air was in constant motion, movement, and the lightest particles hurried to the top, because it is in nature to do
that, and in the uppermost spheres it became pure fire. Out of that pure fire came the sun. Out of this fire in the
uppermost sphere of the air the sun was started and all the stars which became spread farther and farther apart
by the fire, by their constant motion. The muddy and earthy materials remained together with the water
particles, and it was their heaviness that kept them together. Since this clump was in constant motion and going
in a circle it started to part itself because of this constant motion and to and the waters and the water came
apart, the earth part remained soft and swampy for a while. The rays of the sun warmed the earth causing
 21

several fermentations on the uppermost layer of the earth. In the wettest areas of this swampy earth little hills
started to form and they were covered with a thin but firm peal, in a manner that you can witness in swampy
areas, where if the air is brisk and the sun breaks through when the sun has a burning quality. These pregnant
little hills contained the original stuff that all living animals came from, the DNA. They gained their growth from
the thick fog that was prevalent during the night, and during the day time they became ever denser because of
the sun’s rays. When they had reached full maturity then these creatures that were breeding and brewing in
these hills, the sun helped to burn through the peel, and they burst from within and thus appeared creatures of
all sorts, living animals. It was not just one cell, but fully formed and differentiated animals.

Those that had the most warmth within them raised themselves up into the sphere of the air. Those that had
more earthly particle within them such as men or the four-legged and crawling animals, remained on the
surface of the earth, and those that more particles of the wet element within them, they sought as their living
place the waters, as that was more suited to their nature. Shortly afterwards earth was dried so much, either
because of the heat of the sun, or because of the constant winds, that earth was unable to produce anymore
larger animals. When that point had been reached created beings had no other way to proliferate but through
the known way of having young.

As incomplete as the system of creation appears at first glance, and the physical elements and principles that
are thus laid down, if we look at it without connecting it with the theogony of the Egyptians, since we hardly
know the full body of their knowledge as far as physics is concerned Maillet, who hides himself under the name
of Taliamede in our times, has extracted some knowledge and it contains hardly more un-rhyming than what
modern day philosophers believe.

I can only say in the end that there is a whole lot to Cicero’s quote…quod num dictum ni hil absurdum tam
philosophorum.

That their mathematical knowledge was well researched and thoroughly documented is witnessed from
Aristotle to Newton. The reason that mathematical knowledge had been refined so much by the Egyptians, says
Aristotle, is because in that country the priests were freed of all domestic or profane chores, and could just
devote themselves to scientific knowledge and research. Newton joins Herodotus’ opinion that the invention of
geometry happened during the time of Sesostres. Whether they are responsible to be the first ones to have
studied astronomy, writers has not been able to arrive at one opinion. One thing is certain, that the historian
Museus attributes the invention of a sphere to Diogenes. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Diodorus all tend to credit
the Egyptians more than the Babylonians for the invention of astronomy.
 22

The golden circle which is above the sarcophagus of Osimanduas, which has the constellations, was mentioned
in the yearbooks prior to Alexander’s arrival. It talks about 373 suns, and 382 times that the moon is dark, and
there is a teaching which Thales obtained from Egypt in order to calculate that the times of an eclipse of the sun,
they had this known Egyptian system which observed the movement of Venus and Mercury around the sun with
tremendous and admired precision, and it was all these calculations that helped them designate the four
direction on earth with such precision as to be able to place the Egyptian pyramids. The high knowledge in
mathematics and astronomy, the Pythagorean Egyptian theorem, Pythagoras, a Greek, got from Egyptian
schools. The observation of the heavenly bodies and there were certain priests that confirmed these and were
more learned in these. Into the same body of knowledge comes the geographical precise knowledge they had
of their country and of the Nile. There are people who think Apolonius invented maps, but the Egyptian were
already doing that.

Even though they had less knowledge of the remaining world, they knew Egypt very well as well as the
countries that bordered it. Who is not familiar with the speech with the priests at Sais presented to Solon about
Atlantis, and which has been preserved for us by Plato. With their mathematical knowledge and with their
surveying abilities they could assign to each person a plot of land, and so it was easy for them to come up with
topographical charts of Egypt. The course and the rising and falling of the river produced its own studies for
certain priests and their collected observation through a long period of time was preserved in such secrecy that
even Herodotus, who had been initiated in the Mysteries, could not research it further and only the treasurer of
the temple at Sais could give him some information as to origins of that.

The rising of this fertile river which was preceded by the appearance of the canine star constellation was so
attractive and fascinating to the Egyptians that the priests in the old times would celebrate the appearance of
this constellation of the dogs as the beginning of a new year, and the years were counted according to this.

Natural science and the continuing research of its properties in the natural bodies was another not less useful
branch of the priestly knowledge base. The inscription on the picture column of Isis in the temple of Sais,
expresses how much they knew the extent of their knowledge: “I nature bring everything that was and is and is
to be. Nobody has ever completely unveiled me.” Thaut named every animal and plant and his nomenclature
was to remain unaltered. Hasselquist claims to have found the outlines of the birds on the obelisks from
Matarea that they were so precise that he could determine their gender. Just empty knowledge of the names of
the natural bodies was not sufficient; they wanted to know their properties and their effect of each body, and so
there were dietetic regulations that were derived from further knowledge and those became religious laws that
were given to the common people. This was the knowledge of medicinal things. Based on all this research with
animals and plants came the body of medicinal knowledge which the priests were responsible for to quite a
 23

degree. Isocrates assures us that the priests were truly thinking of the highest welfare for mankind not just
giving some medicine for healing but it couldn’t be anything that would be harmful; if it had any side effects it
was not acceptable. It was to this great care that Isocrates attributed the great health, vigor and longevity most
Egyptians attained. More than likely Isocrates is referring to the six books which Hermes the messenger for the
temples wrote primarily for the pastophores regarding medicinal knowledge and their duty to dismember and
embalm the dead bodies, and it was from there that the pastophores observation and experience that
physiology and pathology grew more and more.

Shouldn’t we assume that the custom that the Egyptian physicians would seclude themselves in the temple for
a while to wait for the command of the gods about the measures to cure a given ailment should it not be that
they had been schooled by the priests to consider the gods’ desire besides the medicinal herbs and
medicaments they obtained from the priests.

Now there remains to be one more science to be talked about which was the intellectual property of the
Egyptian priests alone which they never shared with anyone who had been initiated in the innermost secrets,
the ones they hid deep within pictures and hieroglyphics and which to break the code thousand have tried and
rarely one succeeds. It is the hermetic philosophy (hermetically sealed) which comprises both magic and
alchemy two bodies of knowledge that have been lost or seem to have, among mankind to the point that event
the largest number of the most brilliantly enlightened spirits of our century pridefuly state that they have never
existed before. The possibility to prove that they were there and the ways to go about to arrive at a knowledge,
here is not the place to do it. But the priest of Egypt that are supposed to have possessed that has been recorded
by historians in peculiar facts, or documents.

Besides natural magic or the innermost knowledge of nature they can be attributed to Theurgie and we gather
this out of their being obsessed with being clean with their bodies and so-called cleaning rituals, cleaning days
on which they both refrained from a number of things and were fasting in preparation of the offering of the
sacrifices. Through which they tried as much as possible to get rid of their body, to cleanse themselves to be
more spirit, in order to elevate themselves to closer fellowship with the spirits above the earth (in the air). Moses
says explicitly the Egyptian wise peoples were able to imitate the wonders that he performed according to God’s
command. They made their rods into snakes, water into blood and the caused frogs to be over all the country.

Diodorus praises the knowledge of Cethes whom the Greeks know as Proteus who talks about the secrets of
nature that he was able to make himself appear in different bodies and shapes, and Herodotus’ message from
the gods who talked in dreams to the priests, was aimed more than likely at these Theurgy practices.
 24

It is more likely that the priests were somehow involved with the production of noble metals that they had it in
their power to do that since we know that Egypt had no foreign trade until the time of Psametichus, so they had
no way of obtaining that and when you know that in the lap of Egypt there is no trace of noble metals. The
mining operations which Diodorus talks about or thinks of are on the borders of Arabia and Ethiopia. They were
built in much later times. One has pretty reliable knowledge that the Egyptians’ only moved into Ethiopia in the
26 dynasty, that before they had never subjugated a neighboring country, so it was by force that at the time of
the 26th dynasty they invaded Ethiopia. Yet it was specifically during these oldest times that they built two
chapels of pure gold for Osiris, and they made this huge gold ring to be hung over the grace site of
Osimanduas. They brought sacrifices to the gods 6000 times 100000 (measurement) of silver.

Sesostres had as a sacrifice a ship made of cedar wood that was clad in gold and Rhemphis had 40000 talents of
gold and silver which he stolen from the gods and from the people he ruled, and accumulated that as his
treasure, since he needed a treasure to pay for the immeasurable cost of the Egyptian pyramids and the obelisks
and the colossus and the mausoleums and the labyrinths and the subterranean caves. The wealth of Egypt was
so enormous to not only have financed all these buildings the eternals monuments of the former grandeur and
wealth of Egypt, but also at that time the temples had displays of gold and silver that were just splendid.
Cambucius after he had conquered Egypt, he had decorated his palaces in Persepolis and Souza and out of the
ashes of the burnt temple of Heliopolis they only had 300 talents of gold and 2300 talents of silver, everything
else had already been carried off.

One claims that the Egyptians in the oldest times had command of all the chemical processes to work with gold,
they could color gold, they had an emerald glass that was similar to emeralds, they had picture columns and
had pointed columns that had 40 yards, they had these columns poured and they could do imitation gems that
could fool most people.

The splendid temple at Memphis was dedicated to Vulcan, under whose image fire was synonymous, which
according to Diodorus contributes so much to the perfection of the human body. Some acknowledges that the
noblest school of chemistry existed at Memphis, as witnessed by Zosimus.

Now finally one can look at the principles of Hermes. According to the principles of Hermes there are only two
elements: one is the working of the active fire and the other one is the suffering earth. It is through a very
intense dissolution, separation, a fermentation and a rotting of the bodies there are seed that are produced
from that process that are then transformed and consumed and then after being at first having gone through
that transformation and having fermented and rotted the seed gets changed and then consumed again and
then they are completed. And so you will soon gain the realization how familiar they must have been with the
secrets of nature and why the priests rarely carried the column of Isis, or nature because they wanted to keep
 25

this knowledge that was documents, secret. They didn’t want the symbols and knowledge drawn on the column
to be available to the people to the profane.

It was through their dignified taking care of all their duties and through how they kept or guarded sacred
ceremonies through their virtuous living and behavior and through their striving for knowledge and being
guardians of this knowledge that they earned the veneration of the people.

The state took care of their daily needs and since they didn’t have to do anything, they could just pursue more
knowledge. Everyone had their own field and everyone possessed the right to 12 (aruren - measurement) of
land. These possessions were so considerable that they comprised one third of the land mass of Egypt they had
to come up with everything that was necessary for the service of the gods and the sacrifices out of that. They had
soldiers that took care of that for them. They were considered to be of such high standing just as soldiers that
they could become royalty and so from history they have such examples, like Sethos. All kings even though
those that had been raised or elected out of the soldiers had to be initiated into the mysteries and they had to
get instructed to be knowledgeable in that. So the priests or these people who were initiated into the mysteries
were the trusted counsel of the kings. The oldest sons of the priests who had to be over 20 years of age and who
had been initiated into the highest secrets were always around the king.

In order to shame him, the king, not to do something foolish, the sons of the priests were there to give him
counsel but also to keep them from making a fool of himself. As soon as he had awakened at daybreak, and he
had someone read to him all the petitions of his folk, he would cleanse himself through ritual washing and then
he would put on the royal attire and go to the temple dressed in the royal attire and sacrifice to the gods. In a
loud voice the high priest called during the sacrifice the blessings of god to the ruler of Egypt and begged for
good health and for good luck and fortune and then spoke an oath, a curse that would be detrimental on
anyone who might misguide the king to do something that would be unjust. Daily the priests they secretly
documented all the deeds of the ruler in their yearbooks and then at the time of his death there was the
judgment by the peoples and this was a just judgment that then determined what was to be done with the now
powerless body of the former ruler.

Out of the ranks in the temples they elected the highest judges; if there was anything that needed to be settled
they spoke the right. They were the constant keepers of the rules, the customs, and the mystical ceremonies
which they kept without altering anything from father to son from once century to another and it was done just
orally, so it was a record that was passed on in strictest secrecy.

Without being affected in any way by their influence on regents and on the laws, without letting their power
over the people go to their heads, without misuse of their status in society and their influence which was due
 26

them due to the holiness of their responsibilities and their wisdom, they were differentiated because they had
such high principles and they were not corrupted as we have seen with the priests of other nations.

They are contrasting the priests of the Egyptian who had such high moral standards they are saying with others
who would depict the gods as cruel and blood thirsty and who would not seek to live in harmony, priests that
are adamantly insistent on separating a mother from her child that she was still breast feeding in order to use
the blood of the innocent child to find the right innocent sacrifice for the gods to atone, and who ordered in the
name of the gods priests to kill people and to have them on a pyre to burn them alive especially those who did
not want to believe without being convinced and convicted of a belief. Or people who chose to adore their god
in a different way or who might want to rebel and especially if they wanted to rebel against the way they were
tied through nature and through their duties to their regent, and if people were calling their rulers tyrants,
those were all things the priests from other nations condoned, or called for. They were very corrupt, unlike the
Egyptian priests who were not tempted by human folly.

Or if there were priest who did things because they thought they were above the law, or a law that they held the
ignorant people to but the supposed keepers of the law would consider themselves above it and who would be
idlers and live at the expense of the poorest people or the sweat of the poorest of the people of that the
amassed secretly all kinds of treasure for personal gain, to gain more status and more power and publicly they
would claim that they did not seek earthly goods but secretly they were amassing riches. And so the priests of
Egypt depicted their gods as good and lenient and benevolent. And they never profaned their altars with
human blood, they never went to war, they didn’t go on any military campaigns, they never sought to end the
king’s life, they did not incite people to riots and revolts. They did tolerate that people use certain things that
they figured were parts of their ignorance and they needed that for their worship, in other words they allowed
people to have amulets, attributing it to their fantasies. The priests had the qualities of tolerance and they were
always willing to go with what their ruler wanted them to do and be punctual in the enforcement of the laws but
at the same time they had very high morals.

When Egypt suffered under the two rulers, Cheops, and his successor and brother Cephenes those were
tyrannical years and they were suffering during that time; the temples were closed for 106 years. And yet the
first one ruled for 50 years and the second one ruled for 56 years. An obvious proof if that the priests who were
working very quietly but uninterruptedly had no part in this harsh rule that was in their land and much less did
they dare to incite the people. They didn’t want any part in a revolt against this ruler because he was after all the
rightful ruler and they did not want to shorten the days of his life under the pretense that he was a tyrant and
didn’t deserve to live and so they couldn’t be a part of shortening his life through unsavory means. They were
also not people who would try to ingratiate themselves by just paying compliments and to be in the life of the
 27

court unless it involved the service to the gods or it was the defense of one of the laws. Then they might resort to
flattery.

Darius was totally puffed up after his subjugation of Egypt and he was so proud that he wanted to he intended
to have his own picture column in the ante court of the temple at Menphis and he wanted to have it in front of
the column of Sesostres. It was the highest priest who was convinced that act of Darius, to have his own picture
column take higher place in the temple, the high priest did not want the holy place to be desecrated and by
having at the entrance to the temple, that signified wisdom, to have the military conqueror of Egypt honored
there and since this Sesostres was supposed to be the source of all happiness of Egypt, the high priest did not
want this kind of prominence for that, so he stepped out of the middle of the priests and he asked the conqueror
whether he was both wiser and more courageous then Sesostres. And Darius could sense the importance of that
question and gave up his intention.

With this noble maintaining their position that is how they resisted another conqueror of sorts, when Cambyses
wanted females to be accepted, initiated, into the order of the priests to learn the secrets.

If it came to matters of creating better living conditions for their citizens, if it was in order to maintain their
fatherland and save it from destruction then they were the most eager and industrious encouragers of those
intentions of the regent.

They announced every time to the peoples, to the populace, the rising of the Nile waters and in that fashion they
warned them of incoming high water, flooding, and they opened their treasury, financing out of their own
means the building of the canals and the dams which were supposed to control or render less damaging the
flooding of the fertile waters, the fertile river, and they made strong recommendations to the nation as to the
constant emptying, purging, the cleanliness of the body and the dietetic rules and regulations and the nutrition
for the peoples inhabiting the flat lands versus the mountains since they had different nutritional requirements.
They did burning when they had epidemics, and thus they limited the extent of infectious diseases and they
taught the Egyptians beginning principles of science, hieroglyphics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and they
guided people in the arts, painting, sculpting, etc… and whoever holds it against the priests to not have
enlightened all the peoples leaving them to believe certain things, those people who are critical of them of not
having educated everyone to the highest level, those people who are critical of the priests should solve the
following problem: whether you could take all misjudgment, misguidedness, misinformation from the simple
people. Not only the well-being of Egypt and their citizens but peoples from other nations were close to the
heart of the Egyptian priests. Those foreigners that came and demonstrated a real thirst of knowledge and to
truly learn genuine wisdom and who they deemed able to learn these things and to digest and to work this
 28

knowledge, they welcomed them, they who did not usually welcome foreigners had them share in being
instructed in what knowledge they had gained in order to become leaders and givers of laws of their nations.

Erechtus went back to Greece and thus transferred a portion of the priestly knowledge to Greece. Solon, Thales,
Euderus, Pythagoras, Plato and Lycurgus and many others… all these benefited from the priests because they
were raised and schooled by the priests. How happy they were with their selections and how much their
students responded to those expectations only those who were successful will prove and teach us. How truly
prominent these foreign nations regarded how eminent judged these teachings from Egypt we can gather out
of the consideration that all these law givers when they returned to their nations were considered to have
something that was inspired by the gods, or by god, by divine inspiration. This divine inspiration was due to the
priests’ being in close communion with the gods.

There are some people who mock the status of Moses in the Bible, saying that ‘o that is not the way it worked,’
he got it from Egypt, from being in the household of Pharaoh.

Now you can gather from your own thinking. you figure out whether what I have described here about the daily
practices about the priests, their knowledge, their seeking for knowledge, their deeds, their duties, their having
these high standards which I have related to you out of the oldest and most genuine sources; you decide
whether the well-being and the grandeur and the happiness of the Egyptian people in the oldest time that I
pretty much talked about in the first section of this are a direct result of the wisdom of these priests and whether
it is also whatever enlightenment and well-being all of humanity has achieved whether that was not the reason
why there was this institution of the priestly class.
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Third section –
The comparison of ceremonies and customs

In the first two sections we have learned about the profane and the religious laws and constitutions of the oldest
times, the facta and documents that have been researched from the oldest times. There is a remarkable
resemblance between the ceremonies and customs that pertained to the Egyptians that are common among us.
Before I get to these comparisons which are the actual purpose of all my research until now I want to repeat that
everything that pertains to the mysteries have a threefold purposed and a sense of morality of historical value
and of mystic purpose.

However haphazardly people went about interpreting the moral customs and the morals played a part in their
customs and hieroglyphics. No one can say that they are not familiar with that. Just look at Plutarch, Diodorus or
look at the classical writers. Some of them didn’t even bother to make the effort to really look into it. (it seems
he is giving himself credit) Jamblichius. Everyone was coming from a different point of view or perspective and
out of circumstances and they were in essence trying to prove something that they felt was already proven and
so they did not give the duly unbiased researchers approach. Their research and documentation was everything
but objective.

Totally unsolvable is that part that is protected by the complete silence of the initiated as to what was being
done in the innermost part of the temples, relating to the mystical part of the Mysteries. It is impossible for even
our brothers to unveil it.

With their anxious research they deviate from the path that they were on that was paved by other who led the
way, the path that they were on when they were initiated into the order, and they try to go deeper into areas that
are like a labyrinth, and get out into the twilight into the darkness, and they cry that they see a light there where
there is the thickest darkness and that they have found the fountain of light where they can claim truth and that
misguides many a good brother and takes them directly into a puddle of nonsense out of which those people all
hope to drink wisdom and here they are just diminishing the little group of the elect, and under the guise of
being rational to see this special light which the highest of building masters elevated for guidance for man
slowly but surely they believe to get to the goal they are striving for. The only that we can rely on is to remain
with the historical significance. The historical sense of it is actually the thing I am presenting here after having
spent a number of years gathering it and bringing it together. I hope that people will be fair enough to not
classify my research in that class of documents or to just see it as excerpts of this and that under the name of
 30

krata reboa or an attempt over the NN or the unknowns. Over the old and new mysteries over or about the
initiations in the order in newer times which gave the appearance that they had studied everything to the nth
degree and that nothing more could be contributed to it, since people have claimed that ours touch on theirs
and that often times mysteries from different nations have been mistaken one for the other without having
someone really vouch for it, some of them documented their dreams instead of historical proof and tried to feed
them to us. Being confident that I have earned the trust of my brothers as well as understanding that I may not
have expressed everything correctly I leave it up to them to judge how I have accomplished more than those my
predecessors in this quest. And whether in how far I surpass those who preceded me or if I have inadvertently
failed to have something mentioned that would serve the comparison of Egyptian mysteries with those of
Freemasons.

The gods according to the legends of Egyptians had formerly governed the land themselves. But as the wildness
and the vices of the inhabitants of the land gained more and more prominence they started to hide themselves
in the shape of animals and retreated into areas that were not very accessible. The places where the gods went
into hiding became the temples where the former so-called gods, and the priests and the rulers of the country
were and hid themselves in the temple and their ante courts is where the Egyptians kept their holy animals. In
order to preserve the standing and the dignity of the priesthood and in order to guard passing secrets on that
had been entrusted to them for safekeeping to avoid giving them to unworthy people, they were very very
careful in the selection of those who would be accepted into the order or who had expressed the desire to be
accepted into the order and so they had all kinds of safeguards into how they went about accepting and
selecting. The seeker had to be a freeman and people who did not work with the hands. And yet with all these
safeguards that they claimed to have there is an example from history that claims that a man of the lowest class
of inhabitants was accepted into the priesthood and even ascended to the throne of Egypt. And this man was
Cethes and he was born out of or into an unknown and not noble family. He had the qualities of having great
piety and deep knowledge of nature, and that is why he was elevated much above his original standing. We will
open up to the initiated, as soon as he has seen the light, that we are not destined to be a part of a secret and
hidden organization, but that when tyranny and vices became so prevalent we connected secretly in order to
extricate ourselves out of that stream or to be against that trend. It is the same with us that, the seeker has to be
a freeman and it cannot be a worker, someone who earns his living with manual labor, it cannot be a farmer
because one supposes that they are lacking the needed knowledge, education, that is required for our royal art,
and they are also lacking a certain quality of character because they were not trained through a certain level of
education to the more noble actions, deeds, that are required to be of that understanding.

But should you find a man who is the exception to the rule who does walk behind a plow or has a herd of
animals he is shepherding, who has a noble soul and his lot in life somehow went the wrong way and his actual
 31

destination was different but ended being in a farmer’s frock, if he is a man who has his own workshop and it is
obvious that he keeps creating fine things and his thinking and emotions come out of a higher ethics then we
would open our circle to him and then the farmers frock and the shepherds staff it is his soul that is the nobility
even, than somebody that has some coat of purple and has all kinds of merit badges and that. You can have
things that look as though you are a person of merit but you are not.

Being subservient towards the king and the laws of the land and being in total awe of the religion and
upholding the moral virtues, those were the qualities of the Egyptian priests. Whoever has sinned against these
virtues is not entitled to ask to be initiated; that is the same for us as it was for them and you should realize that
you have a good record that shows that you are righteous and that you have the deepest respect for the regent,
the ruler and religions and all virtues and the most avid protectors of all these virtues are we the Freemasons,
and that was our original purpose.

The sons of the priests had a right to preferred entry into the order before the profane would be allowed in, and
so it appeared to be a hereditary thing but not totally. Those who were destined to be company for the king had
to schooled into all kinds of knowledge and had to be at least twenty years old and consequently they were
already initiated at age eighteen to get them to the proper level of schooling. Equally with us the son of a
Freemason has a higher standing asking to be accepted into the order and he has a higher rank than a king and
has to be 18 years of age and that is in the laws and constitution.

The beautiful gender was forever excluded from the mysteries and it was for this reason until the dynasty of the
Greeks and Ptolemy that never a woman ascended to the throne because that would have given her the right to
demand entry into the holy of holies. In the historical records of dynasties you will find the names of queens,
Skemiophes, Maesses, and Cheses. They had minors who were heirs to the throne and they represented their
interests as guardians. That is the reason why Herodotus, when he was in the hall of Memphis which contained
all the picture columns of the regents, he did not find a female figure. And even though Herodotus mentions an
Itocris who used force to make herself queen of Egypt, this is proof that sometimes force trumps over right and it
is an exception to the rule which still confirms the rule. Cambusius tried to move the priests to admit women
but he did not succeed either. They believed that the women were unable to achieve the highest knowledge
which was kept by the priests and they doubted definitely that secrets could be kept which were hidden in the
pedestal the foot base of the huge colossus onto which the Egyptian priesthood was fastened. As a consequence
of later customs to mix up Persian, Greek and Roman with liturgy from Egypt it may have happened that there
was a female here and there in a foreign country, a female that was very pious that then ascended to a female
priest type status and that such was depicted as Egyptian priests pictures in later artwork out of which Martin
and Taylus and Montfaucon and other researchers of antiquity wanted to draw as fact that Egyptians did have
 32

females initiated into the Mysteries. Even on the table of Isis which is infamous and the mystics of this age think
of it as a venerable remnant of the highest Egyptian secrets, but it is pretty obvious that it was not the genuine
article and it was someone’s figment of imagination. It goes back to the second or third century and, yes it does
represent female figures, but only Isis, never priestess. The only service that the women were allowed to do with
the mystics in the Egyptian Mysteries was the insignificant occupation of feeding certain animals that were
sacred to the Egyptians, such as beetles, scarabs, certain kind of mice, and other animals. Nonetheless, they had
highest respect for women, which is founded in their reference for Isis, the wife of Osiris. The priests only
allowed themselves one wife and they did not want to insult their spouse with a rival.

Our wise givers of the law removed the beautiful gender from our secrets under the flattery because they were
worried that having the sisters would bother the brothers in their work, they didn’t want them to be disturbed.
The flattery was that they did not want their beautiful hands to get dirt into such ugly work and since those
women were truly pious Egyptian women, they asked to be busy with such things as attaching the bows and
ornamentations on the aprons or whatever garments they had as priestly garments and their reward for doing
so was to give them beautiful gloves and telling them that each level that the priests attain they reassured them
just as the medieval knights would do, continued fidelity, that they were working together on this. In other
words, they were helping the priests to attain higher levels.

This goes back to those that were not the sons of the priests; once the priests were convinced of the high moral
values the seeker exhibited, and then his petition to be accepted into the order was accepted. Apuleius is the
only one of the oldest writers. He is the one who talks about the outer circumstances of an initiation into the
Egyptian mysteries. He sought to become familiar and introduce to the servants within the temple when he
exhibited his deep inner desire to be accepted into the order. He examined himself to make sure he had the
willpower to combat his passions, exercise self control, and then he dared to share his wishes with the high
priest. The venerable wise men who was used to exact following of the laws was accepting the seeker and his
wishes in a gentle way and he mellowed his strong desire after getting to know the secrets of the order with
loving rational or reasons just as a father would explain to his son and referred to him that there are laws
governing the time which he has to wait. There is such a waiting period that no matter how anxious you are it
cannot be abbreviated that of course he should not be waiting that time by being ambivalent about it, and he
pointed out to him how important this step is and he made him aware of the fact that he needed to be willing to
shed the body’s part that they referred to as the outer mantle or that of the man of the flesh and that there are
perils in taking on this step. It refers to exercising a lot of restraint the purity of this teaching and the exalted
perspective of god and nature that he would hear in the temple’s teachings, reminded him that very serious
preparations were needed…
 33

… and that there expenses there were costs that needed to be paid at the time of initiation.

Which Mason among us is not reminded of what is law and has become accustomed to get to know the seeker
very well, to have him become acquainted with several brothers who then almost spy on him to make sure that
his character is that what he is professing it to be and to let him wait for a given amount of time to have him
realize the importance of his undertaking, and yes, to make it a bit more difficult for him to test his perseverance
and to make sure that what he believes he is doing and what he believes the order to be is in the right direction,
for him to be in the right direction, and then also letting him know that with his being accepted there is the
usual paying the taxes, and that he is prepared to pay that amount. Finally the time of being initiated is near I
will let Apuleius talk about the ceremony of his initiations with his own words: “the day, thus called the high
priest to him, the day of your pious wishes being crowned with realization is near. Through my own hands you
are going to be initiated into the secrets of Isis with these words the loving old man extended his right hand to
me and guided me to the portal, the gate of the temple, opened the usual splendor and sacrificed to the gods
and fetched several holy books from the inaccessible part of the holy place and then demanded for the certain
determined cost of the initiation. Then accompanied by servants of the temple I was accompanied to the baths.
There I was washed and I was reconciled with the gods I was continuously sprinkled with water and then
towards evening I was escorted back to the temple of Isis where there were others standing around and through
signs it was communicated to them certain things but no words were spoken to them only communication
through signs was done and gestures and I was ordered to refrain for ten days from all meat and all wine. With
holy reverence I followed this order and on the 10th day towards evening there was a large assembly of priests.
One removed all the profane ones and clothed me in all linen. The high priests seized my right hand and
escorted me into the inner part of the temple. Now do not expect you uninitiated, curious one that I will open to
you here what was said and done after that. I would say it if I could and you would hear it if you were allowed to.
But equally punishable would be the lips from which these secrets would slide out inadvertently and the ears
which would hear them. And yet I can satisfy your pious curiosity or eagerness to learn so hear and believe what
is true. I came to the darkest threshold of death; I entered into the area of hell and then was escorted through all
elements and then returned to my former place and it was at midnight when I saw the sun in her full glorious
wonder and I prayed to the gods from a very close plane. See, you can hear my speech and yet you are not
allowed to know anything. Now I can without violating my duties tell you what else was happening.” Here
Apuleius continues to talk that on the following day he was introduced to the folk, to the peoples in a very
pompous way, in a celebratory way as a newly initiated and he was decorated with who knows what kind of
jewelry and with wreaths looking he says like a holy picture column. Apuleius refers to this day of his initiation
as his second birth or as his rebirth which was celebrated with a very gay and happy party which the priests had
in his honor and he was very happy the first three days living with his fellow brothers and something a bit odd
 34

and noteworthy is his speech, in which he was full of enthusiasm about the high object of nature into which he
had now been initiated or which he was now familiar with and he had the speech to the goddess into whose
secrets he had been initiated. I would share the whole speech if I could prove something else except that which
we already know and I also cannot share the whole speech because it contains in some things that the profane
are not knowledgeable as to the inherent power of nature and so there are some of those teaching that Apuleius
mentioned in his speech. At last he embraced the high priest full of enthusiasm and his tears wet the venerable
cheeks of the high priest and he swore to him eternal gratitude for this magnificent did that had been bestowed
on him. After some time had passed Apuleius was also schooled and initiated in the secrets of Serapis and soon
after that those of Osiris and to that study and knowledge and duties he devoted the rest of his days. One
should take note here that the seeker’s day of being initiated into the priesthood was determined by the high
priest and that it was not one single priest but the whole assembly of the priests that was a part of his being
accepted into the order and that the priest had this ceremony happen towards evening and that the high priest
communicated with the other initiated ones through signs or symbols and that according to the account of
Apuleius these signs conveyed more than mere words and that the petitioner was clothed in linen when the
priest seizes his right hand and escorts him into the temple and that he is threatened in the dark chambers with
the terror of death and that he is brought through all elements back to his former place or position and that at
midnight he saw a very bright light. One will please note that there is a similarity of the initiation of the
Egyptian priests and that of the Freemason; is it not the enthusiasm which is inherent in Apuleius speech to Isis
isn’t that enthusiasm similar to the sentiment we have when we are mightily moved as we see the light and find
ourselves so closely tied to and a part of all virtues. Is his being so filled with overflowing gratitude towards the
high priest that initiated him into this order not similar to our feeling so closely bonded with those who initiate
us into our order. Are not the different initiations into the secrets of Isis or nature the secrets of Serapis or the
innermost knowledge of nature and the secrets of Osiris, which would be the most complete recognition of the
highest godhead in some measure similar as that of attaining the different levels of Freemasonry. If there had
been among the large number of Egyptian priests some miserable one who took his duties less seriously in
lower ranking and had there been someone to betray some of their ceremonies and customs as has happened
among Freemasons who might have for their own gain shared some writings of our order then we might even
be more aware of how closely are the initiation of our orders. The great care with which Theodore and Herodotus
who had both been schooled in the Mysteries talked about the most insignificant circumstances that might
reflect teachings and customs of the priests they take great care to cover or avoid speaking of this. This proves
that the swearing this terrible oath which the first priest was commanded to swear into the hands of Isis and of
Hermes to make sure that there would be secrecy that there would be just absolute silence about these secrets
which included to watch over death and the graveside of Osiris and so the magnitude of this oath being so
binding has been continually passed on to subsequent priests. This secrecy was one of the major duties of the
 35

initiates and on a yearly basis in the last month called Mesure they were reminded of this with a sacrifice to
Harpokrates and in front of his image who signifies the keeper of secrets of silence peas and beans were offered
with the following words: the tongue is a lucky thing the tongue is an unlucky thing. Speech or language is a
twofold two-sided present from heaven since it can bring us happiness or it can make us very unhappy. It is
somewhat the way we press onto the tongue of the newly initiated with the Freemasons the seal of Solomon in
order to impress on him the most important virtues, so there is suffering involved when you have this seal
pressed on your tongue.

In the ruins at Herculanum there were discovered several depictions of what Egyptian religious ceremonies
were about. These depictions in Herculanum, Italy, show figures that dance around an altar. Only the high priest
is clothed in the usual manner. From this we can gather that the new initiates, since profane ones never got to
the innermost part of the temple, were unclothed. The higher one was in being initiated they were clothed in
the Mysteries. Just as with us the profane the one that has just been accepted to enter the order or the
apprentice when he gets to his next rank, when he gets his journeyman’s degree, and there is a certain
nakedness of the body in that process with the Freemasons, from apprentice to journeyman. And when the
journeyman is elevated to become master then he is fully clothed when he enters into the (rectangle). I’m
saying being clothed in the usual manner of priests. According to Herodotus the clothing of the priests was of
linen. On Egyptian paintings and statues we see priests represented part naked with just an apron around the
middle of the body, because the art of the Egyptians had not advanced so much as to be able to show drapery
and the way they would have done it would have obscured the whole position of the body underneath. Here the
use of the apron which is the lower part of the body extending to the knees being covered is the characteristic
way of recognizing the priest and even the gods they showed wearing these aprons where we see in several
examples that have been preserved from antiquity Caylus. The knowledge which the initiates became entrusted
with was, besides the teachings of god and the eternal soul that never dying quality of a soul the profane and
holy history of Egypt, the hieroglyphics, mathematics, geography, natural history of the Nile, and the hermetic
philosophy. I believe that I see all these areas of knowledge that the priests were to learn and be in command of
depicted on the table that pertains to our apprentice and our journeyman.

We cannot totally prove that the Egyptians in the oldest times used similar ways such as they had tablets and yet
we have several reasons to assume that somewhere along the lines these tablets were used because of the
oldest Egyptians having brought this about. The famous Golden Fleece, which the Argonaut fell bounty to them
served that kind of purpose for communication. Johann from Antioch who lived under the emperor Huracius
and after him Suidas, maintained that the teachings about the changing of metals was contained on this fleece.
Sesostres who was Egypt’s mightiest and wisest king was supposed to have left behind a portion of his army at
Kolches ??…. This is according to accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus, Strabo and Marcellinus. The leader of
 36

that heap that then was inhabiting that country they were inhabiting the land and some of them were schooled
in the Mysteries and that is where they found enough material that they could convert to gold and so they
produced so much gold that they surpassed the riches the wealth and splendor of Sesostres. The desire to keep
this art and this knowledge for their future generations led them to record the secret on the lambs fleece and to
have it in safe keeping. Soon they were sorry to have violated the oath of secrecy because the Greeks were then
lusting after the secrets and so the Greeks conquered them and left with all their treasures and they also
conquered the so-called Golden Fleece.

Besides that it is common knowledge that the books from antiquity were nothing more than rolled up animal
skins and from the writings of Plutarch we know that 20000 books which Antonius robbed out of the treasures
of the kings at Pergamus and then presented to Cleopatra were written on buck’s skin, he-goats. From the story
of the initiation of Apuleius it is more than likely that the Egyptians had such animal skins that had been written
on with hieroglyphics and they were kept in the innermost part of the temple and then presented to the initiate.
The roll which the priest who was initiating them into the Mysteries fetched out of the temple was, according to
his description, covered with snakelike lines that had some some knots too and had circles. These were symbols
which expressed a lot which were not very many of them, and yet they expressed a lot. However this may be the
pictures painted on our tables are referring to the sciences which were the property of the priests and were
necessary for them to do their duties as priests. The oldest history of the country is one of those preferred
knowledges of the priests. Their two columns onto which Thaut and Hermes the second engraved the
happenings and the knowledge of Egypt, which they thus intended to preserve for posterity. These were
destroyed and ignorance grabbed hold of the country until Hermes Trimesgestus gathered the fragments of
former knowledge and gathered to those fragments his knowledge and then deposited those in the temple.
There are two columns of Hermes which point us to the oldest history of the country and there are also two
columns which we find on our Tapis which can be the depictions of our tablet. The outline of Egypt forms a
longish figure. Deodorus gives us inaccessible borders through which it was kept separate from the rest of the
world. Plutarch says that the whole world was depicted by the Egyptians as a rectangle and a rectangle is
supposed to be a mystical figure. The four sided base of the pyramid which with astronomical precision is
turned to the four corners of the world, the four-sided mausoleum which the 12 men built for themselves who
reigned together, communally, after Sabaco’s death, and the 4 sided arched entrance area to the graveside of
Osimanduas they all prove that his figure was venerated. Should the elongated rectangle in order to express
myself in the Freemason speech, the closed frame with the four geographical directions are partly Egypt and
partly the world according to the Egyptians. Shouldn’t that also have reminded the priests of the necessary
knowledge in geography.
 37

One of the odd deeds of Horus who is son of Osiris and Isis we hear that Typho’s concubine Thucris visited Horus
with the bad intention to kill him and brought along a large snake. The servants of Horus slew the monster. In
order to always remember the danger which the son of Isis was in, and according to the witness of Plutarch,
among the practices of the mysteries in the temple they threw in a cord which then was hacked into pieces. This
cord which was a part of the mythology of the priests appears to have been a transformed by the Hebrews when
they used some of the Egyptians secrets and they transformed them into a nobler form and were maybe
recognized in the fringes in Solomon’s temple which are witnessed to in some mysterious tablets.

In the Mosaic ways of putting Mosaic works and from the Hebrews learned and all art all shared by the priests
with the common people and especially those that were in closer connection with the priestly knowledge when
they needed to have manufactured the colored glass that would have required higher chemical knowledge. The
splendid two hundred feet long floor of mosaic works in the ante court of the graveside of Osimanduas may
have contributed to the mosaics in the floor of Solomon’s temple. Just as in the Mysteries of Egypt there may be
found the design and the reason for what the Hebrews did.

The water scale, the right angle, the plumb, which sinks because it is lead, the circle, compass, and the plank,
those are the accepted symbols of the mathematical sciences and they are at different levels which are
recommended for the bothers they journeyman to attain or work on. These are subjects that with the Egyptians
primarily a group of peoples are called Horologe studied and worked with and these are the ones that were not
elevated to the higher class of priests. There is tool for measuring and dipping… keller.

The building of monuments is an art form, which Osiris is supposed to have originated and it is because of that
that the initiated considered it holy and the Egyptian priests were devoting their lives to that. This is not just
architecture which can be just a pleasant harmonizing of different parts that is attractive to the eye but it is an
object which is to serve but it is a solid a simple elegance that is evident in this style of building it is an inherent
beauty which the Greek artists afterwards borrowed from the Egyptians. They were seeking for something that
was durable that had simplicity and beauty at the same time and they say that Greeks imitated it partly. They
knew no determined order, ordinances or laws that they had to satisfy they had a inventor spirit and dared
without being forced by certain rules and regulations…

There is an inherent beauty in their architecture that has durability and simplicity as dominant goal they are not
following certain rules but designers are free to come up with innovations they can totally be free of any
previous following of what has been done before so they selected columns and pillars and colossal carvings.
There were decorations according to their particular taste, but the main emphasis was on strength and size and
durability that is why they worked without mortar without metals to tie together their buildings.
 38

Here we consider the raw un-hewn stone and then the stone that has been worked. I assume that the cubic
appearance of a stone comes from the school of Pythagoras and that appeared on the tablets, the teaching
tablets. Plutarch relates in his accounts that it was Isis who gave the priests the design of a plow, which had
according to their mythology been invented by Osiris. Isis wanted to have the plow available to the priests as a
remembrance of her husband and for the priests to use it for all work in the service of the gods. Herodotus and
Deodore are thinking of this particular tool in the hand of the priests and Caylus from antiquity shows several
depictions of Osiris and one can always pick out Osiris from among other Egyptian gods because of the plow.
One can imagine that when you look at these depictions of antiquity that this venerated tool for the Egyptians
was as valuable as the hammer is in Freemasonry and as needed.

Through the sun and the moon on our tablets the Egyptians are pointing toward Osiris and Isis. Osiris is the
mystical symbolization of the almighty godhead and Isis the picture of nature and the knowledge of both were
kept safely and taught in the interior of the temple and were the sole property of the priests.

Possibly these images of sun and moon also point at the study of astronomy or at the nobler metals which are
also expressed by the sun and moon and all chemical signs and symbols which the metallurgists use they are of
Egyptian origin and which a depiction of Osiris which covered full of chemical symbols. The flaming star which
according to the interpretation of our symbolic tablets pertains to the eternal which was burning in Solomons’
temple appears to have different significance with the Egyptians. King Pheron had the courage to throw his
arrow full of anger into the middle of the river when it had grown by 18 measure of the forearm and the river
had overflowed over the dam. Since the king had done this in wrath immediately the gods punished this
desecration with ten years blindness. Full of reverence for the fertile and benevolent river they elevated a star in
the skies and honored with a name, Eridanus of our astronomers, they honored that star with the name of the
river Nile, and under this star is a smaller but very bright shining star too, and they named that one Canopus
because the Nile flows around one side of the island of Canopus.

Only the priests were versed in the natural history of the Nile river and it was one of their scientific occupations
which they may have signified with the star so it becomes more likely that they used C for naming this small
shining star, and later on they substituted the C for a G from which we have several examples from old
documents. The origin of the Nile was a secret kept from all initiate and from all un-initiated and it was
knowledge owned by the priests. The historian Deodorus gives us from the course of those rivers some sort of
notion. The river forms, thus says Diodore, different meanders and plummets over great heights, and squeezes
through steep mountains and then meanders through long stretches of flat area and then turn towards east,
then turns towards south, and then returns to west. Am I going too far with my hypothesis when I believe that
with this description of the Nile we can see the travels of the beginning apprentice who is told and expected to
 39

remain on the path that he is going past terrible precipices and he is climbing high mountains and that he has
to squeeze through tight passes and all of this to follow a leader who leads him soon to the west, and then to
the south and then to the north and then to the west again, to return him. This practice of having the apprentice
go through this could that not be a recalling of the travel into hell that was in vain of the king Rhampsinit which
they commemorate yearly and have their co-brethren with his eyes covered go to the 20 stadia Sais situated
temple of Isis. When he is blindfolded they lead him through the city to the right country road and he always
ends in the right place.

I also believe that the travels of our brothers as journeyman is recalling and resembling the travels of Osiris who
accompanied by his music and by nine lovely maiden who are the muses of Egypt he travelled though Egypt in
order to teach the raw the ignorant and primitive inhabitants to attract them to himself because it was the
sorcery of his art of tone music and in order to attract them through the dances and the singing and to make
them more willing to get along.

From the accounts of several writers we know that the picture of Isis was displayed in the temple in such a
manner that there was a window or an opening in the wall towards east south and west, so that the sun, or
Osiris, her husband, could always be at the side of Isis, and may the three windows which are on French tablets
be explained in such a way. Besides the similarity of the hieroglyphics and our tablets, the knowledge of the
Egyptian priests being expressed that way there is a lot of similarity or almost exact parallel between our order
and that of the Egyptian priesthood. The different guilds of the priests which were distributed into different
temples of the country had the same constitution and furnishings and teachings. They were not allowed to
change anything in their ceremonies and they were from hand to hand passed on. Even when they were
suffering under the rule of foreign rulers they continued to practice all that. Our laws do not permit us under any
circumstance to change anything in our works. We too make sure that there is unity in our ceremonies and
customs that nothing is changed and our eagerness to do all this may even be growing more if we are
persecuted. The master at the chair of each loge shouldn’t that be equal to the same as the highest priest or
prophet at each temple who had to know the laws and who supervised all the newly initiated. There is a group
or Egyptian that are Moschosphragists; aren’t these of the Egyptians not our brothers the supervisors, they who
supervise the execution of all ceremonies and works according to the custom and the laws and it is their duty.
Does our brother secretary not have the same duties to take care of that in Egypt the hierogrammists took care
of? The orators that did the speeches for the good noblemen who were deemed worthy of having such
celebrations, are these orators the priests had not equal to our orators in our loges?

The treasurer at the temple at Sais gave the historian Herodotus several bits of information about the origins of
the Nile. So obviously the treasurer at the temple of Sais was an initiated person, one of the higher ranks. His
 40

duties would be similar to that of our brother the treasures in the loges. Didn’t the pastophores and the
neocores have a similar duty as our ceremonial master does? Are not our brothers who are the journeyman who
are keepers of laws or who are taught to work with geometric problems and solutions are they no equal to the
class of the horologues? They are also the singers. Do we not intonate and start singing songs of praise to the
highest of masters of the building? And the underling servants in the temple, finally, who are the keepers of the
holy animals, are they not equal to our serving brothers?

At the entrance to the temples stood sphinxes or picture columns which were composed of the upper body of a
woman and the lower body of a lion. Who does not, the old ones in antiquity saw the sphinx as wisdom
personified? The parts of the body of a woman showed beauty and the lion’s body showed strength, power. And
when a freemason is designing a building is it not beauty and strength that are the properties that a mason has
to keep in mind? The number three is a holy sacred number for us and it was thus with the Egyptians. The same
numbers they considered unlucky as we do. But number three was good luck because it is the first odd number
and yet it is a complete number.

Since the effect is that with gods’ almighty power it is the number three because it is the spirit and the material
and the universe is made of both spirit and material. The Egyptians compared the universe with a perfect
triangle; the ibis was venerated by the Egyptians because his beak that is turned towards the earth and his two
feet they form a perfect triangle. One shouldn’t be surprised, Plutarch continues, that the Egyptians were
occupying themselves with what seemed to be insignificant imaginations. Doesn’t the triangular symbol the
fork of Neptune point to the third reich which came to Neptune as his domain when heaven and earth were
parted? Water? Doesn’t the name of Venus Amphitrite and the triton have a reference and a connection with the
number three? And with the Pythagoreans, don’t they call a three-sided triangle with equal sides Minerva? They
refer to themselves as tritogenea. Under the signs or the symbols of hieroglyphic cursive writing you will
encounter a triangle quite frequently and I have more than one proof that triangles signified that which it does
in today’s chemistry. For us it is fire. If the point is up then it is fire, if the point is down it is water. According to
the comprehension which the Egyptians had as to the origin of our world out of chaos which I talked about in
the second section, the Egyptians believed it was water and fire that were the working means by which the earth
originated out of chaos. Plutarch who wrote down the accounts of Osiris Isis and Horus as allegorical writings
which talk about nature’s effects he confirms this with more than one assuring statement. He says that the
dampness of nature and the presence of water that is the principle in all material things and it makes up a good
portion of the earth and the air. Fire on the other hand is a dry element that is the opposite of water it is related
to the sun but it is not the same as, not equal to the sun so just as the Egyptians believed in a good
and a bad principle, they had a good versus an evil principle, which governed the
world, they assumed that it existed, that these two were the main players that
 41

ruled or governed the earth and they assumed that it was water that kept
everything damp and was necessary for things to grow and it was coming from
the benevolent Osiris and fire that destroyed everything (trials of water and fire)
was the property and characteristic of Typhon. (water represents good, fire represents evil)

Freemasons who are looking for who are searching for similarities may look at their jewelry and they will see the
dipper they will see a lowered pointed triangle and then on the handle of the key they will see an upward
pointing triangle (star of David?) and so they are looking at what Egyptians took to be the essence of
cosmogonies the fire and the water the most effected solvents or dissolution or nature. And it will remind you of
Hermes who put things back together after things have been destroyed because he had the key that re-
established and actually improved the hieroglyphics and the key then was given to the priests to the higher
priest in the temple.

That the blue color that our masters are so fond of, it is their own color, that this color was a particularly pleasant
color to the priests we know through Plutarch, he claims that he priests were wearing linen clothing because the
blossom of the linen plant, the flax, is the blue color of the sky that encloses the earth, so they imitated the blue
color. That the ceiling of the arched entrance area to the mausoleum or the temple in front of the burial grounds
of Osimanduas is painted in blue with golden stars decorated.

The sun has from time memorial been the object of public veneration by the Egyptians. Even greater was the
admiration of the sun by the initiated because they considered it symbolically the never changing eternal
godhead. It was to honor the sun that the sun city Heliopolis was built. The calendar for Egypt started with the
beginning of the sun. From the beginning of time for the Egyptians with the beginning of the sun until
Alexander the Great was victorious there were 23000 years. With this admiration and veneration of the sun by
the priests it is natural that their ritual was to daily be looking towards the east and look for the sun to rise. For
this reason it may be that Psametichus had the ante court in Memphis directed to the east. When the venerated
steer, Apis, died and this news spread through the land there would be a younger that he would return in a
younger shape, then several priests went to the place where Apis had been born to see if there was on that was
characteristic in his markings as Apis had been and then they built a hut according to the age old instructions by
Hermes, and it was a hut directed towards the east and in this hut the young steer was fed allowed to suckle for
four months. This relationship to the sun this image of the godhead and this wish and searching of the
Egyptians for light we can gather from a peculiar history or story which Herodotus has preserved for us.
Mycerine, the only daughter of an Egyptian king was begging her father as she was dying to grant her that every
year after her death she would be able to see light. She was placed into a gilded sarcophagus or coffin that was
in the shape of a cow and it had a golden circle of suns between the horns and every year this coffin was carried
 42

out of the royal palace at Sais to the sun. are we not repeating by our ritual that with each of or our works the
master has to have his seat directed towards the east.

Are we not mentioning at the opening of the meeting the sun, whose course of the day begins in the east and
ends in the west. Don’t we expect the light to come from the east and under the word light do we not
comprehend that it embodies truth and wisdom and that this is something that comes from up above and that
we have to receive it, that it is streaming onto us.

Among the festival days which the Egyptians celebrated yearly there are two which are especially remarkable for
us. One was the honors of the Nile according to the historian Heliodor. These celebrations started on the
longest day of the year and lasted until the birthday of Apis and it lasted seven days. It was according to our
calendar the 20th or 21st of June at which time the Nile begins to rise and the New Year starts for the Egyptians.
One celebrated it with a lot of splendor and ceremonies. Aelan says he would too verbose if he described all the
processions and the sacrifices which the Egyptians would do at the growing of the Nile, this coming this
appearance of the gods their dances and their festivities and gatherings and how cities and villages were
delighted in celebration. On John’s feast day, (in June) starts the New Year for the Freemasons and it happens
to be around the same time and it is the day whose return each genuine brother is happy to celebrate with his
brothers and the day on which we say blessings on our bond we say those blessing aloud and then we are
wishing one another good luck and the celebratory meal of the Freemasons and then without speaking we
exchange the oath of brotherly love anew. The second of these noteworthy festivities is a funereal celebration
and Plutarch describes it very elaborately on a couple of days of the year temple was covered in black and this
announced that there would be pain and sorrow. It was a commemoration of the death of Osiris and his burial
and then you had priests clad in black, the Melanophori, who belonged to the class of the pastophores among
the priests. They appeared on the scene then.

I talked about the circumstances of how Osiris was murdered by his brother and his dead body was then cut in
to pieces in the first section and then Isis pursues Typho and then was able to reassemble Osiris the part that
could be recovered in a hurry put him on the banks of the Nile and then Isis with her companions was anxiously
looking at her husband’s body and listened heard that the coffin had been hung up on a bush and that the bush
grew up high and surrounded the coffin and hid it and the dogs of Isis found it in the moonshine and they
recovered the precious coffin. This day of remembrance was observed on the 17th day of the month called Athyr.
And the days of sorrow and funeral days for Isis to be in that stage was four days and it was during that time that
they showed the golden oxen who was symbol of Osiris with black cloths that is how the common people were
shown what was going on. On the 19th of that same month the priests carried a sad but ceremonial procession
 43

at night the holy coast to the coast of the Nile river they poured water into a golden vessel and called out loud
that Osiris was found.

They historian Minucius Felix thinks of another funeral festival that must have had the same origin as this and it
may have been just something that the Romans brought as a direct transplant from the Egyptians mysteries to
Rome or slightly adapted them. Isis, he says, she cried and she was sorrowing with Anubis and the bald priests
went looking for her lost son. The Isiaker were pounding their chest during this funeral memorial celebration
and they were imitating the sorrowing mourning mother. Then they brought a boy out into daylight to make it
look as if they had found him again. Isis was delighted and the priests were rejoicing. Thus they did it every year
that what they had lost got found again.

With one of these memorial celebrations there was a picture column of one of their gods that got damaged, but
Herodotus believed that the old secrecy that had been entrusted to him and could not divulge the name of the
god or he would have gone against the secrecy laws. It’s pretty easy to guess that it was the picture of Typho that
the priests had damaged with blows to it in order to have revenge because of the murdering of Osiris.

The recovery of the body without a soul at moonshine the joy of the priests when they do find the body all this
may be equal to the bothers who are going through the ceremony of…

The murdering of Osiris and the coffin that is surrounded by the bush and the careful searching of the body the
blows to the picture column of Typho, and the mourning, the acting out, not in words because they have the
code of silence, in mimes, the priests showing in their gestures, in how they carried themselves, the recovery of
the body that is without its soul in the moonshine and the joy of the priests to have made this discovery , all this
can be compared with the memorial celebrations for the master of our loge, the death or our beloved master
Adonixam, and we can compare it with the sympathy that is expressed as we speak witness ot his widow, and we
can compare it with the branch of the acacia, and the three strikes, which the newly installed master receives
and with the searching for the special light, the searching for the directives that concern the special light and
then with the jubilation and the joy of the brothers to have rediscovered the lost master word. Mutual trust and
harmony are the band which includes the brothers that have become distributed or strewn all across the earth,
dispersed. From this open heartedness and this harmony of the Egyptian priests history has preserved several
samples for us. King Sabako who was one of the most pious priests believed that in a dream vision by the
highest godhead of Thebes he was given a command that he should have all priests murdered and that he was
to walk on their dead corpses if he expected to reign with being happy and wise. Uncertain whether he should
follow this command, this wink that the godhead had given him, or whether he should share this dream vision
with his fellow brothers, his respecting fellow brothers gained the upper hand in this decision; he called the
priests together and told them in brotherly trust and freedom of his vision and then he abdicated from reigning
 44

over them to not displease the gods and also to no violate the bond which he had entered into when he was
initiated into the order with the other priests. After him the reign was taken over by 12 priests and they reigned
communally for 15 years without conflict and without jealousy. As a monument of their friendship and of their
being of one mind with which they sought what was best for the country, they had erected for themselves the
most beautiful burial site, a mausoleum, so that they would not be separated by death either.

Truth and wisdom was the goal of the work of the Egyptian priesthood. I want to quote from Plutarch verbatim
something that proves this: “he who wishes to be wise or become wise,” thus starts the book of Plutarch, “has to
pray to or beg Isis and Osiris, the immortal gods, for wisdom. Human beings cannot wish for something better,
and god cannot give his creation anything better than the realization of truth, meaning ultimate truth. Wisdom
alone is the difference between god and human. If god gives wisdom then god is giving as a gift part of his
own. Gold and riches of which god has no need, they only have a drawing power for mortals; the blessing of an
eternal life comes from a full realization of what endures among all things. The research for truth therefore is a
noble wish to draw close to the gods or the godhead. It is the holiest of all occupations that happen in our
Mysteries and it is the most pleasant of that female goddess that is venerated as the most wise in our temples.
Is the name Isis not synonymous with wisdom and the name Typho with pried who is an enemy and a scoffer or
wisdom who puts up obstacles in the real scientific search and so in other words he wants to hinder the priests
and the consecrated – not let them get close, if you search for and approach wisdom and truth you get closer
and closer to the godhead and typhoon wants to keep them away. We can say that Typho, being the
personification of pride, is a scoffer of wisdom or a scoffer of Isis, so the jenna could be back to wisdom since she
is the personification of wisdom. He wants to hinder the research in the true and genuine sciences.

Are not the priests in our gathering places, to keep them from being distracted, supposed to live with
moderation and strict order and is not unnecessary décor removed so as to help the initiates focus on the
properties, the characters of the highest being which is the source of wisdom? Is that not the reason that our
temple is called Iseum, because through knowledge of Isis, and that means Nature, you reach this godhead.

Truth, therefore, wisdom and well-being for mankind was the final purpose of the Egyptian Mysteries. That is
why the priest who had the highest office in Egypt was wearing on his chest the amulet of Isis with the
inscription: ‘The word of truth.’ (Listen for German translation)

As long as they remained true to this guiding principle the word of truth as long as they remained devoted to
their first master and founder Osiris to have all their fame in their efforts to improve man’s lot, mankind, their
order thrived and remained upright, they were respected and Egypt was in happy circumstances of well-being
and that rested on secure supports pillars.
 45

But as soon as Egypt had been conquered by foreign nations and was ruled by foreign nations and the temples
were desecrated and the high priest the guardians the keepers were driven out or saw themselves in a position
where they had to flee in order to protect the secrets that had been entrusted to them in order to hide that is
when the formerly so venerable order changed into just a bunch of tricksters who you could recognize by their
outer appearance and especially when it came to Apis, because it was an ox you could recognize him, but not
because it embodied Osiris. It was a just a show, make believe, not true veneration. Each guild of the remaining
priests maintained that the animals kept in their temple were higher and holier than those of a neighboring
temple and so the Ombites were fighting with the Tentyrites were fighting about prayer to this prey bird
Sperber the Oxyrinchites fought against the Cynopolites in order to the defend the order of the dogs against the
worshipers of the pikes. Others the Heracleopolites threatened in order to prove their devotion to the labyrinths
which is the burial site of the crocodiles. They threatened death and destruction to the venerators of the cats and
they curse those who ate onions and soon you were just dealing with fanaticism and superstition. The priests
were just upbraiding one another consuming one another in their ridiculous activities. Here and there a
Neocore would flee with a picture column of an Egyptian goddess or god and would carry it to Greece or to Italy,
would build a shelter there and would sell the light that he pretended was hidden therein to passers by that
were curious enough for a mere four pennies. And thus was extinguished the most venerable priesthood that
was ever in the service of god and also the searching for wisdom and truth that was dedicated to the well-being
of the fellow man. The people’s adopted customs from the conquerors, even exchanging them or mixing them
up with their own ways of temple, god-directed service, and nothing but a mere shadow of the mysteries
remained. And when Strabo went to Heliopolis to see the ruins of the temples all he encountered there were
neocores and pastophores but not a single hierogrammatist (scribes).

Is truth wisdom and seeking the happiness and well-being of all mankind not the final purpose of our
association. Truth wisdom and the improvement of the achievement of happiness for all of mankind is that
actually the purpose of our association. Do our laws not impress on us with every level that this is the purpose in
different imagination. Is truth not the same as the lost master word over which recovery we rejoice in our free
places which we build through our virtues. Is it not our destiny to oppose vice and ignorance and stupidity and
instead spread illumination. Does not each brother work on that specific stone that he is to hew, to chisel, to use
for the building of the common happiness, but he is to roll it, not only hew it but to transport push it and roll it.
Can there be a more noble end purpose then for us to seek to gain more knowledge through mutual sharing of
knowledge. And with everyone who is included in our circle on their path towards virtue and that it be a straight
not a crooked path towards completion or total whole and harmonious to show that to him and should he get to
a place off that path to bring him back in brotherly love and to encourage daily in the exercise of virtuous deeds
to do good things and to prevent bad things.
 46

May the similarity which I have detract that exists between the Egyptian mysteries and Freemasonry may the
latter never get to what caused the decay and the end of the former, may this never happen. May superstition
and fanaticism empty preaching not desecrate our loges, our holy places. May one never instead of seeking
truth wisdom and means to improve mans’ lot go on ways of error, pursue erroneous way. If people make fun
of something and outmoded prejudices that are unworthy of our enlightened times unworthy preconceived
notions about wisdom and the reason and purpose of Freemasonry to see that as nonsense and take it for
wisdom and for truth, or to say untrue things to accuse a brother and persecute him a brother that does not
wasn’t to believe what is unbelievable for the enlightened mind. May there never be masons who separate
themselves from the common bond in order to build a separate shelter and in order to turn away good brothers
under the prideful pretense that they have a special illumination that came their way and thus guide them into
a trap and on erroneous ways. May the highest master builder who looks down upon us with pleasure seeing
the noble works done by brothers that are right in their intentions may all these evils which would surely bring
about the demise of our venerable order be turned away from us by the almighty. May the highest master
builder not permit that our royal art become a play of trickery and make believe and that a real freemason such
as Strabo had happen to him in Heliopolis where he was seeking wisdom so that one of our real brothers would
not be searching for wisdom in our loges and instead of enlightened brothers would find nothing but plain
words and cheap sales people that are offering ceremonies for sale and secrets and who are simply living on
what is left of a destroyed freemasonry and they have their cheap merchandise for sale cheaply.

The end