of motion." "Soul was generated prior to body, and body is posterior and secondary, as being, according to nature, ruled over by the ruling soul." "The soul which administers all things that are moved in every way, administers likewise the heavens." "Soul then leads everything in heaven, and on earth, and in the sea, by its movements-the names of which are, to will, to consider, to take care of, to consult, to form opinions true and false, to be in a state of joy, sorrow, confidence, fear, hate, love, together with all such primary movements as are allied to these . . . being a goddess herself, she ever takes as an ally Nous, a god, and disciplines all things correctly and happily; but when with Annoia-not nous—it works out everything the contrary." In this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is treated as essential existence. Annihilation comes under a similar exegesis. The positive state, is essential being but no manifestation as such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance, entered nirvana, it lost objective existence but retained subjective. To objective minds this is becoming absolute nothing; to subjective, No-thing, nothing to be displayed to sense. These rather lengthy quotations are necessary for our purpose. Better than anything else, they show the agreement between the oldest "Pagan" philosophies-not "assisted by the light of divine revelation," to use the curious expression of Laboulaye in relation to Buddha-and the early Christianity of some Fathers. Both Pagan philosophy and Christianity, however, owe their elevated ideas on the soul and spirit of man and the unknown Deity to Buddhism and the Hindu Manu. No wonder that the Manicheans maintained that Jesus was a permutation of Gautama; that Buddha, Christ, and Mani were one and the same person, for the teachings of the former two were identical. It was the doctrine of old India that Jesus held to when preaching the complete renunciation of the world and its vanities in order to reach the kingdom of Heaven, Nirvana, where "men neither marry nor are given in marriage, but live like the angels." * It is the philosophy of Siddhârtha-Buddha again that Pythagoras expounded, when asserting that the ego (voîs) was eternal with God, and that the soul only passed through various stages (Hindu Rupa-locas) to arrive at the divine excellence; meanwhile the thumos returned to the earth, and even the phren was eliminated. Thus the metempsychosis was only a succession of disciplines through refuge-heavens (called by the Buddhists Zion), † to work off the exterior mind, to rid the nous of the phren, or soul, *Neander: History of the Church," vol. i., p. 817. It is from the highest Zion that Maitree-Buddha, the Saviour to come, will descend on earth; and it is also from Zion that comes the Christian Deliverer (see Romans xi. 26). ST. HILAIRE'S DEFINITION OF DHYANA. 287 the Buddhist "Winyanaskandaya," that principle that lives from Karma and the Skandhas (groups). It is the latter, the metaphysical personations of the "deeds" of man, whether good or bad, which, after the death of his body, incarnate themselves, so to say, and form their many invisible but never-dying compounds into a new body, or rather into an ethereal being, the double of what man was morally. It is the astral body of the kabalist and the "incarnated deeds" which form the new sentient self as his Ahancara (the ego, self-consciousness), given to him by the sovereign Master (the breath of God) can never perish, for it is immortal per se as a spirit; hence the sufferings of the newly-born self till he rids himself of every earthly thought, desire, and passion. We now see that the "four mysteries" of the Buddhist doctrine have been as little understood and appreciated as the "wisdom" hinted at by Paul, and spoken "among them that are perfect" (initiated), the "mystery-wisdom" which "none of the Archons of this world knew." * The fourth degree of the Buddhist Dhyâna, the fruit of Samâdhi, which leads to the utmost perfection, to Viconddham a term correctly rendered by Burnouf in the verb “perfected,” † is wholly misunderstood by others, as well as in himself. Defining the condition of Dhyâna, St. Hilaire argues thus: "Finally, having attained the fourth degree, the ascetic possesses no more this feeling of beatitude, however obscure it may be . . . he has also lost all memory. . . he has reached impassibility, as near a neighbor of Nirvana as can be. . . . However, this absolute impassibility does not hinder the ascetic from acquiring, at this very moment, omniscience and the magical power; a flagrant contradiction, about which the Buddhists no more disturb themselves than about so many others." And why should they, when these contradictions are, in fact, no contradictions at all? It ill behooves us to speak of contradictions in other peoples' religions, when those of our own have bred, besides the three great conflicting bodies of Romanism, Protestantism, and the Eastern Church, a thousand and one most curious smaller sects. However it may be, we have here a term applied to one and the same thing by the Buddhist holy "mendicants" and Paul, the Apostle. When the latter says: "If so be that I might attain the resurrection from among the dead [the Nirvana], not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect" (initiated), § he uses an expression common among the initiated Buddhists. When a Buddhist ascetic has reached the "fourth degree," he is considered a rahat. He produces every kind of phenomena by the * I Corinth. ii. 6, 7, 8. "Lotus de la Bonne Loi," p. 806. § Philippians iii. 11-14. sole power of his freed spirit. A rahat, say the Buddhists, is one who has acquired the power of flying in the air, becoming invisible, commanding the elements, and working all manner of wonders, commonly, and as erroneously, called meipo (miracles). He is a perfect man, a demi-god. A god he will become when he reaches Nirvana; for, like the initiates of both Testaments, the worshippers of Buddha know that they "are gods." "Genuine Buddhism, overleaping the barrier between finite and infinite mind, urges its followers to aspire, by their own efforts, to that divine perfectibility of which it teaches that man is capable, and by attaining which man becomes a god," says Brian Houghton Hodgson.* Dreary and sad were the ways, and blood-covered the tortuous paths by which the world of the Christians was driven to embrace the Irenæan and Eusebian Christianity. And yet, unless we accept the views of the ancient Pagans, what claim has our generation to having solved any of the mysteries of the "kingdom of heaven?" What more does the most pious and learned of Christians know of the future destiny and progress of our immortal spirits than the heathen philosopher of old, or the modern "Pagan" beyond the Himalaya? Can he even boast that he knows as much, although he works in the full blaze of "divine" revelation? We have seen a Buddhist holding to the religion of his fathers, both in theory and practice; and, however blind may be his faith, however absurd his notions on some particular doctrinal points, later engraftings of an ambitious clergy, yet in practical works his Buddhism is far more Christ-like in deed and spirit than the average life of our Christian priests and ministers. The fact alone that his religion commands him to "honor his own faith, but never slander that of other people," † is sufficient. It places the Buddhist lama immeasurably higher than any priest or clergyman who deems it his sacred duty to curse the "heathen" to his face, and sentence him and his religion to "eternal damnation." Christianity becomes every day more a religion of pure emotionalism. The doctrine of Buddha is entirely based on practical works. A general love of all beings, human and animal, is its nucleus. A man who knows that unless he toils for himself he has to starve, and understands that he has no scapegoat to carry the burden of his iniquities for him, is ten times as likely to become a better man than one who is taught that murder, theft, and profligacy can be washed in one instant as white as snow, if he but believes in a God who, to borrow an expression of Volney, "once took food upon earth, and is now himself the food of his people." "The Mahâvansa," vol. i., Introduction. The Five Articles of Faith. CHAPTER VII. "Of the tenets of the Druzes, nothing authentic has ever come to light; the popular belief amongst their neighbors is, that they adore an idol in the form of a calf."-KING: The Gnostics and their Remains. "O ye Lords of Truth without fault, who are forever cycling for eternity annihilation of this Region of the Two Truths."-Egyptian Ritual of the Dead. save me from the "Pythagoras correctly regarded the "Ineffable Name" of God ... as the Key to the Mysteries of the universe."-PANCOAST: Blue and Red Light. IN IN the next two chapters we shall notice the most important of the Christian secret sects-the so-called "Heresies" which sprang into existence between the first and fourth centuries of our era. Glancing rapidly at the Ophites and Nazareans, we shall pass to their scions which yet exist in Syria and Palestine, under the name of Druzes of Mount Lebanon; and near Basra or Bassorah, in Persia, under that of Mendæans, or Disciples of St. John. All these sects have an immediate connection with our subject, for they are of kabalistic parentage and have once held to the secret "Wisdom Religion," recognizing as the One Supreme, the Mystery-God of the Ineffable Name. Noticing these numerous secret societies of the past, we will bring them into direct comparison with several of the modern. We will conclude with a brief survey of the Jesuits, and of that venerable nightmare of the Roman Catholic Church-modern Freemasonry. All of these modern as well as ancient fraternities-present Freemasonry excepted-were and are more or less connected with magic-practically, as well as theoretically; and, every one of them-Freemasonry not excepted-was and still is accused of demonolatry, blasphemy, and licentiousness. Our object is not to write the history of either of them; but only to compare these sorely-abused communities with the Christian sects, past and present, and then, taking historical facts for our guidance, to defend the secret science as well as the men who are its students and champions against any unjust imputation. One by one the tide of time engulfed the sects of the early centuries, until of the whole number only one survived in its primitive integrity. That one still exists, still teaches the doctrine of its founder, still exemplifies its faith in works of power. The quicksands which swallowed up every other outgrowth of the religious agitation of the times of Jesus, with its records, relics, and traditions, proved firm ground for this. Driven from their native land, its members found refuge in Persia, and to day the anxious traveller may converse with the direct descendants of the Disciples of John," who listened, on the Jordan's shore, to the "man sent from God," and were baptized and believed. This curious people, numbering 30,000 or more, are miscalled "Christians of St. John," but in fact should be known by their old name of Nazareans, or their new one of Mendæans. To term them Christians, is wholly unwarranted. They neither believe in Jesus as Christ, nor accept his atonement, nor adhere to his Church, nor revere its "Holy Scriptures." Neither do they worship the Jehovah-God of the Jews and Christians, a circumstance which of course proves that their founder, John the Baptist, did not worship him either. And if not, what right has he to a place in the Bible, or in the portraitgallery of Christian saints? Still further, if Ferho was his God, and he was "a man sent by God," he must have been sent by Lord Ferho, and in his name baptized and preached? Now, if Jesus was baptized by John, the inference is that he was baptized according to his own faith; therefore, Jesus too, was a believer in Ferho, or Faho, as they call him ; a conclusion that seems the more warranted by his silence as to the name of his "Father." And why should the hypothesis that Faho is but one of the many corruptions of Fho or Fo, as the Thibetans and Chinese call Buddha, appear ridiculous? In the North of Nepaul, Buddha is more often called Fo than Buddha. The Book of Mahawānsa shows how early the work of Buddhistic proselytism began in Nepaul; and history teaches that Buddhist monks crowded into Syria and Babylon in the *Not only did the Buddhist missionaries make their way to the Mesopotamian Valley, but they even went so far west as Ireland. The Rev. Dr. Lundy, in his work on "Monumental Christianity," referring to an Irish Round Tower, observes: "Henry O'Brien explains this Round Tower Crucifixion as that of Buddha; the animals as the elephant and the bull, sacred to Buddha, and into which his soul entered after death; the two figures standing beside the cross as Buddha's virgin mother, and Kama his favorite disciple. The whole picture bears a close likeness to the Crucifixion, in the cemetery of Pope Julius, except the animals, which are conclusive proof that it cannot be Christian. It came ultimately from the far East to Ireland, with the Phoenician colonists, who erected the Round Towers as symbols of the life-giving and preserving power of man and nature, and how that universal life is produced through suffering and death." When a Protestant clergyman is thus forced to confess the pre-Christian existence of the crucifix in Ireland, its Buddhistic character, and the penetration of the missionaries of that faith even to that then remote portion of the earth, we need not wonder that in the minds of the Nazarean contemporaries of Jesus and their descendants, he should |