THE LEGACY OF THE GIFT -- 10b. THE SONS OF THE AGES -- Part Two.

10b. THE SONS OF THE AGES. [Part Two]

"BENJAMIN shall be redeemed, and come back from exile and captivity. For they, like pain, and poverty, and sorrow, are blessings. Without them there would be scant excellence in human nature; neither fortitude nor self-magnanimity nor generosity, heroism nor gratitude. Our exile from the presence of the Deity, our captivity by Sin and Sorrow, are the means, offered us by God, to purify the heart and ennoble the soul." -- Albert Pike, Liturgy for the 19°.

"In the FIFTEENTH degree you were reminded that not the least among the enemies of human progress was the apathy of men and even of Masons. But still you were taught to look forward with HOPE and FAITH to the new day about to dawn for mankind; when all the dead dry husks of forms and ceremonial and empty traditions will drop away, to rot, and men will make simple Truth the test of all institutions; and when Reason and Intelligence will fearlessly follow it, to the annihilation of whatever idols and images, and the extinction of whatever vain and unnourishing formulas it may lead. FIDELITY to obligation, and CONSTANCY and PERSEVERANCE under difficulties and discouragement were especially inculcated; and it is well for you always to remember that it is little to establish free institutions and constitutional government, unless they can be maintained. The price of liberty is not only eternal vigilance, but eternal loyalty to established forms, and eternal perseverance amid whatever discouragements; and no temptation, of fine theories or temporary necessity, must ever induce the leaders of the people to supersede the Constitution or subvert the Law in a given case; since, the dike once cut that holds back the inundation, the breach continually widens, until the whole is swept away." - Albert Pike, Legenda for the 32°.

THE POPE SHALL RESTORE THE SPOIL.

"yib), 'Father;' the y added to b) giving greater intensity of meaning. In Greek Papa ; in Latin, Papa, a 'Father, a Bishop, the Pope.'

"So that these three words unmistakably mean, 'THE POPE SHALL RESTORE THE SPOIL;' i.e., LIBERTAS, LIBERTÉ, Freedom of Conscience. Perhaps also, secretly, the spoil taken from the Order of the Temple."

Perhaps. Perhaps this refers to the restoration of the pact made with Clovis, which was betrayed by the alliance with the Carolingians. Perhaps there are other meanings. In HBHG, Chapter 9, pp. 254 - 255, we get an understanding of this idea:

"Charles Martel died in 741. Ten years later, his son, Pepin III, mayor of the palace to King Childeric III, enlisted the support of the Church in laying formal claim to the throne. 'Who should be king?' Pepin's ambassadors asked the Pope. 'The man who actually holds power, or he, though called king, who has no power at all?' The Pope pronounced in Pepin's favor. By apostolic authority he ordered that Pepin be created king of the Franks -- a brazen betrayal of the pact ratified with Clovis two and a half centuries before. Thus endorsed by Rome, Pepin deposed Childeric III, confined the King to a monastery, and -- to humiliate him, to deprive him of his 'magical powers,' or both -- had him shorn of his sacred hair. Four years later Childeric died, and Pepin's claim to the throne was undisputed.

"A year earlier a crucial document had conveniently made its appearance; and subsequently altered the course of Western History. This document was called the Donation of Constantine. Today there is no question that it was a forgery, concocted -- and not very skillfully -- within the papal chancery. At the time, however, it was deemed genuine, and its influence was enormous.

"The 'Donation of Constantine' purported to date from Constantine's alleged conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. According to the 'Donation' Constantine had officially given to the bishop of Rome his imperial symbols and regalia, which thus became the Church's property. The 'Donation' further alleged that Constantine, for the first time, had declared the bishop of Rome to be 'Vicar of Christ' and offered him the status of emperor. In his capacity as Vicar of Christ the bishop had supposedly returned the imperial regalia to Constantine, who wore them subsequently with ecclesiastical sanction and permission -- more or less in the manner of a loan.

"The implications of this document are clear enough. According to the 'Donation of Constantine,' the Bishop of Rome exercised supreme secular as well as supreme spiritual authority over Christendom. He was, in effect, a papal emperor, who could dispose as he wished of the imperial crown, who could delegate his power or any aspect thereof as he saw fit. In other words, he possessed, through Christ, the unchallengeable right to create or depose kings. It is from the 'Donation of Constantine' that the subsequent power of the Vatican in secular affairs ultimately derives.

"Claiming authority from the 'Donation of Constantine,' the Church deployed its influence on behalf of Pepin III. It devised a ceremony whereby the blood of usurpers, or anyone else for that matter, could be made sacred. This ceremony came to be known as coronation and anointment -- as those terms were understood during the Middle Ages and on into the Renaissance. At Pepin's coronation bishops for the first time were authorized to attend with rank equal to that of secular nobles. And the coronation itself no longer entailed the recognition of a King, or a pact with a King. It now consisted of nothing less than the creation of a King."

In case there are those who would think that these are the mere words of the writers of HBHG, we now quote from Textbooks on the Church-State subject:

In The Eagle,The Crescent, and The Cross, (1967), edited by Charles T. Davis, the editor introduces the reprinting of the Donation of Constantine with the same general conclusions as that given in HBHG:

"One cannot say with certainty when the most famous of all forgeries was made or what precise historical circumstances led to its composition. Different scholars still propose various dates for its appearance and various explanations of its immediate purpose. Obviously it was intended to furnish a documentary basis for papal territorial and jurisdictional claims in Italy. Probably at least a first draft of it was made shortly after the middle of the eighth century in order to assist Pope Stephen II in his negotiations with the Frankish Mayor of the Palace, Pepin the Short. The Pope crossed the Alps to anoint the latter as King in 754, thereby enabling the Carolingian family, to which Pepin belonged, to supplant the old Merovingian royal line which had become decadent and powerless and to become in law as well as in fact rulers of the Franks. In return, Pepin seems to have promised to give to the Pope those lands in Italy which the Lombards had taken from Byzantium.

"The promise was fulfilled in 756. Constantine's alleged gift made it possible to interpret Pepin's grant not as a benefaction but as a restoration. Until the Renaissance the Donation was generally, though not universally, accepted as genuine, and it was sometimes used as an argument for asserting the temporal as well as the spiritual supremacy of the Pope over the monarchs of the West." -- pp. 52 - 53.

"6. The deposition of Childeric. [ANNALES LAURISSENSES (A.D. 749 - 750), ed., G. H. Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores I (Hanover, 1826), pp. 136, 138.]

"749 A.D. Burghard, bishop of Worms, and the Chaplain Fulrad were sent to Pope Zachary to ask him about the Kings in France, who at that time had no royal power. Was this right or not? Pope Zachary replied to Pepin that it was better for the man who had power to be called king rather than one who remained without royal power, and, to avoid a disturbance of the right order of things, he commanded by apostolic authority that Pepin should become king.

"750 A.D. Pepin was elected King according to the Frankish custom and anointed by the hand of Archbishop Boniface of holy memory and raised to the kingship by the Franks in the city of Soissons. Childeric who had been falsely called king was tonsured and sent to a monastery." -- p. 20.

This, then, is a very crucial episode in Western History. For, it is this usurpation of power by the Church which helped bring in the ruination of life in all of Europe for centuries, sent millions of innocent people to their deaths, during the burning times, made the Reformation a necessity, thereby bringing in more death and needless persecution of people. Charles "Chuck" Colson, former Nixonian Nazi, turned born again jail minister, urges a return to the values of the Reformation by seeing to it that all Christendom unite as one against the alleged infidel: relativism.

The Office of the Inquisition cannot be far behind. The Church knows that the "rock" upon which it was built is water soluble! Sooner or later it is going to be forced to capitulate, to give up the game, for the 21st Century of the Common Era is no place for such diseased dinosaurs.

Dom. Luigi Sturzo is a fine example of what we are talking about. Sturzo was an eminent Catholic. He worked the Vatican circles, supported Benito "il Duce" Mussolini from the 1920s to 1940s. After Mussolini got his head kicked in, he was an influential figure in the establishment of the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, one of the major political parties in Germany. Of course, we originally wrote this before the 1998 c.e., elections, and the eventual discovery of corruption within the ranks of that party that led to some grief for Helmut Kohl!

Sturzo penned a very vitriolic piece entitled Church and State. He used it to demonstrate and justify the Church's position over the centuries. It, too, is a sort of Teacher's Edition pertaining to the enigmatic decisions and defeats in European History. He supports the Donation of Constantine, though he is forced to recognize it as a later creation.

This forgery was utilized against the Hohenstaufen Dynasty. The Hohenstaufens are also connected through bloodline, to the same ultimate stock as the Merovingians, although the latters' chroniclers fail to mention this point. This was the time of the infamous Investiture Contest. Hohenstaufen Emperors from Henry IV to Frederic II were locked in battle with the Popes. The Donation was the weapon the Church used against them and the Church won. Sturzo in his yellow style narrates the problem of this upstart Frederic and then elaborates upon the rationale the Church used to hold the world in subjection:

"Frederick II, oscillating between the role of God-Emperor, in the oriental and pagan fashion, and that of a devoted son and protector of the Church, introduced not a few elements of a secularisation of power, law and State. While his coronation in Jerusalem, excommunicated as he was, assumes the significance of an oriental rite for the divinisation of his power, his insistence on the autonomy of royal power, deriving direct from God without priestly intermediary or limitations by the Church, bears the stamp of the theory of absolute power by Divine Right. On the other hand, in his Liber augustalis, in which we may note an idea antagonistic to the Collection of Canons and Decretals, he seeks to put forward a civil and political code based on Law, Nature and Reason. Gregory IX reproached Archbishop Giacomo of Capua for his share in Frederick's collection of laws, saying that these did not 'co-operate in salvation but call down evils upon many'. Frederick's struggle against the supremacy of the popes was that of a disorderly genius, who passed down to posterity as a heretic, a renegade, an Antichrist, but his theories and his legal experiments were garnered by the already flourishing universities, in spite of the fact that he ended his life as a beaten man and the Guelfs emerged victorious from the struggle.

"It is the period when the juridical formulation of papal power reaches its widest extension. Innocent III, as we have seen, had defined the distinction between the ratio feudi and the ratio peccati, between papal intervention in politics casualiter, and by plena potestate. Gregory IX holds to the formula of his great predecessor, but he insists also on the Donation of Constantine and the transfer, effectuated by the Pope, of universal empire from the Greeks to the Romans. It is, however, Innocent IV, who gave the papal power its widest interpretation, juridical and theological, such as was never known before or after.

"He is a jurist and does not forget it. In his Apparatus ad Quinque libros Decretalium he recalls that the Emperor's power is derived from the Roman people, through the Lex regalis, which Justinian reiterated in his Codex. But this historico-legal origin of the transmission of power from people to emperor does not contradict his own theologico-metaphysical theory, which is founded on the idea, of which there are traces in the Fathers, that coercive power, like private property, is a result of Original Sin, and therefore in itself, in the material sense, something illegitimate and an abuse, which can never be free from hatred, violence and misdeeds. Gregory VII and his successors had frequently insisted on this concomitance of power with injustice, murders, wars and tyrannies, which accompany its historical origin and its practical development, in order to proclaim the power of the Church, not only as moral teacher but as having the right and duty of intervening to correct kings and princes and to deprive them of power should they prove incorrigible and harmful to the community. In the XI and still more in the XIII century power and the Empire could not be conceived as extraneous to the Church (given the evolution of Christian thought from the IX century onwards, for which kingdoms and Christian empires were within the Church and part of the Church). It would have been foreign to the spirit of the age to carry such a theory to the pessimistic conclusion, which might have led to an irremediable dualism (of which there are hints in the Fathers), that the civil power was caused by Original Sin and closely connected with crime in its formation and exercise. The dualism of power from Gregory VII onwards resolves itself into the power of St. Peter.

"Hence the distinction, which Innocent IV clearly establishes, between the original power deriving from sin, illegitimate, an abuse rather than authority, and legitimate power deriving from God, to be wielded in the Christian world for the common good and under religious control. This power is to be found naturaliter et potentialiter in the Church, not as a gift from the emperors, not through any Constantinian concession, but of itself, from the day the Church was founded. The popes represent this true power, 'as legates of God on earth', 'Generali legatione in terra fungimur Regis regum'. Thus the letter to Frederick II in 1245, in which Innocent IV symbolically expounds the Donation of Constantine.

"In the paganism from which Constantine came there was but one earthly power, which, unlegitimised and unennobled by Christianity, was permitted by God only as a consequence of sin. When Constantine became a Christian, he resigned his earthly power to the Church, to receive it back from the Church renewed by Christianity, that is, as legitimate power, recognised as such because recognised as coming from God. In Constantine in his quality of Emperor all human power is symbolised; through the Church the Empire became Christendom. The secular power might be acquired through a variety of human forms, succession, election, nomination, popular choice, but its legitimation came through the intervention and consecration of the Church. Power proceeds from no one but God, but it is through the Church that its divine origin is proved, rendering it theologically lawful. That is why the Pope, as legate of God, has a general authority over the earth.

"By this process ecclesiastical mediation is carried to its fullest expression by Innocent IV. The metaphysical conception of power in a natural society is transformed into a theological one in a Christian society, hence in the authority of the Church all human power is unified. And since Christianity had to be preached to the whole world, the Church, in virtue of her religious mission, naturaliter et potentialiter has authority over the whole world, as she had over the Roman Empire even before Constantine turned Christian. From this sprang the right, recognised in those days and maintained by Innocent himself, to make war on infidels, occupy their territories, and dethrone their kings if this were necessary either for the moral and religious good of their Christian subjects or for the preaching of the Gospel. This extension of the power of the popes led to the opinion of the legists that the Emperor too had a potential authority over the whole world and could therefore make war on the infidel, a right Innocent IV and other canonists explicitly denied. This thesis would be revived after the discovery of the New World and be debated in a new light from the legal and theological standpoint. The Brief of Alexander VI which, dividing the regions of America between Spain and Portugal, recognising the occupation and authorising its expansion, is based on the Innocentian theory, which had remained part of the canonical traditions of the Church." -Church and State, I: 108 - 111.

Excuse us, perhaps, but it is when we find items like this, which have a basis in fact, the fact of the historical record, that we refuse to join with people who think that Christianity can be reclaimed in the Aeon of Horus. As the Master Therion himself said, many times, "The Christians to the Lions!!!"

We have quoted from this virulent rhetoric extensively, because it is the rationale for unprecedented greed, lust for power, and the excuse for wide-scale bloodshed over the centuries ever since Christianity rose up over every other viable form of belief, in the 4th Century of the Common Era. It is this excuse that has sent millions of innocent people to their deaths. And who is the Church to say that it alone holds power over the whole world, and these days, undoubtedly, the solar system and other solar systems, planets, galaxies, etc...? They say so. BUT: Remember that people were not made for Institutions. It is the Institutions that were made for the people. And when said Institutions fail to deliver the goods they promised in the first place, it's time for something else.

This applies to the concept of the issue of Investiture, of the Donation of Constantine, a forgery; and to the usurpation of power by Pepin the short. Sturzo shrugs off the notion that the Donation was forged, which everybody else acknowledges, by stating that this power existed before Constantine was converted to Christianity. That, in fact, it goes back to Peter. As we shall discuss in another place, the legitimacy of the orthodox Petrine and Pauline Churches is questionable.

So, then, SHALAL- SHALOM-ABAI, The Pope (Father) shall restore the spoils, applies to this Issue, and this Issue alone. If there is any treasure which the Papacy looted from the Templars, it deals with this question of legitimate power. The Merovingians, the Hohenstaufens, and others have been stripped of their power, and exterminated and/or driven into exile, into the underground stream, just like the Templars were, over this very issue, and thousands upon thousands of innocent women, children, and men (and cats, too, remember!) were destroyed over the same excuse.

HIS HIDDEN THING.

"Other Pass-words of this degree, in the old Rituals, are GABAON, STYR, LIBANUS, DAVID.

"rts, SATAR or STAR: Heiph. rytsh , h'styr, 'he hid', concealed, veiled; a veil, occultatio, arcanum.'

"A HINT TO THE INITIATES TO LOOK FOR SOME CONCEALED MEANING, THAT COULD NOT SAFELY BE INTRUSTED TO ALL, UNDER THE WORDS OF THIS DEGREE AND THEIR PRETENDED EXPLANATIONS."

For starters, this word equals 666 if spelled rwts , and 671 if spelled rwts'h . These numbers are pregnant with symbolism to the Kabbalist, to the reader of The Canon, by William Stirling. Perhaps Ha-Styr is related to XASTUR, a Sumerian word, found in the texts of old. This was the first thing we noticed in this section. Then we took each word in order, and came to the conclusion we now enter into writing. We had not in our possession at the time many of the supporting texts, but now we do: and our conclusion is reinforced.

Also, in The Cosmic Code, Zecharia Sitchin presents the following little bit of information:

"The possibility that the encoded secret of '666' is to be uncovered in Hebrew rather than Greek or Roman word meanings might well be the key to finally resolving the enigma. We find that 600 in Hebrew is the numerical equivalent of SeTeR -- a hidden thing, an occult mystery; it was employed in the Bible in connection with divine Wisdom and Understanding that were hidden and occulted from Man. To make it 666, the letter Wav ( = 6 ) has to be added, changing the meaning from a 'secret' to 'his secret,' SiTRO, 'his hidden thing.' Some find this rendition of 'his secret' to describe a 'watery darkness' where the Celestial Battle with Tiamat is recalled..." -- p. 167.

Pike, or the originators of "the old Rituals," was concealing something specific in these words and symbols. The colors of the degree, for example, are red and green, the same applied to the banner of the Tribe of Benjamin. One of the insignia is a Green Glove, which makes one initially think of the Tibetan hired by the Nazis that gets written of in the conspiracy hack jobs, but also is reminiscent of the film utilizing the same title: The Green Glove, 1953, starring Glenn Ford (a Mason), written by Charles Bennett, who also wrote several interesting screenplays for Sir Alfred Hitchcock of a conspiratorial or secret-society nature; and directed by Rudolph Maté, who also did The Last Days of Pompeii, an adaptation of the Rosicrucian Bulwer-Lytton's famous novel. The Green Glove is the story of a small village in the south of France, the location of a small Church, where an important relic from Cathar and Templar days was located. It was a green glove, and had been lost during World War II. The Nazis had looted it, and it was up to an innocent young American paratrooper to find and restore it.

Another item of regalia in the 15° is the sash with the severed arms and heads, reminiscent of the battle against the Gibeonites.

The Tribe of Benjamin is traditionally associated with the sign of Sagittarius, due to the pronouncement of Jacob. The Goddess Diana, the Huntress, is also associated with this Tribe. In the Blanchard Ritual, the degree associated with Sagittarius is the 9°, the first of the elu degrees. But, we say it points to the 15°, which is associated in Blanchard with the Sign of Gemini. Blanchard may have been wrong. If the zodiacal signs start at the 6° with Virgo as in the book, the 15° is Gemini. But if we start with Pisces, we get Gemini for the 9° and Sagittarius for the 15°! Exactly opposite.

Since this Freemasonry was that of the Piscine Age, this is fitting. Not only does Sagittarius apply to Benjamin, then, it applies to the 15°. Not only that, its position is reversed, and the 9° is Gemini. And it demonstrates something important: it shows the Precession of the Equinoxes, a doctrine which is expressed in the lecture for the 25°.

If we wanted to reformulate the Rite for the Aquarian Age, one of the chief acts would be to correct the system of attributions. In that case, the Benjaminites would be Princes of Jerusalem; the Knights of the East being attributed to Scorpio, a fitting symbol, since the River and Death symbols would be identifiable with Scorpio. The Princes of Jerusalem would be Sagittarius; and the Ancient of Days in the Knight of the East and West Degree would then be tied to Baphomet, which is a related symbol.

The next word provides us with yet another theme which is prevalent in the story of the Benjaminites.

THE HIGH HILL.

"Nw(bg, from (bg, Gabaa, 'anything that stands upright or erect, as a mountain, a hill;' especially when round, as a head, a cup. A large city of the Tribe of Ben-Yamin, where the hwhy Nwr), ARUN IHUH, the chest or ark of IHUH, was, until David carried it to Zion.

"The allusion is, perhaps, to the symbolic mountain Heredon or Heroden, Nwd)-rh, Hur-Adon, the Hill of Adon. Zion was called y#dq-rh, Hur Kadoshi. The Temple was built on hyrwm , Muraiah, a hill of Jerusalem."

This word is also given in the 26°, Prince of Mercy. This is where the event took place, in Judges 19. What does Cruden's Concordance give us?

"GABBATHA -- high, or elevated. In Greek, LITHOSTROTOS, paved with stones, from LITHOS, Stone, STROTOS, paved.

"GIBEON -- hill or cup. Otherwise, that which is without; OR that which is Lifted up; or the Elevation of Iniquity.

"GEBA -- Josh. 21:17; 1 Chr. 6:60; 1 Kings 15:22; 2 Kings 23:8; Isaiah 10:29p; Zech. 14:10.

"GIBEAH -- Jud. 19:14, 19:16, 20:9, 13, 30; 1 Samuel 10:26, 14:2; 2 Samuel 21:6; Isaiah 10:29; Hosea 5:8-9, 10:9.

"GIBEON -- Josh. 10:2, 4, 12; 2 Samuel 2:13; 3:30, 20:8; 1 Kings 3:5; 9:2; 1 Chronicles 8:29, 9:35, 21:29; Isaiah 28:21; Jeremiah 28:1, 41:12.

GABBATHA: "When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Pavement, and in Hebrew, GABBATHA." -- John 19:13. ."

GEBA: Joshua 21:17: "Then out of the Tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its pasture lands, Geba with its pasture lands..."

These were to be allotted to the Levites as their portion. Also in 1 Chronicles 6:60:

2 Kings 23:8: (Josiah's Reforms) "And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-Sheba..."

The event in Joshua when the sun allegedly stood still, took place in Gibeon, and a great battle took place there under Joshua's command. We need not quote all these texts, anyone can do that. We can point out, though, that there would indeed be good reason for a Levite to be harassed in Gibeah. If the Benjaminites were "sons of Belial," that means they were likely to practice according to the natural cult practices there, which included "sodomy" so-called. Since the priests themselves were into the cult of the Kadeshim, or Sacred Cult-Prostitutes, male and female -- it is only natural to assume that these Benjaminites required the services of the Levite. Upon being rejected, this angered them, rightly so. By throwing his wife out at the mob, the Levite was the one who sinned, who committed the greatest crime. By killing her himself, it shows that he was a very low person, a dog, and if he was the same "certain Levite who ministered to Micah", then the Benjaminites were no more guilty than anyone else would have been. Indeed, the Levite did not even want the woman, really, except as a chattel, as livestock. Such is still the case today among the Chabadniks.

Hosea 10:9: "FROM THE DAYS OF GIBEAH, you Have sinned, O Israel; There they have continued. Shall not war overtake them in Gibeah?"

So, then, by the time of Hosea it was recognized that the desolation of the Benjaminites was the beginning of the end for the Chosen People. This proved true later, when David was used by Samuel to usurp Saul.

As to the word Hur-Adon, which would be analogous with Heredom in Masonic symbolism, we have here a word which has eluded everybody, and nobody really knows what it means. It is specifically associated with the AASR, and other systems of the High Degrees, which rely on Scottish Masonry. In a review submitted to THE EQUINOX, John Yarker holds to the meaning "Holy House", and that the word derives from Harodim. He also supports this in his Arcane Schools. I Mackey's 332 says:

"Ragon, in his Orthodoxie Maconnique (p. 91), asserts that it has a political signification, and that it was invented between the years 1740 and 1745, by the adherents of Charles Edward the Pretender, at the Court of St. Germain, which was the residence, during that period, of the unfortunate prince, and in their letters to England, dated from Heredom, they meant to denote St. Germain. He supposes it to be derived from the Medieval Latin word 'hoeredum' signifying a 'heritage', and that it alludes to the castle of St. Germain, the only heritage left to the dethroned sovereign."

[Funny, in that this is one of the key places in the excellent film entitled The Ninth Gate...]

Mackey's goes on to debunk the Stuart connection with high grade Freemasonry, as is the case with the orthodoxy in American Freemasonry. Signifying a 'heritage' is a clue. The definition of Gabaon, a high, cup shaped hill, is not entirely without significance. [See Is THIS the Holy Mountain? ver. 2.0, elsewhere, for more on Mount Cardou.]

In the south of France, near Arques, is a small mount, called Pech Cardou. We are convinced that this mountain is of immense importance in the Secret Tradition, for certain reasons pointed out in the above mentioned article. One such association is the fact that Cardoon is the same thing in French, as Thistle is in English, and Thistles are practically the national flower of Scotland. The connection between Scotland and France requires no further comment.

DAVID: THE EROTIC USURPER.

"dwd, DAUD or DAVAD, meaning sexual love or erotic desire. DAUD was a rebel, against Saul, who wore the Crown by DIVINE RIGHT, and the word may have been selected for this reason."

Again, the notion of Kingship. Kingship is more important than we realize today. See The Hiram Key, for more on the relationship of Kingship with Masonic Ritual. See earlier in the present work, the section entitled The Royal Art. In those distant and ancient times, covered up with dust and mold, Divine Rule was the highest rule possible. This was usually facilitated by Divinities mating with Humans to produce offspring. The Stuarts ruled by Divine Right, being directly descended from the Celtic Royal House. The Hohenstaufens also, and, of course, the Merovingians, lest we forget; and the kings of the Ancient World all ruled by Divine Right. This is carried back to Sumer, when Kingship was lowered from Heaven.

There is a considerable body of literature pertaining to what has been referred to as Blood Atavism (in Kenneth Grant's usage of the term, at least) -- or the Atavistic powers of the Blood. On the negative side, this is just the sort of thing racial purists use to promote their highly flawed doctrines. On the other side, though, it is a truth, a law of nature, which applies to all races. The Blood is just as Royal, in African lineages as it is in Aztecan, Mayan, Incan, or Celtic and Frankish lineages. Each has its symbols and rituals to activate it. We who happen to come from the same set of factors which produced the Merovingians, the Celts, etc., activate it through the Myths, Legends, Symbols, and Rituals of our collective past. Our vast mine of legends, from Sumer and Egypt; Greece; Phoenicia; Rome and Europe, covering a very wide expanse in terms of Space-Time, a figure amounting to at least 5 digits, is ours to utilize. We are our Ancestors, today! Their stories, their rituals, are ours. The problem with so many of us in America is that we have had a break in the transmission, due to both the less positive effects of the Reformation, and due to lack of interest. Many of us have brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents who didn't care to continue the traditions, whether family folk stories or Masonic connections, because post-WW2 America was more alluring and important. True, in many cases, it was, for a time, but the Past, and Its Legacy, is Eternal.

For the more negative aspects of Blood Atavism, The Spear of Destiny by Trevor Ravenscroft is prime, although we would ditch the Steiner material, which is pure, unadulterated pablum. It also applies to some of the positive aspects of the Sang Real tradition. For an interesting discussion of the subject from the Magical perspective, see the writings of Kenneth Grant, although some of that material primarily consists of science fiction. Also, since we originally wrote this material in early 1997 c.e., we can now add the writings of Sir Laurence Gardner. Once more, we pull a quote from Holy Blood, Holy Grail:

"However extravagant the legends surrounding the Merovingians, they would seem to rest on some concrete basis, some status enjoyed by the Merovingian monarchs during their own lifetimes. In fact the Merovingians were not regarded as kings in the modern sense of that word. They were regarded as Priest-Kings -- embodiments of the divine, in other words, not unlike, say, the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. They did not rule simply by God's graces. On the contrary, they were apparently deemed the living embodiment and incarnation of God's grace -- a status usually reserved exclusively for Jesus. And they seem to have engaged in ritual practices that partake, if anything, more of a priesthood than of kingship." -- p. 236.

"Sons of the Merovingian blood were not 'created' kings. On the contrary, they were automatically regarded as such on the advent of their twelfth birthday. There was no public ceremony of anointment; no coronation of any sort. Power was simply assumed, as by sacred right. But while the king was supreme authority in the realm, he was never obliged -- or even expected -- to sully his hands with the mundane business of governing. He was essentially a ritualized figure, a priest-king, and his role was not necessarily to do anything, simply to be. The king ruled, in short, but did not govern. In this respect his status was somewhat similar to that of the present British royal family. Government and administration were left to a non-royal official, the equivalent of a chancellor, who held the title of 'Mayor of the Palace'. On the whole the structure of the Merovingian regime had many things in common with modern constitutional monarchies." -- p. 241.

So, then, Saul, a Benjaminite, wore the Crown by Divine Right rather than David, a mere rebel, who was set-up intentionally against Saul by Samuel. And it was merely a ruse, that Saul lost his life, and his heir, Jonathan, did too, in order that the contrived rule of David would take place. Also, from the moment that David occupied the throne, Karma was against him. He lusted after another man's wife (which seems to be standard fare for rulers even today) -- to the point of arranging for him to die in battle. This grieved the prophet, Nathan, so, that he could not hide his contempt, and foretold the downfall of the Monarchy as a result. Rezon of Syria was one of the instruments of Karma against David the Usurper. Eventually, after the death of Solomon, the Monarchy divided, and both divisions were ruined, and cursed. Later, a new current would arise in the Hasmonean House, and this, too, failed. Eventually, the various political factions would look for Messiah to come, even if the real concept of the Messiah was one of office, rather than that of a one-time performance. There have been several Messiahs, all legitimate claimants to the role, since the beginning of the Office. Since peoples' expectations are what they are, though, all Messiahs fail at gaining popular support, sooner or later, because there tend to be hecklers out there who can produce their lists of what constitutes Messiahship. Indeed, in today's Thelemic world, there are those who have their lists of what exactly constitutes a Prophet, even if such lists are complete nonsense, especially to the true Prophets who exist in spite of such expectations and who need nobody to tell them what they are.

THE UNDERGROUND STREAM.

"The River where the combat is supposed to have occurred, is named Gadara conjecturally. It was perhaps the same river at the crossing whereof Ezra had those to rendezvous who accompanied him to Judaea. For that it was 'the River Ahava' according to his Book; and in the Sanskrit, and therefore presumably in Zend and Persian, ahava ...[in Sanscrit]... i.e., a-hve-a, means 'war, battle.' But where the River is it is impossible to ascertain."

We get little out of this, except for one really interesting clue. Remember the idea of the Underground Stream prevalent in the Arcadia legends, pertaining to the Merovingian Bloodline. Now, here is what we get if we take each letter of the word Gadara:

G + A + D + A + R + A [3 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 200 + 1 = 210]. Now, this number 210 is very important. Not only is it of importance for all Thelemites, who can find the words NOX and PAN enumerated in the list; but it also is DVR, the root of Dvir, Debir, Debarim, Dobara, 'voice, words,' etc. And, too, the word Nephilim [N + Ph + L + I + M] and this gives us some more of the Underground Stream symbolism.

THE LEBANON.

"Nwnbl, LABANUN, or LEBANON, Greek, Libanoj; Latin, Libanus; a mountain range on the confines of Syria and Palestine, covered with perpetual snow. Called in Chaldaic )glt rwt, Tor Talga, Mountain of Snow."

This word does not show up in the Ritual of Blanchard. This applies more to the 22° Knight of the Royal Axe, which we shall cover in Part Two of Book Two (The Sons of the Serpent Tribe). The Tsidunai, or men of Sidon, procured timber for the Temple. Sidonensis is said to be the Roman name for SION, in Switzerland. In the 22°, we are given the story of these Laborers and their Workshops, in the mountains of Lebanon. Then we are given material on the Druzes. The Druzes can trace their origins to ad-Darazzi, vizier of Al-Hakim, Caliph of Egypt. Hakim was claimed to be the next and last revealed Prophet after Mohammed. Hakim and the movement of the Druzes is an extension of the movement established in Arabia by Hamdan Qarmat. This, in turn, was a spin-off of the Batinis of Abdullah ibn Maymun. These movements are somewhat related to the Sufis, but properly can be referred to survivals of a) the Pagan Traditions which derive ultimately from Sumer; b) the survival of the Gnostic traditions which were driven to Mesopotamia after Christianity crushed them out in the Mediterranean region. These can be seen to be the Barbelo-Gnostics (or Borborites), which we shall discuss in Book Two Part Three.

There are other significant connections to the Lebanon, including the fact that Baal Bek, the City of the Sun, is located there.

Baal-Bek was one of the most important sites of the ancient world. It is in this region that Gilgamesh sought the forbidden realm of the Gods in search of the plant of immortality. Also, the Lebanon is important, in that other sects, such as the Nusairi and Alawites exist nearby.

This area was a survival area, from the early days of State sponsored Christianity up to (at least) the Crusades, and beyond. This territory was also held by Assassins and Yezidis.

Gebal, Syria, Tyre, the Lebanon, and so forth, are important historically in the history of the Authentic Tradition, and of the history of true Christianity. In the Case of the Authentic Tradition, the earliest of the historians, Sanchuniation, came from Phoenicia. King Cadmus of Tyre, and his companions are said to have brought the Mysteries of Dionysos to Greece. He is said, too, to have initiated Melampus, who also was instrumental in the institution of the Dionysia in Greece. And it was Cadmus who brought the art of writing to Greece. After Greece was initiated in this once secret art, history came into being in Greece and Greece attained consciousness. Also, it was in Syria that the Authentic Tradition was preserved, after it had been all but snuffed out in Alexandria and the West by the persecutions and proscriptions carried out by Justinian and his bigotous brood. In the case of true Christianity, again it was to the North, in Syria, that the Nozrei-ha-Berith, or the Nazaraeans first fled, after Paul and Peter had destroyed the authentic traditions of the first Christians who were Gnostics, and who came from the Essenes and related sects, who were known as the "Healers"...

We shall see that it is in this region that the Authentic Tradition really flourished. It is in this area where it developed. And from this area it ultimately spread to Europe, via the Moslems, Jews, and Knights Templar.

ADON THE HEALER.

"pr, RPH, Raph, or Reph; 'Healer, Physician, Consoler, Comforter, Paraclete.'

"So that, Rephadon, Raphadon, or Rafodon, is 'Adon the Healer, Consoler, or Comforter.'"

Also, in Jeremy Cross' Templar's Chart, supplement, the Raphadon is a square of 81, arranged thus:

Now, the importance of the 3X3 extends beyond the reference to the Ritual of the Royal Arch. It also refers to the Time System of the Code of the Eternal, since 27 x 4 is equal to 108, which is an important number in the Time System.

This word does not show up in any other Masonic Encyclopaedia in our possession. Nor do we meet with it anywhere else. So, we can assume it to be a word created to conceal a meaning of importance. ADON is equal to AIN = 61, NOT. That is an important word in the Kabbalah. ADON applies equally to ADONAI and ADONIS, and is the same character. Also, ADONAI is the cover word for IHVH, Tetragrammaton: itself a cover word for an even more secret and Holy Name of Deity. Reph suggests the Rephaim, who occupied the lands of the Anakim, before they were dispossessed by the latter, and associated to both the Kings of Edom and to the Nephilim. Also, the Rephaim figure in the story of the Essenes, who were Healers. The Essenes, according to J. M. Allegro, got their medical teachings from the Rephaim, who they kept sealed in the Bottomless Pit, which only they knew the location of.

Both the terms Healer and Paraclete are prominent in the literature of the Essenes of Qumran, and of the Therapeutae of the Fayyum in Egypt. The Essenes, as mentioned above, were Healers. That is a widely known fact these days. Also, the term Paraclete suggests the Teacher of Righteousness, or Messiah.

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

"The letters L.'. D.'. P.'. on the bridge are said by Dumas, in his novel of 'Joseph Balsamo, or the Memoirs of a Physician,' to have meant 'Lilia Pedibus Destrue:' 'Destroy with your feet the Lilies!' or, 'Tread under foot the Lilies!' -- a declaration of eternal hostility against the Bourbons.

"But in the old Rituals they are said to be the initials of the words 'Liberté de Passer,' and this gives the clue to the real meaning. It was thus that the Hermetic Philosophers and Alchemists concealed their real meanings, by giving false interpretations to mislead.

"The Pass-Word of the degree is Libertas, a word not suggested in the least by the ceremonial or history of the degree contained in the old Rituals. The passage over the bridge was not FREE. It was a FORCED one, won by this word, a long, difficult, and arduous one.

"The true words, of which the letters are the initials, are 'Liberté de Penser': 'Freedom of Thought and Conscience,' that spoil which it was the objects of the Knights of the East to recover from the Church of Rome.

"Even these names are significant. Rome was the Western Church. In the Orient the doctrines of John prevailed, and many doctrines stigmatized by Rome as heretical prevailed there, also. And the Knights of the East were not non-combatants, but Knights of the Sword also. Kedim means also 'the ancient time, that which was of old, the origines, the old faith.'

As to the first reference, regarding Dumas, we have not before us a copy of "Joseph Balsamo..." but we do have his work entitled "The Conspirators," which has a chapter entitled "The Order of the Honey Bee." This story takes place during the year 1718, and involves a conspiracy "hatched by the Prince de Cellamare, Cardinal Alberoni, and the Duchess du Maine, to seize the person of Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, and supplant him in the regency by the Duc de Maine." This seems to echo the story concerning Gaston d'Orleans, in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, pp. 171-2. The Order of the Honey Bee was a quasi-Masonic outfit, founded for the purpose of the conspiracy. Noteworthy is the medal: one side is a hive, the other is the Queen Bee. This could be an allusion to the Priory of Sion, perhaps?

As to Balsamo, we must remark in passing, that contrary to what the official historians of the occult say, Cagliostro was a most influential figure in the history of the Authentic Tradition. It was he who acted as a bridge in the transmission of ideas, from the Kabbalists, the Martinists, the Illuminati, to the circles of High Grade Freemasons that would eventually become known as the Egyptian Rite, and to the circles of British Occultists that would eventually, a century later, create the Order of the Golden Dawn.

Orthodox Freemasons and Anti-Masons alike are always resentful of such sayings as "It was thus that the Hermetic Philosophers and Alchemists concealed their real meanings, by giving false interpretations to mislead." But -- it is true. It is a necessity, when one is concealing such a Secret.

There has been, throughout the long period of secrecy that has been forced upon us for the past two millennia, two secret traditions that have gone hand in hand. One is the Bloodline, which goes back to the Nephilim. The other is the Tradition -- the Authentic Tradition. The two have complemented one another, and sometimes they have worked against each other, like when witches and magicians were destroyed in countries where the Bloodline was alive. This double Tradition is also implied in the dual fathers of Merovée, and the questions concerning the fatherhood of Jesus. With the dual fatherhood of Merovée we could say that on the one hand, a descent from the Houses of Troy / Arcadia / Phoenicia, on the other the Jewish intermarriage with the Visigoths. This Jewish intermarriage could have included offspring of the historical personage who has been given to posterity under the name of Jesus. And it could include persons such as the Magdalene, a Benjaminite, and a popular Saint in France. This would account for the Legend of the Two Fathers. And the Yeshu of the Johannite Legend could have been an Incarnation of Horus, as proclaimed by the Priests of Heliopolis (See Book Two, Qadosh: The Johannite Tradition.).

The important consideration here, as far as an Incarnation of Horus on the one hand, and our paradigm on the other, is that when names are used in the legends, they do not always bear the same meaning that modern-day archaeology provides, or present-day meanings of the same names and characters.

Horus, for example, has been equated with Ninurta, one of Enlil's sons. He has been equated with Herakles, who has in his turn been equated with Melcarth / Nergal, one of Enki's sons and chief rival of Ninurta.

Nergal, also, has been identified with Set, adversary of Horus. Horus and Set have also been fused into one entity.

In the days when the expounders of Freemasonry were elaborating their legends, Hiram, Hermes, and Horus were equal, or at the very least, were close.

If "Jesus" / Dositheos, etc., was an incarnation of Horus, then, it must be as an Enkite deity rather than as an Enlilite one, since these had been responsible for the destruction and slavery that had befallen Egypt.

The paradigm, then, pertains to a succession of incarnations of JON - DOSITHEOS - OANNES - ENKI, and/or their Priests; personified in the Egyptian language as one of the Horus deities, perhaps Ra-Heru-Khuti (RA-HOOR-KHUIT), perhaps Heru-Behutet (HADIT), the former representing the two horizons, as we see our Johannites (later, in Part Three of Book Two), adored the Morning and Evening Star. This Johannite practice, too, is something derived from the Cult of Hathor, a Goddess of Supreme Importance.

As to Freedom of Thought, this is the Supreme Goal of all striving, not a thing to be taken for granted, but a virtue, a goal to fight endlessly to secure and win, until such a long, and arduous passage has been crossed.

The late reverend George Oliver D. D., etc., in his Historical Landmarks of Freemasonry, Volume 2, p. 18 (our edition) tells us:

"The French treat Templarism as a cosmopolite Order, and divide it into two general classes, l'Ordre du Temple, and l'Ordre d'Orient, the latter originating the former. Egypt was the cradle of the Order of the East, its chiefs being priests and legislators, and its occult rites being carefully withheld from the profane. They were indeed allowed to see the emblems, but remained perfectly ignorant of their interpretation. Moses and Aaron having been initiated, are said to have adopted the mysterious arrangement of Egypt, in classing the Levitical Priesthood. From this source the Continental Masons trace this Order through the two St. Johns to the Crusades; and make Larmenius the link to connect the ancient Grand Master of the Temple with those of the modern rite practised among themselves. In conformity with this princple, they affirm that 'the Order of the Temple has never ceased to exist in France, under the government of successive Grand Masters, who have added a lustre to the institution by their virtues and exalted rank.'" (p. 18, note 55.)

"Archdeacon Mant says -- 'These Knights were all Freemasons; from some of the Syrian Christians, who had yet retained the Mysteries of the Craft, they received their initiation, and no one was admitted into the Templar's Society before he had been prepared by reception into the three degrees of Masonry..."

"The Hermetic Masonry, or the Scotch degrees, who work in Chemistry, have adopted pantheism, or the true spinosism. With them everything is God, and God is everything; that is their grand mystery, engraved in one word, Jehovah, on the stone brought by the Knights Templars from the Holy Land.' The German Rose-Croix contained nine degrees... Two sections split off from this society in 1777 and 1780, the former calling themselves, 'The Brothers of the Rose Croix of Gold,' and the latter, 'The Initiated Brothers of Asia.'"

The above material is just a small selection of material pertaining to the Eastern Origin of the Authentic Tradition. The connections to Sumer are present. The Egyptian Initiation is there. The Phoenician-Syrian theme exists. The Syrian Christians are no doubt the Nusairi, of whom we shall discuss as we spread more cement with our trowel. The Priesthood mentioned in the first quote is seen in the 23° - 26° AASR, and these quotes contain material from the Johannite Legend of the Templars, presented in the Levitikon of Fabré-Palaprat. The Order of the Temple and the Order of the Orient are French Bodies, which we have found material on, by Antoine Guillaume Chereau. The Order of the Orient was related, also, to an elusive group known as the Chevaliers de la Croix, and was a Body which recruited from the Rose Croix degree of the Grand Orient. From that, the hierarchy evolved upwards, until it reached the lowest levels of the Priory of Sion grade structure.

When we get to the 18th Century, then, we shall see how important the Golden Rose-Croix really is. And, too, for the most part, when we get to the 19th Century, when it was supposed to have not existed. But that is for another story. In the Golden Rosicrucians we find "legends" which, if Lincoln and company weren't aware of, they certainly got in their sources. The Story of ORMUS, and of the succession of Saints John in the List of Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion, is not peculiar to their work, or to the Priory itself. Indeed, if the Priory exists, and if it has existed since 1099 c.e., then it is but one arm of a Tradition that goes back far enough past Gnosticism, past the origins of Christianity, past the failures of the Old Empire, way, way, back, back, back... to the Priesthood or Order of the Wise Men, established in Eridu by Enki, Lord and Master of Magick and Occult Science, the original Borderland Scientist, Hermetic Brother of the Interior Circle, and Father of Our Race. And this EnKi, this EA, is the IA or Yah, who is the God who has Given the GIFT. The original Jon, Oannes, U-An.

And, the Templars, Pike says, were initiated into the doctrines of John -- that which was of the Ancient Time, that which was of Old, the Origines, the Old Faith.

We shall now examine some of the elements of The Old Faith, and its survivals through the centuries.

THE BRETHREN OF THE GIFT: LEGACY OF THE NEPHILIM

BOOK ONE: