The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

118 HISTORY OF INITIATION.
All rocks containing an aperture, whether natural or
artificial, 26 were thought to convey purification, because
they equally shadowed out the door of the Ark through
which the favoured few issued into a renovated world ;
and it is worthy of remark, that the same belief distin-
quished every ancient nation ;
for all practised the helio-
arkite superstition, and all alike admitted the regenerating
properties of the consecrated orifice.27 They varied,
however, in proportion with the supposed sanctity of the
petrae, arising from the solemnity of the rites of conse-
cration. Thus a natural cavity in a rock unhallowed by
the sacred ceremonial, was of inferior virtue to an artifi-
cial pastos, erected ritually, consecrated with holy oil,
and dedicated to a religious use and as ; soon as a pastos
was thus anointed, it acquired the distinguishing name
of lapis ambrosius. 2*
A considerable degree of sanctity was attached to
small islands in the centre of a consecrated lake. Floating
islands, considered as the residence of a happy and
20 On the estate of the Right Hon. C. T. D'Eyncourt, M. P., at
Bayon's Manor, near Market Rasen, in Lincolnshire, is a petra
ambrosia consisting, of a gigantic upright stone, resting on a slender
basis, at the foot of which another stone has been placed, hollowed
out so as to form an aperture of sufficient dimensions for a man to
creep through. It stands in a commanding situation, on the bold
brow of a hill, and has, doubtless, been used by the Druids
of their sacred rites.
in the
performance
27 This was the abomination referred to by the prophet Isaiah,
where he denounces the holes of the rocks, and the caves of the earth,
as insufficient to avert the indignation of the Almighty. (Isai. ii
19.)
Borlase (Ant. Cornw., p. 167) thus explains the probable use of these
Tolmen : he says, " It is not improbable but the holed stone served
for libations ; to initiate and dedicate children to the offices of rockworship
by drawing them through this hole, and also to purify the
victim before it was sacrificed ; and, considering the many lucrative
juggles of the Druids, it is not wholly improbable that some miraculous
restoration to health might be promised to the people for themselves
and children, upon proper pecuniary gratifications, provided that at a
certain season of the moon, and whilst a priest officiated at one of the
stones
adjoining, with pra}-ers adapted to the
occasion, they would
draw their children through the hole."
28 The city of
Tyre, according to Stukeley, was built by Hercjalos on
a spot where a petra ambrosias stood, which were two hollow rocks,
shaded by an olive tree ; and, accordingly, on the ancient Tyrian
coins we find these ambrosial petrse represented overshadowed by
an olive tree; and on the reverse, Hercules offering a sacrifice of
dedication.