The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN BRITAIN. 139
chanted, 22 and three blessed drops of the Spirit were
earnestly implored. The candidate was then introduced,
and placed under the care of the officer who was stationed
to receive him "in the land of rest." Soon,
however, the active duties of initiation were commenced.
The aspirant, who was denominated a blind man, 24 was
appointed to kindle a fire under the cauldron. As the
cauldron was a mystical word to express the whole circle
of science taught in the mysteries, so the act of
kindling
a fire under it must have had an evident reference to
those preliminary ceremonies which were practised before
the disclosure of any part of the august secrets of
the Order. A pageant was then formed, and the several
candidates were arranged in ranks consisting of threes,
fives, and sevens, according to their respective qualifications,
and conducted nine times round the sanctuary in circles
25
from east to west by the south ;
at first
proceeding
"with solemn step and slow," amidst an awful and death-
like silence, to inspire a sacred feeling adapted to the re-
ception of Divine truths ; at length the pace increased,
until they were impelled into a rapid and furious motion
22 Maur. Hist. Hind., vol. ii., p. 170.
23
Signs and Symbols, Lect. viii.
24 The ceremonies of initiation which I am about to describe and
illustrate, have been transmitted to us by Taliesin, in a poem of ex-
traordinary merit, called Hanes Taliesin which ; contains a mythological
account of the candidate's progress through the different
stages, to his ultimate state of perfection. A translation of this
poem may be found in Dav. Druid, p. 189, 213, 229.
25 Diodorus informs us that the temple of Stonehenge was the peculiar
abode of Apollo and that the ; god amused himself with a
dance once in nineteen years, amongst his established train. On
this observation, Davies remarks, that " as it was the known practice
for certain priests, in the celebration of the mysteries, personally
to represent the sun and moon, I conjecture that the Druids, in
their great festival of the cycle, dressed up a pageant of their own
order, to personate this luminous divinity."
The same may be said
of the dance called Betarmus, which was used during the initiations
in honour of the solar orb, and his attendant planets; and of the
Egyptian Pyrrhic dance, afterwards used by the Greeks, which was
performed at the summer solstice, accompanied by the singing of
dithyrambic odes ; and the same idolatrous dances were performed
by the Israelites, which they had learned in Egypt. In the Eaas
Jattra, or the dance of the circle in India, the performers proceeded
sometimes from left to right, as amongst the Romans ;
and sometimes
from right to left, as with the Greeks and Britons. And the Greeks
used a similar movement while their choruses were performing.