The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

200 HISTORY OF INITIATION
pyramid, 33 on the flat top of which were one or two
chapels,
which contained the colossal idols of the divini-
ty ;
34 and it served for an observatory as well as for
sacrifice. 35 Here it was that the Mexican mysteries were
36
celebrated on a grand scale and here it was that all ;
the
crimes of a bloody and revolting superstition were concentrated,
and all the horrible phantasies of a dark and
barbarous worship were exhibited in full perfection. The
young aspirant, notwithstanding he had been anointed
with a stupifying unguent, was overwhelmed with horror
at beholding his fellow creatures wantonly immolated
under the pretence of explaining an otherwise incommunicable
mystery. 37
He now descended into the dark and cheerless caverns
of initiation 38 which had been excavated beneath the
33 Purch. Pilg., b. viii.,
c. 12.
** Humb. Res., vol. i., p. 82.
35
Ibid., p. 100, 103.
36 "It is impossible," says M. Humboldt, (Res., vol. i., p. 82.) "to
read the descriptions which Herodotus and Diodorus have left us of
the Temple of Jupiter Belus, without being struck with the resem-
blance of that Babylonian monument to the teocallis of Anahuac."
37 "
These abominable sacrifices were performed as follows : The
sovereign priest carried a large and sharp knife in his hand, made of a
flint; another priest carried a collar of wood, wrought in the form of
a snake ; the other four priests who assisted, arranged themselves in
order adjoining the pyramidal stone ; being directly against the door
of the chapel of their idol. This stone was so pointed, that the man
who was to be sacrificed, being laid thereon upon his back, did bend
in such sort as occasioned the stomach to separate upon the slightest
incision of the knife. When the sacrificers were thus in order, they
brought forth such as had been taken in war, and caused them to mount
up those large stairs in rank to the place where the ministers were
prepared. As they respectfully approached those ministers, the latter
seized them, two of them laying hold of the two feet, and two more of
the two hands of the unhappy victim, and in this manner cast him upon
his back upon the pointed stone, while the fifth fastened round his
neck the serpentine collar of wood. The high priest then opened his
stomach with the knife, with wonderful dexterity and nimbleness,
tearing out his heart with his hand, which he elevated smoking towards
the sun, to whom he did offer it, and presently turning towards the
his face with the blood.
idol, did cast the heart towards it, besmearing
In this .manner were all the victims sacrificed, and the bodies afterwards
precipitated down the stairs, reeking with their gore. There
were forty or fifty victims at the least thus sacrificed." (Acosta'sHist.
of the Ind., p. 383.)
33
j n persia, numerous galleries built with stone, and communica-
the interior of the artificial
ting with each other by shafts, fill up
hills." (Humb. Res., vol. i., p. 102.) Many of these excavations have
been discovered in different parts of this continent. Two fine caves,