The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

56
HISTORY OF INITIATION.
forbids murder; the second, theft; the third, external
impurity; the fourth, lying; and the fifth, drunkenness.
They particularly recommended the candidate to afford
protection to the bonzes, 59 that by the prayers of these
holy men, they might be exempted from the fearful
punishment of their transgressions; which, they were
told, would otherwise consign their transmigrating souls
to the purifying medium of a horse, a mule, a dog, a
cat, a rat, or of a loathsome and insignificant reptile.
Much merit was attached to the possession of a consecrated
symbol representing the great triad of the gentile
world. This was an equilateral triangle, said to afford
protection in all cases of personal danger and adversity.
The mystical symbol Y was also much esteemed from its
60
allusion to the same tri-une god the three ;
distinct lines
of which it is composed forming one, and the one is three. 61
This was in effect the ineffable name of the deity the
;
Tetractys of Pythagoras, and the Tetragrammaton of the
Jews. A ring, supported by two serpents, was emblematical
of the world protected by the ponver and wisdom
of the Creator ; and referred to the diluviari patriarch and
his symbolical consort, the ark ; and the ark itself was
represented by a boat, a mouth, and the number eight. 62
The Rainbow was a celebrated symbol in these mysteries,
and doubtless originated in the history of the
Deluge ; for it was believed that the father of their radiant
god Fo-hi was a rainbow, 63 which miraculously surrounded
his mother while walking by a river's side. The aspi-
ra These artful priests used magical ceremonies to delude the multitude,
and to direct the tide of popular prejudice in their favour
through the medium of superstition. They boasted of their power
over the winds and elements, and proclaimed themselves the possessors
of the philosophers' stone, which would transmute the baser
metals to gold, and convey the blessing of
immortality.
60 Fab. "
Pag. Idol., vol. i., p. 248. Tao, or
reason, hath produced
one ; one hath produced two ; two hath produced three and ; three have
produced all things." (Du Halde, China, vol. ii. p. 30. Le Comte.
China, p. 318.)
61 We find here again a superstitious veneration for odd numbers,
as containing divine properties. Thus while the sum of the even numbers,
2+4-|-6-f8+10=30 designated the Number of Earth; the sum
of the odd numbers, l-f3-f5+7-f9=25 was dignified with the appellation
of the Number of Heaven.
62 Fab. Alys. Cab., vol i., p. 253.
63 Vid. Signs and Symbols, Lect. 5.