The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN PERSIA. 69
of Persian mythology, and furnished with talismans 56 that
he might be ready to encounter all the hideous monsters
f
raised up by the Dives to impede his progress to perfection.
57
Introduced into an inner apartment he was
purified with fire and water, 58 and solemnly put through
the SEVEN 59 STAGES of initiation. 60 From the precipice
where he stood, he beheld a deep and dangerous vault
into which a single false step might precipitate him down
to the "throne of dreadful necessity," 61 which was an
emblem of those infernal regions through which he was
about to pass. Threading the circuitous mazes of the
gloomy cavern, he was soon awakened from his trance
of thought, by seeing the sacred fire, at intervals, flash
through its recesses to illuminate his path; sometimes
bursting from beneath his feet; sometimes descending
on his head in a broad sheet of white and shadowy flame.
Amidst the admiration thus inspired, his terror was
excited by the distant yelling of ravenous beasts ; the
roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the fierce and
56 u rj^ mog j. fam0us talismans, which rendered the heroes of Per-
sian romance proof against the arms and magic of the Dives, (or
wicked genii) were muhur Solimani, or the seal of Solomon Jared, the
fifth, monarch of the world, which gave to its possessors the command
of the elements, demons, and of every created thing ; the Siper, or
buckler of Jan-ben- Jan, more famous in the east than the shield
of Achilles among the Greeks ; the Jebeli, or the impenetrable
cuirass;
272.)
and the Tigh atish, or the flaming sword." (Dissert., p.
57 The preparation for these encounters consisted of spells as a
defence against enchantment, accompanied with ceremonies differing
little from those practised by our European knights errant, when setting
out on their adventures to rescue distressed damsels from the
power of necromancers or giants. (Vid. Rich. Dissert., p. 280.)
58 Maur. Ind. Ant., vol. v., p. 991.
69
This is represented as a high ladder with seven steps or gates.
(Orig. con. Gels., 1. iv. Vid. Signs and Symbols, Lect. 8.) The use
of the number Seven forms an important feature in all the institutions
of antiquity, whether their tendency be idolatrous or otherwise. The
reference might probably be to the seven antediluvians who were saved
with Noah in the ark. The conjecture bears strong marks of truth
from the
extraordinary fact, that almost every ancient idolatrous nation
addressed the rites of divine worship to the seven hero-gods. This
remarkable number will be copiously illustrated in Lect. 7.
60 This part of the ceremony might probably bear some allusion to
the soul toiling through the metempsychosis towards perfection and
everlasting beatitude ; for Hyde informs us, (De Rel. vet. Pers., p.
254) that this doctrine was shadowed out in the Persian mysteries.
01 Celsus, cited by Maur. Ind. Ant., vol. iv., p. 645.