The Arcana of Freemasonry (1915) - The Masonic Trowel

52 THE ARCANA OF FREEMASONRY
at least six hundred thousand years or more. It
was first used in the time of the Totemic Soci-
ology, before the Stellar Cult was evolved, which
we may term Monumental times. Egypt was first
divided into Nomes or Domains ; one of these
Nomes was called Aria— the land of the Ari. It
was the seventeenth Nome of Upper Egypt, and
the only one which supplied workmen for the
Temples. These Ari were styled " Companions,"
because they worked in Companies, and were
initiated in the first and second degrees, and these
were the originals of the " Operative Masons."
None of them were initiated beyond the third
mystery, and they were quite a distinct class from
the " Old Religious Brotherhood," who employed
them to build their Temples and initiated them so
that they should keep the secrets of the same. A
body of these left Egypt at the time of the Stellar
Cult and travelled throughout the world wherever
the Stellar Priests went ; the first exodus was by
the Botyia, the next by the Turanians. A Priest
who was initiated into the third always accompanied
them, though he was not an Operative himself.
The buildings of these old Stellar people can
always be identified in whatever part of the world
found. These were always iconographic, which
the people who followed did not copy. Both the
Stellar and Solar built in polygonal and monolithic
forms, stones, but the Solar was never iconographic.