The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

gate of the Lord’s house which was towards the North; 19 and behold there
sat women weeping for Tammuz. And he said unto me, Hast thou seen, 0
Son of Man? turn thee yet again, thou shalt see greater abominations than
these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and,
behold at the door of the Temple of the Lord, between the porch and the
altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs towards the Temple of
the Lord, and their faces towards the east; and they worshipped the sun
towards the east.”
We learn further that “they put the branch to their nose.” This
might appear to be only a sign of derision, but a branch or a tree is always
closely associated with Tammuz, as we have already seen, and Mr.
Stanley Smith of the Assyrian Department of the British Museum agrees
with me that this also was one of the ritual practices of the cult. The soul
of the slain man was sup posed to enter into a tree, which symbolically
grew out of the grave. The original idea was that the seed which was
planted and died transmitted its soul to the plant or branch which grew
therefrom.
That the Jews enacted a tree drama, similar to that in the Cult of
Attis, is shown by Jeremiah. “For the customs of the people are vain: for
one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman,
with the axe.
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails
and with hammers, that it move not.
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs
be born, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them.” 20
This clearly indicates the ceremonial carrying in of a decorated
tree, probably with an image of Tammuz fastened thereon, as we find
elsewhere, particularly in the worship of Attis.
We know that they said of a stock, i.e., a pillar of wood, “Thou
art my father.” These stocks were plain pieces of wood, merely trunks of
trees, and it is clear that they were not only symbols of the phallus but
also the residing place of the Spirit of Vegetation. Among many primitive
19 Where stood the figure of Astarte and apparently the seething
cauldron. 20 Jeremiah 10. 3. sq.
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