The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

such as the Dervish rites, which still survive in Palestine. The ceremonial
bathing or kind of baptism which the Essenes practised was always
associated with the Adonis and Attis rites. It has survived in the Operative
rituals to day, although it is no longer enforced. According to the ritual
the candidate has to step right into a bath, after which he is clothed with a
long white garment, opening in front. I know quite a number of men who
had to go through this ceremony only ten or twelve years ago. Although
the bathing has now been omitted the white robe is still used, and similar
robes were in use in old Dundee Lodge, a Speculative Lodge, in the 18th
century, and were still in existence, though not in use, up to 1904, when
they were destroyed. 41 Similar robes were in use in Boston, U.S.A. in
1914. 42 The convenience of these robes when testing a man’s virility is
obvious, and this was a custom which had not died out in Wales 40 years
ago. 43
The celibacy adopted by the majority of the Essenes was almost
certainly a mild substitute for the emasculation at one time demanded by
the Great Mother, which still at this date (A .D. 71) was exacted from the
Priests of the more primitive forms of the cult at Heirapolis and
elsewhere.
The four degrees have a striking similarity to the Masonic
arrangement of the three Craft degrees and the R .A.. It is also worth
mentioning that the Essenes had a strong objection to slavery, and
protested against it as unjust and a violation of the brotherhood of man.
Have we here the origin of the Masonic objection to receiving into the
Order anyone who is not free? At any rate we may feel sure that any slave
made an Essene was immediately set free, and therefore the Order would
contain only free men. It may be noted that this humanitarian attitude was
unique at that time in the ancient world. Even the best Pagans saw no
harm in slavery, indeed accepted it as inevitable.
The very name Essenes presents an interesting problem. The
commentators have been entirely unable to suggest its derivation, except
that it may come from a Persian word, and here their arguments are far
from convincing. Now Diana, or Artemis of Ephesus, who was of course
merely another form of Astarte, had an order of Priests who were either
41 A. Heiron, “Ancient Freemasonry and Old Dundee Lodge,” pp. 49 sq.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
458