The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

called Essenes or at any rate had a High Priest over them known by the
title of Essen. 44 These priests were eunuchs, and the common name by
which they were known was Megabuzoi, which indicates a Persian origin.
It therefore seems probable that this Jewish secret society derives its
name, not from a Hebrew word meaning the “Pail,” as some have
suggested, but from the name also applied to the Priests of the Great
Mother at Ephesus, who like them were naturally celibates. The emblems
of this goddess were the bee, the lion, the goat and the bear, and three of
these are closely associated with Freemasonry.
The striking similarity of their obligation to ours and to our E .
Charge seems to link this order with Freemasonry. That all traces of the
old fertility cult were not extinct even among the orthodox Jews is shown
by the Festival of Purim. This feast, right down into the 18th century at
any rate, had nearly all the characteristics of the Roman Saturnalia, and
one of the most extraordinary features was the hanging of a figure of a
man on a tree or cross. The man was said to be Haman, but modern critics
are agreed that this is a substitute for the old fertility god. 4546
44
See “Artemis.’’ Encyl. Brjt. Uth. ed. vol. II.
45
Frazer, ‘Scapegoat.” p. 392 sq.
46
The double-headed Eagle of the Kadosh is also the insignia of a
Patriarch in the Eastern Church, and five years ago (1919) was bestowed on the
Archbishop of Canterbury by a vote of the Eastern Synod. In short it is still the
badge of an Eastern Priest-King.
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