Speculations On The Pyramids.

SPECULATIONS ON THE PYRAMIDS .

THE various hypotheses that have from time to time been started with regard to the Egyptian Pyramids have , of necessity , to members of our Craft , possessed a special and peculiar interest . Whatever may have been the intention of the authors of these enormous piles of masonry ,

there can be not the shadow of a doubt that for upwards of 4 , 000 years they have remained unsurpassed as monuments of masonic skill , masonic energy , and masonic wisdom . The inquiring vigilance of forty centuries has failed to comprehend the mystery that surrounds their origin ,

and mysterious , to some extent , they will probably remain to the end of time . The Father of History , Herodotus , writing upwards of 2 , 000 years ago , makes reference to the Pyramids in a manner which proves them to have been even then of a venerable antiquity , and the objects of

general wonder . Strabo , Diodorus Siculus , and Pliny have also had a good deal to say about them , though it cannot be affirmed that their speculations and surmises have added very much to the general stock of knowledge concerning them . Strabo , for instance , relates that one of the

Pyramids was erected by the lovers of a famous courtezan , named Rhodopis ; and Diodorus , writing a few years earlier , also gives currency to the same tradition . But the account given by Herodotus has certainly more of the appearance of being the correct one . According to this historian , the

Pyramids were erected by King Cheops and his immediate successors , to serve as places of burial for themselves . And when it is remembered that the ancient Egyptians attached a very great importance to the preservation of their bodies after death , this does not seem an extravagant or improbable

explanation . It is none the less certain , however , that the hypothesis thus broached has never been accepted without question , and at the present day , although the " tombic theory " is the one generally held by Egyptologists , a not inconsiderable section of the most able writers on the

subject still hesitate to subscribe to it , or adopt it only in a partial and half-hearted manner . In the middle ages , particularly during the period covered by the "Arabian Nights , " the wildest and most extravagant stories were current as to the origin , history , and contents

of the Pyramids . At one time it was asserted , that they had been built as treasure-houses for the Egyptian kings , and countless wealth was declared to be still concealed there ; at another , that they contained the implements of unheard-of arts and sciences ; and again , that they were

the temples and repositories of all kinds of mystic terrors . The Caliph al Mamoun , son and successor of the illustrious Haroun al Raschid , and himself a man of great learning , determined at last to put an end to surmise by forcing an entrance into their inmost recesses . That our readers may

havo some idea of the degree of excitement which was felt on the occasion , we transcribe the words of a contemporary writer as to their presumed contents at that time . " In the western Pyramid , " he writes , " thirty treasuries , filled with store of riches and utensils , and with signatures made of

precious stones , and with instruments of iron , and vessels of earth , and with arms which rust not , and with glass which might be bended and yet not broken , and with strange spells , and with several kinds of magical precious stones , Bingle and double , and with deadly poisons , and with other

things besides . In the eastern Pyramid ( the great Pyramid ) , divers celestial spheres and stars , and what they severally operate in their aspects , and the perfumes that are to be used to them , and the books which treat of these matters . " It was on the eastern , or great Pyramid , that

the caliph made his first attack , whence it may be inferred that the scientific treasures said to be concealed there possessed a greater attraction for the learned Mussulman than the treasures of silver and gold in the other Pyramids . An immense number of men were employed upon the igantic

g task , and days and weeks were expended in what seemed to be a fruitless labour . The solid masonry for a long time resisted all their efforts . The interstices between the massive blocks of limestone were so exceedingly fine , the blocks themselves were so exquisitely true , that the implements of the labourers

were blunted , and their patience exhausted before any considerable headway had been made . At last , just as they were about to abandon the attempt ashopelessj a stone was heard to fall into what seemed to be an empty space within the Pyramid . To work at once they went agam with redoubled energy , and in a very short time they had laid bare , not onl y the descending passage , ' which had

Speculations On The Pyramids.

probably been explored by Greeks and Romans hundreds of years before , but also the ascending passage , leading to what are called the king ' s and the queen ' s chambers . This , in all probability , had been untrodden since the Pyramid had been first closed up , some threo thousand years before .

And what did these Mussulmen find there ? With frantic haste they clambered up the ascending passage , rushed along the grand gallery , and entered the king ' s chamber , burning with a desire to clutch tho loner-hidden treasures . All they

found there was an empty and lidless coffer , or sarcophagus . No scientific instruments , no gold or silver , no jewels , magical implements , or even books . Their labour to all appearance had been in vain . ( To be continued . )

Masonry And Magic.

MASONRY AND MAGIC .

( Continued from page 19 . ) THIS then , according to Levi , is the great AsCAHUM MAGICUM , the existence of an eether , a universal plastic element , a boundless ocean of power , hitherto concealed by adepts under the terms—Gold , Sol , boiled dew , our

Light , our Fire , Holy Spirit—according as they wrote in the jargon of Rosicrucians , alchemists , fire philosophers , Gnostics , or Magi . Is this the same element described by Serjeant Cox , when he could no longer deny the facts of certain supra-mundane phenomena , as PSYCHIC FORCE ?

On reconsideration , we are led to modify the assertion contained in our former paper , that this theory fails to account for phenomena affecting solid bodies . It is true we fail to find any explanation of the same in the writings of Levi : but this may be an omission . We can hardly

deny the infinite possibilities latent in the manifestations of an element , the forces of which are so imperfectly known ; which are only manifest to the mass of mankind in the electric shock or by the control of the mesmerist . We are tempted to reproduce Levi's definition of

THE MYSTERY OF DEATH . " Wherefore are we born , to live so short a space ? Why lavish such care upon children who must die ? is what human ignorance cries , in most frequent and saddest doubt . Thus also may well cry the human embryo , upon

the approach of that birth which will precipitate it into an unknown world , in despoiling it of its preservative envelope . If we study the mystery of birth , we shall find the key to the mystery of death .

Its foetal existence determined by ' a law of nature ; the incarnated spirit is slowly awakened and produces with effort those organs which will hereafter be indispensable , but which increase its discomfort in proportion as they grow , in its pre-natal situation . The happiest time in the life of

the embryo is when , in simple crysahd form , the membrane which serves as its asylum floats with it in a preservative and nutritive fluid . It is then impassive , living by

the universal life , and receiving the imprint of those natural souvenirs which will , later on , determine the configuration of its body and the traits of its countenance . This happy age may be called , the infancy of the embryo .

Adolescence follows , the human form becomes distinct and the sex is determined , changes takes place in the maternal egg , like to the vague reveries of advancing youth . The placenta , the real and exterior body of the fcetus , feels something new germinating within it , which is already

attempting to emerge by breaking it . The child then enters more definedly into a life of dreams ; its brain reversed , like to a mirror of its mother ' s , reproduces her fancies with such power , that it can communicate their shape to its own members . Its mother is to it , at this time , what God is to

us—an unknown , invisible Providence , up to which it aspires even to the point of identifying itself with all that her emotions point to . It holds to her , it lives by her and sees her not ; it would not even understand her ; if it could philosophise , it would perhaps deny the existence

and intelligence of that mother , who is , to it , but a prison and a preservative apparatus . Nevertheless , little by little , its subjection annoys it , it is agitated , tormented , it suffers and feels that its life is near its end . A moment of agony and convulsion comes , its cords are loosed , it feels that it Wist fall into the gulf of the unknown .. T ] j , e fiataS »