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Article ORIGINAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY FREEMASONRY. ← Page 6 of 6
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Original And Supplementary Freemasonry.
that they taught that the souls of the initiated should be happier in a future state than those of other mortals—that the souls of the profane at their leaving the body stuck fast in mire and filth and remained in darkness , while those of the initiated winged their flight directly to the happy islands and the habitations of the gods , —is to my mind a strong argument in their favour . It proves that they held out to their fellow-creatures , as an
inducement to them to enter into their brotherhood , the promise of such a course of instruction in wisdom and virtue as should enable them to circumscribe their passions , to free their minds from vice , and render their souls fit to be received into that eternal mansion veiled from mortal eyes and built with no mortal hands . It shows , in fact , that they were the Masonic Fraternity of their time ; a time when Masonry as an institution was a system of vast and immeasurable importance ;
a system with which it is hardly possible to compare , though from which it is not difficult to derive the institution which has passed through so many variations of fortune , has been clothed in so many costumes , has spoken so many languages , and which , shorn of its primary importance , and " cabined , cribbed , confined" by the limits of the present state of society , has in our hands become Modern Freemasonry ; " a moral order instituted with the praiseworthy design of recalling to our remembrance the most sublime truths , in the midst of the most innocent and social pleasures . " * No ordinary qualifications , and no niggard meed of praise , but still without in the least depreciating
the merits of an association to which it is one of my greatest pleasures to belong , I cannot shut my eyes to the plain fact , that from natural causes , the Masonry of modern times is a necessarily diminutive and dwaTf descendant of those giant societies whose beneficial influence extended over mighty empires , and countless tribes , in the early ages of our post-diluvian history . x With regard to the antiquity of the doctrines taught in the Mysteries , they canwithout doubtbe traced to a common source with the religious
, , notions of all the nations of the earth ; the traditionary knowledge derived from the great patriarch , the second father of mankind , Noah , and his immediate posterity . It is from this point that we must proceed , because whatever antediluvian knowledge may have survived the great catastrophe which overwhelmed the earth , must have been concentrated in this same point , hence to radiate over the universal world . But as this is necessarily the point whence also the origin of True Masonry is
derived as distinct from the Mysteries , which have been said to be mere copies of the former , it is incumbent on me to show the direct origin of the Mysteries from the great patriarch himself , and to demonstrate ( as far as can be done in writing ) , the wonderful similarity , if not identity of these with Freemasonry ; and lastly , to point out the mode in which our modern system branched off from , and is the immediate offspring ( probablby two distinct channels ) of the True Masonry of the ancient
y world ; the Cabiric , Osiric , Mithraic , or Eleusinian Mysteries . For this purpose I shall proceed to examine , first the origin of the Mysteries , and next the nature of the ceremonies known to have been practised at the initiation of members into the secret associations . ( To be concluded in our next . )
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Original And Supplementary Freemasonry.
that they taught that the souls of the initiated should be happier in a future state than those of other mortals—that the souls of the profane at their leaving the body stuck fast in mire and filth and remained in darkness , while those of the initiated winged their flight directly to the happy islands and the habitations of the gods , —is to my mind a strong argument in their favour . It proves that they held out to their fellow-creatures , as an
inducement to them to enter into their brotherhood , the promise of such a course of instruction in wisdom and virtue as should enable them to circumscribe their passions , to free their minds from vice , and render their souls fit to be received into that eternal mansion veiled from mortal eyes and built with no mortal hands . It shows , in fact , that they were the Masonic Fraternity of their time ; a time when Masonry as an institution was a system of vast and immeasurable importance ;
a system with which it is hardly possible to compare , though from which it is not difficult to derive the institution which has passed through so many variations of fortune , has been clothed in so many costumes , has spoken so many languages , and which , shorn of its primary importance , and " cabined , cribbed , confined" by the limits of the present state of society , has in our hands become Modern Freemasonry ; " a moral order instituted with the praiseworthy design of recalling to our remembrance the most sublime truths , in the midst of the most innocent and social pleasures . " * No ordinary qualifications , and no niggard meed of praise , but still without in the least depreciating
the merits of an association to which it is one of my greatest pleasures to belong , I cannot shut my eyes to the plain fact , that from natural causes , the Masonry of modern times is a necessarily diminutive and dwaTf descendant of those giant societies whose beneficial influence extended over mighty empires , and countless tribes , in the early ages of our post-diluvian history . x With regard to the antiquity of the doctrines taught in the Mysteries , they canwithout doubtbe traced to a common source with the religious
, , notions of all the nations of the earth ; the traditionary knowledge derived from the great patriarch , the second father of mankind , Noah , and his immediate posterity . It is from this point that we must proceed , because whatever antediluvian knowledge may have survived the great catastrophe which overwhelmed the earth , must have been concentrated in this same point , hence to radiate over the universal world . But as this is necessarily the point whence also the origin of True Masonry is
derived as distinct from the Mysteries , which have been said to be mere copies of the former , it is incumbent on me to show the direct origin of the Mysteries from the great patriarch himself , and to demonstrate ( as far as can be done in writing ) , the wonderful similarity , if not identity of these with Freemasonry ; and lastly , to point out the mode in which our modern system branched off from , and is the immediate offspring ( probablby two distinct channels ) of the True Masonry of the ancient
y world ; the Cabiric , Osiric , Mithraic , or Eleusinian Mysteries . For this purpose I shall proceed to examine , first the origin of the Mysteries , and next the nature of the ceremonies known to have been practised at the initiation of members into the secret associations . ( To be concluded in our next . )