The Origin And References Of The Hermesian Spurious Freemasonry.

" As the Sun is the fountain ot light , this luminary Avas considered by tho Sahaists as the symbol of the deity , AVIIO is the fountain of intelligence . They imagined inferior spirits to be divided into certain classes , and these Avere represented by the stars according to their magnitudes . A pre-established harmony was supposed to exist between the spiritual world and the material , and the latter Avas held to be a t ype and a development obvious to the sense of the former . The undeviating order observed in

the march of the celestial bodies , their regular revolutions in their orbits , and the concert which exists , or seems to exist , amongst them , were believed to typify the relations established by Infinite Wisdom among the spiritual hierarchs of heaven . While indeed , those countless and brilliant orbs pursue , in apparent accord , their various paths Avhile they attract , repel , and avoid each other , and while they course the etherial plains Avithout over jarring , they may , perhaps , be not inaptly said to represent , figurativel y , the

intellectual powers , spirits , or angels , that in uniform agreement obey , in then- different spheres , the mandates of the Supreme Euler of the Universe . " * Having thus engrafted Sabianisni on the patriarchal religion , the devotion of wandering tribes soon became generalized , and peculiar attributes were assigned to tho several planetary objects of their Avorship . Thus Plutarch informs us that a genial influence was ascribed to two of them , the same number being accounted malignant , and the rest neutral .

In like manner the mystics of the last century on the Continent of Europe contended that there is in man seven principles , Avhich are emanations from the seven planets : 1 . The divine golden man , from Saturn ; 2 . The iinvard holy body , ivhioli , like pure silver , is produced from fire and li ght ; 3 . The elemental man , from Jupiter ; 4 . The Mercurial-groAvmg paradisaical man ; 5 . The Martial , soldier-like man ; C . The Venerine , according to the outward desire 7 . The Solara seer of the wonders of God .

, For they said , " the stars figure God in his almightiness , infinity , and eternity , according to the first principle ; in his majestic triumphant kingdom of Light , according to the second ; and in his gracious kingdom of Love , according to the third principle . The hosts and legions of the seven angelical kings were figured by the rest of tho enumerable constellations and lesser glories . "

But to return . Nimrod , of whom each tribe cherished a pious remembrance , by a practical application of the principles already enumerated , Avas elevated to the skies as a Mediator , and placed in the constellation Orion , and the symbol was a point AA'ithin a circle . f And it is a question whether this splendid asterisus , in his famed attack on the Bull , and attendee ! by the brilliant star Shins , was not intended to prefigure tho Deliverer which tradition had instructed mankind to expect . "

The tradition of his death ran thus : His mother , Semiramis , being besieged in Babylon , "Nimrod , the true oriental Meimion of classical fable , came with his warlike Cuthites from Nineveh , to aid his mother and the beleaguered Babylonians ; but , as an apt requital , he was , by his ambitious parent , bloivn up from what is now called the Bit's Nemroud , either by gunpoAvder or by some similar composition handed down from

the antediluvian science of the Cainites . Her unfortunate offspring having been thus compendiously disposed of , she gave out that he had been miraculously translated to heaven in a storm of thunder and li ghtning . But she preserved his head , which by art magical she made into an oracular Seraph . And this Seraph was the real prototype both of the Gorgon ' s head and of the Cephalic Seraphim of the Rabbins , and of the speaking Brazen Head manufactured by Roger Baconancl of all other heads of the like

, quality and description . "J This account does not tally Avith what Pliny records in his seventh Book , where he says that " on the bursting of a mountain in Crete by an earthquake , there was found a body standing upright , with the head in the proper place , ivhich ivas supposed to be that of Orion . " ( To be continued . )