On The Geometrical And Other. Symbols.

and a thick cloud of incense went up ; " together with other heathen " abomination , " such as the Israelites "worshipping" the outward "sun towards the east , " and the "women weeping for Tammuz . " Then " the Glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub , whereupon he was , to the threshold of the house ; and He called to the man clothed with

linen , which had the writer ' s inkhorn by his side ; and the Lord ( "the Glory of the God of Israel" ) said unto him , Go through the midst of the city , through the midst of Jerusalem , and set a inarlc ( -a tau ) upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the

midst thereof . " These were to be preserved in life , while all the others were to be smitten and slain . This "mark , " as Wilkinson and others remark , was the Egyptian cross . The tau is also believed to have been the mark which the children of Israel , then in Egyptmade upon the door-posts of their housesby

, , command of Moses , who was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ; " that , in the destruction of the first-born of Egypt , the Angel of Death might might see it and pass over them . The notion of many Christians that the cross , and various other Christian symbols , emblematical

associations and observances common to Buddhists , Brahmins , and Christians , must have been all borrowed from the Christians , is quite untenable . It reminds one of the acute Yankee of the far West , who had the notion that an Englishman whom he happened to meet must have borrowed his extraordinary knowledge of" the American language" from the Americans . Those who imagine that the Thibetan , Chinese , and

Indian crosses in particular were derived from Christian sources are quite as far away as the Yankee , these being evidently native Buddhist and Brahminical symbols , and far more ancient probably , as the Egyptian and American crosses must also be , than Christianity itself . The Jews were already in the habit of crucifying malefactors on a cross when our Saviour

lived , so that even among the Jews the cross was at least the grim symbol of a sacrifice , and no doubt the Chinese crucified malefactors then as they still do . In the region of the ancient Chaldea , —whence emigrated Abram the Chaldean "father" of the Jews , —Semiramis , the mystical queen of Babylonia , or more

properly , perhaps , the oracular Spirit , or ferocher , fairy , peri , or guardian angel , and counsellor , of the king , was threatened with crucifixion , —a mystical threat which is explicable in connection with the fact that the Assyrian and Persian ferocher itself itself was occasionallcruciformor appears on a wheeled cross

y , , "watching over the king . Here I may remark , by the way , as to Semiramis , that , on the idea that the king had , in his own person , no oracular power , or susceptibility of entrancement , ¦ she may be regarded either as the chosen priestess , in whom the God , Baal , " appeared " or was " invoked ;"

or who was " visited "by the God ; every ni ght , on the elegant oracular or state bedstead , or couch , which Herodotus tells us stood , for that purpose , in the sanctum of the temple of Belus or Baal , at the top of the tower , at Babylon ; or , she may have been that oracular S pirit , or Sp irit , or ferocher itself , in the chosen priestess . We cannot here wait to fully consider the curious and heretofore confused and inexplicable historical facts as to Semiramis , sufficiently

to work out the problem now started ; but it is quite explicable , I am convinced , on these ideas ; e . g ., the difficulties as to whether she were a contemporary with , or a successor to , the king , with whom , and as if his double or counterpart , she is seemingly as inextricably mixed up . I may remark , however , that there is collateral evidence of the probabilitthat -the king

y had , in his own person , the ferocher , pharaoh , or oracular and protective Spirit . Thus Rawlinson sees reason to maintain that Nimrod , Zoroaster , and Orion , were one and the same ; that Zoroaster was a

Chaldean ; that both Nimrod aud Zoroaster were said to have invented magic and astrology ; that the Arabic astronomy calls Orion el Jabbar—the Giant—the special epithet of Nimrod , and that Gibbm- is the particular Hebrew title given to the Nimrod of Scripture ; that mounds of ashes in Babylonia are called N imrod , fire worship having been instituted bZoroaster or

y Nimrod ; that there were Babylonian scyths , called " Namri ; " that Orion being invoiced , Zoroaster was consumed with fire and apotheosized ¦ and that Nimrod was himself worshipped as Orion by the Semites ;—from all of which premisses , I should feel inclined to conclude that kings such as Nimrod , were , indeed , to a

certain extent , or occasionally , supposed to be twofold , since they possessed , or could , as was believed , invoke , the ferocher , god , guardian angel , or divine oracular afflatus within them ; so that Avhile Orion , or " the God , " was invoked in Zoroaster or Nimrod , the body of the king was of course God-possessed , or

apotheosized , and the man Zoroaster no longer for the time existed : he was " consumed by ( this inward solar ) fire " of Baal , the god of fire , as a mystical sacrifice on the internal altar of this microcosmic " sun , " or winged and celestial ferocher , and guardian spirit of magical entrancement . * In truth , entrancement , and the quickening Spirit ,

which is awalcened in hi gh entrancement , and is the natural as well as the supernatural or ultranatural " Light" or the soul , as I shall afterwards endeavour , briefly and scientifically , to show , will be found to afford us the psychological and the onl y key to vast regions of mystery and magic , as well as symbolism , in ancient mythology . The life of all human beings , —as two alternating states of waking and sleep , in themselves , though imperfectly , imply , —