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the secret teachings of all ages
Stones, Metals And
Gems
CHAPTER XVII
manly p. hall
EACH of the four primary
elements as taught by the early philosophers has its analogue in the
quaternary terrestrial constitution of man. The rocks and earth
correspond to the bones and flesh; the water to the various fluids; the
air to the gases; and the fire to the bodily heat. Since the bones are
the framework that sustains the corporeal structure, they may be
regarded as a fitting emblem of the spirit--that divine foundation which
supports the composite fabric of mind, soul, and body. To the initiate,
the skeleton of death holding in bony fingers the reaper's scythe
denotes Saturn (Kronos), the father of the gods, carrying the sickle
with which he mutilated Ouranos, his own sire.
In the language of the
Mysteries, the spirits of men are the powdered bones of Saturn.
The latter deity was always worshiped under the symbol of the base or
footing, inasmuch as he was considered to be the substructure upholding
creation. The myth of Saturn has its historical basis in the fragmentary
records preserved by the early Greeks and Phnicians concerning a king
by that name who ruled over the ancient continent of Hyperborea.
Polaris, Hyperborea, and Atlantis, because they lie buried beneath the
continents and oceans of the modern world, have frequently been
symbolized as rocks supporting upon their broad surfaces new lands,
races, and empires. According to the Scandinavian Mysteries, the stones
and cliffs were formed from the bones of Ymir, the primordial giant of
the seething clay, while to the Hellenic mystics the rocks were
the bones of the Great Mother, Gæa.
After the deluge sent by the
gods to destroy mankind at the close of the Iron Age, only Deucalion and
Pyrrha were left alive. Entering a ruined sanctuary to pray, they were
directed by an oracle to depart from the temple and with heads veiled
and garments unbound cast behind them the bones of their mother.
Construing the cryptic message of the god to mean that the earth was the
Great Mother of all creatures, Deucalion picked up loose rocks and,
bidding Pyrrha do likewise, cast them behind him. From these rocks there
sprang forth a new and stalwart race of human beings, the rocks thrown
by Deucalion becoming men and those thrown by Pyrrha becoming women. In
this allegory is epitomized the mystery of human evolution; for spirit,
by ensouling matter, becomes that indwelling power which gradually but
sequentially raises the mineral to the status of the plant; the plant to
the plane of the animal; the animal to the dignity of man; and man to
the estate of the gods.
The solar system was organized
by forces operating inward from the great ring of the Saturnian sphere;
and since the beginnings of all things were under the control of Saturn,
the most reasonable inference is that the first forms of worship were
dedicated to him and his peculiar symbol--the stone. Thus the intrinsic
nature of Saturn is synonymous with that spiritual rock which is the
enduring foundation of the Solar Temple, and has its antitypc or lower
octave in that terrestrial rock--the planet Earth--which sustains upon
its jagged surface the diversified genera of mundane life.
Although its origin is
uncertain, litholatry undoubtedly constitutes one of the earliest forms
of religious expression. "Throughout all the world, " writes Godfrey
Higgins, "the first object of Idolatry seems to have been a plain,
unwrought stone, placed in the ground, as an emblem of the generative or
procreative powers of nature." (See The Celtic Druids.) Remnants
of stone worship are distributed over the greater part of the earth's
surface, a notable example being the menhirs at Carnac, in Brittany,
where several thousand gigantic uncut stones are arranged in eleven
orderly rows. Many of these monoliths stand over twenty feet out of the
sand in which they are embedded, and it has been calculated that some of
the larger ones weigh as much as 250,000 pounds. By some it is believed
that certain of the menhirs mark the location of buried treasure, but
the most plausible view is that which regards Carnac as a monument to
the astronomical knowledge of antiquity. Scattered throughout the
British Isles and Europe, these cairns, dolmens, menhirs, and cistvaens
stand as mute but eloquent testimonials to the existence and
achievements of races now extinct.
Of particular interest are the
rocking or logan stones, which evince the mechanical skill of these
early peoples. These relics consist of enormous boulders poised upon one
or two small points in such a manner that the slightest pressure will
sway them, but the greatest effort is not sufficient to overthrow them.
These were called living stones by the Greeks and Latins, the
most famous one being the Gygorian stone in the Strait of Gibraltar.
Though so perfectly balanced that it could be moved with the stalk of a
daffodil, this rock could not be upset by the combined weight of many
men. There is a legend that Hercules raised a rocking stone over the
graves of the two sons of Boreas whom he had killed in combat. This
stone was so delicately poised that it swayed back and forth with the
wind, but no application of force could overturn it. A number of logan
stones have been found in Britain, traces of one no longer standing
having been discovered in Stonehenge. (See The Celtic Druids.) It
is interesting to note that the green stones forming the inner ring of
Stonehenge are believed to have been brought from Africa.
In many cases the monoliths are
without carving or inscription, for they undoubtedly antedate both the
use of tools and the art of writing. In some instances the stones have
been trued into columns or obelisks, as in the runic monuments and the
Hindu lingams and sakti stones; in other instances they
are fashioned into rough likenesses of the human body, as in the Easter
Island statues, or into the elaborately sculptured figures of the
Central American Indians and the Khmers of Cambodia. The first
rough-stone images can hardly be considered as effigies of any
particular deity but rather as the crude effort of primitive man to
portray in the enduring qualities of stone the procreative attributes of
abstract Divinity. An instinctive recognition of the stability of Deity
has persisted through all the intervening ages between primitive man and
modem civilization. Ample proof of the survival of litholatry in the
Christian faith is furnished by allusions to the rock of refuge,
the rock upon which the church of Christ was to be founded, the
corner stone which the builders rejected, Jacob's stony
pillow which he set up and anointed with oil, the sling stone
of David, the rock Moriah upon which the altar of King Solomon's
Temple was erected, the white stone of Revelation, and the
Rock of Ages.
Stones were highly venerated by
prehistoric peoples primarily because of their usefulness. Jagged bits
of stone were probably man's first weapons; rocky cliffs and crags
constituted his first fortifications, and from these vantage points he
hurled loose boulders down upon marauders. In caverns or rude huts
fashioned from slabs of rock the first humans protected themselves from
the rigors of the elements. Stones were set up as markers and monuments
to primitive achievement; they were also placed upon the graves of the
dead, probably as a precautionary measure to prevent the depredations of
wild beasts. During migrations, it was apparently customary for
primitive peoples to carry about with them stones taken from their
original habitat. As the homeland or birthplace of a race was considered
sacred, these stones were emblematic of that universal regard shared by
all nations for the place of their geniture. The discovery that fire
could be produced by striking together two pieces of stone augmented
man's reverence for stones, but ultimately the hitherto unsuspected
world of wonders opened by the newly discovered element of fire caused
pyrolatry to supplant stone worship. The dark, cold Father--stone--gave
birth out of itself to the bright, glowing Son-fire; and the newly born
flame, by displacing its parent, became the most impressive and
mysterious of all religio-philosophic symbols, widespread and enduring
through the ages.
SATURN SWALLOWING THE STONE SUBSTITUTED
FOR JUPITER.
From Catrari's Imagini degli
Dei degli Antichi.
Saturn, having been warned by
his parents that one of his own children would dethrone him, devoured
each child at birth. At last Rhea, his wife, in order to save Jupiter,
her sixth child substituted for him a rock enveloped in swaddling
clothes--which Saturn, ignorant of the deception practiced upon him,
immediately swallowed. Jupiter was concealed on the island of Crete
until he attained manhood, when he forced his father to disgorge the
five children he had eaten. The stone swallowed by Saturn in lieu of his
youngest son was placed by Jupiter at Delphi, where it was held in great
veneration and was daily anointed.
The body of every thing
was likened to a rock, trued either into a cube or more ornately
chiseled to form a pedestal, while the spirit of everything was likened
to the elaborately carved figure surmounting it. Accordingly, altars
were erected as a symbol of the lower world, and fires were kept burning
upon them to represent that spiritual essence illuminating the body it
surmounted. The square is actually one surface of a cube, its
corresponding figure in plane geometry, and its proper philosophic
symbol. Consequently, when considering the earth as an element and not
as a body, the Greeks, Brahmins, and Egyptians always referred to its
four corners, although they were fully aware that the planet itself was
a sphere.
Because their doctrines were
the sure foundation of all knowledge and the first step in the
attainment of conscious immortality, the Mysteries were often
represented as cubical or pyramidal stones. Conversely, these stones
themselves became the emblem of that condition of self-achieved godhood.
The unchangeability of the stone made it an appropriate emblem of
God--the immovable and unchangeable Source of Existence--and also of the
divine sciences--the eternal revelation of Himself to mankind. As the
personification of the rational intellect, which is the true foundation
of human life, Mercury, or Hermes, was symbolized in a like manner.
Square or cylindrical pillars, surmounted by a bearded head of Hermes
and called hermæ, were set up in public places. Terminus, a form of
Jupiter and god of boundaries and highways, from whose name is derived
the modern word terminal, was also symbolized by an upright
stone, sometimes ornamented with the head of the god, which was placed
at the borders of provinces and the intersections of important
roads.
The philosopher's stone
is really the philosophical stone, for philosophy is truly
likened to a magic jewel whose touch transmutes base substances into
priceless gems like itself. Wisdom is the alchemist's powder of
projection which transforms many thousand times its own weight of
gross ignorance into the precious substance of enlightenment.
THE TABLETS OF THE
LAW
While upon the heights of Mount
Sinai, Moses received from Jehovah two tablets bearing the characters of
the Decalogue traced by the very finger of Israel's God. These tables
were fashioned from the divine sapphire, Schethiyâ, which the Most High,
after removing from His own throne, had cast into the Abyss to become
the foundation and generator of the worlds. This sacred stone, formed of
heavenly dew, was sundered by the breath of God, and upon the two parts
were drawn in black fire the figures of the Law. These precious
inscriptions, aglow with celestial splendor, were delivered by the Lord
on the Sabbath day into the hands of Moses, who was able to read the
illumined letters from the reverse side because of the transparency of
the great jewel. (See The Secret Doctrine in Israel or The
Zohar for details of this legend.)
The Ten Commandments are the
ten shining gems placed by the Holy One in the sapphire sea of Being,
and in the depths of matter the reflections of these jewels are seen as
the laws governing the sublunary spheres. They are the sacred ten by
which the Supreme Deity has stamped His will upon the face of Nature.
This same decad was celebrated by the Pythagoreans under the form of the
tetractys--that triangle of spermatic points which reveals to the
initiated the whole working of the cosmic scheme; for ten is the number
of perfection, the key to creation, and the proper symbol of God, man,
and the universe.
Because of the idolatry of the
Israelites, Moses deemed the people unworthy to receive the sapphire
tables; hence he destroyed them, that the Mysteries of Jehovah should
not be violated. For the original set Moses substituted two tablets of
rough stone into the surface of which he had cut ten ancient letters.
While the former tables--partaking of the divinity of the Tree of
Life--blazed forth eternal verities, the latter--partaking of the nature
of the Tree of Good and Evil--revealed only temporal truths. Thus the
ancient tradition of Israel returned again to heaven, leaving only its
shadow with the children of the twelve tribes.
One of the two tables of stone
delivered by the Lawgiver to his followers stood for the oral, the other
for the written traditions upon which the Rabbinical School was founded.
Authorities differ widely as to the size and substance of the inferior
tables. Some describe them as being so small that they could be held in
the hollow of a man's hand; others declare that each table was ten or
twelve cubits in length and of enormous weight. A few even deny that the
tables were of stone, maintaining that they were of a wood called
sedr, which, according to the Mohammedans, grows profusely in
Paradise.
The two tables signify
respectively the superior and the inferior worlds--the paternal and the
maternal formative principles. In their undivided state they represent
the Cosmic Androgyne. The breaking of the tables signifies obscurely the
separation of the superior and the inferior spheres and also the
division of the sexes. In the religious processionals of the Greeks and
Egyptians an ark or ship was carried which contained stone tablets,
cones, and vessels of various shapes emblematic of the procreative
processes. The Ark of the Israelites--which was patterned after the
sacred chests of the Isiac Mysteries--contained three holy objects, each
having an important phallic interpretation: the pot of manna, the rod
that budded, and the Tablets of the Law--the first, second, and third
Principles of the Creative Triad. The manna, the blossoming staff, and
the stone tables are also appropriate images respectively of the
Qabbalah, the Mishna, and the written law--the spirit, soul, and body of
Judaism. When placed in King Solomon's Everlasting House, the Ark of the
Covenant contained only the Tablets of the Law. Does this indicate that
even at that early date the secret tradition had been lost and the
letter of the revelation alone remained?
As representing the power that
fabricated the lower, or Demiurgic, sphere, the tablets of stone were
sacred to Jehovah in contradistinction to the tablets of sapphire that
signified the potency that established the higher, or celestial, sphere.
Without doubt the Mosaic tablets have their prototype in the stone
pillars or obelisks placed on either side of the entrance to pagan
temples. These columns may pertain to that remote time when men
worshiped the Creator through His zodiacal sign of Gemini, the symbol of
which is still the phallic pillars of the Celestial Twins. "The Ten
Commandments, writes Hargrave Jennings, "are inscribed in two groups of
five each, in columnar form. The five to the right (looking from the
altar) mean the 'Law'; the five to the left mean the 'Prophets.' The
right stone is masculine, the left stone is feminine. They correspond to
the two disjoined pillars of stone (or towers) in the front of every
cathedral, and of every temple in the heathen times." (See The
Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries.) The same author states
that the Law is masculine because it was delivered direct from the
Deity, while the Prophets, or Gospels, were feminine because born
through the nature of man.
The right Tablet of the Law
further signifies Jachin--the white pillar of light; the left
Tablet, Boaz--the shadowy pillar of darkness. These were the
names of the two pillars cast from brass set up on the porch of King
Solomon's Temple. They were eighteen cubits in height and beautifully
ornamented with wreaths of chainwork, nets, and pomegranates. On the top
of each pillar was a large bowl--now erroneously called a ball or
globe--one of the bowls probably containing fire and the other water.
The celestial globe (originally the bowl of fire), surmounting the
right-hand column (Jachin), symbolized the divine man; the terrestrial
globe (the bowl of water), surmounting the left-hand column (Boaz),
signified the earthly man. These two pillars respectively connote also
the active and the passive expressions of Divine Energy, the sun and the
moon, sulphur and salt, good and bad, light and darkness. Between them
is the door leading into the House of God, and standing thus at the
gates of Sanctuary they are a reminder that Jehovah is both an
androgynous and an anthropomorphic deity. As two parallel columns they
denote the zodiacal signs of Cancer and Capricorn, which were formerly
placed in the chamber of initiation to represent birth and death--the
extremes of physical life. They accordingly signify the summer and the
winter solstices, now known to Freemasons under the comparatively modern
appellation of the "two St. Johns."
In the mysterious Sephirothic
Tree of the Jews, these two pillars symbolize Mercy and Severity.
Standing before the gate of King Solomon's Temple, these columns had the
same symbolic import as the obelisks before the sanctuaries of Egypt.
When interpreted Qabbalistically, the names of the two pillars mean "In
strength shall My House be established. "In the splendor
of mental and spiritual illumination, the High Priest stood between the
pillars as a mute witness to the perfect virtue of equilibrium--that
hypothetical point equidistant from all extremes. He thus personified
the divine nature of man in the midst of his compound constitution--the
mysterious Pythagorean Monad in the presence of the Duad. On one side
towered the stupendous column of the intellect; on the other, the brazen
pillar of the flesh. Midway between these two stands the glorified wise
man, but he cannot reach this high estate without first suffering upon
the cross made by joining these pillars together. The early Jews
occasionally represented the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, as the legs
of Jehovah, thereby signifying to the modern philosopher that Wisdom and
Love, in their most exalted sense, support the whole order of
creation--both mundane and supermundane.
MOSES RECEIVING THE TABLES OF THE
LAW.
From an old Bible.
Moses Maimonides, the great
Jewish Philosopher of the twelfth century, in describing the Tables of
the Law written by the finger of God, divides all productions into two
general orders: products of Nature and products of art. God works
through Nature and man through art, he asserts in his Guide for the
Perplexed. Thus the Word of the Lord is the hand, or active
principle, by which the will of the Creator is traced upon the face of
His creation. The Tannaim, or initiates of the Jewish Mystery
School, alone possessed a complete understanding of the significance of
the Ten Commandments. These laws are esoterically related to the ten
degrees of contemplation constituting the Path of Ecstasy, which winds
upward through he four worlds and ends in the effulgence of AIN
SOPH.
THE HOLY
GRAIL
Like the sapphire Schethiyâ,
the Lapis Exilis, crown jewel of the Archangel Lucifer, fell from
heaven. Michael, archangel of the sun and the Hidden God of Israel, at
the head of the angelic hosts swooped down upon Lucifer and his legions
of rebellious spirits. During the conflict, Michael with his flaming
sword struck the flashing Lapis Exilis from the coronet of his
adversary, and the green stone fell through all the celestial rings into
the dark and immeasurable Abyss. Out of Lucifer's radiant gem was
fashioned the Sangreal, or Holy Grail, from which Christ is said to have
drunk at the Last Supper.
Though some controversy exists
as to whether the Grail was a cup or a platter, it is generally depicted
in art as a chalice of considerable size and unusual beauty. According
to the legend, Joseph of Arimathea brought the Grail Cup to the place of
the crucifixion and in it caught the blood pouring from the wounds of
the dying Nazarene. Later Joseph, who had become custodian of the sacred
relics--the Sangreal and the Spear of Longinus--carried them into a
distant country. According to one version, his descendants finally
placed these relics in Glastonbury Abbey in England; according to
another, in a wonderful castle on Mount Salvat, Spain, built by angels
in a single night. Under the name of Preston John, Parsifal, the last of
the Grail Kings, carried the Holy Cup with him into India, and it
disappeared forever from the Western World. Subsequent search for the
Sangreal was the motif for much of the knight errantry of the Arthurian
legends and the ceremonials of the Round Table. (See the Morte
d'Arthur.)
No adequate interpretation has
ever been given to the Grail Mysteries. Some believe the Knights of the
Holy Grail to have been a powerful organization of Christian mystics
perpetuating the Ancient Wisdom under the rituals and sacraments of the
oracular Cup. The quest for the Holy Grail is the eternal search for
truth, and Albert G. Mackey sees in it a variation of the Masonic legend
of the Lost Word so long sought by the brethren of the Craft. There is
also evidence to support the claim that the story of the Grail is an
elaboration of an early pagan Nature myth which has been preserved by
reason of the subtle manner in which it was engrafted upon the cult of
Christianity. From this particular viewpoint, the Holy Grail is
undoubtedly a type of the ark or vessel in which the life of the world
is preserved and therefore is significant of the body of the Great
Mother--Nature. Its green color relates it to Venus and to the mystery
of generation; also to the Islamic faith, whose sacred color is green
and whose Sabbath is Friday, the day of Venus.
The Holy Grail is a symbol both
of the lower (or irrational) world and of the bodily nature of man,
because both are receptacles for the living essences of the superior
worlds. Such is the mystery of the redeeming blood which, descending
into the condition of death, overcomes the last enemy by ensouling all
substance with its own immortality. To the Christian, whose mystic faith
especially emphasizes the love element, the Holy Grail typifies the
heart in which continually swirls the living water of eternal life.
Moreover, to the Christian, the search for the Holy Grail is the search
for the real Self which, when found, is the consummation of the
magnum opus.
The Holy Cup can be discovered
only by those who have raised themselves above the limitations of
sensuous existence. In his mystic poem, The Vision of Sir
Launfal, James Russell Lowell discloses the true nature of the Holy
Grail by showing that it is visible only to a certain state of
spiritual consciousness. Only upon returning from the vain pursuit
of haughty ambition did the aged and broken knight see in the
transformed leper's cup the glowing chalice of his lifelong dream. Some
writers trace a similarity between the Grail legend and the stories of
the martyred Sun Gods whose blood, descending from heaven into the
earth, was caught in the cup of matter and liberated therefrom by the
initiatory rites. The Holy Grail may also be the seed pod so frequently
employed in the ancient Mysteries as an emblem of germination and
resurrection; and if the cuplike shape of the Grail be derived from the
flower, it signifies the regeneration and spiritualization of the
generative forces in man.
There are many accounts of
stone images which, because of the substances entering into their
composition and the ceremonials attendant upon their construction, were
ensouled by the divinities whom they were created to resemble. To such
images were ascribed various human faculties and powers, such as speech,
thought, and even motion. While renegade priests doubtless resorted to
trickery--an instance of which is related in a curious apocryphal
fragment entitled Bel and the Dragon and supposedly deleted from
the end of the Book of Daniel--many of the phenomena recorded in
connection with sanctified statues and relics can hardly be explained
unless the work of supernatural agencies be admitted.
History records the existence
of stones which, when struck, threw all who heard the sound into a state
of ecstasy. There were also echoing images which whispered for hours
after the room itself had become silent, and musical stones productive
of the sweetest harmonies. In recognition of the sanctity which the
Greeks and Latins ascribed to stones, they placed their hands upon
certain consecrated pillars when taking an oath. In ancient times stones
played a part in determining the fate of accused persons, for it was
customary for juries to reach their verdicts by dropping pebbles into a
bag.
Divination by stones was often
resorted to by the Greeks, and Helena is said to have foretold by
lithomancy the destruction of Troy. Many popular superstitions about
stones survive the so-called Dark Ages. Chief among these is the one
concerning the famous black stone in the seat of the coronation chair in
Westminster Abbey, which is declared to be the actual rock used by Jacob
as a pillow. The black stone also appears several times in religious
symbolism. It was called Heliogabalus, a word presumably derived
from Elagabal, the Syro-Phnician sun god. This stone was sacred
to the sun and declared to possess great and diversified properties. The
black stone in the Caaba at Mecca is still revered throughout the
Mohammedan world. It is said to have been white originally and of such
brilliancy that it could be seen many days' journey from Mecca, but as
ages passed it became blackened by the tears of pilgrims and the sins of
the world.
THE MAGIC OF METALS AND
GEMS
According to the teachings of
the Mysteries, the rays of the celestial bodies, striking the
crystallizing influences of the lower world, become the various
elements. Partaking of the astral virtues of their source, these
elements neutralize certain unbalanced forms of celestial activity and,
when properly combined, contribute much to the well-being of man. Little
is known today concerning these magical properties, but the modern world
may yet find it profitable to consider the findings of the early
philosophers who determined these relationships by extensive
experimentation. Out of such research arose the practice of identifying
the metals with the bones of the various deities. For example, the
Egyptians, according to Manetho, considered iron to be the bone of Mars
and the lodestone the bone of Horus. By analogy, lead would be the
physical skeleton of Saturn, copper of Venus, quicksilver of Mercury,
gold of the sun, silver of the moon, and antimony of the earth. It is
possible that uranium will prove to be the metal of
Uranus and radium to be the metal of Neptune.
EXAMPLES OF HERMÆ.
From Christie's Disquisitions upon the Painted Greek Vases.
The Primitive custom of
worshiping the gods in the form of heaps of stones gave place to the
practice of erecting phallic pillars, or cones, in their honor. These
columns differed widely in size and appearance. Some were of gigantic
proportions and were richly ornamented with inscriptions or likenesses
of the gods and heroes; others--like the votive offerings of the
Babylonians--were but a few inches high, without ornament, and merely
bore a brief statement of the purpose for which they had been prepared
or a hymn to the god of the temple in which they were placed. These
small baked clay cones were identical in their symbolic meaning with the
large hermæ set up by the roadside and in other public places. Later the
upper end of the column was surmounted by a human head. Often two
projections, or tenons, corresponding to shoulders were placed, one on
either side, to support the wreaths of flowers adorning the columns.
Offerings, usually of food, were placed near the hermæ. Occasionally
these columns were used to uphold roofs and were numbered among the art
objects ornamenting the villas of wealthy Romans.
The four Ages of the
Greek mystics--the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the
Iron Age--are metaphoric expressions referring to the four major periods
in the life of all things. In the divisions of the day they signify
dawn, midday, sunset, and midnight; in the duration of gods, men, and
universes, they denote the periods of birth, growth, maturity, and
decay. The Greek Ages also bear a close correspondence to the four Yugas
of the Hindus: Krita-Yuga, Treta-Yuga,
Dvapara-Yuga, and Kali-Yuga. Their method of calculation
is described by Ullamudeian as follows: "In each of the 12 signs there
are 1800 minutes; multiply this number by 12 you have 21600; e.g. 1800 X
12=21600. Multiply this 21600 by 80 and it will give 1,728,000, which is
the duration of the first age, called Krita-Yuga. If the same
number be multiplied by 60, it will give 1,296,000, the years of the
second age, Treta-Yuga. The same number multiplied by 40 gives
864,000, the length of the third age, Dvapara-Yuga. The same
multiplied by 20 gives 432,000, the fourth age, Kali-Yuga." (It
will be noted that these multipliers decrease in inverse ratio to the
Pythagorean tetractys: 1, 2, 3, and 4.)
H. P. Blavatsky declares that
Orpheus taught his followers how to affect a whole audience by means of
a lodestone, and that Pythagoras paid particular attention to the color
and nature of precious stones. She adds: "The Buddhists assert that the
sapphire produces peace of mind, equanimity, and chases all evil
thoughts by establishing a healthy circulation in man. So does an
electric battery, with its well-directed fluid, say our electricians.
'The sapphire,' say the Buddhists, 'will open barred doors and dwellings
(for the spirit of man); it produces a desire for prayer, and brings
with it more peace than any other gem; but he who would wear it must
lead a pure and holy life."' (See Isis Unveiled.)
Mythology abounds with accounts
of magical rings and talismanic jewels. In the second book of his
Republic, Plato describes a ring which, when the collet was
turned in ward, rendered its wearer invisible. With this Gyges, the
shepherd, secured for himself the throne of Lydia. Josephus also
describes magical rings designed by Moses and King Solomon, and
Aristotle mentions one which brought love and honor to its possessor. In
his chapter dealing with the subject, Henry Cornelius Agrippa not only
mentions the same rings, but states, upon the authority of Philostratus
Jarchus, that Apollonius of Tyana extended his life to over 20 years
with the aid of seven magical rings presented to him by an East Indian
prince. Each of these seven rings was set with a gem partaking of the
nature of one of the seven ruling planets of the week, and by daily
changing the rings Apollonius protected himself against sickness and
death by the intervention of the planetary influences. The philosopher
also instructed his disciples in the virtues of these talismanic jewels,
considering such information to be indispensable to the theurgist.
Agrippa describes the preparation of magical rings as follows: "When any
Star [planet] ascends fortunately, with the fortunate aspect or
conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and herb that is under
that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is suitable to this Star,
and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb or root under it-not
omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and characters, as also the
proper suffumigations." (See Three Books of Occult
Philosophy.)
The ring has long been regarded
as the symbol of attainment, perfection, and immortality-the last
because the circlet of precious metal had neither beginning nor end. In
the Mysteries, rings chased to resemble a serpent with its tail in its
mouth were worn by the initiates as material evidence of the position
reached by them in the order. Signet rings, engraved with certain secret
emblems, were worn by the hierophants, and it was not uncommon for a
messenger to prove that he was the official representative of a prince
or other dignitary by bringing with his message either an impression
from his master's ring or the signet itself. The wedding ring originally
was intended to imply that in the nature of the one who wore it the
state of equilibrium and completion had been attained. This plain band
of gold therefore bore witness of the union of the Higher Self (God)
with the lower self (Nature) and the ceremony consummating this
indissoluble blending of Divinity and humanity in the one nature of the
initiated mystic constituted the hermetic marriage of the
Mysteries.
In describing the regalia of a
magician, Eliphas Levi declares that on Sunday (the day of the sun) he
should carry in his right hand a golden wand, set with a ruby or
chrysolite; on Monday (the day of the moon) he should wear a collar of
three strands consisting of pearls, crystals, and selenites; on Tuesday
(the day of Mars) he should carry a wand of magnetized steel and a ring
of the same metal set with an amethyst, on Wednesday (the day of
Mercury) he should wear a necklace of pearls or glass beads containing
mercury, and a ring set with an agate; on Thursday (the day of Jupiter)
he should carry a wand of glass or resin and wear a ring set with an
emerald or a sapphire; on Friday (the day of Venus) he should carry a
wand of polished copper and wear a ring set with a turquoise and a crown
or diadem decorated with lapis lazuli and beryl; and on Saturday (the
day of Saturn) he should carry a wand ornamented with onyx stone and
wear a ring set with onyx and a chain about the neck formed of lead.
(See The Magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum.)
Paracelsus, Agrippa, Kircher,
Lilly, and numerous other magicians and astrologers have tabulated the
gems and stones corresponding to the various planets and zodiacal signs.
The following list has been compiled from their writings. To the sun is
assigned the carbuncle, ruby, garnet---especially the pyrope--and other
fiery stones, sometimes the diamond; to the moon, the pearl, selenite,
and other forms of crystal; to Saturn, the onyx, jasper, topaz, and
sometimes the lapis lazuli; to Jupiter, the sapphire, emerald, and
marble; to Mars, the amethyst, hyacinth, lodestone, sometimes the
diamond; to Venus, the turquoise, beryl, emerald, and sometimes the
pearl, alabaster, coral, and carnelian; to Mercury, the chrysolite,
agate, and variegated marble.
To the zodiac the same
authorities assigned the following gems and stones: To Aries the
sardonyx, bloodstone, amethyst, and diamond; to Taurus the carnelian,
turquoise, hyacinth, sapphire, moss agate, and emerald; to Gemini the
topaz, agate, chrysoprase, crystal, and aquamarine; to Cancer the topaz,
chalcedony, black onyx, moonstone, pearl, cat's-eye, crystal, and
sometimes the emerald; to Leo the jasper, sardonyx, beryl, ruby,
chrysolite, amber, tourmaline, sometimes the diamond; to Virgo the
emerald, camelian, jade, chrysolite, and sometimes the pink jasper and
hyacinth; to Libra the beryl, sardius, coral, lapis lazuli, opal, and
sometimes the diamond; to Scorpio the amethyst, beryl, sardonyx,
aquamarine, carbuncle, lodestone, topaz, and malachite; to Sagittarius
die hyacinth, topaz, chrysolite, emerald, carbuncle, and turquoise; to
Capricorn the chrysoprase, ruby, malachite, black onyx, white onyx, jet,
and moonstone; to Aquarius the crystal, sapphire, garnet, zircon, and
opal; to Pisces the sapphire, jasper, chrysolite, moonstone, and
amethyst
Both the magic mirror and the
crystal ball are symbols little understood. Woe to that benighted mortal
who accepts literally the stories circulated concerning them! He will
discover--often at the cost of sanity and health--that sorcery and
philosophy, while often confused, have nothing in common. The Persian
Magi carried mirrors as an emblem of the material sphere which reflects
Divinity from its every part. The crystal ball, long misused as a medium
for the cultivation of psychical powers, is a threefold symbol: (1) it
signifies the crystalline Universal Egg in whose transparent
depths creation exists; (2) it is a proper figure of Deity previous to
Its immersion in matter; (3) it signifies the ætheric sphere of the
world in whose translucent essences is impressed and preserved the
perfect image of all terrestrial activity.
Meteors, or rocks from
heaven, were considered tokens of divine favor and enshrined as
evidence of a pact between the gods and the community in which they
fell. Curiously marked or chipped natural stones are occasionally found.
In China there is a slab of marble the grain of which forms a perfect
likeness of the Chinese dragon. The Oberammergau stone, chipped by
Nature into a close resemblance to the popular conception of the face of
Christ, is so remarkable that even the crowned heads of Europe requested
the privilege of beholding it. Stones of such nature were held in the
highest esteem among primitive peoples and even today exert a wide
influence upon the religiously-minded.
THE PYTHAGOREAN SIGNET
RING.
From Cartari's Imagini degli
Dei degli Antichi.
The number five was peculiarly
associated by the Pythagoreans with the art of healing, and the
pentagram, or five-pointed star, was to them the symbol of health. The
above figure represents a magical ring set with a talismanic gem bearing
the pentalpha, or star formed by five different positions of the
Greek Alpha. On this subject Mackey writes: "The disciples of
Pythagoras, who were indeed its real inventors, placed within each of
its interior angles one of the letters of the Greek word ΥΓΕΙΑ, or the
Latin one SALUS, both of which signify health; and thus it was
made the talisman of health. They placed it at the beginning of their
epistles as a greeting to invoke a secure health to their correspondent.
But its use was not confined to the disciples of Pythagoras. As a
talisman, it was employed all over the East as a charm to resist evil
spirits."
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