Mysticism and its Results: Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy. John Delafield

instruction originally was traditional alone. The patriarch was priest and teacher, as well as ruler of his tribe. Each handed down to his successor the traditions he had received from his ancestors orally. As tribes became nomadic, or else sought permanently new settlements and homes, traditions in course of time necessarily became variant. Moses seems honestly to have collated these traditions, and has, no doubt, given them in their respective versions as he received them from Jethro, his father-in-law, and from the patriarchal instruction among the elders of his people in Egypt. Thus we can recognize those in which the name Elohim is used as being of much earlier date than the same tradition differently told, where the word Jehovah indicates the name of Deity. For instance, we find in one place^[11] the command of God to Noah to take the beasts and fowls, &c., into the ark by sevens. But again, in the same chapter,^[12] we find them taken only by pairs. Are these not variant traditions of one event? So, of the story of Abraham passing off his wife for his sister before Pharaoh, king of Egypt,^[13] and also before Abimelech, king of Gerar,^[14] and the farther tradition of Isaac and Rebecca having done the same thing before Abimelech, king of Gerar.^[15] Are not these variant traditions of one fact? The legal experience of the writer for many years, convinces him that no two persons without collusion view a transaction generally exactly alike. Frequently—and each equally sincere and honest—they widely vary in their testimony. Collusion may produce a story without contradiction. Slight discrepancies show there is no fraud, only that the witnesses occupied different stand points, or gave more or less attention to what was the subject matter.

      But, asking pardon for this digression, let us return to our theme.

      We know little or nothing about the teaching of the patriarchs in the Elohistic age. Neither writing nor sculpture thereof existed in the time of Moses, except, perhaps, the lost book of Enoch, or, unless—which we are inclined to doubt—the book of Job had just before his era been reduced to writing by the Idumean, Assyrian, or Chaldean priesthood. We find at that period that sacrifices were offered on mountain tops. Why? Abraham went to such a place to offer up his son. Was it not for secrecy in the religious rite? If the earliest instruction was from God, whose truth is unchangeable and eternal, were not the earliest sacrifices offered in secret by reason of the same command which subsequently obliged the high priest of his chosen people to offer the great sacrifice in secret within the veils, first of the Tabernacle, afterward of the Temple? The Elohistic age ended with the first official act of Moses, after he, also, had met with Aaron on "the mount of God."^[16]

      A new era then commenced. As men dispersed themselves over the earth, the original belief in the one true God (Monotheism) was lost, and people fell into the worship of many deities (Polytheism), adoring the visible works of creation, more particularly the sun and the stars of heaven, or else reverencing the operative powers of nature as divine beings. Faith in the one Great Jehovah was preserved by the children of Israel alone. Idols were erected within gorgeous temples. With the Chaldean, Phœnician, and Assyrian, Moloch began the dreadful cruelty of human sacrifices, chiefly of children. If, at first, the image of the idol was only a visible symbol of a spiritual conception, or of an invisible power, this higher meaning was lost in progress of time in the minds of most nations, and they came at length to pay worship to the lifeless image itself. The priests alone were acquainted with any deeper meaning, but refused to share it with the people; they reserved it under the veil of esoteric (secret) doctrines, as the peculiar appanage of their own class. They invented endless fables which gave rise to Mythology. They ruled the people by the might of superstition, and acquired wealth, honor, and power, for themselves.^[17] We arrive then at nearly the culminating point of Egyptian priestcraft, the days of "wise men," "sorcerers," and "magicians."^[18] Such men ever have, and we presume ever will employ secrecy as the chief element of their clever jugglery. Mankind love to be deceived. Let an Adrian, Blitz, or Alexander—while they tell you, and you well know it, that their tricks are a deception—put forth notices of an exhibition, and they will attract crowds, where an Arago, or a Faraday, would not be listened to. Maelzel's automata, or Vaucanson's duck, will attract the world, when Bacon's, or Newton's, or Laplace's works may remain in dust on the book-shelves. Human nature is always the same, and thus it was in the days of Moses and Pharaoh. The wise men, sorcerers, and magicians, held undisputed sway, not only over the superstitions of the people, but over their educated monarchs and princes. Egypt possessed, at an inconceivably early period, numberless towns and villages, and a high amount of civilization. Arts, sciences, and civil professions, were cherished there, so that the Nile-land has generally been regarded as the mysterious cradle of human culture; but the system of castes checked free development and continuous improvement. Everything subserved a gloomy religion and a powerful priesthood, who held the people in terror and superstition. Their doctrine, that, after the death of man, the soul could not enter into her everlasting repose unless the body were preserved, occasioned the singular custom of embalming the corpses of the departed to preserve them from decay, and of treasuring them up in the shape of mummies in shaft-like passages and mortuary chambers. Through this belief, the priests, who, as judges of the dead, possessed the power of giving up the bodies of the sinful to corruption, and by this means occasioning the transmigration of their souls into the bodies of animals, obtained immense authority. Notwithstanding the magnificence of their architectural productions, and the vast technical skill and dexterity in sculpture and mechanical appliances which they display, the Egyptians have produced but little in literature or the sciences; and even this little was locked up from the people in the mysterious hieroglyphical writing, which was understood by the priests alone.^[19] The following translation is a quotation from a Latin work: "Among the ancient Egyptians, from whom we learn the rudiments of speech, besides the three common kinds of letters, other descriptions of characters are used which have been generally consecrated to their peculiar mysteries. In a dissertation on this subject, that celebrated antiquarian (conditor stromatum), Clement, of Alexandria, teaches in his writings, thus: 'Those who are taught Egyptian, first, indeed, learn the grammar and chirography called letter-writing, that is, which is apt for ordinary correspondence; secondly, however, that used by the priests, called sacred writing, to commemorate sacred things; the last also, hieroglyphic, meaning sacred sculpture, one of the first elements of which is cyriologism, meaning, properly speaking, enunciating truth by one or another symbol, or in other words, portraying the meaning by significant emblems.' With Clement agrees the Arabian, Abenephi, who uses this language: (This Arabic writing is preserved in the Vatican library, but not as yet printed: it is often quoted by Athanasius Kircher, in his Treatise on the Pamphilian Obelisk, whence these and other matters stated by us have been taken.) 'But there were four kinds of writing among the Egyptians: First, that in use among the populace and the ignorant; secondly, that in vogue among the philosophers and the educated; thirdly, one compounded of letters and symbols, without drawn figures or representations of things; the fourth was confined solely to the priesthood, the figures or letters of which were those of birds, by which they represented the sacred things of Deity.' From which last testimony we learn that erudite Egyptians used a peculiar and different system of writing from that of the populace, and it was for the purpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines. For example, they show that this writing consisted of symbols, partly of opinions and ideas, partly of historic fables accommodated to a more secret method of teaching. But Clement, of Alexandria, went further. In book v. of Antiquities (stromata, 'foundation of things'), he says: 'All who controlled theological matters, Barbarian as well as Greek, have concealed their principles, hiding the truth in enigmas, signs, symbols, as well as allegories, and also in tropes, and have handed them down in various symbols and methods.'"^[20] This passage led subsequently to the brilliant discoveries of Champollion.

      Who, then, were the "erudite Egyptians" who used a peculiar system of writing" for the purpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines?" Who were these "magi," "wise men," "sorcerers," and "magicians"? Nowhere do we find Pharaoh in the midst of his troubles calling for a priest. It is always for the wise men, magicians, and sorcerers. Were they not the priests?—were they not those who controlled the mysteries—who practised divination? When Moses and Aaron cast down their rods, the magicians of Egypt "also did in like manner with their enchantments," and the result was the same.^[21] When Moses smote the waters that they became blood, the acuteness of the priests, or magi, in their mysteries taught them a lesson whereby they were able to do the same.^[22]