In Sumerian myth it appears that the identity of YHWH was split into two aspects. One aspect was named Anu, who became completely inactive and placed up above in the unreachable and unknowable heights of heaven, whereas the other aspect was portrayed as Enlil, who was the active opponent of Enki and the alleged enemy of mankind, who sought to exterminate mankind because we had become "too noisy."
In Ugaritic mythology El is similarly slandered and abused and is characterized as cowardly, spiteful and conniving, despite the fact that he is viewed as basically powerless. Nevertheless El's connection with YHWH/El of the Hebrews is very clear. Lowell K. Handy, in his book Among the Host of Heaven, shows that the Canaanites preserved a memory of the division of the earth similar to the Hebrew understanding, and this division was mandated by the authority of El. He writes, "The division of the world into regions of authority is ascribed to El in the narratives related by Philo of Byblos. These regions were distributed to various deities to govern under the care of and with the consent of El. Both material and immaterial regions were allocated by El. Even the realm of the dead was assigned to Mot by El." [38]
In conclusion, the Tower of Babel event, more than being simply a fascinating story of how the different languages came to exist, is in fact the place and time where "Paganism" came into existence as a religion and as a system of spiritual control over, and enslavement of, the minds and souls of humanity. In this sense William Bramley was absolutely correct in his characterization of the oppression of humanity at the hands of the "Custodians" when he wrote, "To keep control over its possession and to maintain Earth as something of a prison, that other civilization [the fallen angels / Custodians] has bred never-ending conflict between human beings, has promoted human spiritual decay, and has erected on Earth conditions of unremitting physical hardship. This situation has existed for thousands of years and it continues today." [18]
God allowed the fallen angels to achieve a position of authority over mankind which led to them being worshiped as "gods." As the strongest and most intelligent of these "gods" it was Lucifer who emerged as the leader of the group, and from the Sumerians to the New Testament we find that he is referred to as "The Lord of the Earth." Yet God had a plan to redeem the world from these false gods that would be worked out through His own nation, which began with the choosing of Abraham as described in Genesis 12.
God's Nation The division of the nations of the world into the hands of the "gods" took place around 3000 BC, give or take 100-200 years. For about a thousand years these advanced beings used their power and authority to dominate, deceive, and manipulate mankind without any overt interference from YHWH, who remained for the most part only an observer.
Finally around 2000 BC God reached out to an influential Sumerian family from the city of Ur, who were direct descendents of Noah through the line of Shem. This family had settled in Haran in northern Syria, and it was there that God gave Abram, the patriarch of the family, instructions to move his family into the land of Canaan: "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3) The calling out of Abraham for the purpose of creating a "great nation" for the Lord needs to be understood in relation to the events described in Genesis 11 when the "sons of God" descended to the earth to take possession of the nations of the earth. In effect, the creation of the Nation of Israel was a delayed response to the creation of the seventy nations that were handed over to the "gods." These "gods" possessed seventy nations, whereas God Himself took only one, but it was through this one that "all peoples on earth" were promised to be "blessed."
There are many references throughout the Old Testament to the "gods" of the pagan nations, and the fact that they exist is never denied. However, the God of Israel shows Himself unique by claiming to be the creator of these gods, the creator of heaven and earth, and the true and only ruler of all that He created (Nehemiah 9:6, Isaiah 40). Israel's status as God's unique possession is explained in Deuteronomy 32:9, "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance."
In Leviticus 20:23-26, prior to Israel's entrance into the Promised Land of Canaan, God explained His attitude towards the nations ruled by the gods, as well as Israel's special status as the Lord's unique nation.
"You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I said to you, 'You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.' I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations... You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own."
Similar commands and characterizations are given again in Deuteronomy 18:9-14, "When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so."
These "detestable" practices were the very basis of the pagan religious system of ritual and worship and the means by which the pagan priests contacted the spirit world and received instructions. Today these practices are known collectively as shamanism, which is making a resurgence through the New Age movement in the world today. The modern New Age consensus is that "spirits are our friends," but the Hebrews were warned quite the opposite.
From the very beginning the angelic "sons of God," both holy and unholy, were always associated with the heavens and equated with stars (Job 38:4). Within paganism many deities became represented by the sun, moon and planets as well. This explains the many Old Testament passages in which the angels are referred to collectively as the "host of heaven." They are often pictured as God's subservient retinue in heaven (Job 1:6), standing by His side (2 Chronicles 18:18-21), and they are often mentioned in the context of a warning, reminding Israel not to worship them as the heathen do. The following text gives further evidence that certain members of the "host of heaven" have been allotted to the peoples of the earth: "And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven." (Deuteronomy 4:19) Whether they are referred to as "angels", "gods," "sons of God," the "heavenly host," or the "princes" of the various nations (Daniel 10:12-21), God's instructions to Israel make it clear that these beings, although in positions of authority, have abused their power and will one day be faced with their end. The judgment upon these fallen angelic powers and a prediction of the end of their authority over the nations is given in Psalm 82: "God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: 'How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.' They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I say, 'You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince.' Arise, O God, judge the earth; for to thee belong all the nations!"
The Kosmokrators and the Occult In the New Testament the apostle Paul makes it clear that the world is controlled by fallen angelic forces under the authority of Satan, whom he refers to as the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4). In his epistle to the Ephesians Paul concludes his message of encouragement with the following words: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:10-12) For early Christians who were grounded in the traditions and perspective of the Hebrews it was understood from the beginning that the world was ruled by evil authorities, powers, and spiritual forces that had rebelled against God and served Satan, the devil. Paul simply explained to the Ephesians that in the day-to-day struggle to maintain and proclaim the Faith these "powers," or Kosmokrators (world-powers) in Greek, who ruled over the darkness of this "world" (aion or Age), were their ultimate enemies.
The birth of Christianity brought about the downfall of Paganism as an overt system of political and religious control over humanity. Nations turned away from taking advice and direction from the initiated High Priests who stood at the pinnacle of the spirit-led Mystery Religions and instead embraced the Bishops and Popes of the Church as spiritual leaders. Eventually the institutions, rituals, practices and practicers of Paganism were forced to go underground to survive, and they took with them their worship of the Kosmokrators as well as an entrenched faith that one day the gods and spirits that they served would once again take their "rightful" place as honored and accepted rulers of humanity.
For the Hebrews and for the Pagan world the number of Kosmokrators at the top level was originally understood to be seventy. We find this in Hebrew traditions of the seventy nations and seventy languages of the world, and we find this in Pagan tradition through the Canaanite texts of Ugarit which depict the great god El's division of the different aspects of global management over to his seventy sons, before his power is usurped by Baal.
Seventy was the original number of Kosmokrators but with the rise in sciences such as geometry, mathematics and astronomy in late Hellenistic antiquity the preferred number of Kosmokrators came to be viewed as seventy-two. We find this fact evident in two of the most important spiritual movements that emerged from Alexandria, Egypt, around the same time that Christianity was becoming popular. These movements were Hermeticism, which was essentially a fusion of Pagan spirituality, Greek philosophy and ancient Egyptian tradition; and Gnosticism, which was similar but added twisted aspects of Hebrew tradition and bits and pieces of Christianity.
Hermeticism Hermeticism takes its name from Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary figure associated with the Greek god Hermes (symbolized by the planet Mercury); with the Canaanite god Tauthus the secretary of Kronos (see above); with the Babylonian god Nabu (also identified with Mercury) who was the son and scribe of Marduk (Jupiter); and especially with the Egyptian god Thoth the scribe of Osiris and god of learning to the Egyptians.
The textual foundation of Hermeticism is a collection of dialogues involving Hermes and his disciples in which the major metaphysical questions of life are addressed. These texts date to the second and third centuries AD, but at the time of the Renaissance when they became famous they were believed to date back much further. Modern collections of the Corpus Hermeticum include eighteen Greek texts and one Latin text known as the Asclepius.
It is in the Asclepius that Egypt's role as the primary home of the gods is highlighted, and within this description there also appears a prophecy of Egypt's decline and the disappearance of the gods, leaving Egypt destitute and abandoned: "Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven or, to be more precise, that everything governed and moved in heaven came down to Egypt and was transferred there? If truth were told, our land is the temple of the whole world.
And yet, since it befits the wise to know all things in advance, of this you must not remain ignorant: a time will come when it will appear that the Egyptians paid respect to divinity with faithful mind and painstaking reverence to no purpose. All their holy worship will be disappointed and perish without effect, for divinity will return from earth to heaven, and Egypt will be abandoned. The land that was the seat of reverence will be widowed by the powers and left destitute of their presence... Then this most holy land, seat of shrines and temples, will be filled completely with tombs and corpses.
O Egypt, Egypt, of your reverent deeds only stories will survive, and they will be incredible to your children! ... For divinity goes back to heaven, and all the people will die, deserted, as Egypt will be widowed and deserted by god and human." [39]
The Hermetic pantheon is described in the Asclepius as being led by a groups of five major gods who are "hypercosmic" and "intelligible" who each rule over divine aspects of the universe that are "cosmic" and "sensible." Jupiter is the primary deity, corresponding with Zeus, and he is described as the god of heaven, "for Jupiter supplies life through heaven to all things." Light is second, which rules over its "sensible" divine aspect the Sun. Thirdly there is a deity named as Pantomorphos of Omniform, who rules over the "Horoscopes" or "Thirty-six." These are thirty-six gods, also known as Decans, so-named because they each have authority over ten degrees of the zodiacal circle. Fourth is the deity Heimarmene that rules over the seven planets, and fifth is a secondary aspect of Jupiter that rules over the Air, sometimes known as Zeus Neatos. [40]
The twelve major signs of the Zodiac each include three of the thirty-six Hermetic Decans, known as "Horoscopes" and referred to as "stars" in the text. This division of the Zodiac into thirty-six Decans was also doubled to seventy-two Duodecans, a division which gave each of the twelve Zodiacal signs six stars, making each of these Duodecan stars, also known as Quinances, the ruler over five degrees of the Zodiacal circle. From this comes one of the explanations for the occult significance of the Pentagram which is a five-pointed star. Each of the five points represents one of the five "hypercosmic" deities, or five degrees of the zodiac, and each point is created by an angle of 72 degrees, with the product of five by seventy-two being 360, which completes the circuit of the zodiac.
In ancient Egypt the priests of the sacred rites were known as horoskopoi [41], and the Hermetic emphasis on the astrological relationship between mankind and the stars who represented the Kosmokrator gods is explained by Frances Yates in her book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition: "That strange people, the Egyptians, had divinised time, not merely in the abstract sense but in the concrete sense that each moment of the day and night had its god who must be placated as the moments passed... They had definite astrological significance, as "Horoscopes" presiding over the forms of life born within the time periods over which they presided, and they were assimilated to the planets domiciled in their domain... But they were also gods, and powerful Egyptian gods, and this side of them was never forgotten, giving them a mysterious importance." [42]
The return of these gods to an active and outward position as rulers of mankind is predicted in the Asclepius, which is predicted to come after the long period of spiritual decline in Egypt: "Those gods who rule the earth will be restored, and they will be installed in a city at the furthest threshold of Egypt, which will be founded towards the setting sun and to which all human kind will hasten by land and by sea."
This text and the physical location of this divine city is explained by Garth Fowden in his book The Egyptian Hermes [43]: "... in answer to Asclepius's enquiry where these gods are at the moment, Trismegistus replies (at Ascl. 27): 'In a very great city, in the mountains of Libya (in monte Libyco)', by which is meant the edge of the desert plateau to the west of the Nile valley. A subsequent reference (Ascl. 37) to the temple and tomb of Asclepius (Imhotep) in monte Libyae establishes that the allusion at Ascl. 27 is to the ancient and holy Memphite necropolis, which lay on the desert jabal to the west of Memphis itself."
The "mountains of Libya," (which was also the place where Heracles was killed by Typhon according to Greek myth-see Part Three), is simply a reference to the plateau that rises above the desert on the west bank of the Nile, west of the ancient city of Memphis. In other words, according to this Hermetic prediction, when the Kosmokrators are "restored" they will be "installed in a city" on or near the Giza Plateau.
Gnosticism This brings us now to that strange sect known as the Gnostics who, like the Hermetics, had their beginnings in Alexandria, Egypt. From the outset it must be stated that the Gnostics were purely Pagan, and they subscribed to the most fundamental Pagan doctrines, such as the realization of immortality through acquiring hidden knowledge (gnosis), reincarnation, and the belief in the divinity of Man. In addition to these outright Pagan doctrines the Gnostics had a very clear understanding of the Hebrew scriptures, but their interpretation of these scriptures was completely and unreservedly anti-Semitic.
The anti-Semitic basis of Gnosticism is enough for most serious scholars, except perhaps for Elaine Pagels, to conclude that Gnosticism is "Christian" in name only, and cannot possibly have anything to do with the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who remained a pious Torah-observant Orthodox Jew his entire life. Gnosticism is "Christian" only in the sense that it attempted to utilize the story of Jesus and incorporate it into the Pagan system of gnosis and illumination. In other words, Gnosticism was simply an attempt to neutralize the full force of the revolutionary message of Jesus, so that the Pagan system could survive as a political force in the world. This attempt failed for the most part, but the teachings and beliefs of Gnosticism have survived and are making a major resurgence in popular culture today.
The basic teaching of Gnosticism is that all matter is inherently evil, which is symbolized by Darkness. The purpose of life is therefore to transcend this Darkness by reaching towards the Light, which can be achieved through knowledge, or gnosis, of Man's true predicament. The Gnostics believed that the true and ultimate God is the God of Light, who is purely spiritual, and has no relationship either as a Creator of, or as a Ruler over, material reality. To the Gnostics the god of material reality was the God of Israel. He was accepted as the Creator and Ruler of the material universe, but he was denigrated as inferior to the God of Light and viewed as the ultimate personification of evil. The grand scheme of Gnostic cosmology is explained by Hans Jonas in his authoritative study The Gnostic Religion: "The universe, the domain of the Archons, is like a vast prison whose innermost dungeon is the earth, the scene of man's life. Around and above it the cosmic spheres are ranged like concentric enclosing shells. Most frequently there are the seven spheres of the planets surrounded by the eighth, that of the fixed stars. There was, however, a tendency to multiply the structures and make the scheme more and more extensive: Basilides counted no fewer than 365 "heavens." The religious significance of this cosmic architecture lies in the idea that everything which intervenes between here and the beyond serves to separate man from God, not merely by spatial distance but through active demonic force. Thus the vastness and multiplicity of the cosmic system express the degree to which man is removed from God.
The spheres are the seats of the Archons, especially of the "Seven," that is, of the planetary gods borrowed from the Babylonian pantheon. It is significant that these are now often called by Old Testament names for God (Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Elohim, El Shaddai), which from being synonyms for the one and supreme God are by this transposition turned into proper names of inferior demonic beings-an example of the pejorative revaluation to which Gnosticism subjected ancient traditions in general and Jewish tradition in particular. The Archons collectively rule over the world, and each individually in his sphere is a warder of the cosmic prison. Their tyrannical world-rule is called heimarmene, universal Fate, a concept taken over from astrology but now tinged with the gnostic anti-cosmic spirit. In its physical aspect this rule is the law of nature; in its psychical aspect, which includes for instance the institution and enforcement of the Mosaic Law, it aims at the enslavement of man. As guardian of his sphere, each Archon bars the passage to the souls that seek to ascend after death, in order to prevent their escape from the world and their return to God. The Archons are also the creators of the world, except where this role is reserved for their leader, who then has the name of demiurge (the world-artificer in Plato's Timaeus) and is often painted with the distorted features of the Old Testament God." [44]
The Gnostic hatred of the God of Israel extends to the very beginning of the book of Genesis. Gnostic texts explain that Ialdabaoth and the Archons created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden with an intent to deceive him. After learning of this situation the feminine aspect of the "God of Light," known as Sophia-Prunikos, acted to disrupt the schemes of the demiurge by sending an emissary of the Light to bring knowledge to Adam, allowing him to break free from his bondage. This divine emissary, according to the Gnostics, was none other than the Serpent of the Garden of Eden, and subsequent Gnostic sects reflected this veneration of the serpent by referring to themselves as Ophites (from the Greek word for serpent, ophis), and as Naassenes (from the Hebrew word for serpent, nachash). Jonas explains what Adam and Eve's "sin" actually meant to the Gnostics, "It is the first success of the transcendent principle against the principle of the world, which is vitally interested in preventing knowledge in man as the inner-worldly hostage of Light: the serpent's action marks the beginning of all gnosis on earth which thus by its very origin is stamped as opposed to the world and its God, and indeed as a form of rebellion." [45]
The Gnostics took the idea that the Serpent was the true savior of mankind right up to the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as the following text shows, "This general Serpent is also the wise Word of Eve. This is the mystery of Eden: this is the river that flows out of Eden. This is also the mark that was set on Cain, whose sacrifice the god of this world did not accept whereas he accepted the bloody sacrifice of Abel: for the lord of this world delights in blood. This Serpent is he who appeared in the latter days in human form at the time of Herod..." [46]
According to the New Testament, the sacrifice of Jesus did represent the triumph of the Kingdom of God over the "lord of this world," but this "lord" is clearly identified as Satan in several passages (Matthew 4:8-10, Luke 4:6-13, John 12:31, John 14:30, 2 Corinthians 4:4, etc). The Gnostics turned this belief around and argued that the "lord of this world" was actually the Creator-God of Israel, and that the life and teachings of Jesus represented a manifestation of the Serpent against this "God of Darkness."
Marcion, a hugely influential second century Gnostic based in Rome, also articulated a strong hatred of the Old Testament and of the Jews. Jonas writes that Marcion taught that upon His death "Christ descended into hell solely to redeem Cain and Korah, Dathan and Abiram, Esau, and all nations which did not acknowledge the God of the Jews, while Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and so on, because they served the creator and his law and ignored the true God, were left down below"[47]. This glorification of the enemies of the God of the Old Testament as heroes of the "God of Light" also included Nimrod, and the positive characterization of Nimrod became part of the founding mythology of the Freemasons, which we will examine later.
It is within Gnosticism that we find that the transition of the number of Kosmokrators from seventy to seventy-two occurs, bringing older traditions in line with Pythagorean and Hermetic astrological designs. The following selections are taken from The Nag Hammadi Library, edited by James M. Robinson, 1990: "Then the twelve powers, whom I have just discussed, consented with each other.
And when those whom I have discussed appeared, All-Begetter, their father, very soon created twelve aeons for retinue for the twelve angels. And in each aeon there were six (heavens), so there are seventy-two heavens of the seventy-two powers who appeared from him. And in each of the heavens there were five firmaments, so there are (altogether) three hundred sixty firmaments of the three hundred sixty powers that appeared from them." (From the text Eugnostos the Blessed) And before his mansion he created a throne, which was huge and was upon a four-faced chariot called "Cherubim". Now the Cherubim has eight shapes per each of the four corners, lion forms and calf forms and human forms and eagle forms, so that all the forms amount to sixty-four forms - and seven archangels that stand before it; he is the eighth, and has authority. All the forms amount to seventy-two. Furthermore, from this chariot the seventy-two gods took shape; they took shape so that they might rule over the seventy-two languages of the peoples." (From On the Origin of the World) "James said, "Rabbi, are there then twelve hebdomads and not seven as there are in the scriptures?" The Lord said, "James, he who spoke concerning this scripture had a limited understanding. I, however, shall reveal to you what has come forth from him who has no number. I shall give a sign concerning their number. As for what has come forth from him who has no measure, I shall give a sign concerning their measure"
James said, "Rabbi, behold then, I have received their number. There are seventy-two measures!" The Lord said, "These are the seventy-two heavens, which are their subordinates. These are the powers of all their might; and they were established by them; and these are they who were distributed everywhere, existing under the authority of the twelve archons." (From The Apocalypse of James)
The Kabbalah In addition to Gnosticism and Hermeticism another major component of the Occult is the tradition of Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah. The origins and teachings of this tradition are covered in depth in Red Moon Rising's "The Divine Council and the Kabbalah," so for now we will only examine how the Kabbalah viewed the seventy Kosmokrator angels and how it followed the occult trend of also numbering them as seventy-two.
One of the earliest Kabbalist texts is a document known as the Bahir, meaning "bright," which originated in southern France and dates to the twelfth century. The Bahir popularized the concept that the God of Israel possessed seventy-two sacred names, which is an idea based upon the Biblical passage in which the angel of the Lord protects Israel in Exodus 14:19-21. This passage contains three verses, and each verse is made up of exactly seventy-two Hebrew letters. Early Jewish mystics were infatuated with this anomaly and so they came up with the idea that the entire passage is composed of exactly seventy-two names of God that contain three letters each. This mystical concept came to be known throughout the Middle Ages as the Shem ha Mephoresh, which means basically "The Name of Extension." What it became was a powerful tool for occultists to summon spirit-beings that were assumed to be Holy Angels.
The Bahir also elaborates on the Kabbalistic conception of the universe as the "Tree of Life," known as Zeir Anpin, which is made up of ten Sephirot joined together in a geometrical manner. The Bahir explains that the twelve diagonals of the tree signify the twelve "Functionaries" or "Directors" that are also associated with the twelve stones erected by Israel in Joshua 4:9. Then, because Exodus 28:10 mentions engraving six names on a stone, the Kabbalists assumed that each of Joshua's twelve stones also had six names, for a total of seventy-two names. The Bahir explains that "This teaches us that God has twelve Directors. Each of these has six Powers. What are they? They are the 72 languages." These Powers are also referred to as Holy Forms, and another portion of the text explains that "all the Holy Forms oversee all the nations. But Israel is holy, taking the Tree itself, and its Heart." The Kabbalistic belief that the fallen angelic Kosmokrators were Holy and existed in harmony with the God of Israel led to some very serious spiritual repercussions that are still being felt today.
Some years after the publication of the Bahir there appeared a new and far lengthier compilation of Kabbalistic philosophy and theology. It was known as the Sefer Ha-Zohar, meaning "Book of Splendor" and it first appeared in Spain near the end of the thirteenth century. The Zohar, as it is called, also contains frequent references to the seventy Kosmokrator "world powers" that were known to rule over the nations of the world: Volume 5 Vayishlach, Section 24, verse 236: "...Come and behold: when the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, He divided the earth into seven regions that correspond to the seventy ministers appointed over the nations. These are the secret of the exterior--Chesed, Gvurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut--each consisting of ten and thereby totaling seventy. The Holy One, blessed be He, appointed the seventy ministers over the seventy nations, each according to its worth, as it is written: "When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Yisrael " (Devarim 32:8)."
Volume 9 Beshalach, Section 24, verses 315-316: "Rabbi Shimon said: There is a great and strong, tall supernal tree, which is Zeir Anpin. Those above and those below are sustained through it... And seventy branches, which are the seventy princes that are appointed over the seventy nations of the world, rise in it and are nurtured by it. From the center of its roots they nurture from around. And they are the branches that are found in the tree.
When the time of dominion arrives for each branch, they all want to completely destroy the trunk of the tree, which is the mainstay of the branches, that rules over Yisrael who are joined with it. And when the domination of the trunk of the tree reaches them, which is the portion of Yisrael, it wants to guard them, and to arrange peace among them all. For this purpose, seventy oxen are offered during Sukkot to bring peace among the seventy branches in the tree, which are the seventy patron angels of the nations of the world."
The occult significance of the Kabbalah which all initiates eventually learn is that it acts as a bridge connecting the initiate with the world of the spirits, specifically with the Kosmokrator angels that the Kabbalistic texts blasphemously connect with their dubious "Name of God." This connection is made throughout the Zohar including the following passage: Volume 3 Vaera, Section 20, verses 274-279: "Ten Names are engraved by the King's authority. The ten names refer to the ten sfirot; there are ten sfirot... nevertheless, they also add up to a greater number, which is a reference to the 72 names. This can be explained further. These seventy colors that glow in all directions derive from these Names, that is, from the 72 names. And these seventy colors were engraved and formed into the secret of the seventy Names of the angels, which are the secret of the heavens...
When they are all joined together as one, in one secret, by the power of the Almighty, namely Zeir Anpin, then He is called Vav-Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei, which means that all are united as one. This refers to Zeir Anpin and the Nukva together with the seventy angels below her. The phrase, "from Hashem out of heaven" refers to the Holy Name that is engraved with the other seventy Names of the secret of the heavens--which allude to Zeir-Anpin, which is the name of 72 that are in the Mochin of Zeir-Anpin, while in essence it includes seventy...
...the lower ones, which are the seventy judgments, are dependent on the upper ones, which are the seventy names of Zeir Anpin. They are all connected together and they all shine simultaneously. And thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, appears in His glory... the heavens have a numerical value of seventy and the secret of Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei... is the secret of the 72 names derived from the three verses (Exodus 14:19-21)."
The practices of the Kabbalah are expressly forbidden by the Torah, as representatives of traditional Judaism have maintained ever since they came into the light of day. One of the early opponents of the Kabbalah was a famous thirteenth century Hasidic Jew named Jehudah the Hasid. In his Book of the Devout Jehudah gave the following warning: "If you see one making prophecies about the Messiah, you should know that he deals in witchcraft and has intercourse with demons; or he is one of those who seek to conjure with the names of God. Now, since they conjure the angels or spirits, these tell them about the Messiah, so as to tempt him to reveal his speculations. And in the end he is shamed because he has called up the angels and demons, and instead a misfortune occurs at that place. The demons come and teach him their calculations and apocalyptic secrets in order to shame him and those who believe in him, for no one knows anything about the coming of the Messiah." [48]
The history of the Kabbalah is essentially a long chronology of the appearance of one false messiah after another. Akiba ben Joseph is viewed as one of the most important of the early Kabbalists, and the angels that he contacted told him to name Simeon bar Kochba as the Messiah. The Bar Kochba revolt of 132-135 AD was a disastrous failure and Jews suffered immensely because of it. Centuries later a Kabbalist named Abraham Abulafia became convinced that he was the Messiah, and he appealed to the Pope in 1280 before disappearing without a trace. In his own writings Abulafia explained that his spiritual quest was greatly impeded by Satan and the demons, as renowned scholar Gershom Scholem explains, "By immersing himself in the mystical technique of his teacher, Abulafia found his own way. It was at the age of 31, in Barcelona, that he was overcome by the prophetic spirit. He obtained knowledge of the true name of God, and had visions of which he himself, however, says, in 1285, that they were partly sent by the demons to confuse him, so that he "groped about like a blind man at midday for fifteen years with Satan to his right." Yet on the other hand he was entirely convinced of the truth of his prophetic knowledge." [49]
Another major Messianic failure was the career of Sabatai Sevi. Just prior to the year 1666 a young Kabbalist mystic based in Palestine named Nathan of Gaza became convinced that he was in contact with "holy" angels, and they told him to name Sabatai Sevi as the predicted Messiah, which marked the beginning of the Sabbatean movement that affected Judaism worldwide. Nathan's role was simply to act as a mouthpiece for the "angels" that spoke through him, and Sabatai Sevi was directed even to the point where he apostatized from Judaism as a prisoner in Turkey and converted to Islam.
The Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis) and the Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis) were both natural products of the angel-summoning practices promoted by the Kabbalah. Both of these legendary grimoires appeared as complete manuscripts in the seventeenth century, but both were composed of even earlier writings that dated back to the Middle Ages.
One of the co-founders of the occult society known as the Golden Dawn was a Rosicrucian Freemason named S. L. MacGregor Mathers, who was the first to print and publish the Key of Solomon (in 1889) making it readily available to the public. Mathers describes it as a primary occult text: "The fountain head and storehouse of Qabalistic Magic, and the origin of much of the Ceremonial Magic of mediaeval times, the 'Key' has been ever valued by occult writers as a work of the highest authority." Of the 519 esoteric titles included in the catalogue of the Golden Dawn library, the Key was listed as number one. As far as contents are concerned, the Key included instructions on how to prepare for the summoning of spirits including departed human beings (necromancy), angels, and even demons. Animal sacrifice and astrological awareness are both described as critical aspects of this preparation.
One of the most well-known members of the Golden Dawn was the magician Aleister Crowley. In 1904 Crowley published the first part of the five-part Lesser Key of Solomon known as the Ars Goetia, which is Latin for "art of sorcery." The Goetia is a grimoire for summoning seventy-two different demons that were allegedly summoned, restrained, and put to work by King Solomon during the construction of the Temple of YHWH. The demons named in the text include figures such as Baal, Astaroth, Asmodeus, and Belial. Occultists have always wondered at the relationship between the seventy-two Goetic demons and the seventy-two "angels" of the Shem ha Mephoresh, and the usual explanation is that they are "polar opposites." However, this explanation only holds for those who view the Kabbalah's Kosmokrator angels as "good" and "holy" angels, which they are definitely not.
Throughout his life Aleister Crowley was a very ambitious and daring sorcerer, and his exploits in dealing with the spirit world have become legendary. His most enduring contribution to modern occultism is known as the LIBER AL vel LEGIS, or Book of the Law. It was a message channeled through Crowley from a spirit-entity known as Aiwass, a spirit that claimed to be a messenger from the "the forces ruling this earth at present," which are none other than the Kosmokrator fallen angels that we have been studying. The message itself was verbalized through Crowley on the three days of April 8, 9 and 10, in Cairo, Egypt, in the same year of Crowley's publication of the Ars Goetia in 1904. The demonic nature of the "forces ruling this earth" becomes readily apparent within the text of the infamous Book. Against the Golden Rule of Christianity of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Luke 6:31), the Egyptian spirit Aiwass proclaimed the message of "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." To this was added, "Love is the law, love under will," which Crowley would later explain by showing that the numerical value of the Greek word thelema, which means "will," is the same as that of agape, a Greek word for "love." With this logic Crowley taught that the truest expression of love was to live purely according to one's own will, which is essentially the opposite of the teachings of Jesus. The demonic hatred of Jesus is expressed in the final chapter of the Book of the Law in the verse that reads, "With my Hawk's head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross."
The Kosmokrator angels are also represented in the occult system of divination known as the Tarot, which Tarot scholar Christine Payne-Towler refers to as the "flash cards of the Mysteries." In an article located at www.tarot.com she gives a brief history of the creation of the Tarot, its deep roots in Hermeticism and the Kabbalah, and how it emerged during the magical heyday of the Renaissance: "In the sequence of Renaissance magi from Ficino to Kircher ... we see the force that drives Tarot into expression. The ancient Mysteries were already in place, although episodically forgotten and re-remembered with the cycles of history. The rediscovery of the bone structure of the Mysteries at the cusp of the publishing revolution made the creation of Silent Invocations in card form possible for the masses." [50]
The "silent invocations" of the Tarot are nothing more than appeals to the spirits that allegedly govern all aspects of life which, as we have shown, are associated with the Shem ha Mephoresh and the Zodiac. Most modern Tarot packs are made up of 78 cards where the angels of the Shem ha Mephoresh are linked 2-1 with the thirty-six Minor Arcana (cards 2-10 of each of the four suits). However, there are also 72-card Tarot packs, like the ones favored by Eliphas Levi and Hermeticist Franz Bardon, where each card is linked with its own angel. The Tarot is also intimately associated with the curious culture known as the Gypsies, which is a name derived from the medieval belief that the Gypsies were direct descendents of the Egyptians and the heirs and protectors of the ancient Egyptian "wisdom."
Franz Bardon is regarded by many as "the greatest Hermetic adept of the 20th century." He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1909 and was allegedly possessed by "the spirit of a high hermetic adept" when he was fourteen. During his life he was captured and tortured by the Nazis during World War II, and later he was imprisoned by the Soviets up to his death in 1958. His occult teachings live on through four books that he was able to publish during his lifetime. One is a novel based upon his life experiences, and the other three make up a trilogy known collectively as the "Holy Mysteries." Volume I is entitled Initiation Into Hermetics and is basically an introduction to the occult which includes explanations of the Tarot. Volume II is The Practice of Magical Evocation, which provides step-by-step instructions for communicating with the spirit world. The third volume of Bardon's "Holy Mysteries" trilogy is entitled The Key to the True Kabbalah, and it gives a detailed explanation of the Shem ha Mephoresh, with Bardon referring to its associated angels as "the seventy-two genii of Mercury."[51] An introduction to Volume II explains the purported relationship between mankind and the "angels": "Bardon provides hundreds of seals of positive spiritual beings, angel spirits, intelligences, genii, principals and the spirit beings of the elements. These beings have been teachers to mankind since time immemorial. They teach the mature magician subject matters from A to Z, i.e. arithmetic, alchemy, astrophysics, astrology, astronomy, the arts, biology, zoology, and so on. In other words every subject of earthly science and universal laws. They also help every profession and every trade, whether or not they are magicians. Since magic and the Kabbalah are the highest sciences in the universe, the reader requires the proper theoretical education and practical training before he can contact these spiritual beings." [52]
The characterization of the spirits as the "teachers of mankind" goes directly back to the Sumerian beliefs regarding the descent of the "gods" to the earth and their gifts of technology and religion that became the basis of pagan civilization. The pagans viewed the "gods" as great and benevolent benefactors but, lest we forget, the Hebrews viewed them as angels that had fallen from heaven, who had descended to rule over a world inhabited by a human family that was similarly fallen and in need of redemption.
Lon Milo Duquette is one of the most well-known and well-respected Hermetic Magicians alive today. A prolific author and teacher of the ancient mysteries, DuQuette is featured throughout the Magical Egypt video series produced by Egyptologist and mystic John Anthony West. In Episode Six DuQuette remarks upon the Egyptian influence over the Golden Dawn, which included a ritual that dramatized the resurrection of Osiris from his tomb. Duquette explains that the Egyptian influence was intensified even greater through Aleister Crowley who "just went hardcore Egyptian!" Concerning the magical system of Crowley, Duquette describes it by saying that "it's just as wholesome as anything else. It's scary, but it's wholesome."
DuQuette is the author of Angels, Demons, and Gods of the New Millenium, and a review of the book in Gnosis magazine explains how the Kosmokrator angels of the Shem ha Mephoresh are the cornerstone of Duquette's system of sorcery: "One excellent display of his skill is his presentation of the Shem ha-Mephorash, the 72-fold divided Name of God from which a series of spirit names are generated. DuQuette boils down the abundance of turgid writing on this subject to a few pages accompanied by a chart... This, combined with the methodology presented in the later chapter "Demons Are Our Friends," provides a sufficient, though sparse, basis for sorcery, the practice of spirit conjuring." [53]
The Kosmokrators, Egypt and Freemasonry The Hermetic text known as Asclepius predicts that "Those gods who rule the earth will be restored, and they will be installed in a city at the furthest threshold of Egypt." This understanding of Egypt's role as the land of the gods and primary seat of the Ancient Mysteries permeates the occult and secret societies such as the Golden Dawn and Crowley's OTO, as we have shown, and it can be found as well within the more mainstream esoteric organizations such as the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons.
As an independent secret society the Rosicrucians date back to the publication of three famous manuscripts from the early seventeenth century in Germany. Since that time there have appeared a number of groups that have referred to themselves as "Rosicrucian," all with alleged connections with the original group. In the United States the primary Rosicrucian order is the AMORC (Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis), which was created in 1915 and is based in California. One of its primary achievements was the establishment of "The Rosicrucian Egyptian Oriental Museum" in San Jose in 1928. On its website the question is asked: "What does the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC have to do with Egypt?" The answer follows: "The older connection to Egypt is of a Traditional nature. All Rosicrucians from the 17th century onward understood that the wisdom they received had been transmitted through many paths from the earliest times of human civilization, and were consistent with the teachings of the ancient Mystery Schools.
The first mention of the organization of such Schools is associated by mystics with the reign of King Tuthmosis III during the 15th Century BCE. In addition, the 14th Century BCE King Akhenaten taught the ideal that there was one Divine force behind all things, even the many Gods of Egypt.
Thus Rosicrucians trace their Traditional connection back to ancient Egypt because the wisdom and methods they follow are consistent and continuous with those from the Mystery Schools of Egypt through the Rosicrucian Manifestos of the 17th century to the modern-day Rosicrucian Order, AMORC."
The Rosicrucians are basically very straightforward in promoting their connection with ancient Egypt, but when it comes to the institution of Freemasonry the subject of Masonic origins is much more controversial and hotly debated. Within Freemasonry there have been three primary study groups involved in researching and publishing material concerned with this question.[54]
The foremost of these "study groups" is the Quator Coronati Lodge based in London, England, which was created in 1884 by the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII. The first Grand Master of the QC Lodge was Sir Charles Warren, who was the president of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). Another founding member of the QC Lodge was Sir Walter Besant, who worked under Charles Warren as the Treasurer of the PEF. He was the brother-in-law of Annie Besant who led the Theosophical Society after the death of Helena Blavatsky. It should also be pointed out that an early member of the QC Lodge was Dr. Wynn Westcott, who was the primary founding member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Perhaps Westcott was involved in the lecture presented at the founding of the QC Lodge which was entitled "Freemasonry as Seen in the Light of the Cabala."
The primary purpose of the Quator Coronati Lodge was to focus on Masonic origins, to research the Kabbalah and Solomon's Temple, and to promote the creation of a Jewish homeland in Israel. Sir Charles Warren had been the director of British excavations on the Temple Mount two decades earlier, and his Palestine Exploration Fund, which was created in 1865, was itself funded with money from the British Crown, UGLE, the Church of England, and the Rothschild banking trust. The event commemorating the PEF's founding was chaired by the Archbishop of York who proclaimed that the Holy Land was, by divine right, British property.
The Quator Coronati Lodge was therefore intimately involved in the "Jewish" or "Hebrew" side of Masonic origins (and Masonic 'destiny') and it downplayed the relationship Freemasonry had with the Ancient Mysteries associated with "pagan" cultures. This was a situation that disgusted several QC members including Dr. Wynn Westcott who, according to one source, "made several attempts to steer the representatives of the prevailing 'authentic' school of masonic historiography into considering the possibility of Freemasonry having more occult origins. That approach was ridiculed then and anyone who has tried to make similar suggestions since then has received a similar response generally from the members." [55]
Perhaps because of the "narrow orthodoxy" of the QC Lodge another Masonic study group, the Masonic Study Society (MSS), was founded in London in 1921 by Alvin Coburn, J.S.M. Ward, and Walter Wilmshurst: "Their aim was to encourage the study of masonic symbolism, to chart its origins and possible interpretations along anthropological lines. Avoiding the methodology espoused by the so-called 'authentic' school, this group is still active and studies Freemasonry in light of cultural phenomena that are broadly similar, in the past and present. They use approaches that have been adopted in the fields of comparative religion and folklore studies. They view Freemasonry as a living organism. Their published transactions are circulated world-wide and devote special attention to the symbolic and mystical interpretation of the various masonic Degrees."
Of the founding members of this group J.S.M. Ward is the most interesting because he is the author of Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods, a lengthy examination of Masonic origins that journeys throughout the pagan world to examine the beliefs of cultures including India, Africa, America, and of course Europe, Egypt and the Near East. Ward's thesis reflects the Darwinian overtones of his day and the palpable influence of James G. Frazer's Golden Bough: "...Freemasonry originated in the primitive initiatory rites of prehistoric man, and from those rites have been built up all the ancient mysteries, and thence all the modern religious systems. It is for this reason that men of all religious beliefs can enter Freemasonry... Thus Freemasonry is the basis of the mysteries, not the mysteries cut down and mutilated... Therefore it is that to this day, if we look carefully, we can find in our ritual the seed of practically every important dogma of every creed, whether it be the Resurrection or Reincarnation." [56] p.viii The third major study group involved with researching the origins and purpose of Freemasonry is the Dormer Masonic Study Circle, founded also in London, in 1938. It met more frequently than the MSS, and published more papers, but it shared the former group's interest in the ancient mysteries and Freemasonry's occult origins. Its very first paper was entitled "The Pythagorean Tradition in Freemasonry," by the Rev. J. R. Cleland, and begins with the following characterization of Freemasonry: "Freemasonry is closely allied to the ancient Mysteries and, if properly understood, and in spite of repeated revision and remolding at the hands of the ignorant and sometimes the malicious, it contains "all that is necessary to salvation", salvation from the only "sin" that ultimately matters, that which lies at the root of all other sin and error, the sin of ignorance of the self and of its high calling."
With this introduction the Gnostic influence upon Cleland and this study group becomes evident. The Egyptian influence comes a few sentences later: "...the usages and customs among Freemasons have ever borne a near affinity to those of the Ancient Egyptians; The Philosophers of Egypt, unwilling to expose their mysteries to vulgar eyes, concealed their systems of learning and polity under hieroglyphical figures, which were communicated only to their chief priests and wise men, who were bound by solemn oath never to reveal them." [57]
However, an analysis of the most important Egyptian connection with Freemasonry was not published until paper #47, entitled "The Great Work In Speculative Masonry," which begins with the following introduction: "In this Paper the attempt will be made to present, for the guidance of Masonic students, an interpretation of the Egyptian metaphysical tradition in harmony with the teachings set forth in what are called the Mysteries; the Egyptian tradition will then be briefly discussed in the light of its transmission and ultimate incorporation in Speculative Freemasonry; finally, reasons will be given in support of the theory, which we hold to be valid, that the Great Work ("Magnum Opus") of the Rosicrucians and Spiritual Alchemists is the same as that which is symbolised in our Masonic legend of H.A. (Hiram Abiff). Thoughtful students may find in the references to the Old Wisdom and the Mystery tradition an introduction to a great subject; nor should the Mysteries be thought of only as institutions long vanished into the night of time; rather their re-establishment is to be accepted as inevitable. In years to come a wiser generation will restore the sacred rites which are indispensable to the spiritual, intellectual and social security of the race." [58] (emphasis mine) The legend of Hiram Abiff is the basis for the most important ritual within the Masonic Brotherhood, the ritual of "raising" the Fellow Craft initiate (2nd Degree) to the level of Master Mason (3rd Degree). According to the myth, which is very loosely based on passages from the Old Testament, Hiram Abiff was a Phoenician master builder who was provided by the king of Tyre to King Solomon to offer help in building the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem. According to the Masons, Hiram Abiff was murdered by three conspirators after they failed to coerce from him the "hidden secrets" of building, or "masonry." In the ritual the initiate plays the role of Hiram Abiff and is led along as he is struck once, twice, and then a third fatal time. The ritual ends with the initiate (Hiram Abiff) being resurrected from his dark tomb and into the pure light as an equal and "raised" member of the Masonic Fraternity.
The author of the Dormer paper "The Great Work" connects Freemasonry with Egypt and, more specifically, he connects the legend of Hiram Abiff firmly and directly with the Egyptian tradition of the death and "resurrection" of Osiris, commenting on the fact that Osiris was the basis for the ancient "Dying God" myth found throughout the pagan world: "It is now generally acknowledged by those competent to judge, that of all the ancient peoples the Egyptians were the most learned in the wisdom of the Secret Doctrine; indeed, there are some who would have it that Egypt was the Mother of the Mysteries, and that it was on the banks of the Nile that the Royal Art was born. We can affirm, without entering into any controversy on the matter, that the wisest of philosophers from other nations visited Egypt to be initiated in the sacred Mysteries; Thales, Solon, Pythagoras and Plato are all related to have journeyed from Greece to the delta of the Nile in quest of knowledge; and upon returning to their own country these illumined men each declared the Egyptians to be the wisest of mortals, and the Egyptian temples to be the repositories of sublime doctrines concerning the history of the Gods and the regeneration of men. To the earliest period of Egyptian metaphysical speculation belongs the fable of Isis and Osiris, and we find that the myth of the Dying God recurs in many of the great World Religions; also it is an established fact that the life, death and resurrection of the immortal-mortal have become the prototype for numerous other doctrines of human regeneration.
The fable, as it has descended to us in the account given by Plutarch, the celebrated Greek biographer, has not been much amplified by modern research; nor has any new key been found to unlock this sublime drama, which may well be termed the "Passion Play" of Egypt. Plutarch himself, however, says that "the mystic symbols are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood," and this intimation suggests that the interpretation of the myth as it is given by him in his "Isis and Osiris" will reveal its hidden meaning to students who are already familiar with the principles of the doctrine...
In the Egyptian metaphysical system, TYPHON, the conspirer against OSIRIS, is the embodiment of every perversity... The traditional history relates that TYPHON lured OSIRIS into the ark of destruction, stated to be a chest or coffin... Typhon was assisted in his "impious design" to usurp the throne of Osiris by ASO (the Queen of Ethiopia) and seventy-two other conspirators. These conspirators represent the three destructive powers, "the three ruffians," which are preserved to modern Freemasonry as the murderers of the Master Builder [Hiram Abiff]; they are ignorance, superstition and fear. Thus the advent of greed and perversion marked the end of the Golden Age, and with the death of Osiris, Typhon forthwith ascended the throne as regent of the world... At this stage, Isis, now represented by the scattered but still consecrated body of Initiates, began the great search for the secret that was lost; and in all parts of the world the virtuous in "grief and distress" raised their hands to the heavens, pleading for the restoration of the reign of Truth. Continuing their search in all parts of the earth and throughout innumerable ages, the congregation of the just at last re-discovered the lost arcana and brought it back with rejoicing to the world over which it once ruled. In this manner, we learn, Isis by magic (the initiated priests were magicians), resurrected the dead God, and through union with him brought forth an order of priests under the collective title of HORUS."
The Dormer study group was not the first, and certainly not the last, to equate the legendary Hiram Abiff with the Egyptian god Osiris. Underneath the surface of mainstream Freemasonry this association has been known and understood as fact probably since the beginning of the organized fraternity. This fact was certainly not lost on the celebrated 33 Masonic historian Manly P. Hall, who promotes this association in a paper he wrote on "Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins": "Preston, Gould, Mackey, Oliver, and Pike-in fact, nearly every great historian of Freemasonry-have all admitted the possibility of the modern society being connected, indirectly at least, with the ancient Mysteries, and their descriptions of the modern society are prefaced by excerpts from ancient writings descriptive of primitive ceremonials. These eminent Masonic scholars have all recognized in the legend of Hiram Abiff an adaptation of the Osiris myth; nor do they deny that the major part of the symbolism of the craft is derived from the pagan institutions of antiquity when the gods were venerated in secret places with strange figures and appropriate rituals."
This association is also explored in the relatively recent Harpers's Encyclopaedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience (1991) under the heading "Freemasonry," which introduces another provocative symbol associated with the seventy-two Kosmokrator "gods": "...In ritual Masons "die" as Hiram Abiff died, and are reborn in the spiritual bonds of Freemasonry.
Philosopher Manly P. Hall compared the Hiramic legend to the worship of Isis and Osiris in the ancient Egyptian mystery schools, another reputed source for Freemasonry. Osiris also fell victim to ruffians, and the resurrection of his body minus his phallus - and Isis's search for it - seems symbolically similar to the quest for the Lost Word of God. Followers of the Isis cult were known as "widow's sons," after the murder of her husband/brother Osiris, and Masons also are called "sons of the widow."
Speculative Masonry borrowed the tools of the craft as symbols of the order: the square, compass, plumb line, and level. Members wear white leather aprons associated with builders. Ritual colors are blue and gold. The capital letter G appearing in the Masonic compass most likely stands for God. Meetings are held in Lodges or Temples: four-sided rectangular structures decorated with Masonic symbols and black-and-white checkered floors, symbolic of humankind's dual nature.
Another Masonic emblem is the Great Pyramid of Giza, always shown with seventy-two stones representing the seventy-two combinations of the Tetragrammaton, or the four-lettered name of God (YHVH) in Hebrew. The pyramid is flat-topped, unfinished, symbolizing humankind's incomplete nature. Floating above the pyramid is the single All-Seeing Eye of the Great Architect, also associated with Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. Both the pyramid and the All-Seeing Eye appear on the United States dollar bill and the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States." [59]
So once again we are brought back to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the first built and last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, which is the reputed resting place of Osiris. The Great Pyramid itself is but one structure within a major Necropolis that was designed according to the layout of the constellation Orion, the Great Hunter in the sky. As we have endeavored to show, Osiris is none other than the Biblical Nimrod, the "mighty hunter before the Lord," whose death brought about the division of his global empire into the hands of the seventy Kosmokrator angels who descended from heaven to begin their era of authority over mankind. The seventy angelic "world powers" eventually came to be understood as seventy-two, which is the number of "conspirators" who aided Set/Typhon in the murder of Osiris. It is also the number of angels associated with the Kabbalistic Shem ha Mephoresh, and the number of stones portrayed in Masonic representations of the Great Pyramid.
Another representation of the Great Pyramid of Giza may perhaps be found in the "square and compass" symbol of Freemasonry. The compass is opened to the familiar number of 72 as the apex of the pyramid, whereas the base of the pyramid appears as the square, while the "G" represents, not "God," or "Geometry," as some have speculated, but "Giza," the location of the resting place of Masonry's dear departed master.
There is little doubt that Hiram Abiff is but a veiled representation of Osiris, and the Third Degree ritual of the "resurrection" of Hiram is simply a reenactment of the different pagan Mysteries that ritualized the "raising" of Osiris, the "awakening" of Heracles, or the "resurrection" of Dionysus. By the same token there is a great deal of doubt regarding the legend of Hiram Abiff and Masonry's reputed connection with King Solomon and the building of the temple of YHWH. The fact is that the legend of Hiram Abiff is a relatively late addition to the Masonic tradition which is first documented in Anderson's Constitutions of 1723. The little book Symbols of Freemasonry, translated from the French publication Les Symboles des Francs-Macons (1997), reveals that the original "Legend of the Craft" connects directly with our understanding of Osiris: "...the date of the construction of King Solomon's temple has not always been the key date in the Freemasons' cosmology. This central role was once given to the Tower of Babel. The Regius manuscript, which predates Cooke [1410] by twenty years, cites King Nemrod, the builder of that famous tower, as "the first and most excellent master." He it was, and not King Solomon, who gave the Masons their first "charge," their rules of conduct and professional code.
For a long time both King Solomon and King Nemrod played a part in the tradition. A Masonic text known as the Thistle manuscript, of 1756, says that Nemrod "created the Masons" and "gave them their signs and terms so that they could distinguish themselves from other people ... it was the first time that the Masons were organised as a craft."
It was during the early years of the eighteenth century that Freemasonry stopped seeing its origins in the Tower of Babel and that Solomon alone was considered "the first Grand Master".
The eighteenth-century Masonic texts shed light on the ideas and attitudes at the time of the shift from Operative Masonry to Speculative Masonry... Speculative Masons, who were concerned with social responsibility and had no desire to threaten the establishment, finally rejected the "Legend of the Craft" which honored the Tower of Babel, a pagan edifice constructed in open defiance to heaven. Instead of the Promethean or Faustian Nemrod, they preferred "our wise king Solomon," or as A Mason's Examination of 1723 puts it: "Grand Master in his time of Masonry and Architecture." [60]
One way or another the legendary origins of Freemasonry all point back to Egypt, to the Great Pyramid, and to Osiris or Nimrod, the original Dying God intimately associated with Giza and the constellation Orion, whose death brought about the era of the pagan gods.
The most recent comprehensive study of Osiris was mentioned at the end of Part Three, which is Osiris: Death and Afterlife of a God, by respected Egyptologist Bojana Mojsov. This study mentions several interesting aspects of the Osiris cult that provide evidence that perhaps the original number of "conspirators" involved in the death of Osiris may have actually been seventy, rather than seventy-two, which would bring Egyptian myth in line with Canaanite and Hebrew traditions regarding the seventy Kosmokrator gods that were given authority to rule the earth. Mojsov mentions that the ritual process of mummification, which traces back to Osiris the first mummy in history, was a strict process that lasted for exactly seventy days. According to Mojsov, it was during this time that the departed soul "lay unconscious" in the Underworld, waiting for the mummification process to end, after which the individual would be "resurrected" on the other side.
The number seventy is also associated with the constellation Orion, which was known by the name "sah," which was also the Egyptian word for "mummy," as well as a word meaning "nobility" and "dignity." Mojsov explains that Orion was understood to be "the spirit of Osiris," and sah was also a word that meant "spirit" or "soul." The number seventy is connected with Orion because that was traditionally the number of days during which the constellation disappeared from the summer night sky over the land of Egypt. This was understood as the time during which Osiris himself underwent his own regeneration process. Mojsov writes that "Mummification was more than the mere preservation of the corpse; by substituting perishable substances with everlasting ones, the body was transfigured and "filled with magic." It became 'an Osiris.' " [61]
Plutarch's account of the Osiris myth was written at the end of the era of the Egyptian Mystery Schools when Greek influence brought about the rise of Hermeticism and related beliefs. When Plutarch wrote that there were seventy-two conspirators perhaps this was a late innovation rooted in the desire to connect the myth with the zodiac, with seventy-two being exactly a fifth of 360. The number seventy may be preserved in Plutarch's account, however, because after the death of Osiris his body is divided into fourteen parts by Seth/Typhon, which is exactly a fifth of seventy, the number of Kosmokrator "gods" among whom the entire world was divided after the death of Nimrod according to the Hebrews.
By whatever route we take we arrive at the fact that Osiris was intimately connected with the appearance of pagan religion in the past, and his reputed burial place at Giza appears as a location intimately associated with the re-appearance of the "gods" in the future, when they are predicted to once again take their positions as direct rulers over humanity.