please rewrite the text and enhance it These wise ones realized that there was a great deal more involved in religion than the chanting of
mantras and the singing of hymns; they realized that the path of salvation could be walked
successfully only by those who had practical, scientific knowledge of the occult function of their own
bodies. The anatomical symbolism which they evolved in order to perpetuate this understanding has
come down to modern Christianity, but the keys to it apparently have been lost. It is a tragic situation
for religionists that they are surrounded by hundreds of symbols which they cannot understand; but it
is still sadder that they have even forgotten that these symbols ever had any meaning other than the
foolish interpretations which they themselves have concocted.
The idea prevalent in the minds of Christians that their faith is the one and only truly inspired doctrine,
and that it came parentless into the world, is unreasonable in the extreme. A study of comparative
religions proves beyond doubt that Christianity has begged, borrowed, or stolen its philosophies and
concepts from the religions and philosophies of the ancient and medieval pagan worlds. Among the
religious symbols and allegories which belonged to the world long ago before the coming of
Christianity are a few to which we would like to call your attention. The following Christian symbols
and concepts are of pagan origin:
The Christian cross comes from Egypt and India; the triple miter from the faith of the Mithraics; the
shepherd’s crook from the Hermetic Mysteries and Greece; the immaculate conception from India; the
transfiguration from Persia; and the trinity from the Brahmans. The Virgin Mary, as the mother of God,
is found in a dozen different faiths. There are over twenty crucified world saviors. The church steeple
is an adaptation of Egyptian obelisks and pyramids, while the Christian devil is the Egyptian Typhon
with certain modifications. The deeper one goes into the problem, the more he realizes that there is
nothing new under the sun. A truly sincere study of the Christian faith proves beyond all doubt that it
is the evolutionary outgrowth of primitive doctrines. There is an evolution in religion as well as in
physical form. If we accept and incorporate into our doctrines the religious symbolism of nearly forty
peoples it behooves us to understand (at least in part) the meaning of the myths and allegories which
we borrow, lest we be more ignorant than those from whom we secured them.
This brochure is devoted to the problem of explaining the relationship existing between the symbolism
of the ancient priests and the occult functions of the human body. We must first understand that all
sacred writings are supposed to be sealed with seven seals. In other words, it requires seven
complete interpretations to understand fully the meaning of these ancient philosophic revelations
which we have liked to call Holy Writ. Scripture is not intended to be historical. Those who understand
its literal meaning understand (he least of its meaning.
It is a well-known fact that Shakespeare, for dramatic reasons, brought together, in his plays,
characters who had actually lived hundreds of years apart; but Shakespeare was not writing history -
he was penning drama. The same is true of the Bible. Scripture leaves historians hopelessly involved
in self-contradictory chronological tables, where the majority of historians will remain until the
judgment day. Scripture furnishes excellent subject matter for debates, and also ground for
hairsplitting over the meaning of terms and probable locations of unknown cities. Many of the Biblical
landmarks now pointed out by guides were named hundreds of years after the birth of Christ by
pilgrims who suspected them of occupying sites somewhere near those mentioned in the Bible. All
this may prove convincing to some, but to the thinker it is conclusive evidence that history is the least
important part of Scripture.
When the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, visited Jerusalem in 326 A. D., she
discovered that not only all traces of Christianity had already been lost, but that a temple dedicated to
the goddess Venus stood on the hill now accepted as Mount Calvary. Less than four hundred years
after the death of Christ there was apparently no one in the Holy Land who had ever heard of him!
This does not necessarily imply that he never lived, but it certainly does indicate that the halo of
miracles and supernatural atmosphere with which modern Christianity envelops him are largely
mythological, lake all other religions, the Christian faith accumulated a weird collection of fantastic
legends which are its own worst enemies, for they have taken the simple moralist of Nazareth the
man who loved his fellow creatures - and built around him a superstructure of idolatry which loves no
one and serves only itself.
As Buddha in India merely reformed the Brahman concepts of his day, so Jesus reshaped the faith of
Israel and gave to his disciples and the world a doctrine based upon that which had gone before but
remodeled to meet the needs of the people who surrounded him and the problems which confronted
the Jewish nation. The Essenes who educated Jesus were of Egyptian or Hindu origin, and his faith
incorporated the best of that which had gone before. The records preserved of him are largely
allegorical, and the simple man is plunged by them into a great sea of supernaturalism. This was not
entirely without purpose, however, for as Shakespeare took license with history in order to present
essential truths, so it seems the historians of Jesus used the character of the man as the groundwork
of a great drama. He becomes the hero of a seven-sealed story, and those Christians who have
studied symbolism can gain from that story the key to the true Christian Mysteries. They will then
realize that Scripture is perpetual history; that it pertains to no nation or people but is the story of all
nations and peoples.