please rewrite the text and enhance it According to the Mystery Schools the human body is divided into three major parts, and in analogy
with this the universe without is said to be composed of three worlds: heaven, earth, and hell. Heaven
is the superior world and for some unknown reason is supposed to be above, although Ingersoll
proved conclusively that owing to the rotation of the earth, up and down are always changing places.
Nearly all religions teach that God dwells in the heavens. Their members are taught to believe that
God is above them, so they raise their hands in prayer and lift their eyes to the heavens when they
implore or petition him. Among some nations he is supposed to dwell on the tops of mountains, which
are the highest places of the world. Wherever he is and whatever he is, his place of domicile is
above, overshadowing the world below.
Between heaven above and hell beneath is the earth which the Scandinavians call Midgard, or the
middle garden. It is suspended in space and forms the dwelling place of men and other living
creatures. It is connected to the heavens by a rainbow bridge down which the gods descend. Its
volcanic craters and fissures are said to connect it with hell, the land of darkness and oblivion. Here,
"twixt heaven and earth dominion wielding," as Goethe said, exists nature. The green grass, the
flowing rivers, the mighty ocean, exist only in the middle world, which is a sort of neutral ground
where the hosts of good and evil fight their eternal battle of Armageddon.
Below, in darkness and flames, torment and suffering, is the world of Hel, which we have interpreted
as hell. It is the great beneath: for as surely as we think of heaven as up, we think of hell as down,
while this middle place (earth) seems to be (he dividing line between them. In hell are the forces of
evil, the tearing, rending, destroying powers which are always bringing sorrow to the earth and which
struggle untiringly to overthrow the throne of the gods in heaven.
The entire system is an anatomical myth, for the heaven-world of the ancients - the domed temple on
the top of the mountain - was the skull with its divine contents. This is the home of the gods in man. It
is termed up because it occupies the northern end of the human spine. The temple of the gods who
rule the earth is said to be at the North Pole, which also, by the way, is the home of Santa Claus,
because the North Pole represents the positive end of the spinal column of the planetary lord. Santa
Claus, coming down the chimney with his sprig of evergreen (the Christmas tree) at the season of the
year when nature is dead, has a fine Masonic interpretation for those who wish to study it.
The same is true of the manna that descended to feed the Children of Israel in the wilderness, for this
manna is a substance which comes down the spinal cord from the brain. The Hindus symbolized the
spine as the stem of the sacred lotus; therefore the skull and contents are symbolized by the flower.
The spinal column is Jacob's ladder connecting heaven and earth, while its thirty-three segments are
the degrees of Masonry and the number of years of the life of Christ. Up these segments the
candidate ascends in consciousness to reach the temple of initiation located on the top of the
mountain. It is in this domed room with a hole in the floor (foramen magnum) that the great mystery
initiations are given. The Himalaya mountains rise above the earth, representing the shoulders and
upper half of the body. They are the highest mountains of the world. Somewhere upon their summit
stands the temple, resting (like the heavens of the Greeks) upon the shoulders of Atlas. It is
interesting to note that the atlas is the upper vertebra of the human spine upon which the condyles of
the skull rest. In the brain there are a number of caves (ventricles and folds), and in them (according
to Eastern legends) live the wise men - the yogis and hermits.