These wise men believed that every star in the heavens, every element in the earth, and every function in Nature was represented by a corresponding center, pole or activity within the human body.
This is the home of the gods in man. It is termed up because it occupies the northern end of the human spine.
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.
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.
It is these twelve convolutions which later send their messages by means of the nerves into the body below to convert the Gentiles, or preach the gospel in the middle earth. These twelve convolutions gather around the central opening in the brain (the third ventricle), which is the Holy of Holies—the Mercy Seat—where between the spreading wings of the angels Jehovah talks with the high priest and where both day and night the Shekinah’s glory hovers. From this point also the spirit finally ascends from Golgotha, the place in the skull. It is a clairvoyant fact that the spirit not only leaves but also enters the body through the crown of the head—probably giving rise to the story of Santa Claus and his chimney.
The Trinity in man lives in the three great chambers of the human body, from which they radiate their power throughout the three worlds. These centers are the brain, the heart, and the reproductive system.
In these three chambers dwell the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are symbolized by the three-lettered word, AUM. The transmutation, regeneration, and unfoldment of these three great centers results in the sounding of the Lost Word, which is the great secret of the Masonic Order From the spinal nerves come impulses and life forces which make this possible.
The two lobes of the cerebrum were called by the ancients Cain and Abel, and have much to do with the legend of the curse of Cain, which is literally the curse of unbalance.
Nursed grudges sometimes become very dangerous things. This person swore that when he met a certain man he would cut his heart out and throw it in his face. A number of years passed, his hatred grew, and at last meeting his enemy, he attacked him and fulfilled his threat. He was hanged for the crime, but the skull bearing the testimony to the brain, reveals a very interesting fact. The right half of the brain is under the control of Mercury—the planet of intelligence—and as a result of the crossing of the brain nerves at the base of the skull it rules the left side of the body. The left half of the brain, under the control of Mars—the spirit of anger and impulse—rules the right side of the body and likewise the strong right arm.
This cord is the flaming sword which is supposed to have stood at the gates of the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is in the skull, within which is a tree bearing twelve manner of fruit.
Every organ of the physical body is reproduced in the brain, where it can be traced by the law of analogy. There are two embryonic human forms, one male and the other female, twisted together in the brain. These are the Yin and the Yang of China, the black and white dragons biting at each other. One of these figures has as its organ of expression the pineal gland, and the other the pituitary body.
These two little glands are called the head and the tail of the dragon of wisdom. They are the copper and zinc poles of an electric circuit which has the entire body as a battery. The pituitary body (which rests in the sella turcica of the sphenoid bone directly behind and just a little below the bridge of the nose and connected to the third ventricle by a tiny tube called the infundibulum) is the feminine pole, or negative center, which has charge of the expressions of physical energy.
Endocrinology (the study of the ductless glands and their secretions) is still in its embryonic stage, but some day it will be revealed as the most important of all medical sciences. The pituitary body is known under the following symbols by the ancient world: The alchemical retort, the mouth of the dragon, the Virgin Mary, the Holy Grail, the lunar crescent, the laver of purification, one of the Cherubim of the Ark, the Isis of Egypt, the Radha of India, and the fish’s mouth. It may well be called the hope of glory of the physical man. At the opposite end of the third ventricle and a little higher is the pineal gland, which looks not unlike a pine cone (from which it secured its name).
The Hindus teach that the pineal gland is the third eye, called the Eye of Dangma. It is called by the Buddhists the all-seeing eye, and is spoken of in Christianity as the eye single.
This accounts for the semi-clairvoyant condition of children, who are far more sensitive than adults along psychic lines. The pineal gland is supposed to secrete an oil, which is called resin, as the life of the pine tree. This word is supposed to be involved in the origin of the Rosicrucians, who were working with the secretions of the pineal gland and seeking to open the eye single; for it is said in Scripture, “If thine eye be single, thy body shall be filled with light.”
The pineal gland is the tail of the dragon and has a tiny finger-like protuberance at one end. This gland is called Joseph, for it is the father of the Godman. The finger-like protuberance is called the staff of God, sometimes the holy spear.
The vibrating finger on the end of this gland is the rod of Jesse and the sceptre of the high priest. Certain exercises as given in the Eastern and the Western Mystery Schools cause this little finger to vibrate, resulting in a buzzing, droning sound in the brain.
In the middle of the brain and surrounded by the convolutions is the third ventricle—a vaulted chamber of initiation.
The third ventricle is supposed to be the seat of the soul, and the aura radiating from the heads of saints and sages is
said to represent the golden glow pouring from this third ventricle.
Between the eyes and just above the root of the nose is a spreading in the frontal bone of the skull, which is called the frontal sinus. The slight bulge caused by the spreading of this bone is known to phrenology as the seat of individuality.
the center of the frontal sinus. When clairvoyantly studying the body of man, that little point always shows up as a black dot and cannot be analyzed.
These candles are symbolic of spiritual sense centers in the brain, while the custom of placing a rose window over the altar suggests the soft place in the top of the skull. The skull—the upper room—is the sanctum sanctorum of the Masonic Temple, and to it only the pure can aspire. The winged bone, which medical science knows as the sphenoid, is the Egyptian scarab, carrying in his claws the pituitary body and also bearing aloft the gleaming spark of immortality located in the frontal sinus.
but seven globular centers radiating seven perfect sense perceptions, which are the Spirits before the Throne
the life of man (rooted in the brain) descends to produce the same result. This life descending is symbolized as the World Saviors who come down into the world to die for men.
Now let us consider the next of man’s marvelous parts: namely, the spinal column.
Part Iii—The Spinal Column
The Hindus teach that there are three distinct canals or tubes in the spinal system. They call them Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna. These tubes connect the lower generative centers of the body with the brain. The Greeks symbolized them by the Caduceus, or winged staff of Hermes. This consisted of a long rod (the central Sushumna), which ended in a knob or ball (the pons of the medulla oblongata).
When this essence strikes the brain, it opens the centers of spiritual consciousness and inner perception, bringing with it spiritual illumination. The system of culture whereby this is made possible is the most secret teaching of the Eastern saints, for they realize that this spiral, twisting force is not only illuminating but (like the serpent which is its symbol) also a deadly poison.
but we are sorry to say they are bringing with them endless suffering and sorrow, for these great
truths in the hands of individuals incapable of rightly understanding or applying them destroy intelligence and reason.
For example, we are told that the early Jews called the sacral plexus and the sacrococcygeal ganglion the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. There is a small plexus in the region of the kidneys called the sagittarial plexus, which the ancients knew as the city of Tarsus, where St. Paul fought with the beasts.
The disciple is warned not to work with the centers upon the spine, but to labor instead with their true rulers—the centers in the brain.
was symbolic of Kundalini—the sacred cobra—who, when she was raised in the wilderness, saved all who gazed upon her (Moses and the brazen serpent).
It will probably be wise at this point to describe the difference between a medium and a clairvoyant. To the average person there is no difference, but to the mystic these two phases of spiritual sight are separated by the entire span of human evolution.
A clairvoyant is one who has raised the spinal serpent into the brain and by his growth earned the right of perceiving the invisible worlds with the aid of the third eye, or pineal gland. This organ of consciousness, which millions of years ago connected man with the invisible worlds, closed during the Lemurian period when the objective senses began to develop.
The medium uses the solar plexus as a mirror, and upon its sensitive nerves are reflected pictures recorded in the invisible ethers. Through the spleen (which is the gateway to the etheric body) the medium permits decarnate intelligences to come into his spiritual constitution, the result being voices and other spirit
The result of separating the life forces from the physical arm periodically is very disastrous, often resulting in paralysis. Mediumship is unnatural to man, while clairvoyance is the natural result of growth and the unfolding of the spiritual nature. There are a hundred mediums to one clairvoyant, for the clairvoyant can become such only through self-mastery and the exertion of tremendous power; while the weaker, the more sickly and the more nervous an individual is, the better medium he makes. The clairvoyant is unfolding his mind by filling it with useful knowledge, while the first instruction given the would-be mediums is, “Make your mind a blank.”
The Group Spirits who control the destinies of the animal kingdoms govern their charges through pictures thrown against the solar plexus, for the animal has no self-conscious mind. As a result, instead of thinking with its own brain, it thinks with the brain of the Group Spirit to whom it is attached by invisible magnetic cords.
has developed individuality and the sympathetic system no longer rules him. Opening himself to impulses through the solar plexus area, the medium is therefore thwarting his own growth by preventing the cerebro-spinal nervous system from controlling his destiny.
At a certain time, a number of little doors, which now separate the brain from the generative system, are opened and the Sushumna becomes an open tunnel so that every impulse is carried immediately to both ends of the body. It is for this reason that the candidate assumes the vows of celibacy, for the close connection existing in the advanced disciple between the brain and the reproductive system necessitates an absolute conservation of all life energies.
Paracelsus, the great Swiss physician, who after many years in the Far East returned to Switzerland to teach medicine, first gave to the European world its concept of the Nature Spirits. Paracelsus taught that the functions of Nature were under the control of little creatures, invisible to the normal senses but who, working through the kingdoms of life, minerals, plants, animals, and parts of the human body, kept all of these evolving in an intelligent way.
The heart used to be considered an involuntary muscle, but it is now beginning to show cross fibres, thus foreshadowing the day when man will consciously and intelligently regulate the beating of his own heart.
In like manner, we are individual cells in the body of an infinite creation which is hurling itself through infinity at unknown speed. Suns, moons, and stars are merely bones in a great skeleton composed of all the substances of the universe. Our own little lives are merely part of that infinite life throbbing and coursing through the arteries and veins of space. But all this is so vast as to be beyond the comprehension of this little “I am” in us.
Part Iv—The Infernal Worlds
symbolized as part animal, part human. He dwells in the animal nature of man, and those who are controlled by their appetites, their likes and dislikes, their hates and fears, need no further damnation; they have built their own hell and are experiencing its torments.
The liver is the key to the red blood. Lucifer’s red garments derive their color from the blood, while the word Lucifer really means “a carrier of light” (or heat) and is a name for the blood. For this reason he is the spirit of temptation.
It is further interesting to note the relation between the words live and liver, for to have a liver is to live. Along the same line we may note that the word live spelt backwards becomes evil, and the word lived becomes devil.
Red is the color of blood and the key of the liver, and its effect upon animals is very noticeable. It irritates, excites and, in some cases, actually causes animals to go mad. Therefore it is often used in making the capes worn during bullfights. These the fighters flaunt in the bull’s face, and trouble usually follows. The use of red lights is not uncommon in black magic. Evil magicians use them to materialize spectres, while medical science has already discovered that it is a strong irritant when applied to the human body.
One of their great exponents said, in substance: “Our chemistry is not with chemicals as you know them, but with certain secret vessels” (internal organs) “and spiritual chemicals which are invisible to the ordinary individual. We do not believe in torturing chemicals,” (combining them to form gasses, vapors or seething masses) “for chemicals, like men, can suffer when brought into unkind relationship with each other.”
The alchemical furnace was the human body. The fire that burned in it was at the base of the spine. The chimney was the spinal cord up which the vapors passed to be gathered again and distilled in the brain. This was indeed a secret system brought to Europe from the Far East, where for centuries it has been considered the highest form of religion.
Do we transform the experiences of life into honey or do we change them into poison? Do they lift us (they should) or do we eternally kick against the pricks? Many people become soured by experience, but the wise one takes the honey and builds it into the beehive of his own spiritual nature.
We often hear the expression, “riding the goat” or “climbing the greased pole.” This is of symbolic import to those who have eyes to see, for when man masters his lower animal nature he can say honestly that he is “riding the goat;” and if he cannot ride the goat he cannot enter the temple of initiation. The greased pole which he must climb refers undoubtedly to the spinal column; and it is only when the consciousness of man climbs up this column into the brain that he can take the degrees of Freemasonry.
When this point is reached, the door in the “G” is closed forever, for the dot has returned to the circle: the threefold spirit and the threefold body are linked together in the eternal Seal of Solomon. Then does the cornerstone which the builder rejected become again the head of the corner, and man—the capstone long missing from the Universal Temple—is again in place. The daily occurrences of life are sharpening our senses and developing our faculties. These are the tools of the Craft—the mallet, the chisel, and the rule—and with these self-developed tools we are slowly truing the rough ashlar or cube into a finished block for the Universal Temple.