The Mysteries

The Mysteries
Thomas Allen

[Editor's note: The footnotes in the original is omitted.]

Secret societies may be said to begin with Nimrod and his worship of Lucifer—or, perhaps more correctly, with the death of Nimrod. Nimrod is often credited with founding Freemasonry; he invented it with the building of the Tower of Babel. This Nimrod is the infamous Nimrod of the Bible (Genesis 3:21), who established a great empire. Among the names given to Nimrod in later history are Marduk, Bel, and Merodach.[1]

Nimrod was a master of the occult and other Satanic practices. He employed genocide—especially of Aryans—and encouraged miscegenation—especially with Aryans. Ritual murders, human sacrifices, and cannibalism were also among his practices.

Legend has it that Shem, Nimrod’s great-uncle, beheaded Nimrod. Then he cut up Nimrod’s body and sent the pieces to Nimrod’s priest as a warning of what would happen to them if they did not cease their vileness and demonic worship. The priests hid the pieces of Nimrod’s body in their groves and shrines. They revered these relics of Nimrod’s body as objects of worship. The worship of these relics became the first “Mysteries.” These Mysteries were made known to initiates only after long indoctrination. When the Illuminists were convinced that an initiate could be trusted not to betray the true object of worship, they enlightened the initiate. Masonic rites originate from these Mysteries.[2]

Some of the secret societies counted among the Mysteries are the Persian Mysteries (Zoroastrianism and the cult of Mithra and Semiramis Mysteries), Greco-Thracian Mysteries of Eleusis (the Mysteries of Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus), the Babylonian Mysteries (the Mysteries of Ishtar and Tammuz in Babylon), the Egyptian Mysteries (the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris), the Phoenician Mysteries (Mysteries of Baal and Ashtoreth in Canaan), Arabian Mysteries (from which comes Islam[3]) and Gnosticism. Much of the mystery cults survives in the Babylonian Talmud, the Zohar, and the Cabala. The Mysteries, especially the Egyptian Mysteries, also appear in the symbolism and rituals of Freemasonry.

Many of the Mysteries imitated the death of resurrection of Christ. Most Mysteries were built around the death of a god or goddess who later rose from the dead. Followers of this god or goddess would receive eternal life if they acquired the appropriate knowledge and performed the proper rite. The Mysteries ranged from extreme hedonism to extreme austerely, from satisfying all the lusts of the flesh to hating and mutilating the flesh because it was the enemy of salvation. At the heart of the Mysteries were regeneration, procreation, and reproduction. The Mysteries promised that the practitioner, with proper ritual magic, which was the secret of the Mysteries, would gain wealth and power. They promised the ability to control the fate of men and countries. The objective of the Mysteries was to make man god. Another basic tenet of the Mysteries was the idea of universal brotherhood.

Entry into the priesthood required the initiate to pass through a series of occult rituals. Secret doctrines were only revealed to the initiate once he reached the highest level of the priesthood. This secret doctrine always included the worship of Lucifer although he was frequently called by a different name, such as the God of Hades or the God of the Underworld. (Freemasons call Lucifer the Great Architect.) While in a trance, the high priest communicated with Lucifer or his demon messengers. These demons became the god or goddess of the Mysteries religion. Kah believes that the idols worshiped were more than pieces of stone, clay, or metal; they were actually images of the demons themselves.[4] The Mysteries would go on to form the foundation of the secret societies that followed.

Canaanites
The Canaanites partook of the Mysteries and more literally followed the hideous and evil practices of Nimrod than most others. Afterwards, the Nimrodic cult appeared in the Phoenicians, an offshoot of the Canaanites.

The Canaanites seemed to vanish from history around 1200 B.C. However, they essentially merged with their kindred the Phoenicians. With the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C., the occulted society of the Canaanites suffered a great set back, but it was not destroyed. The Luciferian occult of Nimrod would later appear in Freemasonry, various societies of the Illuminists, and other secret societies. Among the groups that later instituted various practices of Nimrod were the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, Herodians, Scribes, and Assassins.

Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism arose around 600 B.C. Zoroaster taught the existence of two gods, a good god and an evil god, or the God of Light and the God of Darkness. These two gods constantly struggled against each other. Zoroastrianism is an ancestor of Freemasonry. (In Freemasonry, the God of the Christians is the God of Darkness. Lucifer is the God of Light That Lucifer is the God of Light who enlightens, illuminates, and frees man is the great secret of Freemasonry and other illuminated societies.) Zoroastrianism is also an ancestor of the Jewish Cabala and Talmud, i.e., Judaism.

MithraA branch of Zoroastrianism was the cult of Mithra. Mithra was the god of light and truth and intercessor between man and Ormuzd or Ahura Mazda. Ormuzd was the supreme god and creator and the good principle or light. Mithra became worshiped as a solar deity. He promised his worshipers worldly success and happiness and security in the next world. This cult contained seven grades of initiation. It became popular in the Roman Empire and was particularly strong among the Roman Praetorian Guard.

GnosticismGnosticism flourished several centuries before and after Christ. Gnostics claimed knowledge of the secrets of the Mysteries. Gnosticism taught that only by developing certain facets of his mind can man come to his full power. Knowledge is not merely the collection of facts; it is also mystical. Gnostics stress personal mystical experience, and initiates were guided to and through this experience under great secrecy. The secret knowledge of the Gnostics was how to contact the supreme being or power; contact with this power enabled man to work out his destiny. Once an initiate learned to contact this power, he became a vehicle for its use. He became identified with and part of the power. Accordingly, he attained his true purpose as a purified personality and became infinitely superior to the unenlightened masses. Gnostics believed that a person gained salvation through knowledge of his spiritual nature. Thus, Gnosticism taught that salvation came from knowledge, especially from “knowledge of the mysteries of the Universe and of magic formula indicative of that knowledge.”[5] Gnosticism promised the initiate that he could fully realize his divine nature and achieve oneness with God, “who is the Universe in all its phases and in its wholeness and completeness.”[6] Through knowledge, man could become God. Pantheism is the chief dogma of Gnosticism.

Gnostics considered themselves intellectual aristocrats; only a few were capable of receiving their knowledge. They saw themselves more enlightened and, therefore, more important than the unenlightened. While believing the basic principles of Gnosticism, they could easily participate in the outward ceremonies and teachings of the prevailing political and religious system. Gnosticism was the forerunner of a universal religion. Many held that they had a license to sin and that God’s law taught promiscuity. Gnostic masters often used drugs to debauch their followers and to make them easier to control.

During the Christian era, Gnostics attempted to supplement the Christian faith with the knowledge of the eternal and to give Christianity a wider meaning by linking it to earlier religions. Because Gnosticism was more deceptive and clever than other forms of Pantheism, it became the most effective and widely accepted form and the occult’s only major counter explanation to the message and person of Christ. Its primary objective was to subvert and destroy the person of Christ and Christianity and to replace Christianity with the worship of Lucifer. Gnostics taught that Jesus was an ascetic, a magician, or a sexual deviate who used secret ceremonies to initiate his followers. Jesus, who had found the secret knowledge of the Universe and thereby obtained higher consciousness, was not the savior of man. The fundamental principle of Gnosticism was the double divinity or dual principle: Lucifer is the good god; Christ is the evil god, the devil. Gnostics claimed that what Christians called vice was for Gnostics really virtue. For some Gnostics, good and evil were meaningless labels; experiencing everything was the way to perfection. Gnostics rejected the Christian idea of absolute morality.

Gnosticism descended from the Cabala. It was religious existentialism. The seal of Lucifer marked Gnosticism. Originally, the Gnostics were Jewish occultists, but non-Jewish followers soon dominated Gnosticism. Gnosticism is also part of the ancestry of Freemasonry and modern-day occultism, New Age religion. Experimentalism, which was popular among the hippies of the 1960s, is a modern-day form of Gnosticism.

Some notable Gnostics were Simon the Magician and Basilides. Simon merged Greek philosophy with Christianity and taught that the human soul existed outside the physical body. Thus, it had access to universal knowledge. He also taught that wisdom came from the heavens to Earth. Basilides was an Egyptian “Christian” who merged the ancient Mysteries with Christianity. He believed in extraterrestrial beings who were messengers between the heavens and Earth.

Carpocratians
An important Gnostic cult was the Carpocratians of the second century A.D. This group held the laws of Christianity and Judaism in contempt. Carpocratians recognized only the knowledge of great men, such as Plato, Pythagoras, Moses, and Jesus, freed from the taint of religious doctrines. They made man God’s equal and approached the deification of humanity. (Man as God’s equal or man as god is a key doctrine of illuministic secret societies.) Since man is a god, he needs no revelation or guidance from God. Man only needs introspection about his own nature. As nature is divine, natural man is praiseworthy. For man to hold land, goods, women, and everything else in common is natural. Human laws to the contrary are unnatural. Carpocratians lived a lascivious lifestyle.

Valentinians
Another important Gnostic sect was the Valentinians who dressed their Gnostic beliefs in Christian terminology. Unlike the Carpocratians, who practices extreme licentiousness, the Valentinians practiced extreme asceticism.

Gnosticism eventually merged with Manichaeanism. Manichaeanism taught syncretistic religious dualism and releasing the spirit from matter through asceticism.

Greek Mysteries
In Greece the illuministic cult of Nimrod surfaced about 1400 BC in the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were also known as the Mysteries of Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus. These Mysteries were the principal religious mysteries of the ancient Greeks. They began as agricultural rites combined with the afterlife. The Eleusinian Mysteries did not appear to have expressed any special metaphysical, ethnical, or social message.

A descendant of the Eleusinian Mysteries was Orphism, which was the next important Greek Mysteries. Orpheus introduced the Orphic Mysteries in the sixth century B.C. Orphism was centered around Dionysus and Zagreus, the son of Zeus and Persephone. Orphism dealt with man’s dual nature of good and evil and sought to deliver the divine soul of man from his evil flesh. Nevertheless, it glorified evil. (The glorification of evil is an important component of modern Illuminism.)

Related to Orphism was the Pythagorean School founded by Pythagoras, a Rosicrucian,[7] at Crotona in the six century B.C. The Pythagorean School was much more of a secret society than the earlier Mysteries. It was more like most modern-day secret societies in its concern for esoteric doctrines. Members of this school were carefully initiated. It emphasized the mystery aspects of philosophy. This school was an early school of secular humanism and an early school of dialectic. It was a communistic aristocratic community. Men and women held their goods in common and believed that they were the guarding rulers of the state. One of its key teachings, salvation through special knowledge, is a key doctrine of modern secret societies. Its two primary tenets were transmigration of souls and that numbers were the true essence of all things. Also, it stresses such virtues as truthfulness, temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, and abstinence from vice. Many of its precepts, such as numerology, later appeared in the Book of Zohar and the Cabala. Theosophy is a modern-day version of the Pythagorean School. Pythagoras “may have been the first to predict a ‘New World Order.’”[8]

Following Pythagorus as a secret society leader was Plato. Plato was an important figure behind the scene of the political maneuvering occurring in his day. He wrote The Republic as a guide for humanist rulers.

In Plato’s ideal society, a small elite ruling class supported by a powerful army ruled the state. The ruling elite exercised absolute power over the masses. Women were completely equal to men and did the same labor as men including fighting wars along the side of men. Marriage and family were eliminated. Sex was promiscuous, and the government reared the resulting offspring when they were weaned. The government undertook a program of selective breeding. Children considered inferior were killed. Plato’s society had three classes: the ruling elite, the military, and the workers. The rulers assigned each person to one of these classes.

Illuministic Greek Governments
An early government established by Illuminists was the government of Sparta established by Lycurgus in the seventh century B.C. This government operated under the authority of superstition mixed with violence. It was an early form of Communism. Sparta became one great camp. All citizens shared in public meals and public sleeping quarters. Everyone held an equal share of land. Slaves worked the land to support the family of the holder. Although marriages existed, promiscuity was encouraged. (Marriage was permitted after age 20 and compelled for the unmarried at age 30.) When a child was born, a committee examined the infant to decide if it should live. Boys were separate from parents at an early age and underwent a uniform militaristic training program directed by the government. To prevent the accumulation of wealth, business enterprise was prohibited, and all male citizens essentially live a militaristic life.

Athens also fell victims to Illuminists. Its form of government differed greatly from Sparta, at least on the surface. In Athens the form was democracy. The Illuminists indoctrinated the Athenians with the idea that government should be by consent, so they became a democracy. Once democracy was in place, the Illuminists could manipulate the masses through demagoguery. Thus, Athens was reduced to a government of men and their immediate whims. The rule of law vanished.

Sparta provided the model for communistic Russia. Athens provided the model for democratic America.

Appendix. Garden of EdenIlluminism goes back before recorded history. Perhaps the earliest record of Illuminism is the story of the Garden of Eden and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Lucifer sent his agent, an Illuminist named Nahash, who was a pre-Adamic human, to persuade Eve, the mother of the Aryan people, to rebel against her Master, and Lucifer’s arch enemy, the God of the Christians. Eve fell for Nahash’s illuministic deception, rebelled against God, and ate the forbidden fruit.

Nahash deceived Eve with two lies, which are the foundation of Pantheism, the religion of the Illuminists. They are (1) that she would not die, and (2) that she would become like God. Thus, Lucifer won his first battle in his war to destroy the race that God created in His image. By destroying the Aryans, Lucifer hoped to defeat God and supplant Him. If he could not defeat God, at least he would have the satisfaction of destroying God’s special people. Unfortunately for Lucifer, but fortunately for Christians, God foiled Lucifer’s scheme by sending His Son, Jesus, into the world.

Endnotes
1. Eustace Mullins. The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History (Staunton, Virginia: Revelation Book, 1987), p. 11

2. Ibid., p. 37

3. Gary H. Kah, The New World Religion (Noblesville, Indiana: Hope International Publishing, Inc., 1998), p, 246

4. Gary H. Kah, En Route to Global Occupation (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1992), p. 74

5. James W. Wardner, Unholy Alliances: The Secret Plan and the Secret People Who Are Working to Destroy America (James W. Wardner, 1996), p. 82

6. Ibid., p. 226

7. H. Spencer Lewis, Rosicrucian Questions and Answers with Complete History of the Rosicrucian Order (Second Ed. San Jose, California: Rosicrucian Press, 1932), p. 49.

8. Jim Marrs, Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids (New York, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000), p. 350

[Editor's note: The list of references in the original is omitted.]

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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