Was the ancient land of Italy once inhabited by giants? Miles of prehistoric polygonal stone walls still survive scattered across Italy―ancient ruins so stunningly unique, bizarre, and futuristic that scholars, historians, and philosophers once believed they were built by a now-extinct race of giant human beings called the “Cyclopes.” Very little is known about these prehistoric builders and their strange megalithic masterpieces. Their building technique resembles that of the Incas/pre-Incas of Peru: enormous stones cut into interlocking angles, placed without mortar. As in Peru, the stones have withstood centuries of abandonment and quarrying by later civilizations like the Etruscans and Romans. Sadly, modern scholars ignore these ruins while the wider world is oblivious to their existence. We’ll see why some Victorians believed they were built by survivors from Atlantis.

Prehistoric Cyclopean door of Civitavecchia di Arpino
made with megalithic stones. Arpino, Italy.

Scattered throughout ancient Latium (the region in Italy where Rome was later founded) are the megalithic ruins of strangely built polygonal stone walls so stunningly unique, bizarre, and futuristic that for thousands of years it was believed they were constructed by a prehistoric race of giants, now forgotten.

This lost race of giants―said to have been taller, stronger, more clever, and generally superior to modern man―has been known in all eras as the “Cyclopes,” with the constructions they created termed “Cyclopean.”

Cyclopean wall built polygonal style with megalithic stones. Norba, Italy.

“Cyclopean masonry is a type of stonework…built with massive…boulders, roughly fitted together with minimal clearance between adjacent stones and no use of mortar…

The term comes from the belief of classical Greeks that only the mythical Cyclopes had the strength to move the enormous boulders…”

―Wikipedia

Many classical writers and historians, including Homer, Hesiod, Plutarch, Thucydides, and Diodorus Siculus, posited in their writings the idea that the Cyclopean ruins of Italy (and of Europe in general) were erected by this now-extinct Cyclopean race.

These ancient Cyclopean ruins are not in Italy, but in neighboring Greece (Tiryns).

“Ages before the Romans existed, the fair land of Italy was inhabited by nations who have left indestructible monuments as the only records of their history. Those wonderful cities of early Italy which have been termed Cyclopean, are thickly scattered throughout certain districts, and are often perched like eagles’ nests, on the very crests of mountains, at such an elevation as to strike amazement into the traveler who now visits them, and to bewilder him with speculations as to the state of society which could have driven men to such scarcely accessible spots for habitation, and to entrench themselves therein with such stupendous fortifications.”

―Louisa Caroline Tuthill, History of Architecture, (1848)

Despite this vast evidence of (a) “Cyclopean” ruins, and (b) chroniclers who say giant “Cyclopes” (humans) built them, few modern scholars take this mystery seriously.

In fact, it would not be a stretch to say that over the past century in Italy (and Europe) there appears to be a subtle cover-up of these lost archaeological sites―by way of ignoring them into obscurity―and it goes on today, as if the Elite powers who rule the world don’t want the mystery of the ruins to become widely known.

Megalithic wall, Alatri, Italy.

The first evidence of this cover-up is the fact that most people―even many Italians―are unaware these ruins exist. Many Italians living next to, or in the same town as, the ruins don’t comprehend their importance, nor do they recognize the magic and mysticism the ancients associated with them. This is peculiar, considering how advanced these prehistoric ruins are.

Prehistoric polygonal wall, Pigra, Italy. The graffiti indicates that some people
in this town do not respect the treasure they have in their midst. Why not?

Another oddity is that the builders, though described by ancient historians as giant Cyclopes with special powers and abilities, are reputed by modern scholars to never have existed.

Speak with a scholar today and tell her you think the Cyclopes really were a group of giants who really did build these monuments―she’ll laugh, and fairly smugly too. However, a Victorian era scholar wouldn’t have laughed; she (yes, many Victorian scholars were women) would have been open-minded to the possibility.

The Saracena Gate, a Cyclopean masterpiece. Massive stones fitted together
using the polygonal technique, long before the Romans and the Etruscans.

For one, Victorian scholars were generally smarter and more sophisticated than today’s scholars. Anyone who reads academic books from the Victorian era can spot this fairly easily. The Victorian scholars were not dumbed-down (by public schooling, mainstream television, and mass media) like we are today. They were certainly more open-minded―a sign of intelligence―and why shouldn’t they have been? The remains of Neanderthals (half-man/half-ape) were being discovered at the very start of the Victorian era, so the idea of a different “form” of humanity was becoming widely accepted.

If a half-man/half-ape creature is possible, then why not a “giant” human?

Moreover, during the Victorian era the bones of “giants” and “giant humans” were being found worldwide―and the Victorians knew it. They read about it on a fairly regular basis. The New York Times reported on hundreds of these findings, including giant skeletal remains here in America, with some skeletons over nine feet tall. Most of these discoveries occurred inside earthen pyramidal mounds.

In the official History of Morrow County and Ohio, 1880 we read:

“In 1829, when the hotel was built in Chesterville, a mound nearby was made to furnish the material for the brick. In digging it away, a large human skeleton was found, but no measurements were made. It is related that the jaw-bone was found to fit easily over that of a citizen of the village, who was remarkable for his large jaw. The local physicians examined the cranium and found it proportionately large, with more teeth than the white race of today. The skeleton was taken to Mansfield, and has been lost sight of entirely.”

—History of Morrow County and Ohio, 1880

Henry Howe’s Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol II, Part 1, published in 1907, gives a similar report of the bones of giants being found inside of pyramidal mounds:

“In Seneca township (Noble County, Ohio) was opened, in 1872, one of numerous Indian mounds that abound in the neighborhood. This particular one was locally known as the “Bates” mound. Upon being dug into it was found to contain…remains of three skeletons, whose size would indicate they measured in life at least eight feet in height. The remarkable feature of these remains was they had double teeth in front as well as in back of the mouth and in both upper and lower jaws. Upon exposure to the atmosphere the skeletons soon crumbled back to mother earth.”

—Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. II, Part 1 (1907)

In Wisconsin up to 20,000 mounds, some shaped like mammals, birds and reptiles have been discovered, and Nitschke Mounds Park contain the most famous examples.

Pyramidal mound in Ohio, one of many so-called “Indian mounds” found throughout the U.S.

The New York Times reported on many “giant bones” discoveries in the early 1900s.

Today’s archaeologists and anthropologists don’t express nearly as much interest as you would think in these 18th, 19th and even 20th century descriptions of giant skeletal finds, in part because there is no evidence left to examine.  Amazingly, all evidence of these giant bones somehow disappeared―or, perhaps, were purposely spirited away―all of them:

Unknown photograph depicting a giant skeleton.

Whatever attention is paid to these reports by scholars is usually done in the spirit of explaining away the mystery. For example, scholars have cited the “physical abnormality” called gigantism, which they say may have afflicted some of the North American Indians. The tallest American in recent memory who suffered from the disease was Robert Wadlow (1918 – 1940) who stood an amazing 8 ft. 8 inches.

Giant human beings, like the two men in this photo, are said  to suffer from a “physical abnormality” called gigantism.

Tales can, of course, be stretched, and should not be taken as fact on their own. There are, however, these Cyclopean ruins in Italy, all of which demonstrate unsurpassed skill and accuracy, and many that appear to “fit” giant humans in their proportions; combined with the legends of giants present in countless cultures, including in the Bible, one might begin to wonder if there is a gem of truth inside the tales and legends.

“There were Giants in the earth in those days.”

―Genesis 6:4

Surely we have enough evidence for scholars today to mount a serious campaign in an effort to learn more about these giant Cyclopes of old.  But they don’t. Why not? It seems almost as if governments and universities simply don’t want this information to become mainstream. That’s right, this information is seemingly being suppressed…on purpose.

We’ll discuss why in a moment, but for now let’s have a closer look at Italy’s Cyclopean ruins. They all seem to have been constructed by the same builders. When looking at these ruins scattered throughout ancient Italy, it seems clear that during remote prehistory a group of “Cyclopes” (whatever that term means) existed and built unusual monuments―monuments more at home in the distant future, rather than the primitive past. This is not my opinion; it is the information handed down to us by ancient historians and classicists, then retold time and again by philosophers, classicists, archaeologists and historians.

Keep in mind the stonework in these photos are several thousand years old. They were built not only before the ancient Romans, but before the Etruscans, who are the remote ancestors of the Romans. Yet these monuments still stand strong, bearing mute testimony to the power and skill of the builders, and to the strange history of humanity:

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San Felice Circeo

San Felice Circeo is a town in the province of Latina, in the Lazio region of central Italy.

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Assini

Stones that appear to have been cut using lasers, fitted perfectly
against one another, forming a geometric patterns.

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Norba

Walls built before the foundation of Rome using no mortar,
simply stacking up stone blocks, some weighing several tons.

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Alatri

The Acropolis of Alatri, made up by the most internal of two rings of polygonal
walls, with five doors of which two are still in function, is said to be the most
grand and best conserved Cyclopean complex in all of Italy.

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Arpino

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Pietrabbondante

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Segni

Part of the fortification circuit of ancient Signia (Segni). The wall is constructed of polygonal
limestone blocks. The gate is a “false arch” of corbelled stones, with a heavy lintel.

A view of the podium (platform) and the Capitolium of ancient Signia (Segni).

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Alba Fucens

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Cosa

“He who has not seen the so-called Cyclopean cities of Latium…those marvels of early art, which overpower the mind with their grandeur, bewilder it with amazement, or excite it to active speculations as to their antiquity, the race which erected them, and the state of society which demanded fortifications so stupendous on sites so inaccessible as they in general occupy; — he who has not beheld those sublime trophies of early Italian civilization — the bastion and round tower of Norba — the gates of Segni and Arpino — the citadel of Alatri — the many terraces of Cora — the covered way of Praeneste, and the colossal works of the same masonry in the mountains of Latium, Sabina, and Samnium, will be astonished at the first view of the walls of Cosa.

Nay, he who is no stranger to this style of masonry, will be surprised to see it on this spot, so remote from the district which seems its peculiar locality. He will behold in these walls immense blocks of stone, irregular polygons in form, not bound together with cement, yet fitted with so admirable nicety, that the joints are mere lines, into which he might often in vain attempt to insert a penknife: the surface smooth as a billiard-table; and the whole resembling, at a little distance, a freshly plastered wall, scratched over with strange diagrams.”

―George Dennis, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, London, 1848

Limestone fortification walls of polygonal masonry
from the Roman colony of Cosa  in Tuscany, Italy.

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Scholars Silent

One of the main purposes of scholars and universities is to explore the history of humanity. However, when futuristic ruins like this appear where they shouldn’t―namely, in the primitive past―it throws scholars out of balance. They have no explanation for the existence of these ruins. Rather than discuss and try to piece together how these ruins fit into their view of history―and rather than having the balls to admit they don’t know what the hell these futuristic ruins are doing so far in the primitive past―they simply ignore them. That’s right. This sweeping under the rug is a tragedy, but it’s exactly what’s taking place in academia today.

The result? University students at the graduate and PhD level are not given a chance to soak in the glorious mystery of these ruins; history programs on television rarely document megalithic Italy; and the ruins are certainly  off the beaten path of most tourism companies. It’s as if these innovative monuments have been erased from existence; erased from the pages of history.

Italy’s Cyclopean monuments beg us to ask a whole host of fascinating questions: Who built these strange landmarks? What purpose did they serve? Did a “different” type of humanity exist in the distant past? A strange “type” of humanity, kind of like Neanderthal Man―only “futuristic” rather than “primitive”?

If you’re asking yourself, what evidence is there to support this apparently “ridiculous” idea of a futuristic type of humanity in the distant past, my answer is, plenty! Perhaps the oldest and greatest evidence is the fact that the ancient Greek philosopher Plato described precisely a type of “futuristic” race of humans living on an island continent called “Atlantis.” He spoke of it as a sophisticated antediluvian empire that flourished for eons on a now submerged continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, from which its name is taken. Plato maintained that the Atlanteans possessed a highly spiritual wisdom-religion, which enabled them to “see” their own divine and eternal “soul” inside the physical body. According to him, seeing the “soul within” allowed the Atlanteans to harness its higher powers.

Plato indicated that a memory of these powers is preserved in the fantastic abilities attributed to the “gods” of ancient mythology; instead of being actual gods, they were mortals endowed with amplified perceptions, skills and abilities due to their connection with their eternal soul.  In time, the Atlantean kingdom grew weak due to their materializing tendencies, weak enough that they began to lose touch with the inner divinity that granted them such power. Plato wrote:

“For many generations…they obeyed the laws and loved the divine to which they were akin…they reckoned that qualities of character were far more important than their present prosperity. So they bore the burden of their wealth and possessions lightly, and did not let their high standard of living intoxicate them or make them lose their self-control…

But when the divine element in them became weakened…and their human traits became predominant, they ceased to be able to carry their prosperity with moderation.”

―Plato, Timaeus

Plato goes on to explain that the end of Atlantis came some several thousand years ago, when a series of natural disasters sank their continent into the sea. A handful of survivors escaped the devastation, fleeing to, and settling in, different parts of the world.

Something strange happens at this point in time, which is the dawn of history (as we know it). We see records, in every ancient civilization on earth, that describe the existence of giant human beings.

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Remnants Of Giants From Atlantis

There’s no doubt about it. Worldwide mythology speaks of an ancient race of giants with superhuman strength, stature, and longevity. Are these myths really memories of the “giant” survivors of Atlantis?

David & Goliath, a biblical story, depicts a giant named Goliath.

• Indian lore describes Danavas and Daityas
• Ceylon speaks of Rakshasas
• Egypt of colossal Heroes
• Chaldea of Izdubars
• Jews of Emims (in Moab) and Anakim
• Moses speaks of David and Goliath
• Hesiod told of the gigantes
• Homer’s Ulysses meets a giant Cyclops with an eye in his forehead
• The ancient “Titans” possessed great stature
• In Germanic, Icelandic and Norse legend the giants were jotnar, who include Ægir, Mimir and Skaði
• Basque legend relates giants called jentilak and mairuak
• St. Christopher was a giant, as were Gog and Magog from British lore
• Rübezahl is a giant of the Bohemian forest in German folklore
• Famous giant statues have been found on Easter Island in the Pacific

According to 19th century researchers, such as the Russian mystic H.P. Blavatsky, these myths of giants are not myths at all, but chronicles of a former race of giants on earth, survivors of Atlantis who escaped the great Flood.

Could this explain the futuristic and advanced nature not only of the Cyclopean ruins of Italy, but all of earth’s prehistoric yet futuristic megalithic monuments?

Nobody knows who built Stonehenge in England or why. Stonehenge
is one example of a futuristic ruin built in the prehistoric past.

A very old and persistent legend says that a Giant helped Merlin build Stonehenge.

“A giant helps Merlin build Stonehenge. From a manuscript of the Roman de Brut [1100s] by Wace in the British Library (Egerton 3028). This is the oldest known depiction of Stonehenge.”

―Wikipedia

For Blavatsky, the original Atlanteans―our ancestors―were several feet taller than modern men and women, but began to lose their stature after the Flood.

Interestingly, a second and more significant mutation occurred, according to Blavatsky. This second mutation prevented the Atlantean race from lucidly “seeing” the “soul within.” This left their descendants—us modern humans—unable to see or recognize our own inner divinity. Blavatsky believed the Atlanteans once possessed this mysterious ability due to the existence of an enigmatic, luminous organ associated with the forehead that has become known as the “Cyclopean Eye” or “Third Eye.”

A strange and beautiful appendage, the Cyclopean Eye or Third Eye was located on the forehead above and between the two lower eyes. It’s where we get the term “Cyclopes”:

A giant Cyclopes with Third Eye. Mosaic in the Villa Romana, Sicily (Villa Romana at Piazza Armerina).

“A Cyclops…in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead. The name is widely thought to mean “circle-eyed”…Hesiod described one group of Cyclopes and the epic poet Homer described another, though other accounts have also been written by the playwright Euripides, poet Theocritus and Roman epic poet Virgil.”

―Wikipedia

As the dual visible eyes saw outward at material things, this single Eye saw inward at spiritual matters—like the soul. When the Atlanteans devolved into modern man, over the course of time, the Third Eye atrophied and eventually became concealed by the flesh. Blavatsky wrote:

“…the “third eye” was once a physiological organ, and…later on, owing to the gradual disappearance of spirituality and increase of materiality (spiritual nature being extinguished by the physical), it became an atrophied organ.”

―H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

Though atrophied, Blavatsky insisted that we modern humans, like our Atlantean ancestors, still have access to this forgotten organ; some 19th and early 20th century scientists identified this organ as the obscure pineal gland. Located along the Geometric centerline of the cranium, the pineal gland is given the following definition in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:

“A small usu. conical appendage of the brain of all craniate vertebrates that in a few reptiles has the essential structure of an eye, that functions in some birds as part of a time-measuring system, and that is variously postulated to be a vestigial third eye, an endocrine organ, or the seat of the soul…”

―Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

The “Seat of the Soul” is exactly how many scientists and philosophers, including the 17th century French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650), once described the pineal gland; Descartes even referred to the pineal gland as the bridge that connects man’s spirit to his body.

Marble head of Polyphemus, first or second century A.D., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Fragment of ancient Cyclopes statue found in Sicily, origin unknown.

German chancellor Adolf Hitler believed in the Cyclopean Eye or Third Eye. This was affirmed by Hermann Rauschning, the former National Socialist Senate President of Danzig. In Hitler Speaks (London, 1939), Rauschning wrote:

“To have “magic insight” was apparently Hitler’s idea of the goal of human progress…There was the eye of the Cyclops, or median eye, the organ of magic perception of the Infinite, now reduced to a rudimentary pineal gland. Speculations of this sort fascinated Hitler, and he would sometimes be entirely wrapped up in them.”

―Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks (1939)

In the book Hitler’s Secret Conversations, a transcription of confidential dialogues and discussions that took place at his headquarters from July 1941 to November 1944, which were recorded for posterity, Hitler expressed his belief in an “Atlantis” type of advanced civilization in prehistory. Hitler said:

“In all the human traditions…one finds mention of a huge cosmic disaster…In my view the thing is explicable only by the hypothesis of a disaster that completely destroyed a humanity which already possessed a high degree of civilization. The fragments of our prehistory are perhaps merely reproductions of objects belonging to a more distant past, and it’s by means of these, doubtless, that the road to civilization was discovered anew…”

―Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations

The portrait of a single “Eye”―the Cyclopean Eye―is in fact, an archetypal image that stretches back many thousands of years in human history, and it appears again and again in myths, sculptures, engravings, and paintings in ancient cultures across the world.

Readers familiar with Eastern religions will recall the Cyclopean Eye or Third Eye as having a long history in India, China, and Southeast Asia, where the religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism hold sway. More than a “religious” idea, the Third Eye is an archaic “spiritual” custom that transcends religions. The Third Eye is known throughout the Indian sub-continent as the “urna” or “trinetra,” and is often marked by a dot in the middle of the forehead, above and between the eyes. Though mystics and adepts often speak of its mysterious occult powers, on a simpler level it denotes spiritual insight, providing one with a vision of his or her inward soul—one’s true eternal being:

This Hindu deity shows us that by closing our two eyes and opening
our Cyclopean Eye or Third Eye—symbolized by the single dot
on the forehead—we can see our spiritual Self or soul within.

The idea of the Third Eye, however, is quite foreign to the West. Despite living in the “information age” of globalization, this idea has yet to really cross the cultural divide to our own; it is still treated as something strange and alien, an enigma unique to the Eastern religions. How is this possible, if we are descended from the same religious practitioners? Could it be that there has been a conscious effort to conceal it?

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The Cyclopean “Third Eye” of The Freemasons

The image of a single Eye is common to Western “Secret Societies,” whose constituents possessed exceptionally philosophical, active, creative, and spiritual minds. A single Eye is one of the supreme and most sacred emblems in Freemasonry. It is situated on the Masonic “Tracing Board,” an age-old instructional design that is present in all lodges, used to teach initiates. The “Tracing Board” is one of the last vestiges of authentic Masonic wisdom. Unlike the modern lodge ritual and ceremony, which are saturated with substitute secrets (and which bear evidence of having been tampered with), the Tracing Board has remained untouched and unchanged; its true meaning and purpose is unknown.

Masonic Tracing Board featuring the Cyclopean Eye.

Masonic Tracing board featuring the Cyclopean Eye.

“Three” heavenly bodies are shown: the Sun, Moon, and Middle Eye. The sun and moon crown two tall parallel pillars, forming the base of an invisible, equilateral triangle, at the apex of which the Eye radiates beams of light downward.

What does this enigmatic drawing mean? No one knows for sure. In fact, not much is known even of its constituent parts; what does the Eye stand for? Why is it depicted as the “middle third” between the sun and the moon?

The Eye transcends the other images due to its size, placement, and brilliant luminosity; it even overshadows the sun, and is in fact the only source of light in the drawing. For these reasons, some Masons call it the “all-seeing Eye” but have little understanding of what this means. Others oversimplify it by calling it the “Eye of God”; either way, these modern descriptions provide us with little enlightenment.

More than a handful of authors and researchers have set forth the thesis that Freemasonry’s All Seeing Eye signifies man and woman’s Third Eye, available for us to use. In his 1918 book, The Wonders of the Human Body, Dr. George Washington Carey tells us:

“…the All-seeing eye…This is the eye of freemasonry, the third eye. While I am credibly informed that few Masons understand their own symbols, the fact remains that they use them…”

―Dr. George Washington Carey, The Wonders of the Human Body, 1918

Is it possible that this image, Masonry’s all-seeing Eye, is history’s “Cyclopean Eye” or “Third Eye”—still present in each one of us, waiting to be stimulated? Freemasonry is often called a “Science of the Soul”; is it possible, then, that such an inward-facing Order is in fact a “repository” for instructions on how to awaken the Cyclopean Eye or Third Eye hidden inside our foreheads, endowing an initiate with powers born of his own eternal nature?

(IMPORTANT: Readers here should note that Freemasons today do not understand their heritage, their symbols or the reason for the Order’s existence. In Written In Stone, I explain how the reason for this is because the ancient secret of the Third Eye and its awakenings was stolen from the Order at some point in the 1800s. The Hiram Key authors Chris Knight and Robert Lomas bear this statement out in an article printed in the Yorkshire Post, 11 May 1996: “A compelling reason for silence amongst Masons is not so much a compulsion to adhere to their sacred vows, or a fear of macabre retribution from their fellows: it is more that they do not understand a word of the ceremonies they participate in, and their only fear is that people would laugh at the apparently pointless and silly rituals they perform…Our biggest criticism of freemasonry is its sheer pointlessness. It does not know where it came from, no one seems to know what it is trying to achieve, and increasingly it seems improbable that it can have much of a future in a world that demands a clarity of purpose and benefit.”)

As Blavatsky explained, the ancient race of giants died off, but not before passing on their knowledge of “the soul” and “Third Eye religion” to their descendants, who are our most distant ancestors and the forefathers of our earliest civilizations:

“…the Cyclopes…are supposed to have built all the so-called “Cyclopean” works whose erection necessitated several regiments of Giants…

They are called “Builders,” and Occultism calls them the Initiators, who…thus laid the foundation stone of true Masonry.”

―H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

We read in the accounts of early 19th Century world traveler Charles Boileau Elliott:

“In all the existing remains of Cyclopean architecture…there is a singular resemblance for which it is difficult to account. It has been suggested that the Cyclopeans were a kind of Freemasons employed to construct lighthouses, citadels, &c., who handed down their mysterious art from generation to generation; and that the stupendous nature of their edifices led to the fables with which the name is associated.”

―Charles Boileau Elliott, Travels in the three great empires of Austria, Russia, and Turkey, Volume 2 (1838)

Are the Cyclopean monuments of Italy and Europe indeed somehow linked to Atlantis, the Third Eye, and authentic Freemasonry?

Is this why world governments and universities are trying to suppress these magnificent and mysterious ruins?

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Conclusion

If we match Plato’s description of Atlantis to the world’s most ancient monuments―like Stonehenge and the pyramids, to name a few―we may just begin to raise an eyebrow and ask ourselves if it could possibly be that all we’ve been taught regarding history (i.e., man rose from the apes; man went from caveman to space traveler) is false.

In other words, instead of rising from the apes, is it possible we really descended from the gods? Do we each have a divine element within us, making us eternal spirits who are only temporarily living in the material world? And was there a higher “form” of humanity on earth not too long ago that understood this better than we do?―A form of humanity more advanced than we are today, just as we are more advanced than Neanderthal Man?

Are we being dumbed-down by governments and corrupt corporations so that we become slaves to the societies they create? Never realizing we have the power of a billion suns within us? What could our Cyclopean ancestors teach us about the human condition? What medicine did they have? What wisdom did they possess? Did they know they were a dying race? Did they leave us these monuments as a kind of “message” in stone that we need to decipher?

Are the historical records of the Cyclopes or giant “Third Eye human beings” a memory of these higher humans?

“It is true that her theory of man’s fall from the gods is anathema to modern scholars—just as Darwin’s theory of man’s rise from the apes was anathema to religious scholars of the not-too-distant past. For the fair-minded scholars among us, however, it is impossible to notice that Blavatsky’s theory is no more radical than Darwin’s. They are, in fact, opposites; twin faces of the same coin. One describes man’s rise, and the other his fall. Religious men of the late 1800’s simply could not conceive of “apelike” humans—just as scientific men of the late 1900’s and early 2000’s simply cannot conceive of “godlike” humans. Could this mean that scientists today are no more open-minded than the religious zealots of yesteryear in their condemnation of Blavatsky?”

―Richard Cassaro, Written In Stone, 2011

Italy’s Cyclopean walls threatens the scholarly “From-Caveman-To-Space-Traveler” evolutionary view of history, which is the mainstream agenda being pushed by governments, universities, and the mass media. These megalithic monuments in Italy indicate that a powerfully-advanced civilization existed in the ancient past on the Italian peninsula (and Greek peninsula), a civilization that was perhaps light-years ahead of the later Etruscans and Romans, who were themselves far more advanced than modern scholars give them credit for.

More effort has to be made to study and uncover these amazing ruins.

CLICK HERE if you would seriously like to:

(a) see a comprehensive 90 minute video of the Cyclopean ruins of Italy
(b) gain more intimate knowledge of Italy’s Cyclopean ruins
(c) help the younger generations understand the mystery and majesty of Italy’s Cyclopean ruins

To learn more about the ideas presented in this article, read Richard Cassaro’s groundbreaking new book Written In Stone:

The Internet has awakened many people to the fact that a totalitarian Invisible Government—constituted by the Elite families who own and control the world banks and giant multinational corporations—has acquired financial, economic, and social global hegemony, virtually enslaving everyone beneath them in a socio-economic hierarchy.  But many authors and conspiracy theorists have attributed far too much longevity and occult power to this Invisible Government, mistakenly accusing this villainous group of being “descendants” of the ancient Mystery Schools and “masters” of the ancient arts of Gnosticism, Alchemy, Occultism and (authentic) Freemasonry. If you are confused by all the “guesswork” on the Internet and you are not sure who is “good” and who “bad,” this article will attempt to provide a beam of illumination.

Group photo of Skull & Bones members, Yale University, 1800s.

As a lifelong student of archaeology, ancient wisdom, symbolism, comparative religion, esoteric philosophy and occult doctrine, and as a keen onlooker and investigator into the globalist Elite agenda, I’ve come to realize some very clear realities that I think the rest of the population―including many famous authors and well-known researchers―do not understand.

Left: Me in Italy 1986 studying the ruins of Pompeii age 14. Right: Me
at Yale 2012 studying the architecture of the Skull & Bones tomb.

I see how confused so many people are today, and I receive confused emails sent to me almost daily from confused people who are desperately looking for something to latch onto, but can’t figure out, can’t decide, and can’t understand what is good, what is bad, what to follow, what to recoil from. It saddens me deeply.

But I’m not surprised. So many books and online videos set forth varying, contradicting, and often ridiculous points of view, usually without propounding any convincing evidence or believable research. The creators of these books and videos throw around words like “Freemasons” and “Illuminati” using them like blanket-terms for “all bad people,” as if they knew for sure what these organizations are, when and why they were founded, what they stand for, and who composes them.

A typical symbol seen on the Internet today. It insinuates the idea that
the Freemasons are responsible for a coming New World Order.

On one hand, these authors, researchers, and websites (those not being paid to purposely spread “disinformation”―because a handful are) can’t be faulted. They sense something is wrong with American society and with the rest of the world, and they’re trying hard to uncover and stop it. They are not sitting careless in their living rooms watching American Idol every night like most Americans; they seek truth. On the other hand, their work is often superficial, because it doesn’t delve deeply enough; they make incorrect assumptions, indirectly leading to the confusion of those very truth seekers whom they are trying to awaken.

Often these researchers are Christians who, never thinking to question the extent of their own brainwashing, automatically assume that anything that doesn’t jive with Christianity―like Freemasonry―is, by its very nature, evil.

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Truth Vs. Fiction:

We’ll get to Christianity in a moment. For now, let’s compare the following two statements:

WHAT CONSPIRACY THEORISTS SAY:

“An ELITE bloodline of sinister ILLUMINATI and FREEMASONS, who are descended from the EVIL Priests of the Ancient MYSTERY schools in Egypt, have for thousands of years been controlling the rest of us. They are master OCCULTISTS who use advanced ALCHEMY and practice secret PAGAN rituals which means they use MAGIC to control our minds,  empty our wallets and virtually enslave us. To put it quite simply they are a CABAL of ILLUMINATI and they worship SATAN/LUCIFER. They have been controlling all the governments for thousands of years, and their goal is to eventually form a NEW WORLD ORDER to complete their mission and to fully imprison the entire planet under their EVIL control (even though they haven’t been able to fully carry out their plan after thousands of years).”

WHAT THE TRUTH (PROBABLY) IS:

“Aside from the tyranny of the Catholic Church, which is a separate tyranny altogether…

For the past two centuries, a handful of the world’s wealthiest families (who own and run the big banks and the giant multinational corporations) have been gaining more and more hegemony over the rest of us. This selfish CABAL has achieved this power by using economic, psychological, military, scientific, and political resources, as well as spiritual information that they’ve stolen from once-noble Orders and organizations like the ILLUMINATI, FREEMASONS, SKULL & BONES and from several other high PAGAN, SPIRITUAL, and MAGIC organizations of the past, all of which were once benevolent. There is no NEW WORLD ORDER, but this group of Elite constitute an INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT (as described by many reputable 20th century officials and intellectuals) and this Invisible Government is continuously trying to maneuver things in their favor, and right now they control more than ever before.”

See the difference?

Conspiracy theorists automatically lump everyone into the same category, creating one big melting pot of “bad people”—ALCHEMISTS, PAGANS, GNOSTICS, FREEMASONS—without any evidence whatsoever. The very nature of a “Secret Society,” in the minds of these conspiracy theorists, automatically qualifies it as being “evil” and behind everything that is “no good.”

This is a terrible mistake, in my opinion.

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Secret Societies ― Secrecy For Good Reason

Secret Societies like the Freemasons were founded more than a thousand years ago for benevolent ends―namely, to protect a powerful pre-Christian spiritual wisdom that needed protection from the tyranny of the Catholic Church and from the unspeakable acts of the Church’s deadly Inquisition.

Let’s look at one Secret Society as an example, the Masonic Fraternity a.k.a. the Freemasons. Few people realize it but the Order was founded to be an initiatory storehouse of an ancient Pagan spiritual wisdom. This wisdom was called the “Secret Doctrine” and/or “Perennial Philosophy” by Renaissance mystics and occult scholars. The wisdom once formed a “Universal Religion” that was shared by ancient civilizations worldwide, like the ancient Egyptians, Hindus, Chinese and Mayans, but was banned by the Church as Christianity became dominant. If the Church caught anyone professing or practicing the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy, they were accused of heresy and killed. Hence the need for Masonic secrecy.

“…Freemasons have a secret which they carefully conceal…Masonry is derived from some very ancient religion…At what period of antiquity, or in what nation, this religion was first established, is lost in the labyrinth of unrecorded time…”

—Thomas Paine, Origin of Freemasonry

“The first and chief object of our [Masonic] Order, the foundation on which it rests…is the preservation and handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery… which has come down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man—a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends.”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace

Desperate to ensure the survival of this ancient wisdom, and in fear of the tyrannical Church and of the Church’s murderous Inquisition, the Freemasons “hid” their ancient Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy in plain sight in a place where it could be safely handed down to posterity.

Where did they hide it?

It has been rumored for centuries that the Freemasons, who were commissioned by the Church to build Europe’s majestic Gothic cathedrals, encoded their forbidden wisdom into the very architecture of these Gothic cathedrals:

Can you see the same repeating blueprint here? Scholars never have.
In my book, Written In Stone, I show how this pattern is a message that clearly
reveals Freemasonry’s lost ancient Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy.

“In Mediaeval Europe…fragments of the Secret Doctrine—transmitted in the symbols and secrets of the cathedral builders—determined much of Gothic architecture.”

―Claude Bragdon, The Beautiful Necessity, 1910

“It is generally believed in occult circles that these medieval masons had inherited esoteric knowledge from their pagan antecedents and that this knowledge was incorporated into the sacred architecture of the cathedrals.”

―Michael Howard, The Occult Conspiracy, 1989

The Freemasons were not the only Secret Society to preserve the Secret Doctrine  / Perennial Philosophy. There were many, but most of them were violently uprooted by the Church. Virtually all of them disappeared, except for Freemasonry, which has carried the torch of the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy into the modern era.

“When the Roman Empire of the West was destroyed, political power came more and more into the hand of the Church, which grew very suspicious of secret societies, and suppressed them with great vigor. She did not, however, persecute the operative Masons, whom she regarded as a body of men wisely guarding the secrets of their trade, which she supposed to be concerned with the measurements of columns and arches, quantities for the mixing of mortar, and other such things.”

―C.W. Leadbeater, Freemasonry Ancient Mystic Rites

Despite Masonic secrecy, the Church eventually did discover that Freemasonry was carrying on the tradition of ancient wisdom; and the Church knew this wisdom threatened its tyranny, which explains why the Church suddenly and inexplicably did a 360-degree about-face and instead of commissioning the Freemasons to build more cathedrals suddenly sought to stomp out Freemasonry forever. This changed attitude toward the cathedral builders has been ongoing for hundreds of years.

Here is one of many papal bulls issued over the past centuries calling for the total destruction of Freemasonry, accusing the Order of carrying ancient Pagan wisdom:

“The purpose and aim of the Masonic sect having been discovered from plain evidence…is easy to understand…to try to revive, after eighteen centuries, the manners and institutions of paganism…

…we intend to turn our attention to the Masonic society… to illustrate more and more this wicked force and stop the spread of this contagious disease…”

—Pope Leo XIII

We’ll uncover Freemasonry’s ancient and blasphemous Great Secret / Perennial Philosophy in a moment. For now, it’s important for the reader to understand that Masonic “secrecy” existed for good reason—to protect the Masonic Fraternity and its members from the wrath of the Church and its evil Inquisition i.e., not because the Masons were trying to form a clandestine New World Order.

Masonic initiates begin their journey adorned in the ritualistic garb of a medieval
heretic with hangman’s noose around the head, being led to the gallows. This is because
the wisdom of Freemasonry, once learned, turns an initiate into a heretic eligible
for death in the eyes of the Church and the Church’s Inquisition.

To repeat: Masonic “secrecy” existed for good reason: It was because the Freemasons were the inheritors and custodians of a very important ancient Pagan wisdom. This Pagan wisdom reveals vital information on the spiritual nature of Man and humanity, which the Catholic Church has long been suppressing. This wisdom turns an initiate into a “heretic” in the eyes of the Church, and for many centuries the Church punished heretics with death. Hence the need for Masonic secrecy.

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The Masonic Fraternity ― Robbed Of Its Wisdom

Then, something critical happened in the 1800s. The Masonic Fraternity went through a kind of unwilling transformation. Someone―a sinister clan of organized individuals―went in and ripped apart the rituals. The symbols were dumbed-down, the wires were crossed, and the teachings were tweaked and compromised. It seems to have happened slowly, perhaps over the course of a few decades, rather than all at once.

This coup appears to have been done on purpose, apparently to render these Secret Societies impotent so they can no longer provide initiates with wisdom, tools, and insight needed to advance spiritual growth. For example, today Masonic symbols like the Pentagram (a very powerful and very great spiritual symbol) are no longer explained to incoming Masonic initiates; so-called “Master” Masons thus don’t understand the Pentagram’s esoteric symbolism, while some even (have the balls to) deny the pentagram is Masonic!

The Masonic pentagram. Its wisdom is no longer explained to new initiates of Freemasonry.

“The Masonic significance of the pentagram is controversial. While it often appears on Masonic regalia and decorative illustration, nowhere is it mentioned in Masonic rituals or lectures.”

―Grand Lodge of British Columbia Website

The Pentagram is an example of one spiritual symbol that has been “stolen” from Freemasonry―one of many spiritual symbols historically associated with Freemasonry but today no longer explained in the Craft. Seeing how the Elite corporations use the Pentagram in their corporate logos, it seems clear where at least some of this stolen Masonic wisdom/symbolism ended-up (i.e., in the hands of the Elite big corporations):

Top: Masonic symbolism featuring the pentagram.
Bottom: Corporate logos featuring the pentagram.

How did big corporations like Macy’s, Texaco, and Heineken come to understand the power of the pentagram? How did they get their hands on such high spiritual symbolism and wisdom? Did they steal it from Freemasonry?

The answer, in my opinion, is yes. Remember, an empowered population does the corporate Elite no damn good. The Elite need sheep/followers, not lions/leaders, or else their hegemony may one day be discovered and begin to erode. (The Elite need a dumbed-down, fearful, and angry population in order to sell us their clothes/cars/pharmaceuticals/genetically-engineered food. In other words, they need a system of fear-based competition instead of love-based cooperation. And “fear-based competition” is exactly the society we live in today.) So it’s quite possible that members or representatives of these fledgling corporations decided, almost two centuries ago, to eliminate the “secret” from mystical organizations like Freemasonry early on, seeing such groups as a potential threat to their fledgling Invisible Government.

Interestingly, in direct support of this claim, a “catastrophic” event is recorded in the history books in the mid-1800s at about the same time this wisdom was stolen from Freemasonry. Mainstream media describes this catastrophic event as the “Morgan Affair” in 1826. After vowing to reveal Freemasonry’s Ancient Secret, Freemason William Morgan went missing. His disappearance and presumed murder caused a backlash.  By the 1830s, we’re told, Masonic attendance diminished tremendously and hostility against Masons grew enormously.

For years the Order languished, but historians say the brotherhood was suddenly born anew in the 1860s. It was, however, a different society altogether; though sharing surface similarities with its esoteric predecessor, it was no longer concerned with esoteric doctrine. It instead now focused on “Faith, Hope and Charity”—its new three pronged slogan, which it continues to promote today. It was as if a new and invisible force, a force alien to the fraternity’s original purpose, had taken hold.

The so-called “Fork & Knives” is a modern parody of the Masonic “Square &
Compass” emblem, emphasizing the new pastime of Freemasons—food and drink!

Thus, today Freemasonry exists for purposes alien to its original spirit. Initiates who join seeking light get virtually no light. The whole damn apparatus is broken, and this is because someone purposely broke it, unbeknownst to most modern Masons.

Freemasons Chris Knight and Robert Lomas, authors of The Hiram Key, bear this statement out in an article printed in the Yorkshire Post, 11 May 1996:

“A compelling reason for silence amongst Masons is not so much a compulsion to adhere to their sacred vows, or a fear of macabre retribution from their fellows: it is more that they do not understand a word of the ceremonies they participate in, and their only fear is that people would laugh at the apparently pointless and silly rituals they perform…

Our biggest criticism of freemasonry is its sheer pointlessness. It does not know where it came from, no one seems to know what it is trying to achieve, and increasingly it seems improbable that it can have much of a future in a world that demands a clarity of purpose and benefit.”

―Chris Knight and Robert Lomas, Yorkshire Post, 1996

We read a very similar statement on the website of the Grand Lodge of England:

“…the honest answer to the questions when, where and why Freemasonry originated are that we simply do not know…”

―United Grand Lodge of England (website)

When they say “honest answer” I believe they really mean it. Here is a three-minute snippet from the Discovery Channel’s documentary on the Freemasons. It explains the Morgan Affair and its devastating consequences on Freemasonry:

Was the Morgan Affair a kind of false flag operation, designed to disrupt Freemasonry and allow outsiders to infiltrate and change the Order from inside out?

If yes, then it explains why the “Freemasonry” that emerged “after” the Morgan Affair was a much different type of “Freemasonry” that existed “before” the Morgan Affair. It also explains why the vast majority of today’s Masons don’t understand Masonic symbols or rituals, whereas the “pre-Morgan-Affair” Founding Fathers did understand them.

Today men join Freemasonry seeking spiritual “light” but they never really gain any; I mean none whatsoever. In response to the question, “Why, then, do you stay?” the answer is usually “conviviality” and “friendship.” Some say they joined because their dad was a Mason, while others admit they are attracted to the Order’s prestige; they like being attached to an organization with a long and storied history, not realizing that Freemasonry can be likened to a light-bulb that has been turned off.

Thousands of prominent men through the years have been members of the Masonic Order.

There is, however, a small group of Freemasons alive today―deep, caring, and philosophically-minded individuals―who are actively searching to decode the symbols, piece together the rituals, uncover the secret, and find the missing truth.

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Decoding Masonic Symbols

As a symbolist, I’ve decoded the key symbols that Secret Societies like the Freemasons use. They are all positive symbols, designed to teach deep physical and spiritual wisdom on the human condition, including how to love, care for others, and learn to distinguish between our higher Self (soul) and lower self (ego/body). As mentioned before, this wisdom has been known to mystics during the past two thousand years of Christian hegemony as the “Secret Doctrine” or “Perennial Philosophy.” Only a tiny handful of the millions of Freemasons alive today understand this, due to the fact that Freemasonry is no longer the powerful custodian of this ancient wisdom, this wisdom having been stolen long ago, as described above.

Let’s take one symbol, the “All-Seeing Eye” emblem. Many Secret Societies have for centuries used the Eye, including Freemasons, Oddfellows, and Knights of Pythias.

The single luminous Eye symbol crowns an Oddfellows certificate.

The Founding Fathers, many of whom were practicing Freemasons, used this important Secret Society Eye symbol on The Great Seal Of The United States, which is featured on the back of the U.S. one dollar bill. The Founding Fathers sketched the Masonic Eye inside a luminous Triangle, and set it hovering above an unfinished pyramid.

Americans believe the Eye is that of “God” (the Jewish “Yahweh”).
Conspiracy theorists (with little understanding of occult symbolism) insist
the Eye represents the “Illuminati” who are “Freemasons”  “watching” over
us and throwing their tyranny in our faces. Both are wrong, in my opinion.

Conspiracy theorists, lacking any in-depth research into ancient civilizations (the Pyramid), lacking any in-depth understanding of sacred  geometry (the Triangle), and lacking any in-depth knowledge of esoteric symbolism (the Eye), would have you believe that this symbol is simply a “boastful” emblem created by the Elite themselves―the “Illuminati” who have been “sitting on top” and “watching over” and “controlling” the rest of the world for thousands of years.

Ridiculous!  This “Eye” is NOT a symbol of the Elite “at the top” watching and controlling us! Nor have “they” been in power for thousands of years. The “Eye” is NOT a symbol of them “laughing at us” and “lording it over” us!

Regular readers of this website will know that I’ve set forth a fair amount of convincing evidence here on www.RichardCassaro.com supporting the fact that this Eye symbol is far more potent, far more spiritual, and far more ancient than these conspiracy theorists believe/understand. It is nothing less than a symbol of the GREAT (but now “lost”) SECRET OF THE FREEMASONS, which we’ll see in a moment.

Just ask yourself: Were the Founding Fathers of America―many of them Freemasons―a bunch of power-hungry Illuminati?

George Washington and other Masonic Founding Fathers laid the cornerstone of
the Capitol building on September 18, 1793 dressed in full Masonic regalia.

Did the Founding Fathers put the Eye above an unfinished pyramid to show that they were lording it over the population? ―lording their plans for New World Order over the fledgling American nation?

Of course not!

All you need to do to figure this out is look at the blueprint for the United States of America, the greatest nation (in its political setup) on Earth. Sure, today the USA has been hijacked by the international bankers and big corporations to the extent that the Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves. But those Founding Fathers who created America and the Constitution (and fought and died for it) obviously cared about We The People. That’s plain to see, for me anyway.

If you bear this in mind, then clearly the whole stupid conspiracy theory that the “Eye-symbolizes-the-controlling-Illuminati-watching-over-us” goes up in a puff of smoke!

Do you see that?

America’s Masonic Founding Fathers were a group of powerful and benevolent men, supported by an equally powerful group of caring women, and their American dream came true, having a tremendous impact on world history and on all our lives.

What made the Founding Fathers so powerful? The answer is certainly not religion:

“…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

—George Washington

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.”

—Thomas Jefferson

“The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.”

—Abraham Lincoln

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”

—James Madison

“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion…has received various corrupting Changes…”

—Ben Franklin

“People in general do not know what wickedness there is in this pretended Word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good… Good heavens! it is quite another thing; it is a book of lies wickedness and blasphemy.”

—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

So if religion did not make America’s Founding Fathers so great, what then did? The answer is the ancient wisdom of Freemasonry.  The Founding Fathers told us this by going to great lengths to encode this Masonic wisdom into the art, architecture, and layout of their cities, streets and capitol buildings. As Freemasons, they were inheritors of a Pagan wisdom-tradition, the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy of the ages, of which most modern men and women are completely unaware of.

Now, let’s take a look at what this ancient Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy teaches…

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The True Meaning Of Freemasonry’s Eye Symbol

The Pagan wisdom I’ve been referring to in this article (the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy) has for many centuries been secretly conveyed by the image of a single luminous Eye bursting with light. We see this luminous Eye symbol in various images of Americana:

The back of the old American $2 bill is a giant Masonic Eye symbol.

The Masonic Eye forms part of a design for the
Great Seal submitted to Congress on May 9, 1782.

This single Eye, often depicted inside a Tri-angle (Tri = Three, the “Masonic” number Three), is the key symbol of the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy, and it alludes to one of the greatest secrets in human history―namely, that as human beings each one of us has a “Third Eye” hidden in our foreheads, which we can activate to help us see our inner divine and eternal Self (inner soul):

The Third Eye inside the Triangle.

“…the All-seeing eye…This is the eye of freemasonry, the third eye. While I am credibly formed that few Masons understand their own symbols, the fact remains that they use them…”

—Dr. George Washington Carey, The Wonders of the Human Body, 1918

“The Order of Freemasonry acknowledges the ‘All Seeing Eye’ as the Eye of Great Wisdom.’ This ‘Great Wisdom’ is said to offer those who seek the sacred mysteries an understanding of illumination, inner vision, and intuitive knowledge. Contact with this great wisdom occurs through the ‘Third Eye’ (pineal gland) located inside the forehead.”

—Dr. Joye Jeffries Pugh, Eden, 2006

“The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the ‘all seeing eye’ pierces through, and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn’t indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn’t detect.”

—Mark Twain, Famous American Author and Freemason, 1899

“The Great Pyramid is a central occult symbol that is often depicted with the “all-seeing-eye” or “third eye” inside it. In this form it is the symbol of mystical Freemasonry.”

—John Bowlt, Wendy Salmond, and Marie Turbow, The Uncommon Vision of Sergei Konenkov, 1874-1971

“The All-Seeing Eye…also emblematic of the…third eye of the human being…has been found amid the ruins of every civilization….”

—Grace Morey, Mystic Americanism, 1924

Freemason George Washington wearing apron depicting an awakened Third Eye.

Clearly, the vast majority of conspiracy theorists have never gone to the trouble to really sit for a moment―or, rather, a decade or two―and decode Freemasonry’s Eye symbol, piece by piece, in terms of it ancient iconography. If any one of them did, they would understand what it really means.

Going into the particulars of how to decode this Third Eye symbol is outside the scope of the present article. But in several other articles on this website (www.RichardCassaro.com) I present a small amount of evidence that this symbol is nothing else but the ancient Third Eye symbol, which Third Eye we all have hidden in our foreheads―and this is the lost key to spiritual development.

As practitioners of the ancient Eastern spiritual traditions have long known, we can activate the Third Eye to “see” our inner soul and this helps us to become more spiritual, more loving, more powerful, and more pure.

Statue of Buddha meditating with awakened
Third Eye (symbolized by the bindi “dot” on forehead).

Readers of my book will know that I set forth a far more convincing case for the “Masonic-All-Seeing-Eye-is-really-the-Third-Eye” idea in Written In Stone, indeed much more convincing than the small amount of evidence set forth on the various articles of this website.

“I can truly say that you put a lot of my concerns regarding the ‘mainstream conspiracy theorists’ to rest.

Most theorists are all about doom and gloom and sell ignorance, claiming that the symbols you’ve decoded are symbols of oppression. Take, for example, the all seeing eye on the dollar.  It is rampant in several mainstream music videos and when younger people search what that symbol means in google, all of these ‘authorities’ claim the symbol represents the illuminati and how they ‘see’ all because they control all.

I knew that these people were not authorities and kept looking and looking for the truth, and when I found your work it struck so many cords and I was relieved that I finally had evidence to do away with the mainstream ignorance on these topics.”

―Jordan (letter to me written on 2/6/2013)

(Receiving this letter and many others like it inspired me to write the present article.)

Ancient civilizations all over the world, like the Egyptians, Etruscans, Celtics, Druids, Babylonians, pre-Incas, Mayas, Olmecs, and so on all understood and practiced the same Universal Religion which during Christianity became known as the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy. They were all “good” civilizations made up of good people. Walk among ancient ruins and your heart should tell you this.

In the ancient civilizations, there was something called the “Mystery Schools” (like our Universities) that were setup to teach people the Universal Religion. These Mystery Schools provided answers to questions like “Who am I?” “What am I?” “Where do I come from?” “Where am I going?” and “What is life about?” Today American and Western universities in general teach our children “how to go off into the world and make a lot of money.” And their parents think this is just great. What a damn shame!

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Christ Good, Christianity Bad

So, until the time of Christ the Universal Religion was widely followed, and the Mystery Schools were teaching its wisdom. The spirit of the Universal Religion consisted in the idea that beneath our bodies we are all the same; we are all eternal spiritual souls, the same souls (called Brahman in the East), who have chosen to temporarily have a human experience on earth. The trouble is that when we are human beings we have amnesia of this truth; we have amnesia of who we really are deep inside because we cannot see our inner eternal divinity and spirituality. We think life is real, but it is not; life is in fact just a temporary ride, and we (as souls) have chosen to go on this ride, similar to the way we choose to go on a ride at an amusement park.

“The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round; it has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud and it’s fun…for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: “Is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, and they say, “Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid EVER because, this is just a ride.” And we KILL those people HAHAHA! “Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride – SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry! Look at my big bank account, and my family! This just HAS to be real!”…But it’s just a ride. And we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok.”

―Bill Hicks, Late Comedian

A tradition handed-down among mystics teaches that Jesus Christ was a student of the ancient Mysteries; and that he was someone who realized he had been on this ride before. Initiated into, and empowered by, the Mystery School teachings, Jesus became aware of his inner spiritual nature, his inner “soul” or “godhood.” Some call it his inner “Christhood.” Regardless of whether you call it the “soul” or “Self” or “inner god” or “inner Christ” it’s all the same, even though the words change. Jesus’ message to us was that we all have this inner “godhood,” this inner “soul,” this inner “Christ,” and this is who we really are. And life is indeed just a ride.

Mystics have long believed that Jesus had a deep understanding of this knowledge (gnosis) because he had awakened his Third Eye, which he used to “see” his inner soul or “godhood.” Countless portraits for hundreds of years have portrayed Jesus with an awakened Third Eye:

A 1525 painting by Jacopo Pontormo painting showing
Jesus with an awakened Third Eye above him.

Joseph Campbell explained:

“…if you read “Jesus ascended to heaven” in terms of its metaphoric connotation, you see that he has gone inward—not into outer space but into inward space, to the place from which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all things, the kingdom of heaven within. The images are outward, but their reflection is inward. The point is that we should ascend with him by going inward.”

―Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

The following Eye symbol with Christ inside the pupil is called “The Transfiguration of Jesus.” It is a mosaic from the church of the monastery of St. Catherine in Mount Sinai, Egypt. It was painted in c. 560 AD.  It conveys the idea that we can see our “inner Christ” or inner “soul” when we awaken our Third Eye.

Christ depicted inside the pupil of a giant Eye symbol.
“The Transfiguration of Jesus” mosaic from the church of
the monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt (c. 560 AD).

In Christian teachings, this concept of a “transfiguration” is described as a metamorphosis:

“The Transfiguration of Jesus is an episode in the New Testament narrative in which Jesus is transfigured (or metamorphosed) and becomes radiant…In Christian teachings, the Transfiguration is a pivotal moment…the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal…the bridge between heaven and earth.”

―Wikipedia

What Christians fail to realize (through no fault of their own) is that the transfiguration is, in esoteric Christianity, the act of Jesus’ awakening his Third Eye. And it teaches that we must follow Jesus and do what he did! This ancient church painting is thus telling us: “Follow Jesus. Awaken your Third Eye. Find your “inner Christ,” your “inner soul,” your “inner god”―just like Jesus did.”

“Jesus Christ knew he was God. So [you too should] wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house, which is pretty much the same thing. However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.”

―Alan Watts

A few years ago, the Renaissance masterpiece painting titled The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child (shown below) by 15th century Italian master Sandro Botticelli was the subject of a colossal Third Eye discovery. After being photographed with infra-red cameras, the painting was reportedly found to have a very interesting original Third Eye design:

“…[it] show[s] a rather spooky “floating” third eye in the centre of the Christ child’s forehead, the remnants of Botticelli’s original design.”

―The Herald Scotland, May 26, 2005

The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, by Sandro Botticelli (1490).

Who covered-up the Third Eye in Botticelli’s painting? Are all these Third Eye images pointing to an Inner Tradition in Christianity?—a tradition that reveals that Jesus’ message was really originally all about awakening our “Third Eye” to find our “soul within” or “god within” or “Christ within”?

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”

―Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:22

If so, then these ideas are far different than the mainstream Christianity we’ve been taught. The Christianity we’re taught, brought to us by the tyrannical Catholic Church, has historically allowed only two viewpoints when it comes to the soul:

Creationism: The Hebrew/Biblical God “Yahweh” creates each individual soul either “at conception” (for some) or “at birth” (for others).

Traducianism: The parents in begetting the child beget the soul too.

Nineteenth century English scholar and Egyptologist Gerald Massey (1829-1907) affirmed that this Christian denial of the eternal divine soul was the result of the Church purposely distorting the ancient Mysteries, with the Mysteries being the worldwide Universal Religion upon which Christian theology is secretly based.

“…it may be remarked that the war of the Papacy against Masonry is because it is a survival of the pre-Christian Mysteries, and a living, however imperfect, witness against Historic Christianity!”

―Gerald Massey

“Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries”

—Albert Pike

“Freemasonry is the survivor of the ancient mysteries—nay, we may go further and call it the guardian of the Mysteries.”

— J.S.M. Ward (Freemason and noted Masonic author) Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods

“The Masonic Movement…is the home of the Mysteries and the seat of initiation.”

—Alice Bailey, Director of the House of Theosophy

In books and lectures Massey insisted that in the Mysteries the concept of “Christ” did not, in fact, refer to one particular man. Instead, it referred to the centered, eternal “soul within” or “god within” or “Christ within” each of us, waiting to be found.

“…Christ was the Immortal Spirit in man… It did not and could not depend on any single manifestation in one historic personality.”

Historic Christianity originated with turning the…teachings inside out and externalizing the mythical allegory in a personal human history.…a huge and hideous mistake…”

―Gerald Massey, Gerald Massey’s Lectures

According to Massey, Christianity had subverted this “Christ within” concept; while the Mystery traditions link it to an inner reality common to all of humanity, Christianity instead bound it to one historical personage, moving the path to enlightenment and ascension from an inward, internal path to one externalized to a Messianic figure. This gave rise to the two thousand years of the Church’s domination, the empire we know today as Christendom.

Massey gained acceptance among early 20th Century scholars, and many took up his investigation. One such professor was Alvin Boyd Kuhn. Professor Kuhn’s The Lost Light (1940) asserted that by denying the soul’s divinity and pre-existence, Christianity wiped away a valuable fragment—indeed the key principle—of the Mystery religion. As a result, the true power of the “soul within” or “Christ within” teaching has become lost:

“Christianity took the type figure of the divine in man for the Divine Man. It exalted the alleged Divine Man…but left the divine in man to grovel in the dust… …it shifted the center of gravity, so to say, from the cult of the Christ within to that of the Christ without, or from the Christ as principle to Christ as a man.”

―Alvin Boyd Kuhn, The Lost Light

Kuhn’s work showed how basic Christian tenets were perversions of age old spiritual Mysteries. In his 2005 book, The Pagan Christ, author and Rhodes scholar Tom Harpur bravely resurrected Kuhn’s research:

“…the Christ principle is potentially in every one of us.”

“Christ of the myth became a flesh and blood person identified with Jesus.”

―Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ

Kuhn insisted that the early Church purposely hid the “god within” or “Christ within” wisdom in order to consolidate their hold on power over the masses. The Church instead promoted the idea of the coming of a future Savior destined to save all mankind, provided mankind followed the dictates of the Church. This led to a rapid consolidation of the Church’s power which is still visibly today.

Countless ancient Pagan sects tried to stop the Church, according to Massey, Kuhn and many like-minded scholars of their day. But upon facing merciless persecution, they realized their cause was fruitless. So these Pagan sects switched their objective to keeping the torch of the old Mystery religion alive through secret initiations into their gnosis or “knowledge.” This was the beginnings of Secret Societies.

This eventually led to the birth of Freemasonry as the main storehouse of the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy. Thus, Christianity is merely a corrupted line of the age-old Mystery School teachings, of which Masonry became the modern vehicle. In the days of the Inquisition, this concept that we are each an eternal divine “soul”―which the Freemasons championed―was a “secret” and indeed this secret was punishable by death. Hence the need for Masonic “secrecy” and “Secret Societies” in general, all of which to some degree preserve the ancient wisdom.

As evidence of this is the fact that Secret Societies like Freemasonry began to “surface” in the early 1700s when the Church began to lose its power! Think about it. By the early 1700s the Church was less powerful than it had been in centuries prior. So there was no longer a need for secrecy, you see. The Age of Reason and the Era of Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries)―which occurred thanks to the European Renaissance or “rebirth” of the ancient Perennial Philosophy, after many centuries of the so-called Dark Ages―had stripped away some of the powers of the Church, to the extent that a majority of the Western world felt more free to speak their minds, as it was now safe to do so.

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Conclusion

The ancient Pagan cultures, their powerful Mysteries, and the keepers and preservers of these Mysteries, the Freemasons, were all good. The more ancient you look into human history the higher, more sophisticated, more spiritual and more intuitive men and women once were. You can see this in all ancient monuments around the world. Visit them. Feel their spiritual power. Many people today are reawakening to the power these monuments emit, not because they were taught to do so in school, but because the monuments naturally resonate with something deep inside of them. I am one of those people.

Almost two hundred years ago, the then fledgling globalist Elite (the wealthy families who now own the giant multinational corporations and the banks) hijacked the Secret Societies, messed around with the wires, and, in doing so they diluted the power of these organizations. In some cases they infiltrated them entirely, changing their course and turning them into organizations that are now far different than what these Secret Societies were founded for.

The result? Modern initiates seeking true spiritual light are now left in the dark. By perverting the Secret Societies the Elite have lessened the chances of anyone seeing what they are rally up to, which, in part is that they are using the ancient symbols and wisdom for their own greedy and sinister ends!

The Elite are not spiritual people. Many are sociopaths and psychopaths who crave money, power, and control.  And that’s exactly why they are in power right now, not only in America but across the world.

Thus, to answer the question: Are Secret Societies Good or Evil? The answer, today, is both. They were founded for good reasons, namely to preserve the ancient Universal Religion (a.k.a. the Mysteries, which later became called the Secret Doctrine / Perennial Philosophy) but they have been hijacked and are no longer the pure pristine Orders they once were―kind of like America (and many other countries under the Elite’s control).

The “Triptych” facade (three doors) is the common denominator not only
of all the ancient pyramid cultures but of all the modern Secret Societies.
In Written In Stone, this discovery is set forth for the first time in literature.
It shows how the Triptych Temple (three doors) is the ancient architectonic
symbol of the Perennial Philosophy. It is this Perennial Philosophy that has
been perpetuated in all the (once great) Secret Societies. And it is this Perennial
Philosophy that has been stolen from them, with only its symbols remaining
―a sad empty shell.

To learn more about Freemasonry, esoteric wisdom, the Cathedral Code, the Perennial Philosophy and the Triptych three-door-design, read my new book Written In Stone:

A hidden body of ancient spiritual wisdom lies encoded in the architecture of the Bronx Zoo in New York City. It was put there by the architects and stonemasons who designed and built the zoo’s central structures at the turn of the last century. This wisdom is akin to the “lost” doctrine of the Freemasons and bears every evidence of having been designed and built by (true operative) Masons. Visible in the shape, blueprint, layout and iconography of the zoo’s key buildings and landmarks, the message conveyed is one of spiritual illumination, aimed at leading a seeker toward expanded consciousness, nirvana, and ultimately the higher Self.

A caduceus symbol, inscribed on a building at the Bronx Zoo,
flanked by a lion on the right and lioness on the left.

The Bronx Zoo is located in the Bronx borough of New York City. It is one of the world’s largest metropolitan zoos, with some 4,000 animals representing about 650 species from around the globe.  Yet few if any of the Bronx Zoo’s annual visitors realize that hidden within the zoo’s unique architecture is an immensely profound secret doctrine of spiritual illumination; a doctrine encoded in stone by “operative” Freemasons who designed and built the zoo’s central structures.

The Torch of Illumination, a symbol of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment.

This doctrine is visible when walking along “Astor Court,” an approximately 10-acre-large promenade of esoterically-designed buildings, balustrades, grottoes, fountains, gardens and pathways. Situated on a low natural hill at the heart of the zoo’s 265 acres, Astor Court is the zoo’s most mysterious and provocative feature. Here’s an aerial view of the Astor Court promenade with photos:

Aerial view of Astor Court with photos, Bronx Zoo, New York City.
By 1909 annual attendance had reached four million visitors.

The buildings on Astor Court―the Monkey House, Lion House, Bird House, Elephant House, & Administration Building―were constructed between 1899 and 1910 to designs by the architectural firm Heins & La Farge. Four of them are richly embellished with large, realistically modeled, stone and terra-cotta sculptures of animals by Eli Harvey, Charles R. Knight and Alexander Phimster Proctor. These works of art were commissioned to illustrate the animals housed in each building.

At first glance these designs seem innocent enough; but look more closely and you’ll notice the consistent recurrence of a “three” or “three-in-one” trinity pattern etched in stone and art. This trinity pattern cries out for further examination. We see the pattern clearly on one Astor Court building called the Lion House. Its facade looks like the ruin of a marvelous ancient temple built by some genius long-lost civilization.

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The Lion House ― The Front Entrance

Note the two lions facing each other above the main doorway.

Two columns or pillars flank the main entrance, called “Jachin” and “Boaz” in modern Freemasonry. They support a giant Tri-angle (Tri = Three) or “pediment”―our first glimpse at the recurring “three” or “three-in-one” trinity pattern. Inside the Triangle a male lion sits on the right side and a female lioness sits facing him on the left side. Both flank a large Caduceus, which points upward at the Triangle’s apex.

Interestingly, the Caduceus is not made with a “rod” (in the middle) but a single “column” or “pillar.” Why?

The Caduceus shows a “pillar” instead of a “rod” (see inset).

This pillar has a very special meaning in the occult. It is the “Middle Pillar” of the so-called “Three Pillars of Wisdom,” illustrated in various Secret Society documents, and visible on church and cathedral stained glass. These Three Pillars enshrine powerful information on the human condition―authentic truths revealing our spiritual and physical makeup.

The “Three Pillars of Wisdom” from various Secret Society documents
including the Oddfellows, Freemasons, and Knights of Pythias.

What exactly do they teach?

We’re told that together the Three Pillars of Wisdom are called “Wisdom, Strength & Beauty.” But this is just a smokescreen―similar to how Freemasonry has been “dumbed” all the way “down” to the three-pronged slogan of “Faith, Hope & Charity.”

All Three Pillars look the same, but there’s a crucial difference: Special attention surrounds the middle pillar. It even has a name―the “Middle Pillar.” In the Masonic certificate below the Middle Pillar is partially obscured:

Masonic Testimony of Initiation. Note the Three Pillars. The Middle Pillar,
partially obscured, is aligned along the same vertical axis as the Masonic Eye.

The Middle Pillar is special because it is spiritual, while the “Twin Pillars” flanking it are physical, as we’ll see in a moment. Thus, the Middle Pillar is deeper, more profound, and more mystical and magical than the outer Twin Pillars. This importance is clearly expressed in Masonic drawings. Note the emphasis on the Middle Pillar here:

The 19th Century “Master’s Carpet,” a basic emblematic chart for the
instruction of Freemasonry. Note the emphasis given the Middle Pillar.

Sometimes the Middle Pillar is excluded from view. When shown this way―as depicted on the Masonic Tracing Board below―the outer Twin Pillars are called “Jachin” and “Boaz” and are usually capped by the Sun & Moon, respectively.

Masonic Tracing Board featuring the Twin Pillars, called Jachin & Boaz, capped by the
Sun & Moon. Note how the Middle Pillar appears “missing”―a pedestal without a pillar.

Why the Sun & Moon?

The Tai-Chi or Yin-Yang symbolizes pairs of opposites inside the universe.

Like the ancient Chinese “yin/yang” symbol, the Twin Pillars denote the “pairs of opposites” in our world via the following “sun/moon” formula:

·    The SUN rules the Day (Yang)―but the MOON rules the Night (Yin)
·    The DAY brings Light (Yang)―but the NIGHT brings Dark (Yin)
·    The LIGHT brings Hot (Yang)―but the DARK brings Cold (Yin)
·    The HOT brings Dry (Yang)―but the COLD brings Moist (Yin)
·    The DAY symbolizes Life (Yang)―but the NIGHT symbolizes Death (Yin)
·    The LIFE is considered Good (Yang)―but DEATH is considered Evil (Yin)

In other words, everything inside Creation...inside the physical world of change…has a “sun” side (yang) and a “moon” side (yin)―including man. Everything in the cosmos, including man, is made of twin complementary opposites.

We see this in the Kabbalistic “Tree of Life” design in the image below. The human body’s twin symmetrical halves are depicted by the Twin Pillars of “Mercy” and “Severity.” Of course, these Twin Kabbalistic Pillars parallel Freemasonry’s Jachin & Boaz pillars. Between the Twin Pillars of Mercy and Severity there’s a Middle Pillar―the Middle Pillar of the soul. It’s nicknamed the “Pillar of Consciousness” because the eternal soul is consciousness―it makes us who we are:

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life reveals how man is formed by
“Three Pillars of Wisdom”―a Middle Pillar flanked by Twin Pillars.

Visualize yourself stepping into and becoming the Tree of Life. Put the Pillar of Mercy on your right, and the Pillar of Severity on your left. These two pillars are symmetrical opposites, like the left and right sides of your symmetrical body. The real you, however, is not the body. The real you is not composed of opposites. The real you is the spiritual center, between the opposites.

This is the secret of the Three Pillars of Wisdom! We are the divine and eternal Middle Pillar, separate from the outer Twin Pillars of the physical human body. Yet, while we are man, we are all three of these in one―a “three-in-one” or “trinity” being (discussed earlier).

Standing in the center, and balancing the outer Twin pillars, we consciously remember again the Middle Pillar, which is who we are. The Middle Pillar is our connection to heaven or, better, our connection to our heavenly Self. This is exactly what the designers of the “Middle Pillar” on the Bronx Zoo’s Lion House are telling us! Center yourself between the opposites of male/lion and female/lioness and remember who you are!

“Know Thyself” ― Delphic Maxim

“This above all: To thine own self be true.” ― Shakespeare

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” ― Lao Tzu

“Know then thyself…The proper study of mankind is Man.” ― Alexander Pope

When one attains the “Middle Pillar” the resulting apotheosis was anciently personified as a “Caryatid” pillar. This is an architectural device once used to symbolize a perfected human being―like a Christ or a Buddha or an Athena or a bodhisattva; one who has found or attained the eternal divinity within. A Caryatid is a human being so perfect that their (now superhuman) body itself actually forms the Middle Pillar, as if the twain were one!

Left: The Middle Pillar on the Lion’s House.
Right: A Caryatid or perfect human is “one” with the Middle Pillar.

Left: The Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens.

For the ancients, finding the Middle Pillar meant reuniting with our axis mundi. The axis mundi (or “world axis”) is analogous to the rotational axis of the earth which is an idealized line running through the middle of the globe to the Pole Star. It has been symbolized as a column or pillar, as a tree, a ladder, and a mound, mountain or pyramid, all of which are seen as forming a connection between the earth and the heavens.

Associated with the spinal column, the axis mundi can be thought of as your “eternal soul” within, your (umbilical-like) link to heaven, or, rather, a link to the heavenly and immortal aspect of your being. Your axis mundi stretches all the way to heaven. Otherwise said, you—the eternal spiritual part of you―stretch all the way to heaven.

The Road To Heaven. At the end of this road is…you. Long exposure
film of stars circling the North Celestial Pole. The daily rotation of
Earth creates the appearance of rings around the pole.

While alive on earth, we (atman) are always attached to heaven (brahman) via this axis mundi, like a fetus attached to its mother via the umbilical cord―so the ancients believed. The axis mundi is not a part of you, it is you; your body is a part of your eternal axis mundi, but only temporarily i.e., until the body’s death. The problem is that when we are man we have amnesia of this truth.

“The axis mundi (also…world pillar…) in religion or mythology, is the world center or the connection between Heaven and Earth…At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones…”

— Wikipedia

This implies that the divine realm and human realm are not separate; that matter is not evil, as the theistic religions teach, but is instead the manifestation in the imperfect material realm of a perfect spiritual substance, like a flower arising out of the ground. In other words, the natural world, and the substance of our lives, is fashioned from the stuff of the spiritual realm.

This same idea persists in Hinduism’s Kundalini Yoga, where we again find the “Middle Pillar” concept.

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Kundalini Yoga

Kundalini Yoga teaches that we each have male (pingala) and female (ida) energies that define our bodily right and left sides. When balanced, our Middle Pillar, called “Sushumna,” is activated, and a hidden Third Eye opens in our forehead. The Third Eye peers inward at our spiritual soul, showing us our true hidden eternal nature!

Left: Caduceus on the Lion House, Bronx Zoo, with twin serpents
rising. Right: Kundalini Yoga depicting the awakening of the Third Eye
by balancing these opposing twin energies (called Ida and Pingala).

·    The Middle Pillar (at left) matches our spinal cord (at right).
·    The twin serpents going up the Caduceus (at left) match the twin ida and pingala spirals ascending upward (at right).
·    The pine cone or pineal gland sitting atop the pillar (at left) matches the awakened Third Eye on the forehead (at right).
·    The male and female lions (at left) corresponds to the sun and moon (at right).

Thus, the Caduceus symbol in general―the Caduceus on the Lion House is one example―is an arcane allusion to Kundalini Yoga, the art of balancing our male/female energies in an effort to activate the hidden Third Eye in our foreheads:

“Caduceus” by Alex Grey. A symbol of awakening our Third Eye.
During the dark days of the Christian Inquisition, all non-Christian
spiritual teachings had to be hidden and concealed.

Essentially, Hinduism’s “awakening-our-Third-Eye-to-find-the-inner-Self” method is the perfect equivalent to the Kabbalistic “form-the-Middle-Pillar-to-return-to-source” teaching conveyed in the Tree of Life; both practices involve usage of a “trinity” or “three-in-one” method of balancing opposites to achieve the inner soul.

Knowing this information, we can make sense of the Masonic Tracing Board below. As discussed, man is symbolized by Three columns or pillars; a centered Middle Pillar and twin “opposing” pillars flanking it:

The Three Pillars of Wisdom. We are Three Pillars when we are
man (i.e., when our soul incarnates as man). This is depicted
on the First Degree Masonic Tracing Board above.

The Middle Pillar is topped by a single luminous Eye―the Third Eye. The right-side pillar is topped by the sun, the left-side pillar is topped by the moon.

Note how the Middle Pillar is perfectly centered, and how the Third Eye above the Middle Pillar is emitting light―more light than the sun and moon. Why? Because when our sun and moon halves are balanced, our Middle Pillar is erected and Third Eye opens, giving us more “light” or illumination than ordinary duality.

Here is another example of the Three Pillars showing the Middle Pillar capped by the Third Eye:

The Three Pillars of Wisdom from an Oddfellows certificate.

The Middle Pillar, in the image above, aligns perfectly with the Eye symbol above it. Note how the Middle Pillar is “vertical.” This is important. There’s a definite resemblance among all the “vertical” objects presented in this article. Recall the Caduceus and Torch of illumination, shown earlier (and shown again below). Both are vertical symbols:

Left: Caduceus on the Lion House. Right: Torch of illumination. Both are
strikingly similar. As we’ll see, occult symbols are sometimes interchangeable.

All three symbols emphasize the vertical principle, which is the spiritual principle; the horizontal, on the other hand, is the material principle. The vertical axis in general is important in the occult. It signifies not only the spiritual, as opposed to physical, but also the “now” moment, as opposed to past/future, left/right, etc. The “now” moment is the only thing that’s real, because it is spiritual. The past/future, left/right, etc. is not real, because it is physical and part of the “maya” or illusory physical realm:

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.”

―Alan Watts

Paying tribute to this vertical/spiritual principle, a series of Caduceus gateposts surround the tomb of the Yale University fraternal society “Book & Snake,” a truly spectacular display. These posts are unique because they combine, among other things, the “vertical” aspect of the two images in the photo above, namely, the Caduceus and the Torch of illumination (see below left):

Left: A Caduceus with torch outside Yale’s “Book & Snake” headquarters.
Right: A caduceus capped with a pine cone on the Whitehall Building in New York City.

A similar combining of symbols can be seen in the Caduceus symbol in the image above (right), etched in stone on the Whitehall Building in New York City. There are three torch-like symbols, one big one in the middle and two smaller ones flanking it. At the top of the torch in the middle there is a pine cone in place of the flame, signifying our pineal gland (pine = pineal) or Third Eye.

A similar symbol decorates the stone pediment of this turn of the century midtown Manhattan building:

Twin serpents flank a Middle Pillar on a midtown Manhattan
building pediment. The “Triangle” symbol conveys
“balanced opposites” as does the image inside it.

These images underscore the interchangeable nature of occult symbols and symbolism, as well as their common “trinity” or “three-in-one” denominator―conveying the “balanced-duality-will-lead-to-your-center” idea.

The problem is day-to-day we don’t live from our center; we don’t know who we are inside. We have amnesia of the soul, we don’t re-member the Middle Pillar. In a sense, the Middle Pillar is broken. Hence the long-ago establishment of Orders and spiritual systems aimed at helping seekers reconnect.

This idea, that we have lost a direct connection to our soul, is related in Freemasonry’s “Broken Column,” first illustrated by Amos Doolittle in the “true Masonic Chart” by Jeremy Cross, published in 1819.

The “Broken Column” in 1819.

Our connection to our Third Eye is non-functional because our “Middle Pillar” is broken―i.e., the broken column shown here. We’ve been swept away by the opposites. We’ve lost the gnosis or “knowledge” of our “soul within,” exchanging it for a cheap “hope” or “faith” in a Santa Claus like father-figure in heaven taught to us by the Holy Bible.

The Middle Pillar is broken in most of us. We don’t know who we are.

As a result, we have amnesia of who we really are inside, of our eternal godhood, and of all our inherent and inborn powers that come with it. We’ve identified with the Creation, and ceased to realize that we are in fact the Creator.

In this sense, all is lost.

That’s why long ago, as growing Christianity violently stamped out more and more of this ancient wisdom―plunging Europe into the Dark Ages―underground Secret Societies were established, like the Freemasons.  Their purpose and aim―today mostly forgotten―was to safeguard this wisdom of introspection and spiritual illumination, and initiate new generations into it.

Not all initiates have been men. In her famous portrait, The Broken Column (1944), the spiritually-awakened artist Frida Khalo (1907 – 1954) depicted herself as having “pieced together” the broken column, which she correctly associates with her spinal cord:

The Broken Column (1944) by the spiritually awakened artist Frida Khalo.

Khalo’s magnificent artwork features numerous Third Eye images, which she correctly associates with her forehead as well as the foreheads of others, indicating her deep understanding of the Secret Doctrine of the Freemasons.

“Diego and I” by Frida Khalo (1949).

Khalo’s artwork shows she also understood the importance of artistic “symmetry,” which she no doubt learned by studying ancient world art. Antiquity’s most sacred art (Egyptians, Etruscans, Aryans, Shang, Olmec, etc.). is symmetrical; it expresses duality, as well as the directions of “left” and “right,” thus creating a definable “center” between them and transforming the artwork into a coded message that urges the viewer toward spiritual illumination:

The Two Fridas by Frida Khalo (1939).

Note the similarity between the symmetry above and the following Egyptian artistic symmetry:

Top Photo: Third Eye religion of ancient Egypt. Bottom Photo: Third Eye religion of ancient India.

This ancient Egyptian stone carving is a three-in-one design, with a left side, right side, and middle axis. Both left and right sides―or “halves” you might say―are mirror images of the other. Running up the middle is the axis mundi or Middle Pillar. See it?

At the top of the Middle Pillar, the circular Aten symbolizes the Third Eye; it’s the Egyptian version of Hinduism’s bindi “dot” still worn on the Hindu forehead today. Note how two eyes flank the Aten (circled in red)―same with the bindi dot in India.

Countless Egyptian images show the Aten as Egypt’s version of Hinduism’s bindi Third Eye dot.

Directly beneath the dot, in the Egyptian relief, is the legendary Djed column of the god Osiris, which is his backbone or spinal column. This is a very ancient version of the Middle Pillar and a forerunner of the Caduceus.

Recall how in the Kabbalah and Hinduism, opposites must be balanced for the Middle Pillar to be established / Third Eye awakened. In Egypt, this is symbolized by the Djed topped with the Aten. These symbols have a complementary meaning, conveying the act of raising spiritual energy up the spinal column to establish the Middle Pillar and revivify or, better, “resurrect” the “god within.”

Rosalie David, Professor and Keeper of Egyptology at the Manchester Museum, describes this “resurrection” associated with the Djed Column―said to be that of Osiris―in her book The Ancient Egyptians: Beliefs and Practices:

“The scenes on the walls in this area depict the rites which culminated in the raising of the djed-pillar, which probably symbolized the climax of the festival, when the god was believed to return to life.”

The origin and meaning of this symbol remains obscure but the djed pillar came to represent strength and permanence to the Egyptians and to be an essential symbol of the god’s resurrection.”

— Rosalie David, The Ancient Egyptians: Beliefs and Practices:

The Egyptians knew something about the Djed column that modern Egyptologists don’t realize; namely, that the god here is not some “guy” named Osiris. Rather, “Osiris” is a symbol of our higher eternal Self. The “Osiris within” us is our “god within” or “Christ within” or “Buddha within” or “soul within”―doesn’t matter what you call it.

The act of “bringing the god back to life” or “resurrecting” the god—as described by Rosalie David—simply meant establishing the Middle Pillar and remembering who we are (i.e., an eternal soul or god). The Egyptians knew the formula for “bringing the god” back to life: balance. This concept of “balance” expresses the true meaning of the Djed, and is even depicted in symbols of it.

See below. The Djed looks like a giant anthropomorphic spinal column; it is vertical, and single, and thus a a perfect “Middle Pillar” symbol. Both arms appear symmetrical, holding twin “opposites”—shepherd’s staff (guidance/Mercy) in one hand and flail (punishment/Severity) in the other hand—in perfect balance:

One of the world’s most ancient designs of a Middle Pillar symbol.

The Djed’s “Mercy” and “Severity” opposites parallel the Mercy and Severity pillars on the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life―evidence that what the Egyptians called the “Djed Pillar” the later Kabbalists called the “Middle Pillar”!

In Egypt, the Aten was often drawn with twin serpents issuing from it, and it is this symbol that later evolved into the Caduceus―the same Caduceus that found its way onto the Bronx Zoo’s Lion House!

The Caduceus symbol evolved from the Egyptian aten during an era when the
Church and Inquisition were focused on stamping out all ancient wisdom.

Thus, the twin serpents running up the Middle Pillar design on the facade of the Lion’s House parallel the Ida and Pingala channels that run up the Sushumna in Hinduism’s Third Eye Yoga. The Third Eye existed in Egypt, similar to the bindi dot in India. Later it became stylized into the Aten with serpents and wings. Still later, as Christianity’s Inquisition stamped out Paganism, the Aten needed to be camouflaged and disguised, hence the birth of the Caduceus. To this day, few people realize the Caduceus symbolizes the ancient Pagan art of awakening of our Third Eye to see the soul within.

Interestingly, the Lion House has a “rear entrance” and its design is almost identical to the design on the building’s facade.

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The Lion House ― The Rear Entrance

The Lion House is rectangular with two openings, like a tunnel. Having identical entrances plays well into the themes of “duality and “balance.” As we can see in the image below, the similarities the twin facades share include:

·    Massive Stone Pediment (Triangle)
·    Male/Female Lions (In Same Position As Entrance)
·    Single Pillar or Middle Pillar (Between The Lions)

The difference is that here there is neither a Caduceus, nor twin serpents ascending it. There is simply a single pillar between the male / female lions:

The “rear entrance” to the Lion House is almost perfectly identical to its facade.

Knowing all we’ve discussed regarding the symbolism of the front entrance of the Lion’s House, can you read the message here, written in stone?

We have:

·    Massive Triangle
·    Twin Male / Female Lions Inside The Triangle
·    Twin Male / Female Lions Facing Center, Away From Twin Lower “Points” Of The Triangle
·    Middle Pillar In The Center
·    Lions Face Middle Pillar
·    Middle Pillar is Aligned With The Apex of the Triangle
·    Lions Face Apex Of Triangle

The message is pretty clear―it’s the same message on the front of the building. Obviously this design was very important to the builders. But what’s not immediately apparent to anyone who visits the Bronx Zoo (or to anyone reading this article) is that this design is a memorial, if not a generalized replica, of a very famous ancient gateway that once lay at a cultural center of the ancient world.

It has long been called the “Lion’s Gate” by archaeologists:

The Lions Gate of Mycenae formed the entrance to the city,
erected in the 13th Century B.C. Note the Middle Pillar between
the lions―similar to the design inside the pediment of the Lion House.

The Lions Gate is a massive and imposing construction, standing 10 feet wide by 10 feet high at the threshold. It narrows as it rises, forming what is clearly a Triangular shape, measuring 9 feet below the lintel. All of the features present above the main doorway of Lion House at the Bronx Zoo are also present here.

Note the massive pillar between the lions, a clear symbol of the Middle Pillar:

“A number of archaeologists suggested that the pillar was a sacred object and a symbol of power for the Mycenaeans…”

―Wikipedia

On the rear entrance to the Lion House, the female lioness has her paw on top of the male lion’s paw; the reverse is true on the main entrance of the building―again, opposites.

Another things that is different is that on this side a pair of twin lions flank the main doorway:

Lion’s House exit facade is similar to entrance.

The lion at right (as you walk out of the building) has right paw facing forward, and the lion on the left has left paw facing forward:

The lion on the right’s “right” paw faces forward. The lion on
the left’s “left” paw faces forward. To have a “center” one needs
opposites, like right/left. These lions are serving to “align” the building.

The lions are centering the main doorway by nature of the fact that they are “paired opposites”; having their paws aligned right/left further does the trick. At once, the building is transformed into a sacred structure, a temple of the highest degree of initiation.

Interestingly, twin lions flanking a temple entrance is an ancient practice found worldwide. Called “foo dogs” by Westerners, twin lions often flank the main entrance to temples throughout the East, like those in Beijing, China. The following exquisite pair of Chinese bronze foo dogs are cast after those guarding the gates of Yangxin Hall in the Forbidden City:

Chinese foo dogs. The “male” is on the “right” (facing us) and “female” on the “left.”

As tradition dictates, the male lion stands with his right paw atop the globe or pearl of wisdom and the female stands with her left paw resting on a lion cub.

“The lions are always presented in pairs, a manifestation of yin and yang, the female representing yin and the male yang. The male lion has one paw…on an embroidered ball…which is sometimes carved with a geometric pattern known in the West as the “Flower of life.” The female is essentially identical, but has a cub under the other paw to the male, representing the cycle of life. Symbolically, the female fu lion protects those dwelling inside, while the male guards the structure. Sometimes the female has her mouth closed, and the male open. This symbolizes the enunciation of the sacred word “om”. However, Japanese adaptions state that the male is inhaling, representing life, while the female exhales, representing death. Other styles have both lions with a single large pearl in each of their partially opened mouths. The pearl is carved so that it can roll about in the lion’s mouth but sized just large enough so that it can never be removed.”

―Wikipedia

The “foo dogs” represent this pairs of opposites teaching, and the twin lions in front of Masonic architecture signify this teaching as well.

Top Row: Twin Lions guard the front entrance of the New York Public Library,
which has a three-door trinity facade (like the Bronx Zoo’s Education Building).

It is interesting to note that in various Western depictions the twin lions are shown as “alert” and “sleepy”—evidence that they esoterically denote the “pairs of opposites” teaching, just as in China. Famous examples of this can be seen at the Chatsworth House in England and on the tomb of Pope Clement III in the Vatican, as well as on the Bournemouth War Memorial, built in 1921, located in Bournemouth, England:

Bournemouth War Memorial, Bournemouth, England.
The lion on the left is the “sleepy” lion and the lion on the
right is the “alert” lion; a perfect example of how these twin
animals signify the “pairs of opposites,” just as China’s foo dogs.

This evidence shows that the twin lions are not merely decorative; they are in fact a reinforcement of the pairs of opposites imagery ensconced in Masonic architecture. This information was well known to the architects who designed the Bronx Zoo.

The master plan and most of the buildings that makeup Astor Court were designed by New York-based architectural firm Heins & La Farge. The species portrayed on the court’s facades―including reptiles, monkeys, pachyderms and big cats―once lived in cages along the court, and millions of visitors annually strolled the balustraded paths.

The court originally was a place where the privileged―socialites, politicians and other celebrities―liked to be seen on balmy afternoons. The New York Times would cover their visits and report on the arrivals, births, escapes, surgeries and deaths of popular animals.

Did the elite understand the wisdom encoded in Astor Court’s architecture?

Probably a few did; those who were tuned into the esoteric, for example (and there were many more tuned in than today). They must have noticed the same patterns explained here. They must have seen that throughout Astor Court reverberates a strange and very particular “Three” pattern or “Three-in-One” pattern or “Trinity” pattern.

We’ve seen it in the Lion’s House, where a giant Tri-angular pediment (Tri = Three) is decorated with “balance of opposites” art in the form of male/female lions flanking a Caduceus.

With this in mind, there’s a second animal building at Astor Court, the facade of which is decorated by a massive Tri-angular pediment (Tri = Three) directly over the entranceway. As with the Lion House, this building too has been esoterically encoded with deep Trinity symbolism. It’s called the Monkey House.

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The Monkey House

The Monkey House.

As with the Lion House, the Monkey House looks like an ancient temple. The massive Triangle pediment here, like the Triangle pediment on the Lion’s House, signifies “Three,” “Three-in-One,” “Trinity,” all of which point to the “balance of opposites” philosophy.

This is important. The Triangle’s shape is known in the occult to symbolize “balance of opposites.” A Triangle is two lower points reconciled by a higher third point centered between them:

A Triangle is formed by two parallel points united by a third higher
point centered between them. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel used the terms “thesis” and “antithesis” united by
their “synthesis” or “balance” point to explain this.

The Triangle thus denotes more than just balancing life’s dualities; it stands for the awakened Mind’s Eye that occurs when life’s dualities are balanced. For centuries, Western mystics symbolized this additional concept by the enigmatic drawing of not just a Triangle, but an Eye inside the Triangle. The Founding Fathers sketched this precise design on The Great Seal of the United States.

Incredibly, the three central monkeys sculpted inside the pediment are expressing these same ideas:

Closeup of the trinity of monkeys―a powerful male in the center
flanked by a “pair of opposites” (male & female) on either side.

Depicted with long hair―giving them an almost human quality―three wise monkeys are sculpted inside the pediment; their appearance is like those three mystical monkeys from ancient Japan, and this is perhaps no accident. The monkey in the middle faces forward, embodying the same vertical/spiritual “now” principle as the Caduceus on the Lion’s House. His head and body are perfectly aligned with the apex of the Triangle directly above him, as with the Caduceus on the Lion’s House. He’s living in the “now” moment, you might say, a center sitting between opposites.

What opposites?

Twin monkeys, a male monkey at his right (note the man-like beard) and a female monkey at his left (note the female-like long hair). The male monkey at his right faces out toward the right. The female monkey at his left faces outward toward the left.

Thus, not only is this a “trinity” of monkeys, but the “opposites” of left/right and male/female are expressed! The monkey in the middle―aligned with the apex of the triangle and sitting in the center between opposites―looks straight ahead, not at the opposites of past/future, male/female, left/right, and so on.

These are nothing short of spiritual and metaphysical instructions that we all must follow in life!

We must be the monkey in the middle! We must align ourselves with the apex of the Triangle. We must center ourselves to find our real Self between our false opposites self (the solar “right” and lunar “left” halves of our body) remembering that the Tri-angle shape (Tri = Three) where the three monkeys sit relates this “reconciliation of opposites” exactly!

We must live life not just with our two eyes open, but with all three eyes open―hence the “three eyes open” image depicted on the “three-in-one” doorway of the Education Building, located directly in front of the Monkey House.

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Education Building

A three-in-one doorway depicting three eyes wide open―a single Eye above each doorway.

Note the three Eye symbols, a single eye above each doorway. Also note the “three-in-one” and the concept of “three eyes” and “three-eyes-in-one.” The message seems to be a declaration: “keep your three eyes open” or “live life with three eyes open”―our two normal eyes plus our single centered “Third Eye” of spiritual insight. Why else depict three eyes like this?

When looking at the Education Building face-on, an eagle statue appears aligned with the center door. This alignment hints at the spiritual nature of the building, and relates information that our deepest spiritual essence is at our center, our deepest core:

“Eagle. A symbol of…the spiritual principle in general.”

― Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols

Three doors forming the entrance is symbolic enough of the Masonic “three” and “three-in-one,” while the three Eye symbols above the doors further fleshes out the secret doctrine.

Here is a brief video of the building:

Below are similar examples of three-in-one “trinity” entrances from Washington D.C., all federal architecture. Considering the importance of number “three” in Freemasonry (a builders Craft), and seeing how America’s Founding Fathers were Freemasons, the link between these federal “three-in-one” symbols and Freemasonry seems clear:

“Three” and “Three-In-One” Trinity symbols form the facades of
these important Washington D.C. buildings. This is not a random
pattern, nor is it related to the Christian Trinity.

It should come as no surprise that similar three-in-one facades grace the entrances to Secret Society headquarters like the Freemasons, Knights of Pythias, and Oddfellows:

Similar three-door facades decorated with Eye symbols can be found all over Europe and the Americas. Here’s another example from New York City, not too far from the Bronx Zoo:

Three Eye symbols forming a three-in-one pattern. Bronx, New York City. This building is Masonic.

Some may argue that this is not an Eye. But there is persuasive evidence that this symbol is indeed the stylized architectural expression of an Eye, and the Third Eye at that. Here’s an example from Manhattan, N.Y.C.  of a similarly-stylized single Eye symbol―the Third Eye―sitting above the middle door of a tripartite main entrance:

The Museum of Television & Radio. A giant single Eye symbol can be seen above a
three-in-one entrance. Note the beams of light coming from the Eye.

Twin pillars flank the entrance, the Masonic Jachin & Boaz. Their presence creates a three-in-one entrance (“Triptych”) as we’ll look at in a moment. Here, instead of three Eye symbols there’s a single giant Eye above the center door―a cryptic memorial to our Third Eye. Light radiates from the Eye, very similar to how light radiates from the Eye-in-the-Triangle on the Great Seal of the U.S.

Note the similarities that this Manhattan, New York building has with the following 1800s Masonic temple in Canada. Here, a single Eye―the Third Eye―appears inside the center of three massive Triangles. Together the three triangles form a “Triptych” architectural pattern:

Masonic “Triptych Temple” in Canada. A single Eye symbol―the Third Eye―graces
the center Triangle, directly above the main doorway. It’s the same basic pattern
on Manhattan’s Museum of Television & Radio.

Many Secret Society buildings use this same “Triptych” format, with a giant Eye decorating the Triptych’s “center” door. This did not escape the attention of famous artist Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons. In one episode a fictional Order called the Stonecutters is a clear parody of the Freemasons. Look below at the Triptych Groening drew on the facade of the Stonecutter headquarters. Note how the Eye graces the center door, which is taller and wider than—yet similar to—the outer twin doors:

Facade of the Stonecutters headquarters on an episode of “The Simpsons.”
Note the Triptych formed by the three pyramidal triangles. A
giant Eye―the Third Eye―is inscribed on the temple’s center door!

“Homer the Great” is the twelfth television episode of The Simpsons’ sixth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 8, 1995. In the episode, Homer discovers that Lenny and Carl are members of the ancient secret society known as the Stonecutters. Gaining membership through Grampa, Homer takes great pleasure in the society’s many privileges and events. It features cultural references to freemasonry.”

―Wikipedia

Another Masonic Triptych―with a Third Eye decorating the center door―is visible on the entrance of the Old City Hall building in, Toronto, Canada, built in 1899 by architect E. J. Lennox:

Triptych entrance to the Old City Hall building in Toronto, Canada.

A single highly-stylized “Eye”―the Third Eye―symbol
perfectly centered above a single Middle Pillar! Old
City Hall building. Toronto, Canada.

Here, a giant Eye symbol decorates the center door of the Triptych. A single pillar, the Middle Pillar, directly below it, arises along the same vertical line or axis mundi as the Eye―a combination we’ve seen on Secret Society documents, stemming from Egyptian designs.

Incredibly, this same concept―an Eye decorating the center door of a Triptych―appears on a building at the Bronx Zoo. It’s called the Zoo Center, and it’s not just any building; it’s the tallest and most prominent building on Astor Court.

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Zoo Center – The Third Eye

The Zoo Center, formerly known as the Elephant House, was one
of six heavily ornamented beaux-arts style structures built by
Heins & Lafarge for the opening of the Bronx Zoo in 1899.

The importance of the Zoo Center, formerly known as the Elephant House (because it once housed elephants), is revealed by the building’s massive dome crown. What’s more, the building is part of a grand “alignment” as we’ll see in a moment. Note in the image above the massive Triangle pediment pointing upward toward a Triptych pattern on the dome. In the close-up image below, we can clearly see (1) the Eye symbol, (2) a Triptych. These designs decorate both sides of the building. (i.e., only one side is visible in the photo because the other facade is on the other side of the building). All play an important role in the alignment:

Zoo Center facade. Eye symbol above a Triptych. The
Zoo Center is the only domed building at the zoo.

As with the Old City Hall building in Canada, an Eye―the Third Eye―crowns a massive Triptych. As explained in my book Written In Stone, the middle window symbolizes the unification of the twin outer “windows of opposites.” The eyeball itself sits upon the “keystone,” the wedge-shaped stone at the apex of the arch, which is the final stone placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allowing the arch to bear weight. If you look closely, the Eye almost looks like a sun “rising” upward. What’s more, the semicircular stone curvature above it gives it a definite “solar/rising” effect. This was done on purpose! Why?

In Egypt, the sun god “Ra” was often depicted as an “Eye,” the so-called “Eye of Ra.” This Eye is actually the Third Eye that sees the inner soul, and the inner soul is our sun (i.e., our “sol” is luminous, circular, centered just like the sun). This is why Egypt’s glyph for “sun” is a circle with a dot in the center―the same symbol as a human eye:

Left: Human eye symbol is a circle with a dot in the center. Right:
Egyptian hieroglyph for “sun” (Ra) is a circle with a dot in the center.

The Egyptians knew―as most ancient cultures knew―that our “soul” and the “sol” in the sky (the “sun” in the sky) share the same qualities; so much so that the sun symbolizes our souls. The sun was a symbol of the human soul in all ancient religions. Bar none.

One example is the Aztecs of Mexico. Just like their ancient Egyptian counterparts, the Aztecs used this very same symbol for the sun―a circle with a dot in the center:

The Aztec “Sun Stone” is a circle with a dot in the center. The Egyptian hieroglyph for sun is the very same symbol―a circle with a dot in the center. What’s more, there is hidden in the Aztec Sun Stone a giant Eye symbol called “Ollin” by the Aztecs:

The image at the center of the Aztec Sun Stone is actually an
Aztec glyph called Ollin, which is the symbol of a single
giant Eye―the “centered” Eye or Third Eye.

Thus, just as the Egyptians used a circle with a dot at the center to symbolize Ra, the sun god, and the Eye of Ra, so did the Aztecs! And just as the Egyptians knew this symbol as an “Eye” (the Eye of Ra) so did the Aztecs (Ollin)! Instead of calling him Ra, however, the Aztecs called him Tonatiuh. The names change but the idea is the same: the sun (sol) is a symbol of our soul. And the soul is shaped like an Eye―the Third Eye―a circle with a dot at its center.

As a brief aside to this, it should be noted that the Aztec Sun Stone depicts twin serpents adorning the sun―just as the Egyptian Aten symbol depicts twin serpents adorning a circular sun!

Thus, not only did the Aztecs and Egyptians both depict the sun as a circle with a dot in the center, associated with an Eye; but both also created images of the sun as circular with twin serpents adorning it!

It should come as no surprise, then, that the Zoo Center is a replica of an ancient Egyptian Triptych Temple. The Egyptians placed an Aten (Eye) above the center door―which parallels the Eye above the center window at the Bronx Zoo:

Top: Egyptian “Triptych” Temple of Hathor (Philae, Egypt) with Third Eye above
center doorway. Bottom: Zoo Center with Third Eye above center doorway.

This is clearly a memorial to Egypt; specifically, it’s a memorial to the Egyptian idea of balancing opposites, awakening our Third Eye, remembering who we are inside, and liberating our sol. This single teaching, which teaching is the pinnacle of ancient and occult wisdom, permeates every aspect of the architecture of Astor Court.

It is interesting that the location of this Triptych is perhaps the pinnacle location not only of Astor Court, but of the entire Bronx Zoo. As we can see in the following minute video (which I took in October 2011) the Masonic designers and builders of the zoo knew exactly what they were doing:

Here’s what the Zoo Center building looks like as you approach it. Again, a massive Triangle frames the main entrance. Same Triangle depicted on the Lion’s House and Monkey House:

The Zoo Center was formerly called the Elephant House.

Here the twin lower points of the Triangle are marked by twin elephant heads. The higher point of the Triangle is marked by the head of a rhinoceros. The elephants each have two tusks pointing downward, indicating the world of “duality,” positioned as they are at the twin lower points of the Triangle. But the rhino at the Triangle’s apex has a single horn pointing upward, indicating “unity” or “wholeness,” because he has found the balance point between opposites, positioned as he is at the apex of the Triangle.

On many Masonic manuscripts and sketches, the apex of the Triangle is crowned with a Third Eye symbol.

Third Eye crowns the apex of a Triangle on this Masonic Tracing Board.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the twin lower points of this Triangle on the Zoo Center each have an eye symbol—signifying a human beings right and left eyes:

An eye symbol (lowercase “e”) appears at the two lower points of
this Triangle. These two eyes symbolize the two eyes of every human
being. The apex of the Triangle symbolizes the Third Eye, which is
awakened when the two eyes are put in balance, as shown here.

Putting the twin lower eyes in balance, as expressed architecturally in the image above, allows the Triangle to form and the Third Eye pinnacle to be reached.

It should be noted that the rhino simultaneously sits upon the keystone of the arch that forms the central doorway―a vitally important position, because it is the point at which the arch is being held up.

Seeing these twin elephants and a single rhino in their positions on the Triangle, a biblical image comes to mind. Two men, both thieves, were crucified at the same time as Jesus, one on his right hand and one on his left―forming a perfect Triptych/Triangle pattern complete with the “balance of opposites” theme!

Duccio di Buoninsegna Crucifixion Scene from the Maestà Altarpiece.

“The Penitent thief, also known as the Thief on the Cross or the Good Thief…was crucified alongside Jesus and asked Jesus to remember him in his kingdom, unlike his companion the Impenitent thief.”

According to tradition, the Good Thief was crucified to Jesus’ right hand and the other thief was crucified to his left. For this reason, depictions of the crucifixion often show Jesus’ head inclined to his right, showing his acceptance of the Good Thief.”

―Wikipedia

The twin elephants match the twin thieves, on the lower point of the Triangle. The rhino matches the position of Jesus, aligned with the middle and apex of the Triangle.

If you continue to stay “centered,” as we pan out and look at more of this building, you’ll see that all the middle “stuff” is being balanced by both the left and right hand “stuff.” For example, look at how the Triptych (on top) and Triangle (on the bottom) align perfectly. Specifically, the Triptych’s center door aligns with the Triangle’s apex. The centered “middle Eye” crowns the entire facade:

All the key elements―those expressing balance, eternity and spirituality―are aligned along the axis mundi vertical line, which runs straight up the middle. From top to bottom we have (1) the single Eye symbol, (2) the middle door of the Triptych, (3) the balance/apex point of the Triangle, and (4) the head of the rhino, which forms (5) the keystone of the arch.

All sit on the axis mundi, the eternal axis, the line of power and spirituality. This architecture is amazing. It is teaching us deep and profound spiritual concepts that are light-years in advance of the basic “do not kill” and “do not steal” ideas taught in the three Western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These ideas are much more Eastern in their tone, and much more ancient and spiritual.

A similar “Triptych” and “Triangle” pattern is visible on many New York City buildings:

Old City Hall Post office and Courthouse in New York City.
Note the Eagle atop the Triptych, which crowns a Triangle.
Also note the three-windows beneath the Triangle.

Completed in 1880 and later demolished in 1939, the City Hall Post office and Courthouse no longer exists. But in this old photo we can still see the balance of opposites in the form of a massive Triangle pediment. Above the Triangle, a giant Triptych is clearly visible. Above the “opposites” windows of the Triptych we see twin ladies sitting in a symmetrical pose, as an eagle with outstretched wings crowns the center door above them.

Returning to the Bronx Zoo…To drive home the “balancing-opposites-will-lead-to-your-center” idea there is something else about the Bronx Zoo that is devastatingly powerful, mysteriously magical, and absolutely eerie.  There exists a strange and unexplained “alignment” that is literally “built into” Astor Court but that has no officially “explained” purpose.

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Sorcerer’s Alignment

I call it the “Sorcerer’s Alignment,” and I’ve been calling it that for years. Why? Because it has to do with sorcery―in the sense that “those who live from the Source,” as Carlos Castaneda describes it, are able to use this alignment to center themselves spiritually.

I also recognize that there are indeed purposes to the alignment that I have not yet even begun to understand―magical, mystical, technological and more. I believe it’s that special.

The reason I’m talking about it at this particular point in the article, immediately after discussing the Triptych with the Eye over it on Zoo Center, is because this mysterious alignment is directly related to that Triptych and Eye.

As briefly touched upon earlier, Astor Court is divided into two symmetrical “halves” you might say. These two halves both run along the same axis mundi, visible below. The axis extends from the Rockefeller Fountain to about 100 yards beyond the Zoo Center:

The axis mundi or Sorcerer’s Alignment at Astor Court.

The alignment is visible to all who walk on Astor Court. It is literally the “axis” along which all the buildings sit. The buildings on both sides are not exactly mirror images of each other, but the balance is close enough.

Incredibly, at certain points on the ground along the alignment, there are design patterns to help you to align and to orient yourself to the Sorcerer’s Alignment!

We can best see these very intentional design patterns in the image below. Note the straight line running down the middle of the photo:

Sorcerer’s alignment, a close-up view.

As a child I remember enjoying school field trips to the Bronx Zoo. When we came to Astor Court I vividly remember myself and all the children in my class walking along the “middle” line of this floor pattern alignment, which is the axis mundi, with our two arms outstretched as if trying to balance on it, not wanting to fall over to the right or the left side. We all did it, all the kids.

Note how the alignment runs right through the main doorway of the Zoo Center, which is the main doorway of the Triptych:

The center line of the Sorcerer’s Alignment runs up to and through
the middle door of the Triptych facade of the Zoo Center.

The term “hidden in plain sight” certainly applies here. To the uninitiated this ground pattern is simply a cute design made of stones. However, the designers of the Sorcerers Alignment have established a clear message to the initiated. Follow the center path, balance your left and right sides, take the middle door.

Here is a brief video of the Sorcerer’s Alignment and how it correlates to the Zoo Center building:

Alignments are important. When we align ourselves with nature and the natural forces of the earth it helps to align us spiritually.

Did you know that there is a grand alignment that links Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington?

A mysteriously accurate alignment links the key cities of New England.

Other alignments are found around the world, very similar to the two alignments depicted above. Perhaps the most famous is found in Paris, France, the so-called “Axe Historique”:

The Axe Historique, a grand alignment in Paris, France.

“The Axe Historique…is a line of monuments, buildings and thoroughfares that extends from the centre of Paris, France, to the west. It is also known as the “Voie Triomphale” (triumphal way).”

―Wikipedia

Earlier we touched upon the axis mundi idea. These alignments speaks to the axis mundi doctrine. The alignment can be used to tap into your axis mundi, and “open it up” per se; it serves as a tool one can use to link up with the higher Self.

Returning to the Zoo Center, the inside of the building depicts further evidence of the number “three” and “three-in-one” trinity pattern. The following Triptych arches were used as a kind of logo for the Bronx Zoo for many years (depicted in TV commercials, flyers, print designs, zoo events, etc.):

Triptych pattern, mirrored in the architecture behind it, inside the Zoo Center.

Note how the Triptych gateway is echoed in the actual Triptych architecture behind this gateway. This is no random pattern. It has a deeper meaning, and this meaning reverberates throughout all of Astor Court.

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Bronx Zoo “Triptych” Patterns

Triptych three-in-one architectural patterns are etched in stone throughout Astor Court. As discussed, these Triptychs express the “balance-the-opposites-to-find-your-center” theme:

This same Triptych pattern is expressed over and over again throughout the Bronx Zoo. All of these “Triptychs” and “Triangles” and “Three-In-One” symbols speak to the same doctrine of balancing the opposites to find the soul, our center or axis mundi.

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Tree Of Life – Axis Mundi, Three-In-One

Our axis mundi concept is often equated with the mythological Tree of Life symbol. This is because the twain can be said to represent the same or a similar idea, namely, one’s connection to the higher Self or one’s spirit in heaven (soul in heaven, body on earth). The Tree of Life symbol is etched onto the stone wall outside the Zoo Center:

Tree of Life symbol etched in stone on the Zoo Center.

Clearly, the vertical principle is being expressed here in this Tree of Life diagram. As explained earlier, the vertical is the spiritual principle. Note the torch on top, a symbol of intellectual illumination and spiritual liberation. Now compare this to the urn at the bottom, a symbol of death. Everything in between this top and bottom, which composes the Tree of Life itself, is a combination of urns and foliage. Urns symbolize death, while flowers symbolize life. This speaks to duality and the unity of opposites. This theme of duality is echoed in the twin dragon-like beings that face outward away from the axis mundi or “vertical line” of the Tree of Life:

There are twin sides, a right and a left, along with
a center “line,” kind of like a Caduceus symbol.

Facing outward, these creatures symbolize duality, as much as the twin serpents flanking the central “rod” of the caduceus symbolize the same idea. When viewed as a whole, this Tree of Life is saying basically the same thing as the caduceus symbol.

All of this is “occult” or “hidden” wisdom. An orthodox Christian or Jew or Muslim won’t understand this wisdom, because it does not “synch up” with what they’ve learned in their religions about a God called Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah who visited the ancient Hebrews with laws and commandments.

However, the follower of this wisdom―the spiritual seeker or stone Mason of old―can understand and appreciate this wisdom, while at the same time also be a practicing Christian or Jew or Muslim. The reason is because the principles of “three-in-one” and “balance-of-opposites-to-find-the-center” represent a Perennial Philosophy that is timeless and applicable to all humans all the time.

This idea of the existence of “hidden wisdom” or Perennial Philosophy has for many centuries been expressed by operative Freemasons using the symbol of an Owl.

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Owls Hidden In Architecture

The sun (eagle) and moon (owl) are both used by man to see―one during the day, one at night. As the sun (eagle) rules the day, the moon (owl) rules the night. Both heavenly bodies (birds) contain vast wisdom and purpose. So it is with the eagle and the owl. We’ve already seen the Eagle depicted in front of the Education Building. The owl is also present everywhere on Astor Court―only in hidden places:

Owl symbols hidden in the architecture. Note the decorative
three-in-one details in the architecture above the owls.

You won’t read about these hidden owls in any official architectural textbooks, but they are there if you take the time to look for them. In many cases they are “stylized,” which means they are not meant to look like owls to the untrained eye. But owls indeed they are:

Here is a brief video of how owls are encoded in the architecture of the Bronx Zoo:

This is one of the great secrets of esoteric architecture; owls can be found encoded into buildings worldwide. The spirit of the owl, which is the spirit of mystery, and the spirit of the occult, or, the spirit of that which is hidden, is captured in a mysterious megalithic boulder that existed on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo long before this tract of land ever even became the Bronx Zoo.

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The Rocking Stone

The pink granite stone, which stands over 7 feet high, more than 10 feet wide and weighs over 30 tons, is said to be a remnant of the last Ice Age―but this mainstream explanation is extremely unlikely, given the presence of Indians on the land for thousands of years.

Why is it named the Rocking Stone? It turns out that if pressure was applied at a specific point, the rock would move.  The Rocking Stone was an attraction way before the Zoo came to be in 1899; it served as a property marker when the Bronx was tract land and farms.

Young women playing on and enjoying the Rocking Stone
during an era before the modern. Local legend tells of a
team of 24 oxen that once tried and failed to dislodge it.

Sometime in the early 1900’s, the “Rocking Stone” restaurant was opened at the Zoo. It quickly became one of the zoo’s most popular hang-out spots, depicted on postcards and innumerable family photographs showing people putting their shoulders into it.

Photo Archival Postcard from the NY Zoological Park (the Bronx Zoo)
depicting the Rocking Stone and the restaurant that once stood near it.

“There are a wide variety of beliefs associated with rocking stones. Because of their strange nature, rocking stones were sometimes associated with witchcraft…Stones which were balanced so that the wind could move them were used sometimes in trials to determine guilt or innocence of the accused. It was said that the rocking stone near Nancledrea in Cornwall in could only be moved at midnight when witches were out…The Brimham rocking stone in Yorkshire is said to rock only for the efforts of an honest man. The rocking stone at Land’s End was said to have been placed there by a giant who used it to rock himself to sleep. It was claimed that the Logan Stone in Treen could cure childhood diseases. The children were rocked on the Logan Stone in certain seasons. People say that the charm was broken when Lieutenant Goldsmith dislodged the Logan Stone. It is a Cornish tradition to make a vow and then attempt to move a rocking stone, or logan rock. It was said that no one with treachery in their heart could make a rocking stone move.”

―Wikipedia

The Rocking Stone still stands today, but it won’t rock anymore as it is now cemented to the ground. It is said that zoo officials feared that one day someone was going to rock the Rocking Stone a bit too far, and so they shored up its base.

The Rocking Stone today. Lonely. Desolate. Cemented to the ground, emasculated
of its magic and mystery―which is the way the powers that be want it.

Unfortunately, we can only catch a glimpse of it. It stands directly in front of the entrance to the exhibit World of Darkness, which once featured bats, porcupines, and night monkeys. But the exhibit was closed in 2009 due to budget cuts, and the area has remained off-limits to Zoo visitors.

Is there any truth to the idea that “magic” and “mystery” and perhaps even “occult knowledge” is associated with rocking stones?

“Thither, youths,
Turn your astonish’d eyes; behold yon huge
And unhewn sphere of living adamant,
Which, poised by magic, rests its central weight
On yonder pointed rock: firm as it seems,
Such is the strange and virtuous property,
It moves obsequious to the gentlest touch
Of him whose breast is pure; but to a traitor,
Tho’ ev’n a giant’s prowess nerv’d his arm,
It stands as fixt as Snowdon.”

―William Mason, Caractacus

Conclusion

Few if any of the Bronx Zoo’s annual visitors realize that hidden within the zoo’s unique architecture is an immensely profound secret doctrine of spiritual illumination; a doctrine encoded in stone by the “operative” Freemasons who designed and built the zoo’s central structures. As detailed as this article has been, it really only scratches the surface. There is more information that exists to support the conclusions set forth in the present inquiry.

Learn more about the Perennial Philosophy and the Secret Doctrine of the ages by reading the book Written In Stone:

The ancient Egyptians (in Africa) and the ancient pre-Incas/Incas (in South America) evolved on opposite sides of the globe and were never in contact; yet both cultures mysteriously possessed the same strikingly identical body of ancient art, architecture, symbolism, mythology and religion. The Victorian-era scholars, faced with this enigma, concluded that both cultures must have been children of the same Golden Age parent civilization, “Atlantis.” Today, Egyptian/Inca parallels are not only being ignored by American and Western scholars, they’re being suppressed.

Many baffling and unsolved similarities link the ancient Egyptians and the ancient pre-Incas/Incas―even though both cultures evolved on opposite sides of the planet, separated by oceans.

Victorian-era scholars, faced with this enigma, believed both cultures inherited the same high wisdom from the same exceedingly older source—a shared “parent civilization” now lost to history. For the Victorians this common parent hypothesis explained the parallels well. These Victorian scholars called this common parent “Atlantis,” following Plato and the Classical historians.

Today, “establishment” scholars reject Atlantis, with peculiar hostility, while the parallels shared by the ancient pre-Incas/Incas and the ancient Egyptians are ignored.

Yet these same parallels were not ignored by the Victorians. Indeed, the most brilliant scholarly minds of the past believed Atlantis was real―and here’s why:

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Pyramids

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built stone pyramids and stepped pyramids in the desert along rivers and aligned with cardinal points. In both cases, deceased were interred within.

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Mummies

BOTH THE EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…Mummified their dead, which symbolized life beyond death. Mummies were interred inside pyramids, often with food offerings and personal belongings. Both cultures believed in life beyond death.

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Mummies With Crossed Arms

BOTH THE EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…Crossed the arms of their mummified dead. This was to show the “balance” state that one entered in death, as one lived a balanced life. The two arms denote opposites in balance, a left side and a right side crossed.

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Gold Funeral Masks

BOTH THE EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…Placed gold masks upon their dead, symbolizing their entering back into eternity, the “other side” of the veil, the higher home in the heavens, which is eternal and spiritual, unlike earth, which is temporary and physical. It also conveys in an alchemical sense the idea that, while they were here, these eternal souls took on the lead of human form and turned it into gold.

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Antithetical Animal Necklaces

BOTH THE EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…Adorned their dead with gold necklaces the ends of which are formed by twin animal heads facing outward, symbolizing our human/animal powers balanced and in an equal peaceful state and place of power and eternity. This “balance” state is how the alchemical transformation is achieved, hence the gold.

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Similar Stonemasonry

BOTH THE EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built very similar looking stonemasonry, even down to the detail of carving bulges or “bumps” in the stones (see detail). What is the rhyme, riddle and reason here? How can this be explained?

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Precision Stonework

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…created precision-like stone cuts in their masonry, such that a piece of paper can barely fit between stones. Often no mortar was used.  This symbolizes the quest to gain perfection, or nearness to perfection, which leads one closer to our spiritual and heavenly home and eternal source.

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Trapezoidal Doorways

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built trapezoid doorways, signifying spiritual advancement upward. The trapezoid is similar to a triangle, which denotes ascension and spiritual transcendence. The trapezoid doorway is used by many ancient cultures. It relates a kind of futuristic state of humanity that occurred in the distant past, when people were calm and had attained nirvana; this doorway is the symbol of the high wisdom once possessed by our ancient ancestors.

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…designed twin symmetrical serpents above the trapezoidal doorway entrance to their temples. The idea of balancing the opposing energies is certainly presented here, via these twin animals in symmetrical balanced poses. This “balanced opposites” image seems to be the “ideal” that is taught within the building that is entered through these doors.

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Elongated Skulls

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…elongated the skulls of their children to sharpen senses and improve spiritual insight. This seemingly-bizarre practice has not truly raised the eyebrows of modern scholars, not nearly as much as it should.

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Obelisks (With Hieroglyphics)

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built and erected sacred obelisks as devices of profound male power, fertility, birth, longevity, strength. Great reverence was given to obelisks; they were among the most revered landmarks.

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Earthquake-Proof Temples (With Picture Writing)

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built earthquake-proof buildings by using the same inward slant design, which has withstood the test of time.

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Solar Religion

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…used solar symbolism as a definitive part of their religion, which was identical. In Egypt the solar deity was Ra, in Peru the solar deity was Inti. In both cultures, you are the solar deity; the sun is a symbol of you, of your soul. You are a sol. You are an eternal divine sun. You have voluntarily Incarnated in matter, but now have amnesia of your true spiritual Self, you’ve lost your way home.

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Parallel Solar Symbolism

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…used animal deities in symmetrical poses flanking a central solar emblem. Just as the sun strikes a perfect balance between Winter and Summer, the extreme Cold and extreme Hot seasons…so it is vital for our own inner suns (the sun symbolizes our eternal soul or Self) to balance our own positive and negative twin animal energies, urges, instincts, appetites, etc. in order to stay in balance and in harmony with nature.

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Animal On Forehead

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…used the “animal on the forehead motif” to evoke the power of the Third Eye. Both cultures understood that we can create a trancelike state where we “awaken” our so-called “Mind’s Eye,” “Inner Eye,” or “Third Eye,” a symbol of spiritual illumination thought of as existing near the forehead above and between the two eyes―exactly where the animal is placed in the image above.

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Cross Symbol (Chakana / Ankh)

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…used the stepped design motif, which symbolizes the gradual ascent the initiate makes on his / her journey from lower man to ascended human being. Rome wasn’t built in a day; you don’t find your “Christ within” or your “Buddha within” in one day. Ascension takes time and effort.

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“Triptych” Three-Door Temples (Indicates Same Religion)

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built the same identical Triptych temples. The Triptych design is a worldwide architectural phenomenon that graces the facades of temples, and that symbolizes the same Universal Religion practiced all over the ancient world. The religion is based on the same “balance of opposites” formula described above. The twin outer doors symbolize opposites (the left-side / right-side of our lower temporary self) while the middle door symbolizes the central point of eternity (the centered higher eternal Self). Triptych Temples were later inherited by the Gothic cathedral builders, the Freemasons. LEARN MORE HERE.

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Metal Clasps

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…carved stones that were tightly bound and fitted together with the use of metal clasps. What are the chances that this technique evolved, after millions of years of human evolution, in the same exact spec of time (give or take 1,000 years) on opposite sides of the globe?

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Staff God Icon

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…revered the “Staff God Icon,” which is nothing less than the lost crucifix of the ancient Universal Religion described above. Not yet documented by scholars, the Staff God Icon is found everywhere around the ancient world; it symbolizes the perfected human being. LEARN MORE IN THIS BOOK.

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Inward Slanting (Earthquake Proof) Buildings

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built similar looking inward slanting tombs and temples.

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Anthropoid Coffins

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…designed anthropomorphic coffins for the deceased and designed those coffins to look like the local god or hero who had defied death and who had lived to tell about it. This is the example given for the masses to follow, for we all must defy death (in the end) by looking for and finding true eternity within.

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Third Eye Solar Circle On Forehead

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…depicted circle shapes on the human forehead indicating where the Third Eye or Circle Eye goes:

“A cyclops in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead. The name is widely thought to mean “circle-eyed”.

―Wikipedia

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Solar Image Associated With Circle Eye In Head

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…decorated their Third Eye or Circle Eye with the imagery of the sun. The sun is an eye in the heavens; many ancient civilizations depicted the sun as an Eye, not just the Egyptians and Incas.

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Single Eye Symbols

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…depicted “sun eye symbols”, both associating the sun with an eye and vice versa. Both cultures knew that the single Eye (the Mind’s Eye or Third Eye) sees the inner sun (the inner soul).

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Megalithic Architecture

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built their most important temples using massive stones each weighing hundreds of tons.

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Reed Boats

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…built parallel reed boats.

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Floating Deities

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…depicted floating deities.

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Phallic Symbols

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…depicted phallic symbols and associated these symbols with fertility.

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Spirals

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…depicted spirals to symbolize our entrance / exit to / from the material /spiritual worlds, which worlds encompass both sides of our eternal being.

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Elaborate Temples

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…designed and built similar-looking temples.

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Symmetrical Serpents Balancing

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…used symmetry in much of their art, balancing left / right. Often used serpents in symmetrical poses.

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Master Craftsmanship

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…used very similar styles of stone-craftsmanship.

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Symmetrical Art

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…designed similar-looking artwork, which focused on symmetry and esoteric symbolism.

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Aten Hieroglyph (Circle With Dot In Center)

BOTH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND INCAS / PRE-INCAS…depicted their solar deity as a circle with a dot in the middle, which was also a symbol of the Self in both cultures.

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Evidence Of Atlantis

The Incas and the Egyptians are indeed profoundly similar.  Having uncovered many of these parallels themselves, the Victorian scholars believed the two cultures were children of the same ancestral Mother Culture or Golden Age “Atlantis” culture.

Following Plato and some of the Classical historians, they believed Atlantis sank into the Atlantic ocean following a kind of Flood-like catastrophe, but left behind outposts on either side of the Atlantic ocean that preserved its culture.

Neither Egyptian nor Inca was in contact with the other, yet nevertheless both shared a common heritage.

Western scholars and academic institutions are grossly ignoring Atlantis. Worse, they are suppressing the evidence and mystery surrounding these many bizarre Inca / Egyptian cultural parallels (possibly because the powers that be know these parallels will lead to Atlantis).

We need to remember that these Egyptian/Inca parallels were plain as day to past Victorian scholars. From the benefit of this perspective we can thus see how the parallels are not just being ignored by Western academic institutions, they’re being suppressed.

Why are scholars suppressing this evidence?

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The Academic Cover-Up

These scholars—mainstream historians and archaeologists—are fundamentally honest and hard-working people who perform the extraordinarily laborious task of unearthing artifacts from our ancient past.

The problem is that they are locked into a particular paradigm that sees our society as the apex and pinnacle of the human story. They view history as a straightforward evolutionary process, from caveman to today’s highly technological civilization, which in their minds is the “supreme” one.

They are 100% locked into this “evolutionary” idea of how history works, and so it’s very difficult for them to accept that deep in the remote past there existed a civilization or Golden Age that was far more advanced than we are―spiritually, psychologically, technologically―and that was able to do things that we cannot.

Cultural evolution is the lens through which they view reality, and so they dismiss any anomalous evidence or find plausible explanations for any evidence that does not jive with this reality.

Moreover, being a “scholar” or an “academic” is a job, a profession, which is part of a larger structure. If you want to get a job as a “scholar” or “academic” and if you want to get published or win research grants or move along in the profession you absolutely need to buy into its mindset; this means buying into the evolutionary paradigm. If you don’t buy in then you simply won’t get hired, and you won’t climb the ladder and move up.

This is the simple way in which research into the human past is being controlled. But controlled by who?―and why?

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The Invisible Government

By controlling major academic institutions and the mass media, a vastly wealthy elite group of powerful corporate families is successfully hiding historical and spiritual truths of our ancient past. The goal of this group is to maintain a secretive global system of economic and political tyranny that their forefathers established more than a century ago that was once termed the “Invisible Government” by influential American leaders.

More specifically, this elite are concealing the fact that there once existed a highly-sophisticated “Golden Age” civilization on earth in remote prehistory. This Golden Age civilization ended abruptly, but left behind a powerfully-advanced spiritual doctrine that was later inherited by the world’s first known civilizations, all children of the Golden Age.

The world’s first cultures inherited and practiced this spiritual doctrine, or “Universal Religion,” via the now-academically-taboo process called “hyperdiffusionism,” a pejorative 20th century term recently invented by the establishment media and academia:

“Hyperdiffusionism — the theory that all cultures originated from one [Golden Age] culture. Hyperdiffusionists deny that parallel evolution or independent invention took place to any great extent throughout history, they claim that…all cultures can be traced back to a single culture.”

— Wikipedia

By denouncing, and thus debilitating, any academic study even remotely related to the so-called “hyperdiffusionist” model of history—a model that was widely accepted by scholars of past centuries, who called the Golden Age civilization “Atlantis”—the elite have successfully kept the Universal Religion out of our reach. In doing so they have prevented us from accessing a deep, self-empowering body of human wisdom that has the potential to stir an awakening in humanity which would endanger their global hegemony.

The present article has presented a single example of hyperdiffusionism in the ancient past. It’s a revealing look at how the ancient culture of the Egyptians, a highly-advanced civilization that flourished along the Nile river in Africa, is mysteriously similar to a parallel culture on the other side of the globe, the ancient pre-Inca and Incas, who flourished in the Andean region of modern Peru.

What you have seen is evidence of the Universal Religion on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, apparently handed down by the same Golden Age civilization. Most important to stress once again, the Universal Religion is not fiction; the Universal Religion relates profound and eternal spiritual truths explaining who we are, where we came from, where we’re going, and the meaning of life itself.

If one day this Universal Religion ever became widely known, people would become so empowered by the spirituality of their inner nature and by the eternity of their own being that they would quickly rise up and break the chains of their enslavement and dethrone the Invisible Government, that malicious and malevolent organization that for centuries has oppressed the masses and hidden the true reality of life on earth.

To learn more about these parallels, and to discover the Universal Religion to which they point, buy the groundbreaking new book:

One of the greatest archaeological riddles—and one of the grossest academic omissions—of our time is the untold story of the parallel ruins left by two seemingly unrelated ancient civilizations: the ancient Mayans on one side of the Pacific Ocean and the ancient Balinese on the other. The mysterious and unexplained similarities in their architecture, iconography, and religion are so striking and profound that the Mayans and Balinese seem to have been twin civilizations—as if children of the same parent. Yet, incredibly, this mystery is not only being ignored by American scholars, it’s being suppressed.

What does archaeology have to do with politics and big business? Everything. This next statement, written in boldface, may sound absurd to you; but please keep reading, then look at the photographic evidence in this article, then draw your own conclusion:

By controlling major academic institutions and the mass media, a vastly wealthy elite group of powerful corporate families is successfully hiding historical and spiritual truths of our ancient past. The goal of this group is to maintain a secretive global system of economic and political tyranny that their forefathers established more than a century ago that was once termed the “Invisible Government” by influential American leaders.

More specifically, this elite are concealing the fact that there once existed a highly-sophisticated “Golden Age” civilization on earth in remote prehistory. This Golden Age civilization ended abruptly, but left behind a powerfully-advanced spiritual doctrine that was later inherited by the world’s first known civilizations, all children of the Golden Age.

The world’s first cultures inherited and practiced this “Universal Religion” via the now-academically-taboo process called “hyperdiffusionism,” a pejorative 20th century term recently invented by the establishment media and academia:

“Hyperdiffusionism — the theory that all cultures originated from one [Golden Age] culture. Hyperdiffusionists deny that parallel evolution or independent invention took place to any great extent throughout history, they claim that…all cultures can be traced back to a single culture.”

— Wikipedia

By denouncing, and thus debilitating, any academic study even remotely related to the so-called “hyperdiffusionist” model of history—a model that was widely accepted by scholars of past centuries, who called the Golden Age civilization “Atlantis”—the elite have successfully kept the Universal Religion out of our reach. In doing so they have prevented us from accessing a deep, self-empowering body of wisdom that has the potential to stir a paradigm shift in humanity which would endanger their global hegemony.

The present article relates a single example of hyperdiffusionism in the ancient past. It’s a revealing look at how the ancient culture of the Mayans, a highly-advanced civilization that flourished on the Yucatán Peninsula in southeastern Mexico, is mysteriously similar to a parallel culture on the other side of the globe, the ancient Balinese, who flourished on the tiny island of Bali in Southeast Asia. What you are about to see is evidence of the Universal Religion on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, apparently handed down by the same Golden Age civilization.

Establishment scholars say the Mayans and the Balinese were never in contact, since they were separated by the Pacific Ocean, which these scholars say was impassible by the ancients. Yet these  scholars never offer to explain the profound parallels the two cultures shared. Here are 12 examples of these parallels:

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#1 – Stepped Pyramids (With Temples On Top)

BALINESE (LEFT): The Mother Temple of Besakih, or Pura Besakih, is the most important, the largest and holiest pyramidal temple in Bali, Indonesia, and one of a series of Balinese temples. It has stepped terraces, resembling a stepped pyramid.

MAYAN (RIGHT): This stepped pyramid, called the High Priest’s Temple or Ossuary, has four sides with staircases on each side. The sides of the stairways are decorated with interlaced feathered serpents. Pillars associated with this building are in the form of the Toltec feathered serpent and human figures.

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#2 – Twin Dragons / Serpents Balusters Running Down Temple Sides

BALINESE (LEFT): The last stage of Besakih temple is called Stairway to Heaven, and it is made of twin serpent / dragon balustrades that run down the full length of the stairway. At the bottom of the stairway their mouths are open.

MAYAN (RIGHT): The pyramid of El Castillo features plumed serpents that run down the sides of the northern balustrade. At the bottom of the stairway their mouths are open. During the spring and autumn equinoxes, the late afternoon sun strikes off the northwest corner of the pyramid and casts a series of triangular shadows against the northwest balustrade, which creates the illusion of a feathered serpent “crawling” down the pyramid.

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#3 – Sacred Corbel Arch Architecture

BALINESE (LEFT): This corbel arch from a temple complex in Ubud is constructed by offsetting successive courses of stone (or brick) at the springline of the walls so that they project towards the archway’s center from each supporting side, until the courses meet at the apex of the archway. Often, the last gap is bridged with a flat stone.

MAYAN (RIGHT): Notable throughout Maya architecture is the corbel arch, which directs the weight off of the lintel and onto the supporting posts. The corbel vault has no keystone, as European arches do, making the Maya vault appear more like a narrow triangle than an archway. Often, the last gap is bridged with a flat stone.

Renowned 19th century Mayanist Augustus Le Plongeon, who has since been discredited because of his hyperdiffusionist idea that the world’s first cultures were children of a much older civilization named Atlantis, believed that the universality of the corbel arch in Antiquity was strong evidence of hyperdiffusionism:

“…Augustus Le Plongeon, a pioneering Mayanist, renowned for having made the earliest thorough and systematic photographic documentation of archaeological sites in Yucatan…

…for Le Plongeon, the most important evidence of cultural diffusion was the Mayas’ corbelled arch.  The arches… he believed, had proportions that related to the “mystic numbers 3.5.7″ which he stated were used by ancient Masonic master builders…Those same proportions, he also noted, were found in tombs in Chaldea and Etruria, in ancient Greek structures and as part of the Great Pyramid in Egypt…

Throughout his writings, including “The Origins of the Egyptians” published posthumously in 1913, he compares modern and ancient Maya and Egyptian ethnography, linguistics, iconography and religious practices…He was basically on the right track methodologically, and he did make a number of intriguing observations and analogies…”

—Lawrence G. Desmond, Augustus Le Plongeon: A Fall From Archaeological Grace

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#4 – Parallel “Fearsome” Deities At Temple Entrances

BALINESE (LEFT): Note the face, right hand, left hand, and left foot. This fearsome looking Balinese deity marks the entrances to Balinese temples. He has a torch in his left hand, huge teeth and fangs, long hair, a beard, and a fearful expression. In the bottom photo you can see his left foot points out to the left while his right hand is close-fisted just below his chest, elbow out—similar to the Mayan photo.

MAYAN (RIGHT): Note the face, right hand, left hand, and left foot. This fearsome looking “howler monkey god” statue marks the entrances to Mayan temples. The howler monkey god was a major deity of the arts—including music—and a patron of the artisans among the Classic Mayas, especially of the scribes and sculptors. He holds a torch in his left hand, has huge teeth, long hair, a beard, and a fearful expression. In the bottom photo you can see his left foot points outward to the left while his right hand is close-fisted just below his chest, elbow out—similar to the Balinese photo.

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#5 – Sculpted Stone Serpents

BALINESE (LEFT): Balinese serpents carved in stone protrude from the sides of temples. The serpent is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols; it represents fertility or the creative life force. As snakes shed their skin through moulting, they are symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing. The ouroboros is a symbol of eternity and continual renewal of life.

MAYAN (RIGHT): Mayan serpents carved in stone protrude from the sides of temples. The serpent was a very important social and religious symbol, revered by the Mayans. The shedding of their skin made them a symbol of rebirth and renewal. The chief Mesoamerican god, Quetzalcoatl, was represented as a feathered serpent. The Vision Serpent was also important. During Mayan rituals participants would experience visions in which they communicated with the ancestors or gods. These visions took the form of a giant serpent which served as a gateway to the spirit realm. The ancestor or god who was being contacted was depicted as emerging from the serpent’s mouth.

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#6 – Spiritual Energy Harnessed Through Hand Gestures

BALINESE (LEFT): Notice the yoga-style position of the hands of Acintya (Statuette of Acintya, Bali Museum) the chief deity of the ancient Balinese religion. An important aspect of the ancient worldwide practice of yoga is the subtle but key practice of hand, body and eye postures, to invoke certain flows of energy and create certain states of consciousness, called in India “yoga mudras” or “hand yoga gestures.”

MAYAN (RIGHT): Stela at Copan of king Waxaklahuun Ub’aah K’awiil, believe to have been erected December 5, 711. Note the position of his hands as compared to Acynta. Hand yoga gestures generally work by preventing the dissipation of prana (life-force) from the fingertips.  In order to do this, one brings the fingers together in various ways, which helps create certain subtle energy circuits.  These circuits then channel prana along particular pathways to affect the mind/body complex in specific ways.

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#7 – Frightening Faces Above Doorways (With Recessed Lintels)

BALINESE (LEFT): Many Balinese temples depict faces of deities—often grotesque or scary visages— above the main doorway. Note how the top of the doorway steps inward in successive steps. In one sense, these were used as apotropaic symbols, having the power to prevent evil or bad luck and to scare away evil spirits. The doorways and windows of buildings were felt to be particularly vulnerable to evil. On churches and castles, gargoyles or other grotesque faces and figures would be carved to frighten away evil and other malign influences.

MAYAN (RIGHT): Many Mayan temples depict faces of deities—often grotesque or scary visages— above the main doorway. Note how the top of the doorway steps inward in successive steps. Some scholars believe these to be masks. The Mayan’s created masks showing the faces of snakes and various animals and these masks were quite common.

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#8 – Twin Elephant Deities

BALINESE (LEFT): An elephant head at the entrance to a Balinese temple. The elephant here may or may not predate the practice of Hinduism on the island. In Hinduism, the most widely worshiped Hindu god deity is Lord Ganesha: The Elephant God. He represents “perfect wisdom” and is considered to be the “remover of obstacles” and “bestower of prosperity.” He combines the natures of the two most intelligent beings—man and elephant.

MAYAN (RIGHT): An elephant head on a Mayan sculpture. Elephant heads are prominent in art and sculpture throughout the ancient Americas. This is a bit of a mystery, since elephants were supposed to have disappeared from America about 10,000 years ago as the Ice Ages waned. Scholars in the past who subscribed to diffusionist theories believed the elephant imagery was created by the Mayans either because they themselves originated in the Old World or because they had seen elephants first hand after traveling there themselves. It is also possible that cultures in the Americas are far more ancient than scholars realize, and stretch back to a time when elephants were still living in the Americas.  British surgeon and sinologist. W. Perceval Yetts (1878 – 1957) wrote:

“So far back as 1813 doubts were thrown on the autochthony attributed to Maya culture, and about ten years ago the famous anatomist Professor G. Elliot Smith revived some of the old arguments and fortified them with many ingenious speculations of his own…to prove that a certain motive used in Maya design was derived from the Old World. The motive is well displayed twice on a carved monolith at Copan…and Professor Smith champions the identification of these two forms as heads of elephants, and, above all, as heads of Indian elephants.”

—W. Perceval Yetts, Elephants and Maya Art

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#9 – Monster Temples With Massive “Mouth” Entrances

BALINESE (LEFT): This is the Goa Gajah temple, also called Elephant Cave. On the façade of the cave is an enormous zoomorphic mask with the entrance to the temple as its mouth. Next to this figure in relief are various menacing creatures and demons carved in the rock at the cave entrance. The primary figure was once thought to be an elephant, hence the nickname Elephant Cave. The site is mentioned in the Javanese poem Desawarnana written in 1365. An extensive bathing place on the site was not excavated until the 1950s. These appear to have been built to ward off evil spirits.

MAYAN (RIGHT): Uxmal: Pyramid of the Magician. On the façade of the pyramid entrance is an enormous zoomorphic mask with the entrance to the temple as its mouth. Next to this figure in relief are various menacing creatures and demons carved in the rock at the entrance. Linda Schele (1942 – 1998) an expert in the field of Mayan epigraphy and iconography, wrote:

“The façades of Maya architecture served as a stage front for ritual and carriers of important religious and political symbolism…One of the most impressive techniques was to treat the entire façade as a great monster head with the door as its mouth, as on…the Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal…People entering such buildings appeared to be walking into the gullet of the monster.”

—Linda Schele, The Iconography of Maya Architectural Façades during the Late Classic Period

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#10 – Chakana Cross Symbols

BALINESE (LEFT): Scholars have mostly ignored this esoteric spiritual symbol that repeats on Balinese stone monuments, here shown on the Bali Pavilion of Taman Mini. But in Andean culture (Incas, pre-Incas) it’s well-known as “Chakana,” which stands for “Inca Cross.” The Chakana symbolizes for Inca mythology what is known in other mythologies as the World Tree (i.e., the Tree of Life). A stepped cross, with three steps on each side, it is made up of an equal-armed cross indicating the cardinal points of the compass and a superimposed square

MAYAN (RIGHT): Chakana symbols similar to those created by the Incas and pre-Incas of the Andes in Peru exist throughout Mayan art and architecture where they held the same religious meaning and served the same spiritual purpose. As in Bali, the Chakana takes the form of a stepped cross, with three steps on each side. It is made up of an equal-armed cross indicating the cardinal points of the compass and a superimposed square.

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#11 – Third Eye Dot Between Eyes On Forehead

BALINESE (LEFT): The Balinese sculpted faces and wood carvings at left display the Third Eye dot in the forehead, symbolic of the ancient “Third Eye” explained in the religions, mythologies and spiritual systems of indigenous cultures around the world. The Third Eye is available to all of us and we can open it and use it to see the “inner soul,” which is who we really re (i.e., we are the soul, not the body). You can learn more about the Third Eye here.

MAYAN (RIGHT): Mayan stone faces at right display the Third Eye dot in the forehead, symbolic of the ancient “Third Eye” explained in the Mayan religion. You can learn more about the Third Eye here.

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#12 – “Triptych” Three-Door Temples—With Accent On Center Door

BALINESE (LEFT): The Triptych three-in-one temple is common throughout Bali, visible on countless temples all over the island. The Triptych pattern relates the central teaching of the indigenous Balinese religion, which is related to the Third Eye. You can learn more about this religion symbolized by the Triptych here.

MAYAN (RIGHT): The Triptych three-in-one temple is common throughout Mexico, visible on countless Mayan, Aztec and other cultural temples all over the Yucatan. The Triptych pattern relates the central teaching of the indigenous Mayan religion, and pre-Columbian religion in general. You can learn more about this religion symbolized by the Triptych here.

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Why Scholars Fail To Study The Parallels

These are 12 major parallels still visible in the ruins of the ancient Balinese and ancient Mayan cultures—twin civilizations that developed on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean who scholars say were never in contact and who scholars believe developed independently of each other. The parallels shared here point to a far different story than scholars tell. The evidence indicates a much deeper relationship shared by the ancient Balinese and ancient Mayans.

Yet establishment scholars are completely ignoring these parallels, not out of spite or because they are purposely trying to cover something up; but because they are being controlled to do so in a way so subtle that even they themselves aren’t unaware of it.

How?

These scholars—mainstream historians and archaeologists—are fundamentally honest and hard-working people who perform the extraordinarily laborious task of unearthing artifacts from our ancient past. When they say “there’s no mystery in the past” and “hyperdiffusionism is an outdated model of history” it seems clear that they themselves genuinely believe it; they’re not trying to deceive the public in any way.

The problem is that they are locked into a particular paradigm that sees our society as the apex and pinnacle of the human story. They view history as a straightforward evolutionary process that went from primitive cavemen through a gradual development into agriculture and then down into the Greeks, Romans, the Middle Ages, and finally the Enlightenment and beginning of Science, all ending with our highly technological civilization of today, which in their minds is the “supreme” one.

They are 100% locked into this “evolutionary” idea of how history works, and so it’s very difficult for them to accept that deep in the remote past there existed a civilization or Golden Age that was even higher than we are, and that was able to do things that we cannot. This is the lens through which they view reality, and so they dismiss any anomalous evidence or find plausible explanations for any evidence that does not jive with this reality.

Moreover, being a “scholar” or an “academic” is a job, a profession, which is part of a larger structure. If you want to get a job as a “scholar” or “academic” you absolutely need to buy into its mindset; buy into the paradigm. If you don’t buy in then you simply won’t get hired, and you won’t climb the ladder and move up. Thinkers and researchers who might have wilder or different or more extra ordinary ideas of the past are thus weeded out so that the ones who are left are those who have bought into the existing paradigm.

Thus, no scholar dares challenge the “established” model against hyperdiffusionism, that is, if he or she wishes to get published or win research grants or move along in the profession. This is the simple way in which research into the human past is being controlled by forces we can’t see and most of us don’t understand.

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In Conclusion

This is a very brief look at highlights of the parallels common to two ancient civilizations separated by the Pacific ocean. Like a jig-saw puzzle, the missing pieces of these twin cultures separated by the Pacific Ocean can be put together to reveal a common ancestry.

Scholars of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century believed they understood this ancestry. According to their research, in the dimness of remote Antiquity, in an age so prehistoric it is now lost to time and memory, there once existed a spiritually-advanced “Golden Age” civilization which far surpassed our own modern society culturally and spiritually. The world’s first cultures were all children of this Golden Age “Mother Culture,” and we can still see traces of it today in the many similarities shared by those civilizations that we understand to be the world’s first cultures.

The trouble is, if you mention this Golden Age culture to scholars by using the words “hyperdiffusion,” “Atlantis” or “Lost Civilization,” then not only have you lost their ear, but you’ve lost the ear of most people who hinge on every word the academics say (without thinking for themselves). Hyperdiffusionism is bubkis; that’s the academic line, and if you don’t tow it you’re through.

Richard Cassaro is the author of the groundbreaking new book Written In Stone: Decoding The Secret Masonic Religion Hidden In Gothic Cathedrals & World Architecture:

The white race has been deliberately “cut off” from its ancestral religion of Hinduism, which was practiced across prehistoric Europe for thousands of years before the rise of Christianity. As a result, whites in the world have “lost their Path” and forgotten “who they are” spiritually, discarding introspection in their wild pursuit of money and material possessions. We’ll examine the modern day censorship of Europe’s indigenous Hindu faith, and the suppression of its key symbol, the Swastika. We’ll see how, as a result, whites have lost their past, their future, and the greatness of their ancient spiritual Way.

Ancient Greek gold disk with swastikas at Greece’s
Otagon Museum dates to the 8th century B.C.

Hinduism—with its exceptionally high spiritual concepts of the Eternal Soul, Reincarnation, Karma, Yoga, the Third Eye, and Nirvana (concepts that many whites are mysteriously embracing today)—is the lost religious tradition of Europe, long before Christianity and the Hebrew Bible arose 2,000 years ago and took its place. This is not a racist conjecture or unsupported opinion; it’s a fact grounded in academia.

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Swastikas Found On Ruins Across Ancient Europe

All ancient European cultures—i.e., the Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Celts, etc. —practiced the same high spiritual religion of Hinduism. We can still see this religion’s central symbol, the swastika, all over European ruins, visible in this 1898 Yale University study:

The Swastikas Of Ancient Europe from a 1898 Yale University study.

Ancient Swastika on a Minoan pottery piece from Crete.

Ancient Roman Mosaic with swastika.

Small terracotta jug with swastika, from Crete.
National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Most people today associate Hinduism with India. This is correct. But Hinduism was not born in India. It was brought into India, according to scholars. Before settling in Europe, scholars believe the nomadic “Aryans” (or white race) invaded ancient India from the north, bringing Hinduism with them and introducing Hinduism into the subcontinent, where it has existed ever since.

(NOTE: We’re taught in school that the term “Aryan” signifies Hitler’s supposed belief in a blond-haired, blue-eyed “master race.” But this is a lie, plain and simple. Historically, “Aryan” has always meant “white people,” i.e., Europeans. For hundreds of years before World War II, university scholars across the world used “Aryan” to denote “whites.” Do a simple search in Google books and you’ll see.)

Hinduism is still practiced across India today. But Europe suffered a different fate. The introduction of Christianity two thousand years ago cut the Caucasian race off from its indigenous Hindu religious roots, plunging Europe into the Dark Ages from which Europeans and white people in general have tried—but in many ways failed—to emerge.

Learn more about the hidden origins of the swastika and the white race in the new book Written In Stone by Richard Cassaro:

This secret origin of Hinduism and the white race is unlocked in a simple, fascinating chronicle known in academic circles as the ancient “Aryan Invasion of India” model of history. Again, this is no fringe theory; it is accepted by a vast majority of the world’s scholars, archaeologists, professors and academics.

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The Aryan Invasion of India

Scholars now for centuries have believed that prehistoric India—the land of the swastika, which is the key symbol of Hinduism—was once home to two races: the invading Aryans (non-indigenous) and the indigenous Dravidians.

The Aryan invasion theory posits that the Dravidians were the native people of India long ago, and at a certain point were invaded from the north by a sophisticated Caucasian race of nomadic warriors, the Aryans. The victory of the Aryans was quick and complete, and they chose to stay, abandoning their nomadic lifestyle and settling amongst the natives. The Aryans taught the Dravidians their advanced Aryan culture and religion, the key symbol of which is the swastika, eventually leading to the dominance of their culture and language over the northern part of the subcontinent. The Aryans instituted the caste system and established themselves as the dominant caste in order to prevent race-mixing (which they believed would be socially problematic to their hegemony). These Aryans, according to historians, are the ones who composed the sophisticated Vedic writings; these writings form the heart of the religion of Hinduism.

From India, the Aryans eventually migrated westward into Europe, creating the high cultures that evolved into Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and so on. Every Caucasian in America who can trace family roots to Europe is a descendant of these historical Aryans.

Again, this is not an opinion, it is pure scholarship. In Barbarian Tides, a 1982 publication from the highly respected Time-Life Books library, we are told:

“These people, the Aryans, would bestow their social institutions on the Indian subcontinent and spawn a unique spiritual culture, Hinduism.”

“The caste concept sprang from the Aryans’ extreme race consciousness: the very word they used for “caste” meant “color.”

This has an interesting consequence that many Westerners would not hit upon at first: Long before Christianity, most Caucasians in Europe were practicing the religion we now call Hinduism. If the Aryans brought Hinduism to India, and the Europeans are descended from Aryans, as the chronology necessitates, then consequently all European ancestors, at some point in time, practiced a form of Hinduism.

Of course, most Westerners today realize the swastika is sacred among Hindus who live in India; it is visible on Indian temples, altars, religious scriptures, used in Hindu weddings, festivals, and ceremonies, and painted on houses, clothing and jewelry.

SWASTIKAS IN INDIA

Hindu temple in India featuring swastikas.

Indian musician with swastika guitar.

Hindu temple in India featuring swastikas.

However, most Westerners are unaware that the swastika was once ancient Europe’s most important and prolific religious symbol.

SWASTIKAS IN ANCIENT EUROPE

Swastika from ancient Gaul. Musée gallo-romain, Lyon, France.

Ancient Roman mosaic floor decorated with swastikas in La Olmeda, Spain.

Artemis with swastikas. Greece, circa 700 B.C.

Shortly after the real-life groundbreaking discovery of the mythical Troy in the 1870s by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), he found a multitude of artifacts bearing the swastika in the city’s ruins. Having consulted with two leading Sanskrit scholars, Emile Burnouf and Max Müller, Schliemann became convinced it was a central Aryan religious symbol. Burnouf, a French Orientalist,  felt that the swastika was proof not only of the westward migration of Aryan tribes from India, but of the symbol’s connection to the sophisticated ancient Aryan religion—Hinduism.

In his 1896 book, The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol and its Migrations, Thomas Wilson, former curator of the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology in the U.S. National Museum, wrote of the swastika:

“Some authorities are of the opinion that it was an Aryan symbol and used by the Aryan peoples before their dispersion through Asia and Europe. This is a fair subject for inquiry and might serve as an explanation how…as a sacred symbol…the Swastika might have been carried to the different peoples and countries in which we now find it by the splitting up of the Aryan peoples and their migrations and establishment in the various parts of Europe.”

—Thomas Wilson

By the 20th century, swastika images were being discovered on artifacts all across Europe, designed into mosaics, friezes, sculptures, and paintings, used by the Etruscans, Romans, Scandinavians, Sabines, Phrygians and Greeks.

Outside of Europe, the swastika was found in some Mesopotamian city-states, on Hittite and ancient Iranian relics, and used by the indigenous Bön faith of Tibet. The swastika is also important in Buddhism and Jainism—modern offshoots of the prehistoric religion of Hinduism—adorning temples, and forming a repeating pattern in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese art.

The Dalai Lama with Swastikas.

Swastika on Japanese Buddhist temple.

Swastika on Japanese Buddhist temple.

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Revival Of The Swastika In Europe – “God Is Dead”

Soon after Schliemann’s discovery, the swastika became en vogue among whites in Europe, many of whom began to denounce Christianity en masse and to see the swastika as an authentic emblem of their European ancestry. The movement spread to whites across the world:

The Edmonton Swastikas, Canada 1916

Boys swastika basketball team, San Francisco, 1908.

English author and Freemason Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
used the swastika on the dust jackets of his books.

Actress Clara Bow wearing swastikas in the 1920s.

Coca Cola made a swastika-shaped watch fob.

At the time, the writings of the influential 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) were also helping to bring the swastika into circulation. Nietzsche is famous for his impassioned denouncement of biblical monotheism. “God is dead” was his famous proclamation in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883).

What did Nietzsche mean by this provocative sentence “God is Dead”?

Nietzsche charged that the Christian religion ascendant in the West since Roman times has been a magnificent hoax perpetrated by “the Jews” (as he put it), designed to put them into a position of power, influence, and authority. The Jewish aim, he believed, was to elevate the Hebrew God into the world’s God by establishing the New Testament religion onto the foundations of their Old Testament tradition:

“…Christianity can be understood only in terms of the soil out of which it grew—it is not a counter-movement to the Jewish instinct, it is its very consequence… even today the Christian can feel anti-Jewish without realizing that he himself is the ultimate Jewish consequence…”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche’s teachings fit right in with the anti-Semitic and racially charged atmosphere of 19th and early 20th century “white Europe,” which was fast becoming uncomfortable with what it now considered its unauthentic Jewish (Semitic) ancestry. Nevertheless, Nietzsche’s work is no anti-Semitic rant; his work offers important insight into how the biblical Old Testament (and it’s “God,” Yahweh) has been unnaturally grafted onto European history, cutting whites off from their ancestral and indigenous Hindu religion.

As early as the Renaissance, many Europeans were already unwilling to continue in the biblical tradition, which they now perceived as alien to their ancestry. By the 19th century, European scholars and laymen had begun to rediscover their own religious heritage. This anti-Judeo/Christian movement gained tremendous ground among scholars, academics, and intellectuals, like Aldous Huxley, who always distrusted monotheism. In his article ‘One And Many’ Huxley says that:

“monotheism, as we know it in the West, was invented by the Jews”

—Aldous Huxley, One And Many

Followers of the Abrahamic or Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam did not use the swastika. The Semitic people had a very different religious, cultural, and linguistic history from the Indo-Europeans (called Indo-European because the Aryans settled in India before migrating into Europe); the Semitic religions present in Europe, via Christianity, are much younger than the religion suggested by the swastika.

Learn more about the hidden origins of the swastika and the white race in the book Written In Stone by Richard Cassaro:

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Sanskrit, Europe’s Mother Tongue

The whole “Aryan invasion” model arose after the English philologist Sir William Jones (1746-1794) recognized similarities between the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit and the more modern European languages, including Latin and Greek, the Germanic, Celtic and Slavic languages.

Scholars found that Sanskrit was in fact the “mother-tongue” from which these and indeed all of Europe’s languages had evolved. European languages are now called “Indo-European” in honor of their “Indo” or “Indian” (Sanskrit) origin. Other researchers soon built on Jones’ work, showing that the Avestan and Armenian languages were also based on Sanskrit.

The term “Aryan” derives from the ancient Indian (Vedic Sanskrit) and Persian (Avestan) term arya for “noble.” The Aryan tribes in India called their land Aaryaa varta or Aryan expanse. The Aryans in Iran similarly named their land Airyanem Vaejah, or Iranian Expanse, today known as Iran, which is a variant of “Aryan.”

Westerners unaware of Iran’s Aryan ancestry often lump it in with surrounding Arab states based on their shared religion of Islam. Iran, however, is distinct in many ways, having retained much of its national, racial and cultural identity for thousands of years. Describing the Iranians, the famous 5th Century B.C Greek Historian Herodotus wrote:

“In ancient times… they were renowned as Aryans among themselves and their neighbors.”

—Herodotus

The 6th Century BC King of Persia, Darius the Great, in an inscription in Naqsh-e-Rostam says:

“I am Darius the great King… A Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage …”

—Darius The Great

About two-thirds of Iran’s current population is described as “Caucasian,” descended from ancient Aryan tribes who pushed through Iran and continued westward into Europe from northern India. The remaining one-third is considered Turks and Arabs.

The Shah had the title Arya-Mehr, which means “Light of the Aryans.” An ancient Iranian tradition comparable to India’s caste system and still in practice today is the rule against interracial marriage. Aryan Iranians are prohibited by their families—and in some cases by communal law—from marrying non-Aryans.

Famous German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1832) believed Jones’ linguistic discovery was proof of the westward migration of the ancient Aryans. Norwegian Sanskritist Christian Lassen (1800-1876) agreed, pointing out that ancient Aryans, like modern high caste people of India, had a lighter complexion. German lexicographer Jacob Grimm (1785- 1863), who compiled ancient Aryan myths now called “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” (i.e., Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rapunzel), asserted that these stories were used for millennia as vehicles for transporting incredibly advanced spiritual teachings across time.

These renowned thinkers had a powerful influence in Europe, where they exerted a tremendous impact on the German philologist and Orientalist Max Muller (1823–1900), one of the 19th century’s most celebrated scholars.

Muller wrote:

“The Aryan nations…stand before us in history as the principal nations of northwestern Asia and Europe. …They have perfected society and morals; and we learn from their literature and works of art the elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy. …these Aryan nations have become the rulers of history, and it seems to be their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of civilization…”

—Max Muller

By the 1800s the British were already using this model for the political purpose of justifying their occupation and colonial rule of India, which began in the early 1600s and ended in 1947.

Several writers and historians had traced the origins of the Aryans to the Caucasus Mountains region; these mountains bridge Europe and Asia, and from this idea the term “Caucasian,” invented by German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), came into widespread use.

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The Great “Flood” That Sank Atlantis

Some scholars traced the Aryan homeland just east of the Caucasus to Tibet, the so-called “roof of the world,” where many scholars believed the floodwaters that destroyed Atlantis (yes, Atlantis) sent Atlantean refugees into high-altitude Tibet, where they remained safe for generations. The Aryans slowly arose here, according to this idea, to become the direct descendants and blood inheritors of the Atlanteans. Interestingly, the world-famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), describing Tibet, said:

“…this is the highest country. No doubt it was inhabited before any other and could even have been the site of all creation and all science. The culture of the Indians, as is known, almost certainly came from Tibet, just as all our arts like agriculture, numbers, the game of chess, etc., seem to have come from India.”

—Immanuel Kant

Scholars, thinkers, and philosophers once accepted this chronicle as fact. In Cosmic Memory, for example, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the famous Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, architect, playwright, educator, and social thinker, wrote:

“The greatest part of the Atlantean population declined, and from a small portion are descended the so-called Aryans who comprise present-day civilized humanity.”

— Rudolf Steiner, Cosmic Memory

Steiner’s pre-Nazi era sentiment reflects the widespread European belief of his day. This may surprise some Americans familiar with Steiner’s reputation as an innovative educator. Today there are over one hundred “Steiner schools” throughout North America plus dozens in other countries, serving hundreds of thousands of students.

The Greek philosopher Plato first named Atlantis in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, in the fourth century B.C. He spoke of it as a sophisticated antediluvian empire that flourished for eons on a now submerged continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, from which its name is taken. Plato maintained that the Atlanteans possessed a highly spiritual wisdom religion, which enabled them to “see” their own divine and eternal “soul” inside the physical body. According to him, seeing the “soul within” allowed the Atlanteans to harness its higher powers.

Learn more about the hidden origins of the swastika and the white race in the book Written In Stone by Richard Cassaro:

Plato asserted that a memory of these powers is preserved in the fantastic abilities attributed to the “gods” of Greek and Roman mythology; instead of being actual gods, they were mortals endowed with amplified perceptions due to their connection with their eternal soul (think here of Christ and Buddha). In time, however, the Atlantean kingdom grew weak due to their materializing tendencies, weak enough that they began to lose touch with the inner divinity that granted them such power. Plato wrote:

“For many generations…they obeyed the laws and loved the divine to which they were akin. …they reckoned that qualities of character were far more important than their present prosperity. So they bore the burden of their wealth and possessions lightly, and did not let their high standard of living intoxicate them or make them lose their self-control…But when the divine element in them became weakened…and their human traits became predominant, they ceased to be able to carry their prosperity with moderation.”

—Plato

Plato goes on to explain that the end of Atlantis came some several thousand years ago, when a series of natural disasters sank their continent into the sea. A handful of survivors escaped the devastation, spreading to different parts of the world and taking their pyramid-building religion with them. Until fairly recently, most scholars believed that ancient civilizations, separated by both time and space, built pyramids and pyramidal monuments in honor of their mother culture, Atlantis:

Even today this theory is still widely held and debated. Pyramids can be found in India, China, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Ireland and many other places. Such diverse structures with similar purposes seem to indicate a connection; if there was no communication between the cultures during their development, there must then be a common source.

Skeptics point to the disparity in “pyramid-ages” around the world (scholars believe Old World pyramids were built thousands of years before New World pyramids). However, New World scholars are continuously pushing back the date of pre-Columbian pyramids and it seems only a matter of time before the dates run parallel; even if they were not, the similarity of construction, intention, and purpose of the Old and New World pyramid structures makes the idea of such an exact coincidence unlikely at best.

Most pre-World War II scholars agreed that the world’s pyramids were connected to Atlantis. They saw the Flood myths common to various cultures as proof of Atlantis’ end, parallel legends of a worldwide catastrophe after which man and civilization were forced to begin anew; they saw the legends as stemming from a dim cultural memory of that Atlantean Flood. From this catastrophe a general digression occurred—not just a cultural confusion of tongues; a digression in the physical Atlantean “race” itself. The Atlantean capacity to “hold the vision” of the “soul within” had become lost. Only the “idea” of the eternal soul remained—and it is still with us even today.

There also occurred a slow but inevitable demise of the entire Atlantean race itself, according to these thinkers. Over the course of thousands of years, the race died out, and the “Aryan” or “white” race arose in its place.

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In Conclusion

The swastika’s connection to the Aryan race (or, to use a newer term, “Caucasian” race) is clear, but modern events, contradictions, and misconceptions have perverted the swastika’s original meaning, especially its semantic association. Scholars, anthropologists, linguists, and scientists have understood that the swastika is evidence of the unified and highly spiritual Aryan peoples of European prehistory.

The question is: Why is this history purposely being hidden? Why is it not taught in schools? Is it because of the direct connection to Atlantis? Is Atlantis being covered up by the Elite who don’t want the world to know of its past existence, for then perhaps the masses will ultimately uncover the ancient religion of the “soul”…and realize the truth of man’s inner divinity and innate spiritual powers?

Adolf Hitler’s ideas on all things Aryan were apparently no different than those of mainstream European scholars and laymen in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries; unfortunately, the atrocities he and the Nazis committed under the symbol of the swastika have left modern audiences with a very negative semantic association. As a result, there has been a “censorship” of this magnificent spiritual symbol that has plunged, and continues to plunge, late 20th century and early 21st century peoples (i.e., us) in the dark as to its magnificent origins and spiritual meaning.

Left: American 45th Division WWI. Right: Adolf Hitler with swastika.

So what does the Swastika symbol really mean? What did it symbolize in the minds of the ancients who used it? How can this symbol empower each one of us today?

In Part II, we examine:

-19th and 20th century academic research into the Atlantis/Aryan connection
-the swastika’s true ancient meaning that we are gods temporarily living in a human body
- how whites have been cut off from Hinduism by the Bible, Judaism and Christianity

Learn more about the hidden origins of the swastika and the forbidden history of the white race in the book Written In Stone by Richard Cassaro:

The swastika, the ancient symbol of Hinduism, has been found abundantly on Neolithic European ruins during the past two centuries of archaeological excavations. This has convinced scholars, past and present, that prehistoric Europeans practiced an early form of Hinduism (with its high spiritual concepts of the Eternal Soul, Transmigration, Karma, Yoga, the Third Eye, and Nirvana). The rise of Christianity ended European Hinduism—plunging Europe into the dark ages. Was this a deliberate deathblow in a broader occult war to remove the spiritual support of the white race? Today whites shun spirituality, pursuing money and material gain; not knowing their ancestors understood the secrets of consciousness and life after death.

Geometric mosaic depicting ancient Roman
swastikas. Roman-Germanic Museum, Cologne, Germany.

We saw in Part 1 how swastikas found on ancient European artifacts has convinced scholars that prehistoric Europeans practiced Hinduism—long before Christianity swept through and overtook the continent.

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The Aryan Invasion Of India

Early in India’s prehistory, scholars believe, massive groups of Aryans from Central Asia, possibly Tibet—whom most scholars say were Caucasians or “whites”—invaded the Indian sub-continent. Trekking eastwards in successive waves these Aryan tribes reached the fertile Gangetic plain, where they established a new society that would become the foundation of Hinduism as we know it. The native Indians, called “Dravidians,” were pushed slowly southwards by the Aryan incursions.
The results of this cultural clash can be seen still today, with southern India appearing quite different to its northern counterpart, both in terms of language and traditions. As discussed, the Aryans spoke “Indo-European”, the language that scholars assert forms the basis of all the European languages; from this, many scholars also assert that these same Aryans were the first Europeans as well.

Records of the Aryan invasion are found in the Vedas, the oldest extant body of Hindu literature, written down between 2000 and 1000 BC. Veda in Sanskrit means “body of knowledge.” Scholars believe the Vedas derive from an oral tradition brought by the Aryans.

It is in the Vedas that we first learn of the archaic hierarchical caste system that divides Hindu culture into four distinct groups plus the Untouchables. From India, the Aryans migrated westward into Europe, creating the high cultures that evolved into Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and so on. Every Caucasian in America who can trace family roots to Europe is a descendant of these historical Aryans.

Thus, before Christianity, most Caucasians in Europe were practicing Hinduism. If the Aryans brought Hinduism to India, and the Europeans are descended from Aryans, as the chronology necessitates, then consequently all European ancestors, at some point in time, practiced a form of Hinduism, with its high spiritual concepts of the Eternal Soul, Transmigration, Karma, Yoga, the Third Eye, and Nirvana.

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Hinduism – The Religion Of The Ancient Aryans

We see evidence of this in how the swastika, the central symbol of Hinduism, is visible on ancient European ruins and artifacts:

Ancient Iliou Melathron mosaic in Athens, Greece.

We read in Barbarian Tides, a 1982 publication from the highly respected Time-Life Books library, that “Aryans” (a term used by pre-Nazi era scholars to describe the “white” inhabitants of Europe) introduced “Hinduism” onto the Indian sub-continent before settling in Europe:

“These people, the Aryans, would bestow their social institutions on the Indian subcontinent and spawn a unique spiritual culture, Hinduism.”

—Time-Life Books library, 1982

Writing a century before this Time-Life book was published, William Henry Goodyear (1846 – 1923), a noted American archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator (and son of Charles Goodyear of Goodyear Tires) wrote in his book Grammar of the Lotus:

“…the Swastika was an “Aryan emblem”… The supposition that the Aryan Hindus carried the Swastika with them to India is…perfectly tenable, since it belongs to early prehistoric art of Europe…”

—William Henry Goodyear, Grammar of the Lotus, 1891

William Henry Goodyear was the first curator of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Around this time, in 1876, we read in the book A School Manual of Modern Geography, written by John Richardson, Vicar of St. Mary’s Hospital in Essex, London:

“Aryan Hindus…in very early times…separating from the great family in the highlands of Central Asia, crossed the Himalayas, descended into the plains of the Indus and Ganges, overran a great part of the peninsula, and introduced the civilization and religion which are now dominant in India.”

—John Richardson, A School Manual of Modern Geography, 1876

John Richardson (1810 – 1888)

In his 1881 book, A Short Manual of the History of India, Sir Roper Lethbridge, a British academic and House of Commons member, wrote a chapter subtitled “The Conquest of India by the Aryan Hindus” wherein he explains:

“The accounts…of the early Aryan invaders…are mainly derived from an examination of the Hymns of the Vedas, the most ancient religious books of the Aryans…

…the invaders of India…belong to a race (called Aryan or Indo-European) which included the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Persians, and most of the modern nations of Europe, such as the English, Germans, French, and many others.

—Sir Roper Lethbridge, A Short Manual of the History of India, 1881

These quotes show the long-standing and currently held academic belief that “Aryans” brought Hinduism into India and then Europe. While Christianity replaced Hinduism in Europe, Hinduism remained active in India.

So the question is: Why is this fascinating history of the white race and religion of Hinduism being censored today by virtually every segment of authority in Western society?

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The Forbidden History Of The White Race

Aryan Hinduism is being kept hidden on purpose, it seems. It’s not taught in schools or universities. Not explained in movies, mainstream books, on TV, on the radio, in newspapers or magazines, or by the mass media. The fact that you are unaware of it is itself evidence of a cover-up.

“Censored” symbol around an 1898 Yale University
study showing “The Swastikas Of Ancient Europe.”

Even more strange is how whites identify with the Jewish religion, instead of their ancestral religion of Hinduism. We are all taught the biblical stories of Moses and the Ten Commandments, the Exodus from Egypt, the arrival into the Promised Land, the kingship of David and Solomon, and so on. Jewish history has been unnaturally grafted onto the European psyche in a way that makes Europeans identify with Jewish ancestry as if it were their own; in other words, whites are raised Jewish. Why?

Learn more about the hidden origins of the swastika and the white race in the new book Written In Stone by Richard Cassaro:

The reason is because there seems to be something hidden but powerful in Aryan history that the elite powers who rule the world find threatening. If we trace the Aryan roots back further into the depths of time we hit-upon exactly what this “forbidden zone” is. It’s a treasure-trove of spiritually uplifting and self-empowering wisdom, and it’s based on what we may call the “Aryan / Atlantis connection.”

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The Aryan / Atlantis Connection

This Aryan / Atlantis connection was brought into the modern era by the famous Russian mystic Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), founder of “The Theosophical Society” in New York City in 1875. Her magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine, was published in 1888 and had tremendous worldwide impact. Her influence on Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, which is virtually overlooked by historians, completely altered the course of the 20th century.  Note the swastika on her organization’s logo:

Left: Helena Blavatsky. Right: Logo of the Theosophical
Society, New York City, 1875. Note the swastika.

Ignoring the Biblical “God-made-man-in-six-days” concept, Blavatsky asserted the antiquity, primacy, and universality of the so-called Doctrine of the Fall of Man and His Descent into Matter, which forms the root doctrine of much of eastern thought (Hinduism, Buddhism), Greek philosophy, and modern western esoteric and occult circles.

It teaches that beneath the flesh men and women are “gods” or “eternal souls” that have fallen into the “material world” from our higher “spiritual home” in the heavens back to which the soul must eventually return. During its descent, the soul has put on a thick vesture of clothing in the form of a physical body, so that it no longer recognizes its own inner, eternal, and divine nature.

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

—C.S. Lewis

“Man is a god in the body of an animal according to the pronouncement of ancient philosophy…”

—Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn

“A man is a god in ruins.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

According to Blavatsky, the soul’s Fall is a “leftover wisdom” from the highly-sophisticated antediluvian civilization of Atlantis.  As we saw in Part 1, the Greek philosopher Plato first named Atlantis in the fourth century B.C., referring to it as a now-submerged island kingdom that once flourished in the Atlantic Ocean.

Plato maintained that the Atlanteans possessed a highly spiritual wisdom-religion, which enabled them to “see” their own “soul” inside the physical body. Seeing the “soul within” allowed the Atlanteans to harness its higher power, until slowly their “human” part began to overtake their “divine” part:

“…the divine element in them became weakened…and their human traits became predominant, and they ceased to be able to carry their prosperity with moderation.”

—Plato, Timaeus and Critias

While scholars of Blavatsky’s day had traced the origins of the Aryans to the Caucasus Mountains region—from which the term “Caucasian”, invented by German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), came into widespread use—Blavatsky traced the Aryan homeland east of the Caucasus to Tibet, the so-called “roof of the world,” where she spent years researching her books. The Floodwaters that overtook Atlantis, she claimed, sent Atlantean refugees into high-altitude Tibet, where they remained safe for generations. The Aryans slowly arose here to become the direct descendants and blood inheritors of the Atlanteans.

Map of the Aryan Invasion of India from their theorized homeland.

Interestingly, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), describing Tibet a century before Blavatsky, tells us that:

“…this is the highest country. No doubt it was inhabited before any other and could even have been the site of all creation and all science.

The culture of the Indians, as is known, almost certainly came from Tibet, just as all our arts like agriculture, numbers, the game of chess, etc., seem to have come from India.”

—Immanuel Kant

Blavatsky saw the Flood myths—parallel legends of global catastrophe after which man and civilization were forced to begin anew—as stemming from a dim cultural memory of the sinking of Atlantis. From this catastrophe a general digression occurred. Not just a cultural confusion of tongues; a digression in the physical Atlantean “race” itself. The Atlantean capacity to “hold the vision” of the “soul within” became lost. Only the “idea” of the eternal soul remained—and it is still with us even today. Over the course of millennia, the Atlantean race died out; Blavatsky maintained that the “Aryan” or “white” race arose in its place.

This Aryan / Atlantis history was supported by 19th and early 20th century scholars and intellectuals. The famous Austrian philosopher, educator, and social thinker, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), wrote:

“The greatest part of the Atlantean population declined, and from a small portion are descended the so-called Aryans who comprise present-day civilized humanity.”

—Rudolf Steiner, Cosmic Memory

Rudolph Steiner

American congressman Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (1831 – 1901) wrote a chapter titled “The Aryan Colonies From Atlantis” in his book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, where he said:

“Did the Aryan…race come from Atlantis?”

“The center of the Aryan migrations (according to popular opinion)…was Armenia. Here too is Mount Ararat, where it is said the ark rested—another identification with the Flood regions, as it represents the usual transfer of the Atlantis legend by an Atlantean people to a high mountain in their new home.”

“The Greeks, who are Aryans, traced their descent from the people who were destroyed by the Flood, as did other races clearly Aryan…herein we find another evidence of relationship between the Aryans and the people of Atlantis.. the Greeks, an Aryan race, in their mythological traditions, show the closest relationship to Atlantis…We have seen that Zeus, the king of Atlantis, whose tomb was shown at Crete, was transformed into the Greek god Zeus.”

“There is another reason for supposing that the Aryan nations came from Atlantis. We find all Europe… occupied by nations recognized as Aryan.”

—Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, 1882

Ignatius Loyola Donnelly

During the slow demise of the Atlanteans and rise of the Aryans, which occurred over a period of millennia, two physiological changes or mutations occurred, according to Blavatsky, one of which is very important.

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The Aryan / Atlantean “Third Eye”

The Atlanteans were several feet taller than us today, but lost their stature as their spirituality faltered. The second and more significant mutation prevented the new Aryan race from lucidly “seeing” the “soul within.” This left their descendants—modern humans—unable to see or recognize our own inner divinity. Blavatsky believed the Atlanteans once possessed this mysterious ability due to the existence of an enigmatic, luminous organ inside the brain that she called the “Cyclopean Eye” or “Third Eye.”

Learn more about the hidden origins of the swastika and the white race in the new book Written In Stone by Richard Cassaro:

A strange and beautiful appendage, it is associated with the forehead above and between the two eyes. As our two eyes see outward at material things, this single Eye sees inward at spiritual matters—like the soul. When the Atlanteans devolved into the Aryans, the Third Eye atrophied. Blavatsky wrote:

“…the “third eye” was once a physiological organ, and…later on, owing to the gradual disappearance of spirituality and increase of materiality (spiritual nature being extinguished by the physical), it became an atrophied organ.”

—Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, 1888

Though atrophied, Blavatsky insisted that we modern humans, like our Atlantean ancestors, can still access this forgotten organ; some 19th and early 20th century scientists identified this organ as the obscure pineal gland, described as follows:

“A small…conical appendage of the brain of all craniate vertebrates that in a few reptiles has the essential structure of an eye…postulated to be a vestigial third eye, an endocrine organ, or the seat of the soul…”

—Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) called the pineal gland the “seat of the soul.” Single “Eye” and “Third Eye” portraits stretch back many thousands of years, appearing in ancient myths, sculptures, engravings, and paintings worldwide.

Ancient Cyclops Mosaic with Third Eye in the Villa Romana, Sicily.

Readers familiar with Hinduism will recall the Third Eye as having a long history in India, where it is known as the “urna” or “trinetra,” marked by a dot in the middle of the forehead above and between the eyes. Though mystics and adepts often speak of its mysterious occult powers, on a simpler level it denotes spiritual insight, providing one with a vision of his or her inward soul—one’s true eternal being:

Bodhisattva statue from the 3rd century found in present-day
Afghanistan. Note the Third Eye symbolized by the forehead dot.

Is Aryan Hinduism forbidden from our view to keep us from learning of the Aryan / Atlantis link and from rediscovering our inherent Third Eye powers? Are the elite seeking to keep us from awakening our Third Eye, Nature’s way of allowing us to see our “soul within,” recognize our godhood, and realize our full potential?

The Third Eye is used extensively in the east, appearing in varied disciplines; it is used in meditation practices like Yoga and Ch’an Buddhism as well as martial arts like karate, qigong, and aikido. It forms the pinnacle of Hinduism’s Kundalini Yoga teaching, with its famous “chakra” system; the Third Eye or “ajna” chakra is the sixth of seven chakras and is awakened when we balance our solar “pingala” channel on our body’s right side with our lunar “ida” channel on our body’s left side:

Kundalini Yoga, the Third Eye yoga. Note the on sun the
right-hand side and moon on the left-hand side.

Though Easterners are quite familiar with the Third Eye, its wisdom is totally foreign to the West. Has there been a conscious effort to conceal it?

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The “Third Eye” Secret Of The Freemasons

Incredibly, the design of a sun on the right, moon on the left, and single Eye in the middle is featured on the regalia, drawings, and artifacts of the Freemasons, the oldest Secret Society in Western history. The single Eye—i.e., the Third Eye—is usually drawn centered between the sun (pingala) and moon (ida):

Masonic Tracing Board, 1820

Is the Masonic Fraternity a storehouse of lost ancient Third Eye wisdom from Atlantis? Was the Masonic Fraternity created in response to the rise of Christianity as a way of protecting Aryan / Atlantean Third Eye wisdom?

The Masons have long been rumored to be guarding a blasphemous and heretical secret from Antiquity. Consider the sudden persecution of the Masons by the Catholic Church, beginning in the early 1700s.

“… after the example of our predecessors, we intend to turn our attention to the Masonic society, to its whole doctrine, to its intentions, acts, and feelings, in order to illustrate more and more this wicked force and stop the spread of this contagious disease …”

—Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus

This condemnation would seem to indicate that the Masons are heretics, possessors of some sort of religious doctrine that contradicts official Church canon. For many 19th and 20th century thinkers and academics, the Third Eye is precisely that doctrine:

“…the All-seeing eye…This is the eye of freemasonry, the third eye. While I am credibly formed that few Masons understand their own symbols, the fact remains that they use them…”

—Dr. George Washington Carey, The Wonders of the Human Body,1918

“The Order of Freemasonry acknowledges the ‘All Seeing Eye’ as the Eye of Great Wisdom.’ This ‘Great Wisdom’ is said to offer those who seek the sacred mysteries an understanding of illumination, inner vision, and intuitive knowledge. Contact with this great wisdom occurs through the ‘Third Eye’ (pineal gland) located inside the forehead.”

—Dr. Joye Jeffries Pugh, Eden, 2006

“The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the ‘all seeing eye’ pierces through, and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn’t indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn’t detect.”

—Mark Twain, Famous American Author and Freemason, 1899

“The Great Pyramid is a central occult symbol that is often depicted with the “all-seeing-eye” or “third eye” inside it. In this form it is the symbol of mystical Freemasonry.”

—John Bowlt, Wendy Salmond, and Marie Turbow, The Uncommon Vision of Sergei Konenkov, 1874-1971

“The All-Seeing Eye…also emblematic of the…third eye of the human being…has been found amid the ruins of every civilization….”

—Grace Morey, Mystic Americanism, 1924

Famous Freemason and former Harvard student Albert Pike (1809-1892) believed true Freemasonry represented something akin to the ancient doctrine of the Aryan race—a fact not widely recognized. Pike, a pillar of American Masonry, is best known for his 1871 book, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. But few realize he penned two other noteworthy books that examine ancient Aryan spirituality: Aryan Deities and Worship as Contained in the Rig-Veda, and Irano-Aryan Faith and Doctrine as Contained in the Zend Avesta.

“The world owes all its correct and profound conceptions of the Deity, and its knowledge of the existence of the human soul, to the great Aryan race.”

—Albert Pike, Irano-Aryan Faith and Doctrine as Contained in the Zend Avesta

Albert Pike (1809-1892).

Like Pike, a Freemason and medical doctor named J.D. Buck (1838 – 1916) was interested in the Aryan history of India, Iran, and in Eastern religions in general. He wrote in his Mystic Masonry:

“The real source from whence the Ancient Wisdom came was…Old India, the Mother of Civilizations and Religions, and of the esoteric or concealed wisdom.”

—Dr. J.D. Buck, Mystic Masonry

Dr. Buck also gave a physical description of the Third Eye and connected its “mastery” to Freemasonry’s third degree of “Master Mason”:

“It has been called “The Third Eye.” The Ancient Hindus called it the Eye of Siva…It is atrophied, and therefore dormant in the average individual…The Eye of Siva is, in fact, an All-Seeing-Eye; for it practically annuls Space and Time as concepts on the physical plane…

A real Master [Mason], then, has the Eye of Siva; the pineal gland, dormant in others, is active in him…”

—Dr. J.D. Buck, Mystic Masonry

If Buck is correct, and practicing an Eastern “occult” art was part of Masonic adherence, then Masonry’s forced secrecy in Europe becomes clear. Due to the power and brutality of the Inquisition, as well as its stated goal to destroy heretics, the Masons had no choice but to hide themselves in order to preserve their Third Eye traditions, knowledge, and rites.

Otherwise said, the Third Eye is the “great secret” of true Freemasonry, and the Freemasons were a persecuted sect precisely because their Order was established to safeguard the Third Eye religion of their ancient Aryan Hindu ancestors, who remembered it from Atlantis.

Learn more about the hidden origins of the swastika and the white race in the new book Written In Stone by Richard Cassaro:

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Hitler And The Third Eye

Interestingly, having accepted many of Blavatsky’s ideas, Germany’s occult leaders—who rose to power decades after Buck and Pike died of old age—also acknowledged the Third Eye, and even believed Blavatsky’s explanation of its ancient Atlantean origins. Descriptions of the Eye can be found in the writings of several Nazi leaders. Hitler made an indirect reference to it in Mein Kampf:

“…all the human culture, all the results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan. …he alone was the founder of all higher humanity… He is the Prometheus of mankind from whose bright forehead the divine spark of genius has sprung at all times…”

—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925

Hitler’s belief in the Third Eye was affirmed by Hermann Rauschning, the former National Socialist Senate President of Danzig. In Hitler Speaks (London, 1939), Rauschning wrote:

“To have “magic insight” was apparently Hitler’s idea of the goal of human progress…There was the eye of the Cyclops, or median eye, the organ of magic perception of the Infinite, now reduced to a rudimentary pineal gland. Speculations of this sort fascinated Hitler, and he would sometimes be entirely wrapped up in them.”

—Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks

Adolf Hitler

Further evidence of his Third Eye belief is set forth in the book Hitler’s Secret Conversations, a transcription of confidential dialogues and discussions that took place at his headquarters from July 1941 to November 1944, which were recorded for posterity. Hitler said:

“In all the human traditions…one finds mention of a huge cosmic disaster…In my view the thing is explicable only by the hypothesis of a disaster that completely destroyed a humanity which already possessed a high degree of civilization. The fragments of our prehistory are perhaps merely reproductions of objects belonging to a more distant past, and it’s by means of these, doubtless, that the road to civilization was discovered anew…”

—Trevor-Roper, Hitler’s Secret Conversations

Hitler’s belief in the Third Eye proves just how influential Blavatsky’s writings really were in Germany before Hitler’s rise to power. Many of his ideas exactly parallel Blavatsky’s, including the swastika logo, the idea of the Aryan race’s primacy and antiquity, and a highly sophisticated and forgotten antediluvian civilization.

Nazi teams of anthropologists, archaeologists and occult scholars were dispatched to the far East, India, and Tibet to uncover evidence of Aryan history. Their researches formed the basis for the Indiana Jones movies, in which Nazi officers are depicted searching in forgotten lands for lost artifacts and treasures.

Though she had by now passed away, Blavatsky’s theories—she described the “Hindu Aryans” as “the most metaphysical and spiritual people on earth”—had become validated in the eyes of many 19th and 20th century Europeans. For them, it was the “Aryan” who introduced the highly spiritual Vedic religion, Hinduism, to India; and it was the Aryan who dutifully remembered his ancient, ancestral “Third Eye” practice, the natural human organ through which one is put into contact with one’s eternal soul.

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Decoding The Swastika

Blavatsky’s ideas reached Hitler and the Nazis indirectly through a Viennese poet and occult icon of pre-Nazi Germany named Guido Von List (1848 – 1919),  according to Professor Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, a scholar of Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter.

Guido Von List (1848 – 1919).

Like Blavatsky, List was convinced that the ancient Aryans had created a highly sophisticated spiritual capital throughout Europe. He credited them with constructing Europe’s unusual megalithic and Cyclopean architecture, based on a mysterious “technique” they had inherited from their Atlantean ancestors, which involved tapping the strength of the “god within” by awakening the “Cyclopean” or Third Eye.

Stonehenge, a magical megalithic monument in present day England.

Following the opinion of the Italian philosopher and Freemason Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), who was burned alive by the Inquisition for refusing to recant his heretical Gnostic views, List believed that the Old Testament, upon which the ethical, moral, religious, and social values of the Western world are based, is a false teaching that has covered up the authentic and far richer Aryan Hinduism, a “spiritual” past now almost forgotten.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) great mind put to death.

For List, the influence of the Old Testament in Europe overshadowed the original Hinduism brought by the Aryans. The rise of the all-powerful Catholic Church then gave European Hinduism its final deathblow. According to Goodricke-Clarke:

“…List was attracted to the ideas of Giordano Bruno…Bruno had proclaimed that Judaism and Christianity had corrupted the ancient and true religion…which had enjoyed considerable popularity amongst the Neo-Platonists of the Renaissance. Bruno also wanted a new dispensation based on the rediscovered ancient gnosis.”

—Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, 1992

For List, as for Bruno, the Old Testament is not an accurate account of human history; instead, the Old Testament has been superimposed over human history. Because Europe and the West have wholeheartedly accepted the Bible, as if it were the heritage of all mankind (and not just the history of one small group, the Hebrews), Westerners have failed to recognize a far greater history, and a far richer spiritual wisdom—the key symbol of which is the swastika.

The word “Swastika” comes from the Sanskrit “su” (good) and “asti” (being), meaning “good being.” The emblem is formed by crossing two symmetrical but opposing “S” runes—the runes being a mysterious ancient alphabet once used in Northern Europe—putting their two congruent shapes in perfect equilibrium.

Swastika, ancient symbol of the balance of opposites.

List claimed that the ancient Aryans saw in the twin opposing “S” signs of the swastika the doctrine of “balanced duality” (i.e., Sun vs. Moon, Day vs. Night, Light vs. Dark, Hot vs. Cold, Dry vs. Wet, Male vs. Female, Positive vs. Negative, etc.). Blavatsky too believed the swastika’s twin “S” signs symbolize all the “paired opposites” in the material world, much like China’s yin & yang or Freemasonry’s sun and moon:

“The double sign is, as every student of Occultism knows, the symbol of the male and the female principles in Nature, of the positive and the negative…”

—Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

She explained that crossing the two S’s means unifying opposites or balancing them by giving them a common center—in other words, self-realization by finding one’s center (point in the middle) between the twin “S” opposites (duality).

This is precisely the sacred formula for awakening the Third Eye—the balancing of opposites (i.e., balance of the sun and the moon, of ida and pingala, Boaz and Jachin, etc.). English writer and journalist Perceval Landon (1868-1927), describing his turn of the 20th century travels in Tibet, explained:

“…the swastika…surmounted by a rudely drawn symbol of the sun and moon…marks every main doorway in the country.”

—Perceval Landon, Lhasa: An Account of the Country and People of Central Tibet, 1905

Swastika in Tibet, flanked by sun and moon, from the Iron
Age (1300 BC – 600 BC). From www.tibetarchaeology.com

After arriving in India with the Aryans, the swastika later moved into China and Japan with the spread of Buddhism (an offshoot of Hinduism) in the centuries leading up to Christ. This is why the Buddha—whose 6th Century BC appearance came long after the movement of the Aryans and the spread of Hinduism—is depicted with the swastika, meditating in the crossed-legged lotus position with an awakened Third Eye (the bindi dot) on his forehead. In other words, by using the swastika Buddha balanced his solar and lunar halves, awakening his Third Eye (“Buddha” means he who has awakened):

The Buddha with swastika on his heart and awakened Third
Eye dot on his forehead—communing with his “soul
within”—the pinnacle teaching of Aryan Hinduism

There is, of course, much more behind the symbolism of the swastika, but it’s basic meaning is to teach us how to find our center within or “god within” and awaken our Third Eye, an act which reveals the fullness of our inner being where all contradiction and conflict—all opposites—vanish, and where the veil of the material world is temporarily lifted, revealing the Self or “soul within” us and allowing us to tap its power to achieve spiritual liberation.

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In Conclusion

The origin of the white race is more than just a “taboo” topic for academics today; it is completely forbidden and outlawed. The fact that you know so little about this subject, and so little about the ancient prehistoric Hindu religion of Europe, is evidence of this. A number of 18th, 19th and early 20th century scholars and archaeologists believed that the white or Aryan race is descended from the lost civilization of Atlantis. This belief once formed mainstream academic opinion.

The elite don’t want the masses to understand the historical academic belief in a possible Aryan / Atlantis link because the Third Eye doctrine we will find there removes the Old Testament “God” from the spiritual equation completely by empowering man with the strength of his own divinity.

As you will find when you read Written In Stone, the ideas in this essay are not racist, but intended to spark a curiosity in whites regarding the ancestral spiritual system that they have been cheated out of; indeed white ignorance of their spiritual origins is the great problem and crisis in the world today. All men and women have spiritually and physically the same origin, and mankind is essentially of one and the same essence:

The “Three Wise Monkeys” (also called the “Three Mystic Apes”) is a sacred ancient icon whose original meaning is intentionally being hidden from us by the Elite. Knowing the secret truth of the symbol’s age-old directive of “See no Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil ” can empower you in ways you never thought possible and change your life forever. In this article, we’ll uncover the symbol’s authentic ancient meaning, and we’ll see why this meaning is intentionally being covered up.

If you think you know the meaning of the Three Wise Monkeys symbol, maybe you better think again.

We’re taught by the Elite (i.e., the mass media and their corporate sponsors) that it stands for feigning ignorance to the misconduct of others rather than exposing their misconduct:

“In the Western world the phrase is often used to refer to those who deal with impropriety by looking the other way, refusing to acknowledge it, or feigning ignorance.”

—Wikipedia

The trouble is, “turning a blind eye” to the misconduct of others is not the symbol’s true authentic or original Eastern spiritual meaning. This is a false and corrupted “substitute” meaning.

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The Symbol’s Original Ancient Significance

The symbol’s original ancient significance has been hidden from us (by the powers that shouldn’t be) for good reason: The truth is far more potent, more self-empowering, more magical, and more spiritually uplifting than the Elite want the masses to know.

“Mahatma Gandhi’s one notable exception to his lifestyle of non-possession was a small statue of the three monkeys.”

—Wikipedia

Mahatma Gandhi, one of the world’s most beloved heroes.

Mizaru, covering his eyes, sees no evil. Kikazaru, covering his ears, hears no evil. Iwazaru, covering his mouth, speaks no evil. Together the three embody the proverbial principle to “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.”

But what exactly does this mean?

Let’s take the first phrase: “See no evil.” It means just what it says: “See no evil,” or don’t look upon anything that is evil. Don’t look at evil, don’t watch or gawk at evil, don’t crave evil, don’t let evil enter into your system, not even for a moment.

Why not?

Ever drink old milk? Eat rotten meat? Bad cheese? When you swallow it, you digest it. And when you digest it you get sick from it. Your body absorbs it, and when your body realizes it’s no good your body needs to release it quickly, in some way.

It’s the same with evil. When we see evil, we digest it, and when we digest it the evil becomes a part of us. We then need to release it in some way, which often has a negative result.

For many, this idea that “seeing” evil is equivalent to “digesting” evil may sound like rubbish. But there is a powerful and profound principle at work here. To use a simple comparison, it’s a proven fact that seeing violence in the media (i.e., TV, movies, video games) makes us think and act more violently:

“Literally thousands of studies since the 1950s have asked whether there is a link between exposure to media violence and violent behavior.  All but 18 have answered, ‘Yes.’   The evidence from the research is overwhelming.  According to the AAP, ‘Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares, and fear of being harmed.’ Watching violent shows is also linked with having less empathy toward others.”

—University of Michigan Health System (website)

Seeing violence causes us to act more violently. Similarly, when we “See Evil” we internalize it. And when we internalize evil, it becomes a part of us, which means eventually the evil needs to find its way out. If it does not exit, the evil wreaks havoc on our bodies and minds.

Thus, the ancient directive to “See No Evil” is a wise maxim that seeks to protect us from evil by warning us not to “see” it in the first place.

A 17th century carving over a door of the famous Toshogu shrine in Nikko, Japan.

The next phrase, “Hear No Evil,” rests on the same principle. When we hear evil, it becomes part of us. Our body absorbs it like a sponge. Again, it’s like ingesting rotten food; the body can’t hold it, and it needs to come out.

“Speak No Evil” is a bit different. Seeing and hearing are two of our five senses (along with touching, tasting, and smelling). But speaking is not a sense. Seeing and hearing both involve taking something into our body, while speaking involves pushing something out.

So the tenet “Speak No Evil” differs from the other two. In a sense, it can be seen as the outcome of the other two. In other words, if you “See No Evil” and you “Hear No Evil” you will then “Speak No Evil” because you will be pure. It’s the 1 + 1 = 2 formula.

The question is: Why is this simple wisdom being kept hidden from us? Hidden so well that many Americans will scoff at the authentic explanation of the Three Wise Monkeys just provided?

Those who scoff should realize that this wisdom is ancient, and can be traced back 2,500 year to a wise code of conduct followed by multiple high civilizations in China, India, Japan and elsewhere. Its wisdom has been adopted by great thinkers like Confucius:

“Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety”

—Confucius, c. 500 BC

We find similar ideas in other remote religions and spiritual systems. One example is Buddhism’s “Noble Eightfold Path,” which is the Buddha’s practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from suffering, attachments and delusions; and which finally leads to understanding the truth about all things:

Right Understanding
Right Thoughts
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration

In ancient Zoroastrianism (c. 1200 BC), the term “Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta,” expressed the main idea of the religion. It stood for the maxim: “good thoughts, good words, good deeds.”

“From their infancy Japanese boys have one special precept instilled into their minds. It is: “See no evil: hear no evil; speak no evil.”

—Our Young People, St. Johns Institute For Deaf Mutes, 1910

“There are three monkeys…They are resolved to “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.” They are intent upon guarding the whole output and input and intake of life from the taint of wrong.”

—Charles Reynolds Brown, The Religion of a Layman, 1920

“‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ ; ‘Think evil and you create evil,’ are universal world-old proverbs.”

—Leonard Stuart, The Cosmic Comedy, 1919

“O’er the door of the sacred Temple
They sit in their wisdom the three –
The little deaf Monkey,
The little dumb Monkey,
The Monkey who will not see;
With their eyes shut to evil,
Ears that hear only the right,
Lips that are dumb to scandal,
They sit in their silent might”

—Unknown

“…I recommend…the observance of a commandment that existed before either Christian or Jew existed.

Thou shalt make a covenant with thy senses,
With thine eye, that it beholds no evil.
With thine ear, that it hear no evil.
With thy tongue, that it speak no evil.
With thy hands that they commit no evils.

—Thomas Paine, Federal City, Lovett’s Hotel, 1802

How admirably simple and pure this philosophy is. To turn one’s back on destructive negativity, to guard one’s eyes from images and impressions that are not constructive to one’s spiritual growth.

This philosophy, which was certainly adopted by Gandhi as a universal truth, likens the mind to a white sheet, which only retains its pure color when associated with others who are like-mindedly pursuing spiritual ideals—who refuse to expose their minds and the minds of others to “the lower order of things.”

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Hidden By The Elite

Why, then, is the mass media increasingly pushing so much evil on us? Why are we being bombarded by evil, violence and fear on all sides? Forced to take it in, like so much old milk, rotten meat, and bad cheese?

Hollywood movies are getting more twisted, evil, and sinister.

Hollywood movies force us to violate the ancient “See No Evil” maxim.

Children’s video games are getting more violent, bloody, raw:

Left: Image from a violent children’s video game. Right: Children acting out violence at Columbine.

Television stations are broadcasting more and more disturbing and graphic programming.

Evil images and sounds from TV programs are stored in our brains. When the set goes off, they haunt our thoughts—consciously and unconsciously—and burst forth in misbehavior.

Music has been getting more violent for decades, much of it gratuitous, in terms of lyrics, album covers, videos and associated artwork:

The music industry, owned and operated by the Elite, is promoting violence to the younger generations.

Add to this all the poisonous evil that’s force-fed to us on all the TV and Cable News broadcasts. Every day the news at the top of the hour on all stations sounds the same: “Ten dead, six raped, four shot, two killed, one burned—bombs, Arab terror, hatred, race violence, corruption, mass arrests, sinking economy, gender warfare and al Qaeda.”

Watching the TV news forces evil, violence, fear and negativity on us.

When we watch the News we’re seeing and hearing evil all the time. We’re bombarded by it. How does it make you feel? Sad, scared, nervous, angry, depressed, and so on. Right?

Now, what if you found out that this Evil is being aimed at you…on purpose? The Elite are indeed doing this to us on purpose. Their goal is to destabilize society and prevent us from being empowered. At the same time, they are hiding the ancient wisdom of “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” from us, effectively robbing us of the main tool / teaching we need to defend ourselves.

Like many a great wisdom, the ancient teaching warning us to “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” has been subtly turned upside-down, and is now being used as a weapon against us. The maxim has been spun into a tool of perversion—”See Evil, Hear Evil, Speak Evil”—a control mechanism that blocks light, halts spiritual growth, and impedes the gentle and gradual revelation of ever-higher spiritual truth, wisdom, and realization.

The evil that’s being force-fed to us is much more damaging than we can imagine. It’s having more of a negative effect than we realize. It’s creating cancer in our bodies. In our minds. We’re constantly exposed to tremendous evil, and because we don’t realize the damage it’s doing to us we are not consciously trying to release it. Worse, we are willing participants in its consumption, not out of choice, but because we believe it’s normal, having been born and raised into society, into this system. We don’t realize it has all been purposely design to destabilize us mentally and physically, keeping the Elite in control and keeping the masses sick, suppressed, scared and subservient.

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Fighting The Powers That Shouldn’t Be

What can we do to fight against it?

Turn off the TV! Stop supporting Hollywood! Stop buying movie tickets! Don’t buy magazines. Newspapers. Resist watching the news. Spread the word—and warn the youth especially—that the system is rigged, the game is tilted.

Make sure you know that there are many positive ways of releasing the evil that we consume. Exercise (physical and mental) meditation, writing, reading, jogging, singing, biking. Even sex. In antiquity, the Olympics were founded so that city-states and kingdoms could release pent-up anger and hostility and evil against each other in a positive even joyous way.

The ancients held Olympic games to channel the evil they felt toward one another constructively. Today that wisdom has been lost.

Yes, there is real evil in the world (terrorists with bombs, murders with guns, laws that take away our freedoms, and genuine economic difficulties). But always remember that evil and fear are really only happening “out there” and not “in you.” All the negative things that are happening “out there” are out of our control until we can control what’s happening inside us. This starts with controlling our feelings and reactions to outside events. We have the power to change these events and that power lies in changing ourselves. As such, we each possess immense power.

As soon as you feel fear, recognize it as only a thought and consciously ask yourself: Why am I afraid? Is the cause of fear an immediate threat to your safety or well being? If not, then it is completely illusory and should be discarded. More times than not, we fear things that our minds invent. Things that may happen in the future, but haven’t yet actually happened to us. If we allow this fear to persist, we will likely attract the very things we fear. Push past these thoughts and concentrate, in fact meditate, on exactly the positive things you wish to occur instead of the outcomes you dread.

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In Conclusion

The authentic ancient meaning of the Three Wise Monkeys has been censored, banned, and secreted away from you. Having originated in the East, the symbol’s meaning has been changed by the “powers that shouldn’t be” in the West, and now the Three Wise Monkeys icon stands for something that is totally alien to its nature.

If you want to see real change in your life, you may want to print a photo of the Three Wise Monkeys symbol and keep it by your desk or in your car. Buy an icon of the Three Wise Monkeys and carry it around with you, like Gandhi did. Evil perpetuates itself like a cancer. Once you cut it out, you will kill the cancer.

Richard Cassaro is author of the controversial new book:

If you think American women and Western women in general are more liberated than ever, maybe you better think again. This is not an article condemning inequality in the workplace or detailing how women aren’t earning the same salaries as men. It’s a look at how women are secretly being manipulated into living lives that are alien to their true inner nature; and how most women are suffering because of it. Divorce, overwork, overstress, eating disorders, plastic surgery, depression, suicide—something strange is happening to women. It appears a great experiment is taking place, aimed at seeing how far women can be transformed into becoming something that is the polar opposite of their true inner nature.

Something is very seriously wrong with women today. If you don’t see it, you’re not paying attention. American and Western women are bogged down by worry, sadness, depression, emotional and physical anxiety, health problems and illnesses like never before.

The mass media is not reporting this sad truth to any great degree. But if you keep your eyes open you can see something is wrong, and you can even find bits and pieces of evidence of this mysterious mass illness in newspapers, magazines, and on television:

“A recent study finds that one in four women age 45 to 59 take anti-depressants.”

— USA TODAY

“The United States is rapidly falling behind the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to life expectancy, and no demographic is facing a more rapid decline in life expectancy than women. According to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, the life expectancy of the American woman is not just growing too slowly…it is actually declining.”

—Travis Waldron, Thinkprogress.org

“It is estimated that 8 million Americans have an eating disorder—seven million women and one million men.”

—Press TV

“Two to three in 100 American women suffers from bulimia.”

— South Carolina Department of Mental Health

“One in 200 American women suffers from anorexia.”

—South Carolina Department of Mental Health

“One in four women aged between 45 and 64 now experience some form of mental disorder—an increase of 20 per cent in the last 15 years.”

—The Telegraph

These statistics are a clear indication of a growing epidemic, like symptoms pointing to an underlying disease. What’s going on here?

The answer, according to those who study this type of data, is related to the fact that more women are working now than ever before. This is a direct result of the feminist movement that swept America in the 1960s -1990s.

“…The Feminist Movement, or the Women’s Liberation Movement, is a period of feminist activity in the United States which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the late 1990s.”

—Wikipedia

Of course, women having careers and getting the same education as men is a great thing, no doubt. But the problem lies in the fact that not only are today’s women working full-time, but they are also fulfilling their traditional role at home as moms, wives, and daughters of aging parents. As work hours increase, along with financial stresses due to the recent economic downturn, many women are having a tough time coping:

“Middle aged women trying to juggle careers, children and elderly relatives are suffering from depression and anxiety more than any other social group, NHS figures show.”

—The Telegraph

“Mental health charity ‘Mind’ said women in their 40s and 50s were becoming increasingly affected by trying to manage the responsibilities of family, home and work…This particular age group was probably reared by their stay-at-home mothers and they are almost certainly now working mothers, who face the financial pressure of being part of a two income family…”

—The Telegraph

The mass media tells us that thanks to the post-60s feminist movement women now have freedoms and opportunities that make them almost equal to men. We hear this adulation of feminism repeated by many journalists, industry leaders, and university professors. At first glance the idea appears correct and plausible. But is it really true? Have women really come all that far? Are women really better off now than ever before?

The statistics don’t support it, at least when it comes to health. But there’s more to the story.

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Secret Social Engineering of the ‘Modern Woman’

Before we go any further, let’s be clear. This is not an article about how women aren’t equal to men, or how women belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Women are tougher and stronger, smarter and more intuitive than men in many ways. Women should be praised for putting up with the infantile behavior of most men.

George Carlin (1937 – 2008) was one of the greatest philosophers and social thinkers of the 20th century.

Women have helped shape American culture, not just in the past decades, but since the first pilgrims landed on North American shores. From the beginning, women have assumed leadership roles in politics, science, education, literature, medicine, and as informed citizens.

But in the past decades American and Western women have undergone a sudden transformation; a shift has occurred, so blatant and profound that it’s a wonder so few sociologists have recognized and written about the gravity of its implications.

Somehow in the past decades society—fueled by the mass media and the big corporations that sponsor them—has taken the age-old storybook dream of women which is THIS:

The Cinderella story.

And they have turned that dream into THIS:

Young women are taught that a good career should be their central ambition.

Yet, the trouble is, this is not the reality for all but the smallest handful of women. For all the idealism of the mass media and the university advertisements urging higher education, the fact is that women’s lives are actually turning into THIS:

Women’s health statistics show  that women are having a harder time not just at work but in life now more than ever before.

What’s more, a large percentage of American women work in retail. So the “dream” that American women are being sold…if you want to get even deeper into reality…really looks more like THIS:

Many more women than men work in retail, yet barely any of them make it into the top jobs.

The result is where we are today, where children suffer the most, the victims of unprecedented divorce, nuclear families, both parents working (decreasing family time), financial worries, stress, etc. The “working woman” has been achieved at the sacrifice of traditional family values.

Even worse, the so-called liberation of women has  fundamentally changed women’s behavior. No longer reliant on “family” (either the family they are born to or the family they help create) for their well-being, women are becoming more aggressive, more sexually promiscuous, more hardened and jaded, less empathetic, less sympathetic.  In essence, they are becoming more masculine.

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Modern Woman vs. Traditional Woman

Let’s compare the Modern Woman with the Traditional Woman:

MODERN WOMAN

• Doesn’t want kids “right away” or even “ever”
• Likes to have sex with multiple partners and feels empowered by this
• Drinks alcohol more than ever before
• Does drugs more than ever before
• Enjoys showing her body in various states of undress
• Acts out more aggressively than ever before, indirectly teaching children aggression is ok

TRADITIONAL WOMAN

• Seeks good husband
• Desires to have children
• Believes primary goal in life is to raise children, and willing to sacrifice for children
• Does not seek sex from anyone other than husband
• Exhibits kind and gentle behavior to create a community / society suitable for rearing children

Which version of “woman” seems right to you? If you are a woman, which version resonates more with your heart? If you are a man, which woman fits your ideal mother, wife, sister?

The Traditional Woman looks like this:

Nancy Davis (later Nancy Reagan) posing for a publicity photo, 1950. Few women in the world have exhibited as much class and style.

By comparison, the Modern Woman looks like this:

Young American girls are taught by television that getting drunk, acting aggressively, and having sex with multiple partners, including other women, is fun.

You may agree that the Traditional Woman in the example above, as opposed to the Modern Woman, is smarter, stronger, classier, more intelligent. What we haven’t figured out is that the Modern Woman is not just evolving naturally, as it may seem; instead, she is intentionally being created or socially engineered.

“Social engineering is a discipline…that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups.”

—Wikipedia

That is to say, the mass media and their corporate sponsors are “selling” the Modern Woman to young women today. They seem to be trying to create a Modern Woman out of the younger generations; a Modern Woman who is the polar opposite of the Traditional Woman.

How and why are the Elite doing this?

Let’s start with the ‘how.’ Their M.O. is simple: They are using the main hypnotizing tool available to them—television and the mass media in general. Just look at a handful of the horrifyingly debased TV shows that the big corporations are selling to young women:

• MOB WIVES
• REAL HOUSEWIVES
• JERSEY SHORE
• SEX IN THE CITY
• JERRY SPRINGER
• STEVE WILKOS
• MAURY POVICH

These TV shows have a negative influence on young women and young men, and they have a negative impact on society over time.  Add to this the fact that women are made to feel inadequate by the mass media by repeated exposure to printed ads, magazines, television shows, and movies that feature excessively thin, beautiful, young and flawless models. We all know that this blatant in-your-face marketing of such impossible-to-achieve standards of beauty only hurts young women and older women alike:

So why does the mass media continue doing it? There is only one word to describe this ongoing assault on women—sinister. The media creates an ultimate standard of worth, and women judge themselves against this standard, consciously or not. All of this leads most young women and women in general to believe that they are inadequate.

“In 1985, three in ten (30%) American women said that they were unhappy with their overall physical appearance, a figure that increased to nearly one in two (48%) by 1993.”

— Maggie Wykes, Barrie Gunter, If Looks Could Kill

Sure, we’re told that sexy women sell products. But is it possible that the mass media is not so much interested in moving products than it is interested in purposely making women feel inadequate so that women look elsewhere in their lives for fulfillment (i.e. their careers)?

If you think it’s crazy to believe women can be manipulated and influenced by the mass media or by big corporations on a mass scale, then watch this 4-minute video clip from the award winning British television documentary The Century of the Self. Here we are shown how in the 1940s one major corporation successfully hatched a plot to encourage women to start smoking cigarettes—something most women would never have dreamed of until then:

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Here we are shown how one big corporation created the idea that if a woman smoked it made her more powerful and independent—an idea that still persists. The goal of the big corporation was to sell more cigarettes. They used the media to help them achieve this goal simply by implanting “an idea” into women’s minds.

Is it possible, then, that the mass media and their corporate backers have also encouraged women to enter the workforce? Was the feminist movement, the catalyst that pushed women into the workforce, socially engineered by the big corporations for profit?

To find the answer, let’s watch the 3-minute video clip below. Former presidential hopeful Aaron Russo (1943 – 2007), friend of 1%-er Nick Rockefeller (of the Rockefeller Dynasty), tells how Rockefeller admitted to him that the feminist movement was socially engineered to push women into the workforce to increase tax revenues and corporate profits:

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This information is jaw-dropping. Many believe Russo was murdered because of the things he revealed about Nick Rockefeller and the Rockefeller’s secret plans.

The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—of the women’s liberation movement (feminism) is still being felt in every corner of society.

Because of women entering the workplace en masse in the 1960s – 1990s, the price of homes and vehicles skyrocketed. The big corporations could now charge more for homes and vehicles because working women created the dual income household.

We can see how the paradigm has shifted by watching old black and white TV shows like Leave it To Beaver that depict a one-income family. Dad comes home from work at 4 pm to have dinner with his family. They enjoy a nice home, a nice car, and a big green lawn. This was how Americans lived.

By contrast, today’s moms and dads shuffle their kids off to daycare early in the morning and drive angrily to work in order to get the two incomes they need just to keep their heads above water, and to stave off the banks from repossessing their homes, cars, and their lives. Family time and family values have been traded for an inorganic collection of wood, nails, steel, rubber and a cool new GPS tracking device.

Today women are forced to work, like it or not, victims of the economy created by the feminist movement (which has indirectly hurt traditional American society and family values). The vast majority of women are stuck in low-paying, dead-end jobs that contribute to their feeling of depression, sadness, anger, confusion, and so on.

Today, families are having less children than ever before, a clear sign that women are in distress:

“Continuing a 12-year decline, the U.S. birth rate has dropped to the lowest level since national data have been available, according to statistics just released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).”

—About.com (2012 stats)

Also, more women are having children out of wedlock—further evidence of the social engineering of the Modern Woman:

“More than one-third of all births were to unmarried women.”

—About.com (2012 stats)

So how can we fight against the social engineering of women? How can we help women fight the disease afflicting them? Perhaps it may help if we realize that women were never really oppressed to begin with. Women have always been respected, loved and valued first and foremost in the home…

“The man may be the head of the house, but the woman is the neck. And the neck can turn the head any way she wants.”

—My Big Fat Greek Wedding

“A happy wife is a happy life.”

—Proverb

Women have long been important contributors to the arts and sciences, and to civilization as a whole; yet this fact seems to be downplayed by the mass media, as it doesn’t fit the perception of reality the media wants the younger generations to believe. Rather than teaching young women that they are equal to men, and that matriarchal societies once existed all over the world and still exist (search “Mother Goddess” societies as an example) they hide this truth. Instead the media urges women to feel inferior to men by reporting on “glass ceilings” for women and the like, egging women on to want to engage in gender warfare and planting a seed in their minds that spawns into their feeling and desire to want to compete with men.

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Famous Women In History

Do these pre-feminism movement women look like they were oppressed?

Left: Queen Cleopatra (69 BC – 30 BC) of Egypt. Right: Queen Nefertiti (1370 BC – 1330 BC) of Egypt. Both women lived long before the feminist movement.

Left: Catherine de Medici (1519 – 1589) was Queen consort of France. Right: Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 1855) was an English novelist and poet.

Left: Golda Meir (1898 – 1978) was Prime Minister of Israel before the feminist movement. Right: H.P. Blavatsky (1831 – 1891) became famous for her occult books. Was either woman oppressed?

Left: Khadīja bint Khuwaylid (555 – 619) was the first wife of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.  Right: Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997). Both lived liberated and extraordinary lives.

Left: Amelia Mary Earhart (1897 – 1937) was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Right: Mahalia Jackson (1911 – 1972) was an extraordinary gospel singer.

Left: Ma barker (1873 – 1935). Right: Annie Oakley (1860 – 1926). Neither one needed a feminist movement to make history.

Left: Ma Joad in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” represents a typical working matriarch of post-colonial America. Right: Clara Barton (1821 – 1912) was a pioneer American teacher, patent clerk, nurse, and humanitarian. She is best remembered for organizing the Red Cross.

Lucille Ball (1911 – 1989) was an American film and television executive, and star of various sitcoms.

If women were so oppressed before the feminist movement of the 1960s – 1990s, then how could she have achieved all she did in the early 1950s?

You won’t find women’s names among the signers of the Constitution. With few exceptions, they have been largely ignored by historians and textbooks on early American history. Nonetheless, there have been women doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, writers, and singers. In every case they made important contributions to America’s early years.

To believe women were oppressed by men before they were liberated by the feminist movement of the 1960s – 1990s is a baseless and even sinister dream implanted in our minds by the mass media and their corporate backers; and this dream has now turned into a nightmare not only for most women, but for all of us, and more importantly for our children, who are paying the price.

The good news is that women seem to be awakening to all of this. Using their natural intuition—women have always been more in touch with their intuition than men—women are realizing that somehow someone or something is pushing them off center.

Something has gone tragically wrong, and while most women can’t quite put their finger on exactly what’s broken there is a clear sense that something is off. We see this in a new study by More Magazine, which shows that even despite the idealism of women in the workplace, women are less ambitious than they were 10 years ago. More’s third annual workplace report surveyed U.S. women about their attitudes toward their jobs.

• A whopping 43% of women said they were less ambitious than a decade prior
• 73% say they wouldn’t apply for their boss’s job
• 38% say they don’t want the politics, pressure and responsibility of a high-power position

This decline in ambition, More says, is not new—the findings cite data from several nationwide studies by the Families and Work Institute that show that the percentage of women ages 35 to 44 that wanted a job with more responsibility fell from 40% to 35% between the years of 1992 and 2008.

Clearly, women are beginning to question the messages being fed to them by the mass media and their corporate backers. Women are asking questions, looking for answers, and pretty much making the same realizations described in the present article. Hopefully the trend continues.

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In Conclusion

The feminist movement of the late 20th century was a fraud. It was socially engineered by the Elite 1% from behind a hidden curtain, with the goal of pushing women into the workforce. With women working, the big corporations have earned more money than ever before.

The Elite achieved this end by implanting an idea into women’s minds—that they are suppressed by men and that in order to beat men and show their equality to men they need to compete with men in the workplace. Unfortunately, women are being spread too thin, as they are also fulfilling their traditional roles.

As a result, women are suffering more now than ever before, and many are having fewer children (and even no children) because of it. The storybook dream of women—to find prince charming and live happily ever after—has been transformed into the quest to earn money and compete with men in the workplace. The result is a society where tremendous burdens fall on the shoulders of women, where the State is raising children instead of devoted mothers, and where women’s overall health is failing like never before.

Richard Cassaro is author of the ground-breaking new book:

Among the ruins of ancient Egypt are the records of a bearded, long-haired Savior, whose resurrection from the dead influenced generations of followers to believe in life after death. He was called “Shepherd,” “King of Kings,” and “Lord of Lords,” and he was depicted in art for thousands of years with the ankh cross of eternal life. The first King of Egypt, he was recorded in myth as the recurring “Phoenix” bird who appears perennially in the East to herald each new age. As Judge of the dead on the Day of Judgment—the position Christ later held—he enforced the sacred law. Every Pharaoh dressed in his image (a bearded shepherd with long hair—identical to Christ) while sitting on his throne. The deceased were entombed under his likeness to gain immortality through him. Does this very ancient and very Christ-like Egyptian king hold the key to the world’s future?

The mysterious “First Coming” of Christ in Egypt. Like Jesus, the more ancient god “Osiris” (Asar) was a bearded shepherd with long hair carrying a cross signifying “life” after death.

For thousands of years before Christianity, the ancient Egyptians transformed the corpses of their beloved deceased into the image of a bearded shepherd with long hair—the same image we associate with Christ. The reason they did this, according to Egyptologists, is so they could follow in his resurrection from the dead!

The Egyptian name of this Christ-like resurrected Savior whom the Egyptians sought to follow was Asar (“Osiris” in Greek) and the extent and ramifications of his parallels to the later “Christ” figure of history have not yet been truly grasped by scholars or Egyptologists.

Just look at the images below; note the distinctly “Christ-like” features on the anthropomorphic coffins of both King Tut and King Psusennes, two well-known pharaohs. Both of their coffins bear the same exact image, namely a bearded shepherd with long hair—the same image attributed to Christ later in history!

Above: Anthropomorphic Egyptian coffins with Christ-like dimensions, formed by the headdress (long hair), plaited beard (beard), and shepherd’s crook.

The Egyptian headdress (called the nemes headdress) clearly symbolizes long hair, as it was tied into a ponytail in the back of the head, as is often done with long hair:

Left: Nemes headdress, tied into a ponytail.

The beard on the Egyptian chin is reminiscent of the beard of Christ. Most pictures portray Christ as bearded.

Egyptian coffins also display a shepherd’s staff in the left hand; the staff later became a Christian symbol. Jesus described himself as the “Good Shepherd” of the human flock, and portraits of Christ show him holding the shepherd’s staff.

The shepherd’s staff was depicted in the hands of Osiris in Egyptian artwork, thousands of years earlier. In literature his epithets Sa and Asar-Sa mean “Shepherd” and “Osiris the Shepherd.”

It should also be noted that Christ is described in the gospels as using the flail to chase money-changers from the temple. In Egypt, the flail was held in the opposite hand of the crook, the two forming a balanced cross at the chest:

For thousands of years countless Egyptian Pharaohs went to their graves wearing the headdress and beard, and holding the shepherd’s staff.  They were transforming their outward appearance into the image of Osiris to follow his resurrection.

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Religion of Resurrection

E.A. Wallis Budge  (1857 – 1934), one of the world’s most renowned Egyptologists, said:

“The central figure of the ancient Egyptian Religion was Osiris, and the chief fundamentals of his cult were the belief in his divinity, death, resurrection, and absolute control of the destinies of the bodies and souls of men. The central point of each Osirian’s Religion was his hope of resurrection in a transformed body and of immortality, which could only be realized by him through the death and resurrection of Osiris.”

—E.A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection

Early in Egyptian history it was a religious custom to bury the dead kings in the image of Osiris. Later the upper classes and eventually the common masses were given an Osirian burial.

The Osirian burial; the goal was to be entombed in the image of Osiris.

Henri Frankfort, a former professor of Preclassical Antiquity at the University of London, explained:

“It may be well to emphasize that the identification of the dead with Osiris was a means to an end, that is, to reach resurrection in the Hereafter.”

—Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods

Interestingly, the name “Osiris” (Ausar) in hieroglyphics contains the silhouette of a bearded man with long hair—the same exact image engraved on the anthropomorphic coffins!

The name Asar (Osiris) in Egyptian hieroglyphs features the image of a bearded man with long hair.

What is the meaning of this fascinating riddle? Looking at this ancient Egyptian funerary custom through the more modern eyes of our Christian past it almost seems as if Osiris was a kind of “First Coming” of Christ on earth. The Egyptians were clearly the first Christians in the sense that they believed in “life” after death by following in the footsteps of their resurrected Savior.

Incredibly, this “life” after death was expressed by the ankh cross, another symbol with a significant counterpart in Christianity!

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Cross of Life

The ankh was the most revered and prolific emblem in Egypt. It was inscribed on tombs and temples and it was depicted in the hands of gods, kings, priests, viziers, ordinary citizens, and their children. No one knows its origins. Its meaning of “life” after death is strikingly similar to the meaning of Christ’s crucifix, also symbolic of “life” after death.

(Jesus’ Doctrine of Eternal Life is a recurring theme in the New Testament. In John 11:25 Jesus says: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”)

It should be noted that symbolists see in the ankh the outline of a crucified man: the circle represents his head, the horizontal line his two arms, and the vertical line his legs nailed to the cross as one.

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Day of Judgment

After his resurrection Osiris became judge of the souls of the dead. In this position he held the power to grant life in heaven to those who behaved righteously on earth.

Osiris as Judge of the Dead on the Day of Judgment, from The Papyrus of Hunefer, 1285 BC.

Wallis Budge explained:

“the belief that Osiris was the impartial judge of men’s deeds and words, who rewarded the righteous, and punished the wicked, and ruled over a heaven which contained only sinless beings, and that he possessed the power to do these things because he had lived on earth, and suffered death, and risen from the dead, is as old as dynastic civilization in Egypt…”

—Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection

The Day of Judgment is a central tenet of the Christian religion. The souls of the deceased shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Those who have followed his teachings during their lives shall be deemed righteous and be admitted to heaven. II Corinthians 5:10 says:

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat [emphasis added] of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

Depictions of Christ and Osiris as judge are remarkably similar. Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment has many common features to the Day of Judgment etched on Egyptian papyri and carved on tomb walls.

Jesus as Judge of the Dead on the Day of Judgment, from The Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo 1512.

In the Egyptian ceremony the heart of the deceased, symbolic of his virtue, moral character, and earthly deeds, was laid on a set of scales and weighed against a single feather representing maat, the divine law. If the scales balanced, the deceased was allowed to pass into heaven.

As judge, Osiris was always portrayed in the seated position, a posture that parallels the New Testament’s descriptions of the judgment seat of Christ.

What are we to make of these striking similarities? Did Christian scholars simply “borrow” images and symbols of Osiris from the Egyptian religion? Or does this evidence reveal a profound and hitherto undiscovered recurring “Messianic Phenomenon” that has been affecting the course of human civilization? By uncovering the similarities common to the Egyptian and Christian religions are we, in fact, re-discovering the sacred blueprints of an ancient Messianic tradition that has been attempting to accelerate man’s cultural and spiritual development since the beginning of history?

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Myth vs. Fact

No one knows the origin of the Osiris story. The first written accounts of Osiris come down to us from sources outside Egypt by way of ancient historians such as Diodorus Siculus (1st C. BC), Herodotus (5th C. BC), and Plutarch (1st C. AD). These classical writers describe Osiris as a semi-divine king who abolished cannibalism, taught men and women to live according to the law of maat, improved their morality, and, filled with love for mankind, set out on a quest to travel the world and bring the benefits of civilization to other cultures. Their commentary continues with mythological descriptions of the murder of Osiris by a jealous brother named Seth; his rebirth, accomplished by the magic of his sister/wife, Isis; and his second death, caused again by Seth, who dismembered his body and scattered the pieces up and down the Nile. After the utter destruction of Osiris his son, Horus, defeats Seth in an epochal battle thereby vindicating his murdered father.

The myth of Osiris seems to take place half in our world and half in an enchanted world of magic and make-believe. This element of fiction is responsible, in part, for the misconception that Osiris was a fictional being. The facts left among the ruins of ancient Egypt tell an entirely different story. The Osirian religion sparked a renaissance among the ancient Nile-dwellers the effects of which impacted every facet of their primitive society. It instilled in them a high moral code, a sense of good and evil, and an inclination toward brotherly love and admiration unprecedented in human history and unparalleled by any other ancient nation.

It also fostered a highly advanced philosophy. Osiris worshippers realized the human body was neither perfect nor permanent. But they were also convinced death was not the end of their being. There was an eternal, spiritual element within them that would rise – resurrect – from the body and exist in a higher spiritual realm, provided their behavior was in accordance with a high moral code (maat). Consequently, they never became too attached to the things of this world. This is precisely the same philosophy expressed in the true religion of Christianity (i.e., not the Church’s version), sparked by the life, death, and resurrection of the Christian Savior.

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Osiris The Phoenix

The Egyptians likened the spirit of Osiris to a heavenly bird, much like Christianity portrays the soul of Jesus as a white and shining dove. The Egyptians called the bird Benu, the Greeks called it the Phoenix. According to legend this magnificent creature miraculously appears in the eastern sky during fixed points in history to announce the start of a new world age. When it appears the bird mysteriously sets itself ablaze and is suddenly consumed by fire and ashes. However, it arises triumphantly from death renewed and rejuvenated.

Scholars unanimously believe the phoenix was a symbol of Osiris. German Philologist Adolf Erman explained “the soul of Osiris…dwells in the bird Benu, the phoenix….” 4 A passage from the Coffin Texts supports this observation:

“I am that great Phoenix which is in On. Who is he? He is Osiris. The supervisor of what exists. Who is he? He is Osiris.”

—Egyptian Coffin Texts, R.O. Faulkner Translation

The attributes of Osiris as phoenix are the same attributes associated with the Christian Messiah. Both the phoenix and the Messiah appear in the eastern sky (the star of Bethlehem arose in the east heralding the newborn King). Both rise from the dead. Both embody the theme of life after death through resurrection. Both herald the star of new ages. (Christ’s appearance initiated the current age: BC/AD.) Finally, and perhaps most importantly, both are associated with the promise of a destined re-appearance (Christians are currently expecting Christ’s re-appearance, i.e., the Doctrine of the Second Coming).

What is the significance behind the parallels common to the phoenix and the Messiah? Does the phoenix myth enshrine wisdom of the appearances of a recurring Savior in human history, a Savior whose life, death, and resurrection was purposely designed to accelerate the development of human culture? Is there a powerful and well-guarded tradition expressed in the myth of Egypt’s enigmatic phoenix? A tradition that is now on the verge of being re-discovered?
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The “FIRST TIME” of Osiris

The Egyptians associated the first appearance of the phoenix with a golden age in their founding history known as Zep Tepi, the “First Time.” They were convinced the foundations of their civilization were established during this remote and glorious epoch. R. T. Rundle Clark, former professor of Egyptology at Manchester University, commented on the ancients conception of the First Time:

“Anything whose existence or authority had to be justified or explained must be referred to the ‘First Time.’ This was true for natural phenomena, rituals, royal insignia, the plans of temples, magical or medical formulae, the hieroglyphic system of writing, the calendar – the whole paraphernalia of the civilization…All that was good or efficacious was established on the principles laid down in the “First Time” – which was, therefore, a golden age of absolute perfection…”

—R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt

The First Time seems to have been the period during which Osiris reigned as foremost king of Egypt. It was during this era that he established law (maat) and initiated worship of Ra, Egypt’s monotheistic God. Rundle Clark explained:

“The reign of Osiris was a golden age, the model for subsequent generations.”

—R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt

Maat and monotheism, the “model for subsequent generations” set forth by Osiris, was the driving force behind Egyptian culture for thousands of years.

What exactly does the phrase “the First Time” mean? Could it possibly be an arcane reference to the first appearance–the First Coming–of the Christian Savior on earth? Was there a Messianic guiding force behind the rise of Egyptian culture?—The same Messianic guiding force that has inaugurated the empire of Christendom? Was the “First Time” an era during which an ancient Messianic tradition was established? —A tradition aimed at revealing cultural wisdom, law, and spiritual truth to mankind during different historical epochs? Is the Third Time almost upon us again? Is the Savior machine about to activate once again, perhaps for the third and final time?

Richard Cassaro is author of the new book Written In Stone:

The Skull & Cross Bones is an ancient symbol with a powerful, hidden meaning. Today the Skull & Cross Bones signifies “poison” and we’re warned to “stay away.” But this is an intentional deception by the elite to hide the symbol’s true meaning. In fact, the Skull & Cross Bones is an ancient instrument used by sorcerers to gain spiritual power.

The renowned Skull & Cross Bones symbol.

Today the Skull & Cross Bones is a symbol warning danger or poison. However, in its true esoteric meaning it is a symbol of unimaginable power and spirituality.

As with the lucky number 13, we have been tricked—by the elite families who own the biggest corporations and run the most heavily armed governments—out of understanding this symbol’s true meaning.

What is the deeper meaning behind the Skull & Cross Bones?

The great unknown secret behind the Skull & Cross Bones is that it is not a symbol of death, but of life. It was used by ancient priests and priestesses worldwide, from the Mayans in Mesoamerica to the Etruscans in Europe:

Above: 3,000 years ago the ancient Etruscans and ancient Mayans (twin civilizations that developed separately) both created Skull and Bones images.

Everywhere in Antiquity the Skull & Cross Bones symbol conveyed the same exact meaning. By the Middle Ages, intellectuals in Europe were calling it “Memento Mori,” which is Latin for “Remember you are mortal” and “Remember you must die.”

This is a reminder of the temporary nature of human life, and the inevitability of death. Thoughts of death remind us of the transient nature of earthly pleasures, which are fleeting; this contemplation opens the door to the soul within, which is the eternal life within each of us.

The art of attaining spiritual heights by contemplating directly upon a Skull & Cross Bones was never completely forgotten; it became common among occult groups, like the Freemasons.

Above: A Skull & Cross Bones is featured in the Masonic “Chamber of Reflection.”

“…a symbol of mortality and death. As the means for inciting the mind to contemplation… the skull and the crossbones are used in the Chamber of Reflection …”

– Albert Mackey (1807 – 1881), Secretary General of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States

According to occult wisdom, when we contemplate death we look deeply within ourselves. By “reflecting” in this manner we find a hidden treasure within us in the form of eternal “life,” which ancient civilizations like the Egyptians celebrated using a cross symbol:

Above: Ankh cross, associated with eternal life and life after death.

The degree of the treasure we find is equal to the amount of “work” or “reflection” we put in.

“The camel gets down on his knees and says, ‘Put a load on me’…But when the camel is well loaded, it struggles to its feet and runs out into the desert, where it is transformed into a lion — the heavier the load that had been carried, the stronger the lion will be.”

– Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (1904 – 1987)

When an initiate reflects extremely deeply, an amazing thing is discovered. The initiate acquires the knowledge (gnosis)  that he or she is an eternal being or soul, endless and divine.

“You don’t HAVE a soul, you ARE a soul. You HAVE a body.”

— C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963)

Furthermore, one learns that this soul—which is our true eternal nature—is really  a “god” who has temporarily fallen down into the present world (the physical plane); fallen down into believing that we are actually the temporary mortal creature.

The Fall of Day by William Rimmer, 1869. This is a portrait of you. You are an eternal god or spirit who has temporarily fallen down into, and is temporarily living in, the material world.

The truth is that we are not the mortal creature (who will die). We are the eternal god.  But we have amnesia of our godhood! We have manifested (we are manifesting) this temporary life on earth, as if it were a dream.

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.
Life is but a dream.

—Wisdom Rhyme

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

—Shakespeare

Because we can’t see that our true nature is divine, the same as the Nature of the universe, we live cut off from this wisdom—first by the veil that separates the material world from the invisible spiritual world, and second by the elite powers mentioned earlier. However, don’t be fooled, we are the microcosm and we are the macrocosm too!

Think of the saying: As above, so below. We are not just the below (the creature), we are the above too (the universe, the god). Everything we see in “Nature” is really our own Nature; it’s Our own Creation, we are our own creation, and we are perfect.

Above: Man is not just the microcosm (the animal reflection) he is the macrocosm too (the god causing the reflection)!

Earth is divine also.  The ancients all believed so. This idea is called animism and it is found in all the ancient religions.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth but men do not see it.”

— The Gospel of Thomas

Time is divine too, since it is a part of Creation. Hence the image of an hourglass with wings. For all the ancient cultures, wings were a symbol of divinity and eternity:

Above: Hourglass with wings. In one of its meanings it signifies the fact that Time is Divine.

As time runs out for the mortal creature, death will come. This is the teaching not only of the hourglass, but of the Skull & Cross Bones symbol. Though death comes, we will survive death, because we are all powerful, all circular, all knowing. We are gods. We created death.

“The Skull and cross bones are a continual reminder that the spiritual nature obtains liberation only after the philosophical death of man’s sensuous personality.”

—Albert Pike (1809 – 1891), eminent and influential Freemason

For a true sorcerer the Skull & Cross Bones is a reminder that we are the great power in the heavens that has created our own mortal body on earth. We are in heaven right now, but we are dreaming that we are alive on earth. When death comes, the dream will be over, and we will awaken to this truth.

In Hebrew the word Shekinah translates to “God dwells in us.” In other words, “God” is not the old man “upstairs” as we’ve been led to believe. God is not someone or something outside of you. YOU are God. YOU are that old guy up there. It’s a part of YOU that you’ve been cut off from.

By Philippe Halsman, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, 1951

Thus, the Skull & Cross Bones was used in graveyards, catacombs and crypts to remind us not just of our mortality…but of our immortality; of our true God nature.

Above: Many stone tombs in Europe depict the Skull & Cross Bones symbol and bear inscriptions (epitaphs) which provoke the reader to consider his or her mortality…and immortality.

The Skull & Cross Bones motif was used by many American college fraternities, sororities and secret societies founded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The most well-known example of this usage is the Skull & Bones society, a secret society at Yale University which derives its very name from the symbol.

Skull and Bones secret society, Yale University, Connecticut.

An uninvited “guest” to the tomb reported seeing:

“On the west wall, an old engraving representing an open burial vault, in which, on a stone slab, rest four human skulls, grouped about a fools cap and bells, an open book, several mathematical instruments, a beggar’s script, and a royal crown (17,18). On the arched wall above the vault are the explanatory words, in Roman letters, ‘We War Der Thor, Wer Weiser, Wer Bettler Oder, Kaiser?’ and below the vault is engraved, in German characters, the sentence; ‘Ob Arm, Ob Beich, im Tode gleich.’”

The English translation of the German words reads as follows:

“Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all’s the same in death.”

And what does that mean?

This is first a reference to the fact that we are all equal in life, and equal in death as well. Second it teaches that you will live many lives, because you are an eternal deity living in heaven, dreaming of these temporary lives. YOU are the fool, YOU are the wise man, YOU are the beggar and YOU are the king! However, since none of these lives are permanent, none of them are real. The only thing that is real is your eternal reincarnating soul.

Other well-known college fraternal organizations which use the skull and bones in some capacity in their public symbols include, but are not limited to: Dom-I-Necher, Kappa Sigma, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Phi Kappa Sigma, Tau Kappa Epsilon and Zeta Beta Tau Fraternities and Sigma Sigma Sigma and Chi Omega Sororities. 

Other fraternal groups also use the skull and crossbones in their symbolism and/or in their secret fraternal rituals. These groups include the Knights of Columbus as well as the Knights Templar degree of Freemasonry.

Left: Still-shot of a scene from the movie The Wizard of Oz, inside Professor Marvel’s wagon (remember, he is the Wizard). We see a large skull centered over the doorway (1939). The message? Contemplating on the skull opens the door to higher wisdom. Right: 3° Tracing Board featuring skull and cross bones by W. Bro. Josiah Bowring, Oil on panel, 1819.

Knowing that we are both the Creator and the Created, the old Pagans were fond of saying, “Carpe Diem” or “Seize the day,” which tells us to “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die.” So live life today, while it is here, while you are alive.

This favorite 3-minute clip from the movie Dead Poet’s Society expresses this idea beautifully:

The Pagan saying “Carpe Diem” evolved among medieval Europeans into the idea of Danse Macabre:

The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut

“no matter one’s station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer. They were produced to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now lost mural in Paris dating from 1424-25.”

-Wikipedia

Beginning in the later seventeenth century, undertakers supplied the living with objects concerning the recently deceased. Printed ephemera, such as the funeral invitation below featuring the Skull & Cross Bones capped with a winged hourglass (denoting the spiritual and eternal nature of life and death) were common.

In past centuries, soldiers were taught the true meaning of the Skull & Cross Bones to help prepare them for battle. German armies used the Skull & Cross bones many times.

In the image above we see the Totenkopf, a German word for the deathman´s head. This is an old symbol of momenti mori. It consists usually of the skull and the mandible of the human skeleton. It can also include two crossed longbones (femurs).

A modern memory of the idea of life after death expressed in the Skull & Cross Bones is present in small isolated pockets throughout Europe, which even today have not fully been converted to Christianity:

“Our remaining Gaelic Speaking communities are scattered around Ireland and some 25 years ago the Government funded a Gaelic speaking Radio and later TV network primarily to encourage and foster the language.

The radio is intimate and twice daily they give a ‘death notice’ round up where they give the latest deaths in the various communities, together with the funeral arrangements. The literal translation  from the Gaelic for the death announcements is …

‘Gone on The Journey Of Truth Today’ is Johnny Bradley etc…

Death is regarded as just that, “The Journey,” into truth where all illusion and delusion eventually must shed until the ‘entity’ is aware of just who and what they were and should be.”

- Donal O’Siodhachain, Bardic Poet, 2011

Representations of Memento Mori appear in very early Classical literature. Sophocles (circa 429 BCE) says the following in Oedipuis the King, which shows he believed the soul lives on after death—an idea common to virtually all of the great Greek philosophers:

“Let every man in mankind’s frailty

Consider his last day; and let none

Presume on his good fortune until he find

Life, at his death, a memory without pain.”

— Sophocles

We see the eternal nature of Time in the following image of a Triptych made of human skulls. The Triptych is a symbol of life, the skull is a symbol of death. Combining the two shows that death and life are one, created by the same Creator. The message is simple: You are the Creator and you are the Created:

Above: Triptych formed by skulls in The Cemetery of the Capuchin Fathers in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Rome, Italy.

Here we see the preserved remains of 4,000 Capuchin friars on display. These remains have been sculpted into a powerful and monumental work of art, with skulls and bones being used for alters, chandeliers, and ornamental wall designs. The intention here is not to scare but to inspire prayer, contemplation, deep thoughts, and meditation; in other words, “awakening” to the true higher Self that survives death.

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IN CONCLUSION

The symbol of the Skull & Cross Bones did not originally stand for poison. Unfortunately, today it does because the powers that be in the world are trying to cover up its true meaning; this an effort to keep the masses down, disempowered, and ignorant as to the true nature of human existence.

THE TRUE MEANING OF THE SKULL & CROSS BONES IS:

- Symbol of our passing mortality
- Reminder of how quickly time passes, so you should “Seize the Day” as we will be dead soon
- Call to enjoy life
- Though death will come, we will survive death
- We are death and we are life, we are an eternal god in this moment (and every moment) dreaming that we are alive on earth. The god is the reality, the life here on earth is the dream.

Of course, there is more to the Skull & Cross Bones symbol than has been revealed here. Read more in the newly released book Written in Stone:

The “Eye-In-The-Triangle” above a truncated pyramid on the back of the $1 bill is a Masonic “memorial” to an ancient “Universal Religion” that flourished worldwide. The remnants of this religion are still visible in the eerily parallel ruins of truncated Pyramids and Eye symbols among many civilizations. Pyramids were temples where believers engaged in a powerful mystical practice called “Awakening Our Third Eye,” long banned by the Church, yet long safeguarded by Western Secret Societies.

Left: Freemason George Washington wearing Masonic apron with Third Eye in the center: Right: Luminous Third-Eye-In-A-Triangle forms the Great Seal of the U.S.

America’s Founders—who were either Freemasons or familiar with the Order’s principles—memorialized the fraternity’s “Lost Secret” in the icons of The Great Seal of the United States.

This “Lost Secret” is an ancient Universal Religion, now lost to time, but still visible in the ruins of the first civilizations, where we see a clear and consistent pattern of pyramids and disembodied Eye symbols:

PHOTO OF RUINED PYRAMID OF THE SUN + SINGLE EYE WALL CARVING, TEOTIAHUACAN, MEXICO

PHOTO OF RUINED PYRAMIDS + SINGLE EYE ART SYMBOL, SAQQARA, EGYPT

PHOTO OF RUINED PYRAMID + SINGLE EYE ART SYMBOL, OHIO MOUND CULTURE, OHIO, USA

PHOTO OF RUINED PYRAMID + SINGLE EYE ART SYMBOL, NAZCA CULTURE, NAZCA, PERU

PHOTO OF RUINED EL CASTILLO PYRAMID + SINGLE EYE “OLLAN” ART SYMBOL, CHICHEN ITZA, MEXICO

PHOTO OF RUINED PYRAMID + SINGLE THIRD EYE ART SYMBOL, SICILY, ITALY

PHOTO OF RUINED PYRAMID OF THE SUN + SINGLE THIRD EYE ART IN TRUJILLO, PERU

As shown by the researches of past scholars, combined with powerful discoveries revealed in the new book Written In Stone: Decoding The Secret Masonic Religion Hidden In Gothic Cathedrals and World Architecture, these symbols point to a “Universal Religion” that was once practiced globally.

Practitioners focused on trying to open a luminous and mystical “Third Eye,” said to be hidden in the human forehead.

This Third Eye is believed to be the remnant organ from a higher, more sophisticated, and more spiritual form of humanity that lived on earth during an antediluvian “Golden Age,”  attested to by the ancients and by classical historians as “Babel,” “Shambhala” and “Atlantis.”

As “postdiluvian” humans we still have access to this atrophied organ of our ancestors, which was identified by some 19th and 20th century scientists as the pineal gland:

“A small usu. conical appendage of the brain of all craniate vertebrates that in a few reptiles has the essential structure of an eye, that functions in some birds as part of a time-measuring system, and that is variously postulated to be a vestigial third eye, an endocrine organ, or the seat of the soul…”

—Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

The “Seat of the Soul” is how French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) described the pineal gland; he called it the bridge that connects man’s soul to his body.

Readers familiar with Eastern religions will recall the Third Eye as having a long history in India, China, and Southeast Asia, where Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism hold sway.

More than a “religious” idea, the Third Eye is an archaic “spiritual” custom.

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Third Eye Bindi Dot On The Hindu Forehead

The Third Eye, called “urna” or “trinetra,” is marked by a dot in the middle of the forehead, above and between the eyes.

With two eyes closed you can open your Third Eye—the dot on the forehead—and see your spiritual inner Self or soul within.

In the East, Awakening Our Third Eye is achievable through Yoga, and particularly Kundalini Yoga, which teaches the existence of the so-called ajna chakra or Third Eye chakra.

Kundalini in ancient Sanskrit means “illumination,” “enlightenment,” and refers to the light you experience when you awaken your Third Eye and remember who you are (i.e., commune with your soul within).

This “union with God” was considered blasphemy in the Christian West for a thousand years, punishable by death under the Inquisition.

Above Left: Awakening the Third Eye through Kundalini Yoga. Above Right: The Caduceus, popular throughout medieval Europe, is an arcane symbol of Kundalini Yoga.

Tradition holds that the proper way to activate the Third Eye is to “balance” two “opposite” channels in the body (ida and pingala) around a central vertical axis / spinal cord called the sushumna.

This balance of opposites creates a third force that unites the opposites and awakens the Third Eye and allows you to see your true essence, your Self, who you are.

“You don’t HAVE a soul, you ARE a soul. You HAVE a body.

—C. S. Lewis

This third force of “center” and “balance” is the number Three, the AOUM sound, chanted by Eastern mystics. The AOUM symbol is shaped like the number Three itself—as scholars say—denoting the balance of opposites:

Above: The Aum symbol is shaped like the number 3, which is also the chief number of the Freemasons.

The number 3 is also the chief number of the Freemasons:

“…in Freemasonry the number three is the most important…and we find it pervading our whole ritual …”

—Jeremiah How, The Freemason’s Manual, 1881

“Everywhere among the ancients the number three was deemed the most sacred of numbers…

In all the mysteries, from Egypt to Scandinavia,we find a sacred regard for the number three…

In Freemasonry, the ternary is the most sacred of all the mystical numbers.”

—Albert Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, 1879

The Third Eye is used extensively in the east, appearing in varied disciplines (Yoga, Ch’an Buddhism, Karate, Qigong, and Aikido). The idea of the Third Eye, however, is quite foreign to the West. Despite living in the “information age” of globalization, it is still treated as something strange and alien, an enigma unique to the Eastern religions.

How is this possible? Could it be that there has been an intentional effort to conceal it?

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Freemasonry’s Great “Third Eye” Secret

The image of a single Eye is common to Western Secret Societies. A single Eye is one of the key symbols in Freemasonry. The Eye is visible on Masonic temples and aprons, among other places, but it does not stand for God; it stands for the hidden Third Eye in your forehead.

The Eye is also featured on Masonic “Tracing Boards,” age-old instructional designs that are present in all lodges, used to teach initiates (see below).

Dating back more than two centuries, the “Tracing Board” is one of the last vestiges of authentic untouched and unchanged Masonic wisdom.

Above: The “Masters Carpet,” from The Masonic Monitor in 1820, includes Freemasonry’s key symbols: the Sun, Moon, and Mystical Eye.

We are immediately drawn to the single disembodied Eye at the top and center of the portrait.

But few of us notice the two sides, right and left, marked by the twin pillars capped by sun and moon; in Kundalini Yoga, the Ida and Pingala channels.

Isn’t the message here that we have a powerful Third Eye hidden in our foreheads? And that we can awaken this central Eye?

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The Geometric Third Eye” Triangle

Isn’t the Masonic All-Seeing-Eye-in-the-Triangle over a truncated pyramid reminiscent of the ancient pyramids and Third Eye symbols in ruins worldwide?

In her fascinating 1924 book, Mystic Americanism, the obscure American author Grace Morey explained:

“The All-Seeing Eye…emblematic of the pineal gland or third eye of the human being…has been found amid the ruins of every civilization upon the globe, thereby attesting the fact of a universal religion over all the earth at some remote period. As we now restore this universal religion, we set the All-Seeing eye upon the pyramid.”

Above: The obverse of the Great Seals shows how “Awakening Our Third Eye” was the Universal Religion of the world’s ancient pyramid cultures.

Masons call the single Eye the “all-seeing Eye” but have little understanding of what this means. Others oversimplify it by calling it the “Eye of God”; either way, these modern descriptions provide us with little enlightenment.

More than a handful of authors and researchers have set forth the thesis that the All-Seeing-Eye signifies man and woman’s Third Eye, available for us to use.

Famous American Author and Freemason Mark Twain, writing in 1899, referred to the All Seeing Eye not as the Eye of some distant heavenly deity or “old man upstairs,” but as a tangible gift that any person can use:

“The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the ‘all seeing eye’ pierces through, and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn’t indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn’t detect.”

Freemason Dr. Buck (1838-1916) gave a physical description of the Third Eye and connected its “mastery” to Freemasonry’s third degree of “Master Mason”:

“It has been called “The Third Eye.” The Ancient Hindus called it the Eye of Siva, and it should be borne in mind that Siva is the third person in the Hindu Trinity…It is atrophied, and therefore dormant in the average individual…The Eye of Siva is, in fact, an All-Seeing-Eye; for it practically annuls Space and Time as concepts on the physical plane…

A real Master [Mason], then, has the Eye of Siva; the pineal gland, dormant in others, is active in him…”

If Buck is correct, and practicing this “occult” system was part of Masonic adherence, then Masonry’s forced secrecy in Europe becomes clear. Due to the power and brutality of the Inquisition, Masons had no choice but to hide themselves in order to preserve their traditions, knowledge, and rites.

The Freemasons, by implementing Third Eye “magic,” ran the risk of being executed by the Church for heresy, and is thus the ultimate, obvious reason for Masonic secrecy. As many Westerners now believe, the lengths to which the Inquisition persecuted perceived “heretics” reflected the desire of the Church to retain much of its hegemony over the masses. The church hierarchy knew that if heaven could be attained by every individual, then what import do priests, churches, and scriptures possess?

In his 1918 book, The Wonders of the Human Body, Dr. George Washington Carey tells us:

“…the All-seeing eye…This is the eye of freemasonry, the third eye. While I am credibly formed that few Masons understand their own symbols, the fact remains that they use them…”

The idea that the so-called “All Seeing Eye” is really the Third Eye continues today.

In their well-researched book, The Uncommon Vision of Sergei Konenkov,1874-1971, published by Rutgers University Press in 2000, scholars John Bowlt, Wendy Salmond, and Marie Turbow explain:

“The Great Pyramid is a central occult symbol that is often depicted with the “all-seeing-eye” or “third eye” inside it. In this form it is the symbol of mystical Freemasonry.”

In her 2006 book, Eden, contemporary author of the esoteric, Dr. Joye Jeffries Pugh, explains:

“The Order of Freemasonry acknowledges the ‘All Seeing Eye’ as the ‘Eye of Great Wisdom.’

This ‘Great Wisdom’ is said to offer those who seek the sacred mysteries an understanding of illumination, inner vision, and intuitive knowledge. Contact with this great wisdom occurs through the ‘Third Eye’ (pineal gland) located inside the forehead.”

Freemasonry is often called a “Science of the Soul”; it is likely, then, that such an inward-facing order is in fact a repository for instructions on how to awaken the Third Eye, endowing an initiate with powers born of his own eternal nature.

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In Conclusion

Today, unfortunately, Freemasonry derides and disassociates itself from these ideas; the Third Eye and any related mystical / esoteric concepts are dismissed and pejoratively labeled “the occult”. Why?

The answer is simple; it is because these doctrines appear to remove the Old Testament “God” from the equation completely, by empowering man with the strength of his own divinity. This does not sit well with many modern Freemasons, but, as we now know, many highly trained and educated Masons of the past, including several noted authors and scholars, were convinced that such Third Eye ideas were integral to their order and that the modern system of Freemasonry is in fact corrupted.

Desperate that mankind should never lose sight of this knowledge, and yet knowing that its truths were forbidden in the atmosphere of intellectual intolerance that marked the Dark and Middle Ages, the Freemasons designed Third Eye gnosis into the architectural facades of churches, castles and cathedrals all over the world, as demonstrated in Written In Stone:

Visit www.DeeperTruth.com

Though Christian buildings by purpose, Europe’s Gothic cathedrals contain an ancient Pagan wisdom hidden in their architecture. This wisdom, which predates Christianity, was placed by the operative Freemasons, builders commissioned by the Church to create cathedrals, churches, and other edifices. For centuries the Masonic heresy went unrecognized, but the Church eventually outlawed the Freemasons and called for their immediate destruction once the heresy was discovered. Their structures live on, however, and in this article we’ll see how Freemasonry’s “lost secret” can be found encoded in the stone architecture of Gothic cathedrals.

Above: The Burgos Cathedral is a Gothic-style cathedral in Burgos, Spain. Begun in 1221, it is famous for its vast size and unique architecture. Do ancient secrets lay hidden here?

Rumors have for centuries swirled that the Freemasons are in possession of a “great secret.”

“It is always understood that the Freemasons have a secret which they carefully conceal…”

—Thomas Paine, The Origins of Freemasonry, 1818

This secret is said to be an ancient Pagan wisdom-teaching, a highly advanced and life-changing “Sacred Science” they inherited from Antiquity. In Tolstoy’s War & Peace, a Freemason says:

“The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which it rests…is the preservation and handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery… which has come down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man – a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends.”

—Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, 1869

Many say the medieval Freemasons encoded their secret into the art and architecture of the churches, castles, and cathedrals they constructed, without the Church’s knowledge.

“It is generally believed in occult circles that… medieval masons had inherited esoteric knowledge… and that this knowledge was incorporated into the sacred architecture of the cathedrals.”

—Michael Howard

If indeed the Masons inherited an ancient Pagan doctrine, and if they encoded its wisdom into cathedral architecture, it amounts to heresy, and would constitute a direct threat to the Church.

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Catholic Church VS. Freemasons

Interestingly, the Church very abruptly turned about-face in their support of the Masons: far from hiring them, they instead started to call for the death of the Masons in the 1700s. Starting with Pope Clement XII (b. 1652 – d. 1740), the Church began hammering the Masons with encyclicals and other documents calling for their destruction:

“The purpose and aim of the Masonic sect having been discovered from plain evidence is easy to understand…to try to revive after eighteen centuries, the manners and institutions of Paganism. …we intend to turn our attention to the Masonic society…to illustrate more and more this wicked force and stop the spread of this contagious disease…”

- Pope Le0 XIII, Humanum Genus Encyclical (Condemnation of Freemasonry)

This about-face is curious: what pagan evidence was uncovered by the Holy See?

This “rift” has not exactly been mended. As recently as 1983, then little-known Cardinal Ratzinger—today Pope Benedict XV—wrote:

“The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.”

–Cardinal Ratzinger, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

In the past two centuries brief inquiries have been made into the idea of pagan wisdom encoded in Masonic architecture. In 1831, Victor Hugo, author of the novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, explained:

“…from remotest antiquity…the human race has employed architecture as its chief means of writing…Sometimes an entrance, a front, or even an entire church presents a symbolic meaning wholly foreign to religion, or even hostile to the Church…Only the initiated can decipher these mysterious books.”

—Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

In 1910, American architect and writer Claude Bragdon (1866–1946) wrote:

“In Mediaeval Europe…fragments of the Secret Doctrine—transmitted in the symbols and secrets of the cathedral builders—determined much of Gothic architecture.”

—Claude Bragdon, The Beautiful Necessity

These two quotes are not absurd, baseless claims: both Bragdon and Hugo were celebrated men in their time. Their Masonic / Gothic cathedral research, however, was limited.

Left: Architect Claude Bragdon, 1866 – 1946, designed New York Central Railroad Station, Rochester, NY. Right: Victor Hugo, 1885, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The subject lay more or less dormant until 1926,when French alchemist and hermeticist Fulcanelli published Le Mystere des Cathedrales naming alchemical secrets in French cathedrals. The work is detailed but dense, and has been criticized as very difficult to follow (a quality he himself seems to have intended).
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New Gothic Cathedral Secrets Discovered

In the present article, we’ll defiantly outline a complete Pagan doctrine written in cathedral stone, and supported by facts. The doctrine will show that Masonry is a Pagan organization with a Sacred Science that runs counter to the Catholic Church.

Look at the three Notre Dame cathedrals below:

The Western facade of all three are almost identical, sharing these unique qualities:

1) pair of twin towers on top
2) giant rose window in the center
3) three-door entrance

This repeating pattern has gone unrecognized by any professor or scholar, and thus far no one has pointed it out, named it, or explained its symbolism. This repeating Western facade, however, is nothing less than a “Cathedral Code”: a message from the Masons themselves, encoded in stone and concealed in plain sight.

The Masonic Tracing Board is a mystery to today’s uninformed Masons.

This Tracing Board is an enigma to modern Masons, esoteric authors, and even occult research: they are unsure of its purpose and unaware of its symbolism. The Tracing Board, however, actually holds the key to the Gothic Western facade and the lost secret of the Freemasons encoded within.

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Tracing Board Is The Gothic Cathedral Blueprint

The true meaning of the Tracing Board is, in fact, that it is a blueprint of that same Western facade above. It is the blueprint behind that facade, and in fact shares every resemblance:

The Twin Pillars on the Masonic Tracing Board (left) are identical to
the Twin Towers of the Gothic Cathedral (right).

A century ago author and Freemason Walter L. Wilmshurst (1867 – 1939), one of very few modern-day Masons who understood Masonry profoundly, explained:

“The [Twin] Pillars…have been incorporated into Christian architecture. If you recall the construction of York Minster or Westminster Abbey, you will recognize the pillars in the two great towers flanking the main entrance…”

—W.L. Wilhmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry, 1922

Left: Westminster Abbey, London, England. Right: York Minster, York, England

What do the Twin Pillars on the Tracing Board signify? Why is there a sun over the Jachin pillar and a moon over the Boaz pillar? Is this what each one stands for?

Mainstream Masonry’s explanation for the Twin Pillars are that they are called “Jachin” and “Boaz”, and that they once decorated King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. While this story may be true, it neglects to explain the sun and the moon (which, in fact, are never mentioned in any Masonic explanation) and also makes no reference to the fact that the pillars predate Solomon and even Judaism by thousands of years.

• The Right-Hand Pillar is capped by the Sun
• The Left-Hand Pillar is capped by the Moon

This duality of the Sun/Moon is critically important: The world’s first cultures all perceived the Sun and Moon as “perfect opposites” or perfect “pairs of opposites.” Indeed, Mother Nature has placed the Sun & Moon at odds and on opposite sides of the polarity spectrum:

The SUN stands for DAY, but the MOON means NIGHT.
During the Day it’s HOT, but at Night it’s COLD.
The Day is filled with LIGHT, but the Night is filled with DARKNESS.
During the Day it’s DRY, but at Night it’s MOIST.

Note the naturally occurring pairs of opposites. By this chain of associations…SUN/MOON, DAY/NIGHT, HOT/COLD, LIGHT/DARK…the Sun and the Moon engender and denote all the “pairs of opposites” in the visible universe!

This “pairs of opposites” wisdom is the lost key to all the Mystery schools in history (Perennial Philosophy, Hermetic Teachings, Philosopher’s Stone, etc. and so on). The “pairs of opposites” can be witnessed in the natural mechanics of the moon: they each spend half the day up, and though the Sun is far larger than the moon they appear the same size because the moon is much closer. These natural pairings are strong evidence towards the sun and the moon as being equal but opposing natural symbols.

The sun and full moon appear the same size in our sky.

It is, of course, a cornerstone of Ancient and Masonic philosophy that has since been lost: that these celestial bodies have been placed thus on purpose, for our benefit, with the goal being to teach us the power of opposites.

Wilmshurst said that the Twin Pillars on the Tracing Board, which are capped by the Sun and Moon:

“…stand for what is known…as the “pairs of opposites.” Everything in nature is dual and can only be known in contrast with its opposite…”

—W.L. Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry

In The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Freemason Manly Hall (1901 – 1990) explained:

“Jachin–the white pillar of light…Boaz–the shadowy pillar of darkness. …These two pillars respectively connote also the active and the passive…the sun and the moon…good and bad, light and darkness.”

—Manly Hall

As author Warren Kenton tells us, the twin columns of France’s Chartres Cathedral are capped with iron plates of the sun and moon.

“Erected by the masons…the west front of each church had two towers representing the twin columns…the masculine and feminine aspects, the active and passive forces, flowing down from Heaven. Called, in Chartres Cathedral, the sun and moon towers…”

—Warren Kenton

Note how Kenton here mentions the “masculine and feminine aspects.” That’s because man and woman also fall into this “pairs of opposites” category. In the early 20th century, renowned architect Claude Bragdon wrote:

“…man, like the sun, is lord of day; he is like fire, a devastating force; woman is subject to the lunar rhythm; like water, she is soft, sinuous, fecund…

The Masonic guilds of the Middle Ages were custodians of the esoteric… The north or right-hand tower (“the man’s side”) was called the sacred male pillar, Jachin; and the south, or left-hand tower (“the woman’s side”), the sacred female pillar, Boaz…”

—Claude Bragdon

Looking at the Grand Master Certificate of the “heretic” Giordano Bruno below, we see a “male” pillar crowned by the Sun on the right side and a “female” pillar crowned by the moon on the left:

16th century “heretic” Giordano Bruno’s Grand Master Certificate,
featuring a Male right-hand side pillar balanced by a Female left-hand side pillar.

This is the same “pairs of opposites” symbolism encoded in the twin towers of the Western facade of Gothic cathedrals:

The Twin Columns on the Gothic Cathedral symbolize male and female,
as well as all the other “pairs of opposites” in the physical world.

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Man’s Body Is Half Sun & Half Moon

Though the pairs of opposites has been explained, the addition of masculine and feminine symbolism adds a deeper meaning: why did the Masons build a “male” right hand tower and a “female” left hand tower?  It is for the simple reason that the great wisdom of the “pairs of opposites” doctrine lies not only in the fact that the universe is composed of “pairs of opposites”; the great wisdom lies in the fact that, like the universe, Man is also formed by opposites. “As above, so below” is a phrase used by many without grasping its deeper meaning: Man lives inside the universe, not separately from it, and thus our physical bodies are made of the same “pairs of opposites” as the universe.

“Our life is a mingled yarn, good and evil together…” —Shakespeare

The Gothic facade seen above is not only a depiction of the polarity of the universe, it is a symbol of the polarity in the physical human body as well: We have two hands, two arms, etc. and so forth, split into symmetrical halves—the sun and the moon.

“Man has been called the microcosm, or little world, in contradistinction to the macrocosm, or great world…by reason of a supposed correspondence between the different parts and qualities of his nature and those of the universe.”

—Albert Mackey, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

The human body’s bilaterally symmetrical appearance are a product of the duality of the universe: the right side is the sun side, male and warm: the left side is the moon side, cold and female.

Like the universe in which he lives, Man too is formed by opposites.

No human, of course, is completely male or completely female despite physical gender, and we all possess both masculine and feminine traits.

“Though essentially a unit, there is a well marked division into right and left…two arms, two legs, two ears, two eyes…Moreover, the terms of such pairs are masculine and feminine with respect to each other, one being active and the other passive.”

—Claude Bragdon, The Beautiful Necessity

In his 1909 The Pre-eminence of the Right Hand, widely cited by scholars, French sociologist Robert Hertz explained:

“The axis which divides the world into two halves, one radiant and the other dark, also cuts through the human body and divides it between the empire of light and darkness.”

— Robert Hertz

Famous Freemason Manly Hall Wrote:

“In ancient times men fought with their right arms and defended with their left arms… …the right side of the body was considered masculine and the left side feminine.”

—Manly Hall

The following portrait appeared in an esoteric manuscript of unknown origin traced back to the 1400s.. It is a two-headed human with a male on the right holding the sun and a female on the left holding the moon:

Esoteric portrait identifying the true makeup of a human being (1400s).
This is YOU! You are half male and half female, a fact science has yet to rediscover.

While many are unaware of the symbolism behind this portrait, in reality it is a symbolic, esoteric portrait of man.

The famous magician Harry Houdini—who was a dedicated Freemason—says in The Metaphysical Magazine:

“…the Sun represents the right half of the body and the Moon the left half…”

— Harry Houdini

You, me, all of us are formed of the “pairs of opposites,” and it infiltrates every aspect of our lives. In a sense, this explains the “devil” on our left and “angel” on our right shoulders:

The age-old symbolism of an angel on our right shoulder and devil
on our left shoulder is rooted in the esoteric doctrine that
our bodies are composed of pairs of opposites.

It does, in fact, explain all the ideas of duality our society has about humans: demons and deities, sinners and saints, etc. and so forth. We are a pair of opposites wrapped up in one human package, and according to esoteric philosophy this enables us to accomplish extraordinary feats. To do so, however, we must first realize that the “pairs of opposites” are in fact related to the Trinity, and this evidence is encoded into the cathedral facade as well by the three door entrance.

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Masonic Number Three—The Triptych

Much like the “Cathedral Code”, this three door entrance has never been investigated or explained. Let’s call it a “Triptych”—this Triptych is directly connected with the twin towers above it.

The Twin Towers are symbolized on the ground by the
Triptych’s twin outer doors, which signify “opposites.”

The twin towers terminate (or rise up) from the Triptych’s outer doors. The doors are, like the towers, a pair of opposites, and are encoded in both ancient and modern architecture, as evidenced by the very modern building below:

A massive Triptych graces the facade of Rockefeller Center. Above the door on the right is
a male, above the door on the left is a female, and a ‘god’ sits above the center door.

The male and female figures atop the doors of opposites are, of course, pairs of opposites themselves:

The Triptych design that graces the entrance of Rockefeller Center matches the
Masonic symbolism of Sun (right), Moon (left), and the Spiritual Eye (center).

But what symbolism lies behind that third door? We know already, from the evidence above, the meaning behind the dual outer doors: what is the esoteric meaning beside the door they juxtapose?

The answer is, in fact, a major part of Freemasonry’s lost secret: the secret is symbolized by the sacred Masonic number three, and the answer is that the third door represents you. That god in the center of that Triptych above represents man’s soul, the eternal Self that is not physical, the Self that every human body, or “pair of opposites”, contains within it.

The metaphor here being, of course, that the two opposing halves contain a higher element: a third element inside, the soul.

You don’t HAVE a soul. You ARE a soul. You HAVE a body.”

—C. W. Lewis

The body, the physical, two-sided part, is material and temporary, composed of the same pairs of opposites as the material world in which it lives. The soul, however, is not thus subjected: it lives free of the laws of the physical universe, a teaching echoed in the biblical tale of the Garden of Eden where Man falls to the lower world after eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (good and evil being opposites).

“…the fall [of your soul] from perfection into duality…was naturally followed by the discovery of the duality of good and evil…This is the Biblical version of a myth known to many lands …”

—Joseph Campbell

The Self or soul, then, has fallen from its higher spiritual home in the heavens and has landed in the material world of opposites:

“According to this mystic doctrine…all souls have pre-existence and have descended from the spiritual world into the earthly prison of the body…”

—John Yarker, Arcane Schools

What this teaching implies is that humans are in fact divine already: they existed before the birth of the body and will survive after it. Having fallen, however, the soul is now imprisoned inside a material body that mimics the duality of the universe in which it lives.

“Man is a god in the body of an animal according to the pronouncement of ancient philosophy…”

—Alvin Boyd Kuhn

The word “imprisoned” is accurate because your body is not your true home but an imperfect and transitory vehicle. The body imprisons the soul because it requires care and constant maintenance. To survive, it must continually:

• Breathe
• Eat
• Drink
• Maintain A Constant Temperature
• Fight Disease

A body can endure for decades, but death will eventually come to it. For the ancients, the fall into this fragile human body is a tragedy:

“…the Platonists in general believed in a pre-existent state, in which all souls had sinned, and thus lost their wings, whereby they were once capable of ascending, and so they sunk into these bodies partly as a punishment for former follies.”

—Olinthus Gregory, The Fall of Man and the Depravity of Nature

The end result of this particular consequence is, unfortunately, the loss of the true Self and the true origin entirely: the soul has descended so deeply into the material world that it has lost sight of the eternal “god within”.

“A man is a god in ruins.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The soul is thus imprisoned in these conditions over which it has no control, but it is not completely powerless. The soul is eternal, a trait that imbues it with its own inherent powers: powers that can be exercised in the material world. Though the soul is in a fallen state, the powers it has were never lost, merely covered up and unrecognizable.

Masonry exists not only to reveal to Man the presence of his inner soul, but to help him rediscover its higher powers—powers that have been covered up by the body.

We can see this entire concept carved on an ancient statue that still sits in ruins in the Elephantine Caves of Bombay, India. Note how the statue forms a three-in-one design, with a male on the right (sun, Jachin pillar) and female on the left (moon, Boaz pillar) flanking a “god” in the center (the eternal, spiritual you).

Above: The Mask of Eternity, as described by Joseph Campbell. Elephanta Caves, India.

Press play on the one minute video below and watch how the illuminated 20th century professor of mythology, the brilliant Joseph Campbell, analyzed this ancient Triptych-like statue:

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

As Joseph Campbell tells us in this video, we are all-powerful beings. To spark these powers…to turn these powers “on”…you need to employ the actual formula of the number Three. That is, you need to “reconcile” or “balance” your twin bodily opposites. This forms the basis of the lost secret of Freemasonry:

“…only by the reconciliation of opposing forces is the Pathway made to true occult knowledge and practical power…”

—Israel Regardie, The Eye in the Triangle

In other words, you need to “join” your male “right-half” and your female “left-half,” the twin sun and moon pillars:

“…Join the male and the female and you will find what you are seeking…”

—Aphorisms of Zosimus

Once the twin opposing forces have been balanced or reconciled, then the true “soul within” is revealed. This three-in-one practice of uniting the opposites through the middle path is an ancient exercise, virtually unknown in the West and now the exclusive province of the Eastern religions:

“Unfortunately our Western mind, lacking all culture in this respect, has never yet devised a concept, nor even a name, for the union of opposites through the middle path, that most fundamental item of inward experience…

…It is at once the most individual fact and the most universal, the most legitimate fulfillment of the meaning of the individual’s life.”

—Carl Jung

Carl Jung

This “union of opposites through the middle path”, described by Jung, is the secret of the Triptych entrance on Gothic cathedrals. It forms the lost wisdom of the Masons as well as being the deeper meaning behind the famous Masonic number “Three”.

The Triptych very elegantly conveys the ancient occult wisdom of the practice outlined above, and its arcane Pagan wisdom, as mentioned, runs counter to the mainstream Christian belief that every human being’s soul and body are created at the very moment of our birth on earth.

The Masons did not just encode this secret into the High Gothic cathedrals; they also adorned castles, lodges, temples, and multitudes of other buildings with the Triptych entrance, embedding their secret for future generations.

Above: Masonic temples with Triptych entrances

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In Conclusion

In conclusion, the “lost secret” of the Freemasons is far from being lost, and in fact is embedded into the very stones of the buildings they created: it is an ancient Pagan doctrine, predating Christianity. It is a doctrine dealing with the eternal Self and the duality of the material world and body; specifically, the balancing of the duality to find the middle way, the ultimate secret behind the Masonic number Three encoded into the Triptychs of Gothic cathedrals.

Also, join my Written In Stone Newsletter and get a free copy of my new PDF Release:

Freemasonry’s Square and Compasses symbol is a mystery to the media, scholars, historians, and even to most Freemasons. No one knows where it came from or what it means. We’ll see how this symbol actually holds an ancient, mystical, and magical meaning that can “illuminate” initiates.

The Masonic Square & Compasses with a “G” in the middle,
capped by the Mind’s Eye (Third Eye) in the Triangle.

Most Freemasons, when asked the meaning of their Square & Compasses logo, state:

“Both…are architect’s tools…to teach symbolic lessons…”

—Wikipedia

However, the Square and Compasses logo has a meaning that goes much deeper than merely teaching lessons. Notice how the Compasses tool on top draws a “circular” shape:

The Square tool on the bottom draws a “square” shape:

When placed together, as in the logo of the Freemasons, the Compasses tool and the Square tool form a square and circle:

The square and circle shapes are related in Euclid’s 47th problem of “Squaring The Circle,” said to be the primary goal of the Masonic craft.

Squaring the circle, however, does not in this case refer to a mathematical problem: it is a spiritual reference to man’s instinctive quest to harmonize our physical and spiritual natures.

Since Antiquity, the square has represented the physical body. The circle, on the other hand, has always represented the soul.

The Square & Compasses thus symbolize Man’s state as an eternal soul manifesting in a temporary body. The circle is our spiritual side that cannot be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. It is our true, inner, and perfect Self, the part we feel when we close our eyes and think “me”.

“In Renaissance poetry generally, the circle was a symbol of perfection and…a symbol of the human soul.”

—J. Douglas Canfield, University of Arizona

The Compasses, however, are bounded by the Square; our circle is bounded by our body. Think here of a four-sided square, and of how we experience Nature in “fours”:

• The Four Cardinal Points (North, South, East, West)
• The Four Seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall)
• The Four Elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire)
• The Four States of Matter (Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma)

Four represents the imperfect, physical body, as well as earthly desires and carnal appetites that “weigh” the body down. Human life is vulnerable and temporary, in stark contrast with the invulnerable and permanent soul.

“There is one sign which has never changed its meaning anywhere in the civilized world—the Compass and the Square. A sign of the union of the body and soul.”

—Deman Wagstaff, Wagstaff’s Standard Masonry (1922)

“…the compasses stand for…the spiritual side of man, while the square appertains to the material world…the square represents matter. In the case of the compasses… they represent…the Spiritual.”

—J. S. Ward, Interpretation of Our Masonic Symbols

“A man is a god in ruins.”

—Emerson

Above: William Rimmer, Evening, Fall of Day (1869). This is an esoteric portrait that depicts the history of what has happened to each one of us when the “god within” or “soul within” Incarnated as Man.

We are fallen angels, sparks of the divine now experiencing the material world, as William Rimmer’s wonderfully esoteric portrait “Evening, Fall of Day” illustrates.

We have all fallen and descended into matter, which is the material world in which we now live. The two tools Square and Compass symbolize Man’s “double nature” after the Fall:

“The Compass, as the Symbol of the Heavens, represents the spiritual portion of this double nature of Humanity…and the Square, as the Symbol of the Earth, its material, sensual, and baser portion.”

—Albert Pike, Morals & Dogma

Interestingly, many scholars and philosophers have remarked upon this type of symbolism in the Square & Compasses:

“According to this mystic doctrine…all souls have pre-existence and have descended from the spiritual world into the earthly prison of the body…”

—John Yarker, The Arcane Schools, late 1800s

“…ancient mythicism considered and named those souls incarnated on earth as “the dead.” “To die” was to incarnate; “death” was…the “tomb” of the flesh.”

—Alvin Kuhn, mid 1900s

“The human body is the “tomb of transformation” ; the grave into which the soul descends for the purpose of working out its own salvation, for transforming and improving itself, and ascending out of it the stronger and wiser for the experience.”

—W.L. Wilmshurst, early 1900s

The Greek philosophers understood this concept and even went as far as to say the soul is “imprisoned” in the body, because the body must be cared for, and must constantly:

• Breathe
• Eat
• Drink
• Maintain A Constant Temperature
• Fight Disease

The body cannot endure forever, and will eventually be destroyed by death, at which point the soul is free again.

The soul, though trapped in the human body as we are today, is far from powerless. Because it is eternal, the soul comes complete with its own inherent powers—powers that can be rediscovered and exercised right here in the material world.

Though in a “fallen state” the soul never lost these powers; they have merely been “covered up” by the body, rendering them unrecognizable.

Masonry exists not only to reveal to Man the presence of his inner soul, but to help him rediscover its higher powers, powers that have been covered up by the very body he inhabits.

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The Vitruvian Man

The recognition of these inner powers is the key to squaring your circle, or becoming a god living on earth as a mortal rather than a mortal striving to become a god. This idea is what the ancients call the Vitruvian Man:

Above: Leonardo da Vinci’s world-renowned Vitruvian Man (1487).

Note how da Vinci draws The Vitrivian Man inside a squared circle: he understood the implications of the Masonic doctrine.

Da Vinci was not the only famous artist to create a Vitruvian Man, neither was he the only artist to associate it with both a circle and square:

From Top Left to Right Bottom: Fra Giovanni Giocondo (1435-1515); Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) Cesare Cesariano, Vitruvian Man (1521)Francesco Giorgi, Vitruvian Man, (1525); One Euro Coin; Francesco Giorgi, Vitruvian Man, (1525); Francesco di Giorgio, contemporary of Leonardo, Vitruvian Man; Albrecht Durer, Study on anatomy and geometrical proportions (1528)

The Vitruvian Man lives in a perfect state of balance, enjoying a well-intentioned life, esoteric, stable, kind, capable and abundant. The circle is his eternal soul. The square is his temporary body. He knows this; he is illuminated into its gnosis.

The great Freemasons of past eras were Vitruvian Men, including Washington and Franklin. This is because they understood Freemasonry, unlike the modern Freemasons who have lost the depth and symbolism of their tradition.

Notice the massive circle behind Washington:

Above: The Apotheosis of Washington is a masterful piece of artwork that appears inside the dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

This apotheosis is not “man becoming a god” or “Washington becoming a god.” That’s a critical misinterpretation. It’s more like “man realizing he is a god already”, a soul manifesting as a body—or, in symbolic terms, a circle surrounded by a square.

This “heretical thinking” of Freemasonry is much different than mainstream Christianity; which is why the Freemasons have historically been a Secret Society.

All of this Square and Compass wisdom is based on ancient wisdom, and not just from one ancient culture. The Egyptians and Chinese, two ancient cultures that scholars believe were never in contact, both used a circle symbol to denote the “soul within”:

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Left: Egypt’s Aten glyph is formed by a circle with a dot in the center. Right: China’s ancient Yin Yang symbol is a circle with twin fish symbols inside.

The Tai Chi is the eternal Self. The Self sprouts “pairs of opposites” during manifestation—the twin fish symbols inside, one black the other white.

The Egyptian Aten is the eternal Self also. It was often drawn as a winged disk (see below) sprouting twin serpents and wings.

Both the Tai Chi and Aten symbolize our perfect eternal “soul within” or circle within. Both symbols often appeared above the main entrance to temples and important religious and spiritual buildings in ancient Egypt:

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Above: Egypt’s “winged sun-disk” (Aten) by Secret Societies like the Freemasons, Spiritists, Theosophists, and Rosicrucians.

They symbolize the perfected, eternal soul, a state that every human being must achieve (i.e., Buddhahood, Christhood)

“For the Egyptians, the meaning of life was to recognize that we are not the physical body that incarnates in world of matter, but the still, silent soul “point” within the body that predates the body and that survives the body’s death.

“The circle…represents the omniscient state of the soul when it has attained full consciousness, is liberated, and lives apart from matter.”

—Thomas Wilson, Swastika the Earliest Known Symbol and Its Migrations

This idea is conveyed in the Gothic cathedral facade—the rose window in the center, which symbolizes the perfect circular “soul within” us.

“the rose window is… a representation of perfection, balance and harmony of the purified soul”

—Michael S. Rose

Note how in Rose Windows the Square and Circle are blended together, the “squaring of the circle,” the goal of every Freemason:

Above: Exterior shot of the southern rose window (a gigantic, circular stained glass window) of the Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris

Above: Exterior of the west rose window, carved in the 12th century

Above: Detail of the Gothic facade of the Orvieto Cathedral, the rose window.

Masonic buildings are sacred structures of initiation, encoded with intricate patterns and artwork that speak to squaring the circle; they are heavily laden with a language of symbolism that modern scholars have yet to decode.

It’s not just the Gothic cathedrals. In all Masonic buildings we see the interplay of squares and circles. This is a constant Masonic geometric theme, the spiritual / divine light (our soul) manifesting in the physical / material world (our body).

Above: These pictures showing Masonic square and circle symbols interlaced were taken inside of Reid Hall, a Masonic-built castle which was constructed in 1864 and is now home to Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY.

These are not just squares and circles. These are squares and circles in balance, united in harmonious rhythm, a reunion of opposites.

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In Conclusion

This article, then, has laid bare the lost secret of Freemasonry: It is that man is both a Square (body) and Compass (soul). This secret, once a common doctrine in the ancient pagan cultures, had to be hidden away and kept secret from the Holy Inquisition for fear of reprisal.

Its wisdom teaches the forbidden doctrine that each of us deep down is a “god” encased in matter, a soul inside a body. We can clearly see our body; but the Compass teaches us about the part we can’t see, the soul. This is the whole idea of initiation into a lost sacred wisdom.

The Compass & Square symbolize—they are symbols of—your soul and your body. Your Soul inside your body. You can learn more by reading Written In Stone:

Elite corporations are committed to increasing their profit margin, and will go to great lengths to do so: they will even turn to psychology and esoteric symbols to unconsciously sway people, co-opting ancient magic symbols previously used for benevolent purposes and subtly shifting their symbolism for use in logos to manipulate viewers for their own benefit.

Does the Mercedes Benz logo make you think “luxury,” “style,” “class,” and “comfort”?

Above: The Mercedes Benz logo, famous worldwide.

This may be what it means today, but for thousands of years it had a far different meaning. It was the “Triquetra” of the Druids and Celtics, who knew it’s great secret: The symbol’s natural shape has the ability to stimulate the human psyche and awaken spiritual powers within us when we look upon it.

The Triquetra was principally a ceremonial device in neolithic Europe, used in magic, ritual and religious incantation. Superimposing the Triquetra over the Mercedes logo immediately produces a very obvious parallel:

Left: Mercedes logo. Right: The Triquetra is the Latin tri (“three”) combined with quetrus (“cornered”). It was found on runestones in Northern Europe and on early Germanic coins.

The Triquetra has appeared in numerous Pagan works, starting with Pagan artwork and temples and later moving to Gothic cathedral walls. Mercedes has taken this logo and induced a semantic shift in the symbolism of the logo, disconnecting it from our inner quest for self and linking it to a product (in this case, a car).

It is, of course, conceivable that this is coincidence: some have argued that the Mercedes logo is in fact a “wheel-and-spoke” symbol, related to tires. This argument, however, is invalidated by the fact that the current logo was crafted from the merging of Daimler and Benz’ logos in 1926. Daimler’s logo, before that merger, was a Triquetra without any recognizable parallel to a tire; it was only later on that the logo was altered to its current shape, well after the original embedding of the Triquetra.

The Triquetra can also be seen in another car company’s logo, that of Mitsubishi:

Left: The Mitsubishi logo, which goes back to 1870. Right: Ancient European Triquetra.

“Mitsubishi. “Mitsu” means “three” and “hishi” means diamond. Altogether the word means three diamonds, shown in the logo.

Coincidence is possible, of course, but unlikely: the founders of Mercedes and Mitsubishi understood the power behind these symbols and harnessed it to control consumers.

Psychologists and mythologists like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell have long taught that symbols like this continue to have a pull on the human mind. They are deeply embedded in our cultural consciousness, with a meaning that is long forgotten but continues to affect us by circumventing logic and reason by tapping into a more primal source within us. Marketers have known the link of these icons to a consumer’s raw emotions for years, dating back to over a hundred years ago. Even if they themselves do not know the original meaning behind an esoteric symbol, they intuitively understand its affect on people and shift that feeling into their products and thus unconsciously associating these ancient symbols with their own products in the minds of consumers.

Once learned and associated, the symbol’s identity and the emotions it elicits become ingrained in the mind forever, drawing us in again and again, entering the deepest unconscious of our unsuspecting thoughts.

Above: The show Charmed reveals a human memory of the magic of the Triquetra logo and “power of three”—the exact same “magic” Mercedes has draped around itself.

The power of esoteric marketing is launching products to new heights; it demonstrates a complete mastery of geometry, poetry and prose. These ancients arts move people to action by stirring an unconscious, cultural feeling that manifests itself into people buying into the Triquetra logo- in this case, embedded in the products of Mercedes and Mitsubishi.

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Secret Oil Company Logos

Let’s now look at another occult logo phenomenon in the auto industry—Oil companies and gasoline stations.

• Texaco
• Shell
• Sunoco
• Amoco
• Chevron
• Gulf
• Mobil

These are all familiar names. However, each one possesses an ancient, esoteric, mystically-charged logo, a ready-made symbol.

“See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life.”

—Henry Hill, Goodfellas

All of these logos have an inherent power in them due to the ancient symbols they co-opt: they are so effective at influencing people, in fact, that it may seem that the use of them transcends effective marketing into the realm of mind-control.

The explanation of the symbols will come shortly, but first we must understand why these symbols are so effective. The effectiveness of these symbols depends on an understanding of Carl Jung’s theory of the “collective unconscious”. This idea, in brief, posits that humans have a genetic memory of ancient memories of humanity; a remembrance of the same rites of passages, ideas, images, etc. and so forth. These memories are shared and often take form as symbols; examples include suns symbolizing warmth, or skulls symbolizing death. He calls these embedded symbols “archetypes”, and they are a part of our makeup. According to Jung, we know them not from personal experience but from the thousands of years of experience from our ancestors.

These corporate logos, then, take advantage of these archetypes. They lie at the core of every one of us, and the big oil corporations obviously seem to know this. Let’s take the shell symbol for example, which is the logo of the Shell Oil Company:

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SEA SHELL

Top, From Left to Right: Shell corporate logo; Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”; Aphrodite in a sea shell from Amisos, now in the Louvre. Bottom, From Left to Right: Shell design in architecture on NYC building; ancient shell coin. shell atop a doorway on a bank in Buffalo, NY; shell design inside the LDS Church.

Seashell: Seashells are almost universally loved, strewn along beaches like sea jewels that children (and even adults) collect daily. Few realize, however, that for a great deal of human history shells played a vital role for man; they were used in everything from money to art. Stone Age people used seashells to adorn their jewelry, homes and boats. In tropical countries, many tribes used shells as money. The Incas buried seashells with their dead. Throughout history, architects and artists have incorporated shell motifs and symbolism into their work. Gothic cathedrals and the famous Alhambra in Spain are one example. Shells have been found to decorate deities in the ruins of Pompeii:

Above: The ancient people of Pompeii, Italy adorned their holy figures with shells.

As a result of these ancient uses, shells are embedded in our collective unconscious as a positive symbol.

In Greek and  Roman myth shells were the mystic symbol of prosperity and regeneration and, in their association with the sea, the source of fertility. We all came from the sea, as we all came from our mother’s womb; the shell thus became symbolic of the mythic birth of the goddess (i.e., Venus, Aphrodite, etc.).

For this reason, the shell was representative of the Female Deity in pagan worship, and was associated with:

• love
• birth
• rebirth
• manifestation
• reproduction
• all things we think of when we think of the sea romantically

In Roman mythology, Venus, the goddess of love and fertility, was said to be created from the foam carried ashore atop a scallop shell. Many paintings of Venus depict a scallop shell to identify her. One example is Botticelli’s classically inspired The Birth of Venus or “Venus on the half-shell.”

Decorative shellwork rises to prominence in the 17th century, whenEuropean nobility, inspired by palaces like Medici’s Bobole Gardens in Florence and the Villa d’Este outside Rome, commissioned artists to recreate similar marvels on their own estates. The seashell and other sea themes are the most prevalent motifs in French Rococo Style.

The seashell is linked to Spain’s famous Way of St. James (a.k.a. “the road to Santiago”) which has existed for thousands of years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages in medieval times, together with Rome and Jerusalem.

“The scallop shell is the traditional emblem of James, son of Zebedee, and is popular with pilgrims on the Way of St. James to the apostle’s shrine at Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Medieval Christians making the pilgrimage to his shrine often wore a scallop shell symbol on their hat or clothes..”

—Wikipedia

Above: Scallop shells, symbol of “El Camino de Santiago” (Way of St. James) pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain.

While many are familiar with the Way of St. James, few remember that it was actually constructed over the ruins of a much older, now-forgotten holy pilgrimage route. This older route was a fertility pilgrimage, undertaken by young couples hoping to bear children, and the scallop shell, true to its ancient meaning, is believed to have been carried by the pilgrims on this route. The Christians continued this tradition in part, but dedicated the road to St. James.

Above: Evolution of the Shell logo over the past century.

Thus, the Pagan seashell symbol is part of us, our “collective unconscious.” It has positive connotations to us, just like the next symbol we’re going to take a look at, the diamond:

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PERFECT DIAMOND

Top, From Left to Right:  Corporate Sunoco logo; diamond symbol atop outdoor stairway at Reid Hall, Manhattanville College; Temple of Borobudur diamond. Bottom, From Left to Right: esoteric Masonic design found in the books by René Guénon; letter of the ancient runic alphabet called “ingwaz”; diamond-lattice pattern in Chan Chan, Peru;  outside floor tiling, West porch, Reid Hall, Manhattanville College; Navajo rug, stylized diamond pattern with designs in red, gray, tan and black.

Diamond.

The diamond symbol occurs in every era, culture, religion, esoteric sect, and spiritual tradition. Diamonds have been treasured as gemstones since very early times. Diamond is from the Greek word “adámas” or “proper”, “unalterable”, “unbreakable”, “untamed.”A diamond lasts forever, as we’ve learned from De Biers, and operative Freemasons incorporated the diamond pattern into the design of the buildings they constructed, including churches, castles, and cathedrals.

The diamond is both earthly and lasts forever, symbolizing eternity and a higher world state of being human can achieve- an apotheosis that culminates in gaining higher spiritual and physical ability:

• “the most sacred body” (wujud al-aqdas) and “supracelestial body” (jism asli haqiqi) in Sufism
• “the diamond body” in Taoism and Vajryana
• “the light body” or “rainbow body” in Tibetan Buddhism
• “the body of bliss” in Kriya Yoga
• “the immortal body” (soma athanaton) in Hermeticism
• “the superconductive body” in Vedanta
• “the radiant body.” in Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism
• “the Glory of the Whole Universe” and “the golden body” in the alchemical tradition
• “the astral body” according to alchemist Paracelsus
• “the immortal body ” (soma athanaton) in the Hermetic Corpus,
• “the solar body” in some mystery schools
• “the diamond body of the temple of God” in Rosicrucianism
• “the luminous body or being” in ancient Egypt
• “the indwelling divine potential” (fravashi or fravarti) in Old Persia
• “the perfect body ” (soma teilion) in the Mithraic liturgy

The “Diamond Body” or vajra deha is a Tantric term that describes the process of refining the physical body through the practices of hatha yoga. It is a continuous refinement of the body until it is so light and airy that it has become a spiritual form upon the earth. It is achievable only by surrendering the limited perceptions of the body and moving to a higher state of knowledge.

The process is metaphorically analogous to the intense heat and pressure needed to form a diamond; the physical body is pushed to such a degree that it is cleansed and refined to a stronger and purer form. In this system, the method is supposed to not only bring the practitioner to the ultimate level of consciousness but also give them magical powers, including immortality itself.

Famous Indian guru and metaphysical leader Sri Aurobindo called this “divine body” the ultimate stage of human evolution. He believed a kind of “deathless condition” resulting from transubstantiation of the fleshly body could be attained by meditation, effort and divine grace.

According to this doctrine, the seeds of this immortal form, the Diamond Body, lie in potential within us; all humans possess this transformative ability to morph into an eternal being. A parallel can be drawn with the transformation of the caterpillar to the butterfly:

“Is it possible that the human body acts as a cocoon for a higher, more complex longer lived form which has the potential for immortality?”

—Dr Mitchell E. Gibson

This parallel was not lost to our ancestors, either: the diamond symbol in the form of a butterfly (see below) is common to native peoples indigenous to North America, Canada, and Mexico. Many of the Indian nations identify the butterfly with “immortality.”

Above: Native American butterfly symbol in the shape of a diamond.

The diamond butterfly motif conveys the element of rebirth, revitalization, and metamorphosis, encompassing all of these ideals and deeper symbolic meanings into one poignant symbol

Clearly, the diamond symbol has been with man for untold ages and thus holds a place in our “collective unconscious,” whether we realize it or not; it is one of the more powerful symbols in the human collective unconscious- Its presence in the Sunoco logo (as well, interestingly, in the Triquetra of Mitsubishi) is anything but coincidence.

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TORCH / ETERNAL FLAME

Top, From Left to Right:  Amoco logo; back of dime; steel gate around Yale’s Society of Book and Snake, the fourth oldest secret society at Yale University. Bottom, From Left to Right: Replica of Statue of Liberty’s torch; Statue of Liberty; TriStar pictures flame; Olympic torch.

Torch / Eternal Flame. The torch is, by modern standards, a rather antiquated technology, having been supplanted by electricity. For our ancestors, however, the torch represented light and life for thousands of years (and, symbolically, immortality and eternal enlightenment), a very positive symbol in the collective unconscious.

One of the most well-known is the Olympic torch. The Olympic torch is the torch of Promethus and thus the torch that gave fire to man, a very positive image in keeping with the torch’s symbolic meaning of enlightenment:

Above: Prometheus stealing fire.

Prometheus was a champion of mankind who stole fire from Zeus and give it to mortals. Zeus then punished him for his crime by having him bound to a rock while a great eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day.

Above: Image on the side of Rockefeller center. A torch down the middle, a man to the right, a woman to the left. This is all a clear reference to the doctrine of opposites.

The modern American dime has the torch of illumination. The Statue of Liberty holds a massive torch. When held up above the head, a torch symbolizes life and the regenerative power of flame. Many universities and colleges, in their symbols and emblems, celebrate torches. In England in the first half of the twentieth century, a torch was used as the road sign indicating a school, which is a place of enlightenment.

The ancient Greeks viewed fire as sacred and torch relays existed in ancient Greece first as nighttime religious ceremonies and later as quasi-religious sporting events. Today carrying a torch for someone can mean nurturing an enduring love or lust for someone out of reach.

The torch, then, is a very positive symbol meaning life and enlightenment in our spiritual unconscious; a deeper meaning that could be easily co-opted (and has been) by major corporations seeking to influence consumers.

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CHEVRON SHIELD

Top, From Left to Right:  Chevron corporate logo; U.S. Coat of Arms close-up; U.S. Coat of Arms. Bottom, From Left to Right: Castilla y León shield; shield atop the southern facade of Reid Hall at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY; ancient Roman shield.

Shield.

A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to block an attack, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a blow from a weapon. Shields have been in use since prehistory, making them a very integral part of our collective unconscious. The shapes of shields vary, of course, depending on time and place; shield designs can be anything from round to square or scalloped. Often shields were decorated with a painted pattern or an animal representation and these designs developed into systematized heraldic emblems.

As a symbolic icon, the shield is a positive, defensive symbol that has connotations of spiritual defensiveness and fortitude.

“The symbolic significance of the shield amounts to a simple transposition of its defensive function to the spiritual plane.”

—Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols

The theory behind the spiritual defense is simple: Negativity in spiritual form can be just as damaging as physical harm. Fear, anger, depression, negative people/places, arguments, all of these can cling to us and cause problems over time. Spiritual cleansings reduce the harm that negative energy has on our lives.

One type of shield that is pertinent here is the coat of arms, especially considering it seems to be the type of shield depicted in the Chevron logo above. The coat of arms is a special type of shield because it was unique to families; many families passed down their unique coat of arms on their shields through many different generations, imbuing the coat of arms with a familial distinction in addition to its purely defensive one.

We don’t use shields today, but the shield has for thousands of years been used by humans all across the world. It thus holds a very powerful and positive place in our collective unconscious.

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SOLAR HALO (Egypt)

Top, From Left to Right:  Gulf corporate logo; Horus with solar halo; Horus with solar halo; Japanese flag; Bottom, From Left to Right: Horus with solar halo; Horus with solar halo.

Solar Halo.

Sun symbolism (also known as “sun worship”) can be found throughout recorded history and prehistory. The solar halo in particular is a very ancient symbol, used in reverence and memorializing by ancient cultures throughout the world, especially that of ancient Egypt.

The sun’s symbolism is quite obvious: the sun gives heat and light, both necessary to life. As a result of this extraordinary life-giving power, solar deities are often considered powerful and strong, even supreme (Ra in Egypt, for example); they carry different names and are associated with many different aspects.

The sun is depicted as a circle (i.e., the perfect circle)  which, with no beginning and no end, has always signified eternity, or the eternal soul within. This brings sun gods like Ra an immediacy that Judaic gods do not have, a sense that the sun god is inside you. The sun is also a wheel or chariot, metaphors for your soul and its incarnation or manifestation in the world, as in these examples:

• Trundholm sun chariot of the Nordic deity, Sol, drawn by Arvak and Alsvid
• Greek Helios riding in a chariot (also Phaeton)
• Sol Invictus depicted riding a quadriga on the reverse of a Roman coin
• Vedic Surya riding a chariot drawn by seven horses

In ancient Egyptian symbolism, the sun is drawn as the “aten” symbol; its wings signify ascension, or the spiritual uplifting of the soul, the goal of human life. Its twin serpents depicted as perfectly symmetrical signify duality in perfect balance, the way in which to achieve this spiritual ascension:

In ancient Egyptian religion, the sun disk became a primary symbol of Ra, the sun. The sun disk was carved over the doorways of many Egyptian tombs and temples, and it appears on many papyri. The sun disk is often shown being carried on the wings and head of Horus.

The forty-four story Gulf Tower in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, (the former corporate headquarters of the Gulf Oil Company) is shaped like an Egyptian pyramid! The tower is named for the Gulf Oil Corporation, which was one of the leading multinational oil companies of its time, and which has the Egyptian sun symbol as its logo.

The symbolism is very apparent in the Gulf logo; for those who are skeptical or unconvinced, however, we need only look to the Gulf Tower in downtown Pittsburgh. The top of the tower is built in a “stepped pyramid” fashion, like the Egyptian temples; a connection that takes Gulf’s logo from the realm of coincidence to the realm of likelihood.

The connotations of the sun oas an immensely positive symbol remain strong in the collective consciousness, and many artists, authors, and composers have put the beauty and warmth of the sun in their work. The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh created landscapes that expressed his joy with bright sunshine. The American poet Emily Dickinson wrote a poem called “The Sun,” in which she described the rising and setting of the sun. The Russian composer Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov included a beautiful song, “Hymn to the Sun,” in his opera The Golden Cockerel.

With all of this in mind, Gulf Oil uses the sun symbol in its logo because man is attracted to the sun and its power, and has been for millennia. Somewhere deep inside you, you are in awe of, and you have love for, the tremendous power of the sun.

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PEGASUS

Top, From Left to Right: Mobil Oil Corporate logo, the Pegasus; Pegasus flying, Greek Bronze, 300-268 BC; Parthian era bronze plate depicting Pegasus (“Pegaz” in Persian), excavated in Masjed Soleyman, Khuzestan, Iran. Bottom, From Left to Right: Bellerophon and the Chimera, edge of an Attic red-figure epinetron (thigh-protector used by a woman when weaving), ca. 425–420 BC (photo by Marsyas); Ancient Greek Silver Stater, Pegasus Coin Pendant Circa 480 – 450 BC; ancient Greek coin from Corinth c 360 BC.

Pegasus.

The Pegasus is one of the most famous mythological creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine horse, white in color, and has symbolized speed, power, and swift transport since prehistory. Additionally, Pegasus symbolizes the immortality of the soul, serviing as a carrier and protector of the spirit in journeys to the astral plane.

Pegasus is closely linked to various Greek gods like Poseidon / Neptune (emotion);  Athena / Minerva (heavenly wisdom); Zeus / Jupiter (guidance and creativity).

From the Middle Ages until the Renaissance, the Pegasus was a symbol of wisdom and especially of fame. In the 19th century, he became a symbol of poetry and a muse from which poets draw inspiration.

The Pegasus symbol itself is a unique combination of horse and wing symbolism; horses are a potent symbol from almost every world religion and mythology. Many view the horse as a symbol of strength, virility, and lust; wings, on the other hand, represent prayer, contemplation, and the soul’s ability to transcend the weight of earthly burdens.

The Winged Horse or Pegasus, then,  symbolizes the heightened power of man’s natural forces, an innate capacity for spiritualization and for inverting evil forces into good. As a Christian and religious symbol, the Pegasus was adopted from the attribution as the mount of Apollo, the God of pure light, beauty and truth to be included in the symbolic fauna of Christ.

Left: TriStar Pictures logo is a Pegasus. Right: Reader’s Digest Pegasus.

To summarize, it is clear that the big oil companies have used powerful and iconic ancient human symbols for their logos. They all have done so for the same reason: Because these corporations have always known that it’s easier to attract humans to their products by draping themselves in ready-made symbols of power and positivity, than to start from scratch.

The shell (Shell), diamond (Sunoco), torch (Amoco), shield (Chevron), sun (Gulf), and pegasus (Mobil) are all ancient symbols that we, as an ancient race, recognize—not in our conscious minds, but in our “collective unconscious.”

In Part II we will look at the Texaco logo, which is yet another corporate logo (oil company logo) that’s patterned after another ancient emblem, the pentagram (also known as “pentacle.”)

The True Occult Secret of the Pentagram

Note: This is Part II of a two-part series. If you have not read Part I, please do so before reading this article! It has information and explanations that you might need to understand this article in full.

Left: The ancient / occult pentagram symbol. Right: The pentagram in the Texaco logo.

In Part 1, we saw how the big multinational oil corporations use ancient iconic symbols as their logos. The seashell (Shell), diamond (Sunoco), torch of victory (Amoco), shield (Chevron), solar halo (Gulf), and pegasus (Mobil) are all ancient icons that we humans have known and recognized for thousands of years. These symbols are embedded in our collective unconscious as positive symbols, and the corporations have co-opted these symbols to influence and attract customers unconsciously, fully aware that these symbols are inherently attractive to us.

We spoke briefly on each of those logos before, but there is one that deserves a deeper look: here we will focus on the Texaco logo, which is yet another corporate oil company logo that is patterned after an ancient emblem, the pentagram or pentacle.

The pentagram is one of the most curious emblems of esotericism, especially because of its shunning: while the rest of the symbols spoken of in Part I are inherently positive, comforting symbols, the pentagram has always been considered a talisman of power and shunned by the majority of people in fear for thousands of years.

The pentagram appears in many corporate logos. How many pentagram stars can you count above?

A great many people in the world hold the mistaken belief that the Pentagram is an “evil” symbol, representative of the Judeo-Christian “Devil” or “Satan.” In truth, the symbol has nothing to do with the Bible and/or Judeo-Christian conceptions of good and evil.

The Pentagram instead symbolizes the makeup of man: his inner spiritual side and his outer physical side.

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Pentagram

Top, From Left to Right: The Texaco logo is a pentagram; Christ as a Pentagram, from Valeriano Bolzan, Hieroglyphica (Basel, 1556); Ancient representation of the Chinese five phases, or elements (Wǔ Xíng). Bottom: From Left to Right: Man inscribed in a pentagram, from De occulta philosophia libri tres by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486 – 1535).

A pentagram (also known as a pentalpha, pentangle, pentacle, or star pentagon) is a five pointed star drawn with five straight strokes. The word comes from the Greek word pentagrammon meaning “five lined” or “five lines”.

The true origin of this symbol is unknown, and has been lost in time. It does, however, stretch back to prehistory: we know that ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Babylonians all used symbolic depictions of the pentagram in their arts. The association of magic with the pentagram was evident in these historic uses of the pentagram and continues to be a strong symbolic meaning behind the pentagram; many practitioners of Neo-pagan faiths wear pentagram jewelry, and Wiccans use the pentagram as a symbol of faith.

Not surprisingly, the pentagram has associations with Freemasonry, one of the world’s oldest and most powerful initiatic orders, and perhaps the purest inheritor of the metaphysical and symbolic wisdom of the ancient, pre-Christian cultures:

Left: The Masonic Blazing Star is one of the most important symbols of Freemasonry. Right: The Masonic Blazing Star above the doorway of a building in France. The Blazing Start makes its appearance in several of the Degrees. In the instructions of 1735, it is detailed as a part of the furniture of a Lodge, with the explanation that the “Mosaic Pavement is the Ground Floor of the Lodge, the Blazing Star, the Centre, and the Indented Tarsel, the Border round about it!”

In the 28th Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Blazing Star denotes a Freemason, who, by perfecting himself in truth and knowledge, becomes like a blazing star, shining brilliantly in darkness.

This is an interesting description, especially because of the phrase “blazing star” applied to a man. This “substituted secret” echoes an element of truth; namely, that truth that the pentagram symbolizes Man himself. Masonic scholar Rex Hutchins asserts that the pentagram:

“…is the symbol of the Divine in man… The five-pointed star with a single point upward represents the Divine. It also symbolizes man for its five points allude to the five senses, the five members (head, arms and legs) and his five fingers on each hand, which signify the tokens that distinguish Masons.”

Before we delve more deeply into the powerful connection between man and the pentagram, it will be beneficial to take a quick look at an interrelated meaning of the pentagram- its use in ancient magic.

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Occult Properties of the Pentagram

The subject of the magical use of the pentagram is vast, and, in many ways, still unchartered. We find this interesting quote on Wikipedia:

“The five-pointed star is representative of the four primal elements (earth, air, fire and water,) and traditionally a fifth, called spirit. The circle binds them together to create life. When pointing up, the pentagram can represent spirituality’s dominance over the material (pentagram) bound inside the laws of the cosmos (circle). The upside-down facing pentagram, meanwhile, represents the physical world ruling over the spiritual, and has therefore been associated with dark magic. Other sources point to its origin in Chinese five-elementphilosophy, as the natural balance between fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. This theory states that the direction it ispointing has nothing to do with good or evil, but rather the upside-down facing circle is for banishing. The circle is again forthe concept the power within is bound by, this time for the circle of life.”

—Wikipedia

“The Pentagram has a long history of occult use. It was by use of a poorly constructed Pentagram that Mephistopheles was able to manifest in the circle of Faust! Magical grimoires of the western esoteric tradition are replete with examples of pentagrams being used as protective and evocatory talismans, or as the seals of circles of the Art which were traced on the floor of the ritual chamber. Literally thousands of examples are extant from the works of Trithemius, Dr. John Dee, Heinrich Agrippa, Kircher, Bruno, and many others, which show the hermetic and kabalistic applications of the Pentagram in ceremonial ritual use.”

—Gregory H. Peters, The Sacred Pentagram

Perhaps one of the most evocative descriptions of the occult powers of this symbol comes from the magician Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant), who writes of the Pentagram in his book Transcendental Magic:

“The Pentagram expresses the mind’s domination over the elements and it is by this sign that we bind the demons of the air, the spirits of fire, the spectres of water, and the ghosts of earth.  It is the Star of the Magi, the burning star of the Gnostic schools, the sign of intellectual omnipotence and autocracy.  Its complete comprehension is the key of two worlds—it is absolute natural philosophy and natural science.  Its use, how¬ever, is most dangerous to operators who do not completely and perfectly understand it.  All mysteries of magic, all symbols of the gnosis, all figures of occultism, all Qabalis¬tic keys of prophecy, are resumed in the sign of the Pentagram, which Paracelsus pro¬claims to be the greatest and most potent of all.”

—Eliphas Levi

In the previous article we examined the way in which ancient icons hold a permanent place in our “collective unconscious.” The pentagram is one of those icons, and is arguably one of the most powerful. It is clear from the research above that our ancestors understood and used the pentagram to tap the full extent of its power. As their descendants, we recognize the power of the symbol through our collective unconscious even if we have forgotten its true power and meaning.

We are alone in our forgetfulness. Multinational corporations seem not to have forgotten. By using the pentagram in their logos, multinational corporations show that they understand the power and truth behind the pentagram, using it to attract consumers instead of giving it to the people.

In January 2010, the present writer was asked to deliver a lecture at the Masonic Lodge in Manhattan, NY. Having accepted, a 25-minute speech was prepared and presented, which details the symbolism of the number 5 as it is connected to the “pentagram,” one of Freemasonry’s oldest and most powerful symbols.

A handout was distributed with the following images.

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Five As The Symbol of Man

Left: Man is a pentagram star, from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres. Middle: The pentagram, a star that shines. Right: Pentagram in the center of the Rose Window of the Cathedral of Exeter in England. The three images above ultimately depict the occult secret behind the number Five. The secret is that five is the number of man in the shape of a pentagram. This relates the ancient Secret Doctrine that man is a star, an eternal soul that shines; that deep down beneath the physical, corporeal body, we are powerful beyond ways we’ve never imagined.

Below is a copy of the speech, which has been edited to fit the present format.

LECTURE BY RICHARD CASSARO. DELIVERED IN JANUARY 15, 2010 AT THE MASONIC HALL IN MANHATTAN, NY:

Tonight we’ll examine the symbolism of the number five; what it means and what it stands for.

Some authors will tell you five is important because in Judaism the Torah contains five books, which are collectively called the five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch. In Christianity, Christ suffered five wounds on the Cross. There are five pillars of Islam (faith, prayer, alms, pilgrimage, fast) while Muslims pray five times a day.

But this in and of itself is not wisdom; noting similarities between religions will not alone help you to understand the world around you. Instead we must look deeper to the reasons five is so prevalent among religions; we must instead realize that they are not independent discoveries but rather memorials or pointers indicating a hidden treasure of symbolic meaning buried beneath the number five.

What deeper truth, then, is behind the number five? How does understanding the esoteric symbolism behind the number five endow a person with more “light” or understanding in the Masonic philosophy?

Simply put: the number five is the human number, the number that symbolizes man and his potential. Man has four limbs and a head, five digits on each  hand and toe, five senses, etc. and so forth. The number five is embedded in man, and has been taught as such by the ancient mystery schools of Egypt and Babylon.

The human body has five appendages (2 legs + 2 arms + head). We have 5 fingers and 5 toes. To ancient geometers, our 5-fold symmetry meant that the universe, too, had a 5-fold nature, since man was believed to be a microcosm of the universe.

Symbologist Juan Eduardo Cirlot tells us:

“Traditionally, the number five symbolizes man after the fall, but, once applied to this order of earthly things, it signifies health and love. Esoteric thinking sees this, not as the effect but, in fact, as the cause of man’s five extremities with the number five inscribed also on each hand and foot. This association of the number five with the human figure, common during the Romanesque period, is found all over the world, from England to the Far East. Agrippa of Nettesheim, depicted the image of man with arms and legs apart and related to the pentagram.”

—Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols

The pentagram is one of the most remarkable and sacred symbols in geometry for precisely this reason. Geometry is, of course, a key to Freemasonry; geometry is one of the ideas that the letter “G” in Freemasonry symbolizes, along with gnosis. This is evident in the incredibly sophisticated buildings that the medieval operative Masons built, intertwining geometry with gnosis to leave buildings that are living testaments to the ancient quest to find the inner, eternal Self:

The Pentagram, then, is one of the most complex and potent magical emblems on the planet. It is a five-pointed star that is drawn with five straight strokes; interestingly, it can also be drawn unicursally, or without picking up your pen from the page.

In studying this image, note carefully the man inside the pentagram. The Vitruvian Man, as discussed earlier, was overlain over a pentagram precisely because the pentagram holds a distinct resemblance to man. Just as your arms look similar to each other but different to your legs, the same holds true for the pentagram: the two arms of the pentagram look exactly like each other but different than the two legs, and vice versa:

The pentagram as the perfect symbol of man. The two “arms” of the pentagram match man’s arms. The two “legs” of the pentagram match man’s legs.

This, of course, teaches us something very important about the pentagram: if geometry is part of the fold of Creation, as Masonic philosophy tells us it is, then the pentagram is no less than the template of man. It is not just the same shape but is in fact one and the same with Man himself.

In essence, then, the pentagram is a core component of Masonic philosophy, in particular its quest to shine and perfect human knowledge: the attribution of “blazing star” to high order Masons is no mistake. Humans themselves are stars, deep down, and humans shine eternally because Geometry is an eternal law and constant of the universe itself.

This star I’m talking about is your eternal soul, plain and simple. As C.W. Lewis tells us:

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

—C.W. Lewis

Again, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

Every soul is a star that shines—this is ancient wisdom.

“Every man and every woman is a star.”

—Aleister Crowley, 1904

As Masons, your philosophy dictates that you are like a great light beneath your physical body, animating it and making it glow with light and life. This is the ancient teaching of the number five and the pentagram; that humans, as stars, are powerful beyond measure, an ideal every Mason must reach after revealing his belief in his own eternal soul:

“…I charge you to regard your apron as one of the most precious and speaking symbols our Order has to give you…Remember that you first wore it with the flap raised, it being thus a five-cornered badge, indicating the five senses, by means of which we enter into relations with the material world around us (our “five points of fellowship” with the material world), but indicating also by the triangular portion above, in conjunction with the quadrangular portion below, that man’s nature is a combination of soul and body.”

—W. L. Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry

“In Masonry, Five is a sacred number… In the Third Degree, we find reference to the five points of fellowship, and their symbol, the five pointed star.”

—Albert Mackey, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

The more you can envision this Masonic truth—the fact that beneath your head, two arms, and two legs you are a blazing star—the more you can take control of your body…and shape your own destiny.

This is, of course, a difficult concept to grasp, especially in Western cultures that try to disassociate with the soul and explain the world with only science, labeling those who believe in souls foolish and unprofessional. The record the ancient civilizations have left us, however, speaks differently: they believed in the soul and have left us the symbolic records, like the pentagram and the ankh, in order for us to recover what was once common knowledge.

The concept of the soul, to us, is alien: as a modern society we have disowned it, as mentioned above. The founders, however, had not, and as Masons left us their legacy as well. Evidence for this abounds; consider, for example, the massive pentagram embedded in DC’s architecture- it is a pentagram of crossroads with its head as the White House:

The now-famous pentagram design formed by the intersecting streets in Washington DC, with the ‘head’ of the pentagram pointing directly to the White House.

The flag as well is a Masonic symbol, embedding 50 pentagrams in its design; the US coat of arms contains them as well:

The Pentagon is implicitly a pentagram, since a pentagon forms the interior of a pentagram. The symbolic meaning of the pentagon symbol is similar to that of the pentagram, but deep enough to deserve its own lecture. Suffice it to say, however, that there is enough evidence to see that the founding fathers and the builders after them understood the power of the pentagram and encoded it in the US government’s symbols and architecture.

Interestingly, there are many well-established governments across the world that have long known and understood this power also, which is why a pentagram appears on their national flags:

PAKISTAN

CHILE

GHANA

NEW ZEALAND

MOROCCO

ETHIOPIA

CHINA

THE EUROPEAN UNION

THE PHILIPPINES

SINGAPORE

TURKEY

SOMALIA

BOZNIA / HERZOGOVINA

NORTH KOREA

VIETNAM

PANAMA

GRENADA

SOLOMON ISLANDS

ALGERIA

CAPEVERDE

BRAZIL

All of these nations clearly have pentagram symbols on their flags. At one point in their history, the leaders of these countries discovered the ancient meaning, sacred geometry and occult power of the pentagram.

The most likely origin of this wisdom was through Freemasonry, which spread throughout the world in centuries past. The connection between leaders of countries and Freemasonry is well-documented by historians; our own government provides evidence of this global connection.

Unfortunately, it is not always benevolent parties that understand the power behind the pentagram and other esoteric symbols. Large multinational corporations have subverted the power of the to attain their greatest good, not yours; they are using this symbolism to increase their profit margin instead of using this esoteric wisdom to teach and empower the masses with their own metaphysical power.

I have a handout that shows a sample, a small sample, of just some of the big corporations that use the pentagram:

Small sample of corporate pentagram logos.

It is very likely you’ve never noticed the large amount of pentagrams used in the logos of big corporations. To use a clichéd phrase, they are using its magic against you and your unconscious mind, tapping into and exploiting what 20th century psychologist Carl Jung called the “collective unconscious”:

“My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”

—Wikipedia

The pentagram appeals to our “collective unconscious” because our ancestors, since ancient times all the way down through and into the 21st century, have all had experiences with this symbol. A deep and ancient part of your mind or brain knows this symbol, because your forefathers knew it, even though you personally have not had a personal experience with it.

There is much more about the pentagram that we simply don’t have enough time to discuss and delve into here. As mentioned earlier, there is an endless amount of magic and ritual that goes along with the pentagram. Also sacred geometry:

Pentagons and Pentagrams exhibit self-symmetry and infinite fractal expansion. Fractal geometry is evident whenever a part of something resembles the whole. (ie. twigs look like branches, which look like trees, which look like large twigs, which look like branches etc….). Fractal geometry is found throughout plant life and minerals. A seed of a plant contains enough data to construct an entirely new plant. And, in fact, a single strand of an animal’s DNA contains enough data to construct the entire animal (this is why cloning is possible). The fractal symmetry of the pentagon and pentagram is illustrated below

I would like to leave you with one final thought.

If you look again at the handout, you’ll see one example of how operative Freemasons sometimes built pentagrams into the rose windows of Gothic cathedrals.

Pentagram in the center of the rose window on the western facade of Exeter Cathedral in England (c. 1400).

The exclusively Masonic art of reading churches and cathedrals for meaning has been lost in modern times; the rose window and pentagram, is a complex symbol that denotes our soul and the power behind it, a blazing star flowing from the spiritual world into physical existence.

The Freemasons encoded this tremendous secret here into the architecture. They did it to preserve for posterity the true meaning of the pentagram. They did it to uplift man. Their motives were clearly the direct opposite of the motives of today’s big corporations.

Many of these operative Freemasons were our ancestors. They cared and tried to get it right for us, which they seem to have done. Funny how, in today’s world, the youth believe the Freemasons are bad and the big companies like Macy’s are good.

The operative Masons, then, were indeed “good”. They decorated their Gothic cathedrals with rose windows and pentagrams for a reason, a message to both current viewers and later generations that spoke to the Masonic doctrine of the soul and self: a message that the body may die, but the soul will shine on.

Thus, in closing, I would like to leave you with this. When you see the number five or a pentagram, please say to yourself: “Hey, that’s man, body and soul…that’s me, body and soul!”

I AM MAN, I AM THE PENTAGRAM.

Beneath my body, I have a soul, I am a star, an eternal star that shines. I have lived, but I will die. I will sleep, but I will awake, I will die, but I will live.

Thank you all for listening and goodnight.

The Gothic cathedrals are an enduring mystery left over from medieval Europe; built a thousand years ago, these stunning stone skyscrapers still leave scholars puzzled as to the methods behind their construction. One of the most striking and enigmatic cathedrals is Chartres Cathedral in France; it has long baffled scholars and laymen alike, who claim it is no ordinary building. In fact it is not, and nor were her designers ordinary builders: they were “operative” Freemasons who had a sense of secret empowerment that they crafted into the cathedral, using their secrets of design to create a monument capable of uplifting others.

Above: Different views of Chartres Cathedral.

Chartres Cathedral, built in the 12th century, is both one of the greatest and most controversial achievements of Western architecture. Few people understand that Chartres is in many ways just as mysterious and baffling as the Great Pyramid of Giza. Over the centuries, several writers have commented that Chartres is not a Christian monument:

“It feels like heresy to say so, but there is something not quite Christian about Chartres Cathedral. Or perhaps one should say that it is somehow super-Christian, a place that connects the central spiritual tradition of the western world to a more ancient, strange and mysterious narrative.

—Philip Ball – Universe of Stone, A Biography of Chartres Cathedral

Much has been written about the supposed “magical” and “alchemical” power of Chartres cathedral to bless, purify, and transform its visitors; it almost seems as if the monument contains some sort of strange, powerful energy:

“Chartres seems to pose as many riddles as the Sphinx.”

—John James

The magic starts upon your first approach to Chartres; the first thing you see is its overpowering size and girth, in comparison to the surrounding wheat fields. The impact is indescribable.

“From a distance it [Chartres] seems to hover in mid-air above waving fields of wheat, and it is only when the visitor draws closer that the city comes into view, clustering around the hill on which the cathedral stands.”

—Wikipedia

As you come closer, you start to see the massive building stones Chartres was built with:

“The enormous size of the blocks of stone will strike the attention of the most casual visitor, but others will note the union of massive simplicity with perfect grace…the finest work of the kind in France.”

—J. L. J. Masse

The lack of steel tools and modern engineering would seem to make raising enormous stone blocks difficult if not impossible. However, it’s not only the size of the stones but also their complex shapes and the way in which they fit together perfectly with little or no mortar that defies explanation:

“The stonecutters, masons and sculptors of the Gothic age redefined what could be done with stone. Some of the blocks at Chartres are on such an awesome scale that it makes your legs tremble just to look at them… the blocks comprising the great arches of the vaulting often have highly complex shapes that have been made with stunning precision….”

—Philip Ball,  Universe of Stone: A Biography of Chartres Cathedral

It’s typical to see phrases like “awesome scale” and “stunning precision” when reading about the pyramids of Egypt. But a (comparatively) modern building like Chartres?

History informs us that the builders of Chartres had suddenly and mysteriously made rapid and unprecedented breakthroughs in technology, allowing them to reach heights then unheard of in Europe. These technologies include:

• POINTED ARCH (1st great innovation)
• FLYING BUTTRESS (2nd great innovation)
• RIBBED VAULT (3rd great innovation)

What’s going on here?

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Taller Than Liberty

Upon approaching the Western facade, the first aspect of the monument that makes itself known is how tall the twin towers actually are. The right tower is 349 feet tall, and the left is 377, making them taller even than the Statue of Liberty, from the ground to the top of the statue’s torch!

Left: Chartres Cathedral, France. Right: Statue of Liberty, NYC.

Visitors to Chartres often remark that it seems to be communicating some sort of message, a feeling that is not surprising at all: in medieval construction, buildings were very often designed to communicate esoteric wisdom and ideas:

“…the history of architecture is the history of writing. Before the printing press, mankind communicated through architecture. From Stonehenge to the Parthenon…Rows of stones were sentences…while Greek columns were “hieroglyphs” pregnant with meaning.”

—Rob Zaretsky, Victor Hugo and Architecture

If Chartres is indeed a message in stone, then what is it saying?

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Twin Towers “Sun” & “Moon”

Let us begin deciphering the message with the Twin Towers, those mysterious towers that many cathedrals seem to share:

Above: The so-called “Notre Dame cathedrals” were all built
during the same medieval era (c. 1200). All depict the
Twin Towers in the same position.

Both of Chartres towers are capped by iron emblems; the north tower has a sun and the south tower has a moon:

Above: The Twin Towers at Chartres are called the “Sun and Moon towers.”

These symbols are the first sign of the Pagan heresy encoded into Chartres, a direct reference to the ancient Pagan “doctrine of opposites”: an idea that everything in the universe is composed of diametrically opposed twin powers:

“Erected by the masons…the west front of each church had two towers representing the twin columns…the masculine and feminine aspects, the active and passive forces…Called, in Chartres Cathedral, the sun and moon towers…”

—Warren Kenton, Introduction to the Cabala

“These giant towers, indeed, and their aerial pinnacles are not twin sisters, but rather, it might seem, sister and elder brother, with their points of resemblance and their points of difference.”

—Cecil Headlam, The Story of Chatres

These towers in fact parallel a pair of “Twin Pillars” highly revered by the Freemasons, the organization credited with the planning and construction of the Gothic cathedrals.

The Twin Pillars, visible below on the important Masonic document called a “Tracing Board,” are named “Jachin” and “Boaz”—Jachin being the right-hand tower (crowned with the sun) and Boaz being the left-hand tower (crowned with the moon).

Above: The Twin Towers at Chartres, capped by the sun and the moon, match perfectly the Twin Pillars on the Masonic Tracing Board, which are also capped by sun and moon.

Crowned by the Sun and the Moon the Twin Towers on the cathedral, like the Twin Pillars on the Tracing Board, signify the pagan “pairs of opposites” doctrine:

• The SUN means DAY. The MOON means NIGHT.
• In the DAY it’s HOT. In the NIGHT it’s COLD.
• The DAY brings LIGHT. The NIGHT brings DARK.
• The DAY is DRY. The NIGHT is WET.
• And so on, down the line.

These naturally occurring pairs of opposites form the “lost key” to all the Mystery schools in history (Perennial Philosophy, Hermetic Teachings, Philosopher’s Stone, Alchemy, and so on.) The doctrine of opposites teaches us that we live in a world of both light and darkness, right and wrong, good and evil.

Freemason Manly Hall (1901 – 1990) explained:

“Jachin, the white pillar of light…Boaz, the shadowy pillar of darkness…These two pillars respectively connote also the active and the passive…the sun and the moon…good and bad, light and darkness.”

—Manly Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

In the early 20th century, genius architect Claude Bragdon wrote:

“…man, like the sun, is lord of day; he is like fire, a devastating force; woman is subject to the lunar rhythm; like water, she is soft, sinuous, fecund…The Masonic guilds of the Middle Ages were custodians of the esoteric… The north or right-hand tower (“the man’s side”) was called the sacred male pillar, Jachin; and the south, or left-hand tower (“the woman’s side”), the sacred female pillar, Boaz…”

—Claude Bragdon, The Beautiful Necessity

The existence of a male and female pillar on Chartres and the other High Gothic cathedrals reveals that the Freemasons believed in this Pagan doctrine of duality. This duality has since ancient times been symbolized by the number TWO.

Just as man is not apart from the universe, but lives inside it, the human body was also believed by the ancients to be dual, with the right-side half being “solar” and the left-side half being “lunar”:

Above: The ancients believed man’s physical body mimics the duality of the universe in which man lives. Learn more here.

The Kabbalah and Gnosticism teach that by balancing or “reconciling” these opposing forces in our bodies, one can “awaken”; feminine energy can and must be used as the activator of the masculine.  When there is polarity there is tension, and it is said that within this tension a miraculous transformation within ourselves occurs, like the change a caterpillar makes when turning into a butterfly.

“…only in and by the reconciliation of opposing forces is the Pathway made to the true occult knowledge and practical power…”

—Temple of the Golden Dawn Initiation Ceremony

When we balance out the twin opposing forces (male / female, etc.) within our minds and bodies—which “balance” is symbolized by the number THREE—an alchemical reaction activates or awakens a mystical Third Eye latent within us.

“…in every man there is an Eye of the Soul which…is far more precious than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen.”

—Plato, The Republic

Once awakened, this Third Eye ventures inward. During this introspection, a powerful transformation takes place. One discovers or “sees,” using this Third Eye, a conscious “deity” held captive within, an eternal deity that is one’s Self. This deity, that we term the “soul,” is in fact a god who has fallen from a higher spiritual realm and now finds himself far from home.

“A man is a god in ruins.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The seeker discovers he is this god, and to his dread learns that, due to his fallen state, this god is now encased in an animal’s body that mimics the duality of the universe. By balancing the opposites, however, he can open his Mind’s Eye; in doing so he learns that he can perceive, and then act from, his true higher Self or soul at the center of his dual physical nature.

“…Join the male and the female and you will find what you are seeking…”

—Aphorisms of Zosimus

“He who aspires to be master of his fate and captain of his soul must walk upon these opposites in the sense of transcending and dominating them, of trampling upon his lower sensual nature and keeping it beneath his feet in subjection and control.

His object is the development of his innate spiritual potencies….”

—W.L. Wilmshurst

The lighting of a bulb by tying a metal rod to both ends of a battery is a wonderful metaphor for the Third Eye; in Hinduism, for example, the concept of the Third Eye is achievable through Kundalini Yoga and meditation on key energy points in the human body. Note the Third Eye “dot” on the forehead:

Left: Great Buddha Kamakura, Japan, with Third Eye “dot” on forehead. Right: Kundalini Yoga, which involves activating the Ida and Pingala Channels, male and female in union, to awaken the Third Eye.

Kundalini is an ancient Sanskrit term denoting “illumination” or “enlightenment” one experiences during the discovery of the soul, and Kundalini Yoga is dedicated to the practice of opening the ajna chakra, or Third Eye.

Although virtually unknown in the West, Kundalini is said to be responsible for man’s spiritual and religious awakenings throughout history and in all parts of the world. In the days of old it constituted part of “the work” of Secret Societies, like Masonry.

“…the All-seeing eye…This is the eye of freemasonry, the third eye. While I am credibly formed that few Masons understand their own symbols, the fact remains that they use them…”

—Dr. George Washington Carey, The Wonders of the Human Body

Above: Masonic Twin Pillars (sun and moon) in balance, causing the awakening of the Third Eye, depicted single and in the center.

The Third Eye, according to this doctrine, is no longer in full working order in daily life. Awakening the Third Eye requires understanding the pairs of opposites and finding one’s center between them. This is heretical in a Western context; it is a “union with God” and was punishable by death for longer than a thousand years in Europe.

Similar ideas of harmonizing, uniting, reconciling and balancing opposites exist in all cultures, and these ideas are always associated with a single Third Eye:

Third Eye drawings throughout history, in different parts of the world. From left to right: Mexico sculpture; Egyptian eye of Ra; 16th century steel helmet with mask from Iran; stone drawing on wall at Teotihuacán, Mexico.

“Unfortunately our Western mind, lacking all culture in this respect, has never yet devised a concept, nor even a name, for the union of opposites through the middle path, that most fundamental item of inward experience…

…It is at once the most individual fact and the most universal, the most legitimate fulfillment of the meaning of the individual’s life.”

—Carl Jung

Masonic apron with emblem depicting Third Eye balancing over opposing sun and moon symbols.

Returning to Chartres, we note that between the male and female pillars we find a magnificent and very meaningful piece of architecture: a giant Rose Window, which we shall see symbolizes none other than a giant Eye.

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Rose Window

All Gothic cathedrals have rose windows, which find their origin in the Roman oculus. Oculus, the Latin word for eye, is still used to refer to other round windows, openings, and skylights in other edifices.

The truly astounding part of this, however, is how similar the Gothic Rose Window is to the single Eyeball. The central pupil, iris, the rings, etc. and so forth are strikingly parallel: the rose window is in and of itself a symbol for the eye.

“It is when the sun, already sinking in the west, looks the cathedral almost full in the face. Its rays, becoming more and more horizontal…while the great central rose window glares like the eye of a Cyclops…”

—Victor Hugo

This rose window sits perfectly in the center between the twin towers, or the pairs of opposites, just as your soul sits perfectly in the center between the twin sides of your dual body (your right or “sun” half and left or “moon” half): this immediately recalls the metaphor of the Third Eye described above, inside the duality of male and female. Prince Charles, speaking of Chartres’ design, describes it thusly:

“The entrance into the building is through the West front, which comprises two soaring towers, one with the symbol of the Moon upon it and one, a significant number of feet taller, bearing the symbol of the Sun… And beneath them sits one of the most spectacular of all rose windows, symbolizing the uniting of the apparent duality represented by the symbols of the Sun and the Moon. This unifying process is even built into the way the pilgrim was expected to journey around the cathedral.”

—Prince Charles, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World.

The concept of the union of opposites and the number three is also prevalent in small architectural details:

Left: Trefoil in Gothic architecture. Right: Long predating the Gothic cathedrals, an Ancient Priest-king from Mohenjodaro wears trefoil and a circular amulet on his forehead depicting the Third Eye.

In architecture, a trefoil is an ornamental foliation consisting of three divisions, used in Gothic architecture to represent the form of a three-lobed leaf.

Returning to the Rose Window, we can see that no matter how simple or flamboyant the window, it is always depicted as circular. The circle is a perfect form, and is thus a symbol of eternity as well as a symbol of the eternal “soul within” or “god within” each of us.

Yet another way to look at the rose window is as a Buddhist symbol, similar to the Eastern “Wheel of Dharma” or “Wheel of Law,” a symbol denoting the Buddhist path to enlightenment.

Associated with this concept is the medieval idea of the Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, which refers to the capricious nature of Fate. The goddess Fortuna spins the wheel at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel; some suffer while others gain, and Fortuna is always a woman, sometimes blindfolded, spinning the wheel.

Fortuna sits at the center of her Wheel, observing the rotation of four figures on its rim: above her, below her, to her left and to her right.

Countless writers have also described the entire Rose Window concept as a sacred mandala, leading one to their very center of all Being, which is their own inner being; the center of their own eternal, Inner Self. The word mandala means “circle.” Following Jung, they affirm the rose window represents the “expression of human aspiration towards wholeness and coherence.” Mandalas have existed in Eastern religion and philosophy for centuries:

Left: Tibetan Buddhist thangka painting, a mandala. Right: The Rose Window at Chartres.

In eastern philosophy, there are different paths to reach the divine, represented by gates at the cardinal points of the mandala. The goal, the quest, is to attain the center.

If you let your eyes glide along the tracery of the rose window at Chartres, while you slowly take in the geometric patterns, you can slowly awaken to a very calm or meditative Self. It’s almost like prayer, but to your own center.

It is possible that awareness of this ancient yet highly sophisticated occult wisdom enabled the builders of Chartres to carve and create the cathedral with an almost superhuman skill and ability, the same that raised the pyramids, Baalbek, and Stonehenge; it stands to reason, then, that Chartres itself would be encoded and embedded with this wisdom, an esoteric gift from the Masons to the Western world.

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Magic Labyrinths

Left: Mandala. Middle: Labyrinth at Chartres. Right: Labyrinth at Chartres.

The Rose Window on the outside of Chartres is connected with another mysterious phenomenon inside the cathedral—the labyrinth. Constructed in the second decade of the 13th century, the labyrinth is 12.9 (12.3) meters in diameter and fills the width of the nave.

Much has been written about the purpose of this labyrinth, but little contemporary documentation survives. The labyrinth symbolizes the long tortuous path of life, and the goal to find the spiritual soul or “center” (the Self) within the lower material body (the self); the center is the peace, whereas the outer circle represents the ups and downs of fortune. The labyrinth also depicts the reincarnating soul on the road to nirvana (the center).

Interestingly, the Ra symbol of Egypt and Freemasonry, the circumpunct, can be seen as a labyrinth. It stands for the you, the human; you must reach the center, where the rose is, to find your inner, eternal Self. The center is the dot in the center of the circle, the real higher Self inside the false, material body or lower self. The outer circle represents that body, enclosing the divine soul and separating it from the outside.

Above: Egypt’s aten hieroglyph as compared to the Labyrinth at Chartres. The labyrinth can be looked upon as the “key” or guide that teaches us how to read the “Ra” hieroglyph. Follow the path to find your Rose at your center, and live from that source.

Of course, the Aten of Ra and the Eye of Ra were interchangeable in Egypt; the Eye of Ra was the Third Eye and Aten of Ra was the Inner Soul. The same is true of the rose window at Chartres. It stands not only for the single Third Eye between opposites, but also the soul within the body that one sees when one awakens one’s Third Eye:

Above Left: Eye of Ra. Above Right: Aten of Ra. Egyptologists are of the mistaken opinion that these represent the sun in the sky. In fact, the Eye of Ra is your Third Eye, and the Aten of Ra is your soul within” which your Third Eye “sees” when activated.

In all labyrinths, the entrance and the exit are one. This of course brings us back to the unity of opposites; the entrance and exit are where the lower and higher selves meet.

The clergy destroyed these fascinating and sacred labyrinths because they were fearful of this ancient Pagan wisdom. As self-empowering wisdom, it was a threat to their hegemony; they reveal paths to power that any human being can follow without the aid of a priest. Fearing this loss of control, the Church began a systematic destruction of the labyrinths and all of these pagan symbols.

Take a closer look in the center of the labyrinth at Chartres. There sits a rose with six petals. What’s more, this rose seems to be at the center of the circle, where the horizontal and vertical axes formed by the labyrinth meet. Interestingly, the Rosicrucians, a Secret Society like the Freemasons who built Chartres, had as their central symbol a rose at the center of the Cross, just like this one:

Left: Labyrinth at Chartres. Notice the “rose” in the center of the cross, an elaborate pattern built with geometric precision by master architects.

Now notice how the Rose at the center of the labyrinth at Chartres forms a Hexagram (a right-side-up triangle combined with an upside-down triangle) a symbol for the balance of opposites.

It is thus easy to see how affixing a rose upon the crossing can come to mean a resolution of conflict, a union of opposites. This is the secret formula of THREE which leads to an awakening of the Third Eye. With time, the rose in the center, or “us”, grows more beautiful; it becomes wiser and stronger. This is the significance of the rose cross of the Rosicrucians, and both the Confraternity of the Rose Cross and the Order of the Milita Crucifera Evangelic (CR+C and OMCE, respectively).

Interestingly, the Chartres labyrinth is situated at the Western end of the nave and has the same dimensions as the rose window, which is the same height on the facade as the labyrinth is away from the West wall. If you folded the cathedral onto itself spatially, the rose window depicting Our Lady would line up and cover the maze. They both have the same purpose: to call us to the center of our own being. Watch the following brief video where the brilliant professor Keith Critchlow, co-founder of the Temenos Society, explains more:

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This is quite eye-opening: it explains that the rose window and the labyrinth actually stand for the same thing. They stand for a Mandala, the sign of Ra, and symbolized a message to find the inner, eternal Self within.

From Left to Right: Mandala, Circumpunct, Labyrinth, Labyrinth, Rose Window. Walking among the turnings, one loses track of direction and of the outside world, and thus quiets the mind.

Each of the images is an image of the human; the Circle is the wheel of fortune, sometimes up and sometimes down, but the center is the real and eternal You; the higher Self. Attaining the center is the goal of the Mandala, and aten, and circumpunct: the goal of the labyrinth, the key that solves the riddle of the Eye of Ra. It is a symbolic pilgrimage; people walk the path ascending toward salvation or enlightenment. The labyrinth at Chartres is not a maze. Mazes are places where one gets lost; labyrinths are places where people are found.

Labyrinths and Mazes are of pagan origin. Labyrinths and Mazes have a history that can be traced back over 4000 years. The earliest examples, found carved on rocks, all have the same design—the classical labyrinth symbol:

Prehistoric labyrinth petroglyph, Pansaimol, Goa, India

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In Conclusion

This evidence, then, points strongly to Chartres cathedral being much more than a regular Catholic edifice. It is instead an exceptional marvel of high initiation, encoded with symbols that teach knowing candidates with the play of natural forces; it is a building that has embedded within it an ancient wisdom that predates Christianity, and endures as a crucible for the spiritual transformation of those who choose to look.

Countless mysteries still abound. Among the most pressing, perhaps, is why don’t modern scholars of the West acknowledge the role of the operative Freemasons here? Indeed this subject seems completely glossed over. Buildings of such complexity and elegance are rare even in modern times, and we would be hard pressed even now to find architects with the architectural skill and craftsmanship to create such amazing, detailed monuments.

Yet it seems clear that the Freemasons fit the bill as creators of the Gothic cathedrals. Look at the photo below. On the left, a group of magical builders. On the right, a group of magical buildings:

SUPERHUMAN MONUMENTS, CREATED BY SUPERHUMAN BEINGS
On the left, a group of magical builders. On the right, a group of magical buildings.

The designers and builders of Chartres did not design it with a wholly Christian idea in mind: instead they built Chartres to be a sacred shrine to their Masonic wisdom, imbuing it with the secret symbols and messages necessary to push visitors up onto heightened states of consciousness and awareness. Chartres is a sanctuary of alchemical transformation, an initiation machine fueled by a Pagan wisdom and guided by revolutionary engineering; the builders of Chartres forever changed how the world looks at art, but also may have changed how it looks at itself as well.

What seems apparent here as well is that the Masonic builders were experiencing a near-superhuman breakthrough of some kind, an achievement of wisdom and knowledge that enabled them to build a cathedral previously unknown to the world. They found their heaven inside themselves, their inner Self, and they used this knowledge to express what they discovered in the very stones of Chartres.

The breakthroughs they had made, spiritually, reflected in their architecture, their design, the breakthroughs, masonry, sculpture, and overall craftsmanship. They were extra-ordinary humans who, in turn, created extraordinary monuments; their spiritual breakthroughs and triumphs are directly reflected by their architectural breakthroughs and triumphs.

What you have read here is merely the tip of the iceberg. In Written In Stone, you can find more evidence that the great Gothic Cathedrals were Hermetic libraries in stone which encoded the Alchemical doctrine of the soul into the fabric of the monument, written into the art and architecture for all to read.

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Visit www.DeeperTruth.com to learn more about the secret of the Freemasons encoded in Gothic Cathedrals.

There is a fair amount of evidence that the owl is the chief symbol of an elite yet undiscovered secret society moving through history. In this article we’ll examine this evidence and uncover the lineage of this secret society. We’ll also learn how the magic, majestic, and nocturnal owl actually symbolizes an ancient self-empowerment doctrine once known and practiced worldwide.

Top Left: Owl on Merchants Building on Broadway at 4th Street in NYC. Top Right: Detail on the Catford Broadway Theatre, London. Bottom Left: Owl depicted on the façade of the Woolworth Building in Manhattan, NYC. Bottom Right: Owl on a bridge of the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut.

A “Secret Owl Society”—a hidden, fraternal Order that uses the owl as its trademark—could very well be exerting a hidden yet continuous and measurable influence on world affairs, undetected by scholars, journalists, and historians.

Its members, possibly those same scholars,  journalists, and historians, are well-versed in mystical traditions, ancient mystery teachings, and eastern philosophies.

This Secret Owl Society remains well-hidden. But if we look back in time and connect all the fraternal orders that have owl logos, we begin to see its lineage, operating for centuries.

Note the society’s chronology below:

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Chronicle of the Secret Owl Society

Above: Is this the society’s hidden timeline?

If indeed there is a Secret Owl Society moving through history, then its most recent manifestation is at the mysterious “Bohemian Grove,” a 2,700-acre campground located at 20601 Bohemian Avenue in Monte Rio, California.

It belongs to a private San Francisco-based men’s art club known as the Bohemian Club, a confederation of the world’s most powerful men who visit the grove in mid-July each year to perform a Pagan ritual at the foot of a giant owl, dressed in robes and chanting incantations.

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Sacred Owl

Left: Built in the 1920, this forty-foot owl statue stands near a lake at the Grove. Since that time it has served as the site of the yearly Cremation of Care Ceremony. Right: Early 1900s. Very tall and very old Redwood trees — some over 1,200 years old.

The Bohemian Club has received very little press coverage since its inception in 1872. Though the Club itself is shrouded in secrecy, the bulk of what transpires at the Grove is somewhat documented; it appears to be a mixture of the American summer camp, a powerful ancient Pagan ritual, and the classical Greek symposium. Greek paganism is certainly an element, with a series of “Grove Plays” called “High Jinks” and “Low Jinks” performed at the Club.

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Famous Bohemians

George H. Bush
George W. Bush
Ronald Reagan
Henry Kissinger
Casper Weinberger
Dick Cheney
Malcom Forbes
Stephen Bechtel
James Baker
David Rockefeller
Tom Johnson
William Randolph Hearst Jr.
Jack Howard
Charles Scripps
Walter Cronkite

Add to this list a host of prominent CEOs and business leaders, most of them conservative, many of them from California, 99 percent of them white men.

Left: Summer, 1967 at “Owls Nest Camp” with two future U.S. presidents: Ronald Reagan, Harvey Hancock (standing), Richard Nixon and Glenn Seaborg. Right: Painted portrait of Haig Patigian with Bohemian Owl in background, by Peter Ilyin (1927). Online Archive of California.

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Occult Meaning of the Cremation of Care Ritual

The apex of the Bohemian Grove’s rituals is the Cremation of Care ceremony. This was devised in 1893 by a member named Joseph D. Redding, a lawyer from New York.

G.William Domhoff, a professor of psychology and sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz,, obtained access to the Bohemian Club’s records and membership and was able to conduct extensive research into the organization and their activities, including details surrounding the Cremation of Care ceremony.

Above: The “Cremation of Care” Ritual. Present here are America’s corporate leaders, dressed in robes, burning their collective conscience at the feet of a statue of a 40-foot owl. (Photo Courtesy of Sonoma County Free Press)

According to Domhoff, on the first Saturday of the camp,  this elaborate ritual is held just after dinner. The ritual’s main theme is the celebratory burning of an effigy of “Dull Care” at the bottom of a forty-foot stone owl.

The ceremony involves the poling of a small boat across a lake containing an effigy of Care (“Dull Care”). Dark, hooded individuals receive the effigy from the ferryman which is placed on an altar and, at the end of the ceremony, is set on fire.

Domhoff notes: “this is the body of Care, symbolizing the concerns and woes that afflict all men during their daily lives.”

The occult meaning of this ceremony seems clear. These men carry the cares of the world and use a symbolic ritual to cast it off. The remaining time at the Club represents a careless period, or vacation of sorts, during which time no business is conducted.

By “cremating” care, they expunge the negative energy of such emotions as worry, fear, and anxiety; it is the goal and magical effect of the ritual, which could more properly be called the “Cremation of worry” or “Cremation of negative energy.”

The pertinent evidence to the present article, of course, is the fact that the ceremony takes place next to a 45 foot (14m) high concrete owl statue, symbolizing knowledge and wisdom. The voice of the owl during the ceremony is former newsman Walter Cronkite, himself a member of the Bohemian Club, and music and fireworks accompany the ritual for dramatic effect.

“More than 100 Bohemians take part in the ceremony…but…they can’t get the fire started. . . the perplexed Bohemians must turn to the mighty Owl for advice: “O thou, great symbol of all mortal wisdom, Owl of Bohemia, we do beseech thee, grant us thy counsel,” intones the High Priest. An aura of light creates a glow around the Owl’s head, and then the big bird reveals its wisdom. The High Priest must light the pyre with the flame from the Lamp of Fellowship…”

— William Domhoff, The Progressive, January 1981 “Bohemian Bigwigs Perpetuate Canaanite Cult”

Taking part in the ceremony increases the chance of a certain outcome: the same stress-release and cleansing of negative energy expected from a vacation. They have created a magic ritual, using the power of fellowship and love, to help cleanse the bad energy from the group. Magical thinking applies here: they believe they have done it, and so they have.

It doesn’t seem to be a location of secret dealings, per se, as conspiracy theorists believe. What actually seems to happen instead is that friendships are made here, truly flowering and blooming in contrast to the ideas of secret or backdoor dealings.

“… my Lakeside Speech at the Bohemian Grove in July 1967…this speech…was off the record it received no publicity…But in many important ways it marked the first milestone on my road to the presidency.”

— President Richard Nixon, Memoirs (1978)

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Weaving Spiders Come Not Here

The Bohemian Club’s motto—Weaving Spiders Come Not Here—is a line from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it directly contradicts the conspiracy theorists’ claim of secret deals and backdoor negotiations.

The line’s connotation is that webs, or deals and plans, cannot be hatched here; instead, the camp is entirely focused on the “Bohemian Spirit,” a term used to signify the camp’s ideals of pleasure, friend, freedom, and awakening.

Left: Metal bas relief owl and inscription on the brick wall at 624 Taylor, San Francisco, CA. Right: The  words above Taylor Street say, ”Weaving Spiders Come Not Here.” The word “weaving” means “planning” which “planning” stands in direction opposition to the occult purpose of the Cremation of Care ceremony, the centerpiece of the Grove.

The spider’s connection with creation and illusion are ancient and myriad:

• The Greeks associated the spider with the Fates.
• The Indians associated the spider with Maya, the weaver of illusion.
• The Scandinavians associated her with the Norns, the women who wove the threads of life.
• Native Americans believed that the spider wove the first alphabet.

As the spider weaves its web, so too we weave our own lives. Thus spiders symbolize creation, an aspect that has no place in the Grove: the Club is there for the destruction or cremation of care, and destruction is creation’s opposite.

Spiders are feminine, connected to Ishtar, Atargatis, Athene, the Fates, the Norns, Holda, Inktomi, Kokyangwuti, Tsitsicnako and Sussistanako and Neith.

Some Native American tribes believed the spider was the weaver who created the world and saw her as a symbol of creative female energy.

Like women, spiders are in many ways very delicate and gentle creatures. Thus “weaving spiders come not here” is very pertinent in the sense that feminine spiders cannot come to an all masculine retreat.

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The Mystical Owl

For the ancient Egyptians, Celtics, and Hindus owls were connected to guardianship of the underworlds, and protection of the dead. In this light, the owl was ruler of the night and seer of souls, a suitable association for the most mysterious, magical, and powerful bird of the forest.

A misunderstanding of this necessary relationship gave the owl negative associations with death. Because of their wings (which give owls the ability to fly away from earth and shuffle off this ‘mortal coil’) birds in general are symbolic messengers between the earthly and spirit realms.

Note that, while there is a concept of death involved here, it’s only “death” in the sense of being an open doorway from physical to spiritual; more precisely, from the temporary material world we live in now back to the spiritual source from whence we came, and are now traveling toward.

The concept of death is very important in the mystical traditions of the Secret Societies. It is, however, the death of the lower self, and not the soul, that is being affirmed: this death is in fact a doorway back to the Self, revealing the soul inside.

In other words, to transcend death we must realize that we are a higher eternal Self (soul) incarnated in a lower, temporary self (body). Since humans do not realize this, we are, in a sense, “imprisoned” in the body, and must transcend it to free ourselves and realize our own inner divinity.

A “resurrection” back to the true Self is needed, as it were. And for there to be a resurrection, there has to be a sacrifice. This sacrifice is care, the ego, the lower bodily self (lowercase “s”).

In practically every ancient culture, solitary nocturnal creatures are symbolic of these ideas, of inner-knowing, psychic ability, and intuition; all of which are traits of the soul within, not the physical body.

The owl is a perfect example of such a creature. The owl knows all of this. The owl is wise, and always deeply connected with magic, shamanism, and heightened senses throughout the ages.

Owls have been thought of as “cats with wings,” sharing similar characteristics with cats, who are of course the familiars of witches and sorcery (interestingly, owls tend to be the familiars of male mages or wizards):

Native America

Native Americans associated owls with wisdom and foresight, and identified them as keepers of this sacred knowledge.

The bird’s ability to see at night was legend, and this attribute would be invoked during ceremonies when an oracle of secret knowledge was required.

Left: Egyptian Owl. Right: Native American Owl

Shamans called upon Owl medicine for insight. Plains Indians wore owl feathers to protect against evil spirits. The Cree and Apache believed the Boreal Owl was a summoning to the spirit world.

To this day, Native Americans associate the owl with spiritual vision; the owl is viewed with respect and associated with the souls of deceased ancestors.

Africa and Australia

African cultures viewed the owl similarly to the Native Americans, heralding them as messengers of secrets as well as the bird of sorcerers, witches, and warlocks.

In Madagascar owls are said to dance on the graves of the dead, and to the Aboriginal Australians they are companions to medicine people.

Middle and Far East

In some middle and far eastern cultures, the owl is a sacred guardian of the afterlife, ruler of the night as well as a seer and keeper of souls transitioning from one plane of existence to another.

The owl is still considered a witch’s companion, sharing unique spiritual communication between them, and even sharing the same secret powers of the night.

Europe

In Celtic tradition, the owl represents wisdom, clairvoyance, stealth, initiation, change and detachment.

Medieval Europeans believed owls were witches and wizards, shape-shifters in disguise.

To this day the owl is considered a witch’s familiar (an animal soul-spirit linked to a spiritual person via a unique, communicative bond).

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Ancient Owls

Left: Prehistoric owl image from France. Right: Ancient vessel from China, 200 BC

In Greek mythology, the owl is firmly linked with Athena, the Goddess of wisdom (and in later times, of battle). She is pictured with her owl on her shoulder, and some say this is why the owl has come to be associated with wisdom; the scientific name for the owl is even “Athene Noctua”. The city of Athens, Athena’s patron city, had an owl on its coins:

Left: Owl, Acropolis, Athens c.500 BC. Right: The owl money of ancient Greece.

And so it is clear that the owl has, for thousands of years, symbolized wisdom, spirituality, our intuitive self, and our connection to the source of our eternal Self.

It is undoubtedly a powerful occult and esoteric symbol, which brings us back to our original point:

Is there a Secret Society that uses the owl as their symbol, and is the Bohemian Club their current incarnation?

Many conspiracy theorists point out the existence and secretive nature of the Club, but few dig deeper into the Club’s history.

Is the Bohemian Club an independent phenomenon, or is it actually the most recent manifestation of a much bigger and older society?

With these questions in mind, we turn to look at another organization similar to the Bohemian Club, and parallel in some ways: the National Press Club, whose logo features a mysterious owl.

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National Press Club Owl

Above: The National Press Club is said to have been established in 1908 by thirty-two newspapermen. Their logo features a large owl perched on a book in front of the capitol building.

The NPC is said to have been established in Washington DC in 1908, soon after elites and journalists on the West Coast established the Bohemian Club. Most presidents have lectured here, and both Carter and Reagan announced their candidacies for president here.

“Through its doors have come presidents, premiers, kings and queens, Cabinet secretaries, senators and House members, movie stars and sports heroes, titans of business and finance – just a who’s who of the 20th and the 21st centuries. Here they have found a willing audience of reporters waiting to grill them with questions, interpret what they say and send the news around the world.”

—National Press Club website

Mystical symbolism in NPC’s logo reveals influence from Bohemian Grove’s Owl Shrine. But is there a link? If so, what exactly is the connection?

Unlike the Bohemian Grove, there are no known “occult” ceremonies attached to the NPC. However, unique and mysterious owl symbolism is certainly present here.

Above: Famous journalist Helen Thomas at NPC (Photo Courtesy of Terry Hill).

A March 28, 2010 article titled Owls Honor Helen Thomas; Everyone has a Hoot said things like:

“Helen Thomas, dean of the White House press corps, was inducted into the Order of the Owls Thursday night during the Spring Hoot of the Club’s Silver Owls.”

• “The ceremonial award bestowed on Thomas recognizes “birds of a unique species, weathered and wise, who have nested at the National Press Club and demonstrated that they give a hoot for Washington journalism.”
• “Mae Scanlan, wife of Golden Owl Tom Scanlan, produced a batch of parodies for both the Silver Owls and the Owlets quartets. The young members responded with “We’ll be Loving You, Owl-ways.”
• “Ten new Golden Owls (members of 50 years) were recognized, along with 40 Silvers (members for 25 years).”

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Walt Disney Owl Mystery

The owl symbol is also prevalent among Walt Disney’s most important films. It is said that an owl in one form or another mysteriously appears in every Disney picture. Not only that, but the owl even appears “clandestinely” in at least one Disney picture, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). When Snow White enters the cottage of the seven dwarfs, the esoteric owl imagery is overwhelming. It’s worth watching.Within a 20 minute time span owl “backgrounds” appear many dozens of times.

Left: Owl symbols form the landing at the top of the stairs. Right: Owl symbols form the stairs.

Left: The image of a flying owl forms the top of a coat-rack. Right: The image of owls forming the staircase.

Left: Two owls appear above the doorway.  Right: An owl forms part of a wall-support.

Above: An owl forms part of the headboard of one of the dwarf’s beds

It is said that as a teenager Disney joined the Order of DeMolay, a Masonic youth organization. He is widely quoted as saying:

“I feel a great sense of obligation and gratitude toward the Order of DeMolay for the important part it played in my life. Its precepts have been invaluable in making decisions, facing dilemmas and crises. DeMolay stands for all that is good for the family and for our country. I feel privileged to have enjoyed membership in DeMolay.”

— Walt Disney

There are many more interesting esoteric connections between Disney and Masonry and the Occult. For example, here is an image of Disney at the center of an occult Triptych, the architectural three-in-one pattern which relates the pinnacle of Masonic perennial wisdom, and which is only now being rediscovered:

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The Schlaraffia Owl

Established in Prague, Bohemia, 1859, thirteen years before the Bohemian Club, the Schlaraffia was a group of actors, writers, artists and musicians (similar to the Bohemian Club); and they too (like the Bohemian Club) use an owl as their talisman.

This society, called Schlaraffia, is a fraternal body with lodges spread globally, on every continent. Artists, writers, teachers and academics in the famously elite city of Prague founded the Schlaraffia society in 1859. Its aim was to become a place where men could cast their worries away and revel in art, humor and friendship.

Customs, pomp and ceremony from medieval times are used at Schlaraffia sessions, the group maintains a relationship to civic societies of the Medieval Age. The Society’s talisman is an owl, called UHU in German, said to be the emblem of wisdom. The Greeks and Romans believed the owl implied prudence and wisdom.

“Schlaraffia is a worldwide German-speaking society…The Schlaraffen…meet in midwinter (October 1 – April 30) once per week in their Schlaraffen castle (equipped in the style of a knight’s tavern from the Middle Ages) for “Sippungen” (gatherings which take place in the fixed ceremonial form of a knight’s play)…

Reychs currently exist in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Sweden, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, South Africa and Austrailia… The approximately 280 “reychs” (local clubs) stay in close contact with one another. Each Schlaraffe is always welcome in every reych in the world.

The total number of Schlaraffen amounts to about 11,000…Their ‘mascot’ is the eagle owl…symbolizing wisdom, virtue and humor (the owl itself presents knowledge and wisdom) and they bear some resemblance to Freemasons.”

—Wikipedia

Of the three goals of Schlaraffia, the most important one is the sincere friendship that glues the membership. Similar to the Bohemian Club’s concept of destroying “Care” (“the release of everyday mundane concerns for the brotherhood of Bohemian friendship” [Phillips, op. cit., p. 46]), the Schlaraffia say: “As soon as he [the Schlaraffian] enters a ‘castle’ [or 'Temple'] and comes under the rule of Uhu, the great horned owl of Minerva, he is expected to forget all foolish things of everyday life.”

The place of the Schlaraffia assemblies is called Burg.  The ornate meeting room is dominated by a throne and wall hangings that include banners, coats of arms and crests. A prospective member is greeted by men attired in cloaks heavily decorated with medals, wearing helmets and carrying swords.

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Mysterious Yale Owl Architecture

At about the same time as the Shlaraffia’s founding, a mysterious and inexplicable array of owl symbols and images began appearing quietly, prominently and distinctly in the stones and brickwork architecture at Yale University.

Above: Owl images written into the stone architecture of Yale University’s campus.

Yale University is a private Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the country. Yale is widely considered one of the most prestigious and selective universities in the world.

Above: Owl images written into the stone architecture of Yale University’s campus.

Mysterious, looming towers, massive rock walls covered with ivy, grotesque stone carvings leering from the eaves: most of the buildings at Yale look like they belong in the 11th century. But Yale was established in 1701—not exactly the Middle Ages—and this makes the neo-Gothic architecture that dominates Yale’s campus only a few hundred years old.

Above: Owl images written into the stone architecture of Yale University’s campus.

As we can see, images of owls are literally everywhere embedded in the stone. But, why? What does the owl stand for? What does it symbolize? The easy answer, of course, is that the owl is a symbol of “wisdom,” which is embodied by the university.

But is it possible that there’s more going on here?

It is said that Yale hired architect James Gamble Rogers (1867 – 1947) to give the school an older feel. The University sought to imitate Britain’s venerable Oxford and Cambridge Universities: established bastions of academic prestige.

Above: Owl images written into the stone architecture of Yale University’s campus.

Although the Gothic style which dominates the rest of the campus was intended to inspire fear and awe in cathedral-goers of yore, it has a distinctly 20th-century twist at Yale:

“Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings portray contemporary college personalities such as a writer, an athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a student who has fallen asleep while reading. Similarly, the decorative friezes on the buildings depict contemporary scenes such as policemen chasing a robber and arresting a prostitute (on the wall of the Law School), or a student relaxing with a mug of beer and a cigarette. The architect, James Gamble Rogers, faux-aged these buildings by splashing the walls with acid, deliberately breaking their leaded glass windows and repairing them in the style of the Middle Ages, and creating niches for decorative statuary but leaving them empty to simulate loss or theft over the ages.”

— Wikipedia

Unlike most neo-Gothic architecture, which is built with steel frames and merely reinforced with stone exteriors, Yale’s Gothic buildings are, for the most part, built with solid stone instead. This tells us that the stonemasons (i.e., read “Freemasons”) who designed and built Yale’s buildings were advanced, perhaps even gifted. The 216-foot Harkness Tower was once the tallest free-standing stone structure in the world, before worried architects decided to reinforce it.

Above: Owl images written into the stone architecture of Yale University’s campus.

Is it possible that the owl symbols rampant in the art and architecture of Yale have a deeper, more esoteric meaning? Are the Yale owls actually symbols of a S.O.S. that was there at the very beginning of this now-famous Ivy League institution? Is the owl in the architecture somehow connected to the later institutions of the Bohemian Club and the National Press Club?

TO BE CONTINUED