Hermetic Marriage

THE HOUR OF THE TIME
Tape No. 453:  "The Hermetic Marriage"
Tuesday, October 4, 1994

The Hermetic Marriage, or the marriage of the sun and the moon, the
origin of the hermetic philosophy, will astound you.  You're going to
learn a few things about yourselves, about religion, and about Walt
Disney tonight.

Good old Walt.  You've been leading your children to his lessons in The
Mysteries and the philosophic indoctrination into the philosophy of fire
for many years.  And you didn't even know it.

Thoth--Hermes--the ibis-headed, was the Egyptian god of wisdom,
learning, literature, and science--"gnosis", if you will.

The "G" in the center of the compass and square of the Masonic emblem
does not stand for "God" or "geometry".  It means "gnosis"--knowledge.
Those who know.

Thoth--Hermes--is accredited with being the first to reveal the art of
writing to the present human race.  According to the records available,
he lived in Egypt as a contemporary of Moses.  Some authorities even
claim that Moses and Hermes were one and the same person.

The Greek name "Hermes" is taken from an ancient root, "herm", which
means the active, or positive, radiant principle of nature; sometimes
translated as "vitality" or "generative force"; and known to ancient
freemasonry--or the sons of light, the free "macon"--as "the cosmic
fire", Hiram, and later as Hiram Abif.

Hermes Trismegistus, often called "Mercurius Termaximus" dominated the
philosophical and literary thought of the ancient world.  His very name,
ladies and gentlemen, became a synonym of wisdom.  In fact, he was
revered as the personification of philosophy and erudition.  He was
regarded as the first cabalist, the first physician, the first
alchemist, and the first historian. The actual life of this demagogue
and king of the ancient double empire of the Nile is obscured by that
twilight which hides the origin of all peoples.  And those who think
they know, you can be assured, do not.

By reason of his great wisdom and magical powers, Thoth was listed among
the gods until today many believe that he never existed at all outside
of mythology.  But if action and reaction are equal, then something more
substantial than a mere legend must be the foundation for the towering
super-structure of the hermetic arts.

During the early periods of human growth, when the intelligence of man
was scarcely above that of the animal--according to the theory of
evolution--all education was controlled by the priest craft, just as I
have outlined to you on many episodes of "The Hour of the Time".

The ancient priests were called "the shepherds of men"--the analogy is
that men are sheep or cattle--for the shepherds guarded the flocks of
primitive human beings as the shepherd does his sheep.

Are you beginning to have a flicker of understanding?

Both science and philosophy were outgrowths of religion.  In fact, all
our present day wisdom came originally into the world from between the
pillars of the sanctuaries, the temples, what today you call cathedrals
or churches.  And it came from the priesthood, from the priests.

Hermes was to ancient philosophy what Jesus is to Christianity:  its
light, its inspiration, and of course, its impetus.

The Egyptian initiates of the Temple of Isis claimed, therefore, that
Hermes was actually the writer of all books on philosophical and
religious subjects, that the supposed human authors were merely
amanuenses who wrote down upon parchment or velum the thoughts which
this god impressed upon their consciousness.  Sort of like channeling.
In scriptural terms, they were the pens; and he, the ever-ready writer.

During his lifetime--if indeed he lived--Hermes Trismegistus is supposed
to have actually written 42 books.  Some, however, are probably the work
of the ancient Egyptian priests, for in their glory, these
serpent-crowned hierophants represented the wisest group of philosophers
that ever lived upon this planet.

Clemens Alexandrinus states that these hermetic books were divided into
six parts, each dealing with a separate subject under such headings as
astronomy (and its inseparable companion--astrology), medicine,
geography, the hymns to the gods, and, of course, other titles.

During the ages that have past, Hermes has come to be acknowledged as
the godfather of science, particularly its chemical and medical
branches.  And even after the Christian Era, numerous works dealing with
religious and philosophical subjects were dedicated to him and to him
alone.  And the general term "hermetic art" has been applied to
practically all the abstruse sciences of the ancient, medieval, and
modern worlds.

"The Divine Pymander", more commonly known as "The Shepherd of Men", and
"The Smerigdine<?> Tablet" found in the Valley of Hebron, are the most
famous of the hermetic fragments.

You may reference this in a book by Manley P. Hall entitled "The Lost
Keys of Freemasonry".

And these two works are probably authentic and contain many keys to the
universal science of life as held by The Mysteries--not necessarily me
or anyone else--of which Hermes was a master.

Nearly all hermetic thought was an elaboration of the principle of
analogy contained in the great hermetic axiom--and you have heard me
propound upon this before--and I quote verbatim:

"That which is above is like unto that which is below.  And that which
is below is like unto that which is above."

Now at the present time, nearly all the so-called hermetic writings are
said to be lost.  Only a few isolated remnants remain of what once must
have been a magnificent collection of philosophical, medical, and
religious wisdom.

During the Middle Ages, one particular branch of hermetic
thought--alchemy--gradually came into prominence, and for several
hundred years dominated all other branches, and was held under that
ancient name:  "The Rosy Cross"--for those of you not familiar with the
subjects covered on this broadcast.

Alchemy was the androgynous parent of chemistry.

Notice I said androgynous.  This parent of chemistry, which was
separated from its sire by the speculations of Roger Bacon and Baal.
While chemistry as a science dealt only with minerals, medicines, and
essences, alchemy, ladies and gentlemen, struggled with the more
profound elements of macrocosmic and microcosmic relationships, and had
absolutely nothing--nothing--to do with what you have traditionally been
taught.

Alchemy undoubtedly originated in Egypt; for there, for there--the old
legends go--the secrets of transmuting base metals into gold, and of
prolonging the life of the physical body indefinitely, were thoroughly
understood by the priest craft.  But this explanation was of the
exoteric, and not the esoteric, meaning which literally dealt with the
soul and not the body, not the base metal.  For it had nothing to do
with metal.

It was about elevating oneself above the animal, above the baseness of
the human condition, to the purity of the consciousness of the soul, and
thus, a direct communication with God.

Ancient records tell us that the Chaldean sages knew how to rebuild
their bodies, many of them living to be over a thousand years old--and
then this again is a metaphor.

Many of the processes by which this was accomplished were concealed
under the sacred Egyptian rituals such as "The Book of Coming Forth By
Day", which E. A. Wallis Budge has called "The Book of the Dead".  The
correct title is "The Book of Coming Forth By Day", not "The Book of the
Dead".

In the Middle Ages, when religion, divorcing philosophy, was wed to
blind faith, there was a renaissance of the alchemical and hermetic
arts.  They were revived by that type of mind which demands reason,
logic, and philosophy, as well as hymns and prayers.

Alchemy won numerous converts in Germany, France, and England.  The
long-ignored works of the Arabian magicians--or the Magi--enjoyed wide
popularity, and from them was extracted the greater part of modern
astrology.  The ancient philosophies of the Jewish patriarchs were also
revived and cabalism became a universal topic of consideration.

Paracelsus, the great Swiss physician (sometimes called "the second
Hermes"), undoubtedly rediscovered the ancient Egyptian formulae of the
Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, and around him rallied a
coterie of medieval philosophers who today stand out strongly against
the dun-colored background of medieval culture.  They are, in fact, some
of the most interesting men of that period of history.

In back of this revival of interest in ancient Egyptian philosophy, we
may find the master minds and guiding hands of three great philosophical
movements who now control the world:

  1.  One is known as the Order of the Illuminati, represented by
Muhammad, prophet of Islam; Roger Bacon, father of chemistry; and
Paracelsus, father of modern medicine.  Remember, The Mysteries--or the
Religion of Illuminism--came from the Middle East, and thus, properly
belongs exactly where it is placed, represented by Muhammad, the prophet
of Islam.  For it is from the Islamic faith that the Knights Templars
brought The Mysteries from the Middle East into Europe.  It is an
interesting fact that the present buildings and school of Rudolf
Steiner, the German mystic, are located in the grounds of the old estate
of Hohenheim where Paracelsus lived;

  2.  The Order of Freemasons, represented by the great Robert Flood,
master of symbolism and alchemy, and Elias Ashmole, the unique
philosopher; and

  3.  The Rosicrucians, a sacred organization founded by the mysterious
Father C.R.C. after his return from Arabia.  You see, in the
mythological city of Demcar, he had been educated in alchemy and
astrology by Arabian adepts, according to the story.  After him came Sir
Francis Bacon, the remodeler of British law.  And then Count Cagliostro,
the sublime adventurer.  And last and greatest of all, the great Compte
de St. Germaine, probably the world's greatest political reformer, and
alchemist by fire, and one of the greatest frauds that has ever lived.

These superlative minds leavened the loaf of materiality.  And,
according to those who study The Mysteries, kept alight the flame of
Hermes during the medieval centuries of religious intolerance and
bigotry.

Concealed beneath chemistry--the science of relating chemicals and
elements--these minds discovered the ancient Egyptian arcana, long
hidden by the crafty priests of Ra and Amon, and further concealed by
that great Mystery School known as The Vatican.  Alchemy, thereupon,
became the chemistry of the soul.  For under the material symbol of
chemistry was concealed The Mystery of the Coming Forth By Day.

Now, these ancient wisemen taught that the world was a great laboratory;
that living essences were the chemicals; that the span of life was a
period of time given to the mind in which to experiment with the great
agencies of nature; and that to the thoughtful came wisdom from their
labors, while for the thoughtless life held only foolishness and sorrow.

In this great laboratory, man learned how to combine the living
chemicals of thought, action, and desire, and by learning the ways of
nature, became the master of nature.

According to those who believe, he became a god by actually becoming a
man.  You see, in the words of the great Paracelsus, and I quote:

"The beginning of wisdom is the beginning of supernatural power."

Of all the hermetic mysteries, none is more perplexing than the
so-called "hermetic marriage".  A post-Christian interpretation of an
ancient Egyptian ritual, supposedly written 200 years earlier, was
published to the modern world in the first part of the seventeenth
century under the name of "The Chemical Nuptials of Christian
Rosencruits".  Little, if anything, has been discovered concerning the
origin either of this book or the "Fama Fraternitatis" which appeared
about the same time.

The exalted order of Rosicrucian philosophers, which today is known as
The Rosy Cross, has been very reticent concerning its members and their
works.  And even today it is difficult to prove, from a strictly
material viewpoint, that the order ever existed--unless of course, you
listen to "The Hour of the Time", for we have proved it repeatedly,
cited book, paragraph, chapter and verse.

Concealed under that quaint wording of the alchemical marriage can be
plainly traced a series of mysterious formulae concerning the
transmutation of base metals into gold.  And I have already explained
the esoteric meaning of that.

The alchemists taught that man contained within himself all the elements
of nature, both human and divine, and that by special culture, the base
elements of his nature could be transmuted into the spiritual gold
called "the soul".

In discussing this, Paracelsus makes plain that these philosophers did
not wish to leave the impression that something could be made from
nothing; rather they emphasized the fact that each individual thing
contains all other things, and that the alchemical process of making
gold was merely to culture the germ of gold which is contained in every
base substance--to bring it to the top, so to speak--above the baseness
of human nature.

Modern science substantiates the alchemical point of view by stating
that it expects to extract gold from mercury by taking out, or
isolating, the electron of gold which is one of the constituents of
every mercurial atom.

Taking the chemistry of human relationships as a basis therefor, we have
prepared the following thesis concerning the true preparation of a
Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, according to the
fundamentals laid down by Hermes and the ancient Egyptian priest craft.
It is known as the Hermetic Anatomy.

A theory of natural creation has been generally accepted by the faiths
of the world, with the possible exception of Christianity.  You see, to
the ancients, everything in nature was alive.  Therefore, they accepted
the human body as symbolic of the universe.

The Hebrews called this prototype "adam-qadmon" or, in translation, the
"grand man", in whose mold all things were made.  Every system of
cosmogony, except the Christian, makes the universe a living thing.

Instead of a God separated from his creation, the Brahmins, Jews,
Persians, and Chinese have conceived their god as being completely
involved in his creation.  They have accepted more literally than the
Christians the idea that man dwells in God, that in God he actually
lives, moves and has his being.  They call this god, "Macroprosopis"--or
translated, "the spirit of the grand man", or more commonly known to all
of you as "the soul".  From his body was made the macrocosm consisting
of suns, moons, planets, meteors, ethers, gases, and the sundry parts of
creation.

In the Scandinavian edas, the universe was formed from the body of Emir,
the Frost King.

In India, the universe was constructed from the person of Brahma, whose
members became the various bodies of the visible cosmos.

The hermetists, therefore, said, quote:

"Man, know thyself.  For thou, like God, art all wisdom, and all power,
and the shadow bearing witness unto the eternal."

Unquote.  An anonymous alchemist, writing in the Middle Ages stated, and
I quote again:

"God has given man three ways whereby he may learn the infinite will:
(1) nature, for in the stars that twinkle in the sky, the planets in
their thundering march, and the earth with its multitude of laws, are
concealed the laws of God;  (2)  holy writ, the inspired word of saints
and sages unnumbered; and (3) anatomy, the structure of our own bodies,
wherein is concealed the structure of the universe, for all things are
made by one mold."

End quote.

The electron revolving around its nebular center obeys the same law that
moves planets around the sun.  In this we see the truth of the great
hermetic axiom:

"As above, so below.  As with the lesser, so with the greater."

This was believed by all of these ancient philosophers.

The hermetists spent much time studying the intricate construction of
man and, like the Brahmans of Indian, they divided him into three major
parts.

In India, this trinity of basic parts is called "Adeh", "Buddhi" and
"Manis", meaning literally, "spirit", "soul" and "body".  Their Trimurti
corresponds to the Trinity of Christian theology.  Each of these three
major parts of a god, a man, or a universe, was personified as an
individual.

The "adeh" or spirit, was called "the divine cause" or "the father".

"Manis," or matter, was called "the divine effect", being known in India
as "Shiva" and in Christendom as the Holy Spirit.

Between these two stood "Buddhi", the mediator, the god-man, the Mercury
of the Latins, the messenger of the gods.  By some, this intermediary is
considered synonymous with soul.  By others it is called "mind" because
mind is the uniting link between life and the sense of energy and death
and the sense of inertia.  And to the pagans and hermetists, all things
in nature, the ethers, the air, minerals, even the earth itself, were
endowed with intelligence, consciousness and feeling.

All was linked and gave rise to what you know today and what is known as
the New Age Movement as the Ghia Principle.

The Adeh-Buddhi-Manis constitution of man, as represented by the
alchemists under the symbolism of the Philosopher's Stone and its three
important constituents:  salt, sulfur and mercury.

According to alchemy, salt is the substance of all things.  It is the
body, the form, the dense crystallized particles from which all physical
things are manufactured.

Sulfur is symbolic of fire, the divine agent.  Fire is defined by the
hermetist as the life of all things and is the Adeh of the Brahman
Trimurti.

Mercury, the universal solvent, becomes synonymous with Buddhi, the
mind, the thing which absorbs all experience into itself, the link
between God and nature.

And now maybe you are beginning to understand how all of these esoteric
thoughts, the religion of The Mysteries, can be hidden behind symbology.

Those of you who would read a book concerning the alchemists of the
medieval times would have actually believed that they were attempting to
create gold from lead.  And you would have gained the exoteric
interpretation concealing--or re-veiling--the true esoteric meaning of
the verse.

And we're not through.

Before this hour is out, you are going to be absolutely and totally
amazed, for I have just begun.

All the great world saviors have come, it seems, as personifications of
Buddhi, as I have just explained its meaning.  Or the universal
mediator.

Like the Indian Vishnu, they have sought to bring God and man closer
together, whether as Christ, Prometheus, Zoroaster, Krishna, or Buddha,
they have come to bear witness to the Father and, being made in the
semblance of man but imbued with the spirit of God, they have become
personifications of the universal solvent represented as mercury.

To the hermetists, man has always been considered androgynous.  And they
created the god, Hermaphrodites, to represent the duality of all living
things.

This word is coined from "Hermes", fire or vitality, and Aphrodite, the
goddess of water.  The great hermetic and alchemical adage was, quote:

"Make the fire to burn in the water and the water to feed the fire.  In
this lies great wisdom."

End quote.

It was the purpose of the pouring of the molten sea.

It is the goal of The Mysteries to reconcile fire and water:  the
conflict between God and Lucifer.

Are you beginning to understand?  There are deep meanings held in these
metaphors.

To the public was given one meaning.  To the priesthood was given the
truth.

The ancient Rosicrucians taught that the eternal feminine was not
extracted from the nature of man, as Moses would have us think; but was
rather made subservient to the opposite side of its own nature.  They
believed, you see, that every creature was essentially male and female.
But for reasons which we will discuss later, only one phase of that
nature manifested at a time.

By fire, these philosophers taught that there was but one life force in
the human body, and that man used it in the furtherance of all his
labors; that he digested his food with essentially the same energy with
which he thought, and reproduced his species with the same forces which
he used in physical exercise.  This force personified was said to be the
builder of the universal temple. It became the Hiram Abif of Masonry,
the builder of the eternal temple.

In Egypt, this force is symbolized by a serpent and it is worthy of note
that in ancient Hebrew, the words "serpent" and "savior" are
synonymous.  And that should be a great revelation to many of you out
there.

Now, remember, I'm not asking that you believe any of this.  I am merely
revealing the esoteric meaning behind the stories that you have heard
and read about in your education, in college, in your private life, in
the movies, all your life.  And yes, even in your churches.

In ancient Hebrew, "serpent" and "savior" are synonymous.

In the stanzas of Diezen<?>, an ancient Tibetan fragment, it is stated
that at one time a shower of serpents fell upon the earth.  Now, this is
understood esoterically to represent the coming of the great world
teachers who have long been called "serpents" or "the gift to man of
intellect" by Lucifer through his agent, Satan.

You see.  For the basis of all of these esoteric Mystery religions is
the Luciferian philosophy.

The savior of the Aztecs and Incas was called "gatzalcotl" and this name
means "feathered serpent".  From the serpent kings of Egypt to the
feathered serpents of Tibet, the serpent is symbolic of the vital
energies of the human body and is, in fact, a metaphor for the
intellect, knowledge, gnosis.

Moses raised the brazen serpent in the wilderness and all who gazed upon
it lived.  Those who gained knowledge, who learned, survived.  Those who
did not, perished.

Christ, whom they called "the serpent reborn" says, quote:

"...I, if I be lifted up..., will draw all men unto me." [John 12:32]

Unquote.  The simile, folks, is obvious, yet few ever understand it.  To
the ancients, the magic wand was the spinal canal.  Through this canal
runs a sacred liquid which they called in those days "fire oil".

Remember, these are the philosophers of fire.

In Greek, "christos", the "savior", or "redeemer of things".  And
"christos" are those who believed in this were called "christians" long
before the birth of Christ.

In Greek, "christos", the "savior" or "redeemer of things".

This same thought has been preserved for freemasonry under the heading,
quote, "the marrow of the bone", unquote.

The hermetic philosophers recognized this essence in man as a
distillation of universal life derived from the atmosphere, the
sunlight, the rays of the stars, and food.

This universal vitality upon which all living things draw is probably
the origin of the myths of the gods who died for mankind.  It is
undoubtedly the origin of the legend of the Last Supper, for man
eternally maintains himself upon the body and the blood of this spirit
of universal energy--according to those who follow The Mysteries.

If this energy, which passes through the conduit of the spine, is
drained off by various parts of the body, it stands to reason that waste
will ultimately result in want.

They knew--or thought they knew--that it was very undesirable to do
heavy thinking directly after eating.  Just as today they tell you,
"Don't go swimming right after eating," for at such times the vital
energies are digesting food and cannot safely be diverted to other
channels.  The admonition that you cannot go swimming directly after
eating is a leftover legacy of this belief.

By analogy, one-pointedness is the basis of success, for when the bodily
energies are divided against each other, they cannot perform their
proper functions.  The ancients, you see, taught that the normal
individual had two distinct avenues of expression:  the first mental and
spiritual; the second, emotional and physical.

The mental faculties were radiant, powerful, dominating, and strong--but
often cruel and cynical.  The mind was called the positive pole of the
soul, while the heart was called the negative pole.  And we have been
taught that the spirit expresses itself through the mind; the soul and
the body through the heart.

The ancient alchemists called the mind "the sun", and the heart "the
moon", for to them strength, reason, and logic were masculine, paternal,
solar powers; while love, beauty, intuition, and kindliness were
feminine, maternal, lunar qualities, reflecting the pure light of their
master.  Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, love, beauty,
intuition, and kindliness reflect the dominance of the strength, reason,
and logic.

Now, this will probably make clear why gold and silver had to be blended
in the great alchemical enterprises, for the gold and silver of the
alchemists were not dead metals, but living qualities in human life.

The marriage of the sun and moon was, therefore, the marriage of the
mind and heart, or the two halves of every nature.  It was the union of
strength with beauty; courage with inspiration; and in its greater
sense, the union of science with theology, or God with nature.

The urgency of this alliance is evident in the world today where cold,
intellectualism, and commercialism need the finer sentiments of
friendliness and altruism to offset their heartlessness.

On the other hand, fanaticism, blind faith, and ungoverned emotionalism
require the strong hand of logic and reason to steer them away from the
rocks of insanity and death.

Perfect equilibrium in human nature is very, very seldom found.  In
fact, it is nature's greatest rarity.  A person with that perfectly
balanced viewpoint, however, is the living Philosopher's Stone, for he
has the strength matched with kindliness, and justice tempered with
mercy.

Hermetic Anatomy teaches that there are two small bodies in the brain
which are identified with the living "yin" and "yang" of China--or the
positive and the negative, the male and the female.  In the same way,
every person has a masculine nature and a feminine nature; and never do
we find these two entirely disassociated.

It may be that East Indian philosophy gives us our best light on this
rather perplexing subject--pun absolutely intended--for both the Hindus
and the alchemists agree that the spirit, like God, is androgynous,
being both father and mother.  And--bear with me--it states in Genesis,
quote:

"...God created man in his own image,...; male and female created he
them." [Genesis 1:27]

End quote.  So, while the creation is singular within the creation,
there is two.  Listen to it again and listen very carefully.

"...God created man in his own image,...; male and female created he
them." [Genesis 1:27]

We would infer from this that God is both male and female.  And indeed,
if male and female both came from God, then this must be true, as God is
all things.  All things emanated from God and from nowhere else.

And as the spirit of man is of God, it must partake of the androgynous
nature of its parent.  And in harmony with the eastern sages, sex exists
no more in spirit than it does in the embryo before the third month of
prenatal life.

Sex, you see, is a polarization of the body, a manifestation of spirit.
The fetus, at one point in its development, can go either way, can be
male or female.  And all fetuses, up to that point, are exactly the same
in their anatomy.  But the germ of life itself is capable of projecting
both the positive and the negative rays.

So, we now become involved in a still more perplexing problem, namely:
what governs the sex which the animal being is to manifest during life?

Well, many people will tell you many different things.  The ancient
philosophers would turn to the eastern sages and they would say,
"Evolution is the continuity of form appearing in cycles and gradually
unfolding from a simple cell to a complex organism."

If a form evolves, it is not absurd to suppose that the cause of that
form is also evolving.

The oriental philosophy solves one of the western world's greatest
problems by the law of reincarnation--something which has never been
proven to be a reality by anyone, and can be traced to its origin at a
point in Indian history where the poor threatened rebellion over the
wealthy rulers, and all of a sudden, this theory of reincarnation and
Karma cropped up to keep the poor, lower classes, in their place.

I haven't got time to go into that.

This doctrine--which was removed from the Christian faith in A.D. 550 at
the Council of Constantinople--taught that the spirit, or life, is
immortal; that it descends into gross matter not once, but many times,
in order that it may ultimately gain that perfection which no living
creature has ever yet gained in one appearance in the world.

They say.

Again, you must understand, none of this has ever been proven to be
true.  No one, on the other hand, can prove it to be false either.

This doctrine also taught that the consciousness, thus descending into
form, does not always appear in one sex, but alternates, first appearing
in a masculine body and then in a feminine, in this way developing both
sides of the nature symmetrically.

Now, if you accept this doctrine, it will go far toward solving a number
of problems concerning heredity and the so-called injustice and
inequality in the world.  Even without it, hermeticism can still stand.
With its aid, however, the alchemical philosophies become far more
clarified.

And, of course, you have the option of rejecting it outright.

The ancient wisdom teaches that the circle of the creative forces in the
human body is broken at the present time.  One end of this broken ring
is in the brain where it furnishes the power or vitality which is the
basis of brain function.  The other end of this circle is located in the
generative system where it furnishes the means of reproducing the
species.

At a time remote in history, man was a complete creative unit in
himself--they say--being capable of procreating his species like certain
of the lower orders of animals of today.  And if you believe in the
theory of evolution, then this could be true.  However, there is no
proof of it whatsoever anywhere.  There's no proof that the theory of
evolution is correct, as a matter of fact.

At that time, however, when these philosophies bore fruit, and at the
time when man existed--they say--in this state, he had no mind.
According to mythology, the raising of the brazen serpent, therefore,
gave him a mind--remember the gift of intellect by Satan in the Garden
of Eden--but broke the creative circuit.

In the masculine sex, the positive pole of the life force is in the
brain.  The negative pole is used for generative purposes.

In the feminine sex, the negative pole is in the brain, the positive
pole is used for generative purposes.

And again, this is the belief of those who follow the hermetic
philosophy.

As a direct outgrowth of this condition--temporarily maintained in order
that man may think and develop his higher nature and at the same time
offer opportunity for other lives to come into manifestation--the
institution of marriage was established.

I bet you thought I'd never get there, didn't you.

Marriage, folks, is therefore the hermetic symbol of the ultimate
reunion of the two halves of each individual's nature, when, after
repeated appearances and associations, equilibrium between these
masculine and feminine qualities is established.

You see, the wedding ring was accordingly symbolic of the golden ring of
the spirit fire which connected the spiritual and material natures of
every individual.  And these beliefs, and these marriages, and this ring
existed long before Christianity was ever the remotest thought in any
human mind upon this earth.

Ultimately, the present methods of reproduction will be abolished--they
say--and both halves of the spirit fire will again be turned into the
brain.  One of them now finds its polarity in the pituitary body, and
the other in the pineal gland.  These two tiny ductless bodies, while an
enigma to modern science, were recognized by the ancients as organs of
great significance.

The ancient wisdom teaches that the pineal gland was the original organ
of vision, namely the third eye, called in the Sanskrit, "dangma" or
"the eye of Shiva".  It is the all-seeing eye of the Freemasons, and the
meaning of the word "Buddha".  And uniting its spark with the pituitary
body, this gland fuses the broken circle, and thus consummates the
hermetic marriage whereby, through an immaculate conception in the
brain, the great light, the shining one, Lucifer, is born as a luminous
spark in the third ventricle which is the master mason's chamber in the
ancient and accepted rite.

Today, students of the ancient wisdom are seeking to prepare themselves
for this peculiar work.  The hermetic marriage is, therefore, an
individual matter involving the attainment of individual completeness,
requiring of the aspirant a sincere effort to be balanced, sane, and
consistent in everything he does.

In the alchemical retorts and vials, we recognize the bodies' glands and
organs of man; and in the chemicals, the essences and forces coursing
through the body.  With these, the individual consciousness must labor
until it is capable of combining them according to the perfect formula.

And now, Walt Disney.

What child does not grow up in a fairyland, extending from the first
glimmer of understanding to the time when the grim realities of maturity
tear down the dream world and replace it with hopelessness and despair?

Hearts are broken all the way through this tragic pageantry of
existence:  the loss of innocence.  But the first heartbreak is when the
fairy stories and their wonderful little people are given up, and those
beautiful beings with which we have peopled the world of our fancies
give way to heartless human creatures and real existence.

Man thoughtlessly destroys not only the dreams of others, but makes his
own world a nightmare peopled with hobgoblins of selfishness and
egotism.

The fairies of childhood are always benevolent, kindly, helpful, serving
the poor in distress, righting wrongs, and doing many beautiful things;
while the realities of later life are generally malevolent and
productive of all the miseries that the fairies of childhood sought to
heal with silver-tipped wands and rainbow dreams.

And there is a double meaning.  As in the teachings of The Mysteries and
the fairy tales, there is an exoteric and an esoteric.

Walt Disney, a 33rd degree Freemason of the Scottish Rite, a very famous
Anglophile, a priest of The Mystery Religion of Babylon, has been
teaching this esoteric meaning to your children throughout their life.

In the great game of life, why can we not still preserve some of the
beauty and romance of fairyland?

This is what you see.  The world of pixies, gnomes, and fairy godmothers
in a Walt Disney movie is just as real in childhood as the grinding,
commercial system is during later life.

You see, economics would suffer no injury, nor would standards collapse
if dreams were perpetuated and man instructed how to build solid
foundations under his castles of air; for human beings are ever children
at heart.  For you, too, the parents, watch these movies and enjoy them.

Man grows old, but he never grows up.  Like Peter Pan, he is childlike
from the cradle to the grave.  Life, for the average person, has an
insufficiency of beauty or sweetness with which to combat the sordid
grind of modern things and therefore, these esoteric teachings can be
presented to a receptive mind.  And here and there, one lives a whole
life in a fairyland of poetry, art or music, and may be called a
dreamer.

But in the case of Disney, it is a message, an inculcation--a
brainwashing, if you will.

For will any child ever forget Cinderella and her wonderful glass
slipper; how she met and won the beautiful prince while her envious
sisters and cruel step-mother gnashed their teeth in rage?  The story is
part of childhood.

But with the coming of years, poor little Cinderella is forgotten.  The
rag dolls are thrown in the corner.  The toy blocks are covered with
dust.  For the dream world of childhood is faded from the mind.  And
little pattering feet, once running hither and thither, have given place
to slow uncertain steps.

Yet the romance finds another setting.  Prince Charming becomes a soda
fountain clerk or a floor walker in a downtown store, while Princess
Beautiful sells ribbons in some little country shop.

The lives of people are really fairy stories in which they play out the
comedies and tragedies of their lives, seeking for something today to
take the place of the shattered dreams of yesterday.  And so, they
relish and absorb these movies, for they have a counterpart in nature.

The world about us is filled with ugly step-mothers and half-sisters who
cannot wear glass slippers.

Do you remember Beauty and the Beast, how, in spite of the sorcery that
had turned the handsome prince into a hideous monster, the coming of
Beauty into his life restored him again to human form and happiness?

Through the lack of beauty in his own heart, many an individual has
become a horrible, hideous beast who, while still in human shape, has
all the attributes of a ferocious animal.

How often the sense of beauty is the thing that redeems.  Beauty of soul
and beauty of life bring back happiness to the beast.  The whole world
is a romance of beauty and the beast.

We see it on the battle field of Flanders where flowers are springing up
in the shadows of the trenches.

In nature we ever see beauty redeeming the beast.  Out in the forest:
the dark, dead trees, gaunt and bare.  But nature, with her magic wand,
covers the tree with creeping vines, decking its gaunt limbs with
mantles of flowers.

Have you read the story of Sleeping Beauty?  If not, go straight to the
library and visit the children's room.  Sit down in one of those little
chairs about ten inches from the floor.  Get out the book with its
colored pictures and much-thumbed pages and go with the Prince to the
great forest of nettles and thorns which surrounds the palace of
Princess Beautiful.

The Princess is under a spell which causes her to sleep until she is
awakened by the handsome prince, who passes through all the obstacles in
life in order to claim her as his own.

The soul.

The mating.

The bringing together of the masculine and the feminine, after passing
through the degrees, the trials, the tribulations of initiation in The
Mysteries.

And I could go on and on and on and on and on, ladies and gentlemen.
But unfortunately, we're out of time.

Good night.  God bless you all.   ...And think of the magical lamp of
Aladdin:  the lamp of illumination.