UNCOVERING THE SECRET OF THE MUMMY

Two massive limestone sphynxes guard the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry’s House of the Temple in Washington, D.C. These stone creatures, completed in 1915, are a testament to the fascination Ancient Egypt has held on the human imagination for centuries. We know, for example, that the Egyptian goddess Isis was worshipped over large areas of the Greco-Roman world well into the Christian era. Later, during the early 1800s, the Egyptian hieroglyphics were decoded following the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, rekindling an interest in this mysterious ancient land and its culture in both Europe and America. Egyptian themes from antiquity found their way into Masonic ritual, architecture, and libraries—as we will see in the following article and translation by Dr. Mark Dreisonstok, P.M., Arminius Lodge No. 25. Needless to say, the Scottish Rite’s foundational Morals and Dogma book is also keenly aware of Egyptian philosophy.

– John M. Bozeman, Ph.D.

as well. I could not fail to notice a beautiful 1886 book with ancient Egyptian stylistics on the gilded cover called Das Geheimnis der Mummie (The Secret of the Mummy) by August Niemann (Bielefeld and Leipzig: Belhagen und Klasung Publishers). The first few pages of this rather obscure German novel in my translation go something like this:

From the banks of the Nile, a company of travelers moved from the Biban-el-Moluk valley, a mountain chain in the West of the holy stream. They had visited Thebes and had observed and been impressed with the splendor and magnificence of the ruins of public monuments, sanctuaries, and pyramids, even after the weathering of millennia. They then turned their steps towards the tombs.

“I want a real mummy,” Lord Bullamy said, who had financed the journey.

During my time as Managing Editor of the Scottish Rite Journal, I have often perused the books in the House of the Temple’s Goethe Collection, an impressive assemblage of books dominated by the literary, philosophical, and scientific writings of Br. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Amalia Lodge at Weimar), donated to the House of the Temple Library in 1935 by Carl H. Claudy (Grand Master, Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, 1943). However, this collection contains other rare volumes

Lord John Bullamy had many possessions. He was one of the wealthiest lords in the United Kingdom. His holdings included palaces and parks in England, Scotland, and Ireland, houses in the West End of London, fine horses, and a gallery of famous paintings—he had almost everything money could buy.

Yet Lord Bullamy was bored. He had given up the hunt and the races, for they were simply boring to him. He no longer visited his palaces and parks and did not make his appearance during London’s social season.

A friend suggested that he take a wife, but Lord Bullamy responded only that this would also be very boring. He had had a yacht built of teak wood and iron and travelled about, so that he might have a change of pace. His yacht was very finely laid out and had every possible amenity. It had a salon of rose-wood and gold, a library well-stocked with the travel works of famous men, and a fine dining room where he drank the finest wines offered from the vineyards of France, Germany, and Spain, in the company of high society.

(number 1) and all odd numbers. The famed occultist, René Schwaller de Lubicz, discovered this same “Temple in Man” after 15 years of his own in-depth research and measurement at the Luxor Temple in Egypt. Like our Middle Chamber, de Lubicz found that “creation is accomplished entirely between the numbers One and Two; and duality is the basic characteristic of the created Universe.”

Turning back now to our initial Qabalistic code, Berashith (בראשית), we find that the second letter Resh (ר) translates to “head.” Once the logos is decapitated, the remaining letters (באשית) can be arranged to form the word Shabbatai (שאבתי) which is the Hebrew name for the planet Saturn. But what does Saturn have to do with the Middle Chamber in Man, you ask?

In his infamous depiction of Baphomet, Eliphas Levi included a torch of illumination above the Goat of Mendes— or the Zodiacal Sign of Capricorn. Truth be told, this occult symbol codes many of the same teachings as our own Middle Chamber. Capricorn is an Earth sign which is ruled by Saturn and corresponds to the knees (porchway) in astrology. We also notice the Staff of Hermes (Vav) protruding from the Goat’s groin—an area ruled by the fiery/ energetic sign of Scorpio. Surrounding the Goat’s “rod,” we again find the two nervous systems, Moses’ pole, Boaz and Jachin, Adam and Eve, ad infinitum.

On the Goat’s forehead, Levi chiseled a pentagram—symbolizing the microcosmic man—and Baphomet’s arms and body form the letter Aleph, which translates to “Ox” and alludes to the Earth sign, Taurus. Aleph (א), similarly, corresponds to elemental air in Qabalah and, in that sense, acts as a doula for Taurus’ birthing of the first word noted in the Book of John—or Tetragrammaton. Taken together, Baphomet veils esoteric secrets of the Middle Chamber in Man (microcosm) which are mirrored in the Heavens (zodiac or macrocosm). Freemasonry may conceal this Hermetic axiom through its long association with “riding the G-O-A-T.”

To reintegrate with the G-O-A-T, or “G-AO-T-[U],” the Initiate must travel a rough and rugged road—one beset by Ruffians (fear, envy and lust). This hero’s journey is personified in the death of our Grand Master Hiram Abif. It’s the climbing of Jacob’s Ladder. It’s the battle of good versus evil. A fight against our bestial natures. And it’s an uphill battle so, as the Master Samael Aun Weor teaches, the climbing prowess of the Horned G-O-A-T seems an appropriate metaphor for those doing the Great Work—or the Magnum Opus.

Stated differently, the “temptations of the flesh” stand between the Fellowcraft and his wages. When the initiate rises to the challenge, the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters (spinal fluid) and, beyond the Middle Chamber, lies the land of milk and honey (excretions from the pineal and pituitary glands).

This story orignially appeared in SoCal Research Lodge’s Fraternal Review, May 2021.

WORKS CITED:

1. De Lucicz, R.A. Schwaller(1949) The Temple in Man

2. Hall, Manly P. (1929) The Occult Anatomy of Man

3. Weor, Samael Aum (1951) Practical Astrology