But let us return to the mysteries of Eleusis. In the trials to which the Mystai were subjected to try their fitness to become Ephoroi, Masons no doubt recognize several of the ceremonies that took place at their initiation into the craft. If Free Masonry had not its origin in the ancient Sacred Mysteries, how could these rites have found their way into it?
The Ephoroi were now prepared for the third degree, the Epopteia—the most sacred of all. In this the Epoptai or "Inspectors of themselves" were placed in presence of the gods, who were supposed to appear to the initiated. Proclus, a philosopher, disciple of the divine Plato, in his commentaries on the Republic of his master, says: "In all initiations and mysteries, the gods exhibit themselves under many forms, and appear in a variety of shapes. Sometimes their unfigured light is held forth to view. Sometimes this light appears under a human form, and sometimes it assumes a different shape." And again, in his commentaries on the first Alcibiades: "In the most holy of the mysteries, before the god appears, the impulsions of certain terrestrial demons become visible, alluring the initiated from undefiled good to matter." Then all the seductions that human mind can imagine to excite the passions were placed within the grasp of those who aspired to become Epoptai. They were invited to freely give way to voluptuousness, to the enjoyment of all kind of mundane pleasures, before they renounced them forever. Nothing that could possibly entice applicants to fall from their state of moral and physical purity was omitted; all that could be done to induce them to yield to temptation was resorted to. If in a moment of weakness they allowed their senses to obtain the mastery over their reason, woe to them! for before they could realize their position, before they had time to recall their scattered thoughts, the bright surroundings disappeared as by magic; they were plunged in the most dense obscurity; the ground gave way under their feet; and they were precipitated into a deep abyss, from which if they escaped with their life, they never did with their reason.
Theon of Smyrna, in his work Matematica, divides the mysteries into five parts.
1. The purification.
2. The reception of sacred rites.
3. The Epopteia, or reception.
4. End and design of the revelation, the building of the head and fixing of the crowns.
5. The friendship and interior communion with God, the last and most awful of all the mysteries.
It is supposed the prophet Ezekiel alludes to these initiations, when he speaks of the abominations committed by the idolatrous ancients of the house of Israel in the dark, every man in the chambers of its imagery.
Here again, I will quote from the book of Henoch: Chap. xxii.—"From thence I proceeded to another spot where I saw on the West a great and lofty mountain, a strong rock and four delightful places."