King Solomon's Goat

by George Willard Bartlett

Dr. Dalcho, a Masonic writer, asserts: “God was the first Grand Master and Adam the second.” And Adam initiated Eve into the profound and archaic mystery of the square and the eye.

It may be interesting to know what they did at the Witches’ Sabbath and the meetings of the ancient mystic societies. They murdered their christ, that is what they did, and the Christians have always charged that they offered up human sacrifices. I should judge from the ritual of the Masons that it originated in the sacrifice of a human being, that in ancient times human beings were sacrificed in the mystic societies, from some of which, perhaps, Masonry descended. Here are extracts from an old ritual as near as the author can decipher them, not guaranteeing that they are correct:

Opening a Lodge of Entered Apprentices.

Sen. War.: “Brother, the lambskin in all ages has been considered an emblem of purity.” This lambskin is the skin of the Lamb of God. It is worn on the stomach for occult reasons. The female emblem, the Eye, is stamped upon it for the same occult reasons. The mystic societies, sun-worshippers and Jews were anciently devotees of the lamb as well as the cow. They sacrificed him and adorned themselves with his skin as a saving rite. The Ram is identical with the god Priapus. You remember that Saul sent David out to gather one hundred Philistine mementos to put in the Ark of the Covenant. These mementos and the lambskin are of equal efficacy, both being relics of the crucifixion.

When christ came in the sign of Capricorn, he came as the goat. At the celebration of Lupercalia in Rome, they sacrificed the goat christ. Two young men are chosen, and the dagger, or Signa Tau, or the Mark of the Living God, is drawn in blood in their foreheads. Then they cut the goatskin into thongs and run about lashing all they meet. “The young wives like to be lashed, fancying that it will make them fruitful.” “The Jews in Jereboam’s time had priests for the service of their divinities, the sacred billy-goats.”—Plutarch, 1-78. The religious sorcerers, who sought to invoke demons, formed their magic circle with strips of goatskin nailed to the ground with four nails from the coffin of a dead child. As the circle was made of the skin of christ, the demons dare not pass it to attack the sorcerer. This is the circle of the Kabalists, of which King Solomon was the Most Worshipful, Sublime and Exalted Phalatz.

In the ritual ascribed to Pope Honorius, the method of raising the Devil was by sacrificing a black cock, which is an emblem of Christ. The eyes, tongue and heart are torn out and burnt to ashes. These are religious symbols and objects of adoration. The sorcerer also sacrifices a lamb, and places the ashes of the eye, the tongue and the heart on the lambskin. He prays to Jesus that the lambskin, with the signs thereon, may save him from the wiles of the demons, that they may be terrified by the sight of these figures. This, I think, is the origin of the figures on the Mason’s lambskin. This ritual provided that the eye, the cross and the moon should be drawn on the lambskin.

In the Fellowcraft degree of the ritual, when the candidate has stuck the heel of his right foot in the hollow of the left, which is a sacred mystic rite that will save your immortal soul from Hell, the Sen. War. says: “You will now show the Worshipful Master the Degree Gag (?) and sign of an Entered Apprentice, and when you step forward, place the heel of your left foot in the hollow of the right. You will now advance with me to the altar. You are now to be made a Fellowcraft in due form. You will now bare your left foot and side and your breast expose. You now receive the mark of the square on the breast.” The Tau Cross, a symbol of identical significance with the square, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries. It was laid upon the breast of the initiate to cause him to be born again. The square is the Egyptian Ka, the idol worshipped by the savages in the temples of darkest Africa, and which is also worshipped in the Kaaba at Mecca. Ka, Kaaba, abba, father, papa and pope all have the same meaning. See “Kaaba” Stand. Dic.

In the initiation the candidate was allowed to play that he was Hiram Abiff. He was conducted around the circle of the zodiac from one door of the Temple to another and encountered three of the beasts of the four cardinal points, that is, the gentlemen who played the parts of the beasts in the heavenly drama.

First Right. Master: Hiram, give me the sign of a Master Mason.

Sen. Dea.: Candidate, the sign cannot be given except in the presence of three, Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre, &c.