Moses, an Initiate into the Egyptian Mystagogy, based the religious mysteries of the new nation which he created, upon the same abstract formulæ derived from this Sidereal Cycle, symbolized by the form and measurements of the Tabernacle, which he is supposed to have constructed in the Wilderness. On these data, the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon's Temple—a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is as much a solar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical Temple, the symbol of the cycle of Initiation, coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses.
That our author has undeniably discovered one and even two of the keys, is fully demonstrated in the work just quoted. One has only to read it, to feel a growing conviction that the hidden meaning of the allegories and parables of both Testaments is now unveiled. But that he owes this discovery far more to his own genius than to Parker and Piazzi Smyth, is also as certain, if not more so. For, as just shown, it is not so certain whether the measures of the Great Pyramid adopted by the Biblical Pyramidalists are beyond suspicion. A proof of this is to be found in the work called The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, by Mr. F. Petrie, and also in other works written quite recently to oppose the said calculations, which their authors call “biassed.” We gather that nearly every one of Piazzi Smyth's measurements differs from the later and more carefully made measurements of Mr. Petrie, who concludes the Introduction to his work with this sentence:
As to the results of the whole investigation, perhaps many theorists will agree with an American who was a warm believer in Pyramid theories when he came to Gizeh. I had the pleasure of his company there for a couple of days, and at our last meal together he said to me in a saddened way: “Well, sir! I feel as if I had been to a funeral. By all means let the old theories have a decent burial, though we should take care that in our haste none of the wounded ones are buried alive.”
As regards the late J. A. Parker's calculation in general, and his [pg 335] third proposition especially, we have consulted some eminent mathematicians, and this is the substance of what they say:
Parker's reasoning rests on sentimental, rather than on mathematical, considerations, and is logically inconclusive.
Proposition III, namely, that:
The circle is the natural basis or beginning of all area, and the square being made so in mathematical science, is artificial and arbitrary.
—is an illustration of an arbitrary proposition, and cannot safely be relied upon in mathematical reasoning. The same observation applies, even more strongly, to Proposition VII, which states that:
Because the circle is the primary shape in nature, and hence the basis of area; and because the circle is measured by, and is equal to the square only in ratio of half its circumference by the radius, therefore, circumference and radius, and not the square of diameter, are the only natural and legitimate elements of area, by which all regular shapes are made equal to the square, and equal to the circle.
Proposition IX is a remarkable example of faulty reasoning, though it is the one on which Mr. Parker's Quadrature mainly rests. It states that: