The Eliminator; or, Skeleton Keys to Sacerdotal Secrets

by Richard B. Westbrook

The legends of Atys in Asia Minor, of Adonis or Tammuz in Syria, of Osiris in Egypt, were derived from the same source. They cover the same field and have the same occult meaning. The apocalypse, or unveiling of the mystic purport of the sacred dramas to those considered worthy and competent to understand them, was the great object of initiation. The Gospels were regarded formerly as accounts of a tragedy of analogous character. The higher functionaries of the Roman Catholic Church, we have reason to believe, have this same view, which is more than hinted in several places. Paul speaks unequivocally in this way of his gospel and the preaching or heralding of Jesus Christ, “according to the revelation or unfolding of the mystery now made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.” When the disciples asked of Jesus why he spoke to the common multitude in parables he makes this reply: “Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the reign of God; but unto them that are without all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand.”

In these religious stories there is a very similar general outline. There is a divine parentage and a career given; then the Holy One is put to death, the corpse is brought in for burial, the tragic occurrence is mourned by women, and the ceremonial is concluded by his resuscitation and ascension. There were varied phases of the representation, but they always had an intimate relation to the seasons of the year and the analogous occurrences in the world of nature. Thus the supposed death more frequently occurred at the beginning of spring, and was mourned for a lenten period of forty days, which the vernal equinox brought to a close. Then funeral rites were performed, and after three days, in the case of Adonis, it was fabled that the god arose and ascended into the higher sky. In the Dionysia or Bacchic rite the god descended into hell, the world of death, and brought thence his virgin mother, that they might be glorified together.

The Neo-Platonists taught that these occult rites were a form of representing philosophic and religious dogmas as if in scenes of common life by living persons, and of shadowing them by ceremonies and processions. This is more than hinted by Plato himself, and is undoubtedly true. The candidates were prepared for participation by long periods of fasting and various purifications, moral and physical. The Eleusinia consisted of a drama of several days in duration, in which the abduction, or rather death, of Persephoné and the wanderings of her mother Demeter served as the veil or myesis to the doctrine of resurrection and life of eternity. The author of The Great Dionysiak Myth has ably presented the various forms of the Bacchic rites with the same basis and dénouement. Even the Hebrew Scriptures allude to the matter. The “mourning for the only one” is mentioned by Jeremiah, Amos, and Zechariah.

That the story of Jesus was in like manner a drama for religious ends, consisting of a miraculous parentage, a career of goodness, a passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, is, to say the least, no improbable solution of the question.

It has also been noticed that the events of the seasons were denoted by the mystic symbolism. The sun, stars, constellations, and earth are commemorated in regard to their annual careers by these observances; whether because they were essential to the physical well-being of man or were especially appropriate for symbology different writers have conjectured differently, according to their own mental peculiarities. Probably both are right, so far as their views extend.

It becomes us now to investigate the drama of the Gospels more carefully. The mythologic story of Mithras was probably Assyrian in detail, though Persian in first conception. It embraced the same notions as were denoted by the mysteries of the Western peoples, and hence the Mithraic worship in a very great degree superseded the arcane religions of Asia Minor and Europe. Very naturally, as may easily be perceived, the framework of the Gospel narrative is on the basis of these rites. The influence of the other ancient faiths is also conspicuously manifest. The physical, and particularly the astronomic, features are everywhere present in the external structure of Christianity. Sir Isaac Newton was quick to perceive that the festivals of the Church had been fixed and arranged upon the observed phenomena of the heavens, and gave a detailed list of correspondences. It was not prudent, however, even in his time, for a man to say all he knew, and he carefully avoided the drawing of any conclusions which might encourage further inquiry in that direction.

It has already been suggested that the gospel of Paul was at the bottom Essenean and Mithraic; and in accordance with that hypothesis the crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension would be solar and astrologic events. The Essenes, as well as the other Mithras-worshippers, adored the sun and greeted his rising with invocations and sacred chants. The death and resurrection were “according to the Scriptures.” In other words, they were duly set forth after the manner of literal occurrences in the sacred books of the Essenes long before Paul was born. The adepts of that fraternity understood the matter, and the hostility which they and the other disciples always exhibited toward the great apostle was because he divulged too much. His writings contained many dysnoetic matters, Peter declared—many matters of higher knowledge improperly expressed, which they that are unlearned and unstable might wrest to their own hurt. According to the scriptures of the brotherhood, the drama of the Gospel had its dénouement in the passion and tragedy of Jesus. Paul, like a genuine adept, has accepted this narrative as the basis of his gospel; nevertheless, as though aware that it is a figurative rather than a literal occurrence, he nowhere speaks of the crucifixion as a crime.

We use the term drama in this connection from a deliberate purpose, because we believe it correct. It was the designation of the matters represented in the Eleusinian, Dionysiac, and other arcane rites. The theatre of the Greeks consisted of such tragic and other representations, which were performed at the temples of Bacchus and Æsculapius. Our modern theatre originated in like manner from the mysteries and mir-acle-plays of the Middle Ages, in which monks and priests acted the parts of the different persons of the Gospel drama. The “Passion Play,” which excites so much interest in these modern times, is very suggestive, but little understood by sacerdotalists.

The Christian worship in the earlier centuries was not so unlike or incongruous with the pagan customs as may have been supposed. The emperor Hadrian, when in Egypt, was forcibly impressed with the apparent identity of the worshippers of Serapis with those of Christ. “Those who worship Serapis are Christians,” he declared, “and those who call themselves Christian bishops are devotees of Serapis. The very patriarch himself when he came into Egypt was said by some to worship Serapis and by others to worship Christ.”

The same ambiguity prevailed in the case of Christianity where it had been in contact with the arcane worship of Mithras. Seel endeavors to explain the matter as one of policy. He states that the early Christians in Germany for the most part ostensibly paid worship to the Roman gods in order to escape persecution. He makes a supposition as regards the adoption of the secret religion. “It is by no means improbable,” says he, “that under the permitted symbols of Mithras they worshipped the Son of God and the mysteries of Christianity. In this point of view,” he adds, “the Mithraic monuments so frequent in Germany are evidences of the secret faith of the early Christian Romans.” We are not ready to accept this notion that the Christians paid homage to one God, meaning another at the same time, except on the hypothesis that they regarded Mithras and Jesus as virtually the same personification. This conclusion seems to be countenanced by Augustine, the celebrated bishop of Hippo. “I know,” says he, “that the worshippers of the divinity in the cap [the statues of Mithras were decorated with the red Phrygian or cardinal's cap] used to say, ‘Our god in the cap is Christian.’”