On The Geometrical And Other. Symbols.

So far as I have yet been able to discover , the materials for a disquisition of this kind are by no means abundant , although there is sufficient evidence that some of these symbols have been extensively and generally used , both in ancient and in modern times , and both amongst Eastern and Western nations , as well as amongst heathen and Christian communities .

The original aud true meanings embodied in them , therefore , form a subject of great interest and curiosity . But here , at the outset , let me once for all remark , explanatively , —or , if you will , apologetically , ' —that , considering the close relationship in which all

geomettricaland other symbols used by the ancient Egj'ptians , Assyrians or Chaldeans , Greeks , and Hindus , or by the Buddhists , Druids , Zoroastrians , Hierophants , and all such magical religionists , must necessarily stand to magic and the oracles evoked during entrancement ; we cannot , even in the Builder , altogether ignore these no doubt very wild and outre subjects in auy serious and hopeful endeavour to get at the true and original

meaning of their symbols ; in fact , we must not only Jcnow something about both magic aud the oracles , but must say something about them , —and cannot avoid doing so ; far less about Ereemasonvy and Christian mysticism , with both of which such symbols have also much to do ; and , as some of them are even used

by architects themselves , as in the very case of the arch-masonic and arch-magical hexalpha which has initiated this inquiry ,- —mysticism , magic , and the oracles of entrancement , therefore , —with all of which , as can easily be shown , not only the hexalpha but many other geometrical symbols have been speciall

y and peculiarly associated , —become , to this extent , at least , even a kind of professional subject ! In truth , entrancement , which is a definite though abnormal state , or series of states , of existence in the human body ; and , as such , however mysterious for the presentstillquite capable of a scienticalif not of even

, , , a strictly physiological and simple explanation , as I shall incidentally endeavour to show , will also , as I believe , be found to constitute the key to both magic and its symbols .

Eirst of all I shall briefly , and without much additional comment , transcribe some of the notes I have taken from the several books into which I have dipped with the view of gleaning information ; and afterwards I shall offer a few suggestions of my own on the subject . Angles and trianglessingle and variously connected

, , held a distinguished place in religious symbolism . The cross itself is a duplex or even a quadrate congeries of angles ; and , as we shall soon see , has been held sacred and significant in many ibrms'of religion . One of the simplest of angular symbols , however , was the \ Jor Y or bidenton the toj ) of a symbolical

, > , staff , which is frequently held by female figures in the Egyptian sculptures , but which I have never seen iu the hands of a male figure . The V or Y 0 I" Egypt , therefore , has by some , and with seeming reason , been interpreted as a sexual symbol donotive of a feminine principle . Othershowever lain it differentl

, , exp y ; and indeed one notable result of my limited researches is that a like difference of interpretation exists in regard to many symbols ; so that each interpretation must be taken cam grano salis ; and we must look out & r such of these or other interpretations as shall

tend to less discordance and more harmony of meaning , if any such there were , in regard to kindred symbols , than is now very palpable amongst the various authorities consulted . Dr . Oliver , a great authority among the Ereemasons , says of the Y symbol in his History of Initiation ( p . 83 ed . 18-il ) while treating of what is called "the

, , great triad of the Gentiles ; " that " the mystical symbol Y was a ^ much esteemed from its allusion to the same triune God ; the three distiuct lines of which it is composed forming one , and the one is three , this was in effect the ineffable name of the Deity ; theTetraetys of Pjthagoras and the Tetragrammaton of

the Jews . " The Y or Indent form may be seen among the ancient Egyptian sculptures , mounted thus on an equilateral triangle : — X but I have not met with auy feasible interpretation of its supposed meaning , although it appears to be occasionally used by

the Ereemasons . Perhaps a little light may be shed upon it by the affinity which it seems to bear to another Egyptian symbol , in respect to which Dr . Barlow ( see the Builder of March 31 , I 860 , p . 196 ) says , —¦ " Beneath the tree [ of life , the phoenix palm ] are two herons , feeding from equilateral triangles , — extremely symbolical : we may sometimes see similar symbols of birds feeding from the equilateral triangle on Christian monuments : there is one such in the

church of St . Maria , in Trastevere : I took a sketch of it when last in Rome . " * It is probable , therefore , that whatever be the true meaning of the bident implanted on tha equilateral triangle , that meaning may be also involved in the bird form feeding out of the equilateral triangle . Now just as the bident staff

is always seen in the hand of a female , and never of a male , on the Egyptian monuments ; so we find that female forms are often crowned with a bird-shaped head-dress , but never male forms ; and , as I pointed out in one of two articles on Bird Symbols in the Builder [ loth January , 1 S 59 J , the wives of the

Hindu gods , which gods and goddesses , in not a few points only , resemble the Egyptian , are described in the Brahmical books as being "in the forms of birds . " Hovering over a couched and prostrate male , and even phallic , form , however , in one of the Egyptian scultures [ see the great Erench workBescrijHion de

p , L'Erpjpte , division , Antiquities , tome 1 ] there is a bird-form ( sometimes the same symbol is humanfaced ) which has been mistakenly , as I think , interpreted to signify the Soul quitting the dead body ; whereas its face is turned towards- a living body ( in one case a femalethough in another a male ) as if

, , about to descend upon it ; so that it is much more likely to denote the descent of the divine oracular Spirit , invoked by or upon "him who reposes on the beautiful couch . "

And here I may parenthetically remark—although without special reference to the bident , except by way of inversion , which , however , is itself instructive—that male phallic forms on the Egyptian sculptures are almost always accompanied by the flagellum or ascetic scourge , bent thus A , or reversing the V or feminine