The House of the Hidden Places

[Kara Sundstrom]

pole-star of the period (Alpha-Draconis) occupied, as Professor Smyth has pointed out, just that position; so that it would shine right down the passage. And thus the disciples of the Master of the Secret, who in successive generations must have watched for more than two centuries the approach of the star, would receive in its final co-ordination the most convincing


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[Kara Sundstrom]

proof of the truth of those astronomical relations, wherein their mystical religion was embodied. Hence when we read in the Ritual, of the "Good Paddle of the North the Opener of the Disc," we recall at once the narrow paddle-shaped passage widened at the entrance towards the North, which opens the

[Kara Sundstrom]

sacred interior to the outer universe; the pointer of the dial which sweeps through space, indicating perennially the position occupied by each successive star, which for a brief period of centuries keeps watch before the pole.

[Kara Sundstrom]

Taking in our hands now, the sacred writings of the Pir M Hru, let us approach the masonic Light; and opening the book at the first chapter, where Thoth the Eternal Wisdom commences to instruct the catechumen freed from the corruption of the body, let us with him penetrate the interior of the building, and take such a preliminary view of its secret places and their analogues in the Ritual, as

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[Kara Sundstrom]

may enable us to study more deeply the twofold expression of that masonic mystery. Reciting chapter by chapter as we mount, grade by grade along with the Catechumen of Light, we approach at the fifteenth step a gateway two courses yet above us, just as the catechumen in the fifteenth chapter approaches

[Kara Sundstrom]

the "double gate of the horizon," the double-arched gate which points towards the pole-star; when he invokes "Haroeris the great guide of the world, the guide of the souls in their secret places, the light dwelling in the horizon." From this point the first veil of secrecy begins. For so effectually was the opening concealed from the uninstructed eyes by a revolving stone, that the position, once lost, was impossible to recover; and for two hundred years after passing under the barbarous Omar, the building remained impenetrable, until Caliph Al Mamoon, in the ninth century of our era, forced an opening at random through the solid masonry, and hit accidentally upon the

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[Kara Sundstrom]

entrance passage. Entering by the low gateway, thus built in the Northern side, at a considerable height above the ground, we have before us the passage of the horizon of the point of Equinox, which, while descending Southwards into the depths of darkness, points Northwards towards the star of the Purple Arch. As we cross the gate on the seventeenth

[Kara Sundstrom]

Gate of the Ascent. Northern Face: Course xvii.

[Kara Sundstrom]

course we recognize the point where, in the seventeenth chapter, the catechumen is admitted as a postulant, and exclaims, "I go from the Gate of Taser (the Ascent). What

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[Kara Sundstrom]

is the gate of Taser? It is the gate where the god Shu (the Light) lifts the disc of heaven. The Gate of the North is the Gate of the Great God: "he continues, speaking evidently of the same gate; exactly as in the Pyramid the only entrance is the Gate of the Ascent in the seventeenth course of Northern face. Bidding

[Kara Sundstrom]

now with him farewell to the light of earthly day, and treading the descending passage, we pass, some little way down, a very fine and beautifully ruled double line, * scored perpendicularly on the


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[Kara Sundstrom]

slanting wall so as to point downwards to the foundation, and separating the upper section of the passage where the Departed in the Ritual is bereft of every faculty except that of motion, from the more advanced portion where his mental faculties are gradually restored to him. Continuing the long descent, we arrive at an aperture in the western wall, and passing through

[Kara Sundstrom]

the opening thus disclosed mount gently into a kind of grotto at the bottom of the Well, a square perpendicular shaft, with footholds cut in the precipitous sides. Into that chamber of the Deep Waters the postulant descends on the Western side, as the sun at the close of day goes down into the Western waters, and bursts forth in splendour on the hidden world. From the top of the shaft a level passage runs to the place of the divine birth mentioned in the Ritual, the Chamber of the Moon, where, according to Egyptian teaching, Osiris each month renewed his birth. In that chamber,

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[Kara Sundstrom]

once rigidly blocked up, the liberated soul was born anew; and thence it came forth to descend the ladder of the shaft, as we see in the papyrus of Ani, * and to become re-united with the postulant awaiting it in the Well of Life. Then, when the soul is restored, initiation takes place and strength is given to endure the ordeal.

[Kara Sundstrom]

Returning from the bottom of the well to the Passage of the Horizon, and pursuing our course still further downwards, we come, after a short level continuation, to the subterranean chamber or the Place of the Central Fire, where the initiate undergoes his ordeal; a chamber hewn out of the solid rock, and having an inaccessible floor covered with huge blocks of varying height resembling a pool of petrified flame, or the masses of the mountain chains formed by the action of the earth's central


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