Sacred Mysteries Among the Mayas and the Kʼicheʼs (Illustrated) . Augustus Le Plongeon

      No one could be admitted to the greater unless they had been purified at the lesser, and one year at least had elapsed since they had become mystai or initiated.

      The initiation to the greater mysteries when the Mystai took the degree of Ephoroi, that is Inspector, by being instructed in the secret rites, except a few reserved for the priests alone, was as follows:

      The candidate, being crowned with myrtle, which was used instead of the acacia, was admitted by night into an immense building called the Mystikos Sêkos, that is the "mystical enclosure." At their entrance they purified themselves by washing their hands in holy water, being at the same time admonished to present themselves with minds pure and undefiled, without which external cleanliness of the body would by no means be accepted. After this the holy mysteries were read to them from a book called Petrôma, because the book consisted of two stones fitly cemented together. I have discovered such stones, last year, in the mausoleum of high pontiff Cay, in the city of Chichen-Itza, in Yucatan. The priest who conducted the ceremonies was called hierophantês. He proposed certain questions, to which answers were returned in a set form. Then, strange and amazing objects presented themselves. Sometimes the place they were in seemed to shake, as if an earthquake was occurring, or whirl round and round as if carried away in a tornado. Sometimes it appeared bathed in bright and resplendent light, and flames seemed to issue from the walls, threatening to consume the temple; and all of a sudden they were extinguished by invisible hands, and the most profound obscurity succeeded to the dazzling radiance. Flashes of lightning, at intervals, broke forth with extreme brilliancy, only to make the darkness more dark, when peal after peal of thunder caused the building to shake to its very foundations. These were succeeded by loud cries for help and laments of persons in great agony; soon to be replaced by the most frightful noises and bellowings, and terrible apparitions. The nerves of the applicants were tried to the utmost, and required to be strung by the most indomitable will and moral as well as physical courage, to enable them to withstand to the last such awful trials.

      All the faint hearted were invariably rejected and refused admission to the next degree, the Epopteia, or Inspection. Powerful narcotic drugs were administered to the timorous, that plunged them into a deathlike sleep, from which they emerged with but confused recollections, if not entire forgetfulness, of the terrible scenes they had witnessed, and which they believed to be produced by some frightful dream or dreadful nightmare.

      I will now quote from the book of Henoch. Chap. xiv. ver. 12.—"I saw a spacious habitation built with stones of crystal. The roof had the appearance of agitating stars and flashes of lightning. Flames burnt around its walls, its portals blazed with fire. This dwelling was hot as fire—cold as ice." Chap. xvii. ver. 1.—"They raised me up into a certain place where there was the appearance of burning fire, and when they pleased, they assumed the likeness of men,—(ver. 3)—and I beheld the receptacles of light and of thunder at the extremities of the place. There was a bow of fire and arrows in their quiver—a sword of fire and every species of lightning."

      Chap. xxi. vers. 4.—"Then I passed to another terrific place—(ver. 5)—where I beheld the operation of a great fire blazing and glittering, in the midst of which there was a division—columns of fire struggled together to the end of the abyss and deep was their descent. (Ver 6.)—This was the place of suffering."

      Those who resisted to the last the trials of the Autopsia, as the initiation was called, were then dismissed with these three words: Kon-x Om Pan-x, which, strange to say, have no meaning in the Greek language. Captain Wilford, in his Essay on Egypt, says they correspond to the words Cansha Om Pansha, which the Brahmins pronounce every day to announce to the devotees that the religious ceremonies are over. They have been translated, "retire, O retire, profane!" Corresponding to the ite missa est of the Catholic Church.

      These words are not Sanscrit, but Maya. "Con-ex Omon Panex," go, stranger, scatter! are vocables, of the language of the ancient inhabitants of Yucatan, still spoken by their descendants, the aborigines of that country. They were probably used by the priests of the temples, whose sumptuous and awe-inspiring ruins I have studied during fourteen years, to dismiss the members of their mystic societies, among which we find the same symbols that are seen even to-day in the temples of Egypt as in the M⸫ lodges.

      I will endeavor to show you that the ancient sacred mysteries, the origin of Free Masonry consequently, date back from a period far more remote than the most sanguine students of its history ever imagined. I will try to trace their origin, step by step, to this continent which we inhabit,—to America—from where Maya colonists transported their ancient religious rites and ceremonies, not only to the banks of the Nile, but to those of the Euphrates, and the shores of the Indian Ocean, not less than 11,500 years ago.

      But let us return to the mysteries of Eleusis. In the trials to which the Mystai were subjected to try their fitness to become Ephoroi, Masons no doubt recognize several of the ceremonies that took place at their initiation into the craft. If Free Masonry had not its origin in the ancient Sacred Mysteries, how could these rites have found their way into it?

      The Ephoroi were now prepared for the third degree, the Epopteia—the most sacred of all. In this the Epoptai or "Inspectors of themselves" were placed in presence of the gods, who were supposed to appear to the initiated. Proclus, a philosopher, disciple of the divine Plato, in his commentaries on the Republic of his master, says: "In all initiations and mysteries, the gods exhibit themselves under many forms, and appear in a variety of shapes. Sometimes their unfigured light is held forth to view. Sometimes this light appears under a human form, and sometimes it assumes a different shape." And again, in his commentaries on the first Alcibiades: "In the most holy of the mysteries, before the god appears, the impulsions of certain terrestrial demons become visible, alluring the initiated from undefiled good to matter." Then all the seductions that human mind can imagine to excite the passions were placed within the grasp of those who aspired to become Epoptai. They were invited to freely give way to voluptuousness, to the enjoyment of all kind of mundane pleasures, before they renounced them forever. Nothing that could possibly entice applicants to fall from their state of moral and physical purity was omitted; all that could be done to induce them to yield to temptation was resorted to. If in a moment of weakness they allowed their senses to obtain the mastery over their reason, woe to them! for before they could realize their position, before they had time to recall their scattered thoughts, the bright surroundings disappeared as by magic; they were plunged in the most dense obscurity; the ground gave way under their feet; and they were precipitated into a deep abyss, from which if they escaped with their life, they never did with their reason.

      Theon of Smyrna, in his work Matematica, divides the mysteries into five parts.

      1. The purification.

      2. The reception of sacred rites.

      3. The Epopteia, or reception.

      4. End and design of the revelation, the building of the head and fixing of the crowns.

      5. The friendship and interior communion with God, the last and most awful of all the mysteries.

      It is supposed the prophet Ezekiel alludes to these initiations, when he speaks of the abominations committed by the idolatrous ancients of the house of Israel in the dark, every man in the chambers of its imagery.

      Here again, I will quote from the book of