Rosslyn Treasury

by P. L. Snow

  The novice would arrive at the great Temple of Osiris at Thebes, and be led by servants to an inner court. There, the hierophant would welcome him, and ask him about his family, where he had come from and where his studies so far had been conducted, and who had taught him. So deep and piercing was the gaze of the hierophant that the novice, or postulant, would feel it going through him searchingly, reading the deepest secrets of his being. If the postulant were found wanting, the hierophant would simply point to the door, and the interview would be concluded, and any hope of his learning the secrets of the temple was dashed. If he were successful, he would be led through the temple precincts to a statue of Isis, life size, and veiled, with the inscription beneath: ‘No mortal has lifted my veil.’

  Behind the statue was a door, flanked by two columns; one red, the other black. The red column signified the ascent to the light of Osiris, but the other indicated the death and annihilation of the human spirit in matter.

  ‘Here you stand at the portal. To go through this door means madness to the weak, and death for the wicked. Only those whose strength of purpose is allied to good will may find life beyond this threshold. Think: have you the courage? Have you the purity of soul? If there is any doubt in your mind, go back now. Once this door closes behind you, there is no return.’

  Thus the hierophant addressed the novice, and it was a brave man indeed who would dare to take the next step, through the gateway to initiation. But more preparation was necessary before the door would be opened to him. If he was still wishing to take the lonely step through the portal, he would be taken back through the temple complex and required to join the servants, with whom he would spend a week, working diligently and speaking to no-one. Silence was an absolute demand of the postulant, as he performed the most mundane and dirty of tasks, his only connection to those mysteries that he wished to master was the music of the holy psalms, borne on the warm air to him in the midst of his drudgery.

  At last the evening arrived when he would face his greatest ordeal. Two acolytes led him back to the door behind the statue of Isis. Here was a long, dark corridor, with no visible way out, and shadowy forms on either side of the dim passageway of human bodies with animal heads, large and forbidding in the darkness, each one appearing to watch his every step in silent mockery at his presumption.

  At the end of the corridor were two more silent figures, one a mummy, the other a human skeleton. Between these two was a hole. The two acolytes bade farewell to the novice here.

  ‘You can still turn back,’ one of the acolytes said. The other added: ‘There is still time.’

  But the novice had come so far. Fear and the dedication to know the truth wrestled within him. At last, he knew that to turn back now was a defeat that would weigh heavily on him for the rest of his life.

  ‘I shall go forward,’ he said.

  The acolytes took their leave. They closed the door of the entrance with a loud bang that echoed through the passage and smote the novice’s heart. He had now to crawl on hands and knees through a low, downward-sloping passage with nothing more to light his path than the flickering naphtha lamp in his left hand, and that hardly illuminated anything, but rather seemed to allow shapes to loom up from the darkness. Voices resonated through the darkness, repeating the same warning: ‘They perish here that lust for knowledge and power.’

  The passage grew wider, but sloped more steeply downwards until he came to a shaft that fell before him into blackness. In the sputtering light of his naphtha lamp, he could make out the rung of a ladder down into the abyss. No other way presented itself to him. Slowly he made his way down, trying not to drop his lamp as he held on to the rungs.

  The darkness below him was profound. He could see nothing in those depths. His foot reached down for the next rung, but — there was none! The ladder finished here, but the abyss went on seemingly for ever into the blackness. What could he do? There was no way back. What was demanded of him now? Was this the end of his search, alone in this subterranean darkness? With an effort, he moved his lamp to this right hand as he looked around in the gloom. Here, to his right was a crevice. If he was careful, he could make his way from the ladder into it.

  He managed to manoeuvre his way from the metal rungs into the crevice, and now his lamp showed him a flight of steps; a spiral staircase cut into the living rock. He began to climb, every step taking him away from that dreadful abyss.

  At last he stood before a grating of bronze, and beyond it was a great, well-lit hall, with pictures or scenes painted on the walls in two groups of eleven.

  A priest, new to the novice, opened the grating, and led him into the hall.

  ‘Well done, my son. You have passed the first test,’ said the priest, and led him past the frescoes, stopping at each one to explain its meaning. Each one was associated with a letter and a number, and each picture had a triple meaning: one that had its echoes in the divine world; one that referred to the world of the human spirit, or intellect; and one that was to be understood with reference to the world of nature, the physical world. Thus, the keys to understanding at this level of initiation were threefold. The first of these was the Magus in a white robe of purity and golden crown of light, with the sceptre of authority in his hand. He symbolized in the divine realm, Absolute Being from which all creation flows; in the realm of the spirit, the original unity, the synthesis of all numbers; in the world of nature, the human being who alone among created beings in the world can will his evolution as a being of spirit. This and the other twenty-one pictures constituted the first book of the teachings of Hermes-Thoth. Gradually, the novice came to understand the meanings of them all; Isis of the Heavens, the Tower struck by lightning, the Chariot of Osiris, the Star; all the way to the Crown of the Illuminated Ones.

  ‘This crown must be well understood,’ the priest said. ‘Those who are able to join their will to the Divine in the furtherance of Truth, Justice and Harmony after life in the world of Nature have the reward of free spirits; to enter into the realm of those who participate with the gods in guiding the forces of creation.’

  The novice listened to these words with a mixture of awe and reverence. Something was beginning to dawn in his understanding of the meaning and purpose of human life on Earth. It opened up before him in a mighty picture, whose meaning was love.

  But now the time came for further trials. The priest led the novice to a door and opened it. At the end of a corridor was a flaming furnace.

  ‘If you are of good courage,’ said the priest, ‘the flames of the fire will be for you no more than the rose flowers in a garden.’

  Borne up by the vision of love that the novice had received, he went forward. ‘If I am unworthy,’ he thought, ‘let me be consumed by the flames indeed.’

  The door closed behind him, and he approached the fire. But it was no more than the appearance of fire, made by daylight falling through sheets of wood cut into diamond shapes on an iron framework, and so thin as to allow the passage of light through them, colouring the light with fiery hues.

  Illusion though it was, the effect on the novice was profound. He hurried through the path of fire, and came at once to a pool of stagnant water, in a chamber as dark as the previous one had been bright. The flames behind him cast eerie reflections on the blackness of the water. He waded in, the cold water becoming deeper and deeper, until at last he reached the far side.

  Gasping and fearful, he was pulled out of the chill water by two acolytes who dried him and anointed him with sweet-smelling unguents, and told him to wait. The chamber was dim, lit by a bronze lantern. He waited, resting on a couch, and the tenth picture from the Book of Hermes-Thoth came into his mind; a wheel placed between two columns, upon which, on one side, was Anubis, spirit of good, and on the other, Set, the evil one, falling head downwards towards the abyss. Above the two sat the Sphinx, holding a sword. But what had this image to do with the place where he now found himself?

  All at once, he heard the strains of melancholy music of harp
and flute. And then, coming towards him, he saw a woman. She was tall and graceful, an Ethiopian beauty, all in diaphanous dress of red. He rose to meet her. She held in her left hand a cup, which she offered him. As she offered it, she smiled, and he realized that she was offering herself with the wine. This beautiful woman would be a fitting reward indeed for all that he had gone through. Her lips parted in a fresh smile as she offered him once more the cup. Her eyes were luminous in the shadowy chamber. Desire arose in him like flames. He formed the thought: ‘I am on fire with desire.’ And the memory of what he had just been through came back to him. She sat on the couch and raised the wine cup again, her right hand smoothing down her dress over her breast and belly, as if in invitation. He found himself moving towards the couch, but once again, the image of the Wheel arose in his mind’s eye, and Set on the left hand, chained forever to the abyss.

  He approached her, and reached for the cup. Taking it from her, he overturned it, letting the perfumed wine spill over the floor.

  ‘The bliss of the body is the darkness of the soul,’ he said, and turned away from her. She rose and left the chamber, and no sooner had she left than twelve acolytes entered, bearing torches. They led him to the sanctuary of the Temple, where the initiated priests of Osiris welcomed him. Before him in the sanctuary was a large statue of Isis, draped in velvet, a golden rose at her breast, and in her arms the child Horus. There, before the image of Isis and Horus, he was bound to silence by the most stringent of oaths. He had succeeded in the next trial. Had he submitted to the desires of the flesh, he would have been a slave to the temple for life. Any attempt to escape would have meant death.

  Even now, though no longer a novice, he stood only at the threshold of knowledge. His studies began into the world of nature, the physical laws of the world. His ‘teachers’ hardly spoke to him, answering his questions sometimes with what seemed a brusque indifference, sometimes with the injunction: ‘Be patient. Work.’ Doubt began to torment him. He felt as though he was in a desert, with no-one to help him to slake his thirst.

  In calmer moments he realized that the trials he had undergone were a foretaste of what he was experiencing now. His bodily desires were still strongly burning within him. The extent of his ignorance was greater than the dark abyss that he had escaped. The cold water was less of a torment than the doubts that assaulted him. If he could meet those trials then, could he not overcome the trials that his own nature set before him now?

  Nevertheless, he still had moments when he despaired of ever learning anything of the knowledge that Hermes-Thoth possessed. His teachers remained distant.

  ‘Who knows if you will ever be permitted to see the light of Osiris? It depends on you. Perhaps one day the lotus will rise from the depths of the pool; perhaps never in this lifetime. Be patient. Do your work diligently.’

  With the passage of years, the postulant felt changes take place within him. The desires of his bodily nature burned less fiercely, and impatience and doubt gave way to a reverence for nature and the spirit. This grew into a deep piety which was noticed by the initiated priests, and one day, he was approached by the hierophant, the chief priest of the temple, he who led the postulant forward for the higher initiation.

  ‘The time has come, my son,’ said the hierophant. ‘Through the purity of your heart, your power of self-denial and your love of truth, you have gained the right to be one among the company of the initiated.’

  The brotherhood of the initiated accompanied the postulant to the lower crypt of the temple. There lay a cold stone sarcophagus into which the postulant climbed. He lay as one dead, and the cold began to spread through his body. He began to lose consciousness as the hymn for the dead, sung by the priesthood, echoed in that subterranean chamber.

  ‘None escapes death. All living souls are destined for resurrection. He who goes into the tomb alive may enter the light of Osiris. As you lie here, wait for the light. You shall go through the gates of fear, and you shall attain to the mastery.’

  Thus spoke the hierophant as the postulant felt pain like the death agony take hold of him. The priests filed out, and the singing rose in volume. They left behind them a lamp that gradually flickered and went out.

  Now the postulant saw his life pass before him as in a great tableau. Everything he had ever done, everything that he had thought was plainly to be seen in this great picture. What had taken place in time now appeared in space. His consciousness became less and less distinct, as though borne away on a stream of time…

  The last thing he recalled was the appearance of Isis, as she was depicted in the sanctuary, but younger, though still veiled. She carried in her hand a papyrus in which was the scroll of his life, his past lives, though pages were left blank for future lives.

  ‘There shall come a time,’ she said, ‘when I shall unfold all before you. But for the time being, know me now as the sister of your soul. I shall come when you call upon me.’

  Now, with a pain like birth, he found himself wrenched back into his temporal being, lying in the cold sarcophagus. He lay in his body, unable to move a finger, seized by a deathly lethargy, able only to open his eyes. There before him was the hierophant.

  ‘You live again, one initiated in the light of Osiris,’ he said, and the priests helped him out of the stone coffin. They gave him a cup of cordial to help him revive, as he felt life coursing through his veins again.

  ‘Tell us of your journey,’ said the hierophant. Most of what was revealed to the pupil of the Thrice-Great Hermes remains a deep secret, and we must leave it so.

  ***

  Such was the initiation into the light of Osiris in the great days of Egypt, but a time came when those who entered the temple sleep in the cold, marble sarcophagus had a different story to tell, and it was indeed a sad and terrible report they made. Schuré makes no mention of this, but it is a phenomenon well-known to esoteric researchers, and an important aspect of many of the tales of Rosslyn. Those following the leadership of Hermes made a terrible discovery: Isis appeared to the initiated one in the mourning robes of a widow.

  Osiris, the God who was her consort; He who was tricked into lying in the sarcophagus that his dark brother Typhon-Set had prepared and cast into the waters of the Nile; He whose remains Isis gathered together so that He might be reborn: Osiris was no longer reborn! Isis was a widow indeed. A light had been extinguished in the heavens. Those who had this grim experience of what seemed a catastrophe in the spiritual world were henceforth to be known as ‘The Sons of the Widow’ for many long centuries to come.

  Hiram Abiff, architect of Solomon’s Temple was called a Son of the Widow. Mani, the great spiritual leader of the third century ad was another, and so were those who followed him: the Cathars, the Bogomils, the Patarenes, the Albigensians. The Templars were also known as Sons of the Widow, as well as those who followed Craft Masonry. Those who conceived of and built Rosslyn were also of this brotherhood, and many symbols of this are to be found in the chapel, as we shall see. But this was the grim message of those who had been prepared in the mysteries of Hermes: Isis was a widow.

  5. Melchizedek, Abraham and Isaac

  Melchizedek

  A much damaged carving of Abraham, Isaac and the ram of sacrifice sits at the top of a capital close to an architrave that contains the words of Zerubabel, to which we shall return. On the other side of the aisle, there is a window, with the Kings of Israel carved around it, and within that framework of the Kings, ears of corn are shown, representing bread. At the bottom of the window, in the left corner is the carving of a bearded man holding a wine cup. This is Melchizedek, one of the most enigmatic figures of the Old Testament. Here is an account of the legend that brings these individuals together.

  The birth and youth of Abram

  There lived in Babylon a man named Terah, who had three sons, called Abram, which means ‘Father of the Height’, Nahor and Haran. This was in the days when Nimrod, the builder of great towers, was King of Babylon, also known as Chaldea. The l
egend tells that a new star shone in the heavens at the birth of Abram, and the room where the child was born was filled with light. Nimrod asked his priests about the new star, and was told that it signified the birth of one who would be a great leader. Nimrod then brought about a great massacre of new-born children and their mothers, imprisoning them in a temple before setting fire to it. Abram was taken away and hidden in a cave to escape this fate, and he remained there for a long time. During this period, he spent time with the priests of the Most High God, El-Elyon, God of Noah. To this priesthood of the Most High belonged Melchizedek. This was a priesthood that began with Noah’s son Shem (who gives his name to the Semitic peoples) and maintained itself in secret, only appearing to affect human destinies at certain moments in history. The name Noah means ‘a place of rest’. His other name was Menachem, ‘the comforter’. These qualities of rest, peace and comfort are the heritage received by Melchizedek from the priests of Shem.

  At last Abram left the Shem priests and returned to his father Terah in Babylon. Terah received him with great joy, and had chosen a wife for his son. This was Sarai, whose name means ‘she who is destined to rule’. She was a woman of great beauty, and Abram was glad to receive her at his father’s hand.

  Nimrod the king at this time was building great towers reaching up to the heavens, and Abram could see that this showed a destructive pride. He debated with the priests of the genii of fire when they asked him why he did not pay homage to the god of fire. Abram replied that water puts out fire. They told him that they prayed to water, too, but Abram answered that clouds carry water.

  ‘We also honour the clouds,’ the priests said, but Abram replied: ‘The winds scatter the clouds.’ The priests said that the winds, too were their gods, and Abram’s reply was that the earth is stronger than the wind. The priests grew angry, and wished to put Abram through the baptism of fire, but it had no effect on Abram; he remained unconvinced. He already had an intuition of the God beyond the spirits of the four elements, and this God he called Lord. Thus he prepared to leave Babylon and the city of Ur of the Chaldees.