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THE MYSTERY OF MELCHISEDEC
PART V
Among all the characters mentioned in
the Bible none is more mysterious than Melchisedec; said to be without
father, mother, or earthly kin, and holding the dual office of king and
priest. Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews gives us most information
showing the connection between Christ and Melchisedec, both of them Kings
and High Priests, but of different dispensations.
"God who at sundry times and in diverse
manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the Prophets has in these
last days spoken unto us by His Son whom He has appointed heir of all
things, by whom also He made the worlds. * * * No man taketh this honor
unto himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ
glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest, but He that said unto Him
'Thou art my Son, today have I begotten Thee.' As He saith also in another
place, Thou art a Priest for The Age after the order of Melchisedec, who
in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death
and was heard in that He feared though He were a son, yet learned He
obedience by the things He suffered; and being made perfect, He became
author of eternal salvation unto all that obey Him; called of God a High
Priest after the order of Melchisedec, of whom we have many things to say
and hard to be uttered. * * * For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest
of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of
kings and blessed him; to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all,
first being by interpretation king of righteousness and after that also
king of Salem, which is king of peace; without father, without mother,
without ancestors, having neither beginning of days nor end of life but
made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. * * * And
here men that die (the Levites) receive tithes, but there he receiveth
them of whom it is witnessed the He liveth. * * * If, therefore,
perfection were by the law and its priesthood what further need was there
that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec and not be
called after the order of Aaron? * * * For it is evident that our Lord
sprang out of Judah of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning the
priesthood. And it is yet far more evident for that after the similitude
of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest who is made not after the law
of carnal commandments but after the power of an endless life, for he
testifies 'Thou are a priest for The Age, after the order of Melchisedec.'
* * * By so much was Jesus made the surety of a better testament; * * *
because He continueth ever and has an Age lasting priesthood; * * * for
the law maketh men High Priests who have infirmities, but the Word of God
which was since the law, maketh the Son who is consecrated for evermore.
Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum; we have such a
high Priest who is yet on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in
the Heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which
the Lord made and not man. * * * Almost all things in the heavens should
be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves were better
sacrifices than these, for Christ is not entered into the holy place made
with hands which are the figures of the true, but into Heaven itself, now
to appear in the presence of God for us; * * * and now has He obtained a
more excellent ministry by how much also He is mediator of a better
covenant which was established upon better promises; for if the first
covenant had been perfect then there should be no place for a second. But
finding fault with the old He saith 'Behold the days come when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not
according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I
took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt, because they
continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, 'saith the Lord. *
* * For this is the covenant that I will make to the House of Israel after
those days, saith the Lord. 'I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS AND WRITE
THEM IN THEIR HEARTS, and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me
a people and THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERY MAN HIS NEIGHBOR and every man his
brother saying, Know the Lord, for ALL SHALL KNOW ME FROM THE LEAST TO THE
GREATEST.'"
The foregoing quotations from Paul's
Epistle to the Hebrews are not found there consecutively as here arranged.
It is necessary to intelligently piece the Bible narrative together so
that we may obtain an outline of the future development which has been
sketched out by the divine Hierarchs to constitute our evolution.
Comprehension of this plan is essential to the correct understanding of
the Cosmic relationship of Freemasonry and Catholicism; it is also
necessary to fully appreciate the purpose of the Molten Sea and to learn
how to intelligently make this wonderful alloy. As Paul says, these things
are hard to say, but we shall make an attempt to present the mysteries of
Melchisedec and the Molten Sea in plain language so that we may aid in the
expressed purpose of the Bible to enlighten all men, that all shall know
from the least to the greatest what is the purpose of evolution, and thus
give them a chance to align themselves with the trend of Cosmic events.
To understand the mystery of Melchisedec
we must revert to the earlier epochs of man's stay upon the earth during
the age called the Hyperborean Epoch. The earth was then in an extremely
heated condition. Man in the making was then double sexed, male-female,
like so many of our present plants, and he also resembled the plants in
being inert and lacking in desire and aspirations. At that time man was
the tractable ward of the Divine Hierarchs who guided him physically,
these being darkly referred to in the Bible as "Kings of Edom." Later,
during the Lemurian Epoch, when the body of man had crystallized and
condensed somewhat more, mankind was divided into sexes physically. But as
the consciousness of man was still focused in the spiritual world they
were unconscious of the physical act of generation, as we are now of
digestion; neither did they know birth or death and were in fact totally
unaware of the possession of a physical vehicle until in time they sensed
it during the generative process; it was then said that "Adam KNEW Eve."
At that time Lucifer Spirits, fallen Angels and inhabitants of the warlike
planet Mars, taught them how to eat of the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, which is the
symbolical name for the generative act. Thus by degrees their eyes were
opened and they became aware of the physical world, but lost touch with
the spiritual and the Guardian Angels who had previously been their
benevolent guides. Only a few of the most spiritual among them retained
their higher vision and communion with the Divine Hierarchs. These were
then known as prophets, who acted as messengers between the invisible
divine leaders and their respective peoples. But in time mankind desired
to select its own leaders and demanded visible kings; at least we know
that the Israelites repudiated the divine ruler ship and demanded a king,
and thus Saul was appointed. Then the dual office of Ruler and Priest,
including temporal and spiritual leadership, was also divided, for no man
sufficiently versed in worldly matters to fill the office of king
efficiently, had been found holy enough to also undertake the spiritual
leadership of his brethren, and vice versa. A true priest, able to lead
his flock spiritually, cannot also beneficently dominate their physical
fortunes as ruler of a temporal domain. For as STATECRAFT, in its highest
phase, aims to rule the masses with an eye single to their physical
welfare, and PRIESTCRAFT, benevolently exercised, seeks to guide them
solely for the soul's progress, so conflict must of necessity follow this
separation, even though both the spiritual and temporal rulers be actuated
by the highest and most unselfish motives. Melchisedec was the symbolical
name of the divine Hierarchs who filled the dual office of king and
priest; in the guidance of their double-sexed charges and while they
reigned there was peace on earth, but as soon as the offices of king and
priest were divorced and the sexes divided, it is not surprising for the
reasons given above that the peaceful reign of Melchisedec has been
followed by an age of war and strife, such strife as has been experienced
during the present dispensation. Formerly the unifying factors of a dual
office in the ruler and the double sex of his people precluded the
clashing of interests which now obtains, and which will continue until
another divine ruler shall present himself to embody within in his own
person the qualifications of the dual office of king and priest after the
order of Melchisedec, and until sex generation be abolished. In this
connection it is significant that the Bible narrative begins in the Garden
of Eden, where mankind were male-female and innocent; then in the next
chapter we are told of the division of sexes, the transgression of the
command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, and the infliction of the
penalty--painful parturition and swift death. From then on the Old
Testament tells of war, struggle and strife and in the last chapter makes
the prophecy that there shall a Sun of righteousness arise with healing in
his wings. Then the New Testament opens with an account of the birth of
Christ, who proclaimed a kingdom of heaven which is to be established. He
is later called King and Priest after the order of Melchisedec, uniting
within himself THE DUAL OFFICE. It is also said that in heaven there will
be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, for the SOMA PSUCHICON, or
soul-body, which Paul tells us is the vehicle we shall use in the kingdom
of heaven (First Corinthians, fifteenth chapter), is not liable to death
and decay. Thus there will be no death, and birth of bodies like those
generated in wedlock would be superfluous, for Paul tells us that flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Hence marriage will be
unnecessary, the clashing of interests due to the lust of sex and the love
of power will then disappear and the love of souls will be hallowed by the
spirit of peace.
Thus it is plain that the Sons of Cain
with their followers, the CRAFTSMEN, and the Sons of Seth with their
retinue, the CHURCHMEN, must finally merge and be unified in the Kingdom
of Christ. We have already seen how Hiram Abiff, the Widow's Son, left his
father, the Lucifer Spirit Samael, after the BAPTISM OF FIRE in the Molten
Sea, and how he received the mission to prepare the way for the kingdom
among the Sons of Cain, his brethren, by developing their arts and crafts
as temple builders--Masons-- and teaching them the preparation of the
Philosopher's Stone or Molten Sea. Thus also the physically negative Sons
of Seth must learn to leave their father, Jehovah, and naturally the first
to take the step must be a great soul.
As the superlative skill of the Sons of
Cain was focused in Hiram Abiff at the time of his baptism of fire, so the
sublime spirituality of the Sons of Seth was centered in Jesus at the time
of His BAPTISM IN THE WATERS of Jordan. When He arose from this water He
was in the same position as Hiram emerging from the fire; each had left
his father respectively, Jehovah and Samael, and each was ready to serve
the Christ. Therefore the Christ Spirit was seen at the Baptism to descend
upon Jesus' body, which was inhabited and used by Christ during His
ministry. Jesus himself, the spirit, left that body and was given a
mission to serve the churches while his body was being used for direct
teaching by the Christ, and his blood was being prepared as an OPEN SESAME
to the Kingdom of God, a Panacea to be used by His brethren, the Sons of
Seth, in the same manner that the Molten Sea serves the Sons of Cain.
In the Epistle of the Hebrews where Paul
gives us a few hints concerning the Mystery of Melchisedec in the
character of High Priest, he emphasized the absolute necessity of blood as
an adjunct to the Temple Service; he show how the High Priest was required
to offer blood for his own sins before he was qualified to give sacrifice
also for sins of the people, and that this double sacrifice must be
performed year after year. He points to the sacrifice upon Golgotha as
having been made ONCE AND FOR ALL, providing a way of atonement through
the blood of Jesus. During the regime of Jehovah, the blood of humanity
had become impregnated with egotism, which is the separative factor in
this age. From this sin it must be cleansed before mankind can be united
and enter the Kingdom of Christ. This was a gigantic task, for humanity
had become so impregnated with selfishness that scarcely anyone would do
another a favor. Hence the post-mortem panorama, of life at the time of
Christ contained nothing that would give a life in the First Heaven or
make for spiritual progress. Almost all the post-mortem existence of the
people was spent in the purgatorial expiration of their wrong-doings, and
even their Second Heaven life, where man learns to do creative work was
almost barren. Then Solomon, the King, was again called into the arena of
life to perform a mission for the benefit and welfare of his brethren, the
Sons of Seth; he was peculiarly fitted for this work because at heart he
was unselfish as shown by the request which he made at the time when
Jehovah appeared to him in a dream and asked what he would have as a gift
when he ascended the throne. Solomon then said unto God "Thou hast shown
great mercy unto David my father and hath made me to reign in his stead
now; now, O Lord, let thy promise unto David my father be established, for
Thou hast made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in
multitude. GIVE ME NOW WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE, that I may go out and come in
before this people, for who can judge Thy people that is so great?" And
God said to Solomon: "Because this was in thine heart and thou hast not
asked riches, wealth or honor, nor the life of thine enemies, neither hast
ye asked long life, but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself that
thou mayest judge my people over whom I have made thee king, wisdom and
knowledge is granted unto thee, and I will give thee riches and wealth and
honor such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee,
neither shall there any after thee have the like."
It was this characteristic of
unselfishness developed in former lives that fitted the spirit of Solomon
which inhabited the body of Jesus for the high mission it was destined to
fulfill; to serve as a vehicle for the unifying unselfish Christ Spirit,
for the purpose of bringing to an end the division between the Sons of
Seth and the Sons of Cain and uniting them in the Brotherhood forming the
kingdom of heaven.
When Faust made the pact with
Mephistopheles, as recorded in the ancient soul-myth of that name, he was
about to sign it in ink but Mephisto says: "No, sign it in blood." For
this request Faust asks the reason and Mephistopheles says knowingly and
cunningly "BLOOD IS A MOST PECULIAR ESSENCE!" It is said in the Bible that
the blood of bulls and calves will not take away sins and that is
reasonable, but how then about the blood of Jesus, which is extolled as a
panacea? To understand this great mystery of Golgotha it is necessary to
study the composition and the function of the flood from the occult point
of view.
When blood is placed under a microscope,
it appears as a number of minute globules or discs, but when seen by the
trained clairvoyant as it courses through the living body blood is found
to be a gas, a spiritual essence. The heat is caused by the Ego which is
within that blood, for as the Bible says, the LIFE is in the blood.
Mephisto was right when he said that it is a most peculiar essence, for it
contains the Ego, and whoever wants to obtain a power over the Ego must
have his blood.
The human Ego is more powerful than the
group spirit of the animal, as we can see when we apply the scientific
test known as haemolysis. Strange blood of a higher animal will kill, if
inoculated into the veins of a lower species; if we take human blood and
inject it into an animal, the animal will be unable to endure the high
vibration that is in the blood of the human being and it will die. On the
other hand a human being may be inoculated with the blood of a lower
animal without injury. In ancient times it was strictly forbidden anyone
belonging to one tribe to marry into another tribe because it was known
then by the leaders of humanity that the strange blood would kill
something; it always does. We read that Adam and Methuselah lived so many
centuries; at that time it was the custom to marry in the family, marry as
closely as possible, so that the tie of blood might be as strong as it
could be made. Then the blood that coursed through the veins of the people
in that family contained the pictures of all that had happened to the
different ancestor; these were stored in the mind which is now
subconscious. Then they were consciously and constantly before the inner
vision of all people, and each family was united by this common blood
wherein the pictures of their ancestors lived. The sons saw the life of
their fathers, and thus the fathers lived in the sons; and since the
consciousness of Adam and Methuselah and the other Patriarchs lived for
centuries in their descendants, they were said to live personally.
It was then as great a crime to marry
OUTSIDE the family as it now is to marry within. Even among the early
Norsemen, we learn that if anyone wanted to marry within a strange family,
he was first obliged to mix blood; it must first be tested to see whether
his blood would mix with that of the family into which he desired to
marry. And thus haemolysis was known to many in some of its phases at
least. If the blood did not mix, it would bring about "CONFUSION OF
CASTE," as the Hindu says; a straight line of descent must be kept, for
otherwise those pictures in the inner vision would become mixed and would
be confused. This marrying in the family or tribe was what engendered the
selfishness, the clannishness, and the struggle and strife of the world.
To break these up, the practice must be discontinued; thus when Christ
came He advocated the discontinuance of the practice when He said: "Before
Abraham was, I AM." In effect He said: I do not care for the race father,
but I glory in the I Am, the Ego that was long before he was. And He also
said: "Who does not leave father and mother cannot follow Me." As long as
you are tied to the family, the nation, the tribe, you are siding with the
old blood, the old ways, and cannot amalgamate into a universal
brotherhood. That can only come when people marry internationally because
when there are so many nations the way to unite them is through marriage.
Let Abraham, the race and tribe father, die; let the "I AM" LIVE. Christ
knew the occult fact that the mixture of blood in international marriage
always kills something; if it does not kill the body, it kills something
else. If we mate a horse and a donkey, the outcome is a HYBRID, the mule;
in that mule something is missing on account of the mixture of strange
blood, namely, the faculty of propagation which is lacking in all hybrids.
Similarly when we marry internationally something else is destroyed and
that is the pictures in the inner vision. The different pictures of
different families clash. And so the clairvoyance, the touch with the
spiritual world, with the memory of Nature, has waned since the practice
of marrying in the tribe was broken up. The Highland Scot who marries in
the clan and the gypsies alone retain this second sight in a measure. Thus
we see that the blood is now differently constituted from what it was in
the earlier ages of human evolution. The body of Jesus was a pioneer
vehicle of superlative purity at the time when the Christ Spirit entered
it, as a means of ingress to the center of the earth by the identical path
which he jumped into the Molten Sea and was conducted along the path of
Initiation to the center of the earth where Cain, his ancestor, dwelt.
This journey of Christ is recorded in I
Peter 3:18-19 after Christ had been freed from the flesh by the violent
death on Golgotha. When anyone is killed, the venous blood with its
impurities clings closely to the flesh, and therefore the arterial blood
which flows is distinctly cleaner than it would otherwise be; it is more
free from passion and desire. And being etherealized by the great Christ
Spirit, THE CLEANSED BLOOD OF JESUS OVERFLOWED THE WORLD, PURIFIED THE
ETHERIC REGION OF SELFISHNESS TO A GREAT EXTENT, and gave man a better
chance to draw to himself materials which will allow him to form
altruistic purposes and desires. Thus the age of altruism was there
inaugurated. By faith in this blood, and by imitation of the Christ Life
the Sons of Seth are therefore provided with a means of purging from
themselves the curse of selfishness; while the Sons of Cain were given the
emblem of the ROSE AND THE CROSS to teach them to work faithfully to make
the Molten Sea, the Philosopher's Stone, and to find the NEW WORD which
shall admit them to the kingdom, for they believe more in works than in
faith.
The accompanying chart shows graphically
the three Ages mentioned in this article:
(1) THE FIRST AGE, when each human being
was a complete creative unit, male-female, double sexed, and ruled by one
Hierarch, Melchisedec, who filled a dual office as King and Priest.
(2) THE SECOND AGE, when the division of
the race into men and women,
EVOLUTION UNDER HUMAN AND SUPERHUMAN RULERS
----------------|---------------------------------|-------------------------
LEMURIAN EPOCH | ATLANTEAN & ARYAN EPOCHS | NEW GALILEE
----------------|---------------------------------|-------------------------
HUMANITY WAS | |
DOUBLE-SEXED | TEMPORAL POWERS | ABOLITION OF SEX
MALEFEMALE /------------------------------\ | FINDING THE WORD
EACH BEING A / KING INITIATES \ THE WORD BECOMES
COMPLETE |PHREE MESSEN [Children of Light] | FLESH
CREATIVE UNIT | INITIATION BY FIRE [LIGHT] |
----------------| |---------------------| |-------------------------
MELCHISEDEC: | MALE IDEAL | CHRIST:
KING & PRIEST | HIRAM ABIFF | KING & PRIEST
JUST & HOLY |---------------------| JUST & HOLY
RECEIVED | VIRGIN MARY | BAPTISM OF SPIRIT
SACRIFICE | FEMALE IDEAL |
----------------| |---------------------| |-------------------------
DIVINE RULER | PRIESTS--BRAHMINS--LEVITES | DIVINE RULER OVER A
OVER HUMAN | INITIATION BY WATER [BAPTISM] | PURGED HUMANITY CALLED
BROTHERHOOD \ / ABRAHAM'S SEED DWELLING
TYPIFIED BY \-------------------------------/ IN THE NEW JER-U-SALEM
ABRAHAM | ECCLESIASTICAL POWERS | WHICH MEANS
MELCHISEDEC IS | | THERE SHALL BE PEACE
CALLED KING OF |DIVISION INTO RACES--NATIONS-- |
SALEM [PEACE] | SECTS |
AND PEACE |HENCE THERE IS WAR--OPPRESSION-- |
PREVAILED | SLAVERY |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SATURN PERIOD | UNITY AND DIVERSITY | VULCAN PERIOD
POLARIAN EPOCH | LOVE AND HATE | KINGDOM OF GOD
[1] HEAT |---------------------------------| [7]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUN PERIOD VENUS PERIOD
HYPERBOREAN EPOCH NEW GALILEE
[2] FIRE [6] BROTHERHOOD
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
MOON PERIOD [3] FIRE--MALE SEX--STATE [5] JUPITER PERIOD
LEMURIAN EPOCH WATER--FEMALE SEX--CHURCH ARYAN EPOCH
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
EARTH PERIOD FIRE/MALE--AIR/NATIONS ATLANTEAN EPOCH
END OF INVOLUTION WATER/FEMALE--EARTH/RACES BEGINNING OF EVOLUTION
[4]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
and the division of the rulership into
State and Church caused war and strife.
THE STATE espouses the cause of
FATHERHOOD AND MAN and upholds the male ideal of Arts, Crafts and
Industry, embodied in Hiram Abiff.
THE CHURCH espouses the cause of
MOTHERHOOD AND WOMAN and holds aloft the female ideal of love, and hearth
and home embodied in the Madonna and her child.
It is the conflicting interests of the
man and the woman, the home and the shop, the Church and the State, which
cause the economic struggle, the war and the strife with which mankind is
cursed and which make all long and pray for the reign of peace.
(3) THE THIRD AGE, when a divine Christ,
who, like Melchisedec, shall fill the dual office of King and Priest, and
shall rule over a urged and glorified humanity, which has risen from
sex-love to soul-love.
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