Trail of the Deepest Control Structures

Jesus charged his disciples that they tell no man that he was the Christ, also saying, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine; lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you." He surely had good reason for his secrecy. Many have learned the wisdom of these words when too late; Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, and Socrates, are 'notable examples.

The great Teachers instructed their chosen dis- ciples in the higher knowledge and propagated these truths in allegories and parables. "All that can be said concerning the Gods," says Strabo, "must be by exposition of old opinions and fables; it being the custom of the ancients to wrap up in images and allegory their thoughts and discoveries concerning nature."

Pythagoras, the great mathematical Mason, divided his classes into the exoteric and esoteric, and his secrets were forbidden to be committed to writ- ing.

The Society of the Essenes, among whom were St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, made similar distinctions; dividing their adherents into Neophytes, Brethren, and Perfect, while Am- monius Saccus obliged his disciples by oath not to divulge his doctrines, except to those who had been thoroughly instructed and prepared.

In Egypt we find the same method in practice, for Clement says, "The Egyptians did not entrust the mysteries they possessed to all and sundry, and did not divulge the knowledge of divine things to the profane." He also informs us that the sphinxes erected in front of the temples and places of In- itiation denoted silence and secrecy that all sac- red truth is enfolded in symbolical fables and al- legories and he says of the Mysteries, "Those who instituted the Mysteries, being philosophers, buried their doctrines in myths, so as not to be obvious to all." (The Stromata, Book V, Ch. VII, Ch. IX.)

The Sages of Greece, according to Pausanias, "Never wrote otherwise than in an enigmatical manner." They concealed their knowledge under the veil of fiction and so taught that the vulgar might not comprehend. The typical Hermes as- sembled his disciples in a holy place or shrine where strict secrecy was imposed. In the Perfect Sermon he says, "And ye, O Tat, Asclepius and Ammon, in silence hide the mysteries divine within the se- cret places of your hearts, and breathe no word of their concealment." This was the universal pro- cedure.

Says Wm. R. Singleton, 33d degree, Past Grand Secretary, Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia: "The wisdom of the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Egyp- tions, Jews of Zoroaster, Sanconiathon, Pherecydes, Syrus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato ; of all the ancients, that is come to our hand, is symbolic. ... In the method explaining the various symbols, religion and philosophy were veiled in allegoric representations. These symbols were displayed openly in the temples .... to the profane altogether obscure, but streaming with beams of light to the Initiated." (History of Freemasonry and Concordant Orders, p. 83.)