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NOTE XIII. (Page 111.)

(1) It may be asked, How is it that the Mayas came to adopt the one ten-millionth part of the quadrant of the great circle that passes through the poles of the earth, as standard of lineal measures?

To him who is acquainted with the "Sacred Mysteries" of the ancient Maya adepts, the motive is indeed very evident. Like the ancient Egyptians, the Mayas of old were, as their descendants are to-day, an eminently religious people. With them, as, in fact, with every civilized nation, their cosmogonic notions formed the base of their religious conceptions, and both were embodied in their sacred edifices, particularly in their pyramids, symbols of God in the universe.

They conceived this universe to be an infinite boundless darkness, in which dwelt the unknowable, the inscrutable WILL, Uol. Having come to the knowledge that, by first concentrating their thoughts, and then sending them forth in every direction to the utmost limits of space, these formed, as it were, radii of equal length, that terminated at the vault of a sphere whose limitation was a great circle; having, besides, discovered that the circle is, in nature, the ultimatum in extension, they figured that WILL, that ETERNAL ONE BEING, as a circle, O, which they also called Uol, whose centre was everywhere and circumference nowhere. They imagined this WILL as being both male and female-Androgynus-two in one and one in two. In it life pulsated uncon

scious. At the awakening of consciousness, when the Infinite Sexless ceased to be sexless, the male principle, remaining still distinct, fructified the immaculate virgin womb of nature, that cosmic egg that we see pictured in the tableau of creation at Chichen.'

1

One they

and called

Lah, "he

This new manifestation of the Boundless figured as a circle with its vertical diameter, it Lahun, the "all-pervading all-pervading one," from who is everywhere," and hun, "one." It became the Decade, image of the universe evolving from the boundless darkness, the number 10, the most mystic among the initiates of all nations, formed of the triad and the septenary; the most binding oath of the Pythagoreans. From this vertical diameter, symbol of the male principle impregnating the virgin womb of nature, originated the idea of the Phallus as emblem of the Creator, whose worship under this image we find among all civilized nations of antiquity from the remotest ages.

The circle divided into four parts, by its vertical and horizontal diameters crossing each other, formed the tetraktis,? "the sacred four," the "builders," that is, the Canob of the Mayas, or the Tian-chihans of the initiates among them, the "heavenly giants," the same called by the Hindoo occultists Dhyan-Chohans. The universe, now under the regency of these Four powerful intelligences, they figured as a circle with its vertical and horizontal diameters crossing thus forming the mundane cross, and to intrusted the building of the physical world and the guardianship of the cardinal points. To distinguish 1 Ubi supra, Plate XXIII.

each other,

them was

This sacred square, that Pythagoras taught his followers was Four and their oath, was a sacred number with the initiates in India, Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, and other countries, as well as with the Naacals of Mayach.

them, the genii of the north and of the south—that is, the keepers of the male principle of nature, of the active and fecundating forces were figured by the same circle with its crossed diameters, to which wings were added. This we learn from the inscriptions that adorn the façade of the sanctuary at Uxmal (Plate LXXI.) and from the Troano and other Maya MSS.

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These genii of the cardinal points, these four creators, are known to the Hindoo occultists as the "Four Maharajahs, great kings" of the Dhyan Chohans. In Ocosingo, Guate

WINGED CIRCLE FROM OCOSINGO.

mala, as also in Egypt, we see them portrayed as circles with

WINGED CIRCLE FROM EGYPT.

wings; in Assyria, as ferouhers. They became the amshaspands of the Mazdeans; the Elohim and the seraphs of the Hebrews; the archangels of the Christians and Mohammedans; the kabiri and Titans of Hesiod's theogony; the four gods whose golden

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statues, Clement of Alexandria tells us,' were carried by the Egyptians at all the festivals of the gods.

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These four powerful ones," these "Canobs," these heavenly architects, emanated from the "GREAT INFINITE ONE," evolved the material universe from chaos. The Maya occultists figured this manifested universe by inscribing a square within a circle; that is, by joining the ends of the vertical and horizontal

diameters.

400

200

The Pythagoreans honored numbers and geometrical designs with the names of the gods. The Egyptians called the male and female, "god," "chaos,"

monad" Intellect,"

"darkness."

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