Blessed Night, Loves 😊

I Pray All Is Well With Everyone…And Your Hearts And Minds Are Full Of Love, Joy, And Compassion…For Yourselves And Everyone Else…All Over the World. And Whenever We Are Radiating Those Higher Qualities…We Are In The Flow Of Love…And In A Much Higher Vibratory State…Than When We Are Not. And Staying In That Flow Of Love And Maintaining Those Higher Vibes Becomes Effortless…When We Are Consciously And Constantly Acknowledging The Love Of Our “Mighty I AM Presence” – For It Is The “Presence” And Love Of The Living God Within Us…Then Activated! Amen…

Give Thanks And Praises For Love And Life…

And Y’all Be Love…

“The prevalent idea that the reverence for the cross is limited to the Christian world is disproved by even the most superficial investigation of its place in religious symbolism. The early Christians used every means possible to conceal the pagan origin of their symbols, doctrines, and rituals. They either destroyed the sacred books of other peoples among whom they settled, or made them inaccessible to students of comparative philosophy, apparently believing that in this way they could stamp out all record of the pre-Christian origin of their doctrines. In some cases, the writings of various ancient authors were tampered with, passages of a compromising nature being removed, or foreign material interpolated. The supposedly spurious passage in Josephus concerning Jesus is an example adduced to illustrate this proclivity.

Prior to the Christian Era, seven hundred thousand of the most valuable books, written upon parchment, papyrus, vellum, and wax, and also tablets of stone, terra cotta, and wood, were gathered from all parts of the ancient world, and housed in Alexandria, in buildings specially prepared for the purpose. This magnificent repository of knowledge was destroyed by a series of three fires.

… Thomas Macall Fallow casts much light on the antiquity of this ideograph. “The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times, and among non-Christian peoples, may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship.” Not only is the cross itself a familiar object in the art of all nations, but the veneration for it is an essential part of the religious life of the greater part of humanity. It is a common symbol among the American Indians – North, Central, and South. William W. Seymour states: “The Aztec goddess of rain bore a cross in her hand, and the Toltecs claimed that their deity, Quetzalcoatl, taught them the sign and ritual of the cross, hence his staff, or sceptre of power, resembled a crosier, and his mantle was covered with red crosses.” (The Cross in Tradition, History and Art.)

The cross is also highly revered by the Japanese and Chinese. To the Pythagoreans the most sacred of all numbers was the 10, the symbol of which is an X, or cross. In both the Japanese and Chinese languages, the character of the number 10 is a cross. The Buddhist wheel of life is composed of two crosses superimposed, and its eight points are still preserved to Christendom in the peculiarly formed cross of the Knights Templars, which is essentially Buddhistic. India has preserved the cross, not only in its carvings and paintings, but also in its architectonics; a great number of its temples – like the churches and cathedrals of Christendom – are raised from cruciform foundations.

On the mandalas of the Tibetans, heaven is laid out in the form of a cross, with a demon king at each of the four gates. A remarkable cross of great antiquity was discovered in the island caves of Elephanta in the harbor of Bombay. Crosses of various kinds were favorite motifs in the art of Chaldea, Phœnicia, Egypt, and Assyria. The initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece were given a cross which they suspended about their necks on a chain, or cord, at the time of initiation. To the Rosicrucians, Alchemists, and Illuminati, the cross was the symbol of light, because each of the three letters, L V X, is derived from some part of the cross.

There are three distinct forms of the cross. The first is called the TAU, (more correctly the TAV). It closely resembles the modern letter T, consisting of a horizontal bar resting on a vertical column, the two arms being of equal length. An oak tree cut off some feet above the ground and its upper part laid across the lower in this form was the symbol of the Druid god Hu. It is suspected that this symbol originated among the Egyptians from the spread of the horns of a bull or ram, (Taurus or Aries), and the vertical line of its face. This is sometimes designated as the hammer cross, because if held by its vertical base it is not unlike a mallet or gavel. In one of the Qabbalistic Masonic legends, Chiram Abiff is given a hammer in the form of a TAU by his ancestor, Tubal-cain. The TAU cross is preserved to modern Masonry under the symbol of the T square. This appears to be the oldest form of the cross extant. The TAU cross was inscribed on the forehead of every person admitted into the Mysteries of Mithras. When a king was initiated into the Egyptian Mysteries, the TAU was placed against his lips. It was tattooed upon the bodies of the candidates in some of the American Indian Mysteries. To the Qabbalist, the TAU stood for heaven and the Pythagorean tetractys. The Caduceus of Hermes was an outgrowth of the TAU cross.

The second type was that of a T, or TAU cross surmounted by a circle, often foreshortened to the form of an upright oval. This was called by the ancients the Crux Ansata, or the cross of life. It was the key to the Mysteries of antiquity, and it probably gave rise to the more modern story of St. Peter’s golden key to heaven. In the Mysteries of Egypt, the candidate passed through all forms of actual and imaginary dangers, holding above his head the Crux Ansata, before which the powers of darkness fell back abashed. The student is reminded of the words In hoc signo vinces. The TAU form of the cross is not unlike the seal of Venus, as Richard Payne Knight has noted. He states: “The cross in this form is sometimes observable on coins, and several of them were found in a temple of Serapis, (the Serapeum), demolished at the general destruction of those edifices by the Emperor Theodosius, and were said by the Christian antiquaries of that time to signify the future life.”

Augustus Le Plongeon, in his Sacred Mysteries Among the Mayas and Quiches, notes that the Crux Ansata, which he calls The Key to the Nile and the Symbol of Symbols, either in its complete form or as a simple TAU, was to be seen adorning the breasts of statues and bas-reliefs at Palenque, Copan, and throughout Central America. He notes that it was always associated with water; that among the Babylonians it was the emblem of the water gods; among the Scandinavians, of heaven and immortality; and among the Mayas, of rejuvenation and freedom from physical suffering.

Concerning the association of this symbol with the waters of life, Count Goblet d’Alviella, in his Migration of Symbols, calls attention to the fact that an instrument resembling the Crux Ansata and called the Nilometer was used by the ancient Egyptians for measuring and regulating the inundations of the river Nile. It is probable that this relationship to the Nile caused it to be considered the symbol of life, for Egypt depended entirely upon the inundations of this river for the irrigation necessary to insure sufficient crops. In the papyrus scrolls the Crux Ansata is shown issuing from the mouths of Egyptian kings when they pardoned enemies, and it was buried with them to signify the immortality of the soul. It was carried by many of the gods and goddesses and apparently signified their divine benevolence and life-giving power. The Cairo Museum contains a magnificent collection of crosses of many shapes, sizes, and designs, proving that they were a common symbol among the Egyptians.

The third form of the cross is the familiar Roman or Greek type, which is closely associated with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, although it is improbable that the cross used resembled its more familiar modern form. There are unlimited sub-varieties of crosses, differing in the relative proportions of their vertical and horizontal sections. Among the secret orders of different generations, we find compounded crosses, such as the triple TAU in the Royal Arch of Freemasonry and the double and triple crosses of both Masonic and Roman Catholic symbolism.

To the Christian the cross has a twofold significance. First, it is the symbol of the death of his Redeemer, through whose martyrdom he feels that he partakes of the glory of God; secondly, it is the symbol of humility, patience, and the burden of life. It is interesting that the cross should be both a symbol of life and a symbol of death. Many nations deeply considered the astronomical aspect of religion, and it is probable that the Persians, Greeks, and Hindus looked upon the cross as a symbol of the equinoxes and the solstices, in the belief that at certain seasons of the year the sun was symbolically crucified upon these imaginary celestial angles.

The fact that so many nations have regarded their Savior as a personification of the sun globe is convincing evidence that the cross must exist as an astronomical element in pagan allegory. Augustus Le Plongeon believed that the veneration for the cross was partly due to the rising of a constellation called the Southern Cross, which immediately preceded the annual rains, and as the natives of those latitudes relied wholly upon these rains to raise their crops, they viewed the cross as an annual promise of the approaching storms, which to them meant life.

There are four basic elements, (according to both ancient philosophy and modern science), and the ancients represented them by the four arms of the cross, placing at the end of each arm a mysterious Qabbalistic creature to symbolize the power of one of these elements. Thus, they symbolized the element of earth by a bull; water by a scorpion, a serpent, or an eagle; fire by a lion; and air by a human head surrounded by wings. It is significant that the four letters inscribed upon parchment, (some say wood), and fastened to the top of the cross at the time of the crucifixion should be the first letters of four Hebrew words which stand for the four elements: “Iammin, the sea or water; Nour, fire; Rouach, the air; and Iebeschah, the dry earth.” That a cross can be formed by opening or unfolding the surfaces of a cube has caused that symbol to be associated with the earth. Though a cross within a circle has long been regarded as a sign of the planet Earth, it should really be considered as the symbol of the composite element earth, since it is composed of the four triangles of the elements.

For thousands of years the cross has been identified with the plan of salvation for humanity. The elements – salt, sulphur, mercury, and Azoth – used in making the Philosopher’s Stone in Alchemy, were often symbolized by a cross. The cross of the four cardinal angles also had its secret significance, and Masonic parties of three still go forth to the four cardinal points of the compass in search of the Lost Word.

The material of which the cross was formed was looked upon as being an essential element in its symbolism. Thus, a golden cross symbolized illumination; a silver cross, purification; a cross of base metals, humiliation; a cross of wood, aspiration. The fact that among many nations it was customary to spread the arms in prayer has influenced the symbolism of the cross, which, because of its shape, has come to be regarded as emblematic of the human body. The four major divisions of the human structure – bones, muscles, nerves, and arteries – are considered to have contributed to the symbolism of the cross. This is especially due to the fact that the spinal nerves cross at the base of the spine and is a reminder that “Our Lord was crucified also in Egypt.”

Man has four vehicles, (or mediums), of expression by means of which the spiritual Ego contacts the external universe: the physical nature, the vital nature, the emotional nature, and the mental nature. Each of these partakes in principle of one of the primary elements, and the four creatures assigned to them by the Qabbalists, caused the cross to be symbolic of the compound nature of man.”

The Secret Teachings Of All Ages, by Manly P. Hall, 1928