The mystery of the Great pyramid : traditions concerning it and its connection with the Egyptian Book of the dead : with numerous illustrations

MYSTERY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID

The correspondence, however, which can be traced between the passage-chambers of the Great Pyramida correspondence first pointed out by the Oxford scholar, Marsham Adams, and endorsed by the distinguished Egyptologist, the late Sir Gaston Maspero—and the different stages traversed by the holy departed in passing from the light of earth to the light of eternal day, is so singular and so close, that the existence of these chambers and their arrangement must have been known to the priests who probably regarded it as a symbolic Temple of Initiation, a symbol of the national religion. Marsham Adams, however, apparently regarded the Great Pyramid as actually used for purposes of initiation (see Note B), an idea which, as already noted, seems improbable, though the possibility of such use is referred to later in these pages.

The view that the Great Pyramid was a Temple of Initiation or Masonic Hall has, in the past, had several supporters, its secret passages, dark solitudes, and mysterious chambers, being regarded as a fitting place for initiation into those secret mysteries which were the forerunners of the Eleusinian rites of the Greeks. All the symbols of the Masonic craft are to be found geometrically expressed therein centuries before Solomon raised his Masonic Temple. It is not surprising, therefore, that Masonic writers, more particularly American ones, have been more inclined to refer to the Great Pyramid as the origin of their cult than to the Jachin and Boaz of King Solomon, one, indeed, considering it highly probable it was ‘‘ exclusively devoted to purposes of initiation ”’.

The points of correspondence, moreover, between the various stages in the Ritual of the Book of the Dead and the passages and chambers in the Monument, are also so numerous in themselves that they constitute a check upon each other, and by so doing negative the idea of their