THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS. 



27a 



sufficiently obvious is all that I care to maintain 

 — namely, that these shepherd-astronomers were 

 of Chaldean birth and training, and therefore 

 astrologers, though, unlike their Chaldean kins- 

 men, they rejected Sabaism or star-worship, and 

 taught the belief in one only Deity. 



Now, if these visitors were astrologers, who 

 persuaded Cheops, and were honestly convinced 

 themselves, that they could predict the events of 

 any man's life by the Chaldean method of cast- 

 ing nativities, we can readily understand many 

 circumstances connected with the pyramids which 

 have hitherto seemed inexplicable. The pyramid 

 built by a king would no longer be regarded as 

 having reference to his death and burial, but to 

 his birth and life, though after his death it might 

 receive his body. Each king would require to 

 have his own nativity-pyramid, built with due 

 symbolical reference to the special celestial influ- 

 ences affecting his fortunes. Every portion of 

 the work would have to be carried out under 

 special conditions, determined according to the 

 mysterious influences ascribed to the different 

 planets and their varying positions — 



" . . . . now high, now low, then hid, 

 Progressive, retrograde, or standing still." 



If the work had been intended only to afford 

 the means of predicting the king's future, the 

 labor would have been regarded by the monarch 

 as well bestowed. But astrology involved much 

 more than the mere prediction of future events. 

 Astrology claimed to possess the power of ruling 

 the planets — that is, of course, not of ruling the 

 motions of those bodies, but of providing against 

 evil influences or strengthening good influences 

 which they supposed the celestial orbs to exert 

 in particular aspects. Thus we can understand 

 that white the mere basement layers of the pyra- 

 mid would have served for the process of casting 

 the royal nativity, with due mystic observances, 

 the further progress of building the pyramid 

 would supply the necessary means and indica- 

 tions for ruling the planets most potent in their 

 influence upon the royal career. 



Remembering the mysterious influence which 

 astrologers ascribed to special numbers, figures, 

 positions, and so forth, the care with which the 

 Great Pyramid was so proportioned as to indi- 

 cate particular astronomical and mathematical re- 

 lations is at once explained. The four sides of the 

 square base were carefully placed with reference 

 to the cardinal points precisely like the four sides 

 of the ordinary square scheme of nativity. 1 The 



1 The language of the modern Zadkiels and Raphaels, 

 though meaningless and absurd in itself, yet, as assuredly 



18 



eastern side faced the Ascendant, the southern 

 faced the Mid-heaven, the western faced the De- 

 scendant, and the northern faced the Imum Cadi. 

 Again, we can understand that the architects 

 would have made a circuit of the base correspond 

 in length with the number of days in the year — 

 a relation which, according to Prof. P. Smyth, is 

 fulfilled in this manner, that the four sides con- 

 tain one hundred times as many pyramid-inches 

 as there are days in the year. The pyramid-inch, 

 again, is itself mystically connected with astro- 

 nomical relations, for its length is equal to the 

 five hundred millionth part of the earth's diame- 

 ter, to a degree of exactness corresponding well 

 with what we might expect Chaldean astrono- 

 mers to attain. Prof. Smyth, indeed, believes 

 that it was exactly equal to that proportion of 

 the earth's polar diameter — a view which would 

 correspond with his theory that the architects 

 of the Great Pyramid were assisted by divine in- 

 spiration ; but what is certainly known about the 

 sacred cubit, which contained twenty-five of these 

 inches, corresponds better with the diameter 

 which the Chaldean astronomers, if they worked 

 very carefully, would have deduced from observa- 

 tions made in their own country, on the suppo- 

 sition which they would naturally have made that 

 the earth is a perfect globe, not compressed at 

 the poles. It is not indeed at all certain that the 

 sacred cubit bore any reference to the earth's 

 dimensions; but this seems tolerably well made 

 out — that the sacred cubit was about twenty-five 

 inches in length, and that the circuit of the pyra- 

 mid's base contained a hundred inches for every 

 day of the year. Relations such as these are pre- 



derived from the astrology of the oldest times, may hero 

 be quoted, (It certainly was not invented to give support 

 to the theory I am at present advocating.) Thus runs the 

 jargon of the tribe: "In order to illustrate plainly to the 

 reader what astrologers mean by the ' houses of heaven,' 

 it is proper for him to bear in mind the four cardinal 

 points. The eastern, facing the rising sun, has at its cen- 

 tre the first grand angle or first house, termed the Horo- 

 scope or ascendant. The northern, opposite the region 

 where the sun is at midnight, or the cusp of the lower 

 heaven or nadir, is the Imum Coeli, and has at its centre 

 the fourth house. The western, facing the setting sun, has 

 at its centre the third grand angle or seventh house or de- 

 scendant. And lastly, the southern, facing the noonday 

 sun, has at its centre the astrologer's tenth house, or Mid- 

 heaven, the most powerful angle or house of honor." 

 " And although," proceeds the modern astrologer, " we 

 cannot in the ethereal blue discern these lines or termi- 

 nating divisions, both reason and experience assure us that 

 they certainly exist ; therefore the astrologer has certain 

 grounds for the choice of his four angular houses" (out of 

 twelve in all), " which, resembling the palpable demonstra- 

 tion they afford, are in the astral science esteemed the 

 most powerful of the whole."— (Raphael's "Manual of 

 Astrology.") 



