M Templar Banner. CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH. THE ROSICRUCIANS AMIDST ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND IN THE HE "Collar of Esses" is supposed always to be a part of the Order of the Garter. The coupled "S.S." mean the "Sanctus Spiritus," or "Holy Spirit," or the "Third Person." The "Fleurs-de-Lis," or "Lisses," or the "Lilies of the Field," invariably appear in close connection with St. John, or the "Sanctus Spiritus," and also with the Blessed Virgin Mary, in all Christian symbola or insignia. The Prince of Wales's triple plume appears to have the same mythic Egyptian and Babylonian origin, and to be substantially the same symbol as the "Fleur-de-Lis." When arranged in threes, the "Fleurs-deLis" represent the triple powers of nature,-the "producer," the "means of production," and "that produced." The "Fleur-de-Lis" is presented in a deep disguise in the "Three Feathers," which is the crest of the Prince of Wales; in this form the Fleur-de-Lis is intended to elude ordinary recognition. The reader will observe the hint of these significant "Lisses" in the triple scrolls or "Esses" coiled around the bar in the reverse of the Gnostic gem, the "Chnuphis Serpent," elsewhere given. This amulet is a fine opalescent chalcedony, very convex on both sides. It is the figure of the "Chnuphis Serpent" rearing himself aloft in act to dart, crowned with the seven vowels, the cabalistic gift to Man, signifying "speech." The reverse presents the triple "S.S.S." coiled around the "Phallus." In fig. 170 we have the Prince of Wales's Feathers, from the Tomb of Edward the Black Prince, in Canterbury Cathedral. This badge presents the idea of the "Fleur-deLis, "Ich Dien !"-"I serve!" Fig. 171 represents the Egyptian Triple Plumes, which are the same badge as the "Fleur-de-Lis" and the Prince of Wales's Feathers, meaning the "Trinity." THE TEMPLE AT DELPHI. 257 Fig. 172-also (ante) referred to as fig. 191-is a Gnostic Gem. It represents the "Chnuphis Serpent," spoken of at page 220. A famous inscription (Delphic E) was placed above the portal of the Temple at Delphi. This inscription was a single letter, namely, the letter E, the name of which in Greek was E, which is the second person of the present of the indicative of the verb eu, and signifies "Thou art;" being, as Plutarch has interpreted it, the salutation of the god by those who entered the Temple. See Plutarch de E apud Delph. Lord Monboddo's Origin and Progress of Language (1774), vol. ii. p. 85, refers to this letter E. The Delphic "E" means the number "Five," or the half of the Cabalistic Zodiac, or the Five Ascending Signs. This "Delphic E" is also the Seleucidan Anchor. It was S adopted by the Gnostics to indicate the "Saviour," and it is frequent in the talismans and amulets of the early Christians. It is one of the principal gems of the Gnostics, and is a cameo in flat relief. One of the charges against the Knights Templars was as follows: "That they bound, or touched, the head of an idol with cords, wherewith they bound themselves about their shirts or next their skins" ("Processus contra Templarios," Dugd. Monast. Ang. vol. vi. part ii. pp. 844-46, &c.). There is something strange about these cords, cordons, ropes, belts, bands, baldrics (also in the term "belted earls"). These are always male accessories; except the "zones," sashes, or girdles, worn as the mark of virgins, which cinctures may yet draw their symbolic meaning from this same "umbilicus" in question. The reader will notice also the connection of these ideas and the practice in the Roman race of the "Lupercal," at the February Roman religious solemnities (February of the "Fishes"). At these it was the custom of the runners to flog bystanders, particularly women, with thongs or cords; which were probably intended to be the racers' own girdles. Julius Cæsar, Mark Antony, and Calphurnia form a group illustrative of this meaning. Thus Shakspeare: "Our elders say, The barren, touchèd in this holy chase, Julius Caesar, act. i. sc. 2. Is this the origin of the custom of the people pelting or flogging each other at the Italian Carnivals? It seems highly probable. The Carnivals occur at the same time as these Roman Lupercalia. Many early Norman mouldings exhibit various examples of the cable. Thongs, ties, and network are seen to bind FIGURES OF THE" CENTAURI." 259 all the significant figures in the early English and Irish churches. Is there any connection between these bonds, or ties, or lacings, with the "cable-tow" of the initiates among the Masons? Perhaps the "tow" in this "cable-tow” means the "Tau," or stood for it originally. Reference may here be made to the snake which forms the girdle of the Gnostic" Good Shepherd" in the illustration later in our book (fig. 252). The cable-mouldings in Gothic architecture are intended. to carry an important meaning. They are found in the pointed or Christian architecture in continual close connection with the triplicated zigzag, the Vandykes, or “aquariï,” as we designate them, because all these architectural forms, which are hieroglyphs, mean the feminine or "Second Principle," and express the sign of Aquarius, with its watery or lunar hints, its twin-fishes, and its Jonah-like anagrams of the "Redeemer." Hence the boat-like, elongated, peculiar form called the vesica piscis, which is the oblong frame continually set over doors and windows and elsewhere in Gothic churches, to contain effigies of the Saviour, or Virgin Mary, or groups from the New Testament in connection with these Two Sacred Persons. A doorway in Barfreston Church, Kent, supplies an excellent example of the employment of this oblong figure; which is also Babylonian, and means the female member as its starting-point. In a previous part of our book we give various figures of the prows or cutwater-heads of gondolas, in which we clearly show the origin of their peculiar form, which represents the securis, or "sacrificial axe," that originally expressed the "hook of Saturn." The "Bu-Centaur" indicates the fabulous being, the bicorporate "ox" or "horse" and "Man," as will be found by a separation of the syllables "Bu-Centaur." It is the name of the state galley of the Doge of Venice, used on the occasion of his figurative marriage with |