Theos-Talk Archives (May 2000 Message tt00038)

Leon,

I quote at the very end of this email HPB comments on
"oblong squares".

Notice that she specifically says in her article that "oblong
square" is a "Masonic term; a symbol of the Arc of Noah, and of the
Covenant, of the
Temples of Solomon, the Tabernacle, and the Camp of the Israelites, all
built as 'oblong squares'. "  MASONIC   ........... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

This got me to thinking so I searched the Internet and found dozens
of web pages that mention in one way or another "oblong squares".
I've already sent to Theos-Talk two separate emails giving excepts
from more than a dozen web pages with URLs.  ALL OF THIS IS
AN EYE OPENER AND VERY VERY SUGGESTIVE.

The term is apparently well known in Masonry, architecture, symbolism and
there are some
suggestive things EVEN in Pythagorean mathematics, etc.  SEE THE EXERPTS
in my other two emails.

I don't mean to be unkind Leon but your previous comments on "oblong
squares" seem to indicate that you just don't know what you are talking
about
in this particular instance.

It would appear from all this material that HPB knew EXACTLY what she
was writing about and uses this term properly and correctly.  Therefore in
the VOICE text I see absolutely no good reason for changing
what HPB originally wrote.  In other words, one should not just look at the
surface meaning but go deeper.  Her comments are very suggestive and
are like a key. . . .

Thanks to the Internet, HPB's reference to "oblong squares" is vindicated.

What is the moral of the story here.  I think that it is that we should ALL
carefully
study a subject BEFORE we start making pronouncements on said subject.

Also that an editor should think twice or thrice before changing something
in
HPB's writings.  He may think he is correcting a mistake when in fact his
"correction" may only betray his own ignorance.

Let us all benefit from this.

Fraternally,

Daniel




HPB writes:

  "The original PRECEPTS are engraved on thin oblong squares"
  (VOICE, Original edition, page vii, caps added where italics put in
original)

".. the same reverence is paid in Christian and Masonic architecture to the
Orient (or the Eastern point) as in the days of Paganism.  Ragon described
it fully in his destroyed volumes.  The PRINCEPS PORTA, the door of the
World, and of the 'King of Glory,' by whom was meant at first the Sun and
now his human symbol, the Christ, is the door of the Orient, and faces the
East in every church and temple.  It is through this 'door of life' - the
solemn pathway through which the daily entrance of the luminary into the
OBLONG SQUARE** of the earth or the Tabernacle of the Sun is effected every
morning - that the 'newly born' babe is ushered, and carried to the
baptismal font; and it is to the left of this edifice (the gloomy north
whither start the 'apprentices' and where the candidates got their TRIAL BY
WATER) that now the fonts, and in the days of old the well (PISCINA) of
lustral waters, were placed in the ancient churches, which had been pagan
fanes."

(from CW XI: page 78.  Words in caps were italicised in original article)


"**A Masonic term; a symbol of the Arc of Noah, and of the Covenant, of the
Temples of Solomon, the Tabernacle, and the Camp of the Israelites, all
built as 'oblong squares'.  Mercury and Apollo were repreesented by oblong
cubes and squares, and so is Kaaba, the great temple at Mecca."
(CW XI: 78, fn)





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