The Celestial Ship Of The North
By
Miss E. Valentia Straiton
First Published Circa 1900 CE
First of all, let me express my gratitude to
Polo Delsalles of Montréal, Québec, for locating
this important treatise on the Web and forwarding it along to
me several years ago. This is a lengthy document containing 213
pages. In a PDF format its size is 584 KB. Appended below are
some excerpts from this treatise. If you would like to obtain
a complete copy of the file, you may click on the animated portal
below, which will activate your PDF Reader program and bring up
the file for downloading. Be advised that depending upon the speed
of your equipment's connection, this could take several minutes.
Please be patient. If you do not have a PDF Reader, you can download
a free copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader by clicking on the link.
It goes without saying, I think, that all of
these remarks by Miss Straiton ultimately refer to The Cosmic
Tree. In her day and age, however, contemporarily with the renown
Occultist-Egyptologist Gerald Massey, who was a friend of hers,
there was no information available, as yet, by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky,
Zecharia Sitchin and other later 20th-Century researchers and
writers.
Let me add to those of you who have previously
downloaded this file and who might visit this page again, yes,
indeed, as some have inquired, the previous version of Celestial
Ship was incomplete. You'll need to download this replacement.
My apologies. Today Polo sent me a full version. Merci, Polo!
Robertino Solàrion, Dallas, Texas, 3
January 2001
Update: 22 August 2004
To download a free Adobe Acrobat Reader, CLICK HERE.
FOREWORD
Age after age the Great Architect of the Universe
has sent his messengers in many lands to make plain to man that
the laws under which life spiritual and temporal evolves have
been the same from the foundation of the world and are but the
reactions of the planet earth to the stimuli of the moon, stars,
suns and super-suns of the heavens. And amongst these the Mighty
Ruler, "Ship of the North," was ever pre-eminent in
its primal energizing. The relation between the heavens and earth
has been the same fundamentally in all ages. Out of knowledge
of this ancient bond has been born the only true religion or "binding
back" to causation.
Heavenly forces play upon earth and visibly
impress their operative laws. The sun governs earth's motion.
The moon sways earth's tides. The pole-star exerts a law-giving,
orbit-directing influence upon earth's polar axis. And the signs
of the zodiac through which the Sun takes his royal course year
after year and in one of which earth dwells every age, being at
present in Pisces and proceeding thence into Aquarius, were called
the "living creatures" because of their lively magisterial
modification of forces playing through the sun upon earth. Of
old other celestial governors of earth were known and their forces
differentiated and reverenced.
Reverence in its highest essence is an eternal
and non-personal attribute of the soul and withers slowly but
fatally in the face of the reiterated assertion of a personal
exegetic dogma divorced from Nature's laws. To continue in spiritual
growth man must worship his Maker alone, that First Cause of which
all other causes are but relegations or emanations.
Astrology and astronomy, esoteric and exoteric
knowledge of the heavenly bodies or entities, have lain at the
generating heart of every great religion that has waxed and waned
upon earth in accordance with cyclic celestial law.
Out of the past the author has brought path-finding
clues to this First Cause which reveals Itself.
These pages are a contribution to that painstaking,
scientific, selfless research which shall in the coming years
identify behind the allegory, symbology and ritual of many faiths
the same everlasting truth, which perceived will unite all races
and creeds in reverence of creature for Creator, the one eternal
religion or "binding back" to Causation.
"Every one of these Stars that are in
Heaven, do not make the like, or an equal course; who is it that
hath prescribed unto every one, the manner and the greatness of
their course?
"This Bear that turns round about its
own self; and carries the whole World with her, who possessed
and made such an Instrument.
"Who hath set the Bounds of the Sea? Who
hath established the Earth? For there is somebody, O Tat, that
is the Maker and Lord of these things.
"For it is impossible, O Son, that either
place, or number, or measure, should be observed without a Maker.
"For no order can be made by disorder
or disproportion."
Hermes Trismegistus
Eden has another name, Gen-Eden, which means
Paradise, a "Garden of Delight," a "Region of Supreme
Loveliness." It also means to encompass, to surround, to
clasp, to enclose. It was a circle of space, a cycle of time,
a ring. As Paridhistha, it is situated on the horizon. Eden by
whatever name it may be called is a symbol of the Seven Stars
and their circle around the pole. It was the Paradise or Highlands
of early Sanskrit-speaking people. Its etymological meaning in
Greek signified voluptuousness. It was their Olympus. It was also
the early Mount Meru, the abode of the gods, and must have been
the Paradise of Mohammed, full of Houris. It was never the property
of the Jew. The tale of the lost Paradise restoration has been
attributed to the Hebrews but they had stolen it from the Persians.
One day its significance as an imperishable symbol of the Mother
heaven will again be recognized.
The original Eden meant Wisdom, and a place
of bliss like Nirvana. This makes reference to the fact that man
has power to evolve his own divine nature, since he holds within
himself the Eden in which grows the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil, and man is the Knower thereof. "The Garden of Eden
on the Euphrates became the garden of the Astrologers and the
Magi." "China, 2000 B. C., had such a primitive garden
in Central Asia, inhabited by the 'Dragons of Wisdom'," the
Wise Ones. The Japanese also had their Garden of Eden "on
the Plateau of Pamir between the highest peaks of the Himalayan
ranges," a culminating point of Central Asia, where four
rivers flowed from a common source called "The Lake of the
Dragons."1 The Light descended at these places in the past.
1 Blavatsky, H. P.-See The Secret Doctrine,
Vol. ii, pp. 203, 204.
Page 63
A symbol of sacred knowledge in antiquity was
a Tree, ever guarded by a serpent, the serpent or dragon of wisdom.
The serpent of Hercules was said to guard the golden apple that
hung from the Pole, the Tree of Life, in the midst of the garden
of the Hesperides. The serpent that guarded the golden fruit in
the garden of the Hesperides and the serpent of the Garden of
Eden, which enfolded with its coils that mysterious tree, are
the same.
Likewise Mount Meru with its beautiful tree,
the abode of the Gods was guarded by the serpent guarding the
North Pole, whose secret still defies the greatest explorers and
scientists of the day. We have also the myth of Juno giving to
Jupiter on her marriage with him a Tree with Golden Fruit. Is
it not the same tree, the Tree of Knowledge enfolded in the coils
of the serpent, which was given to Eve in the Garden of Eden,
and from which she offered the apple to Adam? What has changed
this Serpent of Wisdom into the devil of the Christians? The creative
power in man is a gift of divine wisdom and not the result of
sin. It is far better to place the so-called curse of the Garden
of Eden where it belongs.
Page 65
There is also the beautiful Asvattha, Tree
of Life, of the Bhagavad-Gita, whose roots are generated in Heaven,
representing the Supreme Being, and whose luxuriant branches spread
out over the terrestrial world. Those who can reach above its
branches need never reincarnate and return to experience the suffering
of the world. But when this tree reached the Garden of Genesis
it became changed beyond imagination, its pristine purity was
soiled, and it has ever since been the herald of perverted truth
and called a Curse.
Page 66
The cross is of immense antiquity, and was
first celestial. The Tree of Paradise was called the Tree of the
Cross, and was placed at the Mount of the Four Corners in the
Garden of Eden, which was formed by the stars encircling the pole.
Here the great Serpent, as the constellation Draco, kept his sacred
watch, "the Cross was an evolution from 'The Tree and the
Serpent' and thus became the salvation of mankind. By this it
would become the very first fundamental symbol of Creative cause,
applying to geometry, to numbers, to astronomy, to measure and
to animal reproduction." 1
1 Blavatsky, H. P.-The Secret Doctrine, Vol.
ii, p. 216.
The cross that is so sacred to the Christians
is supposed to date from the Crucifixion, about two thousand years
ago. For many years the cross stood for the Christ, but not the
humanized Christ of whom we have learned from the theologians,
but for the Christ that in those days of antiquity was a personification
of the Supreme Spirit, the Higher Self. Only in the Catacombs
of Rome during the early centuries of the Christian era, has the
ageless celestial Christ of the polar cross been humanized, and
as an alleged starting point for a new religion.
Page 69
The Tree of Life and the Cross were identical
also with that Mount Meru of the Four Corners that originated
at the Pole, with its seven steps, our Paradise.
Page 70
The Tat Cross or Pillar was a special type
of the Moon-god Taht, who was the establisher of the four quarters
of the Moon, as well as of Ptah the Sun-god when he established
the four quarters of the solar Zodiac. It is the equivalent of
the Mount of the Four Corners and was ever a sacred emblem.
Page 86
A four-headed and four-winged serpent in Egypt
symbolized the four corners of the earth, and their serpent, Apta,
a name signifying "The Corner or end of the World,"
was covered with four mystic figures, which represented the four
cardinal points. Hapu means "Corner or Secret Places,"
and the serpent Hapu was represented with four heads. Four serpents,
in various forms and conditions, were used in many countries as
foundations for temples, within which, designated by a serpent
were corners and places for worship.
The four corners that turned four ways were
called the Sword of Flyfut, the weapon of Thor. This was a form
of the four-footed cross, type of the four corners, as was the
Swastika or the God Agni of the Hindus, or the Agnus Dei of the
Christians.
Page 90
From the earliest Sabean reckoning by the constellation
of the Great Bear down to the latest periodicity given for the
Sun, the Four Corners and the ancient Sabean cycle still remain
in our solar Zodiac with the four quarters marked out by the signs
of the Lion, the Bird, the Waterer, and the Bull.
In all lands in all languages are found endless
myths of the early Four, which belong to the circle discovered
to have been made by the constellation of the Great Bear revolving
around the Pole. These myths are sacred and elevating in thought,
though often crudely expressed by primitive peoples who were giving
their impressions and conceptions of the Spirits, Angels and Winds,
which were to carry their messages of love and reverence into
the Great Beyond.
Page 93
There is a tradition that the first great tree
of earth was hung with clusters of beautiful stars or constellations,
and that certain human beings climbing ever higher and higher
reached the uppermost branches. There were others who stayed below,
and thus the trunk of the tree was divided in two, those human
beings in the branches remaining above in the heavens, while those
below had their roots in the earth. The vault of heaven was upheld
by the first tree, which putting forth two branches, produce our
quarters.
The Tree in the beginning was single, feminine,
the Mother, the nourisher of life. When the heavens divided, there
were two branches. Then there were four, the four quarters of
the four cardinal points of the world, and then it became seven-branched,
and these were the seven constellations revolving around the Pole,
or the Seven Stars of the Great Bear. Then came the tree with
its twelve branches, and variable fruits for every month, representing
the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and finally this celestial Tree
is depicted with seventy-two branches, the duo-decans of the Zodiac,
and known as the Kabalistic Tree. "By means of the Tree space
was first penetrated, identified, divided and configurated."
The twelve-branched Tree of the Book of Revelation is the Bearer,
celestial type of the Zodiac. The Chinese Tree of heaven and earth
has twelve branches, signifying their twelve hours, which are
our twenty-four. The thirty-six Crossings of the Syrians were
the decans of the twelve Zodiacal signs, originally known as the
thirty-six Crossing Stars. The Zodiac is completed with three
hundred and sixty degrees. The square of ninety degrees is one-fourth
of the circle, creating the four corners, which is the Cross within
the circle.
Page 105
There is a tree in the Koran called Al-Zakum.
Mohammed had this tree of Knowledge planted in a place called
Hell, instead of in Heaven. The fruit of this tree, of which the
damned were to eat, was represented by heads of devils and serpents.
This interpretation was, in a sense, but a later revival of the
tree and the serpent.
Page 107
The Palm Tree as an ideograph of time as well
as of letters was a form of the Tree of Knowledge, and when Taht,
the Egyptian scribe, carried a Palm cross in his hand it was a
symbol of Time, representing the crossing (astronomical), not
the crucifixion. It was the symbol of the equinoctial year. In
Egypt the Buka is the Palm Tree, the branch carried in the hand
of Taht, is the Book of Taht, and the bark of the tree was used
for his writing. The Buka, or Palm-branch finally yields us the
name of the Book. The Palm Tree was the Tree of Knowledge that
first supplied the divine drink. The Toddy Palm of Central Africa
yielded a liquid like milk, which was fermented and called Koumess.
A fermented drink was used in the ancient mysteries to induce
the gift of prophecy and divination, while the gods were said
to become intoxicated in order to obtain immortality. In Deuteronomy
xiv, 26, the Jew is told to save his money "for wine, or
strong drink, or for whatever thy soul desireth; and thou shalt
eat there before the Lord thy God," and this was to be his
offering to the deity. The first wine, in a mystical sense, was
the blood of the Tree of Life. The juice of the fruit of the tree
was mingled with blood to prepare the Eucharist of the ancient
mysteries.
Page 108
Our North American Indians have an instructive
symbology originated in reverence for the starry heavens and their
knowledge of the signs of Zodiac, and based upon the importance
of the four cardinal points symbolized in the Tree.
The Lenni Lenape Indians of Delaware hold a
festival, in their "House of Sacrifice," in honor of
the God of Fire, recognized as the Sun. Twelve poles or trees
are gathered, which they tie together at the top, and spread about
below into a circle. This they enclose by folding rugs and blankets
around it, so that it suggests a small furnace, into which they
roll twelve stones, heated until almost red hot. These are sacred
to their twelve spirits, four of which represent the genii of
the four cardinal points of heaven. Twelve men enter this Temple
of Sacrifice, and the duty of one of them, an old man, is to scatter
twelve handfuls of tobacco on the stones, the fumes from which,
being intensified in the enclosed circle, are inhaled by those
inside. This is construed as an inhaling of the spirit, or the
Great Breath, and produces a swooning, somnolent condition, which
finally reaches a state of ecstasy, in which the supernatural
is induced, creating or revealing to them the unseen world.
Page 109
The Oak Tree is more frequently struck by lightning
than any other of the forest trees. Fire kindled by lightning
was greatly reverenced by primitive peoples since they imaged
their God coming down to earth as thunder and lightning. Great
veneration was given the Oak and the Mistletoe growing upon it,
for the life or spirit of the tree was supposed to be in the mistletoe,
and therefore everliving.
The Yule Log was of Oak, which was the King
of the Forest. Its wood was burned at the midsummer festivals
as well as in winter, when the golden treasures of the Sun therein
stored were released to find a home in the heart of the true believer.
The Apple Tree was also made sacred by the
Mistletoe, and was called the Tree of Pure Gold. In ancient times
covenants were made and troths plighted under this tree. With
its berried sprigs of Mistletoe, so like the clustering stars,
it was named the Tree of the "Lofty Summit," pointing
the way above. Today we find the Mistletoe suspended overhead
at Christmastime for the Christmas kiss. "The tree of the
Summit" was a type of the Celestial Pole, Seat of Judgment,
and was guarded by the celestial serpent, the Constellation Draco.
Page 112
The Chinese Tree of Knowledge was their Immortal
Peach Tree, which bore fruit but once in every three thousand
years, around which are woven tales and legends similar to those
of the Tree of our Mother Eve of the Garden of Eden. The Chinese
manifestation was a Justice one and stressed the three thousand
year period, and their Peach Tree of Immortality produced only
the one fruit in those years. It is said also of this Tree that
three thousand years elapse before the Tree blossoms and another
three thousand years before its sets fruit, all having mystical
significance. The Great Mother in China was the Royal King-Mother
who produced the Immortal Peach, or the forbidden fruit of knowledge
but once in every three thousand years. It was the blossoming
and the setting of the fruit at stated periods that made this
Tree a cyclic symbol, for their Tree was an important type of
Time.
Page 113
The word God in Chinese, as well as in Egyptian
and in cuneiform writing, represents a Star. Under a horizontal
line there are three perpendicular wavy lines, apparently bringing
down "Light from the Sky," as the blue line above represents
the firmament. This outpouring of Rays of Light from the celestial
heaven or from the hidden Sun, their God, undoubtedly signified
the pouring out of the Light over China every three thousand years.
Page 114
The Russians have a belief that if the golden
bloom of the fern seed is caught at midnight on the mystical midsummer
eve and scattered about in the shadowy darkness, it will fall
to the ground like sparkling stars, directly on the spot where
great treasures are hidden. This is a key to the hidden mystical
treasures of divine knowledge.
Page 120
Mithra was the name of the Solar God of Light
and Wisdom among the Persians. His birthday was celebrated on
the twenty-fifth of December, date of the rebirth of the Sun at
the time of the Winter Solstice. The Mithraic cult was introduced
into Rome by the early Emperors, and the date of December twenty-fifth
was adopted as a special festival by Aurelian A.D. 273. The Solar
character of this festival was well known by the Roman Emperors,
and not until the Fourth Century was December twenty-fifth introduced
and accepted as the birthday of their Christ. "Augustus and
Gregory discoursed on 'the glowing light and diminishing darkness
that follow a nativity'." 1 "Pope Leo the Great recognized
the day as the birthday of the Sun; and denounced it as the birthday
of Christ. He was Pope of Rome in the Fourth or Fifth century.
Gregory the Great became Pope about the year 590." 2
1 Olcott-Sun Lore of All Ages, p. 230. 2 Special
Reports, Leo the Great and Gregory the Great. Mithra was said
to have been born in a cave at the Winter Solstice, which occurs
in the Zodiacal sign Capricorn.3 Abba-Udda, the Akkadian name
for the tenth month, which corresponds approximately to December,
means "The Cave of Light," and indicates the birth of
the Mithraic Messiah. This Mithraic cult with its aspirations
towards moral purity and immortality, proved a formidable rival
to Christianity. Our Christmas is borrowed directly from it, and
close relation is found between the Sacred Books of Revelation
of the two cults-the Persian Zend-Avesta (the Parsee Book of Zoroaster),
written about 1000 B. C., and the Book of Revelation of John of
Patmos. The foundations of both these books are astronomical and
prophetic. All ancient prophets and priests were astrologers.
3 On the twenty-fifth of December, the day of the Nativity of
the Sun, the days begin to lengthen, and the Sun's power is on
the increase. This was the time when in Egypt and Syria the celebrants
entered the inner shrine, and issued at midnight crying, "The
Virgin has brought forth"-"The Light is Waxing."
The log burned on Christmas Eve was in celebration of the birth
of the divine child as the Solar Sun-god.
Page 122
A comparison of the two books will reveal the
Christian form of the Mithraic Revelation. To attain knowledge
of God and see the future, Zoroaster drinks of a special magnetized
water which produces a trance lasting seven days and nights. In
Revelation we are told that John eats a little Book that he may
prophesy. The Serpent, which was the constellation Draco, called
the Serpent, or the Dragon, figures largely in both visions. In
one book the Dragon swallows one-third of mankind, cattle, sheep,
and other creatures; in the other he draws the third part of the
stars from heaven with his tail. When the ancient religion of
the Mother and Son was changed into that of the Father and Son,
the change was symbolized by the falling of a star from heaven.
This is the demoralization or dethronement of that "Old Mother,"
who became the degraded Venus in one cult and the harlot in the
other. "When the Star Jupiter comes to its culminating point
and casts Venus down, the sovereignty comes to the Prince,"
and there is the "Woman clothed with the Sun whose Prince
comes when the Star falls from the sky."
Page 123
When the sun rises at the time of the Winter
Solstice, and the Christmas celebration takes place, the Zodiacal
sign Virgo appears on the horizon. The twenty-fifth of December
is a date given not only for the birthday of the Sun, but also
for the births of Jesus, Buddha, and Mithra. Virgo, the virgin
sign of the Zodiac, is represented as a Mother, and looking at
a very old planisphere of the heavens, we can see her there symbolized,
holding a child in her arms, and apparently pursued by a serpent
which is directly under her feet, and as if about to be trodden
upon. This same symbolism obtains for Isis and Osiris of Egypt,
Maya and Buddha of India, as well as in China, and in the Book
of Revelation. The Woman and the Child later found in Rome as
Mary and Jesus are an example of it. The unity of the ancient
myths found in various countries of the world, slightly changed
in some renderings, due to elaborations, but identical in their
roots, is unmistakable. The myths of the Serpent, emblem of Eternity
and type of the night which encircles the world in an endless
embrace are similarly identical. And what of astrology, "Astrology
is a synthesis, because the Tree of Life is a single Tree and
because its branches spread through heaven bearing flowers of
Stars . . . are in correspondence with its roots, which are hidden
in earth." 1 And these Stars are reflectors of great and
mighty splendors, while our Sun, symbol of the Great Central Sun,
which is the source of all Truth and Light, is but the phantom
shadow of that great primal Source from which all glory emanates
and which manifests in man as a spark of Divine Fire.
1 Ballanche-Orphic Initiation.
Pages 128-29
As far back as the third "Deluge"
of the third Lemurian race, that old Dragon "Whose tail sweeps
whole nations out of existence in the twinkling of an eye,"
that ancient "Old Dragon" of the heavenly constellation
was identical with the great Flood. "We know that in the
past the constellation of the Dragon was at the pole, or boss,
of the celestial sphere. In stellar temples . . . the Dragon would
be the uppermost or ruling constellation . . . it is singular
how closely the constellations . . . correspond in sequence and
in range of right ascension with the events recorded respecting
the (Biblical) flood." 1 The first great flood was heaven-born
and cosmical. There have been numbers of terrestrial floods.
1 Proctor.
Page 130
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