The palm tree, the candle and the Asherim are symbols and images of Baal, and the two last are offered up as sacrifices, corresponding to the pillars and candles in the worship of Jehovah. Around the temple of Jehovah as well as the temple of Baal, in the Holy Land, were the ancient nunneries. The Kadishim or Holy Ladies lived in tents arranged in a circle about the temple, and on each side of each tent or Fornix stood a Knight of Kadish. The pious people who desired to worship god gave up to the guard a shekel (sixty cents) and entered into the tent of the Kadish, and the money so collected went to the service of god, which means the priestly white slavers and the Worshipful Knights of Kadish. The Kadishim were the same as the Deva Dasi, the concubines and dancing girls of the Hindu temples, the slaves of the gods. “There is reason to believe that the Israelites at an early date applied the name of Baal to Jehovah. Baal was represented on the high places by pillars,” as the strange god of John’s Revelation is pictured on his throne.—“Baal,” Ency. Brit. One hundred of the most beautiful and seductive daughters of the people, innocent girls of tender age, were torn from their homes by the ruthless priests to fill the holy places of god around each temple. The priests by constant iteration convinced the parents that it was a high honor to be permitted to devote their daughters to god, and that as a reward, in the great hereafter, they would sit beside the Great White Throne with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the other Jews, and all the hod-carriers, who, having washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb, sit on their little golden thrones with their dudeens in their mouths and their hats gently tilted over one eye, while they decorate with tobacco juice the dazzling surface of the crystal sea.

At the great temple of Baal, they had a palm tree standing in the midst of the garden, and in the holy temple of Jehovah they had a stone pillar around which the Kadishim, at the vernal equinox, danced in the nude. This is the day dedicated to Astarte, or Ishtar or Easter. This occult ceremony is one of the most beautiful and entrancing in our refulgent and god-given religion. As the Tree of Life stands in the midst of the circle of females, so the rays from the sun penetrate the earth and annually renew its life. So the rays of the sun at high noon penetrated the ark, that old box in which the priests kept the male and female emblems, and before which King David for occult reasons danced in the altogether. The ark corresponds with the sacred Argha of the Hindus, an oblong vessel, a sacrificial chalice, used in the worship of Isis, Astarte and Venus. It is a most holy symbol, containing, in the play, the germs of all living things, and when we drink out of it at the communion service, we drink eternal life. They planted the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden or grove, as God planted the tree in the midst of the Garden of Eden. You will notice the serpent coiled about the tree in Eden. This is the symbol of Life. The serpent is a symbol of the female.

The Israelites were commanded not to worship idols, but in the darkest hour of their history, when their own God, Jehovah, had sent upon them the plague of serpents and consigned them to destruction, then they called upon the mighty sun-god, they looked upon the brazen serpent on a cross, the Elevation of the Host, and the remnant of Israel was saved. Israel, it is said, worshipped the serpent or Devil until about 726 B. C. You will see this same god on the Masonic chart.

The Talmud says that when Ben Asai and Ben Zoma were to be initiated into the Garden of Delights, Ben Asai looked and lost his sight, and Ben Zoma looked and lost his reason. Eusebius shows that St. James, the brother of Jesus and first Bishop of Jerusalem, never shaved or took a bath, and he alone could enter into the holy places.

The merry maidens who circulate about the May-pole on May-day are devoted devotees of the loving god Baal Poer. And we on Palm Sunday carry palm leaves from the sacred palm tree to show that we are faithful worshippers of the true god Baal.

In Italy, the clergy had at one time, according to Isis Unveiled, 2-5, a thriving trade in those things which they called the holy limbs of Saints Cosmo and Damiano. These male emblems were made of wax and certainly beautiful to behold. The divine spirit shining through them in resplendent glory cast its radiance afar. He who was so fortunate as to possess sufficient filthy lucre to purchase one saved his immortal soul from Hell, for was it not the symbol of life and the image of the great god.

For the form of the pillar as worshipped in Syria, see page 121, A. P. & M. C. Symbolism, and on the mall of Boston Common may be seen the same pillar as adored by us at the Hub of Universal Culture, erected there to commemorate the birth of American liberty. Let us hope that you will get out early in the morning and see the blue-bellied Puritans and the codfish aristocracy kneeling before this sacred shrine, with their hands thrust through their rosaries, praying that this great god may make them fruitful.

“The superstition of Europe instead of being diminished by the introduction of Christianity was only turned into a fresh channel. The new religion was corrupted by the old follies, the worship of the Virgin was substituted for the worship of Cybele, the mother of the gods. March 25th, Lady’s Day, dedicated to Mary, was formerly called Hilaria and dedicated to Cybele. The religion of mankind is the effect of their improvement not the cause of it.”—Buckle’s Hist. Civ. 1-188.