Nevertheless, TRUTH has not allowed herself to remain without witnesses. There are, besides great Initiates into scriptural symbology, a number of quiet students of the mysteries of archaic esotericism, of scholars proficient in Hebrew and other dead tongues, who have devoted their lives to unriddle the speeches of the Sphinx of the world-religions. And these students, though none of them has yet mastered all the “seven keys” that open the great problem, have discovered enough to be able to say: There _was_ a universal mystery-language, in which all the World Scriptures were written, from _Vedas_ to “Revelation,” from the “Book of the Dead” to the _Acts_. One of the keys, at any rate—the numerical and geometrical key[44] to the Mystery Speech is now rescued; an ancient language, truly, which up to this time remained hidden, but the evidences of which abundantly exist, as may be proven by undeniable mathematical demonstrations. If, indeed, the Bible is forced on the acceptance of the world in its dead-letter meaning, in the face of the modern discoveries by Orientalists and the efforts of independent students and kabalists, it is easy to prophesy that even the present new generations of Europe and America will repudiate it, as all the materialists and logicians have done. For, the more one studies ancient religious texts, the more one finds that the ground-work of the New Testament is the same as the ground-work of the Vedas, of the Egyptian theogony, and the Mazdean allegories. The atonements by blood—blood-covenants and blood-transferences from gods to men, and by men, as sacrifices to the gods—are the first key-note struck in every cosmogony and theogony; soul, life and blood were synonymous words in every language, pre-eminently with the Jews; and that blood-giving was life-giving. “Many a legend among (geographically) alien nations ascribes soul and consciousness in newly-created mankind to the blood of the god-creators. Berosus records a Chaldean legend ascribing the creation of a new race of mankind to the admixture of dust with the blood that flowed from the severed head of the god Belus. “On this account it is that men are rational and partake of divine knowledge,” explains Berosus.[45] And Lenormant has shown (_Beginnings of History_, p. 52, note) that “the Orphics ... said that the _immaterial part of man, his soul_ (his life) sprang from the blood of Dionysius Zagreus, whom ... Titans tore to pieces.” Blood “revivifies the dead”—_i.e._, interpreted metaphysically, it gives _conscious_ life and a soul to the man of matter or clay—such as the modern materialist is now. The mystic meaning of the injunction, “Verily I say unto you, except _ye eat the flesh_ of the Son of man and _drink his blood_, ye have not life in yourselves,” &c., can never be understood or appreciated at its true _occult_ value, except by those who hold some of the _seven keys_, and yet care little for St Peter.[46] These words, whether