<h3 class="chapterhead"><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></SPAN>CHAPTER XLVI.</h3>
<p class="hanging">THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.—​ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS
OF FORMER AGES.—​HEATHEN HUMBUGS.—​THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.—​THE
CABIRI.—​ELEUSIS.—​ISIS.</p>
<p>The domain of humbug reaches back to the Garden of Eden, where the
Father of lies practised it upon our poor, innocent first grandmother,
Eve. This was the first and worst of all humbugs. But from that eventful
day to the present moment, falsehood, hypocrisy, deception, imposition,
cant, bigotry, false appearances and false pretences, superstitions, and
all conceivable sorts of humbugs, have had a full swing, and he or she
who watches these things most closely, and reflects most deeply upon
these various peculiarities, bearings, and results, will be best
qualified to detect and to avoid them. For this reason, I should look
upon myself as somewhat of a public benefactor, in exposing the humbugs
of the world, if I felt competent to do the subject full justice.</p>
<p>Next to the fearful humbug practiced upon our first parents, came
heathen humbugs generally. All heathenism and idolatry are one grand
complex humbug to begin with. All the heathen religions always were, and
are still, audacious, colossal, yet shallow and foolish, humbugs. The
heathen humbugs were played off by the priests, the shrewdest men then
alive. It is a curi<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_387" id="Page_387"></SPAN></span>ous fact that the heathen humbugs were all solemn.
This was because they were intended to maintain the existing religions,
which, like all false religions, could not endure ridicule. They always
appealed to the pious terrors of the public, as well as to its ignorance
and appetite for marvels. They offered nothing pleasant, nothing to
love, nothing to gladden the heart and lift it up in joyful gratitude,
true adoration, and childlike confidence, prayer, and thanksgiving. On
the contrary, awful noises, fearful sights, frightful threats, foaming
at the mouth, dark sayings, secret processions, bloody sacrifices, grim
priests, costly offerings, sleeps in darksome caverns to wait for a
dream from the god—these were the machineries of the ancient heathen.
They were as crude and as ferocious as those of the King of Dahomey, or
of the barbarous negroes of the Guinea coast. But they often show a
cunning as keen and effective as that of any quack, or Philadelphia
lawyer, or Davenport Brother, or Jackson Davis of to-day.</p>
<p>The most prominent of the heathen humbugs were the mysteries, the
oracles, the sibyls (N. B., the word is often mis-spelled sybils,) and
augury. Every respectable Pagan religion had some mysteries, just as
every respectable Christian family has a bible—and, as an ill-natured
proverb has it, a skeleton. It was considered a poor religion—a one
horse religion, so to speak—that had no mysteries.</p>
<p>The chief mysteries were those of the Cabiri, of Eleusis, and of Isis.
These mysteries used exactly the same kind of machinery which proves so
effective every day in modern mysteries, viz., shows, processions,
voices,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_388" id="Page_388"></SPAN></span> lights, dark rooms, frightful sights, solemn mummeries,
striking costumes, big talks and preachments, threats, gabbles of
nonsense, etc., etc.</p>
<p>The mysteries of the Cabiri are the most ancient of which anything is
known. These Cabiri were a sort of “Original old Dr. Jacob Townsends” of
divinities. They were considered senior and superior to Jupiter,
Neptune, Plato, and the gods of Olympus. They were Pelasgic, that is,
they belonged to that unknown ancient people from whom both the Greek
and the Latin nations are thought to have come. The Cabiri afterward
figured as the “elder gods” of Greece, the inventors of religion, and of
the human race in fact, and were kept so very dark that it is not even
known, with any certainty, who they were. The ancient heathen gods, like
modern thieves, very usually objected to pass by their real names. The
Cabiri were particularly at home in Lemnos, and afterward in Samothrace.</p>
<p>Their mysteries were of a somewhat unpleasant character, as far as we
know them. The candidate had to pass a long time almost starved, and
without any enjoyment whatever; was then let into a dark temple, crowned
with olive, tied round with a purple girdle, and frightened almost to
death with horrid noises, terrible sights of some kind, great flashes of
light and deep darkness between, etc., etc. There was a ceremony of
absolution from past sin, and a formal beginning of a new life. It is a
curious fact, that this performance seems to have been a kind of pious
marine insurance company; as the initiated, it was believed, could not
be drowned. Perhaps they were put in a way to obtain a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_389" id="Page_389"></SPAN></span> drier
strangulation. The reason why these ceremonies were kept so successfully
secret, is plain. Each man, as he was let in, and found what nonsense it
was, was sure to hold his tongue and help the next man in, as in the
modern case of the celebrated “Sons of Malta.” It is to be admitted,
however, to the credit of the Cabiri, that a doctrine of reformation, or
of living a better practical life, seems to have been part of their
religion. This is an interesting recognition, by heathen consciences, of
one of the greatest moral truths which Christianity has enforced.
Something of the same kind can be traced in other heathen mysteries. But
these heathen attempts at virtue invariably rotted out into aggravations
of vice. No religion except Christianity ever contained the principle of
improvement in it. Bugaboos and hob-goblins may serve for a time to
frighten the ignorant into obedience; but if they get a chance to cheat
the devil, they will be sure to do it. Nothing but the great doctrine of
Christian love and brotherhood, and of a kind and paternal Divine
government, has ever proved to be permanently reformatory, and tending
to lift the heart above the vices and passions to which poor human
nature is prone.</p>
<p>The mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated every year at Eleusis, near
Athens, in honor of Ceres, and were a regular “May Anniversary,” so to
speak, for the pious heathens of the period. It took just nine days to
complete them; long enough for a puppy to get its eyes open. The
candidates were very handsomely put through. On the first day, they got
together; on the second, they took a wash in the sea; on the third,
they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_390" id="Page_390"></SPAN></span> had some ceremonies about Proserpine; on the fourth, no mortal
knows what they did; on the fifth, they marched round a temple, two and
two, with torches, like a Wide-Awake procession; on the sixth, seventh,
and eighth, there were more processions, and the initiation proper, said
to have been something like that of Free-masonry; so that we may suppose
the victims rode the goat and were broiled on the gridiron. On the ninth
day, the ceremony, they say, consisted in overturning two vessels of
wine. I fear by this means that they all got drunk; and the more so,
because the coins of Eleusis have a hog on one side, as much as to say,
We make hogs of ourselves.</p>
<p>There was a set of mysteries at Athens, called Thesmophoria, and one at
Rome, called the mysteries of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated by
married women only. Various notions prevailed as to what they did. But
can there be any reasonable doubt about it? They were, I fear,
systematic conspirators’ meetings, in which the more experienced matrons
instructed the junior ones how to manage their husbands. If this was not
their object, then it was to maintain the influence of the heathen
clergy over the heathen ladies. Women have always been the constituents
of priests where false religions prevailed, as they have, for better
purposes, of the ministers of the Gospel among Christians.</p>
<p>The mysteries of the goddess Isis, which originated in Egypt, were, in
general, like those of Ceres at Eleusis. The Persian mysteries of
Mithra, which were very popular during part of the latter days of the
Roman empire, were of the same sort. So were those of Bacchus, Juno,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_391" id="Page_391"></SPAN></span>
Jupiter, and various other heathen gods. All of them were celebrated
with great solemnity and secrecy; all included much that was terrifying;
and all of their secrets have been so faithfully kept that we have only
guesses and general statements about the details of the performances.
Their principal object seems to have been to secure the initiated
against misfortunes, and to gain prosperity in the future. Some have
imagined that very wonderful and glorious truths were revealed in the
midst of these heathen humbugs. But I guess that the more we find out
about them, the bigger humbugs they will appear, as happened to the
travelers who held a <i>post mortem</i> on the great heathen god in the
story. This was a certain very terrible and powerful divinity among some
savage tribes, of whom dreadful stories were told—very authentic, of
course! Some unbelieving scamps of travelers, by unlawful ways, managed
to get into the innermost sacred place of the temple one night. They
found the god to be done up in a very large and suspicious looking
bundle. Having sacrilegiously cut the string, they unrolled one envelop
of mats and cloths after another, until they had taken off more than a
hundred wrappers. The god grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and
the wonder of the travelers what he could be, larger and larger. At
last, the very innermost of all the coverings fell off, and the great
heathen god was revealed in all his native majesty. It was a cracked
soda-water bottle! This indicates—what is beyond all question the
fact—that the heathen mysteries had their foundation in gas. Indeed,
the whole composition of these impositions was,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_392" id="Page_392"></SPAN></span> gammon, deception,
hypocrisy—Humbug! Truly, the science of Humbug is entitled to some
consideration, simply for its antiquity, if for nothing else.</p>
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