THE SYMBOLS OF THE GREAT SEAL OF THE U.S. - by Manly P. Hall

18.  THE SYMBOLS OF THE GREAT SEAL OF THE U.S.

Is the American eagle actually a Phoenix ?  Selection of the fabulous bird

of the ancients seems to have been the intention of the designer of our nation's Great Seal.

The Phoenix is the symbol of the Reborn in wisdom. ... The design

on the reverse of the Great Seal is even more definitely related to the Order of the Quest.

The pyramid and the all-seeing eye represent the Universal House surmounted by the radiant

emblem of the Great Architect of the Universe .... These three symbols in combination is more than chance or coincidence.

WHEN the time came to select an appropriate emblem for the great seal of the United States of America, several designs were submitted.  These are described by Gaillard Hunt, in The History of the Seal of the United States, published in Washington, D.C., in 1909.  Most of the designs originally submitted had the Phoenix bird on its nest of flames as the central motif.  One of the designs now familiar to us was finally selected, and Benjamin Franklin was asked for his opinion of the choice.

Franklin gave his immediate approval, observing naively that it was very appropriate to select the wild turkey as the symbol of the new country:  The turkey was a bird of admirable quality, hard working and industrious, and of good moral character, and a fowl also with a marked adversion for the color red, at that time unpopular among the colonists.

When it was explained to Franklin that the bird on the seal was intended to represent an eagle he was bitterly disappointed;  and he insisted that the drawing did not look like an eagle to him, and furthermore, aneagle was a bird of prey with few of the respectable qualities of the wild turkey.

It has been said that the designer had drawn a Phoenix.  Its selection would of course have been appropriate.

Among the ancients a fabulous bird called the Phoenix is described by early writers such as Clement, Herodotus, and Pliny;  in size and shape it resembled the eagle, but with certain differences.  The body of the Phoenix is one covered with glossy purple feathers, and the plumes in its tail are alternately blue and red.  The head of the bird is light in color, and about its neck is a circlet of golden plumage.  At the back of its head the Phoenix has a crest of feathers of brilliant color.  Only one of these birds was supposed to live at a time, with its home in the distant parts of Arabia, in a nest of frankincense and myrrh.  The Phoenix, it was said, lives for 500 years, and at its death its body opens and the new born Phoenix emerges.  Because of this symbolism, the Phoenix is generally regarded as representing immortality and resurrection.

All symbols have their origin in something tangible, and the Phoenix is one sign of the secret orders of the ancient world and of the initiate of those orders, for it was common to refer to one who had been accepted into the temples as a man twice-born, or re-born.  Wisdom confers a new life, and those who become wise are born again.

The Phoenix symbol is important in another way, as an emblem among nearly all civilized na tions of royalty, power, superiority, and immor tality.  The Phoenix of China is identical in meaning with the Phoenix of Egypt;  and the Phoenix of the Greeks is the same as the Thunder Bird of the American Indians.

In the accompanying drawing, the head of the bird as it appeared on the great seal of 1782 is compared with the present form.  It is immediately evident that the bird on the original seal is not an eagle, nor even a wild turkey as Franklin had hoped, but the Phoenix, the ancient symbol of human aspiration toward Universal good.  The beak is of a different shape, the neck is much longer, and the small tuft of hair at the back of the head leaves no doubt as to the artist's intention.

But if this design on the obverse side of the seal is stamped with the signature of the Order of the Quest, the design on the reverse is even more definitely related to the old Mysteries.

Here is represented the great pyramid of Gizah, composed of 13 rows of masonry, showing 72 stones.  The pyramid is without a cap stone, and above its upper platform floats a triangle containing the All-Seeing Eye surrounded by rays of light.

This design was not pleasing to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard;  he summed up his displeasure in the following words.  "The device adopted by Congress is practically incapable of effective treatment;  it can hardly (however artistically treated by the designer) look otherwise than as a dull emblem of a Masonic Fraternity."  The quotation is from The History of the Seal of the United States.

If incapable of artistic treatment, the great seal is susceptible of profound interpretation.  The Pyramid of Gizah was believed by the ancient Egyptians to be the shrine tomb of the god Hermes, or Thot, the personification of Universal Wisdom.

No trace has ever been found of the cap of the great pyramid.  A flat platform about thirty feet square gives no indication that this part of the structure was ever otherwise finished;  and this is appropriate, as the Pyramid represents human society itself, imperfect and incomplete.  The structure's ascending converging angles and faces represent the common aspiration of humankind;  above floats the symbol of the esoteric orders, the radiant triangle with its all-seeing eye.  The triangle itself is in the shape of the Greek letter D, the Delta, the first letter of the name of God--the divine part of nature completing the works of men.

The 72 stones are the 72 arrangements of the Tetragrammaton, or the four-lettered name of God, in Hebrew.  These four letters can be combined in 72 combinations, resulting in what is called the Shemhamforesh, which represents, in turn, the laws, powers, and energies of Nature by which the perfection of man is achieved.

The Pyramid then is the Universal house, and above its unfinished apex is the radiant emblem of the Great Architect of the Universe.

There is a legend that in the lost Atlantis stood a great university in which originated most of the arts and sciences of the present race.  The University was in the form of an immense pyramid with many galleries and corridors, and on the top was an observatory for the study of the stars.  This temple to the sciences in the old Atlantis is shadowed forth in the seal of the new Atlantis.  Was it the society of the unknown philosophers who scaled the new nation with the eternal emblems, that all the nations might know the purpose for which the new country had been founded ?

The obverse of the great seal has been used by the Department of State since 1782, but the reverse was not cut at that time because it was regarded as a symbol of a secret society and not the proper device for a sovereign State.  Quite rare are discoveries of the use of this symbol in any important form until recent years.  Most American citizens learned for the first time what was the design on the reverse of their seal when it appeared on the dollar bill, series of 1935A.

So far as anyone may know, the use of the seal in 1935 was probably without premeditation or special implication.  But it is interesting that its appearance should coincide with great changes affecting democracy in all parts of the world.  As early as 1935 the long shadows of a world tyranny had extended themselves across the surface of the globe.  Democracy was on the threshold of its most severe testing.  The rights of man, that Thomas Paine defended, were being assailed on every hand by selfishness, ambition, and tyranny.  Then on the common medium of our currency appeared the eternal emblem of our purpose.

The combination of the Phoenix, the pyramid, and the all-seeing eye is more than chance or coincidence.  There is nothing about the early struggles of the colonists to suggest such a selection to farmers, shopkeepers, and country gentlemen.  There is only one possible origin for these symbols, and that is the secret societies which came to this country 150 years before the Revolutionary War.  Most of the patriots who achieved American independence belonged to these societies, and derived their inspiration, courage, and high purpose from the ancient teaching.  There can be no question that the great seal was directly inspired by these orders of the human Quest, and that it set forth the purpose far this nation as that purpose was seen and known to the Founding Fathers.

The monogram of the new Atlantis reveals this continent as set apart for the accomplishment of the great work--here is to arise the pyramid of human aspiration, the school of the secret sciences.  Over this nation rules the supreme king, the Ever Living God.  This nation is dedicated to the fulfillment of the Divine Will.  To the degree that men realize this, and dedicate themselves and their works to this purpose, their land will flourish. 

To depart from the symbol of this high destiny is to be false to the great trust given as a priceless inheritance.

Source : The Secret Destiny of America, by Manly Palmer Hall, http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/secret_destinyamerica/secret_destinyamerica.htm