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Theosophy joins the mix as to those who were influenced by pyramidology generally and by Freemason pyramidology in particular. J. Ralston Skinner was a Freemason, a Kabbalist, and a Theosophist. He was also a pyramidologist. His pyramidology influenced Madam Blavatsky and other Theosophists. Skinner was different from most Freemason pyramidologists in that he was not a British Israelist nor a Zionist (I don't believe). Another Theosophist pyramidologist who was neither British Israelist and I don't believe was Zionist was William Kingsland. Theosophy some say is anti-Semitic, so perhaps Theosophists preferred non-Zionist interpretations of Pyramidology, though Skinner was not likely an anti-Semite.
https://theosophy.wiki/en/James_Ralston_Skinner
Connections with the Theosophical Society
In the 1880s and 1890s, Cincinnati was a hotbed of esoteric research and activity. It was there that the Cincinnati Theosophical Society, one of the first American lodges, was founded by Jirah Dewey Buck on May 9, 1886, and later that year on October 30 the American Section of the Theosophical Society took form. The records of the Cincinnati lodge from 1878-1901 make no mention of Skinner as a member or lecturer, although there is one letter from Skinner to Buck dated September 4, 1887.[6] There is also evidence that Skinner participated in the life of the Cincinnati TS, at least by lecturing. In July 1887, The Path reported:
CINCINNATI. At a recent meeting of this Branch, Bro. J. Ralston Skinner *** read a valuable paper on Cycles of Time. On this subject Bro. Skinner is an authority.[7]
H. P. Blavatsky was definitely aware of Skinner, and impressed with his work. Dr. Buck recorded that:
I sent her a complete copy in Mss. of J. R. Skinner's work on Kabala, the Zodiac, and the Great Pyramid of Gheza; from which Mss. (still unpublished) she made copious quotations in four places in her Secret Doctrine. She wrote me that there are seven Keys to Kabala, of which Mr. Skinner had discovered "two and a half".[8]
In a letter to Buck, where Blavatsky tells him "I lost Mr. Skinner's address so please pass him on this enclosed volume," she states:
He is the grandest man & mind (in the direction of the occult) I know of at present; a natural born genius & helped beyond any doubt. I don't say "helped" mind you, in discovering in his independent research what he has, but helped from the lethal effects & influences of his discoveries. He would have become, uninitiated as he is, insane long ago, or dead or strangled at night under the pretext of an apoplexy – had it not been for the helping & watching hand above him; not of one of our masters but of a Dhyan Chohan, a Planetary - the rarest thing possible, & whom I verily fear he mistakes for God instead of a god-partie & conditioned on his plane. This I know from masters who spoke of him when I was yet at Adyar, referring to him as the "Ohio-Kabbalist & mathematician" – & that I had never heard his name even. Funny I should have never heard of him or his book when in America. His intuitional powers are as marvelous as his mathematical knowledge, indeed.[9]
Buck encouraged Skinner to write to HPB to ask whether Sanskrit was an older language than Hebrew:
The next day he returned with a very carefully written abstract of his work in fourteen pages of Mss. and, after reading, asked it I thought that would do. "Splendidly", I replied, "send it on."
In about a month he rushed into my office one day, holding in his hand an open letter of forty pages, almost shouting – "I've got it, Doctor, I've got it!" "Got what? you crazy!" I replied. "Got a letter from the old Lady," he answered. "Well," I inquired, "does she know anything about your old Kabala?" "Does she?" he replied; "say, Doctor, she knows more Kabala than the man that made it." She gave him a diagram of a gable of an old temple in the mountains of India, so old that no one pretended to know when it was built, or by whom. In that diagram his "pi-value", which was the Key to all his Cabalistic and Pyramid work, was placed in symbols (lines, squares, triangles, double and triple triangles) so as to read unmistakably "3.14159+". She gave him the numerical value of ancient Sanscrit letters, and answered all his questions, covering 40 pages.
He had, with every resource and facility, been working on these lines for a quarter of a century, and he "knew". from that day to the day of his death his admiration for, and confidence in, H. P. B. were little less than reverence.
When later I suggested to H.P.B. that a little memento from her would be most highly prized, she sent him a ring, which he wore till the day of his death, as his most "precious Jewel".[10]
Six letters and a photograph that he received from her are in a collection at Harvard University. A letter dated April 5, 1887 mentions that she will be sending him her photograph. On the back of the photo she wrote:
To her new acquaintance & correspondent – but very very old friend, Mr. Ralston Skinner with ever growing feelings of sympathy, admiration, appreciation & the warmest friendship – H. P. Blavatsky ***
London, May 1887
Skinner's writings on Jehovah were quoted in Blavatsky's book The Theosophical Glossary, with additional references to his ideas in The Secret Doctrine. However, he does not seem to have been a member of the Theosophical Society of which she was a Founder.
Freemasonry
Like Dr. Buck, Skinner was a Freemason.
About this time [after the Civil War], he began to write for the Masonic Review on the subjects that occupied the remainder of his years... . Skinner was initiated into McMillan Lodge No. 141 at Cincinnati, of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ohio, May 6, 1885.[11][12]
Dr. Buck, himself widely recognized as an expert on Masonry, wrote:
I was present when, as already recorded in "Life and Action", Mr. Skinner took his third Degree in the Blue Lodge. After theclose of the ceremony he was called on for a speech, and after "hedging" for two or three minutes, then, for an hour and a quarter, he read that Lodge-room, altar, symbols and ceremonies, "right out of the air".
This was more than a quarter of a century ago, and when at the close of the lodge, two or three 33° Masons asked me – "Where in the world did he get it all?" – I replied, "While you and I and the rest of us have been fooling with the corpse, he has been studying the Living Soul of Masonry; and this Judgment has been confirmed every day since by my own studies.[13]
Writings
These books and pamphlets are listed in order of first publication.
- An Essay upon Force in Nature and its Effects upon Matter. Cincinnati, R. Clarke & Co., 1869.
- The Great pyramid of Jizeh, the Plan and Object of its Construction. Cincinnati, R. Clarke & Co., 1871. 17 pages. Available at Hathitrust.
- YeHī W̕oR: A Value of Symbolism. Cincinnati: R. Clarke, 1872. 47 pages.
- The Ancient of Days. The Measure of the Heavens and the Earth by Means of the Only Unit of Measure, the British Inch. Cincinnati, R. Clarke & Co., 1873. 46 pages.
- Some Light Upon the Egyptian Method of Chronology. 1876. 11-page pamphlet.
- Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery in the Source of Measures Originating the British Inch and the Ancient Cubit. Cincinnati, R. Clarke & Co., 1875. Available at HathiTrust and Internet Archive. The author discusses a square arrangement of the zodiac.
- Supplement to Source of Measures. Robert Clarke & Company, 1876. 63 pages.
- The Crown Jewels of the Nations are Their Measures. Cincinnati: Clarke & Company, 1877. 90 pages.
- A Criticism on the Legendre Mode of the Rectification of the Curve of the Circle. Cincinnati: R. Clarke & Co., 1881. Available at HathiTrust and University of Michigan Historical Math Collection.
- Actual Measures of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, in Terms of the British Inch: Disclosing, by Its Means, the Architectural System Employed in the Construction. Cleveland, OH: International Institute for Preserving and Perfecting Weights and Measures., Ohio Auxiliary Society, Cleveland, 1883.
- The Cabbalah. 1885. Originally printed in The Masonic Review, with the author named as "Brother J. Ralston Skinner (McMillian Lodge, No. 141)".[14]
- Hebrew Metrology. 1885. 8-page pamphlet.
- Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian Columns in Grecian Architecture. 1885. Available in Peabody Museum of Salem, Phillips Library East Indian Marine Hall. (per John H. Drais).
- Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery in the Source of Measures Originating the British Inch and the Ancient Cubit, by Which was Built the Great Pyramid of Egypt and the Temple of Solomon; and through the Possession and Use of Which, Man, Assuming to Realize the Creative Law of the Deity, Set It Forth in a Mystery, Among the Hebrews Called Kabbala. David McKay Company, Philadelphia, 1876. The 1894 edition (Cincinnati, R. Clarke & Co). is available at HathiTrust and Google Books. This edition was reprinted in 1982 with additional material by John H. Drais by Wizards Bookshelf in San Diego.
- Modulus System of Measures Founded on the British Inch". Undated. This typescript is available at Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library and at Library of Cincinnati Historical Society. (per John H. Drais)
- Appendix C to Identification of the British Inch.... Undated. Available at Museum Library University of Pennsylvania. (per John H. Drais).
- An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in "Grecian Architecture, by George, Earl of Aberdeen, Lon. 1867"; a prefatory essay to an English translation from the Latin of Notes and Comments on the Ten Books of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. Undated. Available at Library of Cincinnati Historical Society. (per John H. Drais)
- Kabala, the Zodiac and the Great Pyramid of Gheza. Undated. Listed in kabbalah bibliography of Blavatsky Collected Writings. (per John H. Drais)
- Unnamed manuscript was mentioned as being sent to the Masons by Skinner's "literary legatee" (perhaps Dr. J. D. Buck); per New Age Magazine, September 1907. (per John H. Drais)
- The Word or Logos Connected with John and with Jesus Through the Finish. Reprint available for sale through Kessinger Books.
He wrote for Masonic publications, and also two articles that appeared in Theosophical journals:
- "No Error (a reply to Euphrates)". Lucifer 2 (August 1888), 492.
- "Notes on the Cabbalah of the Old Testament". The Path 1.5 (August, 1886), 134. Available at Theosophical University Press Online. This was reprinted from a Masonic journal.
Additional resources
Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian mystery in the source of measures originating the British inch and the ancient cubit.
https://archive.org/details/keytohebrewegypt00skin
PDF Available Here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10D0hfDByjhlzVi1a1A91iMed_uutczr7/view?usp=sharing
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