BAPTISM AS AN INITIATORY RITE AROUND THE WORLD by Dudley Wright

There are many people who, despite recent researches into the field of Comparative Religion, still believe and maintain that the ordinance of Baptism is essentially a Christian institution, the inauguration of which they attribute to John the Baptist as the herald or forerunner of the Founder of Christianity.

As a matter of fact, Christianity did not introduce any fresh ordinance, though it dispensed with, at least, one — Circumcision.

Baptism was known and practised, not only by the Jews, but so far as research can prove, it was known and practised by every nation on the face of the earth, and was regarded as one of the ceremonies of initiation into what are known as pagan religions.

It would appear to have had its origin in the observation of one of the phenomena of nature. The nightly disappearance of the sun, apparently into the waters, was succeeded by its reappearance with new life and vigour on the following dawn. So the doctrine of the revival of life from a decayed or deceased husk is found in the most ancient mythology.

From these and other phenomena it was argued that at the conclusion of certain periods of time the earth resolved itself into its original chaotic condition, but that  it again emerged from its deathlike state and came forth endowed with new life and splendour.

This, in the opinion of Faber (Pagan Idolatry) and other writers, is the explanation of the origin of the baptismal rite and its adoption by all religions (Pagan as well as Christian) as one of their initiatory rites.

The unbiased student of religious systems looks upon the eternal squabble between the immersionists and sprinklers with a feeling somewhat akin to amusement. The term “baptism” can have no other meaning than immersion.

-      "What do you understand by the term baptism?” was the question put recently to an eminent Jewish rabbi by the writer.

-      "Baptism is baptism — immersion, of course," was the immediate reply

And this is the interpretation of the term by practically every nation and religious system since the world began. Its meaning was, and is, to symbolize the washing away of sin and the inauguration of a new life.

The Hindu believed that the sins of a lifetime might be removed by a plunge into the Ganges, a process known to the superstitious Roman, whom Juvenal satirized for washing away his sins by dipping his head three times in the waters of the Tiber.

Legendary lore has it that people bathed in sacred rivers for the purpose of changing their sex, and young women, to avoid the attentions of an amorous god, threw themselves into a river, when they were immediately metamorphosed into nymphs or naiads.

Thales taught that water was the first principle of all things, that it had the greatest share in the production of bodies, that it made nature fruitful and prevented the earth from becoming a sterile mass. The oceans, seas and rivers thus became objects of religious worship.

In the religion of Isis, the rite of initiation included baptism, with godfathers or sponsors. After the ceremony the initiated were regarded as regenerated.

In Mithraism, also, baptism by immersion was one of the ceremonies attendant upon initiation. After initiation repeated ablutions, to which frequent flagellations were added, became necessary before the votary dare approach the altar. The initiates believed themselves purified of their guilt by these ritual ablutions, and baptism lightened the conscience of the weight of their heavy responsibility.

In the Phoenician religion baptism was regarded as the similitude of drowning, the baptized person rising out of the waters to a new life.

Baptism was practised by the Manichaeans and Mandaeans, and total immersion was also practised by the Greek Church. Initiates into Druidism had to pass through the waters as one of the initiatory rites.

In Brahmanism, one of the many ceremonies which the candidate for initiation had to undergo was plunging into the waters to represent the fish-god who descended to the bottom of the ocean to recover the stolen Vedas.

Part of the ceremonial attached to initiation into the Grecian mysteries consisted in placing the candidate in a well for a specified period as the medium of regeneration.  Even after this, the candidate, whether male or female, was carefully purified in the pellucid waters of a running stream.

There was a primitive belief that no spirit or evil could cross running water, and it is a Moslem custom, to the present day, always to wash in running water.

In the mysteries of Bacchus the place of initiation was always a range of caverns, through various parts of which streams of water ran into which the candidate was plunged for the purpose of purification.

In the Gothic mysteries the candidate was ordered to plunge into a sluggish stream and cross to the opposite bank — the stream being called the water of purification.

Among the orthodox Jews, down to the present day, baptism is as obligatory upon a proselyte as circumcision.

The custom in former days was for the three teachers who had instructed the neophyte in the Law to become his sponsors and conduct him to a pool, where he stood up to his neck in water while the Commandments were recited to him. He then gave his promise to keep these. A blessing was pronounced, at the conclusion of which he plunged beneath the water, taking care to be entirely submerged.

In the Story of Adam and Eve it is stated that Adam stood up to his neck in the Jordan for forty days and Eve in the Tigris for thirty-seven days.

According to Pirke Rabbi El, Adam stood for forty-nine days up to his neck in the river Gihon.

Baptism was the public form of admission into the brotherhood of the Essenes, an open acknowledgment that the initiate renounced his old ideas and beliefs, was willing to forsake sinfulness and enter upon the obligations attached to his new life. This was called by the Essenes “the new birth." The Essenes also practised a daily baptism every morning, in order that they might pronounce the name of God with perfect purity.

Baptism by total immersion is one of the ceremonies of admission into the faith of the Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints. Amongst modem orthodox Jews also total immersion as a sign of cleansing from impurity is practised at stated periods by the Jewish women.

In Egypt the Copts used to observe the eve of the Epiphany as a great river festival, plunging into the Nile as a memorial of the baptism of Christ, believing that on that night it could prevent and cure all illnesses.

(Occult Review, September 1914, p.160-162)