he
Cabalists concealed many of their mysteries.

Now, to reverse a word in English is to read its letters from _right to
left_, because our normal mode of reading is from _left to right_. But in
Hebrew the contrary rule takes place, for there the normal mode of reading
is from _right to left_; and therefore, to reverse the reading of a word,
is to read it from _left to right_.

Lanci applied this cabalistic mode to the tetragrammaton, when he found
that IH-OH, being read reversely, makes the word HO-HI.[135]

But in Hebrew, _ho_ is the masculine pronoun, equivalent to the English
_he_; and _hi_ is the feminine pronoun, equivalent to _she_; and therefore
the word HO-HI, literally translated, is equivalent to the English
compound HE-SHE; that is to say, the Ineffable Name of God in Hebrew,
being read cabalistically, includes within itself the male and female
principle, the generative and prolific energy of creation; and here we
have, again, the widely-spread symbolism of the phallus and the cteis, the
lingam and the yoni, or their equivalent, the point within a circle, and
another pregnant proof of the connection between Freemasonry and the
ancient Mysteries.

And here, perhaps, we may begin to find some meaning for the hitherto
incomprehensible passage in Genesis (i. 27): "So God created man _in his
own image; in the image of God_ created he him; _male and female_ created
he them." They could not have been "in the image" of IHOH, if they had not
been "male and female."

The Cabalists have exhausted their ingenuity and imagination in
speculations on this sacred name, and some of their fancies are really
sufficiently interesting to repay an investigation. Sufficient, however,
has been here said to account for the important position that it occupies
in the masonic system, and to enable us to appreciate the symbols by which
it has been represented.

The great reverence, or indeed the superstitious veneration, entertained
by the ancients for the name of the Supreme Being, led them to express it
rather in symbols or hieroglyphics than in any word at length.

We know, for instance, from the recent researches of the archaeologists,
that in all the documents of the ancient Egyptians, written in the demotic
or common character of the country, the names of the gods were invariably
denoted by symbols; and I have already alluded to the different modes by
which the Jews expressed the tetragrammaton. A similar practice prevailed