The following comes from a book called A History of Secret Societies, first published in 1961 and authored by Arkon Daraul. As it turns out, this Arkon Daraul is strongly suspected to be a pseudonym of Idries Shah 3, a noted author and historian who focused primarily on Sufi traditions. This conclusion is reached because: Shah used a number of pseudonyms 4, an author by the name of Arkon Daraul has never published any other known books and there is no information available about his identity, the writing style of this book closely matches that of Shah’s, and Shah actually quotes from this book in a work that he published only three years later.
“The most detailed account on what was said to be the seven highest degrees of secret Egyptian initiation was first published in Germany in the eighteenth century. This strange and very exhaustive document combines many elements from the ancient mysteries…. It seems to come from Greek sources, because many of the words used are Greek; and it could well be that we have here the modern beginnings of an attempted revival of ancient mysteries.
“Whatever it is, it is not one of those fanciful and spurious ones which used to be printed merely to attract the credulous: because it is plausible in containing the sort of material which might well have formed the content of an initiation and mind-conditioning system.
“The earliest version known is in the form of an anonymous pamphlet (probably not intended for public sale) of thirty-odd pages, which was printed in 1785. It was republished in a French translation thirty years later, purporting to be the ritual of the Master degree in Freemasonry. The French editor claims that it is a composite ritual, derived from the works of some fifteen Greek and Roman writers.
“This degree, we are told, was open to Egyptian kings and priests alone; and only those specially recommended by an initiate could enter it. The usual procedure was that the Pharaoh himself introduced the candidate to the priests. By them he sent from Heliopolis [Ed. note: which means “City of the Sun”] to the Memphis priests; from there he went to Thebes. He was circumcised, forbidden to eat pulse [i.e. legumes, such as peas or beans] or fish; and generally had to abstain from wine.