The God of Fidelity
The Illuminist handshake, the clasping or joining of hands, can have many meanings. Its simplest is as a symbol of fidelity. Interestingly, Dr. Cathy Burns, in her informative expose, Hidden Secrets of the Eastern Star, notes that even at this basic level, the Illuminist is signifying allegiance to a deity other than the Christian God.
The instructions issued the candidate of the Entered Apprentice, or First Degree, of Freemasonry include these given here. Notice that the candidate is asked, "How shall I know you to be a Mason?" His answer:
"By certain signs, a token, a word, and the perfect points of my entrance."
Then, when he is asked,
"What are tokens?," he replies, "Certain friendly or brotherly grips, by which one Mason may know another in the dark as well as in the light."
(Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor, p. 42)
For example, Dr. Burns quotes Albert Mackey, 33°, former Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, who admits:
The right hand has in all ages been deemed an emblem of fidelity, and our ancient brethren worshipped Deity under the name of Fides or Fidelity, which was sometimes represented by two right hands joined…
Numa was the first who erected an altar to Fides under which name the Goddess of Oaths and Honesty was worshipped.1
Burns points out that this reference to the worship of the Roman pagan Goddess is literally repeated by the initiate in the very first degree of the Masonic ritual.
In volume 1 of Albert Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, a large section is devoted to a discussion of the hand and hand signs. Mackey states:
"In Freemasonry, the hand as a symbol holds a high place…The same symbol is found in the most ancient religions and some of their analogies to Masonic symbolism are peculiar."
Mackey revealingly says that the hand is deemed important "as that symbol of mystical intelligence by which one Mason knows another in the dark as well as in the light."
He goes on to discuss the use of the hand in such ancient Mystery Religions as Mithraism and in worship of the Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian Gods. He notes that the tradition of the red seal attached to important documents is a throwback to the ancient use of the bloody hand as a way of authenticating documents.
via Codex Magica – 8.