Ozarks Hebrew Heritage Celebrating the Hebrew Roots of our Faith

Cover-Up? – A Closer Look At the Wearing Of Masks

by Paula D, Carter

09/25/2020

Many times when someone with a jaded past is in the public eye, or amongst a new circle of friends, they fear being exposed for who they were or what they used to do so they put forth a persona of someone they want others to think them to be. We, in America, have a term for this behavior. We say they are “wearing a mask” in symbolic terms. In other words, they masquerade around as someone they aren’t.

There are many reasons why people symbolically wear masks…but it always has to do with hiding truth. It always has to do with taking on the persona of someone or something else. And it is almost always birthed from fear of being “found out”.

There are also many reasons why people wear masks physically. Let’s take a closer look at this, but first allow me to offer the definition and etymology of the word “mask”.

Oxford Dictionaries defines “Mask” as: a covering for all or part of the face, worn as a disguise, or to amuse or terrify other people. They list some of the synonyms as being: disguise, veil, false face, domino.

Oxford also breaks down the etymology of the word “Mask” and the definitions in the respective languages:

mask /mask/

MEDIEVAL LATIN – masca: defined as “witch, specter, or nightmare”
FRENCH – masque: defined as “covering to hide the face”
ARABIC – maschara: defined as “buffoon or mockery”
ENGLISH – mask (introduced into the English language in the 1530’s)

We are all familiar with masquerade balls and the elaborate masks worn to those. Then there’s the spiritually dark holiday known as Halloween where many wear very grotesque and terrifying masks. There’s also a yearly celebration in New Orleans known as Mardi Gras where masks are worn. The wearing of masks in these scenarios aren’t birthed from fear, but they still show forth an attempt to hide or alter one’s identity – to temporarily become someone they aren’t.

Many of you may remember years ago a movie starring Jim Carrey called The Mask. In this movie Carrey portrayed a character known as Stanley Ipkiss. Ipkiss finds an ancient mask and when he donned the mask the spirit connected to the mask would overtake him and he became Loki, the ancient spirit being from whom the mask descended. Each time Ipkiss wore the mask it became increasingly difficult to remove the mask and transform back to his real self. As hilarious as the movie was, there’s more truth to the concept than most viewers realized. I will delve into this in greater detail later in this article when we look more closely at the spiritual connections of the wearing of masks throughout history. But first I want to offer some examples from the Bible of several occasions when masks, also known as veils, were worn.

First we see Rebekah in Genesis 24 when she encountered Jacob for the first time. . Beginning in verse 64 of the CJB we read, “Rivkah too looked up; and when she saw Yitz’chak, she quickly dismounted the camel. She said to the servant,”Who is this man walking in the field to meet us? “When the servant replied, “It’s my master,” she took her veil and covered herself.” She did this upon first meeting Jacob. Once betrothed to her beloved we don’t read of any other instance of her feeling the need to wear a veil when in his presence.

Next there’s Tamar in Genesis 38. After the death of Tamar’s husband, her father-in-law, Judah, promised to give her his youngest son, Shelah, as a husband when he came of age. Years passed and Tamar saw that Judah hadn’t kept his promise so she decided to seduce Judah. Beginning in Genesis 38:14 in the CJB we read, “So she took off her widow’s clothes, completely covered her face with her veil, and sat at the entrance to ‘Einayim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah had grown up, but she still was not being given to him as his wife. When Y’hudah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face. So he went over to her where she was sitting and said, not realizing she was his daughter-in-law, “Come, let me sleep with you.”

What key element do you notice about this whole seduction? Tamar covered her face so as to hide her identity and prostitute herself with her father-in-law.

Lastly let’s look at Moses and the act of covering his face. This is spoken of in the Torah as well as in the Brit Chadashah. In Exodus 34 in the CJB it reads, “When Moshe came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, he didn’t realize that the skin of his face was sending out rays of light as a result of his talking with ADONAI. When Aharon and the people of Israel saw Moshe, the skin of his face was shining; and they were afraid to approach him. But Moshe called to them; then Aharon and all the community leaders came back to him, and Moshe spoke to them. Afterwards, all the people of Israel came near; and he passed on to them all the orders that ADONAI had told him on Mount Sinai. Once Moshe had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But when he went in before ADONAI for Him to speak, he would take the veil off until he came out; then, when he came out, he would tell the people of Israel what he had been ordered,. But when the people of Israel saw Moshe’s face, that the skin of Moshe’s face shone, he would put the veil back over his face until he went in again to speak with ADONAI.”

What we see here is, due to the fact that the children of Israel were intimidated by the glowing face of Moses, he wore a veil when he went out to speak with them. The New Testament reading is found in 2 Corinthians 3 if you’d like to take some time to look into that account as well.

Now let’s take a closer look at some of the ancient secular practices of the wearing of masks and, as I mentioned earlier, the spiritual connections in so doing. I researched many sources concerning masks and found Encyclopedia Britannica to be the most informative, so I will begin with excerpts from there. In a nutshell, Encyclopedia Britannica defines mask wearing as, “A form of disguise or concealment, usually worn over or in front of the face to hide the identity of a person and by its own features to establish another being.” In other words, the wearing of a mask represents an occult transformation from one role to another,” much like we saw in the aforementioned Jim Carrey movie The Mask. Britannica also states, “The person who wears the mask is also considered to be in direct association with the masks spirit force and is consequently exposed to the personal danger of being affected by it.”

According to Britannica, masks are primarily associated with ceremonies which have religious and social significance, or are concerned with funerary customs, fertility rites, warfare, or the curing of sickness, as well as festive occasions such as portraying characters in performances and reenactments of mythological events. Of interesting note, Britannica also says that mask wearing is often associated with secret societies and serves an important role as a means of discipline and admonishment. This calls to mind an historic event known as The Man in the Iron Mask. The man known as the Man in the Iron Mask was an unidentified prisoner who was arrested in 1669 or 1670 and subsequently held in a number of French prisons. No one is known to have seen his face because it was hidden by a mask of black velvet cloth, and the true identity of the prisoner remains a mystery; it has been extensively debated by historians, and various theories have been expounded in numerous books and films.

I also find it very disconcerting that history records that in many cultures masks symbolize sanction and control when donned by the wearer and act as intermediaries for the transmission of petitions and offerings of respect to pagan gods. Concerning this Britannica states, “These traditional ancestral emissaries exert by their spirit power a social control over the community.”

There is evidence that masks have played an important part in magico-religious rites thought to prevent and cure disease – but not in the way you may think. These masks did not physically stop germs from spreading. In many cultures, the shamans of secret societies would wear masks and perform violent pantomimes to exercise dreaded sickness demons, believing they could drive diseases from entire villages. This would include the measles masks worn by Chinese children and the cholera masks worn by the Chinese and Burmese during epidemics. As many as 19 or more distinct sickness demon masks have been devised throughout Asia. These masks are sometimes of ferocious aspect, fanged, and with fiendish eyes. Gaudily colored and sometimes having articulating jaws which present a dragon-like appearance.

Concerning the wearing of masks for protection from diseases I turned my research from ethereal beliefs in pagan cultures to the use of face masks in the medical field. Part of my research was from the official government National Center for Biotechnology Information site which is part of the United States National Library of Medicine. On this site, from an article titled Unmasking the Surgeons: The Evidence Base Behind the Use of Face masks In Surgery written in June of 2016, I quote:

“The use of surgical face masks is ubiquitous in surgical practice. Face masks have long been thought to confer protection to the patient from wound infection and contamination from the operating surgeon and other members of the surgical staff. More recently, protection of the theater staff from patient-derived blood/bodily fluid splashes has also been offered as a reason for their continued use. In light of current NHS budget constraints and cost-cutting strategies, we examined the evidence base behind the use of surgical face masks.”

The article continues:

“Examination of the literature revealed much of the published work on the matter to be quite dated and often studies had poorly elucidated methodologies. As a result, we recommend caution in extrapolating their findings to contemporary surgical practice.”

According to the article, a recent study found a large percentage of surgeons polled responded that they wore the mask for the sole purpose of respecting tradition. Furthermore, an even larger percentage of responding surgeons said they felt masks could make surgery more difficult by increasing breath condensation on spectacles, endoscopes and microscopes and thereby obscuring vision. The new research also showed evidence that friction at the face/mask interface has caused skin scales to disperse, contributing to surgical wound contamination which can be much more dangerous than the possibility of emanation of droplets from oral and nasal passages.

Based on new research, the article infers, some surgeons have abandoned the practice of wearing masks during surgery citing a lack of substantial evidence to support claims that face masks protect either patient or surgeon from infectious contamination.

This very revealing article published on our own government’s National Institute of Health website also looks at whether or not masks protect surgeons from the splashing of blood and bodily fluids from the patient during surgery. I quote:

“An increasingly prevalent belief, in favor of mask usage, is the idea that they also confer some degree of protection to the operating staff from patient-derived infectious material. Most obviously, they can act as a physical barrier against blood and bodily fluid splashes during surgery.

“Despite clear evidence that face masks act to protect the theater staff from macroscopic facial contamination, there are studies to suggest that they fail to protect surgeons from potentially hazardous sub-micrometer contaminants. This corresponds roughly to the size range of infectious bacteria while viruses are even smaller. Therefore, the protection that masks confer in the form of macroscopic facial contamination may not necessarily extend towards any microscopic infectious agents present within that contamination. “

Even though early on in the article the writer stated, “More rigorous contemporary research is needed to make a definitive comment on the effectiveness of surgical face masks,” in the conclusion section of this article it is very matter-of-factly stated, “It is possible, if not probable, that if surgical face masks were to be introduced today, without the historical impetus currently associated with their use, the experimental evidence would not be sufficiently compelling to incorporate face masks into surgical practice.” [Emphasis mine.] And if you will notice in current times, on the box of the blue and white masks being handed out in public places and required in order to go into places of businesses worldwide, it states NOT FOR MEDICAL USE. Research has also proven cloth masks are ineffective in preventing the transmission of diseases.

In conclusion, historically, masks have played an important role in occult rituals, and in a world of symbolism and programming in which the masses are taught to collectively show their willful submission to some, often self-imposed, overlords. The wearing of masks throughout history has been part of the initiation ritual used to visually and psychologically signal the wearers consent to a new way of doing things. By the wearing of the masks one is signaling their consent for others to exercise control over them. Encyclopedia Britannica states that upon donning the mask, the wearer sometimes undergoes a psychic change, and, as in a trance, assumes the role of the spirit force behind the initiation of the wearing of the masks.



Finally, I would ask you to do your own prayerful research and decide whether or not today’s required wearing of masks is for your own good or if it is indeed……a cover-up…..of a more sinister agenda.




“Why won’t I ever accept your support? Is it that I don’t love you? God knows I do! No, I do it — and will go on doing it — in order to cut the ground from under those who want an excuse to boast that they work the same way we do. The fact is that such men are pseudo-emissaries: they tell lies about their work and masquerade as emissaries of the Messiah. There is nothing surprising in that, for the Adversary himself masquerades as an angel of light; so it’s no great thing if his workers masquerade as servants of righteousness. They will meet the end their deeds deserve.” 2 Corinthians 11:11-15

References:


oed.com

https://www.britannica.com/art/mask-face-covering/The-wearing-of-masks


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/


http://asenseofplacemagazine.com/masks-ritual-occult-submission/


https://mask.thebiointernet.com/ritual-masks/